Sunset ^beta

It appears out of nowhere; a small but growing irregularity in the haze where the highway meets the sky. Even with the A/C on blast the glaring heat has made Elizabeth slow and sluggish, so it’s not until she’s almost upon the distortion that she recognises it to be some kind of tortoise. She doesn’t need to know they are a threatened species for her instinct to kick in—her hands have yanked on the wheel and forced the car offroad before she has time to make any conscious effort to preserve the life of the hapless animal. 

It’s not lost on her, as she stares out the windshield and tries to catch her breath, that it’s been a long time since she had the same instinct to preserve her own life. 

She stays where she is for a few moments—two white-knuckled hands gripping the wheel and the sickly smell of burning rubber assaulting her nose—until she finds the strength in her adrenaline-soaked body to open the door and steps out to survey the damage. It's not that bad. The front passenger wheel is a bust, but the rest of the car doesn't even have a scratch. She kicks the fragments of the tyre off the road and turns to look at the skid marks on the asphalt. 

The tortoise shuffling across the highway is unharmed and completely oblivious to the scene that just unfolded behind it. Elizabeth watches it for a while, a slow lumber on legs that look like they should be fins, until it finally veers off the road and down a bank. She can’t imagine what it expects to find in the dry, dusty expanse on the other side. Food? Shelter? A Mate? 

Maybe the tortoise is simply in the same frame of mind she was in when she spotted a sign for Vegas on the side of the 395 and made a spur-of-the-moment decision. She’d be in Reno by now if she hadn't taken that exit, but she’s damn glad she did. The relief was instantaneous, and she only realised the weight of the load she’d been carrying once it was lifted. For the first time in her life, she had listened to her gut instead of succumbing to the flow. For the first time in her life, she feels as though she has some measure of control over her destiny. 

Blowout notwithstanding. 

She’s on sabbatical—though she realises now she was never going to go back—so her insurance is still covered and her policy guarantees quick pick up and a ride wherever she wants. But there’s no signal in this godforsaken place and she ends up leaning against the hood of her car, tapping her wrist with her fingers to the beat of Nina Simone and watching in both directions for a passing vehicle after searching for a jack and coming up empty. It doesn’t take as long as she expects for somewhere so remote, a little over an hour on her watch and half a bottle of tepid water in her stomach until something appears on the horizon.  

Fortune is on her side today because the truck that comes along has a tow and a decal with the words Pegasus Auto on the door. The man that steps out is tall and lanky, his long hair tied back from his pale face and his jaw working gum. He pulls off his cap as he approaches, and keeps a respectful/cautious distance that could be for her comfort or his own safety. Or both. 

“Need a hand?” he asks. 

“That would be great,” she replies.  

He says his name is Halling, and she doesn't ask if it's his first or last. He drives as though the law is watching, and his questions are unintrusive but she finds herself opening up to him anyway when he gives her his own story so freely. 

He tells her that he has a son whom he loves beyond all reason, but it’s hard sometimes being a single parent and a business owner. She tells him she’s walking out on a job that always finds some BS excuse not to promote her over the men in her division.  

He tells her his wife disappeared under mysterious circumstances and the local sheriff didn't seem to care much. She tells him her husband couldn't keep his hands off the undergrads.  

He tells her that after all his business expenses he can barely afford rent. She tells him that she has no place to go. 

He looks over at that, the first time he’s taken his eyes off the road, and says: “You do now.” 

Pegasus Auto is on the corner of the only intersection in the town of New Athos. Halling pulls in by the fuel pumps, comfortably shaded by a large, flat roof that’s seen better days. There’s a diner across the road with a neon greeting in the window next to a Ma and Pa shop with a creaking wooden sign. The main road courts a single bus stop, so old and sun-bleached that not even graffiti remains. They passed a church on the outskirts of town—a single steeple and small windows, white siding and a yard full of grave markers—but there are none of the aggressive pastoral billboards Elizabeth associates with small, rural towns. 

Halling opens her door and leads her into the workshop, apologising for the lack of a waiting area, and he taps a greeting on the top of a pickup that’s suspended on rails, two steel-booted feet sticking out from underneath. A voice says “You should be at home with Jinto”, and there’s something in the softly modulated tone that slips in through Elizabeth’s ears and eases her turbulent brain. 

“Blown tyre,” says Halling, rolling up his sleeves and heading over to the far wall which is laden with hanging equipment. Some of it is new, but Elizabeth recognises several things that would have fit right in amongst the gear in her papa’s workshop—vintage but well cared for. 

