Orpheus - Chapter 5
Another OMG! It's-about-time-update. Main reason is because I am procrastinating on my very long paper due this week.
Also thanks to my beta, Mizz_magenta!
Chapter 5
John woke up with a start when he heard something fall onto the ground next to him. Then he remembered a book he hadn't bothered to remove from his bed when he was ordered to sleep by Carson.
He lifted his head towards the windows and noticed that it was dark outside.
“Crap,” he muttered to himself as he sat up in bed, starting to pull on his shoes. He had only wanted to sleep for a couple of hours; instead he slept the whole day. He looked at his watch. It was already 17:00. “Dammit,” he muttered again and raced out the door.
“Well, if it isn’t Sleeping Beauty,” Rodney said when John came into his lab.
“Cut the crap, Rodney. What do you have for me?”
“Nothing, just lots and lots of pictures and scribbles. I’m sure you noticed that last night when you made me sit with you here all night. And thanks to you my neck still hurts,” Rodney complained and rubbed the back of his neck.
“Stop being a pain in my neck and tell me something useful already.” Rodney was trying John’s patience, but John refrained from being violent and only glared at Rodney.
“All right, you know all those pictures in that room, where the Ms. Cleo ball is?”
“Yeah, what about them?”
“Well, apparently, it tells a story of this guy who is in search of his dead wife.”
“Yeah, I gathered that much from half of the translations I found.”
“Doesn’t that remind you of some other story?”
“Okay, guy searching for his dead wife. I...” Rodney looked at John waiting for him to finish his sentence.
“Just so you know you didn’t finish that sentence... out loud...” Rodney trailed off when he had this strange feeling of déjà vu. He remembered making the exact same comment to someone before, and he was sure that it wasn’t to John.
“You said this guy was searching for his dead wife. So he knew that she was dead?” John finally said.
“Her breathe of life was taken from me when she fell ill, and in my arms she lay cold and dead.” Rodney read from a translation.
“I take that as a yes," John paused to think. "So that means there is only one place to look for her.”
“Exactly.” Rodney was about to continue talking but stopped abruptly. "Just so we're on the same page. You're thinking of the Orpheus mythology, right?"
"What else would I be thinking of? The Trojan War?"
"How would I know? I don't know how well you know your Greek mythology. You could easily confuse this with the Hades kidnapping Persephone to the underworld."
"No, I was not thinking of that," John scowled. "So how does the the Orpheus myth help with figuring out why no one remembers Elizabeth?”
"I don't know." Rodney rubbed the bottom of his chin and thought for a moment. “Didn’t you find out something about the magic ball that wipes out people’s memories?” he asked John.
“Yeah,” John said, trying to think back to all the things he found last night. “Something like that, but my translations are a bit fuzzy. Every other word seemed to be the world ‘beloved’. I just thought because I hadn’t slept in 36 hours all the Ancient symbols were starting to look the same.”
“Hm... probably,” Rodney said more to himself. “Anyway somewhere in the translations this guy talks about how no one remembered who his wife was after he came here, even though they were the ‘hot’ couple of the town. He was quite popular in the village being some hot shot town artisan or something.”
“Okay, that explains... what exactly?” John’s brain couldn’t keep up. Maybe he still needed more sleep.
“If I translated this correctly, ‘Lethe’ is the magic ball.”
“Lethe?”
“Yes, Lethe. In Hades there are two rivers...” Rodney started snapping his fingers as he tried to remember their names.
“Styx?” John supplied. Rodney gave John a look. “What? I swear I’m not talking about the band.”
“Whatever,” he waved away John’s comment. “The River Lethe and River Mnemosyne. Lethe was the river where people drank from to forget about their past lives before they are reborn. But apparently, this particular Lethe is activated by touch and instead wiping a person’s memory of everything, it wipes away the memory of a certain person in everyone.”
John knitted his brows together as his brain tried to catch up with Rodney’s theory. “What about the other river, Anemone?”
Rodney rolled his eyes, “Mnemosyne.”
“Whatever, what about that river? What did that do?”
“Mnemosyne, the “spring of memory”. People who drank from it would remember everything in their past life and be admitted to the Elysian Fields.”
Rodney watched John furrow his brows as he tried to compute what Rodney just said.
“So this Nemesis is the key?” he finally asked.
“What?”
“The spring of memory!”
“Oh, why didn’t you say so? You completely threw me off with the Nemesis references.”
John resisted the urge to strangle Rodney. “Is the spring of memory the key to reversing this?”
“I don’t know. From these texts, I’m not even sure if it can be done. This whole memory wiping could be a one-way thing.”
John watched as Rodney prepared to work on another project. “We need go back to the planet,” he suddenly said.
“Nice try, Colonel. I talked to Caldwell about it, and he had the nerve to say that I shouldn’t be an accomplice to chasing your phantoms.”
“Didn’t you even try to give it a cool weapon twist?”
“What? Tell him that we’ll lure our enemies into touching this ball, and they’ll forget every grudge they ever held against us? Is that the kind of twist you had in mind?” Rodney said sardonically.
“When you put it that way of course it doesn’t sound good!”
“Sheppard, this isn’t getting us anywhere.” Rodney looked around and lowered his voice. “Are you sure you are not just chasing phantoms?”
John also lowered his voice. “Rodney, I’m not being Jimmy Dean here and being a rebel without a cause. Elizabeth exists and I know it. I have a feeling that she is still somewhere on that planet. Right now, I need to get back on that planet.”
“So what’s stopping you?” Rodney asked folding his arms across his chest.
John looked at Rodney. He was right. What was stopping him?
