Email: nel_ani@yahoo.se
Rating: NC-17
Category: AU, crossover/fusion: X-men
Length: 31000 words
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Spoilers: None
Warnings: See bottom of page
Summary: Wherein Rodney feels transparent, John shows his true colors and Teyla has a special touch.
Author's Notes: Oh. My. God. The Fic That Ate My Brain for Six Months. FINISHED. *collapses*

I started writing this fic in the evenings in Malta, homesick and computerless, and it was a great comfort to me. I hope you'll enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it (when it wasn't eating my brain, that is).

MANY thank yous to Danvers, without who I would have given up after about 2000 words, and who cheered me on and came with suggestions and generally made me feel good about the fic. Thanks to Kylie Lee, who went above and beyond, even when busy as hell, and really reorganized the story and made it whole, and not fragmented scenes put together. And last but not least, Suz, who I can always trust to give me a honest opinion. You guys rock.

Added notes: If you prefer

you can go here and get a javascript zapper that's extremely easy to use. Basically, you just drag it to your toolbar (if you're using Firefox; it works for other browsers as well, I'm just not sure if it's the same procedure) and click it whenever you want to strip the website of colors. There are a bunch of other plugins there as well, so if you feel like it, you can install all functions at once.

I.

Hindsight was twenty-twenty. Unfortunately, the same thing had yet to be said for Rodney's ability to read people.

The man was tall, dark, and, yes, all right, handsome, and if there was anything Rodney despised, it was feeling like a cliché and going for something like that. Though, honestly, it wasn't the tall, dark, and handsome part that had him tripping into the entire mess. It was that tall and dark had the nerve to plop down at the opposite side of the table, where Rodney was minding his own business while eating a burger.

"Hi," the stranger had said, flashing him an easy smile. "I'm John." He signaled the server for a beer.

Rodney glared at the person stealing his leg space. "How nice for you," he replied, "I'm eating."

"Now, is that any way to talk to the guy who's about to buy you a beer?"

Rodney's eyes narrowed. "Are you a prostitute? 'Cause believe it or not, I'm not actually that desperate."

John's smile widened. "What would you do if I said that I was?"

Rodney considered that for a moment, then took another bite. "Finish my burger."

"A man with priorities. I like that." He casually rubbed his foot up and down Rodney's shin.

The chair screeched as Rodney shoved it back and stood. "Are you insane?" he hissed. "I told you, not that desperate."

John, the bastard, laughed. "Sorry, sorry, sit down."

Rodney glared suspiciously.

"Not a hooker," John said earnestly. "Cross my heart." He made an X gesture over his chest.

"If I want to be harassed, I can get enough of that at work," Rodney snapped.

John sobered. "Seriously, I'm sorry. I didn't come here to make you uncomfortable." His mouth turned up at the corners. "You just made it too tempting."

Against his better judgment, Rodney sat again, quickly eating the last of his burger, while John seemed to be paying an inordinate amount of attention to Rodney's mouth.

"If you didn't come here to harass me, why did you come here?" Rodney asked, starting in on the fries.

John shrugged. "I just felt like some company."

"Some company?" Rodney said skeptically.

"Yes, some company," John repeated, only the word company seemed significant somehow, and Rodney frowned before his eyebrows shot up.

"Oh! Oh, company!" He frowned again. "You're looking for company here? You do realize that there are bars for these kinds of things."

John shrugged and gave him a teasing smile. "I saw you through the window and figured it was worth a shot."

Rodney stared hard at him, trying to figure out if the guy was some kind of psychotic stalker, or just someone who wanted . . . company. "You saw me through the window."

"What can I say." John's eyes drifted to his mouth again. "You're my type."

Rodney blinked. "You found me so irresistible that you came in here to harass me and offer me sexual favors for free," he stated flatly.

John's smile widened. "Well, I'm not sure I'd say 'sexual favors.' I was hoping it might be mutual."

That's how Rodney ended up making out with a complete stranger behind his favorite burger bar, John slowly licking the taste of fries out of his mouth, Rodney tasting the beer on John's breath. American beer, sure, but all in all, he couldn't complain.

That was before it all went spectacularly and horribly wrong.

John was pressed close to him, doing wonderful, interesting things with his tongue, when he suddenly pulled back. "Hey," he said, looking at Rodney, and all of a sudden something was different, only Rodney didn't know what.

"What?" Rodney said, trying to focus on what was different about John.

John's mouth twisted down a bit. "This is nothing personal, okay?"

Rodney was going to ask him what wasn't personal when John pressed a gun to his chest and Rodney had just enough time to see John's face change, eyes turning yellow and skin turning blue, before he scrabbled backward through the wall, stumbling as he reentered the building (the kitchen, as it happened), staring in shock as the plaster on the wall burst outward from the impact of the bullets. He stayed lighter instead of solidifying, and the bullets passed through him with just a tickle. Moving aside, he looked around, seeing the shocked faces of the chef and one of the waitresses. He had a brief thought of regret that he wouldn't be able to eat here again. Then he ran through the wall, into the dining room, and out to the street.

***

The first time the powers kicked in, when he was about fifteen, it had been excruciating. After, Rodney could never remember what he was doing before it started, no matter how hard he tried. It was ironic, because he'd give anything to forget the rest: the sudden darkness and sense of vertigo. How breathing suddenly became hard. Confusion, panic, and then pain: every cell of his body on fire, and he would have screamed if there had been air for it.

Now he knew that the pain had come from his body turning denser, making him feel the sensation of rock sliding through him as he fell through the ground. And the breathing—well, there was no way his body could use such small particles of air while he was out of phase.

He still didn't know how he'd survived, though, whether it had been instinct or sheer luck. Had he just kept falling, he would have suffocated, and had he in panic tried to solidify, he would have died instantly, merging with the rock. Somehow, he'd managed to turn dense to a point where he could claw his way back up again, lungs screaming for air and his body on fire.

When it finally stopped, when there was light and air and no pain, just Jeannie's panicked screaming, all he'd been able to do was curl into a ball, eyes screwed shut, not daring to move. He didn't want to sink again.

***

He had to report the diner incident, although he was hazy about the details—like, exactly how "John," if that was his real name, which Rodney doubted, had lured him out. Elizabeth and Radek didn't need to know that he'd been making out with a strange guy in an alley, hoping to get lucky. Elizabeth promptly locked him up—well, confined him to quarters, anyway, pending his removal to a safe house. She assured him it was temporary, and he had to admit that she had a point: the timing of the attack was too much of a coincidence. He'd probably been targeted because of the research.

He was sitting in an armchair at the research complex, reading Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth and scowling, when Radek entered the room. Rodney scowled at Radek as well. If there was one thing that made him more cranky than being locked up (fine, technically speaking, he could leave whenever he wanted, be it through the door or through a wall, but that was completely beside the point), it was reading books with poor science, although he remembered enjoying it as a kid. "Well, if it isn't Mr. Secret Agent," Rodney snapped.

"I see your mood hasn't improved," Radek observed, closing the door behind him. He reflexively pushed his glasses up his fuzzy blue nose.

"Wow," Rodney said feelingly, "you really must be smarter than you look."

Radek gave him a quelling look. "Yes, I know that you don't like this, but what would you suggest? That we just ignore our contacts?"

Rodney hated it when Radek was reasonable. "I hate it when you're being reasonable."

Radek smiled at that. "Yes, I know."

Rodney had known Radek for a couple of years now. By all accounts, they should have hated each other's guts, rivals in the same field as they were, not to mention their disastrous first meeting (Rodney going, "Holy shit, you're blue!"). Rodney wouldn't call them friends (not so Radek could hear him), but the truth of the matter was that Radek was nearly as smart as Rodney (and he'd never tell him that either). It was just hard to dislike someone who followed your leaps of thought and agreed with the conclusion.

Still, he had to admit that their greatest feat of science had been Radek's idea, although after the initial burst of useless brilliance, it had of course been Rodney who had done the actual math and science to make it a reality.

"We should call it ZPM," Radek had said, when Rodney had convinced Elizabeth that yes, this was something worth spending their resources on and no, it wasn't a wild goose chase.

Rodney frowned and turned to look at Radek who was sitting on the floor with his laptop, since the man, despite a respectable IQ, didn't seem to realize that one of the desks in the lab was his. "ZPM?"

"Zelenka's Propulsion Maxifier," Radek said dreamily.

Rodney frowned harder. "I thought I'd told you to lay off the crazy pills."

They compromised on calling it a ZPM, for "zero point module," instead. Rodney supposed that was yet another reason for him to like Zelenka; it was virtually impossible to dislike the man who came up with the idea for the work that would some day award Rodney a Nobel prize, as it easily outshone old, worn dreams like cold fusion.

Rodney remembered that moment of triumph as Zelenka continued, "I'll be back as soon as possible. I am as invested in this research as you are, you know."

Rodney put the book aside. "Hey, maybe this'll be good. Without you here to distract me, I might be able to find a way out of the rut we're stuck in and figure out how to practically apply the ZPM research."

Radek rolled his eyes. "So happy that I could cheer you up."

***

His mother had been convinced that it was some kind of temporary phase related to puberty. His father alternated between shooting her annoyed looks and Rodney concerned looks.

"Look, uh," his father started after they'd drawn some more of Rodney's blood, for the umpteenth batch of tests. "I'm sure there's some kind of reasonable explanation."

