[nano] Stained Glass Masquerade

[kittydesade]

Teyla sat on the edge of her bed with her head on her hands and wondered how it had all gone so terribly wrong. Or perhaps it had been set right. Michael was with his people now, and at least his life had been put back the way it should be. Of course, that still left the question of what would happen to Atlantis.

It had all been a bad idea the first place. She felt a little guilty about not having spoken up sooner, except that no one had realized what a bad idea it was, including her, when they had first started. They had all agreed it was at least worth trying, and then she had come to know Michael as a person and not as a walking nightmare. And then Michael had come to realize the nightmare he was in and they were all faced with the dilemma of what to do with Michael versus what to do about the safety of Atlantis. And now that decision had been taken out of her hands, and she did feel badly about how much relief she felt.

There was a knock at the door. She wasn't sure she was up for company. Teyla waited a moment longer, then stood and moved towards the door, opening it after a moment to catch her breath and regain her composure.

"Oh. Hey." It looked as though Sheppard had been about to leave. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up or anything."

Teyla smiled, just a little. "It is all right, John." Opening the door a little further, she gestured for him to come in. "I was only thinking."

"About Michael," he said rather than asked. There was a tense note to his voice, something that was either concern or jealousy, or maybe simple stress. Exhaustion. They were all exhausted, especially Sheppard, who had been handling the security changes since Michael's escape, and Dr. Beckett.

"Yes," she said, turning and sitting back down on the corner of her bed. "About Michael."

"He didn't hurt you, did he?" The implication was heavy in his voice and attitude and expression, that if Michael had hurt her in any way Sheppard would be more than happy to pick up Ronon and go hunting.

Teyla shook her head, fingers moving along the bed to reach out to him, and then stopping because she didn't feel as though she could, somehow. "He did not hurt me. Actually," she admitted, and she had been thinking of it off and on ever since the rescue. "When you found me..."

"He was about to kill you, I saw."

"No, that was not it." Teyla shook her head. John was not likely to believe what she was about to tell him, but she did feel safe in telling him this much. "When you found me, he was about to feed on me, yes. I believe he would have if you hadn't stopped him. But before that, we had stopped for the evening. And he let me sit down, let me rest."

John's expression slid from confused to skeptical. "He let you just sit down and rest?"

"When I woke up, I was unbound. He had cut the handcuffs off, cut his own vest off, he had left everything behind except the gun. He left me unbound and lying on the ground. I could have escaped and he did not seem to care."

She hadn't known what to make of it at the time. Now, she did remember that Michael said he hadn't wanted to kill the soldier, he just wanted to escape. John didn't seem to know what to make of it either, but he crouched down in front of her and put his hand over hers.

"I'm just glad we got you back safe and sound," he said, with a rueful smile that didn't pretend to be anything more than it was. She was surprised to realize how grateful she was that. She was surprised at a lot of things that had happened in last several days.

"So am I."




A week or two later, the dreams had not subsided, but her confusion had faded into the background. She spoke with Dr. Heightmeyer once, about the dreams that had reoccurred since Michael's escape.

"Do you think what happened with Michael has changed your outlook on the Wraith?"

Teyla frowned. "If you mean, do I think any better of them than I did before, the answer is no. Would I be more willing to accept..." she tried to think of an appropriate example of what she meant, but couldn't.

"If you encountered a Wraith in a non-hostile setting, what do you think your reaction would be?"

"Fear," Teyla's response was immediate and sure. "Possibly anger, possibly I might wish to defend myself. I cannot imagine any circumstance under which I would meet a Wraith that would not be hostile. For one or both of us."

"What do you think you would do if you met Michael again?"

That was the question. Meeting Michael again would be anything but non-hostile, but there was history between them now. She had never before experienced an encounter with a Wraith that would give them history, a history that they would remember upon meeting again.

"I don't know."

Dr. Heightmeyer seemed to take that in for a moment, and to be letting Teyla get control of herself again. Teyla didn't feel as though she had never been out of control of herself, only a little bit sad.

"If I saw him again, I suppose that would depend on what he intended. If he intended me or my friends harm, I would have to… take the appropriate steps." There, that was ambiguous enough without committing herself to some sort of ridiculous and unthinking vendetta. Not that she thought Dr. Heightmeyer believed she should take up such a vendetta. "If he did not, then, I would want to talk with him."

"To talk with him," she repeated. "To try to understand…" Something. It wasn't something she could express in words, she thought. "To try to understand him," she decided, which was as close as she could come to an explanation.

Dr. Heightmeyer nodded. And she might have leaned forward a bit. "And do you think what happened with Michael is why you've been having the dreams again?"

"I think … it is a part of it. I think it may have reminded me of some part of myself that I wanted to forget."

She didn't understand Teyla's meaning. "What part of yourself do you think…"

"I am, in part, a Wraith. Although it is not a part of me that I wish to acknowledge, nor did I ever ask for it, they did change me. I think..." Teyla looked down at her hands. "That sometimes I willfully forget that, because I do not wish to think about it."

