Wait and Bleed

The cell had now become his home. Ignatius passed the time trying to think of ways he could escape from this wretched cell. But he mostly came up with nothing, while his mind was acting up and he felt like dreaming awake.

The memories of those dreams overtook him every time. He wondered why, if those were dreams then why did his subconscious give it so much importance.

The memories were deeply bothering him, by now he was filled with them again. The cell around him changed, he was still in a cell, but a different one. He remembered seeing it before, this time he wasn't on a table, but sitting on the floor with chains around his wrists. He looked around and noticed that his clothes had been removed. Somehow he felt weak, but still very angry. Someone was standing in the shadows and that someone was talking to him. The voice seemed familiar and yet he couldn't place it.

"You will give up eventually."

Words came out of his mouth, "I will keep with my end of our deal, and don't you ever doubt it."

Anger was now raging inside him, the person in the shadows let out a soft chuckle, "Major Sheppard, you can threat me all you want. But in the end you will call me master."

He couldn't understand it, the voice was so familiar. Then instead of retorting another threat, he flipped his middle finger and stared at the person, "Fuck you, Kolya."

Kolya... Commander Kolya walked closer to the light. His Commander Kolya... then he reacted... 'He called me Major Sheppard'

Kolya closed in, took out a small gun and shot him a dart in the chest. He remembered the dizziness, the blackness.

Someone called his name, "Ignatius"

He blinked; Elizabeth Weir was outside his cell. He thought again of his last memory, 'Memory? Is it a memory? Did the Commander torture me?'

In his mind he tried to come up with excuses of why he had just dreamed or remembered Commander Kolya torturing him. Maybe he had fallen so deep into the Sheppard cover that his people had to snap it off of him... maybe. Still he felt of the Genii, there was no doubt about that.

He blinked again, while Elizabeth Weir was still staring at him. Finally she decided to formally talk. But then something completely unexpected happened, she ordered the cell to be opened. Ignatius looked at his surroundings; the room was full of soldiers, even the ones he had wounded days before. There was no way he could do something... but still, a good scare wouldn't hurt anyone. He smirked, while staying still on his cot. He would wait for the opportune moment.

-0-0-0-

When Elizabeth walked into the room, Major Sheppard was in the same sort of trance that she had seen him previously in on the videos. She called his name twice but he didn't respond. She thought of their last encounters, first their meeting at the infirmary, and then he stunned her and tried to take her to the Genii.

Ever since then she had tried to block that incident from her mind, because if he had succeeded, she would have been in a lot of trouble. Right there, she wished for a miracle, something that would make it all better without anyone having to suffer no more.

Elizabeth was now staring at Ignatius, while there was still no response. She decided to do something risky, which could actually give them some trust between them. She ordered Lt. Ford to open the cell. The action itself seemed to take Ignatius by surprise, which she knew he wasn't expecting that from her since he had attacked her earlier. She walked in with a formal hello.

He stared at her, while Elizabeth tried hard to ignore the menacing stare he was giving her, "You wanted to talk to me?"

Ignatius stayed seated, "You have to let me go."

Elizabeth felt her face tighten, "We have talked about this. You wanted to talk so here I am," she noticed that he was evading her eyes now, so she decided to press on. "There are things I would like to know."

Ignatius was now staring at the floor, "I won't tell you anything, I won't betray my people."

That was the answer Elizabeth had been expecting to hear, "I'm not interested in knowing about the Genii. I already know about them. It's you I want to know about."

Ignatius smiled sarcastically, "Came to remind me how good I was? About my life here? About being John Sheppard?"

"No, I want to know about you. I want to learn more about Ignatius."

Ignatius fell silent and looked up at her at once, staring in disbelief. "Still, I won't tell you anything."

Elizabeth gave him a questioning look, "Really? I just wanted to know how you were raised to the professional spy that you are. After all, you did manage to fool us all. We truly believed you were from Earth and one of our own."

Elizabeth was finally getting his attention and with that came sort of a victorious feeling. "In fact... I'm curious about how you know so much about Earth," Elizabeth noticed Ignatius' face fill with smugness, "I did my research."

Now it was Elizabeth's turn to stare at Ignatius with a surprised look, "Research? Err... mm-hmm... Okay, let's move on. I imagine you were raised by your parents and when the time came you joined the Genii military. Served your time well and was chosen to become a spy for the Genii, which must be an honor. You did your research and then you were given the assignment to infiltrate the city of Atlantis."

Ignatius gave her a small nod, Elizabeth knew this was the moment she was waiting for, "Good, then I'm sure you can explain to me how you managed to be on Earth. How is it possible that I can clearly remember the first time we met in Antarctica, where you were stationed at McMurdoch's? We met in an underground room where you were discovering the universe in an Ancient chair."

Elizabeth felt a little bit more confident when she saw that Ignatius' face changed into confusion, which made her decision to press on easier, "How you explain that, I wonder?"

Ignatius face remained confused, while he was frantically looking around. He was most definitely searching his mind, trying to come up with an answer, "I... made you believe it. You are weak, how much more can you expect from a woman?"

That wasn't the sort of reaction Elizabeth was hoping for but she didn't let her focus down for it. She decided to try a slightly different approach, "How could you, John? I thought you were stronger than that. How can you call yourself of the Genii when you killed more than sixty Genii soldiers when that big storm was going to hit the City?"

Ignatius was still looking, less frantically though, around his cell, "I knew you were going to bring that up."

"Then you remember?"

"I was protecting my cover. So, you see Elizabeth, no matter what you say, nothing will change the fact that I am one of the Genii, and that in the end I will give Commander Kolya the key to Atlantis. I will give him you. I will sit and watch how the Genii take control of the City."

Elizabeth felt a bit shocked at the hatred in his words, "We won't allow it and you know it."

Ignatius ignored her and continued, "I will reclaim my place right beside Commander Kolya. Maybe he will give me the honor to execute every single member of this expedition. The lesser important will go first, they won't suffer much. I think decapitation will be enough, but for the important ones it won't be that easy. I will torture them until their last breath," Ignatius gave Elizabeth one nasty smile before continuing. "Then of course ... you. You are quite a beautiful woman Elizabeth; you will make the Commander very happy. In fact I wish I could be there, when he's breaking you... when he makes you his. I wish I could be there the moment your soul is destroyed."

Elizabeth was beyond shocked. She closed in on Ignatius and slapped him in the face, "The John Sheppard I know would never have said that."

His face filled with pure rage, he hadn't expected that kind of reaction from her. Slowly he moved his glare until he locked eyes with her. Suddenly and without any kind of warning he grabbed her chin and held her so tight his nails were digging into her skin. The reaction of the guards was quick. In less than five seconds he had five stunners and two guns pointed at him. He looked at the soldiers, then back at Elizabeth, "Then I can't be John Sheppard, can I?"

Ignatius let go of Elizabeth so harshly that she staggered on her feet. She took a moment to control herself. His outburst was doing no good to her self-control of her emotions. She had never seen so much hatred in anyone. And for the first time she really believed that John would hurt them if he had the chance.

Elizabeth was trying to control the knot anger and shock were forming in her chest, which only made it worse and brought her to a point where she started hyperventilating. She was trying with all her might to control herself, but Elizabeth knew that she was not going to be able to continue with the conversation. So she did the only thing her body allowed her to do, turn around and storm out of the room.

Ford, who had witnessed the event, saw Dr. Weir walk out. He ordered the cell to be closed, but when he looked back at Ignatius he was smiling and waving his hand while saying, "Bye."