“I do not wish that I were,” Teyla said contemplatively as she came up. “I was very foolish when I was twenty.”
“I was very serious.”
“I imagine that you were.” Teyla looked at her, and her Wraith face was hard to read, though her voice was not. “Have you always known exactly what you wanted?”
“No.” Sam put her right leg out, bending forward over it. Her forehead sort of touched her knee. Kind of. If she shifted off the hip bone. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes.”
“I have too,” Teyla said. Her voice was rueful. “That one’s name was Jorrah, and I was unwise to marry him.”
“Mine was Jonas,” Sam said. She could definitely feel the pull in her hip. God, she was sick of that thing popping! Her hip was getting as bad as Jack’s knees. “But at least I didn’t quite marry him.” She straightened up. “He turned out to be crazy.”
“Jorrah was not crazy. Only manipulative.” Teyla was on the other leg now, but there was a wobble in the pose this time. She wasn’t holding it right. Left leg. The bone bruise she’d had a couple of months ago, no doubt. Those things took time to heal.
“Check,” Sam said. “I dated one of those too. He wanted to get a dog and that was really the last straw.”
Teyla didn’t look up. “What is wrong with dogs?”
“Nothing is wrong with dogs.” Sam switched legs, stretching her left one out. “If you like dogs. If you have the kind of life where you know you’ll be home at a certain time and you can let the dog out and feed it.”
“Of course,” Teyla said. That hip was definitely wobbling, but she was determinedly holding the pose. “I thought perhaps it was some sort of Air Force taboo against dogs.”
Sam snorted. “No. We’ve got some weird ones, but nothing against dogs. I was engaged to that one too.”
Teyla’s mouth twitched. “You seem to have had some close calls. You have been engaged how many times?”
Sam put her forehead to her left knee. That was easier. “Three,” she said, only hesitating slightly. “Maybe I’m just hard to marry.”
“That may be so,” Teyla said seriously.
Sam stretched. “You know, when you live like this… Maybe the time will come when I’m ok with staying on Earth and getting a dog and being home at night. One day the Hammond will be somebody else’s. But I can’t imagine who I’d be if I didn’t want to walk through the Stargate.”
Teyla’s voice was rueful. “Nor I,” she said, coming out of the pose. “I am Teyla Who Walks Through Gates, and I cannot imagine that I would remain myself if I were content to always be in one world when there are so many to know. But it seems that my compromises do not have to be as cruel as yours.”
“Don’t they?” Sam asked, lifting her eyes to Teyla’s Wraith face, feeding hand and Athosian clothes.
Teyla took a breath. “Perhaps they are,” she said. “Only different.”
“You have your son.”
“Yes.” Teyla sunk to the ground in one graceful move, her legs folding under her like some sort of water bird. “But I no longer have my rank and position among my own people. You have that. Athosians tolerate the Gift, unlike most of the peoples of this galaxy. But this…” She glanced down at her arms, her long emerald nails. “If I say that I am Steelflower? This they will not understand. It is too far and too much. I will be outcast.” She shook her head, looking up at the darkened window above. “You have your starship.”
“I do.” Sam crossed her legs. “And that’s not as smooth as I’d like it to be. I’ve always been the wonk, not the inspirational leader. I’ve always been part of a team. A starship crew has to be a team, but the captain has to stand a little apart. I can’t be in there shooting the bull with Franklin and Chandler.”
“I can see that.” Teyla leaned back on her arms, arching her back. “What about Mel Hocken? Is she not officially part of the Daedalus’ crew? It seems that the two of you have much in common.”
Sam took a deep breath. “There are complicated reasons why that’s not a good idea.”
“I understand,” Teyla said, and she thought she did. After all, she had lived among these people for more than five years, and she thought she understood their taboos, even if she did not understand the reasons for them. “Athosians are more accepting than many peoples because we have been repeatedly been culled to the bone. We live so close to the borders of the land of death that we know better than to reject any love that comes, whatever its shape or form. Who shall say that anyone should not care for another, or that a child should have one father alone when what is important is that everyone be part of the whole? Otherwise we will die.” She leaned her head back, looking up at the beveled ceiling. “And yet if Kanaan saw me like this he would wonder if Torren were safe with me.”
“You would never hurt Torren,” Sam said sharply.
“Who knows what a Wraith would do?” Her smile was grim. “People would wonder. If Kanaan said, ‘I do not want Torren to live with her because Atlantis is too dangerous, and because the new man she has chosen is not of our people,’ Athosians would mock him. Kanaan is jealous, they would say. It is unseemly to be possessive of one who has moved on, problematic to upset the group with attachments which are not mutual. He would lose face, and none would listen to his complaints. But if he said, ‘She is Wraith, and she no longer knows who she is,’ that would be a different matter. ‘Who can tell what she might do? It is too dangerous for a son of Athos, for my son.’”
“That totally sucks.”
“So do your compromises.”
“Yeah.” Sam said. “They do.”
“Which is not to say that Kanaan would do such,” Teyla said. She sat up straight, her brow furrowed. “I do not think he would. But I have been wrong so badly before.”
“Jorrah?”
“Yes.” Teyla shook her head.
“At least he didn’t try to set himself up as a god on a small planet?” Sam asked.
Teyla laughed, as she’d meant her to. “No. Did Jonas?”
“Oh yeah.” Sam put the water bottle down. “Never can say I don’t have taste.”
“I think perhaps we will chalk it up to experience,” Teyla said. “But John may be right that we are all a little cracked.”
Chapter Twenty-five
Devils and Dust
It was going to be close. Jack could see that. One vote, maybe two in either direction. A vote against sending Woolsey back to Atlantis was essentially a vote for Daniel. Now that they’d gotten in contact, it was obvious that someone had to be appointed immediately, and the crowd who didn’t want Atlantis in the hands of the Air Force weren’t about to leave it that way forever, with Sheppard in “temporary” charge that dragged on for months and months. If he’d really wanted to power grab, Jack thought, the smart thing to do would be just stall. Sheppard could run the show for the better part of a year that way.
But it wasn’t Sheppard’s forte. He’d gone into this intending to send Woolsey back to Atlantis. If that wasn’t possible, Daniel was the best option, though frankly Daniel might kill him. Administration was not exactly Daniel’s thing.
The swing vote was Roy Martin. And so Jack was surprised to see him by himself in the conference room a good fifteen minutes before the meeting was supposed to start. The IOA ran on diplomatic time, which meant the principals arrived fifteen minutes late. So Martin shouldn’t put in an appearance for at least half an hour. Also, surely the other IOA members wanted to bend his ear one way or the other? Unless they were all sure of his vote.
All of that ran through Jack’s head in the moment he checked in the doorway, an ironic smile on his face. “Senator Martin. Speak of the devil!”