Fic: Invisible Prisoner 1/4 (SGA, McKay/Sheppard, Sheppard/Other)
kitt's posting reminded me that dude, I needed to get this up! Thanks kitt!
Title: Invisible Prisoner
Series: Stargate Atlantis
Part:1/4
Pairings: McKay/Sheppard, Sheppard/Other
Word Count: 29,623
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Dark Themes
A/N: This was written for the mcshep_match.Written for Team Angst, the prompt: Prisoner of War. It should have been up ages ago but I am both lazy and forgetful. Thank you kitt for reminding me. Also, huge thanks to everyone on Team Angst and in particular to trinityofone, ducks_abound, iamtheenemy,and wychwood for putting up with me while I was writing this and helping me.
Summary: How can you be rescued if no one knows you're gone?
John didn't like to gripe about the things he missed about Atlantis. If he wanted to bitch, he was generally content to call Rodney and let him do it for him. It took less energy and was more amusing.
But there had been days in the week or so since the Lanteans had kicked them out of the Pegasus Galaxy when he missed certain things acutely. Like the puddlejumpers, for instance, John thought as he dabbed experimentally at a small cut on his cheekbone the SGC doctors had treated less than an hour earlier. They just made running for your life so much more time-effective.
The SGC wasn't Atlantis and John hadn't expected it to be. Yes, he was grateful that he still got to lead offworld missions but it wasn't the same and it had been a close one this time. A close one without the benefit of a puddlejumper. So, he was maybe a little homesick. He'd had to pick up and leave often enough in his life that it wasn't a big deal. He was just tired, that was all. The sort of aching and worn-out fatigue that seeped into all your locked places and loosened things you'd rather keep stowed tightly away.
That and he kept forgetting that the doors didn't just slide open for him anymore.
His first day on duty in the Cheyenne Mountain base he'd forgotten and in the extra 5 odd seconds it'd taken him to remember why the door wasn't taking care of itself had been hit from behind by a little waif of a scientist who'd been too buried in her notes to notice him.
He'd stumbled forward a step, nearly colliding with the door, but she'd gone sprawling backwards to the floor. Her skirt rode up long, slim legs and she'd made a small squeaking sound as she hit the ground which he very carefully did not laugh at. He knelt to help her desperate scramble to pick up the papers that had scattered all over the corridor.
"I didn't see you," she'd said, distractedly. "I just didn't see you."
John figured that was because her glasses, thin, black wire-frames, were lying on the ground five feet away from her. He picked them up and handed them to her. When she slid her glasses back on her face, they coupled with her dark messy bun to complete the librarian-esque image.
She blushed a little as she climbed hastily to her feet. "Oh. Colonel Sheppard. Hi."
"Hello."
"I'm sorry. I really didn't see you there, Colonel." She held out the left, ringless, hand and John took it, using it to pull himself up and then shaking it a little awkwardly.
"That's all right..."
"Oh. Um, Helena. I'm Dr. Helena Meyers." She glanced down at the unwieldy stack of papers she held in her free hand. "It's okay that you don't know me. You just got back and I'm down in the labs with the computer engineering division all the time."
John nodded. "Sounds interesting."
She tilted her head, and looked at him appraisingly from the bottom of his worn boots to the top of his head. "Really?" she asked skeptically.
John gave her a grin. "No, but I just knocked you down and I'm trying to be nice. You're ruining it."
She smiled at him and he'd liked the way it went all the way up to her big brown eyes. "You get points for the effort."
"We're keeping score now?"
She'd smiled again before finally pulling her hand from his. "Women are always keeping score, Colonel." Her tone was coy and sort of throaty but it shifted almost instantly back to that harried scientist distraction he was used to from Rodney. "But I have to go. These were already late. Nice talking to you," she said as she sidled past him and out the door he still hadn't opened.
Now that he'd noticed her, it was as if all of a sudden Helena was everywhere in the SGC. Her presence had made several meals in the mess a more pleasant experience if only by virtue of the fact that he didn't eat alone. And in the past week, they'd had half a dozen brief conversations as they passed each other in the halls. Nothing important got said, just mild flirtation that had gotten less harmless as time went on until that last encounter, the one they'd had as he'd left the infirmary, not half an hour ago.
The memory of the seemingly mild-mannered Dr. Helena Meyers' frank offer of dinner made John significantly less tired. Saying no to an alien princess who wants you to be her king and rule her backwater planet is one thing, after all. But saying no to a mature Earth woman when she asked you out on a date was something else entirely.
After all, she was hot in a naughty teacher sort of way. John was a man who could appreciate a beautiful being - woman, man, ascended Ancient, whatever - and Helena was textbook pretty beneath those glasses and her general state of disarray.
But what was really hot about her was that she was smart. Intelligence had always turned him on and she was very, very smart. Not Rodney smart, but of course if Rodney was to be believed no one was. But still she was a genius, a card-carrying member of Mensa (he hadn't seen the card but she'd offered to show him in a tone that had made a little piece of laminated paper seem sexual-yet another of the many reasons he liked her) and she'd done the hard part of making the first move for him.
So now he had a date for the night. His first real date since before he'd started his first tour in Antarctica. The simple prospect of an evening with a beautiful, intelligent woman he wouldn't have to lie to about his job was enough to put a spring in his step and make the mission reports and paperwork he had to fill out before he could leave seem like less of a chore.
He hadn't mentioned the date to Rodney when he'd called that afternoon. He hadn't mentioned Helena at all, because they were good friends but there some places they didn't go.
No. That wasn't really true. Rodney's habit of speaking before thinking had informed John of more than he sometimes wanted to know. The reality was that there were places he didn't like to go and in the last few years, Rodney had learned not to push.
But that was okay. This thing with Helena wasn't the sort of thing he'd want a friend's input on. And even if it had been, he still wouldn't have wanted Rodney's. The man, for all his skill with machines and math and the physical universe in general, was god-awful with women and John didn't want his bad mojo rubbing off on him.
He worked for the SGC, for God's sake. He had enough bad luck already.
~*~*~
Helena's glasses were on crooked. They hung off one ear and John could not believe how hot the lopsided messy look was on her. Of course the fact that her glasses were all she was wearing didn't hurt in the least.
"So do you still respect me, Colonel Sheppard?" Helena asked, her chin resting on her hand. Her hand, of course, was resting on the bare skin of his chest.
This wasn't where he'd expected to end up on the first date. Hoped? Yeah, of course. Every guy wanted to get to this part as quickly as possible and the ones who said differently were lying.
But he'd slept with her-twice now, which wasn't bad considering how long it had been since he'd been with anyone-and he still wanted to talk to her. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt like that. Chaya, maybe, but he wasn't sure if she counted.
"If anything I respect you more," John replied as he lifted a hand to fix her glasses. "That flippy thing was worthy of an Olympic medal. Of course, if that was in the Olympics, they wouldn't air on basic cable."
Helena laughed. "What can I say? I've got game."
"You have it and you win."
She smiled at him and laid her head on his chest. The urge to run like hell wasn't strong enough to drive him out of bed so he let himself run his fingers through her dark hair. It was the first time she'd had it loose since he met her.
"What are you thinking?"
John sighed but smiled. "You had to ruin it."
"I'm a girl, John. I couldn't help it." She tapped her fingers on his skin. "Come on, tell me."
"I was counting backwards from a thousand."
"How far were you?"
"Six hundred ninety three."
"You're a quick counter."
"I'm good with math."
"Me too. Computer science and all." Helena lifted her head so she could look at his face. "John?"
"Hm?"
"Do you want to do this again?"
"This going out and having dinner or this naked gymnastics?"
"Either. Both would be nice."
"I think I could be convinced."
Cold hit his skin as she rolled off of him and scooted up the bed to rest her head on the pillows. John watched as she turned to face him.
"Next time we both have a night off?" she offered.
"If that happens before we all get blown up or conquered then you've got yourself a date, Dr. Meyers."
~*~*~
"It's too dry here. It's playing hell with my sinuses. I'm on the verge of a spontaneous nosebleed every time I go out in that heat."
"Like in those Japanese cartoons when they see a pretty girl?" John asked. He held the phone sandwiched between his ear and shoulder so that he was free to doodle on a pad of paper instead of filling out his mission report.
"What? No. I'm just sensitive to the dry heat."
"You're just bored, Rodney."
