The moment they stepped inside the building, the entire facility awoke. Lighting increased and panels sparked to life, glowing and blinking their welcome. Jen felt her tension easing the moment she could see the familiar muted colors of the marbled walls and decorative fixtures.

A quick exploration mapped the layout of the building. A half-dozen rooms converged on the main control center which was filled with various sized consoles. The keyboards and displays were all scripted in Ancient, and from what Jen could tell, each panel had power. Nothing appeared to be broken, and no warning bells or buzzers were sounding.

No alarms was always a good sign.

"So… now what?" she asked, circling the room.

"How's everyone's Ancient?" Evan posed, staring at one of the monitors near the wall.

"Fine," Jen replied.

"Passable," Sanchez answered.

"I can read," Ellis shrugged.

"Good for you," Browne smirked, patting him on the shoulder.

"Ancient," Ellis scowled. "I can read Ancient. Dumbass."

"Ancient for dumbasses?" Browne grinned, winking at Jen. "That must be new."

Jen bit her cheek to keep from laughing out loud.

"Everyone pick a console," Evan interrupted, moving to stand in front of one of the main floor units. "Look for any identifying marks. Something to give us an indication of what it is we're looking for—but for god's sake don't touch anything."

"And just what are we looking for?" Jen asked, moving to one of the units on the far side.

"You'll know it when you see it," Evan replied. "I hope."

.

.

Jen straightened away from the monitor she'd been hunched in front of for the past thirty minutes. She rubbed at the kink forming in her neck. The others were each working at different consoles around the room, tension of their task evident in the fast typing and muttered curses when files lead to dead end after dead end.

Jen chewed her lower lip. She needed to share what she'd found out, but her voice was lost behind a growing fear—not fear for a miscalculation—but fear that she was right. But after checking and rechecking, she knew without a doubt that her initial discovery was correct.

They were in very, very big trouble.

Over the console to her right, Evan's eyes met hers. His expression shifted from wariness to worry. He didn't speak so neither did she. Jen felt the rise of the familiar butterfly in her stomach, momentarily distracting her from ball of tension in her lower abdomen. But panic at their situation quickly squashed the flighty feeling and she was left with the tangles of fear squeezing her chest.

Evan stepped out from behind his console. "Find something?"

Jen let out a tiny sigh and nodded.

"Bad news or really bad news?"

Jen opened her mouth, then closed it with a shrug and a shake of her head.

Evan placed his hand over hers and gave a quick squeeze. She clung to his warm fingers, praying for truth in his silent reassurance.

"We need Rodney," she admitted dejectedly.

"Wow," he laughed. "That bad, huh."

Jen wanted to smile but couldn't muster more than a small twitch.

Evan tilted his head closer to hers. "McKay may have two PhD's," he whispered, "But my money's on you. Not real money though," he winked. "You weren't on the initial assignment list so Zelenka didn't have time to update the board."

Jen tried to glare at him but she was pretty sure her smile was counteracting the ferocity she was attempting. She sighed. Here she was trying to muster the courage to tell him they were doomed, and he was taunting her with jokes. Damn the man.

"One of these days I'm going to tell Radek he owes me half the winnings since it's my misfortune he seems to double down on," she muttered.

"That's not a half-bad idea," Evan agreed. "You can propose that when we get back."

"If we get back."

"When," he said firmly. "Now tell me what you've got."

Jen reluctantly released changed the display on the monitor above them. The menu items disappeared in place of a digitized image of the planet, the green island mass easily distinguishable from the white covering across the rest of the surface.

"The information in the database says that the island is protected by some kind of shielding. There are several entries talking about variations in calibration and how they modified the protective shielding they used for Atlantis to contain biometric energy. It might be why we didn't show any shielding, the sensors weren't set up to see it. I think the Ancients were working on keeping things in, instead of keeping things out."

"In?" Ellis questioned, walking over to join them.

Jen nodded. "If I understand correctly, the shield keeps the weather in— "

"—and the freezer out," Sanchez finished, following Browne so the entire group was gathered around the console.

"Basically," Jen nodded gravely.

She switched her display to a closer look at the island, highlighting just the main landmass. The edges of the continent were marred with a wide, blinking red glow. She didn't need a degree to know that the red indicated trouble. And trouble was completely surrounding the center of the island, including the village and their power station.

"The shield is collapsing," she pointed towards the red borders.

She lifted her shoulder and turned towards Evan, wishing she had more information. More of an explanation. But she didn't know the mechanics enough to be able to do more than just skim the surface of what the database contained. She wouldn't even know where to begin looking for the right information.

"I'm so sorry," she shook her head, fighting the knot of despair squeezing her chest. "I don't understand a lot of this. Rodney would have it all sorted in seconds."

"McKay," Sanchez scoffed. "You're way more fun to have along for the ride, Doc."

"And so much prettier," Browne added.

"And you smell way better," Ellis chimed in with a dramatic sniff and a wistful smile. "Like vanilla."

This time Jen couldn't hold back her laugh at the preposterous turn of the conversation. Here she was trying to explain their icy future and they were commenting on the scent of her shampoo. "You guys are absolutely incorrigible."

"Love you too, Doc," Ellis winked.

Turning back to the console she changed the monitor display to show a highlighted floor plan. A single orange dot blinked happily in the bottom corner. "The one piece of good news I was able to find is that this facility is powered by a ZPM."

"You didn't say that with much enthusiasm, Doc," Ellis pointed out. "I thought ZMP's were still a big deal?"

