"Teyla," Dr. Weir says, smiling at her as she approaches them—her, Colonel Sheppard, and Rodney. "You look cold." And indeed, Teyla is.

Well, not cold, per se, but she can still feel the stinging bite of the wind against her cheeks, and she can still see flakes of snow caught near the ends of her hair, more of them in the creases of her jacket. When she lowers her arms, they fall to the ground, melting as soon as they hit the walkway beneath her feet.

The Colonel is smiling at her. Giving her a mock shiver. Saying, "You’re making *me* cold just looking at you." And Rodney. Rodney is looking as if he wants to touch. Her. Here. In front of everybody. It is a look that she has come to know well over the months, just as she has come to know that he will not follow through. That he will not reach out to her, not here.

"The first snowfall of the season," she says, although she knows it is obvious.

"And your people are prepared?" Dr. Weir asks.

Teyla nods. "We are prepared."

"Good," Dr. Weir says. "But please, let us now if there is anything else that we can do."

"Halling assures me that you are already doing enough—the extra blankets, food. It is plenty. More than we had on Athos."

And Dr. Weir nods, shrugs a little. "Well, just let us know."

With that, whatever conversation she interrupted appears to be at an end, because Dr. Weir nods at the Colonel and Rodney and Teyla again, then turns back to her office, and Colonel Sheppard pushes himself away from the railing and says, "Well, campers. I’ll see you two later," then laughs at the look of outrage on Rodney’s face.

"*Camper*?" Rodney splutters. "I’ll have you know, Sheppard, that I haven’t been a camper since—" but he is already gone, so Rodney trails off, looking back down at her, with that same look of *want* as before.

"Hi," he says.

"Hi," she answers. She expects him to ask how her trip to the mainland was. How much trouble Jinto had gotten into. If Halling had said anything to make her feel the need to go beat up on some marines, but he doesn’t.

Instead, he starts to reach towards her, then stops and says, "You— you have a—"

Before he finishes the thought, though, his hand darts forward again, fingers brushing over the tips of her hair, and coming away with a single snowflake on the pad of his second finger, one that is melting to a droplet of water even as she watches him watch it. After a moment, he rubs his fingers together, smearing it away. Then he turns back to her, grins slightly ruefully, and says, "You— You had a snowflake."

She nods, smiles kindly at him, and then, seemingly as one, they turn towards the hallway that leads to the labs, the living quarters. *Now* he asks her how her visit was, about Jinto and Halling, but as she speaks he is not looking towards her. He is focusing on his finger again, and the look on his face is not one that she is used to seeing.

He looks, she thinks, almost wistful.

*

It does not happen often these days that Teyla and the Colonel are alone for lunch, but Rodney was not yet ready to leave the labs and Ronon was testing the newest weapons that the SGC had sent to Atlantis via the Daedelus. So, it’s just her and the Colonel. Her and John, as he keeps telling her to call him.

*He* is the one to mention Rodney, though. He says, "McKay’s going to be pissed off if he misses the chocolate pudding cups," tapping the plastic cover of his own with the round of his spoon, and Teyla says, "I think that he will survive. He will be annoyed, but he will live."

"No matter how much he’d like us to believe otherwise," the Colonel says. They both laugh, then fall into silence for a few minutes as they eat. It is not until she has finished her vegetables that Teyla says, "May I ask you something, John?"

He arches an eyebrow, but nods, leaning backwards in his chair. "Shoot," he says.

It takes Teyla another moment to gather her thoughts, because this is not normally a question that she would ask him. Usually, she would ask Rodney, but for some reason, she has found herself unable to. When she is with him, the words just will not come.

"Rodney," she says finally. "Does he… enjoy snow? Does he come from a place with lots of snow?"

Now the Colonel’s other eyebrow curls upwards. She can almost hear him saying, ‘How should I know? McKay and I don’t usually spend time talking about *snow*,’ and so it is to his credit, she thinks, that he does not actually say such things.

Instead, he says, "Can I ask what brought this on? Why you’re asking? I mean, you don’t have to tell me, obviously, but—"

"No, no. Of course," she says. "The other day, when I returned from the mainland and we were talking about the snow, I just got the sense that he… missed it. And I was curious, I guess, as to whether he enjoyed it. If it might remind him of home. Of Earth, of Canada."

For a moment, the Colonel looks thoughtful. Then he smirks.

"After Antarctica, I can’t imagine that he misses it at all. I mean, you’ve got to understand: it’s a whole continent of snow. It never melts, not even during the summertime, and McKay lived there for… months. I mean, *I* liked it, of course, but Rodney just sort of strikes me as one of those who would have complained about it *every single day.*"

Teyla finds herself smiling. She, too, can imagine that—can, in fact, picture it in great detail, hear the words that she imagines Rodney might have uttered in such circumstances. Which was why she was asking, because for him to be wistful over such a thing was not something that she would have imagined.

"And then before that, it was Russia, which—huh." And now John pauses for a moment, looking even more thoughtful. "You know, you might actually be onto something here. Because Russia can be pretty damn cold, too. There’s this place called Siberia and—well, it’s not important. And of course, he grew up in Canada, which isn’t exactly known for its balmy weather, so."

"So it is possible?" Teyla asks. "That he does enjoy it? That he misses it, being here on Atlantis?"

"Because the one thing we have going for us here is climate control," John says, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. "So, to answer your question, I guess I’d say that yes, as out of character as it seems, I’d say it’s possible he might actually miss it. So, apparently Rodney might actually have some hidden depths? Who knew…"

And that, of course, is when Rodney approaches their table. He sets his tray down next to Teyla’s, looks at the Colonel and says, "Of *course* I have hidden depths, Colonel. I have depths hidden so deeply, you’ll never be able to *find* them, much less understand them."

