Disclaimer in previous chapters. Please see Author's Notes at the end.

- x -

On the third day he yielded.

He didn't have a choice. Whatever the hell the Genii were giving Rodney, it was keeping him alive, and John wasn't willing to let them continue the abuse.

He knew they would. Indefinitely.

Spock had been good about gloating, too – he hadn't. Not really. His mannerisms were eerily similar to that of the solder that had shot McKay, John guessed harkening back to his earlier statement that he taught his men to be like him.

Logic and reason his ass. There was nothing logical or reasonable about torturing a guy who couldn't even speak.

Pointing that out had earned him a seemingly sincere smile, but it hadn't bought McKay one second of respite. Not until he deliberately reached out and picked up the Ancient equivalent of a sunglasses case did they stop.

"Show us the purpose of one of these devices and we will provide him medicine," Spock murmured, somewhere behind him and to the right, always on his bad side. Always the threat implicit.

Even if Rodney didn't survive, one way or another, they were going to keep up the carrot and the stick routine.

And Rodney's survival was going to depend on that medicine. They left the room quiet, made sure he could hear McKay breathe. In the last day and a half, more and more often there was a wet crackle on his inhalations. His lungs were filling with mucous and fluid, that he wasn't capable of coughing up. The Genii knew it; they'd propped him up a little on pillows, which had only served to make it that much more visible to him when McKay was in pain.

Rodney had stopped looking at him, preferring instead to keep his eyes closed when he could.

"Give me something that's not broken or out of power and I will," Sheppard growled, turning the useless thing over in his hands. It wasn't likely they were going to give him anything useful, anything that even hinted at being a weapon, but this crap . . .

Sheppard tossed what amounted to a small brick back into the pile, extending a hand over everything else. Nothing lit by proximity, but he made a show of picking up a long metal dowel, palming the device beneath it.

One of the two of them was active.

"I have only your word that these items are nonfunctional."

John's lips twitched. "Have I ever lied to you?" he drawled.

Not the dowel. He was pretty sure he'd seen something like it on Atlantis, some kind of glorified magnetic screwdriver, but of course it was only useful if paired with magnetic screws, and apparently they didn't have any of those.

He replaced the dowel, shuffling the rest of the devices around and careful to conceal the one he still palmed. With his luck, it was no more than an Ancient pocketwatch, the right shape and weight, but whatever it was, it still had power.

"This is junk," Sheppard said again. "What did you do, go Ancient dumpster diving?"

Spock gave him a droll look. "Until you demonstrate some actual cooperation, John Sheppard, we have no reason to trust you."

Hah! But he could trust them . . . trust them to take it out on Rodney. Sooner or later he was going to have to provide at least a token. Still, something told him to keep the pocketwatch to himself.

"I am cooperating," he said between clenched teeth.

Spock came around, then, eyeing him up and down, and John had a brief moment of self-consciousness. What if his sleight of hand had been seen? It wasn't just Rodney that wasn't getting food, it was him too, and fatigue had set in a while back. They weren't letting him eat, letting him sleep much, trying to keep him off balance-

But Spock finally passed him, heading not to where McKay lay, always in sight and out of reach, but to the intercom on the wall.

"Send in another tray," he said, in his measured tones, and Sheppard closed his eyes against the relentless fluorescent lights and the bland gaze of Spock the Genii commander.

God, he was tired.

Open.

Nothing.

"I suppose you would like something to eat as well."

He frowned, eyes still closed.

On.

The thing remained inert.

Off?

"John Sheppard."

Turn into something I can use to get the hell out of here!

In his hand, the device clicked soundlessly, and John's eyes flicked open in surprise.

Spock stared at him, and when he said nothing, the man gave a measured sigh.

"You should save your strength. Hating me won't change your situation."

John gave him a sarcastic smile, letting it fade after a moment and slouching into the uncomfortable wooden chair. In his hand, the device soundlessly clicked again. He let his right hand drop into his lap, massaging his aching wrist with his left while he glanced down at it.

It looked much the same as before, a burnished brash and copper disk with a small decorative prong at the top. But the more he looked at it, the more it seemed the copper disk inset into the brass was actually a large button.

"I have other things to attend to. Do not forget our arrangement."

John refused to acknowledge him, still staring sightlessly at his hands, and he waited impatiently for Spock to look him over, approve of the obvious dejection, and leave him to think about what he'd done. His rebellious teenager mask slipped when Spock instead headed towards McKay, and his hand tightened on the device as Spock laid a hand on Rodney's shoulder.

"His mind seems to be fraying," Spock noted. "Were I to be trapped in my own body, unable even to speak, I do not think I would remain sane. Why have you chosen to put him through this?"

The device in his hand was starting to warm up, and he rubbed his thumb against the copper disc.

"If you care for him, you should have finished the job," Spock continued. "Survival without purpose is not life."

Key fob, John thought with a start. It felt like a wireless key, or a remote control for an overhead projector. Without quite knowing why, he held it up, pointed the prong at Spock's half-turned face, and clicked the button.

He barely saw it, the faintest of blue beams, and the concrete behind Spock popped with a bit of smoke. The Genii flinched, staring not at John but the wall, and he realized what it was.

Ancient laser pointer. A very, very strong one.

Of course. Everything on that tray had reminded him of crap you'd find in a toolbox. This time he held the button down, targeting not the Genii but the chain at his ankle. The blue beam cut the first link like butter, but the going was too slow and Spock was already drawing his pistol. Without releasing the button, John drew the laser up and across Spock's chest, intending to target the gun.

Spock stared at him, uncomprehendingly, pistol raised waist-high. And then his upper torso slipped a little to the right, and he collapsed bonelessly to the ground.

