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For the John/Teyla ficathon run by the JohnAndTeyla yahoogroup.
TITLE: Amends And Promises
AUTHOR: Tielan
SUMMARY: John liked knowing where he stood, even if turned out to be on thin ice with a pair of steel-toed boots. At least then he knew to tread carefully.
PAIRING: John/Teyla
RATING: PG-13
SPOILERS: Set after 'Conversion' but before 'Aurora'
NOTES: Written for the John/Teyla ficathon challenge. The challenge is listed at the end, I didn't precisely hold to it, but I did what I could with the boundaries of the characters.
Amends And Promises
Part One
There was something irredeemably savage about the way Ronan fought Teyla, something frighteningly primal and instinctive in their blows and blocks.
John was well aware that the marines considered his own skill against Teyla good. Of the handful of men who'd taken up her offer of stave-fighting lessons in the early days of the expedition, he was the only one who'd persisted to this point. The others were summarily laid out by her more often than their egos could take.
John had trained to the point where he could hold her off. And that was about as much as he could manage. He wasn't good enough to lay her out, but he was good enough to hold his own; for the moment, that was all he asked.
However, the whirling fury of Ronan Dex was something new; a force that even Teyla found hard to counter.
Oh, she met Ronan's blows, jab for jab, hit for hit, her staves whirling and dancing in her hands as she danced in and out of the taller fighter's reach, but he had the reach and weight of her and the edge brought on by a reliance on these skills to keep him living.
Still, she fought back, refusing to back down in the face of a larger, heavier opponent.
John watched her move, and quietly allowed himself to reflect that she was one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen. Whether still or in motion, she held his gaze - held the gazes of more than a few men in Atlantis, in fact - especially those of the more recent arrivals from Earth. From what John heard, there'd been some covert interest in her, some subtle moves.
Ronan wasn't being particularly covert about his fondness for Teyla's company.
The big man saw an opening and dove for it. Her staff slammed down on his wrist, and John winced at the noise it made. No bones broken, but she wasn't pulling her blows. In moments, she had Ronan disarmed and kneeling before her, her staves angled at his throat so the slightest bit of pressure would crush his windpipe.
In spite of himself, John grinned. That was Teyla; no half-heartedness, nothing held back.
"You should not risk all to gain advantage," she chided as she let him go.
The big man just grunted as he accepted her hand up. "Life is risk, Teyla."
"Perhaps. But that does not mean it cannot be controlled."
“You can't control everything."
"I do not need to control everything," she answered, amused. "I control myself and that is enough."
The other man paused and arched one eyebrow, wickedly. "Do you ever lose control?"
She was amused by the provocative question but cool as she returned his gaze. "When necessary," she said. "Instincts can be important, too."
John decided it was time to intervene.
He stepped forward, shifting his bag on his shoulder, both noise and movement turning their heads. It was disturbing that they turned to him in unison, faces tilted at mirror angles as they looked at him, although their reactions were very different.
Ronan seemed both amused and wary of the interruption. Teyla regarded him with something that wasn't quite relief.
"Sorry to intrude," he said casually, addressing Teyla rather than Ronan. "I thought we were going to spar."
"You were late."
"Elizabeth called me in for a quick chat. And I'm here now."
A hint of exasperation entered her voice, the faintest tremor of irritation. "And so I will spar with you now." She stepped back from Ronan. "Thank you, Ronan."
"Evening meal?"
"The evening meal," she affirmed.
He picked up his guns and bent to lean his head against Teyla's in an Athosian-style genuflection that looked almost like a kiss. Then he gave John one long, measuring glance before striding out of the gym in his long-legged lope.
John waited until he was sure the other man was out of earshot. "Evening meal?"
"He expressed a desire to share the evening repast with me," Teyla said, walking across the room to her satchel, where she removed a waterskin and drank. In spite of the technology available to her from the Atlantis expedition, she persisted in using some of the objects of her people. John suspected that the things she wouldn't give up had some personal meaning to her. It was Teyla's way of clinging to the culture of her people.
