AN: So, the cliffie hate was pretty strong, but I coped with it. :) Niichan626, nah, it didn't scare me...to much! (joking aside, I loved it, seriously) You all overwhelmed me, seriously, so many comments and I loved each and every one of them! I know the updates have been straggling on this one and all I can do is say "I'm terribly terribly sorry, it was a complete BLEEP to write". So, (and I'm practically shoving this chapter away with a ten-foot pole), here the thing is, and I'm so glad I've almost got it done. Some stories practically write themselves...some you have to finish kicking and screaming the whole way. And, the epilogue will actually have some serious meat too it, so don't skip it!

Chapter Nine

Eight…

Seven…

John stared mutely at Bates, half expecting him to suddenly warp and disappear.

Six…

Five…

"Rodney." John really didn't want to blow up.

"Just wait, either this will end, or this will…end."

Four…

Three…

"Self destruct aborted," the soft mechanical voice of the city announced.

John watched as Bates twitched ever so slightly, but the gun didn't. He looked sideways at Rodney. "We're so screwed."

Rodney was looking uncomfortably at Bates, and was nodding slightly, agreeing with Sheppard. "It doesn't look good, does it?"

"Ma'am, what are your orders?" Bates kept his eyes and gun trained steadily on them.

Whatever she said, John didn't know, because he didn't have his radio on. It didn't take a rocket scientist to guess what it was, though. Of course, it just so happened, he had a rocket scientist.

"They're gonna lock us up, and throw away the key," moaned McKay. He seemed to kind of realize the higher gravity of the situation because he turned a panicked stare on John and said, "We almost blew up the city. I can't believe we almost blew up the city!"

Oh, yeah. That would look good on the monthly evaluations report. 'Shows initiative, attempted to destroy workplace to disprove theory that it was all make believe'. Just give them the padded rooms now, because there probably wasn't anyway they were going to explain this sufficiently to escape the wrath of Weir.

"Follow me, Colonel, Doctor," ordered Bates. The sergeant strode out the door and John's momentary thought of making a run for it went out the window when one of the other members of the security team seemed to take a lot of pleasure out of stroking his stunner.

When this was over with, he was going to find out who that solider was, and send him packing. Seriously. Too much pleasure in his CO's mental 'screwed with by aliens, hence unexpected actions and bad bad ramifications' moment.

"I asked if you were gonna blow us up," hissed Sheppard.

"I didn't think it was real!"

"Colonel, Doctor McKay, step in please," Bates asked.

They'd arrived at the brig. The marine was keeping his tone professional, but Sheppard could see by the gleam in his eye that Bates was just waiting for the opportunity to stun his ass, again, can we say reassignment?

The tension over the past year between them hadn't been alleviated any by Bates' recovery from the Wraith beating, and subsequent changes in personnel.

Once they were in, Bates activated the force field. Sheppard slunk to a corner, and sat down, wishing the entire last month was a bad dream. Hell, he didn't even know for sure how long they'd be captured for. Beckett had said they'd been catatonic for two weeks, but as both of them had been sure this was all a falsity, they'd not pressed for more information.

"Having flashes of another virtual reality, Colonel?" Rodney asked, dropping beside him.

It hadn't been that long ago they'd been in a similar position, but that time it had been a virtual reality. Too bad he couldn't close his eyes and think his way out of this.

"If only it was that easy," he admitted to McKay.

Rodney was watching the doors that led into the brig with no small amount of anxiety. "Do we have any lawyers on the team?"

With an internal shudder, John said, "I don't think we're going to need to worry about lawyers…maybe proctologists -"

"Tha- eww," McKay stumbled. He tried again. "Wrong. Very very wrong. You know, if we hadn't been working together for the past year and a half, I'd really worry about your mental health."

"Mental health? Rodney, I just tried to blow up the city with you to prove how much I trusted you," he barked, incredulous. "You know, most people, when they want show how much they trust you, they give you the keys to their car, or a pet to baby-sit, or the house for the weekend – they don't try to blow up something!"

