Yes, I didn't update last month. My excuses range from travelling to moving apartments to problems with the beta and more. But I'm not going to bore you with that...
This chapter has not been beta-edited, all typos and grammar errors are mine and I'm sorry about them.
Todd goes through the motions but his mind is entirely elsewhere. He's learned to split his focus between mind and body long ago and the humans don't seem to notice that he's operating with barely as much grace as a drone warrior. They are happy to see that he walks when they tell him to, calls the che-rah when they tell him to and leads them back to the ship wrecks that rest eternally between black rocks and black sand, when they tell him to.
So he stands by and watches their futile attempts to get past the defense of the destruction mechanism and doesn't so much as blink when Sumner has lost four men and yells in his face to disable whatever has killed them or Todd will join the warrior drones that have been laid to the side and idly rot away.
The two still bodies don't bother Todd. The wraith have no attachment to the remains of their dead. If they bury them it's for practical reasons and without pomp or ceremony. Todd's not sure if it has always been like that, he has heard of grave chambers from way before the great war, but he sees no use in whining for old times. What they need is change towards the future, not the past.
While he thinks all that Sumner has turned to Sheppard, ordering him to make Todd cooperate. But it's not yet time to cooperate so Todd blends them out completely. He has more important things to do. Like finding his fleet.
Breathing in and releasing the air slowly his mind stretches further into space. Yet he can't find them. Todd frowns to himself. His ships and crews are not within reach. Maybe, had he had his full mind at his disposal rather than having to spare part of it to interact with the humans and the che-rah, he might have caught a metaphorical whiff of them. But he's already gone further than the first time they have been on this planet and if he distances himself any further from the here and now the che-rah will eat Sumner. Not that Todd cares, but if he lets the beasts do as they please Sheppard will shoot him rather than just continue waving a hand in front of his face to get his attention. Grudgingly, he pulls himself back together. He will try again later when he is safe and bored to death in Atlantis' brig.
He narrows his eyes at Sheppard. The glare of the sun here is stinging now that he is more aware of his body, but he ignores it as he did before.
"I told you, if I am right then there is only one wraith left who might disable the device," he repeats himself. Sheppard narrows his eyes in turn, though more from suspicion than the glare of the sun; The human brought dark glasses this time.
From the back an annoyed McKay chirps in: "Oh great, and the chances of finding that wraith and getting him to cooperate are probably practically zero."
Todd doesn't answer to that while Sheppard just huffs. Never taking his eyes off the wraith, who keeps his face carefully blank, Sheppard speaks to Sumner: "This is a futile mission."
And while Todd doesn't like Sumner much he approves of the fact that the man can at least admit defeat. The humans pack up their gear and get ready to leave. They probably would've packed up their corpses too, but apart from screams nothing of the marines has left the ship wreck again. So, unwilling to risk any further dead, they load up their equipment and themselves only, while Todd stands in the shade of the fanned out frill of the lead che-rah's neck, blinking as his eyes can finally relax from being constantly narrowed in the glaring light. He throws one last glance at the wrecks, unhappy with leaving the place unsupervised, but trusts in the still active defense and the fact that if no other wraith have already been here then none will come any time soon.
On the ride, Sheppard offers him his sunglasses. And keeps his gun pressed into Todd's back all the way to the gate. The wraith does not mind. He is aware that some steps forwards for him are steps backwards for others. Back on Atlantis he thanks Sheppard for the sunglasses when the cage door closes on him, but he does not explain himself.
Now that he doesn't have to focus on anything else, he takes the risk and reaches out as far as he dares, his mind flashing past stars and planets until it finds a hive. It orbits a planet with three planetary rings and he takes a moment to admire the view. But this is always a risk, always a walk on a very thin tightrope, and so he turns away. He can still look at the beauty of the universe when he is free, he needs to be patient until then or he will jeopardize everything. So he hones in on the hive.
His ghost walks the ship's corridors, careful, always careful. The mind network of the hive is an open book to him but just leafing through it would expose his presence and he can't risk that. Neither can he risk getting lost in it. Because all of his instincts scream at him, he is wraith, he needs a hive to remain sane and healthy. It's only natural to latch on to this web of minds. But that is a tempting mistake, one he cannot make. This isn't his hive, it is open to him because his mind can force its way in, not because they welcome him. And they won't welcome him if they notice him, he's not part of this ship's crew, he hasn't earned his place among them. He's a stranger and he will be treated as such.
So he carefully picks apart layer after layer rather than plunging through the structure of mind and thought that makes this crew. Only to find nothing of much use. The tendrils of his mind are carefully extracted from the hive's web and he turns to try and find another one. He feels a headache building, but the pressure between his eyes is as much annoying as it is welcome. It anchors him to his body, reminds him that he is still taking a risk going this far out, further than any other wraith can.
This is where the real danger begins. He can feel The Others there, those presences that aren't wraith or anything else that he knows of. What he does know is that they're not friendly in regards to himself. They had been as much confused by his presence as he had been by theirs, and before he could take a good enough look to find out what he was facing they had deemed him danger for no reason that he can grasp. He made the mistake of approaching them once and they had leaped at him, raging beings of spirit and mind, ready to tear his ghost apart. Maybe there is such a thing as the Gods some of the humans believe in, and they are scared of him who dares trying to rival their power. Maybe the universe itself does not approve of him straying further from his body than is natural for even a wraith. What is sure is that he needs to keep away from them or risk losing his sanity. And so he keeps his metaphorical head low, his physical body ducking in subconscious response.
The threads between his mind and body are stretched to the maximum and will start to fray if he pulls on them much more. But he wants to know, he's a curious creature, has always been. He needs to understand his surroundings. He needs to make sure his gift of sight isn't wasted. Because the wraith are only never ending if this wraith can change their course.
