A/N: This is kinda long, at least for a one-shot, and it kicked my ass writing it, I can tell you. I've been gnawing away at it since I saw the pilot of Atlantis, and tonight I finally got it finished! It's vaguely Teyla/John, but it's not really a 'shipper fic. It focuses more on Teyla and her attempts to adjust to her new situation. But any Teyla/John 'shippers out there will appreciate this. People who don't 'ship should still be able to read it, 'cause it's not sappy. I'm a realism shipper. I try to write what's there, and what the characters would actually be thinking in certain situations, not just what i want them to be thinking. I try not to do sap.
Anyway, enjoy! Tell me what you think!
Disclaimer: Don't own the characters. Not making any money. Don't sue!
Come Unhappy Wanderer
The air was loud with gun fire, screaming, running feet… smoke, burning, choking, her eyes stinging, her throat closing… coughing, struggling, she couldn't see… she couldn't breathe… she couldn't move…
"Teyla! Run!" The voice, her father, pointing, ordering, pushing her away, forcing numb legs into action, sending her, gasping, struggling, moaning, terrified, blind, out, across the darkness, out of the village, running, tumbling… turning back, the whole world ablaze in fiery doom, her father disappearing, in a rage of shining blue, their home, their lives, their people, destroyed, annihilated - heat, air, choking, running, a hand, cold as iron, grabbing, pulling, screaming, she couldn't breath, she couldn't see, she couldn't…
Teyla sat up, gasping.
She hadn't had a dream that bad in months.
Maybe it was the stress. Or the sudden upheaval, the change in circumstances. In fact, that was more likely. She felt unsettled, uncoordinated, unsure of herself, almost ill. She had never been good at dealing with these things.
Well, she could cope, and get on with it, but change always left her feeling so shaken and unstable, as if she could no longer see the ground beneath her feet. It was not a feeling she relished.
And now the dreams were back, and that wasn't good at all. The missions, the wraith, the new circumstances… couple that with an inability to sleep through an entire night, and she was heading for an exhausted breakdown.
She had to get some air.
On her feet, Teyla found the wrap-around robe she'd been wearing before bed and pulled it on, feeling somewhat safer in it's confines. For a few seconds she stood in the middle of the room, wondering where to go, which rout to take. She didn't want to meat anyone. But on the other hand, she didn't want to journey along too many darkened, abandoned passage ways. The ghosts of her night mare still lingered in her mind, making her jumpy, fearful. It was not a state she wanted to be in for long, and neither was it one she wanted to allow any of her people to see her in.
Making a decision, she left her quarters, and moved silently down the hallway outside, her bare feet making no noise on the metal floor. In normal circumstances, she would have made her way out of camp into the forest, found a handful of fergiberries and settled down in a quiet spot under the stars to cool off. The sharp taste usually calmed her, distracting her from her demons.
But this was not the forest, and somehow she doubted fergiberries would be in any great supply. She needed to find a substitute, and so far, she knew of only one place to get it.
The kitchens were an empty, cavernous affair in the dark. Sound travelled and bounced from metal walls. The very air seemed to murmur it's disapproval at her presence, brushing coldly against her skin. Teyla had never gone in much for ghost stories, but fear made her more open to the suggestion. Right now, she was starting to be sure she could feel the presence of the Ancients, frowning down on her, angry for her invasion of their city.
Shivering, berating herself for falling prey to children's scare-tales, she hurried across the empty space, ducking under a counter and coming up the other side to regard the large metal food cupboards. She was unsure of the Earth human's methods for storing food, or where anything would be, so saw no choice but start at one end and work her way methodically through everything until she found something that might constitute as a distraction.
The first cupboard was full of jars and cans. More out of curiosity than of any need to eat jam, Teyla fetched a couple of jars down to examine their content, interested in what their new friends were storing. Preserves of all kinds, apparently. Many different kinds of berries, and some kinds of food stuff she couldn't even begin to identify.
And what was marmalade when it was at home?
Frowning, Teyla unscrewed the lid on one such jar and sniffed the content. The smell was odd, but not very different to any other preserve her people had made. Curious as to the difference, she opened a jar of normal jam and sniffed that in comparison. Finding little variation, except one seemed perhaps a little more citrus-like than the other, Teyla shrugged, closed both jars and put them back in the cupboard, moving to the next.
