Unexpected by Oparu
Author's Chapter Notes: John leads his team to the Replicator ship. Elizabeth has some questions answered and a lot more created.
extra beta cookies for Shannon, because this was an grostesque little chapter
extra beta cookies for Shannon, because this was an grostesque little chapter
"Fire-" Rodney ordered into the radio.
John hit the control next to his left hand and waited. The background hum of Rodney's device jumped in volume until it rattled his body. His teeth chattered together as the whole ship became a vibrating ball of light. The blue-white light crept up his arms, enveloping his body in a thousand tiny pin-pricks. He saw the light erupt outward, surrounding the alien vessel in an envelope of light. It pulsed back and forth like an amoeba about to devour something.
The crackling turned into a roaring in his ears and then with a pop everything was silent. The Replicator vessel hung dead in space.
"I think it worked," Rodney shouted excitedly into his radio. "I'm not picking up anything on the motion sensors and everything still on in the vessel seems to be running autonomously."
"Carson and I will land in the forward fighter bay, you, Teyla and Ronon take the rear," John coordinated as he shook the tingles out of his hands. "We'll meet in the middle and get our people back."
"Roger that," Rodney replied as he shut off the radio.
John turned to Carson, grinning as the other man ran his hands nervously over his body.
"Feels like a thousand wee bugs have been tap-dancing on my body," Carson complained as he shuddered in disgust. "Do you think we got the buggers?"
"Rodney thinks so," John responded as he turned the ship over to better approach the landing bay. "I guess we won't know until we land this ship and take a look around."
"Isn't it a wee bit creepy?" Carson wondered as he clutched his ARG a little tighter. "Wandering around on a ship full of dead Replicators, who didn't even know we were coming to blast 'em out of the sky."
"They did want to kill us first," John argued with a half smile. "And you saw what just one of the bastards did to Elizabeth. Can you imagine what a whole ship of them would do to Earth in their crazy search for the Ancients?"
Carson saw through his facade, cutting right to the heart of John's anger. "She's going to be all right John," he insisted as he double checked his battle-scarred medical kit. "She'll be sitting there, wearing out solitaire on Rodney's computer until we get back. It was good to make her stay in Atlantis."
"Yeah, I just couldn't..." John twisted the jumper in a long slow arc, pulling it into the empty landing bay. "Please keep your hands and legs inside the jumper until we come to a complete stop.
The Asuran attention to detail had left the docking system entirely automated, just like those of Atlantis. John pulled his hands back and let the jumper slide into place. He grabbed his ARG and left his seat, keeping Carson behind him as he opened the door. The hatch hissed into the bay, meeting the air of the ship.
John coughed as he searched the bay. The air was stale, as if no one had breathed it for a thousand years. He realized after a moment that no one had, because aside from the recent influx of human prisoners, this ship had been devoid of breathing life.
"Where do we go?" Carson wondered as he looked back and forth down the hallway outside the bay. "It all looks the same to me."
John gestured down at the life-signs detector in his hand. "Other than you and me, who else is alive on this ship?" he asked in a combat whisper. The brilliant silver corridor of the ship extended endlessly in either direction and took his voice along with it.
"Good point," Carson whispered back as he peered down the glimmering walls.
"Come on," John said, waving to the left with the life signs detector. "They're this way."
~*~*~*~
Elizabeth's head shot up, moving so quickly it took her a moment to focus again. Instead of the bland hologram in her neat beige and tan robe, a short elderly woman stood in the center of the room.
"Startled you, didn't I?" she said, idly twirling a grey-black curl of hair around her finger. "I thought about just taking over perfect little Melia here," she commented as she shut off the hologram with a blink of her eyes. "You seemed up to the task of dealing with me, Dearie." Her long hair fell nearly to her waist in a mass of unruly curls. Her dress was a mass of layers of red and purple velvet, complete with a long cloak that lay on the floor behind her in a train.
Creeping lazily from the center of the room, she studied Elizabeth with an appraising eye. "From your genetic code I thought you'd be taller," she remarked lightly.
"How would you know?" Elizabeth demanded instinctually before taking the time to pull herself together. "Who are you and what are you doing in my city?" she asked more professionally, wishing she'd brought the pistol from her vest with her after all.
"My people called me Mauve; the natives of Ceol call me their Queen Mab. Either suits me," she brushed off Elizabeth's hostility with a predatory smile. "It's lonely here, without them, isn't it?"
"What do you want?" Elizabeth pressed with more rage than she thought she had left.
"To check on my creation..." she answered cryptically, waving her hand across Elizabeth's body as she gnarled her fingers. "I thought you'd have questions by now." The queen studied her black nails thoughtfully as she turned to the door. "Walk with me; you're getting anxious about that computer and the rest of your people. You'll pay more attention if it's there in front of you."
"Why should I?" Elizabeth said, folding her arms over her chest defiantly. "Give me one good reason to come with you or even believe anything that you say?"
The queen's eyes flashed to orange-red, the deep color like the heart of a flame, and Elizabeth felt the pain blossom beneath her stomach. It lanced through her, shooting fire across her hips. Falling to her knees and gasping for breath, she was unable to speak when it ended. Fading as quickly as it began, it left her fighting to regain her breath.
"Because I can take what I've given," the queen lisped maliciously. "Now, the control room, if you wouldn't mind."
~*~*~*~
John hit the door with his shoulder, shoving against the stubborn door mechanism. Carson fired his ARG blindly into the wires and surprisingly the door gave way. Tumbling into the room, John regained his footing in a mass of bodies. As far as he could see, the bodies of the Ancients they'd regained from the void between galaxies on the battleship Tria were lined in a neat row along the wall. Each body was incased in a protective film that clung to it like a second skin.
Carson followed him in, the pleasure on his face faded away when he saw the bodies. "My God," he whispered softly. "Who did this?"
"Angry children," John replied as he felt the weight of the room settle over him like a shroud. His feet echoed in the stillness, there was no smell of death, just the stale smell of dust. Somewhere in this mess, his life signs detector promised someone still lived.
Walking reverently along the bodies Carson kept track of the signs he noticed in his head. "They all bled from the eyes and ears," he called down to John as he knelt to look closer. "This film seems to be arresting all signs of decay. I couldn't tell you if they've been dead for minutes or years. From what we know of the Replicators, I'd guess they were probed until their minds couldn't take it anymore."
"How many are there?" John wondered aloud as he started to count them up in his mind.
"One hundred and four," an exhausted voice explained from the far corner. "They started by killing a few outright, for sport. They started with the lowest ranked and moved their way up."
John and Carson ran to the voice, finding Mr. Woolsey curled around his knees in the corner of the morgue.
"I got lucky," he informed them as he stared past them with haunted eyes. "I don't know anything about the Ancients, not comparatively. They were only in my head a few times, but Jack..." he faded out, unable to keep speaking.
"Where is General O'Neill?" John pushed as firmly as he dared. Just putting his hand on the man's shoulder made him jump away in fear. Carson took over, opening the med kit and beginning an initial exam.
