Teyla stood there, straight as a reed, as though rooted in place, and Stephen marveled not only that she was here, but that she appeared not to have aged a day in the intervening years. Yet there seemed something about her that marked her as mature beyond her appearance. Confidence and a stateliness in her bearing–reminiscent of that of her mother, Moraine. An even greater patience then the exceptional measure that he remembered. And a grave sadness overcome through perseverance, instilling greater wisdom, though at the cost of toughening a tender heart. All these things he understood in a handful of heartbeats, along with the certainty that her love for him remained true and evergreen.
Stephen felt barely able to breathe, "How is this possible?" And then she was hurrying to him, reaching one hand to his face, the other seeking to take his hand. Raising it to her lips to kiss. "Stephen…Beloved…my life…my heart's true home…" Those beautiful, old endearments, repeated now as though no real time or distance stood between them since she last breathed their sweetness upon his lips.
Selena was crying, and Wong had draped his arm around her shoulders, smiling as he hadn't in years and years. Stephen glanced at them for only a moment without really seeing them, then looked back to his woman. His greatest love. His soulmate—whose loss had left him feeling forever incomplete. He cupped her face in his tremoring hands, "Teyla?". She nodded up at him, her ever gentle tears wetting his skin, proving that she must be real. "Teyla…"
"Stephen. All my thought, all that I am, all these years, have been bent upon returning to you. To you and Selena." He was stroking his thumbs along her cheekbones, an old habit of affection, and she closed her eyes and hummed softly. "I know not how I survived so long without your touch to sustain me. 'Twas hope, against impossible odds, that saw me through, and…" She breathed out slowly, then fixed her eyes on his, "…and a gift you left with me, though you knew it not."
Oh, that lovely, archaic mode of speech; the softness of her voice and the cadence of her speech, which had always showed that English was not her native tongue; and the beauty of hearing her simply speak his name. Treasures that had lived only in his memory for fifteen years, come back to precious life now, before his very eyes. "Teyla," he repeated once more, then laid his forehead on hers, breathing her in. "I tried my damnedest to find you, honey. I'm so sorry I couldn't find the way. That I failed you."
"Never once have you failed me, Stephen Strange," she insisted, in that same tone that was the closest she had ever come to chiding him. "Some things remain beyond the purview of even your extraordinary powers. Sometimes," Teyla sighed, her voice filled with the purity of love and boundless mercy that had laid claim to his heart so long ago, "Sometimes the Universe tests us, refines us by trials, harrows our very Souls, so that we might learn and grow beyond one particular life or another. To guide us into fulfilling our destiny." She took his face in both hands, raising it so that she could study it carefully. "Oh, yes…I see this in your eyes, my love. And in every line upon your face."
Though he felt undeserving of such an easy absolution, Stephen accepted it, at least in part—for as things stood now, he doubted that he could ever forgive himself for giving up at all. For both Teyla's and Selena's sakes, he now realized that quest should have remained his primary one. Even amidst the ponderous obligations he had assumed in accepting the responsibilities of becoming the Sorcerer Supreme. "I'm not the same man I was then, Teyla," he cautioned her, the heat of shame rising in his cheeks not only for his failure to bring her home, but for the choices that his duties had forced him to make, and which sometimes boiled down to the narrow difference between bad and worse. "The things I've seen…the things I've had to do…"
"The things that you have suffered, Beloved," she reminded him. Tears hung upon her lashes—for surely she was reading his heart, his feelings, if not some whisper of his thoughts. Just as she had almost from their start—and not just courtesy of her empathetic gifts, but because of the depth of their bond.
"There may be things about me now that…that you will not recognize. or care for."
"Oh, Stephen." Despite her sympathetic tears, there dawned her pretty, heartfelt smile. The one he first remembered from a sunny morning in the compound courtyard, a few weeks after she had arrived as Kamar-Taj. He had complimented her on a charming bit of magic she had worked to amuse the younglings who lived and studied there. It was the first he had seen of Hadeethan magic, and she had fairly glowed at his unexpected praise. Teyla was wiser and far more experienced now than she had been then, but unlike Stephen, she remained her pure, essential self. "You must learn again to see yourself through my eyes. It will be my joy to remind you of this daily."
That had always been her way, well before he had ever realized he loved her. To insist he had become his best possible self and had more than made up for the sins of his past. And in doing so, she had made him aspire to be the man he saw reflected in her eyes. Stephen gave the slightest nod, his voice gone low as he meant it for Teyla's ears alone. "It will be my daily joy, my darling, to learn this once again. And any other lesson that you believe I need." He turned his face enough to kiss one of her palms, and then the other. But for the presence of Selena and Wong, he would have followed with a deeper, more abiding kiss; a kiss that would show Teyla that nothing in the years of their separation had changed the passion the she inspired him to.
"It's alright, Dad," Selena wisely prompted him, "You need to kiss her exactly like that. 'Cuz I don't remember you ever shying away like this when I was little…"
He flicked his eyes his daughter's way. and then back to her mother. "She's got that thing you do…" he explained with a quirk of his brow.
