Reminder:
"This is spoken English."
"This is spoken Czech."
This is a thought.
Previously: After a project turned into a disaster (chapters 43-52), we may have made some progress. Still trying to pick up the pieces, though.
Chapter 56. Genetic Lottery.
Anna sighed as she leaned over to look under the table. Nothing. She looked in the potted plant by the balcony. Why her glasses would have been in there was beyond her, but she felt she'd looked everywhere else and they were nowhere to be found. She sighed and sat down, looking around the room.
"Anna?"
Anna glanced toward Teyla's voice, smiling a little sheepishly.
"What are you doing?" As soon as Teyla saw her face, she realized what was missing. "Oh. You are looking for your glasses. You lost them in here?" Teyla gave the room a once-over.
If it were that easy, Anna would have found them ages ago.
"Yes." Anna sighed, looking around, too. "At least, I don't think I would have been able to leave a room without noticing I wasn't wearing them."
"I see." Teyla started looking around, too, starting with the potted plant. She seemed to think it was a funny place to look, too. But Teyla even went so far as to check the leaves. "You cannot see very well without them?"
Anna shrugged and retraced her steps back to the table she was sitting at. Her book sat there, untouched since she'd left it. A bookmark sat halfway through the pages. The glasses were nowhere near here. "I can see alright. I usually wear them all the time, but I don't need them to read. I can't see far-away things without them, though."
Teyla glanced toward Anna. "My family has been blessed with excellent vision."
"Mine… hasn't." Anna chuckled and checked the table next to hers. Nothing. "I've had glasses since I was thirteen. My mom—well, she used to say that she was surprised that I didn't need glasses even earlier. Radek's had glasses since he was twelve."
"That is quite young," Teyla said. She checked the nearby buffet of energy bars and sandwiches.
"He used to joke he was blind without them." Anna almost laughed at the memory. "Well, he might not be able to see very well at all, but I thought he meant literally. When I was little, I would steal his glasses and he would pretend to stumble through the house while I hid in a cupboard with them." She must have been five years old.
Teyla didn't say anything for a long while. "A pleasant memory." She continued to comb over the tables.
Anna sighed and sat where she'd been sitting, trying to figure out where she put them. She didn't bring any extras with her, and didn't consider what a major oversight that was. It would be almost two months before she could get a new pair.
"It's funny how children remember things," Anna agreed. An idea dawned on her and she walked to the doorway.
"What do you mean?" Teyla asked, then paused to watch Anna lean into the trash receptacle. "What are you doing?"
"I was eating before I lost them, so I—" Anna paused to clear aside the snack wrappers. She found her sandwich wrapping and the bag of potato chips. "Bohudíky!" * She was lucky to have seen it, half underneath a package of instant coffee. She plucked the glasses out of the trash and held them up to the light.
Not scratched. Good.
"I am glad you found them," Teyla said. She stood next to Anna and watched her clean the lenses. Anna wondered what could possibly be so interesting about her scrubbing the smudges and a bit of coffee grounds off them when she prodded, "What do you mean?"
Anna pushed the glasses up to her eyes and blinked toward outside. She could see the distant towers of Atlantis perfectly fine without them, but they stood in sharp detail when she was wearing her glasses. She didn't like to look outside at a blurry world.
"I mean… I mean, it's funny how you remember things when you're young. What do you remember about being young?" Anna asked. It occurred to her that she didn't know very much about Teyla, besides that she was Athosian. She was a trader. She was important to her people, but not so important that they fell apart without her. Her family was gone, but that didn't mean she didn't think of them. Did it?
"I remember being afraid," Teyla said. "But it taught me to be brave."
That sounded like something an adult would say about being a child. "I mean… are the people you knew as a child, are they any different now that you're older?" Teyla looked confused. "Or are you different…"
Sometimes Anna didn't know which was more true: that she'd changed or that Radek had. Maybe she'd seen the wrong things her whole life and she was only just now seeing things as they were.
"I think…" Teyla said quietly. "I think we all change when we get older. It would be unfortunate if we did not."
"That's a good point." Anna giggled. She picked up her tablet.
"Why do you ask?"
Anna didn't know how to answer that, not really. She didn't know where her thoughts were these days. She avoided her science homework, for the knowledge it would be Doctor McKay jumping down her throat instead of Collins explaining everything in patient detail. Or had he really been patient? It was hard to tell… because she could only remember the good things.
"I don't remember things how they really are," Anna said.
