Author's Note: Sorry for not posting last night, finally managed to get some sleep! I know, there was actually a night when I didn't have to worry about assignments!

Anyways, thanks again to everyone who reviewed! And here's the next chapter...

Chapter 6

Finding out if he was insane or not turned out to be a lot harder than he thought it should be. Dave didn't seem to leave the house for the next three days. Which was weird, and odd, and wrong on so many levels. The most important of those being that it just didn't sit right with John. And the more he thought about it, the more he realised everything here just did not feel right, and it was because of more than the surreal feeling the shrink said torture would have caused.

But he kept his feelings from Dave; he didn't want to freak his brother out. Instead he spent his time building the models he had bought at the mall, and reading the book he had gotten. War and Peace. He figured he was going to be out of action for a long time, why not buy a book that took a long time to read.

But finally Dave went back to work, and John heaved a sigh of relief as the man walked out the door. Finally, he could get down to business.

It didn't help that he didn't really know how to get down to business. How did one go about finding out if one were crazy or not? He thought, on some level, that even considering the fact that he might be going crazy should have been a sign that everything in his head was right and well, and that the doc was right: that these feelings were because of what had happened to him.

But everything that was happening to him was not right and well, and he shoved away the model pieces as he came to that conclusion. Yet again.

He sighed and leaned back in his chair. This wasn't working. He was losing his mind while he was trying to decide if he was losing his mind.

He gave a growl without realising it, and pushed away from the table, grabbing his crutches and hobbling his way down to the bathroom. Going around in circles was giving him a headache.

The Tylenol tasted terrible going down, but he swallowed anyway, leaning against the basin and looking at the mirror. And for the first time since he had gotten out of hospital, he really studied himself.

Something was wrong, he quickly decided. He was pale, the thin scar on his forehead livid against his white skin. He was a lot thinner as well, his clothes hanging off him. His hair was longer, oily, lank, lying flat on his head. He shook his head. This needed to change. He couldn't do this. He looked terrible. Why hadn't Dave said anything?

He backed up and turned around, quickly stripping and getting in the shower. It was all on impulse, he wasn't thinking anymore. He couldn't think, couldn't deal. Not only was his mind turning on him, now his body wasn't even him.

He turned the hot water on and refused to flinch as it hit him, just taking it, letting it wake him up. His skin turned red quickly, but he ignored it, just leaning on the side of the shower, his palm against the cool tiles, just letting it all wash over him.

Eventually he turned the cold water on a little, just to make the heat bearable. And he turned his face up at the stream, trying to find John Sheppard. Even if he didn't really know who John Sheppard was anymore. Or maybe because of it.

But the fact that he didn't know who he was, it didn't scare him. He felt relaxed, light, weightless, and, again completely on impulse, he thought about the shrink's dark lake.

He walked quickly into it this time, not stopping, not scared, just curious. Within seconds he was submerged, and within a few more, the lake was singing to him.

Only this time it was different. He didn't hear it, and the tune was different. And its melody reverberated through his very bones, in his bloodstream, in his heart, his soul. In reality, he stood up straighter, recognising that tune, but in his mind, he just stood there, still as stone, listening to that song, knowing it, and not caring that he couldn't place it. Because, whatever it was, it sung to him. And only to him.

Curious, he followed the tune, or it followed him, either way, he moved, and the lake around him shifted, changed, and grew.

And suddenly he was standing on a balcony. The space before him was wide open, blue ocean spread out before him, meeting the sky at a far distant horizon. The view took his breath away, and he just stared at it, never once thinking about turning around. He had a vague idea of a wall behind him, of windows and soaring architecture, and a beauty rarely seen on Earth. But it was in the back of his mind, mostly forgotten as he stared, hypnotised, at the rippling blue of the ocean.

He had no idea how long he stood there, but after a while he realised the blue was changing. Shrinking, and becoming a deeper blue. And his fascination changed, because he actually did recognise this blue. He had seen it before, in his dreams.

Suddenly a person moved past him, a blur in his mind, but moving slowly, more slowly than they actually would have. Words shouted at him, distorted, as a featureless face turned back to yell at him with intensity. With fear.

His heart began pounding as that fear caught on. But it was too late. A searing pain pounded into his shoulder, from behind, and he screamed out as it went right through.

His body, still standing up in the shower, jerked, but in his mind, he just pushed the person through the blue: they disappeared and he turned, to attack. And fell.

Holding into consciousness he tried to crawl forward, using one arm, the other one all but useless, drenched in blood. He wasn't sure where it led, or why it did lead somewhere, or how he knew that it did. But it did, and he needed to follow that person-blur. Because he couldn't stay here.

