Sheppard stepped cautiously forward. This felt familiar, almost comforting. Ronon, Teyla and he walking through an unknown jungle. Even the complaining was familiar though the voice wasn't.

"Why can't you tell me what's going on? Huh?" Det. Williams asked … again. John felt a sudden jerk on his tack vest. The manhandling was new.

"Answer me!" Williams insisted.

"Look," Sheppard said, holding up a hand to stop an advancing Ronon. "I appreciate that you're worried about your teammate but the only reason that my teammate is in trouble is because your teammate didn't trust us and went and let him do something stupid."

"Trust you?" Williams barked. "Right, because you've been so trusting. You wouldn't tell us a damn thing."

"It's classified." Sheppard growled.

"Screw you!" Williams yelled, inches from Sheppard's face.

"Quiet!" hissed Teyla. "You are acting in a ridiculous fashion!" She scolded.

"Yeah," Ronon said. "Fighting isn't gonna help Mckay or McGarrett."

"Good point." Sheppard said. "Okay, Williams. Here's the deal. We're space explorers. Our job is to travel from planet to planet in a distant galaxy looking for alliances, weapons and technology that will help us defeat a race of aliens that live off of the life force of human beings and would, if given the chance, slaughter and enslave every man, woman and child on Earth. Now you've been read in. Happy?"

Williams fumed. "You think you're funny fly boy?"

"See," Sheppard said. Stalking off into the jungle once again. "This is why we didn't tell you."

"Don't know why Earthlings find it so hard to believe there are people on other planets." Ronon said, apparently to Teyla.

"I believe it is because so much of their myths and legends revolve around such occurrences. The possibility has by association become fantastic in their minds."

"What?" Williams said, following sulkily behind. "I'm supposed to believe this garbage?"

"Believe what you want." Sheppard said testily. "Do what you want. I don't care. Just keep up and keep your damn voice down."

Williams may not have liked the situation but he complied. Sheppard tried to think of things from his and McGarrett's point of view. He and his team showed up, keeping things from them. But, damnit, they'd been up front about it. It wasn't like he liked keeping things from them.

Maybe it was a kind of justice for them to keep things from his team but it wasn't smart and it might have cost Mckay his life.

Don't think like that.

He rebuked himself. He needed to clear his head of all this. Focus on the task at hand. Ronon was on point, tracking back from McGarrett's car. It was comforting to know Ronon had the trail. Once Ronon was tracking something, it was as good as found. Just a matter of time.

Suddenly, Ronon crouched down, his hand up in the air. Sheppard and Teyla stopped instantly but Williams couldn't see Ronon and wasn't paying close enough attention to Sheppard and Teyla to notice they'd stopped in time. He barreled into Sheppard and the two went down hard.

"What the hell?" Williams snapped.

"Danny?" A voice called from ahead and Steve McGarrett stepped out from cover. "What the hell are you doing here?" He demanded. "I almost killed you!"

"What about you?" Williams shot back. "I've been calling you for hours."

"I was held up." Steve said then turned. "It's okay. He's on my team."

Sheppards eyes widened as a familiar face stepped out from behind a tree.

"Jeanie!" He exclaimed. "It is good to see you."

To his surprise, Jeanie only nodded. Sheppard instantly knew something was wrong.

"Where's Mckay?"

"Somewhere behind us." Steve said.

"You left him behind?" Sheppard demanded, fiercely.

"Hey!" Williams barked and placed himself between Sheppard and Steve.

"He insisted. Jeanie and I squeezed through some wall studs of the room they'd locked us up in, but Mckay couldn't make it. He was gonna saw through and meet up with us when he could."

"And you just left him there?" Sheppard asked, stepping forward against the pressure of Williams' hand on his chest.

"Yeah, I did." Steve said, unashamed. "He asked me to get his sister out of harm's way and I promised I would."

Sheppard looked at Jeanie and collected himself.

"Where is he now?" He said after a moment.

Steve jerked his head to the West. "About two miles that way. There's a compound behind some kind of gnarly shield type thing. I shut it off before I knew what I'd done. Jeanie told me how to get it back up but we're not sure I did it in time."

"Wait, wait, wait a minute." Sheppard said, holding up his hands. "Are you telling me you've got the ATA gene?"

Steve shrugged. "Apparently I'm part of some lucky 3%."

"This sounds like a lovely conversation you two are having." Williams interrupted. "I'm sure I'd find it equally fascinating if I had any idea what the hell you were talking about!" He finished fiercely.

"There are life sucking aliens who want to find Earth and kill us all. Colonel Shephard's team fight them and some gnarly guys called the Trust want Mckay to move Earth to an alternate universe but if he does, the other Earth will be destroyed so he won't and we've got to rescue him if he hasn't managed to rescue himself by now." Steve said in an emotionless and clear tone.

Williams blinked. "For real?"

"For real." Steve confirmed.

"I knew I should have taken you up on that offer to go home." He muttered. "Okay, what do we do?"

"Just like that?" Sheppard asked. "I told you that same thing five minutes ago and you practically hit me."

Williams turned to him with a strange look. "You're a crazy Colonel I've know five minutes who can't say ten words without two of them being 'it's classified'. Steve's the crazy Commander who tries to get me killed every five minutes and has no sense of humor. Of the two of you, Steve's the one I'll be trusting, that okay with you, Sparky?"

Sheppard just raised his eyebrows.

"Alright Teyla," He said turning to the Althosian. "You take Jeanie back to 5-0 headquarters with Williams. Get on the horn with the SGC and let them know our status. I'll take Ronon and McGarrett and we'll trek back to the compound. Hopefully, we'll run into Mckay. If we get to the shield and Mckay doesn't show after ten minutes, we go in after him."

"Why wait?" Steve asked.

"If you managed to get that shield back up in time, Mckay could still have gotten out." Sheppard explained. "Shutting off the shield again could draw unwanted attention to him. OR you alerted the guards and they've got him under lock and key. Ten minutes one way won't make too much of a difference. After all, they want him alive. Ten minutes the other way could mean him getting out unnoticed and unharmed."

Steve nodded. "Got it."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Williams protested. "Why am I getting sent back with the girls?"

Ronon grinned and shook his head.

"I don't have time for this." Sheppard sighed. "I'm sending you back because you're dressed like an insurance salesman. For the record, Teyla Immagen is not a 'girl'. She can kick you ass seven ways to Sunday. I'm sending her back because she's one of the best diplomats I've ever come across and I'm hoping she can convince the powers that be not to lock you two in a small dark room for the rest of your natural lives to protect their precious secret. Considering that, I would advise you to apologize to her and hope like hell she's successful."

Sheppard watched a bit smugly as Williams shifted his gaze to Teyla's. Teyla, for her part, was looking every bit the killing machine she was and Williams gulped convulsively.

"Sorry." He mumbled.

Sheppard caught Steve's eye and jerked his head to the West. "Let's go."