Unexpected by Oparu
Author's Chapter Notes: Jack and Sam lose. Teyla begins. Carson fights. John and Elizabeth try to stay at the heart of it all. Betaed by Shannon
ninety-two days after earth
Teyla lifted her head and closed her eyes as she faced the sky. It was open now that the cavern had been destroyed. Once the Wraith had known about the underground enclosure of the Genii home world, their scientists had found a way in. It was ingenious actually, a bit of human technology changed to suit their needs, something Michael had been able to glean from the Atlantis database.
The dead lay at her feet as her soldiers hurried to clear them away and bring more. The queen within her, her third daughter strained the skin of her belly as she shared her insatiable hunger with her mother. Teyla's hand and arm were red with blood and life force filled her so utterly she nearly crackled with the power of it. Her senses pounded pulsing with the sense of the prey around her.
Her first and second daughters were already feeding on their own. Part of her wished almost sadly that they would have had more of a childhood, but that was a human thought, left behind in the parts of her mind that had not yet been purged.
Michael led the next captive to her and knocked the man to his knees. She would have hunted him herself, relished it even if she wasn't so full of child. Her muscles stirred and she felt her body starting to feel the strain of her continually growing offspring.
Over on her left, her first daughter screamed victory into the night as she finished off another child of the Genii. Blood ran from her crystal teeth and Teyla watched in fascination as she took the life of the child and grew. Aging before her eyes, the first of her new queens lost her childish figure as breasts started to round on her chest. First's hair had been black, but it was lightening as she grew to a deep navy. She would be ready to lead a wing of Teyla's next attack because she was already a strategist. Her mind was quiet and methodical.
Without even looking at the face of her victim, Teyla dropped her hand to his chest and fed. The force of heart suddenly became part of hers, his memories fading and screaming as they fell to the brutal strength of her mind. She saw his eyes go milky white before he was empty. He crumpled like a dead leaf on the ground at her feet and the dust of what once was his skin patterned the ground.
She closed her eyes again and felt the vigor of her daughter's mind. Third already shared her mother's memories and knew the bulk of what it was to be Wraith, but Teyla wasn't yet entirely sure what she'd be like. Second was a warrior, a killer who insisted on stalking her own prey. Her skin was black, like the coldest night of Teyla's childhood, and her hair was white. Both daughters were already taller than their mother, and she knew they would be taller still.
Michael knocked a woman down in front of her and growled his approval. He'd been careful to stay just far enough away. Pregnant queens had been known to eat their mates, and he was in no mood to tempt her hunger. As it was, only the sheer number of humans available on the Genii home world were making her procreation possible. The woman went without a fight. Teyla caught a flash in her memories as she fed and knew that all the woman loved was dead. The fluid carrying her daughter within her broke in a seeping flood down her thighs. She grinned and sped her feeding. She would need the energy.
The great hall had no place for a staff meeting. The noise of hundreds of people trying to eat and make their way through lines for food and water was nearly deafening. Jack had pulled them out, settling down in a patch of grass between buildings. The air was cooling and Jack could smell the bite of autumn in the air.
"What are the winters supposed to be like here?" he asked as he settled onto the grass next to Daniel.
"Cold," Daniel replied easily as he leaned back against the old stone wall of a tiny house. "And snowy. We've already started to collect cold weather gear."
"Ice fishing cold?" Jack wondered hopefully as he stretched out his long legs on the grass.
Vala leaned over Daniel's shoulder curiously and Jack tried to remember the last time he'd seen either of them separately. "Ice fishing can't be that difficult," she chimed in. "Ice doesn't move around much."
"You fish through the ice," Daniel began to explain as Jack started to chuckle.
"This is what we should be doing," Jack turned to his wife and stared up at the clear blue sky. "Sitting outside, enjoying the fresh air. Having a honeymoon that doesn't involve being in a space battle."
Sam barely looked up from her computer and nodded absently as she moved out of the sun so she could read what she was doing. "When the bad guys stop trying to kill us, we'll take some time," she replied without any of Jack's humor. Waiting for a smile that never came, he reached across and ruffled her blonde hair.
Rodney dragged his dinner with him, settling down towards the edge of the grass. "Are we really going to meet out here?"
"Can't hear ourselves think in there," John clarified as he balanced two plates and two glasses in his hands and waited for Elizabeth to sit. "At least you don't have any complaints about the food, Rodney," he finished as he handed over the plates to Elizabeth before he took his place on the grass.
"It's good, but I'd rather eat it off a table," Rodney continued as he leaned back and tried to get more comfortable. Tomato broth stained his bread as he ran it over the edge of his plate before he reached for more butter. Ronon's hand passed his and John remembered when they would have bantered or argued about who got a first shot at the food. He would have been with them, playing keep away with Rodney before Ronon took all of MREs.
Elizabeth's tongue caught a trickle of tea on the edge of her steel cup and he watched the pink disappear behind red lips. He waited patiently, ignoring Rodney and Carson's teasing, as he watched her take another sip. When she finally felt his eyes she turned slowly, curiously starting to smile. The sun caught in the curls of her hair and his fingers found the soft skin of her neck. That was almost more interesting than his stew waiting in a steaming pile on his plate. She used her fingers to wrap a wide, flat noodle around her fork and grinned as he reached for them and sucked broth from the tips.
"We're leaving in the morning," Sam began to the meeting impatiently. "The Artemis will be fully supplied and all of the crew should be on board."
"I'm leaving you Zelenka and the second science team," Rodney piped out through his piece of pie. "I'm not entirely sure why you'd need them, but you insisted."
Elizabeth nodded and swallowed before she spoke. "There's a medical lab, buried Ancient technology," she paused and reached for her computer. John's open hands held her plate as she wiped her hands clean on her pants. "And I don't see why we should stop exploring this galaxy. We'll have to be more careful, take extra precautions without the city to fall back on but..."
"Tally-ho?" Jack interrupted with pleasant surprise. "I suppose I agree, exploratory measures should be taken, explorations should be embarked upon even when it seems like they'd be a waste of time."
"Knowledge is never a waste," Elizabeth finished for him. "We had a mission. We all had a mission to better our world; I don't think it stops because our world is..."
"...gone?" Sam interjected less enthusiastically. "All scientists and engineers not on the second team will be traveling on the Artemis to Orilla. We'll concentrate on rebuilding Atlantis, making that our home now."
"While we're on the subject," Carson drew their attention. "I wonder if we might spend some time taking about numbers."
"What kind of numbers are you interested in?" Rodney asked in surprise as he stared at the doctor.
"Population," Carson explained easily. "I know it's not the most sensitive subject, but we really do need to discuss it. I'll make it simple for you. Right now there are eight hundred thirteen humans left in our group, and that's including sixty-seven Athosians. When fully functional with three ZPMs, Atlantis can support ten thousand people."
"So that's nine thousand eighty-seven spots to fill," Rodney replied without seeing the doctor's point. "So what?"
"The average age of our survivors is forty-one," Carson continued patiently. He lifted his computer and passed it to Elizabeth. "We have nearly two hundred people over fifty-five and we only have less than a hundred children." He paused and watched Rodney roll his eyes. "So we can only replace half of our elderly and none of our workers. If we don't start changing our policies our population will drop to less than an eighth of what it is now. A generation after that we'll probably all be extinct."
"What are you saying Carson?" Elizabeth asked softly, trying to bite back the chill feeling in the pit of her stomach. "What do you want us to do?"
"Forgive me for being bunt my dear, but exactly what you and John are doing," Carson responded with a quiet smile. "We need to have babies. Put in place the kind of support system that will let our people do that. It doesn't matter if we have an economy, technology, or culture if there's none of us left to carry on."
