Part 3

The sand had no sharp edges to it. The light had a hardness that didn't seem natural, and the waves crashed on the shore, one after the other, with unnatural regularity.

Sheppard rolled up on one elbow in the sand, scanning the beach as far as he could see, first one way then the other. Nothing moved. No one was there. He leaned back on both hands, staring out at the solid blue ocean, blue as a child's painting.

He couldn't remember getting here, he saw no footprints in the sand, and when he shifted, the surface didn't feel right. It was almost spongy. The whole scene had a slapdash feel to it, as if an indifferent artist were called on to paint a beach at noon.

He felt eyes on him, heard a slight sound. He pushed off, coming to his feet in a defensive crouch, ready for anything…

"McKay."

He straightened, uttered the name in resignation. Of course. If things were going to be weird, naturally McKay would be there.

He stood warily, almost as if he were expecting Sheppard to try to attack him. In contrast to the surroundings, he looked completely real, right down to the bags under his eyes. Bags, the long forgotten voice of his father chimed in, that you could pack army boots in.

"Major." The tone was neutral.

Not seeing a threat, he turned and sat again, back stiff. It was 'go away' in his best Sheppard non-verbal communication. McKay was a genius, he should understand, he thought.

It didn't work this time. McKay wandered over and sat right beside him.

Sheppard ignored him. It was a mistake, he realized a few moments later, because, denied conversation, McKay began to chat with himself.

"So, McKay, where are we? I have no idea, Major. We aren't really here at all, actually," he began. Sheppard pulled his feet under him.

"We're sitting in matching chairs on Atlantis with a really disgusting number of wires burrowing in our brains, as it happens," he continued, as Sheppard stood.

"We found you sitting in one of them about fifteen minutes ago." Sheppard began to walk away, hands in pockets.

"You were ten minutes away from dying, not to put too fine a point on it." McKay was louder now, and he was standing too. "So I hopped in the other one, trying to save your sorry narrow butt, and here I am now stuck in your Playskool dream of California!" He shouted the last words, and Sheppard turned.

"I didn't ask you to save my sorry narrow butt," he replied evenly. "I am going down the beach that way. I would appreciate it if you didn't follow me. I wanted some time on my own, and that's what I'm going to get."

He knew, without looking, that McKay was fuming. He could almost see the expression, the tightening of the thin lips, the jaw clenching. It disturbed him slightly that he knew anyone that well anymore, and he put it from his mind, trudging on.

xxxxx

"Give me some good news." Weir said, and Grodin stepped up to stand beside her. Beckett eyed her, and she sighed. "What?"

"The chairs - the machines - they're still draining them both. There has to have been an independent power source at some point, I don't think even pureblood Ancients could have maintained this function, whatever it is, without it. Thing is, neither are pureblood. John is faring better than Rodney, now."

"Rodney's been in there for a shorter period," Grodin said.

"The therapy gave him the gene, but John is still closer on the evolutionary scale than Rodney. When Rodney plugged himself into the system, it stopped the drain, but no closed system is leakproof, and we know this particular one has been damaged at some point in history. There's something that keeps trying to cycle back to a main bus."

"That was what caused the shorting," Zelenka said.

Beckett looked over to where two of his assistants were setting up IVs for both. "Whatever it is, it's playing havoc with their systems. Electrolyte imbalances, accelerated heart rates, metabolisms' going a mile a minute."

He led them to a powered display. "The belts that are restraining them seem to be efficient bio-monitors, and we can see what's happening here - Rodney got it running before he - well - logged on." It was evident that one set of readings was better than the other. "John has more control of his Ancient side than anyone. Put simply, John can tolerate it better. But it's only for a short time, Doctor. Sooner or later, the leaks in the system will kill them."

Weir stared at the room. It was a mess now, several of the non functioning panels and chairs had been disassembled.

"If we can figure a way to feed additional power to the system, it would buy time to find out how to get them out, correct?"

Beckett nodded.

Weir turned to Grodin. "Find me a jumper cable, and a place to clip it on," she directed.

xxxxx

He kept walking. On the real beach, there would be piers, he thought, and glanced down at the not-sand. When he looked up again, there was a pier.

He walked up underneath it, looking up. It was closer to the real thing, the barnacles on the posts had texture, and the waves had stopped being quite so predictable. He closed his eyes, and imagined a boat, pulled up on the beach. He took some time with it, remembering how old man Sedgewick's ancient lifeguard boat looked, felt, smelled.

He opened his eyes. There it was.

He smiled. This had potential.

"Neat." He turned, annoyed. McKay stood behind him, again, staring at the boat. "Missing something, though."

