"It makes no sense," Elizabeth stated to the people gathered in front of her in the briefing room, "one scientist and three military personnel are now missing with no trace of where they have gone or how they disappeared. Please, tell me one of you has an idea what is going on here." When all she received were blank stares in return, she shook her head and went on, "Okay. Rodney, how are you doing in linking the biosensors and our DNA profiles?"

"Done. It was easy really, all I had to do was-" he trailed off when he saw everyone looking away. "I also tried to analyse the biological compound Bonadan found. Or should I say, claims to have found. There was nothing there."

"Hang on," Sheppard began, "you're trying to tell me that whatever it was that Bonadan discovered has now disappeared, just like him and three other people. That doesn't strike you as strange?"

"Well, when you put it that way."

"So, what about the notes he made on his discovery," Elizabeth prompted.

"Aye, myself and Dr. Resh have been reading through them," came Carson's thick accent, "she was his lab partner and had been helping him. It appears to be an organic, carbon based compound, that produces energy on its own. Our original theory was that it did this through something similar to photosynthesis but now we're not so sure and without the specimen to study we can't give you a more definitive answer."

"Isn't there anything in the database about it?" John asked.

"There might be but the database is huge, it could take us days maybe even weeks to find it and then translate it."

Turning to Teyla, Elizabeth asked, "have you ever heard of anything like this ever happening?"

"I do recall a story I was told when we were trading on Balmorra, about a planet called Gishcar, however it was many years ago and I believed it to be a simple children's story." Looking at the expectant faces she took a deep breath and plunged into the story, "The told me of a village very similar to their own on another planet that they used to trade with. One day when they stepped through the ring of the ancestors they found everyone in the village dead. All the bodies that they found showed signs of experimentation and torture. Arms had been severed, blood had been drained, and in some case even replaced with different substances, or so we were told. The only clue they ever found to what happened was a diary in the chieftain's home. In it he described how day by day they woke to find that people had disappeared during the night. Within a few days the people began to reappear, dead or near enough. Within weeks the dead outnumbered the living and it was there that chieftain's diary ended. I had believed it to simply be a story designed to scare children, now however, with what is happening here I am no longer so certain."

"That really brightened up the room," John muttered, breaking the silence that had descended. "Guess we add Gishcar, was it?" he asked looking to Teyla who nodded, "to the list of things we need to search through the database for."

"Could raising the shield not prevent anybody from leaving the city?" Teyla asked.

Nodding, Rodney agreed, "it's worth trying."

"And in the meantime, how do we protect everyone living in the city?" When there was no answer Elizabeth sat back in her chair and sighed looking at the people sat around her. They were all exhausted, staying awake on a blend of coffee, adrenaline and fear. "So what you're saying is there's nothing we can do except wait and see if anyone else vanishes?" Elizabeth summarised. "There's nothing we can do?"

"No." Rodney's response dampened the spirits of everyone in the room and with nothing else to do Elizabeth dismissed them watching as they all filed out. John hung back, waiting until the doors folded closed before he went and perched on the table in front of her.

"We'll work it out." When she didn't respond he gently took hold of her face and raised her head so he could look her in the eyes, smiling slightly when her green eyes locked onto his brown ones, "trust me."

"I do trust you John, but I don't like the idea of sitting around and waiting." Moving her head from his palms she ran her hands over her face and stood up, planning to head to the door when John's arm caught her around the waist and turned her to face him. There was slight smile playing on his face as he stood up against her, changing the angle so she was looking up at him. Again he took her face in his hands but waited to see the permission in her eyes before gently kissing her, short and sweet, before pulling back and stepping out of her space. She smiled at him then, for the first time since they'd been handed the names of the latest missing people before heading out to her office and sitting down.

It was a few hours later when the alarms started blaring again and within minutes everyone was in the control room, trying to look over Rodney's shoulder as he furiously typed on his console. "I've found Dr. Bonadan," he finally said, a slight hint of disbelief in his voice. In his mind he'd been expecting to lose someone else.

"Where?" John and Elizabeth said at the same time, causing Rodney to duck away at the sound of their voices so close to his ear.

"East pier." John turned to Elizabeth and seeing her nod, tapped his comms and called a security team together before sprinting off to meet them.

Rodney and Elizabeth tracked the team's movements on the bio scanners and listened with open comms at the brief chatter of SO's as the closed in on Dr. Bonadan's location. As the light gold dots gathered around what Rodney and Elizabeth assumed was Dr. Bonadan they collectively held their breath, not knowing what John and his team were seeing.

"He's dead." John's voice held a vague sense of horror at what he was seeing.

Elizabeth couldn't help but ask, "are you sure?"

"Oh, I'm sure." Elizabeth's shoulders slumped at the certainty in his voice, she had been hoping he was still alive. "We'll take him to the infirmary."

