He remembered another day when his brothers had to drag him, confused and fighting, back to the glass box. And the man with the sad blue eyes was waiting, watching as they held him down.

"You are a warrior, Icarus," the man said. "We have searched many years and used many Stargates to find you and bring you back to us."

He touched the device on the back of Sheppard's neck and Sheppard felt every nerve in his body come alight with fire. He heard a scream ripped from his throat but felt his mind floating, not even sure if the voice he heard was his own.

"You will remember who you are," the man said. "You will remember what you have to do. You will remember who you are fighting for."

After two days of fighting with Sheppard in the infirmary, Woolsey finally ordered him to be placed in a cell. The infirmary staff were completely rattled and it was impossible to sedate him and give anyone peace. It took five shots from a Wraith stunner to subdue him and then drag him to a cell.

When he woke, he attacked the bars, throwing himself against them in rage. McKay ended up rigging up a shield that would stun Sheppard every time he touched it, and he finally calmed down and sat in the center of the cell, angry and trembling with unresolved energy. Woolsey took the chance to enter the room.

"Are you ready to talk rationally?" Woolsey asked.

Sheppard pushed himself to his feet, barely limping on his injured leg, but clearly favoring his side where Teyla had stabbed him.

"I've been talking rationally this whole time," he responded tightly. But his eyes were full of anger that Woolsey had rarely seen.

Sheppard was generally very even-tempered. Easy going, many had said to describe him. On occasion, a white-hot temper would flare, but Woolsey had only heard about it and had never seen it. This Sheppard appeared to be amped up on anger, and it was all directed at Woolsey.

Woolsey pulled up a chair.

"Colonel, what happened to you?"

Sheppard's shoulders tensed. "What do you mean?"

"You've been missing for almost three months with no contact. You clearly haven't been doing nothing. Dr. Keller says you have been well-fed, and perhaps even put on some more muscle. She has seen evidence of healed wounds. You've been well taken care of, wherever you've been."

Sheppard took a tiny step back, his brow furrowed. "I don't know where I was. It was some sort of a volcano planet."

"Volcano?"

"Black, sooty, red sky. No DHD."

"Then how did you get back to Atlantis."

Sheppard shrugged. "They had a remote DHD."

"And a way to get through our shield. Did you tell them about the shield?"

Sheppard raised an eyebrow. "Of course I told them."

Woolsey gritted his teeth. "And why, pray tell, would you tell them?"

"Seemed like the right thing to do. Tactical advantage."

"Were you coerced?"

Sheppard twitched, a strange look coming over his face. He took another small step backwards.

"Colonel?"

The man brought a hand to his forehead, massaging his temples as he lost eye contact with Woolsey.

"Colonel, answer me. Were you coerced?"

Sheppard looked at him sharply, his hand dropping away, then without warning, he bonelessly collapsed, eyes rolled back in his head. His body twisted and twitched uncontrollably as he began to seize.

Panicked, Woolsey leapt out of his chair and hit his radio. "Medical emergency to Colonel Sheppard's cell!"

Moments later, Keller arrived with a medical team and Ronon in tow, who trained his blaster on Sheppard's convulsing body as they lowered the shield and rushed into the cell.

"What happened?" Keller demanded, prepping syringes as the medical team tried to cushion Sheppard's head.

"I don't know," Woolsey stammered. "We were talking one minute, and the next he had collapsed."

The convulsions were beginning to die down as Keller soothed the Colonel, checking his vitals and peeling back his eyelids to reveal his eyes completely rolled back in his head. After a moment, he finally went still, and Keller frowned.

"Maybe it's the device reacting to something," she mused.

"I was questioning him on what had happened while he was gone," Woolsey said.

Sheppard's eyes began to flicker open, and Ronon shoved the blaster closer, ready to fire. Keller shot him a warning look then shone a penlight in Sheppard's eyes. He winced, batting at her hand.

"Colonel?" Keller asked. "Can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear," Sheppard rasped.

"How are you feeling?"