When Sheppard turned back, the words 'S.S. Minnow' had appeared on the bow.

"Funny." He kept going.

McKay followed.

xxxxx

Ford shifted uneasily, rocking on his heels and forward. It was beginning to irritate Weir.

"Lieutenant?"

He stopped. "Ma'am?"

"What possible reason could the Ancients have had for building something of this sort?" She folded her arms and looked up at the young soldier, who blinked.

"Well, ma'am, first we'd have to know what it is that it's doing to them."

"We know the probes are in certain sections of their brains. I would think that the fact it seems designed for more than one would mean somehow the controls connect them together."

He nodded, understanding she was thinking aloud.

"It might even be sophisticated enough to be considered mechanical telepathy," she continued. "Now, why would you need to be able to know what someone was thinking?"

"Interrogation?"

She nodded. "Possibly. Other ideas?"

"Entertainment? Business transactions of some sort, maybe. So you'd be certain you weren't being cheated."

"Or something else. More benign."

He stared at the chairs. "Psychiatric assessment?"

"And maybe treatment."

He frowned. "Then the wrong people are in those chairs," he said frankly. "If you know what I mean, Doctor…"

She smiled slightly, ruefully. "Oh, yes. I know what you mean." She paused, surveyed the activity. "Would you please find Dr. Heightmeyer and bring her here?"

xxxxx

"So you're gonna follow me to Mexico?"

He stopped and swung around, staring at McKay.

"If there is one here. Since it's a construct, evidently from your mind, I would presume that we might eventually get to Mexico."

He glowered, and an iron cage sprang up around his stalker.

"Oh, please." McKay took a step, and another, and walked through the bars. "If you want me to leave you alone, ask."

"Leave me alone."

"No."

"Please," he exaggerated the word, "leave me alone."

McKay grinned. "Very polite. No."

"What do I have to do to get you to leave me alone?" he almost begged.

"You really want to know?"

Not trusting himself to speak, Sheppard nodded.

"Talk to me."

"What?"

McKay sat down, eyes on the ocean, which was getting more realistic every moment.

"I've talked to everyone I had to, to get back to what I do best. I can quote you all the most recent research into treatment of victims of torture, but they all boil down to 'don't feel guilty' and 'don't let it run your life'."

Sheppard didn't move. He didn't sit, but he didn't walk away, either.

"It's not fun, this psychoanalysis thing. I mean, Kate's a looker, which helps, but it's not something I've ever done easily, talking about myself."

Sheppard snorted. He sat after all.

"You go on about yourself all the time."

"Well, this was different," McKay replied sharply. "It was ok when I had an aim, a reason. I was going to be able to go offworld with you guys again. It made it worthwhile, all that 'talk about your feelings' crap. I was even starting to sleep again. Then you and Elizabeth blindsided me."

"It's only sensible…" Sheppard started, but McKay was faster.

"Sensible, my ass. I've learned something, you know? Psychology is a fuzzy science, but it sometimes gives you insight. Big strong Major Sheppard didn't save the day, went and lost one of his geeks. Oops - not lost - here he is after all. You're like a kid socking a hockey card away in some metal box in your treehouse." He stood abruptly and stared down.

"I'm not a hockey card, Major. Not something you can just tuck away and bring out on special occasions. We'd been through a lot together. Do you know how much it hurt when you threw that away?" He seemed about to say more, but finally turned, heading down the beach.

Sheppard watched him go. It was kind of what he'd been hoping for, the being alone bit, but he hadn't been aware of how deeply McKay had been affected by the decision made to take him off the team.

Or maybe he had been, but just ignored it, putting it down to usual McKay background noise.

"McKay."

He kept walking.

Sighing, Sheppard got up and followed. It hadn't worked for him, why should he let McKay off easy?

xxxxx

"So it isn't exactly the Ancient's version of psychoanalysis." Weir cut through Kavanagh's torrent of words. The man could out-talk Rodney when he wanted to.

Stopped short, Kavanagh shook his head.

"Not exactly, no. But it's not entirely anything else, either. It seems to be designed as - well - a virtual reality system. For training purposes, far as I can tell, but there are notes on using it for entertainment and for helping recovery of those who had suffered breakdowns of some sort."

"Always wondered what the Ancient version of TV was," Beckett muttered.

"That line of reasoning would me lead to believe there was some sort of device designed to observe what happened within the V R," Dr. Heightmeyer suggested. "Has there been anything like that found?"

"It was just an idea, Doctor," Beckett demurred.

