Reminder:
"This is spoken English."
"This is spoken Czech."
This is a thought.

Previously: Radek is in huge trouble (since chapter 119) somewhere offworld, and presumed dead on Atlantis. All in all, not great times to be had around here…

Chapter 124. All Alright.

Today had gone by with hardly a word from anyone. Doctor Beckett sometimes stopped by her place on the gurney. Not to offer any condolences, but to let her know he was thinking about her. He'd gone to bed many hours ago, now. Jennifer sometimes stopped next to her and didn't say anything. She'd offer a reassuring pat on her shoulder before going back to work. She offered single gummy worms every now and again, apparently a necessity from Earth for soothing wounded emotions.

There wasn't anything to say, so why fill the air with meaningless words?

Anna wrapped her arms around her knees and leaned back on the wall behind her. She looked up toward the windows in the hallway, trying to figure out what time it was. It was in the afternoon. She knew that much. No wonder she was so tired…

Elizabeth walked into the infirmary and stood for almost a full minute, looking around.

"Doctor Beckett isn't here," Anna whispered.

Elizabeth glanced toward her and nodded. Her next steps were careful, like she was walking around shattered glass. Maybe she was. "Do you know where he is?"

"He was tired. He needed to sleep."

Elizabeth nodded and sat on the gurney at Anna's feet. "You look like you could use some sleep, too."

Anna nodded, her chin still on her knees. She was tired. Exhausted, really. Her eyes hurt from crying. But it was nothing, really. She was alone. She was scared. She didn't know what she was. She put her forehead on her knees and took a shaking breath. "I'm tired, but… whenever I try to sleep, I can't. I just…" She whimpered over a sob, but she had no more tears.

Elizabeth put her arm around Anna. She rested her head on Anna's, and she could feel her little quivering breaths.

Anna knew Elizabeth probably wanted to comfort her, but didn't know what to say. In a way, in a small way, she was glad she wasn't the only sad one this time. She felt like she was the only one in the world who knew her mother was gone. That wasn't true, of course. She had friends who cried, but the kind of friends who tried to tell Anna that everything would be okay eventually.

Radek had friends who knew how to say nothing.

Elizabeth suddenly sat up and tapped her radio. "Yes, this is Weir." She paused, nodded seriously. "Alright. Thank you." She tapped her radio again. "Weir to Beckett." She waited again, probably for Doctor Beckett to wake up. "You're needed in the infirmary. Yes."

Anna looked up at her, and Weir gave a little smile. "Anna… We didn't want to tell you until we were sure. Doctor Beckett ran tests on the bodies in the morgue, and they aren't Major Lorne's team."

Anna's heart skipped a beat or three. She gulped at a sudden lump in her throat and tears sprang to her eyes. She didn't know she had any left, but apparently…

"Colonel Sheppard and a team of marines found them. They're coming home."

Anna laughed and sobbed and wrapped her arms around Elizabeth. "Really? He's coming back? He's okay?"

Elizabeth returned her hug tightly. "Radek's hurt and needs surgery. But Doctor Beckett will be here."

Anna let go of Elizabeth and contemplated that. He needed surgery… that sounded bad. But it also sounded fairly mundane. People had surgery on Earth all the time. They usually didn't die from surgery.

Anna glanced at Elizabeth. "But he's okay."

"Yes. He will be."

Anna waited for what felt like minutes, trying to believe it was true.

Elizabeth didn't say anything else, because the infirmary exploded into action. Anna slid off the gurney when she saw Major Lorne shuffle in, followed by most of his team. Doctor Beckett was with them, not wearing his doctor's coat yet. Reed rolled in on a bed a couple of seconds later, unconscious and already hooked up to IVs.

Radek came next.

"Radek?" she ventured.

Then she saw the blood. Everywhere. He was unconscious.

"Radek, are you—?"

She jumped to be at his side, but Major Lorne caught her. "He'll be okay, Anna," he said. "Let Doctor Beckett do his job, 'kay?" Anna watched Doctor Beckett and the others roll Radek into surgery. She looked up at Major Lorne tearfully. "You just have to be brave for a little bit longer."

What was she supposed to do? How was she supposed to be brave? She'd already been brave, trying to face the future on Earth alone…

She didn't have any brave left.

Anna didn't know how it happened, but she ended up standing alone by the door while other doctors checked out Major Lorne and his team. Coughlin looked angry and announced after he was cleared he was going to go hit the showers. Reed was quiet, some sort of injury to his stomach dominating most of the other doctors' attention. Major Lorne said he'd stay. Anna lost track of Elizabeth, but she guessed she went to debrief. Seemed reasonable.

