A/N: I'm taking liberties with John's past, though not by much. And Sherbet's back! For those of you who read Crash. Not that you have to read Crash to know who Sherbet is. I would have put this up sooner, but couldn't get on the Internet.

Part 3

Ronon observed in silence Rodney's inability to slow down and sit. By the count of five, Rodney was out of the copilot seat of the jumper and in the rear compartment. By the count of fifteen, back at the front, bringing up images from the HUD. Three, he was sitting again, five he was up...

Ronon had yet to even turn his head. He followed Rodney's pattern with eyes only, unperturbed by the scientist's perpetual motion. On the bench across from Ronon, Teyla was asleep nestled in the corner, breathing softly. Major Lorne was silent while piloting and oblivious to Rodney's movements. Ronon assumed this was what Sheppard would refer to as 'having blinders on', since by now someone would be snapping at the scientist to sit down already.

Daylight was about to fade. The sun hovering over the horizon was a deep, burning orange against a backdrop of gold. They would be heading back soon. Another day of chase and find, another day of wandering around skeletal ruins more numerous but less impressive than those near the gate, and another day with nothing to show for it.

Another day, then there would be another, and another. Ronon wouldn't say anything, but it was starting to affect him, this lack of discovery. He couldn't quite explain it in proper words except as a kind of intangible weight settling on his shoulders and in his chest. And Caldwell's talk of calling off the search once the third week was up only gave the weight more... well... weight. The man just arrived yesterday and hadn't set one foot in Atlantis before he was calling the shots, effectively pissing Ronon off. He kept saying things like 'inappropriate use of man power and resources' and 'it's been nearly two weeks with nothing to show for it.' But Dr. Weir, being the firm, resolved leader that she was, had put blinders to her ears (if that was even possible, whatever blinders were) and though she had decreased the number involved in the search, she refused to call it off.

Ronon had to admit, he admired that woman. His first impression of her hadn't been all that positive, but he was a man who adapted, who observed, and who didn't adhere to first impressions.

Rodney, for example. The little scientist was stuffed full of surprises. Get him in a combat situation – he survived, but that's as far as he went. Get him on a project to save the city or Sheppard, and Ronon actually felt a very small granule of pity for whoever got in his way. Caldwell's talk of calling off the rescue had Rodney already formulating plans to keep it alive, and enlisting Teyla and Ronon to help. Caldwell may have been the soldier, but Ronon would back the yappy little scientist any day.

The little scientist in question eased himself down on the bench beside the sleeping Teyla, rubbing both eyes with the thumb and fingers of one hand. Rodney was spent, his face color inching toward pale and his eyes bordered by shadows.

" Well, the tracker's still going strong even with the stupid machine fifty miles away. You know, I could swear that thing is going in circles. And either no one's around to fix it or its creator doesn't give a damn that it's broken." McKay dropped his hand then leaned his head back against the bulkhead wall. " Or maybe who ever's controlling it's just toying with us."

Ronon looked Rodney over. He felt bad for the little scientist, he truly did. The man was killing himself trying to save his friend, and now had to push himself harder before Caldwell's deadline.

" We'll find him," Ronon said without a modicum of doubt.

McKay rubbed the side of his face one-handed. " Crap I hope so."

" We will," Ronon said. " We always do."

" Yeah, well, there's a first time for everything."

" You giving up?"

Rodney dropped his hand and glared at the Satedan. " No. Look, Caldwell can spout his protocol crap all he wants. He's just the glorified commander of a glorified – albeit awesome – space ship and therefore has no real authority over me. Besides, just because he might give the 'like hell are you going back to that planet' speech doesn't mean Elizabeth'll back him. I doubt he could argue against a few scientific runs involving further exploration of the planet and those mini-cullers floating about. and if we happen to stumble on Sheppard, then so be it. Lucky us." A smiled smugly at his words, and Ronon returned it with a smirk of his own.

But Rodney's self-certainty didn't last, overcome by his weariness. The smile faded, and Rodney's eyes slid closed.

Ronon had faith in the little scientist's abilities, but Rodney had a point. There was a first time for everything.

" We'll find him," Ronon said again. McKay said nothing just nodded, his throat bobbing in a tight swallow.

We will, Ronon thought. Alive or dead.

Then why haven't we yet?

SGA

Two choices, that was all, and John made his choice.

He would die, plain and simple. Let Meyon feed on him when the time came, or let himself starve to death, but he sure as hell wasn't going to allow Ient to keep him on as a test subject. Yet John wasn't going to be hasty about it. Granted, bashing his head against the wall would be quicker and less terrifying, but if Ient managed to grab a suitable spy to send back to Atlantis, there was a chance John would have to go down taking that someone with him. Unless some means of escape could be found. John hadn't quite given up on that, he was just being coldly realistic. Rescue was going to be agonizingly slow in coming to the point that it pretty much wasn't going to come in time, and John was too weak and getting overly disoriented to try anything clever.

Besides, Ient was nestled quite comfortably in John's head thanks to Sheppard Tin Man. Anything he planned, Ient would find out about. So given all of John's options, death seemed the only favorable one. Although he'd set it aside for a time if it meant keeping Ient from sending a spy into Atlantis. If John killed the spy, Ient would certainly try to get another, then another...

The thought sickened John. Die, and he wouldn't have to worry about it anymore, except that he didn't want to go out failing Atlantis.

Okay, so even death wasn't all that great of an option. He was screwed, seriously, undeniably, unarguably screwed. Wraith bug and retrovirus screwed had nothing on his present state of screwed, because the only happy endings available were all reserved for Ient and Meyon.

John was officially all out of hope. On hearing Ient's nonchalant announcement that help wasn't coming, John had stopped eating. That was three days ago. He drank, but only because thirst was annoying, and John didn't want to die right away. He needed to be around when Ient's next victim dropped in so he wouldn't have to die alone.

Lying curled on the mattress, John wanted to squeeze his eyes shut in disgust, but didn't dare to, so wallowed in his disgust with eyes wide open. No choice in the matter, really, right? Unless an alternative was found, then to save Atlantis meant someone had to die. Ient, his projects, or his victim. More cold reality, more bashing of hope, and adding fuel to the desire to just die and get it over with.

John had no idea what to do. Not today, and he doubted he would think of anything by tomorrow. It was too hard to think. Positive thoughts concerning Meyon, no sleep, pain and starvation were taking up most of his concentration. John chose death because he wanted his nightmare to end, and he wanted to stop feeling. Every time he so much as closed his eyes in a prolonged blink, he would begin to feel what Tin Man was feeling – cold, slime, touching, and more pain. When awake, it was only strongest when he was near the mechanical creature. When asleep, distance no longer mattered, and everything sharpened to a clarity as though he had jumped from his body of flesh and bone to the body of metal.

Even had he chosen to eat, he wouldn't have been able to keep any of the food down. There wasn't a moment's peace from his gut trying to twist itself into a knot.

