Three Days in Limbo

Alli Snow

"But Oh! The blessing it is to have a friend to whom one can speak fearless on any subject; with whom one's deepest as well as one's most foolish thoughts come out simply and safely. Oh, the comfort - the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person - having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away." -Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

Afterward

There was comfort in control.

Teyla found control by puzzling out the mystery of Xeol and Rnaer, the things Colum and Nyri had told her, the pictures she had seen in their terrible books. “I believe that the locals lied when they identified Xeol as the name of the planet,” she told Elizabeth during a private lunch in the other woman’s office. Perhaps it would have been more appropriate to put these ideas down in writing, but Teyla had always thought best when speaking aloud. “They had not heard the term used in some time because it was the name of the original settlement, a community on a nearby hillside. A community established or at least fostered by the Ancients. But then the war started and Xeol, like so many other worlds, was left with no meaningful protection.”

“And then this Arthere woman showed up,” guessed Weir, pushing her pasta around her plate.

Teyla nodded. “Arthere and her… cult of Wraith worshipers. Of course, if you believe the Rnaerans, they were only seeking freedom from persecution. But I believe that ultimately the two groups clashed, and Xeol lost. Many were killed outright, others kept for the lords of flesh – the Wraith – and those who were more… cooperative were allowed to live. As slaves.”

She did not have to elaborate on the kind of slavery. Elizabeth had not eaten much of her food. “Arthere must have realized even then the dangers of such a small population, a lack of genetic diversity…” And she looked at Teyla a little anxiously. No doubt she had anticipated that their conversation would flow in a different direction, a specific direction, but Teyla found control by refusing to submit to the other woman’s expectations.

She found control by not seeking Dr. Beckett out, by letting him come to her with her blood work and test results. “Everything looks… good,” he told her, looking awkward, sounding pained and smiling with false good cheer. “Nothing’s changed from your last check-up, and of course you’re not… well… pregnant.”

Some time ago, after the Earthers had reestablished communication with their home world and the Daedalus began to make regular restocking trips between galaxies, Beckett had approached her – somewhat nervously – about administering a monthly shot which would make accidental pregnancy all but impossible. It was something that was a matter of course among military women, and others who went off-world regularly.

Contraception was known among Athosians and many of their trading partners, although not widely used; it was important to replace those who were taken by the Wraith. And, to be frank, Teyla had not anticipated many opportunities to test the effectiveness of the injections. But she had agreed to them all the same, and now she imagined Beckett was as glad of it as she was.

She had spent very little time in the infirmary upon their return; her most serious injury was the shallow furrow left behind by the ricocheting bullet, which had been cleaned, bandaged and left to heal.

Teyla had told the doctor about Colum, and he had been ethically obligated to inform Dr. Weir and Dr. Heightmeyer, but he assured her that those same ethics meant that he would not pass the information onto another soul. When he looked at her so earnestly, when she heard the fervor in his voice, she had no choice but to believe him.

She did speak to Kate Heightmeyer; it was expected, and to refuse would have drawn unwanted attention. The psychologist wanted to know how Teyla was eating, how she was sleeping, if she had nightmares or flashbacks or hallucinations, if she ever imagined she saw Colum, if she blamed herself for the rape – a term Teyla was not comfortable using.

“He coerced me,” she agreed. “He and Nyri both. I feared for my safety and the lives of my teammates if I did not comply with their wishes. But in the end, it was my choice to consent.”

Heightmeyer frowned thoughtfully. “So you believe you had a choice.”

“I know I did,” said Teyla coolly.

“It was a pretty impossible choice, though, wasn’t it? Have you heard the term ‘between a rock and a hard place’?”

Teyla tried not to show her impatience. “Yes, and I understand what it means. But in this situation I did what I thought was necessary to save the lives of my teammates. It was not a decision I made lightly, and it was not a pleasant experience. But in the end, we are alive and he is dead, and that is all that matters.”

She understood that Dr. Heightmeyer was not expected to take sides in these matters, that she was employed to evaluate the mental health of the expedition members and help talk them through their concerns and fears. She was bound by the same moral code as Dr. Beckett in that their conversations would not be shared, and it was sometimes comforting to know that what was said in Heightmeyer’s office would go no further.

