Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed so far. I'm very nervous to be writing in a new (to me) fandom, especially one with such a generally high quality of fic, and your kind reviews have made me very happy. On with the show!

Chapter Three

The deluge knocked Sheppard off his feet, flinging him backwards. His whole body slammed into the wall and he saw stars. For an instant, between the shock of the cold water and the shock of hitting the wall, he couldn't move, and the water continued to pour in as his head went under. He thought for a panicked instant that he'd gone blind as well, but blinking his eyes in the stinging water, he realized that the lights had gone out, leaving them in complete darkness. With nothing to aim for, there was no way to know where the surface was, or if there even was a surface anymore -- the corridor could have been filled with water all the way to its top.

This is a really stupid way to die, he thought, his lungs aching. He had no idea what to do, which way to swim. There was a definite current, he could feel it carrying him -- probably the current created by millions of gallons of water flooding into the city. Good Lord, had they just flooded the city? Elizabeth was going to kill him. She'd probably kill McKay first, though, if Sheppard didn't do it for her. And speaking of McKay, where was he? Still alive? Could he swim? Did it matter if there was nowhere to swim to?

Shut the door, he thought. But there was no way to find the door. All he could do was think at it as hard as he could -- Shut! Shut! -- as he tried to get his groping, outflung fingers on a floor or a ceiling or anything he could use to orient himself.

And then his head broke water and he surfaced, coughing and gasping. Air, sweet air! Despite his fear and desperation, he couldn't help a momentary hope that this was clean water. He licked his lips, tasted salt. Seawater. It wasn't from the plumbing; they must have accidentally opened one of the flooded sections of the city. Overriding the failsafes. Nice move, McKay. Speaking of whom...

"McKay?" he said aloud, into the darkness.

No answer. Although it was hard to tell in the dark, the water seemed to have become still, or at least stiller -- it was no longer bearing him along in a mad rush. He could tread water with ease. The cold already had his teeth chattering, though. Hypothermia, he knew, could set in quickly. He had to get out of the water. Reaching his hand up, he could just brush a slightly roughened surface -- the ceiling of the tunnel. The water was pretty high, but at least it didn't seem to be getting higher at the moment, for whatever reason.

A burst of static crackled from his radio. The radio ... it was still dangling from his collar. Sheppard shifted to keeping himself afloat with his legs while he hooked the radio over his ear.

"Major! Major, come in please. Major Sheppard, good god, answer me. Oh, hell, I've killed the ranking military officer on this station. Nice going, Rodney. Weir's gonna strangle me. Do they court-martial civilians? Major!"

"McKay?"

There was a moment's silence, then McKay's voice rushed back: "Major, thank goodness. Are you all right? I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry. There must have been a shield breach somewhere in the area that wasn't showing up on our sensors. That's why the failsafes wouldn't let us open the door. That's probably also why the plumbing keeps shutting itself down -- it's trying to maintain a positive pressure and prevent backflow from the pressure of the --"

"McKay."

"--water, there must be, well, there's no way to figure it up for sure without knowing our current depth beneath the waterline and I can only guess at that, but a hell of a lot of pressure forcing its way into the city. It's a wonder that none of the seals have blown --"

"McKay!"

The man on the other end of the radio shut up, then came back with a small, "No need to shout. I can hear you fine."

"McKay," Sheppard said, keeping his voice even with an effort. "I am currently in pitch darkness, treading water. This corridor is nearly full of water, very cold water, I might add. I have no idea where I am or whether the city is flooding at this moment. Any light that you could shed on my present situation, literally or figuratively, would be greatly appreciated."

Brief silence. "Okay, here's the situation," McKay said briskly, sounding a little more confident. "The minute that the water breached the corridor, bulkheads started slamming down all over the place. Must be some kind of defensive mechanism in the city to prevent wholesale flooding. I've been in touch with Dr. Weir and Zeronka -- Nelorka -- that Czech guy, up top. Looks like all that flooded was our corridor, and it was sealed off in about fifteen places before the rest of the city could be affected. Unfortunately, the remainder of the functional plumbing was affected. We currently have no working toilets at all."

