SEASON: Fifth Season
MAJOR CHARACTERS: Sheppard and McKay
DISCLAIMERS: The characters, Atlantis, etc, all belong to Sony, MGM, Gecko, Showtime, the Sci-Fi Channel. I own nothing.
SPOILERS: None
NOTE 1: This story was originally submitted for the SGA Gen-Ficathon for the genre Friendship and the prompt 'A Cry for Help'.
SUMMARY: Sheppard is unable to sleep due to events of the day, and gets a call for assistance from McKay

LIFT - by NotTasha
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PART 1: UP AT NIGHT

It was late. The nightshift roamed, but for the most part, Atlantis slept. Sheppard felt the quiet of the place, the sleepy silence that infiltrated nearly every room but his own.

He was tired. His team had just come off another god-awful mission, and he really needed the rest. He needed to clear his mind and shake off that mess. His head felt weighted. His eyes were scratchy. His limbs ached from long days of movement and work. Still, sleep wouldn't find him.

So, he sat up in bed and tried to read "Anna Karenina". "War and Peace" had brought him through his first year in Atlantis, so he had a strange fondness for Tolstoy, but he turned the pages without really reading them.

His mind tumbled as his radio kept him company. He listened to the night shift making their regular checks -- scientists calling in progress on experiments or voicing requests to the control room, marines announcing their locations on patrol. Everyone sounded bored.

It was comforting, in a way. Everything was normal. Everything was peaceful. The broadcast offered little entertainment.

Sheppard kept trying to read, kept trying to sleep or simply relax.

A marine, a man with the unlikely name of Sgt. Uldis Woodrow, piped up on the radio, "Hey, does anyone ever wonder why 'fridge' is spelled with a D in it, but if you spell 'refrigerator', there's no D?"

Another voice responded with an unintelligent sounding, "Huh?"

Uldis went on, "I was just stopping by the mess hall and someone put a sign on the cooler where we keep our leftovers. It says that they're going to clean out the fridge in the morning, and it got me wondering. Why the D in 'fridge'? We don't really pronounce it. It makes no sense!"

Sheppard touched his mic. "Woodrow…"

The tone of the marine's voice changed considerably as he responded, "Yes, sir!"

"Aren't you supposed to be on Gate duty?" Sheppard chided.

"Yes, sir," Uldis replied sharply. "I'm sorry, sir. Sgt. Martin is there already, and I just stopped by to pick up the rest of my sandwich from lunch -- a little something to keep me alert. It won't happen again."

Sheppard yawned a little, and told him, "I'll count on that."

There was quiet for a moment before a new voice was heard. "Sheppard? You're awake?"

John shook his head. "Unless I'm talking in my sleep, McKay… yes, I'm awake."

"Oh. Do you think you can switch to a private channel for a minute?" Rodney asked nonchalantly, but there was something tingeing his request – not an 'urgency' really, but some sense of need. The man was terrible at hiding anything.

"Yeah, switching," Sheppard said, jumping to the private channel he usually used, then after a pause, asked, "What's up?"

"Ah, you think you can come to the north pier for a moment?"

"North pier?" Sheppard echoed as he sat up fully, using a bookmark to hold his place. "Shouldn't you be asleep?"

"Shouldn't you, too?" McKay bit back.

Sheppard smiled slightly as he settled the book on his bedside table. "I'm very comfortable in my room, on my bed."

"Fully dressed," McKay surmised.

Sheppard didn't admit it. "I ordered some downtime for the team," he stated as he pulled on his boots. "You're supposed to be relaxing."

"Well," McKay responded. "I just wanted to … do something and…" There was a weary sigh. "Can you just come out here?"

"I'll have to think about it," Sheppard told him as he stood and immediately left the room – the door snicking shut behind him.

"It'll only take a minute." A desperate whine had crept into Rodney's voice.

Sheppard kept moving. "You couldn't call for someone who's on duty?"

There was another sigh, and then a quiet, "I just need a little help. I didn't want… I didn't want to make a big deal about it."

"Fine, okay," Sheppard said, sounding annoyed as he moved along the corridor. "I'm coming." His feet beat a quick cadence as he stalked toward the transporter. There seemed no reason to rush, but Sheppard found himself moving quickly anyway. Finally! Something to do.

"North pier?" Sheppard repeated.

"Tower 17," Rodney told him. "At the top."

"Really?" Sheppard paused. "You got someone there with you?"

"No!" McKay snapped. "If someone was here, I wouldn't need the help, would I? So, could you, you know, help?"

"What the heck," Sheppard replied as he stepped toward the transporter. "Might as well."

oOoOoOoOoOo

Tower 17 on the north pier had been an enigma -- a big boring enigma. It was the tallest tower on that arm of Atlantis, a narrow tall spire with a room at the top, a large bay at the bottom and nothing in-between.

The tower was hollow – with just a central support column at its heart. It was a rather pointless structure. The little room at the top, reachable only by transporter, had nothing interesting in it. Just controls that would open up the windows that wrapped around the entire space. It had an awe inspiring panoramic view.

People went to Tower 17 for two reasons – for private make-out sessions with a 'significant other', or to be totally alone, surrounded by the openness of the high perch.

What the hell was McKay doing up there alone?

Sheppard poked the transporter's control and arrived almost instantly at the lonely location.

He stepped out, noting that the windows were closed. Then, he saw McKay at the center of the room, and he smirked.

The scientist was stuck, arm-deep inside the main column of the room. He looked aggravated, aggrieved, anxious and annoyed as he poked at the column's smooth side.

Sheppard grinned further. "So," he drawled, "You got yourself in a fix?"

"Oh, thank God!" McKay uttered as he tried to face Sheppard.

