Chapter 3

The Past

Lorne stood guard outside the cage uneasily. They had found their escapee in the Gate control room, along with a good chunk of the personnel out-cold from some sort of wraith stun device. Naturally, the wraith had been promptly escorted back to its cell. Apparently, it had used wraith mind tricks in order to convince one of the guards that his friends were in fact wraith and that the cell was occupied by one of his best friends. Lorne knew Sheppard was privately chastising himself for not foreseeing this sort of attempt. Mind you, it had been a while since anyone had had to deal with wraith hallucinations.

The wraith sat in its cell, looking completely worn out. Its head was rested in its hands and it hadn't moved for the last hour or so. If Lorne was feeling generous towards the prisoner, he would have felt pity for its obvious suffering. Right at that moment however, he would have rather drop-kicked the wraith off the tallest spire in the city.

At that moment, Colonel Sheppard strided in, his face distorted in by fury.

"Where is she?" he shouted at he prisoner. The wraith looked up at him wearily.

"Who do you refer to?" it replied pleasantly, though utterly exhausted. Except... something seemed wrong. The wraith didn't look tired. Something was defiantly up with it, but the Major couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"Teyla," spat Sheppard, "and her family are missing. You were found messing around with the gate, so it stands to reason that you had something to do with their disappearance. Now, I'm going to ask you again. Where the hell is Teyla?!"

The wraith seemed to consider this for a moment. But a moment was too long for Sheppard's already frayed temper. He deactivated the shield, and before Lorne or his men could react, marched into the cell and grab Todd by the throat. As the wraith was still shackled, it could do nothing to stop the colonel.

"Safe." It wheezed, attempting to raise its hands high enough to remove Sheppard's hands from its neck.

"I'm not inclined to trust your definition of 'safe', Todd," Sheppard increased the pressure around the wraith's neck, making it choke.

"Sir!" Lorne didn't like the wraith either, but Sheppard had over stepped the line. Wraith or not, a prisoner still had some sort of rights, including not being strangled by Major Lorne's superior officer.

Sheppard snapped to his senses at the sound of the Major's voice. Lorne saw him stare at his own hands as he chocked the wraith, then step back suddenly as if it was electrified. The wraith fell to the floor coughing and wheezing.

"You're going to come with me," Sheppard said in measured tones that implied the great amount of self restraint he was having to use, "and you're going to take us to where ever you sent Teyla, got it?"

The wraith looked up at Sheppard, still gasping for breath. It looked into Sheppard's eyes, before turning its head and nodding. As Sheppard and Lorne's team of marines escorted Todd up to the commander centre, Lorne realised what it was about the wraith that looked wrong. The slumped shoulders, the downward gaze, the air of hopelessness and defeat that Lorne had never associated with wraith.

Todd had given up. As if he didn't care what happened next.

***

The Present

Lorne lay in his quarters staring at the organic ceiling, reminiscing about the time before the alliance. Don't the best day-dreams, but he couldn't really think of anything else.

"Major Lorne? Can you hear me?"

The telepathic voice of the Prophetess, nicknamed Grizabella by Lorne (which had been unfortunately shortened to Grizzle by the others) woke him from his reverie.

"What is it?" Lorne asked out loud. He didn't like holding telepathic conversations. By answering out loud, he was able to convince himself that it was just like speaking into a com-unit.

"Would you be so kind as to come up Dr McKay's laboratory? Before we have a…. situation."

Groaning, Lorne grabbed his flak-jacket and headed for the command deck.

***

When Lorne arrived at the wraith lab that had been commandeered by McKay, he was greeted by a nervous Rodney. He smiled weakly at Lorne.

"What's the problem?" Lorne asked.

Rodney nodded behind him, to where Lorne saw Molly sitting next to Grizzle. Lorne saw that the kid had bruising on her pale arms that looked like she'd been grabbed. Hard. She was shaking as the elderly wraith helped her raise a cup to her lips. Ronon was also present, looking grim as ever.

"One of our guys grabbed her while she was coming back from the genetic cloak generator." answered McKay, looking concernedly at his young assistant, "She won't say who though."

Lorne went and squatted down next to Molly. She refused meet his eyes.

"Molly, you have to tell us who attacked you, who hurt you. Otherwise they could do this again." Lorne looked at Grizzle. Both understood that if the rest of the hive discovered that a member of the expedition had harmed the young Queen, all the remaining team would be punished.

The wraith girl mumble something at her knees. Grizzle put a comforting arm around Molly's shoulders and crooned something in the wraith tongue. Molly hiccupped and looked at Lorne. Her silted grey eyes were wild with fear.

"He-he didn't mean any harm…." Molly's voice was petered out as her fear took hold of her tongue again and she started to cry once more.

"Grabbing you hard enough to bruise? Terrorizing you? I say they meant it." Lorne heard the gravely voice of Ronon say, "Next time, just suck some of the life out of them. Makes 'em easier to spot and it'll deter others from doing the same."

Lorne wasn't the only one to be surprised by the former runner's suggestion. Rodney stood by the door, eyes wide and mouth hanging open, while Grizzle raised an eyebrow she didn't have. Lorne glared at him. Ronon shrugged his shoulders at his stunned audience.

"What? It could always be given back when they got the message."