"Possibly. You're not?"
"In general or just at the moment?"
John stared down at the picture he was drawing. It was a really really bad sketch of a puddlejumper which was currently resembling a can of Campbell's soup more than a space ship. But it was more entertaining than writing a mission report for boring planet PX-seventy billion or wherever.
So maybe he was bored with work, yes, but he was off duty tonight. And so was Helena.
All in all, the month back on Earth hadn't been a complete bore.
"Colonel, I have about seventeen time-sensitive projects I could be working on."
"You called me."
"That's beside the point," he snapped and John could almost see Rodney waving his hand dismissively at him. He couldn't stop himself from smiling at the image.
"It can't be that time-sensitive if you're making social calls. Is the solar system going to blow up? Because if it is I can let you go," he teased.
"No," Rodney said sourly. "I am not going to blow up another solar system. I didn't blow up the whole thing and we said we were going to stop bringing that up all the time. I made one little mistake and you people just can't let it go."
"It was a pretty big boom, Rodney."
"Who uses the word 'boom' in conversation? You're like a six-year-old."
"Hey, my inner child is nine and he takes offense at that."
"Don't you have work to do?" Rodney demanded.
John added a few lines to his puddlejumper sketch. The poor thing was really hideous. The Lanteans would be horrified. He felt like sending them a copy of his rendering in a databurst for General O'Neill. Or he should show it to Helena. She'd get a kick out of it and he liked it when she laughed. Then again, so would Rodney. Although Rodney didn't really laugh that often, come to think of it.
He needed to get to a Xerox machine. Then he could do all three.
"Don't you? You're the important scientist guy."
"Oh yes, I was in the middle of making a series of personal jet packs before I called."
John sat up at that. Because really, what guy hadn't wanted a jet pack when he was little? He certainly had. And maybe he wouldn't say no to one now. If he was offered.
"Really?"
"What? No! Jet packs aren't real. For god's sake, the amount of heat generated from the thrust that would be required from that sort of jet propulsion system would burn your legs off before it ever got you off the ground."
"Way to kill my fantasy there, pal."
"You fantasize about jet packs? Clearly, you're more twisted than I thought, which is saying something."
John wondered for a moment how Rodney would react if he had any idea what John really fantasized about. Not well, most likely. Although to be honest, a jet pack had never come up before. Now it was there in full force, fitting neatly into an image of Rodney in a barely-there leather superhero costume along the lines of Batman or possibly Nightwing that flashed through John's mind's eye.
The visual should have been a ridiculous one, as the idea of Rodney as anything even close to Batman could have been dorkier but not without a lot of work. Yet John found it to be startlingly hot and a bit unexpected.
John had forced himself out of the habit of thinking about Rodney like that now that he didn't see him every day. He found it was easier not to dwell on what he'd decided long ago was a pointless and juvenile crush when the object of the obsession was hundreds of miles away than it was when he was living down the hall from Rodney. Biweekly phone calls did not call for the same sort of closeness as living that close to someone and surviving dangerous missions through the gate together.
The fantasies had thankfully become less frequent once they'd been parted for awhile. John had them even less now that he was seeing Helena. And if thinking about Rodney sexually didn't come up, thinking about having to hide his desire didn't either.
It was only when Rodney called that those annoying issues seem to float up out of his subconscious. So, needless to say, he was a little distracted by the task of pushing them safely into the back of his mind where they belonged and came back to the conversation a little bit behind.
"-in a week."
"What?"
"Did you go deaf or did you just stop listening to me?"
"Are you going to yell if I say I stopped listening?"
"I would consider the option but you're not worth the energy."
"I won't be swayed by flattery so don't bother."
"Are you at least listening now? Or is your paperwork that much more interesting than our conversation?"
"I don't know. I've got some requisition forms I could be filling out. And I could probably catch Helena if I leave now. "
"Who?"
"Helena," John said, because she'd been a fixture in his life for a month and so of course Rodney knew about her. Only he didn't. "This girl I'm sorta...she's a girl."
"Is she an Ascended girl?"
"She's just a girl," John sighed.
A very smart, very pretty girl who he suspected knew a thing or two about gymnastics. A girl whose regular presence in his life and bed provided a considerable consolation prize for losing Atlantis, his contact with Teyla, Ronon, and Elizabeth, and his chance to fly in outer space on a regular basis.
"Really? I didn't know you went for the non-Ascended type."
"She's from New Hampshire."
"New Hampshire's up from here in latitude isn't it? So technically she has to ascend to get back. You really should double-check her references. Make sure she has, I don't know, parents."
"You don't really think you're funny, do you?"
"Who's being funny? You've got a track record, Picard."
John rubbed at his eyebrow with the eraser of his pencil, as if that would somehow erase the irritation from his brain. "McKay."
"What?"
"Setting aside the fact that I am not a member of Star Fleet or a captain, that one doesn't work by virtue of the fact that unlike Patrick Stewart, I have hair. So could you stop calling me Star Trek names and go back to what you were talking about earlier? Something's happening in a week? You can tell me, I'm not ignoring you right now. "
"Oh, yes, yes, yes. I'm flying in to Colorado Springs. I just got my ticket."
"Really? How come?"
"Business mostly." Which was code for: try to talk Samantha Carter into letting him work on her projects and/or go out with him. John didn't give him much of a chance for either but it would be good to see him again.
"We'll hang out while you're in town," John said. It wasn't a question. Having even one more member of his Atlantis family was too good a prospect to leave vulnerable to Rodney's always too-busy work schedule.
"If I don't have too much work, I guess that'd be all right."
He wouldn't have too much work. Colonel Carter liked John and she wasn't Rodney's biggest fan, despite (or more likely because of) his obsession with her. A few quick words and they'd have at least a few hours to hang out, have dinner, start feeling like things were normal again-or as normal as they could be without Teyla, Ronon, Elizabeth, and, well, everyone else.
"We'll work something out."
"We always do. Or, rather, I always do and you try your best not to ruin it."
"Yeah, miss you too, buddy," John sighed and glanced at the clock. It was later than he'd thought and he needed to actually get his report finished and filed if he was going to meet up with Helena tonight. He was supposed to be at her apartment in two hours or so. If he rushed, he could probably still make it on time. "But I've got to run if I want to get out of here in the near future."
"I need to make sure my obsequious toadies haven't destroyed my lab. It's like they were all cursed with ten thumbs and double-digit IQs. They'll give anyone a PhD these days," Rodney lamented distractedly. "I'll see you in a week, Colonel."
"Seeya in a week."
He hung up the phone, pushed his doodle away and set to work. The sketch fell off the desk but it didn't look any more like a puddlejumper when it hit the floor of John's office.
But even focusing completely on his work, it still took John about twenty minutes longer than he'd hoped to get his paperwork finished and turned into Landry's office. It was another ten minutes to get everything settled and leave the base.
John was on the less fashionable side of late when he finally made it to Helena's apartment in downtown Colorado Springs. He'd tried to call her before he left, let her know, but she hadn't picked up.
She didn't answer when he rang the bell, not even to call out that he should just hang on a second. But she was there. He'd parked in the empty space next to her car. She didn't answer when he pounded on the door with his fists. He tried her cell phone, then her house phone. He could hear the phone ringing in the apartment until he heard the duality of her voice in his ear and from the other side of the door as the machine picked it up.
His first impulse was to kick down the door. One too many rescue missions, John supposed as he pushed down the urge and tested the doorknob instead
"Helena? It's John, are you there?" he called as the knob twisted. It was unlocked and the door swung inward.
Her apartment was dark. All the curtains were pulled shut against the stars and the street lights. The only light in the entire place was a sliver of yellow glowing from beneath the bathroom door.
"Okay, this stopped being funny about ten minutes ago," John muttered as he flicked on the living room light and crossed the small, neat space to the bathroom.
He could hear the sound of slowly dripping water on the other side of the door. Like a leaky sink but hitting water instead of porcelain or metal. But other than the slow dripping there was silence and it made something in his stomach clench as he pushed open the door.
The bathroom was done in cheerful shades of yellow that cast a horrific contrast on the scene before him. It was like a something out of a slasher movie - terrible, too bright, and completely unreal. John's hand groped for something-a wall, a counter, a doorjamb, anything to hold himself up as his knees weakened.
"God, Helena, no..."