There's a whirr of something electric, then the feet sticking out from under the pickup drag against the ground and whoever is under there rolls slowly out from the undercarriage on a creeper. Clunky work boots give way to legs clad in burgundy, industrial-grade fabric that curves over wide hips. A single leather-gloved hand slips out and pushes against the grill for momentum, and Elizabeth is so caught on the bare, muscular arms that follow—shimmering with sweat and smudged with black oil—she misses the words that are aimed up at her from below.  

“I’m sorry?” she says, but when she realises the woman is reaching up with her other hand, Elizabeth grabs hold, skin to skin, and pulls her up. 

“Thank you,” says the woman, and her smile is wide and genuine. After the day/week/year Elizabeth has just gone through it gives her a warmth in her core that has nothing to do with the climate of Death Valley and everything to do with the loneliness she’s been carrying for what feels like forever. 

“Teyla,” says the woman, and Elizabeth’s tongue stumbles over her own name; an introduction so clumsy that this woman—whose entire being radiates grace even in an oil-stained tank top—must think her utterly inept. She can’t look away from Teyla’s eyes, dark and deep and crinkling in the corners from the smile that hasn’t left her face. 

Elizabeth feels a squeeze on her palm and realises that she hasn’t let go of Teyla’s hand. Teyla hasn’t let go either, and isn’t that just...something?  

“Tell me what happened today,” says Teyla, and it takes Elizabeth a moment to realise she means the road accident and not the absolute disaster of a morning that saw her packing up her life and running away in a rental. 

“There was a tortoise. In the road?” It sounds so ridiculous, like something out of a children’s cartoon, but Teyla nods as though it’s nothing out of the ordinary so Elizabeth continues. “It...this is such a cliché but it all happened so fast. I swerved to avoid it. There was a noise and I coasted until the car stopped." 

“What did the noise sound like?” 

“I’m not sure. Loud?” 

“Was it a ‘pop’ or was it more like the sound of a gun?” 

“A pop.” 

Teyla nods and Elizabeth wonders what the difference is; if one sound carries the weight of blame while the other exoneration. Before she can ask, Halling approaches with a trolley full of equipment. Teyla lets go of Elizabeth’s hand to grab a hold of the other end of it, and Elizabeth’s palm feels cold without the shared warmth.  

“I will take care of this,” says Teyla, firmly. 

Halling makes to protest but Teyla narrows her eyes in a silent argument. It seems like a long-standing disagreement between them, the kind you can only have with someone you are close enough to understand without words. After a moment Halling tilts his head graciously in defeat, and he lets go of the trolley, holding his hands up in supplication. 

“I have a spare room,” he says to Elizabeth. “You are welcome to stay for the night as long as you don’t mind the sound of El Pájaro Loco early in the morning. Jinto is trying to learn Spanish so he watches it with breakfast.” 

“I don’t want to put you out,” says Elizabeth, but she doesn’t know where else she could go. It’s many years since her mother passed and her friends are few and far between, more colleagues than people she could call on. 

Halling is already pulling a keyring out of his pocket. “It is no trouble,” he insists, as he unclips a key and passes it over. “Teyla can drop you at my home when you are finished here.” 

Elizabeth wonders what it means that he would give a key to his house to a perfect stranger and that she would take it gratefully. If this were a movie, one of them would have nefarious intent. She watches as Halling leaves the workshop and gets into a car; old, with mismatched doors and a rumbling tailpipe. 

“Let us assess the damage,” says Teyla, and Elizabeth follows her out to the courtyard, where Halling has already let the car down from the tow. 

There's an obvious mastery to Teyla's work as she jacks the car and inspects the wheel. Elizabeth has lost a tyre or two on the road in her life, but the sheer speed at which Teyla replaces the blown one with the spare in the trunk is a little dizzying, as is the speed at which she replaces all the bolts. Once Teyla is happy with the new tyre and lets the car back down onto all four wheels, she hoists the old one up over her shoulder and carries it into the workshop to inspect it under a bright spotlight. 

Elizabeth's eyes are drawn to the flex of Teyla's muscles under the weight. She knows it's not strange for a woman to have such strength in their arms and body, but Elizabeth runs in the world of academia and politics where it's all high heels and fake smiles, pilates and low-carb diets. Somehow, she can't picture this woman skipping out on her pasta. 

Teyla drops the tyre on a big table and examines it. What she sees seems to displease her.  

"Mmmm," she hums as she manoeuvres the light around the shredded rubber. The brightness of the bulb highlights a mole, dark on the bridge of her nose, and another on her cheek. Elizabeth wonders what they would feel like under her fingertips. Raised from the rest of Teyla's skin like the swell of her biceps? Or are they simply pigment, so flat that they are invisible to touch? Too late she realises she's reaching out, and as Teyla turns to face her, Elizabeth pulls her hand back and tucks a strand of hair back behind her own ear. 

