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TITLE: Errors Of Omission
SUMMARY: Hell hath no fury like an Athosian whose son and team-mates have been taken.
RATING: PG-13, tending to M
CATEGORY: Action-Adventure, Drama, Awesome Teyla, Guys As Damsels, John-whump, John/Teyla (implied)
WARNING: briefly skims a non-con situation
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, making no money, please don't sue.
NOTES: I can't presently see who asked for this prompt (it's on LJ, and I don't have access; I'm posting this from DW - as it turns out, it was![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
camshaft22), but they asked for "When her child is in danger and her team is missing with him, Teyla has to take up the arms of a Warrior to get them back." It...got longer than I expected.
Errors Of Omission
The Grevari made one essential mistake in kidnapping John Sheppard's team. That mistake was not, as some might have surmised, the actual kidnapping of the team. Nor was it, as others might have postulated, the taking of the young boy travelling with them.
It was not an error of submission but one of omission that ultimately came back to bite them firmly in the ass.
They failed to secure Teyla Emmagan.
Hell hath no fury like an Athosian whose son and team-mates have been taken.
--
The interior lights of the 'jumper were bright after the twilight outside, and her eyes teared over as she moved through the cargo hold, pulling open drawers to find what she required, and picking and choosing her weapons as carefully as a Grevari woman might choose who would father her child.
Teyla told herself that Torren would be safe with John and the others. Worried, perhaps, but safe. John, Ronon, and Rodney would be torn limb from limb before they allowed any harm to come to her son.
In that, she would rest her faith.
Three blocks of C4 and the timer detonators, pre-programmed. Spare clips for her sidearm and one for her P-90, a small handheld Wraith stunner, and a small handheld computer onto which she downloaded several specialised routines that Rodney had developed. She took earpieces and a radio and stored them inside her vest, along with an adrenaline shot.
Then she sat down in front of the medicine box.
And as she started on her next task - long and painstaking - she laid out her plans, careful and cold.
--
The explosion shook the wall of the stronghold, blasting out a significant part of the brick and cement that had been built to withstand the Wraith. Stone and mortar burst forth, to reveal the steel gratings beneath that protected the wall and prevented entry by anyone attempting to storm the walls.
John knew explosions, and Rodney technology, and Ronon survival.
Teyla knew people.
Explosions and bright lights, drama and damage - the human mind, whether of Pegasus or of the Milky Way, would always turn to the source of greatest disturbance: the unusual, unexpected, uncanny.
In the darkness of night, the human eye turns towards light and sound, unerring and unknowingly blinding itself for the shadows.
She waited until the guards ran by, then pulled down her night-vision goggles, eeled out of her hiding place and made haste along the line of the wall using darkness as her cloak.
--
The metal cover of the keyblock took moments to prise open, and she swiftly connected a small device to it and pulled up a program Rodney had written.
Radek had once told her that every electronic system - no matter how advanced - had one fatal flaw: the user who must implement it. Computers do what one tells them to do, he had said with that wry light in his eyes. And people do as it pleases them.
Breaking the codes of the entryway might have been a long and painstaking process - but for the fact that six sigils were worn down on the keypad. The soft glow of the screen dimmed a little as numbers scrolled across the screen, rising and falling with soft clicks until the bolt shot open, giving her entry to the stronghold.
She slid inside, set a thin strip of substance on the tang of the lock and closed the door with the softest of clicks, then set off into the building.
Behind her, white light seared briefly out of the door crack before leaving nothing but the faint taste of acrid smoke behind.
--
They had not expected her to get this far. In truth, Teyla doubted they had expected her to come back at all.
But she had, and they were ready for her - although their preparations presumed she was outside the stronghold trying to enter, not already within their perimeters.
As she paused in a corridor judging her moment, Teyla considered that perhaps sealing that side entrance behind her had not been so wise. Once it was discovered, her presence inside the stronghold would be betrayed and they would no longer move with such ease and assurance within.
In an empty antechamber overlooking the central courtyard, Teyla instructed the handheld computer to locate her team-mates' chip implants, then set up her secondary diversion. Perhaps it would not be needful, but she should rather be crazy-prepared and successful, than hopeful and fail. As she worked with wire and springs, she listened to the sounds of the stronghold outside- active, but not yet concerned.
The handheld indicated that Torren and the men were several levels down. She followed the turns and turnoffs from her present position to where they were being kept.
Then sat back and took a moment to breathe before she made the final run.
--
Gunfire tore through the night, a sharp staccato that momentarily silenced the shouts.
Momentarily.
Then there were people running through the corridors, shouting and countermanding orders from one breath to the next.
The guards in the corridor started up from their post only to be shot where they stood or sat, too shocked at seeing her to reach for their weapons. Teyla switched the tranq gun for her sidearm and shot at the lock of the nearest door, kicking it in and sweeping the room with eyes and weapon.
