Waiting is the Hardest Part (Virus'verse 3, 1/2)
Title: Waiting is the Hardest Part
Author: somehowunbroken
Fandom: SGA
Characters: John, Evan, Michael, assorted others
Word count: 12,961
Rating/warnings: R/violence. adult situations, language
Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate: Atlantis.
Summary: 'Nobody was quite sure what to do about Michael Kenmore.' Part three of the Virus'verse.
Previously:
A day passed, a week, two; the Wraith became a man, and as the team watched with bated breath, was transferred from the cell to the infirmary, hooked up to machine after machine. Finally, thirty-three days after he'd been put under, Carson reversed the medical coma and the man blinked.
"Hello, son," Carson said kindly, shining a light into one eye, then the other. "How are you feeling?"
"Okay," the man said, and Evan watched as Carson handed him a glass of water. "Where-"
"You're in our infirmary," Carson explained. "We - found you. You were very sick." He hesitated. "What's your name, lad?"
The man set down the glass of water and looked up at Carson. "Michael," he replied. "Michael Kenmore."
-0-
Nobody was quite sure what to do about Michael Kenmore.
There were, John evaluated, two real issues with Michael. One was the fact that he had been a Wraith - okay, yeah, so he didn't remember it, but he'd been a Wraith. He was convinced that he was some sort of amnesiac, and that Carson and John and Evan (and the rest of the Lanteans by extension) were his rescuers. But he had been a Wraith, and even now that he was human again, nobody really trusted him.
This was related to the second issue, which was that nobody had exactly revealed the existence of the Wraith to Michael yet. A lot of the people who were infected became so because they wanted to, chose to trade their humanity for power and near-invulnerability, and since Michael didn't know anything about the Wraith, they couldn't be sure that he wouldn't go running right back and get himself turned again as soon as he found out.
The first time they'd realized how sticky the situation was going to be was right after Ford died. John had stopped in Michael's room; it had become sort of a habit of his while Michael was still in a coma, stopping by to check on the progress of their little experiment. It continued even after Michael woke up, and John had a little bit of a conversation with him each day. It was two days after Ford died that Michael brought it up.
"I'm sorry about your friend."
John hesitated. "Thanks," he said finally. "He was - a good kid."
"Was he sick long?" Michael asked, and John debated what to say, how to say it, without revealing anything.
"Two months, give or take," he replied. "He had the same thing you had, but the medicine was - it doesn't work for everyone."
Michael nodded, looking sad. "I guess I'm lucky then, huh?"
John left not long after.
-0-
Evan was going to kill John, and he was going to do it slowly, preferably in a manner that involved dull grapefruit spoons and the application of duct tape.
John! he called mentally again, fingers firmly around the stone in his pocket. What the fuck, Sheppard, where the bleeding hell could you possibly have gone?
Evan? John's voice came back, confused. I'm in my quarters.
Evan turned back abruptly, going the way he'd come. He had just been at John's quarters, and John hadn't answered the door. He also hadn't been in the gym, the commissary, their offices, the infirmary, the garage, the science wing…
Evan opened John's door and blinked. His friend was sitting, hair dripping, on the bed, wearing only a pair of boxers. "Oh."
"You were looking for me?" John asked. "Sorry, I don't take the stone in the shower."
Evan remembered his ire and narrowed his eyes. "What the fuck, Sheppard?"
John blinked. "Do you shower with yours?" he asked, drawling. "If so, Evan, we need to talk-"
Evan cut him off. "You're not supposed to go there," he growled. "You're especially not supposed to go alone."
John winced. "You weren't supposed to find out. It was fine," he insisted, seeing Evan's look darken even more. "There wasn't really even any danger. Nobody saw me."
"Sheer fucking luck," Evan retorted. "They see you now, we have to go back to square one. This plan is all we've got. We've been working on it for months. Do you not understand that?"
John narrowed his eyes. "I'm aware of that, Evan. I was trying to figure out the best way to-"
"That's why we have the teams!" Evan threw his hands in the air. "For recon shit! So you don't get made before you're even in position!"
John sat back on the bed. "Evan, look, I was over near there anyway, and I had an idea, so I just stopped by to check it out."
"You want to know how I know?" Evan said by way of reply. "James and Adam made you, Sheppard. James and Adam."
John winced again. James and Adam were good kids, but they weren't military, hadn't had specialized training. Apparently John had thought he was being more careful. Evan spoke again.
"Will you promise me you'll stay away from there until we're ready?"
John looked up at Evan, a calculating look on his face. "Fine."
"I mean it, John," Evan said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "You know, if they see you, I'm gonna have to go in. Which is fine, I'll do it, but we've already got you set up and it'll be months before we can get me to where you are."
"I said fine," John repeated. "I'll stay away."
Evan gave him a long-suffering glare. "Don't make me ask Ronon to shadow you," he threatened, and John's face broke into a grin. "Because I will."
"He would be the world's crankiest shadow," John remarked. "He hates babysitting detail."
Evan nodded solemnly. "That's why I'd pick him. He would make your life a living hell."
John reached out his foot and kicked Evan lightly. "We good?" he asked, and Evan nodded again. "Okay. Then I'm gonna get dressed and find some food. Hungry?"
-0-
John decided he was going to have to add a third thing to the list he was keeping about Issues With Michael. He didn't know what they were going to do with him.
Michael was fully human again, and had been on bed rest for long enough that he was completely healed. Carson had hinted that he wanted to let him out of the infirmary but John had hedged, citing the need to talk it through with Evan before they made a choice.
So now, here he was, hiding in his office and decidedly not talking to Evan.
"John?"
Scratch that. Hiding in his office, at least.
"Carson wants to let him out," John said as Evan took a seat. "Michael."
Evan sighed. "We knew he'd have to leave the infirmary eventually, John."
Yeah," John agreed. He'd known it in theory, in abstract, but it was suddenly staring him in the face, and he wasn't sure what to do with it. "I don't know."
Evan picked a pen off of John's desk and twirled it idly in his hands. "We might be able to use him."
"Yeah," John repeated. He'd thought about that, too. "It's dangerous, though."
"What else is new?"
John had to concede the point. "If he was a recruit, he might go back to them the second he figures it out."
Evan nodded. "And if he wasn't, he could be a pretty valuable asset." He put the pen down. "If he was turned against his will, then he's got even more of a reason to fight the Wraith more than some of the people we've got here."
John sighed, voicing the thought that had been bugging him. "I think he was a recruit."
"Why?" Evan raised an eyebrow. "I mean, other than the statistical probability."
