TEAM AWAY: Walk the plank, "Here Be Monsters"

[fluffyllama]

Title: Here Be Monsters
Author: tzzzz
Team: Away
Prompt: Walk the plank
Pairing(s): McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: Listen well, younglings, because this is not a tale for those of weak appetite. It is a story of adventure, romance, history, but most of all, it is about freedom.
Betas: Thank you ldyanne and skinscript for the line by line beta, and quasar273, blueraccoon, and almostnever for early input. Also everyone in the group chat!

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**
Here Be Monsters

Yo Ho, haul together,
Hoist the colours high,
Heave Ho, Thieves and Beggars,
Never Shall We Die!

Listen well, younglings, because this is not a tale for those of weak appetite. It is a story of adventure, romance, history, but most of all, it is about freedom.

Our story takes place long ago, when the City of Unity was not yet a city. Back then, the mists were thick, an impenetrable cloak that cocooned our ancestors in their own importance. Imagine standing on that there dock, unable to see even the water lapping down below at your feet or your own hand an arm's length before your face. Then, there were no cities. This port had no name, for it was just the Colony, the only one in the world, though it had been many cycles since the first of our ancestors arrived from beyond the stars and the Great Barrier.

So imagine a foggy day, the mist clinging to your cloaks like a scared child, the great Giving Trees vaulting high above you, their buttressed roots buried beneath a layer of mist and cool still water. These were times of mystery, when survival was no more assured than a cloudless blue sky, and the swamps and woods wild and unexplored. They were times when you could feel history, thick in the air, waiting with bated breath to be written.

And on this fateful day, a stranger washed into the harbor on the tide. The mist was so thick (they say he planned it to be so) that even the sentries stationed high up among the great branches of the Giving Trees did not see his ship approach, nor where it disappeared to when he stepped easily onto the old weathered boardwalk of the far dock. He walked unnoticed along the riverfront, not tipping his hat to the few storekeepers and messengers out in the early morning of such a foggy day, but instead kept his face in shadow, the stale leather of his coat clutched tight around him.

But what a face it was, for the Pirate John Sheppard had the most beautiful face this world has ever seen, even though he kept it hidden beneath a thick beard and a wide brimmed hat. They say it was for shame he kept his beauty hidden this way, but those of us who remember those times, we know the truth. He kept it hidden for humility, because it is said that a man or woman could look into those yellow eyes and fall instantly in love, that the blue skin of his face was as soft and clear as a newborn calf beneath the pale moonlight. But like the tide, the pirate's affections would rush through your blood in a minute, then carry your heart away with the tide the next. To love a man like John Sheppard was to give your heart over to the mists and the wide sea and the insanity beneath, and none could manage it, but one.

And this, younglings, is his story.

His name was Rodney McKay, a courtesan to the Governor at the time, and the smartest man in our rich history. Now, Rodney himself was not an easy man to love, more sensitive than a child just leaving the creche and twice as loud, but he fulfilled his function in the quaint little Colony of old, constructing the great lofted city you see now among the branches of the Giving Trees, growing the technology diligently to bring all kinds of foods in from the high farmlands of the far east. He built walls of energy and simple machines to preserve fresh water for all. They say that he was a gift from the heavens, if a sharp and prickly one.

But if there was one thing that defined Rodney McKay more than anything else, it was not his intelligence, or even his infamous allergy to the fruits of the Giving Trees, but his hatred of Pirates and the lengths he went to in order to keep them out.

So our story begins at the top of the highest tower in Unity City. The original wood has long rotted, of course, but you know where it is, not far from here, above the great canopy and above the mists where lovers go to observe the million stars of the night sky. Rodney was there, along with his mistress, the Governor.

"Tell me, Rodney, which world is it, your H'Earth?" she whispered, as the stars twinkled away into the dawn, her voice echoing throughout the silent morning in a way few men could resist. "I could never hope to reach it. Why not tell me where it lies?"

"No. And you know better than to ask," Rodney replied. It had been a long night of looking at every other constellation except the bright glimmer of the galaxy of his homeworld. This was a game they played often, and the Governor knew better than to expect his answer.

"I do indeed," she replied. "It is a fine repayment, your honesty, after I rescued you, dying in the swamps, and returned you to full health. Not to mention that I have since gifted you with everything you desire."

"Most of which I've used to repair your faulty water purification system, your generators, and your transport carriers. I even built you the fastest ship in these waters. It's not easy living here, you know. I mean, have you seen the size of the mosquitoes?"

The Governor shrugged. Of her many years living in the Colony, patience was a well-learned trait, especially with Rodney. "All of which benefits yourself as well as us. Are you not happy here?"

It was Rodney's turn to shrug. He had spent all night watching the sky, the galaxy that had once been his playground, of course he was not happy.

"You are lonely, then."

"I have Ronon."

And indeed he did. Ronon Dex was a warrior, a star child like Rodney himself, though from a different world. He possessed a magic so powerful that he could create a knife out of a single strand of hair. It was the old magic, forged of great wars and the great oppression, the slavery that bound the worlds beyond the stars. But, unlike Rodney, he lived half in this world and half in some great beyond, where emotion, anger ruled his blood, rushing through him as the great magnetic tides that rule the skies. His strength from the world beyond so dwarfed his presence in the now that though Rodney had known him for many years, he provided not much of a companion at all.

"You have a man that speaks five words to your thousand," the Governor pointed out, and it was the truth. "What you need is a wife."

"What I need is some minions who aren't complete and utter morons."

