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“This is one of my favorite parts of the job,” Doctor Beckett said as they walked from the puddle jumper to the Athosian settlement.They were all dressed casually, but Doctor' Beckett's backpack obviously held medical supplies. Well, medical supplies and other things. He had a fishing pole strapped to one side of it. It was strange, actually, to see everyone in something other than their uniforms. Except Elizabeth. The first time Anna had seen her had been out-of-uniform, so it somehow seemed the most normal.Everything else was, of course, not normal. She'd only been on Atlantis for a countable number of hours, and already she was meeting the resident alien society on the nearby mainland. Radek was even with them, though she wasn't sure if she could consider that odd. He'd been strangely present when there wasn't a disaster in progress.“You’ll like the Athosians, Anna,” Doctor Beckett said. “They’re a lovely people.”“Have you spent any time with the Athosians?” Anna asked Radek.He shook his head, but Teyla took over answering. “Your father is usually indisposed on Atlantis. He doesn’t often have time to take part in any of our day-off activities.”Anna sat across from Teyla in the jumper flight to the mainland, and between Elizabeth and Radek. Teyla seemed very nice, if a bit forceful. She was excited to learn that Anna played an instrument. Though she was quick to admit that she had no idea what a violin was, exactly, she said her people would be much obliged if Anna would play for them as part of the festival.It explained why she was carrying her violin, safely packed away in its case, and why her heart was pounding. She didn’t really want to put on a performance. Her palms were sweating as soon as they saw the first tents in the small clearing.Anna would have liked to live here, for a few days, perhaps like the cottage she and her mother retreated to on the weekends in the summer.Tents were set up and spread out. Each one was of hand-made materials and it looked like they’d weathered a lot. Long tables were set up in front of the foremost tents and covered with food that looked like it was fresh from the field.Children and adults ran from the tents as soon as they were noticed. Children left their games in a field and adults left their preparations.Teyla picked up her pace. “Halling!” she laughed as she clasped arms with a man. They paused to touch foreheads. Teyla then turned to the boy at his side. “Jinto—it is so good to see you both!”“We have missed you greatly, Teyla,” Halling said.“I have missed you, too. How is Charin?” she asked, looking over his shoulder.“I last saw her slaving over a cauldron of tuttleroot soup.” Halling turned to the rest of them. “Welcome!”Anna stood back while Halling greeted Doctor Beckett and Elizabeth. Teyla had to introduce Halling and the boy, Jinto, to Radek. Several more adults came to talk to Doctor Beckett while Teyla introduced her to Jinto.“Jinto, this is Anna,” she said, putting her hand on Anna’s shoulder. “She recently joined us on Atlantis to live with her father, Radek.”“Anna,” Jinto said with a nod.“Anna has agreed to play songs for us on her instrument later,” Teyla said. “I thought you could introduce her to Iskaan.” Teyla nodded to encourage Jinto away.Anna glanced at Radek. He watched her with a smile until Doctor Beckett pulled him to come see the food that was laid out. Anna stood still next to Jinto. A moment to really look at him.He was probably a year or two younger than she was, brown hair. In fact, he was pretty average as far as Athosians went, it seemed.Jinto tapped her arm. “What instrument do you play?”“Violin,” she answered absently. When he looked at her with confusion, she realized that he either didn’t know the word or didn’t know what a violin even was. “It’s an instrument with strings that you bow.”“We have stringed instruments, but you pluck them. But we mostly have pipes and drums,” Jinto said. He motioned for her to follow him. “Come on. Iskaan is probably practicing his pipe now. You can show him.”Jinto led Anna through the tents away from the other children. Most of them looked even younger than Jinto and seemed to be playing some sort of game of tag. She heard them laughing and squealing even from deep within the camp.She cast a glance over her shoulder toward the table. Radek was still watching her.At least until Jinto pulled back the flap on a tent and beckoned her inside.Sunlight filtered through the white fabric, but more light was shed on the interior by a lantern in the middle of the space. A boy and two girls sat around the lantern. The boy held a set of what might have been panpipes, one girl had an instrument that looked like a lyre, and the other girl handled drums.The boy with the panpipes looked up when they entered. “Jinto, you said you’d come get us when they were here.” He was about the same age as Anna, maybe a year older.“I’m here, aren’t I?” Jinto asked. “Major Sheppard isn’t with them.”“Oh.” Their faces fell.“He’s a Lieutenant Colonel now,” Anna put in. She didn’t know if they’d know what that meant. “He got promoted.”Blank stares pretty well answered that question. Jinto continued, “Doctor Beckett is with them, though. Oh.” He suddenly looked at Anna. “This is Anna. She lives on Atlantis and she has an instrument that she’ll be playing today. Anna, this is Iskaan, Wreley, and Panin.”At the mention of the violin, they became interested. They all watched with wide eyes as she opened the case and pulled it out. Unlike the lyre and drums, the wood was smooth and a beautiful red. The bow was also wood, a genuinely red timber, and the bowstring was horsehair.Iskaan seemed mesmerized by the instrument and reached out for it. He glanced at her. “May I touch it?”Anna nodded. She held the violin closer so he could feel it. Wreley, Panin, and Jinto all touched it, too, carefully. Anna imagined it was soft in comparison with their rough, handmade instruments and probably made better notes.She tucked the violin under her chin and bowed the strings. She had tuned it last night, and it apparently held in the jumper ride. Of course, it had. A puddle jumper wasn’t like an airplane.She started playing “Concerning Hobbits.”When she finished, the others sat in a quiet circle. She carefully held the bow and the neck together and looked at them. “Teyla told me that there’s dancing at this festival. I don’t know what Athosian dance is like… but I know some Czech, German, English, and Irish folk songs.” She realized they wouldn’t know what that meant. “I’m not good at…” She hesitated. “Making things up.”“We are,” Iskaan said. “Play us one.”Anna nodded and brought the violin to her chin. Which one…? She wished she hadn’t been playing off of sheet music for the better part of her life. She memorized a lot, though. She had that going for her. She lifted her bow.#“I suppose I finally get that concert.” Elizabeth was suddenly standing beside him.Radek smiled at her and nodded. He did, too, after missing so many. Practically all of them. He’d since lost sight of Anna, but he knew which tent she was in. Worst case, he could follow the lilting notes of the violin until he found her. But it was a beautiful day among friends. He’d forgotten how to not worry.“I hope she enjoys herself.”“Me, too,” Elizabeth said.Radek hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself, but now that they were safely on Atlantis, this was the part that worried him most. Would she have friends here? She seemed to keep mostly to herself. She barely talked to him. She barely talked to anyone.Maybe she was just getting ready for the grueling work that lay ahead. Lessons would be starting soon and Rodney was no pushover when it came to expectations of intelligence.“I think she will,” Elizabeth said finally. “I don’t think the Athosians have ever seen a violin before, and they seem to hold music in pretty high regard. Did you know Teyla sings?”Radek shook his head. He knew approximately nothing about Teyla.“She does,” Elizabeth said. “It’s beautiful.” She suddenly paused and looked at him. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever found out what you do for fun?”“I play chess,” he said. It was probably his singular hobby these days. It was hard to have a hobby not related to academics in Rodney’s lab. He lived and breathed work and silently (and sometimes not silently) ridiculed those who didn’t.Now that he had to live and breathe something else, he wasn’t sure what to do.“That’s all?” Elizabeth asked.It didn’t used to be. He used to find time to be up-to-date and ahead and have fun at the same time. Fun was a strange word on Atlantis. Work was fun. But it wasn’t exactly relaxing. “Mostly.”“I think we need to get you a hobby,” Elizabeth mused.“I don’t have time for hobbies,” Radek said, and it was true.“What do you do on your days off?” Elizabeth asked.Days off. What an interesting concept. He used to sleep or catch up on the forgotten handful of projects. Everything cycled in emergency. Radek looked around. “This, now, I suppose. I used to work on personal projects.”She shook her head and clicked her tongue. “No good, Radek. We’ll think of something…”Elizabeth wandered over to Halling and Teyla. Radek followed for lack of other things to do. Other people to talk to. He only just realized how out of his element he was among the Athosians. He was used to being a step above everyone in company, except when Rodney was present. He was sure that he was so far above these people intellectually that he couldn’t possibly see them if he looked down.On the other hand, they had something that he didn’t.
Didn’t used to, anyway.Anna emerged from the tent with other boys and girls, violin in hand. Jinto ran to his father and tugged on his shirt sleeve. Halling immediately bent to hear whatever it was the boy had to say. Halling nodded and Jinto ran off again. The other children went to see their parents for a moment before leaving. Anna stood alone to one side, with her violin. She looked around, like a rabbit surrounded by coyotes.Radek watched Anna follow the others to the field beside one of the many tables. Anna led the playing, a song that Radek wasn’t familiar with. Of course, there were precious few songs he was familiar with. He didn’t typically commit them to memory.The other instruments began playing around her and a few Athosians started dancing.Elizabeth clapped along with the beat of the music and leaned over Radek’s shoulder so he could hear her. “I don’t suppose you dance.”He wasn’t going to dance, so it didn’t matter whether he did or not. He shook his head, but said nothing. He lifted his hands to clap, since he was pretty good about keeping rhythm. Just in time he remembered his wrapped right hand. So he snapped instead.Elizabeth laughed. He wasn’t sure if she was laughing at him or not. “We’ll find something for you, Radek. We will.”#“Will you come back?”Anna turned to Iskaan and shrugged. She smiled a little at the question, though she was sure it had more to do with her violin coming back than her. “I hope so. Today was fun.”“I hope so, too,” Iskaan said. “Maybe I could teach you some Athosian folk songs.”Anna nodded. “I’d like that.” And, to her surprise, she would. She’d never made a friend based on her music before. But this wasn’t orchestra. The Athosians just played their music for fun. And now, so was she. “I can come in a few weeks with Doctor Beckett.”She hadn’t been able to stop herself from saying it, but she couldn’t wait to come back.Iskaan smiled. “But I will see you on Atlantis. My father and I are going offworld to trade. Sometimes we stay on Atlantis for several days.”That sounded incredibly exciting. She hoped she would see him, but it didn’t seem likely. “Atlantis is a little… big.” It wasn’t normal, she meant. Neither was this, not by a longshot. Normal was somewhere in between.“It is,” Iskaan agreed. “We lived there for a little while last year after the Wraith culled my village.” He looked up toward the group from Atlantis and nodded at them. “It looks like they’re leaving.”Anna cast a glance over her shoulder to see that, indeed, Doctor Beckett had finally finished packing up his backpack. Radek watched her critically. She nodded. “Yes. Well, I’ll see you.”“See you, Anna.”

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Doctor Collins walked into Rodney’s lab with a frustrated sigh. “Why’d you give her this scenario?” he groaned.“Give who what?” Rodney asked.Radek looked up from the computer in the corner and went to see the tablet in Doctor Collins’ hand. Rodney had taken to giving Anna scenarios from their days on Atlantis as sort of math/science homework. This was the third one to Radek’s knowledge and each one had taken her no less than three days to puzzle out. Radek didn’t remember when he’d given her this one.He handed the tablet to Rodney. “It was a natural progression from the last one. What, is it too hard for you, Collins?”He scoffed and slid into his chair. “I lost her about three pages in. I don’t think she knows what she’s doing.”Radek frowned and picked up the tablet. Still, he owed Collins. “I will buy you a drink,” he said.It was a tradition between him and Collins. Whenever Rodney would publicly condescend either one of them, the other would get them a drink—the Athosians brewed some strong stuff that was easily accessible. Radek wasn’t sure where it started, but no one else would buy them drinks. It wasn’t particularly fair to Collins. Rodney made a blood sport of condescending Radek.Rodney took the tablet before he could see anything.“What did you give her?” Radek asked.“The grounding station scenario,” Rodney answered.Radek spent his spare time helping her with concepts, but there were few hours. Probably too few to go through the entire process behind saving their lives during the hurricane. Rodney wrote the scenarios and checked them when Collins didn’t have time. Rodney didn’t want Radek touching anything having to do with Anna’s science education. Apparently, he would do more harm than good.That was fine. Anna had apparently been doing fine, better than fine, so far.Apparently not today.“No wonder this took her a week. This is ridiculous,” Rodney mumbled.Radek waited for the accusations that Anna was, indeed, his daughter. Too bad for her.
“What’s wrong?” Radek asked as Rodney drew his finger up the tablet to scroll.“This is twenty pages’ worth of complete disaster,” Rodney said. He looked more and more disturbed the further he got.It’s okay, Radek tried to tell himself. So she’s not a prodigy. She’s fifteen and working on a problem it took Rodney several hours to fix.Rodney shook his head. “She had no idea what the hell she was doing so she basically reinvented the wheel.”“To be fair…” Radek spoke up.“And the really horrible thing is, this would have eventually worked.”Radek couldn’t help his grin. “Really?” He went to Rodney’s side to examine her processes.“Yes, except she came up with the lightning in the margins of page one.” He paused and looked at him as if to ask him why he hadn’t come up with the lightning that early.“She does seem to see the big picture more readily,” Radek allowed.He took the tablet and skimmed. From what he saw, Rodney was right. She didn’t know many of the concepts and ideas she was trying to use had already been invented—her mind seemed to lean toward a combination of electrical engineering and something unidentifiable in such a crude form—so she wrote herself in circles around a simple equation or two that she didn’t know.At the end, for her summary, she explained in painstakingly spaced elementary English what she was trying to do. She checked her numbers with simulations from Atlantis itself. It would have taken her days to complete it, but without time constraints she would have saved the city.“Don’t look so smug,” Rodney said.“Our solving this problem took you almost getting struck by lightning once,” Radek pointed out. “She thought of it almost immediately.”Rodney mumbled something incoherent. “I guess I’ll track her down sometime later and show her how it’s really done then. I don’t have time to write in corrections to twenty pages of rambling.”“You enjoy this, though.”It was obvious, at least from the last times Doctor Collins had brought back Anna’s “homework.” Rodney was no teacher, but he could follow anyone’s train of thought usually before they said anything substantial. Usually followed with a, Yes, I already thought of that, but it won’t work because…Rodney was quick on his feet with solutions. He just took a while to think of simple things.“Let’s just say I appreciate the opportunity to shepherd a young mind that would otherwise have been lost,” he said.“Of course,” Radek said. Who knew Rodney’s ego would work to his benefit? “Thank you again for agreeing to do this, Rodney.” He gathered up his tablet and headed for the door.“It’s nothing,” Rodney said. “Actually, you know, it is something. It takes a considerable amount of time…”Radek walked out of the lab. “Thank you; I have to go talk to Elizabeth about these investigations.”Rodney scoffed. “Sure, you do.”#“Am I interrupting?” Radek asked.It was a little late for Elizabeth to be working… Of course, it was a little late for him, too. He hadn’t seen Anna since lunchtime and he promised himself he wouldn’t do this… But everyone else was working, weren’t they?He saw from the control room that Elizabeth was alone and working on something on her tablet. Perhaps reading, since she would only touch the screen occasionally and then stare for long periods of time. Not that he watched for a long time…No, he had to talk to one of the ‘gate technicians first. He might have glanced up occasionally. To be sure he wouldn’t be interrupting. He shouldn’t be rude.“Oh, no,” she said. She looked somewhat embarrassed. “Come in, Radek.”“Thank you.” He went into the office and looked around. “You have my list of systems discovered while we were on Earth?” She nodded. “Do you have any questions or alterations for my priority list?”She turned in her chair just enough so that Radek could see what was on the screen. Solitaire.He smiled.
