Title: Intergalactic Penpals

Author: Jedi Buttercup

Disclaimer: The words are mine; the world is not. I claim nothing but the plot.

Rating: PG.

Summary: SGA. Teyla wonders, at times, that one of her dear friends should be a man she's never met, separated from her by unimaginably distant boundaries. 600 words.

Spoilers: Set roughly late season 2 of Stargate Atlantis.

Notes: A Teyla and Teal'c teenyfic, started years ago before SG-1's visit to Atlantis and the invention of the gate bridge. Set in that timeframe; cleaned up and posted while clearing out my scrapfile of old ideas.

Teyla wonders, at times, that one of her dear friends should be a man she's never met, separated from her by unimaginably distant physical, cultural, and even species boundaries.

Of course, there are also times when she wishes that the Gate had never opened from Atlantis, disgorging the kind, careless strangers who trail both hope and destruction in their wake.

But that is a futile thought. Each time it comes, she takes a deep breath and rebalances herself, letting it disperse unheeded. To live is to change; the Wraith always come, if not in one lifetime then the next, and it has taught her people both flexibility and strength. One does not question one's anchors in this life, or deny the inevitabilities with which one is faced: one simply accepts, and builds anew with the materials at hand.

And such materials! There are many reasons, Colonel Sheppard and his team not least among them, why she has stayed in the Ancestors' city rather than join the new Athosian settlement.

Fortunately, she is not alone in such perceptions, nor the first leader of a people to be caught up in the incandescent wake of travelers from Earth-- the Tau'ri. Each new letter from her "penpal", as John wryly refers to her correspondent, has reaffirmed that; each moment of camaraderie thus shared a gift beyond price.

It had been difficult for Teyla, that long year before the arrival of the Daedalus. She had been forced, of necessity, to cede day-to-day responsibility for her people to Halling; she had not been able to turn to him with the concerns and questions each new day in Atlantis brought without endangering their respective roles. Nor could she share them fully with Elizabeth, or John or Rodney, or any of the other scientists and soldiers who staked their claim on the Ancestors' city; they were all surprisingly alike of mindset despite widely varying appearances and personalities, convinced at a level below thought that their homeworld was the center of the universe.

For all their professed open-mindedness, these newcomers simply did not see so much that was plain to Teyla's eyes, and she had not been able to find the right words to strip that blindness from them. Ronon's arrival had relieved that in some ways, but not completely; though he understood much that eluded the others, he listened with the ears of a soldier and a follower, not a guardian.

Teal'c had understood what the others did not. For many long years, he had fought alongside the Tau'ri to free his people from their oppressors; and when at long last their struggles had been successful, he had been given the highest honor the Jaffa observed. But despite his valor, they had also deemed him irrevocably othered-- divorced from his culture by the time he'd spent among their human allies.

There will come a time, Teyla is sure, when she will face the same consequences; when she must either recommit to her people or admit that she is fully Athosian no longer. Her competing duties-- and her long understanding with Kanaan-- will not permit her to remain in this in-between state forever. But the press of her troubles are made less weighty by sharing them with a friend; and she believes it helps Teal'c as well, isolated as he often is from even the others of his kind who have made similar choices.

Perhaps, one day, they will affirm their friendship face-to-face. But even should that never occur, she remains grateful to Elizabeth for suggesting the contact, and looks forward to each databurst with a glad heart.

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© 2011 Jedi Buttercup.