The Furies

Chapter Twenty-one The Gift of Life

“Well?” Guide asked, looming over her.

“Just a second,” Jennifer murmured as she scanned the results, her lips forming the numbers soundlessly. “Almost done…” She ignored his quiet hiss of impatience, unwilling to rush. At last, she waved the datapad away and swiveled on the weirdly organic stool in order to look up at him. She could feel her heart pounding. “I think we’ve got it.”

He bared his teeth slightly, either amusement or derision or both. “You think.”

“Well, we won’t know until we really test it. But at this point…” She nodded. “Everything adds up. The simulations and lab tests have gone perfectly. So… I can safely say I think it will work.”

Guide snorted. “Such confidence.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one who’s going to die if it doesn’t,” she said. It had been easy to throw herself into this project. Easier than usual, actually, to lose herself in numbers and results, because the implications of success were so much harder to think about. But now it had to be faced.

To her surprise, he barked a laugh. “Your jest is not in the best of taste.”

“It’s not a joke,” she said, shaking her head. “The next step has to be a trial on a human subject. We can’t just assume it works from the simulations.”

“Of course it must be tested,” he snapped. “But it would be wasteful to test it on yourself. There are humans in the feeding cells. Use one of them.”

She stood, wishing he weren’t quite so tall. But then, Teyla somehow managed to project utter bad-ass from all of five foot three, so maybe it wasn’t height that she needed. “You want me to give someone who’s waiting to be eaten a drug that, in itself, could kill him. And then you want me to watch while you feed on him and take notes,” she said, putting as much anger as she dared into her voice. “And then, if it doesn’t work, are you really going to tell me that you would do what you did for Colonel Sheppard and give this random human his life back? He’s only food to begin with, right?”

“You were only food to begin with,” he snarled, stalking closer. He held up his feeding hand, close enough for her to see the slitted mouth pulsating. She shivered but didn’t step back. “Feeding is excruciatingly painful for the human, Fair One,” he said, and his name for her sounded almost like a curse. “It burns, and you will feel it as your body shrivels, as the life drains from you and I consume you. It is not some gentle sleep.”

Jennifer drew in a shaky breath. “Which is exactly why I’m not going to let you do that to anybody else as an experiment,” she said. “Experimenting on an unwilling subject, on a prisoner…that’s wrong. Beyond wrong. Which would narrow the choices to me or Teyla, and she wouldn’t be as reliable a test subject with her Wraith DNA. Which… which leaves me.”

“Leaves you for what?” Teyla asked, her boots clacking softly on the floor as she entered the lab. Guide bowed his head to her as if she really were his queen, before replying.

“This one wishes me to feed upon her,” he said, still sounding angry. “I have expressed my reservations about this plan.”

Teyla smiled thinly, after a moment, as if he’d added something else with telepathy, and for the hundredth time, Jennifer kind of wished she could hear what they were saying. She turned to Jennifer, her hairless brows furrowed with concern. “To test your retrovirus?”

“We have to know if this works. You know as well as I do that we don’t have a lot of time here. It’s like every time Rodney has tried something that would either do what it was supposed to or blow up.” Her voice shook on his name, but she pushed on, thinking of all the times he’d given her that triumphant, I’m the smartest man in the universe grin. “Sooner or later you’ve just go to flip the switch.”

Teyla shook her head. “But to risk your life for a test…”

“You’re risking your life,” Jennifer said. “Both of you. Teyla, I have to do this. We need to know. It’s a risk someone has to take, and I can’t ask anyone else to do it in my place.”

Teyla nodded, making the ebony curtain of her hair sway. “Guide?”

“We require a trial,” he admitted.

“Then let’s do it,” Jennifer said, heading for the workbench where their various prototypes were arranged, neat glass vials in an intricate bone holder. “There’s no point in putting it off. Teyla, I don’t know if you want to watch…”

Teyla gave Guide a warning look. “I insist on it,” she said.

Jennifer unzipped her jacket and peeled it off. Even in the warm air of the hive, once she was standing there in her tank top she could feel herself start to shiver. She’d never actually watched a Wraith feeding, only seen video, and heard people talk about it, about seeing it again and again in their dreams.

She drew up a dose of the preparation with shaking hands, and set it aside. “Let’s do this intravenously,” she said. “That should have the fastest effect.”

He nodded and took the tourniquet she handed him, tying it deftly above her elbow and taking her wrist in his off hand, tilting her arm, before flicking the cap off the syringe. “Are you very certain?”

Jennifer took a deep breath. This was the most dangerous part, she reminded herself. If they’d built the retrovirus wrong, she could die right here, and Guide couldn’t save her. So if she got through this, the actual feeding part shouldn’t be so bad.

“I have a video for my dad,” she said, as clearly as she could. “In my top desk drawer. If anything happens…”

Teyla nodded. “Of course.”

“Tell Rodney… tell him I never stopped trying, okay?” She swallowed hard against the knot in her throat.