Ronon stood with his hands spread wide until she had finished the sweep. "Just me." He strode forward and took the weapon she handed him, his eyes a-glitter with the pent frustration of the captive. "Took your time."
"It takes longer to storm the castle than Rodney and The Princess Bride would have you believe," she retorted. "My son?"
The handsome face turned grim. "They took Torren away and Sheppard went with him."
--
Rodney's response to being freed was, "What took you so long?" He accepted the handheld as his due, and immediately began recalibrating it. "You know, we should get out of here before they realise that the easiest way to find you is to make you come to them. God, what the hell did you do to this, Teyla? It's not supposed to--"
"I did what I needed to cause it to work."
It came out shorter than she liked.
Rodney paused. "Look, the Grevari aren't stupid." At her lifted eyebrow, he grimaced. "Well, okay, they are. But they worked out early on that if they did anything to Torren, they'd lose the best leverage they have against Sheppard. And it's Sheppard they want."
Indeed, the melting courtesy and eager hospitality had all been for John through their initial meetings with the Grevari. Only once it was clear that the Grevari would not get what they desired through sweet words and pretty women that they turned on their 'guests'.
But Teyla swore that if they had hurt her son, then not even her team-mates' disapproval would halt her vengeance.
--
"So if you're down here, who was firing the P-90?" Rodney asked as they breezed through the next intersection, shooting everything that moved. "Left."
Teyla took the left-hand turning. "I rigged a timer and something to pull the trigger."
"Who showed you...?" Rodney blinked. "Right. No-one did."
"Why ask a question you know the answer to?" Ronon rumbled, grinning.
Rodney ignored him as only Rodney could."Second corridor to the right and then it looks like Sheppard's in one of the side rooms."
Ronon scoped around the next corner, fired twice, then kicked in the nearest door.
"Ronon the barbarian," Rodney muttered. "Hey! They make door handles for a reason, you know!"
"It's more fun this way."
Teyla was not interested in fun and games. She wanted to find her son and John, and then she could care less about the Grevari and how they had survived the Wraith.
The handle of the first door she tried was not locked and the room was empty. The second door - one with a guard collapsed outside it - was locked, and she shot out the lock and kicked it open.
Teyla took one look before shooting the sly-eyed woman on the bed. Then she crossed the room and hauled the lax, limp body off John who looked groggily up at her between the ties that spreadeagled him on the bed. "Thing I coul' have a go of the stunn'r, Tey'a?"
--
"Mama!"
Torran clung to her - a growing boy, yes, but still a child, and unaccustomed to the life that had become ordinary to his mother. Teyla disentangled an arm from managing John to around her son's shoulders. "Torren. You are not injured or hurt?"
"No." He looked up at her, worried but trusting. "Is John okay? He looks sick."
"'m fine, buddy." They stripped the guard to dress him - a more complicated process than Teyla liked. The drug used to dull his reactions was also a stimulant and so Teyla eased him carefully into the trousers while John closed his eyes and his teeth made white marks in his lip. "Wha's 'r exi' plan?"
She let Rodney shoulder John's weight and took out the detonator for the second explosion she had planned. "Blow up everything in sight and run."
John snorted. "Goo' plan."
Teyla looked down at her son who was watching all this with a clear hazel gaze. "Torren, you will remain behind myself and Ronon at all times. This is very important. If you see anything we have not--"
"I'll let you know, mama." Mischievous and prone to trouble, still Torren was intelligent enough to know when to argue and when to obey.
"People coming," Ronon said grimly.
Teyla brushed her fingers through Torren's hair and gripped the stunner in her hand. "Up to the walls, then. We'll blow the eastern wall, and leave by the river."
Rodney snorted and looked pointedly at the detonator in her hand. "We'll blow the eastern wall?"
"And leave by the river," Teyla said, exasperated by the inappropriate moment of wit. "Shall we go?"
--
Expecting Torren when the doors to her quarters hissed open, Teyla opened her eyes to find John being led into the room behind her errant son.
"I found him outside," said Torren cheerfully. Behind and above him, John's half-smile was rueful. "He didn't want to disturb you."
"Then it is just as well that you found him and brought him in," Teyla said, rising to her feet and brushing back her son's dark curls. "Go and prepare yourself for bed, while I speak with John."
Torren pouted but went, and Teyla watched him go before turning to John. "I thought Dr. Rizen would keep you for overnight observation."
"Yeah, I persuaded him to let me out."
She tilted her head to the side. "Because you told him I would be doing the observing?"
"I can go back if you want." John stood there, his hands resting on his hips, his eyes resting on her face, seeming as casual as if he was suggesting the reschedule of a meeting due to a clash in timetables.
In answer, Teyla slid her fingers under his chin and brought his mouth down to hers. "I do not want," she said, and let her kiss reassure him as her words would not.
