[nano] Stained Glass Masquerade (conc)
Jan. 5th, 2008 08:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kittydesadeJohn gave them several more minutes before finally knocking on the door and coming out to the rear of the Jumper. It took Teyla a little longer to blink and come out of it, and he wasn't sure why.
"All right, let's go do this." Not that he was happy about it, especially not with Teyla looking around as though just waking up for the first time. If Michael had brainwashed her somehow he was going to nail that Wraith to the roof of his Jumper and give him a little trip through the planet's atmosphere. "Michael's with me, Teyla… just. Stay here, okay? Probably the best way to keep you from touching anything."
Teyla nodded. "And what about you?"
"I'll be all right. There are things Mikey and I need to talk about." He found himself smiling ironically at the Wraith, who seemed to know exactly what he meant. Not that John intended to hurt him at all, just threaten him a little. Maybe a little less. Teyla seemed fine now, although still pretty unhappy.
Which he could understand, inasmuch as he could understand any of this at all. He was still coming to grips with his own feelings, contradictory as they were, and while he had accepted that he and Teyla were pretty much over before they had ever begun, the fact that she was with a Wraith, even a half-human one (or however the percentages worked out) was still sticking.
Along with the fact that Michael seemed to be understanding every single one of his that's my sister you're sleeping with moments. He didn't even know if Wraiths had sisters. Although if Michael had a sister she would probably be a Queen, and most of the Queens he'd met could and had kicked his ass. And the whole line of thinking was starting to creep him out a little, so he just pushed past it and them and headed outside.
The sound of Michael's boots followed him down the ramp and around the terrain. They'd been pretty safe until they'd gotten some distance from the Gate the last time, although in the trees Sheppard thought he could see some hint of the glowing rock people, as he'd described them to Michael. Good. At least as long as they stayed in the trees, he wouldn't be able to be suckered in.
"First of all," he started, putting himself between Michael and the DHD. Which was a symbolic gesture more than anything as Michael could just walk around him, but still. "What the hell did you do to her in there? She looks like she's been drugged."
Michael, to his credit, accepted John's milder tone and lack of fingerpointing as the gesture towards giving him the benefit of the doubt that it had been. "We were in some depth of … of telepathic communion." He shrugged, as though the phrase wasn't quite what he had wanted but he would settle for it. John wasn't sure what that meant. "It is harder for her to adjust."
Oh. Actually, that was a more reasonable explanation than Sheppard had expected. "Oh."
"I presume this meeting is so you can threaten me with some creative punishment if I do anything to hurt Teyla?" he even smiled while he said it. Bastard.
"No, actually, since you're going to be leaving in a few minutes I thought I'd forgo the threatening part. Just this once. You're not going to be around for me to worry about any longer and I don't think you're stupid enough to try to come back." Then again, John still wasn't sure why Michael had been on the planet in the first place, or how he had gotten there. If he'd told Teyla she had never told him. He wasn't even sure Teyla knew.
"Then why…"
Mostly, John only pulled his gun to feel the weight of it in his hand, to know it was there. Michael took a step back and looked somewhat ready to either hold up his hands in a peaceful gesture or kick John's ass, he wasn't sure which. He didn't think Michael was sure which, either. But since he'd gone halfway to making the gesture …
Nah. He kept it pointing at the ground; having it out made him feel a little more secure even if all the gun safety lectures he'd ever gotten were sliding through the back of his mind right now, having small skirmishes with his sense of impeding doom. He was on a planet with Michael, a Wraith who had tried to repeatedly subvert and kill them, and a planetful of alien glowing rock people who had gotten into his people's heads and killed one of them. It wasn't making him feel very safe.
"I don't like you." That much was patently obvious, and Michael opened his mouth to probably point that out. "No, shut up." John took a breath.
"I don't like you. I don't trust you, but, God knows why, Teyla does. She likes you, she trusts you… as far as I can tell she really is in love with you. That's not the part that bothers me. Well, not anymore," he admitted. Why it was easier to admit this to Michael rather than to Teyla he didn't want to look at too closely. "The part that bothers me is that you're a Wraith. Your people look at us as food. But she looks at you like a person, and that… I just don't get."
