Tinderbox

Author: Cheryl W.

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CHAPTER 7: Tell Me How You Really Feel

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Though Dr. Beckett was the one who forbade her from visiting John in the infirmary, Teyla knew in her hearts of hearts that it was at John's request. That he didn't want to see her…on Ronon or Rodney either, as they too were turned away while she was still making her attempt to change Beckett's mind. But Beckett was unshakeable in his resolve. She forgave him even as she walked away, knew he thought adhering to John's wishes fell under his guardianship for his patients.

But John wasn't any patient, was Carson's friend.

But so was she…and that seemed to matter little to John. She had naively thought after the trauma of the battle in the ship that things could go back the way they were, that their survival against such odds proved all over again what a great team they made. John, however, didn't recognize that evidence, had shunned their concern, had sat in the forward compartment of the jumper instead of back with his team…any of his teammates, present or past.

Then there were his words to Colonel Carter, guilty confession of blame and disrespect for her ranking. John could be stubborn, could buck against authority, she had seen him do it with Dr. Weir but this was…different. With Elizabeth there had been…she couldn't place her finger on it but whatever it was, it didn't raise a distress in her like watching his interaction with Colonel Carter. Had watched the woman doing their debrief but she had given nothing away, had kept her answers very precise to the mission but he had seen her surprise when Ronon had asked to speak to her alone. A conversation she had felt alarmed at occurring, had shot a warning to Ronon to watch his words, but he had nodded to her, like he knew her silent warning. Even though she wondered at the contents of that conversation, Ronon was not sharing it with her, had not sought her afterwards nor had he stayed at the infirmary long after Beckett's refusal to let him visit John, had left before Rodney was done ranting about over blown egos of voodoo doctors who thought they got to dictate who got to visit who in their holier than thou kingdoms of medicine.

She was deep in thought when she turned the corner for her room, slowed to a surprised halt at seeing Colonel Carter evidently waiting for her return. "Colonel Carter, I am sorry, did I miss a call for a meeting. I did not know my radio was not working properly," touched her radio in her ear to check if it was receiving any transmissions.

Sam pulled on a smile she hoped was friendly, felt like she was out of practice at that gesture. "No, no meeting I just wished to speak to you privately."

"Oh," Teyla gave as a noncommittal reply, her stomach dropping at whatever this conversation would encompass. 'What worse thing can she do to me that has not already been done. My team is gone, John no longer wishes to have any contact with me, and all my efforts here to defend my home, my galaxy feel….….inconsequential.' So there wasn't much the Colonel could do to hurt her worse than she was already hurting. "Yes, please come in," she bade a little stiffly as she entered the room, felt Carter following in her wake.

Sam noted the "hominess" of Teyla's room. The personal items that bespoke of her connection to her people…and to Atlantis, for on her table was a picture of her team, all smiles. She didn't miss that it was turned so Teyla could see the picture when she woke up every morning. A reason to get out of bed, to believe it could be a good day.

Picking up the picture, Sam hoped to get a reaction, did before she even asked her question as Telya tensed, like she feared Sam would steal the picture from her. 'Like I stole her team from her,' came unbidden and she stamped it down. Aloud she asked, "Didn't know Rodney McKay had a happy smile in him that didn't involve him bragging himself up," she joked, intentionally reminding Teyla that she was familiar with McKay, knew him long before Teyla even knew Earth existed.

But Teyla's next words proved Sam might be "familiar" with McKay but she didn't know Rodney at all. "Rodney insisted we take a group picture so he could send it to his sister. He wanted her to have something to put in her "scrap book" that was not classified about her time on Atlantis. John said it should just be Rodney's picture but Rodney wanted it to be all of us. Then he gave us each copies." And there was genuine fondness in Teyla's eyes that ran soul deep as she carefully took the picture from Carter's hold and unconsciously held it against her chest, protecting it from further harm.

Sam prided herself on reading between the lines with people, ferreting out what they wouldn't admit to aloud but gave away by their words and actions. Though, right now, that pride was taking a ding after her chat with Ronon…and that had lead her here…to Sheppard's other teammate, to get better insight into the workings of the team she had had a hand in dismantling.

