stargateficrec | Whole Again, by Frisco/wildcat88 (PG-13)

Show: Stargate Atlantis
Rec Category: Gen
Characters: Teyla Emmagan, Ronon Dex, Evan Lorne, John Sheppard, Rodney McKay
Het/Slash/Gen: Gen
Warning/Spoilers: Captivity, human cruelty/brutality | None
Author on LJ:

wildcat88
Author's Website: Frisco at Fanfiction.net
Link: Whole Again

Why this must be read:
Summary: Teyla's search for a captured teammate finally ends, which is only the beginning. (3.7k words)

The Wraith are literal monsters, but they hunt humans to survive; some of the truest evil is found in other humans. Here, Ronon has been stolen away and brutalized by horrific captors who play to the worst impulses of humanity, and Teyla is determined to bring him home. This story does a great job of showing differing aspects of Pegasus cultures through the eyes of a Teyla who is far more complex and impassioned than the commonly portrayed "team mom".

Excerpt:
She tiptoed past cage after cage, seeking one specific face. Haunted eyes followed her, but no one raised an alarm. A woman in a tattered robe lay in a heap, weeping quietly. A teenage boy sat against the far side of his cage, slowly banging his head against the bars. A small man rocked in a corner to a song only he could hear. Each person had cuts and bruises in various stages of healing.

Even seeing it, Teyla still couldn’t comprehend it – the callousness, the depravity. She wanted to scream as she had that day in the Langerian market, to demand to know how someone could treat another human being in such a way. Why?

But she swallowed the questions and continued forward, knowing there was no answer. She had called the Wraith evil once. She might owe them an apology.