Michael tilted his head slightly at him, apparently waiting for him to either continue or establish that he was finished. John just didn't have anything to follow that up with, so he didn't say anything. It wasn't even so much that that was true as that the way Michael looked at Teyla bugged the hell out of him. And, yes, the fact that Michael was a Wraith. All right, both sides of that bugged the hell out of him; their two species were supposed to be mutually incompatible. Not that way. Eew.
Somehow he found Todd's words echoing back at him from the ground on that Genii prison planet. Our two species are more alike than you think, John Sheppard. Or he'd said something like that, anyway.
"We agreed not to hold our past offenses against each other. It enabled us to talk."
He waited for Michael to continue with that, and frowned when there didn't seem to be any more coming. "And that's it, all you did was… just talk?"
"Just talk," Michael said. John tacked a mental 'at first' onto that and was grateful when Michael didn't add it on himself. "Now tell me, Colonel Sheppard. Would you still be so upset by our relationship if I had remained Lieutenant Michael Kenmore, and unaware of what I truly was?"
John had to stop and think about that one for a second. Sure, it would be less visually… upsetting… to see Michael as the human he'd been curled up with Teyla in the back seat of a Jumper, but he'd still know that Michael was a Wraith. Was he really that shallow?
A few moments' self-examination revealed that yes, yes he was. And he was pretty well okay with that. "No, I wouldn't. Because at least Lieutenant Kenmore would have been a part of my team, respected my orders and my command, and at least I would have had an idea what …" What he was like? What he would do? Somewhere between the two and Sheppard wasn't sure which to use. Or even if that was what he meant. "How to relate to him." There, that was better. And probably closer to the original idea anyway.
"Ah."
Well, that was unhelpful. "Look. I don't like you. I don't like you hanging around with Teyla, and I can't say that I'll be sorry when you're gone."
"But…?" Michael invited, glancing pointedly at Sheppard's gun, still out and by his side.
Not that shooting the glowing rock aliens would probably do anything, but having his gun out made him feel better, dammit. "But she does love you. And, god knows how, you make her happier. And with the way the galaxy's been treating us lately, that's not something I'm happy about losing."
Michael's lips twisted into something John guessed was supposed to be a smile, even though it looked a little more like a sneer. Or a snarl. Or an equally unpleasant expression. "Does that mean you're not going to shoot me?"
"Oh, don't get me wrong, I'd love to shoot you. I'd love to tell Ronon about you just so I could watch him hunt you down and kill you. Nothing personal, just the whole killing an entire settlement and trying to feed Teyla to a bug thing." John waved his hand. His gun hand. "But if I shoot you now… well, for one thing, Teyla would probably know. You two are probably mind-linked somehow, and I won't do that to her." His voice had somehow softened by the end of that speech. He hadn't wanted Michael to hear that. "And, like I said. You make her happier. And I don't want to do that to her, either, take away someone who makes her happy. I… like seeing her happy."
"Ah." And again that sort of twisted smile, but this time Michael looked … more sad. He thought. He wasn't exactly the expert on Wraith emotions. "You should have told her, you know."
John didn't need to ask what Michael was talking about and he didn't want to know if he was wrong. Or bring it up, especially in conversation with Michael. Ever. "Yeah, I know. I'm stupid that way." He waved the gun in the general direction of the Stargate. "Are you going to get out of here or not?"
Michael moved around him, dialing a planet that John didn't turn around in time to see the address to. The Stargate whooshed, and they were both staring at a swirly glowing blue puddle. John thought, and he wasn't sure he was right but it was a surprisingly painful thought, that it was probably a good thing Teyla was still in the Jumper. If he'd been in Michael's shoes he wasn't sure he would be able to let go.
And that was a surprisingly painful thought too, just because it was Michael. He shoved that one back down under a heap of other thoughts never to be addressed again.
"Good luck," he called finally. Michael was right in front of the Gate. He turned, looked at Sheppard, who was too far away to see his expression.
"Thank you."
Teyla found it easier than she had expected to slip back into a routine. One mission followed another, all at too quick of a pace for her to keep up almost with what was happening let alone how she felt about it all.
