Chapter 2

'Colonel Sheppard...Colonel...wake up!'

Ford's voice cut through the haze fogging his brain and made him instantly snap to attention. 'Lieutenant?'

There, plain as the nose on his own face, was his lost team mate. 'Yeah, it's me,' the young man grinned. 'You were expecting someone else?'

Sheppard sat up and scrubbed at his hair, his body sticky and uncomfortable, but at least he didn't feel like he was about to puke any more. He was inside one of the huts, that much he recognised from the woven, reedy walls, but finding the young man he had supposed dead sitting cross-legged opposite him on the dirt floor and looking so well was pretty surprising.

'If I'm honest, I didn't expect to see you again. How did you get here?'

Ford quirked an eyebrow. 'Don't you remember?'

Sheppard had the sense there was something important going on he should recall, but recalling it was proving pretty elusive. 'Not really. Wanna enlighten me?'

'Spiritual purging. Releasing the burdens of your previous life. A marriage proposal – any of that ringing a bell, Sir?'

Oh, yeah. His unfortunate faux pas with Untooka's daughter and his dice with the skin-stripping hot tub. Now he was supposed to be clearing his conscience. For a moment he'd completely forgotten that. Now Ford's appearance there made sense. 'Oh crap! Yeah, it does now you come to mention it. So, aren't you going to say something...enlightening?'

Ford shrugged. 'Will it help? We both know you're not serious about going ahead with this marriage business anyway, so what's the point?'

'That's true.' Sheppard climbed to his feet and headed towards the entrance of the hut. 'So what say we bail, grab the others, and head back to Atlantis?'

He pulled back the door to reveal the hut was now surrounded by the same steamy water that had threatened to claim him earlier. He was pretty certain that hadn't been there before.

Ford arrived at his shoulder. 'No can do, Sir. I can't leave, and you have to stay here and face the demons from your past or it's back to the water for you. You have to pass the initiation or they're gonna dunk you, remember?'

That did sound familiar now he came to think about it. He closed the door, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. 'Okay...so...why don't you tell me what to do, Lieutenant?'

'Let go of your guilt, son. It's time to start afresh...a new life and all that.'

When he turned, he found Carson's kind blue eyes staring back at him. 'C...Carson...how did you...? Where'd Ford go?'

'Oh, he's still here, lad. They're all here somewhere.'

Sheppard looked around at the shadowy and otherwise empty hut. 'All who?' he asked, squinting with suspicion at his new companion.

'All the people who still haunt you. Every time you feel you've let someone down or you've been affected by someone else in a way you have trouble forgetting, a part of their spirit gets entangled with yours, weighing you down. You have to let us all go, lad.'

The colonel wasn't normally the type to make fun of other people's beliefs, but that sounded like a load of bull to him. He couldn't stop a smirk breaking out. 'Oh, c'mon, Carson. You really expect me to believe all that?'

'Aye, lad. I do. We're with you always, like the proverbial albatross hanging around your neck. Unless you find a way to come to terms with things you can't fix, there's no moving on.'

Running his fingers back through his hair, Sheppard clasped his hands behind his clammy neck and turned his gaze to the ceiling. 'But I'm not actually planning to become a part of this tribe and marry that kid, so I just have to ride it out until this "trip's" over, right?'

When he looked back at his friend, he found Carson smiling at him, a little sadly. 'Never were one to admit your weaknesses, were you, John? But you need to if you're ever going to move forward.'

Already treading in uncomfortable territory, Sheppard tried to deny Carson's reasoning for the visiting spirits. 'But I don't feel guilty about your death – sad yeah, but not guilty – so why are you here?'

Carson walked over to him and placed his hand on Sheppard's shoulders, staring deep into his eyes. 'Are you sure about that? So, it's never crossed your mind that if you'd agreed to go fishing with me that Sunday, I might still be alive?'

'Well...yeah,' he confessed, rubbing the back of his neck and realising for the first time that had been carrying that guilt every day since the loss of the good doctor.

'And all because you didn't take up my offer of a fishing trip. Do you know how many people I asked to go fishing with me that day, Colonel? You weren't alone in turning me down. I guess fishing just isn't exciting to most people...but then, it doesn't really measure up to fighting the Wraith, does it?'

Sheppard dropped his head and chuckled, 'No, they're not really comparable.' For some reason, the skin on the back of his neck prickled, and from the corner of his eye he saw a ghostly apparition flit from left to right. It reminded him of the first time he'd witnessed a culling, when he and Teyla had fled for their lives in the woods of Athos...