But he had no choice about it. Just like in his earlier dreams. Feet appeared in front of him, hands grabbed at him, and blurs tried to follow through the blue. A deeper fear gripped him, and again he shouted words that held no meaning for him.

"Shut it down!"

The blue died instantly, and he was hauled to his feet, arms bound behind his back, tightly with coarse rope. He tried to fight, but he couldn't. The pain in his shoulder was almost paralysing, and he could feel himself falling deeper into the blackness of his own mind.

No!

And with his real mind's desperate plea, the world shifted. The blackness sprung away from his vision, the pain in his shoulder disappeared, and he was staring up into cold, familiar eyes as he was shoved down into a chair. The world shifted as well, the forest becoming a dull beige prison room, an antique camera staring at his face.

He looked up into those cold eyes, and scowled with anger, hate. His mouth moved, but he couldn't catch the words. The other man just grinned, though it didn't really touch his eyes. Didn't warm them up... they just remained cold.

And then a door slammed open, and John jumped to look, his stomach dropping as he took in the white haired monster, shuffling towards him, hand outstretched. He tried to lean back, away, but he could only move so far when he was tied to the chair. His heart beat so fast he thought it would burst from his chest, and he knew he had to get away. Knew he had to... be... anywhere but... HERE!

The world blinked, and suddenly the monster was standing over him. The cold eyed man was gone, and the bare walls were covered in chains, and tools, and blood. And he wasn't sitting anymore, but standing up, arms wrenched above his head.

The world was hazy, and thick, his movements sluggish as he struggled to lift his head, his eyes sliding closed, his mind slipping away already. But the monster was still in front of him, though now it looked worried, guilty as he slipped away.

Can you hear me? Please, hear me! Come back. Fight it, fight –

Another door slammed open, and the monster turned away, only now he wasn't a monster, he was the man who had been staring at him in the hospital, the guilty man. And that was all he saw as the man backed away, fear ripe on his face, fading away as he faded away...

And the world blinked.

He wrenched his eyes open, and he was still standing. But he wasn't back, not back to reality... whatever reality was. He was still stuck, stuck in this world he had slipped unwittingly into. And he wanted out.

He tried picturing the dark of the lake, like the doctor had told him, but it didn't work. He opened his eyes and moved forward down the corridor, stealthily, gun up, heart now surprisingly steady. And he realised he was searching for someone.

Forgetting about the lake, he let his body take him where it wanted. It wandered through a dark grey facility, lights blinking above, electricity sparking. It was dark and shadowy, but he felt no fear. Just a niggling feeling in the back of his stomach that he needed to find something.

Someone.

A door was suddenly in front of him, and he opened it up with a single, gentle push. A terrible smell hit his nose, of blood and shit and death. Old death, for which he was thankful. He took a step in, and there he was. The person he was searching for.

Too bad he didn't recognise him. Sheppard walked forward anyway, moving towards the man dangling from the ceiling. One shoulder was dislocated, that was easy to tell, but the man didn't move, didn't shake from the pain he had to be in. He just hung there, face swollen, bleeding, dripping.

Sheppard approached him, disgusted, furious, scared, all without knowing why. He let his P90 drop to his chest, and reached out to touch the man, heart beating fast. He really hoped he wasn't dead.

And as he looked up and studied the man, it was like a door opened, and a name to match the face slipped out...

"McKay..."

Stars suddenly flew across his vision, and before he realised he had been hit across the head, he was on the ground, McKay's feet dangling in front of him. And then he was off the ground, hauled upwards and backwards, slammed heavily enough into a chair that it ripped the air from his lungs.

And the white haired monster, his now human eyes boring deep into John's, looking, searching for anything, any sign of life... it let a guilty sigh out. "Are you still in there?"

And then it's voice changed, became deeper, throatier, and it suddenly grinned at him as it raised its hand, ready. "Are you even aware?"

Sheppard jumped and then groaned as his body protested. He blinked, and then focused, a little disturbed to be staring at tiles. Wet tiles. And water was still washing over him.

He was back. Back in reality. If this was really reality. McKay. McKay was reality. He knew that name, knew it from somewhere. And Atlantis. He knew Atlantis. Of course, he didn't know exactly what either of them were. But they were something. Something everyone else was hiding from him. Hell, the world seemed to be hiding them from him.

But he was determined. He had to find out. Groaning, he got to his feet, using the side of the shower to support himself as he struggled to get upright. He turned the taps off, wondering how long he had been like that, and not caring. Because he had to find out.

He knew he couldn't use Dave's computer anymore. Not to search things. Dave would know. And whatever this was, Dave was in on it.

