Fic: Athosian For Beginners (Rodney/Teyla, 2/2)
Back to PARTS I & II
PART III
Rodney listened to her request (delivered as much in English as she could manage, with occasional breaks for Ancient or Athosian words when she simply didn't know the proper equivalents) without interrupting. This was disturbing-Teyla actually felt the need to ask him if he was feeling all right-but she soon realized it was necessary for him; he needed to pay attention. Possibly she should have tried speaking in tongues years ago, if it earned her this kind of focus. Teyla pushed down the odd and unhelpful bitterness, reminding herself that she was asking him to do her a favor. She supposed she should be grateful that he was willing to spend so much time on her at all.
Clearly, she was losing it.
Rodney considered what she had said for a fraction of a second, then launched into a statement of clarification or rebuttal at his typical pace, which was currently much too fast for her to follow. Rather than interrupt him and ask him to slow down, Teyla waited patiently for him to realize that he was essentially talking to himself. "Oh," he said, blinking, when it finally dawned on him. "Er." He coughed. "I can do it," he said in careful Athosian, adding, "Selbstverständlich!" with a prideful scoff that conveyed enough of his meaning. "I will need your help," he continued. "To..." He frowned and switched to Ancient. Oh, of course. He didn't know her language; if he were to make an Athosian version of the device, he'd need her help to program it.
Teyla was very eager to have something else to do. Like John, she really hated being grounded-and John at least had paperwork he could still do, had exercises for his men to run, had hundreds of people he could annoy with stupid conversations. Rodney had never come out and said so, but Teyla suspected that he didn't enjoy the suspension of exploratory gate travel, either, and she knew he had plenty to keep him busy. Like fixing the translators. Elizabeth had told her that they were waiting for Dr. Carter and Dr. Lee to finish running an analysis on the still-functioning Milky Way network, but Teyla still had an unfortunate impulse to stand over Rodney's shoulder as John often did, growling, "Hurry up, McKay!" until it began to look like if whatever was about to kill them didn't do a thorough enough job, they'd happily finish each other off.
Yes. It would be better if they were both distracted.
Rodney had something else to do at that particular moment, but he promised to come back later at some un- or very poorly specified time. Teyla tried to meditate for a while, but she had been having difficulty lately; the silence of her own mind had become oppressive and unnerving. She went to go beat up Ronon instead.
She was back in her quarters, working on creating more examples of Athosian writing for Elizabeth (song lyrics were proving popular for both of them), when Rodney returned. Silently, he set up his equipment, connecting crystals and wires, a frown furrowing his brow. He was not, she realized, at all comfortable in the company of another person without the constant buzz of conversation, or at least the reassuring sound of his own voice. "You can talk," she said. "I might pick something up." Even babbling, he had to be at least as instructive as Ronon's movies.
She spoke Athosian, but he seemed to understand her anyway, or at least take her breaking of the silence as permission for him to do the same. He started talking and gesturing-explaining what he was doing? With Rodney it was hard to tell-and the meaningless rumble, which only recently had annoyed and frustrated her, was oddly reassuring. With a little encouragement, Teyla realized, Rodney was willing to act like none of this had happened; he was perfectly happy to talk and talk at her, whether she understood him or not-just the same as always. She smiled to herself, likewise enjoying a joke that he would never quite get, but that existed between them all the same.
"Okay!" he said finally, rubbing his hands together. And then the awkwardness and the hesitance returned as he tried to explain what they would need to do.
It was actually fairly simple, at least on her end. Whatever Rodney had initially done to enable the original device to scan and identify objects did not need to be reconfigured; merely the output needed to be altered. Apparently they needed to create some sort of Athosian language database, which would make the second device much more time-consuming to produce, as for the first, Rodney had had a pre-existing English source to work with. Still, he seemed willing to do it, so Teyla spent several hours working with Rodney to record and input basic Athosian vocabulary into the system's memory. It seemed like a lot of effort for something that wouldn't actually aid anyone in speaking at a level much beyond that of an infant.
Yet he was willing to do it. Teyla honestly couldn't fathom why. The reasons it was important to her were myriad and obvious, but what was Rodney getting out of sitting on her floor (he'd steered awkwardly away from her bed) and listening to her produce a litany of nouns with, as she grew tired, increasingly the same dull intonation as the computer? Maybe he considered it an interesting experiment; maybe he just wanted to get one up on the (not-so-)inimitable Daniel Jackson.
She wanted to ask him, but she couldn't. Even if they suddenly once again possessed a shared tongue, she wasn't sure she'd be able.
Still, it was kind of him, and Teyla knew better than to question kindness (except under certain circumstances, when she'd learned the hard way you had to question it firmly, with a well-placed jab of your stick). They worked until Rodney complained of hunger-both in English and Athosian, multilingualism being a skill she possibly did not actually want him to have; then they went down to the mess and continued to work over dinner, earning lots of puzzled looks from many of the people there, several of whom Rodney shouted at. John came by and offered (from Rodney's reaction, apparently unhelpful) advice, before excusing himself to join Ronon in watching Die Hard With a Vengeance, a title which Rodney assured her didn't make much sense even if you did speak the language.
After dinner they parted, and Teyla went to watch the waves for a while before bed.
The next day Rodney utilized breakfast, lunch, and what was apparently a mid-afternoon snack break to work on the project. By the third session of the day, Teyla was becoming bored with what was essentially listing words; she found she missed Elizabeth's careful and earnest exercises, their stilted conversations about their most basic likes and dislikes, about the places they wanted to go and things they needed to do. Plus, she had noticed that Rodney had begun to surreptitiously work on another project on the side, only occasionally returning his full attention to her so he could check her progress and make sure she wasn't damaging his equipment.
"Perhaps we could simply talk for a while?" Teyla suggested.
Rodney looked up, frowning with half of his mouth. He seemed at a loss for what to say-possibly in more ways than one. Or perhaps he simply hadn't understood her.
Teyla decided to go back to the basics; Elizabeth's model was an effective starting place. In English she asked, "How are you, Rodney?"
"Ich habe Schmerzen." He stopped and started over. "Sore," he told her. "Irritated. Annoyed-"
Rodney was apparently quick at picking up synonyms. In English (and as hastily as she could manage) she asked him, "What would you like to do?"
She had meant: in the near future, later that night, but apparently had not expressed herself with the intended clarity. "I do not like problems not solved by me," Rodney said, which was, Teyla figured, not quite what he meant, but still easily understood, understandable.
"And I had wanted to go to M8X-255," he continued. That was the mission they had had scheduled, before all of this happened.
Teyla couldn't remember anything that had particularly excited Rodney in their pre-mission briefing about M8X-255: no exciting energy readings, or most likely erroneous rumors of Ancient technology. It would probably have been a fairly standard outing, but she missed it too, the lost opportunities it presented. Just a normal day out in the galaxy, listening to Rodney bitch, and to John baiting him, and to Ronon chuckling at them both while Teyla rolled her eyes, and smiled to herself, and felt content.
She had tried to explain the bond she felt with her teammates-to Heightmeyer, to Halling, to herself. But it was something innate and unexplainable; deep, certainly, but also shallow-unrelated to any real understanding of who they were. It had more to do with knowing that they would be there for her, and she for them, and that certainty had not changed with the removal of a common tongue. But as much as she still felt that special and sacred familial bond-the one that she had acknowledged with John, back when they could still speak together even if their words proved clumsy-as much as she was assured that that bond was unshakeable, she still felt a desire for something more. Athos, she thought-or at the very least, its people-would likewise always be there for her, and be a part of her. But it had been a long time since she had felt comfortable opening herself to them, or to anyone. She was too different, and the words were too hard.
