DISCLAIMER – I do not own Stargate: Atlantis. It and its characters are the intellectual property of MGM/UA and associates (although in this story, Shadow and Dr. Itzhak Perlman are my original characters). I am writing this for fun, not profit. I have not received compensation in any form, from any source, for the creation of this story. No suing…please!

RATING – This story carries a content rating of T (mostly for the mention of violence and death in this chapter)

ARCHIVE – Anyone who would like to archive this story has my permission to do so. All I ask is that you let me know where it is being archived. Thanks.

SPOILERS – Everything up to the end of Season 2 is fair game. Also in this chapter there's a slight reference to the Season 3 episode "Sateda".

A/N – Thanks once again for the reviews on Chapter 20. I love all you folks who are reading my story and especially those of you who are leaving me such lovely comments and replies. Please continue to reply & review, as I really do enjoy reading them, and I appreciate the time you take to write them for me. Anyway, I hope you will all like Chapter 21. It is a bit dark, but a few more mysteries about Shadow's planet are revealed. I have already started to write the last two chapters of this story, but there's quite a bit more to tell before I get to the epilogue chapter(s). I hope everyone's still interested in this story.

Yep. Still no beta. Any mistakes are mine.


The Song Of Silent Rivers

21. Ghosts

Carson Beckett could not shake the nebulous feeling of dread that surrounded him each time he entered Shadow's room, gloved and masked to protect her from any transient microbes he might have been carrying. The room felt cold to him, even though he knew the temperature was being maintained at a constant twenty-one degrees Celsius. The regular hiss of the respirator and the steady beep of the heart monitor were the only sounds in the room, though Carson imagined he heard other things. The whisperings of ghosts, perhaps, watching and waiting to claim a new member for their ethereal ranks. As a boy in Scotland, Carson had heard his fair share of ghost stories. He found he could almost believe them, now, though he expected his friends would question his sanity for such a thought.

Carson had seen people die before. He'd seen far too many people give up their lives for innumerable reasons; sickness, accidents, suicide, intentional violence. It was never easy for him to see the progression of death. It became more difficult every time, most especially when he realized he had done everything within his capability as a doctor and was left only with his contribution as a fellow human being to ease a patient's last days or hours.

Sometimes patients came fighting back from the brink of oblivion, and Carson suspected it was only the sheer force of their indomitable will to live that saved them in the end, their refusal to give up despite any odds against them. Carson couldn't help wondering if Shadow had enough of that fighting spirit to bring her back from the edge. She seemed so delicate, so fragile. He couldn't imagine her fighting for long, but he wanted to believe she would surprise him. He wanted her to live, and he found himself momentarily startled by the powerful nature of that desire. Back in medical school, a well-meaning professor had told Carson's class never to become emotionally involved with a patient. Throughout his career, Carson had found that to be the hardest aspect of his practice. Mostly, he managed to keep a modicum of professional detachment, but sometimes he found himself empathizing with a patient's suffering in a way that became painful for him, too.

Carson tried to push down his emotions as he closed the door behind him and crossed the room to Shadow's bed. He and Itzhak Perlman had been taking turns checking on Shadow every hour. The good news was that her condition didn't seem to be deteriorating any further, but the bad news was that she didn't seem to be improving very much, either. Itzhak had said Shadow had shown signs of awakening when he'd checked on her last. He'd said she'd moved her hands and head a little, but she hadn't opened her eyes fully or responded directly to his touch.

After checking Shadow's temperature and blood pressure, Carson inspected all the machines and monitoring devices to assure him nothing had changed since he'd last been in the room himself. He made notes for himself and Itzhak on Shadow's chart.

Examination completed, Carson sat carefully on the edge of Shadow's bed. He lifted her hand and held it. He was disheartened by how limp and unresponsive her fingers were. He rubbed the back of her hand with his latex-gloved thumb, and wished for about the millionth time that they weren't in this situation.

While he sat contemplating Shadow's still figure, he thought about John and the others who'd gone to Shadow's world. He thought most of all about Radek who, despite what had happened on M4X-382 the last time he'd been there, had volunteered to go back. It was all because of Shadow, Carson knew. An inexplicably strong bond had formed between Shadow and Radek, and it was that which had sent the engineer offworld to look for something that might help the deaf woman. Carson hoped the team would find something useful, and that they'd come home to Atlantis soon.

Carson was startled when he felt Shadow's hand move suddenly. Her fingers twitched in Carson's grasp. He looked down at her and saw that her eyelids were wavering delicately, too. Carson reached out with his free hand and rested his palm on Shadow's forehead. Her skin still felt hot to his touch.

"Shadow, open your eyes," he said, even though he knew by now that she would not be able to hear him. "Can you open your eyes for me, love? You'd make me very happy if you could."