Rodney frowned at him. "Like what? That I have a brain tumor?"

"Don't be ridiculous," his dad snorted. "They would have found that right away."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Thanks, Dad."

"Any time, son." His dad patted his shoulder. "I'm glad we had this little heart to heart."

It boggled Rodney's mind that people still wondered why teenagers were so maladjusted. Clearly it wasn't the fault of the teenagers, but the insane parents. While the visits of his parents were a welcome break from the monotony of doing nothing at all, they didn't really do anything in the way of cheering him up. Of course, neither did the other patients, most of whom were quite depressingly ill. After the first month, he stopped trying to make friends. Nobody ever stayed. Some of them died.

"So," some new Scottish guy about Rodney's age said one evening that was particularly crappy and boring and generally bad in Rodney's opinion. Rodney had noticed the new guy when he'd arrived, a few days before, but they'd never spoken. "What are you in for?"

Rodney glared at him over his book, but either the guy was either immune, or Rodney was too tired to give it any real bite. The fact was . . . he was getting a little lonely. Still. "Psychotic hallucinations," he lied.

"Hmm," the guy said, not seeming particularly horrified. "Nasty stuff. I'm Carson, by the way." To Rodney's relief, he didn't offer his hand.

"Rodney," Rodney said grudgingly, putting his book down. He was giving Journey to the Center of the Earth a try. "What about you? What's wrong with you?"

Carson's mouth tightened. "Tumor."

"Oh." And now he remembered why he preferred to ignore the social niceties. What the hell did he say to that? "Is it . . . is it bad?" Carson didn't look sick. A little pale, maybe, but it wasn't as though this place overflowed with sunlight.

Carson shrugged, trying for unconcerned. "They say that it's benign and operable, but . . ." He looked down. "It's cancer. It's scary."

Rodney couldn't think of anything to say, so he just nodded. Carson looked up again, seeming to shake it off, and then he was just a friendly guy again instead of a frightened kid. "Really, psychotic hallucinations? You seem relatively sane to me."

Rodney made a face and shook his head. "No, not really. But you wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Might make you feel better, anyway," Carson offered. "You've got the reputation of being grumpy. I've asked around."

Rodney scowled. "I'm not grumpy. I'm complex. And I'm always like that."

Carson frowned. "Oh."

Rodney resolutely glared at him for a few seconds before sighing. "Okay, maybe I'm not quite so complex, normally."

Carson perked up and sat down next to Rodney on the common room couch.

So Rodney told him. It wasn't as though Carson could get him sent to the psych ward, and it wasn't like he had anyone else to tell. He told him about not remembering anything before, about the darkness and falling sensation, about Jeannie screaming, and then about all the tests that found nothing. To Carson's credit, he didn't laugh. He just nodded occasionally.

"There," Rodney said finally, voice not entirely steady. "The insane story of Rodney McKay."

Carson leaned forward. "I don't think you're crazy."

"Oh, good, because clearly your medical expertise is stunning me," Rodney said.

"Listen," Carson said intently, "I really don't think you're crazy, because—" he broke off and looked around. Rodney reflexively looked around too, because that's what you did when people did paranoid stuff like that.

"You can't tell anyone about this," Carson whispered. "You have to promise to keep it a secret."

"Yes, sure, whatever, I promise," Rodney said impatiently. "Now tell me why I'm not insane."

Carson told him.

***

There was a knock on the door, which immediately ruled out Ronon, liberated from social graces as he was. Rodney frowned a little.

He'd been moved to safe house a day ago, and while the accommodation was more comfortable here (the bedroom mattress might just have been more comfortable than Rodney's, and how was that even possible? He'd paid blood for his mattress), it was still a prison. Not even the thought that he could phase out through a wall cheered him up, because he knew he'd never actually do it; he respected Elizabeth too much.

"Come in," Rodney called out, trying to sound inhospitable.

The door opened and Carson poked his head in. "Hello."

Rodney's eyes narrowed. "Let me guess. You're here to 'cheer me up.'" He didn't even bother adding gestures to the quotation marks. Carson knew him well enough to hear them.

"I see we're our normal charming selves today," Carson said, unperturbed by Rodney's distinct lack of welcome, stepping inside and closing the door behind him.

Rodney frowned. "I see that you have taken on a disturbing habit of speaking in the plural."

Carson grinned and sat down on the sofa opposite Rodney. "How are you faring?"

"Claustrophobic, hungry, and irritable."

Carson fished out a wrinkled paper bag from inside his jacket, and Rodney would have made a snide remark about it had he not smelled the donuts before Carson handed it over. "I'm not sure I'm doing you a favor by adding so much cholesterol to your diet, but I figured that it would cheer you up, if nothing else."

Smiling and promptly forgetting his earlier scorn about any attempts from Carson to cheer him up, Rodney accepted the bag. "Carson, you're a treasure."

Carson's eyes glittered as he smiled. "Aye, I've noticed that my value seems to rise when I bring food." He grew somber. "They told me about the attack. Thank goodness you're all right."

"Thank goodness I can walk through walls," Rodney said, biting into one of the donuts.

"Yes, quite the handy power."

Rodney studied him as he chewed. "You look tired."

Carson sighed and rubbed a hand across his eyes. "Work has been busy the last few weeks. A number of John and Jane Does have been found, and things were really crazy there for a while before we could rule out an epidemic."

Rodney nodded and swallowed. "So, what was it?"

Carson made a face. "Well, that's just it, we don't know. No, that's not true. We know that they have a very high level of iron in their blood, and we know what killed them, but we don't know what the cause is. And what's even more bizarre, they all seem to have the same cause of death."

Rodney paused with a second donut halfway to his mouth, staring at Carson. "Are you sure it isn't an epidemic?"

"Yes, Rodney," Carson said patiently.

"I'm just saying. It would be pretty ironic if I survived an assassination attempt only to be killed by a delivery of donuts."

Carson huffed out a laugh. "Trust me, Rodney, I wouldn't have left the hospital had I thought that there would be any chance of my being contagious."

Rodney cautiously bit into the donut. "So, how did they die then?"

"From ruptured brain aneurysms above the visual cortex."

"So, not something you find in your every day John Doe."

"Not without an apparent cause, no." Carson looked troubled. "We live in difficult times. Despite the government's promise to peacefully resolve the conflicts between the humans and the mutants, everybody cries mutant as soon as something inexplicable happens."

"Which is what they're doing now?"

"Oh, yes," Carson's mouth twisted, "and not only that. Yesterday I heard a couple of nurses whisper about some kind of mutant 'cure' they'd heard about, like it was some kind of brilliant bloody idea." He snorted. "Because it's not as though we don't do enough harm ourselves."

Rodney patted Carson's hand, feeling zen thanks to the sugary pleasure of the donuts. "I'm sure you'll find a perfectly reasonable nonmutant explanation."

Carson smiled at him. "Is that your way of saying that you don't mind my visit?"

Rodney swallowed the last of the donut and smiled serenely. "I always have time for a friend."

***

Laura Cadman was possibly the most infuriating girl Rodney had ever met. She was thirteen, blonde, and totally without respect for his fifteen-year-old superior intellect. She also tended to roll her eyes a lot, something Rodney had always found very unattractive in people other than himself. And she was what Carson had said would be the solution to all of Rodney's problems?

"Look," she sighed, "you're not listening. It's really a matter of relaxing, only in your brain." She gave him a critical look. "To be honest, I'm not sure how you managed to relax enough to ever sink through the floor."

"I suppose it's easier to relax when there's not a lot going on in your head," Rodney shot back. "I could have just taken your word that you didn't think I was crazy," he called to Carson, who was sitting on the other side of the room, pretending he was reading a magazine and not watching Rodney. "What, you think this is funny?" he demanded at Carson's clear amusement.

Carson looked up. "Of course I don't think you're crazy. But we still don't know what's going on with you."

"Look," Laura said, "the trick is to be just a little more solid in the lower part of you body, so you can walk through a wall, but not sink through the floor."

"That doesn't make any sense," Rodney complained. "How can you walk through a wall without sinking through the floor? It breaks all the laws of physics."

Laura rolled her eyes again—still not attractive—and walked past Rodney, sticking her hand into the wall. "Like that."

Rodney stared at her hand, thinking hard. "Maybe it's the motion as well. You're standing still, not making an attempt to move downward, but you're deliberately moving your hand. Still, your weight . . . "

Laura pulled her hand out. "You need to stop thinking about the how and focus on controlling it."

Rodney sighed, because she had a point. The truth was, though, that he didn't dare try and do something on purpose, fearing a repeat of his last "phasing," as Laura called it. He realized that he'd been incredibly lucky the first time around, and if there was one thing Rodney knew, it was that you didn't get luck like that twice.

Laura leaned closer, looking serious. "You need to learn, Rodney. Mom and Dad thought it was a great idea to come and visit Carson, but I can't stick around forever and help you out."

"Please, like I wanted you around in the first place," Rodney scoffed, but without any real disdain. Instead, he was distracted by the floor, which looked deceptively solid.

"I know it's scary," she said quietly, and now she had Rodney's full attention. "The first time it happened to me, I was at the beach, only suddenly I wasn't swimming through water anymore. My mouth was filling up with sand, and everything was cold and dark." She seemed far away, suddenly looking older than her thirteen years. She refocused on Rodney. "But once you get the hang of it, it's actually kind of cool. You can never be locked in, or out for that matter. I've heard that if you get good enough . . . " She leaned closer and whispered the rest in his ear.