He swallowed, blinking as he looked up at her and the medical team surrounding him.

"D'something happen?" he slurred.

"You had a seizure," she replied.

"No wrong moves, Sheppard," Ronon said softly, moving so the man could see the blaster aimed at him.

Sheppard blinked, a confused look washing over his face. "Wassgoingon?"

"What's the last thing you remember?" Keller asked.

Sheppard shifted, and Ronon's finger tightened subtly on the trigger as the Colonel lifted a hand to massage his temples. His eyes closed in pain.

"I'm not sure," he finally said, weakly. His speech was beginning to sound clearer. "I feel like I've been dreaming for a long time."

"Do you think you can sit up?" Keller asked.

Sheppard nodded, and she and the medics helped him to a sitting position, where he continued to massage his temples, eyes closed tight in pain. Keller gently pulled the neck of his shirt down to look at the device on his spine, but there was no obvious change. The lights continued to blink softly.

Grimacing, Sheppard touched a hand to where the bandage covered his stab wound under his shirt.

"Did I get shot?"

"Teyla stabbed you," Ronon said. He nodded at Sheppard's leg. "And she shot you."

Sheppard glanced at him sharply. "'Something wrong with her?"

"No," Keller said. "There's something wrong with you. You've been missing for three months, and you've been back on Atlantis for almost three days. Do you remember anything at all?"

The color seemed to drain from Sheppard's face at her words. "Three months?" he whispered.

Woolsey knelt down to his level. "What is the last thing you remember, Colonel?"

Sheppard sat still, eyes flickering back and forth as he thought.

"I remember P43-M39. We were coming back through the 'gate and everything was fine. Then … I think I was ambushed."

"Ambushed?" Woolsey pressed.

Sheppard nodded slowly, massaging his temples again. "Yeah, big ugly aliens. Not Wraith. Nothing I've ever seen in the database."

"What happened?"

Sheppard paused, confusion filling his face. "I … don't know. I thought I was a goner. I was alone. And then …" he squinted, pinching the bridge of his nose. "God that hurts."

"What hurts?" Keller demanded, getting in his face.

"My head." Sheppard gasped, bringing both hands to the sides of his head.

"More than anywhere else?" Keller frowned.

Sheppard nodded, not seeming to be able to respond with words anymore.

"Bring a gurney in here," Keller ordered. "We need to get him back to the infirmary."

Ronon had not dropped his guard, and watched the proceedings warily, his blaster never leaving its mark. "You trust him?"

Keller looked at him sharply. "He's my patient and he's in pain. I can't treat him here, and we need to figure out how to get him under the scanner so I can do more than just bloodwork."

Sheppard was panting in small gasps now, and Keller was feeling more and more alarmed.

Then his nose started to bleed, and the convulsions began again.

An hour later, Sheppard was mercifully unconscious, strapped hand and foot to the infirmary bed where he had been carried. His skin was pale, sweaty, and cool to the touch, and he trembled imperceptibly despite unconsciousness.

"I think he's going through withdrawal," Keller cautiously told Woolsey. "The latest blood sample I took showed the alien substance's levels are lower. My theory is that the device on his spine has been feeding something into his system. It could be some sort of stimulant, much like the Wraith enzyme. But this seems more potent. He doesn't seem to feel any pain, is healing faster, and the aliens who accompanied him were also extremely difficult to take down. Plus the fact that he's acting very unlike himself means it's doing something to him psychologically, too."

McKay bustled in, pausing only for an instant as his eyes flashed over Sheppard's unconscious body before saying, "I have the scanner rigged up now."

"What's this?" Woolsey demanded.

McKay sighed, outwardly annoyed but knowing that he needed to keep the man informed.

"Dr. Keller wanted me to see if there was a way for us to use the Ancient scanner without hurting Sheppard."

"Every time we've tried to use it," Keller began, "Colonel Sheppard would have an extreme reaction. The machine takes too long to scan and I'm worried we might injure or kill him in the process."

