femgenficathon

Title: Those Who Favor Fire
Author:

anna_bird
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Some violence and swearing.
Prompt: No. 79: Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. -- Helen Keller (1880-1968), deaf-blind American author, lecturer and political activist. She campaigned for women's suffrage, pacifism, people with disabilities, the Industrial Workers of the World (the IWW, or the "Wobblies"), socialism and birth control, and helped found the ACLU.
Summary: AU, after Enemy at the Gate (series finale). The City of Atlantis and inhabitants have returned to Pegasus from their heroic rescue of the planet Earth at the hands of the Wraith. But something is wrong.
Author's Notes: Roughly 17,000 words and posted in three parts! I strayed quite a bit from the original prompt, but I do think it serves as a good quote about the character of Teyla and her people in general. Boatloads of thanks to the best betas money cannot buy,

sasha_feather,

were_duck for their time and insightful comments/criticisms, and especially

taste_is_sweet for her big damn overhaul, helpful comments and a better, much more interesting title (which comes from this poem). Thank you, ladies. I really appreciate it. Any inconsistencies or errors are mine alone.

part 1
part 2

3.

"Teyla, are you prepared to give back the blood of the Ancestors?"

She is standing in front of the fire, before Charin and the rest of her clan who sit circled around like children. She holds a bulky something in each hand, and she can feel the weight of her dagger -- her first, she remembers, the one that Tagan forged for her -- heavy at her waist belt. In fact, the entire scene is so familiar she can almost taste it, the smell of burnt wood, the night breeze shushing through the trees, the heat of the fire and her own nervous sweat. But despite all these details, despite that Teyla remembers sitting around the fire during the approach to the ordeal...Teyla does not remember this moment.

"Teyla." Charin scowls at her, her lip protruding like a petulant child's. "You promised to go through the ordeal. You must rest your hand on every head. When the Ancients finally trapped them with the power, they were as dead."

"Yes," Teyla says, but she does not remember promising, either. "But I am afraid -- I am sorry -- I do not remember the words."

Her handfuls are so heavy, she can barely hold her arms up. The bundle in her right hand squirms. But she must not drop it.

"You are exceedingly naughty," Charin says, "and you will be punished for it. The Serapha coveted it and were caught, but they could not live in there. You should not live there, either."

"Thirty whacks with a wet noodle," Keller pipes up incomprehensibly from where she is crouching at Teyla's right. Her hair is shorn close to her scalp in asymmetrical patches. She looks apologetic for speaking. "Or they might just live with you for a bit. They like you. I think. They don't like me. The faces. They change."

"I'm sorry," Teyla says. As she speaks the fire flares up and reaches out to encompass her clan, Charin, and Jennifer Keller. There is no screaming. No one runs or rolls. Instead they all turn to give Teyla their full attention as the flames lick their faces, and they grin at her with razor-edged, rapidly blackening teeth. Together they are heads of a monster, with long snaky necks and white hot eyes. In the blaze, she can finally see what she is holding: in one hand, a strange chunk of metal that glints and reflects the flames. In the other, a wriggling mound of flesh, smaller than a human baby, hot and indistinct in her palm. It has flickering limbs, a face, rippling stalks of hair instead of babyfine whorls.

The thing opens its eyes and stares at her with molten fire, burning into her eyes, her skull, her will. She cannot look away, and it knows, and it shows her things no child would know or see, even in the Pegasus galaxy. It smiles at her horror, and laps it up. Teyla presses her palms together, and the babything screams and screams.

Jennifer sighs, flames dancing around her neck. "Well, you tell me. It's your galaxy. I'm just visiting."

Teyla came back to herself at the infirmary operating theater doors. She wobbled, and straightened before she pitched forward. Her head was throbbing, and her neck felt inflamed. Perhaps she had better follow Keller's instructions and have the infirmary staff scan her for head trauma. Her arms ached, and she clenched her hands to reassure herself of their emptiness.

The doors slid open before she could make herself enter, and Marie came out, stripping off her gloves.

"Ms. Emmagen? I thought Dr. Cole had radioed about Jennifer's condition."

She could not remember. "I - how is she?"

"Stable. Has been for some time now. They moved her into the main ward about an hour ago." Marie gave her a perplexed look before continuing. "The worst burns were on her feet, but the dermal regenerator, it's a great tool. She seems to be healing well. You can see her, but she's still unconscious and we've got her on a steady stream of pain meds."

