No Regrets
Rated: PG-13 (adult themes)
Category: Gen, John Angst, Ficlet, Dark.
Season: Four
Spoilers: Miller's Crossing
Summary: Would Sheppard Do It Again? You bet.
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I wonder if this is what I looked like when he fed on me.
I wonder if his face was the mask of orgasmic pleasure combined with primal need that I see now.
I bet it was pretty close. On both counts.
I don't want to watch this, but I can't turn away.
It's fascinating, in a morbid way. I'm filled with horror and perverse wonder simultaneously.
After all, I did this.
I sacrificed this man.
He only agreed to this because of what I did to him.
Sure, I had my reasons.
Sure, most would say there was no other way to save two invaluable lives.
But they'd be wrong.
There was another option.
I couldn't let Rodney go through with his self-sacrificing plan, but I could've done it.
After all, I've done it before.
Things are different now, since Kolya and his men aren't here to keep any feedings minimal, but I still could've done it.
But I didn't want to.
So instead I murdered this man.
I didn't even entertain the notion that I might have been able to save Wallace's life. I didn't consider whether a zat or an electrical shock or a stun grenade might have interrupted the feeding after the Wraith had taken what he needed to regain sufficient strength to finish the job we needed done. I didn't consider if another animal might have done the job.
No, I didn't think about any of those things. I didn't present them as options. The Wraith needed a meal, and I was angry at Wallace for what he did to my friends.
So I did what I had to do to get Wallace to agree to this.
I murdered him by proxy.
It's the least I can do to stay and watch as his life drains away to nothingness.
It's only fair that I witness the final step in a process that's been started in me more times than I want to count.
I killed this man.
I owe him that much.
And so I stay, rooted to the floor, as a man dies so that another may live.
The power I feel disturbs me, and when it's all over, bile rises in my throat.
My nausea isn't caused by the sight of the dead man on the floor or the newly invigorated Wraith.
Its cause is much worse than those simple things I've seen innumerable times before.
As I lift the phone on the wall off its cradle, I stare into the eyes of the Wraith.
I'm not afraid of him, even though I'm alone here now. I keep my weapon trained on him, but he makes no move to attack me.
In fact, he doesn't move at all. Even his eyes are frozen, locked on mine.
The infirmary answers. I speak without thought.
"I need a medical clean up crew to Dr. McKay's lab on level eighteen ASAP."
I hang up before I hear an answer.
And still Wraith eyes bore into me.
They skewer me like daggers, but I can't look away.
I see judgment there, and I can't hide from it.
He killed out of hunger.
I killed because I could.
There was a time in my life when I would never have thought I could sink to the level I did to do this to Wallace, but that was long ago.
Sometime between OTS and a fateful day in Afghanistan, that changed.
Long before the Wraith made me put a bullet in my commanding officer's heart, a knowledge of myself that I couldn't deny sank into my bones like tiny pieces of shrapnel.
Sometimes life can only be achieved through death.
And better them than us.
This doesn't bother me.
And the Wraith knows that.
He learned something about me today.
Something I already knew, but that seems to shock anyone else who goes digging deep enough to find it.
Even a Wraith.
I have no regrets.
I'd do it again.