Chapter 8: Solving the Problem

Rodney felt better. Much better, actually, than he had even prior to the mission that ended with ritualistic drowning (and he doubted Sheppard was going to let him forget that one for a while). Yet despite this he couldn't help but wonder if he had somehow damaged his brain and none of them had noticed yet. Because he never used to cave in to suggestions of sparing so quickly.

"You need to pay more attention to your surroundings," Ronon informed him after he backed too close to the wall, narrowing his options of escape.

"We're in a large, empty room with nothing but a door into Atlantis, or a door onto its balcony. What else do I need to be aware of here?" He glared and quickly bounced around the Satedan, trying to get back into the centre of the room while carefully keeping his back away from the man. Ronon noticed the action and grinned, apparently happy that his advice had been heeded, if silently.

He stalked (yes Ronon stalks, it's the only way the man walks!) back towards Rodney, turning slightly so the red flag sticking out of the back of his pants was noticeable. Teasing him. Rodney glanced at it quickly before jerking back to watch his opponents face. He needed to get that flag, and then this sparring/wrestling/exercise whatever this was would be over. Because frankly, an hour of being knocked down, shoved against walls, blocking punches and kicks and having the Satedan actually sit on him had been quite enough as far as Rodney was concerned. He had no intention of continuing for another hour, thank you very much.

And also? Training his ass! This was an exercise devised as punishment for the marines and Ronon was simply testing it on him to see if it was suitable. What Rodney had done to deserve it he hadn't quite figured out yet and the behemoth was not telling him regardless of how many times he'd asked.

"Come on, McKay, I've seen how quick you can be when you have to."

"Yeah, you're forgetting that right now, technically, I don't have to," he snapped, wiping a bead of sweat away from his eyebrow with the back of his hand. Ronon lunged and Rodney quickly dropped his arm, prepared for the response. It didn't do him much good as three seconds later he was sitting on his ass (again) and Ronon was holding up the blue flag that had been tucked into his own pants only moments before.

"Okay, that's it. Time out." He was not begging, even if Ronon smirked at him as he helped him to his feet, handing back the flag.

"Not until you get the flag."

"Are you serious? We've already determined that eleven times out of ten you're going to win," he threw his arms up in disgust.

"It's not about winning. It's about training your instincts."

"My instincts are just fine," he snapped, grabbing the flag out of the big mans hand and roughly tucking it back into his pants. "In fact, my instincts have saved us on several occasions if I recall correctly."

"We could go running instead," Ronon suggested.

"Or you could go running and I could go take a shower," Rodney suggested right back. Ronon folded his arms across his chest, his tattoo standing out and catching Rodney's attention for a moment. Then he looked at the irritation on his team members face and swallowed thickly. "Or we could keep playing your 'grabby hands' game. You sure this is the one you want to introduce to the marines? They might get the wrong impression."

"Marines? You want to get them involved?"

"Never mind," Rodney sighed, and quickly grabbed his water bottle, taking a drink before offering it to Ronon, who shook his head.

"We could go for a swim instead," he suggested and Rodney nearly dropped the bottle, before carefully placing it back on the bench. He moved quickly back into the centre of the room and took up his fighting stance.

"This is just fine," he insisted, and then lunged at Ronon, hoping that it would distract the man. His attack was easily dodged.

"You're going to have to do it at some point," Ronon stated knowingly, taking a few shots that Rodney was able to block and hop out of the way on. Rodney recognized the man was playing now, biding his time, making Rodney work for it.

"This isn't a topic I want to discuss right now," Rodney lunged again, trying to feint to his right and then take out Ronon's knee with a not so swift kick. It didn't work.

"Why not? We've discussed it before."

"No, you've tried to discuss it and I've told you it's irrelevant-"

"-because you're going to let your gills grow over, yeah, you've mentioned that a few times."

"Right, so can we just forget about it? Please?" Ronon lunged this time, grabbing Rodney's arm and trying to twist him around. Rodney reached out for his free arm, grabbing at the wrist (barely getting his own grip around it) and stepping in close, trying to shove him off balance. For a few seconds they pitted strength against strength, Rodney feeling it all as his limbs began to shake in desperation. Then Ronon stepped easily to the side and separated them, not making any effort to get Rodney's flag. He wasn't even winded and Rodney, panting from the effort, glared at him.

