"Where 'm I now?" Carson woke with a start, looking around the room. As the groggy feeling slipped away and his head cleared, Carson realized he was in some sort of prison cell. It wasn't a Wraith prison cell, but his last memory was of Michael standing over him, injecting him with something…and then he'd woken up here. This had to be Michael's facility.
In another part of the facility, the half-Wraith, half-Human hybrid paced back and forth, stopping to look at one of the various screens now and again and let out a very Wraith-sounding snarl.
"Has he woken up yet?!" Michael snarled at the drone that had just walked into the room. The drone nodded in response.
"WELL BRING HIM HERE!" Michael roared angrily, thinking about what this human had done to him, not once, but twice. He looked at his hand, the hatred for the feeding orifice there making him even angrier. He was no longer a Wraith, but was also not human.
****
The cell door opened, and for a split second, Carson felt a pang of excitement. Perhaps it was his team from Atlantis, Sheppard, Rodney, Teyla and Ronon. Maybe they had come to rescue him! The twinge of disappointment that hit when the Wraith Drone appeared in the doorway lasted only a moment as the Drone reached out with his gun and gestured for Carson to follow.
Out of options for the moment and with no weapon or other means to resist, Carson followed the drone, two guards behind them to be sure Carson wouldn't try to escape. The drone led Carson down a long hallway that looked almost like something out of a Genii base and into a large room. Carson could see another hallway but only had a brief moment to absorb what he was seeing before a burlap sack was thrust over his head and he let out a yelp.
"For God's sake! What's this about?" He yelped as the sack was put over his head and tied at the neck. He stopped talking when he felt the Drone's stunner prodding his spine and began to walk. It seemed like hours of walking before he heard the familiar ping of a Wraith Cruiser's doors opening and felt the familiar squish of the organic material beneath his feet. The Drone pulled the sack off Carson's head with a yank and Carson could see that he was inside a lab of some sort.
"Ah, Dr. Carson Beckett. I see you finally awoke from your slumber." Michael hissed, sauntering over to Carson and running his clawed feeding hand across Carson's chest, threatening him silently.
"Aye and if you think I'm goin' to help you, you're bloody insane!" Carson spat the words out, glaring daggers at the Wraith-Human hybrid. He didn't yet know he'd been given the Hoffan drug and was therefore safe from Wraith feeding.
"Oh you'll help me alright. You're going to perfect my new retrovirus. With your help, I will create a new hybrid. One more powerful than the Wraith, that has no use for THIS," Michael raised his feeding hand, letting the orifice open and close, a look of sheer disgust on his face.
"I'd love to, but I don't have any equipment," The doctor tried to stall a bit longer, wondering if there was any way to get out of this without causing harm. His med school training was trying to tell him 'Do no harm,' but his time at Atlantis was telling him otherwise. There was no way to escape without doing the Drones or Michael any harm.
"You will have free use of this lab should you decide to help me. Should you not, I will have to offer…incentive," Michael's eyes flashed and he motioned one of the Drones over, whispering orders in its ear, or what Carson assumed was its ear.
The Drone left the cruiser quickly, leaving Carson alone with Michael and two other Drones who were oddly distracted from the situation. Michael flexed his feeding hand in anticipation of what was about to happen, while Carson stood sweating before him, nervous about what would happen next.
A few awkward moments of silent staring later, the Drone returned to the Cruiser, pushing a young woman ahead of him. She was sobbing silently, her face streaked with dirt and tears, but Carson could see she was beautiful. Her blonde hair, though bedraggled, hung to her waist and she couldn't be more than nineteen or twenty years old.
The Drone shoved her forward until she was between Carson and Michael. Carson looked at her face; her eyes seemed to be pleading with him to help her. She let out one loud sob and then went back to silent sniffling. Carson felt his heart breaking in two; this was a life he couldn't hope to save. Not without his Atlantis team behind him. They would come though; Rodney wouldn't let them stop looking. Not if he thought there was a chance in hell of Carson being alive. Or so Carson thought.
Michael reached out and placed his feeding hand on the girl's bared chest, her low cut Athosian top ripped in two around her shoulders.
"You could still save her. But to do that, you'd have to help me…" Michael smirked at Carson. If this man had a weakness that Michael could take advantage of, this would have to be it. Carson couldn't let an innocent girl die, could he? Michael tightened his hand on the girl's chest, beginning to suck the life out of her body.
