CALIBER - Circles for the Blind

In his dreams, the Wraith still helms a mighty, grand hive, albeit one bereft of a Queen. Several thousand subordinate males stand at his beck and call, ready to throw down their lives for a male who would dare so audaciously to command a hive in place of a female. It is not his place to rule. It is not any of the males' places. Such is the caste system of the Wraith. Yet, despite that, his hive remains, gloriously persisting in spite of the absence of a Queen.

It is a dangerous position to attain, one of constant guard and caution. The Wraith keeps vigilant of all actions, no matter how mundane. Should the Wraith Queens ever discover such a travesty in betrayal of all their ancient, biologically encoded traditions and instincts, the penalty is most certainly death in any number of gruesome and horrifically painful ways. The Wraith has been aware of this since his time as a young one, the lessons of his kind imbued to him at an early age, befitting of his particular caste. He protects the secret his hive, his nest, his home with the bitter, clinging tenacity of the most ferocious of Queens in defiance of their ancient ways.

He stands at the bridge of his hive, staring out over a glittering sea of stars dappling the void before him. Galaxies swirl into ornately dusted curls. Stars flare and die before him. The veil of a burnished red nebula paints a deliciously sinful color across a portion of space. If the Wraith felt the need to declare any sentimental attachments, he would have to admit this to be his favorite place in the universe, surrounded by the power of his hive and bedazzled by the endless space spread before him, counting the abundance of locations he could number safe for his hive in the middle of these civil wars and petty but centuries old feuds between Queens that his hive rightly has no part in. The vastness offers nothing but the promise of independence and sanctuary from the Queens, something this particular Wraith craves more than anything.

Both the hive and the Wraith are anomalies of sorts, and, in a species such as theirs that values conformity above all else, anomalies are to be squelched out of existence, snuffed out before they can cause any unrest among the population. This Wraith is unique among his kind, for most others do not dream. The species does enjoy a state of rest similar to the deep REM cycles of humans, as well as the pressing, all-embracing hibernating sleep, but without the same psychological component. Only the Queens dream. Upon waking, the other castes recall nothing but a sort of blank skip frame in their awareness left in the dark wake of slumber. It is as though the Wraith of lower castes inherently lack the ability to dream or to remember their dreams, perhaps on a genetic level. This male, however, does. In all his time, he has never met another male with the same ability, concerned that he is an evolutionary hiccup of sorts. It is perhaps this feature which allowed him to so brazenly step into the position of power and command his Queen occupied before her untimely demise as opposed to allowing his hive to fall into disarray and become assimilated into the fold of another Queen.

A savory scent trickles through his consciousness as the Wraith dreams, tickling the minute but fine taste buds at his feeding slit and sending the crevasse in his palm crawling in lust. The rich aroma of blood sits thickly upon the air, swallowing the Wraith whole. It severs his focus from the space before him with a shiver. He looks to his palm, to the moving, yearning, aching slit. He cannot recall the last time he fed, but it feels as though it has been decades. He hungers.

The Wraith looks up just in time to see the familiar face of the male skrae slip between two of his drones before snapping back awake. He is in the basement still, chained about the support column and starving so much that the hunger feels like a live, vicious thing eating him. He is not alone. The sudden draw of breath upon waking through his facial slits carries the scent of another in the room, the male skrae of his dreams, along with the rich, metallic scent of human blood. The Wraith tenses against the shackles instinctively, testing them but finding that they remain as secure as before.

The male skrae slips from the darkness towards him before crouching just out of the Wraith's reach. The skrae appears calm and tranquil, his expression blank as it has been so perfectly trained and impressed upon him. His eyes carefully study the trapped Wraith before him. If only he would come a little closer, the Wraith might be able to reach with his teeth and draw some sort of sustenance from the traitorous skrae. Yet the male lingers just a bit away from him.

The Wraith's gaze drops to the skrae's side. His angled blade rests in one hand, stained crimson along the edge. The other hand is balled into a tight fist, but the Wraith can see the red of the blood squeezing between his fingers. It falls in languid drips to the floor with agonizing patters. The Wraith itches to lunge and to feed, to suck the life from the skrae and to be sated at last, but the skrae does not move for some time. When he does, it is only to sweep gracefully and casually around to the Wraith's back, holding his hand over the waiting slit in Todd's hand for a moment. Exactly four sumptuous droplets - the Wraith counts each blessed, exquisite, and peppery tasting bit - fall to the slit before the hand and the nourishing blood is drawn away, leaving the feeding slit writhing in hunger and despair at being so denied.

