Fic: Cloud (2/2)
Story info and warnings can be found in part 1.
John woke up with a gasp followed by a sharp crack of pain that shivered from the top of his skull down into his brain stem. He doubled up, clutching his hair until the jagged nails of his right hand furrowed into his skin, drawing beads of blood. John could feel those beads tickling hot over his scalp until they became soaked into his hair; could smell it, metallic and sweet, twisting his gut with aching hunger.
“No,” John moaned. “No, no, no, please no.” With the hunger came need, blinding, brainless animal need for satiation. It spread through his mind like a swarm devouring his world. He needed to feed. He needed to feed now.
With a snarl that was part frustration, part feral, John leaped from the safety of the branch, landing in a crouch on the soft forest floor. He lifted his face to the breeze and inhaled deeply through his nose.
There was something not far from him. He could almost see it flitting through the trees, smelling sweet like honey. John moved without sound, keeping low, downwind of his prey. He spotted it again through a coups of shrubs, darting from flower to flower like a bee. John bunched back on his calf muscles and lunged.
“John!” squealed his prey as they tumbled over the mossy ground. Another stab of pain ripped through John's head and they tumbled apart, John clutching his skull as warm blood slid from his nose.
“John?” a child's voice tentatively asked. When the pain ebbed back to a throb and John remembered who he was, where he was, and why he was, he lifted his shaky head.
Cloud was coiled in a shivering heap several feet from John, staring at him like he was the boogey-man having just crawled out from under the bed. John gaped in horror.
“Oh, hell, Cloud, I am so sorry, buddy, I... damn it, I don't know why I did that...”
Cloud immediately relaxed. “Is okay, John. My fault. You sleep so I eat, but song got too far away. Is my bad thing, not you.”
John heaved a sigh. It would only be a no win argument if he kept at it, so let it drop. He wiped his nose and studied the blood smeared across his hand.
That was new, another question to tack onto the perpetually growing list. Last he remembered, you didn't bleed when turning into a bug, and you didn't feel pain. Being the optimistic guy that he was, John hoped it meant this change wasn't like the last, that once he got home and got treated, it would be over as quickly as it had begun.
Problem was, he didn't remember when it had begun. At that banquet, yeah, but he couldn't even remember when the banquet was.
At least I know where my team is, John thought. He climbed to his feet. “Well, I guess I'm okay, now.”
Cloud nodded vigorously. “Uh-huh. You have song, again.”
“Awesome, let's go.” John started off, grabbing some kind of giant beetle from off a leaf and shoving it into his mouth. He really needed to stop doing that. He could do without how much the lack of control over his eating habits was freaking him out, and there had to be a less creepy way of getting breakfast.
“Where we go today?” Cloud asked, bobbing alongside John as though the attack of moments ago hadn't happened.
“I don't know,” John said honestly. “Swing around, get closer to the gate.”
“But--”
“I know. It's guarded. But if a chance comes along that'll let us get through I want to be where we can be ready to grab it.”
“Oh, okay!” Cloud chirped happily. John wished Cloud's enthusiasm was contagious. He was hopeful, determined to find a way to get home, but no amount of determination could silence the niggling impression that he was only putting off the inevitable, and no amount of optimism could keep him from considering the possibility that his current metamorphoses could very well be messed up in all the wrong ways.
Since there was nothing he could do about it, he focused instead on ways of getting through the gate. As the day dragged on and one tree or shrub looked like another, he came to learn more about Cloud. Or, more specifically, remembered more. Such as that it ate out of flowers like a butterfly or bee, lapping up pollen with a thin, silver tongue. It was remarkably curious, and therefore easily distracted, darting off to check out that bird or that tree hole or this insect nest as though everything on this world were harmless and wonderful. John kept having to call Cloud back, and about panicked when it nosed a wicked looking mother of a spider with pincers.
Now he knew how Teyla felt whenever Torren toddled off too far.
And like any child expending too much energy, Cloud started to flag. It was around midday, John's hunger once again gnawing ravenously at his gut, dictating his brain to grab whatever was at hand. He nearly shoved some kind of squealing rodent into his mouth, but managing to reclaim his senses at the last second, tossed it aside. Bugs he could deal with. Mammals with fur and bones was where he drew the line. Lizards, too. Maybe he was being picky, but his body, his brain, damn it. No way was he going to let the insect in him win even the smallest of battles. Or he was acting on some kind of unconscious spite. If he had to become a bug, then he was going to take it out on bugs. It made him feel a little bad for the bugs.
The hunger as satiated on insects as it was going to get, John clamored up the nearest tree, settled back, and stretched out his legs. Cloud landed and he stroked its back.
“Tell me story,” Cloud said, yawning.
John chuffed. “I ever tell you about the first time I turned into this... thing?”
“No.”
John told Cloud, at least the parts he could remember. Which, unfortunately, he remembered quite a bit. He might have been an animal, but that didn't mean his brain had stopped absorbing information and storing it away. He still dreamed, sometimes, of scuttling across walls like a deranged Spider Man in blue - Atlantis' friendly neighborhood killing machine.
Cloud seemed troubled by this, putting wrinkles in its smooth brow. “This no normal?”
“No normal,” John said.
Air whuffed through Cloud's nose, the closest thing to a snort it could come to. “You need home.”
“Yeah, I need home.”
But as determined as Cloud was, it couldn't fight the allure of sleep. Cloud drifted off quickly, the summer chimes a gentle balm in John's head, soothing the savage beast. He dozed, whether he needed the rest or not.
Voices within the monotony of the forest sounds snapped John out of it. He sat up, tilting his head left then right. He heard all around him the whisper of leaves, the trill of the insects, the warbling birds.
There, to his left, a little behind. Definitely voices, and they were heading their way.
John shook Cloud. “Cloud, buddy. Wake up, we have to move.”
Shifting, Cloud groaned. “No move. Nice here. Sleep here.”
John, biting his lip, glanced frantically around. The voices were closer, close enough for John to see who was talking if the damn foliage wasn't so thick.
“Cloud, I'm serous. We have to move, now.”
But Cloud only grunted without so much as a twitch.
“Damn, you are tired. Why the hell are you so tired?” John hissed. They were running out of time, the voices closer and growing in number. John lifted Cloud, wrapped it around his neck like a boa then shimmied down the tree. After landing on the moist ground in a crouch, he took off at a half run, head down as he darted from tree to shrub to whatever else he could use as cover.
Someone shouted and a bullet tore through the leaves inches above John's head.
“Son of a bitch!” John snarled. Then he was running, darting, dodging, leaping and ducking forest debris and enemy fire, Cloud a dead weight on his shoulders.
But the perks of being inhuman reared their contradictory heads, his pumping legs eating up the distance and the voices fading behind him. His sharp eyes took in every minor detail faster than any normal human eyes could: animals, plants, low hanging branches, dips in the ground and ravines hidden behind screens of ferns. He saw, coming up fast, a thick-bodied tree of gnarled roots half-hidden beneath shrubs, and had an idea. Skidding to a stop, John dropped to his knees, parted the shrubs and smiled.
Then removed Cloud from his neck, easing its coiled body into the protective niche between two thicks roots beneath the heavy bushes.
“Cloud, you stay here, you hear me? No matter what you hear or see, you stay here and don't move.”
Cloud mumbled a sleepy affirmative. Good enough, because the voices were coming, guns already going off.
John leaped to his feet and scuttled up the tree, its foliage and shadows thick enough, he hoped, to hide him. It was high time he assessed the situation, because no way could the hunting party have found him this fast.
Sharp eyes, sharp ears and height advantage showed John everything he needed to know: five hostiles - a scouting party and unlucky enough to be on the right track - heading his way, armed with rifles that he knew for a fact had a dead-straight aim.
Just like he knew, for a fact, that these guys weren't hunters. They weren't even an angry mob hell bent on burning him alive in the nearest windmill. These were soldiers, half camouflaged in dark green long coats, organized and focused.
And scared. John could smell it in their sweat, hear it in the rapidity of their thrumming pulse.
They were scared of him. Good. John could use that.
John pulled the fattest, hardest seed he could find from the cluster hanging heavy from the branches - about as big as an acorn and just as hard - and threw it. Its crack against a tree reverberated as a snap through the forest, freezing the soldiers like deer in the headlights. John threw two more seeds, their cracks twice as loud. The soldiers exchanged whispered words then veered off to investigate.
John thumped his fist against the trunk in quiet triumph. He followed them, crawling hand over hand over the thickest branch, easing onto the next available branch of the next available tree within reach, quiet as a shadow and just as invisible. He ghosted until they were as far from Cloud as he figured they were going to get.
Then he fell, dropping like a rock the moment the straggler at the back of the line was right beneath him. It was so fast, so silent, so unreal even to John: the soldier went down with barely an explosive exhale of forced-out air, John's hand over his mouth, the only sound the thump of their bodies hitting the ground. Then John's elbow to the kid's face put the kid out.
John wasn't supposed to enjoy mutating into something out of a bad 50's horror movie but damn if he couldn't help it, because it had everything he needed right when he needed it - the speed, the strength, the senses, the inability to die. He was a one man army.
The only one to notice a man down was the next guy at the back of the line, pausing at his own peril. John tackled him, hand over the man's mouth as he brought him down. A head-slam into the ground and now there were three. But it hadn't gone unnoticed. The real fight was on.
John moved in a blur of blue, black and flesh - around a tree, up it, over the branches and dropping onto soldier three. Soldier four and five took off running, twisting around to shoot wild into the woods, screaming their defiance overshadowed by their terror. And John pursued, ignoring the impact in his shoulder, thigh and under his ribs as easily as he would ignore a bug bite.
Man four went down, screaming. John slammed his head against the ground. It felt good. It felt right. You don't run from, you run to. You chase. You hunt. You triumph.
Target five stumbled over his own feet bringing himself to the ground, his weapon tumbling out of reach. John jumped him before he could reach for it. But he did not claim his victory, not yet. His prey was scared and it smelled so sweet. How much sweeter would it taste for the man to die in his terror. John stalked him, loomed over him. The man flopped like a fish in his pathetic mockery of escape.
“Please,” the man said. “No, please. Someone help me, please!”
“John?”
John froze. Pain ripped through his skull and down his spine. With a snarl of rage, he turned on whatever it was attacking him, because attack was the only explanation his animal brain would provide. He lashed out with his clawed hand, once then twice but the pain only grew.
