Fic: Tag to "No Man's Land"

[alasse_fae]

Title: Vigils
Author: Bounty/Alasse
Summary: Nothing to do but wait…. Tag to "No Man's Land"
Note: Tag = Spoilers. Warned ye have been.
Just a little thing scribbled at the beach while the ep was still eating my brain…



xXxXx

"Get some sleep, Elizabeth."

She watched General Landry's retreating back, and sank back into her chair, looking around the sterile VIP quarters of the SGC. The windowless gray walls seemed to move toward her, closing her in so that for a moment she couldn't catch her breath.

More than anything right at this moment she longed for her apartment on Atlantis, where in the middle of the night she could hear the ocean waves lapping against the city in the distance edges of her consciousness.

There would be no sleep for her tonight. Not here, not now. Not since the 'friendly' wraith ship had turned on them, taking Rodney and Ronon with it, and destroying John in its wake. She'd had no time to process, no time to think, just to act. When the recall order came, her gut instinct had been to ignore it, to stay, but obedience had won out and she'd stepped through the gate. It seemed like years now rather than hours ago that she'd stood with Teyla in the control room and heard Caldwell tell her that her friends were lost.

And now she was trapped here, a galaxy and then some away from the place she now considered her home, and from her remaining friends. As she'd said to Woolsey, there was nothing to do but wait.

They could demand her job; they could prevent her from returning to Atlantis. A raw pain flashed through her stomach and cold sweat broke out over her body. Jumping up from the chair, she flung off her jacket and pushed her hair back from her face, swallowing hard to fight back the panic. She tasted bile in her throat, took a deep breath and swallowed harder.

Struggling for control, she sat cross-legged on the bed and closed her eyes. She pictured her balcony on Atlantis in the middle of a clear night, where the stars and dark sea stretched on forever. If she concentrated hard enough, she could hear the waves, smell the sea spray…

Finally she allowed herself to think of her friends. John, with his easy banter and charm; Rodney, with less charm and no tact, but the ability to think his way out of any situation, once he stopped panicking. And Ronon, with his brute strength and impatience with all their talk.

She allowed the tears to flow freely down her cheeks as she pictured their faces. The friends whom her decisions had sent to their deaths. Others as well, Caldwell, Lorne, and their crews, knowing full well what she was asking them to do, and not hesitating.

If wait she must, in this now alien place, then wait she would, and hold vigil for her friends, her family, and her home.

xXxXx

Ronon lay on the cold damp floor of the hive ship, feeling its faint unnatural life beneath his body; tendrils of its foul foggy breath weaving themselves around him. With a groan he rolled up onto his knees. Sheppard had told him to 'get some rest', but he would never sleep in a place such as this.

When he looked at wraith, a red haze descended over his vision, and instinct took over; kill, destroy, escape. His hatred for the wraith was only just barely outweighed by his respect for Sheppard, and his desire to belong somewhere again.

They'd turned the wraith, all but one, into weak, confused humans, who'd been safely corralled into a holding area. 'Michael' and Colonel Caldwell were flying the ship, McKay and Zelenka were fixing things, and Lorne and his men were guarding the wraith. Sheppard had ordered Ronon in no uncertain terms to stay away from Michael and the wraith humans, and he was no good at fixing things, so there was nothing for him to do but wait.

He hated waiting.

"Couldn't sleep either?"

Ronon turned his head as Rodney McKay plunked down beside him. "I grabbed these from the Daedalus," McKay continued, dumping a pile of silvery foil wrapped packages on the floor between them. "Can you believe there's no food whatsoever on this ship?"

"Wraith don't eat food," Ronon pointed out.

"No, no they don't," McKay agreed. "Or have furniture. Or believe in heat." He rubbed his arms. "Seriously, I don't think it could be any colder outside the ship."

Ronon did not bother to correct him, deciding this was just another example of McKay's tendency to over exaggerate everything. According to Sheppard, the technical term was 'drama queen.'

"Shouldn't you be fixing the ship?" he asked, flipping through the silver packets. He bypassed a macaroni and cheese MRE and picked up a chocolate PowerBar.

"Engines are as fixed as they're going to get, we've got the Daedalus in a hangar bay, and Radek is on the bridge, or whatever they call it with Caldwell and," McKay eyed Ronon warily, "Michael. Hey, is that the last chocolate one?" He rooted through the remaining packets with a scowl. "It is!"

"You snooze you lose, McKay," Ronon said, with a mouthful of chocolate, pleased at the deeper scowl he got in response. Lorne had taught him that one.

"You guys having a party?" As if hearing Ronon's thought, Lorne appeared before them. He sat down next to McKay and dropped two canteens in the center next to the MRE's. "My contribution."

Ronon nodded a greeting at him as McKay snatched up one of the bottles and started to drink.

"You wouldn't have an extra jacket, would you?" McKay asked with his mouth still half full with water.

"You could always go back inside one of the cocoons," Ronon told him.

"Don't think I haven't considered it," Rodney answered. 'But I don't trust you to cut me out again."

Lorne laughed and picked up a silver packet. "Anyone mind if I take the mac and cheese?"

"Knock yourself out," McKay muttered. "The best PowerBars are gone."

Ronon grinned at him, flashing all his teeth. Grouching McKay was much better than 'which is a worse way to die' McKay.

