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TITLE: Hold It True, Whate'er Befall
AUTHOR: Tielan
SUMMARY: John and Teyla on Earth, learning how to cope with each other, finding out if they could have more out of their relationship or not.
RATING: NC-17
CATEGORY: Romance, angst, first time.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, making no money, etc.
NOTES: For a while, I thought I'd never get this done! But it all came together this afternoon, so I can finally present the finished story - some 11K!
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
Part 4 |
Part 5
In the sharp morning light, the world looked very different, both inside the suite and outside.
Teyla cupped her hands around her mug of tea and avoided looking at John's bedroom door.
What had seemed so simple in the night, in lamplight and the mystery of the dark, seemed much more bald in the morning. John's mouth on hers, his hands on her body, his flesh in hers - they all seemed distant, like another world.
Of course, they were not. She still bore the marks of his passion on her flesh, although one would have to look closely to notice. The faint scrapes of his beard-bristle had scraped the skin of her breasts and throat and thighs. There were tender spots on her hips, where his fingers had dug too hard. And of course, her cleft was a little sore and a little raw.
It had been some time since she had slept with Kanaan, even before they agreed that his stay in Atlantis wasn't working out. Twice only since Torren's birth, and both times more comfort than desire.
We are not, I think, as well suited to be lovers as friends, he had said after that last. Painfully, perhaps, but with the honesty that he had always held true to, even in the darkest times. The acknowledgement had been balm and relief in the face of Teyla's own feelings of guilt. The reasons we never came together before are no less. Given all that has passed between since then, they may even be more.
She had freed him at his request, and he had freed her in return.
Yet she had not shared this with anyone. Not with John or Rodney, not with Ronon, although she had little doubt Ronon had guessed when Kanaan went back to live among the Athosians. Ronon was no dimwit, nor ignorant of her customs, for all he was not given to chatter.
And now, sitting in the warm sunlight of an Earth morning, looking out at the buildings of the city, and the dusty haze of the desert air beyond, Teyla found herself wondering what last night had been to John.
Desire, yes. Need and hunger and passion and tenderness.
Teyla felt her cheeks flush at the intimate memories and took another sip of tea. In the night, it had been enough. In the morning...
Things looked different by day.
Soon, they must return to Atlantis, whether or not the city would be going back to Pegasus, and then...what?
She would have to wait until John woke and arose before that question could be answered. And, in spite of all that had passed between them in the night, Teyla feared the answer.
A soft buzzing caught her attention and it took her a few moments to realise it was John's phone in his room.
Teyla took another sip and reminded herself that she had faced John under worse circumstances before. At least this need have no shades of recrimination as had her announcement of her pregnancy.
The buzzing ended, and the cadences of John's voice were audible through the closed door - little more than a murmur. Then the door opened and he strode out, clad in silky boxers.
"Wait a minute, I'm getting Teyla..."
He checked upon seeing her sitting at the kitchenette bench, before his mouth seemed to firm. "It's Rodney. The IOA's come to a decision about Atlantis..."
He set the phone so it would project the call through the room. Rodney was still talking. "...some kind of politics involved. I didn't ask because we were too busy trying to get the hyperdrive arrays working-- Can you see that I'm on a call right now? Yes, of course this is important! Do you think I'd be--" The diversion was over almost as soon as it had begun. "You wouldn't believe the idiots they've got around here. I don't' know how any of them survived at the SGC..."
Teyla grimaced. Yet something in her breast leaped. Rodney was working on the hyperdrives. Surely that meant...
"Rodney!" John snapped, his knuckles white on the bench edge. "The decision?"
"Oh. We're going back, of course!"
A lump formed in Teyla's throat, tears of relief and gratitude that she dared not weep, even before John. They were going home.
"Lift-off is supposed to be in seventy-two hours - we've got that long to get everything working. You'll have to contact one of the ships to get you over here in time - I shouldn't even be making this call, it's not like I have the time for it. But I thought it was important to get hold of you-- Where the hell are you, anyway?"