John blinked, momentarily stunned, and it wasn't until the smell hit him that he shook himself, and turned again to his manacle. Another few seconds had the second link cut, and then he was up and out of the hated chair. Spock had summoned another batch of Ancient crap, they didn't have a lot of time. He picked up the Genii's pistol, almost shooting him reflexively when the man blinked up at him.

Jesus. He was still alive.

Spock opened his mouth slightly, as if to speak, but his lungs had been severed by the laser, and nothing came out.

No pithy retort came unbidden to his lips, so John didn't spare him another thought. He stepped over the dying Genii, giving McKay a quick once-over. Rodney was looking at him, eyes wide, and he blinked twice, then twice again.

John gave him a broad grin. "You can't say no yet. You don't even know what I'm thinking." He pulled the tape off the IV lines, wincing though he knew Rodney couldn't feel it, and in another moment had McKay free of peripherals. The gurney was on wheels, which was handy since he knew he couldn't carry him. He stooped by Spock one more time, patting him down for spare magazines, and to his relief it appeared the man was dead.

"Come on, Rodney, let's get out of here."

He eased the gurney out of direct line of sight of the double doors, then cracked one open. The hallway outside was the same drab concrete, wide enough for a Jeep, and there were no side rooms or another else resembling cover. Not so good. John dared to duck his head out, checking both directions, and he found a set of double doors to the right. To the left, the hall terminated in a 90 degree turn.

Double doors usually indicated a security checkpoint or a firewall.

John glanced back at the gurney, and Rodney opened his mouth a little, making the gagging motion again.

"I'll be right back, buddy. Sit tight." Then he winced at his own words and was out the door, jogging towards the right. There were no cameras in the hallway, nothing but the maddening fluorescent lights, and his footsteps were oddly muted as he approached. The double doors had thin panes of glass, reminding him a little of his high school, and he paused for a moment, checking for motion.

There was none.

John approached the doors, listening intently, and they burst open in his face, a wheeled cart trundling noisily through.

Sheppard backpedaled furiously, bringing up the pistol and sighting the startled looking Genii. Same one, it was the same guy that had –

He twitched for his gun and Sheppard dropped him.

The cart was in the way, propping open the doors, and John could see a security desk to the left. It was occupied, another soldier he didn't recognize, and John shot him before he could stand. Though there was no one else visible, a red light near the ceiling began to flash, and John swore, kicking the cart of Ancient gadgets out of the way. There was still a body in the middle of the floor, but Sheppard left him there, sprinting back down the hall.

McKay was right where he left him, and John gave him a tight grin, hauling the gurney as roughly as he dared towards the doors. "Time to go."

They went tearing down the fall, Sheppard mindful of any motions that caused Rodney's head to wobble, but the thick pillows did a pretty good job of stabilizing him, and he let the gurney go, darting ahead of it to cover Rodney and shove the dead Genii out of the way. The security guard was still slumped at his desk, and a quick look told him no one else had shown up.

Yet.

This hall was a lot more interesting, a little like what he remembered of Cheyenne Mountain. There were colored lines painted on the floor, a few signposts here and there indicator other corridors, and utility pipes snaked along the ceiling. He vaguely recalled that exit signs in Genii facilities were typically black, and there was a black line on the floor, so –

"Here goes nothing," he muttered, and dragged the ungainly gurney into the hallway, jogging alongside it. His right wrist ached fiercely, but his fingers were tight and sure around the pistol, and he slid a little on the concrete as he tried to drag them to a stop at a hallway interchange. The black line curved right.

Sheppard risked a glance, and not five yards away, the line terminated in a door. In both directions, the way was clear.

This time he pushed the gurney, keeping himself between the open hallway and Rodney, and when they reached the door, he circled the bed, pistol ready. The doorknob turned easily in his hand, and he yanked it open, revealing –

Stairs.

It was a fucking flight of stairs. Poorly lit, slightly damp stairs.

John swallowed a curse, easing along the banister and looking up the stairwell.

It was a lot of fucking flights of stairs.

There was no way he was going to get that gurney up those stairs.

Somewhere behind them, a door slammed open, and the rapid patter of boots echoed down the hall.

God dammit.

John crouched at the base of the gurney, catching the stairwell door with his hip before it could close. It wasn't the collapsible kind, the legs were fixed, and of course Rodney wasn't tied down. He was wearing his belt, but McKay wasn't – he wasn't wearing anything but the damn blankets – and maybe the sheet was long enough to tie around the bed, but he'd have to drag him up the stairs on the thin mattress, and his neck was only being held steady by a couple pillows.

He couldn't get him out.

John rubbed four days of stubble and swore, quietly. Okay. There had to be another way out. The Genii had elevators, they had to have gotten all the furniture and equipment down here somehow. He needed to clear a path, get a general layout. See what their options were.

The footsteps seemed to suddenly muffle, and John gave Rodney what he hoped was an encouraging look, easing a glance around the corner. A young Genii soldier was crouched by the security desk, checking the dead guard, and the others must have gone down the hallway. They'd find Spock soon enough, but the trail of bodies was going to get cold fast. It was easy to figure out which way he'd come.

John checked the magazine. Twelve bullets minus the two he'd used. The spare mag had another twelve. And the laser pointer. He should have picked up another pistol off the dead guard.

Instead, he crept back around the corner, pushing the gurney until the edge came up under the doorknob. Rodney was staring at him, eyes imploring, and John shrugged.

"Keep the door shut for me," he whispered.

Rodney blinked twice.

No.

Sheppard frowned at him, ear cocked back to the hall. "Rodney, we don't have time for this-"

NO.

His mouth opened, again with the gagging motion. This time he managed to make a wet snap by moving his tongue where two teeth used to be, but not a whisper of speech.

