AU, Week 2: Where the White Lilies Grow (3/5)

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Title: Where the White Lilies Grow (3/5)
Author: Eildon Rhymer (rhymer23)
Genre: AU
Prompt Clarke's Law (i.e. "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic")
Word Count: 44,400
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: People tell stories about the wonders of the Time Before. They tell stories, too, about magical creatures with long, fair hair, who emerge from the hill and can turn you to dust in an instant. But John Sheppard has never been one to believe in stories...



[ Part One] [ Part Two] [ Part Three] [ Part Four] [ Part Five]
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Chapter five
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Rodney raised one hand, the chain links dangling. "I haven't done anything wrong." The men stepped forward, tightening the circle. "I'm not a threat," Rodney said. "Look! I've got my hands up. Hand, anyway. I can't raise the other one because I'll fall off the horse." They edged moved another step, six of them in a circle. Rodney swallowed. "Sheppard's not doing so good. You need to help him."

"Don't tell me what I need to do," said one of the men, his face stern and cold, marked on the cheek with a fairly recent scar. He was holding a gun, a proper gun, although admittedly something that would be more at home in a museum.

"But you're making a horrible mistake," Rodney protested. Chains dragged his hand down. His eyes flickered sideways, to where Sheppard was kneeling with his arms heavy at his sides, his shoulders slumped, but his face turned slightly upwards, looking up at the man who had spoken.

"No I'm not," the man said. He nodded briskly to the others. "Restrain them."

Sheppard would fight, Rodney thought. Sheppard was sick, yes, but adrenaline could do wonderful things, couldn't it? Although he was dressed like a medieval peasant, he obviously had skills, and he'd already shown himself willing to save Rodney's life. He'd get them out of this, of course he would.

Sheppard stiffened when the men approached him, but that was all. As they pulled his hands behind his back, he lowered his head, and he closed his eyes as they tied his hands together with rope. One of his captors squeezed his shoulder. "I think he's sick," the man said.

The leader gave no sign of hearing it, unless the tightening of his lips was answer enough. It looked almost like a smile, if such a stern face could ever be known to smile.

"Sheppard!" Rodney hissed. His mouth was dry. His head started to throb all over again.

The leader walked towards Rodney, taking hold of the horse's bridle. "Are you going to get off the horse," he asked, "or do we have to drag you off it?"

Rodney shook his head desperately from side to side. "I didn't do anything. Neither of us did anything."

"You have chains on your wrists," the man said. "A prisoner. A criminal. It's only to be expected. Criminals flock together, after all."

"It's not like that," Rodney protested. He looked desperately at Sheppard, willing him to do something, anything, to get them out of this. It was a bluff, a feint. He was feigning defeat. He was... The man grabbed the reins, tugging them out of Rodney's hand. "Ow!" Rodney complained, as the leather scraped against his palm. A gun clicked. "Getting off," he said. "Getting off."

Rodney slid from the saddle, landing awkwardly. They grabbed his arms as soon as he had landed, twisting them behind his back, tying them with ropes. Not again! he thought. Not again! It was a stupid thought, childish and irrational. He probably should have fought, but what could he do? And if Sheppard wasn't fighting...

"It's nothing to do with him." Sheppard spoke up at last, looking at the leader of the group. "He's nobody, just someone I've been travelling with for a day or two. Leave him out of this," he said, and it was stupid, stupid, that Rodney should feel a tiny twist of hurt at the fact that even Sheppard was quick to pass him on, to deny all ties to him.

"Not true," the man declared. "Reports have come in. Rumours are spreading. A stranger called John freed a condemned murderer and went on the run with him. Of course," he said, flapping his hand dismissively, "it came with superstitious nonsense about fairies or Others or some such, but strip that way, and the truth remains. We have a murderer, and we have another murderer teaming up with one of his own."

"It wasn't like that," Rodney tried to tell him, but no-one was paying him the slightest bit of attention.

"I knew it was you," the man said to Sheppard, "as soon as I heard the story."

"You know each other," Rodney gasped, suddenly realising what had probably been obvious all along, but, well, hello? Kind of distracted by the being-tied-up thing, here?

"John Sheppard," said the leader of the men who had captured them, " is guilty of many things. He killed a lot of people."

His horror felt almost like a physical thing. Sheppard was a murderer? He'd been travelling with a-- No, no. I don't believe it, he thought, because Sheppard had freed him, and he'd been so determined to kill the Wraith, and so obviously disturbed by its kills. But he'd also wasted no time in appropriating Rodney's weapons, and there had been moments when he'd seemed almost scary.

But despite all this, Rodney found himself shaking his head, not saying anything, just denying it. He looked at Sheppard; saw Sheppard looking back at him. "It wasn't like that," Sheppard said quietly, but Rodney didn't have to be a genius at reading people to see how defeated his body language was, as if his body itself was admitting, Yes, yes it was.

******

John was dragged to his feet, a hand digging into his upper arm. "Can you walk?" they asked, as he was nudged forward, a gun jabbing at his back.

When he stumbled, a hand appeared at his elbow, steadying him. McKay shouted something. There was an answering snap of command, and the hand slowly withdrew. The next time John felt himself falling, he instinctively tried to catch himself with his bound hands, but hit the ground heavily, rolling onto his side.

Darkness deepened. They hauled him up again, and dimly John heard McKay shouting that he was sick, that this was barbaric, but what could he expect from--

The words were cut off abruptly. "McKay didn't do anything," John managed to say. They were in a place where the trees and the ruins were so thick that he could hardly see a thing, and his vision was swirling, dark shapes moving against the dark. McKay's face was like a smear of pale smoke. John didn't think he was hurt. "He just wants to go home," John said. "Let him go."

No-one answered him. They passed through a doorway. Inside was an open place that smelled of old stone and fresh wood. A fire was burning in a stone hearth. Shapes moved in front of it. Some of the outlines were familiar.

They were led through an inner door and into an even darker place. John was pushed down to his knees. McKay was protesting loudly, words that made no sense to John. More and more, he heard nothing but the roaring of the sea.

The door was closed. The lock was fastened with a sound of leather straps and padlocks. McKay hurled himself at it, striking it with his shoulder, screaming, "Let me out! Let me out!" John heard footsteps walk away. Light flickered in a thin line at the base of the door.

John found cold stone at his back, but leaning against it hurt his bound hands. He turned sideways, pressing his shoulder and his brow against it. It was as cold as ice, but he was fire, throbbing and burning. He knew that he was sick. Even the smallest wounds could turn bad, but he'd hoped the symptoms would go away. How was that for optimism? Even after everything that's happened, John, you still catch yourself hoping that everything will be okay.

