kriadydragon | Intermission - Dream Eater part 2

Part Two

The hazmat team spent most of the day on the planet, and the research teams were given the day off. Sheppard's team spent the day with him in his quarters and Teyla felt a little more content. John wasn't better, neither was he worse, exactly. He was exhausted as though he had not slept, which was probably the case since Beckett suspected he had been throwing up again. Rodney was adamant that Sheppard be dragged to the infirmary, but Carson had seen no reason for it. John's illness had yet to escalate to critical and always ended up diminishing toward the end of the day.

“He's better off in his own quarters anyways,” Beckett had explained, a touch exasperated because Rodney refused to drop it. “He's comfortable there and making a patient comfortable is conducive to healing. I'll be sending in one of my staff from time to time to keep an eye on his vitals.”

When Rodney still wouldn't drop it, Carson had (rather vindictively, it seemed) charged McKay with taking part in keeping an eye on Sheppard. He complained, but he would have done it all the same even if Beckett had not told him to. Rodney does not hide his concern as well as he would like others to think.

They played card games with Sheppard, board games, even computer games that Teyla and Ronon watched like movies. Around lunch, they took John to the mess hall and watched, worried, as Sheppard took small bites leaving the majority of his food untouched. They returned him to his room, let him rest, then went back for him at dinner to repeat the attempt to coax him into eating more. John tried to change the subject by telling them of Sirbirus, a three-headed beast that guarded the underworld.

Teyla could not help giving in. “There is a beast that guard's the ring into the afterlife. By not performing the ring ceremony, the beast will not permit the soul to travel into the next life, and that soul is left to wander.”

“What about those taken by the wraith?” Ronon asked.

“The beast guards against the souls of any wraith that try to slip past. It was once believed that wraith do not feed on other wraith. So, obviously, those who are fed upon cannot be wraith. That is why a ceremony is needed for those not fed upon.”

“Sounds kind of like Valhala,” said Rodney, “where only warriors who die in battle can go... before the Asgard warped that mythology.”

Teyla raised an eyebrow. “Then some myths are simply that – myths.”

John shrugged. “Or altered truths. I overheard Novak and Hermiod talking once. Valhala and Bifrost are actually Asgard afterlife stories. An Asgard conscious has to reside somewhere if their next body isn't ready. They go there to be judged. If their conscious doesn't return to their new body, then they were found wanting and weren't allowed to cross back over the bridge... or something like that.”

Rodney blinked incomprehensibly. “The Asgard believe in an afterlife?”

John shrugged. “At one point they did, if they don't now.”

They were interrupted by the alarms and the announcement of an incoming wormhole. Everyone gathered in the gateroom, the team at the top of the stairs, just as the shield powered down and the hazmat team stepped through.

The debrief was short. There were still samples to be tested, but the Ancient scanners had not picked up on anything. The next day, soil, plant, and metal samples were tested and confirmed that the planet was safe: no gases, no strange chemicals, and no unidentifiable signals. So the go-ahead was given for research to resume the following day.

Teyla was not looking forward to it.

They returned to the facility to play (as Rodney put it) scavenger hunt with the database. They stayed late and returned home to have a late dinner and to find John already asleep. He had not been out of his room all day according to Carson, and blood-tests still revealed no bacteria or virus. But other concerns soon distracted the doctor. Fights were breaking out between many of the scientists over finds, and many of the marines over irrelevant matters. Each day that went by saw another group through Carson's doors with bloody-noses or black eyes. Dr. Beckett couldn't explain it, just like he could not explain what was wrong with Sheppard.

John had not left his room in four days. Teyla visited him as often as she could, mostly to drop off trays of food or bottles of water, and always to find him asleep, his face glowing pale in the darkness of his room. Teyla finally asked Dr. Weir if she could stay home from the mission in order to help John, what with Carson already having his hands full. Elizabeth agreed and Teyla became John's unofficial nurse, able to be present for the times he did awake.

She brought him lunch on the fifth day - a sandwich and milk – and just sat until he stirred on his own.

