Wow, so very glad you're all still with me at this point! Sholio – hadn't even thought of an alternate reality or time travel angle, but hmmm… that could have been veddy, veddy interesting, no? Titan5 – go for it with Silas! That dirty, rotten bully deserves a beating, big time. And a big thank you to each and every one of you for the fantastically positive reviews – totally jazzed that you're all enjoying this convoluted story so much.
Some spoilers in this chapter for season 1's 'Sanctuary' (no gagging, please – they're only brief mentions :-) ), and a bit of a language warning, too – Rodney tends to swear a lot when he's thinking… Also some scientific techno-babble coming right up, courtesy of Rodney and Tosia, which will hopefully answer a lot of your questions and clear up any muddy areas. That, or you'll end up as muddled as poor Shep, in which case, I will not be held liable. See what you think anyway, as we wind down to the home stretch:
"Well, I'm not certain where to start," Carson told Elizabeth and Rodney. "But first off, he's fightin' a nasty infection caused by those cuts on his hands, and he's runnin' a low-grade fever. Looks as though someone, the old girl, maybe, tried to take care of his hands for him, but they're still a bloody mess. It almost looks as though he tried to claw his way out of somethin'."
"God…" Elizabeth breathed out, and Rodney winced at the description.
"His lungs are also badly congested, and he's lost weight he most certainly didn't need to lose," Carson continued. "There's some deep bruising on his arms and shoulder, and he has a hell of a shiner, so I'm guessin' he was in a scuffle on top of it."
"And…" Rodney prompted. "Why's he acting so… weird?"
"That's the troubling part," Carson said, his brow furrowing. "He's exhibiting symptoms of catatonia and severe post-traumatic stress. His brain chemistry is all over the place, and there's evidence of a head trauma, but I can't be certain what's going on with him until I get some more information on what in the world happened to him in the first place."
"He still recognized me though," Rodney said. "Eventually, anyway…"
"Aye, that often happens in similar cases," Carson nodded. "He could be driftin' in and out of awareness for some time, or he could come out of it just like that. I've got him on a course of antibiotics for now, and to clear up the infection first, before we deal with the rest."
"All right." Elizabeth nodded, crossing her arms. "I know you'll do your best, Carson. What about the old woman?"
"She's still unconscious – completely worn out." Carson looked from Rodney to Elizabeth. "I had her DNA tested and she does have the Ancient gene. It's… different somehow though… as though it's been manipulated."
"So, what are you saying?" Rodney waved a hand, urging him on. "She's a mutant, ancient Ancient now?"
"I don't know anythin' more than that, Rodney," Carson shrugged. "We'll have to talk to her when she's awake, but that won't be for some time yet."
"What about John?" Elizabeth asked. "Can we see him?"
"He should be getting settled just now," Carson said with a nod and steered them to a bed at the far back corner, curtained-off for privacy.
Pushing back the curtain and nodding to the nurse who stepped past her, Elizabeth blinked and took a sharp breath when she saw John. He sat in the middle of the narrow bed, his legs pulled up to his chest, the pristine sheets tangled under his feet, as though he'd kicked them away. His hands, resting on his upraised knees, were encased in layers of new bandages, two fingers on his right hand bound in splints. Dressed in white scrubs, John's visible skin was almost as pale as his clothing. In the midst of all that white, his hair was a dark shock falling over his forehead. Elizabeth frowned at the purplish, swollen bruise encircling his right eye. He looked too thin and astonishingly vulnerable as he slowly rocked himself.
"John?" she called softly, but he went on rocking and rocking, his bloodshot eyes terribly, frighteningly distant. She stood against the side of the bed with Rodney close beside her. When she placed her hand on John's shoulder, he flinched slightly but gave no other indication that he was even aware of her.
Carson moved to the opposite side of the bed. "Come, let's get you under the covers, lad." He pulled the sheets and blanket free of John's legs and bare feet. Straightening the blankets, he pulled them over John's curled legs and urged him to lie back by pressing lightly on his upper chest. John scowled and resisted him, hunching his upper body over his legs, tucking his hands to his chest.
