Dedicated to SnoggingPicard.

Warning: Minor Character deaths.

Chapter one

When Elizabeth is eight years old, she has two long pigtails that her older brother constantly pulls on to annoy her. She bats his hand away in annoyance and whines to her father about it, but he never does anything except give a half-hearted reprimand that does little to deter a twelve year old boy from such antics.

He'll grow out of it, he says.

Elizabeth narrows her eyes at her brother and promises him pain if he tries it again. She rarely goes through on her threats, though, and more often then not, when she does try to retaliate, she's the one that ends up getting hurt.

That's when her father intercedes.

--

When Teyla is eight years old, she begins to exhibit her mother temper, quite unknown to her at the time. She learns of this similarity only because her father mentions it one rare day, and it manages to catch Teyla off-guard, as references to her mother were rare indeed in her home. She never knew her own mother, who died in childbirth, so she finds herself suddenly clinging to this rare piece of information. She is absurdly proud of her temperament because of it, and soon most boys in the village, even when they tease her or kid around with her in good faith, know to avoid Teyla when she becomes truely angry. Her father chides her for it, but allows the attitude change to continue unrestrictedly for the most part.

She will grow out of it, he says.

But then one day, a couple of years down the line, a local village boy steals Teyla's necklace and subsequently loses it, and as a result gets his arm broken when an incensed Teyla finds out.

That's when her father intercedes.

--

When Elizabeth turns fifteen, she gets into a heated fight with her best friend over Nicholas Anderson, a boy who's managed to become the crush of the entire ninth grade. It's a stupid fight, but it feels like the end of the world to Elizabeth until she comes home later that day and finds her mother crying on the sofa. Her father has his arm wrapped around her, futilely trying to comfort her, and Elizabeth silently watches the scene from the doorway with a cold, hard sense of trepidation in her stomach.

She finds out that her mother has cancer, and Elizabeth feels like she grows up instantly in that moment. She jumps from childhood to adulthood in a blink, and the obligatory years of carefree adolescent behaviors are lost to some black chasm somewhere in between. Suddenly, Elizabeth finds herself doing homework and housework and cooking for her family all at the same time, while her mother withers away in one bed or another. She smiles brightly when her friends ask her how everything is going at home, and becomes the dutiful daughter that even the hospital staff praises. But the entire time, she feels like shattering into a thousand pieces and does not dare to tell anyone.

Months pass by in a painful haze, and soon Elizabeth finds herself sitting next to her mother's hospital bed, surrounded by tubes and machines and a pungent antiseptic smell. Her father is on his way, and her brother is half-way across the country, so Elizabeth sits all alone in a hospital full of people and tries not to feel overwhelmed. She fails miserably at the task.

She finds herself staring absently at her mother's bleach white skin and gingerly goes to take hold of one of her hands. It feels frail and breakable to the touch, and Elizabeth contemplates what to say. Was she supposed to comfort her mother? Was she supposed to sit quietly? Was she supposed to say anything at all? But then her mother opens her eyes from a deep slumber and saves Elizabeth the trouble. In a voice barely above a whisper, her mother tells Elizabeth the oddest things. She tells Elizabeth that she is destined for greatness, with a sudden force that seems too intense and extreme for Elizabeth's liking. There's a haunting look in her mother's eyes, and Elizabeth feels the hair on the back of her neck suddenly stand on end. Her mother continues, telling her that she will save the whole world one day, and that her destiny is far greater than she can ever imagine. There is no hesitation in the words, and they are said with all honesty and belief and an abnormal type of devotion, that Elizabeth is caught uncomfortably off-guard, and is ashamed to admit that she briefly wonders if perhaps her mother is delirious. She doesn't have the wits to answer these extreme proclamations, and sits there speechless as her mother's eyes grow more distant.

Then her mother takes a deep breath, tells Elizabeth that she's proud of her and loves her dearly . . . and suddenly dies.

Elizabeth never sees it coming.

--

The first time Teyla favors a boy, she is fifteen. She makes no exterior acknowledgment of it however because Halling is much older than she and thinks of her like a younger sister. Teyla dislikes feeling vulnerable the way she does around Halling, but she cannot help herself from smiling more when he is around. He is caring and sweet and treats her as though she matters, unlike most boys her age. Most boys barely acknowledge her because she can do everything they can do - except better in most instances. Teyla discovers that bruised adolescent male egos do not make the best of friends. This is not the case with Halling, though. Yet, she does not let anyone know that she favors him. Not even her closest friend, Mara, is aware of the fact.

