PART I
Teyla wasn't proud of it, but in the years she had known him, and worked with him, and listened to him, she had gotten pretty good at tuning Rodney out.
It wasn't that she didn't respect or care for him; she did, very much. It was that most of what he said had a tendency to blur into something like this:
"Long and highly technical explanation of something pertaining to physics and/or Ancient technology punctuated by heavy sighs and comments about the sad lack of intelligence among those listening; smirking reference to Earth culture that only John will get, and will spend the next ten minutes riffing on even after trying and failing to explain to herself and Ronon what is so hilariously funny about, say, 'Atari'; extensive list of physical complaints, ponderings, and worries; random comment about someone's breasts (though honestly, within her hearing, never hers); 'Teyla, hold this'; the Nobel Prize and why I, Rodney McKay, deserve it; reasons Sheppard is stupid and annoying; reasons Ronon is stupid and annoying; reasons everyone in the universe is stupid and annoying; reasons Sam Carter is stupid, annoying, and incredibly hot and brilliant; food; we're all going to die; cats: the only worthwhile companions; and, 'Shit! Run!'"
So Teyla had learned to latch onto the important parts ("Teyla," "Run!") while vaguely scanning the rest. She would feel bad about it, but she'd caught Rodney surreptitiously writing an e-mail under the table the last time she had (at Ronon's request!) started to describe a few of Athos' more interesting geographical features. At least she tried to smile and look attentive when Rodney (not to mention some of their more long-winded trading partners) went on about "various substances I have at times been allergic to" or "girls who were totally into me. Really!" for what felt like hours.
They were having dinner now, and Teyla was aware of Rodney speaking and making animated gestures with his fork; she was aware of John nodding along, a slightly sly smile curling across his face; she was aware of Ronon chewing vigorously while suppressed laughter crinkled the corner of his eyes; she was aware that the chicken was undercooked, and that she was content. She felt there, in the moment, even though she wasn't necessarily listening to every word.
So when suddenly Rodney went from making his usual odd, approximate, Rodney-sort-of-sense to making no sense at all, she noticed it instantly. Like a switch had been flicked, mid-sentence: Rodney was talking, saying nothing that particularly interested her but that she could nevertheless understand, and then...it was like he was speaking in a foreign language.
Rodney didn't seem to notice that anything was wrong. Neither did John: he laughed, then opened his mouth to add a counterpoint. Only what came out sounded like gibberish, too. Teyla felt a rush of panic, then pushed it down. There might be something wrong with her, but it would be okay. It was not a Wraith thing. It had nothing to do with her DNA.
It was almost a relief to see Ronon leaning forward and frowning. "Sheppard," he said, and then there were more words, but they were likewise lost to her. John and Rodney stopped talking. More significantly, Rodney set his fork down. John turned to her. "Teyla...?"
"I can't understand you," she said. She could see the worry in their faces though, the panic; she felt it herself. She knew what was happening. But it was impossible. Like suddenly knowing, The sun won't rise in the morning. Gravity doesn't work. The Wraith don't mean any harm...
Something had happened to the translators. She couldn't wrap her head around it, but she knew it must be true. The translators were such a fact of life: like the Ancestors' rings, like the Wraith. So omnipresent that even as a sensible adult you forgot sometimes that these things were not permanent, that they too could be damaged.
But unlike the Wraith or the system of gates, she had never even imagined that the entire translation network could go down.
John and Rodney looked like they had never considered it, either. John had pushed back his chair abruptly, at the same time tapping his com; she understood "Elizabeth?" and nothing else. But she knew the routine, was part of the team enough to know where they were all going. They got up and went to the conference room. Elizabeth and, a few minutes later, Radek, met them there.
Teyla always appreciated being included in these meetings, while at the same time she disliked the feeling—hers? theirs?—that it was a privilege she was being afforded. She knew she was a valued member of the Lantean community, and of John's team; she considered them all friends, and knew they felt likewise. But she was still not from Earth, not quite one of them. They all did the best they could, but simple facts could not be changed.
