AN: Thanks for the reviews, it really does keep me going. This story is one of those 'not so easy' to write stories, and since Not the Daddy is one of those fics that just flows from nowhere, progress on this fic has been slow. I've never left a story unfinished so no panicking allowed, and normally I don't let more than week go between updates so I'm very sorry for the big gap, between my husband's birthday and 'The Big Event' in Not the Daddy, I got off schedule more than normal. Someone pegged what this fic is all about. It's about pyschological duress from many things. Different environment, different aliens, different agendas - and though it seems impossible, the boys will get out! Thanks again to my beta gaffer! Any mistakes are mine, as I tend to tweak even after sending it off to her.

Chapter Five

Sheppard was dreaming. He was on a sailboat, one of those small wooden skiffs that rode low to the water's surface, and he was riding the ocean waves, listening to the gulls squawk in the surf. The sun had painted a reddish orange canvas across the sky, and as he drifted with his feet hanging over the side, brushing against the water, he thought he could stay here forever.

He wasn't sure where else he had to be, but this was as good as it gets.

Yet – something was missing.

And then his boat started to rock, from side to side, and he pulled his feet in, and tried to struggle up, to latch on to the boom.

John's eyes snapped open. A dream. It'd just been a dream.

"Sheppard?" McKay leaned over John's face, and frowned. "Please tell me you're awake."

He groaned, and rolled away from Rodney. "I wish I wasn't." The dream had been preferable. "Tell me you're better," he added.

"If you're awake, I'm better," McKay replied.

Sheppard heard him move away, and as John got unsteadily to his feet, and groggily looked around, he watched as McKay headed to the fridge and pull out what looked suspiciously like an iced coffee. What, the aliens had figured out Starbucks? This was nuts –

"If that's a café mocha, I want one." You know that saying, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em – he wasn't going to join any alien protectorate, but nothing said he couldn't enjoy the coffee. God knows, at least it'd help shake off the grogginess.

Rodney opened the door, pulled another out, and tossed it to him. "Remarkably tasty," he said, pulling the tab on his own. "I had five waiting for you to come back."

Sheppard's eyes widened. Five? "About that, what happened to you?"

"Long detailed panicked story, or short, succinct and without the 'oh my god, I'm going to die' part?" McKay asked, taking a long gulp, as if it were courage in a bottle.

"Minus the hysterics would be good," John said. He drifted close to McKay, and noticed another new addition. Chairs and a table. All that was missing was a gaudy disco ball and fancy media system, and the bachelor pad would be complete. If you were into that kind of thing. Sheppard preferred understated and simple. "Because we've got problems."

Rodney polished off the coffee, and tossed the trash in the can provided – that was new also.

"I woke up in what I can only assume was this therapy gel they refer to, panicked for the remainder of my being awake, thought I'd had a stroke, woke up here, you were gone, aliens tried to assure me you were fine, just refusing to play nicely, and when I told them you tended to do that when people didn't use their manners, they got in a huff and I didn't hear anything until you came rising up out of the floor in a big tube. The tube opened, and the aliens said something about 'catch', and you started to topple out. That's it."

"Catch?" repeated Sheppard. "Did you?"

"What?" asked McKay, pulling his head back from the fridge where he'd gone to poke for more food, apparently. Some people got queasy when they were nervous, Rodney got hungry.

"Catch me?" elaborated Sheppard. "Did you catch me?"

McKay waved a dismissing hand his way. "Of course I did, if I hadn't, you would've had a broken nose. Think, Colonel. I know you still can."

"You didn't tell them anything?'

Pulling out a yogurt, he looked at Sheppard in disbelief. "Of course not, why do you always think I'm a step behind you? If anyone slipped, it was you, because you seemed to keep forgetting about the telepathy issue."

"They weren't exactly trying to play nice with me, Rodney," he said softly. "I think I got the telepathy thing. And besides, remember the Genii – you tend to ramble in tense situations."

McKay and Sheppard had this thing going on. It was like the anti-friendship, but it was really a depth of real affection, and the sudden seriousness in John's words had a chilling affect on McKay.

"What'd they do?" Rodney propped in a chair and threw his feet on the table. His attitude said relaxed, but the underlying tone said he was very worried. He popped the lid on the yogurt, took a tentative sniff, and recoiled, before throwing it in the trash can with the other refuse.

