"Doctor Zelenka, what is the minimum safe distance for that scanning beam," Ford asked, eyeing the pole.

Zelenka looked up at the pole and checked something on the computer before answering, "It is hard to say, Lieutenant," Zelenka finally replied and pushed up his glasses. "We were standing a meter, or so, from the pole when Doctor Beckett triggered it before."

Ford glanced at Beckett standing at the edge of the clearing, directing the two Athosians setting up a tent.

"And the pole isn't doing anything now, right?" Ford asked.

Zelenka glanced down at the computer again. "That is correct. There is slight reading, like a computer in sleep mode," he said and held up the laptop in his hand.

"Okay, thanks." Ford turned to Teyla. "We need to mark out a safe distance for the clearing, say a twelve-foot circle around that pole. We're only assuming it won't come on again. I don't want anyone getting too close."

"Agreed," Teyla said. "I will speak with Halling. There is a stream not far from here. My people can gather stones from the shore, making a ring. I do not believe any of us will trigger the pole."

"Thanks," Ford said with a smile.

He watched as Teyla walked over to Halling and spoke to him. She pointed toward the pole then nodded at the forest. Halling shook his head, gestured back toward the village, and said something to Teyla that Ford couldn't hear. Teyla frowned. "You cannot believe that," she said.

Ford hurried over to Teyla and heard more of the argument.

"They should leave this place, Teyla. It is clear the Ancestors do not want these people here."

"How can you say that?" Teyla asked, and Ford saw the sadness in her eyes. "Major Sheppard and Doctor McKay are missing. They may be injured. We need to find them."

"You and I both know they will not be found here. The waypost has done something to them, Teyla. I do not believe they will return. The Ancestors have made their wishes clear. You must tell them to leave."

"I thought you liked Major Sheppard," Teyla said. "Why are you so quick to dismiss the possibility of their survival?"

"Is there a problem?" Ford asked, his tone as innocent as he could make it.

"There is no problem, Lieutenant," Teyla said before Halling could speak. "Halling was expressing his concerns regarding the Ancestor's waypost."

Ford looked up at Halling with a smile. "That's what I want the stones for," he explained calmly. "I think we can agree that no one should step too close to the waypost."

"That is true," Halling said hesitantly.

"All right, then," Ford said. He clapped his hands and turned to Teyla. "Teyla, let's get a few people together to go get those stones. I'll send a couple of the Marines with you," he waved a hand at Markham, and Corporals Davis and Sanchez hurried over, "to help out. The sooner we have an area marked out, the happier I think we'll all be. Am I right?" He looked from Teyla to Halling.

"I agree, Lieutenant," Teyla said as Halling reluctantly nodded.

"Great! Teyla, why don't you take Davis, Sanchez, and some of the Athosians and find enough stones to mark out that circle."

"Certainly," she said, and with a nod to the two corporals. She motioned to several of her own people and led the way into the woods.

"Sergeant Markham," Ford called once they'd gone and Halling had rejoined the remaining Athosians on the other side of the clearing.

"Sir?"

"Teyla and some of the Athosians are going to mark out an area around that pole. No one is to cross it, Sergeant. We don't need any more missing people."

"Understood."

"We also need to set up some sort of camp. I get the feeling Doctor Beckett isn't going to leave, so we may as well stick around, too. What supplies do we have in the jumper?"

"Basic survival gear," Markham replied. "A couple of large tents, medical supplies, MREs."

"All right, take Jeffries and bring it all back here. We'll set up camp over by Doctor Beckett's tent before it gets dark."

"Yes, sir," Markham said. "Umm, sir?"

Ford turned back to him.

"How are we going to find Major Sheppard and Doctor McKay, sir? If that pole thing really did transport them somewhere, they could be anywhere on the planet."

Ford grimaced. That was the one question he had no answer for. "Doctor Zelenka will figure out what happened, Sergeant. Once we know that, we'll know how to find them."

Ford knew he had to sound confident and in control. Sheppard once told him the biggest secret to command was to act like you had a perfect plan, even if you were still making it up in your head. Ford hoped his acting skills were up to par since he didn't know how they would find Sheppard and McKay. His plan right now was hoping they'd be able to get themselves back to the clearing, and Ford and the others could help from there.

~*~*~*~ SGA ~*~*~*~

"I think I've got it," Rodney said, but John saw the look on his face as he spoke. He knew that look. It was the same look Rodney had had just before he walked into the middle of an energy creature with nothing more than a weird shield and no idea if he would survive or not.

