Waiting is the Hardest Part (Virus'verse 3, 2/2)
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.
John was planning.
Well, to be more accurate, John was doing his best to plan. He sucked at planning. Planning was Evan's thing, but Evan was in the infirmary with Adam, so John was in his office. Planning.
He blew out a frustrated sigh and scowled at the papers on his desk. They had all the information they needed; at least, they had everything they were going to get before he went in. They had locations, numbers, transit details, schedules, and had even managed to grab a few names out of the mix - no major players, but it was good to know even a few grunts' names.
John was debating whether or not it would be considered childish to stick his tongue out at the mess on his desk if nobody was there to see it when he heard a knock at the door. He glanced up and found Michael hovering in the hallway.
"Come in," John said, pushing out a chair with his foot. "I'm drowning in paperwork."
Michael sat in the chair and glanced at John's papers. He pulled out a picture - one of the Wraith higher-ups, someone who seemed to be close to the top. He was big, and John for some reason thought he looked familiar, though he couldn't quite place him. Evan had written identify on the bottom in black marker, as if they needed the reminder.
"I want to help you guys fight," he said, playing with the picture idly. "There's - they must have forced me, John. There's no way I would want to be something that just hurts people."
John shifted back in his chair. "Well, normally I'd say we could use all the help we can get, but I think you'll understand when I say that I'll have to talk to Evan about anything more involved than kitchen duty."
Michael nodded, looking at the picture in his hands but not really focusing on it. "I know you don't trust me," he said finally.
"It's not that," John said quickly, then frowned. "Well, it is that, but it's nothing personal."
"It's because I don't remember being turned," Michael said, and John once again recalled how intelligent the man was. "Because I have these little snippets of the last two years of my life, but almost none of it is helpful. Because you're not sure that I won't join up again if I get near them."
"You have to admit, they're valid concerns," John pointed out.
Michael nodded. He tossed the picture down on the table and tapped identify. "Bob."
John blinked. "Pardon?"
"His name. Bob. He came to the cell about a year ago, maybe a little more. He was part of some sort of cell in Colorado, but their queen was killed." Michael looked at John, who was staring at the picture intently, remembering being strapped to a chair, Irina telling him that she wanted him to writhe and moan and beg, a broad-shouldered Wraith stepping in and talking to her when she was ready to kill him with her bare hands, Irina returning with the knife.
Freakshow. Irina's Freakshow. He was here, in Vegas, and he was part of the new cell. To top it all off, apparently his name was Bob.
Shit, John decided, was weird.
"Bob," he managed, pulling Evan's labeling marker from a cup on his desk and writing the name on the photograph. "Do Wraith use their real names, or is Bob some sort of pseudonym?"
Michael frowned. "I'm not sure. I - think they still called me by my name. Of course, I might be remembering wrong, and even if I'm not, that's not to say that everyone goes by their real name."
"Ah," John replied intelligently. "So this guy might or might not be Bob."
"Pretty much," Michael agreed. "But I do remember him pretty clearly. He's-" He paused. "He's not in charge of everything, but he's high in the command. I think - whatever I was doing for them, he was my supervisor, or something like that. I saw him a lot. That's probably why I remember him."
"Bob." John rolled the thought over in his brain. This was good intel.
If it was true. If they could trust Michael. John sighed and scowled at the papers on his desk again.
"What is it you're trying to do?" Michael asked, looking at the papers as well. "If you can tell me, that is," he added as John stayed silent.
"Trying to figure out how to get in," John said, deciding that Michael could, at least, know that, if he hadn't figured it out already. "We'd like to get as much intel as we can from the inside before we take them down. To do that, one of us needs to go in, and I'm the lucky bastard."
Michael smiled slowly. "Talk to Evan," he said, standing up in a fluid motion. "See if you guys will agree to let me help. If so, I have an idea."
-0-
Michael's idea was simple, and that was why it would work.
Unfortunately, Evan decided, he hated every single step, every detail, every fucking thought that made up this plan, but since they hadn't come up with anything better, this was going to work.
John had come to talk to him after Michael had visited his office, holding one of their pictures, with his identify now accompanied by John's Bob. He'd snorted at it, and John had rolled his eyes.
"If he was going to just make up a name, I'm sure he would've come up with something better than Bob," John had pointed out, and though Evan wasn't tempted to agree with him, the next words from his friend's mouth stilled him. "It's Freakshow."
Evan had grabbed the picture and studied it long and hard. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah," John had said, not looking at the picture. "I thought I was going to have to make out with him, Evan, I'm pretty sure."
Evan had made a face. They had talked some more, and that had led them here, to Michael's plan.
Evan scowled at life in general. Michael had approached the clan two weeks before, making his presence known and sharing selected parts of his story. Most of it was heavily edited, of course, but there was enough truth in it to keep it stable. Michael was wired the entire time - "In case something goes wrong," Evan had said when placing the wire. Michael had just laughed and said, "So you can keep an eye on me" - but so far, things were going according to plan.
Michael's plan was, essentially, to reintegrate himself with the clan as a human. He would tell them of Atlantis and what they were doing, claim he'd been turned back against his will, and that he wanted to be re-Wraithified. He would tell them that he had a new recruit, someone else who wanted to be turned, and he would introduce John. It would be a false identity, of course; his name would be John Marshall, he'd be a construction worker, he'd play dumb grunt. Then they'd both be in, both able to gather intel, be each other's backup if it was needed.
That was supposed to be Evan's job. Evan was John's backup, not some former Wraith who had become an ally for reasons unknown, not some guy Evan didn't trust. But it was the plan, and come hell or some high fucking water, Evan was going to stick to it.
He shifted in the van, watching through his binocs as Michael and John strolled through the front doors of the warehouse that the Wraith were using, still registered in Ellia's name. Adam turned form his spot in the back of the van, headphones covering one ear.
"Don't worry about them," Adam said. "Neither of them can be turned." John was ATA-positive, and Michael had been given the immunization. "They're both armed, and I've got an ear on them in case John sticks his foot in his mouth." He grinned and Evan had to concede the point.
Adam was fine. Carson's retrovirus, combined with the immunization, had meant that he was only in the infirmary for three days. He had bounced right back, and after being kept off the rotation schedule for a week, had demanded to be let back into the field. John had just shrugged and added his name back in.
They sat in the van for six hours before another came to replace them. Evan nodded to Ronon, who was driving the other van, and Teyla, who was sitting in the passenger's seat. He knew that McKay would be grumbling in the back of the van, ready to take over Adam's post, listening to their wires.
Adam grinned a minute later. "McKay's in," he told Evan. "And bitching."
"Of course he is," Evan said dryly. "Means he's still alive."
Adam tapped his radio. "All right, McKay, we're headed out. Yeah, six hours. I don't know." He turned to Evan. "McKay wants to know who will be replacing him, says he wants to be sure it's someone competent."
"Tell him I'm bringing a quadroon of lobotomized baboons," Evan said seriously, starting the van. "Better yet, tell him I'm sending Cadman. He might actually believe that for a second."
Adam laughed as he relayed the message and quickly switched off his radio. "Fifteen seconds before he calls you," he bet, but Evan's phone started to ring before Adam finished speaking.
"Shut it, McKay," Evan said as he opened the phone. "I'm sending James up with her." He flipped the phone shut and tossed it back down into the console before driving away.
He hadn't mentioned that he'd be back himself with the other two. He'd spend the next few hours sleeping, and then he'd be back. John and Michael would be inside for a few days, Michael had said, so they could question him. Atlantis personnel would be nearby at all times, and Evan planned to be there himself as much as he could.
He didn't trust Michael. He would be John's backup if John needed him.
-0-
John and Michael were inside the compound for five days. By the end of it, John wanted a shower and to sleep, in that order, though only just. Of course, as he drove away from the complex with Michael, he knew that he probably wouldn't get the chance to do either before talking to Evan at length about his time with the Wraith. Sighing, he grabbed his communication stone and sent a thought towards the van following them inconspicuously.
Going home. See you shortly.
Okay, he heard back instantly. Then, almost hesitantly, All good?
Well enough, he decided. Evan let it drop.
They got back to Atlantis twenty minutes later. The van had beaten them back; they had broken away and gone in different directions, just in case the Wraith had sent a tail vehicle. It didn't look like they had, for which John was grateful. That meant that he'd probably passed their little testing period.
Evan was leaning against the side of the van when they pulled in. He stood when John opened the door. "How was it?"
"Long," John said, and Michael added, "Informative."
John could see Evan's eyes brighten. "Yeah?" he said, joining them as they walked into Atlantis. "We taped everything. Radek and McKay are working through it."
