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Piercing the Veil	By : trudyw000 Category: Harry Potter Crossovers > Slash - Male/Male Views: 8941 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Stargate Atlantis, I make no money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 11
- 12
- 13
Author's Note: Here it is, Chapter 12, consider it a slightly delayed Christmas gift from me to you, a review would be a very welcome return gesture.

Chapter 12

Sirius, Ford and John looked down in shock at the elderly form of the Colonel, withered with premature age. It was Ford who broke the silence, "How could this happen?" he asked in confusion.

Before anyone had chance to answer they were distracted as Rodney called out for help and they remembered the injured boy. "Stay with him," Shepherd directed Ford with a wave at the Colonel before he and Sirius hurried to see what Rodney needed.

As they got to him they saw the boy that he and Kavanagh were working on. The child couldn't have been more than ten years old, he wore a black robe that had been ripped down from the neck to expose the rough homespun garments underneath. These too had been ripped to uncover the wound beneath. Kavanagh was pressing a bundle of blood-soaked cloth over the wound, the man who they had seen working with Kavanagh on the child was holding the boy's head in his lap, weeping as he stroked his fingers through the child's hair. Rodney was trying to get the boy away from him to check on his vitals but the man, presumably the child's father was having none of it.

Stepping in Sirius knelt beside the beleaguered scientist, "let me see" he murmured and with an anxious sigh Rodney sat back on his heels. Racking his brains Sirius tried to remember the little medical magic he had learned back in Hogwarts and later during auror training. Concentrating on the boy, especially the injured shoulder under Kavanagh's hands he muttered "valetudo statua."

As the words fell from his lips a golden glow enveloped the boy invoking an awed gasp as the villagers crowding around them collectively took a step backwards. The glow played over the prone form for a few moments then a thin sliver of parchment appeared in the air above the child. Slowly the sliver grew, looking to the watching expedition members like nothing so much as paper feeding out of an invisible printer. As the paper grew they could see that it was covered with writing in a flowing copperplate hand. Then the glow faded and the paper, released from its invisible hold floated down only to be snatched out of the air by Sirius so that he could eagerly scan the contents.

"A boy, 10 years old, slightly malnourished, not all that unexpected looking at the living conditions. Let's see, scrapes and bruises, about normal for a lively, active boy his age, a broken arm about four years ago, it was competently set, the break has healed well, a list of, I don't know, probably normal childhood diseases for this world. Altogether nothing particularly remarkably until now." Sirius paused in his perusal of the spell's output, "He's been shot," Sirius remarked as he read on, "upper left shoulder, bullet's still in there. He's lost a lot of blood and is going into shock but his heart is strong and he's in no immediate danger. If we can get him to Dr Beckett on Atlantis there's a good chance that he'll recover fully."

"Isn't there anything you can do here?" Shepherd asked looking around at the gathered crowd. He wasn't sure how much they understood of what was being said, did they even understand English? "I don't think they'll be too happy if we try to take the boy away."

Sirius stood, "if the situation was more desperate then I would try, but medical magic never was my strong suit and as the boy is strong enough to make the trip to competent medical help, that is his best chance."

"OK," Shepherd acknowledged Sirius's words and turned to survey the assembled villagers, trying to identify an authority figure. His gaze had just settled on a woman who stood slightly ahead of the rest. Standing tall and proud she had a definite air of authority, he had just opened his mouth to address her when the child's father spoke.

"You have people who can help Jinto?" he asked, his eyes still locked on the unconscious face of the boy.

"Jinto?" Shepherd asked, unfamiliar with the word.

"You can help my son?" the man repeated, looking up now and pinning John with blue eyes, shining with tears.

John paused only for a second, "yes, we have doctors who can help your son, help Jinto, but we have to take him to them."

"Then let us go" and hoisting his son in his arms the man started to stand, but the action dislodged Kavanagh's hands and a sluggish jolt of blood welled up from the wound causing Rodney to step in hurriedly.