Truthfully, she didn't have a handle on Teyla. The woman was nothing but polite, carefully chosen words but there was an unapproachableness to her…well, had been since she was no longer on John Sheppard's team. On that first fateful mission where she rescued that team from Ronon's friends' betrayal, Sam had witnessed the care Teyla had for her teammates: the way she had tended to Ronon's wounds in the ride back to Atlantis, the worried look she gave Sheppard and Ronon, sensing the unrest there between the two men, the hurts she ached to heal.

But after her team's dissolution, Sam couldn't detect any emotion in her. The smiles she offered to her new teammates, lacked…something. Commitment, heart, maybe. And yes, her missions went off well but even in her reports, Teyla was careful in her dictation, was very clinical compared to the mission briefings she gave while in Sheppard's team, which spoke of concern for her teammates' wellbeing, the mission's success and the underlying pride in her team, even when the missions were unredeemable losses. (The same undertones that were present in Teyla's demeanor in their briefing hours ago about a mission where she was again surrounded by her former teammates, when their lives had been in severe danger as well as her own.)

After Ronon's ….wholehearted intercession for Sheppard, she couldn't stop wondering what the Lt. Colonel's other teammates really thought about the dissolution of their team. And sure, it wasn't her idea for Emmagon to be removed from Sheppard's team, but she knew it was a byproduct of her reassigning Dex. And she knew she selfishly was there hoping Teyla showed gratitude for being "liberated" from Sheppard's gate team, for finally being trusted to lead her own team, (quite a feat for a woman, Sam knew that firsthand) but deep down, Sam feared that, like Ronon, Teyla mourned the loss of her original gate team. Wondered if the Athosian woman would curse her for her hand in breaking apart that team.

"So how is your team working out? Any personnel changing you want to make?" Sam said, pretending to have not noticed her sentimentality for even the picture of her former team.

"We are finding our rhythm," Teyla noncommittally answered, her stance tightening at the change of the subject.

"I've noticed your team has not needed to visit the infirmary like your prior team was famous for," trying to make light of it but Telya's face tightened into displeasure.

Seeing Carter's comment as a slight to John, Teyla tightly countered, "My current missions have not faced any dangers. Whereas the missions under Colonel Sheppard's were many first contacts and situations deemed high risk that Colonel Sheppard assigned himself to handle instead of any of his subordinates."

"And with that attitude, he dragged you into those confrontations with him, huh? Guess it was tough being on his team, being in danger nearly every mission. Must be a relief not being in the hot seat all the time." So yeah, she was prodding a little hard but she wanted a real reaction out of Teyla.

Teyla sat the picture on the table with a decisive clank and faced off with Colonel Carter wearing a look of barely checked restraint. "It was an honor serving on Colonel Sheppard's team. I would follow him into any danger and there is no one I would rather have at my side than him."

"Besides your own team.." Sam corrected, at Teyla's look of confusion she qualified, "No one you'd rather have at your side than Colonel Sheppard besides your own team, the one you lead, the people that now follow you into any danger, certain you can see them through it."

But Teyla didn't get tripped up on Sam's attempt to skew her loyalty or guilt her into remembering her responsibility to her new team. "I did not follow Colonel Sheppard into danger because I was certain he would see me though it…I followed him because I was not going to let him face it alone, because he risked his life to save others, because his reasons were selfless and the right thing to do."

"So he's a saint," Sam mocked, a little sick of the Sheppard worship.

Teyla's smirk was nearly humorous, had affection glimmering in her eyes for the first time. "John would be the first to laugh at the notion."

"I see," Carter tightly returned, disappointed she wasn't getting the answers she wanted, well actually she was getting answers, she simply didn't like them. "I'll let you enjoy the rest of your day," she bluntly announced and turned to go.

"You have not spoken the questions you came here to ask me," Teyla challenged causing Colonel Carter to straighten her shoulders before turning around, facing the other woman who had lead her own people against the wraith for many years before Atlantis's team stepped through the stargate into her world. Not waiting for Carter to form the words, Teyla spoke them for her. "Am I happy to have my own team to lead? Do I miss being on Colonel Sheppard's gate team? Would I welcome the chance for things to go back the way they were? Do I think I am being punished along with Ronon for his decision to leave Atlantis?"

However, Teyla didn't answer any of her posed questions, held Carter's gaze, making her prod her for them. But Sam knew she had the answers to all of those questions already, skipped past them to the only conclusion that was viable. She tried to keep the irritation out of her tone as she acknowledged what Teyla wanted her to walk away knowing, "You want me to reinstate you to Colonel Sheppard's gate team."

