A/N: Apologies for the long period between updates. Blame the Yahoo Group SGAHC. They made me write a challenge fic! Honest! Gun to my head and everything! Okay... maybe not. But if you're bored, you could read that too. And look - two chapters!
The Puppet Master
Chapter Twenty Five - Duck Girl
The stick made a whistling noise as it passed cleanly over Teyla's head. It arched a long curve through the sunlight, before coming back on itself to collide with her shoulder, a firm knock pulled back from becoming a full blow. She moved her right foot back to take the weight, balanced on her heel and spun, lifting her left thigh and straightening her leg so her ankle connected with Sheppard's hip. He staggered, dipping his chest forward then bringing himself up, raising his left hand and casting it towards her. Easily blocking the blow, she turned, sweeping her right hand around and knocking him neatly in the stomach. Winded, he tripped backwards and fell to the floor with a thud.
"This," he wheezed, "is where you tell me I've not been practising."
"This is not a fair contest," she told him, offering him a hand up. "Your concern for Doctor McKay is distracting you from this match."
He tugged on her arm as he rose to his feet, free hand massaging his stomach in exaggerated theatrics. "You're concerned too, but I'm the one needing new internal organs."
She eyed his 'wound' sceptically. "Perhaps I was wrong when I told Halling you were a fine warrior."
Sheppard lifted his head and grinned at her. "Really?"
Men, Teyla thought, were always boys when it came to their egos, no matter what their planet of origin. She decided to ignore him. "I find concentrating on my environment leads other thoughts to become clearer."
"Fine warrior, huh?"
She muttered an Athosian curse beneath her breath, turning her back on him, and moving towards her kit bag. "You are different, Major. You fight to avoid thinking. It is evidently not working."
He moved towards his own bag and, she noticed, with pride, carefully wrapped his sticks in folds of a native cloth she had presented him with some weeks previously.
"I have great faith in Doctor McKay," she told him, watching him linger over the cloth. "He will survive this."
He turned, and dropped onto the shelf beside his bag, resting his hands on his knees and looking up at her. "You sound certain."
"Because I am." Shifting her own bag, Teyla took up a seat beside him, resting her back against the wall and taking pleasure from the feel of cold metal against her skin.
"You always sound certain." He craned his neck sideways to look at her. "You make choices and you never seem to question them. You just, know."
"No," she replied, honestly. "But I have hope, and faith. And," she added, tapping his knee with one of her sticks, "I am rarely proved wrong."
He raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
"It is a truth amongst my people," she told him, trying to sound grave, and unable to stop herself from smiling.
He returned her smile, then took a deep breath and stood up. "That's good to know." He shouldered his bag, then turned and waited for her to do the same. "So," he continued, conversationally, as they walked towards the doors, "what other traits do your people have that I don't know about?"
She considered him for a long moment, then leant forward and whispered conspiratorially into his ear: "Webbed feet."
He pulled a face, taking a step back to assess her with wide eyes. "No way. I don't believe you."
"Ah," she teased, gently, leaving him stood in the corridor looking slack-mouthed at her, "but how can you prove I am lying?"