This was full of pickled substances, swimming in liquid in large glass jars. Nothing particularly appetising looking in there. In fact, some of those looked distinctly suspect. Teyla closed the cupboard quickly and moved on.
The third cupboard was more promising. It was a cooling cupboard, releasing a breath of chilly air as she opened it, and contained fresher food, which she recognised as the things they had gained in a recent exchange with a people on a planet near by. No fergiberries, but definitely a few tip-bits that could be snapped up without anyone minding.
"You know, if you were military, you could be court-marshalled for stealing food."
Teyla jumped violently, spinning round with every reflexive intent of grabbing her attacker by the throat.
Fortunately, John Sheppard had seem it coming a split second before it happened, and taken a precautionary step back. Her hand stopped just short of punching through his larynx.
John held up his hands in defence, leaning back a little. Teyla narrowed her eyes at him, her heart hammering in her chest as she desperately tried to regain her composure. The idiot! Did he not know how dangerous it was to creep up on someone in the dark? She could quite easily have killed him!
"Don't do that," she told him, getting the words out between gritted teethe, clamped together to prevent them from trembling. Gods! That nightmare had had a worse effect on her than she'd thought. One slight start had brought every lurking demon straight back to the forefront of her mind.
"Do what?" John gave the Athosian woman his most innocent look. He hadn't know her long… but he was pretty sure she had never looked quite that spooked before.
Teyla let her hand drop, still irritated by him. "Do not creep up on me. Do not creep up on any Athosian in the dark. It will not be taken kindly."
"So I see," John answered. He looked past her at the food cupboards. "What're you doing out of bed?"
She eyed him suspiciously, "I could ask you the same question."
"I asked you first," John retorted, folding his arms.
Teyla did not feel particularly inclined to answer the man, at least with the truth. He was kind, braver and more noble than he knew, for the most part intelligent, and had an odd, slightly foolish sense of humour that appealed to her… but her habit of hiding weakness from the general public was a difficult one to break, and she needed her secrets. Her past was her past, and she wanted it to stay there, thank you very much.
If she told him of her nightmares, he'd want to know more, and she knew she'd tell him, and then she'd have to go through the whole horrible process of dragging out every single gory detail of her corpse-strewn childhood. It was a big thing to tell him, the kind of thing that took some trust, because she would be exposing the one chink in her armour to him, the one soft spot in her shell. Yes, she was coming to value his friendship, to enjoy the time they spent in one another's company, the ease with which he could make those around him, including her, laugh… but it wasn't the kind of friendship that went deep enough for that sort of conversation. Not yet, anyway.
It would eventually grow, Teyla supposed. It was going to have to. She, all the Athosians, were tied to him and his people for the foreseeable future, and she needed to have friends within their number.
But she wasn't about to jump feet first into deeper comradery than they already had. She'd learned the painful and bloody way that nothing was ever permanent. She couldn't rely on the Earth human's to be around for any longer than she could anyone else she knew. Circumstances changed, futures collided, even the present had a way of being obscure sometimes… the only thing that was certain was the past, and there was nothing to be done about that, anyway.
John watched Teyla seeming to contemplate her answer for a second. He thought he could see some kind of struggle going on, as if she were determining what to tell him, if anything. Then her mouth clamped closed and she snapped back into the present, staring him down, daring him to ask again, and he knew he wasn't going to get an answer.
"Fine, don't tell me," he sighed and waved her off, moving to another cooling cupboard and throwing it open to contemplate it's content, "let's see… what've we got…?"
"I had a dream," Teyla announced, surprising herself and the Major, as he continued to rout through the cupboard.
"Huh?" John reappeared, taking his head out of the fridge.
Teyla was standing just off to one side, running her fingers distractedly up and down the edge of yet another cupboard, focusing on the movement instead of him. Nope, he'd definitely never seen her like this before. Not so disorientated seeming, anyway, not just that he'd never seen her in her night clothes… though that wasn't entirely lost on him either… No! That wasn't the point! He had better leave that particular train of thought right there. God knew he had enough trouble desperately not flirting with Teyla, not to mention Elizabeth (who, he knew, would kick him straight through the nearest brick wall if he so much as tried), without having inappropriate thoughts about the above mentioned Athosian in her bed clothes while she was so obviously troubled.
"What kind of dream?" He asked, trying to be diplomatic, whilst firmly shunting all inappropriate thoughts to the back of his head for the time being.