"This may come as a shock to you, but that's pretty low on my list of priorities right now," Sheppard said, running his fingers across the ceiling in the hopes of locating some kind of manhole or maintenance access panel. If there were conduits and pipes and stuff behind the ceiling and walls, which was the impression he'd gotten from McKay, surely they must have some way to get to them, shouldn't they? It beat floating here waiting to drown, or waiting for McKay to rescue him, which was almost as bad.

"Yes, yes, I can see that. Now, it looks like I got washed farther along the hallway than you did. There's actually only about a foot or so of water where I am. You must be trapped in one of the other, sealed sections of the corridor-- hang on." Sheppard could hear staticky snatches of conversation -- he could hear McKay's side of it just fine, and inferred that he was talking to Weir, but the other side was nothing more than intermittent crackles of static. Eventually McKay said, "Major? Did you get that?"

"No."

"Damn, the bulkheads must be interfering with your radio. I can hear you just fine, and I assume you can hear me, but any farther away, it's not getting through. You know, that does make sense, considering that radio waves--"

Was there no way to keep the man on a single topic? "So fill me in on what I missed, McKay," Sheppard said, turning his investigation to the walls. It was getting harder to keep from shivering now, and he found his breath growing short. He was in good shape, and in warm water should have been able to stay afloat for hours, but he was pretty sure that he didn't have nearly that much time at the moment.

"Right, yeah. That was Weir. Near as they can tell from the city's life sign sensors, you're right on the other side of a bulkhead from me -- and there's nothing between me and the exit; all we have to do is get you through that bulkhead. Weir says they're sending some people down to cut through the bulkhead. It's going to be a little while, though. We're pretty deep under the city."

Sheppard discovered that he was starting to sink -- he had to quit feeling about the walls in order to use both arms to keep himself afloat. "I'm not convinced I can wait that long, McKay."

"Why not? You can swim, can't you?" McKay's voice took on a note of panic. "The water's not rising, is it?"

"I can swim just fine, and no, the water's not rising, but it's really freakin' cold. I think I'm going to be working on a good case of hypothermia soon."

"Oh. That's bad." McKay sounded a bit preoccupied.

"No shit, Sherlock!" Sheppard bumped lightly into something. It took him an instant to realize that it was the wall ... he didn't like how disoriented he had become. "Any chance you could get that bulkhead open from your side?"

"What do you think I'm trying to do?" The strain sounded clearly in McKay's expressive voice. The man was not one for hiding how he felt, that was for sure. "The power's out all over the corridor. I'm in pitch darkness here, and I've lost my laptop. Also, I'm a tad claustrophobic. Not a lot, mind you, just ... enough to make concentrating difficult." He laughed tinnily in Sheppard's ear. Sheppard didn't like that laugh -- there was a note of hysteria in it. The last thing he needed right now was a panicking scientist. "Not ideal working conditions," McKay added.

"Too bad for you, but I'm in six feet of water here, and I could really use a way out!"

"I said I'm working on it," McKay sniped back. Angry, Sheppard knew from experience, was a lot better than scared.

"Next time you decide to fix the plumbing," Sheppard said, drifting lazily back out into the main part of the corridor at the whim of the eddies in the gently swirling water, "you can find some other shmoe with the gene to be your guy Friday. I quit."

After a hesitation, McKay said, "I really am sorry about that, you know. I didn't do this on purpose."

Sheppard heaved a sigh. His slow rotation had brought him back around to another wall, or maybe the same one. He kicked off from it and went drifting out into the corridor again. This was actually sort of fun, in a weird way. He wondered if the cold was affecting his brain.

"I don't blame you for this, you know. Well, I mean, technically it is your fault ..."

"Oh, thanks," McKay said sarcastically.

"... but it's not as if you planned it this way. It could just as easily be you trapped in here and up to your neck in freezing water." If only.

Rodney started to say something; Sheppard shushed him. "I'm not done yet. Listen, McKay, the whole point of having military grunts like me along on this mission is to protect you science folks. We don't talk about it very much, but we know that's what we're here for." He rebounded gently from another wall and pushed off again. It was getting difficult to talk; his lips felt stiff and clumsy. Had to be some way to keep himself warm ... but treading water was getting to be more of an effort than he wanted to make. Hypothermia! Dammit!