"You want to forget about it because you're afraid," Ronon decided and Rodney stiffened.

"I am not," he snapped, glaring.

"Then what's the problem?"

"I told you, they serve no practical use-"

"Which, judging by the last few weeks, is a lie," Ronon cut him off, raising a thick eyebrow in challenge to his statement.

"The last few weeks just happened to be a coincidence that will most likely never happen again."

"You should go swimming, McKay."

"Can we please not talk about this…"

"It's not healthy to deny a basic instinct."

"I'm not denying anything, I'm simply ensuring the safety of not only myself, but the others on my team." Rodney snapped, glaring pointedly at Ronon.

"So what you're saying is you still don't trust us enough to be yourself." Ronon lunged, grabbing Rodney by the shoulders and slamming him down on the matted floor. He immediately let go and stalked off somewhere behind Rodney's head. Rodney, angry and now tired beyond belief, made no immediate effort to get up.

He knew Ronon was mad at him, that he didn't understand why Rodney wasn't giving in to his need to swim. Sometimes Rodney didn't know himself, it was just an instinct that was ingrained from years of experience. It had nothing to do with trust. Hadn't he already proven that by letting them help him in the first place? He'd willingly lain naked in a tub, breathing water, in front of them three days ago. He didn't get much more vulnerable than that. Wasn't that enough proof that he trusted them?

"I trust you," he sighed, staring at the ceiling. "It's more complicated than that."

"Sure it is." He heard the sound of the balcony door sliding open and something being dropped. He looked over to see Ronon stalking back towards him, a determined gleam in his eye.

"What are you doing?" He looked over at the balcony, the warm breeze mingling with the cooler air of their work out area. Rodney began to hurriedly push to his feet, feeling his sweat soaked t-shirt peel off the floor as he moved.

"Solving the problem," Ronon answered and then he just grabbed Rodney and tossed him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. For half a second he was too surprised at the handling to protest, until Ronon began moving towards the balcony.

"What are you doing? Put me down!" He pressed his palms to Ronon's back and tried to push off. Ronon swung his free arm behind his back and somehow managed to grab both of Rodney's wrists, locking them in place. "Put me down you Neanderthal! This is not acceptable on so many levels!"

Rodney mentally demanded the door to shut and lock and realised, as they stepped over the threshold, that Ronon had placed his bag on the tracks. The sensors wouldn't close the door as long as something was in the way. Stupid safety parameters!!

"Put me down! Ronon! Are you even listening to me!"

"Sure I am, McKay. Trust me, I know what I'm doing."

"Oh! You are NOT…"

oooOOOooo

Dr. Parrish looked towards the balcony as he heard Dr. McKay begin yelling from the balcony above him. He didn't often come to this particular lab, seeing as all of his main equipment was located closer to the centre of the city, but when he needed peace and quite this was his area of solace. He'd always found it comforting to hear the sound of the water crashing gently into the city's walls just below him.

His peace was broken now and he cringed at the words McKay was yelling at Ronon. And then he blinked as a body went shrieking by his window and a giant splash was heard.

He waited a moment, not sure what to do, when McKay solved it for him.

"I can not believe you just did that!! You…you…you gimpy brained barbarian!"

"Relax McKay, you're not going to drown."

"That's beside the point!"

"That is the point" Ronon shouted back. Parrish wisely decided to remain where he was, gently asking the doors to his own balcony to slide shut before tapping his radio.

"Colonel Sheppard?"

"Go ahead," the soldiers cheery voice chirped through the radio, loud enough to hurt the scientists ear.

"It's Dr. Parrish. I thought you should know that Ronon just threw Dr. McKay off a balcony."

There was a pause.

"Is that so?"

"It is."

"Okay then. Thanks for the update."

"No problem." He went back to studying the alkaline levels in his current soil sample.

oooOOOooo

Sheppard turned off his radio and thought about what Parrish had just told him.

Huh.

He then looked over at Elizabeth, who had just followed a grinning Radek out of her office. She was shaking her head bemusedly at the man and Sheppard looked between them as he stepped up to her side.