"A logical one, Doctor. No matter what this is, there would have had to be facility for someone outside the connection to observe - for safety, if nothing else. I would suggest Teyla and I see what we can find while you work on the nuts and bolts of the problem."

xxxxx

"McKay!"

Shouting wasn't having much of an effect, so Sheppard broke into a trot. The sand yielded under his feet again, less spongy now, more granular. And, of course, harder to run in.

"Damnit, McKay, you want to talk? Let's talk!"

McKay turned at that, stopped, and Sheppard caught up.

"So talk."

"McKay, I didn't want to pull your off-world status," he panted. "Weir and I discussed it at length. She deferred to me, finally, because she saw the logic in it." Panting? He ran farther than that before breakfast every morning.

"You're head of the sciences, of the department that's going to keep us alive and get us back home." He put his hands on his knees, leaned forward, sucking air. Beside him, McKay made an abortive move, as if he wanted to reach out and help him.

"You're the answer man," he said finally, when he caught his breath. "You have to stay somewhere safe, for everyone's sake."

"That is absurd," McKay said dismissively. "Wraith, evil bloodsuckers? I know they know where we are. It's no safer on Atlantis than offworld." He looked at Sheppard, and there was a definite tinge of worry. "Case in point," he noted.

"One of the defunct panels must have been the source of the input, and I bet it provided the access to the main power, too, but it seems that each chair had their own small power source. Kind of a booster to get things started. "

"And that is what John triggered when he sat down," Grodin added. "But when it tried to cycle to the mains, it wasn't there. It just kept trying and trying. If McKay hadn't triggered the other chair when he did…"

"Yes, yes, St. McKay, I know all about that," Kavanagh interrupted. "The point is, Doctor Weir, without the main panel functional there's no central input to - as you put it - attach the jumper cable to."

She let the St. McKay comment slide. "Is there any way to make the panel functional?" she asked patiently.

Kavanagh glanced at Grodin, who stared at the floor. "No," he said, finally. "The damage is far too extensive. We'd need a couple of days to evaluate, never mind starting to fix it."

Weir drew a deep breath. "Carson," she said, and he knew her question.

"We're just doing patchwork here," he replied. "Neither of them will make it to evening."

There was silence.

"Damn it," Kavanagh barked suddenly. "I am an idiot."

"What?" Weir asked.

"Radek! Radek, we have to get into the individual power sources. We have to get into the chairs!"

xxxxx

"Yeah, well, it's the same argument 'you could get hit by a bus crossing the street'," Sheppard said. "It's a bit different from Wraith, and an entire planet that wants to pick your brains for the next ten years."

"We managed, John. We were a team, we worked well together. Our strengths and weaknesses meshed. Like cogs. Why did you throw that down the drain? That's all I ever wanted to know."

A shape appeared up the beach and Sheppard turned his head to look - too fast, his head swam - he must have started to fall because he felt a firm hand grasp his arm, and then the world blurred…

xxxxx

"My name is Elian." The small man bustled around him, for all the world like a tailor taking measurements, only the tapes he used stayed where he put them. Around his wrists, his ankles, his neck, his head…

It was odd. Sheppard knew it was a memory, and he was observing, but somehow he was inside it too, with McKay, feeling his breath grow short at the prospect of what this mad little person was going to do to him.

"We're going to discuss your sad lack of co-operation." He'd finished with the tapes, and attached the leads to each one, and now he stood, bouncing with anticipation. "Actually, there will not be much discussion," he corrected himself. "I won't be talking that much. You'll be screaming too loud to hear me."

He felt McKay's terror. He could actually feel the knot in his gut, and his heart begin to race, but what he heard wasn't actually being said, it was being thought, two words…

"they'll come…they'll come…they'll come…"

…and the electricity began to flow, molten fire streamed through him, and he could feel his muscles cramping…

xxxxx

"They're coding!"

Beckett dove for the crash cart, hearing Sheffield behind him doing the same. They'd planned for this, knowing with the effects of the imbalances accumulating it was just a matter of time. The chest bands would be a problem, but with careful placement they would be able to get the shock to traverse the heart even so.

He pulled the paddles, charged, and…

"Hold it!" Zelenka shouted. "Do not…" his English failed, but he waved his hands, and Beckett looked at the monitors.

"They're back," he said. "Somehow, it was the chairs."

"If they are diagnostics, it is reasonable they are support as well, no?"

"You're right, Radek," Beckett said, returning the paddles to their place. "But that would have taken power, too."

Weir stood between the chairs, staring down at Kavanagh, deep in the bowels of Sheppard's chair. "Any luck, Doctor?"

