stargateficrec | Plumber's Helper by Sholio (PG-13)

Show: SGA
Rec Category: Rodney McKay
Characters: Rodney McKay, John Sheppard, Elizabeth Weir, Radek Zelenka, Carson Beckett
Pairings: Rodney/John friendship
Categories: Gen
Warnings: None
Author on LJ:

sholio
Author's Website: City on the Ocean's Edge
Link: on ff.net or at City on the Ocean's Edge

Why This Must Be Read: According to the author's notes, this story came about after speculation about what ten thousand year old plumbing would be like. Which is actually a really good question. How did the search for Ancient bathrooms go? This story is funny and creative with Rodney playing reluctant plumber during the first few days of the expedition.

Elizabeth took a deep breath and reminded herself that she had negotiated with terrorists, dictators and crazed hostage-takers. Surely she could handle one stressed-out physicist. "I realize that what you're doing is of the utmost importance right now --"

"Great! So why don't you let me get back to it!"

"Rodney." She tried to catch his eye; he'd already gone back to one of the computer consoles. "I'm not asking you to stop what you're doing immediately, but as it may be awhile before Sumner and his men come back, I would suggest that you consider the consequences of having this many people cooped up in a small space with no bathrooms."

This sunk in and Rodney raised his head to look at her with a slightly more reasonable expression. "Ah," he said.

"Ah, indeed. If you could spare one of your people for a few minutes to look over the schematics for bathroom facilities, I would really appreciate it."

Rodney gave her a sharp nod and snapped his fingers at someone working near him. "Uh, Nelenka -- Nezenka -- Zeleska -- you!"

"Zelenka," the man said with a small sigh.

"That's what I said. Give her a hand with her, er, issue, would you?" With that, he spun around and started yelling, "What are you bringing up THAT system for? Are you TRYING to kill us all? Am I the only person in the Pegasus galaxy with a brain?"

Elizabeth and Zelenka were left standing in the comparatively peaceful wake of Hurricane Rodney as he charged over to berate a cowering Japanese scientist. "Is not too late to apply for a nice, quiet post at ground zero of Chernobyl," Zelenka muttered under his breath, and smiled at her.

Elizabeth smiled back. She'd had no personal contact with Radek Zelenka aside from the pre-mission interview, but she had been impressed with his resume and references, and found herself liking him.

"What was it I can help you with, Doctor?"

"Bathrooms," Elizabeth said succinctly. "The Marines haven't found any yet. I was wondering if you could show me some maps."

Zelenka pressed some buttons. At first the screen filled with symbols -- Elizabeth recognized some Ancient words, but most of it was unfamiliar to her. Then it flashed a few times, and finally a diagram appeared, rather like a glowing blueprint. "I am sorry," Zelenka said. "We have only the barest knowledge of any of this works. I believe that this is the closest thing to a map we have found, but we are still trying to understand how to navigate it."

"Don't apologize, Dr. Zelenka. I'm impressed more than words can say at how much you've managed to decipher of these systems in only a few hours." As Zelenka blushed, Elizabeth frowned at the screen. "Where are we?"

Zelenka pointed at a cluster of glowing dots. "Us."

Elizabeth's frown deepened as she began to understand the map and the glowing lines slowly resolved to a representation of actual physical features of the city. "There's not very much detail," she said. "You can see large rooms and halls, but not much else, and I can't even tell what level of the city it's showing us, or if it's a composite of all the levels stacked on top of one another."

"You can rotate." Zelenka demonstrated. "But, no, I agree, it is very difficult to decipher. We have not yet figured out how to zoom in or out, and nothing is labeled." He spread his hands at the room around them. "Nothing is labeled anywhere. We are deciphering the database very slowly, but we have had so little time --"

"How about there?" she asked, pointing. "Is that a safe section of the city? Those small rooms look promising."

"Nobody is leaving this room, got it?" Rodney announced in passing as he rocketed past them en route to somewhere else. "I'm having a hard enough time shutting down unnecessary systems without people walking around setting off the automatic life support just when I get it turned off!"

Elizabeth nodded her thanks to Zelenka and took off after Rodney. "Dr. McKay, I'm sorry, but if we're going to be here more than another hour or two, we do need to find the bathrooms. And we have no idea how long Sumner and his team --"

"You're assuming they even had bathrooms," Rodney said, his fingers flying over keys as he spoke to her without looking up.

"The Ancients were corporeal at the time they built Atlantis. They walked, ate and slept. Of course they had bathrooms."

"How do you know?" Rodney demanded. "Maybe they had evolved beyond the need. Maybe they had something like a personal ZedPM that just shunted off bodily waste into a parallel dimension."

What a lovely mental image. Elizabeth tried to get in front of him, force him to look at her. "Rodney, that may be, but we haven't evolved beyond the need yet, and I'm starting to have that need. I'm sure a number of your people are, as well."

"Zelorka!" Rodney hollered over her head. "Didn't I tell you to help her? Go find some bathrooms for Dr. Weir! Don't go too far and for God's sake don't touch anything!"

Elizabeth heard him muttering as he left, "Why yes, your highness. Right away, O great lord and master of the gateroom. Your command is my ..." His mumbling faded as he vanished down one of the corridors.