The Hungry and the Dead (2/4)
Part Two
Teyla woke up to a bluish-green ceiling and a soft bed underneath her. Atlantis? Had it all been a dream? She listened for the sounds she had grown used to after so many years in the city of the Ancestors and frowned when all she heard was a faint vibration.
She turned her head to look around the room. It was sparsely furnished-just the bed, a table and two chairs. The design reminded her of Atlantis, and yet… It wasn’t her room, or the infirmary, or any room she remembered seeing before. She pushed herself up until she was sitting and closed her eyes at the stiff muscles. Hot pain lanced through her arms and shoulders, shooting down her back.
So it hadn’t been a dream. The memory of waking up and finding John next to her, ashen and not breathing, slammed into her and she bit her lip at the sharp pain clawing at her chest. She could feel the hour of intense CPR in her entire body, all the way down to her knuckles and she could almost feel the warmth of his skin, taunting her again.
“Enough,” she breathed out. She groaned as she swung her legs over the side. Her head felt heavy, like she had overslept, and she wondered how long she’d been lying in the bed. She was wearing nothing but her pants and brown woven shirt; whoever had taken her weapons had also seen fit to remove her boots and belt. She shook her head. This was the second instance in a very short span of time that she’d woken up without remembering passing out or falling asleep.
Along the far wall was a large blue panel that looked very similar to the television screens from Earth. She stood, ignoring how her muscles pulled when she moved, and reached a hand out toward the panel. The material was soft like a gel. Not like any screen she had ever encountered, and she didn’t remember seeing this type of decoration on Atlantis. The feeling that she was somewhere else renewed itself with intensity.
Her last memory was of being in the jumper. Something had been approaching them, but Rodney had not known what. She vaguely recalled being thrown from her seat in the jumper, but she didn’t think she’d hit her head. Rodney had still been in his seat, and Ronon in the back with John. Where were they now? Had they also woken up in this place? She felt her heart begin to pound as she more fully grasped her situation. Had they been captured? It seemed the logical conclusion. But who? And what did they want?
A door sat in the center of the third wall and she walked up to it. When it slid open at her approach she jumped back. Certainly the room was much more comfortable than their usual prison cell, but an unlocked door? It shut as she moved back, and she approached it a little more cautiously. It slid open again, as responsive as any of the doors on Atlantis. She stepped up to the frame and peered out into the hallway.
No guards. No sign of anyone, actually. She stepped into the hall expecting the sudden blare of an alarm, but nothing happened. She felt suddenly alone-isolated in this strange place. Its similarity to Atlantis was stronger in the hallway, and more unsettling. Where was she? Where were Ronon and Rodney? John was…John was beyond their help, but she would not leave this place without him either.
Her room was at the far end of a hallway and she walked its length, running her hand along the wall. She found two more rooms identical to the one she had woken up in, but they had both been empty. At the first junction, she turned left and walked the length of another hallway. She quickened her pace as she passed more empty rooms and no sign of her teammates and eventually wove her way back to where she’d started.
The blue gel panels ran through all of the corridors. She reached out toward one of them and was surprised to feel it grow warm under her palm. Was it more than a decoration then? As if in answer to her question, a light sparked deep within it then shot into the adjacent panel. Teyla followed the white line, and the ball of light shot ahead to the next one.
She hesitated, not sure if she should follow this blindly. The light moved again, a line of white trailing in its path. What else could she do? She would have to move carefully. She walked to the end of the hall and paused, turning toward the right when the small sparkling star jumped in a new direction.
The light led her into a small closet, and she recognized it as a transporter a second later. She hesitated again but eventually stepped into it. The room flashed and the doors slid open, but she stayed out of sight, straining her ears. From what she could see of the hallway, it was identical to the level she’d just left.
“Teyla?”
The voice was soft but instantly recognizable. She felt relief wash out of her as she stepped into the hallway and rushed toward Ronon. He stood a few feet away from the transporter, his body tense but relaxing visibly as she came into view. She threw her arms around him and pressed her head against his chest. He was safe, which meant there was a good chance that Rodney was as well. The feeling of not being alone in this strange place was almost overwhelming.
“You okay?” Ronon asked, pushing her back enough to look down at her face.
She nodded. “Yes, I am fine. Have you seen anyone?”
“No.” He glanced around the hall as Teyla pulled herself away. “What is this place?”
“I do not know. My last memory before waking here is of the jumper.”
“Me too,” he said. He patted his hands down his shirt. “They took all my weapons. And my leather coat. And boots.”
“Mine as well. We should look for Rodney.”
They began a sweep of the hallways, but Teyla soon discovered that Ronon’s level was much like her own-corridor after corridor of empty rooms. They stopped at the next junction in frustration. The maze of identical hallways would be so easy to get lost in, and she wasn’t very confident in her ability to find the transporter again.
In the end, Rodney led them right to him. They heard his voice echoing from the hall off to their left, yelling a string of obscenities. It grew louder as they jogged toward him, finally leading them to a closed door just like every other door they’d seen. Ronon stepped up to it, and Teyla caught a glimpse of a leg diving to the side as it opened. She could hear the smile on Ronon’s face as he called out to their teammate.
“McKay.”
Rodney stumbled into sight, pure relief in his expression. He was also missing his boots, vest and jacket, and his t-shirt was only half-tucked into his BDU pants. “Oh, thank God! I thought you were coming to kill me. How did you escape?”
Ronon crossed his arms, surveying the room. “The doors aren’t locked,” he answered.
“What?”
“There’s no one here.”
“That we have encountered,” Teyla added, stepping up to Rodney and wrapping him in an embrace. Rodney stiffened but relaxed quickly and gave her an awkward pat on the back. “Are you alright?”
“I’ve been kidnapped. Again!”
“Let’s go,” Ronon said. He spun around and walked back into the hallway.
“Is it safe? Where are we going? What if whoever took us doesn’t want us wandering around? And where’s the jumper? We’re not going anywhere without the jumper.”
Ronon ignored him, striding forward down the hall. Teyla grabbed Rodney’s arm and they jogged to keep up. She had no intention of sitting in one of the rooms and waiting for something to happen, but wandering the hallways without any sense of where they were going did not seem like an effective plan either.
“Think this is that old city we were going to explore? Like an underground facility or something?” Ronon asked.
Teyla glanced around. The idea had not occurred to her, but it was possible they’d been transported somewhere below the surface. She had seen no windows anywhere. Perhaps the ruins were Ancient after all, despite their lack of shiny towers, as John had put it. Pain twisted in her chest at the memory of that earlier conversation and she choked it back.
“No,” Rodney answered decisively, pulling Teyla back into the present.
Ronon turned to look at him. “How do you know?”
“We’re on a ship?”
Teyla started. A ship?
Ronon stopped walking. “How do you know that?”
“Can’t you feel it?” He held his hands out to his side as if that explained everything.
Teyla closed her eyes, stretching her senses to feel whatever it was Rodney had felt instantly. She remembered the faint vibration she’d heard when she’d first woken up. It was fainter here, but…it was still there. She reached hand out to the wall and felt a hum behind the metal.
“When we were in the jumper, the proximity alarm-” she started.
Rodney nodded. “Probably this ship.”
“We must find the jumper.”
Rodney glanced up and down the hallway. “Have you…have you guys found John?”
Ronon’s face darkened and he turned away. Teyla felt her heart leap in her chest and she took a deep breath as she shook her head. The search for Ronon and Rodney and the relief at finding them alive had made it…maybe not easy, but imperative that she push away the memories of what had happened on the planet. Now that she knew they were both safe, that task was growing increasingly more difficult.
Ronon began walking again, though more slowly, and no one said anything else. They covered every conceivable hallway and, in the end, found their way back to the transporter. Again, Teyla was struck by the recklessness of stepping into the small space and letting it whisk her off to some unknown destination, but the jumper was clearly not on this level and she decided that left them with very few options. At least they were together.
They stepped into the transporter. It was smaller than the ones she was used to on Atlantis and the three of them had to cram together to fit. She was closest to the map that was more a set of lines and boxes than any clear picture of where they might be. Even staring at it, she had no idea what the ship looked like, how big it was, or where they were at within its hull.
As she lifted her hand to tap a random location, a small blip appeared on the screen. She paused, wondering if she should again blindly follow the light. It had led her straight to Ronon, though. Would it do the same with John? With any luck, John was still with the jumper. Before she could talk herself out of it, she jabbed the destination and closed her eyes as the transporter flashed and delivered them to the new level.
The doors opened up into another hallway, again identical to all the others. Ronon jumped out first, and while he was weaponless, he looked ferocious enough that he could have been armed with a dozen blasters and not scared potential attackers any more. Rodney stumbled out a few seconds later, his head swiveling right and left, and Teyla followed close on his heels.
Again, the hall was empty, but a spark of light appeared in the blue gel panel in front of them. They waited until it jumped into the adjacent panel, and then as one began to follow it along. It took them on a winding course through the corridors, and Teyla felt like it was leading them in circles, taking them across hallways they’d already walked. From the scowl on Ronon’s face, he looked like he was growing just as frustrated with their lack of progress.
The spark of light suddenly stopped in a panel next to a door, and Teyla noticed it had grown a little in size. It looked like a ball of electricity, the currents twisting and spinning around each other deep within the gel. She reached a hand out and pressed her fingers into the blue panel. It was warm, almost hot. She pressed harder but the gel only gave about half an inch before her hand stopped, the surface impenetrable.
The door next to her slid open, jarring her attention away from the light. She leaned over to peer into the room, feeling her teammates doing the same thing, and gasped at the sight in front of her.