"Something I should know about?" She looked at him and huffed a laugh that was a cross between amusement and exasperation.

"Dr. Zelenka thought it would be a good idea to magnetize the ceiling of a few personel." She explained.

"Okay…" he didn't quite get it.

"The majority of their furniture is now stuck to their ceiling," she stated blandly.

John instantly grinned. He couldn't help it. She frowned at him.

"What? That's funny," he laughed, and turned it into a cough at her disapproval. "Do we know why he did that?"

"He wouldn't tell me. He just said it was necessary and smiled."

"Right." He looked at her and then handed over the files he'd come here specifically to deliver.

"Are these the files for Sergeant Singer?"

"Transfer papers," he nodded. Singer had problems, they knew that now. Atlantis wasn't the right place for her anymore and Sheppard wanted her gone on the next Daedalus run. It was a shame, but that was life. There was no room for people like her in his city. Weir nodded in understanding, her eyes unhappy but accepting.

"Well," he clapped his hands together suddenly. "I'm heading off duty for a bit. Call me if you need me," he gave her a grin of his own and wandered out of the control room. He would get in touch with Zelenka later and find out what the deal with the magnetization was, for now he had more pressing matters.

"Ronon?" He called into his radio.

"Yeah?"

"You throw McKay off a balcony?"

"Yeah."

"Any particular reason why?"

"He asked me to." Sheppard blinked at the response.

"Really?"

"Not in so many words, but yeah."

"I see. Are we going to have a situation here?" Sheppard asked, really hoping that that wasn't the case.

"Shouldn't. His radio's still working and he's swimming to the main cove. He should be there in about ten minutes." To those in Atlantis who liked to tan and swim, the main cove was also known as the beach. Of course most people were working right now so it should be deserted.

"Well, then I think we should meet him there," Sheppard said slowly, thinking.

"Okay. I'll tell Teyla," Ronon announced, as though he had expected the answer.

"Ronon, tell her to bring swim wear."

"Sure."

John changed quickly in his quarters, pulling his baggy swim shorts (they were black with blue sharks all over them. There hadn't been anything else but speedo's in the store when he'd needed them and he shuddered at the thought). He ended up being the last one to arrive at the door to the beach, and he tried not to stare at Teyla, looking bronzed and perfect in her bold red one-piece. She occasionally pulled at the straps in discomfort but stopped when she noticed Ronon grinning at her. She smiled back, dangerously, and the big man looked away quickly.

With a quick greeting the three of them were marching out into the sun, only to see Rodney angrily sloshing his way onto the dry metal floor. His white shirt had gone see through and it looked like he was holding up his sweat pants with one hand.

He stopped the moment he saw them.

"What are you doing here?" He demanded, sounding a bit puzzled as he looked at them and their attire.

"We are going swimming Rodney," Teyla said smoothly, smiling. "Care to join us?" and she stepped past him, heading to the water he had just exited. Rodney looked baffled.

"What? You can't be serious?" He squeaked.

"Gotta do it some time, McKay," Sheppard shrugged, peeling off his own shirt to hide his sudden tension. If McKay walked away from this now…it just wouldn't be good. For any of them.

Rodney glared at them, water dripping down his face and his receding hairline was emphasized under the wet strands. He glared some more, and then looked back at Teyla, who was waiting patiently, knee deep in the water.

"Don't think this means you're getting away with what you did," he snapped at Ronon, and then stepped up to the big man, shoving a red bandanna into his hand. It was sopping wet and crunched into a ball and Ronon looked at it and laughed.

oooOOOooo

"Come on McKay! We're wasting daylight," Ronon hollered from across the beach, standing with his arms impatiently crossed. Teyla was beside him, looking phenomenally short standing next to the mountain of a man. Rodney couldn't tell if she was smiling as her back was to them, looking out at the water.

"What's the rush?" McKay grumbled, adjusting the knife strapped to his ankle, already irritated by the sand rubbing its way between his toes, and then glaring when Sheppard kicked some, not so accidentally, at his leg.

"They made him take a course before letting him do this. You know Ronon doesn't do courses," the soldier drawled, adjusting the scuba tank on his shoulders and gripping a pair of bright green fins. His mask was hanging around his neck and for a moment Rodney thought he looked like a huge, overgrown, dorky kid that had never heard of a hairbrush before.

