John held himself in the doorway until both Teyla and Ronon had time to notice him. No sense causing any undue injury.
Yet.
After a particularly furious volley, the crack of bantos rods fell silent and the partners nodded respectfully to each other. Teyla moved to the side, bending to grab for her towel. Dabbing it against the side of her neck she straightened, and smiled towards John.
"John." She acknowledged.
John nodded in response and stepped into the room. "You guys done?"
"Yes." She grinned at Ronon. "I believe today's lesson's were well received." Then she frowned slightly at John's firm expression. "Is there something wrong?"
John shook his head, glancing quickly away. He angled his chin towards the hallway. "Can you… uh… excuse us?"
Teyla looked curiously from John to Ronon then back to John. "Of course." She nodded, quickly packing her rods away and grabbing the small duffel bag. "I shall see you later?"
John nodded as she passed, then quickly swiped his hand over the door controls, mentally adding the command to engage the lock.
"We need to talk." He glared at Ronon.
Ronon grunted and eyed him warily. "About what?"
"Dr. Keller." John raised an eyebrow.
Ronon didn't immediately answer… so John waited.
"What about her?" Ronon turned and stalked over to his water bottle, ripping the cap off and downing half the contents.
"Anything going on between you two I need to know about?"
"Nope." Ronon growled.
"Yeah well that's not what I'm hearing."
"And just what… are you hearing?" Ronon scowled.
"You two fighting?" John stepped into the middle of the room and crossed his arms over his chest.
"No." Ronon shook his head.
"Then why is she convinced you're mad at her?" John grimaced. That sounded so high-school.
Ronon glanced at John. "She say that?"
John stared back, trying to read anything besides anger in Ronon's steady gaze. "Are you?"
Ronon just continued to stare. Or… glare… as it were. John sighed, angling for a different approach. He dropped his arms loosely to his sides.
"Look buddy, I don't know what's going on between you two, but if it's going to directly affect our ability to work, then we have a problem."
"Relax, Sheppard." Ronon slammed his bantos rods down onto the window sill and straightened. "There's nothing going on."
John hesitated, watching Ronon's fists clench then unclench.
"Tell me what happened."
Ronon just grunted.
"Ronon." John stepped closer. "I know something happened when you got back from the Daedalus. If you want me to ask Keller first, I will."
"Nothing happened." Ronon turned and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms to glare at John.
John stared, then shrugged, moving to turn away. "Fine. I'll ask her, then."
"Wait." Ronon stared at John, anger and confusion warring behind his scowl.
John almost recognized a hint of something… deeper… something… painful, but it was gone too quickly.
Ronon lowered himself to the window ledge. "I asked her to get something to eat. She said she was interested in someone else. End of story."
John blinked. He asked her to dinner, and she said she was into someone else. He asked her to dinner? Ronon? Doc? On a date? And she… Hmm… John threaded in what Laura had told him, and what little he knew about Jennifer, then added in the mission report and debriefing from the Deadalus escapade.
"Did she say who?"
Ronon shook his head and snorted. "Does it matter?"
John sighed. Not really. "Did she mean it?"
Ronon frowned.
"Did she mean it?" John repeated.
Ronon shrugged, then angled his chin. "Why'd she say it if she didn't mean it?"
John couldn't help laughing, adding up the number of times he'd been dumped off and lied too and coming up with an amount that was too big to mention. "Because." He shook his head and stepped forward, joining Ronon on the window sill. "Just… because."
Ronon stared at him, and John knew he probably wasn't getting away without some kind of explanation. The Satedan looked… hell… he looked… wounded. Damned if he did have feelings for her. Certainly explained a hell of a lot now that John had the time… and reason… to be considering it all. Bigger picture and all that exponential crap.
"Okay, look." John wondered how he was going to explain this. He rotated his shoulders and cracked his neck. He picked a spot to stare at on the wall across the room and sighed. "I have it on good authority that Doc's been under a lot of pressure lately."
"Been talking to Cadman?" Ronon raised an eyebrow.
John snorted, then nodded.
"What kind of pressure?" Ronon asked quietly, watching John from out of the corner of his eye.
"Work mostly…" Then John sighed, wondering just how much of this he should be sharing. "And… well... apparently our good doctor has a few… overzealous… suitors."
"Suitors?" Ronon frowned around the word.
John hesitated, but understood he needed to finish his thought if he was going to give Ronon any peace of mind. "Some of the Marines and a couple of civvies have become… ah, a little too... familiar lately."
"Familiar… how?" Ronon growled.
John turned towards him. "Relax, Rambo." He warned. "It's being taken care of. Point is…" He shook his head sadly. "I'm pretty sure your timing just plain sucked."
"My timing."
John nodded. "My guess is, with everything that's going on, helping Teyla's people re-adapt, developing the Wraith cure, then the Daedalus, plus the group of Romeos Cadman's trying to kill... Well... you just… picked the wrong time to ask her on a date."
"It wasn't a date." Ronon corrected, sounding offended.
