Thank you to my loyal and kind readers for the reviews.

(Also I haven't given up on "Puddle Jumper Mayhem" I intend to keep posting new ones while I write this)

Chapter 2 – Burst

Teyla opened her eyes and drew in a deep and satisfying breath. Yawning widely she rolled out of bed and padded over to the window of her quarters in bare feet.

She had heard Sheppard and the other humans from Earth talking about objects they called 'alarm clocks.' Teyla had raised her eyebrows and stared incredulously as their function was explained. It had been a couple of years ago, but she still did not understand why people needed a loud and blaring noise to tear them from sleep. She preferred to wake up naturally rather than traumatised first thing in the morning.

She looked out of the window and across to the distant and sunlit piers of Atlantis. The early morning light cast deep shadows across the buildings. Teyla smiled as she glanced up at the clear blue sky.

She walked back across the room and checked her watch; 7.30am. Perfect, she thought, half an hour until breakfast.

She went into the bathroom and sighed as she looked at the shower. Yet another of Earth's customs she was becoming used to, along with numbering every hour and minute of the day. She sometimes felt guilty at the luxurious life she had in Atlantis, while the rest of her people lived in tents and washed in river water. She always had to shake herself away from her feelings by reassuring herself that she was doing a great service for her own people as well as the Pegasus Galaxy. The amenities she had grown accustomed to were her reward.

Teyla had noted that none of the other humans, except for Ronon, ever mentioned the showers. When she had discussed this with Sheppard, he told her that a lot of the people back on Earth had them and took it for granted. When Teyla had asked him to clarify what he meant by 'a lot' of them, Sheppard had become oddly silent and looked sad.

Teyla saw a frown on her face when she looked up into the mirror, as the memory of the conversation played out in her mind.

She slipped out of her clothes and carefully walked over to the shower cubicle. She intended to run it for a moment to check the temperature was right before stepping in.

Teyla reached across and pressed the control panel.

Nothing happened. She frowned and tried the panel a couple more times. On the third attempt there was a sputtering sound from the pipe behind the wall. Teyla backed away in fright.

The noise increased into a series of juddering bangs. This was followed by a creaking sound and suddenly the wall exploded outwards in a deafening rain of debris and boiling steam.

Teyla cried out as the scalding water hit her. She quickly did a combat roll across the floor and out of the way of the painful jet spurting from the wall in the bathroom.

She covered her ears and coughed as she had taken a good lungful of the horrendous water before she realised what was happening.

She looked down at herself. She saw that her skin was red in some places and it stung madly. It felt like severe sunburn.

Teyla looked across the bathroom, back into her quarters. It was difficult to see and the hissing noise from the burst pipe was oppressive. She crawled across the floor and into the bedroom.

She had hoped that she would have been able to escape from her quarters or at least get away from the worst of the heat, but she found herself behind the veil of boiling fog which was streaming out of the bathroom across her quarters.

She valiantly tried to crawl over to the door, but the pain became too much as she got closer to the centre of the room.

Instead she crawled back and grabbed her radio from the table beside her bed. Pinning it behind her ear, she covered her other ear and slumped down onto the floor by the window.

"Teyla to Colonel Sheppard and Dr McKay," she said, feeling a little ridiculous at her predicament.

"Sheppard here. Go ahead."

She was relieved when she heard his voice, but truly believed that it would be Rodney who would be able to stop the water. She was confident he would be able to free her from the rapidly heating corner of her quarters where she had become trapped.

"Colonel, I require your assistance and Dr McKay's too, if he is there."

Rodney replied, "Yes I'm here," the next sentence was almost inaudible to Teyla, "Rather be asleep right now though."

Teyla laughed softly at his comment, but the sound was lost in the hissing and roaring of the burst pipe.

Sheppard spoke next, "You're not stuck in your room are you? Have your door and control panel become…shocking?"

Teyla frowned. It sounded like a knowing joke, but she did not understand it. She sighed, "No, John. However I am stuck and require your immediate assistance."

She took in shallow breaths while she waited. The heat continued to grow and was very soon stifling and unbearable. She looked down and studied her form again and then her eyes widened in realisation.

She was still naked!

She did not mind, but was sure that Rodney would be very uncomfortable and awkward about it. She doubted he would ever be able to look her in the eye or talk to her properly again. Sheppard probably would not think much of it; they were all team mates and friends after all. However, she knew she would receive a certain kind of 'look' from him for many weeks afterwards, which she would rather avoid if possible.

Teyla quickly reached across and grabbed the sheet from her bed. Wrapping it around herself just in time as she saw the outer door in her quarters opening.

Sheppard and McKay walked towards Teyla's quarters. There was a hissing and roaring noise, which increased in volume as they got closer.

Sheppard asked, "Does Dr Weir know about the door malfunctions?"

Rodney replied, "I told her after the third one. Of course I tried to fix the problem from my lab first, but for some reason the system did not recognise any of the commands." He frowned. "I tried so many things. I even tried cutting the power to the affected sections, but nothing worked. I had to devise a manual fix to physically cut the power."

Rodney had already rescued his toolkit and tablet from Sheppard's sore hands into his bandaged ones.

Sheppard now had his burnt hands out in front of himself, even as Rodney had done earlier, to prevent brushing them against his sides accidentally as he walked.

As they got closer to the door to Teyla's quarters the sound was so loud they could no longer speak. Rodney put his tablet and toolkit down on the floor next to the wall a few paces away from the door.

They both stood still in the corridor and hesitated to get any closer, just in case this door was going to shock and burn their damaged hands again.

