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Pairing/characters: Teyla-centric OT4 (John/Ronon/Rodney/Teyla)
Summary/kink: The shadow of impending death - hours, minutes, or moments.
Notes: Spoilers through 4x02 "Lifeline." Het and slash, hurt/comfort, NC-17. ~4900 words. For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
rounds_of_kink.
This could use some more work, I think, but I'd like to get it posted; may revise later.
The first thing Teyla is aware of is the sharp pain in her left shoulder. The pain spikes sharply when she moves. She's lying on the ground, she realizes, and it's dark and cold. She can see the vague outline of trees around her and smell dirt. So, she's on a planet somewhere and it's night. And she's been injured, or worse. She doesn't want to think about worse.
The last thing she remembers is being captured and held in a room on a Wraith ship and a Wraith with long white hair coming in and shooting her. John and Rodney were captured too, but she doesn't know what happened to them. She hopes they escaped or were rescued.
Teyla gets up and tries to feel her way around, but the pain is great. She could be far or near a Stargate, on a planet with hostile people or dangerous animals. She could be on a planet with Iratus bugs. She could be anywhere.
Well, no. She couldn't be on the Tararians' planet, because it boiled over with lava and Rodney says it is still covered in toxic smoke. She couldn't be on Pelgis, the desert planet with the malfunctioning DHD where they got stuck for two days. She couldn't be on the planet Atlantis landed on... could she? There are a few temperate islands, fairly small ones, on the other side of the planet. But wouldn't they have found her already if she was there? And why would the Wraith have left her there?
That's the big question, of course. Why is she here? Why did the Wraith release her?
She touches her left shoulder and feels stitches. She moves it, painfully. She doesn't feel anything else - she would have expected to feel something hard, pressing against her flesh or bones, but there's nothing.
But she's certain anyway. There's only one thing she can do now.
Run.
Teyla hears the Stargate before she sees it. The whoosh of it opening and then the buzzing sound of a Wraith dart. She drops to a crouch without thinking. She feels, momentarily, like she's back on Athos, trying to hide instead of fighting like she has been used to recently. She crawls as fast as she can on the ground, keeping to the underbrush and trees, getting up and running when the sound of the dart gets quieter. The wormhole shuts off and she hopes and prays with all her might that the DHD on this side works.
She's only about 30 meters away when it comes back and she looks up to see the ray of white light coming straight for her. She dives as far as she can, hitting the ground on her right shoulder and rolling, onto her left - God, it hurts! - and then she's up and running.
They've seen her now, there's no point trying to hide. The dart banks and makes a wide turn, flying back towards her. She pushes faster, going all out. She doesn't look up, just keeps running as the sound gets louder.
She reaches the DHD and punches the buttons and the dart is almost over her, the noise is overpowering, all around her, she's going to be taken, she's going to die, and the sixth symbol is sticking, not lighting up.
She hits it again, hard, and then there's white light everywhere--
She hears the whoosh of the Gate engaging and she ducks out from under the DHD panel and sprints for it, hearing the dart receding behind her and then she is across and this planet's DHD is right in front of her. She pushes a button at random. The flickering blue light snaps off and she's standing there, alone, breathing hard.
She really hopes the Wraith dart had started going through already when the wormhole disengaged.
But if not, they'll be able to figure out where she's gone eventually. She can't stay around here long. She needs to put as much distance and as many Gates between her and them as she can.
She glances around briefly, the sun is high in the sky on this planet. It's one of the planets she used to trade on before the people were all killed. The old market stood not 100 meters from where she is now. There's nothing there now and it seems like a long, long time ago.
She punches in the next address, thinking as hard as she can. She's grateful for that she knows Ronon, that he told her to memorize as many gate addresses as she could. Now she needs to remember all of the planets and moons that have functioning DHDs and no Wraith presence, all the ones that are uninhabited, and all the ones where Atlantis has allies.
She can't go to Atlantis. The Wraith will know where she is, wherever she goes, even if it takes them a while. She can't give them even a hint of where in the galaxy Atlantis is, especially because there are hardly any other planets around it that people can live on. If she went to Atlantis, they would have to move the city again, maybe while being attacked and they have neither the ZPM energy, nor the human energy for that.
She won't bring death to their doorstep.
But she has to get a message to them - without that message getting to the Wraith instead. And without endangering anyone else more than absolutely necessary.
It's been two months and Teyla hasn't seen a Wraith in something like three weeks. At first she thought she was just going too fast for them, but then there was a Wraith attack on a planet she was hiding on and they didn't even seem to know she was there. It could have been another group of Wraith who weren't tracking her, but she thinks they probably should be able to detect her anyway. Ronon, when he talked about his experiences as a Runner, said that the tracker would sometimes attract stray Wraith who were just "in the neighborhood." He said they would come after him, along with the Wraith that had put it in him.
Teyla suspects they're trying to get her to think they've stopped chasing her, so she'll take them to Atlantis.
Then there's always the possibility that the tracker really has stopped working and she's running for no reason. Her dreams lately have been about going back to Atlantis and finding out that it was all for nothing, that there was never anything in her or that it died long ago.
In the dreams, she is always white-haired and old.
In reality, Teyla knows she will die long before she gets that old. If things go on like this, she may die before the year is out. She thinks about seven years sometimes, how long Ronon was running, and she can't imagine it. She only knows how long she has been going because of her bleeding.
She has left messages, dozens and dozens of messages. They're all contradictory - information and misinformation to confuse the Wraith. She got that from Rodney, who told her about code-breaking during the wars that took place on his Earth. She says that she's going back to old Atlantis, that she's going to the Genii homeworld, that she's going to old Athos, that she's going to Chaya's planet, that she's going to the alpha site, that she's going to addresses for which there are no planets or which are in space.
She writes symbols in the dirt on different planets, leaves notes written on bark tucked in the undersides of DHDs, brags to strangers that she knows where the Wraith who are tracking her are; that she's going to invade their base; that she's got an ambush set up on the next planet.