For a moment, nothing happened and Shadow lay completely still. Then, as if in obedience to Carson's request, Shadow's eyelids fluttered and she opened her eyes fully. Her hand trembled in his, and he felt her fingers curl ever-so-slightly.

Carson gently squeezed her hand. He smiled at her. "There's a good lass," he said softly. "I know you could do it. Dr. Perlman's going to be very pleased when I tell him about this. I expect your River Man is going to be mightily pleased when he gets back and finds you awake, too."

Shadow's gaze appeared unfocussed for several seconds, but then her eyes moved so that she was looking past Carson, toward the door and the large observation window. Carson glanced over his shoulder, but he couldn't see anyone on the other side of the pseudo-glass window. He wondered what Shadow thought she saw over there.

Then, it occurred to him. Shadow wasn't imaging someone on the other side of the window. She was looking for someone. Radek, he thought. She was looking for Radek. The last time Shadow was awake, Radek had been standing right there, peering through the large transparent barrier that separated the isolation room from the next one. The sight of Radek's face had probably been the last thing Shadow had seen before she'd fallen into unconsciousness. No doubt she was wondering where he was now.

Carson stroked Shadow's forehead, pushing back the strands of damp hair that clung to it. He was sorry she couldn't hear him, because he wanted to reassure her that Radek was coming back, that he cared about her, and that he wanted to help her. Carson wanted to say everything would be all right, if only Shadow would hold on and not give up.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Shadow awoke to the Healer's touch. He was sitting on her bed. He had sat with her like this before, though she could not recall when. It seemed as if that had been ages ago, in a place very far away from here, wherever 'here' was. Shadow did not know. The only thing Shadow knew for certain was that every part of her was in pain. She had never ached like this before. The hurting frightened her. She did not know what to do.

Shadow longed for River Man to return. He had been there in the night, beyond the strange wall through which she could see him but which kept them from touching each other. Shadow did not understand why River Man had not simply walked through the door and come to her. She wanted River Man to hold her as he had done before. She wanted him to speak to her, sing to her so she could feel his voice. She wanted the comforting weight of his head resting against hers, the way it had been in the Healer's strange white room. She had been soothed by River Man's presence, reassured by his nearness, and she had almost believed his strength would keep her from losing her battle with the warrior Death.

Now, she was frightened and alone again.

The Healer was a good, kind man but he never stayed with her and never offered her the consolation she craved. She wondered where River Man had gone. Perhaps he had gone to eat, or perhaps he was sleeping. Shadow tried to recall what he looked like in repose. The lines on his forehead and at the edges of his mouth smoothed themselves out when he slumbered. She remembered that. Perhaps it was an odd thing to recall, but Shadow did not care. She held the image of River Man's sleeping face in her mind as long as she could.

She told herself she had to stay awake until River Man returned. If she kept her eyes open long enough, she would surely see him. She did not know how long she would have to wait, but she was determined to hold on as long as she needed to. She did not want to die alone. She had been alone far too long. Even if River Man could not be as near to her as she wanted him to be, she at least wanted to let the sight of him fill her vision before the end.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The planet was full of ghosts.

Radek could feel them everywhere in the forest. The ghosts of Shadow's world were more real in his mind than anything he and Dušana had ever imagined they'd seen in the lower streets of Prague. The dead were in this place; hundreds of them, drifting invisibly through the trees. Each rustle of leaves or strange birdcall could have been one of them making its presence known. Radek thought of the skeletons in the huts back in the village, and how alarmed he'd been at discovering them. The three dead in the village seemed insignificant now, compared to what Radek and his teammates had discovered in the place marked on Shadow's map as the Place of Worship.

Radek had never seen the aftermath of a Wraith attack firsthand before, but the instant he beheld the scene in the clearing beyond the village, he knew that was what he was looking at. The grove had once contained a single, large wooden building. It was a ruin, now, broken down and scarred in places by the discharge of energy weapons. A huge section of one wall was missing, which had allowed the Atlantis team a clear view of what lay inside.

Bones.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of bones rested amid the destruction. Still more bones lay outside the building, burned clean and white by the planet's brilliant sun. The clearing that had once been a place of worship, a place of happiness and peace, was now an open grave. They had been there a long time, those bones, but it didn't make the horror of what had happened any less real or poignant. The shock was fresh in Radek's mind, as if the culling had only just happened.

Radek wanted to look away, close his eyes, run, but he felt compelled by some grim allure to gather as much visual detail as he could. The sight made his insides clench, and it was only when his shaking body would no longer support him and he found himself sinking to his knees in the grass that he was finally able to shut his eyes. Dimly, he was aware of Rodney's voice, rambling, panicked. Radek didn't know what Rodney was saying, only that the Canadian was shocked and frightened. Radek couldn't blame him. They hadn't really known what they would find on Shadow's world, but Radek was sure none of them had expected this.

