"Was that what I think it was?" Rodney asked as he, too, regained his senses. "And you'd think that it wouldn't feel as bad the second time, but this one was worse than the first."

"Unless these visions are doing neurological damage," Carson reminded Rodney. "Then it'll just get worse every time."

"Not confidence-inspiring there, Carson," John muttered. "How did I know it was you two in that scene?"

Rodney sat up and patted down his vest, disappointed to realize that he had no power bars left. "I just knew, as soon as I saw you two. It was automatic. But the whole shapeshifty thing? Really cool."

John looked around at the walls, noting that the script was no longer moving. "Yeah, but the part where you can't do anything is disturbing." He tested out trying to stand and found that, if he moved slowly, he could get upright. A few seconds afterwards, the dizziness in his head abated. "Get up. We've got to keep going."

Rodney scowled, even as he got onto his knees. "It won't kill us to catch our breath. Besides, I want to know why we're having these visions."

"It's this cursed place," Carson replied. "That's doing it to us. But John's right; we have to go on."

"Let me see the map," Rodney demanded as he joined the others. "We're not doing very well at getting the layout of this place, you know."

Carson scowled at Rodney for the insult just paid to his hard work, foisting the map at the scientist with a huff. "Perhaps you should try making notations while we walk," He said shortly. "Oh and by the way, I've a theory that the temple's interactions with us have something to do with touching or looking at the carvings, so make sure not to look away from them for very long. Or blink too often."

Rodney glanced up from the map he was studying, just long enough to bump into John--who was trying to lead them farther along the hallway. "What are you talking about?" He asked Carson, clueless as to what the man was talking about.

Carson rolled his eyes and pushed on Rodney's back to get him going again. "Mark as you walk, Rodney, and do try to keep up. These hallucinations aren't happening randomly. Try to pay attention?"

Up front, John tried to suppress his laughter as Carson chided Rodney. McKay himself was nearly speechless, since it was almost always he who did the berating, if any was to be done. John himself kept his eyes trained on the hallway, looking ahead enough to be aware of when they reached a fresh section of wall. At the moment, they were still in an area where the script had stopped moving, and John thought that maybe he preferred it in motion. When the script was stationary, the temple felt oddly dead. The air around them didn't move at all and was colder than usual. He also noticed that they weren't running into temporal distortions the way they had before, but he didn't mention it to the others. Rodney most assuredly had noticed, and if the scientist had a theory about it, he'd be sure to say it out loud.

The hallway began to curve sharply back and forth, forming serpentine switchback turns. The hypnotic script began moving at about the same time they reached the undulating section of hallway so John slowed down, knowing that marking their map would be more difficult with this new formation.

"I don't think it has to do with touching the walls," Rodney protested as they slowed down. "Or looking at them. Or where we are, for that matter; the first time it was in that funny triangular room and this last time was in a hallway. It's random."

"We don't have enough data to draw a conclusion," John said, mimicking Rodney rather convincingly. In his own voice, he continued. "Hell, we don't even know how long we've been in here."

Rodney snickered. "And here I thought you military types could tell time without your watches."

John glared over his shoulder at the furiously scribbling scientist. "It would help if we weren't stuck in a building that likes to fuck around with time. Remember those little pockets of distortion, hmm? There's no way of telling if the whole building is in one of those and we just don't know it."

"You know, John, that's not making me feel any more confident in our chances of survival," Carson muttered. "And we've turned completely around, haven't we?"

Rodney stopped walking and reviewed his notes. "You know, I think we have."

John stopped a few yards ahead and looked into a side room. "Hmm... Let's try this room."

"Why?" Rodney asked, walking up to join him. "Oh."

"Oh what?" Carson inquired. He looked into the room and saw what the others were seeing--a large room that opened onto yet another hallway. "That would explain the circular feeling."

"We've been walking around in a circle?" John asked curiously. "It didn't feel like a circle."

Rodney simply lifted one eyebrow, daring John to think their current prison had any rational features. "Shall we?"
They crossed the room quickly as John led them to the right, aiming for that portion of the hallway. Unlike the one they'd just left, this hallway was straight, right up until it split again. John paused, looking left and right. Both directions looked exactly the same to him.

"Rodney, you pick this time," John stated. "Maybe it'll make a difference."