Surprisingly, Teyla's expression showed pain, not triumphant as she contradicted Sam's statement, "No, I want John to want me back on his team, for him to want Rodney back, for him to let Ronon back into his trust. Those are things you can't order Colonel Sheppard to do. Trust, forgiveness, redemption must be willingly bestowed. You do not have in your power to give me what I want but…thank you, for coming here. For trying."

Numbly Sam nodded, couldn't get the confession by her constricted throat that she had done this, taken away what Teyla, what Ronon treasured most. She left keeping that secret even as she knew there was one more person she had to see, had to gather all the facts before she came to her scientific conclusion but this person she dreaded talking with the most. For as much as she thought she got Rodney McKay, she was starting to think she knew him as well as she thought she'd pegged John Sheppard. So…not at all.

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After Colonel Carter's departure, Teyla paced her room. Her confession to Carter shouldn't be hitting her so hard, she knew all along she wanted back on John's team. But saying it aloud, admitting her dissatisfaction, it was like accepting defeat. Then there was the fact that Carter couldn't order John to put their team together again, that John had to want that, to let down his walls again, yes, open himself up to hurt again after Ronon's almost departure wounded him, had him cutting himself off from all of them.

But she could do something, should do something. Should fight for what she valued so highly, needed so deeply: the return of her Atlantis family. Running her fingers over the picture of her team, her three brothers and her, she steeled herself to be brave. Vowed to find John in the morning no matter where he was and back him into a corner until he had to talk to her, had to listen to her, to know that, this was killing her, killing Ronon and Rodney, this shattering apart of their team. That she wanted him to fix it, like he had fixed so many of her hurts and Ronon and Rodney's by his friendship, by his loyalty, by his steadfast belief in them even when they doubted themselves. Now she needed to return the favor, prove that she, Rodney and, yes, Ronon, had faith in him, still, no matter the last few weeks of tension. That he might be doubting what he meant to them but they had no such uncertainties plaguing them about how they felt about their leader and friend.

It was time to stop letting John push her away, push those who cared about him away. She didn't fathom it would be an easy conversation but….here she smiled. John always was uncomfortable talking about feelings, reacted like a teenage boy whose mother was still demanding hugs in front of his friends. Evilly she thought about throwing a hug into the mix just to unbalance John more…would play dirty if it got him to do something other than adopt the soldier façade he never seemed to drop lately. She wanted the fun loving, sarcastic, always optimist, unrelentingly determined John back. She wanted the Colonel Sheppard who met Rodney wit for wit while coaxing him to do the impossible, who reigned in Ronon when he needed it but wholly trusted him to have his back and the one who trusted her advice, sought it.

By the Ancestors, that man she missed sorely from her life, from all of their lives.

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Having sprung himself from the infirmary before dawn (while Carson was absent), John sat behind his office desk, contemplated the words gleaming back from his computer. But the words blurred, were replaced by scenes replaying in his head: Donecker pinned between him and the wraith, then being yanked out of his grip to be drained by the starving horde. Closing his eyes and rubbing a hand over his still hurting head, he forced the memories away, locked them up where Elizabeth's telling him to leave her behind and taking Colonel Sumner's life resided. The deep dark.

John chided himself as his fingers remained poised over the keyboard, seemed incapable of finalizing the document. His training told him not to hesitate making decisions because, in a blinking of an eye, lives could be lost. His one CO had warned him that he'd lose his way forward if he spent time imagining how the past could have been done better. And his mother, she had said to let his heart lead him because he had a good one.

Crap but John felt like he wasn't living up to any of that good advice.

And speaking of his #2 on his to-not-do list after 'don't hesitate': he was rehashing the past again. The good ole could have beens, the might have beens, should have beens. It didn't start with trying to persuade Ronon to not think teaming up with his old buddies would make the ache of losing Satedan go away. Sure, that was in there but it went back further, ten months back would do. If only he could do things differently, change the outcome of what would come.