When the skrae faces the Wraith once more, he knows. In the absence of John Sheppard, he strips away any and all pretense about what is to become of the Wraith. These actions are calculated and plotted, so clear that no mental probing is necessary to understand what lies so plainly before him. The skrae intends for this to be nothing less than excruciatingly long, miserably drawn out, and brutally awful in every sense. The skrae knows much about the Wraith and how to use it to his advantage in this sadistic game. He means this to hurt in so many ways, even if he does not outwardly express this.

Todd lowers his head and smirks at the grand irony of it all. There is no way this bastard skrae could know the small things he has shared with John Sheppard, particularly his most shameful of admissions from Koyla's captivity. It is an almost cruel jest to have come this far and be brought right back to that.

"Tell me, little skrae, if you found yourself burning," he rasps, the words pained by self restraint as he bites back a hunger so sharp that it gnaws away at him viciously. "Would you settle for just one drop?"

xxxx

In time, the Wraith abandon their deadly pursuit, turning back towards the hives that hover so dangerously close over what was once New Jersey to the east. After all, where is the gentlemanly sport in the hunt if the prey does not play by the so-called "fair" rules of engagement delineated by the predator? They will be back soon; they always are. However, for now, the skies remain mercifully empty save the slowly dispersing cloud cover from the early winter storm.

The skrae Kylie taps the device at her wrist once more. The screen dims oddly. Kylie draws her wrist up, studying the device secured there. The malfunction is a concern, one quickly filed and earmarked as critical in her mind. While she may not understand the device fully, Kylie is well aware that it is of the utmost necessity for her survival. The huntress cannot afford to take any chances.

She touches her upper arm tenderly, allowing the faintest suggestion of a frown to mar her otherwise expressionless face. A stray bolt from the Wraith weapons has left a charred path across her arm, burnt right through her clothes and down to the flesh. The burn stinks, but Kylie does not afford a wrinkle of her nose nor a scowl. Instead, she probes at the wound. It is but a glancing injury, but it will require attention if it is to heal swiftly.

Kylie turns her mount towards home once more.

xxxx

Ronon strides back up the tunnel from the makeshift infirmary and towards the chamber at the head of the main shaft. This place and these people feel painfully familiar to the Satedan from his years on the run. The people of this planet had always seemed so bold and so brazen to Ronon, proud as Sateda had once been. Now, they are fragile and frightened, driven to the brink. They bear the same hollow look of others he has met in the wake of a bad culling when they bring their gaze up to meet the approaching runner. Earth has become just another entry in a long list of worlds culled by the Wraith.

One of the older women with long locks of silvery white hair stands from her mending to greet him but takes no step towards him. "Yes? Can I help you?"

Ronon does not close the distance between them; he has enough many victims of a Wraith culling to know to survey the survivors first and gauge his actions accordingly. These survivors are wary and uncomfortable about the newcomers. Their tension is wrought in every feature. He allows the few meters to span between them, mindful of how distrusting he had been as a runner.

"Your medic," the Satedan breathes, giving a shake of his head towards the long tunnel down to the infirmary, and, seeing no reason to sugarcoat it, admits, "He's dead."

The old woman is silent for a long moment before she approaches, casting her haze downward. "Too dark to do much now. We'll dig the grave in the morning. Thank you, stranger."

"It's Ronon."

The woman smiles warmly, almost beaming, before extending a dried, gnarled hard for him to shake delicately. "Amerie Jean-Baptise."

He takes her hand and sighs the only thing that sounds appropriate. "I'll dig."

"Thank-you," she says with a small measure of tried gratitude before gesturing to the side of the node where two frail women are cooking on a hot plate. "Why don't you get yourself something-"

"No." Ronon growls. "I'll dig it now."

Amerie blinks in surprise, but the Satedan maintains a level and even gaze to further his offer, garnering a quiet acceptance from the woman. "Alright. There's a shovel at the tunnel entrance and to the right. You can dig 'til shift change when we lock up for the night."

"Deal."

xxxx

Sheppard tries with no uncertain effort to ignore the grizzly occupant of the infirmary as Rodney helps him settle onto a rather lumpy bed haphazardly constructed from similarly sized wooden crates lined by several think blankets. He tries, but with little success. Every time the colonel tears his gaze away to survey the tiny room and the hundreds of maps and filing cabinets that line the walls, suggesting a survey office of some kind, his eyes slide back to the corpse sitting in such quiet, tranquil repose in the chair. The body belongs to a young man, barely an adult, it seems, innocent but aged well beyond his years. Sheppard's gaze constantly drifts to the raw, vertical slashes up the corpse's wrists, dug deeply by the now discarded knife, as well as to the buckets resting beside the chair.