"John, you need to lie back and get some rest now," Carson told him, stooping a little in an attempt to meet John's tired gaze. John muttered and snapped his head in the opposite direction. His eyes fell on Rodney and stayed there. He huddled into a tighter ball and shivered, gooseflesh visibly rising on his bare arms.
Rodney met John's suddenly focused gaze and shook his head in worry and exasperation. Without thinking, he pushed John's shoulder none too gently. "Sheppard, get under the damn covers before you freeze to death, you idiot."
"Idiot…" John echoed, and offered no resistance against the insistent grip on his shoulder. He flopped back onto the upraised pillows with a sigh.
Rodney yanked up the covers and let them flutter over his friend. Looking up again, he noticed Elizabeth and Carson gaping at him.
"What?"
Elizabeth almost laughed at Rodney's flummoxed expression. Carson smirked and leaned down to tuck the blanket closer around John's shoulders. John held his hands tucked under his chin and stared up at the ceiling, his eyelids drooping heavily with each blink.
"Will you let me know when the old woman wakes up, Carson?" Elizabeth said, and the doctor nodded in reply. "And take good care of him, all right?" she added, looking down at John's still form.
"Of course," Carson said and patted her arm. Expression troubled, Elizabeth pushed the curtain aside and ducked out of the infirmary.
"I… I'll just stay here a while," Rodney said, jerking a thumb at John. Without looking behind him, Rodney sat down in the plastic chair beside the bed, narrowly missing it altogether. He caught the chair before it scooted out from under him, cursing under his breath. "I… I think I'm catching his cold."
"No, you're not," Carson said, smiling at Rodney's discomfiture. "And since you don't mind keepin' an eye on him for a moment, I'll just check on a few things now, then." He stepped outside before the other man could say anything more.
Rodney leaned back in his chair, and let out a deep breath. He watched John's profile, and the slow, heavy rise and fall of his eyelids. Rodney tried to take in the fact that Sheppard was really here. Somehow, he was back, in body, if not in mind, anyhow.
"Are Teyla and Ronon ever in for a big surprise when they report for their post-mission checkup," Rodney muttered, more to himself than Sheppard. Rodney hadn't gone on this particular mission, pleading a pulled muscle in his back. In truth, he hadn't been on any missions since John's disappearance. The only place he'd been willing to go was back to the mainland. To that damned device.
Everyone had told him that Sheppard's disappearance hadn't been Rodney's fault, but who were they kidding? Of course it had been his fault. As soon as the Athosian kids on the mainland had reported finding the thing, Rodney couldn't wait to get out there and check it out. And he was the one who had screwed around with that damned thing until it whirred to reluctant life, and something inside it had lit up, glowing with a baleful, blue-tinged eye.
Of course, it's perfectly safe, buddy, pal… Let's just pry open this cover here. It looks like some sort of control panel.
He was the one who told Sheppard to stand under the damn thing and place his hand on the cover when Rodney couldn't budge it.
Sheppard, will you just touch it, already – just for a second.
Of course, like all things Ancient, the entire fucking thing had lit up like a Christmas tree for Sheppard. It had enveloped both John and himself in a swirling field of energy so intense it had set all the fillings in Rodney's teeth buzzing and every hair on his body standing on end.
Shit! Get out of there! Sheppard, get out of there…The bed creaking under his weight, John turned onto his side, facing him. His exhausted gaze fixed on Rodney's once more, and Rodney could see the dark circles under John's eyes, visible even through the deep bruising. His face was too thin and despite the days' worth of stubble on his jaw, he looked oddly young.
You just had to listen to me, had to trust me, didn't you, you dumb bastard.
Sometimes, late at night, when Rodney's thoughts were quiet, he could still hear Sheppard's agonized shrieking echo in his mind. He could still feel the terrible sensation of Sheppard's arm slowly dematerializing under his fingers as Rodney had grabbed onto him and tried to pull him free.
