He was about to say something, although he wasn't really sure what, when a noise caught his attention. Carson was huddled in a far corner, rocking back and forth with his hands buried in his hair. Rodney's attention was also drawn that way and both he and John stood and went over to the man.

"Carson?" Rodney murmured, slowly pulling the doctor's hands down and away from his head.

Carson's eyes opened, immediately focusing on Rodney's face. "Too real," He whispered, gasping for air.

John frowned in confusion. Once again, they'd been separated but this time it was Carson hadn't been with the other two. "What happened?"

Carson's mouth opened and closed a few times, and he shuddered violently. "I…"

Rodney drew Carson close and after a moment, John did as well. "It wasn't real," Rodney reminded Carson. "You didn't commit suicide. You're still alive, still here."

Rodney's words surprised John, but they also made sense. Carson had been there, in a way. John wasn't sure which was more traumatic—fighting with Rodney and having the man kill him or knowing that they were fighting over Carson killing himself. Because of something he'd done to the man.

"I know… well, unless we're all dead and in this temple and someone else is playing through this godforsaken hell all over again," Carson muttered. "You two aren't looking all that happy yourselves."

John shrugged. "I think it's just too much to ask that we get to actually enjoy one of these little jaunts into the annals of someone else's nasty history," he replied, sighing. "I hate that it always feels like I want to, even when I don't."

"I didn't want to kill you, again," Rodney agreed, "But then again, I did. I was so fucking angry. I killed everyone, ordered children slaughtered—

Carson slid a hand over Rodney's mouth. "No, you didn't. Someone else made that mistake. You just got to see it all over again. None of this was us, even if it felt like it at the time."

The three of them stood there, leaning against each other, until they were a little more recovered. "Dare I even ask if we're any closer to getting out of here?" Rodney asked, looking around.

"At the risk of sounding repetitive, how would we tell if we were?" John replied. "Next time we go anywhere off world, remind me to pack morphine or something."

Carson winced in sympathy. "The headaches are getting worse, I know," He said ruefully. "And the visions are getting more vivid."

"Here," Rodney mumbled, handing over a small, oblong pillbox. "Aspirin."

John took the container gratefully, removing just one tablet before giving it to Carson, who also accepted one. "Not that one's gonna do much, but I guess it's better than nothing," John said as he swallowed it dry.

They were soon back in the hallway, where they were forced to walk through a long stretch of now-dead area. No script moved and the air hovered malevolently, as though waiting to attack. The first rooms they passed were similarly stagnant, so they didn't bother going inside. "I can't believe we're actually looking for more of those visions," Rodney remarked as they walked past another room.

"Staying here, while less painful, won't get us anywhere," John reminded him. "At least chasing the script moves us along."

"Here," Carson said, stopping at a crossway. "This way."

John led them to the left, the only direction where the carvings moved. "I think we're getting somewhere," He told the others, focusing briefly on the structure of the hallway. "Pillars, see?"

"Right, at least if where we're going looks like that great hall did before," Rodney replied. "And if we don't have aneurisms in the process."

"Rodney," Carson muttered warningly. "Do try to be optimistic."

"That's your job," Rodney shot back.

"No, we're not doing that again," John insisted. "No way, no how, just quit it."

"Actually, I was thinking," Carson said, changing the subject. "It's timing, perhaps. Touching doesn't matter, and looking isn't the issue. Maybe it's being in an area with moving script and the time just comes up for another vision."

Rodney thought about it for a moment. "So why would so much script stop moving after a vision?"

"Because each section is an event," John replied, starting to see things come to shape in his mind. "We're seeing a history, bit by bit. Each section is a different era, or part of the timeline."

"All out of order, though," Carson suggested. "I think it's clear that the sekoy'e built this temple."

"I wonder when, though," Rodney mused. "Before the Ancients arrived in the galaxy? We haven't seen any signs of them in the visions."

"And we found an Ancient corpse," John said. "Maybe this place is why the planet's 'gate was restricted."

"Why they couldn't have just not put one here in the first place, I'll never know," Carson grumbled. "We wouldn't be in this mess." He didn't add that it didn't look like anyone had gotten out--including the Ancients. To him, that boded ill for their own survival.

"Curiosity, perhaps," Rodney remarked.

John led them through the pillar-lined hallway, each man wondering when the next vision would hit. "So if it is based on time," John said, "How long do you think we have?"

"And do you think maybe each room in an area shows a different movie? Can we get popcorn?" Rodney interjected. "I don't think it works that way."

