Carson arrived quickly, carrying a slew of medical equipment and a gaggle of doctors. His examination was quick, and the transport back to the stargate was steady as they stabilized the young woman. He wouldn't talk to John other than to say he would do what he could, not to worry, blah blah blah. The most emotion that shown through the focused, professional demeanor was when John said he couldn't go back through the gate, not yet. Carson hasn't asked where Rodney was. He didn't know Rodney was the one who had shot Teyla. He simply assumed the man was in trouble, since he wasn't around, and John let him. Not like he was wrong, and there wasn't time to fill him in.

Once the gate disengaged, John turned and stared down Ronon. He wanted to beat the man to a pulp. You know, just to balance the pure RAGE he felt at the whole shitty situation.

Ronon was anything but stupid. He braced himself and puffed his chest out.

The open invitation was all John needed to come back to his senses. "Pfft." He turned away, waving his hand at Ronon in dismissal.

But Ronon wouldn't be waved away. "We can't do anything here." He steered John away from the gate and shoved him toward a tree. He reached down and picked up a large branch, ripping the twigs from it until it was relatively smooth. He handed it to John.

And John beat the shit out of the tree with everything he had.

The sound of someone clearing his throat caught John's attention, and he stopped mid-swing, only to throw the stick to the ground and run at the man watching him. Malachi was thrown to the ground with a raging one hundred seventy pound mass of anger on top of him, shouting at him. "For the last time, what the hell is going on?"

Malachi gasped for breath, looking to Ronon for help. The large man just folded his arms. He was on his own. "Please," he said, "get off."

John seethed, but backed off. He roughly pulled Malachi to his feet. "I'm tired of the games," he hissed. "I have one friend dying, and for all I know the other one is too! Now unless you want to add to the numbers I suggest you start talking!"

"The entity has taken over Dr. McKay."

"No shit. Why?"

"I don't know."

"Wrong answer." John grabbed two fistfuls of robe and swung the poor man around, slamming him back hard against a tree. "Why can't he just bounce this thing on to someone else?"

"You don't understand." Malachi worked at the hands gripping his clothing.

"No, you don't understand! Ronon said Rodney was being desensitized. Now in my book that sound a lot like being used! Now you said that a bouncer only senses what the entity is doing, that the bouncer is one in a long line of people that the entity terrorizes. So why can't this thing just bounce off somewhere else and leave my friend the fuck ALONE?"

"I don't know!" Malachi yelled. "I have tried to make sense of it, and I can not! I have tried to persuade it to leave, but it will not!"

John narrowed his eyes. "You – you've contacted this thing?"

Malachi gave a weak nod. "I have."

"You've CONTACTED this thing, and you didn't tell us?" John gave a hard shove and backed off. Otherwise he would have put a bullet through that pea-brain, and then they really would have been screwed. Ronon looked like he was ready to eat something Malachi-ish.

The older man slumped against the tree. "It isn't anything of consequence. There is no relationship, merely an exchange of words."

"But you can talk to it."

"As it allows."

"So you can find out where Rodney is."

"No."

John turned away in fury. When he turned back, his gun was aimed at Malachi's head. "Try."

Malachi slowly raised his hands, and nodded.

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Jekyll and Hyde had nothing on this. Rodney winced and gasped painfully as he bent double, wrapping an arm over his stomach, trying to hold in his sobs. Any other time he would be able to contain his emotions to some degree. He was seriously pissed that he couldn't do that now, which just added to the near out-of-control anger he was already feeling.

He fell to his knees in despair. Tear stained eyes looked up and found the dark sky showing in patches amongst the black branches. "Why?" he wailed. "What the hell have I ever done to you? What did I do to deserve this?" There was no verbal answer, but an onslaught of images that made him grab his head and cry out.

Putrid death. Vile sickness. Fear, so much fear, so much pain and hopelessness. Screams that tore from the chest, threats and terror. Eternal blackness. Ice cold numbness. Trapped with no hope of escape.

Rodney's forehead touched the ground. He clawed the dirt and fought for control, knowing he would lose himself completely if he didn't. Teyla . . .god . . .he remembered the heat of his body temperature on grip of his gun, and how it had felt so cold when he first aimed it at her. He remembered the initial joy in her eyes at finding him, which turned to such pain as he fired. He remembered standing over her, looking down at her, and saying hot, vile things, seeing her eyes tear with disbelief and pain . . .Rodney growled in anger and slammed his fist into the mulch.

