A woman standing only a short distance away walked forward, looking at them cautiously, but without a weapon in her hand as far as Jack could tell. He looked over at McKay.

"I thought you said this place was deserted…"

"Of course we are Ancients," she said, frowning, ignoring Jack in favor of answering McKay. "As you must be as well, in order to have come through the shield unscathed…"

The three of them all looked back and McKay and Ian were shocked to see that the shield that protected Atlantis – their Atlantis and presumably this one as well – was fully engaged.

"We should be dead," McKay said, stunned.

He hadn't even considered that there would be Ancients in the city – or that the shield would be up.

"Indeed?" the woman asked. "Are you invaders?"

Ian shook his head.

"No."

"You're not Ancient," a man challenged, walking down the stairs and toward them. Ian frowned, realizing he knew him, and trying to figure out where from.

"We're from Earth," Jack told them, having no reason to say otherwise. "We didn't know anyone was here…"

"Earth is a failed experiment," the man said, frowning. "No one lives there. No one can."

McKay shook his head, finally getting over his shock.

"You're talking about the plague?"

The man's eyes narrowed.

"What do you know of it?"

He snorted.

"Quite a bit, actually. For one thing-"

"Holy shit…" Ian just realized where he knew the guy from – and had startled everyone with his sudden curse. "You're Sander."

The man actually took a shocked step backward, and the woman and those who were close enough to hear him all looked surprised. And extremely suspicious.

"How do you know that?" she asked.

"I don't know you," Sander told him at the same time.

"I'm right, though, aren't I?" Ian asked. "You're the head Ancient around here."

"I don't understand…"

McKay frowned, too.

"I don't understand, either. I've never met him. He's not from our reality, is he?"

Ian shook his head.

"No. I met him in another one – when Alexander and Dotty hijacked my gate on the way to the Alpha site."

Now McKay looked a little less confused, but Jack was still clueless, and so were the Ancients who were gathered around.

"Time for some introductions, I think," Jack said, trying to keep things from getting too far out of hand.

"Indeed," the woman agreed. "I am Nejay. Second in command in this city." She looked at Jack pointedly.

"Colonel Jack O'Neill. From Earth."

"I'm Rodney McKay," McKay told her, offering his hand. "Doctor Rodney McKay. From Earth, too – but not the same reality as Colonel O'Neill here is…"

"And you?" Sander asked Ian. "Who are you?"

"Colonel Ian Brooks. I'm from the same place McKay is."

"But not this reality?" Nejay asked, proving that she was managing to sort through all the confusion, despite being confused as well.

"No."

"We're from Earth," McKay repeated. "But we –" and he pointed to himself and Ian. "We are stationed here, in this city. In our reality, that is."

"I don't understand why you are in a reality that isn't your own…" Nejay said, frowning.

"It wasn't by choice," Ian told her.

"Well, actually," McKay said, holding up a hand. "Mine was. I came looking for him when we realized he was lost and-"

"How did you circumvent the shield?" Sander interrupted.

The three of them turned a little to look at the shield again, and McKay shrugged.

"It must be designed with some kind of safety protocol," he guessed, looking over at Ian and Jack. "That way it doesn't kill any Ancient who goes through – it's not like they all carry GDOs with them or anything… Lucky thing for Doctor Jackson that you didn't let him come with us, because-"

"You didn't answer the question," Sander pointed out.

"We all have the Ancient gene," McKay told him, annoyed at the interruption. "Ian and Colonel O'Neill here carry it naturally, and I was given it in order to make the technology of Atlantis work for me."

Sander's gaze wandered from McKay, to Ian and then to Jack – only to go back to McKay.

"Given?"

McKay nodded.

"A friend of mine – a brilliant guy, really, only a little too self-depreciating in my opinion – found that the gene was carried over into a very small portion of our population. He managed to isolate it and reproduce it in a synthetic form, which allowed him to give it to those of us who were interested in the idea – although it only works in about half the test subjects." His smile was smug. "Like myself."

Ian managed to avoid rolling his eyes, but only just, and Jack just shook his head since this was all new information for him. And information he didn't care about.

"Look," he said, before Sander or any of the others could say anything else. "We didn't come here to start any trouble. We really did think the place was deserted."

Nejay gave him an odd look.

"Why would you think that?"

"Because the Asgard have told everyone that all you Ancients have moved on…" Ian answered before Jack could. "And in our reality, you have. Atlantis lay abandoned for 10,000 years before we found it."

"Absurd!" Sander said. "Abandon Atlantis? Why would we do that?"

"I would assume because you couldn't teach the city how to Ascend…" McKay told him.

Ian closed his eyes and shook his head, wondering why he'd ever thought it was a good idea to bring Rodney. Of course, he hadn't expected there to be people here for McKay to annoy, so that really wasn't his fault. Luckily, instead of being offended, the comment only left them even more suspicious.

"You certainly know a lot about us…" Sander said, his expression and voice telling them that he wasn't really all that happy about it.

"You have no idea," McKay replied. "We've been-"

"I don't understand why you're here, though…" Ian interrupted before McKay could really get a head of steam going and start babbling about just how much he did know about the Ancients. Because it was a lot. "In my reality you people left a long, long time ago."

Nejay frowned, looking at Sander.

"Could they have solved the problem so quickly, where we have been unable to?"

"What problem?" McKay asked – predictably.

Sander hesitated, but Nejay answered for him.

"This system is plagued by a race of beings," she said. "A cruel race of beings who feed on the life force of-"

"You're talking about the Wraith," McKay interrupted.

"You know of them?" Sander asked.

McKay nodded.

"Oh, yeah. They're in our reality, too. Although-"

"The Wraith are in your reality and yet the Ancients are not?"

"Right."

Nejay looked at Ian for confirmation, and he nodded.

"I told you; they've been gone for at least 10,000 years."

"I don't believe it. How could they have Ascended without first dealing with the Wraith?"

It was Ian's turn to frown.

"They were getting their asses kicked, sank the city and abandoned ship," he told her. "What about you guys?"

"What do you mean?"

"He means, why are you still here?" Jack asked, not knowing exactly what they'd all been talking about but following the conversation nonetheless.

"Because we can't leave until we've solved the problem we created," Sander told him. "It would be unforgivable."

"Are you serious?" McKay asked, surprised.

"Is that such a shock?"

McKay hesitated, clearly not wanting to step on anyone's toes – not that he normally minded, but hey, these were actual Ancients!

"A little… yeah."

"Our Ancients seemed to pretty much cause more problems than they solved," Ian said, trying to be a little more diplomatic.

"And then left those problems to solve themselves or become worse…" Sander said, making it more of a statement than a question.

Ian nodded.

"But not all of them," he added. "There are some really good ones still here – helping on Earth."

"Which brings us to why we're here…" Jack said, pulling everyone back on track.

"Oh?" Nejay looked at him. "And why is that?"

"We need a few of your Gateships," Ian said, trying to make it sound like the most ordinary request in the world.