“To be honest, I think you’re a much better judge of priorities than I am. Though, I think your location-based approach was interesting.”“The thought was perhaps the more important systems were closer to the central tower or a transporter.”“Have you talked to Rodney about this?” she asked.He hesitated. “Yes.”“Did he agree with you?”“He said if I couldn’t handle my own department, I was welcome to join his staff.”She tried to hide a smile of amusement. “I see. Well, I didn’t see anything of pressing need. I have to admit I’m more than a little interested to know what the—I don’t think you even had a technical name for it. It was found in the room three floors down, along with the texts on ascension.”“Ah.” He smiled and nodded. It was third on his list and he couldn’t imagine a project he was less interested to get into. He imagined he’d catalogue it and then push it off on someone else to figure out. “Yeah, that should be interesting…”“You’re more than welcome to go in any order you choose,” Elizabeth said. “But you should let me know if you turn up anything interesting.”“Of course,” he said. Maybe he should be a little more interested in that strange-looking blue contraption three floors down.He was done. With the business side of things, anyway. He stepped further into the room. “How has Anna been doing? I mean, if you have a moment…”“Of course. I should probably get out of here anyway. I haven’t eaten dinner yet.”“Neither have I.” He felt even more guilty. Anna had dinner alone tonight, unless she decided to have dinner with Jennifer.“Anna is a bright girl, Radek,” Elizabeth said as they walked out to the control room. “She has a memory like a steel trap. Although, I get the impression she isn’t very much interested in sociology.” She smiled a little fondly, as though she somehow appreciated it.Radek smiled, too. He had to admit, he wouldn’t know what to do with her if she decided to be some sort of diplomat like Elizabeth. It would be okay, of course. He just wouldn’t know what to do. “Thank you for your time all the same.”“It’s a welcome distraction,” Elizabeth said. “I think Jennifer and the others feel the same.”“I would never be able to give her the sort of education she’d get on those subjects by myself,” he said.“I understand Rodney’s been… protective of her science education.”Radek knew a carefully-selected word when he heard one, especially from Elizabeth. Rodney was like an animal protecting its food when it came to Anna’s science education. He didn’t doubt that it did well for Rodney’s ego to be so absolutely superior. He also didn’t doubt that Anna could learn the most from Rodney.But that didn’t mean it was a good idea. It didn’t mean Rodney was a good teacher.“He has interesting methods,” Radek said as they walked into the transporter together. Elizabeth touched the dot for the mess hall.“But it’s probably a good idea that you have him do it instead of you,” Elizabeth offered. “It will give her more than one model for performance, and you a chance to get to know her outside the context of science.” They stepped out into the mess hall and to the table with the after-hours selection.Outside of science? Of course, there was an outside. But he wasn’t sure what was out there. He’d failed out there all the other times he’d tried. He picked up a sandwich wrapped in cellophane—just about the only thing available outside the usual meal times. Elizabeth picked one up, also.She motioned to the balcony. “Care to have dinner with me?” She laughed and looked at her wrapped sandwich.“Ah.” He sighed. He should be with Anna right now, shouldn’t he? On the other hand, it didn’t take long to eat a sandwich. Maybe he could practice getting to know someone outside the context of science.Elizabeth was already sitting at a small table only big enough for two.“I’d like that.”She grinned and unwrapped her sandwich. “Good.”

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The new kids always ate alone. Unless they were Anna, then they ate alone whether they were new or not. Radek told her Doctor McKay had scheduled a meeting—he thought on purpose—during breakfast, so he couldn’t meet her as usual. So Anna sat near the wall and watched.And that must have been him. Doctor McKay had called him “the caveman.” Anna just didn’t know that cavemen were so attractive.“He’s not a caveman,” Colonel Sheppard had objected. “We found him in a cave. That’s not the same thing.”“It’s about the same thing. Besides, have you looked at the guy?” Doctor McKay had returned. “He makes Conan the Barbarian look like my kid sister.”It was an exaggeration. But he made the hundred most eligible bachelors in those magazines look like her high school chemistry partner. That was no exaggeration.You’re being silly.He was sort of caveman-like. He sat down alone at one of the long tables, his plate piled high with food. She got the feeling that he deliberately misused his utensils and he snarled that everyone that walked by. Suddenly he looked up and right at her.She looked away immediately. What in the world was she thinking, staring like that? It wasn’t like she’d never seen a person from another planet before. Although, they were a fairly new occurrence to her outside the Athosians.She quickly gathered her plate, cup, and utensils even though she wasn’t finished. He was still staring. Unfortunately, she had to walk right past his table.“Aren’t you a little young to be here?” he asked.She paused and looked at him. “I’m Doctor Zelenka’s daughter.”He shrugged and waved what looked like a chicken wing. “No idea who that is.”“He’s one of the senior science team members,” she said.He nodded in a way that gave her the distinct impression that he really didn’t care. Well, he asked. Sort of.“I’m Anna,” she said.“Ronon.”“Colonel Sheppard said they found you offworld.”“Yep.”“Are you staying?”“Don’t know.”Anna nodded. There wasn’t really a lot to say to that, was there? “Nice talking to you.”“You, too.”At least he didn’t sound completely sarcastic like Doctor McKay. She hurried off. Still hungry. She stopped only long enough to get a cup of coffee. She didn’t know if it should be black or not, sugar or not. She decided to just leave it and stuffed some sugar packets in her jacket pocket.She always felt out of place no matter where she was on Atlantis, except when she was in her room. She especially felt out of place here. She leaned into Radek’s lab. “Ahoj,” * she said, before realizing that there were two other people in here. “Good morning,” she revised.He looked up immediately. “Good morning.” He looked tired and irritated. This morning was certainly not good. That usually happened after he had to sit listening to Doctor McKay for an hour.She walked in and put the coffee on the table at his elbow. “I don’t know if you like sugar.”“Ah.” He smiled at the coffee, then at her. “I think I just like coffee. Thank you.” He didn’t seem quite as irritated anymore.She crossed her arms on his desk and looked at his screen. “You’re welcome.” Surprisingly, after all the homework assignments Doctor McKay had given her regarding Atlantis, she was pretty familiar with what she was looking at now. “Are these the ‘gate crystals?” she asked, pointing.“Yes,” he said.She nodded. She knew what they looked like, but they were so complicated that Doctor McKay had little idea what they did. She guessed they were more organized and stable than any other system she’d studied yet, which made her think that they were probably fairly easy to understand from the right perspective. If only they could find the right perspective.But what did she know?Anna looked around and realized that she didn’t actually see many of the people she’d expected to see. “Doctor McKay isn’t in his lab.” She’d peered in as she walked by.“He went offworld,” he said. “Hence the morning meeting.”“He’s in a bad mood?”He shrugged and took a gulp of coffee.Doctor McKay was rarely pleasant. Once he came to see her in person to talk about a scenario he’d given her to solve to “save Atlantis.” It was apparently based on a real situation and had Anna been in charge, the city would have broken into flotsam and everyone would have died. All the same, she liked him. Didn’t hate him, anyway. Didn’t work with him every day, either…He was interesting. That was more accurate.“How is your hand?” She looked at his right hand, where only a day or so ago Carson had removed the gauze and bandages for the last time.Radek turned his hand over and compared them. His right hand was slightly swollen, the skin was a darker shade and wrinkly. “It’s alright,” he said. “At least I can use it.” He bent his fingers and went back to his computer.“I met the, um…” She didn’t want to call him “the caveman” in front of everyone. She could call him “the alien,” but that didn’t seem fair. He looked just like any of them from Earth. She settled for something more specific. “His name is Ronon.”He looked at her. “I don’t think I’ve even seen him. He’s only been here a few days.”Well, Anna had the feeling that Radek would have remembered him if he saw him. Maybe. He was big and intimidating, but Anna couldn’t imagine him going near a science lab. Ever. Maybe a little judgmental of her to think that…He did have one thing in common with the scientists in here. “He doesn’t say a lot.”They were interrupted when a lieutenant ran into the lab and looked at Radek. “Doctor Zelenka,” he said. “There’s been an incident. You and your team need to get ready to go offworld.”“Offworld?” Radek looked about as excited as she felt about going to the dentist. All the same, he rose from his seat and started gathering his things.Anna glanced between them. She was excited, even if he wasn’t. “Can I come?” Considering the most interesting thing to happen to her in days was to see a caveman. Not a caveman. A man they’d found in a cave.“Is it safe?” Radek looked at the lieutenant.He shrugged in response. “Doctor Weir will have to approve that, but we have to go.”Anna picked up his coffee. “Doctor McKay will be happier if I take longer,” he mumbled.“Pretty sure he won’t. Doctor McKay is in the computer of a downed Wraith dart.”There went all her chances of going. She was going to follow until she was told not to, though. She watched Radek and his colleagues gather an obscene number of gadgets and equipment. It was easy enough to cart the things from the lab to the transporter, from the transporter to the ‘gate room. They stood in the ‘gate room for several minutes while the science team wrestled with flak jackets.Colonel Sheppard descended from the stairs to the control room. Anna guessed he was up there talking to Elizabeth about whatever trouble Doctor McKay had gotten himself in. He spied Anna standing to one side with Radek’s cup of coffee. “Oh!” he said with a grin. “Field trip?”Anna smiled back. Surely Colonel Sheppard would agree this was a good idea. If anything, she got the feeling that he could at least keep most danger at bay. “May I?” she asked.Radek sighed while Sheppard gave Weir thumbs up in the control room. “Let’s get you a jacket, Anna. Might be a little big.”Anna couldn’t help notice her heart pounding in excitement as she slid into the vest. It was very heavy, and she doubted it would save her if something came up.This was definitely one of the more exciting things Anna had ever done. Riding on a spaceship was one. Going through a Stargate for the first time was another. Should she be nervous? What did it feel like? A bunch of people when through the ‘gate many times a day even. They were fine and they went through again the next day. It would have to be fine. Right? It would be fine?Then she noticed how pale Radek and the rest of the science team were. This was serious.Or maybe they were just scientists who had never done anything more exciting than add two creams to their coffee instead of three.Colonel Sheppard didn’t seem worried, though. He seemed to have all the confidence in the world. After all, who wouldn’t? When brawn and bullets didn’t solve the Pegasus galaxy’s problems, his scientists did. Anna was tired of hearing all the stories of when Doctor McKay did this-or-that and saved the city. Radek was always on the periphery of those stories. But maybe she’d get a chance to see what he could do.Colonel Sheppard stepped up next to Radek and grinned. “First time offworld, Zelenka?”“Um…” Radek pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. “Yes.”“I feel like I should bring a bottle of champagne,” Colonel Sheppard said. “Break it on the bow.”“Funny.” Radek’s voice, nevertheless, said he didn’t find it funny at all. “Shall we go?”

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“What do you think?” Sheppard asked.It looked like Earth. A wide open field ringed with trees, dotted with wildflowers and ragged with grass. It looked like the perfect place to put a farm or settlement. Anna looked at Colonel Sheppard. “It’s nice,” she said. “If you ignore the Wraith dart.”He smiled at that.“Do you think they’ll come back?”“If they were going to, they would have by now,” Colonel Sheppard said.She arched an eyebrow. “Really?”“It’d make your dad feel better,” he said with an impish grin. “So that’s what I’m going with. As far as the Wraith are concerned, they’re done here.”Anna glanced around and tried to imagine living here. Tried to imagine the sky streaked with the ebony darts, her friends and family scooped up. No survivors. It made the Wraith’s return unlikely. But it also made Colonel Sheppard’s cavalier attitude a tad inappropriate.On the other hand, he was serious at the same time. It was hard to explain.“How’s it going?” Colonel Sheppard walked over to Radek. “Did you find what we want?”Doctor Beckett was leaning over his shoulder, looking at the screen and nodding as Radek explained, in Czech, what needed to happen next. Anna had seen this sort of thing happen before. Doctor Beckett was interested in everything, even things he wasn’t interested in. As long as someone wanted to explain what they were doing, Doctor Beckett was a listening ear.“Um, well, yes,” Radek said. He fiddled with his glasses again and gestured at the laptop he’d been showing Doctor Beckett. “But it's very complex. This interface controls the machine that dematerializes people, stores their information and then rematerializes them again when commanded to.”“Great,” Colonel Sheppard said. “Command it to.”“Did he not hear you say ‘it’s very complex’?” Anna asked.Doctor Beckett smiled at her, almost chuckled.“I can’t,” Radek said to Colonel Sheppard. “The rematerializer is storing two life signs.”Colonel Sheppard looked at Anna. Probably scolding her for mocking him in another language. “Well, that’s good,” Colonel Sheppard said.“Yes,” Radek agreed. “But there is only enough power in the Dart's energy cell to successfully rematerialize one of them.” He pointed at the two signals shown on the laptop. “Power to the rematerializer has been completely severed and emergency back-up power is completely run down.”Anna sighed when she saw the signals indicated on the laptop. Of course, they were completely androgynous signals…“Okay?” Colonel Sheppard said.“You have to decide which one to beam out,” Radek finished.Doctor Beckett shook his head. “That’s a terrible choice to have to make.”“No, it’s easy,” Colonel Sheppard said. “Beam out McKay. He’ll figure out how to get Cadman free.”“No, no, no,” Radek said. “I’m sorry. I was unclear.”“You can’t tell who is who,” Anna spoke up. Besides… why did they need McKay for this?“Yes.” Radek smiled at her, but quickly replaced it when a dutiful frown when he looked to the colonel. Sheppard didn’t seem to share his mirth. “They just read as life signs.”“Perfect,” Colonel Sheppard muttered. “Alright. That one.” He pointed to one of the life signs.“Can’t we wait?” Anna asked. She looked at Radek. He looked like he’d been punched in the stomach, but he glanced at Colonel Sheppard for approval.“Go,” Colonel Sheppard said. He motioned to the scientists standing around to move back.“We’ve been here half an hour—what if something goes wrong?” Anna asked.Radek sighed and shook his head. “Colonel, we should bring the dart back to Atlantis. We will probably be able to reverse-engineer a power source that—”“Probably?” Colonel Sheppard said.Anna frowned. She glanced at Radek.“No,” he said. “No, we can.”Colonel Sheppard stood next to the gaggle of scientists, out of the line of sight of the Wraith beam. He motioned at Radek to get on with it.Anna stepped back. “This isn’t good,” she mumbled. “This can’t be good.”All the same, she watched in dismay as Radek gave the unit the command. A white beam of light shot over the grass a few feet away, leaving Doctor McKay in its place. Half a second later, Doctor McKay collapsed in the grass.Doctor Beckett—and everyone else—was at his side a moment later. Doctor Beckett checked for a pulse, then looked back at Colonel Sheppard. “His pulse is stable, but I need to get him back to Atlantis.” He motioned for one of his medical team to bring him something. It was apparently some special medical team sign language.Colonel Sheppard tapped his radio. “Teyla, Lorne, help the Doc head back to the city with McKay. We’re gonna stay here with Zelenka and try to bring back as much of the dart as possible.”Anna stood back and watched Doctor Beckett and his team load Doctor McKay onto a stretcher. She didn’t know anything about Wraith beaming technology, but he seemed to look okay anyway. Despite the fact that he’d immediately collapsed.She went next to Radek, where he crouched on the ground next to the dart. “Why did you do that?” she asked quietly, kneeling next to him.“With Rodney’s help, we can cobble together a solution for Cadman,” he said.“Cobble together?” Anna asked. She was unconvinced. This wasn’t the person she remembered. Didn’t people usually complain that he took too long, went over things ten and twenty times before going over it another couple dozen times?But everything he ever did was perfect.“It will work,” he said. “This is Pegasus.”Pegasus. She sighed, and nodded. She shouldn’t be questioning him. But he had sort of let Colonel Sheppard bully him into a solution that wasn’t really a solution at all. What did Colonel Sheppard do? If needed someone to shoot Doctor McKay, Colonel Sheppard would be the one to call.But as long as someone was stuck in a Wraith rematerializer, Anna could think of a few people she’d choose over Colonel Sheppard to call.“Can I help?” she asked.“Yes, yes.” He looked up at one of the other scientists. “Schreiber, let’s get this moving.” He looked at her. “We’ll need a winch.”Anna nodded. “I’ll help Schreiber pick up the pieces.”Schreiber was on the top of the dart, peering down into it, probably trying to figure out how to tow it back to the ‘gate with as few problems as possible. Anna saw the German flag on her shoulder. “It looks like a dinosaur skeleton,” she said, in German.“It does, doesn’t it?” Schreiber laughed, but it died away pretty quickly. “Mixed with an arachnid.”Anna shivered at the mental picture of an eight-legged raptor while she looked at the underside of the dart. It seemed a lot of its mechanical parts were encapsulated by something less… mechanical. “Is it supposed to be gooey like this?” she asked.