NOTES: I apologise for the delay in posting this - I was going to post it for the new year, but...life and writing has gotten in the way. Thank you for being so patient with me!
The Astonishing Persistence Of Memory: Past Time
Part Three
Chapter Nine: Shifting Sands
The floor was thankfully solid beneath his hip and shoulder and forehead. He needed something to hold onto after that last draining.
Memory was like a beach, the days of his life like sand through the hourglass...
There was a footstep behind him, and he jerked, startled into wakefulness, horror creeping through him at the thought of the feeding yet again. Not again! Not so soon!
Human hands that touched him, warm rough-tipped fingers that closed around wasted limbs and tugged with the gentleness of one accustomed to human fragility. "Easy there," the voice was quiet and solid as the hills, with an impermeable patience - a familiar voice and presence in the cells of the Wraith hiveship. "I'm meaning you no harm you know."
He knew. His body knew and relaxed into the grip long enough to be assisted to his feet. Independence asserted itself as soon as he was up, and he pushed the hands away irritably. He was old and withered, yes, but he wasn't feeble. Not yet.
Limbs gave the lie to that thought, trembling in the unaccustomed effort. This time, when the arm came around his back, he didn't protest it.
"You have to be so stubborn," said the man as they eased him down to the bench.
"It's a bad habit," he said. He lifted one shaking hand to brush away the cold sweat across his brow. Clumsy and slow - old and withered, useless - the list went on and on. Pain and injury were old friends. In other times and other places, he'd been taught to take pain and absorb it, make it part of him, give him strength.
Where had he learned that? When had he learned it?
The warmth of the man went away, and he shivered before he forced himself to still. How long had it been since he'd been warm? Even when they gave him life - their feeding hands slamming energy into him, a terrifyingly electric crackle of power - it was cold, brutal. No kindness, no humanity.
They are Wraith.
The stranger knelt beside him, the worn, easy face looking up into his features. "You have lasted longer than any of us."
"Only because they want me to." And even when they gave him back his life, he felt the years weighing down on him. Not the years of his own life, but the years of life from those they drained. Fragments of being that splintered and shattered in the new container, unable to keep their shape, tearing him up inside. "Look, I'm sorry about your people."
"You are not to blame. You were not even with us when we were culled."
"The only reason I'm living is because the Wraith gave me their life!" It burned within him, the only heat he could claim anymore, the only fire in his belly - a burning smear of regret and shame. He had lived while others had died.
Guilt was the only passion he had left; the Wraith had taken everything else from him.
Even himself.
There'd been memories in his mind before, a lifetime of history, of knowledge, of experience. He'd blocked it away once he realised the Wraith were trying to get into his thoughts, and if he couldn't remember what he'd done to forget anymore, then the Wraith probably couldn't either.
There'd been people in his mind before, people whose presence had comforted him, given him hope. He'd put them away somewhere, closing them out of his thoughts with inexorable discipline. If he didn't think about them, didn't let the Wraith near them, they'd be safe. He couldn't be there with them anymore, but he could still protect them.
He'd been someone else, before. Someone else somewhere else that he couldn't remember, but which had to exist. He hadn't been in the cells all his life; there'd been...a time before.
He thought there'd been a time before.
"You would have given your life in exchange for ours." The stranger's words were quiet and slow, as thought the man measured his speech with care. "I remember, if you do not. You made a bargain. Your life to be taken and our freedom given in exchange, and all debts be cancelled."
"It wasn't taken up." He doesn't remember the offer - one more thing that's washed away in the beach of his memory - but he knows it wasn't accepted. If it had been, he wouldn't be here.
"It was offered. No small sacrifice - your own life for others." A broad hand came to rest on his frail shoulder. "The last of my people salutes your courage - for whatever peace it may bring you."
If the man had intended it as a benediction, he felt it more like a curse. Thin arms, wasted with the years, closed around his body, protecting what was left of himself - little enough of the body, almost nothing of who he'd been.
Memory sparkled like dust motes in sunlight.
I am Teyla Emmagan, daughter of Tegan.
He looked down at the stranger "You know, I don't even know your name."
The stranger's mouth tilted slightly. "You don't even remember your own name. You won't remember mine."
"Maybe not," he said. "But it's important to try." He knew that much.