So he ran, bellowing in rage.
“John, John, John!”
But the pain followed. It filled his skull until he thought it would burst, weakening his legs so that he stumbled. He pushed himself onward, his path growing erratic. His foot caught on the arched root of a tree and he fell.
The pain devoured him, burned him. He couldn't take it. He screamed.
“John?”
His name spoken in the frightened whisper of a child followed him into the darkness.
Part Two
”Quite remarkable, isn't it? I did not think the change would happen so fast. We're fortunate I was there to notice the first signs of metamorphoses.”
“But what of his people?”
“Calm, Josin. We prepared for this and it has served us well to do so. They believe he has been taken. They are even now sending their soldiers to seek him on Alseya.”
“I wish I had your optimism but he is already showing signs of aggression. What if he were to escape? What if the high commander learns of this?”
“You fear too much, Josin. Have faith.”
“Ancestors I... he is weeping. You can see his tears.”
“It will not last. I do apologize for this, Colonel. Please do not think this personal. It is for the best. The road about to be taken. You above all people should understand that.”
---------------------
“Now I give you something,” said Cloud, rising like a wisp of smoke into the air. The collar dropped to the ground, dark and dead.
John chuckled weakly. “Not sure what you could give me, buddy.”
“I give you song,” it said happily. “And I give you this.” It's frosted-glass body turned transparent, like a snake-shaped shimmer of a mirage. John tracked the mirage with his eyes as it passed through the narrow bars of the cage, the electric pulse of a disturbed forcefield rippling violet and blue. When Cloud reappeared, it was outside the cell.
John blinked. “Wow.”
Cloud giggled. “Now we go away. I get opening things!” And it darted off to the other side of the chamber. It came back not seconds later, a ring of keys like large computer chips hanging from its mouth. It was a lesson in time wasting; Cloud passing through the shield with the keys (it was able to pass its ability on to whatever it touched - sweet - but when John placed his hand on an invisible Cloud's back, it was only his hand that went invisible), then John adjusting the keys so Cloud could fit them into the lock one at a time, Cloud dropping the keys, John adjusting them again, and cloud fitting them in the lock. What felt like ten agonizing minutes of sorting, dropping, picking up, failing and trying again, the lock buzzed, the shield went down and John was free.
“I see if safe or danger,” Cloud said proudly. It went invisible, and slipped through the next barrier between them and whatever was on the other side, checking that the way was clear. It pulled its head back in and nodded. John pressed the panel, the red light going to green, then opened the door on squealing hinges. He cringed.
The chamber on the other side was barely lit by dimmed lights, but it was empty. There were tables, very medical looking machines, trays of very sharp tools and shelf after shelf of equipment, papers, and jars of living things floating in pale blue liquid.
“Oh,” said Cloud sadly. It was floating in front of the largest jar. Inside, a head, just like Cloud's but bigger, a lot bigger. Cloud stared at the head as little tears rolled down its face.
---------------------
John wondered what the hell he'd been drinking, because as soon as he figured out what it was he promised he would never drink it again. He couldn't remember a time when he'd had this killer of a hangover.
“John? John? John?” Something nudged his shoulder. “John!”
John moaned. “K'p it dwn.”
“No, John. Up! Get up! Now, now, now!”
“All right, all right,” John growled. But when he tried to push himself up by his arms, he dropped back to the ground, the impact like a knife splitting his skull.
“Hurry! Please!”
Please!
John gasped, part in pain, part in the shocking rush of memories like getting hit with a bucket of ice water. He remembered, and what he remembered he didn't like.
“Crap,” he croaked, struggling to his feet. He managed it with the help of the tree next to him, digging his nails into the serrated bark for dear life as the world tilted around him and his legs shook like a newborn colt's. The pain did a jig on his brain, so he rested his head against the cool mossy trunk. “Crap, crap, crap.”
“No crap!” Cloud piped up, her nudging insistent, almost bruising. “Go now! Go now!”
“Trying, buddy. Just... give me a moment.”
“No moment! No time!”
“All right! I'm going!” John pushed from the tree. His first couple of steps wobbled, but locking his knees, he stayed upright. He stumbled onward weaving like a drunk whose blood-alcohol level was over the legal limit, clipping trees and branches with his head and shoulders and cursing up a storm. Cloud wormed its way under his arm and let him lean on it. But the more he walked, the more the world righted itself and soon he was able to free Cloud from his weight and break into a light jog.
And not a moment too soon. The soldiers were coming, John could hear them, still too far away to be a threat but soon to change if John didn't start hauling ass. The headache wouldn't let him, each step shaking it up like shaking up a rattler. John dug the heel of his hand into his forehead as though he could smash the pain out of existence.
“Cloud what the hell happened to me?” he tried to growl, but it came out as a whimper.
Cloud floated up beside John, its face heart-breakingly pathetic in its concern.
“You lost song. Had to give it back. It hurts you, no know why. I so sorry, John, I am.”
“Not your fault, bud, but I really think we should stick close together, I...” Then he looked at Cloud, really looked at it, and the four lines of puckered skin across its side, visible only to John's strong eyes.
He gaped in horror. “Oh, hell, Cloud.”
Cloud shook its head emphatically. “No fault too. None. No song. Go nuts without song.”
“Yeah, I'm finally starting to get that.” He smiled wanly with a chuff. “Guess that means I'm literally stuck with you.”
Cloud beamed. But it was different, not as buoyant as before, as though Cloud had just woken up and couldn't shake off the lingering traces of sleep.
“You still tired, buddy?”
“I fine,” Cloud said. But like hell Cloud was. It was flying lower to the ground, its leafy fins sagging. John would have happily stopped to let it rest, but he could still hear their pursuers, their voices a mosquito hum in John's ears.
Then John remembered. “Hey, you didn't tell me you could move through walls.”
“No need to, you saw.”
“Yeah, but my memory isn't what it's supposed to be. Anything else I need to know about? You wouldn't happen to breathe fire, would you? Because that could come in handy.”
Cloud looked at him cock-eyed.
John snorted. “Yeah, never mind.” But at least that was one question ticked off the list, with the bonus that he no longer felt guilty over having sent Cloud on gate reconnaissance.
John ran until the noise of the soldiers faded. He leaped from rock to rock over a raging river churning up fists of foam, eased carefully through a copes of nettles and waded through a shallow pond.
Then Cloud could go no further, and drifted to the ground.
“Sorry, John,” it wearily breathed.
John, breathless from the wading but still rearing to go, knelt beside her. “Don't be.” He gathered it up and wrapped it around his neck. “You carry me, I carry you - it's all good, buddy.”
He walked, not seeing the need to run, as well as to give his throbbing skull a break. The only sounds were that of the forest, gentle now that the day was in full swing of late afternoon, the air sleepy, warm and sweet-smelling. But hunkered low in the back of John's skull, something stirred, like an itch waiting to be scratched, a thirst waiting to be satisfied. And there was the hunger, always the hunger, never weakening him but always there growing in strength until his hands twitched to grab the nearest living thing.
Crap, he was losing it again, with the nearest living thing currently wrapped around his neck and weaker than a newborn cat.
“I'm the reason you're tired,” John said. He angled his face toward Cloud's drooped head. “It's getting harder, isn't it? The more I change, the harder it gets.”
“No,” Cloud sighed. “I fine.”
John clenched his jaw, his teeth grating. “No, Cloud, you're not. You're keeping me human and it's costing you. Do the math, bud. You can't keep this up forever. And the moment this thing inside me breaks free, I'm turning on you. You know it.”
“No, no. I keep it back. I can.”
“No,” John growled, “you can't. Not forever.”
“I can. Just 'till you get home. Just then. Then I rest.”
John, fist balled, squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed the hard lump of frustration expanding in his throat. Why the hell did everyone he meet have to be so stubborn?
They hadn't traveled far, at least John thought they hadn't, when his nose caught something alien within the stink of mud, animals and wet wood. He couldn't really describe it, but he followed it, going slow and straining his ears to know when to bolt if bolting was the only option. It wasn't long before he stepped into a small clearing and could put a name to the smell - cabin.
“Didn't even know cabins had a smell,” John said. Having super senses certainly expanded ones world. He stood there, listening, but heard only insects and the breezes. All the same, John circled the cabin, spiraling closer, sniffing and listening until he was sure the place was empty.
Empty but not abandoned by how well-kept it looked - probably a hunting or fishing place. He peered through a window at the furniture protected by what looked like white plastic sheets. The door had an iron-wrought and ornate handle, but the lock was no match for his strength. Inside, the scent of dust was strong, and John sneezed, Cloud flinching in response. He moved to the right and an open door where there was a bed covered in plastic. John swept the plastic aside and coiled Cloud on the clean mattress. Then he explored.
The cabin was just like the places his dad would take him, way back before things between them went south. Dad had been all about experiences, and making sure his sons had plenty. Dave had whined a lot about there being nothing to do, but John had loved it - hiking, swimming, canoing, or just sitting back and soaking in the hushed tones of nature.
It felt like a lifetime ago, just one more memory he was going to lose.
John's chest ached. He swallowed. He could feel the itch, slinking like a lion toward a zebra, crawling like ants over discarded food, swarming the things that made him John.
And Cloud was right next door, its song a whisper in his head. It made him feel so tired. But that's the way it worked, he figured - make the man sleep, make the monster sleep, conserve energy.
But it wasn't working.
“Damn it,” John hissed, slamming his fist on what he'd looked to see was a writing desk. He pressed his lips into a line and scanned around as though the answer to his problem were right in front of him, he just wasn't seeing it.
“You know the answer, John,” he said. “You're screwed.” And Cloud would be screwed with him.
How much longer before the song failed? Before the 'gate? When they arrived? If he wreaked a path of carnage to the 'gate, how many bullets would it take to bring him down? Because even Ellia had dropped eventually. If he managed to make it through, then what? Forget to dial and keep killing? Or dial and take the killing to another world, then another, never making it home?
Or make it home and take the carnage there.
And Cloud would be first, hovering close by, always within easy reach, made oblivious by its utter faith in its song.
“Damn it.” John ran both hands through his hair, one blue, one flesh. He then lifted his shirt, stared at the blue scaled skin covering the entirety of his right side, tiny spikes growing from the chitin along his ribs and collarbone. He pulled at the waistband of his pants; more scales ran down his hip.
