A/N: For Roswell this would be an AU post grad, for Stargate Atlantis, it's set immediately post episode 5.19, Vegas, in the alternate universe.

Solitary Man

She had been tracking the cold hunger for days, an alien sense of menace different than any she'd felt before. Well, that wasn't completely accurate. Once, some weeks ago, a similar presence, only much much stronger, had impinged on her dreams before being shattered in a wave of rage and terror that had woken her with a searing headache. Something told her that whatever being she felt now was a remnant, or a survivor, of whatever that great evil had been, a remnant she intended to eliminate.

When it was so close that she could taste the bitter metallic flavor of its essence on her tongue, could feel the anticipation building in her muscles for the kill, something else interfered. Two planes, fast and deadly military aircraft, came screaming overhead, guns blazing, and moments later a plume of flame and smoke spat into the desert air, the cold presence vanishing with a furious mental shriek. She kept her foot on the gas when it became clear that the planes weren't going to land to inspect the wreckage, and soon was pulling off the road next to the still burning metal bits, all that remained of what was once a trailer.

To her surprise, there was also a survivor, a man, handsome in a scruffy sort of way, lying unconscious on the red dirt with several bullet holes riddling his torso. Stepping out of her sedan, she walked cautiously towards him, warily watching for the slightest twitch. His chest was still rising and falling shallowly, but it wouldn't continue to do so for long, judging by the amount of blood pooled in the dirt around him. She wasn't in the habit of saving random strangers, more of a roving, alien-hunting vigilante than a do-gooder, but something about the weak consciousness she could feel flickering inside of him, a beaten but not broken man, called to her.

She grit her teeth and gave in to the nebulous urge, lowering herself to her knees at his side and tearing away the tattered shreds of his shirt to reveal the wounds staining his skin crimson. Resting her hands on his chest, she grasped that tentative mental flicker with her mind and pushed energy down the link she'd established, a healing golden glow that made him arch beneath her fingers, a strangled moan escaping his throat as bullets exited his flesh with wet pops and the ragged holes sealed shut behind them.

~x~x~x~x~x~x~

John gasped painfully as something burned beneath his skin, his blood boiling with foreign energy. When the fire faded, his eyes snapped open, widening in shock as they met a pair of dark brown ones, cool and distant, in a feminine face hovering above him. Shifting his gaze downward, he stared at his smooth chest, only marred by a few rust brown streaks of dried blood, and no bullet holes. "What the hell?"

The woman's mouth curled up in a half smirk and she gracefully rose to her feet before turning to walk away. "Wait!" She stopped, glancing back at him through a curtain of coffee-colored hair. "Are, are you an alien too?" She shook her head. "But different?" She hesitated, and then nodded. "Were you trying to talk to this alien?" he asked, gesturing towards the smoking wreckage. She shook her head sharply, an expression akin to anger flashing across her face. "To kill it?" he guessed, and she smiled, slow and dark.

Turning again, she walked towards a black sedan almost identical to the ones the supposed FBI agents had used. Scrambling to his feet, John staggered after her, pausing only to reach into the bullet riddled and battered hulk of his car and pull out the duffel bag of money. "Wait! I want to come with you," he called out, the woman not pausing after his first word, but halting after his last. Hands on her hips, she rotated on her heel and stared calmly at him before raising one eyebrow quizzically. He shrugged. "I have nowhere else to go." She looked doubtful and he hefted the duffel bag, pulling down the zipper to reveal the stacks of cash inside. "I have this."

That slow, dark smile made another appearance and she gestured towards her car, speaking for the first time in a low, husky voice. "Get in."

John obeyed, clutching the duffel bag and wondering at the mad impulse that had led him here, and now to leave with some strange woman who killed aliens, and who had saved his life, a life not really worth saving in his book. Maybe that Rodney fellow was right, maybe one incident could change the course of his life, this time for the better.

Or more likely, it would just get him killed, again.