The tub was a murky red pool, rippling as stray droplets of clear water fell from the faucet. Her hair was loose and wet on her shoulders, like he had only ever seen it when they made love. And her glasses, her glasses were missing.
John didn't know why but the lack shook him almost as much as the ribbon of blood that trickled slowly from the deep, vertical wound in her right forearm from elbow to wrist, down her hand off her long fingers and onto the cold tile. He certainly noticed it before he realized that her bare breasts were not rising and falling.
His knees failed him just as he made it to the side of the bathtub which was funny because John really couldn't remember moving. He honestly couldn't. Not when he crossed from the doorway to her side, not when he pulled her soaking naked body out of the water and into his arms.
He didn't consciously do any of it. In fact, his brain didn't snap back into sync until he was pushing strands of wet hair off her face and searching, desperately, for breath signs or a heartbeat as his hands exerted desperate pressure on the gaping tears in the flesh of both her arms.
"Come on," John hissed.
He blinked back the pain that was shooting through his chest from somewhere near his heart as he laid her down carefully on the floor and tilted her head back with one blood-slicked hand before starting compressions.
CPR was basic. He'd learned it in high school. He'd spent his entire career dealing with crises and he could save her. He saved people for a living out in Pegasus, damnit, the least he could do was save one woman on Earth.
"Come on, Helena, don't do this. Don't you dare do this!"
Thirty chest compressions then two breaths. Just like he'd learned. Now if she would just breathe. Just one breath and he could let up long enough to call 911.
He felt ill as he heard one of her ribs crack beneath his slippery hands on the count of twenty-three. That had to mean he was doing it too hard, didn't it? What if it punctured her lung and made it worse?
John told himself it didn't matter, made himself believe it, as he pinched her nose and breathed into her mouth, long and deep. He pulled away to take another breath and her eyes fluttered and that was good.
At least he really hoped that was good because she still wasn't breathing. John couldn't help but notice as he pinched her nose again that her lips were starting to turn blue.
This time when he breathed into her mouth she breathed back and her whole body shuddered on the tile. It startled him so much he would have jumped, if her left hand, wrinkled from the water and stained red, hadn't jerked up and yanked him closer by the back of the neck.
For a split second, he was kissing her. It was desperate and terrified but for the most part it was just a kiss like they had shared hundreds of times in the last month. It was familiar, her tongue sliding over his, her lips soft and cool. But almost as quickly, John was choking and gagging as something solid and slick shot into his mouth from hers, tearing the back of his throat.
He wrenched himself free as blood filled his mouth and then-
His entire world froze. He was still in the gory mess of Helena's bathroom, still kneeling on her floor where she lay, still dying. He just couldn't control how he sensed any of it. His hands, his legs, his vocal cords, his eyelids, the beat of his heart, the pattern of his breath-John was cut off from all of them.
Cold laughter echoed through his head as his legs moved of their own accord to lift him to his feet, stepping casually over Helena's now limp and empty body. He watched from a distance through his own eyes as something made his hand reach for one of Helena's guest towels.
Horror didn't twist his guts because he couldn't control them anymore. He didn't scream because no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get his lips to do anything but smirk at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.
You are still there, John Sheppard, a voice, the same voice that had laughed at his helplessness, hissed through him. After all, it would be so much less enjoyable if nothing of the host survived.
He didn't even need to watch the eyes in his twisted reflection glow gold. He knew what it was, the alien presence that had stolen his will and left Helena Meyers dead in her own home by her own hand.
Clever host, the Goa'uld practically purred as it washed John's hands. Inside John's head, the Goa'uld sounded nothing like one of the booming gods its kind pretended to be and everything like the snake it was. I like that you are clever, John Sheppard. You give me so much more to work with than the female did. All those fascinating memories and dreams leading you far from that shy little boy you keep locked away.
Fuck you, you slimy son of a bitch, John thought. Fury and hate and a sharp edge of fear punctuated his thoughts.
Cursing couldn't keep him distracted from what the Goa'uld was doing with his body. It was poking at Helena's body with the toe of a boot as it dialed 911 on his cell phone. His will made John's throat speak, cry, into the phone about his suicidal girlfriend. It made him sink to the floor beside her cold, wet body to wait for the ambulance to arrive and for its first performance in the role of Lt. Col. John Sheppard to begin.
All John had at the moment was hope that the snake couldn't act. But he remembered the time he'd spent with the thing when he'd thought it was Helena. He remembered how much he'd liked her and how much he'd wanted her. He wondered how long the Goa'uld had been in control, if he'd ever actually met the real Helena Meyers, and his suspicions caused a little of that hope to evaporate as the Goa'uld rose to meet the paramedics.
Its laughter echoed through whatever part of John was still his even as it spoke to the two men in blue coats, affecting John's stance, tone, and syntax. And all John could do was watch and listen as the paramedics declared the woman he'd never really known dead on her bathroom floor and the Goa'uld made his body pretend to weep.
~*~*~
The Goa'uld had been digging around in his things and in his head, for the last twenty-four hours. It had called into the SGC to inform them of Helena's death and take what Landry considered to be a deserved day off to recuperate from the shock of finding her.
The general offered him the whole week off but the Goa'uld had turned him down. John could almost believe it was something he would have said as the Goa'uld convinced his CO that getting back to work would provide a much-needed distraction.
And if he'd been half convinced, Landry had bought it hook, line and sinker. The cool and flawless invasion of his life had John bouncing off the walls. Metaphorically anyway.
At the moment, it was keeping itself busy riffling through what few possessions John kept in his apartment. Not that it mattered what he had on hand.
The Goa'uld had all his codes, all his keys, all his cards and information. It could get at whatever it wanted and it was simply taking its time. Enjoying itself in the playground of John's life.
Do you not want to know my name, John Sheppard? the Goa'uld offered suddenly.
John was caught off guard for a moment. He had been railing against the strange nothingness that held him as the Goa'uld fished out John's lone photo album, which was less like an album and more like a shoebox with pictures dumped in it. He'd thought the damn thing had forgotten he was still awake in there.
Go fuck yourself, John thought bitterly. He was good at being difficult just for difficulty's sake. He'd had a lot of practice
But I know how you like naming things, particularly your enemies. Steve. Bob. Michael. You still wonder about Michael, where he is, what he is truly called. My kind already possess names, John Sheppard. I can feel your desire to know mine.
You think that knowing your enemy will help you fight me. It will not. But I will tell you so that you can better know your master. It pleases me to indulge you so.
I could give a flying fuck, John snapped back helplessly. He wished the damn thing would go back to leaving him alone if it wouldn't leave completely.
The Goa'uld went through his pictures like they were a textbook. He didn't have many, but it spent a long time studying the ones of his father, and of Teyla and Rodney and Elizabeth. It touched the pictures as if it had been there in the moment the picture was taken, as if it knew any of the people John loved.
It made everything John owned seem dirty.
But it was better that it was here, in his home, than in the SGC. He didn't want to think about that, about what it could and would do to his friends and colleagues. Here in his home, at least, the evil fucker wasn't doing any active damage. It couldn't hurt anyone else like it had hurt Helena.
I gave her what she wanted. She was begging for death weeks ago. I was kind. There are many more painful ways of eliminating a useless host. Would you like me to show you?
John didn't dignify it with a conscious response but it just laughed at his small act of defiance.
Oh, believe I will enjoy being you, John Sheppard. I have never had a host fight as hard as you. And such a rich life you have to fight for, filled with such interesting friends who possess the same gifts as you - beauty and strength and endless misguided compassion.
You hurt them and I'll kill you.
How? the Goa'uld asked indulgently.
It had become bored with his photos. What did it need with pictures when it had his memories? It moved on to his music collection and was currently perusing his Johnny Cash albums, the CDs and the records.
Your body cannot draw breath without my command. How do you propose to kill me? Please, I am curious. You and your kind are so good at making plans after all.
To be perfectly honest, John didn't have much of a plan. They wouldn't have caught the Goa'uld in Caldwell last year if Cadman hadn't been unbelievably on the ball. He'd never have guessed.
So really, he didn't have a plan so much as the hope that his friends would realize something was wrong and fix the problem. And they would. They'd come for him. He just had to trust his team.
How will they know to come for you? They will never know you are gone.
They'll know. They'll know something's not right and when they do, they'll cut you out and snap you in half.
Such hope. It will be amusing to watch it wither and die.