"Left," Rodney said as he marked his map with more symbols. "Although I doubt it matters one whit."

John dutifully led them to the left, wishing he'd brought along a canteen of water. He wasn't seriously dehydrated, at least not yet, but his mouth was getting sticky and dry. That was one of the few ways he had of determining that they'd been trapped inside the temple for several hours, but nowhere near a day.

"Hey," Carson called out as he looked into a room they were passing. "This one's got carving on the floor."

"Really?" Rodney murmured, turning back to investigate. "So it does. Odd."

John peered over Carson's shoulder, fascinated by the moving floor. "Mark that down; we've not seen that before."

Rodney was about to remark that he, of all people, would know how to record data when the dizziness hit again. The last thing he felt before unconsciousness hit was sliding against Carson as they tumbled to the ground in a tangle of limbs.

Rodney watched as one lonely figure walked between looming, malevolent metal walls, its head bowed in defeat. It was hard to believe that he was watching the last one, that there weren't any more of them out there, lurking in the shadows. After this one was put down, the Inoheiaka would be gone. Inside his mind, Rodney wondered about the intensity of the dread he felt and why that solitary figure would incite such an emotion. Vague images appeared; ones of death and destruction, of isolation and hatred.

The one he was playing refocused on the screen it was watching, seeing the beginnings of a parade in the distance. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. The rational part of his mind said he should be ecstatic, celebrating along with his friends and family. After all, they had been enduring the Inoheiaka for how many generations? The occupation had lasted so long that no one alive had memory of talking to someone who even remembered what it was like before the beginning of it. Before the upheaval and defeat of the Inoheiaka, some of the youngest of them thought that life had always been submerged in the deepest ocean, in the trenches and underneath the ice where the Inoheiaka refused to venture. They thought the stories of vast cities and glorious civilization were just that--stories. Myths made up to make their simple, backward existence seem less of a burden of inertia and more of a fight for survival.

Now they knew the truth. The first to emerge, those who fought the initial battles, reported that their long-lost cities were still there. Aged but not fallen, the Inoheiaka had simply moved in, and why not? It was far more economical to take over than to destroy and rebuild. The sekoy'e themselves did the very same thing, adapting the ocean floor instead of trying to recreate it entirely.

Today those doubting youth were ancients, and Rodney knew that in a few generations young people would say that living in the water had been a daydream of their ancestors and not an eternity of exile. That would be long after the last Inoheiaka was executed, bound and drowned for its part in their suffering. No one ever mentioned the fact that the sekoy'e had abandoned executions many centuries before the Inoheiaka arrived; they just watched in rapt fascination as each report rolled in, of each death.

Again, the rational part of Rodney's mind understood; the Inoheiaka were dangerous and had no redeeming qualities. They lived to torture and fed off suffering. They fed off his kind, as though sekoy'e were some sort of delicacy.

Rodney shuddered as he thought of being consumed alive and thought that maybe, just this once, it was alright not to think about it anymore. He was grateful, then, when someone familiar approached and dragged him from his musing. Rodney was having a hard time telling himself apart from the one he was in; he couldn't tell which emotions were his and which were his host's. The revulsion he felt in response to his relief was confusing and he hated it, that sense of disgust and happiness combined.

•••

"Why do you watch?" Carson inquired as he joined Rodney at the dim, flickering screen. "It's the same every time."

Beside him, Rodney grimaced. "I don't want to forget, is all."

"We're not likely to do that," Carson countered, wondering exactly what they were going to be forgetting. Then he knew, as though it had always been there, and once he knew Carson wished he hadn't wondered at all. "Not at all."

"Right," Rodney huffed, turning the screen off. "You know we will; we always forget. We forget and then we mock our distorted memories, turning them into caricatures. Then the caricatures turn into myths and the myths are discounted by rational minds and--

Carson slid closer to Rodney, silencing the other with a touch. "We won't forget, because we won't let ourselves. This isn't like before." Carson liked the way touching Rodney felt in this form. It wasn't like human skin, with simple pressure and warmth and texture blending together. He could feel Rodney, almost taste him and the way he was agonizing over his own thoughts. The longer he touched, the more the thought that maybe he could feel Rodney underneath the cloak of this person he was locked in.