The Governor laughed, there were reasons beyond the Bond of life and death they shared that she liked Rodney for her companion. "You will have nothing but the finest, as always. But why not take a woman? Your life may be short, and who will take care of the Colony in your absence? The people you proclaim to be morons? An heir, many heirs, would be best. I would treat them as nobly as I have treated you."

"I don't doubt it," Rodney murmured, mind still dreaming with the stars. In truth, he, more than those born here, more than you or I, was a lover of the impermanence of the universe. Perhaps he would fret and he would complain, but he was at his best surfing the intractable wave of circumstance in its ever-changing glory. If Ronon lived in some other world, then Rodney lived in the world of the future.

"Rajin has taken a liking to you. She is a fine woman. And you are a fine man. I'm sure you would breed lovely children."

"Yes, because you know so much about that."

It was her turn to shrug, for you see she had borne many in her years. But she was wise too, even to the seemingly fickle whims of men. "Teyla Emmagen, then. You enjoy spending time with her, and she has proved herself quite an asset, as much so as you have."

"Somehow I doubt she'd just go along with you breeding us, like cattle. My people did away with arranged marriages centuries ago."

"Forgive me, I forgot how much more enlightened your ways are than ours." She was witty, too, you see, more crafty and wise than you young ones can imagine, our Governor. She had made many a wise match in her time, and would make many more, but that is another story. She, too, had once been a child of the stars, though Rodney did not know it. It had been years ago, and her savage ways had long been tamed.

"You'd better be sorry," Rodney mumbled. As brilliant as he happened to be, he was never particularly adept at the social graces.

"Come, now," she beckoned, for it was the day of the Great Lottery, and they needed to hurry to the main square for the festivities.

Little did they know, that far below them, a pirate walked down the creaking planks of the suspended boardwalk that curved beneath their very tree, his handsome blue face hidden beneath the brim of a wide leather hat.

Some men have died,
And some are alive,
And others sail on the sea,
With the keys to the cage...
And the Devil to pay,
We lay to Fiddler's Green!

Now, where was John Sheppard, you might ask. All this time when Rodney was high in the canopy with the Governor, John walked calmly through the streets to the place of gathering. His muscles clenched and burned bright with a kind of pent up energy that you or I could not even imagine. He was wild, you see, more so than Ronon Dex, more than a simple pirate even. For a pirate is nothing more than the choice not to own, but to steal. John Sheppard did not choose. He was bred.

But even with that bone-deep wild in him, he slipped unnoticed through the slowly gathering crowd, comfortable in his skin as only animals can be. But who would notice him? It was a day of Lottery.

The Lottery of that time was not so civilized. There were no numbers, assigned a birth, nor specialized clocks to count down to the date. In those days, everyone gathered in the square, the one suspended between the five tallest Giving Trees and thick with mist. Every three months, then, a different man would simply draw a name from a hat, leaving only a handful of sentries to guard the blockades.

And that was why John Sheppard came. Nobody knows for certain how he knew which day to come. Perhaps it was some sign written in the stars, or the word of the gods, or even just blind stupid luck, but knowing what I know now, I think that someone told him. And I think that someone was Teyla Emmagan.

I have not yet told you of Teyla. She was a proud woman, but also profoundly troubled, a hard worker, but at once a dreamer. The Governor had saved Rodney's life after the crash that had stranded the star children, for Ronon Dex had carried him stumbling into the Colony. Teyla was not so lucky. Ronon had been forced to leave her behind, unable to carry them both to safety and unable to remove the section of machinery that pinned her. But something in her cried out, something deep and primal that all creatures know, but few are gifted with the ability to hear. It was this that called to the Hunter who saved her from her whimpering terrified sleep, and it was this that called to John Sheppard.

So, even though we can figure how John Sheppard came to be in the Colony on the day of the Lottery, why is another question entirely. It most certainly was not for the purposes of what eventually came to pass, but for some purposes known only to the pirate himself. Perhaps he intended to steal himself a meal, or perhaps some other one of the colony's precious stores, or he only sought to emblazon his reputation of ferocity upon the people of the peaceful colony his people preyed upon.

But what we do know is that instead of heading to the storehouse or to the armory or to sacred grove of the finest Giving Trees, he made his way to the square where the mist swirled and the nervous lottery caller drew a name from a hat with shaking hands and called out, "Rodney McKay!"

Yo Ho haul, together,
Hoist the colours high
Heave Ho, Thieves and Beggars,
Never Shall We Die!

Now, Rodney was a man of many fears: heights, insects, failure, starvation, a strange food called a lemon. But in all his days, he had never met a fear so certain as the mists and the long plank that lead into them - his most certain end. Among the stars, Rodney had lived his life based on the preposterous foundation of unfounded hope. He had come to expect last minute saves and seeming miracles. He honestly believed himself to be a miracle worker, but the Colony did not know this concept of hope. Not as Rodney knew it. Rodney's hope was of a kind of grace that cost nothing. His intellect was as powerful as magic, his wit and insight awe-inspiring, but no amount of ingenuity can spare society from the simple paradox of stability and sacrifice. The Colony could not exist on hope and uncertainty and bluster as Rodney did, it demanded sacrifice and for once in his life, it was Rodney's turn.

He turned to the Governor and gulped, pleading. He wanted to bargain, to remind her of his importance, but she simply shook her head. I have no doubt that in a world of balances, costs versus benefits, Rodney would have been protected from the Lottery. But the Colony could not behave that way. Our city is one of unity, and unity, true sharing, demands, above all, equality.