According to Teyla and Ronon, Rodney had only been immersed in that energy field for a few seconds, but he'd still caught a brief glimpse of what it contained. It had been too much though, so much information, so many terrifying sensations all at once that his mind had immediately recoiled.
Then the thing had spat him back out, his false gene not fooling it a bit. He had lost his grip on Sheppard, and stumbled backward into Ronon. Still trapped inside, Sheppard kept screaming on and on, or maybe it had just been echoing in Rodney's mind even then. In the next instant, his friend was gone, and the bright pool of energy along with him.
And no matter how many times they went back, no matter how many times Rodney tried, even resorting to getting Carson to stand in the same damned place with Ronon hanging onto him, ready to yank him back in the nick of time, nothing happened. The damned stubborn thing refused to do anything, and Sheppard was still gone.
For the first few days after losing him, Rodney had been unable to sleep without waking up screaming from nightmares, and the only thing he could recall of them was the sight of that swirling maw of energy.
No wonder John's mind had decided to say sayonara to the world, had enough, thank you very much, Rodney thought suddenly, his heart skipping a beat at the realization. "Jesus, Sheppard," he whispered.
Rodney stared at John's tired, bruised face. He grasped John's forearm and lightly squeezed it, suddenly needing to be reassured of his presence, his very tenuity. John's skin was cold, and his arm felt too thin, the bones too near the surface. John frowned at the contact, blinking tiredly, but Rodney saw that his eyes were unfocused again, gone.
If being stuck in that device had been like what Rodney had experienced, he wondered what the hell was even left of his John's mind. Rodney's split second experience had been hellish, agonizing, mind numbing. If it had been anything like that for Sheppard, and he'd been trapped in there for a hell of a lot longer that Rodney had, what could even be left…? And where in God's name had it sent him to?
He looked at John's bandaged hands, and then Rodney didn't want to know. For once, he didn't want ponder the possibilities, didn't want to speculate on where his closest friend had been for the past month. Sheppard was a mess of cuts and bruises, with his brain apparently turned to mush; all because he'd trusted his so-called friend enough to touch that fucking control panel, and how the hell could anyone tell Rodney that none of this was his fault?
Rodney stood so abruptly his chair wobbled and nearly toppled over. He shoved his way through the curtains, grabbed the first nurse he saw and ordered her to go see to Sheppard. He darted from the infirmary, not knowing where he was heading. He only knew he had to get out of there.
---A---
"Ach, there ye are!"
Tosia stirred at the sound of the lilting voice, and her eyes snapped open. A stocky, brown-haired man in a white coat crouched beside the bed on which she lay, with his back turned to her.
"John, it's a wee bit cold and uncomfortable down there, don'cha think, lad?"
Tosia sat up a little, craning her neck to see John sitting huddled in his usual position on the floor, tucked in between her bed and a wheeled table. He did indeed look cold, his skin too pale, the soles of his bare feet almost blue-tinged.
"Perhaps you should give him a blanket," she said to the man beside her bed, surprised at the weak, fragile sound of her own voice.
He jumped to his feet and whirled in her direction. "Oh! You're awake!"
Tosia dropped her head back to the pillow and almost smiled at the man's startled expression. "Evidently so. And you are…?"
"Doctor Carson Beckett," he said, quickly regaining his composure. The corners of his blue eyes crinkled as he gave her a kind smile. "How are you feelin'?"
"Tired…" she admitted. Even still, Tosia tried to sit up straighter, tried to regain some semblance of her dignity, but she was far too exhausted to do much more than raise a shaky hand and attempt to smooth her hair. There were some wires connected to her skin, and her eyes followed their length to a small blinking and quietly beeping monitor.
"I can imagine you must be." Beckett's expression was sympathetic, and at once, Tosia decided that she liked him. He studied the monitor beside her for a moment, and then took hold of her wrist, taking her pulse, as though he preferred to feel its tempo for himself. "You've had quite a few busy days from the looks of it," he added.