"Remember how Ford was, even at the end?" John couldn't look Evan in the eye. It was hard for either of them to talk about Ford, harder for them to see the pain mirrored in each other's expressions as they did so. "He was still… himself. He had the ability to rationalize, to make decisions. He was still human underneath it all." John risked a glance at Evan and saw him looking thoughtful. "Michael… wasn't."
"No," Evan agreed. "He was completely Wraith. But there might be other reasons for that."
It was John's turn to raise an eyebrow. "Such as?"
"We don't know what the long-term effects of the virus are, and we don't know when he was infected. It could just get stronger as it goes." Evan absently picked the pen back up. "Maybe he was unwilling at first, but got tired of fighting it. Maybe he got a bigger dose than Ford did. Or maybe the virus makes you give in after a while."
"Ford was still Ford," John argued.
"Yeah," Evan nodded, "but he had more willpower than any two other people. He was stubborn as hell, John, and he wouldn't do anything that he thought might disappoint you." Evan held a hand up at John's look. "He would've licked the ground you walked on, and you know it."
"Look where it got him," John sighed, rubbing his forehead with one hand.
"Don't," Evan said mildly. "It could have something to do with his ATA therapy, too."
"Carson said there wasn't enough left in him to affect the change."
"Carson's guessing," Evan pointed out. "It's not like he can be positive, John. There's nothing to compare it to. Ford still turned, but maybe he had enough of the gene left in him that it changed the virus somehow, made it affect him differently. The point is, we don't know."
"That's part of the problem," John reasoned. "We don't know how Michael became a Wraith. And even if he wasn't willing the first time, who's to say that he didn't like it, wouldn't want to go back?"
Evan shook his head. "He doesn't remember being a Wraith. He can't remember liking it or hating it."
John blew out a frustrated breath. "I feel like we should just flip a damn coin," he groused. "We're just talking in circles here."
Evan gave a small laugh. "Well, however we do it, we need to come to a decision soon. We can't keep him in the infirmary forever."
-0-
Much to Evan's relief, no coin flipping was needed. They'd come to an agreement of sorts; Michael was assigned quarters between John and Ronon, and Evan had McKay and Zelenka wire the room for surveillance as stealthily as they could (which was, as they both pointed out, incredibly stealthily). By way of rotation, Michael was almost always accompanied, and he checked back in with Carson twice a day.
Atlantis held its collective breath for a week, then two. Things slowly returned to normal; at least, as normal as Atlantis ever was. The rotation schedule was scaled back when it became obvious that Michael wasn't going to spontaneously turn back into a Wraith or attack them all in their sleep. Carson made check-ins once a day, then once every other. Evan kept the security cameras in Michael's room, though.
"What is it that you guys do here, anyway?" Michael asked sometime in the third week he was out of the infirmary. "Dr. Beckett said you're some kind of research facility."
"That's true," Evan allowed. "We're doing a lot of stuff that's… pretty classified."
Michael frowned. "Classified how? You're not military."
He was observant, Evan would give him that. He tried a grin. "If I told you, I'd have to kill you."
Michael rolled his eyes. "And then you'd have wasted all that experimental drug therapy you gave me," he said mockingly, and Evan thought shit fuck damn it for a split second before he saw Michael's grin and relaxed.
"Yeah, it would be a real waste," Evan agreed, leaning back in his chair.
"So are you in charge here, or is John?"
Evan frowned. "Neither of us. And both of us. It's a little complicated."
Michael laughed. "Apparently." He paused. "Is there something I can do? Help out? I mean, I don't have any sort of security clearance that I know about, but I can make some mean hash browns."
Evan grinned at him. "I'll talk to John about it," he said. The smile slipped form his face as he contemplated the man in front of him thoughtfully. "You don't want to go home? See your family?"
"You'd let me go?" Michael laughed sharply, and again Evan was forced to admit the other man's intelligence. "Sorry. That's not fair. To be honest, I don't really have much family. The ones I have left probably don't even know I've been missing. I didn't leave much behind when I…" he hesitated. "Got sick."
"Sorry," Evan offered. "I didn't know."
Michael leaned back in his chair. "Now you do," he said simply. "So you'll talk to John about putting me in some sort of rotation? After all, you guys saved my life. The least I can do is sling slop or clean the bathroom floors."
-0-
"I'm just saying that I don't think it's really the best use of our resources to send me into the field!"
John sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Rodney-"
"Don't you 'Rodney' me, Sheppard. This is a waste of my time and yours Have Zelenka do it."
"Radek went last time," John explained again. "And the time before that. He's also working on something right now, Rodney, so you're going to have to go."
"Send someone else," Rodney insisted grumpily. "Send Markham."
"You're going."
"Stackhouse."
"You're going."
"Markham and Stackhouse."
"Rodney…"
"Fine!" Rodney snapped, throwing up his hands. "Send me into the field, let some Wraith turn me, then you'll see how much better off we would all have been if you had just let me stay in my lab!"
"Okay," John said cheerily, handing Rodney a sidearm and holster. "You're ATA-positive, Rodney, so at least you know that if they get you the worst that'll happen is you'll get a little sick."
"I bet I'm allergic to the virus," Rodney complained, letting John check his holster. "Do you think I should bring my Epipen? Well, not that I wouldn't bring it anyway, because I don't go anywhere without it, you never knew when someone will put some sort of citrus in your food-"
"If you get stabbed," John said seriously, "go ahead and use it. Just in case they used the knife to cut a lemon open or something."
"Fuck you," Rodney spat, and he walked out of the room.
John let the smile flare on his face as his friend left but felt it quickly fade away. He didn't blame Rodney for not wanting to go on the recon mission, but Radek had done the last two, and had begged John for a few days' peace to work on something that John hadn't been able to understand, between the science-speak and the fact that Zelenka still slipped into Czech when he got excited about something,
John wished that he didn't have to put his friends through this. Sure, he could smile when Rodney complained about the possibility of getting turned, but John was pretty sure that none of the other Lanteans knew how very much John was afraid of exactly that.
"They'll be fine."
Except, of course, for Evan.
"I know," John said, staring out the door. "Rodney, Laura, and Teyla."
Evan stared at him. "Okay, so maybe Cadman will kill McKay and he won't be fine. Seriously, John, why the fuck would you send those two out together?"
"She won't kill him," John protested. "Honestly, I think he has a thing for her."
"A thing," Evan repeated, disbelieving. "You're setting them up on some sort of blind date? Do they know?"
"No," John said. "Don't tell them. Let me have my fun."
