A/N: Thank you for the reviews, Krys, Belisse, Nenya, Saint Jymmy, Madj...and everyone else, you're all great!

Chapter Fifteen - Catch That Rabbit

Screams.

She could still hear them, alone in her room in Atlantis, above the sound of the ocean, the wind outside, distant voices in the corridor. The cries of her people, her family, men and women she had shared her young life with, children she played with.

She knew every name, knew every face. Knew their blood, as her ancestors had known.

And now she cowered in a ditch at the side of a field with the flames of her village lighting the night sky, and heard whispers of the dead calling to her.

There was the memory of fighting, of resisting, of turning to face the figures in white. But it was a dream, a hope, and she should have known not to hold any. She hid in the shadows in fear, a child, alone.

A dart shot overhead, the air pressure forcing her back against the ditch wall, into the mud. Its cry rang out across the valley, a brilliant, shimmering beam sweeping across the earth, claiming lives with pause, without prejudice. The old, and the infirm, the ones who could not run, and the ones who had stayed behind to try and protect them.

Everyone was dead, and she walked with ghosts.

She heard footsteps. Shadows were running towards her, hidden figures towering above her, and she shivered and pressed into the mud in the hope that it would swallow her whole. That it might entomb her, protect her from those ready to take her soul. Her body shuddered uncontrollably, so hard the muscles ached, her teeth clamped together, her eyes closed tight. Her breath caught in her chest and her heart hammered against her ribs as she felt pale hands reach out to her and she wanted to howl –

"Teyla."

She jerked away violently, lashing out blindly with one arm and catching something warm and soft with her fist. Something that yelped, and uttered an unfamiliar word.

"Jesus! Oh, Christ, Teyla…"

"Teyla." Another voice, and warm breath before her. She opened her eyes a crack and saw feet, and legs, and dark skin reaching out to hers. Familiar eyes and a weak, but well meaning smile.

"Aiden." She took his proffered hand but made no attempt to rise, looking to where Sheppard stood, almost doubled over, his face bright red. She frowned, confused, then realized with shame why he moaned. "Major Sheppard –"

One hand waved at her, whilst the other gripped Doctor McKay's shoulder tightly. "I'm fine," came back a mumble, "just, ah, scratch the kids, okay?"

Aiden pulled her to her feet, but continued to hold her hand for a moment longer than was necessary, squeezing gently. He leaned forward on his toes to glance over the top of the ditch, then ducked back. "Wraith."

She found her voice, though it was dry and scratched. "It is the village I spent my childhood in. The day…" And then she paused, unable to voice her fears, and changed tack. "Where did you come from?"

"Hell," McKay muttered. His face was pale in the dim light of the moon, his thoughts clearly far from the ditch in which they hid. One of his hands patted Sheppard's shoulder in a subconscious effort of comfort.

"Home," Aiden said, his voice uneven. "Least I think so. I was back on Earth and…" He paused, looking away to the muddy floor. Teyla pressed her free hand over his, encasing his fingers, feeling him tremble under her touch.

"It was not Earth. Just as this…" She looked up as another dart raged through the night sky, "this is not Athos."

"It felt like it." He took a shaky breath, and she could feel his efforts to reclaim his strength. "There were Jaffa there, and one of them shot me. Everything went white and then I woke up here."

"The same happened to me," McKay offered. "Not the, ah, the Jaffa bit. But I was… somewhere else." His face was pinched tight, struggling not to betray any emotion. "There was a flash of light and then I woke up under the trees over there, next to Lieutenant Ford."

"So you weren't in the car crash." Sheppard had managed to uncurl his body a fraction, though his face was still a lurid red and his voice was tight with pain. He looked at Ford – no, Teyla realized, the Major was drinking in the sight of the younger man, looking over every inch keenly. "You weren't injured."

"Car crash?" Aiden shook his head. "No, sir. And I'm fine. Just… I'd quite like for this to be over, now."

"Yes, well…" McKay cleared his throat uncomfortably, "I'm not sure that's going to happen any time soon."

Sheppard pushed himself away from the scientist's support and leant his hips against the ditch wall, his hands on his knees. "You're always the purveyor of doom and gloom, Rodney."

"Someone has to be."

