AN: Hope this isn't too confusing but it's one of my favorite chapters.

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Chapter 29

The Wraith just about giggled in one of the most disturbing ways possible, "Your race is incredibly amusing."

"Yeah," John ground out as the hand tightened sporadically, "Glad, to be of some use."

"There are much better uses for such a pitiful creature." the Wraith replied, "How is it that something so fragile and weak can put up-"

"-such a fight?" She asked him as her fingers pressed deeper in his neck.

Shep gurgled a response, but he was pretty sure that he wasn't supposed to answer that question. Things were getting so mixed up. So many memories tugging at the surface of his brain that it was starting to hurt more than the actual beating. Well maybe not more, but it could definitely reach a level plain. And that was not something he really wanted to feel.

Not all the memories felt like they were his own. Some of them seemed to belong to a different man who looked exactly like him. That man used to be married and he had a brother. And there were other memories there too floating around. Dancing away from him. Right at the tip of his tongue but a million miles away at the same time.

Then there were the other memories. Memories that didn't look like they belong to either world. Something had happened to that man who used to be married. Something bad…bloody and cold.

When Shep tried to reach out to that man, he felt blistering pain. And suddenly he was trapped somewhere else. Somewhere freezing and crumbling down. He was under a ton of stone with a pipe plunged into his stomach. He could feel his blood pooling beneath his fingers and he knew that he was dying. There was nothing he could do, no one could save him. But there was one way. He knew how to do it already; he had been so close before. He knew he could do it again and he knew there would be consequences but he didn't want to die. There was so much left unfinished and though ascending wouldn't fix everything at least it would give him another chance to…to do something more.

The pain seemed to be growing with each second. But if he let it go, let it all go. Then he could be free. He knew that the ancients had rules, millions and millions of rules, but he couldn't think of anything else. He had to try.

This isn't the way the story ends. Not when-

-every punch, every kick, every blow, seemed to resonate tenfold. He was fighting back, but he was mostly just trying to keep the Wraith from ripping him limb from limb. Distantly he could hear shouts and screaming but he had no way to even understand what they said. The Wraith had been overconfident. So completely used to the idea that humans were so weak that it forgot that they had sprit. The Wraith was only doing this because it believed that it was toying with him. It had not want to drain him; it just wanted to beat the crap out of him so that it could remind him of how weak-

-humans actually are.

She was still questioning him about this Earth when he came back to himself, but Shep felt completely out of it. As if he were in some sort of underwater fight that was too fast and too slow at the same time for him to comprehend.

He got the feeling as if She already knew he was a lost cause and that playing with him was all She had left. Which would mean that they would drain him soon.

He didn't want this to end-

-there were so many better ways to go. Dying like this, helpless at the hands of one Wraith, who was probably not even that high up in the social scale, seemed so dumb compared to his past accomplishments.

Sheppard kicked out, this time his leg connected with something solid and the Wraith hissed, even though the kick must have just felt like a pinch to it. Sheppard's movements were getting more and more sluggish and his moves were probably extremely obvious by now. He didn't know how much longer he could hold out. Between this and just getting out of the infirmary-

-he knew this couldn't end well.

One final punch and again he was up against the wall with Her fingers digging into his throat. He couldn't even try to pry at Her fingers for a micrometer of space, his right arm hung uselessly at his side. She lifted him higher off the ground so that-

-his toes were dangling and then the Wraith hissed as it raised its feeding hand.