[nano] Stained Glass Masquerade
Nov. 10th, 2007 09:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kittydesade[spoilers for up to 4x7 Missing]
Not the same underground complex he had brought her to the first time, but one close to it. A little further from the crash site, a little more well-maintained. She looked around, memorizing the way there. Fixing in her mind a way back, should she need to find her way out of here on her own. Although she didn't think Michael would do that, not this time. Not to her.
There were no laboratories here, or at least if there were he wasn't taking her past any of them. There wasn't much of anything. There were rooms, store-rooms, what looked like a bedroom that had been fixed up out of an office, what looked as though it had at one time been a conference or gathering room of some kind. No dining room, which she noted as strange at first and then realized why. And tried not to think about that.
He took her to what seemed to be a greenhouse extending from a cave at the other end of the small underground complex. She wasn't sure why. A compromise, perhaps? Perhaps as far from the place where he was living as they could get and still be in the same general area. Perhaps it had some significance she did not yet know of, she didn't know. She wanted to know. Nerves made her edgy inside, although she was managing quite well at keeping herself still and calm on the outside.
"You wanted to talk," he said, not looking at her, sitting on a stone bench. "What did you have to say?"
A-ha. And now that they were here she didn't know what she wanted to say. Perhaps to start with the question. "Why did you save my life?"
That earned her a look of disgust. Not starting off on the right footing, then. "Contrary to what you might believe, Wraith are not creatures only made to kill and feed. We do know of mercy and compassion."
Back to their earlier conversation. Which she had brought up, asking for a chance to prove her friendship. Well, she had earned that comment. "Even after what we did to you?" she asked in turn, acknowledging that he had a right to be angry. Which she had done, at least to herself, a long time ago. But she did not remember having said so to him, and perhaps it was more than time.
His turn to be startled. He tilted his head at her, as if trying to figure out whether or not she meant that. She did.
"I have never …" he started to say, then stopped and seemed to be choosing his words more carefully. "I do not mean you harm. I do not mean you harm." With a different inflection, giving it a different meaning.
She did not bring up the part where he had strapped her to a table and attempted to feed her to an Iratus bug.
"The last time we met, I did not believe I had a choice. What I did was for the same reasons you did what you believed you had to do, before that. To protect our secrets, our homes… we have done…"
"Terrible things," she suggested, lumping both of their actions into the category.
"Yes."
There was silence for a moment there, awkward and yet easier to bear. They had both acknowledged the weight of what they had done to each other, that they had done wrongs to each other. In a way they had also both put aside anything that had happened before their first meeting, face to face. Anything that Michael might have done as a Wraith to the Athosians, anything that she in her rebellion might have done to his hive, that was put aside as non-existant.
"I did not mean you harm, either," she said suddenly, needing him to know. To understand. Perhaps not to understand but to know what it was like. "After I came to know you, I found it difficult to lie to you. I did not… was no longer convinced that we were doing the right thing."
Which was still the wrong thing to say. His eyes narrowed at the reminder of what had been done to him, a look crossing his face that somehow seemed more human than Wraith.
"After we left… after we bombarded the planet, I did …"
His look was not making it easier to say. She turned away, pacing a slow circle until she came around facing the other way, her back to him. One hand came up over her shoulder.
"We did not know of any other way to prevent the knowledge of Atlantis from reaching the rest of the Wraith. We thought that the only thing to do, to survive, was to destroy you, and the rest." There was a brief pause there. She had never become so close to the other humanized Wraith as she had to Michael. The lie had been different, for one thing, and she had learned her lesson the first time. "Afterwards, I… believed you were dead." And she did not know how else to explain herself, and telling someone who was standing right behind you that you had mourned and performed rites for them seemed simply odd. She hoped he understood from what she had said, what that meant.
"Why?" His voice was much closer, and more inquisitive now. His voice, she realized after a moment, was right behind her.
She didn't turn around. "I never wanted to be your enemy, Michael. I grieved for you because I did not want to see you dead…" And she did turn, then, eyeing him. "That is not a feeling I am accustomed to, grieving over a Wraith."