Teyla looked at John and found him already watching her. As her eyes rested upon him, a shadow crossed his face. "Vegas."
"Vegas, huh? And, hey, wait a minute. Why are you sharing a room?"
She felt her cheeks heat, but said in her coolest voice, "It is a suite of rooms, Rodney, and I was out in the kitchen when you called John."
"Whatever. Look, I need to get back to this or we'll be going absolutely nowhere. Just get back here as soon as you can."
"We're moving, Rodney." John terminated the call before Rodney could get a response in and looked at Teyla, the start of a smile on his lips, in his eyes. "Home."
"Yes," Teyla said, and gasped when he turned to her and wrapped his arms around her, hot skin against the light cotton of her shirt, under the cheek she turned to rest against his shoulder for just one moment. "It will be good to go home."
She felt him tense, then the careful way he relaxed. "Yeah. It will." Then he couldn't seem to let go fast enough, his eyes slipping away as he swiped the phone off the table. "I'll get in contact with Caldwell. Can we be ready to go in an hour?"
John hurried away to pack, clearly unwilling to talk about what had happened last night. Teyla waited until his door closed behind her before she let herself relax from the careful poise of indifference. At least she'd been able to find all her clothing before she left his room. It seemed plain enough to her that John was not inclined to linger on the events of last night, let alone revisit them.
Her tea was nearly finished, and Teyla took it to the window where they had stood last night, looking out across the city. Their glasses still sat there on the parquet table, where John had put them, just touching.
She could still feel the way he'd turned to her, suddenly determined, as though something had changed within him. Doubtless, after last night, he had felt the need to cling to some vestige of what he thought he was losing. And Teyla had been there, the tension between them unresolved...
They would be friends, she knew.
It might take him some time to readjust, but he would always return to that commonality in the end.
What was it that the Lantean poet had said?
I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
So she had loved and she had lost, but she would not regret the loving, no matter how hard the loss.
Teyla put her heart away, finished her tea, and went to pack.
--
Once John had a shower and finished packing his suitcase, he went around the room once, checking for anything that might have been left behind or forgotten. There didn't seem to be anything, but he went around again in the opposite direction, just in case.
Then he sat down on the bed with his elbows on his knees.
It will be good to go home.
John took a deep breath.
A new lease of life on one hand, and the death of hope on the other.
He wouldn't do that to another man - he couldn't do that to himself. He'd seen the way the Athosian man had looked at Teyla while he lived in Atlantis, and had been careful not to stare. He'd been careful not to cross any lines that might blur his own boundaries, careful not to do anything that might threaten the other man's certainty of her.
Until last night, he'd succeeded.
And now he had to face the music, full-on. Take the hit, suffer the consequences and let go of something that he hadn't had a right to touch in the first place.
Exhaling, he stood, grabbed his bag and opened the door into the main room.
Teyla's door was open, the sounds of her packing faint and steady.
John dumped his duffle and decided against going to ask if she needed help. He'd begin as he meant to continue, although he didn't know how well his resolve would stand up now.
He called the number for Caldwell and arranged for a pickup time. "Sometime in the next half hour," was the response. "We're in the middle of denuding Stargate Command of it's ordinance supply and we can send you down at the same time as we send down that load." There was a dry humour to the Colonel's voice - probably at the idea sending John and Teyla and the ordinance all down at the same time.
"Give us a call and we'll be ready," John said, although inwardly he winced. Up to half an hour, waiting with Teyla, with too many things unsaid and not enough words to say them in?
Teyla glanced out the room, her brows lifted in query.
John snapped the phone shut and cleared his throat. "Half an hour. Or about that."
"Should we check out?"
He had no idea. A quick call down to reception showed that all they had to do was return their keys and sign off on the bill and it would be fine. Teyla handed John her key. "I will remain here with the bags, you settle the bill. Colonel Caldwell may beam us up from here with no-one from the hotel the wiser."