The room was different than the endless bedrooms she’d already discovered. It was completely bare of furniture with one large blue panel covering the back wall, but she hardly noticed as she raced the few steps across its empty space.
John hung suspended in the center of the panel, lying horizontally and buried in the gel. He was at least a foot deep and illuminated, although Teyla couldn’t tell where the light was coming from. He was just there, completely enveloped in blue. He was on his back with his head turned slightly toward her. Teyla threw her hands out as she skidded to a stop in front of him and banged her fists against the gel.
“John!” she screamed, the sound erupting from deep within her gut. John’s chest was bare, just like it had been in the jumper, but his belt, boots and socks had been removed like the rest of them, and his pants clung to his thin frame. She could just make out the dark bruises on his chest.
His arms were at his sides and he almost looked like he was sleeping, except that his mouth was slightly ajar and he was utterly still. The blue color of the gel skewed Teyla’s perceptions, making him look less pale than she knew he was.
“Why is he in there?” Rodney asked, his voice breaking. He was breathing fast, and he pressed his face against the panel.
“Get him out!” Ronon roared. Teyla flinched as the Satedan slammed into the panel on her other side. The gel gave about an inch then flung him back. Undeterred, he began clawing at the material, and Teyla felt a flash of hope as chunks of the gel began to fall at his feet.
Ronon yelled again, digging faster, and Teyla jumped forward in time to see the small hole he’d started suddenly fill. Ronon stepped back, staring incredulously at the smooth panel face. He glanced at his feet as if to assure himself he really had torn some of the gel away, then attacked the wall again.
Teyla could only watch, mesmerized. The harder Ronon tried to break through, the faster the panel repaired itself. Within minutes, there was a small pile of gel bits at his feet. She bent down to pick one up, squishing it between her fingers. Suddenly, it liquefied and dripped out of her hands onto the floor.
“Look!” she cried out. The rest of the pieces had also melted down into puddles, and a second later, they seeped into the floor and disappeared completely.
When she glanced back up, the panel had grown opaque and John had disappeared from sight.
“Sheppard!” Ronon’s roar echoed painfully in the empty room
She moved toward him, thinking she should comfort him or calm him down but not really sure exactly how to accomplish that, but then Rodney spun around and backed up, pressing himself against the panel and staring up toward the ceiling.
“What’s that?” He raised a shaking hand to point at another smaller panel above the door.
Teyla twisted toward it and tensed. This section was no more than a foot high and about two feet wide, and its center was beginning to bulge outward. The crackling light had reappeared, and it looked like it was pushing into the room. Teyla half expected a wet slurp as the light finally popped out of the panel encased in a bubble of the gel. The perfectly round sphere appeared silently and hovered above them.
“Humans.”
The sound came from nowhere and everywhere at once. Teyla couldn’t tell if she’d actually heard the voice or if the sound was simply in her head, but the others jerked in response next to her.
“Um, hello?” Rodney said, still pressing himself against the back wall and sliding behind Teyla and Ronon.
“Hello. Common greeting. Humans.”
The voice was mechanical and stilted, like a computer reading a string of syllables. The bead of light within it flashed brighter as it spoke, and Teyla shivered at the eerie sensation of having watched a computer come to life before her eyes.
“What are you?” she asked.
The sphere bobbed and swung toward her, and she stepped back.
“Solus. Emendo.”
“What?” Ronon asked.
“We are. Solus Emendo.”
Rodney leaned forward a little, his curiosity overcoming some of his fear. “We? How many of there are you?”
“We are. One.” The light within the sphere flashed when it uttered the word one, then drew back again. Bolts of electricity radiated from the center bead toward the outer shell, a storm of power inside a globe not much larger than her head.
“What do you want with us?” she asked, and she was pleased that she sounded so calm. Calm yet forceful. That had been the effect she’d been going for despite the fear and grief raging beneath the surface. Like the sphere in front of them, only her storm was not as visible.
“Where’s our ship?” Ronon added with a growl.
“Not ship,” the sphere flashed at them. “Not living.”
“What?” Rodney asked. He had detached himself from the back wall but he stayed behind his teammates. Teyla felt him move closer to her.
“We are. Living.”
“Who’s we?” Ronon curled his hands into fists as he bit out the words.
“I think it’s the ship,” Rodney whispered.
Teyla glanced back at him. “This ship is alive?”
“We are. One,” the sphere answered. It slid another foot closer. “Once we were. Many. Long ago.”
“What do you want with us?” Teyla asked, turning her full attention back to the hovering globe.
“To fulfill. Purpose.”
“What purpose?” Ronon snapped, his frustration growing ever closer to the surface.
“Explore. Observe. Gather information.”
“What information?” the Satedan shouted, stepping forward.
The sphere swerved away from him, then slowly approached again. “Growth. Energy. Must grow.”
They stared at it, waiting for it to continue but it seemed to think its explanation was adequate. It stared back, and Teyla felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. It looked almost like an eye, its bead of energy at the center the pupil. Or perhaps this was just an interface, and the real alien was somewhere else.
Except that it had said it and the ship were one. The entire ship was the alien. She grit her teeth as she realized what that meant. The alien-the ship-had been watching them the entire time. It had seen her and her teammates wandering the halls. It had guided her first to Ronon, then to John. Had Rodney not been so vocal, she had no doubt it would have eventually guided them to him.
And if it was alive, then perhaps it could be reasoned with. She stepped forward, holding her hands outstretched in front of her, palms facing upward. “Please, let us go home. Our friend…” She stopped swallowing against the lump of emotion in her throat. She half turned toward the panel where they’d seen John and waved at it. “We need to bring our friend home.”
“Mistake,” the orb responded, the bead of light filling the round space for a brief second.
“What was a mistake?” Teyla frowned, not quite following.
“Observing humans. Fighting. Too much energy. Surge. Caused mistake.”
The sphere threw out the words in a steady stream with no inflection or emphasis, and it took a second for Teyla to wrap her head around the information it had just given.
Rodney was faster. She heard him sputter behind her. “Surge? Did…did you see us on the planet? Were you there?”
“Observing. Mistake.”
Teyla’s breath caught in her throat and she raised a hand to her chest.
“Mistake,” the globe repeated. “One human. Energy gone.”
“Sheppard,” Ronon growled.
“Much regret.”
“You killed him?” Rodney cried.
“Mistake. Much regret,” the sphere responded.
“Then fix it,” Ronon hissed, his voice low and dangerous. Teyla could see his entire body shaking. “Bring. Him. Back.”
“Very difficult. Too much energy. Required. Very difficult.”
Ronon lunged forward, catching the sphere in the palm of his hand. Teyla had sensed what he was about to do just a split second before he’d moved, but she could not bring herself to stop him or intervene.
“Fix him!” he roared. The light within the sphere was flashing frantically. When it said nothing, Ronon screamed again and slammed it into the wall. Teyla felt a deep surge of satisfaction as the sphere exploded and the electric bead winked out.
“Ronon, are you injured?”
Ronon glanced at her, then down at his hand, and shook his head. He held up his undamaged palm to show her. He was breathing hard, his eyes wild and still enraged.
“Wait,” Rodney breathed.
“What?” Ronon snapped, turning his attention toward Rodney.
Rodney flinched and stepped back, but he pointed to the crumbles of gel on the floor. “It said very difficult.”
“So?”
“When you told it to fix its mistake and bring John back, it said ‘Very difficult,’ not ‘Impossible.’ Very difficult, too much energy.”
Teyla felt her heart lift. Was Rodney saying… “It can bring John back?”
“Not anymore! Conan there just splattered it against the wall!”
The words slapped across her face, and she stepped back at the stinging force. Ronon was staring at Rodney, the horror of his mistake etched into his face. She snapped her head toward the remains of the sphere and saw them liquefy like the pieces Ronon had dug out of the panel. A moment later, they disappeared.
Ronon turned away from them and walked to the back panel. He reached a hand out to the panel and lowered his head, and Teyla felt a knife stab through her, the pain sharp enough that she felt suddenly nauseous and lightheaded. Rodney was glaring at both of them.
“It said it did not have enough energy,” she spoke up, wanting to defend Ronon’s gut reaction. She had wanted to do the same thing to the sphere.
“Genius, remember? Energy is what I do,” Rodney bit back. “I could have a PhD in energy if I wanted. Too much energy, too little energy-I am the go-to person in this entire galaxy when it comes to energy. Am I wrong?”
Teyla shook her head. Her feet were rooted to the ground. Had they just lost their chance to get John back? The sphere had not said impossible, but that didn’t mean it was possible. Despite Rodney’s claims, he couldn’t create energy whenever he wanted. The idea that anything-whether it was energy or an alien-could bring a dead man back to life…she shook her head. She had seen many wonders in her life, but never that. Never that.
“We should attempt to find the jumper again,” she said, surprised again at how calm she sounded. She certainly did not feel it. “Atlantis will-”
Her voice cut off as the light reappeared in the gel square above the door, and hope burst in her chest. Ronon had not destroyed it. It popped into existence again, as silent as before. This time, however, it stayed close to the ceiling, well out of their reach.
“Follow.”
Ronon spun around, and Teyla could almost feel the relief emanating from him. He and Rodney stepped forward automatically. The door slid open and the bubble ducked under the head of the frame and out into the hallway. Teyla hesitated, reaching for the back panel.
“I will stay,” she said.
Her two teammates spun around and their eyes shifted from her to the space where they’d last seen John.
“I’m not sure we should split up,” Rodney said.
“We don’t know what it wants,” Teyla responded. “Or where it wants to take us.”