Even when Teyla felt she herself had nothing to contribute, she could always listen, and weigh each side of an argument, make up her own mind—to discuss with Ronon or Elizabeth or John later, or even just to keep to herself. Now the conversation buzzed around her but she felt totally removed. Everyone's eyes darted to her or to her and Ronon periodically, but it was like they were behind a glass wall. In a different room.
Worse, they were separated from each other, too. Ronon was not a big talker, but he could be very funny, there with a quick aside when the mood struck him. Now he spoke to her, a short quick sentence, but his rolling sounds were as alien to her as the strange, guttural speech the Terrans were now producing. Was that English? Teyla found she was somewhat disappointed.
Ronon shrugged and raised an eyebrow at her. At least he was still gifted at communicating without words.
"...Wir müssen herausfinden, wie umfassend dieses Ereignis ist. Wir können zum Lager der Athosianer gehen, Teyla?"
Hearing words she knew, she looked up. John was gesturing between the two of them and their other two teammates. "Wir," he said. "Gehen." He made a circle with his other hand and put the "wir" finger through it. "Wir gehen."
Teyla waited patiently while several people in several languages made what were sure to be the obvious sex jokes.
She nodded. "We can go to my people's settlement," she agreed, fairly sure that she was deducing John's poor sign language skills correctly. "We can find out if the problem is localized." I can talk to somebody, she quietly prayed.
Elizabeth frowned and expressed to John what were probably some safety concerns. John, typically, waved them away by smiling a lot. Teyla realized that she knew this script so well she almost didn't need a coherent soundtrack.
The mission was approved. Radek scurried off to do something technical. Elizabeth stopped Teyla on her way out the door. She gestured between them, made a motion by her mouth to indicate speech. Teyla nodded; she understood. She had already known that if there was a problem, Elizabeth would do her best to try to talk with her about it.
*
They gated to the Alpha site, where Jinto greeted her with a wonderfully coherent, incoherent ramble about the house he was helping to build and the huge vegetables he had grown and the game he and Wex had invented that, as far as Teyla could discern, had something to do with climbing trees and throwing rocks at one's friends. Teyla laughed; John and Ronon looked puzzled; Rodney looked about as afraid as he would had they been greeted a small troop of hostile Genii, or a somewhat lazy and already pleasantly full Wraith. "Where's your father?" Teyla asked.
Jinto frowned. "He's in a meeting. Traders came from Eishan only they talk like this now." He made a series of mangled noises. "They're trying to figure out what's wrong."
Widespread then; Teyla wasn't sure whether that was better or worse. Worse, probably; it would certainly make interplanetary trade difficult, and cooperation on a larger scale—the kind of cooperation that she was beginning to think might be the only way of defeating the Wraith—nigh impossible.
"Can you go get him?" she asked. "Tell him we have information about what's going on."
Jinto did not seem sufficiently intrigued; he had almost lost interest in her entirely and was beaming at John. "How long are you staying? Do you want to see my new knife? Will you tell us a story?"
John was smiling hesitantly, like he was being forced to explain something inappropriate and potentially embarrassing that he had done. "Ich kann dich nicht verstehen, Kleiner."
Jinto stared. He looked like he'd just been told that while the Ancestors were supposed to come back someday, it probably wouldn't be next week, in time for his birthday.
"Them too?" He clearly did not like lumping in cool people like Colonel Sheppard with boring old traders like the Eishans.
"Has your father ever told you about the translators?"
Jinto frowned. "Kinda."
That meant no. Teyla put a guiding hand on Jinto's shoulder and started walking toward the settlement, motioning with her head for her teammates to follow. "Since the Ancestors scattered the first peoples on many worlds, we have all grown up speaking different languages. But the Ancestors wanted us to be able to work together, to understand each other, so when they built the gates they created a network to translate all the different tongues." She was not sure how much of this she still believed. Until today, the translators had been no more than a highly probable theory passed around and generally agreed upon from world to world; their very absence now confirmed them, made them real. As for the Ancestors and their intentions...she was not stupid nor sentimental, and she had seen too much on Atlantis to still believe them gods, or even benevolent.