Yeah, good luck with that, snakeboy, John thought with a smugness he really didn't feel. You don't know me and you don't know them.
The Goa'uld made a low growling noise. The sound could have been made aloud or it could have been just in his head but John heard it loud and clear. He started as it threw one of his favorite records; a vinyl first edition of "Live at Folsom Prison" his dad had left him when he died, across the room and into the wall. It broke as it hit with a crash.
I am Mavet, son of El, loyal and favored agent of Lord Ba'al and above all, I am now you, John Sheppard. Everything you were, everything you are and everything that you will be-all of it is mine. And my will is your existence. You will bend and you will break and when you do, I will be here to reshape the fragments of your consciousness to the mold of my desires.
If John had been able to he would have gritted his teeth and flipped Mavet the bird. Still, the snake got the message loud and clear: Bring it on.
But the damn thing just laughed its echoing, inescapable laugh again.
I do love a challenge, John Sheppard, Mavet replied jovially. Not that you will prove much of one.
John had thought he understood the term impotent rage before. Turned out, he hadn't. But he was sure as hell learning now.
~*~*~
No one noticed.
More than the paralysis, the lack of sensation, that was what blew John the fuck away. No one noticed anything. Landry gave him a small consoling pat on the shoulder when they passed in the hall but no one else could even tell something was off.
Five days off-world and no one on his team batted an eyelash at his behavior. Because the words that left his mouth didn't sound wrong. They weren't out of character.
No one noticed that John was just a passenger. Not a single member of his team seemed even remotely aware that he was experiencing his life like most people experienced the movies, in the dark from a few rows back with no control over the plot.
And as with many movie experiences, there was always someone a few rows ahead who wouldn't shut up.
I do not understand how your kind has managed to inflict so much damage when you are such a fragile lot, Mavet observed as it slung Wallace's arm over his shoulder to help him walk on the ankle he'd just broken. You are all so clumsy and you cannot even heal yourselves properly.
I really don't care, John snapped. Don't care, don't care, don't care, so just shut up.
How did you do it? Your species can barely function without a symbiote.
Magic beans, John replied deadpan. We sold this old cow and then up popped a beanstalk. Once we had the magic harp, it was cake.
He was only half focusing on Mavet's insult as he watched Bambus up ahead on point, obviously feeling like an idiot for falling into that stream.
Mavet didn't reply. He didn't seem to be in the mood to talk to John for any reason other than gloating at the moment. The guy did love to gloat. And to taunt.
Mavet found taunting him more entertaining than anything on TV or in print. But he tended to save that for nights, when John wanted nothing but darkness and oblivion but with Mavet keeping his eyes open he couldn't just fade away into unconsciousness.
John had been a prisoner for a week and already he was worn out. It wasn't just the horrific lack of control and claustrophobic cramping of his existence, it was that nothing worked.
He'd tried screaming, raving, wailing and thrashing. When Landry had led them into the control room, he'd thrown everything he had into trying to get through to the transmitted image of General O'Neill. He'd have been happy with anything, a spastic blink, a small twitch. Anything would have been enough, even if the General hadn't seen it.
He might as well not exist for all the good it did him.
And that was when the realization hit John, like being cracked in the face with a Louisville Slugger. For all intents and purposes, he didn't anymore.
Looks as if it is just you and me, John Sheppard, Mavet chuckled, ever the eavesdropper on John's thoughts. You should not worry. You will grow to love me in time. One day we will return to the Pegasus Galaxy and shape to it to the will of the Goa'uld, a new empire for Lord Ba'al.
Mavet's satisfaction only amplified John's horror. It numbed him through the SG team's debriefing. He was deaf and blind to everything until he heard that familiar voice echoing through his office on speaker phone.
"I hate it here."
McKay. They were supposed to meet up tomorrow. Rodney was coming and they were supposed to have dinner. He'd forgotten. He'd completely forgotten.
Oh, fuck, no.
Yes.
"How is that possible?" Mavet asked and John hated him for making his own body a traitor.
"It's true."
Mavet sighed and took a seat behind John's desk. He is an irritating little man, your Rodney. It is a shame he is so useful.
John couldn't let himself react to the comment about McKay. That was what Mavet wanted and he refused to give it. This was twisted enough already, especially when Mavet began talking to Rodney again, pulling facts from John's memories.
"Look, they gave you everything you wanted: your own lab ..."
"It's too big."
He would not last ten minutes under torture. He would crack like an egg and his tears would be sweet.
That was an image John really didn't need.
Shut up. Just shut up.
"Hand-picked assistants..."
"Yeah, sycophants every one of them."
There would be so many pieces he would never be repaired. The Tau'ri would be finding bloody pieces of him scattered throughout the cosmos.
Stop it, damn you and keep your snake hands off my models, John thought as Mavet studied the plane models that littered his desk.
They are your hands as well, John Sheppard. What is yours is mine.
The insinuation was dark and ugly. But it was a better subject of thought than the idea of Rodney being torn apart by any of the many Goa'uld torture devices.
"Even your choice of projects."
Mavet's patience with Rodney was wearing thin and it made John nervous. So far, he'd killed at least one person John knew of. He hadn't done any damage but John had no idea what the snake's MO was. It could be after anything from world domination to just general malice and Rodney seemed to attract malice from their enemies.
"Well, that's not true," He heard Rodney say sadly.
"Well, other than going back to Atlantis, I mean," Mavet amended.
It was just so...him. It was exactly what John would have said, exactly how John would have said it. There was nothing about it that should or even could have clued Rodney in.
"You know, the truth is..." Rodney sighed and trailed off.
Must he always be this melodramatic?
I like him this melodramatic.
There is no question of how you like him, John Sheppard. I can see that plainly. I simply cannot fathom why.
Well, we've only been seeing each other for a week. I'd hate to think I've lost my mystery already.
He isn't talking.
Yeah.
Irritating little human.
Yeah.
I will enjoy killing him when the time comes.
John's head was filled with laughter, his own for once.
You're definitely not the first one to feel that way.
"What?" the Goa'uld snapped, hair's breadth away from losing his cool and slipping into those strange, multifaceted tones, and John fell a little bit in love with Rodney.
Rodney and his personality had achieved in five minutes what John hadn't been able to with a week of sound and fury. He had pissed off Mavet, good and proper.
"I don't-I don't wanna use the term 'lonely,' but, uh, there are certain people who ... I miss."
Whiny, pathetic human, he snarled. I will use his skull as a bowl.
You don't strike me as the arts and crafts type, John replied gleefully. You should really answer him, you know.
Do not toy with me, John Sheppard. You will not like the outcome.
Try me.
Mavet's smile curved John's lips.
"Me?" Mavet asked flirtatiously.
John fumed. You think you're funny, don't you snakeboy?
I think you are funny, John Sheppard. With the doors you think are closed and the locks that do not hold.
Bite me.
It would seem that I already have.
"You?! You I'm talking to on the phone right now and having dinner with tomorrow, so not so much, but other people-people who I may never see again. Like, even Elizabeth-she hasn't returned any of my calls."
"I know what you mean."
"Hey-at least you still get to go offworld with a team of your own." Rodney's long-suffering sigh echoed over the speaker phone. It was so familiar, so damn normal that John would have smiled. Mavet just rolled his eyes.
"Oh yeah, the best and the brightest," Mavet returned. He sighed his frustration and John took the moment to quietly enjoy his captor's irritation. It was the little things in life you had to treasure. "All right, see you tomorrow night."
"Yeah, wouldn't miss it. Hey, you know, I-"
Mavet clicked off the phone before he could finish, relieved to be rid of Rodney. It was a sentiment he shared with many others on at least a dozen planets in two galaxies. Just not his host.
He's an ungrateful little man, isn't he, Mavet observed.
It's because he knows he's just that good.
You do not really think that.
Yes I do. I'd be dead about a hundred different ways if he weren't as smart as he is.
Although given the current situation, John thought that might not have been such a bad thing. He couldn't help but feel that being sucked dry by a Wraith was a little better than being trapped in his own head with a Tim Curry-wannabe lizard.
Your species' affection for the Earth arts never ceases to be entertaining. How can you exist so entranced with fiction?
Aren't you tired of talking to me yet?
Mavet laughed, out loud, as he slid down in the big chair that was one of John's favorite things about having his own office.
