Disclaimers: I own no part of the Stargate world, I make no money from this. I only wish to play in this fictional world for a while.
Note: As those who read my review of this episode will know, I was highly disappointed by this episode. It had so much potential, but had some serious flaws to its logic and flow. This strong opinion of mine seemed to infect my ability to write a fic to go with the episode. There are a lot of potential fics that could be written from the episode, but none of them inspired me enough to write them, except this one. Also contains a subtle reference to the fic 'Punishment' as well.
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Everything felt alive. Everything interconnected and breathing, flowing as one living being.
As she walked, it felt as if the solid floor beneath her boots responded, that it knew her and walked with her through the ship.
The walls around her seemed to breathe with her passage. As she neared they inhaled and as she passed the out breath at her loss. Living ingredients that she didn't understand flowed through those living walls, but some part of her understood. A part that was growing, feeling full and knowing of every beat, breath, and urge of the ship.
As she strode forward she felt the anticipation for her foot to fall upon the floor, then the loss as her other foot then lifted away up to step forward again. A repetitive contact and loss, desiring and grieving, with each movement, each step…
Her own breaths began to flow in synch in with that rhythm, in and out, holding and releasing.
It confused her and worried her – what it meant and how much longer could she take this before she became something else. Something not human.
This ship, a Wraith ship, had heralded the death of so many, a dark shadow of destruction and evil. Yet, with each step, each breath, the division between her and it grew less defined, until it seemed as if her own body fed the ship around her. As she sighed out, it felt as if the hallway should warp, the walls flexing and resettling with her very breath, her very thought.
She broke into a run, with no direction or destination in mind, except to try to run from these feelings. She needed to escape, yet where was there to go, trapped on the ship like this? It surrounded her, engulfed her. The ship groaned, whimpered at her thoughts and that she might leave it.
Her fast steps faltered. The need arose around her, for her to stay and to lead.
Something within her lifted and soared up at the cry for her. A desire that pulled at something deep with her, an unspoken urge. A tiny part of her that was not human, that was from a monster. That part…it breathed with the ship, yearning to be a part of it. To guide it, control it and those who would serve her within it.
She needed to resist, but it was so strong and she was surrounded by it all, everything around her pulsed with the Wraith life. She needed help, someone human, whom she could trust to keep her true.
The doorway opened ahead of her, the drones inside already waiting for her. Their mental presence was dim, simple, yet honest. She sent them away with barely a thought and they bowed, their strong bodies hers to command and they willing followed her order. She felt their need to please her, to obey without question or thought.
They passed her, their powerful muscular forms dipped in respect to her, their love clear and as the doorway shut behind them, she fought against the sense of blissful power it gave her.
She struggled forward, the floor easing up to touch her, but she ignored the feelings, ignored the urge to sit and enjoy, to let it all enfold her.
Ahead of her, the webbed enclosures all opened at her command and he appeared from the shadows of the brig, stepping forward into the alien light. She rushed towards him, grasping his arms as he caught her. His eyes were worried, fearful for her.
She drew him to her, needing him, needing to feel his humanity. She needed him to remind her, to help her be human once again. To help her drive away the need to stay, to lead, to be with the ship.
He breathed against her, his own breaths so different from that around her - normal, true and human. His body warm against hers, his heartbeat loud to her ear from his throat.
But, the silence did not come. The peace and clarity did not instil themselves as she needed, as she hoped. Instead, a new urge lifted, one spurned by another's words. Forbidden thoughts repressed, but entertained in dreams, found delight in his humanity now. That delight mixed with the Wraith like thoughts already within her, entertaining dark hidden desires, called into light by a man who had looked like the one she now held.
She tightened her grip around him, holding him tighter, the sensations escalating and she shut her eyes tightly against it.
The entire ship throbbed around her, right up through the soles of her feet and across the unhappy distance between her skin and the walls and ceiling around her. It wanted to claim her, to draw her into its embrace.
Part of her wanted it to. Wanted to lose herself into something so passionate. The desires began to become one, confusing her. The urge to surrender to the ship, to what was hidden inside her own genetic makeup, but also restrained thoughts birthed by two men and one scar.
She pressed her face into the side of his throat, his skin meeting hers. The forbidden thoughts rose, her hands with them, grasping and drawing him to her.
His mouth met hers, and parted under her needful search for contact, for her humanity, to become one.
His mouth caught hers in turn, drawing her in to him, and a new rush of flowing, pulsing demands flowed around her. She tore at the material over him, desperate to hold him skin to skin, to feel the difference between Wraith and human, male and female, passion and emptiness.
Hands on his shoulders, she forced him down to his knees before her, his hands sliding over her, parting her clothes from her, forcing away her disguise. She surrendered to it, to the breathing, the desperation and the urge to command.
His hands surrounded her, the tingling warmth spreading throughout her body. She gripped his hair, held him tighter, fell down over him, her hands over his shoulders, sliding, touching, grasping. Until her fingertips met a raised line over his shoulder blade.
The dream shattered abruptly, making its presence as well as reality felt, and Teyla snapped her eyes open. Sitting up in bed, she breathed rapidly and fearfully, confused and grateful for the escape. The imagined sensations followed her back into reality though, pouring through her body, down her limbs, through her middle and pooling in her belly.
She rose from the bed, turning her back to the other man asleep on the far side, away from him and what she kept from him.
Across the room their son slept, his soft tiny breaths just audible in the silence.
Moonlight glowed in through the thin material of the closest curtain and she moved into the faint light, lifting her bare arms to see natural human skin. There were no veins, no clawed fingers. She was herself again, not Wraith, not a Queen. She ran her hands over her arms, needing to feel that truth. She was no longer on that ship and it had only been her imagination that had run away with her in the depths of her dreams.
Yet, the other thoughts… Flashing images of him, of his naked chest and arms, the half-remembered sensation of his kiss that had been imagined out into full needful kisses. She turned to look out the window, away from the room, through the thin space that the curtain didn't quite cover, out to the ocean as she worked to suppress and deny.
The fears she could understand, that the Wraith in her might betray her and those she loved. The worry that she was not human in her core and that one-day she might have to sacrifice it for others.
The desire…it had simply been a mixture of reality. His respect and concern for her, mixed with another version's suggestions. Symbolic of darker parts of her soul, which was desperate for support, comfort and passion in her fearful nightmare - that was all. She had all she needed in reality. She was safe in Atlantis, she was human and she had a man who cared for her.
Calm began to return, her centre reasserting itself, yet she worried. Worried that, despite it simply having been a confused dream, when tomorrow arrived she would be unable to look him in the eye, perhaps not for a few days time.
Her reluctance to look at him directly was made easier by the fact that the next day, upon gathering with her team for breakfast, John had seemed unwilling himself to meet her eyes as he muttered something about not having slept well last night.
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THE END