"How's that?" Sam said.
"Not too bad," Jack said. "If I reposition a little…."
"Move around all you like," Sam said. She unfolded her chair and sat down, propping her feet up on the low stonework of the edge of the pier.
Jack moved his chair around a little more, fussing with it, then sat down and adjusted his baseball cap, looking out at the calm sea.
Sam sighed happily. "Look at that! Almost worth coming all the way out here for, isn't it?"
"Almost," Jack said.
Sam shrugged as he baited his line neatly and cast. "Yeah, but not many guys can say they've dipped their pole where you have."
He stopped, the rod dangling in his fingers. "I can't believe you just said that, Carter."
"Fishing, Jack." She cast her line with a smug look, watching it plop satisfactorily into the water next to his.
"I think I've got a bite already," he said, leaning forward.
The end of his pole bobbed, then a tentacle rose from the surface of the water, exactly the same shade as the fishing line. It waggled back and forth, then purposefully wrapped around the end of the pole and jerked it out of Jack's hand, disappearing into the depths.
"I'll be damned," Jack said as Sam started laughing.
"I guess we'll just have to enjoy the view," she said.
Supposedly, it was a day of rest, and the morning stretched before Teyla invitingly empty. She cradled her coffee mug in her hands, her elbows resting on the railing of the balcony, looking out at sea and clear skies. It was warm enough that she was comfortable in a light jacket. This passed for a beautiful spring day here, on their new world, and she could not say it was otherwise.
The doors slid open and John came out, his sweatshirt sleeves pushed up to his elbows, a mug in his hands. "I thought I'd find you out here," he said.
"I am enjoying the sunshine," she said, tilting her face up to the light, feeling it warm on her own skin.
"This planet is starting to grow on me," he said, taking a sip. "There might be some interesting stuff here. We've only just started going through that Ancient installation Ronon found on the island. Now that we've got some time, maybe we can actually do some exploring."
"It would be a nice change," Teyla said.
"There's an awful lot we could do," John said. "Next year or the year after. And when that Indian research vessel launches I expect they're going to want to leave a team here. And Jackson was saying that there needed to be a bigger social sciences presence."
"I expect Alabaster will want a permanent envoy," Teyla said. "And Jinto is annoying Halling, begging that Dr. Zelenka would like him to be his apprentice, if Mr. Woolsey will allow it."
"That could work," John said, leaning on the rail beside her, looking out over the light-touched towers. "There's plenty of room in Atlantis."
"For all the children of the Ancestors," Teyla said. And that was right and good. They were all heirs to the Ancients, all heirs to their pain and their hubris and their beauty and their insatiable curiosity.
"Yeah," John said. He looked contented.
"And you," Teyla said. "You are talking about the future as though you mean to see it."
He lifted his head, his eyes on the distance. "I guess so," he said slowly. "When I was getting ready to go on this last mission to get rid of the weapon, I didn't want to."
He said it as though it were a painful admission, and Teyla looked at him sideways. "Of course you didn't want to."
"I didn't want to die. I had to do it, but I didn't want it. I don't want…." He trailed off, and Teyla waited in silence, waiting for him to find the words. "I didn't want life to be over. And now that it's not, it feels like a reprieve. Like some guy waiting on death row and then finding out he's been pardoned. If that makes any sense."
"It does," she said. Teyla blinked into the sun, because of course it was that the glare hurt her eyes. "You were willing to be the sacrifice, and then you did not have to be. You have broken the geas. You have left it behind. And now there is your life before you."
"Maybe so," he said, and took a drink of coffee. "Maybe so." The wind tugged at his hair, and he smiled into the eye of the wind.
"And in us the Ancients have secured their future also; you, Ronon, even Rodney, might father a child one day."
"Pretty scary," John said. "Rodney being a father, I mean…"
Teyla smiled. "I would not be sorry to have another child someday myself."
"It probably wouldn't have the gift, not like you and Torren…"
"Nor would Rodney's, I think. Nor would any child of yours likely have a naturally expressed ATA gene," she said, leaning against the rail beside him. "They would all be only human."
And yet both legacies would live in their blood, recessives carried forward down the centuries, the inheritance of the Ancients.
The doors slid open again and Ronon came out, checking when he saw them. "Sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt."
"Come on out, Ronon," John said. "It's a beautiful day."
"Please," Teyla said.
Ronon came over and stood against the rail beside John, taking a deep breath and seeming to straighten up from somewhere deep inside, looking out at sky and sea. "It is," he said.
"I was thinking that we needed to finish checking out that Ancient outpost you found," John said. "How about taking an archaeological team over there tomorrow?"
"Sure," Ronon said, and smiled.
John returned Ronon's smile, and then turned to gaze out at the white-capped sea that stretched out to meet the bright sky arching overhead. It was a good place for Atlantis, John thought, and good flying weather. He was itching to take a jumper up into it, to explore without the constant worry he'd felt since Rodney had first been captured by the Wraith.
The balcony door slid open as if in answer to his thought, and Rodney came out onto the balcony, pulling his jacket around him in the brisk breeze. He hesitated, and John beckoned him over to the balcony. Rodney leaned on the railing, his elbows next to Teyla's, his white hair catching the light. It was still weird, but John figured if it didn't grow back in brown, they'd all get used to it.
He glanced over at Ronon, who'd been visibly tense about dealing with Rodney ever since they'd gotten him back from the Wraith. Ronon seemed at ease, looking out over the railing at the horizon, his hair stirring in the breeze.
"So I've been thinking that we should investigate the Ancient outpost over on the island," Rodney said. "I'm not convinced there's nothing interesting left over there."
"Way ahead of you," John said. "But not today. We're taking today off."
"What, you don't think searching for Ancient technology is fun?"
Ronon looked at Rodney sideways down the rail. "Remember the man-eating bears?"
"We don't know that they're man-eating."
"They looked like they wanted to eat us."
"The cave-in probably took care of all the bears, right?"
Ronon shook his head, but he looked amused. "We should check it out when it's not our day off. I won't let the bears eat you."
"Thank you," Rodney said. "Thank you very much." His tone was a little too serious.
Ronon shrugged. "You're my team. All three of you."
"No one is letting bears eat anyone," John said. "And today is a nice day, and we do not have to deal with any bears today."
"Sometimes I wonder how we wound up having a life where that's a normal thing for someone to say," Rodney said.
John looked up at the clear blue sky, remembering with sharp clarity the moment when he'd flipped a coin high into another sunny sky, trusting his future to its fall.
"We walked through the Stargate," he said. He'd chosen then without knowing what he was getting into, or even what he wanted. He knew now, and he'd make the same choice now, open-eyed, every time. "I think that was a pretty good choice."