So, the Governor swallowed her sadness as she had the many tragedies of her long lifetime. She looked Rodney straight in his intelligent blue eyes and said, "I'm sorry, dear one, but it is your time." I cannot express to you the sadness she felt, as you most likely have not yet lost someone so dear to you as Rodney was to the Governor. I can only remind you that it was more than just simple sadness, because Rodney was not just a man, but asset, and a symbol of the razor's edge of hope upon which he lived his life.

What I have not yet told you of Rodney was his bravery. Complain as he might about the smallest of things, as much as he might try to appeal his own importance, he knew when hope had run its course, and he knew how to hold his head high and walk silently and proudly into the mist and his fate at the hungry hand of a Healer.

The Healer due for feeding that day was the Hunter himself, the one who Gifted Teyla Emmagen with her life in the depths of the swamp. After the mysterious Ronon Dex, he was the second greatest pirate-hater ever known to the Colony, and his hunger drove him to the brink of desperate rage. His heart beat with a need that even the enzyme of the great Giving Trees could not quell. He felt the primal need in him, you see. He wanted to feed, not just for sustenance, but for the thrill of it, the electricity of a human life force washing through him. He waited patiently in the mist, drawing it around him like the softest most complete of cloaks. Our ancestors chose the square for its anonymity and the way the mists concealed the act of feeding and its horror, but civilized Healers did not feed as the Hunter did, so close to a pirate was he. They did not stalk around the lone plank down which their quarry walked, but waited patiently for them with a chivalrous, sympathetic smile. And they most certainly did not grin a feral grin as they slipped silently behind them from the waters of the swamp below, the way the Hunter slipped behind Rodney McKay.

The king and his men,
Stole the Queen from her bed,
And bound her in her Bones,
The seas be ours,
And by the powers,
Where we will, we'll roam.

As I told you before, we do not know why John Sheppard turned and headed for the square, but we know why he slipped easily into the mist to flank Rodney McKay. What better trick for the greatest pirate of all times than to steal precious cargo right from under the waiting hand of the enemy? And in their very own colony! To John, it must have seemed a glorious proposition and as irresistible as the churning need of hunger itself.

John could not have picked a worthier match than the Hunter, the most feral of civilized Healers. And yet the hunger blinded him, his lust consuming every spark of his attention, allowing John to slip as unnoticed behind his quarry as the Hunter had done to Rodney McKay. But the great pirate, John, was not so strong as a full Healer. He was at best a half-breed, blessed with ferocity and agility and the very essence of animal nature that the Healers, in their civilized ways, had long since forgotten.

The fight was primal, with John moving like a dream through the mist and the Hunter striking back at him with impossible crushing blows, but all in silence, isolated from the crowd waiting in the square just at the end of the plank.

Rodney whirled around at the soft crunch of blows as the two assaulted each other, but for once he was shocked to silence. It was not until John Sheppard emerged victorious, the Hunter's body sinking forgotten into the muddy flat of the bog, the mist whispering around it and laying it to rest, that he dared speak.

"John?" Rodney whispered, unsure of himself. He'd heard the stories, of course, but it had been a long time since he'd looked upon the face of John Sheppard, and when he had, it was very different. The high cheekbones and the full lips were the same, as was the intensity in his eyes, but John's skin had been pale, human, and nearly white as the blood drained from it. Rodney moved forward, meaning to embrace his saviour and once-friend.

But the pirate had other plans, scooping Rodney up easily and throwing him over his back.

"What the hell! John!" Rodney shouted. "Put me down! Yes, yes, I get it. You Tarzan, me Rodney, now seriously, if my feet don't hit the ground in the next five seconds, you'll be very sorry. Remember that solar system? The one I blew up!"

Now, Rodney was expecting a witty repartee, for this strange form of vocal courtship had been how he'd won John Sheppard's affection years ago, outside the Great Barrier in the universe beyond.

But this was not that John Sheppard. "No, I don't remember," he hissed back, his voice gravely and alien and full of an even more terrifying unknown than the mist: a world in which Rodney did not have John's love.

By now, the Colony had heard Rodney's screeching and had rushed forward in a panic, staring vainly into the mist looking for the confusion. John could not hold them off for long, even climbing insect-like up and down and over the roots of the Giving Trees, dodging between buildings and flinging himself headlong over the many bridges that Rodney, himself, had designed. It didn't help that Rodney was actively struggling now, his voice an unwelcome whine in John's ear.

"So maybe the transformation muddled your brain a little. Or the head injury from the crash. Who knows, right? Who could have predicted that using the sap of those god damned trees to seal your wound would have had this effect, eh? Who can predict anything when we're living in a colony full of alien vampires with pretensions of civilization and little understanding of basic infrastructure?"

"Civilization," John snorted. "What's it worth, without freedom?"

"You never struck me as the revolutionary type," Rodney replied, hanging onto John now, as he quickly rappelled down the trunk of one of the Giving Trees. "Not that I don't appreciate the rescue. Your timing is as terrifyingly last minute as always."

"You won't appreciate it so much when I feed on you down on the docks before the eyes of the entire colony."

Rodney was too flabbergasted to even resume his struggle for freedom. "You've got to be kidding me. Living among the Wraith for years and I'm going to die getting fed on by you. That's Pegasus delivering the final blow as a pie in the face and a kick to the nuts."

John shrugged, barely exerted by their flight. "Shit happens," he said. "It's nothing personal."

"You see, that's the problem. It is personal. You have no idea how personal." And it was. They had been lovers once, after all, not just any lovers either. Their love was the kind of which legends are born, the tale of their courtship a desperate, beautiful one. Perhaps I will tell you later.

