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TITLE: Crossing Over
SUMMARY: When did deception become truth? When did she cross the line from one to the other? It no longer matters; she is the last.
CATEGORY: John/Teyla het. Angst. Character death.
RATING: PG-13
SPOILERS: Spoilerish for Teyla in Season 4, but 'set' in a future time.
WORDCOUNT: ~1000
NOTES: Wow, it's been over a year since I posted the last one in this series. I'm going to finish off the last one over the next few days. Major angstbunnies (because all the stories in this series are angstbunnies) and rather longer than I intended.
1. The Weight Of Things Unsaid
2. Hello And Goodbye
3. A Good Ally
4. Crossing Over
She knows the ship has been breached long before their footsteps echo through the craft's cold corridors. Their minds are like the bullets they wield, hard and focused, coming to a rounded blunt, and she brushes lightly across them, then lets them pass.
If they were any other, she would fight them; her life has been hard-won, she would not suffer to die without meaning.
The chair in which she sits moulds to her form, clinging and comfortable as she waits for the intrusion.
When the doors are breached, she is expecting them.
Four sharp shots ring out and four points of pain become bleeding agony.
They circle her chair, wasps whose stings have already pierced her flesh; and she knows they do not see who she is, only what she is - the last Queen.
When did deception become truth? When did she cross the line from one ancestry to the other? She no longer knows - if she ever did. But even this mask had a purpose, and only by becoming the enemy was she able to bring them down.
Alone of any Queen that has ever lived or died in Pegasus, she hates what she has become.
Death is an ending, a relief that she has longed for, knowing that this body will last a thousand human lifetimes, enduring through generations as long as it is fed. With no more Wraith to feed upon - not even her crew, she dreaded the coming of the hunger.
Now, at least, she need dread no more.
Slowly, because moving is such an effort of will, she lifts one hand and grasps at the chain that has sat around her neck. Even as life and will drains from her, she manages to yank it from her throat, her gaze fixed on the one man who approaches her, wild terror and terrible hope in his eyes.
The dogtags glitter on their chain in the pool of light, and John looks at her face and sees, not a Wraith Queen, but a woman.
"Teyla?"
Holding up her hand is too much effort, her hand sinks to the arm of the chair. Fingers tilt her head back, hands press against her wounds. But she knows how close death is, and she would not gainsay it.
Beyond John, beyond Ronon, beyond Rodney, in the shadows that grow longer with each second, faces drift into her sight - familiar, long dead, much missed. Her mother's smile glitters with pride as her father's eyes crease with tenderness. Charin is there, as are Kanaan and Torin and Fielle and Pretda - the friends she ran with in her youth. And to one side, Elizabeth lifts a hand in greeting, as Carson's broad grin creases his face, and Kate smiles and waits for her to cross over to where they are.
"Teyla, you can hold on..."
"I do not want to." Her breath bubbles. "This is a fitting end for me."
"Fitting..." His voice breaks, she can see the guilt in his eyes and closes hers.
A moment's mental effort, and the chamber is empty but for the two of them, his hands still on her face and waist, his eyes searching hers for signs of recovery. It will not last, and only the fact that she is Wraith and he was once Iratus permits them this meeting.
I am the last Wraith Queen, John, she says, letting her fingers linger on his cheek. The others are all destroyed.
You should have said something. He grabs at her hands. We could have found something...
She shakes her head. It's better this way, John.
Your son needs you!
He has you and Rodney and Ronon, she says. This is how it should end.
No, he tells her, and something more than grief gleams in his eyes, so close, so angry at her death. You can hold on...
Teyla pulls her hands free and takes his jaw lightly between her palms. A spark leaps amidst grief, and John leans in until their lips meet.
Fire leaps from flesh to flesh, ferocious and consuming, yet Teyla is drowning, without breath, the shadows drawing ever closer.
This is not the ending I would have chosen, she murmurs against his mouth. But it is a good ending.
He seizes her mouth, as though will could keep her by him when she can feel her life seeping away.
You can't go, he says, and there's a desperation to his words. We just found you.
John. The shadows are nearly on them, and she will not take him down with her. He has a life to live in Atlantis - her son to bring up, his people to lead.
The space around them fades.
Everything around her is cold - the sides and back of the chair against her skin, their hands trying to wake her, the frigid air of the place she made home. But she is going home now - there is a home-coming prepared for her, and loved ones and friends there to show her the way there.
Regret is momentary for the ones she leaves behind. Her son will grow to manhood, watched over by Atlantis. Her people have found their own path, their own strength. And she has completed what began, long ago, on a day when strangers came to Athos from a place that had never known the Wraith.
Her eyelids are heavy, but she lifts them enough to meet his gaze, manages a smile, or something that might be close to it, and then lets the darkness come.
Surcease.
