Late update is late buuuut the story is beta-edited from now on. A big thank you to the lovely dragonflower1 from AO3!
McKay comes to collect John in the morning. John follows him without much of an argument or sarcastic comments, simply because he doesn't know what else to do. Walking through the hallways he muses that he should not be here, should not be alive to do this. It's the wraith who decided to give him back his purposeless life and John just doesn't really know what to do with it. So, as he did many times before, he just drifts along. And in this case his drifting consists of docilely walking after McKay.
Their destination is a cafeteria, and that is a good thing because John hasn't had breakfast yet. It wouldn't usually bother him so much, but there is still an echo of this strange hunger in his bones and he feels like eating a whole cow. Luckily McKay doesn't seem to mind, the man tucks into his breakfast with a just as amazing appetite.
"I was wondering," John says between two bites when the worst of his hunger is satisfied, "can I speak to that wraith again?"
"Why'd you want to do that?" McKay asks before taking another sip of his coffee.
"Well, I sure as hell don't know why he'd bring me back, but the bastard has gotta have a reason. I just want to know what that reason would be." Maybe having a reason, a purpose, even one given to him by a human-eating alien who's probably The Enemy, would make life a little easier for him.
McKay hums thoughtfully. "Even if it was more than a crazy slip, I don't think he'll tell you his reasons. Incoherent or not, that wraith is secretive and likes being so." He skewers a piece of scrambled egg with more force than necessary.
"You're still pissed 'cause you couldn't get anything useful from him," John grins. He doesn't like McKay much and seeing him bristle is fun. Then he frowns. "Where'd you catch him anyway? That other galaxy of yours?"
John watches McKay ponder for a while before the man finally decides to tell the story. "There are humans in the Pegasus Galaxy. We tried to ally with some of them and the first to respond were a folks calling themselves the Genii. Very military-loving these people... Their commander was one Acastus Kolya. He offered us guidance in the ways of the Pegasus Galaxy if we would share our weapons with them. When we asked what they needed the weapons for he told us about the wraith and gave us a couple of them that he held captured as a present so we might use them for research." McKay's face turns grimmer than John has ever seen it before. "Turns out he wanted the weapons to take over Atlantis and with it the whole Galaxy. The wraith he gave us weren't of much use either. We had three males. Two of them died within a week because Kolya apparently had them for ages and only gave them up to us because they were too weak to live much longer. The third one was almost dead too, but he managed to free himself while we were busy fighting off the Genii trying to conquer us with our own weapons. We actually only won because he hunted Kolya down." The admission is bitter but also tinged with something Sheppard knows the Germans call Schadenfreude.
"I imagine the wraith is still alive because he sucked that Kolya guy dry of life?" He raises an eyebrow. McKay must really hate the guy if he is happy about that.
"He fed on Kolya, yes. After he skinned him alive," the Canadian says calmly and Sheppard almost chokes on his toast. No, scratch that. He chokes so hard he is sure he turns a little blue in the face.
"What?!" he splutters when he can breath again. McKay still looks calm and utterly unperturbed.
"He skinned him alive." the physicist repeats. "Apparently he didn't think just killing Kolya would be payback enough for decades of imprisonment and what not. We don't know how Kolya got a hold of him, for all we know the Genii might have tested one of their new bombs on his Hive-ship. Wraith don't take too well to that, especially when it kills their Queen."
John still can't do much more than stare. McKay is an ass, no doubt about that, but the man's coldness right now is almost inhumane. John doesn't want to work with someone like this. This whole organization here, with all their secrets and power and ruthless people like McKay doesn't seem quite kosher to him. Maybe he should just leave here after all, forget the wraith, forget McKay, forget all about a destiny and future and purpose.
He wonders if McKay will once more threaten him with ruining his life if he tries to walk away now. And then he wonders once more how his life could be ruined any more. So, about to say fuck it, he makes to stand.
"You must know, Kolya shot my wife."
John reluctantly sits back in his chair, looking at McKay who plays with the ring on his left hand. "Hit her right in the head and spilled her brilliant brain all over the wall. Forgive me if I don't really mind his fate."
Sheppard doesn't know what to say, he's never been one to talk feelings much, but he can understand McKay a little better now. He watches as the man closes off again, face once more turning to the blank, arrogant scientist look.
"Anyway," the Canadian says like they never swayed off the topic, "You want to see that wraith, I think that's a good idea. I too was going to try and see if maybe now he is willing to talk. So after we finish here, we can go there right away, that way I don't have to cancel my later appointments. Contrary to what Zelenka believes, I do have work to do, even when I'm down here and not on Atlantis where I should be!"
John tunes him out then and eats what's left on his plate.
They enter the room with the glass cube and it feels a lot differently than the first time John walked in. All is somehow... clearer.
He wonders if that is because the alien that is able to get into their heads looks a lot more focused now than the last time. The dizzying spell the wraith seems to have put on John on their first meeting is missing. If it- he is in John's head now, John can't tell.
"If you're ghosting around in my mind, get out of there, it's rude!" he tells the creature, but his voice lacks any real bite. If the wraith is in his head then he probably won't retreat just because John tells him so, and since McKay hasn't instructed John about how to just kick the wraith out, there is most likely no way to do so. He still insists on stating his point.
The wraith looks up from where he is sitting on the spartan bed in the glass cube. Unlike the last time, his body is not bent into a wary crouch. Instead he projects an image that reminds John of the Joker in The Dark Knight, sitting in his jail cell completely unperturbed by the chaos around him, processing everything going on with a quick mind that no one could figure out while seeming utterly bored with it all, until he deems it his turn to clap mocking applause at the humans around him. John just hopes that this creature is a lot more sane than Badman's nemesis.