"You can't just ask people to breed, like dogs or cats or rabbits," Rodney argued setting down his plate in shock. "It's not right, we're not rabbits...at least I'm not."
"Yes it is," Ronon said simply. "To exist we have to be born. To keep fighting we have to be taught to resist. We fight and train our children to fight. We replace those we lose. We continue." His eyes were stone with determination and Elizabeth remembered why she tried never to argue with this man.
"Well, yes," Carson agreed with a more temperate smile. "He's right. We have a society that's the last of all societies, the last part of a planet that existed for billions of years. We're the end."
The twig he'd been fidgeting with dropped to the ground at Jack's feet. "I prefer to think of us as the beginning. It's much more positive than being an end."
"How do we talk to them?" Elizabeth asked curiously as she picked up her tea again. "What do I say to someone living in a refugee camp to make them want a child?"
John's hand ran down her arm, steadying the hand holding her cup. Elizabeth's heartbeat echoed like thunder in her ears. "You'll think of something," he finished aloud. "You always do."
John stretched his aching muscles before he collapsed on the foot of the bed. Elizabeth looked up from her computer for a moment before pushing her hair back out of her eyes and turning to her work. "How was your work out?"
"Ronon found muscles I didn't know I had and destroyed them..." John sighed as he reached for her ankle. Wrapping his fingers lazily around it, he closed his eyes on the stone ceiling. "Do you like the room? I think the beds were nicer on Atlantis." his voice trailed off without her really hearing him.
Her lips smiled but her eyes were exhausted. "We're lucky we get a whole room," she offered as she rubbed his dirty wrist with her other foot. "Quarters are going to be tight this winter." She lifted her hands from her computer and tried again to tie back her hair. "Are you going to shower?"
"I'm on the rotation for tomorrow, oh-five-hundred," John explained as he sat up. Kissing the top of her foot, he sniffed the shirt over his chest and shook his head. "Want me to sleep on top of the blankets?"
"We have showers?" she asked in surprise. The bed shifted beneath her as he dragged himself back to his feet.
"I was kidding about the shower," John clarified as he stripped his black t-shirt from his chest. His skin was damp with seat and smeared with dirt. A long red welt ran down the left side of his stomach. "I'll take a swim in the morning," he promised as he dropped his pants.
"I'm not worried," Elizabeth assured him as she watched him stand on a bench to hang his dirty clothes from one of the crude wooden rafters. Shutting off her computer darkened the room to the light of a single candle. Leaving the computer on the wooden table by the bed, she folded her feet beneath her and watched as he used his steel cup to brush his teeth. "How is Ronon?"
"He's got a fairly efficient way of checking planets for Teyla," John said looking over his clean shirt before he decided to crawl into bed. The sheets were soft and clean, and the bed crackled with straw beneath him. "He's taken the marines to four worlds so far, no injuries, no casualties."
"He's collecting information?" she asked as she crawled in next to him. He stared up at the ceiling as her head dropped to his chest. Her hand ran down and settled on his stomach.
"He's keeping busy," John replied shifting his position. He reached out for the candle on the table and Elizabeth sat up so he could reach it. Smoke curled upwards as he blew it out. "You okay?"
"It's getting harder to keep my laptop in my lap," she complained as she balanced on an elbow.
He laughed and bit back the end of a yawn. "Maybe you'll have to learn to relax," he teased lazily. "Carson talked to you?"
"He's pretty passionate about handling the population," she answered as she sat up all the way. "He's been working with the civilians, setting up schooling, child care..." she broke off staring at tiny glass window. "I just keep thinking I can't ask these women to do this."
Putting both of his hands behind his head on the pillow, John stared at the ceiling and imagined a different life. He'd probably be in the barracks with the troops, playing cards with Major Lorne and planning raids on the Wraith with Ronon; most definitely not resting his hand on her stomach. "You wouldn't have chosen this," he clarified for her gently.
"Would you?" she asked in return looking from his quiet green eyes to her own rounded belly. "If you had the choice, wouldn't you rather be...?"
"No," he cut her off softly. "I used to think I liked being alone more than anything. When you do something all your life you get really good at it," he shrugged, "Atlantis was different," he sighed and closed his eyes to listen to her breathing. "This is different. It's better, richer somehow. I have people who know my jokes."
"I still don't get the one about the lucky fish," she teased through the lump in her throat.
"I didn't say this was perfect," John assured her reaching for her arm to pull her back down. "We have to get up early, get a good place in the breakfast line," he reminded her as he curled up against her. Elizabeth found herself in a tangle of his limbs and the smell of forest and sweat. His breathing slowed, evening out in the cool darkness of their room.
"I usually don't like surprises," she whispered to his hair.
A hand moved lazily up to cup her breast in response. "Control freak," he muttered into the side of her neck.
"I thought you were sleeping," she teased reaching up for the hand on her breast and grinning faintly.
"Failure to communicate that to my hands," he grunted towards his hand without moving it. "Ronon asked me to help him track Teyla." Her fingers tightened involuntarily around his hand and his eyes fluttered open. Struggling to look at her John felt her heartbeat quicken in her chest. "She's one of us."
"I know," she replied without argument. "We don't leave our people behind." She knew losing Teyla still bothered him. Even Ford's loss was still fresh in his mind sometimes. They'd lost so much so quickly when Teyla had disappeared. The Replicator attack took too many more lives; one fugitive was too much risk.
John mumbled something she couldn't make out. Not trusting herself to speak, she kissed the top of his head fervently.
"I told him I can't," he answered the silent question sleepily, not even realizing the panic he'd stirred up. "Too many things to keep track of here. Training programs..." he drifted off completely.
His hand went limp in hers and the enormous toll of the day slipped from his body. For a long time she lay there, too afraid of ruining the moment to look at her watch. The earpiece on the nightstand was silent. Rolling her head to the side, Elizabeth realized if there was an emergency someone would probably just knock on her door. If they even bothered to knock at all before barging in. Would it really be worth it someday?
Jack slunk around the corner of the Artemis' hallway and ducked into the crawlspace surrounding the main drive. Lying on her back, bathed in the blue light Sam tinkered with the engines of her ship.
"Do you really intend to hide down here all night?" he asked gently as he knelt down at her side. Grey stubble covered his face and made a scratching sound as he rubbed it.
"I'm working, not hiding," Sam corrected brutally pushing aside his attempt at levity. "I'm taking this ship into another galaxy, a potentially very dangerous galaxy and I don't know every system yet."
"You know them well enough," he insisted softly as he reached for her shoulder. "You sure you're okay?" Sam glared at his hand but she didn't shake it off. Jack sighed heavily. "You could have taken the day off."
"This is my ship," she insisted again, still stubbornly refusing to look anywhere near him. Her throat was tight and it tightened the more he remained.
"We should talk..." he began softly, gently squeezing her shoulder as he lowered himself
"...you don't talk, Jack," Sam snapped before she sighed and closed her eyes. "You worry and insinuate without getting to the point."
"Don't," he whispered softly as his throat constricted. Sam tried to avoid seeing him cry as a rule, but she was too tired to be gentle. He could be as emotional as he wanted; the ship wasn't on his shoulders.
"It wasn't right," Sam corrected him as she forced herself back to work. She needed to be busy. She needed to keep moving. "The scanner said there were genetic problems. It wouldn't have lived."
His hand ran over his shoulder towards her cheek. She wormed out of the way, but he caressed her anyway. "I'm sorry, Sam," Jack offered finally softening his voice to where it was barely audible. Her chest heaved once but she held it in.