“Is this all you can figure out with the data?” he asked instead.
“Yes.”
“All right, thanks, Rodney.”
“What are you going to do?” Rodney asked, suspicious, as John reached the lab doors.
“I’m going to chase some phantoms.”
It was past midnight, John was stuffing all his supplies and gear into his backpack. He was determined to get back to M5G-382 as soon as possible. He had gathered all the data the scientists and archeologists could find to aid his search.
Except, the information he received still did not tell him the whereabouts of Elizabeth, nor did it help anyone else remember her. The only way for him to figure this out was to search the ruins himself. But first he had to figure out a way to get through the Stargate without getting shot or thrown into the brig for defying orders.
He figured he could easily knock out the skeleton staff in the control room, get the gate activated, and still manage to run through the gate without much confrontation.
His main concern was how he would conduct his search of the ruins. He knew Caldwell was probably going to send his men after him. He thought about gating to a different address first, but everyone knew where he was headed. They would just be waiting for him there. He might as well try to get there first and find a hideout.
He made a final check of the supplies that he needed, zipped up his backpack, and slipped on his vest over his jacket. He secured the P-90 to his vest and checked his sidearm before sheathing it in its holster. He strapped the backpack onto his back, strode across his room towards the door and took a deep breath. If he was going to doubt himself and change his mind, now was the time. When he stepped out of this door he was definitely rising among the ranks of “most likely to be discharged for insubordination”. But if Elizabeth was truly out there dying, he would never forgive himself. Over the years, John had always trusted his instincts. He did it in Afghanistan to try and save his fellow comrades. He used his instincts to avoid being blown out of the sky by a wild drone when he flew General O’Neill to the Antarctic base. He also followed his instincts when he decided to come to Atlantis. He didn’t know what laid ahead in his future, but he came. He wouldn’t have it any other way.
If it weren’t for Elizabeth, he wouldn’t be here, because she was the one who approached him. She was the one who asked him to join her team when she found out that he had the ATA gene. She was the one who made him the ranking military officer after Sumner’s death. She was the one who trusted him even when he defied her orders during the nanovirus incident. She was the one who stood by his side no matter what. Elizabeth was too much a part of his life in the past couple years to have only been a dream or fantasy. She was real, and he was going to find her.
John did not have to think about it anymore. He knew what he had to do. He waved his hand over the door sensors and cautiously made his way through the hallways towards the control room.
As he expected, there were only two people in the control room, staring listlessly at the glowing Ancient consoles before them. He calculated that there were about three guards stationed down below in the gateroom.
Since he was already in the control room, he figured he’d take out the two scientists manning the controls first and then head down into the gateroom. John stealthily crept behind one of the back control room consoles. When he was sure the two scientists had not heard him, he quickly shot them with a stunner. As soon as they were hit, the two scientists slumped over their consoles. Oddly, even though they were unconscious, it looked as if they were still sitting normally.
John peered down into the gateroom to make sure none of the guards had noticed any changes. He needed to do something to take all three guards out at once. He figured waltzing down into the gateroom in full gear at one in the morning would be more than suspicious.
He quietly unstrapped his backpack and removed his vest. He carefully laid them by the main gate controls. As soon as he took out the three guards he was going to run back up here, activate the gate, grab his things, make a sprint down the stairs, and through the Stargate. He would do it in record time, too. He decided to leave his sidearm behind, and he hid the Wraith stunner in the back waistband of his pants under his jacket.
John opted to take the main stairs down into the gateroom. The guard, who was pacing jadedly at the gate, suddenly stood rigid when he saw John coming down the stairs.
“Sir.” The young man saluted.
“At ease,” John said waving his hands at the lieutenant to relax.
“Yes, sir.”
“Looks like a slow night,” John said nonchalantly and looked around for the other two guards, who were still stationed at their posts.
“Yes, sir.” The lieutenant hesitated before continuing. “Sir, with all due respect, shouldn’t you be resting?”
“Beckett told me to rest, and I slept all day. Now I can’t sleep. Thought I’d stretch my legs, maybe find something interesting.” John stretched his arms out.
“Did you find anything, sir?”
John smirked. This was going to be easy. “Yeah,” John said with a glint of excitement in his eyes. “Hey, you two come here,” he called to the other two guards. “I might as well show them too, since we’re all here.”
“What about the docs?” the lieutenant said starting to look up in the direction of the control room.
“Those nerds?” John quickly said to bring the lieutenant’s attention back to him. “They wouldn’t understand the coolness of this.”
“Sir?” the other two marines arrived next to them.
“Oh, here you guys are. I want to show you guys something. Now-” John saw that they were engrossed with curiosity and took his chance. He quickly pulled out his hidden stunner and quickly shot all three soldiers. “Sorry fellas, made ya look,” he said watching the three downed men.
John quickly ran back up the stairs, skipping several steps on his way up and halted at the Stargate control console. He quickly pressed the gate address to M5G-382 with one hand, while the other tried to slip on his vest. As soon as he pressed the last button on the console, he grabbed his backpack and ran back down the stairs.
When he reached the event horizon, he didn’t bother turning around to see if anyone was following him. He was sure they would follow him. This would be Caldwell’s chance to send him packing back to Earth and out of his hair, if he had any.
It was still late afternoon at M5G-382 when John stepped through the gate.
“Talk about gatelag,” John muttered to himself as the gate shut down behind him.
He was glad that at least he had some daylight to help him find the ruins quicker. He readjusted the gear he had just threw on himself as he sprinted away from the gate, wasting no time in heading towards his destination.