"They took him," Woolsey babbled weakly. "They took him to the bridge, something about the planet..." he stopped speaking when coughing made it too difficult to form the words.
Standing up to whisper into John's ear, Carson shook his head in disgust. "He's malnourished, dehydrated, probably has a lung infection. Let me take him back to the jumper and wait for you."
John tapped his radio as he nodded to Carson. "Rodney, Teyla, Ronon, we've found Woolsey and I'm headed to the bridge," he said, leaning down to help Carson drag the other man to his feet. "Think you can make your way there?"
Woolsey's legs were shaky, and his arm felt like a stick inside the disturbingly clean fabric out of his suit. Carson wrapped his feeble arm and his neck and started slowly down the line of bodies. Nothing moved, not even the preserved hair on the victims.
"We'll be there," Ronon's gruff voice promised over the radio.
Reaching down to the first body, John recognized the insignia of the first officer from his time on the Aurora. The man was dead peacefully, eyes closed with two trails of blood leading down his face. The blood was still red beneath the clear film. It even seemed wet. A thin gold chain ran around the man's neck; John reached for it and wondered how he'd pull it out of the film.
His fingers slid easily into the film as if it wasn't even there. He tried not to think about what kind of nanotechnology had created it, grabbed the chain and pulled it. As he expected, two tiny crystals hung from the chain. John removed one, setting it on the man's neck. It sank beneath the film, resting there in the hollow of his dead throat. He moved to the next body, ripping off the necklace and leaving on crystal behind.
He tried to look at each face, reminding himself that these were his brothers and sisters in arms, even if they had removed him from his home. They had wanted what he wanted, a home and a life in the Pegasus galaxy. After a few they blended together, peaceful and proud in an endless parade of strength and nobility. John kept going, crouching by each until his knees hurt from the effort. He didn't know how long it was taking him, wasn't sure if Ronon's team had reached the bridge yet. He owed it to these people.
His radio crackled in his ear, "We've taken the bridge," Ronon announced with a hint of disappointment. "It's deserted as well."
"They were tracking something on the planet," Rodney added over the radio. "It looks like the captain and a few others took the Lantian captain and General O'Neill down to the planet. There seems to be some kind of research base there."
"They must have at least one jumper after all," Ronon chimed in. "That or a transport system we haven't seen yet."
"Their technology seems to be entirely based on that of the Ancients," Teyla pointed out. "I doubt they have such a device."
"Woolsey was in rough shape," John said as he tucked yet another crystal into his vest pocket. "Carson took him to my jumper. I'm in the brig...morgue," he corrected himself, "I could use a hand."
"We shall assist you," Teyla assured him with her usual calm.
"Colonel, I'd like to stay here, see if I can..." Rodney began to ask.
John chuckled in spite of himself, "...very good Rodney," he answered. "See if you can steal the ship. We could use something as heavily armed as this."
"Think of it as an early Christmas gift," Rodney offered dryly. "McKay out."
He'd moved down six more bodies when Ronon and Teyla arrived to help him. Neither of them said anything as they settled to the task of marking the dead. Between the three of them, the silent understanding remained.
"Who does such a thing?" Teyla asked finally when her sense of honor was too offended to remain silent.
"Machines," Ronon answered simply. "Machines without conscience, without honor."
"We're doing the same thing to them," John pointed out as he stood and moved to the next body. "We fly out of the sky and blast thing with energy that kills them without warning or recourse."
"We should make sure we do it first," Ronon added as he ripped a chain free. "We at least know what it is to fight with honor. These prisoners were slaughtered in their own minds."
John felt the shiver of disgust run cold up his back. "I know," he agreed weakly, feeling his voice echo through the room. "We'll get them."
"Rodney believes it will be easy to take this vessel," Teyla explained as she stood from the last body. "He has already gotten into the computer system."
John double checked his ARG and the life signs detector. When he was satisfied no one else remained he nodded. "We'll let him take it; we still have people to save."
~*~*~*~
Elizabeth felt the queen's presence behind her as a palpable heat. As if the queen's body produced the same effect as a torch being held up behind her back. "What do you want in the control room?"
"You want to be in the control room," Mab corrected with erie calm. "You'll stop worrying about your team and your lover and finally be able to have a serious conversation."
Whirling around to glare at the other woman, Elizabeth felt her anger boil. "I am perfectly capable..."
Mab twisted her fingers and the pain lanced through her again. Shooting through her belly like a knife being dragged upwards through the flesh. Clinging to the wall let her remain upright, but barely.
"Stop arguing my dear Elizabeth and do as you are told," Mab suggested with deep malice in her voice. "Haven't you learned enough to listen to your betters?"
Resentment pushed the pain out of her mind, if only for a moment. "You are not..." Elizabeth began to protest, but lost the will as the agony within her doubled.
"I'm really not sure how much damage you can take," Mab admitted with a tilt of her head. "Perhaps we shouldn't test your body's ability to maintain the fetus. I'd hate to lose all your progress."
"My progress?" Elizabeth gasped out when the pain receded again. "What progress?"
Mab advanced on her instantly, seemingly without moving at all. One of Elizabeth's hands flew back against the dark wall of the city and the other was flattened against her stomach. She couldn't move as the other woman stalked her.
One wizened finger ran across her cheek, leaving a trail of heat behind. "Should I show you?" Mab pressed wickedly. "Remind you that the creature you fear is nothing more than the fusion of your DNA with your new lover's? Help you understand that the thing within you that you can barely acknowledge is nothing more than you and your darling John."
She released Elizabeth, letting her slump against the wall. Cold sweat sank into her uniform and the headache she'd been fighting demanded more of her attention. "The best parts of you, of course," she smiled, revealing perfect white teeth as she swept past Elizabeth on her way to the control room. "Now aren't you coming?"
Elizabeth swallowed, holding the soreness left in her stomach with her left hand. She had to go along, at least until she found out what this woman wanted. Dragging herself away from the wall, she prayed nothing that had been done to her was leaving any permanent damage. The queen hurried along, guiding her through the dark corridors of the city at a frantic pace. Elizabeth couldn't keep up and the queen whirled on her, glaring her impatience.
Elizabeth pulled herself up to her full height and glared right back. "You can rush me all you want, but unless you want me to lose this baby, you're not going to get anywhere without waiting for me."
"There's that fire I was looking for," The queen remarked over her shoulder as she turned around and waited for Elizabeth to catch up. "You're going to need that to defeat the Wraith."
"I am?" Elizabeth snapped back. "I think that's the most useful thing you've said."
Queen Mab only smiled as she fell in step with Elizabeth. "Very good," her eyes danced in her head. "Hating me could be good for you."
"If you're not going to leave," Elizabeth gritted her teeth and tried to reconcile what was happening to her. "You could at least tell me what you are."
"I was what you, until recently, so adorably worshiped as 'Ancients'," as she spoke she altered her appearance, leaving behind her velvets for the simpler robe of a Lantian scientist. Her hair left the tangled mass on her shoulders and became a neat bun on top of her head. "I was head researcher in one of the genetics labs."
"You're ascended," Elizabeth realized harshly. "But not..." she thought aloud, "Ascended beings don't torture others."
