Six Weeks after the Prologue
"Harness the power," he murmured as he shook off yet another attack – practice or not, these guys were tough – and twisted his neck to stretch the muscles there. "Harness the power..." He shook his head and quirked an eyebrow at himself. "How the hell am I supposed to do that?" He grumbled, laughing slightly with self-admonishment. The trainers across from him looked back at him with raised eyebrows and he nodded slightly, shaking his shoulders loose again. "I'm ready."
"We can take a break, if you need to rest."
John frowned to the man – Jez, he was sure his name was – and shook his head. They'd only been at this for an hour or so and while he did feel like his limbs would fall off from exhaustion, he wasn't anywhere near ready to give up.
"I'm fi-"
He was assaulted with a blast of unseen energy that sent him flying across the room and into the wall at the other end. He winced. That was not cool. He waited a few moments and stood up slowly, feeling as well as hearing his back crack in protest. He'd definitely be needing the wonder herbs tonight.
"You were not prepared. What was the first lesson you learned upon stepping into this room?"
John rolled his eyes petulantly as he moved slowly across the room.
"Constant vigilance. Always be on guard." He shook off his impact again and glared at the man who had blasted him – Riador – and huffed. "I know."
He felt the energy in the room shift again and he instantly threw up the shield like he'd been taught to weeks ago. When the energy hit, he fell back a step but the shield held for a good ten or twelve seconds before John felt the tell tale sign of emotional exhaustion and he cursed when his shield fell. He hadn't been able to turn off his emotions very well after the dreams he'd had the night before and despite how much he tried, he couldn't quite flick the switch.
Jez took a step towards him and John felt the energy in the room shift again, his mood lifting and he looked up to Jez with a tight smile of thanks. They had explained the power of the Unspeakables to him – hell, they'd explained the power of the Enabled to him, too but he still wasn't sure he entirely got it. He just did what he was told and trained and meditated, trained and meditated.
"You should rest."
--
"You should rest," Teyla said to him quietly from her place beside him on the balcony. John sighed. He wanted to, more than anything but the news that Todd had brought them had left him reeling. Rather than dividing the Wraith, their plan had made the Queens join their Hives in a preservationist manoeuvre that no one had expected. "You will be able to think more clearly in the morning." He half smiled at her but they both knew it was a half hearted effort at best. "John..."
He let out a harsh sigh and pushed away from the railing, his shoulders tense.
"I will, okay. I just need some time to think." Teyla cocked her eyebrow at him and he shook his head. "Are you going to the new settlement tonight like you had planned?" Teyla shook her head. "Good." She huffed and John squinted at her. "You know I didn't mean it like that." He reached out and brushed the back of his hand down her bare arms. He revelled in her little shiver at his touch. "I've missed you these last few weeks."
Teyla smiled up at him and made a move to step closer to him. Acquiescing, he opened his arms and enveloped her in a loose imitation of a hug. Her arms wrapped around his waist and he felt some of the tension melt out of him at her touch. She was good for him, like that.
"This war takes has taken its toll."
"Yeah." He nodded against her head. "It has."
"We will survive this," she murmured and John could feel her nuzzle her nose against his chest.
He knew she didn't just mean physically.
--
"I do not understand your preoccupation with the half breed."
John narrowed his eyes in anger, feeling the tips of his fingers tingle slightly. He took a step towards Riador and clenched his jaw.
"Don't call her that."
"Control your emotions, John!" Jez said, sounding agonised, from the corner and John snapped his mind's senses shut. Jez was far too sensitive to the emotions of others and while it made him an excellent Unspeakable, it made it difficult for him to be around trainees. Especially trainees as emotionally volatile as Sheppard. That was just their nice way of saying he had whiplash causing mood swings. "Thank you," Jez sighed on an out breath and John nodded.
"Perhaps," Riador said some long moments later, once John had deflated, "you should speak with a Repairer. If your sessions with the Tranquils aren't working then you should consider other alternatives."