And in each of the messages, she drops words and details that no one but the people on Atlantis whom she knows and loves would understand. When she decides to go to the moon where her team helped create diplomatic relations between two warring tribes, she addresses the letter to "Spock" and signs it "Romulus." When she decides, after the first month, to try to get more detailed information to them via a trusted friend on Belkan, she leaves a verbal message with some knife dealers that Ronon likes to visit: "You didn't tell me." When she finds a planet where the Asurans have established a base, she writes the name "Phoebus" and the gate address in the Morse code that John taught her.
In all of them, in some form, she says, "Find me."
(The worst day was the one she dialed Atlantis. She didn't have her own IDC transmitter anymore, but she had managed to find and fix up a discarded Genii radio.
She dialed the address and waited until the wormhole engaged. She had tuned her radio to the usual frequency but didn't hear anything, so she just spoke into it.
"This is Teyla," she said as clearly as she could. "IDC 34-25-09-61-82."
She cranked the tuner slowly up and down. Nothing but static.
"I repeat, this is Teyla. IDC 34-25-09-61-82."
She said it five more times. Then she threw the package.
She wasn't going through the Stargate herself, of course. She just hoped to deliver a message. The package had her notes about where she was, where she would go each day for the next two weeks, and what little she knew about the tracker implanted in her shoulder.
For half an hour, Teyla kept tuning the radio, up and down, hoping for a response. Speaking into it, then pausing, then speaking again.
Then the wormhole closed, and she waited. And waited. Just as the sun was starting to set on the abandoned planet, the Stargate started up again.
Two Wraith darts emerged, one after the other.
Teyla was already gone - down inside a cave that she had found fairly close to the gate (her main reason for choosing this planet was the numerous caves it boasted.) She had climbed down into it through the well-hidden entrance and then wedged herself up into the ceiling so that she would be directly above anyone that came down. She hoped that the rock of the cave would disguise her tracker. But even if it did not, the Wraith would have to come in here by foot and she could pick them off. There was also a convenient chimney hole, an opening in the top of the cave too small to climb into, but through which Teyla could hear if anyone was close.
She heard them through the night, walking up and down above-ground, but they never found the cave.
There was no sound of the Stargate engaging either, no rescue party from Atlantis.
At dawn, Teyla emerged cautiously. She had heard Wraith darts going back through the Stargate. There was no sign that the Lanteans had been there. No marks of a fight, no message, though she searched. Nothing.
They had not let down the shield for her. They had not received her notes.)
Teyla realizes that she has forgotten about Floralia when she comes out on an inhabited planet and sees about a hundred gaily-dressed people gathered before the Stargate.
Someone tells her they are waiting their turn to open a wormhole. They're going to Favon, of course, the planet where the festival of Floralia takes place every year. Teyla knows that it's this time of year, but she had forgotten - between running from the Wraith, worrying about Atlantis, and trying to keep herself alive.
"Will you accompany us?" A large man dressed in a purple and red robe asks, looking at her salaciously. Teyla feels like rolling her eyes but restrains herself. This event does not bring out the best in everyone. But then, most people will be expecting such advances. She looks around. There are young men and women, probably just fifteen, going to Floralia for the first time. They joke nervously together. And older married couples, as excited as the teenagers, whispering to each other. Everyone looks happy and expectant.
It is one of the only places that it is safe for her to go.
When they emerge on the other side, it is a warm night. There is no moon, only stars, and they are almost blacked out by branches and vines. The air is soaked in the too-sweet scent of the Soris flowers. Despite the cloying smell, Teyla finds herself relaxing for the first time in weeks.
The Stargate here is in the middle of a rainforest; it is one of the few Teyla has ever seen. People say that Favon was an Eden that the Ancients created, a protected paradise. The forest is lush and green, and dark even in daylight and the pale pink flowers are everywhere, just beginning to unfold or fully open in brazen, overblown display. Petals fall from the flowers that have gone by their prime, covering the ground and making it shine white against the forest. Torches here and there provide a little light, flickering as bodies move in front of them. To match the hundreds of flowers, there are hundreds, possibly thousands, of visitors walking the forest. Many stop, eyes glazed, to kiss and touch. Teyla watches as a woman puts her arms around a man and they stumble back into a tree, setting free a cascade of petals.
Some people say the flowers are an aphrodisiac. Others say they make one truthful.
Some nameless feeling stirs at the base of Teyla's spine. She keeps moving, ignoring the calls of the man who approached her earlier. She doesn't know this place well, but something is drawing her on. She walks fast, trying to get away from the press of people. The forest seems to close in around her as she goes further in, insulating her from the noise. She comes across a narrow path, less strewn with petals than the others, and follows it.
The path splits after a little while and Teyla looks down each path, considering. Each is still and quiet. One moon has risen and its light filters through the foliage onto left path; there is a torchlight somewhere a long way down the other. She takes the left. She's not sure if she's remembering a way she came before or just imagining it looks the same, but she follows it regardless.
There, in a lighted patch, is a woman about Teyla's age. She's wearing a white dress and her skin is dark, darker than the forest around them. She takes Teyla by the shoulder and kisses her, her breath a warm tickle on Teyla's skin. Then she is gone. Maybe she is a ghost, Teyla thinks. She thinks of Elizabeth and her own mother. She is full of them, lighter than the wind.
Teyla lets caution fall away and runs then, darting through the trees, her feet slipping over roots and leaves and petals.
When she stops, out of breath, there is a light ahead of her. She's not sure where she is anymore, whether she has gone far from the Stargate or circled around at some point and is close again. Her heart thuds painfully at the thought of walking back into the crowds of dazed pilgrims. But she follows the light.
She freezes when she sees them and doesn't believe it is them at first. What she has been looking for without knowing it.