"Is it really torture?" Mab twisted the thought. "You still can't decide if you want to be carrying this child. The very idea that it could be something I did to you makes you even more apprehensive." She stopped walking and turned to the other woman with a kind smile. "Perhaps you'd like to see what happened? What you can't remember?"
Elizabeth was too tired for games. Taking the queen's shoulder she turned her around roughly and stared into her disturbingly black eyes. "Show me," she demanded. The hallway disappeared in a flash of fire. Then she was watching herself.
Herself of nine weeks ago laughed and tumbled into a bedroom with John back in the simple Great Hall of Ceol. The same bedroom she'd woken up in back when her strange journey began. She watched herself kiss him once, blushing as she did. The affection in the way John watched her was the same warmth she remembered but she hadn't seen the way she looked at him. The pure abandonment that she stared at him with as she led him to the bed, was shocking. The past version of herself pulled him down and wrapped her hands around his back.
In the vision John started to kiss her back, but then there was a flash of light. Both of them slumped unconscious to the bed, still tangled together. Light descended on them both, obscuring them from view. When the flame-kissed light faded, their clothes were in a pile on the two wooden chairs and they lay there, naked and intwined together.
They hadn't made love. No matter what they thought, the child inside of her had been created by someone else; this creature made of fire. Elizabeth jolted herself out of the vision, staggering back as it hit her. "You're not part of the Ancients. They'd never allow you to tamper with humans like that..."
Queen Mab began to laugh, throwing back her head and shaking with amusement. "What do you think they can do?" she stammered out through her laughter. "I'm the only one of them who wants to see the mistake destroyed. The rest of the so-called Ancients will just sit around and wait for your kind to stumble onto ascension as they did. They'll never help you, and if you fail, the Wraith will descend on Earth and feed. Then no one will be left to achieve their precious ascension."
~*~*~*~
The jumper had landed beneath the surface of the planet. The Replicator scout ship sat just inside a Lantian landing bay. John put down next to it, watching the display as it brought up a partial map of the structure. "It looks like one of the Ancient outposts," John said as he studied the display. "Wasn't in our database."
"Neither were the Asurans," Ronon added as he jumped up towards the hatch. "Ready to go?"
Teyla nodded and readied her weapon. "Yes," she agreed as she turned to John.
Deactivating the jumper, John left his chair and met them in the back. "Okay, let's take them."
After they opened the hatch it was quick. Ronon took point, heading down the stone tunnels towards the base. Two Replicators fell to his ARG, and a third patrol fell to Teyla's. John hung back, making sure no one cut off their escape. Staring down at the detector, he gestured down the left hand tunnel.
"Eight," he mouthed soundlessly. Ronon nodded and gestured with three of his fingers. Teyla followed his hand and took position at the door controls. At her nod the heavy metal doors flew open, John tossed his flash grenade. Screwing his eyes shut against the light, he followed the black shape of Ronon's back. A handful of well-placed shots took out the guards.
Two more important looking Replicators stood in the center, surrounding a throne chair with the female captain, Helia, in it. Both of their hands were in her head and the screams that cut through the blasts of the ARG's weren't even human anymore. The sound cut into John's soul, like listening to an animal let go of the last of its life.
General O'Neill lay slumped on the floor. When the Replicators released Helia, one of them turned on him, but Teyla got in the way. Blocking the stabbing arm with her body she fired, dispatching the Replicator into a silver mist. His hand had penetrated into her shoulder, blood oozed slowly from the wound, leaving a brilliant trail of crimson on her purple shirt.
The second Replicator lunged towards John, moving so quickly he seemed to teleport from Helia to him. He ducked, taking a blow on his back that might have killed him if it had hit anywhere else. Hitting the ground so hard the wind rushed out of his chest, he tried not to think about the stars blocking his vision. He rolled, coming up as he fired. The Replicator burst into a shower of silver that stung his eyes as it fell over him.
The screaming had stopped. Ronon finished off the last guard. Tucking his ARG into the holster, he pulled a square of cloth from his vest and shoved it against Teyla's shoulder. Pressing it down hard with his hands, he looked over the two prisoners.
Helia's eyes were opened but they stared vacantly at the ceiling. On the floor, General O'Neill coughed and sat up next to John.
"Took you long enough," he complained as he leaned against the chair.
"You're welcome, Sir," John replied with a wincing smile. He started to stand up, but stopped. "Ow..." he muttered to himself, rotating his shoulder back slowly.
"All right?" Ronon asked as Teyla took over putting pressure on her shoulder.
"I think it's going to be a hell of a bruise," John winced again and turned to Teyla as he finished struggling to his feet. "You?"
"I am sure Doctor Beckett will be able to repair it," Teyla said sincerely as she looked down at her arm. "It appears to look much worse than it is." Even with her assurances, her face was pale and he could smell the blood on the floor.
John nodded, Teyla was tough and she'd pull through worse. He reached down to the general, dragging the older man to his feet. Jack got up slowly, leaning on his rescuer for support. John's shirt collar pulled down as he tugged, revealing the deep red mark Elizabeth had left on his neck.
Jack squinted at it, wondering if his eyes were working enough to see what he thought he saw. "You've been having a good time, haven't you?" he teased before shaking with a cough that rattled his entire body. Like Woolsey he was dangerously thin and his eyes were sunken back into his head.
"I'm sorry, Sir. I don't know what you mean," John replied as he narrowed his eyebrows in confusion.
Jack poked at his neck with a feeble hand. "Got a little love bite here," he said through a smirk. "Wonder who that's from..."
John blushed involuntarily, feeling the blood pool hot in his face. He said nothing and started dragging the general over to the door.
Ronon bent down over the Lantian captain. "She has a pulse," he reported to the rest of them. Waving his hand over her face, he got no response. Her eyes continued to stare straight ahead, like marbles set in her face. "Doesn't seem to have much else," he added, slipping an arm beneath her and scooping her up.
"Take her back to the jumper," John ordered as he navigated around the chair.
"ZPM!" Jack shouted gruffly, drawing John to a halt. "There's a ZPM in the..." he trailed off again, wincing from some unseen injury. "...in the base...thing," he finished weakly.
"Teyla?" John hinted as he started to walk again. Teyla nodded, kneeling on the base of the chair and searching with her good hand for the release. "She'll get it," he promised as he started down the long stone hallway. "Replicators were nice enough to leave the city with three." He stopped, shifting the general's extra weight away from his badly bruised shoulder.
"Three?" Jack echoed, "Nice."
"It was," John said as he turned back to check for Teyla. "Then Rodney broke the city."
"The city?" Jack repeated with awe. "He broke the whole city?"
"Took us two weeks just to fix the gate," John explained with relief as Teyla emerged from the doors.
"Without the ZPM the life support system will not remain long," Teyla informed them as she caught up at a jog, darkened ZPM in her strong hand.
"Didn't want to stick around anyway," Jack muttered softly as he tried to keep up with the colonel. "Terrible view, lousy service. I'm going to have to tell Carter about Rodney breaking the city. She'll probably bust a rib laughing."
