Ten chapters, huzzah!

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

Last time: Radek and Anna have decided to go back to Atlantis.


Chapter 10. History.

No one knew where Rodney was.

Radek couldn't believe he was doing this…

He wandered through the halls of the SGC, listening more than looking. He usually found Rodney because he was yelling at someone.

He stopped in the conference room over the gateroom, looking down at the Milky Way ring. It was a clunky piece of technology in comparison to his Pegasus 'gates. But then, he always preferred blue to red. He rested on the window's ledge.

"Radek. I didn't know you were here."

He turned towards Elizabeth's voice, but kept his eyes on the Stargate. "Have you seen Rodney?" he asked.

"He's reviewing candidates for new science teams," she answered. "Probably trying to distract himself from his IOA review." She leaned on the ledge next to him and smiled at the Stargate. "I think he's looking for your replacement."

"Well," Radek sighed. "I hope he didn't waste too much time." He glanced at Elizabeth, couldn't help but smile when he saw her face. "I wish I could be so excited. This means going back to work for Rodney."

"Assuming your review goes well, you'll get your own department."

He didn't need his own department, but it sounded nice. Rodney would probably find something about it to ridicule. "Thank you."

"Thank you," Elizabeth threw back. "I take it that you made Anna an offer she couldn't refuse?"

More the other way around. Still, he would second-guess this moment every day of his foreseeable future. One thing was for certain: he would enjoy showing her Atlantis. She would see things, learn things, no one else would. It would be dangerous and exciting… not exactly his favorite combination of words.

"She talked me into telling her," Radek answered. "And once she learned about the Pegasus galaxy and Atlantis, I guess she decided it was really no more foreign to her than the US." It was a joke. It had to be a joke. But he didn't laugh.

Elizabeth laughed. "It's still foreign to me," she said. "But it's also still home."

Radek nodded. All of this was assuming he did a fine enough job last year. He knew he had. He did everything he was asked and more aside. He never complained even when his boss was a verbally abusive egomaniac. "When is my review?"

"Tomorrow," Elizabeth answered.

Radek looked at her askance.

"I guess it was a bit of denial on my part, but I never believed you were leaving," Elizabeth explained with a small, almost sheepish smile. "On the practical side, it would have been easier to reschedule than to cancel and have to schedule it again."

"You're all insane." Radek chuckled, but was grateful anyway. Having his review sooner rather than later was always preferable. He would have hated for it to be put off until the very last day. It would make even more difficult all the preparations he'd have to make.

"Probably, a little," Elizabeth allowed. "We did all go to another galaxy, didn't we?"

"We did."

"And we're going back. I don't know what that makes us." She laughed.

More than crazy. He laughed along with her, wondering how he'd never heard her laugh before. Atlantis wasn't exactly a pleasant place, was it? He was making a huge mistake.

Steps cantered down the stairs. Radek turned to see Rodney there, with a stack of paper rife with paperclips.

"Elizabeth, I think I've narrowed down the list," he said, adding in surprise, "Radek." He pointed at Radek and added, "You know, I think it's only fair if you help because—I would have to add additional science teams anyway, but I have to replace you and…"

"Rodney," Radek interrupted. "You can't replace me."

"Oh, I beg to differ." Rodney flipped through his stack of paper and pulled one out. "Look at this one. Where is it?" He suddenly stopped, his fingers frozen between one page and another. "What was his name? He?"

"No, my skillset has yet to be matched by anyone in any of those files." Radek walked over and took the stack of papers from his hand. "I guarantee it."

"I suppose you think you're God's gift to Atlantis, hm?" Rodney asked.

"No, that's your department," Radek said. "But, if you find someone who can stomach working with Narcissus himself, let me know and I'll gladly give up my job."

"Oh." Rodney paused, and snatched the papers back. "Oh, so you…"

"You will never use my daughter to manipulate me again."

Everyone in the room looked surprised. Radek was surprised. He'd never stood up to Rodney before. He had the feeling that he never would again. Or maybe he would if Rodney ever did something like that again.

"Well. As long as you never do something so incredibly stupid again," Rodney said.

Radek didn't know what to say to that, so he didn't. He'd run out of things to say. He walked around to Rodney's side and looked at the top page in his hand. "But if you need help selecting the candidates…"

"Ha," Rodney said, handing him half the pile anyway. "Need. That's funny. You're welcome to peruse, though."

Radek took the pile of names and accomplishments. Once, not too long ago, he had been in a pile just like that.

Elizabeth watched them, looking amused. "Thank you, Radek. I'll leave you two to it."

