A/N: Second-last chapter! Can you see the light at the end of the tunnel yet? Hehe.. ahem. Sorry. Bad pun. That's probably just Lorne playing with his flashlight because it's boring and dark back there in the passageway all by himself. Not really. He's being stealthy. So stealthy, in fact, that you won't even be able to spot him in this instalment. We're almost done though, I promise. You only have to bear with this conversation for one more update, and then it'll all be over.

In this chapter: Mortification, voodoo magic, and irrepressible urges. And no Lorne (sorry).

Soleō (Verb, [so-le-o]): to be accustomed to; in the habit of; to tend to do; to be wont to.

"That's a pretty sucky choice, in my opinion." Sheppard offers around a mouthful of chocolate.

"What, the Snickers bar? Then why are you eating it?" She deliberately misunderstands his question, and pretends to sound offended.

Sheppard shakes his head in exasperation.

"Ain't nothing wrong with Snickers bars."

"Damn straight" she concurs, and takes another bite of hers.

"You always carry chocolate bars around in your pyjamas?" Sheppard asks wryly. At least he's engaging with her less hesitantly, now.

She shrugs and grins at him. "Makes midnight snacking infinitely easier, wouldn't you agree?"

Sheppard chews thoughtfully. "They were both still sucky choices."

She nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, well, once I figured out how to convey my submission, it all went rather quickly from there." She didn't elaborate, and Sheppard raised an eyebrow, obviously wanting to know more. She indulged him.

"Well, many different animal species use body language to convey submission, so I went with what I could think of at a moments' notice. I couldn't show my stomach, so I offered the creature my neck."

"Your neck?" Sheppard looked puzzled. Casey couldn't stop herself, and the scientist in her leapt at the chance to explain.

"Yeah, for almost all creatures the neck is considered a vulnerable area, and to a lot of animals if you deliberately expose a vulnerable area it's a way of saying "I give in, I place myself at your mercy." So I offered my neck and the creature fortunately seemed to understand, because it bit, or rather nipped, at my neck to test me, and then, not unlike a cat, proceeded to rub its scent glands all over my neck to mark me before it…" Sheppard had grown progressively more shifty as she'd explained, and had made a funny expression when she mentioned the glands.

"How'd you break your arm?" Sheppard broke in, obviously desperate to change the topic.

"Uhmm…" she hedged, not sure how to explain 'you were banging me so hard I screamed with pain and it pissed you off so you snapped my forearm with your sheer strength'. It. IT took me. I pissed IT off. IT broke my arm. She had to keep her pronouns straight or risk messing it all up. Sheppard blinked at her sudden reticence to answer. He still looked a little peaked from the licking, or maybe it was the biting, or the glands thing.

"Well.. it was pretty strong." she fumbled awkwardly. "... I may have... annoyed it by… err… screaming...while I was pinned down... and... erm... It snapped it with one hand." She finished the last statement in a rush. Yeah, that wasn't all that much better if Sheppard's expression was anything to go by.

"Pretty impressive, actually." Casey added hurriedly. As though that made it any better. Maybe it was time to shut up and hurry the story along. He was staring at the last bit of the Snickers bar as though he wasn't sure he still wanted to eat it. She rapidly forged ahead.

"Anyway, when I woke up I was completely cocooned in blankets, and the creature had built a defensive wall around me in the corner of the room. It took me a while to figure that one out, and I'm still not entirely sure if it was because it officially considered me its mate and was trying to build a nest to protect me and look after me, or if it was because it thought I was dead and was trying to bury me."

She chuckled at that thought, and Sheppard was looking at her as though she was completely insane. He was more than likely right. She waved a hand and moved on.

"Either way, it was gone when I woke up, so I decided it was time to attempt a... strategic nest evacuation. I got out and wandered around for a bit until Lorne and the others found me and took me to the infirmary." Sheppard was staring at his chocolate but his eyes wandered down into the pit below them, eyeing it critically.

She didn't mention how hard it had been to get dressed with just one hand, not to mention climb out of the pit. The table she'd dragged across the room was still standing below them, unmoved since her escape. "And you know the rest. It got caught trying to recruit Teyla into the harem, you retrieved the eggs from the cave, and then Carson and the others worked their voodoo reversal magic. All's well that ends well."

Sheppard is silent, still staring down into the darkness of the pit below them, but he seems to be considering her words. She hopes that her upbeat tone and general joviality, as well as honest scientific assessment of the events that took place will help him finally believe that she doesn't blame him for any of it, and that she really is fine.

Well, fine is relative. She's alive, her arm is healed, the stitches are all gone. All the physical evidence of the events of that day have completely faded. The scar on her forehead is a tiny pink stripe, healing well. Beckett had done an excellent job with the stitches, and once the pinkness of the new skin fades it should be nearly invisible. She's surprised by how… okay she feels, sitting here alone in the dimly lit room with Sheppard, the gaping pit that was her momentary hell just below them.

She's not afraid of being alone with him any more, she realises. And without the scary blue bug-creature, the room below her is just a room. A dank and dim room, with unpleasant memories, but still just a room. Sheppard is looking at her now.

"You really see me and the… creature… as two completely... uhh.. separate entities?" The question is tentative, and laced with a touch of disbelief. She nods.

"Your behaviour, sitting right here, that's you, right? The words and thoughts tumbling around in that head of yours are 100% you, right?" she taps her forehead. Sheppard nods as well.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm all... me, and only me, again."

"You feeling any irrepressible urges to kidnap people and drag them away to your secret underground lair?"

"Pretty sure I'm not." Sheppard remarked dryly.

"Well, then it is my scientific and professional opinion that yes, you and the Iratus-human-hybrid who attacked me are... were, rather... completely different, separate individuals. That was a creature, operating on pure animal instinct. You are Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard, and besides the semi-sentient hair, you two have absolutely nothing in common."

She grinned at him and waggled her eyebrows.

"Unless you have a secret sniffing and licking kink that nobody knows about?"