They were harder now, and yet also somehow easier. Rodney was certainly not the first person she would have chosen to speak to about-well, anything, really. But he was there, and he was willing. And oddly, Teyla was ready.
He asked her, awkwardly, like someone not entirely sure why he is involved in this particular conversation: "So, and you. Are you well?" And Teyla found herself admitting, "I have been very lonely."
The foreign words made the admission feel oddly safe, slightly removed from reality. She watched Rodney blink at her, then splutter and blush. "Yes, I think not talking, I don't know how to, not talking is difficult I think, I don't like it, no. Crap."
Teyla smiled a bit at this-so clumsy and yet oddly heartfelt. Which was actually a fairly good, if not immediately apparent, description of him in general.
"Would you like to speak for a while?" she asked. His response was to look confused, and for a moment, Teyla thought she had misspoken. She imagined all kinds of embarrassing questions she could have accidentally asked.
But then Rodney said, "With me?" looking baffled at the very suggestion that they actually attempt to carry on a conversation. Again, not a reaction too different from what it would have been before. "Elizabeth is better."
"I have spoken to Elizabeth," Teyla explained-leaving out that she of course would again, and happily. The problem was: Elizabeth, if anything, understood her too well; at the moment Teyla didn't want clarity so much as confession.
Rodney glanced at his watch, and Teyla thought he was going to make his excuses by (no doubt somewhat legitimately) claiming to have something else to do. But instead he shrugged and nodded, then seemed to search through his somewhat limited vocabulary and even more restricted grasp of grammar for something to say.
Teyla was a little better at this. "How is Canada?" she asked, which wasn't quite what she meant, but which was, she was pretty sure, close enough to convey her meaning. "Tell me."
"Um." Rodney mulled the question over in a way that suggested he wasn't merely searching for the first convenient adjective, but for an actual answer to the question. "I have not lived there in long time," he said, and Teyla was once again struck by how strange it was to hear people as smart and articulate as Rodney and Elizabeth often were speak so inelegantly. "When I was there, I wanted to leave. But it is still...I am not America."
He sat back, crossing his arms defiantly, almost commanding that she understand. Teyla knew that the situation on Earth was complicated; that in being untouched by outside threats from the likes of the Wraith for so long, many interplanetary conflicts had developed, and that Rodney could get as offended by being mistaken for an American as she would (much more quietly and internally) at being thought a Genii. Yet she also knew that the relationship between Canada and America was much more like that between the Athosians and the Lanteans than the Genii and any "allies"...though of course, as she knew even more truly and from personal experience, that could be difficult, too.
"Tell me about where you were young," she said.
So he did. After a moment, he did. And it surprised her: not just how much sense someone could make while frequently making next to no grammatical sense at all, but also how much Rodney did not say, most of the time. On a typical day, he seemed incredibly willing-even eager-to share all kinds of embarrassing details about his current physical state, random thoughts passing through his head, and various experiences-work, academic, sexual-he had had at different points in his life. But, she realized, in all that noise, it was easy to miss the fact that there were plenty of things he never talked about. Most notably, his family...and Jeannie, Teyla realized; Jeannie, who in the brief time Teyla had known her had been open and kind and a very good listener-Jeannie had been the same way. So now when Rodney said, "My parents were hard," Teyla felt the weird dissociative shock of realizing for the first time something that she already knew.
"Did they shout?" Teyla asked carefully-for once not because she was worried about the words.
He shook his head. "No"-and this did surprise Teyla in the usual sense. With the way Rodney went on, she had assumed that he'd spent a great deal of his early life struggling to be heard.
"They were quiet fighters," Rodney said. Teyla felt a shock of recognition at that, too. Her father had never yelled, never been one to display much emotion at all-even when her mother was taken. It was a quality he had instilled in her, and Teyla was not always grateful.
"They let everything cook," Rodney said; then said, "Wait"-brow wrinkling as he realized his mistake.
Teyla reached out a hand. She knew what she wanted to say-I understand-but before she could speak, Rodney's fingers were moving up to his radio, and he had switched from hesitant, thoughtful Athosian to quick, clipped, confident English. "Und können Sie das nicht selber machen? Ja, ja. Ich komme."
He got to his feet and began quickly packing up his equipment. For the first time since they'd begun, Teyla felt awkward-like they'd been interrupted at something more than what this was, a simple conversation. One to which she had barely even had the opportunity to contribute.
Rodney was a little slow on the uptake when it came to gauging the general social atmosphere; the awkwardness caught up to him on his way out the door. He turned back. "Anyway...thank you." He adjusted his grip on the datapad and other supplies, looking down studiously. Then he brightened. "Hey," he added, "now I have no need of going to Heightmeyer this week!" He went out, oblivious to the slight twitch as her face fell.
Alone again, Teyla allowed herself a self-indulgent eyeroll. Elizabeth is better, he had said. Criticize Rodney as much as you wanted; at least he was honest.
*
Teyla was realistic about people's faults, especially her own; she was also, somewhat perversely, an optimist when it came to believing that the better parts of human nature could often triumph over those lesser aspects. So some part of her expected Rodney to show up the next day and ask after her, after her own parents and childhood. How was Athos? But he did not come, and he didn't ask. Teyla felt disappointed, and angry-both at him for disappointing her, and at herself for allowing it. Then she found out-much more slowly than she would have under normal (under the old) circumstances-that there'd been a weird power spike in an infrequently used section of the city, and Rodney had gone with John and Major Lorne and a group of Marines to check it out. So instead Teyla felt a different crushing ache of disappointment: they hadn't even asked her.
She found Ronon in the gym. He was standing with another Marine-no, not standing. They were chatting, and from what little Teyla could tell, Ronon seemed to be following along with little difficulty. The Marine chuckled at something Ronon said, then initiated a complicated-looking handshake before sauntering out the door with barely more than an acknowledging nod at her. "Bis später!" Ronon called, then turned to her with a grin.
Teyla did not return it. "I see your films have been helpful," she said-in Athosian, with a rather shocking lack of subtlety. Ronon just raised an eyebrow at her. After a moment, he picked up a stick and twirled it as she had taught him, beckoning to her. It was a clear invitation, and under normal circumstances, a welcome one. But she didn't want to fight: didn't want to converse, body to body, as fun and exciting and worthwhile as that often was. She wanted to talk, with an anxiousness she had not felt since the night she had seen her father sweep out of their tent for the last time. But it was too late, then; and she felt that now, a horrible sensation, like the whisper of the Wraith's presence at the back of her brain. Too late, too late: to be the kind of person who talked easily and truly among her friends, her family, the people she cared about and loved.
She left. Didn't run-didn't damage her dignity with an exit such as that. But she turned and left, letting Ronon's "Teyla-wait-" slide past her ears like she hadn't understood; like the words meant nothing to her at all.
*
John found her at dinner that night. "Okay?" he asked, sliding into the chair across from her.
Teyla looked up at him. He was asking, genuinely asking-even though she knew nine answers out of ten were bound to make him uncomfortable. He cared about her, about how she felt; and she cared for him, too.
So she did him a favor. She inclined her head, and in careful, precise English told him, "I am fine."
