Chapter Text
The technician pressed their ear-piece and spoke into it:
“Commander! The Atlantis ship is fleeing!”
Todd shook his head to himself upon hearing.
“No they are not; they are circling back around,” Todd replied into his ear-piece. He didn't have to look at the monitors to know.
“Why would you think that?”
Todd gave a long sigh.
“Because they don’t leave their people behind.”
The Puddle-Jumper made a large horizontal arch as it circled back. The weapon pods extended and fired four drones that swirled and danced and eventually struck the side of the ship, causing devastating destruction and for the ship to rock. Todd braced himself against a nearby wall as the ship rocked from the shots. He gritted his teeth in annoyance and anger; he knew it.
He had to move fast, before they boarded the ship and retrieved their missing soldiers. Picking up the pace, Todd sprinted down the hall. He looked around himself continuously, scanning the environment. They had to be here somewhere...
“Freeze.”
Todd stopped dead in his tracks. He recognized the sound of John Sheppard's voice. Slowly raising his hands in the air, Todd just as slowly turned around, to see John aiming a handgun at his forehead. A smirk crept across Todd’s face.
“Hello John,” Todd greeted, his voice practically dripping with venom. Sheppard’s eyes narrowed in a glare in lieu of any verbal response. Sheppard opened his vest pocket with one hand and pulled something out of it, then held it up for Todd to see it clearly. In his hand, John held a pocket-sized spheroid, one of the keys to the Mothership's weapons.
“I've got all the keys to your ship's fancy weapons. They're useless without them and you know it; give up!” Sheppard knew Todd would give up if he knew there was no way out, he always had.
Todd gave an expression that was like a watered-down version of surprise and tilted his head, then that knowing smile he was so well known for crept across his face.
“Now, how did you do that? Do you have some other Wraith held captive that I don’t know about?” Todd’s voice was somehow curious, smug, and filled with rancor all at the same time. Like their ships, the neural-interface of the keys was specifically tuned to Wraith physiology, only a Wraith could shut it off... or someone with Wraith DNA.
“Teyla,” Sheppard answered simply. She was off getting the last one now.
“Ah, of course,” Todd replied. He took a step forward towards John, and Sheppard immediately backed up and made a show of putting the device back into his vest pocket. Todd’s smile grew, he knew that John would do that. Todd stood up straighter, looking down at John, but his smile didn’t falter. “In truth, those devices have nothing to do with the weapons; I told you that to stall time. Though, I will admit, it was fun watching you run around in circles,” he said with glee.
Sheppard paused, dumbfounded, and based on Todd’s expression, he took glee in that too.
“Did you really think I would actually tell you everything in an egotistical speech like some cheap movie villain? You should know that it’s not that easy.” Todd’s smirk grew a little, showing a glimpse of razor-sharp teeth, and he pointed a finger at John’s vest pocket. “After all, working with me is like walking around with a live grenade in your pocket.”
That’s when Sheppard noticed that the device in his pocket was pulsating faster.
Sheppard quickly pulled the device out of his pocket and threw it at Todd’s face, then immediately began to book it in the opposite direction to flee from the impending explosion. That explosion wouldn’t come however, as Todd caught the spheroid in his feeding hand without batting an eye. With a single thought, the explosive was deactivated. He wordlessly dropped the device to the ground and tilted his head as he spoke again:
“Oops; did I forget to mention that?” Todd’s voice was playful and humorous but also filled with rancor, as he again called back to that tense conversation between him and John aboard the Daedalus so many years ago. Sheppard glared at Todd as he recalled the conversation as well, and pushed himself off of the wall he had run into in his attempt to escape the explosion.
Todd began to walk forward towards John slowly, continuing to speak as he did.
“This isn’t some plot to destroy something out of sadism, or simply because I’m the ‘bad guy’ and that’s what bad guys do; no; this is personal,” he hissed, then tilted his head to the side as he corrected himself, “actually, no, this isn’t just personal, this is for the good of this galaxy. You wouldn’t believe that I know, but it’s true. Atlantis, or rather the people of Atlantis, need to be destroyed, for the heinous acts they have committed, and will commit. Your destruction however, is very personal. The one person I trusted, who promised me that they would never let me fall into the hands of their superiors when they tried to operate on me, turned their back on me the moment said situation occurred. Can you imagine my shock, when it turned out that the one I would have taken a bullet for turned out to be the one to pull the trigger. A true wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Todd growled, glaring at John as if he were staring straight through his soul as he walked forward.
Sheppard lifted up his handgun and again aimed it at Todd’s forehead in an attempt to sway him from moving any further towards him. Todd did stop; he stopped walking forward, but his manner wasn’t indicative of being scared or wary. Todd seemed to study John for a few seconds, before he suddenly leaned forward, but it wasn’t to attack; he instead thrust his head forward so the end of the gun-barrel made contact with his forehead.