John helped drop the older man into one of the seats in the jumper. Teyla sat in back, next to Ronon and the catatonic Ancient. Her shoulder had started to bleed again; Ronon sandwiched it between his huge hands and nodded up to John.
"Get us out of here," Jack suggested with a wry smile. "You got what you came for."
"Yes, Sir," John replied, dropping into the pilot's seat and bringing the jumper to life. "With pleasure."
~*~*~*~
"What do you think, Elizabeth?" Mab crouched in front of her, watching her with an oddly sympathetic expression. "Are you sure you don't want all of this to go away? Good riddance to being nauseated, dizzy, and exhausted. You can go back to drinking coffee all night and staying up worrying about your city."
Elizabeth tried to stand up, but stopped halfway; curling up around her stomach and praying it was all a bad dream. She didn't know how she'd made it to the gate room, or why she was kneeling on the floor, but the desperate pain in her stomach blocked most of her thoughts. "That's not what I want..." she started, choking on her agony.
"Isn't it though?" Mab pressed, grabbing her chin and tilting it up so Elizabeth had to look into her black, empty eyes. "You just want things to go back the way they were. So you can slip behind the facade of Doctor Weir and never feel anything again." The queen rose to her feet, dropping the other woman's chin and staring down at Elizabeth's crumpled form on the floor. "I can make it all go away," she whispered seductively. "I can take the child from you and send it to a woman on Ceol. She'll never question her blessing."
"No..." Elizabeth gasped into the floor, before she had the strength to lift her head. Pain still came from her stomach in waves, rising and falling with the queen's mood. Sweat ran down her arms, leaving damp hand-prints on the cool metal floor of the city. "You can't."
"It's not like you want it," Mab intoned as she toyed with a line of fire in the air. "You surged with disgust when I showed you how your child came into being. I felt your hatred. Your sense of violation when you knew it wasn't that handsome Colonel Sheppard who planted it within you." She caught Elizabeth's shoulders suddenly and dragged her to her feet.
Crying out in surprise, Elizabeth sagged in her grasp. "I don't care!" she shouted defiantly. "John doesn't care. He loves..."
"...you." Mab finished as she smoothed a damp lock of Elizabeth's hair back from her face.
Cringing, Elizabeth tried to pull away, biting her lip against the pain she suddenly couldn't escape. "He loves the child," she whispered with all of her unspent rage. "I'm not going to be the one to take it from him!" her sudden strength surprised her as she broke free of Mab's grip. "Do whatever you want to me," she challenged wildly. "I'm going to keep this baby."
Mab's smile grew like a shadow across the sun. "I'll see you again," she promised as she took a step back. Her body faded, losing the image of the Ancient scientist into a ball of burning orange-white light. "You'll have to come visit me," she suggested in her rasping tone. "We'll have so much to talk about."
The light turned, leaving Elizabeth on the floor of the control room as it went to the gate. Dialing with only the power of her mind, the light waited only a moment before disappearing into the rippling surface of the gate.
It wasn't until the gate evaporated that Elizabeth started to sob in relief. The pain had left with the queen, leaving her shaken and drenched with sweat. She took a halting step towards the stairs. She could put up the shield from Rodney's laptop. She had no idea how useful it would be against an ascended being, but it was something she could do. Something she could touch and try to feel safe. Half-crawling up the stairs, Elizabeth made it up to the control panel. She slapped the shield control and collapsed into the chair.
Laying her throbbing head down on her arms, she meant to only close her eyes for a second. She'd been awake too long and fighting with Ancient-impersonating-demons wasn't helping her exhaustion. Elizabeth felt herself start to fade, beginning to lose consciousness. For some reason her memory flashed to the briefing she'd had on the Ori. She remembered Daniel Jackson explaining the utter contempt with which the Ori consider humanity.
Pulling her up again with great effort, she remembered that Rodney's computer could access the database. Without the patronizing hologram she might be able to get more from the database and stay under the radar of the queen. After all, it was the second time she'd seen the hologram do something that involved an ascended being. Maybe there was something wrong with that room.
Rodney's computer obediently logged into the Ancient database; even provided her with a self-designed search window. Reminding herself to thank him for being so incredibly thorough, she started searching. Keeping busy on the computer kept her from thinking about the headache that had taken up permanent residence in the back of her skull. Digging around the feet of her chair for the canteen of water with shaking hands, Elizabeth couldn't banish the feeling something was wrong with her.
Swallowing the water slowly, she hoped her stomach would let her keep it down. Her database query returned a mass of data; including lab reports signed by a geneticist named Mauve, crew manifests from missions she must have attended, and a 'missing-presumed-dead' note from over ten thousand years ago. Elizabeth picked the death record, calling it to the front of her screen.
Instead of the ease of the holographic interface, she had to wade through the record in the original Ancient. Wishing she'd thought to bring her computer from Earth, Elizabeth settled down to try and translate it by hand. When she didn't throw up, she grew brave enough to drink more of her water. As she tried to ignore the strange taste in her mouth, she managed to read the record.
The creature now calling herself Queen Mab had indeed once been an Ancient scientist. She had been on a top-secret mission attempting to use a viral weapon of her own design against the Wraith when she, along with her vessel, had disappeared. The vessel had been presumed destroyed and the loss of the scientists onboard a loss for all of Atlantis.
The lab reports would have been a mess even if she had gotten them in English. As she leaned on the desk, rubbing her temples and her forehead in a poor attempt to deal with her growing headache; Elizabeth remembered why she'd hated biology in school. However, in between the passages of indecipherable scientific data, Mauve's personal notes were disturbingly fascinating.
Yawning into her hand, Elizabeth propped up her head and kept reading. Mauve had been exhaustedly dedicated to mapping and improving the human genome. Her early reports were fairly positive; she had successfully eliminated a genetic defect that led to deadly allergic reactions in the population of one planet and managed to wipe out a plague on another. After a while her reports took on an uglier tone. Mauve lost compassion for her human subjects; occasionally blaming them for not responding to her tampering as she wished.
Elizabeth turned her head away, letting her eyes relax for a long moment. She had little experience diagnosing mental illness, but years of experience with megalomaniac dictators let her know what the warning signs were. Getting up out of the chair to stretch her legs, she put both hands on the small of her back as she tried to straighten the dull ache out of it.
Staring at her watch only made her more impatient, somehow, without her noticing another six hours had passed. Her watch said it was four in the morning. It was so hard to tell the time of day under the water because it was always blue and dark, no matter the weather or the time of day.
The Carson in her head said she should sleep. The John within shouted that she hadn't had enough to eat. He even suggested that the entire experience had been a hallucination. Her way of reconciling her fears of her body.
Elizabeth shook them both away, pulling her chair back to the desk and Rodney's computer. Her encounter, hallucination or not, had left her too vulnerable for sleep. The very idea of closing her eyes in the darkness made her chest tighten. She promised herself she'd eat what Teyla had left out for her of the Athosian rations, but only once she was sure she'd keep it down. Wouldn't make much sense to throw it up, she rationalized it to herself as she forced her eyes to concentrate on the Ancient data. Something in the database would tell her about the LK476 and her new adversary. Even if it didn't, it kept her from dwelling on the loneliness of the empty city.