Then again, by the time he stepped off the bus outside the internet cafe, he was less sure that this even existed. But he stuck to his guns and walked inside, not sure if he even wanted to know. If he found out neither McKay, nor Atlantis, even existed, it would prove he was crazy. But somehow the idea that he wasn't, that this might be some sick joke, that Dave was keeping him from knowing... whatever it was... that felt like it could be worse.

But he went inside the dark cafe and sat down at a computer near the back, telling himself that people weren't staring at him, that he was being paranoid.

He opened up the search engine and typed in 'Atlantis'. And then he sat there. He couldn't hit enter. His finger hovered over the button for a minute, as he licked his lips, wondering if he should just stop here and now, because surely Dave wouldn't do this to him. He was his brother, after all.

He hit delete, and then paused again, remembering his shock at finding Dave looking after him. After what had happened last year...

He scowled at himself, bracing his shoulders, and typing in the word 'McKay'. This time he hit enter before he could even think about stopping himself.

He sighed as soon as the results appeared on the page. 38,383,838 results. That was a lot of results. And he had only bought fifteen minutes of internet time. That was all he was going to give himself before he decided he just needed to spend more time in the shrink's office.

Well, he better get started.

John ignored the first few results, pages about two-way radios, and wedding photos, and some computer science guy from a university in Australia, and just scrolled down the page, hoping something would jump out at him. He ignored the results for mackay, knowing that definitely wasn't it. Something about some character in a television show. Nope, that wasn't it.

He gave a growl as he hit the bottom. Nothing. This was pointless. Then again, he was only two minutes in. He went back to the top of the page and hit the first link, the one about two-way radios. And that was exactly what it was about. He went back to the search results and hit the second link. The wedding photos were beautiful, but not what he was looking for.

Though if he were honest, he didn't know what exactly he was looking for. He gave another growl, quickly getting annoyed with himself, and clicked on the third link. He rubbed his eyes, feeling a pit of desperation burst into life in his stomach, and looked up at the screen.

And blinked. He recognised that face. The guy in the bookstore... before he had changed. Though he could have sworn the picture kept... sliding, shifting, trying to change. He leaned in closer, concentrating, though it was hard when the picture had a dreamlike quality.

He looked at the rest of the page. The link had lied. It wasn't about some professor from an Australian university. Actually, he didn't know where SGC was. Might have been a college, a town, anything for all he knew. He scrolled down, looking for any writing that might explain.

The only problem was, like the picture, the words kept shifting, changing, blurry more often than not, and he could only make out a few words here and there. Most kept coming back to him.

Genius.

SGC, whatever that was.

Physicist, scientist.

A few dozen words, nothing specific, but enough to get him hooked. Enough to worm into his mind and knock at a door to something he wasn't sure he wanted to open. But he kept looking, listening to that part of him that needed to find out more.

And then one word made him gasp, made his heart pound, made his breathing pause.

Atlantis. He was right, McKay, whoever he was besides a genius scientist, was connected to Atlantis...

Did that mean he wasn't losing his mind? And what was really happening if he wasn't?

That made him more anxious than anything, and he rubbed his eyes again. And when he looked back, the words were gone.

"No!" he cried softly, scrolling frantically up and down the page. But it was all gone. The words, the blurry picture, even the name in the corner. What had it been? What? "No, no, no!"

But it was too late, and he stared at the gray page, trying to remember to breath as he lost everything again. And he was back to the question of whether or not he was crazy.

But at least he knew, even if he was crazy, they couldn't take away the fact that McKay was –

A hand on his shoulder made him jump a foot off the chair, jumping up and spinning around, heart beating frantically. The man who had touched him flinched back, a worried look on his face as he snapped his arm away.

"Hey, sorry, didn't mean to scare you."

John shook his head, calming down slowly, something niggling inside of him. He ignored it, and just looked up at the man. "No, it's okay. Did you want something?"

The tanned man looked at him cautiously. "I just wanted to check you were okay, man." He gestured at the screen. "You've been staring at that one page for about twenty minutes."

"What?" John demanded, spinning around. "No I hav-."

He cut off as he looked down at the yellow page. The yellow page that had been gray only seconds before. "What... No."

He sat back down, forgetting about the dreaded man who had broken his concentration, and just stared at the page.

"McKay's Canadian Lemonade..." he breathed, not sure what to make of it. It wasn't possible. He had been staring at a grey screen, about a McKay, a real person, not some company. He shook his head again, and backed away, pushing past the worried looking young man without even noticing him. He was going crazy. That had to be it. It explained everything. It couldn't be anything else. He was going crazy, and his broken mind was looking for any way to explain it.

He walked out of the cafe and caught the next bus, still in a daze. He was halfway home before he realised what else had been bugging him. He had recognised that dreaded man.