"That I have," Tosia said with a faint smile at the understatement, "and John still needs that blanket, Doctor Beckett."
"That he does," the doctor agreed, and he gently laid down her hand. He pulled the spare, folded blanket from the foot of her bed. As he leaned down to wrap the blanket over John's shoulders, Tosia saw the doctor tap into a device by his ear, call a few names and ask them to report to the infirmary. Tosia readied herself to face whomever Beckett had called. For the questions she knew would come. Questions she wasn't certain she could answer.
"I'll just get John back to his bed now," the doctor told her, "and will be back with you in a moment."
"It is unlikely he'll agree to that," Tosia said, raising an eyebrow, already anticipating the upcoming struggle.
"Well, he's not gonna have a choice in the matter," Beckett said, his soft voice belying his strong statement. "The last thing he needs is pneumonia on top of everythin' else."
As Tosia expected, as soon as the doctor placed a hand on his shoulder, John pulled his legs up tighter and pressed his back against the wall. He surprised them both by firmly shaking his head, and quite clearly stating, "No. S-stay..."
Tosia smiled to herself at his determination and more so, found herself absurdly touched by his loyalty to her. Surrounded by strange faces in a city that should feel like home, but which instead, felt so different, so changed, she was grateful for John's presence. For one familiar face in a sea of strangers.
The doctor said something again to John that she didn't catch, and John shook his head more insistently. The incipient argument was interrupted by the arrival of Rodney McKay, and a slender woman with dark hair and large, piercing eyes. They both stared at her a moment, and at first didn't notice John on the floor until the doctor turned to greet them.
"Carson…?" the woman said, her brows raised questioningly at John.
He nodded and shrugged. "He's insisting on stayin' put."
"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Rodney said, his features pinched, his gaze flicking to John and then abruptly away again, as though he found it difficult to look at the other man.
Tosia wondered on that a moment. Rodney McKay claimed to be John's friend, so why the discomfiture? Taking advantage of their diverted attention from her, Tosia summoned the strength to sit up straight in her bed. She squared her shoulders and watched Rodney and the woman closely, trying to surmise their possible intentions.
With Rodney's help, the doctor managed to coax John to his feet. Carson began to lead him back to his own bed, but John, as usual, had other ideas. He abruptly pulled away from the doctor and clambered onto the empty bed a few feet away from Tosia's. He turned onto his side, rolling the blanket around him and closed his eyes. Carson threw his hands up in surrender, pulled another blanket over John's feet, and decided to let him be for the moment.
"Funny, you're not his usual type," Rodney smirked, turning to look at Tosia. "A little old for him, perhaps?"
"Rodney…" the dark-haired woman warned, but Tosia couldn't help chuckling at the snide comment. She understood where the man's impropriety came from – fear, confusion, and something else, something that ran a little deeper. Something she couldn't quite pin down. At the same time, she already knew enough about Rodney McKay to surmise that he was not a man to bother with social niceties, something to which she could well relate.
"Allow me to introduce myself," the woman then said with a warm smile, purposefully situating herself in front of Rodney. "I'm Doctor Elizabeth Weir, and if you are who you say you are, then we're… most happy to meet you."
Tosia nodded to her in acknowledgment. "You are a physician, as well, Dr. Weir?"
"No," she smiled and shook her head. "A different kind of doctor. And please, call me Elizabeth. May I call you Tosia?"
The old woman nodded again. Perhaps with this one, they could get somewhere. Reach some sort of understanding. "It seems we have much to talk about, Elizabeth."
"Yes! Yes, we do," Rodney broke in, swinging his hands forward and clapping them together. "So? Tosia. Shall we continue where we left off?"
"And where was that again, Rodney?" Tosia said. "My memory is not what it used to be, so you will have to remind me."
"Oh, let's see… the whole ascension, de-ascension, 10,000 years old and Ancient, appearing out of the middle of nowhere thing," Rodney said, ticking off each item on his hand.