He keeps glaring at the wraith, who cocks his head to the side a little, contemplating. Slit pupils widen and contract in their yellow surroundings as the creature assesses John, and the ex-detective narrows his eyes in turn. He can see the benefits of knowing what is going on in the others' head. Right now he wouldn't mind knowing what the wraith is thinking. But he is not telepathic and so he needs to even the field by getting the wraith to stop. And, to his surprise, the creature seemingly does.
Or that's what John believes as it suddenly feels like his brain has cooled down a couple degrees. He blinks, quite baffled by the fact that he has convinced this alien to accept his privacy. The wraith on his part seems amused by John's probably hilarious facial expression. John gives him a grouchy "Well thank you!"
"So all it takes to get you out of our head is to ask you to shut it down?!" As soon as McKay starts the sentence the wraith's expression turns sour. Suddenly the creature's posture seems a lot more tense, the confident ease in the turn of its head is forced when he faces McKay. But it's not discomfort that causes this change, no, it's cold wrath slumbering underneath a thinned-out layer of patience. John would know, he's faced this sort of barely contained wrath himself when they didn't allow him to go back for his comrade back in cursed Afghanistan. The difference between him and the wraith is that he acted on it, all restraints blown to pieces by worry for a good friend.
"I will not extend the favor to you," the wraith finally hisses and McKay huffs in annoyance. "You have no right to demand I leave you alone when you tried to get intelligence from me in much more harmful ways than a simple connection of minds."
"You're one to talk, like your people go any nicer about interrogations than mine!" McKay growls.
The wraith bristles but doesn't say anything else. McKay seems to think the alien conceded the point but John can see green nostrils flare with the tiny snort of someone who just doesn't think the discussion is worth the energy it takes to speak.
"Anyway," he interrupts their argument, "I came here to ask some questions. So if you," he points at McKay, "could shut up for a moment so he," and John points at the wraith, "can tell me what I'd like to know, that would be just awesome."
Both beings turn to glower at him, and where a glowering wraith actually looks quite impressive, McKay just manages to look quite funny. John represses his grin, then continues. "And could we sit down somewhere, I have a feeling that this will take some time?!"
And that is how they end up in a room not unlike the one John knows from the police station. He immediately feels a lot more comfortable. The wraith is chained to the table like he's just another criminal to be questioned and McKay sulks around in the corner like a colleague about to play the "bad cop". John is a little suspicious about how readily they've cooperated with him so far. He has a feeling that McKay and his people are only that responsive because they hope for results. The ex-detective is not ashamed to make the most of their compliance.
Sitting down opposite of the alien, John kicks his feet up and leans back in his chair. "So, what's your name?" he asks.
"That is usually for you to decide," the wraith answers calmly.
"That so?" John makes a mental note to go back to this later and ask what the "usually" in the sentence was supposed to mean. For now he decides to go on with introductions. Or rather naming. He looks the creepy creature up and down. "I think you're a James," he then decides.
The wraith actually pulls a face. "You truly are the exception of the rule." He sounds exasperated but oddly amused as well.
"How am I supposed to know what the rule is?" John asks him. He crosses his arms in front of his chest, trying to hide that he is a little miffed about the rejection of "James".
"All other Sheppards know me as Todd." It is the most weird introduction John has ever heard.
"Todd," he tastes the name on his tongue. "Toooaaa-" he pauses. "Ah, I see what I did there. Or rather the... other Sheppards?" McKay told him that he had once met another version of John and so John assumes that this is what the wraith is referring to.
"You are familiar with the concept of many different realities existing at once?" Todd sounds mildly impressed.
"He mentioned something like that." John points a thumb at the scientist in the corner.
"Ah, yes, he has once met one of my favorite Sheppards, it seems. But he hasn't met another me, if that was the case I would have a far easier life." The wraith sighs, deliberately a little more theatrically than necessary.
"If I knew you any better I'd probably shoot you in the head!" Is what McKay has to say to this.
Todd just chuckles darkly. "One time you did. It was one of my better endings, I very much prefer it over what I was about to face here." With every word something about the wraith turned darker. John feels a little uncomfortable after all.
"What would you have faced here and what makes you think you won't have to face it again?" McKay's snippy words penetrate the odd silence about to settle in the room.
"Death from starvation is the ugliest end for a wraith there is," Todd explains reluctantly.
"Again, what makes you think you won't have to face it again?" McKay repeats. "You think that just because you saved Sheppard we are going to feed you our people?!"
"He has a point there..." John agrees. "Nothing you could possibly offer will be worth a human dying in what may as well be the ugliest end for us." He shudders at the thought of the mummified corpses.
The wraith looks at them with a strange, tired smile that speaks of him knowing so much better and John feels suddenly cold. But whatever point the wraith has, whatever another version of them in another reality has done, Todd keeps his silence about it. "That is why I won't ask you to feed me." is what he offers instead.
"Then what do you ask for?" John's tongue feels a little numb as the words leave it.
Todd's back straightens just a little bit as he prepares the metaphorical boat they will be sitting in, all together, soon enough. "For you to find a solution." he finally says.
And just like that, John Sheppard knows he is a part of this bad science-fiction, whether he wants to or not.
Notes:
Tada! Bits of backgroundstory!
The Vegas McKay does wear a ring (you can see it very well when he answers John's phone call about the wraith's trailer) that looks very much like a wedding band to me. I just couldn't resist using that for his background.
As for Todd skinning Kolya: Only feeding on the guy that kept you captive and starved you for decades? Nope, I think Todd likes pay back. He did after all provide Atlantis with ZPMs to destroy the super hive just to spite the underling who betrayed him.
And Vegas John is just a little lost, I feel.