Except he didn't stir, he threw back his covers and bolted to the bathroom where he dropped to his knees before the toilet and heaved. Teyla hesitated in shock before darting after him, crouching beside him to rub his curved back. She could both see and feel his ribs, spine, and the stiffened muscles that coiled with each choked heave. She had no means of telling the time but was aware of its passage enough to know that the vomiting was going on longer than it should have. Just when it stopped and John's body started to relax, the muscles would harden and John's body would convulse, expelling.

It ended when Sheppard collapsed onto his side, panting, sweat-slicked, and shivering. Dark vomit like oil stained his chin and flecked his gray T-shirt, face, and the rim of the toilet. Teyla moved fast grabbing a cloth and wetting it under cool water to wipe John's face clean.

Her heart was pounding, her breathing rapid, and her hand shook. “This is not normal,” she said, voice quivering. “John, what is wrong?”

John swallowed, grimaced, and coughed. “I don't know. It... it shouldn't be like this.”

Teyla grabbed the glass on the sink and filled it. “What should not be like this?” She set the glass on the floor in order to free up her hands to pull Sheppard onto her lap, then lifted him upright enough to take the water when she brought it to his lips. He rinsed, spitting into the cloth Teyla switched the glass for, then took more water to ease his throat.

He did not answer, either because he could not or would not. He might have been delirious yet Teyla could not stop the feeling that he was not. She brushed the sweat-soaked hair from his forehead, then placed her hand on his chest to feel the swift and stuttering heart-beat and fast pulsation of his breathing. He was too thin. It should not have come as such a surprise with how little Sheppard had been eating the last few days, yet Teyla still could not help the lump lodging in her throat and her chest tightening. She had surpassed worry. Now she was frightened.

She slipped Sheppard's arm across her shoulders and helped him to stand, staggering with him until he managed to lock his knees. They began the unsteady journey back to the bed when muffled voices outside John's door raised in pitch and intensity. Teyla knew she should have suspected it but was still caught off guard when Sheppard took the lead, forcing her to stick with him as he lurched toward the commotion. The door slid open to three members of the same science team trying to yell above each other.

“The research was mine to continue with! I found it, I downloaded it, and I have the better understanding of it...!”

“You weren't taking it to the next level, you were accomplishing what's already been done...!”

“It's completion was vital for the next step! Your alterations have set us all back...!”

The words became lost in the increase of volume and speed. All three scientists were pale, shadow-eyed, and it created an eery scene of tangible unrest that made Teyla want to slip back into the quiet of Sheppard's quarters and wait until it passed. And she was not the only one. The noise had attracted a large crowd of nervous, shifting onlookers that were indecisive whether to break up the debate or slip away and let it burn itself out.

Teyla heard Sheppard's sigh, felt his ribcage deflate on the exhale, and his weight increase. She looked over at him leaning his forehead against the door slot, his eyes closed.

“I can't keep doing this.”

Teyla hiked his arm and body into a better position and tugged him into turning around, back into the room toward his bed. The door slid shut cutting off half the noise behind them. A fourth voice bellowed above all three, silencing them, and Teyla breathed out in relief. She set Sheppard on the bed, lifting his legs when his upper body fell onto the mattress. She pulled the blankets up to his neck, even shifting his head to be more comfortable on the pillow.

“I'm tired, Teyla,” he murmured.

Teyla brushed her fingers through his hair. “Then sleep. Should I get Beckett?”

John's eyelids blinked heavily. “He can't... help me.”

“Can anyone?”

John shook his head.

“John, what is wrong?”

He was asleep before she even finished the question.

------------------------------

“Tell me of the flying city, father,” young Teyla said. Tagan pulled her into his lap and scooted closer toward the crackling flames spitting sparks that fluttered toward the stars. Teyla looked up hoping to see the Ancestor city float past. Instead, there was a ribbon of darkness, hovering, observing, tilting a triangular head in satisfaction before darting off into the night.

Teyla snapped awake to silver and blue darkness and strange shapes and scents not of her room. She lifted her head from her folded arms resting on the bed – someone else's bed, with her legs growing numb on someone else's floor. She blinked sticky eyes and squinted at the picture on the wall, a picture of a man... Johnny Cash. She was still in Sheppard's room.

But the bed was empty, the blankets rumpled. Teyla's gaze went immediately to the bathroom that was open and dark.

“John?”

