The Furies

Chapter Sixteen Home Truths

Ronon got up last, following Radek toward the door. He didn’t look around.

Crap, John thought. But what he said was, “Ronon.”

Ronon stopped, letting Radek leave ahead of him. John saw his shoulders square before he turned back. “Yeah?”

“You got a problem?” John asked quietly.

“Yeah.” Ronon met his eyes solidly. “I do. I think you’ve stopped making good decisions about this.”

“We’ve been over every angle,” John said. “You’ve said your piece.” He sat down on the edge of the conference table. It might be a good idea to make this look a little more casual.

“Yeah.” Ronon nodded. “And you’re wrong. You’re talking about trusting the Wraith. You’re talking about helping the Wraith!”

“That’s not…” John began.

Ronon lifted his chin. “It is, and you know it. It’s about making some kind of treaty with them instead of killing them all. It’s about saying it’s ok for them to keep on feeding on people.”

John shifted on the table. His sidearm was digging into his leg. “Ronon, we don’t have a way to kill all the Wraith.”

“You’re not looking for one, are you? We ought to be. We ought to be looking for a way to get rid of them forever. That’s the only answer in the end. It’s them or us.” Ronon’s eyes were level. “I used to be sure whose side you’re on.”

That felt like a body blow. But he’d taken lots of those. John’s voice didn’t even change. “And now you’re not sure.”

“I think this thing with Teyla is screwing up your judgment,” Ronon said. “You’re not thinking straight and you’re making bad decisions.” Ronon leaned back against the wall, almost too casually, as though he were trying not to make it a fight. He hesitated, lowering his voice. “You do that, Sheppard. You know that. You get too emotionally involved and you start making mistakes. I’m saying it as a friend. That’s why I didn’t say this in the meeting. You know you do it, and you know it’s a problem.”

John didn’t say anything. He didn’t have any wind.

“This thing with Teyla’s messing up your mind, man. Pull the plug on this operation, get her back to normal, and take a deep breath. When Teyla’s herself again it will all look different.”

“Teyla’s herself right now,” John said quietly.

Ronon shook his head. “It’s like a deep cover op. Sometimes they turn, sometimes they get confused.”

“Teyla’s not confused,” John said sharply. “This is Teyla. She always has the telepathy.”

“Yeah.” Ronon straightened up. “And that hasn’t always worked out. Remember the time the Wraith queen took over her body and she didn’t even remember anything she did? She wrecked half the installation and kicked the crap out of me. How do you know this is Teyla? The things she’s saying aren’t normal, Sheppard. They’re Wraith. They’re not people.”

Sometimes it hurts enough that you hit back, even if you’re not going to. “Are you sure you’re not just picking a fight with Keller?”

Ronon’s jaw tightened. “Yeah.”

“Listen,” John got up from the table, not moving too fast. “The decision’s made. If you’re going to be the team leader, you’ve got to get with the program. And that means following orders and doing your best. If you can’t do that, tell me now. Because if you can’t, I need you off the team and somebody there who can.”

Ronon’s voice was very controlled, which was probably worse than if he’d been yelling. “I know how to follow orders, Sheppard.”

“Then do it,” John said, and very deliberately turned his back to pick up his laptop, tensed for the blow.

There wasn’t one. Just the sound of Ronon’s feet walking away.

John walked down the narrow corridor aboard the Hammond, an airman flattening himself against the wall to let him pass. John acknowledged the courtesy offhandedly and knocked on the door. This day was going from bad to worse, and right now he didn’t think he could stand another conversation with Jennifer and Carson about the retrovirus, or for that matter with anybody about the retrovirus..

“Come.” Sam was sitting at her desk in the light of the desk lamp, her hair half falling out of the French braid at the back of her neck. She looked up, startled.

“Sorry. Is it too late?” John asked. It was evening, but he’d hoped for one friendly conversation today and Teyla was too perceptive. She’d ask about Ronon, and he’d tell her. And then she’d feel like it was her fault. Or worse, she’d be furious and go start something with Ronon. Teyla had a temper.

“No. Come on in. Shut the door.” Sam turned away from her desk. She had an mp3 player going, little speakers belting out the end of Madonna’s Crazy For You.

John gave the door a shove. “Bubblegum pop,” he said. “Not quite what I expected.”

“Hey, it’s a vice,” Sam said. “I’d offer you a chair but I don’t have room in here for two. So pull up a corner of bed.”

John sat down on the end of the bed as the song changed, feeling vaguely weird about it, but this was Carter.

