Chapter Nine
The Wraith threw them into the small cell, Ford fell hard against the floor, Teyla landing next to him.
Ford stood up again instantly and ran back to the entrance, trying to get back through it before it closed over, he didn't quite make it.
"Damnit!" he exclaimed, then slowly turned around to face Teyla. "Welcome to cell number two…"
She smiled slightly as she sat up, although he hadn't intended the comment as a joke of any kind. He began walking slowly around the cell, this one much smaller than their previous.
"Aiden…" Teyla said.
He stopped in his tracks and looked at her. "You're ready to give up! We haven't even tried to escape…"
"No has ever escaped…" she said.
He looked at her for a moment. She was afraid, more afraid than he had ever seen her. Although she didn't show it in her stance, her eyes gave her away. Above that the tone of her voice was shaky, quiet…fearful.
"Teyla…I know this is hard for you…" Ford said.
"They have taken generations of my people Aiden, I have been born only as food to serve them…how do you think I feel? Standing here in their most feared planet? To be used for experiments by they?" Teyla said.
"Which is exactly why we have to escape…" Ford said. "You have to get out of here…"
"So do you," she replied, softly.
He sighed and continued looking at the wall for an escape. He knew he had to get Teyla out of there, seeing her all afraid was scaring him. She was the leader of her people, she was strong and didn't give in, yet there she was before him, afraid and willing to just let them take over. He turned back around and faced her.
"What if they come for you? Wanting information?" he asked.
"I will not give it," she replied, some of her strength coming back. "I would die before giving them any sort of information…"
"Then we have to escape…" Ford said.
She looked at him for a moment and then nodded. "If it is possible…"
"Anything is possible," he replied, going back to searching the wall.
His mind was not entirely on it, he was worried about her, there was something more behind the reason that she was so afraid – she had been captured by the Wraith before but he was sure she had not acted like this…
Something silver caught his eye.
He bent down and looked at it. It was a small knife someone had left there. And along with it was the beginnings of carving into the wall.
"Here…" he said.
Teyla came over and knelt next to him.
"Someone left behind a present…" he said, smiling slightly at her.
She smiled back and he began chipping away at the carving already there…
Elizabeth fell onto her bed, surprised that she hadn't fallen into a complete heap earlier. Now that the imminent threat had past she could barely keep her eyes open. Rodney had contacted the alpha site and called them all home, they were coming through as they spoke. She had ordered Rodney and Carson to sleep as well but Carson had thrown it back at her with a medical order.
It hadn't been till that moment that she'd realised exactly how tired she had been.
She kicked her shows off using her feet, not wanting to sit up again to do so, and crawled under the blankets still clothed in her uniform. She didn't care at that moment.
But she found that she couldn't sleep…there was still so much nagging at her mind. Ford and Teyla were still missing, so many had been killed, were there still people out there they hadn't found? What had happened to John?
She knew it was him that had gotten rid of the Wraith on Atlantis.
"Elizabeth hold on, just for a couple more minutes…"
It had been his voice that had spoken to her…inside of her, before the Wraith had disappeared. She felt tears stinging at the back of her eyes again, she was so tired and it was easy to cry, but she didn't want to, she'd had enough crying, it wasn't like her.
For a moment she wished she were back on Earth, back with her dog and her house, even for a moment wished she were with Simon. There she didn't have problems like this, didn't have to worry about her people dying, about aliens attacking her home.
But thinking about it that wasn't her home anymore…this was her home. Here with the people of Atlantis. They'd become a community, and a great one at that. For the most part they got along, and even when they didn't they managed to live peacefully with each other.
She felt as though she had let them down, that she wasn't enough of a leader. So many were gone…
Her vision had gone blurry. She blinked away the water and continued staring at her door, hoping in some part of her that at any moment he would appear, would walk through the door and tell her it had all been a horrible, horrible dream. And then he would hold her and tell her everything was OK, that no one had died, that the Wraith weren't coming…
"I want you to be safe Elizabeth…and I want you to be happy."
She closed her eyes now, seeing the memory of him smiling at her. He'd always been there for her, from the beginning. Sure they'd had their disagreements, but she'd always known he was there if she'd needed him. She wished she could go back now, tell him how thankful she was for that, even if it were only as a friend…
She knew now that he meant a lot more to her than that. She wasn't even sure when that had happened, but it had, and when he'd run up that staircase so many hours before it had hit home to her. She relied on him, a lot more than she had even realised, a lot more than she should need to, but she did, and somehow that reliance, that friendship, had turned to so much more when she'd seen it walk out of her life…
She opened her eyes again, staring straight ahead at her door.
She'd lost Simon and now she'd lost John…at that moment it was too much, she needed someone to be there, to comfort her.
She realised she didn't even know that much about John. She knew he was someone who would do anything for those he served with, someone loyal and friendly, who stood up for what he believed in, he liked football and ferries wheels, but she didn't know anything about his past, why he had joined the military, if he even had family of any kind back on Earth…
She knew there was more to John Sheppard than she had ever known, and she also knew that chance to learn those things had been taken from her…
"Sleep Elizabeth," she said to herself, closing her eyes.
Clearing her mind she fell asleep almost instantly, but she dreamed of death and destruction, of people dying and of Earth being attacked by the Wraith…
She woke a few hours later and lay with her eyes open, staring at the ceiling, afraid to go back to sleep but just as afraid to stay awake…