"You weren't going to say goodbye?" accused a voice behind him.
Sheppard's hand stilled, the folded black t-shirt hanging above his bag. McKay. He took a steadying breath, and shoved the shirt in. He wasn't. He didn't know how. But, he was a coward, because God forgive him, he still couldn't admit it to McKay's face.
He kept packing, rote moves, and answered, "I was."
Sheppard heard McKay move, and a few steps forward, Rodney wasn't out of his line of sight anymore. "Please, credit me with some intelligence," snapped the angry physicist.
John hated this. It'd been wrong. He knew it when he'd made the choice to try and leave without saying goodbye.
"I credit you with a lot of intelligence," he replied softly. He had yet to meet McKay's eyes. He couldn't.
"Then why are you doing this?"
The question meant more than goodbye, and they both knew it. McKay knew he was leaving to take down Avitus. Knew he was going alone to protect those he cared about.
Sheppard tossed the article of clothing savagely towards the open bag, and faced McKay since he'd entered Sheppard's quarters. "Because nobody else has a chance in hell of coming back!" he shouted, his face pained, and his eyes laced with the sorrow of the claim that they both knew was true.
McKay swallowed, visibly set back by the unexpected display of emotion. "You don't know that," he said, eyes pleading all the while for Sheppard to not do this.
Sheppard snorted, "Now who's not crediting whom for having a brain."
"Maybe you don't," said McKay, fixing a withering look on Sheppard. Like a sudden afternoon storm, Rodney went from hurt, angry and bitchy in a matter of moments before resting on resigned.
Before Sheppard could react, McKay had reached out, and grabbed him in a bone-crunching bear hug. Rodney gave him a few hard pats on his back, and murmured, "Good luck." And then he left, not giving John a chance to respond.
Sheppard stood bereft, his book hanging in his hand, and he said to nobody, "Good bye."
oOo
When Sheppard walked into the gate room, he was touched to find a majority of expedition members were lined up to say goodbye, including Teyla. He scanned the faces looking for McKay, but he supposed the confrontation in his quarters had been it, because Rodney wasn't there.
He noticed Avitus was waiting off to the side, and allowing him these private moments without intruding. He approached Teyla. She reached for his forearms, and they clasped in the ritual manner of the Athosians, touching foreheads. He lingered like that longer than maybe he should've, but now that the moment for leaving was here, he was reluctant.
"Do not stay away too long, Major." Teyla pulled back, and smiled kindly.
"I won't," he replied thickly.
He moved on, clasping hands, and accepting the well wishes from others. He came at last to Elizabeth and Beckett.
"John -" started Weir.
"I have to," he interrupted. He impulsively took her in his arms for a brief hug.
Beckett smiled ruefully, "Do nae think to hug me."
Sheppard returned an easy grin, and slapped a hand on the Doctor's shoulder affectionately. "Wouldn't dream of it," he said. He stared for a moment, his eyes looking on them, trying to drink in their faces so he wouldn't forget, no matter what happened.
"Take care of my team," he finally said.
"I will," chorused Elizabeth and Beckett.
Sheppard knew he'd lingered too long. It only made it harder in the end. He lifted his eyes away from his friends, and settled on the gate tech, inclining it slightly.
The tech began the dialing sequence, and the expedition members filed up the stairs, clearing the area around the gate. The wormhole exploded outward with dramatic action, before falling back into itself.
Avitus had his arms folded under his tunic, and approached the shimmering wall of cerulean, turning to Sheppard with a patient gaze.
"It is time, Major," he said kindly.
Sheppard wasn't fooled by the Ancients manner. Avitus was getting what he wanted, and that was all it took to tame the beast…for now.
He had one last good bye. Sheppard closed his eyes, and sought Atlantis with his mind. Her core…he felt the soft whispers of her essence glide through his body and soul. He sent thoughts of warmth, love, and promise. He'd be back. He wouldn't condemn her to more years of loneliness.
When he reopened them, he saw a sea of glittering eyes with unshed tears from those people still remaining. He walked towards Avitus, and waved half-heartedly, before following the Ancient into the event horizon.
oOo
When Sheppard emerged on the other side, he was surprised to see no sign of civilization. The gate was in a clearing, with tall leafy trees encircling the area. There wasn't a noticeable break anywhere that he could tell, which would indicate a path leading to their destination.
"Which way?" he asked Avitus, shielding his eyes from the glare.
Avitus pulled an arm from the folds of his robe, and took Sheppard's arm, guiding him away from the gate. "This will be your first lesson. There is no path, Major. In your mind, my home exists. You must focus on the destination, and we will be there."
Sheppard frowned. He wasn't an ascended being. He couldn't just go all glowy and disappear only to reappear somewhere else.
Before he could argue the fact, Avitus shook his head. "John, forget what you know of the Ancients. You are not us, we are not you. Remember, you are our second evolution. You are different!"
"But I don't see how -" he started to say, but stopped because Avitus had closed his eyes.