"Go on," Teyla encouraged him, anxious for something to take her mind off the screams still emanating from her village. Her body twitched, anxious to move, and she had to struggle to maintain control.

"These flashbacks, for want of a better word, they're only lasting a few minutes at a time. I figure we can only have been in the game a period of an hour, maybe less, which means there's still a good long period of playing time until Elizabeth decides to send a rescue party."

Sheppard was already shaking his head. "We are not going through any more of this."

"We clearly have little choice. We can't leave the game of our own will. We can't refuse to play, because the machine can control everything we see and hear. And…" the scientist's hands twitched nervously. "I'm not sure we can wait for a rescue team."

"No argument here, doc," Aiden said, glancing over the side of the ditch to the village. "I don't want to keep doing this."

"And this is such a picnic for me." McKay sighed, heavily. "That's not what I meant, Lieutenant. The power distribution in the outpost was already uneven. Understandable, really, since it's been operating for ten thousand years or more without maintenance. Our arrival disrupted the fine balance the computer created."

"Which we already know," Sheppard said, impatiently. "That's why the stasis chamber failed."

One finger wagged at Sheppard. "Not necessarily. I've been thinking about the AI that controls this place, and I have to figure that it's not contained to the game system." The scientist furrowed his brow, his voice strengthening as he became consumed by his thoughts. "To control both the stasis chambers and the room we found, it must be tied into the outpost's systems as a whole, able to control the power, life support, etc. Given that's almost certainly the case, it seems likely that the reason the chamber before failed isn't because the system overloaded, it's because the computer actively chose to cut power to that area."

"So what?" Ford asked. "You're telling us the computer went nuts?"

McKay rolled his eyes. "Don't be ridiculous. It's a computer, it can only do what it's programmed to do."

"I do not believe the Ancients programmed their machine to do this," Teyla said, pointedly.

The scientist scrunched his face up into a frown. "No." He glanced at Sheppard. "You ever read I Robot?"

Sheppard shrugged. "I heard they were making a movie."

McKay gave another eye roll. "Heathen. If you'd bothered to look up from your football game, you'd know about the three laws of robotics. Asimov used various stories to explore the ways a computer could act in accordance with the laws but that looked like it was contradicting them. He…"

The sound of a cry, twisted beyond any human origin, rang out through the night air and curtailed the physicist's explanation. McKay paled, turning his gaze away from Teyla.

The Major flinched, looking briefly up to the sky before turning back to McKay and uttering an exaggerated grown. "McKay, if there's a point, would you mind getting to it?"

Teyla cut in, desperate to ignore the sounds of the culling, and the twitching of her muscles in fear. "Perhaps you might tell us what these three laws are."

"Fine." He held up one hand and lifted one finger. It trembled slightly in the moonlight. "Firstly, a robot cannot injure a human or allow harm to come to a human, Second," and he ticked off another finger, and swallowed the quaver in his throat, "a robot must obey an order given to it by a human unless it contravenes the first law. Thirdly…"

Sheppard waved a hand. "Does this have a point, McKay?"

"Yes," the scientist retorted. "Look, it's possible the Ancients programmed their own computers with something similar. I always thought it was possible, given the fail safes put on the city."

"And that green doohickey," Ford added.

"And that." McKay glanced about the ditch. "It would make sense that they applied the same rules to an artificial intelligence they created."

"But it does not seem to have worked," Teyla objected. "The computer is not protecting those trapped within it."

One finger rose into the air. "Ah. Very true, but I think I know why that is. This computer was programmed to do things, correct? To sustain the lives of the people within it. The Ancients designed the system to protect them during their sleep, but they didn't expect it to take this long. When power started to fail the computer was faced with two possible outcomes: if it did nothing then chances were that supply to the chambers would fail at an unpredictable rate, leading to multiple deaths. The alternative was to shut down some areas and channel the power to others."

"So it chooses to sacrifice one life to protect the others," Sheppard finished, his expression grim.

"One life, or eighty." McKay gave a thin, humorless smile. "The eastern wing should have held as many stasis chambers as the one we saw, but power had gone completely in that area. Somehow I don't think that was a mistake."

Aiden's voice was dry and nervous. "So what effect are we causing to the system?"

"Probably a big one. My scans showed that this room used a lot more power than just one of those chambers."

