Thank you to everyone who has reviewed and commented on the first two chapters, I really appreciate your support.
Chapter 3: A strange reality.
She stood and stared at the old man in front of her, although he was probably only in his mid to late fifties, he still seemed old to her. She took a few minutes to study his weathered face and she definitely didn't like what she saw.
Her mind was racing at a million miles an hour, but one thing she knew for sure was, this wasn't her John. He was back in the jumper with a fever due to his broken arm, and she knew that she really needed to get back to him right away, so she didn't have time to talk to this stranger. There was a haunted look in his eyes and it was almost as if he'd seen a ghost when he had laid eyes on her. Before she took off running, she noticed that the bones in his left arm were slightly bent as it hung by his side. This freaked her out even more because that was the same arm that her John had broken in the jumper crash.
"I am sorry but I have to go," she told the stranger before turning around and running towards the jumper.
She had to see her John now as there was still so much that she needed to tell him, and she feared that if she didn't do it now she never would.
The stranger seemed to be calling out to her as she ran down the well-worn path and it was obvious to her that he'd used the path many times to get to the river. There was no way she was going to slow down though because if that man was an older version of John Sheppard, her addled brain just couldn't come to terms with the implications of that reality.
It wasn't until she reached the jumper that she realised that she had dropped her water container before she had started running so at some point she would have to go and visit the stranger again. Perhaps when she did she may find the time to talk to him, but not before she knew that her John was alright.
When she approached the jumper she was surprised to find that the back hatch was open and John was gone. Her anxiety increased exponentially as she started to run around the jumper looking for him. Could it be that the man she had seen at the wooden cabin was in fact her John and he had somehow aged dramatically in the last hour?
The thought didn't bear thinking about so she increased the intensity of her search, "John!" She yelled as her feeling of dread intensified.
She headed into the woods behind the jumper as she couldn't see him anywhere in the clearing. When she finally came upon him a few minutes later she was shocked by what she saw, he appeared to be sobbing over a small tombstone. She walked closer and was horrified that the name on the headstone read, 'Teyla Emmagan-Sheppard' and the date of her death was fifty years from now. Next to the gravestone was another tiny headstone it had the name 'Patrick John Sheppard 'on it and the date was the same as it was on the other headstone. The only conclusion was that they had somehow time travelled, but what she couldn't come to grips with was, why was there an old man that looked like John and why was she dead? Or at least this version of her was.
Things were becoming extremely strange and a shiver ran down her spine. She knew at some point she would have to work out what was going on, but for now, John needed her. She knelt beside him and put her arm around his shoulders, "John do not worry I am here and I am very much alive."
Instantly she felt the heat radiating off his skin and the shaking of his body so she pulled him closer and buried her head in his hair. They stayed like that for a few minutes before John looked up at her with tears streaming down his face.
"Teyla is that really you, or am I hallucinating?"
"Yes, John I am really here. I can't explain what is going on but I know someone who can."
He pulled away from her and she had a chance to get a good look at him, and he didn't look good. There was sweat beading on his brow and his face was as white as a sheet. There were pain lines around his eyes and she suspected that he'd been sick again, by the smell of his clothing.
"John we need to head back to the jumper and I need to give you another dose of antibiotics and shot of morphine."
John nodded and allowed her to help him to his feet, she then put her arm around his shoulders and then they slowly walked back to the jumper together. It took longer than it should have, but she knew that John was in pain and extremely unwell, but once he was back in the jumper she would go and look for some herbs with medicinal properties to try and help speed up his recovery and then maybe they'd be able to find a way off this planet.
When they arrived ten minutes later she wasn't surprised to find old man John sitting on a log outside the jumper.
"What are you doing here?" She asked in a matter of fact tone.
"I brought the water container that you dropped outside of my house."
She turned to look at him and plastered a smile on her face, "thank you for your help, but I must get John inside and give him his antibiotics and pain meds."
"How about you both come and stay at my house, I can give him a bed to sleep in and I have some herbs that can help reduce his fever?"
Turning away from him she helped John into the jumper and sat him on the floor, "John please take your tablets and then I am going to give you a shot of morphine."
She handed him the antibiotics which he dried swallowed and then she lay him on the floor and gave him a shot of morphine and she was relieved when a few minutes later he was sleeping peacefully.
A voice from behind her startled her, "here try mixing this herb with some water and putting it on his forehead?"
"Are you going to tell me what your name is?" She asked even though she knew exactly who he was.
