A/N: The muses are clapping their hands, claws, paws, flippers, and wings in delight. Jack Sparrow's clone is tossing gold doubloons for all. They're lovin' the amusing feedback, as am I. I know you can't see, but I really am blushing. It's a good feeling knowing a story is being thoroughly enjoyed. Thanks.

Ch. 28

Bait

" What do you propose?" Weir asked.

John ripped into the MRE Beckett had tossed him. No home cooked meals tonight. The kitchen had been closed, and Carson refused to play at being a chef. John wisely kept his mouth shut concerning the Scot's ability with pots and pans, and a little dish known as haggis (although in John's current hunger state, stuffed animal innards didn't sound too bad.)

John dug through the packet until he pulled out – to his ultimate joy – a turkey sandwich. " Draw him out, shoot him down," John said, and took the biggest bite of sandwich his mouth would allow.

" Care to elaborate on that?"

John chewed as quickly as he could and swallowed. " What more is there to elaborate on? We set up a trap. Maybe send the message that we'll hand over the address to Atlantis if he lets us stay here in return. Give him the address to the alpha site instead, have a few men standing by," John shaped his thumb and fore-finger into gun semblance, " and blast his smoky hide."

Weir cocked both eyebrows in that skeptical way of hers that tended to tear at John's nerves. " And you think he'll just buy it?"

Crap if she didn't have a point there. Diavante might have been psychotic, but he wasn't stupid. Then again, obsession and desperation tended to drop IQ points.

" If he's so hell bent on getting Atlantis, then I wouldn't hold it past him. Besides, if that doesn't work, we could always use his need for the sil to our advantage. Not to jump to conclusions, but I get the strong vibe that Diavante is as clueless to Krissa's where abouts as we are. However, he probably doesn't know that we know he doesn't have Krissa. We could set up an exchange – the sil for Krissa – then blast him to kingdom come."

" And if he does have her?"

John paused en route to his second bite, then slowly backed his head away from the sandwich. " He doesn't," and never had the words sounded so sure, even to himself, and lacking the proof to back the conviction. Logic, however, had his back. " If he had Krissa, he'd be using her as a bargaining chip right now. Plus... I think her father might be keeping her hidden. Not that he told me outright. Just a feeling I got." He finally took the next bite, and never had dehydrated, processed turkey tasted so good.

Still, a cheeseburger would have really hit the spot.

Elizabeth pursed her lips in thoughtful rumination. " If we could come up with a more formal plan – maybe several..."

John grinned before taking his next bite. " Plan A through Z..."

" Exactly. But I have the feeling that if plan A's a screw up, then plan B and C aren't going to go off very well with Diavante having wind of what we're up to. So whatever we plan, it should be with the thought in mind that we may only get one shot at bringing Diavante down. Think on it tonight, then we'll talk about it in the morning."

John nodded. " Will do."

With a smile, Elizabeth patted John's shoulder before heading out of the infirmary.

Once out of sight, John scarfed the rest of the sandwich down in several massive bites, followed it up with a smaller pouch of dried fruit, a brownie, then a carton of juice Carson had tossed to him along with the packet. He stuffed the garbage into the empty packet, and flinched at another packet landing on his lap.

" Eat up, son, I know you're wantin' it."

John looked up at Carson to smile, but the smile was halted at the sight of what Beckett had in his hands.

Clothes, normal, everyday, honest to goodness clothes; black sweat pants and a dark gray T-shirt to be exact. When John looked up at Carson, he caught the Doc's poor attempt at looking stern.

" Don't think this a regular privilege, Colonel. But seein' as how you've temporarily obtained the skill of quick healin', you've no reason to be in the infirmary, and I could use the extra bed."

Like extra beds were ever really a problem except on the exceedingly bad days, but John held his tongue by biting it, and snatched the clothes before Carson could change his mind.

" Thanks doc," and John scurried from the bed.

" Just get plenty of rest and eat that food, then stop by in the mornin' before goin' to meet Weir."

John nodded, yanking off the tattered scrub shirt, pulling the warm gray shirt over his head, snatching up the sil, then already heading out the infirmary to deal with the sweats in his room. " Will do doc."

He couldn't reach his room fast enough, slip into the sweats fast enough, or down the second turkey sandwich fast enough (though the latter he tried to savor). Back in his own room, surrounded by his own junk – John wanted to ponder this shift of fortune, but the lesser adrenaline critter-mode had brought about was leaking faster than the adrenaline of agitated critter-mode. He polished off the second MRE, then crawled beneath the softer, warmer covers of a softer, more tolerable bed, curling up like a cat around the sil nestled protectively against his chest. The moment he was in position, he was out with one final exhale of contentment.

