John's feet pounded on the hard-packed earth to the time of his racing heart. He carried his P-90 lightly in his right hand, his fingers curled around the trigger and the safeties already disengaged. Ahead of him, Ronon's ungainly lope still moved the large man forward at terrific speed, and John saw that he had his own large hand weapon balanced lightly against his palm, the muzzle loosely aimed upwards towards the canopy of the fast approaching forest. John suddenly had a flashback of Rodney screaming "Shoot up, shoot up!" Adjusting his own muzzle, he slowed his pace a bit in uncertainty.

What the hell am I doing? If there's a sniper still in there, we're sitting ducks out here in the open! John's shadow remained fixedly in his path, a shaky companion, determined to outrace him to the meadow's edge. A small grim smile appeared as John recognized the slight advantage. The sun will be in the sniper's face.

The trees grew near enough to distinguish individual plants and branches and the forest floor underneath the gloomy canopy was thick with undergrowth. John realized that Ronon must have slowed down too, because he was catching the faster man up. A glint of metal and a slight movement drew John's combat-alert gaze to a spot just South of where the path burned its tunnel through the leafy growth. Ronon saw it too and locked his aim, pinching off a blast of red-hot energy even before Sheppard had a chance to bring his other hand to bear on the barrel of his own weapon.

The bullet slammed into his shoulder, the impact spinning him to the ground in an ungraceful twirl to land with bruising force on his hands and knees. He quickly rolled up again, and raced even faster for the tree line, ingrained training taking over and compelling him towards cover. Ronon had already disappeared within the shadowy sanctuary.

Who the hell has got it in for ME? thought John with disgust, realizing that Ronon had been the closer and more threatening target. But even as he shuddered with the insight, he felt a kind of bizarre glee creep into his mind. He missed this time. Goddam shoulder hurts like hell, but the bastard missed his kill shot…

His left shoulder did hurt like hell, and he gritted his teeth against the line of fire that tracked from the widening puddle of dampness spreading through his shirt under his heavy vest to the slight grinding sensation in his shoulder blade. Pushing aside the pain for the moment, though, reveling in the knowledge that the wound was only a nuisance, he made the trees at last and threw himself into a thick patch of undergrowth just off the path. He landed in a quiet crouch, his weapon scanning the area in front of him along with his careful gaze. All seemed quiet for the moment.

"Ronon?" Sheppard decided to risk a quiet shout, then braced himself to move quickly if the call had given him away.

"Yeah, over here, Sheppard. We're clear."

With an exhausted sigh, John staggered to his feet and was then able to spot the restless form of his companion. Ronon seemed to be pacing over something just beneath a large fir-like tree that rose towering tall overlooking the meadow.

"You get the sniper?" John asked as he jogged, slowly, over.

"Yeah. I guess I got…a couple of them?" Ronon's voice was oddly harsh and his face was darkly unreadable as he looked up at John's approach. His eyes widened in angry surprise, "And he still got you!"

"Nah," John shrugged off the implied concern, then grimaced as he realized that shrugging was a really stupid thing to do right now. "He missed." John stared into Ronon's face until the agitated warrior's gaze met his. "Thanks." Ronon understood. "What was that about a couple of them? There were two in the tree?" John added, having to step around a large clump of some thorny bush just between them.

Ronon only shook his head and waved at the ground by his feet. John finally drew close enough and sucked in a shocked breath. Three dead men lay at the tree's foot. One was obviously the shooter that Ronon had – just? – shot out of the branches, the wound from Ronon's weapon was still oozing dark blood, and his limp form was twisted at an odd angle from his recent fall. The other two men had been dead for longer, perhaps a day or two even. They were all dressed similarly, in simple hunting clothing that would have resembled the Athosian style of dress if the tailoring hadn't been so shoddy and the material so roughly bland.