"Major?" McKay was saying into his ear, sounding frightened. He must have stopped talking. He wondered how long he'd been quiet, was concerned that he couldn't remember.

"Where was I?"

"You were talking about being expendable." McKay sounded distracted again. He was clearly doing something out there. Sheppard hoped it was something useful.

"Expendable's not really the right word. Nobody on this mission is expendable. It's just ... protecting people, getting in danger, that's my job, not yours. We do it so you guys don't have to." Sheppard pushed off from the wall again, trying for a graceful scissor kick, but only succeeded in dunking his face. He surfaced, coughing and spluttering. At least it woke him up a little bit.

"What just happened in there? You're not drowning, are you?"

"I tried to do Swan Lake," Sheppard said, and laughed. "Didn't work."

"Elizabeth, where is that cutting torch?" McKay demanded, and then, in response to something Sheppard couldn't hear, "Twenty minutes? What are you people doing, taking the slow boat to China? He'll have drowned by then!"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, McKay." Sheppard wondered why he hadn't contacted one of the walls yet, then realized that he'd set himself slowly spinning in the middle of the corridor -- or what he assumed must be the middle of the corridor, based on the lack of walls. Bobbing like a cork in a pond. The image was oddly amusing. He tried not to laugh, having no desire to send McKay into another "the Major is dying, Weir's gonna kill me" panic attack.

"I'm only repeating to her what you keep telling me. How's that coming along at the moment, anyway -- the drowning and hypothermia thing?"

"Working on it," Sheppard said.

"I do hope you mean you're working on not drowning."

"Generally hoping not to. But it would really help if you could get that door open."

He heard McKay heave an exasperated sigh. "I've told you, I don't think I can. I mean, I'm trying, but I can't see out here, Major. Have you ever tried to rewire Ancient technology in the dark with no tools? Didn't think so."

"I bet Zelenka could do it," Sheppard said.

There was a long and rather tense silence. "You're just trying to goad me," McKay said.

"Zelenka's the one who found the bathrooms. Even you couldn't do that."

"Because I was trying to keep the city from imploding, Major Revisionist History!" McKay snapped. "I realize it's a little detail, but it seemed kind of important at the time."

"I hear talking. I don't hear a lot of fixing."

Grumbling came over the radio. "You may be the military commander in the city, but you aren't my boss," McKay snapped. "Quit trying to order me around."

Sheppard drifted up against the wall again, and this time he just clung to it. Stupid, he berated himself; should have done this in the first place, rather than wasting his energy. Once again, he began exploring the surface of the wall and ceiling for some sort of access hatch, some way to get out. He had very little hope that McKay would manage to do anything useful. The man was smart, but had as much as admitted that he didn't think he could get the door open, and prodding his ego didn't seem to be making him work any faster.

"Major!"

"Now what?" Sheppard demanded, trying and failing to keep his teeth from chattering.

"You stopped talking."

"Yes, that's because I'm saving my breath for swimming."

"Why do I bother?" McKay demanded, apparently speaking to the world at large. "Weir? Where's my cutting torch?"

Sheppard tuned out another one-sided conversation between McKay and people he couldn't hear. God, he hated this. Let him go out in a firefight, not drowning in the dark while waiting for an obnoxious scientist to come up with a way to free him. He hated inaction. He hated being trapped and helpless. He hated ...

His head went underwater. Disoriented in the dark, he couldn't find the surface for a moment, and he had to use the wall to push himself up. Coughing and gasping, he finally got a breath of air.

"Major!" McKay was saying desperately into the radio. "Major Sheppard!"

"Hey," Sheppard said, laughing even though his mouth was half full of water, "you do remember my name."

"Of course I do," McKay retorted huffily. "And, cocky annoying American though you may be, I do not intend to have your death on my conscience. The paperwork, I'm sure, would be hell. Hang on, I think I've got it..."

Sheppard hung on, literally, to the wall. He could feel a sudden vibration through the metal, and then feel it in the water all around him. Over the radio, he heard a triumphant laugh from McKay, followed by a startled "Ack!" and splashing. Apparently McKay had forgotten that when Sheppard's section of the corridor emptied out, his side was going to flood.