SGASGASGASGA

Rodney was going to puke. He felt cold, every inch of him, but mostly at his back, and slick as though he'd been drenched in a rain of oil. Sweat, grime – that had to be it. He'd never gotten a proper shower, probably just a wipe down that did little but grind in what was already there. But to be cold – now that was just ridiculous.

And is someone touching me? Oh gosh! They're giving me a sponge bath! He squirmed, writhed, tried to move an arm to smack the busy hands away, but his sluggish, stubborn body refused to cooperate.

Rodney moaned. " Get... the hell... away... from... me." Every word spilled from his mouth a drunken, useless slur. As though to retaliate, the busy hands became busier, probing ice-cold along his skin, down his back, in his head...

What the hell?

" Where is it!"

The shriek pierced his brain like shards of glass, and Rodney's eyes snapped open, his lungs sucking in air in one, ragged pull. Hands gripped his shoulders like a vice.

" Rodney? Rodney! Lad, you with me?"

Rodney, gasping like a suffocating fish, darted his eyes frantically around until they landed on the concerned features of Beckett. The highland doctor's face grounded him, and he exhaled sharply.

" Ah crap, nasty dream. And who the hell gives sponge baths to unconscious men? What kind of establishment are you running here? Or are your nurses so bored they'll get whatever kicks from whatever source they can?"

Beckett's brow wrinkled. " Rodney, what the bloody hell are you talkin' about? It's three in the bloody mornin'. No one's about to give ya sponge baths. The monitor was goin' off the deep-end and the on-duty nurse about had a panic attack seein' it. Said you were spikin' a fever." Carson's cool hands felt along Rodney's forehead. " Which I'm inclined to agree with." He then turned and brought up the dreaded ear-thermometer. Rodney winced and scowled as his temperature was taken.

" Not too bad, not at a hundred, but a wee bit high. What were you dreamin' about?"

Rodney huffed out a breath. " Sponge baths."

Carson raised an eyebrow. " Really? By an ugly nurse or somethin'?"

Rodney rolled his eyes at that. " No! I didn't see any faces. I just felt hands, fingers, I don't know... all over me. And if you haven't already noticed, I'm not generally the touchy-feely type, Dr. Demented, so keep that in mind when the subject of needing to give me a real sponge bath comes up. Pretty nurse or not, it's humiliating. Even Sheppard agrees with me on that, pretty nurse or not..." Rodney shivered when cold remnants radiated from his spine.

" You cold lad?" Carson asked.

" A little? What temperature do you keep it on in here?"

" The right temp to keep patients from freezin'. Might be your fever." Carson took Rodney's temperature again, despite loud protests. But the perplexed look on Carson's face on reading the digital readout had Rodney clapping his jaw shut quick.

" What? Was is it? I am getting sick, aren't I? Oh gosh..."

Carson shook his head numbly. " No, not at all. If anythin', it's gone back down to normal temperature. Huh..."

Rodney pulled the blankets up to his chin. " Maybe that thing's busted." His eyes strayed past Carson to the rumpled blankets of an empty infirmary bed. " Where's Sheppard. He run off?"

Carson, still preoccupied with the thermometer, shook his head no. " I let him sleep in his own room. Not like I need him monitored the way he's been healin'."

" Sure that's wise?"

Carson set the thermometer back on the tray. " Colonel's a big lad, he can take care of himself."

To that, after a long, drawn out yawn, Rodney replied, " You're getting soft, Beckett. Sheppard gets a slight sniffle and you have him in scrubs. His less than better half wouldn't have anything to do with it, would it?"

Carson shoved his hands into the pockets of his (Rodney now noticed) Navy blue sweat pants and shrugged. " A bit. But not in the way ya think! This is a strange time for the man, and I just thought he'd be more comfortable in his own quarters. In all truth, if he didn't need monitorin' so much, I'd release him every time he was sick or injured. Stress doesn't do right to the body, and healin' would have a better chance if John were left with a wee bit of privacy. He ain't one for lookin' weak, and ya can't help lookin' weak and helpless in a hospital bed with plenty of souls seein' it in plain view." He then thumped Rodney lightly on the shoulder. " If only a few others I know of carried at least a smidgen of that trait."

Rodney bristled at this. " Hey! I've got a need to maintain dignity. But not at the price of losing my life, unlike certain head-in-the-clouds-literally Colonels we know."

Carson, patting Rodney on the shoulder now before turning to go, chuckled. " I've no doubt about that. Rest up, lad. And no more sponge-bath dreams."

Rodney hunkered down deeper into the bed. " Just don't get any ideas about real sponge baths."

Carson shook his head as he moved to the infirmary doors. They slid open, just as an agonized scream ripped the silence a new one.

SGASGASGASGA

Cold. John was so cold.

" Give it to me, John."

Ice slid over him, like oil, like fingers, caressing, petting, probing his brain, gliding down his spine.

