A/N: Oh the bunnies and muses are skipping through the daisies. The feedback is lovely and the guessing is great!

Chapter 4

The Game of Life is Hard to Play

"Maj. Sheppard?"

He wanted to lie in the bed and not talk to anybody.

"Maj. Sheppard?"

He wanted all of them to go away so he could lick his wounds and-- Wait, did someone just call him, major?

"Col. Sheppard, your crew is here to see you."

Not all of his crew…He didn't have a crew anymore, did he?

"Sheppard. It's been days. Just 'cause you took a round to the shoulder doesn't mean you get to lie around all day."

Ronon could go take a flying leap. But, that wasn't Ronon's voice. It was a voice from farther back.

"Captain, he's still recovering from anesthesia. He may not understand."

Leave it to Car…a doctor to understand his not wanting to deal. One does not immediately get over the back of your friend's head blooming like a red flower using time lapse photography. It just doesn't happen. He had been in similar situations. He had seen similar events. He had had friends die in front of him. You can not go into combat and not have it happen. But, it was Rodney.

Too many, too much, too close.

"When either one of them wakes up, call us."

They would all accompany the casket to Earth.

He decided to go back to sleep until all of the pain went away. Of course, with such pain, it would not happen for a very long time. It was the soul-scarring, deep kind.

When he awoke, he looked in the next bed hoping that he was wrong-- hoping that his mind was playing tricks on him-- hoping that his friend's brains had not washed down a drain after being wiped off of his face and rinsed out of his hair. Instead of Rodney, he saw Holland.

"Holland? But you're dead."

"No sir, Maj. Winchester…Maj. Charles Winchester the Third…"

Anger welled up within Sheppard. Hot poker-in-the-eye kind of anger consumed him. He wanted Pondo dead. He wanted this game nuked. He wanted to fire a drone and level the damn building, himself.

"Stop. This. Damn. Game. NOW!"

Nothing happened.

"Cease game."

"Exit."

"Stop!"

"Sir? You okay?" Maj. Charles Winchester the Third, who looked like Capt. Holland's cloned sibling, asked.

Sheppard started to look around and realized that he was not in the pristine and cathedral-like infirmary of Atlantis, but in the olive canvas of a field hospital. "Where's Car--? Where's Dr. Cole or Dr. Biro or the other one? Get Dr. Weir!"

A nurse hurried over. "Major, you need to calm down. You'll open up your sutures if you continue to act out."

"Sutures? What sutures?" The events he remembered were not the ones they were talking about.

"From rescuing me from the Taliban, sir," answered Holland-Chester the False.

"No, this is all wrong. We rescued you from some other people. Rodney was…I'm not…I'm in…Where's Ronon and Teyla? What have you done with Rodney!" he roared at everyone in the ward.

"Colonel, lie back down now…Dr. Atar!" The nurse called out as he tried to sit up. Everything started to curl like blue-green smoke around him. He knew it. It had to be that damn, stupid, soon to be ex- game.

OUT! He wanted out! They could not even keep his rank straight. They had a player from MASH in the bed next to him impersonating Holland.

A doctor who resembled the taxi driver walked calmly over with a pre-filled syringe. "Let's see if we can calm you down. Can't have you too agitated and undo all of my work." Two humongous, should-have-been-linebackers-in-the-NFL orderlies came over and held him down. The aqua-colored contents were pushed into his IV port and he drooped with the immediate feeling of lethargy.

"When you wake, maybe the story will be better," the cabby whispered to him. "S'been movin' real nice so far."

"No story to tell," drowsed John before succumbing.

The next time he awoke, he was in a padded cell.

-----------------

Ronon had been running and shooting until he heard the sickening thud of a body going down. He stopped, looked over his shoulder and saw Sheppard hauling a dead McKay through the Ring. He covered their evacuation and then stepped through the vortex into the Gate Room. Chaos, shouting, and a paralyzed Sheppard met his arrival. Once Sheppard was deposited in the infirmary and under the care of doctors, he went to clean up. He stepped into the transporter--

--only to end up on Sateda.

Ronon froze as he stood on the old parade grounds of his former home. The buildings were still ruined. The ground was still littered with garbage. Bones still lay where they dropped. The sky still carried a haze from long departed fires. It felt, smelled and looked of death.

He realized that somewhere along the way he had lost all of his team. He stood alone and the DHD was no where to be seen. He tried the entire list of exit commands that the soon to be corpse of Pondo had suggested, and nothing happened. He stood still on his dilapidated homeworld surrounded by memories and ghosts and decided he would not let Pondo suffer. It would be a quick shot between the eyes.