"Hmm? Oh, um… it… was a bad one… a nightmare, you would say…" Teyla trailed off. Shards! Why was she telling him this?
"Nasty," to her surprise, John did not ask her what it was about, simply managing to look wonderfully sympathetic. "You get those a lot?"
Teyla shrugged, still refraining from looking at him, seeming suddenly very interested in the grain of the wood the cupboard was made from. "Sometimes. They come and go, like shadows, depending on the day, the turn of the moon," Teyla wrested her fingertips on the wood, looking at her finger nails, "they become worse when I worry, or when other things in life become… unpredictable."
"I see…" said John, who was trying to. Was she saying it was stress? She seemed to have been coping fine lately…
"When my mind is unsettled, they surface," Teyla gave a surprisingly delicate shudder, "they are like insects trapped beneath a layer of sand. If you shake the sand, they are freed, and fly reeking havoc until I can pour more sand on top of them and trap them once more."
John was beginning to wonder why the Athosians always insisted on using metaphors to illustrate their points. Sure, it made for great poetry, but in cases like this, it was just damn confusing.
She glanced up, and smiled apologetically at the blank look at his face, "I am confusing you."
John shook his head, "ah, no. No. I get it. You get nightmares when you get stressed. It's understandable. In fact, you probably aren't the only one. Doctor Weir has been up and down our corridor six times already tonight. I don't think she ever sleeps."
"She has an entire city wresting on her shoulders," Teyla said, "that is very understandable."
"Yeah, and you've got your entire people wresting on yours," John pointed out, "I'd be getting nightmares too."
Teyla smiled slightly. He was a comforting presence, if a little foolish.
"So, uh, you down here with a case of the midnight munchies?" John asked, going back to rummaging through the fridge.
Teyla gave him a blank look. John realised his mistake, no slang, you idiot! And rephrased his question, "you looking for something to eat?"
"I was looking for a substitute for fergiberries," she told him, drawing an equally blank look, which made her want to laugh, in spite of herself. "On Athos, in our camps, when the dreams came, I would go out into the forest. I always felt safer there. I used to eat fergiberries until I'd calmed down enough to go back to bed."
"Ah," John shut the fridge and went to another one, "midnight munchies it is. And I have just the thing… it's a little weird, though, isn't it?"
"What is?" She tilted her head slightly.
John shrugged, hoping she wouldn't take offence at what he was now in too deep not to say, "you feeling safer in the forest than your own home. I mean, if I was scared, the last place I'd wanna be would be a big dark forest…"
"You don't understand how we lived, major," Teyla told him, softly. Her eyes were suddenly dark, heavy with need of sleep and some deep, age old sadness he'd seen in several Athosians, but not in Teyla himself. "The wraith do not attack forests."
"Son of a bitch." It came out more of a half growled mutter, from the depths of the cupboard John was rummaging in, but there was a surprising amount of vehemence behind the words. Teyla glanced at John in surprise, at first thinking he was angry with her for some reason, then realising it was the wraith he was swearing at. She was not sure of the precise meaning of what he was saying, but she'd heard other members of his race using words like those and similar, and had drawn conclusions about them being expletives. It was an angry kind of sympathy for her people, she realised, and was suddenly very, very grateful to him for being so… real.
"Aha!" John suddenly reappeared as if nothing had happened, brandishing a plastic tub of some kind, "cookie dough!"
Teyla raised an eyebrow at him, "what?"
John grinned and shut the cupboard, "ice cream."
"What?"
It was John's turn to raise an eyebrow, "you're telling me that in the month you've been here, no one has introduced you to ice cream?" Teyla shook her head, still looking sceptical. John looked overly shocked, "you're deprived! Dear lord! You haven't tasted ice cream!" He pulled open a draw and retrieved two spoons, "we're gonna have to fix that pretty quick. Come on, let's fine somewhere a little less… creepy."
John led Teyla back through the base, through the living quarters, and then out onto a balcony, about halfway up the city. They leaned against it's back wall. The moon was half-way full, gleaming blue like half a sixpence in the night sky. Only one or two black clouds obscured the horizon, but they were thin and might soon easily dissipate. The stars, for the most part, were fully visible, glittering through a darkened sky.
Teyla suddenly felt safer. Having the stars above her, the sound of the ocean so near, and the cool night air breezing around her like the breath of a peacefully sleeping child, finally banished the last lingering shadows of her dreams. She was herself again, secure in her own mind and body, confident in her abilities, and less liable to start babbling about her past to a certain major.