"Not that you do know how any of this works," John snapped. He realized as soon as he spoke, though, that he wasn't actually mad at Rodney. The strain of being trapped in this temple was driving him batty. "Or me, for that matter," He admitted.

"I'd continue this delightful sparring, but my headache's coming back," Rodney said as he reached for a handful of wall.

John and Carson reached for him together, easing him to the floor. "Hypoglycemia?" John asked Carson as they watched Rodney lose consciousness.

"I don't think so," Carson murmured. "You'd better lay down. It's easier on you than falling--

Carson fought the disorienting dizziness that scrambled his mind, hating the way these episodes, or whatever they were, affected him. If he had his druthers, he'd exit this entire hellish nightmare. As it was, all he could do was concentrate and attempt to curb the things this scenario's shell wanted to do, and that was almost always a futile effort.

As he slowly came to his senses, Carson noticed that his body was in its liquid form. The sensation wasn't as shocking as the first time he'd experienced it, but still it was a fundamentally different feeling than being human. He wanted to shake his head to clear it, but his body responded with something more akin to a twitchy shudder much like the way a horse twitched flies off its skin. Carson tried to think himself into a solid form, but found himself on the losing side of a battle against the instinct of his host. It was only then that he realized that he wasn't just in liquid form, he was immersed in liquid—water, to be exact. Then he noticed that he felt distinctly frustrated, almost the same way he felt whenever he was stuck in a meeting that had gone terminally of-topic.

::You aren't concentrating.::

Carson registered the comment as something between a voice and a sensation—much like the barest whisper of wind that he never could decide was the sound of air rustling against air or his own skin. The words crept into his consciousness with acidic amusement and Carson wasn't sure he liked the way communication occurred in this form.

::Or perhaps you would rather go back to work.::

The idea of doing that made whoever Carson was visiting extremely agitated and he felt his consciousness refocus itself. ::I'm concentrating,:: It thought indignantly. ::I just don't see the point in this exercise.::

The only response he got was an almost painful spate of a laughter-like crackling noise and Carson realized that it was Rodney who was so amused by his dislike for whatever they were doing—contemplation, he thought. Yes, he was supposed to be contemplating. John was probably around somewhere, in one of the others that Carson could now sense around him. It was intensely frustrating to be unable to perceive his environment the way he was accustomed to; he'd have given anything to be able to utilize a sense in the manner of a human.

As he was submerged in a considerable amount of very frigid water, that was unlikely. All his senses merged and overlapped in a way that reminded Carson of what he'd always imagined synesthesia would be like. If he had any clue what John felt like in this form, he'd be able to determine which of them he was-but he had no idea how to do that.
::We're supposed to be contemplating the artificiality of the boundaries between what we perceive as our self and what we perceive as the other, or the environment, as is our preference,:: Several other individuals commented. Carson wished he could roll his eyes. Elementary meditation was not his idea of an important lesson in anything, which meant that this morality tale, whatever it ended up being, was going to be extraordinarily boring.

::Recall that initial enlightenment occurs when the individual realizes that they and their surroundings are not a unitary being,:: Rodney began, and Carson could already feel his host's--and his own--mind starting to wander off onto other topics. ::This first stage of individual development is reflective of the evolution of the species itself. Until the moment when we understood that we and our surroundings were just that—ourselves engulfed by the other—we had no concept of our own existence.::

::And now that I've gotten there, you want me to stop thinking of myself as myself, and start thinking of myself as everything?:: Carson replied testily. He never had been one for philosophy, and his host was sure there was a school of something tasty swimming below them.

Rodney again laughed at him. ::Would anyone care to explain why that statement is indicative of fallacious thought?::
Carson felt someone nearby slide next to him. They didn't exactly blend together when they made contact, but he could suddenly feel the presence of another almost-inside him and something very nearly at the precipice of his perception murmured 'John' and he realized that John was, indeed, this one next to him. ::The first step is understanding the difference between the self and the environment.::

::Exactly,:: Rodney murmured encouragingly. ::Continue, please.::

The form that was John continued. ::Then comes despair in response to the suffering...:: Carson let his mind wander away, finding that when his host was daydreaming he had more freedom to focus on other things. He also got the distinct impression that John, or whoever John was, was reciting this speech from memory. That realization didn't make Carson feel any better.

::And how would you characterize that experience?:: Rodney asked calmly.

