"Unaccepted" by xparrot (Teen And Up Audiences)

[patk.livejournal.com]

Show: SGA
Rec Category: Team
Characters: John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagan, Ronon Dex, Kanaan
Pairings: potentially John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagan/Kanaan
Categories: labeled as gen though has slashy overtones (quoting the author: "I'll argue that it's about as honestly gen as the episode itself is, which is, um, not very?"
Warnings: none
Author on LJ: xparrot
Author's Website: X never marks the spot
Link: Unaccepted by xparrot (with additional link to podfic) or at sga_flashfic


Summary by the author: Sometime it's frightening, how easily these people from Earth face down nightmares and conquer them.

Why This Must Be Read:
This is a tag to "The Shrine", covering the hours after the team gets back from Talos, seen from (a great!) Teyla's POV. It's a marvelous completion to the episode that digs deep into the emotional layer which the episode itself can't afford the luxury to show in its small 43 minutes-window on screen.

The team is perfectly in character, spot-on voices (especially John's), insightful, a writing style that paints vivid pictures - I could virtually see everything in my mind. I love this one.

"You know." Rodney waves descriptively. "Putting him through that. Making him put up with me." He makes a face. "I don't...there's the videos but I haven't watched them, I don't really see the point of enduring that humiliation again, now that it's over. But I've got this memory — I remember calling for him, by name. Because. He's my... We all do it, right, Teyla? When Michael had you. You knew Sheppard was going to save you. Well, all of us, obviously, we all did our part, and we would have no matter what, but — he's the one you expected to see first through the door."

Teyla nods slowly, because this is true.

She should have been afraid. She had been afraid, looking into Michael's eyes, insane and inhuman in a wholly new way from the cruel, hungry nature of a Wraith. And yet in her heart she had never accepted it, not really; could not accept it. And not because of Kanaan, for all her hope and faith; but because she knew John was out there searching for her, and Rodney and Ronon with him.

"We've gotten used to it," Rodney says. "John being there. But this time — this was different. Going up against the Wraith, guns blazing, rescuing someone, that's one thing. But babysitting a mentally decaying imbecile, that's not exactly in the job description for a reconnaissance team leader."