Sheppard and McKay looked at each other. Teyla was in some kind of trouble, even though her calm voice would not betray her over the radio.

Sheppard sighed and rolled his eyes as he stepped up to the door. His back still reminding him of the first time he tried to get out of his quarters that morning.

He closed his eyes and waited for the painful jolt. But it did not come. When he opened his eyes again his hand was resting on the control panel.

Rodney, emboldened by Sheppard's success, quickly walked over and popped off the panel. He rearranged the crystals and the door opened.

Both Sheppard and McKay staggered backwards as a column of scalding steam collapsed and rolled out of the door into them. The noise, which had previously been too loud to talk, now increased tenfold and almost made thinking impossible.

They coughed as they both inhaled a lungful of the heated fog.

"Teyla!?" Sheppard shouted painfully above the intensified hissing sound. He tried to move to get inside, but was forced back by the water filled air as it scalded him.

Rodney had backed right up and retrieved his tablet. He was studying a schematic of the water distribution network to Teyla's quarters. He frowned and began typing quickly, calling up different screens and programming code.

Sheppard looked over at him his face twisted in worry. Teyla was trapped somewhere in the midst of the cloud.

Rodney pointed up at his radio and then down the corridor. Sheppard narrowed his eyes and nodded.

Rodney stood up and placed a hand firmly on his stomach once again. He then ran back up along the corridor away from Teyla's quarters.

When he was a good distance away from the noise, he reached up and tapped his radio, "McKay to Zelenka."

The Czech scientist answered, he sounded more irate than usual, "We're a little busy Rodney, but go ahead."

"Are you anywhere near the science lab?"

"No, I had to split the team up into groups of two. There are so many people trapped. It is impossible…" he trailed off, speaking in Czech.

Rodney rolled his eyes, "Who did you leave in charge?"

"Matt Perkins. Listen Rodney can you call me back later, only I'm trying to free someone due off-world in half an hour."

"Uh…Sure. Thanks and," he smiled, "Good luck." At least he was not getting shocked anymore. Although the scalding steam he had just inhaled kept catching in his throat and promised a coughing fit later in the day.

He grimaced as he tapped his radio again, "McKay to Perkins."

A quiet voice answered slowly, "Go ahead Sir."

Rodney closed his eyes and listened with all his might to try and make out the man's words above the loud noise echoing down the corridor.

"There's a burst hot water pipe in Teyla's quarters. I've created a program to shut off power to the pipe in this tower, but I need you to upload it onto the Atlantis computer. I'm sending it to you now."

It took a long time for the reply to come, again it was very tentative, "I have it. I'll just put it in now."

Rodney gritted his teeth at how slowly he knew Perkins usually worked. Every code was painstakingly churned out and checked. It took Perkins a whole day to complete as much work as Rodney could accomplish in a few minutes.

"Hurry it up Perkins. Teyla's in trouble and we don't have time for you to take a nap before you finish."

There was no reply for another agonising minute.

Before the voice came over his headset again, Rodney already knew that it had worked. The loud noise diminished to a low hiss.

"Okay I've done it."

"Hmm, next time spend more time working rather than calculating how much time is left until your shift ends."

"Yes Sir," came the dejected reply.

McKay sighed deeply and coughed as he walked back towards Sheppard along the corridor.

As he rounded the corner Rodney smiled when he saw Teyla leaning against Sheppard. She was wrapped up in a damp, loose sheet and was hugging some clothes to her chest. Her hair was drenched and hung limply as it clung to her face and neck. Her face was also highly flushed from being scalded by the hot water.

Sheppard grinned and waved as Rodney approached, "You did it. Although the water is still hissing out, I was able to go in and rescue Teyla."

"Hmm," he replied, "Would have been faster if it were not for my extremely slow underlings."

Sheppard frowned, "Come on. Let's get to the infirmary."

Rodney had drawn up level with them when his radio buzzed, "Weir to McKay."

She sounded alarmed, "What?" Rodney replied rolling his eyes and gritting his teeth.

"I've just received reports from several people in the area where you currently are that water pipes have been exploding and flooding people's quarters with hot steam."

He furrowed his brow and closed his eyes, "I thought it was just Teyla's quarters."

"It was until about a minute ago."

McKay spoke hotly, "Of all the useless and incompetent people on the base…"

"It wasn't Dr Perkins. He just told me what happened. It seems that the system didn't take kindly to your patch. The entire pipe has become dangerously pressurised."

Rodney frowned, "But the program was designed to cut off the water supply to the whole run."

Sheppard said, "Well, obviously it didn't work. Perhaps you need to shut it off manually, like with the doors."

McKay folded his arms across his chest and quickly thought twice about it. He winced as he crushed one of his burnt hands under his arm. "Because I enjoy wrecking Ancient systems as much as I like fixing things," he snapped. "When I figure out what's going on, it'll take a long time to repair everything."

Weir spoke again, "Whatever you decide to do, it'll have to be fast as the pressure is continuing to build."

Sheppard answered grimly, "Rodney, shut it off manually. I need to take Teyla to the infirmary. Do what you have to do."

"And hurry," Weir said.

Sheppard walked away from Rodney towards the transporter. McKay shot Sheppard and Teyla's retreating backs a wistful look. With his bruises and sore hands he would much rather be going with them than saving the city again.

Sighing deeply, he grabbed his toolkit and stalked off towards the transporter to the water control room.

TBC

A/N - This was the first time I have ever written from Teyla's POV. Please let me know what you thought. Thanks! x Varda x