“I’ve got some Grateful Dead on here too,” she said, swiveling the chair around to face him.

“Touch of Grey,” John said, recognizing the opening bars. “That’s more like it.” He was starting to get a headache and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Listen, I wanted to talk to you about something before I left.”

Her smile faded. “You’re not going anywhere, John.”

“I’m going with Teyla and Keller to meet Todd,” he said.

Sam shook her head. “No, you’re not.” She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. “You’re in command in Atlantis, John. You can’t just leave.”

“Look, Teyla and Keller are going into this thing…”

She cut him off. “Yes. And that’s their job. Being here, running Atlantis, is yours.”

“You’re here.”

“The Hammond is my job,” she said. “Atlantis is yours.” Sam shook her head, but her eyes were kind. “You’re not company grade anymore. You’re not a captain who’s supposed to run around shooting bad guys. You’re a lieutenant colonel, and you’re in charge of everything that happens in this city. Safeguarding Atlantis is your job, and that means being here and making the big decisions, not going off for two weeks on a mission where nobody can reach you.” Sam’s mouth quirked in a sideways smile. “I know that’s a rough transition. The first time we walked through that gate on a mission without Jack after he was promoted I thought he was going to come running and screaming up the ramp after us. But he didn’t. That wasn’t his job anymore.”

“If Todd double-crosses,” John began.

“If you think he’s not on the up and up, you’ve got to call it off,” Sam said. “And if he is, then Jennifer and Teyla don’t need you.” Her eyes were very blue and met his firmly. “This is her job, John. It’s her mission, not yours. You’ve got to let her take her knocks and learn to live with that, or call it off with her. That’s the price of a relationship with a comrade in arms. And for a lot of people it’s too high.”

John swallowed, seeing again in his mind’s eye the cold night sky over the desert, the Milky Way like a ribbon of light. “It’s real high,” he said quietly.

“I know.” Her eyes didn’t evade his. “You’re the only person who can decide if it’s worth it to you. But you have to let her go. Teyla’s a grown woman. She’s smart, competent, talented, the whole package. And she’s the one who can do this. You can’t hold her back because you want to take care of her, and you can’t tag along to hold her hand. You’ve got to trust her.”

“I do trust her,” he said. “More than anybody.” John looked down at his hands, at Carter’s email open on her computer. “Teyla’s level headed and she’s tough. She doesn’t wander off like McKay or get fixated like Ronon. She’s always exactly where she’s supposed to be, doing the thing she’s supposed to be doing.”

“And if it weren’t Teyla you’d wish her Godspeed,” Sam said thoughtfully. “There’s no regulation against it because she’s a civilian contractor. But that’s what the rules are for, John. Because emotions get complicated.”

“They get complicated whether or not you do anything about them,” John said. Desert sky spreading from horizon to horizon, a cold night wind blowing.

Sam snorted. “Tell me about it.”

John took a deep breath, lifted his head. “You’ve seen my record, right?”

She didn’t look away. “Yes, John. I’ve seen it. When I was appointed CO in Atlantis.”

He swallowed hard. “Well.”

Sam glanced quickly at the speakers, still blaring the Grateful Dead loud enough to cover conversation. “For what it’s worth, I’d have gone after him too. Not that it means anything.”

“It does,” John said. His mouth was dry.

“Sometimes you lose,” Sam said. “You do the best you can, and you lose people anyhow.” She glanced over at the pictures held to the wall over the desk with magnets. “You know that. It takes a certain kind of fool to raise the stakes when you don’t have a very good hand.” The wrinkles at the corners of her eyes deepened as she smiled. “But sometimes you win the jackpot.”

“Yeah,” John said ruefully. “A certain kind of fool.”

“If you’re not going to fold, you have to learn to live with it,” she said. “It’s one of those compromises with life.”

“Like the anti-frat rules,” John said.

“Yeah.” Sam pursed her lips. “Like that. They’re there to protect women, every woman in the service down to Airman Salawi. They’re there to keep people from abusing authority, because you can’t give officers unlimited power without checks on it. When you break a rule like that, it’s bad for every woman in the service. You can tell yourself that this situation’s different and that you’re special, but you know it’s wrong. It’s still wrong.” She looked at him and shrugged. “Unlike some other regs that are just plain stupid. Just in case you didn’t know I thought that.”

