A/N: Hi folks, and welcome to my 3rd published SGA fan-fiction! It's a 14 chapter story that was posted incrementally. This one is a little different in that it's a lot darker and more angsty than my usual stories. I do feel that it is my responsibility as author to warn my readers about the presence of potentially upsetting content even though I believe you'll all be just fine. You all survived SGA itself, and wouldn't be here if you didn't like Sci-Fi!
Sensitive Topics/ Spoiler Alert: Some of the chapters will contain moderately graphic violence, one has a brief, non-graphic, dubious consent, violent sexual situation, and another discusses abortion. The events described are brief but integral to the story so I assure you that it wasn't added in gratuitously.
I promise there's a mostly happy ending, though, along with plenty of sprinkles of humour and Lorne awesomeness. I hope you enjoy it, because there is much to enjoy!
Prolegomenon (Noun, [proh-li-gom-uh-non]): a preliminary discussion; introduction; foreword; exordium; overture; prelude.
As a human-iratus hybrid, I had always wondered how much of Sheppard's crack at freedom was driven by creature instinct. Moments before fleeing his quarters he had asked Weir to kill him, clearly still himself, and she declined... so why would he run? I had always speculated that he had done it on purpose to force the result he wanted... but if he wanted them to kill him, then why would he have run away when the search team were shooting at him?
Why would he have fought back just as they switched to lethal weaponry, and then tried to get away? And why the odd behaviour with Teyla in the atrium? All of his post-escape behaviour seemed to be driven more by survival instinct than a deliberate attempt at getting shot. That meant his creature side had taken over in the time between fleeing his room and encountering Teyla and the team of Marines in the atrium.
Creatures operate on survival instinct. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to remember that for most animals, survival instinct is more than just "Run away": It's Escape. Hide. Feed. Procreate. This story focuses on what else bug!Sheppard may have gotten up to in the time that he was roaming through the halls of Atlantis, based on the behavioural clues given in the episode and a healthy dose of imaginative sci-fi creature analysis. What else doesn't John Sheppard remember doing?
Recap - Ep 2x08 "Conversion": Weir goes to see Sheppard to tell him about the failure of the mission to retrieve the Iratus eggs. He demands she try again. When she refuses, he insists that she kill him instead. Unfortunately Weir also seems unwilling to kill him, so he grabs her by the throat and starts choking her, reiterating his demand that they try again, and she informs him that they lost two marines and won't send more people to their death. Sheppard abruptly drops her and breaks out of his room, knocking out the two marines standing guard at his door. He disappears into the city as Weir scrambles security teams to go after him.
There's the part of him that wants to die, to free him from this hellish conversion into a monster. He can feel himself slipping away; knows he's become dangerous; knows that he's a serious threat to the city that needs to be stopped.
Then there's the other part of him - the new part, the changed creature part - screaming for survival. It's fighting to get out, get away, get free. It wants to live, and it's the part of him that's in charge right now. He's not sure which part was in charge when he had grabbed Elizabeth. He's not sure why he didn't fight harder when his creature half decided to make a break for it. It had seemed right, at the time.
He wanted.., no, he needed them to take him out. He needed to force their hand, push them to take action against him; take the decision out of Elizabeth's hands since it was clear that she wouldn't kill him. As soon as he'd taken down the guards and escaped it had become a military situation, and Caldwell would do what was needed. Unfortunately, as soon as he was out of the room his new half had seized complete control, revelling in the chance to escape.
Atlantis is a big city, but he's come to know it fairly well. Thanks to the recent flooding, and 10,000 years of submersion before that, the internal sensors are still down in many areas. The creature mind, feeding off Sheppard's detailed knowledge of the city, takes immediate advantage of that and slips away rapidly into the depths of the city where he knows it's safe.
McKay is up in the control room with Ronon, debriefing Caldwell on their failed mission, when Weir's call for security comes over the radio. Ronon is gone like a flash, not stopping for orders from Caldwell. McKay hesitates - he's no good with running and chasing and fighting. They need to find Sheppard. Life signs! He spins around to the control panel and calls up the city-wide life signs scanner, but it's no use. The sensors are still down in many areas, and the dots are indistinguishable from each other. Caldwell is hovering behind him, expectantly.