"Look in your mind," instructed Avitus.
Sheppard stared at him for a second, uncertain, and thinking this was a waste of time, but reluctantly closed his eyes. "Now what?" he asked.
"Think of destination. Think of home."
"But it isn't home," protested Sheppard.
Though Sheppard couldn't see, he could feel the Ancients irritability vibrating through his mind. "It is now," the old man answered. "Concentrate, John."
Sheppard did a mental eye roll, but did as he was told. He concentrated on the end of a journey; home, and soon felt a dizzying sweep of vertigo begin to overtake his body. Startled, he opened his eyes, and the dizziness came to an abrupt halt.
Avitus sighed. "You almost had it, why did you stop?"
"Because I was going to get sick if the whirling continued."
"Your body will adapt to the travel. Try again," prodded Avitus. "And this time, do not stop!"
Sheppard hated to admit, it really had been close for his stomach, but that wasn't here nor there. If he resisted, everything would be for nothing. He closed his eyes again, and found it easier to fall into the state of thought. Home, destination…and the dizziness began again. He kept his eyes shut, and felt the nausea increase.
"Open your eyes, John."
Sheppard's eyebrows bunched in consternation. "You told me not to!"
"We are here," announced Avitus. "You did very well."
He opened his eyes, and was shocked to find they were no longer in the clearing beside the gate. He was standing in front of a building. "I did it? Or I helped you do it?" asked Sheppard.
Avitus was smiling, clearly pleased at the results. "You did it. That mode of travel is not in my ability."
Another piece of the puzzle that indicated Sheppard's instincts were right. He did have the potential to overcome Avitus. As soon as the thought appeared, he shuttered it, not knowing for certain how much of him Avitus could still read.
He shifted his gaze to the new location. There were still thick patches of trees as far as he could see, and no discernable path led to the home. The house itself looked like something out of a fairy tale and a futuristic novel, combined.
The walls were some kind of white plastic, or unknown material, but the white was a guess because time had aged it to a faded pale imitation of it's original color, and the encroaching forest had grown up the walls. A green fungus grew in isolated patches.
It wasn't large; maybe the size of two large rooms, and it only rose to about eight feet in the air, if he had to guess. The roof wasn't slanted, but rather lay flat over the walls. It reminded him of a house built out of a deck of cards, where you have two cards capped by one on top, except this one had four walls and one on top.
"Are you ready?"
Sheppard looked away from the roof, and realized Avitus was waiting by a door leading in. "Where are we?"
"We are here," replied Avitus. The door opened, though Sheppard hadn't seen Avitus push or activate a switch. "I am sure you are hungry, and thirsty. Come."
He was. In the back of his mind he heard Beckett lecturing him about a souped up race car. A pang of longing for his friends surged upward, but he squashed it with an angry thought. That was behind him for now.
Avitus waited for him to step in first. He did so, and the surprises weren't over, because the interior was as if he'd walked into a replica of Atlantis. The main room reminded him of the control room in Atlantis. He kept expecting for find a gate tucked in a corner, so eerie was the comparison. There were two doors leading off the main room.
"Sleeping quarters," answered Avitus, to his unspoken question.
"You just happen to have two?"
Avitus smiled easily in reply. He led Sheppard to the room on the right, and again, the door slid open without any outward request. Sheppard walked in and saw a bed, and a panel with a door recessed in a wall.
The old man gestured at the panel and explained, "That is the kitchen, John. You think about your desire, and it will give you what you wish."
Sheppard eyed it skeptically, but walked over, curious. He pictured a turkey sandwich and a diet coke. The console beeped, and the plastic door slid upwards to reveal just that waiting for him. He took the items, and looked towards the Ancient. "Is there anything like this in Atlantis?"
"Yes," answered Avitus. He was heading back out the door. "After you eat, rest. You will need it for your next lesson."
Before Sheppard could ask what the next lesson was going to be, Avitus had left, and the door shut behind him. He idly wondered if the door would open for him. He discarded the idea of trying. It wasn't necessary yet, and wouldn't serve a purpose. He was tired. Setting the food items on a table by the bed, he shrugged off the pack, and tossed it into a corner.
He ate, and stretched out on the bed. He propped his hands underneath his head, and waited for sleep to take him. He knew he had a long ordeal to prepare for. Training, and then…and then his plan.
oOo
He wasn't woken by an alarm, or a call. At least, not a call you could hear with your ears. It was in his head, and he knew instantly that it was from Avitus. His training was already beginning.
He pushed himself off the bed, and headed towards an area along the wall that looked like it held a bathroom. He was right; he quickly splashed some water on his face, and relieved himself, before heading outside to find the Ancient.
Avitus wasn't in the control room. Sheppard frowned. Was this how it was? Hide and seek for lesson one? So be it. He closed his eyes and thought of Avitus. A dizzying swirl of motion, and he opened them to find he was in the forest, but no Avitus.
