Author's Note: Hey guys! Just a little thankyou again to everyone who reviewed! So many people don't take the time to do it, but it means so much... it gives you this warm tingly feeling inside... or is that just the essay I'm avoiding... hmm... either way, thank you!

Chapter 3

The wheelchair, with Dave at the helm, did put a dampener on the whole freedom thing.

But considering one leg still refused to take his weight, and Dave was being all mother hen towards him, he didn't really have much choice about it.

Besides, he figured it was a small price to pay for seeing the outside world again. Even if it was only for the journey to Dave's house.

The nurse had left them at the doors of the hospital, and Dave had taken over driving the wheelchair. John had just leaned back and taken a deep breath, relishing that it didn't taste sanitary. Behind him, his brother chuckled.

"Don't get used it," Dave warned. "You're going to be stuck in my house for a while. At least until you can use crutches."

"Won't take me that long," John promised, spotting Dave's car nearby. "And then I can get back to my own place. And you'll be the one heaving a sigh of relief."

Dave didn't answer, just pulling the wheelchair to a halt beside his car. "I just have to move the seat back," he explained, grinning slightly. "Don't go anywhere."

John gave him a wry look, but leaned back, shifting the arm held tight by a sling. It was irritating him already, and the urge to race in the wheelchair was powerful enough that he knew he could easily convince himself that he could do so with one working arm.

He gave a small grin at his own thoughts, before looking around as Dave took his time adjusting the passenger seat of the car. The car park was pretty busy, the hospital a revolving door of ins and outs, of patients and –

His smile turned around, as he spotted the only person standing still in the entire car park. The only person standing still, and staring at him.

It wasn't anyone he recognised, anyone he knew. At least, he didn't think so. But the man, tall, thin, a long scar visible on his cheek, and in dirty, unkempt clothes, was staring at him with the type of scowl usually only reserved for people you knew. People you knew, and who were getting on your nerves.

He stood out like a sore thumb, yet people just continued moving around him, never looking, never staring, as if he wasn't even –

"John!"

Sheppard jumped, and turned to look at his brother. Dave had a deep look of worry on his face, car keys in one hand. As John turned to look at him, the older brother glanced at the dirty man, and then back. "What are you staring at?"

John glanced back. "Don't you -." But the man was gone. He trailed off, and gave a slight shake of his head. "Nothing. Nothing."

He looked back at Dave, still frowning. The other Sheppard was looking anxious, as if he had wheeled his little brother out too soon. "Are you okay, John?"

"Yeah," John answered, trying a small smile. "Yeah, course I am. Just tired."

"Maybe you should lay down when we get home, then," Dave suggested as he moved back behind the wheelchair. He pushed it towards the passenger side. "The doc said you needed lots of rest."

"I know," John told him, putting his foot out to stop the wheelchair. "But what he doesn't know, won't hurt him." And he grabbed the side of the door frame, put his good foot on the ground and heaved himself upright. "And there's no way in hell you're lifting me into the car," he told his brother through gritted teeth.

He ignored Dave's half-annoyed, half-bemused look and pivoted on his foot, nearly losing his balance once. To Dave's credit, he only just flinched to help, but restrained himself as John collapsed back onto the seat, trying not to breath too heavily and give himself away. He grinned up at his brother. "See. Easy as. Come on, let's get going."

"Uh huh," Dave remarked dryly. "Let's see you get out then."

But he left it at that, and moved around to the trunk, folding up the wheelchair as he went. John just dragged his legs into the car and swivelled on the seat.

A blur caught the edge of his vision, and he turned slowly to look, knowing exactly what he would find. And sure enough, the dirty, out-of-place man was standing there, still, ignored and staring at him. No, it was a different man; same clothes, but a different man. And this time the scowl was replaced by a look of guilt, a guilt more intense than anything he had seen on Dave so far. And then his mouth moved in a whisper, and even though Sheppard couldn't hear him over the distance, the words sent chills down his spine.

John was quiet on the ride home, and it was obvious Dave was worried by it. But the older man said nothing until they pulled into the driveway of his house. At which point John gave a small chuckle. "I can't believe this place looks exactly the same."

Dave grinned at him. "You know me, John. Would I ever be bothered to change anything?"

"Guess not," John agreed, opening the door. "You getting my wheels?"

Within five minutes they were inside, and Dave had pushed him to the spare bedroom. "Now don't get mad," the older man said gravely, hand on the door. "But I pulled some of your things out of storage."

Suddenly nervous, John stared up at his brother. "Like what?"

Dave shrugged. "You'll see." And he pushed open the door and rolled the wheelchair in. John's jaw dropped.

