John gritted his teeth. Now was not the time for this discussion. In truth, there was never going to be a good time to tell anyone associated with Atlantis that he, Carson and Rodney had gotten turned into a new species. He had this bad feeling it wasn't going to go over well. "Well..."

Fortunately, Rodney overheard Ford and came to John's rescue. "You do realize that figuring out the temple's mystery was insanely complicated, but with that in mind I shall attempt to explain."

Ford looked pained. "With all due respect, Dr. McKay, if Major Sheppard explains it, I may actually understand."

"If John explains it, I may understand," Carson said under his breath. "Lieutenant, as much as I'd love to tell you all the gory details of how we got it figured out, and what it was we figured out, and what it all means...I think we should be more worried about where everyone is."

"He is correct," Teyla said, stepping out of the abruptly-ending snowdrift. "Someone should have been outside the temple."

"Unless we were in there a lot longer than we thought," Rodney pointed out. They quickly found the path leading back to the village, growing ever more wary as they saw not one human being anywhere.

By the time they made it to the village proper, the entire team knew something was wrong. The place was empty, as though everyone in it had walked away all at once. The villagers' possessions were still in place, though, but there was no sign of any Atlantis personnel. "I'm thinking we should get to the 'gate, pronto," John said as he scanned the village. "This is seriously wrong."

"Agreed," Rodney confirmed. "I've got a very bad feeling about this." He tried to turn on his scanner and found that it actually worked. The settings were back at their defaults, but it was functional. "I think our DIDs should work."

"Good," Ford murmured gratefully as they exited the village and headed for the 'gate. No one complained about the pace, which wasn't surprising considering the fact that the area surrounding the village was beginning to creep them out. It looked about the same, but the subtle differences in the plant life and temperature had them wondering about exactly what had gone on during their little crisis.

They reached the gate in good time and John immediately dialed Atlantis. After he entered his ID, they gathered in front of the glittering wormhole. "You think they missed us?" John asked Rodney as they were about to walk through.

"Of course they did," Rodney snapped, taking the single step needed to send him back to the city.

•••

Dr. Weir was staring at her computer when her radio came on and she heard that Sheppard's ID had shown up. She raced out of her office, ordering the staff to lower the 'gate's protective field, even though they'd already done so.

When she arrived in the 'gate room, it was to the sight of five people she hadn't laid eyes on in more than three weeks.

"Oh thank god," She whispered. "You have no idea..."

John and the others turned to the side when they heard their leader's voice. "Ah, Dr. Weir," Rodney said by way of greeting.

"Where the hell have you been?" She asked, her voice rising. "Do you have any idea how worried we've been?"

Rodney scowled. "We've been otherwise occupied for the past..." His voice faded away when he realized he didn't know exactly how long they'd been gone.

"Three weeks," She grated out. "Three weeks since you walked into that temple and we lost an Athosian, two Marines and an entire village of that planet's native population," She added. "We couldn't get close to the building; anyone who did died, caught in--

"A temporal distortion, we know," Rodney finished for her. "We were there."

"It didn’t feel like three weeks to us," Carson told Dr. Weir. "A day, maybe two?" He offered, checking with John and Rodney. "Less for Lieutenant Ford and Teyla."

"We were caught in a distortion," Ford supplied. "Major Sheppard, Dr. McKay and Dr. Beckett were the ones who got us out of there."

"Are you injured? Hurt?" Dr. Weir asked. Beside her, Sergeant Bates radioed for a medical team while Dr. Zelenka tried to get Rodney's attention. "We were so worried."

"If we'd known what was going to happen," Rodney murmured, "We definitely wouldn’t have gone in. There was just no way..."

"We're not injured," Carson informed her while Rodney got lost in his thoughts. "Exhausted, dehydrated and traumatized. And..."

Dr. Weir looked at him curiously. "And what?"

John winced. "It's a long story."

"You've been gone three weeks," She said slowly. "It should be a very long story."

"Oh, it is," Carson whispered. "Long and strange."

"Did you find ZPM?" Dr. Zelenka inquired while the medical team arrived and began to inspect the newly arrived team. At the same time, various Athosians and Atlantis crew members walked or ran into the 'gate room, having just found out that the long-lost team had returned.