"You are insane," Evan muttered, but he was smiling. "At least you sent Teyla with them. They'll all come back alive. Probably."
They all did, three hours later, with more information to add to their ever-growing data stores. The Lanteans were gaining ground against the cell. It was slow work, but they had a lot to show for it. John knew that it would all come together soon, that he would be able to get in and do what he came here to do. To destroy the cell.
At the very least, he owed it to Ford.
-0-
John poked his head into Evan's office. "Got a minute?"
Evan looked up from the charts he was studying. "Sure," he offered, jerking his head at the chair.
"You shouldn't go tomorrow," John said bluntly, swinging the chair around to sit on it backwards. He leaned it forward onto two legs, tipping it towards Evan. "You shouldn't be doing recon."
Evan sighed. "John, I can't be turned," he said patiently. "And I can-"
"-take care of yourself, I know. Not the point." John tilted his head. "You're the insurance, remember? If something goes wrong and I can't go in, you're the backup plan. You can't get made, either."
Evan hadn't considered that, not really, because if John got made they were going to be dealing with a hell of a lot more than just finding someone else to go in. "John-"
"I'm warning you now, Evan. I'm going to be really, really stubborn on this one."
"I'm already scheduled to go out tomorrow," Evan said practically. "We can talk about it more when I get back."
"I've already switched you out for Ronon," john replied easily, ignoring the dark look Evan was shooting him rather effectively. "Look, Evan, if the situations were reversed, you would already have had me swearing on a stack of Bibles that I wouldn't go, in case you got made and I had to go instead."
"That's because you're out of your goddamned mind," Evan informed him, exasperated. "Look, John, it's ridiculous to keep us both here."
"It's ridiculous to keep either one of us here," John muttered, but Evan kept going.
"We should have at least one of us in the field. You and I are the only ones who know all of what's supposed to go down, so it makes sense for one of us to be checking out the details."
"No," John replied. "It doesn't make sense for either of us to risk getting made by the cell. This plan's already held together with duct tape and hope, Evan. We only have one backup plan, and even that's pretty much a complete fucking long shot. Let's not jinx this any further, huh?"
John had, at least, been honest when he said he'd be difficult about this. "Fine," Evan said. Sometimes it was easier to just give in to John, and honestly, Evan could see his point. He believed his own, as well, and that would be a bridge they'd have to cross later on, but for now, he could let John have this one. "I'll stay home."
"Do I have to threaten you with Ronon, too?' John teased, setting the chair back on the ground. Evan rolled his eyes.
"If you and I are both out of rotation, he's not going to be available for babysitting duties," he pointed out. John grinned.
"Oh, he's gonna be so upset, I can just tell."
-0-
"They're called Wraith."
John watched carefully from the wrong side of the tinted glass. He should be in there, damn it, helping Evan and Carson explain this, but it had been decided that John's presence and occasional loss of temper regarding the Wraith would probably do more harm than good, so he was exiled to watch.
Michael stared at the pictures laid out on the table. He picked each one up in turn and studied it, eyes roaming over the pictures, taking in little details quickly and efficiently. Nobody said a word as he worked his way through the spread. It took him ten minutes to visit each one twice, and when he finally looked up, he was clenching a picture of Ellia.
"What are they?" he asked, his voice devoid of emotion. "Are they - human?"
"Yes and no," Carson said. He slid his eyes to Evan. They'd talked about this, all three of them - exactly how much to tell Michael, how to say it, when to reveal all the dirty little details. They all agreed it was probably best that they didn't bring it all out in the open at once, but John knew how smart Michael was, how good he was at fitting what he heard with what he knew wasn't said, and he had a bad feeling in his gut about this whole thing.
In the room, Michael's eyes were trained on Carson. "How so?" he asked.
"Wraith start out as people, same as anyone here," Evan took over. "There's a drug. A virus. When a human takes it, it makes them into…" He spread his hands, indicating the pictures. "That."
"Why would someone want to turn into that?" Michael's voice was incredulous.
"They are very strong," Carson said. "Very difficult to - they don't get sick, and they heal very rapidly."
"It's hard to kill them," Michael translated, and Carson winced even as Evan nodded. "And that's what you do here, what you're researching. These Wraith."
"Pretty much," Evan agreed. "There's a group of them here in Vegas, a cell. We're trying to shut them down."
"Kill them," Michael said flatly.
"Cure them," Evan contradicted. "We've developed a drug of our own, a retrovirus of sorts." He hesitated, and John could see the gears working in Evan's head.
Don't, John warned, his fingers tightly clutching the communication stone. Evan's eyes jerked to the glass and narrowed slightly before he turned back to Michael, but he didn't say anything further. John let out a sigh of relief.
"Cure them," Michael repeated, sifting through the photographs again. They had purposely not included a picture of his former self, though they had plenty. Nobody knew why Michael didn't remember being a Wraith, but none of them wanted to trigger a sudden resurgence of memories.
"Aye," Carson agreed. "We've also developed a kind of immunization against the original virus, though both are far from perfect." His face darkened, and John could see the image of Ford hanging over Carson's head, haunting him day in and day out.
"Huh," Michael said, and now John focused on him - the slight crinkling frown that indicated his mind at work, the pictures he seemed to be sorting into piles, the way his mouth was moving without making sounds. John watched the pieces click into place.
"You found me," Michael said a few minutes later. "I was - sick."
Evan nodded slowly. "Yes."
"Will you…" Michael's eyes closed and he looked like he was trying to make a hefty decision very quickly. "If I ask, will you tell me?"
"We're not here to lie to you, son," Carson replied. It was another thing they had discussed - if Michael asked them outright, they would tell him the truth.
Michael nodded. "I'm not sure I want to know," he said after a minute. "I'll - give me some time. Can I just - think about all this?" He waved his hands at the pictures again, now sorted neatly into two piles.
"Of course," Carson said, standing and heading for the exit. Evan sat for a moment longer, waiting until the door shut behind Carson before he spoke again.
"Michael," he said, and Michael looked up. "The Wraith - not all of them chose to become like this. Sometimes they attack other people, try to turn them by force." Evan hesitated and his eyes flicked to John's again, and John clenched the stone in his hand.
Go for it.
"They tried to force John into it," Evan said softly, and John's mind raced back to the knife, to Irina, to the scar he would carry for the rest of his life, to the sheer dumb luck of having an extra sequence in his DNA that would keep him from being infected. "It's not always a choice."
Michael nodded, but John could see that none of the tension had left his frame. Evan gestured to the piles.
"Why two piles?" he asked, and Michael frowned down at them.