Dave hadn't just pulled some things out of storage. In fact, if John hadn't known better, he would have said the room looked exactly like his childhood bedroom, right down to the placement of the bed, in the corner, and the arrangement of photos on his drawers.

"Dave," John breathed, not sure exactly what to say as he rolled over to the drawers. "This is…"

He wanted to say weird. It was on the tip of his tongue. He wanted to say weird, and strange, and most of all, he wanted to say wrong. Not the gesture, no. The act in itself. He knew his brother. And David Sheppard didn't get all sentimental, not even for his own brother.

"You don't like it?" Dave asked suddenly, obviously reading his brother's emotions.

"No!" John cried. "God, no, I do. It's just… I can't believe you kept all this stuff."

That wasn't exactly what he wanted to say either, but it was true. He tried to wrap his head around it, tried to give himself time, and stared up at the photos.

"Yeah, well…" Dave was apparently speechless as well. "I wanted you to feel at home. I wanted it to feel right."

Sheppard didn't mention that home had never really felt right, and continued staring up at the photos. Most were of his family, his mother, and father, a few cousins. One of him and Dave at Dave's graduation. Some from school. He looked at them all fondly, remembering the good times, and the bad.

And then he spotted one at the back, and for the second time that day, his smile turned into a frown. "What's this one?" he asked, grabbing it, stretched over the others to reach for it.

"What one?" Dave asked, frowning as he came over.

John wasn't sure. It was of him, and three other people. He thought it was three. The image seemed blurry, but he was sure he could make out two men and a woman sitting around him. And that blue, it looked like ocean, looked out upon from a balcony. And if he looked really hard, he could even make out the odd clothes they were wearing. Matching. Like uni-

He jumped as Dave snatched the photo from his hands, frowning down on it. "You mean senior year?" he asked, looking worried. "Last football match or something, right?" The other man's frown deepened. "The doctor did say you might have amnesia about some other things." Dave shrugged and handed the picture back. "Hopefully all that will come back."

"Yeah," John murmured, looking down at the picture again. Sure enough, it was a football match. Him, two of his friends, and one of their girlfriends, backs turned to the arena. He put it back up on the drawers and turned to Dave. "So, what have you got to eat in this place? I'm starved."

Dave chuckled, and the worry was gone, just like that. "Come on, the kitchen's this way. I'll make you a sandwich or something. I thought tonight we could order in Chinese or something. There's this great place…"

Dave continued to talk, but John ignored him, trying desperately not to stare back at the drawers, and the photo on top. Because whatever was in that picture now, he knew he had seen an ocean, and sun, and three people who's faces were blurred. And they had all been wearing matching uniforms. A uniform that was not police blues.

Yet for the life of him, he could not remember ever wearing any other type of uniform.

The sun glinted off the perfectly white snow, threatening to blind him if he looked too closely. But with his aviators on he was untouchable, even by the sun. And by anything else in this distant corner of the planet, at this altitude, flying the chopper towards a mysterious destination.

There was someone sitting next to him, but they were a blurry figure, indescribable, silent, unmoving. John thought they should have been talking – something about snakes and birds? – but they just flew in the quiet of the Antarctic wasteland.

Everything out the front window seemed eerily real, as if he could just reach out and touch it. The cold caressed his nose and cheeks, but his jacket held it off the rest of his body. The joy stick felt like an extension of his hands, the machine around him just an extension of his mind, like it could read his mind and act appropriately.

And that feeling in his gut. That felt more than right. That felt as if he should be doing nothing else, nothing except flying through the atmosphere, through the empty space between land and nothingness. There was nothing more right in the world.

All at once, it changed.

The helicopter began beeping at him, and a voice, deep and wrong, shouted worry at him. The words were incomprehensible, but it was enough to turn that feeling of right in his stomach to a feeling of horror. And he looked up to see the sun, before just a shape in the sky bouncing off the snow, now hurtling towards him, chasing him through the sky with a mind of its own.

And Sheppard could do nothing, panic stripping him of all sense and rationality. He just threw up his arms in a lame attempt to shield his body from the impact, squeezing his eyes shut as if that could stop anything at all.

The chopper slammed into the ground, and sand erupted all around him, mixing in with the glass of his shattered window.

He groaned, and let his arms drop to the ceiling. The ceiling that was now below him. His body moved of its own accord, his hands moving to the straps holding him off the ceiling. He unclipped them, and then grunted as his bruised body hit the ground, wincing as sand got in a wound on his forehead.