Rodney's eyes widened. "Okay. Show me what to do."

***

Rodney was typing on his laptop when someone entered his room without knocking. Turning in his chair to snap at Teyla that, hello, he could have been naked in here, he frowned at Ronon. "What are you doing here? I thought Teyla relieved you from watchdog duty hours ago."

Ronon gave him one of his looks without saying anything. Typical.

"What?" Rodney asked, exasperated. It wasn't as though Ronon was Mr. Socially Adept normally, but this was ridiculous.

Then Ronon started to change, and Rodney's mouth dropped open, because this most definitely was not a skill he'd ever seen Ronon display before. Ronon's face slimmed, and the skin tone morphed from brown to blue. His dreads flatted against his head and shrank in, becoming shorter, spiky hair. Clothes transformed into a bare form with exotic patterns raised on the skin. Rodney tried not to stare at the lithe body, because so what if the person who had tried to kill him also happened to be very hot? Nevertheless, he couldn't help the way his eyes strayed down, noticing that John seemed to be wearing pants, only they had the same texture as his skin, so it seemed like he was naked.

Lifting his gaze, he noticed that John wore a small smirk as he gazed at Rodney with eerie yellow eyes. Rodney stared at him in shock. "Hey, Rodney," John said easily, like he knew what Rodney was thinking, despite what had happened last time.

"You know," Rodney said, swallowing down panic, "I'd be flattered by your persistence, but somehow I'm not."

John took a step forward and Rodney made himself lighter, fully braced for knives, grenades, and whatnot. Instead, John sat on the bed, bouncing a little as he tested the springs. "Nice. Care to join me?"

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Sorry, honey, I've got a headache."

John grinned, teeth startlingly white in his blue face.

"What are you doing here, anyway?" Rodney continued. "It's not like I'd let my guard down this time."

John scratched his neck. "I don't know. You saying you would have been suspicious if I'd kept up the Ronon act?"

That . . . was a chillingly good point, which hadn't even crossed Rodney's mind before now. Elizabeth had put him in this safe house for his own protection, but he was a sitting duck here, just waiting around to be killed by a friendly face.

"So why didn't you?" Rodney asked finally. "Keep up the act, I mean."

"Maybe I just wanted to give you a friendly warning," John suggested.

Rodney's eyes narrowed. "Or you're here for something else." His eyes fell on the still-open laptop, and he quickly shut it. He looked back at John, who was now ostentatiously using a knife to pick nonexistent dirt from under his fingernails, and where the hell had he kept that hidden? "Oh, very clever."

"Thank you," John said pleasantly. "I thought so." He leaned forward and tapped the laptop. "I'll be taking this. But I think you know that. And if you try to stop me, well . . . " He gestured slightly with the knife, an implicit threat.

Rodney gestured in agitation. "You can't do this!"

"Then why don't you stop me?"

Rodney made a frustrated noise and looked away. "It's not as though it'll make any sense to you."

"Maybe not," John agreed easily, and why shouldn't he? He was making Rodney choose between his research and his life—as though there was ever any doubt which he'd pick.

Rodney didn't consider himself a coward; he considered himself a man with healthy survival instincts. That didn't make the sour taste of shame in his mouth any less as John stood up and tucked the computer under his arm, the grip on his knife deceptively loose. To get the computer back, Rodney would have to make himself heavy, and if he did that, John could kill him.

"Why are you doing this?" Rodney asked quietly. "This is supposed to benefit everyone, mutants and humans alike."

John shrugged. "I was bullied in school, my parents were bastards, I got my heart broken when I was a kid. Pick a sob story and go with it if it makes you feel better."

"Don't you believe in anything, John? Is it John? Or did you make that up, too?"

That seemed to catch John's attention as he turned his eyes to Rodney again. "Yes. That's my name. And I have beliefs, McKay. They're just not as black and white as yours seem to be."

Swallowing hard, body thrumming with adrenaline, Rodney rose from his chair and took several steps forward, blocking John's way. John raised his eyebrows, eyes traveling slowly up and down Rodney's body. Confused, Rodney fidgeted. His behavior wasn't making any sense. If he'd wanted Rodney dead, he could have killed him and taken the research, and it wouldn't have made a difference. Why wasn't he dead?

Studying Rodney, John smiled slowly before taking a step forward. His eyes drifted to Rodney's mouth and Rodney frowned. Wait. He wasn't . . . was he going to . . . ?

John leaned closer and Rodney's breath hitched, his mouth falling open slightly as . . . John took another step and walked through Rodney.

Rodney gasped and spun around, watching blue skin turn into Ronon's broad, coat-covered back. John walked out of the room without a backward glance, leaving Rodney staring after him, angry and confused. The research was just one part of the ZPM, but an important part nevertheless. With the right resources, it wasn't impossible to put the research into practical use.

He closed his eyes and sighed before fishing his cell phone out of his coat pocket. Of course the mind reader was thousands of miles away when she was needed, but at least he could let her know that their plans weren't exactly going the way they'd imagined.

II.

The first time John had changed shape had been by accident, and it had been over such a stupid thing, too. He'd been with Cory Lloyd, it had been after school, and he'd been helping her with her homework, as always. It wasn't that he minded helping her; it was just that he wished she'd get that he was good for more things than just listening to her talk, or explaining algebra to her. More . . . friendly things.

Instead, he endured hours and hours of talk about Jordan Peterson—on why he was so cute, on how no one threw a ball more attractively (it was football, granted, but she didn't really seem interested in the finer points of the game, more in the way Jordan Peterson's butt moved across the field), and how one day Jordan was finally going to notice her and ask her to the prom. John was so far into the Friend Zone that he might as well set up camp and raise the white flag.

Yet John stuck around, because however annoying he found Cory's talk about Jordan Peterson, she still listened to him, without laughing, when he talked about how he was going to become a pilot some day. She hung out with him even when she could hang out with cooler people than someone who secretly wanted to join the chess club, and when she smiled, she got these cute little dimples that . . . well . . . to make a long story short, he kind of had a crush on her.

So when she started talking about the damn quarterback again one afternoon after school, he just nodded and smiled and made encouraging noises until all he could think was that there had to be a way for him to catch her attention. There had to be a way for him to break out of the Zone. He didn't notice her words trailing off into silence until he looked up from the latest batch of equations into her stunned eyes.

He frowned. "What?" Whoa, what was up with his voice?

Cory's voice trembled. "J-John?"

He turned his head sideways, looking at the mirror on the wall next to her bed. He flinched as he saw Jordan Peterson there. He jerked around to look behind him—at a Jordan Peterson who most emphatically wasn't in the room with them, then registered that he hadn't seen his own face in the mirror.

"John," Cory's voice was small and scared, "what's going on? How did you do that?"

He stared at her for a moment before turning back to the mirror. Jordan mimicked his every movement. Not Jordan, he thought, and as the realization hit him, Jordan Peterson's face melted and turned into John's narrow and pale one.

"I don't know," he whispered.

Cory never told anyone about that afternoon—not that John knew of, anyway. He figured that if she had told, he would have found out pretty quickly. She stopped coming by his house, though, and when he met her in the hallway the first time after it happened, she wouldn't meet his eyes.

He never cornered her about it, even though it hurt every time she walked past him in the corridor as if she didn't know him.

It wasn't long after that that his skin changed color and he had to leave school.

***

Michael was a patient man, but he didn't like being kept waiting. This was John, though, so he expected that the extra time would be worth it. John was . . . special. Michael was used to being disillusioned, by life and by people. There had been a time when he'd believed that perhaps—no, there was no use in dwelling in the past. Life had taught him a harsh lesson, but he'd learned it well. It was filled with disappointments, and you either learned to turn them to your advantage or let them bury you. But John had yet to disappoint him. Ever since Michael had broken John out of the Antarctica facility, John had proven to be intelligent, resourceful, and, most importantly, loyal.

He'd taken to John quickly—more quickly than he usually allowed himself to. Perhaps he sensed a kindred spirit. John was smooth and charming, an exotic addition to the gray surroundings in this place. He was utterly unreadable most of the time, which he expected from a man who spent more time than not posing as other people, but sometimes, Michael felt like he was looking into a mirror, seeing a man just like himself—someone who had expected better of life. Maybe he was projecting, or maybe it was just what John wanted him to see. Either way, John was special.

When the knock on his door finally came, Michael drew a hand through his white hair. Yes, life wasn't entirely living up to expectations, but perhaps John was finally bringing him what he needed to get a little satisfaction out of it. With a wave of his hand, he opened the metal door, giving John a steady look as he entered. "I trust you found what we were looking for?"

John looked at him, then meaningfully at the chair tucked neatly under the opposite side of the desk. Rolling his eyes, Michael pulled it out with a thought, making a mental note to get a carpet as the metal screeched against the stone floor.

"Thanks," John said, sitting and leaning back. "I don't know why you keep these things around. They're a menace."

Michael smiled easily. "They're all right when I'm in a bad mood." John quirked an eyebrow at him but didn't seem intimidated. Michael had always wondered whether it was an act.

John shifted in the chair. "I know you wouldn't be able to throw plastic chairs around with your mind, but they'd be a lot nicer to the floor. Not to mention my behind."

The corners of Michael’s mouth twitched. “I’ll take that into consideration.”

John nodded seriously. “I hear that throwing around metallic paperclips is an excellent way to blow off steam.”