"I just…" he hesitated, and Evan waited. "These ones seem familiar somehow," he said finally, tapping the pile on the right. "I don't know their names or anything, but I feel like I might have seen them before."
Evan gripped his stone casually as he flipped through the pictures, and they flashed across John's mind. Every Wraith in that pile was in the Vegas cell.
Fuck.
Evan got up and left a few moments later, leaving the pictures with Michael, who started to look through them again. He scrutinized each photograph for long minutes, sometimes jotting words on the back of one, sometimes passing over another, and John stayed behind the glass, observing the entire thing.
John knew that he'd figured it out. Michael knew.
-0-
Evan heard John's cell phone ring and picked it up off his desk. He walked to the door; John had run to the commissary for some coffee, and had, apparently left his phone, which he was supposed to have with him at all times. Evan sighed and glanced at the caller ID and walked two steps before his brain caught up with the information. He looked at the display again, noting he number, and flipped it open.
"This is Lorne," he said into it, but all he heard from the other end was a babbled stream of words he couldn't understand, punctuated at times by kurva and do pice and, occasionally, the low rumble of Ronon's voice in the background.
"Radek," Evan snapped. "English. Or give the phone to Adam."
Radek's voice increased in pitch, and the Czech was suddenly peppered with more words Evan could understand, some in English and others Czech that became more pronounced. Evan reached for his stone and concentrated on John in his head, trying to let him hear what was going on, or at least get the idea that something was wrong.
Ronon's voice came over the phone as Radek's babbling moved to the background. "Sheppard," he grunted.
"Lorne," Evan identified, already running to the garage. "The fuck?"
"Get the doc and meet us in the garage," Ronon said. "Three minutes, tops."
Evan clicked the phone shut and thought garage as he ran there himself, already dialing Carson's extension. He explained the situation succinctly - "Carson! Med kit, garage, now!" - as he skidded in the bay and threw the switch for the door. Ronon came peeling around the corner seconds later.
"What's up?" John yelled across the garage as he ran in from the other entrance. Evan shook his head, already heading for the van. He threw the back door open and heard Radek's babbling before his eyes adjusted. "What's he saying?" John asked, panting, much closer now.
Evan shook his head and leaned in to pull Radek out of the vehicle. "The only words I recognize are telling me that something got fucked up." As Radek moved from his place, Evan saw Adam curled up on the floor of the van, his arms around his chest and his eyes closed. There was a slice in his shirt, over his heart, and Evan could hear John spitting out curses even as he climbed into the van.
Evan grabbed Adam's face and leaned close. "Adam," he said clearly, holding his chin. Adam's eyes opened and searched around above him before focusing on Evan's face. "Adam. Hey. Come on, buddy."
"I'll be - fine," Adam gasped. "Just had - the booster. Two days."
Evan nodded. "Okay, kid, try to stay conscious, okay?" He heard Carson's voice across the bay and moved to the side as the doctor climbed into the back of the van and started a cheery dialogue with Adam as he rolled up the young man's sleeve. Carson kept talking as he filled a syringe with translucent pink liquid and inserted it into Adam's arm, chatting even as Adam hissed at the feel of the cold liquid in his veins.
"Sorry, lad," Carson said, signaling to someone outside the van, and a gurney appeared. Carson backed out of the van, tugging on Evan's arm until he left as well. "Ronon, could you - ah, thanks," he said as Ronon ducked into the van and swept Adam onto the gurney. "We'll have you well again in no time," Carson promised as the gurney was rolled away.
Evan turned back to the van as Carson, Adam, and James, who was pushing the gurney, disappeared into Atlantis. Ronon was leaning against its side, and seemed to have been waiting for Evan to turn, because he launched into his explanation right away.
"Found a group of 'em," he said. "About half a klick from the main compound. We were following, tailing 'em, and they went to this house, went inside. We got out and took up positions to observe."
"Is my fault," Radek said, distress obvious. His English broke as he spoke. "I was not careful. The královna - she find and she come, and the knife, it drips." Radek shuddered. "Adam, he push me, but královna, she cut him."
"I shot at her," Ronon picked up. "She ran, and we loaded him up and got him back here." He paused. "I guess this is the first real test of the doc's gene thing, huh?"
"And the retrovirus," McKay piped up from where he was trying to calm Radek down. "Zelenka, he's going to be fine. Between Carson's voodoo prevention and voodoo cure, Stackhouse will be back to saving your ass in two days. Three, tops."
"Is my fault," Radek mumbled again. He looked distraught.
"Radek," Evan said firmly, and the scientist looked at him. "This královna - that's queen?"
The scientist flushed. "Yes, queen," he replied, ducking his head. "I am sorry. When I have stress, I forget sometimes."
Evan shook his head. "It's her fault, Radek. You didn't stab him, right?" He paused, grinning, trying to lighten the mood. "Unless, of course, you did," he teased, and was rewarded with a small smile. "Right. Go write up your reports." The team dispersed, some more quickly than others, until only John and Evan remained by the van.
"Well, fuck," John said, taking a deep breath.
"Pretty much," Evan agreed. "He's going to be fine, John. It's not like it was with Ford."
"I know that," John said absently, string at the wall. "But knowing it logically and believing it are two entirely different things."
Evan was silent for a minute. "Coffee?" he said after a little while, hoping to distract John, who nodded and started walking towards the door. He stopped in his tracks a second later, and Evan plowed right into him. He steadied himself and stepped to the side.
Michael was leaning against the wall of the garage, his face troubled.
"He had a cut," Michael said, raising his hand to his chest. Evan nodded and waited; John tensed. Michael suddenly reached down and yanked his shirt up, exposing his chest. "Does he have one of these?"
The pink line ran down over his heart, and the blue lines extended out from the center.
John reached slowly for the hem of his own shirt and lifted it as well. Michael let his shirt drop as he stepped closer. After a moment, he raised his eyes to John's, and John nodded.
Michael closed his eyes. "I was one of them," he said, and as it had been when he first heard of the Wraith in Atlantis, his voice was completely flat.
"Yeah," Evan said.
"You cured me."
"Yeah," John replied.
"Why?"
"Would you rather we had killed you?" John asked dryly, and Evan smacked him on the arm. John ignored him. "We told you before, Michael. We're out for the cell. We're trying to cure them, but if they won't take the meds, they'll take the bullets." He shrugged. "For what it's worth, I'd rather fix it with the retrovirus than a gun." He brushed past Michael and headed in the direction of the commissary. Evan stayed back.
"You gonna be okay?" he asked. Michael took a breath and nodded. "I'm sure you have questions," Evan continued. "Come have some coffee with us. We'll explain what we can."