Mulch. His breath caught for a moment as he snatched up a handful.

Oh god. Nononono . . . he remembered the vision he'd had of the man running in the forest, the only vision he had experienced in Atlantis. Falling into the mulch with the monster behind him.

It wasn't a vision. It was a premonition.

He was the victim, and he suddenly could feel the presence not only behind him, but within him.

He stood and ran.

But there was no escaping it. He ran forever, it seemed, and everything within grew darker; his thoughts, his fears taking hold, his body crying out in fatigue and giving up on him. He could feel it, this cancerous evil that was tearing him apart from the inside.

Desperately he ripped off his shirt, flinging it into the trees as he ran past. He clawed at himself, wanting it out, that greasy, black hell that was settling in his mind. But he couldn't escape, there was no way to outrun the evil within him. Scratches turned into cuts, and cuts into gashes that ran with blood as he clawed at his skin. The sobs became wails, his flesh crawled, he could feel everything within him turning black and rotten.

There had been only one time during this ordeal when he didn't feel so mutilated and confused inside. That was when he had held the gun to his friend's heart. He had felt powerful then, wrongfully so, knowing deep down that he was about to do something terrible and feeling an incredible, soaring high as a result. He battled it out, saving his friend's life, and yet he lost. He found Teyla, and shot her instead.

This had to end. But there was only one way to do that.

A gentle light washed over him, surprising him. He was at the beach. The waves pounded the shore, the moon was above him, and huge. He half wondered if it would come crashing down upon his head again. It stared down at him, uncaring, leaving him alone to face his fears. And he felt scared.

He stepped into the water.

He could feel the blackness within him, feel it grow in response. There was power out there in the water, a glimpse of an ending. A sense of a word grazed him, flashing in his mind, and an image of Malachi presented itself in a confused head. Rodney squinted into the distance, not understanding. The entity sensed this, and raged.

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"RODNEY! Damn it!" John lifted the bottom of his re-acquired black t-shirt, wiping the sweat from his eyes. He let the hem drop back down and stood motionless, catching his breath. The bloodied peasant shirt had gone back with Teyla. She had clutched it in agony, as it was pressed to her, and wouldn't let go.

"I do not think he is in this area." Malachi was wincing.

Ronon turned to him. "We've been searching for only an hour. There is plenty more ground to cover."

"That isn't what I mean." Malachi was doubled over, his hands on his knees.

"Then what do you mean?" John had no patience left. He snatched Malachi to attention by the robes. "Listen to me," he said in a low, poisonous voice, "if you value your life, now would be a good time to talk."

There was little else to be done. Malachi could no longer protect the entity, and he wasn't sure he should. "He is at the water."

"The water?" John released him, taking a step back. "How do you know this?"

"Because I can feel it. The entity was . . .joyful. Now it is frightened."

"YOU can . . ." John turned away in anger, then rounded on him. "How the hell can you sense it? I thought only Rodney could sense it."

"Let's just say I have an odd connection to it."

"An odd . . ." He said nothing for several minutes, letting his breathing settle, feeling his heart thump madly against his chest. "You have contact with this thing. And you didn't tell us."

"I wouldn't call it contact. It only allows me in as it chooses."

"Why?"

"Because I created it."

John's face fell into disgust. "What?"

Malachi looked as sad as John had ever seen a man. "I didn't create the entity itself. But I created what it became. The truth is, I don't know what it is, or where it came from." He ran a hand over his face, wiping the sweat onto his sleeve. "I was praying beside the water," he said quietly. "We had been plagued with a sickness, and I was trying to rid the village of it. This thing came to me, all light and good will . . .and I was so desperate." His eyes pleaded for forgiveness. "Children were dying. I forced the sickness onto this creature, to take it away from us."

John didn't know what to say. "Obviously it didn't. Not really."

"I didn't know. I didn't know it would swallow it so." He paced in agitation. "It took it all. The hardship, the pain, the suffering . . .anything inherently bad or evil. It wasn't supposed to. When I wished the bad away, I meant the sickness, not . . . ." he waved his hand helplessly.

John could only shake his head. "I don't believe this. You made it crazy. It's like," he fought for words, "now it hates, and it only knows to act on that hatred."

"Which it did out of an act of love for me. How ironic." Malachi chuckled without humor.

John was confused. He turned to Ronon. "If he is responsible for this thing, how is it you've heard of it?"

Ronon just shook his head in distrust, his dark eyes glinting.