McKay slumped down beside him. The silence that stretched between them was uncomfortable, full of unasked questions. John heard the pounding of his heart, like waves crashing on a distant shore.

"What did you do?" McKay asked at last.

John closed his eyes, although the room was dark and closing his eyes hid nothing. "We came by ship," he said. "I told you that. It sank. Everyone died, except for me and those guys out there."

"And that's it?" McKay said. "Just that?"

John remembered crawling onto the shore, and finding that the man he thought he had saved had died, after all. He remembered looking up to see Captain Sumner walking towards him, his eyes blazing with grief and fury. 'You did this, Sheppard', Sumner had spat. 'I hold you to account for every loss.'

"Captain Sumner blamed me," he said, "because..." He remembered the dead on the sand. He remembered reaching for a man as he was pulled under by tangled lines, remembered diving again and again in an attempt to drag him free, remembered the moment when the man had gone limp. "He blamed me," he said, and left it at that.

McKay asked further questions, but John didn't hear them. He was back there, back on the sand, drowning in the roaring of the sea.

******

It felt as if half the night had passed before Rodney and Sheppard were dragged out of their cell. They were shoved to their knees on the cold floor of a ruined warehouse. A fire was blazing, but it was too far away for Rodney to feel its warmth. Two men stood over Sheppard with lanterns, angling them so that every nuance of his facial expressions was shown in the unforgiving light.

The leader of their captors stood with his back to the fire, a featureless black shape. "Last time I saw you, Sheppard," he said, "I told you to get out of my sight. Every day since then I've wished that I'd brought you to justice instead."

"Justice?" Rodney cried, seeing the ring of men, the guns, the knives. "This isn't justice."

Sheppard made a quiet sound, enough to stop Rodney from saying more. The muscles on Sheppard's face had tightened, but nothing else has changed. The lanterns made him look alarmingly sick, with shadows under his eyes and deep lines etched around his mouth.

"Your poison spread," the man said, taking a slow step forward. "I lost three in the first month because they defended you. Just last month, I lost two more because they questioned me. It's your fault, Sheppard. It's all your fault." He surged forward and struck Sheppard hard in the side of the face.

Sheppard's head snapped sideways. His expression was changed when he turned back. Blood dripped slowly from his lip. "I can't be blamed for that, Captain Sumner," he said quietly, enunciating each word. The trail of blood reached his chin. He couldn't wipe it off, of course, not with his hands tied behind him.

"Of course you can." Sumner took a step back. He cupped his fist in his other hand. "Everything that happened was your fault. Everything."

"Everything?" Rodney echoed. He swallowed, pressed his lips together, and carried on. "I mean, everything's a rather sweeping claim. So your ship sank. Did Sheppard go down and drill holes in it, because if he didn't, then I don't see how you can blame him." He didn't think anyone was listening, though. Both lanterns showed Sheppard, and Rodney was left in the darkness. Sumner stalked Sheppard like a predator to whom nothing existed but his prey. Even the other men were barely visible, fading into the darkness of the rest of the warehouse.

"You opposed me right from the start, Sheppard." Sumner started to pace around Sheppard, passing right behind him. Sheppard's shoulder stiffened, but he didn't turn round. "Right from the start," Sumner said, "you were a trouble-maker."

Sheppard turned his head slightly, looking towards the place where Sumner currently was. "Only when I had to be." He spoke slowly this time, as if he was learning each word. As Sumner returned to the front, Sheppard looked at him, his head higher than it had been. "Only when there were things--"

"Be quiet!" Sumner screamed. "You opposed me." He jabbed a finger at Sheppard's chest. "You were selfish, playing your own game of aggrandizement, instead of buckling down and putting the ship's needs first. Then there was that nonsense with that man - what was his name...?"

"Holland." Sheppard was looking Sumner full in the face now. "Going back for him was--"

"It was the wrong thing to do!" Sumner jabbed harder. Sheppard swayed and almost fell. Blood from his lip fell in splashes on the floor. "You wanted to play the hero. You always wanted to play the hero. Opposing me." He jabbed again. "On the night of the storm, you forced me to discipline you. On the night when everyone had to pull together, you distracted us all. You had to make that grand speech. The lookouts were listening to you instead of doing their job. It was your fault, Sheppard. Everything was your fault."

Sheppard's heart was beating fast and visibly at his throat. "You know what?" he said quietly, and perhaps he even smiled. "I think I've believed that. For the last six months, I..." He trailed off, and seemed to be fighting to stay on his knees.

"You ruined everything!" Sumner screamed.

Sheppard shook his head. "I couldn't save them. I should have fought harder over Holland. I should have stopped you. That night, when all you wanted to do was scream at me, when there was a goddamn storm outside..." His sharp exhalation was noisy, scraping in his throat. "I have to live with that," he said, "but it wasn't how you said it was."

Sumner ripped a knife out violently from its sheath. "No, captain!" one of the other men gasped, starting forward. A lantern slipped from the hand that held it, crashing to the floor.

Rodney's mouth was dry. Sumner was quite insane, he realised, perhaps driven so by whatever hideous things had happened to him. "Does the word 'scapegoat' mean anything to you?" Rodney demanded. "I'm an impartial witness - the closest you've got to a jury - and it seems to me that you took an irrational dislike to Sheppard and blamed him for everything, even things that were your own fault." Sumner rounded on him, the knife quivering in his hand. "Or not." Rodney swallowed again. "Like I said, I wasn't there. What do I know?"

"All this," Sumner said, moving his hand in a jagged arc, "is your fault, Sheppard. You need to pay for it. And this other man, this McKay... He's a wanted murderer. It stands to reason you'd take up with someone like him. Justice demands that I kill both of you."

"No!" Rodney shouted, straining at the ropes, feeling them scrape against the metal bands that he still wore. "Don't, please. Please, don't... I didn't do anything. Sheppard didn't... He didn't..."

A man stepped forward; said something quiet to Sumner. Sumner listened, then let out a taut breath. "That's true," he said. "It needs to be justice, not murder, or then we'd be no better than you." He sheathed his knife, then rubbed his hands together briskly, as if wiping away a taint. "Tomorrow," he said, "with witnesses. A hanging." His expression was cold, possibly a smile, but possibly something else. "Two hangings." He flapped his hand. "Take them away."

"No!" Rodney shouted, "no!" but they hauled him to his feet, a pair of hands under each arm, and dragged him away. "You oafs!" he gasped. "I'm trying to..." But they threw him through the inner door, then threw Sheppard in behind him. The door was locked, and once more they were in darkness, with no escape.