John nodded and went down to pay the bill, which he did in considerably less than the half-hour that Caldwell had allotted them.
He collared an employee to get him back up to the suite on the pretext of having left his card behind. The man probably should have followed him all the way up to the suite to check that he was telling the truth, but didn't. John wasn't about to complain.
"All sorted," he said, closing the door of the suite behind him. "Now we just wait for Caldwell to give us the call."
"I am making a list of things to get before we return to Pegasus," Teyla said, returning to the table where she had out the hotel's notepaper and a pen. "If I cannot get them myself, could I ask one of the airmen to get it for me?"
"You could probably hand the list to O'Neill and get one of his aides to go scavenger hunting for you," John said, half-smiling. "Doesn't he owe you from some poker game?"
Teyla glanced up and flashed him a smile, beautiful and brilliant as the morning. "He does."
His chest squeezed, almost unbearably, and it must have shown on his face, because her smile died and her eyes grew polite and veiled - the diplomat's face. "Do you regret last night, John?"
"No." That was the easy part of the answer. "But I... Teyla, we can't... Now that we're going back..."
"I understand, John."
Except she didn't. She sat there with her careful trader's composure, so friendly and nice and polite, and said she did, but she couldn't understand why.
"Are you looking forward to seeing Torren again?"
She'd looked back down at the list she was making, her pen tracing over the items she'd already written. Now she looked up, puzzled. "Of course."
"He's a good kid." John swallowed hard. "He should have a good family."
"He has a good family." Teyla's brow furrowed. "John--"
"My dad got a girlfriend when I was nineteen. My mom wasn't good enough for him so...he upgraded to this other woman." Even some twenty-plus years later, he couldn't keep the bitterness from his voice.
Teyla looked at him for a long, silent moment. He didn't need to spell it out for her. "You are not the other man, John."
"Aren't I?" He gestured to his room where the sheets still smelled of sex; where he'd woken up alone and moments later been faced with the realisation that he had a use-by date and it was up. Hotel rooms on Earth and stolen moments in Atlantis. But he wouldn't do that to Kanaan, to Torren's family. He'd made a mistake last night, driven by loneliness and the fear of losing her. He wouldn't let himself make that mistake again. "Teyla--"
"Do you imagine that I should keep you in Atlantis, John? That I should go back to Kanaan when we are on Athos and share his tent?" She stood, and her mouth was white at the edges, her eyes dark and hard. "Do you think me capable of such cruelty?"
"I... No!" This wasn't about her. "Look, Teyla, things are different for your people, I know that. It's not cheating to you."
"But it is cheating to you."
"Yes." And John couldn't be the other man in her life. He'd know when she went back to Athos, and Kanaan would know when he looked at John. The Athosian man wouldn't make a fuss, maybe, but the knowledge would wear him down like water dripping on stone, carving deep channels of pain.
Her lips pressed together and she looked away.
"It's not that I don't... Last night was..." John knew his cheeks were burning, could feel his blood pulsing just at the thought. "It was... It was better than good. But we can't... Now that we're going back, we can't. I can't."
Teyla looked away, out towards the glass windows of the suite and the silence stood between them, an impossible barrier to cross. John exhaled as she turned back to look at him, her gaze shadowed. "And you will be okay with this?"
"I have to be. It's not like I haven't done this before."
The words were out before he could censor them, but John felt no shame at the admission - not anymore. They were friends, and if he wanted more - well, he'd always wanted more from Teyla than she seemed willing to give. The risks had always been on her side, not his - the perceptions of the expedition and her status among them, her position as an ally of Atlantis if things went wrong, what her people would think of her taking up with a stranger...
It would be worse now they'd slept together, but he'd manage as he always had.
We'll always have Paris...
Teyla sighed and looked down at her hands, fingertips resting on the notepad. "Kanaan and I are not together, John. Not since he left Atlantis."
He stared at her, trying to work his brain around the thought. Trying to stifle the sudden catch in his breath, the lurch in his chest.
