East or West by Perryvic and Zaganthi

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It wasn't anything like he'd expected.

Life on the Genii homeworld was quiet. Busy, but quiet. He had a small room that was decorated in the semi... Rodney wanted to call it Victorian, but Amish also worked – Amish-chic living quarters. There was a lot of hand-made things, the bed, the desk, the soft mattress that was killing his back because it bent his spine all out of shape when he slept, because it sagged in the middle and he inevitably ended up rolled into that sag.

And as far as taskmasters went, Kolya was... not so bad, Rodney had to admit grudgingly. He kept a tight schedule, but that was it. They got up just before dawn, which was too early for Rodney, but also better than the afore-threatened torture. Marginally. Breakfast was simple -- crisp dry bread, some kind of hummus-like paste smeared across it, dry meat, sometimes biscuits, and fresh fruit with the bitter spice tava-paste drink that served as Pegasus 'coffee'. It tasted more like bitter chocolate and cinnamon with nutmeg with a healthy dash of creosote but it certainly acted as a stimulant.

It had taken Rodney more than a little while to get across that citrus was death to people who didn't even know what citrus was. He'd only come perilously close to demise once, with a fresh fruit slice that had smelled sharp, familiar -- like a grapefruit, even if the visual texture was all wrong. The smell was enough, and Kolya had actually believed him when he'd said that he would die if he came into contact with one of those fruits, ate one, because that was citrus, that and things like it. Jadon and Gisera still thought he was crazy, of course, but it was to be expected. They went about their daily business, and he was escorted to the labs, where his first priority was grinding it into their scientist's heads that they needed to fix their shielding and how to do it other wise they would be dead before they got to launch bombs. He was just biding time until they were rescued or an opportunity to escape arose, but Rodney was going to be damned if he was going to die of radiation poisoning in the meantime.

The down-time he had on his hands was strange, though and unfamiliar after Atlantis. Gisera cleaned and read and sewed and apparently happily visited with other women in nearby apartments. Someone in the nearest apartment had a baby that she was cooing about. Jadon sat at Kolya's feet, reading while the Genii commander did paperwork, and Rodney sat on the other side of the study, trying to ignore the scene and translating his understanding of nuclear theory into something the Genii could grasp better.

Acastus Kolya didn't often have visitors that came to his home, but occasionally there would be a few who came to him. Old friends, fellow Commanders, all who treated him with a form of deference, respect if not obvious awe.

Admittedly, Rodney had a few issues reconciling the man who had sliced up his arm to get his own way, to the genial Protector of the stories that Jadon and Gisera rattled on about over meals. Or even the evidence of his own eyes in the way that he expected the very best work and effort from people and he reluctantly had to admit that he wasn't that different in his expectations of his scientists.

Today though, even as he tried to recall the science fair project complete with simplistic explanations to note down for the Genii, they did have an unexpected visitor.

Gisera bustled in having answered the door. "Sir, Commander Sora and her Allocated Elizabeth to see you. Shall I prepare some refreshments?"

"Please do," Kolya replied standing up to greet his guests. "Commander Sora, a pleasure I am sure."

Sora entered the room all smiles. "Commander Kolya. Someone in records let slip today that with your last mission you achieved the highest rank of the red in recorded history. And here I find you at home, not celebrating with your troops. I do not think such an achievement should go unmarked."

She brandished an old bottle with a distinctive looking glass shape and Rodney was surprise to see Kolya's eyes light up. "Vratch Liquor? 20 year old?"

"50.... from my fathers store - with his permission of course," Sora replied and Kolya took the bottle and dusted it off reverentially.

"Your father had been hoarding liquid gold. I see you have brought your Allocated?"

"She was most insistent upon seeing her countryman in person," Sora said even as Gisera brought in some fine crystal glasses.

"Well then, let them... catch up. Rodney, you may talk to your once colleague in private if you wish."

Which was fine by Rodney. 'In Private' meant his room, but there was a desk and a chair and he really preferred it when people did things 'in private' instead of Jadon hanging all over Kolya's leg like that, even if he was standing up because Sora was there. Sora the equally crazy Genii markswoman, who'd looked so cute and dainty, almost, in her skirt and corset and straw hat.

Which was a lot like what Elizabeth was wearing, and he hadn't ever thought she was a corset type.

"Thank you. Elizabeth...?" He left his papers there on the 'bearing-board' he'd been using like a desk, and set it all on the floor before standing up. The last thing he wanted was to be around drunk Genii, and he needed to see that Elizabeth was still well.

"Rodney," Elizabeth stepped over to see him even as they stepped out of the room. "You're looking...better than I anticipated. I've been worried sick about you."

She probably thought he was having daily beatings for his habit of berating people for being idiots.

"I was worried about you, too." And himself, but Kolya was a quiet taskmaster, and he hadn't asked Rodney to get to work on anything that was out of his league. He hadn't hit Rodney, as was apparently his right, and he hadn't threatened Rodney since the first day. All in all it was unexpected.

He led the way out into the hallway, and headed up the narrow stairs, expecting Elizabeth to follow. "How have you been? Other than... apparently, without your uniform." Not that he was much better. But at least he was dressed somewhat normal, pants and a shirt, no funny knee-breaches and tights.

"Corsets. I know," Elizabeth twitched a smile. "I had to go up on the surface today with Sora to observe a contact. I've been..." She made a face. "Adapting I guess. Sora has one other Allocated called Russul and he terrorizes everyone. He seems to run the household. How are you? Really? Has Kolya been...treating you well?"

"Yes." Rodney turned to look at her while he pushed open the door to his room. "Surprisingly, although I'm probably worth more to him alive than even slightly injured. You can thank me when we don't all die of radiation poisoning in a few weeks. Jadon runs the household here, and there's Gisera who does the cooking and cleaning things." And probably also slept with Kolya, but Rodney... really didn't want to think about anything that went on in the master bedroom.

"I'm glad about that. Bates hasn't been doing so well," Elizabeth said. "I've seen him a few times with bruises because Sora and Idos seem to work for the same...battalion. He apparently keeps trying to escape. I almost feel guilty for biding my time."

"I don't." Rodney let her enter the small space first, eager to close the door behind him. "If you keep trying to escape, they'll only lock down tighter on you. Things are... relatively structured here. I could jimmy the door if I needed to, when they sleep, except if I escape and you and Bates don't, I don't want to think about what might happen to you."

"Yes, Sora hasn't exactly come out and said anything yet, but it was hinted that if someone escaped then the consequences would not be good." Elizabeth sat down on the bed. "Rodney, is there any way we can find of communicating? They've split us up very effectively. We just don't seem to coincide. You're in the labs, and I'm out doing political missions and negotiation, which takes me back a little to my UN days. There's a lot of politics out there and though we might be fine at the moment, things are...things could change."

Rodney watched her for a moment as the mattress swallowed her a little, sinking beneath her, and his back twinged a little just thinking about it. "Things could change. But Sora is in his, she's in Kolya's strike force unit or whatever they call themselves. If something does go politically strange, the two of them and Idos should all be on the same side?" And if something were to happen to the planet, hopefully they'd do the evacuating thing all at once. Rodney wasn't sure, but his mind kept straying to the next possible huge disaster. "I don't know. I don't have access to technology or tools here -- just writing materials."

"They should be. But the last coup they had - that put Cowen into power, ended up with them slaughtering the ranking officers and their households. It's made Cowen a little distrusted and there are cracks in his control. Up to that point, they were supporting him," Elizabeth explained. "Kolya was his second, but he got relegated away from the centre of power. There is a lot of resentment about that. You need to be aware. And Kolya's status is growing immeasurably through the advances you are making even in this short time. I don't tell Sora everything I see. Perhaps we can work out some sort of code? Perhaps we can persuade them to allow letters that they can read them and put in some code?"

Coup. Of course the Genii had political coups, they went to so much trouble to hide what they really were, why wouldn't they take it to another layer of insanity? Slaughtering the ranking officers and their households, though -- if someone tried to overthrow Cowen in the same manner, then the care with which Kolya locked the doors at night had a whole new layer of meaning.

Rodney pulled his chair out from his desk, and sat down heavily.

"Okay, okay, uh, I never good at this game in school so we need to come up with some predefined terms right now so I'll be able to remember them."

