John tried to remember what it was he was supposed to be doing. He knew that it had something to do with putting one foot in front of the other, but he found that long lapses in concentration led to those heavenly forces supporting him by the arms taking most of his weight. Every once and a while he would hear Ford's voice behind him offering soft words of encouragement. It reminded him of all those times when he used to run cross-country, or drills at the Academy - his teammates egging him on, if only for the greater good. Ha, the greater good. John hadn't even really understood the concept until he came out here to Atlantis. Knowing what he knew now, he could understand General O'Neill's disdain when John had resisted joining the mission. Looking back on it, he was almost embarrassed. He had been so self-centered.

Well, he still was self-centered in so many ways. That didn't mean he put himself first - not at all. But he was more concerned with personal good than greater good. He would fight tooth and nail for individuals, even ones he barely knew. He was not ready to think in vague terms of risk and benefit - the future of all. He couldn't even think about the Wraith that way. He knew them as the beings that caused so much suffering. If he was being perfectly honest with himself - he sought vengeance, not victory. He wanted so much a cessation of suffering, but he still could not bring himself to love all. He wondered if they had the Wraith in mind when asking to 'love thine enemy.'

How could he feel compassion for beings that brought only darkness ... who felt nothing but contempt ... who longed to destroy all that he knew to be good?

He was sitting on a hill - long grass blowing in the warm (for a man just returned from Antarctica) breeze and just brushing his knuckles as they rested at his sides. He gazed into the crystal blue of the sky, the way the suns sparkled at the edge of his vision. He wondered if an alien sun could produce the same magical effect.

He could feel it rising in him yet again, the choking feeling of isolation. The knowledge that he was somehow different and, no matter how hard he tried to hide it, would be treated as such. He could just walk away - run like he had so many times before ... take another military transport to China or Guam or Australia and disappear. Maybe his old buddies would still be there, cruising the tides, living in thatched huts with people whose language they did not know, all for the thrill of that one great wave - those tanned and wild-eyed masters second only to war in the amount they taught him. Surfing was like flying, a million calculations running through the brain, but no numbers, just the feel of it, geometry, physics, calculus, narrowed down to the feel the of the wind in your hair, the broad horizon as your playground five thousand times more complex than any equation even someone like himself could solve - poetry in motion. He wondered, on this distant world, would he be able to surf or even fly? And what would he do if he could not? Flying was his salvation. He did not know if he could live without it.

He flipped a coin. It shimmered in the hazy afternoon sunlight, danced in Earth's unique wind. Tails - the flip side, the road less traveled. He was tempted to flip again. And again. And again. He hit tails twenty-five times in a row. A one in 33,554,432 chance - he could have used that luck to win the lotto. In fact, the probability of winning the lotto was 3,838,380 so it was actually about 8.74 times less probable. If that wasn't a sign, he didn't know what was.

But he couldn't believe in fate. Each choice, each probability, was an independent event - every single world, every possible future, no matter how unexpected or magnificent, had exactly the same chance of occurring, it was only human arrogance that breathed meaning into one over the other. It was just as improbable that he would have gotten 7 heads then 18 tails or 13 heads and 12 tails, it was just that those things didn't mean anything. But does that make it any less significant? he wondered. No, he wouldn't say that there was some greater purpose, because he couldn't afford to blame anyone else, especially not whatever 'greater power' had made him so different.

He alone had the power to make himself happy, and he had done so for years, why not now? Why leave all that behind? He thought he heard a voice in the wind, but that could just be the eddy of air currents, the unlikely combination of independent variables producing what he perceived as a coherent whole (the human mind was oddly flexible that way ... or so he told himself). But the words ... they were a promise: 'Metta,' 'Vipassyana,' loving kindness and wisdom - things he so desperately wanted but always denied himself. Ever since that day ...

He ascended the steps to the temple, feeling ridiculous in a turtleneck shirt, gloves, and his roommate's ludicrous boonie hat in the middle of the Southern California springtime. He didn't really know why he was here at all, other than the fact that in an inexplicable moment of kindness, Paul had suggested it - and he hadn't been joking. For a biology major, it was a bit strange for Paul believe in all this folksy, healing mumbo-jumbo. And he would have laughed it off as scientifically unsound, another one of Paul's crazy Asian philosophies, but he was desperate ... he'd tried everything and finals were coming up ... he couldn't go on like this.

But there was an urgency ... like walking with the wind pushing behind you. He spun to try to face it ... this is not how he remembered. When he turned out from his path up the dark stone steps, tiered like rice-paddies, he felt pain shooting through every synapses of his body, like he was ripping himself from his own fragile form - ripping himself from even the hazy reflections of memory. When he turned, there was nothing but blackness behind him.

John gave a muted whimper, and one of the people beside him asked, "Are you all right, Sir?"

"Fine," he choked, vocal muscles seeming so odd after that boneless blackness. His feet felt almost numb as he remembered to move them forward.