"Yeah," John confirmed. "Saw some cool stuff, too. Got a feel for the layout, some numbers, some day-to-day shit." He hesitated. "Look, can I grab a shower before we do this? Apparently Wraith don't need to shower to stay all nice and slimy. I feel gross."
Evan blinked at him. "That's… disgusting," he thought aloud, nodding to Michael and John. "Feel free. An hour?"
"Sure," John said, thankfully walking back to his quarters.
Twenty minutes later, John felt human again. He was clean, wearing clean clothing, and he'd already washed what he'd been wearing nonstop for the past five days. He left the clothing in the spin cycle and headed to Evan's office. He knew that "an hour" was for Michael, and that this would give Evan time to ask about anything he wanted to without worrying about the other man.
"Hey," John greeted, dropping into the chair in Evan's office.
"So?" Evan asked.
"He's fine," John replied. "We were together pretty much the whole time, and you've got tapes from when we weren't. Nothing suspicious."
Evan relaxed a little. "I wish we could just trust him," he said, frustrated.
"I know what you mean," John agreed, running his hands through his hair. "I want to. It would make this a lot easier, that's for sure. But I can't do it."
"Nope," Evan said. "Neither can I." He frowned. "So Wraith don't shower."
John made a face. "Nope. Not a shower in the whole warehouse. Apparently they like their grime."
"I wonder if it's more than that," Evan said thoughtfully. "Think about it. Have we ever seen them outside when it's raining? Ever seen a Wraith even take a drink?"
"What, you think they pull a Wizard of Oz, I'm melting, I'm melting?"
Evan shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe it's coincidence." They both knew what that meant. In this line of work, there was no such thing as coincidence.
They talked for fifteen minutes or so about what John had missed in Atlantis before Michael showed up. He laughed as he knocked on the door. "Thought I'd be early," he said.
John grinned at him. "If I sat in my quarters, I would've fallen asleep. Evan was telling me that he caught Rodney and Laura not fighting the other day." For those two, it was as telling as if Evan had walked in on them making out, John thought. "She was helping him. Actually helping."
Michael laughed again and leaned against the wall. "So when's the wedding?"
Evan rolled his eyes. "Go grab a chair from John's office," he said, and when Michael left, he turned to John. "Anything else?"
John shook his head but took his stone out of his pocket, playing with it idly. Evan already had his in his hand, under his desk. Michael thought they were good-luck charms; if anything came up, John would be able to communicate it without Michael realizing it.
John wished they could trust him, but he knew better. He knew he couldn't. Not yet.
-0-
John and Michael had gathered a lot of good intel, a lot of things that they hadn't known before. For one, Freakshow's name really did appear to be Bob, Evan thought with a roll of his eyes. Unfortunately, they hadn't come in contact with the queen, and any attempt by either of them to get more information about her was shut down rather quickly. Evan sighed.
John was back at the warehouse now, without Michael this time, though still armed and wired. His backup vehicle was less than two blocks away, and Evan itched to be there with Ronon and Teyla, but knew that his own mission was equally important. He was tailing Michael, who had asked if he could "have a few days."
Evan had agreed, offered to get him transportation to wherever, and when Michael had declined, had put a tracker in the man's shoes and followed him at length. Michael had gone into Vegas proper, checked into a hotel, and hadn't moved from the building in nearly six hours. Evan wasn't certain that his plant hadn't been made, but the signal continued to travel around the hotel, so either Michael hadn't figured it out or he was leaving it there as a show of good faith. Either way, Evan was counting his blessings.
His cell phone chirped, and he looked down at the display and frowned. McKay.
"Lorne," he answered, automatically holding the phone a few inches from his face. Sure enough, McKay started yelling the second the phone was answered. Evan listened halfheartedly, wondering if he should interrupt the scientist's babbling - he didn't seem to be reporting anything important, just calling to bitch to Evan since John was unavailable - when he realized that Michael's transponder was moving away from him.
"McKay," he cut in. "You have a lock on that transponder you gave me?"
"Of course I do," McKay huffed.
"Can you get a visual?" Evan hadn't seen Michael leave the hotel. He started his car and pulled out, trying to spot Michael's vehicle as he neared the signal.
"There are a few cars in the picture I got," McKay said a few seconds later. "Traffic camera. I don't see Michael's in there."
"Hang on, the signal's turning," Evan said, breaking away and following the signal down a side street. It could still be one of two cars. "Can you see him in any of the cars?"
"No," McKay reported. "Think he's been captured?"
Evan made a final turn behind the signal and stared into the back of the garbage truck in front of him, the only vehicle on the road. He smacked the steering wheel in frustration. "No," he said angrily. "I think he fucked us over."
Evan made his way back to the hotel in a haze. He stalked into the lobby and flashed his long-defunct military identification at the clerk, praying that the young woman wouldn't ask to inspect it closely. "Major Evan Lorne, USAF," he said in a commanding tone. "I'm looking for someone."
The young woman looked appropriately terrified. Terrified usually meant cooperative. "Someone here?"
"Oh, I hope so," Evan said grimly, reaching for the photograph of Michael that he'd had on him since this whole fiasco had started. "I think this man checked in a few hours ago. Do you recognize him?"
"Oh, yes," the girl said, flushing slightly. "Mr. Sheppard."
Of course he'd used John's name. Evan seethed as he asked, "Is he still here?"
The girl frowned. "I'm not sure," she said, clicking away at her keyboard. "He only got a room for one night, and I don't think he was planning on staying long." She looked at Evan apprehensively. "I can call up-"
"No," Evan said, and her hand hovered above the phone. "Get me a key to his room."
The girl hesitated, and Evan narrowed his eyes. She grabbed a keycard from a drawer and pushed it into a machine, which glowed and clicked. She handed it to him without looking at him and said, "Room 638."
Evan was halfway to the elevators before McKay answered. "Room 638, checked in as John," he growled, and heard McKay's responding sound of annoyance. "Can you get into the hotel's security?"
He heard tapping as he stepped into the elevator. "I'm in," Evan heard, "Let me download the last few hours and take a look."
"Send Adam and James up here," Evan said, and hung up. The elevator was opening on the sixth floor, and Evan stepped out and headed to the left. Room 638 was almost at the end of the hallway, near the emergency stairs, and Evan started a string of curses under his breath. Michael had probably planned it that way - near to an alternative exit.
Evan pressed his ear to the door and stifled his profanity as he listened. There was no sound from inside, so he quickly pulled out his sidearm, opened the door, and stepped in.
The room was neat and clean. The only evidence that it had been occupied at all was a damp towel hanging to dry in the bathroom and an addressed envelope on the desk. Evan glanced at it and saw his name. The letter inside was short.
I can't get you to trust me, and I won't go back to them. From now on, I'm working by myself.
Evan started cursing again.
-0-
John's cell phone chirped, but he ignored it in favor of he attention to the woman in front of him. She was tall and slender, with long red hair. The queen.
John was currently giving her his best charming smile. "I don't know where he is, ma'am."
The queen hissed at him. "I will have him here," she informed him angrily. "You cannot protect him."
John frowned. "Protect him? Trust me, ma'am, I wouldn't protect him from much of anything. I've told your guys; I don't know him all that well. He was just a way in, just some guy I met in a bar who told me these stories about being.. more than human. Super-human. I was interested, he told me he could help me out, and here I am." He hoped his lies were convincing.
Apparently they were enough. "This has what has been relayed to me," she said. "But if you know where he is and you do not tell me, I will not hesitate to kill you instead of giving you what you want."
John was mentally calculating in his mind. Michael had obviously done something to piss off the queen, whose name he still hadn't managed to get from the others and which she hadn't offered when she'd stormed in, and she was now looking for the other man. He decided to go with the truth, or part of it, anyway "He told me he was taking off for a few days. Didn't say where, or when he'd be back." He shrugged. "I'll tell him you're looking for him if he calls."
The queen's eyes narrowed. "No," she said, stepping forward and giving him a smile. She put her hand over his heart and it was all John could do not to shudder and back away. "I will give you what you want if you turn him in to me."
John smirked down at her. "I'll give you what you want, if I can."
"Bring him here," she said, leaning closer to whisper in his ear. John hoped she took the shiver that ran through him as desire rather than disgust. "Bring him to me, and I will turn you."
John left the complex not long after, swearing up and down hat he'd search for Michael and lure him back to the compound. He took out his cell phone and glanced at the screen as he drove away. Four missed calls from Evan in the past hour.
Shit. Something was wrong.
"Jesus fuck, Sheppard," Evan's voice came over the phone, part annoyance and part relief. "I was ready to leave Adam and James here to come rescue your sorry ass."
"Cadman was listening in," John pointed out. "What's up?"
"Michael's gone," Evan said. "I followed him to a hotel in Vegas and he gave us the slip. Left a letter that I can sum up as 'fuck everyone,' tossed his shoes in the garbage, and walked out under our noses."
