"We do not have names, not the way you do," Todd said. While outwardly he wondered where Daniel was going with this, if anywhere, he inwardly was happy to have finally found a human who understood something so basic and seemingly intuitive.

"Because you talk to each other in your own heads, so to speak," Daniel said. This was the most difficult language barrier he'd ever found and he wondered why it hadn't been obvious to him before.

"Indeed," Todd said. "We know each other by how another's mind feels to us. It is… at the closest, it is similar to the sense of smell. I don't think it can be any better described than ascension. Perhaps that is why: ascension s the invoking of a new sense one is not aware of yet."

"That certainly seems like a possibility," Daniel agreed. Oma had told him twice that he always had the ability to ascend within him, that there was nothing new he had to take or create for it. "Can you use that, though? Can you read me mind or whatever it is you do to learn about it?"

Todd chuckled loudly, though nowhere near as boisterously as his first outburst. "I am not so foolish Daniel," he said, struggling with the name. "It is already in my nature to do something Sheppard will consider too defiant to warrant letting me live; I am not about to tempt him with that. As much as you know I am no threat, no one else would believe you, especially when they asked you to find any danger I pose to them."

"So you could if you weren't in danger?" Daniel asked.

"It is certainly an enticing offer," Todd said. "However, whatever her true intentions actually were, it has been the unfortunate 'mistakes' of Dr. Keller than have already shown me what I believe is some sort of 'new sense.'"

"What do you mean?" Daniel asked.

Todd reached over and pulled the coloring book towards him. He flipped through pictures of clowns, flowers, and even a bunny before he arrived at the page he wanted. Daniel hadn't translated the writing precisely, not wanting to explain just yet how the goofy shapes correlated to real things, so Todd had no clue what he'd been coloring, merely matching up numbers, most of the time guessing inaccurately as to what was right. He turned to the page he'd been instructed to draw his own picture. He handed the book to Daniel, not noticing that to the human it was upside-down. "I constantly saw this after I was bitten by what you call an Iratus bug. There were what I believe you would define as colors to it."

Looking at the picture, Daniel realized Todd wouldn't have given a better coloring job to it anyway. When all you ever saw was dark and light and two different aspects to them, you didn't dwell on those differences enough to put them on a spectrum. However, the monotone of the picture was helpful in this case, as Daniel instantly picked up on patterns of the shapes Todd had drawn. "When exactly did you see this?" he asked, wondering what he'd just discovered. He hadn't seen more than three pages of the coloring book after it had been filled out.

"It was during what Dr. Keller refers to as 'black-outs'," Todd said. "It was similar to what your kind call 'dreams', if I have the word correct."

"So you have no idea what this is?" Daniel asked.

"Not in the slightest," Todd said, shaking his head slightly. "Is it perhaps a concept?"

"No, I think this is real," Daniel said, retracing the swooping pattern of dots. The signs of ascension were manifesting powers and speaking ancient, the symptoms uncontrollable and unnoticed by the one producing them. This, however, was something wholly different, which didn't make it any less dangerous. Something was going on inside Todd's rearranged head and Daniel had no idea what it was. He only knew what it wasn't. It wasn't anything he'd seen before.

….

Todd wished he could hibernate. He wished he were on a hive. He wished He could be with other wraith. He wished he could at least see the stars. His people may have been nomads, traveling the vast emptiness of the small void of the Pegasus Galaxy, but one of the first things a child learns is the concept of home.

This wasn't his room, merely something borrowed from the humans. He didn't live here, he was kept here. These weren't his people. They no longer feared him, but now they resented him. No one wanted to have to guard him. No one wanted to fill out the paperwork about him. A select few wanted only to explore ways he could cause them trouble so they could prevent such things. He was something to be explored. Not even the only person who bothered to seek answers about his mind could help him. Not that he would, either. Human empathy only went so far.

