sga_santa | Fic: Next Time Bring Candles, Food (Gen, G)

Title: Next Time Bring Candles, Food
Author:

schneefink
Recipient:

caersmane
Pairing: gen
Rating: G
Word Count: ~5,250 words
Disclaimer: The characters don't belong to me.
Author's Notes: Many thanks to

kisahawklin for beta-reading!
Summary: An accident leaves Teyla and some others alone somewhere in Atlantis trying to find their way back. Of course it's never that easy.

---

Teyla could hear Rodney and Radek arguing even before she entered the meeting room. At least this time they were punctual, she thought to herself with an internal sigh. Last week Rodney had been twenty minutes late because of a very important discovery that had turned out to be the Ancient equivalent of a multifunctional small oven. Ronon had been so bored he'd started playing with his knives, under the nervous eyes of Woolsey and the appreciative looks of John.

Today, however, Teyla wanted to finish the meeting and get back to her room as soon as possible. Torren had been restless lately and Kanaan had offered to take him to visit the Athosians for a day. She was looking forward to spending some quiet time in her quarters and maybe listen to some of the new audiobooks that had been uploaded during the last databurst.

"We don't need to use it every day anyway! It's an emergency system, that's the whole point!" Rodney exclaimed, gesticulating with his tablet.

"Emergency systems that don't work in an emergency are no good either," Radek replied in the weary voice of someone who'd already repeated the same thing several times.

"Gentlemen," Woolsey interrupted, looking like he very much wanted to rest his head on his hands. "Could you please explain what you are talking about, now that we are all here?" He gave a polite nod to Teyla that she returned as she sat down next to Ronon. Ronon turned his head in her direction and rolled his eyes at the scientists. John, who sat on the other side on the table, very obviously tried not to grin.

"It's a-" Radek started and was promptly interrupted by Rodney.

"It's a beaming system for Atlantis. Finally! You know, this bugged me for years, that the Asgard had point-to-point beaming technology and the Ancients used transporters. It would be much more convenient if you could just go wherever you wanted, no more stairs! It didn't make any sense, we've encountered, what, how many different beaming technologies developed by other races?"

"Four," Ronon said.

Rodney paused, surprised. "Four?"

"The Asgard, the Wraith, the Goa'uld rings you told me about, and the Inurye."

"Yes, I suppose you could call a culling beam beaming - wait, Inora? Who are they?"

"Old allies of Sateda. They had personal transporters that worked over middle distances."

"Why didn't you ever tell me about them?" Rodney complained.

Ronon gave him an unimpressed look. "You saw one of their transporters when we met the Runner, remember?"

"Oh, that guy," Rodney said. "Okay, sure. Anyway, the point is, it seemed like the Ancients didn't have direct transporters, so we didn't either. Until now!"

"We found a section in the city chronicles that talked about the transporter system. Apparently, they used the transporters to make transportation through the city less chaotic," Radek interjected.

"Yes, and the good thing is, they included a reference to the older transporter models, and from that we made this!" Rodney held up the tablet with a triumphant grin. It showed a complicated schematic that was impossible to decipher from a distance.

"The program, together with a control device that we altered for this purpose, allows us to beam people from outside the transporters, using their radios or subcutaneous transmitters. But it should only be used in emergencies, otherwise it would be quite a significant power drain. Not to mention chaos," Radek explained.

"Yes, yes," Rodney said. "Do you know what that means?"

"Next time you send me and my men to check out an abandoned lab on the far side of the West pier we'll call you and say "Beam me up, McKay?"" John asked.

"Don't you understand the meaning of the word "emergency"? Sorry, I forgot who I'm talking to, carry on," Rodney said.

"It sounds very useful, Dr. McKay, Dr. Zelenka," Woolsey said. "How accurate is this program?"

"Not very," Radek said.

"We're still working on it," Rodney said at the same time. "Maybe ten meters, twenty? We're pretty sure it's only horizontal and nobody will get stuck in a ceiling somewhere."

"Well that's comforting," John said dryly.

"Will it be operated from the Control Room?" Teyla asked.

"Usually, yes, but in case we can't access the Control Room" - he made a hand gesture that somehow managed to convey 'like that time Michael took over the Gate Room and locked us out of the main systems' - "we can control it from the lab, and we hid the program so it won't be blocked together with regular transporters. The only people with the access codes are Zelenka and I."