"Shit," John breathed. He must have taken something from the Wraith, he realized. "The queen's looking for him, says she'll turn me if I bring him in."
"McKay's looking for him," Evan reported. If anyone could find the man, it would be Rodney. "Says we should give him a day, tops. I told him we'd appreciate whatever he could give us."
"Did you now?" John asked dryly, pulling into Atlantis' garage.
"Might have been phrased a little differently," Evan admitted. "Um, and you might want to talk to him before I get back. In fact, I'd appreciate it."
John laughed. "I'll do that."
"We'll be here for a little while," Evan said as John walked into the complex. "Adam's doing some computer thing and James is doing… something else entirely. They assure me it's going to help."
"I'll tell Cadman to keep dinner warm," John promised as he hung up.
He got to the lab area an hour later. Rodney was in his element - that is, he was working on three computers and a datapad simultaneously while yelling at Zelenka for something John couldn't understand. "Rodney."
Rodney didn't even look up as he switched his tirade from something about ionized particle theory to Evan. "Your partner in idiocy is an inconsiderate asshole, Sheppard."
"Hey, I survived the Wraith queen all by myself," he replied brightly, ignoring Rodney's outburst. "Thanks for asking, though."
Rodney nearly dropped his datapad. "You met with the queen? What did you find out?"
"I think Michael took something from them before he went down the rabbit hole," John said seriously, taking a seat on one of the stools in the lab. "She was pretty insistent that I find him and bring him in. Said she'd 'give me what I wanted' if I did."
"I sense air quotes in there," Rodney said, picking the datapad back up. "I can't believe you talked to her alone."
John rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Rodney, I purposely waited until after Michael decided to drop-kick us to meet with her."
Rodney sniffed. "Sarcasm doesn't become you."
"Sure it does." John retorted. "So, what did Evan do?"
Rodney's eyes narrowed. "He's making demands that are, by any standards, impossible to meet."
"You're good at impossible," John pointed out. "He's just stressed out. Give him a break."
"He swore at me in other languages." Rodney turned from the datapad to one of the computers, frowned, and changed something in a spreadsheet. "Zelenka overheard part of it and blushed. Blushed!"
Radek piped up from the other side of the room. "He has learned more words that I did not teach him. Some of them are… colorful."
"Colorful," Rodney repeated. "Apparently."
"So you're pissed at him because he cursed at you when you told him you couldn't do what he wanted?" John clarified.
"I can do it," Rodney snapped. "I just don't have the ability to do it in the timeframe he's laid out. I may be a genius, but the technology only goes so fast, and I cannot possibly watch fifteen hours of video in six hours!"
John shook his head. "If anyone could, Rodney it would be you. Barring that, though," he added quickly, seeing the ire rise in his friend's eyes, "stream the video to my machine upstairs. It should free you up to do some of the rest of it, right?"
Rodney nodded and tapped at one of the computers. "I hope you find something," he muttered as John rose to leave. "Because Lorne didn't sound happy when I told him there might not be anything there."
-0-
The only trace they'd found of Michael Kenmore was a glance of him walking into the emergency stairs about an hour after he'd arrived. He'd stopped in the doorway, sent a little wave to the camera, and disappeared. McKay had accessed all of the security cameras from the rest of the building, but none had revealed him leaving.
"There are plenty of other ways he could've gotten out," John said, running a hand through his hair in frustration. Evan nodded along; they'd already had this conversation. "Maid cart, trash truck, caterer, disguise.."
"Blending in, knowing where the cameras are," Evan filled in as John took a breath. "For all we know he could still be in the building."
"I doubt it," John said. "Rodney set the fire alarms off remotely two days ago, and the fire department cleared the building before they let anyone back in. We monitored everyone going in and out. If he's still in that building, he's holed up well enough that we'll never find him."
Evan shook his head. "I don't think he's still at the hotel," he said. "I was just putting it out there."
"Yeah," John replied. "He could be anywhere."
"Yeah," Evan agreed. "He really could be."
They sat in silence, trying to come up with some sort of plan, anything they could use to get Michael back. It had been two weeks since Evan found the letter and John talked to the queen. Two weeks, and they'd found no trace of the man. John had broken down and called O'Neill three days ago, and he'd put some of the SGC resources on it, but they'd heard nothing so far.
It seemed like they never would.
Evan rubbed the bridge of his nose. This fucking sucked. The man was both a security risk and a valuable asset. He'd claimed that he wouldn't go back to the Wraith, but Evan wasn't sure he believed it; if he was angry enough to walk away from Atlantis, he might be angry enough to join up again for revenge. He didn't however, think that Michael had given John away.
John had been back to the warehouse five times since Michael disappeared, and had met three more times with the queen. He'd hemmed and hawed his way through the meetings, saying that he hadn't heard from Michael, that he'd tried looking for him, that he didn't know him all that well, that Michael hadn't been in touch. None of it was a lie, but neither was it the whole truth, and Evan was afraid John would be caught up in it. However, if Michael had given John up as an infiltrator, the Wraith would not have hesitated to kill him.
Evan supposed he should be grateful for small miracles, that Michael had been trustworthy enough - or human enough - not to sell John out the first chance he got.
He honestly didn't expect he'd ever see Michael again. It was, therefore, a shock when he walked into the gas station a month after the man disappeared and saw him leaning against the drink counter, looking for all the world like he'd been waiting there since he left Atlantis.
Michael saw him enter the store and watched casually as Evan walked up to him. "Evan."
"Michael," he replied evenly. "Where the fuck have you been?"
"Here and there," Michael said. "When I said 'a few days,' I guess I meant 'more than a few.'"
"I had noticed," Evan replied dryly. "You dropped off the radar. We couldn't find you. The SGC couldn't find you."
"I'm good at hiding."
"Apparently," Evan commented. "Any reason you're back?"
Michael hesitated. "I didn't tell them anything."
"John's still alive, so we figured you didn't." Evan waited a beat before adding, "They know you took something, though. What is it?"
Now Michael winced. "Not a thing, per se. I may have… borrowed… some information."
"About?" Evan pressed.
"Another cell. East. Texas."
"You've been in Texas for a month?" Evan was surprised. Of all the places on the grand list of vacation spots, hunting down Wraith in Texas was somewhere between 'dumpster diving' and 'shopping at a flea market.' Evan was fond of neither.
"Travelled around the state, yeah," Michael said. "It's easy to find new shoes there."
Evan winced. "Sorry about that."
"The thing is," Michael continued, "if you had just trusted me, I would've stayed."
"I'm sorry," Evan apologized again.
There was a moment's pause before Michael continued. "Anyway, I'm not staying in town. I wanted to let you guys know, though, that there's a group in Abilene that you should get in touch with. They're kind of like Atlantis, doing the renegade thing, except without the retrovirus or the gene therapy."
"Suicide," Evan muttered, and Michael nodded.
"They've got some tech that McKay would love to get his hands on, though. You could probably trade some of your meds research for some of their toys." He handed Evan a card with a name and number on it. "Give them my name when you call. They're expecting to hear from you."
Evan took the card and made a mental note to have McKay check it out before he showed it to John. "Where are you headed?" he asked as they walked to the door. Michael shrugged.
"I've got a few leads," he said noncommittally. "I'd… I'm out of ATA boosters."
"How long?" Evan asked immediately.
"A week, give or take."
Evan nodded. "Will you come back, or should I call Carson?"
Michael laughed. "I'll just come back. I've still got stuff there, unless you've tossed it."
"Boxed and ready for you," Evan remarked. "It's almost like we knew."
-0-
They sent Michael on his way with all of his belongings, a fresh batch of the gene therapy, and a few vials of the retrovirus. He was, apparently, a one-man renegade Wraith hunter. John had also slipped him an untraceable cell phone in case of emergencies.
He didn't expect that Michael would ever use it, and as the weeks dragged on, it appeared that he was right. Michael didn't call.
John spent his time gathering more information in the cell. Bob in particular seemed pleased with John, with the services he provided to the cell, which were mostly through physical labor. John's cover as a construction worker was believed, and the Wraith had set him to finishing up some modifications to the inside of the larger warehouse that they occupied, building rooms and tearing down the walls of others.
"Doing well," Bob told him one day. John had realized early on that Bob wasn't all that smart, and that he clearly didn't remember John from their combined time with Irina. John supposed that he looked different wearing clothing and not strapped to a chair, and that Bob had expected him to either turn or die, neither of which had happened.
"Thanks," John responded. "I'll be back in three days. I can get some more drywall, finish the upstairs section."
Bob nodded. "She'll want to see you."