Ronon is on his back on the ground and Rodney lies next to him, curled in to him with his face pressed to Ronon's neck. John is farther down at waist-level and has Ronon's erection in his hand. He licks it slowly, lazily, spiraling up and in. Rodney has already come, she observes, seeing the semen on Ronon's belly. She feels a little sad that she missed it. But there will be other times, she feels this the way her skin feels too tight. The way she longs, to be there, between them. Yet she does not move.
She remembers this opening in the tree growth from last time, and these men.
John lays his head on Ronon's stomach. His cock is hard, but he seems unconcerned about satisfying his need. Rodney leans up and kisses Ronon while John watches. Ronon puts his hand on John's hand, smoothing through the messy hair. The point of hair on the back of his neck - Teyla wants to kiss it.
Rodney raises his head and Teyla is near enough to see the tears in his eyes.
"I wish she was here," he says, voice catching. His emotions are close to the surface, unrefined by his usual bluster. Teyla feels a surge of love for him and her throat tightens sympathetically. She catches herself about to step forward and forces herself still.
"She is," Ronon says, low and sure, and she looks up to see his gaze on her. John turns to look at her and gives her a sweet, sardonic smile, almost like he knew she was there the whole time.
It only takes Rodney a moment and then he is up, rushing to her, arms open, and she steps back, not ready for him to be there, for him to touch her. It's been too long and she feels dizzy, the air leaving her too fast before she can breathe it.
"Give her space," she hears distantly and then she realizes she is sitting on the ground and they're crowded around her. Her family. Her friends.
She laughs and looks at them, drinks them in. Ronon's hand comes up and he gently wipes away the wetness on her face.
"We hoped you'd come here," he says and she sees the anger and grief in him, and how he's holding it below the surface. His grin when she grabs his hand as it is going away tells her enough though. Rodney's hand on her arm is shaking and John doesn't touch her but he never looks away. She never wants them to go away again. And they won't. She can go home now.
It's too much. She can't look at them anymore, so she kisses them. Wildly, desperately, because she was so bereft and she can never get enough of them now.
Her whole body, that has been dead except for running and eating and sleeping, suddenly comes alive, her need overwhelming everything else. She takes John between her thighs, and Ronon sucks on her nipples, cupping her breasts in his large strong hands until she moans. She rubs roughly against John, not letting him in her just yet, while Rodney opens her up from behind with his fingers, fucking her harder and harder as she keeps to push back, wanting more, until the point where she's just taking it, holding on, and the pressure on her nipples turns painful and good as her orgasm gathers and accelerates. Ronon kisses her and she gets lost in it, and then John, and finally Rodney, turning her head to him as his fingers thrust even deeper into her and she comes.
"The botanists figured out that the Wraith are allergic to the Soris pollen," John tells her later, as they all lay tangled on the ground. Rodney is asleep; Ronon's eyes are half-closed, watching her in the torchlight.
"Gives 'em welts," Ronon adds with a chuckle.
"Yeah, that and they suffocate," John says. He sounds both pleased about that and disturbed.
"Then it is good that Rodney is not allergic," Teyla says. She doesn't want to think about the Wraith. Not here, where they cannot reach her. They can figure out the rest in the morning.
The Soris blooms for one week each year.
There are hands on her when she wakes up. She panics and then remembers. But they're not the strong, enveloping arms around her she expects, they're sharp, grasping talons pulling her up. She gasps and tries to shake them off, to get away, but she is held fast.
She turns her head and sees crystalline eyes in a beautiful, deadly face.
She relaxes all her muscles at once, her weight pulling her down and loosening the grasp of her captors. She twists away and gets two, three steps, and then she's caught again and held, tighter this time. She looks around desperately, but she can't see her team anymore. Only more Wraith worshippers, in white and blue and gold, surging around her like an ocean. She can't see the flowers anymore or the trees or anything.
It's daylight and again she doesn't know what planet she is on or how she got there. She's getting rather sick of that.
The Wraith worshippers are a mix of men and women, all beautiful, all young, and the ones holding her seem to be incredibly strong. After a little while, she feels her hands going cold.
"You're cutting off my circulation," she spits at the nearest ones.
They don't even look at her.
Teyla starts to wonder whether she imagined going to Favon. It seemed so real at the time, but now the vividness is slipping away and she is left wondering when the Wraith worshipper caught her. Did they find her on Favon? Or was it on the planet with the people waiting and she dreamed or hallucinated the rest?
Her wrists and arms have become bruised and tender when she first feels it. The hot prickle of awareness, of something pressing up against her mind. It's strong. Vast. So overpowering is it that Teyla retches, vomiting up stomach acid. There's nothing else in her to come up. She can't remember when she last ate.
Her vision goes dark and she feels her head falling back and can't help it.
She comes to a moment later, and she is still being held up by the Wraith worshippers. They send her looks of loathing but don't bother to clean her up. The stench invades her nose and mouth and she tries desperately not to vomit again.
She's only half-conscious by the time they get there. It's a massive Wraith ship, bigger than any she has seen before.
They leave her in a cell.
"Tomorrow," one of the Wraith worshippers says, the one whose nails bit into her right wrist so hard it's bloody. "You'll have your first taste of death."
Teyla doesn't intend to be there the next day. She touches every inch of wall, digging her fingers in, feeling for even a little give. She climbs up the wall as far as she can, clinging to the ridges with her bare feet and other hand as she probes to try and find anything that isn't made of the same hard, blue cartilaginous stuff as the rest of the wall. They took her knives and hair pins and everything else but her clothes. But there has to be some way out. Fortunately the door is completely opaque, so no one will see her climbing around unless they open it.
She finds it on the right side about ten feet up: a soft spot. It might be an air vent. Teyla pries at it, punches, claws and twists until it gives way. She keeps at it each time until her arms are so tired she has to let go, then she climbs up again. The opening of it is only big enough for her to get an arm into, so she sets about widening it by pulling off the hard pieces of wall around it.
