The man who had once borne the name of Michael Kenmore paced like a jaguar in the isolation room. Before it had seemed so large for one man. Now it seemed so small. He didn't know what he was anymore. Man? Wraith? He wasn't sure. All he was sure of was the fact that he wanted revenge.
Suddenly he turned and John Sheppard was there, lounging casually against the wall beside the observation windows above Michael's room. But Michael was not fooled. He knew the truth; the colonel was a soldier and was prepared to counter any move he might make. Sheppard did not speak, he simply stood and watched the man who's life he had stolen away. Michael's lips twisted in a sneer directed at the human. Sheppard's own mouth went into a smirk. He was not afraid of Michael Kenmore, not yet.
"You have disgraced me," seethed the former Wraith, knowing that the human could hear him despite the thick glass and locked doors between them. "Disgraced and hindered me half a million." The words spilled from him with more and more heat, snarling and spitting like a trapped animal.
"You and your people; you have laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated my enemies. And what is your reason?" The last phrase was hurled at Sheppard along with a cup from the tableside. Michael was pleased to see the soldier flinch as the cup clanked against the glass.
"I am a Wraith! It is your only reason!" he cried out in rage. "Have not Wraith eyes? Have not a Wraith hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?" Michael paused to catch a breath and noticed the woman, Weir, join Sheppard to stare at him as if he were an animal in a zoo.
"Am I not fed with the same food?" The second he spoke it, he knew that it was a foolish thing to say. The slit on his right hand belied that thought; Wraith, such as he had been, fed from humans, such as he had been. So what was he now? There was no easy answer. Perhaps there was no answer at all.
He tried again. "Am I not hurt with the same weapons?" Yet again his words failed him; Wraith were near impossible to kill and humans seemed so delicate in comparison. Michael himself bore a measure of both races. Frustration consumed him and he slammed a hand against the wall.
"Am I not subject to the same diseases?" Once more he spoke nonsense. Wraith were impervious to almost everything and humans died so easily. A glance at the windows showed him Sheppard's scornful expression. He was amused by the hybrid's inability to come up with a reason he should be accepted.
"Healed by the same mean?" No, even that was untrue. Wraith healed practically instantaneously and human recovery took so much longer by comparison. Michael's chest ached with the conflict within him. In so many ways, he was a true Wraith. But they did not want him, and neither did the humans that had made him this way. Just enough Wraith to frighten the humans and just enough human to repulse the Wraith.
"Am I not warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a human is?" There was something. Michael's eyes flew triumphantly to Sheppard and Weir. They could not deny that common thing that bound them, the perception of temperature. It was small, but it was something.
Michael had grown quieter and quieter as his comparisons failed, one after the other. Now, his ire returned. Sheppard did not seem to want to acknowledge that he and the man in the isolation room had anything in common, no matter how miniscule. Michael shouted at him, needing to make the soldier understand, to know the truth.
"If you prick me, do I not bleed? If you tickle me, do I not laugh? If you poison me, will I not die?" Weir flinched and Michael bared his teeth in a savage smile. He saw her guilt and counted it as a victory. He knew she had to decide whether to kill him, and also that she was taking the choice hard. Michael grew quiet again, though now it was in ferocity rather than defeat.
"And if you wrong me, shall I not revenge?" He lifted his face to the window and pointed one accusing finger at the two who watched him. "If I am like you in the rest, I will resemble you in that!" This was the binding tie, the single greatest thing that made him like these human creatures who had cast him out as unclean. His need for revenge against them was greater far than their need for revenge against the Wraith. The Wraith wronged humans only to survive, but there was no reason for them to have wronged him thus and that alone merited a heavier penalty.
But Michael knew that they didn't believe him. The humans who held him didn't believe in his right for revenge. The almight humans of Atlantis believed beyond doubt's shadow that they alone were in the right. He had to show them, make them understand that whatever he was to do to them, that it was just.
"If a Wraith wrong a human, what is his humility?" No answer moved the lips of the humans above, but Michael did not truly expect any answer. They couldn't own the truth. "Revenge," he claimed for them. Agreement showed on their faces, but he knew that it would disappear in only a moment.
"If a human wrong a Wraith, what should his sufferance be, by your own example?" Weir looked stricken and Sheppard's face was hard. They knew what he meant to say, but neither wanted to hear. "Why, revenge!" Michael screamed from his soul. He spun on his heel and stalked the length of the room. He wanted to rip, to tear, to kill, to exact his revenge on something. But in this room he could do nothing against them and they knew it. He could practically hear them laughing in scorn.
Michael took a shuddering, steady breath and faced them again. Weir had gone from the window. Sheppard was alone, standing and staring at him with a single-minded intensity. His hands were clenched at his side, though he could no more touch Michael than the outcast could touch his captor. Eyes glinting, Michael drew close to the observation window, close as he could. His head tilted back and his gaze locked with Sheppard's.
"The villainy you teach me," he said softly, "I will execute. It shall go hard, but I will better the instruction." The words were no idle threat, but a promise.