"As I've said, it travels," Malachi supplied.

"And why aren't you affected? How come you're not one of these bouncer things?" John snapped.

"I think I feels I am the only one who can help it."

His demeanor had changed. There was no longer a charade, no mask of kindness. Malachi was stripped bare, showing more to the man than John could have possibly imagined was bred from this simple village. "You're not originally from here, are you?"

"No."

"And this sickness happened, how long ago?"

"Hard to say. At least eight generations."

"Eight . . .how old are you?"

Malachi smiled sadly. "Sometimes it seems I am older than the universe itself."

John turned quickly, fuming. Maybe Malachi was showing his true colors now. Maybe he was still deceiving them. "Get us to Rodney, now," he demanded threateningly.

Malachi merely nodded, and led them away at a run.

The moon was starting to dip down behind them when they ran out through the trees and onto the shore. The moonlight filtered through the trees onto the pearlescent sand, still bright enough to blind them for an instant. John fought to catch his breath and shielded his eyes, surveying the shoreline to find a lone figure curled on his side, facing the tide which swept in and over him. John hesitated for only a moment before sprinting to his friend.

He skidded in the sand beside the prone body as the next wave came. It broke around him in a white spray before sucking him back. John braced himself on the sand, sensing the arrival of Ronon and Malachi, and ignoring it. He lay his hand across Rodney's forehead.

"Rodney?" he whispered

Rodney was naked. He stared at nothing, his eyes glassy, his arms wrapped tightly around his pale torso. His skin was clawed and raw, his blue lips moved as his name was spoken, but there was no sign of recognition, and no attempt to move otherwise. John felt of the clammy, freezing skin, knowing Rodney should at least be shivering. But he wasn't.

"Dammit, what the hell happened to him?" he demanded of Malachi as he tore off his shirt and lay it over the frozen man.

"I don't know," Malachi whispered, as shocked as John. Ronon was on his knees beside John, feeling for a pulse, checking the eyes with what field training he had learned in his years as a Specialist. "Sheppard . . ."

"I know, I know!" Fear pushed John into action. He started rubbing Rodney's arms, his chest, his legs, trying to get the blood flowing, wondering if the pain of rubbing his harsh wound would be enough to release him from his stupor. It felt like rubbing a lump of putty. Useless.

He stood and pulled Rodney to his feet as Ronon braced the man from behind. Dead weight suddenly took on a new meaning for John. "We've got to get him back," he muttered, "get him warm . . ."

"I can get the cart . . ." Malachi offered.

"No, you stay the fuck away from us!" John bellowed, then instantly reconsidered. Ronon carried Rodney, and John dragged Malachi along with them.

There was a quick stop at Malachi's hut, where amidst curious eyes they quickly wrapped Rodney in a dry blanket. The eyes were still open, but unseeing, as least to the events going on outside. It was as though he had been taken, and only the shell of the body was left to them. It was a thought that terrified John, and as a result angered him, to the point where he yelled at those that offered help. He eyed the hearth and decided that, rather than risk wasting time laying Rodney before it, it was high time to get his friend away from this place and into proper medical care. A dozen scenarios were playing out in his mind, each one making him more and more livid.

He grabbed Rodney's pack and his own belongings, fastening his radio earpiece in place as they ran out. Ronon said nothing; he just snarled at those who ventured too closely, Rodney hanging limply over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

Malachi was showing some willingness to follow on his own accord, so John let him as he keyed his comm. "Atlantis! This is Sheppard, come in!" He waved away Sanara, who had joined him in concern.

"Colonel!" Elizabeth's voice eased his tension somewhat. There was just something about her mothering tone when she spoke to her off-world team that he liked. Usually. "Did you find Rodney?"

Unfortunately this nurturing person held no band-aids that could cure this ailment. "Open the iris! Get a medical team ready stat!" He offered no further explanation, knowing that Carson would be there waiting for them.

People were crowding around and slowing their progress. One woman tried to take Rodney from Ronon, and he snapped, shoving her away before thinking. He hesitated, an apology quickly writing itself on his face before he continued his uphill climb. He didn't have time for this.

Sanara grabbed John's arm. "We wish to help! Please!"

John rounded on her. "Haven't you done enough?" Her eyes flew open, and John instantly regretted his words. "Look, I'm sorry, this isn't your fault." It wasn't. He knew that. It wasn't the fault of any of these people. "I'm just sorry you have to deal with it."

