Look who's back... Took me a while to get this chapter done, life had it out for me these past few months. But I will finish this story, I swear!
A big Thank you! to Armand, who picked out all the grammar and spelling errors that I keep overlooking.
John wakes in the infirmary. He hates waking up in the infirmary. Groggily, he considers sitting up, intending on sneaking out of here before they can condemn him to stay on bed rest for a week or something. Sure, he doesn't feel all that perfect, but to him, a night of rest in his own bed is still all he needs.
"He's awake."
John curses under his breath. Great, of course the wraith that pissed him off already has to rat him out now.
"Thank you," Carson tells the wraith and John doesn't need to turn his head to know the doctor is coming over. "I knew you'd try to sneak off. Luckily for me, Todd has agreed to tell me when you try to, so I could continue focusing on my work," the Scotsman happily continues.
John turns around after all, glowering at the wraith chained to another infirmary bed. Todd just shrugs, as if to say "hey, I needed a break from all of his prodding". It's disturbingly human. Even more disturbing is that John has the childish urge to answer with a gesture that tells Todd "you're dead!", like he did back then when his brother would tell their parents of something John did in order to get away with his own mischief. The wraith only grins broader.
"You see," Beckett continues, either oblivious to, or studiously ignoring their exchange, "I took apart what was left of the Iratus bug after Rodney blew out the gate ship's back hatch-"
"Is Rodney alright?" Suddenly the last moments on and above the bug planet rush back to John and he looks around the infirmary, trying to make out the astrophysicist and the rest of the jumper's crew. But Rodney isn't there, neither are the others.
"Yes, they are all well. We closed the gate's shield as soon as the gate ship was through, and the wraith darts that were hanging around to follow it were stopped. They didn't find out where we are," Beckett says, looking over the data of the machine monitoring John. "You're fine, too. Some rest and you should get back on your feet soon." He smiles.
"Did I... need him?" John asks, jabbing a thumb in Todd's general direction. He doesn't want to ask the wraith himself, doesn't want to see the smug face telling him that he owes Todd even more.
"No, he's still up here because I was testing a theory. The bug you brought has an acid vesica-, bladder", he adds upon John's questioning expression, "inside of its body. It's probably a last defense mechanism in case something did actually try to eat it," Beckett talks on, allowing John to hide his relief behind a face of disgust at the thought of eating an Iratus bug.
"My guess is its purpose is to make the bug very unenjoyable for, or kill, the predator trying to eat it, which will prevent other bugs from falling victim to that predator. The acid produced in this case is very similar to the one in Todd's stomach. It seems the wraith body has conformed to more bug features than just the way of feeding." The doctor walks back in Todd's direction and the two marines who politely act like they're not listening in step out of his way, allowing him to stare at the scans of Todd's torso and the bug.
"So if we shoot them in the stomach, will they just dissolve from the inside out?" John asks, not expecting a positive answer but still somewhat hoping for it.
"No, both the wraith and the bug are immune to the acid," Beckett tells him while Todd huffs a laugh.
"Hey, I'm asking because I'd rather like watching you dissolve! Why the hell did you not tell us there is a wraith base on that planet?!" John snaps at the wraith.
Todd drops his grin. "Not a base. A ship. And had I known in the beginning that the hive was still there, I would have told you."
"That thing was a hive?!"
"A landed one, yes. Did you think we would just let them float around the universe when we're asleep?" Todd seems equally annoyed and amused by the idea.
John bristles. The finger that has pulled the trigger on Sumner still burns more than the spot on his neck where the bug had locked its jaws in. He wants to yell at Todd, face to face, and blame him because most of this mess would've been avoidable had Todd just laid his cards open, but that's not going to happen in the infirmary.
"I'm taking him back to the brig," he says, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.
"Captain Sheppard!" Carson protests, but John waves him off.
"You said I was fine, and I promise I'll take a nap after giving him a piece of my mind." Glaring at Todd, he commands a P90 from one of the marines. "You know the drill."
Once released from the bed frame, Todd obediently walks in front of him. John is pretty sure he'll be dressed down for this later, but it's worth it. If he can't trust Todd even half as far as the short distance he could actually throw the wraith, and if he is forced to assume that Todd's agenda isn't positive after all, then he needs to install the old system of punishing and rewarding their prisoner for the results of his actions until those actions turn satisfying in their results again.
They reach the cell and Atlantis obediently opens the door as John approaches. He stops to close the door after the wraith has gone in, but Todd stops right in the doorway. John is about to tell him to continue moving, when he hears a hissing sound. And it's not Todd. Peering around the alien he sees Rodney's cat, hissing at the wraith from where it had been curled up on the bench in the cell.
"What is that?" Todd asks, cocking his head to the side.
"Rodney's cat. I told you about him."
"Why would I want to meet this animal?" It seems Todd recalls the short conversation.
John shrugs. "I wanted to know who'd hiss louder."
"Hm." The wraith starts walking again, the cat keeps sitting on the bench, still hissing. Then, the wraith hisses right back at it. John grins, for the moment forgetting their troubles in his childish glee, as the cat scurries to the side, making way for the apex predator.