Major Lorne slumped into a chair near surgery and started counting his fingers. Major Lorne gave her a solid pat on the shoulder as soon as she sat in the chair next to him.

"He'll be okay, right?" Anna wasn't sure why she asked him. He wasn't a doctor. He didn't know.

Still, Major Lorne nodded, a certain frown on his face. "Oh, yeah. He'll be fine."

He sounded so sure… but Anna wondered if he would be here if he was. "What happened to him?" she asked. She didn't know if she wanted to hear the story, but she wanted to weigh the odds herself.

"Uh…" Major Lorne sighed and leaned back in his chair. "The short version is that he got shot while we were trying to escape." He looked over at her and smiled. His smile was weak and tired, but sincere and sure. "And I'll tell you the long version sometime, but not right now."

Anna nodded, and wrapped her arms around her stomach. Still hurt from crying so much.

"Hey," Major Lorne said softly a second later. His hand went to her shoulder. "You okay, kiddo?"

Anna turned her eyes away from Major Lorne. "Yeah. Radek was just dead for days, and I didn't…" She coughed and sobbed, ashamed of herself for crying at a time like this. "He's okay, though." She turned her head to see him through her blurry vision. She could only barely make him out, the movement of his head, the shapes his lips moved in. She could barely even hear him.

"Yeah, he's okay. Beckett's the best doctor in two galaxies. He'll have him all patched back together soon." He heaved a sigh, squeezed her shoulder. "Been a bad couple of days, but it'll get better from here."

Major Lorne probably had no idea. It was terrible to lose her mother to some faceless enemy with hardly a fight. But she had to imagine, for two days, the way that Radek died.

She covered her head with the remembrance of her waking nightmares. Doctor Beckett gave her a sedative after a self-induced panic attack just from mulling it over, repeating it again and again no matter what she tried to think of instead. Sometimes it was even Beckett holding a gun to Radek's head, but… but that didn't make sense.

"Hey, hey, Anna," Major Lorne said just over her wracked sobbing. He came around to kneel in front of her chair, put his hands on her knees. "It's okay, right? Your dad made it back safe. He'll be fine. He's fine."

Anna nodded, and choked on her breath. "He's fine," she repeated.

"He's fine." Major Lorne wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.

Anna returned the embrace, for the moment too baffled to cry.

"He's fine," Major Lorne said again, and pulled back. He held her shoulders to catch her eyes. "Okay?"

Anna nodded. "Okay."

Major Lorne moved back to his chair, leaning his elbows on his knees. "So, uh, 2017."

Anna sniffed, trying to figure out what he was talking about. Was something happening in that year? She would be twenty-seven. Was that important? "2017?"

"Yeah. 2017." Major Lorne smiled at her. "Prime or not prime?"

Anna couldn't help but smile as she arched an eyebrow at him in surprise. "You know it's a prime?"

With a look of mock insult, Major Lorne scoffed. "Damn right, I do. What do you think I am, an idiot?"

Absolutely not. Major Lorne and his team landed in hell, and he brought them back alive. No idiot made it to Atlantis. No idiot made if off Atlantis and back, either. "Prime," she said. "1001."

"Ah, Anna, too easy. Not prime," Major Lorne said. "2171."

"Are you trying to be tricky?" Anna asked.

"Are you?"

They played Prime/Not-Prime for at least fifteen minutes before Major Lorne ran out of primes he remembered. Anna realized how utterly exhausted she was because Major Lorne managed to slip her up with 1967. Somehow.

"I'm sorry…" she said, sighing and sinking further into her chair. "I think I… I think…"

"It's fine. It was just a distraction," Major Lorne said. He laced his fingers together, propping his forehead on his knuckles and sighed. His eyes closed.

Anna hadn't considered maybe he wanted a distraction, too. Doctor McKay fell apart like a cheap shelf when his team was in danger, maybe dead, without him. Maybe Major Lorne waited quietly when his was. Played Prime/Not Prime.

Coughlin was pronounced alright when they first got here, with the stipulation he should return the next day for blood tests, but Reed was still somewhere beyond the walls on a gurney. One of the doctors came out a little while ago to say that Reed would be okay, but they wanted to keep him a few days to make sure there was no infection. They said he was sleeping when Lorne asked if he could see him.

Even though she wasn't sure it would help, she looked at Major Lorne. "Thank you," she said.

