A/N: Many thanks to all for reading and reviewing! Reviews really have brought a smile to this author's face – and not simply because of some perverted pleasure in seeing you all squeal at the cliffies! – I also view them as encouragement to continue. A much calmer ending for this chapter – good timing possibly, as one reviewer has said that she needs a break from my evilness… ;-)

Chapter Fourteen

Ef Xo? Ef Xo, our First?

Quite possibly, none of the Forfallen had ever seen her this way, absently studying the sky, where grey storm clouds gathered, threatening to lash the top of their mountain once more.

She turned to them and bowed.

You have done well, my sisters, attempting to force a confidence that she did not feel into her clicking. She felt that some assurance was necessary, disliking that they should begin to doubt her – which they were.

Ga Hi. That was most excellent considering you had so very little notice to prepare yourself. But Ga Hi, despite her... quirkiness, was always the most proficient of Forfallen.

They will now not send him to Earth? asked Ga Hi. And thus out of range of their powers.

No. He is quite... ill. You have re-gained those two crucial days. She had not foreseen the obstacle. Psychic messages emitted from Earth did not reach them and therefore she had not realised the Lantean procedure to send back sick personnel. For her own spell to succeed, she was in need of those two days, for all those pieces to fit together. A double revenge.

And then, it will be finished? questioned Ka Oh. And questioning from her second-in-command was most disconcerting. Ef Xo could not help but rattle her wings in annoyance.

Yes. It will be finished, she said firmly, eyeing them all, looking to see who doubted her still.

They all did.

Usually they would be dancing among the fires. Now there existed such a deep melancholy that even the Iratus bugs had ceased their scavenging among the shadows of nearby rocks, attentive to the unfamiliar stillness. As if waiting for a storm from the very ground, and not from the one advancing in the overhead skies.

I must rest, she clicked briskly. To accumulate strength for the task ahead, and throwing her cloak about her, she headed for the cave on legs all too soon steady from the potions. Somehow, the depression that had gripped them all, had relinquished them more quickly from their trance and drugs.

Is it Todd ash Luyten?

She stopped dead in her tracks. Fed the anger into her upper torso and held it there suppressed. She could not bring herself to be angry with Ka Oh.

Yes. Yes, it is, she admitted without turning. The Wraith Commander was proving to be the greatest hurdle she had ever encountered. He was in their control but there were times...

Then is it wise-

Ef Xo spun round and watched her favourite recoil in horror, even putting up a claw across her ocelli in defence of whatever punishment Ef Xo might throw her way.

Todd ash Luyten had done this to them. Upset the equilibrium of her best laid plans and threatened to turn her sisters against her.

We will be triumphant! He will not succeed! As if the saying of it would make it true.

I must rest, she repeated, drawing up her cloak once more, returning to the cave as the rain splattered and paddled the mud and slime at her feet.

-oAo-

"No! No!"

And she woke. Dawn greyed the room. Curtains billowed in on a soft breeze for Teyla always slept with her windows open, a habit left from her early days of living life in a tent.

She watched the drapes. And listened, hearing nothing but the sea around the piers, the odd cry of a seabird and the occasional creak of Atlantis on her moorings.

And her heart beating loud against her pillow.

Nothing untoward.

She tried to recall the dream that had seemed so real, that had caused her to cry out, that, as was the way of all dreams, had now slipped from memory. And she was left puzzling over that residual feeling - and dreams often had this affect too - that there was something of the utmost urgency that she must do.

Visit John.

She had been away from the infirmary for too long. She glanced at the timepiece on her nightstand. Three hours should be sufficient sleep, though Jenny would argue otherwise. But Teyla's mind was too alert, too troubled, and with John, sick as he was, further sleep would now be impossible.

During these last three days, never before had she felt so overwhelmed by the suffering of one of her team, at least, not since Elizabeth's terrible injuries. Lantean medicine had always seemed to perform miracles but John's recovery also demanded the patience of time. She closed her eyes tight against the image, the sight of his broken body, the burns, the pain that drugs could never disguise – the mental scars that were, in equal portions, as crippling as physical scars, already evident in John's eyes.

Why was this all happening to him? What had he ever done to deserve such misfortune? But... there was little wisdom in wasting one's energy cursing fate.

'The river still flows, whether frozen by cold or swollen by storm,' was the old Athosian adage.

She pushed aside her covers, and threw her legs over the edge of the bed –

'No!'