If he'd not "hypothetically" suggested he, Rodney, Elizabeth and Carson go against orders and leave Earth, rescue Atlantis from the replicators. They wouldn't make that trip, especially not Elizabeth. She would stay on Earth, wouldn't die in the Pegasus galaxy. Would be safe, alive had he not needed to go skipping off to Atlantis, sure, it was a mission to save O'Neil, Woosley, defeat the reign of the Replicators but also…he had wanted to go back, wanted it all back, the life he had on Atlantis, the home he finally had at last, the family…him, Rodney, Ronon, Teyla, Carson and Elizabeth. Ached to get back what was taken from them, taken, not by the wraith or the Replicators, but the Ancients, the freaking people they had idolized. So yeah, maybe he shouldn't be so hard on Ronon for his faith in his old team who hadn't been worthy of that faith. He had done the same pathetic thing with the Ancients.

That brought him to the third piece of advice he was spitting on: letting his heart lead him. He spent most days lately telling his heart to shut the heck up! He was a soldier, not a selfish civilian who didn't know a thing about sacrificing for the greater good. That was bred into him, putting mission first, "Service Before Self" and all that team spirit stuff. But he believed in it, in what the Air Force and the armed services stood for..and protected against. He had never understood how his father had thought so little of his choice to join up, to defend the country his father bragged up for its ingenuity and grit and strength when it came to entrepreneurial gumption. But apparently his father's pride in the country didn't extend to actually putting up or shutting up when it came to taking up arms when that said country came under attack. No, Patrick Sheppard's idea of self-sacrifice for a bigger win was sitting behind a desk and risking Dow shifts.

But honestly, right about now, John wished he was more like his good old dad, who lost not a wink of sleep firing an employee simply because of where his name fell on a company flowchart when a merger deal was finalized. Who didn't show any hesitation or regret in telling his son he was ashamed of him, that he was cutting off his financial support, wouldn't aid him in his rebellion from his family responsibilities. If he was his dad, he would be able to finish the letter staring back at him from the computer screen, not miss his old team like an amputated limb and not dread the appointment he had in fifteen minutes. Apparently being a heartless bastard had its rewards after all.

When the chime came at his office door, he let out a long breath, course the kid had to be early, morosely thought 'To his own funeral'. In a fit of decisiveness, John's fingers struck the computer keys with finality and finished the letter. But he couldn't convince himself to actually send the file. So he simply saved it before he closed the laptop and called out, "Lt. Tudor, come in."

But a familiar female voice called through the door. "It is not Lt. Tudor, it is Teyla. May I still come in?"

John really wanted to say a resounding "no!" but knew he wouldn't. "Ah, yeah, come in, Teyla," he bid as he sat up straighter in his chair, not ready for this confrontation but what the heck, Rodney and Ronon had had their shot at him, Teyla deserved her own.

Teyla stood straighter, braced herself for the conversation to come and then entered the room, found John behind his desk looking very official, especially with the 'give nothing away' expression he wore. The door closed behind her and she felt the space suddenly too small, understood why John hated being "cooped up in that closet" to finish his reports.

For a few seconds, they were both silent, then they spoke at the same time like they never had before, knew each other too well to do that, had known each other too well.

"I wanted to speak with you John…"

"What did you need Teyla…."

John's lips thinned into a tight line and Teyla clasped her hands in front of her for another bout of silence that lasted between them until she spoke. "I do not wish things to continue the way they are."

Purposefully misunderstanding her, John offered congenially, "Major Lorne can give you a roster of other marines you can have on your team. I know sometimes there's a trial and error process until you get the right people on your team."

Not protesting John's deflection, Teyla instead acknowledged his point about her new team. "Yes, maybe. But there was not this… 'trial and error' process when I joined your team."

John didn't dispute that, his thoughts going to Lt. Ford a moment in sad regret before he admitted, "That was the exception to the rule so don't feel bad if it takes a few personnel changes to get a good fit."

Teyla felt frustration welling inside. John was treating this clinical and militarily, something he notoriously wasn't known for being. Stalking to his desk, she leaned over it to boldly meet his eyes. "John, please stop."

John sat back in his seat, distancing himself from her. "I have an appointment in a few minutes maybe its best if you talk with Major Lorne."

Knowing that she had to have the courage to say what she had come to, she straighten up, put on her best soldier façade and announced, "I would like to be put back on your team."

John showed no emotional reaction to her request, answered in a stony tone, "That's not an option."