"I…I can't help ye. I won't help ye," Carson tried to stand firm, his heart twisting every time the girl let out a cry for help. His voice wavered for a moment, as Michael drew more life from the girl's body. Her hair grew grey and white, her already slim figure began to shrink before Carson's eyes, and her cries grew softer. Carson watched her age, her very life force being sucked out of her by Michael's one and only true Wraith characteristic: his Feeding Hand.
"Alright! I'll do it! I'll help you, as long as you don't feed upon any more humans!" Carson's voice rang out, all trace of the wavering sadness gone. Carson had set his resolve; he was going to create a drug that would take away the Wraith's need to feed. It might make them tougher but it would mean he'd never have to watch Michael, or any Wraith for that matter, feed on a human again.
As Carson stepped forward to the nearest console to look at Michael's calculations, he winced a bit, remembering a muscle he'd pulled while climbing down a hillside on the planet, trying to check where a body had been found for anything that would have told more of the story. He pushed himself forward and continued to work, noticing the Hybrid standing over his shoulder.
"I see, you're due for your weekly injection. Just some sedatives I took when we left the other planet, this will keep you from trying to escape," Michael took a hypodermic needle from a tray nearby, snatched Carson's arm in his non-Feeding hand and proceeded to press the needle into the vein. Carson winced a little – he was a doctor, but he'd never been a fan of needles. Michael withdrew the needle and stepped back.
"Bloody hell. That hurt. Now can ye explain to me what ye have here?" Carson gestured to the screen, his Wraith was a bit rusty and he hoped to be able to stall until Sheppard launched his rescue mission, but he'd still need to know what he was talking about.
Michael chuckled, pleased with how easy it had been to convince the doctor to work for him. He sauntered back over to Carson and started to explain his research to him. So far, the retrovirus didn't particularly do anything but stave off the cravings to feed. He needed to rid the Wraith of the Feeding Hand altogether, not just the urge to feed. Soon, Carson was left to himself with two Drones positioned just outside the door and access to all non-lab systems blocked and encrypted.
Several hours later, two more Drones arrived to take him back to his cell. One pushed Carson's head into the same sack he'd worn on his way into the room and the other prodded his back with the nose of a Stunner, prodding him in the direction of the doorway. During the walk, Carson realized that the sack smelled of Athosian soil. It was a fresh, earthy scent and he inhaled it as he walked, taking in what would be his only bit of the world above for the next who knew how long.
He heard the creak of a stone door being shoved open, felt a sharp shove right into his spine and collapsed to his knees inside the cell. A Drone roughly pulled the sack from his head and then slammed the door as it left.
Carson pushed himself to his feet, exhausted from standing in the lab all day with no break. He sat down on the bench he'd woken up on earlier and pulled a thin blanket from the end of the bench. He unfolded it partially and laid it out on the bench. This would be home until the team from Atlantis would show up to rescue him.
With a shiver, Carson realized it was night time and it got cold down here. For the first time all day, he looked down and noticed the olive green outfit he was wearing. This wasn't the lab coat he'd been wearing back on the planet when he was trying to save Michael and the others…
But that didn't matter now. Here he was, trapped in Michael's grasp, being forced to work for Michael or watch Teyla's people die one by one and be unable to help them. Soon enough, Sheppard would come, Rodney and Teyla and Ronon too. They'd rescue Carson and all of the Athosian people. Carson convinced himself of this, as he lay down on the hard stone bench and allowed sleep to overcome him. His last thought as he drifted off was how nice it would be to get back to the City of Atlantis, have a hot cup of tea and perhaps a day off, fishing with Rodney.
****
Meanwhile, Atlantis was having a time all its own.
Dr. Carson Beckett sat in his office on Atlantis, going over the recent medical records from the last of the Wraith he'd run blood tests on back on the planet. He flipped from one sheet to the next, looking for differences in the blood of the ones who had remembered. Something, anything that would determine why they'd overcome the effects of the retrovirus and how it could be kept from reoccurring next time.
A sudden shooting pain somewhere in his gut bent him double in his chair, nearly causing him to black out. Dr. Beckett grimaced through the pain, figuring Michael must have done something to him. A sharp rap on his office door dragged him out of the daze of pain and reminded him that he was still on duty.
"Come in!" Dr. Beckett pasted his usual cheeky smile on his face and willed his eyes to hold their usual twinkle. The door opened and Teyla Emmagen entered the room, a big smile on her face until she caught the Doctor's half-wince as the pain returned.
