Falling Apart - Chapter 2

Author's Note: I really tried to get Teyla right in this fic, particularly in this chapter, as this is where I go furthest into her thought processes. I really hope it woked well... Heads up, here comes the sap! ;)

Teyla stepped out of the transporter, and headed down one of the hallways of Atlantis towards her chosen destination: one of the more secluded balconies of the many in the Ancient City.

This specific balcony was quite large, and had been discovered by Teyla and the rest of her team a few weeks ago. It was also located off one of the lower levels of the City, making it more isolated, and perfect for some solitude.

The recent mission had worn Teyla out in more ways than one. Dr. Beckett had declared her knock on the head to be nothing serious, as she herself had thought, but she was tired. Even more, she was trying to recover from the emotional trauma resulting from her recent experiences: after feeling more of a kinship than she liked with Ellia, seeing the girl become the very thing they both feared most had brought some very uncomfortable memories to the surface.

The shock of finding she had a biological connection, however slight, to the Wraith she so hated was still fresh in Teyla's mind. And as these feelings weren't something she was eager to confide in someone else, even someone she trusted, she had decided to go somewhere on her own to think them out.

Coming to the door she was looking for, she reached up absentmindedly to activate the controls, causing it to open.

She stopped midstep though, when, instead of the deserted scene she had been expecting, she saw a familiar figure standing there in the misty grey outside.

For a second, he didn't seem to notice her, and continued to stare motionlessly out to sea. Teyla was considering leaving her teammate to his brooding and going to find another balcony when the sound of the door seemed to belatedly sink in, and he whirled around, the guilt on his face no less obvious than the tears.

Teyla decided not to leave after all.

Rodney turned back again quickly, swiping an arm almost casually across his face as Teyla watched.

"Oh. Hi, Teyla." It was said in the light tone Teyla had come to recognise as an indication that Rodney was trying to hide some deep emotions that were running too near the surface.

Unsure if she was welcome, but wanting to help her friend, Teyla asked, "May I join you?"

"Uh, sure," he responded in a surprised, almost welcoming way. Then Rodney snorted derisively, and added, "If you want to."

Teyla nodded and walked over to the railing, hearing the door close behind her. "I do," she said simply.

Teyla waited a moment, letting the wind play over her, blowing through her hair. When Rodney said nothing, but continued to stand silently, teary eyes turned unseeingly out into the foggy distance, she decided to start the conversation.

Teyla reached out impulsively and placed her hand on her teammate's arm. "What is wrong?"

Rodney's head turned very slightly at the touch and the words, and for a split second his eyes met hers and she saw gratitude. Then it was gone again, replaced by something unreadable. He opened his mouth, seemingly about to answer - but then he just sighed instead.

"Rodney. Please tell me." She had only just started getting into the habit of calling him by his first name, and he appeared to like it. It would almost have seemed wrong to address him any less personally at this point. Really, Teyla had seen so much of Rodney McKay in the past year, she felt closer to him than she ever had to many of her own people whom she had known all her life. And she knew how vulnerable he was.

She now hoped that whatever was bothering him, he trusted her enough to let her help him, as she knew he trusted Colonel Sheppard.

"I just..." he started, with another unconscious swipe at his face. "I make so many mistakes..."

One usually so-precise hand came up clumsily to cover his eyes. Teyla wondered if it was to conceal his emotions from her, or to hide himself from the world.

She took a deep breath. He was trusting her by trying to answer her question, begging for help in the only way he ever would - indirectly. Now it was up to her to be worthy of that trust, and she hoped she could help him.

"Everyone makes mistakes, Rodney," she tried gently.

He cut in then: "But I - I've gotten people killed, a-and hurt..."

"As have I and Colonel Sheppard," she reminded him, then faltered as his eyes went strange at the mention of their CO. Was that what this was about? "We are at war," she reminded him.

Another sigh from her companion was the only response.

Teyla decided to try another tactic. "Colonel Sheppard will be fine, Rodney."

This made Rodney blink in surprise, then frown irritatedly. "How do you know?"

Teyla raised her eyebrows. "I do not... But I trust that he will be all right." She was shocked as this rather commonplace statement prompted Rodney to stare at her as if he'd seen a ghost.

"Rodney," she said, more insistently this time, "what is wrong?"

The scientist closed his eyes and bowed his head as if in pain. "He doesn't trust me any more." This time, Teyla waited for him to go on. "Not that I blame him," Rodney said wearily. "No one should for a second, but I... I..." He shook his head. "It hurts."

Teyla's eyes widened. She'd stumbled into much deeper waters than she'd expected. And she was frankly astounded that the usually obsessively-private Rodney McKay was almost inviting her into his personal sorrows.

She knew that he was telling her hoping for comfort - probably hoping to be convinced that he was wrong. Teyla was fairly sure she could do that. Yes, she knew about the rift that had grown between Rodney and nearly everyone else in Atlantis since the Arcturus incident. Rodney was oddly silent now and then, and Teyla had caught Sheppard glowering to himself for no reason several times. But she was absolutely positive that this wouldn't last. Rodney and the Colonel were like brothers, as everyone on the Base knew. It would take more than the Universe held to separate the two of them.