"Some. I've identified the right conduits," he replied. "Actually, that little crisis was very helpful. I could actually see the power re-route itself."

Weir sighed, exchanged glances with Beckett, and returned to the main monitor.

"That took much power," Zelenka said quietly. "There was not much to give." He looked up, worry in his eyes. "Their time is shorter."

"And even if we do get the chairs powered, their bodies will give out anyway."

"There must be some way to trick the machine." The Czech was thinking aloud. "Fool it into thinking the session is complete. The main processor would do it normally. Without it we must try something else…" He looked up at Weir, as Teyla's voice came from behind the main bank.

"We have found something!"

xxxxx

The monitor was a simple headset. It resided in a small alcove that reminded Weir of the pod-like phone booths of the eighties. The observer sat in a small easychair, nothing so grand as the actual interface chairs, and slipped the headset on.

Heightmeyer had waited only as long as needed for the set to be checked out - no probes, nothing that would connect her directly with the system, though Weir had the feeling it wouldn't have made a difference anyway - and then she'd sat down and slipped the set on.

"Radek is right," she said distantly. "…next step in virtual reality…I think I'm in a memory…" she stopped talking a moment. "Little man." She raised her hands to the set. "I think I know…no!"

She ripped the set off, gasping, eyes tearing, holding it in one hand.

"What was it?"

"Memory of the torture," she replied shortly. "I was within the memory itself." She glanced up at Weir. "I swear that John was there too. I could feel him."

She eyed the set like it was a snake, then prepared to put it on again.

"Wait..." Weir started, reaching out to grasp the headset.

"Elizabeth. This is a psychoanalysts dream. Words are our enemy, they can conceal, but this is actual memory, feelings. I have to try. When they get out of the chairs, they'll need me." Conviction rang in her words, determination was in her eyes, and Weir released her grip. Carefully, Kate replaced the headset.

xxxxx

Blackness. Finally. The torture had ended, but by then the line between his mind and McKay's memory was harder to comprehend. He felt himself rolled, gently, but he was in the hands of the enemy and had to resist…

…then the quiet voice. "Hey. Answer man." Familiar voice?

Disbelief. It couldn't be. It was a trick, they were playing a trick.

"Won't tell," and he felt the rawness of McKay's throat as if it were his own. "They'll come. Won't tell you anything."

Fatigue and pain welled, blocking hearing, sight, only a stubborn denial, "won't tell…" absolute conviction, and then…

…then someone lifted him, someone touched him and didn't hurt him. Held him close. Warm. Someone else, too, and he could tell from the scent it was Teyla, and warm hands holding his…

And he recognized his own voice, heard through McKay's ears - how weird was that - it broke through the pain and denial. "We've been looking for you."

They'd known. The rush of relief brought tears to his eyes. No energy, truly none left, but had to let them know he'd heard.

"…you knew…"

And then it got weirder...

There were snippets of memory, bits of flashes that brought waves of emotion, and he was deeper in the recollections, hardly aware of his own identity anymore, seeing it through McKay's eyes, feeling his emotions. Seeing a bowed head through the bedrail, realizing it was Sheppard sitting by his bedside, feeling a flood of gratitude towards some greater power, and affection for the man beside him that eclipsed the hours of pain - at least for a while. The laughter of that poker game in the infirmary that had gone on far beyond visiting hours. Sheer joy at walking the halls tempered by a faint regret that Sheppard was so busy he couldn't join him.

Then it took a turn. Realizing he was being avoided for some reason, finally, when excuses were not enough anymore, and it painted a fine layer of sourceless guilt over everything. Throwing himself into work and pulling back from the others. Working as hard as he could so he'd fall asleep right away, so dreams wouldn't come, then suffering the dreams of pain and rage and loss that came anyway. Standing, shaking, outside Sheppard's door on more than one occasion, hand raised, never knocking.

Chaya was just wrong, somehow, and his suspicions turned to concern for Sheppard, but the Major didn't care. Bad situation if he's under control by her. Crap, worse situation if he isn't…

Grounded.

Everything fell into a black hole with that simple word.

Work until exhausted then pass out, food only fuel to work again. Responsibility kept him going, kept him from the cowards way out he craved in the darkest moments of deepest night. He was stronger than that, he told himself. He'd never needed anyone before, and he didn't need anyone now.

Not speaking with Kate anymore, she'd think him weak. Not talking to anyone from what he now thought of as his old life. Not touching memory any more, it was unpredictable, it might turn up remembrance of a time he couldn't afford to think of. When he'd been on a team. When he'd known real friendship, even brotherhood. When he'd been happy.