A soft snort was his answer, a warm puff of breath in the cold of the cell, like a green tendril of trust reaching out through the wintry snow; a bridge between two men. "My name is Yan."
--
The servingman behind the counter was grinning from ear to ear as Yan approached the food displays for lunch. He wasn't sure if that was a good sign or a bad one.
From the reactions of the behind-counter personnel to him over the last two weeks, he gathered he'd been something of a favourite with the kitchen staff. According to Teyla, this was because he'd often acted as intercessor (Lorne had used the phrase 'running interference') when McKay wasn't pleased with the food.
But they never grinned at him quite like this.
"Hey," he greeted the man - Harry Jansen. "What are the options today?"
Jansen's grin grew even broader. Yan hadn't thought it possible. "It's your meal, sir."
"My meal--?" Yan scanned the menu list and his brows rose. "Okay."
The sign read Pegasus-style Shepherd's Sheppard's Pie.
Yan avoided grimacing at the brown stew-like thing with the creamy white pulp on top. It didn't look very appetising.
Still, his instincts weren't prodding him with warnings against eating it, and other people were already at their lunch - among them, Ronon - and eating without negative effect.
"All right," he said at last, after reading the ingredient list. "Serve it up."
Five minutes later, he had the 'pie', a sliced chunk of bread, and two 'cups' of vegetables on his tray, and was making his way over to where Ronon was sprawled with a fork in his hand and a smirk on his lips. "Sheppard's Pie," he said by way of greeting.
"I noticed that. Those guys have to get out of the kitchen more."
Ronon turned his fork over and sucked the pie off the back. "Teach 'em to play golf?"
Yan made a face.
One of the scientists from the technology division had invited him to golf the other day - a 'game' that involved hitting a small white ball out into the open sea with great force. Apparently Yan had been into the game in the time before his memory loss. Now he struggled to understand why - the game had no point, even less point than the computer game that Rodney had tried to interest him in and failed.
Dr. Watson had been a little disappointed. He had hidden it reasonably well, but Yan had seen it.
He wondered if John Sheppard would have seen it.
This was his chief problem in the city right now.
Colonel Edwards continued to keep him out of the military loop in Atlantis, citing IOA restrictions on use of Atlantean equipment by a 'Pegasus Native'. Yan's memory of his past continued to refuse to return, taunting him with fragments of recollection. His relationship with Ivali was growing strained, even as his relationship with his former team-mates was reasserting itself, familiar patterns of interaction in a familiar place.
But Yan was finding it increasingly difficult to sustain 'being' John Sheppard.
It had been two weeks.
Two weeks; fourteen days; one restday short of three cycles.
He had no trouble working his mind around the concept of a seven-day division, even if Ivali struggled with it. "You have four fingers and one thumb on your hand, just the same as us," she'd said, bewildered the first time Yan had undertaken to explain the concept of a week. "Every other culture we have ever known of has four days of work and one of rest. Why six days and one?"
Teyla had explained the significance of seven days to Ivali. "It is a religious cultural thing on their part."
But Yan wasn't going to dwell on Teyla.
He was pretty sure Teyla hadn't been dwelling on him.
Irrationally, he would have dealt better with it if she'd been the slightest bit uncomfortable the next time they'd met. But when he and Ivali joined her and Dr. Beckett at their table the next day, she gave no recognition of what had nearly passed between them after sparring.
In the four days since their encounter, Yan had realised that he really was living someone else's life. Maybe it had been his life when he was John Sheppard, but he wasn't John Sheppard now. He didn't have John Sheppard's memories, and without those, everything that had made him Sheppard was gone. He still thought of himself as Yan Stormborn - he still thought as Yan Stormborn. 'John Sheppard' was a person he could slip on when he needed him, but beneath the covering, he was still Yan.
Dr. Watson was just one person in a city full of people who'd remembered John Sheppard and been surprised to get Yan.
Yan was starting to wonder if he'd spend the rest of his life as not-John-Sheppard.
"Was I that big a fan of golf before?"
"You tried to get all of us to play it."
"I'm guessing you resisted."
The dark eyes glanced up as he hunched over his tray, twinkling. "Yep."
"...considering I came up with the idea for the shielding," huffed a distinctive voice halfway across the room, "I think it's very unfair..."