"Hand stuck in the cookie jar?" Sheppard continued. "You know, if you just let go of the 'cookie', you might be able to get out of there."

"Yeah, hadn't thought of that," McKay grumbled. "Can you get me out of here?"

"I don't know," Sheppard commented. "Maybe it's better this way. You look relatively comfortable, and this will keep you out of trouble. I won't have to worry about you wandering off on away missions."

Rodney winced at those words and ducked his head as he muttered, "Can you give me a hand?"

Feeling a little sorry for his last remark, Sheppard stepped forward, saying, "Looks like you could use one." He gestured to McKay's trapped arm.

"Hardy har har. You're as funny as a heart attack. Just… get me loose." He grimaced and writhed a little, trying to free himself, but was obviously getting nowhere.

"Why did you do this to yourself?" Sheppard asked as he tried to get a good view of how McKay was trapped.

"Yes, I meant to do this," McKay snipped. "I was just trying to access the control crystal to this system when my jacket got hung up on something. I can't get my other hand in to free it."

"Did you ever think about taking your jacket off?" Sheppard asked, looking at him askance.

McKay shot him the stink eye. "The zipper is jammed!" he grumbled. "See?" and he pulled violently at the zipper with his one free hand, getting nowhere.

"Not your regulation jacket." Sheppard sighed, noting the orange fleece monstrosity. He leaned closer to see the zipper. "Are you wearing a sweater?" Sheppard asked, seeing a mess of blue yarn coming through the closure.

"Yes," McKay muttered. "I was going to open up the windows when I got here. It gets cold up here at night, you know, when the windows are open. I came prepared." And he patted his chest a little proudly. But the smugness changed to chagrin. "I just got derailed a little when I noticed the panel on this column."

"Figures," Sheppard responded. "You got yourself stuck really good."

"I know," Rodney sighed. "I think I got the cloth of the jacket sleeve caught up on something. I just made it worse with trying to get out."

Sheppard gave up on the jacket. It was zipped to the top, tight to his neck. Even if he pulled Rodney free hand out of the sleeve, that jacket wouldn't come over his head easily. John tried to work a hand in alongside Rodney's arm, but the space was tight, the edges a little too sharp to allow much movement. Good thing McKay's jacket was thick, otherwise he'd be complaining about that, too.

"And you know, this isn't exactly comfortable," McKay griped.

"You're fine," Sheppard told him as he continued to examine the situation. "You have any tools with you?"

Rodney rolled his eyes, and then pointed with his free hand. "My pack is over there," he said. "I couldn't reach it… otherwise…I would have been able to do something."

"Yeah, I know," Sheppard responded.

"I could probably eventually get out on my own, but…since you were up."

"Yeah," Sheppard stated and stepped away to pick up the pack. It was resting near the large circular design on the floor, and he frowned a little, wondering if the center of the room had always been slightly sunken from the rest of the room.

"That's a tripping hazard," Sheppard muttered as he returned to McKay with the pack.

"What?" McKay called, twisting around to see him.

"What do you have in here we can use?" Sheppard asked, as he started to go through the pack. "Do you have a screwdriver or some tin snips? A crowbar? Ah, what's this? Box cutter! You have a box cutter?"

McKay shrugged. "They always come in handy." He watched as Sheppard pulled it from its case. "Hey! What are you planning to do with that?"

"Just going to cut the sleeve of your jacket. It'll be the quickest way to get you out of this."

Rodney looked as if he wanted to protest, but instead, he let out a breath of resignation. "Fine. Why not. The coat's probably ruined anyway." He touched the jammed zipper and said, "It will never be the same after this, right?"

"Right," Sheppard responded as he grabbed as much slack as he could in the shoulder of the jacket and began hacking at it.

"Just careful that you don't… cut me or anything," McKay told him, squinting his eyes shut and turning his head as far as he could from the scene of the crime. "I bleed easily."

"Right," Sheppard responded as he worked.

"I was attacked by green-head flies once," McKay went on. "Everyone else in the party got of with little harmless bites. Me? I bled from everyone last one of those nips. I hate green-head flies!"

Sheppard kept cutting through the fleece jacket, and probably part of the sweater beneath it. When he tried to get under McKay's arm, he found the area just too tight to maneuver in. "Can you stand up a little taller so I can get under your pit?" he asked.

"I'm standing as tall as I can," McKay told him.

Sheppard stepped back slightly and frowned. When he'd entered the room, Rodney had been standing with his arm out at a reasonable angle. But now, he was stretching.

What the hell?

"Is the pillar getting taller, or are you getting shorter?" Sheppard questioned.

Rodney said nothing immediately -- he just turned his head to glance around the room. Then, a terrified look came over him. "This isn't good," he said under his breath.

Sheppard turned, and his eyes fixed on that little ledge where the pack had been sitting. It wasn't just a slight dip anymore. There was at least a six-inch difference in the levels of the floors.

"We're sinking." McKay hissed. "Oh God, we're sinking!"

Oh, for the love of…

They were sinking, but the damn hole in the column was not. McKay would be lifted off the floor if he didn't hurry. Sheppard muscled himself under McKay, forcing him up an inch or so as he kept cutting at the sleeve. The floor continued to ease downward.

McKay struggled, getting to his tiptoes and finding a handhold to pull himself up. "Get me loose!" he demanded. "The edges on this hole are sharp! OW! Oh God, this is going to be bad!"

Sheppard kept hacking. Then there was a whine, a high-pitched sound of metal straining.

Not good.

"Here we go!" John shouted and grabbed hold of the jacket at McKay's neck. He yanked backward just as the floor dropped out from under them.

TBC - I'm sure everything is going to be just fine