John hit the control next to his left hand and waited. The background hum of Rodney's device jumped in volume until it rattled his body. His teeth chattered together as the whole ship became a vibrating ball of light. The blue-white light crept up his arms, enveloping his body in a thousand tiny pin-pricks. He saw the light erupt outward, surrounding the alien vessel in an envelope of light. It pulsed back and forth like an amoeba about to devour something.
The crackling turned into a roaring in his ears and then with a pop everything was silent. The Replicator vessel hung dead in space.
"I think it worked," Rodney shouted excitedly into his radio. "I'm not picking up anything on the motion sensors and everything still on in the vessel seems to be running autonomously."
"Carson and I will land in the forward fighter bay, you, Teyla and Ronon take the rear," John coordinated as he shook the tingles out of his hands. "We'll meet in the middle and get our people back."
"Roger that," Rodney replied as he shut off the radio.
John turned to Carson, grinning as the other man ran his hands nervously over his body.
"Feels like a thousand wee bugs have been tap-dancing on my body," Carson complained as he shuddered in disgust. "Do you think we got the buggers?"
"Rodney thinks so," John responded as he turned the ship over to better approach the landing bay. "I guess we won't know until we land this ship and take a look around."
"Isn't it a wee bit creepy?" Carson wondered as he clutched his ARG a little tighter. "Wandering around on a ship full of dead Replicators, who didn't even know we were coming to blast 'em out of the sky."
"They did want to kill us first," John argued with a half smile. "And you saw what just one of the bastards did to Elizabeth. Can you imagine what a whole ship of them would do to Earth in their crazy search for the Ancients?"
Carson saw through his facade, cutting right to the heart of John's anger. "She's going to be all right John," he insisted as he double checked his battle-scarred medical kit. "She'll be sitting there, wearing out solitaire on Rodney's computer until we get back. It was good to make her stay in Atlantis."
"Yeah, I just couldn't..." John twisted the jumper in a long slow arc, pulling it into the empty landing bay. "Please keep your hands and legs inside the jumper until we come to a complete stop.
The Asuran attention to detail had left the docking system entirely automated, just like those of Atlantis. John pulled his hands back and let the jumper slide into place. He grabbed his ARG and left his seat, keeping Carson behind him as he opened the door. The hatch hissed into the bay, meeting the air of the ship.
John coughed as he searched the bay. The air was stale, as if no one had breathed it for a thousand years. He realized after a moment that no one had, because aside from the recent influx of human prisoners, this ship had been devoid of breathing life.
"Where do we go?" Carson wondered as he looked back and forth down the hallway outside the bay. "It all looks the same to me."
John gestured down at the life-signs detector in his hand. "Other than you and me, who else is alive on this ship?" he asked in a combat whisper. The brilliant silver corridor of the ship extended endlessly in either direction and took his voice along with it.
"Good point," Carson whispered back as he peered down the glimmering walls.
"Come on," John said, waving to the left with the life signs detector. "They're this way."
~*~*~*~
Elizabeth's head shot up, moving so quickly it took her a moment to focus again. Instead of the bland hologram in her neat beige and tan robe, a short elderly woman stood in the center of the room.
"Startled you, didn't I?" she said, idly twirling a grey-black curl of hair around her finger. "I thought about just taking over perfect little Melia here," she commented as she shut off the hologram with a blink of her eyes. "You seemed up to the task of dealing with me, Dearie." Her long hair fell nearly to her waist in a mass of unruly curls. Her dress was a mass of layers of red and purple velvet, complete with a long cloak that lay on the floor behind her in a train.
Creeping lazily from the center of the room, she studied Elizabeth with an appraising eye. "From your genetic code I thought you'd be taller," she remarked lightly.
"How would you know?" Elizabeth demanded instinctually before taking the time to pull herself together. "Who are you and what are you doing in my city?" she asked more professionally, wishing she'd brought the pistol from her vest with her after all.
"My people called me Mauve; the natives of Ceol call me their Queen Mab. Either suits me," she brushed off Elizabeth's hostility with a predatory smile. "It's lonely here, without them, isn't it?"
"What do you want?" Elizabeth pressed with more rage than she thought she had left.
"To check on my creation..." she answered cryptically, waving her hand across Elizabeth's body as she gnarled her fingers. "I thought you'd have questions by now." The queen studied her black nails thoughtfully as she turned to the door. "Walk with me; you're getting anxious about that computer and the rest of your people. You'll pay more attention if it's there in front of you."
"Why should I?" Elizabeth said, folding her arms over her chest defiantly. "Give me one good reason to come with you or even believe anything that you say?"
The queen's eyes flashed to orange-red, the deep color like the heart of a flame, and Elizabeth felt the pain blossom beneath her stomach. It lanced through her, shooting fire across her hips. Falling to her knees and gasping for breath, she was unable to speak when it ended. Fading as quickly as it began, it left her fighting to regain her breath.
"Because I can take what I've given," the queen lisped maliciously. "Now, the control room, if you wouldn't mind."
~*~*~*~
John hit the door with his shoulder, shoving against the stubborn door mechanism. Carson fired his ARG blindly into the wires and surprisingly the door gave way. Tumbling into the room, John regained his footing in a mass of bodies. As far as he could see, the bodies of the Ancients they'd regained from the void between galaxies on the battleship Tria were lined in a neat row along the wall. Each body was incased in a protective film that clung to it like a second skin.
Carson followed him in, the pleasure on his face faded away when he saw the bodies. "My God," he whispered softly. "Who did this?"
"Angry children," John replied as he felt the weight of the room settle over him like a shroud. His feet echoed in the stillness, there was no smell of death, just the stale smell of dust. Somewhere in this mess, his life signs detector promised someone still lived.
Walking reverently along the bodies Carson kept track of the signs he noticed in his head. "They all bled from the eyes and ears," he called down to John as he knelt to look closer. "This film seems to be arresting all signs of decay. I couldn't tell you if they've been dead for minutes or years. From what we know of the Replicators, I'd guess they were probed until their minds couldn't take it anymore."
"How many are there?" John wondered aloud as he started to count them up in his mind.
"One hundred and four," an exhausted voice explained from the far corner. "They started by killing a few outright, for sport. They started with the lowest ranked and moved their way up."
John and Carson ran to the voice, finding Mr. Woolsey curled around his knees in the corner of the morgue.
"I got lucky," he informed them as he stared past them with haunted eyes. "I don't know anything about the Ancients, not comparatively. They were only in my head a few times, but Jack..." he faded out, unable to keep speaking.
"Where is General O'Neill?" John pushed as firmly as he dared. Just putting his hand on the man's shoulder made him jump away in fear. Carson took over, opening the med kit and beginning an initial exam.
"They took him," Woolsey babbled weakly. "They took him to the bridge, something about the planet..." he stopped speaking when coughing made it too difficult to form the words.