- fin -
SUMMARY: Hell hath no fury like an Athosian whose son and team-mates have been taken.
RATING: PG-13, tending to M
CATEGORY: Action-Adventure, Drama, Awesome Teyla, Guys As Damsels, John-whump, John/Teyla (implied)
WARNING: briefly skims a non-con situation
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, making no money, please don't sue.
NOTES: I can't presently see who asked for this prompt (it's on LJ, and I don't have access; I'm posting this from DW - as it turns out, it was
camshaft22), but they asked for "When her child is in danger and her team is missing with him, Teyla has to take up the arms of a Warrior to get them back." It...got longer than I expected.The Grevari made one essential mistake in kidnapping John Sheppard's team. That mistake was not, as some might have surmised, the actual kidnapping of the team. Nor was it, as others might have postulated, the taking of the young boy travelling with them.
It was not an error of submission but one of omission that ultimately came back to bite them firmly in the ass.
They failed to secure Teyla Emmagan.
Hell hath no fury like an Athosian whose son and team-mates have been taken.
--
The interior lights of the 'jumper were bright after the twilight outside, and her eyes teared over as she moved through the cargo hold, pulling open drawers to find what she required, and picking and choosing her weapons as carefully as a Grevari woman might choose who would father her child.
Teyla told herself that Torren would be safe with John and the others. Worried, perhaps, but safe. John, Ronon, and Rodney would be torn limb from limb before they allowed any harm to come to her son.
In that, she would rest her faith.
Three blocks of C4 and the timer detonators, pre-programmed. Spare clips for her sidearm and one for her P-90, a small handheld Wraith stunner, and a small handheld computer onto which she downloaded several specialised routines that Rodney had developed. She took earpieces and a radio and stored them inside her vest, along with an adrenaline shot.
Then she sat down in front of the medicine box.
And as she started on her next task - long and painstaking - she laid out her plans, careful and cold.
--
The explosion shook the wall of the stronghold, blasting out a significant part of the brick and cement that had been built to withstand the Wraith. Stone and mortar burst forth, to reveal the steel gratings beneath that protected the wall and prevented entry by anyone attempting to storm the walls.
John knew explosions, and Rodney technology, and Ronon survival.
Teyla knew people.
Explosions and bright lights, drama and damage - the human mind, whether of Pegasus or of the Milky Way, would always turn to the source of greatest disturbance: the unusual, unexpected, uncanny.
In the darkness of night, the human eye turns towards light and sound, unerring and unknowingly blinding itself for the shadows.
She waited until the guards ran by, then pulled down her night-vision goggles, eeled out of her hiding place and made haste along the line of the wall using darkness as her cloak.
--
The metal cover of the keyblock took moments to prise open, and she swiftly connected a small device to it and pulled up a program Rodney had written.
Radek had once told her that every electronic system - no matter how advanced - had one fatal flaw: the user who must implement it. Computers do what one tells them to do, he had said with that wry light in his eyes. And people do as it pleases them.
Breaking the codes of the entryway might have been a long and painstaking process - but for the fact that six sigils were worn down on the keypad. The soft glow of the screen dimmed a little as numbers scrolled across the screen, rising and falling with soft clicks until the bolt shot open, giving her entry to the stronghold.
She slid inside, set a thin strip of substance on the tang of the lock and closed the door with the softest of clicks, then set off into the building.
Behind her, white light seared briefly out of the door crack before leaving nothing but the faint taste of acrid smoke behind.
--
They had not expected her to get this far. In truth, Teyla doubted they had expected her to come back at all.
But she had, and they were ready for her - although their preparations presumed she was outside the stronghold trying to enter, not already within their perimeters.
As she paused in a corridor judging her moment, Teyla considered that perhaps sealing that side entrance behind her had not been so wise. Once it was discovered, her presence inside the stronghold would be betrayed and they would no longer move with such ease and assurance within.
In an empty antechamber overlooking the central courtyard, Teyla instructed the handheld computer to locate her team-mates' chip implants, then set up her secondary diversion. Perhaps it would not be needful, but she should rather be crazy-prepared and successful, than hopeful and fail. As she worked with wire and springs, she listened to the sounds of the stronghold outside- active, but not yet concerned.
The handheld indicated that Torren and the men were several levels down. She followed the turns and turnoffs from her present position to where they were being kept.
Then sat back and took a moment to breathe before she made the final run.
--
Gunfire tore through the night, a sharp staccato that momentarily silenced the shouts.
Momentarily.
Then there were people running through the corridors, shouting and countermanding orders from one breath to the next.
The guards in the corridor started up from their post only to be shot where they stood or sat, too shocked at seeing her to reach for their weapons. Teyla switched the tranq gun for her sidearm and shot at the lock of the nearest door, kicking it in and sweeping the room with eyes and weapon.
