Wow. That was... better than feedback than I expected. Not as much as in my dreams, but more than I hoped for. It has occurred to me that, since this is AU, y'all have no idea where it's going. So I shall list off some of the involving factors. There are potentials for spoilers here, but hey, that's kinda the point.

There will be: the City of Atlantis. Stargates. A long stay in Pegasus. Sam the whale. Fighting the Genii for Earth. Fighting the Wraith for all humanity. Iratus bugs. And much, much more.

Buckle up and enjoy the ride.

disclaimer: me no own.

---

Chapter Two- Glamour- a meeting of fate and the dangers of a wild power.

The day everything changed again was a little more than three weeks later.

Working at the book store was a lesson in tolerable tedium. Elizabeth made no apologies for her line of work or the people that hung around, although really there was no problem on that front. John had been introduced to several of those people, including a fellow Air Force pilot named Lorne and a pretty woman called Teyla. Lorne had regarded him with lazy suspicion and Teyla had subtly avoided shaking John's hand or touching him in any way.

The latter bothered him more than the former, especially since Teyla seemed to be a touchy-feely kind of person. She'd looked stunned the first time they'd met, as if he'd whacked her in the face with a two-by-four before introducing himself. She avoided physical contact with admirable skill and left him only vaguely feeling like he had some contagious disease.

His second day there, Elizabeth had given him more of a sense of normality by sitting him down with three hours' worth of paperwork associated with getting a new job. She had also informed him that the twenty was coming out of his first paycheck, which oddly enough was something of a relief. He didn't want her thinking he needed handouts. By the end of the second week John was able to convince himself that this was just a normal job, and if the people were a little odd, well, so be it.

Which wasn't to say weird things didn't happen. Elizabeth still knew things she had no right knowing- she'd called him Major when he'd come in one morning, but at least she'd looked as surprised by it as he had been. Various people stopped by for no real reason he could determine and would talk to his boss for a few minutes before ducking out again. The day after he'd met her, Teyla had given him a henna tattoo of some arcane symbol on the inside of his left wrist- still carefully not touching him, but she seemed a little more relaxed around him after that.

Once he'd gone home to find something that looked somewhat like ancient Greek painted onto his door. The next morning he'd mentioned it to Elizabeth, who had gone still and quiet, lips pressed into a thin line. By the time he'd made it home that night, the Greek symbols were gone. They'd been replaced by a long string of designs similar to the one on his wrist. He'd been planning to wash the paint off, had been itching to do so all day, but found himself leaving the new stuff alone.

And, of course, there were the countless conversations that had abruptly ended every time he'd walked into the room, which was never a good sign. Once curiosity had gotten the better of him and he'd stopped just before entering the back room to listen.

"...went home yesterday," a small, nerdy-looking man was saying. He had some accent, Russian or something. John had heard his name once and promptly forgotten it.

"Did she go home as planned or did she leave early?" Elizabeth asked, and John realized by her tone alone she knew she was prying into a delicate situation.

"It is Christmas soon, yes?" Nerdy Guy said. "She went home for the holidays. I do not think Rodney upset her too badly. Not more than normal."

"They didn't speak to each other for eleven years. 'Not more than normal' isn't exactly reassuring." Elizabeth sighed tiredly. "He barely knew she'd gotten married," she added quietly. "He didn't even know he had a niece."

"Her husband is unaware, correct?" Teyla cut in softly, and John started. He hadn't known she was there. "As is her daughter."

"Madison. Yes. Kaleb has no power, but according to Rodney, Madison takes after the McKay family tradition with interest." He could hear Elizabeth's smile and found himself wondering exactly what tradition this family was known for.

"They are being watched?" Teyla half-asked.

"Of course," the older woman answered steadily. "Jeannie might not be a part of a network but she's still family."

"Still a McKay." Nerdy Guy added. There was a delicate pause that lasted long enough for the man to realize he'd just made a tactical error but not quite long enough for him to figure out what it was.

"Will she ever rejoin the network?" Teyla again.

"To rejoin she would have had to have been in it in the first place. And I doubt it- she wanted a normal life and she's happy with it."