"I didn't want to try," she shot back harshly. Her eyes were tearing up and she couldn't see what she was doing but her hands kept adjusting the same crystal over and over. "I thought we should leave well enough alone. What business do we have?"
"Come out here," Jack begged as he lay down on the deck next to her.
"I have to finish recalibrating the long-range transmitter," Sam insisted cruelly as she kept her hands working.
"Sam..." he started softly, still trying to coax her.
"It was my fault," she snapped viciously as she pulled entirely out of reach. "I didn't want to be pregnant, Jack. I still don't think now is the time..."
"...now is all we have," he interjected softly as he rolled to peer in at her.
"I'll be done in an hour or two," Sam finally forced out. "Can't it wait until then?" Her chest was too tight to keep going, but as long as her hands were moving she was doing something. Working meant she didn't have to think about the blood on her feet in the shower that morning. "You're not leaving, are you?"
"I have an hour or two to spare," Jack offered quietly without moving from the deck. "I am semi-retired after all." The only reply he got was the scraping of tools against metal and the gentle hum of a crystal coming back online. Sam kept going trying to ignore his presence.
"I can't talk about this," she murmured finally when she realized her hands were bleeding from a mistake she hadn't felt herself make. Sam put her finger in her mouth and looked up at control crystals that were just blue blurs against the grey metal of her ship.
"Then don't," Jack offered bluntly without moving or turning away.
"It's not right," she whispered as she watched blood from her hand drip slowly down her wrist. The red grew darker and richer as it began clot and dry in the air. "I didn't want."
"Carter," he began as fabric rustled behind her. "Sam..."
"We waited too long," she started as closed her eyes. "I'm forty-one. Do you know what our chances are?"
"Our chances in anything, have always been worse than lousy," Jack grunted and shifted a little closer to her. "Still, I think it's worth trying for."
"I don't," she finished grimly. "I don't..." Sam repeated as she tried to focus on something else. Shaking his hand off her shoulder she rolled in the tiny crawl space to face him. "I can't...I can't even get used to you calling me Sam."
"I think I'm supposed to use your first name, something about marrying you," Jack muttered with his usual lack of seriousness. "I love you, Carter," he reminded her as he settled his arms beneath his head. "You do know we can't waste your brain. Maybe it wasn't meant to be this time but..."
"God Jack," she sputtered as she pushed past him out of the crawl space. Standing over him she realized how small he was. His hair had been quietly going grey the entire time she'd known him. He was already older than her; the lines around his eyes were more pronounced then the ones she'd started to notice on her own face in the harsh light of the infirmary. "I thought I'd feel worse," Sam admitted softly to the bulkhead above him. "Like it should hurt."
"It's the first day," Jack offered with a groan as he sat up. She lowered a hand, in case he wanted to get to his feet. His hand was dry in her palm and she forgot about the blood on her wrist until his skin stuck to hers. She pulled and he pulled back, but she wasn't ready; her feet weren't planted on the deck. Tumbling to the deck next to him, Sam yelped when her knee hit hard. "Sorry," he offered as he touched her cheek.
"My fault," she replied simply as the pain washed through her grief and gave her something to focus on. "My fault..." she repeated softly. "Fuck." Sam covered her mouth with her fist, staring past him at the wall.
"Does it hurt?" he asked softly unsure where to start.
"Not enough," Sam shrugged back and bit her lip before she finally dropped her head. "Not nearly enough."
"You outsourced your children?" Carson spat suddenly caught between surprise and disgust. "Who raised them?" He got up from his chair and reached for Mab's shoulder and startled her away from her work. "Did ye just leave 'em on a planet somewhere?"
She turned up from the computer curiously. "They were properly cared for on a safe planet," she replied without remorse. "And those too young to ascend were left in a safe place once we reached the point where we could no longer wait for them." Still struggling with his upset, Mab moved her chair back. "They were safe."
Carson forced himself to take a deep breath and try to understand. He folded his arms over his chest and sighed. "Did you ever see them?" he asked more gently.
"I met my daughters twice when they visited the city," she explained calmly as she pulled herself back to the computers. "Unfortunately, I was always very busy with work. Their father was more involved."
"Your husband?" Carson wondered as he took a step towards her. There was some kind of softness in her face, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to call it regret just yet.
"In the last generations we didn't marry," she replied without turning around this time. Her voice caught slightly in her throat and he wondered if there was dust in the air he wasn't noticing. "It seemed pointless to devote such time to the frivolity of relationships."
"But you loved someone," he speculated as he dropped a hand to her shoulder. "I know what it's like to be lonely," Carson offered thoughtfully as he stared past her at the stone wall. "How long have you been here?"
She tilted her head up towards his hand, surprising him with tears in her black eyes. "Ten thousand years, give or take," she answered with a patient smile. "It all blends together after awhile."
"That's a very long time to be alone," Carson murmured sympathetically. "How'd you cope with it?"
There was an answer in her eyes for a moment, a greater softening that betrayed an eon of loneliness and doubt. Then something burned that away. Her eyes darkened, sinking back into her head lit coals into a fire. "I have to go..." she whispered in her human voice before she began to morph. Before her eyes she became something else, the other unlike any he'd seen. He'd seen Chaya return to her ascended form, but this was wrong somehow. Instead of radiating light from within Mab seemed to take it from the room, burning and consuming everything around her.
Finally Carson closed his good eye and dropped to the ground before it was burned blind as well. When he regained his footing she was gone and only the smell of charcoal and sulfur remained.
Across the campground, Elizabeth woke in drenched in sweat. John felt her move a moment before the alarm bells rang out across the city. He'd forgotten the bells in the tower, they both had, but now the sound cut through the night. For the time being emergency stations were in a tent with the radio equipment. He dragged himself out of bed and struck a match to light their candle.
Her breath was ragged in the dark and sweat was already starting to bead on her forehead. John looked for his pants in the weak light and started to pull them on. "You awake?" he asked as he turned around.
Elizabeth nodded slowly and tried to get her eyes to focus. Her hands, legs, every part of her was damp with a layer of sweat. Her shirt clung to her chest and the sheets refused to release her legs as she started to stand. "Yeah I..." she couldn't place the sensation. Something inside of her was burning and she was losing control of the fire.
"Hey..." he started as he crossed the room. "What is it?" When he touched her hand he jumped back momentarily. "What's going on?"
"Don't know," she said as she started to reassure him. "I feel foggy," Elizabeth decided slowly as she shook her head again. She pushed sweat from her eyes and tried to smile at him. "It's all over."
"Are you sick?" he demanded protectively as he took her shoulders. Her hair was starting to cling to her neck and she looked like she'd been caught in the rain. "I can get Carson, we can go to medical."
"I'm okay," she insisted as she tried to find the answers in herself. "Is it hot in here?" Elizabeth ran her hands over her skin and stopped them on his.
"It's not hot," he explained as he looked around for a towel or something similar. Settling on the shirt at the foot of the bed, he wiped her face carefully. "We should go to medical."
"We should go to control," Elizabeth argued as she ripped off her shirt off over her head. John steadied her hands, staring at the sweat shimmering on her skin in the candlelight.
"Something's wrong," he worried and drew a sleepy nod from her.
Licking her lips, she discovered the strange charcoal taste that came with the heat inside of her. Helping him wipe the sweat from her body she sighed and leaned against him for a moment. "It's her," she realized in a moment of clarity. Opening her eyes again she met his concern with understanding. "Something's happening out there. The queen..."
"Fuck the queen!" John snapped suddenly, startling her back and nearly into laughter. "Sorry," he corrected as he handed over her bra. "She can't keep doing this to you."
