The creature flew behind him, providing a black, gurgling, hellish backdrop, many arms reaching out threateningly, yet grasping nothing. The wind whipped around them, choking them, and he faced his friends, his face drawn in resignation. "I guess the answer's no," he said flatly.

"No. NO!" Sheppard pitched forward as the ghoulish arms snatched Rodney by the leg and pulled him downwards. He managed to grab a hand before his friend tumbled to the waters below.

Carson and Radek launched toward them, skidding and smashing into the lower rail and grabbing hold of both Sheppard and Rodney. The creature below them bellowed, crowed, wailed in disgust. Sheppard pulled with all his might, feeling Radek brace him from behind, seeing Carson grip Rodney's other hand and fight.

Rodney looked down at the creature, up at his friends, and his eyes cleared. He started to kick, bending his elbows, trying to gain purchase. Sheppard pulled his hand to the rail, saw him grip it, and grabbed the shoulder of his shirt, then under his arm. Carson had reached down to grab the waist of his pants. Radek secured both of them, laying horizontally across their legs while bracing himself against the bar, preventing them from sliding into the deep.

There was a violent tug from below, and Rodney slipped. The panic in his face said it all. He didn't want to die. "Don't let go!" he screeched.

"We've got you. . ."

"Don't let go! Hold on, don't let go!"

"Aye, Rodney, now come on!" Carson realized this was more than a physical battle. Rodney was battling for his soul. "You have to make it leave, Rodney! Only you can make it leave!"

"How?" Rodney practically shrieked. The screeching below intensified. Their entire vision was caked with disembodied heads, limbless bodies, bodiless limbs. The stench was horrific, hot, morbid. The sound was excruciating.

Sheppard suddenly had the answer. He knew. It was the same thing he had been battling, dammit, he i knew /i . "Rodney! Are you afraid?"

"What?" His hand slipped, and John thought he was going to pee in his pants.

"Are you afraid?"

Are you shitting me? He could see the violent question in his friend's eyes, and tightened his grip further. At any other time, there would be a classic retort. This wasn't the time nor the place for it. Rodney's eyes met his, and a thousand unspoken truths passed through them. It was the oddest communication he had ever experienced, and what's more, it worked. He suddenly read everything he never thought he would see.

Fear of life. Of death. Of responsibility, of caring, of failing. Fear of becoming something other than what he was. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the known. Fear of everything that living was, and yet afraid to cast it all away for an ideal that, in his rational mind, should never have existed.

"Rodney," Sheppard said carefully, "there's one thing about being dead." He had to yell over the noise, but it came across as a confidential whisper.

"What?"

"When you're dead, you don't know it."

In that moment, it made the most stupid sense in the universe. A thought flashed through Rodney's mind like a spark, so fast the words were blurred and left behind a notion, 'then what the hell am I afraid of?' Sheppard was there, holding on to him, sliding with him, would probably go down with him. And his chest swelled.

"No," Rodney said in a low voice, "I'm not afraid."

"Tell her."

"I'm not afraid!"

"Yell it, damn you!"

"I'M NOT AFRAID! I'M NOT AFRAID OF YOU, OR DEATH! I ACCEPT BOTH!"

"Say it again!"

"I. AM NOT. AFRAID!" His voice bellowed over the winds and rain, and buried the creature. Sheppard felt a sting a panic he didn't show as Rodney looked down at it. "Take me then! Damn you to hell, take me!"

There was one final shriek, surrounded by one, agonizing female cry. And the creature disappeared.

They pulled Rodney to the floor and lay there together in a tumbled heap, gasping for breath, gripping each other to ensure the ordeal was over, and that they were all there, alive. Rodney managed to crawl to his knees and away from the rail, but collapsed in sobs before making it to the door. Carson crawled up beside him, putting his bedside manner to good use. Radek managed to find his feet and stumbled into the room to gather some towels.

Sheppard just gazed out towards the water, and cursed God himself.

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He was actually glad to be in the infirmary. It was light. There were people around him, all the time, he didn't feel alone. Even in the small snatches of sleep he allowed himself, there was someone there, and it helped.

He had been under observation for two days. Carson was ready to release him. He wasn't sure he was ready to go. When he did, he spent the rest of the day in his room, thinking.

He attended a meeting the morning after his release. His dreams had been relatively uneventful, which led him to wonder if maybe Dantanunana really had gone. But there had been sightings, reports of wailing and mysterious shadows deep within the bowels of Atlantis. While it was possible that these were stories invented to stir things up, and what better place for ghost stories than a ten thousand year old abandoned station in another galaxy, the crew wasn't taking any chances. Not when it meant someone's life, and though it wasn't spoken, everyone was convinced that the next encounter would quite likely prove to be the fatal one. Rodney was holding his own, but for how long?

"Not to mention," Radek said, "it was obvious that this thing was perfectly willing to take Rodney with her – with it."

"I think she's at the point where she's ready to kill him to have him," Sheppard said pointedly, but gently. Rodney just sat with his hands crossed on the table, offering nothing.

Elizabeth leaned back in her chair and lowered her head. She sat that way for some time before asking, "Why Rodney? What does he have that she wants?" In a sense it sounded crude, rude even, like he possessed nothing of value. But they understood what she meant.

Everyone looked at the physicist. Rodney was startled from his thoughts, and his mind replayed the question. "Oh. I, uh, I guess I have a unique vantage point, as compared to the rest of you."

"And that would be?" Sheppard prodded, expecting a response that detailed the excruciating intricacies of Rodney's lustrous mind, and how every living, or partly dead, being in the galaxy would be more than willing to get their hands on it.

The response surprised him.

