Elizabeth Weir breathed heavily, trying to force her lungs to accept the over moist air as she sat on a bench, watching the head scientist on the Atlantis expedition. He had been attempting to show her something 'cool' the Ancients had build in the old city, but had only succeeded in getting them both trapped in what amounted to a sauna. Now, he was trying to fix both the problem of the temperature rising and of finding a way out.
Unfortunately, he didn't have any more clue about what he was doing than he had when he started, and he sat down beside her with a defeated sigh.
"We're going to die in here," he muttered forlornly, "all shrivled and wrinkled. Not exactly the way I wanted to go but..."
"Rodney!" Elizabeth snapped, rather more forcefully than she had intended, "Get a hold of yourself. I'm certain that when the temperature reaches a certain degree, and when we've been in her a certain amount of time, the room will let us out of its own accord" Actually, she wasn't certain of that at all, but she had to say something to the excitable physicist.
He glared at her, or at least she assumed he did. It was a little hard to tell with all the steam. "Just like the Personal Shield device..."
"Yes..." she said, suddenly exhausted. It was too hot to argue.
"Well..." Rodney began, "You could take off that jacket. You know," he added quickly, "Just until someone can help us out."
Elizabeth turned to look at him, even as she quickly complied, blaming her heat-fogged mind for not thinking of that sooner. "I could say the same to you," she told him, noting that he was sweating a lot more than she was.
He frowned slightly and shook his head. "Oh no. I'm perfectly fine. It's just a little warm."
Instantly, Elizabeth was alert to something amiss. He had not once, in the entire time she'd known him, sounded so sincere when uttering those words. He had to be lying. She narrowed her eyes slightly. "Look, whatever you're embarrassed about, get over it. I nee...er...Atlantis needs you."
She bit her lip, wondering where that had come from, but Rodney didn't seem to have noticed. He was muttering to himself, and finally he pulled the jacket off so that it hung around his waist, leaving a blue sweater in its place. Elizabeth nudged him.
"Take that off too," she told him. He was really starting to sweat now, and that concerned her. He shouldn't be losing this much fluid.
It took some minutes, but he finally complied, keeping his left arm as far away from her as he could. However, she wasn't paying much attention to that as to what the now bare chest revealed. Where did a scientist get muscles like that? For a moment, she was quite distracted, watching in fascination as the skin rippled everytime he moved.
"I said," Rodney cut in acerbically, sounding more like his usual self, "Are you done with your appraisal?"
Elizabeth blinked and then shrugged, glad that the steam hid her blush. She had, however, got a look at the left arm. There was some kind of tatoo on it. It looked like a skull, with a serpent through it. She frowned slightly, and opened her mouth to ask about it, but the doors to the sauna opened suddenly, letting the steam out in a rush, and cool, blissfully cool air in.
"Hey! You guys should have told me you wanted a steam bath!" Major Sheppard said with a snarky grin. Then he looked at their state of dress (or rather, lack thereof) and the grin widened. "Of course, if you'd rather be alone..."
He didn't get to finish because McKay had stood up and was now rushing past the startled major with his jacket and sweat-shirt clutched around his left arm, mumbling something about an experiment he needed to check on. Elizabeth shook her head. The tatoo was probably some thing he had got as a kid, and was now ashamed of it. She smiled slightly. She'd ask about it some other time maybe. First, she needed to find out where he worked out.