"Are you certain you are alright, Dr. Beckett?" Teyla's face changed from excited to concerned in the blink of an eye. Dr. Beckett took a moment to compose himself and clear his head of the fog the pain caused.
"Aye, I'll be fine. Just a wee sprained muscle from Michael torturin' me is all," Dr. Beckett grinned, holding back another wince as a stabbing pain shot through him like a white-hot knife.
"Alright. Colonel Sheppard's team and I have just returned from M6H-491 and we've come for the standard post-mission checkups." Teyla informed the Doctor, then with one last smile, she stepped back out into the infirmary.
Dr. Beckett finally let himself double over again as the door clicked shut behind Teyla. He felt tears spring to his eyes as the pain shot through him. He fumbled a bit through the handful of pill bottles on the desk in front of him for the one marked 'Ibuprofen' and dry-swallowed two pills. He dared not take anything stronger than Ibuprofen while he was on duty and rarely even liked to take that. He had to admit to himself that something must be wrong.
He stepped out into the main infirmary, blinking a few times in the fluorescent light. His office was lit with two lamps, one on the desk for paperwork and the other, a floor lamp next to the book case for reading and studying.
"Well, I see everyone made it back in one piece" Dr. Beckett gave his usual half-smile and began the checkups. Colonel Sheppard let out a loud sneeze, a soft groan of annoyance and then a series of sniffles, making himself the Doctor's first priority for a checkup.
"Ye seem to have a bit of a cold, Colonel. Ye'll have to drink plenty o' fluids for that and try to get some rest," Dr. Beckett's eyes sparkled as he diagnosed what had to be the simplest thing he'd diagnosed since he'd met the Colonel in Antarctica on that fateful day.
"Shouldn't I be taking, I dunno, Vitamin C or something?" The Colonel searched his mind for something to make his cold go away faster.
"Sorry son, that's a bit o' a myth. Vitamin C supplements only work if y've been takin' them right along. Starting now won't do ye a bit of good," Dr. Beckett chuckled to himself. Mercifully, he reached into his lab coat pocket and took out two small packets with the label 'Pseudoephedrine' and handed them to the Colonel, "One of those every four hours ought to clear you up enough."
When he reached Teyla, he did a basic check (blood pressure, heart rate) and then called his second-in-command, Dr. Jennifer Keller, and requested she do the more in-depth checkup (such as certain questions that would be more comfortable between females) for Teyla.
He loved her dearly, like a sister, and didn't want to make things awkward between them by pushing his limits on her personal space. Teyla gave Dr. Beckett a grateful look as he turned to Ronon and began his next checkup. These checkups were so basic that he could have done them in his sleep.
Bzzzzt! Crackle! The headset Dr. Beckett wore snapped popped with static before a voice came across it.
"Dr. Beckett, can I see you along with Colonel Sheppard and his team as soon as you're done with the post-mission protocols?" Dr. Weir's voice filled Dr. Beckett's ear.
"Aye, we'll be down as soon as we can," Dr. Beckett answered without looking up. Had he looked up, he'd have caught the sheepish look on Shep's face. Colonel Sheppard stood near the door, leaning against the wall for support while he waited for his team to finish up.
"Alright, we're done here. Dr. Weir wants to meet with us all. Jennifer, can ye keep an eye on the infirmary for me while we're absent?" Dr. Beckett slapped Ronon on the back and then flashed his usual charming grin to Dr. Keller just in time to cover a wince as the pain, though lesser now, returned.
He followed the Colonel and the rest of the team to Dr. Weir's briefing room, wondering what he was needed for. Elizabeth Weir's face was unreadable to nearly anyone, but as they walked into the room, Dr. Beckett could clearly see her skepticism.
"Carson, I'll need you to accompany Colonel Sheppard's team back to the planet they just arrived from. They say this man Lucius claims to have cures for, as he puts it, 'every known ailment' and I'd like you to run whatever tests you'll need," Elizabeth eyed him, awaiting the nod she knew was coming. Dr. Beckett obliged, giving a curt nod and turning to go and collect his supplies.
Dr. Beckett headed first to his quarters, to deposit his lab coat and khakis on the bed in a heap and grab his 'off-world' gear from the closet—minus the backpack. That, he would get from the infirmary closets. He tucked the small pistol every team member was required into the holster on his leg. As much as he hated to carry a weapon, the Doctor had to admit that after his last encounter with Michael, he could no longer avoid carrying it.