John woke up soaked in sweat, head throbbing and nauseous. For a while, all the discomfort blurred into one massive complaint and he almost sank back into the bliss of the unconscious. Eventually, the aches separated into their own special protests. His head hurt just above his right ear; his right temple was crusty with dried blood that must have trickled across his face as he lay. He tried opening his eyes but had to slam them shut again when the world outside his head started to spin, churning up the bile in his empty stomach. His back was a mass of pain, from his neck down his legs nearly to his knees. It also felt like he was lying on a stove, it was so hot - the kind of hot that burns and makes your hand jerk away.

It was the heat that convinced him to try to open his eyes again. He took several deep breaths and gave it a go.

He was lying against the south wall of bars, his backside baking in the mid afternoon sun. He groaned, and pushed himself to his hands and knees. Managing only a pitiful crawl, he drug himself deeper into the cage, finally finding a line of shadow amid the jumble of boulders. He propped up against a much cooler rock, sighed at the relief from the heat, then winced as leaning pressed into deep bruises.

"That...did not go well," he muttered to himself, rubbing the back of his hair as was his habit when feeling self-conscious. "Damn it!" he protested weakly when even that simple gesture scraped against sore skin. The back of his neck from hairline to collar, (and the backs of his arms) were burned and blistered from lying in the sun.

For a long time he just sat, unable to do anything but wait for the pain to fade and keep himself from retching. No one was on the courtyard at all, but John could hear voices and laughter coming from the shaded porches of the surrounding buildings. The sun reflected off the pale marble in shimmery waves of heat.

When he was able to take a personal inventory and sum things up, he wasn't happy with the score. Ugly people 10; John Sheppard 0. He was beat up, caged up, and dehydrated to the point of "really scary". Even after his head stopped throbbing, he felt dizzy. He was finding it hard to think in sentences. His lips were dry and cracked. Hunger he could deal with (although he allowed himself to be grumpy about it). But he'd been out for at least four more hours (by the sun) and the water thing was getting pretty serious. A man could technically "survive" two or three days or longer without water, but "survival" in that sense, i.e. lying around 'til someone picked you up, did not include escape plans and fights to the death with crazy animal-men.

The thought prompted him to check up on his buddy on the other side. The animal man was sleeping again, well within the shade, his back also against a cool boulder. The plate of food and bowl of fruit by its door were clean. Hardly able to muster any true resentment, he glanced at the floor by his own door. He sat up taller. There was something there?

Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself to his feet, somewhat relieved that he was still able to do so. He walked stiffly to the small bowl that was sitting on the gravel just inside the gate. It was the same bowl the guard was trying to deliver when John had jumped him. He'd forgotten all about it and was surprised it hadn't been spilled in the scuffle. He bent over the bowl, then - almost not daring to believe his luck - he scooped it up and brought it to his lips. It was water! Not much - a quarter liter, maybe, the amount in a soda can - but it sparkled in the hot sun. The bowl was warm to the touch.

John took a gulp of the tepid drink, then choked. What little he hadn't swallowed he spat onto the gravel. The remaining liquid in the bowl sloshed when he slammed the thing on the ground and stalked away to pace beside the gate.

It was drugged. Or was the drug, he wasn't sure. But he was sure that if he drank that stuff, he'd end up just as messed up as he'd been in the parade. He remembered the taste. The heat drove him back from the bars, into the shade, but still he paced. Sure enough, even the single mouthful he'd swallowed began to make him feel tipsy and he had to sit down when his already shaky legs decided to start walking off in different directions. He buried his head in his hands and rubbed absently at the aching goose egg over his right ear.

Score one more for the ugly people. They wanted to see their ugly champion defeat a normal guy. It gave them some kind of perverse sense of recompense to have one of their own defeat one of "them", i.e. him. Even the meanest guy would be at a disadvantage in a fight while drugged, starved, and dehydrated.

They were going to make sure their champion won.

John sat in a black stupor for the rest of the afternoon. He tried not to sleep but ended up dozing for a little bit at a time anyway. The sun beat down on the Pavilion and baked the courtyard with convection oven heat. Each time he jerked back awake, gasping in the oppressively thick air, his mind would go to the bowl. It isn't water, he told himself fiercely. His desperately thirsty body would answer no, but at least it's...wet.

It was a relief when the sun began to sink behind the buildings on the West side of the courtyard, but John was already in bad shape. He'd stopped sweating about an hour before the sun went down - a bad sign that put him at high risk for heatstroke - and ironically started to shiver at the same time. His calves were killing him with cramps. And he had another day to go before he was expected to face the champion. At the stage he was at, another hot day like today would kill him before the animal man got a claw on him.

