Belanna30 – I'm glad you liked John's and Teyla's face off. I think it's important to get everything out in the open before everyone's going to be able to move on and that was just one way to do it. As for Ronon and Elizabeth, I don't know, maybe something like that. Thanks for the review and I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Jammeke – Ronon and Teyla are slowly starting to change, to realise that maybe they really had been fighting for the wrong side for the wrong reasons. I'm glad you liked the scene between Rodney and Marcus, I'm really enjoying writing the interaction between the characters lol. I hope you enjoy this chapter and thanks for the review.

Jessy Luke – Thanks for the review. There's going to be a lot Elizabeth and Teyla interaction as the story unfolds but first I think they both have to come to terms with each other and how much they've both changed. I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Kuro – I'm glad you liked the scene between John and Teyla; it felt important to get some stuff out into the open for everyone. The last scene was kinda sad wasn't it, I feel mean writing stuff like that sometimes lol. Thanks for the review and I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Steph – Both Teyla and Ronon are starting to realise they were fighting for the wrong side and it's beginning to change how they see things now. Thanks for the review and I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Dr Rosemary Weir – Thanks for the review, I'm glad you're enjoying the story and yeah it is a little angsty lol. There will be a lot more Elizabeth and John as the series goes on and there will be more in this story. I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Chapter 14

It was a testament to her life that the only time she could eat anywhere but her room and still have peace and quiet was in the middle of the night. If she attempted to eat in the eating area during the day then she'd have Lorne, Cadman and McKay glaring at her and probably starting an argument. So Teyla and Ronon had taken to having a very late dinner, slipping out of their rooms when the others were all in bed and making themselves something to eat.

Teyla ate the last of her food and stood up to clear her plate, washing it and putting it away before rejoining Ronon at the table. It almost felt normal, the two of them sitting here just enjoying a quiet meal, it almost felt like old times. On his ship they'd almost always had dinner together, it had been there chance to talk without having to worry about the watchful eyes of his crew, back then their nights had been used for other things. She shook her head, getting rid of that thought before it could settle, that was not a place she needed her mind to take her.

"What's wrong?" Ronon asked her concerned but she brushed it off.

"Nothing, just tired," she lied and he narrowed his eyes at her. He didn't believe her but he didn't push her further, part of her almost wished he did.

"Today was rough," Ronon stated and she nodded. There'd been another shadow attack, this one on the outskirts of the city. An elderly man had been the victim; he'd been on his way to visit his son and grand children. It was only a ten minute walk from his house but in that time the Shadow had gotten to him and killed him. Ronon and Teyla had been left with the unenviable task of informing the family while Sheppard and Elizabeth spoke to witnesses. The son had been devastated, had broken down right in front of them his wife holding him tight. Their oldest child had been nine, old enough to understand exactly what had happened and the look on his face had nearly broken Teyla. The other children had been too young to understand what was going on but still able to know something was wrong.

Teyla didn't think she'd ever been through anything as difficult, Tenal's death, being kidnapped by the Vernai, abandoned by Elizabeth, even the other witness interviews, none of it had been as hard as what she'd had to do that day. The more she worked with the Venture crew, the more she saw the other side of things, the more she couldn't understand how she had ever been able to work for the Vernai. She had done that to people, killed them and destroyed loved ones. Any survivors of those cloud attacks would have lost everyone they knew, everyone they loved, how could she have done that to people?

She'd been so blinded by her hate for Elizabeth and the Alliance that she hadn't cared who she was hurting. Sitting in prison all those months she had never regretted anything she'd done, never dwelled on it but now she was coming face to face with it and she couldn't stand what she saw.

"Teyla, you're spacing out on me," Ronon said and she shook her head again.

"I was just thinking" she explained.

"About?" he questioned and she looked at him wondering whether or not she even wanted to talk about it.

"The people we saw today, the people we've been seeing since we got dragged into this again," she admitted. "I used to do that to people; I used to leave people hurting like that. I never cared, I never thought about it long enough to care."

"I know what you mean," he told her and she looked at him surprised. "What, you didn't think I'd be bothered by it?"

"I don't know," she replied and he smiled and looked down at the table.

"I didn't like it even when we were Vernai, now that I actually have to talk to the kind of people that we hurt... it makes me feel... ashamed," he said honestly and she smiled sympathetically, she knew exactly what that felt like.

"I think we should go get some sleep," she told him changing the subject.

Laura sighed as she walked onto the bridge. She was more or less recovered from the shadow attack but she still got tired easily. John had finally let her off the ship today and she'd spent hours listening to Rodney ramble on as he collected samples from the latest shadow attack site. It had been a hell of day to get back to work but she supposed most days were exactly the same; they rarely had good ones in their line of work.

