Steph – Thanks for the review, I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Chapter 34

The others had returned to the ship an hour ago and they had left Vralis behind. John had flown them into space since, except for Elizabeth; he was the only completely sober person in the bunch. Marcus and Laura had stumbled onto the ship with a relatively though not completely sober Carson following closely behind.

They had all gone to their rooms to sleep off their drunkenness and he knew there would be headaches in the morning. With the ship on course and its crew asleep John headed to Elizabeth's room to have the talk he'd been putting off. He finally understood, or at least he thought he did, why Elizabeth was trying to make him mad at her and it was an issue he intended to resolve.

He knocked on the door and she answered within a few minutes, she didn't react when she saw him standing there so he simply walked past her into her room. It was dark, only the light from the lamps beside her bed and on the table beside the chair she used to read illuminated the room. "We need to talk," he stated and she followed him into the room. Instead of moving over to where he was standing she walked over to the window at the side of her room that looked out into space.

"I'm not going to leave you," he said after several moments of silence and when he saw her whole body tense he knew he'd been right. "I know that's why you keep starting arguments with me, why you keep trying to push me away."

"You don't know," Elizabeth whispered and had the room not been as silent as it was he wouldn't have heard her.

"I know that the two people you loved left you. Tenal was the closest thing you had to a father and he died and Teyla was like your sister and she's now working for your enemy, trying to kill you. I know you think that if you get too close to me I'll leave you as well," he told her as he took a few steps toward her until he was standing right behind her, barely an inch of space between them. "I'm not going anywhere," he whispered and she finally turned around to face him.

She wrapped her arms around his neck as she buried her face in his shoulder. His own arms moved around her automatically holding her tightly against him as if to prove to her he wasn't going to leave her. She clung to him with a need and desperation that made John's heart ache for her, she didn't deserve any of the crap she'd been through.

His own emotions were more obvious to him in that moment that they had ever been before. He had never been the type to let emotions make his decisions for him, he kept them relatively suppressed and hidden even from himself. She seemed to bring them out in him without even trying and the depth of what he felt for her scared him. He wasn't entirely ready to admit it to himself and he didn't think she was in a place where she was ready to hear it so he brushed those thoughts away.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly as she moved her face into his neck.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," he told her just as quietly.

"I was horrible to you," she protested.

"But I understand why," he said as he pulled back so he could see her face. She looked like she was about to offer further protest but John cut it off. He kissed her, softly at first and it didn't take her long to respond. It quickly became more passionate as Elizabeth sneaked her hand underneath his top. That was all the sign John needed of what she wanted and he manoeuvred them over to the bed.

The constant headache was becoming a great source of irritation for her now. Elizabeth took the pain killers Carson had given her, they never did any good but it never hurt to try. She stared out of the window in her bedroom; it had been almost two weeks since they'd last seen the cloud. There'd been no sign of it on sensors and it was making Elizabeth more nervous than if it was showing up, where the hell was it?

On the plus side, it wasn't attacking anyone so there had been no lives lost to it for two weeks now. She could still feel it in the back of her mind, its cold presence and of course the ever present headache it caused.

It was then that a thought struck her and it seemed so obvious now that she wondered why she hadn't thought of it before. She left her room heading immediately for the commotion she could hear in the kitchen. As she expected everyone was there as Carson cooked dinner which seemed to have become part of his job. The others were all sitting at the table arguing about something.

"I know why the cloud hasn't attacked," she stated and everyone stopped what they were doing to look at her.

"What?" Rodney finally asked.

"I know why the cloud seems to have disappeared," she said and everyone continued to watch her expectantly. "It doesn't know what to do."

"What do you mean it doesn't know what to do?" Rodney questioned "It's been doing a fine job until now."

"But it never had the Electus telling it to do two different things," she informed them "I can feel it in my head all the time, the more I tap into my powers the more it becomes settled in the back of my mind. It's like the connection is open all the time now but I don't think the cloud has the ability to use that connection when I'm so far away. Maybe I do though," she explained but they all still looked uncertain.