Colonel Steven Caldwell was not happy. He hated being awakened in the middle of the night, and what he hated even more was when he was awakened on account of Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard.
He had predicted that Sheppard was going to disobey his direct order sooner or later, but he had hoped that sooner would be at a decent hour of the day and not at two in the morning.
He was starting to wonder why the hell he picked Sheppard to be on this expedition team in the first place. His natural talent with the Ancient gene wasn’t worth this headache. Now that he thought about it, he didn’t remember ever picking Sheppard to be part of the Atlantis team or anyone else other than the crew of the Daedalus. Also, when he tried to remember all the events that happened in the first year of the expedition, he couldn’t quite recall them. It was as if he wasn’t there. But if he hadn't led the Atlantis expedition team, who had?
Caldwell shook questions from his mind. These questions were all side effects of not getting enough sleep and John Sheppard's ramblings. It was even possible that he might be losing his mind. If Sheppard kept spouting on about a Doctor Elizabeth Weir, he just might as well start spouting things about a government conspiracy or something.
Steven tried not to frown too much at the fact that Sheppard had snuck out and defied a direct order to search for a non-existent woman. At least they knew where he went; and he was sure that Sheppard knew that they knew where he was headed. As he set up several teams to search for Sheppard, he had a feeling they were going to come back empty-handed no matter what.
From the looks of the surrounding trees, John thought he was going the right direction, but the further he walked the more he was unsure of his location. The first time he found the ruins was purely accidental. Also, that time he was preoccupied with running from life sucking aliens. Furthermore, on the trip back, he was pretty much unconscious and didn’t even remember the way, so he had no clue how far they had ran. He decided to follow his gut and strove on ahead.
All his doubt left him when he saw the column he and Elizabeth found the first time. But his interest wasn’t in this column but the second column that was on the other side of the building.
John retraced his steps and arrived at the front door of the building. He looked out from the direction of the door to try and spot the second column. He remembered the aerial view of the area showing the column more than half a klick away.
He looked up at the sky and noted he probably still had a couple more hours of daylight. From what he remembered, the column was straight ahead from this doorway. He let out a deep breath and started walking straight ahead along the pathway that led away from the building.
Fifteen minutes passed before he found what he sought after. He smiled and placed his hands on the column.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” he said to himself and looked at the base of the column.
Unsure of what to do next, John kicked the dirt around him as he observed the vicinity. Then he noticed several feet away, paralleled to the column he stood by, there was a stump that once was another column. He headed towards the stump and knelt down next to it and brushed some of the dirt from its base. He turned his head and looked back in the direction of the triangular building.
Apparently, there were three identical columns around the building. All three he assumed said the same thing, stating that continuing beyond the columns was the key to forgetting something.
Frustrated with his lack of findings, John started to pace back and forth between the two columns kicking around more dirt like a little boy would. Just when he was ready to return to the building, he noticed something. He stooped down again and brushed the dirt with his hand. There was a crack, but it wasn’t a crack. It was like a line formed between two slabs of rocks place side by side.
Invigorated by his discovery, John unstrapped his backpack and started to brush away more of the brown dirt. The more he brushed away the dirt, the more he noticed that this wasn’t part of the pathway that led to the building.
He continued brushing aside the dirt and noticed that it wasn’t a stone slab, but some kind of panel. He knocked on the surface of the panel several times, but stopped when he heard a branch snap under someone’s weight. John remained still, not bothering to turn around.
“What took you so long?” he said, still not turning to face his pursuer.
“Well, sir. I was in the middle of visiting with the Sandman when you decided to sneak out of Atlantis,” Major Lorne said with his hand resting on his P-90, just in case John decided to do anything brash.
“Sorry to shorten your visit with Mr. Sandman, Lorne.” John stood up to face Lorne. He held out his hands to show he was empty handed. He glanced behind Lorne to see Ronon emerge from some trees. “You didn’t need his help finding me, right?” John asked Lorne.
“You know, you took the long way here,” Ronon said to John in his usual tone.
“Yeah, well, I like to take the scenic route for everything,” John replied.
“Sir?” Lorne interrupted.
John looked at Lorne. “Look, I’ll go back to Atlantis when I find Elizabeth.”
“If you don’t go back with us now, sir, Colonel Caldwell won’t let you set foot back on Atlantis.”
“If I go back with you now, I won’t be able to set foot in Atlantis ever. Caldwell will strap me up and ship me back to Earth before you can blink and say ‘puddlejumper’.” John took a step forward towards Lorne and Ronon. “Look, I need to find Elizabeth to prove that I’m not crazy.”
“Sir, what if you don’t find this Elizabeth?” When Lorne said Elizabeth’s name aloud, it felt odd to him. He felt like he should have referred to her more formally, but he still could not remember nor understand why.
“Then it’s probably better this way. Atlantis isn’t the same without her. She liked you,” John added. “You were usually her bodyguard, when I wasn’t around.”
Lorne gave a small smile and nodded knowingly. “For your sake, sir, I hope you find her.”
“I hope I find her for both our sakes,” John said more to himself than Lorne.
Lorne brought his hand up to give a salute. John returned his salute. Before leaving, Lorne clicked on his radio to disband the search and return home.
John looked over at Ronon, who remained standing in the same spot.
“Just like that?” Ronon asked after Lorne was out of sight.
“Just like that.”
“Aren’t I like your responsibility or something?”
“Yeah, she was the one who made you my responsibility,” John said making eye contact with Ronon.
“For someone who was so involved with all of us, why can’t we remember her?”