Teyla nodded. Marie gave her another funny look, but her comm beeped and she strode back the way she had come. Teyla slipped into the recovery room.

Keller lay unmoving under a blue sheet that someone had pulled up under her chin. Her hair was singed and uneven. Her feet, covered by a rectangular Ancient device and swathed in white bandages, poked out the end of the bed; Teyla could not look at them very long without thinking of New Athos. She managed to put aside the images of Wex, Liaya and -- who was the third? She had never verified with Kanaan or Halling the identity of the third victim. She could still see the face, stark in its unfamiliarity.

In spite of the beeping machines, she drew back the sheet and felt for Jennifer's pulse on her tiny wrist. It was there.

-- Of course it is, Jennifer chided her.

Do not speak so lightly, the hut was an inferno.

-- Um, hello, I was there.

And you are speaking to me. Teyla glanced at the monitors. And you are still unconscious. Well. This is unexpected yet typical.

-- Ha. I guess. So much for psychic preparation. Could it have something to do with your Wraith telepathy? Or something similar? Agh I'm so hot. And I really can't feel my feet, which is a little freaky. Do I still have feet? And my hair...

There was a whispering threading through and under Jennifer's voice like background noise. Teyla strained to hear (it felt odd to do so psychically) and was surprised to hear Ancient. She could not imagine the syllables, and she did not understand the words.

-- It's them. I don't know what it means, though. Why would these things speak Ancient?

I do not know. All right. You are fine, apart from the fact that we are communicating this way. But I must ask you --

Woolsey's crisp voice popped in her earpiece. "Teyla, respond."

-- What is it? You're fading away. Don't leave me. Please.

"Yes, I am here."

-- What's going on?

"I've been radioing you since you got back for debriefing." Woolsey sounded impatient. "We're expecting your assistance and any new information you may have on our mystery guests."

"I apologize." Teyla looked down at Jennifer's still face. A moment. Remain calm, I will return. She dropped Jennifer's wrist.

-- Teyl --

It felt like a thread snapping. She was vaguely aware of Woolsey requesting her presence in the control room, and responding, and then the radio squawked and shrilled a high whine in her ear.

"Hello?"

All across the infirmary, nurses and patients winced and scrabbled at their ears. Then the lights buzzed and clicked off, bathing them in the auxiliary overheads. The wall panels groaned, and the weak blue light faded, covering them in darkness.

"Specs!" someone yelled.

There were rustlings and flicking sounds, and tiny lights -- surgical glasses -- winked on all across the room.

"Now, flashlights are -- "

" -- no -- "

"Generators -- in the back closet -- "

" -- get someone from Science here now, something's spitting out of this conduit -- "

Teyla forced the door open with the help of two burly nurses, and ran for the control room.

****

"Report!" Woolsey shouted. He stepped back as Rodney bulled past him and yanked a plate of crystals out of Chuck's console. The klaxon had been jangling for a few minutes now, and Woolsey could hardly hear himself think.

"I don't have anything to report," Rodney yelled back. "We've been been having glitches, sure, okay, mountains of glitches, but we've cleared everything. All systems were clean this evening. Honestly -- this shouldn't be happening!"

A spray of sparks erupted from the overhang. Woolsey ducked and felt a chunk of something sear into his neck.

"Ow!" Rodney clapped a hand against his throat. "We're all going to die."

Zelenka charged into the fray and dived under the console. "Rodney, here, help me."

Rodney muttered something, but he flung himself into the mess beside Zelenka. Chuck and Amelia were working feverishly to thread a naquadah generator into the core of the console. Simpson pushed Stackhouse away from a smoking wall panel. With no warning, the computer suddenly turned talkative and chirped a long cheerful garble of Ancient, English and French. Woolsey struggled to hear and caught a few words.

"...will self-destruct in two mathemalics, Serapha, Serapha, twenty-two, cursed, forty-four, eighty-"

"Just what we need, a blitzed Ancient Majel," Rodney yelled across the room.

"Why is it saying Serapha?" Woolsey yelled back. The ceiling overhang emitted another blast, and he ducked. "Where the hell's Colonel Sheppard?"

"Here." Sheppard stood beside him, panting, his face pale and eyes unfocused. "Woolsey, you're bleeding, you should get to the infirmary -- "

"Never mind that now. Where's Teyla? She was supposed to report here with you and Ronon, give us new info about this threat."

"I don't know." Sheppard frowned. "I. Shit, I can't remember. I know we left to get her on New Athos." He tapped at his radio.