She had sat up too quickly. Swallowing hard, she gripped the bed with one hand and rubbed the back of the other across her forehead, fighting the greying dizzy lunge to the room and the noisy rush of blood at her ears. Fatigue. She was simply fatigued. It would pass...

'Teyla.'

The voice she recognized instantly. Wildly, she looked round the room.

How can...?

But there was no Todd.

She was alone. And she chided herself. For how could it be? How could Todd possibly be in her room? They were on full alert. Such access would be impossible for him. She must still be dreaming. So starved of rest, her mind could no longer differentiate between reality and fantasy.

The room swayed and swirled in some grey murky mist. An odour familiar to her, stagnant and repulsive, as rotted flesh, rose about her. A vision unwelcome of a Wraith ship filled her sight. And pain as unwelcome as the vision forced its way into her mind.

"Todd!"

But whether the call was uttered in Atlantis, or within this mirage of a Wraith ship, she could not tell. She held her hands to her head, covering her eyes, willing the image, now fragmented to leave her. Thoughts of compromise, of being forced to do something against her will brought panic, and the stickiness of perspiration pricked at her skin and made her shiver.

'Teyla, I mean no harm-'

"I warned you once Todd, if you did anything – anything..." she spat out the threat but left it unfinished, doubting she could prevent Todd even if he did mean to injure her.

'Teyla... Teyla.' His words came soft and fatherly. A ruse, a trick surely.

"Get out! Get out of my head!" and Teyla jumped to her feet with new determination, screaming at the wall of her room, for a moment able to drive the picture of Todd away.

But seconds later, and he was back.

'Think... consider. If I truly meant you harm, would you not think that I would have done so by now. Do not fight me but concentrate. Listen to what I have to say. The lives of the whole of Pegasus may depend upon it.' His hastily spoken words finished with an imploring, 'please... look... look at my thoughts... you know I speak the truth.'

She blinked several times, unable to clear her sight of Todd's face. He held his head to one side, coaxing, encouraging.

"What do you want?" For there had been something there, when she searched, that was truthful, sincere, even for this Wraith.

'I apologise for... scaring you.'

"You never scare me!" she snapped.

'No, no, of course not.' He shifted, and she started. Not only was his full body in her view now, but her room, had again drawn away from her, melting from her feet like some gentle tide, taking her totally and fully to the corridor of the Wraith ship.

Her own words were in her mind now. 'Todd!' she warned, hating to admit to her apprehensiveness with all this strangeness that was occurring around her.

And then she saw it, to her left side, a black shadow of... nothingness, a vacuum. Rodney would liken it to a black hole and she shivered once more, taking a step back. She drew in breath sharply, hands clasping, unclasping at her side, in some futile readiness for attack – knowing, however, that there was no physical means to drive this apparition away.

This was of Todd's making? An attempt to frighten her? But the feeling was soon overridden by the realisation, by his glance towards the shadow, that he also struggled with this presence - even... feared it more.

He sensed her question and answered it with his thought.

'They can come no closer-'

'They?'

'I cannot explain – not now. They try to watch me but can come no closer as I have learned to keep them at bay. It is... difficult.'

She could feel it. Could feel the weight of rocks that corresponded to the weight of power that Todd pushed against the blackness. She saw him close his eyes with effort and spring them open again, too attached to Wraith pride even to admit to the word 'difficult.'

'They...' and she cast another nervous look towards the hole. 'They are... here, with you... always?' she asked, understanding his burden to keep the threat at bay, understanding the heightened mental capacities that were needed to engineer this, and it exceeded anything she could ever do. Something like respect suddenly came flooding in unbidden but it was there all the same. And so she had to permit some degree of trust towards him.

'Yes. Always.' And he stared hard at her – with the faintest flicker of ... pain? That disappeared in an instant although his lips set hard as if grappling with tremendous strain. 'At times it is harder than at others. As now,' and he gestured round the corridor. 'I have to keep this short therefore. You need to persuade Mr Woolsey to permit me aboard Atlantis. It is imperative that I speak with John Sheppard.'

She had heard of his earlier request and she started to speak, to say that John was too ill, but one of those long skeleton hands rose to gently silence her. She backed off, wary of the movement, the hand too close to her chest, finding herself touching the wall behind and, hating its slime and cold, she moved forward again. This was so real. She could never get over the shock of how real these experiences were for her, even if it had been some time since her last 'mind visit' to a Wraith ship.

