Two Princes

Chapter 3 - Autumn

--------

John

The tall stalks of the brown grain stood level with John's shoulders. The grain had a faint sweet scent that lingered around you for the rest of the evening following a day in the field. Tool in hand John stooped and sliced cleanly through the thick stalks, catching them as they fell, pulling them in tight against his hip as he turned and added the large handful to the growing pile in the cart behind him.

He had been at it for two days now and had quickly developed the right technique, making the cut as clean as possible through the stalks and keeping the heavy heads of grain from touching the ground on the way to the cart. There were faster ways of harvesting, but this particular grain was particularly delicate and required direct handling with care. Which also meant it took time and John liked that. The last two days he had spent every moment of daylight out here almost hidden among the tall stalks of swaying Sweet Grain. It would take another full day for him and the other ten working this field to complete the harvest. Though there were ten others working across the field, he rarely saw them, only Lorne who was working to move the carts once they were loaded. John liked the silence, broken only by the soft sound of the swaying plants.

Summer was over and the grains, vegetables and other plants the Athosians used for food and trade were all ripening fast. Autumn was here already as the leaves were falling from the forest trees in various bright colours, and there was a sharp crispness to the air in the mornings and evenings. The nights were drawing in and with them the growing knowledge that the coldness of winter was on the way. But, there was time to reap the harvests and get most of the trading done before the winter hit. The Athosians had not lived a full winter on this world yet, so no one was entirely sure how harsh the winter was going to be, but John was sure he wasn't looking forward to it.

The summer months had passed quickly and with them the last vestiges in his heart of rescue any time soon. His near obsessive recording of his Earth memories and stories had stopped and inside he knew he had accepted that his life was now here, but that did not mean he was happy about it. Not that he was depressed either, he was just existing from one day to the next learning how to live among the Athosians and how to become a farmer. He quite liked farming really; it was simple yet hard work, demanding of him physically and there wasn't much risk of being killed. That last point was rather new for him. There was also the fact that there hadn't been a Wraith raid here or on any other world the Athosians had contact with. It seemed that they had been successful in defeating the Wraith, though he had no way of knowing how long that would last. Time would tell and John suspected it would be many years until the Wraith, if there were any left, would be strong enough to make a serious come back.

Life in the Athosian camp was comfortable enough, though he still felt separate. Lorne had appeared to have become more accepting of their situation, and had found a way to return to his hobby of painting. He had been gathering pigments from off world and had found various roots, berries and stones on this world that could be made into paints. Lorne appeared deeply involved in his hobby, outside of harvesting and hunting hours. It seemed to have given him a focus that had lifted him - that and the pretty Athosian lady who appeared to be interested in art, who was now helping him. John had to wonder if it was really the painting that was inspiring the Major.

John dropped another load of stalks into the cart and turned to look back down the empty strip of field he had been clearing. Lorne was nowhere to be seen, but then he was probably moving other carts. Deciding he could take a break, John set down the sharp sickle and lifted his water bottle to his mouth. The water was refreshing and he swallowed it down eagerly as he turned to look off towards the distant Athosian camp set up on a rise half surrounded by trees. He could see people moving around in the open space and between the tents. Even from here he could identify a few of them from their distinctive clothes or height, such as with Halling. He knew them all by name and had talked with most of them over the fires and meals. They were a very friendly people, with the slight exception of Kanaan.

Kanaan could be polite enough, but would mostly ignore John to the point of rudeness. Not that John had all that polite feelings towards the man. It was clear that Kanaan didn't like that John and Lorne had joined the camp. It was also apparent that relations between Teyla and Kanaan were a little strained, but John had made sure not to get involved in any way. He didn't even ask Teyla about it, wishing instead to pretend he didn't know anything. Lorne however knew most of the gossip in the camp and John wasn't all that sure how, as he had never thought of Lorne as a gossip hound. Perhaps it was the pretty Athosian ladies who were sharing the camp news with him. It had occurred to John only recently that though Lorne had attracted quite a lot of female attention that he had not. Not that John was looking for any female company of that sort right now. But, the gossip had been interesting.

