Chapter Two
A long while after Teyla had settled things with McKay by holding her sticks to his neck, but before she became the Woman King of Sey, the entire team, through mistake and mishap, had found themselves stuck down in a miserable trap pit on yet another unfriendly world.
Dr. Weir hadn't yet noticed that they were late returning from their assignment. Ronon was hungry and ill-tempered. Colonel Sheppard seemed peevish for having made a mess of things. And McKay was complaining an awful lot about everything, until Teyla couldn't stand it anymore. Just as the man was about to open his mouth to bemoan some other thing, Teyla clamped her hand over his lips, put her face close to his and said, "I have never met anyone better than you at making a bad situation worse! If you have nothing constructive to contribute, then please refrain from speaking!"
This was not much of an insult, really. She could have thrown worse. It kept him quiet for a while, until Dr. Weir radioed and they explained themselves. A rescue party came to retrieve them a short while later.
Dr. McKay refused to speak to Teyla for several days.
The night before their next mission, Teyla came to the lab and watched McKay from the door for a few minutes. Then she knocked and he looked up, finally noticing her. With an uncertain wave, he let her into his sacred space.
Teyla had never spent much time alone with Dr. McKay. He didn't enjoy self-defense training as the Colonel and Ronon did. He ate in his lab more often than in the mess. She rarely saw him use the firing range. And, until this evening, she had never seen the inside of his lab.
"I am sorry to have hurt your feelings the other day," she said.
He fiddled with a round object that had colored wires coming out of it.
She tried again. "We were all tired and hungry. I should not have snapped at you."
He continued to fiddle and also to bend things around the orb with a small, blue-handled pliers. Teyla could tell that he was very upset by the way his hands moved, jerking the wires distractedly like that. For the first time she felt how deeply her words had bothered him.
"None of us would still be here were it not for you, Rodney," she said, trying out his first name to see if that had any effect.
Fiddle, fiddle. Bend, bend.
So Teyla gently grasped the pliers. He let her take them and lay them down. Then she took his hand in hers and he let her do that, as well, although he didn't seem very comfortable with it.
"You have saved this city and everyone in it many times. For that I will always be grateful. Please forgive me."
McKay didn't answer but he nodded and came very close to smiling. Teyla let go of his hand, said goodnight and left the lab.
Their next mission was to the soggy planet, Dorav, where he almost died and where she killed to save him.
…..
McKay thought about Teyla's heartfelt apology as the swaying cart carrying him to his execution rolled slowly toward its destination. The cart was pulled by a great creature resembling an ox, reined by a lone driver in front. McKay sat in the back with an iron collar around his neck, cuffs on his wrists and hobbled by ankle irons. They passed black-mud fields, where freeman and slaves toiled together, hoeing the soil, mulching spindly seedlings to help them grow. The slaves were distinguishable from the freemen by the heavy collars they wore chained to stone posts.
As the cart waddled past one of these fields, McKay heard his name being called from the distance. He peered out over the land and saw Ronon, neck collared and feet hobbled, waving to him. Another worker looked up and shouted as well. The Colonel. Sentries approached them, outraged that slaves would make any noise at all, let alone shout and wave at some passing vehicle. The Colonel stopped shouting when a sentry pulled at his collar chain, choking him; Ronon fought with several of the guards and received a blow to his head with an iron pipe, the Seyans' preferred weapon.
McKay rose up on his knees. He waved and waved and kept Ronon and the Colonel within his sight until the roadway dipped down away from the field and he couldn't see them any longer.
The driver glanced back at his passenger.
"You would be there now if you offered a strong back," he said. "Sey doesn't need wizards and professors."
McKay rolled his eyes but said nothing. The cart continued on its way for a very long time, listing left then right as the roadway tilted and yawed. The chains holding him kept McKay from falling off the back of the cart, but they didn't prevent him from sliding around, so he went this way and that unless he held on to the side.
Some of the field workers, ones who didn't have collars, dropped their tools and followed the cart as it slowly traversed the rutted road. As they passed villages and shops, others came abreast of the wagon and followed in silence, as well. These followers all had the same dower expressions, as if they, too, were marching to their deaths. By and by, a large crowd gathered, some beside the cart, some behind. There were children among them, and McKay thought it extremely distasteful that a mother or father would allow their child to see something like what was about to happen.
"Do you always get so many people out to witness an execution?" he asked the driver, genuinely curious.
"You are special," came the reply. "Many have heard of you."
McKay was halfway self-impressed by that.
They came at last to a flat area, one with burial mounds fitted side by side, unmarked but unmistakable. The driver jumped down and, taking a black iron key from around his neck, unlocked the chain tethering McKay's collar to the cart, and opened his cuffs and anklets, as well.
"Get out," he said, handing the physicist a crude shovel, which McKay took, eyeing it warily. "Dig for yourself," the Seyan said, before turning away and walking to a flat area, where he drew a rectangle in the dirt. "This is to be your grave and you will dig it for yourself."
The crowd stood by watching this without a sound. McKay held the shovel as if he'd never seen one before. He was beginning to shake, hard, and this was obviously annoying the driver, who pulled the collar around McKay's neck and made him approach the gravesite.
Not knowing what else to do, thinking that perhaps he could buy himself some time before the Colonel or Ronon came to save him, McKay began to dig very, very slowly.
…..
They had come to Sey in search of a medicinal plant, a small thing that had shown up in a marketplace elsewhere. Beckett had concluded that the leaves contained a chemical that might speed healing, so a team—Sheppard's team—had come through the stargate with the best of intentions.
The local residents and officials showed an exaggerated interest in Teyla. While unnerving, such focus wasn't particularly unusual. Women in battle dress were not typically as small as Teyla, nor did their personalities radiate as much warmth.
Details of the events were fuzzy in parts. The team was given food and water, obviously tainted with a drug of some sort. McKay remembered nothing after feeling himself fall to the ground and hands dragging him away from Sheppard and the rest.
He had come to his senses in the damp dungeon, where Teyla had struck him and then sent him away to die.