Ronon would never admit it to the Atlanteans, but he had been ready to give up and die when they had found and freed him. Now he had a home again, and people and he was never going to give up again. Never. If relentless teasing was what it took to get McKay out of his doom and gloom mindset, then he'd better be prepared for plenty of it. Ronon was in for the long haul.

McKay was spared further torment by the arrival of John Sheppard.

"I thought I told you all to rest," Sheppard began. Then he spotted the food packets. "Ah - dinner!" He scooped up a packet and ripped it open without looking at the label.

"Cheers, sir." Lorne raised his macaroni and cheese in mock salute.

"Cheers," Sheppard returned. "And nice work, Major."

"On losing my first ship, sir? Thank you."

"Your first ship?" Sheppard raised his eyebrows. "What, are you trying to be Kirk now?"

"More like Riker," muttered McKay.

Shaking his head, Sheppard bit into his meal, and promptly grimaced. "Mmm, tuna surprise."

"What's the surprise?" Ronon asked.

"That it tastes like chicken," the other three chorused back at him.

Ronon didn't think he would ever fully understand Earth. He didn't realize he'd said that out loud, until the others laughed.

"Well, thanks to us," Lorne said, "there will still be an Earth for you to not understand."

"Not that anyone's aware of that," McKay said. "The SGC still thinks the wraith are coming at them full speed. Meanwhile we limp along in a stolen, barely functional enemy ship back to Atlantis where they think we're all dead. They're probably planning our funerals as we speak. What do you think Elizabeth will say about me?"

"She's not there," Lorne said quietly. The others turned to him in astonishment.

"What do you mean not there?" Sheppard demanded. "Where is she?"

"She was called back to Earth, through the gate, to 'explain herself'," Lorne said. "Her last order was for us to proceed with our mission, and that was given from the SGC."

The men were silent for a moment.

"Great," McKay muttered. "So you'll probably get Teyla planning your funeral, and I'll have Carson doing mine. He'll call it 'Ode to a Hypochondriac'."

Ronon reached for the PowerBar closest to McKay, hoping to jar him away from his death talk again. When there was no reaction, he cast desperate looks at the other two.

"So," Sheppard said, pulling a pack of cards from his pocket. "Who's up for a few rounds of poker?"

"Where did you get that?" McKay asked.

Ronon wondered if McKay would learn not to ask that question.

"Never leave home without it." Sheppard slid the cards from the pack and began to shuffle them expertly.

"I'm in," said Lorne. "What are we playing for?"

"Dunno," Sheppard shrugged and glanced over at Ronon. "Wraith teeth?" He grinned.

Ronon grinned back.

"That's just gross," McKay complained. "I'm in though. As long as it's not strip poker. What?" he said as Lorne rolled his eyes. "It's freezing in here."


xXxXx

Teyla walked through the silent corridors, holding the lit candle carefully in both hands. She passed no one on her walk. The skeleton crew on duty in the control room nodded to her and went back to staring at their silent screens. All of Atlantis was still, holding its breath, waiting.

She entered Elizabeth's office, and keeping the lights low, set the candle in the center of the desk, next to the sculpture of the people holding hands. She stepped back and gazed at the soft glow with satisfaction.

She was not required to be here; she knew that the technicians would contact her if there were any news. With all the others gone, there was no one else for them to contact, except Doctor Beckett, who had his hands full in the infirmary with the wounded from the Daedalus.

Still, it felt right to come here to wait. She sat down in the desk chair and stared into the candle flame, wondering what Elizabeth, so far away from her people, was thinking.

A soft tap at the door made her lift her head. She saw Doctor Beckett standing there. "Carson," she said, placing her hands on the arms of the chair to rise.

"No, love, don't get up." The doctor stepped closer and she saw he held two steaming mugs in his hands. "I didn't mean to disturb you."

"You are not disturbing me." Teyla smiled. She gestured to the mugs. "Is one of those for me?"

"Tea," Carson said, placing the mug on the desk in front of her. "Nice and strong like my mum makes it." He sank into the chair on the other side of the desk and took a drink from his own cup. "Everyone's asleep in the infirmary. I left Anne in charge for a few hours so I could get some sleep, but when I got to my quarters,"

"You could not sleep," Teyla finished for him.

Carson sighed. "I guess you couldna either?"

"No."

He nodded at the candle. "That's quite lovely."

"It is one of the last that Charim made," Teyla said softly. She reached out and fingered the red and silver colored wax lightly. "I have been saving it."

"For a special occasion?" Carson asked.

"In a way, yes," she answered. "It is a custom among my people, when someone we care about is taken by the wraith." She bit her lip, not quite meeting the doctor's eyes. "We light a candle for them, to burn through the night.

"A candlelight vigil," Carson nodded. "Aye."

"You have a similar custom?" Teyla asked.

"We do. Not any wraith involved, obviously, but…" Carson cleared his throat. "So you think they're dead then?" he asked softly.

Teyla drew a deep breath and gazed back into the flame. "Colonel Sheppard is very resourceful," she said carefully. "As are Doctor McKay and Ronon."

"That they are," Carson agreed.

"However," she continued. "Major Lorne and Colonel Caldwell believed that they would not be returning to Atlantis." She lifted her dark eyes to meet the doctor's blue ones.

He sighed, "Nothing to be done, but wait."

"Indeed."

"Do you mind if I stay here awhile? Join you on your vigil?"

"Not at all."

Lapsing into silence, the two sat back and watched as the candle burned down into the night.

~the end~