The Ghost of Christmas Could Have Been

by liketheriver

A Christmas tale where the team is forced to consider the choices they’ve made along the way and how the effects of alternate decisions could have changed the fates of them all.

RATING: T for language.

SEASON: Probably sometime in the third season.

MAJOR CHARACTERS: The team, plus a smidge of Carson and Radek.

CATEGORY: a little of this, a little of that.

SUMMARY: A Christmas tale where the team is forced to consider the choices they've made along the way and how the effects of alternate decisions could have changed the fates of them all.

SPOILERS: Anything up through Season 3 is up for grabs.

FEEDBACK: Yes, please. I thrive on it and so do the bunnies.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own them but I'd love to get them in my stocking this year!

NOTES: This is a stand alone story and not part of either of my series. It also contains multiple character deaths, multiple times….but not really.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Special thanks, as always, to Koschka for the betaing. And I know I'm coming in just under the wire here for a Christmas fic, but I'm hoping you will look at it like I do my Christmas lights on the house and I pretend I'm still enjoying them when they're still up in March. Happy Holidays!

The Ghost of Christmas Could Have Been

or It's a Wonderful Life Until Everyone Dies

or How the Grinch Gave Back Christmas

by liketheriver

Once upon a time, there were four people from very different worlds that met under very unusual circumstances. These people were very different from one another, and yet not as much as they might think at times. Today, as it turned out, was one of those times. But today was also, it turned out, to be a day where they realized they were wrong about those differences. It was just going to take a broken sensor, a big argument, some old fears, and an even older man to lead them down that path. A path that was even more treacherous, dear readers, than the one they were traversing at that very moment…

Stupid shrubs. Stupid trees. Stupid rocks. Stupid sensors that kept being disconnected by stupid alien woodland creatures.

These were the thoughts going through the head of one Dr. Meredith Rodney McKay, Ph. D. as he tripped over yet another root on his hike through the forest on the planet that housed the Alpha Site for the Atlantis expedition. Atlantis was situated way far away, in a galaxy far, far away (but not that particular far, far away galaxy as that's a different story and copyright infringement entirely) from Dr. McKay's home planet of Earth. And several years prior, he and one of his current hiking companions, Lt. Colonel John Sheppard, United States Air Force, also of Earth, had stepped through an ingenious and highly technical piece of, well, technology along with a lot of other Earth natives and found themselves instantly transported into this far, far away galaxy known as Pegasus.

Once there, they had many exciting and dangerous adventures, far too many to tell now, but two of which are important to our story as they explain how they came to meet Teyla Emmagan of the Athosian people and Specialist Ronon Dex of Sateda, both born and raised in the far, far away Pegasus Galaxay and both also trekking through the woods with our two Earthborn protagonists. However, as exciting as those tales may be, involving nasty creatures called Wraith and daring rescues and new friendships and exemplary bravery, as well as copious amounts of tea and sunscreen, now is not the time to retell them. Now is the time to unfold our holiday tale. For at this very moment, as our four stalwart friends were braving the wilds of this alien planet, back in the Milky Way Galaxy on the planet known as Earth, it was December twenty-fourth, also known as…

"Christmas Eve, Rodney. It's Christmas Eve. Couldn't this have waited a few days?"

Dr. McKay gave an aggrieved sigh in response to Col. Sheppard's observation. "Yes, I know what day it is and no, it couldn't wait."

"I don't see what the big rush is about this."

Stumbling once again and adding woodland creature burrows to the list of stupid things on this planet, Rodney explained, "Because, Colonel, I should have taken care of this two weeks ago. But that little mission where we were lost in the woods for six days with nothing to eat but a handful of berries and a mushroom kind of cut into my schedule this month."

"It was three days and would have been half that time if you hadn't eaten that mushroom in the first place and started hallucinating the rest of us as sports mascots. What is up with that fear anyway?"

"Look, you have your phobia of clowns, Teyla has a thing about spiders, and Ronon has issues with forks and I don't lord that over any of you, now do I?" Shifting uncomfortably with a minute shudder, the scientist winced. "And how can you not have an issue with them? Those giant heads completely out of proportion with their already oversized bodies and the way they look at you with their throats, not to mention you have no idea what the guy inside is doing to himself while he's dancing around. They are just damn creepy." Turning and continuing down the trail, he justified. "Besides, you didn't have to come along. You could have stayed and helped hang tinsel for the party tonight."

"Right. I spent two days chasing you through the woods while you thought I was a giant hedgehog in a football jersey after you ate the wrong fungus and I'm just supposed to let you go out here on your own? I don't think so."

"Technically, it was a badger, but hedgehog might have been more appropriate given your hair."

"The point is, McKay, I have no desire to spend Christmas Day being pelted by pinecones and small rocks because you were allowed to run around unsupervised in the woods. Which, by the way, if that is all you can come up with to protect yourself, we have some serious survival skills to work on."

"Hey, I was drugged out of my mind, I obviously wasn't thinking clearly. And if it took you two days to catch me, it must have been effective on some level."

"Only because I didn't want a repeat of the paperwork involved with shooting you," Sheppard growled.

"Besides it wasn't that that was all I could come up with, it was all I could lift."

"New Years resolution, McKay; you're spending more time in the gym and stopping by to ask if I'm ready to go to lunch doesn't count."

"Are you two going to spend the entire time arguing like an elderly couple or are we going to complete the repairs so we can return to Atlantis?"

The grumpy tone of their female teammate caught both men off guard. "We're not arguing like an old couple," the Colonel protested.

With a sigh, she pushed past the two men and took the lead. "Fine, you are not. And any evidence to the contrary that I might present will only result in the prolonging of this mission. Forget I said anything."

"What's with her?" Rodney's question was greeted with a shrug from Sheppard but received a grumbled response from Ronon.

"She has a baby thing she's supposed to attend on the Mainland."

Stopping in her tracks, Teyla turned with exhausted patience. "Ronon, I have already told you, if you do not wish to attend then you do not have to attend. I simply thought you might enjoy it. The naming ritual is an old Athosian tradition with much ceremony but I can see now that you would probably find it dull."

"What's that supposed to mean?" the Satedan grumbled.

"It means you prefer to do things that involve shooting more than sitting and observing."

"I'm not a barbarian; I know how to behave at social function. Just because I was forced to live like I did by the Wraith doesn't mean I don't come from a society that was far more advanced than Athos has been in generations."

"Are you saying Athos is primitive, Ronon Dex?"

Rodney stepped back out of the way of the woman as she glared menacingly at the larger man who just raised an amused and challenging eyebrow at her response. The Colonel, however, stepped in between them. "All right, let's just calm down here. No need to get upset over something like a baby shower."

"Oh, so it is all right for you to be upset about missing your holiday celebration but not for me to be upset about missing mine?"

"That's not what I'm saying at all, although you are taking this a little hard."

With an angry shake of her head Teyla headed back up the trail at a brisk pace. "I have obligations beyond those that involve Atlantis, John. The universe does not revolve around Earth and its people no matter what you might think."

"I don't want to go to your party after all," Ronon called after her. "I'll stay on Atlantis and go to theirs. There's supposed to be lots of finger food. Not a fork in sight." The last was directed at McKay with a glower as he passed the man and followed after Teyla.

"Are you happy, now, Rodney? You've managed to piss everyone off with this little field trip of yours. Or maybe I should call you Ebenezer."

Colonel Sheppard followed after his two angry teammates, leaving Dr. McKay to shout at his retreating back. "Oh, yeah? Well, Scrooge you, Sheppard!" With a final mumble that there must be a better way to make a living, Rodney followed in the wake of his irritated teammates.

And so our four heroes continued up the hill in silence, except, of course for Dr. McKay, who cursed aloud the stupid shrubs and stupid trees and rocks and woodland creatures, etcetera, as his list continued to grow. And we cannot waste anymore time discussing what he found stupid about this planet as we are about to meet a new character in our tale. One no one was expecting to meet because they were on the Alpha Site and everyone knows it is common knowledge that…

"No one lives on the Alpha Site, Rodney. That was one of the reasons it was chosen as the Alpha Site."

"Yes, Sheppard, I know. I was part of the selection team, remember? But I am telling you, this sensor was not disconnected by some little critter gnawing on it." Holding up the cable for his team leader to inspect, he pointed out the connector. "See this? You have to push and twist to take this apart. I don't know of many animals that are capable of such dexterous manipulation of equipment. Hell, half my staff can't even operate these damn things."

"Half your staff can't open a soda can without ending up in the infirmary, yourself included."

Rodney frowned at Sheppard's drawled observation. "I told you that was a pressure difference problem. And for your information, soda is extremely caustic and it hurt like a son of bitch when it hit my eye."

Ignoring the rationalization, Colonel Sheppard furrowed his brow and surveyed the landscape. "Are you sure it couldn't have been an animal? I mean, we had raccoons that could get into almost anything back home."

"A raccoon?" McKay demanded in disbelief. "You think an alien raccoon did this? Traced the wiring down to this connection and took it apart without disturbing anything else on the sensor?"

"I don't see why not."

Blue eyes rolled at the simple response. "Will you please, for just one minute, stop thinking about the damn Christmas party and focus on the problem at hand?"

"I'm not thinking about the Christmas party. I'm thinking you are overreacting about an unplugged cable. And I'm starting to suspect that you don't want to have any fun so you're going to make sure none of us do either."

"Oh, that has got to be the most ridiculous theory I have ever heard…"

When the two men descended into an all out argument, Rodney throwing the cable to the ground and standing to poke a finger in the Colonel's chest which was met with a finger poked in his in return which moved on to a shove, countered by another shove, and that resulted in Teyla stepping between the men and being shoved to the ground, which led to Ronon tackling Sheppard for being the one to accidentally shove Teyla when he was aiming for Rodney, which led to Rodney yelling at the Satedan to cut it out before pointing out that he'd get more leverage if he planted his knee in the Colonel's back, which led to Teyla standing and calling Rodney an arrogant, self-centered, example of man, which led to the old man watching it all from the half-rotted log to whistle sharply and prove once and for all that the Alpha Site wasn't uninhabited as originally thought.

Our protagonists froze in their actions, all of them looking up to see a man dressed in little more than a loin cloth, his long white hair worked into a multitude of braids as was his equally long white beard, as he leaned on a shoulder-high branch worked over with elaborate carvings and inlays of wood and stones he was using as a staff.