Michael ducked his head and grinned. Maybe it wasn’t an act after all. He grew sober. "You got it?”

"Yes, I got the laptop," John said, but without any of the smugness Michael expected.

"Did you have any problems?" He watched John carefully.

John shrugged and slung an arm around the back of the chair. "No, no problems. Just unnerving to break into a place where there might be a telepath around."

Michael nodded agreeably, although something about John's reply felt off. "Understandable, but our sources were entirely certain that Weir was out of the country." Weir . . . beautiful, idealistic, foolish. He was continuously surprised how someone that intelligent could be so stupid. "What about McKay?"

John looked blank. "What about him?"

"Still alive and insulting?"

There it was—barely distinguishable, but still present: a slight tensing of John's shoulders. "I managed to get into the house undetected, but I know he wasn't alone. I didn't want to risk discovery, so I just grabbed the research and got out."

"Hmm." Michael waved a hand. "It just strikes me as odd. That you didn't manage a quick kill, before he could go transparent." He gave John a piercing look. "It's never been a problem before."

John shrugged. Michael could sense wariness under the casual exterior. "I just don't get why we're after him. He's one of us. He doesn't have anything to do with the humans’ poison."

"You know that he and Weir are in talks with the government—the same government that has been, and probably still is, experimenting on mutants." He gave John a sharp look. "You know that, firsthand."

John's gaze slipped away. "Yeah. I know."

"He's consorting with the enemy, and we can't afford his research to benefit them." Michael studied him. John was reliable, but this was obviously not as easy for him as Michael had expected. "Is McKay going to be a problem for you?"

John visibly hesitated, something that almost made Michael frown, then shook his head. "No, I'll go through with it. You want him dead, so he's dead. McKay's just . . . slippery."

Michael looked at him closely, but as far as he could tell, John was telling the truth. He smiled. "Good. I would hate to be disappointed."

***

George Sheppard was a real personality. That's what everyone said, some fondly and some with distaste. John had always found it a little embarrassing to have a granddad that would open the door to visitors in nothing but his long johns, who wouldn't take off his winter coat in the summer, and who would start conversations that went something like this: "So, John, met a nice girl yet? Young man like you must have a few girlfriends by now. You do like girls, don't you? Not that there's anything wrong with boys." Pause. "Not that I'm saying you should find a boy." Another pause. "Not that there would be anything wrong . . . um." A really long pause. "Son. . . . I'm not very good at this."

"Really?" John would deadpan.

When he opened the door to John (wearing, as usual, only his long johns), John had to admit that having a real personality for a granddad wasn't so bad: he didn't bat an eyelash at the blue skin, which was covered in scrapes where John had tried to scratch it off. Well, without batting an eyelash wasn't entirely accurate. He did stare at John, for a long minute—long enough for John's heart to start pounding, long enough for him to wonder if this was not a good idea, as he had thought, but actually a terrible idea. But he was hungry and cold, and his granddad lived in the middle of nowhere—something that had made it a pain to get here, but something John needed when he felt like there were staring eyes everywhere.

Finally, George opened his mouth and closed it again. "Well. Okay." Then he'd opened the door and waved John inside. "Coffee?" he offered.

It turned out that John wasn't the first mutant in the family. "My brother Lawrence was always a little funny. Not when we were little, mind you—if you discount the frog-eating incident—but when we got older, weird things started happening around him. When he thought no one was looking, his arms and legs would stretch in ways they shouldn't have been able to." George scratched his beard and poured John some more coffee. "Finally, I confronted him. Told him he needed to take better care. Those days, people were seeing Nazis everywhere. Last thing he needed was someone mistaking him for some new kind of superbreed."

To get his grandfather's acceptance so easily was a relief, but John refused to let George call his parents and let them know where he was.

"I'm telling you, son, they'll be worried sick," George argued.

John hesitated, but then he remembered Cory's shocked face and he shook his head firmly. "No. I'm not telling them, and neither are you. Promise me."

George finally gave in, though he clearly didn't like it. "It ain't right, keeping a son from his folks."

"It's for the best," John said, and that was that, or so he thought.

Weeks passed and turned into months. Every day he tried to get rid of his blue skin, though this time without scratching. He remembered Jordan Peterson in the mirror, but he hadn't been able to make himself look like Jordan Peterson, much less his old, nonblue self. At first he couldn't do more than make himself shimmer a little. Then, after many hours in front of a mirror, he managed to change his face. His body, though, stayed blue.

"It's not an unattractive color, you know," George would point out, reading the newspaper while John stared at his stubborn skin in the mirror.

"Whatever," John muttered and glared harder, managing to turn himself purple.

George turned a page. "Look on the bright side. At least you won't have to worry about getting a tan."

The day—or night, rather—he finally managed to change all of his body, he decided to surprise his grandfather. To his credit, George only yelled a little when facing a doppelganger in the kitchen the next morning. "Holy buckets, Johnny," he shouted when John was laughing too hard to stay in form, "is this the thanks I get? Giving me a heart attack? And I think I'm taller than that."

He still treated John to pizza for dinner, which wasn't cheap considering how far the pizza guy had to drive to deliver it.

Those days with his granddad were good ones for John. Unfortunately, it couldn't last. If John had been paying attention, he would have noticed that George was behaving strangely, but he was busy trying to perfect his newfound skill.

When there was a knock on the door one afternoon, it wasn't unusual enough to make John suspicious. He just changed the color of his skin and opened the door. And froze.

"John?" John's mother said, voice trembling. Numbly, John looked behind her to see his father, face unreadable.

"It ain't right to keep a son from his folks," George said quietly from behind John.

"You promised," John choked out.

"It's for the best."

His emotions were raging inside, everything from betrayal to relief to anger to fear, and they were making it hard for him to stay in form. He could feel his skin start to shimmer. He couldn't let them—

"No!" he shouted and pushed past his mother. His father grabbed his arm as he started to run past, but despite the tight grip, John twisted, someway, somehow, moving in the air in a way he was pretty sure he never had before.

"John!" his father shouted behind him, and John realized that he was blue again.

He didn't look back as he ran into the forest. He had no intention of going back, no intention of being found. He ran until the trees thinned out, the forests turned to concrete, until towns became cities and the skyline showed Alcatraz like a prison at the end of the world, like there was no more room to run. Or maybe he was just tired.

It was easy to fit into San Francisco. During the day and early evening, he delivered pizza—not the most glamorous job, but it covered the rent for the tiny one-room apartment he'd found. At night, he went clubbing, not really out of any sense of fun but as a means to fine-tune his power. He learned to keep a normal appearance when happy, miserable, angry, anxious, drunk (that one was tricky), and aroused. He learned that there were other ways to fool people than changing his skin. He learned that people weren't that complicated if you just knew how to read them.

Most people yearned to fit in; John, ironically, became an expert. When he felt that he'd learned what he could about blending in as himself, he started taking on the forms of other people, including women. Some were people he'd seen; others, he just made up. The latter were difficult, though, because they required a lot more focus and attention to detail—he had to remember everything he made up, to the last button on the shirt, which was harder than copying something that already existed. The made-up people drained so much energy that he couldn't really do anything else well, so once he mastered maintaining a made-up form for an entire night, he stopped practicing and focused instead on copying existing people. He haunted coffee shops for new faces. Then, at night, he'd go across town and practice wearing those faces.

Although the years in San Francisco consisted mostly of hard work (with the occasional pleasure), John would look back on them with thankfulness. In the end, those years taught him how to survive.

He moved around a lot, drifting from town to town, staying a week here, two months there, washing dishes or fixing cars or stocking shelves, always being paid under the table, thinking of his granddad and his parents but never contacting them. He was in Montana when they caught him. He never knew how they found him—if it was because he'd been traversing smaller towns lately, or if it was because they now had some kind of mutant-detecting technology—but catch him they did. He didn't have any clear memories of it, just unexpected pain, blurred vision, harsh hands. He thought he'd been drugged somehow, but he never saw it coming.

They stuck him in a cell that could have been anywhere in the world: four gray walls, one metal door, no windows. The first time the door opened, they immediately stunned him, before he could see a face (he could copy a face and walk out; that was his plan), before he had a chance to ask what the hell was going on, much less attack, and then they—the humans, and that was the first time he'd thought of himself as someone other than them—started their testing.

Was it just his ability to change, or was he stronger than a normal person? Faster? More durable? How long could he last without food? Water? Sleep? Was he more resistant to drugs? Radiation?

In the beginning, he dreamed of escape, of severing the power to the cameras in order to give him just a little time—just a few seconds to shift, to change into one of the doctors. That was before they'd tested his resilience to extreme cold and he got to see the outside of his prison for the first time. He knew then how futile an escape attempt would be.

He stopped dreaming about escaping, and started dreaming about them finally killing him.

***

Life was weird sometimes, John mused to himself. He'd called in some favors, trying to locate Rodney McKay to complete the task Michael had set him, only to find McKay here, in one of Michael's downtown offices, after hours. John had volunteered to pick up some files Michael wanted, since he'd be in the area, and of course he had a key. He'd come in the back, through the basement entry, because there was a parking spot in back, only to see a dim light and hear quiet voices. He'd been questing for Rodney McKay, and he'd found him—right in his own territory. It looked like the Atlantis coalition had their own network: Rodney was clearly hacking into their supposedly secure computer system.