“If it was going to hurt us, don’t you think it would have by now?”
Ronon glanced at Rodney and shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not.”
“Follow,” the sphere called out. The sound seemed farther away, making Teyla think it was coming from somewhere specific versus everywhere, like she had first assumed. Maybe the panels in the walls.
Rodney turned toward the sphere. “You said before you could fix your mistake, that you could bring John back?”
“Very difficult,” it flashed. “Too much energy.”
“Difficult but not impossible?” Teyla asked.
“Great energy. Requirement. Too much.” The sphere swung side-to-side as if to shake its head.
Rodney cleared his throat and stepped forward, straightening out his t-shirt. “Well, you see, I’m a bit of an expert in that area…uh, energy, that is. If you let me look at your power systems, I might be able to help.”
“Increase energy?”
“Yes.”
“Very difficult. Need new energy.”
“New energy? I could…um…I still might be able do that. How much energy are we talking about?”
“Careful, McKay,” Ronon whispered.
“Follow.” The sphere had moved forward as Rodney had talked, but now it backed up again into the hallway and disappeared from Teyla’s sight.
“Please. Please let me look at your energy levels or whatever,” Rodney said, following it. Ronon went with him, but stood in the doorframe, one foot in the hall and one foot in the room. McKay stared up at a spot a little farther down the hall where Teyla assumed the orb had floated to, his eyes pleading. “If I can produce enough power to help John…”
“Understand,” it answered, sounding still farther away. “Increase power. Produce more energy. Method is difficult.”
“But not impossible?” Rodney asked.
“Possible. Requires additional. Help.”
“I can help. Let me help.”
“Rodney…” Teyla called out.
He was standing in the hallway, framed in the door. He glanced at Teyla then back to the sphere. “No, just…let me at least look at it.”
“Help. Follow,” the stilted computer voice insisted. “Find more. Energy.”
“What about Sheppard?” Ronon called out.
“All follow. We must. Go.”
Rodney looked at both of them and waved them forward. Ronon shrugged and stepped into the hall, but he waited for Teyla. With one last glance at the opaque surface of John’s panel, she followed them.
As soon as all three of them were in the hallway, the bubble plowed into the nearest rectangle of gel and disappeared. The light remained, though, once more appearing to be a large, spinning ball of electricity.
“Follow.” The voice said again. The sound echoed in the hall around them.
The light jumped into the next panel, leaving a line of fading white behind it. They followed it like they had followed it since they’d arrived, but Teyla took careful note of where they were going and how many turns they made. She saw Ronon doing the same. Wherever the alien light wanted to take them, she was confident she would be able to find her way back to John.
The light stopped in front of another set of doors. Rodney jumped toward them before she or Ronon could urge caution and stepped into the new room. Ronon darted in after him and grabbed his arm, jerking him back and taking in the room in a single glance. Teyla followed more slowly.
The room was much larger than any of the others. As they walked in, Teyla saw a collection of sofas, coffee tables and fake potted trees and plants deeper into the room, but the area directly in front of the door was empty and dominated by two wide gel panels against the back wall at least as long, right to left, as Ronon was tall. The lounge area had enough seats to accommodate a large number of people, which struck her as odd given the lack of people, human or alien. The entire ship seemed to have been built for a significant crew. How many had the place once contained? Were they now all part of the single entity of the ship?
Whatever other questions she had fled her mind as the right-hand panel lit up, revealing John’s body. She ran forward, pressing against the gel. It was just like in the other room. He was in the exact same position, the exact same depth within the gel. Was it really even him?
“How do we know that’s Sheppard?” Ronon asked, voicing Teyla’s thoughts.
She snapped her head around and saw the blue sphere had reappeared. Rodney and Ronon had wandered closer to John, but Ronon was facing the sphere now. The orb zoomed away from him, then dipped and headed straight toward Teyla’s head.
She ducked, throwing her arms up above her in protection. The sphere sped past her and slammed into the panel. Teyla spun around to see the ball of energy fade into the gel, but almost as soon as it winked out, the entire panel slid out of the wall, supported by a thick metal slab beneath it. John’s body was still suspended in the center, but even as she watched, he began to sink. When he hit the slab at the bottom, the gel shimmered and softened, then slowly pulled back into the wall.
Teyla moved first, reaching a tentative hand out. She frowned, dismayed at how it trembled. She was still sore from her and Ronon’s efforts on the planet, but the pain was all but forgotten now that John was lying in front of them. She went for John’s hand first and grabbed his fingers.
They were ice cold and she clenched her jaw at the sob trying to burst out. He was dry, even though the gel had looked wet. She stretched her other hand out and brushed her fingers against his cheek. The warmth in his skin almost undid all of her control and her eyes welled up with tears. She blinked rapidly, reining in the overwhelming emotions. Letting go of his hand, she fingered the bruises on his chest.
He was still warm-not as warm as he had been, but not the cold stiffness she’d expected. The skin stretching over his bruised chest was warmest of all. Ronon walked around her to his head and laid his hands on each side of John’s face, bowing his head, and Rodney stepped up next to her and brushed his shoulder against hers.
He reached a hand out then jerked it back. Teyla could hear his breathing had grown ragged but she didn’t dare look up at his face. His expressions were always so open, and she wasn’t sure she was prepared to see the pain and grief she knew must be streaming through him. When he reached out again, Teyla grabbed his quivering hand and guided it toward John’s arm.
Rodney stiffened, but he let her set it on John’s forearm. He exhaled loudly, leaning against her a little more as he tightened his grip on John. He leaned forward, stretching out his other hand and resting it on John’s leg. She could see him shaking, but he was quiet-quieter than she had ever seen him, except perhaps when Carson had died.
The blue sphere gave them their moment with John. After several minutes, Rodney finally straightened and released his hold. He turned back to the alien light.
“You can really bring him back?” he whispered.
The sphere jumped up and down in the air, its flashing center echoing its excitement. “With much energy. Still possible. Must move. Quickly.”
“Do you have a computer? Or my computer? If I can get back onto the jumper…our ship…”
“No.”
Ronon hadn’t moved at John’s head, but he jerked up in surprise at the sphere’s response. “No?”
The sphere jerked backward, edging closer to Rodney and farther from the Satedan. Ronon stepped forward, raising a fist.
“Ronon, stop. Wait!” Rodney cried out. He turned back to the floating bubble. “I want to help with your energy requirements but I can only do that if-”
“No. We do not have. Required energy. Need new. Energy.”
“Maybe I can-”
“Need new energy.”
“Okay,” Rodney snapped. “New energy-got it. If you let us return home, I can bring back a generator, something to produce more energy-”
“Wrong energy. Life needs. Life-energy.”
Teyla’s head snapped between the two of them as she tried to follow the conversation. The stilted cadence of the computerized voice was mind-boggling. Life-energy? She had never heard of such a thing.
“What is life-energy?” she asked. She grabbed John’s arm and held onto it, wondering if the ship would take John back into the wall. She would not let that happen-she would not lose him again.
“You. Humans. Life-energy.”
“Me?” Rodney repeated. He glanced over at Ronon and Teyla, then back to the sphere. “You need us to give Sheppard his life back?”
Teyla shook her head immediately. “John would not want that. We cannot exchange our lives for his no matter how much we want him back.”
“Incorrect,” the alien globe answered. “Life-energy. Not life.”
“Can you be a little more specific and a little less cryptic? Uh, please.”
Teyla could hear her own frustration in Rodney’s voice and she nodded her support.
“Life-energy from three. Restore life. Of one.”
The answer made little sense to Teyla. Before any of them could ask for further clarification, a metal slab slid out of the wall behind Ronon and lined up directly beneath the second long gel panel. Ronon slid out from between the two to stand next to Teyla, and Rodney pressed against her back to look at it. A light began to pulse between the two panels, bouncing back and forth like a child’s ball.
“One offers. Life-energy. Transmit to one. Without life.”
“How do we do that?” Ronon rumbled.
“Demonstration.”
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
“What kind of demonstration?” Ronon asked. The bobbing sphere was pissing him off with its cryptic phrases. Sheppard was dead, and this thing was bouncing around like McKay on double-chocolate brownie day.
“Lie down,” the ball answered.
Ronon glanced over at Sheppard stretched out on his slab and then at the bare slab next to him. Was that what the alien wanted? He looked up at it as it zoomed over his head and halted over the head of the second slab.
“No,” he growled.
“No pain,” it answered back. “We take nothing. Demonstration only.”
The ball waited, expecting them to follow it the way they had so far. Ronon bit his lip, looking again at Sheppard. The man’s body was gray, the color washed out of it. Every time he looked at it, he was struck by the contradictory information it shot back at him. It looked exactly like his friend and nothing like him. The hair, the ears, the hands…they were all Sheppard.
But it wasn’t him. Sheppard had exuded strength and loyalty and humor and dedication and…and everything. He was always moving, always thinking. Ronon had enjoyed ribbing him, running faster than he knew Sheppard could keep up, pushing him beyond his limits in their almost daily sparring fights, but time and again, Sheppard surprised him with his tenacity.
John Sheppard had never given up.
Until today.
The thought came out of nowhere, flashing through his mind. No, he thought, and he clenched his teeth against the flash of anger that coursed through him. He couldn’t lay this on Sheppard, and the fact that the thought had occurred to him for even a second pissed him off. He squeezed his hands into tight fists and forced himself to take a deep calming breath.
The ball flashed again, darting toward him then away again like a skittish animal. “Demonstration only. Safe.”
Ronon walked over to the slab and ran his finger along its cold surface. Teyla and Rodney had been standing near Sheppard, watching him, but Teyla stepped toward him now.
