Notice Anything?

Title: Beneath Your Heart
Author: perspi
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2700
Pairing: None
Summary: The best family is the one you make.
Relates to Episodes: Season 4
Disclaimer: Me, I own nothing.
Notes: Sequel to ladycat777's lovely Inside Your Hands.

Comments and concrit always welcome.
 

Beneath Your Heart


"I have told you twice already, I am fine," Teyla said and gritted her teeth. Having three men fussing over her like old aunts left her virtually no time to herself. They simply wouldn't accept verbal reassurances; she had to put on a good face when all she really wanted to do was cover herself with blankets and not talk to anyone.

Rodney blinked and stepped back. Teyla thought perhaps her verbal reassurance had come out more sharply than she had intended.

"Um, 'kay," Rodney said slowly. "Well, good. Right, then, I'll just be..." and he swirled both index fingers in circles and pointed back the way he came. He turned just before he went out the door and asked, "You sure you don't—"

"Rodney," Teyla warned, and he ducked quickly out the door. Where had her patience gone?

Rodney had been gone not ten minutes before John, in sweats, popped through the door. "Hey, Teyla, you wanna—"

"Yes," she snarled and brushed past him, heading for the gym.

John caught up to her quickly. "I meant go for a sedate stroll around the north pier," he growled at her as they walked.

"Sedate is not how I am feeling right now, Colonel," she snapped.

When they got to the gym she pulled her sticks out and began twirling them, slicing the air with a satisfying, vicious zing. John paused at the door.

"I really don't think this is a good idea," he said nervously, his hands on his hips and a worried expression on his face.

Normally Teyla would take steps to assuage his worry, to drive back his fear. This time Teyla thwacked her sticks together and gave herself leave to ignore it, as she was most definitely feeling not normal. "I am not a flower. Stay or go, as you wish." She began to stretch against the wall, feeling overbalanced by the new size of her chest, which only irritated her all over again.

When she turned back around, John had his own sticks held low. "Dr. Keller—"

"Said I could continue to train, as I wished," Teyla cut him off. She stepped in quickly and came at him with an overhand strike, which he blocked at the last second.

He blinked in surprise at the force of the hit. "She said you should be careful."

Teyla swiped at him again; he blocked it halfheartedly. "I am always careful."

"I know that, Teyla," John said soothingly. "We worry, is all."

"I know, John. But I am not fragile, and I know what I am capable of." Teyla pointed her sticks at the floor and stood relaxed, finally allowing some of her irritation to flow away.

John regarded her for a long moment. Then he stepped to the side and began swinging his sticks. "All right, then. If you insist...Ready?"

The first few minutes were a solid workout, a rhythm of strike and parry that allowed Teyla to relax, to feel like herself again.

"Do not be tempted to 'go easy' on me, Colonel," she gritted out during one particularly intricate combination.

"Who said I was going easy?" John huffed with a smug little smile on his face, then yelped as he landed flat on his back.

Teyla couldn't help smirking down at him. She couldn't keep the satisfied feeling from putting a smile on her face after he got up and finally, finally started to really hit back. She kept smiling as she put him flat on his back six more times.

---

The next morning Ronon appeared at her door with an armful of blankets—some Athosian furs, a garish purple afghan, and a blue fleece blanket that smelled like Rodney (coffee and his 'sensitive' soap)—and a pile of DVDs.

"Cadman told me to bring these to you," Ronon said without preamble and dumped the whole mess on her bed. "Need anything?"

"Thank you, Ronon," Teyla replied. "I am fine."

"Sheppard says you have the day off," he rumbled and disappeared without another word.

Teyla turned back to her bed, piled high with blankets. She wondered how Lieutenant Cadman had known her deepest wish and a fierce fondness spread through her chest. The laptop Rodney had insisted she keep in her quarters was on her bedside table, requiring little adjustment for optimum viewing.

She discovered that the serial stories of what the Earthers called 'television shows' made for great entertainment when curled under a heap of blankets, although she wondered why Buffy insisted on wearing such ridiculous shoes while fighting.

---

Rodney's hovering decreased considerably after the memorable day that he came too close to Teyla while holding his strong morning cup of coffee and her stomach rebelled all over him. Teyla had to admit she appreciated that Rodney was no longer in danger of smothering her, although she wished she could have gotten the message across more diplomatically.

---

"I don't understand, you don't want to know?" Rodney's voice was quickly climbing into a pitch generally reserved for idiots and crises as they walked to the infirmary for their first glimpse of the baby via a scanner. "How could you not want to know? How can you wait five more months to find out something you can know right now?"