"The best codes are the ones that those watching have no terms of reference for," Elizabeth said in a low voice. "We can talk about things from Earth. Harmless things that would be natural to miss or that they might think you can enjoy. Like...coffee. You talking about coffee wouldn't be unusual would it? Maybe if there is a blend you liked and it meant safe or doing fine when you mentioned it? I could do the same with tea. I like Earl Grey...that could mean fine."

"So if I mention Columbian roast, that could mean fine. And... French roast could mean I'm not doing okay." When she gave him a vaguely funny look, he pointed out, "Look, the taste is sort of burnt. That's all."

Elizabeth laughed a little. "Okay, I think I can remember that. My 'not fine' can be uh... lapsang souchong. I've always found it a bit...unpleasant. How about the possibility of escape? That should have something specific."

And something they had no reference to, right, which made Rodney's brain twist itself into a knot for a moment before he offered, "Disneyland?"

"Disneyland is certainly good for escapism," Elizabeth replied with a smile and then worked through a few more words that could be in this limited vocabulary. This all relied of course on Kolya or Sora allowing them to actually correspond. And it meant he might have to write actual non offensive letters to someone which would be a first.

Something to do with his apparently excessive free time other than try to ignore the situation he was in. At least it was a plan, and it was something to distract themselves with while they had time together. Otherwise he'd start asking things like 'How do you think Carson's doing', and she wouldn't know any more than he would.

At least she got to go topside and see a little sunlight and fresh air.

"I think that's a manageable list."

"Works for me. Can't write it down," Elizabeth said and smiled at him. "I've really missed you Rodney. Even though I suppose we're in the same area."

"Where... where in the apartments are you? In case I ever get leave. Gisera comes and goes as she pleases, so..." So, maybe some day. Maybe. Then again, she was another rescuee, and given the comparable state she'd been in there was no reason for her to run.

"On the fourth level - Sora ranks pretty highly but not as highly as Kolya," Elizabeth said. "Number 5791, if that's of any help to you."

Rodney closed his eyes for a half-moment, committing it to memory. "5791. It's worth remembering. How does she... treat you?"

"She was a little...heavy handed to begin with, but she's been reasonable recently, " Elizabeth said and was about to say some more when he heard Kolya's voice.

"Rodney? Elizabeth...come back to the study." His tone did not sound particularly pleased.

Rodney hadn't actually heard Kolya sound like that since he'd been taken as an allocation. At home, Kolya was mellow, calm. He didn't get angry because if Rodney were honest, none of them gave him a reason to be anything other than a little sharp from time to time. He got to his feet, and hurried to pull the door open. "Come on. It's probably better if we hurry."

"Mm yes," Elizabeth agreed and the pair of them headed back out down to the study. When they got there, Kolya was holding some sort of official communication and Sora was sitting down, her head in her hands. Jadon and Gisera were not much better.

"Rodney...." Kolya looked at him. "I think you and Elizabeth should sit down."

"Why?" Official communications weren't good on any planet, any Galaxy, but Rodney edged over to his chair. He'd thought Gisera was out, so whatever it was had been worth bringing her back in for.

"I've just received word," Kolya said. "Manara has been culled."

The words didn't sound quite right, didn't sink in immediately. It was said with a weight that implied it should hit him hard, but the planet designation for Manara was... was where they'd gone to offload the city. That was where Carson was, where the rest of the Atlanteans and the Athosians were, and there was no way that that could happen twice, two events like that so close, the, the... The very odds of it were impossible.

"And the survivors?" Because if some other Genii got his hands or her hands on Carson, he could at least see him, and there were worse fates, there was the fate of being wraith food, and that was what he was hoping Kolya would say, that the Atlanteans were being allocated out.

"There were only 23 survivors. All of the Manarian command," Kolya replied. "They are the ones who reported that the recent Atlantean and Athosian refugees that had a temporary base there were culled with no survivors."

"No..." Elizabeth said in a shocked voice beside him. "That can't be true. Not all of them."

"All of them and all of the Manarians as well. The attack was swift and using unparalleled force. The Manarians blamed the presence of the Atlanteans for that." Kolya was looking at them both.

"A whole planet, just..." Rodney sucked in a breath, staring at Kolya. A whole planet, just gone. Just over, done with, and all of his people. All of his scientists, his stupid scientists, Carson...

Culled. Cocooned on some Wraith ship, tucked away as food. Or already dead, and that just -- it couldn't be.

They were alone. He and Elizabeth were alone and if he hadn't just sat back and waited for a rescue... He could've gotten out, he could've done something, rigged a sensor, got them enough warning.

"How do we know this is the truth?" Elizabeth demanded. "How do we know this isn't some means of forcing compliance?"

"I have scarcely had to force anything," Kolya said. "But, I have as part of this dispatch, orders to go to Manara with some troops and ensure that there is no one left to rescue. Rodney, you will accompany me because no words can describe a culled world."

"We had Gateships. I'm sure, I'm sure they dialed out -- they're just, they're somewhere else. They left Manara." Rodney sat back in the chair, crossing his arms over his chest. His hands were shaking. The Wraith dialed in so the prey couldn't escape. Teyla had told them that time and time again, and if they came in one of their Hives, there was no escape.

"No one could leave Manara - the Wraith dialed in. It's what they do," Sora said from her couch looking at him with pity.

"There were a series of explosions and a beam bigger than anything ever reported," Kolya replied. "I can only assume they were trying to capture the ships. It was only that distraction that enabled the High council to hide. But if you come, I am sure you will be diligent in searching them. More so than even ourselves."

"Oh god." Rodney leaned forwards, had to, covering his face with his hands. "I'll, I'll go." He needed to see for himself, he needed to see if he could find any wreckage or something, or maybe nothing at all. Maybe there'd be no proof at all, and maybe they'd evaded, somehow.

He needed to concentrate, or he'd forget how to breathe. He'd fall apart and then he wouldn't be useful at all and he'd never be sure of what had happened...

"We'll be leaving before dawn our time," Kolya replied. "I will ensure you have a uniform and equipment."

It was obvious that the dour menacing look came naturally to him when he was stressed.

Sora stood. "I will return to my quarters Commander." She said focusing on him. "Elizabeth, we are going home."

Rodney couldn't quite even look at her. She and Lorne, and sometimes him -- the expedition had been their project. It never would have happened if they hadn't pushed for it, and now they were trapped there, on an alien planet, and Kolya was telling him to presume that everyone was dead. That it was over, everything, and that everyone he knew was dead and there really was no hope left of ever going home...

And Rodney didn't want to let that hope go. Carson had to be alive, couldn't be dead.

Elizabeth rather unexpectedly put her hand over his and he could feel it shaking. "If...if there is anything to find, Rodney will find it," she said in a strong voice.

"I'm counting on it," Kolya replied. "Good night Commander."

Sora practically herded Elizabeth away, Gisera showing them out even as Kolya walked over to him and sat down next to him. "I am truly sorry Rodney. I know you expected to be freed or rescued. I would be blind not to see that."

"Or stupid." Rodney rubbed one hand over his mouth, still looking down at his knees. Fuck, fuck. "They can't have, not -- there aren't even that many of us. We're just a scientific expedition." And because of that the world, the Galaxy, should have had mercy on them. They should have all been safe in Atlantis, still.

"To the Wraith...you would've been a prize above planets," Kolya said. "New feeding grounds. New details. They would've wanted any Atlantean they could find for interrogation. It would be a mercy to hope that they ...died in the explosions."

In the explosions. That wouldn't have happened if Kolya had just left them be, if the Genii had just left the city alone. Now they had their fucking C4 and their penicillin and the resources to make more were gone, the resources to do anything, the people to do it, the... The bare, hard facts, the tangible usefulness of a body, and now those bodies were gone. No more voodoo science from Carson, none of Lorne's bad jokes, no Ford wavering between hard edges and softer edges, no...

He wasn't crying. He wasn't going to do any such thing until, not even when he was sure, if he could ever be sure. There was no point, nothing accomplished with saline fluid except dust-free eyes, so Rodney sat back, rubbing at them hard.

He was surprised by a soft sympathetic touch. Something rare from Kolya. "Would you prefer company tonight?" he asked. "Jadon or Gisera - they both understand what it is to lose everything."

Kolya's hand was heavy on his shoulder, and he was suggesting... what? Sex cured all? Rodney shook his head. "No. No, I'll just -- dawn, right?" He had to rub at his eyes again, and when he looked at Kolya it struck him that the man was too close to him. Too near for comfort's sake.