"It can be," she implored, wanted to reach out and shake him, get the old John back. "If you allow yourself to trust again. Whatever…doubt you have about your team's loyalty to you, they are unfounded, John. Ronon…he did not make his choice lightly, did it out of honor, loyalty, remembrance to his people. I thought you would understand that. You have always understood my duality of being my people's leader and choosing to stay with you on Atlantis." Didn't know why John found Ronon's divided loyalty so hard to forgive when he had forgiven her as much.

"You chose Atlantis and its resources, it was a logical choice," John discerned, denying or unaware of the part emotions played in her decision.

But Teyla remembered her struggle to decide where she could do the most good, how it had hurt to see her people move out of Atlantis and not go with them. Had come to realize, her decision to stay on Atlantis, step down as the leader of the Athosians, it wasn't about being enthralled with the might of the Atlantis expedition. No, it had been about this man, the trust he had engendered in her, the faith that, with him, they could make a stand against the wraith like her people had never dared to do in a hundred years. "No, John, I chose you. My trust was not in an Ancient base or the might of a military force from another galaxy, it was in you."

"Guess we've all made bad career moves…" John joked back, trying not to clutch onto Teyla's words, to make more out of them than he should, to not believe them.

Anger flared in Teyla's eyes as she demanded, "Can you not talk plainly with me? Have I done something so wrong that you can not even stand to look at me!" Because he was looking through her, like she had accused Colonel Sumner of doing on their first meeting. That was the thing with John, he saw her, her strengths, then and always…but now…now he was dismissing her as inconsequential. And he certainly wasn't hearing her.

Her challenge shattered John's stoic wall, had him growling back, "What do you want me to say, Teyla?! The team, our team, it's gone. It doesn't exist anymore." Knew even if he wanted to undo what was done, if he buckled under and groveled to Carter, there was no putting the band back together again, she wasn't going to be doing him any favors. And he knew that was partly his fault, that he had defied her, been outright disrespectful and created tension for everyone around them. But he didn't want Teyla to suffer for the bad blood between him and Colonel Carter, any more than he wanted Ronon or Loren to. In a tone of reconciliation, he pointed out, "Teyla, you've been given your own team, can keep doing what you did on my team. Be the defense for any other threat to your people and the Pegasus galaxy. That's why you joined our side, our fight, because it was your fight too. That hasn't changed."

"Then why do I feel like everything has changed?" Teyla implored a catch to her words as her emotions skittered near the surface. "I feel that, whatever I do, with my new team or without it, it does no good, I do no good. That I can not…if I am not with you, Ronon and Rodney, if we are not united."

Crap but didn't he feel the same way! But he wasn't there to bring Teyla down into his slump. "It's just a time of adjustment and getting the right teammates. You'll get that feeling back," he promised, hoped he wasn't lying to her, that she found a place of security and contentment again, even if it wasn't with him.

A sad look of disbelief colored her features. "When I lost my mother then my father, there was no reversing that pain, that grief. This is no different. There is no sense of rightness within me." Steeling herself for rejection, she dared voice her frailty, implored, "Tell me you are not as lost, in as much pain as I am, as Ronon and Rodney are in at this division between us?"

Not trusting himself to be that consummate an actor, to conceal the direct hit Teyla had made, John dropped his eyes from hers, started shuffling the papers on his desk as he huskily replied, "It was never going to last. We already lost Elizabeth. Our team …splitting up this way…I can live with this." 'Sure as hell beats me getting one of you killed,' he left unspoken.

But he didn't need to verbalize it, Teyla was perceptive enough to make that logical leap all on her own. And it shocked her to realize the core of John's decision to keep the team dissolved was fear, fear that he would lose them, like he had lost Elizabeth. In a gentle tone, she began, "John, I know what it is like to know loss, to live in daily fear of losing yet more of those I cherish. My people, like most of this galaxy, have had no certainty that the very next day the wraith would not come and shatter our world apart. But we chose to not let that fear smother our heart's desires to care for one another, we risk pain and loss for the great honor of being loved. Just like Rodney, Ronon and I risk death to stand at your side, do it willingly, not only out of duty but out of loyalty, out of love for you."

At her open affection, John sprang from his chair, paced the room's small confines, rubbing the back of his neck. "You say all that like it's a good thing! I rather you follow me solely out of duty, that means if you die it's for a higher cause than my stupid reckless orders, it's for something that matters."