Like fighting with staves.
"So, this is a date?" She dropped the waterskin back among her things, and the look she turned upon him made him hold up his hands in protest. "Just asking."
"If you wish to know what is happening between Ronan and I, Colonel, then you should ask directly."
John grimaced. He'd hoped to be a little subtler. "All right, then," he said. "What is happening between you and Ronan?"
"That is none of your business," came the response.
"I think it is," he said firmly, ignoring the startled look on her face. A moment later, he continued, carefully professional. "As your commanding officer - and his - I need to know if there's anything happening between you."
Her eyes narrowed. "I do not see how this is relevant to your leadership."
"It's relevant because you have to work together," John said, irrationally angry. "If you're personally involved then that could affect your professional interaction."
There was a delicate rigidity to her stance that indicated he'd struck a nerve. "You believe that either Ronan or I might endanger you and Rodney because we are 'personally involved' as you say?"
"So you are involved?"
"I didn't say that." She clenched her teeth around the words. "If you can believe that we might put our team-mates at risk..."
John measured his words, only too aware that he was talking about more than Ronan and Teyla here. "Teyla, sometimes our feelings surprise us. We can't always control when we care about other people." He knew that feeling only too well; the knowledge that he'd used up his fuel on the burn and had nowhere to go but down. And even with a 'chute, hitting the ground hurt. "I need to know if there's anything more between the two of you."
"So you know whether to trust us?" Her response was scathing, and he grimaced.
"Look, I've trusted you since day one, Teyla. All I'm asking is that you give me a little honesty in return."
It was a low card to play and he knew it. From the look in her eyes, she knew he knew it, too. But she answered.
"We are not."
He nodded, feeling the tightness in his chest ease. "Good." At her sharp glance, he qualified. "That's one less thing for me to worry about."
Her smile was thin and formal. "I would not wish to cause you extra worry, Colonel."
His own smile back was forced. "Glad to hear it." He pulled the staves from his bag and indicated the empty floor. "Shall we?"
Teyla took her place opposite him with a slight tilt of the head - the faintest hint of irony in the gesture that should have been one of respect.
They circled each other, staves up and ready, eyes watching each other, waiting for that first move. He spun his right staff through the air once, enjoying the sound of the wood through air, then moved in, leading the attack with his left staff and following it up with the right.
She beat him off easily enough, holding his blows away and returning attacks of her own. John pushed, experimentally, testing her limits and his own. After the confrontation with Teyla, he felt as though he had something to work off, a delicate frustration with a situation that he'd seen coming a long time ago - and done his best to deny.
When she met every blow he struck, he increased the intensity, pushing her limits. This wasn't a display of ego - not yet. Right now, John wanted a partner, not a victory. But he wanted to go hard and fierce, holding nothing back, and there were only a handful of times when he'd let loose all the things that he couldn't allow to escape while he was on duty.
In Teyla's presence, John Sheppard was always on duty - all the more because he didn't trust himself not to forget what he could forget with almost every other woman in Atlantis.
Two women challenged his solitude. Elizabeth Weir and Teyla Emmagen. Both trusted, both beautiful in their own ways, both with the clinging authority of their roles, both untouchable as far as John Sheppard was concerned.
In a city where he was the man responsible for their safety, he didn't dare care about any person more than another.
Elizabeth was safe to flirt with; she knew the rules of the game, and John knew perfectly well she was still getting over the break-up with the guy she'd left behind on Earth. He didn't know what had been said or done, he only knew that she returned to Atlantis with the kind of intensity he'd seen in men and women who had nothing left behind them: only what future they'd carve out for themselves.
Somewhere on Earth, there was a man with whom John wanted to share a few words and a knuckle sandwich.