Gah. No, his tongue was going up. Gall.

Gall.

Brendan Gall.

Rodney stared at him, willing him to understand, his breathing shuddering a little. And John didn't know what to say.

That Wraith had done the same damn thing. Crippled Dr. Brendan Gall, knowing that the humans wouldn't leave their companion to die.

Knowing that eventually Gall would, and there was nothing they could do for him.

In the end, Gall had taken the decision away from McKay. That gunshot had been self-inflicted. He'd known McKay was never going to leave him, even though they both knew Sheppard himself was no match for that super-Wraith. And if the young doc hadn't done it, Rodney wouldn't have been there to save his ass, and they all would have died.

"Rodney," he faltered.

McKay closed his mouth, a little lopsided, looking suddenly so much like himself that it physically hurt. He closed his eyes briefly, and then opened them again, and they were watering but resolute.

Yes.

But Rodney wasn't staring at certain death. If they got him back to Atlantis, maybe back to Earth-

Then he'd be on a ventilator for the rest of his life, communicating only in yes and no.

"McKay . . ."

Yes.

We don't leave men behind.

He hadn't left Holland behind, and he sure as hell wasn't going to start with McKay.

Rodney must have seen the look in his eye, and his tears were clearly of frustration. Yes!

Voices, down the hall. They were splitting up to start the search. They knew he was armed, they knew he had McKay with him.

If he left Rodney here, if he fled up the stairs, they wouldn't shoot McKay. They'd keep him alive and use him as leverage against Atlantis. Against him.

But for pete's sake, this was Rodney! His survival instinct was hardcoded into the fabric of his being. Even now he couldn't be suicidal. Even now he couldn't want to die.

. . . right?

"No," he said aloud. "No, Rodney. We stick together."

Rodney closed his eyes, openly weeping, and his breath hitched. John turned back to the hallway, checking the pistol, and then he stepped around the corner, acquiring his first target.

- x -

"WHAT IN THE NINE HELLS IS WRONG WITH YOU, SOLDIER!"

Sheppard physically flinched, almost breaking attention, and Spock stepped right up into his face. Only it wasn't Spock, and yet it was. The Genii uniform was gone, replaced by unfamiliar but universal black BDUs. There was an insignia on his arm that Sheppard didn't recognize. But the voice, the face -

Spock took a deep, cleansing breath. "How many times will it take to get through your skull?"

This . . . had happened before . . .

John Sheppard blinked, and memory came flooding back. Rodney, trapped waist-deep in a rockslide, with Wraith on the way. Teyla, indecision plain on her face as he ordered her to leave them in the cage. Ronon, giving him a look that said he would refuse anything but a direct order, even with incoming fire pinging on the alabaster walls around them.

And always, Rodney. Trapped. Crippled. Dying. Impossible situations, and then he'd return here, for a . . . debriefing?

"What imbecile placed you in command of anything?" Spock inquired drolly, as though his outburst had never happened. "Oh, that's right. The one who knew you were unfit. The one you shot and killed. Of all the people you won't sacrifice, you had no qualms killing your superior officer on your first mission with him."

Sumner.

Sheppard blinked, then broke formation and glanced down at himself. Same not quite right black BDUs. Same ensign on his own shoulder patch. Only he was missing the two shiny black pins on his lapel. He was standing on a solid black line in a large barracks, his rackmates at attention by their own bunks. He didn't recognize a one of them.

What the hell was going on?

Spock rubbed the bridge of his nose, as if warding off an oncoming headache. "What did you do wrong, soldier? No, on second thought, what did you do right?" He paused, eyebrow raised inquiringly, and Sheppard balked. "Anything? Did you do anything right? Do you even know? Let's start at the beginning."

Spock gestured behind him, and John unwillingly looked toward his bunk. It felt like hooks sank into his eye sockets, dragging him back to the first moments in the temple, when he had turned the corner and startled an equally unsuspecting Genii soldier. The scene froze, and Spock strode through, hands clasped behind his back, pacing behind the comically surprised Genii.

"You didn't shoot him instantly," Spock noted. "That was correct. Why was that correct?"

John just stared at Spock, stupidly. "Uh . . . who are you?"

The man gave him a look. "You get better intel from the living than the dead. And you knew that. That thought actually consciously crossed your atrophied little brain. Let's continue, shall we?"

"Wait-"

But the scene fast-forwarded, breathlessly, the gunfight, the retreat through the hallway, the Genii ducking into an antechamber – and coming back out with his hostage.

Here Spock paused the tape. "You took this shot once before, to save your civilian boss. But not here. Why not?"

John felt a little like he was flailing, as if he was back in basic getting his balls busted. "The Genii are on again off again allies and I'm not just gonna kill someone if I don't have to-"

"Yes, you certainly proved that," Spock interrupted, and just like that Ronon sent a shot winging past McKay's ear, taking out an innocent decorative shell. They fell, and then the scene slowed, Spock actually striding between the first and second shots John had fired off. With time essentially frozen, he could see how both shots landed a little higher than he'd intended, because the Genii had been ducking with Rodney before the bullets left the barrel.

But even if they hadn't been high, he was only out to wound –

And why the hell am I having to defend myself to this guy? "Listen, I don't really know what's going on here-"

"What's going on here is that you and Specialist Dex got your civilian killed." It was dry, and Spock gestured, to the exact moment the Genii's pistol found the sweet spot, his finger tightening on the trigger, point blank, the bullet exiting Rodney's neck even as Ronon's stun blast hit the Genii.

The look of pure shock on Rodney's face. The exact moment his body rag-dolled, a useless sack of meat housing a brilliant mind that could no longer pilot it.

