Teyla clasped her hands together, trying to still them.
“Elizabeth,” she whispered. “I do not understand…”
Jennifer closed her eyes against the glare of her laptop screen, still seeing formulas and graphs swimming behind her eyelids. She sat back, releasing shoulders sore from being hunched for hours, and reached up to cup the back of her neck, trying to knead out some of the knots.
It felt every bit as late as it was which, a glance at her watch told her, was almost three in the morning, Atlantis time. She vaguely remembered Teyla saying goodnight several hours ago before heading to her quarters, but at the time she’d been busy fiddling with the Wraith version of a microscope and some slides and, after that, setting up another round of cultures, hoping that this time one of them would do something.
At least they were making some progress, she thought, even if it wasn’t as fast as she would have hoped. But she did think — finally — that they were getting somewhere. With a yawn, she sat up a little straighter and put her fingers back on the keyboard, trying to focus.
Twenty minutes later, notes finished, she leaned over one of the workbenches, watching behind plastic goggles as the newest biochemical compound turned blackish purple in the vial. Once its color was uniform, she carefully measured out three drops onto the waiting culture dish.
She yawned again and tried to cover it with her sleeve, then stood there for a moment with one hand braced on the workbench, hoping for a second wind. Across the room, Todd looked up from his own workstation and took her in at a glance, seeming amused.
“I would not advise falling asleep so near the prototypes,” he said mildly. “If you require rest, go.”
Jennifer had to swallow before she could speak. “No, I’m fine,” she said, trying to ignore how good the word ‘rest’ sounded. “Just need a minute.”
Todd rose smoothly and crossed the room with long, purposeful strides, looking as fresh as ever. Absently, Jennifer noted his good color, the sheen of his skin and the way his hair gleamed in the soft light. He looked like the picture of health, for a Wraith anyway, and she tried hard not to think about what that meant. Tried not to wonder who his last meal had been. The thought made her lips press together with distaste, and she looked down at the cultures, willing the retrovirus to work.
“Come, then,” he said, at her shoulder, and Jennifer was proud of herself for not jumping. She looked up, and he gestured elegantly, inclining his head and turning over one long-fingered hand. He could have been a character from a romantic novel, some dangerous and courtly gentleman with his carriage waiting outside. It was that that left her so off-balance, she thought. It was hard to remember that he thought of her as food.
“I need to stay at this.”
“If you are to function, you will need food and drink,” he said, shrugging and not quite meeting her gaze. Maybe this was weird for him too, dealing with humans as something other than meals. She wondered if he pretended that they were Wraith, if that was easier than admitting to himself that all humans had personalities and interesting ideas and got tired when they’d been working too long.
“Maybe you’re right,” she said.
Todd led her through the twisting corridors of his hive, still enough of a labyrinth after several days that she would have been hopelessly lost alone. She suspected that it hadn’t remained entirely unchanged, anyway; more than once she’d thought she caught walls shifting out of the corner of her eye. The room he took her to looked a lot like the one where she’d first met with him, the first time she’d ever seen a hive ship or been up close with a Wraith. It seemed like a thousand years ago.
He sat with her and must have called telepathically for food, because after a moment, a drone came in with a tray. The food was only fruit, but at this point in the day she was happy to see it, and there was a cup that when she took a cautious sip contained water, flat and entirely tasteless. She wondered if the ship distilled it somehow, if she was drinking part of what ran through the ship’s veins.
“Thank you, Todd,” she said, and then realized that couldn’t be his actual name. Colonel Sheppard had started calling him that, because none of the Wraith had ever given them a name, or been willing to speak to them much at all. “Your name’s not really ‘Todd,’ is it?”
In the dim light, the star-shaped tattoo stood out in sharp contrast to his skin, and his eyes seemed to flicker as he moved and the light shifted, like golden embers from a flame. Rodney had eyes like these, now. He tilted his head, hair spilling over his shoulder, a trail of silver against the dark leather. “It is not.”
She wasn’t sure if his lack of elaboration was simply a statement of fact, or an indicator that he didn’t want to have this conversation with her. Talking with Todd about anything except their research made her feel all too sharply how alien they were to each other. “You do have them, though, right? Individual names?”
Jennifer wondered for a moment if the question was somehow offensive, but Todd barked a laugh, showing sharp teeth. “We do, little one,” he said. “All of the thousands of Wraith who live, each of us has our own name, and a name for our lineage, and our ships have names, and our planets. We are not nameless beasts.”
She looked at him, his face still again, his features standing out sharp in the dim light. “So, what is your real name?” she asked. “I’d rather not keep calling you Todd if there’s something that would be more polite.”
Todd frowned. “That…is a harder question than you realize. A Wraith is named from the shape, the sense of his mind. The images and sensations others feel when they speak to him. It is a difficult thing to capture in a word.”
She nodded. “So, not like us, then. Not just a name that really doesn’t mean anything, like Jennifer.”
He looked confused. “But your name has meaning, does it not? Pale, or perhaps fair. Fair One is how you are known to us.”
“I — ” Somewhere between flattered and bemused, it took her a moment to get it. “That’s what my name means, but it’s not why I was given it. I mean, I was born in 1981. There were two other Jennifers in my class.”
“Ah.” Somehow, she thought he seemed offended by that idea. “Yes, I suppose we are quite different.”
“Still,” she said, reaching out impulsively to touch his sleeve, as if he were a patient. Establishing rapport, that was what they’d called it in med school. “If you can say that you call me ‘Fair One,’ there has to be a way for you to tell me your name, right? Something that sort of sums the telepathic stuff up.”
He stared at her hand, looking white and washed-out against the black leather, then at her face, strangely and deep, as if seeing her for the first time. “My name,” he said at last, “my name is one who goes alone, ahead. One who is sure-footed and certain, capable of finding a way for others who follow behind. Leader might come close, but not a ruler.”
“Scout?” Jennifer tried, but he shook his head.
“No, for a scout is solitary, but I am…” He freed his sleeve from her hand, his own fingers moving on the table, as if trying to find the shape of something. “Guide. Guide is what you may call me.” The smile he gave her was sharp and strange for a moment. “I give you my true name, Fair One.”
“Guide,” she repeated, and tried to smile in return.
The conference room at Homeworld Command was once again in use by the IOA.
“Dr. Daniel Jackson.” S.R. Desai steepled his hands thoughtfully. “That is different.”