Elizabeth swallowed and let her head drop to his shoulder again while she held back her laughter. "I don't think she means to," she disagreed gently. "Not that I know much of Ancient virus or methods of genetics."
"That's why we should go ask Carson," John insisted as he watched her pull on a clean shirt. Her hair was still wet and fresh sweat appeared to take place of that he wiped away. "Please?" he begged as he cupped her cheek.
"I feel like I've stepped outside in the jungles of Africa on a summer day," she explained with a trace of amusement. Elizabeth tied her hair back and up, pulling the laces tight around her curls. John's features danced through concern to something quieter. "I will go to Carson as soon as we know what the alarm is. I promise you, John."
Her hand over his lips quieted him even as he tasted the sweat on her fingers. "You could be hurting our baby," he started through her fingers. "You could be hurting yourself you don't..."
"...It's the virus again," she snapped as she reached for her boots. It took more work than in the past, but she pulled them on as John watched. "Carson's going to say it's the damned virus replicating, mutating or dancing a jig in my bloodstream." The reflection of the candle flickered in his steady green eyes. "You need me."
John shrugged slowly and led her to the doorway. The wood creaked as he opened it into the corridor of the castle. Footsteps rang out against the stone, making out a percussive beat with the bells of alarm still ringing out across the city. "Come on," he offered falling in a step behind her. "Bet McKay broke something."
"He's at least a day towards the Asgard by now," Elizabeth murmured as they hurried past closed doors and all the civilians who could afford to sleep through the alarm. "What could he have broken?"
"He's McKay," John insisted as he kept their pace below a jog. Something wasn't right and nothing she was going to say could shake that cold feeling out of the pit of his stomach.
"We hadn't heard from our Genii contacts," Chuck started to explain as his superiors looked at him for answers. "I thought it was something simple."
"Transmitter malfunction," Zelenka added softly as he stared at the wounded by the gate. "Ronon's team was on the way back..."
John didn't need to hear the rest. He nodded quickly to the two men Elizabeth had left in charge of the late watch and headed for his friend. Simon was already on the ground by Ronon, turning his lantern so he got the best view of the dark injury bleeding through the leather.
"The one I saw looked like Teyla," Ronon spat as he tried to force himself to stay conscious. A Wraith blaster had caught him directly in the shoulder as he'd guarded the gate for the others. "She was taller," he grunted as Simon started to cut his charred jacket away. "Blue hair, wraith features," he spat again and there was blood in his saliva that reddened the stone by the gate. "She's bred," he finally managed to explain through clenched teeth.
"The burn is severe," Simon said softly with his voice artificially calm. "There's damage to the muscle underneath, possibly some intrusion into the chest cavity, I want him first in surgery." He waved to his support staff and two marines appeared with a stretcher. "Call the Daedalus," he asked Chuck as he kept triaging what he saw. "Tell him we have heavy casualties."
Elizabeth touched Ronon's good shoulder and leaned down towards him. "Bred?" she asked in gentle confusion.
"Wraith breed," Ronon explained through gritted teeth. His huge eyes stared into hers as if he could dump all he had seen into her mind. "Like insects, one queen gives birth to lesser queens..." he clutched his shoulder and forced himself conscious with a vicious twist of his arm. Pain was so audible in his voice that Elizabeth felt the searing in her own flesh. The smell of blood and scorched tissue turned her stomach in knots.
"The lesser queens give birth to the drones?" Elizabeth filled in for him as she tried to make sense of it. "But Teyla..."
"Is one of them," Ronon finished flatly before finally closing his eyes, sickened more by his memories than his injuries. Elizabeth's head swam and she felt the smelled of burned flesh run through her and settle in her stomach. Sweat beaded fresh on her forehead and John had to wrap an arm around her shoulders to keep her upright on her knees.
"Doctor Weir?" Chuck asked with soft concern as he touched her arm. "Are you?"
John nodded for her but he knew his face wasn't convincing anymore. Looking around for Carson he found the one-eyed doctor deep in conversation with one of the wounded marines. The poor woman's face was so covered in blood that he couldn't tell who she was, but she was talking, so he let himself hope she'd be all right. He couldn't take Carson, but Elizabeth continued to worry him.
A new smell cut through the blood and ozone of weapons fire, sulfur, rich and putrid as it hung in the air. The gate began to respond to an incoming wormhole and John reached for Ronon's gun. With it set to kill, he pointed it at the gate. The shield snapped up for a moment before disengaging. Whatever Ancient technology Mab used to control it had decided the new arrivals weren't a threat and let them through.
It was more soldiers and the rest of Ronon's team. Cameron and Daniel each had a man slung over their shoulders, and Vala had a stranger's arm wrapped tightly around her shoulders as they ran through. Jeannie Miller led the rest of the wounded through. These were wounded in Genii uniforms who were too shell-shocked to speak as Elizabeth rose to her feet.
"They needed new blood," Daniel offered grimly as he watched Carson and some of the Daedaulus' med staff materialize to help Simon deal with the members of Ronon's team who'd made it back. Out of Ronon's fifteen volunteers, four were sprawled on the ground. One of the fallen was covered with a blood soaked green jacket and John knew she'd never get up again. "They needed new blood so they took Teyla," he repeated as he set down the man he carried and realized he was already dead.
Vala wasn't smiling. Her face was ashen and her lips were set in a tight line. Jeannie was coaching the wounded, looking strangely comfortable with a heavy machine gun cradled in her arm. One of the last was a dirty, bedraggled man who could barely stand beneath the burden he carried on his shoulders was Ladon Radim.
Ladon looked through John as his eyes landed on Elizabeth. "They rent open the earth itself and came for us," he choked on his words in a dry throat. "These were my councilors, my bodyguards, my best fighters and we barely escaped." He coughed and sagged under the weight on the man he carried. John and Zelenka hurried to him, lowering the unconscious body to the ground before Laden collapsed with him.
"They knew things no Wraith knows," he whispered as he fell forward. Elizabeth scrambled to catch him, crawling on the stone towards him as exhaustion overcame him. His skin was cold and gritty with dust. "She came for us like she knew us."
Elizabeth couldn't speak. She couldn't put a voice to the desolation she felt, or the leaden guilt that had fallen on her shoulders. People moved around her, Carson caring for the wounded. John starting to organize the Genii refugees. Laden's head lay in her lap and his eyes were open, she wasn't sure he could see.
"We saw your soldiers," one of the Genii explained from in front of her. "We thought..."
"Are there others?" John demanded as he turned to the one who seemed most capable of speech. "We could put together an extraction..."
"...no more," the Genii soldier interrupted without emotion. His voice sounded like gravel scraping against the stone. "There are no others."
"She'll hunt her own kind next," Mab promised in a voice that seemed to echo inside of Elizabeth's skull. As she whirled to look for the sound she saw Mab had materialized by the gate. Her hair was wild around her head and her feet were invisible through a ring of smoke surrounding her. "There isn't another planet with the same population as the Genii and her needs are great."
John stood up to her. "Are there more survivors on the Genii planet? Anyone you can..."
Mab closed her eyes and expanded her mind. Elizabeth could feel the heat of Mab's presence growing like a blaze in front of her and for the briefest of moments the queen shared what she saw.
Teyla's head was thrown back; her eyes screwed shut with pain. Black blood, Wraith blood ran down the grey-green skin of her naked legs. Michael knelt before her, his hands full of something wet and squirming. Her eyes opened to the night and Elizabeth, John and everyone around them shared the same menacing realization. Daniel saw more than the rest because his mind was still open. Silently heading for the library, he didn't even take the time to remove his gun.