'Why?' She asked, forcing firmness into her voice, 'why do you wish to see him?'

'I cannot explain,' and he glanced at the shadow once more, a second of fear alight in those yellow eyes, furtive, feral, the hint of a shoulder lowered as if fending off an actual physical threat. He straightened, sniffed and pulled down at the front of his coat.

'Not here. Not at this time. They...' and he looked that way again, 'I shall explain once I am with John Sheppard, suffice to say, there is a connection between them and John Sheppard that is... problematic. And,' there followed another pause as if he found it painful to confess it, 'only John Sheppard can offer a solution.'

'A solution for Pegasus?' and she pulled a wry face, remembering his claim of earlier, exaggerated and coloured with his usual lies to hold her attention she was sure, 'or perhaps a solution for yourself?'

He snorted. Possibly irritated by the manner in which she was gaining courage. And he looked to where her vision clouded into the darkness of the ceiling. 'I admit some self-interest.' Considering, thoughtful. 'But believe me, Teyla Emmagan, my own gain in this, pales into insignificance if you could only see the entirety of the danger that is threatened. I do not exaggerate when I say all of Pegasus. I would not even be exaggerating if I were to say the entire Universe.' He sniffed once more. 'Will you do this? Will you persuade Mr Woolsey?'

'Who are these people who pose such a threat? You have to tell me more.'

'And I have said that I cannot. For as my ship nears Atlantis, they see my intent to warn. They watch John Sheppard continually also. In less than the day now afforded me, I shall be building a wall... yes... yes... a wall, and John Sheppard shall be safe from prying eyes.' And it seemed to Teyla that he was attempting to convince himself as much as her.

'Safe, yes, safe, until... time... why did I not realise sooner? Slogot!' and he turned away from Teyla, appearing to ramble. 'The second setting of the second moon of Atlantis... why did I not see it!'

And he glanced at the shadow yet again and even Teyla stared at it. It seemed to billow, to gain in volume and edge its way closer to them.

He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, exhaling, his hand on a pendant as if summoning its assistance to push the shadow back again. 'Yes, I need this time to build the wall to render it impenetrable – to gain my strength – can you understand that? Can you understand any of this?' and he looked at her directly, and she saw no menace. 'They have already foreseen this would be my course of action, to go to Atlantis, and ha, a clever ruse! Double, double success for them. To use that Wraith to throw John Sheppard from the tower and in so doing, thwarting me by turning Atlantis against me, forbidding my approach. But soon, John Sheppard will be able to finish this. With my help.'

'You know that he still lies severely injured?' Her former concern. 'He has suffered burns also. There was a small fire in the infirmary.'

Alarm flickered across his face.

'They still continue with this… he is not injured enough?' he was thinking to himself, 'Why did they not kill him?'

'They? You know who is responsible? You must tell me who these people are! I must know their names. We cannot permit would-be killers to walk Atlantis free.' It was suspected that not only had the wiring of John's monitors been interfered with, but so too had the fire alarm system – and someone had locked the night duty nurse Baines in a store cupboard preventing her from coming to John's immediate aid.

'And I told you I cannot explain here… no time…' but he glanced again at the shadow. And she realised the connection.

'Outside influence,' she murmured, remembering all the discussions as to the causes of Atlantis' misfortune. ''They' are an outside influence…'

'Exactly so… If John Sheppard were not injured, there would be no problem. We could meet elsewhere but now it has to be on Atlantis. But I can help. Will you believe me when I say that I can help? I have a little of his life force within me, residual from the time that I fed from him, so that I may restore, if not all of his health, then part. You have this understanding of Wraith? I know that you have?' His eyes looked to her, searching, in earnest, but she knew it was still right to waver, to question. He could have conjured up this show of the shadow to trick her. She bit her lip, uncertain of decision.

'And... and... if my strength is incomplete, I may be... compelled to ask for your assistance too.' He bowed his head. As if in shame that he had to confess to Wraith weakness and failure. 'Together there is much we can accomplish.'

This was his humility? Or his flattery? And she suddenly felt incensed that he was wheedling his way around her.

'Look at the last times! Look at the last times! How can I possibly trust you?' The list was long of all those occasions when he had claimed to help but had also came close to putting those on Atlantis in peril.

