Author's Note: This is not a shippy fic.

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The mission was a standard one. Go to the planet, check it out, meet any wacky alien cultures, make sure there were no wacky alien death rays pointed at Atlantis by the end of the mission, go home. At least, that was how John liked to put it.

"We have never encountered anything that could be considered a death ray," was Rodney's take on it. "You've been watching too many bad superhero movies."

This conversation eventually led to the Batman/Superman argument, which they'd been having pretty much every day for the past week. That in turn led to desperate measures on the part of Ronon.

"Can I hit them?" he whined at Elizabeth.

"No, but if they're still arguing on the other side of the Stargate, I'll probably overlook it," said Elizabeth tiredly. Then, to both John's and Rodney's consternation, she reached out to clap a hand over each of their mouths. "And you two need to shut up and pay attention. The MALP is detecting some strange readings, so you might want to keep your eyes peeled and mouths shut."

"She's in a bad mood today," Rodney muttered when the expedition leader had returned to the control room.

John shook his head slowly. "Hopefully she'll be better by the time we get to the debriefing." The 'Gate flushed open. "All right, let's move out."

It took them perhaps thirty seconds to return.

"Things are pretty crazy out there," John panted to a rather shocked Elizabeth. "Looks nothing like the MALP telemetry. I think we're gonna need a 'Jumper if we want to check it out at all."

"Are you sure it's safe?"

"It's safe. There are no weapons," Rodney explained, "Just a bunch of people trying to beat the crap out of us. Wouldn't go near the Stargate though."

"We should maybe take some backup," John added. "Just in case."

Elizabeth nodded. "I'll tell Major Lorne to prep a 'Jumper. While we're waiting, Rodney, maybe you should check out the MALP telemetry and see if you can't figure out what's wrong."

Rodney followed her up the steps to the control room, and the rest of the team followed him. "It probably has something to do with those strange energy readings you mentioned earlier," he said. "Maybe some sort of defensive measures have been put in place? I'm not sure what it could be to affect the MALP and not us. Are the readings fluctuating?" he added, addressing himself to Chuck.

The tech shook his head. "They're holding steady. I can't explain it."

"Well, I wouldn't expect you to," Rodney muttered. "I don't know, Elizabeth. We might just have to go to the planet and see what we can find there."

"Maybe you should get Zelenka up here while we're gone," John suggested.

Elizabeth nodded. "I agree." She tapped her radio. "Dr. Zelenka to the control room. Major Lorne, are you ready to go?"

"Yes, ma'am," came Lorne's reply.

With John in the pilot's seat, they flew over the yelling natives without any trouble. Lorne, sitting next to John, peered out the window at them, raising an eyebrow.

"They look pretty unhappy about something. Wonder what it is."

"It's gotta be related to the MALP thing somehow," John commented. "Maybe they're trying to get people to come through?"

"Who else has that kind of technology in the Pegasus Galaxy?" said Rodney with a snort.

"Are you suggesting they're trying to get us to come through specifically?" John shot the scientist an incredulous look, though he turned back to the controls quickly so that he could land them in one piece.

"It's not like people don't know we exist. And we have plenty of enemies. The Wraith, the Genii… who knows what it could be?" Rodney got out the little Ancient device he used to check for energy readings. "Now, I don't know about you, but I think we should check out the source of this energy."

John lowered the hatch. "All right then. Lorne's team stay here – make sure you're ready in case there's a call for backup. We don't know anything about these grouchy natives. Ronon and Teyla, check out the area, maybe spy on the natives a little bit. I'll go with Rodney to look for the energy source." He smiled thinly at the scientist, who just rolled his eyes and stomped out of the 'Jumper.

"That way," he said when John joined him outside, pointing in the direction of what looked like a small grove of trees.

Whatever their conversation turned to after that point, John couldn't remember it when he woke up later, lying on a cold stone floor in… well, he assumed it was a room, but it was pitch black, so it might have been a huge cavern for all he knew.

"Sheppard?" Rodney's voice echoed in the silence. "You there?"

"Yeah." John groaned and sat up, rubbing his head. "What happened?"

"I don't know. The last thing I remember is walking towards the trees and hearing you say something about pizza."

John frowned. "Pizza? I don't remember anything about pizza. I just remember you pointing at the trees."

"Well, I don't know. I'm pretty sure you were talking about pizza," Rodney insisted. "I don't remember why or what I said to bring it up. But I swear you were talking about pizza!"