All he had to do was lean in and...

He didn't. He shifted away, then removing his hand and leaving Rodney alone. "Yes. You should go and rest Rodney. Jadon, prepare my bath please. Gisera, I would like you to wake us in the morning, but otherwise you are dismissed as well."

There was a quiet noise of 'yes sirs', and Rodney stood, walking back up to his room before anyone could change their mind. That had been a surreal moment, a little too... Something, something that he'd missed the thread of, and it didn't matter. The morning mattered more, finding out what had happened to the expedition and the Athosians.

That was his first priority.

Because right now, until he knew exactly what had happened, how it had happened to all of them...to Carson, he wasn't going to be able to think of anything else.

He needed to know because his whole world has just stopped and he was very afraid it was never going to start again. And Rodney needed it to start around, needed for things to make sense because he'd been in a holding pattern, waiting for Carson or Lorne, or someone with a better idea of the outside in than he had of the inside out.

Rodney closed his door, and then very carefully sat on the edge of the bed. He'd get there and find out that Kolya had been wrong after all. It was as simple, had to be as simple, as that.

There were usually plenty of volunteers for a post-culling mission because there was always the chance that a pocket of survivors could be brought in for Allocation, and Kolya knew that those who had been rescued saw their new state with the Genii as some sort of amazing good fortune.

But Manara had a lot more riding on it than the luck of a few soldiers. It was the break he was looking for. McKay was ...adaptable and resilient. He'd not made too much fuss for the reason he was expecting rescue. And because he was expecting rescue, there was no push, no drive to build new weapons. None of the fulfillment of potential he knew that he had.

So he had set about woo-ing him. Carefully, slowly and with patience. Over the last few weeks he had established that he was trustworthy in his given word, attracted to him, but respectful of his person. Tough, but fair and all in all, there could be a lot worse for Rodney McKay.

That had been his next step, with Chief Cowen telling him that he hoped he knew what he was doing, and he did. He really did. This wasn't the first time he had done this, but it was the most important time. Rodney McKay would be brilliant for those he cared for. And where the feeling did not grow naturally, he would foster it by...hot housing the situation. Removing hope of rescue. Showing it to him. If there was evidence of survival, Rodney would not see it, but it was likely they really were culled. He hadn't lied about that.

And then, when he was vulnerable, he'd ensure there was another situation that ensured that he would forever see Kolya as a protector, a benefactor and eventually a lover.

Smoke still drifted everywhere as they came out from the Stargate. Ruin was visible from their first step on Manara.

There really was nothing like a culled planet. When it was completely culled, or near to completely culled, and the people fought back where they could -- and they always fought back, hoping a few hundred, a few handfuls of lives could make it to shelter or escape -- the Wraith were ruthless in their destruction. They leveled buildings, exploded supply areas, crushed all hope of resistance before they culled the rest, taking people still screaming into the great hives.

He still remembered the first culled planet he'd visited. They had been a sparsely populated planet, with a town too near the gate, too proud or sure of themselves to move. The wraith darts had emptied out the towns, without a single shot fired. There were just empty houses, and one cooking fire that had raged out of control without someone to mind it. Woodworking stopped in the middle, meals still half-eaten. Life had simply stopped.

Here, on Manara, life had been crushed.

This was what would happen to his world when the Wraith came. If they were this hungry, this desperate they wouldn't just take the few surface dwellers. They would scan and probe and then they would root out all of the Genii cities. Vartresk would fall, Karsoom, Harlk and all the others. That was what he had to remember.

He gestured for the squads to spread out. They would take what they could, resources of any kind. They always tried to get the first reports because within the next day, the word would be spreading and then the salvagers would be here to pick over the carcass of Manara. He glanced sideways at Rodney and then spoke to the Manarian they had brought with them as a guide. "Terros, would you show us the site of the Athosian and Atlantean encampment?"

"Of course. They had their great ships in a circle, around some structures..." He started out across the burnt grass, heading away from what Kolya knew was the nearest town. It would not be far, though. They'd be able to see it soon, past a copse of charred trees.

And at his side, McKay was silent for perhaps the first time in his captivity.

Normally the man was talking, complaining, arguing - usually with himself which made it all the more strange and there was a constant stream of sound. He reached into his pocket and found one of the items his troops had lifted from Atlantis. Gisera had confirmed that Rodney has spoken of Dr Beckett most of all and he had hunted through all the bits and pieces they had brought back particularly to find something that was associated with him.

And ensure it was suitably damaged and bloodstained. If they could not find evidence, he would...reinforce the truth.

Otherwise McKay would go on for the rest of his life with this group of people on a pedestal, expecting them to rescue him, and the dead could do no such thing. There was no harm in helping to break McKay of that delusion a little sooner than he would have broken himself of it.

Ask they walked, he surreptitiously watched Rodney turn his head, glancing, taking in parts of the barren landscape that Kolya could only guess at. The smell in the air was familiar to him -- when everything from flesh to plant-material to fuels were burned.

Rodney looked like it was making him feel nauseous. He had dark circles under his eyes and Kolya doubted that he had slept at all.

"Through here…" Terros said. "There was a rain of fire...we could see it. It hit here first, before they came to the cities. Explosions.... then many darts hovering, their beams holding still for some time."

"I see...thank you." Kolya stepped over the small incline to look at the devastated area...and it was. Pitted with smoldering impact craters, debris twisted and burnt strew everywhere. A handful of charred bodies and limbs sprawled haphazardly.

He knew then there had been no survivors. He would at least not have to lie.

It didn't stop Rodney from starting down, starting forwards, walking away from Kolya and towards the impact craters. Perhaps he would recognize one of the bodies, or their strange mode of dress.

He moved over to look at a body himself. It was burned and unrecognizable but some parts of the uniform looked much the same as Rodney's had on his capture. He looked a little closer and then discretely palmed onto the ground the ragged burnt patch with a blue x on it...some sort of insignia he remembered from when Dr Beckett had made a brief visit in their first encounter. He always made note of that sort of thing.

He gave Rodney a few moments and then straightened up. "Rodney? This...uniform looks a little like yours.."

Not that Rodney looked like a Lantean any longer. He could have passed for one of Ladon's scientists out in the field, and it was perhaps only a matter of time before he showed Rodney a little of the fighting arts. Defensive, of course.

Rodney had been peering at some curl of metal, and he only turned away from it slowly. "You.... you should have your men gather this, anything they can from this site. The materials could, they could..." Oh, he was trying, trying hard in that stubborn resilient way. Maybe he was telling himself that the Lanteans had escaped, but perhaps lost a ship. One ship, maybe two? But that his dearest and nearest had survived.

"We'll do that. Whatever pieces we can find." He nodded to a few men who started looking around collecting up the strange alloy. "Is this someone you knew?"

He needed him to look. To see and realize. It was important for Kolya, but important for Rodney if he were ever going to be a productive member of society.

"It..." The denial died on the tip of Rodney's tongue, and he stopped short of the body, staring at it, before he started forwards in a jerk of motion, kneeling down on the ashen ground. His fingers went for the piece of fabric, first.

"What is it?" Kolya crouch down with him. "Is that a rank mark?"

Truthfully, he didn't know what it was. Perhaps it was a designation for a doctor in their society. He hadn't seen anyone else with it.

"Flag. It's the... fuck, fuck, I can't even remember what it's called, it's the Saint Andrew's cross." Rodney clutched it in shaking fingers, and then he did something Kolya hadn't quite expected. He pushed at the body, turning it over.

There were no recognizable feature but he nearly betrayed himself when Rodney reached for something metal around the mans next, semi fused and melted by whatever had struck and seared away most of his upper torso.

He hoped it would be unrecognizable.

Rodney studied it, bent over the body, and then he pulled, tugged at the metal, and pieces of it broke away. Some kind of chain, but the main piece was in tact enough. Kolya leaned slightly, and-- yes. Yes, it had to have been unrecognizable. Or else he truly had picked the correct body to plant the 'flag' next to, because Rodney's mouth was open, pulled down at the edges more than it had been when Kolya had had his arm cut open.

"It is someone you know," he said injecting his voice with a form of gruff sympathy. "I am sorry Rodney. I was hoping there would be some survivors.." Best not to appear too altruistic. "...if only for the technology you wielded."