There was a long silence, a tense but depressing atmosphere between the two unmoving men. The solemn and gloomy mood cracked for just a moment as Todd cracked a sort of psychotic smile and said his next statement with a bit of laughter:
“I played you, and you promised me that if you found out I was playing you, you would just kill me, and you’re a man to keep your promises.” His voice turned gloom, a deep melancholy replacing the former humorousness and mixing in with the firm confidence. “I’m not surrendering to you, not again, so go ahead; kill me; get this over with.”
Sheppard hesitated, shocked at Todd offering himself up to die. That hesitation didn’t last long before Sheppard recollected himself and his expression changed from shocked to determined, an expression Todd knew well. That familiar resolute expression on John’s face, the one where he has to make a difficult decision and forces himself to do what is necessary before he has the chance to change his mind. This time however, that resolute expression was mixed with anger. Sheppard was angry, in fact he was furious. Todd was trying to kill his friends, destroy his city! Todd had tricked them, acted as if he were coming here to save the city from destruction, and turned out to be the one trying to destroy it. He was the only wolf here.
Todd tensed. He wasn’t exactly bluffing, but he also wasn’t going to allow himself to die if he didn’t need to. Quicky, he acted. taking his feeding hand, Todd grabbed John’s wrists, John’s two-handed grip on the gun providing the perfect opening to grab them both at once, and thrust upward, diverting the aim of the gun from Todd’s head to high above his head, causing the bullet to miss, and shoving John’s wrists into the wall behind him with such force that the sudden pressure on his wrists caused him to drop the gun.
Sheppard flinched as he expected the gun to go off as it hit the ground. It did not, but the thought did help remind Sheppard of the danger of his situation, though it wasn’t like he really needed a reminder of the danger of being pinned against the wall by a hostile Wraith. Upon seeing John glance nervously at the gun, Todd stepped on it and then kicked it away, not allowing John a chance to arm himself again.
“You’re pathetic. And to think, I used to look up to you,” Todd hissed, venom dripping from every syllable. His body began to shake a little as he continued, cracks and tremors showing in his voice that weren’t so subtle. “I was so wrong about you. I never should have trusted you. I trusted you, you know. There was a time when I would have done almost anything for you. Heh, some fool I was...” Todd was silent for a moment, lost in old memories, memories of happier times, and then the moment it all came crashing down. “Fool me once, shame on you...” Todd growled, tightening his grip on John’s wrists and pushing him further up against the wall. His other hand grasped John’s shirt collar and pulled on it, more for emphasis and out of anger than anything else. “You went against your word, against everything I thought you stood for! I really expected better of you...”
Sheppard didn’t know what promise he made to Todd in the future, but he did know that he would never go back on his word; there had to be more going on!
Todd recognized that expression, he knew John didn’t believe him. He gritted his teeth and raised his voice,
“Even if you did care, you did nothing about it!” Todd stared at John for a few moments, neither man speaking and both breathing heavily, both for different reasons. Todd took a few moments and seemed to calm himself down, his voice returning to its former state of being low and filled with bitter hatred, but the tremors in his voice returned ten-fold.
“What it takes to bring someone over the edge... After escaping that Genii prison, I spent, so many years, trying to put myself back together, only for your IOA to come along and shatter me again, picking and hacking at the barely healed cracks in my psyche with their experiments. So, if you want to break things, you better be prepared to walk through the broken shards.”
Sheppard struggled against Todd’s grip, and that smug smile returned to Todd’s face upon seeing it.
“What’s the matter, John? You’re the one who told me that I should open up and show my emotions; do you not like them~?”
Todd didn’t care if John saw his weakness anymore. Well, that wasn’t true, he did care, it was humiliating, but he wasn’t threatened by it anymore. It wasn’t because he didn’t view John as a threat, in fact he saw John as even more of a threat, he just looked down upon him morally. It wasn’t because he didn’t view John as a threat anymore, it was because he wouldn’t have a chance to do anything with the information, like a killer who’s not afraid to show their face to their victim because they know they will die before they can get to the police.
Sheppard could see that Todd was barely holding it together. He was obviously very upset and hurt, about some event that Sheppard only knew bits and pieces of.
Sheppard had learned that sometimes diplomacy was the only way out, and it wasn’t like he had any other real choice with his wrists pinned to the wall. Of course, with Todd, it was about a fifty-fifty shot on if it would work.
Calming himself down enough that he could speak clearly, Sheppard met Todd’s eyes again, and in the most calm but serious voice he could muster, he spoke:
“Todd, I-”
“Save it!” Todd cut John off, shoving him further into the wall.
“I’ve been down this road before...” Todd said bitterly. He straightened up slightly, suddenly gaining a more formal tone and posture. “I am grateful for you getting me out of that Genii prison the first time, but as you said...” Todd’s left hand took over pinning John to the wall, as he raised his feeding hand, the slit opening up, ready to feed. “All bets are off.”