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

Previously: Anna's learning Puddle-jumping, Radek's learning running and shooting, also how to talk to people (kinda). Too busy to remember I was sad not too long ago (Chapters 57, 60).


Chapter 73. More Important.

Anna sat down next to Radek at the table. Taco Monday was apparently Anna's favorite, but the quarter was nearly over and the menu would change again. Better to enjoy this while it lasted. She never missed a Monday and always went back for seconds.

"Got my first Puddle Jumper lesson." She lifted her taco and looked at it, he thought, almost fondly.

Maybe she was just remembering her lesson happily. It would be concerning if she was so affectionate with her taco. "How was that?"

"It was fun," she said. "We went to the mainland. Had lunch. Came back. John and Ronon both said I flew better than Rodney. But, you know, I don't think Ronon was paying attention at all. He took a nap in the back seat, actually. Which says something about my flying, I think? Something good?"

John and… Ronon, hm…? Perhaps her attachment to the taco would be better. Still, he was happy that she was happy. This was what she'd been waiting for since her birthday, and that was well over a month ago now. She'd been very patient… Radek knew that patience was more something to be proud of a toddler for, but Radek supposed that anyone could get antsy waiting for lessons on how to fly a spaceship.

"I know that's not exactly a great thing," Anna added, apparently as a joke, "but I'll take it. It was my first lesson, anyway. In atmosphere, which John says is harder than flying in space."

"Well, I guess it's better to do the harder things first." There wasn't any weather to worry about in space. No temperature differentials, pressure systems, no wind, no rain. No massive hurricanes threatening to capsize their city on the sea.

"Yeah, I think that's the idea."

"I'm glad the lesson went well. Maybe the next time we have to take a Puddle Jumper somewhere, you can fly us instead of Rodney." He didn't get too much of a chance to think about how much preferable a situation that would be before he glanced at her. He smiled when he saw her eyes light up.

"Really? You think I could do that?"

Radek shrugged. "Why not?"

Anna contemplated her half-eaten taco. Took another bite. They sat in silence for a few minutes before Anna said, "That would be really cool."

Radek didn't ever get a chance to imagine Anna driving when she was five… it was so far in the future. He certainly never thought of Anna driving him anywhere, much less driving him places in a spaceship. "Whenever we go back to Earth," Radek offered, "you'll probably be the best driver on the roads. Used to watching for traffic in three dimensions."

Anna giggled and shook her head. "Go back to Earth."

Even though he was sure they both knew they couldn't be here forever, it made him happy to know that she liked it here. Enough to not want to return to Earth, anyway. Maybe, like for Radek, Earth was just home to too many bad memories. Anna was too young for that… Maybe Atlantis was home to too many good ones.

"Hopefully not for a long, long time."

Anna shrugged. "Yeah. I guess this can't last forever, huh?"

Radek sighed. So little did. "When is your next lesson?"

"In two days, I think," Anna said. "Unless one of the next missions goes poorly. Then it might be another month. You never can tell around here."

"Sort of makes it difficult for me to plan to be there for one," Radek mumbled. He was terrified of flying under ordinary circumstances. He knew the Puddle Jumpers like the back of his hand, but he wasn't about to get into one without an experienced pilot at the controls.

But this was his daughter. He made the mistake of not attending more than one recital. He realized too late the quality of the music was of no consequence.

"I know. But John says that it's hard to teach your own kids how to drive."

"Oh, I'm not teaching. I'd just be a backseat driver. With no license."

Anna grinned at him, but didn't say anything. She went off to get a second taco. Radek finished his dinner, but he wasn't in a hurry to leave. What else was he going to do, anyway? Look at schematics of the Aurora? Anna trotted back with her plate of nacho chips, dip, and a taco. It was, supposedly, the tastiest taco in two galaxies.

"I was thinking about asking Doctor McKay for something more… practical to do," she said this time.

"Oh?"

Dinner wasn't just about eating. Quality of the food was of no consequence.

#

A quiet night. That was a little different than usual, but Anna wasn't complaining. She stretched out on the floor with a quilt and a pillow, while Radek lounged on the couch with his tablet. She'd seen as she walked behind him to get some tea that he was looking at the Aurora schematics. She had in mind to ask him if it was as interesting as it sounded in a few minutes when she gave up on this homework from Doctor McKay. It was another Daedalus simulation. She was getting so good at these she could do them in her sleep…

Mostly.

His homework got more and more complex, "breaking" more and more Daedalus systems for her to bypass and repair before she could actually answer his questions. Each simulation brought new enemies, spatial anomalies, and time constraints.

Then there was the side homework of making a simple program in Ancient/Human coding that she really wanted to do, but was too irritated by the time she got to it.

Her tablet winked at her in an unfamiliar pulse. She double-checked her simulation to make sure it wasn't actually running yet, and it wasn't. There was no reason the Daedalus should be exploding just yet… She blinked in confusion at the notification she'd never seen before, and opened it.

A letter. A letter to her, from someone named Cathy Collins.