Oh, I will never tire of you, John Sheppard. Your tiny sun will expand and die first. Of that you can be sure.
Part two...
Title: Invisible Prisoner
Series: Stargate Atlantis
Part:1/4
Pairings: McKay/Sheppard, Sheppard/Other
Word Count: 29,623
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Dark Themes
A/N: This was written for the mcshep_match.Written for Team Angst, the prompt: Prisoner of War. It should have been up ages ago but I am both lazy and forgetful. Thank you kitt for reminding me. Also, huge thanks to everyone on Team Angst and in particular to trinityofone, ducks_abound, iamtheenemy,and wychwood for putting up with me while I was writing this and helping me.
Summary: How can you be rescued if no one knows you're gone?
John didn't like to gripe about the things he missed about Atlantis. If he wanted to bitch, he was generally content to call Rodney and let him do it for him. It took less energy and was more amusing.
But there had been days in the week or so since the Lanteans had kicked them out of the Pegasus Galaxy when he missed certain things acutely. Like the puddlejumpers, for instance, John thought as he dabbed experimentally at a small cut on his cheekbone the SGC doctors had treated less than an hour earlier. They just made running for your life so much more time-effective.
The SGC wasn't Atlantis and John hadn't expected it to be. Yes, he was grateful that he still got to lead offworld missions but it wasn't the same and it had been a close one this time. A close one without the benefit of a puddlejumper. So, he was maybe a little homesick. He'd had to pick up and leave often enough in his life that it wasn't a big deal. He was just tired, that was all. The sort of aching and worn-out fatigue that seeped into all your locked places and loosened things you'd rather keep stowed tightly away.
That and he kept forgetting that the doors didn't just slide open for him anymore.
His first day on duty in the Cheyenne Mountain base he'd forgotten and in the extra 5 odd seconds it'd taken him to remember why the door wasn't taking care of itself had been hit from behind by a little waif of a scientist who'd been too buried in her notes to notice him.
He'd stumbled forward a step, nearly colliding with the door, but she'd gone sprawling backwards to the floor. Her skirt rode up long, slim legs and she'd made a small squeaking sound as she hit the ground which he very carefully did not laugh at. He knelt to help her desperate scramble to pick up the papers that had scattered all over the corridor.
"I didn't see you," she'd said, distractedly. "I just didn't see you."
John figured that was because her glasses, thin, black wire-frames, were lying on the ground five feet away from her. He picked them up and handed them to her. When she slid her glasses back on her face, they coupled with her dark messy bun to complete the librarian-esque image.
She blushed a little as she climbed hastily to her feet. "Oh. Colonel Sheppard. Hi."
"Hello."
"I'm sorry. I really didn't see you there, Colonel." She held out the left, ringless, hand and John took it, using it to pull himself up and then shaking it a little awkwardly.
"That's all right..."
"Oh. Um, Helena. I'm Dr. Helena Meyers." She glanced down at the unwieldy stack of papers she held in her free hand. "It's okay that you don't know me. You just got back and I'm down in the labs with the computer engineering division all the time."
John nodded. "Sounds interesting."
She tilted her head, and looked at him appraisingly from the bottom of his worn boots to the top of his head. "Really?" she asked skeptically.
John gave her a grin. "No, but I just knocked you down and I'm trying to be nice. You're ruining it."
She smiled at him and he'd liked the way it went all the way up to her big brown eyes. "You get points for the effort."
"We're keeping score now?"
She'd smiled again before finally pulling her hand from his. "Women are always keeping score, Colonel." Her tone was coy and sort of throaty but it shifted almost instantly back to that harried scientist distraction he was used to from Rodney. "But I have to go. These were already late. Nice talking to you," she said as she sidled past him and out the door he still hadn't opened.
Now that he'd noticed her, it was as if all of a sudden Helena was everywhere in the SGC. Her presence had made several meals in the mess a more pleasant experience if only by virtue of the fact that he didn't eat alone. And in the past week, they'd had half a dozen brief conversations as they passed each other in the halls. Nothing important got said, just mild flirtation that had gotten less harmless as time went on until that last encounter, the one they'd had as he'd left the infirmary, not half an hour ago.
The memory of the seemingly mild-mannered Dr. Helena Meyers' frank offer of dinner made John significantly less tired. Saying no to an alien princess who wants you to be her king and rule her backwater planet is one thing, after all. But saying no to a mature Earth woman when she asked you out on a date was something else entirely.
After all, she was hot in a naughty teacher sort of way. John was a man who could appreciate a beautiful being - woman, man, ascended Ancient, whatever - and Helena was textbook pretty beneath those glasses and her general state of disarray.
But what was really hot about her was that she was smart. Intelligence had always turned him on and she was very, very smart. Not Rodney smart, but of course if Rodney was to be believed no one was. But still she was a genius, a card-carrying member of Mensa (he hadn't seen the card but she'd offered to show him in a tone that had made a little piece of laminated paper seem sexual-yet another of the many reasons he liked her) and she'd done the hard part of making the first move for him.
So now he had a date for the night. His first real date since before he'd started his first tour in Antarctica. The simple prospect of an evening with a beautiful, intelligent woman he wouldn't have to lie to about his job was enough to put a spring in his step and make the mission reports and paperwork he had to fill out before he could leave seem like less of a chore.
He hadn't mentioned the date to Rodney when he'd called that afternoon. He hadn't mentioned Helena at all, because they were good friends but there some places they didn't go.
No. That wasn't really true. Rodney's habit of speaking before thinking had informed John of more than he sometimes wanted to know. The reality was that there were places he didn't like to go and in the last few years, Rodney had learned not to push.
But that was okay. This thing with Helena wasn't the sort of thing he'd want a friend's input on. And even if it had been, he still wouldn't have wanted Rodney's. The man, for all his skill with machines and math and the physical universe in general, was god-awful with women and John didn't want his bad mojo rubbing off on him.
He worked for the SGC, for God's sake. He had enough bad luck already.
~*~*~
Helena's glasses were on crooked. They hung off one ear and John could not believe how hot the lopsided messy look was on her. Of course the fact that her glasses were all she was wearing didn't hurt in the least.
"So do you still respect me, Colonel Sheppard?" Helena asked, her chin resting on her hand. Her hand, of course, was resting on the bare skin of his chest.
This wasn't where he'd expected to end up on the first date. Hoped? Yeah, of course. Every guy wanted to get to this part as quickly as possible and the ones who said differently were lying.
But he'd slept with her-twice now, which wasn't bad considering how long it had been since he'd been with anyone-and he still wanted to talk to her. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt like that. Chaya, maybe, but he wasn't sure if she counted.
"If anything I respect you more," John replied as he lifted a hand to fix her glasses. "That flippy thing was worthy of an Olympic medal. Of course, if that was in the Olympics, they wouldn't air on basic cable."
Helena laughed. "What can I say? I've got game."
"You have it and you win."
She smiled at him and laid her head on his chest. The urge to run like hell wasn't strong enough to drive him out of bed so he let himself run his fingers through her dark hair. It was the first time she'd had it loose since he met her.
"What are you thinking?"
John sighed but smiled. "You had to ruin it."
"I'm a girl, John. I couldn't help it." She tapped her fingers on his skin. "Come on, tell me."
"I was counting backwards from a thousand."
"How far were you?"
"Six hundred ninety three."
"You're a quick counter."
"I'm good with math."
"Me too. Computer science and all." Helena lifted her head so she could look at his face. "John?"
"Hm?"
"Do you want to do this again?"
"This going out and having dinner or this naked gymnastics?"
"Either. Both would be nice."
"I think I could be convinced."
Cold hit his skin as she rolled off of him and scooted up the bed to rest her head on the pillows. John watched as she turned to face him.
"Next time we both have a night off?" she offered.
"If that happens before we all get blown up or conquered then you've got yourself a date, Dr. Meyers."
~*~*~
"It's too dry here. It's playing hell with my sinuses. I'm on the verge of a spontaneous nosebleed every time I go out in that heat."
"Like in those Japanese cartoons when they see a pretty girl?" John asked. He held the phone sandwiched between his ear and shoulder so that he was free to doodle on a pad of paper instead of filling out his mission report.
"What? No. I'm just sensitive to the dry heat."
"You're just bored, Rodney."
"Possibly. You're not?"
"In general or just at the moment?"