Standing up to whisper into John's ear, Carson shook his head in disgust. "He's malnourished, dehydrated, probably has a lung infection. Let me take him back to the jumper and wait for you."
John tapped his radio as he nodded to Carson. "Rodney, Teyla, Ronon, we've found Woolsey and I'm headed to the bridge," he said, leaning down to help Carson drag the other man to his feet. "Think you can make your way there?"
Woolsey's legs were shaky, and his arm felt like a stick inside the disturbingly clean fabric out of his suit. Carson wrapped his feeble arm and his neck and started slowly down the line of bodies. Nothing moved, not even the preserved hair on the victims.
"We'll be there," Ronon's gruff voice promised over the radio.
Reaching down to the first body, John recognized the insignia of the first officer from his time on the Aurora. The man was dead peacefully, eyes closed with two trails of blood leading down his face. The blood was still red beneath the clear film. It even seemed wet. A thin gold chain ran around the man's neck; John reached for it and wondered how he'd pull it out of the film.
His fingers slid easily into the film as if it wasn't even there. He tried not to think about what kind of nanotechnology had created it, grabbed the chain and pulled it. As he expected, two tiny crystals hung from the chain. John removed one, setting it on the man's neck. It sank beneath the film, resting there in the hollow of his dead throat. He moved to the next body, ripping off the necklace and leaving on crystal behind.
He tried to look at each face, reminding himself that these were his brothers and sisters in arms, even if they had removed him from his home. They had wanted what he wanted, a home and a life in the Pegasus galaxy. After a few they blended together, peaceful and proud in an endless parade of strength and nobility. John kept going, crouching by each until his knees hurt from the effort. He didn't know how long it was taking him, wasn't sure if Ronon's team had reached the bridge yet. He owed it to these people.
His radio crackled in his ear, "We've taken the bridge," Ronon announced with a hint of disappointment. "It's deserted as well."
"They were tracking something on the planet," Rodney added over the radio. "It looks like the captain and a few others took the Lantian captain and General O'Neill down to the planet. There seems to be some kind of research base there."
"They must have at least one jumper after all," Ronon chimed in. "That or a transport system we haven't seen yet."
"Their technology seems to be entirely based on that of the Ancients," Teyla pointed out. "I doubt they have such a device."
"Woolsey was in rough shape," John said as he tucked yet another crystal into his vest pocket. "Carson took him to my jumper. I'm in the brig...morgue," he corrected himself, "I could use a hand."
"We shall assist you," Teyla assured him with her usual calm.
"Colonel, I'd like to stay here, see if I can..." Rodney began to ask.
John chuckled in spite of himself, "...very good Rodney," he answered. "See if you can steal the ship. We could use something as heavily armed as this."
"Think of it as an early Christmas gift," Rodney offered dryly. "McKay out."
He'd moved down six more bodies when Ronon and Teyla arrived to help him. Neither of them said anything as they settled to the task of marking the dead. Between the three of them, the silent understanding remained.
"Who does such a thing?" Teyla asked finally when her sense of honor was too offended to remain silent.
"Machines," Ronon answered simply. "Machines without conscience, without honor."
"We're doing the same thing to them," John pointed out as he stood and moved to the next body. "We fly out of the sky and blast thing with energy that kills them without warning or recourse."
"We should make sure we do it first," Ronon added as he ripped a chain free. "We at least know what it is to fight with honor. These prisoners were slaughtered in their own minds."
John felt the shiver of disgust run cold up his back. "I know," he agreed weakly, feeling his voice echo through the room. "We'll get them."
"Rodney believes it will be easy to take this vessel," Teyla explained as she stood from the last body. "He has already gotten into the computer system."
John double checked his ARG and the life signs detector. When he was satisfied no one else remained he nodded. "We'll let him take it; we still have people to save."
~*~*~*~
Elizabeth felt the queen's presence behind her as a palpable heat. As if the queen's body produced the same effect as a torch being held up behind her back. "What do you want in the control room?"
"You want to be in the control room," Mab corrected with erie calm. "You'll stop worrying about your team and your lover and finally be able to have a serious conversation."
Whirling around to glare at the other woman, Elizabeth felt her anger boil. "I am perfectly capable..."
Mab twisted her fingers and the pain lanced through her again. Shooting through her belly like a knife being dragged upwards through the flesh. Clinging to the wall let her remain upright, but barely.
"Stop arguing my dear Elizabeth and do as you are told," Mab suggested with deep malice in her voice. "Haven't you learned enough to listen to your betters?"
Resentment pushed the pain out of her mind, if only for a moment. "You are not..." Elizabeth began to protest, but lost the will as the agony within her doubled.
"I'm really not sure how much damage you can take," Mab admitted with a tilt of her head. "Perhaps we shouldn't test your body's ability to maintain the fetus. I'd hate to lose all your progress."
"My progress?" Elizabeth gasped out when the pain receded again. "What progress?"
Mab advanced on her instantly, seemingly without moving at all. One of Elizabeth's hands flew back against the dark wall of the city and the other was flattened against her stomach. She couldn't move as the other woman stalked her.
One wizened finger ran across her cheek, leaving a trail of heat behind. "Should I show you?" Mab pressed wickedly. "Remind you that the creature you fear is nothing more than the fusion of your DNA with your new lover's? Help you understand that the thing within you that you can barely acknowledge is nothing more than you and your darling John."
She released Elizabeth, letting her slump against the wall. Cold sweat sank into her uniform and the headache she'd been fighting demanded more of her attention. "The best parts of you, of course," she smiled, revealing perfect white teeth as she swept past Elizabeth on her way to the control room. "Now aren't you coming?"
Elizabeth swallowed, holding the soreness left in her stomach with her left hand. She had to go along, at least until she found out what this woman wanted. Dragging herself away from the wall, she prayed nothing that had been done to her was leaving any permanent damage. The queen hurried along, guiding her through the dark corridors of the city at a frantic pace. Elizabeth couldn't keep up and the queen whirled on her, glaring her impatience.
Elizabeth pulled herself up to her full height and glared right back. "You can rush me all you want, but unless you want me to lose this baby, you're not going to get anywhere without waiting for me."
"There's that fire I was looking for," The queen remarked over her shoulder as she turned around and waited for Elizabeth to catch up. "You're going to need that to defeat the Wraith."
"I am?" Elizabeth snapped back. "I think that's the most useful thing you've said."
Queen Mab only smiled as she fell in step with Elizabeth. "Very good," her eyes danced in her head. "Hating me could be good for you."
"If you're not going to leave," Elizabeth gritted her teeth and tried to reconcile what was happening to her. "You could at least tell me what you are."
"I was what you, until recently, so adorably worshiped as 'Ancients'," as she spoke she altered her appearance, leaving behind her velvets for the simpler robe of a Lantian scientist. Her hair left the tangled mass on her shoulders and became a neat bun on top of her head. "I was head researcher in one of the genetics labs."
"You're ascended," Elizabeth realized harshly. "But not..." she thought aloud, "Ascended beings don't torture others."