A part of Sheppard ponders so intently what could drive someone so far to do self mutilate or kill themselves. Suicide is not something in John Sheppard to understand. He has always fought, to the very end. Self sacrifice he understands all too well, knowing the eerie calm of weighing one's own life against the lives of many and accepting the necessity of mortality for the benefit and safety of others. This has no benefit, so reason.

He must be staring, for Rodney suddenly speaks in a soft, grave tone as he gathers a metal basin full of supplies and sets it on the bed beside Sheppard. "Barlett didn't take Tasera's passing well."

Sheppard does not press but instead turns his attention to this quiet, contemplative and otherwise dour creature masquerading as Rodney McKay. The man skulks away for but a moment to fetch a bottle of something slightly viscous but water-like as well as a kettle of steaming water. McKay places those on the ground and kneels before Sheppard without complaint, taking the basin and setting it on the ground for easier reach. The colonel sits still, peering over the bed to study the assortment of bandages, needle packages, thread spools, and razor sharp blades Rodney has collected, taking into account the bottle and boiled water. It's like a field hospital right out of the Civil War.

The colonel hisses as Rodney carefully slices through the soiled field dressing and lets the bandage drop to the floor; the physicist winces. "Sorry." When he touches too close to the wound and elicits a wince from the colonel, McKay blurts his apology once more. "Sorry, sorry."

"It's okay," Sheppard grinds out.

And it is somehow. There is pain, tremendously so as McKay delicately manipulates Sheppard's leg to slash the leg of his BDUs up to just above his knee. However, the surreal nature of the scene holds John transfixed. The old would never have been capable of treating anything more severe than perhaps a paper cut without gagging and threatening to vomit, while this Rodney surveys John's leg with an almost disturbing calm and dispassion. His gaze remains even and steady despite the sight of an amount of blood that would have sent the prior incarnation of Rodney McKay reeling in disgust.

When Rodney prods at the wound, Sheppard cannot help but study it as well. The wooden stave in the pit had gone directly through his calf with a sickly ease. In its wake it had left twin puncture wounds that, after such a long hike and days without treatment, appear raw and edged in white. The calf has swollen to an almost comical proportion while the holes themselves weep a yellow tinted fluid. A wreath of red rings both sides of the wounds.

Rodney purses his lips to a tight frown and mutters, "Needs sutures." He glances up to his bedeviled patient, giving Sheppard's thigh a light, reassuring squeeze. "I'm sorry, but we don't have anything to give you for the pain. Ran out last spring when Jacob broke his wrist."

"What about that?" Sheppard tosses his head in the direction of the bottle.

Rodney grimaces and pokes his tongue out. "That stuff? Off the still?" He shakes his head in surprise. "It'd probably make you go blind." McKay sighs and pokes at the wound once more. "No. That's for disinfecting against the however many hundreds of pathogens you've let yourself crawl around in for however long you've been walking on this leg. God knows how many diseases you've picked up on the mountain already."

Sheppard smirks at the momentary glimpse of the old, hypochondriac Rodney McKay lurking beneath the stoic visage of this stranger, this wolf in sheep's clothes. complete with his nervous and near spastic hand motions. However, it fades just as suddenly as it appeared, leaving a solemn silence in its place. Something dark skitters and flashes through McKay's features.

"Rodney?"

The physicist sighs as he fills the basin with the steaming water and dips a cloth in it to begin cleaning the leg, answering with his own, curt question. "Why?"

"Why what?"

Rodney shakes his head, wrings the cloth out, and wipes down Sheppard's leg about the wound, clearing away the dried blood with a tender hand that the colonel never thought possible from McKay. "Why did you come back?"

Sheppard's features twist as the cloth catches upon the edge of the wound. "Todd... he had a message from you about the Gap." He grips the edge of the makeshift bed tighter as McKay continues to gently clean the wound. "Said he could help us find you." The colonel shrugs when he gets no response before adding, "Said he thought you could help him take out the Wraith."

"And you believed him?" the physicist snaps, hurling the soiled and bloodied cloth down harshly with a smacking sound.

The colonel blinks, dumbstruck by the sudden acidity from his once friend. "Rodney..."

"It could have been a trap." McKay fumes as he opens the bottle and splashes a bit of the alcohol over the gaping holes in Sheppard's leg, eliciting a hiss from his patient; he scowls intensely even as he mutters bitterly, "You could have led the Wraith right to our front doorstep."