Was life with just her and her mother really as good as she thought it was? Anna didn't remember ever being happy. Standing here right now, looking out at the ocean, she wasn't sure what being happy was like at all. Maybe she'd never been happy.
She remembered being happy hiding in the kitchen cupboard with Radek's glasses.
"I think that happens, too," Teyla was saying. "When we get older, we have the opportunity to look back on things in our lives and think differently about them." She sighed and put her hand on Anna's shoulder. "I know you are sad. About Doctor Collins."
Anna nodded, shrugging a little to get Teyla's hand off. It had only been a few days, after all. Less than a week. But almost. "Yes." But she was also afraid. Everyone else seemed to have forgotten. Radek, too. Maybe Anna would forget soon, too, how sad she was. Like Radek needed glasses, so did she.
Doctor Beckett taught her about genetics. It was his favorite subject. Sometimes it seemed like everything was genetics.
"I am going to the mainland tomorrow," Teyla said. "To spend some time with my people. Would you like to come with me? I am sure Jinto and Iskaan and the others would be pleased if you came."
Anna nodded, maybe a bit too quickly. "I'd like to come." Maybe she wanted to forget. And that was almost as bad.
#
Two days until the new year… as reckoned by Earth calendars, of course. Radek wasn't sure if it really mattered how long their current planet took to get around its sun. The point was, the days were about the same length, so in less than two weeks, Anna would be a year older. He knew her birthday like he knew his own, the date seared into memory as if it was as important to the history of the world as July 16, 1945...
Sixteen years old.
He remembered thinking about this three years ago, when she was about to hit thirteen. Her first year as a legitimate teenager, and he was half the world away in the USA. He wondered if she was happy, and then decided probably not. If clichés were true, and, well, clichés wouldn't exist if at least some situations didn't follow them, then she was quite unhappy. Teenagers typically were.
That didn't bother him so much since they weren't living in the same flat. Now they were and he was bothered. Was she happy? Could she possibly be happy if she was sixteen without all the usual trappings another year offered on Earth? How could she possibly be happy with the events of the past week shattering what had become a steady, if not peaceful, routine?
Radek wasn't happy about it. Tried not to think of it most of the time.
Don't think of it.
This was her first birthday without Eliška, too. He had to do something. There had to be something around here to cut through her memory of that. They were in a ten-thousand-year-old alien city, for goodness sake.
He had time to figure it out. Though, less time than he had last month. The month before that. The handful of missed birthdays before...
Anna was on the mainland with Teyla today anyway.
Radek picked up the Ancient contraption sitting on his desk, wires attached and a separate device scanning it for anything unusual while he worked on it. Trying to figure out what it was.
No, that was what he was supposed to be doing. Instead, he worried about Anna's sixteenth birthday. It was better this way. This thing was utterly boring. It did absolutely nothing. Probably why it was shoved into the bottom drawer of some lab sixteen levels down and and half a kilometer away from the central tower.
Why did he get stuck with these things?
"Doctor Zelenka?"
He looked up, even though it was sometimes hard to tell if Doctor Kusanagi was actually talking to him through her cute, clipped accent. He never said that out loud. He didn't know how he'd feel if someone called his accent "cute."
"Yes, um, what is it?" he asked. He rolled the Ancient device away.
"I was wondering if you had a chance to look at my work…" She looked a little sheepish, her hands behind her back like that. She was already small. Still, she looked directly at him with an authority she probably had to adopt in order to survive in Rodney's science team. "Doctor McKay will want it by tonight and—"
"Oh," Radek interrupted. He waved away the rest of her sentence. "I forgot all about it. I am so sorry. I will look right now."
"No, no, no, no." Doctor Kusanagi rushed to his desk, hands waving him away from picking up the tablet she'd left there two days ago. She snatched the tablet just as he laid his hands on it. "You are busy. It's okay. Please, do not stop your work."
"I said I would check it before you gave it to him." Radek held onto the computer. "I'm sure it will only take a minute."
"You are busy," she said again. Still, she let go, and waited obsequiously.
Radek hated that. Doctor Kusanagi was as brilliant as any one of them, of course. She only had a problem every now and again with standing up for herself. And she might have put Doctor McKay on a bit too high of a pedestal. Still, she managed to avoid most notice by virtue of silence. Radek liked that about her.
"I'm not busy. Just thinking," he mumbled. He looked through her report on another apparently mind-numbingly dull Ancient device not unlike the one Radek was working on.
Doctor Kusanagi waited a few moments. "Thinking?"