Todd mentally laughs at the arrogance of this thought, yet he knows it is true.
Hands grab his shoulders and shake him. For one horrible second he fears the connection between his mind and body will rip apart, but then he slams down on it with all he has and pulls himself back together. Angrily, he returns enough to his physical location to snarl at the human who dared touching him. The man backs off. Todd knows they probably wouldn't have touched him had he just told them how dangerous that could be in certain situations, but he had counted on them not wanting to come into his cell anyway. Unfortunately for him, Sheppard once again is an unpredictable exception. Grudgingly, he spares enough of his attention to see what the man wants now.
To his confusion, Sheppard's first question is: "Are you all right? You're acting even more weird and spaced out than usual."
He focuses on Sheppard past the picture of a planet orbited by four moons and a cruiser. "It didn't look back," he offers. And that's all Sheppard needs to know for now. He looks back at the cruiser.
"What didn't look back?" Sheppard asks, cocking his head to the side as he tries to make sense of Todd.
"The universe. Stare too deeply into the universe and it will look right back at you. Then you're lost," he says, keeping his annoyance down. Too strong emotions will reveal his presence to the cruiser's crew.
"Great, so you're not entirely here," Sheppard rolls his eyes. Todd isn't quite sure if the man finally truly understood the current situation or if he's talking about his supposed craziness. It doesn't matter, he can't leave the cruiser alone right now. The ship's commander is on an errand for his queen, sent out to secure feeding grounds, and maybe they have been to other feeding grounds before, maybe those of his crew...
"Sumner is quite pissed at you. It wasn't your idea to go back and take another look at the planet-destroyer and lose four men in the process," there's a pause and Todd perceives the anger rolling off Sheppard before he reigns it back in, "but the fact that you just stood there doing nothing doesn't help much and so he still blames you. And he's working on getting Weir to allow him to tickle some information out of you. And I don't mean the funny kind of tickling. So how about you offer something on your own?"
Todd contemplates that. He has many things to offer but timing is crucial. What needs to be offered now? Where else did the cruiser go? Sheppard is tapping his foot. The commander has gate addresses. Todd blinks and tries to get his focus in order.
"How about that bug planet address? You said you'd tell me where we can get an iratus bug to experiment on once I got another friend. Well, I got Teyla on the team." Sheppard crosses his arms in front of his chest as he waits for Todd's reaction. Todd thinks about it. He guesses it's fine now. So he gives Sheppard the address.
The cruiser has been to a planet that belongs to his fleet. Or rather belonged? He sets on finding out.
John Sheppard decides that Todd the wraith was right; He hates bugs. What he currently hates even more, though, is said wraith.
The bastard could've mentioned that there were wraith at this planet, John is pretty sure that Todd knows! It doesn't matter that they were sleeping and that his people could've just caught a bug and sneaked away without ever being noticed. It doesn't matter that it was Sumner himself who had insisted on entering the wraith base there. No, this was all Todd's fault. Because the damn wraith seems to know everything, but he didn't know this? Not very likely. His suspicion that Todd is keeping some things secret has only risen.
And yet here they are. Sumner is dead, an iratus bug has lodged itself onto John's neck, and the damn jumper is stuck in the stargate while underneath them Wraith awake.
And just when he had started to really like the Pegasus Galaxy.
He curses to himself as Teyla and Ford talk to Beckett on the radio. Apparently no one's got a clue about how to get rid of the bug and they can't ask Todd. The wraith has spaced out again and John can understand that no one else but him feels like just walking into that cell to give the live sucking alien a good shake.
It doesn't help that he was right about Todd knowing of the wraith here, either. Just when he's recuperating from the extremely painful experience of the bug's reaction to saltwater does Weir radio, saying that apparently Todd has woken from his stupor and told the guard to tell Sheppard to get back to Atlantis immediately, the planet wasn't save. To John, that is a rather lame attempt to pull his head out of the sling.
"Get his damn ass to the radio so he can tell us how to get the damn bug off me!" he snaps between shallow intakes of breath.
"I would tell you how to do that, if there was a way."
Apparently the people on Atlantis had been thinking ahead. The rough voice of the wraith echoes over the intercom and grates on Sheppard's nerves.
"A real helpful wraith you are, you're related to that thing, you should know something!" he hisses past the pain.
"Wraith have a mind, they can choose to stop. This bug operates on instinct alone and that instinct tells it not to let go until its prey is dead."
Hearing his death sentence spoken in such a calm, alien voice feels terribly surreal. Like any moment he's going to wake up from a nightmare.
But that's it! Waking up...
"Get the defibrillator!" he tells Teyla.
"But that's gonna kill you!" McKay says, half his mind still busy with the jumper's circuits.
"That's precisely the plan!" John is not as sure about this as he makes himself sound. He knows this is the only chance he has but that still doesn't mean he likes the idea of being temporally dead yet again.
But there's the memory on how he survived the last time and suddenly all fear is gone. He doesn't like the idea. He doesn't want another life that isn't his. But those men from area 51 are already lost, and if it helps his friends, John is going to take whatever he can."If you can't revive me once that bug comes off throw me in the gate. And when we get the jumper through and the medics on Atlantis don't manage to save me, we still got Todd, right Todd?"
"My resources aren't endless..." the wraith drawls. "But if you won't survive just as all the other Sheppards did, then I am happy to lend a helping hand."
John snorts at the bad joke. Then his eyes widen. "You knew this would happen, too?!"
"It shouldn't have, not in this reality..." Todd sounds mildly contrite.
John is still pissed. "We're so going to have a talk if I survive this..."
There is no answer from Todd though, only Beckett who instructs them on how to proceed. Then, John's world goes black.