"Okay, okay," said John exasperatedly. "I get it. It doesn't matter. What matters is, where are we, and why are we here, and most importantly, how do we get out?"

He heard Rodney scrabbling around somewhere nearby. "It's gonna be hard to get out. I can't see anything. Ow! I found a wall."

"Keep talking and stay where you are, I'll follow your voice," said John, starting to crawl in the direction he thought he'd heard Rodney's voice coming from.

"You know, we could probably follow this wall and figure out which way is out. But then the question is, which way do we go? Whichever way we pick is probably going to be the long way around. Maybe we should go different ways."

"But then whoever finds it has to wait for the other guy to get back to him," John pointed out. He reached to pull himself forward, but his hand landed on something soft this time. "That you?"

"Ow, yes, you didn't have to slap me! That's my leg!" Rodney complained.

John sighed and shifted around Rodney until he was touching the wall, then stood up slowly. "All right, stand up, we're going right."

"Why right?" Rodney wanted to know.

"Because we have to pick a direction and I pick right!" John started to move, and Rodney was forced to follow. The scientist kept brushing against John, obviously making sure the colonel was still there.

This went on for a while, with Rodney's scuffling and muttering under his breath the only noises. Eventually, John's hand hit thin air.

"I think I've got the exit."

Rodney bumped into him when he stopped moving. "Really?"

John took a tentative step forward, waving his hand through what was definitely an opening. "Yeah. But it's still dark." Keeping his hand on the wall, he moved around the corner. "You good, Rodney?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm good. Let's keep moving, I want to get out of here," said Rodney dimly.

Eventually John was able to take his hand off the wall, because light started to filter into the area and he could see shapes. Looking around, he realized they were in some sort of tunnel. They'd probably come out of a cave.

"There's some kind of lake up ahead," Rodney noted, squinting past John. "I can see the light reflecting off the water."

"That's good, right?"

Rodney shrugged when John glanced back at him. "Well, you can have lakes in the middle of caves, so maybe not."

"But there's light up ahead. It's gotta be a way out." John moved forward, more confident now that he could see.

Soon enough, he reached the edge of the lake and peered down into it.

"This water looks kind of funny," he commented.

"Well, were you planning on drinking it?" said Rodney, rather sarcastically. "Who cares what it looks like? I don't know about you, but I'm definitely not going for a swim, not when we're who knows how far from the 'Jumper."

"Whoops," was John's only response. This comment was accompanied by a small splash as something that looked suspiciously like the remote to uncloak and open the 'Jumper slipped out of his vest and landed in the lake. He jumped out of the way automatically, which turned out to be the right thing to do.

"Oh my god," said Rodney, eyes widening. "It's dissolving. This isn't water, it's some kind of acid!"

"So that's why it looked funny," John muttered.

"Wait wait wait, now how are we going to get back into the 'Jumper?" Rodney exclaimed. "You just dropped the remote!"

"Lorne'll still be there, he can let us in. Besides, we have to find it first," John pointed out.

But Lorne was not there when they finally found their way out of the cave and figured out what direction to go in. (It was easy enough; the cave was right in the midst of the trees.)

"Okay," said John, standing with his hands on his gun and looking around. "I think we parked over there." He pointed.

"You think?" Rodney repeated incredulously. "You're the one who parked it!"

"Well, it's a big clearing! I can't remember exactly." John approached the spot and started to wave his arms around, hoping to hit the 'Jumper, but there wasn't anything there. "Okay, maybe that wasn't it."

They both spent the next ten minutes or so walking around the clearing and waving their arms wildly, but to no avail. The Puddlejumper was simply not in the area.

"Are you sure we're in the same place we started at?" said Rodney nervously. "What if it's a different clearing?"

"It's the same clearing," John said confidently. "I recognize it. Lorne must have taken the 'Jumper and gone somewhere else." He reached for his radio. "Major Lorne, come in."

There was a staticky noise, and nothing else.

"Okay, that's not good," Rodney noted. "What about Teyla and Ronon?"

"Teyla, come in." Static. "Ronon?" More static. "Sorry, Rodney, it isn't happening. Either they're out of radio range or something's interfering. What about that energy source we were looking for, anyway?"

Rodney snorted. "Presumably the energy source has something to do with us waking up in a cave with no memory of how we got there."

"What other choice do we have?" John insisted. "If we can find it, we might be able to turn it off. At the very least we could figure out what it is."