John's body deflated. “Oh, damn.”
It was only a matter of time, and time was running out.
“Screw it,” John said. He ripped away the plastic covering the desk and rummaged through the drawers. Outside, he could hear shouts, still a safe distance away but eating up even more time he didn't have. John pulled out a sheet of paper, a pencil, and wrote fast. Finished, he rolled up the note then headed into the room, rummaging through the dresser. He found a scarf. It would have to do. Gathering Cloud back around his neck, he left and ran.
“Whole damn planet must be after me,” John said. He didn't slow even when the voices faded, not until what felt like twenty minutes later, when Cloud started to stir.
John stopped. “You awake, bud?”
“Yeah. Guess.” Cloud yawned.
“Well, you need to shake it off. I got a job for you.”
That perked Cloud right up, rising off John's shoulders into the air. “What job?”
“A mission,” John said. He pulled the scarf from one pocket and the rolled note from the other. “An important mission.” He tied the scarf around Cloud's neck. “But you're not going to like it.” Then slid the note through the scarf.”
Cloud eyed him suspiciously. “Why I not?”
“Cause you have to leave, buddy. Go it alone.”
Cloud pulled violently away, glaring. “No!”
“Yes!” John snapped. “You have to. Cloud, listen to me and listen carefully. It's the only way. I need you to take this message to my people, okay? You need to go through the 'gate and go to Atlantis. You're the only one who can because you're the only one who can get through the guards unseen and pass through the shield.”
“We go together,” Cloud countered with petulant finality.
“Damn it, Cloud!” John barked. At the stubborn set of Cloud's face, John closed his eyes, breathed deep, slowly released it, and opened his eyes. “I'm fading, Cloud.” He tapped his chest. “This thing inside me is fighting. It's weakening you and the song. And even if we made it to the 'gate without getting shot to pieces, if you lose control on the other side and this thing in me breaks free...”
Cloud's anger weakened, giving sadness the foothold it needed.
“I'm not taking that chance, Cloud, okay? I know you don't like it, and you don't have to like it. I just need you to understand it. We're out of options, buddy.” He tapped the note. “This is the only one we've got.”
“But... but the monster.”
“I know,” John said. He smiled. “I'll be a little nuts for a while, but Atlantis will find me. We don't leave people behind. Trust me, bud. Will you trust me?”
Cloud's head bobbed, devoid of enthusiasm. It sniffled. “Yes.”
“That's my pal,” John said. Crouching, he sketched out the gate symbols in the dirt. “Memorize these symbols. Remember that table looking thing next to the gate? You press the symbols on that table in this exact order. Got 'em memorized?”
Cloud nodded dejectedly.
“Good.” John rose. Resting his knuckles under Cloud's chin, he brought its head close and whispered. “Good luck, buddy.” Then kissed its cheek.
Cloud whimpered and touched its snout to John's forehead. It was with a reluctance like having to severe a limb that Cloud slowly, inch by painful inch, floated away from John. And it did hurt, like a tearing in John's chest, because he might never see Cloud, never see his team or Atlantis, again. And Cloud was crying.
“Bye, bye, John,” said Cloud, and floated away.
Seconds ticked. John could feel them, like drops washing him away one memory at a time. The itch spread like oil over his brain, consuming him. The hunger was ravenous, his legs twitched. All he wanted to do was run, hunt, kill.
So he ran, no destination, no goal, no hopes and dreams, his only companion the pounding drum beat of his hammering heart. He ran, and it felt so good. It was all he needed in life. All he remembered, knowing only that he had been born running.
-----------------------
Night was best. It covered, hid, had prey. He ran, grabbing things that squealed, tearing into them, hot blood falling down his face, bathing his chest. He made no sound, was quiet like a shadow, flowed like water. He smelled things, prey things and enemy things. The enemy things were coming closer, always closer, too many to hunt. He knew, he could hear them, smell them, feel them.
“There he is!”
“Other side! Close in the other side.”
He threw aside his meal. He wasn't afraid. The enemy things couldn't hurt him. They were a game. They were fun.
“Oh, no, no, no, no, he's gone. He is so far gone!” squealed an enemy thing.
“He is not completely scaled. There could still be time,” said the female enemy thing. “Ronon!”
“I got him!” The male enemy thing.
Red light crackled over his skin. It stung. It made him angry. Male thing was dangerous, had to be taken out. He attacked. Male thing fired, over and over. Blue stinging lights joined them.
“It's not working!”
“John?” said a child thing. The sound of chimes in a summer breeze filled his head. It made him tired. So tired.
John. He knew that word.
John.
It was his name.
Red swallowed him, stinging his skin and he, whose name was John, fell to the ground and slept.
----------------------
Electricity ripped through John's body, locking his muscles and preventing his scream.
“I will not ask you again, Colonel,” said General Turin. “What are you?”
“I told you,” John rasped, panting. “N-nothing you want to keep around--” another jab to the stomach with the stun stick cut him off. General Turin looked on, the picture of unflappable military superiority. Except for the pale skin and stink of sweat. He turned to Academe Col standing confined between two officers.
“You're fortunate we can use this Col, but unless you unlock the secret of this... thing... then that fortune is short lived.”
Col looked as though he couldn't care less, shrugging. “Whatever you wish, Commander.”
Turin slapped him, ever the scandalized commander cheated on by the scientist who'd never given a damn about his wants in the first place. “Guard your tongue, Col. The ice you stand on is thin.” He turned back to John. “Again.”
A jab to the thigh.
“What are you?”
Another to the ribs. Another to the back.
“That is enough,” said Turin.
The soldier torturing John sneered in disgust and exited the cage.
“Figure him out, Col,” said Turin, moving toward the door, his subordinates following. “Make the consequences of your 'secret' worth it.”
When they were gone, Col looked to John, and John could have sworn he looked sad.
“It's for the best, Colonel,” he said, like pathetic justification. “You of all people should know this.” And he, too, left.
It was just John, blinking back tears, and the glass snake who lifted its weak head.
“You have sad, too?”
Windchimes filled his head. John smiled.
“Yeah. I do.”
---------------------
John opened his eyes, and panicked. Or would have if he hadn't felt like his limbs had been replaced with two ton led. He was lying down, not a good thing. Immobile, even worse. And he was staring up at a metallic ceiling, surrounded by the stink you only ever suffered in hospitals or morgues. Off the charts of how bad things could get. He started to squirm, to get the blood flowing and his muscles warmed enough for an escape that might ultimately prove futile but he didn't care.
No way in hell was he anyone's lab rat. If he was going down, he was taking whoever wielded a scalpel with him.
Then a familiar face loomed over him, and John went still.
“R'dny?”
Rodney seemed to melt in on himself, muscles winding down as though finally free of having to lug around a lot of weight.
But he said, as though John had punctuality problems, “Finally! Seriously, Sheppard, early to bed, early to rise gives everyone else less heart attacks. As does letting people know sooner rather than later that you're not dead after all.”
John's confused expression went ignored, or was misinterpreted, as Rodney plowed on. “Yes, we got your little note. Thank you for gracing us with one after two weeks! 'I'm still here. Turning into a bug. Please take care of Cloud?' What the hell, Sheppard, you can't even give us the courtesy of letting us know whether you want us to back off or save your miserable ass? Like we would have backed off but some clarity would have been nice--”
“Rodney,” Jennifer huffed, literally elbowing her way in to replace Rodney in John's line of sight. “Give him a break. He just woke up.” She shook her head, exasperated and tired. But looking down at John, she smiled. “You with us, this time, Colonel?”
“Guess,” John rasped, working his arms which still refused to budge.
“I'll take that as a yes,” Jennifer said. She then proceeded to unbuckle the restraints around John's wrists - that explained a lot - followed by moving a cup with a straw within reach of John's mouth.
But free and a little more hydrated, John still felt like gravity wasn't his friend. Just lifting his hand to rub his face made his whole arm shake with fatigue. “How long?”
“How long have you been missing or been sleeping?” Rodney butted in, all but shoving Jennifer out of the way.
“How long... been human?”
“Two weeks,” Jennifer said, busy checking the machines. “Your metamorphoses was faster this time around - don't ask me why, we're still looking into it - so the gene therapy was fast. Well, not super fast but faster than the last time this, you know, happened. I swear it was like the mutation had a mind of its own. It pushed so hard we weren't sure we could counter it.”
“Don't forget to tell him about all the bullets we found in him.” Rodney said it like it was something he'd been waiting ages to reprimand John for. “Ten. Ten bullets. Please tell me you didn't go human hunting.”
“Didn't go... Hannibal Lecter on... anyone...” John said. He puckered his brow in worry. “Ten? Really?”
“I removed them,” Keller said kindly. But grimaced. “But you're going to feel a little sore for a while. There was still enough mutation to help with major repairs but,” she shrugged. “You remember just how 'reverse' the reversed process can be.”
Boy, did John ever remember. He could feel the pull of stitches, the ache of unused muscles, and the general “ick” of having been in bed for far too long.
All of which he was happy enough to take. It meant he was human, one-hundred percent John Sheppard. Except...
John looked at Jennifer, long and hard. “How did this happen?”
Keller and Rodney exchanged looks, not troubled, but asking the silent question of whether to tell him now or when he was more awake.
They knew him well. Rodney shrugged and said, “That Academe guy. It's a long story that we promise to tell when you're more awake, more coherent and we don't have to repeat ourselves. In the mean time--”
“Rest,” Jennifer said.
Rodney frowned at her. “I was going to say stay awake so that Teyla and Ronon can have the privilege of knowing that you're not going to die on us after all.”
“They already know, Rodney.”
“Yes, well... it's a little easier to except when the not-dying person in question has his eyes open. Oh, here they come.” At Jennifer's glare, he added an indignant but pathetic, “What? So I gave them the heads up, so sue me.”
Teyla and Ronon moved quickly to the bed, all huge, toothy smiles as they surrounded John. And behind them, bopping along like a flying pup, was a brightly beaming Cloud.
“John, it is so good to finally see you awake,” said Teyla, touching her forehead to his.
“Sane and coherent,” Ronon said with a hefty pat to John's arm.
“You should try being the guy who's awake and coherent,” John said with a weak grin. “Feels like it's been a while since I felt this... normal.”