The door hissed open behind her. She whipped her head around in time to see a sinuous ribbon of black flow out into the dimly lit halls. The remnants of sleep left her. She pushed to her feet and rushed out the door, slowing when she entered the hall in time to see the shadow-ribbon curve like liquid around the corner. Teyla followed swift but not too swift, keeping up while staying out of sight. The shadow-ribbon glided into someone's room. Teyla approached slowly and craned her neck enough to see into the still-open entrance. The shadow-ribbon was near-invisible in the perfect dark hovering above Dr. Zelenka's tousled head. She gasped when the creature dove into Radek's skull. Teyla took a step with the intent to rush in and wake the scientist. She was just past the threshold when the shadow-ribbon coiled out of Zelenka's head. She darted from the room and back around the corner, peering from her hiding spot and watching the creature wind and twist from the room. It hovered for a moment as though indecisive, then began convulsing.

Its elongated snout opened wide. Liquid like oil poured from its constricting throat, splashing on the floor, hissing and popping, evaporating in a coil of smoke. The creature's body rippled in a shudder, then jerked in a cough before moving on, sluggish and drunken. Teyla followed

McKay's room next. It was odd to see the physicist asleep in his own quarters, in his own bed, just when Teyla had started to believe the physicist never left the lab at night. The creature circled McKay before diving into his skull. It emerged mere heartbeats after, already convulsing, its throat swelling with an increase of liquid it could not hold back. It was given no time to leave the room when the liquid sprayed from its throat, hissing and steaming on the floor in a rapidly growing puddle. The vomit just kept coming and coming, then diminished into a thin stream that ended on dry-heaves.

The puddle seemed to absorb into the floor. The creature coughed, gagged, wheezed, then shuddered once before dropping in a coiled heap on the floor, struggling to breathe.

Teyla's mind screamed at her to fetch a weapon, wake McKay, call for a guard. Her body ignored all logic and commands, moving on its own accord toward the alien body. She did not know why. Caution was so ingrained in her that she had never thought twice about it, never let uncertainty or curiosity cloud it. But she felt neither curiosity nor uncertainty.

She felt... safe, and that frightened her. It could be a trick. She wanted to see it as a trick, but the reasonable part of her mind kept whispering that this creature had had many opportunities to act against her. It was injured, but injured life-forms of any kind did what they could to repel, and she was not being repelled.

She knelt beside the shadow-ribbon. Miko had once showed her pictures of Asian dragons when Teyla had inquired about them. Wingless, long, with whiskers, wisdom, and benevolence. The shadow-ribbon was like those oriental dragons, but smaller, about the length of the tallest man and whip thin. She placed her hand on the vivid and delicate ribs, felt their quick motion, and ran her fingers over the glossy black fur. Silver orbs blinked up at her, lethargic but pleading and desperate. The ropey whiskers quivered and a long-fingered and taloned paw touched her arm.

Teyla.

Teyla flinched.

I can't do this.

The head dropped back to the floor and the eyes slid shut. But the chest was still moving, fast and shallow, and Teyla slid her hand over the sternum to feel the too-quick heartbeats. There was no reason for her to help this creature, but she still gathered it into her arms, lifting a body that felt as weightless as a real ribbon.

“What's going on? Who's there?”

The lights flared on. Teyla blinked against them, squinting to see McKay sitting upright staring open-mouthed at the creature draped across her forearms.

“What the hell is that?”

“I do not know,” Teyla said, and turned, hurrying from McKay's quarters.

She heard Rodney's bare feet slapping behind her. “What do you mean you don't know? Where are you taking it? What's going on?”

She let him ramble on with his questions that fell silent the moment they entered the infirmary. Teyla set the creature on one of the beds, arranging its tail and limbs to fit. “Dr. Beckett! I need Dr. Beckett!” Her focus was on the creature, one hand caressing its head between two pointed ears and the other against its chest making sure it continued to breathe. If someone called for Beckett, she did not hear, but she did hear when he arrived.

“Bloody fires of hell, what is that?”

“It is sick,” Teyla said without realizing, fixated on the smooth fur that was more deep blue than black in the light, so short and fine it could not conceal the way the skin sank into the bones. She stroked the head, then one of the ears, then along the jaw.