The search parties had come back with the revelation that there was a ruin of a partially underground base in the forbidden area. There were some devices still remaining, but none of them were in anything that could be considered working order, about which McKay and Zelenka had both complained loudly and at great length. There was sign that someone had been there until recently, but no one could figure out who it had been. Suspicions were high over Genii activity, or Travelers after Sheppard's kidnapping. No one suspected the Wraith on account of the clearly pilfered for use MREs.
She did find herself on the balconies occasionally, the ones looking out to the continent. Planning her next trip out only to remember that Michael was no longer there, and then having to go back inside to avoid forgetting again.
Living inside of her own head was not the problem she had imagined. Perhaps because the moments when she had been in communion with Michael had been far fewer than the ones in which she had been on her own in Atlantis. So to speak.
There was still no one else she could go to when her Wraith heritage made her the only person available to fly a Wraith ship, to detect the incoming Wraith, although these days they were more worried about the incoming Replicators. Although Atlantis had long before grown used to her gift and accepted her, the nightmares that came after some of their battles with the Wraith were the sort that she did not feel comfortable sharing with anyone, and especially not with the loss of Dr. Heightmeyer. No one had arrived to replace her yet. Or at least, no one that Teyla felt comfortable speaking with.
She had tried to talk to the base psychiatrist upon their return from dropping off Michael, at Carter's recommendation. She hadn't gotten so far as even mentioning him before she knew that he would pass judgment on her, and closing the session with an apologetic smile.
Then, when Sheppard appeared in her doorway as she was lacing up her boots, she wondered if he had said something after all.
"Hey."
"Hello."
He didn't say anything for a moment, either. She was on the verge of asking him what he wanted to say or ask when he came and sat down next to her on the bed.
"You holding up all right?"
"I …" And then she realized what he meant. "I … am getting by. I did not expect … I was not sure what to expect."
John nodded, sort of seeming to understand. She wondered sometimes, especially when she caught him out being particularly discreet at the mess hall or on their off hours, if he was more understanding now that Michael was well and truly out of the picture. Or if he had simply taken this long to come to terms with what she had chosen.
"I asked Carter to forward me all communications that come by Atlantis, just in case. If he tries to contact us, we should be able to find out or figure it out… somehow."
It wasn't something she had even thought of, let alone something she had expected from John. She glanced over at him with a tiny, bemused smile. "Thank you."
"No problem."
More awkward silence. Still less worrisome than anything they had endured in the Jumper on the way back from Michael's hideaway. It was a relief to have him simply there and sitting beside her, even if she wasn't quite sure why.
"John…"
"Teyla…"
They both smiled a little, even almost laughed as they started to speak at the same time. Evidently the silence was just as hard on him as it had been on her. He gestured for her to speak first, which she took down as due to his difficulty with speaking according to his feelings.
"If… I handled the situation with Michael badly, I am sorry. When I first encountered him I was not prepared for… I did not expect it to turn out as it did. We have had a difficult time lately accepting all the changes that have come to Atlantis; I did not want to put the city at risk again if he turned away from his currently peaceful mood. And," she added, for the sake of honesty. "I did not want to put him in the path of being hurt by an at-best neutral reception."
And Ronon would have killed him. But they both knew that part.
John smiled a little, for no real reason she could discern, sliding an arm around her shoulders and hugging her lightly. Awkwardly; it was rare enough for him to initiate any contact resembling an embrace, and he always did so awkwardly.
"You didn't handle it badly. Hell, we probably would have shot him on sight or thrown him in the brig at best, and…"
Teyla leaned into him a little, surprised and grateful for the comfort, waiting for him to figure out what the words were that he wanted to say.
"I'm sorry things had to turn out this way."
She sighed, just a little. Closed her eyes. The moment had been there and he had let it slide by as surely as she had let other moments pass without asking him to say what was so clearly on his mind. Perhaps because there was no clear opportunity there, his circumstance being what it was and her not willing to compromise that. And hers being what it was as well. Michael may be gone, but she was not willing to abandon hope just yet.
Which might merit saying. "I will not give up hope of seeing him again," she told John, without opening her eyes or lifting her head. "Nor of being able to bring him to Atlantis under better circumstances."