“Normal's subject to interpretation in this galaxy,” said Rodney. It was with much amusement that Cloud started nudging his head, and no amount of Rodney shoving it back would dissuade it. “And would you please do something about your alien carrier pigeon? My brain is too important to be used as its toy.”
“Cloud,” John said without a lick of reprimand. Cloud focused on John, bobbing up and down, trilling and squeaking, but not talking.
John realized he could no longer hear the sound of windchimes.
------------------
John tapped his finger quietly on the conference room table, multitasking between staring at the pale skin and blue veins of his human hand, and listening to the exchange of information between his team, Keller, Lorne and Woolsey.
Accelerated mutation followed by accelerated demutation was hell on the mind and body, as it turned out. Two weeks of sleep was the result when the brain had to reboot itself, kick out the inhuman that had fought tooth and nail to take over, then slot the human - memories and all - back into place. Keller hadn't been too happy trying to stave off muscle atrophy, but couldn't argue that the body's self-induced coma had been a blessing. She hadn't wanted to begin to imagine what it would have been like if John had been awake.
As it stood, John was one-hundred percent human, but he'd been premature to think himself one-hundred percent, period. Muscle atrophy and liquid diets did not do a body good. He was thinner, tired easily, and even after three days of being awake and moving around, was still confined to a wheelchair and denied the joys of bacon cheeseburgers and meat lovers pizza.
And Cloud could not longer speak to him.
It was wrong, on so many levels, that there were times when he caught himself missing what he'd almost turned into. When that happened, he had to think of the people he almost killed - yeah, he remembered that. Remembered the overbearing hunger, the mindless running, the love of the kill, and of raking black claws against glass-like skin.
“We found the notes day two into the search of Col's labs,” Lorne was saying. “They weren't word for word so it still stands that he only saw enough of Dr. Beckett's research to use as a starting point and figured the rest out for himself.”
“Should we be scared that a man from a society that can't make a computer stronger than a battery powered go-cart was able to hack into our tablets and steal secure data? And make a bad thing worse?” Rodney said.
“I think it's our own fault for underestimating him,” Keller said. She looked around at everyone, apologetic. “I mean, they have Ancient tech and know how to use that. Figuring out an Earth-made tablet would have been a cake walk. I honestly believed I hadn't brought enough of the data for anyone to utilize if they did manage to get their hands on it. I am so sorry.”
John's first mutation had at least come with the silver lining of shedding a little more light on a couple of genetic mysteries, mysteries such as genetic diseases that made people's lives hell. Finding a cure for certain genetic diseases had been one of the many Golician/Atlantis alliance projects, and the mutation data had been sorely needed for it.
“Not your fault, doc,” John assured. “The guy was doing all kinds of crap behind a lot of people's backs. The only way we would have seen it coming is if he told us.” And the bitch was, according to Lorne, Col had admitted everything. It was like he didn't care, Lorne had said. Like it didn't matter. There'd been a hearing, both Col and the Commander convicted, but the case reopened now that John was awake and clear-headed enough to toss in his story. Which seemed redundant to him - Col and the Commander were screwed to the point of never seeing daylight again.
Lorne went on to explain what was found in Col's notes, how Col had slipped the modified retrovirus into John's drinks at every opportunity, how he had everything prepared for when the signs of change first started to manifest, and that by “everything prepared” Col meant a means to dispose of John when he became too volatile to handle.
The meeting ended. John put his hands on the wheels to turn the chair around.
“Colonel, a word,” Woolsey said.
They both waited until it was just them, everyone else out of ear shot.
“Colonel, about the creature that delivered your message--”
“Cloud,” John said.
“Yes, Cloud. I've been wondering - strictly for curiosity sake - what you plan on doing with... Cloud.”
John shrugged his shoulder, but never took his eyes off Woolsey. Woolsey could push his nonchalance all he wanted, John wasn't feeling even remotely comfortable with where this conversation was going.
“Hadn't really thought about it.”
“Well, it's quite welcome to stay, of course. It's just that... there have been requests from zoology and biology--
“No,” John said, flat and harsh.
Woolsey sighed heavily. “They have no intentions of harming it. They merely--”
But John shook his head. “Not gonna happen.”
Woolsey pursed his lips, then said, “Understood.” And maybe for Woolsey, he did understand. Biology and Zoology? Not so much. Two people from both departments had already approached John several days ago while he was still laid up and mostly out of it. John vaguely recalled Ronon having chased them off. They tried a second time the very next day.
Progress, they'd said. Something about scientific progress and stealth technology. John vaguely recalled being the one to throw them out by chucking a kidney dish at them.
John wheeled himself out of the conference room and through the control room for as long as he was able - part of his therapy to regain muscle. When his arms gave out, Teyla wheeled him the rest of the way, having waited for him just out of hearing (or so she said). They didn't go to the infirmary but to Teyla's room, where Cloud was playing with Torren.
It was a punch in the gut: Teyla could hear Cloud, Torren, even the damn iratus bugs. Keller had figured it a telepathy thing, because when they had needed eggs, Cloud had been all over it. It had sung its song, putting the bugs into a coma and letting the team walk in like they had belonged.
The friggin' iratus could hear Cloud, and John couldn't. Not unless he wanted to turn back into a monster.
But Cloud could still understand him. John had asked, and Cloud had nodded.
No words could describe how unfair it was.
When Teyla wheeled John into her room, Cloud lifted its head from where it had been stacking blocks much to Torren's giggling delight. Cloud floated over, subdued as though it had been using the song all day, and touched its snout to John's forehead. It still thought it would work, and wouldn't take its endless failed attempts as an answer.
“Hey, buddy,” John said, rubbing its glass-smooth head. Cloud chirruped and squeaked, bobbing.
“It says it has been having a fun day,” Teyla said, moving around to Torren, who bounced and squealed now that momma was joining him in his games.
“That's good to hear,” John said, swallowing the lump trying to lodge itself in his throat. He was grateful for Teyla's help in communicating. But it couldn't be helped, he missed like hell Cloud's fractured babbling.
When Cloud next chirped and squeaked, Teyla frowned.
“Cloud wonders if we have figured out a way to let you understand.”
John sighed, “Still working on it, bud.”
---------------------
The addition of John's testimony wasn't a spectacle, thank goodness. John barely had the energy to deal with the eleven people crammed into the president's stuffy office - John, his team, a marine, Col and the commander in chains, two guards and madame President Halene herself.
John told his story, as much as he could remember, which was enough to make the Commander squirm. But not Col. If Col had any opinion concerning his fate, he didn't show it. He had made his bed, and had no compunctions about laying in it. Whatever followed after no longer mattered to him.
It pissed John off. Knowing that Col was going down didn't make a damn difference.
“Have you anything to say, Academe Col, Commander Turin?” said President Halene, standing tall, expression stern, but brow glittering with sweat. Col and the Commander may have been the wolves among the sheep but it was still Halene's flock, and Atlantis was still undecided as to whether or not to maintain the alliance (as far as Halene knew. Woolsey planned to honor the treaty, but wished to withhold this little fact in order to gauge Halene's sincerity. It was actually a Teyla tactic, something common in the Pegasus Galaxy. Take the goods being offered off the table to see how much they mattered, then put them back once the begging began).
Turin straightened. “I stand by my statement. The Lanteans have lied to us. They have the means for victory against the Wraith but refuse to share. The change Colonel Sheppard had undergone could have been utilized as our strongest weapon.”
Rodney muttered, “Yeah, only after he slaughtered you all.” Teyla rolled her eyes. Ronon glared at Turin and growled, but Turin ignored them all.
“Academe?” said Halene.
Col stood there, stock still and impassive, until he suddenly looked directly at John.
John met his gaze. “Liked the road you walked down, doc?”
Col looked away. “I have nothing to say.”
“Then I will add to my decision. For treason, Col, life with no chance of freedom. Commander Turin, you are hereby stripped of rank, and will share in Col's sentence. And may you be a reminder to us all: With every action, with every decision, there is always a consequence, for good or bad. Take them away.”
Turin was led out first, Col about to follow when he struggled to a stop.
“Wait,” he said. He turned his head to John. “The creature in the cage next to yours. What became of it?”
John had hoped to wait and address the matter when Col was out of the room. But now seemed as good a time as any. He pulled from his pocket a picture of a smiling Cloud.
“You mean this?” John asked. He glared. “It's a hell of a lot better off, that's where.” He slipped the picture back into his pocket. A severely frowning Col was prodded the rest of the way out of the room.
“That was a Seloian,” President Halene said, awe-struck. She looked at John quizzically. “They are among your world as well?”
“No,” John said. He rolled closer to the President's desk, pulled the picture from his pocket and set it down. “But I'd really like to know where they come from.”
---------------------
To the north of the Glocian capital were the Ranurow Mountains, considered the true heart of the Glocian empire. Deep in its caves were hidden the technologies that put Glocia ahead of the other worlds. Jagged, snow-capped peaks pierced the scattered clouds, their wide bases hidden under a carpet of trees.
Those mountains filled the screen of the 'jumper as John piloted closer, coasting along, just him and Cloud.
“See that, buddy?” John said. “You just keep watching, okay? Don't take your eyes off those mountains.”
Cloud's head nodded vigorously.
It was good fortune, President Halene had said, if you should look up and spot a Seloian swimming through the sky. Because when a Seloian flew, then you knew that everything was right in the world.
John brought up the HUD a third time and followed the dots of the LSD. “Keep, watching, bud. Just keep watching.”
There, gliding out from the clouds, a serpentine body like frosted glass, three times the size of Cloud. Cloud bobbed and squealed in delight, and John didn't need to understand it to know that it was laughing.
“Cool, huh?” John said. “This is where you come from, bud. This is home.”
Cloud stopped bobbing to give John a look so woebegone it made John's chest ache. Cloud trilled softly.
“Hey, hey, come on. Don't be like that. This isn't goodbye. You know where to find me and I'll know where to find you. We can see each other any time, right?”
Cloud perked up and nodded.
“Right,” John said. He angled down toward the cloud where the bigger Seloian had appeared. “So, what do you say we fly through some clouds, get this jumper a little wet.”
Cloud squealed, bopping around all over the 'jumper.
John grinned. “That is definitely a yes.” He dove into the clouds, and his mind filled with the memory of summer chimes.