This turns out to be a wise choice because two years later Halling gets married to Mara on the hilltops just outside their village. Teyla smiles widely at their wedding. Her father, playing Minister, binds the two with a red sash across each arm, and Teyla looks on with a sadness in the pit of her stomach that she cannot suppress. She feels guilt for feeling sadness at their wedding and wonders what type of person she is. What type of friend she could possibly be. Yes, her first crush is lost to someone else through love, but Teyla thinks there are worse ways to lose in life.

Her line of thinking is confirmed when yet another two years later, their village experiences one of the worst Wraith cullings ever. Right before it happens, a cold, gripping feeling of a sickness like no other spreads through Teyla's torso. It is a strange unfamiliar feeling, yet Teyla instinctively knows what it means. Trouble is coming.

She alerts the villagers with the chapel bells, which are usually only reserved for spiritual purposes. The Athosians gather quickly around, and puzzle over Teyla's actions before questioning her. She dispenses quickly with small talk, and answers in a vague but disquieting manner - danger is coming, she warns. Her father, among those gathered around, looks curiously at her in a piercing manner, and then makes an abrupt unilateral decision. He orders everyone to head to the caves, a place of sanctuary only reserved when the Wraith were culling.

No sooner are the words out of his mouth, then the Wraith appear.

While Teyla rushes a group of smaller children into a nearby dwelling, she sees Mara making a mad dash across the village in an effort to find her husband and son, Jinto. Teyla tries to stop her but instead witnesses the sight of her closest friend swept up in a culling-beam from a mere arms-length away. Mara's eyes are wide with fear and shock as it happens, and that image is seared into Teyla's nightmares forever. Sometimes when Teyla looks into Jinto's blue eyes now, she sees his mother's terrified eyes instead and has to look away.

When the culling is over, the unscathed Athosians gather together and question Teyla's actions in a mass council. The questions seem accusing, and the looks she receives are ones that are mingled with fear and distrust. Only Halling looks at her without this doubt. He stands devastated and widowed, but his trust in her is still there. The others are not so comforting. She does not know how to answer their questions, or the nature of her own unnatural instincts moments before the attack. The entire council meeting feels to her like a trial, and it's only when her father steps forward and assumes leadership that the antagonism in the room dwindles. He calms them with words and reasurrance, and claims that Teyla has a "Gift."

--

When Elizabeth turns eighteen, she moves into her college co-ed dorm. She sheds her family life and leaves it in the past, diving headfirst into the academic arena. She's not even aware of it, but she purposely stays so busy that she never has time to return any calls to her father. She thrives at her university and uses this as an excuse. She misses Thanksgiving and Christmas the first year entirely and makes the false promise of this being the last time she would do so.

She quickly rises to become the star pupil for many of her professors. In her sophomore year, she takes on the advice of one of her professors to try her hand at politics and enrolls in some upper division poly-sci classes. She spends hours and hours trying to keep up with the curriculum and sacrifices a lot of her social life in her endless studying that ensues. She feels overwhelmed when she's surrounded by the high-and-mighty seniors, but when she gets the highest score in the class, she grins in predatoryexcitement for the next week and feels a rush of accomplishment. From that point on, she never turns back and knows exactly what she wants to do with her life. Politics.

Her father disapproves and thinks that she doesn't have what it takes to survive in such a filthy game. Her brother jokes with her that she's too girly for it, and even when she rolls her eyes and laughs with him about his teasing, she has a sickening feeling that he really means it. Elizabeth's skills have never been questioned before, so it's a strange and unsettling feeling when she comes to the realization that her family honestly believes she will fail at something. She's not used to such low expectations, especially before she's even taken on the task.

Her roommate in college is a quiet girl named Melinda with a thick Russian accent. She's a language major, and Elizabeth often stays up nights helping her study. In the process, she discovers her own knack for languages and decides to double major. She tells Melinda that she thinking about taking up Russian and perhaps Spanish, with a little Latin "just for kicks." Melinda looks at her like she's gone insane and tells Elizabeth that she'll never be able to pull off four languages (including English) at once. Melinda's right, of course. She doesn't master four languages . . . she masters five, including French, by the time she graduates.

Her brother visits her only once during the entire time she's doing her undergraduate work. He stays no more than a day before they get into a vicious fight like they've never had before. She doesn't even know what triggered the event, but she knows it stems from a distance that always been between them. It widened deeply after their mother died, but their relationship never turned antagonistic until now. He calls her pretenious. She calls him lazy. His words hurt her more than she admits to anyone, and she storms out on him in an angry haze.

