The Last Survivor

by Kodiak Bear Country

I had lived alone for as long as I remember. Also known as the story where Sheppard and McKay crash, get hurt and need help, and the wraith are afoot.

4. Chapter 4

AN: This would be a shamefaced author admitting that, no, she did not manage to wrap the story up in this chapter. If I had pressed on, it would have been twice the size as the others and too long for one chapter and that's saying a lot since I'm okay with long chapters! So, this almost wraps it up, and well, just read…hopefully you won't hate me! Thanks to sholio and Linzi for being my lightning fast betas, all that's left is mine.

Chapter Four

It was easy to feel much as a leaf would, caught in the strong river current. I was with Sheppard and sky eyes in their home, and I found myself surrounded by new things I did not understand and could only begin to fathom.

Sheppard worked on his weapons, slumping in the corner of the long bed, his back towards the damaged door that led to the broken room with the large ice shield. The place he had called a cockpit. The unfamiliar word was like spice on my tongue, bold and different. I was not sure I liked the taste, but maybe that was because it was damaged and bore the stains of their injuries.

Staring at Sheppard, looking at his tired face, I worried. I had spoken true to McKay when I said I could not help Sheppard.

Earlier, when I had been lulled into sleep, I had only drifted for moments – enough time to dream images and think thoughts I would have avoided if I had been fully awake. I had thought about both things amazing and scary. I had rested, but not so long that time turned around me.

Not so long that their people had arrived to save them.

What was there for my hands to do? The coal in my clay jar was forgotten, the food, set to the side, and they ate things in cloth that crinkled and felt like rocks, tumbled smooth by the rushing water. My arrows were like brittle sticks to their guns.

I watched as Sheppard pulled strange pieces of metal from the weapon. It was the one that had refused to fire, that had been discarded in the woods and the snow for all those days they had rested, healing, in my home. He eyed each piece before setting it down on the bed beside him, poking inside, like he was a healer with a patient. He was warm, content, and though I did not believe the medicine had cured his clogged chest, it did seem to have given the sickness a pause. He did not look well, but he did not look so ill I feared for his breath to stop.

Sky eyes, though, had the flush of fever high in his cheeks, and I did not miss how he held his foot off the floor. He worked in his panel, with another strange machine beside him. I knew they were trying to fix this spaceflyer, but I also knew the broken ice shield meant it could not go to the stars. I had heard Sheppard and sky eyes arguing over how they could go to this thing they called a Stargate, far above my world, in vacuum, McKay had said. They spoke so many words then that I did not know enough to offer advice, even if I had it to give. Words like warped doors, no seals and no suits.

Their words had changed then, to transmitters, emergency signals, and hoping their people would be up above, trying to find them.

"What brought your spaceship out of the sky?" I asked.

Sheppard's hands worked at wiping the weapon parts with a small, white cloth, thicker than any I had, other than the gnarl fur. "That's a good question." His look slid to sky eyes. "And I'm sure McKay can tell you."

"McKay is busy," said sky eyes, an edge to his words that I had not heard before.

I looked away from them, back to the door that could not shut fully. The wind still whistled angrily, stubbornly pushing through the small cracks. They were busy and I was useless. I had left my life behind and had nothing to do. My hands moved on my lap, restless. I was sitting near Sheppard, and I reached for one of the small pieces he had laid on the surface of this long bed we shared while he worked and I watched. "Find the words to tell me, Sheppard – what could bring this ship down, to crash here and change my life?" I wanted to understand. If my hands could not work, then my mind would.

When you lose everything, and find a new steadiness, only to be tossed again, is it so wrong to want to know why? Had father sky sensed my loneliness, even when I could not feel it, because I had buried it in my bones and hid it in my dreams? Had he brought these two males down for me?

I did not want to feel guilt for their hardship.

They had lost their people, their way of life; at least they had regained their broken ship and these weapons that could keep us safe from the wraith. "How did the white haired monsters come to the ground with you?"

Sheppard guarded his expression. "Mawani…how do I say this…" His smile was crooked and pained, but this time it was not caused by his chest. "You've lived…well, simply…here." His eyes almost seemed to talk, to say he was sorry for what he was trying to say. "And I don't mean to sound…condescending, but there's things that --"

"Oh, for the love of God, Sheppard." McKay's blustered interruption caused a look of relief and annoyance to flicker across Sheppard's face. "What he's trying to say, and completely messing up, is that you've lived with sticks and stones, and in no way is that your fault, but this technology, how it works, how the darts--" He saw my face empty -- the word meant nothing to me. "Wraith ships… Anyway, it's incomprehensible for you."

My lips thinned and Sheppard rushed to add, "That's not saying you can't learn."

"Sky eyes is fixing a transmitter," I said, bravely trusting in my memory. "You came through a Stargate in space, and fell through my sky, to the ground. This ship is connected to you, and your city. Your people might come, but they might not find us." It made a knot in my belly to think I could be the cause of their fall. "I did not know I was lonely, I promise. If father sky brought you here, I did not ask it." I thought I understood a great deal.

McKay's fingers stopped tapping on his machine and he looked up, an expression both irritated and exasperated. "You think you caused our crash?"

He asked it like I had said the moon had suddenly left the sky, ran away to play with the far away stars. I hated to let the truth feel the air. "I missed my kind." Still, I raised my face and looked him in his eyes. "If father sky wanted to make me happy…"

Would I have to lead them to the water and raise it to their lips to drink?

"It doesn't work that way." Sky eyes shook his head. I could tell he thought I was the silly one now.

His eyes found Sheppard's and he sighed. "Fine, not as if I'm not busy enough." His grumpy words did not go to his eyes, and I waited, eager to see what he could show me. He tapped more buttons and turned the odd shaped object until I could see a picture. It was as if it had been drawn and lifted off bark paper, life breathed into it. "I think those magical cliffs of yours are a lot more than myth. Going back through the data before we crashed, I found a high concentration of this ion --" he pointed to an image in the corner. To me, it looked like rocks and branches, stuck together to form shapes I had created as a child…triangles and circles. "Now, the levels have dropped precipitously, why, I can't say for certain, not without better equipment, but if I were to guess, I would say it had something to do with the changing seasons and the storms on this planet."

I tried to understand, to prove to them that they were wrong, that it was not too much magic for my thoughts to hold. "The cliffs did bring you from the sky?" Then, was it not father sky's doing, after all?

"Yes, well," McKay shifted uncomfortably and turned his machine back towards him, "again, legend is often laced in fact."

"But what of the white haired wraith? How did they come to fall with you?"

Sheppard shifted, moving his folded leg until it touched the floor. A glimpse of pain skated by, then he took the part I had forgotten from my hand and explained, "It was orbiting your world, doing some kind of scans, near as we could tell." He looked sheepish. "We didn't register it until we were already descending into your atmosphere. It followed, and that's when both of our ships went haywire." He began to put all the parts back into the metal frame and shrugged. "After that, I'm coming up empty until I woke up against McKay's chest."

"Didn't I say never to --"

I smiled, remembering that time when sky eyes had acted silly about holding his litter mate so closely, and I had had nothing more on my mind than wonder at being near my own kind again. "Not to Sheppard," I reminded McKay.

Looking slightly disgruntled, McKay narrowed his eyes at the images on his machine. He talked to it, as if he were not interested in us, but I was not fooled. "Fine, well, now you both know, so we can forget that ever happened."

"Hey, I'm just saying, didn't know you had it in you, McKay."

Sky eyes tapped another key, grinned and looked at both of us with the expectations of a new day. "Houston, we have transmission – if they're up there, they'll now be getting an -- "

"ET phone home?" Sheppard poked.

McKay's eyes rolled. "Must you be so annoying all the time?"

"Only when you're around," Sheppard returned easily.

"Do all your people bicker like two fens in a nest?" I asked.