"Don't raise a weapon you don't intend to use." Spock chanted it, almost like a litany. "Never wound an enemy."

John tore his eyes away from McKay's, finding it unnaturally hard, and focused on his . . . messed up drill sergeant. "Who the hell are you?"

"I'm the poor soul required to get you back up to active status." Spock looked like he was still deciding how he felt about that. "And given how determinedly you kill your team in every simulation, and sometimes your commanding officers, I'm considering a permanent discharge."

There was something . . . disturbing . . . about the way he said that, and Sheppard bit back an angry retort. Okay, this was weird –

"Leaving him alive gave the enemy intel they never should have had." Spock gestured, at the Genii helping their wounded comrade to his feet, having untied him – and Ronon hadn't been kidding, he had trussed that guy up like a Christmas tree – and Sheppard could lip-read the world 'Atlantis'.

"But even before that, there's this." He gestured at them – Ronon by the archway, reporting on Genii movement in the square. He and Teyla struggling with stopping the bleeding. The look on his own face. The second realization had hit him.

"You knew that was a fatal injury." For once, Spock sounded a little sorrowful. "You knew right then that he was going to die, and that if you didn't fall back to a more defensible position, you were going to lose the rest of your team. You knew it, soldier."

John forced his eyes closed, finding himself unsurprised when he they flew open a second later, as if they were no longer his to command.

"You knew then that you should have left him, taken the remainder of the team, and cleared out the city. You could have come back for him. You were even willing to take lives at that point, if that expression is anything to go by."

Sheppard tried to look anywhere but at what the . . . man, the thing? . . . was trying to show him. "What did you do to me?"

This had happened before. How many times before?

But Spock went on as if John hadn't spoken. "And then, then you committed what became the fatal mistake for Teyla Emmagen and Specialist Dex. Do you know what that was?"

Sheppard shook his head, as if to clear it, and just as suddenly, his head was trapped in a vice. He could not look away, he couldn't even blink. Spock was watching him intently.

"I asked you a question, soldier."

. . . what?

"What was your fatal flaw?"

John growled, but he could not break the invisible hold. "Listen, pal –"

"What was your fatal flaw."

Anger – and no small amount of fear – had him replying without thinking. "If you think refusing to leave one of my team to die alone or be captured by the Genii is a mistake-"

Spock brushed it off. "It was, undoubtedly. But not the worst you made."

At a loss to do anything other than stare at the scene, Sheppard did so. Now the three of them were manhandling the altar-stone into place, buying time in the hope Atlantis would send reinforcements. He obviously hadn't been able to see either Ronon or Teyla at the time, but here, where he was forced to stand in the back of the room, he could see that Rodney had been awake, listening. He could see Teyla and Ronon exchanging a look, as they often did when they thought he couldn't see.

It was a look shared by two natives of Pegasus. Two people who knew how things worked in Pegasus. Two people who knew that Earth rules didn't apply, and no combination of confidence, arrogance, ignorance, and luck was going to work one hundred percent of the time.

"You counted on reinforcements," Spock agreed quietly. "You bet all your lives on hope, that someone would come save you." When John didn't immediately speak, Spock threw his hands in the air. "I gave you a fallback point with a confounded altar in the middle of the room! I could not have hit you over the head any harder with the solution unless I had physically done so!"

Altar. Cadaver table. Sacrifice the wounded man. Do what had to be done.

"Yes!" Spock cried, triumphant. "Exactly that!"

John could feel his teeth grinding. At least he still had control of his mouth. "That's not how we operate." Not how I operate.

"It needs to be." Spock inhaled slowly, snorting when it was clear his pupil didn't agree. "Your fellow soldiers were killed. You and a civilian were captured by the enemy. And not just any civilian." He gestured, at a scene John had never seen. Of Genii rushing around a medical tent, cutting off McKay's uniform, peeling back the soaked bandages as Rodney could do nothing more than squeeze his eyes closed and pretend it wasn't happening

"Look at him." There was no gentleness now. Sheppard couldn't do anything but, not when Spock himself entered the theater, asking questions. The scene shifted, a faceless Genii holding a document in front of McKay's face, some kind of missile design, and McKay trying to look anywhere else. A male nurse approached with a syringe of something, received a nod from the soldier, and he didn't even need to pin Rodney down as he injected whatever it was into the muscles of Rodney's jaw, his eyes dilated with pain.

"You could have saved him all of that." They were by the stairs, now, waiting for the Genii to find and shoot them. Sheppard standing there at the side of the gurney, McKay begging with his eyes. And then John saw himself raise the gun.

"You ready?" he heard himself ask.

Rodney just closed his eyes.

"That didn't happen," Sheppard ground, even as he watched himself pulling the trigger, just as he had with Sumner.

"All that suffering, not to mention the security implications, and what was it worth? Either he died by their hand, or he died by yours."

And then he was standing at his bunk again, at stiff attention, and Spock regarded him.

"So, soldier. Do you know what you did wrong? You took a civilian into the field. You lost one man and killed the rest trying to undo what had already been done. You depended on rescue. And you let emotion cloud your judgement." Spock turned ninety degrees on his heel.

"We go again."

- x -

Teyla Emmagen wandered back into the room, P90 cradled in the crook of her elbow, and she found herself unexpectedly smiling.

Rodney was grinning to himself from ear to ear, tapping away on the keyboard, perched on the rotting stool that had doubtlessly been left there for just such a purpose. Both Sheppard and Ronon were as they had been, though they had lost their smirks, and she walked with more purpose across the lab towards them.

Dr. McKay glanced up, his grin never faltering. "Pretty sure Sheppard's kicking his ass," he reported, a little smugly, and Teyla's smile broadened a moment before she schooled it into something more serious. His happiness was infectious, and surely if he was so at ease, nothing could be the matter. Still . . .

