I see I don't have that many reviews for this story. A little disheartening because I certainly did struggled with this story. But I do want to thank Ssagey for her continued support. Thanks hun.
1475
Teyla had been tiding up their quarters for the last hour and half. Her growing baby stomach had not only curtailed her physical activities, but also made her feel listless at times as her pregnancy had progressed. She was in her last trimester of her pregnancy and her stomach had gotten quite huge. She had found lately that she had to tone down a lot of her activities. The physicality of her sparring sessions had lessened quite a bit as her pregnancy had progressed. She no longer went on recon missions with her team. Her efforts were concentrated more on diplomacy with earth's allies in the galaxy.
And yet with these changes, she couldn't recall a time she felt so happy. She did meditate every day, but her happiness stemmed from the fact that she was enjoying this pregnancy which was not quite the case with her previous pregnancy with Torren. In fact, the only thing, that the two pregnancies had in common were her lack of severe bouts of sickness in the mornings. She still did have the unusual cravings, which had gotten her major teasing and maybe once or twice a look or frown of disbelief from her husband and friends. Teyla couldn't help but smile when she thought about some of those moments.
Teyla walked to the small kitchen that was sectioned off from the main area in their quarter. She had put on some water to warm up while she was cleaning. She opened the small pantry and grabbed one of the tea packages from the box, placing the tea bag in the percolating hot water. It wasn't the Athosian's stout tea that she normally drank, but a herbal blend specifically made for women who were pregnant. After making her tea, she headed to her favorite spot by the window with the magazine she had been reading the last couple days during her free time in her hand. Teyla began to skim through it as she gingerly took a sip of the tea. She became engrossed in reading an article on expectant couples as sipped on the tea. Seeing the pictures of the couples and reading their comments made her thought about her own pregnancy. She certainly could understand the rapture of some of the couples; their comments striking a cord within her of familiarity and similarity when it came to their emotions because none of the couple's circumstances or lives could be anything like her own. Yet, it was as if some of their comments were that of her own even if her life was vastly different from the couples in the magazine.
Teyla thought about the life she had. She was a wife and a mother. She was going to have another baby. She was going to have John's baby. This reality was far different from the one they were living as a couple years ago when they had landed on John's planet. And this pregnancy was having a profound effect on her marriage to John. She didn't think she could love John any more than she already had, yet she had been proven wrong.
John had finally begun to open up to her about a great many things in his life, particular things about his childhood and his first marriage as well as the lingering guilt he felt about waking up the Wraith. She had discovered that her husband felt things deeply, but found it hard to express them. That John had still carried the guilt about many things from his past. That John had still blamed himself for his inability to save Aidan and Elizabeth. That John was blaming himself for things that were beyond his control.
Although she had also felt sadness for the loss of her friends, she had found comfort among her friends and her people. For Kanaan had been a comforting presence in her own grief over Elizabeth. Living in the Pegasus Galaxy, she had learnt at all too young of an age, to accept such losses that personal losses were inevitable, and to die old was a rarity among her people. But she hadn't realized for John, it was harder for him to deal with such losses, especially of friends considering he was a solider. Being a solider in the heat of battle there were two certainties - kill or be kill. To lose your life or witnessed the death or destruction of the lives of the people around you and that included the people you cared about. She had wondered lately if that had contributed in some way along with John's issues with his family, to the John she had first met and fell in love with. She was beginning to think that had been John's way of dealing with his demons. That need he had to seemingly put himself in danger so many countless times, so much so, that even Rodney had accused him of having a death wish. It was how John dealt with his past failures.
She had known that her husband was a brave and smart man from their first meeting. That had been some of the things that had attracted her to John besides his charms and obvious physical attributes. But she didn't know that John punished himself every day. John had told her about the Sakari's A.I.'s hallucination. John had learned that he tortured himself every day. She can only grimace of the brutality he had inflicted on himself. She now believed that had been a turning for John in his own healing.
There was a small part of her that had always known that John didn't have a death wish. She had learned immediately that John found it hard to accept failure as an option, and certainly not for the people he cared about because there was never a time she had question John's resolve. She had known when Michael had kidnapped her that John would find some way to come for her. And of course, knowing this about John and in her condition, this has caused her to worry a great deal more about him when he's on missions.