John's voice was, by now, almost droning--Carson thought he could almost hear John himself through the person he was inside and imagined that it was John's extreme boredom that was showing through. ::We experience our self, and our reality, as a process around us also. As it and us are not made of essence, but rather the experience of being....:: Carson found himself humming pub songs and wishing he had a beer--or something that reminded him of a squid, which was a little nauseating but seemed to appeal to his host as much as the beer did to Carson.

::Very nice,:: Rodney praised John, and Carson could almost feel both of them smirking at him. John would end up understanding this kind of nonsense better than him purely because his host understood it and Carson immediately felt awful for even thinking such a thing. John might actually know what he'd just said, or he might not—Carson had no way of knowing how much of that was John and how much was whoever he was being. Carson didn't know any of it, and it was because neither he nor this person he was in were very much enlightened.

Carson thought he might be developing this form's equivalent of a headache.

The other members of this free-floating group dispersed while Carson was pondering what the hell was going on, until all that were left were the three of them. He wanted to ask John and Rodney what was going on, but he'd already learned that such a thing was impossible. Other than the mildest of suggestions or moments when his host wasn't thinking anything at all, he was an observer, bound to feel and do whatever preordained actions were on the script being played out with him as a member of the cast.

::Do you frustrate yourself purposefully, or have you truly no concept of the importance of this area of study?:: Rodney inquired, drawing Carson back to the present.

::Some of us prefer pragmatic activities,:: John commented, sliding along Carson until he was in contact with both men. Carson felt a sudden awareness of a third presence—Rodney—alongside John at the surface of his form.

::Actually, some of us prefer things that do not drive us into the dreamtime,:: Carson grumbled. ::I know this is important, somehow, to some part of my maturity and of all of us getting out of this situation we're in. I just…::

::Would rather be on the surface, being killed by the Inoheiaka?:: John suggested softly. ::So long as we are here, they can't do anything to us. This is the only way we have to find a way to escape them.::

Carson felt a treacherously chilly dread wash over him at the mention of the Inoheiaka. Faded, secondhand images of death and destruction marched through his mind and he couldn't be sure if they were things from this scenario or a previous one, when he'd lived and died on a blackened battlefield. Or perhaps it was the way he knew this would play out at some point in the distant future-past, when the last Inoheiaka was put to death. ::I know,:: He murmured, letting his form follow the water's lazy current as it tried to stretch him out impossibly thin. ::There are times, though…::

::Patience,:: Rodney said, not unkindly. ::Is something you must remember that you cannot use up. If we are down here for hundred generations, or a thousand, it matters not one bit. So we cannot play in the air and the trees like our ancestors did; we have the water and the depths. So we have lost our technology; what did it truly give us? What could it possibly have held for us that we do not have now, within just ourselves? These things you long for are things you have never had, so you should not feel their lack. It is as though you yearn for pain you have never been so unfortunate as to feel.::

::It's not the suffering I desire,:: Carson countered, ::But rather the freedom to feel it should I stumble into it on my own.:: Or, Carson thought to himself, a little free time to just be, and not focus on how shitty thinking was.

He felt both John and Rodney sigh tiredly. ::And yet you would want that, which is soaring above the clouds, without even the knowledge of how the clouds found themselves in the sky,:: Rodney said. ::But you are a fool, and such is what fools desire—desire itself being the mark of fools, all of them.::

John came to with the now-familiar pounding headache that followed each of these little trips down memory lane. He stared at the wall in front of his face, hating the way his sweat had mingled with the dust on the floor to form a gritty paste on his cheek. After a minute, his head was back in its shell enough that he managed to roll over and wipe his face off with an only slightly cleaner sleeve. They might not have enough information to decide exactly what was going on in the temple, but John was fairly sure these visions were killing his brain. Moisture trickled from the corner of one eye and he wouldn't have been surprised if it was blood. It could have been from the dust coating him, or it could've been from the pain throbbing between his ears. John honestly couldn't tell.

A short while later, John sat up and looked for the others. Carson was curled up against the wall, arms and legs tucked in tightly. The man looked utterly miserable; his face was twisted into a grimace and each breath came heavy and thick. Rodney was more disturbing, however; he stretched flat on his back and barely inhaled at all. If not for careful observation, John would have thought he was dead.

Worried about his team members, John scooted over between them, peering closely at Rodney. The scientist was sweating despite the mild temperature, so John slid two fingers around his wrist and felt for a pulse. All he found was a thready, irregular tap-tap against his fingertips, so he released Rodney's arm and went to wake Carson.

"Carson," John barked, jostling the doctor's shoulder. "Something's wrong with Rodney."

