Author's Note: Seriously, if there is anyone still following this after six years, you deserve a cupcake.

Stargate Atlantis: Drawn to a Different Light

By Reyclou

Chapter 11 - "Shifting"

Teyla intentionally kept to the most damaged parts of the city, where power seemed unreliable and, hopefully, the city's sensors too. Unfortunately, without communications or map interfaces to guide her, she had to rely on her memory of her own Atlantis to get around. Even so, every hall, every turn, looked like the last, differing only in the battle scars and blast damage marring their once elegant form. It had worked, so far, but she was growing tired and the dead parts of the city were growing cold as night set in.

Her arms ached with the strain of supporting the weight of another human body, but she didn't slow down until she found herself in a darkened sector of the city where the architecture cast deep shadows. Until she could figure a way out of the city, she had to find a place to rest, if only for a few hours. They needed food, too, if the ache in her stomach was any indication. Out in the forest or untamed lands of the galaxy, she could keep the two of them alive and safe for weeks—indefinitely even, with fertile resources and good shelter—but Atlantis, for all its beauty and majesty, had no edible weeds, wild berries or wildlife. It was unlikely the food supplies here would be easily procured. She knew John had escaped and considered being willfully recaptured as a tactic, but her pride refused. If they wanted her, they would have to find her. Any kindness left in their alternate counterparts had clearly long since faded.

Teyla's head throbbed as she analyzed the desperation of their situation. So intent was she that she jumped as the softest of sounds echoed down the hall. Teyla immediately perked up, ears open and breaths shallow. Slowly she slid Elizabeth to the ground.

Scuff.

Scuff.

Scuff-scuff.

In perfect silence, she readied her weapon and ever-so-carefully gazed out from the shadows. Something moved and, in one fluid motion, Teyla lunged around the corner, bringing her weapon up, aiming it right between two bright and fearful eyes of a young Athosian boy.

"Jinto?" she whispered in surprise.

"Teyla," he breathed, trying to hide the fear in his voice. He stood perfectly still, even as she saw the will to run in his eyes. Yet he stayed, face toward her, and pleaded, "Please, do not shoot! I can help you."

Every fiber of her character rebuked her for drawing a weapon against her own people.

These are not my people, she consciously reminded herself. "I am not that Teyla."

"No, you are Teyla. The old Teyla, like the one we lost to the Madness of the Ancestor's City. You came out of the Ring of the Ancestors and now they hunt you. Please, come with me, I can help you!"

"I do not think so," she replied as she studied the boy. He was nervous, clearly, but it wasn't the unsettled energy of someone on the enzyme, rather, an honest, if subtle, fear and excitement.

Jinto took her pause as an invitation. "Please, Teyla, you must believe me. You must come with me now. There are others left in the city who will help you."

Somewhere a ways down the hall, a door swished open to the trampling of boots.

Teyla stared at the boy, debating for but a heartbeat before she grudgingly allowed Jinto to lead her away, pausing only to hoist Elizabeth's arm back over her shoulder.

Stomping strides followed them down the hall, around the corner, and past another bank of blown out windows. Her heartbeat doubled when she heard the crunch of glass beneath her feet. Another corner and the three turned down a hall so dark that Teyla instinctively went for a flashlight, but bodies loomed up beside her and hands grabbed her before she could reach it.

Weight and weariness had made her slow, and her fumbling attempts to fend off hands – further hampered by Elizabeth's body – equaled only a half-hearted resistance.

"Quiet! And calm your struggling!" scolded an Athosian voice.

"Please, Teyla! Do as they say!" Jinto urged.

She felt Elizabeth's weight lifted from her shoulders as she herself was stuffed through a door to the side. Before she could protest, someone pressed a cloak about her shoulders. Elizabeth, recognized only by the fruity scent of the curls that brushed Teyla's face, was quickly laid beside her.

Outside, she heard scuffling, glass crackling as it was crushed beneath heavy boots. A few deep notes sounded as words passed outside. The door was roughly shoved open and a flashlight beam passed around the room. However, the man holding the light apparently did not see what he expected, as he cursed loudly and, by the sound of booming footfalls, took off running down the hall.

Long moments passed before another spoke—and then it was all at once. Someone stoked a fire and brought the light up. She could now make out faces—Halling, Charin, Jinto, and others—and the lurch of nostalgia almost choked her.

These are not my people, she reminded herself and squared her jaw—until Halling looked at her with such an expression of profound awe that she could not help but ease her muscles a little.

"Surely you are spared by the Ancestors," Halling said, smiling. "Ease your worries. We sent the soldiers chasing two of our swiftest runners. Those heavy foots will be long lost and starving hungry before they even catch a shadow!"

Charin pushed a bow of dried fruits and meats into her hands before turning to warm a bowl of soup. Teyla's stomach rumbled at the hearty smell and her skin tingled at the warmth of the fire so that she had to smile to keep from crying. Her head warned that all this was very likely just another trick—another way to lure her into false security, into somehow playing into some wicked manipulation. She knew so very little about this Atlantis and what she did know was infected with lies and insanity. After all, what could possibly play with her emotions more than the voices of her own people calling out in desperation from an aching city? And yet these did not cry out, rather, they honored her as a friend thought lost but now returned home safe and sound. Despite their conditions, they retained a quiet dignity in their air and manner that spoke sincerity across the division of their destinies.