Finally, it's large enough to fit her shoulders through. She checks to make sure she can't feel any Wraith close by and then wedges herself into it. It's hard to breathe, but she has to keep going. The soft material feels like the insides of an animal. It pushes open fairly easily and suctions closed behind her.
She digs her way through the ship, following the air vent, not knowing where she's going to end up. She thinks she's somewhere in the wall, judging by the noises she hears and her sense of the Wraith moving around her. Fortunately, none of them seem to realize she's there.
The air vent opens into a room, at long last. There's a number of other openings that seem to be more vents, but she doesn't see a door anywhere. Eventually she finds a panel on the wall, with lit-up yellow shapes on it. Teyla hesitates, but this seems to be the only way out. She can't shoot the panel as they usually do, so she tries pushing the buttons. Nothing happens. She tries pushing more. Again, nothing seems to happen.
Then suddenly, the room blinks out. She finds herself in a hallway. She breathes out slowly. It looks like it might be what she had hoped for--
Then she hears someone coming around the corner.
She runs, going into the first room she comes to. The sound of footsteps and voices comes nearer. There's a kind of low dais in the corner of the room, she runs and hides behind it. With any luck, they'll pass on by the room.
But no, she hears people coming in. She tries not to tremble or make any noise. If she is discovered, she doubts she will be around long enough to devise another plan out.
Then she hears a familiar voice.
She doesn't believe it at first.
"It doesn't matter what you offer us. That's never going to happen."
It's Elizabeth speaking, she's almost sure of it. Teyla wants very much to look at her, to make sure it's her, but she doesn't move.
"How do you expect us to survive, then?" The Wraith Queen answers in her hollow, warped voice.
"The experiments that the Atlanteans were working on for turning Wraith back into humans. We've been able to complete the cure, as they were unable to do."
The Wraith vaccine? Teyla thinks. The Asurans have made it work?
"Cure?" The Queen laughs. "This is no cure, it is a poison! You would turn us into weak, quivering beasts before you."
"No, we simply want to make you capable of surviving without feeding on humans. After that, you will not be our concern."
Teyla wonders whose concern they will be, if that happens. Altantis' concern, probably. She peers around the dais, trying to stay out of sight. The Queen has her back to her and Elizabeth is facing her, her view of Teyla blocked only by the Queen. There are several male Wraith with long, white hair and six Wraith guards surrounding them, one of them only about three feet from Teyla. There are also a number of Asurans behind Elizabeth.
"We will never agree to that." The Queen sounds furious, and Teyla crouches back out of sight, making herself as small as possible.
Elizabeth sighs.
"I hope you will reconsider. The alternative is your complete annihilation."
Teyla shivers. That does not sound like Elizabeth.
"This 'diplomacy' is anathema to our very nature, Dr. Weir. I am afraid you will find us no more willing to submit to you as a Replicator than when you were human."
"Then, I am sorry for you," Elizabeth answers. "Because, as a Replicator, I will have to decide whether you live or die."
The Queen does not respond. Teyla hears footsteps. The Queen, it must be the Queen, is coming closer. She will be seen in a moment. She has to act.
Teyla jumps up and snatches the nearest guard's pistol. She flips it into "kill", training it on the Queen.
"Don't move or I'll kill her," Teyla says calmly.
The Queen shrieks in anger and the guards erupt into motion.
"Teyla." Elizabeth says, sounding amazed. Teyla doesn't look at her.
"Don't shoot her," the Wraith Queen says, her lip curling. No one shoots.
"You will release me or I will kill your Queen," Teyla enunciates.
The guards seem confused, but the Queen looks directly at her. Teyla feels her then, sharp and insistent, pushing her way into her mind. She resists, pushes back, and feels enormous pain explode in her head. She drops the weapon. The guards rush her.
"No!" Elizabeth shouts, as the room tilts dizzyingly. "Give her to me!"
Someone seizes hold of her and she realizes it is Elizabeth. She is wearing a soft red shirt that seems incongruous. Elizabeth's cold hands close on her arms. She is Elizabeth, but not.
Then, the Queen is directly in front of them. She reaches a hand out toward Teyla's chest, threatening but not acting yet.
The two women, one Wraith and one Replicator, stare each other down. Teyla wonders if Wraith can invade Replicator minds or vice versa.
"We will talk again, Dr. Weir. You are indebted to me now," the Queen says quietly, a strange distorted edge in her voice.
"Yes," Elizabeth says shortly.
Then they leave, the Asurans following her and Elizabeth, who is half-carrying her. Teyla passes out again as soon as they are off the Wraith ship.
Teyla is allowed out of the infirmary after two days. There is much she still does not remember, which worries her, but Dr. Keller says that more may come back to her in time. Mostly, she is glad to be alive and back on Atlantis.
The Asurans took the tracker out. Lieutenant Carter tells her this when she visits her in the infirmary. John, Rodney and Ronon did go to Favon to try to find her, but they say they did not see her there. The Asurans released Teyla to the Lanteans on a neutral planet. She was brought back to Atlantis two days after the Floralia ended - Elizabeth told Carter that she was with them for only a day while they healed her.
Ronon tells her that the team - minus Teyla - were on Floralia for the first three days of the festival, searching for her. He doesn't hesitate or blush when he tells her, but later she sees each of them glancing at the others out of the corner of his eye. She surmises that even if she was not actually there, and did not really see them, they probably still did together what she thought - what she saw - they did. She tries not to let it worry her that they do not, apparently, remember her being there.
Without surprise, Teyla realizes that her love for her team is as strong and unrelenting as she remembers it. She finds herself longing to embrace them, all of them, though John is as shy of touch as ever and Rodney as blustery. Perhaps she does not desire them as strongly as she did on Favon, but she still thinks of that night and wonders if it will repeat itself someday.
Teyla's memories of it are even foggier now than they were before, but she is increasingly certain that it was not a dream.
The other parts she does not care to remember so much. It is enough that she survived.
It is enough.
Summary/kink: The shadow of impending death - hours, minutes, or moments.