He unlocks Todd's cuffs and makes to leave the cell and activate the force field when he realizes that the cat is still there. Rubbing itself against Todd's ankles and meowing loudly. He frowns. What now? Sighing, he has Atlantis lock the door to keep Todd in while he makes to grab the cat to get it out of here. To his surprise, Todd is faster. For a moment the cat is just dangling from the wraith's hand, grabbed by the scruff of the neck as Todd inspects it, then the wraith allows it to sit on his arms properly.
And John is left to stare at the picture of a cat purring loudly as a wraith scratches it behind the ears with sharp nails. He shakes his head. At least, his anger has simmered down somewhat and he can think clearly again.
"So, why didn't you tell us about the hive on that planet?" he asks.
"There are many realities at once. All of them are linked to each other in certain ways, tethered together so they won't fall apart, as they would on their own. The closer two realities are to each other, the thinner their walls and the more fixed points in time they share. As it is, I did not think that Colonel Sumner's death on this ship would be such a fix point." Todd gently sets McKay's cat down beside him, turning his full attention to John.
"So you did know this would happen..." And John's anger is back.
"No. I know that it has happened. To the other Sumners. But I did not think it would happen in our reality as well. Usually, when your people enter this galaxy for the first time, all wraith are still asleep, hibernating as we do regularly. The hive ship on which Colonel Sumner dies is the first to wake, the Queen you kill is the first gear that sets all of this into motion. That is the path of history which this bundle of realities usually follows. But there are many exceptions to the story in our reality. You yourself are the biggest one. Certain things happen early or don't happen at all. Here, the wraith were already awake before you came into the picture. Which means this ship should have already been awake as well. But they weren't. And the question is, why? Why did the hive of a primary queen not rise already?"
Todd starts pacing. Up and down the cell in front of John, tattered coat seams swishing around his ankles. "There is only one scenario I can imagine. Someone, the one who woke the wraith because you weren't there to wake them, woke another primary Queen first. And she wanted power for herself and her clan, so she left the more powerful queen asleep. This way she does not have to openly fight her opponent until her ship had gained an advantage. But who woke the ship? And are they the reason why I cannot reach my fleet?"
John watches the wraith walk back and forth. It is obvious that Todd wants to go out and find answers. He would, too, if he didn't know why things didn't go as expected and, more importantly, if his people were out of reach and their fate unknown.
"The first time we met you told me you know the future," he says, still unwilling to let go of the chance to blame Todd for Sumner's death. Just because he still insists to himself that putting a bullet in him was what Sumner wanted him to do doesn't mean he likes to shoulder it.
"An unfortunate choice of word," Todd admits. "I do not so much know the future as I know the past of our other versions. What lies behind them lies ahead of us and I make use of their mistakes to do better. Sometimes I see things that do not fit in the line, those might be true visions, but even then, I do not know the future. No one knows the future for sure, John Sheppard. Because no matter what we see, it is all influenced by how we interpret it. Things are rarely what you think they are. You will learn that, too." The wraith bends down and once more picks up the cat that has yet to leave him alone. He holds the animal out for John to take. "You will learn that many things in the future are a lot like this cat."
And so John suddenly just stands there, with McKay's unhappy cat in his arms, and stares at the wraith, trying to process the alien's strangeness while Todd turns and sits down on the bench.
"I will try to find out what else might not be as it should," Todd says, and then his eyes turn vacant, staring past John and Atlantis.
Shifting the cat's weight on one arm, John uses the other to wave a hand in Todd's face but receives no reaction. Up close, the alien is fascinating. John is pretty sure that barely any human has come this close to a living wraith without ending up as its dinner. The greenish skin doesn't look so oily anymore now, just very smooth, reflecting the light like dull glass rather than fluid. There truly are no hairs on the brow, but the sharp ridge in the face contour makes it look less weird than a hairless brow on a human. Todd's beard and hair look like they could be quite silky, given some care. The slits to the left and right of the nose are the only thing moving, twitching ever so slightly, and John wonders what all they can detect.
But it's not like he will get any more answers today. Todd is hopelessly spaced out and for now, John doesn't have the patience to deal with that anymore. He rolls his eyes and walks out of the cell. Atlantis opens and closes the door for him and with a nod to the guards, he goes to bring McKay his cat.
"Thank you, I searched Schrödinger everywhere!" the scientist says, and John is left to wonder if Todd knew the cat's name and what it implies. And then he wonders what Todd implied if Todd knows the implications of Schrödinger's cat.
He can feel a headache building.
Despite his original plan to take a nap he ends up sitting on one of the city's more remote balconies, gazing out at the sky as it becomes dark and the stars begin to show. Watching the little dots of light reflect in the calm ocean water, John reflects on how this day has left him reeling. Until now, Pegasus has been so exciting and wonderful, a perfect new start. He now has a purpose, and the endless void in front of him has become a somewhat clear road. All thanks to Todd. But just now Todd has taken that assurance away again, the road is a lot foggier than before and full of boxes holding cats that might be either dead or alive. And John can't understand how the wraith manages to still be so sure in his steps.