John turned away in disgust seeing all he needed. His shoulder started to ache with a petulant insistence and the anxiety that had lessoned a bit after surviving the sniper's shot returned with slamming intensity. At a loss to do anything but resort again to his training, John flipped up his first aid pocket and fumbled out a pressure bandage while Ronon dropped into a crouch by the bodies.

"This one also took some bullets -- looks like P-90 fire. Teyla got him." Ronon paused and John could hear him scuffling in the dry leaves. John wedged the compress into his seeping wound, counting on the weight of the vest to hold it in place, and simply hoping it was enough pressure to do any good.

"Only one weapon around here. A primitive rifle, no scope, lead rounds." Ronon went on, standing again to bring the gun over to show Sheppard. "There is no way this gun could have fired that shot from here to the DHD."

John barely glanced at it. Nothing seemed to make sense any more. There was no time loop, but events were repeating. The sniper –snipers?- couldn't have made the shot to the DHD that both John and Ronon remembered. John rubbed his chest unconsciously. And why the hell hadn't McKay picked up anyone sitting perched on a tree branch before?? Surely he'd asked McKay to scan for life signs? He thought he remembered asking McKay about just that?

Suddenly decisive, he spun on his heel towards the path.

"I really don't fucking care. Let's just get the hell out of here." John gingerly reached for his radio, sending silent thanks that the bullet had missed the transmitter's pocket – that would have really stung - and trying not to move his shoulders too much in the process. "McKay, you got the 'gate open?"

There was no reply, only the soft hiss of an open channel. With sudden tense alertness, Sheppard and Ronon exchanged a startled glace. Ronon quickly grabbed for his own radio.

"Teyla, do you read?"

Both men were moving with haste even before the continuing silence confirmed that something, else, was very very wrong. John exploded out of the underbrush onto the path, his aches forgotten, his weapon again sitting at the ready in his hands. He paused for only the briefest of moments to scan the path in both directions, then turned towards the beacon of bright sunshine glowing into the gloom from the bright meadow.

Only a stumbling step or two later, John froze and snapped his weapon high into full readiness, sweeping the muzzle across the road in front of him. A cold trickle of sweat slid down his back. His heart was racing, and he panted through his mouth in an attempt to control his breath enough to keep his aim steady. Something, someone was on the path in front of him. He was certain of it. The feeling of a presence was palpable – and terrifying.

"Ronon!" John called over his shoulder, his voice a harsh rasp. His hands clasped his weapon even more tightly at the lingering silence. "RONON!" The bellow was thick with panic. He risked a glance behind him and confirmed that the Satedan, who'd been only a step behind him in the forest was no longer in view.

He was all alone.

Siren stood on the path and watched the man before her freeze with awareness of her presence. She felt his fear and his strength of will that forced the fear aside. She was surprised that he could sense her, and she hummed to herself with pleasure. He was providing the most entertainment she had enjoyed in thousands of years. He was, perhaps, the most delightful mortal she'd ever dallied with.

She reached for his mind to feel the pain of his wound and laughed as he flinched from the touch, mastering the pain within his own mind and rebuffing her with instinctive strength that amused her. He was strong, and yet, oh so delightfully human.

Siren herself had never been mortal like most of her kind. The creation of new life was forbidden to those like her, but her parents had defied the others and Siren had come to be. Perhaps, she thought, touching the man's mind again to be able to feel his increasing fear, this was how she had inherited her own streak of defiance.

"Show yourself!" The man called towards her, turning his head as she walked around him. He had good senses, this one. She laughed again as he came to a sudden decision and fired his weapon at her. She reached out with a finger of air to direct one of the powerful bullets towards a thick nearby tree trunk. The smoldering bit of metal ricocheted, and with another nudge, skimmed across the man's forehead, leaving a streak of red as it passed through delicate skin. The man jerked, stumbling to his knees, and slapped a hand over the sting.

Siren hummed again.

