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CHAPTER THREE

Two Days, Three Hours Ago

Teyla opened her eyes slowly, unable to stifle the groan which escaped her lips. She was lying face down on a straw-covered floor. She went to move and heard a familiar voice. This couldn't be the afterlife, she told herself slightly desperately: the Ancestors didn't hate her enough to make her spend eternity looking after Rodney McKay, surely?

Rodney was sitting up, manacled to the wall on her right by both wrists.

"Are you alright, Doctor McKay?" she forced through sore, bloodied lips, hoping he would at least make the whining session brief. Whatever weapon they'd hit her with had left her feeling like she'd taken on a Wraith hive-ship on her own and lost. Her head was swimming and the Canadian was shifting in and out of focus before her eyes. When he didn't respond, she repeated herself, more loudly.

He jumped, and then a surprisingly relieved smile split his face. "Teyla, thank god you're all right!" he stage-whispered, trying (belatedly) to be stealthy. "Sorry, I'm just having a Daniel Jackson flashback," he muttered, holding up his manacled wrists by way of explanation. (Teyla sometimes wondered whether the men of Atlantis had some kind of secret language they spoke only to each other, and occasionally lapsed into around her. There were times when she didn't understand a word they said). Perhaps realising he'd slipped accidentally into Man-Speak, (or that his statement, if said in front of Shepherd, would have led to every sort of insinuation possible) his smile turned apologetic. "They brought you in about half an hour ago, so they must want to start soon."

"Start..?" Teyla inquired, trying to concentrate on the scientist while forcing herself into a sitting position.

"Uh, yeah, they… They want to try you."

She couldn't have heard that right. "They want to try me?"

McKay nodded, wincing the way Beckett did when he had to give you a really painful injection. "Uh, yeah, well y'see, men can't be tried in their culture; we have no civil rights, and the Great Goddess teaches" (at this she could hear the testiness in his voice) "that the male of the species is like a child or lower animal: they can't really be held accountable for their actions because they're too dumb to understand them. So the womenfolk are responsible for them. They can't vote or own land or do anything unless a wife or female relative tells 'em to. And if, heaven forbid, one of them breaks the law, then the female relative is held responsible for the (in this case) completely unintended, absolutely harmless, somewhat life-threatening transgression…" His voice trailed off. "Did I mention I was sorry?"

Teyla closed her eyes and counted to ten. It wasn't his fault, she reminded herself. The Firinne were being completely unreasonable, and they were treating half their population in a ridiculously tyrannical manner.

You should have shot him, a tiny voice whispered in her head.

At that moment the door of their cell sprang open, and the female who had shot her in the cave strutted in, a gloating smile on her face. Teyla resisted the urge to punch her in the jaw.

"Ah you are awake," the newcomer cooed. "Then the Great Court can begin. I will inform them right now." She nodded dismissively to one of her underlings. She knelt down beside the Athosian, leaning her head over her and leering. "I hope that he was worth it: sharing your bed with an imbecile will cost you your life."

"Hey!" Rodney protested "I am not an imbecile!" Teyla shot him a look. "And the important thing is that I've never shared a bed with this woman! So you should just try me and leave her out of it!" Nice recovery, she thought to herself. "It wasn't Teyla's fault that I touched the statue-"

"It was "Teyla's" fault if she permitted one of her men out in the world without her supervision. Everyone knows that men cannot be left to their own devices: look what happened when she left you to yours."

That statement was annoying because Teyla knew she had a point.

McKay seemed to think so too. "Look, I'm the one who screwed up. Just let her go back to our friends and I'll take whatever punishment you come up with. Just don't make her pay for my mistakes." He muttered something inaudible.

"What was that?" the guard snapped.

McKay sighed like a martyr. "I said please," he admitted sulkily.

""Please"?"

"Yeah, please. And I don't like saying it, so don't make me say it again, ok?"

Despite herself, Teyla smiled.

Before the argument could continue, the recently dismissed underling poked her head around the cell door. "The Great Court is convened. The Mighty Poongat has been brought, the Goddess protect her, and all is in readiness in the fair hall. The Unclean must depart." Without another word the guard pulled out a blindfold and covered McKay's eyes. Then, despite Teyla's protests, she covered hers too. They were unchained and roughly pulled to their feet before being forced to walk. Led like animals they were harried through one corridor after another, until Teyla felt heat on her skin. They were at the court.

The light was blinding when they removed the blindfolds. She and McKay stood in front of a huge room with a completely glass ceiling, through which golden sunlight fell in searing brightness. The space was circular, and surrounded almost totally by stands, almost like the sports stadium she had seen in Shepherd's bewildering "Hail Mary," football game. As her eyes began to adjust to the light Teyla stood up straighter, her chin in the air, glowering defiantly at the people who had brought her here. So intent was she on staring them down that it took her a moment to realise there were no people in the room.

The stands, the raised seat before her, all were devoid of human life. Staring at her and McKay was the largest collection of stuffed animals she had ever seen. The "court," was made up entirely of stuffed squirrels. And in the Judge's box sat the largest, mouldiest, most moth-eaten squirrel of them all.

"You have got to be kidding me," McKay muttered.

Atlantis

"Stuffed squirrels? Stuffed goddamn squirrels?"

"John!" Elizabeth chided.

"STUFFED GODDAM SQUIRRELS?"

"Yes John," Rodney snapped, "Stuffed Goddamn Squirrels. That's what I said."

"Why the hell did they have a court made up of stuffed squirrels?"

"How the hell should I know?" Rodney exploded. "I had to defend my life, and Teyla's, to Mopsy the Afterlife Nut-Eater, and I still don't know why the court was made up of dead animals. Maybe they're big into their surrealist art, Shepherd, or maybe they just have a really sick sense of humour. Or maybe the squirrel, as far as they're concerned, is the pinnacle of evolution's creative genius and we're all just dust in its wake. I don't know!."

