Author's Note: Wow, the last chapter excited a nice response! Thanks to everyone who reviewed! Here's the next chapter, hopefully it's just getting more and more exciting!

Now, just in case you forgot... last chapter ended with John trying to kill someone...

Chapter 8

Carter fell, lifeless, a bullet between his eyes, even as the frantic people at the door finally got through. They stumbled through, all blank, unfamiliar faces, looking from the dead detective on the floor, to the gun in John's hand, to the dazed look on his face.

And they all pulled their weapons. In unison, as one, so in time that John felt a cold chill run over his spine. He took a step back, even as sirens sounded. Not police sirens. He couldn't place these sirens, and they sounded far away.

No one else seemed to hear them.

"You're not going to get away with this, Sheppard." The officers, still in unison, speaking as one, stepping forward as one, they all cocked their guns. As one.

And for the second time in a minute, a large shot sounded out in the room.

Sheppard jerked backwards, pain flaring in his shoulder as he fell over the desk. He stayed down, knowing, instinctively, that the officers hadn't moved.

"What was that? What's going on in that head of his? Someone tell me or they'll lose their head!"

Sheppard ignored the voice, and eyed the window. He knew there was a fire escape out there. He could make it. Even with a bleeding shoulder, and voices in his head, he could make it.

He ran.

Shots followed him, but not one hit him. And then he was diving through glass, landing hard on the grill of the fire escape. It had been too easy, his run, but he didn't care, as he staggered to his feet, and slid down the ladder to the pavement below.

He didn't bother looking up, knowing they would be staring, as one, out the window. He knew what he had to do now. He needed to get answers. Some straight answers.

And there was only one person who could do that.

Teyla did not like this place.

Not that she thought she should. It was dark, shadowy, lit sparsely by flickering lights, a siren wailing in the distance. It had a dark feel, as well. More than just an absence of light. To her, it felt like it had an absence of anything that was good, and natural.

But according to their guide, this narrow, dark, rank, death-ridden hole would be where they would finally find Sheppard, after these past two weeks.

So she ignored the stench, the cold, the siren and the chill she felt down her spine, and followed the group silently.

The man who had contacted them had introduced himself as Vaiko. He claimed to be a scientist, and Rodney had not been around to refute that claim. In fact, the doctor had been noticeably absent the entire time since Vaiko had contacted them through Joral. Both Mr Woolsey and Chuck were confident he knew what was happening; he just couldn't do it.

Teyla understood, though she had the feeling she was outnumbered in that sentiment. But Rodney had been hurt badly by these people. She was not sure she would have wanted to come back if she had endured what he had.

Not that this was the same place Rodney had been in. But Vaiko claimed that Sheppard had been here the whole time, a prisoner. He had also said that the Colonel was alive. And that was all he had said.

None of them doubted that this could be a trap. But Teyla didn't think so. They were deep in the heart of the facility now. And besides, Woolsey had sent them with a small army, and half a dozen jumpers to back them up.

Still, that chill down her spine was not leaving, and she wished Vaiko would hurry up and bring them to John.

She eyed her surroundings as they crossed an intersection, but the hallways of this building seemed conspicuously empty, especially considering the siren that was telling of their presence. And apparently Ronon was thinking the same thing.

"Where is everybody?" he demanded quietly, and Vaiko shook his head nervously.

"I do not know. I thought we would have come across someone by now." He shook his head again, glanced back. "But we are nearly there. And then you will find use for your weapons."

Vaiko hadn't been lying. Within three more turns he stopped, outside a large set of double doors, made of a metal like iron. Teyla stood up straighter, heart beat steadying. It had to be steady. It had to be. For John.

Vaiko turned to them. It didn't look like his heart beat was steady at all. In fact, he looked like he was about to be sick. "Please... before we go in... I was only following orders. I did not know what..." He paused, looked down, ashamed. "I did not know."

Teyla's heart betrayed her for the slightest second, while the men around her shifted. Ronon growled. "What the hell does that mean?"

Vaiko flinched. "You will not like what you find."

"Just open the doors," Lorne ordered, his voice tense, shoving the P90 harder into the nook of his shoulder. Again, the men shifted as Vaiko placed a hand on the door, and pushed.

The men moved immediately, rushing forward. Teyla followed them, not shouting like they did, but switching her light on, storming in, searching for a target, a raised weapon, anything that would give her an excuse.

What she found made her breath catch, and she let her aim drop as silence fell around her.

It took her a moment to recognise Sheppard. Beneath the bruises, the blood, the pale face, the cuts and scrapes and marks, covering his face, his arms, his naked torso, the blood on his clothes. They had tortured him. Just like they had done to Rodney.

But the bruises were faded, the blood dry. He was still dangling, limply from the chains keeping his feet just from touching the ground, and beneath him was a pool of mess that Teyla didn't even want to describe.