The people attending the festival began to wander back into the courtyard once the shadows stretched from corner to corner. The sunset in the West was quite as beautiful as the sunrise, John noted dully. A bank of fluffy clouds was looming on the horizon and the sun glowed on the edges of each puff and swirl like someone had outlined every detail with a fiery pen. Before the red glow had faded completely, the courtyard was packed with revelers again and the bonfire was stoked to blazing heights. As if to compensate for the heat of the day and their celebration fire, most people were dressed in light wraps of loose fabric, almost sari style for the women, toga style for the men.

As they had last night, groups came by the Pavilion to admire their champion and taunt or throw things at John. Delicious smells drifted on the warm summer breeze from a row of campfires near the market booths and John turned his back when the groups that wandered past carried plates of meats and roasted vegetables piled high. He thought briefly of trying to get someone to throw their food at him - he was certain he could have taunted one or two into enough of a rage to score a scrap or two - but he didn't do it. His friends would come for him or they wouldn't. He would either live or die with his pride intact. The one thing they couldn't withhold from him was his dignity. Several people slipped scraps into the bowl by the animal man's gate.

It wasn't until night had fallen and the party was gearing up around the fire that John realized he was tense and anxious from more than his own desperate situation. Last night's celebration had resulted in the murder of a woman. Tomorrow, he'd been told he would be murdered at the hands of the man in the next cage over. He had no reason to believe tonight's entertainment would be any less...uncomfortable. It was the biggest reason why John had resisted the drugged water for so long. When the Pompous Lord of the Festival moved to the center and raised his hands to begin calling for attention, John felt a shudder rattle his teeth.

"Citizens!" the dignitary bellowed and the crowd cheered "Argyle! Argyle!"

"Citizens! Though the sun has set and our festival grounds have cooled, tonight will burn with the heat of our passion!" The crowd cheered again and John twitched. He really didn't like any talk about burning. Not after last night. Argyle was grinning like a fool and waving his hands in time with the swell of the voices. When the noise subsided, he went on. "Last night we demonstrated our power. We soothed the flames of our anger by feeding the flames of retribution. Tonight, we celebrate our needs that burn as fiercely as any Pretty's. We celebrate the hidden beauty of our bodies. Tonight, the fairest of them all take joy in each other as equals in desire!"

The crowd roared and giggled in equal part. (John was completely befuddled by this point)

"Let the dancing begin!"

Music started up as it had last night, but this time the people lined up in great circles for group dancing. A man with a bull's horn began to call out steps and the courtyard swayed with the coordinated movement of hundreds of dancers. John felt himself relax. No burning at the stake or brutal contests. Just dancing. And more beer. The barrel rollers joined the throng, some leaping on top of the casks to perform the steps as the barrels rolled, to the delight of the crowd. It wasn't until the first dance ended with the caller instructing the dancers to kiss their neighbors that John started to get suspicious.

In the second song, there was a lot more kissing, with a lot of partners. When the third song called for the dancers to shed their cloth and he was suddenly faced with the sight of four hundred really ugly naked people dancing around a bonfire, John snapped. He lurched to his feet (fighting through the head rush that threatened to slam him back onto the rock again) and fairly leaped at the bowl of not-water.

"I'd rather be drugged than watch this," he yelled to no one in particular and gulped down the sour-tasting brew. He didn't care. It could have been motor oil and it would have tasted sweet as honey to John. Despite its hours in the sun, it still felt cool on his swollen tongue and was deliciously wet on his lips. Delighted by the act of simply swallowing, he downed the contents in five greedy gulps, then tipped the bowl almost upside down to catch every last drip.

The potion slammed into him almost instantly - like hard alchohol on an empty stomach. He snatched for the bars and dropped the bowl, then pressed his forehead against the cool iron. The swirl of the dancing crowd blurred and melted into a single pretty mass of shadows against an orange/red background. He felt his legs go to jelly and his heart raced with the familiar weird flutter. Groping like a blind man, he felt his way back to his favorite boulder and sank to the floor beside it.

Last night, he'd learned that the less he moved, the less the drug affected him in some kind of inverse-screwage ratio. He'd never be able to fight under the influence - it worked the opposite way too, the more active or excited he was, the more the drug kicked in - but he thought he had a bead on how long it took to wear off. If he was careful and they brought him more, he might even be able to get another swallow of liquid in him and still be out from under its effects in time for the duel tomorrow evening. He hoped. Honestly, what he hoped was that he wouldn't even be here tomorrow evening and that the drugs he would be flying on would be of of the type handed out by a certain Carson Beckett. Atlantis still had a day to find him. There was time. There was enough time.