******

Sometimes you just needed to hear something said out loud to realise how wrong it was. Things seemed different when they echoed in your mind in the middle of the night. When you lay awake in the darkness and thought about the dead, it was impossible not to blame yourself. But when you heard it said by someone else, by someone so consumed with their hatred of you that they were going to hang an innocent man just because he knew you...

"I'm so screwed," McKay said, slumping down against the wall beside him. "I was screwed anyway, but this is a whole new level of being screwed."

I'll get you out of this, John wanted to say, but how could he? He'd said that to others in the past, but they'd still died. Sumner hated John so intensely that the more John tried to extricate McKay from the whole mess, the more likely Sumner would be to kill him.

"He's crazy," McKay said, "this Sumner guy. Crazy."

John nodded. "Yeah." He heard McKay turning towards him. "He wasn't like that at first."

"What happened?" McKay asked. "Not that I'm interested in the all the sordid details about the dramatis personae of this hellhole of a universe, of course, but there's nothing else to do while we wait to get brutally murdered. And maybe if I understood him, I could... you know, get under his skin. Say the right things. Subtly manipulate him into letting me go."

John said nothing. The stone wall felt like ice against his burning flesh. Even in the darkness, he was aware of his vision pulsing and swaying.

"Or not," McKay said quietly. "I get it. You don't want to talk to me."

To hell with it, John thought. He'd spent far too much of his life not talking, and what had it gained him? What, really, had it gained him?

"It was hard for us all," he said, concentrating on that ice-cold stone to keep him from drifting away. "We were used to wide open spaces, where you can ride for days without meeting another person. Then we all crammed onto that ship. There were sixty of us, living and sleeping virtually on top of each other, and no guarantee that we'd ever reach land again. Some of us found it harder than others. And Captain Sumner... He was a good captain on dry land, stern but fair. We didn't much like each other, but I respected him, but then..."

He trailed off, almost losing himself in a wave of pain. Memories surrounded him. He thought he could feel the lurching sway of the ship beneath him; could feel the heat of working on the deck; could smell the stench of too many people sleeping too close together.

"Sumner began to show signs of strain," John said, forcing his voice to remain steady. "Some of his orders were... flawed. They showed a... disregard for the well-being of his crew. I questioned him. He didn't like it. And then..."

Preparing the ship had taken longer than they had expected, and it had been late summer before they had departed. They'd taken her on test runs, but they had no experience of dealing with storms or high seas. The summer had ended early, in a crash of wind and angry dark skies, and still with no land visible in the east.

"Other people started noticing things," John said, "but because I'd been the first, he blamed me whenever they said anything - said I'd put them up to it." He shrugged. "I let him carry on thinking it. I thought it was better having it all focused on me than on all of them - better for the ship as a whole. Then we found land." Behind his back, he dug his fingers into his palm, clenching his fist tight. "Sumner wanted just one person to investigate - less loss that way if things went wrong. I said it was crazy - that we needed to send a team - but he was the captain. Holland went by himself, and he didn't come back." Pain lanced through his body, closing like a fist around his throat. "He didn't come back."

John heard McKay take in a breath, as if he was about to say something, then let it out again. Was he even listening? John almost found himself hoping that he wasn't.

"He didn't come back," he said again. "Sumner said this proved that it was too dangerous to land, that we should carry on. I said we should go back for him. I nearly went, anyway, but Sumner holed the boat, the only boat we had left. After that... It'd been bad before, but nothing like this. We reached more land, and he wouldn't let us land there. And then there was a storm. He was shouting at me in his cabin rather than taking command above deck. I should have..."

He stopped. It was all too close. Blood surged in his head, throbbing with the rhythms of the storm. The fever dragged him back through the months, back to the hell of those final hours. "I should have pushed it," he said. "I should have taken things in hand. I should have led a mutiny. I think enough of them would have followed me. I should have..."

Nothing. He trailed away to nothing. Dimly he heard McKay clear his throat, as if he wanted to say something but had no idea what to say. John gathered the last scattered pieces of his self-control. "At a loss for words, McKay? Is that a first?"

"No," McKay said. "I'm just wondering what to say. Tactful response, and all? I mean, it's all very heart-wrenching, but shall we go back to the afore-mentioned 'he's crazy', and what about adding the 'what the hell shall we do to get out this mess' issue to the equation? After all, that's more useful than an angst-ridden show and tell."

"Yeah." John let out a breath. He even managed a smile. He was injured, he was probably going to die in the morning, and he knew that this thinking was warped by fever, but he actually found himself happier than he had been for months. It wasn't my fault, he thought. It wasn't my fault. Yes, there were many things he could have done differently, but nothing could have stopped the storm. They'd been an inexperienced crew sailing a ship none of them had sailed before, and chances were it would have been wrecked no matter what.

"So?" McKay said. "Avoiding certain death in the morning? Ideas?"

It was too dark to see him clearly, but John looked in his direction. "I'll get you out of this," he said. "Not just out of here, but all the way home." And perhaps it was just the fever talking, making the impossible seem possible, but he really meant it.

******

Hours passed, and Sheppard showed no sign of spiriting them out of this hellhole. He didn't appear to have a knife hidden in his shoe or a file hidden in his belt, or anything useful like that. After a while, he stopped speaking altogether, responding to Rodney's increasingly-urgent questions with a quiet grunt or a moan.

"Sheppard?" Rodney said. "Sheppard?"

Nothing. Still nothing. But after a while, despite his fluttering panic, Rodney slept.

He woke up to voices. Sheppard was whispering something urgently, but Rodney heard only the last few words, not enough to piece together what he had been talking about. "What?" Rodney asked, his voice sounding loud in the darkness.

"Quiet, McKay," Sheppard whispered.

Rodney pressed his lips together to stifle words. He heard the sound of rattling keys, and the door opened, letting in the faint light of the distant fire. A man was standing in the doorway, with the outline of something sharp in his hand. "Oh God," Rodney breathed. They'd come to slit their throats in the middle of the night. He squirmed from side to side, desperately trying to drag his hands free from the ropes. The pain was sharp and burning. He felt the hard impact of the wall against his shoulder.

The man crouched down beside Sheppard, and Rodney could hear the sound of the knife cutting through... God, please don't let it be flesh! Sheppard moved, the shape of his outline changing. He brought up one hand, massaging his other wrist.

"Sumner's asleep," the man whispered. He moved towards Rodney, and Rodney stiffened, his breathing tight and shallow, but the man was not ungentle as he grabbed Rodney's arms. The knife dug into the ropes at his wrists, tugging them to and fro against the tender skin. "The guys on watch, they agree with me," the man said quietly, still speaking to Sheppard although his face was only inches from Rodney's ear. "None of it was your fault. The captain... He doesn't see things clearly where you're concerned."