“Wraith ships are partly organic,” Schreiber said. “Fortunately, this is probably what we need.” She held up an obviously broken black thing. It was a strange shape and slick with whatever organics made up the ship. “This…” she said, then pointed around on the ground and broken fragments of the dart’s undercarriage. “And that. And that. That over there.”Anna laughed. “I get it.” She went around and picked up all the small bits from the grass she could find, laying them out carefully on a tray. She heard Radek swearing at his computer a few steps away, then slammed it shut.Colonel Sheppard better hurry with that winch.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Can I go now?” Anna asked. She couldn’t think of a place she’d rather not be than in the mess hall talking about science when science was happening right now in the hangar bay. Wraith dart science, which seemed way more interesting than this.Collins ran a hand through his blond hair while he checked her work. Anna didn’t doubt that he hated this. On the other hand, he’d apparently volunteered for it. He said he used to teach, but wasn’t clear on what, exactly. Anna imagined he was a professor at a research university, like Radek wanted to be at one time. More research than teaching, but apparently he had the aptitude. Doctor McKay, who as far as Anna knew had never taught a day in his life, made him his aide.“Just because McKay gets caught in a Wraith dart doesn’t mean the world stops spinning…” Collins mumbled. “Remind your dad of that, would you?”Anna smirked. A lot of people sure acted that way. And Anna had to agree. Doctor McKay was a brilliant scientist, but just as replaceable as anyone. Right? He was just so used to thinking on his feet and snatching the city from the jaws of death that it was sort of second nature. Experience counted for a lot in another galaxy.“I will,” Anna said finally. “But I can do this later, yes?” She pulled up the most recent homework assignment. This one had to do with the Daedalus and, to be honest, she’d much rather have Wraith dart homework to do. “I can help with the Wraith dart in the hangar. That’s almost homework.”Collins seemed to consider that… for half a second. “No, it’s not.”“But practical,” Anna pointed out.“Less practical than the Daedalus,” Collins said.Anna couldn’t argue with that. On the other hand, it looked like she was going to be in the Pegasus galaxy for a considerable amount of time. That made knowledge of Wraith darts very practical. But no one really knew a lot about Wraith darts, either, so it was almost like not learning. It was more like guessing.“It can be the laboratory portion of classwork,” Anna suggested.“We’ll talk to McKay about that later,” Collins said. “Right now, Daedalus. You’ve mislabeled half the junctions.” He took a second glance at her labeled maps and schematics of the Daedalus and laughed. “And the mess hall is over here.”“I’m very distracted,” Anna said, snatching the tablet from him. She glanced at her labels while Collins went back to what he was doing… painting a set of acorns. She was about to ask him what in the world he was doing, but decided that the junctions were more important. “I’m sorry. The English is wrong. It’s very technical.”Collins shook his head, grinning in amusement. “The mess hall isn’t technical.”“Who cares about the mess hall?”“If you were hungry, you might,” Collins pointed out as he straightened out the lines on the isosceles of the tiny Czech flag on his acorn.“I’m not hungry. What are you doing?” She couldn’t help it anymore.Collins smiled. “Painting.”“Why?” That was not at all the question she wanted to ask. More like, why are you painting an acorn? Why are you painting a Czech flag on an acorn? What about this Canadian acorn?“My brother and I used to do this when we were kids,” he said. “We had a huge oak tree in the yard and my mom used to put the acorns in a bowl in the middle of the kitchen table. One day in the middle of winter, we were bored, so we decided to paint the whole bowl of them.”“So you paint them when you’re bored?” Anna asked.“I usually start them in meetings. Finish them on lunch,” he said. He pinched the Czech acorn between his thumb and finger. “What do you think?” He turned it about by the cap so she could see all sides. He’d painted it a pale brown color, sort of khaki. One side had the flag, rotated a little to the right were two silver circles.Anna squinted at it. “I don’t know. The flag looks fine. Why the Czech flag?”Collins shrugged, lining it up with a dozen other acorns on the top of the bin he’d brought filled with painting materials. The Canadian acorn, a Japanese acorn, an American acorn with a yellow ring painted on its top. Another American acorn had a brown line down one side and silver boxes on the other.It was one of the weirdest things she’d ever seen.Collins motioned for Anna to give him the tablet back. “Let’s see if we can fix this.”“I will relabel everything, I promise. But I need Radek to help me translate.”She held on to the tablet while Collins seemed to consider her position. He looked like he was giving in.Anna smiled at him as sweetly as she could. “Can I please go to the hangar?”Collins didn’t look convinced, but nodded anyway. “I guess one of us should be there.” He sighed and stood, gathering his things from the table. “Have fun.”Anna almost squealed in excitement as she picked up her tablet and rose. She turned and bolted down the aisle between tables—right into Colonel Sheppard and his tray of food.Fortunately, Colonel Sheppard’s reflexes were excellent. “Whoa, Anna, where are you going in such a hurry?”“I’m sorry—the hangar.” She gasped and looked around to see if anyone was watching.The caveman was watching, smirking like this was the most amusing thing he’d seen all day. Anna frowned at him, which he seemed to find even more amusing.“Well, take a deep breath. Relax. Nothing interesting will be happening for a little while.” Sheppard sighed and looked at his plate. “Just came from there. Something about a transformer…”“I thought it probably needed something to convert raw power into something more stable,” Anna said with a nod.“Oh. Good. Maybe you should go down there.” Colonel Sheppard picked up a floret of broccoli from his plate and popped it in his mouth. He nodded at her tablet. “What do you got there?”Anna glanced at it. “Homework.”“Don’t you think you should do that first?” he asked. “Something about… work now, play later?”Anna really hoped not. Besides, it wasn’t like working with the Wraith dart wouldn’t be some version of work. It was just that she really, really wanted to do that instead. “I will do my homework. Here, look.” She pulled up the map of the Daedalus and the junction schematics. “This is right in Czech, but I need Radek to help me translate it.”“Maybe I can help,” he said, taking the tablet.Anna frowned at him. “You don’t know Czech?”“No,” Colonel Sheppard agreed. “But I do know English. Oh, oh,” he said, and pointed at a Czech word. “I know that one. Your dad’s been teaching me some words. That’s the head.”Anna frowned. “I don’t know…”“The bathroom,” he explained. He proceeded to tell her how to say, “Kde je toaleta?” * Anna almost laughed. He smiled and took her tablet as he went to sit down across from Ronon. “Ronon, have you met Anna?”Ronon waved at Anna with fingers smudged with mashed potatoes. “Yeah. Some scientist’s daughter.”Anna pursed her lips and watched him pick up another handful of mashed potato and shove it in his mouth. Maybe he actually was a caveman. Colonel Sheppard watched him with approximately the same look on his face.“Yeah. So what do you think of Atlantis?” Colonel Sheppard asked.“It’s fine.”Anna grinned at Colonel Sheppard. Apparently Colonel Sheppard ascribed to the same philosophy Anna did. A caveman was more interesting than homework.“What do you think you’re going to do when you’re done here?” he continued, propping up the tablet to look at it while he ate. He glanced at Ronon.Ronon looked at him for just a moment and continued eating. “Do you want me to leave?”“No!” Colonel Sheppard shook his head. “No! Stay as long as you like. I'm just saying, you know your way around.” He paused. “You can take care of yourself in a fight. You hate the Wraith as much as we do…”Colonel Sheppard paused when Ronon gave him a glare that could have killed.“Okay, maybe more than we do,” Colonel Sheppard allowed. “But the point is, we could use a guy like you around here and you look like you could use a place to stay.”Ronon paused to take a swig out of a gallon jug of water. Then he glanced over his shoulder at a guard that Anna had only barely noticed before. Must have been following Ronon around. He was new. And a caveman. Couldn’t let people like that just wander around Atlantis.“I’m not sure I fit in here.” He stuffed a few cubes of Jell-O in his mouth to emphasize his point.Anna laughed. Couldn’t help herself. Colonel Sheppard and Ronon both looked at her in surprise. “Hm,” she mumbled. “Well, neither do I.” They continued staring.Ronon looked at Colonel Sheppard. “Do I have to decide now or can I finish eating?”“Oh, take your time,” Colonel Sheppard answered with a wave. Then he unwrapped a fork and knife from a napkin on his tray. He handed them to Ronon. “And try these. They work great.” He watched Ronon use the fork and to shovel yet more food into his mouth than fit.“Right.” Colonel Sheppard blinked once at Ronon and then looked at Anna’s tablet. “What do we have here…?”“Can I just go to the hangar?” Anna asked.“Give me a minute. Well, first of all, the mess hall is over here,” he said.“Yes,” Anna sighed. “I know. I’m distracted.”Colonel Sheppard chuckled, nodded, and continued to look at the tablet. “I can tell.” He looked at her sideways. “What does this mean?”It was one of the junction labels she was sure she got right. “Do you want me to explain it to you?” She sighed.“No. Never mind. But if you ever need help with maps and stuff, I can read English.”“Thank you!” Anna was too busy snatching her tablet off the table and dashing away to hear anything Colonel Sheppard was saying.She did know one thing: as far as that table was concerned, she didn’t fit in at all.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“This is a very specialized transformer.” Radek looked dejectedly at the tray with the transformer pieces in it. Appropriately, labeled “Transformer Bits.” “It converts raw power into a highly stable, very specific stream of power,” he explained to her.“And it’s in a thousand pieces,” Anna finished. Maybe not a thousand. But it was definitely not working in its current state. “But you can reverse engineer one.”“Right.” He rounded a wall of computers and displays until he stood in front of them. “Eventually,” he added.Anna frowned. “You shouldn’t have let Colonel Sheppard make you rematerialize him until you were finished.” It might have been a gamble, what with how unstable the signals were on the planet before they hooked the device up to some power. But everything had worked out, more or less.Except Doctor McKay was storming into the hangar. Elizabeth, Colonel Sheppard, and Doctor Beckett were on his heels. He stood at the entrance to the hangar and looked at Doctor Beckett.“Carson,” he said. “You want to tell Zelenka or should I?”“Well, Radek,” Doctor Beckett started, but Doctor McKay interrupted him.“You really screwed something up because when you rematerialized me, you managed to also rematerialize Cadman’s consciousness in my brain.”Radek looked flabbergasted. With good reason. Anna wasn’t sure exactly what Doctor McKay meant, or even if such a thing was possible. But it was a big problem.Colonel Sheppard’s fault. She was sure.“What?” Radek finally managed. “No, no. How did that happen?”“You don’t know,” Doctor McKay said, almost like a question. But then he interrupted himself. “Of course, you don’t know.” Then he snapped his fingers impatiently. “What have you got?”Radek pointed to the Transformer Bits tray and explained what it was and why he’d done what he’d done. As if he needed to explain that—Doctor McKay could have been wiped from existence without his help.Maybe. It seemed a reasonable conclusion.Almost anything seemed reasonable at the moment: Doctor McKay had another consciousness in his brain.“Oh.” Doctor McKay tossed a piece of the transformer back into the tray as soon as Radek finished explaining what he was trying to do. “Nice work!”“We were running out of power—I knew hardly anything about the machine,” Radek said. Explaining. Again. “Who would have thought this could be one of the side effects?”“So instead of waiting to understand what it was you were doing, you just mashed on the keyboard hoping something would happen!” Doctor McKay finished.“You’re alive, aren’t you?”Doctor McKay didn’t answer that, probably because the answer was yes. At least they’d gotten that much right. Then he shouted, apparently at no one, “He doesn’t know how to fix it!”“What?” Radek asked.Doctor McKay gave Radek an acidic smile and pointed at his head. “I’m talking to her.”“You can hear her thoughts?” Elizabeth spoke up from the doorway.Anna hoped that didn’t go both ways. Poor Cadman.“No, not her thoughts, thank god,” Doctor McKay said. “I can hear when she’s speaking. Or when she’s trying to speak.”Elizabeth turned to Doctor Beckett. “Are you sure he should have been discharged from the infirmary, Carson?” she asked.Doctor McKay rolled his eyes.“According to the MRI, he’s as healthy as he ever was,” Doctor Beckett answered.“Well, we can’t all be track stars, now, can we?” Doctor McKay asked the air again. He realized everyone was staring at him and said, “Her again.”Colonel Sheppard looked to Doctor Beckett. “Maybe there’s something an MRI wouldn’t pick up, if you know what I mean.”Doctor Beckett looked like he was trying very hard not to smile.“I’m not crazy,” Doctor McKay said. “I just have another consciousness in my brain.”“So you just look crazy,” Colonel Sheppard said.“I’m sure I do, but only because Doctor Fumbles McStupid over here was in way over his head!”Anna glanced between Radek and Doctor McKay, momentarily indignant. A feeling Radek obviously shared, along with incensed humiliation. Now Anna knew why Radek didn’t seem to like Doctor McKay that much.She looked at Radek. “He doesn’t know anything about the dart either!”He held his hand up to stop her from talking about halfway through her tirade, but he didn’t say any of that. “Yes. Yes, I made a mistake trying to save your life. Now, do you want to try to fix it or do you want to continue to berate me some more?”“I’m perfectly capable of doing both at the same time,” Doctor McKay mumbled. He gave Anna a sideways glance as though he’d only just realized she was there. Then he looked at Radek. “I assume you’ve tried to run one of our own generators on it?”Radek took a deep breath and then shook his head, fiddling with the tablet he’d been carrying around. “It’s not as simple as that. The trick is having it interface with the Wraith machine in real time. The power fluctuations are huge and if we overshoot just a little, we’re, uh, screwed up. Again.”Everyone looked at Doctor McKay, but he wasn’t looking at anything in particular. Just the floor. He should have been looking at the floor—he should have been ashamed of himself, talking to one of his colleagues like that. If it were up to Anna, she’d never help him ever again.“Yeah, um, if we can maybe run an interface program, that will take care of the, uh…” Doctor McKay paused, and shook his head. He looked up and tried to make eye-contact with Radek, but immediately looked somewhere else. “Here’s what I want us to try. We’ll take a, uh, Naqahdah generator and, um…”Doctor McKay spun around and screamed at the floor, “Yes! What?” He paused. “Well, stop asking stupid questions!”Anna hadn’t quite recovered from his outburst when Doctor Beckett said quietly, “Rodney…”Doctor McKay was still talking to the floor. “I will get you out of here, okay? Now just be a good little girlie and keep quiet.” Another pause. “And do you have a degree in physics, hm? What about mechanical engineering?”“Rodney?” Elizabeth said gently.Doctor McKay whirled toward Elizabeth and shouted, “Yes!” He seemed to realize that he was no longer talking to the floor and took a deep breath. “Sorry. I’m sorry. What, please?”“Why don’t we let Zelenka handle this?” she asked.“I’m fine,” Doctor McKay said.“No, you’re not,” Colonel Sheppard said.“And I’d like you to talk to Doctor Heightmeyer,” Elizabeth continued.“I think it’d be more useful if I…”“Rodney,” Elizabeth interrupted. “I’m not asking you.”Anna bit her lip while Doctor McKay turned a glance around the hangar. He looked livid and humiliated. But he deserved whatever of that he got. Except she noticed Radek looked almost apologetic.Doctor McKay turned toward the entrance to the hangar. “Fine.” He left without another word, leaving the scientists alone with the Wraith dart.Radek sighed and looked around. “You heard him,” he said. “Let’s hook up a Naqahdah generator and see if that will do it.”“You said it isn’t that simple,” Anna said.“It isn’t.” His pointed glare was probably for her Czech as much as it was for her yelling earlier. “The Naqahdah generator doesn’t put out a refined power stream as this machine needs. But we should try it.”“Why?” Anna asked.“Because,” he said. “Rodney wanted us to.” He walked away toward the dart where a group of scientists were wheeling a large grey object up next to it. Anna recognized it from schematics as a Naqahdah generator.“Colonel Sheppard wanted you to rematerialize him,” Anna said.“We will try something else as soon as this is finished,” he said. “I need you to either stop talking or go somewhere else.” Anna frowned at him. Why try something he was sure wouldn’t work when he hadn’t even tried something he thought might? “Please,” he added.“You’re wasting time,” Anna said. “Having me here isn’t going to make any difference.”“Anna!” He turned toward her and gritted his teeth. He sighed. “Please.”Anna huffed, anger twisting her heart into knots. “Fine. If that’s what you want,” she said. She backed away, and he just watched. Didn’t say anything. It only made her angrier. Maybe Doctor McKay was right.#“Don’t worry about it. Tomorrow, she’ll be fine. Like nothing ever happened.” Radek paused and stared at the screen. Like he would forget about this tomorrow. What were the odds Anna would? “You are such an idiot.”Of course, Anna would not be fine tomorrow. She was right, anyway. Radek usually knew exactly what he was doing. And, in this case when Rodney had the unfortunate circumstance of a security officer in his brain, he knew what he was doing far better than Rodney did.He did know exactly what he was doing! So why would he let Colonel Sheppard talk him into something he knew was a bad idea?“You are. You really are,” he said to himself. “You are an idiot of the highest degree.”“Zelenka?”“Yes?” Radek turned around in his chair.Collins stared at him.So he’d been talking out loud. He just hoped it was all in Czech. “How are the simulations going?” Radek asked, leaning back in his chair to see Collins’ laptop.“Better since we got to clean up that mess you had before…” Collins answered.