Sheppard says nothing more; there is nothing more to say. Anything else would taste a lie. The two Lanteans very well could have led the Wraith right to Foothold without being aware of it. His face flushes with heat as though struck, embarrassed by his impulsive mistake. He has no rational defense for bringing the Wraith, Todd, into their midst. Sheppard swallows the lump in his throat and sits in uncomfortable silence, allowing Rodney to clean the wounds in his leg. He does not complain either when Rodney douses a needle and thread in the clear alcohol and pokes the needle through his skin.

It is only when Rodney has skillfully finished suturing the entry wound and shifts to tend to the exit wound that he speaks again in a hushed whisper this time, apologetic in an exhausted and worn way. "Look, I'm sorry."

"No, you're right," Sheppard admits with a tired heave, leaning back onto the bed. "You always are."

McKay shakes his head and rubs his brow, ignoring the blood upon his hands and the smears it leaves across his forehead. "You didn't know." He pauses, gathering his thoughts. "It's just....." He sighs once more, a weighted breath that speaks more than mere words alone. "It's been three years, Sheppard. Three years." A desperation hangs on his words, thick and suffocating. "Do you have any idea how long that is?" The physicist licks his lips as he threads the needle once more through Sheppard's flesh, garnering a small grunt from the soldier. "And you never came."

"We tired. We had no Gate access," Sheppard hisses through clenched teeth when the pointed metal dips through his skin again, but the words feel a paltry excuse as soon as they leave the tip of his tongue.

McKay pulls tautly upon the thread to draw the wound closer together before knotting the next suture with a skill the colonel knows the physicist has acquired since the coming of the Wraith before stopped with a small shudder. "I waited for you to come, for anyone to come and save us. But no one did." He stiffens and composes himself before slipping another stitch through Sheppard's flesh. "The first year, I kept myself going think, 'Just watch and see. Sheppard'll come and save the day. He always does.' I was.... I guess I was waiting for the day I'd see Atlantis in the sky, coming for us, to save us all from the Wraith." He sounds wistful for a moment, before that glimmer of hope fades once more and leaves nothing but the cold reality of Foothold in its place. "Kept me going for a while."

Sheppard winces visibly, perhaps at the needling digging through his skin or perhaps at the thought that he had been Rodney's last great hope that had never come through.

McKay sighs deeply and gives a shake of his head. "It was stupid of me to think you guys would come guns blazing like that, but I figured you always liked to make an entrance. Without a full complement of ZedPMs, there was no way you'd ever get her off the ground and back to Earth in time, let alone in one piece." McKay frowns and pokes the needle through the colonel's skin again to proceed with his line of neat, precise sutures. "After the first year, I knew you weren't coming."

There is a long moment as neither moves, as though held powerless and immobile by the spell woven from McKay's raw admissions. Sheppard has assumed that the years had been difficult, but never before has he heard any indication of it from his once friend. Now, the soldier cannot help but see it written in every subtle twitch and twist to the physicist's face, in every minute inflection change to his words. His heart contracts to see the horrors of three years presented so plainly before him.

McKay gives another deep and pensive exhalation, pulling on the thread to seal the exit wound on Sheppard's calf before settling back slightly. "And.... now.... you're here."

"Rodney, I'm sorry," Sheppard whispers flatly, unsure of anything he could possible say and pretend might make things right; his voice trembles as his body shakes with the pain of having his leg cobbled back together without even the wonderful, warm numbing of even a simple local anesthetic.

McKay gives a quick shake of his head as he tests the sutures and begins to wrap the wound with long strips of gauze. "It wouldn't have made a difference."

Again, an awkward and tense silence blankets the two as McKay continues in his ministrations. Sheppard's leg grinds with a pure, white-hot agony no matter how careful and delicate the physicist's hand. Every heartbeat sends throbbing pain through the colonel's muscles, shooting up the length of his leg from his calf up to his hip and back down to his ankle. The colonel says nothing on this, merely gritting his teeth and holding back the cries of pain that beg to be let loose. When McKay finishes and ties off the end of the neat dressing, Sheppard feels wrung out and exhausted, unable to even hold himself up any longer of his own accord. His body feels heavy and cumbersome; his leaden eyelids sag and droop. McKay sees this, and, in a rare act of compassion, gently arranges Sheppard's limbs so that he lies supine on the makeshift bed, slipping a pillow beneath Sheppard's head and pulling a heavy, warm blanket over the colonel.

When the man turns to leave, the colonel snatches McKay by the wrist to stop him, but the physicist breathes in Sheppard's ear, "Look, you're tired and dead on your feet. Get some rest, now. We can talk later." He snorts oddly. "You're no help if you're dead-dead."