“That is what I’m trying to find out,” John sighed. “I’m sorry. Tell Teyla I’m sorry, too.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll wait for your return.”
“That’s if I ever return.”
“You will.”
“Thanks.”
As soon as Ronon was gone, John quickly returned to his task. He plucked some branch leaves off a nearby tree, bundled them up into a broom, and started to sweep aside the dirt covering the panel. He hoped to find out what this oddity was before the sun set.
It was the highest law not to interfere, but as Mneme watched the man uncover the panel on the ground, she was sure this was not a coincidence.
When the man spoke with the two others, he spoke of finding a woman named Elizabeth. Mneme wondered if this could possibly be the same Elizabeth she had found below. If it was, it meant that this man had not forgotten Elizabeth, even after he touched Lethe. There was still hope of him finding Elizabeth in time.
He had already found the panel that opened down into the catacombs. All that he needed was to find a means to open it. He may not even need her help at all, but she decided to keep watch on his progress. If it were not because of the highest law imposed by the others, Mneme would have healed Elizabeth and reversed everything already. But she also knew that if she had tried, she would have been stopped immediately.
She watched him finally pack up his things, since the darkness now hindered more than helped him. She watched him use the back of his hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead and tiredly trudge back to the triangular edifice with a flashlight as his only companion.
She continued observing as John dropped his things inside the building and gathered some dried branches to make a fire for himself. He sat by the fire warming his hands, and stared through the flames as his mind drifted into his memories...
The thigh holster and the 9mm gun hung loosely in John’s fingers as he held it out for Elizabeth. She only looked at the gun, then back at John as she zipped up the bulletproof vest.
“I don’t think that is necessary, John.”
“Why not?” He asked. “It goes with the whole outfit.”
“John, I only agreed to wear the vest because I believed it would be no harm, but carrying a weapon when I’m supposed to be negotiating an alliance with future allies might send the wrong message.”
“It’s just a precaution.”
“Precaution? From what? You said so yourself, these people were perfectly friendly and for the most part, harmless. Unless...” She trailed off and arched an eyebrow at John.
“The people on M5G-382 are great. One of these days, I’d love to sit down and have a drink with the chief. It’s just a gut feeling,” he finally said.
“John.”
“Come on, I know your not big on guns, but just this once.” He held the holster and gun out to her again.
Elizabeth crossed her arms over her chest. “No,” she said keeping her stance. “I’m not taking the gun unless you give me a good reason to, and right now your ‘gut feeling’ isn’t enough.”
“Fine,” he conceded. “At least wear the thigh holster.” He removed the gun from the holster and held the empty holster out to Elizabeth. “It goes with the whole outfit.”
“All right,” Elizabeth shook her head, took the holster, and strapped it around her thigh. “Satisfied?”
“And you said I don’t have good negotiation skills,” he smirked.
“You don’t.”
“Well maybe I just have a bad teacher,” he said looking at Elizabeth.
“Maybe the teacher has a bad student.”
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
Elizabeth furrowed her brows. “That only applies to people related to each other.”
“Well, the whole point of teaching is to teach by example,” he said.
“And you obviously don’t pay any attention to my example.”
“Maybe I’ll surprise you and pay attention today.”
“Maybe,” she said doubtfully.
“Maybe,” he said with a grin and exited Elizabeth’s office and headed up the stairs to the Jumper Bay.
When they exited the Stargate and neared the village, John immediately cloaked the ship. “Something is wrong,” he said to Elizabeth, who sat in the co-pilot seat.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right.”
John slipped his sidearm from his holster and handed it to Elizabeth.
Seeing the seriousness in his face, Elizabeth did not question him, accepted the gun from him, and slipped it into her empty holster.
“Okay.” He eased the jumper down to a landing and stood up to address everyone in the jumper. “All right, folks, we’re here. This might be nothing, but our welcoming party is late. From the last time we were here, they didn’t look like the types who would be late for anything. So I’d rather we be safe then sorry.” He walked into the back compartment of the jumper and grabbed a spare 9mm to replace the one he gave Elizabeth. “Lorne, your team will stay by the jumper and keep the Stargate secure. Doctor Weir, stay close to me. Everyone else, follow me. Let’s move out.”
Elizabeth quickly came up to John as the soldiers started to file down the jumper ramp. “What’s going on?”
“It’s just a precaution,” he assured her. “Just stay close to me. Now let’s go try and make some friends.”
It wasn’t long until they neared the village and were ambushed by the Wraith. That was when everything went to hell.
Elizabeth was in her own living hell. Time was irrelevant. She had no way of knowing how long she was in here. All she knew was that her meager portions of chocolate were gone and her throat was parched with thirst. She was also feeling light-headed and weak from hunger. In addition, the throbbing pain in her arm was worsening and she was starting to feel colder. She pulled her jacket tighter around herself and buried her head in her hands again.
She wished that Mneme would return and keep her company, even if she was only a delusional result from her pain and starvation. She scoffed to herself. She had been clinging so tightly to hope that she did not even think of the possibility that Mneme was not real and that her mind was only helping her to cope with her dark situation.
“Oh, my god...” Elizabeth said to herself. “Of course, Mneme was one of the original muses of memory in Greek Mythology.” Elizabeth let out a despairing chuckle as tears spilled from her eyes. She was going insane. Mneme was all a part of her imagination. The Mneme that appeared to her was her mind’s personification of memory, and the elaborate story about the Lethe and Forgotten Realm were pieces her brain put together to form a disjointed story.
Elizabeth was sobbing now. She didn’t know which was worse: The realization that she would die in here alone, or that her new lygophobia was slowly driving her insane.