"Why not?" Rodney asked harshly. "It only took a generation to forget what we learned in the ocean, you know. What happened to our mercy?"

Carson thought maybe he knew the answer, but his host was of a different opinion. "It's here, if you'll look," He said softly. "They could've been tortured, as they tortured us. Or humiliated, put on display as a trophy."

"Somehow I doubt they see grace in their own executions," Rodney replied swiftly. "I certainly don't."

"But you see the necessity of it," Carson countered, even though he himself didn't. "What is there for them here, but death? Ours or theirs, but there is nothing else."

•••

John clasped his disruptor, aiming it carefully at the figure in front of him. A dozen others accompanied him, forming a circular unit of guards, all almost hoping the Inoheiaka would try something, anything to let them fire. John knew it wouldn't, though, not when it knew what was coming. If it stayed obedient and passive, its death would be quick and painless.

It was an option his people had never been given, and inside the body he'd been given this time, John wondered if he'd feel the same frustration as this person. If he'd seen all of his kin killed in the waning days of a war that spanned a thousand years, would he want to make the last symbol of that battle pay? Could he restrain himself from simply taking what he wanted?

John knew, somehow, that disruptors were very painful, especially if used to injure and not kill outright. The Inoheiaka could endure many wounds, all excruciating, before succumbing. John's job, however, was to lead this thing to its formal hearing--all for show, of course, because all Inoheiaka were guilty of genocide--and then take it away to be killed.

Painlessly, because sekoy'e were a merciful people, even after so many years of torture and death. The method of execution, thus, didn't make the Inoheiaka suffer, but it still managed to feed the bloodlust his people wanted, the vengeance they craved. Salt water, because that's the sentence the Inoheiaka gave to the sekoy'e. Mercury and iodine, because they killed Inoheiaka faster than the saline did. Neat, quick, and satisfying.

John tried to shudder in revulsion; he'd killed many times but he'd never been involved in an execution, not of any kind. He didn't want to be here now, trapped in the body of someone who wanted to do it, to push the right button and put a seal on a genocidal campaign justified by an equally grotesque bloodbath committed on another people.

They arrived at the judicial chambers and waited for the quintet of judges to appear. John began to suspect that this hallucination-vision-event was some sort of lesson--as had been the previous ones. He was supposed to be learning something, gleaning some sort of wisdom from this moment.

Then the trial began and John was forced to pay attention by the anxiety and anticipation his host felt. The words were droning and repetitious. Yes, the Inoheiaka was a war criminal, yes it participated in atrocities to innumerous to list. Yes, the obvious and only conclusion was that it was guilty and had to die. Yes, it was time to go kill the thing.

John took his position again as the Inoheiaka was led away. The proceedings had been short and Spartan, a small gesture for those sekoy'e who felt bad about annihilating another species, even in defense of their own. The execution would still happen, but no one was supposed to feel especially good about it.

He knew there would be parties and parades, and maybe even a riot, afterwards. But officially, they mourned this death as inevitable. John was, in his own mind, amused at how political hypocrisy seemed to know no boundaries.

The Inoheiaka, passive up to this point, seemed to balk when they approached the execution chamber. John stepped forward, brandishing his disruptor, while the other guards closed ranks. After a moment, the Inoheiaka walked into the clear, empty chamber and the door slid shut.

As soon as the lock engaged, the cell's ceiling tiles flipped up and its reservoir emptied downwards, inundating the Inoheiaka. It thrashed once, and then twitched. By the time the reservoir emptied and the cell filled, in all less than three seconds, the thing was dead; a thin stream of fluid seeping from its mouth to diffuse into the water.

John fought the overwhelming feeling of triumph and elation that rushed through him.

Carson woke up to the sound of retching. He fought his own vague nausea and disorientation, pushing himself towards consciousness so he could find whoever was suffering. Bodies pressed on either side of him, one shaking violently Once he could open his eyes, Carson found John crouched over, balanced on one arm with the other holding his stomach.

"Easy," Carson murmured, reaching up to rub John's back. "Bad one for you?" He whispered, willing Rodney to wake up. His own experience hadn't been great, but nor had it been enough to invoke such a response. John's might've been different--he hadn't actually appeared in Carson's--but it could also be a negative reaction to the process itself. Carson feared that they were doing real damage. His own head ached in a way that put hangovers to shame.

