SGA Fic: New Directions (The Queen)

[erda]

Title: New Directions
Author: keefaq
Pairing: John/Rodney
Rating: PG
Word count: 3746
Episode tag for 5.08 The Queen
Written for the Season 5 Tagathon at sga_episodefic


Summary: Rodney doesn’t understand why John’s attitude toward Keller has changed. Todd hasn’t told the Lanteans something important concerning Teyla.



The hive hummed softly around him, rejuvenated by the directions from the new Queen. He was alone with the burden of the knowledge that she was gone for good.

Almost he was tempted to defy her in the hope that she would return to correct him, but he couldn’t. He knew in theory that some Wraith had raised their arms against their own Queens, but such depravity defied his understanding. The drones, of course, couldn’t do it. They would go to their unthinking deaths in defense of their Queen, no matter how unworthy she might be. They were unable to grasp the finer points of any moral decisions.

Since getting to know the humans he’d often thought about the drones. He hadn’t seen any evidence that the humans had such a class among them, any unthinking brutes to provide support to their societal structure. But on their home world they must have some such. Surely their world, a home to billions, could not hold together if all were thinking, arguing, questioning, and acting as independently as the Lanteans seemed to. It made him wonder what the human worlds in his own galaxy were really like, a subject he’d never had any interest in before meeting up with JohnSheppard.

The grief of losing his first Queen was now laid to rest in the bone-deep aching pain of Teyla’s departure. His little plan to gather the Alliance under his own hand by having Teyla impersonate a Queen had backfired spectacularly. He had never once considered that the sham would become real, that Teyla would become a true Queen, his true Queen. He’d had no intention of following through on the Lanteans absurd plan to rob his people of their strength and health by taking away their ability to feed, but now he had no choice. His Queen had commanded him.

He’d known some of what was happening when he’d felt the strength of his rage and his savage satisfaction as he fell on the attacker in her chamber. Would her body be able to continue the process it had begun here once the Lanteans reversed the procedure that had stimulated her Wraith DNA? Surely the process would halt at that point, but could she sustain the changes that had already taken place? He could only wait and hope. The drive to cover her would fade in time if she did not return.

~*~

“You have to see this,” Keller said. She pulled up a file, Teyla’s file, John saw from the file name.

“Hey, you can’t show us that. Isn’t there some sort of confidentiality issue?” He glanced at Rodney, just barely restraining himself from rolling his eyes.

Keller stopped him with a grim look. “This goes to the security of the city,” she said. She pointed to a red mass in the abdomen of the outlined figure on the screen. “Teyla has been complaining about nausea and stomach pain for the past few days. I was alarmed when I palpated her abdomen and felt a large mass there. She’s also had a sudden weight gain. “

John went still. They had just gotten through Rodney’s whole parasite thing, and now Teyla was sick? “Some sort of tumor?” he asked.

“That was my initial thought. But I extracted a piece of the mass from where it is growing in her uterus. It’s definitely not a tumor.”

“Well, what is it then?” Keller always seemed to want to make a big drama out of everything, and he was running out of patience with her.

She was looking at Rodney. “I think it is a mass of Wraith eggs.”

What did she think Rodney was going to do about it? He was staring at Keller with typical Rodney horror, which was no help at all. “How soon can you get it out of her?” John asked.

“I’ve spoken to Teyla about her options-”

“How soon can you get it out of her?” he repeated, a little louder this time, as Keller didn't seem to be hearing him.

Keller looked surprised. “Colonel Sheppard,” she said. “Teyla isn’t sure yet what she wants to do.”

He slammed his hand down onto the console and was meanly gratified when Keller jumped back a step. “How soon can you get it out of her?” he demanded.

Keller raised her own voice, matching his anger with sheer stubbornness. “Colonel Sheppard, this is not your decision to make.”

”The hell it isn’t,” he said. “We’re not having a bunch of baby Wraith hatching out in my city.”

“John.” When did Rodney become a peacemaker? Oh, yeah, he thought angrily, since he decided he ‘loved’ Keller.

“This has nothing to do with you, McKay.”

Now McKay got his stubborn look, planting his feet further apart and crossing his arms defensively. “Anything that concerns Teyla concerns me,” he said self-righteously.

“I think it would be a good idea to contact Todd,” Keller said. “We need to find out more about Teyla’s condition and how this happened.”

“I think it would be a good idea if you got that thing out of Teyla as soon as possible,” he moved into her space in a deliberate attempt to intimidate her, but she held her ground.

“Colonel, I think you’d better take yourself out of my infirmary until you calm down a little.”