"Rodney!" he yelled just as McKay's hands touched something on the console and the blue beam surrounding him winked out.

John's body was moving even before his brain had caught up with the fact he was no longer trapped. He ran across the room, rounded the console, and found Rodney on his knees, with his head down and his hands curled against his chest. John stood in shock for a moment as he got his first good look at Rodney's hands. As Rodney started to list to one side, John grabbed the backpack, knelt beside him, and caught him before he hit the floor.

"My god, Rodney," he whispered. He braced Rodney against his chest and dug through the pack one-handed, trying to find the bottled water.

"John?" Rodney asked but tried to pull away at the same time.

"Hey, it's me," John said. He shifted until Rodney leant against him again. It took him another moment to realise Rodney had called him by his first name, and John smiled. "Let me see your hands."

Finding the water bottles by touch, John pulled out two of them and unscrewed the caps. He knew enough basic first aid to know the burns needed to be washed and then wrapped, but Rodney wasn't cooperating. He kept his hands tight against his chest and refused to look at him.

"John?" he asked again. "Real? It worked?"

Then John understood. "Yeah, buddy, I'm real. Your idea worked. You turned off the beam."

Rodney sagged against him. "Hands hurt," he muttered.

"I'll bet," he replied. "Let me see them, okay? We need to clean up those burns and get your hands wrapped. Once we're back home, Beckett will get you fixed up in no time."

He scooted Rodney back until he sat with his back against the wall behind the console. John knelt in front of him and held up one of the bottles of water. He waited until Rodney unclenched his hands, and John saw the skin from Rodney's fingertips to mid palm were red, with blisters forming.

John carefully touched one of the red fingertips and frowned when the skin turned white. Both hands were also swollen, and John knew from experience just how much burns could hurt. He just hoped Rodney hadn't done any permanent damage.

"So, I'm John now?" he asked as a distraction from what he was about to do. "I was beginning to wonder if you thought my first name was 'Major'." He gave Rodney a tiny smile as he took Rodney's left wrist and slowly poured the entire bottle of water over his hand.

Rodney whimpered and tried to jerk his hand back, but John held on to his arm until he was done.

He rested Rodney's arm so his hand wasn't touching anything as he found a fresh roll of gauze and carefully wrapped each finger and then Rodney's hand to just behind his wrist. "Okay," he said with a smile. "One down, one to go. Let's give it a sec, and then I'll wash out the other one."

Rodney nodded absently. "No one here," he whispered after a few seconds.

John glanced around the room, confused by the statement. "Umm, no. There's no one here but us," he replied with a frown.

Rodney sighed. He looked John in the eye for the first time since the beam released him, and John thought he saw a hint of the usual Rodney frustration in his expression.

"No one here to hear," Rodney told him. "Just us."

"You can call me John when there are other people around, you know," John said gently. "I call you Rodney all the time."

Rodney gave him an odd look that John wasn't sure how to interpret. "Etiquette," he mumbled and looked down at his bandaged hand.

"What?" John asked.

Rodney glanced up at him and then away. "Sergeant Bates said months ago the scientists were getting too familiar. Calling people by names instead of ranks." He paused, then added, "Didn't want to embarrass you."

John shook his head, tapped Rodney's knee, and waited for Rodney to look at him. "You don't embarrass me, got it? You can call me John any time you want."

Rodney glanced at him, then nodded and gave John a crooked smile.

John held up the other bottle of water. "Ready?" he asked. He waited for Rodney to nod and give him his other hand.

John poured the other bottle of water over the fingertips and as much of Rodney's right hand as he could. He wasn't sure how much the cast had protected his hand and tried to get some water down in the cast as well.

"Carson'll be mad," Rodney said quietly as he stared at the cast. "He said not to get it wet."

"I think he'll forgive us," John replied and patted his vest pockets, looking for more gauze. Rodney's right hand wasn't as bad as the left, but it still needed wrapping. Not finding any more supplies of his own, John went through Rodney's vest pockets until he found what was left of his roll of gauze after patching up John's arm.

"You look like a reject from a mummy movie," John said and tried to smile once he was done. "How are you doing?"

Rodney tried to flex his fingers and winced in pain. "Still really hurts."

John dug through the backpack, came up with one last water bottle, and passed over the ibuprofen from his vest. "Best I can do right now."

