A/N: This was originally intended as a one shot, but I was having too much fun with it to try and compact it, and it has become officially a four part tale plus an epilogue.

Also, there will be a few religious moments within the story. Please, whatever your beliefs, have enough respect for my beliefs not to get into massive religious arguments, and especially burns. They're not heavy moments, just tid-bits. Also again, I suggest you read this chapter carefully. A lot is going on, with a lot of explanations involved that I hope will clear things up.

Part Two

Elizabeth took the metallic Atlantis corridors at a brisk, dignified walk masking the agitation that would rather have her going at a run. Her thoughts were a cacophony of reports popping into her head in a timeline semblance of order, interspersed with continuing awe concerning Rodney's multitasking abilities. She had thought him engrossed in the wraith machine from day one, yet he had somehow found the time to initiate another project involving setting up scanners for energy readings at the ruins of RX4-778. He didn't go, just map out the process and the request to send a small science team to do the work. And somewhere in between that, he had Zelenka recalibrate the sensory efficiency of the jumpers to gather readings at a broader range.

And Elizabeth thought she knew how to keep busy.

Rodney's various Sheppard rescue projects had been accomplished within a day. Four days had now passed since finding the wraith device. The reports coming in during that time on the scan results and broad planet searches yielded nothing absolute, but significant discoveries had been made, such as more energy fluctuations that came and went sporadically, plus the sighting (but lack of capture) of another device.

That was all well and good for proving that RX4-778 was hiding a number of little secrets, but that wasn't a result, just a hell of a lot more questions to slap on the list.

Elizabeth's heart was beating fast with the anticipation that Rodney had called her down in order to answer a few of those questions. Actually, she didn't remember the last time it had beat at a regular rate since Sheppard disappeared. The man couldn't take a breath without consequences. Carson quipped about the trouble Sheppard got himself into, but Elizabeth was finding the jokes less and less funny. John had stepped behind a blasted wall! How does that constitute as getting oneself into trouble?

Although if Sheppard's disappearance involved him ending up on a paradise island to return rested and happy, Elizabeth was certain she would kill him, or at least lock him in the brig. But when had Sheppard ever returned all smiles from being taken?

Subconscious memorization brought Elizabeth to the lab without realizing it, and she had to stop and double back when she passed the doors. Walking in, she found Rodney and two other scientists gathered around the device open like a surgery patient with parts spread neat and categorized by number on the table.

" Rodney?" Elizabeth said, folding her arms over her chest out of both habit and impatience. Rodney turned to her, face a little pale, eyes a little darkly circled, and clothes somewhat rumpled. He was smiling triumphantly, as well as wearily, and held up a piece of the device.

" We know what it is."

Elizabeth's muscles eased up on some of her tension. " Finally," she said, and came up beside the physicist to scrutinize the technology as cryptic to her as the Ancient language. Rodney turned as well and began pointing to various areas of the device.

" Here, here, and here is what gave it away. Yes, I know, they mean nothing to you, but they mean a lot to those of us who've had the fortune of being able to tinker with a dart. These are parts normally found in a wraith dart centered around the function of culling beams.

Elizabeth's body quickly reverted back to its original tension. " Culling beam. So then..." Her heart constricted and her stomach knotted.

Rodney nodded soberly. " Exactly. Sheppard was culled. But that's only the half of it. This thing is equipped with the kind of high-functioning surveillance that would have Caldwell slobbering. And I mean video surveillance, infrared, bio-scanners – this thing can detect you from the inside out. Kicker number two; it has an engine rather disturbingly similar to a hyperdrive, like a mini-hyperdrive. It can actually activate while on the planet, which would explain the energy burst then banishment. It's all about seek and retrieve with this puppy. Kicker number three, which I personally see as the big one; the writing around the crystal panels are a warning, against wraith, basically telling them to get lost and that trespassers will be shot."

Elizabeth arched an eyebrow at Rodney. " So it's wraith technology but not wraith friendly." She new better than to give in to hope, but her heart pounded fast all the same.

" It does come as a surprise, but we really shouldn't be all that shocked. It's not like we're the only ones in this galaxy taking whatever technology we can get. Here's kicker number four though; all these are wraith parts, with nothing human integrated into them and nothing Ancient looking about them. Either a hive ship had crash landed and was being kept in mint condition, someone is trading humans for parts, or wraith aren't quite as hive oriented as we thought. But in the long run, all that crap really doesn't matter. What really matters," and Rodney grinned from ear to ear, standing straight with chest out, " is that we can use this thing to find Sheppard."

Now Elizabeth's heart was really going, and she dropped her hands to her side. " How?"

" We put this sucker back together, slap on the strongest tracking device we got, and follow little piggy all the way home. The only set back is that we'll probably only have one chance at this unless we can catch another one of these things. But since we have the means, the only thing we'll be losing is time. Which I'd personally prefer not to, so would rather pull this off the first time around."

Elizabeth nodded rigidly. " Do it."

" Already started."

Elizabeth nearly threw her arms around the man, but restrained herself enough to give him a pat on the shoulder. " Good job Rodney."

Rodney, sobering again, frowned. " Thank me when Sheppard's back." He then turned to continue working.

SGA

Scaredy-cat, scaredy-cat, scaredy-cat, na na nana naaa!

Of course I'm scared you stupid brain! Since when do I have to tell myself to grow up?

John gritted his teeth, closed his eyes, and curled tighter on the cesspool scented mattress. A nap would have been quite the blessed respite from his diminishing capacity to think clearly. He really needed McKay. Making fun of himself was no proper way to pass the time.

Sleep was the proper way, but a smidgen out of the question what with Meyon in her cell emitting a sound like nails on a chalkboard, giving John the impression that she was either carving her name into the floor, or trying to dig her way out. Not long now before she started calling to him in that metallic voice of hunger. Always ten minutes after her return, give or take, sometimes less depending on how long she was gone. Sometimes she was quiet for those minutes, sometimes she was weeping, and then she snapped from her fugue and recalled her tender dish existing right across the way – her piece of meat just out of reach.

Not long now. Five – four – three – I have every right to be scared you jackass!

" Disssshhhh."

John flinched and cringed with a tightly clamped jaw to prevent the only meal he had keeping him alive from coming back up.

" You will taste so sweet to me. Like my first kill."

Basically, her taunts could be considered scripted they were so repetitive. Didn't make them any less nauseating, and sometimes she came up with lines that made him want to weep in terror.

John heard a hiss.

" I will gut you with your own bones."

Lines like that. Meyon liked to interchange from desperate to wickedly pissed without warning, either because she was indeed unstable, or simply wanted to keep things interesting.

" Your blood was so warm. So warm..." desperate longing. John could almost picture her oily drool. He rubbed the bandages covering his gouged chest. Four days and they still hurt like hell.

Four days of no sleep and once a day scraps was turning his mind to mush. And the throbbing headache only diminished his focusing abilities.

" I can still taste it on my fingers."

" You can taste?" John asked, regretting it before even finishing it, and tensing to brace himself for what would come next.

A shriek, like metal tearing metal, then a thunderous hammering as Meyon threw herself against the door.

" Mine! Mine! he is mine!" she screamed between thuds. " He is mine! Give him to me now! Noooooow! Noooooow! Give him to me!"

John's heart jolted with each thud, his panting breaths hitched with each scream, and his stomach attempted to seek shelter in his throat. He was also shaking hard enough for his limbs to fly apart.

