Gabriel left Weir's office, slipping out in the morning rush of control-room activity with a silent sigh. He had taken three days to make his decision. Things had turned out much better than he had planned. Once he had agreed to work with Beckett, Weir's attention had finally turned from him to her premier team. Carson was not demanding, easily accommodating Venner's schedule and whatever glitches came up in the rotation. He was guardedly enthusiastic about the work, yet unfailingly polite to the SF. Not once did Gabriel receive the impression that he was just a project, or a lab rat. He wrinkled his nose at the phrase.
Personally, Gabriel knew that the technology needed to replicate his – condition was the word Beckett had used – did not and could never exist. Mere mortality was never meant to recreate the Word of God. It kept them busy, however, and most importantly his story was not in question, which meant his cover was safe.
That day, the teams were scheduled for one of their routine forays into the city. Every so often, those living in Atlantis had the leisure to put aside 'gate travel and explore their new home. Gabriel welcomed these trips, because he craved knowledge about this new place. Thousands upon thousands of years on one planet meant intimate knowledge of all its nooks and crannies, ever-changing and vast as it was. The universe was open to him now, and for the first time in ages Gabriel again knew awe at the wonders God had created.
The expedition went without a hitch, yielding rooms and corridors, labs and something that looked to the untrained eye like a music library. It turned the hunter's thoughts to his own quarters for a moment, and his one personal effect. Jerking his thoughts to the here and now, Gabe completed the scouting mission, following his team back to the secured areas of the city.
When he walked past the infirmary, he discovered that something of much more import than a library had been found by Sheppard's team. Hours upon hours after the morning briefing, the premier team had uncovered something shocking – a survivor of the city, entombed in a stasis chamber. Speculation on who and what she might be was cut short when the elderly woman woke.
Gabriel loitered purposefully outside the room, listening carefully to the conversation within for several long moments. When he felt he knew enough, he returned to duty and the rumors floating through the halls of Atlantis.
It was when they left, for one of their many infernal meetings, that Gabriel approached the old woman in the Infirmary.
Word was, she was an Ancient who had been left behind. He smiled at that. This woman was completely human, just hobbled by age. Her eyes blinked open slowly, and she looked at him curiously. "Who are you?" Tiredness was her defining characteristic. Bent by the years, weariness seemed a disease that had lined her face and curled her body. Gabriel smiled gently at her. She was the only being he had ever encountered whose numerical age came anywhere close to his own. Yet she was still a child beside him.
"My name is Gabriel, ma'am," he said politely. His voice was low, but pitched to carry, and she heard him clearly. "How are you?"
She smiled, just a little. "I am tired. That's not so surprising. I am old." She saw the checkers board under his arm, and stared at it for a long time. Gabriel knew that Gabe Vanner should think she had become lost in memories. But when he moved, quietly and carefully, to leave, she coughed and said, "I am not that old."
He smiled. "Would you like a game of checkers, ma'am?"
She stared at him steadily. "I'd thought I'd forgotten how."
"Well, then I'll show you again," he replied equably. As he pulled up a chair and extended her bedside table, setting up the game, she eyed him carefully.
"Shouldn't you be doing something?" The words came from her slowly, but Gabriel had infinite patience.
"I'm on downtime," he replied easily. "And I'm trying to improve my game."
She accepted the answer, and the first move. It was a slow game, and made slower by the fact that Gabriel asked her about her life. She told him, but none of the horror that was of interest to the premier team, none of the information that was so desperately needed by Weir. Instead, she told him of her hopes and dreams, and the love for Simon that she still carried, deep in her heart. Her joy at having changed the future. "I'm so glad," she sighed with a creased smile. "I want to sleep."
He knew that she didn't mean that she needed a nap. "Soon," he promised comfortingly. She pushed a checker, and he lifted it for her, jumping his own pieces. A wry smile crossed his face.
"You really are awful at this game, boy," she told him, casting a shrewd look his way. "Or maybe you're just humoring an old woman."
"No, I really didn't see that move," Gabriel assured her, still frowning at the board. "But I am much better at chess." He was. Checkers was an impetuous game, a game of seizing the moment and risking all. Much like the Atlantis venture, and for many humans, much like life. Chess was strategy, of always being three moves ahead. It required planning, forward and lateral thinking. While Gabriel possessed the patience and tactical skill for chess, he had trouble understanding human impulsiveness. While situations might call for quick decisions, that merely meant that his mind sped up, calculating all possible avenues of choice. Every action he took, swift though it might be, was duly examined and weighed. He was horrible at checkers.
The offhand remark was rewarded with a laugh, slow and painful. When it degraded into a coughing fit, he handed her a tissue and began packing up the board. "I think that's enough for one day," he told her, watching her eyes begin to flutter closed. "I know when I'm beaten."
"Thank you," she whispered lowly.
