A/N: For those of you following my story "Safekeeping," I am not abandoning it, but taking a short break to try my hand at tag-writing. Lots of thanks to godsdaughter77 for encouragement and Alexis Kent for her beta work!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything Stargate-y.
Teyla had decided nothing was more perfect than a newborn child. All things peaceful and beautiful, precious and wonderful glowed from the face of her son. Her son. She traced a fingertip along his velvet cheek, smiling in adoring bliss when the tiny head turned towards the touch.
She had named him Torren John. There were worlds of meaning behind that name, as well as a glaring absence...
It was difficult to think of Kannan. She had been filled with such hope when he had tried to free her in Michael's lab, when she saw a flicker of the man she had loved in those strange, wraithlike eyes. Then, he had only stopped when Michael himself came into the lab. Teyla had clung to the hope that the moment Kannan had the chance, he would try again to free her. But she was wrong.
Even now, safe in Atlantis with her son in her arms and surrounded by the light scent of the flowers Rodney had given her, Teyla's eyes misted at the memory. It had to be Michael's influence, she told herself again and again. The Athosians feared little. They taught courage to even the youngest, and even the youngest learned it well. She remembered how Halling would often comfort Jinto--how glad she was that they were well!--when the nights were dark and the whine of Wraith darts were overhead. Any Athosian would give his or her life for another, as Halling had tried when the hybrids had come to take her to Michael.
But Kannan, the father of her son, her friend since childhood, the man she loved, would not. It was not Michael's creation who looked back at her when she begged him, no matter what she told herself. It was only when faced with the team from Atlantis that he helped her.
The moment her team appeared would be etched into her mind forever. The crushing emptiness left by Kannan's abandonment was forgotten for a few hours. It was not the overwhelming pain or the harrowing escape that made her forget. It was the silent intensity of Ronon's eyes when he first saw her, the sight of John, nearly doubled over in pain, leading her rescue, and the beaming joy on Rodney's face when he presented her son. She knew John was right when he told her she had a family in Atlantis, but it was never more real to her than during that rescue.
The child in her arms yawned widely, giving a contented mumble as he settled back down. Teyla stroked her son's cheek again, feeling the call of sleep, herself. Her doubts and troubles faded at the memory of gentle hands stroking her hair, of strong arms bearing her pain-wracked body to safety.
And her dreams were filled with a man with quiet, intense eyes who would never abandon her.