"Worst," John said hoarsely. "You?"

"Not so bad. Rodney was there," Carson replied. "Were you hurt?"

John shook his head and sat back, his stomach finally a little calmer. Beside him Rodney stirred, grumbling. "Then what did it?" The scientist inquired as he rubbed his eyes. "We watched television and argued."

"I..." John started, eyes sliding closed as he recalled the execution. "What did you watch?" He asked instead of discussing what he wasn't ready to delve into.

Carson and Rodney shared a glance before answering. "A prisoner," Carson replied. "There'd been a long war and it was the last one. I think I was happy about that."

"It was going to be executed," Rodney added slowly. "I wasn't as happy, though. Carson argued with me about it."

John sighed, wishing he'd been in their vision instead of his. "I was at the execution," He explained. "I helped do it."

"Oh," Rodney murmured. He reached out, wrapping an arm around John's shoulders. "That must've..."

"Yeah," John grunted. "It was." He settled back a little, not quite ready to stand up. "I liked it."

Carson blinked. "You liked it?" He really couldn't see John liking an execution; maybe he'd think it was necessary or even appropriate. But he wouldn't ever enjoy it.

"No," Rodney said, shaking his head. "The person you were in liked it. If you liked it, you wouldn't be fucked up right now."

"Right," John hissed. "I didn't really try to stop it, though. I just...watched."

Rodney shrugged. "I didn't like watching the thing on television, where they were leading the thing away. My host person didn't like any of the executions, but he never did anything about it."

John waited for Rodney to continue, but the man never did. "And? Is that supposed to make me feel better?" He asked Rodney shrugging off the man's arm. "It doesn’t, by the way."

"It wasn't us," Rodney insisted. "Or you'd be a monster and Carson wouldn't be far behind. The good doctor here," Rodney informed John, "Thought all those executions were a good idea. How very life-affirming of him."

"Not meaning to offend, but Rodney's not exactly a picture of ethical high ground," Carson murmured, "But he was the only one whose host was troubled by this, it would seem."

"Next time?" John grumbled as he tried to stand up, propping himself on Carson as he did so, "Let Rodney get the murderers. I'd pay to be the one all tortured by my conscience."

"Thanks," Rodney said dryly as he stood. "So..."

John ignored Rodney as he searched for a stick of the gum he knew he'd stored in his vest somewhere. He'd traded Ford for the candy, and while it was a rare and precious thing, this was a moment where he needed it. John sighed happily as he found the gum and chomped down on it, grateful for the overpowering mint that washed away the lingering taste of stomach acid. "You know," John said around the gum, which he wasn't about to share with anyone, "I think we're supposed to be learning something from these visions."

"What?" Carson murmured, gesturing to Rodney for the map and pencil. Rodney took lead as Carson began marking the map and John fell to the back, herding Carson along.

"You think these visions are some ancient alien morality play?" Rodney asked John. "Because if they are, they're fucked up."

"The aliens, or the visions?" Carson murmured. "And hey, I thought we were going that way."

"The script over there stopped moving," Rodney reminded him. "So if we go there it's gonna feel hinky. Remember hinky?"

"Both are fucked up," John answered. "But yeah, I agree. We're supposed to take something away from the experience. Besides a headache."

"God save me from high-minded aliens," Rodney spat as they once again marched down a long hallway full of doorways and rooms. "Why can't aliens be simple people, with good food and useful technology?"

John considered the question for a moment. "Because that would throw Murphy's Law into disarray?"

"Stop using big words," Rodney told John. "That's my thing. You're supposed to charm aliens into submission. Throwing a big vocabulary around to confuse and obfuscate is my superpower."

Carson frowned. "Are you two insane?"

"No," John and Rodney said together. "We're trying not to lose our minds just now," Rodney added. "Because if I stop to think about the situation we're in, I'll claw my eyes out."

"I see," Carson said, obviously not seeing. "So what's my superpower?"

Rodney smirked. "Sexy accent."

"Why do you get the only really useful superpower?" John asked Rodney. "I don't think charm and talking funny really count as useful."

"I don't talk funny," Carson muttered darkly. "And this is absurd. Was that a room or a hallway we just passed?"