“I kind of figured,” John said. He swallowed hard again. “You know Mel Hocken is a good friend of mine from way back…”

“Don’t tell me anything I don’t want to hear,” Sam said, straightening up in her chair. “I’m her CO while Caldwell has her flight attached to the Hammond, and I don’t want to hear anything I can’t say under oath.”

“Got it,” John said.

“I don’t ask, and they don’t tell. If I never heard it spelled out, it’s not perjury to say I don’t know,” Sam said.

“I won’t put you in that position.” John nodded. “I get that. Believe me, there have been plenty of things around here I sure don’t know anything about. I don’t ask either.”

Sam pushed her chair back and put her feet up on the edge of the bed. “Teyla will be fine,” she said. “I’ve got a lot of respect for her. And she can handle Todd better than anybody else. Teyla and Keller will do this, and we’ll find out if this idea even works. If it doesn’t, there’s no point in going through all the convolutions.”

“Right,” John said. “No point in borrowing trouble.”

“That’s what I always say,” Sam said.

Jennifer watched Teyla where she stood at the controls of the Wraith cruiser, trying not to distract her from whatever course adjustments she was making. Her head was back, eyes closed, hair falling like black silk to her waist. The way her face was tilted to the ceiling, absolutely serene, hands outstretched on the control grips in front of her, she looked like a statue.

Jennifer shifted on the control room’s only chair, wishing a little of that peace would rub off on her. It was perversely always easier for her to find it in the middle of a crisis than when all she could do was sit around and wait. It didn’t help that Teyla was lost in concentration flying the ship and not talking.

She felt it as the ship changed course, Teyla shifting her weight as it did, maybe in reaction to the ship’s motion or maybe as encouragement. The curtain of her hair swayed gently from side to side as if she really was bending her head in prayer, as if she was moved by the spirit Jennifer had never felt, even when she’d wanted to. She’d thought that medicine was going to be that for her, a calling, a vocation, and in a lot of ways it was, but she still wished that something would transcend all, would make it all fall into place for her. She’d thought maybe she’d find that with Rodney…

“We have arrived,” Teyla said, her eyes opening at last, her shoulders relaxing as she stepped away from the controls.

Jennifer nodded and stood, shouldering her bag. “Well,” she said. “What now?”

Teyla turned to the wall, and it shifted as Jennifer watched, forming a door that parted before Teyla like veils of flesh drawing back. “Now we pay a visit to my hive.”

Guide met them himself, alone. He could have come before her guarded by drones and loyal blades, but there was little point in that. He suspected no treachery from Teyla Emmagan, and suspected that a gesture of trust would make her soften to him. He told himself that it was not that any part of his mind flinched at the thought of coming armed against his queen.

When the walls of the ship parted he was glad of his decision. Her mind leapt for his and tightened without a word, as clear a threat as any weapon, or perhaps just a reminder of the natural order of things, as unnatural as the present situation was. He inclined his head as if she were what she pretended to be, the barest reverence possible in courtesy.

“My queen,” he said, and he could feel her flash of pleasure at the words. For a moment it was hard not to think of her as an adolescent girl-child who has gotten away with playing at queen, commanding her mother’s drones. Then she strode forward, promise and threat in her every move, and it was impossible to imagine her a child.

“I am pleased to see my consort again,” she said, a hint of amusement in the touch of her mind, although there was none in her words. He nodded and shifted his gaze to Dr. Keller, hesitating halfway down the ramp, clutching the strap of an oversized her pack. This one he would have to handle more carefully if he was not going to frighten her into uselessness.

“Dr. Keller,” he said. “Come, we have work to do.” He extended his off hand to her when she seemed reluctant to descend the ramp. “I will escort you.”

*If you hurt her — * Teyla began, giving him a warning look. He met her eyes with a wry shrug.

*What would it serve? I am in need of a biological scientist, not an easy meal.*

*You would not find it easy,* Teyla said, and her mental voice was sharp enough that again he thought Steelflower was well-named.

The threat lingered as he kept his hand extended, and sharpened as Keller laid her fingertips gingerly on his. He couldn’t tell if her expression was fear or the fascination of a prey animal touching a predator’s claws. It was so hard to tell with humans.

“I’m glad you asked me to come,” Keller said, letting him help her down the ramp, although her fingers were tense against his. “That you … well, that you trusted me enough, after last time. I really am sorry that didn’t work out.”

Guide inclined his head, acknowledging the apology without pausing to question what it meant for her to offer or for him to accept. “Perhaps we can learn from past mistakes. Come,” he said, releasing her hand as she reached the bottom of the ramp, “let me show you.”