Mrs. Collins. Doctor Collins' mother, probably. It had been converted into a digital format so that it could be sent through the Stargate with the weekly check-up. Her handwriting was in broad cursive, easy to read and friendly-looking. The paper was edged in pictures of flowers and had a little baby deer in the corner looking adoringly at the rest of the page.

Dear Anna, it started.

Anna pushed herself up off the floor and pulled the tablet into her lap to read it. She thanked her for her letter about her son. She called him Will. Of course, there was no reason she should call him Doctor Collins. She said her English was just fine, perfect even.

I'm glad to know that Will had a bit of a life outside his work. I always worried about him, that he was too absorbed in work to see outside. He helped his brother on his homework when they were young. I always knew he would do something big and important, like I suppose he must have been doing before he died.

Another sentence after that was crossed out, but still legible. I still don't know what that was.

She moved on to tell Anna about what Doctor Collins was like as a child, and how he wanted to build space shuttles for NASA. She said it was one of the "silly dreams" of youth, but she believed that he could have done it if he stuck to his dreams because he was smart enough. If only Mrs. Collins knew how close he actually was to space.

Anna didn't know how, but she must have been acting differently.

"Anna?" Radek spoke up. "Are you alright?"

"Yes…" Anna turned her tablet so he could see it. "Mrs. Collins wrote me a letter."

Radek leaned forward to see. He skimmed a few lines, smiling a little. "I knew it was a good idea to send your letter. Did she appreciate it?"

Anna nodded. "She wishes he built spaceships." She laughed a little, turning the tablet back to finish.

"Ah…" Radek leaned back on the couch, returning to his own tablet. "He did."

"He did?" Anna glanced up.

Radek scrolled pensively on his tablet. "Yeah, it was how he got selected for the expedition. He helped to build the Prometheus. It's how I met him, actually. We were working the Human/Asgard coding and no one knew the Asgard crystal system like he did."

"You built spaceships?" Anna asked.

He laughed when he looked at her. "You look so surprised."

"I don't know why, I just thought you always worked in a lab."

"I do," he said. "It's not as if I was welding pieces of the hull together. I was… I helped design the weapons and the computer systems made to control them. I wasn't even in the same state as the ship. But all the most exciting things happen in a lab." He frowned as soon as he said that. He shook his head with a chuckle. "Alright, I lied. But labs aren't always boring. We'll put it that way. He actually convinced me to come on the project…"

"I didn't know you knew Doctor Collins for so long," she said.

He shrugged. "I worked by myself most of the time. There was collaboration, and he was patient with my inept attempts at English. We went for drinks with other scientists at the end of the work week." He hesitated. Maybe remembering. "Anyway, he ended up going to Nevada while I stayed in Denver where I worked on weapon design. As soon as we discovered the outpost in Antarctica, I went there. Well… immediately after the Goa'uld were gone, anyway. Then I helped put together the OS for our interface with Atlantis."

Anna nodded. She remembered Doctor Jackson telling her that in her rundown of history.

She sighed, looking at Mrs. Collins' letter. "I wish I could tell her that he did get to work on spaceships."

"You can tell her it was important work," he suggested.

"Important enough to die for?"

They stared at each other for a second. Anna hadn't meant to ask that, really. She bowed her head and sighed, staring at her hands.

"No." Radek finally sighed. "Very little is important as that."

Anna couldn't think of anything that was important enough to die for, but decided not to press it. She was afraid to ask what Radek thought was worth dying over, just in case someday the subject came up. Her eyes finally drifted back to the page from Mrs. Collins and she finished reading the letter.

Mrs. Collins expressed sympathies for the death of Anna's mother. She hoped Anna liked it in America, and didn't miss the Czech Republic and her friends there too much. Anna didn't know what to think when she read the very end of the letter.

I hope that you are happy and not lonely here. If I know anything about Will's work, it's that it took him away from his family a little bit too often. I hope your father makes time to see you. I know they do important work, but family is more important.

Maybe Anna had said more in her letter about it than she meant to. She glanced up at Radek. She was fairly sure she could reassure Mrs. Collins that he did. She was sixteen, after all. These days it seemed like he was around far more than she wanted him to be.

She smiled.

"I think I'll write her back," Anna said, pulling the stylus from alongside the tablet and bringing up a blank digital sheet. It didn't seem like as special an occasion to write on actual paper with an actual pen. She looked up at Radek. "What should I say?"

The look on his face said something like, You're asking me? He finally shrugged. "Tell her about something Collins taught you. Or something."

Anna pressed the end of the stylus on the tip of her nose while she thought. She glanced up for half a moment. Radek was smiling at her.

Throwing down the stylus, she demanded, "What?" Still couldn't help smiling back.

"Nothing," he said, going back to his own tablet.

Whatever it was, it was funny. And he wasn't telling Anna. Anna looked down at the tablet and started the letter. It could get sent through the 'gate next week.

Dear Mrs. Collins, she wrote. Thank you for your letter. Doctor Collins told me some about his brother. He told me about one winter they got snowed in, and about the bowl of acorns you kept on the table...

Maybe she and Mrs. Collins would be pen pals. From one galaxy to another.


Next time: Just because I can do things with these Ancient things…