By Association

AN: Okay, this is weird. But this was really a self made challenge to do something in first person from someone who doesn't regularly turn up in fanfiction, thinking about something they wouldn't normally be thinking about. And this turned up on paper. I should also pont out that I visited the Czech Republic last year on holiday, and Praque is great place to see, but, a warning, people outside of the capitalthere tend not to have English menus. You'll have to get by on German. ;)

Disclaimer: Radek Zelanka and Teyla Emmagan are not mine. The encyclopaedia, however, is. Seriousely. I bought it while I was on holiday there as a sort of momento. It's great. All in Czech, with big glossy colour photos. No Czech to Athosian notes in the back though, unfortunately.

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She's an extraordinary woman. Not that that's surprising.

There is an innocence and energy about Teyla which I discovered on my first few days of working with her. She came to the labs, curious as a cat. She bombarded my scientists with questions until she drove them half mad, but they tolerated it. They were flattered. We all were. For many, it was the first time a beautiful woman had paid us any attention.

I lent her a picture encyclopaedia which I had brought with me from Earth. Of course, it was in Czech, which she couldn't read. She couldn't even read English, though she pestered Rodney until he taught her the basics. But she liked the photographs. She liked best the pictures of the many cities we have on Earth. I think she now knows every capital's name by heart. I told her as much I could about Prague. I went to university there, and it remains my favourite place in the world. She listened to everything, and I know she still remembers it. Her mind is like a sponge. I told her of our Jewish synagogues and cemeteries, of our many churches and museums. I told her a little of our history, and the terrible things that lurk in the Republic's past.

As a result, Teyla now knows most of the Czech alphabet, and a few words and phrases. It was impossible to express what I was saying properly to her without resorting to my mother tongue, but she learnt very quickly. I have no doubt that she would be a scientist had her society not been crippled so terribly by the Wraith. Though I find it hard to picture her as what would be referred to in English as a geek.

She no longer visit our laboratories as often as she did in the early days, which is a lamentable thing. We miss her, for all her constant questions might have killed us. Her devotion to Dr Weir's mission here is admirable, but now leaves her with little time to see us. She is also teaching Major Sheppard a fighting style native to Athos, which is taking up a great deal of her time (I have seen them sparring, and am very glad I am not in the Major's shoes). But she will still come down on occasion.

I have told her to keep my encyclopaedia. Though I ask for it back every time I become sick for my home, I always return it to her. I know that she still looks at it regularly; it sits on her bedside table, and it's pages are never dusty when I need to look at it once more.

We have gotten into the habit or writing notes to each other in the blank back pages. They are silly, frivolous things, which started when I wrote that she might keep the book, and left it in her quarters. I felt embarrassed at giving it to her face to face.

The first time she gave it back to me, there was another note in it, in the Athosian alphabet. Curious, I set about translating the text, which took me several days. I didn't want to simply ask one of the in-residence Athosians, for that felt like cheating. I worked alone, from scratch, until eventually discovering that what she had written was something along the lines of 'Let us share it'.

So we do.

She still writes to me in Athosian, and I to her in Czech. It has become a game, and the more pointless the message at the end of it, the better. I'll give her a limerick. She'll leave me something somewhat confusing about her imaginary friends. We have almost filled the back pages.

Should I ever leave here, there will be a difficult decision to be made as to who keeps the book. Teyla may insist I take it. But, on some level, I do not think I could bare the idea of her being without it. Our association is a strange and unusual thing, but the encyclopaedia stands as a symbol of it and if I were to take it from her, all recollection of that association might be lost.

Still, as I turn the pages myself, (for I have been feeling sick for home again and was forced to make that trip to her quarters and ask for it back,) I know where she has been looking. The book falls open on my knees, automatically turning to a two-page spread, aerial photograph of Tokyo. If I lean down, I think I may be able to smell her on the paper.

Turning to the back pages I find the new note, in Teyla's neat, angular script. I frown. The game is becoming easier, as we become more and more familiar with each other's alphabets. I may even be able to crack this without looking at the translation codes I have written down somewhere.

For there is something light living inside of my head, and it's name is Radek.

I suspect that is a compliment.