*
It was Radek who came and excitedly asked her, in hand gestures and burbles of English and what was possibly Czech, to come, to hurry, to follow him to the control room. She knew without asking that they had done it, or thought that they had. They had figured it out, and now, when whatever patch or fix or substitute was implemented, they wanted her to be there to see it. Or to test it. Well: close enough.
The control tower was already packed by the time she got there. John and Lorne were hovering in the back, looking impatient; Elizabeth stood toward the front, very eager. Ronon had his arms folded over his chest, and Teyla recognized that you'd have to know him quite well to realize how excited and anxious he was. Rodney was down by the gate, fiddling with a long stretch of cable. "Radek!" he snapped. "Komm!" Zelenka went, muttering in what Teyla was now sure was a different language, one that-rather conveniently for the making of disparaging remarks-Rodney couldn't understand, either.
As they made some last minute corrections, Elizabeth came over and put a hand on Teyla's shoulder. "Thank you for teaching me," she said, and Teyla nodded and echoed her thanks. She felt oddly like she was concluding some sort of business arrangement. This both saddened her and came as a great relief; forget principles and whatever else-on some level, she just wanted her friend back.
"Okay." Rodney bounded back up the stairs. He took a moment to grin at them all, already celebrating his accomplishment, before elbowing Radek out of the way. Then he pushed a button.
He pushed a button. There was a quiet humming sound-so quiet that most of them probably would not have heard it had they, as a group, not been listening so intently. Teyla realized that she could hear each one of them breathing-but all of them, even Rodney, seemed afraid to speak.
Finally, it was John who coughed and said, "Um. How can we tell if it is working?"
He spoke Athosian. Perfect, if overly precise Athosian. Teyla let out a breath. "It is, John," she said, and Ronon said, "Yup," and Teyla was sure that to everyone else in the room, it sounded like English, like she herself was making those strange, foreign sounds as easily and naturally as breathing.
Rodney was looking typically smug. "And not only is it fixed," he said, "but I have actually improved upon the original design!"
"You mean next time it will not break like a chain of cheap Christmas tree lights just because one relay point goes down?" John asked.
"It is not like-"
"Actually," Radek interjected.
"Okay," Rodney admitted testily, "it was kind of like that. The Ancients clearly made modifications and improvements-or just spent longer designing and implementing-the Milky Way version. But now, I have not only corrected this system's design," he held up a finger, "I have made it substantially better!"
"I think you mean we, you insufferable man," Zelenka muttered to himself.
John began to laugh, wheezily. Elizabeth hissed, "Radek!", shocked. Besides Ronon, and Teyla herself, who was used to this kind of comment, Rodney was the only one who didn't seem surprised. "Case in point: Earth languages should translate now, too." The smug expression returned, full force.
"Well," said Elizabeth, carefully. "Nice work, Rodney," then rather pointedly, "Radek. Teyla, Ronon: we are glad to have you back."
Ronon just nodded, too long used to holding back on whatever he really felt. John deflected, grinning and slapping Ronon's shoulder. "Do you think you will still be interested in movie nights now that you will actually be able to understand the bad dialogue?" he asked.
"I could go for a nice romantic comedy," Ronon said. John made a face like he was trying to decide if the translators were on the fritz already before obviously concluding than Ronon was joking.
Rodney and Radek were now squabbling noisily, with Elizabeth attempting to mediate; Lorne had beaten a hasty retreat down the stairs. Teyla stood by herself and thought: But we never went anywhere.
She knew it, but the way she felt was something else, something that could not be put into words.
PART IV
After that, things went back to normal-or what passed for normal in Atlantis. Conversations with Elizabeth were much more relaxed, and much more natural; Ronon joked with her under his breath; Rodney complained lengthily with-or even without-the slightest provocation; John make bizarre references that no one but Rodney seemed to get (although sometimes now Ronon laughed too, especially if they were action movie-or presumably, porn-related). Teyla talked to Heightmeyer about the things she couldn't tell anyone else, except for when she didn't.
A couple times she found herself picking up the device Rodney had made her, but now that the friendly illusion of the translators was back in place, it spoke only Athosian to her-mechanical and flat, and oddly unreassuring. She thought of the second device Rodney had never completed, the hours she had spent speaking her native tongue into his tiny microphone-preserving it, her words, for posterity. But of course that was an illusion, too: even if, for some bizarre, nonsensical reason, Rodney decided to finish what he had begun, it would no longer function. He would hear English and she would hear Athosian-that's the way it worked. And she knew it was better that way. Unity. Cooperation. Universal communication.
She went to tell Halling the good news, but he already knew. Once again, she found they had nothing much to say to one another. But it was good to be there, among her people-even in silence, even for just a little while.
She went on the mission to M8X-255. She remembered Rodney telling her how much he had wanted to go there, but now that-that whole time-seemed like more of an illusion than the thin web of Ancient energy stretching all around them, altering what their minds heard and saw and perceived. Now that they were actually there, eight feet flat on M8X-255's dusty ground, all Rodney had to share was the usual list of complaints: it was hot, he was thirsty, there was too much dust, it was hot, they were all going to get skin cancer, Ronon kept poking him, it was hot. She had to give him that: this was not, in any way, her ideal climate, and even John was for once looking like he regretted wearing so much black. But they tromped on, heading toward a distant stone outcropping-what looked like ruins. After an hour or so, Teyla was beginning to suspect that they too were an illusion, a mirage.
"Watch, we will go all the way there," Rodney groused, "and it will probably turn out to be just a mirage! Why could we not take the jumper?"
"Because, Rodney," said John, with the air of someone who had explained this several times before (which he had). "The sand might be unstable, and I think we would all find it upsetting if I accidentally set her down in a large patch of quicksand!"
"Like in Lawrence of Arabia," Ronon suggested.
"My manner looks insubordinate, but it really is not," John offered-for no reason Teyla could discern.
It seemed they were doing it again. Teyla held back a sigh and adjusted her pack. She placed one foot in front of the other, and tuned them out for a little while.
*
The ruins, while much further away than they had initially supposed, did, in fact, exist, so that was a plus. Even better, a patch of wall John casually leaned against turned out to slide back to reveal a room full of equipment and wires that made Rodney's eyes light up like firecrackers. (Ronon-and frankly, Teyla herself-got much more enjoyment out of watching John stumble and pinwheel his arms when the wall slid out from under him. It was a very special image that she would treasure-and possibly use as payback the next time he brought up the time she had gotten that weird green gum stuck in her hair.)
Rodney immediately pounced on the most promising-looking console. "You need a hand with that?" John asked-fully recovered from the recent incident and lounging comfortably in the doorway.
"What? Huh? No. I am perfectly capable-actually, yes. Teyla, you have tiny hands-"
At the sound of her name, Teyla blinked to attention. Tiny hands. Right-a valuable skill. Swiftly biting and releasing her lip, Teyla stepped forward. "Where do you need me?"
Rodney was half under the thing already, one knee drawn up, his words muffled. "Just-just kneel down-"
Ronon snorted and pretended to turn it into a cough. Teyla turned and gave him a level, but disturbingly unblinking, look. "Why don't you two check our perimeter?" she suggested, firmly.
"I was just about to say that." John offered her his best innocent face; she gave him a serene smile in return. Ronon went out the door, smirking, and John followed on his heels. "Have fun, kids! Try not to do anything I would not do!"