"No, which is even more disappointing considering everything we went through," Rodney spat. He had a mental image of being made to wear a shirt that said 'I got trapped in an archaic alien temple for three weeks and all I got was this stupid t-shirt'.

"How odd," Dr. Salas said as she stuck a thermometer in John's ear. "You need to come to the infirmary," She announced to the team. "This room is not equipped for medical examinations and none of you are currently immobile."

"Good idea," Dr. Weir said, herding them along behind Dr. Salas. "I'll join you. This conversation isn't over."

•••

The medical staff had a field day with the team. Lieutenant Ford and Teyla were quickly cleared, although they took more than enough X-rays and scans of Teyla's broken-and-healed arm, and had planned a bevy of tests to investigate the possible effects of getting stuck in the temporal distortion. Other than that, the two teammates were given the all-clear, with the proviso that they were under normal post-mission restrictions.

It was the other three that had the doctors scurrying around, even as Dr. Weir held a debriefing session in the infirmary. The medical staff was, unsurprisingly, as interested in what the three men had to say as they were the results of their examinations.

At the moment, Dr. Weir was sitting on the edge of an exam table, staring at her three best people with an expression that had passed shock some time back.

"Let me see if I've got this," She murmured. "You walked into the temple and it locked you inside. Then you encountered the first temporal distortion, at which time the entire interior of the building began to rearrange itself."

Rodney nodded. "From the sound of things, that's when the temporal distortions outside the temple started."

Across the room, Dr. Zelenka nodded in agreement. "That fits timeline of our reports," He told Rodney. "Our people and the Athosians ran from distortions when they saw them affecting surrounding plant life. The native population rushed towards temple. That is what killed them."

"Where did their bodies go?" Carson inquired. "We didn't see any."

"It snowed on them," Zelenka said. "We recovered our own people as the team retreated to ‘gate."

Dr. Weir interrupted their digression. "Teyla and Aiden got hit by two temporal distortions, aging and them and then reversing that effect. Then you were forced to traverse the interior of the temple in order to avoid the changing architecture."

"And then we got split up--a couple of times, actually," Rodney added. "You know, this would make more sense if we start from another angle."

Dr. Weir thought for a moment. "I'm listening."

John, Carson and Rodney stared at the floor, each one separately trying to decide exactly how to say what needed to be said. "Okay," Rodney started somewhat hesitantly, "The temple wasn't built by Ancients. It's a lot older than that."

"Older?" Dr. Weir said skeptically. "How much older?"

"It was built by sekoy'e, and they were gone before the Ancients arrived here," John replied.

"But they do have something in common with the Ancients," Rodney said. "They wanted their line to continue, even after they ascended. The Ancients did it by seeding this galaxy, as well as the Milky Way, with humans. The sekoy'e built the temple."

Dr. Zelenka had by this point joined Dr. Weir and was propped against the other end of the exam table. "And how did the temple accomplish this desire?" He inquired.

Rodney sighed. "It was designed to transform pretty much any sentient species that entered it into a hybrid of that species and the sekoy'e."

Dr. Weir blinked quickly. "Transform? As in..."

Carson took up the explanation, as this part was the bit he understood the best. "The sekoy'e figured out how to blend their genetic material with that of other species. They wanted their heritage to continue in whatever species evolved in this galaxy after they were gone."

"The rest of the 'temple experience', such as it was, was a combination of the historical material they left, and the breakdown of the temple itself," Rodney explained. "Their idea wasn't all that bad, if a bit twisted, but they didn't count on one thing."

"Which was?" Dr. Weir prompted.

Rodney looked up at her bleakly. "They didn't expect it would take so long."

John glanced at Rodney. "Is that why the temple tried to eat us?" He asked curiously.

Rodney nodded quickly. "See, they built the thing to weed out people who weren't advanced enough to handle the information they left, or inherently destructive and might abuse what they saw as a precious gift. Like the Ancients, the sekoy'e thought highly of themselves."

He paused, seeing that Dr. Weir was getting confused. "So the temple killed those who didn't pass their test?"