"A normal life?" Nerdy Guy was being more careful now, his voice neutral. The question could be taken any way.

"She'll never really have one, not with a brother who's a keeper and a daughter who's probably going to have-"

Elizabeth cut herself off and for a moment silence reigned. Then-

"John?"

He scrambled backwards, nearly knocking over a shelf of books in his haste. Not that it mattered; Elizabeth knew he'd been listening the way she knew everything else that was impossible. None of the three left the back room, though, and he stayed out front and didn't answer. They never talked about it- there was no need, her point had been made. Sometimes John rewound the conversation in his head, trying to figure the double meanings behind such words as 'keeper' and 'unaware', but quickly gave up. He didn't like where that line of thought was leading him.

---

December seventh was the crux. It was the day Elizabeth Weir got up at her normal five-thirty, made herself a single pot of coffee, stood on her porch to watch the snow-lit sunrise, and Knew with sudden clarity, as instinctive and effortless as the way a human knows how to breathe, that today was the day Rodney McKay was going to die.

---

John Sheppard stumbled out of bed at six-oh-six the same morning, a full two hours earlier than he was used to. He pulled on the first pair of jeans his hand encountered and didn't even bother with a shirt. He staggered down the short hallway to the entry room and yanked open the front door.

"The hell do you want?" he spat at Lorne, who froze mid-pound. Behind him Teyla was drawing something on the wall with a red marker. As soon as she saw him she stepped smoothly between the two men and brandished her marker.

"John," she said, calm and severe, "the tattoo on your wrist. Let me see it, please."

He blinked at her for a moment before holding out his arm. She had refreshed the design earlier in the week. He hadn't seen a need for it; the lines were a little faded, true, but the design itself was still clear. Teyla gingerly took his wrist and redrew the symbol over the faint tan lines before he could pull his arm back and stop her. She also added another symbol higher up on his arm, close to his elbow.

"Hey!" he blurted, yanking away and rubbing at the marks. It didn't even smear. "Is that laundry marker? That stuff is hell to wash off-"

"That's the point," Lorne interrupted before dismissing John and turning to Teyla. "Can you handle him, or are you gonna need help?"

"I will manage," she answered, capping the marker and tucking it into a pocket. The hand she had touched him with she scrubbed on her shirt as if trying to remove some oily residue. Lorne nodded to her and headed back down the hallway. He was armed, John suddenly noticed. Just before he turned the corner John caught a glimpse of a nine mil in his left hand.

"What the hell is going on here?" he demanded of Teyla. She gave him an unreadable look.

"You must forgive us, John. If there was any other way, if we had any other choice... But a good man is going to die and we must prevent it. We simply do not have time to explain."

She said something else then, something archaic and flowing. There was an odd sensation on his arm and he glanced down to see the two glyphs- where they glowing? He looked up to ask---

blank blank mind do as ordered put on shirt shoes get in car wait get on plane wait wait wait wait get off plane get in car wait wait blank mind blank gone

--- looked up to ask and something was rushing at him, going easily ninety. He yelled hoarsely and jerked away. His foot hit something in front of him and something yanked tight across his chest and he cracked his head on something hard and cold. Ahead of him someone swore and the world was suddenly wrenching back and forth- oh, now he got it, he was in a car.

"Jesus Christ almighty what the fuck was that?!" Lorne snapped from the front seat.

"John has rejoined us," Teyla answered from beside him. She was holding her marker- swear to god, she tried to draw on him again, he was making her eat it- and was as unflappably serene as ever. He glanced at his arm and saw that she had drawn two bold lines over both symbols, x-ing them out.

"What the hell is going on here?" he asked warily, pushing himself as far away from her as he could get. "Where are we? And who are you people?"

"You had to let him up now?" Lorne added. Teyla addressed him first.

"We may need his help and we will not have the time to explain everything later. If we are to help Rodney, we must use everything we have." She turned now to speak to John, seemingly content to let him keep his distance. "We are in Vancouver, John. As I said this morning, we are here to save a friend of ours."