Teyla met her eyes, her gaze steadying. “I will tell those who love you of your death. I will be your witness, if it comes to that,” she said. “But it will not.”

Jennifer tried to smile. “I hope you’re right,” she said, and looked up at Guide, watching her with his unfathomable golden eyes. She closed hers and took a breath, steeling herself. “Do it.”

The needle pinched going in, and worse as he pushed the plunger. Jennifer hissed when he withdrew the needle and clapped her other hand to her forearm as he tugged the tourniquet free. Pain seared through her veins, every beat of her heart like a knife in her chest.

“Jennifer!” Teyla’s voice was sharp with fear, but Jennifer’s teeth were gritted too tightly to reply.

And then, as abruptly as it had begun, the pain stopped, leaving only a vague tingle in its wake. Still panting slightly, Jennifer straightened, one hand splayed on the edge of the workbench for support.

“Are you all right?” Teyla asked. “What happened?”

“That just…ahh, really hurt,” Jennifer said, trying to breathe. “We’ll have to see if we can do something about that little side effect.” She looked up at Guide with a sudden unexpected feeling of power. If this had worked, he couldn’t harm her.

“Come,” he said, stepping back into the center of the room, beneath the place where the ribs of the ship met and tangled, like branches in the woods. She was going to have to cross the room to him, she realized. He wouldn’t come to her.

“I will be here, watching,” Teyla said, and Jennifer couldn’t tell if that was threat for Guide or reassurance for her.

“I know.” Jennifer drew in a breath and made herself look at Guide as she walked toward him. He was standing rigid, his eyes on her, his feeding hand tensed at his side. “I trust him.”

He reached out as she approached, and she flinched before she realized he was reaching for her with his off hand. He traced a finger along the curve of her cheek. “You should not trust so easily, Fair One,” he said, very quietly.

“I don’t,” she said. She found herself studying his face. Even this close, he really did look like some older gentleman. Someone’s father. She could imagine Rodney like this, with amber eyes and green-pale skin. Surely his exasperated look would still be the same. “But I trust you.”

He shook his head, and then bowed it as he had to Teyla, silver hair falling over his shoulders. When he straightened, his eyes found hers. “Your faith is not misplaced. I promise it.” He lifted his feeding hand, unbearably slowly.

“You can’t hold back,” she said. “You have to really feed on me, like any other human, or this will all be for nothing.” Guide’s jaw tensed, his hand arched with the effort of holding it still. Her knees were trembling, her heart fluttering like a trapped bird. “You know that, right?”

“I do,” he said finally, his voice rough as stone. His hand inched closer to her chest. “Are you prepared?”

Jennifer took a deep breath and nodded, unable to speak.

“Know that I would not do this if it were not necessary,” Guide murmured. He gripped her shoulder with his off hand, holding her in place, and pressed his feeding hand to her chest.

His sharp nails bit deep, and a gasp at the shock turned to an involuntary shriek. She’d thought she was ready, thought she understood what was coming, but nothing could have prepared her for this.

Fire. Fire worse than the drug, worse than boiling oil, seared through her veins, blooming out from her chest in a burst of pain so intense she couldn’t even draw breath to scream again, tears flooding her eyes. It built unbearably, and then blossomed into even more intense agony.

Then the pulling started. It spread from her solar plexus to her toes, to her fingers, her face, her back, ripping something out of her, tearing it from her no matter how hard she fought, and now she could hear herself screaming again, every muscle in her body cramped and rigid, fighting the endless pain.

Her knees gave out, and only Guide’s hand on her shoulder was keeping her upright, his claws digging into her skin. Her throat was raw, and the world was reduced to ripping and burning and wave after wave of pain. There was a heartbeat pounding in her ears, a frenzied drum, and she could hear a high-pitched, keening wail like something dying.

There were knives in her veins, razor blades, shredding her from the inside, and the world was only pain. There was nothing else, would never be anything else —

The screaming grew strangled; weak. Trailed off.

The drum was slowing. One heartbeat, and then another, her chest clenching, and then nothing but silence.

Oh, God. Help me, she thought, quiet and startlingly clear.

The pain stopped.

Then there was nothing at all.

*Stop!* Steelflower’s shout echoed through Guide’s mind, compelling and insistent. Almost, almost he would have stopped. The draw was slowing to a trickle, life flowing into him faint and pure, the rattle in her chest telling him that the end was close. *Stop!* she shouted again, and this time there was her knife at his throat, claws against his wrist.

Guide lifted his head, his eyes opening, and he felt her blade then against his hand, ready to plunge into the wrist of his feeding hand to make his claws open. *I must not,* he said.

*It is not working. You are killing her!* The point digging in, her mind voice harsh.

*I know,* he said.

The woman beneath his hand looked ninety, her hair pale as milk, her eyes rolled up in their sockets, agony beginning to leave her face for slackness, her pulse slowing to twenty beats a minute.

The point of the knife dug in, drawing blood.