"Huh?" said Rodney, scooting part of the way out from under the console and groping for his datapad. "What is he on about?"
"Nothing important," Teyla said. "What do you need me to do?"
"Just-hold that down there, that little red switch, I need it completely depressed while I do this."
"I know many deeply sad songs," Teyla said, working her finger into the awkward place Rodney had shown her.
"What? What does that- Oh. Humor." He started rummaging again. "Who designed this? A person with three hands?"
They worked for a while longer. At one point Rodney got very excited, then swiftly quite disappointed again. Both Teyla's index finger and her wrist began to hurt. John radioed to let them know that everything looked clear and they were heading back, which offered her a temporary respite. When she knelt back down again, Rodney had cleared the console and was looking at her.
"Um, Teyla...I was just wondering..." He paused. "Well, actually, I'm just wondering if this works."
At first she wasn't sure what he was asking. Why would she know if the console worked? He hadn't even bothered to tell her what it supposedly did. Then she replayed his words in her mind and realized that they sounded different. More casual, imprecise. Imperfect.
He was speaking Athosian. Really speaking it: not merely allowing the Ancient network to translate whatever he said in English. It should be impossible-because for everything that the fixing of the translation network had given back to them, this was the one thing that had been lost.
"How...?" she asked.
He shrugged, like it was no big deal, like he really didn't get what a big deal it was to her. "Logic, simply. I speak English and it translates to Athosian. But if I speak Athosian there's no need to translate. So I can still speak Athosian and you can still speak English, I guess, and we'd be able to tell the difference. Interesting, isn't it?"
"Interesting-!" It was so much more than interesting.
"So, anyway." He grinned. "I had been wanting to ask of you-"
She didn't mean to interrupt, but the laughter burbled out of her. "Your accent is terrible!" she said. She thought it was glorious.
But Rodney, as usual, was not attuned to such subtleties. His grin dissolved, mouth flattening into a straight line. "My apologies," he said-in English: formal again, filtered again; she could tell. "Anyway," he continued, waving his hand, quickly dismissing the aborted conversation in its entirety, "now that I know that it works, you do not need to worry about my doing it again."
Her stomach sank. "Rodney-"
"How is it going?" John sauntered in, arm rested on the butt of his P-90 as he surveyed the mostly unchanged mess.
"All of it is broken!" Rodney said angrily, pulling himself the rest of the way to his feet and forcefully brushing the dust from his knees. "A waste of time."
"Well, at least we got to walk several miles through the hot desert to get here," Ronon said, coming in behind John.
"Perhaps some of it might still be repaired?" Teyla heard herself ask.
"Sure, which worthless hunk of wires do you want to carry all the way back?"
"Rodney..." John chided. Which was probably how he found himself carrying the really big bulky piece.
After about twenty minutes of walking, John challenged Rodney to a game of prime-not-prime-the loser would have to take the heavier load. Teyla mostly stopped paying attention after that, although even if she'd been completely deaf, she wouldn't have been able to miss Rodney's escalating protests when John, apparently, won.
Ten minutes after that, she decided to take pity on him and helped him carry the big piece the rest of the way back to the gate. "I just don't want to have to listen to him complain anymore," she told Ronon, when he lifted an eyebrow in her direction. "Do you?"
"Point," said Ronon.
So that settled it.
*
Only it didn't, not really. Because things were back to normal, and Teyla was once again sufficiently content. Yet something had changed; the weeks of silence and miscommunication had altered her perspective. Sufficiently content-what was that? Was it settling? Was it allowing herself to be subsumed-to let herself think it was okay that she not really get what she wanted, or really be heard, because she was just one of many, and thus not really important? Yes, enough that they let me in their meetings, and let me help; enough that they treat me like I'm as good as them, if not quite really one, because I am not from Earth and I am no longer of Athos, and even my cells are not truly my own, so I must stand apart like my father taught me; a leader must always stand apart, and not let her emotions, her desires, get in the way of what she must do.
She remembered some of the Marines' creative cursing and thought, Bullshit.
She opened her eyes and rose gracefully from her curled position. She needed to talk about this. She thought first of Heightmeyer, but she didn't want therapy-she wanted real discussion, uncareful advice. Elizabeth certainly knew the pressures of leadership, but said struggles were such a part of her everyday life that Teyla could see why she wouldn't necessarily have the perspective Teyla felt she needed. And John and Ronon-they definitely knew what it was like to feel isolated, and alone; and they both knew self-sacrifice far too well. But Teyla didn't want to commiserate, or to try to communicate in half-spoken truths and careful subtext. She wanted-she wanted honesty, and just a little bit of selfishness.
She went to find Rodney.
He was in one of the labs, his fingers deep inside some of the equipment they had brought back from M8X-255. He was frowning. There were a half-dozen empty Jell-O containers on the lab bench next to him, their lids informing the world that they had formerly contained Pineapple-Flavor.
He apparently registered her presence, and even noticed the focus of her attention. "You know," he said, "my improvements to the translation network have taken a lot of the fun out of Miko's stash of snacks. It seems I can read Kanji now, which makes choosing flavors much less mysterious and exciting. Though less likely to kill me, too, I suppose, so there is that." He finally looked at her. "Did you want something?"
She opened her mouth, then closed it again, the words leaving her. "I," she said finally, "I was just wondering if you're aware that the network's translations are very stilted. I don't think it fully understands contractions."
His gaze lifted again, and stayed. "Really? I thought that was just you."
Of course he did. "No, it does the same thing to your Athosian," she said, patiently.
He looked incredulous. "You are kidding me."
She couldn't stop a light laugh from slipping out at that. "I'm afraid I'm not."
He digested this new piece of information. "Wow," he said, "I bet Sheppard sounds really weird. Does he sound really weird?"
Actually, no one sounded weirder than Rodney did when he spoke really, remarkably fast but still with a level of formal precision that was, frankly, pompous and ridiculous. Teyla elected not to tell him that.
"I just thought you should know," she said instead, "that there's still room for improvement." She searched his face as she spoke-hoping, waiting, for that spark of mutual understanding, for her fingers to cease being just slightly too scared to reach out.
But he still wasn't seeing her. "Huh? Oh, right. Sorry. I was just trying to imagine what Teal'c really sounds like."
Having never actually met the man, Teyla couldn't comment. The lab felt too quiet; she could hear the fans on several of the computers humming softly. "Well," she said, inclining her head. "I'll see you at dinner, Rodney." Then, as almost an afterthought, a whim, she added, "Tschüß."
Rodney's head snapped around. He gaped at her. Then his eyes narrowed, a slight, hesitant smile curling the corner of his lips. "Your accent is lousy, too," he said.
"I know," said Teyla. The words-not hers; not yet real-felt strangely freeing on her tongue. "But I would like to learn how to make it better."
Rodney swallowed. "Do you- You want me to teach you? For us to learn together?"
Teyla slid into the seat across from him and wet her lips. "Ja," she said.
NOTES:
1. This sort of emerged from this story, which I wrote back in December. I still don't think this translator network idea makes any more sense than the canonical stance on languages, but, um...it doesn't make less sense either, I guess? Alternately, you can just pretend that Rodney explained the whole thing very well, only it happened during the part of the story when Teyla (and thus, we) could not understand him. *eg*
2. empressvesica, I would just like to say that I am DEEPLY SORRY that this story does not contain porn. You now have porn credits from me, okay? I owe you some porn. Or at least some serious making out.