"Ours?" their driver echoed quietly. Not quiet enough, however, for Teyla turned a glare on the back of his head that was easily the most disapproving look John had ever seen. Lorne obviously felt it- his shoulders hunched up and he sunk lower into his seat.

"Vancouver," John said hollowly. His mind immediately provided the memory of that conversation with Elizabeth the first day. It appeared the friend in Vancouver might be able to use his help now. He looked Teyla in the eye with as much coldness as he could muster and was rewarded with a hint of a flinch. "How?"

"There is still power in this world," she said softly, which was pretty much the answer John would have expected had he allowed himself to think about it. "There are still people who know how to use it."

"Power. You mean magic?"

"No," Lorne answered shortly. "Magic is a cute little parlor trick. It doesn't exist. What we have, what we do- it's real."

"Rodney insists the power is grounded in science," Teyla added, smiling fondly. "He maintains that this is merely another advancement in science, and that humanity is simply too stupid to see it for what it really is. He tends to mention Sir Isaac Newton and Copernicus at this point."

Which made no sense, really, but whatever.

"How did you get me here?" he asked slowly. All right, John, humor the crazy people and ignore the voice in your head that's saying they're not as crazy as you think-

Teyla was digging around in a bag at her feet. John felt his eyebrows scrape his hairline as she pulled out two long, slender sticks. The smooth honey-gold wood was imprinted with neat rows of glyphs.

"I used a glamour," she told him apologetically. "We needed you here and we did not have the time to use more... conventional methods. It is not an action I take lightly, and know I shall always be ashamed that I had to use such means."

"Come on, McKay," Lorne muttered suddenly. He made a snapping motion and tossed a cell phone onto the passenger's seat. "He's not answering. No one's got a bead on him either. According to Bates he should be at his house, but he's not picking up the emergency line there."

Teyla squared herself grimly and began to mutter softly to her sticks. John looked back and forth between the two.

"Is that it?" he demanded. "That's all you're gonna tell me?"

"If we try to go into anything else we'll have no time for anything but that, and right now we need to find McKay." Lorne's words were dark and grim and John suddenly realized that he, at least, did not expect to find McKay alive.

"All right, fine. Who is this McKay and why is he so important?" John snapped.

"The power can be used many different ways," Teyla said. "I am a Warder. Elizabeth Knows. Rodney McKay is a Keeper."

The warder thing could figure out on his own, and he could clearly hear the capital K in 'Knows' and had already guessed what it meant. "A Keeper?"

"He keeps things safe," was the maddeningly nonspecific response.

"Where he feels safest, no one and nothing can hurt him," Lorne translated. "And the people and things around him are protected as well."

"Keepers are rare. Keepers with Rodney's level of power and control are more so. He is a vital member of our network and losing him would be a personal blow to many people." Teyla held up her sticks, watching as the markings glowed and shimmered. "It also must be mentioned that he is a McKay."

"And that means...?" John prompted.

"The McKay family is one of the oldest and most powerful families in the new world," Lorne explained, suddenly sounding very tired. "They also have a tendency to turn up the rarer powers, like Keeping. Added to that, they're old money and smart as hell."

"Rodney is the only McKay left who is actively involved in the network. He has a sister, but she does not wish to get involved, and Elizabeth honors that."

As Teyla spoke, John found himself recalling the conversation he'd overheard that one day. Suddenly it made a lot more sense.

"What happened to the rest of the family?" he asked. Surely there would be more of them.

"We have enemies," the woman said shortly, and that was answer enough.

That was also the end of the conversation, for the discarded cell phone started ringing. Lorne snatched it up and answered tersely. He visibly sagged with relief as he listened to the person on the other end of the line.

"About damn time, McKay. Where the hell are you?" He paused, then grunted and tossed the phone back to Teyla before hauling the car around into a sharp u-turn. John's head impacted the window again and he swore loudly. "Tell him to stay where he is, we'll be there in ten minutes."

Teyla duly repeated Lorne's order. She spared John a brief glance and started to say something else, then stopped, eyes wide.