On to part two.
Author: somehowunbroken
Fandom: SGA
Characters: John, Evan, Michael, assorted others
Word count: 12,961
Rating/warnings: R/violence. adult situations, language
Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate: Atlantis.
Summary: 'Nobody was quite sure what to do about Michael Kenmore.' Part three of the Virus'verse.
Previously:
A day passed, a week, two; the Wraith became a man, and as the team watched with bated breath, was transferred from the cell to the infirmary, hooked up to machine after machine. Finally, thirty-three days after he'd been put under, Carson reversed the medical coma and the man blinked.
"Hello, son," Carson said kindly, shining a light into one eye, then the other. "How are you feeling?"
"Okay," the man said, and Evan watched as Carson handed him a glass of water. "Where-"
"You're in our infirmary," Carson explained. "We - found you. You were very sick." He hesitated. "What's your name, lad?"
The man set down the glass of water and looked up at Carson. "Michael," he replied. "Michael Kenmore."
-0-
Nobody was quite sure what to do about Michael Kenmore.
There were, John evaluated, two real issues with Michael. One was the fact that he had been a Wraith - okay, yeah, so he didn't remember it, but he'd been a Wraith. He was convinced that he was some sort of amnesiac, and that Carson and John and Evan (and the rest of the Lanteans by extension) were his rescuers. But he had been a Wraith, and even now that he was human again, nobody really trusted him.
This was related to the second issue, which was that nobody had exactly revealed the existence of the Wraith to Michael yet. A lot of the people who were infected became so because they wanted to, chose to trade their humanity for power and near-invulnerability, and since Michael didn't know anything about the Wraith, they couldn't be sure that he wouldn't go running right back and get himself turned again as soon as he found out.
The first time they'd realized how sticky the situation was going to be was right after Ford died. John had stopped in Michael's room; it had become sort of a habit of his while Michael was still in a coma, stopping by to check on the progress of their little experiment. It continued even after Michael woke up, and John had a little bit of a conversation with him each day. It was two days after Ford died that Michael brought it up.
"I'm sorry about your friend."
John hesitated. "Thanks," he said finally. "He was - a good kid."
"Was he sick long?" Michael asked, and John debated what to say, how to say it, without revealing anything.
"Two months, give or take," he replied. "He had the same thing you had, but the medicine was - it doesn't work for everyone."
Michael nodded, looking sad. "I guess I'm lucky then, huh?"
John left not long after.
-0-
Evan was going to kill John, and he was going to do it slowly, preferably in a manner that involved dull grapefruit spoons and the application of duct tape.
John! he called mentally again, fingers firmly around the stone in his pocket. What the fuck, Sheppard, where the bleeding hell could you possibly have gone?
Evan? John's voice came back, confused. I'm in my quarters.
Evan turned back abruptly, going the way he'd come. He had just been at John's quarters, and John hadn't answered the door. He also hadn't been in the gym, the commissary, their offices, the infirmary, the garage, the science wing…
Evan opened John's door and blinked. His friend was sitting, hair dripping, on the bed, wearing only a pair of boxers. "Oh."
"You were looking for me?" John asked. "Sorry, I don't take the stone in the shower."
Evan remembered his ire and narrowed his eyes. "What the fuck, Sheppard?"
John blinked. "Do you shower with yours?" he asked, drawling. "If so, Evan, we need to talk-"
Evan cut him off. "You're not supposed to go there," he growled. "You're especially not supposed to go alone."
John winced. "You weren't supposed to find out. It was fine," he insisted, seeing Evan's look darken even more. "There wasn't really even any danger. Nobody saw me."
"Sheer fucking luck," Evan retorted. "They see you now, we have to go back to square one. This plan is all we've got. We've been working on it for months. Do you not understand that?"
John narrowed his eyes. "I'm aware of that, Evan. I was trying to figure out the best way to-"
"That's why we have the teams!" Evan threw his hands in the air. "For recon shit! So you don't get made before you're even in position!"
John sat back on the bed. "Evan, look, I was over near there anyway, and I had an idea, so I just stopped by to check it out."
"You want to know how I know?" Evan said by way of reply. "James and Adam made you, Sheppard. James and Adam."
John winced again. James and Adam were good kids, but they weren't military, hadn't had specialized training. Apparently John had thought he was being more careful. Evan spoke again.
"Will you promise me you'll stay away from there until we're ready?"
John looked up at Evan, a calculating look on his face. "Fine."
"I mean it, John," Evan said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "You know, if they see you, I'm gonna have to go in. Which is fine, I'll do it, but we've already got you set up and it'll be months before we can get me to where you are."
"I said fine," John repeated. "I'll stay away."
Evan gave him a long-suffering glare. "Don't make me ask Ronon to shadow you," he threatened, and John's face broke into a grin. "Because I will."
"He would be the world's crankiest shadow," John remarked. "He hates babysitting detail."
Evan nodded solemnly. "That's why I'd pick him. He would make your life a living hell."
John reached out his foot and kicked Evan lightly. "We good?" he asked, and Evan nodded again. "Okay. Then I'm gonna get dressed and find some food. Hungry?"
-0-
John decided he was going to have to add a third thing to the list he was keeping about Issues With Michael. He didn't know what they were going to do with him.
Michael was fully human again, and had been on bed rest for long enough that he was completely healed. Carson had hinted that he wanted to let him out of the infirmary but John had hedged, citing the need to talk it through with Evan before they made a choice.
So now, here he was, hiding in his office and decidedly not talking to Evan.
"John?"
Scratch that. Hiding in his office, at least.
"Carson wants to let him out," John said as Evan took a seat. "Michael."
Evan sighed. "We knew he'd have to leave the infirmary eventually, John."
Yeah," John agreed. He'd known it in theory, in abstract, but it was suddenly staring him in the face, and he wasn't sure what to do with it. "I don't know."
Evan picked a pen off of John's desk and twirled it idly in his hands. "We might be able to use him."
"Yeah," John repeated. He'd thought about that, too. "It's dangerous, though."
"What else is new?"
John had to concede the point. "If he was a recruit, he might go back to them the second he figures it out."
Evan nodded. "And if he wasn't, he could be a pretty valuable asset." He put the pen down. "If he was turned against his will, then he's got even more of a reason to fight the Wraith more than some of the people we've got here."
John sighed, voicing the thought that had been bugging him. "I think he was a recruit."
"Why?" Evan raised an eyebrow. "I mean, other than the statistical probability."
