A/N - I've been branching out into writing for some other fandoms, so updates may come a little slower on my Stargate stuff. But this has not been abandoned, and will absolutely be completed!

John was nodding when his comms crackled in his ear and Zelenka cleared his throat. "Colonel Sheppard?"

"What's up?"

"I need you and Ronon to meet me in the Gateroom. I have just discovered something rather urgent that I need to discuss with you." The scientist sounded frazzled, but Zelenka pretty much always sounded that way, so John wasn't sure how important this would end up being. Still, the last time that Zelenka had called him to tell him something important, half of Atlantis had been on fire. John was not about to discount whatever Zelenka had to share.

"Heading there now," John said, then glanced at Ronon. "You alright, Chewie? Zelenka wants us to head back to the Gareroom."

Ronon shrugged. John didn't feel that he'd done all he could, but at the same time, he wasn't exactly sure what more he could do. He grabbed a bigger first-aid kit - the kind Keller brought when she had to go off-world to treat someone in an emergency. If they had time, he bet he could add better wrappings to Ronon's wound, maybe some antibiotic cream too. And at least now he would have access to a pretty much never ending supply of drugs.

John's head was definitely starting to clear, which was also a relief. His lungs still ached, and his throat felt raw, but he didn't feel the same painful spasms in his chest that he'd felt before. His breathing was easy enough.

But John figured he had absolutely no reason to complain. Ronon pushed his way unsteadily to his feet - the drugs were clearly helping, but John wasn't sure if it was enough. He was in pretty bad shape, pale and pained-looking. John knew Ronon was tough, but he also knew that burns were incredibly painful. As much as he enjoyed pretending he knew how to give medical care, he didn't actually know how to treat Ronon's injuries. He worried about what would happen to him without a doctor around.

They made their way back to the Gateroom. They went slowly, partially due to Ronon's wound and partially due to the sudden and ungodly amount of pigeons now making their way through the hallways of Atlantis. The first pigeon had, apparently, been a halbinger of more pigeons to come. John and Ronon could hardly walk down a hallway without seeing at least one or two of the feathery bastards. It was starting to get a little bit weird.

"What are they all doing here?" Ronon asked, eyeing one. John couldn't tell if he was uncomfortable or hungry.

"I dunno," John said. "We can ask Zelenka if we keep seeing them. He used to...breed pigeons, or something."

Ronon frowned, but didn't say anything else.

They arrived back at the Gateroom, which somehow looked even worse with fresh eyes - there was burned debris everywhere. The hole in the ceiling hadn't looked so bad at first, when he'd been thoroughly distracted by everything else, but now, John couldn't help but wonder how they were going to fix that. It seemed like a really big problem. This whole situation was starting to feel rather overwhelming, and John wasn't sure what to do.

Zelenka was standing in the middle of the rubble, looking flustered. There were approximately 200 pigeons milling about around him.

"Oh. Colonel Sheppard. Good, I wanted-"

"Why are there so many pigeons?" John asked, frowning at the overwhelming plethora of pigeons before him. "Where did they come from?"

Zelenka's eyes lit up, and he fumbled with his tablet and his glasses. "Ahh, yes! The pigeons! They are magnificent creatures, aren't they?"

John frowned. He would have gone with "vermin" over "magnificent creatures," but before he could say anything to the contrary, Zelenka was in full flow.

"Did you know, there are 175 species of pigeons? Well, on Earth, that is. I suppose now, there are 176. They are fascinating animals - they are actually better at multitasking and quickly switching between tasks than humans are!"

"Zelenka, what did you call us- whoa. Really? Better at multitasking?"

Zelenka nodded enthusiastically. "They can be taught to critique art, and even to recognize words! And of course you know this already, everyone does, but they can find their way back home from thousands of miles away. This is why they are called 'homing' pigeons."

"Umm, I actually didn't know that," John admitted. "I don't...I don't know a lot about pigeons."

"Well, then you have come to the right scientist," Zelenka announced proudly. "You know, I used to breed and race pigeons. Back in the Czech Republic."