“Better.” Radek chuckled. “Define better.”“It’s unlikely to explode in our faces.” Collins laughed. “Which is better than the first test you and Doctor McKay ran. Schreiber told me all about it. I can’t believe Doctor McKay made that many mistakes.”“Don’t be too hard on him.” Radek sighed. Or maybe they should be. This was probably going to be the one time in their lives when Rodney was obviously wrong. Granted, there was the two-consciousnesses-in-one-brain thing. A security officer talking over every higher brain function, probably because she didn’t have any.That wasn’t fair to Cadman, either. Cadman was supposed to be some kind of explosives expert. Even Radek admired her technical expertise in that area.“Rodney’s not infallible,” Radek finished.Collins chuckled. It was something of a running joke between them, but Radek usually only took part when Rodney was out of earshot. Rodney would be the first to object, the last to let slide a joke which, true or not, was even the slightest bit damaging to his delicate ego.“But I heard that transformers weren’t the only things blowing up in here,” Collins continued.Radek looked over the top of his laptop screen. “You heard about that, too?” he wondered. Atlantis was like a small town: sometimes it seemed news traveled faster than the speed of sound.“Heard about it?” Collins chuckled. “I think the Genii heard about it.”That didn’t make him feel any better. “From whom?”“I was working with Anna on her homework.” Collins looked a bit sheepish. “She was going to ask you to help translate it, but I guess she changed her mind.”“Great,” Radek mumbled. “I’m sure there’s nothing else I can do wrong today… What time is it?”“Late,” Collins said.“We missed dinner, late; or it’s almost breakfast, late?” Radek asked.“Somewhere in between?” Collins said, looking for a clock somewhere. The lack of immediately available clocks explained a lot of late nights. “It’s almost one.”Radek sighed and leaned back in his chair again. That explained a lot. It explained why his eyelids were heavy, his stomach was growling, and his temper was becoming shorter by the minute. There were two options as far as Radek saw it. “We can go sleep for a few hours or brew a few cups of coffee.”Collins smiled, but he rather looked like he was in pain.“I don’t like those options, either…” Radek sighed. He picked up a transformer bit and turned it in his fingers. “Hard to imagine something this… ugly could convert raw power like that into something so… ordered.”“It doesn’t fit with my personal definition of Wraith, either,” Collins admitted.It seemed so very un-Wraith that it wasn’t just unlikely. It seemed downright impossible. It had been their experience that most of their systems interfaced with Wraith technology in a way that was at least passable.This was something else entirely. This was like Ancient tech. They’d worked for a long time in Antarctica to make things like their tablets work as seamlessly as they did. They basically built entirely new platforms and operating systems made precisely to work with Ancient systems.They didn’t have that kind of time for this.“I don’t think this is going to work,” he said finally.“The transformer?” Collins asked, looking at their cobbled version of a Wraith transformer. It was pretty good at transforming energy into fire, but that was about it.“Probably.” He didn’t know exactly what he meant. Maybe he meant their brains. They weren’t working, either. “This is too crude. We need something more… structured.” Radek looked at Collins. His face was completely blank. “We need some sleep.”“That, I can agree to.”“We will reconvene at five,” Radek said.“I owe you a drink. Or three.”Radek looked around. Rodney wasn’t here, or else he was insulting them from afar. “For?”“I wasn’t there, but calling someone Fumbles McStupid in front of everyone on Atlantis a new low. Even for Rodney.”“Oh.” Radek sighed. “We’ll drink to Rodney’s health after we fix this problem.”That apparently sounded good to Collins because he was already gone. And before Radek could ask him how Anna’s studying went, too. Before he could ask just what, exactly, Anna had told him. At least the other members of the science team refrained from calling him Doctor Fumbles McStupid, in public, anyway.But maybe Rodney was right.Don’t be an idiot. Rodney wasn’t right. He wasn’t infallible. Neither of them were.Just because Radek often gave more evidence of his fallibility didn’t mean anything…He stopped by the empty mess hall for a sandwich and brought it back to his room. He stood outside his door, looking at Anna’s for a long time. She was probably asleep. Shouldn’t wake her.Didn’t know what he would say if he did…He went into his own room and looked at the sparkling lights of Atlantis while he ate. He had four hours to sleep. Four long, blessed hours, free of Rodney and any sound other than the breeze drifting past his open window.#“That’s it?” Anna asked. She slid the tablet closer to him on the desk.Doctor Beckett nodded at the same time took a gulp of his coffee. “Yes, that’s it.” Doctor Beckett pointed at the diagram of a cell on her tablet. “I’d say you’ve got the basics of cellular respiration down quite well.” He paused and looked around at the empty infirmary. “Don’t you think you should get to bed now?”She shrugged. “I think everyone will be too busy working on the McKay/Cadman problem to do any lessons tomorrow. I might as well sleep in.”“Hm.” Doctor Beckett didn’t seem too pleased, but he was interrupted when Doctor McKay popped into the room. “Rodney?” he asked.Doctor McKay stopped. There was definitely something distinctly not-McKay about him. Something. Everything. He sauntered, swayed when he took a step. And when he put his hand on his hip, it made Anna want to squirm.“Busy?” Doctor McKay asked.“No, no.” Doctor Beckett cast a glance at Anna, then back to Doctor McKay. “We’re just doing homework. Come in. How are you feeling?”Doctor McKay waved that away. “Fine.” He looked at Anna. “Anna. I realize I probably shouldn’t have said what I did in the hangar earlier today. I’m sorry about that.”“Um… really?” Anna asked. “I mean, it’s okay.” Even though it wasn’t really. She didn’t know what else to say, though. Obviously, someone had replaced Doctor McKay with someone who looked the same but was much… creepier.“Are you sure you’re okay?” Doctor Beckett asked.“Oh, yeah,” Doctor McKay said. “Mainly because of Cadman. She’s calming, you know. Between us,” he paused to gesture between the three of them, “I am damned lucky it was her.”Doctor Beckett frowned. “Should you, uh…”“Oh, she’s asleep. Can’t hear a thing.”Doctor Beckett cast a glance at Anna and smiled. He nodded at Rodney. “Well, yes. She seems like a lovely lady.”“Aw,” Doctor McKay said, patting Doctor Beckett’s hand. “That is so nice.” He left his hand on Doctor Beckett’s for a moment too long. Doctor Beckett’s discomfort was plain, even for someone as socially inept as Doctor McKay. He backed away and cleared his throat. “So, hey, um, you want to do me a favor?”Anna almost burst out laughing when Doctor Beckett immediately paled.“You know, you want to, uh, ride shotgun on this date tomorrow night?” Doctor McKay asked.“With Doctor Brown?” Doctor Beckett asked.“Katie,” Doctor McKay corrected.“You’re going through with it?”“I’ve cancelled on her so many times.” Doctor McKay shrugged, looking so apologetic that it was clear he was under the influence of an alien entity. “I don’t want to mess this up.”“But…” Doctor Beckett glanced at Anna. He went from white as a ghost to beet red in three seconds flat. “What do you want me to do?”“Listen,” Doctor McKay said. “I don’t think it’s any big secret that I am terrible with women.”“And humans in general,” Anna spoke up.Doctor McKay looked at her. For a moment, Anna wondered what his response would be. Far be it from Doctor McKay to be anything but perfect, right? But he laughed.“Right.” He pointed at her as if she’d said something a little more significant. “Well, having someone there to cut me off when I start making a fool of myself would be a great help.” He leaned on the desk, hip out in a way that Anna was sure she would never see again from Doctor McKay. “I’d consider it a personal favor.”“Okay, Rodney,” Doctor Beckett said with a small smile. “Fine.”“Great!” Doctor McKay rounded the desk to pat Doctor Beckett on both shoulders. He practically skipped away before turning back. “And thanks!” He waved and left.Anna paused long enough to make sure Doctor McKay was out of earshot. She glanced at Doctor Beckett. He still looked traumatized.“To nebyl Doctor McKay.” * She giggled.It was the first time in a long time that she actually laughed. Doctor Beckett laughed, too.“Definitely not,” Doctor Beckett agreed, still laughing. Still, he stood up, probably about to go after Doctor McKay’s body to see what was going on. “What was your first clue?”Anna grinned. “He apologized.”

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Anna swung her legs off the balcony over the stairs, her tablet lying next to her. Off. She hadn’t started any of her most recent assignments. She hadn’t done anything today at all. Radek had skipped out on dinner last night and breakfast this morning. She heard the door open when he came and left last night, but didn’t bother saying hello.“Anna.” She turned at the sound of Teyla’s voice.Anna forced a smile for her, but she honestly didn’t know what to think of Teyla yet. Her people were, like Doctor Beckett had said, lovely. She was a leader among them with many friends and she had a position of respect here.She just didn’t interact with the science team a lot.“Hello, Teyla.”“Are you waiting for someone, or…?” Teyla sat down next to her, leaning on one of the wires. She looked around below them.“No,” Anna answered.“This is a lovely spot,” she said. She sounded surprised.It was truth. This was the best view Anna had found off a balcony thus far, not counting the one in the control room. It had a nice view of the ‘gate, the windows. This one was far above the mess hall, a sort of maintenance catwalk. It had a view of the ocean and all the people coming in and out. Radek had showed it to her when they first arrived.“What are you doing up here?” Anna turned her eyes from the two botanists below to Teyla.“I saw you from down there.” Teyla pointed toward the corner, to Ronon’s usual table. He was sitting there now, kicked back and looking up at them. When Teyla pointed, he waved. Teyla waved back. “I mean, we saw you.”“Ah.” Anna nodded and rested her chin on the wire. “I’m not bothering anyone.” It was why she was up here. She was in the way everywhere else.“Ronon and I were going to the gym to spar,” Teyla said. “We were wondering if you would like to join us?”Her? “Spar?” Anna almost laughed.“You looked bored,” she explained.“Well, I am,” Anna admitted. She sighed.Teyla smiled. “You do not have to participate if you do not wish, but Ronon is an accomplished fighter and I have taught many Athosian children—and Colonel Sheppard—the basics of self-defense.”Anna grinned. “Just the basics?”Teyla laughed. “He wasn’t ready for anything else.”“Okay.” Anna picked up her tablet and stood. Teyla stood beside her. “I guess it couldn’t really be a waste of time.”#Ronon halted in front of her. He was much taller, broader, and in every way more intimidating than she was. Much more intimidating than when he sat in the mess hall over a mountain of food. She really doubted her ability to defend herself against anything significant when he leaned over and looked her in the eye with his dark ones.Momentarily mystified, she almost ignored whatever he was going to say.“You know how many pounds of pressure it takes to crush a larynx?”So much for not paying attention.Her hand went to her throat almost involuntarily. She shook her head, not that she would ever want to know. But she guessed if it was a choice between being physically assaulted and crushing someone’s larynx, she’d better choose the latter.“Twelve.”“Oh.” Twelve pounds didn’t sound like a lot. On the other hand, she hoped her larynx was stronger than that.“Do you know how many pounds of pressure even someone like you can put into a punch?”Even someone like you. What did that mean? She was slight, yes. She was the daughter of a scientist and she was certainly more likely to be seen hunched over a tablet than pounding a punching bag. “You mean someone that couldn’t lift her own weight?” she asked.He was right. She was a weakling…“Fifty.”Teyla looked amused from the sidelines. Anna had just watched them almost kill each other. Ronon stopped just short of that. Anna didn’t doubt that he could have killed Teyla—for all her ability—if he’d wanted to. Apparently he’d been killing with nothing but that fancy gun and his bare hands for something like seven years. That was really something.Ronon paced before her like a military commander. And, for a split second, Anna almost forgot that she was “some scientist’s daughter,” as Ronon had called her. “Don’t underestimate an enemy’s strengths,” he said. “But don’t underestimate an enemy’s weaknesses, either. Everything can be killed.”“Ronon.” Teyla raised her eyebrows in a warning fashion.He glanced back at her. “Did you wanna say something?”Teyla sighed and stood. “What he’s trying to say, Anna, is that everyone has the ability to defend themselves with a little bit of training.”“Even someone like me,” Anna finished.“No…” Teyla sounded thoughtful, smiled. “No, all of us.”Anna looked up at Ronon. He pursed his lips. “That’s not what I was trying to say, but it sounds good,” he said. Then he looked at Anna more directly. “You’re pretty young and small. I doubt you’re going to be starting many fights.”“Have you met Doctor McKay?” she asked.Teyla grinned at Ronon, who also smiled. Nevertheless, Ronon waved that away. “Just in case your first fight isn’t with McKay, we’ll start with defense.”Teyla nodded her approval and faced Ronon.“Your attacker will most likely be bigger than you,” Teyla said, gesturing to Ronon. He was a good head and shoulder above Teyla, too. “But that doesn’t mean that you can’t stand your ground.”“Or not,” Ronon put in. He took a step forward into Teyla’s space.Teyla feinted back and to one side. “Giving ground doesn’t necessarily mean you’re losing.”“The point is to get out in one piece.” Ronon pulled his two sticks from his belt—Teyla had called them bantos—flipped them in the air once, and then handed one to Teyla. “We’re going to attack you—slowly. Your job is to not get hit.”Anna nodded. She figured if they put a stick in her hands, she wouldn’t know how to use it. She’d trip on it even if she wasn’t on the ground. To see Anna at her school’s spring dance, no one would ever guess her mother was an avid dancer…Still couldn’t guess that. She almost got hit in the face by Ronon’s stick twice, but he had excellent control.“Get used to using your feet,” Ronon said. He jumped around like a boxer.“But,” Teyla put in, “you don’t have to use such big movements.” She slinked to one side on her toes like a cat. “You’re small. That’s not a disadvantage.” Ronon gave Teyla another attack, this one about ten times faster, and Teyla got out of the way and to Ronon’s back easily.Ronon twirled and swung his stick, but Teyla feinted back before ducking back in. Her arm was in perfect position to take a good crack at Ronon’s ribs.Almost as quickly as before, Ronon spun and backed up at the same time, lashing out with a wicked haymaker, stick in hand. This time, Teyla took the attack head on, crashing right into his arm. She swept back Ronon’s shoulder, ducked under his arm, and watched him recover before she could do anything else.Anna backed up to watch Ronon and Teyla continue their dance of not-quite-killing-each-other. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get this. I’m better at watching.” Anna shook her head apologetically.Ronon stopped, and Teyla almost hit him in the ribs with her stick. She stopped, of course, a centimeter away from him.“Anna, how did you become so good at math and science?” Teyla asked.Anna sighed. Math and science were a bit different. She was born with a brain that took to figures easily. She was also born with the equivalent of two left feet. She always had, even her mother said so. She probably would have loved if Anna enjoyed dancing as much as she did, but it was no good. Excellent vision, pattern recognition, a good ear, and more than passable hand-eye coordination.Two left feet. Some people could duplicate motion. Anna was not one of those people.She was pretty good at figuring out what people wanted to hear, though. She sighed. “Practice.”“This is no different,” Teyla said. “But, of course, you aren’t required to learn.”Ronon didn’t look like he agreed with that sentiment at all. He shook his head as he put his stick under his arm. “Sitting back and watching doesn’t cut it,” he said to her.Anna looked at Teyla. That was something that most people on Atlantis seemed to have in common. Even Radek. They did things. Sometimes they did it wrong. Sometimes there was no right answer. Sometimes they had two left feet. But at least they acted.Still, Teyla smiled at Ronon. “This is true,” she said. She turned to Anna. “Perhaps we were going too fast. We’ll go back to the set.”Ronon shrugged.Anna got the feeling that he didn’t quite respect “her type.” The scientist-type. The type whose version of “doing” involved more thinking. The type that was Radek Zelenka’s daughter. She set her jaw and nodded. She had to try, at least.She stepped back onto the floor where they practiced and worked through the motions that Teyla had shown her. A block above the head, then to the side. What she called a “wing block.” Low. It looked beautiful when Teyla and Ronon did it.Anna supposed she looked more like a stumbling cow.Anna wasn’t sure how long they practiced, but Teyla and Ronon took turns practicing the blocking set with her. She felt herself becoming better and better, faster and more fluid. Her arms were tired and her legs felt like Jell-O, but Teyla and Ronon didn’t even look tired. Anna decided, for some reason, she wouldn’t stop until they did.Suddenly, Ronon put one of the attacks out of order. Instead of panicking and getting almost hit with Ronon’s stick, she moved to block him.He stopped, backing up a step. He lowered his stick. Teyla looked just as surprised as Anna felt that she’d managed to block his blow without being hit in the face.He just grinned. “Better.”Anna gasped for breath. For some reason, she was more scared now than when Ronon offered a different attack that she wasn’t expecting. And she’d blocked it…She dropped her stick and sat on the floor. Not the best idea, since she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to get back up now… “Why did you do that?”“Not everything has to fit in,” Ronon said. He looked at her seriously, probably recalling their conversation from earlier. They had nothing in common… Nothing except the fact that they were nothing like Atlantis. Nothing like the people around them. They were unexpected.Teyla nodded and sat on the floor next to Anna, tapping her shoulder with her own. “But that doesn’t mean it does not belong.”