"No good, the comm system's down. Sheppard, you returned from New Athos over an hour ago."

"I did? I don't know how I got here." Now Sheppard was wandering dreamily away from him, toward the DHD console.

"Colonel? What's wrong?" Woolsey reached for him with a blood-stained hand, and hissed at the pain in his neck.

"Feels funny in here, too hot..." He waded in amidst Rodney and Zelenka and the crazy loops of console wires.

"What the? Hey, ow, damn it, John," Rodney shouted from somewhere underneath. "Warn me, warn me when you're thinking at things!"

"And me," Zelenka said, blowing on his fingers.

"Many thanks and peace be among you," the Ancient Majel chimed, and the alarms cut out.

Woolsey let out a breath. His neck had stopped burning, it more itched now. He pressed his hand against the spot, but it felt odd, like the wound had crusted over already.

Chuck crawled up to his station and began poking buttons. "We should have the radio network back in a minute or so, Mr. Woolsey."

"Jesus." Rodney stood up and attempted to dust off his pants. "So, what was that, Radek? Some weird feedback through the naquadah backups you were experimenting with today? I know we allow for all the usual deadly consequences, ha ha -- "

Zelenka crossed his arms. "Yes, yes, yes, I was testing. But this is not my fault."

"Who else was messing around with the naquadah generators all day? This has to be generator related! I refuse to -- Sheppard, what are you doing?"

Sheppard had put a hand on Rodney's shoulder. "Don't move." He frowned.

"Don't move? No time, John, sorry -- when I said deadly consequences I wasn't exactly kidding. I know I made the throwaway ha-ha and all, but seriously, Zelenka and I have to go --"

"Rodney. Your neck. It's steaming." Sheppard sounded worried now.

A searing burn pressed into Woolsey's neck, and he jerked his hand away. "What the -- "

All around him the techs and soldiers and scientists were yelling and holding their necks and bleeding and just how in the hell did everyone get injured in the exact same place?

"Don't worry," Rodney stammered, his hand clenched to his neck. "We're fine. Jennifer, er, Dr. Keller is here."

"Always a treat, Atlantis," Woolsey muttered. "Who wouldn't want this job?" He felt a heavy rush of blazing heat, and then nothing at all.

****

Teyla sprinted around the final corner and into the gate room. It was a remarkable relief to see everyone standing, to see Woolsey white-faced but calm as ever and directing Sheppard and some soldiers, to hear Rodney speaking in a rising, panicked voice --

Well, it was somewhat relieving.

-- Of course it is.

Jennifer. How did --

-- I don't know. You left, and I just sorta -- reached somehow. And then rode along with you. You shouldn't have left me, you know.

That is not precisely the truth. I was speaking with Woolsey and he expected me to report to the gate room. And this is dangerous. We do not know enough about our -- communicating.

-- Granted. I read the report about the experience between Laura Cadman and Rodney, when Rodney and I were dating, you know.

Yes. So you will know they did not enjoy the sharing of his mind. And it had extremely negative physical consequences which you as a doctor should consider a priority.

-- But I don't think we're sharing a consciousness.

No? How do you explain your presence with me now?

Jennifer did not answer immediately. When she did, her voice sounded smaller.

-- Er. I have a really long reach? Or maybe you do? You're pretty advanced telepathically, for a human, with that spoonful of Wraith heritage. Are you feeling bad or ill at all?

"No," Teyla said as sternly as she could, "I have no discomfort with our method of communication."

-- Nausea, dizziness, maybe blurring or distortion of vision --

"Jennifer, I am well!"

"Jennifer?" Woolsey was beside her, and Teyla winced. "Teyla, who are you talking to?"

-- Okay, maybe I am in your head. I don't know how. But I feel a little disembodied. Maybe we shouldn't tell him yet.

Teyla huffed out a breath. "Due to an as-yet unexplained occurrence, Dr. Keller and I are somehow communicating telepathically. And she is still unconscious."

-- Damn it, Teyla. I was serious!

"All right," Woolsey said. He squinted at her. "You think Keller is still unconscious?"

"As far as I am aware, yes." There was something about the hunched set of Woolsey's shoulders that nagged at Teyla, and she touched his arm. "Are you well?"

Woolsey sighed. "Let's just say I might not fight a transfer out of this place." He smiled and patted Teyla's hand with his own. They had clearly been battered about up here: Woolsey was covered in soot, and his fingers were stained dark. His fingers...Teyla sucked in her breath. Her own fingers also were stained.