"I don't think it did originally," Rodney answered. "I think the temple got old. Even the best technology eventually fails; that's just what happens to anything that's made of matter. The random movement of subatomic...Anyway, by the time the Ancients arrived in this galaxy, that temple was beyond old."

"We were lucky to survive at all, weren't we?" Carson asked softly. "I mean, we saw dead Ancients and humans, and Wraith, and some bodies we couldn't identify. None of them made it."

"Probably dumb luck," John muttered. "And we nearly didn't. The way that thing communicated was doing a number on our heads."

Dr. Weir decided that she wasn't going to understand everything about this spectacular failure of a mission during the first, second or third run-through, so she sat back and tried to comprehend as much as possible and let go of the rest. "Ok, jumping forward a little. You three experienced shared visions."

"Sort of," Rodney said. "Each time we had visions of the same event, but we weren't always together. Sometimes we interacted, sometimes we didn't."

"The visions were bits and pieces of the species' history," John explained. "But it was all out of order. I'm still not sure where everything goes."

"Ah," Dr. Weir murmured. "And then you got this genetic treatment, after which the temple stopped..."

"Yeah," Rodney replied. "The mechanism that did that...it left a lot of information behind, but like the rest of what we went through, it's jumbled up, degraded and confusing. I'm still trying to sort through it all, like a library where the books have been misshelved."

"Apt description," Carson commiserated. "I think I understand how they did the genetic part, but I'm not sure."

Dr. Zelenka studied Rodney for a moment before turning to Dr. Weir. "Perhaps they need rest," He suggested. "It helps most of us think clearly."

"Good point," Dr. Weir replied. "Besides, until we figure out exactly what happened, none of you are going anywhere." When Rodney looked like he might protest, she explained. "Rodney, the city is holding its own right now. We've got enough food and power to keep us secure for months, if necessary. My main concern right now is what's been done to the three of you."

Dr. Salas joined the group, holding a display pad. "We have no clue what you are or if this thing you went through is permanent or fatal or contagious," She added to Dr. Weir's statement, "Although the latter two seem unlikely."

"And you all know that we have protocols for handling this type of thing, broadly speaking of course," Dr. Weir finished. "So for the time being the three of you are in quarantine. Aiden and Teyla, the two of you are on leave until further notice. We're not taking chances with anyone's health."

Carson bit back a curse, watching as Dr. Weir led Zelenka out of the infirmary. Around them the medical staff prepared a quarantine room, gathering supplies and herding John, Rodney and himself into isolation.

"Well, there is an upside to this," Rodney said bitterly as they were ushered into a small room situated next to the primary medical facilities.

"Dare I ask?" John murmured, helping a nurse push a cot into place.

"We've got lots of time to figure out what happened to us," Rodney told him, flopping down on one of the other cots. "But first? I'm getting something to eat. Second, I'm sleeping until I can't sleep any more."

Carson couldn't help but agree with Rodney, so he lowered himself onto one of the remaining cots. Dr. Salas entered the room pushing a laden cart, several nurses in tow.

"You can't possibly want to run more tests," Rodney whined. "I'm running low on blood as it is."

John considered reminding Rodney that, very technically speaking he didn't have any blood anyway, but thought better of it. He caught a whiff of something savory, his mouth watering. "Food?" He asked hopefully, staring at the cart. "Real food? Not power bars?"

Dr. Salas grinned and uncovered three dinner trays. "Food, and water. No caffeine though. And no more tests, at least until you've had a good night's sleep." Her assistants delivered the trays while she unloaded a box of books and notepads. "There's a shower in the bathroom, as well as clean scrubs. Feel free to avail yourself of the amenities."

"No computers?" Rodney asked around a bite of something akin to meatloaf. It was bland, meaty and heavenly on his tongue. "I'm three weeks behind."

"No computers," Dr. Salas replied laughingly. "The notepads are so you can write down things about your mission as you remember them. If you're feeling well tomorrow, we'll talk about bringing in computers. The science staff has loaned you some books, too, if you have problems falling asleep."