"This isn't funny!" he shouted. He spun around, searching. The Ancient had to be here.
A noise above. Sheppard craned his neck to look up, and there was the old man, sitting relaxed in the crooked trunk of a massive tree. Avitus pushed out, and landed gracefully on the forest floor beside Sheppard. "Very good, John."
"Oh, great. I'd make a good Ancient hound dog."
Avitus chuckled. "It was an exercise in using your mind to find someone, and further, when the obvious did not present itself to you; you trusted your instincts, yes?"
Sheppard nodded, understanding. "I didn't leave. I trusted that you were here."
"Precisely," said the pleased Ancient.
"How did you get up there? I thought you said only I could do that kind of travel?"
A humored smile: "I climbed," replied Avitus, walking back towards the house.
Sheppard was, in fact, startled to realize they weren't far from the dwelling - maybe a mile, if that. "Why didn't you ask me to magic us back here?" he asked, after they arrived in the clear area in front of the building.
"Because your body needs to stay physically active. If you allow your mind to do it all for you, soon the body will waste away, and the mind will die."
That made Sheppard realize he had a lot to learn. Something as simple as that, and it hadn't even occurred to him. He didn't have time to dwell on more, because Avitus was already in the building.
Sheppard tagged after, finding the old man standing over a console. He asked, "What are you doing?"
"Preparing your next lesson," answered Avitus, without looking away from the panel. He continued to depress buttons for a few more minutes, but finally stepped back.
"All right, John, come over here," waved the Ancient, gesturing for Sheppard to come alongside him.
He did. There was a screen, and across it scrolled data. "Is it written in Ancient?" asked Sheppard. He knew that when he saw Ancient, his mind fooled him into believing he was reading English, because the translation was done automatically in his head.
"It is," confirmed Avitus. "Read, and learn."
And he did. His mind began scanning, and inputting the data in his memory faster than he'd ever thought possible. It told the story of a world populated by sub-humans. Savages, incapable of more than the barest survival in a harsh land populated by predators much larger than the largest human.
The Ancients captured some, by accident. A family was being herded to its death by a pack of saber tooth tigers. Two Ancients intervened, but by doing so, exposed who they were. Reluctant to let their presence be known, they took the family to the city.
Tests, care and startling results. These savages weren't so very different genetically from the Ancients. They knew they could improve the savages. A few genetic changes, and they'd learn, and grow and become more than they were. Maybe even some day become a race equal to the Ancients…
Sheppard pulled away, and stared at Avitus. "We're a manipulated race!" he accused. "You changed our people to be like your own."
"And if we hadn't, you wouldn't exist," said Avitus. He wasn't apologetic, or hesitant to speak the truth. "You had to have suspected."
Sheppard thought back to his biology lessons, and whispered with dawning realization, "The Broca divide -"
Avitus peered at him, puzzled. "Broca?"
"A biologist. The brain was his specialty, and he tried to answer the question of changes in the evolution of early man -" Sheppard drifted off, not wanting to get into the discussion. It didn't matter anyway.
"When you seeded the Pegasus Galaxy, did you do it with that blueprint?" Sheppard asked aggressively. It bothered him to think that the human race was a result of alien tampering.
Avitus dismissed his irritation with a casual change of topic. "Keep reading," he instructed, before turning his back away and heading for a window that was constructed seamlessly in the wall behind Sheppard.
Sheppard figured there wasn't a point of arguing, aside from the fact that he'd gain some small amount of satisfaction. He kept reading. When he was finished, he had the history of the Ancients firmly embedded, and felt slightly shell-shocked. It wasn't always a clean history; the people weren't above the same problems that had plagued Earth. In-fighting, bloody wars, weapons of mass destruction – they'd faced it all in their past, and managed to overcome. For that, he gave them a measure of respect.
"Now do you begin to understand who you are?" asked Avitus from behind him.
Sheppard turned, and saw the old man was staring still at the scenery out the window.
"Maybe," he answered honestly. He knew he was what they hoped for. Ancient in mind, but human in form. Able to do all they could, and still maintain a physical body. "But I think this is more dangerous than your people realized."
"How?"
Sheppard drew away from the console, and approached the Ancient, who looked as if he'd aged ten years in the minutes it had taken Sheppard to read the history.
"For all your power; you are limited. You have restrictions on actions, behavior. I don't."
Avitus laughed dispiritedly. "Don't you?"
Sheppard didn't reply. He did, and they both knew it, but he also knew he was going to set those moral codes aside to do what had to be done.
"You are going to try and destroy me," said Avitus. He pulled his gaze away from the view, and the eyes that fixed on Sheppard were as hard as they were understanding - a strange mixture of age and scheming.
"If I can," replied Sheppard honestly. He was locked in the stare with Avitus, and neither moved to break the contact.
Avitus pulled away first. "We shall see," he answered absently, focusing again on the world outside. Sheppard matched his pose, hands clasped behind his back, and they watched the sun set.