"What's wrong?" Woolsey turned to face her, and the black brand stood out against his neck.

-- Oh shit shit shitfields.

"When did you acquire that mark?" Teyla asked.

Woolsey's eyes flashed. It was brief, but it was enough to warn her. "What mark?"

Rodney stepped up. "Woolsey, you need to check these reports, not that I missed anything -- " and the mark was on him, too: stark and cut deep into the flesh of his neck, a leaf, an eye, a flame.

A flame. Fire.

-- Oh my god, Teyla. It's feeding on us. That's what that means.

We cannot know that for certain, only that is is inhabiting us. Did we bring the Serapha back with us? Or were they here all along?

-- Oh my god oh my god. I don't know.

The Burnt Ones, in Charin's stories. But I never. It was a fable. Stories. And we never saw them, or learned how to defend against them.

-- Crap. Of course not. And nothing out here is just a fable. Ships are alive and eat you. Freaky aliens suck out your life. The only way we'd know something was just a story was if it was totally boring and harmless.

"You mean the cut?" Woolsey asked. "Some of the ceiling fell on me."

"What's the problem?" John slouched up beside Rodney. The brand on his neck was heavy, the skin surrounding it angry and red.

"You have marks like brands on your necks." Teyla scanned the rest of the gate room. "All of you." She turned back to see them frowning at her. "What is it?"

- -We told them about the brands, in the briefing. Why aren't they worried?

"You see a brand on Rodney's neck?" Woolsey asked. "And on John's -- and mine?"

"Yes." She watched as they examined each other. John rubbed at the brand and shook his head apologetically. Rodney started surreptitiously scanning her with a life-signs detector.

"Teyla," Woolsey said. He stopped, and lifted his hands. "I don't know what to say. But I have to consider Dr. Keller's medical report."

This was unexpected. Teyla raised her eyebrows.

"She forwarded her medical report from your trip to New Athos, and she mentioned that you got a crack on the head."

"I am fine."

"She also said that you refused to let her examine you." Woolsey had a sympathetic look on his face. "Teyla, look. I know how you feel."

"Do you?" There was a crackling undercurrent to the air.

"Yes," Woolsey smiled. "I hate the infirmary. Can't abide all the poking and prodding, despite the necessary evils of an annual checkup. But Dr. Keller is the chief medical officer and although she's young and well, sometimes overly eager, she's in charge."

-- Hey! But, yeah, that's right.

Teyla swallowed. "I understand. It is just that -- "

"In fact, she came out of her coma about an hour ago. She got up here a little while ago, and she's been helping out. She's still concerned that you're experiencing symptoms of a concussion or worse head trauma. And I have to say, given what you've just told me about hearing voices, she may be right."

-- Wait. What?

"Oh, here she is." Woolsey turned, and Jennifer Keller was there, coming down the stairs behind them.

"Teyla," she smiled. It was perfect: hesitant, professionally distant but with that straightforward Jennifer Keller sweetness. Her collar was turned up high around her neck. Teyla felt a cold chill in her stomach, and smiled back.

"I'd like it, that is," the Keller thing said, "I'd appreciate it if you'd come with me to the infirmary now."

-- Ho. Lee. Shit. I don't have to tell you that's not me, do I? Teyla? Do I?

No. You do not.

"I understand." Teyla started back toward the corridor, breathing deeply to focus herself, her racing thoughts, her reflexes. It was not important right at this moment to discover the truth of things. Escape was the only priority. If they stopped her from leaving the control room -- no, relax, relax, do not let them see. She relaxed and readied herself. "I must ask, however: do you think you are sufficiently recovered from your accident to resume control of the Atlantis infirmary?"

"Dr. Cole examined me. Said I was fine." The Keller thing gave her another winsome smile. "She can tell you all about it while we're scanning your head."

-- God, this is creepy.

Teyla suppressed a shudder. "All right."

They walked out past some technicians hurrying into the gate room. Teyla turned the corner into the corridor, and then she hauled back and punched the thing in the face.

"Wha -- ow!" The Keller thing stumbled hard against the wall. Teyla shook her fist -- her knuckles were hot. She swept the legs of the thing. As it dropped, she followed it down and rolled it onto its belly. It was hot, so hot. How could Jennifer's body -- or any of their bodies -- hold this much heat and not burst into flame? She folded the struggling arms up behind the Keller's back until it yowled.