"Rodney- " Elizabeth tried to intervene.

"And you know what the sick thing is?" he continued, on a roll now. "I was supposed to go with Peterson's team to PX55616, to the planet where there is nothing but sandy beaches and waterfalls, and where did I go instead? To Twin Peaks World, where they arrest people for no reason, and chase you through caves in the dark and then try you using dead animals! My name is not Fox Mulder, people, and that is not my idea of a good time!"

"Rodney, calm down!" Liz snapped, her voice like a whip-crack. Suddenly every man at the table remembered why she was the boss of Atlantis and not them.

The Canadian seemed to recollect himself. "Sorry," he muttered, chagrined.

"It's quite alright. Obviously this was very difficult for you." When all this was over, Elizabeth made a mental note to have a quiet chat with Rodney on his own. Something about this was really bothering him, and she knew she wouldn't get it out of him while the other two were around. "And everyone will refrain from interrupting you until you're finished, alright?"

"What are you looking at me for?" Shepherd protested.

"Alright?" she repeated, unmoved.

"Fine," John pouted, obviously feeling put upon.

"Please continue, Rodney. What happened next?"

Two Days, One Hour and oh, about Forty five Seconds Ago…

The LAPD would've loved this court, Rodney thought desperately. There were no lawyers, no juries; they hadn't even had to state their name. They had simply been brought before the "Poongat," (who would have thought that giant, moth-eaten stuffed squirrels could be the stuff of nightmares? He thought desperately) smacked behind the knees until they bowed, and then after a grand total of forty five seconds deliberation Lemmy had leaned in as if listening to a soft voice. McKay wasn't sure whether it was more disturbing that the alien thought the stuffed corpse could talk to her, or the sudden panicked idea that maybe the corpse actually was talking to her. Either way, it was a less than joyful day in Rodney Land…

"Guilty!" Lemmy exclaimed when she had finished her little tete-a-squirrel. Going by the smile on her face, you'd think she'd won a week for two in the Bahamas, he thought.

"But we have not even been asked to defend ourselves!" Teyla exclaimed. Rodney could understand why: it was her ass on the line and not his, after all…

"That does not matter: the Poongat has spoken, praises be heaped upon her name!" She nodded to the guards, who pulled the Atlanteans to their feet. "You will die at first light tomorrow, at the Temple of the Sacred Poongat. Then your imbecile will be locked away in a home for unreformed criminals, to prevent him from causing any more damage to himself or anyone else." She bowed her head. "The Poongat be praised."

"No it damn well won't!" Rodney yelled. "You can't execute Teyla! There has to be something else, some other punishment- Hey, how about you let her go and I'll stay and fix stuff for ya?" The surprisingly-chipper –under-stress-approach always worked for Shepherd. "You must have some other Ancient technology around here, I could be very useful if you want to get it to work- "

"Imbecile, you would cause far more trouble than you could possibly solve!"

"I am not an imbecile; you are if you think that killing an innocent woman over one stupid mistake can ever be defended!" He really was getting himself worked up. He wasn't used to panicking on other people's behalf, and it felt fifty percent terrific and fifty percent terrifying.

"You should have gone through the Rite of Cessation, that would have stilled your blood before you would ever attempt to raise your voice to your superiors!"

Rodney managed what he felt sure was the single most sarcastic laugh in the history of sarcasm-

"This rite, what does it involve?" Teyla asked suddenly, one hand on the scientist's chest to keep him from throwing himself bodily at the captor, both eyes fixed firmly on the other woman.

"Every boy-child, to become a man must go through the Rite of Cessation, when he ceases to be a person and becomes a husband. It usually happens in the thirteenth year." She looked the scientist up and down from head to foot, obviously unimpressed. "He could not have gone through it, or else he would have more respect for those around him."

"He has more than enough respect for me," Teyla said quietly. "But," and she raised her head up, looking Lemmy straight in the eye "I would like him to go through this initiation before you kill me, just so that I know that he will not be a burden on others once I am gone." She turned to glare soberly at Rodney. "You should learn some manners, McKay!"

"I thought you said that he was not your man?" The woman asked slyly.

"Would you admit to owning him?" Teyla countered, squeezing on Rodney's shoulder to prevent his protests.

Apparently she was convincing, because the Firrinne nodded understandingly. "It can be done, we can let you watch."

"Em, what does this involve?" Rodney asked in a tiny, quite scared voice. Once you've been tried by a court of squirrels, anything seemed possible.

"We will bring you to the woods before your execution, allow you to watch the spectacle for yourself." Lemmy was smiling at Teyla like they were old drinking buddies, he thought indignantly.

"Hello? What exactly does this involve?" he repeated. He resisted the urge to stamp his feet to get their attention.

"You must pass through womanhood to get to husbandhood," Lemmy intoned. There were far too many painful interpretations of those words for Rodney's liking. "You will taste the sweetness of youth, then the hardship of adulthood, and then the fire will be drained from you and you will be docile once and for all."

Rodney swore he heard Teyla snort "I do not think so," but when he looked at her she was sober as a preacher on Sunday. God he hoped she was working on a getaway plan, and not just on a last ditch bit of revenge for his having gotten her into this…

Rodney McKay closed his eyes tightly, and asked one of the few questions he could safely say he'd never expected to ask. "How exactly do I become a woman?"

Atlantis

"They didn't!"

"She didn't!"

"You didn't!"

Rodney looked like he would very much have liked to curl up in a ball and die then and there. Instead of answering them, he muttered something inaudible and looked away.

To Elizabeth, it sounded suspiciously like "I want my blankie."

A/N You likee? You know what to do…