"And you are sure they are fine?"

"Absolutely. All the monitoring is active and nominal, see? Brain activity, heart rate, blood chemistry." He was toggling through images on the console. "Huh," he added after a moment. "Not actually sure how it's doing that, seeing as the pallets haven't taken a blood sample. Must be the analysis of light frequencies passing through the capillaries in their fingers. Er, the same way those, uh, little fingertip blood gas clamps of Carson's work," he added as an afterthought.

Teyla inclined her head in thanks for the additional clarification. He did that occasionally, and more often for her than anyone else. Extra information to help her place a comment, a joke, a piece of technology they took for granted. When he was in a good mood, it was done the way he had done just then; easily, gladly, without judgement or condescension.

It wasn't always done in a good spirit, however. More often than not, Rodney was . . . how did John put it?

Crabby.

Yes, more often than not Rodney was as a crustacean unhappily finding himself on the rocky shoreline, brandishing his claws at anyone who came too close.

Luckily, he was much less dangerous than the crabs of Athos. Shorter, for one thing.

McKay was happily prattling on. "They were very good with light, whoever these people were. This is the first civilization we've seen in Pegasus that developed to the point of solar power generation. Very likely due to the unique characteristics of their sun, and of course the planet's vegetation, which take photosynthesis to a new level. This place never lost power, not even during whatever event wiped them out."

A Culling, she had no doubt.

"Well, you were there when we scanned from the air." Rodney did not seem to realize that he was still talking. "The leaves themselves are essentially tiny solar panels, in a way the majority of carbon-based plant life could never be. And they are very specific about the ranges of infrared and ultraviolet they harvest, so all the reject light, the reflected spectrums would have played havoc with the Wraith sensors just like they did with ours. It's too bad the Wraith finally figured out they were here." It sounded almost wistful.

Teyla quickly tried to look more engaged as he glanced at her. "Yes," she agreed swiftly. "It is always a . . . shame . . . when an entire civilization is completely wiped out by the Wraith."

McKay hmmed agreement, tapping a few more keys before his brain caught up with her tone. "Oh, uh, yes, of course," he stammered. "Sorry, but yeah, this was a big shame. If they had gone undetected just a few more years, they might have solved their flight problems. This civilization had harnessed unlimited, totally clean power. If they'd gotten their air force off the ground they would have given a Hive a run for their money."

"Their flight problems?"

"Mmm, yes," he murmured. But then he was silent, his attention on another screen, and she wandered over to the pallet where Ronon Dex lay peacefully on his back. The machine did not look complicated; it was just a resting slab, a decaying gel cushion atop plastic that retracted only a foot or so into the wall, where a ring of green lights danced just over Ronon's forehead.

She glanced at the other slab, where Sheppard lay, also beneath green lights. She had learned that green typically meant good, at least to these people, and she studied the displays a moment, seeking a pattern to their blinking.

"The rest of the facility is similarly powered," she said aloud, as much for them as for McKay. "Most is in disarray, as this room is. I saw no evidence that anyone had been here for some time. There are large facilities I believe may have been barracks for their armed forces."

"Well, that makes sense," McKay replied absently.

If he was right about what it was that two of their teammates were now attached to. "You are certain they are experiencing . . . 'war games'?"

"Oh yes." The glee was back in his voice. "It's ingenious. See, that module above their head is basically just storage. Storage in fiber, which is brilliant and just what I would expect from a civilization that was able to figure out a touch of the Ancient crystal technology as well as one so focused on light technologies." He hopped up off the stool, which seemed to slump in relief, and reached above Sheppard's head, simply pulling the wall open like a dresser drawer. Inside it there were swirls of translucent hair, all the strands brightly lit and every color imaginable.

"This represents petabytes of data," he told her. "What the game does is actually upload a copy of part of their consciousness, rather than the mess of having to actually, you know, interface with an actual brain, and it allows them to experience everything at supercomputer speeds. It's a lot like dreaming."

Teyla blinked at him over the console. "How is this like dreaming?"

"Oh, I just mean, you know, when you're dreaming that you're walking in the woods, and you're lost, and it seems like days and you even dream falling asleep and waking up still in the dream . . . " He trailed off at her expression. "It's very common," he assured her, his voice suddenly more businesslike. "The point is, you experience time differently when you're dreaming, because your brain isn't limited by having to actually experience things through your nerves and eyes and ears. You can dream as fast as thought."

She was alarmed that his explanation actually made sense. "So they are able to learn tactics and gain experience in a very short amount of time."

He snapped his fingers. "Exactly. Now, we know they're combat simulations because they're labeled in the system that way. It uploads part of their consciousness, determines their role in the armed forces, and then assigns them a commander. That commander runs them through simulations specific to their role, and when they wake up a few hours later, they've experienced the equivalent of weeks of training."

Okay, now he was losing her. "I thought you said they were playing against one another?"

"Oh, yes, yes. The system isn't artificial intelligence. They were decades from that. The commanding officers running scenarios were actually people, presumably their actual commanding officers. Those officers would choose the simulations and off they'd go. Since the only ones hooked up are Sheppard and Ronon, the system won't imitate training. It will have switched to a simple game. You know, Capture the Flag, Fetch, whatever it is soldiers play against each other."

"Ah," Teyla said, glancing back down at Ronon. He looked calm, his breathing was peaceful and there was no sweat on his brow, but his eyebrows seemed to be trying to knit. "And how did you conclude that Colonel Sheppard is winning?"

"Heh," and McKay rubbed his hands together. "When you do something the system deems wrong, you receive a small electric shock through that conductive gel pad. Just enough to sting. Probably to simulate getting shot, or blown up or something."