3. sheafrotherdon comes up with all the best alien planet names. *heart*
PART III
Rodney listened to her request (delivered as much in English as she could manage, with occasional breaks for Ancient or Athosian words when she simply didn't know the proper equivalents) without interrupting. This was disturbing-Teyla actually felt the need to ask him if he was feeling all right-but she soon realized it was necessary for him; he needed to pay attention. Possibly she should have tried speaking in tongues years ago, if it earned her this kind of focus. Teyla pushed down the odd and unhelpful bitterness, reminding herself that she was asking him to do her a favor. She supposed she should be grateful that he was willing to spend so much time on her at all.
Clearly, she was losing it.
Rodney considered what she had said for a fraction of a second, then launched into a statement of clarification or rebuttal at his typical pace, which was currently much too fast for her to follow. Rather than interrupt him and ask him to slow down, Teyla waited patiently for him to realize that he was essentially talking to himself. "Oh," he said, blinking, when it finally dawned on him. "Er." He coughed. "I can do it," he said in careful Athosian, adding, "Selbstverständlich!" with a prideful scoff that conveyed enough of his meaning. "I will need your help," he continued. "To..." He frowned and switched to Ancient. Oh, of course. He didn't know her language; if he were to make an Athosian version of the device, he'd need her help to program it.
Teyla was very eager to have something else to do. Like John, she really hated being grounded-and John at least had paperwork he could still do, had exercises for his men to run, had hundreds of people he could annoy with stupid conversations. Rodney had never come out and said so, but Teyla suspected that he didn't enjoy the suspension of exploratory gate travel, either, and she knew he had plenty to keep him busy. Like fixing the translators. Elizabeth had told her that they were waiting for Dr. Carter and Dr. Lee to finish running an analysis on the still-functioning Milky Way network, but Teyla still had an unfortunate impulse to stand over Rodney's shoulder as John often did, growling, "Hurry up, McKay!" until it began to look like if whatever was about to kill them didn't do a thorough enough job, they'd happily finish each other off.
Yes. It would be better if they were both distracted.
Rodney had something else to do at that particular moment, but he promised to come back later at some un- or very poorly specified time. Teyla tried to meditate for a while, but she had been having difficulty lately; the silence of her own mind had become oppressive and unnerving. She went to go beat up Ronon instead.
She was back in her quarters, working on creating more examples of Athosian writing for Elizabeth (song lyrics were proving popular for both of them), when Rodney returned. Silently, he set up his equipment, connecting crystals and wires, a frown furrowing his brow. He was not, she realized, at all comfortable in the company of another person without the constant buzz of conversation, or at least the reassuring sound of his own voice. "You can talk," she said. "I might pick something up." Even babbling, he had to be at least as instructive as Ronon's movies.
She spoke Athosian, but he seemed to understand her anyway, or at least take her breaking of the silence as permission for him to do the same. He started talking and gesturing-explaining what he was doing? With Rodney it was hard to tell-and the meaningless rumble, which only recently had annoyed and frustrated her, was oddly reassuring. With a little encouragement, Teyla realized, Rodney was willing to act like none of this had happened; he was perfectly happy to talk and talk at her, whether she understood him or not-just the same as always. She smiled to herself, likewise enjoying a joke that he would never quite get, but that existed between them all the same.
"Okay!" he said finally, rubbing his hands together. And then the awkwardness and the hesitance returned as he tried to explain what they would need to do.
It was actually fairly simple, at least on her end. Whatever Rodney had initially done to enable the original device to scan and identify objects did not need to be reconfigured; merely the output needed to be altered. Apparently they needed to create some sort of Athosian language database, which would make the second device much more time-consuming to produce, as for the first, Rodney had had a pre-existing English source to work with. Still, he seemed willing to do it, so Teyla spent several hours working with Rodney to record and input basic Athosian vocabulary into the system's memory. It seemed like a lot of effort for something that wouldn't actually aid anyone in speaking at a level much beyond that of an infant.
Yet he was willing to do it. Teyla honestly couldn't fathom why. The reasons it was important to her were myriad and obvious, but what was Rodney getting out of sitting on her floor (he'd steered awkwardly away from her bed) and listening to her produce a litany of nouns with, as she grew tired, increasingly the same dull intonation as the computer? Maybe he considered it an interesting experiment; maybe he just wanted to get one up on the (not-so-)inimitable Daniel Jackson.
She wanted to ask him, but she couldn't. Even if they suddenly once again possessed a shared tongue, she wasn't sure she'd be able.
Still, it was kind of him, and Teyla knew better than to question kindness (except under certain circumstances, when she'd learned the hard way you had to question it firmly, with a well-placed jab of your stick). They worked until Rodney complained of hunger-both in English and Athosian, multilingualism being a skill she possibly did not actually want him to have; then they went down to the mess and continued to work over dinner, earning lots of puzzled looks from many of the people there, several of whom Rodney shouted at. John came by and offered (from Rodney's reaction, apparently unhelpful) advice, before excusing himself to join Ronon in watching Die Hard With a Vengeance, a title which Rodney assured her didn't make much sense even if you did speak the language.
After dinner they parted, and Teyla went to watch the waves for a while before bed.
The next day Rodney utilized breakfast, lunch, and what was apparently a mid-afternoon snack break to work on the project. By the third session of the day, Teyla was becoming bored with what was essentially listing words; she found she missed Elizabeth's careful and earnest exercises, their stilted conversations about their most basic likes and dislikes, about the places they wanted to go and things they needed to do. Plus, she had noticed that Rodney had begun to surreptitiously work on another project on the side, only occasionally returning his full attention to her so he could check her progress and make sure she wasn't damaging his equipment.
"Perhaps we could simply talk for a while?" Teyla suggested.
Rodney looked up, frowning with half of his mouth. He seemed at a loss for what to say-possibly in more ways than one. Or perhaps he simply hadn't understood her.
Teyla decided to go back to the basics; Elizabeth's model was an effective starting place. In English she asked, "How are you, Rodney?"
"Ich habe Schmerzen." He stopped and started over. "Sore," he told her. "Irritated. Annoyed-"
Rodney was apparently quick at picking up synonyms. In English (and as hastily as she could manage) she asked him, "What would you like to do?"
She had meant: in the near future, later that night, but apparently had not expressed herself with the intended clarity. "I do not like problems not solved by me," Rodney said, which was, Teyla figured, not quite what he meant, but still easily understood, understandable.
"And I had wanted to go to M8X-255," he continued. That was the mission they had had scheduled, before all of this happened.
Teyla couldn't remember anything that had particularly excited Rodney in their pre-mission briefing about M8X-255: no exciting energy readings, or most likely erroneous rumors of Ancient technology. It would probably have been a fairly standard outing, but she missed it too, the lost opportunities it presented. Just a normal day out in the galaxy, listening to Rodney bitch, and to John baiting him, and to Ronon chuckling at them both while Teyla rolled her eyes, and smiled to herself, and felt content.
She had tried to explain the bond she felt with her teammates-to Heightmeyer, to Halling, to herself. But it was something innate and unexplainable; deep, certainly, but also shallow-unrelated to any real understanding of who they were. It had more to do with knowing that they would be there for her, and she for them, and that certainty had not changed with the removal of a common tongue. But as much as she still felt that special and sacred familial bond-the one that she had acknowledged with John, back when they could still speak together even if their words proved clumsy-as much as she was assured that that bond was unshakeable, she still felt a desire for something more. Athos, she thought-or at the very least, its people-would likewise always be there for her, and be a part of her. But it had been a long time since she had felt comfortable opening herself to them, or to anyone. She was too different, and the words were too hard.