"Shut up," John replied. They were nearing the docks now, and the crowd was gaining on them - the Healers, at least, with the Governor leading the charge, a fiery rage like the heat of the sun itself building within her.

Rodney was hers, you see. She had healed him, fed him from her very palm, and that bond, as you will one day learn, is unbreakable. She'd marked him, and for the sake of society, and survival, she'd revoked her rights to feed upon him, but the instinct was still there, lurking beneath the surface like one of the great monsters beneath the calm waters of the cove.

"Stop!" she commanded. "Cease, Pirate!"

But John only turned and smiled, swinging Rodney down from his shoulder and bringing his lips easily to his once-lover's neck, in a sinister parody of the intimacy they'd shared long ago. John Sheppard was the most unusual of pirates, you see. He was not a Healer, biologically designed to take, and he did so not with the caress of a gentle palm, but with a deathly kiss.

Rodney gulped, not bothering to struggle against the strong arms that held him. John's warm breath felt so familiar on the vulnerable skin of his neck. It was a sensation he'd dreamed for. And though he was in unbelievable danger, his body could not help but respond to the familiar hands encircling him and the sensual hitching of breath that marked John's own excitement.

"We Pirates do not Heal," John whispered, denying what he thought Rodney's response meant. "We do not need courtesans. We only need ourselves."

"What about friends?" Rodney whispered back. "Lovers? Free arrangements between equals?"

"You are cargo," John whispered back. "We will never be equals, no matter how intriguing this discussion may be."

"Wait!" Rodney begged, feeling unsafe in John's arms for the first time he could remember.

He was lucky, therefore, that Ronon Dex had caught up to them along with the Healers, the red dazzle of the great warrior's weapon already hurtling through the air.

John ducked the first shots easily, yanking Rodney behind a pile of boxed foodstuffs just imported from the highland farms. But there was only so long that someone could hold off Ronon Dex, even if that someone was the great pirate, John Sheppard.

"You don't have to do this!" Rodney pleaded. "Come back. Please."

"Pirates are fed to the Healers, McKay, of course I can't come back."

"I knew it! You recognize me. Think about it, John, you knew my name!"

"They called it out when they selected you."

John was right, of course. He'd heard the name in the square, but it wasn't the name itself, but how John said it. He'd said it like it was more than just a word, or even a name. It was the thousands of exasperated times they'd sniped at each other, the easy familiarity and the playfully combative love between them. John had said everything that Rodney had wanted to say to bring him back with that one word. Rodney's arguments deserted him.

He struggled in John's arms until they were finally face to face. "Look at me, John," he implored. "You know me."

Something flickered in John's memory. It was a flash as brief as the green light that flares on the horizon at sunset, gone as soon as it came, but something long-clenched deep within him unlocked. Those eyes, those hands. John was not a superstitious man, especially not for a pirate, but he could swear he felt the creator stir the ashes of his grave, the sense of wrongdoing was so intense. It was a crime to look into Rodney's eyes and not remember.

"I..." he began, but it was too late, for it was not Ronon who charged round their protective cover, but the Governor. She reached out her dominant hand and yanked Rodney back to her, so hard he could have sworn he felt something crack or wrench. And the blow that she dealt to the pirate sent him flying all the way out into the mists and the brackish water of the cove. He screamed in agony, his aversion to the water was so potent.

When he emerged, his beautiful blue skin was burned and molted an angry purple, but he wanted Rodney. He was not willing to give him up, as either a prize nor as something else. But despite his determination, the governor was strong, in mind as well as body and it would not be long before the rest of the Colony arrived.

"You can not win, John Sheppard," the Governor said. In all her many years, it was only the Great Barrier that had ever defeated her. A simple pirate, a human-born one at that, couldn't possibly hope to intimidate her.

John was lying back against the weathered wood of the dock by this point, burned and outmatched, but a slow smile spread across his very human lips. It was not long before the Governor found out why. A great boom sounded all around them - the sound of an energy weapon ramming up against the shimmering surface of the shield.

"They can not enter," the Governor warned.

"Yeah, well how did I get here, then? John asked. "Magic?"

The Governor's confidence faltered, then, her one moment of weakness. If John had entered undetected, then perhaps a ship could as well. It turned out that her fears were in fact confirmed, for moments later, the mists parted to reveal the macabre face of one of the pirate's ships, the living tissue drowning and sloughing off under the harsh punishment of the salty sea, it's dark flag appearing first out of the mist like the visage of death itself. In stark contrast to this dark visitor, the beams of light that assaulted the shore were a thousand times more dangerous. They were like the whispering of angels, there one minute in their blinding brilliance, leaving a lonely emptiness in their wake.

A gangway slammed down, a small group of ragged pirates standing at the top. They did not rush down to steal and terrorize the people of the Colony as I imagine they might have planned, wary of the Governor, who they had not expected to see during their raid.

"Sheppard!" one of them called. "What have you gotten yourself into now?"

'The usual," John replied, throwing himself to his feet and running up the gangplank.

The town was in chaos, and even the Governor stood motionless and surprised. Rodney would only have a few seconds, then, he realized. John Sheppard was a vicious pirate, even if once a lover and a friend, and he'd vowed to feed off Rodney. And yet, he'd recognized something in those bizarrely haunting yellow eyes. This was his last chance to get John back, Rodney knew, and he couldn't move his heart against the idea, no matter how hopeless it seemed.

It also helped that he wasn't sure if the death of the Hunter ensured he'd missed his turn on the Lottery plank.