Unless it was decided that she was not mentally or emotionally sound, in which case she would be removed from Colonel Sheppard’s team and… then what? Would she stay in Atlantis despite having no real role there? Would she live on the mainland with the others and slowly go crazy from the not knowing?

So she met the other woman’s eyes squarely, and Heightmeyer hesitated for a moment but finally nodded. “You’re probably right,” she said slowly. “But I still want you to let me know if you have trouble sleeping, moodiness, anything like that. Day or night, you can talk to me at any time. You don’t have to always be so strong, Teyla.”

She found control in not replying to that comment.

She helped in dealing with the children, which were of course the most visible consequence of their journey to Rnaer. There were more than fifty of them, infants and toddlers and younglings, boys and girls who had not yet reached adulthood, when they would have been introduced into the larger community.

Until that time, Rnaeran offspring were raised in an elaborate cave network which ran beneath the hillside, attended to by crèche-women who were infertile or in some way undesirable as breeders. These women looked after the children, taught them basic lessons – how to speak and read and do simple sums – and chronicled any physical abnormalities which developed. They were being held in safekeeping from any old ones who might attack, explained one of the crèche-mothers.

“If you ask me,” said Amy Saito, “they were being stored like bottles of fine wine. The kids couldn’t tell us much, because they were never told much, except that the Ancients were the bad guys and the Wraith were these otherworldly lords, but the women who’d been taking care of them? The feeling I got was that these people considered children to be some kind of rare Wraith delicacy, and that if they came to Rnaer and had a bunch of little babies to feast on, they’d pretty much leave the rest of them alone.”

“But the Wraith never got to these… crèches,” pointed out Ronon, who’d been following Saito’s rambling report with interest.

“Because it all happened so fast,” said Rodney. “We pulled the information from our jumper - even when they’re quote-unquote ‘turned off’, they’re still taking passive readings - and according to these the Wraith moved in, stunned everyone they saw, had a couple snacks on the run, and then had their buddies sweep them up in a couple of Darts.”

“Why not just come in Darts to begin with?” asked Elizabeth.

The room lapsed into silence.

“Because they wanted to see it for themselves,” said Teyla, focusing on the table in front of her. “Whichever Wraith intercepted Nyri’s message, they had never before visited Rnaer. It was a fable, a myth, and when they saw that they were not feared, that they were in fact welcomed and revered, they were… pleasantly surprised.”

Sometimes, when she was not expecting it, Teyla could feel the Wraith’s hand on her chest, cold and slick and squirming, and the long moment she had spent on her knees in the mud bothered her dreams far more often than anything Colum had done.

“Besides, Nyri was dead,” put in Sheppard. “And if there really were any other keepers, which I kind of doubt, none of them had a chance to tell the Wraith about the crèche before they were stunned or… eaten.”

“Some of the nursemaids, or whatever you want to call them, some of them left the caves when the Wraith first appeared,” said Saito, “even though they weren’t supposed to. When they never came back, the other women thought they might be in danger and sealed up the entrance.”

They all regarded each other solemnly across the large table.

“I guess they weren’t all so willing to die,” said Ronon.

“If they hadn’t unsealed the caves so we could get in, I don’t know if we would have been able to do it before everyone inside starved to death,” commented Lorne. “We might be the dreaded allies of the evil old ones, but…”

“But when faced with starvation, you start to open up your options,” said Rodney. “Trust me, I know.”

“And if these really are women who had been ostracized from society,” Elizabeth commented, “they may be much less devout than some of their contemporaries.”

“I think they were also worried about the kids, ma’am,” Saito said. “I mean, it was their job to look after them until they hit puberty or until the Wraith were called, whichever came first, but I think they were genuinely attached to them. They’ve been asking what’s going to happen to the children next.”

“I will speak with Halling and the others about making room for some of the older children,” said Teyla, ignoring a couple of surprised looks. “They can always use more hands in the fields, and families have often adopted in children orphaned by the Wraith.”

Rodney coughed. “And yet, the whole Wraith-worshiping cult issue would seem to complicate the matter.”

“What better way to understand the true nature of the Wraith than to live among those who have suffered because of them?” Teyla retorted. “These are children. With time, I’ve no doubt that they will come to see reality for what it is.”

Elizabeth hesitated. “I don’t want them to feel like we’re simply… dumping our problems on them,” she said.