"How long?" a woman with Rodney asked quietly. John could just hear her from his vantage point. He only saw her back, but it had to be Teyla; his sources had told him to be wary of her, though they'd been vague about what exactly to expect. He frowned; he hadn't been prepared to kill Rodney now, but he was nothing if not flexible. Teyla was with him, of course, and Ronon was probably there too, on guard somewhere. He needed the element of surprise to kill Rodney, so that Rodney would be in solid phase when he struck and thus vulnerable to attack. The presence of others made his task far more difficult. Not for the first time, John considered another strategy: seduction, perhaps, followed by a quick kill. He frowned at the notion.

Rodney spoke next. "Longer than I would like, shorter than humanly possible."

Teyla made a sound that sounded like a snort, and John watched Rodney look at her and point a finger. "I know a telepath," Rodney warned.

Teyla arched an eyebrow. "She likes me better." Rodney made a face at her and got back to work, typing quickly at the keyboard of the computer. John edged closer. He couldn't let them take data. "Hurry up, Rodney. I thought I heard something a minute ago."

"The download will take a couple of minutes. This is a lot of stuff," Rodney said absently. John watched him skim through files, finger tapping slowly. "Jesus," he breathed, suddenly sitting up straight. John tensed. Rodney had clearly found something.

"What?" Teyla said, echoing his thoughts. "What is it?"

That was his cue. John stepped out from his hiding place and strode into the room. "Well, well, well," he said, taking a moment to enjoy their shock as they both spun around. "Look who's poking his nose where it shouldn't be." Teyla moved in front of Rodney, and John's smile widened. "Protecting the man who's untouchable?" Then he took a closer look at Teyla, frowning. "Have we met?"

Teyla looked unruffled, but the slight tension in her stance told John that she was ready for a fight. "I think I would have remembered."

She seemed hauntingly familiar, but the memory was just out of reach. He shook his head and muttered, "Must have been in a different life." His eyes moved to Rodney as Rodney withdrew a memory stick from the computer. "You don't think you're leaving with that, do you?"

"Do you know what's on here?" Rodney demanded.

John's eyes flickered to the computer screen. "I know enough."

"Either you're lying or you're a complete idiot," Rodney snapped. "Do you have any idea how many people that this could kill?" He waved the memory stick.

John stared at him for a long moment before his mouth twisted. "It must be comfortable, having your view of the world, doing what's necessary, except when it makes you feel bad."

"How is killing innocent people necessary?"

John snorted, shaking his head and moving closer. "People are many things, but innocent isn't usually one of them."

"That's close enough," Teyla warned, and John glanced at her, letting his eyes trail provocatively up and down her body.

"Who's going to stop me? You?" John asked, baiting her.

Teyla smiled. "Yes."

John nodded amiably. Then he moved. He heard Rodney's "Jesus!" an exclamation of shock, and smiled even as he leapt across the room, effortlessly cutting through the air. Teyla was prepared, though, and moved to meet his attack head-on, stepping aside before he could hit her. John was still smiling as he landed, moving straight into a spin and delivering a kick, parrying Teyla's answering attack.

She was fast, incredibly fast, and it made John's heart beat hard. His blue skin was usually a shield, allowing him to walk away from a fight, but the strain of a fight, burning his muscles, felt good. Teyla was moving too quickly for him to think, only react—block, strike, kick, block, block, strike. Her arms knocked hard against his as he blocked her attacks, and he noticed that she was strong too, a lot stronger than her size suggested.

He managed to get a kick past her defenses, connecting solidly with her midsection, and she staggered back. He grinned and tried it again while she was still recovering, but she captured his leg with her hands and spun him around, flinging him through the air. The world tilted crazily before a wall smashed into his back, almost knocking all the air out of him, his head cracking hard against it. Damn, but she was strong. He regained his feet quickly, though, and shook off the impact.

"Not bad," he said with an impressed smile, a little out of breath.

Teyla gave him a small smile before pulling off her gloves.

Rodney said, "Teyla, do you think—"

"Trust me, Rodney," she said, not taking her eyes off John. Her gloves hit the ground, and she moved into a fighting stance.

John eyes narrowed, and he watched Teyla warily. Rodney had expressed concern about her removing the gloves. He didn't have time to wonder why, though, because Teyla was bringing the fight to him. The quick slaps of hits being delivered and blocked started again, but she seemed to have changed her tactics. Instead of blocking him, now she tried to grab him. She managed to get hold of one of his wrists when he flung up the arm to block an attack. They stared into each other's faces for a long moment, John frowning at her sure expression. Then he felt the skin under her hand start to burn, felt himself grow weak. All strength was sapped from his body. Breathing became hard. John's eyes went wide and his mouth opened in a soundless "oh." He fell to his knees, Teyla still gripping his forearm. He saw her skin change, shimmering blue. What had she done? What was her power?

John tried to choke out, "What?," but the air stuck in his lungs, and instead he only managed to gasp roughly, his body feeling as though it was being crushed under its own weight.

Rodney surged forward. "Enough! That's enough!"

Teyla let go. John fell to the ground, shudders wracking his body. Weakly, he moved a hand in front of his eyes, trying to focus, his vision blurry. Was he paler? The blue seemed washed out, and the patterns that decorated his body seemed to have disappeared, making him feel oddly naked.

"I was only incapacitating him," he heard Teyla say stiffly, as though from far away.

"I know," Rodney said, and John tried to shift his wobbly vision upward. "I know. It's just—I don't know how you do it . . . " As John rolled onto his side, gasping for air, he saw two Rodneys thrust memory sticks into their pockets. "I've shut the computer down. Come on, we need to go. Ronon's waiting in the car."

They moved away, and John struggled to follow them with his eyes. As if he sensed it, Rodney looked back when he reached the door. He thought that Rodney looked straight into his eyes, but he couldn't be sure; he still couldn't focus properly. Rodney didn't move. He just stared back at John until John couldn't keep his eyes open any longer and he collapsed.

***

The first time had been easy. John knew why it had to be done, and it was a good reason. That he knew who the person was—well, it just made John even more aware of its necessity. It wasn't revenge, and the person wasn't evil per se, just doing his job. John took no pleasure in it. But he wasn't going to just stand by while they captured new mutants to torture. Dr. Evans had been the geneticist at the Antarctica facility, one who was developing a "cure" for mutants. John wondered how much of it had come from running tests on him, all those years he'd been held there.

He'd kept it simple; he'd broken into Evans's Chicago apartment in the form of a bouncer he'd seen once during his days in San Francisco—a scary bastard, in John's opinion. Evans seemed to agree, judging by the way his eyes got wide and his face turned panicked once John stepped inside the door, although that could have been the gun and not just John's scary demeanor. Evans had begged for his life, and John had assured him that he wasn't there to kill him. He just wanted Evans's research. All of it.

Evans had broken easily, at just the press at the gun barrel against his temple. He claimed that all the research was here, in his apartment, that everything at Antarctica had been ruined along with the facility. John believed him. Evans was too interested in saving his own skin to try and protect the "noble" cause. He'd booted up his computer for John, told him the passwords, copied files to disks, opened up his safe, even pulled out a couple of files from under the mattress on his bed.

"This is all of it?" John had asked.

"Yes, yes, all of it." Evans visibly swallowed. "Please." It was clear that he had no idea who John was.

"Relax," John said, walking around Evans to pick up the last files. "I told you, all I want is the research." He didn't see Evans's face, but he saw his shoulders relax a second before John pulled the trigger.

He wasn't interested in making Evans suffer. He wasn't like them. He'd made it as easy for Evans as he could. Evans hadn't felt a thing. John had made sure that the bullet went cleanly through his head.

It wasn't revenge. It was something that needed to be done. Yet he still wondered sometimes if it had been the right thing to do. A few years later, when he sat on Rodney McKay's bed at the safe house and cleaned his fingernails with a hunting knife, he remembered Evans. But what was done was done. Regret was another thing that only humans were allowed. It was one reason Rodney was still alive, though. John didn't want to think too hard about the other reason.

***

The morning after the break-in, Ford was the one who found John unconscious on the floor in one of Michael's downtown offices. There was no trace of anyone else. John was still unconscious and couldn't tell Michael what the hell had happened. Although there was no sign of tampering, the security feeds for the main entrance and the two main-floor side entrances had been conveniently blank. However, they did find security camera footage of John letting himself in the little-used basement entry with his key and walking upstairs. Michael remembered that he'd asked John to pick up the files on the rat experiments and run them by for Michael to review; that was probably why he was there so late at night. The computer tech guys discovered a breach in the computer security system, but they hadn't been able to isolate exactly what had been accessed. Michael had to assume the worst.

Michael looked down at the blue figure on the bed, finger tracing a smooth cheekbone—a cheekbone that should have been decorated with intricate patterns but was instead completely clear. Could the humans’ poison have done this to him? But if so, why wasn't John wholly human? He needed John to wake up

"Ford," Michael said into empty air.

Ford materialized out of the shadows, black eye glittering. Ford and Michael got along well. Unlike the others, except perhaps for John, Michael wasn't intimidated by Ford's appearance, which wasn't a mutation but the result of experiments the humans had performed on him. In return for this consideration, Ford didn't go berserk around him. Still, Michael knew that although he had Ford's loyalty as his employer, Ford had a deeper loyalty to John, one based on friendship and shared experiences. Michael would have felt threatened had he not also been certain of John's loyalty to himself. He exploited that loyalty when it was convenient.