"Rodney, enough!" Elizabeth shot him another warning look and stepped closer to the bed, her gaze darting in John's direction a moment. "Tosia… we do need to know how you and John got here, and if you have any information as to what's happened to him…"
"Yes," Tosia said, "I understand your concern." To these people, she and John must have appeared as though they were the apparitions. "There is a cargo transporter in a lab in the lower levels of the city. It appears as though your people have not yet found it."
"Uh, the transporters only work within the city," Rodney said. "So the question really is, how did you get into the city?"
"There is one that goes further," Tosia said patiently. "To a small planet just outside the atmosphere of this planet."
"What?" Rodney sputtered. "That's impossible. The Ancients didn't have that kind of technology. And we haven't seen any planets that close. Only a few moons."
"Yes, there is a nearby planet, and yes, we did have that kind of technology," Tosia corrected. "We were working on further developing and perfecting it, but our research was interrupted by the Wraith attacks on our city, and we had to evacuate."
"Tosia…" Elizabeth spoke up, watching her carefully. "This city was abandoned and hidden 10,000 years ago."
"Yes," Tosia said, nodding. "I am well aware of that fact."
"Then how…" Elizabeth said, frowning, shaking her head slightly. "We want to take you at your word, but—"
"The Atlanteans returned to Earth. You know of this, yes?" Tosia said. When the other woman nodded, she continued, "And, in time, many of us who had reached the stage of enlightenment chose to ascend. I was one of them."
"Hence the 10,000 years old thing?" Rodney said.
"Give or take a few decades, yes," Tosia smiled and chuckled again. At Rodney's disbelieving stare, she took a deep breath and tried to explain, tried to help them understand. "Once you achieve ascension, time becomes insignificant. A year is but one breath to the next. A century, but a few blinks of an eye. Time passes, civilizations come and go. Humanity's goings-on are of no consequence. A matter in which we had no part."
"What do you mean?" Elizabeth said.
"We merely observed, we watched and we listened. We let them be. We did not divert them from their paths."
"And yet here you are," Rodney said, "Looking remarkably human-like and fairly consequential."
"Yes. Here I am," Tosia said. "De-ascended, as you so aptly put it."
"By choice?" Rodney prompted, "or were you given a… a push?"
"There came a point when I began to question the logic of watching innocent people suffer and die for no reason," she said by way of reply. Her eyes were becoming heavy again, and she was already growing weary of explanations, but even still, she understood their skepticism. She would be surprised if they were not. Glancing over at John, she noticed that he was awake and watching her, perhaps even listening.
"The others do not take kindly to those of us who choose to interfere, but I did not care what they thought of me," she continued. "What good were enlightenment and such power, if they could not be put to good use? I could see no answer to that question, no answer that lent my existence any purpose, and so I began to help those people. Here and there, every once in a while. I am certain the others noticed, but they chose to turn a blind eye. Perhaps my actions were small, seemingly trivial things in the others' view. Not worthy of reprimand, but they certainly made much difference in those people's short existences." She paused a moment, allowing her words sink in. When they said nothing and only waited for her to continue, she glanced over to John again. Perhaps she could trust these people, his people. Surely the city would not accept anything but those trustworthy, those with some traces of the ancestry, would it?
"There were more who felt the same way as I," she said after a moment, hoping these people's intentions were good and that her decision to trust them was the correct one. "We formed a small faction that resisted the others' stance—defying the very rule of our existence. We stepped in, we helped where we could, and I suppose, it didn't take long until we became overly confident, too cocky for our own good. We drastically altered the course of two civilizations' histories, and I suppose the others felt that they had no choice but to put an end to such meddling and disobedience."
"We met another… such as yourself," Elizabeth said cautiously. "On a planet called Proculus."
"Chaya," Tosia said, nodding again.
Rodney stared at her. "You know her?"