" Give it to me, and I will go... forever... You will never know of me again."

The concentration of ice altered to crawl methodically over his ribcage, slowing, slowing - the left ribcage – creeping like snakes toward his heart. Mobility was sorely missed. All John could do was curl tighter and tighter into himself, coiling and wrapping as much as his bones would allow. Cold traveled down both arms, slick as oil, to the smooth metal clutched in a death grip.

" Give it to me John..." The tendril was inches away from his panicking heart. " Just give it to me. I will go away, forever. I will never hurt you again."

John's breathing matched his heart, but he couldn't curl any tighter. He was already a shivering, pathetic mass of human flesh, moaning and begging for deliverance, pleading his relentless tormentor away.

" I will never hurt Krissa..."

Krissa.

You don't have Krissa.

" I will find her."

You can't.

" Your friends. Must I harm them?"

No! Leave them alone!

" Devour them... slowly. Absorb them... until there is nothing left.

No!

" Give it to me John, and I will go away."

John panted faster, his heart slamming harder. You're supposed to die.

Laughter, dry and cold as deep space. " You can try."

Cold stopped an inch away from John's heart, the residue of it wafting in thread-like tendrils to brush the pulsating organ. It hurt, bad, and that was only a taste. More cold continued its trek over the hands to touch the sil.

A sudden onrush of protective instinct had John pulling so fast and abruptly that the next thing he knew his stomach dropped in the sickening rush of weightlessness, stopping abruptly when his body thudded hard and painfully against something solid. The same instant the breath was shoved from his lungs, his eyes popped open to solid, impenetrable darkness. The cold reached out for him with proximity revealed through more thread-sharp tendrils of arctic air. John scrambled back with the sil clutched in one shaking hand. His back hit hard against the wall, and the darkness rose up, forming like a black hole right in Sheppard's room.

John lurched sideways, toward his bed, hand diving under the pillow and emerging with 9-mil in hand. He whipped his arm around to point the gun at the mass, only to have a solid tentacle of ice whack it from his hand. Another tentacle shot out quick as a striking cobra to wrap around John's neck. A third went around the wrist holding the sil. The fourth punched into his shoulder. Cold raced through him like knives, shredding veins and nerves into confetti. John screamed a scream that tore his throat and constricted his lungs.

" Give it to me!" Diavante's voice rumbled deep as thunder and nearly imperceptible - the reason for speaking through dreams.

John, his mind a numb haze, could only form the single coherent thought of 'protect the sil'. He couldn't clutch it any harder, only hold it to himself. The tentacle around his throat tightened, pulling his head forward, then with one massive thrust that took little effort, slammed his head back against the wall. There was a crunch, and stars flecked John's vision graying on the edges.

" Give it to me!"

John gagged, chocked, and wheezed. He couldn't form words or even shake his head. He just held on with everything he had left.

Distantly, like noises in a dream, he heard pounding, and the sound of his name in words altered by an accent. John would have loved to have choked out a laugh of relief had he room in his throat. Diavante didn't even give him that much when he lifted John by his neck and tossed like a piece of trash into the wall on the other side of the room. John's efforts to cling to the sil failed when on impact his elbow rammed the obstruction and the sil flew from his hands. John crumpled, the sil rolled away, and Diavante snatched it up.

The mass darker than the darkness flowed like water to the door – and thought it open.

John shook the film from his head in time to see it happen, and curled his fingers in rage.

Hell no! Critter-mode flowed over him, and he scrambled to all fours, tearing into the hallway with a shriek, passed a panicked Beckett and gaping contingent of Marines.

John took notice of no one say for the writhing mass that was Diavante. Icy pain burned his shoulder where no blood dripped and no wound gaped. It hindered him, that pain, so he pushed it to the back where it belonged. He was gaining fast on Diavante, until Diavante shifted form to become John's shadow doppelganger, and increased speed.

They tore through the corridors, straight into the control room, and on reaching the stairs Diavante leaped up, whipped around, and round-house kicked John in the face, sending him flying into the wall. Again, the haze tried to play havoc with his conscious, then alarms blared, and the haze cowered back when super adrenaline rushed in ten fold. John skittered to his feet and tore into the control room. The techs and guards on duty were unconscious. John looked up toward the gate already congealing back down into a rippling pool of interstellar liquid, and Diavante was floating ever so casually toward it. Bristling, snarling, John tore out of the control room.

His mind worked fast. Diavante was moving slow. Stopping. Hovering, waiting. Sil visible. What is he waiting for? Oh crap, it's a trap!

John skidded to a halt, but not soon enough, and not far enough. Diavante lashed out a smoky tentacle, latching it around John's neck, then gave one massive yank, hurling him through. John rode the wormhole through time and space, and came tumbling out the other side, over dirt and grass, rolling and skipping like a stone over water.

