Sleeping Serpent

"One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continuously stating and repeating the very very obvious, as in It's a nice day, or You're very tall, or Oh dear you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you all right?
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

A warm hand upon my back, someone calling my name, muffled and distorted words call me back to consciousness.

Next to me, I hear Dad groan as he too recovers from the attack. My vision is still blurry, but I can just make out the forms of John and Rodney crouching in front of me and Dr. Weir kneeling next to Dad.

"Are you all right?" I hear Dr. Weir ask him, to which he replies indignantly, "No!" Of all things I find inexplicable about my human friends, it's their habit of both stating the obvious and asking questions to which the answer should be so obvious, the question shouldn't even be asked. If a man has been found unconscious in a hallway on an abandoned, subaqueous geological drilling platform, shouldn't it be obvious that something went wrong, and so he clearly cannot be 'all right'? Somewhat right, even mostly right, but not all right!

That fact that I'm even thinking this at this time is probably evidence I was hit a little too hard.

"Mary, you good?" Dad casts me a worried glance, but I smile.

"I'm fine. Give me a few minutes and I'm sure the bruises will be gone."

"Did you see who attacked you?" Elizabeth continues with her inane line of questioning. Thirteen people on the station, seven scientists back at the control room, three standing in front of us, two on the floor just regaining consciousness, one person missing, and no way for anyone else to get in? Hmm. I wonder.

Maybe I have been spending too much time with Rodney. My thoughts are becoming very sarcastic.

"Yeah. It was Teyla," he tells her quietly.

"What?! Why?" demands Rodney.

"It was not Mum," I tell them, and they look at me incredulously. "Her body, yes, but she was the controlling force. I should have known, I sensed something was different, and the way I was sensing the other wraith changed," again, they cast strange looks at me, "But I cannot understand how she did it. To take over someone's body requires immediate proximity, or else…" a guilty look sweeps over them, especially John.

"Oh no," I shake my head as I push myself up the wall. "John Sheppard, do NOT tell me you let my mother reach out to an unknown wraith mind without at least letting me know!"

"Okay, I won't tell you," he replies elusively, looking to Rodney and Weir for support as I rise to my full height and my voice begins to boom with rage.

"JOHN SHEPPARD YOU ARE AN IDIOT! SON OF A TAVA BEAN! HOW COULD YOU?!"

"Did you just call me the son of a tava bean?" he clings to his precious sarcasm. Dad leans over and explains, "It's another way of calling you an idiot."

I set off down the hall, weaving slightly, to where I sense the combined minds of my mother and the wraith.

"Mary, where do you think you're going?" John demands as he and the others chase after me.

"To get Mum back. In close proximity it will be easy to force the other wraith out of her mind," I continue to storm down the corridors, growing steadier with each step. "How could you, John? My athair gave you all his knowledge of the wraith, you know nearly as much as I do! And you still let her try it? If anyone should have touched minds with her, it should have been me!"

"Her?" John repeats while Dr. Weir argues, "Teyla's been doing this since before—"

I round on them both. "Before what? Before I was born? Huh, that would have been quite a feat. And yes, John Sheppard, it is a wraith queen. A very ancient wraith queen at that. And, Dr. Weir," I say as I turn on my heel and begin walking again, "I have been building mental protection since before I was born, and I have 'psychic' abilities beyond even most wraith. My mathiar was an aoghaire and I am of the Sixth Generation."

I know I am ranting and that I should really not be saying these things. Even with Woolsey's recommendation, my position will always be tenuous because of what I am.

"This is Zelenka. Someone has just activated emergency forcefields throughout the station," the Czech's voice crackles over the radio and breaks into my furious tirade. We all stop for a moment.

John responds, even as he makes hand motions for Elizabeth and Rodney to return to the control room, which I'm sure is where he'd prefer me to be.

"Ok, I want everyone back in the Control Room till we know what the hell's goin' on here. Can you get back?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Good," he turns off his comm. "Elizabeth, you and Rodney head back. We'll find Teyla."

"Okay. But be careful!" she shouts after us as we race down the hallways.

"In here," I whisper to them when we come to an auxiliary control room. I pause a moment, sensing gently with my mind. "She is herself again. The wraith has left her."

Nonetheless, John tells me to stay back while he and Dad get her. In light of my earlier outburst, I do as bid.

A minute later, they bring her out, looking tired, ashamed and confused. I silently put my arm over her shoulder and together we follow John back to the living quarters off the main control room.

Mum is silent as I sit with her on the bunk, waiting for Dr. Weir and Rodney to join us.

"She is a snake, half-awake always, waiting," I murmur softly and squeeze Mum's hand reassuringly. "You should rest. I can tell Dr. Weir what she needs to know."

She shakes her head. "Thank you, Mairghread, but I will do it. This is not the first time it has happened…. Just the worst."

And so I sit quietly while Mum and the others discuss this, even when I want to scream at them. If they had just asked, I could have told them, even without linking minds, that the other wraith was an ancient, powerful female. If they would be quiet for five minutes, I could reach out and learn all they want to know.

Suddenly, the edge of my mind is scorched by queen's proximity and her futile efforts to control me.

"Shush!" I order them all sharply as they bicker about unimportant points in the matter. "She is on board the station."

Instantly, they are all looking at me, waiting for more. I close my eyes at a sudden burst of pain.

"She is feeding," I whisper, even as Dickenson's voice screams over the radio, "Colonel Sheppard, If you can hear me, please help me!"

John looks at McKay. "Do you have any men unaccounted for?"

"Two guys I just sent back to the Jumper," he replies, a look of horror spreading over his face. "Sent them to work on the force fields so we could use the Jumpers sensors. Oh, God!"

John and Dad race out of the room while Rodney runs back to the control room to remove the force fields that block the quickest route to the trapped men and try to keep the fluctuating ones from cutting them off.

TBC

A/N: Come on people do I have to beg? Okay. PLEASE PLEASE CLICK THE LITTLE PURPLE BUTTON!!!

Next: Capture