"Okay, grab a spoon," John offered her one, then prized the lid off the tub. "Teyla, ice cream, ice cream, Teyla."
"Why are you introducing me to a food stuff?" Teyla questioned, innocently.
"Because it's polite," John told her, perfectly seriously.
Teyla raised an eyebrow, "you address your food before you eat it?"
"Sure!" John grinned, "why not?"
Teyla laughed. She was far less gullible than the Athosian children, John observed, wryly. He'd had every one of them talking to their food for weeks now. Dr Weir was gonna kill him when she found out, but hell… it was worth it.
Teyla had gone back to eying the ice cream sceptically, "what is it?"
John shrugged, "milk, sugar, eggs, cream, a load of artificial preservatives, additives, colourings, flavourings…"
"Does it have any nutritional value at all?" Teyla demanded, folding her arms.
"Probably not," John admitted, "but that's not the point."
"Then what is the point?" Teyla tipped her head to one side.
John sighed. Clearly, the concept of 'junk food' was lost on Athosians. "Just try it, Teyla."
A little reluctantly, she did as she was asked.
John himself took a spoonful and settled back to watch Teyla's reaction. She frowned as she put the spoon into her mouth, sucking the ice cream off, looking thoughtful as she swallowed, tipping her head to one side.
"So," John prompted, "whaddaya think?"
Teyla glanced at him and shrugged, "give me some more and I'll tell you."
John laughed and handed the tub over, "told you you'd like it!"
They ate their way through the tub in comfortable silence, until a familiar accented voice interrupted, "what're you two doin' out here?"
Doctor Carson Beckett stood in the doorway of the balcony, dressed in a T-shirt and a pair of red tartan boxers, looking at them in surprise. Behind him was the rather sleepy looking form of Rodney Mackay, dressed likewise.
John rolled his eyes, "what does it look like we're doing?" He took the ice cream back from Teyla and took another spoon, "clearly, Teyla and I are standing in our pyjamas, on a balcony, in a previously sunken lost city, eating ice cream, at half past three in the morning!"
"Oh, well, that explains it then," Carson said, stepping out onto the balcony, "mind if we join you?" He brandished another pair of spoons and carton of what looked like strawberry ice cream.
"Sure! Why not? Let's have an ice cream party!" John cried, waving a spoon. He frowned for a minute, "what're you guys doing up?"
"Well," Carson began, leaning casually against the balcony next to John, as Rodney stayed where he was, looking half dead, "I was kind of hungry, so I got up for a wee midnight snack, except I didnea really feel like walkin' around on my own in this bloody creepy place, so I got Rodney up to keep me company!"
"I see…" John looked at Rodney, who looked about to fall flat.
Teyla surprised them by walking up to the scientist, taking him by the arm and leading him to the balcony wall. "Here, Dr Mackay. Do you want some ice cream?"
Rodney blinked at her as if he had only just realised she was there, "what? Oh, um… ice cream? Yeah… yeah, okay."
"So," Carson gave the strawberry ice cream to Teyla, "do Athosians have ice cream?"
"No." Teyla answered, experimentally dipping her spoon into the strawberry.
"I was just introducing her," John explained, as Teyla handed him the strawberry.
"Mmm," Teyla licked her spoon clean, "quite literally. Here, Rodney, stay awake."
The scientist, who had been about to drift off again blinked, "uh… mm… you got coffee flavoured ice cream? With coffee?"
"Did someone say coffee flavoured ice cream?" Aiden Ford strolled through the balcony doors with his normal confident half-swagger, as if this were perfectly normal Sunday afternoon picnic, brandishing yet another tub of ice cream and a spoon.
"I knew someone had been eating that stuff…" muttered John, as Aiden sauntered up to the group, spun round and leaned against the wall next to Rodney.
"What's up, guys? Midnight garden party?"
"That's what it's turning into," Rodney told him, perking up at the sight of caffeinated ice cream. "Can I get some of…?"
Aiden handed him the tub, "okay, someone's gonna have to share a spoon."
"That seems very unhygienic," Teyla observed, critically.
Aiden gave her a look, "you want to go traipsing back through all those cold, lonely corridors to the kitchens, just to get a spoon?"
"No," Teyla admitted, "but it is still very unhygienic."