A soothing murmur followed, Teyla evidently preferring to keep her voice down in the mess hall. Not that it made much difference when McKay was in a mood to complain.
"You were aware that Elizabeth was unwilling to allow you on this expedition," Teyla was saying as they set their trays down on the table.
McKay waved that aside. "I'm sure I could have persuaded her to let me go."
"Just for setup?" Ronon swung one of his dreadlocks back over his shoulder, then thought better of it and sat up, tying two of the outermost locks together to kept the rest out of his face.
"Yes, well... That's always the best part."
Yan snorted. He'd seen McKay often enough over the last two weeks to have a good idea of why the man enjoyed the setup and discovery of new things. "You mean, ordering people around is the best part?" He grinned as McKay spluttered, and Ronon openly grinned. Teyla only coughed lightly, hiding a smile in her next mouthful of food.
McKay glared across at her, then turned to Yan. "I admit, my expertise is usually invaluable in these situations..."
"Yeah," Ronon muttered. "He likes bossing people around."
"Look, the outpost is the first one we've come across with such extensive technology! We're lucky that it was even still standing, let alone repairable. I should be in there."
"So why aren't you?" Yan asked, digging through the pie and wondering why everything was gravified beyond recognition. He could taste the meat, tubers and spices in the pie, he just couldn't quite work out what was what. The silence caught his attention, and he looked up to realise the other three were looking at each other, somewhat nervously. And he realised that McKay had stayed behind because of him. "Oh. Well, you didn't need to stay on my account."
"Oh, if it had been up to me, I wouldn't have. Unfortunately, Elizabeth decreed that I stay here."
In anyone else, the bluntness would have been offensive. However, even in two weeks, Yan had experienced McKay's lack of forethought or consideration. It wasn't intentional, it was barely manageable - it was simply Rodney McKay.
Still, he saw the look Teyla and Ronon swapped, a rueful exchange. He flashed them a smile as a disgruntled McKay shovelled food onto his fork and muttered something about it being barely edible.
"The outpost will certainly need your help sometime. Dr. Lababa will almost certainly require it." If there was a hint of irony in Teyla's voice, McKay didn't seem to notice it. Yan hid a smile in a mouthful of the sauce.
"Yes, well, Sheppard had better not lose his memory again the next time we discover a fully-functional Ancient outpost that can be powered by a naquadriah generator." Rodney shovelled another mouthful of the pie into his mouth and chewed direly.
Yan was about to point out that he hadn't intended the first time, when a shadow fell over their table. Ivali paused beside him, her tray in hand as she looked over the table.
"Yan?"
Startled, Yan realised he'd sat down at a four-person table with Ronon, and when Teyla and McKay seated themselves, hadn't thought twice about where Ivali was going to sit. The omission startled Yan - shamed him. He scrambled to his feet. "It's okay," he said immediately, his heart sinking in his chest. "I'll come sit with you..."
But he felt the damage done, even as he transferred his tray and dishes over to the next table and sat down in the cold seat opposite Ivali. The distance between him and the members of his former team was more than just physical - and from the way Ivali kept her lashes down, never looking at him for more than a few seconds at a time, Yan could feel the gap between them widening as well.
A lot had changed in two weeks.
"Were you able to help Professor Woolley with the Kaufari treatise?"
Her eyes met his for a moment, seemingly surprised at the question before they slid away. "A little - she had most of it in place already. I didn't add anything significant."
"I'm sure that's not true," he said immediately, reaching out to touch her hand. He'd noticed people giving him odd looks when he touched Ivali, but both Ronon and Teyla had put it down to cultural differences. And if John Sheppard should have felt self-conscious, Yan didn't.
This whole situation was giving him a headache.
Except for the part with Ivali, which was giving him a heartache.
Ronon inquired after the Kaufari treaty, giving Ivali a chance to talk about her morning. Yan appreciated the diversion, particularly when Teyla encouraged Ivali with questions about subtleties that completely passed by him, Ronon, and Rodney.
It loomed above him like a wave - the awareness that he was running out of time with Ivali.
The nightmares came more regularly now; nearly every night. Yan could identify more of the people who featured in them, but there were still faces for whom he had no names. He suspected that many of them were dead - that the features lit by blue lights, contrasted by orange glows, had ended up wrinkled husks, mummified by the Wraith feeding process.