Not that the answer mattered; all I wished for was the interruption. There was so much for me to think about, and their talking made my head ache at times, it would come so rapid. Whatever they believed, it still seemed to me that father sky had brought these males to me, the wraith falling along with them.

But, whatever happened, it did not change what was before me. "McKay, it is time to change your bandage."

I did not wait for him to stall. My supplies were in my satchel and I pulled them free, thankful I had thought ahead to bring what remained. He paled at the birch basket. "You know, actually, I bet Carson will be here by morning and you can just skip this primitive torture…"

"Let her treat your leg, Rodney. I don't want to see it sloughing off."

"That's just gross."

"Then shut up and be a good boy."

It seemed to me that sky eyes' glare carried thoughts towards his litter mate that I would not want to hear the words for, but he reluctantly pulled his pants up, past the calf to his knee, revealing the bandage, stained worse than even before. My worry soared higher than the treetops. He saw my fear, demanded, "What? Oh, no, it's not gangrenous is it?"

I tried to be gentle, but touching his leg made him shout. The bandage came off easily, dampened by the sickness of the wound. I felt ill looking at it. It was not green, but sickness bulged underneath the stitches. "I have to open it," I said, regret like ashes on my tongue, because this would hurt sky eyes, a lot. "The sickness builds inside and cannot escape."

Sheppard had left his place and now stared down at the wound. His eyes widened and he turned to the supplies sky eyes had dragged out when Sheppard had fallen asleep on his feet. When McKay had said he had fainted, and had given Sheppard the medicine I had known sky eyes needed for his leg, just as much as Sheppard had needed it for his clogged chest.

"Where's the damn antibiotic," Sheppard snarled, pulling free items of many shapes and sizes.

Their ship was not big. I could see the small tube on the floor, just behind the bag, where it had fallen after McKay tossed it away. It did not take much effort for me to lean over, stretch, and reach for it, feeling my fingers curl around the strange object. "Anti-bio-tic," I said, giving it to him.

He took it, stared at it blankly. I could tell, moment by moment, as he connected the thoughts to one another. That it was empty. That there were only two people in the ship that would need it, because I did not doubt that Sheppard knew he was dangerously sick inside. If McKay had used it on himself, he would have said so.

Sheppard's face froze, as if the storm had clutched him to its icy breast. "McKay," he said, calmly. "Where's the medicine that was in this syringe?" They both knew that he knew.

Sky eyes shook his head at me, so slight I almost missed it. What was he trying to say? He looked worried, angry, embarrassed – so many emotions for one man. Did he wish to keep it to himself, that he had given the medicine away for his litter mate? It was too late for it, no matter what he wished.

I looked back to Sheppard and said, "Both of you needed the medicine. I told sky eyes that I did not have medicine to treat your sickness, but I still had moss for his leg. It is my fault, Sheppard. He acted on my words."

McKay's forehead scrunched. "I don't need you to protect me," he grouched. "Just because someone is too stupid to use logic, doesn't mean my choice was wrong." He stared pointedly at Sheppard. "Because it wasn't."

I heard what sky eyes said, but I do not think Sheppard was listening. His hand was clenched around the empty tube of medicine, anger stomping across his face. "Yes, it was wrong." He slumped back, tossed the tube to the floor and lowered his head to his hands. When he lifted it again, frustration was ruling his heart. "Damn it, McKay! What were you thinking? You're the one capable of getting this ship in the air again. I'm not cutting your leg off because you were too stupid --"

McKay's face grew hot. "I gave it to you, Colonel, because Mawani thinks you've got pneumonia." It was his turn to give in to the heat of anger, and it subdued the other emotions that tried to rise to the surface of his soul. "You're the Rambo, not me, or did you forget there's still one very pissed off wraith out there!" He pointed furiously at the door leading outside.

Sheppard looked at me, the force of his fear and anger expanding to include me. I was now being lumped with McKay for going against his wishes. He did not want McKay's sacrifice, but it was not his decision to make. Even looking at sky eyes' wound, I could not fault him for his choice.

If it were not for the knowledge I had gained about these two males, I might have been hurt, but instead, I hurt for them, not because of them. Sheppard would get over this, in time. I let my hair hide my face as I began to clean McKay's wounds, let the silence speak for me. They were both suffering – physically, and in a place within their mind that held their spirit.

Death had walked with me for cycles. I felt only sadness that it had touched these two who had seemed so full of life. I wished to tell death to leave, that if it must take anyone, to take me, but I knew more than any of my kind, death did not listen to the wants of a body of bone.

I worked with gritted teeth, cutting sinew and wishing sky eyes would fall asleep. His gasps were strong and heavy, and came often, with each stitch I had to remove. I do not know when Sheppard gave up his resentment and slipped to McKay's side, but when I finished, he was there, supporting sky eyes in the same manner I had had McKay do for him in those earlier days.

A thin tube, like the one McKay had used on him, lay on the long bed next to his thigh, the cap off and the contents gone. I raised a questioning look towards Sheppard.

"Morphine," he whispered heavily. "It takes away his pain."

I had not known it was possible for whispers to be heavy until now.

"How long?" His voice was hoarse -- from his clogged chest, and his worry.

"For you? Or for him?" I asked sharply. He needed to remember that it was not only sky eyes whose life was on a thin layer of ice.

"Him – if…the leg." He scrubbed tired hands over his face, as if trying to rub away the horrible decision. "If I cut it off, will he live?"

"Maybe, but I do not think it is that time yet…" As I worked, the wound oozed sickness copiously. I tried to soak it with the old bandage, but it was too great.

Sheppard eased out from behind sky eyes, gently settling his body against the bed's frame, heading to get something from the bag. When he returned, he handed me a package of oddly woven white cloth. I looked at him, wanting to know what it was.

"Gauze, it'll absorb the pus."

I nodded, thankful to have something that would help.

I hated this. All of this – the stink of the festering wound, and the fear radiating from Sheppard, along with the fevered sweat from both men. Father sky had sent two of my kind, and I could not even keep them alive for one full cycle of the moon. How useless was I? I finished binding sky eyes' wound with the last of the moss and bandages, then stared at Sheppard until he returned my gaze. "The medicine has helped your chest, but it will not last. Your people must come, Sheppard. If they do not, I fear neither one of you will live to see the sky empty of the moon."

I know the way of my time was confusing for him, so I held up my fingers, all ten, then held up another one. It was twenty-four turns of night and day before that one night came, where the moon hid, and the stars got to shine and rule the sky. It had been thirteen turns since the last – eleven more turns till it came again. Could they even live that long – could their bodies fight the sickness when they were already weakened from their injuries? Truthfully, I did not think they even had five.

"Yeah, well…" He stepped towards the cockpit, crumpling the outer covering of the gauze in his hands. I felt the rage rising in him, a tangible thing in the air, and only flinched away a little when he suddenly threw the wadded ball at the door. It was much too light to do anything other than bounce off, falling to the floor with hardly a whisper of sound. "That's just it, we're counting on a maybe, to keep away a sure thing, and that kind of situation always sucks."

At least Sky eyes was resting now, his wound as cared for as I could do with what I had left to me. I stood, surprised by the ache in my knees. My movements were stiff and painful. I had held still for too long, the floor had left marks against my bare skin. "Sit," I asked of Sheppard.

His eyes of many color stormed along with the wind, but he sat. I approached, my sadness weighting me down like the fish trap I lowered in the water – I had always placed a fat rock to keep it on the silt floor of the pool. "I want to listen." I gestured at his shirt.

For a moment, refusal threatened to spill from his lips, but I begged him with my eyes. It was the only thing I could do, did he understand that? And when he pulled his shirt up, I believed he did. I pressed my ear against the area near the broken bone. The crackles were there, the bone still soft, his skin radiated heat against my face. When I pulled away, he waited for me to speak, but all I could do was shake my head.