He just didn't know where from.

He was sitting on the couch, thinking about it when Dave got home that night. He ignored his brother's usual noisy and talkative entrance. Did he want a coffee? How was his day? Could he believe the audacity of someone or other?

John ignored it all, barely even able to comprehend what his brother was saying. It was all too much on top of what he was already thinking about.

His silence must have been a warning, because Dave's voice quickly drifted off, and his feet became louder as he rushed towards the living room. The older man paused at the door, looking in on John, his face quickly paling. "John, what's wrong?"

The younger man shook his head, and then ran his fingers through his hair. "Dave, I think I'm going crazy."

There was a long pause as the older brother stared down at him, his eyes quickly moving from worried, to frantic, to scared, to anxious. "What makes you say that?" he asked gently as he moved into the room, taking one of the armchairs close to John.

John just shook his head again. "Because... Shit, because all this feels wrong."

"John, we've been over this," Dave answered softly. "The doctor's been over this with you. It's a perfectly natural -."

"No," John interrupted. "Not this. I... Dammit, Dave, sometimes I don't even think this is real!"

There, he had finally said it out loud, and it made his heart rate soar. He stood up, needing to move, to pace, to just do something besides sit there and worry over what the hell was happening to his head. "These nightmares I'm having... They're of things that can't be real. Places I've never been, people I've never met, monsters I really hope aren't real. No, that aren't real! At least, I think..." He shook his head, turned looked at Dave, rubbing his face. "And then... I go looking for them, Dave! I know... I thi... know they're not real, and I – I go looking for them!"

Dave licked his lips, easily picking up on his little brother's soaring anxiety. And then he stood up, striding over, grabbing John by the arms. "John, listen to me. This has to be normal. You just went through a terrible ordeal! You're mind... it's a little traumatised, but you have not lost it!"

"Don't say that!" John snapped, shoving the arms away, spinning around, needing to hit something, to shout something, to do anything but having no idea what. He settled for spinning back. "Dave, my mind is making up these things, and... God, I have no idea how to explain it!"

"Just try," Dave told him with a soothing voice. What was meant to be soothing. "You said you go looking for these things. Do you find them?"

John shook his head. "No. Yes. I don't know! I don't know! One second I have, and the next, it's a bunch of blurry words and pictures that make no sense, like they're in a different language! And the next second, it's completely gone, and I don't know what to do anymore, Dave! Just..." He turned back to his brother, grabbed his arms. "Just tell me -."

His heart gave a vicious throb, and he groaned, leaning over. The world seemed to blink, and then he was back, standing up right, with Dave talking to him.

"... looking for these things. Do you find them?"

John didn't answer, backing up. "What the... What the hell is happening?"

Dave frowned. "John. Do you -."

His heart pounded again, and John groaned, grabbing at his chest, and then cried out as his heart pounded again. He looked up at Dave, who hadn't seemed to notice. The man's mouth was still moving, but he wasn't saying what he had already said twice. And it wasn't in Dave's voice.

"No! We can't leave him like this any longer!"

John took another step back, some distant part of his mind wondering why he hadn't hit the wall yet. But he quickly forgot about that as his heart pounded again, the blood pumping through his veins making his head light, a sound like rushing in his ears. But he could still hear Dave. Or not Dave.

"You'll do as ordered, Vaiko." Again, a different voice. John looked up at his brother's figure and felt his breathing hitch in his chest. "If we let them take him, they'll destroy us. They'll kill us all."

The first voice answered, still using Dave's mouth, and John felt his legs give way beneath him. "This is not going to help you!"

"Neither will calling Atlantis!"

The second voice was almost drowned out by another pound of his heart, and suddenly Dave was gone. The entire room was gone. What was that?

The second voice asked it, but it was in his head. John tried to take a breath, tried to heave some air into his lungs, but he failed, and he tried to claw his way back to reality.

Is he... Is he waking up?

He's trying to... Can you hear me? Come to my voice! It would really help if I knew his name!

I told you, all I want is results! Get them for me!

That's hard when you're killing him! We have no idea what's going on, or why the machine's...

The world blanked out, and John felt like he was drowning. He tried to gasp for breath, and received only more words for his efforts.

...we need the help of someone who understands this technology!

And how will they look upon us torturing not one, but two of their people. Wake him up if you can, Vaiko, but – what was that ...

The voices faded out again, and John took another gasp. This time his lungs filled with air, and the world seemed to shimmer back into place. He was lying on his side, a hand on his shoulder. And he was exhausted. He couldn't get his eyes to open, or his body to move, and so he surrendered, falling into black unconsciousness.

"John, can you hear me? John!" Are you aware... I'm not letting you die...

Hmm... The plot thickens...