So, amid the panicked shouts of the Colony members and the plaintive whine of the white lights that the pirates used for their abductions, Rodney turned, with a small look to his long-time companion, Ronon Dex, and ran up the gangplank, once again into the unknown.

Yo Ho haul, together,
Hoist the colours high
Heave Ho, Thieves and Beggars,
Never Shall We Die!

The pirate ships were like nothing you've ever seen. Even the cloudiest day here in the City of Unity cannot match the deep, dank dark that was John Sheppard's ship. The massive boat extended far below the water line, its main chamber flanked by jutting rib bones, like the belly of some great beast. The walls were sticky with algae, or slime, or perhaps just life, and the seaweed stench of decay spread uncertainty throughout the great hold as to whether the ocean itself would intrude. I doubt one could feel more trapped, even on the bottom of the ocean itself.

Rodney, in the very least, had never expected to feel so trapped in John's presence, but he did. Would you with the great pirate circling you, darting by so fast at odd moments that it'd make your head spin? "Why did you do that, human? Why are you so desperate to be fed upon?"

Rodney could not believe that John still intended to feed on him. "That wasn't exactly my plan, no."

Another blur and John was on his other side whispering in his ear. "Then what was your plan?"

Nervousness built in John, the likes of which he had not experienced since he woke deep in the bowels of this very ship, the late captain looking down upon this scrawny freak and wondering whether or not to feed. He had not even felt such nerves when he'd heard Teyla Emmagen's call, her mind pleading with him to return home, as though such a thing could outweigh the freedom of the endless grey sea.

Rodney, on the other hand, was a nervous man, and he had no problem squeaking out a nervous answer. "Not a plan so much as an idea. You need to come back with us, Sheppard."

"To a waiting slaughter? Not a very persuasive idea, Rodney."

"Not to that backwards excuse for a colony," Rodney replied. "Or those brainwashed sycophants who'll willingly sign up for a Wraith feeding if only for the chance of a longer, peaceful life."

"Wraith?" The word sounded familiar to John. It was a haunting, chilling word, like the shadows his pirates unleashed upon the minds of their victims or the last dying syllables of the nightmares that startled him, heart pounding, to wakefulness more nights than not.

"Healers, though how they have the audacity to call themselves that, I don't know. Pirates. You know, tall, blue, white hair, yellow eyes, in real need of a dental plan. Teyla thinks they might actually have changed - the ones in the Colony at least. She thinks they don't want to feed, but they're Wraith all the same."

"Monsters," John replied, remembering a fire burning against his chest and the swollen blue scar he could not remember receiving. His dreams were full of shadows and fear, but he was a brave man, a pirate who faced his nightmares as baseless fears to be denied.

"The stupid co-enzyme of their stupid Giving Trees doesn't change anything. Maybe they don't need to feed as often, but they still need to. It doesn't make this stupid Lottery any more barbaric, even if they can use the Gift of Life to extend human lifespans along with their own - the ones that survive, at least."

"It's a cowardly way to live," John agreed. "Not like a pirate's. No thrill of the hunt, stuck on land, with no freedom or honor." He felt some of this unexpected tension drain from him. Why should he be tense around Rodney? He was a human, no more than food. Perhaps what John feared was his own reluctance to feed, the many truths that Rodney seemed to know about him that he did not know about himself. He dreaded most of all that he really was the human-tainted freak he'd first been treated as, though looking at the pirate, you'd never know it.

"Jesus, Sheppard, what's happened to you?" Rodney sighed, looking into his lover's eyes where John had finally circled him to crouch warily at the foot of his chair. "You used to kill Wraith."

"I protect my own," John retorted. Even if he was something else before, he was a pirate now and a good one.

"Yes, you protect me and Ronon and Teyla. We're your own, not these people. Let me help you."

"How can you help me? I can't use the Trees. I am what I am." John was tempted by the idea, of course. He took no pleasure in feeding, though he did not dread it. What he loved was the sea, the way the horizon seemed to reach up to kiss the sky, stormy nights and the feeling of the ocean breeze against his parched skin.

"This happened to you before. You turned into a bug, though this time you're not so buggy. Not that the Spiderman thing isn't cool, but you wouldn't have to feed anymore. You could come home."

"And be the Colony's chattel, along with you? What a waste."

"Yes, well, as much as I love the socialist sentiment, it really would have been a waste to use my brilliant mind as food. But I'm not talking about that. As I said before, I want to take you home, our home. Atlantis."

An image flashed in John's mind then, as vivid as the language of the Healers. He imagined a whole city in the sea, in the sky too, ships that sailed beyond even the pallid atmosphere into space. Freedom called to him as strongly as the taste of a fine meal. "Atlantis." The word seemed familiar on his tongue.

"Yes, yes, A-plus for pronunciation," Rodney replied, his hope flaring.

"I've seen the oceans of the world, McKay. There's no such thing as a floating city."

"Ah, but you remember it. You've seen it. And you didn't see it on this world."

John laughed. "Our people travelled the stars generations ago, McKay, but everyone knows that you can't escape the Great Barrier."

Rodney laughed humorously, then, for he helped to keep the Colony's greatest secret. "You're right. You can't escape at the moment, but we humans are free to come and go as we please. That's why the Healers abandoned their ship - the one you pirates use to build your little boats. It's an ingenious, if sick idea, I'll give the Ancients that - a barrier in space that sucks the Wraith in like a planetary roach motel. The only problem is that the Wraith are a lot smarter than cockroaches, and a lot harder to kill. They probably know how to avoid the thing. We, on the other hand, with two people with Wraith DNA on board, weren't so lucky. But if I can just get one part off the abandoned hive ship, I can repair the jumper and Ronon and I can go back! We can get help!"