John masked fear behind nonchalance and caustic remarks for two reasons. One: because in the face of enemies, it bought time and also because the only way to go down is to go down defiant to the last. Two: because in the face of friends, team, and subordinates, it helped to bolster their own courage and supply them with hope. But there was fear, deep inside, pumping his heart several rates faster and coating his body in sweat. On occasion, he might shiver, or his hands might shake, and that was as far as it went. Like pain, John had a high tolerance for fear, and knew how to stifle it.

John's present fear was a rarity, almost to the point of being new to him. Raw, smothering, making him want to crawl into a corner with knees pulled to his chest, body rocking, and words streaming out in a gibbering mess. He had control enough not to do that – he always had control. But this fear could almost be described as animal, pure flight without a hint of fight. After all, he was weaponless, and weak as an infant compared to the she-terminator in the next cell. And he was only getting weaker. He doubted he was going to make much of a meal for her hungry highness.

Childish, that was the other way to describe this fear. Monster under the bed, crying for mommy, and all that crap. He really was wishing for his mother right now, not to be in this hell-hole, but for him to be with her (despite the fact that she was dead), safe and soothed by the assurances that monsters don't exist.

Just had to come to the Pegasus Galaxy and shoot that all to hell, didn't you?

Shut up!

The talking to himself part was turning into the byproduct of everything else. And it would have been nice to at least have a stuffed toy or pillow to hug.

John clenched his teeth together. " Freakin' pathetic," he hissed, but couldn't stop flinching with each explosive crash of the metal body against the metal door.

" Miiiiine!"

sgasgasgasgasgasga

Meyon had finally stopped her assault on the door to settle for trying to dig her way out or whatever it was she was doing, keeping the silence shattered with her skritch, skritch, skritching that was instigating tiny insects into a frenzy under John's flesh. On occasion, John caught a hissed, "Mine, my treat. Miiiiine."

Gollum would have loved this chick - probably even fork over the precious as a wedding ring.

The prison block door moaned open, and Meyon's skritching halted. John bolted upright at the clacking of claws that didn't stop until they reached his cell. A thunk of an unbolting lock, and the door whined inward to admit Alasia's midnight dark bulk.

" Ient is ready for you now," she said, tone flat as a bored desk clerk at the DMV. John's body broke out in a cold sweat and his heart stepped up to triple time. Four days of being scared witless by Meyon's proximity had driven all thoughts of Ient's purpose for him from his mind. Now he was actually contemplating which of his present predicaments were the lesser of two evils.

Still, getting away from Meyon was getting away from Meyon. John moved from the bed and nearly buckled under a wave of dizziness that tilted and wobbled the room. He twitched his head to clear it, then shuffled behind Alasia as she led the way, speeding up to hide beside her on passing Mayon's cell door.

" Dish?" Meyon hissed, and John cringed. Her sudden shrieks were cut off when John stepped onto the metal platform and Alasia closed the door behind them using her tail. John let her move ahead, though her large form nearly crushed him against the wall. Up the many stairs, then through the door to the endless hallway with its boarded up windows.

He was expecting to enter the dining/reading room, so when Alasia stopped before the dented metal door with its rust-red stains that he doubted to be actual rust, his stomach tied itself into a pretzel squeezing bile into his throat that he had to gulp back down several times. Alasia clacked on the door with her wing claw, and the door whined open to admit them. The beast went first, but John hesitated, twisting the hem of his shirt since he had no pockets to hide his trembling hands.

" Get in here," Alasia wearily snapped. John complied, steeling himself by forcing his hands at his sides with fists clenched. He stepped from the carpeted hall, over the threshold, and onto the cold, bare stone floor granite gray in color.

It was quite the picturesque lab John doubted even a decent horror movie could mimic. Rather cliché being a massive stone chamber and all, but also somewhat unique with all the organic looking wraith technology scattered about. Consoles, holographic imagers, scanners, and cold steel-like tables with metal restraints. To the left, the wall was caked and webbed in organic matter – wraith cocoons, two of which appeared to be occupied, but larger than the average cocoon and sealed to hide the occupants.

What got to John the most, however, was the sickening mettalic and slightly putrid stench of old blood. Old blood splattered to darken the already dark stone to black. Old blood dried brown on several of the restraints. Old blood on the metal door that whined shut behind him, pock-marked with dents and marked with gouges that could only be made by indestructible claws. More old blood marked some of the consoles in the shape of human hand prints.

Ient didn't seem too keen on sanitation. Or maybe liked the feel old blood gave the place.

For John, his gibbering terror was making it hard for him to breathe. He stood stalk still several feet from the now closed metal barrier, trembling like a cornered kitten. He sucked in air at a rapid gasp, and turned his quaking head to the door, plotting how fast he needed to move to get to it before Alasia caught him and dragged him back in.

" Mr. Sheppard."

Too late. John snapped his head around and started stepping backward as Ient moved toward him with robe billowing. John's stiff, unsteady legs didn't allow him to go far, and Ient was moving fast at a walk. He came upon Sheppard in almost a blink, grabbing him by the upper arm to drag him to the middle of the cavernous chamber.

" Don't move," Ient ordered. His manner of speak – disregarding the voice – seemed so human that John hysterically wondered if this were just some human wearing a costume for the sake of debilitating his victims with fear for easier handling.

With one clawed hand grabbing the back of John's shirt, Ient snatched the shirt away, leaving John bare skinned and freezing in the over-sized icebox of a chamber. He then ripped away the gauze on Sheppard's chest, which might have hurt, except that his sweat had rendered the adhesive tape useless. All the while, John stood straight back and proud-looking, fighting the instinct to shrink away and go cram himself into a corner for more gibbering. He was staring straight at Ient, but Ient was too busy looking John over to notice. He took John by the shoulders, spinning him around, then back to the front.

" He's gotten thinner," he stated. He looked up, finally, to grab John by the jaw and move his head about. " Paler." When Ient touched the scabbing claw marks on John's chest, John couldn't suppress a flinch and small gasp. But the inspection of those wounds were short, and Ient place his hand on the right side of John's now more prominently defined ribcage where Meyon's claws had pricked him. " I will need to check for infections. Has he shown signs of illness?"

" The other day he had vomited his meal, and two days before that as well, but I found no vomit today," Alasia said. " I attributed it to nerves."

Ient nodded thoughtfully. " More than likely. I will still have to check though." The wraith looked up again, and again took John by the jaw to study the bruise still lingering on his face. " Meyon resides in a powerful shell," he said, pensive. Then he smiled, eyes bright, almost wistful. " Stronger than she once was. What did you think of her, Mr. Sheppard? What did you think of my Meyon. Is she not a thing of wonder?"

Ient released John's jaw to place his hand on John's shoulder with thumb claw resting below his collarbone.

John gaped at Ient, blinking a few times, thinking over and over 'what the freak!' " I don't even know where to begin telling you why that statement is just so freakin' wrong. Personally I kind of got the impression that Meyon isn't all that home upstairs..."

John was cut off by a strike in the face from Ient that sent him spinning around and crashing hard to the floor. The entire left side of John's face pulsed with pain, and metallic blood pooled in his mouth. He lifted his upper half up on one shaking arm, and cradled the side of his face with his other hand. Blood traced warm lines over his fingers and down his face, starting at his eyebrow.

John looked up at Ient, going for defiance. Ient loomed over him, tall and corpse pale, white hair phantasmal against the dark stone of the chamber. The wraith's fingers twitched, especially on the feeding hand. What was worse was the lack of superior rage in Ient's eyes. Wraith always harbored massive superiority complexes, but what poured from Ient was cold anger, as though John had just insulted him, his mother, and entire ancestral lineage. John couldn't hold back any longer, and though maintained his look of defiance, shrank away from Ient, bracing for a secondary strike or a palm slamming into his chest.