"Remember how Ford was, even at the end?" John couldn't look Evan in the eye. It was hard for either of them to talk about Ford, harder for them to see the pain mirrored in each other's expressions as they did so. "He was still… himself. He had the ability to rationalize, to make decisions. He was still human underneath it all." John risked a glance at Evan and saw him looking thoughtful. "Michael… wasn't."
"No," Evan agreed. "He was completely Wraith. But there might be other reasons for that."
It was John's turn to raise an eyebrow. "Such as?"
"We don't know what the long-term effects of the virus are, and we don't know when he was infected. It could just get stronger as it goes." Evan absently picked the pen back up. "Maybe he was unwilling at first, but got tired of fighting it. Maybe he got a bigger dose than Ford did. Or maybe the virus makes you give in after a while."
"Ford was still Ford," John argued.
"Yeah," Evan nodded, "but he had more willpower than any two other people. He was stubborn as hell, John, and he wouldn't do anything that he thought might disappoint you." Evan held a hand up at John's look. "He would've licked the ground you walked on, and you know it."
"Look where it got him," John sighed, rubbing his forehead with one hand.
"Don't," Evan said mildly. "It could have something to do with his ATA therapy, too."
"Carson said there wasn't enough left in him to affect the change."
"Carson's guessing," Evan pointed out. "It's not like he can be positive, John. There's nothing to compare it to. Ford still turned, but maybe he had enough of the gene left in him that it changed the virus somehow, made it affect him differently. The point is, we don't know."
"That's part of the problem," John reasoned. "We don't know how Michael became a Wraith. And even if he wasn't willing the first time, who's to say that he didn't like it, wouldn't want to go back?"
Evan shook his head. "He doesn't remember being a Wraith. He can't remember liking it or hating it."
John blew out a frustrated breath. "I feel like we should just flip a damn coin," he groused. "We're just talking in circles here."
Evan gave a small laugh. "Well, however we do it, we need to come to a decision soon. We can't keep him in the infirmary forever."
-0-
Much to Evan's relief, no coin flipping was needed. They'd come to an agreement of sorts; Michael was assigned quarters between John and Ronon, and Evan had McKay and Zelenka wire the room for surveillance as stealthily as they could (which was, as they both pointed out, incredibly stealthily). By way of rotation, Michael was almost always accompanied, and he checked back in with Carson twice a day.
Atlantis held its collective breath for a week, then two. Things slowly returned to normal; at least, as normal as Atlantis ever was. The rotation schedule was scaled back when it became obvious that Michael wasn't going to spontaneously turn back into a Wraith or attack them all in their sleep. Carson made check-ins once a day, then once every other. Evan kept the security cameras in Michael's room, though.
"What is it that you guys do here, anyway?" Michael asked sometime in the third week he was out of the infirmary. "Dr. Beckett said you're some kind of research facility."
"That's true," Evan allowed. "We're doing a lot of stuff that's… pretty classified."
Michael frowned. "Classified how? You're not military."
He was observant, Evan would give him that. He tried a grin. "If I told you, I'd have to kill you."
Michael rolled his eyes. "And then you'd have wasted all that experimental drug therapy you gave me," he said mockingly, and Evan thought shit fuck damn it for a split second before he saw Michael's grin and relaxed.
"Yeah, it would be a real waste," Evan agreed, leaning back in his chair.
"So are you in charge here, or is John?"
Evan frowned. "Neither of us. And both of us. It's a little complicated."
Michael laughed. "Apparently." He paused. "Is there something I can do? Help out? I mean, I don't have any sort of security clearance that I know about, but I can make some mean hash browns."
Evan grinned at him. "I'll talk to John about it," he said. The smile slipped form his face as he contemplated the man in front of him thoughtfully. "You don't want to go home? See your family?"
"You'd let me go?" Michael laughed sharply, and again Evan was forced to admit the other man's intelligence. "Sorry. That's not fair. To be honest, I don't really have much family. The ones I have left probably don't even know I've been missing. I didn't leave much behind when I…" he hesitated. "Got sick."
"Sorry," Evan offered. "I didn't know."
Michael leaned back in his chair. "Now you do," he said simply. "So you'll talk to John about putting me in some sort of rotation? After all, you guys saved my life. The least I can do is sling slop or clean the bathroom floors."
-0-
"I'm just saying that I don't think it's really the best use of our resources to send me into the field!"
John sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Rodney-"
"Don't you 'Rodney' me, Sheppard. This is a waste of my time and yours Have Zelenka do it."
"Radek went last time," John explained again. "And the time before that. He's also working on something right now, Rodney, so you're going to have to go."
"Send someone else," Rodney insisted grumpily. "Send Markham."
"You're going."
"Stackhouse."
"You're going."
"Markham and Stackhouse."
"Rodney…"
"Fine!" Rodney snapped, throwing up his hands. "Send me into the field, let some Wraith turn me, then you'll see how much better off we would all have been if you had just let me stay in my lab!"
"Okay," John said cheerily, handing Rodney a sidearm and holster. "You're ATA-positive, Rodney, so at least you know that if they get you the worst that'll happen is you'll get a little sick."
"I bet I'm allergic to the virus," Rodney complained, letting John check his holster. "Do you think I should bring my Epipen? Well, not that I wouldn't bring it anyway, because I don't go anywhere without it, you never knew when someone will put some sort of citrus in your food-"
"If you get stabbed," John said seriously, "go ahead and use it. Just in case they used the knife to cut a lemon open or something."
"Fuck you," Rodney spat, and he walked out of the room.
John let the smile flare on his face as his friend left but felt it quickly fade away. He didn't blame Rodney for not wanting to go on the recon mission, but Radek had done the last two, and had begged John for a few days' peace to work on something that John hadn't been able to understand, between the science-speak and the fact that Zelenka still slipped into Czech when he got excited about something,
John wished that he didn't have to put his friends through this. Sure, he could smile when Rodney complained about the possibility of getting turned, but John was pretty sure that none of the other Lanteans knew how very much John was afraid of exactly that.
"They'll be fine."
Except, of course, for Evan.
"I know," John said, staring out the door. "Rodney, Laura, and Teyla."
Evan stared at him. "Okay, so maybe Cadman will kill McKay and he won't be fine. Seriously, John, why the fuck would you send those two out together?"
"She won't kill him," John protested. "Honestly, I think he has a thing for her."
"A thing," Evan repeated, disbelieving. "You're setting them up on some sort of blind date? Do they know?"
"No," John said. "Don't tell them. Let me have my fun."
"You are insane," Evan muttered, but he was smiling. "At least you sent Teyla with them. They'll all come back alive. Probably."