'I will relent to a search. I will be alone. Once my ship has dropped me off, it will withdraw to a safe distance but will remain in video contact throughout so that, if weapon systems are fired up, you would know that very same instant. But this scenario will not happen as, in effect, I will be your hostage. I will open my mind to you during the whole of my stay on Atlantis. This is the trust that I place in you, Teyla Emmagan. How can you lose, but you have so much to gain? Trust me, please, for I am trusting you.'

Still she hesitated.

'It is my intention to bring the whole fleet to a certain point, so…' and he cast another look to the shadow, ''they' believe I am still attempting to hold these alliance discussions. Then my ship will travel on alone. But I could attack Atlantis with the whole fleet. I could use this option to reach John Sheppard. This option is not entirely closed to me-'

'You see, you threaten!' she rasped at him, pointing a finger at him, making little attempt to conceal her anger. 'Back to your old tricks – blackmail!' He grabbed her hand taking her by surprise, and pushed it down to her side, and held another over her mouth, breathing into her face.

'But I do not chose this option!' he snarled back at her, jerking away suddenly as the shadow hissed and approached them. And he closed his eyes, reaching for the pendant again, willing the black mist away.

'Help me, help me now!'

She watched horrified as the shadow crept as smoke, reaching their feet.

'Help me!'

'I don't...' but she immediately closed her eyes. Her weapon would be her mind, this she understood. A tool. A shield pressing hard against this attack though she had no idea of her enemy. Some intuition told her they had attacked her once before when she had been poisoned by the plant toxins. This shapeless nothing-shadow had been in her unconsciousness. In her dreams as whispers of malevolence. When friends' voices had tried to reassure her, these had laughed and pointed blame at John. And she could hate them back. 'Use your hatred,' Ronon always said.

She opened her eyes.

Her room again and no sign of Todd.

"I did not agree to anything!" she shouted defiantly to the four walls. "Nothing was agreed between the two of us!"

'I mean to save him. I mean to save his life,' came Todd's voice into her mind again. 'Time... time... I have no time... by the setting of the second moon of Atlantis... I have no time... Trust me, Teyla Emmagan, I do intend to save him.'

-oAo-

What is this? Ef Xo clicked, amused by the antics of Ga Hi – a spinning dance on four legs, twisting about her narrow middle portion, her antennae bouncing at crazy angles crazily - all signs of utter joy and pleasure.

Ef Xo begun to suspect that the Second may have already imbibed the precious potion now sitting on the ceremonial platter suspended on its tripod over the roaring fire.

Heee heee, you know that I have! Heee heee! I had to test it, you see? Not always superior quality. You think it is, and then... it isn't! With a few more twirls to prove her point, Ga Hi ever more dizzy and giddy, finally landed heavily on the ground, emitting a sort of hic-cupping noise.

You are a fool! returned Ef Xo, in jest, sharing Ga Hi's high spirits, pleased as she thoughtfully prodded a claw at the pile of fibrous slithers that burned on the plate. Her whole frame sniffed for its authenticity, for its excellence. She had almost forgotten that the properties the Helfgon toadstool, so rare in the marshes, intensified to this degree during the stormy season. And then more fortuitous still, the distinctive essence, the faint aroma of a solitary wraith, who had stumbled on the night of the Queen's visit, who had suffocated in the quagmire, lost and forgotten by his fellows. She breathed in the beauty of his agony and struggling death throes. When the floods had receded, leaving its decomposing body exposed at the marsh edges, it had provided the rarest of nutrients for the Helfgon to suck sustenance from.

How sweet was this cycle of life! For it blessed them with the most perfect distillation for their next excursion along the Trochlor lines. How sweet this anticipation! She could not now possibly fail.

Ga Hi clumsily picked herself up from the floor and reached for yet another of the pouches she had filled on her expedition.

And these. I have these also! rattling it only inches from Ef Xo's face. Ga Hi had never possessed a proper sense of etiquette and decorum!

Ten Wraith finger bones, snapped off by Ga Hi's claw, clattered and littered the flat rock they used as a preparation table.

Ef Xo formed a thought to levitate one section, wishing to treat it with the required delicacy, desirous not to contaminate its unique qualities. She examined it closely. Traces of black flesh still clung to its length.

Exquisite! she pronounced, feeling that tremor seize her groin, sensing also that the Seconds followed her example. This was bringing renewed oneness and strength to them all. They could not fail. Not with this positive link to all things Wraith and death.