"Elizabeth, I don't think…" Rodney began and Elizabeth knew he was about to dismiss her idea but somehow she knew she was right.

"No, just listen. If the cloud is always there; if it's always in the back of my mind then it's possible that I've been controlling it subconsciously. That I've been sending it instructions not to attack other planets and the more I've learned to use my powers the more the cloud has been forced to listen. Now, it stands to reason that if I can do it so can Teyla. If she's unconsciously telling it to attack and I'm telling it to do the opposite then it wouldn't know which instruction to obey."

"Actually that kind of makes sense," Rodney admitted "In a strange, twisted kinda way."

Elizabeth sat down in the chair next to John as Rodney seemed to turn the idea over in his head. She was right, she didn't know how she knew but somehow she was sure that she was right. The cloud couldn't control her over a long distance but she could control the cloud and so could Teyla.

"So that's why we haven't seen or heard a thing of it for almost two weeks?" John questioned and Elizabeth nodded.

"I doubt it'll last though, the clouds learning to block us, that's why it getting harder to control it, not easier. As we learn so does the cloud, it doesn't want to be controlled not by us and not by the Vernai. Eventually it will learn to block the unconscious signals we're sending it and it'll continue to attack randomly," Elizabeth explained as John moved to rest his arm on the back of her chair.

"So, what does that mean, what do we do?" Marcus questioned and Elizabeth sighed and shook her head.

"I don't know, without Teyla it can't be destroyed and I'll never be able to fully control it. I'll keep learning and so will the cloud and Teyla, we'll probably be stuck in this never ending battle for the rest of our lives and then when we're gone, the cloud will continue on," Elizabeth stated solemnly, she'd had way too much time to think about all of this recently and what she came up with was a rather depressing outlook.

"Dinners ready," Carson stated breaking up the sombre moment and everyone moved to get their food.

"Did you think I wouldn't find out?" the Admiral questioned angrily unaware that Teyla was also in the room. She was standing to the side out of the way while the Admiral berated Ronon. They'd been sitting in his office talking about the cloud attacks or lack thereof when the call from the Admiral came in. Teyla had been about to leave Ronon in privacy but he'd simply told her to stand to the side where the Admiral couldn't see her. Part of her wished she'd just left because she really didn't want to listen to this.

She didn't even know how the Admiral had found out but the name 'Kolya' kept springing to mind. This was the first time she had ever seen the Admiral and she understood why the commanders feared him. She was sure he wanted to be there to tear Ronon up in person but she figured his anger was carrying through the screen plenty.

She was kind of glad this conversation was happening in his office and not on the bridge in full view of the crew. She stood there quietly and watched Ronon's face as he listened to the Admiral go on. His expression was unreadable, the stoic commander was there at the moment and she found herself hoping he didn't stay that way permanently. Not that it would make a difference to her, not if the Admiral did what Teyla knew he was going to do.

Ronon for his part decided that silence would be the best option right now, let the admiral yell at him and await the inevitable. He resisted the urge to glance at Teyla; it would only inform the Admiral that someone else was in the room. He was going to kill Kolya, he was absolutely positive it was him who was behind this. How the Commander had found out was a mystery, he'd only slept with Teyla twice in the time Kolya had been on board and both times they'd been careful to ensure they weren't caught.

Well that wasn't technically true, the first time they'd been far too careless but Ronon had made sure the next day that they hadn't been seen. The second time they'd been far more cautious and that had been a few days ago now. Kolya had given absolutely no indication that he knew or even suspected anything, normally the arrogant commander would have been rubbing it in their faces but he'd played this one well. He probably knew that Ronon would have killed him; he already got the impulse to kill Kolya whenever the commander was around. All he needed was a good enough reason.

"I assigned you to train the Electus not bed her," the Admiral continued. "I will not allow this to continue, your relationship with her could be detrimental to us and I will not see all our progress ruined because you two end up in a lovers spat."

The Admiral paused and both Ronon and Teyla knew what was coming next, it didn't make it any easier to hear.

"This relationship is to cease immediately and you are to hand over custody of Teyla Emmagan to Commander Kolya."

TBC