'Because killing Wraith is more your kind of sport, isn't it?'

The split pitches of the Wraith Keeper set every nerve in his body on edge, and he backed into the wall as her burgundy locks swept away into the darkness and he lost sight of her. The hut stretched away from him, taking on the sinuous look and cool, damp atmosphere of a Wraith vessel. No...he didn't want to be here...not again.

'Oh, crap!' he breathed, looking around for somewhere to conceal himself. Unfortunately, every time he ducked behind something, it melted away to reveal his position.

'Now, I know I don't feel guilty about killing you,' he whispered, his eyes scanning his ever darkening surroundings.

He heard her dress shifting in the shadows, a soft, throaty hiss issuing forth as she paced. 'Are you really so certain of that fact? You may not have any feelings about my death, but I am sure you feel great regret for the many thousands of lives the Wraith have claimed in the time since you awoke them.'

Her words hurt, making his stomach knot in excruciating agony. He did hold himself responsible for the current war, even if he had only acted in accordance with the belief instilled in him throughout his military career. We don't leave our people behind. Perhaps on that occasion he should have, but then he would have Teyla as a friend and the Wraith might well be on their way to Earth having extracted its location from Colonel Sumner. No. He'd made the right choice – the loss of thousands of lives here meant the safety of billions on his home planet.

'Yes, you did do the right thing, Sheppard. Yet you still second guess yourself about killing me every day.'

His spirit companions were switching form so rapidly he barely had time to come to terms with one before another made their presence felt. Now, Colonel Sumner, stood before him in the dining room where he'd lost his life, wizened and wasted just as The Keeper had left him when Sheppard had ended his torment.

'I...I just wish you could have given a clearer command,' Sheppard told him, swallowing down the lump of raw emotion the sight of his fallen commander caused in him.

'You know what you saw, Sheppard. Don't ever doubt that.' A thin, withered hand reached out and landed on his shoulder. Sheppard did his best not to flinch and curl his lip, despite his commanding officer's grotesque appearance. 'Killing me was the right thing to do. You know there was no other option.'

Sheppard nodded, dropping his gaze to his boots to hide his revulsion; though he looked like a corpse, this was still the man he had followed through the 'gate and who he respected for his grit. The Keeper might have tortured Sumner, but he'd never once begged for his life, an example Sheppard had followed ever since.

Suddenly, the grip on his shoulder tightened, the pressure there increasing to the point of being uncomfortable. When he looked up, he didn't see the pale, deathly eyes of Sumner, but the dark and unforgiving orbs of Acastus Kolya. 'But was killing me the right thing to do, Colonel Sheppard?' he asked, his gravelly voice making Sheppard's follicles tingle with memory.

'Damn right it was,' he hissed, his knees buckling under the increasing weight of his foe's hand. 'And I'd do it again if I had a gun!'

They were in that clearing in the town on M65-PL8 now, a bright, sunny day just like it had been when he'd shot Kolya down High Noon style.

'Then maybe it isn't my death that haunts you, but rather what I put you through. I took something from you, a naivety of what death at the hands of the Wraith truly felt like. Now, whenever you face them, that fear will weaken you.'

'I'm not weak!' Sheppard spat back, feeling the grind of his collar and shoulder bones under Kolya's tightening grip. 'And I'm not scared of them...or you.'

'Not scared? You should be, Johnny Boy, you should be. This whole galaxy is being culled because of you, and you know the Wraith will eventually find Earth, and it's all because you and your people think you know so much better than us "less developed" civilisations.'

Sheppard closed his eyes and gritted his teeth against the increasing pain. 'It's not my fault. I couldn't leave my people behind.'

'But you left me behind...and you've never forgiven yourself for that.'

It was only as he heard Elizabeth's words that he realised the pain in his shoulder was gone. He opened his eyes to see her smiling down at him in the Asuran corridor he'd abandoned her in, giving him that same crooked smirk she always wore when doling out friendly admonishment. 'I gave you an order, John. I absolve you of all blame.'

'I should have done more to help you...or maybe I just should have made sure McKay and Keller knew not to go ahead with activating those nanites in my absence.'

'Oh, that's right – I forgot you're responsible for everyone else's actions.' Her smile slipped and she held his gaze firmly. 'There was no other choice than to take me on that mission, John. Atlantis and everyone on it would be dead now if you hadn't agreed to take me. And I willingly sacrificed myself, remember. You are not to blame for what happened to me, or Ford or Carson or Colonel Sumner. We're fighting a war, John. You can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs.'