He shivered from the breeze that whipped up out of the southwest, the restless air toying with his messed up internal thermostat. Outside the Pavilion, the revelers danced and laughed and moaned as the party turned into a full blown orgy. John lay down and curled up, not quite able to sleep but pleasantly oblivious to the nonsense around him. His head hurt and his back ached, which didn't seem fair if he had to feel loopy, too.

For a long time he drifted in the drugged stupor, the music and sounds of "merrymaking" sending him to daydreams about (nice!) festivals with Teyla's people. He liked to watch the Athosians celebrate the simple things - food, shelter, life, birth, death. They celebrated everything, from the first planting to the late harvest, and they celebrated often. Feasts and "state visits" to their first allies in the Pegaus galaxy were also times where John could truly feel at ease and free from his command duties for a little while. As much as he loved Atlantis, it wasn't really a "real" home. There were no families, no children. John didn't have those things for himself and he missed being able to watch those who did from the sidelines.

The shouts and laughter of a bunch of kids worked their way into John's half-awake consciousness and he blinked his eyes open, uncertain if the sounds were real or daydreamed. It was full dark above the glowing courtyard and a pack of kids had gathered to play near John's end of the Pavilion, bored with the festivities that included only "adult" activities. Eight or ten boys from around 9 to 11 were kicking around a small bag filled with rice or sand and John would have called the game hacky-sack if he'd been asked to put a word to it. Like the adults, though, each child was marked or scarred or odd looking in some way.

John struggled upright, then made himself get up far enough to sit on top of the boulder so he could watch the kids. There was something so...normal about the way they laughed and joked and played. He could almost forget he was watching from inside a cage. The kids had carried torches over and a ring of light surrounded the group at play. One boy, eight or nine by the height stumbled out of the circle and came to sit on the steps right up against the bars. He was breathing hard and wheezing. Even in the dim light, John could tell that the kid's "disfigurements" were only the most visible symptoms of serious, underlying health issues.

"Hey, you OK buddy?"

The boy jerked at his voice and turned to study John studying him, but he didn't seem frightened. "Yeah! I don't get to play much in my own village. The other kids won't let me. I'm not used to it."

John chewed on his lips, not sure what to say. When the boy just continued to stare John made a stab anyway, "Why won't the other kids let you play?"

John almost grinned at the exaggerated shrug the boy performed for an answer. He was still sounding breathless if unconcerned about it. "They call me 'freak' and 'wraith-face' and stuff like that. My dad says that my heart is weak but I should be proud. I have to fight just to walk down the street. The Pretty kids don't know nothing about fight."

The boy looked John up and down, his eyes wiser than they should be in a boy so young and frail. He was almost daring John to say something.

"I think you're very strong," John said simply. "I felt different from the people I grew up with, too, sometimes."

The boy's eyes went wide, then skeptical. "But you're a pretty!"

"Even so. My dad always wanted me to be a CEO or lawyer or something...er, a shopowner," he explained quickly at the boy's vacant look. "All I ever wanted to do was fly. I wanted to be a soldier. A lot of people I grew up with thought that was an...unworthy job. They made fun of my dreams and told me I should change."

"So, what'd you do?"

"I became a soldier anyway. The best soldier I know how to be."

"What about your dad?"

"He wasn't happy and...we don't see each other any more."

The boy's twisted face softened into understanding. "My uncle brings me here for festival - he's a citizen, too. The other kids don't call me names and they let me play. I wish I didn't have to see the pretties anymore. I wish I could stay here forever and leave them behind like you left the mean people."

John pulled a face, not sure the conversation was going where he'd hoped it would. He thought for a minute (which was something of an effort) and shored up his courage. He realized he was about to tell this sickly boy, who's name he didn't even know, something he hadn't told anyone in the last ten years. Not even the friends who'd become as close as family in the last two of those.

"I left my father behind because he wouldn't accept me, but...sometimes it makes me really sad. I wish-. Well, sometimes I want to go back and keep trying. Sometimes I don't fit in with my new friends either, and they make fun of people like I grew up with without even knowing that's where I came from."

"So you don't have nowhere you can play without being sad?"

"No! What I mean is that life's just complicated. You can't depend on other people to tell you what you should be or WHO you should be. Your dad's a smart guy. You should be proud of who you are. And..." John took a deep breath, driving his point home..."and you don't have to hate the people who don't understand you, yet. What the grownups around here are doing...all the hate and the killing and hurting people," John pointed to the blood on his temple and the scratches on his cheek, "won't give you pride if you don't have it in yourself."

