Chapter Twelve: Wraith Trustings
Caterreana stood before Colonel Carter, Mr. Woolsey, and Colonel Sheppard's team in the meeting room. Everyone stared at her while she glared at only one person, Colonel Sheppard; the fury that was in her eyes would be enough to melt Atlantis itself.
"So much for trust." I said to John, acid dripping from my lips as I said those words. "You promised me he wouldn't be harmed, that once we were in Atlantis we could talk, together!"
"You can't expect us to openly allow a Wraith to wander our halls even with a guar..." Mr. Woolsey begun to say but was stopped dead in his wordings when he caught Reana staring at him, the look of death blaring in her eyes.
"I'm a Wraith!" I cried out at him; I pointed to myself to indicate the meaning. "You trust me yet you won't trust my mate? How fucked up is that?!" I had strode forward and slammed my hands down on the table and glared hatefully at Woolsey.
"You're not a Wraith, your human." Sheppard put his two-cents worth in. "We trust someone who use to work with us more then we trust some Wraith."
"You owe that Wraith your life John; it's because of you that he is able to risk his life for the greater good." I snapped back at him. I opened up old wounds and just made some new ones. "We all want the Replicators gone from this galaxy, human and Wraith alike, Todd is willing to establish an alliance with his Hive and Atlantis so we can defeat them once and for all." I stepped away from the table and turned around to face the doors.
"Here's the point that your missing Reana, we're glad the Wraith are getting their asses kicked." Sheppard admitted the truth to her whole-heartedly and there was not an ounce of remorse when he said it.
"Weather you like it or not John, I am Wraith, part-human, part-Wraith, and I will be till I die, there is no going back and there is no changing the fact. Take it or leave it, but I am helping Todd defeat the Replicators." I told him defiantly, I head towards the doors that opened up for me but stopped to look over my right shoulder at John. "Besides, he is the closet thing to a father that Anomen has." With that said I left the room and headed down towards the cells, two guards close on my heels.
Everyone turned in their seats and looked at John, who was looking down at the table, a defiant expression on his face. John was battling two sides of himself right now, the arrogant side that didn't want to give a damn of what Reana said and the side that still loved her, even after everything they went through, that wanted to get up out of the chair and run after her; but John refused to give in.
"Sheppard…"
John looked up from giving the table the 'glare of doom' to see Ronon staring at him.
"I hate the Wraith as much as you do, but I don't hate Reana for what she is trying to do. If she believes that there is some good in this Wraith called Todd, then we got to trust her on it. I mean I like her, and I like the little tyke Anomen, and we got to trust her on this if we ever want to see either of them again." Ronon told him matter-of-factly, he got out of his chair and walked over to John and clapped him on the shoulders. "So Sheppard, are you man enough to go and face her?"
"I'm man enough!" John snapped, his ego now showing. Everyone could see that his pride was getting bruised.
Ronon was just a grinning at him. "Sure you are." And he calmly strode to the doors.
John took the bait and got out of his chair, his fast-paced walk matching Ronon's as the chase was on.
The rest of the crew that were still in the room were just a smirking at Ronon's technique, well, besides Woolsey.
"Is there something that I'm missing from this entire conversation?" Woolsey asked Sam.
Sam cleared her throat and looked at the other two team members that were in the room, they took the queue and left. And Sam began the long story to explain what was between John and Caterreana.
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The door that lead into Todd's cell opened and I went through with two guards on my heels, I told them to open the cell up so I could speak to Todd, no dice. So I told the guards to wait outside so I could speak to him alone, no dice yet again.
"You think being one of the top scientists around here; I would have some security clearance." I mumbled to Todd, aggravated at not being trusted.
Todd chuckled at that, he stood up from the bench and walked over to talk to me, careful as to not touch the bars. "You use to have clearance, before you joined up with your former mate." He reminded me, yet again.
"You like bringing that up just to annoy me don't you?" I asked him, glaring.
He shrugged his shoulders and smiled, which I found adorably cute. But that tad bit of happiness didn't last very long considering the circumstances of what brung me down here.
"I'm so sorry for this Todd; I tried to get them to understand why we're here and that they can trust you, but it didn't work; they're not letting you out." I told him sadly, looking down at my hands. My nails were chipped and my knuckles had bruises, I turned them over and looked at the slits on my palms then looked back up at Todd.
"I love you." I mouthed to him silently, smiling at him through the bars, my eyes were starting to water but I held the tears back.
Todd leaned closer to the bars, just inches away from getting shocked. "Sheppard will understand once we tell them what the Replicators are doing to eliminate the Wraith. They will help us Reana, it is the only way to ensure victory over the Replicators; we can't do this alone." He raised his hand up to touch her then stopped when he realized where he was.
As if on queue, the door behind me opened up and in come John and Ronon, John looked peeved and Ronon seemed to be grinning for some odd reason. I turned around fully to meet them.