Still others seemed to be from his time on Earth - bruised and battered faces, grim eyes and set mouths - people who wandered in and out of his dreams like they belonged there, John Sheppard's personal cavalcade of memory.
He continued to sleep on the floor of his old room, Ivali resting beside him, but Yan found himself roaming the city more often than not, until exhaustion took him.
"They wanted access to the gani orchards on Bavalar," Ivali was saying.
Teyla nodded. "You advised against granting them?"
"Of course. I think they are expecting to take advantage of a Lantean-brokered treatise."
Yan looked from Ivali's grim expression to Teyla's nod and back. "What's so important about gani orchards?"
"The gani orchards are traditionally planted around or close to the Bavalari women's tents," Ivali explained, as though that should make it instantly comprehensible to Yan.
It didn't.
Ronon seemed to understand, but McKay's brows drew together. "What's that got to do with anything?" He demanded, saving Yan the need to ask the same question.
"What the Kaufari want is not access to the gani but access to the women's tents." Teyla, reached for her drink. "Their traditions..."
Abruptly, she, Ronon, and McKay paused.
After a startled look, Ivali looked to Yan, who shrugged. He'd become accustomed to the sudden halts in conversation when an emergency was called over the earpieces. His own earpiece was cool and silent against his cheek, which either suggested something they didn't need him for, or - more likely - Edwards was blocking his involvement.
"What? They're trying to-- No, they can't do that. I explained it to Ottley. What? Well, certainly if they're going to switch the crystals around then they've got to expect some... Look, you do realise I can't do anything from here. Oh." McKay paused and visibly deflated. "Now?"
"Trouble?" Yan asked Teyla and Ronon.
"Outpost encountered a technical problem - they think they need McKay."
Ivali frowned. "And you're going too?"
"We act as escort," said Teyla.
"Sanity space," Ronon offered and laughed when McKay glared at him.
"Oh, very funny," he snapped. "We've got fifteen minutes to gear up and get to the 'jumper bay. Coming, Sheppard?"
Yan stopped with his fork nearly at his mouth. "Me?"
"Yes, you. We need a pilot. The gate at the outpost planet is in space, so we'll be taking a 'jumper."
Teyla turned her head to look at Rodney, "Will Colonel Edwards allow him to--?"
"Hey, I'm the one who needs a pilot to take me out to the outpost! Last I checked, I have the right to ask for a pilot of my choosing--"
"No."
Three heads turned towards him, their expressions showing various shades of surprise. Beyond them, heads swivelled, drawn into the confrontation by the small scene rapidly developing in the still-busy common area.
McKay nearly choked on his disbelief. "No?"
Yan ignored the hard stare Ivali was giving him across the table and worked the 'Sheppard's pie' through his mouth. "I'm not going."
The other man's mouth opened and closed like a fish. Teyla's eyebrows had lifted in delicate query. And Ronon's face had taken on an expression that Yan had mentally rated the, 'Oookay,' look of disbelief, for all it involved a couple of raised eyebrows and a twist to the man's mouth.
But all it took was one glance at Ivali to steel his resolve. She looked as astonished as any of the other three, as though she'd expected him to walk off with his former friends and just leave her behind.
Like hell.
Of those former friends, it was Teyla who seemed to accept it first. The eyebrows came down and she nodded to herself as she brushed back a wisp of hair from her fringe. "You are sure?"
He met her gaze without flinching or blushing. "Yeah."
Ivali was his responsibility - his care. Yes, he was attracted to Teyla, but there was a difference between what he could do and what he wanted to do. And after his recklessness the other day, Yan would walk the line.
She nodded, and her movement broke McKay's frozen stillness. "But...you have to go!"
"You won't need me," he said. "I'm just the pilot."
"But this is-- I mean, when else are we going to get you in a 'jumper seat?"
Ronon huffed out a long breath. "Come on, McKay, let's get geared up." He tugged at the other man's jacket, half-jerking him along. By the time McKay began protesting, they were halfway out the mess hall, Teyla following them with one enigmatic glance back.
Yan continued eating as though nothing had happened.