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Anna tried not to think about how cute the little critters were. After all, odds were pretty good the two mice would be fried, erased, misassembled, or otherwise destroyed in the next five minutes. Maybe they had an extra one lying around somewhere that wouldn’t make a good test subject for whatever reason.Anna remember in time that she probably wouldn’t have time for a pet.She put the mouse back in the box. Radek was busy explaining what, exactly, he was testing. He’d explained it to Anna about an hour ago. She’d almost understood it.Doctor McKay was obviously distracted. “Great,” he said after Radek finished speaking. His tone definitely didn’t say he thought it was great. “Good thinking. Can we just see it?”Elizabeth glanced at Doctor McKay. “Anxious?”“Yes.” He looked at her like the answer was obvious.Anna couldn’t blame him for that. She was anxious, too.“Okay,” Radek said. “Firing.”He tapped the controls and the beam enveloped the mice. Anna slid to his side to look at the life signs on his screen. So far, so good, little mice. Even if they were a bit dematerialized at the moment.“Life signs holding steady,” Radek reported. Anna thought she heard everyone holding their breath. “Now rematerialization initiated.”The beam shot out and then cut off. So much for that. Two roughly mouse-shaped pieces of carbon sat in the box where the mice had been only a moment before.“Now, I’m no scientist, but those mice used to be a different color,” Colonel Sheppard said, looking at Radek. Meanwhile, Doctor McKay said something perfectly fatalistic and stormed out of the hangar.Anna watched the empty doorway Doctor McKay disappeared through, and then looked at Colonel Sheppard. “This is your fault, you know,” Anna said. She was in so much trouble…“Anna,” Radek snapped.“No. It’s important to do something even if you don’t know what to do,” Anna said. “But you wanted to wait! You wanted to learn more about the machine like Doctor McKay said before you tried anything.”“Wait a second.” Colonel Sheppard held his hands up. “It’s my fault?” He looked pretty confused and indignant. Anna didn’t blame him… She was fifteen and he was largely in charge of this outfit. But that didn’t mean she was wrong.“No, Colonel,” Radek said.“Yes,” Anna interrupted. “You wanted to pick a life sign and rematerialize it before anyone even knew what was happening. This isn’t his fault.” She looked at Radek. She could tell he hadn’t slept at all last night.And he was angry. She wasn’t coming out of her room for a week. If she was lucky. And just about forget going offworld ever again.“No one is blaming your dad, Anna,” Elizabeth offered.“Whatever,” Anna sighed and started to walk away. “I mean… yes. You’re right. I’m sorry, Colonel Sheppard.”Colonel Sheppard didn’t say anything, not with words anyway. Anna couldn’t tell what he looked like. He didn’t look angry, though. He almost looked apologetic or maybe understanding. It didn’t matter.She left the hangar and made it all the way down the hall before Radek caught up with her.“Anna—wait.” Radek jogged up behind her.Anna stopped walking, but didn’t turn to face him. “I wasn’t wrong,” she said.“Yes—I mean—you were wrong, Anna. You can’t talk to Colonel Sheppard—no, anyone—that way.” Anna didn’t know where he got that. Probably because he’d used that philosophy with such great success over the years… “But you’re also right. Colonel Sheppard said he’s not a scientist. I am. I do not always stand by my work like I should.”Anna nodded. Never stood up to Doctor McKay, either. She guessed certain things were just too much to ask for. “I have to talk to Jennifer about biology,” she said.“Oh… that’s fine.” Radek nodded, looked at her critically. “We will talk later.”Anna pretended she didn’t hear him. She pretended she didn’t just lie to his face. The last thing she wanted was to have this conversation again, but extended. She swung into the nearest transporter and watched him walk away as the doors shut before her.She picked the dot on the south-east pier. The room was empty and lonely, as usual. She wandered in circles around the room a few times before she went to her room. Maybe she did need a mouse.#“Am I bothering you?” Weir stood on the other side of the desk next to him. She asked questions sometimes, but mostly she just nodded obligingly when he muttered some English-Czech hybrid of technobabble.Where was Collins when he needed him?“Please,” Radek chuckled. “No. It’s more convenient this way.”“Convenient?” Elizabeth smiled a little. “What does that mean?”“I wanted to ask you a question after I quit for the night. It saves me the trip to your office.”“Anna?” Elizabeth asked as though it were a guess. She pulled up a chair and leaned on his desk. Put her head in one of her delicate hands, drumming her fingers in sequence.It was her hands, really.But that led him to her green eyes, and from there it didn’t much matter what he wanted to say. Words never came out right, anyway. Besides, once he got to the eyes, he had to say something before she got the idea that it wasn’t always one-hundred percent for Anna he visited her office with increasing frequency.It was always about Anna, and that wasn’t a lie. Radek doubted Elizabeth would have noticed him at all, without the extraordinary circumstances that took them shopping at the Chapel Hills Mall in Colorado Springs. A perfectly innocent invitation, even though Elizabeth was intelligent and beautiful. Exactly the sort of woman he’d hope to find the company of if he were on Earth… Or maybe Earth wasn’t required.No, he knew what Elizabeth thought about that. He tried his best to stop thinking about it.He shrugged helplessly and looked down. Unfortunately, that never lasted long if he didn’t have something insistent to direct his attention. “What am I doing wrong?”Elizabeth smiled. Maybe it was her smile, too. “Why do you have to be doing something wrong? You didn’t think this was going to be easy?”“Of course, not.” He shook his head, hoping that might reset his thoughts. It seemed to work.He didn’t realize how utterly consuming his job here was. It was convenient last year. There was little time to think, even about impending disaster, because they were all working so hard to solve whatever problem there was before them, sometimes working on the next three disasters in hopes to avert them. His job was his life. His life was his job. It was pretty much how he liked it.But now… Anna’s life had taken precedence. He found himself staring into blank space, his cursor over lines of code where he’d been searching for errors only to dwell on the impossible error of bringing Anna here. He wondered if she was happy, wondered how she could be. Was she lonely? She had to miss her mother. She had to be bored of school work, but there was little else to do. She had to be ashamed of him.He didn’t know how to handle his own life, much less someone else’s.“I did notice that she was a little…”“You did more than notice.” Radek shook his head and turned back to the Wraith dart. He’d still rather face a Wraith, and it had been months… “She shouted at Colonel Sheppard. She’s been shouting at me. I think the only things she’s treated kindly have been the mice.”Elizabeth laughed. “Would it disturb you if I thought that was normal?”“Yes,” he mumbled. It was not normal. He didn’t care what anyone said. Someone was doing something wrong. He was willing to bet it was him. “I think I’ve made a terrible mistake, Elizabeth. We’ve been back… what, a week, maybe? Two?” he asked.Not that he thought things would be any better on Earth. It would be better for his nerves, anyway. He knew dealing with Anna and Rodney at once would put a strain on his already delicately-allocated social resources.It was never going to be easy, here or on Earth. At least here he had some support. He had no one in Colorado Springs. He didn’t expect to call his little sister every time he and Anna had an argument, did he? She had a five-year-old, he had a fifteen-year-old. Why did he think those two were analogous?She shrugged in response. “Give it a little more time, Radek.”“Time.” He sniffed in disdain. He never had time. He hated this part of the job, being under the gun all the time. He figured if he could just direct his schedule as he saw fit, he might…But no. That was how it was before, wasn’t it? Before, when he still had Eliška. He always found a way to be busy, busier than he had reason to be. That was what got him here in the Pegasus galaxy. He was a damn good scientist. But that was also what got him here in this conversation.He was an equally bad husband and father.“I have only just gotten her back and I’m losing her.” He paused. “Or maybe I never did get her back…”“She still doesn’t talk to you much, does she?” Elizabeth asked.He shook his head. He never knew what to say to Anna. He could feel the ache of her loss whenever they were in the same room. She bristled at almost anything he said, especially lately. That wasn’t his fault, was it?“I think she resents me,” he admitted. “I don’t blame her. I was in another galaxy when her mother was dying, but…”Elizabeth sighed and shook her head. “She doesn’t resent you. I’m sure of it. Just because she’s mad at the universe, doesn’t mean she’s mad at you.”That didn’t make sense. If she was angry at the universe, surely he was included in that? Last time he checked, they shared the same universe. On the other hand, maybe they didn’t. Radek didn’t understand her at all. Maybe they were from separate universes. Metaphorically speaking, of course.It made sense. He chuckled and turned back to the mice. “Maybe. Best laid plans, I suppose.”“That’s all we can do,” Elizabeth agreed. She took a deep breath and looked around. “Well, I heard there are some delicious pastrami and cucumber sandwiches at this hour. Care to join me?”Radek almost simply nodded. Almost said yes. It was just another thing to eat up his time. They were both professionals. They were colleagues. It would never work.What was he fooling himself for? That wasn’t what she was asking at all.“Ah, no,” he said quietly. “Thank you. But I need to get to sleep so I can…” He gestured vaguely at the mice. “Get back to this.”“Ah.” She smiled. “Alright. Well. Sleep well.”“You, too.”She walked out of the lab. Radek sighed and sank back into his chair, kicking back into the middle of the room. He ran his hand through his hair. Why was he sweating?