No, these were not her people, but they were quickly becoming her friends.

o0o

Major Sheppard quietly fumed as a nurse applied a soft cast to his wrist. Effort almost entirely wasted, by his measure. The hand would heal soon enough; living down the insult, that would take time. With nearly all military personnel fortified by the enzyme, injuries and illness largely fell into one of two categories: fatal and negligible, except for his current injury which was embarrassing and inexcusable. He chalked his poor performance up to the fact that acting like his infantile former self meant taking weaker doses of the enzyme. He had been worn and weakened when they jumped him. Simple as that.

The sight of himself all suited up like the day he walked through that damn gate for the first time—it disgusted him. Like the sharp memory of momentary mistake instantly regretted but never quite forgotten or forgiven, that uniform had come to symbolize everything that was ridiculous about his involvement in the expedition. He'd long believed he should have never come. He had convinced himself that, had he never set foot through the gate, the expedition would have been infinitely better off, existing for years in relative peace and secrecy. Then to suddenly come face to face with himself, action hero and savior of a glittering city where lives burned and broken in his own world carried on untainted somewhere out there—it sparked a kind of rage somewhere deep within, a confirmation that, somehow, he wasn't even worthy of his own name.

But this was getting him nowhere.

He looked around the makeshift infirmary—really just another hold-in-the-wall room of Atlantis that housed what was recoverable of the medical equipment, what wasn't used for enzyme distilment, anyway. Between the siege and the long war since, the infirmary was closer to a large pantry than a medical bay. Sensing the major's deepening brood, the nurse obediently finished wrapping, set down a measured dose of the enzyme already set inside a needle and slipped away as Dr. Weir sailed in through a sliding door.

She opened her mouth to give an update, but he cut her off, "We're handling this my way."

Dr. Weir rolled her eyes. "There's your way of handling a situation and then there's the smart way of handling a situation."

Sheppard mechanically followed the process of sticking himself with the prepped needle. "I'm done with the smoke and mirrors, Doctor. We are on one side, the rest of the galaxy, apparently, is on the other. It's time we make it clear that if they are not helping us, then they're in our way and nothing is going to get between me and the complete eradication of every last Wraith in this miserable galaxy so long as there is breath in my lungs." Needle empty, he tossed it back onto a nearby tray, rose to his full height and made to storm off, but Dr. Weir held firm.

"And if I told you that you could do it all in one shot?"

The major turned back to her expectantly.

"That Genii complex we've been looking for," Dr. Weir continued. "It's on the same planet as the Ancient device; the Genii have had control of it for some time, they just didn't know what they had until now. Now that it's been activated, we can't chance the Genii making use of it." She lifted an eyebrow. "How's that for two birds, one stone?"

The major's eyes narrowed as he considered this, "I want all Jumpers armed to the teeth and ready to move out ASAP."

o0o

Zelenka lead Colonel Sheppard almost wordlessly through a series of gates that easily bounced from one end of the galaxy to the other and back again before they finally stepped out of a gate into a dense, jungle-like atmosphere.

A firing squad met them, weapons raised, and Sheppard sensed more than saw snipers situated in the trees, beads drawn his vital organs. Sheppard immediately assumed a non-threatening pose as Zelenka scampered forward to confer with an officer standing behind the squad line. Moments later an airman slowly came forward with a frankly ridiculous collection of cuffs and shackles and Sheppard felt more than a little annoyed at the satisfaction with which the airman snapped and secured the trappings—not that he didn't understand all the precaution—but he was getting a little tired of playing prisoner.

A moment later the world around him flashed white and he suddenly stood not in a jungle, but a holding cell on what was unmistakably the Daedalus.

"Liar, liar, leather pants on fire!" Sheppard grumbled, still more than a little mad at himself for falling for Dr. Weir's story.

"Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard, I presume?"

Sheppard turned to see the familiar figure of Colonel Caldwell outside his cell.

Flippantly, he offered, "Colonel Caldwell, I presume?"

Unmoved, Caldwell continued emotionlessly, "I trust you'd consent to a blood test to confirm you aren't who you say you aren't?"

"Something tells me I don't really have a choice."

"At the moment, shooting you is still an option."

"Then I guess bring on the needles and grape juice," Sheppard smiled patronizingly.

Caldwell turned to leave, instructing that someone would be by shortly. Another door slid open to allow him to leave and Sheppard caught sight of the Satedan and the Canadian standing just outside. Sheppard had a hard time containing his surprise.

"Ronon? Rodney?"

Caldwell grudgingly nodded his assent on the basis that they were the two most qualified to discern it wasn't the lieutenant colonel and the two men dashed in as Caldwell stepped out. Despite the exchange, the events of the day left Colonel Sheppard more than a little suspicious and it took quite some time after sharing their sides of the adventure before he could consent to believe these were truly his members from his team.

"I hate it here," Rodney whined. "Canada is only, like, half a country here."

"McKay, Canada isn't a real country where we come from either," Sheppard snipped in a sort of testing playfulness.

The scientist glared back, "You know what, remind me to never save your life again."

"Deal, but only if we get Elizabeth and Teyla out of that place."

"Do you think they'll really hurt them?" Rodney questioned.

"Hard to say. The…" Colonel Sheppard searched for the right word, but couldn't find it. "The people over there, they're definitely us, but the enzyme has so messed with their heads, I'm not really sure what they're capable of, but from what I've seen, I think it's safe to say they're taking the kid gloves off. We're going to need serious help."

Rodney and Ronon shared a look. "Well," Rodney began. "The good news is that there is someone who may be willing to help."

The colonel tilted his head suspiciously, "And the bad news?"

"You won't want him to."