They all did, three hours later, with more information to add to their ever-growing data stores. The Lanteans were gaining ground against the cell. It was slow work, but they had a lot to show for it. John knew that it would all come together soon, that he would be able to get in and do what he came here to do. To destroy the cell.
At the very least, he owed it to Ford.
-0-
John poked his head into Evan's office. "Got a minute?"
Evan looked up from the charts he was studying. "Sure," he offered, jerking his head at the chair.
"You shouldn't go tomorrow," John said bluntly, swinging the chair around to sit on it backwards. He leaned it forward onto two legs, tipping it towards Evan. "You shouldn't be doing recon."
Evan sighed. "John, I can't be turned," he said patiently. "And I can-"
"-take care of yourself, I know. Not the point." John tilted his head. "You're the insurance, remember? If something goes wrong and I can't go in, you're the backup plan. You can't get made, either."
Evan hadn't considered that, not really, because if John got made they were going to be dealing with a hell of a lot more than just finding someone else to go in. "John-"
"I'm warning you now, Evan. I'm going to be really, really stubborn on this one."
"I'm already scheduled to go out tomorrow," Evan said practically. "We can talk about it more when I get back."
"I've already switched you out for Ronon," john replied easily, ignoring the dark look Evan was shooting him rather effectively. "Look, Evan, if the situations were reversed, you would already have had me swearing on a stack of Bibles that I wouldn't go, in case you got made and I had to go instead."
"That's because you're out of your goddamned mind," Evan informed him, exasperated. "Look, John, it's ridiculous to keep us both here."
"It's ridiculous to keep either one of us here," John muttered, but Evan kept going.
"We should have at least one of us in the field. You and I are the only ones who know all of what's supposed to go down, so it makes sense for one of us to be checking out the details."
"No," John replied. "It doesn't make sense for either of us to risk getting made by the cell. This plan's already held together with duct tape and hope, Evan. We only have one backup plan, and even that's pretty much a complete fucking long shot. Let's not jinx this any further, huh?"
John had, at least, been honest when he said he'd be difficult about this. "Fine," Evan said. Sometimes it was easier to just give in to John, and honestly, Evan could see his point. He believed his own, as well, and that would be a bridge they'd have to cross later on, but for now, he could let John have this one. "I'll stay home."
"Do I have to threaten you with Ronon, too?' John teased, setting the chair back on the ground. Evan rolled his eyes.
"If you and I are both out of rotation, he's not going to be available for babysitting duties," he pointed out. John grinned.
"Oh, he's gonna be so upset, I can just tell."
-0-
"They're called Wraith."
John watched carefully from the wrong side of the tinted glass. He should be in there, damn it, helping Evan and Carson explain this, but it had been decided that John's presence and occasional loss of temper regarding the Wraith would probably do more harm than good, so he was exiled to watch.
Michael stared at the pictures laid out on the table. He picked each one up in turn and studied it, eyes roaming over the pictures, taking in little details quickly and efficiently. Nobody said a word as he worked his way through the spread. It took him ten minutes to visit each one twice, and when he finally looked up, he was clenching a picture of Ellia.
"What are they?" he asked, his voice devoid of emotion. "Are they - human?"
"Yes and no," Carson said. He slid his eyes to Evan. They'd talked about this, all three of them - exactly how much to tell Michael, how to say it, when to reveal all the dirty little details. They all agreed it was probably best that they didn't bring it all out in the open at once, but John knew how smart Michael was, how good he was at fitting what he heard with what he knew wasn't said, and he had a bad feeling in his gut about this whole thing.
In the room, Michael's eyes were trained on Carson. "How so?" he asked.
"Wraith start out as people, same as anyone here," Evan took over. "There's a drug. A virus. When a human takes it, it makes them into…" He spread his hands, indicating the pictures. "That."
"Why would someone want to turn into that?" Michael's voice was incredulous.
"They are very strong," Carson said. "Very difficult to - they don't get sick, and they heal very rapidly."
"It's hard to kill them," Michael translated, and Carson winced even as Evan nodded. "And that's what you do here, what you're researching. These Wraith."
"Pretty much," Evan agreed. "There's a group of them here in Vegas, a cell. We're trying to shut them down."
"Kill them," Michael said flatly.
"Cure them," Evan contradicted. "We've developed a drug of our own, a retrovirus of sorts." He hesitated, and John could see the gears working in Evan's head.
Don't, John warned, his fingers tightly clutching the communication stone. Evan's eyes jerked to the glass and narrowed slightly before he turned back to Michael, but he didn't say anything further. John let out a sigh of relief.
"Cure them," Michael repeated, sifting through the photographs again. They had purposely not included a picture of his former self, though they had plenty. Nobody knew why Michael didn't remember being a Wraith, but none of them wanted to trigger a sudden resurgence of memories.
"Aye," Carson agreed. "We've also developed a kind of immunization against the original virus, though both are far from perfect." His face darkened, and John could see the image of Ford hanging over Carson's head, haunting him day in and day out.
"Huh," Michael said, and now John focused on him - the slight crinkling frown that indicated his mind at work, the pictures he seemed to be sorting into piles, the way his mouth was moving without making sounds. John watched the pieces click into place.
"You found me," Michael said a few minutes later. "I was - sick."
Evan nodded slowly. "Yes."
"Will you…" Michael's eyes closed and he looked like he was trying to make a hefty decision very quickly. "If I ask, will you tell me?"
"We're not here to lie to you, son," Carson replied. It was another thing they had discussed - if Michael asked them outright, they would tell him the truth.
Michael nodded. "I'm not sure I want to know," he said after a minute. "I'll - give me some time. Can I just - think about all this?" He waved his hands at the pictures again, now sorted neatly into two piles.
"Of course," Carson said, standing and heading for the exit. Evan sat for a moment longer, waiting until the door shut behind Carson before he spoke again.
"Michael," he said, and Michael looked up. "The Wraith - not all of them chose to become like this. Sometimes they attack other people, try to turn them by force." Evan hesitated and his eyes flicked to John's again, and John clenched the stone in his hand.
Go for it.
"They tried to force John into it," Evan said softly, and John's mind raced back to the knife, to Irina, to the scar he would carry for the rest of his life, to the sheer dumb luck of having an extra sequence in his DNA that would keep him from being infected. "It's not always a choice."
Michael nodded, but John could see that none of the tension had left his frame. Evan gestured to the piles.
"Why two piles?" he asked, and Michael frowned down at them.
"I just…" he hesitated, and Evan waited. "These ones seem familiar somehow," he said finally, tapping the pile on the right. "I don't know their names or anything, but I feel like I might have seen them before."