" You will not speak of Meyon as you did," Ient sneered, baring his teeth. " You will show her respect. You will show her fear. And you will grovel at her feet as the pathetic meal that you are." Ient then reached down to grab Sheppard's arm and haul him to his feet. He dragged Sheppard to the right, near the cocoon's, and a console on the back wall. Next to the console – a chair, a plain wooden chair like the seat of an electric chair minus the electricity. Ient practically threw John into it, then strapped his arms and legs to the thing.

" This will prove unpleasant," Ient snarled.

It got even harder for John to breathe. His heart was beating too fast, fit to explode. Blood he hadn't been given the chance to spit out spilled over his lip to dribble and stretch from his mouth to his heaving chest like drool. He swallowed, then gagged on the pungent tasting liquid. Ient busied himself at the console for a moment, then turned to John to take more blood from his arm with another syringe. He set the syringe in the metal box on the small table beside the chair. Next he took a cloth and wiped the side of John's face. After that, he picked up a coil of clear, fibrous cable attached at both ends to long, thin needles. John didn't think anything of it, nor of Ient going behind the chair, until he felt the sting of a needle piercing him through the base of the skull and moving upward toward his brain.

John stiffened and sucked in a ragged breath. His back arched, his ribs spread, and the shock of feeling the needle sliding into the base of his skull and the agony of it didn't even let him scream. Instead, he gripped the armrest until his nails bit into the wood, and clenched his jaw hard enough for his teeth to break. He did not see Ient move away, or where he placed the other end of the coil. John was too busy trying not to puke.

Suddenly, there was a hum, and a low vibration leaked into his skull, filling his body. It grew, creating a sound too unbearably loud. He tugged at the restraints to break free and cover his ears, but only started abrading his flesh with nothing to show for it. Then- agony; hot currents of pulsating agony filling every inch of him. He choked on air, gasped, sputtered, then finally screamed loud enough to drown out the deafening noise. The pain consumed him until there was nothing left, and filled his vision with darkness.

sgasgasgasgasgasgasga

John's world was a haze of blurred light and fuzzed images. They pulsed without rhythm, fading into darkness, fading back to twilight blue and ghostly white. He could hear his heart beating, like a hammer hitting wood wrapped in layers of cotton. He could hear his breathing, loud and hollow as a bellows. And he felt cold, as though wrapped in ice-coated slime that made him shiver like a frightened pup.

Indeed, he was frightened; hysterically so. But nothing it could do against the total body lethargy keeping him limp and useless as a rag doll.

When darkness faded, things had changed. He was staring at a dark gray haze. A face loomed into sight, pasty as dead flesh and framed in spider silk white hair. Then darkness flowed back in, leaving him to his heart and to the cold. When it shrank away, the face was clearer, Ient's face, moving in and out of sight, saying things, asking things. Ient was... doing something... to John. He could feel the cold hands, the light brush of claws. Yet it wasn't the same. It was less... tangible... more like something John was recalling in vivid memory than actually feeling. Too vivid as it made his flesh want to crawl from his bones.

Then came pain. John couldn't see what Ient was doing, but whatever it was, it hurt like hell. It was focused on his limbs at the joints, on his chest, around his heart, about his skull. He trembled with it, which was all he was pretty much capable of, and whimpered in his head silent pleas for the darkness to get back here and end all this. It did, right when the pain hit hard at his chest, and he screamed...

sgasgasgasgasgasgasga

John awoke screaming, then scrambling and falling from the unyeilding mattress to the unyeilding floor. He scuttled back until he was pressed against the wall where his hand went immediately to his chest. He yanked down the shirt, then the fresh bandaging, to see the same wounds cleaned and scabbed with dry blood. Smoothing the bandage back into place, he pulled up his sleeves to check his elbows, then his pant legs to check his knees. No incisions, no cuts, not even pinpricks where needles would have gone. Thinking of needles, John's hand went to the back of his neck at the base of his skull, and felt a tiny pad of gauze taped there.

Dream, dream, just a dream, a stupid dream, just a dream... Not getting the needle stuck in his head. That had been real. But the rest... Right?

John pulled himself into a tight huddle with his knees pulled up pressing his clasped hands to his chest. He felt inexplicably odd, wrong, somewhat detached, or perhaps that was just good old paranoia. He also felt dirty, coated in grime, and violated with the notion of things done to him that would be better off remaining dream delusions. He wished he could take his skin off and put on a newer, fresher hide - or at least get a shower.

Except he knew a shower wouldn't cut it. The dirt went too deep. John pried his hands to look at them, but saw no slime, no marks of Ient's handy work. And yet something had been done, altered, perhaps, too deep for John to see. Or maybe this was only phase one, and change would not manifest until phase two or three.

John clasped his hands back together and licked his dry, cracked lips, swallowing convulsively. His skin prickled with nerves singing as though fingers were brushing against his arm, then about his head. Momentary, easy to shake off, but not enough for his roiling stomach to dismiss. John lurched to the side just as the vomit raced burning up his throat to splash brown and putrid on the already stained floor. He heaved, gagged spat, then crawled away from the mess and back onto the bed, hauling his chilled and aching body onto the smelly mattress. He remained on his side, wiping his face with his arm, smearing himself with saliva, snot, and tears. He then wrapped his arms around himself, panting and longing for water to at least allow his mouth to feel clean.

Silence. John was surrounded by silence, so either Meyon was feeling stoic or wasn't present. John took advantage of the moment and let his heavy eyelids slide close. His mind drifted on a sea of images. Atlantis, what they were doing, if they were searching for him, how they might be doing so. Rodney in his lab, Teyla with her sticks, Ronon cleaning gun and knives, Elizabeth standing in the control room, watching the gate, giving orders.

Blue-white haze and slime coated skin in an arctic shell. John snapped his head up with a ragged gasp and fluctuating heartbeat.

The door whined open with Alasia poking her large head through, mane tips whispering over the floor.

" You're awake," she stated. " Took you long enough. I believe two days of sleeping it off might be considered over doing it." She shoved the door open further with her bulk, and set the tin plate with the crust of bread and the tin cup of water on the floor. She passed her eyes over the room until the solid blue orbs rested on the puddle of vomit by the wall. " Suppose you're not up for a meal then." But she didn't remove the food when she slipped from the cell.

John's body was hit with an electric jolt of cold terror at the cell door being left open that had him shrinking against the wall in a trembling heap. It eased up at Alasia's return. She stepped over the plate and cup, clutching a large wad of cloth in one claw that she used to mop up the vomit. It was a haphazard job at best with the vomit more dispersed than absorbed. As Alasia cleaned, John crept from the bed to reach out and pull the plate and cup toward him, then dragging them with him one at a time to the wall so he could stuff himself into the corner. He took the water first, sipping, rinsing, spitting, then gulping it down in three swallows. The bread he ate with less relish, chewing and swallowing as though it were more a chore he had to perform than a need. But when the vomit did not threaten, he took slightly larger bites. He watched Alasia warily and also because he didn't have much else to occupy his mind with. The creature frightened him , but at the same time fascinated him, and he still wasn't able to form an opinion of her, whether or not he could consider her as a means of help.

John's hand wandered to the gauze at the back of his skull. " What did he do to me?" he said, barely, mostly to himself.

Alasia heard. " You're better off not knowing."

John's heart seemed to try to stuff itself into his throat. " You sure about that? You're not exactly me. I mean what do I have to worry about here? Vomiting, obviously. Any other side effects? Cramps, heart attacks, diarrhea, mutation, death..."