Notes: Spoilers through 4x02 "Lifeline." Het and slash, hurt/comfort, NC-17. ~4900 words. For
rounds_of_kink.This could use some more work, I think, but I'd like to get it posted; may revise later.
The first thing Teyla is aware of is the sharp pain in her left shoulder. The pain spikes sharply when she moves. She's lying on the ground, she realizes, and it's dark and cold. She can see the vague outline of trees around her and smell dirt. So, she's on a planet somewhere and it's night. And she's been injured, or worse. She doesn't want to think about worse.
The last thing she remembers is being captured and held in a room on a Wraith ship and a Wraith with long white hair coming in and shooting her. John and Rodney were captured too, but she doesn't know what happened to them. She hopes they escaped or were rescued.
Teyla gets up and tries to feel her way around, but the pain is great. She could be far or near a Stargate, on a planet with hostile people or dangerous animals. She could be on a planet with Iratus bugs. She could be anywhere.
Well, no. She couldn't be on the Tararians' planet, because it boiled over with lava and Rodney says it is still covered in toxic smoke. She couldn't be on Pelgis, the desert planet with the malfunctioning DHD where they got stuck for two days. She couldn't be on the planet Atlantis landed on... could she? There are a few temperate islands, fairly small ones, on the other side of the planet. But wouldn't they have found her already if she was there? And why would the Wraith have left her there?
That's the big question, of course. Why is she here? Why did the Wraith release her?
She touches her left shoulder and feels stitches. She moves it, painfully. She doesn't feel anything else - she would have expected to feel something hard, pressing against her flesh or bones, but there's nothing.
But she's certain anyway. There's only one thing she can do now.
Run.
Teyla hears the Stargate before she sees it. The whoosh of it opening and then the buzzing sound of a Wraith dart. She drops to a crouch without thinking. She feels, momentarily, like she's back on Athos, trying to hide instead of fighting like she has been used to recently. She crawls as fast as she can on the ground, keeping to the underbrush and trees, getting up and running when the sound of the dart gets quieter. The wormhole shuts off and she hopes and prays with all her might that the DHD on this side works.
She's only about 30 meters away when it comes back and she looks up to see the ray of white light coming straight for her. She dives as far as she can, hitting the ground on her right shoulder and rolling, onto her left - God, it hurts! - and then she's up and running.
They've seen her now, there's no point trying to hide. The dart banks and makes a wide turn, flying back towards her. She pushes faster, going all out. She doesn't look up, just keeps running as the sound gets louder.
She reaches the DHD and punches the buttons and the dart is almost over her, the noise is overpowering, all around her, she's going to be taken, she's going to die, and the sixth symbol is sticking, not lighting up.
She hits it again, hard, and then there's white light everywhere--
She hears the whoosh of the Gate engaging and she ducks out from under the DHD panel and sprints for it, hearing the dart receding behind her and then she is across and this planet's DHD is right in front of her. She pushes a button at random. The flickering blue light snaps off and she's standing there, alone, breathing hard.
She really hopes the Wraith dart had started going through already when the wormhole disengaged.
But if not, they'll be able to figure out where she's gone eventually. She can't stay around here long. She needs to put as much distance and as many Gates between her and them as she can.
She glances around briefly, the sun is high in the sky on this planet. It's one of the planets she used to trade on before the people were all killed. The old market stood not 100 meters from where she is now. There's nothing there now and it seems like a long, long time ago.
She punches in the next address, thinking as hard as she can. She's grateful for that she knows Ronon, that he told her to memorize as many gate addresses as she could. Now she needs to remember all of the planets and moons that have functioning DHDs and no Wraith presence, all the ones that are uninhabited, and all the ones where Atlantis has allies.
She can't go to Atlantis. The Wraith will know where she is, wherever she goes, even if it takes them a while. She can't give them even a hint of where in the galaxy Atlantis is, especially because there are hardly any other planets around it that people can live on. If she went to Atlantis, they would have to move the city again, maybe while being attacked and they have neither the ZPM energy, nor the human energy for that.
She won't bring death to their doorstep.
But she has to get a message to them - without that message getting to the Wraith instead. And without endangering anyone else more than absolutely necessary.
It's been two months and Teyla hasn't seen a Wraith in something like three weeks. At first she thought she was just going too fast for them, but then there was a Wraith attack on a planet she was hiding on and they didn't even seem to know she was there. It could have been another group of Wraith who weren't tracking her, but she thinks they probably should be able to detect her anyway. Ronon, when he talked about his experiences as a Runner, said that the tracker would sometimes attract stray Wraith who were just "in the neighborhood." He said they would come after him, along with the Wraith that had put it in him.
Teyla suspects they're trying to get her to think they've stopped chasing her, so she'll take them to Atlantis.
Then there's always the possibility that the tracker really has stopped working and she's running for no reason. Her dreams lately have been about going back to Atlantis and finding out that it was all for nothing, that there was never anything in her or that it died long ago.
In the dreams, she is always white-haired and old.
In reality, Teyla knows she will die long before she gets that old. If things go on like this, she may die before the year is out. She thinks about seven years sometimes, how long Ronon was running, and she can't imagine it. She only knows how long she has been going because of her bleeding.
She has left messages, dozens and dozens of messages. They're all contradictory - information and misinformation to confuse the Wraith. She got that from Rodney, who told her about code-breaking during the wars that took place on his Earth. She says that she's going back to old Atlantis, that she's going to the Genii homeworld, that she's going to old Athos, that she's going to Chaya's planet, that she's going to the alpha site, that she's going to addresses for which there are no planets or which are in space.
She writes symbols in the dirt on different planets, leaves notes written on bark tucked in the undersides of DHDs, brags to strangers that she knows where the Wraith who are tracking her are; that she's going to invade their base; that she's got an ambush set up on the next planet.
