A/N: Oh yes, we are not nice to the team, not nice at all.

Chapter 6

And Don't Call me Shirley

Rodney awoke to pitch black darkness. Not a single miniscule wave or particle of light entered his tomb. That had to be what this was. They had buried him alive because he had witnessed…oh no. He had witnessed those psychos kill Sheppard. They had broken his neck like a pencil. The crack was unbearable. The empty eyes were haunting. Rodney's soul was devoid of any light as well.

Now, he wanted to hyperventilate. He wanted to suck every last milliliter of air out of this enclosed space. His heart slammed against his ribcage. His body broke out into a cold sweat. He was entombed, closed in, trapped…

No, he could do this. He could become like a dandelion puff floating on the wind. He was caught on a zephyr racing across a wide open field of grass. Free. He was free to…slap his hands against the side of this tiny, finite space. No, no, he had to go back to the dandelion puff.

There was something very wrong with this whole game. There was something very off about how it moved from one thing to the next. It did not seem to follow any order. It was jumping around and experimenting with strenuous scenarios. They could not accomplish any objectives, if there were any attainable objectives at all. The players did not move to another level, so much as move through random events-- kind of like someone wondering, what would happen if…?

"Let him out, John!"

The solid plank in front of him shook and let in a sliver of light.

"That bastard let me rot in there. Couldn't tell the truth if his life depended on it. Let…me…rot."

"What was he supposed to do? Tackle the humongous guards?"

"Yes."

There was scuffling and grunting outside of the enclosed space.

"Hello? Sheppard? Let me out!"

"Not by the bleak hair on your pathetic head!" Sheppard yelled back. "You let them practically strangle me! You wouldn't tell them you knew me!"

"John! Not everyone is as brave and heroic as you!" The voice sounded familiar and a little cutting towards his fearless, skinny leader. "I'm going to call security if you don't let him out!"

What the hell was this? The "they" could not see him. He had tried…

"I tried, but this game…"

"Game? Game! You think those sheriff deputies were playing games? He's staying in there Katie."

What the…dandelion on a fast moving zephyr…wide open field with no grass or flowers to cause allergic reactions…

"We are in some sort of VE Sheppard. You know that." He pounded on the door, because this had to be some sort of locker from Hell's High School or a closet at Hades U. "OUT!" he screamed, meaning more than just the tiny, dark, cramped, and stuffy space.

"Not until you apologize! Not until you tell them that you're really on my side!"

"How old are you? Tell who? The sheriff? Let me out!"

Betrayed by his best friend, trapped in this coffin, and frightened out of his mind, McKay hammered on the door with his fists. He shoved at it with all his body weight. He grabbed the door knob and shook it. "Please, Sheppard. Please." He was not above crying in this situation.

"Mr. Sheppard, you will let Mr. McKay out, right now. Or I will call the dean."

The door swung open and Rodney fell out into a heap on the floor of a lab/classroom. Hades U it is, he thought. Rodney followed the tennis shoes and jeans up to the shirt and then the face of-- not Sheppard, but the bully/asshole he had been hired to tutor back in the day. The prick had been on the basketball team and Rodney had been forcibly paid to make sure he passed the chemistry-for-idiots class. He looked at the tables and everyone wore an amused smirk as he knelt on the floor.

Rodney did not remember this ever happening. Maybe it was a fear or a conglomeration of events. He looked at the teacher and realized it was Dr. Atar. "Please go take your seat next to Miss Emmagan so I can begin class."

"Who are you?" Rodney's big brain started making big leaps. "What is it you want? Do you want to drive us insane? Do you want us to play along? What is it you want from us?"

"Mr. McKay, don't make me repeat myself."

"No. I won't move until you tell me…You're not just any program. You're something else altogether."

"You're something else," the class repeated all together.

Dr. Atar grinned. "That one always brings a smile to my face."

"Yes, how very Zucker, Zucker and Abrahams of you…but answer my questions!"

"Ms. Emmagan," Dr. Atar said with a scowl on his face.

The last thing Rodney saw in the wide open space of the classroom was Teyla's face as she pushed him back into the teeny, tiny closet, where he screamed, begged and cried until everything went back to pitch black.