The cell door whined on its unoiled hinges with Alasia's head butting it open. She entered halfway and looked down at the floor to the empty cup and still present crust of bread. She took the plate and the cup, then raised her head to look at John

" You're sure about this?"

John nodded.

" Ient will not stand for it. If he chooses to keep you alive, then he will keep you alive by placing you in a cocoon. And I would know. I've gone the way you're going now, and it won't work."

John snorted out an acerbic laugh. " Then let's hope Meyon gets her tasty treat the moment she's in her new body. Unless you know some other way out?"

Same question asked for the past three days, and Alasia's answers was the same. She gave no answer.

" I don't really want to die, you know," John said. He felt it needed to be said, not out of a need for Alasia to understand, but for himself to understand. He wasn't giving up, he just had yet to fathom another way out, and so was simply prepping himself for the worst. Better that than suffering more crushed hope.

" I know," Alasia replied. She then backed out of the cell with the plate and the cup. The cell whined closed, and the lock clunked back into place. Several long minutes later, Meyon returned.

" Little huuuu-maaaan," she sing-songed.

A tear rolled from John's eye down the side of his face. He really didn't want to die – not by her hand.

sgasgasgasgasgasgasga

John's mind was hazed, and he was unable to think period. He lay on his chest, staring at the stained wall, empty of mind and of feeling. An occasional, pointless stray thought would worm its way in, leading nowhere but acting as a reminder that John's brain still worked. His heart beating against the mattress let him know that he was still alive. He didn't even know how many days had passed. He'd stopped counting.

At the moment, his head was filled mostly with Johnny Cash songs, and he idly wondered if it was a particular song that got him to like the music, or if it was because him and Cash both had the same first name. His mind skipped to his first day in Afghanistan, a bunch of grunts offering him some local food that had nearly burned a hole in the lining of his stomach, then those same grunts leaving a camel spider in his bed. Nasty suckers, those camel spiders. John had thought it was a mutated scorpion, and was later accused of yelping like a little girl while leaping back on pulling back the covers and seeing the thing.

Right nice bunch of SOBs those guys were. Thank goodness for Mitch and Dex. Without them, John would have never been able to pull off his acts of revenge. His first act involving a stool softener and pudding had nearly clogged up the toilets. His second act – releasing a bunch of mice into the bunks and getting the men to run out in nothing but boxers just as a group Afghan women were walking by – had marked him as a man not to be messed with.

Real respect came when he refused to leave men behind. Too bad the higher-ups hadn't seen it that way. From the oven of Afghanistan to the freezer of Antarctica, with new pranks to pull and respect to earn. Except there had been no Mitch and Dex to help him. There had been no one to help him. One man against many, and though he pulled stunts just fine, the many returned the favor rather harshly. Filling up his bed with snow, for example, and in an act a cruel revenge for the harmless prank of switching a few of the guys' clothes, thrust out into the snow in nothing but boxers. That one had ended the mini war when he'd nearly succumbed to hypothermia.

More like a stalemate. The men were generally sorry for nearly killing John, but that didn't get them to liking him any better. His only friendship with a man named Carlyle had been short lived when Carlyle was transferred, taking with him his snowboard and thus another means to stay off boredom.

Days filled with ferrying scientists and military personnel. John recalled first encountering McKay, the way he'd sat so rigid that John thought he was going to have to pry the scientist from the seat with a crowbar. Dr. Beckett – had he come before or after McKay? – John couldn't remember. He did remember Beckett's unease, but it had been nothing compared to McKay's. Idle chit chat had calmed the Scott where as the same chit-chat had annoyed the Canadian. John wondered if either McKay or Beckett remembered their first day at the snowy waste, riding in a chopper with the man who would later become their house key to the doors of Atlantis.

Elizabeth he hadn't ferried. Not his shift that day. More than likely he'd been outside with Carlyle, snowboarding down a drift. Either that or sick in bed recovering from hypothermia.

Then came General O'Neil, the only higher up that John had taken a liking to, because the man hadn't waltzed in with a stick up his butt and pretended that John didn't exist. Of course John's opinion of him hadn't been sealed until the General had casually given John clearance to enter a top secret facility, and all because he'd assumed John to be shaking because he was cold, and not because his system was still flooded with adrenaline.

John had done a lot of shaking that day. Lots of excitement, lots of wonder, lots of confusion, and topped off with a smidgen of fear. He'll admit it, he had kept it off the surface of himself well enough in his opinion, but he'd been nervous entering that alien place. The aftermath of activating that chair – inexplicably awesome as it was - had left him edgy and spooked. First encounters with alien technology could do that to a guy.

Elizabeth's talk of aliens, wormholes, stargates, and a request for him to travel to another galaxy had scared the hell out of him. Short lived, of course, after the initial chuckling thinking that this woman had been pulling his leg. It had been a little too much to digest in one day. Funny how he could fly head on into a war zone and not bat an eye, but his hands refused to stop quaking over the fact that he'd sat in an alien chair and made it light up.

Do I regret it now?

He really couldn't say. He'd made mistakes, and Antarctica had been peaceful with responsibilities that didn't involve ensuring safety and saving lives. But Atlantis was... a life, with friends, with purpose, and without the need to pull pranks to win respect.

The scales refused to tip one way or the other. He had regrets, but if he really thought about it (or perhaps it was his inability to think) he didn't really regret coming. If he was going to die, at least he could now die saying he'd done something big lightyears beyond shuttling people across a snowy waste.

Except he didn't want to die. He wanted to go home.

Atlantis was home. It had been a while since he was able to call any place home.

He wanted to go home. And if he couldn't do that, he at least wanted home to survive.

Chances were, neither one was going to happen.

The cell block door moaned open, then the cell door whined open, and Alasia's head snaked through.

" Ient needs you brought in," she said, then brought the rest of herself into the cell, maneuvering beside the bed for John to reach up and take her shoulder. With her claw wing around his waist, she supported him as he slid from the bed onto weak, trembling legs.

" S'pose he told you why?" He asked, though he knew good and well what the answer would be no.

" No."

John let himself sag against Alasia as she guided him out into the corridor with its checkered floor. On entering the stairwell, his mind jumped to thoughts concerning taking a running leap into the abyss. Problem was, before he could come to a decision, they were up the stairs and in the hall, making their slow way to the lab. Alasia shoved the metal door open with her head and brought John inside. Ient was waiting, standing beside the largest of the cocoons, with Meyon lying on a metal table nearby, motionless. John's metal half was sitting on another table, barely capable of keeping itself up, and free of the robe.

Apparently, Meyon and Tin Man weren't all that identical. Tin Man's ribcage was a little more human looking, with what appeared to be transparent glass between the metal bars, exposing the organic wiring and mechanical heart within. The robot's head jerked up to look at John, and on making eye contact, both shuddered.

Alasia stopped in the middle of the room but remained standing to keep John upright. Good thing, what with John's legs trying to buckle under him.

" You're still standing," Ient said, fiddling with the various wires snaking into the cocoon. " Good. It would have been premature for you to die before this final test."