The knife nicked Rodney's hand. "Ow!" he protested, but then he was free. Just as Sheppard had done, his first instinct was to massage his wrists. His fingers tingled, aching with inactivity.

"He'll never see reason, sir," the man said. "We've tried, but anyone who says too much... He casts them loose, orders them away. He wants you dead. He'll never take you back, so the best we can hope for is saving your life by getting you as far away from here as possible."

Sheppard stood up, supporting himself heavily against the wall with his right hand. His left arm was limp at his side, and his head sagged. Rodney bit back the response he had been about to make, thought for a moment, and moved to Sheppard's side. "He's sick," he hissed at their rescuer. "He can't--"

"I can," said Sheppard, pushing himself away from the wall. After a moment's hesitation, Rodney steadied him, offering an arm for Sheppard to lean on.

They moved slowly through the warehouse, their steps terrifyingly loud. People were snoring, wrapped in blankets around the fire. Others were sitting up, and two stood with their backs to the wall. Several nodded at Sheppard. One saluted, his hand rising almost to his head, then down again. One looked at his feet as if ashamed. The light was too faint to see any of their faces.

"There'll be hell to pay when he discovers what you've done," Sheppard said when they were safely outside.

"We'll take the blame, all of us." The man looked at Sheppard. "We should have done it long ago. If it's all of us, he can't punish us. He can't risk that."

Then he led them on, even further into the night, to where two horses were waiting for them. Another man stood at their heads, the stunner and the P90 held in his arms. Sheppard gripped his horse's saddle and hung there as if it was the only thing keeping him up. Still holding uselessly onto his elbow, Rodney could feel him shaking, but when Sheppard spoke, his voice was steady enough. "Why don't you come...?"

"I've thought about that, sir," the man said. "We all have. But the captain... There's lots of old ships here, lots of ship-building equipment. He wants to sail us home."

"Home?" Sheppard said. "But we came here to..."

"Change the world?" the man said. "I know that was your hope. But there's nothing here. It's worse than home, and the people don't want to listen. And I miss the folks back home. Stupid, huh?"

"Not stupid." Sheppard shook his head slowly. Rodney was still touching him, and he pulled away awkwardly, not knowing if Sheppard needed help, and not knowing how to give it.

"It's the only way for us to get there," the man said. "It wasn't meant to be like this."

There wasn't much light outside - just a thin sliver of a crescent moon, half obscured by clouds - but maybe Rodney's eyes had just grown accustomed to the darkness, or maybe the man turned in just the right direction, because suddenly Rodney recognised him. "Ford!" he gasped. "Have you come to rescue--?" The man - Ford - turned to look at him, his expression suddenly wary. "No, of course you haven't," Rodney said. "You aren't him. Different universe, remember?" Disappointment was heavy, almost crushing him under its weight. For a fierce, irrational moment, he had thought that a team from Atlantis had come for him.

"How do you know my name?" Ford asked.

Rodney opened his mouth on an incoherent sound, but Sheppard interrupted him. "Because I told him everything," Sheppard said, "and described people. It's no big deal." He tried to pull himself into the saddle; failed, and tried again, barely making it.

"You should go, sir." Ford pressed his hand against the horse's flank. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Sheppard said.

Rodney dragged himself into the saddle of the unfamiliar beast. The other man passed up the P90. Sheppard's animal moved forward, prancing a few steps. Sheppard was holding the reins one-handed, gripping them tight.

"Maybe if we all talk to him," Ford said, "he might change his mind over time. Maybe when we're ready to sail, you can..."

"That won't be happening," Sheppard said quietly. His horse walked forward; after a pause, Rodney followed him. "We all know that, don't we?" But he smiled - a strange smile like nothing Rodney had ever seen on him before. "But thank you, Lieutenant. I mean that, really."

Ford raised his hand, perhaps in a farewell and perhaps in a salute. The next time Rodney looked back, Ford had gone, swallowed by the darkness. He was surprised at how much it hurt. He wasn't the real Ford, of course he wasn't, but he was a reminder of Atlantis, and now that he was gone, home felt even further away. And not just for himself, he thought, looking at Sheppard's face as he rode away from his last contact with home.

But Sheppard turned to him, saw him looking, and smiled.

He was still smiling when the screaming started.

******

end of chapter five

******

The Others are charming deceivers. With words, the Others can entice a weak-willed man to join their dance. With words, the Others can tempt even a strong-willed man to turn his back on everyone he has ever loved.

Does living with the Others grant a mortal a little piece of their charm? Does time in the Others' domain make even a mortal's tongue like honey? Does an echo of the beauty of that fairy otherworld remain in their eyes and their lips, or shine like stars upon their brow?

It must be so. John was a quiet man when he walked among us, and although the girls found his face pleasing, there was no honey in his tongue. And yet, when captured, John was able to charm a dozen men into letting him ride away. He was able to charm a dozen men into risking their master's wrath by freeing him.

The magic of the Others resided within him, and imbued his simple words with the potency of a magic spell.

It is the only possible reason, is it not, little one? Magic resided in him.

But magic destroys.

******

Chapter six
___

When people started screaming, the sensible thing to do, the only thing to do, was to get as far away as possible. Other people were good at the whole fighting thing. Rodney's job was to cower and keep out of the way while they went off and did what they were paid for. He'd said as much to all his teams, warning them that he'd do his job, that he expected them to do theirs, and that there would be no overlap, thank you very much.

Sheppard clearly hadn't gotten that memo. "What're you doing?" Rodney hissed, when Sheppard tugged his horse around, heading directly for the screaming. "You're hurt. They let us go. There's over a dozen of them - strong, strapping soldier types. There's nothing you can do." His voice grew louder, but he might as well have been shouting to the empty air. "Sumner's bound to have woken up!" Rodney shouted. "He wants to hang us!"

Nothing. Sheppard had gone. The screaming turned guttural, then faded. People were shouting. A gun went off, once, then twice.

"He wants to hang us," Rodney shouted, twisting the reins in his fingers. "We've just escaped, for crying out loud!"

The gun sounded again. Someone shrieked. Rodney thought of the bodies of his team, twisted and grey, half buried by scattered earth.

"Go get yourself killed then," Rodney grumbled, "but I have no intention of walking to my doom." But already he was pulling the horse around, heading back the way he had come.

There wasn't enough light. Still clutching the P90, Rodney slithered out of the saddle, landing heavily. He fumbled for the light, producing a narrow beam that cut the scene like a knife. The body was lying just outside the door, drained to a husk and very dead. Ford? he thought, but then he saw Ford, racing out from the warehouse with a rifle in one hand. Rodney couldn't see the Wraith. He swung the light from side to side, seeing hands, faces, the legs of his horse. He couldn't see the Wraith. He couldn't see Sheppard.