"NO, put him down, we need to secure the wound before we can move him, Kavanagh, keep the pressure on," he hissed the redundant instruction, as soon as the boy had been laid back down Kavanagh had adjusted his position and resumed his task, his hands and forearms were covered, almost to the elbow, in blood and he had streaks of blood on his face where he had apparently tried to brush back wisps of hair that had torn free of his pony-tail but it was clear that he had one purpose in his life at the moment and that was to keep pressure on that wound.

Looking over his shoulder at one of the women clustered around him the man on the ground started issuing instructions. "Get clean cloth to bind Jinto's wound," to another "pack up clothes for me and the boy."

The women hurried off to obey his commands but the woman Shepherd had spotted earlier, the one he had identified as one of the leaders of this community stepped forward now in agitation, "Halling, No!"

This time the man, Halling stood more carefully, sliding out from beneath his son's head and passing the child off to Rodney so that he could confront the woman. John was surprised to find himself looking up at Halling once he was upright, his height had been hidden before as he hunched over his son and now he towered four or five inches over John. "Teyla, he'll die if he stays here! if these people can help him then we have to go with them!"

Looking down at the pale child lying in the mud, Teyla considered for several moments, "very well, but if you are going then I am going with you."

"No Teyla," Halling's refusal was kind but firm as he inclined his head to touch his forehead to that of the woman. "I thank you for the offer but you are needed here, with our people."

"But Halling, my responsibility is for the safety of all our people, I cannot let you and Jinto go off alone with these people, they are strangers to us, they wear the same clothing as those who did this to Jinto, we cannot trust them!"

Putting the woman away from him Halling gently reiterated his refusal, "No Teyla, Jinto needs the help that these men are offering, I must go with him but I won't put anyone else in danger. You have to see to the safety of the village."

Seeing that the argument could go on for a long time Shepherd stepped in, "I promise no harm will come to you Halling, our Doctor's will do their best to help your son and you will be free to come and go as you please but that wound is serious and we need to get going." Looking to Rodney he saw that the scientist was just finishing binding Jinto's shoulder. Kavanagh, now that he was no longer needed to keep pressure on the wound was looking at his blood covered hands as if he'd never seen them before, it seemed the boy wasn't the only one going into shock.

Indicating the four unconscious bodies strewn around them Shepherd asked, "have you anywhere we can secure these men until we can send transport to get them back to the stargate?"

Calmly Teyla looked at the fallen men, "Yes, we can secure them but do not take too long, I may not be able to vouch for their safety once my people recover from the shock of what has gone on here today."

"That may not be necessary John," Sirius spoke up, he didn't like the idea of leaving these men behind and the Colonel needed to be taken back to the city with at least as much urgency as the child, maybe more. "Let me try something?" he requested.

Shepherd wasn't sure what Sirius could come up with in the current circumstances, but he had seen enough to know that there was a lot he didn't know about his new friend and about magic in general. "Sure, go ahead" and he settled back with his arms crossed over the P90 slung on its strap about his neck to see what would happen.

Stepping back Sirius surveyed the four unconscious men that they needed to convey back to the Stargate. Chapman and Wright were lying quite close together so he started with them, shifting their bodies around so that they lay side by side, flat on their backs with their arms by their sides. Satisfied with the positions of the first two men he walked over to where Bates lay sprawled beside his Colonel, holding one hand out over the Sergeants stomach he muttered a few words under his breath and Bates began to move as though lifted into the air by a string through his navel.

It was the strangest thing to watch as Bates rose into the air like a puppet with tangled strings, his arms and legs flopping however gravity pulled them as the torso rose. Once Bates' abdomen had reached around waist height it stopped moving and now the arms and legs rearranged themselves until the man's position mirrored his fellow soldiers. Now Sirius slowly walked over to the other two he had arranged, his hand still held over Bates' stomach and the unconscious soldier drifted through the air beneath his hand.

Once he had Bates settled beside the other two Sirius went back to the Colonel. He spent some time considering Sumner's prone form, slumped against the side of one of the rough huts the villagers lived in. When he was ready he held both hands out over the Colonel's torso and again muttered a few words, but this time there was a sense of care being taken as the body rose into the air. The arms and legs weren't allowed to flop around however gravity took them. No, this time as the body rose the limbs gently aligned themselves into the same laid out pose of the others.