But Jinto didn't need to know any of that. He looked at her with wide eyes. "And it's stopped working?"
"Yes. But we're going to fix it."
They had reached the dwelling Halling had built for himself; it looked well, Teyla was pleased to note. Jinto went in to fetch his father. In the brief lull, Teyla turned to her teammates and tried to figure out a way to convey the small but vital piece of information she had gathered. "It's not just us," she said, gesturing at them and shaking her head, then stretching her neck to look at the heavens and gesturing broadly. "It's everyone."
Rodney made a couple cranky noises. Teyla was willing to bet they amounted to, "Oh. Great."
"Teyla!" Halling came out and Teyla gratefully touched her forehead to his. "Jinto tells me the Terrans are afflicted with the same problem."
"We all are," Teyla said. "It seems the translators are real, and they have stopped working."
Halling nodded. "Yes, that could be a theory."
Teyla bit her lip to suppress a frown. "What else would you suggest?"
"Well," said Halling, first making sure that Jinto was not in hearing distance. "It could be a punishment. From the Ancestors."
He looked genuinely concerned. It was not right, Teyla thought, for her to be angry with him, just because she herself was disenchanted. "I do not think they would punish us, Halling." No, they were too indifferent. "Or that they have anything to punish us for."
Halling glanced briefly at John, though his eyes were without heat. "Perhaps we have made questionable alliances."
Unfortunately, Teyla thought, he was right—more than he knew. But his gaze was misdirected, and anyway, that was not the issue here. She repeated what she had told Jinto. "We'll figure out how to fix it."
"You will join me in praying to the Ancestors?" Halling asked, and for a second, it seemed like a non sequitur. Teyla took a deep breath. Language was not being kind to her today.
She avoided it: shaking her head, declining. "I wish you luck," she told him. She realized she was turning to leave and felt foolish; they had only just got here. "Have you managed to learn anything from the Eishan traders?"
"They seem to think the end of the world is upon us," Halling said, smiling a little. Teyla laughed, relieved. Pleased that they could still share a little bit of gallows humor, that old Athosian specialty.
"You will of course stay with us until this is resolved," Halling said.
"I—" Teyla faltered. She hadn't even thought of that, but in a way, it was the logical thing to do. These were her people; they could understand her. What good would she do in Atlantis, silent and strange, marked more than ever as different, as not one of them?
"I—I can't," she said finally, annoyed at the slight stutter, but firmly aware of her reasons. "They need me. And Ronon—" She looked back and saw him standing there, doing a poor job of pretending to look engaged, an expression she knew well from meditation lessons. "Ronon's people are all gone; I can't leave him alone."
"He can stay, too." It was an offer Halling had extended before, graciously.
"I'm sorry."
Teyla was. She said her goodbyes, promising Halling that she would come back immediately if she changed her mind, and in return getting his promise that he would let her know if he discovered anything. He wished her luck in the same tone she had offered it to him: well-meant but disbelieving.
They drifted back toward the gate, Teyla feeling unmoored. She hadn't been lying when she said she felt a duty to Ronon to stay, to endure equally whatever he was enduring. But it was more than that. More even than a distant hope that she would actually be of use in what was likely to be a mostly technical crisis, and more than simple loyalty to her teammates, to her friends.
They paused when they reached the gate, Rodney apparently anxious to make some examination of its structure, and that of the DHD. While he poked around, John ambled over to her. He began again a serious of somewhat convoluted gestures; even when he actually tried, communication was not his strong suit.
She understood his general meaning, however. "Thank you, but no. I'd rather be on Atlantis."
It sounded too loud, like too much of a proclamation among everyone else's muddled words. Just like back at the settlement, she realized, the sound of all her firm wes: We'll figure it out, she had said. She had not meant her and Halling.
John, unthinking and thus much more articulate, gave her a skeptical, somewhat worried look. She smiled at him in a way she knew he understood: reassuring; slightly false.