John stared down at the picture he was drawing. It was a really really bad sketch of a puddlejumper which was currently resembling a can of Campbell's soup more than a space ship. But it was more entertaining than writing a mission report for boring planet PX-seventy billion or wherever.
So maybe he was bored with work, yes, but he was off duty tonight. And so was Helena.
All in all, the month back on Earth hadn't been a complete bore.
"Colonel, I have about seventeen time-sensitive projects I could be working on."
"You called me."
"That's beside the point," he snapped and John could almost see Rodney waving his hand dismissively at him. He couldn't stop himself from smiling at the image.
"It can't be that time-sensitive if you're making social calls. Is the solar system going to blow up? Because if it is I can let you go," he teased.
"No," Rodney said sourly. "I am not going to blow up another solar system. I didn't blow up the whole thing and we said we were going to stop bringing that up all the time. I made one little mistake and you people just can't let it go."
"It was a pretty big boom, Rodney."
"Who uses the word 'boom' in conversation? You're like a six-year-old."
"Hey, my inner child is nine and he takes offense at that."
"Don't you have work to do?" Rodney demanded.
John added a few lines to his puddlejumper sketch. The poor thing was really hideous. The Lanteans would be horrified. He felt like sending them a copy of his rendering in a databurst for General O'Neill. Or he should show it to Helena. She'd get a kick out of it and he liked it when she laughed. Then again, so would Rodney. Although Rodney didn't really laugh that often, come to think of it.
He needed to get to a Xerox machine. Then he could do all three.
"Don't you? You're the important scientist guy."
"Oh yes, I was in the middle of making a series of personal jet packs before I called."
John sat up at that. Because really, what guy hadn't wanted a jet pack when he was little? He certainly had. And maybe he wouldn't say no to one now. If he was offered.
"Really?"
"What? No! Jet packs aren't real. For god's sake, the amount of heat generated from the thrust that would be required from that sort of jet propulsion system would burn your legs off before it ever got you off the ground."
"Way to kill my fantasy there, pal."
"You fantasize about jet packs? Clearly, you're more twisted than I thought, which is saying something."
John wondered for a moment how Rodney would react if he had any idea what John really fantasized about. Not well, most likely. Although to be honest, a jet pack had never come up before. Now it was there in full force, fitting neatly into an image of Rodney in a barely-there leather superhero costume along the lines of Batman or possibly Nightwing that flashed through John's mind's eye.
The visual should have been a ridiculous one, as the idea of Rodney as anything even close to Batman could have been dorkier but not without a lot of work. Yet John found it to be startlingly hot and a bit unexpected.
John had forced himself out of the habit of thinking about Rodney like that now that he didn't see him every day. He found it was easier not to dwell on what he'd decided long ago was a pointless and juvenile crush when the object of the obsession was hundreds of miles away than it was when he was living down the hall from Rodney. Biweekly phone calls did not call for the same sort of closeness as living that close to someone and surviving dangerous missions through the gate together.
The fantasies had thankfully become less frequent once they'd been parted for awhile. John had them even less now that he was seeing Helena. And if thinking about Rodney sexually didn't come up, thinking about having to hide his desire didn't either.
It was only when Rodney called that those annoying issues seem to float up out of his subconscious. So, needless to say, he was a little distracted by the task of pushing them safely into the back of his mind where they belonged and came back to the conversation a little bit behind.
"-in a week."
"What?"
"Did you go deaf or did you just stop listening to me?"
"Are you going to yell if I say I stopped listening?"
"I would consider the option but you're not worth the energy."
"I won't be swayed by flattery so don't bother."
"Are you at least listening now? Or is your paperwork that much more interesting than our conversation?"
"I don't know. I've got some requisition forms I could be filling out. And I could probably catch Helena if I leave now. "
"Who?"
"Helena," John said, because she'd been a fixture in his life for a month and so of course Rodney knew about her. Only he didn't. "This girl I'm sorta...she's a girl."
"Is she an Ascended girl?"
"She's just a girl," John sighed.
A very smart, very pretty girl who he suspected knew a thing or two about gymnastics. A girl whose regular presence in his life and bed provided a considerable consolation prize for losing Atlantis, his contact with Teyla, Ronon, and Elizabeth, and his chance to fly in outer space on a regular basis.
"Really? I didn't know you went for the non-Ascended type."
"She's from New Hampshire."
"New Hampshire's up from here in latitude isn't it? So technically she has to ascend to get back. You really should double-check her references. Make sure she has, I don't know, parents."
"You don't really think you're funny, do you?"
"Who's being funny? You've got a track record, Picard."
John rubbed at his eyebrow with the eraser of his pencil, as if that would somehow erase the irritation from his brain. "McKay."
"What?"
"Setting aside the fact that I am not a member of Star Fleet or a captain, that one doesn't work by virtue of the fact that unlike Patrick Stewart, I have hair. So could you stop calling me Star Trek names and go back to what you were talking about earlier? Something's happening in a week? You can tell me, I'm not ignoring you right now. "
"Oh, yes, yes, yes. I'm flying in to Colorado Springs. I just got my ticket."
"Really? How come?"
"Business mostly." Which was code for: try to talk Samantha Carter into letting him work on her projects and/or go out with him. John didn't give him much of a chance for either but it would be good to see him again.
"We'll hang out while you're in town," John said. It wasn't a question. Having even one more member of his Atlantis family was too good a prospect to leave vulnerable to Rodney's always too-busy work schedule.
"If I don't have too much work, I guess that'd be all right."
He wouldn't have too much work. Colonel Carter liked John and she wasn't Rodney's biggest fan, despite (or more likely because of) his obsession with her. A few quick words and they'd have at least a few hours to hang out, have dinner, start feeling like things were normal again-or as normal as they could be without Teyla, Ronon, Elizabeth, and, well, everyone else.
"We'll work something out."
"We always do. Or, rather, I always do and you try your best not to ruin it."
"Yeah, miss you too, buddy," John sighed and glanced at the clock. It was later than he'd thought and he needed to actually get his report finished and filed if he was going to meet up with Helena tonight. He was supposed to be at her apartment in two hours or so. If he rushed, he could probably still make it on time. "But I've got to run if I want to get out of here in the near future."
"I need to make sure my obsequious toadies haven't destroyed my lab. It's like they were all cursed with ten thumbs and double-digit IQs. They'll give anyone a PhD these days," Rodney lamented distractedly. "I'll see you in a week, Colonel."
"Seeya in a week."
He hung up the phone, pushed his doodle away and set to work. The sketch fell off the desk but it didn't look any more like a puddlejumper when it hit the floor of John's office.
But even focusing completely on his work, it still took John about twenty minutes longer than he'd hoped to get his paperwork finished and turned into Landry's office. It was another ten minutes to get everything settled and leave the base.
John was on the less fashionable side of late when he finally made it to Helena's apartment in downtown Colorado Springs. He'd tried to call her before he left, let her know, but she hadn't picked up.
She didn't answer when he rang the bell, not even to call out that he should just hang on a second. But she was there. He'd parked in the empty space next to her car. She didn't answer when he pounded on the door with his fists. He tried her cell phone, then her house phone. He could hear the phone ringing in the apartment until he heard the duality of her voice in his ear and from the other side of the door as the machine picked it up.
His first impulse was to kick down the door. One too many rescue missions, John supposed as he pushed down the urge and tested the doorknob instead
"Helena? It's John, are you there?" he called as the knob twisted. It was unlocked and the door swung inward.
Her apartment was dark. All the curtains were pulled shut against the stars and the street lights. The only light in the entire place was a sliver of yellow glowing from beneath the bathroom door.
"Okay, this stopped being funny about ten minutes ago," John muttered as he flicked on the living room light and crossed the small, neat space to the bathroom.
He could hear the sound of slowly dripping water on the other side of the door. Like a leaky sink but hitting water instead of porcelain or metal. But other than the slow dripping there was silence and it made something in his stomach clench as he pushed open the door.
The bathroom was done in cheerful shades of yellow that cast a horrific contrast on the scene before him. It was like a something out of a slasher movie - terrible, too bright, and completely unreal. John's hand groped for something-a wall, a counter, a doorjamb, anything to hold himself up as his knees weakened.
"God, Helena, no..."
The tub was a murky red pool, rippling as stray droplets of clear water fell from the faucet. Her hair was loose and wet on her shoulders, like he had only ever seen it when they made love. And her glasses, her glasses were missing.