"Yes, sir?" Ford couldn't have been more obviously ex-military if he'd been wearing a sign on his forehead.

"Find out who did this. I don't like it when people break in and hurt my people."

Ford smiled. "Yes, sir."

Michael turned back to John. He hoped that the change wasn't permanent. John had been so beautiful.

***

He never knew exactly what happened; all he knew was that one moment, he was lying on the bare cot in his cell, and the next, the world rumbled and his cell door opened.

It took him a long time to move. He was convinced it was another one of their tests, their experiments. How long would it take to contain the escaping mutant? He wasn't about to make it any easier for them to hurt him.

But the minutes ticked by and doubt started niggling in the back of his mind; what if this was a real chance to—if not escape—end this, and he was wasting precious minutes? He stood and warily moved closer to the door. As he passed the security camera, he turned into a random person wearing a white lab coat. He still hadn't seen the faces of any of the people here, but he hoped that the white coat would buy him an extra moment, should he be discovered.

Cautiously, he poked his head outside his cell. The gray hallway outside was empty. Ominous red lights flashed, although no alarms blared. Taking a guess, he took a left, walking confidently but quickly, like he had every right to be there but wanted to find out what was going on.

He made it pretty far before he was discovered. By that time, he'd figured out that it wasn't just a test for his behalf; he came across people who were genuinely injured, some even dead. They all wore either lab coats or uniforms—military. His mouth twisted. Suddenly he was glad that he'd never gotten a chance to join up with the Air Force. His boyhood dream of being a pilot was just that—a dream.

He was standing over the body of a dead marine, and he wasn't sure what gave him away—he was still in human form. His only warning was an angrily shouted "Hey!" He spun around just as another marine, bloody but alive, fired the gun he was holding, and John stumbled back, feeling as though he'd just been punched. Before the pain had a chance to set in, he was moving forward, not thinking, not raging, just reacting to years of isolation, pain, and hopelessness. Then he blinked, and the marine was lying at his feet, unseeing eyes staring up at the ceiling, his gun warm and heavy in John's hand.

There was a sound behind John and he spun, raising the gun and aiming along his blue arm. The man standing in front of him didn't seem extraordinary in any way, but the fact that he wasn't wearing a lab coat or a uniform kept John from pulling the trigger. It was possible that he'd been in the same kind of situation as John. Still. John tightened his grip around the gun and ignored the burning pain in his side. He wasn't about to trust anyone.

"Who are you?" His throat hurt a little, his voice gritty, and he realized that he hadn't talked to anyone in months. He'd long ago given up begging for his release.

The man looked at him calmly, seeming determined somehow, and then he looked at John's gun. John was holding it so tightly that when it flew out of his grip, he stumbled forward. He stared down at his empty blue hands, and then at the gun hovering in the air in front of the other man's face. As John watched, the man lifted an arm, palm up, and the gun gently settled into his hand.

John was already bracing for the impact of another bullet, despite the evidence that the man wasn't human, when the man looked up at him again, eyes glittering. "A friend. You can call me . . . Michael."

III.

They gathered in Elizabeth's office, Ronon and Radek on the comfortable couch, Elizabeth behind her desk, Rodney pacing the room in agitation, and Teyla standing silently by the door, face still pale. It had taken Rodney most of the day to skim through all the information, but he felt that it was time well spent.

"All right, Rodney," Elizabeth said. She poked the memory stick on the table in front of her with a finger. Rodney knew she'd reviewed the information, but she was no scientist. "What did you find? In words of one syllable, please, for all of us."

Rodney had considered telling her to just read his mind, get the information as quickly as possible, but everybody needed to know anyway and—well, to be honest, he hesitated in letting her read his mind because there were things he didn't want to share (John smiling lazily, John looking at him intently, John kissing him in an alley, John lying crumpled on the ground . . . ).

He didn't know why remembering John on the ground, pale and hurt, made him feel so twisted up inside. For god’s sake, John was a bad guy; he'd probably done all kinds of bad-guy things. There was just something about him—a vibe, something that suggested that there was more to him. Rodney suppressed a sigh. There was a reason he had PhDs in science and not psychology.

"It's data for creating a nanovirus," he said, getting straight to the point. "A nanovirus engineered specifically to target humans."

"My god," Radek mumbled.

"What's a nanovirus?" Ronon asked.

"Artificial intelligence on a microscopic level, designed to infiltrate artificial and biological systems and reproduce, essentially rearranging the basic programming of whatever system they're invading," Radek explained.

Ronon looked at Elizabeth. "What's a nanovirus?"

"Tiny robots acting like a virus," she said, smiling briefly.

Radek frowned. "That is what I said."

Rodney waved an impatient hand. "The point is, according to the information I pulled off their computer, there's a machine capable of activating the nanites, which means that in all likelihood, the nanovirus has already been spread." He let that sink in.

Ronon frowned. "If the nanovirus is already spread, why not have the nanites active already? Why have a machine to do it?"

"Most likely to prevent any countermeasures while it spreads. This way, they can take everyone out in a single strike."

"How large is the machine?" Elizabeth asked.

"I'm not sure," Rodney admitted. "It's not specified. But given the power source they want for it . . ."

"It's bound to be on a large scale," she finished.

Rodney nodded. "Yes. I anticipate a large machine. Huge, in fact."

Elizabeth drew a hand across her forehead, looking down before focusing on Rodney again. "Is there any good news?"

Rodney considered. "Relatively speaking, yes. I don't think it's operative yet."

"How do you know?" Ronon asked.

"Because in order to get the machine to work, they need a pretty big power source, and while they have the ZPM research, it should take them a while to make a ZPM."

Radek nodded. "It took us six months to finalize a working prototype," he agreed.

"Unless they happen to have a nuclear reactor handy, of course," Rodney added, unwilling to be too optimistic. "In which case, we're screwed. But since they stole our research in the first place, I think it's unlikely."

Teyla spoke for the first time. "What is it the nanovirus does to humans, exactly?"

Rodney raised a finger. "I have a theory about that."

"Nothing good, I'm sure," Elizabeth broke in. "Whatever the purpose, we need to find this machine, and quickly. Even if it wouldn't cause humans any harm, I doubt it would help the already shaky relations we have with the government."

Rodney smiled a little smugly. "I know where to start, too."

As though on cue, the door opened and a breathless Carson Beckett entered. "What did I miss?"

***

It took a full day for John to wake up. When he stirred, eyes fluttering before finally opening, Michael leaned down, watching John's pupils dilate. "Hey," he smiled as John opened his eyes.

John blinked up at him in confusion. "Hey."

"It's good to have you back."

He looked down at his body, moving the sheet aside. "They're back—the patterns." Something in his voice almost sounded . . . disappointed?

"Yes. Exactly the same as they were before." Michael smiled. "How do you feel?"

"Tired. How long was I out?"

"More than a day."

"Huh." John pushed himself into a sitting position. "Sorry, didn't mean to sleep on the job."

Michael sat on the edge of the bed. "Do you remember what happened?"

"I . . ." John's eyes turned distant. "It was a woman."

Michael's eyebrows rose. "Must have been some woman."

John shot him a look. "Mutant. I don't know what she did, exactly, but . . ." He frowned again and looked away.

"What?"

John turned back to him, eyes troubled. "It felt like she was draining the life out of me."

Michael stilled. It couldn't be. But then again, why couldn't it? He hadn't tracked her down; she could be anywhere.

"I felt like I'd seen her before," John continued, "but I can't remember where. When I saw her, she looked vaguely familiar, and then when I heard her talk I got this feeling—" He trailed off and shook his head, obviously frustrated.

Michael had never been sure if John had known about her or not, and he'd never asked. It hadn't been a secret; she'd just always met up with him when he was alone. Now he knew that it hadn't been a coincidence. She'd wanted to make sure that he wouldn't have anyone close by that could help him; she'd wanted to make sure that he would be an easy target.

"Well," he said lightly, "I'm just glad that you're better."

John shot him a searching look. "You okay?"

Michael smiled a little. John knew him too well. "Fine," he lied. "Just glad you're all right."

***

"So, what you're saying," Carson said slowly, "is that this nanovirus and my John Does are connected."

Rodney nodded. "It indicates that the machine used to activate the virus is pretty close by."

"Bloody hell," Carson muttered. "And here I was trying to prove that it wasn't a mutant."

The room was quiet for a moment before Radek cleared his throat. "With a limited power source, it stands to reason that they could test the nanovirus on a limited number of people."

“But if it was a virus, even an artificial,” Carson frowned, “our equipment should have picked up on them.”

“Well, you said there were high levels of iron in their blood, right?” Rodney asked. “Maybe they’re designed to be absorbed into the blood stream when they’re finished, making it harder for us to find them.”

Carson flipped open his cell phone. "I'll tell my people to send blood samples to the state forensics department. Our equipment didn’t manage to find more than that, but maybe theirs will."

Elizabeth pursed her lips. "I'll dig around, see if there is any record of buildings being bought by an anonymous buyer in the area within the last twelve months."

"If the forensics lab finds something, it would be good if they sent us the results," Radek added, and Carson nodded before turning away, talking quietly into his phone.

"Yes, if worse comes to worse, we might be able to make some kind of—" Rodney was interrupted by his cell phone ringing, and he frowned. All the people who normally called him were in this room, and it was a little late for a telemarketer.