Alasia never looked up from her smearing. " Expect excruciating headaches. Ient will tell you what he's doing in time, he always does. I've no real interest in his projects and he knows it, so he brags to who he can. He'd do better at explaining it anyways."

John took a tasteless bite of bread, chewed and swallowed, wincing when it scraped against his throat. His eyes flicked to the gaping cell door that had yet to burst open by a raging robot body gunning for Sheppard's heart.

" Ient lonely or something?" he asked. At this, Alasia did look at him by snaking her head around. Shrugging sheepishly, John tilted his head in the direction of Meyon's cell.

" Robo-lady. I'm assuming she's Ient's rendition of the perfect girlfriend gone horribly wrong."

Alasia's lids slid over her eyes in a lazy, indifferent blink. " She used to be a wraith queen."

John, in the process of chewing and about to swallow, choked on the dry crust. " What!"

Alasia snorted but said nothing further seeing as how she was finished. She headed out the room, taking the now empty plate and cup along the way. Once out, the door whined shut and the lock clunked into place.

" Word to the wise," she said before final departure. " Meyon will be returning soon. I suggest you stay quiet." Then the door leading from the cell block thumped close.

John rose on unsteady legs and moved back to the bed where he curled up and attempted another nap. Images flitted, ending at the white-blue haze and cold that snapped him back awake. He heard weeping, and curled up tighter.

" Disshhhh?"

John squeezed his eyes shut, but couldn't keep them shut when the cold slime felt thicker on his skin every time he tried.

Please no...

SGA

Teyla's foot dislodged a rock to go clattering over the cracked stone street with snapping echoes like sticks being broken in a cave. The high, crumbling walls of once homes crowding the narrow street and blocking the majority of the sunlight made Teyla's surroundings very cave like. Glassless windows and doors less thresholds gaped at her like the eyes and mouths of corpses after being drained of life until nothing remained but husks. These were ancient structures, most without roofs, many without walls, and all empty within. For the two days of exploring this city nestled in a small, narrow valley between two snow-capped mountains, she had wandered through great halls, massive domed structures, and buildings that might have been stores or homes at one time, all with nothing to show for it. No devices, not even any Ancient script. Nothing but a maze of decay not even graced with the resounding voices of the dead. She had yet to sense any wraith, but being in this place was trying to overwhelm her with the desire to flee and never look back.

But at least she was not alone. Ronon was taking point ahead of her, and a young 'Lantean soldier behind her. No one spoke, not for reasons of safety, but because noise felt like an affront to the timeless silence. Deeper than that, Teyla also harbored the irrational fear that the sound of voices might become a wakeup call to something that was better off remaining in slumber.

This place was too empty. And it was probably a waste of time searching through the remnant of the long dead, except that McKay had had a point when he talked of secret latches opening secret doors to underground worlds and other what-not. Wouldn't be the first time such things had happened. So Teyla, Ronon, and the soldiers assigned to them would search until every crack and corner was locked into memory, as McKay continued to track the wraith device and see where else it led. Though so far, this was the only other collection of ruins they had come across.

Teyla was clinging tenaciously to hope that was giving way to fear now that day two of the search was drawing to a close. For matters of safety, they were not permitted to remain on the planet should other of these miniature wraith cullers be lurking about. One more day of not finding Sheppard was another day that something could be happening to him, some sort of torture, or a decision on the part of a starving wraith to finally feed. It made Teyla's heart pound, her stomach, knot, and had been depriving her of too much sleep for several days now since the Colonel's disappearance. And what made her heart sink further was the knowledge that Sheppard was probably waiting for them, hoping for them, clinging to that hope in much the same way that Teyla was.

Thinking about it felt like a knife was being twisted into her stomach, and every time, her eyes stung with tears.

To her relief came the high hum of a jumper decloaking overhead. Disregarding the pressing silence, the team ran to meet it at the city's center. They arrived to see the jumper already on the ground, with another coming from the other direction descending beside it. Several more soldiers and two scientists came hurrying from different parts of the ruins carrying scanners, LSDs, and maps of the city copied from the HUD of the jumpers.

Teyla stepped onto the lowered ramp and was met by an anxious Dr. McKay.

" Anything?"

She shook her head solemnly, and McKay's shoulders sagged. " Great, just freakin'... great. The mini-culler wasn't much help either." He then turned and went back into the jumper where the wraith device sat, partially gutted. Dr. McKay dropped himself on the bench, picked up a tool from the metal box beside him, and began working on the device. Teyla came up beside him and sat to watch. Ronon sat across from the two to tear into an MRE.

" May I ask what you are doing, Dr. McKay?" Teyla said.

" Plan B. The tracker works wonders, but seeing as how this sucker has no reason to flit on home, I thought I might give it a reason. I'm deactivating the culling mechanism. Hopefully, whoever owns this thing has some kind of warning system attached to alert them when one of these puppies is malfunctioning. After we drop everyone off at the gate, we're going to release this thing and keep following it around until it finally takes us someplace interesting. After that, then it's the grunt squads turn to play as they go 'have fun storming the castle'. Which will hopefully result in the return of a bruised, annoyed, but very alive Sheppard."

Most of what Dr. McKay tended to say made little sense, but over time Teyla had come to grow used to McKay's ramblings enough to at least get the gist of it. She placed her hand on his shoulder, hope given its second chance, and shoving her trepidation aside.

sgasgasgasgasgasgasga

On arriving back to the gate, Teyla stood staring into the twilight sky as the jumper rose and the device was released. It went darting off into the starry backdrop, and the jumper banked to follow. She watched until both vanished, looking away when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She was taken back to see Ronon, always so expressionless, actually appearing concerned.

" They'll find him," he said, like a statement of fact rather than as words of comfort, and Teyla was glad for it. They turned to the activated gate to step through with the rest. Her heart lurched at that simple action, as though she were turning her back on Colonel Sheppard.

But she wasn't. She knew damn well she wasn't. And she would be back.

SGA

John stared at the stained ceiling, and every time he blinked, felt the grit coating his eyeballs.

" Miiiiine! He is miiiiiine! Let me taste, let me...! Miiiiine!"

Metal hammered against metal. John didn't dare close his eyes. If Meyon didn't get him, then Ient would. John didn't know how or when, but every time John tried to sleep, Ient was in his head... doing things. Things John felt, things that hurt and throbbed even after he awoke. And yet left him without a mark to prove it. Days he counted by his meal delivery, and three had passed since waking up from the two days of the only sleep he'd gotten since.

He was so tired. His body ached for sleep, his head pulsed painfully with the need, and his eyes felt dry and shriveled in the sockets. And yet despite the weariness, with his hands draped over his chest as he lay prone in the bed, he could feel his heart going rapidly as the heart of someone who'd been running. He blamed it on Meyon. The chick didn't know when to shut up.

" Your blood... Your heart... it will be so sweet! Please! Please, a taste! Just a taste!" Meyon wailed. John's muscles twitched at the next impact. Between the lack of sleep and the lack of proper food, he wasn't afforded the luxury of becoming desensitized to the cacophony. And in moments of delirium, John actually wished Meyon would tear him apart already just so he could have a moments peace.

Then lucidity would surface for a breath of air, and John would shrink at the thought.

" A taaaaste! I..." wham! " Want..." wham! " A..." wham! " Taaaaaaaaaaste!" Wham!

John bolted out of the bed and began pacing when twitching turned into uncontrollable agitation.

" Noooow! I want him now! His flesh, his blood... A taste, please! I am so hungry...!"