"What's happening here?" Rodney heard Sumner demanding. The man was standing in the doorway. Light swelled behind him as a man approached with a torch.

Natives, Rodney thought, filled with a sudden, ridiculous urge to laugh. Natives with flaming torches. All we need now are the pitch-forks. But there was a Wraith out there - the withered corpse was the proof of that, wasn't it? There was a Wraith, and Sheppard was...

Someone screamed. Rodney whirled the gun around, the light-beam wavering. "Sheppard?" he tried to shout, but he was too aware of Sumner, and his voice was too quiet. He looked at the torch, and it dazzled him, so he couldn't see anything else, not clearly.

"What is it?" Sumner shouted. "Stop him! It's Sheppard! It's got to be Sheppard! Stop him!"

"It's a Wraith!" Rodney found himself screaming. "Don't you realise how stupid you sound, blaming Sheppard for everything? It's a Wraith, and it's going to kill us all unless--"

A Wraith stunner flared blue. Beyond the blue light, Rodney saw Sheppard's face set with concentration, unearthly and deadly. Sheppard shot again. The man with the torch edged forward, and Rodney saw the Wraith lying in the pool of light, its hair spread around its head like a grotesque crown.

"Shoot it," Sheppard commanded, his voice coming out of the darkness.

Ford was the first to do so, raising his rifle and shooting the Wraith in the side. "It healed," he said as he reloaded. "Two bullets we got into it, and it just healed."

Rodney remembered his team, dead so far from home. He remembered the man they'd found on the threshold of his own hovel, where he'd lived with his livestock, despite having a pile of gold. His finger found the trigger of the P90.

He wasn't really aware of anything for a while, just the deafening rattle of gunfire and the jolting of the gun in his hands. The Wraith's body jerked again and again, dust and stones flying up from the ground around it. He didn't notice Sheppard approaching him, not until someone touched his arm. "Stop," Sheppard said quietly. "I think you've killed him ten times over."

Rodney's finger was stiff. He eased it off the trigger, and the sudden silence was disorientating. "Oh." He swallowed. "Did I do that? I haven't..." He swallowed again. "Haven't killed anything before, except by accident, and that doesn't count. I..." His mouth was dry. "Did I...?"

Ford crouched down beside the Wraith, and touched its throat with hands that didn't tremble anything like as much as they should have been trembling. "I think it's dead, sir." He looked not at Sumner, but at Sheppard. "What is it?"

Sheppard shook his head. "It's dead now, and that's all that matters." Rodney lowered the gun slowly, easing his stiff hands. Sheppard looked exhausted, he realised all over again, and barely on his feet.

"Sheppard!" Sumner shouted. "You did this."

"That's not true." Sheppard shook his head again, no less weary. "It's never been true. This--" He gestured towards the dead Wraith "--is what's been doing the murders that folks round here have pinned on McKay. You were going to hang an innocent man, just because you hate me."

"Two innocent men," Rodney offered. The words fell unnoticed in the charged air.

"Shoot him!" Sumner commanded, but nobody moved. The torch blazed brightly, showing how Sumner was standing astride a dead man, barely appearing to notice him.

"No, sir," Ford said, standing up. "This has gone far enough. Let him go, or let him come back with us. He saved my life just now - saved all our lives."

"Don't tell me what to do!" Sumner screamed.

Sheppard swayed, lurching sideways. Rodney chewed his lip, wondering whether to offer him support, or whether that would undermine this alpha male thing he had going with Sumner. To hell with it, he thought. He took Sheppard's arm, feeling the blazing heat of him. He'd never held up a wounded man before, never killed anything, never fought at someone else's side, never run willingly towards physical harm. "Thanks," Sheppard murmured, and it felt good, pathetically good, to hear it.

"Shall we, uh, go?" Rodney whispered. "You know, get away from the psychotic madman who wants to kill us?"

"Sounds like a plan." Sheppard smiled.

"Stop him!" Sumner commanded, but nobody moved. The light showed them standing immobile in a circle.

"I'm afraid we can't do that, sir," Ford said quietly, and the others moved at last, ranking themselves behind him. Someone came out of the darkness, leading the horse Rodney had been riding. Sheppard's came in response to his low whistle.

Rodney's hands fluttered uselessly as he tried to work out how to help Sheppard into the saddle, but Sheppard didn't need him in the end. Rodney's own attempt to mount was somewhat less elegant. We've killed the Wraith, he thought. That meant the end of their crazy and uncomfortable journey. That meant that he could go back to the Gate to wait and wait and wait some more. That meant that Sheppard would have no reason to want to travel with him any more. That meant... "Where now?" he asked.

Sheppard shook his head, but what on earth that meant, Rodney had no idea.

They started riding, departing for a second time. When the shouting started, Rodney twisted in the saddle just in time to see Sumner snatch Ford's rifle. "No!" Rodney gasped, as Ford and the others grabbed Sumner, wrestling the gun from his hands, pulling his arms behind his back, restraining him. Then the torch was dropped, and he couldn't see anything properly, just feet.

Spooked by the noise, his horse started to move faster. Rodney gripped the reins as tightly as he could. "It's dark," he said. "He couldn't see us properly, could he? Why did he...?" He stopped. Sheppard said nothing. "Are you going back to them?" Rodney asked him. "I want to go home."

"I said I'd get you home." Sheppard's voice was floating, unanchored in the darkness.

But if Sumner was safely deposed, that meant that Sheppard could go back to his friends, who called him 'sir' and were building a boat to take them all back to America. It was strange, Rodney thought, because he didn't often find himself wondering what would make other people happy, but surely that was what Sheppard wanted?

"It's over," Sheppard said. "The Wraith's dead. There's nothing to..." He didn't finish it, though. Things moved around them in the darkness - the wind in the trees, and animals in the ruins.

"No, really," Rodney said. The night felt very cold. "You should stay with them. I'll go on alone."

"No." He heard, rather than saw, Sheppard shake his head. The small sound of his denial was little more than a breath.

But Sheppard was sick. He probably wasn't thinking straight. And what could he do to help Rodney get home? Nothing, that's what. There was no point in having Sheppard here. It was better for everyone if he left.

But he couldn't bring himself to ask a second time. And when Sheppard repeated, "I said I'd get you home," saying it quietly, Rodney couldn't bring himself to say anything at all.

******

Dawn broke, their surroundings slowly taking shape out of the darkness. They paused on a hilltop and couldn't see a single human alive in the countryside around them.

"Can we stop now?" McKay demanded. John dimly remembered him asking before, and remembered telling him no, that they had to wait until light, to see if anyone was following them. It wasn't a clear memory, though, and more like a dream.