"I know, my love," she sighed, as her eyes dropped to his mouth, telegraphing her willingness to kiss ad be kissed at long last, "Although her sass is…absolutely you…"
"It is," he agreed with a soft laugh, tilting Teyla's chin up in the prelude to a kiss, savoring the gravity between them a moment more, "Though maybe we should bow to her wisdom…you know, just this once…"
"Just…this…once," she agreed as Stephen closed the narrow space between them, to finally kiss the breath from his woman's lungs, and taste the heaven he had believed was lost to him forever. Of all the kisses they had ever shared, it turned out to be the most satisfying yet.
"…I tried everything I could think of. Picturing the details with perfect clarity. The People's Citadel and its flagstone courtyard with the brightly colored festival carts. Your mother's little cottage and the garden behind it. The field of talat akeylum that you so love. Even your secret grove among the keyanna trees. And still nothing worked…" They had moved from Stephen's study to an airy sitting room adjacent to his quarters. Its eastern exposure allowed for an abundance of sunlight to stream through the wide wooden slats upon the windows, which had been thrown open to let in the fresh morning air.
Wong had sent for tea and fresh honey cakes—Stephen's favorite snack—though the cakes had gone untouched thus far, so immersed were Teyla and Stephen in filling in the gaps for one another, of their individual trials to find a way to bring her home. "…my best guess was that someone…or something…had blocked any kind of portal that was meant to connect Earth to Hadeeth…" Stephen left unsaid that if that had been the case, he would have believed it to be on attack himself, as one of Earth's staunchest defenders.
"I know, my love. I struggled the same way to create a gateway back to you." The distress in Teyla's voice matched the pained expression she wore. "Eight days had passed before my first effort to conjure a portal to Earth. But despite my many attempts, I remained unable to. I began to fear that somehow my magic had gone awry—but when my mother met the same results, I knew I was facing a much bigger problem…"
Stephen was nodding rapidly, all too familiar with that dawning fear. "Yes…yes, that's exactly how it was for me. Although there were few left in Kamar-Taj who had ever been to Hadeeth, I sought them out to have them try, and not one of them succeeded. It was…" he closed his eyes, the pain of that recollection nearly as fresh as when it happened, "…devastating."
From the moment they had come together in his study, the two had remained in constant physical contact of one sort or another. One of Teyla's hands had been resting lightly in one of his, and now she placed the other atop them and gave a gentle squeeze. "Even so, it was for me." They kept a brief silence, each caught for a moment in their painful memories, until Teyla took up the retelling. "Once I overcame my fear and panic, it occurred to me to try something simpler. Just to see if it were even possible. I attempted to portal from the city center to just outside the city gates—and was successful. So that I repeated the process to various locations across Hadeeth, both near and far, and never had a moment's difficulty. But even from those locations, Earth remained closed to me."
"Yes," he averred grimly, "I eventually reasoned that only the passage between Earth and Hadeeth was blocked. So that perhaps I could leap frog my way to you. I lost track of the scores and scores of worlds I portaled to, praying that I could reach Hadeeth from them, but the story was always the same. The way to your world was…inexplicably…barred. From wherever I tried." Stephen hung his head, filled with a renewed remorse at his ineffective efforts.
Teyla was shaking her head a vigorous 'no', drawing upon that core of steel that lived beneath her beguiling softness. "Stephen, I swear upon my soul, that even with your brilliance…your vast knowledge and experience…there was no magic that could have spared us this untimely separation," she remonstrated, the strength of her conviction clear in every word she uttered, "So please, my dearest love…please…do not blame yourself."
"How can you know this, honey?" He looked back to her, wanting to believe her offering, but unable to see the way.
Teyla smiled sadly, and in that way, answered his need so purely before she spoke, that something in his chest unclenched and his tears of shame became the beginning of relief. "Because through years of great trial and effort, I finally found the answer. And it had nothing to do with magic and mysticism." She laid her palm against his cheek, smoothing away his tears there. "Ironically, it was the thing my people had turned their back upon in an age long past."
She looked towards Selena, who gave her mother the same sort of sad but knowing smile, striking Stephen anew with all their many similarities. The quiet, little things about their daughter which had provided him solace all these years, and had given him the strength to move forward despite the daily heartache of his loss. It occurred to him that in the two days since Teyla's arrival, that mother and daughter must have spent much time together—and that as much as he had grieved throughout the years, it had to have been worse for Teyla, robbed of experiencing Selena's childhood, and only coming now to know her as a young woman.
"As Earth remained closed to me," Teyla continued, turned back to him, "I reasoned as you had—and hoped amid my growing desperation—that I might conjure a gateway to another world, and then from there, back to you. Which, of course, met with failure no matter how many times my mother and I tried. We concluded that leaving Hadeeth had become…impossible."
"So what changed, Teyla? How were you finally able to make it here?"
"It was either the mercy inherent in the eternal cycle of life—or simply a lucky chance when one of those responsible discovered they had created a far ranging disruption throughout dozens of solar systems, with Hadeeth at the center."