Rodney grimaced as he looked at the sealed packet then tried to hold the bottle between his hands. "I don't suppose there's a straw in the pack?"

John shook his head and quirked a questioning eyebrow.

"Fine," Rodney said with a resigned sigh. He opened his mouth for John to pop in the pills, and then John held the bottle so Rodney could drink. Once he had the pills down, he leant his head against the wall and closed his eyes. "Wanna go home now," he said softly.

John repacked the empty bottles, zipped up the pack, and settled against the wall next to Rodney, close enough for their shoulders to touch.

"So, how did you figure it out?" John asked a few minutes later.

Rodney opened his eyes and gave John a questioning look.

"The beam," John said with a nod at the console. "How did you figure out how to turn it off?"

Rodney glared at the console and pulled his knees up, cradling his hands between his chest and his legs. "I'm an idiot," he said. "The solution was right in front of my face, and I nearly missed it."

"How so?"

Rodney jerked his chin at the console. "It was so obvious, but I wasn't paying attention."

John stood and walked over to the console. He saw the screen and the two rows of six tiles and realised that's what Rodney had been trying to figure out that he kept getting shocked. It took him a few seconds to see the two smaller tiles off to each side of the bottom row of tiles.

"Pushing the two smaller tiles turned off the beam?" he asked, glancing behind him.

"Yeah," Rodney replied, his voice flat. "I don't remember if I got a shock touching those or not. It gets a little fuzzy."

"Inattentional blindness," John said with a nod. "Pilots have to fight that all the time. You get so focused on the thing in front of you, you miss other stuff."

"Like I said. Idiot," Rodney muttered.

John shook his head and smiled as he bent down, held out his hand, and helped Rodney to his feet. He waited until Rodney found his balance, then let go, grabbed the backpack and said, "Nope, just human like the rest of us."

He clipped the pack to his vest and looked around the room again. There was still no indication of a door anywhere. He walked around the room, careful to skirt around the mosaic on the floor. "Okay, so now what?" he said to the room at large. "We'd kinda like to go home, now."

The Overseer appeared near Rodney.

"You did survive," The Overseer said to John with a patronising smile.

Rodney gave The Overseer a sour look and edged away from him. At the same time, John moved and stood between them. "Disappointed?" he asked sarcastically and gave Rodney a careful glance to make sure he was all right.

The Overseer ignored him. "You have both demonstrated your ability to overcome your fear and trust in your companion with external problems. Now you must do the same with the internal."

John and Rodney exchanged a puzzled look.

"Internal?" Rodney muttered. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Are you ready?" The Overseer asked at the same time.

Before John could formulate an answer for either of them, the white light flared again.

~*~*~*~ SGA ~*~*~*~

Rodney found himself in a dimly lit long hallway with doors every few meters or so along it. A word was written over each doorway, and opening a door, he found a room stacked with boxes. Some of the boxes were large, some tiny, but all of the boxes were closed, and all of them had an intricate lock fitted in the hasp.

He closed the door, looked up and down the hallway, then wandered down the corridor, looking around for anyone to tell him what was happening.

"John!" he called and peeked into another room. "This really isn't funny, you know," he tried again.

No one answered, and Rodney blew out a breath and kept walking. Where was everyone? he wondered as he passed another door. Rodney took a few more steps, then stopped short. Maybe John was hurt, he thought. That would explain why Sheppard wasn't answering him.

"Sheppard?" he called again. This time his tone was laced with worry instead of impatience.

He stopped at the next door and read 'Camping' over the door frame. He entered the room and looked around. A sturdy shelf held more closed and locked boxes. He picked up the nearest box and read 'Camping Trip 1978' on the brass plate.

Rodney put the box back, only then noticing that not only were his hands not bandaged, they weren't even burnt. He looked at his hands for a long moment trying to figure out what it could mean before he gave up and went back to looking at the odd boxes.

He picked up the next box, this one much larger, with 'Camping Trip 1980' written on it. He put the box back, saw similar labels on the other boxes, and backed out of the room.

"Who has a whole room for camp mementos?" he asked himself out loud as he continued down the hall.

"John!" he yelled. "Where are you?" He frowned when there wasn't even an echo.

"This is just nuts," he muttered to himself. "Next time you get a weird energy reading, just ignore it. Run in the other direction."

He looked around the hallway again. "Where am I? Where's John?" he called out but received no answer.