"He is the one coping with this. Will he be rid of it?"

"I hope we all will," John said quietly, and he took hold of Malachi's arm, squeezing it urgently.

"Yes, yes," Malachi said, just as quietly, and turned to look at the villagers. His sight fell on each one as they crowded behind him. Ronon was nearly at the top of the hill, and John waved him on.

Malachi pulled himself tall. "As you can see, our guest was stricken. He will receive the best of care back on his own world. In the meantime, please return to your homes. Please! We will send word."

"Is it a plague?" a young woman asked fearfully.

Malachi shook his head sadly. "No, it is not a plague. Now go, please. Let us tend to Doctor McKay."

Sanara stood face to face with him. "You will send word."

"I promise."

"All right, all right, we've got to go." John tugged at him arm, and together they hurried up the hill. Malachi hesitated for a moment at the top, waving the people away, and followed John.

"I am sorry," he said, his breath catching from the exertion.

"Save it."

"Sheppard," Ronon's voice growled over the comm, "I'm at the gate."

"Dial it! We're right behind you!" He urged Malachi on, not caring if the older man was winded.

When he saw the gate ahead, he felt a weight lift from his chest. Once he was through, he prepared himself to see a slew of people working over his friend. Instead he caught a glimpse of . . . nothing. No frantic medical teams, no pressing co-workers, nothing. Radek looked down from above, his face ashen.

"Carson's taken Rodney," Elizabeth said, her voice heavy with concern. Her eyes fell on the new arrival, who had stopped at the foot of the gate and was staring around him; at the personnel who were staring back, some with guns raised, at the colored glass windows that soared high above him like a cathedral. John stepped back and watched.

"This place is so clean," Malachi said in awe, "so . . .unnatural." He noticed the woman watching him with a measure of disdain. He smiled weakly and held out his hand, but it wasn't accepted. He wasn't surprised.

She walked to up him, her eyes sharp. "I take it you are the one responsible for this?"

He blinked in astonishment. "Now that isn't a fair thing to say! I did try to warn all of you."

"True. But I'm told you've been holding out on us. If there is anything you'd like to share with us, I'd say now would be a pretty damn good time!"

"Been there, tried that," John said icily. Malachi glared at him, and returned his attention to the woman.

She was angry, full of righteous fury which somehow seemed more threatening in a female. He'd always know better than to argue with Sanara, and something told him that it was useless to argue with this female. Besides, they had every reason to be angered.

"How is Teyla?" he asked gently.

Elizabeth frowned, as though suspicious of his motives. "Not good."

"May I see her?"

"No."

"But I may be able to help . . ."

"I think you've done enough," John muttered, and grabbed Malachi by the arm, intending to steer him away from the few onlookers. Weir nodded toward her office, and they ascended the stairs, with Ronon heading off to check on the patients.

Once inside, Malachi collapsed into a chair, still winded. Elizabeth took her seat, but John remained standing beside the door, his arms crossed. He watched Malachi, daring him to make a wrong move or say the wrong thing.

"Now," Weir started, "I want to know everything."

As it turned out, Malachi divulged no new information, which was annoying and not unexpected. The conference was relatively short, simply because John couldn't sit still, nor could he concentrate. Elizabeth recognized this, and instructed that their conversation would take place after a visit to the infirmary.

First order of business was to check on Teyla. She looked pale, with a frightening array of tubes connecting her to all sorts of machinery. The usually vibrant figure now practically disappeared into the white sheets. John watched her for several minutes before giving her arm a quick rub and heading to the opposite side of the infirmary, where Rodney lay.

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It was several hours before Rodney moved, and even longer before he seemed coherent. Carson sent out word, and soon his bed was surrounded by his friends, including Malachi and Dr. Kate Heightmeyer, who was seated beside him. Rodney took little notice of them; he merely moved his lips silently as he studied his fingers in morbid detail, picking at the calluses and cuticles. Carson kept pushing his hands down, but he kept raising them. He was talking, which was a good thing. But the way he was talking, and what he was saying, was disturbing to say the least.

"I felt it. She died. I thought she died." Rodney was staring at his hands, his face white. "I saw myself doing it, and I felt the bullet go in." He winced. "I felt it tear through the skin, through the muscle. I felt the organs rip open. It was like every sensation was frozen in time. It was fascinating." He looked up. "I kept waiting to feel the moment of death. I wanted her to die. I wanted to see where she went, so I could follow her."

