"We're nearing the planet, Commander," came Bonewhite's voice from the other side of the bridge. Guide looked at him, his eyes narrowed.

"I was under the impression that we were not due to reach that planet for several days. Of which planet do you speak?"

"Atlantea, My Lord. The original home of the Ancient City." Bonewhite looked confused, but Guide knew he himself was the more confused of the two.

"There is nothing of interest to us there...why have you charted such a course?" He narrowed his yellow eyes, studying his Second with a critical stare, and watching as Bonewhite seemed to shrivel beneath it.

"The Atlantean female wished to be returned to her home...do you not remember?"

Guide felt a faint panic begin in his muscles. He would never have agreed to this. What was left for Jennifer on Atlantea? It was nothing but water and emptiness now. Sure, there were the inhabitants on the mainland, but she did not know them in the same way she knew Guide and his hive. The Atlanteans she had known were long gone.

From across the bridge, he felt Bonewhite surveying him.

"Commander...?"

"We must continue elsewhere, Bonewhite," Guide ordered. "We cannot return her. She will not survive on her own, and the humans on the mainland...they are primitive, at best."

Behind him, he sensed a presence.

"But I won't be alone, Guide," Jennifer issued from her place in the doorway. When the Wraith looked at her, he saw Rodney McKay standing beside her. The squirrely man wrapped his arm around Jennifer's shoulders and pulled her against him. They looked at one another and smiled. When her brown eyes fell back to the Wraith, she was grinning. "You didn't really think I would stay with you, did you Guide?"

He was silent as Jennifer threw her hand over her mouth in a shocked sort of expression that lasted only a few seconds. When she removed it, she was grinning.

"Oh, my goodness, you did!"

Rodney kissed her.

Guide's chest tightened and it was all he could do to stop himself from pulling his gun from its holster and removing Rodney from the picture entirely. He wouldn't do it, though, and everyone in the room knew it. Bewildered though he was by Jennifer's words, he could never do anything to harm her, even emotionally. His eyes met Rodney's and the man grinned, showing off his perfectly white, even, human teeth.

"Don't worry Guide," Rodney issued, "I'll take good care of her. I'll even make sure you get an invitation to the baby shower."

Guide hissed and now it was Bonewhite whose hands stopped him from lunging forward to do away with that sorry excuse for a human male.

Rodney and Jennifer only laughed, and when Guide looked down at his hands, an iron guard and shackles confined him.

"It was all part of the plan, Todd," John Sheppard said as he walked into the room. The Atlantean rested his fingers on the trigger of his weapon. "Jennifer here, well, she's a very gifted actress, you see..."

Guide looked at Jennifer and when he looked back at John, the man's gun was pointing directly at Guide's forehead.

"You're coming with us, Todd."


A wave of pain overtook Jennifer as she jolted awake, disturbed by something she could not yet identify. From her throat burst forth a cry of agony, and her hand flew to her forehead. Her knees instinctively pulled to her chin, splitting the wounds in her midsection as she continued to scream. In an instant, there was another figure in the room, but it was not the one Jennifer expected. Bonewhite ripped the blankets away from the human and then sliced through her shirt with his claws, revealing her bleeding wounds.

"You stupid, stupid female," he muttered as he clamped his feeding hand around the wounds. "What have you done to yourself?"

Jennifer didn't answer, beginning to cough through her torment and spewing bright red blood onto the Wraith Second's leather clothing. He dragged her from the bed and forced her upright until her legs buckled and she fell to her knees. Crouching down beside her, he looked over his shoulder as Guide entered the room, his expression just as troubled. Bonewhite supported Jennifer's weight as she struggled to breathe, the way he positioned her the only reason she had not yet choked on her own blood. He looked up at Guide as his commander joined him by the Atlantean doctor's side.

"This was an attack," Bonewhite proclaimed, and Guide, his own breathing elevated following the distress of his dream, furrowed his brows.

"How can you be sure?"

Bonewhite, his face stern, gestured to the woman in his arms and said, "Take her."

Acquiescing, Guide pulled Jennifer from Bonewhite's hold and within moments, her body went limp in relief. Visible given her lack of a shirt, the wounds healed almost instantly, and she no longer strained for breath. Uncertainty filled the Wraith commander and he looked back to Bonewhite with widened eyes. Bonewhite frowned and rose to his full height.

"Someone on this vessel knows more about you than you do, Commander."


A/N: A bit of a shorty, but necessary all the same. All will be explained in the coming chapters!