And all over his head were thin leads, like wire, attached to his very skin, no going through his skin, a part of his skin, fused to his head. The leads led away from him, to a dull grey machine, hideous and large, like nothing she had ever seen before on Atlantis, or Earth, lacking a mature grace about it. They were ugly. It was all ugly, a machine like nothing she had ever seen before, attached to John. Her John, their John, their friend, comrade, leader.

"Get it off," she snapped, feeling herself losing control of her tightly held nerves. "Get it off!"

She rushed forward, not knowing what she was doing, just that she couldn't leave John in that for another moment. And her movement triggered the others.

Lorne, his face darker than she had ever seen on him before, he swung his gun, knocking the closest filth covered man down and out. His men moved forward, surrounding the captors, yelling at them to get down on their knees, to stay down or they would blow their brains out. Teyla wasn't sure they wouldn't anyway.

Not that she saw much. She just raced forward, gun dropping, hands reaching out for the leads.

"No!" someone cried out, racing forward as well. Teyla only sensed a threat and spun, P90 coming up, light shining in the eyes of Vaiko.

"Get him out," she ordered evenly, her voice ice cold. The scientist licked his lips and shook his head.

"I cannot," he told her. "I tried. Before I came to you, I tried. It will not let him go."

"What the hell do you mean, it will not?" Lorne demanded, coming over now he knew the men were secure. "It's a machine. Switch it off!"

"I cannot!" Vaiko repeated. "I... It is more than a machine. You should know that! It's Ancestor technology, you should recognise it!"

Teyla looked around, studying it. "Nothing on Atlantis looks like that," Lorne muttered, sharing her appraisal. But then the major shrugged. "It could be an early model though."

"It does not mean it does not have an off switch," she reminded them both. "Where is this one's?"

"I told you, I tried!" Vaiko explained. "But... I do not understand. It should not have worked like this... According to what I had read, it should not have."

There was a pause. "Are you saying you had not used this before?" Teyla demanded.

A beep cut off Vaiko's answer, and all three spun to look at the monitors, gazes raking over Sheppard's body as they did. A second beep joined the first, and then a third, closer, faster, beep after beep. Vaiko's face, if possible, went paler.

"What?" Lorne demanded, moving forward with the scientist. "What is it? What's happening?"

The beeps came faster, and Vaiko quivered. "I believe... I think he is dying."

Lorne shared a desperate look with Teyla. "We must get him back to Atlantis," she told him, stating the obvious. "And fast."

John wasn't sure how he made it to Dave's house. After all, he had a bullet in his shoulder, and he was either spectacularly crazy, or spectacularly clever. He didn't think he was crazy. No, he knew he wasn't. He knew. This was not real.

It was like a mantra he kept repeating in his head, over and over. And he was determined to find answers.

So maybe it shouldn't have come as so much of a surprise when he pushed on Dave's front door with a bloody hand, and entered the house where it had all begun for him.

He walked on through, knowing, instinctively, that his brother would be waiting for him in the lounge room where they had had so many chats. Chats that had been fake. A room that was fake. He was sure of it.

Dave was just getting off the phone when John walked silently in. The younger Sheppard paused by the door, leaning against the frame, just watching his older sibling for a moment. And finally Dave noticed he wasn't alone anymore, turning and jumping off the couch.

"John! What are you..." He trailed off as he spotted the gun still in his hand. "So they weren't lying," he breathed quietly. "You really did kill Carter."

John pushed off the frame and walked in, shaking his head. "Bit hard to kill something that doesn't exist."

"Doesn't ex..." Dave shuddered. "John, why don't you put the gun down, and we'll talk about this, okay?"

Well, he never had been one for taking orders. He raised the gun instead, and Dave flinched, putting his hands up. "John, what are you doing?"

"Getting answers," the younger man answered. "You need to tell me the truth, Dave."

He cocked the gun, taking a step forward. Dave took a step back and licked his lips. "What did you want to know, little brother?"

"Stop pretending," John snapped. "I know, okay! I know, none of this is real. It's all in my head, and you are not my brother!"

"Really?" Dave demanded, chancing a look at the gun. "Cause you sure look like my brother."

"Apparently looks can be deceiving," Sheppard let him know. "All this time, you looked like you were helping me... what were you really doing?"

"Not my job," Dave answered glibly. "John... please, can we talk about this without the gun. Like we used to."

He felt his heart clench, and before he knew it, he had pulled the trigger again.

The only problem was, Dave didn't even jerk as the bullet hit his shoulder. Oh, red bloomed, and he looked down at the wound. But when he looked back... he grinned.

John's jaw dropped, and his heart pounded again. This time he grunted, bending slightly. When he looked back, Dave was closer, and his hands were down.

"Oh, what's the matter, little brother?" he asked, sneering. "Not feeling so well."

"Get back!" John cried, doing as he had ordered, stumbling back, bringing the gun up again as his heart pounded. It pounded and pounded, and the world was going dull. "What are you doing to me?"

