A/N: Extra long chapter cos it's taken me forever to update again…only reason I had the time today was cos I'm sick…which is always good for some things :D

Chapter Fifteen

Ford didn't even notice as the Wraith switched off the electricity, the pain coursing through his body, causing him discomfort without the continual torture. He kept his eyes shut, unable to move due to the constraints, but also due to his pain.

"You lied," the Wraith's voice came through his piercing headache.

The fact that there were metal spikes jarred through his legs was not helping the situation. The Wraith had so far refrained from jabbing the spikes through his arms as it had done to Teyla. He was becoming increasingly close to the land of the unconscious, feeling himself weak, and with good reason.

He could hear the Wraith wandering around, although was paying little attention to it, it was hard for him to concentrate on anything. He managed to open his eyes slowly, the light of the room seeming brighter than he had remembered.

"Now little one…you are going to tell me what I need to know…" the Wraith said.

Ford looked at it out of the corner of his eyes, the small movement alone causing him pain through his head. The Wraith held in its hand something which resembled a jar of acid. He suddenly found himself resigning to the fact that he was going to die, and that it wasn't going to be an easy death.

He closed his eyes, willing himself to become unconscious as fast as possible, before the Wraith decided he would make a good meal. He could only think of one thing worse than this situation, and that was haven't the life sucked out of him, he could only imagine the pain, the coldness.

And then he felt the acid hitting his arms, eating away at his skin, and he got his first preview of what was still to come…

Rodney landed not quite so well on the floor of the cave. "Ow…who's idea was it that we had to come down here?"

"Mine."

He spun around to look at his friend. He didn't believe it…John Sheppard was alive and standing in front of him…dressed only in Elizabeth's jacket? Well that would look suspicious under any other circumstances…

"Hold on I have a spare pair of pants…" he muttered, throwing off his backpack and digging through it, until he presented a pair of pants to John.

He felt Elizabeth looking at him, and even without looking back at her he knew exactly what she was thinking. Why on Earth would Rodney have a spare pair of pants? He felt like replying to her with a long-winded explanation about how he always brought spare pants, just in case of an emergency, but he refrained.

"Thanks…" John replied, taking the pants and putting them on.

Rodney watched as he untied the jacket, now with something much more comfortable to wear, and handed it back to Elizabeth. She shook her head and pushed his hand away.

"Keep it, you'll be cold," she replied.

Rodney frowned. There was some kind of emotion in her voice that he wasn't used to hearing there. The assertive, confident voice that Elizabeth usually spoke with wasn't there. Instead it was the kind of voice he'd only heard from his mother when she'd been worried about him. It struck him suddenly, the loneliness. He'd been alone his whole life, and the way it was going it seemed as though he would be alone his whole life. He was going to die having only heard that tone of voice come from his mother, no one else ever caring enough to use it while speaking to or about him…

"So will you…" he said, still holding the jacket out.

"John, just keep it," she said.

Rodney continued watching them, overcome by sadness, which conflicted with his happiness at seeing John alive. He coughed.

"So what exactly is this oh-wonderful-plan you've come up with?" Rodney interrupted.

They both turned to look at him. John pulled the jacket on, it was slightly too small for him, but it was better than nothing.

"If you follow the stream it'll take you up to the…" he looked at Elizabeth for confirmation.

"Wraith torture facility," Elizabeth finished for him.

"Oh…" Rodney replied. "Ah - Carson and Dr Kisunagi are heading back to the jumper, going to cloak it and wait for us there."

"Good," Elizabeth said.

Rodney paused for a moment, then bent down, lifting his pant leg slightly and pulling out a handgun, then held it out to Elizabeth. He knew she wasn't going to like it, but he didn't want to let her go in there with a bunch of Wraith, at the possibility of being separated from the others, without some kind of defence.

She stared at it for what seemed like ages. Rodney watched her expression, it was thoughtful, calm, but he knew she was afraid of it, just as he had been the first time John had handed him a P-90.

He was about to open his mouth and tell her to take it when she reached forward and did so without his command. She closed her eyes for a moment, breathing in deeply, and then opened them again, a new determination coming over her.