"So why does it not simply switch off?" Teyla asked.

The scientist hesitated, a rare look of doubt appearing on his face. "I'm not sure, It still might although if hasn't already…" He spread his fingers expressively. "I don't know. I have an idea but my biggest concern is where it's going to draw power from to keep the game going."

"Other chambers," Aiden suggested.

"Possibly." McKay grimaced. "Or the Stargate itself."

"Meaning that even if we get out of this game, we can't dial Atlantis." Sheppard rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. "And neither can any team sent to rescue us."

"Precisely." McKay shrugged. "Of course, it's only a theory. I have others."

"Such as?"

"Well…" He cleared his throat. "The increasing fluctuations in the system could cause a spike big enough to drain all the stasis chambers of power and, ah, fry everybody here." He winced. "Not that we'd be aware of it, of course, because we'd still be trapped in the game, but our bodies would be little more than KFC."

Teyla didn't know the reference, but she understood the sick expression on Aiden's face. "The computer has fail safes…"

"It's ten thousand years old. It's unpredictable." The scientist frowned deeply, tilting his head to one side. "Of course, if I'm right then…"

A shrill scream suddenly rent the air to their left. Teyla was jolted back into the memory, hearing the sounds of people running, shouting to each other, crying. Turning away from her teammates she leant up and over the ditch, peering across the muddy field.

The village was entirely aflame now, bright yellow and orange illuminating the sky. She could still see shadows moving within, twisted and ruined figures destroyed by fire, or by Wraith. Several darts hovered overhead, black outlines against the sky, and a solitary beam picked off the survivors one by one.

But this was not how it had happened. Not such destruction. The Wraith had come, but not in such numbers, and had not taken so many. The village, its buildings and structure, had remained despite the loss of life. They had survived.

"Teyla…"

She flinched, turning her head to see Sheppard, lying in the dirt beside her. McKay and Aiden still hid in the ditch, the young lieutenant taking up the rear and looking out into the fields behind them, the scientist stood pressed into the far corner, now silent.

"Teyla," Sheppard repeated, softly.

She looked away, back to the remains of her home, towards the uneven road that curved away from the village. A crowd of several dozen people made its way along the trail, the leaders running, the back supporting a few stumbling stragglers.

"This is a lie," she said, softly, more for herself than to convince Sheppard. "The Wraith did not destroy my people."

"I know," he whispered, watching the pitifully small group draw closer.

"And yet…" She dug her fingers into the dirt, hoping to find solace in the earth. "This is too real." Straining to see through the dim light, Teyla could make out faces, memories resurrected and now running along the path towards them. Halling led the way, his youth granting him agility. At the back Brelan and Karet, identifiable by the distinctive red in their hair, aided the weakest. They were brothers, separated by barely a year, and inseparable even in their deaths.

And in the middle, her arm looped around the waist of an elderly woman with long, white hair…

"What is it?" Sheppard placed his hand on her arm. "Teyla?"

"My mother." She shook her head, hoping that when she lifted her gaze the memory would have ended.

It hadn't. The group was moving closer, back lit by the flames consuming the village. Twisting, Teyla could follow the line of the path towards the outline of the hill beyond, and she knew that behind that lay the Stargate. To the left lay the caves, the only sanctuary to her people, the only thing that had saved them in the past.

So why were they heading to the 'gate?

She looked back towards the group, torn by her desire to help her people, and the voice of reason in her head which repeated, this isn't real, this isn't real.

Her body decided for her. Breaking free of Sheppard's hold, Teyla pushed herself out of the ditch and started to run across the field, ignoring her team mate's alarm. The surviving villagers seemed oblivious, both to her fast approach and the shimmer of white which moved in the forest behind them.

Wraith, Teyla realized, feeling sick. She drew extra power to her legs to try and gain speed, but the muddy field blocked her attempts, and as she struggled to free each footstep the earth made a loud, sucking sound as it tried to claim them.

"Teyla!"

Sheppard appeared to her left, Ford and McKay close behind. All three men were armed, Ford carrying his P90 in his hands.

"Wait."

She shook her head. "They are going the wrong way. The Wraith will have dialed the Stargate, making it impossible to escape. The caves have always been our hiding place - I do not understand why they do not go there."