John's heart thudded. " Final test?" His pounding heart sent blood rushing to his head, and if he hadn't have been leaning against Alasia, would have dropped.

" Meyon's body is ready."

Cold shot through John, and his gaze shot to the door. Fear produced adrenaline, and if he could get enough burning through his system, could probably make it to the stairwell in time to throw himself into it before Mayon was free to feed. He tried to push away from Alasia, only to have her claw tighten around him.

" I'm sorry Mr. Sheppard," Ient said. " I really had hoped to keep you, but you're proving troublesome and I would rather not expend my time attempting to keep you alive. You'll just find some other means to destroy yourself, they all do."

John swallowed and his body shook. " Well, yeah, but not right away. I still haven't figure out a way to keep your grubby mind out of my city."

" Which leads us to the second reason I cannot keep you around. I've thought it over carefully and find killing you to be the only reasonable solution. You should consider this an honor. You are to be the first meal Meyon has had in many millenia."

John smiled drunkenly. " I'm just overflowing with pride. Can't you tell? It really has been my life long dream to be a meal for some robotic wraith bitch."

Ient's head snapped around, his eyes burning with fury. John tensed but kept the smile plastered to his face.

" Hey, I think I've got a right to say whatever I damn well please." He held up a shaky finger. " And let me tell you, the way your 'queen' likes to yammer non-stop, ten to one says you get sick of her within the hour and install a mute button just for two minutes of quiet."

Ient's eyes blazed hotter, but instead of striding toward John to give him a beating to end all beatings, he turned his back on the weakened human and resumed fiddling.

" You wish me to kill you myself, Mr. Sheppard," he said. " But I see your plan and deny it. Meyon can administer her own revenge."

His fiddling done, he went to the console and began pressing this and that. The wires leading to the cocoon glowed, as did the wires leading from Meyon to whatever lay within that cocoon. The metal body of the wraith queen shuddered then arched, jaws gaping without a sound. A minute passed, that was all, when the body dropped lifeless to the table, the head rolling to one side and the blue pinpoints fading.

Smiling grimly, Ient went to the cocoon and began peeling it apart, his body obscuring John's view. But not for long. The wraith stepped aside with hand held out. A black, clawed hand reached out and took it. A black metal body with barred ribs filled solid in between by a glass-like but flexible substance in between emerged.

Meyon's new form was both beautiful and terrifying. The shape was more feminine, with what looked to be transparent muscles around the legs, arms, and along the limber spine. The ribs actually moved, expanding and contracting, like the chest of one on a ventilator. John could see, through the transparent musculature, the mechanical heart and what he swore was mechanical lungs, but that was all in terms of organs. Her skull was smooth, without seams, with the jaw held in place by more clear muscle. And she still had teeth, long sharp teeth, and long, pointed fingers. Coupled with her madness, once Ient's fake skin was applied, Meyon would be the wickedest wraith in the Pegasus galaxy.

Blue lights flared in Meyon's eye sockets like stars. Those same eyes roved over her new body. She lifted her hand, taking her other hand from Ient after stepping from the cocoon. Her jaws parted with a hiss of glee.

" Do you like it, Meyon?" Ient asked. He took her hand, and brushed his fingers over the transparent padding on her feeding palm. " Are you hungry, Meyon?"

Meyon's head lifted to nod at Ient. Then she looked at John.

John's heart slammed, and his body shrank against Alasia. He shook his head, shaking fit to fly apart, and gripped Meyon's mane tight. " No, no, no, no, no..." he whimpered, then looked up at Alasia, begging with his eyes for her help.

Alasia did not even look at him.

" You know what to do, Mayon," whispered Ient.

Meyon's jaws clacked and her back arched like a cat bunching muscles for the spring. John released Alasia, and Alasia released him. He stumbled back, still shaking his head, heart pounding harder until he could barely breathe.

Ient's hand slipped across Meyon's smooth skull. " Feed, my queen. Feed to your heart's content."

With a hiss, Meyon pounced, bounding swiftly over the lab, fast as a cheetah and just as agile, to collide into John and bring him down to the floor. One clawed hand wrapped around his throat, and the other ripped open his shirt, then tore away the bandaging.

John didn't fight, or even struggle. This was it, he knew it, and in that brief moment, completely stopped caring. He let his arms fall splayed to his sides, and tilted his head back so he did not have to watch, nor close his eyes. He took a long, deep breath, as deep as his broken ribs would allow, just one more, then slowly exhaled.

" Just get it over with," he said.

A single claw trailed down the length of John's sternum, stinging and drawing out drops of warm blood. Then the feeding hand slammed into him in a shock wave of pain rolling across his entire ribcage. Meyon pressed in, harder and harder, until the bones creaked and the broken ones grated. John tried to gasp but his chest couldn't expand. Tears of agony slipped from the corner of his eyes, sliding down his face.

Let it be fast. He prayed. Please, let it be fast.

He didn't know what it was like to be fed off of, didn't know if the pain he was feeling was because of broken bones or because the life was being drained from him. So he didn't know what was happening. Seconds felt like hours, and John begged them to speed up.

" I feel," Meyon breathed. " Nothing."

John furrowed his brow. " What?" he whimpered.

" Nothing is happening," she said. John lifted his head up to see her eyes blazing brighter. Her claws curled, pricking the thin skin of John's chest.

" Nothing is happening!" she screamed, and raked John's chest, over and over and over, her claws going deep enough to scrape bone, as though trying to dig through John to get to what she couldn't reach. John screamed, and started struggling. His hands, even the one on the broken arm, shot up gripping Meyon's own arm in an attempt to pull it away. He squirmed, writhed, and pulled. Then Meyon jerked her arm free of John's grasp to begin pounding his chest trying to break the bone like cracking a walnut.

" Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!" She shrieked. " I cannot taste him! I cannot taste anything! Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!"

John's own screaming wail melded with hers as she pounded and clawed. A copper colored body rose up behind Meyon to fall on her, scrabbling for her arms to try and pull them away. But Meyon barely broke rhythm when she reached behind her to grab Tin Man by the scrawny neck and fling him like a toothpick to the other side of the lab. The pain of the collision combined with the agony already existing in John's body had black spots marring his vision. Meyon resumed her beating of John, tightening her hold around his neck.

Then suddenly it all stopped when she was pulled away by Alasia. The creature had Meyon's leg in her mouth. Meyon clawed at the floor to mark it in John's blood, with more blood flying off in drops. She then leaped around with claws spread, hissing like a mad cat. Alasia reared away baring her fangs and hissing as well. Then she stepped aside.

Ient fell into Meyon's line of sight, and Alasia pointed a wing claw at him.

" He's the one to blame! He has failed you, again! He is the reason for your suffering! Will you stand by, and allow him to do with you as he will, as you perish from hunger!"

Meyon's dark body shook with uncontrollable rage, her bloody claws curling and her eyes flaring bright to almost blinding. " You," she hissed.