They were harder now, and yet also somehow easier. Rodney was certainly not the first person she would have chosen to speak to about-well, anything, really. But he was there, and he was willing. And oddly, Teyla was ready.
He asked her, awkwardly, like someone not entirely sure why he is involved in this particular conversation: "So, and you. Are you well?" And Teyla found herself admitting, "I have been very lonely."
The foreign words made the admission feel oddly safe, slightly removed from reality. She watched Rodney blink at her, then splutter and blush. "Yes, I think not talking, I don't know how to, not talking is difficult I think, I don't like it, no. Crap."
Teyla smiled a bit at this-so clumsy and yet oddly heartfelt. Which was actually a fairly good, if not immediately apparent, description of him in general.
"Would you like to speak for a while?" she asked. His response was to look confused, and for a moment, Teyla thought she had misspoken. She imagined all kinds of embarrassing questions she could have accidentally asked.
But then Rodney said, "With me?" looking baffled at the very suggestion that they actually attempt to carry on a conversation. Again, not a reaction too different from what it would have been before. "Elizabeth is better."
"I have spoken to Elizabeth," Teyla explained-leaving out that she of course would again, and happily. The problem was: Elizabeth, if anything, understood her too well; at the moment Teyla didn't want clarity so much as confession.
Rodney glanced at his watch, and Teyla thought he was going to make his excuses by (no doubt somewhat legitimately) claiming to have something else to do. But instead he shrugged and nodded, then seemed to search through his somewhat limited vocabulary and even more restricted grasp of grammar for something to say.
Teyla was a little better at this. "How is Canada?" she asked, which wasn't quite what she meant, but which was, she was pretty sure, close enough to convey her meaning. "Tell me."
"Um." Rodney mulled the question over in a way that suggested he wasn't merely searching for the first convenient adjective, but for an actual answer to the question. "I have not lived there in long time," he said, and Teyla was once again struck by how strange it was to hear people as smart and articulate as Rodney and Elizabeth often were speak so inelegantly. "When I was there, I wanted to leave. But it is still...I am not America."
He sat back, crossing his arms defiantly, almost commanding that she understand. Teyla knew that the situation on Earth was complicated; that in being untouched by outside threats from the likes of the Wraith for so long, many interplanetary conflicts had developed, and that Rodney could get as offended by being mistaken for an American as she would (much more quietly and internally) at being thought a Genii. Yet she also knew that the relationship between Canada and America was much more like that between the Athosians and the Lanteans than the Genii and any "allies"...though of course, as she knew even more truly and from personal experience, that could be difficult, too.
"Tell me about where you were young," she said.
So he did. After a moment, he did. And it surprised her: not just how much sense someone could make while frequently making next to no grammatical sense at all, but also how much Rodney did not say, most of the time. On a typical day, he seemed incredibly willing-even eager-to share all kinds of embarrassing details about his current physical state, random thoughts passing through his head, and various experiences-work, academic, sexual-he had had at different points in his life. But, she realized, in all that noise, it was easy to miss the fact that there were plenty of things he never talked about. Most notably, his family...and Jeannie, Teyla realized; Jeannie, who in the brief time Teyla had known her had been open and kind and a very good listener-Jeannie had been the same way. So now when Rodney said, "My parents were hard," Teyla felt the weird dissociative shock of realizing for the first time something that she already knew.
"Did they shout?" Teyla asked carefully-for once not because she was worried about the words.
He shook his head. "No"-and this did surprise Teyla in the usual sense. With the way Rodney went on, she had assumed that he'd spent a great deal of his early life struggling to be heard.
"They were quiet fighters," Rodney said. Teyla felt a shock of recognition at that, too. Her father had never yelled, never been one to display much emotion at all-even when her mother was taken. It was a quality he had instilled in her, and Teyla was not always grateful.
"They let everything cook," Rodney said; then said, "Wait"-brow wrinkling as he realized his mistake.
Teyla reached out a hand. She knew what she wanted to say-I understand-but before she could speak, Rodney's fingers were moving up to his radio, and he had switched from hesitant, thoughtful Athosian to quick, clipped, confident English. "Und können Sie das nicht selber machen? Ja, ja. Ich komme."
He got to his feet and began quickly packing up his equipment. For the first time since they'd begun, Teyla felt awkward-like they'd been interrupted at something more than what this was, a simple conversation. One to which she had barely even had the opportunity to contribute.
Rodney was a little slow on the uptake when it came to gauging the general social atmosphere; the awkwardness caught up to him on his way out the door. He turned back. "Anyway...thank you." He adjusted his grip on the datapad and other supplies, looking down studiously. Then he brightened. "Hey," he added, "now I have no need of going to Heightmeyer this week!" He went out, oblivious to the slight twitch as her face fell.
Alone again, Teyla allowed herself a self-indulgent eyeroll. Elizabeth is better, he had said. Criticize Rodney as much as you wanted; at least he was honest.
*
Teyla was realistic about people's faults, especially her own; she was also, somewhat perversely, an optimist when it came to believing that the better parts of human nature could often triumph over those lesser aspects. So some part of her expected Rodney to show up the next day and ask after her, after her own parents and childhood. How was Athos? But he did not come, and he didn't ask. Teyla felt disappointed, and angry-both at him for disappointing her, and at herself for allowing it. Then she found out-much more slowly than she would have under normal (under the old) circumstances-that there'd been a weird power spike in an infrequently used section of the city, and Rodney had gone with John and Major Lorne and a group of Marines to check it out. So instead Teyla felt a different crushing ache of disappointment: they hadn't even asked her.
She found Ronon in the gym. He was standing with another Marine-no, not standing. They were chatting, and from what little Teyla could tell, Ronon seemed to be following along with little difficulty. The Marine chuckled at something Ronon said, then initiated a complicated-looking handshake before sauntering out the door with barely more than an acknowledging nod at her. "Bis später!" Ronon called, then turned to her with a grin.
Teyla did not return it. "I see your films have been helpful," she said-in Athosian, with a rather shocking lack of subtlety. Ronon just raised an eyebrow at her. After a moment, he picked up a stick and twirled it as she had taught him, beckoning to her. It was a clear invitation, and under normal circumstances, a welcome one. But she didn't want to fight: didn't want to converse, body to body, as fun and exciting and worthwhile as that often was. She wanted to talk, with an anxiousness she had not felt since the night she had seen her father sweep out of their tent for the last time. But it was too late, then; and she felt that now, a horrible sensation, like the whisper of the Wraith's presence at the back of her brain. Too late, too late: to be the kind of person who talked easily and truly among her friends, her family, the people she cared about and loved.
She left. Didn't run-didn't damage her dignity with an exit such as that. But she turned and left, letting Ronon's "Teyla-wait-" slide past her ears like she hadn't understood; like the words meant nothing to her at all.
*
John found her at dinner that night. "Okay?" he asked, sliding into the chair across from her.
Teyla looked up at him. He was asking, genuinely asking-even though she knew nine answers out of ten were bound to make him uncomfortable. He cared about her, about how she felt; and she cared for him, too.
So she did him a favor. She inclined her head, and in careful, precise English told him, "I am fine."