"Doesn't seem very safe to me," Ronon said with a small grin.

"Oh please, it's perfectly safe," Rodney said. "It locks onto your subcutaneous transmitters, see-" He typed something on his tablet and then turned it around. It showed a blueprint of the meeting room with five green and one blue dots in a circle. He turned the table around again.
"And then you only need to choose the place you want to go..."

Teyla suddenly got a bad feeling about this. "Rodney," she started and leaned forward in her seat. On the other side of the table she could see Radek frown and then step forward, suddenly looking alarmed.

"And voilá!" Rodney exlaimed.

White light enveloped her.

*
The chair under her suddenly wasn't there anymore and she fell down gracelessly, too surprised to catch herself in time. Afterimages of light danced before her eyes and Teyla closed them tightly. That usually didn't happen when using a transporter, and she tried not to see it as a bad sign. At least she was still in one piece and not stuck in the ceiling, she thought wryly.

She blinked several times and then, when the bright spots cleared up, looked around. It looked like a normal hallway in Atlantis, of the sort they had near the storage areas away from the living quarters: grey and almost bare. Only about half of the light columns in the walls were still working and those only barely, and the lights on the ceiling were dark. Teyla was very glad that the lights in Atlantis couldn't be controlled separately, otherwise she'd probably be completely in the dark. As it was, she had no idea where she was or where the nearest transporter was. And given her past experiences with Rodney's experimental technologies she judged the chances that Rodney could beam them right back to be low.

Sometimes Teyla wished that this sort of thing were an unusual occurrence in her life.

"Rodney?" she asked, tapping her radio. Nobody responded on any channel, as she had half expected, and neither did the Control Room.

Teyla took a deep breath. She wanted to think more positively, but it was difficult. Torren had kept her up frequently the last few nights, and various duties and meetings had not let her relax during the day. For a moment she was tempted to sit down right here in the hallway and use the opportunity to meditate.

Instead she picked the direction where the lights were brighter and started to walk.

She had not even reached the first corner when her radio crackled to life.

"Hello? Can anyone hear me?"

"Radek!" she exclaimed, surprised and relieved. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, yes, I'm fine," he said. The sound quality was very bad, and Teyla had to strain her ears to hear him. "I think we're in a part of the city we haven't explored yet. The radio signal is very weak here. We are probably all in different locations."

"Why? We were all beamed from the same room."

"That is, ah, because the control unit we grafted on came from a device with a randomization function. We thought we had disabled the protocol, but apparently not."

Teyla could almost hear Ronon's snort and his voice saying "typical."

"Do you know how we can get back?"

"No. I don't have my computer with me. We should probably look for a transporter."

Teyla raised her eyebrows even though he couldn't see her. The living areas had many transporters, but further away they became more rare. Without a map or an idea of where they were it could take a long time for all of them to find one, and if she remembered correctly not all of the transporters in the less used areas functioned.

"If it helps, I don't think we're very far apart," Radek said, sounding apologetic.

"Then why can't we reach the others on the radio?" she asked.

The hallway around the corner looked exactly the same as the one she had landed in, but even more lights were broken. It made her think of the ghost movies John had made the team watch. Teyla admitted to herself that they seemed a lot more entertaining when she wasn't alone and tired in a grey hallway somewhere in Atlantis. She just hoped that there wouldn't be any hallucinations this time.

"I don't know," Radek said after a short pause. "Maybe they forgot? Or they are on the wrong frequency. Wait, I'm going to try something."

There was a click in her ear, a sign that he had left the line.

Teyla squared her shoulders - ouch, she almost forgot that she'd hit her elbow when she fell - and walked further down the corridor. It got darker the further she went, and one of the lights even flickered ominously. John would probably have found the cliché amusing, she thought to herself. He probably thought that exploring abandoned corridors somewhere in Atlantis was fun.

At the end of the hallway was a door. The lights of the control mechanism were almost dark, but thankfully they still worked. On the other side were three well-lit hallways, and Teyla hesitated for a moment. Radek had said the others were probably nearby.

"Hello?" she called loudly. Her voice echoed down the hallways.