She goes jogging to clear her mind, winding up and down the tree-covered pathways of her university. The exertion focuses her mind and drains the anger from her cheeks, and she eventually slows to a walking pace and decides to head back to her apartment to apologize. When she gets there, her brother is gone. He leaves a note on her nightstand saying that he's heading back to their hometown to visit their father. He gives her the time and flightnumber of his plane, and subtly hints that he hopes she'll decide to tag along.

But she has a test the next day, and a paper to present that night, and club meeting to head the following week, and excuses fill up her mind. She plays back and fourth between going and staying, and eventually she hesitates too long and by the time she decides to go, it's too late. The plane takes off just as she pulls up to the terminal, and she doesn't even get to say goodbye to her brother. When she calls him up, his voice isn't laced with anger, just dissappointment. When he passes the phone to her father, who sits next to him, she barely has a chance to say anything more than hello before he excuses himself.

Now, instead of a distance between them, there's silence. Her brother never attempts to visit her again, and she returns the favor - more out of shame than anything. Her father greets her warmly when she visits him the following summer, but there's something lacking in his demeanor that strikes at the heart of her. She's hurt him, and what's worse, is she doesn't know how to apologize for it. She doesn't know how to be anything but herself, and right now, she needs not to be the dutiful daughter. It brings too many painful memories back to the surface.

She throws herself back into school to make herself feel better. She spends five years doing her undergraduate work, and is accepted into several top-notch graduate programs by the time she graduates. She's had a steady boyfriend named Michael for the last year, with whom she connected withimmediately, but she senses this relationship lacks something from the very beginning. He's nearly eight years older than her, and far more experienced, but they end up dating heavily without even the slightest hesitation. They talk about anything and everything. They even have the same political ideology and plan to work toward the same political goals, but their relationship could not be described as passionate by any means. When he tells her that he loves her, she says it back, but she questions if it true. He's a good friend, no doubt, but she wonders if there's supposed to be more to love than this.

--

Teyla begins an apprenticeship at the age of nineteen, under the tutelage of her father. She is told the apprenticeship is to prepare her for leadership many years down the line, but the intensity of the training immediately assaults her strength. She has always considered herself strong in body and mind, but the demands of this formal apprenticeship weigh heavily upon her. Although she is already well prepared in hunting and tracking, her father relentlessly insists that she improve. Teyla also takes it upon herself to improve her fighting skills as well as her meditation skills. Her quick anger is regarded as a sign of weakness by many, so Teyla spends much time meditating, either in the forest near the village or at home surrounded by candles and slowly learns the virtue of spiritual control.

In physical training, she spends hours facing off against men twice her size and takes more than her fair share of hits during practice. On days when she is not too bruised and tired, she is allowed to follow her father in trade negotiations and the daily tasks required of a leader. She absorbs all of this like a sponge, but the daily toil of all her activities begins to build on her. She constantly feels tired and stressed, and she feels as if her father either fails to see it or does not care. She is unused to such disinterested responses from her father, who is a caring individual, and finds herself analyzing her recent actions, wondering if she has somehow unintentionally displeased him in some way.

The only time she has a moment's peace is when she makes her daily runs through the forest. During the hour before sunset everyday, Teyla makes time to run through the woods unencumbered and unaccompanied. Her father thinks it is for the exercise, but truthfully, Teyla runs to free her mind of worries. When she treads through the soil of her people and weaves through the branches and trees with a grace that is usually unpaired to her youth, she feels feather-light and carefree. She is not being trained. She is not being evaluated. She is not being tested. She is simply being . . .

Her father hands her training over to Halling on days when he is too busy himself to undertake the task. Halling was thought to be the heir-apparent for leadership for many years. Yet, after Mara's death, Halling has taken to closing himself off from those around him. He refuses any training for himself and has made it abundantly clear that he will never take any leadership position among the Athosians. His world consists of his son, Jinto, and nothing else. Teyla wonders if her father has set up her training with Halling purposefully, as some attempt at matchmaking. While Teyla was once not opposed to this idea, the memory of Mara has tainted any feelings she has for Halling. The crush has now long since come to an end, and only feelings of friendship remain. Still, the training gives Halling a chance to come out of his self-imposed shell. She misses her friend Mara, but she misses her friend Halling more, perhaps because he is lost to demons all of his own making.