*
It was Radek who came and excitedly asked her, in hand gestures and burbles of English and what was possibly Czech, to come, to hurry, to follow him to the control room. She knew without asking that they had done it, or thought that they had. They had figured it out, and now, when whatever patch or fix or substitute was implemented, they wanted her to be there to see it. Or to test it. Well: close enough.
The control tower was already packed by the time she got there. John and Lorne were hovering in the back, looking impatient; Elizabeth stood toward the front, very eager. Ronon had his arms folded over his chest, and Teyla recognized that you'd have to know him quite well to realize how excited and anxious he was. Rodney was down by the gate, fiddling with a long stretch of cable. "Radek!" he snapped. "Komm!" Zelenka went, muttering in what Teyla was now sure was a different language, one that-rather conveniently for the making of disparaging remarks-Rodney couldn't understand, either.
As they made some last minute corrections, Elizabeth came over and put a hand on Teyla's shoulder. "Thank you for teaching me," she said, and Teyla nodded and echoed her thanks. She felt oddly like she was concluding some sort of business arrangement. This both saddened her and came as a great relief; forget principles and whatever else-on some level, she just wanted her friend back.
"Okay." Rodney bounded back up the stairs. He took a moment to grin at them all, already celebrating his accomplishment, before elbowing Radek out of the way. Then he pushed a button.
He pushed a button. There was a quiet humming sound-so quiet that most of them probably would not have heard it had they, as a group, not been listening so intently. Teyla realized that she could hear each one of them breathing-but all of them, even Rodney, seemed afraid to speak.
Finally, it was John who coughed and said, "Um. How can we tell if it is working?"
He spoke Athosian. Perfect, if overly precise Athosian. Teyla let out a breath. "It is, John," she said, and Ronon said, "Yup," and Teyla was sure that to everyone else in the room, it sounded like English, like she herself was making those strange, foreign sounds as easily and naturally as breathing.
Rodney was looking typically smug. "And not only is it fixed," he said, "but I have actually improved upon the original design!"
"You mean next time it will not break like a chain of cheap Christmas tree lights just because one relay point goes down?" John asked.
"It is not like-"
"Actually," Radek interjected.
"Okay," Rodney admitted testily, "it was kind of like that. The Ancients clearly made modifications and improvements-or just spent longer designing and implementing-the Milky Way version. But now, I have not only corrected this system's design," he held up a finger, "I have made it substantially better!"
"I think you mean we, you insufferable man," Zelenka muttered to himself.
John began to laugh, wheezily. Elizabeth hissed, "Radek!", shocked. Besides Ronon, and Teyla herself, who was used to this kind of comment, Rodney was the only one who didn't seem surprised. "Case in point: Earth languages should translate now, too." The smug expression returned, full force.
"Well," said Elizabeth, carefully. "Nice work, Rodney," then rather pointedly, "Radek. Teyla, Ronon: we are glad to have you back."
Ronon just nodded, too long used to holding back on whatever he really felt. John deflected, grinning and slapping Ronon's shoulder. "Do you think you will still be interested in movie nights now that you will actually be able to understand the bad dialogue?" he asked.
"I could go for a nice romantic comedy," Ronon said. John made a face like he was trying to decide if the translators were on the fritz already before obviously concluding than Ronon was joking.
Rodney and Radek were now squabbling noisily, with Elizabeth attempting to mediate; Lorne had beaten a hasty retreat down the stairs. Teyla stood by herself and thought: But we never went anywhere.
She knew it, but the way she felt was something else, something that could not be put into words.
PART IV
After that, things went back to normal-or what passed for normal in Atlantis. Conversations with Elizabeth were much more relaxed, and much more natural; Ronon joked with her under his breath; Rodney complained lengthily with-or even without-the slightest provocation; John make bizarre references that no one but Rodney seemed to get (although sometimes now Ronon laughed too, especially if they were action movie-or presumably, porn-related). Teyla talked to Heightmeyer about the things she couldn't tell anyone else, except for when she didn't.
A couple times she found herself picking up the device Rodney had made her, but now that the friendly illusion of the translators was back in place, it spoke only Athosian to her-mechanical and flat, and oddly unreassuring. She thought of the second device Rodney had never completed, the hours she had spent speaking her native tongue into his tiny microphone-preserving it, her words, for posterity. But of course that was an illusion, too: even if, for some bizarre, nonsensical reason, Rodney decided to finish what he had begun, it would no longer function. He would hear English and she would hear Athosian-that's the way it worked. And she knew it was better that way. Unity. Cooperation. Universal communication.
She went to tell Halling the good news, but he already knew. Once again, she found they had nothing much to say to one another. But it was good to be there, among her people-even in silence, even for just a little while.
She went on the mission to M8X-255. She remembered Rodney telling her how much he had wanted to go there, but now that-that whole time-seemed like more of an illusion than the thin web of Ancient energy stretching all around them, altering what their minds heard and saw and perceived. Now that they were actually there, eight feet flat on M8X-255's dusty ground, all Rodney had to share was the usual list of complaints: it was hot, he was thirsty, there was too much dust, it was hot, they were all going to get skin cancer, Ronon kept poking him, it was hot. She had to give him that: this was not, in any way, her ideal climate, and even John was for once looking like he regretted wearing so much black. But they tromped on, heading toward a distant stone outcropping-what looked like ruins. After an hour or so, Teyla was beginning to suspect that they too were an illusion, a mirage.
"Watch, we will go all the way there," Rodney groused, "and it will probably turn out to be just a mirage! Why could we not take the jumper?"
"Because, Rodney," said John, with the air of someone who had explained this several times before (which he had). "The sand might be unstable, and I think we would all find it upsetting if I accidentally set her down in a large patch of quicksand!"
"Like in Lawrence of Arabia," Ronon suggested.
"My manner looks insubordinate, but it really is not," John offered-for no reason Teyla could discern.
It seemed they were doing it again. Teyla held back a sigh and adjusted her pack. She placed one foot in front of the other, and tuned them out for a little while.
*
The ruins, while much further away than they had initially supposed, did, in fact, exist, so that was a plus. Even better, a patch of wall John casually leaned against turned out to slide back to reveal a room full of equipment and wires that made Rodney's eyes light up like firecrackers. (Ronon-and frankly, Teyla herself-got much more enjoyment out of watching John stumble and pinwheel his arms when the wall slid out from under him. It was a very special image that she would treasure-and possibly use as payback the next time he brought up the time she had gotten that weird green gum stuck in her hair.)
Rodney immediately pounced on the most promising-looking console. "You need a hand with that?" John asked-fully recovered from the recent incident and lounging comfortably in the doorway.
"What? Huh? No. I am perfectly capable-actually, yes. Teyla, you have tiny hands-"
At the sound of her name, Teyla blinked to attention. Tiny hands. Right-a valuable skill. Swiftly biting and releasing her lip, Teyla stepped forward. "Where do you need me?"
Rodney was half under the thing already, one knee drawn up, his words muffled. "Just-just kneel down-"
Ronon snorted and pretended to turn it into a cough. Teyla turned and gave him a level, but disturbingly unblinking, look. "Why don't you two check our perimeter?" she suggested, firmly.
"I was just about to say that." John offered her his best innocent face; she gave him a serene smile in return. Ronon went out the door, smirking, and John followed on his heels. "Have fun, kids! Try not to do anything I would not do!"
"Huh?" said Rodney, scooting part of the way out from under the console and groping for his datapad. "What is he on about?"