Caldwell insists there has to be way to find Sheppard. The uptight ship-commanding Colonel has the nerve to insinuate that he's incapable of tracking down Sheppard despite being surrounded by the most advanced technology in the known universe?! It's not like he wants Sheppard to get away, what with the mutation progressing at the rate it… wait. His fingers snap of their own accord as the process of initiating his new idea falls into place in his mind.
He might be able to tune the biometric sensors to differentiate between humans and Sheppard (by combining the the medical scanners coding and integrating some of the tissue samples Carson has taken from Sheppard so far as a reference baseline), but it's going to take a while to calibrate the life signs sensor with the added functionality and safely boost the equipment sensor range to cover the entire city.
He's still dusty from the dirt of Lorne's grenade, and sweaty from the long hike; these problems evaporate as Caldwell says "Do it!". He inelegantly displaces an obstructive technician to begin reprogramming the console whilst yelling at Beckett over the radio to run a full spectrum lifesigns wavelength analysis on Sheppard's most recent mutated tissue samples.
With the control room firmly under McKay's command, Caldwell heads down to the Infirmary to see Weir. He finds her being checked out on the bed next to Major Lorne's. There's a red welt around her throat, and her voice is a little raspy, but she's perfectly fine otherwise. Lorne is a little ragged and dirty from his proximity to the grenade blast, but as Caldwell approaches he waves away the medic peering into his ears with an otoscope and pulls himself up off the bed to greet the Colonel. A flash of a grimace accompanies his motions, but there are some things you just don't mention.
An impromptu 3-way pow-wow follows regarding what happened and their appropriate response actions; Lorne makes a recommendation and Caldwell can't argue with it. He's been in charge less than a day and the Major knows the details of the various protocols. He looks to Weir, surprised when she agrees with Lorne's recommendation; he expected that she would fight him over enacting such a stringent protection security protocol. She also agrees on assembling search parties to continue looking while McKay works his sensor magic. Lorne offers to put out the call, but Caldwell waves him off.
As Acting Military Commander he has to give the instruction. Weir slides off her bed and joins him as he turns to head back to the control room. The doctor on call nods at her, indicating that she's good to go, but promptly orders Lorne to get back into bed when the Major moves to follow. For a moment, Caldwell expects that he'll have to order Lorne to stay in bed, but the Major isn't Sheppard. His demeanour is calm and controlled. With a neutral, expressionless look at his temporary CO, he backs up and carefully re-deposits himself on the bed while the doctor picks up the previously abandoned otoscope.
Caldwell and Weir make their way back to the control room, and after a few swift taps from the technician on duty, the Colonel is given the go-ahead. The announcement is broadcast on all channels and the city-wide PA: Cluster Security Protocol 11-B is enacted. Weir follows up his announcement with a more explicit message: All expedition members are instructed to abandon their work immediately, lock down their labs and gather in their nearest designated safe zone. His initial flash of annoyance at her jumping on the airwaves in a military situation fades as he realises that the civilians on base may need to be reminded of what 11-B actually entails.
He can't simply assume that the scientists remember all the details of each protocol - they haven't been trained for it. He may have to look into simplifying the protocols in such a way that there was no reliance on civilians remembering tricky security details in the future. He files that away on his mental to-do list - right now there are security teams to coordinate into search groups and grids. The protocol was only the first step - by clustering the civilians together in designated zones, they might more easily get a lock on a solitary target moving about the city, but armed search teams with hand-held scanners would still be necessary.
They would find Sheppard. Every minute that the mutating former soldier was running free was a security risk to the city.
He had to be dealt with.
Standard SGA Fan Fiction Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate Atlantis; I do not own any of the original series' characters who appear/are mentioned in this story (Sheppard, Lorne, Weir, Beckett, Teyla, Ronon, McKay, Caldwell); all rights belong to the original creators of this fantastic series which I adore; I write only for fun and derive no remuneration from this.
Independent creations: Dr Cartwright, Dr Lessik, The Eslop, and Gunny Fricks are mine. Amanda, Parris, Roux and Mackie are mine; they fell out of my random geeks&goons name generator. Dr Ellingson is a name I assigned to an extraneous science character who appeared in the show for all of 5 seconds.