To her surprise, he leaned over and kissed the top of her head. "Good," he said, and stayed there as though he would say something else. And then, infuriatingly, he did not.
Teyla gave the doorway a funny look after he had gone, wondering.
"All right, let's go do this." Not that he was happy about it, especially not with Teyla looking around as though just waking up for the first time. If Michael had brainwashed her somehow he was going to nail that Wraith to the roof of his Jumper and give him a little trip through the planet's atmosphere. "Michael's with me, Teyla… just. Stay here, okay? Probably the best way to keep you from touching anything."
Teyla nodded. "And what about you?"
"I'll be all right. There are things Mikey and I need to talk about." He found himself smiling ironically at the Wraith, who seemed to know exactly what he meant. Not that John intended to hurt him at all, just threaten him a little. Maybe a little less. Teyla seemed fine now, although still pretty unhappy.
Which he could understand, inasmuch as he could understand any of this at all. He was still coming to grips with his own feelings, contradictory as they were, and while he had accepted that he and Teyla were pretty much over before they had ever begun, the fact that she was with a Wraith, even a half-human one (or however the percentages worked out) was still sticking.
Along with the fact that Michael seemed to be understanding every single one of his that's my sister you're sleeping with moments. He didn't even know if Wraiths had sisters. Although if Michael had a sister she would probably be a Queen, and most of the Queens he'd met could and had kicked his ass. And the whole line of thinking was starting to creep him out a little, so he just pushed past it and them and headed outside.
The sound of Michael's boots followed him down the ramp and around the terrain. They'd been pretty safe until they'd gotten some distance from the Gate the last time, although in the trees Sheppard thought he could see some hint of the glowing rock people, as he'd described them to Michael. Good. At least as long as they stayed in the trees, he wouldn't be able to be suckered in.
"First of all," he started, putting himself between Michael and the DHD. Which was a symbolic gesture more than anything as Michael could just walk around him, but still. "What the hell did you do to her in there? She looks like she's been drugged."
Michael, to his credit, accepted John's milder tone and lack of fingerpointing as the gesture towards giving him the benefit of the doubt that it had been. "We were in some depth of … of telepathic communion." He shrugged, as though the phrase wasn't quite what he had wanted but he would settle for it. John wasn't sure what that meant. "It is harder for her to adjust."
Oh. Actually, that was a more reasonable explanation than Sheppard had expected. "Oh."
"I presume this meeting is so you can threaten me with some creative punishment if I do anything to hurt Teyla?" he even smiled while he said it. Bastard.
"No, actually, since you're going to be leaving in a few minutes I thought I'd forgo the threatening part. Just this once. You're not going to be around for me to worry about any longer and I don't think you're stupid enough to try to come back." Then again, John still wasn't sure why Michael had been on the planet in the first place, or how he had gotten there. If he'd told Teyla she had never told him. He wasn't even sure Teyla knew.
"Then why…"
Mostly, John only pulled his gun to feel the weight of it in his hand, to know it was there. Michael took a step back and looked somewhat ready to either hold up his hands in a peaceful gesture or kick John's ass, he wasn't sure which. He didn't think Michael was sure which, either. But since he'd gone halfway to making the gesture …
Nah. He kept it pointing at the ground; having it out made him feel a little more secure even if all the gun safety lectures he'd ever gotten were sliding through the back of his mind right now, having small skirmishes with his sense of impeding doom. He was on a planet with Michael, a Wraith who had tried to repeatedly subvert and kill them, and a planetful of alien glowing rock people who had gotten into his people's heads and killed one of them. It wasn't making him feel very safe.
"I don't like you." That much was patently obvious, and Michael opened his mouth to probably point that out. "No, shut up." John took a breath.
"I don't like you. I don't trust you, but, God knows why, Teyla does. She likes you, she trusts you… as far as I can tell she really is in love with you. That's not the part that bothers me. Well, not anymore," he admitted. Why it was easier to admit this to Michael rather than to Teyla he didn't want to look at too closely. "The part that bothers me is that you're a Wraith. Your people look at us as food. But she looks at you like a person, and that… I just don't get."