A thin sliver of silver flashed between the narrow eyelids. The eyelids slammed closed. Thin lips twisted in a snarl of agony and the body arched into an S formation. The creature clawed the air, gurgling and hissing. It's body rippled like water, then shimmered soft-blue; melting, shifting, bones shrinking here or lengthening there. Pale skin replaced dark blue fur, except for the mess of black on top of a very human head. The human body dressed in a gray T-shirt and loose black pants shivered violently, arching until Teyla thought the spine would snap, then slammed into the bed with a groan and whimper before going still.

“What the bleedin' hell!” Carson squeaked, shouldering Teyla out of the way to start taking Sheppard's vitals.

Teyla stepped back watching the doctor wrapped in a light blue robe place his stethoscope on and slip the other end down John's shirt front. He called for an I.V. and blood work. Then, with a nurse's help, lifted John enough to slip the shirt off his insubstantial body. Sheppard curled into himself and started shivering.

“I'm going to have to ask everyone not on my staff to leave,” Carson said without looking up. “If you'd please.”

Teyla backed away, grabbing Rodney's arm en route and pulling him from the infirmary. The door slid shut fast in their faces, leaving them to turn to each other for the answers.

Rodney was pale enough to glow in the dark. “What... what was... that?”

Teyla stared back. “That was John.” It was a pathetic answer, but the only one she had.

------------------------

Rodney paced while Teyla sat crouched against the wall. She stood when the door slid open and Beckett stepped out, so busy perusing a chart he startled to a halt on seeing the both of them.

“Oh! You're still here. I was about to fetch you since I forgot to bring my com. Didn't have the bloody thing tucked into my ear right.”

“We don't even have our coms,” Rodney snapped. “Get on with it. What's going on with Sheppard? What the hell is he?”

“Nothing the scanners can tell me. Whatever he is, it's not showing up on his DNA, unless I'm looking in the wrong spot, but that's beside the point. Colonel Sheppard is resting at the moment. Poor lad's exhausted, dehydrated, malnourished... still no virus or bacterium in his blood work so I'm guessing his problem has to do with,” he gestured vaguely, “whatever it was we saw in there.” He squinted. “What was that we saw in there?”

Rodney folded his arms across his chest. “I don't know.” Then turned to Teyla. “But Teyla here didn't seem too bothered handling the thing.”

Teyla did not take offense to Rodney's demanding, somewhat accusatory stare. He was not exactly at his most tactful when he was nervous or confused. But she could not answer him. She was still trying to make sense of it herself, and recalling felt like remembering a dream. She could not quite grasp it.

“I... I am not sure. I was with Colonel Sheppard...”

“So you saw him change?” Rodney jumped in, sounding more intrigued than impatient.

Teyla shook her head. “No. I fell asleep by his bed. When I woke up, he was gone. But I saw the creature and followed it. I...” She looked at both men helplessly. “I do not understand what I saw.”

Carson held up both hands, giving Teyla a sympathetic look. “All right, lass, it's all right. Just take your time with it, think it over. I'm going to contact Elizabeth since she needs to know about this. Why don't you go make yourself some tea to help you settle.”

“I'm whipping up coffee,” Rodney said. “No way any of us are going back to bed now.” He went with Teyla to the mess hall.

An impromptu debrief was soon called, and by then Teyla had gathered her thoughts and nerves enough to give the others an uncertain reiteration of what had happened. Carson immediately dragged Rodney to the infirmary for a neurological scan while Elizabeth ordered two guards to be placed in the infirmary armed with stunners. It felt wrong to Teyla. There was logic in it, necessity, but she kept trying to argue that this was Colonel Sheppard they were dealing with, and that whatever he had been doing, it had probably been for their benefit rather than their harm.

It was a rather poor, short-lived argument since she had no proof otherwise.

Rodney's scan revealed nothing out of the ordinary. Since there was little else to be done, Elizabeth told everyone to go back to bed so they could deal with the matter with a fresher perspective. Teyla did not want to leave. She curled up on the bed next to John's in the infirmary to watch him sleep, then drifted off to the rhythm beep of the heart monitor.

------------------------------------

“Tell me of the flying city, father.”

Tagan gathered his daughter into his lap, scooting closer to the fire.

“It is a wonderful place,” he began.

“Teyla?”