He liked Elizabeth. She was practical. Ballsy in a non-military way. Stubborn as McKay. If it wasn't for their positions in the command structure of Atlantis... But they were civilian authority and military leader; there was no room for romance between them: not with the Atlantis expedition riding on their shoulders and so much at stake. A friend was best in that situation.
Teyla was even more out-of-bounds than Elizabeth. He'd heard the conversations among the marines when they didn't know he was in the showers. He'd listened to the explicit speculation about his teammate, squashed the whispers wherever he could, and tried to ignore his own imagination's occasional ponderings.
He liked Teyla. She was tough, sexy, almost always competent and composed, and determined. She was also an 'alien' woman with a touch of Wraith DNA and a preternatural ability to beat the shit out of him in staves. Bates might call him a masochist, but John actually enjoyed that aspect of their interaction.
Flirting with Teyla was out of the question. He could be friends with Elizabeth, and throw out the occasional teasing comment; it was something they both understood from Earth - as were the jurisdictional requirements between them.
Teyla wasn't from Earth.
Dodge, block, turn, duck. John felt the sweat forming on his brow, on his body. He gritted his teeth and watched her every move, blocked her every strike, and retaliated hard and fast.
It was one way of releasing the tension he had regarding his situation with Teyla.
He'd seen Teyla with her own people; the friendships she held with them, easy and without the careful correctness she brought to their interaction. She'd called Ford by name - an allowance that John had gained from her only a handful of times; she regarded McKay with tolerant amusement and John with calm formality; and now Ronan had shown an interest and she seemed to like his heavy-handed advances.
John was becoming annoyed by Teyla's treatment of other men compared with how she treated him.
And he'd never really noticed it until he'd kissed her.
Maybe she just wasn't interested. That was an ego-bruising thought if he'd ever had one. It wasn't as though he expected her to fall all over him, but a little admiration would be nice.
But she'd responded to the kiss, if only for a moment, before she pushed away and regarded him with a gaze as wary any she reserved for an enemy. There was something there: some fragment of possibility, of attraction.
Something.
John huffed out a breath as he defended against her attack and nearly sprained his wrist as he blocked one of her blows and didn't have the right angle for enough leverage. His muscles strained, screaming at him before he backed away, sliding her staves off his own and moving back a couple paces.
"You are not paying attention, Colonel," she chided, dark eyes a-glitter.
He wasn't. John bared his teeth in a tight, feral challenge. "Thanks for bringing it to my attention, Teyla."
This time he attacked and she defended, warding off his assault with limbs that only trembled slightly from weariness.
And that was an advantage to be used.
Slowly, he let go of thought, concentrating on the movements and motions of the fight, the patterns of attack and defence, until the rest of the universe - Atlantis, the Wraith, McKay's suspiciously subdued behaviour in the last month, and the cold memory of the recent Wraith retrovirus as it took over his body and mind - were nothing more than distant memories.
The universe contracted down around them; nothing existed but the floor, each other, their staves, and the air they breathed. They were one in purpose, in drive, in passion; and the marines might speculate about sex with Teyla, but there were moments when John wondered if sleeping with her could provide anything near the exhilaration of fighting against her like this.
He enjoyed these moments, elemental and primal, as instinctive as flying.
It felt good.
It felt particularly good when they fought each other to a standstill, John ached from blows she'd landed, but when she agreed to the terms of truce and lowered her weapons, he saw the way the stick in her left hand momentarily trembled.
"If you hadn't been playing with Dex before, you'd have beaten me easily," he offered.
Teyla's eyes turned hard as gunmetal. "Is that a reprimand?"
He narrowed his eyes. "Only if you think you need one."
There was an instant when she was perfectly still, shoulders back, pose arrested. Then she answered him. "You underestimate your skill at staves, Colonel. And mistake my friendship with Ronan."
John noticed that the other man was mentioned by name, while he was still a rank. Even her assurance that nothing was happening between them couldn't quite keep the sharpness from his voice. "It's been a year, you know, and you're still kicking my ass. I can't have gotten that much better."