Finally Sirius had all four men lined up neatly on the ground, now he positioned himself at their heads and holding out both arms to focus his thoughts he commanded, "Mobilicorpus multa." As he spoke the words the four men rose smoothly into the air as one and lay there, flat and level at waist height.

Shepherd just stared for a few moments before turning back to the small tableau on the ground behind him. "Is the boy stabilised?" he asked Rodney and the scientist wearily wiped a hand across his forehead leaving behind a smear of mingled mud and blood.

"I'm no doctor, but he's as stable as I can make him," he looked across to Kavanagh as he spoke and the other man nodded weary agreement.

"Right, Halling, I assume you will be carrying Jinto?"

The big man simply nodded and picked his son up in gentle arms. A man from the crowd stepped forward and took up the pack that had been brought out earlier at Halling's request. Silently the new man stood at Halling's shoulder, the message clear, that he would be accompanying them.

Shepherd raised no demur, he didn't know if the man was just offering to carry the pack to the gate or if he planned to accompany them to Atlantis. Whichever it was he was too happy to be getting out of what could have been a bad situation as easily as they were to raise any objections. "Then everyone gather your gear, we're moving out."

Halling and the man carrying his pack moved off first, leading the way back to the Stargate, Sirius followed after with his four charges carefully in hand. Stepping into the space were Jinto had lain Shepherd extended a hand to each of the kneeling scientists and leaning back pulled them to their feet where they swayed slightly in exhaustion. Stepping behind Rodney he hefted the heavy pack that had obviously been discarded so as not to hamper the attempt to save the boy. As he lifted it he realised that despite its size the pack was actually fairly light and he remembered Sirius helping Rodney to adjust the pack before they set out. "Oh I have to learn this stuff" he muttered to himself before calling Ford over and tossing the pack to him. "Take that, and keep an eye on Rodney!" he commanded.

Next he took the pack that Kavanagh had retrieved and was currently trying to put on his own back. Slinging the pack over one shoulder Shepherd settled it alongside his own and turning Kavanagh gently they set off to follow the others back to the Stargate.

It was a long, slow walk back to the gate, with a contingent of villagers, led by the woman, Teyla, following them. The scientists especially seemed to struggle, they were both used to a fairly sedentary existence and so as well as coping with the emotionally draining events of the last few hours they were also physically exhausted. Rodney was in a slightly better state, it was clear however, that Sumner had made no allowance for the lower physical fitness of the scientist when he dragged Kavanagh off on whatever mission it was that he hoped to accomplish.

Finally they reached the gate and now Shepherd realised they had another problem. There was no way that the gate was wide enough to allow all four floating bodies through at once with Sirius alongside them and Shepherd highly doubted that whatever force was holding them suspended would stretch between planets it they didn't all travel through together. Whilst he personally had no issue with watching them all fall to the deck he supposed that Elizabeth probably wouldn't approve.

"Ford, dial Atlantis, then take the others through, radio me when you have airmen in place to receive Colonel Sumner and his team as they come through."

Ford snapped out a sharp acknowledgement and stepped up to the device Shepherd recognised from the briefings he'd received before leaving Earth as the controller for the gate, the DHD.

As the connection formed and the wormhole whooshed into existence the man who had carried Halling's pack dropped it in front of the gate and moved back to stand behind Teyla with the other members of their escort.

Shepherd nodded to himself, apparently it would only be Halling and Jinto accompanying them back to Atlantis. He kept a watchful eye on their surroundings, especially the small escort that had followed them from the village as Ford efficiently mustered the two scientists and Halling with his fragile burden through the gate.

Moments later Elizabeth's voice crackled through the radio at his shoulder, "picking up strays already Major?"

"Well, given that Sumner or one of his men shot the boy it seemed only right to offer Dr Beckett's services!" he replied, his calm mask slipping a little so that the raw edge of his anger began to show through.

"Of course," the slight laughing hint to Elizabeth's voice had disappeared, "Dr Beckett has the child in hand, his father is with him. I understand that you have some other patients to send through for the good Doctor so I'll hand you over to Lieutenant Ford."

"Major, I have two airmen and a gurney standing by, please send the first of the wounded through sir."