She watched as Rodney, grousing and pressing a hand to his back, allowed himself to be lifted to his feet by Ronon before entering Atlantis' address into the DHD. John touched her shoulder, lightly, then quickly dropped his hand away. Teyla straightened her shoulders and let the Ancestors' ring take her home.
PART II
Teyla had always been a self-sufficient person; even as a little girl she had understood that she was in some way set apart, made to stand alone. In part it was her mother's death, in part the few words her father bestowed upon her in between his frequent absences. In part it was the example of Charin, who radiated independence even after she could no longer walk on her own. And of course, it was in part—in large part—herself: her gift, her Wraith heritage.
It was not so bad, then, this period of odd, wordless isolation. In the mornings she got up; she showered and stretched. Training she could do without words, so she did lots of it: fighting with Marines, the thuds of their backs hitting the mat and their swears—the ones they rather stupidly thought she couldn't understand—being entirely universal, and entirely satisfying. She would fight with John and Ronon, too, although this she enjoyed less because she missed their banter: John's constant and playful, Ronon's sporadic and sly. She won even more often than usual, however, now that they lacked the tools to distract her.
After another shower and a nice lunch, she and Elizabeth would attempt their mutual language lessons. It was tough going: Elizabeth had training, but circumstances where both parties were without any kind of outside guide were foreign to each of them. She often heard Elizabeth sigh, "Something something something, Daniel Jackson." In fact, many of the expedition's members could at times be heard making what could only be interpreted as longing requests for Dr. Jackson. Teyla got some pleasure out of translating these in her head. "Whither Daniel Jackson?" "If only we had the vast body of knowledge belonging to Daniel Jackson!" "I would give this entire city for but a moment in the presence of the inimitable Daniel Jackson!"
This of course culminated the only way it could, with a loud declaration of annoyance from Rodney. Teyla was pretty sure it came down to, "Enough about Daniel Jackson already!"
Anyway, pleas aside, Daniel Jackson could not be summoned as he was otherwise occupied, dealing with some other crisis in his own galaxy. Teyla felt a mixture of annoyance and sympathy.
Mostly, though, she felt lonely, alone. It shamed her a little: that in the middle of meditating, a time when she should be relishing the peace and quiet and lack of interruptions, she would have to break off, pause, and reassure herself that she was really still here. She'd once told Kate—when she could still talk to Kate—that when she wasn't dreaming that she saw her hideous Wraith-self staring back from the mirror, she had dreams of becoming invisible, of fading right away. Like a special sort of culling: the white beams coming down, silently, silently, and taking her away from the place she pretended to call home. Sweeping her up for the swallowing, for the welcoming back to the fold.
She was walking back to her quarters, sweaty from a workout and chiding herself for such dark thoughts, when she heard Rodney call her name. She turned and saw him jogging up, and for a wonderful second she thought he'd come to tell her that he'd fixed it. But what came out of his mouth was still that unwelcome, guttural speech; it had gotten so she could hardly stand the sound. "Sag etwas, sag etwas! Hier—na los!"
She raised an eyebrow at him. He lifted the device, impatiently—a datapad he had in some way modified. She took his meeting and spoke into the area he indicated. "I hope this works, Rodney."
It did not, apparently, work. Rodney looked down at the screen and swore—cursing being one of the few forms of expression she could consistently translate. Then he was stomping off again, tread much heavier than it had been mere moments before.
She wondered what he was working on. While she was drying her hair, it occurred to her that he might be attempting to invent his own translation device, a replacement for the broken or damaged (or sabotaged—had anyone thought of that? She would try to find a way to ask John) network. She hoped not. They needed the network. The people of Pegasus needed to unify; they needed to stand together, not let themselves become isolated and alone.
Whatever Rodney was doing, he did not give up. He started coming to her once or twice a day with new devices or modifications to try; Teyla suspected he found her less intimidating than Ronon. Often he had something he wanted her to speak into; another time he wanted her to enter text into a keyboard that no longer entirely made sense to her. Once he seemed to want to put something down her ear canal; her "NO!" was luckily vehement enough to make sense in any language. (Interestingly, so was Rodney's pout.)