And this! and Ga Hi tossed the contents of another larger pouch onto the floor.

The Wraith's head rolled and bumped to a stop at Ef Xo's feet. Blackened but with features intact. Its fear, its horror at its own demise, preserved for all eternity in the rigor mortis of its expression – so life like still, that the Wraith's last choking gargle seemed to resonate around them. Its brains bubbled and oozed blue and oily and muddy through one eye socket. Its tongue, possibly shredded by the marsh's Nojken worm, still clung to its cheek. The stench of decay reached Ef Xo's olfactory glands and sensory hairs. Ecstasy… The Wraith had died so well! If only another more troublesome Wraith might do so...

Ga Hi. Ga Hi, you have excelled all expectation. You will have pride of place at my side during our feast! You may initiate the ceremonies. Though she doubted Ga Hi had the capability for the long concentration that this would entail.

Oh, I want nothing. Nothing but to enjoy! And Ef Xo knew this to be true of Ga Hi. Always the fun, the sensuous. Never the ambition.

But... hesitated Ga Hi.

Yes? And already Ef Xo's mind busied itself with modifying her potions, her spells to incorporate the new discoveries. Calculations of quantities. Incantations for optimum effect. Todd ash Luyten would be no adversary. John Sheppard would be dead by the setting of the moon. The Queen would be theirs utterly. And so too would be the gateway to so much more power... a gathering in of so rich a harvest.

Can I... may I look into the pool... for no particular reason... merely to peep?

But, of course, Ef Xo clicked, her heart wrapped in warmth. A sensation of ... warmth? Wrapped her heart? Yes. Perhaps a cold blooded creature such as she was capable of pleasure from generosity to a fellow Forfal. Yes, warmth in knowing the pleasure Ga Hi would experience from this – for it had not been long since Ef Xo had also checked the reading from the pool.

She watched Ga Hi's unwieldy tottering into the cave, remembering her own satisfaction on seeing John Sheppard's slow recovery. She'd licked at her mandibles, delighting in the way his burns wept and the pain that it caused. This knowledge had been passed onto the Wraith Queen via her dreams... via her nightmares... Once, the Queen had been grateful for such news, now she cursed it as his pain eroded into her very own being as an intense coldness that gripped her soul, crushing it, transforming his pain into hers, returning as magnified power to the Forfallen.

Ef Xo gathered up Ga Hi's treasures and followed the other Forfallen into the cave.

John Sheppard was also tortured with bad dreams. Ef Xo ensured he re-lived his 'accidents' over and over. Intermingled with those of the day when he had killed the Queen's sister. Making the message clear – it was, after all, a part of their contract that he was made aware of the reason why he was being punished. Dr Rodney McKay's allergy. Ronon Dex's shooting. Teyla Emmagan's poisoning. The soldier's sacrifice. His own injuries invariably centred on his chest – had he never realised this connection to the death of the Queen's sister? The fall. The burning and the inhalation of smoke. Now, recovered slightly, he could scarcely speak, his lungs were so choked. With each laboured breath, he fought for the oxygen that the human technology provided.

'Where is this place?' he'd asked, gasping. She'd enjoyed his confusion. She enjoyed his continued incapacitation. A human of action, plan and determination reduced to helplessness. Though, yes, there was acknowledgement that this enjoyment was rooted in that basic instinct of her early ancestors that tormented, tortured its prey, watched its victim struggle for hours, as it slowly weakened itself, before the bug finally attached jaws to the life vein...

She deposited Ga Hi's spoils upon a shelf, glancing at Ga Hi already crouched at the pool, immersed in a trance of pure joy, her wings, extended, an even more translucent purple than ever before.

They have transferred the infirmary to the lower levels? Ga Hi clicked. Due to the smoke damage. And apparently, this move additionally enabled the scientists to carry out forensic checks. Foul play by a fellow Lantean was again suspected. For the wiring to the infirmary monitors, and the fire alarm system had all been systematically checked at regular intervals.

'How could it possibly just go wrong?' asked Rodney McKay. 'There has to be an explanation!'

Oh, yes indeed! How could it possibly just go wrong! Oh, an unforeseen added bonus of everyone suspecting everyone else! Such wickedness! Fear, fear and more fear. Such a feast! Would the culprit strike again? Would the next victim be John Sheppard or even someone else? Who would the culprit attack next? Had they a psychopath in their midst? And Ef Xo clicked a chuckle to herself.