Michael tilted his head slightly at him, apparently waiting for him to either continue or establish that he was finished. John just didn't have anything to follow that up with, so he didn't say anything. It wasn't even so much that that was true as that the way Michael looked at Teyla bugged the hell out of him. And, yes, the fact that Michael was a Wraith. All right, both sides of that bugged the hell out of him; their two species were supposed to be mutually incompatible. Not that way. Eew.
Somehow he found Todd's words echoing back at him from the ground on that Genii prison planet. Our two species are more alike than you think, John Sheppard. Or he'd said something like that, anyway.
"We agreed not to hold our past offenses against each other. It enabled us to talk."
He waited for Michael to continue with that, and frowned when there didn't seem to be any more coming. "And that's it, all you did was… just talk?"
"Just talk," Michael said. John tacked a mental 'at first' onto that and was grateful when Michael didn't add it on himself. "Now tell me, Colonel Sheppard. Would you still be so upset by our relationship if I had remained Lieutenant Michael Kenmore, and unaware of what I truly was?"
John had to stop and think about that one for a second. Sure, it would be less visually… upsetting… to see Michael as the human he'd been curled up with Teyla in the back seat of a Jumper, but he'd still know that Michael was a Wraith. Was he really that shallow?
A few moments' self-examination revealed that yes, yes he was. And he was pretty well okay with that. "No, I wouldn't. Because at least Lieutenant Kenmore would have been a part of my team, respected my orders and my command, and at least I would have had an idea what …" What he was like? What he would do? Somewhere between the two and Sheppard wasn't sure which to use. Or even if that was what he meant. "How to relate to him." There, that was better. And probably closer to the original idea anyway.
"Ah."
Well, that was unhelpful. "Look. I don't like you. I don't like you hanging around with Teyla, and I can't say that I'll be sorry when you're gone."
"But…?" Michael invited, glancing pointedly at Sheppard's gun, still out and by his side.
Not that shooting the glowing rock aliens would probably do anything, but having his gun out made him feel better, dammit. "But she does love you. And, god knows how, you make her happier. And with the way the galaxy's been treating us lately, that's not something I'm happy about losing."
Michael's lips twisted into something John guessed was supposed to be a smile, even though it looked a little more like a sneer. Or a snarl. Or an equally unpleasant expression. "Does that mean you're not going to shoot me?"
"Oh, don't get me wrong, I'd love to shoot you. I'd love to tell Ronon about you just so I could watch him hunt you down and kill you. Nothing personal, just the whole killing an entire settlement and trying to feed Teyla to a bug thing." John waved his hand. His gun hand. "But if I shoot you now… well, for one thing, Teyla would probably know. You two are probably mind-linked somehow, and I won't do that to her." His voice had somehow softened by the end of that speech. He hadn't wanted Michael to hear that. "And, like I said. You make her happier. And I don't want to do that to her, either, take away someone who makes her happy. I… like seeing her happy."
"Ah." And again that sort of twisted smile, but this time Michael looked … more sad. He thought. He wasn't exactly the expert on Wraith emotions. "You should have told her, you know."
John didn't need to ask what Michael was talking about and he didn't want to know if he was wrong. Or bring it up, especially in conversation with Michael. Ever. "Yeah, I know. I'm stupid that way." He waved the gun in the general direction of the Stargate. "Are you going to get out of here or not?"
Michael moved around him, dialing a planet that John didn't turn around in time to see the address to. The Stargate whooshed, and they were both staring at a swirly glowing blue puddle. John thought, and he wasn't sure he was right but it was a surprisingly painful thought, that it was probably a good thing Teyla was still in the Jumper. If he'd been in Michael's shoes he wasn't sure he would be able to let go.
And that was a surprisingly painful thought too, just because it was Michael. He shoved that one back down under a heap of other thoughts never to be addressed again.
"Good luck," he called finally. Michael was right in front of the Gate. He turned, looked at Sheppard, who was too far away to see his expression.
"Thank you."
Teyla found it easier than she had expected to slip back into a routine. One mission followed another, all at too quick of a pace for her to keep up almost with what was happening let alone how she felt about it all.