"For what?" he gently asked, wanting to know the answer.
She smiled, eyes closed. "For listening to an old woman's foibles."
"No, thank you," Gabriel responded sincerely.
It surprised her enough to open her eyes, and stare at him. His hand, large and calloused and resting gently on hers, seemed to spread a warmth through her, bringing with it memories of energy and springtime.
"For what?" Dr. Weir was truly surprised.
His smile was beautiful, she realized. "For a game of checkers."
The next time Dr. Elizabeth Weir woke in the infirmary, it was to see her younger self nearby, with Sheppard hovering in the background. Beckett, McKay, Teyla – some were faces that she had known, had held close as she strived to save them. But she thrilled to know that she had also saved a young man who was terrible at checkers. He had reminded her, when at times she wondered if she had just done this to save herself, that every life was important; no matter how briefly it touched hers, or even if it never did at all. The certainty that they would prevail, accomplish wonderful things, gave her renewed strength. Opening her mouth, Elizabeth Weir began, slowly, to speak.
Gabriel, on the other hand, felt his calm slip towards melancholy as he slipped out of the infirmary, rounding the corner just as Sheppard and his team approached from the opposite direction. Acceptance of the fate of man made loss no easier. In his eyes, each life was precious, and the fading of the souls of humanity brought sorrow to his heart.
Early the next morning, Teyla found herself in the commissary. The older Dr. Weir had died peacefully, and her team had disbanded for now. She was sitting, eating food that did not particularly appeal, when a small commotion in one corner caught her attention.
"Come on," one grunt laughingly teased another. "I've seen you do everything to that guitar with the exception of playing it. Tuning, stringing, damn near babying it. Can you even play?"
"Pete's got you there, Gabe," said a third man. The one they were speaking to had dark hair in need of a cut, and light eyes.
"I guess I've been cornered," the man, Gabe, said mildly as he sat back.
The other two groaned. "Oh, don't start with that again," moaned Pete. He was shorter, blond-haired and green eyed. His features were familiar to Teyla. She remembered seeing his face focused on the wormhole every time she passed through it. He was one of the guards of the Stargate – which meant that the others most likely were as well. "You always say that . . ."
"Just before you manage to slip away to attend to something that can't wait," Dylan continued, picking up the sentence almost before Pete dropped it. He was shorter than the rest, with dark hair, eyes and skin. He leant forward on his elbows, nudging Pete.
The other man gave him a sideways glance before taking a breath. "Dylan and I both think -"
"It stays in my quarters for a reason," Gabe objected steadily. He raised a brow challengingly, and the fourth man, who had so far been silent, contradicted him almost gleefully.
"Not today." He spoke strangely, twisting his words differently than the others, and had obviously been waiting to say that for a long time. But Teyla was much more interested in the large object he ceremoniously pulled out from under the table, where it had been strategically out of Gabe's view.
Dismay was quickly wiped from Gabe's expression. "I should have known," he complained quietly. "It's 0700 and Hank's actually awake."
A snort of laughter came from the man who must be Dylan, as well as some people at a few other tables.
"Let me guess," Gabe continued dryly. "Our discoveries in the southeast quarter of the city yesterday gave you ideas?"
"Eh?" asked Dylan, mischievous eyes trained on his uncomfortable friend.
"Give us more credit than that, please," Pete informed him. Superiority was dripping from every syllable. "This has been a plan in motion for -"
"The month it took you to hack your way into my quarters?"
There was outright laughter at this, and even Teyla smiled at the other men's sheepish expressions.
"That," Hank drawled, "is besides the point." He extended the instrument across the table at Gabe. "Stop stalling. Play."
Gabe took the instrument, and when he shoved his chair back Teyla was not the only one who thought he was about to leave. "Is that an order from my team leader?" the man asked with an unruly smile.
"Yup," Hank answered shamelessly.
"Well then," Gabe murmured, his words nearly lost as he bent over the wooden box in his arms. Teyla stared at it curiously, noting its rounded form and the long stick that held the strings stretched across the gaping hole in the box's belly.
The man cradled the box in his arms, setting his fingers against the strings. With one hand, he strummed the strings, and the other moved up and down the stick, pressing. To Teyla's surprise, a tune came forth. It was cheerful and a few snickers sounded at the table next to her.
The joke was no clearer to the Athosian when Pete began to sing, loudly and discordantly. Teyla winced at the racket. "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, oh a beautiful day -"
Dylan lunged forward, clapping a hand over Pete's mouth and muffling the noise. Hank glowered.
"Be happy it wasn't, 'We All Live In A Yellow Submarine'," Gabriel told Hank snidely. Pete, still being determinedly gagged by Dylan, let out a snort.
Though the conversation was interesting, Teyla's food was gone and she left. The incident had vanished from her mind almost before she had departed from the commissary.
