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"I knew him," John says quietly, expression hard as marble, though his eyes seem soft, in the same way that molten lava seems soft. They burn with the same inevitability, and Elizabeth's new world suddenly caves in on her like so many magician's cards.
She doesn't say so, but there's something terrifying about John then, the way he watches the television screen without really watching it, then dismisses it. The way he doesn't say anything else.
"I knew him," is all she hears about it from him.
Ronon explains later. Ronon, who has known John since they served together, who doesn't look worried about John's quiet appraisal of the reported facts - ongoing investigation, they say, most brutal murder this state has ever seen, and it could be hype, could be, but isn't. Elizabeth knows.
They both knew the victim, Ronon says. He'd served with the pair of them, had been the one to drag John from the closet kicking and screaming, had been the one to take John's dream from him. He'd taken the sky from John Sheppard, Ronon says, and Elizabeth gets it. She really, really does.
That's what scares her.
Atlantis Book Club is something new and strange and wonderful. Before the divorce, Elizabeth hadn't been much for socializing - her career demanded most of her time, and her husband what little remained. It hadn't been enough for him, obviously, and now Elizabeth thinks that her time might have been better spent on herself. She's all she'd left the marriage with, after all.
Teyla is the one to formally invite her, but it's Rodney, with his sweeping gestures that seem to try to grasp something intangible from the air around them, with his wonder-wide eyes and crooked grins, that convinces her to give it a try.
"It's not about the books," he says over and over again. "It's about the experience, the people."
She's only been learning Sun-style forms beside him for three weeks, but she knows that if Rodney McKay is excited about people, they must be wildly interesting people.
She's so right, and for the first few meetings, she sort of wishes she wasn't.
Electrocution, Elizabeth learns, is a terrible way to go.
She's not supposed to be looking at the crime scene photos - shouldn't even have access to them, wishes she didn't, because it's not her hard drive they're saved to - but she has to, has to. Because Rodney is her friend, and a dear one at that, but it's too similar. Too frightening, the way his voice sounds so like John's.
"I knew him," Rodney murmurs over the morning paper as his fingers brush over the ceramic of his favorite mug, warming the coffee as it tries to cool. It's absent-minded, routine, and it makes Elizabeth unneasy all of a sudden.
She doesn't need anyone to elaborate this time, because she knows the name already, knows the story. Rodney had told her before she'd even been invited to the book club - about hours spent in tight spaces, bruises and blood and unwilling blowjobs. She's seen the results over months of knowing Rodney, seen the deep scars Rodney's childhood tormentor had left that still pain him when it's cold out and he's thinking of home.
She doesn't like wondering, as she gazes at gooey trails left by eyeballs melted from their sockets, images tucked away on Rodney's laptop for God only knows what reason. Doesn't like wondering how far John would go for Rodney. How far Rodney would go for John. How far they might go together, riding the high that comes with power and someone to wield it for.
She wonders, anyway.
It's easy, Elizabeth thinks, the first time she feels the sparks jump between her soft fingertips and Teyla's work-worn ones. Strangely, unbelievably easy. Teyla calls her a natural, says she'd known the moment she'd seen Elizabeth. She praises her and warns her in the same breath, but Elizabeth already knows. Power isn't supposed to come easily.
Rodney tries to teach her to draw fire from the air, but her graceful motions only stir up little breezes, sending crumbling parchment skittering across the long tabletop while John laughs delightedly. Fire doesn't come easily at all, not like the other elements, and Elizabeth finds herself somewhat relieved. Fire, to her, seems the epitome of destruction, and she doesn't like to think what being a natural at it would say about her.
She doesn't tell Rodney, to whom it comes easiest, because he is her friend.
It's not until she's familiar with water, though, that she relaxes.
"Why are you so worried about this?"
Elizabeth watches Ronon as he sinks his knife into the center of the dartboard from across the room, and wraps her arms around her stomach. "It's a strange way to commit murder, I guess."
Ronon shrugs. "So?"
She's not sure how to respond. She's rarely sure about anything these days, and Ronon isn't easy to talk to. He speaks like mountains move, and it makes all of Elizabeth's carefully chosen words rattle against her teeth and back down her throat, lodging painfully.
She wants to ask about the latest corpse. Wants to ask why Ronon had been taken in for questioning. Wants to ask if this is a group effort, if they had all planned it, if they are going to ask her to join this little club, too.