The boy nodded as if thinking about it.

"You don't talk like a pretty."

"I'm probably not very pretty right now." John scratched at his itchy chin, scraggly from more than two days without a shave. "I'm just a guy, like your dad and your uncle. I don't want to be in here. I want to be with my friends, too. I want to go home."

The boy was starting to look uncomfortable and began shooting looks at the other kids, as if suddenly afraid someone would catch him talking to John. "You get to fight the champion," he said, low and soft and John could hear the doubt creeping into the spin his elders had obviously put on things.

"I don't want to fight the champion. I don't want to die." John said quickly, firmly, but as gently as he could muster. Even so, the boy was getting visibly distressed.

"You could... maybe you could win."

John just shook his head. "The grownups are cheating. They won't give me food. They won't give me clean water. They put...bad things in the water they did give me. Bad stuff that makes me sick and weak. I can't win because they're being mean to me. It's not a fair fight and I want to go home."

The boy's eyes were wide with the dilemma John was presenting him. John felt a little bad about it. He had heard the boy's anguish over being taunted and teased, but these people were going about repairing their self-image the wrong way. John desperately needed an ally, and the kid was the only chance he'd had so far. At the bitter end, John knew he was capable of using a kid like this one as he'd used the guard. He knew he was capable of hurting him if doing so gave him a chance to live. But...he wasn't there yet. He still had a day.

"I could use some clean water, at least," he sighed softly as the kid remained frozen to his step and John felt the drug catching up to him. He shuddered at another gust of wind and looked into the sky beyond the courtyard just as a flash of lightning spread across the southwestern horizon. A black mass of emptiness blotted out nearly half the stars, and another flash outlined the thunderheads in an eerie glow. The clap of thunder from the first flash finally boomed over the courtyard, startling John and (from the hoots of the kids) everyone else, too. The involuntary surge of adrenaline at the jolt kicked the drug into high gear and John groaned, sliding off the rock to curl up on the floor while his heart tried to claw its way out of his chest in painful, frantic leaps.

"You OK?" a small voice called his way. John didn't have the breath to answer, which pretty much gave the answer.

"Merk! Get away from there! The Pretty will eat you up if he gets his hands on you!"

"He will not," John heard his little friend, Merk, reply with an indignant retort.

"Yes he will," demanded the older voice, a cousin or ringleader. "That guard named Harz still can't swallow good from what the Pretty did to him."

John sighed as Merk's footsteps pattered away from the Pavilion. So much for that ally. Another boom startled him, and he cursed the thunder and the drugs and human tendency to cruelty. Over the next half hour, the booms and flashes grew steadily louder and brighter as the storm tracked towards the festival. When sprinkles of rain began falling on the courtyard, the partygoers grumbled their disapproval and began to move as a group back to the porches.

John watched them wander unhurriedly towards shelter and then scrabbled to his feet with a sudden hope. He managed to stagger over to where he'd dropped the bowl and picked it up. Then he leaned against the bars, watching the constantly flashing sky. Drops turned into a steady sprinkle, which turned into a downpour. Raindrops the size of bullets slapped the marble and bounced back with knee high splashes. When the roof over the Pavilion was pouring a steady stream of dripwater waterfalls, John reached his arm as far through the bars as he could stretch and held the bowl towards the closest downspout. The mist and humidity on his face as the water splashed felt like pure heaven, but even though he licked his lips, he couldn't catch enough for a mouthful.

Grunting, he stretched as far as he could, then spat a curse and shuffled to another spot where the waterfalls looked closer. He heard shouts and raucous laughter from somewhere, but he was too focused - be honest, John, the word is desperate - on the water that was so damnibly close!

"Crap!" The roof extended over the bars and the steps just a foot or so too far for John's bowl to reach. A few splashes gathered in the bottom, and John licked the drops while he scurried to try at yet another place.

"Damn it!" He cried, still unable to reach. It was torture, the water was so close. He was so damn thirsty. He sank to his knees, fighting the drug and true despair, still holding the bowl uselessly towards the water that refused to splash into it. Above, the sky grumbled and flashed. He added his own howl of frustration to the noise. How could he be so damp and cold and so thirsty at the same time?

"Boys! Get your idiot butts out of the rain! You got no more sense than a blind goat!"

The bellow came from the East end of the cage, in the direction the boys had been playing. The water had drenched all the torches, but in the constant flashing of the lightning-sheeted sky, John could see the boys still playing, some with their ball, some just dancing in the rain. A larger, crooked figure was waving at the boys who seemed reluctant to give up their free play.