Movement caught his attention and he ran behind the nearest hunk of metal that could have been a wall or a weapon in another life. Now, it was his sanctuary. He had already played this game. The Wraith could come and get him. Maybe if he died, then he would exit. It had happened when the bomb went off…no, it hadn't. They were still in it, weren't they? It was getting confusing. He was starting to forget what part he was playing.

Ronon peeked over the top as a group moved from building to building searching for him. The first time, no one was on the planet except for the Wraith and him. That is until his team showed up. His team plus Beckett…

He centered his calm. He focused on the task at hand. He gripped his blaster and took aim. He hesitated and held his fire. Faces among the approaching combatants appeared familiar. Then, the wisp of hair, the faint scent, and a vivid memory gripped him with a vengeance.

"Intruder! We already have your accomplice! Surrender!"

The voice sounded so hard and without compassion. It should never have sounded that way. It had never sounded that way before.

They shoved Teyla forward and a petite blond joined her as well, challenging him. "She bears a mark of the Wraith! Do we destroy her now as they did us or do we talk?"

Figment or not, he could not let anything happen to either woman. Whether or not the scenario was real, the feelings were. Ronon stood up from the rusted-out hunk of metal and held up his hands.

The blond froze where she stood on the parade grounds. She grabbed the arm of the man holding a weapon on Teyla and pushed it down. "If she is with him, then we have nothing to fear." She looked ready to run at him or faint where she stood.

He was definitely ready to run and crush her within his grasp.

"Oh thank the Ancestors; I thought you were lost from us!" Melena exclaimed as she followed her first instinct and ran across the open common area.

This was one of Ronon's greatest nightmares. To see her again and know it was not real. To be this close and know she was nothing more than a weighty dream.

She threw herself at him and fiercely hugged him. She pulled his head down and gave him a kiss that spoke of lovers being apart for much too long. She might have been a fake, but she felt and smelled so real. With her here, he did not want to leave this game, ever. Even if she was an immitation, she was here, and it was almost enough.

Her hair tickled his nose. Her breath was on his chest. Her arms encircled him and made him feel safe and loved. Their hearts beat against each other's and it was music.

Ancestors forgive him, he wanted to stay. He wanted to forget the Wraith. He wanted to forget his team. He wanted to forget any obligation he had outside of this one right here. He wanted to stay and start a life and family in this mock existence.

"Ronon, we are still in the game."

"I know, Teyla; I know."

For the moment, it did not matter.

-----------------

He was eating sand. He was dead and eating sand. Heaven this was not, because it was too hot and too sandy. He grabbed his intact skull and started laughing. He would eat sand until it tasted good if that meant he did not have a crater in his brain pan.

"I'm alive!" Rodney rolled onto his back and sat up. "I'm alive!" He threw sand into the air and it blew back into his face. "Ow! Ow! Damn it!" He rubbed and then rubbed a little harder just in case it helped in anyway.

Partially blinded by the sand, he squinted and looked around-- at absolutely nothing. Nothing but sand and rocks and dunes and mountains in the distance. But, there was a sound: a mechanical rumbling from somewhere behind him. From the tall sand dune he was sitting on, a sound seemed to be coming from the other side and through the very granules underneath him. Overhead, the tip of a very large gun peeked on top of the crest, followed by a large, metal body and giant, rolling treads.

Rodney realized a tank was about to land on top of his head. He scrambled down the side of the dune and zig-zagged away from the behemoth, yelling at the top of his lungs the entire time, "Yeah Rodney, this will be fun! Have a seat in the chair, Rodney! It's only a game, Rodney!"

He looked over his shoulder to see if he had successfully evaded the humongous machine. It had stopped so he stopped and bent over to grip his knees. This part of the VR scenario felt too much like actual physical work.

"Stay where you are!"

Great. Now he was about to be captured by…a marine barely out of diapers. He looked into the baby face of a sandbox warrior who was holding a rifle on him.

"I surrender! Take me to your leader! I come in peace! Just get me out of here!"

The young man held his weapon on him as another equally baby-faced kid frisked him. "Hey Sarge! Looks like we got a wayward civvy contractor lost in the Sandbox!"

"Yes, that's what I am. I'm with a group helping to improve the infrastructure." And why not? He could have been. "But before we go anywhere, let me try something first."

Rodney took a big breath and said, "I want out." When nothing happened, he tried again. "Finish…Leave…Exit…Quit game…Close window?" He should have known it was not going to be that easy.