Ient, smug and silent until Alasia had begun speaking, hissed back, going rigid. " No! This is not my doing! It is a malfunction, one that I can fix. You must give me time..."

But Meyon was beyond listening. With another hiss, jaws wide, she lunged at her beloved, colliding into him with a shriek and claws raised. John, lying on his side, watched in wide eyed horror, until two claws snagged him under the armpits to lift him to his feet and turn him away to be face to face with Alasia.

" Do not watch," she said, then pulled John to her to lean against, her one claw around his waist, holding him up. John had his broken arm pressed against his stomach, and with his other hand held the ripped parts of his shirt closed over the bleeding tears in his chest. Behind him, Ient screamed, Meyon shrieked, flesh ripped and bones snapped with the resonating sound of a gunshot.

John closed his eyes, forgot what a mistake it was, and nearly dropped from the increase of pain courtesy of Tin Man's broken body. Snapping his eyes open, he rolled them to where Tin Man had crumpled, one arm bent, spine dented, and jaw hanging by one hinge. But the blue pinpoints still glowed, and John still sensed the struggling mechanical heart stuttering in the metal ribcage. John's own heart stuttered with it, and his breath kept catching with each inhale. He'd thought it had hurt to breathe before, now it was pure white-hot torment. His vision flecked with flashes of light and splotches of dark. Oblivion would have been heaven had it been able to offer escape. Not this time around.

Ient's screams died in a gurgle, and silence would have been absolute had it not been for John's ragged, uneven breathing. Then John's breathing was joined by Meyon's hiss. Alasia lowered John to the floor where he curled up protectively against his burning chest. She then stepped over him. John lifted his head, turning it as far as he could, in time to see Meyon lunge only to be caught by Alasia's wing claws and thrown against the wall as Meyon had thrown Sheppard Tin Man. Meyon's body rang out sharp against the stone, and before she could get up, Alasia pounced to begin tearing her apart in a whine of rent metal.

John's neck gave up holding his head, and lowered it back to the floor.

Meyon did not scream as she died. The rending sound of metal stopped after ten heartbeats, and silence returned strong and thick with John's breathing too shallow to shatter it. What did shatter it was the clack of Alasia's claws. Those same claws slipped beneath John's arms to gently lift him back to his feet and support him to keep him form dropping.

" It's over," she stated. John glanced over his shoulder at the pile of metal and wires leaking clear liquid. Not far from that, a pile of pale flesh, cloth, and black blood. Had John anything in his stomach, he would have puked. And he wished he could puke the way his stomach wouldn't stop roiling. He pulled his gaze from the corpses to the still living mechanism that was his other half. He could feel its pain and this proximity, piling onto his own pain trying to drive him down.

" K-kill it," he gasped, desperate for the weight to be lifted, just a little. But it made his stomach clench and his heart shrink.

It was him. Him! A part of him, a missing piece of him like a jagged hole at the back of his mind and within his soul, trying to find its way back, but only getting as far as a vague whisper and the extra burden of agony he wasn't supposed to be feeling.

" I can't," Alasia said. " Not unless you still wish to die. At this range and in your condition, it would kill you as well. It will fade on its own. You only need to wait, and put distance between yourself and it."

John looked back at Alasia, hope trying to rise, but the desire to never feel the loss of it again tempering it, like going in one toe at a time to test the temperature of the water.

" Now what?" he rasped.

" I got what I wanted, so now... we may leave."

John's heart thudded painfully, and he would have dropped if Alasia hadn't been holding him up. " H-h-h-home?"

" Yes John, home."

sgasgasgasgasgasgasga

It was no simple task getting onto Alasia's broad back, even with her help. But once on, Alasia moved carefully so as not to dislodge him. He clung to her mane with one hand, and pressed his broken arm to his flayed, broken chest, leaning slightly to the side to avoid two kinds of pain. They left the lab, the bodies, and Tin Man. John didn't like it, felt it an affront to the machine that had tried to save his life, but Alasia insisted that to move it would only increase John's agony.

So they left it, and a pang of complete loneliness stabbed John's heart, stinging his eyes with tears. Alasia ambled to the stairwell, and for a brief moment John feared that she was going to dump him in the cell and leave him to die. Instead, she climbed upward, on and on into the darkness like going toward eternity. When she did stop, it came as a jolt to John. He craned his neck back to see a ladder leading to a massive metal trap door.

" Hang on," She said, and spread her wings to leap and flap upward. She pressed her head to the door, and shoved. The door groaned open, and gray light spilled down like a pillar, blinding John and forcing him to look away. Wind blasted him, cold but clean. He pulled in a lungful as far as his ribs would let him, and felt the wind whip his clothes as Alasia climbed into the endless open. John slowly opened his eyes, and gasped at the sight of a gold-touched blue sky filling his vision. His heart pounded in exuberance, and his body shook with the exhilaration of flight and freedom. He looked without an inkling fear of heights at the wide open world. They were surrounded by snow-capped mountains, the closest becoming the farthest with Alasia soaring away from it.

Ient's lab had been in a mountain, how cliché. John could almost make out the boarded windows that were easy to miss at a distance. John turned his gaze back to the front and hunkered down deeper into Alasia's whipping maze, giggling hysterically, euphoric with flight and by his still beating heart hammering wildly in his chest.

Alasia was a swift flyer, and the land passed beneath her in a blur of green and brown.

" We are not far from the ring," she called. " We should arrive at it within less than an hour."

True to her word, Alasia slowed, and on looking down John saw a familiar collection of stone formations – the ruins, the place where it all began. Alasia spiraled down gently like a falling leaf, flapping on nearing the ground to touch down with barely a jolt. She then ambled over to one of the structures – two joined walls – and crouched.

" You should stay here until your friends find you," she said. John moved inch by inch, sliding from Alasia's neck to the ground, then staggering to the corner where he slid down into a huddle, closing the rip in his shirt and pressing it to his bloody wound. He looked up at Alasia, and began trembling in trepidation.

" What if they don't come, or don't find me?"

Alasia arched her neck in order to look down at him. " They will. They have the means or Ient wouldn't have made his cullers lead them away from the mountain. Even his shields are not all that reliable. He knew your people would have the means to find his lab. But if they don't find you, I'll return at sundown of this world. And if you're still here," she shrugged, " I'll take you to an inhabited world where you can find help. But they will come. They haven't stopped searching according to Ient's last planet scan."

John huddled into the corner tighter, terrified by the thought of being left alone. Tin Man's pain was muted, but it wasn't gone. Cold was wrapped around John like a blanket, and yet a small part of him was aware that the temperature of this world was supposed to be warm. He could feel that warmth brushing his skin, but finding no way in.

John gave Alasia an imploring look. " Can't you stay? Just a little longer? Until they come? I won't let them hurt you. You could even come with us."