Ga Hi pulled away from the pool.

When he speaks, it's all funny! He can scarcely breathe! And they check the dressings frequently! They have to turn him, this way, that way, this way, all ways, and always, he is in pain!

I know, my dear, I know! And this is all your doing!

Me? Well, yes indeed! It was me! Tee hee.

Come. Come and aid me with these preparations. And Ef Xo placed a bowl for Ga Hi to sluice the Wraith brains into and the Second began chanting an ancient Forfallen curse as she did so, pausing suddenly in her work.

Although... She seemed to pout and Ef Xo could feel a thought perplex her. It will be a shame to kill him now. No more fun.

There will be others, my dear. We will destroy them all. Humans. Wraith. We will send them all to their hell.

-oAo-

Todd ash Luyten paced the room. Quietly. Uncertain, yet again, where to place his hands. So he clasped them behind his back. Yet again. Then, because that had also become habit for him, he checked for the pendant about his neck.

A palpable relief sent a sigh through his body and forced him to close his eyes at the receding panic, willing lungs and heart beat to slow and soften.

Of course, it still hung there. Re-assured, yes. But simultaneously annoyed, that he was so fallible to such a mundane insecurity as to believe he might have mislaid it! Had he not a more superior mind now? Bah! Had he not the power now, to utilize the Trochlor lines and to see all? No... no... weakness... no... no... A wraith, such as he? Flawed with weakness? And this was not the time to feel... what?... fear... fear that he might not succeed?

The Queen stirred upon her bed, mumbling in her usual stupor, dreaming still in semi-slumber. He had had her transferred to this smaller cruiser not daring to leave her behind on the Hive, to let her out of his sight, drugging her so she slept more soundly in the move.

He felt for the pocket of his coat, checking for that also. The temporary hiding place of her dagger that he had retrieved earlier. A slim blade with an equally slim blackened handle, carved as a whole from one piece of the rock, amokyl, that she had kept hidden in a secret compartment of her bed.

He could not comprehend why he had not read her mind and found it days ago. Nor why she had not used the weapon against him. Though naturally he was glad that she had not.

He ceased his pacing, eyeing up her form huddled beneath the cover and as he did so, he clutched at the pendant still, feeling its strength within him increase as he sought to drive out the Forfallen eavesdroppers that he knew would be listening.

Their shadow... there, in some deep recess of his mind.

The Queen turned upon the bed, blinked repeatedly at him in an attempt to focus and then pushed herself up onto one elbow.

"Todd ash Luyten?" she whispered, hoarsely. "We are there?"

He could nearly feel pity for her.

Nearly.

He nodded.

She must have heard the engines slow as they came out of hyperdrive.

"I am hungry. You would not consider beaming me up a Lantean? A little one would suffice. I would not be particular." She laughed as he snorted, all of his sympathy dissolving.

Then, she shuffled upright, appearing to listen to some distant sound, or lack of it, flopping back into the pile of pillows after only a few seconds, exhausted with the slight effort, staring at the darkness held in the ceilings, resignation in her voice.

"They do not fire upon you?" she actually sounded interested, all her previous sarcasm evaporating. She nodded knowingly. The Forfallen had answered her question? He sensed a strange vibration in the pendant at his fingertips and knew this was true.

"The Cervadian?"

Todd ash Luyten started. Cervadian. A human with the Wraith gene. He covered up his surprise as quickly as he had revealed it.

Not quick enough.

"Oh, come now," she laughed, and then coughed as the effort strained her lungs, trying to both stifle the fit and to speak also. "Don't... be... coy... you... have spoken with... Teyla Emmagan... and she has… prepared the way for you-"

Her eyes suddenly flew open wide and she held a fist over her mouth. Fear. Fear. Her hand dropped and she threw off the bedclothes, standing, staggering towards him, gripping one of the posts of the bed so tight her knuckles showed white.

"You... know! These are not my chambers! We are the only vessel here! You have not come for the Alliance meeting. I have not slept so long! We are early. You have come to... John Sheppard! You know! You know!" she screamed at him, horrified at the revelation. She stepped away from the bed, falling instantly without its support and he moved forward, catching her by her elbows, keeping her upright. He could feel her body trembling through his hands.

"I do not wish to be here! Take me away! Take me away!" and she collapsed in his arms. He scooped her up and returning the few steps back to the bed, he laid her back down on the bed. His old feelings of revulsion hit him at the sight of her curling over, the wails of "take me away from here!" echoing around the chamber.