Teyla opens her mouth to speak, holds it for a moment as she peers at Elizabeth’s face, then laughs and sticks a hand in a pocket of her overalls. Elizabeth is confused as she presents a crisp, clean handkerchief, feels her heart skip a beat as Teyla leans in and draws the fabric up against her temple and swipes gently. It comes away darkened by grease. 

“I did not think to warn you,” says Teyla, tucking the handkerchief back in her pocket. “Nothing stays clean in this place. Not my hand, and now not even yours.” 

Elizabeth's fingertips are stained black when she looks, and she honestly doesn't mind. Teyla has smudges all over her clothes and her skin—from her hairline to the hollow of her throat; across the front of her tank top and all down the sleeves of the overalls that she's tied around her hips; fingerprints on her thighs and palm prints on her arms. Elizabeth would like to wash them off of her skin or even better follow them down Teyla's body with her lips...oh. 

Teyla's gaze tracks across Elizabeth's face. Elizabeth feels so giddy, so off kilter with her revelation, it's a relief when Teyla finally looks away and directs their attention to the tyre she’d all but forgotten on the table. 

“It is likely it would have blown even without the incident forcing you from the road.” Teyla points to various torn shreds and tells her about wear patterns and tread depth, safety checks and certificates. The picture she paints leans away from Elizabeth having done something stupid and towards something bordering on corporate negligence. “I will chase up your rental company and see if we can get them to reimburse your rental expenses. If they are not agreeable, I will suggest outside arbitration. I suspect the prospect of that kind of scrutiny will be more than enough to smooth things over.” 

“Why do I get the impression there might be some outside arbitration no matter how easily they fold?” asks Elizabeth. 

This time Teyla's smile is a little wicked. "I have no idea what you mean," she lies, ducking her head as she removes her single glove and tucks it into one of the pockets of her overalls. There's a hole in the thumb, frayed stitches in multiple colours speak to many repairs, and Elizabeth wonders if she'd have noticed were she not so enraptured by Teyla. She remembers what Halling said about the difficulty making ends meet out here and winces at the battles they must face getting all they are owed from the insurance companies of people passing through. 

"How much?" she asks because she's not going to leave this town without paying in full. 

“For?” asks Teyla, and Elizabeth wants so very much to press her fingers to her brow and smooth away the confused furrow. 

“For the tow...the tyre change...the phone call later that I would love to witness?” 

“Ah, no,” Teyla shakes her head, and a curl slips loose from the clip holding her hair back from her face. “No charge.” 

“But—” 

“You already had the tyre.” 

Elizabeth gives in to impulse for the second time today and brushes the lock of hair out of Teyla’s eyes. “I meant for your time.” 

Teyla leans into the touch, her eyes flickering shut and the corner of her mouth lifting. She licks her bottom lip, then bites it as she looks back at Elizabeth. 

“When did you last eat?” 

The question takes Elizabeth by surprise, and she realises she hasn’t eaten at all today. She was barely out of bed when Simon came knocking on her door. She left him alone with his petty grievances and hiked into town to rent a car when he refused to hand over the keys he snatched from her hand. She hasn’t stopped since she set off, not once, and she hadn’t a mind for food in all her agitation. 

But now? Her stomach is achingly empty, the mints in her handbag and the complimentary bottle of water no shield against hunger. In hindsight, it's little wonder she went off the road. 

“It’s...been a while.” 

Teyla nods. “It has been a long day for me too. You may buy me dinner and then we can call it even.” 

It’s not a command, but it doesn’t need to be. Elizabeth can’t imagine Teyla asking anything of her tonight that she wouldn’t be willing to do for her. 

“How is the diner across the road?” she asks. 

“Radek makes the most wonderful bean chilli and Laura is extremely picky about her coffee. I think you will like it.” She pulls away from Elizabeth and takes a few steps back. “I will wash up. Give me a minute?” 

“Sure.” 

Teyla spins around, and in her haste knocks a spanner off a table with her elbow. Elizabeth watches as she picks it back up and rushes to the office in the back, already peeling herself out of the overalls. She doesn't shut the blinds, so Elizabeth turns her back and heads outside to wait. The sky is darkening, the sun is already far below the horizon and there are so many stars painted onto the many shades of blue. She's always known there was more to life than appeasing unreasonable men, in both her private and professional life, but looking at the night sky and listening to Teyla swear quietly as she fumbles with her boots and her overalls, she can feel it; a new dawn, a new day, a new life, and she's feeling good.