It was probably the best thing that he could have said, because Rodney's expression twisted, and he jerked away. "This. This is all your fault. If you bastards had have left us alone! We were your best hope, we're at least 60 years ahead of you without the ancient technology we had, and you, you greedy fucking shortsighted scavenging irradiated bastards!" Rodney had the flag and the chunk of metal clutched tight in his fingers, and then he was stumbling to his feet and running.

And ancients above, watching that man try to run away was a sight.

He gestured and one of his men intercepted the scientist and tackled him to the ground on the seared earth allowing him time to get there.

"Rodney... Rodney! Stop struggling...stop...enough!" Kolya said authoritatively taking hold of him.

"Sir..." the man he'd gestured to looked a little genuinely concerned, even as he got a hold of Rodney's arms himself, trying to pin him down. He hadn't actually expected the man to kick him in the stomach, twisting and trying to fight so desperately now, where he hadn't before. "Perhaps he should be taken into custody."

"Fuck you, I'm already in custody, and this is all your fault! He's dead and you should be, too!"

"He is my Allocated and I will deal with him," Kolya replied managing to get the upper hand. "Rodney....this, this is what we face every moment of every day. This is why we do everything we can to survive. There are few of us who have not lost someone as dear as you have obviously done. Do you think I am myself untouched? No. What of the Manarians who are no more? Every moment we live we are cheating death Rodney. Working for vengeance. For security, to protect our people. Understand that. We all have our own griefs, but we go on, because to do otherwise is to tell the Wraith they have the right to kill us because they are stronger.

"They are stronger! They're stronger, you're just cattle to them, but we could have fought them, we could have..." Rodney tried to fight him again, but a knee placed against Rodney's inner thigh kept him from kicking like that, from getting any hip or back motion going that could injure either of them. He lay there, pinned and breathing hard, mouth twisted out of shape. "Fuck you and your, your shared grief ethic. We had worse enemies back home. We've survived, and we could have won here, too!"

"What's done is done. And we can still win. We will still win." Kolya said firmly. "We have to. You don't understand. The Wraith have spies. Worshippers, as human as you or I. They come luring us out with promises of more technology, or being a friendly advanced race and ...five planets Rodney, five planet in my lifetime have fallen to that ruse. We have to distrust those who are too advanced, who no one can vouch for.... we have to suspect. We have to take things on our terms because the price of a mistake is this. Scorched earth and the death of everyone."

It wasn't sinking in, though. Not like he'd thought it might, because Rodney started to struggle again, twisting in the dirt enough to get one leg free to try to kick at Kolya again. The man of his who had first tackled Rodney shifted, drew his gun. "Sir. Do you need help taking him back home?"

"Take him back. Return him to my quarters until I have had chance to finish overseeing this mission. Instruct my other Allocated he is not to leave and to leave him to adjust. " Kolya replied. "I have to complete this reconnaissance. Rodney, you must calm down. "

"Why? What do I have to calm down for? You said it and now you've proven it to me, my people are dead -- but there's billions of us back home, and I don't care what happens to this god-forsaken galaxy! Now we know why the ancients left!" He twisted again, still struggling, and Kolya decided that perhaps it was for the best to knock him out. Just briefly.

Kolya looked at the soldier holding him and the man sucker-punched Rodney with the ease of a great deal of practice and he sighed. Looked like a stronger reaction than just losing a friend. That had been a minor miscalculation. It just meant the timetable of events was pushed up a little.

Rodney had seen the nice side of things, now he needed to see the unpleasant so he would rush back to him with open arms.

At least it seemed like he would be amiable to the arrangement Kolya was guiding him towards. He glanced at the soldier, then nodded slightly while he stepped back from Rodney's limp body. It was just as well that things were moving at a faster clip.

There was a forty pound weight sitting on top of his temple -- and if there wasn't, Rodney was willing to believe there was, because his head was pounding worse than that time he'd tried to pick up a Russian officer's wife.

She hadn't even been that hot, so it wasn't something he considered 'worth it' immediately after the man's fist had slammed into his head. That was the feeling, the fist to head feeling that left him groggy and reeling. He wasn't even on the ground, where he expected to be. Or a bed.

Because even with his head reeling, Rodney had a pretty good idea that he was tied up in a chair.

That was enough to send panicking surges of adrenalin along to his limbs. Fuck, as if his day hadn't been bad enough. As if the last vestiges of hope had flown away when he picked up that torn and burnt St Andrew's cross. He didn't remember there being anyone else Scottish on Atlantis and now...

Now Carson was dead. They hadn't stood a chance against a full wraith attack and oh god, now he'd ruined everything by trying to escape blindly.

And now it seemed he'd descended into his own nightmare. A dark room, the heat of spotlights on him and ropes tying him to the chair.

"So you are finally awake Dr McKay..." an unfamiliar voice said.

Not Kolya then. What was going on? Kolya was supposed to be responsible for his care and provisions or whatever they called it, so if anyone was going to tie him to a chair and possibly set him on fire, it should have been Kolya.

Seeing as Rodney had a groggy recollection of trying to kick the man in the balls.

"Nnh, where am I?"

"Somewhere that your protector cannot find you," the voice said from the darkness. "Here's the thing Rodney... There are certain elements of the Genii command who believe you are not fulfilling your potential. They feel rather strongly I'm afraid that Commander Kolya is far too lenient with you and that he allows his... well, let's just say infatuation with you to allow you to run riot and not deliver the information the Genii most need."

There was a pause and a sound as if the man had stood and was walking closer. "I will admit it took sometime for the Commander to make a slip, but there are still some men in his command who are more loyal to the state than the man personally. He really shouldn't've delegated the task of bringing you home. And by the time he realizes, well, lets just say even Commander Kolya does not know all the resources of the Genii High Council."

Rodney tipped his head, trying to look towards the sound. He couldn't see anything, but that just meant they were intelligent and had him blind-folded. Because if he saw them, he'd... he'd what? He wouldn't be amiable to whoever it was, that was sure, and the fact that he wasn't dead meant something.

It meant that they at least knew how important his brain was to them.

"And you're going to... what?"

"I'm going to encourage you to tell me some of those wonderfully advanced things that you know about but are deliberately keeping from our people." The voice sounded closer. "You see Dr McKay....Rodney, we need answers. If they have culled Manara it is possible that some Manarian in a cocoon could give them information that might lead to the Genii. We'll need to know how to defeat the Wraith."

"I'm not deliberately keeping anything from you. These advances have to be taken in steps -- I was starting with shielding for your generators, and working with your scientists on a functional bomb, since you have the grade of Uranium, it just needs to be separated from the 238, which I can't help you do if I'm tied to a chair!"

There was a silence and then the rather terrifying sensation of something that felt like a long thin cane under his chin, effectively shutting him up. "You talk a lot, but little of it is useful. We want more than basics. We want a means to destroy the Wraith and we are agreed that you have been waiting for a rescue and minimizing information. Is this true Rodney?"

"I was waiting for my, my mission to come, but they're, they're not going to." Something that he hadn't even fully processed. Rodney didn't know what to do with the idea, the reality that they would be written off as one of the many failed Stargate related missions and that Carson was dead. Carson was dead. "But I'm not 'minimizing' information. I don't want to die any more than you do. I'm trying to give you a bomb that functions, and I can step your development up to complete in a few weeks. I, I can recreate the generators we had, I designed them myself."

"See, isn't it nice when we learn to communicate?" the stranger murmured. "And are the generators weapons? How do we get them to the Wraith?"

"What? No, no, they're power-sources. I can make them compatible with ancient systems, any ancient weaponry. It's portable power." The word 'idiot' hovered on the tip of his tongue, but he didn't say it. The edge of the cane was still stuck up against the underside of his chin. "You want weapons, I can do those. I though you wanted the Nuclear bomb."

"If the...nuclear bomb will not kill the Wraith then it is pointless," the man replied and removed the cane. "The ancient devices do not work. You are lying!" The cane swished and cracked down sharply across his legs.

"Fuck!" He was naked and tied to a chair apparently, because that had cracked across his skin hard, burning like he'd been cut. The swish of it cutting through the air no real warning for how much it would hurt. "You need a gene, it's genetically linked, and most of the mission had the gene you stup--"

"A gene... so only those born to it can use the technology? How...convenient." The man was moving again. "That hurts doesn't it? I'm afraid if the answer don't start sounding a little less ridiculous you are going to hurt a lot. So who can use the ancestors technology?"

