Author: Flaim aka Darkfalconheart

Story: You can run with us. (14/?).

Rating: for this chapter: 13 , may be higher in later chapters

Warnings: some violence

Status: WIP

Spoilers: Up to ‘The lost tribe’.

Wordcount: ca. 3700

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, names or other various parts of the SG/SGA universe and all rights are with their respective owners. This is a work of non-profit fanfiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Chapter 14: Shreds of the past

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

(Robert Frost: The road not taken)

The cell was dark, a shadowed place between organic walls. To John this place caused an odd kind of déjà vu. That kind you really didn’t wish to see again. In a place such as this his journey as runner had begun, more than a year ago? How long ago exactly John wasn’t sure about, not any more – sometimes it seemed a whole lifetime ago.

“You okay?” Ronon’s voice betrayed a slight worry. John had known without looking around, that his friend was there, the steady presence had been there without him consciously checking. Now he turned around. Ronon sat on the ground, only a few feet away from him, somewhere in the dark was someone else lying unmoving.

“Jircanor?” John asked in low tones. The figure lying in the far corner of their cell was too small to be the tall Runner. Perhaps their friend had been brought to another cell onboard this ship.

“He wasn’t taken.” Ronon replied. “The beam didn’t get him.”

John sighed, this was no good news, it meant that their comrade had been left behind, caught by Michael’s forces. It might place him on short track to being experimented on by the half-breed Wraith. John bit his lip, should he have condemned another friend to…

“Jir is strong, he’s resourceful and he’s cunning.” Ronon suddenly said. “Michael won’t know what hit him. He’ll be out there in no time.” Despite his confident words, the emotions Ronon projected were mixed. John knew that Ronon trusted Jircanor to escape because of his track record as a Runner, but at the same time remembered another Runner of such a track record who had found a gruesome death.

John shuddered when some reminiscences of it flickered through his mind. He died without betraying the secret. Those scarce words had not revealed that the man had died under torture, and that Ronon had been forced to watch. “How did you stand it… having it all ripped away from you?” John wasn’t aware he had asked aloud. “Your friends… your world…your son.”

Ronon looked up, in the semi-dark of the cell, his eyes shone. “Nothing we have stays ours, John. All that is, is fleeting, it will be lost eventually. There is nothing that stays. That’s why… why we can only appreciate the things we have, because we’ll lose them in the end.” He took a deep breath, visibly fighting to keep a measure of countenance. “It’s hard to let go sometimes… but they are beyond the night already, to them the long darkness is over.”

John could well understand how tempting it could be, to just think that somewhere beyond death the darkness was over, the pain would stop and the suffering would end. John had been there himself, at the brink to just give up and welcome death as the way out, but… there was something in him, that wasn’t ready to give up, a will in him still to fight back, no matter what. It was hard to find words, to express it, though. “I am not ready to give up just now.”

Ronon looked up, trying to hold on to John’s gaze. “How do you do it? Hang on to hope, never give up? Even here, you… you never resign and just wait for the end.”

“Neither did you. Even after seven years as a runner – you never gave in.” John replied.

“That’s not the same.” Ronon leaned back against the wall. “I just fought back, it was the only way to fight on, the not let Sateda down…” His eyes remained fixed on John. “But I… I forgot that there was something outside running, and fighting, and running again. When you found me… on that planet, I had given up on anything that wasn’t fighting, killing and running.”

“But you stopped running, in the end.” Even without the bond John would have known, that they had touched a sensitive topic, perhaps even the reason why Ronon had stayed in Atlantis.

“That was not me – it was you.” Ronon said after a while. “You… you were so determined to have me on the team, you believed so strongly in me, in my abilities, that… that I started to believe it too, that I started to believe that I could stop running.”

“It was you that found the strength to change,” John said with conviction. “you did it all by yourself.” Like Ronon had survived seven years on the run, and the battle for Sateda, and countless dangerous missions before. “You don’t happen to have one of your knives still with you?”

Ronon shook his had. “They were thorough when disarming me. Even the Wraith learn eventually.”

***

The door closed behind Teyla, O’Neill switched it to stay close for now. His eyes went back to Schmiedeberg, who stood unmoving. “You know – Colonel Hutchinson warned me when he heard I had recruited you,” he said in deceivingly calm tones. “He told me that you had ‘a stubborn streak that can’t be cured’, and that you are ‘dangerously close to being a self-starter.’ He was rather vocal about at least three incidents where you acted first and got permission later.”

