Last time: We made it to Atlantis. We unpacked. We talked to the psychologist. I think we're settled in here. But not so settled in that you can leave me to go meet people I don't know with people I don't know on a planet I don't know.
Chapter 20. Context.
"This is one of my favorite parts of the job," Doctor Beckett said as they walked from the puddle jumper to the Athosian settlement.
He was dressed casually, but his 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.
"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 and shaking as soon as they saw the first tents in the small clearing.
Anna would have liked to live here, for a few days, perhaps. It would be a nice place to vacation.
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. They were dressed like... well, Anna hadn't seen anything like it outside a renaissance fair. Except this looked like the real thing. Their clothes looked tough and hardy, hard to rip and long-lasting. Shirts had seen all sorts of weather and trousers had knelt in mud and scrambled up trees. Everything around here had been through a lot.
Including, perhaps, the people.
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?" Teyla glanced 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 motioned for Anna to come to her. Anna glanced up at Radek, but he'd already been pulled to one side to speak to an Athosian. Anna imagined Radek would have a worse time here than she would... there was no one at all for him to talk to. Athosian technology looked limited to bows and sickles. At least music was ubiquitous.
"Jinto, this is Anna." Teyla put her hand on Anna's shoulder as soon as Anna arrived at her side. "She recently joined us on Atlantis to be with Radek."
"Anna," Jinto said with a nod. Anna found herself staring despite her attempts to not be rude. She might have tried to smile... she wasn't sure. Jinto looked like any other twelve-year-old boy she might have met anywhere. He was small, with messy hair, and dirt underneath his fingernails.
"Anna has agreed to play songs for us on her instrument later," Teyla said. "I thought you could introduce her to Iskaan and the others." Teyla nodded to encourage Jinto away.
Anna glanced at Radek. He was watching her now, but Anna couldn't tell what he thought of this whole thing. He looked like he might be having as much fun as she was. Doctor Beckett pulled him to come see the food that was laid out. Anna stood still next to Jinto.
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 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 in delight even from deep within the camp.
She cast a glance over her shoulder toward the table. She picked out Teyla from the crowd, but she couldn't see Radek. He somehow managed to blend in with the Athosians. Maybe it was his casual light-colored clothing. She saw Doctor Beckett and tried to see if Radek was nearby.
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. 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'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. Or, perhaps, it was that he didn't realize he was worried most of the time. Anything and everything could go wrong on Atlantis, and who would be called on to fix it?
Certainly not Kavanagh.
"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 some intellectual pursuit in Rodney's lab. He used to raise racing pigeons. He used to fish. He used to have a life somewhere. What had happened?
Atlantis happened. Now, Radek 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. These people had people.
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, so it didn't matter whether he did or not. He shook his head, but said nothing, especially about that life he used to have. 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."
A/N: I do not ship Zelenka/Weir… And I'm not sure if that's because of Zelenka or because of Weir. Anyway, but I think that Zelenka does. ("You are the loop"? You precious, precious man...)
As far as Anna, there aren't a lot of fifteen-year-olds (give or take a year) running around Atlantis. So that explains a lot of OCs. Fair warning. I'll try to keep the OC-to-canon ratio manageable. Though, you'll soon see some technically canon characters who may as well be OCs for all the time they were in the show… Such as next week. So see you next week.
Next time: I've got twenty pages of gibberish here. Can McKay translate?