"And do what? Take down the barrier?" The barrier is as solid and natural to space as a mountain or an ocean is to land, you see. It can't just be removed, for those enemies of old that left this life for something beyond wove it into the very fabric of space.

"Even better. There's a cure. We'll bring back a few voodoo practitioners and have you and anyone who'd like to join you turned human. We just need to get a hold of the retrovirus."

John considered it. He hadn't become leader of the pirate clan by strength or size, or skill, but through cunning and intelligence, and to a rational mind, Rodney's plan made too much sense. The pirate life was a free one, but not a good one. His crew often went hungry, especially after he'd banned any cannibalism among them. But it beat life in the Colony, slaves to the whims and needs of humans for only a brief respite every few years when it came their turn to feed. Those were the two choices, however, and he wasn't sure how his crew would react to a third.

"I'll consider it," he replied.

"Oh thank god." Rodney breathed a sigh of relief, but it came too soon.

"C'mon. You'll have to stay in my personal quarters during feeding. My men will be upset to know that I've removed such a tasty morsel from the spoils, at least until they hear the plan."

Yo Ho, haul together,
Hoist the colours high,
Heave Ho, Thieves and Beggars,
Never Shall We Die!

Rodney expected to see something familiar about John's quarters. On their world, John's room had contained picture books, musical instruments, and equipment for activities such as riding the water that John could no longer enter. His rooms here were stately, but somehow managed to be dark and cave like, with no personal effects whatsoever. What kind of pirate was he, Rodney wondered, that took only food from those he pillaged?

He was exhausted, both from the traumas of the day and from seeing John again so unexpectedly, so he curled himself up upon a fleshy pallet and slept. Even the stench could not keep him awake.

John's quarters were above the water level, so a small amount of light spilled in when John entered later, causing Rodney to wake slowly, but once he opened his eyes, he was out of bed in an instant. John stood towering above a huddled, unconscious form piled on a high shelf that Rodney assumed was a dinner table of a grotesque sort.

"Stop!" he shouted, leaping at John and yanking him back. John responded with a snarl and an instinctive blow that would soon leave Rodney's eye blackened. It was not until he was rubbing his eye and complaining that he recognized to the huddled unconscious form lying as still and beautiful as a sculpture on the table. It was Teyla Emmagen, Rodney's soon-to-be-bride and friend to John and Rodney both. "That's Teyla! You can't eat Teyla!"

John was exasperated by this of course. Rodney had come into his life not hours ago and already he'd turned it on his head. It is situations like this why we always caution you younglings against playing with your food. "The men have agreed to your plan, at least to help you find the part you're looking for, but we're not going to starve ourselves on the off chance that you might help us escape this place."

"Yes, but this is Teyla. She's your friend!"

"And I assume you'll claim this about every piece of cargo that I even blink at. I used the last of my reserves to heal the damage from the fight. I need to feed." John wasn't happy about it, as he'd thought he'd last until their next raid, giving his men more to keep those few that had seemed dissatisfied lately from resorting to cannibalism. And now not only was he taking Rodney out of the pool, but his own food as well.

Rodney gulped, looking down at one friend suspended in the false sleep of the white culling beams and at his other friend that would starve without sacrifice. "How long before we can get the part?"

"Three day's journey in a smaller vessel through the swamp."

"And from there back to the Colony to recover the puddlejumper?"

"Another day."

Rodney breathed in deep, knowing what he had to do, but no less terrified because of it. He hated pain as much as the fruit of the Giving Trees, you see, but he would suffer it for those most dear to him. He pulled down back the shirt from around his neck. "Take enough for five days, then."

"Rodney." John didn't remember much, but his aversion to the idea had grown even in the short time they'd spent together so far. "I can't."

"Well, once you're back to yourself you'll regret taking it from Teyla even more. Just do it for me, John. Please."

John nodded solemnly. Instead of laying Rodney out on the table for feeding as he was accustomed, he stood behind him as he had in the square, wrapping his arms around him to support them both. The touch of his lips to Rodney's skin was both painful and electric. Rodney could not remember crying out, but once he came back to himself his voice was hoarse from screaming.

When he woke, he was laid out on John's strangely squishy pallet, looking into pained yellow eyes. John's hand brushed softly against his cheek. "Rodney," he whispered and Rodney knew in an instant that he'd remembered.

John had remembered everything.

Yo Ho, haul together,
Hoist the colours high,
Heave Ho, Thieves and Beggars,
Never Shall We Die!

John had not taken much, a year, two maybe, and it was a sacrifice that Rodney would gladly have paid to have John's hands on him again with that worshipful look in his eyes. It was more than worth it to hear John's promises that they would fix the jumper, collect Ronon and return to Atlantis. I will tell you the details one day, when you are all older.

As for John, on one hand the countless souls he'd fed upon in his time as a pirate weighed heavily upon him, as did the destruction he'd caused. But he knew his men were good ones, the majority of them at least. They were honest in a way he never would have expected of those he knew as Wraith and a thousand times as loyal. They longed for freedom above all else, just as he. He'd met one of us long ago that had promised him that he did not know everything about Wraith, that if he did, he'd be surprised by the common ground they shared. He knew now, he thought, and he would not abandon the good in these beings, just because their dietary requirements were unacceptable to him.

But he'd finally sated the one hunger he'd been unable to quench for so long - that no amount of food or drink or lust could satisfy. He'd hungered for Rodney, and he found that the thing he'd missed had quite a complicated, acquired taste. But he couldn't get enough, holding Rodney close and touching him every chance he got, even though Rodney could not hide the flinches at the strange membranous exoskeleton that ran over his spine or the dark claws of his mutated hand.