"She is more than just a Wraith," Mab corrected as she sank back into human form. The change lifted the throbbing pain in Elizabeth's head and she managed to meet John's eyes without flinching. "She is all Wraith now."
Teyla lifted her head and closed her eyes as she faced the sky. It was open now that the cavern had been destroyed. Once the Wraith had known about the underground enclosure of the Genii home world, their scientists had found a way in. It was ingenious actually, a bit of human technology changed to suit their needs, something Michael had been able to glean from the Atlantis database.
The dead lay at her feet as her soldiers hurried to clear them away and bring more. The queen within her, her third daughter strained the skin of her belly as she shared her insatiable hunger with her mother. Teyla's hand and arm were red with blood and life force filled her so utterly she nearly crackled with the power of it. Her senses pounded pulsing with the sense of the prey around her.
Her first and second daughters were already feeding on their own. Part of her wished almost sadly that they would have had more of a childhood, but that was a human thought, left behind in the parts of her mind that had not yet been purged.
Michael led the next captive to her and knocked the man to his knees. She would have hunted him herself, relished it even if she wasn't so full of child. Her muscles stirred and she felt her body starting to feel the strain of her continually growing offspring.
Over on her left, her first daughter screamed victory into the night as she finished off another child of the Genii. Blood ran from her crystal teeth and Teyla watched in fascination as she took the life of the child and grew. Aging before her eyes, the first of her new queens lost her childish figure as breasts started to round on her chest. First's hair had been black, but it was lightening as she grew to a deep navy. She would be ready to lead a wing of Teyla's next attack because she was already a strategist. Her mind was quiet and methodical.
Without even looking at the face of her victim, Teyla dropped her hand to his chest and fed. The force of heart suddenly became part of hers, his memories fading and screaming as they fell to the brutal strength of her mind. She saw his eyes go milky white before he was empty. He crumpled like a dead leaf on the ground at her feet and the dust of what once was his skin patterned the ground.
She closed her eyes again and felt the vigor of her daughter's mind. Third already shared her mother's memories and knew the bulk of what it was to be Wraith, but Teyla wasn't yet entirely sure what she'd be like. Second was a warrior, a killer who insisted on stalking her own prey. Her skin was black, like the coldest night of Teyla's childhood, and her hair was white. Both daughters were already taller than their mother, and she knew they would be taller still.
Michael knocked a woman down in front of her and growled his approval. He'd been careful to stay just far enough away. Pregnant queens had been known to eat their mates, and he was in no mood to tempt her hunger. As it was, only the sheer number of humans available on the Genii home world were making her procreation possible. The woman went without a fight. Teyla caught a flash in her memories as she fed and knew that all the woman loved was dead. The fluid carrying her daughter within her broke in a seeping flood down her thighs. She grinned and sped her feeding. She would need the energy.
The great hall had no place for a staff meeting. The noise of hundreds of people trying to eat and make their way through lines for food and water was nearly deafening. Jack had pulled them out, settling down in a patch of grass between buildings. The air was cooling and Jack could smell the bite of autumn in the air.
"What are the winters supposed to be like here?" he asked as he settled onto the grass next to Daniel.
"Cold," Daniel replied easily as he leaned back against the old stone wall of a tiny house. "And snowy. We've already started to collect cold weather gear."
"Ice fishing cold?" Jack wondered hopefully as he stretched out his long legs on the grass.
Vala leaned over Daniel's shoulder curiously and Jack tried to remember the last time he'd seen either of them separately. "Ice fishing can't be that difficult," she chimed in. "Ice doesn't move around much."
"You fish through the ice," Daniel began to explain as Jack started to chuckle.
"This is what we should be doing," Jack turned to his wife and stared up at the clear blue sky. "Sitting outside, enjoying the fresh air. Having a honeymoon that doesn't involve being in a space battle."
Sam barely looked up from her computer and nodded absently as she moved out of the sun so she could read what she was doing. "When the bad guys stop trying to kill us, we'll take some time," she replied without any of Jack's humor. Waiting for a smile that never came, he reached across and ruffled her blonde hair.
Rodney dragged his dinner with him, settling down towards the edge of the grass. "Are we really going to meet out here?"
"Can't hear ourselves think in there," John clarified as he balanced two plates and two glasses in his hands and waited for Elizabeth to sit. "At least you don't have any complaints about the food, Rodney," he finished as he handed over the plates to Elizabeth before he took his place on the grass.
"It's good, but I'd rather eat it off a table," Rodney continued as he leaned back and tried to get more comfortable. Tomato broth stained his bread as he ran it over the edge of his plate before he reached for more butter. Ronon's hand passed his and John remembered when they would have bantered or argued about who got a first shot at the food. He would have been with them, playing keep away with Rodney before Ronon took all of MREs.
Elizabeth's tongue caught a trickle of tea on the edge of her steel cup and he watched the pink disappear behind red lips. He waited patiently, ignoring Rodney and Carson's teasing, as he watched her take another sip. When she finally felt his eyes she turned slowly, curiously starting to smile. The sun caught in the curls of her hair and his fingers found the soft skin of her neck. That was almost more interesting than his stew waiting in a steaming pile on his plate. She used her fingers to wrap a wide, flat noodle around her fork and grinned as he reached for them and sucked broth from the tips.
"We're leaving in the morning," Sam began to the meeting impatiently. "The Artemis will be fully supplied and all of the crew should be on board."
"I'm leaving you Zelenka and the second science team," Rodney piped out through his piece of pie. "I'm not entirely sure why you'd need them, but you insisted."
Elizabeth nodded and swallowed before she spoke. "There's a medical lab, buried Ancient technology," she paused and reached for her computer. John's open hands held her plate as she wiped her hands clean on her pants. "And I don't see why we should stop exploring this galaxy. We'll have to be more careful, take extra precautions without the city to fall back on but..."
"Tally-ho?" Jack interrupted with pleasant surprise. "I suppose I agree, exploratory measures should be taken, explorations should be embarked upon even when it seems like they'd be a waste of time."
"Knowledge is never a waste," Elizabeth finished for him. "We had a mission. We all had a mission to better our world; I don't think it stops because our world is..."
"...gone?" Sam interjected less enthusiastically. "All scientists and engineers not on the second team will be traveling on the Artemis to Orilla. We'll concentrate on rebuilding Atlantis, making that our home now."
"While we're on the subject," Carson drew their attention. "I wonder if we might spend some time taking about numbers."
"What kind of numbers are you interested in?" Rodney asked in surprise as he stared at the doctor.
"Population," Carson explained easily. "I know it's not the most sensitive subject, but we really do need to discuss it. I'll make it simple for you. Right now there are eight hundred thirteen humans left in our group, and that's including sixty-seven Athosians. When fully functional with three ZPMs, Atlantis can support ten thousand people."
"So that's nine thousand eighty-seven spots to fill," Rodney replied without seeing the doctor's point. "So what?"
"The average age of our survivors is forty-one," Carson continued patiently. He lifted his computer and passed it to Elizabeth. "We have nearly two hundred people over fifty-five and we only have less than a hundred children." He paused and watched Rodney roll his eyes. "So we can only replace half of our elderly and none of our workers. If we don't start changing our policies our population will drop to less than an eighth of what it is now. A generation after that we'll probably all be extinct."
"What are you saying Carson?" Elizabeth asked softly, trying to bite back the chill feeling in the pit of her stomach. "What do you want us to do?"
"Forgive me for being bunt my dear, but exactly what you and John are doing," Carson responded with a quiet smile. "We need to have babies. Put in place the kind of support system that will let our people do that. It doesn't matter if we have an economy, technology, or culture if there's none of us left to carry on."