She doesn't ask. She watches Ronon watch his blade as it spins lazily in the air before him, watches him exhale as it slices through the air and buries itself to the hilt in the target. It sounds like an answer anyway.
Carson is a surprise to her.
He's not a regular, by any stretch of the imagination, but he weaves power like he was born to it, leaves Elizabeth stunned and enchanted and seeing stars.
He's not a regular in temperament, either. He's not the steady river's flow of Teyla, nor a hot blast of desert wind, like John is. He's not Rodney's startling flash-bang explosion, nor Ronon's rumbling mountain landslide. Elizabeth isn't sure what he is, really, but it feels like pastries and well-worn jeans and the smell of tea and old books. He's strangely young and old simultaneously, and wears a smile like a slash of sunlight through a bank of clouds.
Elizabeth likes Carson, and she wishes he'd come around more. She thinks, privately, that while the others use magic, Carson might really be magic.
Something is coming for her. She can feel it, even as she's sure that she's dreaming.
Teyla stands over her, eyes dark, sparks jumping from her fingertips as she sings.
"But what is this that I can't see with ice-cold hands taking hold of me? When God is gone and the Devil takes hold, who'll have mercy on your soul?"
Static crawls up Elizabeth's spine, her hair curling around like snakes, and she can feel it, burning ice, little jagged snakes of it burrowing into her heart, and she can't breathe, can't breathe...
"Oh, Death...Oh, Death..."
She wants to run, but her limbs are jerking, and she's falling back into darkness, damp-chilled grave dirt smeared across her soul.
Shovel in hand, Teyla stares down at her impassively. Her lips don't move, but as she tips in spade after spade of choking, smothering soil, the song echoes.
"My name is Death and the end is here."
Magic, Teyla explains, isn't about creating things that aren't there.
Elizabeth nods, hands folded in her lap, eyes never leaving Teyla's as the smaller woman tries to teach her how to look for what's already there, how to draw it out.
Magic is about discovery, about recognition, about knowing. Without knowing, there can be no power.
Elizabeth knows a lot of things. They had never given her power before. But Teyla talks about seeing, feeling, tasting, hearing, smelling, and shows her how. She strokes long fingers through the air, and sparks jump between their fingers, and it's easy.
Elizabeth laughs as she makes little fireworks crackle, Teyla's experienced hands cupped beneath her own. She think that this is something she's been missing - something that's just hers - and she hates to think of giving it up.
"Oh," she says as she watches Simon fall, twitching as the lightning courses through him. She's never wondered what cooked human flesh smelled like before. She'll never have to, now.
Carson is standing in the doorway, hands outstretched like he might have been trying to catch Simon. Or to catch Elizabeth, she's not sure. She feels like she's falling, anyway, or maybe like the world is falling away from her. He knows, he must know, because he keeps his hands out as he comes to stand close. His eyes are sad, and his mouth is pressed thin, not sunny at all. He looks like gray, weathered stone on a windswept moor, cold and solemn.
She's meant to say something, she thinks. "I didn't know."
"I know," he says quietly, taking her hands in his and turning them palm-up, staring down at them.
"Please don't take it away."
"I could'nae, even if I wanted to."
She thinks of John, the way he looked out at the sky on clear days, and she wants to cry, because now she really does know. If it had been him, she would have understood. Must have understood, somehow, deep down, without realizing, because...
"What do I do?"
Carson shrugs, letting her hands slip from his, and she feels like a wild animal let off its chain. She aches to reach out again. Carson could keep hold of her. Carson could keep this in.
"Will we have to tell the others?"
"Oh, yes," Carson says. He smiles then. It's not sunlight, not really. It's an eclipse. Elizabeth shivers. "They'll forgive you."
But it's not them she's worried about, not their forgiveness she'll make do without.
Carson knows it, too, but he smiles that strange eclipse again and puts a hand on her shoulder and leads her away.
"I don't believe in magic," she says, a little laugh in her voice.
John grins at her from across the table, dark as pitch and enmiring her just as well. "You don't have to - it believes in you."
The words are a threat, and so is the tone, but it wraps around Elizabeth like a sweet promise. She smooths her hands over the aged pages before her as the rest of the book club gathers close.
"Okay, then," she replies, feeling like a strange new world is peeking at her from between the folds of reality. "Show me."