"Give us a moment Lieutenant," Shepherd requested before turning to Sirius. "Sirius, how do you want to do this, can you control the bodies independently or do you need to drop them and we'll manhandle them through?" Now that his attention wasn't distracted by the tired and shocked scientists and by the boy and his father Shepherd realised that Sirius was beginning to show signs of the strain of levitating the four unconscious bodies over several miles of rough terrain. A glimmer of sweat was starting to show across his brow although he didn't appear to be in any significant distress yet.

"If I manoeuvre them all to the gate can you push them through in turn?" he asked and at Shepherd's quick nod he suited deed to the word and set his charges in motion one last time until they were floating gently with their heads mere inches from the shimmering blue event horizon of the wormhole.

Sumner's need was clearly the more urgent and so positioning himself Shepherd pushed gently on the soles of the man's boots, unsure what exactly to expect. As he pushed Colonel Sumner floated easily forward, head and shoulders slipping through the gate until with one last push Shepherd watched the soles of the Colonel's boots disappear into the blue. Moments later Ford's voice came crackling through the radio once more, "We have the Colonel sir, send the next one through."

In very short order the rest of Sumner's team were through the gate and back in Atlantis. Unhooking the radio from his uniform Shepherd walked over to the watching audience. Stopping in front of Teyla he offered her the radio, quickly he explained to her how to use it to contact the city if they wanted to speak to Halling. For the product of such a primitive culture he was impressed at how easily the woman understood what he was telling her.

Sirius had waited by the gate as he spoke his parting words to Teyla, now seeing that Shepherd was heading towards him he turned and stepped through. The sensation as he travelled through the wormhole was strange, one he didn't really have words to describe. He had no true feeling of the actual journey between the two gates, but on arrival he was left with a feeling, like a half forgotten memory of intense cold that he was beginning to associate with gate travel.

"Elizabeth," Shepherd greeted the administrator as he set foot back on Atlantis once more, seeing Jack and Daniel he nodded a brief greeting to the two men as well. They stood with Elizabeth as if none of the three had moved whilst they were gone. He thought that perhaps that was true but then he waved away the fanciful feeling, they had been gone several hours and he was sure that the three had much more interesting ways to spend their time than standing around waiting for him.

Looking around he realised that everyone else had cleared the area leaving only himself and Sirius facing the welcoming committee.

"Shall we adjourn to my office?" Elizabeth asked, already walking up the stairs towards an open door off to the left of the control centre.

The room was smaller than Sirius' office but just as functional and the view was as spectacular as he was coming to expect from this city. There was no relaxed seating area in this office but the conference table was larger and the five of them seated themselves around it comfortably. "I've asked Rodney and Kavanagh to join us once Dr Beckett releases them but for now can you tell me what you know of what happened on that planet?" Elizabeth got straight down to business and Shepherd immediately started to relate the events as he had seen them unfold.

Night was just beginning to fall as he finished relating his final conversation with Teyla when Rodney and Kavanagh walked into the room accompanied by Halling. The mud and blood was gone and the two scientists looked a lot less traumatised than they had when he had last seen them. Halling was looking about in wonder, obviously over-awed by the city in which he found himself.

Seeing the tall man walking in behind the scientists Shepherd pushed back his chair and stood, "Halling, how's Jinto?" he asked.

"He's sleeping," Halling replied "your Dr Beckett has removed the bullet from his wound and stopped the bleeding, he assures me that there is no reason why Jinto shouldn't make a full recovery."

"That's excellent news, please take a seat," Shepherd gestured towards one of the empty chairs around the table, "that is, unless you need to get back to your son?"

"Thank you, Dr Beckett informs me that Jinto will sleep for several hours and..." here Halling faltered turning towards Kavanagh.

"I thought that as the only representative of his village in the city Halling's viewpoint on what happened today would be useful" Kavanagh offered.

As the leader of the expedition Elizabeth decided that now was the time to reassert her authority, "Thank you Dr Kavanagh that was good thinking, please all of you, sit down."