But she was reminded of it that night, while eating dinner with Sheppard and Ford. It was something Sheppard occasionally insisted on, and McKay, as usual, was late. There were a few tables pulled out of the way in a corner near the door, clearing a small, empty space. Every so often, over the noise of cutlery and conversation, a chord could be heard, and snatches of a song.
It was only when a young female scientist stepped up, and in a loud, certain voice, began to sing, that noise in the commissary died down. Her voice was strong and clear as she crooned the words, a sad song about spurned love and loss. The instrument came through clearly then, voice and melody floating liquidly over and around each other in a beautiful medley. The song's gradual end was lost to growing applause. After a moment, a more upbeat tune took its place, and feet began tapping around the commissary. A few of the less inhibited began to move to the beat, and any hope of seeing the musician was lost in the whirl of dancing legs.
McKay managed to make his way through the hubbub, plopping his tray of food down at the table with a stunned, affronted expression.
"Chill, Rodney," Sheppard advised with a half-smile.
"It's completely ridiculous," McKay huffed. He picked up his fork, and spoke around his first bite. "Bedlam."
"I do not understand," Teyla asked, her confusion evident.
"Some joker with a guitar -"
"Guitar?" She interrupted McKay, wondering at the word.
"It's an instrument," Ford supplied helpfully. "It makes music."
"Someone brought an instrument, and now they're kicking back, relaxing," Sheppard replied lazily. He seemed to be bobbing his head slightly in time with the tune.
"Is this not a good thing?" she questioned.
"It's annoying," McKay retorted, his mouth full.
"Don't listen to him," Sheppard instructed. He pointed with his fork to the group. "Everyone needs the opportunity to relax, and what better time than now? We're not under immediate attack, and things are under control for the moment."
"My people are not unfamiliar with such things," Teyla said after a moment more of listening.
The quick, jazzy tune sped up, rollicking and rolling, and more and more people left their chairs to join the dancers. With a snap and final series of chords, it came to a sharp stop, and the cheering echoed in the small room. Individuals spoke cheerfully to one another, and Teyla could see an aspect of these new people that she had rarely seen before. There were smiles on many faces, happy voices and people collapsed, breathless, into chairs to rest. A clamoring began for more, and when they were answered with a jaunty chord, another shout went up, quickly hushed.
In that moment of silence, the man behind the guitar seemed to think, and his demeanor changed completely. The few notes that floated gently out into the commissary were slow and beautiful, and the man repeated the refrain before, for the first time that night, he began to sing. It was a tune that seemed to be familiar to many. The words he spoke told a story of a new home found, an old one lost. His voice, as he murmured a tale of brothers who stood fast, through destruction and baptisms of fire, was beautiful. Low and untrained, he poured his soul into a song about new worlds and the pain of war. Long before the end, every other sound in the room had ceased. Each person listened breathlessly as this one man seemed to crystallize the spirit of Atlantis, and turn it to song. It was mournful and sad, yet not without hope, and Teyla glimpsed him for the first time, as someone moved out of her field of vision.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor was the man from that morning, whose name she did not remember. His dark head was bent low over the instrument, fingers caressing the strings as he held the guitar close to his body. The song finished, trailing off into silence, and he sat still for a moment, his eyes closed as he breathed.
Someone started the applause, and it rose into a deafening crescendo. At the sound, the man jerked up. He had clearly forgotten his audience, so absorbed was he in the sound, and he flushed.
The sound died, and they waited.
With a quick smile, his attention on the guitar, the man began a slow-starting song that soon enough had more people on their feet, dancing and letting the soul-striking moment fade into their hearts. Even McKay could not seem to find anything to complain about, returning to his food with a soft, contemplative noise.
Teyla waited, as the music wound down and the people trickled away, before she approached the man.
He had stopped his playing for the evening, laughingly shaking his hand out, but there was something strained in his eyes.
"Hello," she greeted him, and he turned to face her fully. The eyes that she hadn't been able to place before she now saw were very light brown. "That song you played -" she didn't know which one, and so hummed a little of what she remembered.
He nodded, and named it for her.
"It was lovely," she told him.
He smiled, shyly, but the strained expression remained buried in his eyes as he thanked her.
"I am Teyla Emmagan," she remembered, belatedly introducing herself.
He smiled at that, shaking her hand firmly. "Gabriel Venner. I know who you are, ma'am."
She frowned a little. "You do?"
He nodded. "You are the leader of your people, the Athosians. And you're on Sheppard's team."
She nodded, then. "I see."
He saluted her. "I really should be going, ma'am."
"My name is Teyla," she insisted gently.
"Yes, ma – uh, Teyla," he said, sheepishly. She shared a smile with him. "Goodnight."
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Next chapter will be markedly more action packed. As you can probably tell, I'm going systematically, episodically, through Season 1. Spoilers abound, so beware. I pretty much have an idea, and write a chapter.