"Safety off, point and shoot?" she said.

Rodney nodded.

"Ok…," she said slowly.

"Do I get one?" John asked.

Rodney nodded, reaching into his backpack and pulling out another handgun. "Sorry I don't have any P-90's to spare…this is Carson's."

John reached forward and took the gun. "Who?"

"Uh…medical doctor, Scottish, kind of scared of everything," Rodney replied.

"Scottish?" John asked.

"It's a country…they have nice mountains and weird accents…"

He trailed off at the realisation that Elizabeth was glaring at him.

"OK, let's go," he said, "John, you lead the way."

Elizabeth was gripping the gun so tightly that she could feel her hand becoming cramped already. Sweat ran down the cold metal. She kept reminding herself that even if she had to use it, it would only be against the Wraith, the Wraith weren't human anyway. They were the monsters out of her childhood story books.

"Are you OK?"

She looked to see John had held back slightly and was now walking through the creek next to her. Rodney was behind them, the occasional curse came out of him as he hit a rock or felt something slither past him in the water. Strangely enough she hadn't felt anything.

"I will be once this is all over," she replied.

"That's good," he said.

But she wasn't so sure of her answer. They'd been through so much, they'd lost so many, how could she ever be 'OK'? At least he was there. It kept her going, yet at the same time it was preventing her from focusing entirely on rescuing Teyla and Ford, the insistent urge to burst into tears of relief was building up exponentially.

"God DAMNIT!" they heard a curse from behind. "Something just bit me! I'm a dead man…"

John looked backwards, a small smile reaching his lips. "Is he always like this?"

"Yeah, most of the time," Elizabeth replied, finding it in her to even bring a smile to her own face.

"Wow, and we've put up with him for…?"

"About a year…although I worked with him back on Earth for a lot longer…" Elizabeth said.

"Earth?" John looked at her curiously.

"Oh…that's the planet we come from," she replied. "We don't even come from this galaxy…we came here through a device called the Stargate to find the lost city of Atlantis, which we did successfully. We awoke the Wraith…"

"Those creatures that I've seen at the end of this tunnel?" he asked.

Elizabeth nodded. "And we've been stuck here for almost a year. A week or so ago a wormhole came through from Earth, just as we were about to evacuate Atlantis because of a Wraith attack…soldiers, come to help us fight them. They weren't much help: a lot of people died…you…"

She paused, not quite sure if he needed to know everything quite yet.

"I?" he said.

"You took a jumper…spaceship…and flew a bomb inside one of the Wraith hive ships…" she stopped in her tracks, overcome by the emotion of the last few days.

"It doesn't matter, you don't have to finish," he said, reaching out and taking her hand. "Tell me later…we have people to rescue."

She breathed in deeply, determined to stay collected. "Yes, right…we have to save Teyla and Ford."

She knew she had to stay together, if only for a few more hours, because if she lost Teyla and Ford as well she didn't know if she could deal with it. It would all be too much.

"Are we gonna stand here being sappy all day or can I get my wrinkled feet out of this water some time this century?" Rodney muttered as he walked past them.

Elizabeth began walking again, taking notice of the fact that John was yet to let go of her hand. In fact he was holding on to it as though he never wanted to let go, and she realised that he might not be as unafraid of situations like this as she had always imagined him to be.

Suddenly Rodney stopped in front of them and Elizabeth looked up at him.

"We're here…" he said quietly.

John gave Elizabeth hand one more squeeze, for luck, before letting go and walking past Rodney to the exit into the Wraith facility. Rodney was irritating, but still he held extremely vague memories of being friends with him, his feelings towards Elizabeth were much more prominent. But he didn't remember much there either, just vagueness, her name…only his feelings towards her, and even then he didn't know if she knew or if it were something he'd kept a secret.

He squatted down right at the exit, looking out for any Wraith. The hallway was empty.

"Sheppard…" Rodney's voice said.

Sheppard…the name sounded familiar. Was it his? Elizabeth had only referred to him by "John"…did that mean something? He didn't know. A pat on his arm told him that Rodney was referring to him.

John turned to look at him. He was holding out a small, square, thing which when he looked at it his first thought was 'Gameboy'.

