NOTES: For the 'Stages Of Love' challenge on LiveJournal. The prompt is 'romance'.
A Definition Of Fun
Teyla later admitted to herself that she thought the Colonel had been joking.
When she saw the 'surfboards' he'd shipped back from Earth, she was even more convinced that was the case.
"And this will be fun?"
John gave her a reproving look for her scepticism. "Trust me, Teyla. It'll be fun."
She didn't ask how he managed to gain the afternoon off from his duties, nor how he managed to requisition a puddlejumper from those in the jumper bay. She chose not to question his sanity, even when he handed her the fragments of cloth that were her 'swimming suit', and grinned at her as he picked up his board and told her he'd meet her out on the sand.
It turned out that surfing was fun.
There was something about the experience of sun, sand, wind, and water that changed what should have been a frustrating afternoon of missed waves, unbalanced falls, and crashed waves into something very enjoyable.
Or perhaps it was simply the way she saw John relax without the tensions and pressures of Atlantis on his shoulders.
He so rarely let all his concerns go.
"You can't master surfing in a day, Teyla," he said, only half-teasing when she turned to go back into the surf in the late afternoon.
Teyla pulled back a strand of hair, aware of the salt water across her skin and the sun's warm rays, of the way his gaze lingered on her face and the way his hair would not sit flat. "I do not expect to," she said, smiling back at him as they stood thigh-deep in the surf. "But there is time before we are to return to the city."
John shook his head, but smilingly. "I've created a monster."
She grinned at his dismay, climbed on her board and began paddling back out to where the waves broke mist-white across the glassy, green water. There was something elemental in this activity, more chancy than her staves where she was fighting against an opponent whose moves could be seen, whose skills could be measured.
No-one could predict the sea.
And when she saw the wave swell and paddled to catch it as it rose, carrying her with it, she felt her lips curve in a triumphant laugh as she balanced on her surfboard, wobbling a little, but retaining her balance all the way to the shore where John stood grinning.
Teyla scrambled off the board in the shallows, laughing for the pure pleasure and delight of the afternoon, and stumbled in the knee-high wavelets. John caught her before she fell, warm and close and male in all the ways she had been careful not to notice once she realised his charm was not a conscious thing.
She did not intend to kiss him, any more, she suspected, than he had intended to kiss her. But mouth met mouth, eager and salty in the hot afternoon sun and the cool wash of the waves, and his warm hand stroked down her bare back as her damp fingers cooled the flesh above the waistband of his 'board shorts'.
Later, when Elizabeth asked how the surfing lessons went, Teyla did not flush and merely answered, "They were...fun."
- fin -
NOTES: The next challenge prompt is 'passion' - unfortunately, being rather risque, it can't be posted at this archive. Check out my LJ ('tielan') for the story!