“Ronon, you do not have to do this,” she said. She was still holding onto Sheppard’s arm and he grimaced at the way his hand flopped when she moved. He was still warm, but in a few more hours he’d begin to stiffen.
He closed his eyes, casting the image of Sheppard’s corpse from his mind, and jumped onto the slab. He took another deep breath and looked at Teyla. “Shoot it if it does anything to me.”
“With what?” McKay squawked. “And how is that going to help anything?”
Ronon turned away from them. He’d forgotten for a second that they’d all been disarmed. What he wouldn’t give for three seconds with his blaster. The ball swung around to face him, almost close enough for him to touch it, but he knew it would slide away if he even looked like he was going to grab it. It waited, its center light pulsing at a constant tempo.
He swung his legs up and laid down. “I’m ready.”
He felt more than saw the gel from the panel next to him begin to ooze around him. It filled the slab but didn’t spill over the edge, and the level began to rise. It was weird-not wet exactly, but not dry. And it was warm. The level rose two inches, then three, then four, then pooled over the nape of his neck. It covered his legs and stomach and crept past his ears, blocking the slight sounds of his team moving around and the background hum of the ship and plunging the room into a deep, muted silence.
He shifted his eyes as Teyla and McKay appeared next to him. He could see their mouths moving and could almost read their frantic questions in the movement of their lips, but he heard nothing. The gel was creeping over his chest and he had the sudden panicked though that it was going to cover him completely.
He jerked, or tried to. His body was completely immobilized, his arms and legs pinned to the table. The gel reached his temples and he closed his eyes, waiting for it to envelop him-
And then he was standing in a classroom, surrounded by rows of small desks. A woman stood at the front, her blond hair pulled into a bun and a smile splitting her face. She was talking, but Ronon could not hear anything. He walked toward the woman with sudden recognition. His teacher-she’d been his teacher when he’d been a boy. A very young boy. He glanced at walls filled with drawings and posters. If someone had asked him about this room, he could never have described it-not like this-and yet it was perfect. He smiled at its familiarity as he remembered the different projects and field trips this class had taken him on.
And the teacher. He’d been in love with her-as much as a seven-year-old could be. It was the year he’d had perfect attendance, much to his parents’ delight. He stood in the front corner of the room and surveyed the rows of students, picking out faces that should have been long forgotten but weren’t. He saw his best friend, his first girlfriend-who wouldn’t give him the time of day for another two years-the boy who’d bullied him endlessly his first year of school until Ronon had eventually decked him.
A boy in the center of the third row stood up, his eyes sparkling in anticipation and excitement, and it took a second for Ronon to place him and recognize he was staring at himself. Seven-year-old Ronon tugged on his brown school vest, straightening it out, his grin growing wider at whatever the teacher was saying. A moment later, he slipped out from behind his desk and walked to the front of the room, the short curly dreads sticking out in all directions and bouncing as he moved.
With sudden clarity, Ronon remembered this moment, and he snapped his head to the back of the room. His breath caught in his throat. There, standing tall and proud, were his parents. They looked younger than he remembered, but they were smiling. His father held a hat in hands covered in dark soot and oil-he’d come straight to the school from work. His mother was ringing her hands together, a movement he knew stemmed from barely contained excitement.
They were young and happy, pride brimming in their eyes at their youngest child. Ronon turned back to the teacher, who now had a hand around his younger self’s shoulders. In her other hand, a shiny medallion swung from its ribbon. The class began to applaud, and some of the students banged their palms against their desks. Ronon would be let home early from school that day, and his mother would swing him in circles around the kitchen in celebration, the small medallion flapping against his chest.
He gasped, and the ceiling of the ship blinked into focus. He lay still for a moment, reaching for the memory again. It had been so strong and so detailed. More detailed than any memory he could recall, even his recent ones. The gel pulled away from his skin, and he shivered at the slight drop in temperature.
“Ronon, are you okay?” Teyla asked, grabbing his hand and leaning over him.
“What?” he blinked. He shook his head, dragging his attention back into the present.
“What happened?” McKay asked.
Ronon pushed himself up and swung his legs over the edge, grateful for Teyla’s steadying hand on his arm. He stayed sitting, not quite trusting his legs to hold him yet. “I…it was a memory, but clear, like I was actually there.”
“A memory of what?” Teyla asked.
“I was young-seven. I’d gotten the highest marks on the government standard-a test-and the teacher was giving me an award in front of the entire class.”
“You got the highest grade? What kind of test was it?” McKay asked.
Ronon barely noticed the glare Teyla shot at him or McKay’s mumbled apology. He grabbed a hold of the image of his mother and father. Young and happy-their whole lives still in front of them.
But his father would die slowly a year before the Wraith destroyed Sateda, and his mother…
He sucked in a ragged gasp. The joy of seeing his parents alive gave way to the pain of knowing what would happen to them. To his entire family. To his entire world.
“Ronon?” Teyla tightened her grip on his arm but Ronon ignored her, shaking off the memories.
He scanned the room, finding the ball of light. “What does that have to do with Sheppard and your life-energy?”
“Memories of childhood. Precious to you. Life-energy in them. Strong.”
“What are you saying?” Ronon asked, feeling renewed frustration at the alien’s obscure speech. “You want my memories of Sateda?”
He slid off the slab, relieved that his legs held. He stepped toward the shimmering ball and glowered when it swung backward, away from him.
“Of childhood. This energy. In you, powerful.”
Ronon glanced at Sheppard, seeing only gray skin, then back at the alien. “How does this help Sheppard?”
“Life is past. Present. Future.”
Ronon swallowed at the growing realization of what the alien was asking of him. “And you want my past?”
“To give the one. Without energy.”
He heard McKay and Teyla react behind him as they too picked up on what the alien was saying, but he ignored them, keeping his attention focused on the glowing sphere. “And what happens to me afterward?”
“Ronon, that is…that is too much,” Teyla breathed out behind him.
“What happens to me afterward?” he asked again, louder.
“You remain. Same. Only as you were. That is taken.”
He would be the same, but without his memories of growing up? Could he be the same without those memories? Without his family and his school mates and…and Sateda?
“I’m not saying I can even begin to understand how this works,” McKay piped up, talking to the alien but shooting pointed looks at Ronon. “But before you start ripping memories from us, we’re going to need you to give us some kind of assurance that you can actually do what you’re saying you can do here.”
“Rodney is correct,” Teyla added.
Ronon nodded, relieved to have a few more seconds to consider what the alien was asking of him.
The sphere bobbed. “Demonstration.”
Ronon turned to see gel flowing around Sheppard’s body the same way it had done to him. It flowed from the bottom of the panel in an endless supply. As one, he, McKay and Teyla rushed to the slab to stare down at their team leader and friend. Ronon felt his heart begin to pound in his chest. He’d tried not to get his hopes up, and had managed to keep a clamp on them until he’d relived that memory. But now…the memory had been so perfect in all of its details, and what had seemed laughingly impossible was not anymore, including the possibility that they could get Sheppard back.
The gel covered Sheppard’s legs and arms and crept up the sides of his ribs and head, but it stopped at a much lower level than Ronon had felt. They waited, and Ronon held his breath as a thousand beads within the gel began to pulse.
All three of them started when Sheppard’s eyes suddenly flew open. Ronon watched the sightless pupils dilate in reaction to the light in the room and reached a hand out toward him. Sheppard, still encased in gel just below his ears, suddenly threw his head back, gasping, and Ronon jerked away instinctively. He felt his heart beating in his chest at what he was witnessing. Sheppard’s chest rose as he took in a deep breath and his body relaxed on the slab.
“John?” Teyla called out. She dug her hand into gel that looked more like thick blue water than anything solid and grabbed his hand.
Sheppard continued to stare up at the ceiling, giving no indication that he had noticed them or could even hear them. The gel was well below his ears, and Ronon clamped his mouth shut in apprehension. Sheppard breathed again, his ribs slowly expanding. Teyla bent closer to him, reaching for the pulse point in his neck.
Sheppard breathed a third time, but as he expelled, his eyes slid closed. They waited for his chest to rise, but he was deathly still once more. Teyla pressed her fingers against his neck, then bent her head over his mouth. She straightened a moment later and shook her head, but Ronon had already known what she’d find. It was blatantly obvious just by looking at him.
The alien dropped into Ronon’s line of vision. “Energy required. Too much. Cannot sustain.”
Ronon walked to the bare slab and hopped up. He’d expected the decision to be more difficult, but in the end, the answer had come easily to him. He stretched out, folding his arms over his stomach.
“Ronon, you will lose most if not all of your memories of Sateda,” Teyla said.
He glanced at her, then at McKay as the scientist walked up to his side.
“There’s got to be some other way,” McKay said.
Ronon shook his head, bringing up the image of his parents standing in the back of his classroom. The knowledge of what would happen to them was fused to his past, the happy memories inseparably connected with the pain that still haunted him, still cut and burned at the most unexpected moments.
He would lose Sateda, but maybe he would lose the pain too. He steeled himself and met Teyla’s eyes. “I can hold onto memories or I can help Sheppard now.”
“Life-energy. No other way,” the alien added.
Teyla and McKay jerked their hands away as the gel surrounded him again. It was easier the second time, and Ronon closed his eyes. The gel rose quickly, submerging him completely, but before he had time to panic at what was sure to be suffocation, a lightning bolt of electricity flashed through his body. Snapshots of Sateda, his family, his school, his home-everywhere he had ever been and everyone he had ever seen-flipped through this mind, spinning faster and faster until they blurred together with dizzying speed.
And then nothing.