"He just hung up," she said after a moment. "There was a woman talking to him." Lorne swerved around a slow-moving hybrid and gunned the engine. John wrapped one arm around the headrest behind him and braced a leg against the chair in front of him.

This is it, a voice whispered to him. This is what your entire life has been leading up to.

John set his jaw, tightened his grip on the headrest, and braced himself for war.

---

On Earth, there were three unspoken, unyielding rules that all the aware obeyed. The first and third were rules he had lived by his entire life, even before Earth. The second, however, was new to him. It went something along the lines of never do anything that might expose the existence of the power to any of the unaware.

Most other planets didn't have a word for 'aware' or 'unaware'- everyone knew of the power's existence, even if only a select handful could use it. Earth was special in that most of its inhabitants lived in ignorance. Given the planet's history of intolerance and treachery, such restraint was actually somewhat of a good idea.

Unfortunately it meant that Ronon Dex, the last surviving Satedan and Earth's only Specialist, couldn't blow away that curly-haired bitch who was currently holding a knife to the throat of one Rodney McKay. He had his blaster but had long ago agreed to refrain from using it to solve every problem. They were close to a street lamp and he had briefly toyed with the idea of overloading its circuitry with a surge of power, except that would hurt McKay as much as the woman.

There had been no Keepers on Sateda and once Ronon might have scoffed at someone who was so opposed to fighting. Now, however, he could see their worth. Amazing how living for a few months in a place where you know nothing can hurt you rearranges your thinking a little.

He carefully ducked away, starting the long loop around across the street so he could slip up behind them. With any luck McKay wouldn't piss her off bad enough that she decided to kill him before then. Technically speaking this wasn't something he had to do; he wasn't a part of any network. But Weir had helped him out when he'd first found himself stranded on Earth, unable to get back home- not that there was much left of Sateda, not anymore- and McKay had let him take over his pool house for the better part of a year. Going through the gate to McKay's house, even those who had no power whatsoever could feel the strength of the place. The Keeper's realm was calm and tranquil even if the Keeper himself was not and for the first time in his entire life Ronon had known what it meant to be truly safe. For that, he was willing to bail McKay out of a tough spot or two.

The woman holding McKay had what the Earthers called strawberry blond hair and wide dark eyes that were almost black. She would have been pretty in a youthful way had she not worn a mask of cold hatred. Ronon had pegged her as Genii from the moment he'd seen her but hadn't bothered to wonder what she was doing here- Earth was a refuge for survivors and outcasts, himself included. Now he wondered how he could have dismissed her so easily.

"-- have friends who will make you pay for this! If you think I'm kidding then you try hiding from someone who Knows! They will hunt you down and-"

He wasn't going to get there fast enough. The knife was already drawing a thin line of red across the Keeper's neck and he was talking faster, desperate now. Ronon absently wondered how people could remain so completely oblivious to this little drama, then realized the woman was probably using the Genii version of a don't-look glamour. He pulled out his blaster- the glamour was out there, she wasn't the only one who could use it to her advantage- and had it halfway up when she spotted him.

The knife snapped by his head, missing only because he had the faster reflexes. He whipped his blaster up as she expertly juggled both her captive and her weapons, and by the time he had a bead on her she had her own gun pointing at him. Her other arm was slung around McKay's neck, her hand gently touching his cheek in mocking parody of a caress. She could snap his neck in half a second from that point- Ronon was familiar with most forms of military training and the Genii were unfriendly enough to warrant special interest.

"The glamour goes down in three seconds," she told him smugly. McKay's eyes were closed and he was whispering something Ronon couldn't hear. They all knew his odds of getting out of this alive were abysmal at best.

"I wouldn't suggest that," a new voice said coldly, and the Genii bitch froze. Behind her a man, one of Weir's network if Ronon remembered correctly, tapped the back of her head with his own gun. "Might get in trouble with the Mounties. Let him go."

Teyla, the Athosian woman he had met upon his arrival to Earth, had circled around to the Genii's other side. The girl snapped her gaze to her, then to Ronon, then finally to her captive. McKay lifted his chin and turned his head, pulling away from her touch, and she sneered and shoved him away. The Keeper staggered out of her reach and instantly opened his mouth, as Ronon had known he would, but a single look from Teyla thankfully shut him up.