" Join the club, lady!" John snarled.

" Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!" Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Over and over. John paced faster and pressed his hands against his ears only to have the roar of his blood join the thunder of Meyon's impacting body.

John chuckled hysterically. " I wouldn't be much of a meal, lady. Kind of stringy and getting stringier by the day! You can thank your boyfriend Ient for that. No freakin' meat on me what so ever, and none of that tasty defiance you're so doped up about. Not even sweet, sweet fear, just total complacency if it gets you to shut the freakin' hell up!"

" Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!" Meyon shrieked. Wham, wham, wham!

" Shut up, shut up, shut up you stupid iron clad wraith whore!" John dropped his arms and stormed to the door. " Shuuuuuut uuuuuuuup!"

" Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh! Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine!"

Silence hit John like a gunshot when the cell block doors groaned open and the fight seemed to go out of Meyon. John could hear Alasia's claws clacking, then the clunk of a lock and the whine of a cell door being open. John backpedaled until he was against the wall right at the same moment that Meyon's body slammed into his own cell door. Following that came the nails on chalkboard screech of Meyon's claws on the metal of the barrier.

" You're mine, little morsel. I will feed on you until there is nothing left. I will gnaw on your bones, wear your skull around my neck..."

" Come Meyon, Ient awaits," came Alasia's bored voice.

" Little human, sweet little human. I will taste you slow and savor it. You will die in agony..."

Claws clacked and the door moaned shut, leaving John in silence and with a body drenched in cold sweat and trembling. He slid to the floor while tears of relief tracked down his face. Perhaps it was exaggerated relief, but he took what he could get.

He felt his mind drifting, not toward sleep, but in a state of fading coherence and utter exhaustion. Combinations of terror, fury, and insanity tended to take a lot out of a man. So he let himself drift with it being the closest he could get to proper rest.

His mind wandered back to the past, to Highschool and a friend who had been religious in nature and smarter than most teenagers in Sheppard's point of view. Nothing had seemed capable of faltering Alicia's faith. Not the bad in the world, not the people who clung too tightly to logic and science, nothing. She never pushed her beliefs on anyone and never went fanatical. If anything, she had been wise, probably still was. Her only real beef with anyone on matters of religion was laying the blame on God for all the bad. She used to talk of agency, and that it wouldn't be agency if God stepped in every single time. God didn't let bad things happen to people, people let bad things happen to people. Blaming God was sort of like blaming your own parents for the car wreck you got into because you listened to your friends who said drinking was cool after your parents said it wasn't.

It made sense. Then again, Alicia always did make sense. She had an answer for everything. Nothing immaculate or for the ages, but profound in its simplicity.

She also had said that a part of having agency was choosing when to ask for help, and getting smart enough to ask. And wasn't that Sheppard's biggest flaw according to everyone else? Never asking for help, always hiding behind 'I'm fine' rather than admitting to having a problem. But he would definitely admit to it now. He needed help in a bad way.

Except that he'd never been wholly religious. Not blatantly atheist like McKay, but somewhat agnostic. He did not deny the existence of higher powers, he just never took the time or the care to look deeply and find faith of his own. Alicia, her conviction, her knowing, had made it rather difficult to give into any kind of atheism. She used to push and prod him to see the good in the world, especially the small stuff, because that was everywhere.

John wished Alicia was here now. Well, not here, maybe just able to communicate from some far off, safer place, so she could tell him how the praying thing worked. She would tell him that he should have done that first, not leave it as a last resort, then she would tell him what to do, knowing John had never been a true praying man and so didn't have a clue. But she wouldn't fault him for it. She had never faulted anyone for anything.

She did tell him God always listened to those who called, you just needed to call, then have patience, because not all prayers were answered in a day. Answers came when they needed to come, not when one wanted them to come.

John wasn't given the chance for any kind of praying when the cell block door moaned, claws clacked, and his own cell whined open. Alasia poked her head in and snorted.

" Ient wishes to see you."

John's breathing increased. " With that metal whack job still with him? Oh hell no!"

" Meyon is quite subdued. She will not harm you. But Ient will if you do not come now."

John couldn't say who would enact worst pain – Ient or Meyon - and felt as though he were getting a bum deal even with his cooperation. Yet he followed Alasia all the same, just to play it safe. She led him to the lab where he saw Meyon strapped to a table, her metal body uncovered and her chest panel removed as Ient fiddled with the organic looking innards of clear wiring pumping some sort of blue fluid through the body, and a pulsing heart-like apparatus covered in blue-violet webbing that glowed. Meyon's head rolled to the side, facing John, causing John to instinctively back up into Alasia. The metal wraith opened her fang-filled mouth and... sighed contentedly.

" Tasty little human," she breathed wistfully as though in the throes of euphoria. She was high, the freaky metal wraith queen was doped up past her metal skull.

" Little, yes," Ient said, touching something like a miniature welder to one of the wires of the pulsating techno-heart. " Tasty I doubt. You have been quite restless, Mr. Sheppard." Ient didn't look up as he spoke. " Hysterical, in fact. Upsetting my dear Meyon. Agitating her into a maddened frenzy. Causing her to torture herself by mutilating her body against her door."

John's jaw fell slowly open. " What? No. Look, I so much as sneeze and she goes ballistic..." John looked back to the drugged or whatever her problem was Meyon. Again her mouth was open, and John could have sworn it was because she was smiling at him. He pointed a stiff, shaking finger at her. " Did – did she tell on me? She told on me, didn't she? Look, I don't do anything. She just goes nuts every time she realizes I'm around. And yeah I went ballistic, she wouldn't shut up! Maybe she wouldn't keep trying to kill herself if you put a hell of a lot more space between us."

Ient replaced the chest panel that sealed to the metal body with a hiss. The body was skeletal, the arms and legs bone thin, the ribcage solid rather than barred, and the spine slightly thicker than a human spine but still ambidextrous with individual vertebrae. It seemed such a frail looking body, but in all terrifying truth, John was the only frail one in the room.

With the touch ups complete, Ient moved around the table toward John, and Meyon rose to sit on the edge and watch, head tilted to one side and jaws parted. Ient stopped in front of John to tower over the fragile human. John stood as straight as his exhausted body would allow, meeting Ient's gaze, and fighting the trembling down to mere twitches and shudders.

" Your presence torments her," Ient said, tone flat and cold.

" Then move one of us," John spat back.

Ient grinned, flashing his dagger teeth. He then struck John in the side of the face with a force than twisted John around while at the same time knocking him to the floor. John fell hard, stars flashing and darkness splotching his eye sight. He barely got his elbows under him when Ient's boot impacted into John's breakable ribcage with a crunch, again and again until John couldn't take a breath. Following that, Ient's fist slammed into John's back, right at the center of his spine. John cried out, then cried out again when Ient grabbed him by the hair and pulled him to his knees. Ient kept pulling, bending John's neck back until he was forced to look up into Ient's blazing eyes.

" She is suffering," he hissed with saliva strings stretching from his teeth. " She hungers, and rages in need of fulfillment. She was a queen, a great queen, and you are nothing but an insect to her. So you will not speak ill of her, you pathetic creature, nor will you speak to her, or even think of her. But you will bow to her."

With that said, he lifted John to his feet and threw him at the feet of Meyon. John stumbled onto his hands and knees, quaking in pain and disorientation. He looked up at Meyon, and Meyon looked down at him. With jaws gaping in a hiss of pleasurable surprise, she reached down a clawed hand to touch his face. John recoiled back like a kicked dog.