"What have you done with Ronon?" The man was still looking warily around, his fresh fear interfering with his sense of her, but, despite his shaking hands and constricted throat, he was still in control of himself. Siren's consciousness flicked to the motionless form of the other man she held bound in a tight web of atmosphere just beyond the path. A brother to this one, she thought. Perhaps she would dally with him next when she tired of this one…

"Where are McKay and Teyla?" The others at the portal -- one a mismatched friend, the other a sister…or something more that the man himself wouldn't even admit. A flare of jealously swirled through her and she flung a blast of air at the Stargate, tumbling the two into the grass, even as she continued holding them tightly bound. She dove into the man's mind again to revel in his terror for the friends he held dear above himself. He fought the invasion, the battle itself delightfully painful.

He suffered so beautifully, this one did. She caressed him with a gentle breeze, then sighed. But his stubbornness was wearying, his tendency to master his own fear was downright disappointing. Her hunter had missed the vital shot she desired, even with her help. She had already called another hunter to her -- she spared a moment for disgust at the villagers who's minds were so weak she could control them directly -- and she stepped back from the man, her eagerness rising as she waited.

The man rose shakily to his feet, feeling her withdraw. He glanced once down the path towards her village, then bolted for the meadow. Siren laughed, feeling him muster his resolve, feeling his fear melting into hot anger at her manipulation. She almost quivered with anticipation.

The man had almost reached the sunlight beyond her forest when she allowed her hunter to miss his first shot. The vacant puppet of a villager dumbly fumbled with his weapon and began to reload. The man whirled at the sound, his own weapon steady and sure despite the ache in his shoulder and the blood he blinked out of his eyes from the ricochet. The man fired at her hunter in short, deadly-accurate bursts.

Oh no! Siren giggled gleefully, waving the bullets away with a gust of her hand. Your friends have already destroyed too many of my hunters already! Their wives will feel the pinch of hunger… and I do not enjoy the flavor of hunger.

The man froze with surprise at the impossibility of his miss just as the hunter dully raised his weapon up again. The bullet exploded out of the gun and Siren focused a column of air, guiding and compelling the lead forward faster and farther than the weapon alone was capable of propelling it.

The bullet slammed into his chest, the force of the impact throwing him backwards and off his feet. The man's shoulders ploughed into the dusty, hard-packed earth and the back of his head snapped down after, sending sparks of light into his vision and whiting out the mostly green landscape around him. Siren shrieked with joy at the flood of agony and despair pouring from him. She felt her own power surge as she fed upon his terror.

Surprised at the strength of her own reactions to this man, who pleased her far past any expectation, she daringly formed herself into a corporeal body, clothed in white, molding her face from a collage of images in the man's mind that she knew he would find pleasing. She knelt beside his stiffly arched body and smoothed his dark hair back from his bloody forehead.

Siren had taken her name from his mind the first time she'd felt his presence on her planet. The name represented a beautiful creature from his homeworld. A creature he considered myth, who lured sea men to their deaths against razor sharp rocks. The image greatly appealed to her. The man had once named a mechanical bird after this Siren of myth, so it was a name he also cherished. Perhaps one of her kind had visited his planet, she thought, stroking his hair again. Her mother would have enjoyed that sport.

The man's glazed eyes held no recognition of her presence and as he slowly relaxed into death, she hummed to him. Just before his life winked out, she thought she just barely caught a flicker of something in the man's eyes, recognition perhaps, or was it an anguished plea? No matter.

Still humming with pleasure, she gathered her thoughts on holding the man over the knife-edge of death, then readied herself to drag him back over the threshold. Siren sent a shower of spring rain over the meadow and down the path to wash away the blood she hadn't bothered to clean up before. Then, still concentrating most of her energy on repairing the man's body, she sent a hot wind to dry the meadow.

Fretting with impatience to begin again, she cursed the realization that the man took longer to heal each time, and half remembered a lesson her mother had taught her about the fragility of mortal flesh. While she was waiting, she decided to concentrate more effort on the man's companions. She had some delightful new ideas for how she wanted to play with the man …the next time.