Sheppard gives a slow, drained nod. "Thanks, Rodney."

The physicist stops for a long moment, his eyes sweeping over Sheppard, and the colonel cannot help but wonder what McKay sees now after these years.

The faintest hint of a smile graces McKay's scarred face. "Night, Sheppard."

xxxx

The grim task of digging a grave is short work for someone as strong as Ronon. He works in a terse silence alongside a few of the wiry, tough men of Foothold, strangers to him. The only sounds in the mountains is the scrape of their shovels on frozen earth and loose pebbles as twilight settles and diminishes to near darkness. They solemnly dig a body-sized hole in the ground beside the child's grave for Bartlett.

After a time, a few men emerge from the mine entrance carrying what can only be the body of Bartlett wrapped in scarlet stained sheets, trailed by the residents of Foothold. McKay is among the pallbearers, his face grim as the physicist helps carry the corpse. Ronon steps back and away from the pit to allow them to gently lay the body in the base. The odd assembly rings the open grave, staring in with hollowed eyes. McKay. The woman, Amerie. The child, Jacob. A slew of others that Ronon has not yet learned the names of, men and women, but no children aside from the whelp, Jacob. No one says a word or sheds a tear, but, in a way, Ronon understands that this is all the funeral rites these people can afford mentally and emotionally in these trying days. Long moments pass as the people just stare into the pit at the body of the man who had been their friend.

Finally, McKay's head bobs, and he takes up a shovel to bury Bartlett. The people begin to disperse, especially when Ronon starts to help. Together, they bury Bartlett in the frozen ground, beside the lost baby and the mother. They work together without a word passed between them. Ronon notes this but keeps his head down and his focus upon the grim task.

When the grave is full, only then does Rodney speak, stabbing the shovel into the loose earth and turning his gaze skyward at the depths of the darkening heavens. "That's good enough for now. We'll get the rocks tomorrow."

A plodding sound meets both men's ears, jerking their attention to the wide road that had once led up to the mine. A person stands in the darkness there at the mouth, silhouetted in the dark of the night, leading a solitary horse. Only when McKay spies them does the stranger approach, slowly and soundlessly. Ronon immediately recognizes it to be the smaller of the two skrae, Kylie. She clutches her right elbow with her left hand, bearing down as though to conceal and cover, but Ronon can smell the stench of burnt flesh upon her. His nostrils twitch at the sickening odor.

McKay's face melts to concern. "Kylie?" Her head cranes to the fresh grave, and McKay breathes only a name. "Bartlett." She draws near enough the physicist and opens her palm so only he can see the severity of the wound, and the man hisses. "C'mon, and I'll take care of that." He looks to Ronon and gestures with a wave of his hand. "You'd better come on inside, too, before lockup."

Ronon simply nods and follows at they tie up the horse and descend back into Foothold. He tries not to react when heavy, steel bunker doors slam shut behind them with a thundering boom that echoes down the tunnels of the mine. The Satedan allows only a miniscule shiver to roll down his spine when the slamming is accompanied by a clicking sound. He does not like this closed in feeling.

They are locked in now.

Ronon strides just behind the skrae and the physicist down the tunnels towards the main node once more. An entirely different set of people occupy the various workstations there, toiling away just as diligently as the first set. Ronon does not miss the scathing glares that they shoot in Kylie's general direction as the skrae walks in silence. Ronon can almost feel their scorn. Their loathing cannot be hidden, but the skrae pays them no heed as she heels so obediently behind Rodney, still holding her arm by the wound.

A hand graces Ronon's elbow as he passes, and he turns to find Amerie standing beside him. "Let 'em go."

There is a coldness and a distance to her voice, but not the intense and startling disgust that the Satedan might have expected from the woman. The others might absolutely despise Kylie's presence, but Amerie does not seem to harbor those same emotions. Instead, there lies only a callous indifference in the woman, as though the skrae's existence is merely as necessary an evil in the world as the crawling weevils and burrowing insects. Vile and repulsive, yes, but nothing worth expending the effort to truly hate.

Her wrinkled features soften as the old woman gestures towards a side tunnel. Ronon says nothing, but he follows her down into a steadily building stream of people. When the Satedan glances about, he finds himself surrounded by the people who had occupied the central node earlier. Shift change. He follows them to a natural cavern deep in the rock. Amerie hands him a thick, downy blanket before retreating with the others to find a spot to curl up.