'You make it sound like food fight.'

'Well, since the Wraith see us all as a potential meal, I suppose it is in a way.'

He shook his head. 'I screwed up. I should have seen what was coming when Rodney said you'd headed off the jumper...'

'This...attitude of yours has to have a name,' Elizabeth mused, turning to the figure that had now appeared behind her. It was Kate Heightmeyer, lying in her bed in a rather distracting black negligee.

'Yes. In its simplest terms it would be known as a guilt complex, and is often triggered by a traumatic event in a sufferers childhood that they felt they should have prevented or perhaps caused to happen in some way.'

Really? Was she honestly going to psychoanalyse him while draped in little more than black satin and lace? He'd thought she would finally give up trying to help him now she was dead, but here she was, picking him apart along with another possibly dead colleague. This was worse than being married.

'You blame yourself for my demise. But the alien entity only imprinted on you physically; it was in no way an extension of you...other than perhaps representing some type of dark reflection.'

'Poetic,' he quipped.

The smirk returned to Elizabeth's face, and she quirked an eyebrow as she looked down on him. 'Are you planning to stay kneeling down there, because I'm pretty sure that floor could do with a scrub if you are?'

He climbed back to his feet, rotating his shoulder to test it for injury. 'So, is this nearly over now? I mean, you two are pretty much the last people I lost and feel responsible for.'

When he straightened, he found himself face to face with Henry Wallace. That had only been a week ago. How could he have forgotten him so readily? His heart skipped and his stomach plummeted. Oh, crap. He'd really never imagined he would have to face that man again.

'Really? Or am I the last person?' Wallace asked, his eyes still reflecting the sorrow Sheppard had seen in them as he'd escorted him to his death.

'I...I'm sorry...I never asked you to...'

'No...but you didn't try to persuade me not to, either? How did you put it? You just "presented the situation". Not that I blame you. You were looking out for your friends, just like you always do.'

Sheppard really had nothing to say to that; he'd wanted the guy to make the ultimate sacrifice, so he'd let him do it without so much as an "Are you sure about this?". The man had caused the situation to arise – it was Wallace's fault Jeanie was going to be wiped clean by nanites...so, an eye for an eye...that had been his thinking. Wallace had already lost his daughter, but there had still been a chance to get Jeanie back to Madison and Kaleb. Of course, when he allowed himself to look at things from Henry Wallace's point of view, Sheppard knew he wasn't a bad man, just a father desperate to save his child. A man who showed more care and protection of his child than the chief of the tribe he was currently being initiated into had. And for that, he'd condemned him. What kind of a hypocrite did that make him? Sometimes he, John Sheppard, was an asshole. Period.

'Now that's your father talking and you know it.'

No. How had Wallace morphed into his mother without him even noticing? Because he'd been too wrapped up in his own self pity, that was how.

He looked into her gentle face, her soft raven curls framing the features he could barely remember now without looking at photographs to remind himself. He'd been so young when she died, only seven years old, but he still missed her like crazy. And now he was in his childhood bedroom, exactly where he'd been when his father had broken the news of her death. She reached out and stroked away the strands of his hair sticking to his sweat-dampened forehead. 'Look at you. You've grown into quite the man, John,' she said, her smile broadening into a grin as tears of pride glistened in her green eyes. 'Don't ever doubt yourself. You're a good man, and you have to know that, whatever you do, you always do the best you possible can for those you care about.'

'Is that okay when it hurts others, though?' he asked, feeling his own eyes moisten.

'You can't save everyone, John. Sometimes things are just meant to be.'

'No! I won't accept that. I don't believe in destiny. We make our own paths through life. I should have been able to save the people I cared about – maybe if I'd been smarter or stronger...'

'So you blame yourself for my death? You weren't even there, John.'

He looked at her now, feeling the first tear escape the confines of his lids and slip down his cheek. 'I know...and I should have been.'

'So you could save me? You're good, but you're not that good.' She took hold of his hand and grasped it between both of hers. She felt warm, solid, tangible, and he wanted to keep hold of her so she couldn't leave him again. 'It was my time to go...it had to happen for you to become the man you are now. And I'm so proud of you, John. You must always remember that.'

She began to fade, as did the room, and he grasped even harder onto her warm hand. 'Don't go...not yet!'

'Oh, I almost forgot...Happy Birthday, John,' she smiled, stroking his cheek. 'And don't worry...I'm never far away.'

A/N: Thanks for all the reviews. I'm glad you're enjoying the story so far. Hopefully it will continue to entertain you. Keep 'em coming! :)