And in each of the messages, she drops words and details that no one but the people on Atlantis whom she knows and loves would understand. When she decides to go to the moon where her team helped create diplomatic relations between two warring tribes, she addresses the letter to "Spock" and signs it "Romulus." When she decides, after the first month, to try to get more detailed information to them via a trusted friend on Belkan, she leaves a verbal message with some knife dealers that Ronon likes to visit: "You didn't tell me." When she finds a planet where the Asurans have established a base, she writes the name "Phoebus" and the gate address in the Morse code that John taught her.
In all of them, in some form, she says, "Find me."
(The worst day was the one she dialed Atlantis. She didn't have her own IDC transmitter anymore, but she had managed to find and fix up a discarded Genii radio.
She dialed the address and waited until the wormhole engaged. She had tuned her radio to the usual frequency but didn't hear anything, so she just spoke into it.
"This is Teyla," she said as clearly as she could. "IDC 34-25-09-61-82."
She cranked the tuner slowly up and down. Nothing but static.
"I repeat, this is Teyla. IDC 34-25-09-61-82."
She said it five more times. Then she threw the package.
She wasn't going through the Stargate herself, of course. She just hoped to deliver a message. The package had her notes about where she was, where she would go each day for the next two weeks, and what little she knew about the tracker implanted in her shoulder.
For half an hour, Teyla kept tuning the radio, up and down, hoping for a response. Speaking into it, then pausing, then speaking again.
Then the wormhole closed, and she waited. And waited. Just as the sun was starting to set on the abandoned planet, the Stargate started up again.
Two Wraith darts emerged, one after the other.
Teyla was already gone - down inside a cave that she had found fairly close to the gate (her main reason for choosing this planet was the numerous caves it boasted.) She had climbed down into it through the well-hidden entrance and then wedged herself up into the ceiling so that she would be directly above anyone that came down. She hoped that the rock of the cave would disguise her tracker. But even if it did not, the Wraith would have to come in here by foot and she could pick them off. There was also a convenient chimney hole, an opening in the top of the cave too small to climb into, but through which Teyla could hear if anyone was close.
She heard them through the night, walking up and down above-ground, but they never found the cave.
There was no sound of the Stargate engaging either, no rescue party from Atlantis.
At dawn, Teyla emerged cautiously. She had heard Wraith darts going back through the Stargate. There was no sign that the Lanteans had been there. No marks of a fight, no message, though she searched. Nothing.
They had not let down the shield for her. They had not received her notes.)
Teyla realizes that she has forgotten about Floralia when she comes out on an inhabited planet and sees about a hundred gaily-dressed people gathered before the Stargate.
Someone tells her they are waiting their turn to open a wormhole. They're going to Favon, of course, the planet where the festival of Floralia takes place every year. Teyla knows that it's this time of year, but she had forgotten - between running from the Wraith, worrying about Atlantis, and trying to keep herself alive.
"Will you accompany us?" A large man dressed in a purple and red robe asks, looking at her salaciously. Teyla feels like rolling her eyes but restrains herself. This event does not bring out the best in everyone. But then, most people will be expecting such advances. She looks around. There are young men and women, probably just fifteen, going to Floralia for the first time. They joke nervously together. And older married couples, as excited as the teenagers, whispering to each other. Everyone looks happy and expectant.
It is one of the only places that it is safe for her to go.
When they emerge on the other side, it is a warm night. There is no moon, only stars, and they are almost blacked out by branches and vines. The air is soaked in the too-sweet scent of the Soris flowers. Despite the cloying smell, Teyla finds herself relaxing for the first time in weeks.
The Stargate here is in the middle of a rainforest; it is one of the few Teyla has ever seen. People say that Favon was an Eden that the Ancients created, a protected paradise. The forest is lush and green, and dark even in daylight and the pale pink flowers are everywhere, just beginning to unfold or fully open in brazen, overblown display. Petals fall from the flowers that have gone by their prime, covering the ground and making it shine white against the forest. Torches here and there provide a little light, flickering as bodies move in front of them. To match the hundreds of flowers, there are hundreds, possibly thousands, of visitors walking the forest. Many stop, eyes glazed, to kiss and touch. Teyla watches as a woman puts her arms around a man and they stumble back into a tree, setting free a cascade of petals.
Some people say the flowers are an aphrodisiac. Others say they make one truthful.
Some nameless feeling stirs at the base of Teyla's spine. She keeps moving, ignoring the calls of the man who approached her earlier. She doesn't know this place well, but something is drawing her on. She walks fast, trying to get away from the press of people. The forest seems to close in around her as she goes further in, insulating her from the noise. She comes across a narrow path, less strewn with petals than the others, and follows it.
The path splits after a little while and Teyla looks down each path, considering. Each is still and quiet. One moon has risen and its light filters through the foliage onto left path; there is a torchlight somewhere a long way down the other. She takes the left. She's not sure if she's remembering a way she came before or just imagining it looks the same, but she follows it regardless.
There, in a lighted patch, is a woman about Teyla's age. She's wearing a white dress and her skin is dark, darker than the forest around them. She takes Teyla by the shoulder and kisses her, her breath a warm tickle on Teyla's skin. Then she is gone. Maybe she is a ghost, Teyla thinks. She thinks of Elizabeth and her own mother. She is full of them, lighter than the wind.
Teyla lets caution fall away and runs then, darting through the trees, her feet slipping over roots and leaves and petals.
When she stops, out of breath, there is a light ahead of her. She's not sure where she is anymore, whether she has gone far from the Stargate or circled around at some point and is close again. Her heart thuds painfully at the thought of walking back into the crowds of dazed pilgrims. But she follows the light.
She freezes when she sees them and doesn't believe it is them at first. What she has been looking for without knowing it.
Ronon is on his back on the ground and Rodney lies next to him, curled in to him with his face pressed to Ronon's neck. John is farther down at waist-level and has Ronon's erection in his hand. He licks it slowly, lazily, spiraling up and in. Rodney has already come, she observes, seeing the semen on Ronon's belly. She feels a little sad that she missed it. But there will be other times, she feels this the way her skin feels too tight. The way she longs, to be there, between them. Yet she does not move.