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Teyla pressed her hand firmly into Rodney's chest and fed. She knew not of how she came to be here. Melena had killed her and now she drained one of her teammates of his life. His screams filled her ears and her heart. She pulled her hand quickly back in horror.

She rubbed the maw with her other hand and felt revulsion at its significance. She had taken his life without thinking. She was Wraith. It was what she did. The others' in the Hive thoughts were open to her. They were on the way to cull another world. Before her was her team. Those she counted on most. Except Rodney was now a husk in a small enclosed space.

"Are they not to your liking, my Queen?"

She looked…down at the small man. Teyla stood long and slim. She packed much power into her normal frame but with this…with this she was even more lethal. She stood before Ronon and wanted to take revenge. The question of, "Why?" slithered through her mind. He had done nothing. This was just another stage of the program. His dead lover had done the shooting. She lightly touched her forehead to make sure nothing physical remained of the memory and then held her feeding hand to her breast. She would not do this to anyone else.

"Coward. Try me."

The voice creaked like an old sitting chair. Its brittle sound grated in her sensitive ears.

"You have him singing a trying song," jeered the little, odd man. "This fella here is next. I want to see what it feels like to take everything away from someone who has nothing left. Don't you my dear? They need to feel your pain at what you could be. Your people have brought me something so new."

Eye to eye, Ronon and she stared at one another. The odd, little man, panting and waiting next to her, had waves of grotesque excitement rolling off of him. A template, a test, a nightmare, she thought. A blue-gray hand grabbed her wrist before she could attempt to attack. "Me next," rattled a partially mutated John Sheppard. "Try me and let them go."

Rodney was going no where and Ronon remained silent, defiant. John's yellow animal eyes challenged her from underneath hardened skin. "You feel it, Teyla. How we are so much alike? Don't I reflect that?" He easily stepped free of the cocoon with strings of membrane trailing him and clinging to his skin and clothes. His grasp on her wrist tightened. "Try and kill me." His voice popped like a dying fire.

The little man backed away and rubbed his hands together. "Oh my! Very good, my dear, very good!"

This game had gone on long enough. She lunged for the annoying, little, insect lover. John stopped her by blocking her way. Her temper lost, she plunged her hand at his exposed chest. His chest was not warm skin and soft hair. It was a hardened exoskeleton, brittle and cold to the touch. He laughed at her folly and plunged his hand into her chest, claws breaking the white-gray skin. She pushed harder and broke the protective cover caving in his rib cage. They held the back of each other's heads and pressed their foreheads together, locked in a horrid battle of wills. Hers was stronger. Her hand seized his heart and squeezed.

They locked eyes one last time before she devoured him.

"Oh, that is intriguing!" crooned the intruder in her never ending nightmare.

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

Sheppard faced his attacker until she stopped feeding. Betrayal by a Wraith was not such a foreign concept. She was at the end of her endurance. Why should the Wraith let a morsel of Lantean goodness escape her indiscriminate palate? Sheppard lifted a skeletal hand just high enough to see each and every bone within it. The wrist bones protruded like little bouncy balls under the skin. Each delicate bone looked like a twig wrapped in a fine flesh-colored membrane. He let it flop back down on the bed of pine needles that he found himself lying upon. His neck was now the least of his problems with its lingering, phantom pain.

Rodney, what had they done with Rodney? He had been in the room, but the psychotic and sociopathic musings of the doctor led him to believe they could not see him. This game was so screwy. His Wraith had been a male not a female. Strangely, there was a familiarity to her. He pushed it aside, because all of the Queens looked alike, anyway.

"Finish it," he said.

She gave a discordant laugh. "All you had to do was ask. However, seeing you so vulnerable is quite stimulating. Always the hero. The others paint you so…I don't know…strong. You look like a weak and timid fella to me." She laughed again, but abruptly stopped as a blast burned a hole through her chest.

"I am here, Sheppard. I did not abandon you." At first, he thought it was Ronon riding to rescue, but he was wrong.

This situation was all sorts of messed up. His Wraith stood over him instead of his team. He kneeled down and sat John up. "I will return the life, but first I must take it from others." He picked John up and placed him next to the large tree he had slept against earlier.

"Go find Kolya and say hello for me." It took all of his strength to say it. He let his eyes slide closed to wait, as the Wraith slunk into forest. It felt like only seconds before he returned and knelt beside him again.

