There had been a natural lull in the conversation and Sam was enjoying a comfortable silence with her 2iC. She and John had taken an assignment to survey part of the last unexplored ten percent of the city. It had seemed to Sam an ideal opportunity to give John some downtime – without it actually seeming like downtime – and to satisfy her own curiosity. She had always been jealous reading the reports from the Atlantean scientists about their most recent discoveries in the city and with McKay on the mainland, was glad to finally get in on the action a little.

They were walking steadily, side by side, down a long corridor that looked like most other sections of the city, the same patterns in architecture and beautiful coloured glass that let in light and views of the rest of the city. With one difference - everything looked slightly dull, a little muted, and it was obvious that it really had been thousands of years since it had been occupied. This was the reason that after nearly three hours finding only living quarters and what had appeared to be a commissary, neither of them were showing any signs of boredom. The requisite caution of a seasoned soldier mixed with the excitement of an eight year old was a very familiar and pleasant mood.

"Heads up" John said quietly and indicated with his p-90 a door ahead, the first in a while.

Sam acknowledged him with a nod and moved toward the door, raising her own weapon. She had insisted that parties exploring the unknown city be fully equipped, the reason she was both cautious and excited was that you never knew what you might find in Atlantis.

The first indication to Sam that there was something different was the lack of natural light. There were no windows in the room, which was a significant change from the bright and airy spaces they had encountered so far. Instead there was only a slight blue glow and the light coming in through the open door.

She crossed the threshold carefully scanning her arcs and clearing the corners before moving fully into the room. John followed her, but visibly relaxed almost immediately. It was not a large room by lantean standards and held very little furniture. It apparently wasn't hiding any "Wraith versions of John McClane" which he had admitted was a concern of his that occasionally woke him in the night.

Sam had laughed back in the briefing room when he had voiced his worry, but now having seen just how isolated these areas of the city are, she had to admit she was doubly glad this survey was underway so they could be reassured of no hidden threats, lurking in the dark.

"This looks more interesting eh Colonel?" he asked and threw her a small grin before beginning a clockwise circuit of the room.

Following Johns example and lowering her P90 she pulled a small computer tablet from her vest and began typing into it, detailing what she saw in order to take it back to the control room.

"West pier 32nd room 1st floor 4th abutment" she wrote

"Perfectly square room, 20ft by 20ft approximately.

Door on west wall.

Three equally spaced pillars each along the north and south walls, about 1 metre diameter, 1 metre from walls.

Four consoles in the centre section of the room, facing centre, at the nw, ne, sw, se points.

Fifth console against east wall.

standard Atlantean design."

Sam moved forward to examine the central consoles in more detail. Although she couldn't read Ancient (it had taken her years to pick up basic Goa'uld) her experience with alien technology meant she could usually make very educated guesses. Checking the four consoles one by one, careful not to touch or activate any controls, she could tell that they were scientific stations. This and the fact that there were no windows lead her to think this was a lab of some description- apparently in which natural light would have been counterproductive to whatever they were studying.

"This could definitely be interesting, I think it's a lab of some sort" she said.

Turning to examine the last console she saw John had stopped in front of it, with his back to her. Wondering if he'd found anything of interest she packed away her tablet and started toward him.

But she only took two steps.

There was something wrong. His whole body appeared rigid and thinking back, she hadn't heard movement from him in some minutes.

"Colonel?" Nothing.

"John? What is it?" Still nothing.

His too still posture and lack of response put the hairs on the back of her neck up, a few slow seconds passed but before she could formulate a plan he turned very slowly, looked her in the eye and raised his P90.

Her eyes widened as Sam realised what was about to happen. She reacted without conscious thought and threw herself behind the column directly on her left, scrabbling to put the stone between her and John. For the first time she was at the receiving end of P90 fire, and her respect for the weapon increased massively when a bullet ripped through her thigh at 850 metres per second.

Her eyes slammed shut and she gasped and fell against the column as her leg gave way, but she had only enough time to pray that it had missed her femoral artery before she re-focussed her attention on the horrifying threat of her 2iC apparently gone mad and trying to kill her.

"There's no point in trying to avoid it colonel…I will take you down, even if it's one bullet at a time".

Forcing her eyes open and trying to still her breathing in order to hear his movements was difficult but she managed it just in time to hear him approaching around the console on her left.

A flick of her thumb set her P90 to rapid fire and she shot roughly in the direction of his oncoming footsteps, deliberately missing him but buying her a few more seconds.

She could hear his frantic steps to avoid the bullets and when she released the trigger he began to laugh. It didn't sound like him.

"You won't kill me colonel! Don't you want to save me?" he said with cruel glee in his tone.

What the hell was going on? He must have activated something on the last console, it was the only explanation. Something had changed his behaviour and turned him…what…homicidal? And her stomach filled with dread as she realised - an ancient experiment in mind control had hold of her 2iC. He was right, she had to save him.

