The Prophecy

Chapter 9

Teyla was resting on soft ground. Soft – soft meant Atlantis, Atlantis meant John. She had often woken up next to John on one of the soft mattresses. This time it was different. When she extended her hand, blindly reaching for the other body, she only felt pain at the moment and she felt that she was alone in bed. Confused, she tried to open her eyes to see where she was and what was going on, but she couldn't see clearly. A face appeared in her field of vision. She couldn't make out the face clearly, but she recognized Dr. Beckett's voice.

"Shh, don't try to move, Teyla. You are going to be fine. You just need to stay off your back for a while; you have some burns there that need to heal."

"I cannot see clearly." Teyla managed, already feeling the headache that had felled her before coming back again.

"That will hopefully clear up soon. Can you answer some questions for me Teyla? It is important for me to know what happened on Arona. But if you're too tired, it's okay," Dr. Beckett leaned down to her eye-level.

"How is John?"

"He is alive. But he is not doing very well. He's very sick, but I don't know what happened to him."

Teyla tried to sit up. Dr Beckett, seeing what she intended, gently put a hand on her shoulder, holding her down.

"Just stay down. Does your head hurt?"

She nodded, the very motion causing daggers of pain shooting down her neck.

"I can't sleep …I have to tell you what happened." Teyla was near frantic as she held him back by the sleeve of his lab coat, as he was already walking away to fetch her something against the headache. She couldn't fall as asleep from the pain medication. She had to tell Dr. Beckett what had happened, he needed to know so he could help John.

"It's okay, I won't give you something that will make you fall asleep." He assured her as he left her bedside.

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"That's about all I can tell you. It all happened very fast. We could easily overpower the guards in the city, but the weapons of the shuttle outgunned us. We were lucky that we could bring it down. But unfortunately not before the enemy could fire several blast while we were essentially sitting ducks." Lt. Ford almost winced as recounted the take to Dr. Weir.

"You are lucky that you got out of it as well as you did. It could have gone a lot worse."

"We have lost three people. Four more with severe burn injuries." Ford mentioned, his voice sombre "Did you hear anything about Major Sheppard?"

"Dr. Beckett said he'd stabilized him, but that he was still unconscious. He didn't know anything else when I talked to him earlier. He is waiting for Teyla to wake up. Hopefully she will be able to shed some light on what happened to them on Arona."

"We know the basic story. Interplanetary conflict, apparently some rebel or terrorist group saw an alliance with aliens as the final proof of their governments was conspiring against them or whatever they were accusing it of. They planned a coup and seemingly successfully overthrew the current administration on Arona and took control of the capital city."

"With the Aronans with have lost a very important ally, they were the most advanced people we have met so far."

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McKay had a pretty good idea of what had happened when all the bits of Ancient technology had suddenly turned on, combined with the events that had taken place in the gate room, as well as all over the station. But just because he had an idea what had happened, it wasn't necessarily a plausible idea, because he had no way of explaining how the 'what' had actually happened.

That was, he had no idea until he ran out of coffee. The coffee maker in the lab looked like it was in desperate need of new coffee and a cursory glance around revealed that none was present. Slightly peeved already, he made his way up to the mess hall. He had only planned to quickly grab a cup of coffee and then leave, but he spotted Lt. Ford sitting on one of the tables, his left arm in a cast, looking downright miserable. He had a bowl of what looked like soup standing in front of him, but wasn't eating.

Although he still tried not show it, McKay always stayed informed as to what the rest of his team members were up to when they were not on missions together. The current crisis had distracted him from tracking the progress of the rescue mission. Obviously they had returned, but judging by the look on Ford's face, it had not gone down well. Without asking he pulled up a chair and joined his team mate. An idea was staring to form in his head. If the rescue mission had succeeded, then he might have his explanation. Now he just had to verify his theory.

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The injection that Dr. Beckett gave her worked fast. Teyla could almost fell how her headache was pushed back. As the doctor had promised, she didn't feel more tired after the medication was administered. Trying to find a somewhat comfortable position, she went on to explain what had happened on the planet.

"I do no know exactly what happened to John. We were separated by our captors. They blindfolded us and took us somewhere. I couldn't see, but I could feel that I was in a small room with someone else with me." When Teyla noticed Dr. Beckett giving her a questioning look, she went on to explain.

"My people do not build houses like yours, I have grown up without walls, I can sense when they imprison me. The person who was with me …was unlike any alien I have ever met with. Only know it from stories." Her speech grew more fragmented as she went on and had to put more and more effort into tell the doctor what had happened.

"… I could feel it, it was… in my thoughts. I couldn't stop it. I tried, I really tried, tried to fight it… to fight it, but it pushed past me, controlling my thoughts …memories. …all the secrets, so sorry, I'm so sorry" She paused, exhausted from speaking for so long. "They know all I know." She admitted in shame. As a leader she had sworn never to tell the secrets of her people, no matter what means the enemy used to torture her. This enemy had used means that she had been powerless to resist.

"Rest now."

"Are you sure that John… that he is going to be all right? Some the Forefather… the legends, some of our oldest legends say …say that some of them also had the gift." Every word caused Teyla more effort. Fatigue and pain were ganging up on her.

"Don't worry; I'll do all I can for him." Beckett spoke the truth.

TBC