It was not to be. The next thing John knew, he was in the dark again, waking up to Rodney's whining.

"I told you this was a bad idea! I knew there was no way we'd find the energy source. If it didn't work the first time, it wouldn't work the second time, or the third, or the fourth…"

John started to crawl towards Rodney's voice as the scientist continued.

"We don't even know how we ended up in here. We probably got our minds taken over by some weird entity and got walked here, or something horrible like that – ow! Will you stop it?" John's hand had hit Rodney's shoulder.

"It doesn't matter," said John, somewhat irritably, "because we're here now, and we know the way out if we can find the tunnel again. Obviously it didn't affect us on the way back. So now we just go back and search for the 'Jumper again. Maybe Lorne's come back by now."

"Who says that'll work either?" Rodney complained, but John was already pulling at his arm and reaching for the wall with the other one. He found it quickly enough, and then they were moving.

The lake of acid was different this time.

"It's bubbling," said John slowly.

"Maybe it didn't like what you fed it the last time," said Rodney sarcastically. "Are we going? I want to get back to Atlantis. I'm starving."

John rolled his eyes and continued on his careful way around the acid, but Rodney was not so cautious. His radio fell into the lake, causing a splash that managed to hit John's jacket and burn through to his skin.

"Auuugh!"

"Sorry!" Rodney was actually apologizing, but John suspected the scientist had no real idea how much that hurt. Then he saw his arm.

"Holy crap…" he muttered. "What is this stuff?" The skin had been burned away entirely, and he could see muscle showing through. There was a little blood, but it seemed to be mostly pooling inside the wound itself. It definitely wasn't like a gunshot wound.

"I don't know, but it seems to have dissolved a good portion of your arm," Rodney replied.

"I noticed that, Rodney!" said John snappishly. "Come on, let's get back to the clearing before you drop anything else."

"Hey, you dropped something the first time!" Rodney protested as John started walking again.

"I didn't splash you, did I?" John knew he was being a little unreasonable – Rodney hadn't meant to splash him – but it did hurt like anything.

"I said I was sorry!"

John was still in a bad mood when they reached the clearing, and from the expression on Rodney's face, the other man wasn't feeling too happy either.

"Let's see if they came back with the 'Jumper," said John dismally, as Lorne was still missing.

They started the routine from earlier, waving their arms around with no real hope of success – so John was shocked when his hand smacked into something.

"I think I found it," he called to Rodney, nursing his now-aching hand.

Rodney trotted over and waved through the same patch of air, receiving the same result John had gotten. "Ow," he whined.

"Shut up and try to find a control panel or something," John ordered. "Let's get this thing open so we can go inside and find the others."

He tapped his radio as Rodney started to feel his way across and around the invisible 'Jumper.

"Major Lorne, are you there? Teyla? Ronon?"

The crackling noise this time sounded different from the static before, as though someone was actually trying to talk to him and the reception was just bad.

"This is Sheppard. Dr. McKay and I have returned to the Puddlejumper and would appreciate a hand if you can hear us," he said into the radio. "We, um, lost the remote and we can't get back inside."

"I think I found it," said Rodney from the other side of what appeared to be thin air. "I'm having a little trouble getting it open, since I can't actually see the control panel."

"Hopefully they heard us on the radio," said John, walking around the 'Jumper to join the scientist. "Then they can come back and let us in."

The others showed up within about twenty minutes, interrupting Rodney's muttering and grumbling at the invisible panel.

"Where have you been?" said Lorne grumpily. "We've been searching for you for hours!"

"We kept getting deterred from the energy source," John explained as the now-visible hatch opened up. "Got ourselves stuck in a cave somehow –"

"Twice," Rodney interjected. "Thanks to you."

"There was a pool of acid that got in the way of things a little. That's how we lost the remote and Rodney's radio."

"I didn't mean to splash you," Rodney put in. "The radio just fell out."

Teyla touched the edges of John's wound gingerly. "This will need seeing to," she commented. "We should get back to Atlantis before it gets infected."

"I'm about ready to pass out anyway," John admitted. "It hurts like you wouldn't believe."

"I believe it," said Ronon.

John blinked at him. "You haven't been splashed by acid?"

The Satedan just grinned and clomped into the Puddlejumper. John and the others followed, Rodney starting to babble about Ronon's possible experiences with acid, and Lorne going to the pilot's seat to give John a break. Soon enough they were flying out of there and heading home.