"You would not be the 'other man' in any case, for there is no-one to play the role of cheated husband." Her smile was slightly rueful, and a little grim. "And I know your people's ways, and I know you, John. I would never make you settle for sharing me with another man."
He couldn't think, couldn't speak. He could only stare at her, knowing he'd misjudged her, wondering if he'd screwed it up again - and this time, beyond repair. She didn't say anything, waiting for his reaction, and after a moment, she looked away, biting her lip as though pained by something.
"I thought I could," John said at last. He dragged his hands through his hair. "Last night, after...the second time. I thought I could. And then, this morning..."
"You realised you could not."
"No."
"John," she said, and her voice was soft with a tremor to her speech. "Ask me to satisfy you and I will."
The same offer she'd made last night. All he had to do was accept it - to take what he wanted instead of hanging back.
It hung there between them. John took a deep breath.
"Will you?"
"I will."
She held out her hand to him. John took one step and slid his fingers into hers and bent to kiss her with a relief that was almost euphoric.
The phone in his pocket buzzed.
Teyla began to laugh, her breath tickling his jaw. John sighed, then turned his head and kissed her. Just one quick--
Caldwell sounded slightly peeved when John got the phone to his ear. "Are you ready, Colonel?"
"Yeah, we're just grabbing our stuff."
Teyla had already disentangled herself, tearing her list of things off the pad and hurrying around to gather up their duffels.
"You've got a minute, unless you suddenly think of something you left behind."
"Copy that, sir." John put the phone back in his pocket and took his duffle from Teyla. They faced each other for a moment. "We're going to talk about this later."
"Yes," she agreed. "We will."
It felt like something was trying to burst out of John's chest. It felt perilously close to joy. "Ready to go home?"
"Yes," Teyla said. "Very ready."
Her knuckles brushed his as she took her place beside him, facing out to the city where they'd loved and found each other.
John glanced down at her, and met her smile.
Then there was the flash of the transporter beam, taking them on the first step of their journey home.
- fin -
AUTHOR: Tielan
SUMMARY: John and Teyla on Earth, learning how to cope with each other, finding out if they could have more out of their relationship or not.
RATING: NC-17
CATEGORY: Romance, angst, first time.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, making no money, etc.
NOTES: For a while, I thought I'd never get this done! But it all came together this afternoon, so I can finally present the finished story - some 11K!
Part 4 |
Part 5
In the sharp morning light, the world looked very different, both inside the suite and outside.
Teyla cupped her hands around her mug of tea and avoided looking at John's bedroom door.
What had seemed so simple in the night, in lamplight and the mystery of the dark, seemed much more bald in the morning. John's mouth on hers, his hands on her body, his flesh in hers - they all seemed distant, like another world.
Of course, they were not. She still bore the marks of his passion on her flesh, although one would have to look closely to notice. The faint scrapes of his beard-bristle had scraped the skin of her breasts and throat and thighs. There were tender spots on her hips, where his fingers had dug too hard. And of course, her cleft was a little sore and a little raw.
It had been some time since she had slept with Kanaan, even before they agreed that his stay in Atlantis wasn't working out. Twice only since Torren's birth, and both times more comfort than desire.
We are not, I think, as well suited to be lovers as friends, he had said after that last. Painfully, perhaps, but with the honesty that he had always held true to, even in the darkest times. The acknowledgement had been balm and relief in the face of Teyla's own feelings of guilt. The reasons we never came together before are no less. Given all that has passed between since then, they may even be more.
She had freed him at his request, and he had freed her in return.
Yet she had not shared this with anyone. Not with John or Rodney, not with Ronon, although she had little doubt Ronon had guessed when Kanaan went back to live among the Athosians. Ronon was no dimwit, nor ignorant of her customs, for all he was not given to chatter.
And now, sitting in the warm sunlight of an Earth morning, looking out at the buildings of the city, and the dusty haze of the desert air beyond, Teyla found herself wondering what last night had been to John.