"How is a man," the old one demanded, "supposed to meditate with this ruckus going on out here?"

The teammates regarded each other in surprise before Rodney finally asked what they all were thinking. "Who the hell are you?"

"I am Eelon. Now, go away. I'm a busy man."

"What?" Rodney called stupidly after the small hunched form as he tottered off immediately following his dismissal.

He didn't slow, simply instructed, "And take that noisy dung heap with you."

"You mean the sensor?"

Teyla's question received much the same reaction. "It hums. All day. All night. Haven't had a decent night's sleep since it showed up."

"But this was installed almost two years ago," Rodney challenged.

"I'm a patient man, but I'd finally had enough. Now take it and go."

Their argument forgotten, the team followed after the man, Sheppard trotting up to block his progress. "Wait. Who are you? What are you doing here?"

"I told you, I'm Eelon. Pay attention because I don't like to repeat myself." When the gentle tap of his staff to the Colonel's shoulder didn't cause the man to move, he rapped harder, causing Sheppard to let out an annoyed 'ow!' as he rubbed at the offended arm. "As to why I'm here, I live here." He raised the staff again threateningly and Sheppard moved but fell into step right behind him.

"What do you mean you live here?"

Looking back at the remaining Atlanteans bringing up the rear, Eelon asked, "Are you all as stupid as this one or is he just the token idiot?"

"I believe what Colonel Sheppard is trying to say," Teyla started to explain even as she fought to hide her amusement, "is that we thought no one lived on this world."

"Well, you're wrong. Obviously. I've been here longer than any of you have been alive."

"That's impossible. We scanned this planet before we chose it for the Alpha Site. There were no human life forms present on the planet."

Rodney's confident tone only had the man leaning in and observing to Teyla, "So, two of them, huh? And the big one evidently can't verbalize beyond a few grunts and growls. Is this some sort of charity work you do for the mentally challenged or are you just attracted to simpleton men?"

"Perhaps you should take us to your village," Teyla offered when the men on her team all frowned at the stranger's conclusion.

"Village? I haven't been to my village since I was a young man."

"So, this isn't your home world?" Ronon asked, suddenly curious.

"It speaks!" Eelon feigned amazement even as he stepped cautiously up onto a log in his path. "And no, this isn't my home world."

Colonel Sheppard caught up with the old man, offering a hand to keep him from teetering off when he started to step down. "Then why are you here?" He was rewarded with another rap from the cane, this time to his knuckles, before the same staff was used to help Eelon lower himself to the ground.

"Because I want to be. Because it's quiet here, or at least it was until that annoying humming thing showed up."

"But what do you do here? And where?"

Evidently Rodney's questions were the last straw as the old man turned and pointed the staff at him threateningly. "Enough! I left my home world to get away from people. What makes you think I would want to talk with them now? Now go away and leave me be."

"We can't," the Colonel admitted with a small grimace when Eelon looked as if he might hit him again. "You kind of chose the same world we did and we need to know more about you before we just let you stay here with us."

"Let me stay? Let me stay? I chose this world first. You go choose some other world." The shooing motion indicated that he expected them to go pack up the entire Alpha Base at that very moment.

"We can't do that," Sheppard tried to rationalize. "This wasn't an easy choice for us."

"Choices rarely are easy. It's obvious that's the reason you four are fighting."

"What the hell does our choice of this planet as the Alpha Site have to do with our argument?" Rodney threw up exasperated hands and shook his head.

Ignoring the small rant behind him, Colonel Sheppard appeased. "Look, just show us your hut or cave or tree house or whatever you live in, let us see that you aren't a threat, and we'll be on our merry way." The wizened eyes narrowed in contemplation and Sheppard pushed his advantage. "We'll even move the sensor so you can't hear it anymore."

"Perhaps you are right. Perhaps you should come to my dwelling. It would be for the best." Without another word, he turned and continued on down his nonexistent path.

"Are you insane?" Dr. McKay hissed at his teammate. "You can't just promise that we'll leave him alone."

"Why not? If he's not a threat then why worry about him?"

"Because, Colonel, he could be lying. He could have an entire band of thugs hiding out in the woods with him. He could be an escaped criminal from his home world. He could have been banished. He could be infected with some horrible disease that wiped out his entire planet."

"Well, then I guess we should have Carson check us out when we get back."

The smirk only made Rodney want to punch the man wearing it and he fisted his hands, whether in preparation or to keep from doing it, he couldn't be entirely sure. "Once, just once, Sheppard, I wish you would follow the rules."

"Oh, yeah, you're one to talk there, McKay."

Ignoring the rolled eyes at his comment, Rodney stalked after the others as they made their way to the small mud and stick hovel the man evidently called home. It had obviously been there a while as the surface was covered with small plants growing on all sides so that it blended in perfectly with the surrounding forest. In fact, if Eelon hadn't stopped and opened the foliage-covered door, Rodney would have walked right past it.

The inside walls of the small structure were covered with mud like the outside, with shelves made out of large sheets of tree bark plastered into them with the mire. Crude handmade lamps and an opening in the center of the ceiling to let smoke from the fire ring escape provided the only light. Animal skins lined the floor and a sleeping pallet in a corner and food supplies and various handmade tools were stored sporadically around the hut. And intermixed with the mundane were the fantastic. From the ceiling hung a mobile made from literally hundreds of brightly colored insects that were similar in form to butterflies. Imbedded in the walls was a mosaic of small river pebbles, moss, and grass that showed a landscape of rolling hills in various shades of brown and green. A homemade loom sat in one corner, an intricate geometric pattern of purples and yellows revealing itself in the cloth he was weaving, and the bowls of dye rested on the shelf above. Various herbs hung drying from the rafters above the fire ring, their scents competing with the smell of a stew cooking from a tripod hanging over the fire.

"Wow," Sheppard observed when his eyes had adjusted.

Teyla smiled in awe at the way the mobile of wings fluttered like a living swarm of the insects thanks to a small breeze from the open door. "These are… beautiful."

Rodney tilted his head as he studied the mural on the wall, or more specifically, the notations carved into the mud beside it. There was something familiar about them that he just couldn't place. "So, were you a holy man back on your own world?"

The inquiry had Eelon snorting. "To some, yes. To others, I was a monster."

"And to you?" Ronon didn't turn from the animal skin he was examining when he asked the question.

"Maybe I misjudged you," the old man admitted before continuing as he reached into the rafters for a bouquet of a dried muddy brown flowers. "I made my choice, as did you all. The difference is, I am content with my choice but I don't think the same can be said for you, for any of you."

"What do you know of my choices?" Ronon snorted.

"As much as you know of mine," he conceded, "but I can tell you this, I have made my choice between art and science, between friends and duty, between my people and myself, between myself and the universe. And I questioned those choices, just as you are all questioning yours."

Rodney opened a handmade jar and peeked inside. "I've never questioned any of my choices. Besides, what's the point? What's done is done."

"But you've wondered, haven't you? You've wondered, 'what if I had done things differently?'"

"Well, everyone has wondered that now and again," McKay countered, replacing the pot, "but you can never know for sure, so it's really an exercise in futility."

Rodney frowned in confusion at Eelon's response, which was to curve his lips into the first smile he had shown since they had met the stranger before turning to Sheppard. "Will you really move the humming machine and leave me in peace?"

The Colonel traced a finger over the landscape of pebbles, following a swirling loop of inlaid stone that formed an eddy in a river of rock and mud. "I don't see why not. Nothing here seems to be a threat to our people."

"Good." Crumbling the flowers into the fire, he blinked back against the pungent smoke that almost instantly filled the room. "Then I will show you my thanks."

"What is that?" McKay demanded, snatching the plant from the man who just smiled knowingly. But the room was already starting to spin, the mud hut swirling like the patterns on the wall, and the faces of his teammates warping before him. "Oh, this is so not good." Because when it came down to choices, following Eelon back to his dwelling may not have been one of the best ones he'd made in his life. Of course, in order to do that, he had to come to Pegasus in the first place which tied back into a domino effect of choices he had made along the way.

And before he lost consciousness entirely, he saw Sheppard collapse on the floor beside him, heard Ronon call Teyla's name as she did the same before the large man followed suit. Then all he could hear was the piano.

And this, dear readers, is where the nightmares begin.

xxxx

Meredith McKay had been born to play the piano. It had been his mother's dream to have a musician in the family, and she had pushed him to continue the lessons even after his first instructor had told him he'd never be able to get beyond the technical aspects of the art and actually feel the music. His sister, Jeannie, refused to even touch an instrument, being totally enamored with physics, and Meredith definitely showed the same promise in the sciences. But despite his father's desire to see both his children following in his footsteps, Meredith had held out to his wishes and listened to his mother and now here he was. Yep, here he fucking was.

The bar was crowded, even for a Friday, and the smoke formed a hazy cloud swirling up, up, up through the spotlight shining hotly down, down, down from above. Ron raised his trumpet, tearing a stream of turbulence through the haze, and a half a beat too late, causing McKay to throw in an extra note to compensate even as he mentally calculate the flow dynamics of the air currents the motion caused. It was something he did to keep his mind off the distractions of the audience. He wasn't a concert pianist, he played bars, the occasional corporate gig, a wedding here and there. Sometimes solo but mainly with the quartet. Jake, tall and lanky, basically sprawled behind the drum set in his characteristic casualness. Ty- short for Tyrone and why people couldn't just accept the name they had been given and get over themselves- was a little guy that played a big standing bass. Then there was Ron on horns and who ever heard of a Rastafarian that played jazz? But he did, and usually well…when he wasn't coming in late on his solo. Mer liked the security of a band, which had surprised him when he started playing with them, seeing as he tended to avoid people if at all possible. But four seemed to be a comfortable number for him and despite the fact that Ron consistently missed his cues, he was generally happy with the results.

But bars were noisy, tonight being no exception, and the majority of the people there weren't interested in the music. They were there for the booze and the people they were with or the people that they wanted to be with. There was the constant hum of conversation, the rattling clank of glasses, the mechanical whirl of blenders, the high-pitched laughter of flirting, the whine of a chair leg across the wooden floor, the competing music of a cell phone ringing, and all of it could pull his attention from the job at hand. So he emerged himself like he always did in the physics of the world around him.

