She awoke in a room that she knew to be her quarters, eyes adjusting to the darkness slowly, surprised to find herself alone. Though she had the form of Elizabeth Weir, it was Amarante who sat up slowly, blinking, and rested against the wall, hands folded in her lap. She remembered being knocked out, and watching Nik…John…being sedated before her. Sleep had brought her two things; complete control of the body that somehow was hers and yet was not, and all the memories of herself. Both her selves. Amarante and Elizabeth. The memory of she and John…Nik…she still had no idea what to call him… kissing on the balcony, almost getting far too out of hand, was the most recent, the most prominent, before the sudden Infirmary scene. She was Amarante…and she wasn’t. Whoever Elizabeth was, her persona was present, silent, tucked away in the back of her mind, a presence she felt and yet could not separate from her own consciousness. Amarante stood up, searching for a way to throw some light into the room. She wandered across to the window and drew back the heavy, roughly cut, drapery, letting the dim light of evening stream in through the panes of glass. She glanced about her quarters, no, not hers, Elizabeth’s…but she was Elizabeth, technically, so by all rights, hers, she convinced herself. Stepping closer to the far wall, she recognised the people from ragged, hastily pinned photos, as ghosts. Not from her life. Amarante realised, with great regret, that it wasn’t those in the pictures before her that were the ghosts. They still walked the corridors of Atlantis. She was long dead before they even arrived. From what she knew of Elizabeth, she found it quite ironic that now it was she, the lowly human, who was in command of the Ancient’s holy city. She hoped that high and mighty Ancient woman who had killed her was still in existence somewhere to see her triumph. She frowned, walking to the door, expecting it to open when she hit the release. Nothing. She hit it again. Nothing happened. Was she now a prisoner in her own city? Amarante shook her head. She had to stop thinking of herself as Elizabeth. For now, they were separate, she was sleeping, somewhere. Sighing, she sat back down on the edge of the bed, awaiting some explanation. Suddenly unnerved, she caught her reflection in a nearby mirror. The features that gazed back at her were the ones of the woman she had seen in the chamber all those years ago.

-

Nikomedes drifted back to consciousness, suddenly aware of a sharp pain in his wrist and an ache each time he took a breath. He remembered dying.

She didn’t. He could remember the blaze of agony, the scream of pain he refused to let escape, as his own energy destroyed him. Even remember the thoughts running through his mind at the time. Was it possible she didn’t remember death because she didn’t see it coming? Then again, he supposed, he didn’t remember death itself. He just remembered the pain…and then nothing. Did she remember the pain? Maybe it was for the best that she didn’t… Nikomedes opened his eyes to find a familiar face staring down at him. The doctor who had sedated him. He put a name to the face: Carson. That knowledge wasn’t his own. That knowledge belonged to the owner of the body he inhabited. His own, he supposed, though somewhere, in the back of his mind, someone or some part of him protested that thought violently.

"Major?"

Nik narrowed his eyes, hesitant.

"Not the Major then?" Carson assumed, "Nikomedes, I take it?"

"What’s going on?" he looked around, and, on not seeing Elizabeth, no, Amarante, he suppressed that part of himself again as it fought the labelling of the woman he knew only as Elizabeth, "Where’s Mara?"

"Doctor Weir?"

"Amarante."

"Amarante as you call her, is in her quarters. She was fit to be released from the Infirmary, it wasn’t wise to keep her here."

"Why am I here?" Nik sat up and winced at the same time.

"You put up a wee bit of a fight, if you recall. Bruising to the ribs and dehydration," Carson started forward to remove the drip before his patient decided to do it for himself.

"Dehydration?"
"Major Sheppard has to learn there are substances other than coffee to drink around here."

"Then you know I’m Nikomedes?" he questioned, one hand to his head in pain as the room blurred when he uttered the words.

"…Yes…" Carson replied, "If there is such a person and you aren’t some foreign being inhabiting the Major."

"Its me, Doc, its me," he insisted, "I’m John Sheppard…Nikomedes…whatever. We’re the same person."

"Aye, and you’ll be telling me Doctor Weir and Amarante are the same person too."

"They are."

"We’re the same soul. Its different personalities…people…" he hissed as fire blazed through his mind.

"I think Major Sheppard would like a word, am I right?" Beckett folded his arms.

"Its nothing…" Nikomedes muttered, "Let me see Amarante."

"If we want answers, its not as if we have a choice here, is it?"

He stood up, "No. You don’t," he found it strange that he knew the way to Elizabeth’s quarters without having to ask. He halted at the door to the Infirmary, "She runs Atlantis. She’s in charge of everything here. …This is her city."

"And?" Carson frowned.

Nik smiled, "They killed her. They killed her for being a simple little human and here she is running their precious city. Poetic justice I call that."

"By modern or ancient standards?"

"Both," he smirked.

Beckett sighed. If he weren’t so concerned with getting John Sheppard back, he was sure he could have got on with Nikomedes quite well.

-

A further fifteen minutes of silence had got her no further to freedom. Amarnate stood pressed up against the door, trying to see through the multi-hued glass, sure she could make out the shapes of human figures outside, "Hello?" she repeated, "Excuse me? Hello?" she sighed, about to turn away, stunned when the door slid open and she fell forward into the corridor, right into Nikomedes’ arms. Unfortunately, the first word out of her mouth was not the one he wanted to hear, "John!"

"Mara," he kept to the name he knew her by, "You alright?"

"Yes…" she glanced around at the others in the corridor. She could name each of them, but was afraid of offending them.

"Well, what now?" Nik gave a helpless shrug, "What do you expect us to do?"
"Use the chair," it was McKay who spoke first.

"Now hang on a moment, that was just a suggestion," Carson countered.

"Did you not suggest that the Major try accessing the database by decoding segments?" Teyla reminded the scientist.

"I did…but the chair would be quicker…"

"Chair…" Amarante uttered, "…What is that?"

"It’s a system that allowed those with the Ancient gene to access Atlantis’ systems."

A memory flickered. A picture. Nikomedes in the chair. She was watching. She was watching and then…a sound…and the light struck her…pain… the presence in the back of her might quickly fought for control as her knees weakened and she fell to the floor, eyes rolling back as the world went black. Elizabeth Weir cursed as her chance was lost and she too was dragged into oblivion.

Nikomedes knelt beside her, "…Mara…" he gathered her into his arms.

McKay exhaled slowly, exasperated, "So I take it this all has something to do with the activating Atlantis? The chair system?"

"What, so we take them there and hope something happens?" Ford snapped.

"Sounds like a plan to me."

They all stared at Carson, awaiting ‘orders’.

"…Aye…unfortunately it sounds like a plan…"