"Thank you," Carson said halfheartedly as Dr. Salas packed up her cart and shooed the nursing staff away. "We'll let you know if anything changes."

Once they were left alone, the room fell silent. For a little while, the consumption of forgettable but palatable food occupied their attention but eventually it was just the three of them, staring at the walls. John was tired but had felt worse and couldn't really complain about the minor aches and pains he was experiencing. There was just too much roaming around in his head for him to sleep; every time he closed his eyes, some new bit of information surfaced.

"Carson, could you hand me some of that paper?" Rodney said, pointing at the ledger pads and pens that Dr. Salas had left.

"Aren't you tired?" John inquired of the scientist, who was furiously scribbling.

"Yes," Rodney replied, "But I don't want to forget any of this. Did you know we can make ourselves look like almost anything?"

"N...well, I do now," John said slowly. "Apparently I know a lot of things, most of which are disturbing. I thought we were supposed to be resting, though."

"Can you?" Carson asked, taking up a pad of paper for himself. "I can't. It's too much to just sleep on." It was the truth; Carson was bone tired, but there was no way he was going to sleep.

"Yeah, I don't remember any clauses about trading up species when I signed on for this trip," John commented. "And yeah, all that stuff is making my brain hurt. I just..."

"Take a shower," Rodney suggested, not looking up. "Nice hot water, lots of soap. You're probably sore, but it's psychosomatic."

Carson looked over at Rodney. "How do you know that?"

Rodney shrugged. "We have muscles now, but they're not like they used to be; if they're sore it's because he's not letting his form shift enough to quickly metabolize the lactic acid that's building up in them. In other words his anxiety is interfering with the normal..."

"No, how did you know that?" John asked. "I don't think they put that kind of information in our heads."

"I don't know," Rodney admitted. "Maybe I just integrated what they put in with what I already knew and..."

"Do you ever stop thinking?" John asked the man. "Ever?"

Rodney smirked. "Sometimes."

Carson caught the look on Rodney's face and shook his head, glad to see a bit of real humor showing through. "He's probably right, though, John. And besides, a shower would just feel good." He thought he might want one himself, if John declined to take one.

John stood up. "Fine, I'll take a shower; you two are starting to make me think I smell bad or something."

"No, we want you naked, wet and soapy," Rodney retorted, still writing down line after line of things his brain told him were new.

John swallowed audibly and retreated into the bathroom, not entirely sure how to take that last comment.

A minute later he poked his head out of the bathroom, a strange look on his face. "You two do realize that you're not actually wearing clothes, right?"

Rodney cocked his head to one side and thought for a moment. "That does explain the lack of wrinkles. I hate wrinkled trousers."

Carson frowned in confusion. "But how did we end up with our gear? When we left the temple, we had our weapons, and scanners, and..."

John held out his hand. "We dumped all of that stuff in the infirmary, but not our clothes. Why not?"

"It didn't occur to us?" Carson offered. "When Dr. Salas told us to strip down..."

"We did, but only our gear" Rodney finished for him. Testing out a theory, Rodney concentrated on his shirt--which turned from dusty blue to black. "Huh. That's kind of neat, actually." He ran his hand down the shirt, marveling at how it felt like fabric and not his own skin. At the same time, it transmitted touch just like his own body would.

"But why return our gear and not our clothes?" Carson asked Rodney. "What if we'd reformed naked?"

John shrugged and returned to the bathroom. "Because it didn't occur to us to be naked when we woke up?" He tried turning on the shower using his mind and found that, like the 'gate dialing mechanism, it responded to him as it did when he was human. At least his new status hadn't affected the ATA gene. The first thing he was testing when he got out of quarantine was a 'jumper. If he couldn't fly the jumpers, he was going to... well, do something irrational.

"Not that I'm going to complain," Rodney said as he returned to his note-taking. "I mean, imagine what would happen if we had to concentrate to keep our clothes on. And it does feel different; what if having people touch us is like having them touch us. Of course, for once my uniforms will actually fit properly."

Carson shuddered at the thought of suddenly being naked during a surgical procedure. "I've a closet full of clothes, thank you."