"And Ronon has received more of these than Colonel Sheppard?"

Rodney deflated slightly. "Well, not really so much in quantity, not by much of a margin. But Ronon is getting two or three at a time, and Sheppard only gets one, maybe two at a time. If I'm right and the shocks represent either mistakes or damage, it's equivalent to Ronon shooting Sheppard with a gun, and Sheppard shooting Ronon with a tank."

They had certainly looked eager enough to play, Teyla remembered. Both of them confident in their ability to best the other, they had approached it exactly like their video game tournaments. With Ronon's past in the Satedan military, she could kind of understand it, but when she was distracting herself she preferred a good book. Or the game with the nonsensical name where you rolled a sticky ball much bigger than yourself around a room, trying to pick up objects to make the ball grow in size.

She turned, to ask him if he knew when they would be finished, and felt something slick glide under her boot. It was a liquid, dark against the dirt-covered floor, and as she studied it, a droplet landed where her boot had been. She followed it up with her eyes, to the pallet, and against the pale white it was obviously blood.

"Rodney."

"Oh, a tank is like-"

"Rodney." The blood was coming from Ronon's right hand, which she hadn't noticed was curled in a tight fist. She grabbed his wrist, trying to turn it, but his forearm was rigid, though his arm bent easily at the elbow. The blood was dripping from his fingernails –

No. Where his fingernails were cutting into his palm.

"Rodney, wake them. Now."

He was standing on the other side of the console, and when she lifted Ronon's arm up so he could see the blood, all the jollity drained from his face. "Yeah. Yeah, right, doing it-"

She laid his arm down gently, listing to McKay's rapid-fire typing, and looked at the other pallet, where John lay, also seemingly peaceful. His fists weren't clenched, but water glittered in the corners of his closed eyes.

"Rodney!"

"Working on it," came his terse response. Then, "What the hell . . . ?"

She hurried around the console, unsure what she intended to do, and McKay moved to a second keyboard, typing commands. "No, no no no . . . they're not in a training simulation, so why won't . . ." He looked helplessly at the main console, which showed all the monitoring, still green. "Who would design a system where the administrator couldn't override a simulation?" It would have been plaintive if it wasn't so annoyed.

She knew it was rhetorical, but she answered anyway. "If they are in military training, the only one who could dismiss them would be their superior officer."

"Well, yeah, of course, but there isn't one of those!" He turned to her as if he intended to continue berating her, then stopped. "Unless . . ." He was swift on his feet, but not a trained warrior, and she correctly predicted his direction, moving smoothly out of the way as he came to occupy the space she had been standing in not a second before.

He pulled out a third keyboard, one that had been inset in the console, and a previously blank monitor came on fuzzily. He frowned at it, tapping a few keys in irritation before the system initialized. The data didn't mean anything to her, but he straightened hesitantly, suddenly unsure.

"No no no no no, not possible. Not possible."

"Can we simply not pull them out?"

He shook his head, returning to the first keyboard, toggling again through screens. "No. Maybe. It should only be grabbing a piece of their consciousness, not their whole minds, and only a copy. It uploads, teaches, and downloads. They're not in the download stage yet, so . . . probably, but then why . . ."

He paused, eyes sightlessly scanning the room. "Storage," he said suddenly. He darted around the console, pulling open the compartment above Ronon's head, and stared at the seemingly random network of glowing hair.

Wasn't that supposed to be Ronon's consciousness? "Rodney-"

"Not his, I need –" He selected a few of them, tracing them back further into the panel, almost further than he could reach. "That." Then he was back at the console, back to the third keyboard, and he typed in a few commands. On the screen, a green box turned yellow, and then the green lights above Ronon and Sheppard's pallets blinked rapidly, and bounced from one side of the semi-circle to the other before flashing twice and going dark.

She waited expectantly, but nothing else happened.

McKay stared at Ronon in dismay. "Oh crap."

- x -

"Teyla, go! That's an order!"

Her right arm was torn, blood drawing a web down her wrist, but she spun the stick in her left with all the grace she used in the sparring ring to make him regret doubting her. Her smile was all teeth.

"I will not leave you here alone."

God dammit! He yanked the magazine from his P90, counting. Seven rounds. Her tac vest was long gone, and he glanced at Ronon, getting a dull shake of his head. He'd already lost too much blood, he was barely conscious as it was.

They couldn't hold off the next wave.

"Go." The Satedan slurred even that one word. "Gomm'blasser. Holdum. Go."

Teyla was still on her feet. They could head for the waterfall. It would throw them off the scent, give them a chance to get to high ground, maybe circle back around to the Gate –

And Ronon would get off one, maybe two shots. If they were point blank.

He cast a glance at Rodney, white as a sheet, a little bit of green foam dripping from his nostril. His eyes were open, but no one was home. His mind was gone.

"Surrender or die," the man called up from below, and Sheppard chambered the first of seven rounds and caught Teyla's eyes, held them.

Let's do it.

Her grin was nearly feral, and together they waited.

The jungle vanished, suddenly, and he found himself standing in what looked like a large barracks. He was at parade rest, hands behind his back, facing another solider, one he didn't know. The man nodded to him, turned ninety degrees, and fell in with his bunkmate, walking the long black line towards the mess.

Sheppard blinked, casting a look around, and the man beside him got tired of waiting, marching around him with the dozens of other men, all following that black line out the door. They were all wearing black BDUs, but not SCG issue, and there was an unfamiliar insignia on their shoulders.

He fingered the patch on his own arm, curiously. He remembered –

Rodney. Ronon. Teyla.

And . . . Spock?