Ronon stood with his hands spread wide until she had finished the sweep. "Just me." He strode forward and took the weapon she handed him, his eyes a-glitter with the pent frustration of the captive. "Took your time."
"It takes longer to storm the castle than Rodney and The Princess Bride would have you believe," she retorted. "My son?"
The handsome face turned grim. "They took Torren away and Sheppard went with him."
--
Rodney's response to being freed was, "What took you so long?" He accepted the handheld as his due, and immediately began recalibrating it. "You know, we should get out of here before they realise that the easiest way to find you is to make you come to them. God, what the hell did you do to this, Teyla? It's not supposed to--"
"I did what I needed to cause it to work."
It came out shorter than she liked.
Rodney paused. "Look, the Grevari aren't stupid." At her lifted eyebrow, he grimaced. "Well, okay, they are. But they worked out early on that if they did anything to Torren, they'd lose the best leverage they have against Sheppard. And it's Sheppard they want."
Indeed, the melting courtesy and eager hospitality had all been for John through their initial meetings with the Grevari. Only once it was clear that the Grevari would not get what they desired through sweet words and pretty women that they turned on their 'guests'.
But Teyla swore that if they had hurt her son, then not even her team-mates' disapproval would halt her vengeance.
--
"So if you're down here, who was firing the P-90?" Rodney asked as they breezed through the next intersection, shooting everything that moved. "Left."
Teyla took the left-hand turning. "I rigged a timer and something to pull the trigger."
"Who showed you...?" Rodney blinked. "Right. No-one did."
"Why ask a question you know the answer to?" Ronon rumbled, grinning.
Rodney ignored him as only Rodney could."Second corridor to the right and then it looks like Sheppard's in one of the side rooms."
Ronon scoped around the next corner, fired twice, then kicked in the nearest door.
"Ronon the barbarian," Rodney muttered. "Hey! They make door handles for a reason, you know!"
"It's more fun this way."
Teyla was not interested in fun and games. She wanted to find her son and John, and then she could care less about the Grevari and how they had survived the Wraith.
The handle of the first door she tried was not locked and the room was empty. The second door - one with a guard collapsed outside it - was locked, and she shot out the lock and kicked it open.
Teyla took one look before shooting the sly-eyed woman on the bed. Then she crossed the room and hauled the lax, limp body off John who looked groggily up at her between the ties that spreadeagled him on the bed. "Thing I coul' have a go of the stunn'r, Tey'a?"
--
"Mama!"
Torran clung to her - a growing boy, yes, but still a child, and unaccustomed to the life that had become ordinary to his mother. Teyla disentangled an arm from managing John to around her son's shoulders. "Torren. You are not injured or hurt?"
"No." He looked up at her, worried but trusting. "Is John okay? He looks sick."
"'m fine, buddy." They stripped the guard to dress him - a more complicated process than Teyla liked. The drug used to dull his reactions was also a stimulant and so Teyla eased him carefully into the trousers while John closed his eyes and his teeth made white marks in his lip. "Wha's 'r exi' plan?"
She let Rodney shoulder John's weight and took out the detonator for the second explosion she had planned. "Blow up everything in sight and run."
John snorted. "Goo' plan."
Teyla looked down at her son who was watching all this with a clear hazel gaze. "Torren, you will remain behind myself and Ronon at all times. This is very important. If you see anything we have not--"
"I'll let you know, mama." Mischievous and prone to trouble, still Torren was intelligent enough to know when to argue and when to obey.
"People coming," Ronon said grimly.
Teyla brushed her fingers through Torren's hair and gripped the stunner in her hand. "Up to the walls, then. We'll blow the eastern wall, and leave by the river."
Rodney snorted and looked pointedly at the detonator in her hand. "We'll blow the eastern wall?"
"And leave by the river," Teyla said, exasperated by the inappropriate moment of wit. "Shall we go?"
--
Expecting Torren when the doors to her quarters hissed open, Teyla opened her eyes to find John being led into the room behind her errant son.
"I found him outside," said Torren cheerfully. Behind and above him, John's half-smile was rueful. "He didn't want to disturb you."
"Then it is just as well that you found him and brought him in," Teyla said, rising to her feet and brushing back her son's dark curls. "Go and prepare yourself for bed, while I speak with John."
Torren pouted but went, and Teyla watched him go before turning to John. "I thought Dr. Rizen would keep you for overnight observation."
"Yeah, I persuaded him to let me out."
She tilted her head to the side. "Because you told him I would be doing the observing?"
"I can go back if you want." John stood there, his hands resting on his hips, his eyes resting on her face, seeming as casual as if he was suggesting the reschedule of a meeting due to a clash in timetables.
In answer, Teyla slid her fingers under his chin and brought his mouth down to hers. "I do not want," she said, and let her kiss reassure him as her words would not.
- fin -
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