Alasia snaked her head around to look away. " I'd prefer not to be in the company of humans. Besides, this body doesn't have much longer to go. A few more years, then it will die. Might as well make good use of it while I can, do some traveling, breathe clean air. I've lived long enough and I'm quite ready to depart mortality. Being around humans..." she shook her head. " It's bad enough being around one human. Reminds me of what it was like." She then snorted caustically with mouth curling upward in a grim, bitter smile. " I don't even recall what I looked like. Pretty. I remember someone – a friend, maybe, someone I loved – saying I was pretty. That's all."

" You're still human inside," John said.

Alasia's head arched back to facing him, and the bitter smile softened to turn sad. " There was a time I would have believed that."

John straightened, ignoring the pain it caused him. " But you are. You saved my life."

" But I would have let you die," she countered. John furrowed his brow, sagging when he could not longer handle the aches.

Alasia looked up, her gaze distant and pensive, staring to the horizon and beyond. " I have let others die." She then returned to looking at John. " You asked me once why I didn't just leave. And you're right, I could have, very easily. I could have torn Ient to shreds myself, ripped his head off with my mouth, and I wanted to. Oh how I wanted to. But it wasn't enough. Not for me. I needed him to do more than suffer for what he put me through, I needed him to fail. And I needed to punish myself for being stupid enough to worship a race of murderers. But I only made it worse, allowed others to die around me, and I let them in order to wait for the perfect moment, the perfect revenge. And that was through Meyon. I made sure that, every time a new body was created, the feeding apparatus malfunctioned. And I waited, waited, and waited as Meyon's madness grew. And I did nothing to help anyone, because if I did, Ient would have found out what I was up to. Not that anyone I tried to help would have gotten very far. Ient would have found them with his cullers."

Alasia sighed. " And now I got what I wanted. And yet I feel no different. No better, no worse. But at least it's over. I just might as well have ended it sooner, saved many more from the pain... saved you from the pain."

John caught the shimmering in her eyes where moisture flooded until it ran over. Just one small tear flashing in the daylight. She reached out with a wingclaw and touched it to the side of John's face. He flinched in surprise at the feel of warm, velvet furred flesh rather than cold leather and – especially – cold metal.

" I was human once," she said as another tear fell. " Don't become like me John. Don't let this change you. Don't let it eat you alive until nothing human is left."

She removed the claw, then backed away, turning to launch herself into the air and veer heading in the direction of the gate. John felt the press of air from her wings and she passed in close over head.

He was alone, completely, shivering with cold while surrounded by warm air. He was free, and didn't know what to think of it, what to feel. It was as though it wasn't supposed to be, making him think that any moment he would awake to Meyon's screams, even now still echoing in his skull. So John huddled tighter, and prayed with all he had that this was real.

SGA

" Major, land the jumper," McKay snapped, almost yelling. But Lorne was already a step ahead having seen the same image on the jumper's own LSD. The culling device forgotten for the moment, Major Lorne eased the jumper to the ground just outside the ruins, while on the HUD a white dot pulsed.

" Could be a trap," Ronon warned.

Rodney's tongue flicked over his lips but never took his eyes from that dot. " Probably. In which case, be prepared to fire at anything darting around in the air." They were taking a big risk checking this out, Rodney knew, but he was beyond the point of not caring. They were only halfway through week three and Caldwell was pressuring Elizabeth to call off the search. Time was even more the enemy now, and right now Rodney would take any kind of new discovery, even a white dot that was nothing more than bait to lure them in. At least having more people vanish might get Caldwell to reconsider.

When the jumper touched down, Ronon and Teyla went immediately to the rear hatch to take positions on either side as the bay doors hummed open. The HUD screen vanished, and McKay clapped Lorne on the arm.

" Stay here in case we need to make a quick getaway."

Lorne eyed him witheringly. " Uh, maybe you should stay here. You've got the gene and I'm better with a gun... no offense."

" And you're also better in a jumper. Major, if you haven't already figured out, I'm not good under pressure. The last time I panicked while piloting a jumper I couldn't get it off the ground. So do us all favor and save our lives by staying here."

He didn't give Lorne the chance to respond. Yanking his own LSD from the pocket of his jacket and his scanner from the other pocket, he rushed to the rear hatch, stopping several inches from the opening to take readings. So far, the only energy signature being picked up was from the jumper.

" All right, nothing unforetold so far. Xena, Chewie – warriors first."

Ronon narrowed his eyes at McKay before departing. " The movie references are getting a little old, McKay." Then he stepped out.

" For your information," Rodney called, " Xena was a TV show." He then shook his head. " He's been hanging around Sheppard too much."

Ronon and Teyla entered the ruins moving their weapons in a 180 degree arch. Rodney kept behind them, calling out directions to steer them to where the owner of the LSD dot was located.

That location was behind two joined walls that was more easily pictured as having once been a building than the rest of these rock piles. Teyla and Ronon each pressed their backs to one of the walls. With a nod to eachother, they whipped around with weapons out. No gun fire followed.

" Dr. McKay!" Teyla cried. McKay rushed around the wall trying to pull his nine mil from his thigh holster, assuming backup was needed. He stopped on seeing Ronon and Teyla's own weapons lowered. Not just lowered, dangling from one hand at their sides. Gaping, with brow wrinkled, Rodney came around to where they stood and turned to face the wall.

McKay stumbled back three steps. " Holy... what the... crap!"

His first thought was that they had stumbled onto a corpse, except that corpses don't show up on LSDs, and don't shiver.

It was the hair that was the give away, always the hair, dark and spiked. Sheppard was curled upright in the corner where the two walls joined, one arm against his stomach, and one hand gripping his blood-soaked shirt. He was a mess of blood, dirt, and dark, vicious looking bruises glaringly bright against his colorless face. And he was so thin, like a bundle of dry and brittle twigs, where the slightest touch could break a bone in two, or shatter him into fragments like glass. He stared at the three through wide sunken eyes, uncertain but trying not to be, frightened but not necessarily at them.

Teyla was the first to move and test the reason behind John's fear. As she approached, moving slow as though approaching a wild animal, John's eyes moved with her. She knelt before him, and John still had yet to freak and try to bolt. She reached out to him, and John stiffened, sucking in a short breath. He was struggling not to move, McKay could see it. The man was fighting his own fear. But when Teyla touched his face at the jaw, he cringed with an increase in the shivering.

" It is all right," she breathed. John swallowed, blinking rapidly, and nodded. McKay released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

Then John opened his mouth. " I-I-I don't feel so good," he timidly said in a small, hoarse voice. He looked from Teyla to Ronon to Rodney, and back to Teyla. " C-can we go home now?" His tone wasn't that of a military commander giving an order and hiding it behind a sarcastic request. It was a honest question, as though his team were the ones calling the shots, not him, and he was asking for permission.

Teyla removed her hand from John's face and attempted to take his hand gripping his shirt to clasp in her own. Except that he wouldn't let her, and clung to his shirt as though it were a matter of life and death. So she simply let her hand rest on top of his. " Yes, John, we can go home now."