John did not know how he was expected to respond to this. "Oh," he managed politely.

"They can also correctly diagnose images of cancerous tumors, with 99% accuracy."

"Now you're just making shit up," John said, crossing his arms. "There's no way a dumb bird is diagnosing cancer."

"I am not making it up! And pigeons are not 'dumb', they are very intelligent animals. Just you wait and see, with so many pigeons around, perhaps I can begin to train some-"

"Wait, wait, so why are there so many around again?" John asked, beginning to feel as though he had lost the thread of the conversation. Ronon had been silent, looking vaguely bored and in pain, but he did look more intrigued by the prospect of solving the mystery of the pigeons.

"Oh. Yes, yes. I believe that they were roosting in the basements of Atlantis, the very sub-basements, that is. We have not been down there hardly at all, because the power requirements merely for lighting in that area are far too much for our ZPM. However, Rodney's protocol caused much of that area to catch fire, driving the pigeons into the upper levels. And here they are. They're beautiful, hmm?"

"So will they...go back down to the basement?" John asked nervously. He could deal with the excess of pigeons for...some amount of time. But he was pretty sure if they kept hanging around the Gateroom, he was going to start feeling like he was going insane. And worse, if Woolsey got back and the pigeon problem still wasn't taken care of, it wasn't impossible that he would murder all of them.

"I am not sure!" Zelenka said, beaming. "It is possible they will retreat to their old homes, but it is also possible that they will decide they prefer the upper levels, and remain here instead!"

"Can we eat them then?" Ronon grunted.

Zelenka looked shocked. "Oh, no, these are beautiful specimens, I...I would not recommend eating these…."

"Will they kill me to eat?"

Zelenka rather looked like he might kill Ronon.

"Why did you call us here again?" John asked, hoping to de-escalate what seemed like a sudden and horrible potential fight. "You said it was something important?"
"Oh, yes," Zelenka said, his face suddenly falling. "Erm, we have a slight problem. The power is still down, and I have not yet been able to restore it. Worse, our water filtration system was damaged in the fire. We have some reserves of fresh water in storage, as well as water bottles in the Jumper. But even for only the three of us, I am not sure we have enough water to last until the rest of Atlantis returns."

The idea of the rest of Atlantis returning hit John like a ton of bricks, and he couldn't even process the rest of what Zelenka was saying. It was less than ten days until the rest of Atlantis was returning from leave, and Atlantis looked nothing like they had left it. They would come through the Gate, and, if they were lucky, see a Gateroom that only had a few scorch marks instead of a ton of rubble all over the floor. And, oh yeah, there would be a hole in the ceiling. John felt a little sick even just thinking about what Woolsey would say. He realized that there was a distinct possibility he could actually get fired.

"Can you fix it?" Ronon asked.

Zelenka shrugged helplessly. "I believe so, but...it will take time."

"How much time?"

"I have not yet finished assessing the damage, so it is difficult to say for sure. Many of the systems that we rely on are down."

"Gate?" John asked, swallowing around a sudden lump in his throat.

"Useless without power."

"Oh," John said in a small voice, and decided that he needed to sit down. He slumped gracelessly onto the steps beside Ronon, seeing his career flash before his eyes for what had to be the hundredth time. It was just as terrifying now as it had been the other ninety-nine times.

"Are you alright, Colonel?"

"Yep. Yeah," John said, staring into space in horrified fascination at the thought of Woolsey handing him a fifty-page notice of termination. "I'm good."

"So?" Zelenka prompted, looking at John as though he expected him to do something. The lump in John's throat grew as he realized that by answering Zelenka's summons, he'd become the highest-ranking person on Atlantis, and therefore put himself in charge of the entire fiasco.

"Okay," John said, shaking the overwhelming dread away. There would be plenty of time for that later, once Woolsey fired him. "Zelenka, work on turning the water on. Ronon, get some rest and let the drugs kick in. And I will…."

John frantically sorted through everything that needed to be done. There was an unbearably long list, but none of it seemed like the sort of thing that had to happen instantly.