As the three newcomers found seats at the table Elizabeth and Shepherd also resumed their seats, "Major Shepherd has been telling us what happened after he and his team reached your world, I'd very much like it if you Halling and Dr Kavanagh here could fill in the blanks and let us know what happened between the time when Colonel Sumner's team left Atlantis and when Major Shepherd and his team reached your village."

Kavanagh just nodded and stared at his interlaced fingers for a few moments mustering his thoughts before taking up the story. "Colonel Sumner forced me through the gate after his team, I tried to explain that I have no field experience but he wasn't interested. We arrived on the planet in the early morning, shortly after sunrise, as soon as we stepped through the gate he instructed his men to fan out and secure the area. One of the men, Chapman I think, found a path so we began to follow it. We'd been walking for some time and could hear the sounds of the village up ahead although we didn't know about the village then."

Kavanagh paused, still examining his hands as he held them, fingers tightly interwoven on the table before him, finally he seemed to make a decision and continued on with his story, "The closer we got the more jumpy Colonel Sumner became, Bates remained calm but the other two picked up on what the Colonel was feeling and they became more and more nervous too. We were almost to the village, when two boys burst out of the trees, they were playing some kind of a game of tag and didn't even see us. One of them, Jinto was dressed up as a monster, he had on a long black robe and a monster mask with long white hair and he was chasing the other boy. The other boy shrieked and Chapman whipped his hand-gun from the holster and shot Jinto. Bates and I rushed over to the boy to try to help him... there was so much blood!"

Kavanagh finally looked up to meet Halling's eyes as the tall villager watched him from across the table. "I'm so sorry Jinto was hurt, if I'd known what was going to happen, it all happened so fast..." he trailed off once more, obviously blaming himself for the injury to the child.

"Were you armed?" Jack asked harshly, apparently out of nowhere.

Kavanagh just looked confused and shook his head, "no, they didn't give me a gun."

"No, and do you have advanced training in hand-to-hand combat?" Jack asked, his aggressive tone confusing the scientist even more.

"No, just the bare minimum of self-defence that we were required to have before signing up for this mission." Replied Kavanagh.

"Then you couldn't have done anything to stop an armed, highly trained marine," Jack's tone softened as he carried on, "you did what you could to staunch the bleeding and to keep the boy alive until help arrived," he stopped now, waiting until Kavanagh looked up to meet his eyes, "you did good kid."

They remained like that, eyes locked for several moments as Kavanagh searched Jack's face for any sign of condescension or pity. Eventually he dropped his gaze, Kavanagh still looked doubtful, unsure whether or not to believe the General but he continued with his recitation. "The villagers must have heard the shot, they came running. I had pressure on the wound when Halling reached us, he pulled Bates away and picked the child up and carried him to the village. I just tried to keep pace with him and to keep pressing down on the bullet hole in Jinto's shoulder. There was a lot of shouting going on but I wasn't really paying that much attention to it, I was focussed on the child."

"When we reached the village square something happened, I don't know what but the Colonel screamed and fell to his knees, that set Chapman and Wright off and they fired a burst of gunfire into the air. We stopped and Halling lay Jinto on the ground, someone brought some rags so that I could use those instead of my bare hands. I don't really know a lot more than that, Bates was trying to help the Colonel and the other two were threatening the villagers, asking what they had done to the Colonel, I'm guessing that's when you arrived." He finished with a glance that took in both Shepherd and Sirius and both men nodded to confirm his guess.

Reaching across the table Halling laid one large hand over Kavanagh's two hands in a gesture of gratitude, then drawing back he started to relay his view of events. "We arrived to find two men knelt over Jinto's body on the ground and three more men looking on, I pulled one of the men away and picked up my son to bring him back to our home but when the man screamed and the other men started shooting I had to stop and place him on the ground. I didn't see much more of what happened than Dr Kavanagh, I was concentrating on my son but I did see your Colonel Sumner in the Infirmary before I left. The sudden aging, the white hair and the red hand-print on the chest are all signs of a Wraith attack but there were no Wraith, I don't know how he could have been attacked in the middle of the village without anyone seeing anything, it doesn't make any sense." Halling looked around the table to see what reaction his words had evoked.

It was Daniel who asked the question on everyone's minds, "You mentioned that it looked like a Wraith attack, what is a Wraith?"