“Help me...,” she whispered in between her sobs. “John, please find me...”
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Also thanks to my beta, Mizz_magenta!
Chapter 5
John woke up with a start when he heard something fall onto the ground next to him. Then he remembered a book he hadn't bothered to remove from his bed when he was ordered to sleep by Carson.
He lifted his head towards the windows and noticed that it was dark outside.
“Crap,” he muttered to himself as he sat up in bed, starting to pull on his shoes. He had only wanted to sleep for a couple of hours; instead he slept the whole day. He looked at his watch. It was already 17:00. “Dammit,” he muttered again and raced out the door.
“Well, if it isn’t Sleeping Beauty,” Rodney said when John came into his lab.
“Cut the crap, Rodney. What do you have for me?”
“Nothing, just lots and lots of pictures and scribbles. I’m sure you noticed that last night when you made me sit with you here all night. And thanks to you my neck still hurts,” Rodney complained and rubbed the back of his neck.
“Stop being a pain in my neck and tell me something useful already.” Rodney was trying John’s patience, but John refrained from being violent and only glared at Rodney.
“All right, you know all those pictures in that room, where the Ms. Cleo ball is?”
“Yeah, what about them?”
“Well, apparently, it tells a story of this guy who is in search of his dead wife.”
“Yeah, I gathered that much from half of the translations I found.”
“Doesn’t that remind you of some other story?”
“Okay, guy searching for his dead wife. I...” Rodney looked at John waiting for him to finish his sentence.
“Just so you know you didn’t finish that sentence... out loud...” Rodney trailed off when he had this strange feeling of déjà vu. He remembered making the exact same comment to someone before, and he was sure that it wasn’t to John.
“You said this guy was searching for his dead wife. So he knew that she was dead?” John finally said.
“Her breathe of life was taken from me when she fell ill, and in my arms she lay cold and dead.” Rodney read from a translation.
“I take that as a yes," John paused to think. "So that means there is only one place to look for her.”
“Exactly.” Rodney was about to continue talking but stopped abruptly. "Just so we're on the same page. You're thinking of the Orpheus mythology, right?"
"What else would I be thinking of? The Trojan War?"
"How would I know? I don't know how well you know your Greek mythology. You could easily confuse this with the Hades kidnapping Persephone to the underworld."
"No, I was not thinking of that," John scowled. "So how does the the Orpheus myth help with figuring out why no one remembers Elizabeth?”
"I don't know." Rodney rubbed the bottom of his chin and thought for a moment. “Didn’t you find out something about the magic ball that wipes out people’s memories?” he asked John.
“Yeah,” John said, trying to think back to all the things he found last night. “Something like that, but my translations are a bit fuzzy. Every other word seemed to be the world ‘beloved’. I just thought because I hadn’t slept in 36 hours all the Ancient symbols were starting to look the same.”
“Hm... probably,” Rodney said more to himself. “Anyway somewhere in the translations this guy talks about how no one remembered who his wife was after he came here, even though they were the ‘hot’ couple of the town. He was quite popular in the village being some hot shot town artisan or something.”
“Okay, that explains... what exactly?” John’s brain couldn’t keep up. Maybe he still needed more sleep.
“If I translated this correctly, ‘Lethe’ is the magic ball.”
“Lethe?”
“Yes, Lethe. In Hades there are two rivers...” Rodney started snapping his fingers as he tried to remember their names.
“Styx?” John supplied. Rodney gave John a look. “What? I swear I’m not talking about the band.”
“Whatever,” he waved away John’s comment. “The River Lethe and River Mnemosyne. Lethe was the river where people drank from to forget about their past lives before they are reborn. But apparently, this particular Lethe is activated by touch and instead wiping a person’s memory of everything, it wipes away the memory of a certain person in everyone.”
John knitted his brows together as his brain tried to catch up with Rodney’s theory. “What about the other river, Anemone?”
Rodney rolled his eyes, “Mnemosyne.”
“Whatever, what about that river? What did that do?”
“Mnemosyne, the “spring of memory”. People who drank from it would remember everything in their past life and be admitted to the Elysian Fields.”
Rodney watched John furrow his brows as he tried to compute what Rodney just said.
“So this Nemesis is the key?” he finally asked.
“What?”
“The spring of memory!”
“Oh, why didn’t you say so? You completely threw me off with the Nemesis references.”
John resisted the urge to strangle Rodney. “Is the spring of memory the key to reversing this?”
“I don’t know. From these texts, I’m not even sure if it can be done. This whole memory wiping could be a one-way thing.”
John watched as Rodney prepared to work on another project. “We need go back to the planet,” he suddenly said.
“Nice try, Colonel. I talked to Caldwell about it, and he had the nerve to say that I shouldn’t be an accomplice to chasing your phantoms.”
“Didn’t you even try to give it a cool weapon twist?”
“What? Tell him that we’ll lure our enemies into touching this ball, and they’ll forget every grudge they ever held against us? Is that the kind of twist you had in mind?” Rodney said sardonically.
“When you put it that way of course it doesn’t sound good!”
“Sheppard, this isn’t getting us anywhere.” Rodney looked around and lowered his voice. “Are you sure you are not just chasing phantoms?”
John also lowered his voice. “Rodney, I’m not being Jimmy Dean here and being a rebel without a cause. Elizabeth exists and I know it. I have a feeling that she is still somewhere on that planet. Right now, I need to get back on that planet.”
“So what’s stopping you?” Rodney asked folding his arms across his chest.
John looked at Rodney. He was right. What was stopping him?
“Is this all you can figure out with the data?” he asked instead.