-- Okay. Okay! While I'm not in there right now, that IS my body. Don't mess it up.

"Please do not distract me." Teyla plucked the radio out of the thing's ear and pocketed it. She could see everything very clearly. Every decision, every motion felt relaxed and automatic now that the first danju blade was flung. The Keller flung itself upward convulsively, and Teyla placed her foot in the small of its back.

"No! Teyla, what are you doing -- it's me -- "

Teyla twisted her foot. The Keller screamed.

-- I'm serious, damn it. Dr. Cole is godawful at reconstructive facial surgeries. Do you think I should I try to. Um. Go back into myself?

"No." Teyla knelt on the struggling arms and wriggled out of her jacket. She wrapped it around the Keller's head. She wondered, idly, if it would start to smoke.

-- But I don't know how long I can last in here with you. You know?

"Stay with me. Rodney and Laura were connected for a few days. Let us -- how do you say -- beat them?"

-- Yeah.

Teyla snorted. "So, to best, or to strike them physically? Ambiguous language is a hallmark of your people. And you think my culture is primitive." She bound the thing's wrists with zip-ties and dragged her into the transporter. The control panel slid open, and she shoved the thing down and looked at the the layout grid. Rodney had showed her, once, twice, there -- that small section there. She tapped it twice, and when the box denoting the transporter enlarged on the screen, she pressed the blue lock down tab.

-- I...I do not.

Teyla sighed. She felt very warm. "I apologize. Now is not the time to have this conversation."

-- Well. I might think we're more technologically advanced. We have lots of problems and violence on Earth, lots of awful wars...

The Keller in the corner huffed and steam shot out from under the jacket.

-- Okay. But we can't all be Jean-Luc Picard and men and women and aliens working together in diplomatic harmony, you know?

"From what I have seen of that program," Teyla said, "it is hardly a sterling example of your planet's open-mindedness."

There was silence in her head. Her knuckles ached, and the tiny transporter room felt too hot and close. The discussion could wait until she and Jennifer were face to face again, although she doubted, somehow, that either of them would instigate one. She tapped her earpiece.

"Frequency alpha four niner, please. Ronon, come in."

"That frequency is denied," Woolsey said over her radio. "You can't hide, Teyla. We've got teams closing in your location now. So why not -- "

Teyla clicked off and cursed.

-- Ronon's probably just as possessed -- as infected as the rest of them.

"But he was not in the control room. We cannot assume the reach of this thing."

-- Exactly.

"Also the infirmary staff seemed to be unaffected."

-- Yeah, because they let my recently-comatose body walk out. Real unaffected.

"You are the chief medical officer, Jennifer. I am sure you told them you were in charge."

Teyla tried to concentrate. Even now, as she tried to pin down the memory of Charin's face, the firelight, the trees of Athos, long lost star systems away. It all slipped away like hot fat in the pan. Heavy, suffocating heat. The Serapha -- the Burnt Ones, how to defeat them? There was something about glowing metal, about cylinders of light and screams of pain...but she could not touch it, like she could not touch the Wraith part of her except in dreams, until --

Teyla took off her overshirt and stripped it into rags with her knife.

-- Um. What now?

"I want to meditate. And I am not doing anything until this thing is tied up properly."

-- Can I, um, help somehow?

"I do not know." She tied up the Keller and then got to work, loosening the strings on her undershirt and on the waistband of her pants. She unlaced her boots. She was sweating by the time she finished. The air in the transporter smelled fouled, thick. She went to the control panel again and brought up the environmental controls. According to the screen, the filters were functioning at normal levels. Teyla breathed as deeply as she dared. Kneeling, she arranged herself in the corner opposite the Keller. There were harsh rasping sounds coming from under the jacket now.

-- I feel dizzy. The feeling of Jennifer in her head became frantic and batted against the edges of her consciousness.

"I do as well." Teyla tried to center herself, to lock out sound and sensation.

The thing rasped. She gritted her teeth and willed herself not to be drawn, to focus, focus, focus, breathe, air, breathe. She sat for interminable moments. She thought of nothing, and finally she felt Jennifer-in-her-head gentle and relax with her, think with her, fill her mind with more soothing sights and sounds: thoughts of a landscape of rolling green hills, the sweetish smell of manure

What is manure, Jennifer?

-- Cow shit.