John nodded. "She" was the still-unnamed queen. "She" seemed to have some sort of interest in John, and while it was more than a little unnerving, John figured it could be used to his advantage. If she got interested enough, she might spill things. On the other hand, though, if she got too interested, she could try to turn him ,and then it would all go to hell in a handbasket.
"You hear from Michael?" Bob asked in his most casual tone. Since Bob sucked at human emotions and inclinations, this was about as subtle as a train hitting a wall. John shrugged.
"Don't think he's coming back. I checked with his landlord. He didn't pay his rent, and the guy boxed up all Michael's shit, told me I could have it if I wanted it, otherwise he was gonna donate it," he lied easily. "I told him to pitch it. I don't need more shit at my place."
Bob nodded. "Tell her when you talk to her."
John nodded, and Bob left the room.
Three days later, he was tacking drywall to a frame on the top floor of the warehouse when she entered. "You have not heard from Michael."
John stopped what he was doing and turned to face her. "No, ma'am."
She waved a hand at him. "Continue your work. You have spoken to the owner of his property?"
"His landlord, yeah," John replied, returning to the wall.
"The man has packaged Michael's things up."
"Yeah," John repeated. Bob had clearly spoken to her.
"Pick them up from him and bring them here," she commanded, and John turned around to look her in the eyes, nail gun in hand.
"I'll call him," John said with a shrug, "but I don't know if he still has the stuff. I told him to toss it last time I talked to him."
The queen's eyes narrowed. "Why would you tell him that?"
"I didn't know you'd want it," John pointed out. "I sure as hell didn't, and it sounded to me like he was gonna try to make me take it."
"You know he has stolen from us."
"To be honest, ma'am," John replied, scratching his head and playing stupid, "I'd kind of forgotten."
The corner of her lip curled into a sneer. "Bring his things when you come. Track them down if you must. Report back within a week with your progress."
"Yes, ma'am," John replied, turning back to his work.
-0-
"You have a week to come up with Michael's stuff?"
John scowled. "Yeah."
Evan sighed. "Because you told her Michael's landlord had boxed it up and given it away."
"Pretty much." John hesitated. "Look, Evan, I didn't realize she'd want it when I said that. It was just something else to show that he wasn't coming back, you know?"
Evan held up a hand. "I know. But this could be the beginning of the end of this. We have to figure out how to get some stuff that could reasonably be Michael's." Evan thought there might still be a few shirts of his, maybe a pair of jeans that had been left if the wash, but he doubted that's what the queen was looking for.
"Yeah," John agreed. "She's going to want proof of the information he took."
And that, Evan knew, was both the point and the problem. They had the information that she wanted - a phone number and a name on a card that Michael had slipped him. There was just no way in hell that they were giving that kind of intel to the cell.
They'd been in contact with the others the week before . Michael was right; they'd been able to trade technology for medical knowledge. McKay was happily tinkering with some sort of gun that the cell had sent up. It was a weird-looking thing with a weirder sounding name, but true to the word of the group that had sent it, one shot stunned the victim, a second killed them, and a third destroyed the body. McKay was practically giddy with the chance to examine it.
"We can't lead them down there," Evan pointed out.
John hesitated. "Maybe we can… mislead them."
"How so?"
"Look, we know the cell isn't sure exactly what Michael took, right?" Reasonably sure, at least, but Evan nodded anyway. "So we give them the clothes, throw a few other random things in the box, and stick in a piece of paper with an address somewhere in Chicago."
Chicago. There were bound to be Wraith there, just not enough that it had drawn attention, at least not yet. "Where in Chicago?"
John shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Somewhere abandoned. But they'll start looking for him up there, and when it doesn't turn anything up I can just play dumb and say that's all I was able to track down, sorry."
"So this is a plan based entirely on your ability to act?"
John glared at him. "That's what it's been all along," he reminded Evan. "So far, so good."
Evan closed his eyes and mulled it over. It could work, but it had about a fifty-fifty shot of going horribly wrong. They'd gone with worse odds.
"Can you get in touch with Michael, make sure he's nowhere near Chicago?" Evan asked, eyes still closed.
"Yeah."
Evan nodded. "Okay."
John left the room, dialing his cell phone, and Evan heard his voice in the hall, speaking in short, clipped sentences. He turned to his computer and started looking for a place they could use as an address in Chicago. He found a few promising spots and looked up as John came back in the room.
"He says he's nowhere near Chicago," John confirmed. "Thanked us for sending the Wraith on a wild goose chase."
"Anything to piss them off in the long run," Evan said generously. He pointed to his screen and John walked around behind him, looking over his shoulder. "Found a few places."
John studied the listings and shrugged. "Which is the least likely to have collateral damage if it gets blown up?"
Evan wondered what it said about his life that he'd already considered the question and come up with an answer. "This one," he said, tapping the screen.
John nodded. "Looks good to me."
Evan wrote the address on a slip of paper as John left the room; she'd seen both Michael's and John's handwriting, but not Evan's. Evan figured she'd assume this information had been passed to Michael after he'd used whatever information he'd stolen from the cell. He frowned down at the paper after he'd written it, considering the future and the likelihood that he'd have to do something like this again, and rewrote the information, making his handwriting longer and loopier, again and again, until it no longer resembled his own.
John returned with a box as Evan was finishing up. Evan glanced inside; John had tossed in the clothing they'd found, a few CDs, a book, and what appeared to be a saltshaker. Evan raised an eyebrow at the selection.
"I went for random," John said cheerily, setting the box on Evan's desk. "Figured if I was going for the 'I tracked this shit down' route, I would have found some weird stuff. So," he gestured to the box, "I put in weird stuff."
Evan pulled the book from the box and opened it to a random page. He folded the slip of paper with the address written on it and stuck it in. It looked like a bookmark. He had no doubt that the queen would find it.
"She said a week?"
"'Within a week.' Exact quote."
Evan nodded. "Four days, then?"
John grinned back. "Works for me."
-0-
John checked his stunner one more time as he loaded the box into his car. Rodney swore up and down that it worked, that it was fine, that it was a brilliant piece of technology, and John had tuned out the rest of the babble that Rodney had used as he got into the mechanical aspects of the gun. John had practiced with it a few times, aiming it at paper targets in their makeshift firing range, and was reasonably satisfied that, if it didn't work as advertised, it at least seemed to incinerate things pretty well.
John drove the short distance from Atlantis to the Wraith base. Though he'd been confident when Evan had asked him for the hundredth time if he thought he could pull this off, he now found himself running through the million ways it could go wrong at the drop of a hat. John grimaced at his own internal line of thought and tried to think instead of his mission for the day: get there, drop the box off, finish the last of the drywall installation. He parked down the road and retrieved the box, checking that his stunner was secured in its holster against his back. He knew he had fifteen minutes before his backup would be in place; they staggered the arrival times of the van, trying not to arouse suspicion. John picked the box up and walked to the warehouse.
He could tell something was off the second he stepped in the door. She was standing there, alone, a tiny, victorious smile on her face. "John."
"Ma'am," he greeted, setting the box down. "Spent the last few days chasing Michael's shit around town. I didn't find much, but I'll keep looking if you want me to."
The queen looked into the box, her eyes narrowing as she took in the items. She didn't reach in, didn't seem to take any special interest in any of the items, and John suddenly felt a flare of adrenaline without quite knowing why. She looked up at him thoughtfully and took a step towards him. John fought to stay in place.
"John," she said, and her voice was somewhere between a purr and a hiss. "There is a matter that bears discussion."
"Something I can do for you, ma'am?" John asked, going for eager-to-please but not quite sure he made it. She laughed.
"I believe there is much you can do for me," she said in the same tone of voice. "Colonel Sheppard."
John froze for about half a second before he was running out the door, thinking fuck fuck fuck the whole time. He managed to grab at his stunner as he ran, not sure where he was headed except away, and he turned and fired off a wild shot at the woman who was now chasing him. It missed by a mile, and she merely laughed as she ran after him.
John had seen the Wraith in action before, knew about their physical strength and dexterity. He knew that she could catch him in a few long strides if she wanted, but she seemed content to let him run away, at least for now. John zigzagged through the streets, heading for some sort of civilization, somewhere that he might get help.
He turned and fired again, missed again, and when he turned back around he had veered slightly and was headed into a lamp post. He jerked sharply and avoided hitting it with his body, but slammed into it with his right hand, which reflexively dropped his stunner. John kept running. It wasn't worth trying to retrieve it now.
He went on, trying to come up with options that didn't include torture and death. He also thought, in the back of his head, that if he survived this, Evan was going to be pissed.
He kept running.
--
Finally, the story is all caught up! We're now to the point where It All Comes Round Again starts. Feel free to go from here to Falling Into Things Left and Right, the next story in the series, which is set a few months after then events in Round Again. Part five will be started soon, though I can't promise it'll be up before I leave for vacation at the end of next week, though I will try.