Teyla ached to reach out to him, stop his pacing, especially in light of the limp she noted in it. "You matter, John. Lt. Donecker believed that and he barely knew you, how much more do you think Ronon, Rodney and I recognize how much you matter, to us, to Atlantis, to this fight and to the continued belief in hope for a better future, if not for this generation, for the next."

John spun on her, bit out, "Stop putting me on this pedestal! I'm not some Ancestral mystical hero that will rescue the galaxy from tyranny."

Teyla paled at his rebuke. "John, I meant no disrespect…or pressure. All those things I've mentioned, you've done them already. My people, this galaxy, they do not even know the debt of gratitude they owe you."

But John bitterly shook his head at her inference. "Not gratitude….blame. Everyone here keeps forgetting one vital piece of this mystical tale they've woven: I woke the Wraith, all of them, this rampant feeding frenzy of their's, that's on me."

"It was not your intentions…"Teyla sharply defended him. "You sought to save your people…you did save me."

John smirked cynically. "As much as I'm happy I saved you…I don't think the worlds that have been decimated by the Wraith would consider that a fair trade for their destruction."

"So should I seek to pay penance for my survival costing so much?" she stridently challenged, already knowing John would never ask that of her, never asked others to pay in pain what he willingly would volunteer to do in their stead.

"No! That's not what I meant!" John denied, horrified at even the idea of Teyla shouldering that blame. Wished he had kept his big mouth shut about his guilt, had planned to forever let that shame unspoken but Teyla had the knack of making him talk about his feelings, even when he really really didn't want to.

"John, you can not have it both ways. Either you and I together take the blame for the consequences of you saving my life…or neither of us do, accept that." Though he did not refute her statement nor did he agree with it, and that troubled Teyla. "Colonel, the wraith are unrepentant for the lives they take, always have been. In due time, hive after hive would have sought the destruction of each of those worlds you say have been attacked as a result of your good intentions. And, after all the worlds we have visited, one thing has always been clear: none of them were ever going to win a victory against the wraith, not even should they have only one hive feeding across the galaxy to defend against. Not the Genii, and not even Satedan, with its formidable armies, could stand against them. No, there would have been no sparing of any lives in the next fifty years of each hive's alternate feedings…if you and your people were not standing with us now."

Softly John conceded Teyla's argument, "I'm not refuting the good we've done…Atlantis has done…" That would be a dishonor of all Elizabeth had accomplished, the expedition had accomplished together. And he knew they had done good, had saved many lives…but it was his personal victories that were shaded in grey. Had he saved more people than he'd lost, bartered away, forsaken?! He honestly didn't know..only knew that, to lose anyone else he truly cared about…that would forever tip those scales into the red and he didn't think he could bear that.

As perceptive as always, Teyla understood what John wasn't saying. "But you still doubt the good you've done. John…" but the door chime cut off her planned impassioned speech to sway his poor opinion of himself.

John looked half relieved and half chagrined at the interruption. "Duty calls." Then he circled around her, heading for the door but she grabbed onto his hand. Startled by the physical contact, he met her eyes in surprise at her boldness.

"Please John, we must continue this conversation. Things are not as you see them," needed him to accept they were better with him, the galaxy, Atlantis…and certainly her and Ronon and Rodney. He was not the curse he saw himself as. Far from it.

Not wanting to give Teyla hope that she could sway him with words to reinstate their team, he curtly declared, "Conversation's over, Teyla."

"John…" she protested but he ruthlessly spoke over her.

"It's Colonel Sheppard…and you're dismissed," saw the flash of hurt in her eyes before the fire of anger flared…which was far better. He could bear her anger…like he had Ronon and Rodney's…it was their hurt he had trouble stamping down. With something akin to a huff, Teyla left his office, nearly shoulder checked Lt. Tudor on her exit.

"Wow, she was angry. Should I be worried about my own appointment with you Colonel Sheppard," he joked with a cocky smile.

And since the kid wanted to do cocky…John bluntly started their meeting with a harbinger of doom that was coming the kid's way. "Yeah, you should be worried. Come in Lt Tudor." Entering, the kid didn't take a seat, instead stood at parade rest, hands behind him, back ramrod straight. And for once, the Marine's stiff necked formality was ok with John, would maybe make this better, unemotional.