"I think you know the answer to that question Teyla."
"Well, I'm not going to call you John because as far as I'm concerned there is only one John Sheppard and he is laying on the floor."
"Just call me Sheppard then."
"How about I call you Colonel," she suggested.
"I haven't gone by my rank in a long time so just call me Sheppard."
"When are you going to tell me what is going on, Sheppard?"
"I really need to get back to my cabin so how about you and John come with me and then I can explain what is going on."
Sighing she nodded her head, she really needed to know what was going on and John desperately needed help so if Sheppard could help them she should really accept his offer.
"I accept your offer, but there is no way that John can walk."
"How about I carry him, I know that if he was conscious he wouldn't like it, but seeing he's unconscious at the moment it seems like the best idea?"
She watched as Sheppard leant over, picked John up and cradled him in his arms. Her John was incredibly strong, but this man seemed much stronger as if he'd spent much of his life doing physical work.
Within five minutes they were walking along the well-worn path that she'd run down earlier that day. Although she was still confused as to what was going on she was happy that they wouldn't have to find food and shelter in the near future.
This time she made the time to look at her surroundings and it didn't take her long to realise that the sun was going down, "how long are the days on this planet?"
"They are very short less than six hours, but the nights are much longer they go on for thirteen hours and at times they are incredibly cold."
She looked at the primary sun which was just below the horizon and she marvelled at its beauty, if she had to get stuck somewhere she was sure there were worse places that she could be stuck, "what season are we in?"
"I believe we are in summer as it gets much colder at other times of the year, sometimes there's a blizzard and we're snowed in for weeks."
"We're, you mean there are others with you?"
He gave her his trademark lopsided grin, "you'll soon find out."
They walked on in silence until they reached Sheppard's cabin and she was relieved since the sun had now gone down and the temperature was beginning to drop. John had not stirred during the walk from the jumper which had her incredibly worried. But then it was probably a good thing as he wouldn't be too impressed to find out that he was being carried by an older version of himself.
She walked in and followed Sheppard to a room on the other side of the small cabin, where he lay John on a large bed. She rushed in and sat on the bed beside John and felt his forehead and she was relieved that he seemed to be much cooler.
Turning towards the bedroom door she noticed that Sheppard was still in the room, "do you have any more of that herb?"
He nodded and left the room. Once she was sure that he was gone, she gently unbandaged John's arm and she was happy to see that it didn't look as red and inflamed as it had this morning.
She quickly re-bandaged his arm and was surprised when he whispered to her, "Teyla."
"Yes, John I am here."
"Stay with me?" He whispered and she could see his eyelids drooping.
"Always," she said to him, before leaning down and kissing him on the cheek.
Sheppard walked back in a few minutes later with a cold compress coated in the herb which seemed to be doing a good job of reducing his fever.
After placing it on John's head she stood up and looked at Sheppard, "now that John is asleep can you kindly tell me what is going on?"
"You should get him changed," Sheppard suggested before handing her a set of clothes "and when you're finished come into the sitting room as there are some people I would like you to meet and then I will tell you exactly what is going on?"
Once he had left the room, she set about the task of changing him. Ever since the Iratus bug incident, she had always wanted to get a chance to look at his chest again, but not like this. He was unconscious and had no idea what she was doing so this definitely wasn't the way she had imagined it.
Finally, he was dressed so she put the soiled clothes in a rubbish bag and threw them in the corner, for now, she would do something with the bag later. She then took one last look at John to make sure that he was sleeping comfortably, then she walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.
Looking around the cabin she soon realised how tiny it was, there was a small fireplace at the end of the room and it was obviously used for cooking. There was a small dining area with a table and four chairs set up and there seemed to be a tiny sitting room. The whole cabin was made out of some sort of pine and it had somehow been varnished.
The thing that surprised her the most though, was that in the sitting room there were two children who appeared to be around ten earth years. The boy was the splitting image of John, right down to the messy hair that stuck up all over the place and the girl was the splitting image of her.
"Teyla, I would like you to meet my children, this is David, or Dave for short and Charin, but I like to call her Charlie."
She had no idea what to say to him because obviously, these were her children; well not her children the dead Teyla's children as the name Charin was a name that she longed to call her daughter if she ever had one.
Taking a deep breath, she looked at each of the children and smiled, "it is lovely to meet you both."
Dave gave her a lopsided grin as he spoke to her, "you look like my mom."
Her heart almost broke for this child who had lost his mother and for her to turn up looking like her must be scaring him, but before she had a chance to say anything Sheppard spoke to his son.