And then the last of their little party showed up, a long and lean man with disheveled dark hair. He almost casually slouched over to them and they all knew, the second he reached the range of the glamour, that things were about to go bad in a big way.

"Oh, shit," someone muttered, and the power started to fluctuate wildly around them.

Control of the glamour was wrested away from the Genii, who gave an audible squeal, and given to the newcomer, who clearly had no idea what was going on. The air around them seemed to explode with energy, cracking concrete and shattering glass and warping metal. The glamour itself was working in overtime and the world outside its range started to fade, washed out by a wall of white fog. A blasting wind knocked them all off their feet except the source of the calamity himself, and simple as that Ronon knew what had to be done.

Had he stopped to think about it, he would have realized the immense stupidity behind shooting an destabilized wild power with a weapon linked to his own power. He didn't stop to think, however; he just swung the blaster up and fired.

The wild power immediately settled, the glamour disappearing. People on the street stopped to gape at the damage that they had suddenly just noticed. The Genii girl was on her feet and running before any of them could stop her, not that it mattered. Ronon couldn't feel his right arm all the way up to his elbow- a backlash of power.

The man at the heart of the storm was already stirring. Ronon had set his blaster to stun before shooting, and with that much power running rampant, the stun that would normally last for hours only affected him for a few minutes.

"That's- He's-"

They all turned to look at McKay, who was on his knees and pointing towards the dark-haired man. He turned a wide, accusing gaze onto the other two.

"He's the wild power you found! Three weeks ago! His powers aren't even stabilized yet, what is he doing here and he's filthy! Where did you find him, in some halfway house?!"

"Not now, McKay," the first man- Lorne, or something- said sharply. He staggered to his feet and offered Teyla a hand. She politely ignored it and rose on her own. Ronon could feel the coldness creeping its way up his biceps; it would probably spread over his shoulder and a large portion of his torso before fading. He grabbed his blaster with his good hand and holstered it before pushing himself up.

He and Lorne manhandled the stunned man- Sheppard- into the back of a rental SUV. Lorne clearly remembered Ronon easier than Ronon remembered him and seemed vaguely uncomfortable with him nearby.

"I have to stay here," he said to McKay and Teyla. "Damage control. You two get up to the house and stay there until Elizabeth or I tell you otherwise. You got that? No shopping trips, no movies, nothing."

McKay was tracing the hair-fine cut on his neck. He stopped to scowl at Lorne.

"What of Ronon?" Teyla asked before the Keeper's lecture could begin. They all three glanced at him and he shrugged. He didn't really expect anything from them. He wasn't one of them.

Which only made it all the more surprising when McKay snorted. "It's my house, I get to say who's allowed. Get in." This last was snapped at Ronon, who supposed that it was the closest to a thank you he'd ever hear from the man. He smirked and did as ordered, though he made a point of taking his time.

There was a crowd gathering around the damaged sidewalk. Lorne looked over anxiously, then began to push Teyla and McKay towards the SUV. With an aggravated sigh, the Keeper deposited himself behind the wheel while Teyla slid into the middle row of seats. Ronon had already staked out the passenger's seat and pushed it as far back as it would go. Sheppard was still unconscious in the far back row. Ronon had a bit of trouble with the seat belt- he couldn't move his right arm at all, but after having seen McKay wreck a car without ever shifting out of park, he wasn't about to tempt fate.

"Home," McKay muttered to himself. Teyla made a noise of agreement. She was staring out the window and twisting between her fingers her greatest weapon: the red laundry pen. Ronon took a single moment to consider the irony of that particular image, then discarded it. The power did odd things without bothering to explain itself. The best they could do was hang on for the ride.

Ronon spared a single glance for his new companions. Something told him this was gonna be one wild ride.

---

This was the second time John found himself waking up in the back of a rental SUV somewhere in British Columbia. The experience didn't really improve for the familiarity, especially not since he heard his name being dropped in what would have been an argument had Teyla not been one of the ones talking.