Schmiedeberg didn’t as much as blink. “Sir – Colonel who?” he asked, his face still the unreadable mask.

“Ah, don’t play stupid.” O’Neill shot back. “I used to work for the very same outfit, back when Hutchinson was still a spry Lieutenant and the unit we are talking about refrained from borrowing troopers from our allies.” O’Neill had watched the tension rise in the Captain during his little speech. It was a process that required reading very subtle changes in the bearing of the other man. “Relax, Captain – the code is LIONESS WALKING.”

The reaction was instantaneous, a visible pushing back of the built up tension. “Sir, I assume he gave you the file.”

Jack shrugged. “Maybe, he also might have mentioned, that you don’t easily trust your CO’s.” Schmiedeberg refrained from answering, again retreating to listening to O’Neill’s rant. O’Neill had no problems to read that attitude, Schmiedeberg would listen until O’Neill had vented his rage and accept the punishment meted out, just the same way. And O’Neill wasn’t going to let him. “So, was he right?”

“Sir?”

“Was he right, Schmiedeberg? Did you no trust him as your CO?”

“I trusted him as far as anybody could trust a man who let him walk right into an ambush, Sir.” Schmiedeberg replied, in cool tones.

“So it was personal,” O’Neill observed, satisfied that the answer had been exactly the one he had expected. Not in the details, but in the direction. “As was this here, wasn’t it? The situation got personal, or was personal from the beginning, and you just MADE THAT CALL. To hell with the consequences.” O’Neill knew his words had hit the right point, he could see it in the Captain’s reaction. “You trusted nobody else, only yourself to make the right call. A nice judgement of character for everyone involved, I might add.”

O’Neill let those words stand for a moment, let them sink in. He knew he had gotten through to the man, his mien betrayed this more than he probably liked. And the Captain didn’t like the assessment O’Neill had just handed out. Silently O’Neill wondered if Hutchinson should have tackled the issue, the incident in the Alban mountains, just like this. “As I see it you’ve got two options.” He went on, after a moment. “The first one is you walk out of this door, we dial Earth and you’ll be home within the week. Anything I might add to your file won’t damage your career too much, because General von Aue isn’t going to trust anything that comes from me, because to him this mission is fishy.” O’Neill kept his gaze at the Captain, watching his reactions closely. “The other is – you stay, and you damn well set aside your attitude and start working WITH the people around you.” He scrutinized the man before him. “And that means trusting them, trusting their decisions, trusting them to look out for you.” O’Neill had read the file on Daedalus and knew this might be an issue for some time, once distrust was learned, it didn’t go away easily. “So, what’s it going to be?”

The silence lasted for another moment, before Schmiedeberg answered. “I’d prefer to stay, Sir.”

O’Neill nodded. “So, you can start your report from the beginning – the full report.”

***

A movement in the darkness caught John’s eye, the other prisoner was awakening. He had sat up and by the way he was sitting, was ready to get to his feet. John noticed that there was no panic in this one, it seemed he was already aware that he was onboard of a hive ship. “I see they are beginning to fill up the store.” The voice was light but very ironic.

“Looks like it,” Ronon turned around, towards the other prisoner. “Where did they capture you?” The tall runner inquired, calmly.

“You mean who traded me off to the Wraith?” The reply was no less sarcastic then the first one. “Villager scum on Iszár.”

“You were sold to the Wraith?” John had seen deals with the Wraith before, but still believed them to be isolated incidents, sparked by desperation.

“What’s new about it?” The answer was bitter. “They find one who has the spark, who isn’t one of their own and they trade him off, for some years of meagre peace.”

“The spark?” John wasn’t sure if he had understood right. The accent was not too strong, but the whole intonation made it hard to follow the sentences at times.

With one fluent move the prisoner came to his feet and walked over to John. Squatting down beside him. “So you don’t know?” he asked softly, for the first time without scorn or irony in his voice. “You actually don’t know you have the spark?”

Suddenly John realised what had irritated him about the voice from the very beginning: it was too young. Now, as the other prisoner was closer to him, no longer hidden in shadow, he could it was a rather young man, or perhaps just a teen. But for a teen he was utterly too calm about being imprisoned onboard a Wraith ship. “I still have no idea what you are speaking about,” he replied friendly. “What’s your name?”

The young man frowned shortly, then relaxed again. “Bane. And yours?”

“John. So what was all this about the spark?”