Oh. Excrement.

the firm rough roundess of a fence post, the feel of a tree branch against her hand like none she had ever seen before -- long and sweeping with soft bunches of green needles instead of leaves, a hedge of many such trees following the land, a house, rippling creek dog bark breeze breeze sweet barn grass

Too fast.

-- Sorry. It's just. I miss it.

She was in a room warm with yellow sunlight. The walls were painted a pale yellow, too. The windows were solid and clear against her fingers, simple glass, not like the Ancestor's work. There were wide wooden surfaces piled with cloth and sticky bowls and strange shiny devices, and a ceramic bowl of Earth fruit, bananas, pushed off to one side. The air smelled like baking bread, but sweeter, like chocolate too. A pile of cookies sat on a platter atop a central wooden block. They were the source of the smell, and also the strange thread of comfort woven throughout the scene.

Better. Where are we?

-- Um. My grandma's farm outside of Tilden. That's in Wisconsin, too. I went there after my mother, um. Died. She made the best cookies, oatmeal chocolate chip. Is it helping? Are you able to --

The thing made a rattling sound like all of its teeth were coming loose. Teyla was jerked out of the rush of peaceful imagery and into a blaze of fire, the walls of the warm safe room blackening and peeling away, the bowls and fruit and windows melting and cold so cold and pressure crushing her bones into strips and then heat, joyous heat. Jennifer was howling in her head. She looked into a blurring pale face. It ghosted past her.

Gasping, she pulled herself out of the vision. There was a vague suggestion of pounding on the other side of the transporter doors.

"There is nothing in this city that will help you. It is anathema to us." The Keller did not sound remotely like Jennifer anymore. Its voice was low and harsh and wrecked by fire.

"Then why are you here?" Teyla asked.

-- Should we be talking to it?

"What else do you suggest we do?" The pounding outside was getting ominously louder. "I do not -- I do not know what to do next. I do not know how to fight this." Her hands were empty. Her options were empty, lost.

"Yessss." The jacket shifted. Then the thing reached around and bared its head, the plastic zip-ties and overshirt rags singed and smoking off it. It no longer wore Keller's face, but its own: the face of the third dead youth, blurred, pale, bright as a white-hot coal. "Good, good."

"Serapha."

-- WHERE THE HELL DID MY BODY GO

Jennifer's words slipped out Teyla's lips and the thing laughed. "Where it has always been, asleep in that sickbed. There is no use in possessing a powerless form. But I can play and pretend."

"Tricksters," Teyla ground out. "Not gods. Not human. But how can this be its true form? In my vision, it was like a many-headed snake."

-- Okay. But that was another vision. Wait, when did that happen?

"There are supposed to be more of them." Teyla tensed herself. This was a small space, but she had fought in smaller. The air was chokingly thick. "Many faces, many guises. But I think -- yes. I can sense it now."

-- You can? Sense what?

"It is alone." It was like tracking a spark through the night. She could see it, perhaps because it had shed the false Keller skin. There was only one spark in all of Atlantis, and it was here in the transporter with her. Teyla hoped fervently that this meant that John and Rodney and all the others were all right, that they had not taken guns or blades to themselves like the Athosians.

-- Oh god oh god I didn't think of that.

"I can see you are an intelligent strong one." The Serapha regarded her with those burnt white eyes. "We will tell you the truth. We need form. You may be our body. You must fight for us as we journey through the galaxy together, sharing your body."

"What."

-- Seriously. Getting less sense than more here.

The Serapha shook its steaming head in impatience, or was it confusion? Teyla felt a press of heat against her neck, against the back of her head. She ran her fingers over the skin of her neck, and to her horror, felt a raised ridged mark. "Jennifer!"

-- How long has that been there?

"I do not know."

-- But it hasn't possessed you.

"No talking now," the Serapha trumpeted. "We must get to the main reactor. Save the princess."

-- Okay, now it's sounding like Star Wars.

"I agree." Teyla's eyes were itchy and painful and wanted to close. She could curl up under the heaviness in the air. Perhaps unconsciousness was the only sensible way to deal with an energy monster. "It is not comfortable here. The Serapha were enemies of the Ancients, we know, but why? We know they could not abide the city, yet they were here. This one was here, went to New Athos, and came back here again."

"We did not leave," the thing said. "They sank the City and left us in darkness. I woke when we entered the Sol system. They had scrabbled in the dirt for centuries when we found them and gave them the fire!"

-- Maybe it's crazy. It sounds...confused. Maybe there's only enough room in your head for one extra. I don't know. Are you okay?