It appeared Kanaan felt that Teyla regretted leaving Atlantis, though Teyla had insisted that she was happy to be living back with their people. However, John suspected that there was far more to the tensions between the couple. From the looks he had received from Kanaan, John knew the man felt John was a threat and was clearly jealous of John and Teyla's friendship. John didn't care though and there was no way he was going to spend less time with Teyla now. She was a rock for him here and it had been the highlight of living here to be able to deepen their friendship. He had discovered that they had far more in common than he had ever been aware of before. They seemed to share similar humours, opinions and she had seemed to relax further around him, teasing him more than ever before and he thoroughly enjoyed spending time alone with her and Torren. Those were happy relaxing times. He never felt alone or that deep sadness of loss. With them he felt at peace, which was something that, even back in Atlantis and on Earth, was a rarity for him. There was no way John was going to give up that friendship time to help ease Kanaan's fears. It may be somewhat selfish of him, but John didn't care right now. It was Kanaan's problem, not his to deal with. John could live quite happily with Kanaan ignoring him.

In the far distance John saw one person moving abruptly through the camp and he knew it was Teyla from the shape of her and from the clothes she wore. It appeared, even from here, that she was not happy. It was rare to see Teyla anything but calm, but it was clear that she was angry or perhaps upset. He had the strong urge to go find her to see if she was okay, maybe use the excuse of needing more water to return to the camp. But, he suspected it had been an argument between her and Kanaan, and John remained reluctant to talk about that, let alone give any free rein to his silent opinion of Teyla's choice.

He was aware that there was a lot more underlying his feelings and thoughts about that, but that was just one more thing that he chose to ignore. There was a lot bubbling under the surface inside him, but he refused to even acknowledge they were there, for that would only open a wound that had been so painfully torn open on that fateful day when Teyla had told him she was pregnant with Torren.

Turning abruptly away from the camp, he reached down for the small sickle and set back to work with renewed gusto. His mind slid so expertly away from his emotions and deeper feelings and once again settled into silent focus on his work.

-------

Kanaan

Torren was fast asleep enjoying his afternoon nap. Outside the autumn air was cool and as the breeze flowed in from over the fields now busy being harvested, it carried the extra chill of the season to come. Kanaan closed the entrance flap a little tighter to keep the chill away from his son as he slept. It was also a way of creating the privacy he wished in order to talk with Teyla.

She was seated by the low table on which she was cutting cloth to make new clothes for Torren. Their son was growing quickly and there seemed to be a constant need to keep ahead of his growth with clothing, and with the winter on the way he would need to be protected from freezing temperatures.

Kanaan moved towards her bowed head as she cut along a chalked line she had drawn out across the dark fabric. He had watched her do this many times, but today it felt like she was overtly focused on the task. He tried not to sigh; he seemed to be imbuing so many of her actions with negative meaning and it was pressing upon him. He moved around to the side of the table and settled down on the floor cushion. She looked round at him surprised to see him sitting beside her.

"Teyla, may we talk?" Kanaan began.

He thought he saw a flicker of reluctance in her eyes, but they were turned from him before he could be certain. She set down the fabric, settling her hands on her lap and looked at him. He had her full attention. "What do you wish to discuss, Kanaan?"

He looked down to the outlines across the material on the table between them. "I feel that we have been less that contented with each others' company of late," he began.

She tilted her head in a manner that suggested she felt his comment an understatement. "You have been questioning my honesty, Kanaan."

"You know that I do not mean to question your honesty, only whether there is regret in your heart."

She looked at him, releasing a heavy breath as she did. "I have said before that I see no shame in admitting that I miss my friends and life in Atlantis." He shook his head to agree with her; there was no shame of course. "I will not apologise for feeling loss, but we made the decision to leave Atlantis together."

Of course that was not true in Kanaan's mind. If she had wished to stay on Earth what choice would he have had? Leave her and his son in another galaxy? Her choices had defined his. Yet, she was right - he had no right to question her feelings of loss. He told her that, apologising for his behaviour of late, hoping to mend the emotional rift between them. "I did not react well to the arrival of Colonel Sheppard and Major Lorne," he admitted. She nodded, looking away back to the pattern before her. "I feared that their presence would once again draw your attention away from us and our people."

She looked back at him. "I am allowed to focus on more than one thing at a time, Kanaan," she stated patiently.