He glanced up, then back down. "My daughter's birthday is in a few days." Tomorrow it would be in twelve days and he would be no closer to finding a suitable way to celebrate it. "What do you do for a birthday on Atlantis?"
Doctor Kusanagi shrugged. "I can't remember the last time we celebrated a birthday."
There was a benefit to that. Radek was going to be thirty-nine this year. Was he so concerned about his age that he didn't care to acknowledge he was about to go into his fourth decade? Was he really that old? It wasn't that long ago he was thirty.
Oh, please. When he was thirty, he was still married, on Earth, and never had any sort of idea he'd be in another galaxy in less than ten years. He was old. Even if not, he was far enough away from the homeplanet to be old.
"Sixteen is an important birthday to Americans," Doctor Kusanagi offered.
Radek nodded, unsure how that made any difference. Of course, if he and Anna lived in the US right now… she'd be driving. Radek was pretty sure that was reason enough to get back to the Czech Republic as soon as possible. What country let their sixteen-year-olds behind the wheel at such an irresponsible age? Not that Anna was irresponsible. No, it was everyone else. Everyone else on the highway. Going 135 km/h.
"I see no reason why he shouldn't ignore it," Radek said, giving her the tablet back.
Kusanagi looked momentarily confused before realizing that Radek had switched back to talking about her report. She nodded appreciatively. Rodney never said anything complimentary. But if he could find something at a glance to ridicule, he probably would.
Doctor Kusanagi took the tablet back. "You can give her a party."
"Right." That was easy. He'd thought of that already, of course. He could arrange for cupcakes or something. She'd loved cupcakes as a child, but he didn't even know if she still liked cupcakes. Who didn't like cupcakes…? "Do you know anyone who…" He hesitated.
Why hadn't he thought of this before?
He rose from his chair, shutting off his computers and detaching the device from its wires. "Did you need something else?"
"No…" Doctor Kusanagi watched him leave, not asking any questions. That was another thing Radek liked about her.
It was not quite lunch yet, and Colonel Sheppard's team's off-day. Tomorrow they would resume 'gate travel for four days, investigating various planets. As expected, he was going to find Sheppard in his quarters.
Radek had never been there before… Well, not outside the rare inspection of some power conduit or other such thing that wasn't working.
The quarters in the Central Tower had easy access to almost every important area of Atlantis without using the transporter. They were small, and Radek preferred the view from the south-east pier anyway. Before he knew quite what he was doing, he stood outside of Colonel Sheppard's quarters.
If anyone knew how to throw a party, surely Sheppard would.
Sheppard answered the call on his door quickly. He looked confused or surprised. "Zelenka," he said. His brow darkened. "What did McKay do now?"
Radek chuckled. "Nothing. This isn't about Rodney. I hoped to get your advice."
"Oh." He looked even more confused, stepping to one side. "Well, uh, do you want to come in?"
Radek didn't know how to say "no" gracefully, so he walked past the colonel into the middle of the room. With any luck, this wouldn't take long. Colonel Sheppard's quarters were a bit thread-bare as far as decorations went, but everyone's were, to some degree. He had no pictures of family, but a few posters of old films and a music group (Radek assumed). Judging by the sole book in the room and the position of the bookmark, he did not enjoy Tolstoy.
So he was basically a child. Radek suspected as much.
"Anna's birthday is next week," he started, but didn't get much further than that.
"Oh, sweet sixteen, huh?" Sheppard asked. "That's a big deal."
Radek stared. Not for them, it wouldn't be. But it should have been. This was his chance to make up for all the birthdays that he missed over the years. It was a lot of pressure placed on one day. "Yes," he said finally. "Yes, it is. But, as you probably imagine, planning parties is not my strong suit."
"Let me guess. Your idea of a good time is a chess tournament, right?" Sheppard smirked.
Radek didn't know what was so funny about that. Chess was fun. Even Sheppard liked chess. Or maybe he just liked beating Rodney. Rodney wouldn't give Radek the time of day for a chess match… Their all-time chess score was 1-0 in Radek's favor. Radek was alright with leaving it that way. Apparently, Rodney was, too.
"I got a car for my sixteenth birthday," Sheppard mused. "A red Porsche 944. Loved that car. Allison Fitz."
"What?"
"Oh." Sheppard shrugged, putting his hands in his coat pockets. "We went for a ride, and we—"
"The driving age in the US is much lower," Radek interrupted. It was a miracle Sheppard made it out of his teenage years to join them here… Considering he probably took his life into his own hands on multiple occasions. Radek thought that just wasn't something a person grew into.