"As if I care about that," Rodney looked back over at the impatient Satedan before sighing, double checking the zipper on his dive suit, and picking up his own fins. Black ones, because he had refused to come out here today if they tried to give him any other colour. Ronon's were pink, because when they had been ordering the fins in his size the colour may have been 'accidentally' changed on the order form. Unfortunately the big man hadn't seemed to care and Rodney supposed when one was as huge as Ronon was then they wouldn't worry about what the colour of their accessories would do to their reputation.

"All right, we're here already," he glared as they approached him and then looked out at the water. It was a calm day, the waves lapping at the beach were barely a foot high and the sun was shining boldly down on them. He was going to have the worst burn after this, he just knew it.

"Do you really need those?" Ronon looked pointedly at the fins Rodney carried, a gleam in his eye. "We won't tell anyone you don't need them."

"I do NOT have a FIN!" He snapped, and then rounded on Sheppard who was too slow to hide his grin. "And do you remember that picture I took on the planet with the fronds? The one with the tribe of the nipple people that liked your hair?" Sheppard's amused eyes turned dangerous in a second and Rodney grinned smugly at him.

"You said you deleted that photo."

"As if I would ever destroy such a valuable commodity," he snorted. "You should know better than that."

"If you know what's good for you then you had better have destroyed it."

"Or you'll what, replace the name plate on my desk?" Rodney didn't actually have a nameplate, or at least he hadn't until last week when he'd shown up after lunch to find his scientists studiously avoiding eye contact. The gold plated desk accessory boldly declared that the space belonged to 'Dr. Merman McKay.' It had immediately found a new residence at the back of his top drawer. The locked drawer.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sheppard suddenly turned all innocent and then looked out at the water. Ronon decided he had waited long enough and turned around, marching through the waves, the bright pink fins on his feet splashing loudly with his progress.

"You're supposed to walk in backwards!" Rodney yelled after him, and was ignored. Teyla, looking rather hot in her sleek black suit, smiled at him before turning to the water herself and following Ronon's lead. Honestly, you would think she'd at least have the sense to follow instruction.

"Ready for this?" Sheppard asked, suddenly trying to be supportive, which made him look like his balls were being crushed in his wetsuit as far as Rodney was concerned. However, he was touched by the question, and maybe a bit taken aback, though he should really know better by now.

"Please Colonel, of the four of us I'm the only one who isn't at risk of drowning today. Maybe you should have thought about that before suggesting this little excursion."

"Whatever you say, McKay," he grinned again, which was a much better look for him, and donned his goggles, the snorkel flapping around on the side of his face. "See you in the deep," he grinned, and moved into the water.

For a minute Rodney stood there and watched as his three team mates disappeared under the surface, the waves folding over their heads and swallowing them. In all the years he had lived he could count, too the hour, how long he had willingly spent under the water. He had never even been in the ocean, not for real. Not like this.

He had always known he could, it made no difference to him whether it was salt or fresh water, except for the taste. He had ignored the urge to swim whenever he was presented with a body of water, he had found ways to distract himself from it. In Atlantis he had his work, and that was the only thing that had kept him grounded enough, that kept him from giving in and just diving into the sea that surrounded him every single day. Fear had also been a pretty good motivator, and he was well aware that it still was.

But now, things were different. He never thought…this wasn't something he'd ever imagined would be possible, but here he was. For the first time it wasn't fear for himself that motivated him to stay away, but fear for others that had driven him forward.

And now, for this, he would never say that he was sorry. When the water finally closed over his head and he took his first deep breath, he opened his eyes to see his friends waiting for him. And he smiled.

End.

Well I have to say this was a lot of fun to write! Thank you very much to everyone who took the time to comment. Also thank you to everyone else who took the time to read (and hopefully enjoy) the story.

I know there were several people who were sceptical about this storyline at the beginning, and I hope I managed to sway your opinion into the good books by the end. :)

This is not the end. There is too much that can be done in this verse, and too many questions that still need answering. So we can call this the beginning of a 'series' and I'll try to spit more stories out as time permits :)

Thank you again