"Which you'll leave lying in piles on the floor whenever you shift," Rodney reminded him. "I think we're going to have to figure out something regarding carrying stuff around. What if you had a pack of gum in your pocket and changed form, but lost track of the gum? Does it fall to the ground, or get incorporated into your spleen when you reform? That's a disturbing thought. Then again, so is the idea of people brushing up against, well, anything..." Rodney stopped that line of thinking before he had a panic attack. There were so many better things to freak out over.

John once again appeared at the door to the bathroom, this time wearing jeans and a t-shirt. "I'm trying to take a shower here, so I can relax and maybe get some sleep. You two are not helping. If you're going to worry about shit like that, do it silently, okay?"

•••

The result of John's long, hot shower experiment was that his body was more relaxed but his mind was still jittery. He lay on his back and stared up at the ceiling, imagining schematics for various handguns in an effort to avoid thinking about all the things he wished he didn't know. When that tactic didn't work, he rolled onto his belly and tried to sleep, a pillow tucked up under his head. The pajamas he'd thought up for himself were uncomfortable, so he made the shirt go away and loosened the bottoms a bit. If he didn't think too much about the process, it was rather convenient. Well, until he had to strip down in front of someone, but that was thinking and he was supposed to be sleeping.

Half an hour later, he gave up and reached for a pad of paper. "I hate this," He grumbled, clicking the pen up and down. "I'm tired and I want to sleep."

Carson flipped over another piece of paper and kept writing. "Just think about how much of our precious paper supply you're wasting, all in the name of writing these notes out longhand," He told John. "Or how you're improving your penmanship. Or, you could try putting pictures of grinning monkeys on your pyjamas."

"You're the only one here with bad handwriting," Rodney pointed out, "Something they taught you at that voodoo science school you went to. The rest of us can write legibly. And monkeys, Carson? How gauche."

Carson ignored the jab and kept writing. "Do you think if we get enough of this down, we'll be able to sleep?"

"Maybe we'll get tired enough and pass out," John said, writing down random factoids. He finished a section of writing and stopped to reread it. Then he read it again. "Carson?"

"What?"

John read the paragraph one more time. "Can I ask you a really weird question?"

Carson looked over at John. "Yes, although I seriously doubt it will rate as the slightest bit odd, all things considered."

John nodded wryly. "What sex are we?"

Rodney must have been listening, because his pen dropped out of his hand and onto his notepad. "What?" He squeaked. "What sex are we? What kind of question is that?"

John thought about it for another minute. "There was only one kind of sekoy'e, you know..."

Carson tried to disentangle the mishmash of information in his head. He strongly suspected that there were gaping holes he'd never be able to fill. "I think maybe..."

"I am not a girl," John barked. "I happen to like being a guy."

Rodney choked back a laugh. "I don't think your dick is going anywhere, John," He huffed out between gasps. "Unless you want it to, that is. You could make yourself female-looking, I think."

"Not funny," John grated out. "Be serious here!"

Rodney sobered immediately. "Why? So I can have an anxiety attack? Do you want to deal with me when I have a nervous breakdown? Would that make you feel better??

John knocked his head against the wall behind him. "That's not what I meant, Rodney. How the hell are we supposed to deal with this shit? How did they think we were supposed to put up with it?"

Carson laid aside his notepad, abandoning his writing for the time being. "It was supposed to be voluntary," He offered quietly. "Not that I feel any better about it."

"It does suck, though, not having anybody to get mad at," Rodney remarked lightly. "I've got nobody to deride and blame for this mess. They all ascended, the self-righteous jackass bastards."

Carson laughed. "They're no worse than the Ancients; they just left people everywhere they went, like wild oats."

"Fucking Johnny Humanseeds," John muttered, mostly to himself. "What did they know? Nothing."

"Huh?" Rodney grunted, flipping onto his back. "What did they know about what?"

John lay down as well, thinking the lights dim. If they weren't going to write, there was no reason to leave them so bright. "That place. I mean, they lost people in that temple, and all they did was--maybe--restrict access to the planet? Why didn't they just blow the whole thing up?"