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Jennifer grinned and took a drink of her juice. “I don’t know. He is kinda cute.”Anna giggled and looked around. She figured this was as close as she was going to get to high school gossip. It was nice to know that adults were pretty much just like children sometimes… Or maybe that was the opposite of nice. Anna hadn’t quite decided.Even still, when Anna told Jennifer she was taking the day off of school work, Jennifer offered to join her for lunch. Jennifer seemed like the closest to her in age and temperament. Even if that wasn’t true, Jennifer was kind enough to take Anna’s mind off things with trivial conversation.“Kind of cute,” Anna repeated. “I don’t think so.”Anna didn’t have anything against Doctor Moreau, but she also couldn’t dream of affixing the adjective “cute” to him, either. He was pretty average, maybe a little on the chubby side for the typically immaculate physical condition of everyone on Atlantis. He spoke French, English, and assorted botanical languages. But it was easy to think someone was cute when they showed so much interest and had an endless supply of roses.“All right. How about you?” Jennifer asked, looking around them.Anna grimaced and looked. They were all pretty… old. In comparison, of course. Still, Anna knew exactly who she thought was cute, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. She shook her head and blushed. “Not Doctor Moreau.”Jennifer laughed. “Not here—to you, we’re all probably old geezers. You went to the mainland, didn’t you? I probably won’t know who you’re talking about, but I’ll be going every now and again for a few days…”Anna shook her head. “No, no one on the mainland…”Jennifer gave her a sideways squint as she lifted one hand, Anna thought, to ask her to wait a moment. “Hold that thought; I don’t want to miss a single word.” She held her hand to her ear to activate her ear piece, still grinning. Then her smile disappeared. “He what?” She looked at Anna with grave concern. “Is he okay?”“Who?” Anna whispered.“Yes, of course. I’ll be there in just a second.” Jennifer rose, picking up her bottle of apple juice. “Doctor McKay had a seizure.”“A what?” Anna stood, too.Jennifer was already walking out of the mess hall. “A seizure. Carson has to take care of him, so I’m get to fill in for an hour or so.” She tossed a look back at Anna. “Sorry.”Anna shrugged in response, not mentioning that she didn’t know what Jennifer meant by that word. The look on her face meant that Doctor McKay was getting worse, though. “Is he okay?”Jennifer didn’t answer immediately. “Yeah, I think so.”Anna fell in step next to her. She was relieved she wouldn’t have to divulge her silly crush, but sad the conversation was over. If something was wrong with Rodney, though, she was willing to bet Radek would be there, too. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be there.But she should check on Rodney, right? He was sort of important to her education and to Atlantis as a whole. He was sure of himself even when he was wrong.“Can I come?” she asked. “To see if he’s okay?”Jennifer shrugged. “If you want to. I’m not sure what kind of bedrest Carson has him put on.” She was quiet for a moment and then said, “I’m not sure if he’s awake yet.”Anna took a deep breath to arrest the heavy weight of worry on her chest. It didn’t help very much. “Should I be worried?”Jennifer smiled and shook her head. “I’m sure he’ll be fine. Your dad is working on a solution to get Cadman her own body back. I’m sure that it will work out just fine.”Anna nodded and hung back. “I’ll come by later.” She wasn’t sure if Jennifer heard her.It was a long day with nothing to do and everyone mostly preoccupied with the issue of McKay/Cadman, and that issue seemed to only be getting worse. She still had no idea what a seizure was, and almost no idea where anyone else was. Radek was probably slaving away over the Wraith dart, trying to undo his mistake… his mistake of rematerializing Doctor McKay at Colonel Sheppard’s less-than-informed command.Anna finally looked up from her studying in the mess hall at seven o’clock and realized that Radek hadn’t been in there to eat. He must have been hungry.He was an adult. He could come and get his own food if he wanted to.She decided to visit Doctor McKay instead. She traced her way through the huge, open halls until she reached the infirmary. Doctor McKay sat on a gurney distant from the door with a platter of food on his lap. He picked at it.Anna could think of no better indication that something was wrong with him.He glanced up when she entered, rolled his eyes and looked back down. Anna didn’t know what exactly warranted that response from him, but she walked to his bedside anyway. Maybe he was waiting for someone to have some good news.Anna wouldn’t have any good news.“What is it?” He looked around. “Zelenka send you to tell me it’s hopeless?”Anna shook her head. “I haven’t talked to Radek.”“Oh.” He looked a bit brighter, but confused. “Why are you here, then?”“To be your company,” Anna said. She sat on the gurney next to him and crossed her legs. “Alone in a hospital room is probably the worst thing to be.”He nodded tentatively, like he wasn’t sure that was the worst thing. He rolled a Brussels sprout over on his plate. “Drowning?” he suggested.“That’s a pretty bad way to die,” Anna allowed. Maybe she hadn’t said what she meant correctly. “But alone in the hospital room is the worst way to live.”“Hm.” He nodded, slowly. Maybe she’d said something wrong again. He chuckled darkly and tapped his temple. “Not alone.”Anna smiled. “Are you both okay?”“Aside from the seizures,” Doctor McKay mumbled. “Great.” He put his plate aside and then looked back ahead. Tapped his fingers on his legs like he was waiting for something. “Yeah… It’s not like—”Anna waited. Maybe he was going to explain seizures. On the other hand, he sounded kind of irritated, so she could only guess what was about to come next. Finally, Doctor McKay heaved a huge sigh.“Listen, uh, Anna, I should probably apologize that you were there for that,” he said suddenly, quickly. “My, uh… I probably shouldn’t have said those things. To Radek, I mean.”Anna shrugged and looked down at her hands. “You were right, anyway.”Doctor McKay seemed indignant. “What do you mean by that?”“He shouldn’t have rematerialized you. He should have done something different,” Anna explained. “He knew that, but he didn’t. He doesn’t…” He doesn’t, what? He doesn’t listen? To himself? Other people? He doesn’t even notice. “He doesn’t do anything right.”“No, no, no,” Doctor McKay said. “Remember what—”“He does, but he doesn’t.” Anna felt a little bad for interrupting, but Doctor McKay obviously had no idea what she was talking about. And why should he?Radek was never there, not ever. That was all she ever remembered her mother saying about him a year ago. Sometimes she would even get mad that Anna still kept that picture of the three of them at the park on her desk. Not always, but sometimes she did. She’d say that wasn’t Radek. Maybe it was who Radek wanted to be once, but he’d never gotten there. Or maybe he decided he didn’t want to be that person after all.And then when Máma got sick, she tried to lie, like Anna hadn’t been there for years.“You don’t know what I mean, Doctor McKay. You were wrong to say those things, but you weren’t wrong about what you said,” she finished.“Wait a second.” Rodney looked up with finality, locking her in the gaze of his weird, ice blue eyes. Darker than Radek’s eyes, somehow. “Wait. I was wrong, and I’m sorry. Look, it’s not any big secret that I’m terrible with people. And, yeah, while it was a very stressful situation I know I… you know, I should be more careful about what I say. No one deserves that kind of disrespect.”Anna blinked once. Everyone said that Doctor McKay never apologized.“And, for the record, your dad is one of the best scientists I know,” Doctor McKay added.They stared at each other in stunned silence. Doctor McKay looked rather certain about himself for a few seconds, and then his mind seemed to catch up with what his mouth said. He shriveled a little, nodded a bit and murmured, “Yeah…”Anna didn’t know what to say.“How’s the homework going?” Doctor McKay asked.Anna shrugged in response. “It’s fine. I know how to reroute power to and from a lot of things on the Daedalus, but not… everything.”“It wasn’t everything. Not even close,” Doctor McKay objected. “There were no more than twenty items on that list.”“It’s not fair that I can’t ask for help,” Anna said.“You have the Daedalus simulation. What else do you want?”“I need to guess?”“You’ll end up learning way more than twenty rerouting paths that way.”Anna sniffed. “I guess we’re lucky that not everything has to work that way.” She grinned a little, remembering Doctor Jackson’s stories. “Or else you’d still be on Earth waiting for everyone else to figure out how the Stargate works.”“That’s true, but we aren’t on Earth, are we?” Doctor McKay suddenly paused. For a very long moment, he didn’t say anything. He didn’t move.Was he having a seizure?“Wait. The ‘gate! We can use the ‘gate.”“You mean for you and Lieutenant Cadman?”“The ‘gate dematerializes you as you step into it, sending your information to the next ‘gate so it can be rematerialized on the other side.” He paused, then nodded. “Yes, of course.” Maybe to something Lieutenant Cadman said.Anna didn’t see how that would help them since the information was already in the dart. Then she remembered… the control crystals Radek was looking at—oh, it seemed like ages ago now. “Can you do that?” She watched Doctor McKay slide off the gurney and tie on his bathrobe. “Interface the crystal control modules with the dart?”“I don’t have time to explain this to you.” Doctor McKay was already on his way out the door. “Tell Carson I went—I don’t know—somewhere.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

He’d always been pretty healthy. Hypoglycemic, a little sensitive to certain soaps and fabrics and probably allergic to latex and definitely allergic to citrus. But beyond those things, he was incredibly healthy. He’d never been sick, to his knowledge. He never got the flu in his life, never so much as broke a bone.Seizures were terrifying. He’d never had his brain turn on him like that.He understood as much as he needed to. The synapses in his brain lighting up like a Christmas tree, cascading from one side to the other without nothing to stop it. Nothing to stop it until it just ran itself out of places to go. His every breath hung off the edge of anxiety that it would happen again. It made him sick to his stomach.Rodney… Cadman wondered quietly.“Hm.”
They’ll figure it out, okay?
She was delusional. He scoffed and picked up a brussels sprout. Cadman must have ordered, because—why, exactly, would Rodney want to eat brussels sprouts on his death bed? “Yeah, Zelenka and what army? Because he’ll need an army. He’s done nothing but screw everything up since—I don’t know, I was in a Wraith dart, so I can’t tell you exactly when.” Probably being born. What could have possessed Zelenka to do this to him? Did he really hate him that much?
Okay, okay, maybe, but he didn’t do this on purpose. He’s trying to fix it. Everyone’s working on trying to fix it.
“I need to be trying to fix it,” Rodney grumbled. He sighed and Cadman stayed quiet for once. He heard footsteps at the doorway. It was Anna. Rodney rolled his eyes and looked back down at his plate. “What is it? Zelenka send you to tell me it’s hopeless?”Because it was hopeless. And Zelenka probably didn’t have the guts to face Rodney himself right now. Why should he?“I haven’t talked to Radek,” Anna answered.“Oh.” Well, that was… weird. “Why are you here, then?”Anna crossed the floor to hop up on the gurney next to Rodney’s. “To be your company,” she said. Rodney watched curiously as she folded her hands in her lap and looked up at him sympathetically. “Alone in a hospital room is probably the worst thing to be.”Rodney could have laughed. That wasn’t the worst way to die by far. Rodney had kept a running tally. Dying alone in a hospital was actually one of the better ways to die, especially with all the terrible ways there were in this galaxy alone.“Drowning,” he corrected. It was certainly one of the worst. Given a few seconds, he could come up with a few better.“That’s a pretty bad way to die.” Anna hesitated, like she was going to argue. Maybe she didn’t know what drowning was like. “But alone in a hospital is the worst way to live.”“Hm.” He looked down, nodding a little. He fully expected to die alone in a hospital room. Maybe. In his darkest moments, he did, anyway. Sometimes he imagined he’d find a nice girl, get married, but, face it… There was no one in two galaxies who would think he was worth the grief. There was no one in two galaxies that he wanted to deal with for long enough, either. Why was everyone so stupid?Well, she’s right, you know.He tapped his head. “Not alone.”Anna smiled. “Are you both okay?”“Aside from the seizures…” Rodney muttered, Cadman’s voice interrupting his thoughts.
Not too bad, I guess. Except that McKay’s body is basically a disaster.
“Great,” Rodney finished. At this point, he almost wished he would die. At least it would be quiet, then.No, no, no. Zelenka was going to figure it out. He had to.Rodney… Cadman said gently, effectively interrupting his thoughts along that line. Well enough; if he thought about it too long, he’d realize how hopeless it was. You should apologize to her. For what you said to Zelenka. She was there, remember?“Yeah…” Rodney mumbled, tapping his fingers impatiently. He remembered perfectly, and… well, yeah, he probably should have waited until Anna was in another room to call Zelenka, Doctor Fumbles McStupid, shouldn’t he have? He hadn’t considered that.
Well, her relationship with him is kind of delicate right now. How do you think she felt with you calling her dad names like that in front of everyone?
“It’s not like—”Rodney didn’t know how he would have finished that, since Cadman was pretty insistent.
Rodney! Apologize.
Rodney sighed and looked at Anna. Like he expected, she looked a little confused. Rodney was a little confused. But it Cadman wasn’t going to shut up… “Listen, uh, Anna, I should probably apologize that you were there for that. My, uh…” Nope, nope, it was actually Zelenka’s fault, right? Rodney didn’t do anything here. He was the victim. Right? “I probably shouldn’t have said those things,” he finished. “To Radek, I mean.”Oh, Cadman scoffed. Nice apology. No wonder you don’t have any friends.Anna said something, but Rodney didn’t hear what it was. “What do you mean by that?” he asked.“He shouldn’t have rematerialized you,” Anna answered. Oh, good, she thought he was talking to her. And she was exactly right about that, too. “He should have some something different. He knew that, but he didn’t. He doesn’t… he doesn’t do anything right.”Oh, no, Rodney, you have to stop her, Cadman thought urgently. Here, let me—No, no, no—what was she doing? Rodney felt his hand raise, but it wasn’t him. “No, no, no, remember what—”Too late—damnit Cadman! Was she trying to kill them? Was she even listening to what Anna was saying? What was she saying?“You were wrong to say those things, but you weren’t wrong about what you said,” Anna said.“Wait a second,” Rodney heard his voice saying.
Cadman, stop, no, no, no. Cadman. Cadman. Cadman.
The woman was a professional at ignoring the things going on in her own brain, wasn’t she? That explained a whole lot, actually. Cadman. Stop it, it’s my body—and you can’t apologize for me! That’s cheating, or something.“And, for the record, your dad is one of the best scientists I’ve ever met.”Oh, nice. Rodney hoped no one else was around to hear that come out of his mouth. It would be just his luck if Zelenka was outside right now, listening.You bet it’s cheating, Cadman thought, slinking into the background. Now, was that so hard?Rodney sighed, grateful to feel his lungs fill with oxygen on his command. Anna was staring at him. He was staring at Anna. What had she just heard him say? It couldn’t have been too terrible.“Yeah…” Rodney mumbled, for lack of anything else to say.Anna hesitated for a long while, not saying anything.Rodney didn’t know what to say, but the silence was killing him. “So…” he said, just to fill the air with his own voice saying what he told it to. “How’s the homework going?”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Radek sighed and fell into the chair. He couldn’t remember the last time he was this tired. But the remembrance of Rodney planting a kiss on an unsuspecting Carson was one he wasn’t soon to forget. Even if it wasn’t actually Rodney.In the meantime, he didn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. It was probably in the last twenty-four hours, since he was reasonably certain he’d eaten since he last slept.But when had he last slept?“Whatever, whatever…” He stirred his chicken soup. It didn’t matter when he last ate. He was eating now.“Cursing your soup?”Radek glanced up. He did not need this right now. “Hello, Doctor Weir.”“May I?” Elizabeth gestured at the place across from Radek.“What the hell,” he mumbled. “Please.”Elizabeth didn’t look convinced, but she sat anyway. She had a sandwich. Radek went straight for the canned chicken soup tonight. The best decision he’d made in a week. It was still too hot to eat, but he had hopes that it would soothe his throat. It was probably just sore from yelling at Rodney so much in the past few days.Or had he been yelling? He knew he was yelled at. And the yelling only got louder as the days wore on.“Are you alright?” she asked, unwrapping her sandwich.“Yes.” He slid his glasses off his face and rubbed his eyes. “Just exhausted, I think.”Elizabeth looked sympathetic while Radek tried his soup. It almost burned his tongue off.“You’ve been working nonstop since Rodney got stuck in that dart so… that’s not surprising.”No. It wasn’t surprising at all. He hadn’t seen Anna in days—he lost count how many days—except when he was arguing with her. Atlantis was stressful by itself. Rodney was a handful. What made him think he could handle this place, Rodney, and Anna?Why was he still having this conversation with himself?He slurped up more soup, trying to ignore how hot it was. “How is Anna?” He was always asking everyone else this. Why did he not already know?“She seems fine,” Elizabeth said with a smile. “I think I saw her working on simulations of the Daedalus earlier today… She seemed pretty frustrated, to be honest.” She chuckled, and Radek didn’t know what seemed so funny. It was never funny to be frustrated. “Doctor Collins told me Rodney said she wasn’t allowed to ask for help, so I didn’t press it.”“Of course. Rodney.”Elizabeth frowned. “Are you sure you’re alright?”“Yes, I’m fine. I am just tired.” He looked into his soup bowl. He was so hungry he could have eaten more than a few sandwiches, but he also needed sleep. He wasn’t sure what he needed more, to be honest. But chatting with Elizabeth about his daughter wasn’t on that list.