"Anyone with the Ancient gene -- we called it ATA. They interbred with humans on my planet, so it's rare. They took a whole bunch of one of a kind rare people and sent us on this god-forsaken mission and now they're all dead." He almost mentioned the Retrovirus, but they'd
demand he create it and Rodney knew he was no medical doctor. He didn't know the first step to doing that.

That didn't seem to satisfy the man because the cane snapped against his chest this time sharp and vicious. "One of the kind people who are all dead and cannot prove you a liar!"

Rodney hunched forwards into the ropes, breathing hard from that new cutting sting. "Ow, fuck, no, no, give me a piece of the technology! Ask Bates or Elizabeth!"

"Give you a piece of potentially dangerous technology?" The man sounded amazed. "Do I sound like I'm an idiot? Do I? Is that what this is about? You thinking you can be superior, you can fool all of us? Is that it Rodney?"

That last was punctuated by another hit across the torso. "I think you need a lesson. A lesson in humility."

"I can prove I'm not lying -- I have the gene, you just need to listen." He could imagine what the lesson in humility might be. It could be high school all over again, with bullies who wanted him dead once they'd learned he could make such a scene that they'd get into trouble for just touching him.

"And still you are trying to dictate to me," the man said. "Still you have the arrogance to make demands. I can make time to attend to some attitude adjustment."

Fuck that didn't sound good. And it didn't feel good when the sharp crack of the cane was replaced by the methodical bruising punches of someone interested only in administering a beating for no other reason than they wanted to.

That they could, that they thought it might make a difference in the way he was. There was nothing he'd be able to do or say that could stop it, not when he was being punched for the sake of, of what? Taking him down a notch. At least when Kolya had had his arm cut open, there had been a point to it.

This was just... this was like bullying in an extreme form. Pushing him down to get into control. The blows winded him, hurt him made him want to throw up. It was an excuse. An excuse to get the upper hand.

They probably wanted him meek and placid in the labs, a church-mouse of an allocation, and Kolya hadn't cared much as long as Rodney didn't mouth off too much or talk with his mouth full. It was all an excuse to break him down, and Rodney knew that cognitively, focused on it as he tried to not tense up, not make it worse, not throw up when he wouldn't even be able to lean properly or see what was going on.

By the time the blows finished, he felt a stinging numbness all over where he had been hit. A taste of blood in his mouth.

There was a long pause. "I think you are too used to getting your own way Rodney."

"I was the second highest civilian on the mission. Does it surprise you that I'm used to getting my way?" And they had the highest civilian on the mission, and she was probably fine. She was probably adjusting because Elizabeth was a diplomat, and she could fake it better than Rodney could because apparently everyone had decided that he was waiting for rescue.

"Perhaps not. But you're not on that mission any more are you? Because you failed. You destroyed the City of the Ancestors," the man replied. "And that's what put all of them on Manara. There's the logic Rodney."

"We failed to save it. Because you invaded us," Rodney reiterated, leaning against the ropes. He hurt. Everything hurt, but it was numb, a burning numbness.

"No. Because you didn't have the right solution. You didn't save the city. It was flawed. The shielding was breeched and that wasn't down to us. That was down to the storm and your plan. Twenty men of the Genii paid for you mistake. Then all those who you had sent on ahead of you."

"It was down to the city being more than 10,000 years old, and structurally weak to begin with." He closed his eyes behind the blindfold, sucking in unsteady breaths. Something hurt below his ribs, a sharp pain.

"So you don't make mistakes. You never screw up. Always someone else's fault isn't it McKay? Hmm? I thought you were the genius. I thought you could work out anything. But your friends are dead, the city is lost and you're alive. Not a very good track record."

It was hard to not react to that. Rodney just breathed, biting his bottom lip to keep silent. Just baiting. Things had gone wrong, it wasn't his fault. Even if Carson was dead. It wasn't his fault. He'd tried and he'd been stopped and he... And Carson was dead.

Nothing could change that. Did it really matter how much at fault anyone was when Carson was dead? The first person to ever really care for him. Love him, okay yes, love him. Carson had said it often enough and maybe he hadn't said it back as much as he should. But Carson knew. Had known.

Had he been waiting for him to turn up to save him? To stop the Wraith?

Maybe. Maybe Rodney should have just damned Elizabeth and Bates, and made a run for it. He could have -- he could have gotten through the lock, gotten out, used the gate to get to Manara, he'd just been waiting. He shouldn't have waited. He should have -- because it was two lives to over a hundred lives, more with the Athosians. And maybe he could have been of use. And maybe Carson wouldn't be dead.

And that hurt more than any of this. Than the beating, the pain. All of that. It hurt that he had somehow let Carson die because he could've done something.

"Was one of them someone you cared for. Someone you loved?"

"Doesn't matter." He was dead. He was dead, and Rodney couldn't even remember the last time that they'd been together. Not sharply, and there had been no poignant goodbyes or observations. Carson had said something about Rodney needing to get his socks washed more often, and had gotten out of bed to shower because Biro had called him in for an emergency. Rodney wasn't even sure whose socks Carson had meant, and then Lorne and Teyla had seen the storm, and everything had moved fast fast fast.

He wanted to be able to say something to him. He wanted... he wanted Carson. He wanted him and it was like a hole ripped in him more painful than physical pain.

"Not someone you loved very much then."

He was still leaning into the ropes, still breathing hard, struggling to keep the chair from tipping forwards, trying to stay sitting up. "Dead is dead."

"Yes...it is, isn't it?" The man seemed to be walking away. "I'm going to give you time to think about this Rodney. Contemplation is good for you and perhaps our next chat will be a little more forth coming. Guards."

There were rough hands working at his bindings then, holding on to him.

Fine. Fine, anything to get him out of that chair, anything to jar him out of his thoughts. He was sure they'd 'talk' again, but Rodney didn't know what good it would do. He didn't think it would do any good at all.

Carson was dead. Carson was dead and he could have done something, and he hadn't, and nothing could fix that.

He was half lifted, half dragged away, still blindfolded. He barely heard the final words of , "And clean him up," but the Guards obviously did. Because after they almost literally hurled him into a cell that was very cold and damp, and he had hardly any time to pull off the blindfold, they were literally turning a freezing cold hose on him "to clean him off."

It was for humiliation's sake, but it didn't help. All he could see was the two men holding the hose, and the torrent of water that knocked him off of his precarious balance of getting up.

And before Rodney could get off of his ass, the door closed, leaving him alone in his empty cell.

He was cold, he hurt, he was hungry as hell and he had a feeling that it wasn't going to get any better.

But what choice did he have? There wasn't anyone going to come for him now.

He was stuck with himself. Elizabeth was in no position to help him, Bates...

Bates. That stupid grunt.

Rodney shifted, and finally dragged himself to a dry corner of the cell. It would have to do.

Things should have progressed.

There should have been some change, some end goal, but there didn't seem to be, and Rodney didn't know what to do. And even if he had known, it wouldn't have mattered. He hadn't eaten in... too long. Too long. Hunger was gnawing at his guts, twisting him inside and out, leaving him wracked with shaking and chills almost more than the water treatments had. There was no warmth, no respite, hardly any food, and they kept asking things, demanding the impossible of him when he had could hardly scrape two thoughts together.

It seemed so pointless. Sometimes they would take him off and tie him up. Then no one would come and he would be left there for hours. They'd shaved off his damn hair... why? There was no point to it and it had fuzzed back a little...which probably meant something about time but he wasn't sure what.

They'd put him in a cell where random areas seem to have electric charges at random times. There was no pattern that he could work out with the fog in his brain.

He was pretty sure that there were drugs in the food they forced down him. That was... ridiculous. They let him nearly pass out every damn fucking time and then they came in and forced it down his throat.

He was having problems even remembering his name let alone anything else. He had no idea how long he'd been here. Too long. Long enough to know he was lost to everything.

There was noise in the corridor. More pain, more torture no doubt. It'd all become one mass of...unbearable sensation.

Sensation beyond his control, beyond him period. He was always cold, always hungry now, and his head hurt too much to think, left him wishing for knives or something that had a point. And there was no way to keep a hold of himself. He'd tried writing on the walls, but his fingers were cold and raw, and he couldn't. There was no dirt, and he didn't think he had nails left to scrape anything with. He just had theories and vague thoughts spiraling in the empty space of the cell, and no-where to put it all.

Rapid footsteps coming his way and it was easier to just lie there and shiver with his eyes closed. A few more moments' peace.