"For the record, the intent was not to blow up, but to prove the reality of this…reality."

John hung his head. "I've got a headache."

There wasn't much to add to that, and silence fell like a sulking blanket over the cell's occupants. It was a while before Elizabeth blazed in, and Sheppard kind of thought she should've been calmed down at that point, but she still looked fairly angry – in fact, she was practically vibrating with it.

She toed up to the force field. "I've just spent the last hour trying to explain to the SGC why my two top members of this expedition tried to self-destruct Earth's greatest find," she grated, and her voice was too calm, and too precise, for the anger reflected in her face.

She started to pace around them, making it seem like they were the ones watching the wild animal pace in their cage. It was unnerving. The feet stopped, and she asked one question. "Why?"

Rodney looked sideways at John, and Sheppard shrugged. Didn't really matter who tried to explain, either way, they were pretty much damned for hellfire and brimstone, of the Elizabeth Weir sort.

Go for the 'it's kind of funny, actually' angle, or for the more serious, 'feel sorry for us poor brainwashed people'? John kind of leaned towards the empathy concept. They had been tortured, basically, in a twisted mental mind fuck, "And will you STOP looking at us like that!" he exclaimed to Bates, who had this gleeful smirk twitching on his lips.

"John?"

His off-tangent comment had worked where nothing else might have, so he ran with it.

"Elizabeth, we don't even know if this is real," he said pushing himself to his feet. He walked towards where she stood tense outside the cell. "Do you have any idea what it's like to sit here and doubt everything around you?"

Rodney raised a hand, "I thought we'd covered that this was real, hence, the self-destruct almost killing everyone."

"Not helping," Sheppard gritted, rounding towards McKay.

The sympathy moment stopped, hovered, and flew away. Her hands went to her hips, and she became stiff and stoic. "That's no excuse for what you did," she affirmed. "Do you know that your actions came very close to killing everyone? Me, Zelenka, Beckett – hundreds of innocents!"

"Oh, please," disputed Rodney. "There were four people who could enter the abort code. There was never any risk."

The strained appearance on Weir's face didn't bode well for them. She lifted her hand, and held up four fingers. "Zelenka was at the north pier working on the grounding station, too far from the transporters and no way of getting back in time," one finger folded, "Caldwell is on the Daedalus," she twisted practically with the irony and dropped another finger, "headed back to Earth and not able to return in time, and Beckett had his arms inside a woman's body trying to remove her appendix!" the third finger dropped. "He had to leave the woman in the care of the nurse to run like hell and barely make it in time to enter the abort code!"

Which one turned whiter, Sheppard didn't know, but suddenly he felt incredibly light-headed, and found himself stumbling back, and dropping to the ground by Rodney.

McKay wasn't staring at anyone so much as just…sitting with his eyes open.

"Is the woman all right?" Rodney forced through numb lips.

She folded her arms, and was there just the slightest softening, Sheppard wondered, before she answered, "Yes, she's going to be fine. The nurse handled it admirably." She took another steadying breath before pushing further into their rattled space. "Three seconds, Rodney. Three more seconds, and none of us would be alive now."

"I didn't know," he said before repeating, and this time it was John he was talking to, saying what he needed to say, "I didn't know."

Surprising John with her savagery, Elizabeth nailed it home. "That's right, Rodney, you didn't know."

As much as Sheppard's head was pounding, he almost hoped he'd just pass out, and wake up from the growing nightmare, and judging from McKay's face, the feeling was mutual. Kind of ironic, hoping for some of that alien knock-out juice at a time like this. But what if McKay's logic had been flawed, and there was still a chance –

"Elizabeth," softly he called, "you don't understand – what if this isn't real? What if we're still there, on that ship, and this is just another way they are trying to get us to break?"