TBC...
Part 3
Teyla woke up to a bluish-green ceiling and a soft bed underneath her. Atlantis? Had it all been a dream? She listened for the sounds she had grown used to after so many years in the city of the Ancestors and frowned when all she heard was a faint vibration.
She turned her head to look around the room. It was sparsely furnished-just the bed, a table and two chairs. The design reminded her of Atlantis, and yet… It wasn’t her room, or the infirmary, or any room she remembered seeing before. She pushed herself up until she was sitting and closed her eyes at the stiff muscles. Hot pain lanced through her arms and shoulders, shooting down her back.
So it hadn’t been a dream. The memory of waking up and finding John next to her, ashen and not breathing, slammed into her and she bit her lip at the sharp pain clawing at her chest. She could feel the hour of intense CPR in her entire body, all the way down to her knuckles and she could almost feel the warmth of his skin, taunting her again.
“Enough,” she breathed out. She groaned as she swung her legs over the side. Her head felt heavy, like she had overslept, and she wondered how long she’d been lying in the bed. She was wearing nothing but her pants and brown woven shirt; whoever had taken her weapons had also seen fit to remove her boots and belt. She shook her head. This was the second instance in a very short span of time that she’d woken up without remembering passing out or falling asleep.
Along the far wall was a large blue panel that looked very similar to the television screens from Earth. She stood, ignoring how her muscles pulled when she moved, and reached a hand out toward the panel. The material was soft like a gel. Not like any screen she had ever encountered, and she didn’t remember seeing this type of decoration on Atlantis. The feeling that she was somewhere else renewed itself with intensity.
Her last memory was of being in the jumper. Something had been approaching them, but Rodney had not known what. She vaguely recalled being thrown from her seat in the jumper, but she didn’t think she’d hit her head. Rodney had still been in his seat, and Ronon in the back with John. Where were they now? Had they also woken up in this place? She felt her heart begin to pound as she more fully grasped her situation. Had they been captured? It seemed the logical conclusion. But who? And what did they want?
A door sat in the center of the third wall and she walked up to it. When it slid open at her approach she jumped back. Certainly the room was much more comfortable than their usual prison cell, but an unlocked door? It shut as she moved back, and she approached it a little more cautiously. It slid open again, as responsive as any of the doors on Atlantis. She stepped up to the frame and peered out into the hallway.
No guards. No sign of anyone, actually. She stepped into the hall expecting the sudden blare of an alarm, but nothing happened. She felt suddenly alone-isolated in this strange place. Its similarity to Atlantis was stronger in the hallway, and more unsettling. Where was she? Where were Ronon and Rodney? John was…John was beyond their help, but she would not leave this place without him either.
Her room was at the far end of a hallway and she walked its length, running her hand along the wall. She found two more rooms identical to the one she had woken up in, but they had both been empty. At the first junction, she turned left and walked the length of another hallway. She quickened her pace as she passed more empty rooms and no sign of her teammates and eventually wove her way back to where she’d started.
The blue gel panels ran through all of the corridors. She reached out toward one of them and was surprised to feel it grow warm under her palm. Was it more than a decoration then? As if in answer to her question, a light sparked deep within it then shot into the adjacent panel. Teyla followed the white line, and the ball of light shot ahead to the next one.
She hesitated, not sure if she should follow this blindly. The light moved again, a line of white trailing in its path. What else could she do? She would have to move carefully. She walked to the end of the hall and paused, turning toward the right when the small sparkling star jumped in a new direction.
The light led her into a small closet, and she recognized it as a transporter a second later. She hesitated again but eventually stepped into it. The room flashed and the doors slid open, but she stayed out of sight, straining her ears. From what she could see of the hallway, it was identical to the level she’d just left.
“Teyla?”
The voice was soft but instantly recognizable. She felt relief wash out of her as she stepped into the hallway and rushed toward Ronon. He stood a few feet away from the transporter, his body tense but relaxing visibly as she came into view. She threw her arms around him and pressed her head against his chest. He was safe, which meant there was a good chance that Rodney was as well. The feeling of not being alone in this strange place was almost overwhelming.
“You okay?” Ronon asked, pushing her back enough to look down at her face.
She nodded. “Yes, I am fine. Have you seen anyone?”
“No.” He glanced around the hall as Teyla pulled herself away. “What is this place?”
“I do not know. My last memory before waking here is of the jumper.”
“Me too,” he said. He patted his hands down his shirt. “They took all my weapons. And my leather coat. And boots.”
“Mine as well. We should look for Rodney.”
They began a sweep of the hallways, but Teyla soon discovered that Ronon’s level was much like her own-corridor after corridor of empty rooms. They stopped at the next junction in frustration. The maze of identical hallways would be so easy to get lost in, and she wasn’t very confident in her ability to find the transporter again.
In the end, Rodney led them right to him. They heard his voice echoing from the hall off to their left, yelling a string of obscenities. It grew louder as they jogged toward him, finally leading them to a closed door just like every other door they’d seen. Ronon stepped up to it, and Teyla caught a glimpse of a leg diving to the side as it opened. She could hear the smile on Ronon’s face as he called out to their teammate.
“McKay.”
Rodney stumbled into sight, pure relief in his expression. He was also missing his boots, vest and jacket, and his t-shirt was only half-tucked into his BDU pants. “Oh, thank God! I thought you were coming to kill me. How did you escape?”
Ronon crossed his arms, surveying the room. “The doors aren’t locked,” he answered.
“What?”
“There’s no one here.”
“That we have encountered,” Teyla added, stepping up to Rodney and wrapping him in an embrace. Rodney stiffened but relaxed quickly and gave her an awkward pat on the back. “Are you alright?”
“I’ve been kidnapped. Again!”
“Let’s go,” Ronon said. He spun around and walked back into the hallway.
“Is it safe? Where are we going? What if whoever took us doesn’t want us wandering around? And where’s the jumper? We’re not going anywhere without the jumper.”
Ronon ignored him, striding forward down the hall. Teyla grabbed Rodney’s arm and they jogged to keep up. She had no intention of sitting in one of the rooms and waiting for something to happen, but wandering the hallways without any sense of where they were going did not seem like an effective plan either.
“Think this is that old city we were going to explore? Like an underground facility or something?” Ronon asked.
Teyla glanced around. The idea had not occurred to her, but it was possible they’d been transported somewhere below the surface. She had seen no windows anywhere. Perhaps the ruins were Ancient after all, despite their lack of shiny towers, as John had put it. Pain twisted in her chest at the memory of that earlier conversation and she choked it back.
“No,” Rodney answered decisively, pulling Teyla back into the present.
Ronon turned to look at him. “How do you know?”
“We’re on a ship?”
Teyla started. A ship?
Ronon stopped walking. “How do you know that?”
“Can’t you feel it?” He held his hands out to his side as if that explained everything.
Teyla closed her eyes, stretching her senses to feel whatever it was Rodney had felt instantly. She remembered the faint vibration she’d heard when she’d first woken up. It was fainter here, but…it was still there. She reached hand out to the wall and felt a hum behind the metal.
“When we were in the jumper, the proximity alarm-” she started.
Rodney nodded. “Probably this ship.”
“We must find the jumper.”
Rodney glanced up and down the hallway. “Have you…have you guys found John?”
Ronon’s face darkened and he turned away. Teyla felt her heart leap in her chest and she took a deep breath as she shook her head. The search for Ronon and Rodney and the relief at finding them alive had made it…maybe not easy, but imperative that she push away the memories of what had happened on the planet. Now that she knew they were both safe, that task was growing increasingly more difficult.
Ronon began walking again, though more slowly, and no one said anything else. They covered every conceivable hallway and, in the end, found their way back to the transporter. Again, Teyla was struck by the recklessness of stepping into the small space and letting it whisk her off to some unknown destination, but the jumper was clearly not on this level and she decided that left them with very few options. At least they were together.
They stepped into the transporter. It was smaller than the ones she was used to on Atlantis and the three of them had to cram together to fit. She was closest to the map that was more a set of lines and boxes than any clear picture of where they might be. Even staring at it, she had no idea what the ship looked like, how big it was, or where they were at within its hull.
As she lifted her hand to tap a random location, a small blip appeared on the screen. She paused, wondering if she should again blindly follow the light. It had led her straight to Ronon, though. Would it do the same with John? With any luck, John was still with the jumper. Before she could talk herself out of it, she jabbed the destination and closed her eyes as the transporter flashed and delivered them to the new level.
The doors opened up into another hallway, again identical to all the others. Ronon jumped out first, and while he was weaponless, he looked ferocious enough that he could have been armed with a dozen blasters and not scared potential attackers any more. Rodney stumbled out a few seconds later, his head swiveling right and left, and Teyla followed close on his heels.
Again, the hall was empty, but a spark of light appeared in the blue gel panel in front of them. They waited until it jumped into the adjacent panel, and then as one began to follow it along. It took them on a winding course through the corridors, and Teyla felt like it was leading them in circles, taking them across hallways they’d already walked. From the scowl on Ronon’s face, he looked like he was growing just as frustrated with their lack of progress.
The spark of light suddenly stopped in a panel next to a door, and Teyla noticed it had grown a little in size. It looked like a ball of electricity, the currents twisting and spinning around each other deep within the gel. She reached a hand out and pressed her fingers into the blue panel. It was warm, almost hot. She pressed harder but the gel only gave about half an inch before her hand stopped, the surface impenetrable.
The door next to her slid open, jarring her attention away from the light. She leaned over to peer into the room, feeling her teammates doing the same thing, and gasped at the sight in front of her.