She dropped into the chair nearest her, she could see the space port through the large window in front of her but from that angle it was really just the steal wall she could see. She was really beginning to hate this assignment, not that she would want to be on any other. It was just all the death, Agents always saw a lot of death, it was part of the job but never like this, never this much. She would never back out of it, everyone she cared about was here and Elizabeth had absolutely no choice in the matter, she was stuck with this no matter what.

The console in front of her beeped bringing a welcome distraction from her thoughts and she hit the button for the comm. "Venture here," she answered.

"This is Officer Green, I thought you guys might be interested to know there's been a sighting of the Shadow," a disembodied voice told her.

"Where?" she asked sitting up straight in her chair.

"Outside the city, on the coast, I'm transmitting the co-ordinates to you," he informed her and the console beeped again to tell her she'd gotten the information. "We're getting together a search party; we should be at the coast in less than fifteen minutes."

"We'll meet you there Officer," she replied and cut of the transmission downloading the co-ordinates onto a data pad before she went in search of the others.

She found John and Marcus in Rodney's lab, telling them about the sighting before John sent her to find the others. Ten minutes later they were all standing in the cargo bay, armed and ready to go. Teyla and Elizabeth looked slightly nervous, they always did before they went after one of the Shadows and she couldn't blame them. It was terrifying enough for her but they actually had to fight the thing and they didn't even know how.

The water came close to his feet but receded again just before it touched them. Choosing to be safe rather than sorry Ronon took a few steps away from the ocean as the water came crashing back onto the shore again. They'd been searching for the last couple of hours but if the Shadow had been here then there was no sign of it now. Teyla was a few steps ahead of him, she'd been quiet since they'd left the Venture and Ronon had chosen to leave her to her thoughts, she was worried and he supposed she had good reason to be.

"Over here," someone shouted up ahead. Ronon looked over to see one of the officers that had been on the search with them since the beginning waving frantically. He and Teyla hurried over there, Cadman and Lorne getting there at the same time. "It went in there," the officer said pointing at the cave a few feet away.

"You are sure?" Teyla questioned nervously and for once she wasn't glared at for daring to speak.

"Damn sure," the officer replied. "Unless there's another Shadow running around down here all by itself."

"I hope not," Cadman commented as Elizabeth, Sheppard, Beckett and McKay came running up. "Shadow's in there."

"Great," Elizabeth replied sarcastically. "The Shadow has gone into the dark cave, that ought to make this so much easier."

"We're not going in there?" McKay questioned receiving a nod from Sheppard. "You can't be serious; you want us to go looking for a shadow in there, in a dark... scary cave?"

"That's right Rodney," Sheppard said sending him a look, a silent threat to shut up. Ronon looked at Teyla and Elizabeth, neither of them looked any happier with the situation than McKay did, Ronon couldn't say he liked it either. "Alright torches out, everyone stay close together." Sheppard ordered then turned to the officer. "Keep everyone outside the cave."

The officer nodded and the rest of them headed inside. Ronon took the torch from his belt, flicking it on as he entered the cave. The thin stream of light didn't do much to illuminate the cave even joined with the other lights. The further they got from the entrance the more light they lost and Ronon kept himself close to Teyla. There didn't seem to be anything in the cave, just large rocks scattered around everywhere.

"I don't think it's in here, maybe we should check somewhere else?" McKay suggested his voice not much more than whisper.

"Rodney, if you're not gonna shut up go wait outside," Sheppard replied and Ronon thought the scientist might actually be considering it.

"What was that?" McKay questioned spinning around quickly and shining his light around him but not seeing anything. "Something just moved, I'm telling you."

Then out of a dark corner stepped the Shadow. It looked almost identical to the last one they'd seen; a jagged human form and blank white slits for eyes. It seemed to look over the group before it focused its attention on Elizabeth and Teyla. The two women stepped closer together, knowing already that they could protect themselves from it only if they were together. The Shadow glided toward them, the movement more cloud like than they were used to seeing as it reached out toward them.

Ronon wanted to intervene, to do something, anything. Elizabeth and Teyla weren't much less helpless than the rest of them; they could only protect themselves so much. Neither woman had any idea how they were supposed to defeat the Shadows, they were flying blind and Ronon was left feeling completely useless just standing there.

Elizabeth grabbed hold of Teyla's hand pulling them closer together, the two of them standing their ground as the Shadow closed in. It was like it was reaching a hand out to them, the dark tendril of the shadow moving slowly toward Teyla's face. Ronon had to force himself to remain still, at least for now. The Shadow touched Teyla's skin and both of them recoiled from it, the shadow lunged at them this time, enveloping them both so quickly no one had any time to react. There was light then, dim at first but it gradually grew brighter. It was coming from Elizabeth and Teyla, wrapped up inside the cloud and the screech of agony that came from the Shadow was joined by cries from them.