Evan gripped his stone casually as he flipped through the pictures, and they flashed across John's mind. Every Wraith in that pile was in the Vegas cell.
Fuck.
Evan got up and left a few moments later, leaving the pictures with Michael, who started to look through them again. He scrutinized each photograph for long minutes, sometimes jotting words on the back of one, sometimes passing over another, and John stayed behind the glass, observing the entire thing.
John knew that he'd figured it out. Michael knew.
-0-
Evan heard John's cell phone ring and picked it up off his desk. He walked to the door; John had run to the commissary for some coffee, and had, apparently left his phone, which he was supposed to have with him at all times. Evan sighed and glanced at the caller ID and walked two steps before his brain caught up with the information. He looked at the display again, noting he number, and flipped it open.
"This is Lorne," he said into it, but all he heard from the other end was a babbled stream of words he couldn't understand, punctuated at times by kurva and do pice and, occasionally, the low rumble of Ronon's voice in the background.
"Radek," Evan snapped. "English. Or give the phone to Adam."
Radek's voice increased in pitch, and the Czech was suddenly peppered with more words Evan could understand, some in English and others Czech that became more pronounced. Evan reached for his stone and concentrated on John in his head, trying to let him hear what was going on, or at least get the idea that something was wrong.
Ronon's voice came over the phone as Radek's babbling moved to the background. "Sheppard," he grunted.
"Lorne," Evan identified, already running to the garage. "The fuck?"
"Get the doc and meet us in the garage," Ronon said. "Three minutes, tops."
Evan clicked the phone shut and thought garage as he ran there himself, already dialing Carson's extension. He explained the situation succinctly - "Carson! Med kit, garage, now!" - as he skidded in the bay and threw the switch for the door. Ronon came peeling around the corner seconds later.
"What's up?" John yelled across the garage as he ran in from the other entrance. Evan shook his head, already heading for the van. He threw the back door open and heard Radek's babbling before his eyes adjusted. "What's he saying?" John asked, panting, much closer now.
Evan shook his head and leaned in to pull Radek out of the vehicle. "The only words I recognize are telling me that something got fucked up." As Radek moved from his place, Evan saw Adam curled up on the floor of the van, his arms around his chest and his eyes closed. There was a slice in his shirt, over his heart, and Evan could hear John spitting out curses even as he climbed into the van.
Evan grabbed Adam's face and leaned close. "Adam," he said clearly, holding his chin. Adam's eyes opened and searched around above him before focusing on Evan's face. "Adam. Hey. Come on, buddy."
"I'll be - fine," Adam gasped. "Just had - the booster. Two days."
Evan nodded. "Okay, kid, try to stay conscious, okay?" He heard Carson's voice across the bay and moved to the side as the doctor climbed into the back of the van and started a cheery dialogue with Adam as he rolled up the young man's sleeve. Carson kept talking as he filled a syringe with translucent pink liquid and inserted it into Adam's arm, chatting even as Adam hissed at the feel of the cold liquid in his veins.
"Sorry, lad," Carson said, signaling to someone outside the van, and a gurney appeared. Carson backed out of the van, tugging on Evan's arm until he left as well. "Ronon, could you - ah, thanks," he said as Ronon ducked into the van and swept Adam onto the gurney. "We'll have you well again in no time," Carson promised as the gurney was rolled away.
Evan turned back to the van as Carson, Adam, and James, who was pushing the gurney, disappeared into Atlantis. Ronon was leaning against its side, and seemed to have been waiting for Evan to turn, because he launched into his explanation right away.
"Found a group of 'em," he said. "About half a klick from the main compound. We were following, tailing 'em, and they went to this house, went inside. We got out and took up positions to observe."
"Is my fault," Radek said, distress obvious. His English broke as he spoke. "I was not careful. The královna - she find and she come, and the knife, it drips." Radek shuddered. "Adam, he push me, but královna, she cut him."
"I shot at her," Ronon picked up. "She ran, and we loaded him up and got him back here." He paused. "I guess this is the first real test of the doc's gene thing, huh?"
"And the retrovirus," McKay piped up from where he was trying to calm Radek down. "Zelenka, he's going to be fine. Between Carson's voodoo prevention and voodoo cure, Stackhouse will be back to saving your ass in two days. Three, tops."
"Is my fault," Radek mumbled again. He looked distraught.
"Radek," Evan said firmly, and the scientist looked at him. "This královna - that's queen?"
The scientist flushed. "Yes, queen," he replied, ducking his head. "I am sorry. When I have stress, I forget sometimes."
Evan shook his head. "It's her fault, Radek. You didn't stab him, right?" He paused, grinning, trying to lighten the mood. "Unless, of course, you did," he teased, and was rewarded with a small smile. "Right. Go write up your reports." The team dispersed, some more quickly than others, until only John and Evan remained by the van.
"Well, fuck," John said, taking a deep breath.
"Pretty much," Evan agreed. "He's going to be fine, John. It's not like it was with Ford."
"I know that," John said absently, string at the wall. "But knowing it logically and believing it are two entirely different things."
Evan was silent for a minute. "Coffee?" he said after a little while, hoping to distract John, who nodded and started walking towards the door. He stopped in his tracks a second later, and Evan plowed right into him. He steadied himself and stepped to the side.
Michael was leaning against the wall of the garage, his face troubled.
"He had a cut," Michael said, raising his hand to his chest. Evan nodded and waited; John tensed. Michael suddenly reached down and yanked his shirt up, exposing his chest. "Does he have one of these?"
The pink line ran down over his heart, and the blue lines extended out from the center.
John reached slowly for the hem of his own shirt and lifted it as well. Michael let his shirt drop as he stepped closer. After a moment, he raised his eyes to John's, and John nodded.
Michael closed his eyes. "I was one of them," he said, and as it had been when he first heard of the Wraith in Atlantis, his voice was completely flat.
"Yeah," Evan said.
"You cured me."
"Yeah," John replied.
"Why?"
"Would you rather we had killed you?" John asked dryly, and Evan smacked him on the arm. John ignored him. "We told you before, Michael. We're out for the cell. We're trying to cure them, but if they won't take the meds, they'll take the bullets." He shrugged. "For what it's worth, I'd rather fix it with the retrovirus than a gun." He brushed past Michael and headed in the direction of the commissary. Evan stayed back.
"You gonna be okay?" he asked. Michael took a breath and nodded. "I'm sure you have questions," Evan continued. "Come have some coffee with us. We'll explain what we can."
On to part two.