The room was different than the endless bedrooms she’d already discovered. It was completely bare of furniture with one large blue panel covering the back wall, but she hardly noticed as she raced the few steps across its empty space.
John hung suspended in the center of the panel, lying horizontally and buried in the gel. He was at least a foot deep and illuminated, although Teyla couldn’t tell where the light was coming from. He was just there, completely enveloped in blue. He was on his back with his head turned slightly toward her. Teyla threw her hands out as she skidded to a stop in front of him and banged her fists against the gel.
“John!” she screamed, the sound erupting from deep within her gut. John’s chest was bare, just like it had been in the jumper, but his belt, boots and socks had been removed like the rest of them, and his pants clung to his thin frame. She could just make out the dark bruises on his chest.
His arms were at his sides and he almost looked like he was sleeping, except that his mouth was slightly ajar and he was utterly still. The blue color of the gel skewed Teyla’s perceptions, making him look less pale than she knew he was.
“Why is he in there?” Rodney asked, his voice breaking. He was breathing fast, and he pressed his face against the panel.
“Get him out!” Ronon roared. Teyla flinched as the Satedan slammed into the panel on her other side. The gel gave about an inch then flung him back. Undeterred, he began clawing at the material, and Teyla felt a flash of hope as chunks of the gel began to fall at his feet.
Ronon yelled again, digging faster, and Teyla jumped forward in time to see the small hole he’d started suddenly fill. Ronon stepped back, staring incredulously at the smooth panel face. He glanced at his feet as if to assure himself he really had torn some of the gel away, then attacked the wall again.
Teyla could only watch, mesmerized. The harder Ronon tried to break through, the faster the panel repaired itself. Within minutes, there was a small pile of gel bits at his feet. She bent down to pick one up, squishing it between her fingers. Suddenly, it liquefied and dripped out of her hands onto the floor.
“Look!” she cried out. The rest of the pieces had also melted down into puddles, and a second later, they seeped into the floor and disappeared completely.
When she glanced back up, the panel had grown opaque and John had disappeared from sight.
“Sheppard!” Ronon’s roar echoed painfully in the empty room
She moved toward him, thinking she should comfort him or calm him down but not really sure exactly how to accomplish that, but then Rodney spun around and backed up, pressing himself against the panel and staring up toward the ceiling.
“What’s that?” He raised a shaking hand to point at another smaller panel above the door.
Teyla twisted toward it and tensed. This section was no more than a foot high and about two feet wide, and its center was beginning to bulge outward. The crackling light had reappeared, and it looked like it was pushing into the room. Teyla half expected a wet slurp as the light finally popped out of the panel encased in a bubble of the gel. The perfectly round sphere appeared silently and hovered above them.
“Humans.”
The sound came from nowhere and everywhere at once. Teyla couldn’t tell if she’d actually heard the voice or if the sound was simply in her head, but the others jerked in response next to her.
“Um, hello?” Rodney said, still pressing himself against the back wall and sliding behind Teyla and Ronon.
“Hello. Common greeting. Humans.”
The voice was mechanical and stilted, like a computer reading a string of syllables. The bead of light within it flashed brighter as it spoke, and Teyla shivered at the eerie sensation of having watched a computer come to life before her eyes.
“What are you?” she asked.
The sphere bobbed and swung toward her, and she stepped back.
“Solus. Emendo.”
“What?” Ronon asked.
“We are. Solus Emendo.”
Rodney leaned forward a little, his curiosity overcoming some of his fear. “We? How many of there are you?”
“We are. One.” The light within the sphere flashed when it uttered the word one, then drew back again. Bolts of electricity radiated from the center bead toward the outer shell, a storm of power inside a globe not much larger than her head.
“What do you want with us?” she asked, and she was pleased that she sounded so calm. Calm yet forceful. That had been the effect she’d been going for despite the fear and grief raging beneath the surface. Like the sphere in front of them, only her storm was not as visible.
“Where’s our ship?” Ronon added with a growl.
“Not ship,” the sphere flashed at them. “Not living.”
“What?” Rodney asked. He had detached himself from the back wall but he stayed behind his teammates. Teyla felt him move closer to her.
“We are. Living.”
“Who’s we?” Ronon curled his hands into fists as he bit out the words.
“I think it’s the ship,” Rodney whispered.
Teyla glanced back at him. “This ship is alive?”
“We are. One,” the sphere answered. It slid another foot closer. “Once we were. Many. Long ago.”
“What do you want with us?” Teyla asked, turning her full attention back to the hovering globe.
“To fulfill. Purpose.”
“What purpose?” Ronon snapped, his frustration growing ever closer to the surface.
“Explore. Observe. Gather information.”
“What information?” the Satedan shouted, stepping forward.
The sphere swerved away from him, then slowly approached again. “Growth. Energy. Must grow.”
They stared at it, waiting for it to continue but it seemed to think its explanation was adequate. It stared back, and Teyla felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. It looked almost like an eye, its bead of energy at the center the pupil. Or perhaps this was just an interface, and the real alien was somewhere else.
Except that it had said it and the ship were one. The entire ship was the alien. She grit her teeth as she realized what that meant. The alien-the ship-had been watching them the entire time. It had seen her and her teammates wandering the halls. It had guided her first to Ronon, then to John. Had Rodney not been so vocal, she had no doubt it would have eventually guided them to him.
And if it was alive, then perhaps it could be reasoned with. She stepped forward, holding her hands outstretched in front of her, palms facing upward. “Please, let us go home. Our friend…” She stopped swallowing against the lump of emotion in her throat. She half turned toward the panel where they’d seen John and waved at it. “We need to bring our friend home.”
“Mistake,” the orb responded, the bead of light filling the round space for a brief second.
“What was a mistake?” Teyla frowned, not quite following.
“Observing humans. Fighting. Too much energy. Surge. Caused mistake.”
The sphere threw out the words in a steady stream with no inflection or emphasis, and it took a second for Teyla to wrap her head around the information it had just given.
Rodney was faster. She heard him sputter behind her. “Surge? Did…did you see us on the planet? Were you there?”
“Observing. Mistake.”
Teyla’s breath caught in her throat and she raised a hand to her chest.
“Mistake,” the globe repeated. “One human. Energy gone.”
“Sheppard,” Ronon growled.
“Much regret.”
“You killed him?” Rodney cried.
“Mistake. Much regret,” the sphere responded.
“Then fix it,” Ronon hissed, his voice low and dangerous. Teyla could see his entire body shaking. “Bring. Him. Back.”
“Very difficult. Too much energy. Required. Very difficult.”
Ronon lunged forward, catching the sphere in the palm of his hand. Teyla had sensed what he was about to do just a split second before he’d moved, but she could not bring herself to stop him or intervene.
“Fix him!” he roared. The light within the sphere was flashing frantically. When it said nothing, Ronon screamed again and slammed it into the wall. Teyla felt a deep surge of satisfaction as the sphere exploded and the electric bead winked out.
“Ronon, are you injured?”
Ronon glanced at her, then down at his hand, and shook his head. He held up his undamaged palm to show her. He was breathing hard, his eyes wild and still enraged.
“Wait,” Rodney breathed.
“What?” Ronon snapped, turning his attention toward Rodney.
Rodney flinched and stepped back, but he pointed to the crumbles of gel on the floor. “It said very difficult.”
“So?”
“When you told it to fix its mistake and bring John back, it said ‘Very difficult,’ not ‘Impossible.’ Very difficult, too much energy.”
Teyla felt her heart lift. Was Rodney saying… “It can bring John back?”
“Not anymore! Conan there just splattered it against the wall!”
The words slapped across her face, and she stepped back at the stinging force. Ronon was staring at Rodney, the horror of his mistake etched into his face. She snapped her head toward the remains of the sphere and saw them liquefy like the pieces Ronon had dug out of the panel. A moment later, they disappeared.
Ronon turned away from them and walked to the back panel. He reached a hand out to the panel and lowered his head, and Teyla felt a knife stab through her, the pain sharp enough that she felt suddenly nauseous and lightheaded. Rodney was glaring at both of them.
“It said it did not have enough energy,” she spoke up, wanting to defend Ronon’s gut reaction. She had wanted to do the same thing to the sphere.
“Genius, remember? Energy is what I do,” Rodney bit back. “I could have a PhD in energy if I wanted. Too much energy, too little energy-I am the go-to person in this entire galaxy when it comes to energy. Am I wrong?”
Teyla shook her head. Her feet were rooted to the ground. Had they just lost their chance to get John back? The sphere had not said impossible, but that didn’t mean it was possible. Despite Rodney’s claims, he couldn’t create energy whenever he wanted. The idea that anything-whether it was energy or an alien-could bring a dead man back to life…she shook her head. She had seen many wonders in her life, but never that. Never that.
“We should attempt to find the jumper again,” she said, surprised again at how calm she sounded. She certainly did not feel it. “Atlantis will-”
Her voice cut off as the light reappeared in the gel square above the door, and hope burst in her chest. Ronon had not destroyed it. It popped into existence again, as silent as before. This time, however, it stayed close to the ceiling, well out of their reach.
“Follow.”
Ronon spun around, and Teyla could almost feel the relief emanating from him. He and Rodney stepped forward automatically. The door slid open and the bubble ducked under the head of the frame and out into the hallway. Teyla hesitated, reaching for the back panel.
“I will stay,” she said.
Her two teammates spun around and their eyes shifted from her to the space where they’d last seen John.
“I’m not sure we should split up,” Rodney said.
“We don’t know what it wants,” Teyla responded. “Or where it wants to take us.”
“If it was going to hurt us, don’t you think it would have by now?”
