Teyla watched them unpacking, each of them with their own small box. "Five by eight by fourteen as per Personal Allotment Regulation subsection 6a, paragraph 9," Dr. Weir told her, with a sort of internal amusement that she seemed willing to share, even if the true explanation was never made clear. Dr. McKay asserted smugly that his personal allotment was 12.7 by 20.32 by 35.56, which made Major Sheppard roll his eyes, and Teyla could only smile: it was merely another thing that did not make sense about these Earth people, or perhaps Dr. McKay in particular, because his box looked the same size as all the others to her.

On all sides, the city of the Ancestors rose up around them, beautiful even when half-seen in darkness. The Stargate was silent and empty; still, Teyla noticed many of the Earth soldiers watching it with a wary eye, as though the Wraith might yet burst through it after their long slumber. She had buried her own fear of the Wraith hive ship when they escaped, as all her people were taught to do. To let that fear linger on her skin was to let it take control, and there was still much to do.

"We'll give the Athosians quarters near the control tower for now," Dr. Weir had told her, and Teyla had spent many hours touring the rooms, clasping the shoulders of her people, touching her forehead to theirs. With each contact, she breathed more easily. Grief for those they had lost would come, but for now, she celebrated the living.

She found herself drawn again to the wide balcony overlooking the Stargate afterwards. The desire for sleep rested heavily on her, but the room was still busy with people carrying crates to and fro, under Dr. McKay's excited direction. Everyone seemed determined to find their personal allotment before slipping away to whatever corners they had found to call their own for this night.

At a moment when Dr. McKay seemed unusually still, his own box clutched possessively to his chest with one arm, using his teeth to peel the foil from the bar of food-like substance gripped in the other hand, Teyla asked, "What is this personal allotment?"

"Hmm?" Dr. McKay asked around a mouthful of the bar. "Things. Earth things. Chocolate. The really good coffee. Um. Music. Pictures...movies. And chocolate, did I say that? One hundred percent dark chocolate, for hey-I-survived-leaving-the-galaxy occasions." His eyes widened. "Like right now, in fact." He stuck the food bar in his mouth and started working on the seals that held his box shut.

Teyla smiled. "But...did you not bring these things for everyone?"

"Ha!" Dr. McKay said around the bar clenched in his teeth, as if that was commentary enough.

"Slow down, McKay, you're going to give us all a heart attack just watching you." Major Sheppard stepped up beside Teyla, his lips quirking as he watched Dr. McKay wrestle with his box.

"Did you bring chocolate as well?" Teyla asked.

Major Sheppard's eyebrows rose. "Nah. DVDs...uh, moving pictures showing people doing...what they do. Football, it's a sport--"

Dr. McKay snorted, then started choking and coughing. Major Sheppard studiously ignored him.

"And these things are personal in some way that all your other equipment is not?"

"Yeah." The major shrugged. "Well, yeah. That's the point. Something that's only for us, or that reminds us of home..." He trailed off, and they both watched Dr. McKay's eyelids flutter closed when he held yet another foil-wrapped bar in his hand.

Teyla glanced at the box tucked under the major's arm. A record of competitions long over, and food that would soon be gone. "I see," she said, uncertainly. The room was emptying as the last of the expedition found what they were looking for and left. The lights were dim except in a small circle around them, where Major Sheppard stood. "I think perhaps it is time I found my bed."

Major Sheppard nodded, and prodded Dr. McKay's shoulder, until he started shuffling away, moaning around a square of his chocolate.

Teyla made her way to the Ancestors' room that had now been labelled as hers by Dr. Grodin. There were already many within, breathing deeply with sleep.

She sat on the pallet that had come from the Earth supplies. Her small bundle rested there, and she drew it closer, opening the ties.

She knew its contents as well as she knew her family and clan; as well as the paths through the Athosian forests. She brought out a leather skirt, touching the lines of stitching. Her mother had tanned the hides and all the sewing had been done by her hand. It had come to Teyla three cullings ago.

And beneath it, the soft woodgrain of her sticks. Long nights, she had listened to her father's stories, watching the firelight gleaming, following his hands as he smoothed and carved. He had gifted her with them on the night she first bested him on the training mats. He had been taken in the next Wraith raid.

There was little else in her bundle that had not once been a friend's, or a lover's. Her people could not afford to discard anything. They turned clothing and weapons into memory, and so preserved the lives that the Wraith had stolen.

Teyla tipped her head back, surprised again not to find her own familiar stars above to guide her. In the silence, she could hear the sigh of the ocean. She was in the Ancestral City. The place where the stories began. They had lost much, so much, but Dr. Weir and all the rest had lost as well. Their Earth was unreachable. The Wraith would haunt them, hunt them, destroy them if they could.

Teyla had bid Athos farewell when she stepped after Major Sheppard through the gate. Her people had followed her, carrying what they could, leaving behind what they must. There was no line between necessity and desire. There could be no item that was not personal.

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August 15, 2005