It all came down to waveforms. Vibrations from the hammers on the strings of the piano formed standing waves, their frequency a correlation to the harmonics they produce. The A above middle C vibrated at 440 hertz with the harmonics at an integer multiple of 440 thereafter, the shape of the piano box amplified the sound, the trumpet produced its own unique harmonics with the relative strength of its frequency determining the characteristic sound of the instrument, and all of it blending to form that elusive creature known as music.

Closing his eyes, he could feel the vibrations that were disrupting the flow of air around the room, and even though he knew this wasn't what that piano teacher of old had meant about feeling the music, it was close enough for him. He could envision the waves from his piano competing with the others being produced by his bandmates, the voices, the chairs, the blenders, the clink of glass and screech of laughter. He could calculate the formulas that formed in his mind, the numbers running through his head even as his fingers ran along the keyboard and at times like this he wondered how he could have ever considered pursuing science when the mathematics of his art was oh so much more.

But it was a lonely understanding. His sister and father couldn't appreciate the sheer beauty of being able to comprehend a world where music was science and the guys in the band tended to go glassy eyed when he tried to explain the intricacies of how wave form was impacted by string length, hence the harmonics change. Even the diagrams, scribbled on cocktail napkins when they hung around after closing time for a final late night drink, did little to help. Still, they put up with his lectures, as well as his attitude, because they knew he was the best person for the band, which was more than he could say about his dad, who had never given up on pointing out what a mistake he had made of his life. A job Jeannie had more than proficiently taken up ever since their father had died.

Jake's voice jarred him from his equatic trance he had fallen into, and he realized he had stopped playing right on cue even though his thoughts were a million miles away. "Thank you very much," the drummer was telling the applauding crowd, "We'll be back after a little break."

There was something ironic about having the drummer as the bandleader. Ty often teased him about the front man being the guy behind the drum set to which Jake would reply with a slow grin that he could watch their backs better from that position. Standing from the bench, Meredith sipped from his vodka and tonic (hold the lime), before joining the others at the table off to the side of the stage.

"Good set tonight, McKay," Ron offered after he placed an order for his own drink.

"You were late… again."

The large man shrugged off the criticism easily. "Nobody seems to notice these things but you.

"That's because I pick up the slack and cover for you. Regardless of how paltry the money is, you should at least take pride in the fact that you are a professional musician and attempt to play like one."

"Christ, Meredith, what bug crawled up your ass and took up permanent residence there?"

If Mer had ever had a best friend, Jake would have been it. The man at least knew the difference between a sine and cosine and despite the marked difference in their backgrounds, he could actually carry on a conversation with him without feeling that he was talking to an alien being. In fact, it was Jake that had approached him a few years prior when he was playing in the piano bar of a local hotel and asked him to join the band he was forming up. And he was one of the few people that could have made the observation he just had while sipping from his longneck bottle of beer and not set the pianist into an all out rant.

Instead, Meredith slumped further into his seat and fished an ice cube from his glass. "My sister's coming into town tomorrow. Time for her monthly diatribe on all the shit I've done wrong in my life, this," arms flung wide to encompass the entire bar, "of course, being at the top of that illustrious list."

"You could always send her my way, I'm sure I could find someway to distract her."

Jake's sly grin had Mer rolling his eyes. "This is my sister we're talking about here, not one of you barfly conquests."

"Speaking of which," Ty hitched his head toward the bar, "check out the red head talking with Bobby. This is the third straight Friday she's been in here."

Craning his neck, Meredith could just make out the long legs crossed in a way that caused the already short skirt she was wearing to all but disappear as the woman laughed at something the bartender in question was saying. "Looks like you're out of luck with this one, Jake. Bobby beat you to the punch."

"Oh, ye of little faith. Let me show you how a pro does it."

"So now you're getting paid to be a Capt. Kirk?"

Standing he patted McKay on the shoulder with a broad smile, "Not yet, but I should be. It'd probably be more lucrative than my current occupation."

Meredith watched him weave through the tables and approach the woman at the bar, snorting to himself when Bobby frowned at the interruption. "He is going to get his ass kicked if he keeps this up."

"It's his life," Ron observed philosophically, "Nobody can tell him how to live it, but him."

Ty added, "That's some advice you should take yourself, Mer."

"You don't understand. My father's entire life was physics. When I dropped out of graduate school to go into music, he didn't speak to me for almost a year."

"Look, no offense to your dad, but what difference would it have made to have one more physicist in the world?" Ron dropped a bill on the cocktail waitress's tray when she delivered his drink then continued his conversation. "So you might sit in a lab and study how tiny little objects react when you heat them up and then write a bunch of squiggly equations with more letters than numbers to explain it all. How is that making life better for me, or Ty, or Jake, or you even? It's not like you would save the known universe from destruction just because you chose that life over the one you did, right?"

Meredith bit his tongue to keep from pointing out all the benefits physics had affording the other man because when you got right down to it, Ron was right. In the grand scheme of things, what difference would he be able to make? He was one man and if he had decided to play the piano instead of study the neutron density of star clusters, then the majority of people on Earth wouldn't be any better or worse off as a result.

He was just about to agree, when a scream from the doorway had him and the rest of his bandmates looking to see what was happening. Several people ran out the front door, soon followed by several others. When Jake disappeared as well, Meredith stood with the others to go see what was going on. Pushing out to the street, he saw Jake standing on the curb staring up into the sky. In the distance sirens sounded throughout the city.

"What is it?" Mer asked warily as Ty and Ron flanked his right side.

"I don't know. But there was a light in the sky… there!"

McKay followed where his friend was pointing to see a shaft of light cutting down through the blackness of the night. What the hell was that? Ty's voice had him jumping. "Is it a search light? Maybe from a helicopter or something?"

Before he could respond, a high-pitched whine could be heard; the sound growing until it passed right overhead with a gust that nearly knocked him from his feet. "Holy fuck! Did you see that thing? That was no helicopter."

"A jet maybe?" Jake was picking himself up from the crouch he had taken when the craft passed over.

"Flying fifty feet off the ground?" Meredith protested. "Besides, it didn't look like any jet I've ever seen before."

"It's coming back around."

Ron was right, the whine was returning and Mer suddenly had the urge to run back inside and hide under the nearest table. Because this couldn't be good. And when the beam of light came down, traversing down the streets and the people gaping up at the ship were simply gone after it passed by, he decided that was probably the best idea he had had all day.

"And I repeat, holy fuck!" Evidently his was the consensus reaction because the crowd that had been watching with curious fascination suddenly was charging through the streets in an all out panic.

"Move!" Jake ordered when the whining was joined by a second craft and he and the others gladly obliged.

They were running with the mob of people, scattering when the beams came down once again and more people disappeared. And how the hell could this be happening? More importantly, why? Were the ships military? Was this a government conspiracy come to life? Or were they alien and he had suddenly found himself elbow deep in a Twilight Zone episode?

The asphalt was suddenly coming up to meet him at an alarmingly fast rate and he felt the knees of his pants, as well as a several layers of skin. rip away as Jake tackled him to the ground and out of the path of another beam. Rolling to his back, he looked up just in time to see Ty and Ron vanish from sight.

"Where…?" But he didn't get a chance to finish as Jake was already yanking him back to his feet and pushing him along.

"Don't stop, we can't stop!" he yelled over the whine of the ships.

"But Ron… Ty…"

Another rough push from his friend finally had his feet moving. "Go!" He ran until he thought his lungs would explode and was just about to collapse when Jake yanked him down a side street and into the path of creatures that he decided would fit right in with the next Matrix film.

Pale skin that almost glowed with the same eeriness as the beams from their ships shown from under a frame of long hair of the same ghostly shade, and all of it in sharp contrast to the black leather that flowed down to their ankles. They stalked the streets with all the confidence of a conquering army. And that, Meredith realized with a nauseating sureness that had his knees threatening to buckle, was exactly what they were.

"Jake?" He would know what to do, he had to know what to do, because Mer had no fucking clue what they should do.

Jake's hand locked onto his arm, easing him backwards and away from the approaching…things. "Easy, McKay, don't check out on me yet."

"This isn't happening, this isn't happening, this isn't happening…"

The talons that dropped vice-like on his shoulder and sudden absence of the human hand on his arm only proved him wrong in his assessment of the situation. And the scream that Jake let out when the creature that had yanked him away planted its hand on his chest had him wishing like hell that he wasn't.

Because what difference did it make that he could graph the way his own scream oscillated across the sound waves his best friend was forming as his life was being sucked away where he stood?

xxxx

"No!"

His own voice had Rodney flinching awake in the small hut on the Alpha Site. With his heart throbbing painfully in his chest, he could just make out the unmoving form of Colonel Sheppard on the ground near him. Oh, fuck, he thought in a lingering panic, the Wraith had gotten him, gotten all of them… or some people almost like them or… hell, it was close enough. He quickly scrambled over to check his fallen friend, almost whimpering in relief when he found a pulse.

But our hero need not be so worried, as the aged stranger was about to inform him.

"He's unharmed. And it's best not to wake him before the process is complete."

The elderly voice had Rodney jumping and looking around to find Eelon sitting at his loom, weaving like it was nothing unusual to drug passersby into a nightmarish alternate reality. "What did you do to us?" he croaked, running a shaking hand through his hair.

Eelon didn't look up, simply kept intertwining the strings before him. "Did you see?"

"See? Is that what you wanted? For me to see Earth invaded by the Wraith?" Rodney sat back on his haunches, unwilling to leave Sheppard's side even as he scanned the room for his other teammates, breathing a little easier when he saw the regular rise and fall of their chests on the other side of the dimming fire. But the relief was dampened when Ronon twitched once, mumbling incoherently where he lay. Beside him Sheppard sucked in a ragged breath and his face contorted in pain. Teyla lay stone still.

"The visions are different for everyone. You saw what you wanted to see."

"I can assure you I had no desire to see my home world destroyed," the scientist snorted angrily. "In fact, that's exactly what I've been trying to keep from happening ever since I arrived in this damned galaxy."

"So, by coming here you have kept that from happening?" Rodney opened his mouth to argue before closing it when it sank in what the old man was saying. If there was one thing he hated more than being drugged by grumpy old strangers, it was having the same grumpy old stranger made a valid point. "You have been wondering about that, haven't you? What difference you make here? If it was worth it, what you gave up?" Rodney expected Eelon to ask what conclusion he had come to, because, really, what's the point of making a point if you couldn't gloat about it. But instead he leaned back with his hands in his lower back and moaned. "I'm getting too old for this. You'll find that out for yourself eventually; the mind will be willing to do things the body won't. You'll also find that science isn't as infallible as you think it is."