He was puzzled why she should be affected this way. The Forfallen possessed her like some malicious spirit of human folklore? Or the Queen had no desire to be directly confronted by her evil doing?

"I need you close by," he coldly informed her. "Where I can watch you. I have been given permission to board Atlantis, yes. Teyla Emmagan has been assured that I am trustworthy. I need..."

What did he need? Her promise she would cause no trouble in his absence? In her weakened state, it would be doubtful she would achieve much. He turned away. What did he need? Her... approval? Was the need for a Queen always to haunt him? But yes. His conversation with Teyla Emmagan had moved something fresh in his mind... The need for a Queen. So primeval it stirred within his groin. He could not survive without a Queen. And all this striving to discover the Forfallen's victim. All this endeavour to safeguard John Sheppard now. No... no... nothing to do with protecting Wraithdom... but to protect... one Queen?

No, no, he was not thinking straight, and he shook his head in some vain effort to rid his mind of these thoughts. He must be single minded in his fight against the Forfallen.

He turned back to her, tempted though to stroke her bare shoulder. What harm was there?

He shuddered at the flesh cold against his fingertip.

Blackness loomed in his vision, replacing the silks of the curtains that adorned the bed. He thought he would fall as if in some deep pit. But this had happened before and he was practiced in driving it away. The Queen twisted at the contact and snarled at him. A light shimmered somewhere distant... the power of the pendant, and he concentrated on that, until the whole room re-instated itself.

His hand had caught up her hair. How...? He had no remembrance of touching her hair. And he allowed the strand of grey to fall to the pillow... numb… with this feeling that he had lost more than seconds of consciousness… he had lost control.

He stood upright, pulling his hands sharply to his sides, forming fists, chiding himself, insisting on the equanimity that his mind craved, aware of tightness in his chest that worked his lungs with the effect and sound of loose gravel, that insisted his physical needs were otherwise…

And he clasped the pendant tight.

The pendant... Hot now in his palm. Hot and not its usual warm... why? And he stared down at it perplexed. This was not science. There was no answer. The stone should not have felt hot to touch. He knew he should feel heat, but not to this degree. Surely this meant its power of protection were at its utmost. The stone protected him now? From what exactly? From himself?

They had reached him? Even now? Enticed him?

The Queen turned at the loss of touch. The flicker of... regret across those green eyes. The loss of comfort offered? No. No.

"They..." but she bit her tongue and held back.

"What? What is it?"

Sorrow surfaced again and then her face softened, and she rolled over once more, her sighing in unison with the rustling of her sheets, stretching and relaxing her long lean body – he could nearly take her... though he did not believe she would be fertile… but this was weakness! and... had he let his guard down?

He did not remember catching hold of her hair. Did not remember... How?

Doubt. Doubt clouding his mind like a black hole that insidiously spread its gloom across bursts of brilliant star ray. Doubt. They were making him doubt himself. And temptation. A new form of Forfallen attack? Seeds of doubt. 'Doubt is the crack to reason,' Fini had said. And he stubbornly pushed it away, setting his mouth hard.

"They... they... make me feel his pain," she moaned, "they did not tell me it would be reciprocal. Each time... each time they attempt to kill him, a little piece of me wrenches loose... withers... and now we are closer, he and I… they shall surely kill me also."

He always knew it would mean her end. And he would... regret it?

"See what they have done to me! You win never win Todd ash Luyten. Never. They are stronger than you. Even with your... toys."

He grimaced at the insult, twisting the pendant over and over between his fingers. Doubt. Doubt. No. No. Had the Forfallen 'taken him' in those few seconds? So subtle, this shadow, this enemy. Too strong for him? No. No. He gripped the pendant tight, squeezed shut those eyes, driving a stake down, thrusting down, building that wall stronger. A palisade against intruders. A castle that humans construct.

He must not fail.

"I will return with Colonel Sheppard," came his determined announcement out loud, surprising himself.

"And they said, they said, that when the second moon of Atlantis has completed its second cycle, a death shall be mourned. Is it not that time already? My senses tell me so. You are too late. And is he not sick also? I thought he was sick... how will you ever succeed if all you have on your side is one sick human? Who will soon be... dead," her ramblings, slurred, as she slowly drifted into sleep once more

"I will do it."

"I wish... I wish I could believe you."

-oAo-