John nodded again, then braced his back against the wall and began to rise. Teyla tried to aid him by putting her hand on his elbow. He jerked away with a hiss of pain that had Teyla snatching her hand back.

" Colonel, I'm sorry..."

He shook his head but didn't say anything. Once up, he pushed away from the wall to go staggering toward Rodney and Ronon. Ronon stepped forward, placing his hand lightly on John's back, only to have him stiffen and cry out brokenly, turning away.

" D-don't... please?" he begged, and the desperation stabbed at Rodney's heart. John had stopped moving, breathing and wincing through the pain, starting up again when it passed. Rodney gulped and moved toward John.

" At least..." he stammered, reaching out to John without touching him. " At least lean against one of us. Can you do that?"

John stopped and looked at Rodney for a moment, apparently thinking this over. He then nodded, and Ronon came up beside him, letting the weakened and wounded man use Ronon's stronger body as support. John winced but did not pull away.

They made their agonizingly slow way to the jumper with John limping and shambling like an old man, back curved and shoulders hunched in as though he were freezing, and for all Rodney knew he was. But if a light touch on the back caused him pain, Rodney didn't want to know what a jacket would do.

On entering the jumper, John kept going until he came to the edge of the bench. With one shoulder braced against the wall, he slid down it onto the seat, then brought his legs up to return to huddling. From the cockpit, Lorne watched wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Teyla sat beside John, and Ronon across from him. John was still trembling, definitely from pain, probably still from cold, and Rodney couldn't stand watching him freeze. He reached into one of the overhead compartments and pulled down a blanket. He unfolded it, spread it, then went over to John, kneeling in front of him.

" Colonel. I'm going to put this around you. You tell me if it hurts, all right? and I'll stop."

John nodded. With Teyla's help, they carefully place the blanket around John's shoulders, then down his back when he leaned forward enough to allow them to. They brought it around to the front, and Teyla held it in place since John refused to release his shirt or move his other arm. Rodney turned to Lorne, giving him the go ahead nod. Lorne returned it, closed the rear hatch, and got the jumper underway.

Rodney backed up until he was sitting on the opposite bench next to Ronon. Rodney stared at John, and John stared at Rodney. He was still wide-eyed, uncertain, oozing fear and exhaustion. Then he blinked, and a solitary tear rolled down his face into the dark, thick stubble forming a beard.

" You found me," he whispered. The three team members exchanged relieved looks. Teyla, smiling, looked at John.

" We never stopped looking."

John's eyes glimmered and more tears fell, rolling fast as though racing eachother. His features altered, fear taking over completely, and he shrank into the corner.

" I was going to give up," he whispered. The words sent a thrill of cold shock down Rodney's back.

John's breathing, though still shallow, came faster and more labored. " Oh, gosh... I was ready to give up. I-I was..."

McKay knew what this was. John was having a panic attack, and in his condition it would probably kill him. But there was little they could do since every touch caused him pain.

Teyla knew. She began running her hand through his hair, caressing his head that had yet to elicit any cries of pain from him, while at the same time speaking soft, gentle words to him.

" John, it is all right. You did not give up or you would not be here. We do not fault you for it. Please, it is all right. Just take deep breaths, as deep as you can without causing pain. You are all right now, you are safe..."

McKay heard, like background noise, Lorne talking to Atlantis, telling them to bring a medical team to the jumper bay. In the next instant, they were in the gate, racing through the wormhole, and merging on the other side within the confines of Atlantis. The jumper rose up to the bay, and the moment it stopped, the doors opened to reveal Beckett and team already arriving. Beckett boarded first with a nurse following but the rest hanging back. Neither McKay, Ronon, or Teyla moved, not really being in the way since they were sitting on the bench, and not wanting to leave John so soon after his near panic.

Beckett knelt before John, already placing his stethoscope to his ears and looking up into the bruised and tear-stained face of the broken pilot.

" What are his injuries?" Beckett asked, opening the blanket and carefully removing it to hand to his nurse.

" We do not know," Teyla replied. " He would not let us touch him. It caused him pain when we tried."

Beckett nodded without ever taking his eyes from Sheppard's face. " Sheppard, lad, I know you're hurting a lot right now, but I need to see what's causing that hurt, and if there's anythin' pressin' we need to deal with now before movin' ya to the infirmary. Ya understand son?"

John nodded, but didn't move. Rodney noticed with a blanch that John's hand clutching his shirt was covered in blood to match his soaked shirt front. Carson gripped John's wrist and pulled at the hand until it jerked free. The other arm Beckett touched lightly but did not move.

" That broken son?" Carson asked.

John nodded. " Th-think so," he whispered.

Carson pulled lightly at the collar of the shirt, only to have the shirt split and fall open to either side. Beckett pushed the two haves aside, and his head reared back.

" Bloody freakin' hell," he breathed, his face paling. Rodney leaned a little to the side, and blanched again with gut roiling.

John's chest was a mess of blood and tissue deep gashes that Rodney could have sworn was showing bone in places. Blood continued to ooze out down his chest, visible ribs, and over his sunken stomach. Beckett reached out behind him to have several pads of gauze placed in his hand by the nurse.

" Son, what happened?" Carson asked.

Panting, shuddering, John gulped audibly. " Sh-she was hungry," he replied in a small, terrified voice McKay had never once heard come out of John before. " B-but she couldn't feed. She was mad. She... she started – digging. Sh-she wanted my heart, I think. She was digging for it." His eyes pooled again, rewetting his face with another deluge. " She – um – she was beating on me, and digging. And I let her. Oh, gosh, I was going to let her feed! I was giving up...!" he then cried out when Carson pressed the gauze to his chest. He doubled over, trying to pull away and cram himself further into the corner.

" John, John! Easy son, it's all right. Let me get you a sedative and..."

John's head snapped up, eyes wide enough to rip and wild with terror. " No! No, please, no! Don't let me sleep, please! I-it's worse. It's worse when I sleep, please don't let me sleep." He wasn't just shedding tears now – he was all out sobbing, begging, and shaking hard enough to snap his own bones while trying to shrink away from Carson.

" Please, don't," he whimpered, calming down enough to catch his breath.

Carson took John's bloody hand and squeezed it in reassurance. " John, calm down lad. I won't. It's all right, I won't sedate you. Can I at least give you something for the pain?"

At this, John nodded, and Carson relaxed, smiling wanly. " All right then. That'll do for now. Let's get you to the infirmary."

They got him on a gurney and into the infirmary where Carson drew the line at the rest of the team following. Two nurses cut away the remains of the shirt, and Carson placed a sheet over John before removing the pants. During that time, a third nurse wiped away the blood around the wound on the chest. It was a massive wound, bone deep at the sternum, with some gashes extending from the collar bone to the bottom most rib. The suture pattern was going to be interesting when they were done.