Ronon glanced at Rodney and shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not.”
“Follow,” the sphere called out. The sound seemed farther away, making Teyla think it was coming from somewhere specific versus everywhere, like she had first assumed. Maybe the panels in the walls.
Rodney turned toward the sphere. “You said before you could fix your mistake, that you could bring John back?”
“Very difficult,” it flashed. “Too much energy.”
“Difficult but not impossible?” Teyla asked.
“Great energy. Requirement. Too much.” The sphere swung side-to-side as if to shake its head.
Rodney cleared his throat and stepped forward, straightening out his t-shirt. “Well, you see, I’m a bit of an expert in that area…uh, energy, that is. If you let me look at your power systems, I might be able to help.”
“Increase energy?”
“Yes.”
“Very difficult. Need new energy.”
“New energy? I could…um…I still might be able do that. How much energy are we talking about?”
“Careful, McKay,” Ronon whispered.
“Follow.” The sphere had moved forward as Rodney had talked, but now it backed up again into the hallway and disappeared from Teyla’s sight.
“Please. Please let me look at your energy levels or whatever,” Rodney said, following it. Ronon went with him, but stood in the doorframe, one foot in the hall and one foot in the room. McKay stared up at a spot a little farther down the hall where Teyla assumed the orb had floated to, his eyes pleading. “If I can produce enough power to help John…”
“Understand,” it answered, sounding still farther away. “Increase power. Produce more energy. Method is difficult.”
“But not impossible?” Rodney asked.
“Possible. Requires additional. Help.”
“I can help. Let me help.”
“Rodney…” Teyla called out.
He was standing in the hallway, framed in the door. He glanced at Teyla then back to the sphere. “No, just…let me at least look at it.”
“Help. Follow,” the stilted computer voice insisted. “Find more. Energy.”
“What about Sheppard?” Ronon called out.
“All follow. We must. Go.”
Rodney looked at both of them and waved them forward. Ronon shrugged and stepped into the hall, but he waited for Teyla. With one last glance at the opaque surface of John’s panel, she followed them.
As soon as all three of them were in the hallway, the bubble plowed into the nearest rectangle of gel and disappeared. The light remained, though, once more appearing to be a large, spinning ball of electricity.
“Follow.” The voice said again. The sound echoed in the hall around them.
The light jumped into the next panel, leaving a line of fading white behind it. They followed it like they had followed it since they’d arrived, but Teyla took careful note of where they were going and how many turns they made. She saw Ronon doing the same. Wherever the alien light wanted to take them, she was confident she would be able to find her way back to John.
The light stopped in front of another set of doors. Rodney jumped toward them before she or Ronon could urge caution and stepped into the new room. Ronon darted in after him and grabbed his arm, jerking him back and taking in the room in a single glance. Teyla followed more slowly.
The room was much larger than any of the others. As they walked in, Teyla saw a collection of sofas, coffee tables and fake potted trees and plants deeper into the room, but the area directly in front of the door was empty and dominated by two wide gel panels against the back wall at least as long, right to left, as Ronon was tall. The lounge area had enough seats to accommodate a large number of people, which struck her as odd given the lack of people, human or alien. The entire ship seemed to have been built for a significant crew. How many had the place once contained? Were they now all part of the single entity of the ship?
Whatever other questions she had fled her mind as the right-hand panel lit up, revealing John’s body. She ran forward, pressing against the gel. It was just like in the other room. He was in the exact same position, the exact same depth within the gel. Was it really even him?
“How do we know that’s Sheppard?” Ronon asked, voicing Teyla’s thoughts.
She snapped her head around and saw the blue sphere had reappeared. Rodney and Ronon had wandered closer to John, but Ronon was facing the sphere now. The orb zoomed away from him, then dipped and headed straight toward Teyla’s head.
She ducked, throwing her arms up above her in protection. The sphere sped past her and slammed into the panel. Teyla spun around to see the ball of energy fade into the gel, but almost as soon as it winked out, the entire panel slid out of the wall, supported by a thick metal slab beneath it. John’s body was still suspended in the center, but even as she watched, he began to sink. When he hit the slab at the bottom, the gel shimmered and softened, then slowly pulled back into the wall.
Teyla moved first, reaching a tentative hand out. She frowned, dismayed at how it trembled. She was still sore from her and Ronon’s efforts on the planet, but the pain was all but forgotten now that John was lying in front of them. She went for John’s hand first and grabbed his fingers.
They were ice cold and she clenched her jaw at the sob trying to burst out. He was dry, even though the gel had looked wet. She stretched her other hand out and brushed her fingers against his cheek. The warmth in his skin almost undid all of her control and her eyes welled up with tears. She blinked rapidly, reining in the overwhelming emotions. Letting go of his hand, she fingered the bruises on his chest.
He was still warm-not as warm as he had been, but not the cold stiffness she’d expected. The skin stretching over his bruised chest was warmest of all. Ronon walked around her to his head and laid his hands on each side of John’s face, bowing his head, and Rodney stepped up next to her and brushed his shoulder against hers.
He reached a hand out then jerked it back. Teyla could hear his breathing had grown ragged but she didn’t dare look up at his face. His expressions were always so open, and she wasn’t sure she was prepared to see the pain and grief she knew must be streaming through him. When he reached out again, Teyla grabbed his quivering hand and guided it toward John’s arm.
Rodney stiffened, but he let her set it on John’s forearm. He exhaled loudly, leaning against her a little more as he tightened his grip on John. He leaned forward, stretching out his other hand and resting it on John’s leg. She could see him shaking, but he was quiet-quieter than she had ever seen him, except perhaps when Carson had died.
The blue sphere gave them their moment with John. After several minutes, Rodney finally straightened and released his hold. He turned back to the alien light.
“You can really bring him back?” he whispered.
The sphere jumped up and down in the air, its flashing center echoing its excitement. “With much energy. Still possible. Must move. Quickly.”
“Do you have a computer? Or my computer? If I can get back onto the jumper…our ship…”
“No.”
Ronon hadn’t moved at John’s head, but he jerked up in surprise at the sphere’s response. “No?”
The sphere jerked backward, edging closer to Rodney and farther from the Satedan. Ronon stepped forward, raising a fist.
“Ronon, stop. Wait!” Rodney cried out. He turned back to the floating bubble. “I want to help with your energy requirements but I can only do that if-”
“No. We do not have. Required energy. Need new. Energy.”
“Maybe I can-”
“Need new energy.”
“Okay,” Rodney snapped. “New energy-got it. If you let us return home, I can bring back a generator, something to produce more energy-”
“Wrong energy. Life needs. Life-energy.”
Teyla’s head snapped between the two of them as she tried to follow the conversation. The stilted cadence of the computerized voice was mind-boggling. Life-energy? She had never heard of such a thing.
“What is life-energy?” she asked. She grabbed John’s arm and held onto it, wondering if the ship would take John back into the wall. She would not let that happen-she would not lose him again.
“You. Humans. Life-energy.”
“Me?” Rodney repeated. He glanced over at Ronon and Teyla, then back to the sphere. “You need us to give Sheppard his life back?”
Teyla shook her head immediately. “John would not want that. We cannot exchange our lives for his no matter how much we want him back.”
“Incorrect,” the alien globe answered. “Life-energy. Not life.”
“Can you be a little more specific and a little less cryptic? Uh, please.”
Teyla could hear her own frustration in Rodney’s voice and she nodded her support.
“Life-energy from three. Restore life. Of one.”
The answer made little sense to Teyla. Before any of them could ask for further clarification, a metal slab slid out of the wall behind Ronon and lined up directly beneath the second long gel panel. Ronon slid out from between the two to stand next to Teyla, and Rodney pressed against her back to look at it. A light began to pulse between the two panels, bouncing back and forth like a child’s ball.
“One offers. Life-energy. Transmit to one. Without life.”
“How do we do that?” Ronon rumbled.
“Demonstration.”
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
“What kind of demonstration?” Ronon asked. The bobbing sphere was pissing him off with its cryptic phrases. Sheppard was dead, and this thing was bouncing around like McKay on double-chocolate brownie day.
“Lie down,” the ball answered.
Ronon glanced over at Sheppard stretched out on his slab and then at the bare slab next to him. Was that what the alien wanted? He looked up at it as it zoomed over his head and halted over the head of the second slab.
“No,” he growled.
“No pain,” it answered back. “We take nothing. Demonstration only.”
The ball waited, expecting them to follow it the way they had so far. Ronon bit his lip, looking again at Sheppard. The man’s body was gray, the color washed out of it. Every time he looked at it, he was struck by the contradictory information it shot back at him. It looked exactly like his friend and nothing like him. The hair, the ears, the hands…they were all Sheppard.
But it wasn’t him. Sheppard had exuded strength and loyalty and humor and dedication and…and everything. He was always moving, always thinking. Ronon had enjoyed ribbing him, running faster than he knew Sheppard could keep up, pushing him beyond his limits in their almost daily sparring fights, but time and again, Sheppard surprised him with his tenacity.
John Sheppard had never given up.
Until today.
The thought came out of nowhere, flashing through his mind. No, he thought, and he clenched his teeth against the flash of anger that coursed through him. He couldn’t lay this on Sheppard, and the fact that the thought had occurred to him for even a second pissed him off. He squeezed his hands into tight fists and forced himself to take a deep calming breath.
The ball flashed again, darting toward him then away again like a skittish animal. “Demonstration only. Safe.”
Ronon walked over to the slab and ran his finger along its cold surface. Teyla and Rodney had been standing near Sheppard, watching him, but Teyla stepped toward him now.