"We gotta do something," Lorne shouted over the noise but really what could they do?

"Like what?" McKay questioned.

"I don't know... anything," Lorne replied his gaze going back to the two girls. The light was still growing brighter, almost blindingly bright as Lorne took several steps forward. The screeching got louder, the Shadow unwrapping itself from the two girls. Rays of light shot out from them at the Shadow, blasting straight through it in several places and with a final screech the shadow disintegrated.

The light disappeared, Teyla and Elizabeth falling to the ground unmoving and Ronon ran toward Teyla. He dropped down next to her, pulling her into his lap. She was still breathing, that had to be a good sign but she wasn't waking up. Beckett looked over Elizabeth and then Teyla, declaring that they were both alive but they needed to get them to a hospital quickly. Ronon wasted no time in picking Teyla up, waiting for Sheppard to lift Elizabeth into his arms before they hurried out of the cave.

Lorne had already run out of the cave ahead of them, an ambulance was parking on the road nearby, paramedics running toward the cave entrance with stretchers. Ronon reluctantly handed Teyla over to them, he wasn't keen on letting her go but he also new he couldn't do anything for her.

"We'll follow behind in the car," Sheppard stated as he watched the two women get rushed away.

Teyla felt like her head was about to explode as she woke up. She didn't recognise where she was though her eyes immediately landed on Ronon. He was slumped in the chair near her bed, snoring quietly with a frown on his face. She couldn't help the small smile at the sight of him. Her memories came rushing back to her and she suddenly sat up in the bed regretting it immediately. Her head started spinning and every part of her body screamed a painful protest at her for the sudden movement. The moan of pain that managed to escape was enough to wake Ronon who was on his feet by her side in an impressively small amount of time.

"Take it easy," he instructed her, that would have been helpful advice a minute ago. "Doctor says your body's gonna need a lot of time to recover, whatever you did took a lot out of you."

"Where's Elizabeth?" she asked and Ronon gestured to the other side of her bed. Elizabeth was out cold in the next bed, Sheppard's hand was holding hers, his head resting on the edge of her bed as he slept.

"She's in pretty much the same condition as you, the two of you had everyone worried for a while there," he told her.

"How long was I out?" she questioned.

"Two days."

"What about the Shadow, did we destroy it?" she asked finally getting around to asking about that.

"I'd say so," he replied and she bit her lip as she thought back, her memories were a blurry haze that she hoped would clear up with time. She remembered the Shadow touching her, remembered the pain it caused for both of them. She remembered it lunging at them bringing more pain but nothing compared to what came next. There was a feeling, like she could actually feel the energy building up in her body, moving through it and then pain like she'd never known as light blasted out in all directions. It was like the energy was being ripped out of her body, not caring what it had to go through to get there.

"Are you sure, it didn't just back off again?" she asked, if that hadn't killed it she didn't want to imagine what it would take to finish the thing off.

"Well it seemed pretty final to me, all that screeching, then it kind of disintegrated. If it can come back from that then I suggest we call it quits now," he told her only half joking and she felt a little better. It was dead, it had to be; there was no way it could have survived that. "There's been no other attacks and no sightings since and they were having at least one attack a day before."

Teyla nodded "Was anyone else hurt?" she asked, a few months ago she wouldn't have cared.

"No, the rest of the crew are back on the Venture though I gotta say they've spent more time here than there. McKay and Beckett took some samples from the cave and from the two of you, they went to go analyse them," Ronon replied.

"Have they found anything yet?" she asked feeling her headache getting worse and laying back down, letting her head sink into the pillow.

"Not that I know of," Ronon said concerned.

Teyla looked around her again. "Where are we anyway?"

"Local hospital, paramedics rushed you in here right after the encounter with the Shadow, it was closer than the Venture and you were both in pretty bad shape according to Beckett and the other doctors," he explained and she nodded her head again refusing to try and lift it from the pillow even if she did need to use the bathroom.

"And we have to do this how many more times?" she questioned thinking of the other Shadows that were out there, she was going to have to repeat this whole thing again with them.

"Seven," he replied and she groaned. Seven more times? That was just unfair.

"Doctor Beckett says we'll have to make sure you both get plenty of rest between encounters, give your bodies time to fully recover. If you ask me he was against you doing this at all but since you're the Electus and these things just keep killing people he kept that opinion to himself," Ronon told her and Teyla sank her head deeper into the pillow.

Why couldn't she ever get any good news?

TBC