For the time being, they covered the wound with pads of gauze in order to wheel him into X-ray. Chest, legs, arm, skull, and they were done, wheeling him back out to return focus to the gashes and other wounds such as the four claw marks on his back, the bruising around his throat, and a myriad of bruising all over his malnourished body - some shapeless, and some shaped like either hands or boot prints. I.V.s were hoked up for medication, dehydration, and blood loss.

All the while as Carson went through the motions, John remained the cooperative patient, which wasn't necessarily a good thing. If pain was caused, he might let out a small broken moan or whimper, but had yet to say anything. So it took Carson a moment to register John's growing distress, starting in muscles going too rigid until they were like rock, then escalating to fast breathing and an increase in heart rate when Carson did a secondary listen to John's heart and lungs, unable to set up the heart monitor just yet until the chest wound was taken care of. And he'd been shaking since Carson saw him on the jumper, so it wasn't as though that was much of a give away.

Carson placed his hand lightly on John's bruised shoulder and leaned in toward his face without sacrificing John's personal space. John returned Carson's concerned gaze with his own frightened one, but still said nothing. He was disoriented, Carson knew that without needing proof. From lack of food was obvious, and Carson knew the signs of sleep deprivation when he saw them. The noise and the proximity of so many were scaring the hell out of John, and yet in true Sheppard fashion he remained quiet about it, choosing to fight it rather than give way to what he considered weakness. It was an act of scrounging for self control, which he'd been more than likely denied during his capture, so Carson wouldn't fault him on it, or say anything about it.

" John, relax son, we're almost done," he said instead, then dismissed several nurses since one or two could handle things just as well from here on in. With the hectic activity slowing down several notches, Carson felt the muscles in John's shoulder shudder out of their taut pull, and his breathing descend.

When the X-rays arrived, Carson left the suturing to Anna, a woman well into her forties, and who was a natural when it came to any kind of thread. When it came to applying sutures, Carson tended to rely on her the most for either doing the job or completing it when Carson couldn't. He took the X-ray envelope from the tech and went to the light board to look them over. What he saw made his heart break for poor John. A complete break just above the wrist, a twisted ankle, wrenched shoulder, broken collarbone, and his entire ribcage shattered. It was a miracle none of the breaks had punctured anything. Hell, it was a miracle John could even breathe. What wasn't broken clean through was cracked in more than one place. Even the breast bone was webbed in small hairline cracks. The only ribs not affected were the floaters.

Yet nothing was punctured, and he had found no present indications of internal bleeding, though he would keep careful watch for the signs since bleeders had a way of hiding.

Finished with the perusal of John's bones, Carson went back to his patient and took over the suturing.

Carson found it odd having John watching him as he closed the wounds. The usual song and dance was for John to be unconscious either on his own volition or because he was sedated. He could feel John's gaze, and seemed unable to help but return it off and on. The pilot was exhausted but fighting it with the tenacity of a pit bull so that not even his eye lids dare slide close.

But other than that display of stubborn resolve, there wasn't much about John at the moment that was very 'John'. Worn out, that was John now, like an old glove, and scared. And it was an unusual kind of scared, one of wariness, of trepidation like a man waiting for the announcement of his execution. Or perhaps more of waiting for the one who'd tried to dig a hole in his chest to come barreling through the doors. And he wouldn't stop shaking.

When the wounds were closed and bandaged, Carson, with the help of Anna and another nurse, aided John in raising up enough so they could bind his ribs. After that, Anna wiped away more dirt and grime from Sheppard's upper body and his face, including a shave to see what further bruising lay beneath. Cuts were cleansed and disinfected, John's arm was bound in a cast, a gown was placed over his emaciated body, and the same casted arm was placed in a sling to allow the collarbone to heal. And with all said and done, blankets were layered over John, pulled up to his chest.

And all that time, he didn't say a thing.

" John," Carson said as he adjusted the blankets. " What happens when you sleep?" Something incomprehensibly terrible, obviously, or John would have been out a long time ago.

John's head turned away, his body shrank down further into the blankets, and he said in a small, distant voice. " It hurts."

Carson's instinct was to sedate John. He needed to sleep or he would never heal. Yet just thinking about it gave him the impression of an impatient father dragging a terrified child back to his dark, lonely room after rushing out screaming of monsters. Only in John's case, there really had been monsters.

The only other alternative was to get John to talk about what happened, find the culprit for this fear, and hope that assurances that the fear was nothing to cling to would ease John enough to let Carson sedate him. Carson's only concern was that it felt too soon to get John talking. Many wounds had come about over a period of time, but the one on his chest was fresh, from today, and Carson couldn't say how talking about it this early would affect John. Most likely make his distress worse, no doubt.

But Carson had to try something.

Carson turned to get a stool, but didn't go far when he felt a tug on his lab coat. Turning back, he started on seeing John wide-eyed, panting, and back to shivering.

" Where are you going?" he asked, voice heavy on the desperation. Beckett's mouth gaped but it took a moment for words to form.

" Uh... I was... Just going to get a stool to sit on."

John's hand dropped limply from Carson's coat. " But you're coming back?"

Carson took John's hand and placed it back beneath the covers. " Aye lad. Seein' as how you're in no mood to sleep, I thought we might have a bit of a talk as to why."

John pulled his eyes from Beckett to the infirmary doors. " Maybe I should tell everyone."

Carson's body buzzed with alarm. He expected a one on one conversation to be bad enough, but to have so many present... Carson shook his head.

" I don't think that's a good idea, lad. I don't want ya overwhelmed."

" Then just McKay. He'll get this stuff."

Carson was about to ask 'what stuff' but since was about to hear the full story eventually, bit back the words. He was satisfied with that arrangement, and after assuring John that he'd be back, went out the infirmary to find John's team plus Elizabeth waiting as expected. The little kitten sized, fox-faced, big eared, lemur tailed rodent John had named Sherbet was bounding around McKay's legs, yeeping happily, his bright orange, yellow, and red body blinding against the subdued coloring of the Atlantis floor.

The group was tense and expectant, so Carson cut right to the chase. " I can't stay long," he said, " so I'll make this quick. He's got a broken arm, collarbone, twisted ankle, and more breaks and cracks in his ribs than one would think possible. Extensive bruising but no internal bleeding or punctures, making him one rather lucky bugger. I'm treatin' him for blood loss and possible infections, and as of this moment he's still conscious and refuses to sleep or even let me sedate him. Now, here's the deal. He wants to talk about what happened, but given that it was so bloody recent and how weak he is at the moment, I'm only lettin' him speak to Rodney and myself. Myself in case he gets overwhelmed and Rodney since that's who he requested. So Rodney, I suggest you take notes so you can relay what he says to the rest. My hope is that by getting him to talk, we can determine what's keeping him from sleep and try to remedy it. Until then, I don't want him havin' too many visitors. So if he still refuses to sleep, whatever the reason, then we'll see about arrangin' some sort of schedule. But we need to be careful until we can sort this all out. And no arguments otherwise."

Everyone nodded in agreement, while Ronon simply grunted his displeasure.