She was no longer on John's team because of earth's military protocols which dictated that they could not serve on the same team. She could only hope for rational reasoning with John and their two friends whiling deal with her own increasing anxiety about John taking unnecessary risks on missions while dealing with John's over-protectiveness of her; John had been adamant about her not going on dangerous assignments, especially when they first learned of her pregnancy.
With this pregnancy, John's over-protectiveness had been very much in evidence and although she had found it quite endearing. She had been also very much frustrated by it at times. For she was a warrior much like John was a solider and yet this pregnancy had caused them to think about their lives in ways that they probably had not thought about before. She had though having Torren had been a life altering experience. In many ways it had. It had made her stronger and yet also more vulnerable. It had made her try to make her relationship with Kanaan work while foregoing her own feelings. Her relationship with Kanaan had been forged more in friendship than love. She had loved Kanaan, but it was a love born from the innocent of youth and rooted in the dreams of childhood. But she had come to realized she and Kanaan were not the same kids. And maybe her expectations of the man, Kanaan could be had been wishful thinking on her part. And her attempts to put aside her feelings for John had not been truly successful.
There had been a time when she had sense from John that he had looked upon her as more than just a team mate, but as a woman, a desirable woman. So she had expected John to act upon that interest. But when John did not, it had left her questioning whether she had misread his interest. She had though it wise to move on from her own growing infatuation with John. For John had not given her any tangible encouragement of any kind beyond their bond of friendship. And at the time, she had also begun to question the wisdom of getting involved with someone not of her people. She had been too steep in the ways of her people.
So she had tried to forsake her feelings for John. She had begun to spend more time with Kanaan. With Kanaan she found a companion. Although, he was a friend from her childhood who shared the same kinship of their gifts, he became great source of comfort in troubling times. And in the infancy of their relationship, her world as she knew it came stumbling down around her. Her people were missing along with Kanaan and then she learnt she was pregnant with Torren. At one of the darkest time of her life, there was news that should have given her such great joy and yet she couldn't have felt more alone, loss and confused; weighted down by guilt and yet consumed with anger.
In retrospect, she and Kanaan had not made any declaration of bonding their lives together before he along with their people was taken. Their future paths bind together as one, to be considered husband and wife by earth's standard. She had realized too late that the love she had felt for Kanaan couldn't absolved her of those feelings she had for John. That she did not love Kanaan with a heart that was open and free. So although she had loved Kannan, she could not give him the love he had sort of her. She had allowed what she thought was right to ruled what she felt in her heart for her son.
For Torren, she had fought to give him, his father, his parents; things which were denied to her as a child. Torren had become the center of her world. Things ceased to be about what she wanted, in the personal sense. She had struggled with doubts and the fear. That fear if she continued to put herself in danger, she could possibly leave her son without his mother. But to do nothing, to stand idly by, what kind of future would she be giving her son. Would it be a safe future? Free of the Wraith. John had inadvertently helped her to make that decision at a time when their relationship had becoming increasingly estranged. John had become distance once Kanaan had begun to live on Atlantic. She had been sadden by it all as she struggled with what she hoped were the right decisions. Now when she looked back in hindsight, she can see that Kanaan was never truly happy here on Atlantis. This was the life she had chosen, but for Kanaan, it had not been. Besides Torren, their gifts were the only commonality they seem to share. When Kanaan began to visit their people, she found she welcome the separation.
When she thought back on those times, she was filled with many regrets. But those regrets do not include having Torren though there are times. There is a part of her that wishes that her husband was Torren's father, especially those times when Torren is away visiting his father. Those times of separation were difficult for her because she feared she could be missing some very significant moments or events in her son's life or she would wonder about his safety.
Teyla frowned; frowning at her own thoughts. This period of her life was often difficult to revisit. She put down the magazine and drank what remained of the already cooled cup of tea. Teyla got up to take the empty cup to the small kitchen and then to finish up folding the pile of Torren's clothes she had placed on the bed. It never ceased to amaze her, the amount of clothing that Torren had accumulated living on Atlantic. Now that Torren would be getting a new sibling soon and the newest member of Sheppard and Emmagen's household. She suspected there would be a lot more clothes in the future along with even more changes. Teyla's hand reached down to touched her round stomach, smiling. Teyla looked thoughtful for a moment and then walked into the kitchen.
Teyla was about to put away the last of Torren's clothes when she felt a sudden gush of fluid between her legs.