Teyla opened her eyes to pallid light and a pale face turned her way. She blinked away the sleep-film until John's face coalesced into focus staring back at her, more colorless and gaunt in the early morning, and frail in a way that frightened her. She lifted her head, his eyes following her motion.

“John?”

“What did you see?” His voice barely transcended a whisper. The heart monitor told her what she needed to know. It was fast, too fast for someone as tired as John looked.

He was frightened.

Teyla slipped easily from the bed and walked softly over to him, slipping her hand between the rail to take his and rub his cold, thin fingers. She was close enough for the fear to be tangible in his eyes. “Do not worry, John, it is all right...”

“Is it?”

She felt his hand shaking in hers.

“It will be, John, I promise.” She knelt to be at eye level with him. “But there will be questions.” She swallowed back the tightness in her throat for what she was about to ask next, because John was exhausted, scared, and Teyla knew this would only make it worse. “What... are you?”

“I'm human,” he quickly replied, like a reassurance, but with a penetrating look that would not allow her to argue otherwise. Then his eyes drifted down to stare at the rails. “And a, um... a dream eater.”

Teyla squinted thoughtfully. “A dream-eater? You eat... dreams?”

“Bad dreams,” John replied. “So there can only be good dreams.”

Teyla stared at him as though he were a child trying to introduce her to an invisible friend. “You devour nightmares?”

He nodded. “Yep.”

Teyla nodded back hesitantly; bewildered, but more fascinated. She had seen many impossible things in one night, leaving her numb to disbelief of any kind. “And does it often make you sick?”

John shook his head. “I don't know why this is happening. It's never happened before...” he grimaced and curled tighter, pulling his hand from Teyla's to hug his stomach. “Crap, it hurts! Teyla,” he gasped, “I'm human. That form, I only take it when I hunt nightmares. What I do isn't meant to harm anyone, it's supposed to help. Nightmares hurt people, I make sure they don't. I was just trying to help. Damn it!” He lurched weakly forward and Teyla leaped back just as Sheppard's body convulsed and he heaved. A thin stream of oily vomit splattered on the floor before sizzling away.

The moment it was gone, she moved back to the bed, pouring water from the pitcher on the tray into a cup and lifting John's head enough for him to take a sip. She then placed a basin beneath his mouth to rinse and spit. The moment residue oil left the safety of John's mouth, it hissed away, leaving only water.

“Is that what that was?” Teyla asked. “A bad dream?” She helped him take another sip, then shift more comfortably back on the bed.

“Yeah,” he groaned. “But I shouldn't be puking like this. Something's wrong with these dreams.” John curled again with a whimper and his face screwing up in pain.

Teyla started to stand. “I will get Dr. Beckett.” She was stopped by John's hand slipping between the rails and grabbing her wrist.

“No... there isn't much he can do. It'll eventually stop. Just... don't leave yet.”

She crouched back down. “John, what is it that you are afraid of? We are your friends. No matter what you are, we will not hurt you.”

John released her wrist, pulling his hand through the rail to press protectively against his chest. “I know. I trust you guys, I do. It's just that... this changes things. It always does. People get weird, panicky, paranoid. They either freak out and avoid me for the rest of my life or... I don't know, they just treat me different, like I'm someone else. Like I was pretending to be someone else except I wasn't. I'm still the same guy. The changing thing's just a family trait, like hair color or whether or not you're tall. I didn't just up and get my DNA altered overnight. This isn't the retrovirus...”

It was Teyla's turn to grab his wrist, and she gently squeezed. Just because she did not know the reason behind his fear did not me there was not a reason. She understood. By the Ancestors how she understood. Change is inevitable when things once hidden are made known, and it did not matter if the whole world knew, or just the self. Truths did not manifest gently.

It would be others John would have to contend with rather than himself. There would be questions, too many, even accusations. Elizabeth might send him to Heightmeyer. She was trained to ask the right questions, the questions most are afraid to ask. Dr. McKay is more sensitive than even he realizes. Whether out of shock, curiosity or offense, he will demand why John did not tell them sooner, why he did not trust them. Ronon – Teyla wasn't sure of Ronon. He might not care. Then again, he may merely pretend not to care all while keeping Sheppard under watch out of the corner of his eye.

John was right. Things would change and it made her heart ache for him.