- fin -
SUMMARY: When did deception become truth? When did she cross the line from one to the other? It no longer matters; she is the last.
CATEGORY: John/Teyla het. Angst. Character death.
RATING: PG-13
SPOILERS: Spoilerish for Teyla in Season 4, but 'set' in a future time.
WORDCOUNT: ~1000
NOTES: Wow, it's been over a year since I posted the last one in this series. I'm going to finish off the last one over the next few days. Major angstbunnies (because all the stories in this series are angstbunnies) and rather longer than I intended.
Five Last Kisses
1. The Weight Of Things Unsaid
2. Hello And Goodbye
3. A Good Ally
4. Crossing Over
She knows the ship has been breached long before their footsteps echo through the craft's cold corridors. Their minds are like the bullets they wield, hard and focused, coming to a rounded blunt, and she brushes lightly across them, then lets them pass.
If they were any other, she would fight them; her life has been hard-won, she would not suffer to die without meaning.
The chair in which she sits moulds to her form, clinging and comfortable as she waits for the intrusion.
When the doors are breached, she is expecting them.
Four sharp shots ring out and four points of pain become bleeding agony.
They circle her chair, wasps whose stings have already pierced her flesh; and she knows they do not see who she is, only what she is - the last Queen.
When did deception become truth? When did she cross the line from one ancestry to the other? She no longer knows - if she ever did. But even this mask had a purpose, and only by becoming the enemy was she able to bring them down.
Alone of any Queen that has ever lived or died in Pegasus, she hates what she has become.
Death is an ending, a relief that she has longed for, knowing that this body will last a thousand human lifetimes, enduring through generations as long as it is fed. With no more Wraith to feed upon - not even her crew, she dreaded the coming of the hunger.
Now, at least, she need dread no more.
Slowly, because moving is such an effort of will, she lifts one hand and grasps at the chain that has sat around her neck. Even as life and will drains from her, she manages to yank it from her throat, her gaze fixed on the one man who approaches her, wild terror and terrible hope in his eyes.
The dogtags glitter on their chain in the pool of light, and John looks at her face and sees, not a Wraith Queen, but a woman.
"Teyla?"
Holding up her hand is too much effort, her hand sinks to the arm of the chair. Fingers tilt her head back, hands press against her wounds. But she knows how close death is, and she would not gainsay it.
Beyond John, beyond Ronon, beyond Rodney, in the shadows that grow longer with each second, faces drift into her sight - familiar, long dead, much missed. Her mother's smile glitters with pride as her father's eyes crease with tenderness. Charin is there, as are Kanaan and Torin and Fielle and Pretda - the friends she ran with in her youth. And to one side, Elizabeth lifts a hand in greeting, as Carson's broad grin creases his face, and Kate smiles and waits for her to cross over to where they are.
"Teyla, you can hold on..."
"I do not want to." Her breath bubbles. "This is a fitting end for me."
"Fitting..." His voice breaks, she can see the guilt in his eyes and closes hers.
A moment's mental effort, and the chamber is empty but for the two of them, his hands still on her face and waist, his eyes searching hers for signs of recovery. It will not last, and only the fact that she is Wraith and he was once Iratus permits them this meeting.
I am the last Wraith Queen, John, she says, letting her fingers linger on his cheek. The others are all destroyed.
You should have said something. He grabs at her hands. We could have found something...
She shakes her head. It's better this way, John.
Your son needs you!
He has you and Rodney and Ronon, she says. This is how it should end.
No, he tells her, and something more than grief gleams in his eyes, so close, so angry at her death. You can hold on...
Teyla pulls her hands free and takes his jaw lightly between her palms. A spark leaps amidst grief, and John leans in until their lips meet.
Fire leaps from flesh to flesh, ferocious and consuming, yet Teyla is drowning, without breath, the shadows drawing ever closer.
This is not the ending I would have chosen, she murmurs against his mouth. But it is a good ending.
He seizes her mouth, as though will could keep her by him when she can feel her life seeping away.
You can't go, he says, and there's a desperation to his words. We just found you.
John. The shadows are nearly on them, and she will not take him down with her. He has a life to live in Atlantis - her son to bring up, his people to lead.
The space around them fades.
Everything around her is cold - the sides and back of the chair against her skin, their hands trying to wake her, the frigid air of the place she made home. But she is going home now - there is a home-coming prepared for her, and loved ones and friends there to show her the way there.
Regret is momentary for the ones she leaves behind. Her son will grow to manhood, watched over by Atlantis. Her people have found their own path, their own strength. And she has completed what began, long ago, on a day when strangers came to Athos from a place that had never known the Wraith.
Her eyelids are heavy, but she lifts them enough to meet his gaze, manages a smile, or something that might be close to it, and then lets the darkness come.
Surcease.
- fin -