“They understand the difficulties of this situation,” Teyla said. “We all do.”

But she wondered if the others would welcome the decision she had made for them, if the deals she made between Earthers and Athosians were not in some part resented by those on the mainland more than anyone there had the courage to tell her. She wondered if she was not so blinded by the agenda of these people that she had made it her own, if she was subconsciously trying to turn into one of them.

The older children, however, were innocent, were excited at the prospect of living under the sun and stars after a lifetime in dismal caverns looked after by dismal women, and seemed not to mind that their would-be parents were allies of the old ones.

It was decided that the youngest children would go to Earth; Colonel Sheppard promised that the Air Force would see them safely adopted, that it had happened before and there were families who could be trusted, and that with any luck these small Rnaerans would grow up with no memories of the world from which they came, without knowing who and what their parents had been.

The seven crèche-women were another matter. They had been brought to Atlantis blindfolded and had been kept isolated and under guard. Nobody really wanted to keep them indefinitely in the city, as prisoners or anything else, but they had to be evaluated before any plans were made.

When Teyla thought of these women, she often thought of Miarpia, who had been found nowhere in Rnaer. If she had followed Colum’s orders and gone to the crèches that night, she would have likely been safe. She might have lived.

And Teyla and the others might have died.

It was times like this when she wondered most about the Ancestors. Did they know? Up in the ether, looking down on the city they had created and deserted, could they see the lines of myriad possibilities stretching out in all directions? Did they even care?

Such thoughts were not conducive to maintaining control.

She found control that evening by waiting in the hallway near Sheppard’s room; some passersby saw her and smiled, or said hello and told her that they’d seen the Colonel in the control room, or the mess, or in one of the labs. She thanked them politely but stayed where she was, leaning against the wall, watching through a nearby window as the light slowly ebbed and faded.

Night had well and truly fallen by the time he came around the corner, walking slowly, his attention focused on a sheaf of papers in his hand. Teyla straightened away from the wall; she was silent but he sensed her presence all the same, and his thoughtful frown was replaced by an expression of more intense concern.

She had been practicing the words, and they came out smoothly. “John, may we talk?”

He stiffened a little, glancing between her and the door to his quarters, then nodded. He ushered her inside – the lights turned on as he entered, which she assumed was a feature only those with the ATA gene enjoyed – and he dropped the papers on a desk next to his computer.

“I’ve been meaning to, um… just finding the right time was hard,” he began, showing the same nervous evasiveness as when he had tried to apologize for kissing her. Only this time Teyla could not quite see what he had to be anxious about.

“I want to know when I will be reinstated on the team,” she said.

John deflated a little, perhaps surprised that she had chosen to speak of business, and shook his head. “Reinstated… Teyla, it’s not a matter of reinstating you; you were never taken off. None of us have gone off-world since Rnaer, if you haven’t noticed.”

“You and Ronon went to Vilice the very night we returned,” she pointed out, letting her eyes drift over the room: the neatly made bed, the thick book on his nightstand table, the dog tags hanging from the bedside light. She, of course, had been immediately escorted to the infirmary as soon as they had returned. It was not until later that she had heard of the others’ jaunt.

He acknowledged this with a wary nod, crossing his arms. “We wanted to talk to Illyias. Find out if she’d just had old intel or if she’d knowingly sent us to Rnaer.”

Teyla felt a surge of indignation flush her cheeks. “Illyias would not have betrayed us to the Wraith.”

Sheppard’s expression was stony. “I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that we’re not exactly popular in this galaxy. You said yourself that this Vilice place is another of the Genii’s trading partners, or were. I can’t imagine that they’ve had very good things to say about us.”

“But…” True, she had not seen Illyias in some time. Despite her age, however, the older woman had still been as hearty and vivacious as always. And she had volunteered the information about Xeol. “She and Charin shared a mother. We are practically family.”

“And has it occurred to you what people like that… people who don’t know the whole story… what they might think of family who help out the people who woke the Wraith?”

Teyla turned away, squirming inside.

He held the silence for a moment, then sighed. “Anyway, she wasn’t there. Her house was empty.”

It was not a sure sign of guilt; she was sure he knew that, that Illyias and the other members of her household could simply have been visiting friends, that an empty house did not automatically mean that she had left the planet in anticipation of retribution. She was sure that if she asked to go back he would grant her request, or at least not interfere while she made the case to Elizabeth, but the suggestion, the possibility, was a dark shadow across the happy childhood memories, the joyful reunion.