Halling's eyes flew to Daniels face in surprise, seeing only earnest enquiry he stared into each of the faces around the table in turn. Apparently none of these people knew about the Wraith. "The Wraith are creatures who feed on our life essence. They travel the galaxy culling the human population for food and then, when the food supplies run low they hibernate away for generations. Once the food stocks are sufficiently replenished they awake and roam the stars again." He stopped and looked around his audience, "you've truly never encountered the Wraith?"

"No, never" Shepherd replied.

"Then you should go back to your own world, as soon as possible!" Halling advised fervently.

"Unfortunately that's not an option."

Halling nodded in understanding before continuing "they are currently in hibernation and we estimate that we should have another forty or fifty years before they awake once more. I was only young when they last raided Athos but I've heard the stories, they place their hand on a man's chest and pull the life force from him leaving only a empty, dry husk behind marked with the print of a hand on the chest where they fed."

It took those assembled around the table a minute to absorb the horror of a race that survived on the life-force of others. Finally Elizabeth spoke, "that certainly sounds like the same symptoms that Colonel Sumner is displaying but if all of these Wraith are hibernating how could they have attacked him, and without anyone seeing anything."

"They do not all sleep, some remain awake as caretakers, they monitor the human population and awake the sleepers when there is sufficient food available to sustain their race" Halling explained, "but even so, there is no way that there could have been a Wraith in the village without our knowing of it. Some of our people can sense their presence yet no-one felt anything today."

"So, not Wraith, but something Wraith-like?" Jack half suggested half questioned.

"I am not aware of any other creature that feeds in the same way that the Wraith do." Halling replied.

"What if it was a Wraith?" Daniel asked in a thoughtful tone.

"Didn't we just establish that it wasn't a Wraith." Jack knew well how Daniel's mind worked, if Daniel had an idea then he was perfectly willing to ask those questions that would help his partner think his way through the problem, even if it did have those who did not know them so well looking at him like he'd kicked a particularly cute puppy!

"Hear me out" Daniel requested, "You and I weren't originally scheduled to join this mission, I wanted to come but my commanding officer," at this he shot a wry glance at Jack who merely dipped his head briefly in acknowledgement, " wouldn't release me. Sirius you told us that you fell through the veil in 1996 and stepped out onto this world in 2004?" Sirius nodded confirmation, not wanting to de-rail Daniel's train of thought. "In 2001 I died," he paused at the shocked gasps from Sirius and Halling but Jack cut them off.

"Don't make such a big deal of it, he does it all the time."

Daniel had to agree but gave Jack's ankle a quick kick under the table anyway, "it's true, but that time I ascended. I spent over a year with the Ancients as an ascended being and I think that during that time I saw you Sirius," this time the gasps came from everyone around the table. "There are still big gaps in my memory of that time but you looked familiar to me the first time I saw you, I think I may have been involved in a very small way in the work that was being done to repair the damage that had been done to you. And I think... I think that knowing your story, the regrets that you have for things left undone may have been what gave me the push to finally convince Jack to leave the military and come to Atlantis."

"So you think that the Ancients rescuing Sirius and sending him here may have... what, spawned an alternate Universe, one where you and Jack came to Atlantis instead of staying on Earth?" Rodney seemed to be the only one following Daniel's line of thought, "an interesting idea but what does that have to do with what's happened to the Colonel?"

Daniel was eager now, his mind racing ahead of his mouth as he tried to get his thoughts across, "well, what if Jack and I coming to Atlantis wasn't the only change caused by Sirius' presence. We know that there are is definitely one point where the timeline has been altered artificially since we arrived here, the story that the other Elizabeth told Sirius. What if Jack and I coming to Atlantis was another split caused by the Ancients intervention, what if there was another major split that we don't know about. Three artifical splits in the timeline so close together couldn't that, I don't know," his voice deepened as he raised his arms theatrically above his head and he intoned "weaken the walls between dimensions?"

All eyes turned to Sirius but it was Rodney who asked, "what did you do when you first arrived on Atlantis?"