Quite abruptly, the silence that had fallen gently over the mess hall lifted back into the normal babble of conversation over the chink and clatter of utensils on dishware.
He could feel Ivali's gaze on him, but it was at least a minute before she spoke. "You can go, Yan. You don't have to stay for me."
"Then let's clear this up now," he told her, firmly. "I didn't stay for you. I stayed for me."
It was mostly true, too.
Digging in his heels now was a backlash against the last few days: his encounter with Teyla, his argument with Edwards over responsibilities, the growing feeling that he was ignoring or sidelining Ivali from John Sheppard's life. It was definitely a rebellion of sorts - if they only realised it. He wasn't John Sheppard. He could pretend to be John Sheppard for a while, but sooner or later it would all come crashing down. It was better that everyone accepted that sooner rather than later - even Yan.
He wasn't John Sheppard - not anymore. And while he could do some of what John Sheppard had done, it looked very much like his memory wasn't going to come back anytime soon.
Yan couldn't help that.
Any more than he could help the feeling that came upon him as he finished his meal and wandered with Ivali over to the rec rooms - the feeling that he was somehow letting down his friends.
--
"If it's any consolation," Evan Lorne said as they sauntered back to personnel quarters after their bout of hand-to-hand, "you've gotten better."
Yan snorted as swiped one end of his towel across his face, thinking that he really needed a shower. "You know, since you just spent the last half-hour squashing my face in the mat, I hate to think how bad I was before."
Since Ronon was away, the usual sparring group hadn't convened. According to Lorne, some kind of secret signal went out among the marines to say that there wouldn't be training, but always stopped short of letting the Air Force personnel know.
When only Lorne turned up, Yan had offered some light hand-to-hand practise and the man had taken him on. And beaten Yan in just about every bout. Not by much in most cases - just a small slip, some opportunity-seizing move that the other man managed that took him out.
"Actually, you didn't used to do this very often at all," Lorne said as they stepped aside for several cart-pushing personnel to move past them. They flattened themselves against the wall to a chorus of 'thankyous' from the men and women. "Although you went up against Ronon and Teyla a fair bit, you didn't really join in with the regular hand-to-hand training."
"No? Why not?"
The question was out before Yan realised that Lorne mightn't have known why he hadn't participated in the hand-to-hand before.
"I figured it was commander distance," said Lorne. A smirk quirked his mouth and slanted his eyes. "It gets difficult to keep military rank when you're squashing a senior officer's head into the mat every Tuesday."
Yan grinned as they came to his rooms and swiped his hand past the door panel to let himself in. "So you're taking advantage?"
He was looking at Lorne as he spoke, but the other man's expression spun him around.
Inside the room, Ivali's face rose guilty over the clothing she was folding neatly into her pack - the clothing she'd brought to Atlantis from Orawi. Her eyes met Yan's for only a moment before she dropped her gaze and picked up the next item - an embroidered jerkin that she'd made out of hide-leather from a katapi that had been one of Yan's first kills in the village.
Yan remembered that leather - that hunt. She'd expressed a desire for katapi leather, and he'd agreed to the bargain in exchange for some shirts. It had been a difficult hunt, but he'd caught his quarry, trapped it and killed it, skinned it and cured it, and when he presented her with the softened leather, he'd let his hands linger on the softer skin of her arms for just long enough.
There was a moment when Yan felt like she'd skinned him.
As it was, something in him felt severed, like a sharp knife had sliced through his chest. Everything ached, and he wasn't sure if the burning sensation in his lungs was regret or relief. Then it all coalesced into a hot, hard ball in his belly and the anger came.
"When were you going to tell me?"
Behind him, Lorne muttered something and made good his escape. Yan ignored him - his whole focus was on Ivali, who pushed the jerkin into her pack and lifted her face to him, the lines around her mouth and eyes tight, her expression careful and stiff.
She didn't answer at first, so he knelt opposite her over the pack, and closed his fingers over hers. "Ivali..."
"I don't belong here," she said, lifting her eyes to his. "It was obvious before the end of the first day."
"Not to me!"
Her smile held both love and bitterness as she lifted her hand to his face. His stubble shifted as she trailed soft fingers down his cheek, and he wanted to turn his face and kiss her hand, but he held back, watching her face.