"Yeah, well, whatever it was, she's somehow convinced you're never going to talk to her again."
Ronon frowned. "She said that?"
"To Laura."
They sat in awkward silence for a few moments, before John spoke. "You are, aren't you?"
Ronon turned towards him.
"Going to talk to her again?" John finished.
Ronon stared. Then shrugged. "Up to her."
John shook his head and stood up, patting Ronon on the shoulder. He briefly wondered just how he'd become the advice king of romance issues. He hadn't even made it through his own marriage, and his current social calendar wasn't exactly teeming with possibilities. Yet he was expected to solve the dating issues of his staff and team members? This was definitely not in the job description. He shook his head and walked towards the door, debating contacting O'Neill and requesting they change the name of the city from Atlantis to The Love Boat.
Halfway across the room, John stopped under the dragging weight of a niggling doubt and an echo of Laura's conversation. He turned slowly around, the frown forming before he caught Ronon's guarded expression.
"Please tell me this has nothing to do with whatever it is you and McKay are fighting about?"
Silence.
"Ronon…" John warned.
Silence.
"Oh for the love of…" John reached for his com. "McKay!" He shouted in the mic, then shook his head, taking a deep breath before continuing on in what he hoped was a normal sounding tone. By the time he'd finished speaking, he'd convinced Rodney that he'd deep six every single ounce of caffeine in the entire city off the north pier before sundown if Rodney wasn't in the gym in the next five minutes.
Rodney was there in four.
"Is this it?" Jen frowned, staring at the ominous crevice in the rock wall.
"Cave next to the waterfall." Evan talked above the roar of the water that fell down the rocky crag into the small stream that rushed past them.
The waterfall wasn't more than a dozen feet above their heads, but it was at least twenty feet across. Impressive.
"Fits the description to me." Evan continued. "And, ah… matches the map." He wiggled the hand-held scanner.
Jen stiffened with tension as each man readied their P90 and switched on the attached flashlight. Nothing like wandering into dark caves with weapons locked and loaded to get a girl all paranoid and jumpy.
Evan and Edison went first, and she followed a few feet behind, immediately flanked by Williams and Sanchez. Everyone moved silently, and she couldn't help but hold her breath. A few feet inside the crevasse they stepped through an already open, metallic hatchway. The oval door resembled something one would find on a ship, or submarine. It was low and thick, and was so rusted it looked far older than it probably was. Jen stared at the large circular handle of the door as she followed Edison through the opening.
The minute they crossed the threshold the loud roar of the waterfall fell to a muted, dull, rumble.
The room inside was long and wide, extending to what she estimated was at least twenty across, and at good ten feet wide. The rusted, metallic walls stretched up nine or ten feet before being topped by a flat metal roof. The sides and ceiling were crisscrossed with piping and tubes of various sizes, some metal, some the organic compounds they all easily recognized as Wraith technology.
At the back, a second oval doorway revealed another cavern beyond, this one lined with two dozen empty stasis pods. After a quick search, Evan called the all clear and Jen let out the breath she'd been holding.
Unfortunately, exhaling meant inhaling, and the air inside the room carried the sharp fragrance of a fish-market, a comment which earned Jen a collection of grins.
She stepped to the console and shrugged out of her knapsack. The faint glow from the greenish lights in the ceiling would be enough to work by, as everyone's eyes adjusted to the dimness.
Evan sent Captain Sanchez and Lieutenant Williams back to the front entrance to keep an eye out.
An eye out for what, Jen didn't want to ask.
She carefully extracted her tablet from the front of her bag and attached it to the console, finding the inputs exactly where Rodney's paperwork suggested they'd be. Leave it to McKay to write a How-to-not-get-blown-up tutorial for all city staff following the near-fatal building collapse a few months back. Sending forth a silent prayer that she'd remember Rodney's instructions on disabling the firewall, Jen switched the tablet on, typed in the pre-determined commands, and held her breath.
No beeping.
Well. That was good then.
She glanced quickly at Evan, who was eyeing the pod-room with interest.
"Go ahead." She called to him.
Evan looked at her from over his shoulder.
"Explore further." She angled her chin. "I'm going to be a while."
Evan hesitated.
"It's fine, Major." Jen looked quickly around the room. "I'm not going anywhere."
"Okay." Evan finally answered. "But if anything… weird happens…"
Jen grinned. "You'll be the first to know."
Evan smiled then nodded to Edison. Both men stepped through the oval opening into the back room and disappeared.
Jen returned to her computer, losing herself in concentration while she scrambled to decipher Michael's documents. Mixed with Wraith and English, and a smattering of common Ancient terminology, it was a mash of commands and functions. She'd need a translator to figure out what was useful, and what was only Michael's insane drabbles.
She sneezed loudly and an echoing bless you floated in from the front hatch.
Jen grinned.
She selected the first of what looked like many files, and downloaded it to her tablet. It would be slow going, but she hoped that in the end the contents of the hard drive would reveal something of use.
Either way, she supposed, at least she was off-world.
Even if it did smell like a fish-market.