Her mouth quirked but there was little amusement in it. "As I said, you underestimate yourself." She began to turn away, dismissing him.
"Oh, come on, Teyla," he said, stepping to the side so he kept in her peripheral vision. "You know that the only times I've beaten you were when you were worn out with the nightmares about the hiveships and when the retrovirus tried to turn me into one of the bugs."
She glanced back, arching a brow. "And those are not enough for you?"
"Very funny," he retorted as she continued to turn away. A moment later he asked, "Aren't we going to do the touch-heads genuflecting thing?"
The look she gave him was wary. As wary as the one she'd given him when the bug infection got him a few weeks back. "You have never expressed such a wish before."
She was right. He hadn't. "So I'm changing a few things," he said. "Preconceptions I have."
Teyla continued to regard him warily, even once he held out his hands to her. Finally, she came to stand close enough to touch and allowed him to take her shoulders and do the genuflection thing.
But the walk out of the gym was pregnant with more than either of them was comfortable saying.
The kiss he'd forced on her had changed things. At least for John. Attraction to Teyla was fine, but they were teammates and friends. He hadn't been willing to take it beyond that - at least, not until the bug-induced kiss.
She'd shut him down pretty fast, afterwards, and he'd been relieved at the exit provided. They were okay; life was okay, nothing to worry about.
But a line had been crossed and something had been broken.
Now John wasn't sure he could go back to the way things had been - so comfortably easy between them. He watched the way she interacted with the others on the base and felt as though his actions had set a wall between them. Where they'd been easy friends before, now they were friends in a distant, untouchable way.
And John didn't like it.
He didn't like the distance.
He didn't like the awareness of her he could no longer ignore.
He didn't like feeling as though she didn't want anything to do with him - at least not that way.
And he didn't like the impression he was getting that if his interest was out of bounds, Ronan's interest was perfectly acceptable.
--
to: Part Two
TITLE: Amends And Promises
AUTHOR: Tielan
SUMMARY: John liked knowing where he stood, even if turned out to be on thin ice with a pair of steel-toed boots. At least then he knew to tread carefully.
PAIRING: John/Teyla
RATING: PG-13
SPOILERS: Set after 'Conversion' but before 'Aurora'
NOTES: Written for the John/Teyla ficathon challenge. The challenge is listed at the end, I didn't precisely hold to it, but I did what I could with the boundaries of the characters.
Part One
There was something irredeemably savage about the way Ronan fought Teyla, something frighteningly primal and instinctive in their blows and blocks.
John was well aware that the marines considered his own skill against Teyla good. Of the handful of men who'd taken up her offer of stave-fighting lessons in the early days of the expedition, he was the only one who'd persisted to this point. The others were summarily laid out by her more often than their egos could take.
John had trained to the point where he could hold her off. And that was about as much as he could manage. He wasn't good enough to lay her out, but he was good enough to hold his own; for the moment, that was all he asked.
However, the whirling fury of Ronan Dex was something new; a force that even Teyla found hard to counter.
Oh, she met Ronan's blows, jab for jab, hit for hit, her staves whirling and dancing in her hands as she danced in and out of the taller fighter's reach, but he had the reach and weight of her and the edge brought on by a reliance on these skills to keep him living.
Still, she fought back, refusing to back down in the face of a larger, heavier opponent.
John watched her move, and quietly allowed himself to reflect that she was one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen. Whether still or in motion, she held his gaze - held the gazes of more than a few men in Atlantis, in fact - especially those of the more recent arrivals from Earth. From what John heard, there'd been some covert interest in her, some subtle moves.
Ronan wasn't being particularly covert about his fondness for Teyla's company.
The big man saw an opening and dove for it. Her staff slammed down on his wrist, and John winced at the noise it made. No bones broken, but she wasn't pulling her blows. In moments, she had Ronan disarmed and kneeling before her, her staves angled at his throat so the slightest bit of pressure would crush his windpipe.