"Remember what I told you, Dave? This isn't your Mom, unfortunately, Mom died five years ago."
"Yeah Dad I remember," the boy replied and Teyla didn't miss the sadness in his hazel eyes.
"Okay kids, how about you head to your room and you can play a game or read before you go to sleep."
Teyla was amazed by the way the children hugged and kissed Sheppard before they ran off to their room, it actually reminded her of the way John was with Torren and when she contemplated the thought that she may never see her son again, her eyes misted over.
"Are you alright Sweetie?" Sheppard asked her.
She looked at him with indignance, "please do not call me that because I do not know you? The John Sheppard I know and love is sick and injured in the other room."
"I'm sorry Teyla, but you look so much like my wife. Well, we were never officially married or bonded, but we still chose to live as husband and wife."
Her heart broke for this man who had obviously been through so much, but now she needed him to tell her exactly what had happened, "how did your wife die?"
"She died in childbirth and our baby son Patrick died a few hours after he was born. It was a difficult birth and she lost a lot of blood and there was absolutely nothing I could do to save her." Tears were streaming down his face by the time he'd finished.
"I am so sorry that must have been hard on you and the children."
He wiped his hand across his face and Teyla could see that some things never change. This John seemed afraid at showing people his emotions as well.
"Anyway, you wanted to know what happened to us and how we managed to get stuck on this rock fifteen years before you came?"
She just nodded at him and let him continue.
"First you need to tell me how you ended up on this planet?"
"Well, John and I were on our way back from New Athos. We went through the stargate expecting to end up on Atlantis, but somehow, we exited the stargate in space. There was a strange anomaly that sucked us in and then we crash-landed on this planet."
"Do you realised that the anomaly created a time shift, so you have now ended up fifty years in your future?"
The thought of that blew her mind, her son was over fifty years old and even if she could see him now, he would be older than she was and almost as old as Sheppard. But how did Sheppard know that they were fifty years in the future?
"Okay, if what you say is true, how do you know that we are fifty years in our future?"
"Once my arm was healed, I set about repairing the jumper. I then discovered that the jumper had detected a temporal shift when we came through the anomaly. I also discovered a chronometer that gave me the date that we landed on this rock. For some reason, it had been set to earth time. I guess it could have had something to do with my ancient DNA, perhaps it read my thoughts. I take it John hasn't discovered any of this yet?"
"Well that explains how we got here, but it doesn't explain how you got here fifteen years earlier than we did, or how you are the same person as the man lying in the other room."
"When we first crashlanded we were as young as you are now. I managed to fix the jumper and when we managed to get off the planet we were sucked through the anomaly again. Somehow it created another temporal shift and for reasons, I can't explain we ended up on this planet fifteen years earlier. The jumper was a lost cause this time so basically, we were stuck here and we had no choice but to live our lives."
She was horrified by the thought of having to spend the rest of her life here, but what choice did she have. "So, are we expected to live the rest of our lives here?"
"No, I have been working on a way for you to leave this planet and not get sucked in by the anomaly. I think that there are starships that patrol this route often. I have managed to make them out during the daylight hours. So, when John is feeling better I will help him fix the jumper and you can leave this place, but there is one thing that I ask before you go?"
"And what is that?"
"Please take Dave and Charlie with you. They don't deserve to spend the rest of their lives on this planet"
"But what about you Sheppard?" She asked with confusion.
"I'm fairly sure that I am dying, and I suspect that I only have a few months left. So, they will be on their own very soon and I would like to spend my last days on the planet which has become my home. Initially, it seemed like a prison to Teyla and me, but in the end, we made a life for ourselves, but it doesn't have to be that way for our children."
For the first time, she looked at him properly and saw how pale and thin he was. There were dark lines around his eyes and he looked to be in pain. If they'd been back on Atlantis chances were that Carson or Jennifer could have healed him. She suddenly felt sorry for this man and all that he'd had to endure, but then it was that moment she realised that he had spent his life with the woman he loved and he had spent every day trying to work out a way to stop the same thing from happening to them and for that she was grateful.
"Thank you for spending your life, for finding us a way off this planet and making sure we don't end up stuck here."
"I know that T.J needs his mother and I know that John needs to see him again because whether you realise it or not, he loves that little boy like his own son and it would break his heart to never see him again. I know what it did to me and although I went on to have other children as far as I'm concerned T.J was my firstborn," Sheppard told her in an uncharacteristic display of sentimentality and emotion.