"You guys sure I can't eat one of those pigeons?" Ronon grumbled, and Zelenka scowled.

"I will cook a meal," John announced grandly. "A meal that, umm, isn't a pigeon."

Ronon snorted, whether at the idea of John cooking or eating a meal that wasn't pigeon-based, John wasn't sure.

"I can cook," John insisted. "You just...haven't seen it. I used to cook all the time."

This was a blatant lie. John had never had a period of his life where he was expected to cook regularly, and he'd never quite gotten the hang of it. Still, he was positive that he could manage to scrape together something edible.

Ronon scoffed again. "Sure you did."

"Shut up. You're supposed to be resting," John snapped. "Zelenka, go fix the water. Ronon, you better be hungry, cause dinner's comin' right up."

Before the Satedan had the chance to respond, John left the Gateroom in high dudgeon. With all of the stuff in the Atlantis kitchens, cooking - even without power - was going to be a breeze. In fact, by the time he made it to the kitchen, he already had the beginnings of a plan.

The kitchen turned out to be huge. John had actually never been inside the kitchen before - why would he bother, if other people were going to do the cooking for him? It was probably a good thing that there wasn't any power, because John thought he would have been completely overwhelmed by the amount of machines.

After some trial and error, John managed to locate some mysterious meat (he thought it might be beef) and a cookie sheet. Try as he might, he couldn't find a pan. Why was this kitchen organized in a way that was so dumb? Maybe Rodney had spearheaded it.

He figured a cookie sheet was probably good enough. The stove wasn't working, and neither was the oven, so he was going to have to make a (very small, very controlled) fire to cook the meat. He was reluctant to do this for obvious reasons, but they weren't nearly desperate enough to eat something that hadn't been cooked. And if it really didn't work, he could always take some of the MREs from the Jumper and use the fire to heat up those instead.

John examined the meat carefully - he wanted to keep the fire burning for as short of a time as possible, so he figured he should get everything else ready first.

It was carefully packaged in plastic and styrofoam, a more extreme version of the way he'd seen meat packaged in the grocery store. John spent a long time silently debating whether he should cook it in the packaging or take the plastic off first. Eventually, he decided that any temperatures high enough to cook meat would also be high enough to melt plastic, and he should probably remove it.

He cut the flimsy packaging with a knife, widened the hole with his fingers, and then immediately watched in horror as the chunk of meat slid in slow-motion onto the ground. It landed at his feet with a wet sounding thud.

John frowned. He figured he could just brush it off, and the heat from the fire would cook any leftover germs. But he wished he could say for certain. Also, he felt that dropping their entire dinner on the ground was kind of a bad omen.

"Alright, you hunk of meat," he said softly. He planned to say 'prepare to meet your match,' but what actually came out was, "don't...don't do that again."

He grabbed the meat off the floor and set it on his cookie sheet, and tried to determine what it was. He was pretty sure knowing what kind of meat he was holding would affect things about the cooking process. Like...what flavors he added beforehand, how many times he turned it, stuff like that. Granted, he wasn't exactly sure how it would affect any of that stuff, but he was pretty sure it would.

It was pretty red, so he was pretty sure it wasn't chicken. Maybe some kind of steak. They served steak in the mess hall sometimes, so that made sense. And that...that seemed like good news. Undercooked chicken could make you sick, but undercooked steak...that was basically just an extra fancy delicacy. Maybe he could even rustle up some steak sauce.

What was in steak sauce? John had some vague idea that it might be ketchup, probably with some kind of spice? Maybe once he was done cooking the steak (assuming it was steak), that would be the time to figure out the sauce.

"Okay," John mumbled to himself. "Gotta...gotta get the fire going."

This, at least, was comparatively easy. John had spent enough time in the field with SGA-1, not to mention his occasional Air Force missions that actually required survival skills, to know how to get a fire going. Besides, there were plenty of matches and lighters in the kitchen. John had even set up a ring of bowls with water around the outer edges of his makeshift fire, proud of himself for being so careful not to set Atlantis on fire (again).