"Colonel Sheppard is still your friend," she told Rodney firmly.

Rodney's mood flashed into anger. "Yeah? Then why won't he talk to me, huh? Why'd he leave me behind when he went off to save the jolly peasants from a little Wraith girl gone bad? Why does he act like I'm so - so worthless?" His gaze, demanding and desperate, turned to meet her own.

Teyla had noticed that John Sheppard had been more... moody since the Siege of Atlantis. He wasn't the only one: many people had suffered, herself included, and were trying to come to terms with the deaths of so many friends and colleagues. And then there was Aiden... It made sense that the near-loss of another of his friends would drive Sheppard temporarily over the edge.

"Colonel Sheppard... has had a lot on his mind. As we all have, since the Siege."

"I know." A simple statement of fact.

"It is nothing to worry about," she coaxed.

At which point, Rodney sort of exploded.

"No, dammit, it's everything to worry about!" He slammed one hand into the railing with a force that made Teyla jump. "I - I almost killed him, and now what if... If he... I don't even trust myself any more, for God's sake, but this is my fault, as usual, and if Sheppard dies..." He ground to a halt. "He's the only person who ever really trusted me, and I've lost that... And now..." He gulped, eyes searching the blank grey sky for something. "I need to have the chance to earn that back."

Teyla took a moment to collect herself, trying to decide how best to respond. "First of all, Colonel Sheppard is not the only one who has trusted you." She looked up at him with a small smile, seeing the childlike, beseeching plea for comfort on his face. "I trust you even now."

Rodney's expression lightened at that, and with an almost startling sincerity, he replied, "Thank you."

She gave a full-blown smile in return. "And also, there is no reason to panic for the Colonel as of yet."

Rodney turned away, but his tone was more conversational now. "You heard about his arm?"

"That he was wounded, and then the injury had seemed to heal itself?" Rodney nodded slightly in confirmation. "Yes. But we do not know that this is anything to be alarmed about. He may be... fine." She moved to lean against the railing next to him.

"Yeah, I just -" Rodney gestured with one hand. "I don't know, it feels like something's wrong." He then started muttering something so low, Teyla could only make out the word "silly".

"Dr. Beckett will inform us of any developments," she said reassuringly. "In fact," she went on, "the Colonel and I are scheduled for a sparring match later today. Both you and Dr. Beckett will hear about it if Colonel Sheppard exhibits any unusual behaviour."

Rodney nodded. "Thanks."

"And I am sure that you have not lost his friendship." Rodney winced but didn't respond. Teyla continued, trying to get a positive reaction from her teammate. "It may be that you are... worrying over something very small. It is possible that -"

"He hit me."

"What?" Teyla blinked, thinking that this couldn't mean what she thought it did.

"Back on the planet. He hit me." He lifted a hand to rub the back of his head ruefully. "It hurt, too."

Teyla was more concerned now. "Why would he do that?"

Rodney's hands went up in a gesture of helpless confusion. "I don't know! That's part of what I've been trying to figure out..." He seemed to pull himself to a stop, getting back to the facts. "I was talking about how insane it was to be hunting a Wraith in a hundred-square-mile forest. I was afraid something would go wrong, but Sheppard... He - he said Dex could do it no matter how impossible it seemed."

Teyla was unable to keep her face from darkening at the mention of the Satedan, but Rodney didn't appear to notice.

"And I asked how, and Dex said something about having good hearing... And then he just - hit me and walked away," Rodney finished, looking very hurt.

Teyla took a deep breath, at a loss. "I do not understand why he did that."

"Neither do I. I mean, I know he's still mad at me, that makes sense, but this..." He rubbed the back of his head again as if he could still feel the sting of the blow, but then dropped his hand awkwardly, and laughed bitterly. "He's probably been wanting to do that for a long time."

"That is not true," Teyla hurried to point out. "You know that, Rodney."

He shrugged. "Maybe not before, but I don't think you've been getting the latest headlines on The Colonel Sheppard Story."

"Colonel Sheppard has not changed." Rodney didn't look sure. "He is your friend. Do you really believe that he is so angry with you for your mistakes that he will never forgive you?"

"I... Maybe." He met her attentive gaze, then turned away, blinking rapidly. "I don't know... I just - don't know! I can't account for the facts."

"I cannot explain it either," Teyla admitted with a sigh. "Perhaps... He is only worried."

A snort of blatant disbelief. "About what? Me!"

"It is possible," Teyla told him firmly.

"Well, I don't see why," Rodney said with conviction.

"I believe that we cannot understand what he is going through," Teyla put forth, thinking of the few glimpses she'd had of Sheppard's dark past.

"Yeah, well, that's nothing new for me," Rodney said, sounding more pathetic than sarcastic now. "I try to understand people, why they do what they do, and I think I do sometimes... And then, they do something that just doesn't make any sense." He hung his head. "And then I'm back where I started."