"If Rodney's test failed to assure you otherwise -"

McKay's face had cleared from the dejection and he snapped his fingers, exulted, "You might be on to something, it's possible that I was wrong, in fact, considering the circumstances we've been through, it's probable – which means, this isn't real," he chuckled with an edge of hysteria, "Elizabeth isn't really here chewing us out and our careers are not actually officially over!"

Out of the corner of his eyes, John caught Elizabeth murmuring something to Bates, and the gloating smirk had even fallen from the Sergeant's face at some point during his and Rodney's consulting about their situation. Doubt – there'd always be doubt.

"Doctor Beckett and Doctor Heightmeyer are going to come and see you both," she said gently, gone was the anger, and now suddenly, John wanted it back. "We'll get you two through this," she promised.

Sheppard exhaled loudly. "This is great. We've just gone from possible court martial to definitely strait jackets." He tried to roll the ache out of his shoulders.

"No one is going to put you in a strait jacket, John," assured Elizabeth. "Unless you try to blow up the city, again."

"That was Rodney!" he protested.

"I didn't steal the code from your brain, and I distinctly remember you punching in your half of the code."

Sheppard pointed an accusing finger, waggling it a little, because damn if he wasn't the one edging into hysteria at this point, "But it was your idea!"

Beckett arrived, and interrupted the party, because it was just so much fun questioning one's sanity. He looked as angry as Elizabeth had when she first arrived, but John watched as she took Carson's arm and drew him off to the side, where all Sheppard could hear were the soft murmurs of their conversation.

When he turned back towards them, the anger had softened to sympathy…and pity. And that made John angry. He hated being pitied.

He nudged Rodney, "Let's blow this joint."

McKay lifted his head out of his hands and asked, "How? We're locked up, about to be descended on by Doctor McCoy and Nurse Chapel, and anything and everything we do from here on out will dictate just how long we get to visit the aforementioned medical professionals. You tell me, how can we 'blow this joint' without ensuring they lock us up and throw away the key?"

"Spoilsport," John hissed.

"Idiot," McKay retorted.

"Colonel," called Beckett cordially. He had entered their cell during the back and forth with McKay, and had overheard at least some of it, judging from the amusement that tempered his concern. "We're just going to run some tests, okay? Rodney?"

John and Rodney cast sideways looks at the other, before holding out their arms and rolling up the sleeves on their jackets.

Beckett smiled tightly. "Good, lads. We'll be done in no time, and once you get cleared, back to the infirmary with you."

"And that's supposed to reassure us?" snapped McKay. "The infirmary isn't improving our situation any."

Elizabeth hadn't left. "You won't be locked up, Rodney. It's better."

No kidding. Change of status from prisoner to nutcase. John was siding with McKay on this one.

Beckett went about the business of drawing blood, and that's when Heightmeyer arrived, ushered in the cell, and started grilling them on their mental status. Were they a risk to others? To themselves?

John had informed her stiltedly that they were apparently all the above, and that didn't make anyone happy, but it was the truth. Their actions had almost cost everything – if this was real…and that's where the kicker came in. He could see in McKay's eyes the same doubt, the same uncertainty that this was all still a double fake out by the aliens.

Whatever they said, it appeased everyone, because after the bloodwork came back, and it must have been some STAT order, because he didn't think they'd been talking to Kate and Carson for very long before some young lab tech came rushing in with the results, they were ushered out of the brig and down to the infirmary.

Stripped of their uniforms, with great reluctance on both their parts, they were reduced to scrubs again. John couldn't help but flash back to the clothes the aliens had given them to wear.

"Could we have something else?" he asked Beckett. "Our jeans, and t-shirts, something besides scrubs?"

Shaking his head, Carson pointed at the beds.

They climbed in, got settled, and then ignored everyone else but each other. Because this wasn't how they'd guessed their homecoming would be, in fact, they'd started to believe there wasn't going to be any homecoming, and now everyone thought they were crazy.

Carson wandered off, but two guards remained at the infirmary doors. John knew there'd be regular sessions with Kate, and until both of them passed good enough, they'd be stuck in the infirmary.

"We're in trouble, aren't we?"