Desire, yes. Need and hunger and passion and tenderness.
Teyla felt her cheeks flush at the intimate memories and took another sip of tea. In the night, it had been enough. In the morning...
Things looked different by day.
Soon, they must return to Atlantis, whether or not the city would be going back to Pegasus, and then...what?
She would have to wait until John woke and arose before that question could be answered. And, in spite of all that had passed between them in the night, Teyla feared the answer.
A soft buzzing caught her attention and it took her a few moments to realise it was John's phone in his room.
Teyla took another sip and reminded herself that she had faced John under worse circumstances before. At least this need have no shades of recrimination as had her announcement of her pregnancy.
The buzzing ended, and the cadences of John's voice were audible through the closed door - little more than a murmur. Then the door opened and he strode out, clad in silky boxers.
"Wait a minute, I'm getting Teyla..."
He checked upon seeing her sitting at the kitchenette bench, before his mouth seemed to firm. "It's Rodney. The IOA's come to a decision about Atlantis..."
He set the phone so it would project the call through the room. Rodney was still talking. "...some kind of politics involved. I didn't ask because we were too busy trying to get the hyperdrive arrays working-- Can you see that I'm on a call right now? Yes, of course this is important! Do you think I'd be--" The diversion was over almost as soon as it had begun. "You wouldn't believe the idiots they've got around here. I don't' know how any of them survived at the SGC..."
Teyla grimaced. Yet something in her breast leaped. Rodney was working on the hyperdrives. Surely that meant...
"Rodney!" John snapped, his knuckles white on the bench edge. "The decision?"
"Oh. We're going back, of course!"
A lump formed in Teyla's throat, tears of relief and gratitude that she dared not weep, even before John. They were going home.
"Lift-off is supposed to be in seventy-two hours - we've got that long to get everything working. You'll have to contact one of the ships to get you over here in time - I shouldn't even be making this call, it's not like I have the time for it. But I thought it was important to get hold of you-- Where the hell are you, anyway?"
Teyla looked at John and found him already watching her. As her eyes rested upon him, a shadow crossed his face. "Vegas."
"Vegas, huh? And, hey, wait a minute. Why are you sharing a room?"
She felt her cheeks heat, but said in her coolest voice, "It is a suite of rooms, Rodney, and I was out in the kitchen when you called John."
"Whatever. Look, I need to get back to this or we'll be going absolutely nowhere. Just get back here as soon as you can."
"We're moving, Rodney." John terminated the call before Rodney could get a response in and looked at Teyla, the start of a smile on his lips, in his eyes. "Home."
"Yes," Teyla said, and gasped when he turned to her and wrapped his arms around her, hot skin against the light cotton of her shirt, under the cheek she turned to rest against his shoulder for just one moment. "It will be good to go home."
She felt him tense, then the careful way he relaxed. "Yeah. It will." Then he couldn't seem to let go fast enough, his eyes slipping away as he swiped the phone off the table. "I'll get in contact with Caldwell. Can we be ready to go in an hour?"
John hurried away to pack, clearly unwilling to talk about what had happened last night. Teyla waited until his door closed behind her before she let herself relax from the careful poise of indifference. At least she'd been able to find all her clothing before she left his room. It seemed plain enough to her that John was not inclined to linger on the events of last night, let alone revisit them.
Her tea was nearly finished, and Teyla took it to the window where they had stood last night, looking out across the city. Their glasses still sat there on the parquet table, where John had put them, just touching.
She could still feel the way he'd turned to her, suddenly determined, as though something had changed within him. Doubtless, after last night, he had felt the need to cling to some vestige of what he thought he was losing. And Teyla had been there, the tension between them unresolved...
They would be friends, she knew.
It might take him some time to readjust, but he would always return to that commonality in the end.
What was it that the Lantean poet had said?
I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
So she had loved and she had lost, but she would not regret the loving, no matter how hard the loss.
Teyla put her heart away, finished her tea, and went to pack.