Bane shifted his position slightly, for better balance. “John, I can’t tell you what the spark is, but I know the Wraith can sense it – it is like a bonfire that attracts them. They even deal with humans to get their hands on those who have the spark.” He stopped, bit his lip. Carefully, as not to startle him, he placed a hand on John’s shoulder. “I know this sounds frightening – but we may have still time to escape from here.”

The way the youth tried to comfort him, nearly made John laugh. With all the madness in the last hours, this was just surreal. But John checked the desire to laugh at once. Bane had just tried to comfort another prisoner, to extend what ever help he could give, and this didn’t deserve to be laughed at. “You already have made plans?” he asked, it was meant a little bit teasing, but not unfriendly.

Bane’s eyes flashed in a burst of temper. “Lying low and waiting for an opportunity. I have been aboard this ship for three days now, and they are on their way to rendezvous with a great hive, from what I gathered by listening to the guards.”

“A great hive or just another hive?” Ronon interjected.

“A great hive, they spoke of a Lord, a ‘great one’ shashikuan’aa shikaaháshal.” The last both words came out in a fair imitation of the Wraith hissing.

Ronon scowled. “That’s bad news.”

Bane rolled his eyes. “Tell us something new, great warrior.”

“Whoa, stop it!” Sheppard raised his hands that was meant for both Ronon and Bane. “The last thing we need you two bickering at each other.” He saw that both of them checked their temper, and bit back whatever words they wanted to exchange next. “So – what we need is a plan.”

“Waiting for an unguarded moment sounds good.” Ronon pointed towards the cell door. “It’s not that we many other options now.”

“We might get a chance should they take some more flesh deals on board before they make it to the great hive.” Bane offered.

“Flesh deals?” John didn’t like the sound of this term. And he liked Bane’s expression even less, no one under twenty should carry this grim, hardened expression.

“Other worlds that treat over people to be spared. Not all have the spark, though. Some world just catch people from other places and trade them over to the Wraith. Cowards.” Bane spat the last word.

“I always thought the Wraith didn’t honour such deals.” John vividly remembered the villages that had traded Ronon to the Wraith, they had been killed.

“They do.” Ronon replied gruffly. “Most of the time they do. That’s why there will always be people trying to get off by trading others to them. Lower-class citizens, prisoners, criminals – it’s all equal to the Wraith as long as the numbers add up.”

John remembered that mad moment on Sateda when Ronon had refused to return to the jumper with them. “Is that why you wanted to honour their deal?” he asked. Had Ronon really been willing to face death, to protect those who had handed him over?

“I owed it to them.” Ronon avoided John’s gaze. “But even in that I was death’s messenger to them.”

John wanted to tell Ronon, that it wasn’t his fault, that the villagers had brought this fate on themselves, when they traded him to the Wraith, but the words seemed stuck in his throat. He remembered how he had felt when the culling his Anchoril. In that last long year he had seen too much, had learned to understand how heavy the hand of the Wraith was on Pegasus. He wondered why Ronon, Teyla and the Athosians never had hated him for waking the Wraith from their long slumber. Perhaps it would have been better they had never come to Atlantis, better if the keeper had killed him.

Suddenly Ronon looked up, his gaze fixing on Sheppard. “Their long sleep was coming to an end.” He said. “The signs were all there, more hives stayed active, more hives woke slowly from the long slumber, and… the first Wraith Lords reverted to their true form, overcoming whatever the Lanteans did to them. It was only a matter of time until they would have woken all.”

The jigsaw pieces of what he knew of the Wraith danced in John’s head. “Wait – I always believed the Wraith hibernated because they lacked food, waking only all some centuries. And what are Wraith Lords?”

Ronon sighed. “It’s complicated.” The former runner replied. “Legend has it that the Lanteans did something to the Wraith in order to protect the worlds they seeded. Something they did send the bulk of the Wraith force into a hibernating state. It is also said that this weapon, or whatever it was, took some time to work on some parts of the Wraith population. And it never worked on all of them.”

“They were giving the worlds they had created a fighting chance.” John observed. “Give them time to grow strong and evolve…”

“But the Wraith still awake saw to it, that those worlds didn’t evolve too far.” Ronon interrupted him. “Worlds evolving too war were culled and destroyed. I know. That’s why they came for Sateda in the end.” He took a deep breath and went on. “But by that time the signs were already there, the Awakening was upon us. The first High Wraith had reverted back from their transformed state…”

John wanted to ask again, forcefully what a High Wraith was, when the pictures from the nightmare he had some days ago, returned to him full force. The Wraith unlike the other Wraith, more human, more dangerous, far more powerful, the Wraith that had proposed some kind of horrible deal to Ronon. “Big guy…” John said softly. “that Wraith… that was a High Wraith wasn’t it? The one from your nightmare.”