"I never knew that John felt that way because he never told me." She replied, feeling an overwhelming sadness come over when she thought about Torren.
But then it wasn't just Torren, if she never got home she would never see, Ronon, Rodney, Carson, Jennifer, Halling or even Kanaan ever again. Although she and Kanaan were no longer a couple he was still one of her closest friends and she knew that he had to be part of her life.
She looked at Sheppard and realised that he was staring at her, "what?"
"You haven't answered my question; will you take care of my children?"
"I will talk to John and I promise that we will do what we can for David and Charin."
At that point, she wondered whether she and John would ever have children of their own. She knew that if they managed to get off this planet and not go through the anomaly that this timeline would change so would they go back to the way things were before they came here. Just being best friends.
Sheppard startled her out of her contemplations when he spoke, "thankyou Teyla, now would you like a cup of tea and some cake before you go to bed."
"I would love that, Sheppard," she looked around the room to see if she could discover another door leading to another room, but unfortunately there didn't seem to be one, "but where will I sleep tonight?"
"I think that you should sleep in the same room as John. Believe me when I say that it's time that you two admitted the way you feel about one another."
She knew he was right and there had been many times when she had imagined snuggling up to John in bed, but up until two days ago, she was with Kanaan. Then she and Kanaan had argued deciding to go their separate ways and as soon as John was well again she would tell him what had happened between her and Kanaan.
"Where will you sleep, Sheppard?"
"There is an extra bed in the children's room so I will bunk down with them while you are here. And thank you again, for agreeing to take my children away from this place."
"Do they know what you are planning?"
Sheppard got up and went over to the fireplace to start preparing some tea before he answered, "yes I have told them what would happen when we found you and John. I have told them of your coming for the last year now so they are well aware of what is happening."
"And what do they think of their father asking them to leave everything that they have ever known?"
"At first they were devastated, but now they realise that it is the only option as they know that I am dying."
She took a deep breath and thought about what she was going to suggest next, "why do you not come with us? If we could find some medical help, you could spend some time with your children?"
For a moment she saw a glimmer of hope across his face, but then it was gone again.
"I don't know. My Teyla is buried here and I would like to be laid to rest next to her."
"You do realise that your plan is flawed because there will be no one here to bury you if your children leave?"
"I realise that but I still want to be here with my Teyla." Sheppard said and she didn't miss the determination in his haunted eyes.
"Please consider what I have said?"
"I will, and thank you Teyla. Thank you for everything."
She merely nodded her head as he sat down beside her and handed her a piece of cake before placing a cup of tea on the small table in front of her.
The cake looked a bit odd to her, but it smelt delicious so she cautiously took a bite, "this is delicious Sheppard where did you get the ingredients?"
"I have a small cornfield outback, I have chicken-like creatures for meat and eggs and I have a huge beast that produces milk, they breed in the wild and every few years I tame one of them. There is also a plant that produces sweet nectar that I use to sweeten things.
She put her cake down and took a sip of her tea, "and this tea is divine, where did you get it from?"
"Believe it or not, there is a plant that grows wild on this planet that has the same properties as tea."
"You have done well for yourself John despite some difficult circumstances and I wish I had the chance to meet the other Teyla." She knew that she'd slipped up and called him John, but right now he seemed a lot like the man she loved.
"Thank you, Teyla and I'm sure my wife would have loved you."
A moan came from the other room and she knew that if John was waking up he would need her. He was in a strange house so chances are he would be a little disoriented.
"I must go now Sheppard as John needs me."
"Goodnight then Teyla, sleep well."
"Goodnight Sheppard," she said standing up and walking to the bedroom that she was to share with John.
John was thrashing about in the bed when she arrived in the room so she went and lay beside him and put her arm around him and he immediately settled down. Once she was sure that he'd settled down she climbed out of the bed and felt his forehead and she was relieved to see that his temperature felt much cooler. She wondered where she was going to sleep as she didn't want to sleep in the same bed as John without his permission so she looked around the tiny room and found a small armchair in the corner. It wasn't very heavy so she managed to bring it up next to the bed so that she could be close to John.
Leaning down she kissed John on the cheek before settling down in the armchair. She watched John sleep for a few minutes before she felt her eyelids drooping and after the strange day that she'd had it wasn't long before she fell into a deep sleep.
TBC…
There wasn't much of the real John Sheppard in this chapter, but I promise there will be in the next one.
Please don't forget to review.