He glanced at Rodney for support, but the bastard’s gaze was darting back and forth between them. Rodney, the great rationalist, never decided any personal issue like this by logic. He was all about the loyalty when it came down to it. That was one of the things he- well, it was one of the reasons Rodney was his best friend. He was enraged that Rodney couldn’t decide where to place his loyalty now. They’d had each others’ backs for four years and just like that Keller had waltzed in and…” He stomped out of the infirmary before Keller could get the idea of calling security down on him. “I’m taking this to Woolsey,” he said, telling himself it didn’t come out sounding spiteful.

Three times Woolsey asked him if, in his professional opinion, Teyla was compromised, and three times, like some modern day anti-Peter, he had to deny it. There was no objective reason to think she was compromised. Woolsey seemed to be as deep into the cult of Keller as Rodney was, and he pretty much backed the doctor up straight down the line. Todd was summoned, Teyla’s wish to keep the eggs alive for the time being was honored, and everyone except Keller gave John disapproving looks. Keller’s looks were more sympathetic, almost pitying, which just made John more furious at her.

~*~

There was absolutely no reason for Rodney to be at the briefing, but he was sitting next to Keller (of course, he thought sourly) when John entered with Todd.

Todd’s gaze went straight to Teyla and he clearly intended to sweep all the way around the table to her. John put a quelling hand on his arm. He didn’t like to touch the Wraith, but Teyla looked repulsed and almost frightened. John gestured to the chairs in front of them and glared when Todd didn’t sit.

“Please sit down,” Teyla said to them both. Todd knelt down and bowed his head briefly, saying “Yes, my queen,” before obeying, a breathless quality in his voice that John would have preferred not to notice. It gave him the creeps, and he glanced over to see how Rodney was taking it, but Rodney had his head bent as he whispered something to Keller.

Todd didn’t even pretend to be surprised when Keller told him about the egg mass growing in Teyla. “I sensed something of this on the ship.”

“Thanks a lot for the heads up there.” John said sarcastically. At the best of times, Todd wasn’t a favorite of his. “What happens next?”

Todd had the enormously irritating ability to completely overlook John’s bad temper. “In a normal reproductive cycle the Queen would continue to produce more egg masses while I am occupied fertilizing the first one.”

That produced an image John didn’t want to have any detailed information about.

“A second male would fertilize the next mass and perhaps even a third male would have a chance to pass on his genetic material before I finish the first mass and am ready for another.” Todd seemed puzzled by the various degrees of disgust on the faces of everyone at the conference table except, strangely, Woolsey, who was leaning forward with a rapt expression as if he thought Wraith reproduction was fascinating.

Rodney grimaced. “How many of these egg masses does a queen produce in one cycle?

“Several thousand,” Todd replied. “All but the best are consumed by the drones, who care for the survivors until they are ready to emerge as new adults.”

“How exactly do we get these things out of Teyla?” John asked.

“I very much doubt the ability of the eggs to survive outside of a ship.”

“Well then how did you reproduce before you had ships?” Rodney looked the way he did when John walked into a tactical trap during a game of chess.

“In the early days what are now ships were simply incubation units for our eggs. Only later did we alter them to make them into ships.” Todd explained with faint though unmistakable condescension. John thought, not for the first time, that he could learn something about Rodney handling from Todd.

Rodney shifted uncomfortably. “Oh God, they’re wasps,” he said faintly.

Woolsey raised an eyebrow at him. “I don’t follow.”

“Wasps lay their eggs on other insects, and when the young hatch out they devour the host.”

Todd shrugged at Rodney’s explanation. “Something like that,” he said.

“Teyla and Dr. Keller have a proposal for you Mr., uh, Mr. Todd,” Woolsey said. He nodded to Keller.

Keller looked unsure of herself here at the conference table. She usually looked uneasy away from the infirmary, and John had to push away a small pang of sympathy. Apparently Teyla and Keller had cooked something up and shared it with Woolsey, leaving him out of the loop completely. First Rodney, now Woolsey and Teyla, too, were cutting him out in favor of Keller. He shifted restlessly in his chair, aware that he was acting like a child, but he couldn’t seem to get control of his temper.

Woolsey’s voice pulled him out of his wool gathering. He’d been so distracted he’d missed what Keller had said. “We’re agreed then,” Woolsey helpfully summed up. “Dr. Keller will subject the eggs to her genetic treatment and render them incapable of feeding from humans. Only when this treatment is complete will Teyla travel to your ship and turn the eggs over to you, in…” Woolsey cleared his throat. “…in whatever means you will explain to her are necessary.”

“Wait, what?” John interrupted. “Who decided it was okay to use Teyla to breed little Wraith babies up for Todd?”