"I think I'll take my chances," Rodney promptly took Aiden's spoon and dug into the coffee ice cream. "Oh, God… sweet caffeine…"
Teyla began to giggle, in spite of herself. Which was surprising, because she was not prone to giggling. Perhaps it was the sugar this food almost certainly contained such vast amounts of…
"Hey, easy on that stuff," John reached across Teyla to take the ice cream away from the scientist, "too much and you wont sleep for days."
"Is that cookie dough?" Aiden asked, holding out his hand to take the tub from Carson.
Carson took another spoon full and handed it over. "It is indeed, my friend."
Teyla was keeping hold of the strawberry ice cream, deciding she liked it the best of the flavours. John took a spoonful of it anyway, handing the coffee flavour to Carson. "You know, we probably shouldn't be doing this."
"Since when do you care what we should and shouldn't be doing?" Aiden demanded, over the cookie dough.
"Hey! I'm the leader now!" John held up his hands, "I got responsibilities! And Carson, don't hand that back to McKay." He reached out to intercept the coffee flavoured ice cream as Rodney reached out for it, hopefully.
"Have some strawberry," Teyla offered the tub to Rodney in an attempt to comfort him.
Rodney sighed but accepted, "if you're gonna drag me out of bed for this, you might have let me have my caffeine!"
"Right bonnie night for it, though," Carson observed, looking up at the star-dusted sky.
Teyla looked up too, and decided he was right, (providing 'bonnie' meant what she thought it did), it was a beautiful night. The few clouds that had been there previously had dissipated completely. The air was cooling, but the breeze was warm, carrying the ever so slight tang of the ocean with it. And yes, had anyone told her, two months previously, that this would be what she would be doing now, she would have laughed at them, or maybe shot them because she suspected them of being a wraith somehow taken another form… but now, in that semi-aware, insomnianic state she was beginning to be familiar with, she was starting to enjoy herself.
"What are you… what are all of you… oh, forget it. Don't tell me. I don't even want to know." Dr Elizabeth Weir stood in the door leading onto the balcony, wearing a plain T-shirt and a pair of baggy pants.
She had been awake for nearly eighteen hours. Her head and eyes ached, her mind was still churning, sleep was refusing to come, and now she was standing contemplating her leading exploration team standing on a balcony, the guys all wearing vests and boxers, Teyla in some strange Athosian equivalent to a dressing gown and pyjamas, (consisting of an odd long top with three quarter length sleeves, and cotton slacks which stopped just bellow the knee, the white fabric embroidered around the hems with blue thread), all consuming ice cream, at four in the morning.
Her team stared back at her.
Their leader looked terrible. Her pyjamas were crushed, her skin was pale, her eyes were underlined by dark heavy circles, her hair was a mess and she looked about ready to drop dead on the spot.
"Hey Doctor Weir," John spoke up, cheerfully enough. "You wanna come join us?"
"Is that…" Elizabeth frowned, "is that coffee flavoured ice cream?"
"Sure is," John answered.
Elizabeth made up her mind, "give me some."
Thus Elizabeth settled in as Teyla made room for her beside Rodney, and all six of them stood on the balcony beneath the half moon, eating ice cream and sharing spoons.
"You know, you should all be disciplined for being out of bed," Elizabeth pointed out, some time later, finishing the coffee flavoured ice cream.
"Then, so should you," Teyla concluded, frowning.
"Well, I think we might just be able to let this slide," Elizabeth told her.
"Aye, exceptions for midnight ice cream parties," Carson grinned.
Rodney sighed, "you know, I should invent a device that turns saliva into ice cream…"
All eyes turned to him, most of them etched with disgust. Rodney persisted. "I'm serious! Think how convenient it would be! You just spit and then…" he trailed off, then sighed, "I'm an insomniac on caffeine, people, give me a break."
Teyla found herself giggling again. The second time in under an hour. John grinned and slung an arm round her shoulders. "Bad dreams don't seem so scary now, huh Teyla?"
"Not so now," she agreed, leaning against him, feeling more comfortable than she really had a right to.
She glanced around her, at these strange humans who had dropped so unexpectedly into her life, the lives of her people, up at the city that was now her home, and at the world that suddenly offered so much more than what she had once possessed.
Forget sleep. Forget nightmares and the past and the present and the horror they had lived. For now there was only this, and this was fun.