His vision blurred and the pounding in his head had not abated. But at least he was conscious. John hated the dizzy lost feeling of the web of memories that faded one into the next. He hated losing control almost as much as he hated being vulnerable, and now he was both. But why? He knew there was some connection ... it truly was a web and not the haphazard jumble of fevered dreams. And, though there had been a drifting, linked aspect to it, there was that underlying directed urgency. That was the pain. Some outside force was trying to find something. A Wraith? But what would a Wraith want with his memories of Earth? He doubted they cared that much about the past trauma of their 'food.'

What's the connection? Another stabbing pain at his temple and he stumbled, feeling the bile rise in his chest, stomach muscles clenching painfully. He doubled over in another bout of dry heaves. Apparently, that line of thinking was off-limits. Later he would try to push it (like all artificially imposed limits), but at the moment he needed all his strength to ... do what? Oh, yeah, put one foot in front of the other. The kind but insistent hands dragged him back to his feet and down the dusty path through the spiny thicket of black brambles silhouetted menacingly against the blood-red horizon of the setting sun.

How long had they walked? Ford said they were heading back toward the Stargate - the Wraith had likely seen the jumper. They must be near now. His feet had never felt so heavy - not even on those 'day hikes' they were forced to go on at the Academy.

"Are we there yet?" he groaned.

"No, Sir," someone said beside him. He guessed it was Stackhouse or Bulter, simply because he had ordered Teyla to take point and Ford was behind him and he could see everyone else. And there was no chance in hell Kavanagh would call him 'Sir.' "We've got about ..."

Whoever-it-was was interrupted when Teyla turned to face the group, golden hair swinging out behind her. "Wraith approach, we must hide." John really regretted not having taught that girl to use hand signals yet. Sure, he wasn't big on all the commando-mumbo-jumbo, but they were out in the open for christsakes. Stackhouse and Bulter swerved to the side, giving his stomach another jolt, and John looked around for Aidan. Despite his youth, he trusted the kid to handle the situation.

And, sure enough, Ford was standing by a jagged hole in one of the thicker bushes in this maze, barely noticeable in the gathering darkness. Parker was the first to dive in, weapon at the ready, brambles pulling at her fine gold hair and tearing at her clothes. John admired the fearless courage in such a seemingly-fragile form.

"What the hell are you thinking? I'm not going ... " Kavanagh began. God, he was beginning to feel glad that he had McKay on his team (and that was saying a whole hell of a lot).

John interrupted. "It's either that or we feed you to the Wraith, so get your ass in there. Now." Even that snapped reprimand took a lot of energy from him. He didn't resist, even as the brambles cuts at his skin and caught on his jacket. He was just so tired. He finally knew what they meant when they said 'world-weary.' It wasn't the actual world - no, it was the dreamscape of memories. Why did it take so much out of him to simply remember? Perhaps because he spent so much of his life trying to forget.

They all made it deep into the thicket of the planetary flora just in time, for the second Ford had settled in beside him, he could just make out the shape of a Wraith, white hair and unnatural blue skin luminescent in the scant light. It was followed by two of the faceless footsoldiers.

And as he focused on the pale face of this shadow, this Wraith, he felt something else rising within him. He was familiar with the revulsion, the all-consuming hate, the fear, but this was more than all that: it was boundless dread. It was knowing ...

He was in the cockpit of the ship, sinking into its comforting depths like the familiar ocean. He had spent much of his life in this seat - training, flying, taking her vaulting straight into the atmosphere, hearing that throaty giggle as they sailed through the strata of clouds, like time layered into stripes of an eroded gorge, and into the brilliant star-field of space. He told her that when the sea was bright in its annual algae bloom, that it resembled, but did not equal, the color of her eyes.

But he would see neither the vast ocean of his home nor the startling clarity of her eyes ever again. When the door opened, filling the cabin with a deathly blue glow, he did not turn, though he saw a figure approach in the shadow that crept across the equipment before him.

The creature did not insult him with speech. That was the greatest respect that he could hope for from a being such as this. They both knew what the creature wanted, and they both know that he would resist till the last breath before he gave it to him. The question was not whether or not he would die here at the hand of this incubus but rather, who wanted it more.

He did not release his grip on the flight controls - he did not even look to meet the hungry face as the hand came down on his chest. He did not scream as he felt every memory, every happiness passed, and in so many possible futures sucked from him and into the abyssal maw of this creature's want. He saw their days walking through the silver turrets of the city, a radiant child with her brilliant eyes and his jet-black hair swinging on their arms and skipping between them. He saw nights spent holding her in his arms and looking at his much-loved stars, and some examining foreign ones, telling tales of a great city lost to the sea. Each possibility, each life he could have lead, was torn painfully from him, laying upon the past hurts that were all that was left to him by this demon. He could feel its hunger, as he felt his skin shrink and crackle - pains of years piled so quickly on top of him.

But he had one thing it could never have, and he held onto it tight, unconsciously clenching his fists. He had her love, and all the evil in the world could never equal that.

John Sheppard screamed.