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.
John was planning.
Well, to be more accurate, John was doing his best to plan. He sucked at planning. Planning was Evan's thing, but Evan was in the infirmary with Adam, so John was in his office. Planning.
He blew out a frustrated sigh and scowled at the papers on his desk. They had all the information they needed; at least, they had everything they were going to get before he went in. They had locations, numbers, transit details, schedules, and had even managed to grab a few names out of the mix - no major players, but it was good to know even a few grunts' names.
John was debating whether or not it would be considered childish to stick his tongue out at the mess on his desk if nobody was there to see it when he heard a knock at the door. He glanced up and found Michael hovering in the hallway.
"Come in," John said, pushing out a chair with his foot. "I'm drowning in paperwork."
Michael sat in the chair and glanced at John's papers. He pulled out a picture - one of the Wraith higher-ups, someone who seemed to be close to the top. He was big, and John for some reason thought he looked familiar, though he couldn't quite place him. Evan had written identify on the bottom in black marker, as if they needed the reminder.
"I want to help you guys fight," he said, playing with the picture idly. "There's - they must have forced me, John. There's no way I would want to be something that just hurts people."
John shifted back in his chair. "Well, normally I'd say we could use all the help we can get, but I think you'll understand when I say that I'll have to talk to Evan about anything more involved than kitchen duty."
Michael nodded, looking at the picture in his hands but not really focusing on it. "I know you don't trust me," he said finally.
"It's not that," John said quickly, then frowned. "Well, it is that, but it's nothing personal."
"It's because I don't remember being turned," Michael said, and John once again recalled how intelligent the man was. "Because I have these little snippets of the last two years of my life, but almost none of it is helpful. Because you're not sure that I won't join up again if I get near them."
"You have to admit, they're valid concerns," John pointed out.
Michael nodded. He tossed the picture down on the table and tapped identify. "Bob."
John blinked. "Pardon?"
"His name. Bob. He came to the cell about a year ago, maybe a little more. He was part of some sort of cell in Colorado, but their queen was killed." Michael looked at John, who was staring at the picture intently, remembering being strapped to a chair, Irina telling him that she wanted him to writhe and moan and beg, a broad-shouldered Wraith stepping in and talking to her when she was ready to kill him with her bare hands, Irina returning with the knife.
Freakshow. Irina's Freakshow. He was here, in Vegas, and he was part of the new cell. To top it all off, apparently his name was Bob.
Shit, John decided, was weird.
"Bob," he managed, pulling Evan's labeling marker from a cup on his desk and writing the name on the photograph. "Do Wraith use their real names, or is Bob some sort of pseudonym?"
Michael frowned. "I'm not sure. I - think they still called me by my name. Of course, I might be remembering wrong, and even if I'm not, that's not to say that everyone goes by their real name."
"Ah," John replied intelligently. "So this guy might or might not be Bob."
"Pretty much," Michael agreed. "But I do remember him pretty clearly. He's-" He paused. "He's not in charge of everything, but he's high in the command. I think - whatever I was doing for them, he was my supervisor, or something like that. I saw him a lot. That's probably why I remember him."
"Bob." John rolled the thought over in his brain. This was good intel.
If it was true. If they could trust Michael. John sighed and scowled at the papers on his desk again.
"What is it you're trying to do?" Michael asked, looking at the papers as well. "If you can tell me, that is," he added as John stayed silent.
"Trying to figure out how to get in," John said, deciding that Michael could, at least, know that, if he hadn't figured it out already. "We'd like to get as much intel as we can from the inside before we take them down. To do that, one of us needs to go in, and I'm the lucky bastard."
Michael smiled slowly. "Talk to Evan," he said, standing up in a fluid motion. "See if you guys will agree to let me help. If so, I have an idea."
-0-
Michael's idea was simple, and that was why it would work.
Unfortunately, Evan decided, he hated every single step, every detail, every fucking thought that made up this plan, but since they hadn't come up with anything better, this was going to work.
John had come to talk to him after Michael had visited his office, holding one of their pictures, with his identify now accompanied by John's Bob. He'd snorted at it, and John had rolled his eyes.
"If he was going to just make up a name, I'm sure he would've come up with something better than Bob," John had pointed out, and though Evan wasn't tempted to agree with him, the next words from his friend's mouth stilled him. "It's Freakshow."
Evan had grabbed the picture and studied it long and hard. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah," John had said, not looking at the picture. "I thought I was going to have to make out with him, Evan, I'm pretty sure."
Evan had made a face. They had talked some more, and that had led them here, to Michael's plan.
Evan scowled at life in general. Michael had approached the clan two weeks before, making his presence known and sharing selected parts of his story. Most of it was heavily edited, of course, but there was enough truth in it to keep it stable. Michael was wired the entire time - "In case something goes wrong," Evan had said when placing the wire. Michael had just laughed and said, "So you can keep an eye on me" - but so far, things were going according to plan.
Michael's plan was, essentially, to reintegrate himself with the clan as a human. He would tell them of Atlantis and what they were doing, claim he'd been turned back against his will, and that he wanted to be re-Wraithified. He would tell them that he had a new recruit, someone else who wanted to be turned, and he would introduce John. It would be a false identity, of course; his name would be John Marshall, he'd be a construction worker, he'd play dumb grunt. Then they'd both be in, both able to gather intel, be each other's backup if it was needed.
That was supposed to be Evan's job. Evan was John's backup, not some former Wraith who had become an ally for reasons unknown, not some guy Evan didn't trust. But it was the plan, and come hell or some high fucking water, Evan was going to stick to it.
He shifted in the van, watching through his binocs as Michael and John strolled through the front doors of the warehouse that the Wraith were using, still registered in Ellia's name. Adam turned form his spot in the back of the van, headphones covering one ear.
"Don't worry about them," Adam said. "Neither of them can be turned." John was ATA-positive, and Michael had been given the immunization. "They're both armed, and I've got an ear on them in case John sticks his foot in his mouth." He grinned and Evan had to concede the point.
Adam was fine. Carson's retrovirus, combined with the immunization, had meant that he was only in the infirmary for three days. He had bounced right back, and after being kept off the rotation schedule for a week, had demanded to be let back into the field. John had just shrugged and added his name back in.
They sat in the van for six hours before another came to replace them. Evan nodded to Ronon, who was driving the other van, and Teyla, who was sitting in the passenger's seat. He knew that McKay would be grumbling in the back of the van, ready to take over Adam's post, listening to their wires.
Adam grinned a minute later. "McKay's in," he told Evan. "And bitching."
"Of course he is," Evan said dryly. "Means he's still alive."
Adam tapped his radio. "All right, McKay, we're headed out. Yeah, six hours. I don't know." He turned to Evan. "McKay wants to know who will be replacing him, says he wants to be sure it's someone competent."
"Tell him I'm bringing a quadroon of lobotomized baboons," Evan said seriously, starting the van. "Better yet, tell him I'm sending Cadman. He might actually believe that for a second."
Adam laughed as he relayed the message and quickly switched off his radio. "Fifteen seconds before he calls you," he bet, but Evan's phone started to ring before Adam finished speaking.
"Shut it, McKay," Evan said as he opened the phone. "I'm sending James up with her." He flipped the phone shut and tossed it back down into the console before driving away.
He hadn't mentioned that he'd be back himself with the other two. He'd spend the next few hours sleeping, and then he'd be back. John and Michael would be inside for a few days, Michael had said, so they could question him. Atlantis personnel would be nearby at all times, and Evan planned to be there himself as much as he could.
He didn't trust Michael. He would be John's backup if John needed him.
-0-
John and Michael were inside the compound for five days. By the end of it, John wanted a shower and to sleep, in that order, though only just. Of course, as he drove away from the complex with Michael, he knew that he probably wouldn't get the chance to do either before talking to Evan at length about his time with the Wraith. Sighing, he grabbed his communication stone and sent a thought towards the van following them inconspicuously.
Going home. See you shortly.
Okay, he heard back instantly. Then, almost hesitantly, All good?
Well enough, he decided. Evan let it drop.
They got back to Atlantis twenty minutes later. The van had beaten them back; they had broken away and gone in different directions, just in case the Wraith had sent a tail vehicle. It didn't look like they had, for which John was grateful. That meant that he'd probably passed their little testing period.
Evan was leaning against the side of the van when they pulled in. He stood when John opened the door. "How was it?"
"Long," John said, and Michael added, "Informative."
John could see Evan's eyes brighten. "Yeah?" he said, joining them as they walked into Atlantis. "We taped everything. Radek and McKay are working through it."
"Yeah," John confirmed. "Saw some cool stuff, too. Got a feel for the layout, some numbers, some day-to-day shit." He hesitated. "Look, can I grab a shower before we do this? Apparently Wraith don't need to shower to stay all nice and slimy. I feel gross."