"You say that like you know it from personal experience."

"I know science can destroy as much as it can preserve."

"Yeah, well I kind of know that from personal experience myself."

"Then we have more in common than I first thought." He didn't elaborate, simply retrieved a different shuttle of yarn from the basket beside the loom.

Ronon flinched again in his sleep causing Rodney to furrow his brow. "Are you sure they're okay?"

"Oh, I'm sure in their individual visions they are far from, as you say, 'okay'. But just like you weren't physically harmed, neither are they being harmed." Resuming his weaving, Eelon flicked a hand over his shoulder. "There's water in a bucket. Drink some if you want. It will help avoid the headache later."

Not trusting his legs, McKay crawled the short distance, finding he was thirstier than he thought he would be. Ronon flailed, calling a name he had never heard mentioned before, and Rodney had to wonder if the Satedan's dream was as unnerving as his own had been.

And the truth be told, gentle readers, it was.

xxxx

The small body rested comfortably against the chest of Ronon Dex. A turmoil of yellow curls teased under his nose causing him to crinkle it to keep from sneezing. The motion had the weight shifting with a delicate exhalation of breath and he froze, not daring to move in fear of the consequences of his actions. The child twisted, the hand on his collarbone flexed and tangled into his own hair before the tiny form settling back into sleep. Relaxing back into the sofa, he almost laughed at the absolute terror the idea of waking a napping two-year-old girl brought to mind. But Aderra was a child of wild tempers, a trait her mother pinned firmly on her father, and he had learned through many a missed naptime that it was best to let sleeping babies lie.

Besides, there was something… indescribable about having a child, his child, sleeping on his chest. Something mind-boggling about the feel of tiny muscles quivering, fingers flinching and eyelids fluttering through a dream. Something mesmerizing about the way the smell of dark earth and green grass on soft skin after playing outside before naptime or of scented soap and fresh linens following bath time before bed. And when he stopped to think about it, it would tighten his chest even as she relaxed limply against it.

"Ronon." Melena was standing in the doorway and he raised a finger to his lips to warn her to be quiet. Her long hair, the same color as their daughter's, was pinned up and she banished a loose strand back behind her ear even as she continued in a lowered voice. "Callen has been waiting for you. You promised to show him the next stance when Aderra took her nap."

"Well, the only way she would fall asleep was on me," he whispered, smiling at his wife.

"Yes I'm sure that's the case." She mocked with a smile as she walked across the room, lifted the sleeping child and resettled her against her own shoulder with an efficiency that stunned Ronon.

"You're a braver person than I'll ever be," he admitted, instantly missing the warmth even as he stretched stiff muscles.

"The trick is to never show them fear." Leaning in she planted a quick kiss on his lips. "Go, Callen is waiting."

Retrieving his sword from the closet, he strapped it to his back and stepped out into the sunny day to see his six-year-old son attacking a bed of wild flowers with his wooden practice sword. "I see you've chosen a formidable enemy today."

Looking back over his shoulder and his own small sword sheath, the boy shrugged in embarrassment. "They're just a bunch of flowers."

"I was talking about your mother, she's fond of this patch." Ruffling the dark head of hair, he smacked it lightly in play. "Come on now, show me the first position."

Callen took up the bent-knee pose, sword at the ready, and Ronon nodded his approval. "Good, you've been practicing."

"Dad, were all the boys on Sateda trained to fight?"

His easy smile transmuted into a one of sadness. Sateda, his home, was no more. He had left her in her time of need, choosing instead to accompany Melena through the stargate before the Wraith attacked. If it had been just him, he would have stayed and taken up arms against the enemy. But Melena, stubborn woman that she was, refused to leave if he stayed. And sacrificing his life in the name of honor was one thing, but sacrificing the life of the woman he loved in the name of a hopeless cause was something else entirely. In the end, he decided it was something he couldn't do, so he had left his home and let it fall victim to the Wraith in hopes that they would avoid that fate a little longer here.

"No, Callen, not everyone was trained. Some chose other professions instead."

"If we had stayed, I would have wanted to be a soldier like you."

Swallowing down the sorrow that his children would never know the beauty of his world he forced a grin. "You would have made a good one. But you would need to know all your stances. Are you ready to learn the second?"

"Yeah," the boy responded eagerly.

Standing behind him, Ronon placed his hands on the practice sword. "You hold it like this…" but he got no further as his neighbor, Harwon, ran up the small lane that divided their property. And given the man's weight, that was no small feat. It also couldn't be a good sign.

"Ronon," he plump man called breathlessly. "The Lanteans have come, or what is left of them."

Frowning at the news, he sent his son into the house with a message for Melena that he was heading into town and followed after Harwon. The Lanteans had traded regularly with the Nordons over the past couple of years. Ronon had been asked to listen in on the initial negotiations. Actually, he had been asked to stand with his sword and look intimidating seeing as the Nordons were a farming people with little to no tactical skills. But he had found the initial team that came through made up of the leader, Sheppard, the scientist, McKay, the woman, Teyla, and another soldier, Ford, to be kindred spirits. They were fighters... well, most of them were, but even McKay could handle himself it appeared. And he had made a point of being in town whenever they or the other Lanteans came to trade. Over the years, team members had changed, but Sheppard, Teyla and McKay had returned many times. Their doctor, Beckett, had even checked Melena over when she became ill during her pregnancy with Aderra. And to think that something had happened to these people only made him outpace his neighbor to reach the town all the sooner.

Once at the town center, he saw several of the Lanteans milling about the central plaza, many nursing injuries or aiding those that needed medical assistance. He thought to call Melena, with her medical training she would be an asset, but stopped when he saw someone he recognized. Beckett was working on a man and barking orders to the people around him. Once he got closer he saw that the man was McKay.

"Increase the pressure on his leg. That's a severed artery we're dealing with, not a simple scratch." Turning and looking right past where Ronon stood, the doctor called to one of the soldiers. "How's that field hospital coming? We have people in need of surgery." The soldier provided a brief update on the modifications taking place in one of the local houses and Beckett nodded his understanding. When he felt he had things under control as much as possible, he moved to where another person was calling for him.

"Beckett," Ronon hailed as he caught up to the man.

"Ah, Ronon, how are you, lad?"

But the question was asked absent-mindedly as he bent to look at the injuries of a wounded soldier then turned to address the nurse. "Prep him for surgery, right now he's number three on the list."

"What happened?"

"The Wraith. They attacked Atlantis when our sensors were down, blasted the bloody hell out of the city from orbit before invading full force. Rodney was in a section of the city that was bombed. Colonel Sheppard managed to get him to the gateroom but given his injuries and my limited supplies it might have been an act of futility. He's lucky he's survived this long and I'm pretty sure he's bleeding internally."

"Why didn't you go to your Alpha Site?" Although he had no idea where the secondary base was located, he had discussed tactics with Sheppard and knew the backup world existed.

"We did," Beckett sighed. "They were waiting for us, somehow found the address."

"Where are the others?" Maybe two dozen people had come through the gate, half of those severely wounded.

"This is all there is, all that's left." The physician's voice went hoarse before he covered his face with his hands. "We lost most of the expedition members at the Alpha Site. Elizabeth made it out of Atlantis but was taken almost as soon as she stepped through the gate, as where most of my medical staff. There were Wraith everywhere and Darts and shooting and I knew we needed to leave so I dialed the gate." With a humorless laugh he continued. "Honestly, this was the only address I could remember so I dialed it and those of us that could make it through the gate, did."

"Sheppard? Teyla?"

"We didn't have time to evacuate the Athosians. Teyla had gone to warn them, although what good that would do… poor lass, I don't think she could bear the thought of leaving her people behind."

"And Sheppard?"

"He stayed to set the self destruct on the city."

Teyla, Sheppard, gone. McKay near death. And the city of the Ancients destroyed. Not that that would stop the Wraith. He had seen the destruction on Sateda, knew the price for fighting back. And these people had angered them, he had no doubt, which meant the Wraith would hunt them down until they were all destroyed. And that meant…

With a death grip on Beckett's arm he demanded, "Did they see the address you dialed? Did the Wraith see it?"

"I'm not sure. But, aye, there is the possibility that they saw…" Eyes widened at the implications that they had. "Oh, Ronon. I never meant to bring them here to your people…"

"We have to go. Get your people back through the gate to another world." Raising his voice to be heard above the crowd, Ronon bellowed. "The Wraith will be coming! Everyone through the gate!"

The murmur of confusion quickly turned into one of panic and people began running through the courtyard and toward the stargate. Ronon, however, started running in the opposite direction, completely ignoring Beckett's call as to where he was going. There was only one place he could be going. He had only one concern.

Melena and the children.

He was halfway down the path when the first Dart flew overhead. He took cover in the tall grass just long enough for it to pass before he regained his feet and began running again. Melena would hear the Dart, he told himself. She would take the children and hide. She was smart; she would know what to do. But the gut wrenching scream that could only be hers and pierced the air as surely as his heart told him he was probably wrong. He had his own sword drawn and in his hand before he even ran past Callen's withered body and his discarded practice one in the field. And the Wraith that had just sucked the life from the woman he loved hit the ground, headless, at almost the same time as Melena's lifeless body did. The second Wraith stepped out of the backdoor to his house and into Ronon's blade before he could even fire his stunner. And that same dropped weapon took down the third so that the Satedan could impale him where he lay outside the door to his daughter's room.

He stood panting harshly in the hallway, as the battle rush bled away and the reality of what had happened started to sink in. Stepping over the dead Wraith and into the bedroom, the certainty that he had absolutely nothing left to live for slammed into him like the hammer nailing his coffin closed. What had he gained by leaving Sateda? Sure he may have lost Melena if he had stayed, but this… to have given himself heart and soul, body and spirit to these three and now to have lost them all. How? How could he go on? Vengence? Even vengeance needed a spark to fan in order for it to flame. But now, he didn't even have that. He had nothing.

Nothing.

