Carson was awake again, and this time Rodney swallowed hard before walking right to him. "You didn't sleep very long."

"I'm tired, but not sleepy." His voice had improved, but only sightly. "My whole body aches."

"I suspect you have the largest case of pins and needles known to man."

"Everywhere. Aches."

"Well, waking from the dead will have a tendency to do that, I suspect."

"Are ye angry at me?"

Rodney's head snapped around from preparing a bowl of soup. "No! Why on earth would I be angry?"

"You seem angry."

How could he explain? It was all happening too fast, way too fast, dead one minute, alive the next, possible death lingering outside. God no, he wasn't angry, not at Carson. Never at Carson.

"I just want to go home." Rodney sat beside his friend, swirling the bowl in the soup. "Can you move yet?"

Carson raised his little finger.

"No curling events, then. That's too bad, I found some stones outside that can be sanded down." Lan sat watching them, offering no help, and Rodney understood that he was on his own. He set the bowl down and pulled the man upright.

Carson wasn't happy with the sudden movement. "Rodney, for god's sake!"

"Sorry! Sorry." He wrapped his arms around Carson's chest and proceeded to drag him to the wall, where he propped him. Ran back for the bowl, returned to find Carson slumped uncomfortably. There was only one way to hold Carson and steady the bowl, so Rodney shifted behind him, with Carson reclining back on his chest, and carefully raised the bowl to his lips. "Tastes pretty good, really. But you'll have to guide me somehow, my angle's shot."

"This feels bloody absurd," Carson slurred.

"Better than it looks, I bet." He looked up at Lan. "So, while we're all here picnicking, you want to fill me in on the background? You said you're Wearden. How come you're not like that?" He nodded his head towards the exit.

"Oh, but I am." And he smiled.

Rodney's lips quirked. "No, I don't think so. For one I see no feathers, and two, you haven't tried to eat me yet. I assume there was a man down there for lunch?"

"He was a village sacrifice. The Wearden will grow stronger, for a time."

"But I thought the people in the village were the Wearden."

"They are."

"You see this?" Rodney set down the bowl and pointed to his shaking head. "This means lack of understanding, which, seeing as how I generally comprehend matters much faster than the average person, means that you are not expressing yourself adequately." Lan looked at Carson, obviously bemused. Rodney sighed. "Okay, layman's terms. I - don't - get - it."

"What is there to get?"

"The point! An answer!" He raised the bowl once more at Carson's prodding. "What about Carson? You haven't explained that either!"

"Again, what is there to explain?"

"Oh for. . ." he broke away to concentrate on feeding his friend, noticing for the first time that he was using one hand to assist with the bowl. "Hey! You moved!"

"What'dya think I poked you with?"

"I'm ignoring that." Rodney looked at Lan. "I want answers."

"You want everything explained. Always want to understand things, to know how things work and why. Is that it?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because that's who I am! Because I work with the science, because I study how and why things happen. I need to know."

"No. That is not who you are." He pointed toward the mouth of the cave. "That is who you are. It is who we all are."

"Oh. . ." Rodney chuckled, "oh no. No. That may be what you are, but we aren't. I mean it isn't us, we aren't it. . .that."

The Wearden leaned forward. "But you are exactly that. You feed. You are a tangled mess. You are ill, you desire what you can not have, and you can not let go. You can't let nature take it's course, you must always know, know know!"

"And what about Carson, huh? I think nature took a bit of a U-turn there!"

"I wasn't dead," Carson muttered. "I would know if I were dead."

"You were dead," Rodney snapped.

"And you can't stand being wrong." Lan shook his head.

"He was dead! You said so yourself!"

"You believed it to be so. Who was I to argue?"

His head was spinning. "As I recall, your rather insensitive comment made me realize for certain that. . ." Rodney swallowed and looked down at his friend, who was drinking from the bowl again. It was probably the disorientation; he seemed unaware of what was going on, except for the odd lucid moment. "Look, I don't want to argue about this. I just want to know how, I. . .I need to know." His eyes were pleading, and his grip on Carson tightened ever so slightly.

The Wearden considered it. He rose. "No. You do not."

"What? Wait a minute," he carefully shifted and propped Carson against the wall, quickly surrounding him with small stools and blankets before following Lan. "You can't say everything you just said, and not give me an answer."

"For your sake, man, I dare not." Lan turned. "You want everything. You want the world at your fingertips, you want to be the one to hold the jewel. You are a good man, but you are immature. This knowledge, is not for you." He used his stick to poke at the ground. "Can you understand that?"

"No! Surely someone of my intelligence can. . ."

"You see?" He lifted an object from the dirt floor, and pocketed it. "That is exactly what I am talking about. You are like that," he again pointed outside, "you feed and feed until you are ill, and still it is not enough."

"Why are they sick?"

"Because they do not understand the simplest concept. I tried to teach them. But they consume themselves. They make themselves ill with their beliefs, they think they can rise and fly, but every time they entangle and fall to the ground. They are restricted. They can not grow, and can not heal."

Rodney had never heard anything like that before, and he wasn't certain he understood. "How can this happen? How can the thoughts and feelings of a people manifest itself in this way?"

"How was your friend brought back to life?"

"I DON'T KNOW!"

Lan placed a friendly hand on Rodney's shoulder, and waited until the man calmed down. "There is so much that can not be explained. To try would kill it. Just accept that things happen, and that you, Rodney McKay, can not understand it all, nor were you meant to."

A quote tickled the back of his mind. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt in your philosophy." He shook his head in annoyance. "Highschool lit, sophomore year. Can't believe I remember that."

"You find many things unbelievable, that is your problem." Lan stepped back and nodded toward the wall. "Your friend is sliding."

"What? Shit!" Rodney rushed over and caught Carson's head just before it cracked on the side of a stool.

Icy blue eyes stared at him. "You stopped feeding me."

"Oh, uh, sorry, thought you had it under control." He stabilized the man and once again raised the bowl, noticing that Lan was no longer in the room.

His sigh was long and aggravated, and he tipped the bowl to his friend's lips.