They took a small party into the swamp, just two of John's most trusted men, Teyla Emmagen, who had been overjoyed to find John himself again. It would have been terrifying. Imagine, nothing but the rising tide and the towering giants of the Giving Trees, sailing between their roots and through the mist in a small boat that seemed vulnerable to even the tamest of waves. Rodney must have been trembling. Except for the fact that he had John and Teyla beside him, and they had faced many terrors together in their time among the star. Of course that is another story entirely, one that I may consent to tell you at a later date.

As for John, he feared the salty water and its harsh burn, and for all it would mean feeding once again. Secretly, he resolved that he would never feed again. If Rodney's plan failed, then he would allow himself to starve to death before he took another second of someone else's life. He was a human at his core, you see. The greatest pirate to ever sail the seas, and his heart, unfrozen by friendship and love, was weak with his inner humanity.

The hive ship was a mountain, grown through with saplings of the great trees, and thick with decay as the pirate's ships. But it lived still, and breathed. Its heartbeat called out to John and Teyla and the two pirates that accompanied them. Only Rodney did not feel its pull, nor the danger in entering its cavernous depths, for the second they set foot at the base of that great mountain, the Governor sensed them too.

The Bell has been raised,
From it's watery grave...
Do you hear its sepulchral tone?
We are a call to all,
Pay heed the squall,
And turn your sail toward home!

"Rodney, they come," Teyla Emmagen said, standing guard over Rodney as he buried himself deep in the entrails of the hive ship's main drive.

"Who?" Rodney replied absently. He'd finally managed to succeed in removing the components he needed, you see, and there was never a time when any mechanical problem could not consume him. It was what made him such a brilliant scientist, but as Teyla had long ago found, it was also an immensely frustrating quality.

"The Governor. They come in the ship you built them."

"To defend the Colony from pirates! You agreed with me at the time. Besides, that huge hulking thing couldn't possibly navigate through the veritable fire swamp we passed through. I wouldn't be surprised if a rodent of unusual size ambushed us any minute now."

"Then they must have built a channel."

"If they'd built one, I'd have known about it. The Governor would have told me."

"She did not tell you everything, Rodney," Teyla chided, feeling for once her foolishness for beginning to trust the Healers and their progressive-seeming ways. It was their blood in her, I'm sure. How she must have felt, seeing the promise that the two parts of her being could be united peacefully! The Giving Trees themselves might promise a truce to the war that had ravaged the stars for as long as she remembered. Unlike Ronon Dex, she was tired of fighting. She did not want to fight until the enemy had been exterminated and in the Colony she had gleaned her first taste of peace, and to her it was as irresistible as the lure of a human morsel was to John Sheppard's pirates.

"Well, she was stupid not to. Their channel's probably clogged. Couldn't find their asses with both hands without my help," Rodney mumble.

"We should hope so."

But it was not to be, for no sooner had Teyla spoken than the ship was shaking with the blows from the energy weapons Rodney himself had installed on the flimsy wood hull of their vessel.

"The universe is out to get me once again," Rodney complained, letting Teyla drag him out of the engine room to the outer hull where John and his men were preparing to make a stand.

"What the hell are you doing?" Rodney demanded. "They have a whole battle worthy ship and we have four people."

"They find us, they kill us, McKay," John retorted, sounding more and more like the John Rodney remembered as the days passed. "What is it they say? I rather die on my feet than die on my knees?"

"And I'd rather live, period. Now which way's the dart bay? If I remember correctly, you'd rather die flying than any of that."

"It's underwater," one of the pirates added. "We were able to salvage some of the collection beams, but the ships were not meant to fly underwater. Those that have not yet been corrupted will not be able to surface."

But Rodney was not lying when he said he was a genius. "Take me there anyway."

"You have a plan?" John asked, hopeful for the first time in a long time.

"Of course I have a plan. I'm the answer man, remember?"

And what a plan it was. A quick scan of the area with one of Rodney's instruments revealed that two of the darts were still functional, which was all Rodney needed. They were not far below the water line, but the door of the bay faced down into the muddy bottom of the swamp. Even if they could fly underwater, there was nowhere for them to escape out of. He was glad now that the Governor had never brought the problem to him, for then the Colony would have had the darts and with them, the star children's chance of escape.

Rodney looked at the water distastefully. Who knew what kinds of bacteria lurked down in those muddy depths? But better live muddy and irrevocably tainted by alien bacteria than die from a Wraith feeding, so he took a deep breath and swam down.

He didn't dare open his eyes, which only compounded his fears of sharp edges and killer bog-dwelling shrimp and drowning in a rotting dart bay. He felt the smooth surface of the first dart (the tilting of the ship's crash landing meant they were practically vertical to each other), passed that and made for the next, which according to his scans was still operational, though judging by the layers of moldy slime coating the smooth surface, he couldn't see how.

Rodney could hold his breath a long time, of course. He had to in order to complete so many angry sentences without stopping to breathe. His lungs were spacious but even he was beginning to feel lightheaded and panicky. The darts were solar powered and he didn't know how much power he had to keep operational the semi-permeable shield that protected the hull from the void of space. He hoped it was enough for him to climb in and do what he needed.

The hatch released, and Rodney swam, pushing himself through the shield and into the sudden dryness and stale air of the hull. Power levels flashed a warning light at him, but he didn't need much time. "Now!" he yelled into the communications device he and Teyla had kept from their ship's crash, for the Governor was not the only one who kept secrets. He released the clamps and activated the ship's culling beam, aimed for the dart below. I remember days in space when were cautioned that we could pull up another ship in a culling beam, but the buffer could not maintain such a large object for long. Luckily, Rodney did not need long.