She remembers this opening in the tree growth from last time, and these men.
John lays his head on Ronon's stomach. His cock is hard, but he seems unconcerned about satisfying his need. Rodney leans up and kisses Ronon while John watches. Ronon puts his hand on John's hand, smoothing through the messy hair. The point of hair on the back of his neck - Teyla wants to kiss it.
Rodney raises his head and Teyla is near enough to see the tears in his eyes.
"I wish she was here," he says, voice catching. His emotions are close to the surface, unrefined by his usual bluster. Teyla feels a surge of love for him and her throat tightens sympathetically. She catches herself about to step forward and forces herself still.
"She is," Ronon says, low and sure, and she looks up to see his gaze on her. John turns to look at her and gives her a sweet, sardonic smile, almost like he knew she was there the whole time.
It only takes Rodney a moment and then he is up, rushing to her, arms open, and she steps back, not ready for him to be there, for him to touch her. It's been too long and she feels dizzy, the air leaving her too fast before she can breathe it.
"Give her space," she hears distantly and then she realizes she is sitting on the ground and they're crowded around her. Her family. Her friends.
She laughs and looks at them, drinks them in. Ronon's hand comes up and he gently wipes away the wetness on her face.
"We hoped you'd come here," he says and she sees the anger and grief in him, and how he's holding it below the surface. His grin when she grabs his hand as it is going away tells her enough though. Rodney's hand on her arm is shaking and John doesn't touch her but he never looks away. She never wants them to go away again. And they won't. She can go home now.
It's too much. She can't look at them anymore, so she kisses them. Wildly, desperately, because she was so bereft and she can never get enough of them now.
Her whole body, that has been dead except for running and eating and sleeping, suddenly comes alive, her need overwhelming everything else. She takes John between her thighs, and Ronon sucks on her nipples, cupping her breasts in his large strong hands until she moans. She rubs roughly against John, not letting him in her just yet, while Rodney opens her up from behind with his fingers, fucking her harder and harder as she keeps to push back, wanting more, until the point where she's just taking it, holding on, and the pressure on her nipples turns painful and good as her orgasm gathers and accelerates. Ronon kisses her and she gets lost in it, and then John, and finally Rodney, turning her head to him as his fingers thrust even deeper into her and she comes.
"The botanists figured out that the Wraith are allergic to the Soris pollen," John tells her later, as they all lay tangled on the ground. Rodney is asleep; Ronon's eyes are half-closed, watching her in the torchlight.
"Gives 'em welts," Ronon adds with a chuckle.
"Yeah, that and they suffocate," John says. He sounds both pleased about that and disturbed.
"Then it is good that Rodney is not allergic," Teyla says. She doesn't want to think about the Wraith. Not here, where they cannot reach her. They can figure out the rest in the morning.
The Soris blooms for one week each year.
There are hands on her when she wakes up. She panics and then remembers. But they're not the strong, enveloping arms around her she expects, they're sharp, grasping talons pulling her up. She gasps and tries to shake them off, to get away, but she is held fast.
She turns her head and sees crystalline eyes in a beautiful, deadly face.
She relaxes all her muscles at once, her weight pulling her down and loosening the grasp of her captors. She twists away and gets two, three steps, and then she's caught again and held, tighter this time. She looks around desperately, but she can't see her team anymore. Only more Wraith worshippers, in white and blue and gold, surging around her like an ocean. She can't see the flowers anymore or the trees or anything.
It's daylight and again she doesn't know what planet she is on or how she got there. She's getting rather sick of that.
The Wraith worshippers are a mix of men and women, all beautiful, all young, and the ones holding her seem to be incredibly strong. After a little while, she feels her hands going cold.
"You're cutting off my circulation," she spits at the nearest ones.
They don't even look at her.
Teyla starts to wonder whether she imagined going to Favon. It seemed so real at the time, but now the vividness is slipping away and she is left wondering when the Wraith worshipper caught her. Did they find her on Favon? Or was it on the planet with the people waiting and she dreamed or hallucinated the rest?
Her wrists and arms have become bruised and tender when she first feels it. The hot prickle of awareness, of something pressing up against her mind. It's strong. Vast. So overpowering is it that Teyla retches, vomiting up stomach acid. There's nothing else in her to come up. She can't remember when she last ate.
Her vision goes dark and she feels her head falling back and can't help it.
She comes to a moment later, and she is still being held up by the Wraith worshippers. They send her looks of loathing but don't bother to clean her up. The stench invades her nose and mouth and she tries desperately not to vomit again.
She's only half-conscious by the time they get there. It's a massive Wraith ship, bigger than any she has seen before.
They leave her in a cell.
"Tomorrow," one of the Wraith worshippers says, the one whose nails bit into her right wrist so hard it's bloody. "You'll have your first taste of death."
Teyla doesn't intend to be there the next day. She touches every inch of wall, digging her fingers in, feeling for even a little give. She climbs up the wall as far as she can, clinging to the ridges with her bare feet and other hand as she probes to try and find anything that isn't made of the same hard, blue cartilaginous stuff as the rest of the wall. They took her knives and hair pins and everything else but her clothes. But there has to be some way out. Fortunately the door is completely opaque, so no one will see her climbing around unless they open it.
She finds it on the right side about ten feet up: a soft spot. It might be an air vent. Teyla pries at it, punches, claws and twists until it gives way. She keeps at it each time until her arms are so tired she has to let go, then she climbs up again. The opening of it is only big enough for her to get an arm into, so she sets about widening it by pulling off the hard pieces of wall around it.
Finally, it's large enough to fit her shoulders through. She checks to make sure she can't feel any Wraith close by and then wedges herself into it. It's hard to breathe, but she has to keep going. The soft material feels like the insides of an animal. It pushes open fairly easily and suctions closed behind her.