“Yes.”
“All right, thanks, Rodney.”
“What are you going to do?” Rodney asked, suspicious, as John reached the lab doors.
“I’m going to chase some phantoms.”
It was past midnight, John was stuffing all his supplies and gear into his backpack. He was determined to get back to M5G-382 as soon as possible. He had gathered all the data the scientists and archeologists could find to aid his search.
Except, the information he received still did not tell him the whereabouts of Elizabeth, nor did it help anyone else remember her. The only way for him to figure this out was to search the ruins himself. But first he had to figure out a way to get through the Stargate without getting shot or thrown into the brig for defying orders.
He figured he could easily knock out the skeleton staff in the control room, get the gate activated, and still manage to run through the gate without much confrontation.
His main concern was how he would conduct his search of the ruins. He knew Caldwell was probably going to send his men after him. He thought about gating to a different address first, but everyone knew where he was headed. They would just be waiting for him there. He might as well try to get there first and find a hideout.
He made a final check of the supplies that he needed, zipped up his backpack, and slipped on his vest over his jacket. He secured the P-90 to his vest and checked his sidearm before sheathing it in its holster. He strapped the backpack onto his back, strode across his room towards the door and took a deep breath. If he was going to doubt himself and change his mind, now was the time. When he stepped out of this door he was definitely rising among the ranks of “most likely to be discharged for insubordination”. But if Elizabeth was truly out there dying, he would never forgive himself. Over the years, John had always trusted his instincts. He did it in Afghanistan to try and save his fellow comrades. He used his instincts to avoid being blown out of the sky by a wild drone when he flew General O’Neill to the Antarctic base. He also followed his instincts when he decided to come to Atlantis. He didn’t know what laid ahead in his future, but he came. He wouldn’t have it any other way.
If it weren’t for Elizabeth, he wouldn’t be here, because she was the one who approached him. She was the one who asked him to join her team when she found out that he had the ATA gene. She was the one who made him the ranking military officer after Sumner’s death. She was the one who trusted him even when he defied her orders during the nanovirus incident. She was the one who stood by his side no matter what. Elizabeth was too much a part of his life in the past couple years to have only been a dream or fantasy. She was real, and he was going to find her.
John did not have to think about it anymore. He knew what he had to do. He waved his hand over the door sensors and cautiously made his way through the hallways towards the control room.
As he expected, there were only two people in the control room, staring listlessly at the glowing Ancient consoles before them. He calculated that there were about three guards stationed down below in the gateroom.
Since he was already in the control room, he figured he’d take out the two scientists manning the controls first and then head down into the gateroom. John stealthily crept behind one of the back control room consoles. When he was sure the two scientists had not heard him, he quickly shot them with a stunner. As soon as they were hit, the two scientists slumped over their consoles. Oddly, even though they were unconscious, it looked as if they were still sitting normally.
John peered down into the gateroom to make sure none of the guards had noticed any changes. He needed to do something to take all three guards out at once. He figured waltzing down into the gateroom in full gear at one in the morning would be more than suspicious.
He quietly unstrapped his backpack and removed his vest. He carefully laid them by the main gate controls. As soon as he took out the three guards he was going to run back up here, activate the gate, grab his things, make a sprint down the stairs, and through the Stargate. He would do it in record time, too. He decided to leave his sidearm behind, and he hid the Wraith stunner in the back waistband of his pants under his jacket.
John opted to take the main stairs down into the gateroom. The guard, who was pacing jadedly at the gate, suddenly stood rigid when he saw John coming down the stairs.
“Sir.” The young man saluted.
“At ease,” John said waving his hands at the lieutenant to relax.
“Yes, sir.”
“Looks like a slow night,” John said nonchalantly and looked around for the other two guards, who were still stationed at their posts.
“Yes, sir.” The lieutenant hesitated before continuing. “Sir, with all due respect, shouldn’t you be resting?”
“Beckett told me to rest, and I slept all day. Now I can’t sleep. Thought I’d stretch my legs, maybe find something interesting.” John stretched his arms out.
“Did you find anything, sir?”
John smirked. This was going to be easy. “Yeah,” John said with a glint of excitement in his eyes. “Hey, you two come here,” he called to the other two guards. “I might as well show them too, since we’re all here.”
“What about the docs?” the lieutenant said starting to look up in the direction of the control room.
“Those nerds?” John quickly said to bring the lieutenant’s attention back to him. “They wouldn’t understand the coolness of this.”
“Sir?” the other two marines arrived next to them.
“Oh, here you guys are. I want to show you guys something. Now-” John saw that they were engrossed with curiosity and took his chance. He quickly pulled out his hidden stunner and quickly shot all three soldiers. “Sorry fellas, made ya look,” he said watching the three downed men.
John quickly ran back up the stairs, skipping several steps on his way up and halted at the Stargate control console. He quickly pressed the gate address to M5G-382 with one hand, while the other tried to slip on his vest. As soon as he pressed the last button on the console, he grabbed his backpack and ran back down the stairs.
When he reached the event horizon, he didn’t bother turning around to see if anyone was following him. He was sure they would follow him. This would be Caldwell’s chance to send him packing back to Earth and out of his hair, if he had any.
It was still late afternoon at M5G-382 when John stepped through the gate.
“Talk about gatelag,” John muttered to himself as the gate shut down behind him.
He was glad that at least he had some daylight to help him find the ruins quicker. He readjusted the gear he had just threw on himself as he sprinted away from the gate, wasting no time in heading towards his destination.
Colonel Steven Caldwell was not happy. He hated being awakened in the middle of the night, and what he hated even more was when he was awakened on account of Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard.