--
Once John had a shower and finished packing his suitcase, he went around the room once, checking for anything that might have been left behind or forgotten. There didn't seem to be anything, but he went around again in the opposite direction, just in case.
Then he sat down on the bed with his elbows on his knees.
It will be good to go home.
John took a deep breath.
A new lease of life on one hand, and the death of hope on the other.
He wouldn't do that to another man - he couldn't do that to himself. He'd seen the way the Athosian man had looked at Teyla while he lived in Atlantis, and had been careful not to stare. He'd been careful not to cross any lines that might blur his own boundaries, careful not to do anything that might threaten the other man's certainty of her.
Until last night, he'd succeeded.
And now he had to face the music, full-on. Take the hit, suffer the consequences and let go of something that he hadn't had a right to touch in the first place.
Exhaling, he stood, grabbed his bag and opened the door into the main room.
Teyla's door was open, the sounds of her packing faint and steady.
John dumped his duffle and decided against going to ask if she needed help. He'd begin as he meant to continue, although he didn't know how well his resolve would stand up now.
He called the number for Caldwell and arranged for a pickup time. "Sometime in the next half hour," was the response. "We're in the middle of denuding Stargate Command of it's ordinance supply and we can send you down at the same time as we send down that load." There was a dry humour to the Colonel's voice - probably at the idea sending John and Teyla and the ordinance all down at the same time.
"Give us a call and we'll be ready," John said, although inwardly he winced. Up to half an hour, waiting with Teyla, with too many things unsaid and not enough words to say them in?
Teyla glanced out the room, her brows lifted in query.
John snapped the phone shut and cleared his throat. "Half an hour. Or about that."
"Should we check out?"
He had no idea. A quick call down to reception showed that all they had to do was return their keys and sign off on the bill and it would be fine. Teyla handed John her key. "I will remain here with the bags, you settle the bill. Colonel Caldwell may beam us up from here with no-one from the hotel the wiser."
John nodded and went down to pay the bill, which he did in considerably less than the half-hour that Caldwell had allotted them.
He collared an employee to get him back up to the suite on the pretext of having left his card behind. The man probably should have followed him all the way up to the suite to check that he was telling the truth, but didn't. John wasn't about to complain.
"All sorted," he said, closing the door of the suite behind him. "Now we just wait for Caldwell to give us the call."
"I am making a list of things to get before we return to Pegasus," Teyla said, returning to the table where she had out the hotel's notepaper and a pen. "If I cannot get them myself, could I ask one of the airmen to get it for me?"
"You could probably hand the list to O'Neill and get one of his aides to go scavenger hunting for you," John said, half-smiling. "Doesn't he owe you from some poker game?"
Teyla glanced up and flashed him a smile, beautiful and brilliant as the morning. "He does."
His chest squeezed, almost unbearably, and it must have shown on his face, because her smile died and her eyes grew polite and veiled - the diplomat's face. "Do you regret last night, John?"
"No." That was the easy part of the answer. "But I... Teyla, we can't... Now that we're going back..."
"I understand, John."
Except she didn't. She sat there with her careful trader's composure, so friendly and nice and polite, and said she did, but she couldn't understand why.
"Are you looking forward to seeing Torren again?"
She'd looked back down at the list she was making, her pen tracing over the items she'd already written. Now she looked up, puzzled. "Of course."
"He's a good kid." John swallowed hard. "He should have a good family."
"He has a good family." Teyla's brow furrowed. "John--"
"My dad got a girlfriend when I was nineteen. My mom wasn't good enough for him so...he upgraded to this other woman." Even some twenty-plus years later, he couldn't keep the bitterness from his voice.
Teyla looked at him for a long, silent moment. He didn't need to spell it out for her. "You are not the other man, John."