"Are you sure?" The man. The faceless man he had never seen.

"Yes. He's closing in on this location. I don't know how he found out. We must have a leak..."

"Then we'll have to move him again. He is persistent."

"Yes sir. Renowned for it. The Commander does not give up."

"Put him in a sensory cocoon and transport him. If we are lucky, we'll get him off world."

"Sir."

Persistent? Carson leapt into Rodney's mind, except Carson... yes, Carson was dead. He remembered a dirty, ruined flat piece of material in his fingers, and Carson's melted dog-tags. It had to have been fast. Right to the face, fast and, and quick, and he hadn't suffered, no. No, Rodney held onto that. At least Carson hadn't suffered, hadn't been drained by the wraith.

There was the sounds of the cell door sliding open, and someone entering. Hands on him, lifting him because he couldn't stand. Jostling him as they moved away, and down corridors where other prisoners screamed or whimpered depending on how long they had been there.

It was a different place, a different room. Glimpses of something that looked like a coffin even as he was lifted up and into it.

Soft...soft on his skin, not cold and hard. Busy hands straightening his limbs, rubbing a numbing agent on him.

That was okay. That was, it was soft, and he was cold and hungry and he'd still be hungry, but at least he might be able to warm up. He didn't have the strength to fight back, not anymore. Maybe he could sleep a little. Maybe they could just close the lid and slide him away into the dirt. He'd run out of air, but he might not wake up for it and that would be all right.

Right now, that was something to aim for.

There was something a bit like goggles over his eyes, something like headphones over his ears. That might've been a catheter put in.. shit...yes it was. And there were straps but they were all soft and like sinking. He was settled in place and a sluggish inability to move crept over him but he was still thinking. He could open his eyes but it was just a sort of blank in front of him. White noise in his ears and just warmth and nothingness which was a relief.

For a little while.

Rodney slept. He was sure he slept, except that passage of time thing eluded him again, because when he opened his eyes, it was nothingness, and all he could hear was quiet quite noise. He'd probably slept for a long time, actually, because he felt a little better even if he was still hungry.

He wasn't overly hungry, more empty and he discovered he couldn't move. At all. Even his fingers felt like they were vanishing away in the lack of sensation.

After a while he started to see things marching across his vision in his head. Hear voices. Oh god, he could see Carson. He could hear him.

Rodney? Rodney...it's going to be okay, love...rest now.

He wanted to rest. He wanted to be with Carson, to be there, wherever Carson was talking to him from. And he could hear him clearly, could hear the way his voice always sounded in Rodney's quarters, or in the infirmary when they came back from a mission.

He could feel the way he touched him, how he would stroke his hand when the nurses weren't there, kiss him softly and then smile.

Only his face was... melting away. Literally burning and melting in front of him, hand clutching at him desperately, mellow voice turning to a scream over and over.

And Rodney couldn't do anything, couldn't move, couldn't even try to put it out. All he could do was watch, watch wide-eyed as Carson died standing, screaming, and crumpled into the ash, and then everything was ash and dancing specks of grey and black and white fuzz in front of his vision.

It wasn't just once. It happened over and over. Sometimes, he was falling, plummeting from great heights, his heart pounding. He was sure he was screaming but he couldn't hear it. He couldn't feel himself, he felt like he was melting away and his mind was melting with it. It was being trapped in a wormhole, except 38 minutes went on forever and he wasn't coming out the other side, because the Gateship was stuck in the gate with the drive pods not retracting and he was on the wrong side of it but he could see everything and Calvin back there trying to work out what to do when Rodney knew what to do, he knew how to retract them, they just needed momentum forwards and he could hear Carson's voice on the radio telling him that Rodney should be sorry for what he did, that he'd tried hard but not hard enough and now look what had happened, everything was gone and the city was dead and he was dead and Lorne was dead and Rodney was dead but he didn't deserve to come out the other side, which was why no-one had come for him or would come for him not even one Gateship worth of people not ever…

Equations blurred in an out, tantalizing thoughts as tenuous as dreams. Soaring thoughts that disconnected from him and roamed around using him as fuel, burning him up as well. Prime numbers rattled onwards to infinity like the breath of his subconscious.

He couldn't remember his name.

It didn't matter. He was floating off in the silence and the roaring of blood and wraith beams, and he was the specks and sworls of color that drifted in front of his eyes, marching static ants that bled into equations that bled back into faces and he knew their names because they were important, they were tangible beings, they had been of a corporeal form and whether they were still or not didn't matter because they were still. They were.

He didn't need a name.

He was clearly insane. No one insane really needed a name. There wasn't any point and there wasn't anyone to identify himself to, because they already knew him, knew him better than he knew himself because they were willing to blame him and he hadn't blamed himself, no, he ignored that part of him where they didn't, Carson didn't and Elizabeth and Lorne and they were all gone, but not, because they were there with him in the black.

He could've been in here years. Timeless, the only thing trying to mark time being the erratic beat of his heart. He didn't know when he slept or even if he did, only there was a seamless state of being between dreaming and waking. He could speak, hear, feel, his thoughts disconnected, his memories scrambled and ..

The sensation of someone touching him, actually touching him, was like fire across desperate nerves. Touching his face, touching his skin and then moving something from his ears and a voice, like the voice of some sort of God.

"Rodney? Rodney... can you hear me?"

He heard a whimper, a rough-voiced sound that cut through the base of his neck and curled down his spine, but it couldn't have been him. He didn't sound like that, he didn't even have a sound to make, no voice, nothing but whitenoise and greynoise in front of his eyes, and that was still there, but the touch, the touch burned.

"Ancestors Above... What've they done to you?!" The rough voice was filling everything. "Can you see me? No? I've got you. It's Acastus... Kolya, yes?"

Someone was lifting him then, holding him and there was hot and cold, air on his skin and sound. And that was like water in a parching desert.

"Sir! They are coming..."

"Let them come!" Noises, sounds. Running footsteps, muttered oaths. The deafening sound of gunfire and being carried running. Had to be a hallucination but his mind was thirsty for it. It was new, and the texture was different than the dark dark where he'd split apart and drifted off, where there was nothing but thought-pictures and numb, that even hot and cold made him ache now.

The sounds, the oaths, they jumbled together, twisted up and he lost track of them if he'd ever even had track of them. Kolya. That was another name he remembered the texture of, gritty and full of iron.

It was more than he remembered of himself. He could smell iron, metallic scent close to him, a curse from the one holding him and jolting and movement and some part of him was trying to work out what was happening.

Escape... maybe. Cognitively, he knew that was good, that would be good, because things hadn't always been quiet and dark and cut free of all his tethers and just left with his ghosts, no. He'd been cold and hurting and now everything hurt all over again, every movement sharp, the sounds too loud, his skull throbbing because his brains were coming back, moving back into his head, maybe, because he hadn't been corporeal for a long time.

Maybe it had been like ascension but... descending into darkness instead of ascending into light.

There was the sound of an engine, then doors closing then moving at speed.

"You have him?" He recognized that voice too. Bates... What was he doing here?

"I have him. Just drive. Your Commander is in the back in case we need cover fire."

"Right." There was a pause. "You're bleeding."

"Just a nick. Give me your jacket... I need to keep him warm. They had him in a sensory deprivation cocoon."

"Looks like the communists weren't the only one to make those."

They were words that sparked half-thoughts in his head, little bits of mental sensation that welled up, that meant things he wasn't ready to reconnect to just yet. Bates was talking, Bates was okay?

He was being moved again, jostled, and everything ached and cut sharp edges into him, until there was the rough-warm feeling of fabric.

"I'm taking you home Rodney. I can get a doctor who is loyal to me. A good doctor....You'll be fine. Have a chance to recover." And he was wrapped in something warm, something clean and someone was holding him and fingers were stroking absently at his hair.

"We're coming up to the Stargate...sir," Bates said and he felt whatever was holding him twist.

"Idos! Be ready to dial! It'll be close…"

"Got it!"

Too many voices, too many different things going on. He wasn't even sure it was real. He'd felt sensation before, his skin crawling over his bones and his muscles twisting, knotting up, sliding out from under his skin and slipping away, until there was nothing left but numb, but this was different. It was more intense, enough to make him want to struggle to get away, except he didn't have the energy for that, to do more than twist a little, motions hard to control.

"Easy Rodney, Easy," Kolya's grip tightened. "We will be going through the Stargate now... then we will be fine. They will not take you away again."