"Is it really torture?" Mab twisted the thought. "You still can't decide if you want to be carrying this child. The very idea that it could be something I did to you makes you even more apprehensive." She stopped walking and turned to the other woman with a kind smile. "Perhaps you'd like to see what happened? What you can't remember?"
Elizabeth was too tired for games. Taking the queen's shoulder she turned her around roughly and stared into her disturbingly black eyes. "Show me," she demanded. The hallway disappeared in a flash of fire. Then she was watching herself.
Herself of nine weeks ago laughed and tumbled into a bedroom with John back in the simple Great Hall of Ceol. The same bedroom she'd woken up in back when her strange journey began. She watched herself kiss him once, blushing as she did. The affection in the way John watched her was the same warmth she remembered but she hadn't seen the way she looked at him. The pure abandonment that she stared at him with as she led him to the bed, was shocking. The past version of herself pulled him down and wrapped her hands around his back.
In the vision John started to kiss her back, but then there was a flash of light. Both of them slumped unconscious to the bed, still tangled together. Light descended on them both, obscuring them from view. When the flame-kissed light faded, their clothes were in a pile on the two wooden chairs and they lay there, naked and intwined together.
They hadn't made love. No matter what they thought, the child inside of her had been created by someone else; this creature made of fire. Elizabeth jolted herself out of the vision, staggering back as it hit her. "You're not part of the Ancients. They'd never allow you to tamper with humans like that..."
Queen Mab began to laugh, throwing back her head and shaking with amusement. "What do you think they can do?" she stammered out through her laughter. "I'm the only one of them who wants to see the mistake destroyed. The rest of the so-called Ancients will just sit around and wait for your kind to stumble onto ascension as they did. They'll never help you, and if you fail, the Wraith will descend on Earth and feed. Then no one will be left to achieve their precious ascension."
~*~*~*~
The jumper had landed beneath the surface of the planet. The Replicator scout ship sat just inside a Lantian landing bay. John put down next to it, watching the display as it brought up a partial map of the structure. "It looks like one of the Ancient outposts," John said as he studied the display. "Wasn't in our database."
"Neither were the Asurans," Ronon added as he jumped up towards the hatch. "Ready to go?"
Teyla nodded and readied her weapon. "Yes," she agreed as she turned to John.
Deactivating the jumper, John left his chair and met them in the back. "Okay, let's take them."
After they opened the hatch it was quick. Ronon took point, heading down the stone tunnels towards the base. Two Replicators fell to his ARG, and a third patrol fell to Teyla's. John hung back, making sure no one cut off their escape. Staring down at the detector, he gestured down the left hand tunnel.
"Eight," he mouthed soundlessly. Ronon nodded and gestured with three of his fingers. Teyla followed his hand and took position at the door controls. At her nod the heavy metal doors flew open, John tossed his flash grenade. Screwing his eyes shut against the light, he followed the black shape of Ronon's back. A handful of well-placed shots took out the guards.
Two more important looking Replicators stood in the center, surrounding a throne chair with the female captain, Helia, in it. Both of their hands were in her head and the screams that cut through the blasts of the ARG's weren't even human anymore. The sound cut into John's soul, like listening to an animal let go of the last of its life.
General O'Neill lay slumped on the floor. When the Replicators released Helia, one of them turned on him, but Teyla got in the way. Blocking the stabbing arm with her body she fired, dispatching the Replicator into a silver mist. His hand had penetrated into her shoulder, blood oozed slowly from the wound, leaving a brilliant trail of crimson on her purple shirt.
The second Replicator lunged towards John, moving so quickly he seemed to teleport from Helia to him. He ducked, taking a blow on his back that might have killed him if it had hit anywhere else. Hitting the ground so hard the wind rushed out of his chest, he tried not to think about the stars blocking his vision. He rolled, coming up as he fired. The Replicator burst into a shower of silver that stung his eyes as it fell over him.
The screaming had stopped. Ronon finished off the last guard. Tucking his ARG into the holster, he pulled a square of cloth from his vest and shoved it against Teyla's shoulder. Pressing it down hard with his hands, he looked over the two prisoners.
Helia's eyes were opened but they stared vacantly at the ceiling. On the floor, General O'Neill coughed and sat up next to John.
"Took you long enough," he complained as he leaned against the chair.
"You're welcome, Sir," John replied with a wincing smile. He started to stand up, but stopped. "Ow..." he muttered to himself, rotating his shoulder back slowly.
"All right?" Ronon asked as Teyla took over putting pressure on her shoulder.
"I think it's going to be a hell of a bruise," John winced again and turned to Teyla as he finished struggling to his feet. "You?"
"I am sure Doctor Beckett will be able to repair it," Teyla said sincerely as she looked down at her arm. "It appears to look much worse than it is." Even with her assurances, her face was pale and he could smell the blood on the floor.
John nodded, Teyla was tough and she'd pull through worse. He reached down to the general, dragging the older man to his feet. Jack got up slowly, leaning on his rescuer for support. John's shirt collar pulled down as he tugged, revealing the deep red mark Elizabeth had left on his neck.
Jack squinted at it, wondering if his eyes were working enough to see what he thought he saw. "You've been having a good time, haven't you?" he teased before shaking with a cough that rattled his entire body. Like Woolsey he was dangerously thin and his eyes were sunken back into his head.
"I'm sorry, Sir. I don't know what you mean," John replied as he narrowed his eyebrows in confusion.
Jack poked at his neck with a feeble hand. "Got a little love bite here," he said through a smirk. "Wonder who that's from..."
John blushed involuntarily, feeling the blood pool hot in his face. He said nothing and started dragging the general over to the door.
Ronon bent down over the Lantian captain. "She has a pulse," he reported to the rest of them. Waving his hand over her face, he got no response. Her eyes continued to stare straight ahead, like marbles set in her face. "Doesn't seem to have much else," he added, slipping an arm beneath her and scooping her up.
"Take her back to the jumper," John ordered as he navigated around the chair.
"ZPM!" Jack shouted gruffly, drawing John to a halt. "There's a ZPM in the..." he trailed off again, wincing from some unseen injury. "...in the base...thing," he finished weakly.
"Teyla?" John hinted as he started to walk again. Teyla nodded, kneeling on the base of the chair and searching with her good hand for the release. "She'll get it," he promised as he started down the long stone hallway. "Replicators were nice enough to leave the city with three." He stopped, shifting the general's extra weight away from his badly bruised shoulder.
"Three?" Jack echoed, "Nice."
"It was," John said as he turned back to check for Teyla. "Then Rodney broke the city."
"The city?" Jack repeated with awe. "He broke the whole city?"
"Took us two weeks just to fix the gate," John explained with relief as Teyla emerged from the doors.
"Without the ZPM the life support system will not remain long," Teyla informed them as she caught up at a jog, darkened ZPM in her strong hand.
"Didn't want to stick around anyway," Jack muttered softly as he tried to keep up with the colonel. "Terrible view, lousy service. I'm going to have to tell Carter about Rodney breaking the city. She'll probably bust a rib laughing."
John helped drop the older man into one of the seats in the jumper. Teyla sat in back, next to Ronon and the catatonic Ancient. Her shoulder had started to bleed again; Ronon sandwiched it between his huge hands and nodded up to John.