She had by this time, of course, picked up some English from her slow, careful lessons with Elizabeth. As much as she hated sounding like an awkward child, she found she was so desperately, pathetically starved for conversation that she made an effort to speak with him, proclaiming, "Hello, Rodney. How are you?" in the harsh words of his native tongue.
He'd blinked at her the first time, then grinned. "Ich will etwas zu essen," he'd said. This wasn't a response she'd heard Elizabeth give; Elizabeth tended to be either "fine," or "well," or, when she allowed herself to be honest, "tired." Rodney sensed her confusion and mimed rubbing his belly and looking wistful. "Oh! Hungry!" she said. His fingers snapped and pointed: You got it.
He'd had to run off then, but the next time he surprised her: before even offering a clunky headset thing (which didn't work) he'd asked, in awkward, halting Athosian, "How does your day, Teyla?"
Elizabeth must have taught him; she had it right now, but at the beginning she had messed up the pronunciation in exactly the same way. "I'm fine," she started to say, taking a page out of Elizabeth's book, but then something made her change her mind. "I'm bored," she said honestly. He twirled his finger, waiting for an explanation. "Bored," she repeated, then let her head lull to the side and imitated Ronon's snoring—but rolling her eyes at the same time, so he would understand she was not sleepy.
"Bored," he echoed, nodding. Then, contemplatively, "Bored?"
His fingers snapped, and he disappeared, almost like a magic trick if you didn't count the quick jog to the transporter.
She didn't see him again for almost two days, and after a day and a half was feeling so itchy without his stupid interruptions that she went to go watch videos with Ronon, which appeared to be his creative way of learning another language. Unfortunately most of the videos in Atlantis seemed to be a) bad sci-fi films, b) bad daytime television dramas, and c) really awful porn. This meant that Ronon seemed to mostly have learned to say things like "We've got company" and "What's that supposed to mean?" and "Ooops! I seem to have misplaced all my clothes!" Or so Teyla supposed, anyway.
If Teyla were a better person, she knew she'd be making more of an effort to learn Satedan, too. But she was so exhausted from even her small inroads with English that she hadn't managed to learn how to exchange more than the most basic pleasantries with Ronon. It didn't seem to matter as much as she knew it should; instead it was enough just to be able to bask in his quiet, steady company while the TV murmured gibberish and Ronon kept the popcorn moving back and forth. Almost as it was; almost as it should be.
Rodney found her shortly after she left. He was bouncy again, although Teyla knew now that logically he would tell her if he had fixed it—that would be the whole point, that he could say the words. He had in his hand a cylindrical device with an LCD screen set into it and a sensor at one end. He gestured with it, asking her to follow him, which she did. He led her over to a balcony where she was surprised to see a variety of objects set out on the ledge. An apple, a candle, a book, a Jell-O cup, a com device. With a festival performer's flourish, Rodney pointed the device at each object in turn. After a second held on each one, an echoey, mechanical voice pronounced the English word for the object. When Rodney showed her that it also displayed the corresponding characters for the object on the screen, Teyla nearly clapped her hands with joy.
What she did do was say "Thank you" carefully in English and then, after a moment's hesitation, bring her forehead down so they could touch. Rodney made a surprised little noise but followed her, awkward and blushing. He didn't allow her to hold the embrace as long as she'd like, long enough to show the proper amount of respect and affection she felt for him. Instead he removed himself so quickly that among her people, among those who knew better, it would have verged dangerously close to an insult. However he followed this immediately by telling her, "Your welcome," sincerely if incorrectly, and she parted with a smile on her face, clutching the gift he had given her to her breast.