He found a small room with 'Relations' written over the door and crept inside. He found boxes marked 'Mom', 'Dad', and 'David' each on their own shelf. While the boxes were larger than some he'd found, all of them were still carefully locked. Rodney found other boxes with other names that he assumed were other family members lined along one wall.

Another shelf held a box marked 'Nancy'. Interestingly, next to Nancy's box were two others, one marked 'Wedding' and the other, much smaller box, said simply 'Divorce'.

Rodney wandered back to the door, stopped next to the shelf with the 'David' box, and stared at the box for a moment, lost in thought.

"David," he muttered. "I know that name. Why do I know that name?" Then it hit him. John's brother was named David.

"No, no, no," he exclaimed and ran out of the room.

He ran down the hallway, reading the labels over the doors. "'High School', 'Air Force', 'Sports'," he muttered. He stopped and spun in a circle as he tried to wrap his head around the impossible idea.

He saw another door at the end of the hallway and stopped short when he found a large room crammed with boxes. Unlike the other rooms he'd found, this room was disorganised, boxes tossed hither and yon, no order, just chaos.

Rodney looked up and saw 'Afghanistan' over the door, and the blood drained from his face when he realised he was right.

~*~*~*~ SGA ~*~*~*~

John's first impression of where he ended up was cacophonous noise. He squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears in a vain attempt to deaden the sound, but it did little to help. He dropped to his knees and tried to make sense of what he was hearing. He heard voices, lots of voices, some yelling, others making demands. He thought he heard his own voice a few times, which didn't make any sense at all.

He slit his eyes open and squinted at his surroundings. The visual feedback was almost as bad as the audio. Everything was very bright and kinetic. There was no sky, he noticed. Instead, a steady stream of numbers interspersed with what looked like Ancient script ran across the space above his head. Objects littered a line of work tables, each object in a different state of disassembly.

John thought he recognised a few of the objects from Rodney's lab and frowned.

Rodney.

Where was McKay? he wondered. He raised a hand, shielding his eyes against the bright light as he tried to look around.

"McKay!" he yelled into the whirlwind of sound. "Rodney, answer me!"

There was no answering call, but John wasn't sure if that was because Rodney couldn't answer or because he couldn't hear the reply. The noise level increased, and John groaned as he covered his ears again.

"Could you turn it down a bit!" John hollered in frustration. "The noise is making it impossible to think."

Surprisingly, the noise level dropped noticeably, and John took his hands away from his ears.

"Thank you," he said to himself and took another look around.

The work tables were immediately in front of him, but there were other things as well the more he looked around.

Shelves of books stood in long rows to his left. John walked over, read a few of the titles, and shook his head at the variety of technical manuals, science papers, and ratty paperback novels. Another row of shelves held huge binders labelled 'Physics', 'Mathematics', 'Engineering'.

"Where the hell am I?" John wondered aloud and wandered further.

He glanced up at the 'sky' again and watched the flow of numbers and symbols rushing past overhead. As he watched, he recognised various mathematical equations and formulae. The bits of Ancient text he spotted scattered within the stream was still as mysterious as ever.

John shook his head and walked past a beautiful grand piano, in perfect tune, playing by itself.

Some sort of device sat on another table, carefully putting itself together, then taking itself apart again. As John watched, he noticed every time the device put itself together, it was in a different configuration than the previous one. It looked like the strange Ancient box Rodney had found months ago and still didn't know what it did or how it worked. John watched the device take itself apart again as a terrifying idea began to form in his head.

He looked around and saw not everything in the space was brightly lit. Scattered amongst the work tables and books were several dark areas. John debated with himself for a few moments, then stepped into one of the darker areas. He stopped a few paces inside and found what looked like a television sales floor. Dozens of screens lined the area, each playing short bursts of video on a loop.

An enormous whale swallowing a boy.

Then an older version of the boy being pummeled by a much larger child.

Another version of the boy was trapped, in a hole or cave, John wasn't sure which. Rocks filled the opening, and the boy scraped his fingers on the rocks as he cried for someone to let him out.

Several of the screens showed the Wraith attacking the city. Feeding on faceless people. Feeding on John.

Another showed John lying on the floor of a jumper, seemingly dead.

Atlantis, sinking, or burning, or otherwise being destroyed, took over a few more of the screens.

John backed away from the dark corner and into the light as his suspicion was confirmed. He didn't understand the whale, or know who the bully was, but he knew who the boy had to be. He looked back at the chaotic activity around him and knew he was somehow inside Rodney's head.