If only they would allow him something akin to hibernation, he wouldn't feel so strange, he wouldn't wonder so much about their motives, he wouldn't find them so cruel. He'd never experienced anything like this before, fighting against darkness that he should be at home in, haunted b the room spinning when he knew everything was still. He wouldn't he in a corner, his hands around his legs, watching images blur together as he lost track of time. Hibernation would grant him so much peace, nothingness, dark and true. It would be tranquil nothingness, a quiet peace where he could let himself drift away for hours and his mind could settle itself without him.

Atlantis was no longer a respite. It no longer offered hope. Perhaps it never did, perhaps it had ceased being one when he had not noticed. All he knew what that it could never offer it again.

Todd kept trying to close his eyes, to think about something else, sometimes driven not to think at all. The only alternative was to watch the empty room swirl and shift and wobble as his dizziness tried to adjust his vision. He wasn't in the mood to contemplate sense; he couldn't stand it and it was sickened, literally numbing.

The visions themselves offered no comfort. They blended in frightening ways, accompanied by horrible tactile and mental sensation, speeding through their arbitrary repetition so fast he no longer could separate them or tell what the experiences were. He futilely kept trying to drive away the sights of a strange mask clammed over his face as he struggled to breathe; a vast, dark, ever-ending sky full of stars he knew none of his kind would ever see again the same way; he felt a tube shoved down his throat, his body trying to refuse it despite it being to only way to regain the ability to breathe; he remembered a distant memory: a feeling of truly burning alive, flames quickly licking their way through flesh to hungrily eat at bone—a memory that wasn't his, something he'd seen long ago, given to him by someone else pleading for help he knew he could never give to another. Other memories flowed in, jumbling this moreso, images he did not understand, bits of things said by Genii, being sliced open by Dr. Keller, even parts of the war against the ancients.

The worst of it all was that he'd done all this before. He'd already known this dizziness, this onslaught of images and memories; he'd known it all while abandoned and ignored. Back then, he was trying to save his own life. Now there was no chance to preserve it, no bargains, no plea for compassion, no ultimatums, not even true usefulness.

Even if he was of some interest to Daniel, the man wasn't going to keep him fed. He had no power to keep Dr. Keller's fears from growing too great. Even when Todd had pointed it out, Daniel refuse to truly believe that morality was some superficial quality to himself rater than something that soaked him to the bone. All the man could do was tempt danger, to ask for what he knew was dangerous and call it trust, to insist hard-learned skepticism didn't apply to him, and worst of all, to claim that the nature of others was malleable. He was as dangerous as the information he provided, two aspects which would merely prove to enhance each other. He had made himself and inevitability.

It was inevitable that Todd would do something to try to escape. It was inevitable that John would shoot him for it. The universe wouldn't have it any other way. But now Daniel had made himself part of the fabric of reality as well. He was going to stop one of them, depending upon how his frivolous morals dictated. It would happen; he had defined himself as law.

It frightened him. He didn't want to admit it, not to himself or anyone on Atlantis, even Dr. Jackson himself. He didn't like it, especial as his fear seemed artificial, almost an illness. It had no source; it was merely fear, a feeling of being cornered and alone. It was not going to be denied, no matter the logic or consolation Todd could conjure up.

Suddenly, he realized someone was screaming at him. In his dizziness, he hadn't realized someone frantically shaking him, trying to get his attention. He slowly turned to whoever it was so concerned with him, the dizziness increasing and making the room wobble violently.

"Are you tripping?" John yelled at him.

"Huh?" Todd asked, carefully placing a hand on his head. The dizziness was messing with his coordination.

John rolled his eyes. "Are you still high?" John asked, as if Todd had trouble understanding English. Great. If Todd wanted to talk, he didn't know the terminology. Why couldn't he just watch football with some beer with the wraith and no longer have a problem to solve? Why did things always involve not only talking, but in a complicated way?

"I do not… understand," Todd said. He barely finished his sentence. It wasn't the dizziness this time or the fear that threatened to take over, but an object: John's watch. All this time he had assumed it was meaningless decoration—he still did—but for one he found human accoutrements significant. Now his fear was suddenly real in his revelation. John's seeming refusal to make sense didn't help matters.

"Are you alright?" John asked.