Lorne opened his mouth to discipline Ronon for his lack of tact, but Molly's beat him to it.

"I don't…I don't want to hurt people," Molly whispered, turning her grey eyes on Ronon, "Not if I don't have to. I don't need to-to feed like the others." She hung her head as pearly tears stained her face.

McKay broke the awkward silence that followed.

"Look…we'll see if we can find out whoever did this. Just, you know, get some rest and we'll sort this out, okay?"

Grizzle looked in McKay's direction and smiled at the scientist. Rodney did his best to hide his unease at being under the blind wraith's blank gaze and Lorne sympathised with him. He always felt awkward when caught under Grizzle's stare. The elderly wraith bowed her head in respect.

"Then we shall leave it in your very capable hands." She rose, encouraging the still shaking Molly to do the same, "I trust you will deal with this swiftly. We cannot have violent malcontents wandering about this hive unchecked, now can we?"

She bowed to them again before escorting the young Queen out of the lab, using her cloak-like robe to hide Molly's injures from the potential view of the other wraith.

The Major released the breath he hadn't even realised he was holding as the lab door closed. Rodney still looked shocked and Ronon was unreadable as ever.

"I should never have asked her to go and check the generator." Rodney moaned as he sank into a chair, "I should have gone myself! Then Molly wouldn't have been attacked, by one of out people for Christ's sake!"

"Come on Rodney, how were you to know she would get jumped? Don't beat yourself up over it, McKay." Lorne nodded to himself as he finalised a plan of action in his mind, "Okay. Rodney, you use that chatter box you developed to listen in to people's com-units, see if you can overhear anything of use."

Rodney nodded and began searching through the junk scattered over the tables. Lorne indicated for Ronon to follow him out. They left McKay to see what he could pick up on. Lorne hated betrayal of his people's trust and violation of their privacy but right now he couldn't afford losing this alliance with the wraith. Without their help three years ago, those that had managed to escape the seizing Atlantis would have been dead within a few weeks.

"See what you can you can find out from people," he said to Ronon as the walked corridor, "They may be more likely to open up to you, seeing as you and the wraith have a history." Ronon snorted at the remark, making Lorne grin, "I know, but see if you can use your reputation as wraith-hater extraordinaire to find out who attacked Molly or if they're planning something a bit more permanent." Ronon nodded and the two men went their separate ways.

***

The wraith that had come to be known as Molly wandered the corridors, having been unable to get some rest due to the pain in her arms. She was wearing a jacket on of the expedition members had given her in order to hide the bruising on her pale skin. If one of the wraith wanted to know why she was wearing a Lantian jacket she would just have to say she was chilly. Well, she was half human, she was allowed to be cold wasn't she? That thought made her return to the melancholy that had been bothering her all her life. Half-human, half-wraith. A hybrid. Humans appeared to be only able to see that part of her that was wraith, while wraith only saw the human side. For so long now, no-one had seen her for herself, a young girl caught between what fate seemed to want her to be and what the rest of reality saw her as. Sometimes she wished she hadn't found out who she really was, who her mother had been.

Voices up ahead made Molly pause. She recognized them as human, none of the strange resonances that went with wraith vocalisation. She could even make out the identity of individuals. One was the ex-runner Ronon, who led one of the Lantian strike teams and a close friend of Tr'ken McKay, for which she was glad, because then she got to see him more often. Not that he would ever notice her. His hatred towards a certain half of her blood-line was infamous. The other voice made her stiffen in cold terror. She stopped herself from calling out for help mentally just in time. She didn't want to cause any harm to the Lantians if at all possible. Pressing herself into the organic wall of the corridor, Molly listened.

"Why do care so much about the brat? She's wraith for god's sake!"

"Half-wraith."

"So? That make's it worse! A hybrid. Remember the last time? Remember Michael?"

"Molly's different."

There was a snort of laughter.

"Yeah right. I can't believe your standing up for a wraith. After all they've done to us-"

Molly heard the speaker choke on the rest of his sentence. Followed by the sound of a body being thrown into an organic wall at force. Summoning her courage, she creped along the wall until she could peak at what was going on. Ronon was holding the man who had attacked her, a lieutenant she vaguely remembered, up against the wall by his shoulders. The man looked scared by the snarl on Ronon's face.

"Now listen," Ronon growled at the man, "if I find out that you hurt Molly again I will personally feed you to one of the wraith, got that?"

"Y-you wouldn't d-dare!" the man stammered, "Major Lorne would have you court-marshalled!"

Ronon grinned menacingly. "I'm not one of your Earth military, remember?" The young soldier paled further, "Besides, I'm sure I could get a royal reprieve."

He let the soldier drop to the ground. "Be sure to tell your buddies that if anyone else is planning any more accidents to happen, I'll see to them too." The soldier nodded hurriedly before scrambling away. Ronon remained where he was for a few moments, then left down a different corridor.

Molly left too, scurrying back to her quarters, her mind full of what she had just witnessed. She wanted to be in privacy before she started crying again.

Thank you to everyone who has reviewed. I never believed this would be so popular!

Please continue to read and review, it's always appreciated.

Oh, and for all you Shep lovers, you should find out his fate soon (if not the next chapter then certainly the chapter after!)