He lifted his head, looked at her. "It's my job," he said, a distinct unasked question tinging his answer.

"This isn't."

Her answer clearly surprised him. Maybe he hadn't realized it wasn't his job, maybe the two were so interconnected that it hadn't occurred to him he could get his team out without making sure that they were actually safe after the fact.

When Doctor Beckett emerged from surgery, Anna sat up straighter. Major Lorne stood up.

"He'll be okay," Doctor Beckett said before he even reached them. "We've removed the bullet, and put in a temporary repair. He'll need another surgery to fully repair the damage, but that can wait until he's stronger."

As if he'd been holding a breath for the last few hours, Major Lorne sighed and nodded. "Thanks, Doc." He looked down at Anna, still in her chair. "You okay here?"

Anna nodded. "Yes. Thank you for staying."

"Thank you for being brave."

"You should get some sleep, Major," Doctor Beckett said.

"Yeah." Still, he made no move to leave.

At least, he didn't until Doctor Beckett looked to Anna. "Would you like to see him?"

Anna popped up out of her chair. "Can I?"

With a smile, Doctor Beckett nodded. Major Lorne left the infirmary as Anna followed Doctor Beckett to Radek's gurney up against a distant wall. He was still sleeping. He was breathing, though, so that was a good sign. She carefully, quietly stepped up to the side of his bed.

The stillness in the room crept down her spine in a shiver. She put a hand on his arm. He still didn't move. "I'm glad you're okay."

She didn't realize that Doctor Beckett was standing behind her. "I'll be here all night, so…"

"Can I stay? Prosím?" She looked up at Doctor Beckett. He smiled. Anna knew before she asked that he was going to say yes. "I know he's okay, but… I want to be here when he wakes up."

"I don't see why not." He patted the bed behind him.

"You'll tell me when he wakes up?"

"Aye." Doctor Beckett paused for a moment, as if wondering if there was something else he should do or say before walking away. Eventually, he did. He walked to his console and started typing quietly.

Anna waited by Radek's bedside for a few minutes, just staring. "Thank you. Thank you for coming back." She'd burned the image of the tag hanging from the black bag in the morgue into her brain. R Zelenka. She stared until it seemed real.

But it wasn't real.

This was.

She glanced back at Doctor Beckett once, but he was hidden behind his computer screen, concentrating on whatever was there. She spun back to Radek. "I love you, Dad," she whispered. Anna stood on her toes and gently kissed the side of Radek's forehead.

He didn't move. He wasn't going to hear her. He wasn't going to hear any of this. Maybe that's why she was saying it. Maybe that was why she called him something other than Radek. There was no one to see her cry.

Anna climbed onto the gurney across the little aisle and curled up under the sheet, watching him. He could wake up any minute now. Or maybe it could be hours. She was tired, though. Still, Anna kept her eyes open until she couldn't anymore.

Maybe someday he'd know. Maybe someday she'd tell him.

#

It was dark. He would have been worried, except that he remembered making it back through the 'gate and… He might have seen Carson. Or maybe it was Rodney. Better never tell Carson that he'd gotten them mixed up, even if it was a pain- and blood-loss-induced hallucination.

Radek pulled himself up, pleased to find that he must have been on pain killers. He loved the modern age they lived in. His right side was numb and tight, probably from sutures. But he could move and—he could breathe. Even if not comfortably, he was certainly not drowning in his own blood or coughing up clots. That was a good sign.

He looked around.

The infirmary, of course. It was dark. Not too dark to make out someone on the bed beside him and the outline of the door to the hallway. He could see the machinery between here and the medical lab next door. There were half a dozen beds between here and the entrance.

He wondered where Anna was. It must have been the middle of the night.

"Buď opatrný." Carson's quiet whisper came from nearby. Radek saw him look up over the console he hid behind. Blue reflected off his face. He looked exhausted, but he was smiling, anyway. "Nehýbejte se, you might rip your stitches. Glad to see you're feeling well, though." *

"Ano, jsem dobře." It was nice of Carson to whisper, ease him into speaking English after who knew how many hours his brain had been out of commission. Radek figured he couldn't do much more than whisper himself, anyway. Not with his breath capacity diminished like this.

"Jsem rád." ** Carson moved beside the bed, hands in his lab coat pockets. "Quite an adventure, aye?"

Radek chuckled. An adventure. That was a tame way to put it. "Yeah. I hope I never have one again." He peered at his surroundings as his eyes adjusted. He tried to figure out who was on the gurney beside him. Maybe Reed, but… Reed was much bigger.