“This he was.” Ronon’s voice was close to inaudible. “And he just had shed his skin, reverted back to what he was. And still… his powers were tremendous, a terrible force freed from the chains…”

John had to draw up all his willpower to shut out more images flooding his mind. “But what are they? Just a male counterpart to the Queens?”

“No.” Ronon shook his head. “Legend says they are half Ancient, half Wraith. And from what I saw of them I believe it.”

And suddenly John understood. It just made sense, in a terrible way it was even logical. The Iratus bug hadn’t just fed on humans, taking on their characteristics, evolving into a thread ravaging a full galaxy, it had also fed on Ancients and merged with them too – creating a threat on an unimaginable scale. A terrible power born. John shuddered. “We were lucky not to run into one of them, when we first met them.”

Something akin to dry, short smile lit up on Ronon’s features. “If anyone could have handled one, it would have been you.”

***

“According to our intel, it’s the weakest outpost that hive has. More of a repair and supply depot structure than an actual troop camp. It should be possible to get our hands on one of their trackers without raising a major ruckus. Once we have it, we’ll be able to locate their runners the same way they do. It might force us to hunt down a handful of Runners, but still would bring our chances back to the realistic.”

O’Neill studied the map in the centre of the office. It was already late again, the planning session, following the report had taken up some time. “Now, that’s what I’d call a plan.” He said, satisfied with the outcome of the day. Fixing his gaze on the man on the other side of the map. “See – it wasn’t all that hard.”

Schmiederberg nodded, refraining from a direct answer. “Which teams are to go on it, Sir?” he asked instead.

“You take teams three and seven.” O’Neill had made that decision ours ago, but waited how the further planning came along. “You have a go for tomorrow morning.”

“Aye, Sir.” Schmiedeberg logged some last notes into his computer pad, gathering some other notes, preparing to leave.

O’Neill studied him for a moment silently. Assessing what had transpired during the last day, including their discussion. He was sure it didn’t need a reminder to stick to the rules, O’Neills rules that was. The man had accepted the conditions O’Neill had laid out, and he was obviously willing to keep to them. “You knew Sheppard from before.”

O’Neill’s words startled Schiedeberg. “Sir?” he asked, clearly wondering if he had heard right.

“You knew Sheppard from before.” O’Neill repeated the assessment. “You said as much to General von Aue back on Earth.”

“That’s correct, Sir. We met twice before, both under less than ideal circumstances.” Schmiedeberg deactivated the computer pad, locking it with a code. “General von Aue knew only of one incident – the one in Afghanistan.”

O’Neill nodded, he had heard about that one more than enough when he had recruited Sheppard for the Atlantis mission. “What was the other one?” he asked.

“It was another of those incidents that have never happened.” Schmiedeberg replied. He didn’t need a reminder that the incident would be in his full file anyway, after a moment he went on by himself. “That incident in the Alban mountains… the one Hutchinson send me into – it was there. I was supposed to sneak into a place, gather some dropped off data and return without attracting attention. It was a setup, a distraction, while I walked into an ambush and got captured, the real man with the real data snug out without being intercepted. But something else went wrong in the whole op, somebody else got trapped too, and Sheppard was send in for an extraction.”

“Only he found you instead of his target.”

“He was captured too, interrogated and… let’s leave it at that. After all he had been through he still had the strength to intercede when the guards were about to finish me off. The beating he received… the hits to the head, I was later told he’d never fully remember what happened because of that. Eventually they decided we were of no further use and tried to dispose of us, we escaped and made it back in the end.” Dietmar’s eyes went through the map, staring at something that wasn’t really there, at the past. “’I’d have never survived in that place without him.”

It didn’t take much for O’Neill to read between the lines of that report. He had been in such spots himself, he knew the scars it left. The incident had not been included in the file he had read, but that wasn’t something he’d ever let on. “It’s always hardest when we know it’s a friend out there, waiting for help.” He eventually said. Reverting back to his usual manner of speech he added: “See that you get us some nifty Wraith tech tomorrow, so we can finish up this mess.”