“Was that all you wanted to know?” came Sheppard’s voice, softer than she was accustomed to. “Because I promise you don’t have anything to worry about.”

I promise. It was a little surprising to realize how much those words meant, coming from him. She nodded mutely and turned around. “May I ask you one more question?”

“Of course.”

She took a deep breath, fighting the urge to pace the room, which seemed inappropriate in another’s personal space. “Do you mind if I sit?” she asked, glancing at his desk chair.

“No, go ahead.” He gestured to the chair, took a seat on the edge of his bed, and gave her a feeble grin. “That wasn’t the question, was it?”

She sat, leaned forward, rested her clasped hands atop her knees. These words had not been planned out, had not been tested and measured. “What did Nyri say to you? About me… and Colum?”

Sheppard had been leaning forward as well, as though to tease the question from her, but when it finally came he leaned back, visibly tensing. “She… I don’t really remember. She’s dead. What does it matter?”

Teyla raised her eyebrows. “It matters to me.”

Now it was his turn to squirm. “Teyla…”

“John.”

He hesitated, scratched the back of his neck, and spoke as though the words were being forced from him one knot at a time. “She didn’t say anything… about Colum, specifically. She implied that someone… that they wanted to get you pregnant. Colum came by later, but he didn’t say anything.”

Teyla nodded, surprised and not a little relieved. She had imagined Nyri and Colum taunting all three men, weaving sick and lurid lies about what they had done or intended to do with her. She had seen the barely-restrained rage in Ronon’s eyes – you know who – and guessed that it had been well-kindled during their long days apart. “I thought they might have been more… cruel,” she murmured.

“It was still cruel,” John retorted, and Teyla’s eyes flickered from the floor to his face. His voice was no longer soft; it rasped, low and impassioned. “All we knew was that they were a bunch of Wraith-worshipers who wanted to use you to make more of themselves. Who were probably holding our lives over your head. And I don’t know about the other guys, but if I had to guess I would say that their imaginations are about a vivid as mine.”

The things they must have pictured, sitting in that dank cell… Teyla could see them in her own mind, and the images revolted her. She had envied them because they had been discounted as allies of the old ones and therefore unworthy of reproduction, but to sit in the darkness, unseeing, unknowing... “It was not like that,” she said, leaning forward again, imploring him to understand. “Whatever you imagined…”

His face twisted at the memory and he studied the floor, the curtains, the silvery tags reflecting the light, a small marble-handled knife on the nightstand... “Teyla, you don’t have to talk about it… it’s none of my business…”

But she told him. About the first night and Colum’s clumsy attempt at seduction, about their dinner the second night and the drink spiked with Split-Root, and finally, haltingly, about Nyri’s threat and the events of their third night in captivity.

She told him that she had capitulated, that he had not forced her. Not physically.

He spent most of the time looking down at his hands, his head pulled down as though anticipating a blow, but when she spoke of her realization that the Wraith had arrived, of the long moment when she had held the pillow over Colum’s face, pinned him down until his struggles ceased, John looked up and seemed strangely satisfied.

“It happened only once,” said Teyla. “It was… unpleasant.” This was not a lie, merely an understatement, but she expected John knew that. “But he did not willfully hurt me. He had… talked himself into believing that I was one of them, and I think he had nearly talked himself into believing that he cared for me.” She gave a humorless chuckle. “And in the end, I suppose it was unnecessary. I did not know that the Wraith would come so soon; I expected Elizabeth to send rescue the next day, and I thought only of keeping us all alive until then.”

He nodded slowly, his eyes thoughtfully out of focus.

She hated to think what he had imagined, and what Rodey and Ronon had imagined, and in an odd way it made what she had actually endured slightly less terrible. She had been in limbo, after all, and not truly in hell.

“I don’t know what to say,” murmured John at last. “’Thank you’ doesn’t exactly seem appropriate, but…”

“You are welcome.”

He looked up again, and for the space of a few seconds they held each others’ gaze across the small room. It was not like Wraith telepathy, which she was uncomfortably familiar with, but there was certainly an understanding that passed between them, a warmth that was the opposite of the cold chasm she had endured so often, a feeling of contentedness that she had not felt in some time.