"I uh. . .and understand this is minimal at best, but I've had contact with ascended beings through the SGC program. I've talked to people who have had direct contact with them, and of course there is Dr. Jackson. Now he wasn't exactly forthcoming about his whole ordeal, mainly because he couldn't remember much from his time as an ascended being, but. . .compared to the rest of the people here, I've had the most dealings with ascension. I've glanced over Dr. Jackson's notes about the Harsesis. I've read the entries detailing the writings at Kheb. I've studied as much as possible about the Ancients before coming here, therefore I have knowledge of the very thing she wants most, and that is to ascend fully.

"This thing is nothing more than a result of an experiment gone wrong. I don't know if it's because of the people running it, or a glitch in the experiment itself. But I've had time to do some thinking while staring at Dr. Beckett's decor, and I've decided. . .if I were them? I wouldn't want to stay like that either, and I'd do whatever necessary to either ascend. . .or die."

"So. . ." Elizabeth broached slowly, "you're saying you want to help her?"

"I'm saying it's either one thing or the other. They're going about it all wrong, granted, but then again, that's what desperate beings do." He should know.

"And how do you propose to do this?" Sheppard asked. His tone was almost mocking. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.

Radek tighten his lips into a thin line. His eyes hadn't left Rodney's, and he waited until he had the man's attention, and a nod, before speaking. "This being has no where to go. There are two options, and we must decided which to use. One, try and help it to ascend. Two," he spread his hands, "destroy it."

"But we don't know how to help it to ascend," Elizabeth said.

"Then that leaves other option." Radek fixed his gaze on Rodney, who gave a small sigh and gazed at the table.

The sigh caught Sheppard's ear. "You really want to help, don't you?"

Rodney said nothing for a moment. When he raised his head, his expression was earnest, his eyes poignant. "Yes."

And Sheppard wondered if she had affected Rodney in some positive way after all.

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"I've given up asking you to sleep, so instead I'll ask what'cha got." Sheppard carefully situated himself on the high stool at the end of the table, leaning his elbow on it while eying the multitude of books and reading materials surround McKay.

"I feel like Dr. Jackson," Rodney grumbled, flipping the pages noisily. "He was much better at this stuff than I am. But to answer your question, I've got nothing. A whole lot of nothing. Best I can figure you have to either be invited to ascend, or figure out how to do it yourself. Neither option bodes well."

"I don't suppose you can just get this Oma person to do it."

"Something tells me that wouldn't be the first choice. Besides, how do you propose I get in touch with her? Intergalactic 911?"

"How did Dr. Jackson do it?"

Rodney squared a look at him. "Die."

"Not really an option here."

"I'm relieved to hear you say it." Rodney flipped through his book rather aggressively, then slammed his hand down and leaned back, sighing in frustration. "There has to be a way to do this. There has to be a way for her to get whatever information she needs so that she can ascend, so they all can ascend, and there has to be a way to do it without risking my neck."

"Look, you said that writing on the walls in that other Atlantis was ancient, right? Had something to do with ascension?"

"From what I could gather, yes. Not the expert, here."

"But you could read enough of it to get that."

"Some of it, yes. It was like a running dialogue of script, things they had discovered that apparently worked, and it ran along with scripture of a more spiritual nature. Kind of like a road map for the bible, as it were."

"Ascension was their religion."

"It was their spiritual practice. Don't know if I'd call it a religion."

"Either way, there was a lot of information on those walls, that could be used to ascend."

"Apparently it was incomplete."

"And she thinks you have the answer?"

"Again, might I point out that I've had more experience with ascended beings than anyone here. She probably thinks I did it in some way." His eyes widened, and he stood slowly. "Or maybe she thinks I'm a bridge. That I have some hidden knowledge that I'm unaware of, because I don't understand it myself. I could hold the key, and not realize it!"

Sheppard lifted his chin. "Isn't that putting a lot on yourself? Not that it isn't your usual way, but still."

But Rodney was on a roll, talking faster. "If Dr. Jackson were here, he may be able to tell for certain, but whose to say this isn't two opposite parts of a giant puzzle? Maybe she already has one part, and instinctively knows that I hold the other!"

"Through Dr. Jackson's research?"

"Yes! Or from his experience. For all I know it could be imprinted on a part of me, merely through contact with him."

"I don't get that."

"Me either, but it sounds good."

"So what do we do?"

Rodney shook his head. "I don't know. Somehow we have to get this information to her."

"Rodney, I've asked this once before, and I'm going to ask it again. Are you sure letting them ascend is a good idea? You've seen what she really is, what they all are."

"Look, they were desperate. They've been trapped down there like that for thousands of years. They find a way out, don't you think they would do whatever is necessary to take it?"

"They failed the ascension the first time! What makes you think they are worthy now?"

"Oh, come on! Worthy by whom? Which dictionary are you using? For all we know they could have been the ancient equivalent of the poor sent down here. Or the ill. A sector that society would just as soon forget about, therefore they are sent away and experimented upon to provide a better life for the others."

"You really think that?"

"I don't know! What I do know is, the ancients weren't perfect. Just because they built the Stargates, just because they were able to transcend a normal existence, that doesn't make them gods. They were just scientifically advanced. If nothing else, the older Elizabeth's brief encounter with them showed us that."

Sheppard sat in silence. "There is a way, I think," he finally said, "but I don't like it a bit."

"I know," Rodney said quietly. "But I don't see any other way to do this."

"If it doesn't work?"

"Quite frankly, I don't want to think about it. But I can't keep going like this, either. If I'm willingly to help, maybe she'll back down."

"So when, then?"

Rodney nodded. "Before I can change my mind. Right now."