"Aren't I?" He gestured to his room where the sheets still smelled of sex; where he'd woken up alone and moments later been faced with the realisation that he had a use-by date and it was up. Hotel rooms on Earth and stolen moments in Atlantis. But he wouldn't do that to Kanaan, to Torren's family. He'd made a mistake last night, driven by loneliness and the fear of losing her. He wouldn't let himself make that mistake again. "Teyla--"
"Do you imagine that I should keep you in Atlantis, John? That I should go back to Kanaan when we are on Athos and share his tent?" She stood, and her mouth was white at the edges, her eyes dark and hard. "Do you think me capable of such cruelty?"
"I... No!" This wasn't about her. "Look, Teyla, things are different for your people, I know that. It's not cheating to you."
"But it is cheating to you."
"Yes." And John couldn't be the other man in her life. He'd know when she went back to Athos, and Kanaan would know when he looked at John. The Athosian man wouldn't make a fuss, maybe, but the knowledge would wear him down like water dripping on stone, carving deep channels of pain.
Her lips pressed together and she looked away.
"It's not that I don't... Last night was..." John knew his cheeks were burning, could feel his blood pulsing just at the thought. "It was... It was better than good. But we can't... Now that we're going back, we can't. I can't."
Teyla looked away, out towards the glass windows of the suite and the silence stood between them, an impossible barrier to cross. John exhaled as she turned back to look at him, her gaze shadowed. "And you will be okay with this?"
"I have to be. It's not like I haven't done this before."
The words were out before he could censor them, but John felt no shame at the admission - not anymore. They were friends, and if he wanted more - well, he'd always wanted more from Teyla than she seemed willing to give. The risks had always been on her side, not his - the perceptions of the expedition and her status among them, her position as an ally of Atlantis if things went wrong, what her people would think of her taking up with a stranger...
It would be worse now they'd slept together, but he'd manage as he always had.
We'll always have Paris...
Teyla sighed and looked down at her hands, fingertips resting on the notepad. "Kanaan and I are not together, John. Not since he left Atlantis."
He stared at her, trying to work his brain around the thought. Trying to stifle the sudden catch in his breath, the lurch in his chest.
"You would not be the 'other man' in any case, for there is no-one to play the role of cheated husband." Her smile was slightly rueful, and a little grim. "And I know your people's ways, and I know you, John. I would never make you settle for sharing me with another man."
He couldn't think, couldn't speak. He could only stare at her, knowing he'd misjudged her, wondering if he'd screwed it up again - and this time, beyond repair. She didn't say anything, waiting for his reaction, and after a moment, she looked away, biting her lip as though pained by something.
"I thought I could," John said at last. He dragged his hands through his hair. "Last night, after...the second time. I thought I could. And then, this morning..."
"You realised you could not."
"No."
"John," she said, and her voice was soft with a tremor to her speech. "Ask me to satisfy you and I will."
The same offer she'd made last night. All he had to do was accept it - to take what he wanted instead of hanging back.
It hung there between them. John took a deep breath.
"Will you?"
"I will."
She held out her hand to him. John took one step and slid his fingers into hers and bent to kiss her with a relief that was almost euphoric.
The phone in his pocket buzzed.
Teyla began to laugh, her breath tickling his jaw. John sighed, then turned his head and kissed her. Just one quick--
Caldwell sounded slightly peeved when John got the phone to his ear. "Are you ready, Colonel?"
"Yeah, we're just grabbing our stuff."
Teyla had already disentangled herself, tearing her list of things off the pad and hurrying around to gather up their duffels.
"You've got a minute, unless you suddenly think of something you left behind."
"Copy that, sir." John put the phone back in his pocket and took his duffle from Teyla. They faced each other for a moment. "We're going to talk about this later."
"Yes," she agreed. "We will."
It felt like something was trying to burst out of John's chest. It felt perilously close to joy. "Ready to go home?"
"Yes," Teyla said. "Very ready."
Her knuckles brushed his as she took her place beside him, facing out to the city where they'd loved and found each other.
John glanced down at her, and met her smile.
Then there was the flash of the transporter beam, taking them on the first step of their journey home.
- fin -
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