“Okay…” She was certainly not convinced. “Do you need anything?”He paused and looked up. “No.” He stirred the soup a few more times.Best to just finish and go to bed. He could figure out everything else tomorrow. Tomorrow, except that Rodney was expecting him to help with the puddle jumper they were taking out on their next excursion through the ‘gate.He finished his soup and stood. “I don’t mean to be rude.”“You’re not.” Elizabeth smiled up at him. Why did she have to do that—why did she have to smile like that? “I just wanted to tell you. Good work today. Okay?”And then lie right to his face. “Okay, thank you.”He hurried away. What in the world was she talking about? Certainly not this day. Certainly not any of the previous days, either. They’d been a disaster. Everything he’d tried to do—nothing turned out right. He turned into the transporter, relieved to be alone for just a few seconds. No one could yell at him in here. Not Rodney. Not Colonel Sheppard. Not Anna.Elizabeth was just trying to be nice, probably. Why would she do that? Because she didn’t know… didn’t know how excruciating it was.The south-east pier opened before him, dark and empty. Everyone else had long since gone to bed… except everyone kept up by the Rodney/Cadman problem. And tomorrow he could choose between more sleep or breakfast.The door slid open. A lamp was on near the chair by the window. Even though she was the only one in the room, Anna sat on the floor, reading under the lamp.He decided not to bring that up. Instead, he asked, “You’re still up?”“So are you.”“Well, yeah, but if I could have been asleep hours ago, I would have been.” He looked at the book she was reading and then out the window. Had those lights always been that bright? He slid out of his jacket and tossed it on the nearest seat.“Did Rodney’s idea work?”“Yes. It worked.” Just like everything Rodney ever tried. Every stupid idea he ever had, somehow it managed to not kill everyone. It drove Radek crazy. Interfacing Ancient ‘gate crystals with a Wraith dart? Who would think of that? It wasn’t Radek’s fault that Rodney’s stupid ideas worked when there was no reason they should have.No wonder everyone treated Rodney like a god.Anna smiled. “Good.”“Yes, good.” He looked toward his bedroom. Even though he desperately wanted to be sleeping right now, he hadn’t really talked to Anna in a while. So he sat down in a chair near her and tried to think of something to say. “Elizabeth told me that Rodney gave you a difficult assignment.”Anna shrugged. “It’s just tedious.”“About the Daedalus?” he prodded.“Rerouting power through different junctions. He wants me to do trial-and-error.”Radek nodded. There was a little bit of sense in that, he supposed. He remembered telling her that they would talk later about something, but he couldn’t remember what it was. It was something unpleasant. He looked at her, pursed his lips.“Are you alright?” he asked.“I was about to ask you the same thing…”“I’m exhausted.”She nodded a little. “I’m alright.”He didn’t believe her. Not really. Well, he didn’t know what alright meant. He wanted to ask her if she was happy. At least, not miserable. Did she regret coming to the Pegasus galaxy with him? Did she enjoy learning from these people who were so obviously not teachers?Did she think he was as terribly incompetent as everyone else on Atlantis?“Good.” It wasn’t what he wanted to say, but it was all he could think to say. He sighed and shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know… can we talk tomorrow?”She nodded. “Sure.”She was just obliging him. She didn’t really want to talk—and who could blame her? He wasn’t exactly a great conversationalist when he wasn’t exhausted. Was he? He didn’t remember. When was the last time he wasn’t tired? He didn’t remember that, either.He went to his room and closed the blinds on his window. Tonight, Atlantis seemed too bright.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“You don’t look very well,” Anna said quietly. He seemed to be eating his hot soup—a strange breakfast choice to her view—very slowly. He shaded his eyes from outside. They were also speaking Czech in public. Speaking English seemed too complicated for him today.“I’m fine,” Radek answered. Of course, he would say that. Still, it was obviously not true. He looked like a member of the walking dead at the moment. “I will just go to bed very early tonight.”“So you can get up very early tomorrow morning?” Anna asked. He didn’t respond, which didn’t exactly inspire her confidence. “Just tell Doctor McKay that you’re sick and you can’t make it today.”He actually laughed. It would have given her some hope that sleep was actually all he needed, except he coughed violently in the middle of it. “No. I will be fine. Thank you for your concern, though.”Anna shook her head and shrugged. He was at everyone else’s beck and call around here, but when Anna suggested that he take a day off for his own health, he shrugged her off. That was fine. She didn’t really care anyway.“Alright, fine,” she said. “I meet with Colonel Sheppard and Ronon today to learn how to use a handgun.”That got his attention. “You what today?”“I think it’s called a Beretta?”“No, you will not.”“It’s like gym.”“Except it is very much not gym.” He looked around and then back at her as though he was worried someone was listening to them. “You actually want to learn how to… shoot guns?”Anna shrugged. It wasn’t so much about the guns at this point. “Sure.”He leaned back in his chair and sighed. It seemed to be sinking in. Anna couldn’t believe it would be a very big deal in Atlantis. There were guns everywhere and none of them available to her without an escort like Colonel Sheppard.“If that’s what you want…” he said finally.She nodded. She wasn’t convinced she wanted. But she’d already agreed. Maybe she should wait to mention that Ronon had offered knife-throwing lessons. It would be a lot to mention in the span of five minutes.“I am excited. It’ll be different.”“Different, yes.”“Doctor McKay carries a gun,” she offered. Sometimes he did.“Don’t remind me.”She laughed a little. Maybe he wasn’t the best comparison. Besides, it wasn’t like she would be shooting a Beretta today, going through the Stargate tomorrow. It was just fun. She didn’t feel like she had a lot of that these days. No friends, and no fun. Maybe she should have voted to stay in Colorado. Who cared what Doctor McKay wanted? Radek might get an actual chance at being a dad, then.“Just be safe, my little girl.” He paused, closed his eyes. “Anna.”Anna went back to her breakfast. He would remember eventually to call her by her name. How hard could it possibly be?“I have to go.” Radek stood up. He squinted at her. “I will see you at dinner. If Rodney lets us have dinner.”Anna shook her head. “He’s hypoglycemic.”“The rest of us aren’t.”Anna frowned. “I’m sure he’s breaking many labor laws.”Radek smirked. “Probably.” He walked off.Anna watched him leave. She couldn’t help a small smile. She finished up her breakfast and went to join Colonel Sheppard and Ronon. They had been here the whole time that she and Radek had been, but they hadn’t eaten. They were both probably already up and done before Anna realized it was daylight. Colonel Sheppard struck her as the type to rise early, anyway.“Colonel Sheppard!” she called.Colonel Sheppard looked up at her with a smile when she approached their table. “Ready?”Anna nodded. At least… she hoped she was.“What did your dad say?”“He was fine with it.” In the sense he wasn’t 100% against it, anyway.Colonel Sheppard grinned. “Great.”#Colonel Sheppard finally let go of the handgun, leaving it solely in her hands. He showed her how to hold it. It felt heavy, but like it fit perfectly. She didn’t know how to prepare for the “kickback” he told her about.She peered through her combination of glasses and goggles toward the target. It was a round shape, though Ronon and Sheppard set up human silhouettes next to hers. Anna imagined Radek wouldn’t be very pleased if she nailed a headshot her first time out.“Whenever you’re ready,” Colonel Sheppard said.Anna nodded slowly and took aim carefully. Yep, if this were a real situation, the Wraith would have eaten her a long time ago. Of course, with Wraith it didn’t seem to matter if they were shot accurately. They just kept coming. It was better to put as many bullets in them as possible, not to hit them any specific place.She took a deep breath. Pulled the trigger.She didn’t realize she’d blinked until she opened her eyes and tried to figure out if she’d hit the target or not. Colonel Sheppard leaned over to look at her target. He nodded. “Not bad.”“Where is it?” Anna asked. She didn’t see the bullet hole where she’d aimed, that was for sure…“Top left corner.” Colonel Sheppard motioned in that direction.When Anna searched there she found her hole in the fourth ring, above and left of the center. She frowned and shook her head. That wasn’t where she’d aimed at all. And it wasn’t “not bad” either. It was pretty awful.“You hit the target,” Colonel Sheppard said. “That’s better than a lot of the scientists in your dad’s team could do their first time.”Anna smiled a little, trying to imagine Radek with a gun.It was hard to imagine.“You’re not scared of it,” Ronon put in. “That’s good.” He picked up a handgun of his own and looked at it. He unloaded the clip into the silhouette’s head. Anna smirked. Maybe someday she could do that, too.“Not scared of it,” Colonel Sheppard agreed. “But you do respect it.”Anna certainly respected it. It didn’t help that she was imagining herself taking aim at a Wraith while actually aiming at a paper target.“Give it another shot,” Colonel Sheppard said. “We’ll have you in the center before the end of the hour.” He glanced at his watch and nodded.Anna raised the gun again. It was difficult, since Colonel Sheppard had given her a field vest, loaded with a few more clips. Anna thought she saw a fruit and nut bar in one of the pockets. It was heavy and too big for her.But this was apparently what everyone wore when they went offworld. Anna figured that if she wanted to go offworld for something more exciting than an empty field after a culling, she’d have to learn how to do this, too. Of course… she wasn’t sure she wanted to go offworld.While Anna squinted at the target, trying to figure out how to keep her hands steady while she pulled the trigger, he looked at Ronon. “Ready for your first mission?” he asked.Ronon shrugged. “Sounds fun.”He wasn’t sarcastic, but he wasn’t exactly sincere, either.Anna closed one eye. Switched eyes.“It helps if you keep both eyes open,” Colonel Sheppard offered.“Yes, thank you.” Anna snapped both of her eyes open. The target blurred in front of the sight. She glanced over to see Ronon grinning in amusement. She moved her eyes to Colonel Sheppard. He looked a bit more serious, but he was obviously enjoying himself, too.Anna took a deep breath. Trigger.“Better.”How did he see so quickly? Anna was the one aiming and she didn’t really know where her bullet was going. But he was right, this time was better. The hole was just one ring away from the center, but so close to the center that Anna figured it might as well be. She smiled in spite of herself.“Where did you get your hand-eye coordination? It didn’t come from Zelenka,” Colonel Sheppard chuckled.Anna smiled and shrugged. “My mom was a dancer, so…”Colonel Sheppard’s eyebrows arched in interest. “Your dad and a dancer.” He seemed to consider that for a moment. He looked at Ronon, who just had a smirk to betray any thoughts. Colonel Sheppard must have decided it was too hard to believe, so he shook his head.“It wasn’t her job. She was just very good at it. She loved dancing,” Anna said. But she didn’t inherit any of that. “She was a teacher.”“Of course. Science?” Colonel Sheppard asked.“Math.” She didn’t bother saying what kind of math. He looked like the kind of guy who would be impressed by any kind of math. But, then, she’d been surprised by him before. He knew a few phrases in Czech and he said them really well. Maybe he was smarter than he looked.“That makes more sense. I mean, dancing…”
He stopped.Anna didn’t know why that made more sense. “Well, we all did,” Anna said quietly. Some of her fondest memories of them as a family. Her mother would take them to community celebrations with folk dancing. Anna was too young to have much coordination—and she didn’t have much when she was older, either—but she loved watching everyone else. And, even if she wasn’t good at it, she loved participating.She blinked away the memory and looked at the target. This time she’d hit it.“I still think she should try this,” Ronon said while she was busy lining up the sights. She saw him pull his own handgun out of his belt in her periphery.“That thing kicks back like a horse,” Sheppard said. “It’ll hit her in the face.”Ronon almost laughed—as close as he got, anyway. He didn’t say anything. Instead, he blew the head off the silhouette with his weapon.Colonel Sheppard shook his head in disgust… or admiration. Anna wasn’t sure which.She pulled the trigger.Finally. “There!”Sheppard nodded his approval. “Nice.” He looked down at his watch. “Five minutes. See? That didn’t take long.” He went to the next stall and took aim, fired, and tilted his head at the target. Dead-center in the silhouette’s torso.Anna sighed. Sheppard could line up a dozen shots in the time it took her to do one. She raised her gun again and took aim. She’d get better. She had all day.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Anna couldn’t believe that she was going to be the one dragging Radek out of bed this morning. Or else he’d already gone and gotten breakfast and just forgotten her. It would be a strange thing to forget. She buzzed his door and waited. Buzzed it again.The door finally opened. He looked like death warmed over. He coughed and squinted—though the latter may have been because he wasn’t wearing his glasses. He wasn’t wearing his uniform, either, just a t-shirt and shorts.“Are you okay?” she asked.He put his head down, blocking the sunlight from his eyes. “I am coming down with something.” He sniffed. He turned back into the darkness of his room.Anna stepped into the doorway and looked around. Of course, he was coming down with something… He already had whatever it was yesterday, but did he listen to her? Maybe this would teach him. “Should I get Doctor Beckett?”“No.” It sounded hard for him to speak. Anna wasn’t sure what that meant. He sat on the edge of his bed and put his head in his hands. “I think it’s just a cold or something.” He coughed like he might lose a lung and laid back down. He picked his head up and looked toward the doorway. “Can you close the door please?”Anna stepped back out of the room and stood staring at the closed door for a few moments. She had wondered if she could or would navigate Atlantis in the bustle of the early morning alone. She’d been alone during the rest of the day, of course, when it was relatively empty and everyone was already where they were supposed to be. She usually waited to venture out until that time.This morning would be an adventure. Because she was certainly hungry.She stepped out of the room to see all the usual people going to all the usual places. She boarded the transporter stood quietly while all the important people selected their destinations. Soon enough she was the only one in there… And she didn’t know where to go.She finally opted for the infirmary. It probably wasn’t a big deal. It sure looked like a cold or the flu or something. The Pegasus galaxy flu? Unless someone brought it with them from Earth.Anna stood in the entrance to the infirmary for a few moments. It seemed like a slow morning. She looked around. Doctor Beckett and Jennifer were sharing an early morning coffee and apparently talking about something important.Jennifer saw her first. “Good morning, Anna. What are you doing here so early? I thought we weren’t meeting until well after lunch.” She looked around like she thought maybe she’d gotten the time horribly wrong.“Yes,” Anna said. “I’m not here for lessons. Radek is sick…”“Oh?” Doctor Beckett looked concerned. “Is he coughing? Congested?” She nodded. “Light-sensitive?” When Anna paused, he looked for other words. “Citlivý na světlo?” * When she nodded, he looked at Jennifer. “Seems to be going around.” He went to a nearby shelf and picked off a package of medicine.“What is it?” Anna asked.“Nothing to be concerned about, love. A few people from Doctor McKay’s science team have come down with flu-like symptoms, too. I’ll go check up on him, bring decongestants and… bring these…” He continued talking to himself as he rounded the shelf. “Jennifer, can you hold down the fort?”Jennifer nodded with a grin. “Absolutely.” She looked at Anna. “Also want to make sure he’s drinking lots of fluids.”“But not coffee,” Doctor Beckett put in. “If it is the flu, he’ll want to sleep through it.” He looked at the medications in his hands. “Ah, but I’ll tell him that myself.” He walked out of the infirmary, leaving Anna and Jennifer standing in the otherwise empty room.Jennifer turned to Anna. “So what’s on the list for you today?” she asked.Anna shrugged. She wondered if he had already told Doctor McKay he was sick and not going to be there. “I think I’ll go to Doctor McKay’s lab and tell him that Radek is sick.”“Oh, better hurry,” Jennifer said. “He’s going offworld later this morning.”Anna had to imagine that Doctor McKay wouldn’t care, but someone else might.Atlantis in the early morning was busy, but tranquil at the same time. It was, for some reason, the time of day most people decided to run their errands. Down long, window-lined hallways, the city’s tall towers cast bars of shadows. The morning’s sea air seemed stronger and sweeter than the rest of the day… At least, it did to Anna. Maybe she wasn’t quite used to it.The stairs up to the lab were wide. Anna couldn’t imagine them being used to full capacity, ever. The scientists that worked there didn’t seem to use them very often. Just in the morning when they came, and the afternoon when they left. Sometimes the middle of the night when they left…She looked into Doctor McKay’s lab.“Yes, what?” Doctor McKay looked up before she could say anything. He looked around her and past her. “Oh. Zelenka isn’t coming either.”Anna shook her head. “Doctor Beckett thinks he has the flu.”“Yeah, him and everyone else.” Doctor McKay spun in his chair to face Collins. “Why aren’t you sick, hm?”“I’ve always had a healthy immune system,” Collins answered absently, not even looking at him. Collins had his face decidedly rested in his hands as he stared at his screen. He periodically tapped his temples. Didn’t generally look very pleased.Doctor McKay didn’t pay any attention to that. “He’ll be out a few days, then?” Doctor McKay asked her, spinning back around. He didn’t give Anna a chance to answer, probably because he already knew the answer. “I suppose that means you’re on your own today. Unless you’d prefer I leave you in Collins’ uniquely incapable hands.”“At least I’m unique,” Collins said.“And I mean that sincerely,” Doctor McKay said with a grin. “I think you could use a break to get that scenario I assigned—what was it, last week?