There's the sound of beer bottles being set down on the ground and John looks up to find McKay standing there. The scientist looks like he finds the situation as awkward as John, and sheepishly plucks at the cuff of his jacket.
"I just figured you might want some company, the first operation-gone-bad is always the hardest on people and I would have liked someone to talk to back then, and since I dragged you into that mess and all..." the Canadian stops his fast and nervous babbling when John raises an eyebrow. "But I can go away if you don't want company..." he then adds.
"You brought beer, I guess that means you can stay," John says with a grin that isn't as forced as he thought it would be.
McKay sits and they take a swig from their bottles. John can feel embarrassed silence settling in again. He usually isn't one to pry, but he does wish for a distraction, and it's not like McKay has to answer him. So he starts talking. Or, rather, asking.
"So what was your first operation-gone-bad here?"
"Genii," McKay grates out the word. It rings with a tone that probably makes everyone else on the base go "Ah." and then keep their silence about the evil that all have seen and can all understand. John, though, can only raise his brows, asking for further explanation.
"It all went so well at first. We had finally found Atlantis, and even though she wouldn't respond to us, people out here did. They were friendly, warned us about the wraith, and offered to guide us in the ways of this galaxy. Should've known they were only after the advantage our weapons would bring against the wraith. But we were blinded by our success.
"The Genii are quite advanced, compared to other folks out here. They have come so far as to try and use nuclear weapons. And I-... I helped them with their research. I mean... the wraith are like cockroaches. They survive things they shouldn't. A proper nuke seemed necessary to stop them. And the Genii will find out how to build a proper nuke anyway, they already tested a prototype on a hive ship. I thought there was nothing bad in helping them develop it a little faster, not to mention they had no clue or didn't care about their scientists being irradiated." McKay huffs a self-deprecating laugh.
"In the end, the fact that I insisted on them stocking up on radiation protection before I set a foot in there was probably my best decision back then. Anyway, I was supposed to bring a couple Genii to the labs we set up on Atlantis, to show them how proper equipment looks. They weren't the scientists I usually worked with, which should have already made me suspicious. But I wasn't. I believed their story about those people being engineers that should study the making of our equipment to produce the same for the Genii.
"They stayed the night. And they opened the gate for their reinforcements that night. Quiet and quick. Aiming for the leading staff first. Sam- " and McKay swallows hard, " Sam had Sumner's post back then. The Genii didn't know she was as smart as I am, maybe even smarter. For them, she was just the head of Atlantis' military forces, just some soldier. And so, they barged into our quarters and instead of making use of her brilliant mind, they planted a bullet in it. Right there, without questions. The last I saw of her was her brain on the wall like a Rorschach painting"
A sharp intake of breath and a white-knuckled grip on the beer bottle are the only signs of turmoil John can see. But he knows there's a hurricane of sadness and rage inside McKay, he knows it as surely as his friend bled out in the desert of Afghanistan.
"I don't remember much after that, they say I probably went into shock or was traumatized. But what I do remember is envying the wraith. At that moment all I wanted was to suck the life out of all these Genii and make them suffer. But I couldn't. And so... I sicked the one on them who could."
John's eyes widen "You-..."
"Todd didn't get out on his own. Our deal was his freedom for the death of the Genii. It's why he can't stand me. Once he brought Kolya down, I stunned him from behind. They might have killed my wife, but in the end the Genii are humans, too. Twisted and mean but with goals, hopes, and dreams. Probably families. They did their jobs as much as our soldiers do theirs. Kolya was the one responsible for my wife's death. He might have been one of the few people who actually deserved an angry wraith going after him like a demon out for a promised soul. But no one else. I don't know if that was weak or strong. I don't know if I should have changed my mind before the wraith plowed through half of the Genii already. I just know that watching your arch enemy being skinned alive isn't as satisfying as it sounds"
Silence settles. John breathes in measured breaths while he digests what he just heard. He enjoys how McKay next to him eventually develops a twitching eyebrow, realizing he just told John something that could get him into a lot of trouble, even if it saved Atlantis. In the end, John takes another drink of his beer, then says: "Well, you didn't rat me out for taking that wraith's money back in Vegas. Guess we're quit if I don't blow the whistle on you for sicking Todd on the Genii. Just don't let him find out it could get you in trouble, he would probably make some use of that knowledge."
McKay breathes in relief. "Thanks," he says.
John just grins and raises his bottle. They toast and drink another swig. John notices a cat hair on his sleeve. He flicks it away. He frowns.
"You said the Genii tested a nuke prototype on a hive ship..."
"Yeah," McKay says, a lot more relaxed now. "The Wraith apparently hibernate every once in a century. The Genii managed to get that bomb on a landed, sleeping hive. I wish I had seen that, I mean, those things a gigantic, can you imagine one on the ground? Even bigger than that cruiser on the sand planet? And the explosion, I wonder how it would run through the ship, if it blows apart in smithereens or collapses-"
"Or survives and wakes."
McKay stares at John, confused, but John is already rising to his feet, heading for the brig.
One of Schrödinger's boxes has been opened. He wonders if Todd can tell if the cat got away alive and freed the other cats.