The undertow caught him as the water flooded out of the opened bulkhead, and Sheppard realized that he didn't have the strength to fight it. His head slipped underwater; cold, salty water flooded between his teeth. Then his feet hit something solid. His legs immediately gave out and he collapsed onto his butt on the floor, catching himself on his hands. Dizzy, disoriented, and coughing, it took him a little while to notice that the water seemed to have stopped receding, leaving him sitting in cold water up to his shoulders.

"Major! Major! Answer me!"

"Here," Sheppard said between coughs.

"Good, good, good. Now, the water should have equalized between our two sides. I've only been able to get the bulkhead up a couple of feet ... hang on ..." There were some splashing and scrabbling noises, and Sheppard realized that he was hearing them not only through the radio, but faintly in the air around him as well. "More like eighteen inches or so," McKay said. "You'll have to duck under the water to get through to my side, but that shouldn't be too hard."

Sheppard tried to get up, fell immediately back onto his ass again. "Not so sure about that," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"I need a few minutes," Sheppard said. His voice sounded thick to his own ears.

"You haven't got a few minutes," Rodney said sharply. "You're hypothermic and getting more so."

"I'm not actually hypothermic, not yet, though I might be getting there soon. I remember enough of the first aid courses from basic training to know -- guh!" Between the darkness and his growing sleepiness, he was so disoriented that he hadn't noticed he was tipping over sideways until the side of his face went into the water. "The basic problem," he continued, getting himself more or less vertical again, "is that I'm sitting down right now, and I can't seem to get up."

The biting sarcasm was back in McKay's tone. "You've fallen and you can't get up? Is that what you're telling me?"

"Sitting down, and can't get up," Sheppard said. "Dizzy. Afraid if I fall down, I won't be able to find the surface again."

"Even you can't be dumb enough to drown in three feet of water."

"Can if I fall asleep," Sheppard said.

"Find the wall, you moron," McKay gritted. "Hang onto the wall, and just walk right over here, because I am not coming under there to get you." Under his breath, Sheppard heard him mutter, "Not hypothermic, my ass."

The wall. Good idea. He scooted around in the darkness, sometimes nearly tipping over, sometimes forgetting what he was searching for, goaded on by McKay's constant barrage of insults over the radio. Leaning on the wall, he managed to get himself upright and started walking.

"You'd better be going the right way," McKay said.

"Your irritating voice is getting louder, so I guess I must be headed towards you." Now that most of him was out of the water and he was moving, he found that he was feeling a little better, a little more alert ...

... which lasted until he ran face-first into a bulkhead and fell backward into the water.

"Major?"

Sheppard splashed upright, one hand clapped to his face. He was a lot more alert now -- and hurting. "Think I broke my nose."

"Worry about that later. Right now, get under the bulkhead. I'll give you a hand."

Sheppard knelt down in the water, running his hand down the bulkhead. Sure enough, it stopped short of the floor. The idea of getting his face underwater again, especially considering the disorientation that he was barely managing to stave off, was not a comforting thought. Better get it over with before he had time to think about it. He dove, and scrabbled forward across the floor. Hands caught at him, dragged him, and then his head was breaking the surface and someone was holding him upright and Rodney's voice was saying, "You alive? Major?"

"Alive, yes, alive." It was perhaps the dumbest question the scientist could possibly have asked, a particularly strange question coming from the brilliant McKay -- clearly he was alive; he'd hardly be moving and breathing otherwise. And yet somehow, just giving the answer, the affirmation of his own survival, made something unknot inside him. McKay let go immediately, and Sheppard leaned against the bulkhead, his hands on his knees, breathing deeply. Alive.

"McKay?" It was Weir, on the radio, and Sheppard realized he could hear her now. "They're on the level right above you. We think five minutes, maybe less. The power's out up there too, and they're having some trouble finding the stairwell."

"Well, thank you very much for that," McKay's voice said out of the darkness, "but in the meantime, some of us --"

"Dr. Weir?" Sheppard said into the headset. The unseen world still teetered around him, but at least he'd gotten the coughing under control. "There's no rush. McKay got me out."

"McKay got you in," he heard Rodney mutter, but not over the radio.

"John! I'm glad to hear your voice! Nice work, Rodney," Weir said with warmth. "Beckett's with the team that's heading down to you. Are you all right?"