Radek tried to reconstruct what must have happened. The villagers must have been meeting for whatever worship rituals they'd normally engaged in when the Wraith had arrived. How convenient the Wraith must have thought it was, to find all the villagers contained in a single place! It must have been easy for the Wraith to get them all, for the villagers had most likely been unarmed and defenseless. The horrific alien predators would have fed well in this place. It was awful to think of it, but somehow Radek couldn't stop himself from conjuring ghastly images of how it must have been on that day.

A wave of dizziness washed over him, even though he was kneeling on the ground, and he had to swallow repeatedly to keep himself from getting sick. At the edge of his awareness he felt somebody move beside him. An arm – a blessedly warm, living human arm – went around his shoulders. He heard a voice that sounded as if it were coming from very far away ask him if he was all right.

No! he wanted to cry out. No, I am not all right! Why are you asking me this question? He couldn't quite understand how anyone could be all right immediately after witnessing something like this. Still, he made himself answer the concerned person who was leaning close to him.

"Y-yes, I think so," he managed to say, in a voice he barely recognized as his own. "I…I just need…"

He couldn't finish the sentence. He couldn't think of what he needed. Perhaps it didn't matter, because the arm around his shoulders tightened a little bit, its owner understanding that at least one of the things Radek needed was reassurance. The voice – Teyla's, he finally realized – was speaking to him again.

"Dr, Zelenka, can you get up?" Teyla was saying to him. "It is not much further to the Ancient structure. You and Dr. McKay can rest for a while when we reach it. We cannot stay in this place."

No, no…of course they couldn't stay here. He nodded in assent to Teyla's words, and slowly raised his eyelids. He averted his gaze from the grisly remains in the wooden building and concentrated instead on locating the rest of his teammates. Ronon stood a few metres away from him and Teyla. The Satedan was grim-faced. He surely knew better than anyone what the Wraith could do to the population of a world, for he was one of the very few surviving members of Satedan society. Ronon knew the terror of the Wraith from personal experience. If the images in Radek's head were fearsome, how much more terrible would Ronon's imaginings be? Radek didn't even want to guess.

Farther away, at the edge of the clearing, Rodney was pacing distractedly back and forth with his hands twisting frenetically and his mouth issuing a stream of babbling incomprehensibility. Colonel Sheppard was keeping pace with him. Radek heard the colonel repeating over and over that everything was going to be okay, if only Rodney would calm down. Some small part of Radek's mind was glad he was not making such a spectacle of himself. There was no point in creating a scene. The devastation in this place was terrible and frightening, but the logical part of Radek's brain informed him there was really nothing to be done about it now. Wasting energy on pacing and rambling would accomplish nothing. Still, Radek supposed Rodney needed to deal with things in his own way. Sitting on the grass was accomplishing nothing, either, after all, and that was exactly what Radek had been doing.

With a little help from Teyla, Radek regained his feet. Teyla kept a reassuring hand on his arm as she led him over to where Ronon stood.

"I bet they never even saw it coming," Ronon muttered angrily as he gazed at the ruined building. "Never knew what was happening until it was too late."

That was probably true, Radek thought. Ronon's sentiments went a long way in summarizing the character of the Wraith. They had to be truly inhuman to carry out such an act of inhumanity. Radek wanted to say something to the Satedan, but he knew there was nothing he could say. He stood silently beside Teyla and kept his eyes turned toward the ground in front of his feet.

After a few minutes, Rodney and Colonel Sheppard joined them. Rodney seemed marginally calmer. He still fidgeted his hands, but at least he wasn't talking uncontrollably and unintelligibly now. Sheppard had a hand on Rodney's arm in the same way Teyla had done for Radek.

Colonel Sheppard turned his back to the bones and let his gaze take in each and every member of his team. His face was inscrutable but his eyes gave away his feelings.

"There's nothing we can do here," Colonel Sheppard said quietly to his team. "We can't help the dead. We can only help the living."

The colonel's words galvanized Radek, for he understood the colonel was right. The dead were dead. There was nothing any of them could do to change it. There was, however, a living person in Atlantis who needed their help, and they were bound to do what they could for her. Radek hoped they would find the answers Shadow needed. He hoped she would still be alive to benefit from those answers when they returned home to Atlantis.

TBC
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A/N #2 – Yes, this was another short chapter, but I hope it cleared up some of the confusion about what happened to the folks in Shadow's village. Next chapter will be a bit longer, I promise.

Meh…the repair guy never did show up, and Dad had to go into town for the spare part for the refrigerator himself. We fixed it this evening, so now Dad's back in business in the food department. Well, at least my day was productive when I had nothing else to do but sit around and wait for the repairman who never came. You guys got an extra chapter out of it! hehe…thank the repairman!