She looked down at her P90 regretfully and unclipped it, removing the magazine and placing it on the ground. She raised her stunner instead – leaning as much as she dared from behind the column, trying to find her target, gritting her teeth against the pain it was causing her to gain a good position.

Suddenly bullets were flying again from a direction she hadn't expected and only the desperate adrenaline fuelled speed of someone trying to stay alive meant that she made it around behind the next column without getting hit again.

John moved again, he came toward her at such speed across the room that she only just had time to aim and shoot the stunner once before he could get another shot off. The blue light of the stunner enveloped him and John collapsed to the floor.

She slumped, allowing herself a small groan of relief. Slowly, painfully, she limped over to him and disarmed his P90. She reached for her radio, her thoughts already moving to painkillers and comfortable beds.

Suddenly his eyes snapped open and he swept her legs out from underneath her. She landed hard on her back, the breath knocked out of her. Before she could move again John had landed top of her, elbowed her in the chest-plate and taking advantage of her momentary weakness wrestled away the stunner. In a swift movement he reached down and raised his sidearm to her throat. She stilled immediately, gasping and breathing heavily, trying to regain control and ignore the pain in her chest that bloomed every time she took a breath.

"John, this is mind control, please, try and fight it before you do something you'll regret"

Instead of responding he reached down with his free hand and grabbed her wounded leg, pulling it upward in a cruel, mock embrace. The pain was excruciating and she cried out as her muscles stretched around the wound. At this point, she thought, the gun under her chin was fairly redundant; she would bleed to death before very long. Struggling to think of a way out of this, she looked up into hazel eyes so full of hatred and anger she couldn't believe they belonged to the same man she had grown to trust and respect so completely in the past year.

The only other point of reference she had for mind control was the Zatarc incident but if possible this was even worse than that. She could guess from his behaviour that this control was over emotion rather than direct motor control as in the Zatarc device.

This type could conceivably allow the attacker to live and try to live with the guilt of having killed a subordinate, colleague or in this case commanding officer and friend, sam thought.

The true victim was the one who committed the crime. If nothing else could have made her resist harder, the thought of John, who already carried far more guilt than he should, trying to accept the events of tonight spurred her into action. For his sake, more than her own, she was determined to survive. She gathered her strength, met his eyes and head-butted him as hard as she could.

She felt his nose break and heard him scream in shock. Her attack had the desired effect. He rolled off her gripping his face, his 9mm flying across the room, and she followed up with a knee to the stomach before rolling away. She struggled to her feet and remained standing through sheer determination, knowing that if he managed to pin her again this fight would be over.

Slowly backing away from him, struggling with each step, she watched as he gained his feet. If he had looked angry before, he now looked terrifying, with blood running down his face and a look in his eyes she had come to expect to be followed by a sinister glow.

"Stop John!"

She reached again for her radio, hoping at least to have time for a call for help, but it was useless, he moved toward her with his head bowed and fists raised.

"You're gonna feel mighty stupid in the morning colonel" she prayed under her breath as she flicked the switch in her brain that accessed over 20 years of hand to hand combat experience.

She continued to back up and balanced herself as much as possible on her good leg before he threw a jab with his left and a brutal cross with his right. She managed to block both, the shock of his fists hitting her arms alone almost enough to knock her over in her compromised stance.

She took a millisecond too long to move back from his attack again and he managed to land an uppercut into her stomach. She doubled over but immediately whipped up again slamming her elbow into his already broken nose, while he screamed and grasped his face; she took a deep breath – preparing herself for the pain – and followed up her advantage with an angled kick to his knee with her good leg. The intention being to temporarily cripple him, she heard the crack in his knee and her kick took them both to the ground. For a second they both lay on the ground grunting in agony and clutching their legs.

This is why soldiers learn to compartmentalise their emotions she thought, whilst waiting for the worst of the pain to fade, without his anger outweighing his judgement she knew beating him would have been almost impossible.

Too soon though he began to struggle to his feet and with a momentous effort she dragged herself up too, knowing as she did that it would be the last time she'd be able to, feeling herself weakening dangerously now.

Watching him regain his breath she realised that his injury was not going to slow him down enough and for the first time she felt truly afraid as he relentlessly began to move toward her again. She backed up as quickly as her exhaustion allowed but not fast enough. His round house kick caught her on the right side of her face and she flew across the console behind her. She felt her ribs break as her body caught on the corner before landing in a heap on the other side.

She no longer had any mechanisms or reserves of strength strong enough to control the pain and she curled into a foetal position unable to even take a breath. Clinging onto consciousness, she opened her eyes again, better to watch him coming, and saw his sidearm six inches from her nose. A glimmer of hope sparked in her heart but as she grasped the weapon she wondered if she would ever be desperate enough to shoot him.

Just in time she had concealed the gun in her right hand as John entered her field of vision. He had such a look of satisfied hatred on his face it almost made her look away. But he didn't give her the choice, leaning down he grabbed her by the front of her vest.