In spite of himself, John grinned. That was Teyla; no half-heartedness, nothing held back.
"You should not risk all to gain advantage," she chided as she let him go.
The big man just grunted as he accepted her hand up. "Life is risk, Teyla."
"Perhaps. But that does not mean it cannot be controlled."
“You can't control everything."
"I do not need to control everything," she answered, amused. "I control myself and that is enough."
The other man paused and arched one eyebrow, wickedly. "Do you ever lose control?"
She was amused by the provocative question but cool as she returned his gaze. "When necessary," she said. "Instincts can be important, too."
John decided it was time to intervene.
He stepped forward, shifting his bag on his shoulder, both noise and movement turning their heads. It was disturbing that they turned to him in unison, faces tilted at mirror angles as they looked at him, although their reactions were very different.
Ronan seemed both amused and wary of the interruption. Teyla regarded him with something that wasn't quite relief.
"Sorry to intrude," he said casually, addressing Teyla rather than Ronan. "I thought we were going to spar."
"You were late."
"Elizabeth called me in for a quick chat. And I'm here now."
A hint of exasperation entered her voice, the faintest tremor of irritation. "And so I will spar with you now." She stepped back from Ronan. "Thank you, Ronan."
"Evening meal?"
"The evening meal," she affirmed.
He picked up his guns and bent to lean his head against Teyla's in an Athosian-style genuflection that looked almost like a kiss. Then he gave John one long, measuring glance before striding out of the gym in his long-legged lope.
John waited until he was sure the other man was out of earshot. "Evening meal?"
"He expressed a desire to share the evening repast with me," Teyla said, walking across the room to her satchel, where she removed a waterskin and drank. In spite of the technology available to her from the Atlantis expedition, she persisted in using some of the objects of her people. John suspected that the things she wouldn't give up had some personal meaning to her. It was Teyla's way of clinging to the culture of her people.
Like fighting with staves.
"So, this is a date?" She dropped the waterskin back among her things, and the look she turned upon him made him hold up his hands in protest. "Just asking."
"If you wish to know what is happening between Ronan and I, Colonel, then you should ask directly."
John grimaced. He'd hoped to be a little subtler. "All right, then," he said. "What is happening between you and Ronan?"
"That is none of your business," came the response.
"I think it is," he said firmly, ignoring the startled look on her face. A moment later, he continued, carefully professional. "As your commanding officer - and his - I need to know if there's anything happening between you."
Her eyes narrowed. "I do not see how this is relevant to your leadership."
"It's relevant because you have to work together," John said, irrationally angry. "If you're personally involved then that could affect your professional interaction."
There was a delicate rigidity to her stance that indicated he'd struck a nerve. "You believe that either Ronan or I might endanger you and Rodney because we are 'personally involved' as you say?"
"So you are involved?"
"I didn't say that." She clenched her teeth around the words. "If you can believe that we might put our team-mates at risk..."
John measured his words, only too aware that he was talking about more than Ronan and Teyla here. "Teyla, sometimes our feelings surprise us. We can't always control when we care about other people." He knew that feeling only too well; the knowledge that he'd used up his fuel on the burn and had nowhere to go but down. And even with a 'chute, hitting the ground hurt. "I need to know if there's anything more between the two of you."
"So you know whether to trust us?" Her response was scathing, and he grimaced.
"Look, I've trusted you since day one, Teyla. All I'm asking is that you give me a little honesty in return."
It was a low card to play and he knew it. From the look in her eyes, she knew he knew it, too. But she answered.
"We are not."
He nodded, feeling the tightness in his chest ease. "Good." At her sharp glance, he qualified. "That's one less thing for me to worry about."
Her smile was thin and formal. "I would not wish to cause you extra worry, Colonel."