"Come with me." John said as he reached out and grabbed my arm. "You can tell Ronon what's going on." He nodded his head at Todd as he dragged me out of the room, down the hallway, then another hallway, till we were officially alone.
"Ok death knight, what the hell is with you?!" I asked annoyed, yanking my arm out of his grip when he had finally stopped dragging me.
Now here is where spontaneousness and out-of-the-freaking-blue all come into one. John grabbed a hold of Caterreana's face and pulled her towards him and crushed his mouth against hers, Reana's eyes flew right open and she pressed her hands against so she could push him away, it didn't happen.
I had forgotten what John had tasted like, extra strong coffee and all dressed chips, two of my favourite treats. I couldn't help but taste him, taste the man that I once loved and I realized I still somewhat do, but only in a forbidden kind of way. I kissed him back till my knees started to give, till my guilty conscience kicked in and I was reminded of Todd, till we both needed air to breath and when we pulled apart we had to give ourselves a couple of minutes for our brains to come back to reality.
I was the one to speak, to give air to the questions that were plaguing both our minds. "John?"
John put his hands on his hips and paced the hallway. "That's what is going, every damn day for the last three and a half years, since I realized you were going to be coming with us. Since the moment I saw you at the SGC all packed and ready to go through the gate. So I decided to make your life miserable, I wanted to hate you for leaving me, hate you till you couldn't stand me and you would want to leave, but you didn't, you fought back." He told me, pouring out everything he had been bundling up since we got here.
"And it got worse!" He said as he stopped his pacing and stood in front of me. "When I saw how you had fallen for Michael, it got worse, even though we kept the truth from you because of your lifeist ways. You had fallen in love with a Wraith and I couldn't bring myself to tell you because I wanted to hate you, and then you found out and made yourself into this and it got even worse!" He raked his hands through his charcoal colored hair.
"It was after he had taken you from here and we found you on the planet, when I had thought you were dead that I realized that I still fucking loved you, I still love you Reana and I can't stand it that your with another Wraith, not to mention its one that I freaking know! I wanted you to give up on Michael after you realized that he wasn't going to let you find him, I wanted you to come back to Atlantis with your son and everything would return to normal." He stopped to give himself a moment to let everything he said to her sink in.
I just fell against the wall and closed my eyes; I raised my right hand to my forehead and sighed. "John... we can never be together again, too much has changed, in both our lives. I…I'm glad I did this, I wouldn't change anything, expect finding Michael, I would've left a tracking device on him so I could find him but I didn't and now I'm with someone who loves both me and my son, and Todd loves Anomen, I can tell just how Todd holds him. Anomen believes that Todd is his father and I will let that be till he is old enough to know." I told him, pushing away from the wall.
"But I want to be his father! Reana please, give up this Wraith stuff and come back to Atlantis, come back to us, to me." Sheppard pleaded, taking a hold of her shoulders, his face a mask of guilt, sadness, and unwanted love that she never seen on him before.
"I'm sorry John, I just don't feel that way about you, not like before." I told him sadly but honestly. I stepped out of his grasp and headed back to the cell.
Sheppard stood there a long while after she left, his emotions flying around him like a hurricane, unable to pick and choose which ones to let go or not to let go. It was when his fist hit the steel wall that he officially made up his mind.
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When I had gotten back to the cells I saw Ronon leaving and heading down another hallway, I entered and saw Todd sitting on the bench again.
"Todd?" I asked, coming up to the cell.
"They know, I don't know what they'll do now but at least they know." Todd informed her, standing up and walking over to her.
"Do you think we'll win?" I asked him.
"If we had help that is from other parties in this galaxy, maybe, but it is hard to say what the humans of Atlantis will do to combat their new enemy." Todd said, shrugging his shoulders. He tilted his head to the side and stared at me with a questionable look.
"What?" I asked, getting nervous as to why he was staring at me like that.
"You want to be human again don't you?" He asked; another question coming out-of-the-blue again.
The question surprised me a little bit and I didn't know how to answer. Biting my lower lip, I pondered the thought. I had become adjusted to my new Wraith life, and going back to being human didn't seem very interesting to me, not to mention that my son was half-human, half-Wraith, so even if I did go back to being human, my son wouldn't be expected in Earth's society.
"I don't think so." I answered Todd truthfully.
Todd smiled from that answer, showing off his row of pointed teeth.
"Space vampire." I teased, smiling. And Todd chuckled at that.
"A vampire your obviously smittened with." He teased right back, grinning.
I blushed and just smiled shyly, it was funny how I was acting like a school-girl in front of an alien, considering that we've been together for some time.
"I'll be back later Todd, till then." I said as I turned around and left the room.
Todd went back over to the bench and sat down, he begun to meditate as he waited for Caterreana to return. Or at least one of the two to return.