Was it the storm blocking the sun from my heart? Or was it the smell of death?

"You have faith in your people." I sat on the long bed. There was nothing more to be done. "You trust they will rescue you and sky eyes."

His fury had left and softness stepped in. He wore the gentle weariness of knowing there were things you could not control. "Yeah," he said. "I trust them."

I pulled my knees up under my tunic and held them, not because I was cold, but for the need to feel something solid in my hands, other than worry. "Then you do not let go, not ever." It was that simple.

OoO

The medicine did not keep sky eyes quiet for long. He woke, groggy and flustered. I had thought Sheppard had worked past his anger over McKay's actions, but I was wrong. After asking McKay how he was doing, and getting a caustic reply about how would anyone feel with a flesh-eating, bacteria-infested leg, Sheppard stepped in where they had left off, "And why's that? If you'd taken the shot for yourself…damn it, McKay, you didn't even ask me– I'm calling the shots on this mission, not you. You didn't have the right --"

"To save both our lives?" snapped sky eyes, his eyes haunted and peevish.

This ship, it was beautiful magic, but it was also small, and confining. There were no places for me to go, nowhere for me to slip away and pretend their words were between them, only, and not falling into my ears.

I sat on the bed and watched as Sheppard stood next to McKay, one arm leaning against the wall, for more support than I think he wished to admit.

McKay's machine was back on his lap, his fingers already in motion, tapping even while reaching for one of their strange objects of food.

"How does giving it to me save your life?"

Even Sheppard's hair seemed to droop. McKay's eyes of blue looked watery and red. "I should've known better than to believe for one minute you'd think outside your closed, little military box. I don't need my leg to fix this ship, but unless I've greatly underestimated your capabilities, Colonel, you need to be able to breathe to fight off a wraith!"

"I've got three guns, Rodney. Not to mention some C4. I could be hooked to an oxygen tank and still kill the damn thing."

"Like you managed to kill the one that almost killed you – the one I had to save you from? Or did you forget the scar on your shoulder and the broken ribs you nursed for weeks after that? Did you forget Abrams and Gaul's memorial service?"

The air, it was tainted. This was all wrong.

For this amazing spaceflyer to be filled with such awful emotions. They were letting their fear overwhelm everything else. I had found my own worries were like a leech, drawing away the hope and amazement I had first felt.

"Teach me your words," I asked impetuously. They needed something else to focus their thoughts on. Anything, other than McKay's sacrifice, and how angry it had made Sheppard.

This seemed as good of an idea as any other. If I was to leave my world, and go with them, I would need to know the meaning of so many things – as much as I could learn. Of their bags, and weapons, ships and medical supplies. I knew I used words they found awkward, cumbersome, and different. My speech patterns were odd to them. A part of me wished to cling to my words, but the other part, it did not want to be embarrassed when I met Teyla, Carson, Ronon and Elizabeth, and all the others that lived in this city that they had told me about. I did not want to say something to bring redness to Sheppard and McKay's cheeks.

I thought for a moment they would pretend my words did not exist. Then, McKay snorted. He finished chewing the strange food in shiny coverings, and lifted a teaching finger. "The most important word in our language is --"

"Please," interrupted Sheppard smoothly. He moved to the bed, sat with a grimace, then raised an eyebrow towards sky eyes, his chin jutted, as if daring McKay to disagree. "Isn't it, Rodney. Manners are very important to our people."

"—chocolate." Sky eyes glared at Sheppard. "Priorities," he waggled.

Sheppard frowned, pulling himself straighter, as if rising to the challenge that only they knew. "Ferris wheels."

I did not think they were so easily letting go of the resentments as I had hoped.

McKay's head bobbed. "Nin-ten-do."

For a moment, Sheppard was quiet, planning his next words. This verbal battle was built of odd pieces of life, and I was as lost as a seed in the wind. But it was better than the heavy emotion from earlier. If only I had root to split, or wood to whittle.

A slow, lazy grin spread across Sheppard's face as he enunciated, "T.V."

"Japan."

McKay's food wilted in his grip, forgotten.

"Detroit."

"California."

"Notre Dame."

"Oh, please. Everyone knows Michigan is leading."

I interrupted their play, happy that my intent had borne fruit. The hurtful words were silenced. But now I truly did wish to learn. "These words have meaning, but you keep it to yourself, and I am not sure they are words I must know." They felt as random as a leaf, shaken from the branch. It had been an excuse, to get them to forget their pain, but now I wanted to know more. I needed to know so many things.

The bag sky eyes had first brought over to the long bed, the same one that Sheppard had rifled through, was nearby, lying discarded. Now, I pulled it near and lifted another object out, holding it in the air. This thing was much larger than any other item, heavy and with many switches on it.

I was a healer – these were words I wanted to know. "What is this?"

OoO

McKay and Sheppard had taken turns, each explaining items. Sheppard taught me about the gun he called a 9 mil, and the other, the P90, and then the C4. He showed it to me and explained how it exploded, but I did not understand, until he went to the day when the white haired wraith took my people and my village had burned from the falling stars.

"Those weren't stars, Mawani, those were explosions, coming from their weapons."

I had been relieved when sky eyes told Sheppard he was corrupting me, and turned their words to things that did not bring back the awful memories. He pointed to the panels and explained plastic, crystal, and metal com-po-nents. The long beds were benches. The floor was grating, and the odd machine with pictures brought to life was a com-pu-ter. I tried to tell McKay that they had magic of the kind my father would have been afraid of, but he insisted it was science – something that had elevated his people from drawing in the mud with sticks, to flying in ships and traveling through 'gates in space.

Was it unfair if I told him I understood, while inside, I thought there were too many things to remember? I could barely repeat the words correctly. I knew I was often mixing them up with one another in my mind, what they were, and what they meant.

It was a distraction, nothing more. And maybe I would remember some when the next day arrived. We played at it for three or four of their hours, while Sheppard pretended he was fine, and McKay snuck worried glances at his leg.

If their people heard the transmitter, and tried to come for them, would the storm keep them away? Sheppard said maybe, McKay said they'd better not, because it wasn't like they had forever. That made them grow quiet, the frustration finding its way to the surface again.

Whereas before, hope had snatched me into its sleepy arms, now fear hounded me till I sought refuge in the dreams. When the waking moments were this difficult, the dreams now held no worse for my mind. I had my memories back – the nightmares could not make me sadder than I already was.

The whistling wind and the slight shifting of the ship in the storm, the courage it took to stay here, even while I feared sky eyes and Sheppard would never leave, drove me to that escape.

I did not dream.

I woke to the wind still screeching and sky eyes' mutterings. He talked to his fingers, words I did not understand. A blanket we had brought from my home was loosely draped over my body. I felt sleepy and warm, like the bee-tended honey, melting under the sun's strength at midday. To feel this warm during the cycle of cold – it was more magic.

The comfort lulled me into abeyance, and it was not until I considered it odd that Sheppard had not responded to any of McKay's frustrated words, that I realized it was because Sheppard was not in the room with us. Suddenly, the warmth flew from my bones like the bird from the cliffs. "Where is Sheppard?" I demanded, feeling a chill in my belly. How many places could Sheppard be? The strange and damaged cockpit, or outside, in the biting and furious snow.

The storms were not to be played with, they were not the log in a lazy, drifting stream. They were the driftwood, thrown into the churning current that ran swiftly down the middle of the widest places in the river. I had become lost in a storm such as this many cycles ago and had believed I would never see the sun again – it was only a small miracle that I had found a large evergreen, its coat of needles stretching to the ground, and found shelter within its protecting branches.

"He went to make sure Lurch isn't descending on us – the machine we have that tells us if someone is near is broken, just like everything else." McKay's attention did not even waver away from his panels. "Damn!"