Ronon follows suit, but sleeps lightly, with one eye open.

xxxx

Oh, how the Wraith hungers. The heavy scent of iron on the air blankets the Wraith with the enticing scent of life and vitality, a seductive aroma that teases the starving predator and drives him mad. He can taste it through his facial slits, delicious and intoxicating. His feeding slit writhes and twists in his palm, desperate for the lush, savory vitae that he knows flows through the skrae's veins a few, short feet away. The male sits just out of reach, his eyes fixated upon the Wraith as the predator strains against his shackles, constantly stretching for the blood that the skrae allows to drip on the floor before him, wasted.

Todd cannot help but tug against the shackles, his honey gold eyes locked on the skrae that stares so intently back at him. This skrae is patient. He draws his cut hand up to the Wraith's face in taunt, so close and so utterly far away. The skrae watches as the Wraith's instincts take him, sending him jumping and snapping for the blood in his hunger.

The skrae lifts his bloodied hand to his face and licks at the self-inflicted wound. Todd stills, frozen in place by the sight of the act. Even his feeding slit pauses in its agonized struggles, transfixed by the single, heavy droplet that hangs like a ruby on the tip of the skrae's pink tongue. The skrae allows his eyes to slip closed, as though in pure rapture. When he spies the look of desperation on Todd's angular face, the skrae's eyes sparkle with delight as he rises and leaves, taking with him the life-giving blood.

Oh yes, the skrae knows exactly how to torture a Wraith.

xxxx

"..... knows you didn't mean anything. It was an accident. It happens."

Sheppard awakens to the sound of McKay's voice droning on as the physicist speaks in even whispers to someone. He cracks a cautious eye open to spy Rodney seated on the other side of the room with the female skrae, Kylie. Her sleeve is rolled up high on her pale, slender arm, exposing a rather rough looking burn grazing the side of her arm. The stench of blood on the air covers any of the requisite odor of burnt flesh that Sheppard knows should be there. She sits without movement, without a flinch even as McKay tends to the wound, cleaning it with gentle dabs of an alcohol swabbed cloth.

He murmurs on in soft, almost soothing tones to Kylie. "Look, he's been around worshippers before." It takes Sheppard a moment to realize that McKay is talking about him. "He knows they're tricky, and you and Willem were just trying to keep us safe. He'll understand that you didn't mean anything by it."

Sheppard shifts his narrowed gaze to the other side of the room, to where the bloodied chair had been. The corpse of Bartlett is gone, the mess cleared away. The chair itself gleams in the corner under the incandescent lights as though freshly polished.

"Sure, he might be pissed in the morning, but he'll get over it," McKay goes on, rinsing the cloth with a bit more of the alcohol and wringing it out before continuing. "You were doing your job. He'll understand."

John keeps his body still and calm, his breaths even and low, trying to listen and to pretend to be asleep. Yet the skrae must know. She must have heard the subtle shift to his respiration or sensed his gaze on her. Her emerald green eyes like flashing jade slide over him, drawing his attention. She holds him in her gaze for an unearthly eerie moment before looking away, casting her eyes downward to the packed, earth floor in what might have been the tiniest glimmer of remorse lurking beneath that pristinely composed veneer of hers.

McKay turns his attention to Kylie's wrist, lifting it by the hand to examine some sort of device there, like the hideous offspring of an LSD mated with an overly complicated wrist watch. "Must have been some seriously close call. Almost blew out the transmitter." McKay slips the thing from her hand and manages a tired smile before setting it aside and returning his focus to the burn, talking idly as though simply to break the roaring silence in the girl's shadow. "I'll have it patched up by morning."

Kylie stiffens beneath Rodney's careful ministrations, her steady stare meeting John's once more. McKay pauses and turns his attention to where she looks, to Sheppard. The girl takes the opportunity to slip from beneath McKay's fingertips. Kylie rises wordlessly and slinks from the room without even the slightest of sounds or indications of emotion.

McKay sighs and does not even look to Sheppard as he gathers up his tools once more. "You could have said hi, been polite and sociable like a normal human being, y'know?"

"So could she," Sheppard counters smartly, giving up on his ruse of feigned slumber and waggling an eyebrow.

"They thought you were a worshipper." McKay kicks at some imaginary pebble on the floor, nudging a nothingness. "There were tons of them running around at one point, trying to infiltrate places like Foothold. Losing the Gap has got everyone on edge, and you were just waltzing right up alongside a Wraith."

Sheppard glares. "Still could have asked."

"They didn't know, and experience has taught better than to trust strangers, especially strangers who look like they have Wraith friends," Rodney argues. They sit in a tense silence for a moment before either speaks again. "She is sorry." Rodney's voice pleads in a way. "You know that, right?" When Sheppard gives no indication of a reply, McKay jerks his head in the direction of the colonel's bandaged leg. "I should take a look at that, change the dressings."