"Mothers have carried children for generations without knowing the sex of the child," Teyla said in that serene way she knew would get Rodney even more agitated. John and Ronon knew it too, and shared a grin as they walked a step behind.

Rodney began gesturing wildly enough that his steps started to zigzag in the corridor. "B—but— that doesn't mean you have to! You can know, right now, and you can start preparing—"

"Preparing how, McKay?" Ronon interrupted. "How is it different for a boy or a girl?" Teyla hid a small, secret smile as the sound of her men surrounded her.

"The baby's name! How are you going to pick a name? Names are immeasurably important; you're shaping identity when you name a child, you could scar them for life—"

"Meredith," John teased.

"Exactly my point!"

---

"That is it," Teyla growled and threw her jacket on the floor. The offending garment no longer agreed to zip around her middle, and she had already asked for larger pants twice, pants which fit her belly but sagged in odd ways around her bottom and had legs which were far too long.

She tapped her radio. "Colonel Sheppard, this is Teyla."

"Come in, Teyla," John's voice growled in her ear.

"Colonel, I will not be joining you today," she answered. "You should go without me."

"Why? What's wrong? Are you feeling okay?"

Rodney's voice overlapped with John's questions. "Sheppard? Teyla? Ohmygod, please tell me you're okay?"

"I'm fine," Teyla said the dual 'okay's echoed in her ear. "But..." she huffed out a rueful little laugh, "I have nothing to wear."

"Huh." The sound echoed in both her earpiece and her other ear; Teyla turned to see John at her doorway.

He took in the clothes scattered about her and looked her over from head to toe, as if seeing the new shape of her for the first time. "It's all right, McKay," John said into his radio. "Just...she's fine." He tapped his radio off and stepped further into the room. "Teyla?"

"Nothing fits!" Teyla swiped angrily at her eyes and resisted the urge to kick the pile of clothes. "Nothing is comfortable except Major Lorne's sweatpants, which are ugly and I do not wish to be seen in them. I do not understand why I am so upset about it. I do not cry." She sniffed loudly and winced at how undignified she was being, but she didn't seem to be able to stop it.

It got worse when John stepped close and held her shoulders, ducking his head to try and meet her eyes. "Hey, it's okay. We'll find something."

He kept talking even when she grabbed hold of him and sobbed all over his shirt. He rubbed her shoulders and murmured words of comfort and encouragement towards the ceiling, holding his ground against her tears.

---

A week after her disgrace with Colonel Sheppard, after they'd agreed never to speak of it again, Ronon dropped a large package next to her tray in the mess hall.

Teyla looked at it only briefly before continuing with her meal. She ate nearly as much as Rodney, lately, and more often.

"C'mon, aren't you going to open it?" Rodney asked.

All three of them had goofy grins on their faces, so Teyla gave up and opened the box. Inside was a deep brown leather coat, cut with a high neckline in Satedan style. It was amazingly soft as she pulled it from the box.

"Oh," she exclaimed softly. "It is exquisite."

"Ronon made it," Rodney said, and Ronon shrugged. "There's a dress in there, too, from Sheppard and me, we ordered some on P4X-887 but they only had one ready and we wanted to give it to you, you know, in case you don't like it? We can change the design any way you want, the seamstress said. And the Daedalus is here next week, Jeannie helped us order and we got you some Earth maternity stuff, too, seeing as we can't exactly spend our paychecks on ourselves—"

"Breathe, McKay," Ronon grumbled and poked Rodney with his elbow.

"Yes, well," Rodney finally paused and shot Ronon a dirty look.

---

Teyla dressed slowly. Her men were waiting, but she wanted to savor the thoughtfulness of their gifts.

The dress was several shades of yellow, the color of late-summer sunshine, and fashioned out of layers of whisper-soft maleesz. It gathered and tied below her breasts, above her swelling belly, and was unbelievably comfortable. The coat fit like a dream, skimming open over the sides of her belly as it dropped to the floor.

She stepped out from the bedroom into the common area where they waited, and smiled at the stunned expressions on all three faces. "Well?" she asked.

Of course Rodney would be first to talk. "God, Teyla, you look fantastic."

"Better?" John asked with a little half-smile that said, We're still not discussing how you totally soaked my shirt.

"Much," Teyla replied with a nod of her head and a smile of her own that said, Discuss it and die. "Thank you."

Ronon got up and walked around behind her, smoothing the coat over her shoulders and tugging at the way it laced beneath her arms. Suddenly she remembered the backrub Ronon had unexpectedly offered the week before, and how he'd carefully rubbed from her hands to her shoulders, skimmed across her back from shoulders to hips.