Looking at the screen and seeing a hidden caller ID, he cautiously flipped his phone open. "McKay."

"I need to talk to you."

Rodney froze at the sound of John's familiar voice. He looked around the room, but everyone was busy; Elizabeth was tapping at her computer with a frown, Carson was still on the phone, and Ronon was talking quietly with Teyla and Radek. Rodney turned away and tried to look casual. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"Look, we'll meet in public, whatever."

Rodney snorted. "Like I'm the one notorious for double-crossing."

"The Museum of Natural History in forty-five minutes. Take it or leave it."

With that, John hung up. Rodney stared at the phone for a long moment before turning back to the rest of the room. Nobody seemed to have noticed; Elizabeth was just telling Teyla to go home. "You're looking a little pale. It's been a long week. Get some rest tonight." She smiled wryly. "Don't worry, nobody's working late today. I need people rested and at their best tomorrow."

"Yes," Rodney agreed loudly, "I think I'm turning in early myself." He faked a big yawn. "Yes, I'm really quite, quite tired."

Elizabeth gave him an odd look, but nodded. "Good. I was worried I would have to make Ronon escort you home."

"No," Rodney said brightly, "I'm fine." Then he remembered that he was supposed to be tired. "I mean, I'm tired, obviously," he slumped a little, "but I can get home on my own."

Elizabeth scrutinized him for a moment, and Rodney tried to look innocent. "Very well," she said finally. "I'll see you tomorrow, then."

"Yes," Rodney nodded, "absolutely. Tomorrow it is."

He hurried out the door before he accidentally blurted out that he was about to meet up with the other side.

***

Michael found that getting into her apartment was ridiculously easy, just as finding her had been, because he knew her name. The apartment had been a little tricky to find, but considering who she was, he had expected that she would have hidden better. There were no alarms as he snapped off the door handle with his mind, just a small creak as he pushed the door open. He stepped inside, looking at the warm colors around him on the walls, red and orange and yellow. So much passion for someone so cold.

She must have heard him, because she immediately entered the living room where he stood, inquiring look on her face, a glass of water in her gloved hand. He smelled oil and meat. She was probably cooking dinner. When she saw him, she froze, her eyes widening in surprise, and she turned pale. "You," she breathed. Her familiar face was like a shock of cold water.

"Well," he managed finally, voice not as steady as he would have wanted. John was right. It was Teyla.

She stared at him, face more open than he'd ever seen it, and just as beautiful as he remembered. "You should be dead," she said, and it surprised him that her words stung. It wasn't like it was a surprise to him that she wanted him dead; after all, she'd done her very best to kill him. But that explained why it had been too easy to find her; she didn't think she had anyone to hide from.

"Sorry to disappoint you." He touched his hair. "If it's any consolation, you left quite an impression." He'd never told anyone what had happened, and no one had ever asked, not even about the hair. He suspected that John knew, at least some of it, because he had been the one who had found Michael on the ground, dying. "You know how it goes. Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Girl tries to suck life out of boy. Your average love story, though more literal in the life-sucking sense than most."

It had taken him . . . some time to get over it. When he had—when he finally started thinking clearly again—he'd done a search on the name Emmagen. The answer had been glaringly obvious all along, but then, they said that love was blind. Michael wouldn't go as far as to say blind, but definitely severely disabling.

"I have to compliment you on your acting skills," he continued. "It takes a lot to seduce a man without laying a finger on him." He still remembered the touch of her lips to his, the way it had made his heart pound, not in pain—not at first—but in exhilaration, at the rightness of it all. It was like everything had clicked, like this was how it was supposed to be. Then there was only pain and her hands, digging into his arms, holding him still.

Teyla didn't say anything; instead, she calmly put the glass of water down on a table and pulled off her gloves. He followed her movements with his eyes, then looked at her face again. Her eyes were hard—something he'd missed the first time around. The glimpses of steel had been there, even then, but he'd been too much of a fool to see them.

She moved, almost more quickly than he could react, but this time, he expected it. With a flick of his wrist, he flung a lamp at her. She crossed her arms in front of her face and managed to block it, but the impact made her stagger back into the kitchen. Relentlessly following her, he pulled loose her refrigerator door and flung it at her. He knew better than to give her time to regroup. She managed to stop it from hitting her entire body, pushing it away with her hand, but she grunted in pain and fell backward onto the kitchen table. It cracked under her weight, and she landed on the floor with a gasp among splintered wood.

Michael pulled a knife from the knife block next to the stove but paused, letting it hover midair in front of him. "You know what's ironic? Your father's death was an accident—the lab was supposed to be empty when the explosives went off. You tried to kill me in cold blood. Do your friends know? That their noble Teyla is actually a killer?"

Breathing hard, she grabbed two of the table's broken legs and stood, more gracefully than Michael would have managed under similar circumstances. That quiet grace had attracted him to her in the first place—the effortless way she held herself straight. Later, it had been how she'd looked at him like he mattered, like he was important, like he was . . . treasured.

Of course, it had all been a lie.

Teyla raised her makeshift weapons into a defensive position and charged forward. Michael threw the knife at her with his mind, but she knocked it away, sticks swirling in front of her. Michael stumbled back, barely avoiding a blow to the head as he threw himself aside, dragging a frying pan filled with vegetables from the stove and flinging it at her back. Somehow she sensed it and spun around, knocking them away. It gave him enough time to get some space to move into the living room.

"It was probably for the best anyway," he said as she followed him. "If I hadn't killed your father, one of the mutants he was torturing probably would have."

Something flickered in her eyes, and she faltered slightly. Michael didn't waste the opportunity. He knocked the sticks aside and grabbed her by the throat, pulling her shirt up so he didn't touch skin. He heaved and threw her on her back to the floor. "Oh, wait." He breathed hard, kneeling above her, eyes stinging. "I forgot. He was doing it for a noble cause."

She stared up at him with those damned eyes that had brought him down, the eyes that still had the power to make his heart beat harder. Then she grabbed his arm and twisted, spinning him around onto his back and straddling him, pinning his arms by his sides. He bucked up, but she was strong, and she held him down effortlessly.

Her voice was quiet, but he still heard every word with razor-sharp clarity. "All he wanted was for me to be able to touch people without killing them."

Michael's mouth twisted. "How sweet. Is that supposed to make me beg for your forgiveness?"

Her mouth tightened and she bent down. "I'm not interested in remorse. I'm interested in justice."

"Justice," Michael snorted. "You're naive if you think there's such a thing."

She leaned close enough for him to feel her warm breath against his face. "Do you feel guilty?"

"I thought you weren't interested in my remorse."

"I'm not, but I'm curious if you feel it."

He considered telling her how carefully he'd planned the Antarctica operation so that no one would get hurt, that at the time he'd just wanted to free the mutants without hurting the humans, and how it had all fallen to pieces, but what was the use? If he were to do it again, he wouldn't worry in the slightest about human casualties. The fewer humans there were, the fewer people out to kill mutants. "That," he said finally, "is something you should have asked five years ago."

She drew back, eyes steely. "I always thought that killing you would make me feel better."

"It might," Michael agreed. "You didn't finish the job last time. Now's your chance."

Her eyes flashed. "If you think I won't . . ."

Michael rolled his eyes. "All talk," he muttered. This time, he knew that his time was limited, so he didn't hesitate. He kissed her hard, almost brutally, biting at her mouth. Teyla made a noise in the back of her throat, and then released his arms and clutched the front of his shirt, pulling him closer. Michael moaned and slid a hand into her hair, tilting his head for a better angle and pushing his tongue deeper.

Then it started, and he groaned, this time in pain. Even though he was expecting it, it was still excruciating. Everything was being drained out of him, making him feel hollow and withered, an empty shell. And through it all, there was her, shining and brilliant and terrified, desperate and angry and sorrowful, as clear as that day when he'd felt her—the real her—for the first time and known he'd been betrayed. The pain was so intense that he couldn't breathe, and suddenly, Teyla jerked back.

"No," she said, voice rough and shaky.

He drew in a desperate breath, coughing, feeling like something was moving underneath his skin. "It's what you wanted," he managed to grit out, still breathing harshly.

"Yes," Teyla said quietly, "but it will change nothing. It will make nothing better."

"You'll get your revenge," he said, feeling his skin settle again.

"Justice," she corrected automatically.

"Of course." He almost felt normal again. He didn't know whether it was because the contact had been briefer this time around, or whether he was some how more resistant to her now.

Her gaze sharpened again. "Are you going to kill me?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Would I be able to?"

She amended it to, "Are you going to try and kill me?"

Michael lifted a hand to her face, stopping a hairbreadth from her cheek, feeling the warmth of her skin and the insatiable power humming beneath it.

He let his hand drop. "It would change nothing," he said, echoing her earlier words.

Teyla looked away, and he clenched his fist outside her view. She got up and stood by the door, arms crossed. Michael stood as well, legs a little shaky.

"How did you find me?" Teyla asked.

Michael snorted. "One must simply follow the line of drained bodies you leave behind."

He could feel her eyes boring into his back as he walked out the broken door.

***

Ironically enough, the Museum of Natural History was currently hosting an exhibition about evolution. The entry fee was ridiculously high, too. Rodney muttered a little as he paid it. He was paying money to look at what he could get at home for free merely by looking in a mirror.

He passed by the Neanderthal section and walked into the Homo sapiens section before stopping in confusion. Teyla was there, and he frowned. She was a better liar than him, true, but it wasn't like her to lie to Elizabeth about going home. And how weird was it that she'd gone to the same place as Rodney?

