Chapter Text
"Is there going to be a next time?"
John motioned for the Marines to leave them alone, and with another wave of his hand he closed the door.
Todd was watching him intently, yellow eyes glinting like warning lights.
"If I were a Wraith, I would kill you just out of spite."
Todd said nothing.
"But obviously I'm not, and, uh, you've been sort of useful so far."
Todd grinned.
"Well, when you weren't trying to double-cross us, manipulate us, or trying to crash us into a planet. Apart from that."
Todd growled a little and narrowed his eyes at Sheppard.
"Are you still not getting over that, Sheppard, when I'm supposed to get over having my hive and ships destroyed?"
"We didn't do that!" John protested, because really, it had been a huge misunderstanding and really shitty timing. "If you'd listened to us instead of just jumping to conclusions, we could have worked together to..."
"Are you angry over not being trusted?" Todd interrupted him, his harsh resounding voice infused with a tone of dark amusement.
"Of course I am!"
"Why should you be more trustworthy to us than we to you?" Todd continued, advancing from behind the desk that stood between them. "You're still trying to destroy us every way you can. Some of you are willing to let a third of their population die just so the rest can be poisonous to us. Your species would see ours destroyed no matter how, while we obviously need you to survive."
The last thing John wanted was to engage in an ethical debate with a Wraith.
"Well," he said instead, "that's why we tried to develop that vaccine that would let you feed like normal... like humans again."
"But it didn't work, and yet again I found myself without hive and ship."
"You're a tough guy. I don't even want to know what you did to regain your place in the Alliance."
Todd grinned cruelly at that, and John really didn't want to know.
"But it was all for nothing. I have nothing now - no queen, no ship, no hive. Do you know what it means for one of us to be without a hive? The silence where the buzz of the hivemind should be..."
"I don't know, I kind of like silence," John said lightly, "and I don't like people in my head."
Todd snorted.
"You know nothing indeed. I can't explain it to you."
"I happen to care about my crew and my people," John said, surprised that he was feeling offended. "I know something about... belonging."
"You know nothing about what it is to belong body and mind, to be part of something that is also part of you."
Todd was speaking angrily now, with the closest thing resembling passion John had ever seen a Wraith display. Well, a Wraith other than Michael, but Michael was a different can of worms entirely.
"Why do you think we don't use names? We do not need names. You have the need to put a name on everything. And yet, I have learned to live without them. I've worked with you so many times already. I've let you experiment on me."
John had instinctively taken a step back when Todd had begun advancing, but he forced himself to stop and glare defiantly in Todd's face. Todd seemed very... intense right then.
"What's more... John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagan, Ronon Dex." Todd punctuated each name with a small step towards John, who was beginning to wonder if being alone with a Wraith had been such a bright idea after all. "Doctor Carter, Doctor Jennifer Keller, Mister Woolsey. What does this tell you, Sheppard?"
Maybe McKay was on to something with that "self-preservation of a lemming" thing.
"Uh, that you've got a good memory?" he said lightly, trying not to back away, and wondering why exactly wasn't he doing that.
"I have learned your names," Todd hissed. "Humans with names. Like I should care. Do you name your food? Wraith feed and humans are fed on. It is the way we are, it is who we've been for millennia before you came here. But I was willing to give that up, to renounce the very thing that makes me who I am. Does that tell you nothing, Sheppard?"
"To be fair, since every time you feed could be your last, one might say you're just trying to avoid food poisoning."
Todd snorted, and John realized that at some point he'd begun taking it for granted that Todd would understand his jokes.
"Perhaps. But I still did it, when others of my kind wouldn't. Perhaps I've become what you named me. Todd. I am less and less what I used to be, since I met you, John Sheppard. I have changed. Wraith have not changed for millennia. Perhaps it was time you yielded a little ground yourself."
Todd was standing right in front of him now, staring him in the eyes. John swallowed the knot in his neck.
"I wasn't going to kill you anyway," he said. "Just so you know."
Todd inclined his head sidewise, still fixating John.
"But I can't just let you go right now, and I certainly can't let you roam free in the city while we're on Earth."
Todd narrowed his eyes and twisted his lips into a scowl, so John continued hurriedly.
"But I can arrange to get you a more interesting room, and your clothes too."
Todd smiled as John stepped back to make for the exit.
"That is a promising beginning, Sheppard." Todd bowed his head just a little. "Will you also come to keep me company once in a while?" he added.
John hoped with all his might that it was just sarcasm, because the alternative was scarier. What was even scarier was that he'd probably do it anyway.