The search parties had come back with the revelation that there was a ruin of a partially underground base in the forbidden area. There were some devices still remaining, but none of them were in anything that could be considered working order, about which McKay and Zelenka had both complained loudly and at great length. There was sign that someone had been there until recently, but no one could figure out who it had been. Suspicions were high over Genii activity, or Travelers after Sheppard's kidnapping. No one suspected the Wraith on account of the clearly pilfered for use MREs.
She did find herself on the balconies occasionally, the ones looking out to the continent. Planning her next trip out only to remember that Michael was no longer there, and then having to go back inside to avoid forgetting again.
Living inside of her own head was not the problem she had imagined. Perhaps because the moments when she had been in communion with Michael had been far fewer than the ones in which she had been on her own in Atlantis. So to speak.
There was still no one else she could go to when her Wraith heritage made her the only person available to fly a Wraith ship, to detect the incoming Wraith, although these days they were more worried about the incoming Replicators. Although Atlantis had long before grown used to her gift and accepted her, the nightmares that came after some of their battles with the Wraith were the sort that she did not feel comfortable sharing with anyone, and especially not with the loss of Dr. Heightmeyer. No one had arrived to replace her yet. Or at least, no one that Teyla felt comfortable speaking with.
She had tried to talk to the base psychiatrist upon their return from dropping off Michael, at Carter's recommendation. She hadn't gotten so far as even mentioning him before she knew that he would pass judgment on her, and closing the session with an apologetic smile.
Then, when Sheppard appeared in her doorway as she was lacing up her boots, she wondered if he had said something after all.
"Hey."
"Hello."
He didn't say anything for a moment, either. She was on the verge of asking him what he wanted to say or ask when he came and sat down next to her on the bed.
"You holding up all right?"
"I …" And then she realized what he meant. "I … am getting by. I did not expect … I was not sure what to expect."
John nodded, sort of seeming to understand. She wondered sometimes, especially when she caught him out being particularly discreet at the mess hall or on their off hours, if he was more understanding now that Michael was well and truly out of the picture. Or if he had simply taken this long to come to terms with what she had chosen.
"I asked Carter to forward me all communications that come by Atlantis, just in case. If he tries to contact us, we should be able to find out or figure it out… somehow."
It wasn't something she had even thought of, let alone something she had expected from John. She glanced over at him with a tiny, bemused smile. "Thank you."
"No problem."
More awkward silence. Still less worrisome than anything they had endured in the Jumper on the way back from Michael's hideaway. It was a relief to have him simply there and sitting beside her, even if she wasn't quite sure why.
"John…"
"Teyla…"
They both smiled a little, even almost laughed as they started to speak at the same time. Evidently the silence was just as hard on him as it had been on her. He gestured for her to speak first, which she took down as due to his difficulty with speaking according to his feelings.
"If… I handled the situation with Michael badly, I am sorry. When I first encountered him I was not prepared for… I did not expect it to turn out as it did. We have had a difficult time lately accepting all the changes that have come to Atlantis; I did not want to put the city at risk again if he turned away from his currently peaceful mood. And," she added, for the sake of honesty. "I did not want to put him in the path of being hurt by an at-best neutral reception."
And Ronon would have killed him. But they both knew that part.
John smiled a little, for no real reason she could discern, sliding an arm around her shoulders and hugging her lightly. Awkwardly; it was rare enough for him to initiate any contact resembling an embrace, and he always did so awkwardly.
"You didn't handle it badly. Hell, we probably would have shot him on sight or thrown him in the brig at best, and…"
Teyla leaned into him a little, surprised and grateful for the comfort, waiting for him to figure out what the words were that he wanted to say.
"I'm sorry things had to turn out this way."
She sighed, just a little. Closed her eyes. The moment had been there and he had let it slide by as surely as she had let other moments pass without asking him to say what was so clearly on his mind. Perhaps because there was no clear opportunity there, his circumstance being what it was and her not willing to compromise that. And hers being what it was as well. Michael may be gone, but she was not willing to abandon hope just yet.
Which might merit saying. "I will not give up hope of seeing him again," she told John, without opening her eyes or lifting her head. "Nor of being able to bring him to Atlantis under better circumstances."
To her surprise, he leaned over and kissed the top of her head. "Good," he said, and stayed there as though he would say something else. And then, infuriatingly, he did not.
Teyla gave the doorway a funny look after he had gone, wondering.