They fight with staves and knives and elegance refined into deadly sport. Teyla swirls with a feral grace that she has only recently learned distracts most men. Not Hallng, however, and while at one time, that would have dispirited Teyla, she now finds it a refreshing luxury. She has grown into womanhood with everyone watching, yet she has often been told that her beauty was truly noticed and appreciated only recently. Teyla is not sure what to make of that or the looks she receives from interested men. She is used to training, fighting, and claiming her space in a respectful manner. To be the envy of other women, however, is not a distinction that she is familiar with.

Then, on one particular day, Halling manages to defeat Teyla in a fight in an especially painful manner. Afterwards, her left leg turns into a bruised rainbow of dark colors and swells several sizes, and while Halling is extremely apologetic and releases Teyla from further immediate training, her father is not so sympathetic. He demands that she resume fighting despite the pain. And Teyla, displaying her trademark anger, which manages to bloom on occasion despite her best efforts to contain it, explodes at her father. She demands to know why she is being trained so hard.

Her father minces no words. He tells her that the villagers, although fond of Teyla, do not believe that she will ever be ready for the harsh mantle of leadership. Her father tells her this with a warm voice that is comforting but pragmatic, as if the decision was already made. Perhaps it even was. To Teyla, this feels worse than a physical blow, and shame and indignation simultaneously war inside her. She is not used to failure, especially before the task has yet to be undertaken. She leaves her father in a fuming temper that nearly turns her vision red, but by the time she is out the door and heading into the forest by herself, tears have sprung unbidden from her eyes.

She decides to double and triple her efforts in all aspects of her apprenticeship. If she is going to fail, it will not be for a lack of effort.

--

Elizabeth gets a job lobbying in the Senate, and she finally sees politics for what it is. The naive veil over her view of government and bureaucracy has been lifted from her eyes, and she sees the nasty underbelly of politics. For a moment she is disillusioned with it all. She wonders if her father was right. She wonders if she has what it takes to make it in politics. She moves in with Michael sometime during this chaos, and his work seems to be going better than hers. More experienced and older, he lands the prestigious job as Press Secretary for the White House.

She continues to do grunt work for the Senate, but doesn't really mind it. She does, however, find herself not taken very seriously despite all of that hard work. Her efforts against the military, especially, fail to earn her any good graces with many prominent figures, notably the Republicans. Truthfully, Elizabeth has always had an aversion to the military, but during these four years working in D.C., this aversion solidifies. She concludes that the best way to stop the proliferation of weapons is to try and end the need for them. When working late one night, she somberly remembers her mother's dying words, about Elizabeth saving the world, and thinks this is what her mother might have had in mind.

Of course, she is seen as too naive and idealistic, and many accusations against her call her inexperienced. And while in a cesspool of political correctness, in reality, she is still a woman in a man's domain. But every time she hits a brick wall, Elizabeth picks herself up and throws herself back into the work again with renewed vigor. Sometimes it's easier and sometimes it's difficult, but slowly, the complex unseemliness of politics ebbs away and Elizabeth learns the ins and outs the same way a drowning man must learn how to swim.

But it often seems that every step forward she makes, there are two steps back. She makes strides in the Senate, gaining allies and contacts, including an influential Democratic Senator by the name of Henry Hayes, but she makes plenty of enemies, too.

Then, one day, she opens Pandora's Box. She makes a politically disastrous move when she makes a blatantly anti-militaristic statement immediately following a tragedy in the Gulf regarding the deaths of an entire platoon of American soldiers. Her remarks are seen as callous and unpatriotic, and are quickly splashed all over the news as a hot controversy. The White House, personified by her boyfriend, Michael, stands in front of a podium distinguished by the Presidential Seal and lambastes her comments and criticizes her for politicizing a human tragedy. Never mind the fact that this occurs daily in D.C., and everybody knows it. Hypocrisy is a corner stone of politics, as is scape-goating. Her boss calls her in the next morning, and in a remarkable display of platitude, pretends to sympathize with her while simultaneously asking in a round-about way for her resignation at the same time. She packs up her belongings from her office with as much dignity and grace as she can muster.

She has a fight with Michael that same night, which includes plenty of yelling and harsh accusations, and Elizabeth silently notes that this is possibly the most passion they've ever had in their relationship. She breaks it off with him and is surprised when he doesn't argue too much with her decision. For the second time that day, she packs up her things, this time from Michael's apartment. It's only when she's sitting in the cab on her way to a hotel, surrounded by everything that she owns from both her work and her home that she breaks down completely and cries. She feels like an utter failure and wonders what her mother would think of her now.

Her career in politics nearly ends right then and there.

- TBC