The End
John woke up with a gasp followed by a sharp crack of pain that shivered from the top of his skull down into his brain stem. He doubled up, clutching his hair until the jagged nails of his right hand furrowed into his skin, drawing beads of blood. John could feel those beads tickling hot over his scalp until they became soaked into his hair; could smell it, metallic and sweet, twisting his gut with aching hunger.
“No,” John moaned. “No, no, no, please no.” With the hunger came need, blinding, brainless animal need for satiation. It spread through his mind like a swarm devouring his world. He needed to feed. He needed to feed now.
With a snarl that was part frustration, part feral, John leaped from the safety of the branch, landing in a crouch on the soft forest floor. He lifted his face to the breeze and inhaled deeply through his nose.
There was something not far from him. He could almost see it flitting through the trees, smelling sweet like honey. John moved without sound, keeping low, downwind of his prey. He spotted it again through a coups of shrubs, darting from flower to flower like a bee. John bunched back on his calf muscles and lunged.
“John!” squealed his prey as they tumbled over the mossy ground. Another stab of pain ripped through John's head and they tumbled apart, John clutching his skull as warm blood slid from his nose.
“John?” a child's voice tentatively asked. When the pain ebbed back to a throb and John remembered who he was, where he was, and why he was, he lifted his shaky head.
Cloud was coiled in a shivering heap several feet from John, staring at him like he was the boogey-man having just crawled out from under the bed. John gaped in horror.
“Oh, hell, Cloud, I am so sorry, buddy, I... damn it, I don't know why I did that...”
Cloud immediately relaxed. “Is okay, John. My fault. You sleep so I eat, but song got too far away. Is my bad thing, not you.”
John heaved a sigh. It would only be a no win argument if he kept at it, so let it drop. He wiped his nose and studied the blood smeared across his hand.
That was new, another question to tack onto the perpetually growing list. Last he remembered, you didn't bleed when turning into a bug, and you didn't feel pain. Being the optimistic guy that he was, John hoped it meant this change wasn't like the last, that once he got home and got treated, it would be over as quickly as it had begun.
Problem was, he didn't remember when it had begun. At that banquet, yeah, but he couldn't even remember when the banquet was.
At least I know where my team is, John thought. He climbed to his feet. “Well, I guess I'm okay, now.”
Cloud nodded vigorously. “Uh-huh. You have song, again.”
“Awesome, let's go.” John started off, grabbing some kind of giant beetle from off a leaf and shoving it into his mouth. He really needed to stop doing that. He could do without how much the lack of control over his eating habits was freaking him out, and there had to be a less creepy way of getting breakfast.
“Where we go today?” Cloud asked, bobbing alongside John as though the attack of moments ago hadn't happened.
“I don't know,” John said honestly. “Swing around, get closer to the gate.”
“But--”
“I know. It's guarded. But if a chance comes along that'll let us get through I want to be where we can be ready to grab it.”
“Oh, okay!” Cloud chirped happily. John wished Cloud's enthusiasm was contagious. He was hopeful, determined to find a way to get home, but no amount of determination could silence the niggling impression that he was only putting off the inevitable, and no amount of optimism could keep him from considering the possibility that his current metamorphoses could very well be messed up in all the wrong ways.
Since there was nothing he could do about it, he focused instead on ways of getting through the gate. As the day dragged on and one tree or shrub looked like another, he came to learn more about Cloud. Or, more specifically, remembered more. Such as that it ate out of flowers like a butterfly or bee, lapping up pollen with a thin, silver tongue. It was remarkably curious, and therefore easily distracted, darting off to check out that bird or that tree hole or this insect nest as though everything on this world were harmless and wonderful. John kept having to call Cloud back, and about panicked when it nosed a wicked looking mother of a spider with pincers.
Now he knew how Teyla felt whenever Torren toddled off too far.
And like any child expending too much energy, Cloud started to flag. It was around midday, John's hunger once again gnawing ravenously at his gut, dictating his brain to grab whatever was at hand. He nearly shoved some kind of squealing rodent into his mouth, but managing to reclaim his senses at the last second, tossed it aside. Bugs he could deal with. Mammals with fur and bones was where he drew the line. Lizards, too. Maybe he was being picky, but his body, his brain, damn it. No way was he going to let the insect in him win even the smallest of battles. Or he was acting on some kind of unconscious spite. If he had to become a bug, then he was going to take it out on bugs. It made him feel a little bad for the bugs.
The hunger as satiated on insects as it was going to get, John clamored up the nearest tree, settled back, and stretched out his legs. Cloud landed and he stroked its back.
“Tell me story,” Cloud said, yawning.
John chuffed. “I ever tell you about the first time I turned into this... thing?”
“No.”
John told Cloud, at least the parts he could remember. Which, unfortunately, he remembered quite a bit. He might have been an animal, but that didn't mean his brain had stopped absorbing information and storing it away. He still dreamed, sometimes, of scuttling across walls like a deranged Spider Man in blue - Atlantis' friendly neighborhood killing machine.
Cloud seemed troubled by this, putting wrinkles in its smooth brow. “This no normal?”
“No normal,” John said.
Air whuffed through Cloud's nose, the closest thing to a snort it could come to. “You need home.”
“Yeah, I need home.”
But as determined as Cloud was, it couldn't fight the allure of sleep. Cloud drifted off quickly, the summer chimes a gentle balm in John's head, soothing the savage beast. He dozed, whether he needed the rest or not.
Voices within the monotony of the forest sounds snapped John out of it. He sat up, tilting his head left then right. He heard all around him the whisper of leaves, the trill of the insects, the warbling birds.
There, to his left, a little behind. Definitely voices, and they were heading their way.
John shook Cloud. “Cloud, buddy. Wake up, we have to move.”
Shifting, Cloud groaned. “No move. Nice here. Sleep here.”
John, biting his lip, glanced frantically around. The voices were closer, close enough for John to see who was talking if the damn foliage wasn't so thick.
“Cloud, I'm serous. We have to move, now.”
But Cloud only grunted without so much as a twitch.
“Damn, you are tired. Why the hell are you so tired?” John hissed. They were running out of time, the voices closer and growing in number. John lifted Cloud, wrapped it around his neck like a boa then shimmied down the tree. After landing on the moist ground in a crouch, he took off at a half run, head down as he darted from tree to shrub to whatever else he could use as cover.
Someone shouted and a bullet tore through the leaves inches above John's head.
“Son of a bitch!” John snarled. Then he was running, darting, dodging, leaping and ducking forest debris and enemy fire, Cloud a dead weight on his shoulders.
But the perks of being inhuman reared their contradictory heads, his pumping legs eating up the distance and the voices fading behind him. His sharp eyes took in every minor detail faster than any normal human eyes could: animals, plants, low hanging branches, dips in the ground and ravines hidden behind screens of ferns. He saw, coming up fast, a thick-bodied tree of gnarled roots half-hidden beneath shrubs, and had an idea. Skidding to a stop, John dropped to his knees, parted the shrubs and smiled.
Then removed Cloud from his neck, easing its coiled body into the protective niche between two thicks roots beneath the heavy bushes.
“Cloud, you stay here, you hear me? No matter what you hear or see, you stay here and don't move.”
Cloud mumbled a sleepy affirmative. Good enough, because the voices were coming, guns already going off.
John leaped to his feet and scuttled up the tree, its foliage and shadows thick enough, he hoped, to hide him. It was high time he assessed the situation, because no way could the hunting party have found him this fast.
Sharp eyes, sharp ears and height advantage showed John everything he needed to know: five hostiles - a scouting party and unlucky enough to be on the right track - heading his way, armed with rifles that he knew for a fact had a dead-straight aim.
Just like he knew, for a fact, that these guys weren't hunters. They weren't even an angry mob hell bent on burning him alive in the nearest windmill. These were soldiers, half camouflaged in dark green long coats, organized and focused.
And scared. John could smell it in their sweat, hear it in the rapidity of their thrumming pulse.
They were scared of him. Good. John could use that.
John pulled the fattest, hardest seed he could find from the cluster hanging heavy from the branches - about as big as an acorn and just as hard - and threw it. Its crack against a tree reverberated as a snap through the forest, freezing the soldiers like deer in the headlights. John threw two more seeds, their cracks twice as loud. The soldiers exchanged whispered words then veered off to investigate.
John thumped his fist against the trunk in quiet triumph. He followed them, crawling hand over hand over the thickest branch, easing onto the next available branch of the next available tree within reach, quiet as a shadow and just as invisible. He ghosted until they were as far from Cloud as he figured they were going to get.
Then he fell, dropping like a rock the moment the straggler at the back of the line was right beneath him. It was so fast, so silent, so unreal even to John: the soldier went down with barely an explosive exhale of forced-out air, John's hand over his mouth, the only sound the thump of their bodies hitting the ground. Then John's elbow to the kid's face put the kid out.
John wasn't supposed to enjoy mutating into something out of a bad 50's horror movie but damn if he couldn't help it, because it had everything he needed right when he needed it - the speed, the strength, the senses, the inability to die. He was a one man army.
The only one to notice a man down was the next guy at the back of the line, pausing at his own peril. John tackled him, hand over the man's mouth as he brought him down. A head-slam into the ground and now there were three. But it hadn't gone unnoticed. The real fight was on.
John moved in a blur of blue, black and flesh - around a tree, up it, over the branches and dropping onto soldier three. Soldier four and five took off running, twisting around to shoot wild into the woods, screaming their defiance overshadowed by their terror. And John pursued, ignoring the impact in his shoulder, thigh and under his ribs as easily as he would ignore a bug bite.
Man four went down, screaming. John slammed his head against the ground. It felt good. It felt right. You don't run from, you run to. You chase. You hunt. You triumph.
Target five stumbled over his own feet bringing himself to the ground, his weapon tumbling out of reach. John jumped him before he could reach for it. But he did not claim his victory, not yet. His prey was scared and it smelled so sweet. How much sweeter would it taste for the man to die in his terror. John stalked him, loomed over him. The man flopped like a fish in his pathetic mockery of escape.
“Please,” the man said. “No, please. Someone help me, please!”
“John?”
John froze. Pain ripped through his skull and down his spine. With a snarl of rage, he turned on whatever it was attacking him, because attack was the only explanation his animal brain would provide. He lashed out with his clawed hand, once then twice but the pain only grew.
