Chapter Text
Teyla spread her blanket out while Ronon built the fire. The day had been warm, but as darkness began to fall, the air grew cooler. Soon they would all be grateful for the fire's warmth.
She settled cross-legged onto the blanket. The two weeks spent with her people had been good for her. She was still plagued with nightmares, but she could go back to sleep when she woke from them, knowing that they were only nightmares, not reality. With meditation, she could find her peaceful center again. The fear and rage that leapt out of nothingness to consume her did so much less frequently now.
Teyla didn't believe herself ready to go out on missions as of yet. She was unsure of her ability to fight—or even spar—without trying to kill her opponent. She still didn't know if she could face an examination from Dr. Beckett with equanimity.
She smelled meat roasting and looked over at Ronon by the fire, tending their supper. Teyla found herself looking forward to the meat after two weeks of fasting and simple fare.
Next she looked for Rodney, on the far side of the fire. He was sharing a blanket with John. Rodney sat with his back to the fire, hunched over, arms resting on bent knees, staring out at the ocean waves crashing in to the shore of the Lantean mainland. No, more likely he was staring at Thousandmother and Aleek's burial mound, located well above the high-tide mark, but between their camp and the ocean. They had come here in the puddle jumper to visit the site, since it was located several weeks' walk from her people's village.
Rodney had been unusually quiet, and his eyes had been red-rimmed when the team had come to pick her up at her people's settlement this afternoon. With a start, Teyla realized that she hadn't spoken to Rodney, not even to ask how he was faring. It was obvious, now that she really looked at him, that he was still deep in grief. She herself grieved for the Taum, but distantly, as brief comrades, as benefactors. They had saved her life, after all. But she had not known them well, had not been close to them.
The fire popping swung her gaze back to Ronon. He was tossing tuber peelings into the flames. As she watched, he impaled the tubers on sticks, for roasting. It was harder to tell if Ronon was subdued, as he was naturally less voluble than Rodney. Although, Teyla thought suddenly, they had all known Ronon only in the wake of the destruction of his entire world. Perhaps he had been talkative in his youth. She studied him. His movements were steady, careful, efficient. His face was impassive, withdrawn. Teyla suspected he grieved as well, but she was not sure. Once, she would have known.
It irked her, to find that her recent ordeal had taken something else from her—her emotional connection to her team, which Teyla had thought inviolate.
Teyla looked over at John, sitting with Rodney. Despite his pretence to imperturbability, John was usually an open book to her. He sat close to Rodney, an arm looped over the other man's shoulders, speaking quietly to him. Nothing Teyla hadn't seen him do before, a dozen times or more, but somehow this was…different.
Teyla blinked. Really? Her skin prickled with the sense of being watched and she looked up to meet Ronon's eyes. He held her gaze solemnly, and then nodded slowly. She returned his nod and looked over at John and Rodney again. Rodney wrapped in his grief—and in John. John grieving himself, but focused on Rodney.
Teyla nodded to herself. This was good. The only thing that bothered her was that she hadn't noticed before. Perhaps it is new, she comforted herself. She would ask Ronon later.
She found herself contemplating the burial mound. It was not only a grave, but a nest. That was the reason they had official excuse to be here tonight, taking the place of the sentries that had been detailed to watch over it. Sentries had rotated at this posting ever since the day Thousandmother had laid her eggs, the foundation for a new village of the Taum.
Since Thousandmother had neglected to mention how long the eggs would take to hatch, the Lanteans had posted a guard and waited. Ronon had privately wagered with her over how long it would take the Lanteans to decide to take a trip through the wormhole and simply ask the existing Taum villagers how long it would take. Teyla thought it would eventually occur to someone that even Taum babies would need caregivers.
The light from the fire wavered uncertainly over the innocent mound of sand and earth. The sound of the surf rumbled in the distance. Teyla trembled slightly with the chill as the wind picked up. She always noticed the slightest chill now.
Teyla felt a blanket being draped over her shoulders and looked up into John Sheppard's concerned eyes. She patted his hand and smiled at him, comforted by the presence of her friends. By her team, who would always come for her.
Teyla wondered what fate awaited the children under the mound of earth, waiting to be born. Minus one, whose life had been given for her. If that was the measure of these people, that they would give their lives so selflessly, she longed to meet them.
The future, as always, would be revealed in its own time.
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