John moistened his lips. "Yeah." He slid from the saddle, but then his knees folded. The ground was soft, cool with dew. He knelt there, swaying, then thought he would lie down on his back, to look up at the morning. His horse nudged his shoulder, then walked away.

"Oh no!" McKay said, standing over him with anxious hands fluttering. "You're..."

"Just need a minute," John murmured. "It's cool here. Nice."

The day was shaping up to be a beautiful one, with the sky one entire expanse of watery blue. The air was rich with the scent of morning flowers and pollen. They'd killed the Wraith; righted that wrong. Sumner had taken all the things that had haunted John for months, had put them into words, and by doing so had revealed how false they were. Ford and the others had made it clear that they considered John blameless, and he hadn't realised until then quite how haunted he had been by the belief that they had agreed with Sumner.

It was over. Sure, he had regrets, and sure, there were many things he could have done differently, but he could still carry on with his life. He had stepped out from under a long shadow. He could breathe again, could see the light.

"And you're burning up," McKay said, the fluttering hand almost touching John's brow, then dancing away again, chain links dangling. "You're delirious. Nice? I can think of many things that are nice, and this sure as hell isn't one of them."

"Yeah," John agreed ruefully, because the injury was serious; that awareness ran like a cold current through all the meandering streams of his thoughts and impressions. "But, still..." He smiled, struggling for words for it, but knowing that he wouldn't be able to find them. "Nice," he said again.

McKay touched his uninjured arm. "I don't know what to do." His fingers were quivering. "I'm not good with sick people."

John rolled onto his side, watching the sun rise over the distant horizon, painting the hilltops with gold. Dew was cold on his cheek. McKay was kneeling next to him, a dark shape against the light. John blinked; curled his fingers into the grass. "How d'you know Ford?" he found himself asking.

McKay froze. His mouth opened, then closed again.

John rolled onto his back again. Not the most dignified position for an interrogation, John, he thought, but... No, that didn't matter any more. "You knew him," John said. "I'd be wondering if this was a set-up, except that he plainly didn't know you. I covered it up - didn't think that was the time to ask the necessary questions - but..." He saw a bird of prey circling far above. Not dead yet, he thought, then had to struggle to remember what he had been talking about. McKay was still silent. "Ford..." He turned his head to look at McKay. "How do you know him?"

"You won't believe me." McKay clutched a handful of blades of grass, closing his fingers around them.

John thought of the Wraith and the stunner, and the ruins that littered the world, speaking of a distant time when things had been very different. The rising sun showed lumps of crumbling stone, almost lost in the trees. "Try me," he said.

"I come from another universe," McKay said. John heard the tearing sound as the grass in his hand snapped off. "It's... I don't know how to explain it. I've never been good at explaining things to lesser minds, but... God! I don't know. It's... It's... Everything that's in this universe is in that one, too: England, America... another version of Ford, probably another version of you out there somewhere... But in my universe, the apocalypse never happened. There were no years with no summer. We carried on developing, inventing things, discovering things... We learned how to fly, to reach the moon, to go even further..."

It was like a dream. It was crazy talk. Delirious, John thought, but he didn't say it. The bird of prey was still circling above. "You can fly?" he asked.

"Not just fly," McKay said. "Just wait till you see..." His voice trailed away. He shifted position, wrapping his arms around his knees. "But it's all academic, isn't it? I came here by accident, and I'm not going home, not unless a miracle happens and I develop the Ancient gene overnight, or the others get off their asses and come after me."

Too many words were racing around John's head, like leaves on a swift river. "Another universe," he said. The sun crept down the hillside almost to where he was lying. "A world like this where none of the bad stuff happened."

"Oh, we've got our own share of bad stuff there, too," McKay said, but John barely heard him. He thought of all the ruins repaired and full of people. He thought of hundreds of ships criss-crossing the shining ocean. He thought of people flying like birds in the sky.

"I guess they were right all along," he said. "You're an Other, from another world, a world of magic."

McKay snapped another blade of grass. "It's not magic. It's all got a perfectly reasonable scientific explanation."

The sun reached him, warm on his face. "What's the difference?" John asked. "It's all the same. It's all equally lost to us."

McKay stood up; took a few swift steps away, back to the places not reached by the sun. "It isn't lost," he said. "They'll come for me, or I'll find a way. I've never come across anything I can't do."

John managed to sit up; managed not to fall again, despite the swirling of his vision. "Who're you waiting for?" he asked.

"People from home." McKay clenched his fist at his side, chains quivering. "People from Atlantis."

John let out a shuddering breath, but he was strangely unsurprised, almost as if he had been expecting this. Sunlight moved across the back of his neck like a soft finger. "The ship I was on..." he said. "The ship that sank... She was called Atlantis, too."

******

Throughout the morning, Sheppard drooped lower and lower on his horse. Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, he fell off entirely.

"Oh!" Rodney gasped. "Oh, no. Oh no no no!" He pulled at the reins. "Stop! Whoa! Stop, you horrible animal." The horse stopped. Rodney almost got his foot caught in the stirrup as he dismounted, and he ran lurchingly back to Sheppard's side. Sheppard was stirring, his head moving weakly from side to side, as if searching for something he couldn't find. Even without touching him, Rodney thought he could feel the heat of him.

"How did this happen?" Rodney demanded. "Sheppard, how did this happen?" But he knew, of course. Small injuries could become life threatening when infection set in. Hadn't Rodney always known that? Hadn't Rodney always told everyone that? And this just shows how wrong Carson is when I go to him with a splinter and he sends me away. I could have died after any one of them! He shook his head, his hand brushing over Sheppard's shoulder. There was no time for thinking things like that. Sheppard was... What? Dying? This hideous post-apocalyptic world was probably teeming with infections, and that meant...

"The gate ship," Rodney said. "We've got to get back to the gate ship." A little piece of Atlantis so far away from home. A place with a door that locked. A safe place to wait for the others to find him. A place with medical supplies.

Of course, he thought, I could just leave him here. I don't owe him anything, after all. Sure, Sheppard had saved Rodney's life, but Rodney had saved him first. They were quits. They could go their separate ways without...

"Sheppard!" Rodney tugged at his arm. His voice was hoarse, almost harsh. "Pull yourself together. You need to get back on that horse. We've got..." How far was it? He had no idea. At least a day, he thought, and that was only if he didn't get lost. "A few more hours to go yet." It sounded unconvincing. He'd never been a good liar. He'd never really tried to lie before.

"Where?" Sheppard asked. "Where we going?"

"Just get up," Rodney begged him. The sun was hot on the back of his neck. "I can't carry you. Get up. Please."