"Because this isn't real," Sheppard repeated, insistently.

"No." She glanced back towards the group. "And yet I cannot leave them."

"Teyla…"

"Please, Major." Teyla could see her mother stumble, drawn down by the weight of the woman she supported. "I have to do this."

He took a deep breath, then released it as a sigh. "Alright. But we're backing you up."

Her shoulders sagged slightly, and she nodded. "There are Wraith in the trees, following them."

"I see them," Ford offered, looking towards the forest through a pair of binoculars. "At least four."

"Four?" McKay squeaked.

"We're just protecting the group," Sheppard cut in, sharply. "We may not have to take them on."

McKay's expression clearly communicated his disbelief. "And do you have any clue as to what happens if we die in here? Because I don't."

Ford lifted his hand and gave a weak wave. "Shot by a staff weapon."

The scientist gave a grudging nod. "Still…"

Fear and anger welled inside Teyla, forcing her to snap: "If you do not wish to help me, Dr McKay, then stay behind." Then she pulled up her feet from the mud and broke out into a run, fighting against the mud to reach her people.

She was aware of Sheppard, of Aiden and McKay following a second later, but their presence was unimportant in the plight of her people. Only one dart remained over the village; the other two circled the outskirts, picking off the survivors. They had not yet spotted the handful escaping towards the Stargate, but Teyla knew it was only a matter of minutes.

Halling spotted her first, his quick gesture towards the small group bringing them to a shambling stop. "Where did you come from?"

She glanced towards the flames, then at the forest to their left. "I was hiding until I saw you. I bring friends."

Halling gave Sheppard, Ford and McKay a cursory glance, then turned towards the crowd and called out: "Teyla is returned to us."

"Teyla." Her mother moved through the small group, leaving the elderly lady to the care of a teenage boy. She grasped her daughter by both arms, pulling her close, dipping her forehead forward.

Teyla allowed the touch to linger longer than was necessary, drinking in the soft, herbal smell of the soap her mother used to wash her hair, the warmth of her mother's fingers against her skin, the sound of her breath, the feel of it brushing against Teyla's cheek.

"I thought that you were lost."

She swallowed tears and broke away, the effort physically painful. "As did I, you. You head towards the Stargate?"

Halling nodded, running one hand over his head to brush long, dark blonde hair out of his face. "We must abandon Athos. The Wraith have destroyed everything."

She shook her head quickly. "The way will be blocked, they will have dialed in to prevent our escape."

"You do not know that," he shot back. "Others have gone ahead of us to safety."

"Then they are likely dead too."

"You should listen to her," Sheppard broke in, warningly. "It's the truth."

Teyla's mother looked across from her daughter towards the strangers. "You have seen this?"

"Yes," the Major lied, convincingly. "We've come from there."

"Then where do we go?" Halling demanded. "Should we simply hand ourselves over willingly, like cattle?"

Teyla had forgotten this earlier incarnation of her friend. The younger Halling had been obnoxious and arrogant, believing he deserved the place of future Athosian leader, and not the younger Teyla. Time spent with his wife had softened him, the birth of Jinto shaping him into the strong, centered man Teyla knew and trusted.

"You must go to the caves," she explained, "to hide there and wait for this to be over."

"That way leads back to the village," the man insisted. "It is madness, Teyla. They will find us."

"Perhaps," she admitted. "But that way there is hope. If we remain out in the open the darts will find us."

"Major," Aiden interrupted, sharply. In one hand he held the binoculars, and the other he used to point towards the forest. "We have to move."

Teyla allowed herself to feel the whisper of Wraith voices, glancing towards their origin. Shadows moved through the trees, the shimmer of visions and lies.

"We head to the caves," her mother declared, strongly.

Halling shook his head. "You are not the leader of our people."

"No," the older woman snapped back, "but my husband was, and my daughter will be. You will listen to her."

The man hesitated, briefly, glancing between Teyla and the group of people cowering behind him. "As you wish," he acquiesced, eventually, stepping aside to allow Teyla to assume his position at the head of the group.

"Great." Sheppard hefted the weapon in his arms deliberately. "Then let's go."