" Let her feel you!" Ient snarled, stomping up behind John. Again the wraith lashed out, but with claws instead of fist, raking John's back so that he reared upright and arched, screaming. Ient then grabbed the back of John's neck, forcing him back onto his hands and knees. John gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut as Meyon's claws reached down to caress his face, starting at his temple, tracing down over his cheekbone, then his jaw, and down his throat like a cold knife. He cringed, shivering, heart beating so hard that it felt ready to explode. The cold dagger traced along his collarbone as though the creature were mapping his frame. The single dagger lifted away so the hand of knives could press against his chest. John tried to shrink away, but Ient wouldn't let him, and increased the pressure on the back on John's neck.

" His heart..." Meyon spoke with what sounded like fascination and longing, lilting into a need that was painful. " It is so strong, so fast. I wish to taste him. One taste?"

Suddenly, her other hand shot out, grabbing John by the throat and lifting him onto his knees to press her hand in harder. Her eyes burned in anticipation, then Ient placed his own clawed hand on her skeletal arm.

" Not yet, great one. I still need him."

Meyon looked up at Ient. " Soon?"

Ient smiled, almost... lovingly. " Yes, very soon. But not yet."

Pacified, she released John, allowing him to shrink back then carefully creep away as though she might strike again at any moment. Ient took the long-fingered hand of the metal creature and helped her to rise. With the other hand, he gestured casually at John.

" Take him back, I am done with him for the day."

Alasia went over to John and hooked a wing claw under his armpit to lift him. She kept the claw on him as he staggered and she hobbled from the lab, down the hall, into the abyss chamber of stairs, and back to his cell. There, all strength left him, and he crumpled to the floor, a shivering mass, panting and shaking, one arm pressed against his burning ribs, the other rubbing the bandaged area of his chest. He felt heated drops of blood tickling down his throbbing, stinging back, and hot tears racing eachother down his face.

He didn't even know Alasia had left, but realized that she was coming back when he heard the clack of her claws. With one claw she lifted him up, with the other she whipped off the flimsy shirt, then set him back down on the frigid floor.

" This may sting," Alasia said. Something cool and rough was placed against Sheppard's back, and it did sting, like hell. He let loose a broken whimper of pain with back slightly arched, but didn't have any strength left to so much as scoot an inch away.

" I used to be human, once," Alasia said. " Like you."

John flinched at that, and twisted his head as far his his aching neck would allow, but it was enough to see at least on of Alalsia's eyes. He squinted at her, studying her, trying to understand but too hazed and reeling to be able to.

" G-genetics?" he finally managed to ask. Now it was Alasia doing the squinting.

" Gi-net-eks?"

John swallowed against the onslaught of pain, sloughing through it too keep his mind focused enough to listen and absorb. He patted his chest. " Messing with... y-your insides. Changing what you are... into something else."

" Oh, that. Ient has had his dealings in that, but the results are what had him banished so he never touches the stuff. Attempted to alter the structure of humans by combining wraith structure to their own. The other wraith weren't pleased."

John's heart did a backflip. So Ient's the one to both blame and thank for Teyla's unique spidey-sense.

" No, Ient's specialty is consciousness. He's got quite a knack for moving a mind around and without touching that little head organ in the skull. This body happens to be my fiftieth, I believe. At first he would move me to human shells, then human-like shells. I was even a wraith for a time, but starved myself refusing to eat. You see, he needed an assistant who understood his work, and I was the only assistant he had that didn't get devoured by his fellow wraith. But being human and all, I aged and would eventually died. So he moved my conscious before that could happen. Easier to do that than train someone new I suppose. He put me in bigger, stronger bodies in order to aid him in dealing with some of his more unstable projects. Meyon, you think her 'suffering' now, you should have seen her when Ient had her moved the first time around. She was the only queen that ever supported him in his endeavors, and actually understood them. I was there, you see. Ient was completely fascinated with her. And of all her drones and commanders, he was her favorite. I honestly think that what I was observing was as close as wraith got to love. Not that they did any sort of bonding ritual or any such as. More along the lines of her letting him do whatever he wanted, and him giving her the choicest of his test subjects to feed on. At the time I thought it was... sweet. But then at the time I'd been a... more devout wraith worshipper than I am now."

Alasia spat the words more than just said them, the acid so thick they could have melted walls.

" Then one day, Meyon was wounded by a rival queen in an attack. Ient managed to escape with her body, but was unable to save it since where they hid held no life. He preserved her body before death in a dart and hid it. He was forced to work for the rival queen until his project had him banished. Free from hive obligation, he focused his studies on saving his 'beloved'. It eventually led to him being able to move the conscious mind. He had actually first moved Meyon into a human body, but she had tried to kill her self in disgust. He attempted making duplicates of her body, but could not duplicate immortality even with the ability to feed. She lived less than a human. So he built her bodies of metal and wires, and has been doing that ever since, perfecting them each time, making them stronger, faster, more wraith in shape. The end product he hopes to cover in a false skin, even did it once. It's her blasted desire to feed that keeps him at it, building and building and building. She doesn't even need to feed but can't get past the subconscious instinct to do so. She's in a perpetual state of starvation, and will stay that way unless Ient creates a body that allows her to feed."

John lowered his head back to the floor. " Why are you telling me all this now?"

" To distract you. I'm all done now."

John blinked in surprise, then reached back to feel gauze taped over the claw marks on his back. He could hear the clack of items behind put away, so lifted his head to look back at Alasia.

" Ever thought about leaving?" he asked. " You're big enough, strong enough, to take down Ient."

Alasia regarded John for a moment, then gathered the healing kit and turned to leave. " I have my reasons for staying. I'll return to bind your ribs. They're probably broken."

John's head wobbled on his neck, so he set it back on the floor, bringing his legs up and curling to lessen the pain in his ribs and chest.

Wraith with names, wraith falling in love, mad scientist wraith, psycho metal wraith. It was like every movie genre ever made say for westerns rolled into one and starring nothing but wraith. Terror squeezed John's stomach in a vice, making it roil and churn. But he clamped his mouth shut tight, refusing to discard the meager nutrients still in his gut that were the only nutrients he had. Ient had said not yet to Meyon's request to feeding. Not yet. But soon? Was Ient close to his goal? How close?

John couldn't help the tears cascading down his face. Then he couldn't help screaming when excruciating pain spiked through his skull, pulling his hands from his chest to grab his head, back arching and body writhing helplessly on the cold, stained floor.

sgasgasgasgasgasga

John could only assume it was the dreams. He had yet to ever yell at Meyon. When she ranted, John huddled tight into a corner, or on the bed, with ears covered and body and mind too weary to care. So it had to be through the dreams that Ient found out about John's darkened thoughts concerning Meyon turning into a rusting heap, or calling her a bitch, slut, and a combination of derogatory terms. John tried not to sleep, but there were days (days he attributed to his food being laced with some sort of drug) that he couldn't stop the lethargy followed by his eyelids siding shut on their own accord. Then he would see, and feel, and wake up in a freezing sweat with a tear-stained face, shaking hard enough to fly apart. In the dreams he was cold, slime-slicked, and in terrible pain. Ient would poke, prod, and demand questions from him... sometimes about Meyon, and what John thought of her.

So it had to be through the dreams he found out, because he was always beating John for something.

Dragged into the lab, kicked, punched, thrown about, choked, slapped, then occasionally 'pet' by Meyon. She liked to put her hand on his chest, to feel his heart beat, and that always got him puking after being dragged bloody, bruised, and unable to even twitch a finger back to his cell. Alasia would administer to him with ointments that stung, but she was as gentle about it as she could be with only single wing claws to work with. But she never said anything to him, no since that day when she told him everything. Nothing much left to tell, John supposed. But he longed for a non-threatening voice, even if it was sarcastic.