It was only a matter of seconds before he felt the dart turn. The two pirates must have swum down to turn it on its belly, pointing the culling beam at the ceiling and the dry, empty room above, he assumed. He closed his eyes, hoping that his plan had worked and that the other ship was functional.

"I have it!" Teyla's voice came nearly a minute later. "I will beam up the second dart."

Rodney was so hasty to respond that he did not stop to wonder that it was Teyla doing the beaming and not John. "No, don't waste the power. We'll need it all to blast a way out of the hive ship." But she did not heed his warning and a second and a white flash later, he was dripping on the floor of dry room, a mould-covered dart hovering above him and John's limp, burned body laying at his side.

"You went in the water!" he exclaimed, rushing to John's side. "Of all the stupid suicidal ... oh, wait, I should have expected this. Blue, and a pirate, but nothing changes the moronic martyr beneath!"

John coughed, his eyes fluttering open.

"Where are your minions? You couldn't let them share in the heroics?"

"They're holding the door to this section. Your little colonial buddies are here."

"Then we're running out of time." Rodney didn't have the time to second guess himself or recall the pain of the previous time, he just leaned over John and pressed the other man's lips to his own chest. "Take what you need."

John shook his head violently, pushing Rodney away. His love was like a follower once felt for his Queen, you see. His love was more than even a Healer feels for his charges. Starvation is the worse feeling one of our kind can experience. Better a quick death. But the great pirate was willing to suffer even that indignity for the one he loved.

Shots sounded at the nearest door. "They've broken through!" Teyla called from above them.

"John, you have to," Rodney leaned down to press their lips together, but even then, John did not take.

"Rodney, there is no time!" Teyla yelled. "I will fly. The culling beam will preserve him!"

And with a flash they were gone. Even the silent trees of the swamp heard the Governor's scream when she broke into the room to find nothing more than a hole in the wall and the colony undefended from the one man they did not doubt knew a way through the energy barrier.

Yo Ho haul, together,
Hoist the colours high
Heave Ho, Thieves and Beggars,
Never Shall We Die!

What happened then? I can not tell you much, as I myself have never seen a city in the sea, and have not ventured outside of the Great Barrier since the Colony was founded Milena ago.

What I do know is that the crowd was somber at the next Lottery, their only defensive ship destroyed by a shiny metallic dart that humans knew of only in the depths of genetic memory. The star children's ship had disappeared from the guarded bay where Rodney had kept it for research, the guards having been stunned by the red flash of Ronon Dex's singular weapon. The harvest had fallen prey to an insect infestation and the mists seemed even thicker and more cloying than usual.

It was among frowns and lingering fears for the coming winter that an image of Rodney McKay appeared in the square. It was a type of image that none but the Healers had yet seen - as solid in sound and appearance as though the man himself were standing before you, but so insubstantial that even the breeze blew through it.

"My fellow colonists, or whatever you are," he said. "It is the day of the Lottery, I assume, and thus an opportune time for me to speak with you." He spoke of many things, too many for me to recount to you now. He talked of sacrifice and its nature. "Why should only one group sacrifice their lives, after all?" he wondered. "Shouldn't the Healers have to die as well?" He spoke of freedom, and life without the fear that your name might be next drawn to walk the long plank into the mist. "Is civilized death and civilized violence not still death and still violence?" He also spoke of leadership and a thing called boy scouts, but no one could find the relevance in that. He asked us to question why the pirates did what they did when they could find sustenance through the Trees and a more assured life in the Colony. He said that they did it because ultimately it was not natural, that even the greatest of Healers lived with a pirate's soul.

The outside world was not pretty, he admitted. There was still war. Healers and humans did not live in harmony and there were many ways to die young and violently as well as the countless joys that the colonist did not yet know. But at least it was free. "That's what a pirate ship is," he claimed, "not a mast and a hull and some sails, but freedom." And we could all share in that freedom too, if we gathered in front of the plank at midnight. He would take those who believed in freedom away with him to live among the stars.

Some went: humans and a few of the Healers. And I could no more tell you of them than I could tell you of the great land of H'Earth. Nor do I know what became of John Sheppard and Rodney McKay, though I can only assume that they lived happily as only those free and in love can.

I know that I hovered on the edge of the plank that night at midnight, staring into the mist and the unknown universe beyond the Great Barrier. Since the creche, my life had been one of hardship, for I was born at the height of a great war, and the temptations of the Colony were sweet to my mind, still young despite my many years. I think of that night often, on Lottery day, especially. I wonder how my life might have been different had I accepted the short life of freedom Rodney McKay offered to me - transformed into a human for the rest of my days. I could not abide the weakness, I think, for I am a warrior even beneath the rich opulence of this great city. I would not have seen populations boom and cities develop, culture and technology and innovation and wonder - the hope that Rodney McKay left with those of us who stayed behind. It was hope that we might make the most of our choice. But freedom is sweet, too, if more complicated. It is, as much as Rodney McKay, an acquired taste.

As for John Sheppard's pirates, they were never seen again. The mists have long ago receded and so has the magic and mystery of those days. But they live on in every soul who hears their story and dreams of the freedom written into the pirate's soul within each of us. Hush now, younglings, and do not tell this story to your human charges. Do not tell it to your Governors or your Teachers, but keep it locked away like a pirate's treasure, for it may come in useful someday.

The end.

**

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