Sheppard noticed he didn't comment on the Genii thing. Rodney had practically given them the key to building atomic bombs while they were being held at gunpoint.

"Training," explained Sheppard. "I woke up in a room alone, and they did their best impression of a cold day in hell…" he tried to tone down his anxiety before continuing, "anyway, it was all a little too convenient that I was suddenly isolated from all the little treats they'd given us here, and the conversations we had – well, let's just say they tried to do a psychology experiment on me." He didn't go into descriptions over the exact conversations. "Ultimately, they gathered I was a stubborn case, and told me if I sat when asked, and was a good boy, I'd get to come back and talk to you. They told me you were worried."

"I was worried," admitted Rodney. He looked it, too. "But I didn't know they were doing that. I can't figure these aliens out. One moment they're caring, the next, they're knocking us out and dragging us all through the ship, and now this – but it does sound like conditioned response training. Just at a higher level. You're put in a room and rewarded for good behavior by getting to go back where you want to go. Soon, you do what they want just to get out of there, and back here."

Sheppard shuddered, because that was exactly how the conversation had gone with the Protectors. "At least they didn't put any choke collars on us," he muttered, rubbing a hand around his throat at the thought.

"We're in trouble," stated Rodney.

They were definitely in trouble, and Sheppard didn't know how they were going to find a way out of this one. The only thing that made it better, was that the rest of his team was safe.

The aliens didn't want to kill them, he'd accepted that much, but induced submission – it wasn't exactly the life he had in mind. And seeing how he doubted McKay was going to go along with it either, he had to wonder what these aliens had in mind when they refused to give.

Training will progress. Stubborness is dealt with, in time.

"We might be more cooperative if you guaranteed us some privacy," Sheppard shouted.

"As if yelling makes them snoop in your mind less?" McKay said sarcastically.

"Well it makes me feel better!"

Would you like some exercise, we have prepared a room for this purpose.

Now Rodney really groaned. "Health-conscious captors, there's a first. No, I don't want to exercise. Running is bad for your health. Ruins the knees, the hips, all the major joints you need in your old age."

Ordinarily, this wasn't something Sheppard would agree with, but the last thing he wanted to do was accept anything else from these Protectors.

"Forget it, we're fine."

Really...turning down activities you would enjoy, merely because we are providing it, is as you say, juvenile.

How these voices were able to insert emotional currents still surprised John. The aliens were clearly amused at their pithy attempts to resist, but also parentally stern. He almost figured they'd send them to this so-called exercise room just because.

"Seeing how you read minds, you know we won't go along with your scheme of 'protect the little humans'," McKay said. "And for posterity, I don't enjoy exercise. If you want to entice me, you've got to do better than that. Really, we're more trouble than we're worth, so you might as well rid yourselves now of a lot of trouble."

No sooner than Rodney finished, then he backpedaled. "Did I say rid – I meant rid in the sense of 'let us go', not rid, as in 'kill and dump out the nearest airlock', just so we're clear on that."

Sheppard sighed. "Good clarification there, McKay."

We agree that you two present a challenge, but we find the idea…stimulating. We've prepared a training plan to create acceptance. The training will begin momentarily.

"You're wasting your time," reiterated Sheppard. "I've been trying to train McKay for over a year, and have gotten nowhere."

Sheppard caught McKay's glance, and smiled pleasantly. Rodney bobbed his head to the side, feigning amusement.

But both men's attention was soon pulled to the center of the room. The vacuum-like being that they'd seen earlier, the large one, shimmered into the air, and coalesced.

This is Trainer One. Its primary duty is to work directly with you both, to help gain acceptance and cooperation. The faster you achieve these states, the easier it will be for both.

Why did John not like the sound of that. Looking over at Rodney, he noticed McKay was feeling the same.

"Wasting your time!" he tried again, with a small amount of desperation.

We have, as you say, all the time in the world.

Trainer One moved towards them, and stopped a couple feet away. "Please move to the far right wall," it ordered.

The voice was mechanical, precise. And Sheppard looked over at McKay and nodded for him to do it. He didn't doubt that Trainer One had some tools up its…chassis.