"You can't just ask people to breed, like dogs or cats or rabbits," Rodney argued setting down his plate in shock. "It's not right, we're not rabbits...at least I'm not."
"Yes it is," Ronon said simply. "To exist we have to be born. To keep fighting we have to be taught to resist. We fight and train our children to fight. We replace those we lose. We continue." His eyes were stone with determination and Elizabeth remembered why she tried never to argue with this man.
"Well, yes," Carson agreed with a more temperate smile. "He's right. We have a society that's the last of all societies, the last part of a planet that existed for billions of years. We're the end."
The twig he'd been fidgeting with dropped to the ground at Jack's feet. "I prefer to think of us as the beginning. It's much more positive than being an end."
"How do we talk to them?" Elizabeth asked curiously as she picked up her tea again. "What do I say to someone living in a refugee camp to make them want a child?"
John's hand ran down her arm, steadying the hand holding her cup. Elizabeth's heartbeat echoed like thunder in her ears. "You'll think of something," he finished aloud. "You always do."
John stretched his aching muscles before he collapsed on the foot of the bed. Elizabeth looked up from her computer for a moment before pushing her hair back out of her eyes and turning to her work. "How was your work out?"
"Ronon found muscles I didn't know I had and destroyed them..." John sighed as he reached for her ankle. Wrapping his fingers lazily around it, he closed his eyes on the stone ceiling. "Do you like the room? I think the beds were nicer on Atlantis." his voice trailed off without her really hearing him.
Her lips smiled but her eyes were exhausted. "We're lucky we get a whole room," she offered as she rubbed his dirty wrist with her other foot. "Quarters are going to be tight this winter." She lifted her hands from her computer and tried again to tie back her hair. "Are you going to shower?"
"I'm on the rotation for tomorrow, oh-five-hundred," John explained as he sat up. Kissing the top of her foot, he sniffed the shirt over his chest and shook his head. "Want me to sleep on top of the blankets?"
"We have showers?" she asked in surprise. The bed shifted beneath her as he dragged himself back to his feet.
"I was kidding about the shower," John clarified as he stripped his black t-shirt from his chest. His skin was damp with seat and smeared with dirt. A long red welt ran down the left side of his stomach. "I'll take a swim in the morning," he promised as he dropped his pants.
"I'm not worried," Elizabeth assured him as she watched him stand on a bench to hang his dirty clothes from one of the crude wooden rafters. Shutting off her computer darkened the room to the light of a single candle. Leaving the computer on the wooden table by the bed, she folded her feet beneath her and watched as he used his steel cup to brush his teeth. "How is Ronon?"
"He's got a fairly efficient way of checking planets for Teyla," John said looking over his clean shirt before he decided to crawl into bed. The sheets were soft and clean, and the bed crackled with straw beneath him. "He's taken the marines to four worlds so far, no injuries, no casualties."
"He's collecting information?" she asked as she crawled in next to him. He stared up at the ceiling as her head dropped to his chest. Her hand ran down and settled on his stomach.
"He's keeping busy," John replied shifting his position. He reached out for the candle on the table and Elizabeth sat up so he could reach it. Smoke curled upwards as he blew it out. "You okay?"
"It's getting harder to keep my laptop in my lap," she complained as she balanced on an elbow.
He laughed and bit back the end of a yawn. "Maybe you'll have to learn to relax," he teased lazily. "Carson talked to you?"
"He's pretty passionate about handling the population," she answered as she sat up all the way. "He's been working with the civilians, setting up schooling, child care..." she broke off staring at tiny glass window. "I just keep thinking I can't ask these women to do this."
Putting both of his hands behind his head on the pillow, John stared at the ceiling and imagined a different life. He'd probably be in the barracks with the troops, playing cards with Major Lorne and planning raids on the Wraith with Ronon; most definitely not resting his hand on her stomach. "You wouldn't have chosen this," he clarified for her gently.
"Would you?" she asked in return looking from his quiet green eyes to her own rounded belly. "If you had the choice, wouldn't you rather be...?"
"No," he cut her off softly. "I used to think I liked being alone more than anything. When you do something all your life you get really good at it," he shrugged, "Atlantis was different," he sighed and closed his eyes to listen to her breathing. "This is different. It's better, richer somehow. I have people who know my jokes."
"I still don't get the one about the lucky fish," she teased through the lump in her throat.
"I didn't say this was perfect," John assured her reaching for her arm to pull her back down. "We have to get up early, get a good place in the breakfast line," he reminded her as he curled up against her. Elizabeth found herself in a tangle of his limbs and the smell of forest and sweat. His breathing slowed, evening out in the cool darkness of their room.
"I usually don't like surprises," she whispered to his hair.
A hand moved lazily up to cup her breast in response. "Control freak," he muttered into the side of her neck.
"I thought you were sleeping," she teased reaching up for the hand on her breast and grinning faintly.
"Failure to communicate that to my hands," he grunted towards his hand without moving it. "Ronon asked me to help him track Teyla." Her fingers tightened involuntarily around his hand and his eyes fluttered open. Struggling to look at her John felt her heartbeat quicken in her chest. "She's one of us."
"I know," she replied without argument. "We don't leave our people behind." She knew losing Teyla still bothered him. Even Ford's loss was still fresh in his mind sometimes. They'd lost so much so quickly when Teyla had disappeared. The Replicator attack took too many more lives; one fugitive was too much risk.
John mumbled something she couldn't make out. Not trusting herself to speak, she kissed the top of his head fervently.
"I told him I can't," he answered the silent question sleepily, not even realizing the panic he'd stirred up. "Too many things to keep track of here. Training programs..." he drifted off completely.
His hand went limp in hers and the enormous toll of the day slipped from his body. For a long time she lay there, too afraid of ruining the moment to look at her watch. The earpiece on the nightstand was silent. Rolling her head to the side, Elizabeth realized if there was an emergency someone would probably just knock on her door. If they even bothered to knock at all before barging in. Would it really be worth it someday?
Jack slunk around the corner of the Artemis' hallway and ducked into the crawlspace surrounding the main drive. Lying on her back, bathed in the blue light Sam tinkered with the engines of her ship.
"Do you really intend to hide down here all night?" he asked gently as he knelt down at her side. Grey stubble covered his face and made a scratching sound as he rubbed it.
"I'm working, not hiding," Sam corrected brutally pushing aside his attempt at levity. "I'm taking this ship into another galaxy, a potentially very dangerous galaxy and I don't know every system yet."
"You know them well enough," he insisted softly as he reached for her shoulder. "You sure you're okay?" Sam glared at his hand but she didn't shake it off. Jack sighed heavily. "You could have taken the day off."
"This is my ship," she insisted again, still stubbornly refusing to look anywhere near him. Her throat was tight and it tightened the more he remained.
"We should talk..." he began softly, gently squeezing her shoulder as he lowered himself
"...you don't talk, Jack," Sam snapped before she sighed and closed her eyes. "You worry and insinuate without getting to the point."
"Don't," he whispered softly as his throat constricted. Sam tried to avoid seeing him cry as a rule, but she was too tired to be gentle. He could be as emotional as he wanted; the ship wasn't on his shoulders.
"It wasn't right," Sam corrected him as she forced herself back to work. She needed to be busy. She needed to keep moving. "The scanner said there were genetic problems. It wouldn't have lived."
His hand ran over his shoulder towards her cheek. She wormed out of the way, but he caressed her anyway. "I'm sorry, Sam," Jack offered finally softening his voice to where it was barely audible. Her chest heaved once but she held it in.
"I didn't want to try," she shot back harshly. Her eyes were tearing up and she couldn't see what she was doing but her hands kept adjusting the same crystal over and over. "I thought we should leave well enough alone. What business do we have?"