"He's not going in my house and that's final. Not until someone does something about that... that filth."

"Rodney," Teyla said, all careful control and ice-cold warning, "John is a guest of yours as well as a friend to Elizabeth and myself. You will treat him with respect."

"He's filthy. And what's with the scribbles all up his arm? One of those was a ward for a controlling glamour. I have to respect him even though I've only known him for five minutes, three of which he spent trying to kill me I might add, and yet you, his friend, are allowed to slap mind-control glyphs on him whenever you feel like it? How is that fair?"

"It was only once and I will not be doing it again. And you are not making him sleep on the lawn."

"Fine, he can have the pool house. I never really liked it anyway; at least this way I'll have an excuse to burn it down."

"Thought I got the pool house," a new, deep voice rumbled. John levered himself onto his elbow to look over the back of the seats in front of him.

"It's the pool house or the lawn," the man driving snapped. There was a very pointed silence and he started scrambling for words. "I mean, for him. The wild- Sheppard, right? Him. You can stay wherever you want. So obviously he gets the lawn."

"Rodney," Teyla said warningly. The driver (Rodney? As in, Rodney McKay? This was the guy they were all worried about?) made an exasperated noise and threw his hands into the air in surrender. Before he could say anything, though, the SUV took immediate advantage of his distraction and Teyla and the big guy and even John all started yelling at him to get back on the road now.

Once McKay had wrestled the SUV off the sidewalk, Teyla turned to regard John. "Are you all right?" she asked him, sounding cautious. She should be. So far John had been awake for- here he checked his watch quickly- nine hours, yet he he had only been aware for about thirty minutes of it. Not a promising start to a day that was half-over already.

"I'm fine," he answered, because he had no physical complaints and she didn't seem to be asking after his mental status.

"Oh, sure, ask the guy who almost kills us all if he's okay and ignore the brilliant irreplaceable Keeper who was kidnapped and held at knife-point and thrown around like a rag doll. That's all right, it's just spine damage, which is only permanent."

John rolled his eyes at McKay's grumblings. "You're not the only one who was kidnapped today," he said. "At least you remember what happened. As far as I'm concerned, five minutes ago it was six in the morning. And why do you keep saying I almost killed you?"

There was a brief pause. Then McKay met Teyla's gaze in the rear view mirror.

"You haven't told him anything, have you?" When she didn't immediately answer, probably trying to find a delicate way to reply, he sighed explosively. "Of course not, why would you do that? It's just so much easier to make someone else have to deal with- hey hey HEY! Watch it with that thing!"

"Shut up and drive, McKay," the big man snarled.

McKay started to fumbled his way through the beginning of a string of complaints, ran a red light, clipped a parked car with one of the side mirrors, abruptly gave up with an oh, fine, and turned his attention back to his driving in time to avoid playing bumper cars with a row of trash cans.

The big guy up front twisted around to study both John and Teyla. John found himself blinking in surprise at the clear dark eyes watching him. The guy had an air of self-confidence and barely restrained danger that gave the impression of decades of experience, except he was young. Mid-twenties; twenty-seven or -eight at the oldest.

"You need to tell him," he said to Teyla, tone softer than it had ever been when he had been addressing McKay. "You should've told him before."

"We were waiting until his power stabilized. Until then the safest option was to keep him unaware. His denial of his own power protected both himself and those around him. You know this, Ronon."

Something went dark and hard in Ronon's eyes at Teyla's gentle rebuke. "On Sateda we put all those with wild power out of their misery before they could hurt people," he growled. McKay snorted.

"Oh, sure. That's why you're here. Or did you think we'd forget you're a wild power just because you're an inheritor?" Ronon turned that same gaze on the Keeper, where it had considerable more impact than on Teyla. "I, uh- I mean- look, contrary to whatever impression I may be giving you, I don't actually want to die, so what say I stop talking and you stop petting your gun."

Dismissing the two in the front, Teyla turned sideways so she could face John. He could feel a knot in his throat and something told him that his day was about to get a hell of a lot weirder.