Evan blinked at him. "That's… disgusting," he thought aloud, nodding to Michael and John. "Feel free. An hour?"
"Sure," John said, thankfully walking back to his quarters.
Twenty minutes later, John felt human again. He was clean, wearing clean clothing, and he'd already washed what he'd been wearing nonstop for the past five days. He left the clothing in the spin cycle and headed to Evan's office. He knew that "an hour" was for Michael, and that this would give Evan time to ask about anything he wanted to without worrying about the other man.
"Hey," John greeted, dropping into the chair in Evan's office.
"So?" Evan asked.
"He's fine," John replied. "We were together pretty much the whole time, and you've got tapes from when we weren't. Nothing suspicious."
Evan relaxed a little. "I wish we could just trust him," he said, frustrated.
"I know what you mean," John agreed, running his hands through his hair. "I want to. It would make this a lot easier, that's for sure. But I can't do it."
"Nope," Evan said. "Neither can I." He frowned. "So Wraith don't shower."
John made a face. "Nope. Not a shower in the whole warehouse. Apparently they like their grime."
"I wonder if it's more than that," Evan said thoughtfully. "Think about it. Have we ever seen them outside when it's raining? Ever seen a Wraith even take a drink?"
"What, you think they pull a Wizard of Oz, I'm melting, I'm melting?"
Evan shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe it's coincidence." They both knew what that meant. In this line of work, there was no such thing as coincidence.
They talked for fifteen minutes or so about what John had missed in Atlantis before Michael showed up. He laughed as he knocked on the door. "Thought I'd be early," he said.
John grinned at him. "If I sat in my quarters, I would've fallen asleep. Evan was telling me that he caught Rodney and Laura not fighting the other day." For those two, it was as telling as if Evan had walked in on them making out, John thought. "She was helping him. Actually helping."
Michael laughed again and leaned against the wall. "So when's the wedding?"
Evan rolled his eyes. "Go grab a chair from John's office," he said, and when Michael left, he turned to John. "Anything else?"
John shook his head but took his stone out of his pocket, playing with it idly. Evan already had his in his hand, under his desk. Michael thought they were good-luck charms; if anything came up, John would be able to communicate it without Michael realizing it.
John wished they could trust him, but he knew better. He knew he couldn't. Not yet.
-0-
John and Michael had gathered a lot of good intel, a lot of things that they hadn't known before. For one, Freakshow's name really did appear to be Bob, Evan thought with a roll of his eyes. Unfortunately, they hadn't come in contact with the queen, and any attempt by either of them to get more information about her was shut down rather quickly. Evan sighed.
John was back at the warehouse now, without Michael this time, though still armed and wired. His backup vehicle was less than two blocks away, and Evan itched to be there with Ronon and Teyla, but knew that his own mission was equally important. He was tailing Michael, who had asked if he could "have a few days."
Evan had agreed, offered to get him transportation to wherever, and when Michael had declined, had put a tracker in the man's shoes and followed him at length. Michael had gone into Vegas proper, checked into a hotel, and hadn't moved from the building in nearly six hours. Evan wasn't certain that his plant hadn't been made, but the signal continued to travel around the hotel, so either Michael hadn't figured it out or he was leaving it there as a show of good faith. Either way, Evan was counting his blessings.
His cell phone chirped, and he looked down at the display and frowned. McKay.
"Lorne," he answered, automatically holding the phone a few inches from his face. Sure enough, McKay started yelling the second the phone was answered. Evan listened halfheartedly, wondering if he should interrupt the scientist's babbling - he didn't seem to be reporting anything important, just calling to bitch to Evan since John was unavailable - when he realized that Michael's transponder was moving away from him.
"McKay," he cut in. "You have a lock on that transponder you gave me?"
"Of course I do," McKay huffed.
"Can you get a visual?" Evan hadn't seen Michael leave the hotel. He started his car and pulled out, trying to spot Michael's vehicle as he neared the signal.
"There are a few cars in the picture I got," McKay said a few seconds later. "Traffic camera. I don't see Michael's in there."
"Hang on, the signal's turning," Evan said, breaking away and following the signal down a side street. It could still be one of two cars. "Can you see him in any of the cars?"
"No," McKay reported. "Think he's been captured?"
Evan made a final turn behind the signal and stared into the back of the garbage truck in front of him, the only vehicle on the road. He smacked the steering wheel in frustration. "No," he said angrily. "I think he fucked us over."
Evan made his way back to the hotel in a haze. He stalked into the lobby and flashed his long-defunct military identification at the clerk, praying that the young woman wouldn't ask to inspect it closely. "Major Evan Lorne, USAF," he said in a commanding tone. "I'm looking for someone."
The young woman looked appropriately terrified. Terrified usually meant cooperative. "Someone here?"
"Oh, I hope so," Evan said grimly, reaching for the photograph of Michael that he'd had on him since this whole fiasco had started. "I think this man checked in a few hours ago. Do you recognize him?"
"Oh, yes," the girl said, flushing slightly. "Mr. Sheppard."
Of course he'd used John's name. Evan seethed as he asked, "Is he still here?"
The girl frowned. "I'm not sure," she said, clicking away at her keyboard. "He only got a room for one night, and I don't think he was planning on staying long." She looked at Evan apprehensively. "I can call up-"
"No," Evan said, and her hand hovered above the phone. "Get me a key to his room."
The girl hesitated, and Evan narrowed his eyes. She grabbed a keycard from a drawer and pushed it into a machine, which glowed and clicked. She handed it to him without looking at him and said, "Room 638."
Evan was halfway to the elevators before McKay answered. "Room 638, checked in as John," he growled, and heard McKay's responding sound of annoyance. "Can you get into the hotel's security?"
He heard tapping as he stepped into the elevator. "I'm in," Evan heard, "Let me download the last few hours and take a look."
"Send Adam and James up here," Evan said, and hung up. The elevator was opening on the sixth floor, and Evan stepped out and headed to the left. Room 638 was almost at the end of the hallway, near the emergency stairs, and Evan started a string of curses under his breath. Michael had probably planned it that way - near to an alternative exit.
Evan pressed his ear to the door and stifled his profanity as he listened. There was no sound from inside, so he quickly pulled out his sidearm, opened the door, and stepped in.
The room was neat and clean. The only evidence that it had been occupied at all was a damp towel hanging to dry in the bathroom and an addressed envelope on the desk. Evan glanced at it and saw his name. The letter inside was short.
I can't get you to trust me, and I won't go back to them. From now on, I'm working by myself.
Evan started cursing again.
-0-
John's cell phone chirped, but he ignored it in favor of he attention to the woman in front of him. She was tall and slender, with long red hair. The queen.
John was currently giving her his best charming smile. "I don't know where he is, ma'am."
The queen hissed at him. "I will have him here," she informed him angrily. "You cannot protect him."
John frowned. "Protect him? Trust me, ma'am, I wouldn't protect him from much of anything. I've told your guys; I don't know him all that well. He was just a way in, just some guy I met in a bar who told me these stories about being.. more than human. Super-human. I was interested, he told me he could help me out, and here I am." He hoped his lies were convincing.
Apparently they were enough. "This has what has been relayed to me," she said. "But if you know where he is and you do not tell me, I will not hesitate to kill you instead of giving you what you want."
John was mentally calculating in his mind. Michael had obviously done something to piss off the queen, whose name he still hadn't managed to get from the others and which she hadn't offered when she'd stormed in, and she was now looking for the other man. He decided to go with the truth, or part of it, anyway "He told me he was taking off for a few days. Didn't say where, or when he'd be back." He shrugged. "I'll tell him you're looking for him if he calls."
The queen's eyes narrowed. "No," she said, stepping forward and giving him a smile. She put her hand over his heart and it was all John could do not to shudder and back away. "I will give you what you want if you turn him in to me."
John smirked down at her. "I'll give you what you want, if I can."
"Bring him here," she said, leaning closer to whisper in his ear. John hoped she took the shiver that ran through him as desire rather than disgust. "Bring him to me, and I will turn you."
John left the complex not long after, swearing up and down hat he'd search for Michael and lure him back to the compound. He took out his cell phone and glanced at the screen as he drove away. Four missed calls from Evan in the past hour.
Shit. Something was wrong.
"Jesus fuck, Sheppard," Evan's voice came over the phone, part annoyance and part relief. "I was ready to leave Adam and James here to come rescue your sorry ass."
"Cadman was listening in," John pointed out. "What's up?"
"Michael's gone," Evan said. "I followed him to a hotel in Vegas and he gave us the slip. Left a letter that I can sum up as 'fuck everyone,' tossed his shoes in the garbage, and walked out under our noses."