John counted the passage of time by the arrival of his food. But that tended to be thrown off by the debilitating headaches that occasionally stabbed through his skull. Odd headaches too, because sometimes he swore he could hear voices within the pain. He guessed himself to have been a guest of Ient for two weeks, maybe a week and a half.

And yet to be rescued.

It was all he thought about, being rescued. It was all he could think about, and always in a circle of stages. Longing, hope, worry, fear, then anger because he was still here, still hurting.

Where are they? The same stupid question, day in, day out. Where are you?

Were they lost, taken, or had they just given up on him, moved on, left him for dead?

He couldn't dwell on the anger. He knew his team, he knew Atlantis. They wouldn't leave him behind. Friends didn't do that, and he trusted them, believed in them, knew they would come. Knew and longed so much and so hard that when his dreams were not invaded, and were allowed to go where they would, and he would dream of rescue seeing his friends faces come through that door, he would awake to reality and weep. Even the mere remembrance of those dreams brought him to tears with a sorrow that tore his heart from his chest and shred it to nothing.

They'll come. They will. I know they will. Too bad magic spells didn't exist or he would be free by now. But he liked thinking the words, he liked the hope that came with them, even if all they ever ended up being were words and a false feeling.

Ient did little else with him except beat him until John's right arm became useless to him, breathing hurt, and he was walking with a limp. He tried to fight back, on several occasions, gathering what little energy he could backed by fury and agony to lunge at Ient. He managed a few good hits, which got Ient to admire John right before he pounded the weak human into submission.

And Meyon screamed, pummeled herself, and made promises of bloodshed and feeding. Lucky for John – the only luck he seemed able to scrounge – he was too exhausted, too hungry, dizzy, sick, and in too much pain to care. When silence did come, it came as a shock that frightened him just as much as Meyon's madness.

They'll come, they'll come...

The second week was about to lead into the third, or at least John assumed. He stopped counting. Too painful. Alasia came to get him, still holding to her vow of silence. She moved to the bed for him to grab her shoulder as support as he stood. He continued to hold on all the way to the lab, forcing Alasia to move slowly as he limped alongside her, his shoulder against her shoulder, and the hand of his good arm gripping a handful of her mane. She'd been acting as his crutch for the past two days, and today she was pretty much taking most of his weight. The stairs were the worst, with her finally giving in to semi-carrying him by wrapping her wing claw around his waist.

They didn't go to the lab. Alasia took him beyond the dented door, and the alteration jolted him in both relief then fear. The once human woman turned beast escorted him to the dining/reading room. Meyon was there, seated, sipping from a tin cup. She looked up at John and her eyes brightened.

" Little huuuuumaaaan..." she hissed.

John gulped. " Can't you at least call me Sheppard."

Her metal jaws clacked and she took a sip from her cup.

Three chairs down from Meyon sat another figure - not tall enough to be Ient - hidden within a heavy brown robe that was ragged and frayed. The hood of the robe twitched when the head moved in John's direction, and cold shot down John's spine though he wasn't sure why.

He was distracted by Meyon not making a move to to attack him.

" What's with the drink?" he asked Alasia.

" It helps to calm her and dulls the pain when Ient must work on her."

Alasia guided John to the chair across from the hooded figure. He eased himself into it, looking from Meyon warily to the hooded figure nervously. He stared at the hooded figure for a moment before raising his hand in a small wave.

" Hi."

The figure raised its arm buried within the thick, billowing sleeve with a small wave of its own, but said nothing. An awkward silence hovered between them, one that even John's worn body couldn't handle, so got him fidgeting.

" Come here often or are you new?" Idle chitchat had its uses, even if it did feel like a pathetic attempt at hiding unease.

Newbie didn't respond, bringing out more fidgeting in John.

" Hiiiiii," Meyon breathed, head lolling drunkenly. John neither spoke, thought, or looked her way. Thinking, however, he couldn't help, so steered it in a direction he hoped would spare him from more bruising.

Oh that amusing queen. She's such a pleasure to be around. And I mean it! He chuckled out loud, weak and slightly hysterical. Then the doors moaned open and Sheppard jumped, going stick rigid and just as ready to snap.

" Mr. Sheppard."

Ient's voice sent another cold shock wave down John's back. He tried not to shrink or cringe, but couldn't stop the quaking. He had hoped today to be an off day for the pain.

Pain – his high tolerance for it was the one having the day off. He'd come to realize that there was a formula when it came to dealing with the pain. During his retrovirus torment, the handle came from needing to put on a brave face for the others, and also knowing that it would end one way or another, either in death or by a cure. With torture it was pretty much the same deal, replacing cure with rescue. Plus there was a greater purpose for fighting the pain, and that was to keep anything from slipping off the tongue that would end up making all of Atlantis miserable. Pain tolerance was fighting the good fight, so fight he did.

But getting pounded because of stray negative thoughts about a robot wraith queen... How does one fight that? Don't think. Ha! Wouldn't McKay like that. 'Why Sheppard, I would believe not thinking would be your area of expertise.' John had also begun to suspect that his feelings toward the psychotic metal wraith were betraying him to Ient, because he could have sworn he pulled off not thinking ill about Meyon a couple of times. Or maybe John had been missing the big picture and really did need to throw in a few positive mental praises.

Whatever the case, John didn't know how to handle it, and nothing he did had yet to prove favorable. And that scared the hell out of him. For all he knew, Ient liked to beat for the sake of beating. The wraith wasn't all that neat and tidy in the head himself.

So John didn't hide his fear. Couldn't even if he wanted to, and he wanted to, at least for the sake of acting defiant. Not many other ways for him to be defiant as it was.

Ient's hand landed on John's shoulder, and he flinched, swallowing several times to get his heart back into his chest.

" You are quite the asset, Mr. Sheppard," said Ient. " Most of my test subjects are usually dead by now. Normally by their own hands if they can find the means. You really were a find. I may have to keep you on for further projects, which you should consider quite the positive. More rations. I can not have my best subject wasting away to nothing."

He slid his hand from John's shoulder to make his way around the lengthy table. He stopped behind the cloaked figure and placed both hands on the apparently quaking shoulders.

" Although I've yet to test your breaking points," he said. He then yanked the hood off the figure. John blinked and started in surprise.

Another robot – a copper colored, somewhat patchwork robot, skeletal like Meyon but less sophisticated. The eyes were tiny blue pinpoints, the teeth more rounded than dagger sharp, and the fingers – though also long and thin – were blunt and less menacing. Sort of like Meyon's ugly twin sibling.

And polar opposite, because instead of revulsion, John felt pity for the thing. Funny, yes, ironic, very considering his own state, but the thing looked so pathetic, with its head swaying on its weak neck and metal body trembling like it was cold, to which John could sympathize. He was freezing.

" Let me guess," John said, feeling suddenly bold at the sight of something as bad off as himself. It may have been a machine, but a sneeze probably could have taken it down. " Your first attempt at a child to complete your happy little family? I'd suggest you'd try again, but you must have already formed an attachment seeing as how it's still existing."

Instead of rage or even cold anger, Ient just smiled an amused smile, patting the thing's shoulder. " Actually, Mr. Sheppard. I would like to introduce you to... you."

John's eyes flicked from the thing to Ient incomprehensibly. " Huh?"