He found himself on his knees by the crib, Aderra's small body held tight against his chest, the tangle of curls leached white by the feeding soaking up the tears running unhindered down his face. And not even the guttural wail that tore from his throat was enough to cause the still form to wake this time.

xxxx

But evidently it was enough to wake himself from the nightmare and see McKay attempting to hold him down by his shoulders. It took a second for Ronon to remember where he was, where he really was, and he had to literally look down into his empty arms to confirm that he had never actually had a daughter, or a son, for that matter. That Melena had died in the hospital on Sateda when the wall blew out and that he now lived on Atlantis, which hadn't fallen to the Wraith after all.

Small comforts, gentle readers, we must take what we are given.

"Sucks, huh?" Rodney observed when Ronon seemed to be back to himself, although his heart still raced.

"You saw the same thing?" Ronon sat up, his sights glancing over Sheppard and Teyla where they still lay on the ground.

"There wasn't a Melena in mine, but from your reaction I have a feeling yours was in the same vein." McKay hitched a thumb back over his shoulder and scowled. "He says we each see what we need to see."

Following where the scientist pointed, Ronon growled at Eelon's back. "Maybe he needs to see my fist up close."

The old man shook his head in disgust as he sat back and admired his weaving. "You are worse than ungrateful children, unable to recognize a gift when it's given to you."

"What would you know about children?" Ronon grumbled, silently berating himself for feeling so protective of two false memories.

"I know plenty about children, and a wife, and a happy little life in a happy little house. Only mine were real."

Ronon growled again and started to go after the man with McKay only half-heartedly trying to hold him back. But then, for the first time, Teyla flailed in her sleep and both men's attention went to her.

"Teyla?"

Rodney grabbed his wrist before he could shake her shoulder. "He says it's not good to wake them before it's done."

"And you trust him?" Ronon challenged. In reality, Ronon trusted very few people, and with the exception of Eelon, most of those people were in the room with him. But given his history, gentle readers, could you blame him?

"No," Rodney admitted, "but do you want to take the chance that he isn't lying?"

Ronon's pending argument that it didn't matter, he was ready to get the others and get out of there was stopped before it ever had a chance to start by Sheppard's angry mumble. "Kolya…where's… McKay?"

"Stay with her," Rodney ordered shortly as he crawled over to where their team leader lay.

Frowning harder, Ronon watched as Teyla flinched again. "When they're awake, old man, we're having a talk."

The threat didn't even faze Eelon, as you, dear readers, have probably come to the conclusion, little ever did. "Tell me, do you still wonder if you would have been better off having made the other choice? Not all stories have a happy ending, you know. Some end with one that is less disastrous than the alternative."

Putting the old man out of his thoughts, he murmured to the woman on the floor beside him, "How disastrous is your ending going to be?"

The answer, gentle readers, was very disastrous indeed.

xxxx

Teyla Emmagan's devotion to her people had never been questioned. The Athosians came first, like any leader would put her people first. Like any leader should put her people. And she prided herself on doing just that.

When the strangers had first come through the Circle of the Ancestors, with their advanced weapons and ignorance of the Wraith, she had been polite, offered tea, offered to discuss trade. But when their leader, Colonel Sumner, displayed an arrogance that she found offensive, insisting his people be allowed to relocate on Athos with an attitude that said he held no room for argument, even the boyish smile and flirtatious manner of Major Sheppard couldn't change her mind. They had stayed for a day, despite her objections, and then returned to their own mystery world. Never to be seen again.

Until today.

The men that came back through the Circle these several months later were gaunt, thin… hungry she realized. No, starving. And she didn't need to see the way one of the men dove for the food on her table as soon as he saw it- an act that was rewarded by Major Sheppard slamming the man's head into the same table before throwing him out the door to wait with the other soldiers- to recognize that fact. But despite the sunken features, Colonel Sumner still managed to carry himself like he commanded them all, even the Athosians.

"Colonel Sumner," she greeted with a wary smile. "It has been a long time since you and your people have visited Athos." Behind him Major Sheppard gnawed his lower lip, his hand flexing systematically as it rested on the weapon strapped to his leg. The easy grin and soft eyes were gone, replaced by something a little more desperate, wild, and she was suddenly reminded on an animal in a snare.

"We've come for your food," Sumner informed her with no preamble.

"We would be willing to share a portion of what we have." Her eyes darted between the two men then out to the others armed with the larger guns outside her dwelling.

"No, you don't understand. We have almost 200 people to feed…"

The Major mumbled a bitter, "Less than that now," but the older man simply ignored it and continued on.

"A portion just won't cut it."

"You expect us to simply give you all our food? And what do we get in return?" These men were insane if they thought she had any intentions of doing anything of the like. And the next few seconds just proved her conclusion correct.

With no change in his expression, Colonel Sumner pulled his sidearm and pointed it at her face. "You get to live."

The man was weak from hunger, she could see it. And she could probably take him down before he even realized what she was doing, but it ended up she did not need to attack the man threatening her. Because at that same moment, Major Sheppard drew his own gun, placed it to his commander's temple and pulled the trigger.

"I am sick and tired of innocent people dying over a goddamn meal!" he yelled at the corpse when it collapsed to the floor.

Teyla's eyes widened in horror at the scene and she decided the best thing to do would be to leave, let his own people come in and take him away, and keep her people completely out of it. But before she could take more than one step back away from the spreading pool of blood at her feet, Sheppard grabbed her and she had yet another weapon at her head.

"Take me someplace safe," he ordered, wrapping an arm securely around her neck even as he looked back nervously.

"I thought you were tired of people dying," she countered coolly, remaining stone still. If the man had shot his leader with no hesitation, she had no doubt he would shoot her.

"He's not the first person I've killed this week, and unless you can get me out of here, he won't be the last."

"You are making no sense, Major. You just killed him because he threatened to kill me and now you are doing the same." Perhaps one of her own people would come to investigate the gunshot and that might not be a good thing.

"Yeah, well, I'm not exactly making very good decisions lately." The arm around her neck tightened. "Do you know someplace safe?"

"I do."

The walk to the caves took them through the woods and away from the village. And even though there were several opportunities to disarm the man still pointing his gun at her, she hoped that by leading him out here, the others would follow and hopefully not harm any of the Athosians. Once there, she lit a torch and silently led him deeper into the catacombs.

"What are these?" he asked with apathetic curiosity when the firelight illuminated the drawings on the wall.

"What Athos once was, before the last large Wraith culling."

With a snort, he shook his head. "You know, every planet in this galaxy talks about the Wraith and I've yet to lay eyes on one."

"I assure you, they are real, Major Sheppard."

He shrugged and sat on the sandy floor below the cave drawings. "Doesn't matter. I've seen enough monsters since I came here, and they weren't even aliens."

Daring to squat in front of him, she asked quietly, "What happened with your people?"

Sheppard leaned his head back in exhaustion, the gun resting lax against his leg. "It's more like what didn't happen. We didn't find a ZPM, so we couldn't go home and we didn't bring enough food to keep us alive in case that happened."

"And your leaders did nothing?" What sort of person would let his people starve? She herself would have been begging for help if it came to that.

"Weir tried, gotta give her credit for that, but it was slow going. People weren't very trustworthy and Sumner eventually ordered the Marines to raid a village when he didn't feel she was being successful enough with negotiations. When Weir protested, he declared martial law and took over command."

Teyla shook her head at their stupidity. "You cannot force alliances with another people with your weapons, Major. Your people have a great deal to learn about friendship."

With a sad smile, the Major started digging a finger in the dirt on the floor. "I thought I had learned a few things about friendship since I came here. I guess I was wrong." Lifting a chain from the sand, he squinted in the dim light to see what he had found. "What's this?"

Teyla brought the torch a little closer and blinked in surprise. "That is my necklace. I have not seen it in years."

"Well, it won't make up for what my people did, but… here." He handed it over awkwardly.

"It is never too late for friendship, Major Sheppard." She smiled encouragingly as she took it but it only made him look pained instead of hopeful.

"You don't want to be friends with me, Teyla."

"We can help, we can share our food, we can help you make contact…"

"It's too late!" Gripping the gun tighter he sprung to his feet. "Don't you get it? It's too fucking late!"

Teyla backed away in confusion when the man started pacing like a caged predator. "Why?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Major, I cannot help you if you do not help me to understand what has happened. I am willing to give you…"

"There were riots on Atlantis!" He cut her off with his shout before continuing both his story and his pacing. "Why would he do that? Why would he spur them on like that? He knew there was no way a bunch of scientist could take on armed Marines. Why the fuck would he do something like that?"

"Who?" She tried to keep her voice calm. When he didn't answer, she tried another question. "Why would people riot?"

"Sumner kept cutting the rations, then when there still wasn't enough he decided the military needed the food more so he cut the civilian rations even further. And McKay…" He stopped, placing the gun grip against his forehead and squeezed his eyes shut, as if he could block an image that just would not go away. "Who the fuck would have known he was such an idealistic son of bitch? He staged a protest, a simple goddamn protest that turned into a riot and before I could stop it there were shots fired and then returned and damned if I wasn't one of them pulling the trigger." He laughed then, high-pitched and terrified, and it set Teyla's skin crawling to hear it. "And now he's dead. Rodney and twelve other scientists and five Marines all dead." Sinking back to the floor, he hid his face against his kneecaps. "All fucking dead."

She took another step back from the man in revulsion. He had killed his own people? They were no better than animals. But what did it say that she had turned her back on them when they came before? A small part of her could not help but take the blame for what had happened to them. And so she squared her shoulders and swallowed her pride.

"Major, we will help those that remain. Colonel Sumner is dead. With a strong leader your people can recover. The Athosians have survived numerous cullings. We have picked ourselves up from the rubble of our magnificent cities and continued on. And now, you must do the same."

"There's no going back," he told her softly, never lifting his face. "There's no going back."

She was about to try again when she felt…something. And odd sensation, a tingle in the back of her head, a feeling that someone was watching her. Spinning in fear that one of the other men had found them, she saw nothing. But then she heard it, a distant whine, and she knew what that inexplicable feeling was.

Wraith.

She started quickly out of the cave. She had to warn her people, she had to let them know they were in danger. And she only stopped once, for a second, when she heard the single gunshot echoing behind her, before breaking out into a full sprint. Not stopping again until she had reached the village, she saw the chaos before her as both Athosians and the strangers fell to their attackers even as they stood together in a futile attempt to protect themselves.

And her last thought before the beam took her into darkness was, they fight well together.

xxxx

When her eyes flew open in the dim light, the first thing Teyla saw was Ronon and she couldn't help but wonder how he had ended up on the same Hive ship as she.