Sheppard raised his head, set his jaw, and stood up. "Good," Rodney said. "That's good." But Rodney had to almost lift Sheppard into the saddle, standing below him and heaving him up, and his back would take weeks to recover from that, if it would ever recover at all. Sheppard swayed, then straightened his shoulders, although his eyes weren't really focused right. "You're going to stay on?" Rodney asked, his hands dancing around in the air beside Sheppard, in case the man fell off again.

"Yeah." Sheppard gave a faint smile. His head shook from side to side in vague contradiction of what he'd just said. "Don't know," he said. "I'll try."

"Well, trying..." Rodney cleared his throat. "Trying is good enough, I guess. Just... try hard, will you?"

But he kept his own horse close to Sheppard, so they were riding almost knee to knee. It was uncomfortable, but what else could he do?

******

John was lying on the bed of coals in the darkness, while things rustled overhead.

"...and I don't know how to make a fire." He didn't recognise the voice at first, then chased down his scattered thoughts enough to remember McKay. "I've never skinned a rabbit. I don't know how to keep someone alive."

"Water." John struggled to produce sound. "Need water. Willow bark. In my pack. Clean the wound again."

"Willow bark?" McKay sneered. "Primitive remedies. It... Well, willow bark works, actually, doesn't it? Salicylic acid. Aspirin. Yes. Though it plainly hasn't worked here, because, well, delirious? Do I have to touch the bandages? They're disgusting. Isn't it better to, uh, leave it all safely covered up?"

John couldn't remember where he was going. Too many memories fizzed in his mind, and he couldn't remember which ones were recent and which ones were far away. He remembered falling from his horse a second time... Yes, yes, that one was recent, wasn't it? He remembered falling towards McKay, and McKay grabbing him, and the two of them falling down together, McKay grumbling and shrieking, and then patting John's face, tugging at his shoulders, begging him to speak, to say that he hadn't gone and died on him.

"I haven't..." John murmured.

"What?" McKay was a disembodied voice in the darkness.

"Died on you," John said, with barely a sound to it, just a movement of his lips. Then he thought that he was perhaps several hours too late in answering the question. His memory of falling was a memory of twilight, and now it was fully dark.

"Good," McKay said. "That's good, because..." His words were swallowed in the clearing of his throat, almost as if he was embarrassed about something. "Chew your willow bark like a good boy," McKay said, "and maybe you'll be better by morning."

John still couldn't remember where he was going. The cloud he had lived under had lifted; that much he remembered. But the ship had still sunk. The world was unchanged. They had crossed the ocean for nothing, no hope to bring back to their people... To my people? he thought, because his father was the only one left, and his father never wanted to see him ever again.

"We've travelled faster," McKay said, "than we did in the other direction, when you were on foot. We might be there by tomorrow afternoon, maybe even earlier."

"Where?" John asked, but then he remembered a story, a tale of a world that had grown unstunted. "We're going to your Atlantis?" he asked. "Going to where the world has a happy ending?"

McKay didn't answer, but John drifted to sleep dreaming of it.

******

Morning was thick with mist. It filled the plain below them like a white lake that lapped around the shore of the higher ground.

Sheppard was still alive. Rodney had spent the night huddled in on himself for warmth, listening to Sheppard's rasping breathing. He was cold right through, "and I just know that I've caught something hideous," he said, rambling on as he had rambled on for minutes, hoping to goad Sheppard into reacting. Sheppard just moved his head, his eyelids fluttering, but said nothing.

"We have to go," Rodney said desperately. He hadn't noticed it the night before, but the distinctive shape of Glastonbury Tor was already visible, rising like an island from the lake of fog. "We'll be there in a few hours."

"'lantis?" Sheppard's lips shaped, though only a fragile thread of sound came out.

Rodney had no idea how he did it, but he managed to lift Sheppard up, and drag him towards his placid horse. Then he had to move them both again, to a place where a fallen tree provided a step to stand on. Sheppard helped just a little, hauling himself up, allowing Rodney to manhandle him into the saddle. "It looks easy in the movies," Rodney panted. His back and shoulders were screaming with exertion. "Hero sweeps heroine up in front of him on the horse..."

Rodney had to leave his own horse behind, but that didn't bother him much, because he had never really seen the point of horses; entrusting your life to something that didn't respond instantly to your commands at the press of a button seemed foolhardy in the extreme. "I'm using yours," he told Sheppard, "in case you're attached to it. See? I can do considerate. Although you don't seem to have named it, so maybe you aren't attached to it. People normally name horses, don't they? Why didn't you name it?"

It was quite hideously uncomfortable going two to a horse. The saddle wasn't big enough, and sticky-out bits of it were driving into sensitive parts of Rodney's anatomy. Sheppard slumped forward, and Rodney had to steady him, one hand on his back, and he could feel the heat of him, feel the racing of his heart, and it was quite horrible, because what would he do if the heartbeat stopped? Sometimes Sheppard struggled to sit up, his fingers tangling in the horse's mane, blocking Rodney's view of the path in front of them. But then they were down in the mist, and he couldn't see anything anyway, just grey fog and the vague shapes of trees and dead ruins.

How far do we have to do? he thought. They trudged on, and he thought he had never been more miserable in his life. "Just get to the gate ship," he urged himself, as if the gate ship was the answer to everything, and God help him, but it really seemed that way, even as he knew full well that it wasn't anything of the sort.

He didn't even know if he was going in the right direction. The sun was a faint smear of light behind the clouds. South, he thought, remembering the way they had travelled just days before. Need to go south. South across the plain, down from the hills, splashing through wet marshes. He followed that smear of sun. South across roads reclaimed by the soil. South past ruins. And the mist slowly cleared, but not enough. A dog howled, and Sheppard raised his head, his hand groping out behind him, brushing Rodney's leg and dismissing it, and only stopping when he found the Wraith stunner strapped to the saddle.

"Which is a nice gesture," Rodney said, "but you couldn't kill a fly right now, could you?" The dog howled again, closer this time. Rodney's stomach rumbled, and he thought that his back would break in two if he didn't get chance to rest it soon, but he couldn't, not with Sheppard like this. He couldn't.

The light grew brighter. Rodney saw the tall ruins of Glastonbury Abbey take shape out of the fog. "We're almost there." He shook Sheppard's shoulder. "Sheppard, we're almost there."

He didn't dare trot. Half an hour, he thought, until they were in the gate ship? But what happened then? He pressed his lips together, his hand tightening on Sheppard's back. What happens then?

They passed the abbey. The Tor was ahead, rising from a pool of lingering fog. Rodney moved through the green avenues that had once been thriving streets, and soon reached the lower slopes. They rose out of the last of the fog into a world of glorious sunshine. It felt too hot, sweat trickling down Rodney's face and into his clothes at his neck.