John blanched at that. It was true; the Tranquils had been using their strongest herbs on him, combined with the most demanding meditation and suppressing sessions and still he didn't have a handle on his emotions. If anything, suppressing his emotions and refusing to acknowledge his flashbacks during the day were causing his dreams to become more emotive at night. It was a vicious cycle and if he was going to succeed at this, then he really should think about other options. But what were they? He asked the question and really, really wished he hadn't needed to hear the answer.
"Like Readers, Repairers have the ability to read thoughts. Their unique gift is that they can identify memories that are to most emotive and remove them."
John felt his anger hitch again but with a quick glance in Jez's direction, he clamped down on it, swallowing the pained lump that jumped up into his throat.
"You are not removing my memories. They are all I have left." He left off the 'of her' that threatened to tack itself onto the end of his statement. Instead, he turned away from his trainers and closed his eyes, channelling his angry energy to his palms. A burst of fiery warmth spread from his fingers and he just managed to turn his hands away from his body in time before the flames leapt out in long strands. A second later, they were gone and John stared at him palms, looking for scorch marks where there was none. "That... was new."
He turned once again to Jez and Riador who both nodded, eyes wide slightly. Jez turned to Riador with a conspiratorial smirk.
"Perhaps his memories can be good for something."
For a moment, it looked like Riador might agree but then the older man grunted and shook his head.
"It's not worth the risk. He could kill someone, could kill himself with anger like that."
"Then perhaps you should not anger him."
John smirked to Riador and nodded in agreement, hoping the seasoned Reader would take the Unspeakable's advice.
"It is not anger at me that courses through his system." John deflated and felt the smug grin leave his face. He was annoyed that Riador was right; the man was just poking at a sleeping dragon. "Speak with a Repairer. Figure out a course of action."
John agreed.
--
He traced lazy patterns on her back, watching the milky moonlight dance across her skin, chasing the shadows of the night away. She was truly beautiful and he wondered again at how lucky he was to be able to call her his own. Not that she would ever know he considered her a possession of his, because he didn't really, but she'd kick his ass for thinking that way, anyway.
John couldn't remember a time when he'd felt so... content. Ever. Even with Nancy, there had been a self-consciousness. A sense of how he should be feeling. With Teyla, there was none of that. It just was and what it was, was right.
He felt like a sap. He was a sap – for her.
After his disaster of a marriage to Nancy, he had made a vow never to make that vow again but, lying there beside Teyla, he couldn't imagine a better way to spend the rest of his life. He didn't need to marry her. But he wanted to.
Would they have an Earth wedding? An Athosian wedding? He didn't know. They'd never discussed marriage so he didn't even know if she believed in it. He made a mental note to ask Halling about Athosian marriage customs because for all he knew, giving her a ring (he felt giddy, at even just the thought) could be a very, very bad symbolic gesture. Especially considering how the Athosians felt about the 'Ring of the Ancestors'. No. He would definitely need to check that out before he made any sort of grand gesture like that.
"Are you enjoying yourself?" Her sleep strained voice asked and John looked away from her back to her face and smiled slightly when he met her eyes. He dropped the lock of hair he'd been playing with and brushed the pads of his fingers down her spinal column. She shivered and his body flinched towards her in response. She licked her lips slowly, drawing John's gaze there and he could do nothing but lean forward and repeat the motion with his own tongue. She smiled languidly against him, rolling onto her back with exaggerated slowness. John didn't need any more encouragement and moved his body over hers, deepening the kiss as his legs tangled with hers.
He was definitely enjoying himself now.
--
John Sheppard had never felt as alone as he did in that moment. He felt Teyla's presence beside him in her bed but he couldn't really feel her. Since Woolsey's comments about the inappropriateness of their relationship, he had felt her withdrawing from him. He hated it. He hated Woolsey and the IOA and he hated Teyla for giving into them.
Couldn't she see that she meant more to him than whether or not he made it to a full bird Colonel.
He rolled onto his side, facing the wall and sighed. It was an empty threat, anyway. It wasn't up to the IOA whether he got a promotion or not. And besides, General O'Neill liked him.
He rolled onto his back and balled his fists as anger coursed through him. It was unfair. Part of John wished that Atlantis had stayed cut off from Earth because at least that way the IOA couldn't try and have influence over what went on. Being on Atlantis was a matter of survival; neither he nor Elizabeth, not anyone else, could afford to stop and second guess if what they were doing was 'by the rules'.