"Get us out of here," Jack suggested with a wry smile. "You got what you came for."
"Yes, Sir," John replied, dropping into the pilot's seat and bringing the jumper to life. "With pleasure."
~*~*~*~
"What do you think, Elizabeth?" Mab crouched in front of her, watching her with an oddly sympathetic expression. "Are you sure you don't want all of this to go away? Good riddance to being nauseated, dizzy, and exhausted. You can go back to drinking coffee all night and staying up worrying about your city."
Elizabeth tried to stand up, but stopped halfway; curling up around her stomach and praying it was all a bad dream. She didn't know how she'd made it to the gate room, or why she was kneeling on the floor, but the desperate pain in her stomach blocked most of her thoughts. "That's not what I want..." she started, choking on her agony.
"Isn't it though?" Mab pressed, grabbing her chin and tilting it up so Elizabeth had to look into her black, empty eyes. "You just want things to go back the way they were. So you can slip behind the facade of Doctor Weir and never feel anything again." The queen rose to her feet, dropping the other woman's chin and staring down at Elizabeth's crumpled form on the floor. "I can make it all go away," she whispered seductively. "I can take the child from you and send it to a woman on Ceol. She'll never question her blessing."
"No..." Elizabeth gasped into the floor, before she had the strength to lift her head. Pain still came from her stomach in waves, rising and falling with the queen's mood. Sweat ran down her arms, leaving damp hand-prints on the cool metal floor of the city. "You can't."
"It's not like you want it," Mab intoned as she toyed with a line of fire in the air. "You surged with disgust when I showed you how your child came into being. I felt your hatred. Your sense of violation when you knew it wasn't that handsome Colonel Sheppard who planted it within you." She caught Elizabeth's shoulders suddenly and dragged her to her feet.
Crying out in surprise, Elizabeth sagged in her grasp. "I don't care!" she shouted defiantly. "John doesn't care. He loves..."
"...you." Mab finished as she smoothed a damp lock of Elizabeth's hair back from her face.
Cringing, Elizabeth tried to pull away, biting her lip against the pain she suddenly couldn't escape. "He loves the child," she whispered with all of her unspent rage. "I'm not going to be the one to take it from him!" her sudden strength surprised her as she broke free of Mab's grip. "Do whatever you want to me," she challenged wildly. "I'm going to keep this baby."
Mab's smile grew like a shadow across the sun. "I'll see you again," she promised as she took a step back. Her body faded, losing the image of the Ancient scientist into a ball of burning orange-white light. "You'll have to come visit me," she suggested in her rasping tone. "We'll have so much to talk about."
The light turned, leaving Elizabeth on the floor of the control room as it went to the gate. Dialing with only the power of her mind, the light waited only a moment before disappearing into the rippling surface of the gate.
It wasn't until the gate evaporated that Elizabeth started to sob in relief. The pain had left with the queen, leaving her shaken and drenched with sweat. She took a halting step towards the stairs. She could put up the shield from Rodney's laptop. She had no idea how useful it would be against an ascended being, but it was something she could do. Something she could touch and try to feel safe. Half-crawling up the stairs, Elizabeth made it up to the control panel. She slapped the shield control and collapsed into the chair.
Laying her throbbing head down on her arms, she meant to only close her eyes for a second. She'd been awake too long and fighting with Ancient-impersonating-demons wasn't helping her exhaustion. Elizabeth felt herself start to fade, beginning to lose consciousness. For some reason her memory flashed to the briefing she'd had on the Ori. She remembered Daniel Jackson explaining the utter contempt with which the Ori consider humanity.
Pulling her up again with great effort, she remembered that Rodney's computer could access the database. Without the patronizing hologram she might be able to get more from the database and stay under the radar of the queen. After all, it was the second time she'd seen the hologram do something that involved an ascended being. Maybe there was something wrong with that room.
Rodney's computer obediently logged into the Ancient database; even provided her with a self-designed search window. Reminding herself to thank him for being so incredibly thorough, she started searching. Keeping busy on the computer kept her from thinking about the headache that had taken up permanent residence in the back of her skull. Digging around the feet of her chair for the canteen of water with shaking hands, Elizabeth couldn't banish the feeling something was wrong with her.
Swallowing the water slowly, she hoped her stomach would let her keep it down. Her database query returned a mass of data; including lab reports signed by a geneticist named Mauve, crew manifests from missions she must have attended, and a 'missing-presumed-dead' note from over ten thousand years ago. Elizabeth picked the death record, calling it to the front of her screen.
Instead of the ease of the holographic interface, she had to wade through the record in the original Ancient. Wishing she'd thought to bring her computer from Earth, Elizabeth settled down to try and translate it by hand. When she didn't throw up, she grew brave enough to drink more of her water. As she tried to ignore the strange taste in her mouth, she managed to read the record.
The creature now calling herself Queen Mab had indeed once been an Ancient scientist. She had been on a top-secret mission attempting to use a viral weapon of her own design against the Wraith when she, along with her vessel, had disappeared. The vessel had been presumed destroyed and the loss of the scientists onboard a loss for all of Atlantis.
The lab reports would have been a mess even if she had gotten them in English. As she leaned on the desk, rubbing her temples and her forehead in a poor attempt to deal with her growing headache; Elizabeth remembered why she'd hated biology in school. However, in between the passages of indecipherable scientific data, Mauve's personal notes were disturbingly fascinating.
Yawning into her hand, Elizabeth propped up her head and kept reading. Mauve had been exhaustedly dedicated to mapping and improving the human genome. Her early reports were fairly positive; she had successfully eliminated a genetic defect that led to deadly allergic reactions in the population of one planet and managed to wipe out a plague on another. After a while her reports took on an uglier tone. Mauve lost compassion for her human subjects; occasionally blaming them for not responding to her tampering as she wished.
Elizabeth turned her head away, letting her eyes relax for a long moment. She had little experience diagnosing mental illness, but years of experience with megalomaniac dictators let her know what the warning signs were. Getting up out of the chair to stretch her legs, she put both hands on the small of her back as she tried to straighten the dull ache out of it.
Staring at her watch only made her more impatient, somehow, without her noticing another six hours had passed. Her watch said it was four in the morning. It was so hard to tell the time of day under the water because it was always blue and dark, no matter the weather or the time of day.
The Carson in her head said she should sleep. The John within shouted that she hadn't had enough to eat. He even suggested that the entire experience had been a hallucination. Her way of reconciling her fears of her body.
Elizabeth shook them both away, pulling her chair back to the desk and Rodney's computer. Her encounter, hallucination or not, had left her too vulnerable for sleep. The very idea of closing her eyes in the darkness made her chest tighten. She promised herself she'd eat what Teyla had left out for her of the Athosian rations, but only once she was sure she'd keep it down. Wouldn't make much sense to throw it up, she rationalized it to herself as she forced her eyes to concentrate on the Ancient data. Something in the database would tell her about the LK476 and her new adversary. Even if it didn't, it kept her from dwelling on the loneliness of the empty city.