"Of course," he replied hurriedly. "However, I feared that they would lead you back to your previous life of danger, which may draw you away from our life here." It was mostly true, for he didn't want to reveal to her his feelings of jealousy towards Colonel Sheppard.

Her hand reached across the low table and settled on his forearm, the warmth of her touch communicating her emotion and reminding him that it had been many days since he had held her in his arms. "I appreciate that it must have been difficult for you, but understand that they are as much a part of my life as any of my friends. And you accepted my choices to work with those from Earth in Atlantis. You said that you supported them."

"I did, I do. It is just that…we have the chance to live the life we always wished now: to live with our people somewhere safe and to bring up our son without the threat of the Wraith." Excitement tinged his voice as he felt that picture returning to his mind and flushed with hope he settled his hand on top of hers.

Her eyes dropped to his hand over hers. "I know, Kanaan." The words were right, but he sensed sadness behind them.

"Will you tell me what it is that saddens you so to speak of our future?" He asked gently.

He saw her start to respond, but then hold back her words physically by biting her lower lip. He squeezed her hand encouragingly. "What is it, Teyla?"

She sighed and a strange little smile crossed her features. "It is just that sometimes it feels as if my time in Atlantis was almost a dream; gone before I truly enjoyed it. I wish that I had the chance to enjoy both my people and my life on Atlantis together again."

"Have you not been saying to the Colonel and Major Lorne that we must let go of the past and move forward into the future?" He pushed.

She nodded and tilted her face back towards him. "But, we must not forsake the future for not being present in the here and now."

Confused a little, he surrounded her hand more tightly with his. "What do you mean?"

She shook her head and pulled gently on her hand and he let her go, caressing her hand as he did. "I mean only that perhaps we should focus on the present and allow the future to reveal itself in time," she replied with a smile.

He nodded as he returned her smile, feeling better about the situation. "Then there is something else I wish to discuss with you."

She looked surprised and smiled again. "What is it?"

"It is something that we have not discussed before now," he began and he saw a fleeting moment of concern across her features, but he could tell he had intrigued her. It was a new and exciting experience for him. "Torren is over a year old now and now that we are properly settled on this new world, I thought it might be time to discuss having another child."

He suspected he could not have surprised her any more if he had told her he was actually a Wraith queen in disguise. She sat back from the table and she looked away from him, her mouth opened and closed silently for a few moments and it was clear she was attempting to gather her thoughts. Deciding it might be best to press his plan upon her now to convince her, he continued.

"Torren could be almost two by the time the next child is born. Then the baby would not be as demanding and there will be plenty of carers to watch over Torren." He became aware that her eyes were wide with concern and he stopped his words.

"Kanaan, I do not think I am ready to have another child," she replied.

He paused, concern returning. "You said you were clear on your choice to live here with our people."

"That is true, but that does not mean that I am ready to have another child."

"You said you are sad about the loss of your friends and Atlantis, perhaps another child would be a new focus to help you to move past those thoughts," he suggested aware as he spoke that he was somehow only making the situation worse.

Teyla stood up abruptly from the table surprising him. "A child is hardly a way of dealing with grief and indecision, Kanaan," she stated with a tightly controlled voice. "You speak about our future as if it is a certain thing, but I do not recall us discussing this before."

"As I said…" he began, but she was turning away from him.

"I can not speak of this any further just now, please excuse me" she said, her voice tight that suggested there were perhaps tears in her eyes.

"Teyla?" He called in shock as she pushed her away out of the tent, the season's new chill gusting in behind her. "Teyla!"

--------

Teyla

Teyla strode quickly across the camp, her head turned down in an attempt to conceal the tears she could feel in her eyes. The anger and panic bubbled away in her chest and she knew she had to find some distance away from Kanaan, away from the camp. She reached the path which led away from the tents and headed along it for a short while until she was hidden from the camp, and then she left the well trodden path and headed into the thicker trees.

She was shocked not only at Kanaan's abrupt suggestion, but at her own reaction. She could not remember reacting to anything in such a dramatic way since she had learnt her people had been taken and that she carried Torren. Before that only other rare moments of grief or shock had provoked such feelings.

She reached the edge of the embankment that overlooked the fields below and she stopped near the edge. The breeze was stronger up here and it trailed her hair around her, until she brushed it aside allowing it to stream out behind her. Her skirts billowed around her as well, and it felt an appropriate accompaniment to the tumultuous emotions running through her. The air was sharply cold against her face, but it helped somewhat. She blinked her eyes, driving the tears from her lashes, as inside she drew tight control of herself.