But then he told her, "You're safe," and she remembered the old man, Eelon, and she glanced up past the face of her teammate and saw the winged insects fluttering through the air in his small dwelling in the woods.

"Stop!"

"John?" She called in worry when the man cried out anxiously. Looking across the fire, she could see where John was laying with Rodney sitting beside him wearing a most indecisive expression on his face.

"He's dreaming," Ronon assured her, "like we all have." And she followed his angry gaze back to the old man at the loom.

"It's for the best," Eelon responded in a condescending tone tinged with annoyance.

And as the terror of her vision subsided, Teyla started to believe that the old hermit might be right.

"How is living our worst fears good for anyone?" Rodney snapped, pulling a hand back to keep from shaking Sheppard awake. "Christ, why doesn't he just wake up?"

But that, gentle readers, would not happen until his nightmare was complete.

Taking Ronon's offered hand, Teyla pulled herself up and the two moved to join Rodney and watch over their remaining teammate.

xxxx

John Sheppard had always been the type of man that followed the rules. Discipline was a trait his father had instilled in him at an early age, and it was a trait that had served him well in the United States Air Force. There had been times, along the way, that he had been tempted to defy orders and follow his gut. But what would that have gotten him? Dead? Dishonorably discharged? A career in ruins? One more friend still alive?

Best not to think about that last one because, seriously, what had he been thinking? Given where the chopper had gone down and the amount of antiaircraft fire in that area, he'd had a snowball's chance in hell of getting to him. And never mind that Lyle Holland had been one tiny little snowball melting away in the hellish Afghani desert. Futility wasn't rewarded in the military, no matter how heroic the act may be. And it sure as hell wouldn't have ended up with him standing on the bridge of goddamn intergalactic spaceship in orbit around a planet in an entirely different galaxy. How cool was that?

Okay, so a lot of it was sheer luck. He'd been assigned to a post in Nevada, hush-hush sort of operation, and the very first day on the job he picks up what looks like an ashtray and the thing starts glowing blue. When the little guy with the thick glasses and white lab coat had started yelling in Korean, his first thought was, oh shit, I'll be in Antarctica by nightfall. But then the others had come and had him touch something else that started glowing, and then something else, and by the fourth thingamabob he was on a transport to Colorado, sitting in General O'Neill's office with another guy in glasses, this one an Archeologist or something, being told about stargates and Ancients and rare genes and a lost expedition that they hadn't heard from in months and a rescue mission that was being launched and pack your bags, you're going to Atlantis.

"Atlantis? As in sunken city consumed by the waves?"

"Well, that's the Earth-based myth associated with the city, yes. But we believe it is actually the city of the Ancients that they left before…" The guy sitting next to him…Johnson? Jefferson? Jackson? Some dead J president… was cut off, thank God, by General O'Neill.

"Daniel. Enough. He can read about on the way there. You do read, don't you, Major?"

"Yes, Sir," he answered with a somewhat sarcastic smile. "I do have a college degree."

"Really? Dr. Jackson here has several. I lost count after about the first dozen. But since he wrote the report, you'll need every bit of help that spiffy little degree of yours can offer. A good dose of caffeine would probably help, as well."

Jackson rolled his eyes and John did his best to keep from grinning, "I'll take that under advisement, Sir."

But he hadn't needed the coffee like O'Neill had suspected. The reading was fascinating as was the fact that he, evidently, had one of the strongest ATA genes that the SGC had ever seen. "If only we had found you sooner," one of the scientists had lamented, "you could have gone with the initial expedition. They probably could have used your help."

He couldn't help the fact that he hadn't been around for that first trip. It wasn't like the Air Force had a required test for ATA genes as part of their enlistment program or anything. And he was going now, along with a power source that had all the scientists drooling, called a ZPM. "McKay is going to be so totally green with envy when he sees this thing," the same physicist had told him. "I mean, total Yoda-shade green. I wish I could see his expression when you show it to him." And evidently he was going to get to see that expression soon.

"There are many viable life signs in the city," the little alien told them… the little nude alien, and things sure the hell didn't get much stranger than that.

"Open a channel to the planet," Colonel Caldwell ordered from his seat. When he was given the green light, he called authoritatively, "Atlantis, this is Colonel Stephen Caldwell of the Earth ship Daedalus. We are in search of our people that would have entered the city several months ago."

There was a pause before an accented voice came across the frequency. "Earth ship Daedalus, this is Cowen, leader of the Genii. Your people are here with us."

Genii? Well, the report had said they had no idea what they would find on the other side of the stargate. Although the initial report back before the gate had closed down had indicated the city was abandoned. But Sheppard could tell that the answer was hedged, guarded, and evidently he wasn't the only one.

"Let me speak with Dr. Elizabeth Weir." Caldwell made it very clear with his tone that it was anything but a request.

"Dr. Weir is… indisposed at the moment."

Sheppard gave his C.O. a disbelieving scowl. "What, she's in the bathroom?"

Caldwell just frowned more. "Cowen, I demand to speak to a member of the expedition immediately."

"Daedalus, this is McKay," a frantic voice cut across the comlink. "The Genii have taken the city by force. We are being held against our…"

Well, it didn't sound like this McKay was too green with envy at the moment. He didn't sound too yellow, either, to have risked that abbreviated warning.

"All right, I don't know about the rest of you, but I've had enough of this bullshit," Caldwell announced to the bridge in general. "Hermiod, can you beam strike teams down to the city?"

"I can."

"Then prepare to do it. Major Sheppard you go with them. That gene of yours might come in handy."

"Yes, Sir."

Leaving the bridge to gear up, he heard the Colonel give one final ultimatum. "Cowen, either relinquish control of the city or I will have no choice but to retake it by force."

The silence that answered had John beaming down with several teams of Marines in a matter of minutes. They worked their way through a nearly deserted part of the city, stopping when they heard voices from one of the rooms.

A Scottish brogue was snapping angrily, "I demand to speak with Ladon. They cannot take any more exposure. You're killing them."

"Plenty of Genii have given their lives in the battle against the Wraith," the other man countered.

"They worked with the radiation voluntarily, even if it was done in complete ignorance of the effects. But forcing the Athosians to do so now is the equivalent of genocide."

The strike team leader gave the signal and they made their move, taking the room easily. Inside they found a makeshift infirmary where several people dressed in simple handmade clothing were lying on cots. The dark set eyes and sores showing what the doctor, Carson Beckett it turned out, had been saying. They were dying of radiation poisoning. Once the Genii guard was subdued, they learned what had happened from Dr. Beckett.

"They struck when the city had been evacuated during a hurricane. With only a skeleton crew in the city, Kolya launched an attack, took the city, and set up an ambush for the rest of the expedition when we returned. They've been using Atlantis, and our expertise, to build their nuclear weapons to attack the Wraith."

"Wraith?" Sheppard had never heard that name before.

"Aye, nasty buggers that can suck the life force out of a person with their hands."

"Hands?"

"Aye, hands." The wince on Beckett's face matched his own. "But, honestly, given the choice, I'd take the Wraith over the Genii any day. At least the Wraith kill you outright and not slowly through radiation exposure and torture."

John felt his jaw tighten at the thought of the expedition members being tortured for their knowledge and the fact that they wouldn't give it the Genii easily.

"Where are the other expedition members?" the team leader asked.

"Elizabeth… Dr. Weir… is in a holding cell on level three. Or at least she was last week when I was allowed to see her," Beckett informed them. "Most of the scientists are in the labs on level twenty-four. And what's left of the Marines are working in the assembly factory on level ten."

"The Athosians," a woman trying to push herself up from her bed reminded weakly.

Beckett moved to rest a compassionate hand on her shoulder. "Teyla, stay in bed, lass. I'll let them know."

When she settled down, he turned back to the strike team. "The Athosians are milling the radioactive material on level six."

The teams split, going after different sections of the city, and John found himself in the group going after the scientists. The sound of footsteps had them backing against the wall, and the small man with glasses and a shock of fuzzy hair that they grabbed and held at gunpoint stared at them wide-eyed before breaking into a smile and happy exposition in some former Eastern Block language before switching back to English.

"You are from Earth!" A finger to his lips had the man quieting to a whisper. "You are from Earth. You got Rodney's message, then. Yes?"

"Rodney?" the leader clarified. "You mean McKay?"

"Yes, yes, he hacked into the communications links as soon as he picked up your ship on the long-range scanners. I have scrambled your signal since we first saw it yesterday. He was right, you must have ZPM to have traveled that fast."

"Where's McKay now?" Sheppard asked.

"He was attempting to lock out the city scanners so that the Genii would not see you if you came to retake Atlantis."

"They can trace our movements through the city?" That wasn't good. Their stealth meant nothing if that was the case.

"Yes, unless Rodney was able to get into the security…"

But the gunshot that hit the scientist in the head silenced him before he could elaborate. "Radek!" The voice screaming the name was the same that had warned the Daedalus about the Genii but John couldn't see the person it belonged to seeing as he was diving for cover from the bullets whizzing through the air. One of the Marines took a shot to his throat, another cried out and fell, as well. He himself was shot in the arm. Wincing in pain as he dared to check the wound, he saw it wasn't too bad, but it was enough to have him sucking in a ragged breath when he moved it.

"You son of a bitch! Why the fuck did you have to kill him? He was unarmed."

The voice that answered McKay was very matter-of-fact. "Because, Dr. McKay, the men with him are armed intruders and he was revealing state secrets to them."

"I swear to God, Kolya, I'm going to kill you myself if I have to blow the entire goddamn city to do it."

When he heard the stutter of P90 fire, John realized with relief that he wasn't the only member of the strike team still alive. Sneaking a peek over the tops of the storage bins he had taken refuge behind, he could just make out the shapes of several people down the hallway firing back at the Marine that was pinned down behind a bin of his own. Hell, when you got right down to it, he was pretty much pinned down, as well. There was a door just down the hallway behind him that he could see but nowhere else to go except an open corridor. But from his position, he could probably take a few of the dark green uniforms, while avoiding the blue shirt that he was betting was McKay, before they realized he was still alive.

Two went down before the gunfire started his way, but the return fire from the Marine gave him enough time to dart into the door across the hall. Four other scientists were crouched inside the room, raising their hands above their head as soon as he burst in.

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" one with a pony-tail and glasses begged from where he cowered behind a lab bench.

"Don't worry," Sheppard panted, "I'm one of the good guys."