*If I withdraw now it will kill her,* Guide said, and his eyes met the Queen’s. *She cannot take the shock again. She is not as strong as Sheppard.* He saw him in his mind’s eye, Sheppard shriveled like this, lying helpless on the grass, borrowed life to heal. Borrowed, and then returned.

Steelflower recoiled in horror, and in that moment he showed her what he would do, let her feel as he felt, the draw, the intimacy of it. What it was to feed, what it was to feel life flowing into his hand. Slower. Her heartbeat slowing. And now the reverse. It was not pain to return life. It was ecstasy.

To feel it wash from him, pure and sweet and true, flowing into the Fair One like light… No, nothing so simple as light. Life was not so fragile. It was darker and messier, emerald and a thousand other shades, rich and complex, to take and to give, salt and dark. The knife in the back of his wrist was a spur, and he put his head back, feeling the Fair One’s body arch as she took a shuddering breath. Air rushed into her lungs, and her face flushed, wrinkles smoothing as Sheppard’s had, as though years erased themselves, as though time ran backwards.

Steelflower felt it through him, mind to mind, her hand on him. To mingle life was a primal intimacy. So had the First Queens fed, mind to mind and heart to heart. So might any demand the life of their blades, life given back to favorites as profound sharing. So might brothers in spirit.

That was what he had given Sheppard — full life taken and restored, as brother to brother. That was what he gave the Fair One.

She coughed, and her body shook. Hair like ripe grain again, her cheeks full and pink. Her eyes opened. The memory of pain was in them even as life flowed through her veins, even as he withdrew his claws, skin closing to faint white lines against her flesh.

“Jennifer! Jennifer, can you hear me?” Steelflower’s voice was low and urgent, her other hand rising to rest against the Fair One’s neck, checking the pulse there. “Jennifer?”

And then knowledge flooded through her. She turned her head and coughed, sweat breaking out on her forehead, her face against Steelflower’s hand. “It didn’t work,” she whispered.

“It did not,” Guide said, and his voice was heavy.

“Jennifer?” Steelflower turned her face gently. “Can you see me?”

“Yes.” Her voice was thready, but her eyes fastened upon Steelflower readily enough. “It didn’t work.”

“That is not important right now,” the queen said, and there was anger in her voice. “What is important is that you live.”

“I…”

“I fed your life back to you,” Guide explained. “As I did for Colonel Sheppard, time and ago. Like him, you will live. And in time it will trouble you as little as it does him.”

“It didn’t work.” She closed her eyes.

“It did not,” Steelflower said. She turned her eyes to Guide. “What does she need?”

“Rest,” Guide said. “It is shock. Nothing more. All the life that was hers has been restored to her, every year. I have kept nothing.”

Steelflower’s eyes were hard. “I see that you did not.”

Guide spread his hands and let her see the truth in his mind. He had held nothing back, no more than with Sheppard. And yet this defeat was bitterness in his throat. He reached down again and saw the Fair One flinch.

*What do you do?* Steelflower demanded in his mind.

“I would merely carry her to her chamber,” he said aloud. “So that she may lie down in comfort and rest.” His eyes went to Steelflower. “Unless you would rather carry her.” Queen she might be, but she had only a human’s strength, and the Fair One was taller and heavier.

“Carry her,” Steelflower said. “Come, Jennifer. We will put you to bed. You will lie down and sleep to regain your strength.”

He half expected the Fair One to argue, but she did not, only closed her eyes like a tired child and he lifted her up as though she were one in truth. Steelflower went ahead of them through the halls, doors opening before her, to the rooms they shared as though they were sisters. He laid her on the bed and she curled into a knot, her face tight.

“Sleep,” Steelflower said, and laid her hand against her hair. “I will not go away.”

The Fair One nodded, but she did not speak, her eyes closed.

*Come,* Steelflower said mind to mind, and she drew him away, to the other side of a fall of cloth that screened the sleeping chamber, her hand on his wrist.

*I did as I promised,* Guide said, for he did not like the anger he felt in her. *You know that I have not played you false.*

*I know,* she said, and her eyes slid away from his. *It is not that.* Her head dipped, and for a moment she looked like a young queen in truth, faced with first darkness as anyone will be.

*What then?* Guide asked more gently.

*It is only that I had stopped hating you.*

*Only that.* Guide turned his hand in hers, palm to palm. *That is a small thing.*

*It does not work,* she said.

*It does not work this time,* he replied. *It would be unusual if it did. These things take much work. Next time…*

“There will not be a next time,* Steelflower said, and her voice was sharp. *Is that what you propose? To do this to her again and again?*

*I had suggested some other…* he began.

*You sicken me.*

*Yes.* He willed her to meet his eyes and she did. *But tell me you have never killed, Teyla Emmagan.*

She turned her face away, and he knew it was not he she hated. *There will be no second trial,* she said. *I will not be a party to this. I will not let you kill her and revive her again and again, as though you were her torturer. I am taking her back to Atlantis to Dr. Beckett’s care.*

He felt the diamond-hard edges of her mind and he nodded slowly, knowing there was no challenge that would persuade her. *As you will, My Queen.*