"Thank you, Elizabeth." Rodney watched her leave and then picked through his pile again. "Some of these people are more qualified than you," he said.

Radek nodded. It was true. It looked like one or two of them were just as qualified as Rodney. There was no measure of social skills, though. It was something that Radek prided himself on now that he'd met Rodney. Everything was relative to Rodney on Atlantis…

They both sat at the conference room table to read. While halfway through the third very impressive resume, Radek said, "Thank you, though."

"Hm, for what?"

"Keeping me from doing something stupid."

"You know I got a raise just for fixing your stupid mistakes?"

"I guess it's mutual, then."

Rodney slammed down his stack of papers. "What?"

Radek grinned and kept reading, ignoring Rodney's continuous objections.

#

It seemed like everyone knew exactly where they were going, what they were doing. No one wandered or seemed out of place. At least not in the infirmary, where she was sitting. Of course, they were inside an underground mountain complex. Everyone was wearing uniforms of some kind. Lots of them were carrying guns. Somewhere, probably in the center of the cement labyrinth, a thing called a Stargate sent people off to distant parts of the galaxy. Radek gave her a very brief overview of history since the 'gate became active. They met aliens, they found ships, Earth almost got destroyed a couple of times. For some reason, that scared her. She wasn't sure why.

They couldn't use the Stargate to go to the Pgeasus galaxy. They'd have to take a spaceship, because it took too much power to use the Stargate. Earth had spaceships.

Anna supposed that, if she were in an underground mountain complex wherein the most advanced notion of space travel was taking place… she'd have to know exactly where she was going and what she was doing, too.

She didn't know either.

Right now, the only thing she knew was that there was an insane amount of medical tests to be done for people doing to another galaxy. She guessed that made sense. She'd never had so much blood taken from her veins in her life. And it wasn't nearly as scary as she imagined.

"Anna Zelenková, I presume."

Anna whipped around at another voice speaking to her in Czech. It wasn't incredibly good, but it was a welcome sound amongst the scattered and quickly-spoken English. "Yeah," she answered.

"I'm a linguist here, but my interests are mostly ancient languages. My Czech is actually pretty terrible," he said. He smiled apologetically and sat on the gurney across from her. "My name is Daniel Jackson."

"Nice to meet you, Mister Jackson," she said, wondering if he knew she spoke English. "My English is probably worse than your Czech."

"I doubt that," he responded. "I practice when I can. Which isn't very often."

"I think I will get very good at English very soon," Anna said. She hoped that was the case, anyway. "But if you want to practice, I don't mind." Anna remembered once seeing a few American tourists in Prague asking a local to help them practice their Czech over lunch. This man was practically a professional in comparison.

"Thank you. And you can call me Daniel," he said.

Anna nodded. "Are you going to Atlantis, too?"

"No, unfortunately. I'd love to. But I'm needed here." He looked around at the walls and the ceiling. "I just talked to your dad. You're not going to an American school at all."

Anna shook her head. "It would be difficult." And awkward. It would be as if she only just started before she was to leave again. "I wouldn't be there long enough to feel like it wasn't my first day."

"I offered to teach you history while you're here," Daniel went on.

Anna found herself nodding before she really had a chance to think that through. "But you are a linguist?"

He smiled, like he'd forgotten to mention something very important. "And an archaeologist. Egyptologist. Which comes up more often than you might think exploring other planets."

Anna didn't know how long to wait for an explanation on that one. Or maybe all she had to do was ask. "I take it that means history doesn't conform to the books I've been reading," she said.

"Well, no, it's fine for the most part. An excellent interpretation if you take the aliens out of it."

"Aliens." Anna paused, grinned. Aliens on Earth, potentially altering the course of history. "Did they build the Great Wall of China?"

"No." Daniel laughed, like that was a joke. Then he took on a completely straight face like what he was about the say wasn't. "But they did build the pyramids."

"The pyramids." Was that really so far-fetched? A few rooms away, people were coming and going across the galaxy through a ring made by ancient aliens.

"Landing pads for alien spaceships." He looked like he'd been waiting for years to tell this story. "How's that? The most important history lesson you never learned."

Anna nodded. That was an understatement. And it looked like it had to be true. Alien rings. Spaceships. Ten-thousand-year-old cities in distant galaxies. "What aliens?"

Daniel glanced at the doctor flying back and forth between one machine and another. "Is she cleared to go?"

The doctor looked at Anna for a moment. "I suppose, for now. You need to come back in a few hours for some follow-up tests. No reason to keep you here if you have somewhere else to go."

Daniel grinned. "She has a lot of catching up to do."