He had predicted that Sheppard was going to disobey his direct order sooner or later, but he had hoped that sooner would be at a decent hour of the day and not at two in the morning.
He was starting to wonder why the hell he picked Sheppard to be on this expedition team in the first place. His natural talent with the Ancient gene wasn’t worth this headache. Now that he thought about it, he didn’t remember ever picking Sheppard to be part of the Atlantis team or anyone else other than the crew of the Daedalus. Also, when he tried to remember all the events that happened in the first year of the expedition, he couldn’t quite recall them. It was as if he wasn’t there. But if he hadn't led the Atlantis expedition team, who had?
Caldwell shook questions from his mind. These questions were all side effects of not getting enough sleep and John Sheppard's ramblings. It was even possible that he might be losing his mind. If Sheppard kept spouting on about a Doctor Elizabeth Weir, he just might as well start spouting things about a government conspiracy or something.
Steven tried not to frown too much at the fact that Sheppard had snuck out and defied a direct order to search for a non-existent woman. At least they knew where he went; and he was sure that Sheppard knew that they knew where he was headed. As he set up several teams to search for Sheppard, he had a feeling they were going to come back empty-handed no matter what.
From the looks of the surrounding trees, John thought he was going the right direction, but the further he walked the more he was unsure of his location. The first time he found the ruins was purely accidental. Also, that time he was preoccupied with running from life sucking aliens. Furthermore, on the trip back, he was pretty much unconscious and didn’t even remember the way, so he had no clue how far they had ran. He decided to follow his gut and strove on ahead.
All his doubt left him when he saw the column he and Elizabeth found the first time. But his interest wasn’t in this column but the second column that was on the other side of the building.
John retraced his steps and arrived at the front door of the building. He looked out from the direction of the door to try and spot the second column. He remembered the aerial view of the area showing the column more than half a klick away.
He looked up at the sky and noted he probably still had a couple more hours of daylight. From what he remembered, the column was straight ahead from this doorway. He let out a deep breath and started walking straight ahead along the pathway that led away from the building.
Fifteen minutes passed before he found what he sought after. He smiled and placed his hands on the column.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” he said to himself and looked at the base of the column.
Unsure of what to do next, John kicked the dirt around him as he observed the vicinity. Then he noticed several feet away, paralleled to the column he stood by, there was a stump that once was another column. He headed towards the stump and knelt down next to it and brushed some of the dirt from its base. He turned his head and looked back in the direction of the triangular building.
Apparently, there were three identical columns around the building. All three he assumed said the same thing, stating that continuing beyond the columns was the key to forgetting something.
Frustrated with his lack of findings, John started to pace back and forth between the two columns kicking around more dirt like a little boy would. Just when he was ready to return to the building, he noticed something. He stooped down again and brushed the dirt with his hand. There was a crack, but it wasn’t a crack. It was like a line formed between two slabs of rocks place side by side.
Invigorated by his discovery, John unstrapped his backpack and started to brush away more of the brown dirt. The more he brushed away the dirt, the more he noticed that this wasn’t part of the pathway that led to the building.
He continued brushing aside the dirt and noticed that it wasn’t a stone slab, but some kind of panel. He knocked on the surface of the panel several times, but stopped when he heard a branch snap under someone’s weight. John remained still, not bothering to turn around.
“What took you so long?” he said, still not turning to face his pursuer.
“Well, sir. I was in the middle of visiting with the Sandman when you decided to sneak out of Atlantis,” Major Lorne said with his hand resting on his P-90, just in case John decided to do anything brash.
“Sorry to shorten your visit with Mr. Sandman, Lorne.” John stood up to face Lorne. He held out his hands to show he was empty handed. He glanced behind Lorne to see Ronon emerge from some trees. “You didn’t need his help finding me, right?” John asked Lorne.
“You know, you took the long way here,” Ronon said to John in his usual tone.
“Yeah, well, I like to take the scenic route for everything,” John replied.
“Sir?” Lorne interrupted.
John looked at Lorne. “Look, I’ll go back to Atlantis when I find Elizabeth.”
“If you don’t go back with us now, sir, Colonel Caldwell won’t let you set foot back on Atlantis.”
“If I go back with you now, I won’t be able to set foot in Atlantis ever. Caldwell will strap me up and ship me back to Earth before you can blink and say ‘puddlejumper’.” John took a step forward towards Lorne and Ronon. “Look, I need to find Elizabeth to prove that I’m not crazy.”
“Sir, what if you don’t find this Elizabeth?” When Lorne said Elizabeth’s name aloud, it felt odd to him. He felt like he should have referred to her more formally, but he still could not remember nor understand why.
“Then it’s probably better this way. Atlantis isn’t the same without her. She liked you,” John added. “You were usually her bodyguard, when I wasn’t around.”
Lorne gave a small smile and nodded knowingly. “For your sake, sir, I hope you find her.”
“I hope I find her for both our sakes,” John said more to himself than Lorne.
Lorne brought his hand up to give a salute. John returned his salute. Before leaving, Lorne clicked on his radio to disband the search and return home.
John looked over at Ronon, who remained standing in the same spot.
“Just like that?” Ronon asked after Lorne was out of sight.
“Just like that.”
“Aren’t I like your responsibility or something?”
“Yeah, she was the one who made you my responsibility,” John said making eye contact with Ronon.
“For someone who was so involved with all of us, why can’t we remember her?”
“That is what I’m trying to find out,” John sighed. “I’m sorry. Tell Teyla I’m sorry, too.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll wait for your return.”