Now thinking about it, she was not entirely sure what had shocked her more; Kanaan's suggestion or her immediate reaction to it. She had felt panicked as if she had been threatened to have something precious and personal torn from her. It was a strange reaction, yet she could not deny how powerful it had been. She had thought about having another child before, but had not followed through on those thoughts. After all Torren had not been planned, but his arrival had been one of the most cherished gifts in her life. She knew another child would be equally as precious to her, but when it had been suggested in the package Kanaan had presented it in she had panicked.

He had made so many assumptions on her wishes in the future. She had chosen to leave Atlantis and Earth, and though it had pained her she had believed that it had been a necessary choice – for it had been her only chance to return to her people and allow both Kanaan and Torren to live as the Athosians they were. Until now she had stayed strong in that choice, but now she had to wonder if she was harbouring regrets and some bitterness at her loss. She wondered if she really had made the right choice. Kanaan's suggestion had brought home to her the truth that this really was her life now. Atlantis was unlikely to ever return and her future was back in that tent.

She looked down across the fields below her, striped now with lines of harvested rows and the remaining strips of grain and plants. She could see the people doted around the fields as they worked different areas of the fields. She searched across the tall Sweet Grain field until she saw the shape of John. Even from this distance she could pick him out, but then they had been part of a team for five years and that ability to find each other in times of crisis had been important. She watched him working, though there were very few details she could make out from up here, but she knew the techniques of harvesting the Sweet Grain very well, having spent most of her life working in Athosian fields. In a way she had missed working as a farmer; it was a simpler life yet in many ways as demanding as working in Atlantis. And now it was all she would have. Never before in her life had she seen the Athosian life this way, but suddenly it felt very limiting. She knew it wasn't the lifestyle itself, or her people, instead it was the sensation that her choices had all been taken from her. Kanaan's suggestion had highlighted that feeling for her and it was not his fault.

There was movement through the trees behind her and she knew Kanaan had tracked her down. She listened intently for a few moments and decided he was still some distance off, and she was not about to call out to him to direct him straight to her; she needed a little more time.

She moved to her right, towards the bench set up here on which to sit and enjoy the view. The bench was newly crafted and did not yet have the worn feel of a well used bench. It would in time. The breeze was less sitting here and she ran her fingers through her hair pulling it back under control and tucked it behind her ears. She wiped her hands over her face just to be sure there were no tears left on her face. Happy she was presentable enough she sat and waited for him to find her, and found her eyes seeking out John in the far distance again.

She needed time perhaps that was all. She had focused so much on John and Evan's loss, that she had ignored her own.

Bracken broke gently behind her and she looked over her shoulder to see Kanaan emerge from the trees. He paused on the edge of the tree line, the breeze stirring his hair. She saw the hesitation in him and she regretted having made such a dramatic scene. She smiled up at him and he looked slightly less worried as he approached her gently.

"I apologise," she whispered to him as he reached the bench. "You shocked me."

He nodded as he sat down carefully, as if he might cause her to run off again if he moved too fast. "Then I should apologise to you," he offered.

She smiled at him again, but the effort of it felt painful.

"Are you alright?" He asked.

She smiled tightly again, a lock of hair breaking free to graze over her check. She lifted a hand to her face, still feeling embarrassed and slightly ashamed of her emotional outburst. It was so unlike her. A part of her whispered quietly that perhaps then she should pay attention to what she was really feeling.

Kanaan reached out and laid his hand over hers.

"I am alright. I suppose that it has only just hit me," she told him as she looked out across the fields below. "That a part of my life is truly over. That I can never go back," she whispered, her eyes finding John again amidst the many in the distance. Perhaps some things were never meant to be, but it was only now that she realised how much she had really wanted them.

Kanaan's other hand slid around her shoulders, drawing her gently into his embrace and she closed her eyes allowing her self to find comfort from him. "I need some time," she told him.

"I understand, Teyla," he replied.

She opened her eyes and this time made sure not to look out at the fields, instead she looked off to the hills around them, to the clouds gathering and the approaching touch of winter.

-------
TBC