She knew, when she looked up again, that Dr. Heightmeyer didn't understand.



[Allies]
She had never expected to hear from him again. That Michael had survived, even thrived on the Wraith ship that had taken him away, she did not doubt. But that he would ever come into contact with them again, willingly, that had not been something she had foreseen or even dreamed up.

And when she received word that he wanted to talk to her, she didn't know what to think.

To go talk to him, or to stay in relative security that still felt like cowardice. She didn't know what to do. And the soldier who had brought the message into was to guard her while they spoke was waiting.

"I'll take over," someone said, a familiar rumble. "You can go."

Teyla looked over at Ronon with something like relief. Not quite relief yet, considering what Ronon's attitude towards Michael had been the last time a half breed had been on Atlantis. And yet. She knew she didn't want to face him alone.

"Are you sure?"

Ronon shrugged. "Do you know why he wants to see you?" He asked, Texas. Teyla thought about at least trying to make him answer the question, and decided against it.

"I do not know. Perhaps he feels we have some sort of connection or bond because of what happened last time," she speculated. Not that she wanted to speculate too hard about that, but it was the most likely answer. "Perhaps he simply wants to find out what our intentions are, and he thinks I will be the most sympathetic and likely to answer his questions."

"Are you?"

"Am I what?" She blinked at him.

"Sympathetic to him."

There were two ways she could answer that. Because it was Ronon, and because he had never liked the idea of the experiment from the start, and liked Michael even less, she could answer either honestly or with what honesty would not start a fight between Ronon and Michael. Even if the Atlantis team would most likely judge any fight between them in Ronon's favor, she opted on the side of diplomacy.

"I do feel some measure of responsibility for what happened to him. He did not make the choice to become human, we forced that on him. But everything that he is done since then has been his own choice, including killing that soldier and taking me hostage." She did not remind Ronon that he had also let her go afterwards. That, if he hadn't returned the moment she'd woken up, she likely would have been able to find her way back to the gate and leave Michael to be picked up by the Wraith without incident.

Ronon did seem to accept that answer without much more than a grimace, which might have been at her capture. "Do you trust him?"

Now that was a difficult question. "I do not know. But I would rather have you with me," she added, and impulse, both to make Ronon feel better about her meeting Michael and because Sheppard, too, would be furious if he knew Teyla had been meeting with Michael without backup.

And perhaps it was a little of her own fear of her impulses as well. Her compassion had gotten her into trouble once, and she did not want to repeat that mistake.

"I would like it very much," she rephrased, smiling at him. "If you would accompany me to see Michael."

"Then let's go," he smiled back.



[after Misbegotten]
He did not accompany her the second time.

She didn't know whether that had been a good thing or a bad thing, but it had not ended well. Their second conversation in a week, after the dizzying highs and lows of the battle with the wraith ship that had briefly been their ally, everything going almost too fast to comprehend. John had been dead, and then not dead, and Michael was here and their conversation had been full of raw emotions. She had the feeling he hadn't told anyone else what had happened, not in words that made it clear how he felt about it. The way he spoke with Sheppard and Weir spoke of survival. The way he had talked with her was something else.

Teyla sat heavily on the corner of her bed. She looked at me as if I was some kind of unclean thing. She wondered what he'd meant to say after that.

Sympathy. Compassion. She did not want to feel either of those things for Michael; she wanted to be able to handle all dealings with him with unbreakable dispassion. And yet, she could not help but think what it would be like to be forced to spend the rest of your life on a ship that loathed and looked down on you.

Her fingertips massaged at her temples, trying to banish a headache that would not go away. There had been only two choices for him, she had tried to make him believe that. Death, which she did not want for him, or life as a human. And yet when he had made the argument that life as a human, not knowing anything of who he had been, was the same as death she could not argue against that either. She had simply changed the subject.

A part of her wished she had not. A part of her wished they had continued the conversation, to every uncomfortable place it had taken them, to some sort of conclusion. That was the same part of her that mourned him now, quietly, in the privacy of her quarters.

Michael was dead, he had to be. Nothing could have survived that bombardment. And perhaps it was better that way, for as much as he had fought for life there had been so many times when she thought she must surely ask him why. As unhappy as he was, why would you fight to live a life that no longer seemed worth living?

Or perhaps she had been mistaken about that, too. There was no way of knowing now, no way to ask him.

Teyla brushed the tears out of her eyes, took a breath, and knelt down. There were rituals for everything that mattered, life, love, death. Forgiveness, and redemption. She composed herself to begin the funeral ritual that would breach no seal of security, tell no secret to no living person. If she could not give him the dignity she felt he deserved in life, no matter who he had been before she had come to know him, she could give him that in death. And perhaps, even if he was not there to hear it, apologize for her part in what had been done to him.