"Nice planets are hard to come by?" Carson tried. "And you have to admit, it is a nice planet, evil person-changing broken-down temples notwithstanding."

"Carson, do you think we're having a shared psychotic episode?" Rodney asked earnestly. "I read about them once, in the SGC files. Maybe we're still in the temple and this is all one long nightmarish vision—or maybe the whole thing is that nanovirus again..."

"Shut up, Rodney," John ordered without malice. "We're home, we're fucked up and we're stuck in quarantine. We are not psychotic, at least we aren't yet. If I end up stuck in this room for very much longer, that may change."

Rodney pretended to pout. "Does this mean you don't like me anymore?"

"John? About that psychotic episode thing..." Carson said, even as Rodney threw a pillow at him. He tossed it back with a grin, which Rodney returned in kind.

"Sleeping now," John stated, rolling until he faced the wall. "Be quiet."

Sleep was a long time coming, however. Carson's mind wouldn't shut down, wouldn't stop circling the disjointed things crowding in between memories of football and sex and fish and five-prime ends. A little bit of him was afraid to sleep, for fear that he'd dream. He had no concrete thing to fear dreaming, only that he would and that some cherished moment in his past or beloved fantasy would get warped. Maybe he'd have a nightmare and inadvertently shift into that liquid form. Carson knew it was an absurd fear; being in human form seemed to be instinctual. It didn't take real effort to stay the way he was--less effort even than thinking himself clothed, and that wasn't very difficult either.

It had to take up some energy, though, and Carson made a mental note to find a way to run metabolic studies on them to see what kinds of forms and changes were the most draining. It wasn't something he just knew, nor something he could piece together from his recollections of all those visions he'd endured.

All of that knowledge was of limited utility, in Carson's opinion. They weren't the same as the ancient species that had done this to them, so differences were only to be expected. He just wished he knew what some of them were, so he wouldn't be so shocked whenever something came up.

When Carson did finally drift off to sleep, it was fitful and light as he clutched a rumpled blanket to his chest and curled in on himself.

Rodney heard Carson whimper and wanted to go comfort the man. How he was supposed to do that, he hadn't a clue; they were in the same boat this time. Well, almost the same situation; Rodney really did want to sleep and he had a strong suspicion Carson was afraid to. He'd seen the doctor's eyes grow heavy, but the man kept fighting the urge to rest. Rodney himself was looking forward to it, to seeing what might happen.

In all likelihood, it would be the same. After all, his body functioned largely like it did before and they had no indications up to this point that they couldn't dream. Maybe it would be better now; when he had that annoying falling dream he could shift into something that could fly and he wouldn't wake up sweaty and screaming.

Unless, of course, he couldn't dream anymore. That wouldn't be so good, but if it was the worst thing that happened as a result of this change, Rodney would count himself lucky.

Maybe he wouldn't be hypoglycemic anymore--or allergic to lemons. He'd always wondered what made lemonheads so popular.

•••

John was flying. A warm, gentle breeze brushed his wings and bright sunshine beat down on his back. It was heaven, soaring and swooping over the treetops. He glided along, riding a thermal and pondered whether to circle around or keep going straight.

It wasn't a new dream, but rather one worn smooth and comfortable with repeated use. John liked it for its elegant simplicity and obviousness; pilots should dream of flying, after all. This dream was the kind that lulled him from a long day of stress and annoyance into deep, restful slumber. He invariably spent a few minutes, maybe longer, just drifting along in the clouds. Lucid dreaming was one of his few indulgences.

He let himself circle lazily, slowly descending. Usually the dream faded at this point as John went into deeper sleep but this time he stayed more aware of it and of the feeling of being watched.

That sensation turned to dread as something brushed against his back, something grasping and sharp and frighteningly similar to a creature that had killed him once before and--

John woke up shaking and silently screaming, fingers digging into his palms. He cursed under his breath, hoping he hadn't woken the others. His favorite dream was gone, impossibly tainted by memories of something that hadn't even happened to him, not really. He'd just gone through a reconstruction of something that had happened eons ago, but the when and where didn't matter now.

Not when he couldn't shut his eyes for fear something would sneak up behind him and eat him alive while he slept.