John rustled around the kitchen until he saw a stack of paperwork - that hopefully wasn't important - and set it up in the center of his makeshift boundary. He tossed a few matches on top of it, then a few more for good measure. He considered adding lighter fluid, but with their recent experiences, he thought maybe he'd better hold off on that as long as possible.

Once the fire flickered to life and seemed to be burning steadily, John plopped the meat-holding cookie sheet on top of the fire, supported by the bowls on either side. Things were going great so far.

John sat back, opening a beer he'd found in one of the large refrigerators. He eyed the meat expectantly, waiting for it to...turn brown, or char, or whatever meat was supposed to do. How long did it take? He seemed to remember watching friends grill, or very occasionally grilling himself, and it always seemed to sear the steak pretty quickly. Maybe it was done now.

John poked the steak carefully, in case it was hot. It didn't seem to be. In fact, it seemed to be cold. And uncooked.

"Is this thing even on?" John asked himself, grabbing the edge of the cookie sheet. "SONUVABITCH."

Apparently, the cookie sheet was, in fact, hot. John shook his slightly seared hand, hissing and glaring at the lump of meat. "Cook, damn it!"

The steak did not seem to hear him. John growled and sat back, nursing his burnt hand and drinking his beer sullenly.

He was a whole beer down by the time that the meat smelled like it was actually beginning to cook. He opened the next one as he grabbed a fork, having learned his lesson the first time. He poked the meat, hoping to flip it onto its side.

It was stuck.

John frowned. He was pretty sure that was not supposed to happen. Was there a step he had missed? He knew you were supposed to grease cookie sheets or brownie pans before putting then in the oven to bake, but he was pretty sure you didn't need to do that with everything else. Wasn't meat supposed to involve...juices? He was pretty sure something like that was supposed to happen at some point in the process, but his meat looked pretty dry.

Then, John realized what the problem was, and he groaned. He was using a cookie sheet. You had to grease cookie sheets before putting the cookies on them and putting them in the oven, so of course you had to grease a cookie sheet before putting a steak on it and cooking it over the fire. But he hadn't even thought about that, and now it was too late. If only he'd kept looking for a pan.

Since John couldn't see the bottom of the meat, he thought it was distinctly possible that it was in the process of getting burned to a crisp. He thought it was imperative that he get the meat off the fire as quickly as possible, until he could figure out how to unstick and turn it. Once that was all sorted, he could go back to cooking it, but he was fairly certain he didn't want to cook only one side of his meat - it would probably be left raw in the middle.

John looked frantically around for anything resembling oven mitts. Even a towel or cloth napkin would have done. But he didn't see anything like that, and he was starting to panic that if he kept the meat on the fire for even one second longer, it was going to be beyond saving.

John hit the cookie sheet as hard as he could with the center of his hand. As he had hoped, this dislodged it from the bowls of water it had been resting on. However, he had envisioned the cookie sheet sliding a few feet away from the fire, and coming to rest somewhere safe, where he could figure everything out. Instead, it simply collapsed directly into the fire.

John wasn't sure what to do. He still didn't have oven mitts to rescue the meat, and now his palm was throbbing very badly where he had touched the cookie sheet. Worse, when the cookie sheet settled, it had disturbed his careful paperwork fire, and now a few smoldering bits of paper had escaped his safety circle.

John's blood was throbbing in his ears. Of course he had somehow messed up his cooking project so badly he was about to catch Atlantis on fire again.

He grabbed one of the bowls of water in a panic, and started pouring it on anything in sight that looked like it might cause a problem. Some of the pieces of paper looked like they might escape, and John hurled water at them, in the process knocking his beer onto the smoldering meat. It hissed and sizzled, and the nauseating smell of beery burned meat began to permeate the kitchen.

John growled, raking his unburnt hand through his hair in distress. He couldn't tell if it was the kitchen that smelled like smoke, or if it was him. He closed his eyes, alarmed to feel the telltale prickling of tears behind his eyelids. Dammit, he was supposed to be able to do this, he was the fucking Military Commander of Atlantis, for god's sake.

