Teyla wakes like some animal out of hibernation, muscles stiff and heavy, though whether from cold or fatigue, she can no longer tell. Her bones are hollow and infinitely fragile, and every movement seems stifled by air suddenly turned thick as soil. Everything is black around her and she wonders if she has already died.
Distracted as she is by the fire in her head, she remains unaware of the sound until it vanishes. The throbbing that makes even her teeth vibrate blots out most of her senses, but she thinks it consisted of loud thuds, mixed in with the occasional clatter. She even manages a glimmer of curiosity before the sky cracks open above her with a shock of sound that knocks her back into unconsciousness.
Next time she wakes, it is even harder. Her brain and body no longer seem to be connected. She cannot feel her arms, her legs, or anything, other than the constant thrum of pain in her head that sways on the verge of too-much-to-bear. She would not move now, even if she could. If she stays like this, still and quiet and motionless, she can just barely keep her skull from breaking apart. She can just barely live through this.
She is so focused on the struggle; it takes a while for the voice to pierce the fog of her concentration. And to realise someone is shaking her . . . arm? Shoulder? Teyla tries to tell the voice to leave her alone, but she cannot think of the words to do so. But she is sure she makes some sort of sound, and whoever it is stops shaking her, which is enough for the moment. The voice continues, but as it is quiet, and somewhat familiar, she does not mind. There is a sharp sting, perhaps somewhere along her arm, but it is a spark in a bonfire, and easily ignored against the beckonings of a painless, dreamless void.
But she is not allowed to slip away this time. Even as Teyla tries to sink back into blackness, someone rolls her over, and a seemingly limitless collection of bruises demonstrates she can hurt in places other than her head. While she gasps for air and relief, someone pulls up one of her eyelids, and ruins all her efforts with a stab of light that drills right though her skull. She tries to pull away, but she is semi-paralysed in a body too weak to work anymore, and can only let out a sound more becoming of a Maca chick than a warrior. Her eye is released, and the voice speaks again, and this time she can understand the word, "Teyla?" She keeps her eyes closed tight, but the flush of pain the light caused is less than expected, and somehow the hammering at the back of her head is a few inches further from unbearable. Something flushes through her body, dulling the hurt. She opens her eyes.
It takes a moment for her vision to clear, and in the semi-darkness, even longer to identify the face hovering over her, but the strange accent, rare even among the Earth people makes Carson easier to identify. "There you are." He smiles at her, but his eyes drift to something beside her. She tries to turn her head, but Carson puts a gentle hand on her forehead, "keep still a minute. Do you remember where you are?" Where? She looks overhead, but sees only a dark sky through a broken window. Not a window . . . the Jumper?
John! Even as memories flow sluggishly back, Carson straps something thick and hard round her neck, a collar. "Just a precaution love. You've done quite a number on your head."
He checks her for other injuries, asking questions which she answers as best she can. A couple of feet from her lies one of her greatest friends. She could simply ask Carson if—how he is. But she fears the answer. Teyla is not a coward, but she is hurt and very tired, and she does not think she has the strength left to worry. Or to grieve.
Carson finishes quickly, and seems satisfied enough. He does not insist on strapping her to a backboard, but has two of his staff help her into a harness, so that she can be pulled out of the Jumper. A large section of the front window has been cut out, but somehow removed from the outside. She wonders how, but not enough to ask. One of the medics wraps her head, and gives her another injection to help with the pain before helping her up. The marines above begin to pull her upwards, and as they do the rope turns a little, and Teyla spins around in her harness, and suddenly she is looking at him.
Several medics work on and around him. Machines utter lively chirps and beeps according to their function. He is covering with bandages, blankets, and more tubes than it seems possible to attach to a human body. But he is alive, and it looks as if Dr. Beckett intends on keeping him that way. For the moment, that will do. The marines above her give the rope another heave, and he passes from her view.
When they help her through the top of the Jumper, she can finally see where they landed, albeit it with difficulty in the darkness. The water here is only a couple of feet deep, and a narrow beach runs along the edge of cliffs. Two Jumpers are parked on this, and sitting just inside one of these is Rodney. He leans against the wall of the Jumper, eyes shut, but not sleeping. Even at rest, one foot taps anxiously against the floor, and his hands are folding tightly around his ribs. He is alone, and seeing this, all the blood left in her seems to drain out through her feet. It seems John is not the only one of her teammates she must worry for.
The marines insist on helping her climb down the ladder at the side of the Jumper, but she draws the line at being carried to shore. They will not budge from helping her to Rodney's Jumper however, and she does not argue, much. The brief spell of adrenaline that Carson's painkillers gave her is spent, and she desperately wants to sleep before the pain becomes overwhelming again. But she has a duty to her team, to what is left of it, and she can not sleep until they do.
Rodney does not open his eyes when she sits down, or when she calls him, only when she touches his shoulder does he startle out of his doze. "Teyla, oh God Teyla, you're alive! I thought . . ." Rodney McKay is not comfortable with physical contact, does not hug his friends as others among of the Earth people often do, but she thinks he almost wants to now. His rapid words trails off, and his hands gesticulate feebly in the air in pointless, helpless shapes, elbows clamped unnaturally to his sides. "I saw the Jumper go over, there was nothing I could do, and you fell so far! I thought for sure you were . . . and then Ronon . . ."
"Where is Ronon?" She interrupts, anxiety like a hole in her through which all positive thoughts drain away. Ronon should have been in the Jumper as soon as it was accessible, demanding to be help, to save them, "Why is he not with you?"
"He, he . . ." his foot stops tapping the floor, "Carson sent him back. S—said he had to and we could see him later"
"He is dead?" She says the words but can barely comprehend them. Ronon, John, Rodney, they are such a large part of her existence now, it seems impossible any of them could be something as final as dead. But she recalls her father, and how he was once all the universe to her. Things can be ripped aware in a flash of light.
"No!" Rodney stares at her, eyes wide and shining in protest, "no, but . . . he was really hurt Teyla. After you fell he wanted to climb down the cliffs but passed out before he got two steps—nearly went right over! He was in and out after that . . . never really woke up properly again." His hands clutch each other nervously in his lap and he stares through the other wall of the Jumper. "Carson said he couldn't be sure if . . ." Rodney lets out a shuddering breath and she wonders what dark thoughts have been in his mind the last few days. He glances at her, with a weak twist of a smile, "I'm just really glad you're okay."
She reads this as the question Rodney means it to be, and forces a smile of her own, certain and reassuring, as it is her duty to be, "I am fine."
He snorts, but his foot stops tapping the floor for a moment. She puts a hand on his shoulder, pushing herself up, and over to the other bench.
"Umm, what are you doing?"
"I am going to sleep." She lies down on the thankfully horizontal bench of the Jumper; she had almost forgotten what it was like to sleep on a floor that is not metal.
"With a head injury? Is that a good idea?"
"I have been injured several days, and I am still alive. I am sure a brief rest will harm me no further." She curled up as much as possible; the cool cushion of the seat eased the brand around her forehead a little. "Good night Rodney."
There was a brief pause, and then she heard the rustle of him lying down across from her. "Night Teyla," came a low mutter. And gratefully, she slept.
I know, I know, I'm completely terrible and awful and deserving to be put in a malfunctioning Jumper and sent crashing down into the sea. But if you spare me, and leave me a nice review, I promise to give the the vicarious experience through John and Teyla some more?