"Take this," he said.

"What is it?" John asked, taking it and holding it in front of him.

"A life-sense detector…" Rodney said.

As John looked down at it the screen lit up, three glowing dots appeared on it. "Is that us?"

"Yes…now if you see any other dots on that screen, it means there's a Wraith in the area," Rodney said.

"Got it," John replied. "So are we ready to go in?"

He looked directly at Elizabeth as he said it. Something told him this was her decision, as though she was a leader? He wasn't sure, he just knew that he respected her judgement.

She nodded.

They climbed out of the hole and onto the floor of the facility hallway. Their legs were all dripping wet, and something was telling John that this was a bad thing, that the Wraith would be able to follow them. But there was nothing he could do about it.

"Which way?" Rodney asked.

"Well I don't know do I?" John replied.

"I didn't say you did, I was just asking a general question…" Rodney looked annoyed.

"Gentlemen…" Elizabeth said.

They both fell silent. Somehow the situation sparked a feeling of familiarity inside John. Him and Rodney making nasty comments to each other and Elizabeth stopping them with one word.

"Right," John said, turning and walking in that direction.

"What makes you so sure of that?" Rodney asked.

"Nothing makes me sure of it, Rodney, it's a random guess…look if you want you can go left, but I'm going right," John continued walking in his chosen direction.

"Fine," Rodney said, walking after him, and Elizabeth following closely.

Teyla became aware of someone wrapping bandages around her limbs. She opened her eyes slowly, her head hurt and she felt faint. To her right she was surprised to see the Steve-like Wraith.

"What…" she managed to get out.

The Wraith looked at her. "I am sorry this has happened to you. The other human made me promise to clean out your wounds and wrap them up…but I'm afraid that is all I can do. I can not help you escape for you can not walk by yourself."

"Why…" she was suddenly overcome by the urge to vomit, but she pushed it back down.

"As I said before I do not enjoy consumption of your kind, you are much like what we were…before…" the Wraith said.

She didn't reply, fighting the urge to fall unconscious again, dizziness overcoming her.

"Sergal," the Wraith said. "That was my name before all this…"

"Atlantis…" she said quietly.

The Wraith nodded. "I am from there, but not all of us are. Some are of your kind. They do not remember, their brain capacity is much smaller…but the few of us who are what you call 'Ancients' remember everything…we fight it, but sometimes the hunger is too much. Again I am sorry…"

He stood up.

"I have done what I can…"

He closed his eyes briefly and then walked out of the room, leaving Teyla lying alone on the floor of her cell…

She tried to stay awake, but she was so faint, everything was spinning, and there was the pain, so much that she almost couldn't feel it any longer.

"Teyla!" she heard a female voice exclaim.

Dr Weir, she thought. An hallucination come to take me to the next life with her…

"Open the door."

McKay now. They had all come.

The talking was followed by loud banging.

"John there's no point…Rodney, did you bring the C4?"

"Of course."

More noises.

Then silence.

Followed by an explosion.

She opened her eyes, looking towards the doorway. Three figures stood there. Dr Weir, Dr McKay…John Sheppard? Now she knew she was hallucinating. She felt a calm smile come across her face as Elizabeth ran to her side.

"Oh my God, Teyla…" Elizabeth said.

Her touch felt real. Teyla had never imagined death to be so life-like. Where was the bright light she'd been told of…?

"Dr…" she said weakly.

"She's conscious," Elizabeth shouted.

John came and knelt down next to Elizabeth.

"Major…" she said. "Alive?"

"It's a long story," Elizabeth said.

"Where's Lieutenant Ford?" McKay said.

She closed her eyes for a minute, trying to gather strength. "Down the hall, right then left…help him…going to die…"

A sudden shot of pain came up through her left arm and she cried out in pain. Elizabeth and John both moved back slightly, afraid they had touched something to hurt her, which neither of them had.

"Oh my god…" Elizabeth said again, quietly this time. "Rodney get her out of here…"

"Me?" he said.

"No, the other Rodney," she replied, sounding irritated with him.

Then Teyla fell unconscious again, unable to stay awake any longer.