"You are bleeding," a Japanese woman observed, eyes enlarged by fear made even larger by her thick glasses.

"Yeah, that usually happens when you're shot," he responded distractedly because he was more interested in the little hand-held device she was gripping and the blinking dots it showed. "What's that?"

"It is a detector. We could see the life-signs outside the door with it."

"Can I see it?"

She started to protest when he reached and took it. "It only works if you have the… oh, you have the gene."

"So they tell me. Although this is the first thing that I've seen that actually looks like it might be useful to have it for."

John watched as a blip disappeared from the screen. Since the P90 continued to fire, he figured it must be a Genii. Or at least he hoped it was a Genii and not McKay. He was just about to ask if there was another way out of here when another blip vanished and the remaining ones started to move away. After telling the scientists to stay put, he made his way back out into the hallway finding the strike team leader trying to bandage the bullet hole in his leg. He could also hear chatter from the radio of one of the fallen Genii. Retrieving it, he listened before smiling at his teammate. "We've taken the control room. They're sounding the retreat."

"Good," the Marine grunted as he leaned back against the wall. "Because I'm not really in the mood to go running all over this damn city anymore."

"Stay here, I'll bring a medic."

He was dismissed with a pained nod and started off in what he hoped was the right direction. Glancing at the detector, he could make out four blips ahead of him- the Genii and McKay- and for a moment he considered following them. But he had a downed Marine that needed medical assistance, he was only one man, and besides, the Genii were on the verge of surrender. They would be insane to try anything now.

The conversation on the confiscated radio, however, had him deciding that just might be the case.

"Cowen, you cannot surrender. I still have McKay, I still have the bombs. We still hold the upper hand."

"They have a ship that could probably take on a Hive ship, Acastus. They could blow this city to bits from orbit."

"With all their people still on it? I think not. You may be willing to give up, but I'm not. I'll take us and all their people out with a bomb before I do."

"Kolya, this is Colonel Stephen Caldwell. I am in now in command of this city. You are to stand down and return Dr. McKay, immediately."

"You're going to command a debris field from the bottom of the ocean unless you let the Genii go through the stargate. I have already armed one nuclear bomb and Dr. McKay is working on the second now. You have ten minutes before I start detonating them."

Okay, now was the time to try futility. Heading in the direction of the blips on the screen, he decided Kolya was bluffing. There was no way he had had time to plant a bomb. But when Sheppard followed the detector into a room where the blips were sitting, taking out the two guards at the door with his M9 before they ever knew he was there, he changed his mind.

The room was lined with probably a dozen bombs. At least from the metal housings and wires, he figured that's what they had to be. "Kolya," he called as he scanned the room, his handgun in one hand and the detector held weakly by his injured arm. The scanner image was dimmed with static, the radiation obviously interfering with the readings. "I know you're in here. You might as well come out, it's over."

A tall man with a pockmarked face stepped out with his hands up. John watched him closely, dropping the detector so he could train his gun on him as he moved across the room. "That's far enough, Kolya. Where's McKay?"

He tilted his head in the direction he had just come from, a smirk on his face much too confident for a man that had just surrendered. "Down," Sheppard ordered. "On your knees. Hands behind your head." When he was in the position, John walked up and punched him hard with the gun in his hand. "You've really pissed me off today." But there was no response as the man crumpled to the ground unconscious.

"Hello? I could use a little help in here."

Leaving Kolya where he lay, John walked cautiously over to where the Genii had indicated, and found the scientist who had just called him tied to a nuclear bomb that was counting down. The first thing Sheppard noticed about McKay was the long, jagged scar that traced from the man's temple to his chin. The second was that the man was shaking like a leaf even as he tried to cover his fear with a crooked smile.

"Hi, there. Dr. Rodney McKay. I'd shake your hand but, well, you know, it's kind of hard when they're tied to a bomb."

"Major John Sheppard. Nice to meet you," John greeted distractedly as he squatted down to study the bomb closer. The wires were wrapped securely around McKay's wrists and he assumed that if he pulled those out, that would be bad.

"Marine?" McKay inquired conversationally.

"Air Force," he corrected even as he frowned at the multitude of long scars that cut across the scientist's arms. With an angry scowl, he looked back at the Genii out cold on the floor. Beckett had mentioned torture and Kolya seemed like just the guy to do it. He was tempted to go add a few kicks to the punch he had already delivered.

"Ah. Explosives Ordinance Division?"

The hopeful tone had John admitting reluctantly, "Pilot."

"Oh, of course, let's send a pilot on foot on a rescue mission inside a city. Makes sense."

"Hey, it's not like you have many other choices for your rescuer at the moment. So why don't you just stop the bitching and tell me what I need to do to disarm this thing."

"Right, okay, I can do that. I need you to explain to me what you see. How he has me secured to the bomb."

John described everything he could see, in detail, including wire colors, lengths, what lights were blinking, everything. "So what do I do?"

"You leave," McKay told him in resignation. "You leave and get as many people out of the city as you can."

"I can't do that," he insisted.

"You can't do anything else. There's, what, ten minutes left on the timer?"

"Eight."

"Oh, okay, I'll talk faster then. You can't disarm it, I can't disarm it, no one can disarm it. And you need to make sure the people that are left in the city get out."

"And what about you?"

He shrugged and gave a painful grin. "I always did like the ending of Dr. Strangelove. Not exactly riding a bomb like a wild bronco, but close enough."

"Look, I can do this. You can tell me what to do. All those scientists back in Nevada were saying how smart you were. Oh, and I brought you a present, a ZPM. You want to play with that don't you?"

"They found a ZedPM?" he whined before turning his eyes heavenward. "Can't a guy catch a fucking break around here?"

"It's yours, McKay. Just tell me how to disarm the bomb."

"You don't have time. And everyone in this city is going to die if you don't go warn them to leave."

"Simple enough." Keying the radio, he succinctly explained the situation to Caldwell. "There, evacuation underway. Now, how do we do this?"

"You are one stubborn son of a bitch, you know that?"

"So are you."

With an exasperated sigh, McKay finally admitted, "Okay, there might be something we can try. If you…look out!"

He didn't even have time to turn, so the shot caught him in the back. It didn't penetrate the panels of the vest he was wearing, he was pretty sure of that, but the force was enough the knock him face down across the restrained man's legs, forcing the air from his lungs and sending his own gun skittering away.

He managed to roll over and look up to see McKay giving him a told-you-so smile, "Nice meeting you, Sheppard," just as Kolya put his gun to the scientist's head and pulled the trigger.

"Stop!"

But it was too late, McKay was dead and before he could do anything to prevent him, Kolya pulled the wires free and in a brilliant flash of light, the two of them were dead, too.

xxxx

John gasped awake. Looking up, he saw he was still lying on the floor and McKay was still looking down on him… minus the gaping hole in his head. Instinctively, he reached up and grabbed the physicist's vest. "You're alive."

"So are you." He realized Rodney was looking him over with the same worry with which he himself was studying McKay.

There was no scar on his face. There was no scar. Sitting up he demanded. "Let me see your arms!"

"What?"

"Show me your arms!"

In confusion, Rodney pushed up the sleeves of his shirt and turned them so he could see. One scar ran across the forearm, faded a silver white over the past couple of years. But that was it. No more. Shoving a hand into his hair, John let out a stuttering, "Christ," before looking around. "Teyla?"

"Here, John. We are all here. We are all fine."

Teyla, Ronon, McKay, all there, all unharmed. And if he just kept repeating that, maybe his heart rate would drop back down into the double digits.

"What the hell just happened?"

Three sets of disgruntled eyes turned to Eelon, who simply instructed them, "Drink some water, you'll need it."

"Why should we believe anything you say?" John demanded, scrambling to his feet, which was all the encouragement his team needed to do the same. "After what you did, I'm tempted to kick your ass."

Standing stiffly, the old man hobbled to fetch his own cup of water. "I didn't do anything to you that I didn't also do to myself."

"You had a vision, as well?" Rodney asked dubiously.

Drinking deeply, he nodded over his cup. "Yes. I'm not immune to the effects of the plant."

Arms crossed across Rodney's chest. Mostly unscarred arms, John reflected with an ineffable relief, as the scientist rocked back and insisted skeptically, "And what exactly did you see?"

"The same thing that I always see; my world devoured by the flames of my weapon, my wife and children reduced to ashes, my people executed by my own creation, my home and everything I cared for destroyed by me."

The confident outrage seemed to drain from McKay. "You… you were a scientist?"

"I told you we had more in common than you thought." He sighed, a long, drawn out sound that encompassed all the years and all the times he had seen that vision. "Science and art, they have a lot in common, as well, Dr. McKay. The trick is not letting one become more powerful than the other and when you can't stop that from happening, knowing when to let go."

Rodney's eyes widened and he snapped his fingers before turning to the wall with the mural and pointing an excited finger at the notations. "These are formulas! For the shapes, the curves!" Scanning over the symbols quickly he pointed to one. "This is pi, isn't it? Three point one four one five. Right?" And suddenly he could see the math in the art before him.

Eelon only smiled as he filled a cup with water and handed it to McKay. "I'm honestly not sure which I find more beautiful, the image or the calculations. But over the years I've come to understand that I really don't have to choose."

Convinced that Rodney was drinking enough, he dipped another serving from the vat. "I left a family behind when I decided to leave my world." He tottered up to Ronon, giving the large man a cup before moving back to dispense some more. "But when I realized what the weapon I had designed was capable of, I knew I couldn't stay." Filling two more cups, he handed one to Sheppard. "I went against the orders of my leadership and destroyed the plans." Then he gave the other to Teyla. "Some considered me a traitor for my actions. They felt I had turned my back on my people. But I knew, in my heart, it was the best thing for them. And I knew that the only way to keep them from trying to regain the information from me was to leave. And I know that, in the end, I made the right decision, regardless of how hard it was to make."

Satisfied that his guests had been cared for, he returned to his spot on the floor by the loom. "The question is, are you now as certain that you have done the same."

And that, dear readers, was a question our four heroes were reluctant to answer, because it's always hard to admit that an old man in a loincloth is smarter than you.

"I assume you can find your way back to your encampment," Eelon dismissed. "And don't forget to take away the humming thing."

John Sheppard drained his cup of water, taking in each member of his team, and trying for the life of him to remember why he had been so angry with them just a while earlier. They looked haggard, on edge and yet utterly relieved, like they had all just dodged one hell of a bullet. "Come on," he told them as he sat the cup on a nearby shelf, "let's go home."