She turned her head and looked at him, and Rodney waved a little, making a "what the hell are you doing here?" face.

She smirked and then her eyes flashed, turning yellow for just a moment, and Rodney rolled his eyes and walked over.

"That's just sick, you know that?" he whispered loudly, making an older woman turn around and stare at him. He gave her a tight smile and then tugged on "Teyla's" arm, walking to the corner of the large hall.

John fluttered his—her—Teyla's eyelashes. "What? Does this dress make me look fat?"

"Stop jerking me around," Rodney said tightly. "What is so important that you just had to meet up with me? And why should I trust anything you say?"

"Hey, I'm not the one who almost sucked the life out of someone," John hissed, and it was bizarre hearing those words from Teyla's lips.

"No, you're just the one sneaking around, trying to kill people," Rodney hissed back.

"Look. I checked up on the files you stole." He paused and looked away. "I didn't know he was planning something so extreme."

"What? You thought he was just going to kill a couple of people?" Rodney said sarcastically.

John glared at him. "Will you shut up? I know where the activation machine is."

Rodney straightened up. "Where?"

John snorted softly and lifted . . . was he carrying a purse? "Yes, I'm going to give up my only bargaining chip without getting anything in return." He opened the purse and plucked a lipstick from it.

"Teyla doesn't wear lipstick," Rodney pointed out.

John gave him an unimpressed look and pulled out a small pocket mirror next. "Artistic interpretation."

"So, what is it that you want?" He watched with a strange sort fascination as John applied the lipstick while looking into the mirror. It took him a moment to realize that John was actually scoping out the rest of the room. Reflexively, Rodney looked around, but it was just them and the older lady, who was still shooting them odd looks.

"Money. A plane ticket." He shrugged and snapped the pocket mirror shut. "You know, the usual things that keep traitors and deserters alive."

"I can't promise you anything," Rodney pointed out.

"No, but I hear you're really tight with your boss." John winked and Rodney rolled his eyes and turned away. "Look, I need your help. Sure, I can sneak out of the country anytime I want, but I was found once,” Teyla’s voice went oddly flat and Rodney frowned, “I need the help of mutants to confuse the trail, make sure I can't be found."

He was watching the lady leave the room when John touched his arm. Rodney sighed. "What?"

John's eyes were serious. "I'm not just doing it for the money, you know."

"What? You're doing it because it's the right thing to do?"

John's crooked smile looked misplaced on Teyla's face. "Something like that."

Rodney shook his head and headed for the exit. "You wouldn't know the right thing if it hit you in the ass."

John sniffed and followed him. "That's no way to talk to a lady."

IV.

He wasn't surprised to find Elizabeth in her office, the room dark save for the light next to her computer. She frowned as he entered the room. "I thought you were going home to sleep."

"Yes," Rodney said dryly, "I see that you're following the 'everyone is going to bed early' order as well."

The corner of Elizabeth's mouth twitched. "I own the place. I don't have to follow my orders."

Rodney shook his head. "Look, I have some information. Well. Kind of."

Elizabeth folded her hands on her desk, giving him her full attention.

"One of the people working with the guy who made the nanovirus activation machine wants to defect." Her eyebrows rose and her mouth opened, but he waved a hand. "I know, I know, it's a long story, but the short version is this: he'll tell us where the machine is if we can get him out of the country to safety."

Elizabeth was staring at him, obviously wanting to say something, but finally she shook her head. "We'll talk about keeping dangerous secrets later. For now, how can we be sure that he's telling the truth?"

Rodney made a face. "We can't, but we have relatively little to lose. He's not asking for anything out of reach—money, some help from the reality-bending mutant thinkers. He's a mutant too. Did I mention that?"

She looked skeptical. "No. You didn't. Money in the hands of a criminal can be dangerous enough."

Rodney sighed. "Yes, yes, good point, but do you really think we have a choice?"

She rubbed her face tiredly and leaned back in her chair. "I don't know. We could either try and look for it ourselves and risk giving them enough time to finish the machine, or we could trust your defector and hope that he isn't double-crossing us." She gave Rodney a tired smile. "Neither option is making me crazy with joy."

Rodney made a noise of agreement, secretly relieved that the final decision wouldn't lie with him.

Both of them looked up at a knock on the door. Radek stepped inside, looking from Elizabeth to Rodney. "I'm sorry, am I interrupting?"

Elizabeth smiled wryly. "No, Rodney was just bringing a new option to the table. I take it that since you seem to have skipped sleeping as well that you've been working on an antidote?"

Radek nodded. "Yes, I've started working on a prototype. I won't get any real work done until we hear from the forensics lab, but I've built the basic framework."

"Good, I—" Elizabeth broke off as Rodney's cell phone rang.

This time, Rodney didn't stop to wonder who it was; he pulled the phone out of his pocket and snapped it open. "Hello?"

"I can't talk long," John's voice was nothing more than a harsh whisper. "You need to get out. Michael is coming for the ZPM in twenty minutes. He's got men and a bomb."

Rodney frowned. "What—"

"Hurry, McKay."

There was a click in Rodney's ear and he didn't waste any time. "We need to get the ZPM out of here."

Elizabeth frowned and leaned forward in her chair. "What—"

Rodney clicked his fingers rapidly. "And we need to pull as many hard drives as we can."

Radek looked confused too. "Rodney—"

"Oh," Rodney stood, "and we need to evacuate the building, right now."

"Rodney!" Elizabeth said sharply.

"I know," Rodney said, walking rapidly toward the door. "Trust me." He turned back, ready to argue his case even though it would waste precious time, but Elizabeth was pulling a lanyard over her neck while lifting the phone.

"Evacuate the building," she ordered, probably to Bates in security. Then she stood and walked over to a bookshelf. "I'll take the ZPM," she said, tapping the wall next to the bookshelf just as a buildingwide alarm sounded the evacuation order. A piece of wood slid away to reveal a keypad and a card slot. "And when this is over, Rodney," she said, quickly pushing in numbers and swiping a card on her lanyard through, "you and I are having a long talk about what things are appropriate to keep from your boss and what things aren't."

***

"Over there, over there, that bank over there," Rodney gasped, indicating a row of computers with his head. He heard a screeching sound as a door was ripped off its hinges, then a clang as it hit a wall. "Oh god, they're getting close." He threw two hard drives into a duffle just as a computer ejected a DVD: a data dump. He slid the DVD into a case and added it to the bag. "I'm right behind you. Go." He zipped the duffle and tossed it to Radek. "Go!" he repeated when Radek didn't stop ripping the casing off a computer column.

"I would prefer not to leave you," Radek said stiffly.

"Hello, man who can walk through walls." Another clang sounded, this one much closer. "Would you please go," he hissed. "Right now. Go. Please. Now."

The force of his voice did the trick. Radek dropped his screwdriver, grabbed the duffle, and hustled to the side door. His last words to Rodney were, "You had better be right behind me." Then he was gone.

"Computer shutdown," Rodney muttered, thinking aloud. "I need to shut down the entire system. And I do that . . . here." He typed his password into the master computer and executed the system shutdown. "Radek, you'd better be running far and fast." It was obvious that Radek knew that Rodney wouldn't be right behind him. He knew Rodney too well. Rodney had to stall them, give everyone time to get away.

As if on cue, a huge crash sounded as the door to the computer center was ripped from its hinges. "Rodney McKay," John's voice said, and Rodney slammed his forefinger onto the Return key before turning to face John. One by one, from left to right, the computers blanked out. Rodney hoped it made a dramatic display.

"Hi, John," he said. He crossed his arms and leaned as nonchalantly as he could onto the table behind him. "I don't think I know your friend," he added as a white-haired man followed John into the room.

"Michael," the man introduced himself. "I'm here for your power device. I hear it's quite the thing—small, portable, powerful."

"Yeah, that." Rodney shrugged. "This is the computer room, not the power lab."

Michael gave him a hard look. He looked quite threatening, all in black. "My intel indicates that the device was kept here," he said coldly.

"Sorry, nope. It's not here." Rodney waved a hand. "Take a look around if you don't believe me."

Michael's gaze swept the room, taking in the blank computer screens. "I see you had some warning of our coming."

"That's why we keep telepaths around," Rodney said agreeably.

Michael half-pivoted and pointed at a man with light brown hair. "Lorne. Search this room and the two labs for the power device."

The man nodded shortly and left the room.

"It's called a ZPM," Rodney called. He indicated a shape with his hands. "About this big, kind of red-yellow-y. If it's plugged in, it glows, but if it's not, it doesn't." He sat himself on the desk as a few men—one with an eye abnormally big and black, and who looked quite startlingly psychotic—began sweeping the room, which consisted of looking inside cabinets, throwing the contents on the floor, and tipping over computers.

"And they leave behind the man who can't be killed." Michael crossed his arms and began to pace the room.

"But I'm nonthreatening," Rodney pointed out. He had to raise his voice to be heard above the crashes as computer equipment hit the floor. "If I can't be killed, then I can't hurt you." He made himself light and passed a hand through the computer screen beside him. "Luckily, I can still talk." He didn't dare look at John, who stood unobtrusively in the background—as unobtrusively as a man with decorated blue skin and startlingly yellow eyes could be. "And it's not true, that I can't be killed. I'm pretty sure I can. If you