Chasing Away the Dreams
Disclaimer - Nope, still not mine.
Pairing - John/Teyla
Rating - T
Episode - Doppelganger (404) Mild references to The Hive (211), Critical Mass (213 ), Sunday (317) and Lifeline (402)
Summary - The second fic for Jeyla. And angsty bit of Teyla introspection with some romance at the end. Set about a week after Doppelganger
Teyla rolled over and fluffed her pillow. For the third time in the last hour. The hour before that was spent meditating - trying to find her center. Such had been the patten the whole night.
Whenever she closed her eyes, wraith were culling Athos. Or John, in his altered state, tried feeding on her. Or Michael looked on as an iratus bug crawled across her. Or any one of a hundred other things that had happened - or not happened.
Finding Kate dead.
That dream was a bitter tea to swallow. She always went to John needing to wrap herself in his caring warmth. However, in the dream, she always woke up alone in her own bed. The balm of his love was nothing but a dream. Worse, a dream of a dream.
So, when she woke again achingly alone, she decided to simply not sleep for the remainder of the night. Meditation did not work, yet she did not feel like working out. Thus, a walk around the balconies was in order.
Teyla breathed the salt air deep into her lungs. In some ways the brine reminded her of loss. They had lost Aiden. Charin. Carson. Elizabeth.
But in many more ways, the briny air was hope. There was a will to fight against the wraith. There was the means to win.
Somehow in her wanderings, she had ended up on the balcony outside the gateroom. In the more than three years living in the City of the Ancestors, she had come to think on it as 'their' balcony. Her's and John's Perhaps, she did subconsciously seek his presence.
She leaned over the railing and watched the waves break below. There was a certain detatchment in that. The gateroom was silent. The movement of the ocean was far below. Slowly, she found her center.
"It's peaceful up here, huh." John surprised her with the observation.
"Peace is a rare commodity." Teyla continued looking out at the ocean.
"I couldn't sleep either."
"I know it has been several days since the chrystalline entity was here in Atlantis, but the dreams were so real. They continue to plague me."
"Yeah, I'm not dreaming of clowns anymore - or of kicking my ass. It's been variations of the last fight I had with my Dad. Either that or sitting in a board meeting wearing a suit and tie with my hair combed flat."
Teyla laughed at that thought.
"I find myself feeling sleepy, yet I do not wish to face my room again this night." Her entire body felt as if it were being pulled into the floor.
"Then come on. Let's sit right here for a while." He pulled her hand after him and settled them down against the wall. He wrapped one arm around her. She found a comfortable spot in the crook of his shoulder.
"How did you know?"
"Know what?"
"That I was unable to sleep?" 'That I needed you,' she mentally added.
"I just did," he whispered in her hair.
A/N - Personally, I think that there is no reason for them to not get together after The Long Goodbye. Barring that, The Return, The Ark, or Sunday. In my shippy world, it was during Doppelganger that they conceived little TJ, and Kanaan was just a focus Teyla put on all of the Athosians during her search because he was her childhood friend.
A/N 2 - Reviews are wonderful! Like warm spiced cider on a cold day.