Carson batted at John's hand, not waking until he made contact with solid flesh. "Er...what?" He mumbled, wiping his face with dusty hands. John reached out and wiped the dust streaks off Carson's cheeks before pointing to Rodney.

"He's sweating and his pulse is...off," John explained. Carson perked up immediately, despite his own obvious discomfort, and moved closer to Rodney.

"Rodney," Carson murmured gently, trying to wake his friend without shocking him, "Wake up." He felt for a pulse and found what John had. Carson ran his free hand up and down Rodney's arm, murmuring wordlessly as he tried to ease him back into consciousness.

It took a few minutes, but Rodney finally blinked and groaned, his pulse steadying as his brain finally reengaged. "If I promise you anything, will you make it stop?" He asked in a whisper, not bothering to care if he sounded weak. "It hurts so much, Carson. Like two migraines having a catfight in my head."

Carson laughed mirthlessly. "A description both apt and colorful," He admitted. "John," He said, his voice serious, "He can't take too many more of these. They're hitting harder and harder, and he's taking them worse than we are."

"I know," John replied gravely. "Not that we're doing all that well. You look like you've been on a bender."

"Let's not get into a pissing contest for who looks the shittiest," Rodney bitched as he tried to sit up. "I'd much rather spend my last few moments of life trying to decipher this damned puzzle." John debated whether to insist that they just rest and not think for a few minutes, but decided that Rodney was right; they were better served trying to get out of the temple. They'd seen no sign of anyone getting in to help them, nor any indication that Teyla and Ford were any less trapped than they had been earlier. Hell, they hadn't even seen their teammates in hours.

Carson sighed and reached for his map, figuring they could do some sort of review while they waited a few more minutes in recovery. "Given that we can't assume any sort of constancy for volume, area or, well, anything, this is a rough outline of the temple we've been through," He said, sliding a set of papers into place on the floor.

"Hand me that," Rodney said of Carson's pad of paper. "I ran out earlier." He jotted a few notes down and then added the paper to Carson's.

"What's that?" John inquired, turning the paper.

"The scenes we've seen so far, in some semblance of order," Rodney explained. "We can plug in new ones as we go; if they're trying to tell us something, we're better off remembering something about each scene."

John struggled to his feet, shifting around until he felt better-balanced. Carson collected the map and Rodney's notes before standing himself. Once they had their bearings, Carson and John reached for Rodney, who took the help without comment.

"Onward, fearless leader," Rodney muttered, pointing John down the hallway, past now-stationary script and hopefully to their ultimate destination. Their pace was slow, however, as John kept glancing back to make sure Rodney remained upright.

It didn't take long for Rodney to get impatient with John's worrying. "Rest assured, Major, that if I keel over, Carson will let you know all about it--if the resounding thud of my body striking the floor doesn't alert you to my horizontal position," He snapped, not nearly as annoyed as he sounded.

"Fine," John muttered, turning back around. "Script's moving again," He noted, otherwise ignoring his traveling companions.

"Duly recorded," Rodney replied flatly. "So we've got a few more minutes until another vision hits?"

"Perhaps," Carson said absently. "Judging by the continued changes in architecture, we're getting closer to the... well, wherever we're going."

Indeed, John noted that the ceiling was rising and the hallway widening. The pillars that had formerly stopped just at the wall were now soaring upwards and beginning to arch inwards. Soon, he suspected, they would form the sweeping, arched architecture they'd briefly seen earlier.

They continued on silently, the only sounds around them being their scuffling footsteps and the quiet scrape of Carson's pen as he noted each room or hall they encountered. Progress was slow; Rodney would've complained about John's pace except that he was grateful for it. The ache in his head wasn't abating and he could feel his limbs start to tremble. Rodney wondered if he was really as defective as he felt, or if the others were also suffering. They seemed immune to the pain and the stress, just dusting themselves off each time they had one of the visions and going on as though nothing had happened.

Rodney also wondered if the building responded to John the way Atlantis did; after all, the temple kept rescuing the man from really nasty confrontations by throwing visions around madly.

Or maybe Rodney himself was falling victim to exhaustion and paranoia and he was making it all up.

"Another fork in the road," John announced as they reached a split in the hallway. They could only go left or right, so he turned to the others for guidance. "Whose turn is it to pick?"

Carson thought about it for a few seconds before giving up. "Haven't a clue. Honestly, I can't remember."

"Right?" Rodney suggested. "Or you can pick; I'm not sure it actually matters which way we go."