"Shit," John breathed. He must have taken something from the Wraith, he realized. "The queen's looking for him, says she'll turn me if I bring him in."
"McKay's looking for him," Evan reported. If anyone could find the man, it would be Rodney. "Says we should give him a day, tops. I told him we'd appreciate whatever he could give us."
"Did you now?" John asked dryly, pulling into Atlantis' garage.
"Might have been phrased a little differently," Evan admitted. "Um, and you might want to talk to him before I get back. In fact, I'd appreciate it."
John laughed. "I'll do that."
"We'll be here for a little while," Evan said as John walked into the complex. "Adam's doing some computer thing and James is doing… something else entirely. They assure me it's going to help."
"I'll tell Cadman to keep dinner warm," John promised as he hung up.
He got to the lab area an hour later. Rodney was in his element - that is, he was working on three computers and a datapad simultaneously while yelling at Zelenka for something John couldn't understand. "Rodney."
Rodney didn't even look up as he switched his tirade from something about ionized particle theory to Evan. "Your partner in idiocy is an inconsiderate asshole, Sheppard."
"Hey, I survived the Wraith queen all by myself," he replied brightly, ignoring Rodney's outburst. "Thanks for asking, though."
Rodney nearly dropped his datapad. "You met with the queen? What did you find out?"
"I think Michael took something from them before he went down the rabbit hole," John said seriously, taking a seat on one of the stools in the lab. "She was pretty insistent that I find him and bring him in. Said she'd 'give me what I wanted' if I did."
"I sense air quotes in there," Rodney said, picking the datapad back up. "I can't believe you talked to her alone."
John rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Rodney, I purposely waited until after Michael decided to drop-kick us to meet with her."
Rodney sniffed. "Sarcasm doesn't become you."
"Sure it does." John retorted. "So, what did Evan do?"
Rodney's eyes narrowed. "He's making demands that are, by any standards, impossible to meet."
"You're good at impossible," John pointed out. "He's just stressed out. Give him a break."
"He swore at me in other languages." Rodney turned from the datapad to one of the computers, frowned, and changed something in a spreadsheet. "Zelenka overheard part of it and blushed. Blushed!"
Radek piped up from the other side of the room. "He has learned more words that I did not teach him. Some of them are… colorful."
"Colorful," Rodney repeated. "Apparently."
"So you're pissed at him because he cursed at you when you told him you couldn't do what he wanted?" John clarified.
"I can do it," Rodney snapped. "I just don't have the ability to do it in the timeframe he's laid out. I may be a genius, but the technology only goes so fast, and I cannot possibly watch fifteen hours of video in six hours!"
John shook his head. "If anyone could, Rodney it would be you. Barring that, though," he added quickly, seeing the ire rise in his friend's eyes, "stream the video to my machine upstairs. It should free you up to do some of the rest of it, right?"
Rodney nodded and tapped at one of the computers. "I hope you find something," he muttered as John rose to leave. "Because Lorne didn't sound happy when I told him there might not be anything there."
-0-
The only trace they'd found of Michael Kenmore was a glance of him walking into the emergency stairs about an hour after he'd arrived. He'd stopped in the doorway, sent a little wave to the camera, and disappeared. McKay had accessed all of the security cameras from the rest of the building, but none had revealed him leaving.
"There are plenty of other ways he could've gotten out," John said, running a hand through his hair in frustration. Evan nodded along; they'd already had this conversation. "Maid cart, trash truck, caterer, disguise.."
"Blending in, knowing where the cameras are," Evan filled in as John took a breath. "For all we know he could still be in the building."
"I doubt it," John said. "Rodney set the fire alarms off remotely two days ago, and the fire department cleared the building before they let anyone back in. We monitored everyone going in and out. If he's still in that building, he's holed up well enough that we'll never find him."
Evan shook his head. "I don't think he's still at the hotel," he said. "I was just putting it out there."
"Yeah," John replied. "He could be anywhere."
"Yeah," Evan agreed. "He really could be."
They sat in silence, trying to come up with some sort of plan, anything they could use to get Michael back. It had been two weeks since Evan found the letter and John talked to the queen. Two weeks, and they'd found no trace of the man. John had broken down and called O'Neill three days ago, and he'd put some of the SGC resources on it, but they'd heard nothing so far.
It seemed like they never would.
Evan rubbed the bridge of his nose. This fucking sucked. The man was both a security risk and a valuable asset. He'd claimed that he wouldn't go back to the Wraith, but Evan wasn't sure he believed it; if he was angry enough to walk away from Atlantis, he might be angry enough to join up again for revenge. He didn't however, think that Michael had given John away.
John had been back to the warehouse five times since Michael disappeared, and had met three more times with the queen. He'd hemmed and hawed his way through the meetings, saying that he hadn't heard from Michael, that he'd tried looking for him, that he didn't know him all that well, that Michael hadn't been in touch. None of it was a lie, but neither was it the whole truth, and Evan was afraid John would be caught up in it. However, if Michael had given John up as an infiltrator, the Wraith would not have hesitated to kill him.
Evan supposed he should be grateful for small miracles, that Michael had been trustworthy enough - or human enough - not to sell John out the first chance he got.
He honestly didn't expect he'd ever see Michael again. It was, therefore, a shock when he walked into the gas station a month after the man disappeared and saw him leaning against the drink counter, looking for all the world like he'd been waiting there since he left Atlantis.
Michael saw him enter the store and watched casually as Evan walked up to him. "Evan."
"Michael," he replied evenly. "Where the fuck have you been?"
"Here and there," Michael said. "When I said 'a few days,' I guess I meant 'more than a few.'"
"I had noticed," Evan replied dryly. "You dropped off the radar. We couldn't find you. The SGC couldn't find you."
"I'm good at hiding."
"Apparently," Evan commented. "Any reason you're back?"
Michael hesitated. "I didn't tell them anything."
"John's still alive, so we figured you didn't." Evan waited a beat before adding, "They know you took something, though. What is it?"
Now Michael winced. "Not a thing, per se. I may have… borrowed… some information."
"About?" Evan pressed.
"Another cell. East. Texas."
"You've been in Texas for a month?" Evan was surprised. Of all the places on the grand list of vacation spots, hunting down Wraith in Texas was somewhere between 'dumpster diving' and 'shopping at a flea market.' Evan was fond of neither.
"Travelled around the state, yeah," Michael said. "It's easy to find new shoes there."
Evan winced. "Sorry about that."
"The thing is," Michael continued, "if you had just trusted me, I would've stayed."
"I'm sorry," Evan apologized again.
There was a moment's pause before Michael continued. "Anyway, I'm not staying in town. I wanted to let you guys know, though, that there's a group in Abilene that you should get in touch with. They're kind of like Atlantis, doing the renegade thing, except without the retrovirus or the gene therapy."
"Suicide," Evan muttered, and Michael nodded.
"They've got some tech that McKay would love to get his hands on, though. You could probably trade some of your meds research for some of their toys." He handed Evan a card with a name and number on it. "Give them my name when you call. They're expecting to hear from you."
Evan took the card and made a mental note to have McKay check it out before he showed it to John. "Where are you headed?" he asked as they walked to the door. Michael shrugged.
"I've got a few leads," he said noncommittally. "I'd… I'm out of ATA boosters."
"How long?" Evan asked immediately.
"A week, give or take."
Evan nodded. "Will you come back, or should I call Carson?"
Michael laughed. "I'll just come back. I've still got stuff there, unless you've tossed it."
"Boxed and ready for you," Evan remarked. "It's almost like we knew."
-0-
They sent Michael on his way with all of his belongings, a fresh batch of the gene therapy, and a few vials of the retrovirus. He was, apparently, a one-man renegade Wraith hunter. John had also slipped him an untraceable cell phone in case of emergencies.
He didn't expect that Michael would ever use it, and as the weeks dragged on, it appeared that he was right. Michael didn't call.
John spent his time gathering more information in the cell. Bob in particular seemed pleased with John, with the services he provided to the cell, which were mostly through physical labor. John's cover as a construction worker was believed, and the Wraith had set him to finishing up some modifications to the inside of the larger warehouse that they occupied, building rooms and tearing down the walls of others.
"Doing well," Bob told him one day. John had realized early on that Bob wasn't all that smart, and that he clearly didn't remember John from their combined time with Irina. John supposed that he looked different wearing clothing and not strapped to a chair, and that Bob had expected him to either turn or die, neither of which had happened.
"Thanks," John responded. "I'll be back in three days. I can get some more drywall, finish the upstairs section."
Bob nodded. "She'll want to see you."
John nodded. "She" was the still-unnamed queen. "She" seemed to have some sort of interest in John, and while it was more than a little unnerving, John figured it could be used to his advantage. If she got interested enough, she might spill things. On the other hand, though, if she got too interested, she could try to turn him ,and then it would all go to hell in a handbasket.