"As I said, there are things about Wraith you do not know, Sheppard." The hand, weighted on the thin skin of his chest, pressed forcefully into his flesh. Warmth flushed for an instant and then searing pain. He cried out as his Wraith buddy regurgitated the lives he had stolen.

But, no one else was there when the Wraith finished. No one else crashed through the forest floor to come to his rescue. He looked for Ronon, Teyla, Rodney and Carson. No one came.

His savior pulled him to his feet. "This way, Sheppard. I found a ship." The Wraith walked back the way the others had come from in the original happening of the story. After a few steps on the path, he saw a pair of boots, attached to pants, lying to the side of the path. They were not Genii.

"Who did you…?" He knew already. He had not seen a single Genii soldier in this little macabre scene. He slowly approached the shriveled body of Rodney. His eyes dehydrated like cloudy, blue raisins. As they continued, the next one on the trail of corpses was Teyla. Her copper and gray hair flowed among the needles and mosses. The next body was one of his young marines, who supported the city. Without them, the place could not run. The Wraith kept walking along the path. Sheppard pushed his burgeoning hatred down. His inner killer wanted to come out and play. He remained calm and went along with the farce.

Carson was the last victim they came upon. Bones were the only signs left. The good doctor's jacket was the only way to recognize him. John could stand it no longer. "What did you do?"

"I am Wraith. I fed. We made a compact and I kept it." His yellow eyes peered through the shadows. He squinted them challenging John to prove him wrong.

"But these are my people. They were coming to rescue me like I told you they would." Sheppard stood in the middle of the path and felt as old as his hand had looked. "You used them to restore me…" He couldn't say anything else. His words stuck in his throat. He felt the loss, the revulsion. He also felt the barrel of a weapon on the base of his neck.

"Traitor." Ronon made it sound like a four letter word. "Betrayer." It was a growled, throaty accusation.

"I…I…" No, this couldn't be real. He slowly turned around and faced an aged Ronon. His hair grayed and his skin wrinkled. John would have gladly let the Wraith take his life and those within him and transfer it to Ronon. Of course, Ronon would never accept such a horrific gift.

The Wraith leaped from his place farther up the path and landed behind Ronon. He was going to finish what he started. Ronon whirled around opening fire as soon as he had his target. The Wraith staggered back and Sheppard inserted himself between the two. He did not want Ronon to die…even if this was not real. He put his hands up to stop his Wraith. He turned around to face Ronon and faced Ronon's blaster instead.

A pair of hands clapped together from just a few yards away. "Oh this is a splendid conundrum!" The female Wraith stood atop a small hill, the hole in her chest closing. She grinned and seemed thoroughly entertained. Sheppard looked closer. Apparently, he was wrong, because not all female Wraith looked alike. This one looked like a man in bad drag.

"I know you…" He ignored Ronon's hand cannon and started to walk over to the short female.

Ronon's weapon charged preparing to fire. "Oh, you will pay for their deaths, Sheppard," sneered Ronon.

"I keep my end of a bargain," breathed the Wraith in warning.

Sheppard spun around just in time to see the Wraith plant his hand firmly on Ronon's chest. Ronon's arm jerked and the errant blast from precious hit Sheppard square in his chest.

It was not on stun.

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Ronon stood firmly on the platform of the SGC in manacles. He looked Sheppard squarely in the eyes. Betrayer, he thought.

"I've brought the traitor in, sir." Sheppard seemed totally pleased with himself. Ronon did not understand why. "Killed his own lover and his teammate. Also, made us think he was running from the Wraith, when, actually, he was just leading the Wraith to more victims. The people that called the Wraith to pick him up were just part of many he had sacrificed for his freedom."

He wanted to be sick. Sheppard would never believe any of these things were true. Pondo was going to have a slow and lingering death. He was the outsider for so long, still was in many aspects, but he had a place.

This game wanted to take everything away from him again and again and again. He would not play. This was not the real Col. John Sheppard. The walk was not quite right. It jittered with an antiseptic quality. The swagger gone.

"Took us awhile, but with my brains and Sheppard's brawn, we bagged us our man." McKay said proudly from behind him. Ronon pursed his lips. McKay had healed his scars. He would not add to them.