"Of course you do, Rodney," John says, sounding deeply serious.

"I’ll have you know that I have—" Rodney starts, and then he spots the pudding cup on Teyla’s tray and pauses, blinks. Continues, "Is that a *chocolate pudding cup*? Those weren’t there when I went through the— Were you, uh, planning on eating yours?"

He gives Teyla a look that can only be called pleading, a look that she *is* quite able to resist, truly, but only when she needs to, and this, she thinks, is not one of those times. So, she picks up her pudding cup and hands it to him. He looks so pathetically grateful as he takes it from her that she may roll her eyes, just a bit. But it *is* with fondness.

Across the table from them, the Colonel says, "Yeah, McKay. Those depths are *really* hidden there."

"Oh, shut up," Rodney says.

*

It does not take much planning on Teyla’s part, getting Rodney to the mainland—just a bit of conspiratorial collaboration between her, the Colonel and Dr. Weir. A request for food that comes at a time that neither Colonel Sheppard nor any of the military personnel will be free to go. A hopeful smile on her part, coupled with a *Please, Rodney?*, a combination that she knows he’s never been able to refuse.

He tells John, "I have important work to be doing!" more than once, then always turns to her and says, "Not that I *don’t* want to go with you, of course, but—" It is the Colonel who, after the fourth such declaration, says, "McKay, you’re going. You might just want to get that through your head and stop complaining before you dig yourself an even bigger hole."

Then, Rodney looks guiltily at her, says, "I—"

And since this is her doing, she says, "It is fine. I understand." She does, but she also thinks that he needs this, knows that it is not something he would ever give himself time for.

So, they fly to the mainland, deliver the food to Halling and her people, and then, as Rodney is getting ready to head back, strapping himself into the pilot’s chair, she says, "Do we have time for a small detour?"

He stares at her for a moment, and although she always knew that he would agree in the end, he does so more quickly than she was expecting. It just takes a moment before he nods and says, "Where to?"

"There is a great plain," she says, "just on the other sides of these hills. It is very peaceful; I enjoy going there when I can, taking a few minutes to just breathe. It is a nice change, I find, after several days of being in the city."

Another nod, and then he is guiding the Jumper into the air, over the rise of hills that she indicated. He flies low to the ground and comes to a stop near the center of the field of snow, undisturbed whiteness that stretches out in all directions as far as the eye can see.

Even as she looks at it through the window of the Jumper, Teyla can feel the quiet, senses the peace. It is beautiful, the entire world soft and still, and she allows herself a few moments to absorb it all, to breathe in deeply, before she stands from her seat and extends her hand to Rodney.

He looks at it for a moment, then up at her face, and his eyes are narrowed in an almost suspicious way, as if he has suddenly realized that yes, she *has* been planning something, and maybe all that occurred back at Atlantis was not as innocent as it seemed. He takes her hand, though, and stands.

"You do realize," he says, "that it is below freezing outside. That if we stay out there too long, we run a severe risk of developing hypothermia, and—"

"And we will not stay long," she says. "Just for a few minutes. Just for a bit. It is just so quiet, so peaceful. Come, look—" For while she was talking, Rodney was opening the Jumper’s hatch. They are surrounded by cold air now, and Teyla feels herself shiver with it, feels Rodney squeeze her hand more tightly, but then she leads him outside. Out onto the plain.

Their feet crunch over the smooth snow, quiet, muffled sounds, and indeed, it is just as peaceful as Teyla imagined it would be. She closes her eyes, taking a deep breath in through her mouth, exhaling through her nose. The chilled air is invigorating, making her feel alive in ways she rarely feels in Atlantis, and when she opens her eyes again to look at Rodney, to see if he is reacting the same way, she sees that he is looking out across the plain. She shivers again and this time, he looks back down at her, pulls her to him, to his chest, and wraps his arms around her.

He is not smiling, she sees, but his eyes are bright, shining down at her, and she can see knowledge there, too, that he knows she planned this. The only thing he doesn’t know, she thinks, is why.

"Really, I should hate snow," he says after a moment, each word making a cloud of mist in the air. "I’ve certainly been subjected to enough of it during my lifetime."

"And yet you don’t?" She knows that he doesn’t; if he did, she knew that they wouldn’t be here.

"I suppose I grew used to it over the years. Somehow, it just doesn’t seem like winter without snow now. Not that we ever really have summer or fall or spring in Atlantis either, but—"

"Winter is different," Teyla says.

He nods, looking out over the plains again.

"I saw, back in Atlantis, back after I returned from the mainland after the first snow, that you missed it. I saw, and I thought—"

She trails off, unsure of what to say. He just pulls her more tightly to him, and bends his head to touch their lips together, just once, then moves so that it is their foreheads that are pressed together, so that they are staring into each other’s eyes. They stand there until they are both shivering, until a gentle breeze makes the snow flurry around them, and then pulling apart enough so that they can walk, they head back into the Jumper.

Then they are inside and they laugh as they nearly tumble into their seats, muscles too stiff to work properly, as Rodney straps himself into his chair and the Jumper hums to life around them. He looks over at her, grins, and this time, she is the one to reach for him. She stretches her hand out across the space between their seats, touches the tip of her finger to one of the snowflakes that is caught in the strands of his hair, captures it, and then watches as it melts against the warmth of her skin.