Teyla shook her head. The metal was burning her palm, glowing against her flesh, such a bright glow, such colors.

-- No no no. You have to be okay. You're always okay. Get us out of here, will you?

Teyla levered herself up and went to the transporter's terminal screen.

"Get away from there. I am all that will save you. If you don't do what we say, I may eat you." The Serapha licked its steaming lips. "The young ones were so bright, so fresh, but you will be more filling."

Teyla thought of her vision of the babything and curious liquid metal in her other palm, and the screams. The colors, a cylinder of light, could it be a ZPM? "No," she said. "I do not think you could."

She slapped the location for the ZPM room. The transporter hummed, and the Serapha keened horribly.

She was not sure. She hoped it was right. "We are enclosed in Atlantis material here. We can hardly breathe for your ash and soot, but you can hardly breathe surrounded so closely. And the initial malfunctions were set off by the failure of a ZPM, yet the other ZPMs were untouched by your meddlings. So we will pay the heart of this city a visit." Please, let it be right.

The Serapha rushed the display screen, knocking Teyla over with a sizzling hot press against her flesh, but the doors slid open. Teyla got her feet under her, pulled the thing into the ZPM room and threw it against the console. Her arms blazed with pain, and Jennifer shrieked in her head. The transporter doors snicked closed -- hurry, hurry, they'll be here any minute -- in a haze of pain she reached over and keyed the sequence for removing the ZPMs, and when the computer beeped at her she entered Rodney's old password, was that her or Jennifer?

-- Strange that he never changed it, huh.

and then the Serapha laid its molten faded hands on Teyla's neck. She was being scalded.

-- Teyla! Teyla --

She could not move. Her heart beat double-time, as if it could escape from her body.

-- You have to --

"I cannot." The Serapha was laughing in her face, its breath sweet and strong and smelling of freshly seared meat. She could feel the skin on her neck loosening hurting sinking. It was excruciating. It was going to consume her. Her arms fell to her sides as the ruined ZPM cylinder slid up from the console, still glittering dimly despite its burnt-out uselessness.

-- YOU HAVE TO -- and then Jennifer pushed Teyla's arms up, Jennifer scrabbled for the cylinder, Jennifer clawed it out of the mount, Jennifer lifted it and pushed and Teyla could only watch as the ZPM sank into the thing's chest like a blade into dough. The ZPM pulsed once, and then lit in a spreading beacon that made the Serapha's light look feeble, a coal sparking in the sand far from the fire pit.

The Serapha opened its mouth and eyes wide, and disappeared without a sound.

The ZPM cylinder was still in her hands. It glowed with power, but she could not feel the weight. Jennifer held it.

And then Rodney and John and Woolsey and Zelenka and whoever else they had managed to cram into the transporter burst into the room, and Rodney had an apoplectic fit and wrestled the ZPM away, and Zelenka took it away from him and slapped him smartly, and John took one look and trained his gun at the floor instead of at Teyla.

"We're okay," he said. "It was bad, weird. We've got all these blanks in memory -- I don't remember anything after the computer started talking. But I came out of it, and you and Keller were gone, I think. Except that it wasn't Keller."

Teyla shook her head. She wanted to pass out.

He holstered the gun and patted her shoulder carefully. It still hurt her, a little. "You okay? Your neck looks bad. There's a medical team on the way, maybe you should -- "

Teyla let him lower her into a sitting position. Peripherally, she heard Rodney say something, but there was no answer inside her head.

Jennifer?

-- I ... I'm here.

Oh. I am glad. Are you all right?

-- I don't know. I think so. God. That really hurt, didn't it.

Yes. But you did it.

-- Yeah, I did. Um. But how did I do it?

Epilogue

"That's the first time I've heard of a zero-point-module being used as a bug zapper." John cradled the glowing cylinder in his hands and passed it to Zelenka, who reinserted it into place.

"Serapha," Rodney said, his face bleached calm again by the computer screen. He tapped furiously away at the keyboard, and Teyla rubbed her temples against the noise of clattering keys. "The links were destroyed, but I, er, we, Radek and I eventually traced the files. They were energy entities, true. But they were also a key component in some of the ZPMs manufactured here in Atlantis."

"You're kidding," John said. He leaned over Rodney's shoulder and poked at the screen. "Look, a picture. Would've been nice to find these logs before the creature feature."

Rodney batted at his hand, but it looked half-hearted. "Yeah. Anyway, just another chapter in the standard Ancient Questionable Ethics and Morals manual. And the Serapha were an endangered species. If we're to believe the logs in the containment chamber, this was the last of its kind."