Shifting his eyes to Rodney, and away from the guards, Sheppard noticed for the first time how vulnerable McKay looked. Had he always been that emotionally transparent?

Clichéd comforts came to mind, but John knew it wasn't going to help. "Rodney, you remember when we were stuck in the jumper, and the gate was counting down, gonna shut off and slice our ship in half?"

McKay narrowed his eyes, thinking back. "Yes, what does that have to do with this?"

"That was probably the preferable situation."

And with that last comment, they fell into a mutually depressed quiet.

At some point, Beckett had a nurse bring some medication, and when John asked what it was for, he said something about helping them rest. Body language must be screaming how uncomfortable they both felt, because the tranquilizers knocked them out for a while.

When he woke up, John saw Kate conversing with Rodney. He shut his eyes, and pretended he was still asleep, wanting to hear what they were talking about.

"How did that make you feel?" he heard Kate ask softly.

The harsh bark from Rodney said more than words could. "How do you think it made me feel? They used me to get to John, and I'm pretty sure it went both ways."

"But you said they lied, tortured, and were conditioning both of you, surely you can't blame yourself for the position these aliens put you in?"

"Why not? They said it was my fault they'd come looking – if I hadn't convinced Colonel Sheppard to go back and try again, none of this would've happened."

John fought to stay quiet, but he wanted to speak out, tell Rodney the only thing he was guilty of was trying to find new technology to help Earth, help the fight against the Wraith, and further mankind. But he was eavesdropping on a private conversation, both people thinking he was still in a drugged sleep.

Kate shifted in her chair, John could hear the material from her pants rubbing together, and she prodded deeper, "Rodney, you could argue the same fallacy for all our exploration into the Pegasus galaxy. Hindsight is never usable to define future events."

Good job, Doc, crowed Sheppard quietly.

"Yeah, well, tell it to him," replied McKay crossly.

And Sheppard knew the hand had pointed his way.

This was bullshit. Rodney wasn't going to shoulder the emotional baggage from the alien's agenda. He opened his eyes, and fixed on to Rodney, ignoring Kate.

"It's not your fault," he asserted.

Rodney forgot about Kate also, and leaned up on an elbow. "What if they weren't lying about the life on that planet? What if I was responsible for the death of over a million of these aliens?"

"I don't know, Rodney, but what can you say or do? We have no way of knowing if they were telling the truth," John said. "But go back to what we do know – they lied from the beginning. 'We mean you no harm', yet we were locked up, subjected to alien environments, tricked, drugged and then subjected to mind games – what makes you think that was anything more than just another mind game?"

"Because it had the kernel of truth, because there had to be a reason for why they did what they did!"

John's heart was pounding, and he felt flushed and mad. The whole thing was beyond what he felt up to dealing with. Hell, Kate was the psychologist, and she was reduced to sitting between their beds, and listening.

"Why?" snapped Sheppard.

Rodney shook his head. "Why what?"

"Why did there have to be a reason for what they did?"

McKay focused inward, before meeting his eyes again. "Because otherwise, everything we went through, had no meaning. It was merely some alien whim to have fun with their pet humans."

"Then give it meaning, Rodney. It doesn't have to be for nothing."

There were things passing between the two of them that Kate could only begin to guess at. The knowledge of what they'd been through, together and separately, and the fact that there was that remaining doubt about what was real and what wasn't…and she knew it.

Knew that this was out of her league, and she'd done the best she could, and that was by getting them to open up, and start talking. If she only knew how hard that part had been.

"I'll leave you two alone," she said standing. "Keep talking, and we'll start going through the events during your confinement when I come back."

They didn't talk, not yet, and she left, giving them the privacy that they needed.

McKay started first, after she was gone. "I never truly believed I was a coward – until on that ship." His voice cracked at the end.

"You're not a coward," John replied.

"I was afraid!"

"What do you think I was? God, Rodney, I've never been so afraid in my life!"

"You didn't show it."