Teyla sighed. “I have decided it, John. I have long felt that no adult Wraith would agree to undergo this treatment voluntarily, and our past with Michael makes me very reluctant to pressure them into doing so. The Wraith from these eggs will never experience feeding on a human, they will be incapable of it- but more importantly, they will never miss it. This is our chance to seed the galaxy with a new breed of Wraith. I have made my decision to go forward with this, and I only hope that you will assist me in reaching this goal.”

John couldn’t think of any answer to that. It was the way most of Teyla’s arguments with him went. “We should at least recall Ronon,” he said churlishly.

“I have already discussed that option with Mr. Woolsey, John, and we have decided that Ronon’s skills are more valuable off world with Lorne’s team than they would be here.”

All John had to do was file the paperwork necessary for Woolsey to initial. As soon as Keller had finished the treatment, they would head for Todd’s ship. Everything was decided.


~*~

“Sheppard! Care to explain to me why Jennifer isn’t on the roster for this mission?”

John sighed. Rodney had his back up, which meant endless arguing. “Because, Rodney, there’s absolutely no reason for her to come along, and believe it or not, she isn’t actually a member of the team.” There. That was completely reasonable and it gave Rodney nothing to argue about.

“Oh for God’s sake. I don‘t know what you’ve got against her, but, of course, there’s a reason she has to come along. She’s Teyla’s doctor, isn’t she?”

“She’s my doctor, too, Rodney, but so far I haven’t felt the need to have my personal physician tagging around behind me everywhere I go. The Wraith know far more about what’s going on with Teyla than Keller does, and Todd is heavily committed to making sure everything goes smoothly.”

“I can’t believe you would trust Todd over Jennifer. That’s just, that’s ridiculous, even for you. You used to like Jennifer, I know you did, and now something’s happened and she won’t explain what’s going on. She keeps saying I should talk to you, as if talking to you ever does any good. Look, if you don’t put her on, Woolsey will just do it when you hand the paperwork over to him.” Rodney sighed. He looked tired and frustrated, and John was a terrible friend. He resentfully added Keller to the mission plan.

~*~

John hated the cloying smell and feel of the Wraith ships, hated every step down through the mist to the invisible floor. The pungent air felt thick and sluggish as if the ship recognized them as alien and begrudged them their every breath. He wasn’t sure how to feel when Todd ushered Rodney and himself into a waiting area. He seemed to spend too much of his time on Todd’s ship pacing around in waiting rooms. Todd led Keller and Teyla off somewhere, though led wasn’t exactly the right word for the way the little group headed off. Todd didn’t touch Teyla, but he was walking creepily close to her, a half step behind even though she didn’t know where they were going. He seemed to find it uncomfortable to be in front of her, making their retreat look oddly uncoordinated. She was supposed to go sit in the queen chair for the eggs or something. He couldn’t quite bring himself to think about the actual, whatever, Teyla had to do. It wasn’t that hard to respect her request-okay, demand-for privacy.

The silence from Rodney went on an unusually long time, and he was glaring at John in a way that was becoming more and more habitual. It was an effort not to glare back. He stopped pacing and tried to lean casually against the wall just to show Rodney how much he didn’t care, but the slick, cobwebby surface made him pull away.

Rodney, surprisingly, was the first to drop his gaze. “I don’t get it,” he said. “I know you used to like Keller. What do you have against her?”

“Why do you do this?” He hadn’t meant to yell, but Rodney was such a fucking moron sometimes, standing there completely clueless. “This is Katie Brown all over again. It’s just anther person who likes you best when you’re not yourself. Can’t you see she’s not right for you?” He really hadn’t intended to get into this; the inactivity was making him careless.

“Well, Sheppard, if you’d like to submit a list of people who like me best when I am being myself, except, oh yeah, there’s nobody on that list.”

He should know better than to start a shouting match; he never won those. He was standing too close to Rodney, so close he could see the tiny strands of fine hairs on his neck, and when he shifted closer he could see them move slightly with his exhaled breath. Rodney couldn’t move away without hitting the wall, but he leaned back slightly and met his eyes. He couldn’t get his expression under control at all as Rodney studied him. Rodney huffed out a surprised breath and then tilted his mouth into his teasing smile. “Yeah?”

To have Rodney make a mockery of his feelings was just too much. He felt his face go hard and hot. Now he could back up, now when it was too late, when Rodney had seen everything, but Rodney grabbed both his arms and stopped him with a little shake. “Easy there,” Rodney said. “I didn’t mean- I don’t really know what I meant, but you don’t get to run off.” Rodney, insensitive as always, insisted on staring at him when he wanted nothing so much as to hide himself. “So is there someone who likes me best when I’m myself?” Whatever was showing on his face made Rodney nod. “I honestly had no idea.”

