Title: Tainted Survival
Summary: AU. He's not sure he would have survived if it hadn't been for her, the stranger in his cell.
Rating: K for now
Characters: Mostly Sheppard and Teyla.
Pairing: Sheppard/Teyla, Sheppard/Weir, Teyla/Kanan
Spoilers: None, really, as this takes place instead of season one.

Prologue

There was an uneasy hush descending upon him and he was sure he heard his laboured breathing echoing in the large, spartan room. He eyed the woman next to him, trying to convey to her all the things he'd tried to teach her since their forced meeting almost six months before. He needed her to be ready for this because he wasn't sure he could handle another failed attempt at escape.

She stared back at him, strong, steady and understanding and he smiled slightly as the nervousness flickered past her mask. She'd told him how her people had never known heroism like his but he didn't know if he would call his survival instinct that. The hair that had been long, swinging around her waist when he'd stumbled into their shared prison cell had been shorn by their captors and was hanging limply around her jaw line, accenting the features he'd come to know.

He tuned back into his surroundings, listening for the sounds of the soldiers moving around, keeping an eye out for any shadows that kept across the wall. Despite his basic training – and the training his partner had given him – he still didn't feel comfortable fighting his way out of a complex that he couldn't navigate through and that was filled with enemies that took great pleasure in torturing victims with his P-90 being substituted for two sticks. He shifted the weight of the hastily made 'bantos sticks', as she'd called them – and closed his eyes.

All the planning had to pay off this time because he wasn't sure he could handle going through that again. He wasn't sure he could handle living. He conjured up the face that had brought him solace in this past six months and smiled, feeling his breathing even out, his lungs sighing in grateful thanks. He opened his eyes and saw his fellow prisoner, Teyla Emmagan, crouched across from him, her own eyes closed.

The girl was good, for one who came from a farming world. He hadn't known anyone like her and he was pretty sure that even Elizabeth Weir's face wouldn't have helped him survive if Teyla hadn't been there beside him. She was a constant in his mind, always seemed to be fine with whatever their captors did to them. He'd watched over her as their captors had killed more and more of her people, and she'd tended to him when the team he'd come through the 'Gate with had been picked off. Eventually it had only been the two of them and for the past three months they'd come to depend on the other for survival.

He waited until she opened her eyes before indicating that they were ready to move. She nodded, shifted her weight. He glanced around, listened for another moment then nodded. Quickly, stealthily they ran, staying as low as they could, trying to avoid the small groups of soldiers. The shuffling of their feet echoed through the room and he was sure that they would be caught but they didn't stop.

She pulled up short of their destination and he almost bumped into the back of her, knocking her off balance. He gripped onto her waist and pulled her back against him tightly, holding his breath as a group of soldiers marched past their position. He waited for a few minutes after they passed before he let her go. She moved away from him slightly and ducked her head.

"Thank you," she murmured and he nodded back at her.

"You're welcome." He glanced past her into the empty corridor. He had no idea where they were heading, but he knew it was the right direction. "Come on," he whispered and grabbed onto her hand, pulling her to her feet behind him.

They couldn't stop now. They'd gone too far to turn back and John Sheppard knew that he wasn't going back to that cell alive.