ten_fwd | Two soldiers walk into a bar...

[ooc: Feel free to run into either or both of them! John and Bucky both have their memories of their previous visit to the Enterprise.]

John Sheppard
John Sheppard is responsible for setting Atlantis down on a planet of ice and snow at the edge of Pegasus Galaxy. It is a pretty good landing if he does say so himself and they are settling in well. Or they are until Rodney is kidnapped. He’s got a good deal of pent up frustration over the lack of intel, and takes it out on regular patrols to check on the condition of Atlantis in her new setting. The temperatures outside are a little bitter though, and on this inspection of how Atlantis is settling into in, he resembles an Artic explorer. One second he’s rubbing his hands to get some warmth back into them, and next, he’s back inside.

Memories come flooding back, and John pushes his hood back. Woah, how has he managed to forget all of this? “Wow that was a bit if a head rush. I didn’t think I would be seeing this place again.” He moves off confidently heading towards the bar, where someone can fill him in on what’s going on.

Bucky Barnes
The memories he gets are not the ones that he wants. The irony that he can remember another version of his life better than his own, isn’t lost on him. He crouches down against the wall, blue eyes uncertain, as he assimilates them. Voices overlap each other, growing louder. Images - cutting his hair, Steve, Natasha.

Slowly the voices fade and he straightens up. He can’t stay here in the corridor, it is too exposed, and he doesn’t have any intel on what has happened since he’s been away. Slowly, with many pauses to watch the security personnel go past, he moves to find an empty room.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"That should not matter. It should not be able to cause anything like this. The fact is, Sheppard, that there is wraith DNA in you. It does not look like what I have seen in the blood tainted, but it is there nevertheless."

But, Sheppard had encountered a queen to be? "Tell me about this child."

John tells the story easily enough, right up until her death. He covers Ellia's death hastily. "She was a good kid," he finishes lamely and shakes his head. "I don't know what she had on her teeth, because things got pretty weird after the bite." He hesitates. Would elaborating give Todd too much of a hold over him?

"I had....a few side effects."

So, he hadn't been the first victim of the human's attempt to cure the wraith from their biology. He's both disgusted and intrigued by the story Sheppard tells. Disgust will do him no good, so he follows the curiosity and fascination instead.

"Such as?"

John leans back against the wall and tries to cool about it. This wasn't the happiest time for him, he had nearly lost everything, including his sense of self.

"Well, I got a little faster and angrier, and oh yeah, grew scaly skin." He snorts, "I didn't exactly look very pretty."

Guide looks at him with a flat stare, looking entirely unimpressed. "You are not pretty now either, John Sheppard." Well, standards and tastes varies, of course. "Get to the point. The bite made you transform? Into what? How far did it progress? What made it reverse?"

"Way to burst my bubble that I am universally good looking." John shakes his head. "I looked like a Wraith hybrid." At least that's what it looked like in the mirror. "Becket cured me with an Iratus bug."

His eyes are dark, unhappy.

"A hybrid? Such as Lastlight?" Here he halts to correct himself, aware that the name would mean nothing to Sheppard. "The one you called Michael?"

But perhaps not. Sheppard had mentioned scaly skin, and had said that the young female wraith had devolved into a creature more like an Iratus than wraith or human.

He turns back to study the results on the screen again. "Perhaps more Iratus than Wraith," he mutters, more to himself than actually talking to Sheppard. "But Wraith are human and Iratus. There is less, here, and different. Still, it could explain it."

Lastlight. John shakes his head, and Wraith think their names are weird. He's curious though, and he files this away as something to ask about later.

John cocks his head on one side. If Todd could work out what the difference was, why he didn't become Wraith, then maybe he could work backwards to save Rodney. He feels a small leap of hope.

"Michael is different somehow," he shakes his head. "We were suppressing the Wraith elements, where as this, the Wraithlike tendencies were all fired up. The mind link has to come from somewhere, and humans don't have it, unless you are in the middle of some sci fi film."

"Indeed. Iratus share a hivemind, and it is the vestigial remnants of that that give Wraith the ability to talk mind to mind. Speaking aloud, as I am to you, is not the natural way for us. Not to mention that it is severely lacking." Though it was easier to hide and lie, when conversing with one's voice instead of mind.

"When the young female bit you, she passed on the retrovirus that was changing her, to you. And though doctor Beckett managed to reverse the changes it wrought on you, his treatment obviously didn't revert all." The traces left in Sheppard's DNA made that perfectly clear. "So, what remains is apparently enough to allow for some manner of link between you and most likely other Wraith, if it is actively sought."

John isn't quite as disturbed by the idea as he should be. After all, Teyla carries Wraith DNA, and she's been able to use to her, and their advantage more than once. Maybe, he'll be able to pass for Todd's brother some day.

"Huh. Well feel free to talk to me mind to mind sometimes." It must be weird for Todd, talking out loud all of the time. "I don't think that it will give me a headache. Just, don't do it when I am trying to sleep, or I am in the shower."

The brief exchange previously was one thing, but that Sheppard now invites for further conversations mind to mind, that is surprising. And, honestly, it is appreciated. It offers a slight lessening of the feeling of isolations Guide suffers here, even if it is far from how it would be with his own kin nearby.

"I would hardly have any desire to. I doubt there would be much gained from an exchange is such circumstances."

"Me either, but that's when people always interrupt me." It's like they have a sixth sense for when he's trying to get a little downtime.

He's glad for Todd's sake that the old Wraith isn't too proud to accept his offer. It's got to be hard, cut off from his usual form of communication. The silence has got to be deafening. He nods towards the screen that keeps grabbing Todd's attention. "I should leave you to that, and go and find where they are stowing me away this time."

He's going to make sure he has all of this on his PADD for later studies. Though he can assume to know what happened, it is nevertheless an interesting subject.

"I would think you could go back to where you were before being returned," he says somewhat absently as he studies the screen. "No-one else has moved in." In fact, Sheppard's previous space is just the way he left it. ...more or less.

"I'm touched." Though he rather thinks there are a quite a few people on the ship who wouldn't want to room with Todd. It's one thing to know there is a life sucking alien on board, and another to sleep next door to one. They have better self preservation instincts than John.

"I'll go put the request in, and see you later." John flashes an amused look at Todd's back. He's like Radek or Rodney, when they tune into their work and pretty much ignore everything else.

He rolls his shoulders and steps out of the infirmary. He exhales a deep breath, glad to be out of there and sets off purposefully.

Two soldiers walk into a bar...

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