"Is anyone here?" she called again. She closed her eyes and listened. Nothing, then the sound of a door opening.

"Teyla?" she heard a very welcome voice say.

"Ronon," she answered, relieved.

The hallway curved slightly to the left, but she soon saw Ronon coming around the corner.

"It is good to see you."

"Yeah," he said. "You seen any of the others?"

"No. I talked to Radek on the radio..."

"Did he explain what McKay did this time?"

"Apparently they made an unfortunate mistake," Teyla said dryly.

Ronon snorted. "Typical."

Teyla grinned and just shook her head when Ronon gave her a questioning look.

"I tried calling for the others, but no luck so far," Ronon explained. "I've been through here-" he gestured at the hallway he'd come from - "and several rooms over there, all empty. No transporters, no windows, nothing."

"Is your radio working?"

He tapped it with his finger and Teyla heard the answering click in her own.

"It didn't before," Ronon said and then shrugged. "This place is probably too abandoned. Let's go find the others."

"And how do you suggest we do that?"

"Whatever this thing was, it probably caught everyone in the room, right? And McKay had his computer with him. He'll probably figure out where we are and how to get communications back online."

"And what do we do in the meantime?"

Ronon shrugged again. "Look around?"

Teyla didn't have a better idea, even though she thought that the chance of them finding anyone or anything by chance were low. Most abandoned places in Atlantis were either full of things the Ancestors had forgotten or had been stripped down before they had left, and this seemed to be the latter.

At least now she wasn't alone anymore.

"You did say you wanted to go hiking again," Ronon said with a grin.

"I wanted to go hiking! On a mountain! This doesn't count," she argued.

"Whatever. You'd rather sit through another boring meeting than be here?" He gestured into the next room. It was also empty, but it had decorations on the walls and on the ceiling.

Teyla thought about it and then sighed in acknowledgement. "Mr. Woolsey means well, but I don't think I will become accustomed to how many meetings he wants to hold."

"He'll learn," Ronon said. "He hasn't bothered me about mission reports anymore since that thing with Michael."

"That's because you are giving him mission reports," she reminded him. The next door was also empty, except for a lonely something in one corner that might have one day been a pot for a plant.

"Short ones."

"I know for a fact that you asked Dr. Simpson how to edit or delete a recording lately. Why is that?" she teased.

Ronon rolled his eyes. "Whatever. He has to listen to them." He tried to open the next door, but it didn't open, even though the control panel was lit. "Can you...?"

"I am not sure," Teyla admitted. "Rodney showed me what to do if a door is simply stuck..." She sorted through the crystals carefully, trying to remember what Rodney had quickly told her over breakfast one day, and then pulled out one crystal and exchanged two others. This time when they tried the door opened.

The room on the other side was almost completely dark.

"Hello?" Ronon called.

"Ronon, thank god!"

"Mr. Woolsey!" Teyla said with surprise.

"Teyla!" She heard him stand up, not far from where the light shone into the room, and move toward them.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," he said, sounding a bit dazed. He stepped into the light with his hand over his eyes and then lowered it, blinking rapidly. "It's good to see you," he said, heart-felt.

"Did you land in that room?" Ronon asked.

"Yes. The doors didn't open." He seemed a bit groggy on his feet and not sure what to do. Teyla laid a hand on his arm to steady him and he sighed in thanks. "It was... unpleasant," he allowed.

"I can imagine," Teyla said, and she could. So could Ronon, she saw. He was walking into the room as far as he could see and looking around.

"I don't like dark places," Woolsey added, quietly and to himself. Then she felt him straighten. "Where are the others?"

Teyla removed her hand from his arm. "We don't know. I spoke to Radek on the radio, but he cut the connection."

"I spoke with Dr. Zelenka, too," Woolsey said. "He said something about frequencies and that he was trying something different, and then I lost him. I have to admit I was not paying as much attention as I could have, I was rather... distressed."

"Doesn't matter," Ronon said, "we're gonna find them." He was still inside the room and it sounded as if he was moving along the walls.

"They should see our life signs from the Control Room," Teyla suddenly remembered.

"If the sensors work here," Ronon reminded her, and Teyla sighed. Yes. Of course it was never this easy.

"Maybe they do, but can't contact us," Woolsey offered.