"Right sounds good," John said as he turned that way. "And you're probably right, too, but I had to ask."

A few feet after the turn, Carson stopped. "Do you hear that?" He asked, staring out into the hallway ahead of them. "I swear I heard--

"Water," John and Rodney said at the same time. "Running water."

"That's different," Rodney added, allowing himself the barest hint of hope. "Even if it's an illusion, it's a new one."

"It might mean something," Carson said, mostly to himself. "These things seem to think highly of water."

John and Rodney shared a look. "Good point," John murmured. For the apparently long-dead creators of the temple, water was their sanctuary. With that faint hope in mind, the three men resumed their walking at a slightly increased pace.

"Hey," Rodney said, stopping the others. "My head hurts worse."

Carson paused, concerned. "How bad?" He asked, even as he evaluated his own pain. Even before Rodney answered, Carson knew what he was going to say.

"You know, we could just sit down now and wait for it," John said, reaching for the wall. "I'm all for not landing on my face this time."

Rodney seemed to agree, because he slid to the floor and lay out on his back without objection. Carson followed suit, arranging himself only a few inches from Rodney's side. John wondered why until he saw Carson wrap his hand around the scientist's wrist. A twinge of fuck-it-wasn't-jealousy rippled through John and he finally gave himself a mental slap and moved closer to the others. He wasn't sure that it was because he wanted to monitor Rodney's condition or because their proximity would be comforting, but the idea of being near them just made John feel better--even if he couldn't actually protect them from anything.

Beady black eyes stared at Rodney with a malevolence that would've been funny if he wasn’t mired in the fear his host body was experiencing. The scene was almost cliché--a lone straggler caught by the hunter, trapped but unwilling to die easily. If it weren't so real, Rodney would've laughed; as it was, he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to watch a horror movie again.

He shifted form and took flight, knowing the Inoheiaka was right behind him. Unlike the native species, these aliens could sense sekoy'e, no matter what form they took. Thus, there was no hiding in plain sight, no fooling them. The best anyone could do was try to outrun their attackers, or maybe surprise them with a lucky shot. Disruptors worked, if they were strong enough and fired often enough. Unfortunately for them, few got the chance to try. The Inoheiaka were fast, strong and vicious.

Rodney lay passive in the mind he was occupying, overwhelmed by both the fear he felt vicariously and the rapid pace of the action around him. Initially, he'd thought he was the only one on the run but others quickly joined him, flushed out by an oncoming horde of invaders.

Bodies brushed past him, some falling and some rising higher up and Rodney thought maybe he felt John's presence. It was a fleeting thing, though, and before he could fully process it something painful struck him, making him falter and tumble downwards like the others.

The pain got worse when he hit the ground as the Inoheiaka that had caught him began to feed, its poison circulating within him. Rodney began to fight his host, trying to escape the agony of dying. He didn't want to know what it felt like, not in any form or by any means. It was too real, to there for him to ignore and he couldn't tell if it was just his host that was being eaten alive or if it was him that was being consumed.

•••

Carson saw them coming and dispensed with taking form, choosing instead to slide along the ground. It was faster this way, especially with all the others in the air, rushing madly for the sea. He'd barely gotten a glimpse of the Inoheiaka but he didn't really need one; Carson recalled the way they looked from another vision. The revulsion he felt was genuine, as the invading species really was quite grotesque, but the fear was definitely that of his host. He'd never suffered the fate he was fearing, of being taken apart from the inside out just to entertain another's bloodlust.

The ocean was within sight when an Inoheiaka landed in front of him, a sekoy'e pinned beneath its bulk. Carson darted to the right only to find that a second Inoheiaka was there, almost waiting for him to appear. He desperately shifted form and hurled himself at the figure, hoping to knock it down and maybe get away. The water was so close...

Instead of getting free, Carson was caught, held down next to the other sekoy'e. The contact was jarring, since the other was being fed upon, but even through that Carson could feel Rodney inside it. Then his attacker delved into him and the only thing Carson knew as excruciating pain.

•••

John was falling. He'd been flying and for a brief moment, he thought he might actually like this trip down memory lane. After all, flying was his thing. Then something had taken him down, latching onto him with cruel force and sending him flailing to the ground.

Somewhere during his descent, John thought maybe he'd passed Rodney, but he couldn't be sure. Between the rush of falling and the pain of being eaten alive, John was a little preoccupied. Hitting the ground also hurt, but it was nothing compared to the sensation of having his very being sucked out bit by bit, until there was nothing left at all.