Stephen narrowed his eyes, intrigued by the latter possibility, "One of those responsible? Yet this wasn't a work of magic?"
"No," she confirmed, "Which is why I must stress once more, that it was insurmountable by any power available to you, Beloved."
"What was it then, my darling? Enlighten me, and put my doubts to rest for good."
Teyla raised her chin and sat straighter in her chair, and as she told her tale, her voice fell into the rhythm of a skilled story teller. As on the evening that they had walked together in a deserted garden and she had effortlessly enchanted him with the Hadeethan legend of the Sister-Moons. That same night when Stephen had finally realized his feelings for her had surpassed those of a mentor, and even of a man grateful for the healing magic she had worked for him. So many of our best memories, coming back to me, he thought, silently thanking whatever grace had finally granted them clemency. So many of our happiest times, coming to me now like fresh, clear water after years of thirsting in an endless desert.
"Stephen?" Teyla looked at him now as though she had heard his thoughts in full, her eyes soft with perpetual understanding.
"Please tell me, Beloved," he smiled, raising her hand to kiss her fingertips, "Tell me everything you can."
Her knowing smirk was as gentle as the first fairy kiss she'd granted him, before he even knew he loved her. "As you wish, Beloved." She resumed that familiar story-teller air and continued. "Haughty, heedless men of science, explorers from another world, had created a device which mimics the time distortion in the space adjacent to a black hole. In their hubris, they sought out a world—far from their own, of course—peopled with a race they deemed far less advanced, to experiment upon with their machine."
She turned to Selena and Wong, including them in her explanation, "They had no way to know that the Hadeethan people had decided long ago to pursue the spiritual instead of the scientific. That the meaning of life lays in the simplest of things. Love, family, friendship, compassion. Generosity of not only material things, but of the spirit." She looked back to Stephen, who remained rapt in her revelations. "They believed themselves superior, and therefore were certain they had the right to proceed with their vile plan."
"They created an artificial black hole," Stephen murmured, amazed.
"Not precisely so…but very close. And they set up a base on Enya to deploy this device from, and to observe the effects of the time distortion upon my world. They also created a sort of bubble around themselves, and around the moon itself, to shield them from the same effects. Thus, they were unaware for years that they had ensnared countless other worlds, Stephen," she exclaimed, "Worlds filled with other innocent, unknowing people!"
Stephen felt a leap of understanding. "The time distortion had Hadeeth out of whack with the natural flow of time. So that no portal could ever find a stable destination."
Teyla nodded, "Exactly so. We had no way to know, of course. Time felt 'normal' to us. Life went on in all ways, as though nothing extraordinary had happened. Except that over time, those who track the movement of the heavens noted that Enya's orbit had speed up significantly, moving through her cycle about three times faster than normal."
"So, how did you eventually discover this…anomaly of time?"
"A few weeks ago, a team of those scientists set up a cloaked encampment on the outskirts of the city. To observe us up close—after doing so for fifteen Earth years, from their base on the moon. Only then did one of them come to realize how seriously they had affected the course of Hadeethan life."
"How, Teyla? How so?" Stephen's mouth had gone dry with a sudden inkling. It would explain why she looked to have barely aged at all.
She looked to Selena. "It is time, toura lela* . Would you bring the boy to us now?"
Selena had already taken to her feet, and had sped from the room without further prompting.
"Stephen. My Love. My Life…" Teyla had ever worn her heart upon her sleeve, and now was no exception. His heart had started to race with anticipation, remembering her cryptic allusion of earlier. A gift you left with me, though you knew it not.
"Time slowed down for Hadeeth, didn't it, Teyla," he barely managed, "How much…how much so?"
She drew a deep sigh, and lovingly soothed her fingers across his brow. "The one scientist who finally understood that we deserved far better than that experiment had played upon us…she revealed that my world had experienced time at a rate of one-third the rest of the Universe…"
"Five years." Stephen swallowed hard, as he heard Selena speaking brightly just outside the doorway. A child's voice brightly piped up in reply, with a slight lisp on the first letter of her name. Impossible! Yet in his bones, he had already accepted it as truth.
Teyla had stood up-breaking physical contact with him for the first time since they had been reunited-and had moved to the doorway, extending her hand as Selena rounded the door jamb. She spoke briefly in Hadeethan-surely to put the boy at ease-and Stephen heard his own name as the little one placed his hand inside his mother's.
He was pale-skinned, like Teyla, with a shock of thick, black hair. Like Selena's had been at the same age. And very like his own, though it was silvered now with age. The child gazed bravely and wide-eyed upon the stranger his mother was walking him to. With eyes of such pale, crystal blue, there could be no question as to his sire.
Stephen didn't wait a moment more; he dropped to one knee as the boy approached him fearlessly, his own blue eyes riveted upon his son. "He is named for you, Beloved," she told him, "And he has been my comfort and salvation. Just as I know Selena has been the same for you." Teyla's voice finally broke when she urged their son forward to take his father's offered hand. "I would it were you could have known him sooner. But rest assured, I have raised him up to do you proud."
*toura lela - Hadeethan term of endearment for a child, meaning 'little bird'