When he finally stopped, and the world ceased spinning, John moved swiftly back to all fours. He was immediately impaled through the back by ice, pinned to the ground, writhing, shrieking and clawing the earth. His monster form dissolved, and animal screams became human screams. He screamed until his lungs were empty, and the cold consumed him, numbing him until he couldn't move. Only then was the ice spike removed. Panting, John's mind begged, cajoled, even threatened his hand to move and feel the assaulted spot on his back, right on his spine, so much like a Cy stunner, but long, lingering and agonizing.

Diavante's mass flowed before John until it filled John's vision. The cold came off of that mass in suffocating waves, rolling over John until his shivering forced his teeth to chatter. Antarctica had nothing on this piece of sub-zero nothing.

The sil dropped before John, right within reach, if his body would only move. John coughed, which only did to make his lungs burn.

" You like toying with your food before you eat it?" John rasped. It hurt to breathe, and it was agony to speak. He winced, and groaned, which drew Diavante closer. John had no doubts he would die of hypothermia before the day, night, whatever, was out. By the gray surrounding John, he assumed it to be nearing morning - where ever he was.

John heard a low, rhythmic rumble. Diavante was chuckling.

A tentacle wrapped around John's throat and bent his neck back, getting John to look up. Dark as the mass was, John could have sworn he saw, deeper within it, like deja vu, the shape of a face, a body.

" Yeeessss," the voice rumbled so deep it made John's bones vibrate. He shuddered. Then, suddenly, Diavante started to move, dragging John along by the neck over dewy grass and moist earth. They entered a forest, a deep, mossy, uneven forest with hidden rocks, mounds, and branches. Diavante dragged John over it all until they came to a small clearing. Here, the Ancient released John to remain immobile on the spongy ground. But John had gotten back the use of his now sore neck, and craned it to gather in his surroundings.

Twigs snapped, pine needles and leaves crunched, all around John, echoing sharp as a bullet. Forms emerged spirit-like from the concealment of thin wisps of mist. The forms didn't ring any bells, but the uniforms certainly did. Genii on one side, Cys on the other. Menk was there and – all hell breaking loose indeed – Koyla. The wraith, all they needed was the wraith, and John would have burst out in hysterical laughter. Thankfully for his already frayed sanity, no wraith. The two groups formed a circle around the clearing where John lay and Diavante hovered. They were all armed, and all smirking, Koyla and Menk especially.

Crap, just bring in a couple of erak and Culs, and I can slip blissfully into dillusion-ville thinking all this is a dream.

Culs was next to emerge, holding back two eraks on a chain leash, ever so reminiscent of the ones that had held him and Mathers. That was it, the grand finale, the final thread to be cut. John laughed a painful, breathy laugh that ended up morphing into an even more painful cough. Oh mercy how he was screwed.

A cold tentacle of ice grabbed his head and forced his jaw up toward Diavante's... upper half. The entity leaned in painfully close.

" Plaayyy aaaa gaaaame wiiith meeee," came the rumble.

" Go – back – to – hell," John rasped. The tentacle slipped away from his jaw, and his head dropped back onto the loamy earth. Diavante seemed to swell three times his size, and John tried to shrink back from the cold sinking through his skin.

" Oooonnllyy oooonnee maaaay taaaake thiiiis," he lifted the sil high for everyone to see. " Ooonnlly ooonnee maaay kiiiiil Laaannteeeaaan."

A tentacle placed itself back around John's neck, lifting him to his feet. " Kiiiil hiiiim. Deeeviiiicccce iiissss yooouuurrrsss. Oooonnn mmmmyyyy maaarrrkkk."

John's heart dove for cover into his stomach.

" Ah hell," he whimpered. Diavante moved in close.

" Ruuuuunn." Then he yanked John from the clearing, tossing him through a gap formed by both Genii and Cys. On landing hard, free of Diavante, free to move, he scurried backwards and away from his living nightmare. The two sides watched him with amusement, some laughing, Culs especially.

They want to play, guess I gotta play. Critter-mode washed over him as he flipped onto all fours.

His mind cleared – get to the gate. More than that though. He saw the sil, still raised triumphantly. Survive, get sil, kill Diavante.

Yes, kill Diavante. Isn't that what mattered most? Screw himself, screw the hunt. Get the sil, get it away.

Kill Diavante. Kill, kill, kill, and end it all.

John Sheppard didn't matter.

With that goal firmly lodged in his brain, John charged straight at Diavante, and leaped.

" Nooooowww!" came the sky-splitting rumble.

Hell officially broke loose.

TBC...

SGASGASGASGA

A/N: Let the party begin!

The fate of Krissa will soon be revealed. Be patient, stayed tuned, and all those lovely things.