"I found the second door," Ronon called. "Teyla, can you do that thing with the crystals again?"

"I can try," she said and moved toward his voice. He wasn't far, and when she reached him he guided her hands to the door control. It was much more difficult when she couldn't see what she was doing, but eventually she was sure that she had the right crystals and switched them around. The door control started to glow weakly.

"There. Mr. Woolsey?" She could see his outline brace himself in the bright doorway.

"I'll get him," Ronon said and walked back. Teyla watched with amusement that Woolsey only barely managed not to stumble when Ronon clapped him on the back to steer him toward the second door. As soon as he could see it, Woolsey walked much faster.

Teyla had to wave her hand over the door control three times before the door opened. Fortunately the hallway on the other side was well-lit. It went on straight for a long time and only then split up in two different hallways.

Until now Teyla had thought that they were maybe in one of the piers, but the hallway was too long at the wrong angle. They hadn't seen a window yet, either. She didn't like any of the other possibilities that came to mind.

Nobody answered when Ronon called and they started to walk down the hallway. There were few doors on either side, and all the rooms were small and empty. Storage rooms, she guessed.

Woolsey was silent. Several times he looked at either of them and looked as if he wanted to say something, but changed his mind. Teyla was privately amused by that. By now he was much more comfortable around her and Ronon, but he still tended to be awkward especially when faced with both of them together.

Or maybe it was the after-effect of being trapped in a dark room and being lost. Once again she reminded herself that people from Earth were unused to being off-world, Woolsey especially. Throughout the years she had become better at separating John and Rodney's quirks from general weird Earther behavior, but sometimes it was difficult, and Sam had told her that the people in Atlantis and the SGC were not typical for Earth either. Teyla hadn't known whether to be relieved or disappointed.

"Where are we?" Woolsey finally broke his silence when they passed a column filled with a strange bubbling liquid. It was almost exactly the same as in the North-East residential tower, only the liquid was lavender.

Teyla and Ronon shared a look, neither of them wanting to voice their suspicions first.

Suddenly Ronon tilted his head as if to listen. He let out a piercing whistle that made Teyla wince and Woolsey cover his ears. Ronon had promised only to whistle like that if they were out in the open after Rodney had complained the first time he did it; Teyla would have to remind him that the rule was also in effect when Rodney wasn't here.

A different high noise came back from one of the hallways and Teyla smiled.

"Sheppard," Ronon said, grimacing slightly. "I told him his whistling sounds terrible."

"It is far better than his singing voice," Teyla remarked.

"Like it could be worse! When..." Ronon stopped with a quick glance at Woolsey, who was watching them curiously. Some stories were only meant for the team, especially stories about things John and Rodney did after drinking alcohol that didn't come from Earth.

"Ronon?" John's voice was still faint, but coming steadily closer.

Ronon pursed his lips again. Teyla sent him a warning look and instead knocked her fist against the column. It made a high sound that rung through the hallway. Woolsey looked relieved, lowering hands that had twitched toward his ears.

It wasn't long before John came into sight, and Teyla was surprised and glad to see that Radek was with him. Strangely John was completely wet, water dripping down from his clothes and hair. He was barefoot and missing his jacket.

"Ronon, Teyla, Mr. Woolsey," John greeted. "It's good to see you."

"Likewise, Colonel," Woolsey said, relief clearly audible in his voice. "Do you know where we are?"

Radek looked up at that. He'd been fiddling with his radio, muttering to himself. "Probably-"

White light surrounded her.

*
It was dark, and there was water all around her. Teyla instinctively tried to breathe and choked as water rushed in and down her throat. Her eyes were burning and full of dancing lights that mocked and evaded her. She reached for something, anything, but there was only water and it didn't let her move properly, eddies pushing her around in the swirling darkness. Suddenly she realized that there was solid ground under her feet; desperately she pushed off and up - or at least she hoped it was up, she couldn't see, and her lungs were burning -

She breached the surface and gasped for air, coughing. It took long moments until the sharp pain in her chest lessened. Teyla tread water, praying to the Ancestors that she was still in the city and not somewhere out in the Ocean where nobody would find her until her strength left her and she sank to the bottom.