In a move that apparently cost him little effort he yanked her to her feet. Sam screamed as her injuries pulled, opened and tore respectively and she could not help but rest her weight on the man in front of her, unable to support herself.

"This is it Colonel" he breathed down on her

"It's over."

But the next second his look of satisfaction had changed to one of shock as she kneed him in the groin, knocked his hands away and with her very final effort that she dragged from somewhere near the soles of her feet, spun and pistol whipped him to the ground.

This time he stayed down, his lanky figure prone on the dusty floor. Sam let out a half-sob and sank against the nearest column, moaning, gripping her thigh and noticing for the first time her blood soaked pant leg.

Relieved, exhausted, beat to hell, she sank to the floor a lot quicker than she had intended. Somehow in the midst of encroaching blackness she raised her impossibly heavy arm and activated her radio.

"Major Lorne?"

"Colonel?"

"I need a medical team to my transmitter location on the West pier"

"Everything alright Maam?"

"Not really…" she answered airily, her eyes closing "I've been shot & someone's kicked the crap out of Colonel Sheppard".

Her brain had lost the facility to process Lorne's response, her head dropped to the side and she passed out.

Four days later and she was making slow but steady progress down the corridor toward the infirmary, she had used a crutch before but found it frustrating to move so slowly.

Her second in command was recovering well. He'd suffered a fairly serious concussion but according to Dr Keller the most serious injury had been the absorbed stunner blast. The programming had allowed him to ignore its effects but had caused more damage to his nervous system in doing so.

The effects of the assumed mind control had disappeared by the time he had woken up.

Zelenka had eventually found a description of the device in the ancient database and had explained its purpose to her in the infirmary. Through a haze of painkillers she had understood that it was a form of mind control intended for wraith drones with the sole purpose of turning the soldier into an assassin programmed to kill its queen.

The soldier became an instrument of the ancients.

It was an excellent tactic. If it worked, major win for the ancients, if it didn't the soldier would have been killed by its fellows, and they'd still be down one drone.

Beyond pure numbers though, it sewed distrust into the ranks and put fear in the hearts of an apparently fearless enemy.

Keller had jumped in at that point and suggested that the chemical processes it must have altered in the brain probably wouldn't have been able to distinguish between a drone's relationship to a Wraith queen and that of a Colonel in the air force reporting to a female full bird Colonel in command. Sam had chosen that moment to pass out again and had thankfully avoided analysing that comparison since.

Zelenka hadn't found any evidence of the results of the experiment and even if it had ever been deployed. She'd ordered the lab permanently sealed until Zelenka could find more definite answers.

She entered the ward and started around the corner to John's bed but paused when she heard the conversation between the team members gathered around their injured colleague. It was a scene so familiar to her that she paused, a smile on her face.

Ronon sat on a chair with his feet up on the end of Johns bed.

"A girl kicked your butt" he said smiling smugly

This earned a glare from Teyla who rested against the wall opposite.

John raised his eyebrows

"No, Colonel Carter kicked my butt, which I don't have a problem with" he shifted in bed slightly "much".

"I could take her" Ronon sniffed

Sensing an excellent time to enter she continued round the corner and met the definitely surprised but surprisingly defiant Ronon's eye.

"let's never put that to the test shall we?" He let out a wolfish grin and she allowed herself one in return, feeling she may have gained some respect in the eyes of the lanky Pegasus native.

Teyla, reliably sensitive to unspoken cues, moved to knock Ronon's feet from the bed.

"Come Ronon, I think we are overdue for a sparring match" she said with added relish.

John grinned and Ronon met John's eyes and winced. He rose to his considerable height and led the way from the room, Teyla nodding at Sam respectfully in passing.

Sam returned the gesture but then moved forward exchanging an awkward glance with the man in the bed.

She leaned a hand down onto the footrest and a slightly awkward silence fell before John broke it.

"So, mind control huh?"

"Yep, one of my personal favourites. Dr Keller thinks the effects of your concussion reset the programming"

He nodded in agreement.

There was another brief silence.

"You were discharged already?" His eyes roamed over her body and she could see him mentally cataloguing her injuries - bandaged leg, pale skin, clearly wrapped chest, bruised swollen jaw - no doubt to torture himself with later. Keeping it light she said.

"Oh this is nothing" and added "I'd hate to see you really mad". At this he looked away with a smirk which faded all too quickly.

"In all seriousness Colonel" he spoke with his head down, fingers picking at his sheets "attacking my commanding officer..."

"In all seriousness John" she took a breath "it wasn't you, you didn't attack me." She let the words sink in, searching for anything like acceptance in his face.

"You were just an instrument" she tried again "but I kicked your instrumental butt. So no harm done" and she grinned broadly, ignoring the pain from her jaw.

For the first time he fully met her eyes and smiled, she was actually enjoying herself, possibly a little too much.

"I'll ask Doctor Keller to go easy on you, you look terrible. Feel better" and with a smirk she turned and limped out of the infirmary.