"She's been here all day," Carson said. "She wanted to be here when you woke up, but… I think this is the most she's slept in the past two days, to be honest with you. I'd rather let her sleep."

So he didn't have to ask where Anna was. "I won't tell her if you don't."

He took as deep a breath as his lungs would allow and thought about the future again. Beyond Anna waking up to find he was perfectly fine… or would be in a few weeks. Beyond telling Anna, telling Elizabeth, telling everyone he couldn't do this anymore. He didn't care what they said or thought.

"She's a brave young lady," Carson said quietly.

"She shouldn't have to be."

Carson shrugged and took a seat on the bed behind him. "No one deserves the life Anna has, no."

Radek nodded. No one deserved this, least of all Anna. She'd already lost her mother. He shouldn't have put himself in this danger in the first place. He managed to convince himself it wasn't that dangerous.

Their last mission wasn't dangerous. It was only tea. It was weekly detail.

"But some people are just lucky, I suppose," Carson finished.

Radek whipped over to look at Carson. He regretted that, of course, but he tried not to show how much strain he'd just put on his objecting muscles. "What the hell does that mean?" he whispered, his voice giving away more of his pain than he intended. So whatever pain medications he was on didn't cut all the pain… Good to know.

Carson chuckled. "Opatrný, Radek. Your stitches." He gave him a warning look just in case Radek wasn't sure he was serious. "You know Rodney basically offered to adopt her if she wanted to stay on Atlantis?"

Radek arched an eyebrow. "He what?" He was not okay with that.

Okay, actually, Rodney would be one of only two people on Atlantis he'd be okay with adopting Anna. Elizabeth or Rodney. Rodney wouldn't exactly provide any emotional support, but he did what needed to be done for the people he… loved.

And to think, Radek once thought Rodney didn't know what love was.

Rodney loved Anna, too. That was a weird thought he wasn't sure he was okay with. Maybe just because he thought of her as his little protégé. A young mind he could save. He thought Radek was mostly worthless, but, damn, his daughter could go exciting places and do great things.

Radek was fine with that. He wouldn't pick Rodney as the one to take care of Anna should something go wrong, but it was also in her future's best interest to stay near him. He was a good teacher, a brilliant scientist, and he'd taken Anna under his wing. Radek didn't know Rodney had the capacity.

But was it really in her best interest to be in constant threat of losing her father?

Probably not…

"I was surprised, too." Carson looked thoughtful. "I wasn't surprised when she said she wanted to stay."

"Children don't always know what's best for them," Radek mumbled. And this was probably one of those cases. On the other hand, it wasn't as though being forty conferred some power of foresight to show him the right thing to do. "Of course, maybe their parents don't always, either."

Atlantis was important. More important than any single person.

He shouldn't be here. His priorities would never be right for two of the most important things he could think of. No one could have two "most importants." When the time came to decide which he would die for—which he would live for—would he make the right decision? That decision came up more often than Radek liked to admit.

Atlantis should never be that important.

"We can only do what we can. Not that I know much about it." Carson rose and looked him over once, the glint in his eyes replaced with the seriousness of his medical examination. "Are you in any pain?"

"Not if I sit still," Radek answered dutifully.

"Good. I'm afraid the most you can do for now is have a particularly brothy variety of chicken soup or sleep some more," Carson said.

If only this was the most important decision he'd have to make for the rest of his life. "I'll sleep," he mumbled. "Děkuju."

"Není zač. *** I'll be here if you need me." Carson went back to his computer, out of sight behind the monitor. Carson didn't typically use a keyboard like Rodney did, but then he wasn't usually coding or troubleshooting. No idea what he usually did.

Radek slid down on the bed, careful to not catch his bandage on the sheet. He looked toward Anna, curled up under a quilt and sound asleep. She was sixteen. She shouldn't have to worry every other day that she'd be alone in another galaxy. He arranged to send her back to his sister if something happened to him. It looked more likely today than ever.

But he couldn't let that happen.

How long did he think he could play this game? It was nice to live the dream for this long, it was nice to pretend he could have it all. But he couldn't. Not really. No one could have everything; precious few got the opportunity to choose a single thing they wanted.

Wouldn't they have to go back? Wouldn't they have to go back to Earth?

Czech Things

* Buď opatrný = be careful / Nehýbejte se = don't move

** Ano, jsem dobře = yes, I'm good / jsem rád = I'm glad

*** Děkuju = thanks / Není zač = You're welcome

Next time: Maybe nothing is okay.