I was on my feet and moving to the hatch. Where was my cloak? "He should not have gone! How foolish are you – he is sick, sky eyes, the same as you, and even well, the storms are no match for our kind. They will kill him just as easily as the white haired wraith." Where were my fur coverings? Frustrated, I scanned for my clothes, not even remembering taking them off. I must have –

Sky eyes dropped one hand and twisted his shoulder to glare at me. "Do I look stupid to you?" He turned back to his work. "I told him it was suicide. Does he listen to me?"

"You are his litter mate," I stated clearly, still searching for my cloak. Hidden in a corner, past the long bed, I saw a pile of items. Their sacks, the supplies sky eyes had dug through for the anti-bio-tic, and a tuft of white hair sticking valiantly up. "You have his ear, whether you believe it or not." I reached for my cloak and pulled it free, scowling as other items spilled to the floor. Too many things made me long for the simplicity of my shelves and baskets. "If he did not listen, you did not try hard enough." I left the items scattered and fastened my cloak around my shoulders, thankful I had fallen asleep with my boots on. My head and hand coverings were wadded together. With them in my hand, I was ready to search for a very foolish, dark haired Sheppard.

"That's completely --" he frowned at the wire in his fingers then looked at me, his face worried and conflicted. "I'm the one that needs careful handling, not Sheppard – I've never had to do it before, no one can blame me for being inept at this. I missed the day they held registrations for Colonel Handling 101, so give me a break. I'm doing the best I can, under the worst of conditions, and I assure you, having heat right now is one amazing feat for the day."

"How long has he been gone?"

I was in front of the door and looked for a latch. There was no string to pull, or log to lift – how did one open this metal obstacle?

McKay limped over. It was only a few short steps, but he panted from the effort, slapping his hand against the wall. "Only minutes, I'm sure he's fine. He has more lives than a cat."

The metal wall groaned and moved. It was odd enough to watch it do so without an arm or leg to help it, but as it lowered, small flakes fluttered in on the puffs of harsh, chill air, making me worry even more. Before it rested fully on the ground, I was stepping forward.

McKay grabbed my arm. "Be careful. Of the two of you, I'd place bets on Sheppard making it back in one piece."

"Then you would bet poorly." Night sky had claimed the world and all I could see was darkness and shadows. "Do you have a magic light?"

"Magic light…" He stared at me until his confusion cleared and he snapped his fingers. "A flashlight, yes." He hurried to the mess I had made on the floor, bent and scooped one of the metal tubes, bringing it to me. I held my hand and felt the cold weight, waiting for it to begin lighting my way.

After a moment, McKay shivered and demanded, "What are you waiting for? Go, hunt, do that Pocahontas thing."

"I need another. This is not working." What good was a metal tube with bits of sun if it were not as dependable as the turns of night and day? The wind whipped my cloak off my shoulders and folded it against my arm. When I found Sheppard he would know the depths of his misstep.

Sky eyes reached with one finger and pushed against a small raised bump on the surface. Light flooded outward, startling me. He smiled as if he had created the trees himself. "On," he said. His finger slid the bump back and the light winked out, as if covered with a blanket of night. "Off."

I wished I had forever to stare at these strange objects of theirs; to spend a day and night touching, holding and seeing the wonder that they did, but Sheppard was walking in danger he did not know, and I had to find him before the cold took his breath away.

The flash-light was hard in my hand, and I used my finger to turn the sun back to life, smiling grimly as I repeated sky eyes', "On." The cold already cut through my clothes and burrowed into my skin. "I will return with Sheppard." He stood uncertainly, the bulk of his weight on his good leg, his skin the color of a skinned animal. "Do not leave, McKay. The woods in a storm is death waiting. Do not be foolish."

"What if neither of you comes back?"

"Then you wait for your people and find our bodies to bury in the sun."

Without giving him time to reply, I left, disappearing into the swirling mass of snow, my only beacon, the light from their metal tube. It lit up steps ahead of me and no more. I listened, picking out the distinct sounds of storm and door, until the door was shut, and all the remained was the angry wind, snarling at me for daring to walk forth in its domain.

I should not be here. The thought chattered through my teeth, as my body fought to adjust to the temperature.

I should be in my home, sitting by the hearth, feeling the heat from river rock, and sewing root thread or shaping baskets. I did not belong here, hunting to save another in the night sky, ravaged by cold that would steal my soul and leave a frozen body behind.

Yet, here I was, stepping forward once, twice and three times, scanning the places around me with a light that could not hold off the weight of night, even with its magic. The ground was drifted and barren. If Sheppard had gone this way, there was no trail for me to follow. I took my eyes away from the hopeless search of the ground and stared instead at the trees, looking at the scraggly branches, hoping to find any that might be broken, or knocked free of their new winter coat.

Soon, it was as if my ears were muffled, so surrounded by the overwhelming noise of the wind had I become. The light was heavier in my hands as my feet floundered, tripping into the deeper drifts. I had not seen any sign of Sheppard and my fear had risen in my throat, choking me. Sky eyes had said he had not been gone for very long. Surely, I had gone farther, knowing the woods as I did? And yet, I had seen no branch disturbed of its winter burden, or seen the white blanket marked before my feet. It was smooth and polished, and even with the winds, a footprint would last for more than these minutes of theirs.

More than a minute, less than an hour.

I had been careful and made marks on the trees to lead me back to the spaceflyer, but if I waited much longer, the marks would also be covered. The snow would cling to the tree trunks, climbing up from the roots like a white moss, hiding scratches and bark. My need to find Sheppard, to call for him, competed with the screams of wind, and the fear of the white haired wraith, that even now might be stumbling close by.

I continued to walk and look. Every few steps, I stopped and pointed the light in a circular motion, looking for any signs of my male. How could he be so childish? Had his mother never taught him to be careful? What father could train up a boy into a man, and fail to teach him about storms, cold, and foolish decisions?

Shivering in my cloak, my legs wet and numb, I stumbled forward, knowing soon I would have to turn back or face the same fate I was sure was Sheppard's. Closing my eyes, imagining his lithe body slumped against the ground, the breath freezing in his air cavities, I felt sick. "Please, father sky, let me find him." I whispered it low, so that the wraith could not hear, and only the spirits knew.

When I felt it, I could not say. I kept walking, moving out from the ship in a pattern like that of a dropped pebble in a pond. I felt like a Nole, spied upon by the Fen, waiting for that one moment when the Nole ventured too far from its burrow. Not able to move fast enough to scurry to safety and avoid the strong beak that could snap branches in half, let alone small bodies of bone and fur.

More than once, my feet slowed, and I pointed the sunlight in many directions, certain it would reveal a monster, ready to leap on me.

The night predators were sleeping now, but could one be up and about, disturbed from its winter sleep by the ship? By my feet, or Sheppard's?

I had forgotten to take knife, or bow and arrow. I had nothing but the metal tube and my hands to fight off any creature, night predator or white haired wraith. I stepped again, waiting to hear if it was echoed. Only a howl of wind rose up around me, many branches bending to the strength of the storm – some cracked and crashed to the forest floor, their impact muffled by the new snow.

Minutes had turned into an hour, I was certain of it, having held one watch before, and learning to feel the passage of time in their words. Sky eyes would be worried.

A sound that did not belong flitted into existence and disappeared, as quickly as it had lived. I spun, but there was nothing there. Should I call for Sheppard? If he was just out of reach, we could pass by one another and never be the wiser. The night was too dark, even with the fat, heavy clouds that could sometimes lighten the night sky. The woods, too loud in their fury.

But what if it was the wraith?

When I was little, my father had taught me a poem.

Day embraces our heart;

Night holds our soul.

Sun begs for many smiles;

Moon catches the tears that must fall.

I had asked, "But what of the clouds, father? What of the white, grey and black that comes and hides the sun and the moon?"