She was already resolved to intervene on his behalf.

Teyla reached out with her other hand to brush back the dark hair from the pale face, and smiled. “Tell me of your kind, John.”

John did. Like the Kitsune, dream-eaters were spirit beings. Like Miko's cousin, John was part dream-eater but on his father's side. It was instinct to devour bad dreams, even the unnatural ones that left him sick. The dream-eaters are rare or the world would have no nightmares. Bad dreams can be quick, sometimes, hard to catch, even in a city with such a small population like Atlantis. Dreams move swift and the bad ones flit in and out of the mind quicker than an eye-blink. But John tries, because these are his people, and it is only natural to prey on what preys on them.

It was also natural to remain hidden. Immortal's had the misfortune of being susceptible to the whims of mortals who knew how to catch them. John wasn't immortal, but the need for caution was as much a part of him as his ability to devour dreams.

Time was non-existent the entire story. Teyla did not even notice the gradual shift in light as the dawn strengthened, not until John's words slurred and he slipped back into sleep. Teyla stayed with him, holding his wrist, feeling the quick flutter of his pulse, until Beckett arrived.

“Did he wake up?” he asked.

Teyla nodded.

“Did he say anything?”

She released John's wrist. “Only what needed to be said.”

----------------------------

Teyla told John's story for him since he was still too weary to speak for himself. It was nothing more than a reiteration that did not convey what Teyla wanted them to understand.

“Why didn't he just tell us?” Rodney said, both frustrated and bewildered. “Did he think we'd freak out? I thought he trusted us!”

Tyla winced, swallowing back the constriction in her throat. Rodney's words had a bite that made Teyla relieved John had not been present to hear. “Dr. McKay, please,” she intended a polite interruption, but felt more as though she were begging. “It is more than that, it is... have you ever been hurt by someone or something, unintentional, something or someone that should not have hurt you, and more than once? And though the relationship remains, it becomes one tainted by caution?”

Rodney's mouth moved wordless for a moment until he finally shrugged. “Yeah... uh, yes, actually.” He cleared his throat, struggling to form more words. Teyla smiled reassuringly at him. She only needed a yes or a no and the deep discomfort in his eyes as he recalled, telling Teyla he knew more than he was willing to say.

“I feel this 'trait' of his is such a relationship. His reasons for keeping this a secret are his own, but he does have his reasons. I do not think it fair or wise that we begrudge him that.”

The effect was immediate, the discomfort passing like ripples to each person in the room, banishing all previous impressions of the matter. Beckett changed the subject by idly inquiring why such a trait would never show up on scanners or blood-tests, then answered his own question by attributing it to the powers being of a spirit creature. Spirit creatures, after all, had no real bodies being pure energy and all.

The subject shifted again to John's illness, the unnatural dreams causing it, and why this was all happening in the first place.

Teyla already had an answer. “The planet. This did not begin until after our first trip to the planet. We must not go back there.”

“But we don't know if it's the planet for certain,” Dr. Weir said. “The hazmat teams searched the area and found nothing that would be causing this.”

“And there's still too much valuable information to gather,” said Rodney. “We can't just leave that behind.”

They were both right, but Teyla did not care. “Suspend any more expeditions back to the planet. A week, at most, three or five days at least. If Sheppard no longer senses the nightmares in that time, then we will know the planet is to blame.”

Elizabeth still looked unsure. Teyla gripped the arms of her seat until her knuckles turned white. “Dr. Weir, please. John can not take much more of this. We need to at least try.”

Elizabeth pressed her lips into a thin line, then nodded. “All right. It's worth a try.”

------------------------

Dr. Weir had the majority of the science teams and their military escorts questioned about their dreams, and those who still dreamed of wandering the perfect forest following a faceless entity or distant loved one were scanned. Anomalies were discovered in their brain patterns, so obscure Beckett almost missed them. Those who had the dreams removed by Sheppard were also scanned, but the anomalies were not present. This was still not proof that the planet was to blame, but reinforced Weir's decision to move the wait from five days to a full week.

In that time, the dreams, and the aggression that followed when the dreamers were awake, diminished. Sheppard did not have to devour a single nightmare in all that time.

