A/N: The bulk of this story takes place after Misbegotten with the exception of Chapter 1 which takes place during Allies. So there are spoilers for anything in Season 1 and 2 and up to and including Misbegotten. As always, I reference my other stories. This one is a follow-up to For All the Marbles so definitely read that one as well. It's located on my Profile page. Thank you for taking the time to read.

Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis and anything associated with it is not mine. If it was…oh the possibilities.

Warnings: Language and violence

Rattlesnake

Chapter 1

Beautiful Dreamer

The entire scenario was all wrong. His dreams never looked like this. Neither did his nightmares or hallucinations for that fact. A conglomeration of swirling, misty colored clouds churned around him, and damn it, that just was not right. The coiling and roiling colors were reminiscent of those only seen at sunset: pinks, blues, purples and oranges. Mallory Square with a beer in one hand and a girl in the other might have come close to replicating the colors. Still, it was all wrong.

His dreams were definitely made of darker stuff and more morose things than cotton candy. Things such as having the pleasure of being the guest of a few thousand year old bitch for three weeks while she fed on her tender morsels which unhappily included him. At least he killed her at the SGC in front of a very live audience.

Or things such as waiting to find out if the other half of your team died from inhaling sulfur from a volcano. He might have needed a stay at the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm and Sanitarium if anything had happened to Teyla or Ronon.

Or things such as mutating a Wraith into a human and all of the consequences from that fiasco (maybe a more precise term was mutilating-- especially from the Wraith's point of view). They had kept the thing in Atlantis. What were they thinking? It knew everything and it had come back to bite them in the ass. All of these experiences were nightmare inducing in their own sweet and peculiar ways.

Of course, that last item he had perversely enjoyed because of the first item. But those things were currently sequestered in his dreams. Although, when awake, there were times that he still could be truly scary. He had definitely enjoyed naming that inhuman reject because slapping a human name on a Wraith felt like power. There might not be any real power to it, but damn, it always felt so good.

"How about Mike?"

"It has a fallen archangel ring to it, don't you think?" he asked himself and the others.

That had been the defining chapter of their year even with the Wraith reaching Earth. Holding that howling mad creature to the bed; shooting him after he kidnapped Teyla; knowing they had a viable weapon against the Wraith; these actions culminated all of their hard work in developing a means to eliminate the threat. It was a weapon he could not wait to use on the entire race because the Wraith were still one step away from permanently making it to Earth. He was not about to let that happen, ever again.

It was a weapon in every sense of the word. The virus was defensive and offensive in nature. It had led to a fantastic mission for his return to active duty even if he was still being weaned off happy pills at the time.

The thrill of the hunt beckoned and he readily took up the challenge. Carson and Kate tutted at his choice. They had worn that pickled prune type of face and, together, they disagreed that securing a Wraith was a sane choice for jumping back into the saddle. He thought otherwise. He thought it was perfect. The capture of Patient 4364 went off like clockwork. Too bad nothing else about it did. Even Teyla distanced herself after the entire debacle, but, hopefully, that was resolving itself as he studied the swirling clouds enveloping him. She had craved space and time and the team had given it to her.

For him, that whole mission had been about vindication. He did not give a rat's ass if the treatment took. It did not matter if they had to kill them all if they reverted. He could shoot Michael again and again and again until his body was nothing more than a lump of hamburger. (Heightmeyer did not need to know about that little quirk in his personality-- amongst others. He knew how far to go in his sessions and that was too far.)

Sheppard had become very good at hiding in plain sight.

Additionally, he did not want anyone to know about the whispers and ghosts that skirted the edges of his mind-- those little demons that tried to break into the waking world that he somehow kept at bay. Things people thought long gone still liked to slip in and try to remind him of who was boss. This swirling, coiled world just brought it back to him and reminded him of what he had to keep a close eye on. There were ghosts that wanted to escape and play and he could not allow that, ever.

Why they still antagonized him he did not know because he had done everything asked of him. He had done everything they said he should do to get better. It was not his fault if the treatments did not take. It was not his fault if things lingered in his brain that should be gone by now. It was not his fault if they did not know anything about it because they had not asked the right questions.

Camouflaged in plain sight.

Unfortunately, he was not by himself in this totally odd place. His innermost thoughts were laid wide open like abdominal skin with his entrails pulled out for others to see. He felt emotionally eviscerated. His fears piled on top of the other's fears added to the emotional nakedness. Through this peek into his gray matter, they would know that not everything was…fine. He hated feeling so exposed.

Not that he was ever alone nowadays anyway; always someone to have lunch with him even if he craved solitude; always someone to walk with him to his appointments or meetings even though he was on active duty; always someone shadowing his every move even though he was the commanding officer. Well meaning colleagues and friends constantly hovered even though the Wraith were at their doorstep. It was time to face another Queen and to bid her welcome to his city without looking like the prime rib at the buffet. He had to present a confident and strong front. No weaknesses could be shown at this time of uncertainty and peril. They were depending on him.

Somehow, this strange state had to be linked to the Hive in orbit. Somehow, this not-right dreamscape was the Wraith's fault and he was not the only one to think that this was not Wonderland or Oz. The enemy was in orbit and so close-- what other explanation could there be?

"Klingons off the starboard bow? How the hell should I know?"

Ignoring the comment, the familiarity struck him-- a test pattern. Instead of vertical lines of color, this had swirling mists of color like the view screens on a Hive.

If this was the Wraith's fault, then woe unto them because John Sheppard felt extremely provoked. He was a man of many talents and killing Wraith happened to be one of them. He would enjoy every gory moment of letting his anger boil over and on to the enemy. Additionally, he was a patient man and he could wait for the right moment to strike. He could take his time and let the moment pick itself.

He turned his eyes upward and thought out loud, "Let the game begin."

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Elizabeth's eyes startled open and her breath snorted through her nose in a strangled snore. A strange heaviness lingered for an instant only to dissipate like steam off of water. She knew it was important to remember what she had just experienced, but she could not hang on to any of the images the dream had held. The lack of control made her nervous and a tiny bit frightened.

Elizabeth sank into her pillow and looked at the shadowed ceiling of her room. The sedatives Carson had given her must be having a reverse effect upon her system. Instead of relaxing, the headaches were increasing and now she was having a hard time sleeping. This was the last thing she needed because she had to be alert for whatever the Wraith threw at her.

The dream was important though, but she just could not remember why at the moment. She figured she could lay there until Rodney reversed engineered a ZPM and it would still not come to her. Oh well, another item to put on her list of things to ponder after tomorrow when the Wraith would leave with the Daedalus, Rodney and Ronon. It must have been her anxieties wreaking havoc on her ability to sleep. She would get a nice glass of cold water and try to resettle her mind and not think about the death warrant she was sending to thousands of beings in the Pegasus Galaxy, even if they were Wraith.

A feeling like a mental shiver possessed her. Something was tickling at her brain's worry center and it was sending a clear signal. How she knew this one piece of information and could remember nothing of her dream puzzled her. Even with the Wraith sitting in orbit above Atlantis this one thing was clear above all of her other worries. She knew with the certainty of the sun rising that John Sheppard was not as "fine" as he wanted everyone to believe.

And, there was absolutely nothing she could do about it right now.

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