Michael smiled. It wasn't a very happy smile. "Thanks to you, I am no longer a Wraith."
"Thanks to your people, I am no longer entirely human," she snapped back.
And they both stopped. It was the first time in… at least the first time that she could remember since discovering what had been done to her that she had so plainly acknowledged what she was. Not something she usually talked about, not even with Sheppard or Ronon. Reminding Beckett of it would have put her up for research for his retrovirus. Reminding Ronon of it might have made things uncomfortable between them. She had never really known what Sheppard had thought, but still had not felt comfortable discussing it with him. Not given Sheppard's own experience with the Iratus bug.
And it put a kind of symmetry between them. For the first time since he had been human, since he had believed himself one of the Atlantis team, they looked at each other with little more than a weary, wary camaraderie. She even almost found herself smiling.
Strange, to think that Michael could make her smile.
"You tried to use me for your experiments," she said then, pointing a finger at him. But not accusatory, almost playful, and tired. There was no point in bringing it up for an argument, but she did want it known that she would not forgive that type of behavior again. "Does that make us even?"
"It does not make us even," he snapped, camaraderie gone. "You still have a life, a…"
"Not. Anymore."
She was almost out the door when he stopped, one arm across the doorway to bar her exit. "What are you talking about?"
"My people," she ground out, "Were taken. By your people."
It was almost surprising that he managed to keep his calm, with what should have been an insult. Or perhaps it was only her fury that wanted him to feel that she was making a target of him. "They are not my people any longer. And I am sorry," he added, meeting her incredulous stare with his own quiet sympathy. From a Wraith. It added to the sense of unreality about the whole mess. "I am sorry that your people were taken. I …" His head tilted to one side, birdlike, almost, she thought. "I would not want you to feel alone. Not like that."
His words echoed almost the way they had in the tent, and not in the same way. There was no compulsion, only a sense of bitter and wrenching loneliness that Teyla knew was not her own, and yet was so familiar that it shocked her and made the hurt worse. A little. And in some way it made it easier to bear.
Michael turned and went past her, out the doorway and down the hall. She stared at him until he was almost out of sight before she remembered that he was lost without him, and followed.
Not the same underground complex he had brought her to the first time, but one close to it. A little further from the crash site, a little more well-maintained. She looked around, memorizing the way there. Fixing in her mind a way back, should she need to find her way out of here on her own. Although she didn't think Michael would do that, not this time. Not to her.
There were no laboratories here, or at least if there were he wasn't taking her past any of them. There wasn't much of anything. There were rooms, store-rooms, what looked like a bedroom that had been fixed up out of an office, what looked as though it had at one time been a conference or gathering room of some kind. No dining room, which she noted as strange at first and then realized why. And tried not to think about that.
He took her to what seemed to be a greenhouse extending from a cave at the other end of the small underground complex. She wasn't sure why. A compromise, perhaps? Perhaps as far from the place where he was living as they could get and still be in the same general area. Perhaps it had some significance she did not yet know of, she didn't know. She wanted to know. Nerves made her edgy inside, although she was managing quite well at keeping herself still and calm on the outside.
"You wanted to talk," he said, not looking at her, sitting on a stone bench. "What did you have to say?"
A-ha. And now that they were here she didn't know what she wanted to say. Perhaps to start with the question. "Why did you save my life?"
That earned her a look of disgust. Not starting off on the right footing, then. "Contrary to what you might believe, Wraith are not creatures only made to kill and feed. We do know of mercy and compassion."
Back to their earlier conversation. Which she had brought up, asking for a chance to prove her friendship. Well, she had earned that comment. "Even after what we did to you?" she asked in turn, acknowledging that he had a right to be angry. Which she had done, at least to herself, a long time ago. But she did not remember having said so to him, and perhaps it was more than time.
His turn to be startled. He tilted his head at her, as if trying to figure out whether or not she meant that. She did.
"I have never …" he started to say, then stopped and seemed to be choosing his words more carefully. "I do not mean you harm. I do not mean you harm." With a different inflection, giving it a different meaning.
She did not bring up the part where he had strapped her to a table and attempted to feed her to an Iratus bug.