Teyla moved with certainty towards the village. She could smell ash and smoke, and beneath that the putrid scent of flesh. Hot air filled her lungs and burnt her throat, growing in power as they approached. Movement was slow, and she was quiet, keeping close to her mother. Sheppard moved easily beside her, looking towards the hills, while Halling had fallen to the rear, keeping look-out with Aiden.

The group was small, no more than twenty people. Five, broad shouldered men protected either side, casting glances up into the forest. Several supported weaker members, the elderly, the injured. Several women held the hands of frightened, weeping children, and one cradled a baby to her chest, half buried beneath swathes of cloth.

None carried any belongings save for the clothes on their backs.

"What happened?" Teyla asked, softly, looking towards her mother. "Why are there so few of you?"

"We stayed behind, to save those who could not move alone. The strongest went ahead," her mother explained. Her expression darkened. "I do not know whether they made it through the Stargate."

"They may be at the caves already," Sheppard suggested.

Teyla's glance was shared by her mother. "Perhaps," she allowed, despite her doubt.

He raised an eyebrow pointedly, an unspoken reminder: this isn't real. She looked away, and towards her mother, her hand seeking the older woman's wrist in the dark.

Her mother turned deep eyes towards her daughter. "Teyla?"

"I do not wish to lose you," she whispered, feeling her mother's pulse beat quickly beneath her fingertips.

This was not real, but she was finding it harder and harder to believe that.

"Major!"

Aiden had his gun aimed towards the trees, where silver shadows moved quickly towards the group, dropping down the slope at speed. Alarmed, Teyla picked up the pace, aware of the struggles of the people behind her.

"Quickly," she called out. "The caves are not far."

They were approaching the outskirts of the village, smoke hanging thick and heavy in the air. Hearing gunfire, Teyla glanced behind her and saw Aiden and McKay firing at two Wraith which had appeared behind them. One fell and did not move again, but the second was joined by a third, firing a stunner bolt that clipped the shoulder of Brelan. He fell with a cry, and was immediately hauled over the shoulder of his brother.

Turning forward, she was aware of the air shifting, glimmering with light and shadow. Fighting the instinct to flee she pushed through the illusion, warning the others: "Ignore all you see. The Wraith will try to trick you into leaving the path."

She heard a sob, and the explosion of a stunner bolt hitting the earth.

"Listen to my daughter," her mother urged, loudly. "Our aim is to reach the caves. Concentrate on that."

Teyla led the group around the village outskirts, hoping the smoke and flames would hide the group from the overhead darts. She was aware of the minds of the Wraith, growing louder and denser, and beneath them the cries of injured, dying Athosians trapped in the burning buildings.

"We should help them," Halling insisted, moving to her side.

She shook her head, her tongue thick and throat clogged. "If we try then we will all be killed."

There was more gunfire from behind the group, and another Wraith fell. The two remaining soldiers chased after the group, and she heard McKay scream as weapons fire threatened to clip him. Another body fell to her left, the white haired woman Teyla's mother had been supporting. She heard weakened bones crunch against the impact and flinched. In less than a second Halling had scooped the woman up and over his shoulder, but Teyla was suddenly aware that, given her age and injuries, there was little point.

Without medical care the woman would likely die, even if they reached the caves.

But she would not be alone, and in the caves, Teyla had promised there would be hope.

"Last one down!" Ford exclaimed triumphantly, and she took this as confirmation of her belief, feeling the whole group stand a little straighter as the last Wraith fell.

There was a scream from her right, and Teyla whipped her head around to see a figure emerge from a burning tent. No longer male or female, it was a barely human shape of black skin and flame, arms flailing, legs driving it across the ground, sparks and ash clouding it in a strange, eerie halo. It lurched towards the group, and Teyla was aware of sobs, of disbelieving cries, of men and women cowering in fear.

The figure stopped and stood, swaying, its disfigured face turning to face Teyla, its mouth opening, dripping with blood and melted flesh and flame, releasing a long, strangled howl.

A single bullet from Sheppard's gun curtailed the cry abruptly. The figure crumpled to the earth, no longer anything but fuel for an all consuming fire. Teyla swallowed against bile and glanced at the Major, seeing his grim expression and black eyes.

"Which way?" he demanded, his voice flat.

She struggled to find her voice, turning away from what once had been a person. "To the north, less than a kilometer from here."