They shuffled against the wall, and waited. T-1 produced a chocolate candy and ejected it at them. Then another.

McKay's mouth dropped open. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me. Remember, not mice!"

Sheppard almost laughed. Almost. He reached for it, but Rodney slapped his hand.

"What's that for?" he yelped. "Chocolate is good. If they want to reward us for moving across a room, hey, it's a small thing."

"Drugs, Sheppard, or have you completely forgotten your Rambo-training?"

"They're not gonna drug us. They've done it more than a few times, and it wasn't by having us eat a piece of chocolate!"

Of course, he'd never admit it, but McKay was probably right. But, then again, all of the food could be drugged and they didn't really have a say in not eating. Eventually they'd have to eat or drink – and they had been.

"Congratulations on following directions, unit Sheppard and unit McKay. Now, run to the end of the room, please."

T-1 had moved out of the way, and waited patiently.

"We're not really going to do this," hissed McKay.

Sheppard didn't know. He was kind of playing this thing from the hip. It wasn't like this had ever come up in the training manuals. 'And by the way, if you ever find yourself captured by aliens intent in training you to be docile little humans, make sure that you disobey and disrupt at every possible opportunity' or 'make sure you go along and give them a misplaced sense of security'.

He leaned towards Rodney. "I don't know, Rodney. What do you suggest?"

McKay scowled, but then he sat down. He folded his legs, and sat Indian style, and stared defiantly at the robot. "No," he said.

"I said 'what do you suggest' not 'do it'!" disgruntled, Sheppard looked at the robot. The body was round, cylindrical – tall, and on top was a small hub. The arms were hoses and though he'd thought the vacuum analogy good, it was more along the lines of a 'Danger, Will Robinson – Danger' robot. Something out of a cheesy science fiction show.

The hub was opaque, and at McKay's decision to sit, the hub sparked a few red lights inside, like a computer interpreting data.

"I'm not anybody's pet," hissed Rodney. "Not even misguided aliens intent on reenacting Pavlov's experiment in space."

Sheppard had always known McKay had a defiant spirit, and isn't it a bitch when things don't work out like we planned, because McKay was suddenly gaping at the robot, and when Sheppard looked away from Rodney, he knew why. It was gliding towards them, right hose out like a lance in a jousting contest. The chilling mechanical words told John that McKay had every right to gape.

"Disobedience is not tolerated, unit McKay and unit Sheppard."

"What'd I do?" Sheppard spoke before thinking. It wasn't that he meant to draw a line in the sand between him and McKay, and step to the side showing who was clearly the instigator, but since he hadn't been on the same page with Rodney's little Boston Tea Party, he was a little miffed about it.

"Unit Sheppard failed to run, as did unit McKay. Disobedience is not tolerated."

T-1 was now an arm's length away, and out of the right arm hose that was pointing at them, a small device emerged. It kind of resembled one of those mini guns that people got for a gag gift, you know, the ones that were only cigar lighters, but somehow Sheppard didn't think this was a gag lighter.

John didn't hesitate; he shoved McKay to the side and ordered, "Go!" He split the other direction, and knew Rodney was scrambling to his feet and going the other way.

So, it surprised him, when he felt an electric current course through his body, and bring him to his knees. It was enough to be painful, but the effect wore off quickly. The weapon must have wide dispersal. John stayed down on his knees, but straightened his torso to look for Rodney and find out where T-1 was.

McKay was on the ground, but didn't look any worse than Sheppard felt. He did mumble to himself, "Brilliant idea, make the nice robot mad so he can SHOCK you." Rodney rolled towards John. "Remind me when we get back to dismantle the robot I was working on."

Sheppard raised an eyebrow and asked, "You were working on a robot?"

"A prototype only, to go through the gate instead of a MALP," McKay explained, still staying flat on his back. "More maneuverability and options."

T-1 lumbered between the two and the hose arm was lowered, the shock gun back where it had been before. "Units will comply with orders. Please return to the far wall."

There comes a time when you have to decide whether to stand, or to run. Sheppard's eyes met McKay's, and he realized that McKay had been right. This was the time to stand. If they ran now, later resistance down the road would only seem like a bump in their training to the aliens. If they stood in the beginning, then there was a chance the Protectors would realize they weren't going to go along with the program.

