A/N: This was originally longer, but I split it into two chapters because it was getting long.

Enjoy !

Chapter 7 –A Discovery Explored

Anirul and Rodney walked into the newly discovered lab, and the room automatically lit up. The lab kept in the style of the city, and was about twenty feet wide by fifteen feet with a main console in the center. It had a crystal screen protruding from the top. Three lab tables were also in the room and a counter stretched around the sides. It had what looked like drawers and cabinets hanging on the walls. Anirul immediately headed over to the screen console, and Rodney went to the counters, opening the drawers with a push of a button.

She was searching the console, which turned out to be an Ancient computer completely independent of the city database and the crystal was the monitor. She didn't know whether to be happy or disappointed.

"This will take longer than I anticipated." She sighed and started tying her brown hair up in a ponytail.

"What will?" Rodney walked over with his hands in his pockets to see what she was looking at. It was a perfect diagram of a Z.P.M. He read some of the descriptions about the structure and materials of the Z.P.M. itself. He was equally as excited and disappointed at what they had found.

Anirul finished tying her hair and rested her elbows on the console, "The crystalline structure itself is crucial to the design, it has to be so exact, there is no margin for error."

"And molded in one piece."

"Out of the rarest element in the galaxy."

"No wonder why there aren't a ton of these laying around here." Rodney motioned with his right hand, the one not on the broken arm.

"That and they last for thousands of years, so why would the Ancients need a ton at one time?" Anirul commented.

"That thought has crossed my mind."

Anirul took her elbows off the console and interfaced her laptop with the Ancient computer and started copying the files.

Rodney continued, "You would think in this lab there would be some of the element."

"And equipment to build a ZedPM."

They started the search, opening cabinets and drawers. Equipment that resembled chemistry equipment, test tubes, burners…were revealed, but not what they were looking for.

Rodney opened one of the last unexplored cabinets and excitement spread across his face, at least until he moved the device and it split into two pieces.

"Give me a hand with this."

"With what my favorite one-armed-scientist?" She looked over at him.

"Don't call me that, I still have both arms. The left just has a shattered ulna, a fractured radius and a cast." He scowled at the thought that she called him a name.

"I apologize." She walked over to the cabinet, "Oh, what do we have here?" She pulled one piece out at a time using both hands. Put together the pieces were a perfect model of a Z.P.M., opened, they revealed the center structure of a Z.P.M. She put it back together and carefully brought it over to one of the tables.

They talked scientific techno-babble over it for a quite a few minutes and continued the search. This time Anirul found something.

"Rodney, I believe this is some of the raw element." She brought it over to the same table as the model.

He walked over to her right side, "I think you're right." It was a round ore, about the size of a baseball, with raw crystals intertwined with rough rock.

Right then Rodney's radio came on with Carson's voice.

"Rodney, do you know where Dr. Belacu is? I need her down in the infirmary."

Anirul and Rodney's eyes met, and she whispered "Caught."

He was trying to avoid any uneasy questions, "Carson, I'll have her come to the infirmary as soon as she can."

"Where is she, she's not down in the lab, and for that matter, where are you?"

Anirul motioned for Rodney to let her speak, well really made him let her speak by putting her hand on his mouth, his eyes widened, "Dr. Beckett, we are in a new laboratory we discovered. I can meet you in thirty, thirty-five minutes." She winced at the expected answer; Rodney swatted her hand away, scowled at her and whispered "Don't do that!" He couldn't believe she actually just did that, to him. She scowled back not so seriously.

"Thirty minutes! Where exactly is this lab?"

Rodney spoke, "In an unexplored part of the city."

"And you two went there by yourselves?"

Anirul explained still wincing, "I didn't feel the need to involve anyone else."

Carson sighed, "Just get down here would you lass?"

"I will Dr. Beckett." The radio was silent. She started rocking on her heels, "So, we should go." She really didn't want to go back to civilization though. It was nice being out with Rodney where no other people were. Sometimes, people got on her nerves. That was one reason she had moved out to the country on Tialys, added to getting away from the city where her husband was assassinated eight years before. For some reason, Rodney didn't get on her nerves though.

"Yeah, no kidding." Rodney thought this woman would be the death of him one day. She treated him carelessly, but then respectfully. She took uncalculated risks, like how they first met. Major Sheppard, Teyla, Lt. Ford, and he were standing by the archway that led to her house in the country and she shot them all! Not with a projectile weapon, but it knocked them out. This one woman captured all four of them and then went on to have the audacity to confront them in the… well it wasn't a cell, it was a living room. But then she was cautious, not wanting to get the hopes of the city up with the reference to the lab. She was confusing to him, yet alluring. He could save the day, but not figure her out.

They gathered up their things, leaving the model and ore for another time, it wasn't like anything was going anywhere.

Anirul asked, "Do you know why he wants to see me?"

"I have a vague suspicion." The part Ancient fact suddenly leapt back into the forefront of his mind.

"Rodney…" She looked at him with her blue eyes that he just couldn't defy.

"Something about some of your genetic makeup being Ancient."

"Oh, alright. Let's go." She didn't seem to be surprised at all.

They moved out of the lab and the lights shut themselves off. On the walk back, Rodney and Anirul were fervently discussing the Z.P.M. laboratory, full of techno-babble about the structure of them and how exactly they draw energy from subspace/time. It was still cloudy, but with the discovery of the lab, it was becoming clearer. The problem would be finding the material to construct a Z.P.M. So far, the Ancient computer in the Z.P.M. lab didn't give a location. They had a great deal of information from the lab to sort through. Anirul had managed to copy only a fraction of the files; it was strange how the lab was independent of the database.

They stopped in the regular lab to drop off their laptops, and headed up to the infirmary already passing the thirty-five minute mark.