He had pressed me close and whispered in my hair, "That, Mawani, is the time of maybe. It is when father sky cannot decide whether to shed tears or not, and it is the time in all life when we do not know whether to smile, or cry."

"I do not like the clouds. They cover sky. I want to see the sun and stars."

Now, I stood in the clouds. Not knowing if I should speak, or hold my words. Maybe it was father sky that guided my hand, then, because without much thought, I thumbed the bump on the metal tube and the small sun disappeared. Blackness held me, and I used its cloak to step away from where I had been, knowing if I was watched, to stay in one place was foolish.

When it came, I was not ready. The smell preceded it; Night predator!

It hit me with a glancing blow, yet it was enough that I flew into a nearby tree, hitting so hard my teeth rattled and the branches dumped their snow down my cloak, falling into my tunic and down my back. Dots danced in an already dark world.

They were beasts that only lived to kill, vicious and single-minded. The only good words to speak of one were that they did not like the sun. They rarely ventured out during day, night was their land, and even with it being the time of cold, I had been careless to not come prepared. It had been long since I had seen one, the last being the night predator I had taken down with my bow, arrow and poison.

I rolled to my feet, crouched, holding the metal tube ready to strike back. It was not much, and it might only make the beast angrier, but I would not go down without a fight. I turned, seeking in the night for the shadow moving. Would the sun in the tube send it away, or would it give the animal the path to me? Fear held my finger and I stayed in the dark.

Had it claimed Sheppard?

Anger surged through my body. "I have survived the monsters," I shouted to the air, to the night predator. "I have survived an entire world of people, the loss of everyone I loved, and lived. I lived through the storms, through the death of Lilani and Leom. Do you think I will let such a stupid animal as you end my life when a white haired monster could not?"

The smell of wet fur and dead animals seeped towards me, a low growl seeming to come from behind and in front.

When it leapt, all I saw was the shadow. I raised my hand with the metal tube and covered my head, aiming my hit. The wailing of the wind was broken into a shattered edge of ice, sharp, rapid echoes driving into my ears. Flashes of flame burst from somewhere to my side, and the night predator screamed in pain, falling away before it reached my body.

Relief burned through me.

I moved the switch till light returned and aimed it towards the flashes, knowing Sheppard had saved my life.

A figure stepped forward, the size and shape wrong, pushing something up and off their eyes.

"Are you all right?"

It was a woman, like me, but taller. She wore clothes like Sheppard and McKay, carried a weapon like the one Sheppard had fired in the woods. I knew her. This was the one McKay had told me of.

"Teyla, from the city in the sea," I breathed. A rush of emotion ran through my heart. "Sheppard is lost in the storm, there is a wraith; McKay is in the ship trying to fix it! Did you bring your Carson? He needs a healer, with medicines stronger than I have…this anti-biotic? Did you bring more?"

Another stepped from the shadows, much taller, his mouth curling in visible amusement. "Looks like Sheppard did it again."

OoO

In the turns of day and night to come, I would often think back to that moment of meeting Sheppard's and sky eyes' people. How amazing they were, in their full bloom of health, with their many strange weapons and clothing of black night. The woman was Teyla, the man, Ronon – both different than Sheppard and McKay, yet, they were connected by a thread in this life they lived.

They were amazing. They were frightening.

They were deliverance walking.

Teyla bore the barrage of questions from me, standing tall in the storm, telling me that they had been to the ship, with their Carson. McKay was even now being helped with their medicine, but Sheppard had not returned.

"How long ago did you come?" I needed to know. Had I been gone too long? Was Sheppard surely dead?

"Rodney told us you had left only moments before we arrived," she explained. "Now, we must find John." She looked towards Ronon. "We need Carson and the life signs detector."

John.

Dark haired Sheppard had a second name-- John, like McKay's Rodney. The flavor was strong, just as the man. "It has been at least one of your hours since I left to search for him." The wind drove stinging, bitter flakes against my face. "He is ill. If we do not find him soon --"

The magic light only deepened the shadows on her beautiful face of sun roasted wood. "So Rodney said." She pulled the strange device over her eyes, hiding them from my sight. "We will find him," she promised, stepping away.

It was not spoken for me to follow, but I knew it. My feet were thick, fat and numb from the cold, but I stayed close to their heels. They led me in a path to their ship, with our heads bowed against the ferocious winds, our bodies hunched as far into our clothing as possible. The only mercy was traveling straight as a bird would fly. It had the ship within sight in much less time than I had spent seeking Sheppard, with my rippling circles. Teyla and Ronon slowed until their feet stopped, slipping their eye coverings off, again, and looking between the trees at the spaceflyer. The door was open, spilling light into the ravaging storm. Flakes flurried into the escaping light before disappearing to the ground, reclaimed by the dark.

Panicked words fought to stay in the air.

"What! No, don't eat him! I swear if you touch a hair on his head, I won't fix this ship and you'll never get off this planet!"

Sky eyes!

His words were full of fear.

My feet moved forward, knowing I had to help.

Teyla's hand caught my arm and held. "There is a wraith in there," she whispered, her face twisting, as if someone had given her something good and turned into bad while it rested in her grasp.

"Then we must save him!" Did they not see the danger? "I will not let the monster have him." I did not know Sheppard's fate, but sky eyes was in that ship, with a white haired monster – was it threatening their Carson? Had they come to save their people, only to lose their lives?

"Stay here," ordered Teyla. She motioned signals to Ronon, and without waiting to hear words that I would do as she said, they split away from me, each taking a side. I was left standing alone, bereft in the barren woods, my body shaking in the gusts. My heart hammered at me to move, to run forward to the ship and fight with bare hands to save sky eyes and his Carson, but my mind scolded me, and told my feet to stay.

Ronon and Teyla had weapons that would kill the wraith.

I waited, shivering and worried.

The darkness held them in secret until I saw their shadowed shapes form out of the angry storm by the sides of the ship. Teyla and Ronon nodded, then turned and ran inside, their weapons pointing forward.

"Get away from him!" Ronon's deep voice boomed, not even the shrieking gusts could disguise it.

"Ronon, don't! It'll just drain his life!"

That was Teyla's voice, harder to hear, but it sent shivers in my blood that had nothing to do with the wetness seeping in through my fur boots, or the wind gusting up my tunic and through my bare legs.

My mind lost to my heart, and my feet ran.

When I touched the metal of the door, stood in the light and saw with my eyes what the words had meant, I felt sick. It was not sky eyes in the hands of the wraith, and it was not their Carson. Their healer sat on the long bed, their bench, with sky eyes near him, McKay's machines and tools by his side. The white haired monster knelt in the middle, a crumpled body on the floor by his feet. Unruly hair the color of the night sky told me even what the patched clothes on the legs and arms did.

It was Sheppard.

The wraith had its hand pressed against Sheppard's chest, watching Ronon and Teyla with a gloating smile. They were only a handbreadth from me. The threat the monster had given stalled their feet.

"What have you done?"

My words fell like ice from the cliffs.

The wraith's voice resonated in the ship. "Nothing, yet…Come nearer, and I will take his life from him."

McKay's face was flushed – fever and fear. "You do that and you can forget ever escaping this world. You drain him and we kill you." His exclamation was rapid, rushed and full of the panic, up until he said the last with satisfaction, as if he had already done the killing. I suppose, in a way he had. He had killed the white haired wraith that had been moments from stealing my life.

"Just give me a reason," Ronon said. His deep voice rumbled like the storms in summer sky.

Sheppard stirred, his legs pulling upwards, as if he were trying to stand. The wraith, with no more care than I would use to swat an insect from my face, slapped him across his head. Sheppard's legs collapsed downward, reminding me of the floppy fish I knocked senseless with a rock.

"You'll give him a bloody contusion on his brain, if you do that again!"