As if he was compelled, he turned as well, if not as crisply as the other soldiers, and he followed them towards the far door. He was hungry, he realized, and his eyes felt grainy, like he'd spent too much time staring into the ice fields -

He brought up a hand, rubbing them, squeezing the water out and blinking it away. The light was brighter, and he was on his back-

What the hell?

Seemed as good a place to start as any. ". . . what the hell?" His voice sounded rusty with disuse, and he dropped his hand, staring at a white ceiling being slowly overgrown by bright blue vines.

And then it was as if someone dropped him in ice water. He remembered it.

All of it.

Sheppard sat up sharply, barely aware of someone grabbing his bicep, steadying him. They were on the planet with the blue trees. Solar panels. Cool virtual reality war games.

"Rodney –" he started to growl, and then he could see Rodney in his mind. Shot. Crushed. Missing limbs. Every time, his choices, his mistakes. Over and over again.

"-ppard, can you hear me?"

He focused on a face – Teyla's eyes, wide with concern. "Colonel?"

He nodded, easing off the squishy pallet and testing his weak knees. "Yeah, I'm good. Rodney, what the hell was that?"

The room was as he remembered, it looked a little like the hotel from Jurassic Park after it got overgrown. With blue plants. McKay was on the other side of the control board, staring slack-jawed at Ronon, who was just releasing him from what had apparently been a bear hug. The Satedan caught his eye, and John realized with a start that he'd seen the same things.

" . . . never take a civilian into the field."

That hadn't been what he'd meant to say.

Ronon looked deeply disturbed. "Can't undo what's been done."

"Don't count on rescue."

"Don't let emotion cloud your judgement."

Teyla was looking between the two of them, confusion evident. "Colonel . . . I don't understand-"

"The training sim." McKay's voice sounded strained, and it was like he'd just realized he was still within arm's reach of Ronon. He backpedaled quickly. "Oh god. They've been programmed."

The hand on his arm became a little firmer, and John opened his mouth to deny it.

It was like a litany, ringing in his head. You took a civilian into the field. You lost one man and killed the rest trying to undo what had already been done. You depended on rescue. You let emotion cloud your judgement.

If that wasn't programming, he didn't know what was. "Uh, maybe a little," he conceded, unable to tear his gaze from Ronon. "Hey buddy. You okay?"

The Satedan looked more spooked than John had ever seen him. ". . . yeah," he finally managed. "Yeah. Did you see a guy-"

John nodded wordlessly.

Rodney had stopped moving when he thought he was a safe distance from Ronon – and he was wrong, John wanted to point out – and then he started snapping his fingers. "A guy. You both saw a guy? Like a . . . a . . . commanding officer kind of guy?"

Sheppard pinned him with a look, regretting it almost instantly. God, his eyes were so blue. How the hell had he never noticed how blue they were? They blinked at him, not dilated, not full of agony and fear. Well, there was a little fear, and John had to remind himself not to stare at McKay like a crazed lunatic.

"Uh . . . yeah. Yeah." Get it together, John.

Ronon nodded too. "Like a drill sergeant I used to know back on Sateda. Liked pointing out all the ways crunchies screwed up."

"An instructor," Teyla said slowly. "Rodney, I thought you said-"

"Yeah, that there wasn't one." He still seemed a little distracted, and John intentionally averted his gaze, leaning off the pallet and giving Teyla what he hoped was a reassuring grin. She released him with an expression that said she trusted him about as far as she could throw him.

Which was quite a distance, considering –

"I think there was one. Well, some of one. In storage." He gave Ronon a wary look, but crossed back to the control panel, and Sheppard followed him, trying to look nonchalant.

"What do you mean by, storage? Like, stasis?"

"No." It was a little more distracted, a little more McKay. He brought something up on the main screen, lots of boxes in neat columns. "I mean storage like a hard drive."

"So you're saying there really was someone else in there with us?"

"I'm saying - . . . uhm," and he paused, glancing furtively between the three of them. "I'm saying that someone didn't get fully disconnected. There was a copy of most of someone's consciousness in there with you. Probably an instructor."

Holy crap. Spock was real.

Sort of.

Rodney pointed to Teyla. "When you were out looking around, did you, ah, see any other labs like this one?"

She gave him one of her dangerous 'patient' looks. "I saw many, Dr. McKay. There is one associated with all the barracks."

He nodded, his mouth thinning to no more than a gash across his face. "Ah. And uh, did you happen to see, I don't know, like a . . ."

"Dead guy attached to one?" Ronon supplied.

They'd thoroughly checked the place out with an LSD after they'd landed. Once inside the facilities, McKay had assured them the blue trees wouldn't interfere with scanning. And it had led them right to the power generation units, there was no reason to think it wouldn't have shown them life signs.

Holy shit.

Ronon made the leap the same time he did, judging from the Satedan's face.

An instructor had been hooked up when all hell had broken loose, and he'd been killed before he'd gotten out.

You took a civilian into the field.

These people had put up a hell of a fight. Even the vast forests couldn't hide the blast marks on the buildings. They'd sent everyone they had out against the Wraith, just like at Sateda. If an instructor had been hooked up during the last days of the war, he'd been training whoever they could get their hands on.

Training civilians.

You lost one man and killed the rest trying to undo what had already been done.

He'd seen his students fail to repel the Wraith. Doing what he and Ronon had obviously tried to do. Not leave anyone behind. Or maybe he'd done that himself, tried to save some of his men only to lose them all. To Wraith. Crippling, fatal Wraith feedings.

You depended on rescue.

When no one had come to rescue them.

And you let emotion cloud your judgement.

John tore his eyes away from Ronon, staring at McKay.

"I . . . admit I did not look that . . . closely . . . " Teyla trailed off, looking between them. "Colonel, what is it?"

"We gotta find him," Ronon said quietly.