He refused to say anything. He was not going to play. He had heard one of the marines say, "I'm taking my ball and going home," after he had thoroughly beaten the boy in hand to hand. He thought the saying fit the occasion quite nicely. He really wanted to go home.

Gen. Landry stood at the bottom listening and issuing instructions to the other game pieces. A little man stood next to him wearing a sergeant's uniform. It read Harriman, but it was not the little man he had met when he had visited…stood on the platform the last time.

He was not going to play. He was going to kill when the time arose. He was done with this game. He stood impassively and let the guards lead him down the concrete corridors to the cells. He sat on the floor and did not move or speak.

The door to his cell opened and the sergeant stood inside the door. "Oh you try my patience. They've betrayed you. They have fallen short…do something!"

Ronon looked the little man in the eyes. "No," he said as calmly as possible.

"You'd like to see your wife again…go home to your world…see your teammates, the real ones…just do something besides sitting there like a lump of clay."

"Make me."

A wicked smile crossed the needy little man's face. "Oh, this could be interesting, indeed." He left the prison cell mumbling and sniggering to himself. "Yes, very interesting."

The prison disappeared. Ronon found himself in a forest, frozen in place, with a Wraith feeding on him. Sheppard was falling backwards with a burning hole through his chest, mid-scream. Teyla stood behind Sheppard wearing his blood, arms outstretched. Everything stood still, petrified within a single moment of time. He looked for McKay and saw a boot, which could have been belonged to his fourth teammate, farther down the path.

Time resumed and Ronon brought his weapon back and fired repeatedly at the Wraith, Sheppard's Wraith, until he was cut in two. Ronon staggered towards Teyla and dropped next to Sheppard. Teyla followed suit, sitting on her knees.

"Sheppard…"

His team leader shook and gasped out his words. "Is that really you guys?"

"Yes, Colonel. It is us."

"I knew it wasn't you before…I just knew…"

Ronon ripped open the shirt and saw the mess his gun had made of his friends chest. This still was not real, but it was damn close. "Where's McKay?"

Sheppard pointed a weak, shaky hand toward where Ronon had thought he saw a familiar boot. Teyla nodded for him to go as she placed the Colonel's head in her lap. She grasped his hand in her evil one. Teyla was still Wraith, but Sheppard did not seem to care. Ronon did not care, either.

He moved down the trail to the first set of boots attached to legs. It was not Rodney, but another friend. The next body looked like Teyla, but he knew their Teyla was with Sheppard, so he moved to the next one. As it turned out, the last one moved slightly. The boot shifted in the dirt and needles and the fabric rippled with the small amount of exertion. Ronon started running. He reached a desiccated McKay trying (and failing) to sit up on his own. Skin was tight over his skeleton and his eyes were a cloudy blue.

The little man had won this round. The sunken eyes glared at him and a dry-as-leaves voice demanded, "Well, you going to stand there all day or are you going to help me?"

Even in death's grasp, McKay could be downright ornery. He gently lifted McKay up and brought him back to the other two. As he looked at his team, maybe the little deranged man had not won.

"I'm never going near another game platform for as long as I live," rattled McKay.

"Which doesn't look like very long, McKay," rasped Sheppard. "But I…I…think I've gotchya beat…My story, my time." He shuddered and then exhaled thickly for the last time.

Rodney looked away as his condition would allow. Teyla leaned her forehead over to touch Sheppard's as his open, unseeing eyes peered at the sky. Ronon centered himself. McKay was sometimes fond of saying 'work the problem'. Ronon looked at his blaster as the world fell away and they moved to the next perversion. He thought that the gun might not take care of the problem, but it would sure make him feel better to use it towards that end. The little strange man was the key.

When they changed channels, as Sheppard might have put it, he eavesdropped on a foreign conversation.

"Dr. Z! Did that do it?"

"No! Stop! You will hurt it!" Ronon recognized the whiny little voice as Pondo's.

"You, shut up and sit down!" another voice ordered.

"It is very stubborn. I can't seem to counteract the firewalls before others are erected--"

Ronon realized he was listening to people in the real world. He had to let them know he could hear them.

"--blocks me at every turn--"

He needed to say something, but he could not get his mouth to move. The voices grew distant and the game reclaimed him.

But, he knew Atlantis knew, and that was hope.

TBC…