"No," Todd managed to gurgle out. Apparently coordination wasn't he only sense of his that was affected.

"Do you want me to get Dr. Keller in here?" Jon asked, doing his best to seem like he was genuinely concerned. He was, he just wanted to make sure Todd got the clue. He wasn't good at this, especially not with wraith. He knew what he should do, he just sucked at it.

"I would rather she was not here," Todd said.

John shrugged and sat down, leaning against the wall, making sure to give Todd his space. "You don't look so good," he said.

"I do not feel well, if that is what you mean," Todd said semi-ineptly. At least John was making more sense. Soon it'd be his fault for not communicating well. At least he'd have an excuse, albeit a poor one.

"You're not going to hork up a lung again are you?" John asked.

"I am not sick, Sheppard," Todd said, wincing at a sudden and temporary intensity in the general wobbliness. "This is not pain, it is…highly unpleasant."

"I don't think I can get you anything but a doctor," John said. He remembered that every time he ended up in the infirmary, he got to play with a handheld game console. It would be wroth a shot to help Todd, but he doubted anyone would let him have one—even less so if they feared he'd eat it. Dr. Keller hadn't made any progress in that area… not that anyone was looking forward to Todd getting back to his original diet.

"I sincerely doubt that would end well even if I needed one," Todd said. He wasn't fond of being stabbed or sliced open, no matter what the cause. "Are you here because she is interested in…whatever physiological anomalies I have?"

"No, I asked to be notified if you… started acting weird like this," John said. He didn't want to admit he'd used the words 'crying or stuff.' Unless he was actively and deliberately being his usual pain-in-the-ass, dignity was something John would readily give him. He just didn't know how right now.

"What exactly are you concerned about? Todd asked.

"Y'know… the talking thing," John said.

"I have lived through this before," Todd said. "Discussing it would be… superfluous."

"You sure you don't want to talk?" John asked.

"Are you sure you would answer?" Todd asked back.

John bit his tongue. No wonder Todd didn't want to talk. Even asking if he should was a loaded question. "Sure."

"Truthfully?" Todd asked immediately

John decided he was going to punch whoever had taught Todd the meaning of the term 'loophole'. "You're not going anywhere, are you?"

"You know very well that you would not let me," Todd said, a wry smile on his face. Even in such overwhelming artificial panic, he could find something amusing. John was, if nothing, a source of amusement. The amusing thing was that he wouldn't find it amusing at all.

"If I can," John said, rolling his eyes at himself. He had volunteered for something he knew he'd suck at. It was like Rodney deciding to play golf with him if he were having a bad day. He decided he needed to make a contingency plan if in case that ever happened. He was good at watching football and drinking beer, but he doubted it would have the right affect on Todd even if he agreed—or understood the sport in the first place. "I'm not good at this, just so you know."

"Then why do this at all?" Todd asked. Humans were so complicated when they weren't food.

"Because you need it," John said.

"There are many things I need," Todd said, closing his eyes. Nope, even with John talking, that wasn't a good idea.

"Well, this I can do…sort of," John said. He hadn't thought he'd need to explain talking about bad experiences to a wraith, let alone more than before.

Todd didn't feel like bothering to tell John he meant he needed peace and quiet from the symptoms Dr. Keller had inadvertently given him. John was rambling as it was. "Why didn't you kill me after we escaped together?"

"Because it was the right thing to do," John said before he realized he had even said it.

"I see," Todd said. It was as simple as that. But simple wasn't easy. The two of them were going to meet full-on as forces. There was no way around each other anymore. Daniel, being a third force, was not going to maneuver around them either. It was simple as that. Not at all easy. Things had changed and though Todd didn't know why, he at least knew they had.

He couldn't think this through. He could barely think clearly at all. "I have nothing else to ask at the moment." He probably never would. He doubted John would be upset about that.

"You don't want to say anything?" John asked.

"I do not think so," Todd said, no longer trying to hide his exhaustion or dizziness.

"Do you want me to leave again?"

"You may stay if you wish," Todd said, wincing.

John didn't move, not four hours until he was called elsewhere. Todd never said a word.