"Come out here," Jack begged as he lay down on the deck next to her.
"I have to finish recalibrating the long-range transmitter," Sam insisted cruelly as she kept her hands working.
"Sam..." he started softly, still trying to coax her.
"It was my fault," she snapped viciously as she pulled entirely out of reach. "I didn't want to be pregnant, Jack. I still don't think now is the time..."
"...now is all we have," he interjected softly as he rolled to peer in at her.
"I'll be done in an hour or two," Sam finally forced out. "Can't it wait until then?" Her chest was too tight to keep going, but as long as her hands were moving she was doing something. Working meant she didn't have to think about the blood on her feet in the shower that morning. "You're not leaving, are you?"
"I have an hour or two to spare," Jack offered quietly without moving from the deck. "I am semi-retired after all." The only reply he got was the scraping of tools against metal and the gentle hum of a crystal coming back online. Sam kept going trying to ignore his presence.
"I can't talk about this," she murmured finally when she realized her hands were bleeding from a mistake she hadn't felt herself make. Sam put her finger in her mouth and looked up at control crystals that were just blue blurs against the grey metal of her ship.
"Then don't," Jack offered bluntly without moving or turning away.
"It's not right," she whispered as she watched blood from her hand drip slowly down her wrist. The red grew darker and richer as it began clot and dry in the air. "I didn't want."
"Carter," he began as fabric rustled behind her. "Sam..."
"We waited too long," she started as closed her eyes. "I'm forty-one. Do you know what our chances are?"
"Our chances in anything, have always been worse than lousy," Jack grunted and shifted a little closer to her. "Still, I think it's worth trying for."
"I don't," she finished grimly. "I don't..." Sam repeated as she tried to focus on something else. Shaking his hand off her shoulder she rolled in the tiny crawl space to face him. "I can't...I can't even get used to you calling me Sam."
"I think I'm supposed to use your first name, something about marrying you," Jack muttered with his usual lack of seriousness. "I love you, Carter," he reminded her as he settled his arms beneath his head. "You do know we can't waste your brain. Maybe it wasn't meant to be this time but..."
"God Jack," she sputtered as she pushed past him out of the crawl space. Standing over him she realized how small he was. His hair had been quietly going grey the entire time she'd known him. He was already older than her; the lines around his eyes were more pronounced then the ones she'd started to notice on her own face in the harsh light of the infirmary. "I thought I'd feel worse," Sam admitted softly to the bulkhead above him. "Like it should hurt."
"It's the first day," Jack offered with a groan as he sat up. She lowered a hand, in case he wanted to get to his feet. His hand was dry in her palm and she forgot about the blood on her wrist until his skin stuck to hers. She pulled and he pulled back, but she wasn't ready; her feet weren't planted on the deck. Tumbling to the deck next to him, Sam yelped when her knee hit hard. "Sorry," he offered as he touched her cheek.
"My fault," she replied simply as the pain washed through her grief and gave her something to focus on. "My fault..." she repeated softly. "Fuck." Sam covered her mouth with her fist, staring past him at the wall.
"Does it hurt?" he asked softly unsure where to start.
"Not enough," Sam shrugged back and bit her lip before she finally dropped her head. "Not nearly enough."
"You outsourced your children?" Carson spat suddenly caught between surprise and disgust. "Who raised them?" He got up from his chair and reached for Mab's shoulder and startled her away from her work. "Did ye just leave 'em on a planet somewhere?"
She turned up from the computer curiously. "They were properly cared for on a safe planet," she replied without remorse. "And those too young to ascend were left in a safe place once we reached the point where we could no longer wait for them." Still struggling with his upset, Mab moved her chair back. "They were safe."
Carson forced himself to take a deep breath and try to understand. He folded his arms over his chest and sighed. "Did you ever see them?" he asked more gently.
"I met my daughters twice when they visited the city," she explained calmly as she pulled herself back to the computers. "Unfortunately, I was always very busy with work. Their father was more involved."
"Your husband?" Carson wondered as he took a step towards her. There was some kind of softness in her face, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to call it regret just yet.
"In the last generations we didn't marry," she replied without turning around this time. Her voice caught slightly in her throat and he wondered if there was dust in the air he wasn't noticing. "It seemed pointless to devote such time to the frivolity of relationships."
"But you loved someone," he speculated as he dropped a hand to her shoulder. "I know what it's like to be lonely," Carson offered thoughtfully as he stared past her at the stone wall. "How long have you been here?"
She tilted her head up towards his hand, surprising him with tears in her black eyes. "Ten thousand years, give or take," she answered with a patient smile. "It all blends together after awhile."
"That's a very long time to be alone," Carson murmured sympathetically. "How'd you cope with it?"
There was an answer in her eyes for a moment, a greater softening that betrayed an eon of loneliness and doubt. Then something burned that away. Her eyes darkened, sinking back into her head lit coals into a fire. "I have to go..." she whispered in her human voice before she began to morph. Before her eyes she became something else, the other unlike any he'd seen. He'd seen Chaya return to her ascended form, but this was wrong somehow. Instead of radiating light from within Mab seemed to take it from the room, burning and consuming everything around her.
Finally Carson closed his good eye and dropped to the ground before it was burned blind as well. When he regained his footing she was gone and only the smell of charcoal and sulfur remained.
Across the campground, Elizabeth woke in drenched in sweat. John felt her move a moment before the alarm bells rang out across the city. He'd forgotten the bells in the tower, they both had, but now the sound cut through the night. For the time being emergency stations were in a tent with the radio equipment. He dragged himself out of bed and struck a match to light their candle.
Her breath was ragged in the dark and sweat was already starting to bead on her forehead. John looked for his pants in the weak light and started to pull them on. "You awake?" he asked as he turned around.
Elizabeth nodded slowly and tried to get her eyes to focus. Her hands, legs, every part of her was damp with a layer of sweat. Her shirt clung to her chest and the sheets refused to release her legs as she started to stand. "Yeah I..." she couldn't place the sensation. Something inside of her was burning and she was losing control of the fire.
"Hey..." he started as he crossed the room. "What is it?" When he touched her hand he jumped back momentarily. "What's going on?"
"Don't know," she said as she started to reassure him. "I feel foggy," Elizabeth decided slowly as she shook her head again. She pushed sweat from her eyes and tried to smile at him. "It's all over."
"Are you sick?" he demanded protectively as he took her shoulders. Her hair was starting to cling to her neck and she looked like she'd been caught in the rain. "I can get Carson, we can go to medical."
"I'm okay," she insisted as she tried to find the answers in herself. "Is it hot in here?" Elizabeth ran her hands over her skin and stopped them on his.
"It's not hot," he explained as he looked around for a towel or something similar. Settling on the shirt at the foot of the bed, he wiped her face carefully. "We should go to medical."
"We should go to control," Elizabeth argued as she ripped off her shirt off over her head. John steadied her hands, staring at the sweat shimmering on her skin in the candlelight.
"Something's wrong," he worried and drew a sleepy nod from her.
Licking her lips, she discovered the strange charcoal taste that came with the heat inside of her. Helping him wipe the sweat from her body she sighed and leaned against him for a moment. "It's her," she realized in a moment of clarity. Opening her eyes again she met his concern with understanding. "Something's happening out there. The queen..."
"Fuck the queen!" John snapped suddenly, startling her back and nearly into laughter. "Sorry," he corrected as he handed over her bra. "She can't keep doing this to you."
Elizabeth swallowed and let her head drop to his shoulder again while she held back her laughter. "I don't think she means to," she disagreed gently. "Not that I know much of Ancient virus or methods of genetics."