"OK, I'll meet you there," Elizabeth nodded for Rodney to cut the connection before heading down the stairs and away from the control room.

Carson was already stood by a bed in a side room when she arrived, greeting her with a quick, tight smile as she stood beside him. When the infirmary doors opened again they saw John walking towards them his arms behind him, carrying the stretcher with Ronon at the other end. The body on the stretcher was covered with a sheet but already blood had soaked through in some places. The two men placed the stretcher down gently before stepping back and looking to Carson and then Elizabeth. Part of John wanted to ask Elizabeth to leave the room, to spare her seeing a member of the expedition dead but he had too much respect for her to do that. Besides, she'd never agree. The snapping sound of latex gloves pulled him from his thoughts and John looked to Carson as the scot took a deep breath before pulling back the sheet. Opposite him he felt, more than saw Elizabeth flinch and heard Carson's "bloody hell," as all eyes in the room turned to body in front of them.

The skin on Doctor Bonadan's left arm had been removed, the muscles cut through and pinned apart with some kind of thread leaving his bones exposed, what was most eerie though, was his face. His eyes were wide open, locked looking at whatever he had seen last, his mouth frozen in sharp line. Gently Carson tried to close his eyes but found the skin beneath his fingers solid, a concrete like quality to it.

"We tried doing that when we found him," John commented, "couldn't move any of his limbs either." Carson looked up and nodded briefly before returning to the body on the table.

After another minute he stood back from the bed, "this is going to take me a while. I can give you a report when I'm finished."

"Alright, thank you Carson." Moving to the door, John fell in behind Elizabeth with Ronon at his side as they walked the halls of Atlantis back to the control room. Ronon grunted something about sparring and disappeared down one of the corridors leaving John and Elizabeth on their own.

"I hate this, not being able to do anything," Elizabeth said, "it's been two days since this started and we've one person dead and three missing." John could hear the strain in her voice, see the worry in her eyes and he couldn't do anything. He felt just as helpless and it was killing him. By the time they'd reached her office they'd discovered a dejected air about all the personnel of Atlantis and despite Elizabeth stopping and chatting with almost everyone they met it didn't seem to change. John watched as she slumped down in her chair and ran her fingers through her hair before opening her laptop. Seeing her so sad made him want to hold her tight, to protect her from this latest nightmare.

The light was beginning to fade from the windows by the time he spoke again, "come on, it's getting late." When she didn't respond he waited for a minute, watching as her eyes came to life a little before she looked at him.

"I may have a mission for you."

"What do you mean?" he asked, leaving Atlantis in what he felt was a building crisis didn't seem like a great idea.

"I had the computer run a search for Gishcar, or anything similar and it seems to have found something. A small planet that was previously an Ancient outpost during the construction of Atlantis. It seems they abandoned it a few centuries after the city was built. It looks like it may have been a biological research post before they left," pausing to catch her breath, Elizabeth looked across the table to John and saw the same hope mirrored in his eyes. "There may be something there that could help us."

"I hate to play devil's advocate here but if it's the same place then why wasn't an Ancient outpost in Teyla's story?"

"Maybe it was some distance from the gate, or in a whole other location. Perhaps even hidden like some of the other labs you've found. Either way I think it's worth a shot."

"I tend to agree. I can have my team ready to go within the hour," he said as he stood.

"No," Elizabeth stopped him with a weary sigh, "like you said it's late, so late that half your team is probably asleep. You're going to need to be alert. Go first thing. Take Major Lorne's team too, more eyes on this can only be a good thing."

Sheppard stopped and thought for a moment, hearing the sense in her words despite his need to act, "Elizabeth, by that time more people could have disappeared and we could have more bodies coming back."

"I know that John, but if you go out there and miss something we could be in an even worse position than we are now."

Finally nodding in agreement, John left her office with a parting, "We'll leave at oh seven hundred."

Sitting back in her chair, Elizabeth looked across to the control room watching the light gold dots move around on the screen. Most were still and on their own, expedition members asleep and in their quarters or working late sat in labs at computer stations. Knowing that they were finally taking action Elizabeth acknowledged the need for sleep and headed to her own room passing one of Sheppard's security teams as she went. Sweeping her hand over the sensor, Elizabeth headed over to the bed, collapsing into it and snuggling into John's chest as she fell asleep, only to be woken a few hours later when Chuck's voice crackled into her ear.

"We've lost two more people ma'am, Maria Hicks and Eric Samuels."

"Acknowledged, I'll be there soon," she replied groggily before rolling out of her bed and stumbling to the shower. Part of her was pinning all her hopes that the off world teams would find something on Gishcar before they all disappeared while the other part wondered if there was anything they could do at all.