"Just cold," Sheppard said, speaking between clenched teeth to keep them from chattering.

"I'm having Beckett take you two straight to the infirmary. I'll look forward to a full debriefing when the doctor is through with you. Again, I'm glad you're both all right. Weir out."

"She's looking forward to it?" Sheppard said. "The woman's got a savage streak, no doubt about that." With difficulty, he straightened up; he was shaking so hard he could barely move. The water was, after all, nearly up to his waist, and still cold.

"Why are you worried?" McKay demanded. "I'm the one who --" And he broke off sharply. When he spoke again, it was in a different tone, a guarded tone. "No need to stand here waiting for them. May as well meet them halfway. I hope you can walk because I'm sure as hell not going to carry you."

Sheppard took a cautious step away from the bulkhead, discovered that this was a bad idea, but found a wall with his outflung hand and used this to keep himself upright and oriented. He started wading. Somewhere off to his right, he could hear McKay splashing along, sounding like some sort of half-beached sea creature. Sheppard smiled into the darkness at that mental image.

"Lost my laptop, dammit," McKay said pensively. "Gonna have to bring a team down here to find it. We only have so many of them. Even if it's ruined, I hope we can still retrieve the contents of the hard drive. It's got all my notes for the plumbing situation." He fell silent, except for the splashing, and then said, again, "Damn it."

"McKay," Sheppard said, trailing his hand along the damp wall. "It's not your fault."

"What's not my fault?" McKay retorted.

"Any of this. No one knows how any of this stuff works. We're all just kind of fumbling our way along."

"Fumbling" was probably the wrong choice of words. He heard McKay snort, somewhere in the dark, and when he spoke, his voice sounded half annoyed and half tired. "Why would it be my fault? The Ancients built this city. I'm just the unlucky sap who gets to fix it."

It was strange, Sheppard thought, how well he could read McKay considering how little he knew of the man. How he could hear the self-doubt under the bravado and arrogance. Oddly, it was that aspect of McKay, as much as his obvious intelligence, that had made Sheppard want him for his team. The man had an ego a mile wide, and yet Sheppard had noticed how he seemed to falter sometimes, when the chips were down ... falter, and then pick himself up and go on. There was steel under that slightly pudgy exterior; he was sure of it.

McKay still seemed to be talking; Sheppard had tuned him out. "... and clearly, this should amply demonstrate why I most certainly should not be on your offworld team, since I'm needed here. The city would fall apart without me. I mean, more so than it's already falling apart with me, that is..."

"I still want you on my team," Sheppard said.

The intake of breath was so soft he almost didn't catch it. "Really?" McKay said, in a "last kid picked for the soccer team" kind of voice.

"More than ever, now," Sheppard added.

"You'll pardon me for being ungracious, but why? Didn't I just flood a tunnel with you in it?"

"Well, yeah," Sheppard said, "and the next time we come across some Ancient technology with failsafes in it, I'd really appreciate it if you and your group of wannabe mad scientists could read the warning label before disconnecting it. But, generally speaking, I liked what I saw. You didn't panic in a stressful situation. You fixed the damn door, in the dark, underwater, after telling me you didn't think it could be done. A person who can do that is a person I want to have at my back when I go offworld."

No sound from Rodney's side of the tunnel, except for the continued splashing, indicating that he was still moving.

"McKay?"

"I'm here. Sorry. I had an idea for fixing the plumbing ... had to run some mental calculations ... hang on. Damn, I wish I had a pencil. And a flashlight." Brief pause. "I did hear what you said, Major. I was listening. I can multitask."

"And? Got an answer for me?"

"I'll think about it."

Light flickered ahead of them, reflecting off the water. For the first time in what felt like hours, Sheppard could see the walls around him, glistening dimly by the glow of their rescuers' flashlights.

"Cavalry's here," Sheppard said, and turning to Rodney, he flashed him a smile.

"What did they do, stop for lunch on the way?" McKay groused in his usual complaining tone. In the dim light, however, Sheppard could see him smile back, a bit uncertainly, as if camaraderie was something new to him.

------

tbc

P.S. It's seawater. Of course it's seawater. I'm mean to them, but I'm not THAT mean!