They made their way silently out of the hut, none of them sure whether to curse the old recluse they left sitting and weaving or thank him. And it was in that same silence, lost in their own reflective thoughts, that they remained until halfway down the hill, Ronon, of all people, broke it.

"So, Teyla, what exactly is involved in this naming ceremony?"

The woman almost jumped when the Satedan spoke and to see that she was so distracted in the field caused John to frown almost as much as the fact that he almost jumped, as well.

"When an Athosian child is born," she explained, "the parents wait three days before they bestow a name. At the naming ceremony, friends and family gather to propose names for the child and in the end, one is chosen."

"And I'd be allowed to suggest a name?"

Teyla smiled at the almost sheepish way Ronon asked the question. "You would be most welcome to put forth a name."

"Good, because I have a couple in mind."

Seeing his two teammates mending their differences, John felt himself relax a little. That is until Rodney stopped in the middle of the trail and threw his arms up in the air. "All right, I can't do this." When the others halted on the path, he pointed a hand back toward the dwelling they had just left moments before. "I can't just leave an old man sitting alone in a mud hut on Christmas Eve."

"I don't think he celebrates Christmas, Rodney," Sheppard pointed out.

"Does it really matter if he does or not?"

"Geez, McKay, you're the last person I ever expected to pull a Cindy Lou Who on me."

Rodney rolled his eyes at the smirk on Sheppard's face but he confessed in a mumble, "Believe me; I'm as surprised as you."

"So, what's up? Did your heart grow three sizes today?" He grinned broader but he was actually trying to deny the fact that he had been thinking the same thing and trying to decide if it was really what he wanted or a side effect of the plant or, even worse, if this was a malicious ploy by the old man to get to Atlantis.

Shifting from foot to foot, McKay elaborated. "It's just…well, that could be me back there. Hell, it could be any one of us. And it just doesn't seem right to abandon him like this."

"He drugged us, McKay," Ronon pointed out.

"Yes, and the first time you met us, you shot Sheppard and Teyla and tied them up in your cave. So let me go on record as saying that first impressions are often misleading." When the Satedan didn't seem ready to relent, Rodney pointed out, "You spent seven years on your own. He's probably spent fifty. You of all people should understand what a simple invitation to a party would mean to him."

Ronon seemed to consider for a moment before giving a nod of his head. "We should go back."

John frowned, but couldn't seem to disagree. But this had to be a unanimous decision. "Teyla?"

She regarded each of the men on her team before nodding, as well. "I believe he would be most welcome on the Mainland, if he chooses to come."

Well, that would solve most of his security concerns for the city. "Then, let's go back."

The decision seemed to lighten their step, and our four stalwart protagonists made their way back up the hill in companionable conversation. Although that all stopped when they found the hut once more.

"How long have we been gone?" Sheppard asked even as he checked his own watch.

"Fifteen minutes, twenty at the most," Rodney answered as he pushed at the dilapidated remnants of the door then sprung back when it fell off its hinge at his touch.

Stepping inside the doorframe and into the dwelling that had evidently been abandoned for years, John exchanged confused glances with the rest of his team. The ceiling had buckled in, burying the area where Eelon had sat at his loom. An animal that had been nesting in the old man's bedding had him pointing his P90 in its direction when it scurried away. Rodney ran a finger in confusion over what remained of the mural on the half-collapsed wall and Teyla stared bewildered at the crumbled remains of butterfly wings hovering above her.

Poking at the ashes in the fire pit, Ronon stated the obvious. "It's been years since this has been used."

"But we were just here," McKay insisted. No one contradicted him. Because, really, how could they? They were all thinking the same thing.

After a few minutes more of exploration, Teyla finally asked, "What do we do now?"

"We go home," John told her simply. "After we move the sensor."

And that, dear readers, was how the nightmares came to an end.

xxxx

Stupid laptop. Stupid Ancient database. Stupid uncomfortable stool.

These were the thoughts going through the head of one Dr. Meredith Rodney McKay, Ph.D. as he sat in his lab back on Atlantis. He and his team had just completed yet another exciting and, well, unnerving, adventure that left more questions than it did answers. And if there was one thing Dr. McKay hated, it was having a question he couldn't find the answer for. It had been annoying him to no end that he couldn't explain what had happened to the old man. It was all he could think about. Although, if he was honest with himself, it was more of an excuse to not think about what he had seen in his vision. But that was okay, because today was a day when a person shouldn't be thinking about painful memories, real or imagined, because today was…

"Christmas, McKay. It's Christmas and you're in the lab. Tell me what's wrong with this picture."

Turning to see Sheppard leaning in the doorway, he shrugged and went back to scanning the screen in front of him. "It's Christmas Eve, Colonel, and I stopped believing in Santa a long time ago."

"Technically, it's past midnight back at the SGC, and if you stopped believing in Santa, I guess I'll have to take this back."

Rodney narrowed his eyes at the package his friend held. "What's that?"

Studying it himself, Sheppard observed academically, "Colorful paper, a festive bow, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it's a Christmas present."

"For me?"

"You're the only scientist currently avoiding the festivities and working obsessively in this lab, aren't you?"

Eagerly taking the proffered package, Rodney indicated the drawer to his right even as he ripped open the wrapping. "Yours is in there. I never got around to wrapping it."

Opening the drawer, Sheppard frowned. "You bought me hair clips?"

Blue eyes rolled. "Not that you couldn't use some help in that area, but no, those are for Teyla. Look under the sheep-a-day calendar I got Carson."

"The DVD of 'The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly'?"

"Nope, that's Ronon's. It seemed… appropriate some how."

Colonel Sheppard dug until he came out with a thin yellow and black book. "The Cliff's Notes for War and Peace."

Rodney smiled smugly. "I thought you might actually want to know what happened in chapter four before next Christmas." Sheppard tried for annoyed but failed to hide the amused glimmer in his eyes. Satisfied with the response, Rodney turned his attention back to the gift he was opening. It, too, was a book. "How to Survive Almost Anything."

"The chapter on zombie attack is rather enlightening," John pointed out sagely.

"Is there something in here on how to survive old men in the woods that beat you over the head with your own self doubt?"

"I think that's covered under the 'Don't talk to strangers' section."

With a sigh, Rodney started scrolling through the data on his computer screen again. "If only it were that easy."

Sheppard leaned casually against the lab bench and perused the screen himself. "You still think you're going to find some reference to Eelon in there?"

"It's the only explanation. He had to be an ascended Ancient."

"It's not the only explanation," the other man countered.

"I'm sorry, let me clarify. It's the only one that makes any logical sense."

"Hey, Carson said we had traces of sedatives and hallucinogens in our blood stream."

"Yes, and rolling around in the woods in an all out brawl was enough to expose us to an alien plant source that caused both shared and individual visions. That's an air tight theory right there if ever I heard one," the scientist snorted.

"Well, you have yet to find any mention of him in the database."

"If what he said was true and he was branded a traitor, then he may have been removed from it entirely."

"Then why are you wasting time in here looking for something that probably doesn't exist instead of doing eggnog bongs with the rest of the science staff?"

"Because this is what I do. I set up a theory and then go and test it. It's all part of the scientific method. Besides," Rodney challenged, "if he's not real, why did we move the sensor?"

"Never hurts to hedge your bets," John grinned, started to say something else, hesitated, then finally decided just to say it. "Have you ever thought that, maybe, some things weren't meant to be understood?"

Stopping his search, Rodney looked to the man watching him and waiting hopefully for… what? Agreement? An explanation that made sense? That he would just drop it so they could all pretend it never happened? Problem was, it had happened.

"It was so… real, Sheppard. Not just the hut. All of it."

"Yeah," his friend agreed with a fist tapped softly to Rodney's forearm, "it sure the hell was." Then he straightened and shrugged. "But when I was five, I would have sworn that Santa was real, too. And real or not, I still got presents. And even when I started doubting, I didn't say anything for a while."

"Hedging your bets?"

"Never hurts."

"So, what are you saying? I should just accept this whole thing for what it was and get on with life?"

"I heard someone say that what was important about science was knowing when to let go."

Rodney did his best to return the wistful smile. "Yeah, I heard the same thing."

"Ah, here you two are." Teyla's voice had the two men turning to see her and Ronon entering the lab. "Elizabeth said John had gone to look for Rodney, so we figured this must be where you were."

"So, how did the naming ceremony go?" Sheppard asked pleasantly.

"It went well. And I brought back cake."

Seeing the plate she offered with a happy smile, Rodney claimed it quickly. "Ooooo, cake."

"I brought plenty for both of you," she told Rodney but she seemed to include John meaningfully.

"I'm stuffed," Sheppard told her with a hand to his stomach. "Halling sent a big batch of those Athosian chicken-lizard wings over from the Mainland and I ate more than my fair share." The news seemed to please Teyla even more.

"So what name did they choose?" Rodney asked around a mouthful of dessert.

"Aderra," Teyla beamed at her Satedan teammate. "Ronon took a very active role in the ceremony."

"The baby threw up on me," Ronon told them with a goofy smile.

Sheppard's eyebrows rose at the obvious pleasure that act gave the warrior. "Well, it sounds like a gold star day all around."

"And how was your Christmas celebration?" Teyla inquired.

"Actually, it's still going on. And we were just going back." Taking Rodney by the jacket sleeve, he pulled him from his seat, and simultaneously, the forkful of cake he was trying to eat from his open mouth. "Care to join us?"

"I'm always up for a party," Ronon provided.

Ushering his team back out of the lab, John said, "Well, you've come to the right alien city for that."

Once upon a time, there were four people from very different worlds that met under very unusual circumstances. However, the important thing, when you got to the heart of the matter, was that they met, regardless of the circumstances. They had had many adventures together; some harrowing, some amusing, and some inexplicable in the end. And this, dear readers, was most definitely not to be their last. There were many paths that lay before them, many more dangers to face, but if they faced them together, they now knew for sure, the world would be a better place, they would be better people, and life would be just a little bit easier to face.

But for now we will leave them to celebrate friendship and family and the blurring of the line that separates the two. For it was a night of fellowship and camaraderie, of laughter and good cheer. At least until the power system shut down and the entire city was on the verge of sinking below the waves.

But that, gentle readers, is a story for another time.

The End.