"So I rigged the scanner to do a sort-of flash scan," McKay continued. "Like an X-ray. But with a lot more information." He nodded to Keller. "It should work."

They slid Sheppard's bed under the scanner, and McKay manipulated the controls. A green flash enveloped the bed, and Sheppard twitched violently, then lay still. Keller quickly checked his vitals and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Looks good," she said. "Let's see what it says."

Woolsey waited with bated breath as Keller and McKay looked over the readout. The young doctor's face creased into a deeper and deeper frown as she studied the screen.

"It's as I suspected," she finally told Woolsey. "The device is feeding something into his system. It's flooding his bloodstream, nervous center, and his hippocampus."

"His hippocampus?" McKay repeated. "Maybe that's why he's been acting so strange."

"And has no consistent memory of where he has been," Woolsey agreed.

"But this is the most disturbing part." Keller pointed at the screen where the computer showed a 3D readout of the strange device on Sheppard's back. Tendrils from the device wrapped itself around his spine. Keller leaned closer. "It looks like not only is it wrapped around his spine, but it's somehow integrated itself into his spinal cord." She shook her head despairingly. "I've tried removing the device from three of the aliens so far and each one has exploded. Even if I knew the device wasn't going to explode, I'd risk turning the Colonel into — at the very least — a quadriplegic, if not killing him — at the very worst."

"So what do we do?" Woolsey demanded.

Keller turned wide eyes to McKay, hoping he might have an answer.

The scientist looked deflated. "I don't know," he admitted. "Short of figuring out where Sheppard came from and seeing if these aliens have the technology to get it off of him, we don't have any answers. We haven't been able to nail down what it's flooding his system with from the bloodwork, either."

Woolsey set his mouth in a grim line. "Then figure something out. If we can't, there is a very good chance this could happen again. Those aliens acted as though they had chosen Sheppard to lead their foray into Atlantis, and that disturbs me greatly. They could try and kidnap someone else and do the same thing again, perhaps more successfully. We don't even know how they captured him in the first place!"

McKay snapped his fingers. "Maybe they wanted him because of the ATA gene. None of the aliens have it. But they know enough about Atlantis that they knew in order to access certain areas they would need someone like Sheppard."

"I can go anywhere I want in Atlantis and I don't have the gene," Woolsey reminded him.

McKay shook his head. "The place we keep the ZedPM has a control panel I've rigged only for those with the gene to access. It was a precaution to make sure that we limited access. And Sheppard has his security access codes which could override almost anything."

"Which we deactivated once he had been missing for more than 24 hours," Woolsey pointed out.

"Ah. True." McKay's hands wavered as he thought. "But whatever happened to him on that planet, they seemed to want someone who knew the layout of Atlantis."

"And who better than its military commander?" Woolsey agreed.

"Gentlemen," Keller pressed in. "You can postulate all you like, but we need to get this thing off of him. I don't know if he might have a relapse and go back to trying to kill us all."

"Right." McKay's mouth was set in a grim line. "I'll head back to the labs. See if I can figure out something else."

Woolsey took a deep breath. "And I will make sure that all the security measures we put in place after the attack are operational. We don't want this to happen again. The Stargate has been deactivated since the attack and we are sitting ducks. I want us to be prepared for anything that might happen, especially as we still aren't sure which planet Colonel Sheppard came from."

"I wouldn't recommend reactivating the Stargate, yet," McKay warned. "We don't have countermeasures in place in case those aliens decide to invade again."

"But you are getting close with your installment, yes?" Woolsey asked.

"We need more time," McKay griped.

"Stargate Command must be wondering what the blackout is for," Woolsey argued. "We need to activate the 'gate and let them know what is going on. You have until 0800."

McKay's face twitched, but he miraculously kept his temper in check. "I'll talk to Zelenka and let you know."

"Thank you, Dr. McKay. We need the Stargate back up and running — for our own safety."

Author's Note: Thanks for all of the great reviews so far! They keep me motivated! Apologies if I miss posting every day but I'm doing my best ...