So he ran, bellowing in rage.
“John, John, John!”
But the pain followed. It filled his skull until he thought it would burst, weakening his legs so that he stumbled. He pushed himself onward, his path growing erratic. His foot caught on the arched root of a tree and he fell.
The pain devoured him, burned him. He couldn't take it. He screamed.
“John?”
His name spoken in the frightened whisper of a child followed him into the darkness.
Part Two
”Quite remarkable, isn't it? I did not think the change would happen so fast. We're fortunate I was there to notice the first signs of metamorphoses.”
“But what of his people?”
“Calm, Josin. We prepared for this and it has served us well to do so. They believe he has been taken. They are even now sending their soldiers to seek him on Alseya.”
“I wish I had your optimism but he is already showing signs of aggression. What if he were to escape? What if the high commander learns of this?”
“You fear too much, Josin. Have faith.”
“Ancestors I... he is weeping. You can see his tears.”
“It will not last. I do apologize for this, Colonel. Please do not think this personal. It is for the best. The road about to be taken. You above all people should understand that.”
---------------------
“Now I give you something,” said Cloud, rising like a wisp of smoke into the air. The collar dropped to the ground, dark and dead.
John chuckled weakly. “Not sure what you could give me, buddy.”
“I give you song,” it said happily. “And I give you this.” It's frosted-glass body turned transparent, like a snake-shaped shimmer of a mirage. John tracked the mirage with his eyes as it passed through the narrow bars of the cage, the electric pulse of a disturbed forcefield rippling violet and blue. When Cloud reappeared, it was outside the cell.
John blinked. “Wow.”
Cloud giggled. “Now we go away. I get opening things!” And it darted off to the other side of the chamber. It came back not seconds later, a ring of keys like large computer chips hanging from its mouth. It was a lesson in time wasting; Cloud passing through the shield with the keys (it was able to pass its ability on to whatever it touched - sweet - but when John placed his hand on an invisible Cloud's back, it was only his hand that went invisible), then John adjusting the keys so Cloud could fit them into the lock one at a time, Cloud dropping the keys, John adjusting them again, and cloud fitting them in the lock. What felt like ten agonizing minutes of sorting, dropping, picking up, failing and trying again, the lock buzzed, the shield went down and John was free.
“I see if safe or danger,” Cloud said proudly. It went invisible, and slipped through the next barrier between them and whatever was on the other side, checking that the way was clear. It pulled its head back in and nodded. John pressed the panel, the red light going to green, then opened the door on squealing hinges. He cringed.
The chamber on the other side was barely lit by dimmed lights, but it was empty. There were tables, very medical looking machines, trays of very sharp tools and shelf after shelf of equipment, papers, and jars of living things floating in pale blue liquid.
“Oh,” said Cloud sadly. It was floating in front of the largest jar. Inside, a head, just like Cloud's but bigger, a lot bigger. Cloud stared at the head as little tears rolled down its face.
---------------------
John wondered what the hell he'd been drinking, because as soon as he figured out what it was he promised he would never drink it again. He couldn't remember a time when he'd had this killer of a hangover.
“John? John? John?” Something nudged his shoulder. “John!”
John moaned. “K'p it dwn.”
“No, John. Up! Get up! Now, now, now!”
“All right, all right,” John growled. But when he tried to push himself up by his arms, he dropped back to the ground, the impact like a knife splitting his skull.
“Hurry! Please!”
Please!
John gasped, part in pain, part in the shocking rush of memories like getting hit with a bucket of ice water. He remembered, and what he remembered he didn't like.
“Crap,” he croaked, struggling to his feet. He managed it with the help of the tree next to him, digging his nails into the serrated bark for dear life as the world tilted around him and his legs shook like a newborn colt's. The pain did a jig on his brain, so he rested his head against the cool mossy trunk. “Crap, crap, crap.”
“No crap!” Cloud piped up, her nudging insistent, almost bruising. “Go now! Go now!”
“Trying, buddy. Just... give me a moment.”
“No moment! No time!”
“All right! I'm going!” John pushed from the tree. His first couple of steps wobbled, but locking his knees, he stayed upright. He stumbled onward weaving like a drunk whose blood-alcohol level was over the legal limit, clipping trees and branches with his head and shoulders and cursing up a storm. Cloud wormed its way under his arm and let him lean on it. But the more he walked, the more the world righted itself and soon he was able to free Cloud from his weight and break into a light jog.
And not a moment too soon. The soldiers were coming, John could hear them, still too far away to be a threat but soon to change if John didn't start hauling ass. The headache wouldn't let him, each step shaking it up like shaking up a rattler. John dug the heel of his hand into his forehead as though he could smash the pain out of existence.
“Cloud what the hell happened to me?” he tried to growl, but it came out as a whimper.
Cloud floated up beside John, its face heart-breakingly pathetic in its concern.
“You lost song. Had to give it back. It hurts you, no know why. I so sorry, John, I am.”
“Not your fault, bud, but I really think we should stick close together, I...” Then he looked at Cloud, really looked at it, and the four lines of puckered skin across its side, visible only to John's strong eyes.
He gaped in horror. “Oh, hell, Cloud.”
Cloud shook its head emphatically. “No fault too. None. No song. Go nuts without song.”
“Yeah, I'm finally starting to get that.” He smiled wanly with a chuff. “Guess that means I'm literally stuck with you.”
Cloud beamed. But it was different, not as buoyant as before, as though Cloud had just woken up and couldn't shake off the lingering traces of sleep.
“You still tired, buddy?”
“I fine,” Cloud said. But like hell Cloud was. It was flying lower to the ground, its leafy fins sagging. John would have happily stopped to let it rest, but he could still hear their pursuers, their voices a mosquito hum in John's ears.
Then John remembered. “Hey, you didn't tell me you could move through walls.”
“No need to, you saw.”
“Yeah, but my memory isn't what it's supposed to be. Anything else I need to know about? You wouldn't happen to breathe fire, would you? Because that could come in handy.”
Cloud looked at him cock-eyed.
John snorted. “Yeah, never mind.” But at least that was one question ticked off the list, with the bonus that he no longer felt guilty over having sent Cloud on gate reconnaissance.
John ran until the noise of the soldiers faded. He leaped from rock to rock over a raging river churning up fists of foam, eased carefully through a copes of nettles and waded through a shallow pond.
Then Cloud could go no further, and drifted to the ground.
“Sorry, John,” it wearily breathed.
John, breathless from the wading but still rearing to go, knelt beside her. “Don't be.” He gathered it up and wrapped it around his neck. “You carry me, I carry you - it's all good, buddy.”
He walked, not seeing the need to run, as well as to give his throbbing skull a break. The only sounds were that of the forest, gentle now that the day was in full swing of late afternoon, the air sleepy, warm and sweet-smelling. But hunkered low in the back of John's skull, something stirred, like an itch waiting to be scratched, a thirst waiting to be satisfied. And there was the hunger, always the hunger, never weakening him but always there growing in strength until his hands twitched to grab the nearest living thing.
Crap, he was losing it again, with the nearest living thing currently wrapped around his neck and weaker than a newborn cat.
“I'm the reason you're tired,” John said. He angled his face toward Cloud's drooped head. “It's getting harder, isn't it? The more I change, the harder it gets.”
“No,” Cloud sighed. “I fine.”
John clenched his jaw, his teeth grating. “No, Cloud, you're not. You're keeping me human and it's costing you. Do the math, bud. You can't keep this up forever. And the moment this thing inside me breaks free, I'm turning on you. You know it.”
“No, no. I keep it back. I can.”
“No,” John growled, “you can't. Not forever.”
“I can. Just 'till you get home. Just then. Then I rest.”
John, fist balled, squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed the hard lump of frustration expanding in his throat. Why the hell did everyone he meet have to be so stubborn?
They hadn't traveled far, at least John thought they hadn't, when his nose caught something alien within the stink of mud, animals and wet wood. He couldn't really describe it, but he followed it, going slow and straining his ears to know when to bolt if bolting was the only option. It wasn't long before he stepped into a small clearing and could put a name to the smell - cabin.
“Didn't even know cabins had a smell,” John said. Having super senses certainly expanded ones world. He stood there, listening, but heard only insects and the breezes. All the same, John circled the cabin, spiraling closer, sniffing and listening until he was sure the place was empty.
Empty but not abandoned by how well-kept it looked - probably a hunting or fishing place. He peered through a window at the furniture protected by what looked like white plastic sheets. The door had an iron-wrought and ornate handle, but the lock was no match for his strength. Inside, the scent of dust was strong, and John sneezed, Cloud flinching in response. He moved to the right and an open door where there was a bed covered in plastic. John swept the plastic aside and coiled Cloud on the clean mattress. Then he explored.
The cabin was just like the places his dad would take him, way back before things between them went south. Dad had been all about experiences, and making sure his sons had plenty. Dave had whined a lot about there being nothing to do, but John had loved it - hiking, swimming, canoing, or just sitting back and soaking in the hushed tones of nature.
It felt like a lifetime ago, just one more memory he was going to lose.
John's chest ached. He swallowed. He could feel the itch, slinking like a lion toward a zebra, crawling like ants over discarded food, swarming the things that made him John.
And Cloud was right next door, its song a whisper in his head. It made him feel so tired. But that's the way it worked, he figured - make the man sleep, make the monster sleep, conserve energy.
But it wasn't working.
“Damn it,” John hissed, slamming his fist on what he'd looked to see was a writing desk. He pressed his lips into a line and scanned around as though the answer to his problem were right in front of him, he just wasn't seeing it.
“You know the answer, John,” he said. “You're screwed.” And Cloud would be screwed with him.
How much longer before the song failed? Before the 'gate? When they arrived? If he wreaked a path of carnage to the 'gate, how many bullets would it take to bring him down? Because even Ellia had dropped eventually. If he managed to make it through, then what? Forget to dial and keep killing? Or dial and take the killing to another world, then another, never making it home?
Or make it home and take the carnage there.
And Cloud would be first, hovering close by, always within easy reach, made oblivious by its utter faith in its song.
“Damn it.” John ran both hands through his hair, one blue, one flesh. He then lifted his shirt, stared at the blue scaled skin covering the entirety of his right side, tiny spikes growing from the chitin along his ribs and collarbone. He pulled at the waistband of his pants; more scales ran down his hip.