His own smile back was forced. "Glad to hear it." He pulled the staves from his bag and indicated the empty floor. "Shall we?"
Teyla took her place opposite him with a slight tilt of the head - the faintest hint of irony in the gesture that should have been one of respect.
They circled each other, staves up and ready, eyes watching each other, waiting for that first move. He spun his right staff through the air once, enjoying the sound of the wood through air, then moved in, leading the attack with his left staff and following it up with the right.
She beat him off easily enough, holding his blows away and returning attacks of her own. John pushed, experimentally, testing her limits and his own. After the confrontation with Teyla, he felt as though he had something to work off, a delicate frustration with a situation that he'd seen coming a long time ago - and done his best to deny.
When she met every blow he struck, he increased the intensity, pushing her limits. This wasn't a display of ego - not yet. Right now, John wanted a partner, not a victory. But he wanted to go hard and fierce, holding nothing back, and there were only a handful of times when he'd let loose all the things that he couldn't allow to escape while he was on duty.
In Teyla's presence, John Sheppard was always on duty - all the more because he didn't trust himself not to forget what he could forget with almost every other woman in Atlantis.
Two women challenged his solitude. Elizabeth Weir and Teyla Emmagen. Both trusted, both beautiful in their own ways, both with the clinging authority of their roles, both untouchable as far as John Sheppard was concerned.
In a city where he was the man responsible for their safety, he didn't dare care about any person more than another.
Elizabeth was safe to flirt with; she knew the rules of the game, and John knew perfectly well she was still getting over the break-up with the guy she'd left behind on Earth. He didn't know what had been said or done, he only knew that she returned to Atlantis with the kind of intensity he'd seen in men and women who had nothing left behind them: only what future they'd carve out for themselves.
Somewhere on Earth, there was a man with whom John wanted to share a few words and a knuckle sandwich.
He liked Elizabeth. She was practical. Ballsy in a non-military way. Stubborn as McKay. If it wasn't for their positions in the command structure of Atlantis... But they were civilian authority and military leader; there was no room for romance between them: not with the Atlantis expedition riding on their shoulders and so much at stake. A friend was best in that situation.
Teyla was even more out-of-bounds than Elizabeth. He'd heard the conversations among the marines when they didn't know he was in the showers. He'd listened to the explicit speculation about his teammate, squashed the whispers wherever he could, and tried to ignore his own imagination's occasional ponderings.
He liked Teyla. She was tough, sexy, almost always competent and composed, and determined. She was also an 'alien' woman with a touch of Wraith DNA and a preternatural ability to beat the shit out of him in staves. Bates might call him a masochist, but John actually enjoyed that aspect of their interaction.
Flirting with Teyla was out of the question. He could be friends with Elizabeth, and throw out the occasional teasing comment; it was something they both understood from Earth - as were the jurisdictional requirements between them.
Teyla wasn't from Earth.
Dodge, block, turn, duck. John felt the sweat forming on his brow, on his body. He gritted his teeth and watched her every move, blocked her every strike, and retaliated hard and fast.
It was one way of releasing the tension he had regarding his situation with Teyla.
He'd seen Teyla with her own people; the friendships she held with them, easy and without the careful correctness she brought to their interaction. She'd called Ford by name - an allowance that John had gained from her only a handful of times; she regarded McKay with tolerant amusement and John with calm formality; and now Ronan had shown an interest and she seemed to like his heavy-handed advances.
John was becoming annoyed by Teyla's treatment of other men compared with how she treated him.
And he'd never really noticed it until he'd kissed her.
Maybe she just wasn't interested. That was an ego-bruising thought if he'd ever had one. It wasn't as though he expected her to fall all over him, but a little admiration would be nice.
But she'd responded to the kiss, if only for a moment, before she pushed away and regarded him with a gaze as wary any she reserved for an enemy. There was something there: some fragment of possibility, of attraction.
Something.