"The last time we met, I did not believe I had a choice. What I did was for the same reasons you did what you believed you had to do, before that. To protect our secrets, our homes… we have done…"
"Terrible things," she suggested, lumping both of their actions into the category.
"Yes."
There was silence for a moment there, awkward and yet easier to bear. They had both acknowledged the weight of what they had done to each other, that they had done wrongs to each other. In a way they had also both put aside anything that had happened before their first meeting, face to face. Anything that Michael might have done as a Wraith to the Athosians, anything that she in her rebellion might have done to his hive, that was put aside as non-existant.
"I did not mean you harm, either," she said suddenly, needing him to know. To understand. Perhaps not to understand but to know what it was like. "After I came to know you, I found it difficult to lie to you. I did not… was no longer convinced that we were doing the right thing."
Which was still the wrong thing to say. His eyes narrowed at the reminder of what had been done to him, a look crossing his face that somehow seemed more human than Wraith.
"After we left… after we bombarded the planet, I did …"
His look was not making it easier to say. She turned away, pacing a slow circle until she came around facing the other way, her back to him. One hand came up over her shoulder.
"We did not know of any other way to prevent the knowledge of Atlantis from reaching the rest of the Wraith. We thought that the only thing to do, to survive, was to destroy you, and the rest." There was a brief pause there. She had never become so close to the other humanized Wraith as she had to Michael. The lie had been different, for one thing, and she had learned her lesson the first time. "Afterwards, I… believed you were dead." And she did not know how else to explain herself, and telling someone who was standing right behind you that you had mourned and performed rites for them seemed simply odd. She hoped he understood from what she had said, what that meant.
"Why?" His voice was much closer, and more inquisitive now. His voice, she realized after a moment, was right behind her.
She didn't turn around. "I never wanted to be your enemy, Michael. I grieved for you because I did not want to see you dead…" And she did turn, then, eyeing him. "That is not a feeling I am accustomed to, grieving over a Wraith."
Michael smiled. It wasn't a very happy smile. "Thanks to you, I am no longer a Wraith."
"Thanks to your people, I am no longer entirely human," she snapped back.
And they both stopped. It was the first time in… at least the first time that she could remember since discovering what had been done to her that she had so plainly acknowledged what she was. Not something she usually talked about, not even with Sheppard or Ronon. Reminding Beckett of it would have put her up for research for his retrovirus. Reminding Ronon of it might have made things uncomfortable between them. She had never really known what Sheppard had thought, but still had not felt comfortable discussing it with him. Not given Sheppard's own experience with the Iratus bug.
And it put a kind of symmetry between them. For the first time since he had been human, since he had believed himself one of the Atlantis team, they looked at each other with little more than a weary, wary camaraderie. She even almost found herself smiling.
Strange, to think that Michael could make her smile.
"You tried to use me for your experiments," she said then, pointing a finger at him. But not accusatory, almost playful, and tired. There was no point in bringing it up for an argument, but she did want it known that she would not forgive that type of behavior again. "Does that make us even?"
"It does not make us even," he snapped, camaraderie gone. "You still have a life, a…"
"Not. Anymore."
She was almost out the door when he stopped, one arm across the doorway to bar her exit. "What are you talking about?"
"My people," she ground out, "Were taken. By your people."
It was almost surprising that he managed to keep his calm, with what should have been an insult. Or perhaps it was only her fury that wanted him to feel that she was making a target of him. "They are not my people any longer. And I am sorry," he added, meeting her incredulous stare with his own quiet sympathy. From a Wraith. It added to the sense of unreality about the whole mess. "I am sorry that your people were taken. I …" His head tilted to one side, birdlike, almost, she thought. "I would not want you to feel alone. Not like that."
His words echoed almost the way they had in the tent, and not in the same way. There was no compulsion, only a sense of bitter and wrenching loneliness that Teyla knew was not her own, and yet was so familiar that it shocked her and made the hurt worse. A little. And in some way it made it easier to bear.
Michael turned and went past her, out the doorway and down the hall. She stared at him until he was almost out of sight before she remembered that he was lost without him, and followed.