"Me, nothing," Dave answered, stepping forward. "But this whole crazy business you have going on seems to be taking a toll, little brother."

"I'm not your little brother!" John screamed. "Stop lying to me! Stop it! What are you doing to me! What's Atlantis? Who the hell is McKay? And why am I in a world that isn't real?"

"Got it all figured out, huh?" Dave asked, grinning. "You think you're so clever. But you're wrong." He leaned forward. "There is no McKay."

"Stop..." John warned, standing up straighter, face strained as his heart continued pounding, desperate to break out of his chest.

Dave leaned closer, whispering. "I'm not doing anything to you."

"Stop it!"

"Atlantis doesn't exist, John," he breathed, and John took a step back again. His back rammed into the wall.

"Stop lying to me!" he screamed, hand shaking on the gun as it pointed at his older brother's face and shape.

"All this... all this is real, John. All this is real, little brother!"

"STOP IT!"

But his scream was drowned out and before he even realised what was happening, his brother was on the ground, and an extra hole peered out of his forehead.

There was silence, broken only by John's heaves as he tried to breathe through the chest pain. But it was a different kind of chest pain this time. What had he done? What if this...

"No..." he whispered, as the gun dropped from his hand, feeling sick, nauseas, dizzy. He couldn't breathe. "No! Dave!"

He raced forward, knocking a chair out of the way as he rushed to his brother's body, picking it up, cradling it as he tried not to stare at the hole in the middle of his brother's head. "Oh God, Dave! No, no, no, no, no! Dave!"

What had he done? How could he... how could he have killed his own brother? Just pulled the trigger, and... and... "No! No, I didn't... oh, God, I'm so sorry! I'm so..."

He turned and vomited, crawling away from Dave's cooling body as he brought up nothing but acid and guilt. He kept vomiting, just thinking about how he had killed his brother... it was enough to set him off again, and again, until he couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't do anything except sit there on all fours and let tears stream down his face onto the ground.

Two hands on each of his arms made him jump. He looked around, saw men in white coats storming the room. And the chest pain quickly turned from grief to panic.

"NO!"

But the hands hauled him upright, and began dragging him backwards, feet kicking against the carpet. They dragged him away, away from his brother. "No, let me go! Let me go! No! Dave, no!"

But the hands were too strong, and the room faded from view, and his heart pounded, causing him to screw his eyes tight as the fire spread throughout his entire chest.

And when he opened them again, he was on his back, moving over uneven ground, jerking, jolting; his entire body was on fire, and head felt ready to explode.

Whatever he was on suddenly stopped moving, and a loud, incredulous voice cut through the pain he was feeling. "Major!"

A face appeared in his blurry vision, quickly replaced by another two faces, a man and a woman. He had seen that woman somewhere. And those dreads...

He tried to speak, to say anything about the familiarity suddenly washing through him, but found he couldn't, so they spoke for him, their mouths moving. But no sound came out, and he blinked once, wondering if that would work.

And he was back, kicking and screaming as people dragged him away, out of the house, into the street, where people watched with horror and sick fascination.

"No!" he screamed, struggling with all his strength. He tried to get up onto his feet, tried to fight back, but they just kept on dragging him. Dragging him to his own private hell.

The world blinked this time, and the sickened faces were replaced with anxious ones, surrounded by a deep blue he knew. He knew that blue. A part of him called for that blue.

Words reached him this time. "John. Can you hear me? John? Are you with us, Jo-?"

The world blinked, and he was dragged up, off the rough ground and into a van. But the dragging didn't stop there as the door slammed close, sending him into darkness.

Light appeared, and the room was magnificent. He knew this room. He knew this place. His soul knew this...

The world didn't so much blink as falter, sinking back into a long white hallway. And still he kicked and screamed, desperate this time not so much to stop the men taking him, but to get back to what he knew was home. He knew it!

"Let me go, no, stop it, stop it! I'm not... Stop! Please, stop!"

And he tried for that room, for that song, for his call on his soul. But he got only one flash, one unsteady flash, of blue and green, and soaring ceilings, and...

It disappeared behind a white door, and suddenly he was alone. The hands on his arms let go, and he raced forward, desperate to catch that closing door, knowing if he didn't, he would be stuck here, in this white cell, forever.

But his fingertips only just brushed the edge, and that song was gone, leaving him empty and desolate.

"No..." he muttered, agony welling up inside him. "No! No, no, no, no, no!"

And then he was kicking at the door, punching and clawing and screaming, and he didn't even notice when someone grabbed his shoulder, except that he was turning, and a fist was coming his way.

His jaw exploded into physical pain and he went down, slipping down the white door, blackness clawing at the edges of his vision. And as he succumbed, not sure what else he could do, he finally decided he must be crazy.

Because the face that had knocked him out had been his own.

Hmm, has the shit hit the proverbial fan... Guess you'll find out tomorrow...

Question: How do people feel about... werewolves?