"You hear from Michael?" Bob asked in his most casual tone. Since Bob sucked at human emotions and inclinations, this was about as subtle as a train hitting a wall. John shrugged.
"Don't think he's coming back. I checked with his landlord. He didn't pay his rent, and the guy boxed up all Michael's shit, told me I could have it if I wanted it, otherwise he was gonna donate it," he lied easily. "I told him to pitch it. I don't need more shit at my place."
Bob nodded. "Tell her when you talk to her."
John nodded, and Bob left the room.
Three days later, he was tacking drywall to a frame on the top floor of the warehouse when she entered. "You have not heard from Michael."
John stopped what he was doing and turned to face her. "No, ma'am."
She waved a hand at him. "Continue your work. You have spoken to the owner of his property?"
"His landlord, yeah," John replied, returning to the wall.
"The man has packaged Michael's things up."
"Yeah," John repeated. Bob had clearly spoken to her.
"Pick them up from him and bring them here," she commanded, and John turned around to look her in the eyes, nail gun in hand.
"I'll call him," John said with a shrug, "but I don't know if he still has the stuff. I told him to toss it last time I talked to him."
The queen's eyes narrowed. "Why would you tell him that?"
"I didn't know you'd want it," John pointed out. "I sure as hell didn't, and it sounded to me like he was gonna try to make me take it."
"You know he has stolen from us."
"To be honest, ma'am," John replied, scratching his head and playing stupid, "I'd kind of forgotten."
The corner of her lip curled into a sneer. "Bring his things when you come. Track them down if you must. Report back within a week with your progress."
"Yes, ma'am," John replied, turning back to his work.
-0-
"You have a week to come up with Michael's stuff?"
John scowled. "Yeah."
Evan sighed. "Because you told her Michael's landlord had boxed it up and given it away."
"Pretty much." John hesitated. "Look, Evan, I didn't realize she'd want it when I said that. It was just something else to show that he wasn't coming back, you know?"
Evan held up a hand. "I know. But this could be the beginning of the end of this. We have to figure out how to get some stuff that could reasonably be Michael's." Evan thought there might still be a few shirts of his, maybe a pair of jeans that had been left if the wash, but he doubted that's what the queen was looking for.
"Yeah," John agreed. "She's going to want proof of the information he took."
And that, Evan knew, was both the point and the problem. They had the information that she wanted - a phone number and a name on a card that Michael had slipped him. There was just no way in hell that they were giving that kind of intel to the cell.
They'd been in contact with the others the week before . Michael was right; they'd been able to trade technology for medical knowledge. McKay was happily tinkering with some sort of gun that the cell had sent up. It was a weird-looking thing with a weirder sounding name, but true to the word of the group that had sent it, one shot stunned the victim, a second killed them, and a third destroyed the body. McKay was practically giddy with the chance to examine it.
"We can't lead them down there," Evan pointed out.
John hesitated. "Maybe we can… mislead them."
"How so?"
"Look, we know the cell isn't sure exactly what Michael took, right?" Reasonably sure, at least, but Evan nodded anyway. "So we give them the clothes, throw a few other random things in the box, and stick in a piece of paper with an address somewhere in Chicago."
Chicago. There were bound to be Wraith there, just not enough that it had drawn attention, at least not yet. "Where in Chicago?"
John shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Somewhere abandoned. But they'll start looking for him up there, and when it doesn't turn anything up I can just play dumb and say that's all I was able to track down, sorry."
"So this is a plan based entirely on your ability to act?"
John glared at him. "That's what it's been all along," he reminded Evan. "So far, so good."
Evan closed his eyes and mulled it over. It could work, but it had about a fifty-fifty shot of going horribly wrong. They'd gone with worse odds.
"Can you get in touch with Michael, make sure he's nowhere near Chicago?" Evan asked, eyes still closed.
"Yeah."
Evan nodded. "Okay."
John left the room, dialing his cell phone, and Evan heard his voice in the hall, speaking in short, clipped sentences. He turned to his computer and started looking for a place they could use as an address in Chicago. He found a few promising spots and looked up as John came back in the room.
"He says he's nowhere near Chicago," John confirmed. "Thanked us for sending the Wraith on a wild goose chase."
"Anything to piss them off in the long run," Evan said generously. He pointed to his screen and John walked around behind him, looking over his shoulder. "Found a few places."
John studied the listings and shrugged. "Which is the least likely to have collateral damage if it gets blown up?"
Evan wondered what it said about his life that he'd already considered the question and come up with an answer. "This one," he said, tapping the screen.
John nodded. "Looks good to me."
Evan wrote the address on a slip of paper as John left the room; she'd seen both Michael's and John's handwriting, but not Evan's. Evan figured she'd assume this information had been passed to Michael after he'd used whatever information he'd stolen from the cell. He frowned down at the paper after he'd written it, considering the future and the likelihood that he'd have to do something like this again, and rewrote the information, making his handwriting longer and loopier, again and again, until it no longer resembled his own.
John returned with a box as Evan was finishing up. Evan glanced inside; John had tossed in the clothing they'd found, a few CDs, a book, and what appeared to be a saltshaker. Evan raised an eyebrow at the selection.
"I went for random," John said cheerily, setting the box on Evan's desk. "Figured if I was going for the 'I tracked this shit down' route, I would have found some weird stuff. So," he gestured to the box, "I put in weird stuff."
Evan pulled the book from the box and opened it to a random page. He folded the slip of paper with the address written on it and stuck it in. It looked like a bookmark. He had no doubt that the queen would find it.
"She said a week?"
"'Within a week.' Exact quote."
Evan nodded. "Four days, then?"
John grinned back. "Works for me."
-0-
John checked his stunner one more time as he loaded the box into his car. Rodney swore up and down that it worked, that it was fine, that it was a brilliant piece of technology, and John had tuned out the rest of the babble that Rodney had used as he got into the mechanical aspects of the gun. John had practiced with it a few times, aiming it at paper targets in their makeshift firing range, and was reasonably satisfied that, if it didn't work as advertised, it at least seemed to incinerate things pretty well.
John drove the short distance from Atlantis to the Wraith base. Though he'd been confident when Evan had asked him for the hundredth time if he thought he could pull this off, he now found himself running through the million ways it could go wrong at the drop of a hat. John grimaced at his own internal line of thought and tried to think instead of his mission for the day: get there, drop the box off, finish the last of the drywall installation. He parked down the road and retrieved the box, checking that his stunner was secured in its holster against his back. He knew he had fifteen minutes before his backup would be in place; they staggered the arrival times of the van, trying not to arouse suspicion. John picked the box up and walked to the warehouse.
He could tell something was off the second he stepped in the door. She was standing there, alone, a tiny, victorious smile on her face. "John."
"Ma'am," he greeted, setting the box down. "Spent the last few days chasing Michael's shit around town. I didn't find much, but I'll keep looking if you want me to."
The queen looked into the box, her eyes narrowing as she took in the items. She didn't reach in, didn't seem to take any special interest in any of the items, and John suddenly felt a flare of adrenaline without quite knowing why. She looked up at him thoughtfully and took a step towards him. John fought to stay in place.
"John," she said, and her voice was somewhere between a purr and a hiss. "There is a matter that bears discussion."
"Something I can do for you, ma'am?" John asked, going for eager-to-please but not quite sure he made it. She laughed.
"I believe there is much you can do for me," she said in the same tone of voice. "Colonel Sheppard."
John froze for about half a second before he was running out the door, thinking fuck fuck fuck the whole time. He managed to grab at his stunner as he ran, not sure where he was headed except away, and he turned and fired off a wild shot at the woman who was now chasing him. It missed by a mile, and she merely laughed as she ran after him.
John had seen the Wraith in action before, knew about their physical strength and dexterity. He knew that she could catch him in a few long strides if she wanted, but she seemed content to let him run away, at least for now. John zigzagged through the streets, heading for some sort of civilization, somewhere that he might get help.
He turned and fired again, missed again, and when he turned back around he had veered slightly and was headed into a lamp post. He jerked sharply and avoided hitting it with his body, but slammed into it with his right hand, which reflexively dropped his stunner. John kept running. It wasn't worth trying to retrieve it now.
He went on, trying to come up with options that didn't include torture and death. He also thought, in the back of his head, that if he survived this, Evan was going to be pissed.
He kept running.
--
Finally, the story is all caught up! We're now to the point where It All Comes Round Again starts. Feel free to go from here to Falling Into Things Left and Right, the next story in the series, which is set a few months after then events in Round Again. Part five will be started soon, though I can't promise it'll be up before I leave for vacation at the end of next week, though I will try.