The colonel says nothing and lets himself drift in the warmth of the blankets and the gentle ministration of Rodney unwrapping the wound for a long moment before whispering, "She could always just say it herself."

"Better chance of finding a vegan Wraith." The physicist huffs a low chortle in flat jest, rubbing the thick muscles at the back of his neck. "No, Kylie..... she just.... she doesn't talk. Ever."

"Why not?" Sheppard inquires curiously.

McKay scratches behind his ear, a gesture of avoidance Sheppard recognizes all too well from the many times he has watched Rodney concoct stories, solutions, and utter fabrications before his very eyes. "Who knows. Something the Wraith did, I guess."

When the gauze pulls away from his wounds, the threads stick and pull. Both men hiss involuntarily through their teeth, but for different reasons. Sheppard peers down to see what McKay sees. Despite the earlier care, the wounds flush an angry red, contrasting sharply against the almost requisite black thread of the stitches. However, Sheppard's field medicine training dictates that this is to be expected of a penetrating trauma. He shall just have to exercise caution in keeping the wounds well cleaned to prevent infection, meaning further douses of the homemade alcohol in his very near future.

Sheppard does not dwell on the thought for long, distracting himself by asking, "And the other one?"

"Who, Willem?" McKay prompts with a raised eyebrow before shrugging and taking the clear swill to pour a measured dram over each of the holes in Sheppard's leg. "Sometimes you can get a word or two out of him, but not much."

Sheppard nods in consideration as Rodney rewraps the calf with clean bandages.

"So what's their story?"

The physicist frowns and drags an overturned blue milkcrate over for him to sit on. "Not one hundred percent sure, really." When McKay spots the look of disbelief on Sheppard's face, he goes on carefully, "Haven't been able to piece it all together yet. We do know the Wraith had them, kept them like.... pets." McKay lips thin in disgust as he fidgets slightly his hands. "They got free, but the Wraith had put trackers on those two as soon as they got their hands on 'em, like they didn't want to lose their precious little pets. Kept trying to dig them out like Ronon did. Without the assistance of that wonderful witchdoctor. Beckett, we couldn't remove the trackers safely." The physicist picks up the device he took from the skrae and gives it a wave in Sheppard's direction. "So I set them up with some new toys."

Sheppard tentatively takes the device, turning it over in his hands and finding his original assessment to be not far from the mark. The base of it is somewhat like an overly wide divewatch or a leather bracer, complete with straps and buckles meant to hold it quite securely about Kylie's thin wrist. The top bears not a watch face or depth gauge as Sheppard might have expected, but a sort of transmitter of a crudely bludgeoned LSD with parts from a radio of some kind. A miniscule display and face hacked from a cannibalized iPod flickers with a dying light, but Sheppard makes out what appears to be a meter registering near empty battery charge.

"Masks the signal of the Wraith trackers and their normal vital signs. It's just a prototype. Only works on a highly limited range, but it gets the job done."

The colonel nods at both the impressive invention and the odd modesty to McKay's voice, as though this truly is a humble accomplishment. He cannot help but admire the sheer ingenuity of the device, nor the simplicity of the design. It is small, easily concealed, and feather-weight to wear without any discomfort. Yet a part of Sheppard feels wrong not hearing McKay gloating overtly over his own creation, no matter how humble.

He hands it back, his stiff muscles aching in protest, but Sheppard concedes with a tired nod and a hoarse rasp. "Cool. Very cool."

McKay turns the device in his hands. "It needs work." The physicist tucks it into his jacket pocket. "She needs to be more careful." Sheppard swallows, wetting his palette, but McKay is there in a heartbeat, producing a cup of refreshingly cool water. "Drink. Slowly now."

Sheppard listens and takes small sips, clutching the mug to his chest and savoring the icy liquid as it trickles down his throat. "Thanks." He settles back and finds his sights slipping once more more to the freshly cleaned chair in the corner. "What was his story?"

"Bartlett was our resident medic." McKay sighs heavily and almost bitterly in a morose sort of resignation. "Guess he lost one too many patients. Couldn't take it anymore, y'know?"

Sheppard says nothing further on the matter. He knows far too well what it feels like to fight to save someone else and come up short despite all his best efforts. A distant part of the colonel's mind has kept running tally of the lives he has let slip away on his watch. He knows the names of each and every death he has somehow been responsible for, whether directly or indirectly. Sheppard feels Bartlett's sorrow everyday of his life, but, instead of giving in to the pain and ending it, the colonel has used it to fuel him and his every action.