" I took some of your conscious and placed it within our metal friend here. Not a large portion, just enough to create a connection. A connection that, so far, has been proving quite effective. More so than I believed possible." Ient reached down to grab the robot's arm and lift it. He pushed the machine creature forward, and proceeded to twist the bony arm behind the things back.

John felt an uncomfortable twinge in his own shoulder. Ient pulled harder, and the twinge became a pulsing, uncomfortable throb that had John rolling his shoulder.

Sympathy pain?

Ient pulled harder. The thing's jaws parted, emitting a metallic squeak of agony. Sheppard made no sound. His jaw dropped when the discomfort became pain, which made him instinctively want to use his already injured arm to clutch the newly injured arm. That movement made him yelp. It also made Rusty the Tin Man yelp, putting a satisfied smirk on Ient's face and getting him to release the arm.

" See?"

John cradle both arms against his chest, Staring at Ient in horror.

" It's the creation that will put me back into favor with my brethren. Not that I care what they think, but they tend to get nosy and demanding whenever they stop by. Always wanting weapons. But weapons take me away from what is important." He glanced at the drugged Meyon. " So I utilized my creation to save Meyon for an invention that will hopefully get my kind off my back for good." He began caressing the smooth metal skull, and both Tin Man and Sheppard cringed.

" The perfect spy. I create the body, take a part of the consciousness of one of your kind, place it in the body, release the human and see what he sees via the machine. Although it seems to work best in sleep. A connection made during waking moments appears to cause severe pain. But it will do. I am still able to extract quite a bit of information during the host's unconscious state." Ient stepped away from Sheppard Tin Man to head back around to table to John. He did not stop, simply grabbed John's arm to drag him from the seat. John stiffened and gasped in a ragged, pain filled breath. Ient dropped him onto the carpeted floor, then hauled him to his knees by the hair.

" I need to see if it works both ways," He said. He placed his hands on either side of John's head without touching him. Familiar pain lanced through John's skull, beating his brain into submission. He heard, distantly, a metallic shriek of pain.

" Close your eyes," Ient demanded. John did so, having no energy to fight it. He saw - rather than darkness - himself from across the table, as his new-found weak, difficult to control body squirmed and writhed in agony. His chest vibrated with his shriek, but his eyes were fixed on himself kneeling before Ient.

John looked terrible with over sized clothes hanging off his skeletal body. His face was sharpened by the protruding bones of his skull, patched in bruises and scabs, but partially covered by the stubble going toward being a beard. The collar of the shirt hanging low down his thin chest revealed more bruising surrounding the white bandage covering the claw marks. He was shaking, breaths coming fast, and the mechanical heart beat in time to his human heart.

And pain, so much pain, existing in two bodies at once. Too much pain, making him wish he were dead.

Or free.

They will come, they will come, they will come...

" What do you see?" Ient demanded, and Sheppard told him, told him everything.

" Me... Look like crap. They... They will come..." he squeaked. " What... am I doing... over there?"

Ient released John, and John's human body crumpled to the floor. Ient thumped him in the chest with the tip of his boot.

" They will not come. Your dear friends," Ient said. John watched a sideways Ient go back to a slumping, shuddering Sheppard Tin Man and check him over. " That is what you met by 'they', is it not? I have seen your friends, been watching them through my cullers. Resilient, ingenious, but I fear not enough for you sake. I've been leading them on a wild chase. They thought they could find me by tracking one of my cullers, but I control the cullers, tell them where to go, how to act. They will never find this place. In fact, they are being led farther and farther from it even as we speak. No amount of scanning, of searching by foot, will have them stumbling upon my home. I have it buried under a myriad of shields meant to confuse."

Ient covered Tin Man's head back up with the hood, then yanked him by the arm into standing and shoved the thing away from the table to start shambling toward the door. Ient turned his attention to Meyon, and turned on the affection by holding out his hand for her to take, lifting her gentlemanly to her feet.

" Although you may get the chance to see at least one of your friends. I need one in order to finalize my deal with my brethren. Set a spy among your people. He or she won't be aware of it of course, unlike you. No need for further testing using another subject, you have cleared matters up for me well enough. A quick transfer then return, and my brethren will have what they want, and I will have what I want..." Ient led Meyon around the table and toward the door, but not before giving John a hard nudge in the back. " Peace and quiet," Ient hissed.

Meyon giggled, the sound a combination of giddy teenage girl, and tickled snake.

John nearly chocked on a tide of despair. Sorrow soaked him, numbed him, making him oblivious to Alasia gathering him into her arms, cradling him with her wings. He did not notice the slow passage of time as she ambled down the hall, or acknowledged being set on the thin mattress of the bed of his cell. He curled into himself, numb, sick, wanting to puke with nothing to expel. The room seemed to dim until shadows pressed around him, shrinking the room until the air became too thin to breathe. He was suffocating, choking on his own breath, gasping...

No, not gasping, hitching, sobbing, tears running hot but turning cold fast. There was a void in him, opening wider and wider toward an endless abyss to swallow him into the dark. Forever lost in the dark. Forever lost.

And John knew what this was.

Loss – total, utter loss.

So this is what it's like to lose hope. It hurt worse than any physical pain. He preferred the physical pains to this agony. Any pain, any kind of feeling, anything but this yawning emptiness that pushed his thoughts toward the desire for death. Quick, slow, he didn't care, just an end.

They aren't coming... They aren't... John wept, lifting his good arm to hide his face. Ient's lying! He's lying! Except that he couldn't figure any reason for Ient needing to lie, except merely for the fun of it. But wouldn't the cruelty be more savory to Ient if what he said was true? The logic of that thought was like ten bullets to John's heart, and he hated himself for being that damn logical. False hope would have been preferable, even if it was lying to himself.

John heard, from far away while being so near, the whine of his cell door and the clack of claws. Something was draped over him, rough, but warm, pooling his meager body heat and giving him a granule of relief from the cold. John lifted his head enough to look at Alasia, into the solid blue of her eyes.

He saw pity, honest to goodness pity where indifference was supposed to be. Alasia lifted one wing claw and brought it in toward John's face. He didn't move, because he didn't care. The claw touched the side of his face gently, wiping away the tears with one careful stroke.

" I was human once," she said, as though wanting him to understand something. She then turned and left, shutting and locking the cell door behind her. John dropped his head back on the bed, pulling the blanket further up his shoulders. New tears replaced the old that Alasia had brushed away. His chest felt so tight, he could barely breathe.

He didn't know what to do. He begged to know, wished to know.

He needed help, but the only help he knew was being taken farther and farther from him. Ient was pulling the strings, and Sheppard would be dead before he finally cut those strings.

And then Atlantis will be lost. Then earth will follow...

It hurt beyond his tolerance, beyond comprehension. John curled even tighter until his face was buried under the blanket, with his forehead touching his knees and his arms buried behind his thighs. He clasped his shaking, blood-stained, and scabbed hands together tightly, fervently, and touched them to his chin.

Please, He silently prayed. Whatever happens to me, please don't let Atlantis be lost. Please let my friends be all right. Please... Please...

Warmth filled the icy void within his chest, spreading to his limbs, easing aching muscles and pained bones enough for his entire body to unwind and sink. It was a pleasant warmth, a safe warmth, like a gentle, loving touch.

Like peace, and he could breathe again.

But he didn't dare sleep.

SGA

A/N: Opinions? Comments? I was rather nervous about this chapter. Lots needing to be revealed and all the angst made it tricky, so I hope it came across okay. You know, clearing things up while at the same time being sad. If you're still confused about some things please don't be afraid to ask. Like I said, it was a tricky chapter.