The Long Way Home

Chapter Ninety Four: The Puppet Master

My body is sanctuary
My blood is pure

Lady Gaga – Electric Chapel

Blood. It was the life force that ran through every single living thing's veins. There was so much potential locked away in the crimson fluid. So many possibilities, all of them were entwined in these tiny strands of DNA. Michael's future was here, locked away in the tiny vial between his fingers, this was his cure for the human sickness that had been plaguing him since he had escaped the planet that he had been held hostage upon by the Atlantians.

Too many shots of the retrovirus had made him become more like them than he had ever wanted to be and he was cursed to wander the universe with that lonely agony writhing inside of him. There was no place for a creature of his kind so he strove to make one. His experiments in breeding had failed. He no longer had the Wraith reproductive organs, instead he was left with human pieces, things that stirred in the presence of his female food. Michael hated the weakness that came with that feeling, the release was so frighteningly pleasurable. He understood why humans practised reproduction, it was such an intricate desirable experience but there was no successful end game.

The aim of it was to make a child and he could not do such a thing. He didn't have enough human DNA to impregnate a human woman. He craved companionship and already he could feel his Hive's unrest at their lack of queen.

There was a solution to that problem and it had taken him so long to find it. Michael hadn't realized that the connection had been in place until he had felt her presence in the refugee camp. He had been receiving his latest test subject from his contact in the camp when he had stumbled across her once more. He had suspected that she was different biologically than all of the others and had managed to acquire a sample of her blood from his contact at camp.

It had been a long time since Michael had felt that kinship to another person. The two had met on Atlantis. The whole time he had resided there he had felt this strange connection to the young doctor even though she had been absent from the majority of his course of treatment. Yet when he looked at her he felt something he could only describe as intimate.

There was something deep inside of those kind blue eyes beckoning to him from underneath the surface. He felt his mind surging towards it and somehow in a the brief seconds they were together their minds linked. She didn't seem to notice, she had continued checking his vitals as if nothing had happened.

Michael had thought she was ignoring their connection. He had wondered why at the time, had he insulted her in his past? The feelings he had for her led him to believe that they had been in a relationship before his capture by the Wraith.

It hadn't taken that long for him to spot the platinum wedding ring on her finger and wonder who it was that she belonged to. It made him feel jealous and inflamed when he realized it was the very man he was beginning to hate. Sheppard was watchful of him, at first he found this acceptable as the other man's underling but the mistrust between the two men had grown and turned to hate after Michael's real identity became apparent.

There was so much fury inside when he thought of Sheppard, it bubbled and grew until his muscles flexed and he could stand the feeling no more. He was losing his focus so he switched his thoughts back to the one thing that mattered at the moment, regaining his queen.

Michael watched the crimson fluid as he tilted the vial from side to side between his fingers. She had been the answer to all of his woes all along, he just hadn't had the information at hand to know it at the time. He had long suspected in the months after his escape that there was something of the Wraith locked inside of the young doctor but now he had the proof.

That feeling had mixed itself into a cocktail of chemicals, he wanted that companionship more than anything. The two of them were still different but once he got rid of that human side he would help morph her into the perfect blend of Wraith and human. They would be exactly the same.

Michael pressed open the lid of the centrifuge before inserting the blood inside. There was a lot he had to do in such a short space of time. It was critical he analyse the components and find the correct balance for his own version of the retrovirus, he couldn't afford to make any mistakes.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cass was dreaming, she had had enough of these dreams lately to know when it was happening. The colour was always stark, like someone had turned up the contrast on a television set. The edges were blurred just a little, her peripheral vision was fuzzy at best. Yet her normal sense of sight was heightened and her focus was just where it was supposed to be, on the man directly in front of her.

She had been here before in the past weeks, they had been frequent since her arrival at the refugee camp as had the headaches. As usual she was sitting in the Mess Hall, just like the first time they had met and the dreams she'd had later.

Cass had never liked the way that Michael made her feel. She had had minimal contact with him during his treatment. She'd been called upon to check his vitals when Carson was stuck off world, the experience had been surreal. The Wraith that had been captured looked disturbingly human, it was surprising and nauseating at the same time. He had spoken to her in that level benign tone and she had answered his questions with words that were as honest as she could muster. She had no idea why Michael featured so predominantly in her dreams. He had been killed not long ago when John had been forced to destroy the planet of where they had created a colony of human type Wraith.

Their hands were resting on the table between the two of them, their palms face down. They stared at one another with clear open eyes. There was knowing in his gaze and Cass didn't like it. She felt like he was seeing right through her, stripping her flesh down to the bone like an animal.

Her head was pounding. There was violent pain gnawing behind her eyes and a throbbing in her temples as she took in the human features of Michael's face. She had been having a lot of headaches recently, she thought it was due to stress from the precocious situation she was in. John had been at her to use the full body scanner at the clinic to ensure that the head aches were not a symptom of something more sinister. She'd taken his advice in order to give not only him but herself a peace of mind. The lab had taken her blood to run some tests but they had all come back negative. There was no physiological reason for her to be feeling like this so the effects must be psychological.

"It hurts doesn't it?" Michael stated, almost sympathetically.

"Yes." Cass responded.

If he was in her head, he would know the answer anyway. There was no point in lying. The only logical reason for this was guilt, an unconscious emotion that lurked under her flesh because of what Carson had done to this man in the name of the retrovirus.

"Soon there won't be any pain." he told her flatly. "You'll become what you were always meant to be."

"What does that mean?" she asked him with curiosity, her fingertips rubbing at her temples.

"Freedom." Michael answered just as enlightening as he had been before. "Freedom to do whatever we wish. I can feel her inside you, scratching away trying to get out."

"Her?" Cass queried, already disliking the response she was receiving.

"All those instincts you keep suppressed, it's time you stripped away the confines of your human prison and embrace what you are truly meant to be." Michael said as he dismissed the question with the wave of her hand.

"Your dead." Cass reminded him, her voice strong as she reviewed the humanoid Wraith. "You've been dead for months and your talking a lot of spiritualistic mumbo jumbo."

"Your like me." Michael told her simply. "We're the same."

"We're nothing alike." she refuted. "This is my mind messing with me because I'm exhausted. It knows that I'm worrying about the possibly the retrovirus is causing the headaches."

"We shall see." Michael stated with a great deal of foreboding in his voice. "You'll see."