"Hallway," Rodney told Carson. "And I didn’t say you talked funny; I said you had a sexy accent. There's a difference."

"There is?" John questioned. "Dare I ask?"

Rodney's smirk widened. "Talking funny makes me laugh. When John tries to sound intelligent, it sounds funny and I laugh. Carson's accent is sexy. When he talks, I want to jump him."

Carson blinked and swallowed before letting a small smile curl his mouth. "All right, then," He murmured happily, resuming his map notations.

"I do not try to sound intelligent," John ground out between clenched teeth. "Did it ever occur to you that I might actually be smart?"

"Briefly," Rodney admitted. "Before I received evidence to the contrary."

"What evidence?" John asked, suspecting that Rodney was about to throw Chaya at him. That or the time he'd bedded Rodney.

Rodney silently debated whether he would survive dredging up John's miserable personal judgment but decided there was no better time than in the middle of a life-or-death crisis. "Well...walking out on me like I was last week's garbage wouldn't have made me suspicious if you hadn't already done the same thing to Carson. Now, me I can understand; my acerbic wit isn't for the faint of heart. But Carson? Now that took an abhorrent amount of pure stupidity."

Carson raised his head, staring at the back of Rodney's head. He couldn't believe Rodney had just said that, not out loud and not to John. He'd almost gotten over the entire thing, nearly to the point where he could seriously entertain letting Rodney inside.

But hearing it said out loud, that John had used and discarded him, still hurt but not as bad as hearing Rodney bring it up.

"Well," John said hoarsely. "That was low."

"No, that was accurate," Rodney said viciously. "You know as well as I do that if I wanted to swing lower, I could have and you'd be picking your balls up with tweezers and a magnifying glass when I was done with you."

"Rodney," Carson warned, finally finding his voice. "That was uncalled-for."

Rodney spun around, walking backwards as they proceeded through the hall. "No, it wasn't. We've been sitting together for how long, licking our wounds and wondering what was wrong with us, that we were okay for a quickie but so deficient he couldn't even face us afterwards. So I want to know, John, what was it? Too straight to be fucking guys? Is it a military thing? Or is it the fact that we're scientists--not really your type, not hot enough? What was it?" The longer Rodney talked, the more acidic his voice got, until finally each word fairly dripped with venom.

John winced, both at the tone and the content of Rodney's speech. He'd hoped, obviously in vain, that he'd never actually have to confront this issue. Ever, or at least not for a decade or so. "It wasn't you, either of you..."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Oh, great. The 'it's not you, it's me' thing. I hate that. What a cop-out."

"Rodney," Carson said again, mostly because he still wasn't sure what else to say. He had to get them away from this topic; if it didn't get them killed by the temple, the two men would probably end up breaking each other in half.

"Stop trying to shut me up, Carson," Rodney hissed. "So if it's not us, then what, exactly, is it about you that makes you run off in the middle of the night?"

Since none of them were paying attention to where they were going, they didn't notice when Rodney walked them right into a room that sat at the dead-end of the hallway they'd been in. The room was a large square, carved all over and lit more brightly than usual.

"It..." John began, "This isn't appropriate, you know. We're supposed to be getting out of here? Rescuing Teyla and Ford?"

"Don't throw that at me," Rodney said, no longer walking now that he realized they were in a room with only one exit. "It's not like we have anything to do but wander around until we accidentally find a way out of here--and that's not likely. So answer the question, John. What makes you do it?"

John frowned severely. "We should go," He insisted, turning towards the door. "Now," He ordered, pointing. "This is not the time, nor the place, Rodney. Get a move on, or we're leaving you here."

Carson's eyes widened. He couldn’t believe he'd just been put in the middle of this, that John had implicitly forced him to choose between them. "Excuse me?" He whispered. "What did you say?"

"We're leaving," John said flatly. "Come on."

"How dare you," Carson growled, fists clenched. "You..."

John stared at the wall behind Rodney for as long as he could, vaguely focusing on the ever-moving script that seemed to flow through the stone like water on sand. He could feel Carson and Rodney standing nearby; he could hear them, breaths heavy and moist-sounding. John didn't bother looking at them, knowing they were glaring. He just wanted to get out of here, out of this hellish building and back to Atlantis. He didn't want to dredge up his mistakes, or rehash what they'd done during moments of mutual insanity.