Teyla could understand this. She had known many people, and there had been instances where they had turned out to be far less than the friends she had thought they were. And perhaps that was really Rodney's problem now, she realised. Perhaps, with his history of loneliness, it was hard for him to truly believe that he finally had someone he could trust to stand by him through anything. And she felt a rush of sympathy with him that he had to be so frightened of losing everything he cared about in his life. That he couldn't help but believe that someday, sooner or later, everyone would desert him.

She reached out and took his unresisting hand in her own. "We are your friends, Rodney. No matter what happens, that will never change. More than friends, we are family. No mistakes can take that away."

She smiled up at him, putting as much conviction as she could into her words, striving to relay how much as she felt them. And Rodney looked down at her, his hand cold and limp in her own, his eyes saying as clearly as words how much he wanted to believe her, begging to be convinced.

So Teyla did the only thing she could: she pulled Rodney into a hug. He stiffened for a second, but as she continued to hold him, he relaxed, then returned the embrace tightly. Teyla felt his head fall onto her shoulder, and he let out a long, relieved sigh.

They stayed like that for a few moments, then Rodney loosened his hold, and backed off, wiping away more tears.

"Thanks. I... needed that," he told Teyla softly. He lifted a corner of his mouth in a sort of miserable but sincere attempt at a smile.

"You are welcome, Rodney. Remember what I said."

"I will." And Teyla knew he meant that with all his heart.

"Colonel Sheppard will return to normal, and until then..."

Rodney laughed, a little less sarcastically this time and scrubbed at his face with his hands. "We go crazy? Like everyone else?"

"No," she smiled. "We will be the sane ones."

Rodney quirked his eyebrows at her almost embarrassedly, then his eyes darted elsewhere. "You sure I can handle that?"

She squeezed his hand for a second. "Yes, I am sure."

She looked back out to sea then, watching the wind playing with the water, tossing it up into spray, changing the direction of the waves... Constantly altering the shades of grey in the dull world.

She turned to see Rodney's earnest grey gaze regarding her thoughtfully, and raised her eyebrows in a wordless question.

"How do you do it?" he asked. "You're always so - strong. No one would ever think there was anything you couldn't take and still stay so... calm. And I - I just... lose it."

"I am not as strong as I try to appear," Teyla found herself admitting, though it was the last thing she would have thought she would ever voluntarily tell someone. But she knew that Rodney would neither blame her, nor despise her for it. And she hoped it would help him. "And I believe," she continued, "that you are stronger than you think you are."

"I try to be," he told her, his face unusually open. "It's just, sometimes I can't take it any more, and..."

"We all have those times," she told him sadly.

"I know."

"That is why we need friends: to help us when we cannot help ourselves."

Rodney raised his head as if this had explained some deep question to him. "Yeah... I thought I'd lost that. I thought I was alone again."

"You are not," she assured him. "And you will never be as long as Colonel Sheppard or I are here."

"What if he dies?" The softly-voiced question took Teyla by surprise.

"We will not let that happen," she answered immediately. "He is our friend."

Rodney glanced over at her, and Teyla saw hope dawn in his eyes at her obvious conviction that what she said was true.

"Right," he answered with a weak grin.

"And now," Teyla said briskly, "I believe I will go inside for a short rest before I go to spar with the Colonel. And I suggest you go inside as well. It is rather cold out here."

Rodney blinked. "Hm. So it is. I hadn't noticed." He instinctively wrapped his arms around himself. "I think I will, uh, go in, actually." He looked down at himself, realising something. "My jacket's all damp."

Teyla smiled. This was more like the usual Rodney McKay.

"Good," she said, and placing her hands on his shoulders, she lowered her head in the embrace of her people. After a moment, she felt the gesture returned, then looked up to see Rodney throwing her a lopsided grin.

"So I'll, uh, see you later then, Teyla," he said.

"Yes," she smiled, resisting the urge to tell him to make sure he changed out of his damp clothing and got some sleep. She knew the latter was all but hopeless anyway.

For a second, Rodney looked like he wanted to say more as well, but then he just nodded to her and went inside.

Teyla stole one last glance over the railing at the ocean world outside, and noticed the clouds seemed to be clearing. Even as she watched, the waves brightened and took on a little more colour. Teyla smiled, hoping the same went for the lives of herself and her friends.

At least she had made Rodney happier. He had needed to be told that there was someone there for him should he ever feel alone or helpless. And, Teyla reminded herself, she needed to remember that, too.

Teyla left the chill balcony and the lightening ocean behind and walked inside. She shook her head, realising that she was thinking of Rodney as if he were some small child who had come to her for comfort from a bad dream in the night. Well, if he needed someone to take care of him, then she was happy to do so. She could do that without having to decide which she felt most like now: his friend, his sister, or his mother.

Teyla laughed at herself and her overprotectiveness, and went to her room for a nap, glad that that balcony hadn't been empty after all.

Whatever happened, she and her family would hold together through it all.

Author's Note: Right, one bit left - my mandatory infirmary scene. ;)