John's body deflated. “Oh, damn.”
It was only a matter of time, and time was running out.
“Screw it,” John said. He ripped away the plastic covering the desk and rummaged through the drawers. Outside, he could hear shouts, still a safe distance away but eating up even more time he didn't have. John pulled out a sheet of paper, a pencil, and wrote fast. Finished, he rolled up the note then headed into the room, rummaging through the dresser. He found a scarf. It would have to do. Gathering Cloud back around his neck, he left and ran.
“Whole damn planet must be after me,” John said. He didn't slow even when the voices faded, not until what felt like twenty minutes later, when Cloud started to stir.
John stopped. “You awake, bud?”
“Yeah. Guess.” Cloud yawned.
“Well, you need to shake it off. I got a job for you.”
That perked Cloud right up, rising off John's shoulders into the air. “What job?”
“A mission,” John said. He pulled the scarf from one pocket and the rolled note from the other. “An important mission.” He tied the scarf around Cloud's neck. “But you're not going to like it.” Then slid the note through the scarf.”
Cloud eyed him suspiciously. “Why I not?”
“Cause you have to leave, buddy. Go it alone.”
Cloud pulled violently away, glaring. “No!”
“Yes!” John snapped. “You have to. Cloud, listen to me and listen carefully. It's the only way. I need you to take this message to my people, okay? You need to go through the 'gate and go to Atlantis. You're the only one who can because you're the only one who can get through the guards unseen and pass through the shield.”
“We go together,” Cloud countered with petulant finality.
“Damn it, Cloud!” John barked. At the stubborn set of Cloud's face, John closed his eyes, breathed deep, slowly released it, and opened his eyes. “I'm fading, Cloud.” He tapped his chest. “This thing inside me is fighting. It's weakening you and the song. And even if we made it to the 'gate without getting shot to pieces, if you lose control on the other side and this thing in me breaks free...”
Cloud's anger weakened, giving sadness the foothold it needed.
“I'm not taking that chance, Cloud, okay? I know you don't like it, and you don't have to like it. I just need you to understand it. We're out of options, buddy.” He tapped the note. “This is the only one we've got.”
“But... but the monster.”
“I know,” John said. He smiled. “I'll be a little nuts for a while, but Atlantis will find me. We don't leave people behind. Trust me, bud. Will you trust me?”
Cloud's head bobbed, devoid of enthusiasm. It sniffled. “Yes.”
“That's my pal,” John said. Crouching, he sketched out the gate symbols in the dirt. “Memorize these symbols. Remember that table looking thing next to the gate? You press the symbols on that table in this exact order. Got 'em memorized?”
Cloud nodded dejectedly.
“Good.” John rose. Resting his knuckles under Cloud's chin, he brought its head close and whispered. “Good luck, buddy.” Then kissed its cheek.
Cloud whimpered and touched its snout to John's forehead. It was with a reluctance like having to severe a limb that Cloud slowly, inch by painful inch, floated away from John. And it did hurt, like a tearing in John's chest, because he might never see Cloud, never see his team or Atlantis, again. And Cloud was crying.
“Bye, bye, John,” said Cloud, and floated away.
Seconds ticked. John could feel them, like drops washing him away one memory at a time. The itch spread like oil over his brain, consuming him. The hunger was ravenous, his legs twitched. All he wanted to do was run, hunt, kill.
So he ran, no destination, no goal, no hopes and dreams, his only companion the pounding drum beat of his hammering heart. He ran, and it felt so good. It was all he needed in life. All he remembered, knowing only that he had been born running.
-----------------------
Night was best. It covered, hid, had prey. He ran, grabbing things that squealed, tearing into them, hot blood falling down his face, bathing his chest. He made no sound, was quiet like a shadow, flowed like water. He smelled things, prey things and enemy things. The enemy things were coming closer, always closer, too many to hunt. He knew, he could hear them, smell them, feel them.
“There he is!”
“Other side! Close in the other side.”
He threw aside his meal. He wasn't afraid. The enemy things couldn't hurt him. They were a game. They were fun.
“Oh, no, no, no, no, he's gone. He is so far gone!” squealed an enemy thing.
“He is not completely scaled. There could still be time,” said the female enemy thing. “Ronon!”
“I got him!” The male enemy thing.
Red light crackled over his skin. It stung. It made him angry. Male thing was dangerous, had to be taken out. He attacked. Male thing fired, over and over. Blue stinging lights joined them.
“It's not working!”
“John?” said a child thing. The sound of chimes in a summer breeze filled his head. It made him tired. So tired.
John. He knew that word.
John.
It was his name.
Red swallowed him, stinging his skin and he, whose name was John, fell to the ground and slept.
----------------------
Electricity ripped through John's body, locking his muscles and preventing his scream.
“I will not ask you again, Colonel,” said General Turin. “What are you?”
“I told you,” John rasped, panting. “N-nothing you want to keep around--” another jab to the stomach with the stun stick cut him off. General Turin looked on, the picture of unflappable military superiority. Except for the pale skin and stink of sweat. He turned to Academe Col standing confined between two officers.
“You're fortunate we can use this Col, but unless you unlock the secret of this... thing... then that fortune is short lived.”
Col looked as though he couldn't care less, shrugging. “Whatever you wish, Commander.”
Turin slapped him, ever the scandalized commander cheated on by the scientist who'd never given a damn about his wants in the first place. “Guard your tongue, Col. The ice you stand on is thin.” He turned back to John. “Again.”
A jab to the thigh.
“What are you?”
Another to the ribs. Another to the back.
“That is enough,” said Turin.
The soldier torturing John sneered in disgust and exited the cage.
“Figure him out, Col,” said Turin, moving toward the door, his subordinates following. “Make the consequences of your 'secret' worth it.”
When they were gone, Col looked to John, and John could have sworn he looked sad.
“It's for the best, Colonel,” he said, like pathetic justification. “You of all people should know this.” And he, too, left.
It was just John, blinking back tears, and the glass snake who lifted its weak head.
“You have sad, too?”
Windchimes filled his head. John smiled.
“Yeah. I do.”
---------------------
John opened his eyes, and panicked. Or would have if he hadn't felt like his limbs had been replaced with two ton led. He was lying down, not a good thing. Immobile, even worse. And he was staring up at a metallic ceiling, surrounded by the stink you only ever suffered in hospitals or morgues. Off the charts of how bad things could get. He started to squirm, to get the blood flowing and his muscles warmed enough for an escape that might ultimately prove futile but he didn't care.
No way in hell was he anyone's lab rat. If he was going down, he was taking whoever wielded a scalpel with him.
Then a familiar face loomed over him, and John went still.
“R'dny?”
Rodney seemed to melt in on himself, muscles winding down as though finally free of having to lug around a lot of weight.
But he said, as though John had punctuality problems, “Finally! Seriously, Sheppard, early to bed, early to rise gives everyone else less heart attacks. As does letting people know sooner rather than later that you're not dead after all.”
John's confused expression went ignored, or was misinterpreted, as Rodney plowed on. “Yes, we got your little note. Thank you for gracing us with one after two weeks! 'I'm still here. Turning into a bug. Please take care of Cloud?' What the hell, Sheppard, you can't even give us the courtesy of letting us know whether you want us to back off or save your miserable ass? Like we would have backed off but some clarity would have been nice--”
“Rodney,” Jennifer huffed, literally elbowing her way in to replace Rodney in John's line of sight. “Give him a break. He just woke up.” She shook her head, exasperated and tired. But looking down at John, she smiled. “You with us, this time, Colonel?”
“Guess,” John rasped, working his arms which still refused to budge.
“I'll take that as a yes,” Jennifer said. She then proceeded to unbuckle the restraints around John's wrists - that explained a lot - followed by moving a cup with a straw within reach of John's mouth.
But free and a little more hydrated, John still felt like gravity wasn't his friend. Just lifting his hand to rub his face made his whole arm shake with fatigue. “How long?”
“How long have you been missing or been sleeping?” Rodney butted in, all but shoving Jennifer out of the way.
“How long... been human?”
“Two weeks,” Jennifer said, busy checking the machines. “Your metamorphoses was faster this time around - don't ask me why, we're still looking into it - so the gene therapy was fast. Well, not super fast but faster than the last time this, you know, happened. I swear it was like the mutation had a mind of its own. It pushed so hard we weren't sure we could counter it.”
“Don't forget to tell him about all the bullets we found in him.” Rodney said it like it was something he'd been waiting ages to reprimand John for. “Ten. Ten bullets. Please tell me you didn't go human hunting.”
“Didn't go... Hannibal Lecter on... anyone...” John said. He puckered his brow in worry. “Ten? Really?”
“I removed them,” Keller said kindly. But grimaced. “But you're going to feel a little sore for a while. There was still enough mutation to help with major repairs but,” she shrugged. “You remember just how 'reverse' the reversed process can be.”
Boy, did John ever remember. He could feel the pull of stitches, the ache of unused muscles, and the general “ick” of having been in bed for far too long.
All of which he was happy enough to take. It meant he was human, one-hundred percent John Sheppard. Except...
John looked at Jennifer, long and hard. “How did this happen?”
Keller and Rodney exchanged looks, not troubled, but asking the silent question of whether to tell him now or when he was more awake.
They knew him well. Rodney shrugged and said, “That Academe guy. It's a long story that we promise to tell when you're more awake, more coherent and we don't have to repeat ourselves. In the mean time--”
“Rest,” Jennifer said.
Rodney frowned at her. “I was going to say stay awake so that Teyla and Ronon can have the privilege of knowing that you're not going to die on us after all.”
“They already know, Rodney.”
“Yes, well... it's a little easier to except when the not-dying person in question has his eyes open. Oh, here they come.” At Jennifer's glare, he added an indignant but pathetic, “What? So I gave them the heads up, so sue me.”
Teyla and Ronon moved quickly to the bed, all huge, toothy smiles as they surrounded John. And behind them, bopping along like a flying pup, was a brightly beaming Cloud.
“John, it is so good to finally see you awake,” said Teyla, touching her forehead to his.
“Sane and coherent,” Ronon said with a hefty pat to John's arm.
“You should try being the guy who's awake and coherent,” John said with a weak grin. “Feels like it's been a while since I felt this... normal.”