"Yeah, well, I don't show a lot of things," gruffly, Sheppard settled against the sheets, feeling restless.

Like how much McKay's friendship meant, and how bad it'd hurt when Rodney had used it to get his way, and then how cavalierly Rodney had almost thrown away both their lives.

Yet, Rodney was Rodney. Arrogant, brilliant, and learning, just like the rest of them.

"You know, that issue we had after the weapon blew up, I'm over it now."

McKay was genuinely surprised. "Is that what the trust thing was about? Did you ever stop trusting me?"

"Not so much a lull in trust, but…a rearrangement of your priorities. Human lives mean more than technology, and you hadn't learned that, while I always thought you had."

Reflecting inward, Rodney wasn't acting arrogant now. "I never valued lives less, I just didn't think – John," the use of Sheppard's first name got him where nothing else did, because Rodney just didn't open himself up to that level of relationship with people, very rarely, "I really believed I could do it, right up until the end, and even as you were telling me it was time to go, I still thought I could."

"You were still willing to risk our lives based off your inflated sense of ability," argued Sheppard.

"It's not inflated!"

"Yes, it is! You always think you can solve everything, but you can't. We were in the worst of situations, captured, conditioned, tortured and you couldn't get us out anymore than I could – we were rescued, McKay, and maybe part of your eagerness to prove it wasn't real, was part of why you were willing to again risk lives to prove your theory!"

"And why was that?"

Their voices had risen to the level where they were attracting attention, but Sheppard didn't care.

"Because anything else meant you failed," he answered, his words hitting home with deadly impact.

For once, Rodney was speechless. Sheppard continued, "You can't always save the day, you can't always pull it out your ass and present the solution that makes everyone walk off into the sunset and live happily ever after, and that makes you feel weak, and incompetent, but guess what, Rodney, join the human race – as a people, we're infallible and often wrong."

A harsh acerbic laugh and Rodney said, "Don't hold back."

"The point being I don't distrust you, Rodney, I never have. You make mistakes, and I make mistakes, but I still trust you. The other point, you continually try to give yourself a god complex and then rail when you can't live up to it. You've been lucky, a lot of the things that we've dealt with, we got through, but not this time. We weren't able to save ourselves, and if it hadn't been for Hermiod, we'd still be back there."

"And, what if we still are back there?"

Rodney wasn't one to ever avoid the uncomfortable, John would give him that. He rushed headlong into everything. "Then I don't know, but we do know that this isn't like anything else they did. We know that the reactions of our friends and teammates are logical. We know that Ronon and Teyla haven't gotten back yet, and when they do, there'll be one more thing we can evaluate for reality. That's all we can do."

"Aye," agreed Beckett.

He'd been alerted by their loudness, and had wandered over.

"Rodney, you both should've talked to us before, but going off of what you've said, I see why you didn't. But now it's time for you and the colonel to let us help you."

John wished it was that easy, but as much as he preached to Rodney about wanting to save the day, Sheppard didn't have a lack of the god complex either. He had gotten in trouble with Weir for the same thing, and the consequences might have been just about as bad. He'd exposed a lot of people to the nanovirus thanks to how he'd handled the situation. His saving everyone with the overloaded generator aside, it still hadn't negated what he'd done.

Beckett knew what they were thinking, and he offered what he could. "Every step of the way, we'll be patient, but you have to meet us. When you first woke up, neither one of ye talked about what happened on that ship. Don't you think it's time?"

John met Rodney's eyes, and they both shared a moment of wanting to say no, but they also realized it was time. Otherwise, they'd be stuck here for a long time…if they weren't shipped off to earth to be locked away.

"They were the most alien aliens I've ever seen," started John.

Rodney joined in, "Their environment, it was viscous liquid, and when we were first captured, we drowned in it -"

Carson pulled up a chair, and settled in, listening as they both took turns recounting the events, some of which were new to the other, as they had been apart during their captivity at times…and ironically enough, while they opened up, outside the city, the sun began to set…

Stay tuned for the epilogue!