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.”