"You're the only one who hasn't seen it, Yan. Everyone else knows." Her hands reached for the next item - skin-clinging undergarments he remembered sliding off her the first time they made love. "I never intended to stay forever, you know. Only long enough for you to find your footing here."
It shocked him. He hadn't realised. "Why didn't you say this at the start?"
Ivali shrugged, her mouth twisted ruefully as she looked down again. "Because you needed someone to be here for you."
"I still do."
"You've got your friends."
"Is this about lunch?"
"It's about belonging, Yan!" Her voice lifted, rose, cracked. She closed her eyes, and something glittered beneath the brown sweep of her lashes. "You belong here as you never did in Orawi. I don't."
"You could. Teyla--"
"I'm not Teyla." Her lashes lifted, looking directly at Yan. For a moment, Yan thought Teyla had told her about what happened between them in the gym - a gesture of honesty. But there were no recriminations in Ivali's eyes. "You've got friends here."
"Yeah, but they're from here." Yan rocked back on his heels. "I'm John Sheppard to everyone else here, but everything I know about John Sheppard was told to me by them."
"You said that it feels right."
"It does," he said, the tight-wound pressure in his chest again. "It feels right, what they tell me. But I don't remember it. Maybe I used to be John Sheppard - but I'm not him now. He's just the man the people in this city see when they look at me. You see me."
He'd reached her - he could see it in her expression, the understanding that was mixed with a touch of grief. For him? For her? For the home she yearned to go back to?
"Don't leave," Yan said, pleading with her. "Not like this."
"Yan..."
His earpiece buzzed. "John?"
Yan jerked upright, his hand already halfway to his ear. And at that instinctive movement, he saw Ivali look away.
He nearly dropped his hand and avoided answering.
"Dr. Weir?"
"Would you come to my office immediately, please?" Beneath the brisk politeness, he could hear urgency; a tone that resonated uneasily with the feeling he'd had before - that he should have gone with Teyla, McKay, and Ronon when they left at lunch.
The conflict tore at him as he asked, "What's it about?"
His gut twisted as the answer came. "It's about the outpost expedition."
"All right."
Ivali had started packing again by the time he ended the call and he cursed the timing of it all. "They need you here, Yan."
"I need you here," he told her, echoing her words. "Ivali." When she kept packing, he put his hands down over hers again. Her fingers were cold beneath his palms, and this time he gripped her tight enough to stop her packing. "Promise me you'll stay until we have a chance to talk about this."
The uneasy resonance was back, prompting him to get out to this meeting with Weir. But he couldn't leave without knowing that he and Ivali would sort this out on his return - discuss it, argue it, try to forget it in passionate bed-play... Anything other than walk away from it!
"I've already thought about it."
"But I haven't." Yan couldn't stay. He climbed to his feet, feeling almost dizzy. "Ivali..."
She lifted her gaze to look him in the eye. "I promise to wait until you get back."
Relief sighed out of Yan - not as much as he wanted, but as much as he could ask for.
--
He'd expected Edwards to be in Elizabeth's office, but the tall man with the imposing face was neither someone he expected nor anyone he recognised from his memories.
Bald and broad, the man seemed comfortable in the chair, his pose easy and alert. He wore a uniform with a ship's patch on the shoulder. There was no name on the chest patch, but the fine print above it said 'Daedelus' and his presence in this meeting suggested he was high up in the echelons of Atlantis' trusted personnel. He summed Yan up with a brisk look and a faint smile and spoke in a comfortable voice.
"Colonel Sheppard. You're looking well."
Yan nodded at the man."I'd say the same, sir, except I don't remember seeing you the last time."
The stranger looked at Elizabeth with good-humoured brown eyes. "He's doing pretty well for someone who doesn't have their memory."
"John, this is Colonel Steven Caldwell of the Daedelus," Dr. Weir explained, and her demeanour towards him was a lot warmer than he'd ever seen her behave towards Colonel Edwards. It made Yan feel a lot more hospitable to Caldwell than he did to Edwards. But now wasn't the time for the pleasantries.
"You said the outpost expedition was in trouble?"
Elizabeth nodded, as though to herself. "How much do you know about the outpost?"
"Bits and pieces."
"Which bits and pieces?"