Elizabeth, her arms folded over her chest tightly, turned to a suddenly nervous Rodney. " Tell us everything he tells you," she said.

Rodney nodded stiffly, looking like a man about to enter a prison and speak with the worst of all the inmates, not an infirmary to visit his weak and frightened friend.

Carson led the way, Rodney followed, and Sherbet shot past both to leap onto the bed and begin sniffing around John's person.

" Oh bloody crap, Rodney, will you get that little bugger out of here!"

John pulled his hand from beneath the blankets to flop it down on Sherbet's tiny body. Sherbet arched to squirm from beneath the limpid hand, turned, and began nudging at it for more. " He's all right," John croaked. And Carson had to admit, Sherbet's affect was astounding. John looked relaxed - still worried, still nervous, but with a small smile tugging at his lips.

Plus Sherbet wasn't stupid. He stayed along the edge of the bed rather than scurry all over John's chest like he normally did. Carson sighed.

" Fine. But if that hairball so much as makes you wince, he's out of here."

John inclined his head in a nod of agreement, watching Sherbet in tired fascination as the creature tried to bury itself under John's hand. Carson brought over two stools, setting Rodney's on the right and his own on the left. Rodney, being unnaturally silent for once, sat hesitantly, fidgeting with the pen and notepad he'd dug out of his pocket. Carson sympathized with him. Even cleaned up and shaved, John still looked horrible with his bone-angled face splotched by bruising of various shades and stages. John didn't just look frail and helpless, he was frail and helpless.

John moved his eyes from Sherbet to Rodney. " Hey McKay," he said. " You look tired."

McKay rapidly drummed the pen against the pad. " I could use a nap, but nothing I'm not used to." He then shifted to stifle a squirm. " So, uh, Carson here says you want to talk?"

John nodded. Rodney shifted again, twirling the pen between his fingers. " All right then, I'll listen."

John's eyes flicked between both men uncertainly. " Where do I start?"

" Um, at the beginning?" Rodney replied. At first Carson took it to be sarcasm, and felt it a little too soon for any of that. But glancing at Rodney, he found the physicist looking just as nervous and uncertain as John.

Again John nodded then cleared his throat. " Uh... I woke up... in a cell. Alone. Hey, did you know wraith have names?"

Carson mirrored Rodney's expression of discomfort when they both exchanged looks.

" Um, no," Rodney said.

" Yeah, they do. Not normal names like Bob or Steve or anything. This one's name was Ient..."

Rodney held up his hand. " Wait, hold up, so you were taken by a wraith?"

John jerked his head in a nod. " Yeah. His name was Ient."

Rodney looked at Carson, and without saying anything pointed the pen at John's chest.

" Didn't look like a feeding wound," Carson replied to the nonverbal question.

John's hand lifted shakily away from Sherbet to momentarily touch his own chest lightly. " Ient didn't do this. Meyon did."

" And Meyon is?" asked Rodney.

The trembling in John's hand increased, and bringing the rest of his body in on it. " Ient's girlfriend."

Rodney narrowed his eyes and resumed tapping his pen on the pad. " So now you're telling me that wraith fall in love?"

John dropped his hand back to the bed and proceeded to waggle his fingers for Sherbet to paw at. " If you want to call it that. Personally I thought it more psychotic, obsessive, deadly infatuation." John then started laughing in a way that made both men squirm. " And by deadly I mean freakin' deadly."

He then told them everything in broken, meandering fragments, only keeping on track when Rodney or Carson asked the right questions. And the more John told, the more Carson's heart tried to shrink in on itself, and the more color drained from Rodney's face. John talked of robots, of stealing consciousness and transferring it to other bodies, which Carson couldn't deny as possible in retrospect of what had occurred with Lt. Cadman and Rodney after being rescued from a cull. John told them of Ient's obsession to create Meyon the ultimate shell to reside in forever, how he beat John for so much as thinking one ill though about Meyon, of Meyon's eternal hunger and the madness it caused, what Meyon did to John, and how Ient's failure had cost both wraith their lives. He told about Alasia, her revenge, how she had saved John, and how she had once been human. Then John told – in a broken, verging on hysterical voice – about having half of himself ripped from his mind and stuck in a machine, and why.

And how that machine was still alive.

" I'm still in there," John coughed, eyes red and watering, body shuddering, and wild laughter trying to burst from his throat. " I'm still in there, and it's still alive. I start to feel it, see what it sees, every time I close my eyes. But if I sleep, I'll feel it, it's pain. I'll be alone. So I can't sleep. Not yet, not until it's... not working anymore. Then I can sleep, and then it won't hurt."

John gave Carson an imploring, almost pleading look. " Just a little longer. Then it'll be over and I can sleep. I promise. But I can't yet... It hurts to sleep."

Swallowing hard, Carson nodded, clenching his hands to fists to stop them from shaking. " Aye, lad. I understand. We'll wait, but we can't wait for too long. You're too weak to deny your body sleep. It'll make you sick."

" It won't be long," John pressed. " Not long."

Carson placed his hand carefully on John's shoulder. " All right John. It's all right. No sedation, no urging you to sleep. We'll wait this bloody thing out. And I think that's enough talkin' for now. Let me have a few word with Rodney, then I'll back and sit with ya for a bit. All right?"

John nodded.

The two men left John with Sherbet, with the creature curled up and sleeping against John's hip. When sufficiently out of ear shot, the two started speaking in low voices.

" Is there no way we can find this bloody machine and shut it off?"

Rodney lifted both hands then dropped them. " Maybe, but there were a lot of energy readings on that planet. We could send a team to find this place, see if they can't get to the robot and find an off switch. But I don't want to do that if they can't find one and think shooting it will work just as well. We don't know what that might do to Sheppard. I say we wait a little longer. If he's not sleeping beauty by tomorrow night, then we find the thing and try to encourage it to die faster without taking John with it. But you know better than me that the way he is now, if we do something to that robot that he ends up seeing and feeling, that it might kill him."

Carson sighed heavily, shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat. " Aye, but so will denying himself proper rest. I suppose we should wait for now, but if things start getting desperate, I want that bloody robot found and dealt with in a way that won't harm the Colonel."

" Definitely," Rodney replied. He then let out a sharp breath and turned to face the infirmary door. " All right then, time to tell these folks a little horror story." Rodney stepped out, and the door whispered shut behind him. Carson turned to return to his patient, who brightened and relaxed on seeing the Highland doc coming back.

SGA

A/N: The Internet is really getting on my nerves. Keeps coming up with ways to anger me. I'm going to have to step up my threats. From pitchfork to rusty pitchfork. Eat Tetanus and die, complications!

Okay, now that I've ranted, we're nearing the end. One more chapter and an epilogue to go, as long as life cooperates and I'm able to upload properly. If any of you caught it in time, I had uploaded this chapter then removed it because the whole thing refused to load. It kept on being a butt every time I tried to load, so decided to get tricky, copied the part that wasn't loading, pasted it, and voila! Take that stupid document manager!