John didn't know why but the lack shook him almost as much as the ribbon of blood that trickled slowly from the deep, vertical wound in her right forearm from elbow to wrist, down her hand off her long fingers and onto the cold tile. He certainly noticed it before he realized that her bare breasts were not rising and falling.
His knees failed him just as he made it to the side of the bathtub which was funny because John really couldn't remember moving. He honestly couldn't. Not when he crossed from the doorway to her side, not when he pulled her soaking naked body out of the water and into his arms.
He didn't consciously do any of it. In fact, his brain didn't snap back into sync until he was pushing strands of wet hair off her face and searching, desperately, for breath signs or a heartbeat as his hands exerted desperate pressure on the gaping tears in the flesh of both her arms.
"Come on," John hissed.
He blinked back the pain that was shooting through his chest from somewhere near his heart as he laid her down carefully on the floor and tilted her head back with one blood-slicked hand before starting compressions.
CPR was basic. He'd learned it in high school. He'd spent his entire career dealing with crises and he could save her. He saved people for a living out in Pegasus, damnit, the least he could do was save one woman on Earth.
"Come on, Helena, don't do this. Don't you dare do this!"
Thirty chest compressions then two breaths. Just like he'd learned. Now if she would just breathe. Just one breath and he could let up long enough to call 911.
He felt ill as he heard one of her ribs crack beneath his slippery hands on the count of twenty-three. That had to mean he was doing it too hard, didn't it? What if it punctured her lung and made it worse?
John told himself it didn't matter, made himself believe it, as he pinched her nose and breathed into her mouth, long and deep. He pulled away to take another breath and her eyes fluttered and that was good.
At least he really hoped that was good because she still wasn't breathing. John couldn't help but notice as he pinched her nose again that her lips were starting to turn blue.
This time when he breathed into her mouth she breathed back and her whole body shuddered on the tile. It startled him so much he would have jumped, if her left hand, wrinkled from the water and stained red, hadn't jerked up and yanked him closer by the back of the neck.
For a split second, he was kissing her. It was desperate and terrified but for the most part it was just a kiss like they had shared hundreds of times in the last month. It was familiar, her tongue sliding over his, her lips soft and cool. But almost as quickly, John was choking and gagging as something solid and slick shot into his mouth from hers, tearing the back of his throat.
He wrenched himself free as blood filled his mouth and then-
His entire world froze. He was still in the gory mess of Helena's bathroom, still kneeling on her floor where she lay, still dying. He just couldn't control how he sensed any of it. His hands, his legs, his vocal cords, his eyelids, the beat of his heart, the pattern of his breath-John was cut off from all of them.
Cold laughter echoed through his head as his legs moved of their own accord to lift him to his feet, stepping casually over Helena's now limp and empty body. He watched from a distance through his own eyes as something made his hand reach for one of Helena's guest towels.
Horror didn't twist his guts because he couldn't control them anymore. He didn't scream because no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get his lips to do anything but smirk at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.
You are still there, John Sheppard, a voice, the same voice that had laughed at his helplessness, hissed through him. After all, it would be so much less enjoyable if nothing of the host survived.
He didn't even need to watch the eyes in his twisted reflection glow gold. He knew what it was, the alien presence that had stolen his will and left Helena Meyers dead in her own home by her own hand.
Clever host, the Goa'uld practically purred as it washed John's hands. Inside John's head, the Goa'uld sounded nothing like one of the booming gods its kind pretended to be and everything like the snake it was. I like that you are clever, John Sheppard. You give me so much more to work with than the female did. All those fascinating memories and dreams leading you far from that shy little boy you keep locked away.
Fuck you, you slimy son of a bitch, John thought. Fury and hate and a sharp edge of fear punctuated his thoughts.
Cursing couldn't keep him distracted from what the Goa'uld was doing with his body. It was poking at Helena's body with the toe of a boot as it dialed 911 on his cell phone. His will made John's throat speak, cry, into the phone about his suicidal girlfriend. It made him sink to the floor beside her cold, wet body to wait for the ambulance to arrive and for its first performance in the role of Lt. Col. John Sheppard to begin.
All John had at the moment was hope that the snake couldn't act. But he remembered the time he'd spent with the thing when he'd thought it was Helena. He remembered how much he'd liked her and how much he'd wanted her. He wondered how long the Goa'uld had been in control, if he'd ever actually met the real Helena Meyers, and his suspicions caused a little of that hope to evaporate as the Goa'uld rose to meet the paramedics.
Its laughter echoed through whatever part of John was still his even as it spoke to the two men in blue coats, affecting John's stance, tone, and syntax. And all John could do was watch and listen as the paramedics declared the woman he'd never really known dead on her bathroom floor and the Goa'uld made his body pretend to weep.
~*~*~
The Goa'uld had been digging around in his things and in his head, for the last twenty-four hours. It had called into the SGC to inform them of Helena's death and take what Landry considered to be a deserved day off to recuperate from the shock of finding her.
The general offered him the whole week off but the Goa'uld had turned him down. John could almost believe it was something he would have said as the Goa'uld convinced his CO that getting back to work would provide a much-needed distraction.
And if he'd been half convinced, Landry had bought it hook, line and sinker. The cool and flawless invasion of his life had John bouncing off the walls. Metaphorically anyway.
At the moment, it was keeping itself busy riffling through what few possessions John kept in his apartment. Not that it mattered what he had on hand.
The Goa'uld had all his codes, all his keys, all his cards and information. It could get at whatever it wanted and it was simply taking its time. Enjoying itself in the playground of John's life.
Do you not want to know my name, John Sheppard? the Goa'uld offered suddenly.
John was caught off guard for a moment. He had been railing against the strange nothingness that held him as the Goa'uld fished out John's lone photo album, which was less like an album and more like a shoebox with pictures dumped in it. He'd thought the damn thing had forgotten he was still awake in there.
Go fuck yourself, John thought bitterly. He was good at being difficult just for difficulty's sake. He'd had a lot of practice
But I know how you like naming things, particularly your enemies. Steve. Bob. Michael. You still wonder about Michael, where he is, what he is truly called. My kind already possess names, John Sheppard. I can feel your desire to know mine.
You think that knowing your enemy will help you fight me. It will not. But I will tell you so that you can better know your master. It pleases me to indulge you so.
I could give a flying fuck, John snapped back helplessly. He wished the damn thing would go back to leaving him alone if it wouldn't leave completely.
The Goa'uld went through his pictures like they were a textbook. He didn't have many, but it spent a long time studying the ones of his father, and of Teyla and Rodney and Elizabeth. It touched the pictures as if it had been there in the moment the picture was taken, as if it knew any of the people John loved.
It made everything John owned seem dirty.
But it was better that it was here, in his home, than in the SGC. He didn't want to think about that, about what it could and would do to his friends and colleagues. Here in his home, at least, the evil fucker wasn't doing any active damage. It couldn't hurt anyone else like it had hurt Helena.
I gave her what she wanted. She was begging for death weeks ago. I was kind. There are many more painful ways of eliminating a useless host. Would you like me to show you?
John didn't dignify it with a conscious response but it just laughed at his small act of defiance.
Oh, believe I will enjoy being you, John Sheppard. I have never had a host fight as hard as you. And such a rich life you have to fight for, filled with such interesting friends who possess the same gifts as you - beauty and strength and endless misguided compassion.
You hurt them and I'll kill you.
How? the Goa'uld asked indulgently.
It had become bored with his photos. What did it need with pictures when it had his memories? It moved on to his music collection and was currently perusing his Johnny Cash albums, the CDs and the records.
Your body cannot draw breath without my command. How do you propose to kill me? Please, I am curious. You and your kind are so good at making plans after all.
To be perfectly honest, John didn't have much of a plan. They wouldn't have caught the Goa'uld in Caldwell last year if Cadman hadn't been unbelievably on the ball. He'd never have guessed.
So really, he didn't have a plan so much as the hope that his friends would realize something was wrong and fix the problem. And they would. They'd come for him. He just had to trust his team.
How will they know to come for you? They will never know you are gone.
They'll know. They'll know something's not right and when they do, they'll cut you out and snap you in half.
Such hope. It will be amusing to watch it wither and die.
Yeah, good luck with that, snakeboy, John thought with a smugness he really didn't feel. You don't know me and you don't know them.