There was an interrogative note to Edwards' query. Yan fought back the instinct to ask if he needed a lawyer and just answered the question. He could feel the urgency in the room like the vibrations of the ground before the hireni herd stampeded across his path, driven mad by their pursuers.
"It's an Ancestor outpost similar to Atlantis, but built on a smaller scale - just one wing of the city, sitting on a promontory out towards the sea." He frowned, trying to remember the bits Rodney or Teyla had mentioned in passing; the tidbits he'd overheard in the last two weeks. "No power source, although since it's smaller it's compatible with our own generators, and it seemed to have been a farming site. Something about a drilling station? And the Stargate is in space so it can only be reached by 'jumper."
"He told you all that?"
Yan smiled thinly. "I picked most of it up in passing," he said.
Past Edwards, a twitch was playing at the corner of Caldwell's mouth.
"The gist of the problem is that there are indigenous creatures that are drawn to human presence," Elizabeth said. "There used to be shields on the outpost and the farming lands, but the lack of power means they've long since fallen. We thought it was just a question of plugging in our generators; but then they had trouble with the shields."
"Hence the call for McKay."
"Exactly. Now, it seems that Rodney's got the shield systems operating, but it's gene-activated, and there's no-one with a gene strong enough to start it up. Which is where you come in."
"Which is where Dr. Weir wants you to come in," corrected Edwards, his expression punctilious. "John Sheppard - or 'Yan' as he's now calling himself - is no longer a member of the expedition. He does not remember his past or any of his responsibilities to Earth and its people, and, as such, should not be permitted any privileges beyond those granted to any other visitor to Atlantis."
"It's a little late to be protesting that, don't you think, Richard?" On the top of it, Dr. Weir sounded sweetly reasonable, but there was a steel fist behind the velvet. "Considering that Colonel Sheppard has been permitted full run of the city for much of the last two weeks?"
"He's been barred from the more delicate military equipment," said Edwards, his tones flat. "Including the 'jumpers and access to the Stargate. We can't afford him going AWOL again."
"Again?" Caldwell asked from his corner. "You did see the video of his torture, didn't you, Edwards? Between Kolya and the Wraith, he wasn't supposed to have survived."
"But he did, and has been missing for six months..."
"With no memory of who he'd been or where he'd come from," Elizabeth interrupted, sharply.
Yan felt more than a little annoyed that the discussion was about him but didn't seem to have any intent of involving him.
"The IOA doubts that it's possible for a man to allegedly remember so little about his past and yet operate at a level that Colonel Sheppard is doing!" Edwards snapped. "Amnesia isn't something that just erases a person's past, Dr. Weir! It erases whole segments of their memory, identity, capability, physicality. Might I remind you, Dr. Weir, that even Dr. Beckett has no reasonable medical explanation for Sheppard's ability to function in society while maintaining his alleged memory loss?"
This was news to Yan.
"Might I remind you, Colonel, that while you protest Colonel Sheppard's attendance on this mission, we have people in a vulnerable situation out on that planet?" The pause was dramatic - and effective. "Or are you saying that you are willing to throw away the lives of expedition members in order to avoid disobeying the edicts of the IOA who, I might add, are not even present in this city?"
Edwards' eyes narrowed. "You go too far."
"I'm the one going too far?"
"Let him go, Edwards." Caldwell sounded lazy. "If you need a scapegoat, I'll play it. It wouldn't be the first time."
Yan looked hard at Caldwell - as did Weir and Edwards. The man seemed casual enough, his fingertips resting lightly on the desk, but a mocking smile played about his lips as he looked back at Edwards.
A scarlet grip had taken hold of the Atlantis commander. His thin face was sharp and bitter. "This is not about--" He cut himself off with a snap. "Fine, send him along. But I'm logging my disagreement with this decision - and it's not just because of the IOA." His eyes were more grey than blue as he frowned at Yan. "You're cleared to leave on this mission, Colonel Sheppard. But your duties are restricted to assisting with the chair. Under no circumstances is that to go any further."
"You will do whatever is considered needful to protect the lives of the people at the outpost," Elizabeth corrected. "That's my directive," she said, "as the leader of this expedition."
"Yes, ma'am."
She smiled and jerked her head at the door. "You'd better get geared up. Major Lorne will meet you in the 'jumper bay in ten minutes."
- TBC -