AN: I forgot to add in the first part, my deep thanks to my beta Gaffer, she's truly a gem! It was nice to see you all enjoyed the skipping stones part.

It was a write-off, my coffee, that is. Not only was it cold, but a bug was floating morbidly on the surface. Looking at the bug, I hoped his last sip was worth it. Stupid bugs. Attracted to the very things that kill them, you'd think they'd learn. Of course, it'd be hard to learn when every lesson ends in death. It'd suck being a bug.

I sighed in frustration, and picked up the mug, walking over to the recessed sink in the wall, and upended the contents. I stared at my desk. I could go back to the mess hall and get another cup. The reports left were at least another cups' worth. Yeah, I'd do that. Half a cup wasn't enough to get me through a typical Atlantis day, especially not with people like McKay.

I rinsed it out, shook the extra droplets off, and headed to get a replacement cup. I was halfway there when I felt the city shake. It was a subtle thrum underneath my feet. Alarmed, I tapped my radio. "McKay?"

Don't ask me why I called him. I guess after all these months I know who is most likely responsible for these kinds of things, or if not responsible, inadvertently involved.

"If this isn't immediately life-threatening, I'm currently busy with something that is, so call back later."

His words had been clipped, rushed and arrogant. Typical.

"Are you in your lab?" I asked, ignoring his life-threatening message.

Not unexpectedly, his exasperated reply filtered into my ear. "No, I'm not in my lab. Life-threatening, remember? I'm at the control room for the water desalinization tanks. I don't keep life-threatening things in my lab -" there was a characteristic pause, "unless you count that shield device, but I didn't know it'd do that -"

I wasn't listening. I took off for his location at a fast jog. By the time I arrived in the room, he was still jabbering about the shield device, but the entire time he was punching frantically at controls, and scanning three different screens with text scrolling rapidly upwards. Red lights blinked furiously everywhere I looked.

Before I could ask what the hell was going on, McKay stopped talking, and his eyes got as wide as cue balls. His fingers stopped moving, and he stared horrified at the base of the large tank that was along the wall opposite the console where we were standing. I figured this wasn't a good thing, and was about to grab him, and go, when he turned and realized I was there.

"Duck!" he shouted, sprinting towards me, and he took me down in a full body tackle that would've made Gretzky proud.

The vibrating hum spiked, and I felt the explosion before I heard it. And then I couldn't hear anything at all. McKay was sitting up, rubbing a finger vigorously in his ear. Like that was going to help. We'd probably be deaf for the rest of the day, but at least we weren't dead.

Still a little shell-shocked, I mouthed at McKay, "Okay?"

I saw him mouth back, "What?"

Shaking my head, I peered around him, and could see blackened smoke rising thick behind the console. It had protected us from the brunt off the debris. A tug on my arm, and I realized McKay was looking at my hand. I followed his line of sight down.

My coffee cup. But all that was left, the part that I was holding, was the oval ring that you held so you wouldn't burn your hand when drinking. Son of a bitch, "That was my favorite cup!" I swore, but as I couldn't even hear myself, I don't suppose McKay did either.

It was stupid, but it'd been my favorite cup. It was a prank given to me in flight school. It had in bold black letters TOP GUN, and had a picture of two M-16's lying in bed, one on top of the other, missionary style.

Before we could try to stand, which probably wouldn't have been easy considering recent events, the room started swarming with personnel. A latex gloved hand pulled away the ceramic remnant from my surprisingly firm grip, and with the other hand lifted my chin and flashed a light into my eye, asking something. I'm not a lip reader, but it wasn't a stretch to figure out they were trying to find out what had happened and if we still had all our parts.

I motioned to my ear, and tried to say, "I can't hear you," and judging from the guys wince, I shouted it more than spoke it.

Out of the corner of my other eye, I saw Beckett standing behind Rodney, waving off Weir, Bates and some others. Whatever he said, they backed away, and he turned towards us, and gave the two techs an order. Next thing I know they're pulling us both up.

I was a little wobbly, balance is an ear issue you know, but I didn't fall. Rodney looked a little green, but he stayed up also. They helped us to the infirmary, and after some improvised communications, Beckett let us know we were going to be guests for the rest of the day, and that our hearing should return in short order.

He slipped us something during all the tests, because I found myself drowsing, and losing grip with what was awake and what was asleep. The next time I was sure about being awake, I realized I could hear, mostly. There was some residual ringing, but overall it was an improvement.