When reality took a sharp right turn and twisted jarringly over his shoulder, John felt no relief that he'd just escaped Rodney's interrogation and Carson's indignation.

The dry air was dusty now, almost gritty with fine particulate sand scouring at his skin. The nictitating membranes covering John's eyes let him see through the dirty, dun-colored storm but it hurt to do so. He stared out into the miasma anyway, tense with apprehension. Someone was out there, someone he wanted to hurt.

John shook his head, fuzzily remembering that this wasn't him, that what he was feeling was whatever this memory, this history no less, had felt, or should have felt. He didn't have any clue who was out in the desert storm, it was he who had been wronged, had had his family massacred and his house defiled. He wasn't the one betrayed by treachery.

John wasn't the one who was foresworn by his own actions, betraying his honor for a moment's material gain. He hadn't brought this on himself. All of this was at the feet of the long-dead person he was wearing like a mask. John just wanted to find the others and get out of this hellish place.

Then he heard footsteps—a slow, heavy shuffling sound that was completely out of place amongst the lighter, whistling-sliding murmur and scream of the storm. He tensed, extending a staff he hadn't realized he'd been grasping in one hand.

Out of the murk stepped Rodney but instead of feeling relief, John was flooded with rage.

•••

It was far too easy, Carson decided as he stared down at the packet of powder. Perhaps that was why so many railed against the act; if society was accepting then everyone would do it, as it took so little effort. Inside his mind, Carson screamed for his host to stop, that he wasn't ready to die for what had happened to him. To them.

He remembered those who fought against him on this, who had begged him to stay, to face his enemies and live through the humiliation and shame. He remembered and felt a frisson of regret for what he was about to do to them.

It was nothing, though, compared to the relief that oblivion would provide. Carson let himself think for another moment of times past and then opened the packet, consuming its contents in one swallow. Carson heard his own, human voice echoing his screams, even as the world faded away.

•••

Rodney's expression slid from exhaustion to relief to horror in the span of time it took John to bring his staff down against the man's neck. Blood flew up and out, congealing darkly against sand as Rodney fell to the ground, clutching his neck. John brought his staff up again, horrified by the wave of pleasure he felt at seeing Rodney suffer, at watching his life's blood pool in gritty globs and trickles as the storm stirred it 'round. This wasn't him, he didn't want Rodney dead, he wasn't this violence. He couldn't be.

Rodney saw the next blow coming and managed to roll out of the way, withdrawing a gleaming knife that was far too elegant to be anything but ceremonial. He wielded it awkwardly, but with just enough practiced technique to slice through the tendons at the backs of John's knees before John knocked the weapon away. Still, Rodney managed to gain his feet even as John fell to the earth, desperately seeking the focus required to put his body back in order. Rodney stepped into the shadow of John's shelter and closed up the wound in his neck, letting bones and tendons slide back into place.

John was almost healed, rage still clouding his mind, when Rodney struck again. This time the damage was real—Rodney had managed to keep a small disruptor hidden in the folds of his mantle, protected from the swirling sand. He slapped it against his palm and aimed at John's torso. Heat ripped through John, sending staccato bursts of lightning along his nerves as his entire midsection was paralyzed. He couldn't shift, couldn't move or pick himself up. The disruptor wasn't a strong one, but he was still incapacitated, and would be for long enough for Rodney to finish him off.

"You let him kill himself," Rodney hissed, eyes glowing darkly. "Because you couldn't control yourself and after, you were too afraid and too fucking guilty to face what you'd done."

"And that makes it right? You shamed me! My house, my clan, it's all gone now and for what? One man's life?" John spat back, bracing himself with his arms.

"The needs of the many oil the machines of decay," Rodney retorted. "When has the dignity of one been deemed suitable currency to buy the contentment of the masses?" His words were punctuated by sharp but brief blasts of the disruptor, each one agonizing. Rodney was working his way through John's body, hitting sensitive joints and muscles with surprising ease.

John hissed. "When was revenge a suitable rationale for genocide?"

Rodney said something in reply, but John never heard it as Rodney aimed the disruptor between his eyes and fired.