"Rodney?" John leaned down, bracing himself on the mattress, feeling it dip. "What are you talking about?"

He looked at John, but there was no recognition in his face. "I needed the path."

"What path?"

Rodney didn't answer, he just studied his fingers again.

"Oh my god," Carson muttered. He snapped his head up to face his companions. "Well, don't you see? That's what all this is about. It's not trying to find a way home. It wants to die, and it can't. It wants peace from all of this."

Sheppard barely smirked. "So, what, all this mindless killing is a result of this thing is trying to find the tunnel of light? You've got to be kidding me."

Rodney resumed picking at his fingers, almost talking to himself. "I wanted to go. I wanted to leave this place. Everything I every felt was gone, all that was left was . . . rage. Nothing else felt right. No happiness, no desire, nothing to look forward to. No frame of time. Just an eternity of nothing." The words were strange coming out of Rodney's mouth, yet John was certain he was the one talking, not the entity.

Kate nodded in understanding. "I see." Her inner clinical analysis that so disturbed the inhabitants of Atlantis was running strong.

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow, not taking her attention away from Rodney. "Care to share?"

Kate twisted in her chair to face the group. "The two most predominately intense emotions a being can experience, are rage and ecstasy. I think this creature is doing what is necessary in order to keep in touch with what little it is able to feel. If being trapped for so long has dulled its sense of life, then there is only one thing left to, quote unquote, live for."

"You mean the only way this thing feels alive is by torturing others?" Elizabeth asked.

She threaded her fingers around her knee as she leaned back. "Killing is a extreme process of carrying rage against a given set of circumstances, and that rage itself can lead to a sense of ecstasy when the act is carried out. It is a result of desperation."

"I wanted that tunnel." Rodney looked up, wide-eyed. "I wanted the white light."

"It wants to move on," John confirmed. He couldn't believe it. Had they run in circles over a classic haunting?

"So let it," Kate replied.

John turned to her, incredulous. "Oh, gosh, okay! I'll just turn on the runway, how's that? Thread christmas lights along the halls to the gate room? Station my men on the landings with little flags?"

"John!" Elizabeth admonished.

John flung his arms out in frustration. "Well, what the hell else am I supposed to do?" His outburst was met with silent stares. Rodney didn't seem to notice that anything was happening.

"There is a way. I had mentioned it before." Malachi stepped forward.

"No," John spun, his forefinger raised. "NO. I said no once before, and I've just said it twice then. No. Three times."

"Wait, what way?" Kate asked.

"He wants to kill Rodney."

"I didn't say I wanted to kill him!" Malachi exclaimed. "I said it was the only way!"

"Are you insane?" Kate spat, and looked at the man that stood behind her.

"No, no, no, wait. . . it wants the tunnel. It wants the light." Carson muttered, frowning. "Maybe the victims are dying too quickly."

John stared. "You're not seriously considering this, are you?"

"It can be done," Carson said in a low voice. His hands were tucked into the pockets of his lab coat, and his eyes rarely left Rodney's agitated form. "It's risky," he scrubbed a hand over his face as he watched the man on the bed, "but it can be done."

John practically loomed over him. "I don't like where this is going, Doc. Because the only thing I can think of that could possibly be going on in that brain of yours is staging a death."

"Similar to that, yes. Not really staging a death. More like bringing Rodney to the brink of death, and holding him there."

John's brows raised, his attention focused on the medical doctor, his friend, talking calmly about killing his other friend. . . " – What?"

"Oh for god's sake, compared to his normal state he's practically a vegetable, man!" Carson pointed to Rodney, who resumed the study of his fingers. "Do you really want him to stay like this? I'd rather he die, myself! This degeneration will just continue until there is nothing left of the Rodney we know, and then even more until there is nothing left period! Do you really want that for him? Do you think he would?"

Rodney looked up startled, and held up his hand. "I used to play the piano!" he exclaimed, fascinated.

John's features wilted. He held Carson's gaze, pouring all of his will into the doctor's ability not to fuck up. "Malachi," he said, still looking at Carson, "is any preparation needed for this?"

"No," Malachi said, "I believe it will know what is happening, and act accordingly."

"You're not leaving."

Malachi looked a thousand years older. "This is my fault. I created it, and it wants release from the burden that I placed upon it. Of course I'm not leaving."

John looked at Elizabeth, then at Kate. They looked back, offering nothing. The ball was in his court, then. "Fine. Do it."