—finished.”“Sounds like a good break,” Anna said. She’d taken so long on it simply because Elizabeth wanted a paper on ancient Earth cultures compared to what they knew of the Ancients of this city. It was a lot of reading. A lot of inferring. A lot of guessing.And it was a lot of English.“I thought this one wouldn’t take you as long,” Doctor McKay said.“I have a paper,” Anna said. She smiled. “And you didn’t give me a deadline.”“Hm.” Doctor McKay looked back at his computer screen. “I’ll be sure to correct that next time. Your dad also has a problem with deadlines. Of course, his deadlines are usually more literal.”“McKay.” Collins looked up from his computer with a smug look on his face.“What is it?” Doctor McKay asked.“Speaking of deadlines,” Collins said. “Weren’t you supposed to be in the jumper bay… now?”Doctor McKay looked at his computer screen—apparently at a clock there. “Crap.” He gathered his tablet and bolted past Anna.Collins watched with amusement and then looked at her. “Let me know if you need help on that. Whatever it is. I’d appreciate the diversion.”“Thank you.” She went to Doctor McKay’s chair and jumped up. She spun toward his computer screen, where lines of code sat waiting for any additions. She would have loved to know what he was working on and how it worked, but they’d thus far refrained from giving her any useful information on the code that helped Atlantis run.She spun toward Collins. “What are you working on?”He glanced up a moment, then back at his screen. “Just streamlining a few things for the power distribution,” he said. “Even though we have the ZPM now, the Naqahdah generators are backups and supplements if needed.”Anna nodded like she understood every word of that. It wasn’t the words that were the problem, anyway. “Can I watch?”He chuckled. “I’m not exactly doing anything to watch right now. There’s some sort of error in here and I cannot find it for the life of me.”Anna scooted her chair around behind Collins.“Doctor McKay wanted to get you into Asgard/Human coding before you touched Ancient/Human,” he said.“I don’t know just Human coding, yet.”“You have the books, don’t you?” Collins asked. He hesitated only a moment to tap his cursor up a few lines, where he added a bracket, and then a few words while he spoke. “Maybe you should start there.”The man was a marvel. Talking and typing English at the same time. English, less-thans, greater-thans, slashes, hyphens, and periods. He spoke English and Ancient/Human coding.Even still, learning just Human coding seemed so boring. She’d touched on the most basic computer languages at home, and she always thought they were interesting. And then she’d learned that there were aliens. That sort of ruined everything.Anna sighed and nodded. “I guess.”He paused his typing and looked over his shoulder at her. “But the best way to learn is to do.”#“Good lord. You look like hell.”Radek didn't appreciate Carson's observation, but he wasn't going to argue. He probably did. “Oh, really?” he mumbled, walking back into the room after opening the door. He shaded his eyes from the light outside and kept his eyes on the floor, but it didn't do any good. “I feel like it, too.”He could only barely see the room, but at least it was about in the same condition as it was every day. Living with Anna was very much like living alone. Except that sometimes there was someone else to talk to in the room. Or not talk to, as it happened. He vaguely remembered her speaking to him earlier... was it earlier? Anyway, he didn't remember talking back.“No wonder.” Carson emptied some drugs out of his pockets onto the nearby counter while Radek all but collapsed on the couch and covered his eyes. “Don't worry about it. It's probably not serious. Seems to be going around.”“I'm not worried,” Radek grumbled. At this point, he didn't care if it did kill him. This was the worst cold or flu or whatever the hell it was, ever. “I told Anna I'd be fine. I don't really need a house call.”Radek squinted up when Carson came next to the couch. “She doesn't want you to suffer,” Carson said, but Radek couldn't make out whether his mouth was moving when he said it. “That's good, right?”“Yeah, it's good.” It was touching, really. She probably thought he'd suffered enough this past week.His head pounded, his eyes watered, and every muscle felt tight and limp at the same time. Every time he breath tickled his lungs to the point of coughing fits that lasted a good five minutes sometimes. “Since you're here, you have anything so that I can sleep?” he asked hopefully. Sleep like a rock or a log or any other inanimate object that didn't have to see or feel anything for a very long time.“Aye. Let me have a look at you first. Sit up.”Radek was uninterested in a checkup, but Carson had the power of drugs. He did as he was told. Carson scanned him with a little handheld Ancient device, clicking his tongue in disappointment. “You need to take better care of yourself, Radek.”“I eat three good meals a day. Sometimes I even eat vegetables.”Carson chuckled as he swept his stethoscope from around his neck and put it on. “Was that a joke?”Radek smiled. Damn, even smiling hurt. He closed his eyes and hung his head. It might have been a joke. “I don't know anymore.”“Take a deep breath please,” Carson said, pressing the stethoscope on Radek's chest.Radek tried to take a deep breath, but, well, good luck with that. A violent fit of coughs seized his lungs, not letting him breathe for what felt like minutes. Carson might have been talking to him, but he couldn't hear over the spasms of his diaphragm. After what felt like an eternity, Carson helped him lie back on the couch.“Alright, don't take any more deep breaths,” Carson mumbled.That was supposed to be a joke, too.Radek gave him a half-hearted thumbs up and covered his eyes with one hand. “Sorry.”“You're sick,” Carson mumbled, continuing his examination. “No need to apologize.” Radek was mostly unaware of what was going on for the next few minutes except that his eyes had begun to ache. That was a whole new level of awful. “Alright, your lymph nodes are swollen, and you have a high fever. I'm not worried, but I'm not sure if this is some new strain we haven't encountered from this galaxy, or something from ours. We're running tests to see, but in the meantime, I'm going to come back to see you tonight.”“I'll be here.” Probably right in this exact spot. He didn't think he could stand anymore. Or move at all, really.Carson sighed. “Okay. Well.” He slapped a pair of pills into Radek's hand. “That'll let you sleep. It'll take about thirty minutes to kick in. In the meantime... uh... is that a tea kettle?”Radek looked through his cracked fingers to see the blurry image of Carson silhouetted against the window. “Yeah, Anna drinks tea.”“Perfect.” Carson went to put the kettle on and started humming pleasantly. It was incredibly loud for some reason.Radek swallowed the two little pills Carson gave him and hoped he was exaggerating about the thirty minutes. He put his head back on the armrest and contemplated the insides of his eyelids for a few seconds. “How did she seem?”“Who?”“Who else?”“Um...”Radek pushed himself up onto his elbows and glared in Carson's direction. Sort of. He couldn't help but squint even though the window was beyond his field of vision. “Anna, Carson. Who the hell do you think I'm talking about?”Carson shrugged helplessly. “I don't know, maybe there was some lady in the science department I didn't know about.”Radek flopped back down onto the couch before realizing what a huge mistake that was. His head felt like a drum beaten by a particularly enthusiastic middle school marching band. The whole band. He threw his hands over his eyes and tried not to breathe. Breathing just made everything worse.“Anna seemed fine,” Carson answered. “A little bored, maybe.”He didn't answer and he hoped Carson understood. This was awful. He just needed the sun to set. Just needed to sleep. “Carson,” he said quietly. “Could you close the windows, please?”Carson didn't move for a second before crossing the floor uncertainly. “Yeah, of course. Sorry, I don't know why I didn't do that when I came in.”“It's fine, I…” He didn't think of it either, until just now. The room fell into comparative darkness and pounding in his head lessened. That was something.What felt like a few seconds later, Carson was tapping his shoulder and handing him a steaming mug. “Drink this first. Then sleep.”“I'd rather just skip all that and...”“No.” Carson put the mug squarely in his hands and helped him sit before taking the seat on the couch beside him. “Half of it, at least, then I'll let you be.”Whatever it was, it was disgusting. Or maybe it wasn't. Nothing was tasting right recently. Maybe it was just today. Today and yesterday. He took another gulp and opened his eyes, finally. He didn't realize they'd been closed. The room was so dark he could barely see anything, but he felt like he was looking right into the sun anyway.“Maybe this will teach you,” Carson mumbled.“Teach me what?” Probably a lesson he didn't need to learn. Like that lesson in humiliation he got this week. “Never mind,” he said before Carson could speak. “Tell me later. Or, better yet, never tell me. I don't want to know what I'm supposed to learn from this.”“I don't recommend taking vitamins daily for nothing, you know,” Carson said.Radek chuckled, coughed, and took another gulp of tea. Carson pulled a quilt from the nearby chair and handed it to him. Sometimes the best way to learn was to be hit over the head with his mistakes. He would start taking his vitamins. He's start telling people exactly what he thought of their idiotic ideas, especially Colonel Sheppard.Maybe.Tomorrow. He'd start doing all that tomorrow.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“If you’re looking for Doctor Weir, she’s offworld.”Anna stood at the entrance to the control room, unsure what to do with the rest of her day now. She looked down at the tablet in her hands and the paper she’d finished. She sincerely hoped the English was readable. Preferably above the level of a second-grader.We’ll work on that, Elizabeth had said.“Do you know when she’ll be back?” she asked. She walked over to Chuck’s console.Chuck shrugged. “Check in is in two hours, but you never can tell with these trade negotiations.”Anna nodded knowingly, even though she didn’t really know what it was like with trade negotiations. Maybe it took a bit longer? “So… you mean in a few days?”“Depends.” Chuck smiled. “Could be back in thirty minutes with arrows flying in on their heels.”Anna frowned.“Joking, Anna. Joking.” He looked at her tablet and then at her. “It’s not something I could help you with, is it?”Anna shook her head. On the other hand, he did speak English. “It’s a paper that was due today. It’s alright.”It wasn’t that unusual that offworld missions put back her assignments a few days. For being in charge of Atlantis, Elizabeth was not on Atlantis surprisingly often, even in the last three weeks. She was a foreign dignitary to other worlds, and the few peoples they’d made friends with liked to know exactly who they were dealing with.“Oh. Well, I probably wouldn’t be able to help with that,” Chuck said.Anna shook her head. Not that she meant to agree so readily. But this also meant she had nothing to do. Chuck, apparently, didn’t either. It was getting later and Atlantis was running on its overnight skeleton crew. Anna didn’t know if Chuck was here because he was supposed to be or because he wanted to see Doctor Weir safely back.“What do you do when you’re waiting for the teams to come back in the middle of the night?” Anna asked.Chuck smiled sheepishly and reached under his console. He pulled out a notebook and flipped it open to the first page. It was a pencil drawing of the ‘gate, and what looked like Sheppard’s team. It was just shadows in the shape of humans, but Anna was pretty certain. Not amazing, but not by any means awful, either.He probably had lots of time to practice.“Nice,” Anna said. “Is that Colonel Sheppard?” She pointed to the distinct silhouette.Chuck smiled at her. “Yeah.” He looked back at the picture. “You could tell?”Anna shrugged. “It just looks like him.” She looked around at the only other person in the control room. Anna didn’t know what she was working on.“You have any hobbies?” Chuck asked.“I play violin…” Anna said. “I haven’t played recently.” Time certainly got away on Atlantis.“Do you play chess?”Anna wondered where that came from. “I used to. Why? Do you?” She joined the chess club at school, but only because a few classmates begged her. It would have been too small without her.“Not usually,” Chuck answered. “I was just wondering because your dad plays. Pretty well from what I understand.”“Yes, he does.” He played in chess tournaments a long time ago, anyway. Taught her how to play when she was too small to understand how to think more than one step ahead. She didn’t suppose he gave up playing chess just because he’d given up teaching her chess.“Katie said the acoustics in the ‘gate room down there are fantastic. She plays the flute, so I guess she might know a thing or two about it.” Chuck grinned, like maybe this was just the sort of distraction he was looking for. “You should give it a shot.”Anna looked down toward the ‘gate room. She smiled at Chuck. “May I?”“Yeah, go get it.”Anna put the tablet down on Chuck’s console and ran to the nearest transporter. In a flash of light, she found herself in the south-east pier, dashing toward her door. A light was on when she opened it.“You’re up.” Anna scolded herself for her statement of the obvious. But he looked a little better than he did this morning. It wasn’t much of an improvement, but still.“Sort of.” His voice was quiet and hoarse. He glanced toward her from his seat on the sofa. He was wrapped in a blanket and looking at a tablet. Probably working. Did he do anything else? “What are you in such a hurry for?”“Nothing.” Anna walked in, trying to catch her breath. “I was coming to get my violin. I wanted to try the acoustics in the ‘gate room.”“Oh.” He watched her while she crossed the room and stood in front of her door.Anna paused and glanced around. “Um… can I get you anything?” He shook his head. “Jennifer said you needed to drink a lot. Do you want tea? Or I can get you crackers or something from the mess hall when I come back.”He looked around. “I suppose.” He nodded.She went into her room. Her violin sat on its stand near the window, just where she’d left it since she played for the Athosians.Radek was still watching her when she came back out into the main room, but this time he was smiling.“Have fun,” he said.She nodded, put on a smile for him. “I will, thank you.”Chuck was drawing again when she got back to the control room. She stood behind him for a few moments, watching. The Stargate, again. He was going to get very good at drawing it if that was all he did. He also had Colonel Sheppard’s shadow pretty well down.“Are you sure it’s okay?” She tapped her bow on her thigh anxiously.“Yeah, yeah.” Chuck waved that away. “I don’t think anything dangerous will be happening. And you’ll have warning before the ‘gate opens, just… don’t stand in the circle.” He smiled a little.Anna nodded and cantered down the stairs to the Stargate and halted. It seemed so much larger down here than it did from up there. The room felt hollow, her footsteps echoing in the expanse and off the blank windows. The Stargate loomed above her like a creature of infinite past, just waiting. Waiting for what, she had no idea. It had seen so much… what could it see now that would be new?She’d been down here only once, the time she’d been through the Stargate… she’d been too excited to look at it.She took in a deep breath and walked to the edge of the circle on the floor. It was inexplicable, really, that she should feel so small in the shadow of the monolithic ring. It wasn’t just her size. She felt trivial and insignificant, casting her tiny shadow inside the ‘gate’s on the red floor. A beautiful, shimmering silvery blue, with shining specks like stars in the ring.Anna raised her violin, unsure why she was playing for the Stargate. She didn’t know why, but it almost seemed wrong to play facing anything but the ‘gate.“This is from a song written about my home,” she whispered. Now she wasn’t sure why she was addressing the Stargate. But, for the moment, it seemed to be the only thing listening to her, her only audience. “It is my favorite melody.” She pressed her lips together and set her bow to the violin. She closed her eyes.Má vlast. My Homeland.She swayed to the melody—sometimes she thought it sounded victorious, other times nostalgic, and many times haunting. She tried to imagine the river the composer saw when he wrote the piece, with ruined castles and moonlight on the wild waters. It was never what she saw when she had opportunity to see the river that ran through Prague.Anna stopped. Froze really. Carefully, she lifted her bow, lowered her violin. She wasn’t even on the same planet as that river anymore, was she?She looked up at the Stargate. “Maybe something else. Something more appropriate.”She greatly enjoyed a few melody lines from Dvořák’s “New World Symphony,” so she started playing one and segued right into another. She doubted that Chuck and the other technician would tell the difference.She often wondered what Dvořák heard when he listened to his symphony. This was written in the USA, about the USA. To her ears, it sounded sad. Maybe he was sad. After all, didn’t he want Americans to find their own music, the same way he made music for his own country from old folk dances? But this was generally considered his greatest piece… and it was for a new place. About a place that wasn’t home.Maybe that was why it was a little sad.“That first one was nice,” Chuck said from the balcony above. “What was it?”“It’s a theme from ‘Die Moldau,’” she said.When Chuck nodded, it was obvious he had no idea what she was talking about. “Bach?” he guessed, but he was clearly joking.She laughed. “No. Bedřich Smetana. A Czech composer.”Chuck looked impressed at that. Anna wasn’t sure why. “And the second one?”“Antonín Dvořák. Another Czech composer.”“I guess I didn’t know there were so many Czech composers.”Anna smiled, even though she’d only played music by two. “All the greatest ones are.”She didn’t know if she believed that. She went back to playing, going back and forth between the two pieces in the bits of melody she could remember, surprised at how good the music sounded in here. She was used to the sound of the violin, but it seemed to surround her in the ‘gate room, flood the space from floor to ceiling. Even though her bow skipped a few times, and she nearly cringed at the timbre of a few notes sliding from the strings, the Stargate and Chuck didn’t seem to mind. It wasn’t a performance worthy of any recital at home… but she wasn’t at home, was she?She played until she ran out of notes.She finally lowered her violin, took a deep breath, and looked up at the Stargate. This was her Homeland. This was her New World.