The entrance to the hill was guarded. Of course it is, Rodney thought. The heat intensified. He wanted to babble, to plead, to weep. Instead, he reached for the stunner, struggling one-handed to remove it from its straps. Sheppard gripped it tightly, resisting him. "You can't," Rodney told him quietly. "Delirious, remember? Let me." Sheppard yielded. He hadn't opened his eyes throughout, that tightening of his grip the only clue that he was still conscious.

The two men stood up. "It's the Other," one said.

"Still with cold, hard iron on its wrists." The second man tugged his mask into place.

"And John unconscious in its power, to be carried away to its domain."

"I'm not an Other," Rodney said. He barely recognised his voice; it sounded weary and scoured. "I just want to get home. I advise you not to try to stop me, because..." Sheppard stirred slightly. "Not that I'm threatening you," he said, "it's just that you don't understand what's happening here. You should run along home."

The man raised scythes and clubs. Not just harmless primitives, Rodney thought, but people who could actually kill him.

"I've had a very bad day," Rodney said. "A bad series of days, actually, and if I have to stun you--"

The gunshot came from behind him, smashing into the side of the hill. Rodney turned round, and it felt as if someone had turned the sun off, so quickly did he go from too hot to icy cold. The man - Sumner, it had to be Sumner - was loading his rifle for a second shot, intent on it, not noticing the other figure creeping up behind him.

"A Wraith!" Rodney breathed. "But we killed it. We killed it."

Sheppard's head snapped up at the word 'Wraith.' He clawed with one hand at the horse's neck and managed to sit up, swaying drunkenly. The horse pranced a few nervous steps down the slope. The stunner slithered in Rodney's grip, but he tried to aim it, really he did. The blue beam shot out and went wide. Behind him, forgotten, the villagers wailed.

"Sumner!" Sheppard shouted, but he was too sick, too weak to muster any real sound. "Behind you!"

It was too late. The Wraith grabbed Sumner, slamming its hand into the centre of his chest. Sumner screamed, the rifle falling from his hands. He fell to his knees, the Wraith holding him up, one hand at his throat, one at his chest.

"No," Sheppard pleaded, his voice cracking. "No." He urged the horse forward, taking them down the slope. "Try again!" he said, and Rodney said, "I am trying," but the next shot went wide and so did the third, but the horse was taking them closer and closer, close enough to see Sumner shrivelling, ageing, dying before his eyes.

The fourth shot hit. Rodney managed to dismount, but his legs crumpled as he landed, muscles screaming. He dropped the stunner. The Wraith fell sideways; rolled a little way down the slope. Sumner lay where he fell, brittle and emaciated.

And then Sheppard was standing in front of Rodney, slowly walking forward, his steps slow and careful, the P90 held in both hands. He pulled the trigger, shooting the Wraith again and again, until there was nothing left to shoot with, but even then he carried on trying. Rodney's ears were ringing. He crawled forward, always one step behind Sheppard. When he reached Sumner's side, he knew that the man was dead. He felt sick, his eyes stinging with memory.

"Sheppard." Rodney didn't even know why he said it. He didn't know what he wanted Sheppard to do. Barely a minute, he thought, if that. Just two minutes before, he'd thought they were home and dry.

Sheppard turned round slowly. He was pale and he looked dazed, barely there at all, but his eyes were glittering. They scared Rodney suddenly. No, it wasn't the eyes that scared him, but the fact that Sheppard had been so unresponsive for so long, and had found the strength to stand on his own two feet only when he had to kill something.

No, only when he had to try to save someone, he thought, and his shoulders sagged, and he thought suddenly that he might cry.

He didn't, of course, because Sheppard swayed, almost falling again. Rodney struggled to his feet, scooping up the fallen stunner as he did so. "Sumner's dead," he said. "He must have followed us." Something cold tightened its grip on him. He hadn't once looked back over his shoulder all morning. If Sumner had been a few minutes closer to them, he could have shot them in the back at any point.

"Dead." Sheppard moistened his lips. "There must've been two Wraith all along."

Rodney's head swayed with weariness, the old headache returning with a vengeance. Even the smell of this place was suddenly hideous, the moist earth reminding him of his team lying dead so close to here. He turned his head and saw the two villagers still there, tremulous in their masks. "Go home." Rodney flapped his hand. "So you got front row seats. That's the thing that was killing people, okay? It wasn't me. Got that? Now let us pass, or I'll have to use the stunner again." He waved it, and they recoiled - pathetic, pitiful... quite sad, really. "So run along." Sheppard swayed. Rodney caught his arm. "Please?" he begged them.

They didn't go, but they backed away, a cautious honour guard lining the way to the entrance to the facility. Sheppard managed to walk it, but Rodney suspected that he had no idea where he was going, lost again in dreams and close to collapse.

"Of course..." Rodney said, then he thought about it for a moment, then shifted his position, so he was almost completely supporting Sheppard, his arm around his middle. "Even if we do get there without some native trying to hack us to pieces from behind, there isn't..."

He started at a movement, but it was just a bird flapping up from the hillside above the entrance. Rodney tried to steady his breathing. The entrance gaped in the hillside, a black hole. There was no anxious rescue party. There was no sign of a team from Atlantis restoring the facility into bright and shining order.

"I'm still stuck here," Rodney said, because now that he was almost back at the gate ship, he realised what a false refuge it had been. It had medical supplies, yes, but it was still far from home, still a prison. Without that damned gene...

They entered the tunnel of earth. The bodies were still there, dull in the fading sunlight, but beyond them, the whole place was dark. "There might be another Wraith," Sheppard said, but his next step took him over the threshold, and the whole facility started to light up like a store at Christmas, stirring, no blazing into life around him.

******

end of chapter six

******

The Others are not united. Like man, they are divided, and they wage wars against their sundered kin. These wars were hidden from the eyes of man, but two there were on that long-distant spring morning who saw the truth.

An Other with hair like pale moonlight took a man, a stranger, to the dance, turning him to dust in the twinkling of an eye. An Other of a different hue opposed him, destroying him with blue fire. A war from the places below the ground spilled over into the land beneath the sun, and that dawn saw death on the side of the hill.

Two there were who saw the truth, did I say? No, little one, there were three, because John was there. John, who was so changed by the touch of the Other that he used a fire-stick himself. John, who drooped pale and weak afterwards, life and strength leaving him.

But after the silver-haired Other had fallen, John went with the Other who still lived. He turned his back on the land beneath the sun, and he walked away from the ken of mortal man. The land below the hill glowed golden in radiant light, and John was gone.

John was gone.

******

Continued in Part Four