A Porsche?
"You would be living in the US, wouldn't you?" Sheppard asked.
It didn't matter—he wasn't getting Anna a car. She would agree. She didn't need a car. She needed a college education. A much better use of twenty thousand dollars. Though, at this point, her college education was probably a moot point anyway. She was getting that now, practically for free.
Free. She had no friends and nothing but school work to do. It wasn't free.
"Yes, but…"
"Well, not much to do with a car on Atlantis, anyway. But it is a big deal…" Sheppard sat down on his bed, apparently to think.
So, he understood of the gravity of the situation. Perhaps a little more than Radek did. Sheppard had saved Christmas; why not save Anna's birthday, too? Radek looked around, finally taking a seat on a coffee table.
Radek tried to think of something suitable to give Anna, but nothing came to mind. He wasn't even sure if she'd want a bunch of people, adults, around on her birthday. What about visiting the Athosians? She had friends there, so—
The next time Radek looked up, Sheppard grinned at him conspiratorially.
Radek hesitated. "What is it?"
"Hear me out:" Sheppard said quickly. "Puddle Jumper flying lessons."
"First guns, and knives. I don't want her driving a car, and you think a spaceship is better?"
"Please." Sheppard rolled his eyes. "McKay gave Anna an assignment about building an nuclear missile in the parking lot of Ace Hardware. Learning to fly a spaceship from a professional is much less dangerous."
Radek had to give him that. And would have to give Rodney a stern talking-to later. Then the true problem dawned on him. "It doesn't matter," he added. "She doesn't have the ATA gene."
"Right," Sheppard agreed. "That's the gift. You, McKay, and Anna are a few of the handful of people I know who'd think gene therapy was an awesome birthday gift."
Only if it worked, actually. "I don't know, Colonel. The gene therapy didn't work for me."
"And Beckett doesn't know if that makes Anna's chances of taking the gene any more or less than the rest of them. It's a fifty-fifty chance. It's like giving someone a lottery ticket, with much better odds." Sheppard smiled triumphantly, like he'd made his point and considered himself brilliant for doing so.
For a moment, Radek stared. "Oh, really?" he asked sarcastically. A lottery ticket, huh?
Sheppard grinned, nodding as though he understood perfectly the thoughts going through Radek's mind. Why not give her a shot at something Radek missed? He had no excuse except that he thought she was too young. No excuse except that he wanted her to be safe. Did he really think keeping her out of a Puddle Jumper's pilot seat was really going to make that much of a difference?
"Yeah, it might not work. But what if it does? It doesn't matter if the whole day is a complete disaster after that," Sheppard pointed out.
"Yeah. Yeah, you're right." And the rest of the day was going to be a complete disaster. He could pretty much count on it. Better hedge his bets.
Lottery, indeed.
Czech Things
* "Thank goodness."
A/N: You can't say you didn't see this coming.
Also, happy one-year(ish) anniversary! Do I regret this? Well. Just checked on my working document, and apparently... it's been open approximately 37 solid twenty-four-hour days. Now, of course, I'm not writing every second it's open… This and a few other documents are open whenever my computer is on. You know. Just in case something comes to me. So, I'm six episodes into season two?
Yes. I regret it. I regret everything. *slinks away in shame*
*runs back armed with pen, paper, and my Atlantis science-team jacket* Who am I kidding? I love writing this. So entertaining and de-stressing. Everyone needs something like this. Okay, maybe not exactly like this. But let the good times roll on! Fun things planned for this year. Critical Mass has been my holy grail for this season, so I'm getting there. Eventually. I wasn't kidding when I said I was in this for the long haul... The fun to be had is worth it to me, and I hope any who have dropped in every now and again (and who will drop in in the future) have gleaned some amusement as well.
Anyway. See ya next week. Keep being awesome. Because you are.
Fun stats (approximately), for fun: "Anna" is used 1555 times. "Radek" is used 1303 times and "Zelenka" is used 103 times. "Rodney," "McKay," and "Doctor McKay" combined (that guy goes by a lot of names) are used 1,220 times. "Atlantis" is used 246 times. "The" is used 7002 times. A grand ol' 177 pages in my document.
The things I do for fun... (Also, bit of inane trivia: the document in which this story is being written is actually entitled "for fun." Because that's all it is. Just having a little fun.)
Next time: Stronger than she looks, I guess.