Teyla turned and said, "You were measuring me."

The corners of Ronon's eyes crinkled when he grinned. "Glad it fits."

---

Teyla continued to accompany the team on most of their trading missions, where she sometimes let herself bask in the attention. Rodney and John were sometimes taken aback by just how much attention a pregnant woman could garner in the Pegasus galaxy. Ronon had tried to explain, using terms like 'walking symbol of hope' and 'future in bountiful breasts.' It only seemed to make John and Rodney more nervous, especially when Teyla could barely contain her laughter at Ronon's deadpan, earnest delivery of the purplest of Satedan poetry.

She continued to accompany them, that is, until the Koliat decided they wanted to keep Teyla. Her belly prevented her from dodging as quickly as she would have liked, necessitating a rather large-scale rescue and more gunfire than she thought was called for. On the 'jumper ride home, Ronon sat pressed close to her side, large and warm and with one hand anchored behind her back, while Rodney hovered agitatedly over his console and John flew with a dark, forbidding expression on his face.

Their utter silence spoke volumes.

---

"Do you think you could do that somewhere else?" Rodney snapped.

Teyla looked down at him, sitting at a console in the control room, and quirked an eyebrow. "Do what, exactly?"

"You're hovering!" Rodney nearly shouted. "You're standing over me and hovering like a—a— a puddlejumper, except you're more like a warship now—" his circling hands waved to indicate the way she took up considerably more space than she used to, "—and I can't work like this!"

"Jesus, McKay," Kelly Smith chided from the back of the room. "You can't tell a pregnant woman how big she is, get a grip."

"I have a grip, I have a very good grip, thank you very much," Rodney muttered loudly and bent over his computer again. "I just don't know what good you think it will do, hovering around the gate room when Sheppard and Ronon are offworld—"

"And overdue," Teyla reminded him.

"I mean, it's not like we can do anything about it, is it?" Rodney looked up at her, his mouth twisted in a sad half-smile. "You're due in a month, you're not to go offworld at all, and I have strict orders from Sheppard not to leave, either. If they're in trouble, we can't help them."

Teyla bit the inside of her cheek, tried to keep her voice calm to hide the frustration she felt. "I am not accustomed to this...waiting. I know now why Charin called this a woman's 'time of confinement.' I dislike it immensely."

Rodney's snort was drowned out by the whoosh of an incoming wormhole.

---

"I'm sorry, Teyla," John whispered. "We had a good lead, but then—" He spread his hands helplessly. They had been ambushed, barely able to see who was after them before he and Ronon were on the run. One of John's Marines hadn't been as lucky.

Teyla let her head fall back against the couch cushions. She gazed up at the ceiling, willing the sting in her throat back down; she had done enough crying in the past months to last. To last until she found them. A jab below her ribs brought her head back up, and she forced herself to focus on the men surrounding her rather than the people she had lost.

"I am glad you and Ronon are home," she said and laid a hand on John's forearm.

"Not exactly in one piece," Rodney said pointedly, flicking his eyes down where Ronon sat on the floor, his bandaged leg stretched out in front of him.

"It'll heal," Ronon grunted.

"Seriously, I can't believe you—"

"Shut up, watch this!" John interrupted Rodney with a wave of his hand and pointed at the screen. The most recent Daedalus run had brought what John called an entire 'season of football,' which had turned out to be a lot of repetitive video, and Rodney's 'season of hockey' was not much different, only the players seemed to move considerably faster. The sound of it was soothing, though, and Teyla didn't mind, so long as they were all together.

"Oh!" Teyla couldn't help letting out an exclamation as she got kicked in the ribs again. She looked down in time to see the bump created by the offending foot begin a slow slide from one side of her belly to the other.

"Holy crap, that's awesome," Rodney said quietly from his spot beside her.

"It's like Alien," John agreed.

"Looks gnarly," Ronon added.

Teyla was a bit surprised to see all three of them with their attention focused on her middle.

"You've been hanging out with the Marines too much, Ronon," Rodney said absently, then he pointed excitedly. "Ooo look! There it goes again!"

This time the bump pushed out and slid halfway back before disappearing from view.

"Can we—?" John asked, and his fingers twitched.

Teyla took John's hand and laid it on top of her belly, right where the kicking happened most often. Rodney's hand drifted over, and she placed it next to John's, where their fingers tangled in a fight for space. Ronon's hand slid up from below, splaying wide and warm across the front of her, his fingers brushing both Rodney and John. Teyla held them all, her hands covering all three.

They waited, quiet, and burst into laughter when the baby kicked, dancing beneath Teyla's heart.



Companion Piece: Within Your Arms