Their healer's face was suffused with the same red as McKay's, but his stemmed solely from his anger over how one he cared for was being treated. He sat stiffly, his hands jerking slightly, as if he sought to go to Sheppard even while the wraith barred his way.

I was quickly beginning to see what Sheppard had felt about Teyla…what I had heard underneath his words, hidden in his speech. The respect for this woman. She did not step away, or give hint of the turmoil she must surely feel within, at seeing her friend on the floor, the wraith so close, that one wrong step from any of us might end Sheppard's life. Could her weapon kill the wraith, like it had the night predator?

"What do you want?"

Her demand was hard wood, polished by many rubs of cloth.

"What --" sky eyes almost came off the bench. "What are you doing? You can't…bargain with a wraith! "

"Rodney, he has the colonel." Teyla nodded at the wraith, encouraging it to speak.

The white haired monster's lips curled. It felt superior, believed it was better because it did not care. "I became trapped on this world when my ship crashed." The cold eyes glittered. "I will spare this one's life if you take me to another world, with a Lantean ring."

Their healer looked as if the wraith had just asked for something as simple as a branch, or a berry. Easy to grant, easy to take. "Fine, now let me care for him, or he won't live to be your bargaining tool for much longer."

"Doc, I'm not letting a wraith live."

Ronon's weapon was straight and steady, not wavering with his announcement. There was promised violence intertwined like ivy in every word.

"What are --," sky eyes tried to stand, and muffled a screech. His fear was such that he had forgotten his wound, and only had thoughts for his litter mate, lying still under the wraith's limited benevolence. He subsided onto the bench, letting Carson steady him. "Just stop with the Conan routine, all right? Seriously – Sheppard doesn't have time for heroics." He fixed the wraith in his angry glare. "You want off this hell hole of a planet, fine." Sky eyes snapped impatient fingers at Teyla and Ronon. "We're going, now. Where's the other ship?"

Another ship?

I felt stupid, as slow as the baby gnarl. Of course there was another ship – how else could they have descended from the sky?

Ronon twitched.

The white haired wraith pressed his hand down against Sheppard's chest in response, a reflexive groan sliding free of Sheppard's lips. My belly tightened. His broken bone…the monster did not know about his broken bone.

"We will take you." I could read the disgust on Teyla's lips. "But if you harm him, Ronon will kill you."

I did not doubt her.

Sky eyes grew floppy in his relief.

Their healer moved towards the crumpled figure on the floor, but the monster made an abrupt jerk of his head. "No," it stated, the raspy words sliding across my skin like oil from the gilly weed. "Not until you take me to another world." The laugh was wrong, poisoned. "I will bargain, human, but I do not trust you."

Teyla's eyes were bitter. "And I do not trust you," she stated coldly. "We should go." She nodded towards Ronon, Carson. The one helped sky eyes, but he was wobbly on his feet, a newborn baby gnarl could have stood straighter, and I reached forward, to help their healer. Ronon's weapon did not waver. When I turned, my body was near their bench and their supplies. Behind sky eyes was the small weapon Sheppard had given me before, half-hidden by the place where the top and bottom pillows met. Sky eyes had been sitting on it.

His eyes of blue met mine; they narrowed and moved, just a little.

At first, I did not know what he meant, but as he fell to the side, every eye turned to him, except mine; their bodies blocked the wraith from seeing me. The weapon! I reached for it quickly, praying that my fingers were as stealthy as the night predator that had stalked me earlier. I grabbed the weapon, feeling the weight and the strangeness against the calluses on my hands. While Teyla and Carson helped him to his feet, I stumbled against sky eyes, an additional attempt at distraction, tucking the weapon inside his waist, behind his thin patched coat.

"You lead," the wraith ordered. It kept its hand on Sheppard's chest, while lifting him to his feet with his other hand.

It was the first time I could look fully on Sheppard and I felt my heart stutter. His face was as white as the snow, dark circles pulling at the skin below his eyes. Fever stood out against his cheeks. I could hear the shallow, wheezing breaths. "What good is a dead bargain?" I demanded, even while sky eyes took an awkward hop forward.

The tattooed eye crinkled; the monster was amused. "I can feel his life. He will not die soon."

Words saying otherwise hovered on my tongue, but I turned away. McKay was heavy, and hot. We stumbled into the storm, Teyla leading, Ronon pacing the wraith while it dragged Sheppard. I had many questions, but two burned brighter than the others. "Is your ship near?" I asked Carson, almost shouting to be heard. "Did you give sky eyes your anti-bio-tic?"

Carson leaned forward, sky eyes' arm wrapped tightly around his neck. The short steps we had taken already caused him to draw labored breaths. "You must be Mawani," he gasped. A savage gust of wind pushed us forward. The edges of night lightened the sky many distances away, touching the treetops. "Rodney says he owes you his life."

McKay yelped, and huffed. "That is not what I said, Carson!" I could feel the sweat soaking through his shirt, sticking to my arm that I had braced around his middle. "I merely said her primitive skills kept us alive, despite the super bacterium that infests this planet." His raised foot bumped against a fallen log, hidden under the snow, setting off a new wave of, "Ow ow ow!"

It had amazed me before, and it amazed me now -- to see that it was not a trait limited to sky eyes and Sheppard -- that these people could speak of the unnecessary, even while all life crumpled around them. Yet, Carson's eyes were very serious as he added, "Hush, Rodney – love, the ship is just ahead, and I did treat him. It'll be touch and go, but I think he'll keep his leg."

"If the wraith doesn't dine on us first," McKay muttered.

This is not how I had imagined leaving my world. The weight of sky eyes pushed me towards the ground, the icy air dug into my air cavities with renewed strength. I saw the ship, then, and realized the lightening fingers of day were stretching to the forest floor. The winds gusted, passionless. The storm had arrived early and burnt itself out before its time.

The wraith struggled with Sheppard behind me.

When we approached the new ship -- a second spaceflyer -- the same awe snuck into my bones, and held my life's blood, frozen in that one moment of realization that there were things out there, bigger and better than my existence, and even if I were to die right now, to have seen it, and to have known it, how blessed I was.

I wished to linger, to touch one that was whole and unbattered, but the wraith snarled that Sheppard's life was not a certainty if we did not hurry. I glared over my shoulder, wishing for all the breaths I had, that I could end its cruelty and life with only a single thought. That I could make our trouble wink out of existence, like the fish did with the floating insect.

We took hard won steps and were inside. The same benches, floor and objects lined the walls. The doors in the front were not bent or twisted, and the shield of ice was smooth and untouched.

The wraith pulled Sheppard along like he was already a dead animal, until he was in front of Sheppard's cockpit. But this was not Sheppard's spaceflyer.

"Take me to the world with these glyphs."

Sky eyes stumbled forward, shaking off my support, wavering. He looked at the strange symbols that rested between those two chairs as the wraith pointed them out. "That's suicide – there's three hive ships in orbit."

Teyla frowned at the monster. "We will take you to a world that has been culled and emptied, nowhere else."

It tasted the air – to decide if they told lies? Then it nodded jerkily, spun, and dragged Sheppard to a bench, moving his body down, till they both sat, Sheppard propped against the monster. I shivered at how he must feel – did he know he was resting against death?

Maybe he was not aware. I would wish that for him, even if I worried at what it meant for his healing.

I swallowed back the tangy taste of my fear and sat beside Sheppard, his body all that separated me from the wraith. If he could feel death on one side, then he could feel life on the other. I knew the wraith would not let me take Sheppard's head against my chest, but I pressed my thigh close to his, let my arm and side touch so that he could feel something warm.

"Please, let me at least give him some medicine." Carson's face was pinched, his thoughts troubled.

"If he dies after we drop you off, I'll hunt you down, and kill you." Ronon held more danger in his body than any night predator could manage. I was glad to know this man cared for Sheppard and McKay. I believed every word he gave to the air.