"I know of her, yes," Tosia said. "We all knew of one another. There are others like her, who are bound to one place as reprimand, but still retain their ascended state. There are some who, instead, choose to return to human form, rather than live out an eternity doomed to one place. And then there are those who are given no choice. Who are forced by the others to their previous human forms, stripped of their ability to use Ancient technology, and reverted to the same physical age as when they chose to ascend. I am of the latter. As were the five others who were punished in the same manner as myself." Tosia closed her heavy eyes a moment. When she opened them again, the doctor, Elizabeth and Beckett were staring at her with a mixture of astonishment and wonder. On Rodney's face, she wasn't surprised to see skepticism.
"That doesn't explain how Sheppard fits into all this," he said, crossing his arms over his chest.
"No, it does not," Tosia agreed. "When did you last see him before he went missing?"
"Four weeks ago. On the mainland," Rodney said in a short, clipped tone. "We found some sort of Ancient energy or… or transportation device built into a hillside that... sucked him into it."
"There is a portal on the mainland in such a place as you described..." Tosia mused, frowning, "along with a few other portals on certain planets in this galaxy. The portals have been used as transportation devices, but their main purpose is to serve as receptacles of Ancient history and technological information. They also collect imprints of the memories of the Ascended beings that are forced through them before they are reverted to their human forms. The portals record all that each Ascended one has ever witnessed, experienced, learned, felt… everything." Tosia said, shuddering at a distant memory, one she had thought she'd long forgotten. "I would imagine that the amount of information stored in just one portal alone would be staggering."
"Who built them?" asked Elizabeth fascinated. "The Ancients? The Ascended?"
Tosia shook her head. "I am not certain. There are Ascended beings who are so old that they no longer recall what it ever meant to be human, to have corporeal form. Perhaps they never did. Perhaps, they were the ones who build them – as far as I know, the portals have always been there."
"And you were sent through such a portal?" Elizabeth said. "What happened to you afterward?"
"I was sent through the very one on the mainland. It happened quite quickly, and I do not recall much," Tosia said in a soft voice, unwilling to articulate the distant, but terrifying memory of being seized, trapped and propelled with incredible force beyond her control. She recalled feeling as though parts of her were being stripped away, layer by layer, and then the momentary pain of veritable, physical rebirth. "When it was done, I found myself on the planet I mentioned, just outside Atlantis's atmosphere and back in my previous human form. That is where the five others were sent, as well. Where we were sent to die, and where I have lived for the past forty-six years. I had assumed that John had suffered and been sentenced to the same fate when I found him, but now…"
She looked at Rodney who had become strangely silent. His features had blanched and slackened with either shock or realization, and he looked at her, wide-eyed.
"Uh… yeah... I think we umm… found that portal on the mainland," he said in a tight voice. "I opened up some sort of control panel, and I… we activated it somehow—"
"But that is not possible," Tosia broke in, shaking her head. "Only the Ancients and those Ascended can control such technology. And you are not directly of the Ancestors…?"
Rodney scrunched his face in discomfort. "No… no, we're not… But, I do happen to be a genius here – never met a piece of technology that I couldn't figure out in some way, shape or form. And Sheppard and Ancient technology…" Rodney, without turning, waved a hand in John's direction, "he's like a super-charge battery for it. The force, or something."
"John has the Ancient gene," Elizabeth explained at Tosia's puzzled expression. "And so does Carson and few others here, but John's is the strongest, and he's the only one who is able to effortlessly control the technology in this city."
"You people came from Earth, yes?" Tosia questioned, her thoughts racing. "You must have – that is the only way you could have possibly know how to even find the city."
Elizabeth nodded even as Rodney cast a warning glance at her.
"Then you are of the ancestry. John, perhaps, more than others." Tosia nodded. She was starting to understand how all this had come to be.
"You said those portals record your memories," Rodney said. "10,000 something years worth of your own memories, for starters. How many… bad Ascendeds were forced through that particular portal?"
Tosia blinked at him. "I am not certain. Not every Ascended being reverted to human form is sent through such a portal. Not all of them, I suppose, have witnessed enough to deem their experiences worthy of saving for posterity. But I do know for certain that the six of us were, in fact, sent through that one."