Her ears hurt, and her heart beat quickly. The spots in her vision receded slowly until she could finally see that she was in a large, dim hall. Two lone lights flickered on the ceiling that was only three arm-lengths above her. The whole hall could have been filled with water to the ceiling and she would have drowned. Teyla shivered and moved faster to warm herself.

There must be a way out. John must have landed in a place such as this and he had found a way.

Teyla swam toward the wall closest to her, careful to keep her head above the water. It was most likely ocean water, and while it was safe to swim in for short distances the biologists had advised against diving without safety gear. Something about chemicals or micro-organisms in the water. That the hall wasn't completely filled with water meant that either she was at sea level or that the leak had been repaired and part of the water had gone elsewhere in the meantime. All of the doors were under water, but Teyla hoped to find a vent or maintenance shaft she could crawl through somewhere. Some vents, especially in big halls like this one, were hidden. She swam along the wall and touched the panels, pausing occasionally to warm her fingers. Her radio must have fallen out in the water.

Sounds carried well in the hall. Teyla didn't mind caves, but she didn't like the still, shimmering surface of the water. She had always preferred the forest to the lake, and now her legs were beginning to tire from the unfamiliar motion of treading water.

Finally she found a loose panel, so high that she had to jump out of the water several times to pry it off. When it finally fell down she pulled herself into the narrow shaft. The space was too small to curl herself in for warmth. Teyla rubbed her hands together to warm them and allowed herself a few moments to breathe.

She moved forward as quickly as she could. The vent was dark and she had to feel her way with her fingers. The air was stale and thick, but at least it didn't move and make her even colder. She had only been in a vent once before. This one, however, was narrower, and there were few other vents crossing. All of them looked the same to her, so she stayed in the one she was in. There must be an exit, that was the whole purpose of a vent. She saw no light and heard only the sound of her own movements.

Teyla didn't know how long she had been moving - her stomach informed her that it had been a while since breakfast - when she finally heard something else. She paused and listened. It was a voice calling, and she exhaled heavily in relief.

"I'm here!" she shouted and hit the wall of the vent, wincing at the volume.

When the echo died down she heard the voice again, much nearer this time, but still too quiet to understand. She called and hit the wall again. The next time the voice was farer away again and she hit the wall even harder, covering her ears afterwards. When she listened again she heard the scratching sound of someone removing a wall panel.

"Teyla?" she could hear, muffled. It came from behind her and she shuffled backwards.

"In here!" she called.

The next time her name echoed from inside the vent. She reached the last crossing and when she looked around the corner she saw light spilling into the other vent and John sticking his head in.

"John," she said with relief. "It's so good to see you."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Do you still have your radio?"

"No," she said. "I lost it in the water."

He winced. "You, too, huh?"

He offered her a hand to climb out, but she preferred to climb out feet first.

"Yes," she said when she was finally standing again. The hallway was bright and she had to blink a few times to get used to it.

"Damn it, McKay," John murmured and Teyla whole-heartedly agreed. "Zelenka had a theory that they are tracking our life-signs from the Control Room," John went on. "He said they were probably waiting for us all to be in the same place to beam us out again if they couldn't reach us otherwise. That must be what happened."

"Except the device still works incorrectly and just transported us to another place," Teyla finished. So apparently the device had not caught Rodney when it went off. She pressed water out of her hair and searched for something to keep it up so she wouldn't have wet hair falling into her neck, but she didn't find anything.

"Exactly," John said. "This time let's just look for a transporter."

John led the way, explaining which direction he had come from.

"Ronon and Mr. Woolsey still have their radios," Teyla remembered. "They should be able to find each other."

John raised an eyebrow. "It's a bit hard to describe where you are down here," he pointed out. "But Zelenka rigged his radio into something that pings when another radio is near, so he should find them."

"But we don't have our radios anymore," Teyla added and sighed. That would have been too easy.

They entered another, dimmer corridor. "We're probably under the Left South Tower," John said.

"How can you tell?"

He gestured vaguely at the wall. "The markings are different. I thought I was near the East Pier before and I'm almost sure I walked long enough for that. Look on the bright side, can you imagine if Rodney was here? He'd be complaining the whole way."

"Unfortunately, yes," Teyla said.

"If we'd brought our race cars we could attach little cameras on top and drive them around to explore," he suggested with a grin.

Teyla rolled her eyes. "I am surprised you aren't playing with miniature planes yet."