- x -

"Well," McKay said, then swallowed. "So, ah, does this look like the guy?"

Ronon's eyes were hooded. "Can't tell."

One desiccated corpse was just like another unless you personally knew them. He'd seen too many friends shriveled up by the Wraith to say they all looked the same, but it was hard to be sure that he was looking at Spock.

Not Spock. Commander Freyal Triune. There were two black pins in his collar, and the insignia of the army was still on his rotted uniform.

Remarkably, the Wraith had left the machines intact. Clearly at least one drone had penetrated this far into the complex, but they hadn't destroyed the technology. Maybe the best way to do that was from space, and the Hive ships just couldn't get a lock through the reflective trees.

Because the whole place ran on solar power, power had never been interrupted. The computer had been running for years, and the commander had been waiting all that time for new trainees to fight a war that was already lost.

"Rodney, I don't suppose any of this could be interfaced back on Atlantis . . . "

The scientist shook his head. "No, the technology uses the concept of telepathy they gleaned from the few Ancient artifacts they found, but the majority is based on light technology, and it's powered very specifically by this light." He pointed at the ceiling. "That sun is a Class O star. That's why the light outside looks so white. Most of the output is ultraviolet, and the trees are absorbing almost everything in the infrared spectrum."

"And we can't replicate something like that?"

Rodney frowned. "Half the power they're generating is coming from the ionizing radiation as opposed to the light spectrum. I know this stuff looks like fiber optics, but trust me, it's not. They didn't really make big batteries, seeing as they didn't need them. Even if we could somehow supply the right flavor of power, there's no way to interface this with our tech or the Ancient's."

"So there's nothing we can do for him." Ronon shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "He doesn't even know he's dead."

"Well, he's not really a whole person, so . . . look." Rodney tapped the monitor above the light display, and gestured at what appeared to be a CT scan of a brain. It was probably close. "Your brain contains petabytes and petabytes of data. Most of it is connections, like linking tables in a database. The rest is the actual data, what things taste like, smell like, look like, how to speak, that kind of thing.

"When you're awake-" and he gestured vaguely at a brain segment – "this part lights up. What this system does is copy the electrical impulses from the bits that are active, and make some of those links. You see, hear, taste, all things you need in order to learn. When the program's done, it interrupts the electrical impulses exactly where it needs to to insert the new memories and experience into the existing matrix. Thus, you dream in the machine, but when you wake -"

"You remember all of it. I got that. You're saying everything that made him a capable soldier is – up there." The Runner gestured to the tangles of what did indeed look exactly like fiber optic cable.

McKay nodded, a little reluctantly. "Most of it, anyway."

"There's enough of him up there that he can think." Ronon shifted again, glaring through his eyebrows at the blinking lights as if he could somehow intimidate them into doing what he wanted.

. . . and what did he want?

But Sheppard was pretty sure he knew. He wouldn't have left Rodney here like this. And he was certain Ronon wouldn't either.

In nearly every scenario, every one where he was able to keep Rodney alive until last, McKay had asked to die. Begged to die. Even when he couldn't talk, even when he wasn't coherent enough to even know what the hell he was asking for –

He had asked for the pain to stop.

"He knows," Sheppard said aloud, and as he heard his voice, he knew it was true.

Spock knew damn well that he was dead. That he had been left behind.

"Sure, obviously the copy's capable of problem solving, or he'd make a crappy instructor-"

"McKay, if you cut power to this device, what would happen?"

The scientist blinked at him. "Then all the data would disappear. This is technology based on light. No light, no data."

Sheppard looked up at Ronon, saw the same thoughts crossing his mind. Without a word, he nodded.

"Can you? Cut power?"

Rodney was giving him a strange look. "Yeah, of course."

John just nodded, staring down at the long-dead commander.

"Do it."

Beside him, Teyla took a deep breath, but her brown eyes were understanding. McKay, too, had seemed to make the leap, because he didn't say anything else, he just reached up, hesitating before tapping out a quick set of instructions. His forefinger paused, then curled back, and he dropped his hand, clearing his throat.

"I, uh, didn't meet the commander, obviously. Do . . . one of you want to do the honors?"

John shook his head, slowly. "Nope."

Rodney looked up at Ronon, standing at his shoulder, and the big Satedan crossed his arms. "Should be you."

"Uhm." McKay swallowed. "Why is that, exactly?"

Sheppard weighed his words. "Because he wanted to know why we take civilians into the field."

Rodney's eyebrows shot up. "So that they . . . could kill him? Sort of?"

Ronon gave the scientist a friendly slap on the shoulder that almost sent him stumbling into the corpse-laden pallet. "No. So you could save us."

In a way, they were undoing what had been done. He was trapped. And he was dead. And he knew it. But he had never expected rescue from his computer generated hell.

And sometimes the response borne of emotion was better than all the logic and reason in the world.

Rodney looked unsure, and Sheppard gave him a quiet nod.

McKay nodded back, then slowly reached up, and tapped the screen. The fiber optics dimmed at once, and Ronon dipped his head.

Rodney bowed his head a moment, as well, but it wasn't in prayer, and his eyes darted uncomfortably around the room. "So," he said after a moment. "Shall we, uh-"

"Let's get the hell out of here," Sheppard agreed, and as one, the team moved towards the door.

FIN

- x -

Author's Notes: Yes, I know, there would be hellacious fallout. Dr. Weir would kill them for interfacing with a device that could copy their consciousness, it's a security nightmare. Still, I could see the boys thinking "VR war games! Yeah!" and Rodney being very confused when they both pop out and actually look GLAD to see him instead of screaming at him.

Hopefully it was what you had in mind, 1megal! Happy birthday about three years late. =D