"Nothing important," Teyla said. "What do you need me to do?"
"Just-hold that down there, that little red switch, I need it completely depressed while I do this."
"I know many deeply sad songs," Teyla said, working her finger into the awkward place Rodney had shown her.
"What? What does that- Oh. Humor." He started rummaging again. "Who designed this? A person with three hands?"
They worked for a while longer. At one point Rodney got very excited, then swiftly quite disappointed again. Both Teyla's index finger and her wrist began to hurt. John radioed to let them know that everything looked clear and they were heading back, which offered her a temporary respite. When she knelt back down again, Rodney had cleared the console and was looking at her.
"Um, Teyla...I was just wondering..." He paused. "Well, actually, I'm just wondering if this works."
At first she wasn't sure what he was asking. Why would she know if the console worked? He hadn't even bothered to tell her what it supposedly did. Then she replayed his words in her mind and realized that they sounded different. More casual, imprecise. Imperfect.
He was speaking Athosian. Really speaking it: not merely allowing the Ancient network to translate whatever he said in English. It should be impossible-because for everything that the fixing of the translation network had given back to them, this was the one thing that had been lost.
"How...?" she asked.
He shrugged, like it was no big deal, like he really didn't get what a big deal it was to her. "Logic, simply. I speak English and it translates to Athosian. But if I speak Athosian there's no need to translate. So I can still speak Athosian and you can still speak English, I guess, and we'd be able to tell the difference. Interesting, isn't it?"
"Interesting-!" It was so much more than interesting.
"So, anyway." He grinned. "I had been wanting to ask of you-"
She didn't mean to interrupt, but the laughter burbled out of her. "Your accent is terrible!" she said. She thought it was glorious.
But Rodney, as usual, was not attuned to such subtleties. His grin dissolved, mouth flattening into a straight line. "My apologies," he said-in English: formal again, filtered again; she could tell. "Anyway," he continued, waving his hand, quickly dismissing the aborted conversation in its entirety, "now that I know that it works, you do not need to worry about my doing it again."
Her stomach sank. "Rodney-"
"How is it going?" John sauntered in, arm rested on the butt of his P-90 as he surveyed the mostly unchanged mess.
"All of it is broken!" Rodney said angrily, pulling himself the rest of the way to his feet and forcefully brushing the dust from his knees. "A waste of time."
"Well, at least we got to walk several miles through the hot desert to get here," Ronon said, coming in behind John.
"Perhaps some of it might still be repaired?" Teyla heard herself ask.
"Sure, which worthless hunk of wires do you want to carry all the way back?"
"Rodney..." John chided. Which was probably how he found himself carrying the really big bulky piece.
After about twenty minutes of walking, John challenged Rodney to a game of prime-not-prime-the loser would have to take the heavier load. Teyla mostly stopped paying attention after that, although even if she'd been completely deaf, she wouldn't have been able to miss Rodney's escalating protests when John, apparently, won.
Ten minutes after that, she decided to take pity on him and helped him carry the big piece the rest of the way back to the gate. "I just don't want to have to listen to him complain anymore," she told Ronon, when he lifted an eyebrow in her direction. "Do you?"
"Point," said Ronon.
So that settled it.
*
Only it didn't, not really. Because things were back to normal, and Teyla was once again sufficiently content. Yet something had changed; the weeks of silence and miscommunication had altered her perspective. Sufficiently content-what was that? Was it settling? Was it allowing herself to be subsumed-to let herself think it was okay that she not really get what she wanted, or really be heard, because she was just one of many, and thus not really important? Yes, enough that they let me in their meetings, and let me help; enough that they treat me like I'm as good as them, if not quite really one, because I am not from Earth and I am no longer of Athos, and even my cells are not truly my own, so I must stand apart like my father taught me; a leader must always stand apart, and not let her emotions, her desires, get in the way of what she must do.
She remembered some of the Marines' creative cursing and thought, Bullshit.
She opened her eyes and rose gracefully from her curled position. She needed to talk about this. She thought first of Heightmeyer, but she didn't want therapy-she wanted real discussion, uncareful advice. Elizabeth certainly knew the pressures of leadership, but said struggles were such a part of her everyday life that Teyla could see why she wouldn't necessarily have the perspective Teyla felt she needed. And John and Ronon-they definitely knew what it was like to feel isolated, and alone; and they both knew self-sacrifice far too well. But Teyla didn't want to commiserate, or to try to communicate in half-spoken truths and careful subtext. She wanted-she wanted honesty, and just a little bit of selfishness.
She went to find Rodney.
He was in one of the labs, his fingers deep inside some of the equipment they had brought back from M8X-255. He was frowning. There were a half-dozen empty Jell-O containers on the lab bench next to him, their lids informing the world that they had formerly contained Pineapple-Flavor.
He apparently registered her presence, and even noticed the focus of her attention. "You know," he said, "my improvements to the translation network have taken a lot of the fun out of Miko's stash of snacks. It seems I can read Kanji now, which makes choosing flavors much less mysterious and exciting. Though less likely to kill me, too, I suppose, so there is that." He finally looked at her. "Did you want something?"
She opened her mouth, then closed it again, the words leaving her. "I," she said finally, "I was just wondering if you're aware that the network's translations are very stilted. I don't think it fully understands contractions."
His gaze lifted again, and stayed. "Really? I thought that was just you."
Of course he did. "No, it does the same thing to your Athosian," she said, patiently.
He looked incredulous. "You are kidding me."
She couldn't stop a light laugh from slipping out at that. "I'm afraid I'm not."
He digested this new piece of information. "Wow," he said, "I bet Sheppard sounds really weird. Does he sound really weird?"
Actually, no one sounded weirder than Rodney did when he spoke really, remarkably fast but still with a level of formal precision that was, frankly, pompous and ridiculous. Teyla elected not to tell him that.
"I just thought you should know," she said instead, "that there's still room for improvement." She searched his face as she spoke-hoping, waiting, for that spark of mutual understanding, for her fingers to cease being just slightly too scared to reach out.
But he still wasn't seeing her. "Huh? Oh, right. Sorry. I was just trying to imagine what Teal'c really sounds like."
Having never actually met the man, Teyla couldn't comment. The lab felt too quiet; she could hear the fans on several of the computers humming softly. "Well," she said, inclining her head. "I'll see you at dinner, Rodney." Then, as almost an afterthought, a whim, she added, "Tschüß."
Rodney's head snapped around. He gaped at her. Then his eyes narrowed, a slight, hesitant smile curling the corner of his lips. "Your accent is lousy, too," he said.
"I know," said Teyla. The words-not hers; not yet real-felt strangely freeing on her tongue. "But I would like to learn how to make it better."
Rodney swallowed. "Do you- You want me to teach you? For us to learn together?"
Teyla slid into the seat across from him and wet her lips. "Ja," she said.
NOTES:
1. This sort of emerged from this story, which I wrote back in December. I still don't think this translator network idea makes any more sense than the canonical stance on languages, but, um...it doesn't make less sense either, I guess? Alternately, you can just pretend that Rodney explained the whole thing very well, only it happened during the part of the story when Teyla (and thus, we) could not understand him. *eg*
2. empressvesica, I would just like to say that I am DEEPLY SORRY that this story does not contain porn. You now have porn credits from me, okay? I owe you some porn. Or at least some serious making out.
3. sheafrotherdon comes up with all the best alien planet names. *heart*