The Lost and the Forgotten

Chapter 2

Like a stalked animal poised to run, a nocked arrow drawn back and ready to fly, the room froze, and Teyla could feel the cusp approaching; the brink, beyond which lay chaos.

John spoke.

"Hey, guys, maybe we can..."

A fist impacting his jaw effectively halted this attempt at diplomacy and the predicted chaos erupted.  Teyla pulled Rodney down and, ignoring his protests, shoved him under the table.  Feeling movement behind her, she smoothly grasped the back of her chair and brought it swinging round in an upward, curving arc, to smash against the generous jawline of the woman that had picked Teyla as her target.  Another swing floored the woman and left the chair a loose collection of pieces.  Teyla broke off two legs and scanned the room; Ronon was holding his own against three miners, his back to the bar, but John was surrounded and looked like he was in trouble.  Teyla, small, female, and therefore often underestimated, used her advantage to carve a path through the melee, ducked under John's savagely wielded weapon of choice, a table leg, caught a brief glance of his lopsided grin and took up position back-to-back with her team leader.  Her thoughts calmed, her awareness focussed on the one hundred and eighty degrees that were hers to defend, and her world narrowed to this one place and time, so that parries and thrusts, kicks and jabs were made, not with anger or desperation, but with meditative accuracy and a flow of strength and energy that felt as if they were drawn from the natural forces that moved through all things.

A fist came from the right, a sweeping kick from the left, a body barrelled powerfully from straight ahead; without thinking, Teyla reacted.  One stick cracked on a wrist bone and she leapt, a foot extended, its impact delivered with precision to a solar plexus, then let her momentum carry her round to give a one-two of sharp hits to a skull.  At Teyla's back, swift movements of air, grunts and thuds, told of John's fight, but she didn't let it distract her, continuing to deal out discrete packets of pain to her opponents, her blows carefully judged, to hurt when she could have maimed, to stun where she could have killed.

The attacks faltered; an efficient kick dampened one man's ardour for the fight, a smash with both chair legs ended another's hopes, then it was done.  Teyla became aware of her heaving breaths, her sweat-dampened hair, the ache in her arms and legs from the jarring impacts, and the heat of John's body behind her.  She turned.  He, too, was breathing hard, the table leg dangling limply from one hand.  His jaw was beginning to swell on one side, his nose was dripping blood, and his eyes were slightly unfocussed.  As she watched, he allowed the table leg to drop to the floor with a clatter, and one hand felt around his ribs, as if checking everything was still where it should be.  He started to speak, spat out some blood and then tried again.

"Thanks for the back-up.  You okay?"

"I am unhurt," Teyla said, dropping her chair legs on the floor and handing him a handkerchief.  John mopped at the blood running down his chin and then held the handkerchief to his nose.  Groans sounded from around the room, figures limped here and there, some supporting others, some heading for the exit, many to the bar or righting tables and chairs to carry on with their evening.  Voices were raised in laughter, and John and Teyla turned in time to catch Ronon and the original, offended miner, sitting on two of the few remaining intact bar stools, raising glasses to each other and downing them thirstily.  Ale overflowed the edge of Ronon's glass and ran down his chin and throat to blend with his sweat and the blood that had dripped from a cut on his eyebrow.

Teyla narrowed her eyes, resolving to impart the complete and unabridged contents of her mind to both men, with a particular focus on the foolishness of those who considered gratuitous violence to be an acceptable form of recreational activity.

Then John said, "Where's McKay?"

oOo

Rodney had felt very foolish and rather cowardly, crouching under the table, while around him the entire bar transformed into some kind of Pegasus-style Fight Club.  He knew he wasn't a coward and could have submitted written evidence of his bravery on numerous occasions, signed by several reliable witnesses.  Hand-to-hand fighting, however, just wasn't his thing, and he wondered, briefly, if he should stand up and fire his Beretta in the air, thereby bringing the entire room to their senses.  He came to his own senses, luckily, before enacting this rather heroic plan, realising that, instead of silence, shame-faced looks and muttered apologies from the crowd, more than likely they'd simply return fire and his heroism would be of the sadly perforated, ultimately fatal kind.