He crawled out of the ruined helicopter, trying to blink away the dizziness. He rolled over, looking up into the clear blue sky, gasping for breath. His side was burning, and he grabbed at it, his hand sliding in blood. But he couldn't stay here. He had to get up, he had to keep going. He wasn't sure why, but he clung onto that one thought screaming in his head, and rolled over onto his stomach, looking up into a shimmering blue.

Feet stepped into his path, and hands grabbed his arms, and he shouted something out, words that didn't make any sense, as more feet ran towards the shimmering blue. "Shut it down!"

And the hands on his arms picked him up, hauled him up and back, slamming him into the chair. The shimmering blue disappeared, leaving him blind for a moment. And when his vision repaired, he was staring at a wall, and his entire body hurt.

He gasped through the pain, tried to breathe through the blood lingering in the back of his throat. His head dropped, his neck too tired to hold it up, and he just breathed.

Time grew vague, and words filtered towards him. He lifted his head, blinking through the blood dripping down his eyes, looking up at the two blurry figures in the room with him.

"I don't think he knows anything."

The voice was desperate, worried, anxious. The next was far from it.

"He knows. He knows something."

"But he hasn't said a word about Atlantis!" There was a pause. "It's been four days. No one's ever lasted four days before."

"He's different. I know he knows something." The voice was cold, and dark, and angry. "And I don't care what it takes, I'm going to know what he knows."

"He's not going to crack."

"He will…" The man gave a small chuckle. "With what I'm going to do to him…"

The words faded away, and he looked up, the silence pounding in his ears. Everything seemed to stop, and the man with the dark, angry voice turned his head slowly, and it wasn't a man anymore, but a white monster, with long hair and slitted cat's eyes, staring deep into his own, suddenly from only millimetres away.

"Are you aware, Sheppard?" the creature demanded, its voice deep and throaty, its eyes never dropping from John's.

And then it slammed its hand down on John's chest, and it laughed as he screamed, throwing his head back, only catching one last glance of the room around him and catching sight of a dirty, thin man looking with a guilty -

John bolted upright, groaning hard as his ribs pulled, and his shoulder complained at the sudden movement, but he barely noticed as he scrabbled at his chest, desperate to remove the clawed hand stuck to his chest.

It wasn't there of course, it had all been a dream, but it took him a few frantic moments to realise it, to become aware of his surroundings. Even then his heart pounded with the fear left by the odd dream, by the white monster with its cat's eyes. But he tried to slow his breathing with the knowledge that it had all been a dream. A very weird dream, no doubt fuelled by the medicine he was still taking, but a dream nonetheless. Now if only he could convince his heart of that.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, rubbing his eyes to remove the grit of sleep. He wasn't about to go back to sleep. Not tonight.

He stood up on a shaky leg, reaching out for his crutches, not even sparing a glance for the discarded wheelchair in the corner. He needed a drink. The dream had left his mouth dry, as if he had really been in the searing heat of the desert.

He hobbled his way towards the kitchen, trying to make as little noise as possible. He didn't want to wake Dave. The man was slightly overbearing in his need to do everything for his little brother.

He left the lights off, using only the moon to make his way over to the tap. His hands shook slightly as he poured a glass of water. And as he drank, his thoughts turned back to the dream.

It wasn't the first weird dream he had had since leaving hospital. But it had been the most memorable. It had felt so real, so lifelike, almost like a memory. Except he had never been to Antarctica, or the desert. Afghanistan. That desert had been Afghanistan.

Yet if he had never been there, how could he know that.

He put the empty glass down and frowned. Had he been there? He didn't think he would forget memorable trips like that.

And that wasn't the worst part. What had been that shimmering blue? It had been beautiful, yet it had filled him with dread. Why had flying filled him with such joy when he was supposedly terrified of it? And what had those men been talking about? Had that been a memory? Had he finally remembered something from that dark time?

He hoped not.

He shook his head, his hands shaking again. This wasn't doing him any good. He poured himself another glass, grabbed one of the crutches leaning against the sink and began to hop his way back to his room.

He paused halfway there, noticing something he hadn't seen before. A map. Before he could stop himself, he turned to look at it, frowning. He couldn't believe he hadn't seen it before. It was huge, covering nearly the whole wall. And at the bottom, a picture of Antarctica.

Without thinking, he balanced himself and reached out with the bottom of the crutch, touching a place softly, an island off the coast of ice, directly below Australia. Then, still frowning, he let the crutch trace the map slowly southwest, towards the pole. It stopped about half way. There was something there. Something important.

He just didn't know what.

He sighed, and brought the crutch back to the floor, taking a sip of water. And once again a vision of the white monster flashed in his mind, laughing and, if he hadn't known any better, sucking the life out of him with its hands.

And he whispered one word. "Wraith."