His anger flared and he closed his eyes. When he opened them, the sheets were on fire.
--
John sprang from the bed and turned back to stare at his anger's handiwork. The small burn marks on the white sheets would have been amusing to him under any other circumstances but John was not in the mood. He'd had a gruelling session with the Tranquils and they had given him some kind of absolutely horrendous herb that had sent him careening into walls and bulkheads and God knows what else as he'd tried to navigate his way back to his quarters. He was tired, emotionally spent and he just really, really wanted to see... to be back on Atlantis.
In that moment, he wished for nothing more.
He sighed and took a deep breath. He really had to speak to a Repairer.
--
"What do you mean you're staying here?"
"These are my people, John. I cannot just leave them. Michael has-"
"Michael is gone. Carson is working on the cure for Hybridity."
She laughed, unkindly.
"Perhaps some of my people do not wish for a cure."
He felt a cold lump land heavily in his gut.
"What?"
-
"How long will you be gone?"
"I do not know."
"What about us? What about this?"
She sighed and turned to him for the first time since he'd arrived in her quarters.
"Your superiors will be pleased by my decision."
-
Back in his quarters, all traces of Teyla were gone.
-
"I heard she's with someone on Athos."
John pushed his plate away, his appetite suddenly gone. He stared at Ronon, waiting for him to continue. When he didn't, John rose to leave.
"Thanks, Ronon. Just what I needed to hear."
"I don't think she's comin' back."
John didn't want to hear that.
-
John gasped as the Repairer pulled out his mind, the memories floating back from the surface to the murky filing cabinet he'd tried to keep them hidden in. He took a few deep breaths, swiping angrily at the tears that dared leak out of his eyelids and looked up at the Repairer.
"Well?"
The Repairer looked pained and John forced himself to remember that everyone aside from the Enabled were Unspeakables too. She could feel what John was feeling; what his memories had made him feel and he fought off the anger and shame and tried to put the lid back on. It didn't work; the assault had been brutal and longer than he was used to and he was spent. Too spent to think practically.
"Your attachment to Atlantis... to this woman is very deep. It's an emotional bond that... your tie to her is tethered to your tie to Atlantis. I do not know if there is any one memory I can remove to take that tie away. Your life and hers are inextricably linked."
John closed his eyes. Ever since he'd gone to Atlantis, ever since he'd met Teyla, he'd felt things for her. He couldn't disassociate Teyla and Atlantis. In his mind, they were one.
"What can you do?"
The Repairer paused for too long and John looked up, feeling a different lump forming in his gut. He knew, without he needing to say the words. He had a choice to make.
A choice? It was hardly a choice. It was...
His memories of Teyla, or succession in his mission? He couldn't make that choice. He couldn't give her up... could he?
If he did choose...
"We have a memory bank, a store for the memories removed. It happens often. Granted, not in a case as... large as yours but we have had to remove memories before." She moved to a desk and rifled through the drawers and pulled out a long crystal object. "Your memories can be downloaded onto this and stored in the bank, if you wish."
John looked at the crystal. It looked like Asgard technology but he decided not to ask. These people were a convalescence of knowledge. He didn't need to know more than that.
"I won't have any recollection of her?"
"I would need to remove all of your memories of Atlantis." The air left his lungs in a rush at that. "You will be aware that there is a gap in your memory, there is no subterfuge here."
"And I can get them back, once this is over?" The Repairer nodded quickly. John closed his eyes. "Do it." He licked his lips. "Take them all."
The Repairer sighed and John opened his eyes.
"It takes time to set up the system and the mind for such an operation. You must visit with the Tranquils. Tell them what is happening. They will know what to do."
"I thought it was the Repairers that did memory removals?"
The Repairer nodded.
"It is. The mind must be prepared; it is not an easy task and there are dangers. Your visit with the Tranquils will ease your mind. They will open up the connections in your mind and bring forward the memories that need to be removed. The next few hours will be a difficult time for you, John Sheppard. From what I have seen and felt in the short time you have been here, I am thankful that I will not be the Unspeakable in the room during that time."
John could only imagine.