Slowly, Sheppard shook his head. Out loud he said, "We're not going to cooperate. There's a conundrum for you to figure out. You want to protect, but you hurt us. Being here on this ship has caused us harm. If we don't do as you say, will you keep shocking us, causing more harm? You'll be failing to protect by your own actions!"

Do you not have to cause discomfort when training a child in the ways of right and wrong?

"We don't electrocute our children!" snapped Rodney.

The shock is mild, as you both are aware. Over time, it is a useful training tool. Your indignation comes from resistance, and that is our goal, to reduce resistance. A child believes in their decisions until shown different. Your race is a child, and Rodney McKay's actions - we see a careless child breaking things which he has no right to have touched. Like your children, we will train and guide, and protect, until such time arrives where you may be set free.

"We won't cooperate," Sheppard vowed. He dropped to his butt, and sat.

McKay copied the motion.

T-1 stopped, and John saw the red lights flashing in the hub. The robot sat that way, communicating with the unseen aliens for what felt like minutes, and Sheppard wished something would happen. When it finally did, he didn't know whether to be relieved or worried. The robot whirred to life, and moved to the middle of the room, where it shimmered into non-existence, though John knew it'd merely been recalled to wherever it went when it wasn't here.

We will contemplate your training.

It was the only communication, and yet, it chilled Sheppard to the bone, and when he looked again at McKay, he knew Rodney was feeling the same.

He got up, and headed towards Rodney. "Don't suppose they'd give up yet," he murmured.

"Not likely, I get the impression they wouldn't be the permissive type."

Sheppard chuckled harshly. "Our luck, to get picked up by the universe's strictest parents."

"They're fanatics, Sheppard." Rodney dusted his pants and headed for the sink. "Seriously, you can't reason with thinking like this – I don't know what grand escape you've got planned, but we can't let them find out how to get anywhere near Atlantis, or Earth."

"So, think pink bunny slippers?"

McKay paused in picking up a washcloth. "I was thinking more along the lines of sexy blondes, but whatever works for you." He wiped his face and looked at John puzzled. "You really have pink bunny slippers?"

"No, I don't have pink bunny slippers," exasperated, Sheppard headed to the fridge. Nervous eating might be worth giving a try. "It was an expression, Rodney – to think anything but what we don't want to think. Just like I know you don't have any sexy blondes tucked away somewhere."

"I might," McKay said defensively. He dropped the rag on the edge of the sink, and leaned in over Sheppard's shoulder, pointing at the yogurt, "Give me one of those, would you?"

Sheppard glared over his shoulder, but pulled the item out and tossed it to McKay, before grabbing one for himself, and moving to one of the beds to sit. "Do you think we should be worried about what's next?"

Rodney shrugged, pulling the spoon from his mouth and swallowing. "Worry? I think that's an understatement." He swirled his yogurt a few times before setting it aside. "So, really, what's the grand escape plan?"

John frowned at the berry fruit in the cup. He poked it with his spoon, and wondered why McKay had stopped eating his. That was the second one he'd wasted. Of course, their fixation on the yogurt was to take their mind off the fact that he didn't have a grand escape plan.

"The grand escape plan is not looking so good," he admitted. "Why aren't you eating?"

"It's blueberry. I hate blueberry." McKay looked at the ceiling and said loudly. "You need to learn about labels, and for the record, I'm allergic to citrus!"

Sheppard muffled a laugh, and then noticed that his head felt a little fuzzy when he moved. He stopped and remained motionless, and still felt funny. "Rodney?" His voice came out shaky and uncertain.

McKay was looking at him, concerned, and Sheppard saw him standing and moving towards him, but John was already slumping down. He was so dizzy –

He fought to keep his eyes open. McKay took another step, and faltered. John tried to grab for him, but missed, and Rodney fell just out of his reach. He knew his eyes were rolling back in his head and mumbled, "I feel awful."

Just as he lost consciousness, he heard the aliens whisper, We've made our decision. Training separately will begin. Rewards will be to spend time with one another. Say goodbye.

John tried to swallow back the bile from the vertigo, and couldn't force words between his gritted teeth, but as he fell into the blackness, he heard Rodney grunt, "Sheppard -"

TBC