"This was the last one? You're sure of that?" Woolsey was touching his neck surreptitiously. "And will these marks go away anytime soon?"

"Well, probably, no, and probably not." Rodney scowled. "And more importantly, I have no idea whether or not these things are merely disintegrated by ZPMs, or if they were augmenting the power, or if there's something else going on. Maybe they're imprisoned inside it, a key ingredient to the way it works -- "

"Also we have no idea how it escaped," Zelenka said, pushing up his glasses. "Something to consider with all the ZPMs in use around Pegasus and back in the Milky Way, perhaps."

"Lovely," Woolsey sighed.

It is anathema to us, the Serapha hissed in Teyla's memory. Horrible, sad. Her head throbbed. "It was mad." She shifted to keep the cold compress still against her neck.

"God, I should think so," Rodney said. "A being with that much power to jump around through the galaxy, trapped in a ZPM cylinder...madness by claustrophobia, maybe? According to the logs it was a single entity, but able to present itself in many different places, or with many ... faces." He looked superbly annoyed with the rhyme. "Similar to the Hydra, maybe?"

"It's the same old Ancient chicken and the egg -- did they crib from Earth mythology or did we crib it all from them?" Woolsey shook his head. "I'm going back up to the control room. Keep me informed."

The transporter doors swished open then, and Chuck came in with a stack of laptops. "I'm not sure which one belongs to who. When we all passed out up there, well, some stuff got knocked around."

Rodney glared at the battered casings. "Great. It's not enough that we look like we all got drunk and failed at Pegasus cattle-branding."

"These marks? Who cares?" Chuck laughed. "I think it looks cool."

"You would. In the future, please spare me your notion of tall, dark and dangerous..."

Woolsey coughed. Zelenka rolled his eyes. John kept darting slitty-eyed glances at Rodney's neck, and then fiddling with his thigh holster. And Teyla felt an urgent need for stronger painkillers.

*****

-- Thanks for walking me back.

"It is nothing. I admit I needed further attention." Teyla sat down in the chair beside Jennifer's still form, untouched and peaceful and safe in the hospital bed. She had worried. Well, she had worried as much as she could with her neck buried in bandages and her nerves comfortably dulled. "But I am concerned about your ability to, ah, rejoin yourself?"

-- I'm a little nervous about that, too. After all, this really isn't the same as getting mashed together in a beaming accident.

"Perhaps it is safer." Teyla tried to sound encouraging. "I can try to guide you, if you would like."

-- Okay.

Teyla settled herself in the chair, and closed her eyes.

She was back again in the warm sunlit room with the yellow walls and the smell of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. She could feel Jennifer's sheepish smile forming on her own lips.

-- Sorry.

Do not be. It is quite pleasant.

Silence.

-- It's kind of - well, it used to be my place. You know.

A refuge.

-- Yeah.

It still can be.

-- Kinda hard to reconcile that with all the burning. But yeah. Maybe. I could show you how to make those cookies sometime. Later. If we get some fresh eggs in the next shipment, or from around Pegasus.

I would like that. Cookie baking, Teyla thought. It could be conducive to cultural discussion, as long as she was not required to teach. Although the discussion always got volatile, uncomfortable when she and Jennifer attempted it. She ended up doing all the work, making the peace.

How could she choose what was better for either side when she alone was part of both? Wait, that was another, different worry...she was not thinking properly. But not alone, Torren and Kanaan were part of Atlantis, too -- Torren liked the cookies from Earth -- Torren, Kanaan, oh, Kanaan. She was exhausted. And she was due back on New Athos at first light.

-- Hey, I can hear you thinking all that stuff.

I hope it is enlightening to you.

-- Um.

Yes?

-- I'd like to try that. To do some of the work.

Better. Teyla sent her a smirky mental image. She was too tired to think anything else, or to fight against the twinge of hope Jennifer's hesitant tone sparked. Aloud she said, "Are you ready?"

-- Yes.

In one moment Teyla could feel her consciousness working, separating into distinct parts, and in the next Jennifer's eyelids were flickering open. They were no longer one mind.

Teyla relaxed in the chair. In a minute, she would get up and find Marie or Dr. Cole, she would have them run their scans or reassess her neck or force her into one of the hospital beds for the rest of the night.

Right now if she concentrated, she could still call upon the serenity of those yellow walls.

The End