"Dialed up! " came a shout and there was a sensation of speed and then a rush and then they were somewhere else.

"Will they follow us?" Bates asked anxiously.

"Not on the homeworld. People will see us. Chief Cowen won't risk the publicity," Kolya was saying.

"I don't get it. He's a slave. We're all slaves to you."

"No, you are Allocated. He has... he had broken my honor by harming an allocated in my protection," Kolya replied firmly. "That would cause an outcry. There are things that you do not do. When you became allocated you became of the Genii. What he is done is like taking one of our own people... because now you are."

"Oh..." It seemed Bates was thinking hard even as he drove.

The tight grip grounded him, pulled him in towards the newness of reality, or what was passing for it. But it was all sensation and sound, and no comforting sight, no seeing anything that weren't shapes and colors dancing in the bright black, vague thoughts scrawled visibly on the inside of his brain. Cowen? Cowen was a stuffed shirt kind of man, jacket collar cutting up into his jowls, but why would he take Rodney where he'd been?

"Sometimes things have to be done for survivals sake but this..." Kolya sounded brittle and hard. "This is proof only that such people should not survive."

"Is he going to be okay?" Bates asked.

"I hope so. He does not appear to be able to see me. I hope this is a side effect of the treatment, not that they have been using Varstemerol."

"Var...what?"

"It's a drug designed to make people more...suggestible. Docile. Unfortunately it can have bad side effects if used for a long time. And Rodney has been with them for a long time."

"It's the medicinal equivalent of kicking someone in the head. There is at least an honesty to fists." Not Bates, not Kolya, so that was Idos. He laid there, gripped tight, and tried to place voices to names and names to... names to memory-thought, but he was burning from the skinside in and his skull was throbbing from the noise, the motion, everything.

"He has seen plenty of that as well," Kolya replied. "It will take him a while to recover. He has had little food save through a drip. Or liquid. Perhaps that is why he not vocal...his mouth must be dry as a bone."

There was a sloshing sound and then something brought to his lips. "Rodney, this is water. Do you want a drink? Yes?"

"Uhn." Uhn-huh, yes, he wanted a drink and there was a flat round edge pressed to his mouth that could have been a cane for all he knew, that cane that he was sure he had marks from still, somewhere over where his skin hadn't crawled off. But there was wet and it was sliding into his mouth and he choked before he remembered what swallowing was like.

He'd never tasted anything so good. The first mouthful soaked into his parched mouth and tongue, the second swallow made it down his throat and that was bliss. He wanted to drink and drink...

"Easy...easy...you'll be sick if you have too much."

He swallowed again, and he wanted more, tried to lean up and follow the water when it was pulled away. "Nn." His throat still felt dry, ached on the inside like his skin ached on the outside because feeling again hurt, cut right to the bone.

"Not long now Rodney," Kolya practically whispered. "We're going home. I'll get you something to eat, just a little something so you won't be ill. You want to go home right?"

Home. Yes, he wanted to be home, full of conflicting feelings and a sense of awe, but he wasn't sure where it was anymore. Memory seemed to say it was under the ocean, or oceans away, or spaces away, taken away from him by the peculiarities of wormhole physics. "Uhuh."

"Good..." He could hear the smile even as they came to a halt.

"Vartresk sir."

"Idos, I'll need your man to guard me home. I want you to fetch Dr Shradon...you know who I mean. "

"Yes sir," Once again the sounds of doors opening and closing and movement again. "Bates, guard the Commander and Dr McKay."

"Sir." Bates seemed a lot more agreeable now for some reason.

"I'm going in the private entrance... you know the code Idos? Bring him in that way." And they were moving again.

He lost track of the movements. He was being jostled, and he knew that, and he was still held tight, and he wanted more of that water. It couldn't have been normal water -- it was so cold that it made his teeth sting and made him feel he had teeth again and tasted crisp, like, like something he'd tasted before.

Maybe he drifted off during that next part because the next thing he was aware of was another door opening and a faintly familiar smell, and voices.

"Acastus... oh, ancestors."

"Jadon, I need you to prepare a robe for Rodney… and myself. I will take him into the shower. The doctors will want his body clean." He heard a feminine gasp, but Kolya kept talking. "Gisera, prepare some soup. And a little soft bread if we have some. Is Sora and her Allocated here"

"They have been creating the distraction and will be returning shortly sir."

There was a curt 'good', that he half-heard, but at least the voices were familiar to him. He knew who they were, placed another voice to another name-face, and wished he could see, wished he could be sure that it wasn't still that thick dream-state where everything had seemed very real, too. Real as real, real as the sound of boots up the stairs.

"Rodney, I'm taking you into the shower. I'll have to put you down a moment, but then we'll get you something to wear and something to eat and the doctor will be here and then you can sleep."

The voice didn't seem as rough anymore. He could hear the sound of running water.

Shower, a shower sounded good. He'd always liked running water, running, hot water, and soap, yes. Showers, long hot showers were amazing, something he hadn't remembered missing until he could hear the water, smell the steam starting to gather.

The material covering him was removed and he could feel skin on skin but that didn't seem wrong as he was lifted again. "You know, in some ways a bath would be easier but..." Kolya chuckled a little and then there was hot water pouring over him, and the scent of a gentle soap smoothing over his skin.

But his legs were buckling under him, and he was standing on by the grace of the arm that was tight against his chest. Just like Elizabeth had been dragged through the gate, but he was only fighting gravity this time, and Kolya was helping.

Names and memories were starting to link up again, not completely as they had been, not as definite but...

It felt good to be clean. To feel touch, however brisk and business like. He felt like he was re-hydrating through his skin. Even as Kolya was humming under his breath as he sponged him off, cuts stinging with the soap and unaccustomed touch.

"Huh." Rodney tilted his head back, let the nape of his neck press back against the curve of, of something. Of a shoulder? He got water in his mouth, and it felt like it was in his eyes, the faint sting of water and soap.

So they were open. Only he couldn't see.

"That's better. I can actually see you under all that grime," Kolya murmured. A hand was deftly massaging in his scalp over the still short hair. Cleaned quickly at the least. "Can you talk Rodney? Do you know who I am?"

"Acastus Kolya." His voice sounded strange, glassy. The echoes were all wrong to his ears. "Hurt my voice."

"That's good... Rodney, " and the voice was warm and approving. "That's good.... thank the ancestors, I thought they'd destroyed your mind."

No, he still had a mind. It was coming back to him and that was why his head was still killing him. He stayed like he was, leaning back, supported, trying to ignore the sharp pins and needles in his skin. "No."

"Does anything hurt a great deal?" Kolya asked as a rough towel scrubbed the grime from his skin.

"Legs?" Clean skin felt different, felt split open and peeled raw, and good at the same time.

"We'll get the doctor to look at you." Kolya replied. "Rodney, did they... did they abuse you sexually?"

Did they? No, no, he didn't think they had, not as the thoughts of the idea popped up into his mind. Cocks and asses and mouths and Carson, and Jadon and Kolya in the study. "No?"

"Good, you were spared that, at least." Kolya seemed relieved. "We are clean enough. Let me just..."

The water stopped running and he was lifted with some difficulty again. "Towels, where... ah good, Jadon has put them out for us. Here." Something warm was wrapped around him. "I'll just quickly dry myself."

And he was left, teetering on shaky legs, except he wasn't because there was still an arm around his waist holding him up still. The touch was good, kept him grounded and from sliding adrift in the dark.

His eyes stung, and he could feel water on his cheeks. "I can't see."

"I think that they gave you drugs Rodney," Kolya replied. "Perhaps the doctor can give you something." He sounded doubtful though.

Kolya's grounding presence went faint for a moment, and Rodney concentrated on standing, concentrated on breathing, and the sharpness of his knowledge of both. He could feel, he could feel every teetering balancing twitch of muscles. "I, I need to see."

"Rodney, I swear, if it is in my power I will find a way for you to be able to see," Kolya promised seriously and his hand was there again, on his shoulder. "This I promise."

He promised. He promised... a lot, and he'd kept them all and Rodney had gotten himself in that position, had tried to leave the protection of those promises. "I promise..." His voice sounded funny, not nearly as strong as Kolya's. "To not run again."

"Shh, you were distraught. I was the one in error, to trust another with my responsibility Rodney. Dr Weir has explained to me why you ran. I am truly sorry Rodney."