“Normal's subject to interpretation in this galaxy,” said Rodney. It was with much amusement that Cloud started nudging his head, and no amount of Rodney shoving it back would dissuade it. “And would you please do something about your alien carrier pigeon? My brain is too important to be used as its toy.”
“Cloud,” John said without a lick of reprimand. Cloud focused on John, bobbing up and down, trilling and squeaking, but not talking.
John realized he could no longer hear the sound of windchimes.
------------------
John tapped his finger quietly on the conference room table, multitasking between staring at the pale skin and blue veins of his human hand, and listening to the exchange of information between his team, Keller, Lorne and Woolsey.
Accelerated mutation followed by accelerated demutation was hell on the mind and body, as it turned out. Two weeks of sleep was the result when the brain had to reboot itself, kick out the inhuman that had fought tooth and nail to take over, then slot the human - memories and all - back into place. Keller hadn't been too happy trying to stave off muscle atrophy, but couldn't argue that the body's self-induced coma had been a blessing. She hadn't wanted to begin to imagine what it would have been like if John had been awake.
As it stood, John was one-hundred percent human, but he'd been premature to think himself one-hundred percent, period. Muscle atrophy and liquid diets did not do a body good. He was thinner, tired easily, and even after three days of being awake and moving around, was still confined to a wheelchair and denied the joys of bacon cheeseburgers and meat lovers pizza.
And Cloud could not longer speak to him.
It was wrong, on so many levels, that there were times when he caught himself missing what he'd almost turned into. When that happened, he had to think of the people he almost killed - yeah, he remembered that. Remembered the overbearing hunger, the mindless running, the love of the kill, and of raking black claws against glass-like skin.
“We found the notes day two into the search of Col's labs,” Lorne was saying. “They weren't word for word so it still stands that he only saw enough of Dr. Beckett's research to use as a starting point and figured the rest out for himself.”
“Should we be scared that a man from a society that can't make a computer stronger than a battery powered go-cart was able to hack into our tablets and steal secure data? And make a bad thing worse?” Rodney said.
“I think it's our own fault for underestimating him,” Keller said. She looked around at everyone, apologetic. “I mean, they have Ancient tech and know how to use that. Figuring out an Earth-made tablet would have been a cake walk. I honestly believed I hadn't brought enough of the data for anyone to utilize if they did manage to get their hands on it. I am so sorry.”
John's first mutation had at least come with the silver lining of shedding a little more light on a couple of genetic mysteries, mysteries such as genetic diseases that made people's lives hell. Finding a cure for certain genetic diseases had been one of the many Golician/Atlantis alliance projects, and the mutation data had been sorely needed for it.
“Not your fault, doc,” John assured. “The guy was doing all kinds of crap behind a lot of people's backs. The only way we would have seen it coming is if he told us.” And the bitch was, according to Lorne, Col had admitted everything. It was like he didn't care, Lorne had said. Like it didn't matter. There'd been a hearing, both Col and the Commander convicted, but the case reopened now that John was awake and clear-headed enough to toss in his story. Which seemed redundant to him - Col and the Commander were screwed to the point of never seeing daylight again.
Lorne went on to explain what was found in Col's notes, how Col had slipped the modified retrovirus into John's drinks at every opportunity, how he had everything prepared for when the signs of change first started to manifest, and that by “everything prepared” Col meant a means to dispose of John when he became too volatile to handle.
The meeting ended. John put his hands on the wheels to turn the chair around.
“Colonel, a word,” Woolsey said.
They both waited until it was just them, everyone else out of ear shot.
“Colonel, about the creature that delivered your message--”
“Cloud,” John said.
“Yes, Cloud. I've been wondering - strictly for curiosity sake - what you plan on doing with... Cloud.”
John shrugged his shoulder, but never took his eyes off Woolsey. Woolsey could push his nonchalance all he wanted, John wasn't feeling even remotely comfortable with where this conversation was going.
“Hadn't really thought about it.”
“Well, it's quite welcome to stay, of course. It's just that... there have been requests from zoology and biology--
“No,” John said, flat and harsh.
Woolsey sighed heavily. “They have no intentions of harming it. They merely--”
But John shook his head. “Not gonna happen.”
Woolsey pursed his lips, then said, “Understood.” And maybe for Woolsey, he did understand. Biology and Zoology? Not so much. Two people from both departments had already approached John several days ago while he was still laid up and mostly out of it. John vaguely recalled Ronon having chased them off. They tried a second time the very next day.
Progress, they'd said. Something about scientific progress and stealth technology. John vaguely recalled being the one to throw them out by chucking a kidney dish at them.
John wheeled himself out of the conference room and through the control room for as long as he was able - part of his therapy to regain muscle. When his arms gave out, Teyla wheeled him the rest of the way, having waited for him just out of hearing (or so she said). They didn't go to the infirmary but to Teyla's room, where Cloud was playing with Torren.
It was a punch in the gut: Teyla could hear Cloud, Torren, even the damn iratus bugs. Keller had figured it a telepathy thing, because when they had needed eggs, Cloud had been all over it. It had sung its song, putting the bugs into a coma and letting the team walk in like they had belonged.
The friggin' iratus could hear Cloud, and John couldn't. Not unless he wanted to turn back into a monster.
But Cloud could still understand him. John had asked, and Cloud had nodded.
No words could describe how unfair it was.
When Teyla wheeled John into her room, Cloud lifted its head from where it had been stacking blocks much to Torren's giggling delight. Cloud floated over, subdued as though it had been using the song all day, and touched its snout to John's forehead. It still thought it would work, and wouldn't take its endless failed attempts as an answer.
“Hey, buddy,” John said, rubbing its glass-smooth head. Cloud chirruped and squeaked, bobbing.
“It says it has been having a fun day,” Teyla said, moving around to Torren, who bounced and squealed now that momma was joining him in his games.
“That's good to hear,” John said, swallowing the lump trying to lodge itself in his throat. He was grateful for Teyla's help in communicating. But it couldn't be helped, he missed like hell Cloud's fractured babbling.
When Cloud next chirped and squeaked, Teyla frowned.
“Cloud wonders if we have figured out a way to let you understand.”
John sighed, “Still working on it, bud.”
---------------------
The addition of John's testimony wasn't a spectacle, thank goodness. John barely had the energy to deal with the eleven people crammed into the president's stuffy office - John, his team, a marine, Col and the commander in chains, two guards and madame President Halene herself.
John told his story, as much as he could remember, which was enough to make the Commander squirm. But not Col. If Col had any opinion concerning his fate, he didn't show it. He had made his bed, and had no compunctions about laying in it. Whatever followed after no longer mattered to him.
It pissed John off. Knowing that Col was going down didn't make a damn difference.
“Have you anything to say, Academe Col, Commander Turin?” said President Halene, standing tall, expression stern, but brow glittering with sweat. Col and the Commander may have been the wolves among the sheep but it was still Halene's flock, and Atlantis was still undecided as to whether or not to maintain the alliance (as far as Halene knew. Woolsey planned to honor the treaty, but wished to withhold this little fact in order to gauge Halene's sincerity. It was actually a Teyla tactic, something common in the Pegasus Galaxy. Take the goods being offered off the table to see how much they mattered, then put them back once the begging began).
Turin straightened. “I stand by my statement. The Lanteans have lied to us. They have the means for victory against the Wraith but refuse to share. The change Colonel Sheppard had undergone could have been utilized as our strongest weapon.”
Rodney muttered, “Yeah, only after he slaughtered you all.” Teyla rolled her eyes. Ronon glared at Turin and growled, but Turin ignored them all.
“Academe?” said Halene.
Col stood there, stock still and impassive, until he suddenly looked directly at John.
John met his gaze. “Liked the road you walked down, doc?”
Col looked away. “I have nothing to say.”
“Then I will add to my decision. For treason, Col, life with no chance of freedom. Commander Turin, you are hereby stripped of rank, and will share in Col's sentence. And may you be a reminder to us all: With every action, with every decision, there is always a consequence, for good or bad. Take them away.”
Turin was led out first, Col about to follow when he struggled to a stop.
“Wait,” he said. He turned his head to John. “The creature in the cage next to yours. What became of it?”
John had hoped to wait and address the matter when Col was out of the room. But now seemed as good a time as any. He pulled from his pocket a picture of a smiling Cloud.
“You mean this?” John asked. He glared. “It's a hell of a lot better off, that's where.” He slipped the picture back into his pocket. A severely frowning Col was prodded the rest of the way out of the room.
“That was a Seloian,” President Halene said, awe-struck. She looked at John quizzically. “They are among your world as well?”
“No,” John said. He rolled closer to the President's desk, pulled the picture from his pocket and set it down. “But I'd really like to know where they come from.”
---------------------
To the north of the Glocian capital were the Ranurow Mountains, considered the true heart of the Glocian empire. Deep in its caves were hidden the technologies that put Glocia ahead of the other worlds. Jagged, snow-capped peaks pierced the scattered clouds, their wide bases hidden under a carpet of trees.
Those mountains filled the screen of the 'jumper as John piloted closer, coasting along, just him and Cloud.
“See that, buddy?” John said. “You just keep watching, okay? Don't take your eyes off those mountains.”
Cloud's head nodded vigorously.
It was good fortune, President Halene had said, if you should look up and spot a Seloian swimming through the sky. Because when a Seloian flew, then you knew that everything was right in the world.
John brought up the HUD a third time and followed the dots of the LSD. “Keep, watching, bud. Just keep watching.”
There, gliding out from the clouds, a serpentine body like frosted glass, three times the size of Cloud. Cloud bobbed and squealed in delight, and John didn't need to understand it to know that it was laughing.
“Cool, huh?” John said. “This is where you come from, bud. This is home.”
Cloud stopped bobbing to give John a look so woebegone it made John's chest ache. Cloud trilled softly.
“Hey, hey, come on. Don't be like that. This isn't goodbye. You know where to find me and I'll know where to find you. We can see each other any time, right?”
Cloud perked up and nodded.
“Right,” John said. He angled down toward the cloud where the bigger Seloian had appeared. “So, what do you say we fly through some clouds, get this jumper a little wet.”
Cloud squealed, bopping around all over the 'jumper.
John grinned. “That is definitely a yes.” He dove into the clouds, and his mind filled with the memory of summer chimes.
The End