"John, you have-" Teyla began. Paused, took a breath, started again. "You are what is known as a wild power. Elizabeth was trying to keep you safe, both from those who would use your power as well as yourself, until you learned to control your power."

"My power. My power. You mean I have power? Like you?" John scowled at her, trying to wrap his mind around that thought. Up front, McKay scoffed.

"Nothing remotely like ours. Yours is a wild power. You can tame it, but it's like taming a lion: you don't really have control, you just have an agreement of sorts. We can control our power, which makes us more reliable and a good deal safer, but also limits our effectiveness." He had dropped the whining tone and now sounded like a college professor trying to give a lecture to a particularly slow batch of students. John wasn't sure if he preferred the bitching or the arrogance.

"You said he's got a wild power," he said, gesturing towards Ronon.

"There are two different types of wild power. Conan here inherited his, which is the safer kind. Yours is the awakened kind, which is immensely dangerous, example of which being your power being exposed to a simple don't-look glamour and nearly wiping out half a city block. Speaking of which, one of the wards on his arm was for containment, why did you feel the need to break it?"

"Rodney, focus," Teyla said, sugar-sweet, and John realized she was on the verge of losing her patience. Nothing else needed to be said; Rodney wisely left well enough alone.

"So my power was... asleep?" he asked. Again, McKay took the lead. John decided he could deal with the explaining-physics-to-a-houseplant attitude since McKay was the only one who seemed willing to actually do any explaining.

"Yes and no. Yes in that it's there and now you can use it, no in that it wasn't really 'asleep' to begin with, it just wasn't there period. Most normal people with power become aware of it around thirteen or so and spend their teenage years learning to control it, which, by the way, gives a whole new layer of hell to high school. You never had power until recently, where you were probably exposed to a large amount of free power which then latched onto you and became what we know as awakened wild power."

"Free power?"

"Yes, free power. Salisbury Plain. The Nile delta. Nineteen square kilometers of Amazonian rain forest. Power is associated with places as well as people, and sometimes when a certain person goes to one of those places they take pieces of the free power with them when they leave. Most times it wears off after a little while. Occasionally it doesn't."

"And I'm one of those lucky few, huh?" John sighed tiredly. "All right. Just so you know, I still think you lot are all a little nuts, but I'll play along. What happens now?"

"Your power is still new. It is adjusting to being attached to a human and being actively used. Until it has stabilized itself, it will lash out at any use of power nearby it." Teyla gestured towards the ward on his left wrist. "That was a containment ward, meant to prevent that."

"Why did you cross it out?" John asked, rubbing a thumb over the red slashes.

"Because we had no way of knowing what was going to happen. Should I have died, you would have had a greater chance of surviving if your power was free to protect you."

"Should you- Jesus," he muttered harshly, turning so he wouldn't have to see the calm, accepting sincerity in her gaze. She was serious. They were serious, he thought, and suddenly everything seemed to break out of the fog of denial he had wrapped around himself. This was real, he told himself. This was really happening, it wasn't just some dream or a weird movie being filmed around him without his knowing. This was here and this was happening and the danger was very, very real.

A memory came unbidden then, an image of a street buckling and warping and five people hitting the ground hard, wind howling and cement cracking and iron twisting like fragile pieces of hay.

"Jesus," he said again, resting his forehead against the seat in front of him.

"Think he gets it now," Ronon said conversationally. John felt a sudden, irrational burst of hatred for him, for that kid playing grown-up and doing a better job at it than John himself was. He looked up front, about to snap off a scathing response, and stopped when he saw McKay watching him.

So far John had only seen the Keeper's face in profile when he turned to talk to them. Now McKay had angled the rear view mirror just enough for John to meet his gaze. He had blue eyes, John noticed abstractly, clear and bright like the sky on a calm winter day. He looked as though he wanted to say something, to offer sympathy or support, then saw John watching him and looked away.

"Yeah," John said finally, addressing Ronon and ignored the thousand-and-one things bouncing around inside his skull. "Yeah. He gets it now."

And the sad thing was, he did.