With food, rest, and medicine, John's strength returned. He was soon allowed solid foods and was able to answer more of doctor Beckett's questions, if they could be answered. It was not that Sheppard did not know how to respond to certain questions, but that he could not.

“Some truths aren't mine to tell,” he told Carson. No one pushed him about it.

Ronon, not being witness to John's other form, was indifferent toward the whole matter. Rodney was awkward from the start, but warming up the more questions he was able to ask for himself. Teyla, even Carson, feared Rodney would over step his bounds, elevate the questions into a scientific interrogation. Yet the moment Sheppard told him to stop asking, Rodney did. He wasn't happy about it in the beginning, but eventually got over it.

McKay has the means to be considerate, he just tends to go about it grudgingly.

The day before the week was up, not a single member from any team reported having the dreams, and there was no trace of the anomaly. Elizabeth announced the planet off limits, even having it locked out of the dialing console.

It was not a total loss what with the drones and most of the data collected.

“I still think I could have handled it,” John said, sawing through a tender piece of boiled chicken. The solid foods had to be simple, bland, gentle on John's healing digestive system: plain chicken, mashed potatoes, and vegetables. “If four people went – two marines and two scientists – once a week. It was sucking these dreams down every day that was kicking my ass.”

A few of the scientists had been rather adamant about being denied access to the planet, and John had actually sided with them. A small part out of necessity for what those databases could contain, and a larger part out of guilt. It was a lax support, one that kept John from arguing when Elizabeth turned his plan down. He'd looked more relieved than upset. But so went the ways of John Sheppard, putting the sake of others before the self.

“Argue all you like, Colonel,” Rodney said from his stool-perch, talking around mouth-fulls of roast beef and gravy, “but there is no lesser of two evils this time. Something was screwing with our minds and I doubt once a week visits would have made a difference. This is a perfect case of better safe than sorry.”

“What was doing that to us, anyways?” Ronon asked, directing the question at Sheppard.

John shrugged. “Don't know. I never saw them, just kind of felt them, like oil in the air. Their visions tasted nasty, though. Like rotten fish guts... or at least what I think rotten fish guts would taste like.”

“Bet it was one of those Edo things,” Rodney said, gesturing with his fork. “Or those Unseen Ones or whatever.”

“They were most interested in Atlantis,” Teyla said. “If the stories are true, then I would say Edos, as they were said to hate the Ancestors.”

“Either way, too bad,” said McKay. “I wanted to know what the hell was up with those trees, and why some people tried to head back to the planet while everyone else just got pissy.”

“Dr. Beckett said the dreams altered much of a person's brain chemistry, inciting mood-swings and susceptibility,” Teyla replied.

“Yeah, well, I still want to know what the hell was up with those trees. Oh, and why we've never run into this kind of thing before? Unless, of course, all the Edos or whatever they were are trapped on that planet.”

John stabbed his fork into his mound of potatoes and left it there to see how long it would remain standing up. The fork slowly began to tilt. “How about we make up our own story. It's an Edo/Unseen Ones' prison planet, they want off, and are all a bunch of obsessive-compulsive freaks with too much time on their hands.”

Rodney shook his head, swallowing before talking. “Not creepy enough. We need to scare the kiddies, not incite them into giving us stupid looks and asking what 'obsessive compulsive' means.”

John gathered a small portion of potatoes onto his fork and slid it into his mouth. He was still too thin, but comfortably less fragile. “We'll work out the details later. Legends aren't born in a day, you know.”

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It had been months since Teyla had dreamed of the wraith. That did not mean the dreams did not try to slip their way in. She wandered a wraith corridor collapsing like sand that swirled to be sucked into wide open jaws, leaving only a forest, starry sky, and young Teyla sitting in her father's lap as he told her of the city in the sky. She looked across the fire at the twining and curving body flowing like a ribbon pulled beneath the water. Moonlight and firelight flashed off violet and blue fur. There was more grace to the slender body, completely lacking in past frailty.

Young Teyla rose from her father's lap to become grown-up Teyla when she stepped around the fire. She took the velvet soft jaws into her hands and touched forehead to forehead.

“Thank you, John.”

She released his head and he flowed up and away into the night sky. Teyla stepped back around the fire, back into child-hood to nestle in her father's lap and delight in the old stories.

The End