Nothing is ever that easy.

Conceding failure, he ordered, "Upwards and onwards, young cadet." He kept his hands where the first kid could see them and followed him over the dune and a few miles down a dusty, rock littered road until they came to a compound infested with green tents.

He knew exactly what kind of thrilling episode he was in. He knew exactly whose memory had conjured up this piece of fiction. His only question was: where were Ronon and Teyla?

The wee-tyke, as Carson would have so eloquently put it, directed him to a hospital and summoned a nurse over. "We found this civilian in the middle of the ass-end of nowhere. He needs a look over."

She smiled and directed him to bed. She asked him all the pertinent questions, took all of the pertinent vitals, and then told him the doctor would be over in a minute. There was not a whole lot of privacy in the tent. A few curtains were up but only in a few areas. Half the beds were occupied from any number of maladies-- hopefully, none that were contagious. He also had a guard.

Behind one of those curtained off areas, he saw a nurse come out conferring with a doctor about a combative patient. Rodney felt reasonably sure he had just found Sheppard. And how on Earth did he end up in here when he, Rodney, had ended up in the middle of the desert after getting shot through the head?

Maybe it was a sort of reset. If you died then you started from square one healthy and ready to begin again. Or it could just be that the game liked to just mess with you. He knew he was the one that was going to have to figure a way out, because, and it was very obvious, the game was malfunctioning in some way.

As the doctor walked across the area, he looked directly at Rodney and smiled. "Ah, I see you've arrived too. Excellent! Have a seat and let's get you a good goin' over!" he exclaimed with a little too much exuberance.

Rodney blinked in response and stared.

"I'm Dr. Atar. So, where are you fellas from?"

Rodney felt confused. The last time he looked in the mirror he was only one person. "Excuse me?"

"You fellas, Major Colonel Sheppard and yourself."

"What kind of brain damaged program are you?" Rodney glared with increasing wonderment and befuddlement. "It's Col. Sheppard or if you are in a certain timeline memory-- and that is what I'm guessing-- it's Maj. Sheppard. Are you dense or just stupid?"

The doctor shrugged. "Neither, just confused, Doctor. But I can see a story when it lands in front of me."

Mrs. McKay's little boy was suspicious of other people's motives by nature and by behavior reinforcement. When you are the freaky, weird kid in with the teenagers, then suspicion is second nature. This game was sending him all the warning signs. He knew Sheppard liked the "Danger, danger" motif and it was wailing right now.

This character was odd. He behaved differently than other characters met in each variation. He was giving off the creepy grandfather vibe, but he looked no older than Sheppard or himself. A "Hey young man, want to come up and see my baseball card collection and have some milk and cookies? Oh by the way, you like naked men?" sort of thing. Rodney decided to think real hard this time.

OUT.

Norman Bates remained in front of him.

He hoped somebody back home knew they were in trouble.

"Doubles are more fun," Dr Atar said cryptically, yet with enthusiasm.

Rodney felt the stab of the needle, saw the swirling, pretty blue end of the color spectrum, and woke up facing John Sheppard, who was drooling on a padded floor.

-----------------

Teyla had landed on her feet on top of the hospital on Sateda. She was captured only 45 seconds later. She was shaking because she had seen John come through the portal wearing more blood than was healthy. Also, she had noticed Rodney was the one losing it. Ronon showed up, but the chaos tended to make things hazy as to what happened next. She might have gone to the infirmary, but she not might have. She had obviously ended up here.

The Satedans tied her hands and interrogated her. They asked all the right questions of who, where, what and why. She asked if they knew Ronon. All of them silenced themselves and looked at two women standing in the shadows. She had her answer.

She asked if they had seen two others dressed similarly to her. They answered, "No." It might or might not have been the truthful answer. Rodney was dead, or had been, or might not be. This was so confusing. She was pretty sure that the illusion had continued. They had never left the simulated world.

Others ran into the dank room where they were holding her and reported someone had come through the Ancestor's Ring. They took her with them to intercept whoever had arrived.

Whoever it was, they would leave this dungeon together. As she saw Ronon dive for cover, her right arm started to itch. She looked down on her forearm and stared at the blue scaly patch raised upon it. It was the cruelest of ironies. She was becoming that which Ronon and she hated.

As Ronon reacquainted himself with his lover, Teyla knew she needed to remind him of their initial objective. They needed to get out of the program. She knew, if she did not leave this nightmare soon, he would have to kill her. That was not a prospect she wanted him to deal with at all--

--Real or not.

TBC…