John huffed out a breath as he defended against her attack and nearly sprained his wrist as he blocked one of her blows and didn't have the right angle for enough leverage. His muscles strained, screaming at him before he backed away, sliding her staves off his own and moving back a couple paces.
"You are not paying attention, Colonel," she chided, dark eyes a-glitter.
He wasn't. John bared his teeth in a tight, feral challenge. "Thanks for bringing it to my attention, Teyla."
This time he attacked and she defended, warding off his assault with limbs that only trembled slightly from weariness.
And that was an advantage to be used.
Slowly, he let go of thought, concentrating on the movements and motions of the fight, the patterns of attack and defence, until the rest of the universe - Atlantis, the Wraith, McKay's suspiciously subdued behaviour in the last month, and the cold memory of the recent Wraith retrovirus as it took over his body and mind - were nothing more than distant memories.
The universe contracted down around them; nothing existed but the floor, each other, their staves, and the air they breathed. They were one in purpose, in drive, in passion; and the marines might speculate about sex with Teyla, but there were moments when John wondered if sleeping with her could provide anything near the exhilaration of fighting against her like this.
He enjoyed these moments, elemental and primal, as instinctive as flying.
It felt good.
It felt particularly good when they fought each other to a standstill, John ached from blows she'd landed, but when she agreed to the terms of truce and lowered her weapons, he saw the way the stick in her left hand momentarily trembled.
"If you hadn't been playing with Dex before, you'd have beaten me easily," he offered.
Teyla's eyes turned hard as gunmetal. "Is that a reprimand?"
He narrowed his eyes. "Only if you think you need one."
There was an instant when she was perfectly still, shoulders back, pose arrested. Then she answered him. "You underestimate your skill at staves, Colonel. And mistake my friendship with Ronan."
John noticed that the other man was mentioned by name, while he was still a rank. Even her assurance that nothing was happening between them couldn't quite keep the sharpness from his voice. "It's been a year, you know, and you're still kicking my ass. I can't have gotten that much better."
Her mouth quirked but there was little amusement in it. "As I said, you underestimate yourself." She began to turn away, dismissing him.
"Oh, come on, Teyla," he said, stepping to the side so he kept in her peripheral vision. "You know that the only times I've beaten you were when you were worn out with the nightmares about the hiveships and when the retrovirus tried to turn me into one of the bugs."
She glanced back, arching a brow. "And those are not enough for you?"
"Very funny," he retorted as she continued to turn away. A moment later he asked, "Aren't we going to do the touch-heads genuflecting thing?"
The look she gave him was wary. As wary as the one she'd given him when the bug infection got him a few weeks back. "You have never expressed such a wish before."
She was right. He hadn't. "So I'm changing a few things," he said. "Preconceptions I have."
Teyla continued to regard him warily, even once he held out his hands to her. Finally, she came to stand close enough to touch and allowed him to take her shoulders and do the genuflection thing.
But the walk out of the gym was pregnant with more than either of them was comfortable saying.
The kiss he'd forced on her had changed things. At least for John. Attraction to Teyla was fine, but they were teammates and friends. He hadn't been willing to take it beyond that - at least, not until the bug-induced kiss.
She'd shut him down pretty fast, afterwards, and he'd been relieved at the exit provided. They were okay; life was okay, nothing to worry about.
But a line had been crossed and something had been broken.
Now John wasn't sure he could go back to the way things had been - so comfortably easy between them. He watched the way she interacted with the others on the base and felt as though his actions had set a wall between them. Where they'd been easy friends before, now they were friends in a distant, untouchable way.
And John didn't like it.
He didn't like the distance.
He didn't like the awareness of her he could no longer ignore.
He didn't like feeling as though she didn't want anything to do with him - at least not that way.
And he didn't like the impression he was getting that if his interest was out of bounds, Ronan's interest was perfectly acceptable.
--
to: Part Two
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I love this so much and now my cold is making me cry. On to the next part.
Wow!
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