The Goa'uld made a low growling noise. The sound could have been made aloud or it could have been just in his head but John heard it loud and clear. He started as it threw one of his favorite records; a vinyl first edition of "Live at Folsom Prison" his dad had left him when he died, across the room and into the wall. It broke as it hit with a crash.
I am Mavet, son of El, loyal and favored agent of Lord Ba'al and above all, I am now you, John Sheppard. Everything you were, everything you are and everything that you will be-all of it is mine. And my will is your existence. You will bend and you will break and when you do, I will be here to reshape the fragments of your consciousness to the mold of my desires.
If John had been able to he would have gritted his teeth and flipped Mavet the bird. Still, the snake got the message loud and clear: Bring it on.
But the damn thing just laughed its echoing, inescapable laugh again.
I do love a challenge, John Sheppard, Mavet replied jovially. Not that you will prove much of one.
John had thought he understood the term impotent rage before. Turned out, he hadn't. But he was sure as hell learning now.
~*~*~
No one noticed.
More than the paralysis, the lack of sensation, that was what blew John the fuck away. No one noticed anything. Landry gave him a small consoling pat on the shoulder when they passed in the hall but no one else could even tell something was off.
Five days off-world and no one on his team batted an eyelash at his behavior. Because the words that left his mouth didn't sound wrong. They weren't out of character.
No one noticed that John was just a passenger. Not a single member of his team seemed even remotely aware that he was experiencing his life like most people experienced the movies, in the dark from a few rows back with no control over the plot.
And as with many movie experiences, there was always someone a few rows ahead who wouldn't shut up.
I do not understand how your kind has managed to inflict so much damage when you are such a fragile lot, Mavet observed as it slung Wallace's arm over his shoulder to help him walk on the ankle he'd just broken. You are all so clumsy and you cannot even heal yourselves properly.
I really don't care, John snapped. Don't care, don't care, don't care, so just shut up.
How did you do it? Your species can barely function without a symbiote.
Magic beans, John replied deadpan. We sold this old cow and then up popped a beanstalk. Once we had the magic harp, it was cake.
He was only half focusing on Mavet's insult as he watched Bambus up ahead on point, obviously feeling like an idiot for falling into that stream.
Mavet didn't reply. He didn't seem to be in the mood to talk to John for any reason other than gloating at the moment. The guy did love to gloat. And to taunt.
Mavet found taunting him more entertaining than anything on TV or in print. But he tended to save that for nights, when John wanted nothing but darkness and oblivion but with Mavet keeping his eyes open he couldn't just fade away into unconsciousness.
John had been a prisoner for a week and already he was worn out. It wasn't just the horrific lack of control and claustrophobic cramping of his existence, it was that nothing worked.
He'd tried screaming, raving, wailing and thrashing. When Landry had led them into the control room, he'd thrown everything he had into trying to get through to the transmitted image of General O'Neill. He'd have been happy with anything, a spastic blink, a small twitch. Anything would have been enough, even if the General hadn't seen it.
He might as well not exist for all the good it did him.
And that was when the realization hit John, like being cracked in the face with a Louisville Slugger. For all intents and purposes, he didn't anymore.
Looks as if it is just you and me, John Sheppard, Mavet chuckled, ever the eavesdropper on John's thoughts. You should not worry. You will grow to love me in time. One day we will return to the Pegasus Galaxy and shape to it to the will of the Goa'uld, a new empire for Lord Ba'al.
Mavet's satisfaction only amplified John's horror. It numbed him through the SG team's debriefing. He was deaf and blind to everything until he heard that familiar voice echoing through his office on speaker phone.
"I hate it here."
McKay. They were supposed to meet up tomorrow. Rodney was coming and they were supposed to have dinner. He'd forgotten. He'd completely forgotten.
Oh, fuck, no.
Yes.
"How is that possible?" Mavet asked and John hated him for making his own body a traitor.
"It's true."
Mavet sighed and took a seat behind John's desk. He is an irritating little man, your Rodney. It is a shame he is so useful.
John couldn't let himself react to the comment about McKay. That was what Mavet wanted and he refused to give it. This was twisted enough already, especially when Mavet began talking to Rodney again, pulling facts from John's memories.
"Look, they gave you everything you wanted: your own lab ..."
"It's too big."
He would not last ten minutes under torture. He would crack like an egg and his tears would be sweet.
That was an image John really didn't need.
Shut up. Just shut up.
"Hand-picked assistants..."
"Yeah, sycophants every one of them."
There would be so many pieces he would never be repaired. The Tau'ri would be finding bloody pieces of him scattered throughout the cosmos.
Stop it, damn you and keep your snake hands off my models, John thought as Mavet studied the plane models that littered his desk.
They are your hands as well, John Sheppard. What is yours is mine.
The insinuation was dark and ugly. But it was a better subject of thought than the idea of Rodney being torn apart by any of the many Goa'uld torture devices.
"Even your choice of projects."
Mavet's patience with Rodney was wearing thin and it made John nervous. So far, he'd killed at least one person John knew of. He hadn't done any damage but John had no idea what the snake's MO was. It could be after anything from world domination to just general malice and Rodney seemed to attract malice from their enemies.
"Well, that's not true," He heard Rodney say sadly.
"Well, other than going back to Atlantis, I mean," Mavet amended.
It was just so...him. It was exactly what John would have said, exactly how John would have said it. There was nothing about it that should or even could have clued Rodney in.
"You know, the truth is..." Rodney sighed and trailed off.
Must he always be this melodramatic?
I like him this melodramatic.
There is no question of how you like him, John Sheppard. I can see that plainly. I simply cannot fathom why.
Well, we've only been seeing each other for a week. I'd hate to think I've lost my mystery already.
He isn't talking.
Yeah.
Irritating little human.
Yeah.
I will enjoy killing him when the time comes.
John's head was filled with laughter, his own for once.
You're definitely not the first one to feel that way.
"What?" the Goa'uld snapped, hair's breadth away from losing his cool and slipping into those strange, multifaceted tones, and John fell a little bit in love with Rodney.
Rodney and his personality had achieved in five minutes what John hadn't been able to with a week of sound and fury. He had pissed off Mavet, good and proper.
"I don't-I don't wanna use the term 'lonely,' but, uh, there are certain people who ... I miss."
Whiny, pathetic human, he snarled. I will use his skull as a bowl.
You don't strike me as the arts and crafts type, John replied gleefully. You should really answer him, you know.
Do not toy with me, John Sheppard. You will not like the outcome.
Try me.
Mavet's smile curved John's lips.
"Me?" Mavet asked flirtatiously.
John fumed. You think you're funny, don't you snakeboy?
I think you are funny, John Sheppard. With the doors you think are closed and the locks that do not hold.
Bite me.
It would seem that I already have.
"You?! You I'm talking to on the phone right now and having dinner with tomorrow, so not so much, but other people-people who I may never see again. Like, even Elizabeth-she hasn't returned any of my calls."
"I know what you mean."
"Hey-at least you still get to go offworld with a team of your own." Rodney's long-suffering sigh echoed over the speaker phone. It was so familiar, so damn normal that John would have smiled. Mavet just rolled his eyes.
"Oh yeah, the best and the brightest," Mavet returned. He sighed his frustration and John took the moment to quietly enjoy his captor's irritation. It was the little things in life you had to treasure. "All right, see you tomorrow night."
"Yeah, wouldn't miss it. Hey, you know, I-"
Mavet clicked off the phone before he could finish, relieved to be rid of Rodney. It was a sentiment he shared with many others on at least a dozen planets in two galaxies. Just not his host.
He's an ungrateful little man, isn't he, Mavet observed.
It's because he knows he's just that good.
You do not really think that.
Yes I do. I'd be dead about a hundred different ways if he weren't as smart as he is.
Although given the current situation, John thought that might not have been such a bad thing. He couldn't help but feel that being sucked dry by a Wraith was a little better than being trapped in his own head with a Tim Curry-wannabe lizard.
Your species' affection for the Earth arts never ceases to be entertaining. How can you exist so entranced with fiction?
Aren't you tired of talking to me yet?
Mavet laughed, out loud, as he slid down in the big chair that was one of John's favorite things about having his own office.
Oh, I will never tire of you, John Sheppard. Your tiny sun will expand and die first. Of that you can be sure.
Part two...