She digs her way through the ship, following the air vent, not knowing where she's going to end up. She thinks she's somewhere in the wall, judging by the noises she hears and her sense of the Wraith moving around her. Fortunately, none of them seem to realize she's there.
The air vent opens into a room, at long last. There's a number of other openings that seem to be more vents, but she doesn't see a door anywhere. Eventually she finds a panel on the wall, with lit-up yellow shapes on it. Teyla hesitates, but this seems to be the only way out. She can't shoot the panel as they usually do, so she tries pushing the buttons. Nothing happens. She tries pushing more. Again, nothing seems to happen.
Then suddenly, the room blinks out. She finds herself in a hallway. She breathes out slowly. It looks like it might be what she had hoped for--
Then she hears someone coming around the corner.
She runs, going into the first room she comes to. The sound of footsteps and voices comes nearer. There's a kind of low dais in the corner of the room, she runs and hides behind it. With any luck, they'll pass on by the room.
But no, she hears people coming in. She tries not to tremble or make any noise. If she is discovered, she doubts she will be around long enough to devise another plan out.
Then she hears a familiar voice.
She doesn't believe it at first.
"It doesn't matter what you offer us. That's never going to happen."
It's Elizabeth speaking, she's almost sure of it. Teyla wants very much to look at her, to make sure it's her, but she doesn't move.
"How do you expect us to survive, then?" The Wraith Queen answers in her hollow, warped voice.
"The experiments that the Atlanteans were working on for turning Wraith back into humans. We've been able to complete the cure, as they were unable to do."
The Wraith vaccine? Teyla thinks. The Asurans have made it work?
"Cure?" The Queen laughs. "This is no cure, it is a poison! You would turn us into weak, quivering beasts before you."
"No, we simply want to make you capable of surviving without feeding on humans. After that, you will not be our concern."
Teyla wonders whose concern they will be, if that happens. Altantis' concern, probably. She peers around the dais, trying to stay out of sight. The Queen has her back to her and Elizabeth is facing her, her view of Teyla blocked only by the Queen. There are several male Wraith with long, white hair and six Wraith guards surrounding them, one of them only about three feet from Teyla. There are also a number of Asurans behind Elizabeth.
"We will never agree to that." The Queen sounds furious, and Teyla crouches back out of sight, making herself as small as possible.
Elizabeth sighs.
"I hope you will reconsider. The alternative is your complete annihilation."
Teyla shivers. That does not sound like Elizabeth.
"This 'diplomacy' is anathema to our very nature, Dr. Weir. I am afraid you will find us no more willing to submit to you as a Replicator than when you were human."
"Then, I am sorry for you," Elizabeth answers. "Because, as a Replicator, I will have to decide whether you live or die."
The Queen does not respond. Teyla hears footsteps. The Queen, it must be the Queen, is coming closer. She will be seen in a moment. She has to act.
Teyla jumps up and snatches the nearest guard's pistol. She flips it into "kill", training it on the Queen.
"Don't move or I'll kill her," Teyla says calmly.
The Queen shrieks in anger and the guards erupt into motion.
"Teyla." Elizabeth says, sounding amazed. Teyla doesn't look at her.
"Don't shoot her," the Wraith Queen says, her lip curling. No one shoots.
"You will release me or I will kill your Queen," Teyla enunciates.
The guards seem confused, but the Queen looks directly at her. Teyla feels her then, sharp and insistent, pushing her way into her mind. She resists, pushes back, and feels enormous pain explode in her head. She drops the weapon. The guards rush her.
"No!" Elizabeth shouts, as the room tilts dizzyingly. "Give her to me!"
Someone seizes hold of her and she realizes it is Elizabeth. She is wearing a soft red shirt that seems incongruous. Elizabeth's cold hands close on her arms. She is Elizabeth, but not.
Then, the Queen is directly in front of them. She reaches a hand out toward Teyla's chest, threatening but not acting yet.
The two women, one Wraith and one Replicator, stare each other down. Teyla wonders if Wraith can invade Replicator minds or vice versa.
"We will talk again, Dr. Weir. You are indebted to me now," the Queen says quietly, a strange distorted edge in her voice.
"Yes," Elizabeth says shortly.
Then they leave, the Asurans following her and Elizabeth, who is half-carrying her. Teyla passes out again as soon as they are off the Wraith ship.
Teyla is allowed out of the infirmary after two days. There is much she still does not remember, which worries her, but Dr. Keller says that more may come back to her in time. Mostly, she is glad to be alive and back on Atlantis.
The Asurans took the tracker out. Lieutenant Carter tells her this when she visits her in the infirmary. John, Rodney and Ronon did go to Favon to try to find her, but they say they did not see her there. The Asurans released Teyla to the Lanteans on a neutral planet. She was brought back to Atlantis two days after the Floralia ended - Elizabeth told Carter that she was with them for only a day while they healed her.
Ronon tells her that the team - minus Teyla - were on Floralia for the first three days of the festival, searching for her. He doesn't hesitate or blush when he tells her, but later she sees each of them glancing at the others out of the corner of his eye. She surmises that even if she was not actually there, and did not really see them, they probably still did together what she thought - what she saw - they did. She tries not to let it worry her that they do not, apparently, remember her being there.
Without surprise, Teyla realizes that her love for her team is as strong and unrelenting as she remembers it. She finds herself longing to embrace them, all of them, though John is as shy of touch as ever and Rodney as blustery. Perhaps she does not desire them as strongly as she did on Favon, but she still thinks of that night and wonders if it will repeat itself someday.
Teyla's memories of it are even foggier now than they were before, but she is increasingly certain that it was not a dream.
The other parts she does not care to remember so much. It is enough that she survived.
It is enough.
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She touches every inch of wall, digging her fingers in, feeling for even a little give. She climbs up the wall as far as she can, clinging to the ridges with her bare feet and other hand as she probes to try and find anything that isn't made of the same hard, blue cartilaginous stuff as the rest of the wall.
So determined.
Great story.