"Pull yourself together, Sheppard," he mumbled, miserably kicking at the ashes of their meal. "You can figure this out."

Zelenka was elbow deep in the guts of the Atlantis power network when John's agitated voice sounded in his ear.

"We should switch," John said unhappily. "You cook the goddamn meat and I take a look at the water. I fixed a dishwasher in college, so I can probably handle it-"

"What?"

"I can't fucking cook, okay?" John hissed, sounding utterly miserable. "I somehow...there's fucking paper everywhere, and my hand-"

Zelenka had no idea what Sheppard was talking about, but he was clearly upset, and apparently hadn't managed to cook anything. At this point, Zelenka was hungry enough that he was thinking food was actually more important than fixing the water. Maybe he could take a quick break, set the Colonel on the right path, and go back to getting them water.

"I'll be right there," Zelenka promised. He had just enough time to hear John's sigh of relief before disconnecting the comm and hurrying towards the mess hall.

He arrived to find John sitting disconsolately in the middle of a mess of soggy, ashy paper, white-faced and clutching his hand to his chest.

"Colonel Sheppard?"

"Hey, Doc," John answered, quickly hiding his hand behind his back as if Zelenka wouldn't notice. He sounded much quieter and less self-assured than usual, which was almost as rare for the Colonel as it was for McKay. But unlike Rodney's, John's cockiness didn't bother Zelenka, and seeing him without it was somewhat disconcerting. Zelenka was suddenly reminded that John was still young, the youngest of the high-ranking Atlantis staff by at least a few years. Not only that, he was the newest to the Stargate program by far.

"What have you done here?" Zelenka asked, trying hard to keep his voice even despite not seeing much in the way of food.

"Oh, uh, I dunno, I thought...yeah, I couldn't find all the supplies, and I thought this might…."

Zelenka saw that some of what was on the ground next to Sheppard was a massive, undercooked, and thoroughly ruined steak. Zelenka decided right then and there that there was absolutely no chance of John being an asset to the current situation, and it was probably best if he removed himself entirely.

Although Zelenka highly doubted John's dubious dishwasher-fixing skills would do anything at all to help turn on the power, normally, Zelenka probably still would have sent him to look. As it was, however, John looked strung out, sad, and kind of in pain, and Zelenka thought the best thing to do would be to have him wait with Ronon in the Gateroom.

"What happened to your hand?" Zelenka asked cautiously. He suspected John had injured it during his cooking attempt, but he wanted to be sure it wasn't something more serious.

John held his palm out to Radek. It was red and shiny, but looked no worse than a painful sunburn. John refused to meet Zelenka's eyes.

"I think you will survive," Zelenka said. "But please go and check on Ronon, and I will finish dinner."

"But-"

"His burns were much more severe, and I do not think he should be left alone for too long," Zelenka said. He was improvising, but he thought that sounded true enough, and the Satedan handled physical pain so well that it was sometimes easy to forget how damaging injuries could still be for him. Ronon probably shouldn't be left alone too long, in case something happened.

"Are you…?"

"Please, go," Zelenka said. "I will take care of this."

John frowned, but pulled himself to his feet and walked sullenly out of the room. Zelenka examined the mess he had left - it seemed as though he had tried to cook a steak by resting it on a cookie sheet propped over the fire. Zelenka was in no way surprised that it hadn't worked.

The piece of steak John had been experimenting on was unsalvageable, even for Zelenka. It was charred in some spots, raw most everywhere else, and smelled faintly of beer. Radek wrinkled his nose. He had no idea what John had done, or even how he'd managed to ruin the steak so impressively.

Shaking his head at the pointed uselessness of some of the top Atlantis personnel, Zelenka rummaged through the failing refrigerator until he found the rest of the meat. He took three smaller pieces, which would cook faster and more evenly than John's gigantic steak, and slid Sheppard's cookie sheet out of the way distastefully. Cooking without power wasn't going to be an issue for him, not after growing up in the midst of a revolution. He'd handle this quickly, feed Sheppard and Ronon, and then get right back to fixing the water.