“That’s if I ever return.”
“You will.”
“Thanks.”
As soon as Ronon was gone, John quickly returned to his task. He plucked some branch leaves off a nearby tree, bundled them up into a broom, and started to sweep aside the dirt covering the panel. He hoped to find out what this oddity was before the sun set.
It was the highest law not to interfere, but as Mneme watched the man uncover the panel on the ground, she was sure this was not a coincidence.
When the man spoke with the two others, he spoke of finding a woman named Elizabeth. Mneme wondered if this could possibly be the same Elizabeth she had found below. If it was, it meant that this man had not forgotten Elizabeth, even after he touched Lethe. There was still hope of him finding Elizabeth in time.
He had already found the panel that opened down into the catacombs. All that he needed was to find a means to open it. He may not even need her help at all, but she decided to keep watch on his progress. If it were not because of the highest law imposed by the others, Mneme would have healed Elizabeth and reversed everything already. But she also knew that if she had tried, she would have been stopped immediately.
She watched him finally pack up his things, since the darkness now hindered more than helped him. She watched him use the back of his hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead and tiredly trudge back to the triangular edifice with a flashlight as his only companion.
She continued observing as John dropped his things inside the building and gathered some dried branches to make a fire for himself. He sat by the fire warming his hands, and stared through the flames as his mind drifted into his memories...
The thigh holster and the 9mm gun hung loosely in John’s fingers as he held it out for Elizabeth. She only looked at the gun, then back at John as she zipped up the bulletproof vest.
“I don’t think that is necessary, John.”
“Why not?” He asked. “It goes with the whole outfit.”
“John, I only agreed to wear the vest because I believed it would be no harm, but carrying a weapon when I’m supposed to be negotiating an alliance with future allies might send the wrong message.”
“It’s just a precaution.”
“Precaution? From what? You said so yourself, these people were perfectly friendly and for the most part, harmless. Unless...” She trailed off and arched an eyebrow at John.
“The people on M5G-382 are great. One of these days, I’d love to sit down and have a drink with the chief. It’s just a gut feeling,” he finally said.
“John.”
“Come on, I know your not big on guns, but just this once.” He held the holster and gun out to her again.
Elizabeth crossed her arms over her chest. “No,” she said keeping her stance. “I’m not taking the gun unless you give me a good reason to, and right now your ‘gut feeling’ isn’t enough.”
“Fine,” he conceded. “At least wear the thigh holster.” He removed the gun from the holster and held the empty holster out to Elizabeth. “It goes with the whole outfit.”
“All right,” Elizabeth shook her head, took the holster, and strapped it around her thigh. “Satisfied?”
“And you said I don’t have good negotiation skills,” he smirked.
“You don’t.”
“Well maybe I just have a bad teacher,” he said looking at Elizabeth.
“Maybe the teacher has a bad student.”
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
Elizabeth furrowed her brows. “That only applies to people related to each other.”
“Well, the whole point of teaching is to teach by example,” he said.
“And you obviously don’t pay any attention to my example.”
“Maybe I’ll surprise you and pay attention today.”
“Maybe,” she said doubtfully.
“Maybe,” he said with a grin and exited Elizabeth’s office and headed up the stairs to the Jumper Bay.
When they exited the Stargate and neared the village, John immediately cloaked the ship. “Something is wrong,” he said to Elizabeth, who sat in the co-pilot seat.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right.”
John slipped his sidearm from his holster and handed it to Elizabeth.
Seeing the seriousness in his face, Elizabeth did not question him, accepted the gun from him, and slipped it into her empty holster.
“Okay.” He eased the jumper down to a landing and stood up to address everyone in the jumper. “All right, folks, we’re here. This might be nothing, but our welcoming party is late. From the last time we were here, they didn’t look like the types who would be late for anything. So I’d rather we be safe then sorry.” He walked into the back compartment of the jumper and grabbed a spare 9mm to replace the one he gave Elizabeth. “Lorne, your team will stay by the jumper and keep the Stargate secure. Doctor Weir, stay close to me. Everyone else, follow me. Let’s move out.”
Elizabeth quickly came up to John as the soldiers started to file down the jumper ramp. “What’s going on?”
“It’s just a precaution,” he assured her. “Just stay close to me. Now let’s go try and make some friends.”
It wasn’t long until they neared the village and were ambushed by the Wraith. That was when everything went to hell.
Elizabeth was in her own living hell. Time was irrelevant. She had no way of knowing how long she was in here. All she knew was that her meager portions of chocolate were gone and her throat was parched with thirst. She was also feeling light-headed and weak from hunger. In addition, the throbbing pain in her arm was worsening and she was starting to feel colder. She pulled her jacket tighter around herself and buried her head in her hands again.
She wished that Mneme would return and keep her company, even if she was only a delusional result from her pain and starvation. She scoffed to herself. She had been clinging so tightly to hope that she did not even think of the possibility that Mneme was not real and that her mind was only helping her to cope with her dark situation.
“Oh, my god...” Elizabeth said to herself. “Of course, Mneme was one of the original muses of memory in Greek Mythology.” Elizabeth let out a despairing chuckle as tears spilled from her eyes. She was going insane. Mneme was all a part of her imagination. The Mneme that appeared to her was her mind’s personification of memory, and the elaborate story about the Lethe and Forgotten Realm were pieces her brain put together to form a disjointed story.
Elizabeth was sobbing now. She didn’t know which was worse: The realization that she would die in here alone, or that her new lygophobia was slowly driving her insane.
“Help me...,” she whispered in between her sobs. “John, please find me...”
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10