When she rose to leave he stood as well, moving towards her – perhaps to walk her all of three feet to the door – or perhaps she moved towards him – perhaps to initiate the old gesture of caring and gratitude that the Earthers seemed so amusedly uncomfortable with – and somehow she wound up standing quite close to him, looking up into his surprised face.

Surprised or not, he put his arms around her.

He was tentative, as though he expected her to shy away, as though a frightening experience with one man would lead her to fear the entire gender. Dr. Heightmeyer had seemed concerned about something along those same lines.

But he was not Colum, nothing like Colum; he was John Sheppard and there was simply nobody else like him, and she felt unexpectedly secure in the circle of his arms.

* * *

John woke up alone, which was pretty much par for the course, and it took him a few seconds to realize why he found it so disturbing.

He pulled himself up out of the fog of sleep, looked around blurrily, and noticed that the marble-handled knife was gone.

“Shit. Teyla.”

They’d gone to bed together, although not in the traditional sense. He was a guy, and therefore perpetually sex-obsessed and sex-starved, but even he had realized with all the weirdness surrounding Colum and the mission to Rnaer that sex was not exactly a magical cure-all. In fact, it could be exactly the opposite. But they had kissed – damn, had they kissed – and they had wound up on his bed, and he was pretty sure he’d done enough to remind her that sex wasn’t all bad, either.

Then they’d fallen asleep, lying close because the bed was so small and because he loved the feel of her pressed against him, her breath soft and slow against his neck, the locks of hair that slid like silk between his fingers.

Yet, as he forced himself upright and staggered across the room, he was mentally kicking himself. Forget the regs he had possibly just broken fooling around with a member of his team – would the Air Force consider Teyla enlisted? Would Elizabeth care, if she ever found out? – he might have just screwed up a hell of a friendship in the bargain.

The fact that the knife was missing was fairly ominous.

He reached for his shirt and realized that it wasn’t there.

It was still dark outside, the corridor lights in this section dimmed to indicate that this time was to be used for sleeping, but nevertheless he found her pretty quickly, drawn by some sixth sense to the nearest walkway that opened out onto the water. His quarters were not located far enough on the outskirts of the city for it to be a purely oceanic view, but the exposed catwalk overlooked one of the many inlets and waterways that snaked their way through Atlantis.

It was also an area that was far enough off the beaten path that he enjoyed coming out here himself from time to time, to enjoy the salt breeze and the alien architecture and, at night, the peculiar glow cast by the city’s many lights.

She stood at the railing with her back to him, barely illuminated by the interior lights. She was wearing his t-shirt; it was big on her but not huge, and the bottom hem skimmed the edges of decency. Her legs, toned and tan, seemed to go on forever.

He joined her at the rail and she seemed surprised but not startled. “Did I wake you?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper, her eyes flickering across his bare chest.

John shrugged. “Nah, I always like going for a little stroll around this time of night.” He glanced at the knife in her hands. “Are you okay?”

She did not respond with the automatic I am fine that he had come to expect, but instead studied the small blade in silence. “I thought about using this so many times,” she said at last. “It was maddening… not being able to do anything.”

A breeze stirred, combing back the hair around her face, lifting gooseflesh on his arms. He remembered sitting in those cells, with the other guys and later alone, and he could commiserate. “You did something,” he reminded her. “We’re all alive, aren’t we? Us… those kids… we’re all here.” He nodded at the knife. “We don’t need that anymore.”

She looked up at him, her eyes dark and lustrous, and then she turned back to the night, drew back her arm, and threw the knife out into the darkness.

From this height they could not hear it splash in the water below, and they certainly couldn’t see it, but picturing it sinking to the bottom of the ocean gave John the same warm, fuzzy feeling that he’d felt when Teyla had kissed him.

Well, not exactly the same, but close.

* * *

Tomorrow and the days to follow would be busy, even chaotic; there were refugee children and the return voyage to Vilice, to determine – with any luck – Illyias’ true intentions. There would be heartache and many other kinds of pain. There would be nightmares. There would be concerns about managing food and supplies and the Wraith – always the Wraith.

But the salt tang in the air and the unearthly glow of the city below them and the man standing beside her all made her think ‘home’ and, for the moment, that was enough.