He came to stand before the Lieutenant, eyed the blond haired twenty something year old and dealt out the bad news. "Lt. Tudor, I'm reassigning you off of Atlantis. You'll be on the Daedalus by month's end back to Stargate Command for review."

Tudor's face blanched before it turned an outraged beet red and his military stance crumbled into a furious fighter's stance, all with fisted hands. "You can't be serious?! On what grounds?! I trip one time and you're writing me up!? Do you have any idea who my father is?!"

John didn't blink at the kid's outburst, instead he took a step closer to tower over the kid who was an inch shorter than he was. "I am deadly serious, Lt. And your "trip" is the least of your offences. Major Lorne has cited you on three occasions for aggression and refusing to follow orders…"

"Lorne doesn't know his…" Tudor growled.

Taking another step closer, Sheppard dominated the Marine's personal space, growled right back. "Lt you stow that disrespect! I'm the one who made the decision to remove you from your duties on Atlantis. I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt but then, on your mission with me, you refused to follow the ROE, attacked villagers armed, not with RPG, but spears, before they were ever determined a threat! Lt. Pine was injured because of your actions, not only your aggression, but yes, your clumsiness. And that makes him the second person who has been inadvertently paid for your insubordination."

"If you're talking about Sgt. Schalough, he didn't seek cover in time. That's not on me," Tudor snidely denied.

But John wasn't basing his opinion just on Lorne's report, had asked Sgt. Schalough for his personal recollections of the incident a day ago. And the Sargent's interview only solidified John's conviction that reassigning Tudor was the best course of action. "He wouldn't have needed to seek cover if you hadn't engaged the hostiles against orders and without waiting for backup."

Trying to make a personal jab, Tudor countered, "Unlike Air Force personnel, Marines are taught to react situationally! I saw a threat, I took it out."

"But you didn't…take it out. Your team did," John reminded him, voice rising to nearly a shout, thought the kid would see reason, not be such a prideful moron, be humbled to strive to be a better soldier like the other three Marines John had reassigned had exhibited, at least to his face.

"You should be praising my bravery, not chiding me!" Tudor snarled before he gave a smug smile and shrugged his shoulders as if he wasn't a second ago in a yelling match with an officer of far superior rank than his own. "But none of this matters, actually. My father will overturn your decision."

"No, no he won't," John tightly shot down his claim. "Whatever influence your General father has, it doesn't supersede my ruling here at Atlantis…and it won't sway Stargate Command's final decision of whether or not you remain attached to the program or are removed from duty permanently." John had known all along who Tudor's father was…and what that probably meant for the kid: immense pressure to make his military general father proud. Crap but John knew the uphill battle it was to make a hard hearted father proud of you, a battle he personally had failed at spectacularly. And now the kid was facing that paternal disappointment too. That comparison made John ease up on his hail and brimstone prediction, adopt a consolatory tone. "But if you show remorse, accept the reprimand and grow from it…this doesn't have to be a career killer."

But Tudor was on a tear, wouldn't hear of doing something so demeaning like being repentant and vowing to do better. "What?! So I can be a clerk somewhere?! Type up reports and never see action again?! My father would rather I died in action than have a military paper pusher for a son?!"

John fought back saying wasn't that what a General was, a paper pusher, but he restrained himself. Barely. "I think it's time for you to decide what you want out of your life and stop living it for your father." But that personally hard won good advice went the way of the dodo bird.

"So easy for you to spout out advice and lectures," Tudor sneered. "You doing that for my benefit or to ease your guilt for destroying my life on your whim?!" Then the lieutenant stormed out without being dismissed or waiting for John's reply.

"Great, John. Another person you pissed off. You're gonna have tons of people eager to help you pack your bags," he drawled unhappily to the empty room, realizing then and there that he'd already made up his mind. With a sigh, he crossed over to his desk, opened his computer and his letter was still up on the screen…waiting. With sorrowful conviction he moved it to the send folder.

After all his words to his teammates about accepting that things would not go back the way they had been, he realized he had been a hypocrite, had held onto some boyish hope that everything could be ok again. But it was never going to be the way it was and denying that…it just made the pain worse now that reality was settling in to stay. His life had irrevocably been changed, again, like losing his mother when he was child, like his father's disappointment souring their relationship, him waking the Wraith hives, losing Elizabeth…dismantling his team, his family. In his book, the definition of change was merciless pain.

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TBC

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Cheryl W.