"That's why we should go ask Carson," John insisted as he watched her pull on a clean shirt. Her hair was still wet and fresh sweat appeared to take place of that he wiped away. "Please?" he begged as he cupped her cheek.
"I feel like I've stepped outside in the jungles of Africa on a summer day," she explained with a trace of amusement. Elizabeth tied her hair back and up, pulling the laces tight around her curls. John's features danced through concern to something quieter. "I will go to Carson as soon as we know what the alarm is. I promise you, John."
Her hand over his lips quieted him even as he tasted the sweat on her fingers. "You could be hurting our baby," he started through her fingers. "You could be hurting yourself you don't..."
"...It's the virus again," she snapped as she reached for her boots. It took more work than in the past, but she pulled them on as John watched. "Carson's going to say it's the damned virus replicating, mutating or dancing a jig in my bloodstream." The reflection of the candle flickered in his steady green eyes. "You need me."
John shrugged slowly and led her to the doorway. The wood creaked as he opened it into the corridor of the castle. Footsteps rang out against the stone, making out a percussive beat with the bells of alarm still ringing out across the city. "Come on," he offered falling in a step behind her. "Bet McKay broke something."
"He's at least a day towards the Asgard by now," Elizabeth murmured as they hurried past closed doors and all the civilians who could afford to sleep through the alarm. "What could he have broken?"
"He's McKay," John insisted as he kept their pace below a jog. Something wasn't right and nothing she was going to say could shake that cold feeling out of the pit of his stomach.
"We hadn't heard from our Genii contacts," Chuck started to explain as his superiors looked at him for answers. "I thought it was something simple."
"Transmitter malfunction," Zelenka added softly as he stared at the wounded by the gate. "Ronon's team was on the way back..."
John didn't need to hear the rest. He nodded quickly to the two men Elizabeth had left in charge of the late watch and headed for his friend. Simon was already on the ground by Ronon, turning his lantern so he got the best view of the dark injury bleeding through the leather.
"The one I saw looked like Teyla," Ronon spat as he tried to force himself to stay conscious. A Wraith blaster had caught him directly in the shoulder as he'd guarded the gate for the others. "She was taller," he grunted as Simon started to cut his charred jacket away. "Blue hair, wraith features," he spat again and there was blood in his saliva that reddened the stone by the gate. "She's bred," he finally managed to explain through clenched teeth.
"The burn is severe," Simon said softly with his voice artificially calm. "There's damage to the muscle underneath, possibly some intrusion into the chest cavity, I want him first in surgery." He waved to his support staff and two marines appeared with a stretcher. "Call the Daedalus," he asked Chuck as he kept triaging what he saw. "Tell him we have heavy casualties."
Elizabeth touched Ronon's good shoulder and leaned down towards him. "Bred?" she asked in gentle confusion.
"Wraith breed," Ronon explained through gritted teeth. His huge eyes stared into hers as if he could dump all he had seen into her mind. "Like insects, one queen gives birth to lesser queens..." he clutched his shoulder and forced himself conscious with a vicious twist of his arm. Pain was so audible in his voice that Elizabeth felt the searing in her own flesh. The smell of blood and scorched tissue turned her stomach in knots.
"The lesser queens give birth to the drones?" Elizabeth filled in for him as she tried to make sense of it. "But Teyla..."
"Is one of them," Ronon finished flatly before finally closing his eyes, sickened more by his memories than his injuries. Elizabeth's head swam and she felt the smelled of burned flesh run through her and settle in her stomach. Sweat beaded fresh on her forehead and John had to wrap an arm around her shoulders to keep her upright on her knees.
"Doctor Weir?" Chuck asked with soft concern as he touched her arm. "Are you?"
John nodded for her but he knew his face wasn't convincing anymore. Looking around for Carson he found the one-eyed doctor deep in conversation with one of the wounded marines. The poor woman's face was so covered in blood that he couldn't tell who she was, but she was talking, so he let himself hope she'd be all right. He couldn't take Carson, but Elizabeth continued to worry him.
A new smell cut through the blood and ozone of weapons fire, sulfur, rich and putrid as it hung in the air. The gate began to respond to an incoming wormhole and John reached for Ronon's gun. With it set to kill, he pointed it at the gate. The shield snapped up for a moment before disengaging. Whatever Ancient technology Mab used to control it had decided the new arrivals weren't a threat and let them through.
It was more soldiers and the rest of Ronon's team. Cameron and Daniel each had a man slung over their shoulders, and Vala had a stranger's arm wrapped tightly around her shoulders as they ran through. Jeannie Miller led the rest of the wounded through. These were wounded in Genii uniforms who were too shell-shocked to speak as Elizabeth rose to her feet.
"They needed new blood," Daniel offered grimly as he watched Carson and some of the Daedaulus' med staff materialize to help Simon deal with the members of Ronon's team who'd made it back. Out of Ronon's fifteen volunteers, four were sprawled on the ground. One of the fallen was covered with a blood soaked green jacket and John knew she'd never get up again. "They needed new blood so they took Teyla," he repeated as he set down the man he carried and realized he was already dead.
Vala wasn't smiling. Her face was ashen and her lips were set in a tight line. Jeannie was coaching the wounded, looking strangely comfortable with a heavy machine gun cradled in her arm. One of the last was a dirty, bedraggled man who could barely stand beneath the burden he carried on his shoulders was Ladon Radim.
Ladon looked through John as his eyes landed on Elizabeth. "They rent open the earth itself and came for us," he choked on his words in a dry throat. "These were my councilors, my bodyguards, my best fighters and we barely escaped." He coughed and sagged under the weight on the man he carried. John and Zelenka hurried to him, lowering the unconscious body to the ground before Laden collapsed with him.
"They knew things no Wraith knows," he whispered as he fell forward. Elizabeth scrambled to catch him, crawling on the stone towards him as exhaustion overcame him. His skin was cold and gritty with dust. "She came for us like she knew us."
Elizabeth couldn't speak. She couldn't put a voice to the desolation she felt, or the leaden guilt that had fallen on her shoulders. People moved around her, Carson caring for the wounded. John starting to organize the Genii refugees. Laden's head lay in her lap and his eyes were open, she wasn't sure he could see.
"We saw your soldiers," one of the Genii explained from in front of her. "We thought..."
"Are there others?" John demanded as he turned to the one who seemed most capable of speech. "We could put together an extraction..."
"...no more," the Genii soldier interrupted without emotion. His voice sounded like gravel scraping against the stone. "There are no others."
"She'll hunt her own kind next," Mab promised in a voice that seemed to echo inside of Elizabeth's skull. As she whirled to look for the sound she saw Mab had materialized by the gate. Her hair was wild around her head and her feet were invisible through a ring of smoke surrounding her. "There isn't another planet with the same population as the Genii and her needs are great."
John stood up to her. "Are there more survivors on the Genii planet? Anyone you can..."
Mab closed her eyes and expanded her mind. Elizabeth could feel the heat of Mab's presence growing like a blaze in front of her and for the briefest of moments the queen shared what she saw.
Teyla's head was thrown back; her eyes screwed shut with pain. Black blood, Wraith blood ran down the grey-green skin of her naked legs. Michael knelt before her, his hands full of something wet and squirming. Her eyes opened to the night and Elizabeth, John and everyone around them shared the same menacing realization. Daniel saw more than the rest because his mind was still open. Silently heading for the library, he didn't even take the time to remove his gun.
"She is more than just a Wraith," Mab corrected as she sank back into human form. The change lifted the throbbing pain in Elizabeth's head and she managed to meet John's eyes without flinching. "She is all Wraith now."