Rodney paled, and pulled a hand over his face. "And where exactly did you find Sheppard?"
"In the nearly same place that I ended up, along with the other five – approximately four weeks ago," Tosia said, looking at Rodney sharply. "He was unconscious, bleeding from his nose and his ears, and I could not understand why he was so injured, or why his mind was so damaged. I felt very little of my own passage… only confusion and discomfort at suddenly being rendered back to flesh and blood—"
"Look – Tosia, Sheppard never ascended," Rodney interrupted, shaking his head. "Four weeks ago, he was pulled into that thing, full flesh and blood and very human. I think, since it couldn't… uh…" he fluttered his hand, trying to find the words he was looking for. "Since it likely couldn't mind suck him, being inconveniently corporeal and all, it must have either malfunctioned, or because it recognized his Ancient gene, decided to dump all that information into his brain before sending him to this planet of yours."
Elizabeth gasped and stared at him. "Rodney… are you sure?"
He shook his head. "No… not sure. But it's probably a pretty good guess. I was in that thing, Elizabeth."
Tosia's eyes widened at that. "But it was never meant for anyone in a human state to pass through... It is not possible…"
"Well, he's evidence to the contrary, isn't he?" Rodney said, and he looked ill. Heartsick, Tosia realized.
Tosia nodded, her mind racing. "I suppose the portal simply sent John to the same place the last banished one was sent... Gaereth must have been the last… before John…"
"Well, that explains a lot," Carson said in a slightly wavering voice, speaking for the first time since Tosia started. He looked over at John, and Tosia could see a hint of fear for his patient on the doctor's face. "What in the devil happened to his hands, then?" he said after a moment.
"Well, as Rodney said," Tosia said quietly, "John does seem to be a 'magnet' for Ancient technology."
At their confused expressions, Tosia told them of the hidden, underground lab, the one that was meant to be destroyed by the Wraith fail-safes she had so long ago failed to properly set. And as she spoke, she glanced around her surroundings. She noticed other physicians, nurses and technicians bustling about. As she told the three how she realized that the others had stolen from her the ability to use the very technology she was party to creating, she looked out to the hallway, and watched those passing by. There were men dressed as soldiers, in similar attire to what John had been wearing when she'd found him. When she spoke of how John had found her lab, as though it had called out to him, and how he determined he had been to uncover it, she noticed a woman pushing carts full of supplies, and then a man, pushing another laden with trays of food.
Elizabeth, in turn, told her that they were explorers, looking for allies. That they were still learning the city's capabilities, and that they would welcome any information she had to offer, and Tosia began to see the possibilities of such an alliance. She began to feel some hope.
John, seemingly oblivious to the conversation focusing on and around him, sat up on the bed and craned his neck to stare up at the ceiling. Everyone but Tosia blinked, startled, when the lights directly above them winked off and then on again in rapid succession.
"What the…" Carson breathed out, his gaze flying to the still lit heart monitor by Tosia's bed, worrying about power outages.
"Hey!" Rodney protested at the same time, and he noticed John still watching the lights. "Is he doing that?" Rodney asked everyone and no one, and then turned to his friend. "Sheppard, knock it off!"
John tilted his head to frown at Rodney a moment. Then looking up at the ceiling again, John grinned, and his face transformed into boyish mischief. The lights flicked one more time, then remained on, but the one directly above his bed stayed dimmed. He began rocking, his lips pressed tight together as though he were humming again, though Tosia was too far away to hear it.
"Okay, that was just weird…" Rodney said, his voice pitching up an octave, mouth turned down at one corner.
Tosia paid Rodney no mind and continued watching John. She fully understood his true purpose now. Atlantis was here, reborn, evidently thriving, and so very close… The fates, she realized, had been very clear in why they had chosen for John Sheppard's path to cross with hers. Tosia only wished that John's purpose, her people's very salvation, hadn't come at such a high cost for him.
--- tbc ---