She took the device back to her room and was halfway though pointing it at everything she could find before she realized she should really share this wonder with Ronon. They both amused and educated themselves for the rest of the afternoon, repeating words after the device and to each other, creating to outsiders what would have surely seemed like a bizarre word soup. It was also interesting, and educational, Teyla thought, to see where the device failed, or supplied clearly inaccurate or inadequate responses; it painted an intriguing picture of Rodney's priorities. Ronon, for instance, was somewhat disgusted to learn that whether they pointed at a Beretta or a P-90 or his own special sidearm, the device merely provided a merry echo of "gun" "gun" "gun." He was much more impressed with the device's vast knowledge of different types of food. Teyla, however, was surprised to note the care the device gave to identifying a wide variety of plants. Katie Brown's influence? she wondered, then tried to imagine Rodney actually listening while Katie rambled on and on about botany. Rodney had not only given the impression, he had explicitly stated that he had no patience for that.
They took the device with them when they went to dinner, Teyla holding it rather possessively. In the chow line, Ronon coaxed it from her, then seemed to take great pleasure in making his meal selections by pointing the device at his chosen items and having its robotic voice say for him, "Macaroni and cheese." "Broccoli." "Milk." "Pudding." Teyla was pleased by his amusement, but then she caught a glimpse of the looks the mess workers and other people in line were giving them. Their expressions were...indulgent. They seemed to be offering Ronon and herself the kind of look you would give to a small child who was trying really hard to overcome his natural slowness. They weren't unkind, but they were utterly condescending.
Teyla felt her stomach knot. She wanted to turn around and shout, Have you even tried to learn my language? But what would be the point? They wouldn't understand her.
She followed Ronon back to the table, no longer anxious to grab the device back from him.
Rodney was already there, sitting with John in enviable silence, the kind Teyla knew could be broken at any time by an easy exchange of words. He looked up when they approached and immediately nudged John's shoulder, smiling excitedly and demanding of her, "Show him! Show him!" only with a lot of (Teyla correctly assumed) extra and unnecessary verbiage.
Ronon offered to let her show off the device, but she declined with a shake of her head. Instead she allowed him and Rodney fight over it; Rodney seemed as excited as Jinto, eager to show John his new knife. Teyla felt a little bit of the tightness in her chest relax. From those who mattered to her the most, the attitude toward her had been generous and full of good intentions. That had to count for something, didn't it?
She chewed and swallowed, still frowning. John was making a good show of being utterly unimpressed by Rodney's invention; in pantomime, Rodney's indignation grew while Ronon chuckled. Then John absently turned the device on his own chest and they all got to listen as it solemnly pronounced, "Kirk. Kirk. Kirk." The axis of amusement and indignation abruptly flipped. Ronon easily switched alliances and continued chuckling; after a while, Teyla found that she was laughing, too.
*
Halling came to see her the next day; he had worrisome news of a conflict that had broken out between the Malfei and the Geshar. They had never got along, and apparently the inability to easily make themselves understood had created the perfect opportunity—or excuse—for several grave misunderstandings to occur. Using, among the three of them, a combination of awkward English (Teyla), awkward Athosian (Elizabeth), awkward Ancient (both), and poorly conceived hand gestures (John), Halling's intel was passed on and discussed. Teyla was very relieved when they eventually agreed with her assessment that having a largely unknown and foreign-tongued power charging in with guns would probably only make things worse.
The meeting concluded, Teyla stole a few minutes alone with Halling. She could see that he was anxious to get back, but even though they did not really have all that much to say to each other, for a few moments it was a relief just to talk. She asked after Jinto, and a few other mutual acquaintances. Halling seemed to think it only polite to inquire about her and her teammates in return, and after a moment's hesitation, Teyla found herself explaining, and then displaying, the device Rodney had built for her. Halling seemed only mildly impressed—like John's affectation of indifference, only more convincing. "Has Doctor McKay built one for himself?"
Teyla, feeling a little internal twist of frustration, prepared to explain that Rodney of course had no need of a device that instructed him in his own language. Then she remembered that Halling was not, in fact, an idiot, and realized that that wasn't at all what he meant.
"Ah. No," she said, and once again stopped herself from beginning a long explanation: It's not so important that he learn Athosian; after all, there's only one of me and...
"No," she said again, straightening her shoulders, "Not yet."
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.
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