I could tell the monster was affected, even if it did not wish for me to know. It tried to grin like we were nothing more than the Noles, useless and passing, but I thought maybe the grin was to hide emotions, like fear and desperation. I was glad. It should feel more fear than its bones could hold.

"You may give him your medicine, but if you try anything, all I must do is feed, and he will turn old before your eyes."

"Carson." Teyla waited at the doors leading to the chairs.

"Aye," he nodded, standing. He patted sky eyes on the knee, turned, and pulled a bag free from the hole in the roof. It looked similar to the one I had seen in Sheppard's ship, except there was a large white mark, and the cloth was red instead of black. With more speed than McKay had managed, he pulled out the supplies he needed.

Carson eyed the wraith warily -- waiting to see if it would try and stop him, even though it had given permission. The white haired monster jerked its head. "Do it now, if you wish to do it at all."

I shifted towards the wall, enough to give Carson a clear path to Sheppard's shoulder. He smiled briefly at me then leaned in, quickly pushing Sheppard's ragged shirt to the side, exposing bare skin. He was adept, wiping skin and emptying the tube's contents in a motion so smooth it almost seemed to be one movement, rather than the two that it was.

When he was finished, he gave Sheppard's shoulder a final squeeze, then slid the thin metal tip back into the cap. He tossed it in the still open bag. A worried look passed between him and McKay.

I wondered at the meaning as he headed to the chair in the front. But then I had other thoughts to fill my mind.

This was it.

Carson was going to fly this ship, take me from my world.

Life had been the same for me for many cycles. I would wake with the sun, and sleep with the moon. I would take my walks, and find hurt creatures, treat their wounds. I wove thread to keep clothes around my body, though the root had never been so fine as that which my mother had woven on a loom made from branches. Try as I had, I could not recreate that which only my memory said existed. The pictures in my mind had not been there.

Not until the memories had returned, but by then I had the males, turning my days into night and my night into days. They had changed everything. It was scary to realize, that it was not only that I did not have my hearth, or my shelves. I did not have my home. But I also was not the same soul as I had been even in those moments before sky eyes' cry had found me in the woods.

When their ship lifted from the ground, the motion was so gentle, it was like a mother rocking a baby, safely in her arms – enough movement only to cajole the tears of the infant away. If I leaned forward and looked through the ice shield, I could see the trees beginning to disappear.

It would have been a picture worth holding my breath inside, if it were not tempered by the monster sitting so near I could touch it. I looked away from the scene that should have held my eyes for many more moments than what it did, and looked at the wraith, the cause for all of this.

If it were not for the white haired monsters, I would be in my village, and I would stand with my family. I would have saved Sheppard and McKay, given them back to their people, and then we would have waved goodbye to them as their ship of silver reached for their stars and left us in peace. We would have sung, danced and thought how amazing that there was life beyond father sky, with others of our kind, and then we would have returned to work the tools of the ground, and the looms I could not remember. I would have gathered with my childhood friends as we tended our children, laughed about our husbands, and told stories of the silly things the babies did.

But the monster sitting like a tree, upright and strong, had taken that from me. I felt the images of what could have been fall from my mind like dust. The pictures that took its place –Sheppard leaning against the monster I would just as soon see dead as ever walk another step, and sky eyes, staring at me with a face of similar horror. McKay loathed and feared the wraith, resented the position we were in, but he had been clear he would do what he must to save Sheppard.

I looked at Sheppard's face, studied him to see if there was any hope left.

The medicine would help, but I feared for his breaths to stop. His chest rose in weak attempts at taking air, his eyes were pinched shut. His long arms hung loosely, with no control in any muscle. When I looked up and found Ronon watching, I shivered. There was hatred in his eyes for this wraith that rivaled mine.

"You're cold," McKay said, abruptly. "Here, take my jacket."

I began to tell him I would not take from him…sky eyes was sick, he needed the warmth. But my eyes found his, and along with reading the pain, still hard and strong in his bones, I saw the slight widening and the rise of his chin. That's when I remembered – the weapon!

"I am cold," I spoke, trying not to let the wraith see my face and read me like the sky.

While McKay began to slip free of his coat, his movements stiff, he began to talk – to try and distract the wraith. "So, Darth, what were you doing in orbit around PX9-MM4?" He pulled his arm free of one sleeve, slipped it from his back, folding it like the motion was a natural as shedding skin. "Were you in the neighborhood, or did you just get lost in the big, bad galaxy?" With a false quirk of his mouth, sky eyes tried to be brave, but I saw the small twitch that betrayed his nervousness as he handed me the folded coat.

The monster snarled.

Ronon's weapon whined.

For a moment, I thought everything I had fought for would end, right then. Ronon was going to shoot the wraith, and it would steal life from Sheppard, and even if Ronon could kill it before it leapt to me, I did not think it would matter.

But then the wraith's snarl turned to a laugh that grated against my skin like ice on a rock. While I tried to slip the coat on and keep the weapon hidden, it said, "Why not – nothing I say is going to change that your efforts are useless. We will find where you Lanteans are hiding, and feed on you, even while we take from your minds the path to Earth."

The weapon was heavy inside the coat, in a pocket. They had sewn pockets, inside their clothes! I found myself thanking father sky that these people were so resourceful.

"Really?" McKay's words were not worried. "That's why we've managed to kill…" he looked at Ronon. "How many hives now?" He acted as if the number had been no more important than a pebble in his shoe.

Ronon shrugged, "Two last year, two this year, or was it one?" His dark eyes glittered with malevolence that made me look twice at him. "Doesn't matter." His smile matched the wraith's, a human picture to the monster's. "We're killing more of you every day."

The wraith's growl was heavy in the air. It did not like the warrior's words, and with vengeance on its face, it pressed its hand against Sheppard's chest, renewing the threat in all our minds. I jerked, hearing the low moan. Sheppard's head moved weakly to the side but his eyes did not open. He did not wake. Was it only from the blow the monster had delivered to him in the broken spaceflyer?

The monster had been lurking, waiting. It had surprised and caught Sheppard in the storm. But had it done any more damage when it had? Or was Sheppard's deep sleep only from the clogged chest and battered head?

"Fine!" snapped McKay.

He slumped, weariness and pain taking away the false courage he had shown before. Or maybe not false, but exaggerated. His fear for his litter mate was strong, and I could tell sky eyes was losing the war to contain it. "Stop teasing the wraith, Ronon. Just – answer the question? Why were you there? Was it to study the ions? Did you finally figure out why you couldn't get in touch with your cargo ship full of human snacks?"

My confusion grew, even while I clung to the reassurance that Sheppard's chest rose with each breath. What did McKay mean?

Were we almost to this world where they were going to set this wraith free upon?

I was lost in McKay's words, and a glance at Ronon told me at least I was not alone. But the wraith's eyes were not clouded with confusion. "We were sleeping when it went missing. When we awakened, there was a message that they needed assistance. Once we had…restocked our food stores," the smile made my skin icy, "my queen sent a scouting ship to discover what had happened. We had only begun to scan the surface when your ship arrived."

"And you weren't going to let us discover what could bring down your ships, is that right? Well too bad, because we know, and believe me, we'll be using it on every planet possible!"

Sky eyes clutched a hand on his leg, just above the wound. He was taking many breaths, his skin turning a paler shade of white than even before. He reminded me of an overexcited child, still running around the adults during fairs, even though tiredness had his eyes practically closing while he ran. That was McKay – on the edge of falling into exhausted sleep, but fighting with belligerence to stay awake, to see this out, and to not let the wraith have even one moment's peace.

But their words – what they spoke. "The ship that took my people," I began, not even sure what I hoped to say. "It did not leave my world?" Had father sky brought it down, like he had with Sheppard's ship, and the monster's? Had they lived, then, somewhere far away from where I had been?

