"Teyla? Are you all right?"

She had stumbled for a moment, when he first touched her mind. But she smiled at Sheppard and shook her head. "I'm all right." After that, it was only a matter of time.

He caught her arm as they came around the structure, tugging her to the other side. She wasn't sure what to say, but she did manage to call out something that sounded plausible, something about exploring this area of the old settlement. Sheppard gave her a funny look when she finally extricate herself and came around to say so.

"McKay seems intent on discovering whatever it was that appeared on his sensors, but I do not think that it requires both of us to look after him, does it?" Especially since she had the feeling she knew what was McKay had detected.

Sheppard shrugged, glancing at the ground and then looking up with a rueful smile. "He's getting on your nerves, isn't he?"

"Yes," she admitted, with a guilty little bit of relief that she knew Sheppard would attribute to her not wanting to spend time around McKay.

He was still waiting for her around the corner, leaning up against the wall, eyes closed. She approached without stealth, and he opened his eyes and straightened up as she did.

"Teyla."

She smiled. "Michael."

Ordinarily their meetings, however fleeting and clandestine, had more dignity than this. But the last two times had had to be called off due to Replicators in the area, and they were both getting worried. This time, they had at least a little while before Sheppard and McKay and the others returned.

His fingers curled around hers, or hers around his, she couldn't tell who tugged first but from there his arm went around her waist and her arm around his neck and the kiss was all the sweeter for having been delayed.

By now it was almost second nature, the communing, the physical sensations of kissing and being kissed by him. Not like kissing any other man on Atlantis, but of course it wouldn't be. And Teyla admitted that on the face of it relations with a Wraith, even a half-breed one, seemed like madness. Yet, wasn't she in some ways a half-breed Wraith? Not exactly half. No more than he was exactly half-human.

The urgency faded under the realization that neither of them was going anywhere or being interrupted, at least for the moment. He broke the kiss first, stepping back, putting his back up against the side of the structure and keeping his arm around her waist so that she had to step into him to keep upright. Which she did, with a smile, brushing her fingers through his hair a little.

"You look well," he told her, smiling a little at the gesture.

"And you," she said, tacitly admitting what that required and letting her thoughts slide over it. "Have you found a more permanent location?"

He shook his head slightly. "Not yet. I have located several promising planets, two with Gates."

That was not the promise it might otherwise have been. All Stargate travel was monitored, which made their trysts hard to arrange and even harder to carry out. Still, it did ensure that he had a quick way out should he be discovered by either her people or his. If the Wraith were even still his people.

It seemed unfair. Atlantis had taken her and her people in, and the Wraith had shunned him as unclean and unfit. Her fingertips traced down his cheek, another little affectionate gesture that made him smile. Human affection was still new to him, and she loved the way it made him smile with surprised, small delight.

"You must let me know when you find a place..." To rest. To be at home. She had made hers, and she wanted to learn all about his.

"I will." It was a promise, even if neither of them used those words anymore. Too many betrayals. Too careful, although neither of them had broken a promise to each other in some time.

And then he kissed her again, and drove the sadder thoughts of broken promises and hurts they had dealt each other out of her mind for a little while. Kisses, and pulling her tighter into his arms, and both of them finding some sort of understanding in the give and take between their mouths and their bodies. Nothing too intimate. Nothing too physically involved; she didn't know when Sheppard would be back and he did not want to put her between himself and the Atlantis team.

But for a little while at least, they did have each other.

His mouth had softened against hers when he whispered, wait. And she listened, and they both heard the sound of McKay (bless his loud and never-ceasing babble) approaching. Reluctantly, she stepped away, keeping her fingertips to his until the last moment possible.

As he kept his eyes on her, even long after she was out of sight.

Go to the top! For you have reached the bottom.