He points to the network of raised, smoothly shining scar tissue patterning the side of Rodney's face. "And you?"

"Me?" McKay's features twist at the thought, and he strokes the scars upon his cheek before the corner of his lips quirks up. "Let's just say it's good to see you again, Sheppard." The physicist rises and ruffles Sheppard's hair in a gesture that unsettles the colonel. "Get some rest."

Before Sheppard can press further, McKay leaves him.

xxxx

Ronon does not start when he hears footsteps approaching though the tunnels. He has been listening cautiously for some time, feigning sleep. The Satedan trains his ears to the sounds. Four sets of footsteps. Yet, when they draw near, five shadows fall over him and pass through the node, striding deeper into the mine. One of the skrae is with them.

As soon as they are gone, the runner slips from his place, dancing through the jumbled mess of bodies sprawled on the tunnel floor, to follow. He slinks along the side of the tunnel, trailing the sounds of the footsteps as they descend further into the labyrinth of the Chatham Mine, so deep that the damp warmth from the top of the tunnels actually fades in favor of a chilling, arctic grip that turns his exhalations into steaming puffs. Ronon wonders how deep the mine system extends into the mountain as his ears pop in protest of the pressure.

Voices echo in the rock ahead, muffled by the stone and the reverberations. Ronon furrows his brow and draws near, remaining just out of sight. Ahead, McKay and a small contingent of heavily armed men of Foothold lead the female skrae - Kylie - to a thick, steel door nestled in the rock. She moves without sound, without hesitation, striding through the door and into the darkness. McKay seals the door behind her by rotating a wide ring before nodding to the others and turning back towards the top of the tunnel along with one of the other men.

Ronon shifts back into the shadows, pressing against a thick timber and watching as Rodney passes before glancing back to the steel door and the two guards posted outside it. Something does not sit well with the runner about any of this. He waits for a time before making his way back up to the yawning cavern he has subconsciously dubbed the 'barracks' of this place. In his suspicion, he is somehow unsurprised to find Rodney standing at the top of the tunnel, his arms folded sternly across his chest and a look of chiding upon his face.

"I know you followed me." McKay sounds not mad, but annoyed, as he whispers in a hushed voice too keep from waking the others who sleep around them. The physicist shakes his head. "Look, you might not get how things run around here, but everything has a reason. Even if you can't see it."

"I said nothing," the Satedan growls.

McKay frowns. "Yeah, but I know you. And I know that look on your face. You're thinking it's something it's not."

The runner shrugs.

"Just, trust me on this one. It's for everyone's good."

xxxx

A delicious, warm aroma drifts through the air over the heavy scent of sweat, drawing Sheppard from the depths of a restful sleep. Coffee and what might smells delightfully like bacon. He blinks away the bleariness at the edges of his eyes before sitting up fully and pushing the blankets off from him, his leg throbbing in response to the sudden motion. He is alone once more in the makeshift infirmary, but Sheppard can hear the sounds of motion outside in the mines.

Someone knocks gently at the door, and Rodney's voice echoes in the rock as he peers his head in. "You up, Sheppard?"

"Yeah."

McKay gives a nod. "You hungry?"

The colonel smirks. "Yeah."

"Good." McKay hesitates at the door before allowing another awkward nod. "Well, c'mon then. Work to do."

Sheppard chances a smirk. "Saving the world?"

The physicist shakes his head before approaching slowly and helping the colonel to his feet. "Are you kidding me? What's left to save?" McKay goes solemn and still before assisting Sheppard out and into the mine. "Nah. We're putting you and Ronon to work today. Everyone at Foothold works. Greater good and all that stuff." Sheppard shakes his head, and Rodney scowls. "What?"

"If you tell me, 'Live together, die alone,' I may be forced to shoot you."

"Well," the physicist says with a shrug, not deigning even a laugh at the Lost reference. "It's the truth."

Sheppard glances down to the bandages about his calf and honestly admits, "Yeah, well, I don't think I'm going to be much use to you with this leg."

McKay sniffs as the pair shamble into the main node. "Everyone works."

XXX

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Author's Notes : Aw, man. I really hate being a few chapters ahead of you guys and knowing what's going to happen. *squeals* I hope you guys But I have been adoring your oh-so-lover-ly reviews!

*glomps*

I promise there will be another installment of Feast of the Samhain shortly for everyone who's following. Hopefully by the end of the week.

Next chappie : Unsung heroes, more hungry-hungry Wraith, snow, snow, more snow, and did I say snow? Well, there will be snow. Lots of it.