"They are," Jen sighed, staring at the display. "Except there isn't enough power left in this one to keep the shield going. That's why it's failing. The ZPM is almost completely drained."

"How almost is almost?" Ellis asked.

Jen opened her mouth to answer but the words wouldn't come. She glanced down at her fingers, clenching her hands into fists so they wouldn't see her shake. "I ran the numbers a dozen times. Every answer is the same. It's empty." She lifted her head and turned to Evan. "We won't have enough time."

"How much time is left?" Evan edged closer.

"Three hours," she whispered. "We only have three hours before it collapses completely."

.

.

Wrapping her blanket around her shoulders, Jen slumped down the wall and tipped her head back. Dark, cool air surrounded her. Hoping to buy themselves a few more minutes of ZPM power they'd turned off both the ambient lighting and the heat to the facility. It was a hopeful attempt, but it would only give them minutes at best. The cold was already permeating the outer edges.

At least the Ancients had built an earthquake stable building. The last two tremors had shaken things up but hadn't made much of a dent in the facility. One lucky point, she supposed. At least if she was going to freeze to death she'd be able to do it without being painfully crushed under a crumbling building first.

She sighed and closed her eyes. Symbols and numbers danced across her eyelids.

All she wanted was five minutes away from the monitor. Five minutes to let her subconscious sort through the pieces. She'd seen so many elements – shield designs, specifications, planetary information, engineering schematics. Some of it made sense but most of it was beyond her understanding. She knew there was something there. The Ancients never designed anything without some kind of fail-safe. But where to look? If she could just get her mind to see past the unnecessary information…

Unfortunately her mind didn't seem to want to work on the island puzzle so much as the Evan puzzle. Every time she tried to sway her thoughts back to the planet and it's Ancient shielding, she found herself circling back around to the man in the main room. They'd been working together for almost two years. It had always been just business between them. Friendly, sure. Flirty, well…lately anyway. But business. Definitely just business.

So if it was so business, why was it she couldn't stop thinking about those icy blue eyes?

Jen groaned and dropped her chin to her knees. They had less than an hour before the ZPM ran dry and the shield collapsed completely, and here she was lamenting about her non-existent love life.

Get with the program, Keller.

Something brushed against the back of her hand. She snapped her head up. "Shit," she cursed, clamping her fingers against the base of her throat.

Evan squatted in front of her. "Sorry," he grinned.

Despite the adrenaline surge, she found herself smiling back. "No you're not."

"You're right," he shrugged. He straightened and held out his hand.

Jen grabbed for his fingers and pulled herself up. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wander off, I just…" she trailed off.

Damn blue eyes.

He frowned slightly, shifting his hands to cover hers more fully. "You're hands are freezing."

Jen glanced down at their entwined fingers. "Better my hands than the rest of me."

"Hey," he chastised, giving her hands a squeeze. "Don't be going all McKay on me. We're not out of this yet."

"Evan…" Jen shook her head, distracted by the warmth of his hands around hers, distracted by the location, distracted by the situation. Her emotions were bouncing up and down like children on a teeter-totter.

"No, Jen. No doom and gloom, okay? We're not giving up and we're not letting this go." He leaned closer. "Now where's that fighting spirit I know and love, hmm?"

Jen took a deep breath.

"Sir?" Sanchez interrupted, leaning in through the open doorway. He hesitated only a second before disappearing again.

Jen was pretty sure the Captain had been smiling.

Feeling very much like she'd just been caught in the closet by a teacher, she stepped back and tried to extract her fingers from Evan's firm grip. Evan didn't let go. Instead he matched her backwards steps with forward ones until she was stopped by the cool wall at her back.

He stood directly in front of her, closer than necessary. Or perhaps it wasn't close enough.

"Jen, I need you to promise me something."

She hesitated. He looked so serious—more serious that she'd ever seen him. It wasn't attack mode serious…it was just…emotionally serious.

Her voice wouldn't cooperate so she nodded her head.

"No matter what happens, I want you to trust me. I'm going to get us out of this."

She wanted to believe him. Desperately. "Evan—"

"No, Jen. I mean it. This…this is not the end. Not so long as we can breathe, think, and read Ancient. Okay?"

"But—"

"No arguments. Now…you…" he tugged at her fingers and pulled her away from the wall. "Need to stop hiding and put that super-brain of yours into action and help Sanchez with some translations."

"Translations?"

He swung her around to face the open doorway.

She dug in her heels, pulling him to a stop. He turned towards her.

"Evan….for…for what it's worth," she bit the inside of her cheek and took a deep breath, willing herself to have even a tiny drop of his positivity. "I do."

"You do?" He raised an eyebrow. "Wait. Do what?"

Jen started to laugh. "Trust you. I do. Trust you."

"Oh," he grinned, backing towards the main room. "Well good."

"Ev?"

"Jen."

"I wasn't hiding."

"I know," he laughed and hooked her arm, pulling her into the other room with him. "You were doing that crazy thinking thing you do when you're trying to find the right solution."

"Crazy thinking thing?" she giggled.

He winked. "I'm sure there's a proper term for it in there somewhere. You can point it out to me when we get back. In the mean time quit stalling. I know you want to keep me to yourself and all, but Sanchez may have found us a way out of here."

Jen blinked. Digested his statement, warmed over the thought of having him all to herself, then skipped right to Sanchez finding them an escape option.

"Evan!" She whacked him across the shoulder as she hurried past him. "Why didn't you say that sooner!"

His laughter followed her into the next room where she made a beeline for the captain and his possible way out.

Damn distracting blue eyes.

.