I got out of bed, and found myself steady on my feet. Searching out McKay, I found him a few beds over, stirring a little. He must be waking up, too. I pulled the curtain, and took off the scrubs, hurriedly getting into my uniform that was by the side of my bed. Buckling my belt, I gave the curtain a sharp twist, and it slid to the side. I could see McKay's curtain was now pulled. I dropped into the chair, and quickly got my boots on.

When that was done, I headed for Beckett's office. No surprise to find Doc poring over something. He was always running some test or another. As if we didn't keep him busy enough!

Knocking on the outside frame, I leaned in and called, "Hey."

I saw him look up, and the broad Scotsman smile told me he was pleased to see his patient upright and dressed, practically normal. He set the paper down, and got up, walking around to the front of his desk, and sat on the corner, waving me in. "Feeling better?"

I stepped in gingerly, unconsciously rubbing a hand through my hair, tousling the spikes up worse than they normally were. "What happened?" I asked.

I felt McKay coming up behind me, before I heard him. "What happened, Major, was a complete overload of tank 5," he said disgustedly. "Certain expedition members didn't listen to me when I warned them of the strain to the water system by wasteful over- usage."

I stepped to the side, allowing him room to get all the way in, instead of hovering over my shoulder. "You knew this was going to happen?"

He stared at me with thinly veiled impatience. "Did I say that?" he looked at Carson, who darted a sympathetic look my direction, but Rodney plowed on. "No, what I said, was I warned them about the strain on the system. I thought it'd shut down. Fail safes, redundant systems, the Ancients loved that, but what you happened to walk in on was the end result of tank 5 already working on the redundant system, and when that failed -" he mimicked an explosion with his hands, and added tiredly, "Kablooey."

"That's the technical term?" I jabbed.

The dirty look wasn't lost on either of us, but I needed more information. "What now? Are the other tanks enough?"

"We thought five were enough, Major."

Carson had a hand up to his mouth, twiddling a finger in thought. "Forgive me for sounding stupid, but wouldn't there be replacement parts around?"

Beckett always had a questioning way of offering solutions, uncertain of his stand in the technological aspects of Atlantis, despite having the gene that worked the best until I'd showed up and sat in that chair. But he often hit the nail on the head.

I pointed a finger at him, and back to McKay. "See, replacement parts. Everyone has spare parts."

"Do you know how big Atlantis is?" incredulous, Rodney asked us both.

"No, McKay, why don't you remind me?" I snapped back, turning on him.

"Fine," he retorted, standing straighter. "I will. Five percent, Major."

What? What tangent was he off on now? "Five percent of what?" I almost hated to ask, knowing that his mind had made yet another jump without taking me along for the ride.

"That's how much of the city we've managed to explore."

I knew that. Really, I did, seeing how I was the one coordinating the exploration, but the way he shoots out information without transitions would throw off anybody with normal thought processes. "That's because we're trying to conserve power, remember?"

Before McKay could reply, we heard a timid clearing of a throat behind us. Everyone swiveled their attention to find Zelenka standing behind us. The Czech smiled tightly, there and gone, and stepped between us.

"Ah, good, you are here," he said pleased. "Rodney, you would not believe what I found."

Oh, I could imagine. I imagined this was probably a good time to get the heck out of Dodge. I raised an eyebrow at Beckett, trying to silently telegraph my exit, but as I did so, I noticed what Zelenka was holding.

Triumphantly, he held out the same device that McKay had me try to activate earlier today, or was it yesterday? I wasn't sure if we'd spent the night in the infirmary. Anyway, I almost thought it was the same, before I realized this one was blackened with soot, and rough, the circles jagged instead of smooth, and the middle circle was completely torn apart.

"Where'd you get that?" I asked, dry mouthed. I had a sneaky suspicion.

McKay apparently did also. "Tank 5," he guessed miserably.

Zelenka frowned at us both, "How did you know this?"

Beckett was watching as expectantly as Zelenka. I darted a worried look at McKay, and answered for him, "Good guess." The part did look like it'd been blasted, after all, didn't take a rocket scientist -

Zelenka and Beckett continued to give us a puzzled look, but I grabbed McKay, and pulled him out of the room. "I don't suppose there are anymore of those?" I hissed once we were out of earshot.

"No," he whispered back. "That was the only one."

Great. I couldn't help but think someone, somewhere, was getting a great laugh out of my life. I sighed, exhaling the frustration. "I hope you're a good swimmer," I gritted, as I continued moving towards the command deck. It was time to tell Elizabeth what we knew.