The wind whipped from the South and John reached for the rainwater again, unhopeful, the gesture more defiant than sanguine. When the bowl was pulled out of his hand, John gasped and reached blindly for whoever had taken it. A particularly bright flash illuminated a small, too-thin shadow, holding the bowl under a waterfall. Hardly daring to hope, not allowing himself to believe it, John pressed against the bars and just watched, waiting.

When the bowl began to slop over, the shadow stepped closer, holding both sides carefully so as not to spill. The boy was soaked like a rat. His fine brown hair was plastered to his forehead and cheeks and he was grinning from ear to ear. He held the bowl out to John who took it and - desperate for a drink - tipped it to his lips for a long draw before finding his voice.

"Thank you," he gasped finally. "Thank you, Merk." The kid took the bowl away to refill it, then turned towards the courtyard after handing it again to John.

"I told Jaks that you wouldn't eat me," he said, his voice smug.

"No. I don't want to fight," John replied before the boy could skitter away.

"Merk!" the larger shadow in the courtyard bellowed again, "Confound it, your dad will have my head if I lose you. Get your tail to the porch, now, boy!"

"Coming, Uncle!" Merk called and scampered away.

John drank until his belly felt bloated and he was shivering from the cold water sloshing around inside him. He left the bowl as close to the dripwater as he could reach, hoping to catch a few drops for later. When a deep shudder rattled his teeth he retreated further from the damp breeze and curled up beside the boulder. He tried to think rationally about his luck - the bowl wasn't very big; he'd probably gotten a little less than a liter in him. And that spread over two days of heat and normal body function was still way under par. But at that moment, he felt more satisfied and more hopeful than he had in hours.

There was still time. He knew that Teyla and Ronon and Rodney were looking for him. It probably wasn't going to be as hot tomorrow as it had been today and... he'd made a friend.

A crash drew his attention briefly to the wire between the cages. The animal man was pacing and hissing at the lightning. When a clap of thunder rattled the roof, it howled and lunged at the wire again, insane and angry with its fear. John tried to work up a little sympathy for the thing - it was in a cage, and frightened, too. But his belly chose right then to growl with a great gurgle of annoyance. Apparently, his stomach had been hoping for some food to go with the water and in some ways, John felt even hungrier than before. He remembered the scraps of food lying in the other man's bowl and every last shred of sympathy vanished.

The man howled again, slammed his shoulder against the wire and then glared at John with a furious "Ssssssssssssssssssssskkk".

"Oh...shut up," John told it and curled tighter into a ball. When the storm passed and a bright steamy dawn broke over the courtyard, John was sound asleep.

He dreamed of Atlantis. At first, he was racing through gleaming golden hallways while the city's engines rumbled and throbbed under his feet. It was going to fly and John was going to fly it. If he could get to the chair. But no matter how far or hard he ran, no matter how many turns he made, he never quite got to the chair room. It was always around one last turn, down one last corner and the faster he ran, the slower he seemed to go.

Eventually that dream shifted and he was walking through a jungle with his team. It was muggy and sweltering hot. Rodney kept saying "Power readings! Power readings!" and Ronon and Teyla dragged their feet, looking sweaty and tired. He was team leader, he had to keep them going, so he kept saying "Not far, then we'll stop for a drink." And then they'd keep walking, getting hotter and sweatier and never closer to wherever it was they were going. Just when John was feeling woozy from the heat, Ronon drew his gun and pushed his chest into John's and snarled, "Wake up, Pretty!"

John startled, then blinked in the bright morning sunshine. The first thing he looked for was the sun. It was already high over the buildings on the East side, hot and golden behind the tail end of the stormclouds that left great puffy shadows on the courtyard's marble. He'd slept late. It was already sweltering and more humid than yesterday. So he'd been wrong about the being hot thing.

He shoved himself up to slouch against the boulder. He felt dizzy and nauseous, but his heart wasn't racing, so he was pretty much out from under the drugs. At least that part had worked out.

"Hey! You! No sleeping during Final Feast! You're the main attraction!"

John jerked his head towards the voice, his heart leaping from fear even without the drug. The same guard who'd knocked him out yesterday was standing at the gate, smacking his stick against the bars.

"Final..." he whispered. Not yet! I'm not...they're not here!

"You awake? Come on, there, show some life. The citizens need you awake to heap their curses. There's a boy," the guard mocked when John pushed himself shakily to sit on top of his boulder.

"When..." John cleared his throat, tried to work up some spit for talking, "When is the contest?"

"Evening. When the sun touches the Western roofs. We should be ready by then." The guard laughed raucously and John followed his gesture.

In the middle of the courtyard, another pole was going up.