“Ronon, you do not have to do this,” she said. She was still holding onto Sheppard’s arm and he grimaced at the way his hand flopped when she moved. He was still warm, but in a few more hours he’d begin to stiffen.
He closed his eyes, casting the image of Sheppard’s corpse from his mind, and jumped onto the slab. He took another deep breath and looked at Teyla. “Shoot it if it does anything to me.”
“With what?” McKay squawked. “And how is that going to help anything?”
Ronon turned away from them. He’d forgotten for a second that they’d all been disarmed. What he wouldn’t give for three seconds with his blaster. The ball swung around to face him, almost close enough for him to touch it, but he knew it would slide away if he even looked like he was going to grab it. It waited, its center light pulsing at a constant tempo.
He swung his legs up and laid down. “I’m ready.”
He felt more than saw the gel from the panel next to him begin to ooze around him. It filled the slab but didn’t spill over the edge, and the level began to rise. It was weird-not wet exactly, but not dry. And it was warm. The level rose two inches, then three, then four, then pooled over the nape of his neck. It covered his legs and stomach and crept past his ears, blocking the slight sounds of his team moving around and the background hum of the ship and plunging the room into a deep, muted silence.
He shifted his eyes as Teyla and McKay appeared next to him. He could see their mouths moving and could almost read their frantic questions in the movement of their lips, but he heard nothing. The gel was creeping over his chest and he had the sudden panicked though that it was going to cover him completely.
He jerked, or tried to. His body was completely immobilized, his arms and legs pinned to the table. The gel reached his temples and he closed his eyes, waiting for it to envelop him-
And then he was standing in a classroom, surrounded by rows of small desks. A woman stood at the front, her blond hair pulled into a bun and a smile splitting her face. She was talking, but Ronon could not hear anything. He walked toward the woman with sudden recognition. His teacher-she’d been his teacher when he’d been a boy. A very young boy. He glanced at walls filled with drawings and posters. If someone had asked him about this room, he could never have described it-not like this-and yet it was perfect. He smiled at its familiarity as he remembered the different projects and field trips this class had taken him on.
And the teacher. He’d been in love with her-as much as a seven-year-old could be. It was the year he’d had perfect attendance, much to his parents’ delight. He stood in the front corner of the room and surveyed the rows of students, picking out faces that should have been long forgotten but weren’t. He saw his best friend, his first girlfriend-who wouldn’t give him the time of day for another two years-the boy who’d bullied him endlessly his first year of school until Ronon had eventually decked him.
A boy in the center of the third row stood up, his eyes sparkling in anticipation and excitement, and it took a second for Ronon to place him and recognize he was staring at himself. Seven-year-old Ronon tugged on his brown school vest, straightening it out, his grin growing wider at whatever the teacher was saying. A moment later, he slipped out from behind his desk and walked to the front of the room, the short curly dreads sticking out in all directions and bouncing as he moved.
With sudden clarity, Ronon remembered this moment, and he snapped his head to the back of the room. His breath caught in his throat. There, standing tall and proud, were his parents. They looked younger than he remembered, but they were smiling. His father held a hat in hands covered in dark soot and oil-he’d come straight to the school from work. His mother was ringing her hands together, a movement he knew stemmed from barely contained excitement.
They were young and happy, pride brimming in their eyes at their youngest child. Ronon turned back to the teacher, who now had a hand around his younger self’s shoulders. In her other hand, a shiny medallion swung from its ribbon. The class began to applaud, and some of the students banged their palms against their desks. Ronon would be let home early from school that day, and his mother would swing him in circles around the kitchen in celebration, the small medallion flapping against his chest.
He gasped, and the ceiling of the ship blinked into focus. He lay still for a moment, reaching for the memory again. It had been so strong and so detailed. More detailed than any memory he could recall, even his recent ones. The gel pulled away from his skin, and he shivered at the slight drop in temperature.
“Ronon, are you okay?” Teyla asked, grabbing his hand and leaning over him.
“What?” he blinked. He shook his head, dragging his attention back into the present.
“What happened?” McKay asked.
Ronon pushed himself up and swung his legs over the edge, grateful for Teyla’s steadying hand on his arm. He stayed sitting, not quite trusting his legs to hold him yet. “I…it was a memory, but clear, like I was actually there.”
“A memory of what?” Teyla asked.
“I was young-seven. I’d gotten the highest marks on the government standard-a test-and the teacher was giving me an award in front of the entire class.”
“You got the highest grade? What kind of test was it?” McKay asked.
Ronon barely noticed the glare Teyla shot at him or McKay’s mumbled apology. He grabbed a hold of the image of his mother and father. Young and happy-their whole lives still in front of them.
But his father would die slowly a year before the Wraith destroyed Sateda, and his mother…
He sucked in a ragged gasp. The joy of seeing his parents alive gave way to the pain of knowing what would happen to them. To his entire family. To his entire world.
“Ronon?” Teyla tightened her grip on his arm but Ronon ignored her, shaking off the memories.
He scanned the room, finding the ball of light. “What does that have to do with Sheppard and your life-energy?”
“Memories of childhood. Precious to you. Life-energy in them. Strong.”
“What are you saying?” Ronon asked, feeling renewed frustration at the alien’s obscure speech. “You want my memories of Sateda?”
He slid off the slab, relieved that his legs held. He stepped toward the shimmering ball and glowered when it swung backward, away from him.
“Of childhood. This energy. In you, powerful.”
Ronon glanced at Sheppard, seeing only gray skin, then back at the alien. “How does this help Sheppard?”
“Life is past. Present. Future.”
Ronon swallowed at the growing realization of what the alien was asking of him. “And you want my past?”
“To give the one. Without energy.”
He heard McKay and Teyla react behind him as they too picked up on what the alien was saying, but he ignored them, keeping his attention focused on the glowing sphere. “And what happens to me afterward?”
“Ronon, that is…that is too much,” Teyla breathed out behind him.
“What happens to me afterward?” he asked again, louder.
“You remain. Same. Only as you were. That is taken.”
He would be the same, but without his memories of growing up? Could he be the same without those memories? Without his family and his school mates and…and Sateda?
“I’m not saying I can even begin to understand how this works,” McKay piped up, talking to the alien but shooting pointed looks at Ronon. “But before you start ripping memories from us, we’re going to need you to give us some kind of assurance that you can actually do what you’re saying you can do here.”
“Rodney is correct,” Teyla added.
Ronon nodded, relieved to have a few more seconds to consider what the alien was asking of him.
The sphere bobbed. “Demonstration.”
Ronon turned to see gel flowing around Sheppard’s body the same way it had done to him. It flowed from the bottom of the panel in an endless supply. As one, he, McKay and Teyla rushed to the slab to stare down at their team leader and friend. Ronon felt his heart begin to pound in his chest. He’d tried not to get his hopes up, and had managed to keep a clamp on them until he’d relived that memory. But now…the memory had been so perfect in all of its details, and what had seemed laughingly impossible was not anymore, including the possibility that they could get Sheppard back.
The gel covered Sheppard’s legs and arms and crept up the sides of his ribs and head, but it stopped at a much lower level than Ronon had felt. They waited, and Ronon held his breath as a thousand beads within the gel began to pulse.
All three of them started when Sheppard’s eyes suddenly flew open. Ronon watched the sightless pupils dilate in reaction to the light in the room and reached a hand out toward him. Sheppard, still encased in gel just below his ears, suddenly threw his head back, gasping, and Ronon jerked away instinctively. He felt his heart beating in his chest at what he was witnessing. Sheppard’s chest rose as he took in a deep breath and his body relaxed on the slab.
“John?” Teyla called out. She dug her hand into gel that looked more like thick blue water than anything solid and grabbed his hand.
Sheppard continued to stare up at the ceiling, giving no indication that he had noticed them or could even hear them. The gel was well below his ears, and Ronon clamped his mouth shut in apprehension. Sheppard breathed again, his ribs slowly expanding. Teyla bent closer to him, reaching for the pulse point in his neck.
Sheppard breathed a third time, but as he expelled, his eyes slid closed. They waited for his chest to rise, but he was deathly still once more. Teyla pressed her fingers against his neck, then bent her head over his mouth. She straightened a moment later and shook her head, but Ronon had already known what she’d find. It was blatantly obvious just by looking at him.
The alien dropped into Ronon’s line of vision. “Energy required. Too much. Cannot sustain.”
Ronon walked to the bare slab and hopped up. He’d expected the decision to be more difficult, but in the end, the answer had come easily to him. He stretched out, folding his arms over his stomach.
“Ronon, you will lose most if not all of your memories of Sateda,” Teyla said.
He glanced at her, then at McKay as the scientist walked up to his side.
“There’s got to be some other way,” McKay said.
Ronon shook his head, bringing up the image of his parents standing in the back of his classroom. The knowledge of what would happen to them was fused to his past, the happy memories inseparably connected with the pain that still haunted him, still cut and burned at the most unexpected moments.
He would lose Sateda, but maybe he would lose the pain too. He steeled himself and met Teyla’s eyes. “I can hold onto memories or I can help Sheppard now.”
“Life-energy. No other way,” the alien added.
Teyla and McKay jerked their hands away as the gel surrounded him again. It was easier the second time, and Ronon closed his eyes. The gel rose quickly, submerging him completely, but before he had time to panic at what was sure to be suffocation, a lightning bolt of electricity flashed through his body. Snapshots of Sateda, his family, his school, his home-everywhere he had ever been and everyone he had ever seen-flipped through this mind, spinning faster and faster until they blurred together with dizzying speed.
And then nothing.
TBC...
Part 3