AN: Ok, I had no intention of continuing the story, and it's not really. But I didn't feel like starting a new story; so now this story will be a repository for my Radek character studies and drabbles.

Dislaimer: I own nothing except my sour mood. Please note, minor spoilers for "Allies."

Whisper on a Scream

Radek was cold.

The spray was warm. Probably too warm, as he watched areas of his skin turn from pasty white to a distinct shade of dark pink. He didn't feel it, though. Couldn't feel much of anything. Nothing but the boulder that had taken up residence in his chest. It squeezed the air out of his lungs and threatened to cease the beating of his heart.

Part of him would have welcomed it.

Most of him was much more grounded. Shackled to reality by guilt and grief. The reasonable part of his mind yelled over and over that there was no way he could have known how events would play out. In fact, there was no way any of them could have known. It didn't matter.

He had no tears. He had not cried in a very long time. He had not felt like it in a very long time. Now, he simply did not know what to feel.

He thought idly of a lover he'd once had, on a world far away, who would continually write poetry. Radek had admired the words as they drifted across pages, allowing the emotions an outlet. He could remember bits and pieces, as he sat in the too-small shower, forehead resting on knees drawn up to his chest. Perhaps some of those scraps of paper might survive the onslaught of the world he had helped to doom.

He was useless at the moment. After the initial hours (how many hours...) of warning Earth, searching for a solution, desperately trying to solve a problem while battling with himself, keeping his guilt at bay, he'd been forced to stop. There was nothing more he could do to help the situation. He remembered the fear, sadness, panic warring behind Elizabeth's eyes as she'd told him to get some rest that night. Sleep on it. He had simply smiled without joy, telling her without words that he would be getting as much rest as she would.

He wanted to be back in the lab, or back in the command center. Anywhere that wasn't here, wasn't alone. If he could keep talking, keep thinking, keep moving, then maybe he could keep himself from feeling a bit longer. There was no use to it. What purpose did guilt serve, anyway? What stupid deity had dreamed this hell up?

Out there, he could think of helpful things; potential solutions. In here, all he could do was go over the useless 'what if's' that only hindsight could torment him with.

Before the water could leave him with burns that he would end up needing to explain to Carson, Radek leaned over to turn the water off. He sat, wet hair dripping, hypnotizing him.

Finally, he dragged himself from the floor and stood before the mirror, wiping the fog from it with his hand. He saw a bleary-eyed, scruffy old man staring back at him. As the glass fogged up again with residual steam, he turned away from it. He had no desire to try and look himself in the eye again until his friends were safely back on Atlantis, and Earth was safe.

End Notes: Title is lyrics from Kenny Wayne Shepherd's "Blue on Black."