The white haired monster just looked at me. The answer was in its eyes.

I straightened, still feeling Sheppard's weight against my side, the weapon, in the pocket. My people! "Then, they might still be alive? Maybe they survived, like you and Sheppard, sky eyes!" I had to go back…I had left them! Leom… My hands trembled in my lap.

McKay's face did not smile, he did not say, "Yes, maybe, we can look." It was Ronon, leaning against the wall, that shook his head regretfully at me. "There's nothing alive down there, except for animals. When the ion levels dropped, we got a clear scan." He did not tell me he was sorry. He did not tell me that maybe their machines were wrong. He simply told me the truth that was in his heart and mind, and knew there was nothing more to speak.

Soft words did not change it.

Hope given in a beat of my heart, and in the next, gone. I only fell inside a little, because I had known. In all the cycles I had lived alone, if any of my kind had survived, they would have tried to make the journey home. False hope was no better than lies.

"I'm sorry," sky eyes said. "As high as the ship was in the atmosphere, no one would've survived." His eyes flicked heavily to the wraith. "But at least their deaths were quick and painless."

"Would they have died in fire, then?" Like I had seen in my mind.

McKay's nod was mute.

I breathed deep, fought to hold back the cough that grew in my throat from the dank, decaying smell that clung to the wraith. It was better. To die in a storm from the sky, then to be aged, held in that horrible pain from a white haired monster. I fought to keep my hand on my leg, and not rub across the mark on my chest, but the memory of the pain danced behind my eyes. It had not been long, it had not taken much, but it had been agony such that I had never felt before, not even when I brought forth Lilani from my body, alone and scared.

"We're here," called Carson.

So soon? And yet, had it not felt like forever?

The monster began to stand, began to pull Sheppard up, and my mouth spoke before my mind knew what to do. "Take me," I said hurriedly. "Leave Sheppard and take me. He is sick and injured."

"What! No!" McKay surged forward, the wound in his leg screaming at him. He fell back against the bench, clutching at his wounded limb. "Don't take anyone, we brought you here, just go…"

We both knew the wraith would drag Sheppard outside, his human shield, and we also knew Sheppard was in no condition to fight back if the monster tried anything. I searched McKay's eyes, his pinched face. He swallowed and his lips made silent words, don't be stupid, don't miss.

"Very well." The monster did not care what victim he held, so long as he had one.

Teyla stepped from the cockpit, Carson behind her. "You will let her go at the edge of the ramp."

Before I had time to realize what was happening, I found myself clutched against its body. It was a shock – to feel the hardness of its muscles, to feel the chest and limbs, formed so like mine, and yet, this creature was the night predator walking on two legs.

But this was what I needed – what I wanted. If I were to have a chance, I would need to be out there, with it, near enough to shoot and to not miss. I knew it would not be easy, to use this strange weapon of Sheppard's. I also knew if I was close enough, I would hit the wraith, regardless of how hard it might be.

The wraith was rock in flesh. I was dragged outside, without even a hint of effort. If it had been injured in the crash, then it had fed upon the other enough to heal its wounds. It explained why the other had been so weak, so easily overcome. I was pulled backwards, so that I could watch as Teyla and Ronon followed.

Their weapons were hidden, the monster's demand.

"She goes free, now," Ronon commanded.

The metal of the ship was no longer under our feet. The dirt of this new world was.

This was the moment. Would this monster let me go, or would it push its hand further into my old scab and steal my life? I knew, even if it did, it was worth the risk, the sacrifice. Sheppard was behind that protective wall of his people, sky eyes as well. The monster might take my life but I had no doubt it would not live much beyond that.

With surprising suddenness, the hand pulled away and I was thrust forward so hard, I stumbled and tripped, falling to my knees. Agony flared as my limbs shook from the unexpected impact. For a moment I thought the weapon would fall free from the pocket. I scrambled to my feet, biting back the pain, and clutching my hand inside the coat, as if I had hurt my chest. It had given me an excuse to reach for the weapon.

The ground was solidly under my feet, and I stood, quickly, my eyes locking with Teyla's and Ronon, before I turned to face the monster. It still looked towards the ship, waiting for us to leave. I felt the unbending metal of the weapon, secure in the pocket. Their cloth was soft against the back of my hand, like the skin of a gnarl. And yet, the gun, so solid and rough – deadly, I hoped.

The wraith was smiling, gloating. Did it really think it would get to live?

I stood at the edge of the ship, still staring. It would be easy to go back, to let Carson fly us to their city, but I hated this monster. It had used its wiles, trapped these people into bringing it here. It did not matter to me that it had not had any other choice – it was the death bringer, and it deserved to take its last breath and live no more.

Teyla would turn and leave. With a sick Sheppard and McKay, she did not argue or seek another end. Carson had wanted only to return to their city in the sea, care for their hurt friends and move forward. I could not read what lived in the warrior's eyes. I was not them. I was not free to leave my burdens and turn away from the avatar of my despair.

One freed wraith did not change their lives.

But I had ghosts and memories. They demanded of me and I listened.

"Your kind took my people from me," I said solemnly.

Once you step onto a path, you must not look back. My father had taught me those words. I had stepped onto this path the moment I took the weapon and coat from sky eyes.

I would never turn back.

Teyla tensed behind me. Ronon had never stopped tensing, he held his bones ready, poised to act -- in him, I sensed a brother. He waited, standing by Teyla. They were my cliffs. The white haired monster could not move against me as it wished. I could see it in its eyes. It wished to kill me – to take from me that which none had managed before, and knowing that emboldened me. I slid my hand further into the pocket until my fingers clasped the thick end, just as Sheppard had shown, pulling it free, but still hidden from view. I pushed the button in, safety off.

I was a fast learner.

The metal was cold promise against my skin and when I brought it out, pointed the narrow end at the wraith, it only grinned wider.

"You will not kill me human." Its black, scarred coat barely moved in the gentle breeze. The monster stood tall; confident.

My finger slipped to the trigger, and without pause, I pulled, because the monster was wrong. I would, if I could. I was willing to die trying.

When the first fire leapt from the opening of the gun, the wraith's body jerked backwards. The hit did not remove the promise of killing me from its face; it still looked as if it believed I would not take its life.

It did not know my heart.

Ronon did not interfere, but Teyla cried, "Mawani, no!"

Before she could stop me, I fired again. Two shots, three. It stood but faltered – the grin slowly fading. It tried to jump towards me but I fired again, and again, until it was down on the ground of this strange world that sky eyes' people had chosen, a world I had never been too. Here more people had died, taken by the white haired monsters. Killing this wraith would not give them their lives back, nor give me Leom, or anyone else, but it was one less monster that would haunt others.

The disbelief ruled in a face that could have been sculpted from the slick, grey-green clay I found near my cliffs. It was not the terror I had hoped to see, but it was all I had to ease the pain in my soul. It was not the arms of Leom, or the gurgles of my baby. It was not my father, or mother, or my mosul. "You are alone, wraith. Can you not hear the screams of the ghosts?" I was close enough now to stare down at it, to show it my anger.

"I will hear your screams."

Faster than I had thought possible, the white haired monster sprung to its feet, surprising me in its resiliency. I fired, again, but this time all I heard was an empty click. I stared at the weapon, heard Teyla shouting, then a red flame erupted on the wraith's chest, sending it flying backwards. I turned, confused, to find Ronon standing tall, his dangerous looking gun pointed at the air where the wraith had been moments before.

When I tried to form words to thank him, he shrugged. "Never did plan on letting it live."

OoO

AN: I promise, only one more to go. Also, I know there are probably questions about the how's and why's of the rescue, but remember, this is Mawani's POV so not everything is going to be clear yet. I'll have more explanations revealed on the rescue next chapter.