Fingers on his shoulder, and another sliding around his waist. Holding him, keeping him upright. "He... he meant...." Everything of Rodney's quiet private life. He was the burning face in the dark.

"He meant everything to you... if I'd known I would never have made you go," Kolya said, a far cry from the gruff Commander. "I know what it is to lose that person."

His voice slipped quiet, mellow, dinner conversation voice when Gisera had burned her hand on a pot. "He, the flag. It was Scottish. He was the only Scottish member of the mission, so it..." Was without a doubt him, and there was no way to deny it even in the thick numb darkness.

"The flag? Oh, the insignia," Kolya held him a little closer. "I understand. I'm sorry Rodney, I really am. If I had known you had loved him and lost him...then..." He exhaled. "Perhaps we could've found a way together to bring him to us, or all of them. We did not know the Manarians would be attacked with such force. It is not something we have ever known before. I suspect it is why they took you, looking for easy answers to calm the panic."

"No such thing." There were no easy answers. Fixing anything too works, and development and starting with the basics and starting from there. Like bombs and power.

"Perhaps not. I was hoping you would adjust in time," Kolya murmured and continued to dry him off. "There now. I am hoping that feels some better."

"Everything is... sharp." Too intense, too in his forefront mind, too everything, but it was good, too. He was tired and his stomach felt like a thick knot, and his legs were shivering, but it was an improvement.

"You will feel better once you have eaten and rested. More yourself." Kolya said helping him put on a robe. "Can you walk, or do you need assistance?"

"Help."

He was barely standing, and his toes were shaking with the effort to stay balanced, and where he would have said 'no' before, he said 'yes' now. He couldn't even see where he was going.

"Then I will carry you," Kolya replied and that might not have been exactly what he meant but it was still a comfort to be lifted and carried.

"Gisera? Do you have the soup?"

"Yes sir, at the table. For you and for Rodney."

"Do you feel up to eating?" Kolya asked.

"I don't know." Yes, no, but why not? Why not? It would be another new sharp feeling and his throat was still dry. Soup was liquid, warm and soothing and he had memories of soup as a comfort food. He wanted comfort. "Yes."

"We'll try it. Here, you will sit with me. I do not want to add burn to your list of injuries," he said and under other circumstances it might seem strange, or humiliating but now it was just... comfort. "How are your hands? A little shaky? Then we shall help you."

A spoon was lifted to his mouth and the smell alone was enough to make him ravenous.

Metal pressed to his lips, and he still remembered the muscle memory of sipping, of tasting. It was that strange gamey meat sausage they ate, spiced and flavored, with tiny pieces of grain in it. It reminded him of something Italian, something that slipped his mind, but it was familiar and delicious.

"That's it," Kolya murmured. "Jadon, do you have the bread?"

"Here, Acastus... Is there anything I can do?" The younger man's voice sounded anxious.

"Break it into small pieces and drop a few in."

"It's a meal in itself, that soup," Gisera added.

"And it looks like the last time he had a meal was a couple of weeks ago." Jadon's voice was sharp in pointing that out, and there was relative silence for a moment before the spoon was pressed against his mouth again.

It really did taste amazing, and he concentrated to chew a little better. "'s good."

"Thank you," Gisera replied. "I'm glad someone appreciates my cooking."

"It's not that we don't appreciate it, but variety would be nice," Jadon replied in a teasing tone. To the background of their banter, he was fed the soup carefully and steadily.

"Good. I'm sure that soon you will be strong enough to feed yourself," Kolya murmured. "But your hands are still unsteady so it is best you are helped. Idos will be here with the doctor any moment. But I know he would want you cleaned up and with some food."

The doctor or Idos, but Rodney didn't ask it. He leaned into Kolya. The spoon had stopped pressing against his lips, and that was all right because he felt... full? Or sick, because there was some vague memory wrapped up in the sated sensation, but he wasn't sure what it was anymore. It didn't matter, because coming back to himself hurt more, ached more than anything, and he was still caught up in the dark with shapes and swirls and vagueness in the black that he could see.

"Enough? Yes?" Kolya settled him back. "Rodney, do you wish to sleep in your own room? Or would you prefer to be in with one of us? I'm just a little worried about you being alone."

"I..." Rodney stayed where Kolya settled him, leaned back against him. "How long has it been?" His throat hurt the more he talked, and he wasn't sure what to answer to that question. It felt like he was alone right then, if he couldn't hear them, couldn't feel Kolya.

"Since we went to Marana? A month." Kolya said.

"We've spent a lot of time trying to track you down. Acastus has been hunting high and low but they had you on a secure facility off world," Jadon said. "You can sleep in with me if you want. Or with Acastus... I can make up a bed if you want?"

He didn't know. Rodney hadn't had choices, options, or that much interaction and thought pushed at him in the last month, and he didn't know how to answer that, so he just hunched his shoulders and stayed where he was. "Don't know."

"Then you will stay with me," Kolya replied. "Jadon, would you make up a bed in there please? I'm sure that Rodney will need rest the moment the Doctor is finished treating him."

"Of course Acastus, I'll do that now."

In between him going, there was the chime of the door and Kolya took that moment to settle them both on the couch as Gisera answered.

"Sir, Idos and his allocated and the doctor."

"Good... good, he's in here doctor."

Everything was sound and touch, sound and touch. He could hear the Doctor suck in a breath, and he could hear Kolya exhale, quietly, controlled, and he could feel the shift that pressed him to sit up a little more before trying to hold as still as he could manage.

"I assume he didn't look like this when he left your care," the Doctor noted wryly. Rodney didn't feel much like appreciating a dry sense of humor just then.

"No. He did not. He has lost considerable weight. There is evidence that he had been...tortured and when I found him he had been in a sensory deprivation cocoon for an unknown period of time. Rodney appears to not be able to see either."

"Hmm... It might be varstemerol, it might be a reaction from an extended period of deprivation. Lets take a look at you Rodney, see if you need patching up, or stitches. You've cleaned him up I take it."

"Yes. In the shower. He has eaten a little soup."

"Good, good." There were different hands on him then, looking over him. He went with it, didn't fight, didn't try to move and risk muscle memory failing him and going strange, because he still felt shaky and weak and tingling and burning.

He tried to look in the direction of the man's voice, but he background of nothing and nothing didn't change. It should have been just like sound -- too much, too sharp, not nothing at all.

"Yes, I see what you mean about the injuries. Lets get those cleaned up and dressed so they are not infected," the doctor said. "No broken fingers or arm...possibly fractures in the ribs. This might sting a little."

And there was the smell of antiseptic and that triggered a bloom of memories of Carson, the scent of the infirmary clinging to him. He always smelled like antiseptic, always, except after he took a shower. Even in the field, because if Carson was with them there was some kind of need for a doctor or another gene carrier, and if it was quick, get another gene carrier, Carson was probably pulled straight from the lab, and...

And it did sting, except Rodney wasn't sure whether the pain or the memories were worse.

It took time, but the doctor seemed finally satisfied his injuries were clean and dressed. "Good. I'll leave some of the antiseptic here. Clean his cuts daily. Now let's have a look at your eyes Rodney."

For all he knew he could be doing anything.

"Can you see anything? At all?"

He could be absolutely naked and waving his penis in front of Rodney's face, and he wouldn't know. "Nothing."

There were fingers around his eyes and he could feel the man peering close. "Hmm... There's no pupil reaction to the light. That is not the best of signs."

"Surely, it is too soon to tell, Doctor," Kolya was saying.

"Well, we'll see if anything comes back over the next few days. But I want him to have plenty of rest, and a lot of fluids. Keep him on semi-solids for another couple of days then we'll try some ordinary food."

And it seemed like that was that, so Rodney stayed where he was. Leaned up against Kolya, not really sure if he was dressed or not except for the soft scrape of fabric against his skin. It was a lot like being.... like being something, recovering from some childhood illness, all over again.

"Thank you doctor," Kolya replied. "I would appreciate it if you would look at my arm as well. I did not escape completely unscathed."

"Of course." There was a pause. "A bullet crease. Looks like it has cauterized itself...but I will clean and stitch it. Hold still."

While the doctor was busy, Kolya's hand was absently draped around him, adding to a feeling of security.

He could smell antiseptics and hear Kolya's breathing, quickening and then falling under control again, on and off and on and off, and Rodney let himself drift or sleep. Or whatever it was he did and had been doing, but without the faces and the images and curling thoughts of equations.