“Well,” he tried to make his tone light, to shrug the whole thing off, but his voice came out rough and desperate sounding even to himself. “Now you know.” Rodney still had a death grip on his arms, cutting off any escape.

“Convince me there’s something better out there for me, John. Give me a reason not to pursue this thing with Keller.” Rodney pulled him in close, and something went dark and hot in his chest when Rodney kissed him, tentatively but thoroughly, gaining confidence when he didn’t resist. Rodney’s mouth was hot and consuming, and he flushed with a kind of triumph, that, finally, Rodney had noticed and wanted, and taken. He let his mouth open slightly and Rodney came in with his tongue, exploring carefully but with increasing heat, finally loosening his hold on John’s arms, allowing him to slip both hands around Rodney’s waist and hold on. It was Rodney who finally pulled back with a little regretful sigh. He traced John’s lower lip with his thumb, so gently it hurt, then glanced around at the shining walls of the ship. “This is so not where I want to be doing this,” he said. He leaned in and kissed John lightly again, as if he couldn’t quite help himself.

When John looked up from the kiss, Keller was standing in the doorway looking grim. “I see you two have worked things out for yourselves.” Rodney blushed and ducked his head, taking a quick step back. Keller made an impatient gesture. “Don’t worry about it, Rodney. I never doubted you would eventually figure it out. We have more important things to worry about right now, anyway.”

She turned her attention to John. “Todd does not intend to let Teyla go.”

“He doesn’t have any choice about that,” John said. His hand went automatically to his gun. "If Todd tries to renege, all bets are off.”

Keller shot Rodney a help me control the crazy man look that reminded him of Elizabeth. “Here’s the thing,” she said. “Teyla and I talked about this possibility before we left Atlantis. I don’t think Todd is in his right mind. Teyla's Wraith DNA compels him to stick close to her and protect her, and killing him will only bring the Wraith who is next in line to the throne down on us.” She unslung the duffel bag from her shoulder and knelt down to rummage through it. “I brought along a compound I’ve been reading about in the database. I can inject her with it, and it will put her into a deep coma; so deep it will mimic death. If Todd can’t sense her life, I believe he’ll regain his faculties, and we can persuade him to let us return her body to Atlantis. Once we get home, it’s a simple matter to inject her with the antidote and revive her.”

He glanced at Rodney who had stepped back close to him. “Some kind of tri-ox compound.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Rodney said. “It’s a neuroparalyzer.”

“Tri-ox?” Keller asked.

John grinned. Keller was actually a bit of a genius, but she didn’t know everything.

Rodney waved off her question impatiently. “Just get on with it,” he said.

“Rodney, head back to the jumper,” John said. “I’ll wait here. When Teyla’s unconscious or whatever Keller, you can call me to the chamber to help. We can act like it’s important to our customs to get her body home right away.”

Keller nodded and picked up her bag. “Once Todd can no longer sense her, I think he won’t give us any more trouble.” She was off without another word. John had noticed before that she was good in a crisis and knew when to obey orders.

The plan went off without a hitch. Todd didn’t speak when John picked Teyla’s unconscious body up to carry her out of the chamber. He seemed so consumed by grief that John felt guilty for a moment. “Hey,” he said. “You still have the eggs, right? Don’t you have to take care of them or something?” He couldn’t bring himself to use the word fertilize.

For once his lousy attempt at comfort seemed to work. Todd roused himself and nodded. “Yes, the eggs,” he said a little vaguely. His eyes were red, which was just weird, and John fled the chamber with Teyla before Todd could say anything else.

~*~

John was starting to understand how Rodney felt. Teyla wouldn’t let him hold Torren any more either, not since returning from Todd’s ship. She was spending almost all her time in her room with Kanaan and the baby. He’d dragged Rodney away from the lab to go visit her, and Ronon had tagged along, so all three of them were watching her rock the baby in her arms as if she would never put him down again. Kanaan was hovering around in the background interfering with the team dynamics, but John had accepted that that little betrayal wasn’t going to go away any time soon.

“Dr. Keller believes that the Wraith can make one of the eggs develop into a new queen,” Teyla said.

“A queen that doesn’t feed?” Rodney asked. “That should be interesting.”

Teyla nodded. “They can speed up the growth of the egg by feeding her more often, also. So the new queen could develop very quickly.”

“New beginnings all around,” John said. Rodney rolled his eyes, but when he shifted his position one thigh ended up pressed, warm and full of promise, against John.

Comments

[keefaq.livejournal.com]

I love Todd. Thanks for reading.