"Rodney's working on it," John said. "You and Ronon will get some too and we can put them in the 'Jumper for boring missions. Torren can have one for Christmas."

"Please don't. He makes enough trouble as it is."

"Don't worry, he'll like it," John said with the fond look he always got when he spoke of Torren. "I'll show him how to fly a proper one when he's older. Hey!"

Teyla tensed, but John was only pointing at something lying on the floor. "Looks like... a piece of Ronon's shirt?" He picked it up and squinted. "Yeah. He couldn't have left it in arrow-form?"

"The corridor is straight," Teyla said. "It's a line: He came here and then went back again to look for the others. He must be somewhere in front of us."

"Ronon?" John called.

Teyla waited for a reply and, when none came, tried one of the hunting trills Halling had taught her. John grimaced next to her.

"Do not try it yourself," Teyla warned him. She was sure it would sound terrible. He shrugged and nodded.

Ronon's high whistle came back from before them and they followed the sound. Twice their hallway crossed with others and Teyla called again, then they finally saw Ronon coming out of a room in front of them.

"Sheppard, Teyla," he said. "Fell into a lake?"

"Very funny," John said and rolled his eyes. "What about you, too hot down here?"

Ronon had apparently torn up his entire shirt to make strips. "Easier to swim if I do end up in a lake," he said easily. "Let's go, Zelenka's this way."

"Have you found Mr. Woolsey?" Teyla asked.

"Sure. I talked to him, but Zelenka found him first with that tracking device he built." Ronon tapped his radio. "I found them." He listened, then nodded. "He's coming back to the room Zelenka found."

"What room?" Teyla wanted to know.

"A lab?" John asked curiously.

"Not quite," Ronon grinned, but he refused to say any more.

Ronon led them through two other hallways and another empty room before they arrived. He stopped in front of the door and gestured them in.

"Really?" John asked, but Ronon only grinned.

When Teyla entered the room she understood why he hadn't said anything. The room was small, but the walls and floor were transparent, and it seemed like they were standing in the middle of the ocean: water was all around them, illuminated by huge lamps, and she thought she saw something swimming outside for a moment before it disappeared.

"Pretty, isn't it," Radek said, and only then she noticed him sitting next to the door. He'd opened a wall panel and there were crystals lying on the ground.

"Yeah," John said softly, walking to one of the walls and staring out into the dark blue.

"I think it was a marine observation station. We're below sea level, obviously, but not very far."

"I saw a water snake before," Ronon said with a grin and indicated a length longer than his arms could reach. "We should go fish some time."

"Cool," John nodded. "Do you think there are giant squid down there?"

Radek squinted at him. "How often have you asked the biologists that question?"

John grinned and shrugged.

"Do you think they will attempt to beam us out again when Mr. Woolsey comes back?" Teyla remembered. She shivered when she thought about ending up in a lake again.

"Maybe. I don't think so," Radek said. "If they haven't already, the device must not be working correctly."

Ronon rolled his eyes and looked like he was thinking of "offering" Rodney more sparring sessions. Radek ducked his head.

"But if this was an observatory, there should be a transporter around here somewhere," he continued.

"There is," Woolsey said from the door. He looked tired, but satisfied. In his hand he held what looked like more strips from Ronon's shirt. "I think I found it."

"Great," Ronon said, straightening, "let's go!"

Teyla followed him gladly. Radek looked at the crystals with regret and then stood up to, wincing slightly.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Fine. I just hit my head," he said.

Ronon snorted. "He ran into a wall in the dark."

Radek shrugged, embarrassed.

"At least you're still in one piece, doc," John said and followed them out of the room with one last glance over his shoulder. "Where to?"

"This way," Woolsey said, leading them around a corner and to the left.

"Hey Teyla," John said with a smirk, "when we're back, want to help me throw McKay into a lake?"

Teyla laughed. She was starting to get cold and hungry, her ears still hurt, she was tired, and before she could finally enjoy the quiet in her quarters she would have to go through medical and debrief. But it could be worse.

"I can help," Ronon said, grinning. Radek looked approving, and even Woolsey looked like he couldn't say anything, but thought it was not a bad idea.

Another turn and they could finally see the transporter in front of them.

"With pleasure," Teyla said.