Sirius leaned back slightly in his chair, raising his hands defensively before him, "I told you what happened, I thought I was alone, then I spoke Lantia's name and she woke up, she detected the older Elizabeth in distress and led me to her, I brought her back to the infirmary and tried to help her, she told us her story and then Lantia got us out of there and off to the mainland to wait for you to arrive."

"Lantia!" Rodney called out the city computers name, "you got Sirius out of the city whilst it was still underwater, how did you do that?"

Lantia had been listening in on the discussion, just as she listened in on as much as she could of what was going on around the city. "I showed him the shuttlecraft and I manipulated the shield so that he could fly it out of the city, up through the ocean and to the mainland." She explained calmly.

"And how much power did all that manipulation take?" Rodney pressed her.

"Quite a lot, but I calculated it very carefully, I knew that there would be sufficient energy to sustain the city safely on the sea-bed until you arrived, you were in no danger." She assured the eager scientist.

"Yes, you knew that, but we didn't, if Sirius had never arrived in Atlantis, how long would the zpm have lasted until it gave way and the city was raised to the surface?" Everyone could tell that Rodney was getting close to an answer now and they waited in eager anticipation as he took Daniel's initial idea and ran with it.

"It's impossible to say, it would depend on what your people did on arrival, how much of the city they explored and how quickly." Lantia replied sounding a little flustered by her inability to give an answer.

"Granted, but make a guess, five more minutes, a few hours, several days, give me a ball-park estimate here, how long?"

"At least a day, maybe two depending on how much power you used."

"Thank you." Having got his answer Rodney returned his attention to those seated around the table, "so we're in a city, trapped beneath the ocean for a day, maybe two, the power is failing and we have no idea that the city will rise to the surface when the power goes. What do we do?"

"We go looking for somewhere safe to evacuate to!" Jack declared.

"But how do we power the gate, if the zpm is that close to drained surely we can't use the stargate?" Elizabeth asked in confusion.

Shepherd snapped his fingers and pointed across the table to Rodney, "the naquadah generators!"

"Absolutely, they wouldn't be enough to make a difference to the shields but they'd be more than enough to power the gate, but where would we go?"

"What does it matter where, we went somewhere and met these Wraith and they fed on Sumner." Shepherd sat back in satisfaction, they had a workable theory although they would probably never be able to prove it.

"That's all very well but if Sumner was attacked in an alternate universe then why is our Sumner showing the symptoms?" Elizabeth wasn't satisfied with the solution, it still left too many unanswered questions.

"It's what Daniel said, too much interference in the timeline causing a weakness in the barriers between the universes. Events from the other timelines are bleeding through affecting the people in this universe, it could even explain how strangely Colonel Sumner has been acting since we arrived, the effects of almost simultaneous deaths in two different timelines seeping though, could be enough to drive anyone crazy." Rodney sat back too, stunned that he was not only considering but actually supporting such a theory.

Sirius didn't really understand all this talk of alternate universes and splitting the timeline, but there was one question that he felt still needed to be answered, "what does this mean for Sumner, presumably if Sumner had been attacked by a Wraith then the effects would be permanent," he waited a moment and Halling nodded confirmation, "so what happens now, can he recover from an inter-dimensional Wraith attack? And what about the rest of us, are other members of the team going to be struck down randomly by events in another universe?"

As Sirius finished speaking Elizabeth's radio squawked into life and Carson's voice broke in upon the discussion, "Dr Weir, could you come to the infirmary urgently."

"I'll be right there," Elizabeth rose from the table, "gentlemen." She nodded as the men at the table also rose and as she headed for the door she wasn't entirely surprised to find them following her. It was quite clear that objecting would have no effect and so she saved her breath and simply hurried to the infirmary to see what had Carson so agitated.

As they approached the infirmary doors they could hear the commotion going on inside, then a voice they hadn't expected to hear again rang out and as one the group quickened their pace. "What's happening, I demand that you release me at once!"

Stepping through the doors they saw two medical corpsmen struggling to hold an angry figure to one of the diagnostic beds. There, still looking slightly older than his 46 years was Colonel Sumner. Even as they watched more colour bleed into his hair and the lines on his face smoothed out as the years leeched away.

"I guess we have our answer!"

A/N : Well what did you think, please review.
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Piercing the Veil