He nodded sharply and picked his pace up, forcing the group onwards. The brief morale boost provided by the dead Wraith had evaporated as quickly as it had come and now the survivors moved silently, save for weeping and the cries of the baby.

The air shrieked above them, and looking upwards Teyla saw a Wraith dart shoot across the sky, a transporter beam sweeping across the village. Ducking to her right she led the group away, concentrating on the hills that loomed before her.

It had provided sanctuary to her people throughout their history, allowing Athos to survive despite the loss of some of its people. Teyla could remember hiding in the caves as a child, staring blindly into the darkness, hearing the same rattle of Wraith darts in the sky above, her hand clutched in her mothers in the same way as it was now.

"Dammit!" Sheppard swore sharply, turning his gun upwards and firing off a round into the night. A dart flashed through the sky, a mere silhouette of black against the stars, blurred by smoke and flame. "We've been spotted!"

"Into the forest!" Teyla urged, sharpening her right turn and taking her people up a slope. The journey would be longer, she realized, and harder on those weaker members of the party, but the Wraith would find it harder to pick them off through the trees.

It seemed this had been expected. She was aware of their minds before she saw them, a sudden swelling of voices in her head, an alien coldness that remained indefinable, coiling itself around her spine.

The first, a tall, skinny figure with lank hair, grabbed a teenager who was stumbling towards the back. The boy screamed as he died, his hands scrabbling at his chest even as the skin shriveled and shrank back over his bones. Teyla ploughed onwards, though his loss tore at her, releasing her hold on her mother's hand to raise her own weapon.

She turned it on a second Wraith who appeared from over a hill. Its body fell down the slope and rolled out of sight, its arms and legs continuing to twitch despite six bullets in its torso.

Two more appeared to her left. A stunner took down another survivor, and an older man with a peppery beard fell at the Wraith's feet. Forcing herself to continue, Teyla fired several more shots at the alien, but was unable to prevent its comrade from leaning down over the body of the man and planting its hand firmly against his chest.

"Teyla!"

Turning, Teyla saw a beam appear through the trees, speeding towards the centre of the group. Karet disappeared, his brother Brelan still slung over his shoulder. A second later and two more Athosians had joined them, the group growing smaller and more hysterical. Desperate, Teyla sought out her mother, catching a glimpse of familiar eyes and dark hair, forgetting the reminder of Sheppard, forgetting the alarmed cry of Halling as another two Wraith appeared on the path before them.

"Teyla!"

Her mother was helping a younger girl to her feet, pulling her upwards and dragging her back onto the path. Teyla saw the Wraith beam change direction, heard the shift of wind and subtle tonal difference in the voices of the aliens inside her mind.

The warning was not enough. Teyla reached out with one hand, but the distance was too great, and before she could do anything her mother and the younger girl were caught in the wave of brilliant silver.

She caught a glimpse of her mother's face, strong and defiant despite her fear, lit by the eerie light of the beam. And then she was gone.

"Teyla!"

Sheppard's repeated warning came too late. Turning, Teyla was aware of cold breath and a hand on her shoulder, and then a sudden weight pressing against her chest. She staggered backwards, a sharp, painful chill spreading quickly across her ribcage, her breath frozen within her lungs. The Wraith smiled, teeth glittering, its hair framing its face as it bent over her, its fingers spread flat across her skin.

Distantly, she was aware of someone calling her, and of gunfire. Then the pressure in her chest was gone, the Wraith dropping away. She fell, her body numb and unaware of the jolt when she hit the ground.

"Teyla!" Doctor McKay's panicked face appeared above her, his breath coming in short gasps, his skin an ill-looking white in the moonlight. She could not feel his hands on her, but she was aware of her vision shifting, of her body being lifted and supported by something behind her.

"It's okay, it's okay." He repeated the mantra several times, and she could see his hands frantically rubbing hers, as though somehow this would ease the pain crushing her throat and ribs. "This isn't real. It's a game, remember?"

She tried to speak, tried to tell him he couldn't remember, but her mouth seemed unwilling to move and her vision was darkening. She could no longer hear McKay, but through the gloom she saw him speak to her, saw him mouth a desperate plea: not like this, god, not like this.

And then she couldn't see him at all.