Previously: Sheppard's team got back safe and sound from their capture (in chapter 74). Anna's been a good patient and doing physical therapy for her twisted ankle (since chapter 77). She got to spend some time with Rodney in the infirmary as he got off from using Wraith enzyme, and asked him an important question about doing some real work around Atlantis (chapter 80).
Chapter 82. Grow Up.
Halfway through March, Anna could put some weight on her foot again easily. She was walking on her own with only a little limp to put her off-balance. She didn't have it in her to go to the mainland quite yet, however much she wanted to. She was happy enough she got to do some light training with Teyla, and she was back at the shooting range, too. The only thing that never changed was science, except Doctor McKay expected her to do nothing except science homework since she couldn't walk.
Anna didn't know how the one followed logically from the other, but she didn't question it all the same.
Doctor McKay didn't know that Iskaan came to Altantis more than usual. Doctor McKay didn't know Iskaan at all. Iskaan's visits seemed to take up a lot of Anna's time. She didn't know what they did or what they talked about, but they certainly seemed to do a lot of it.
She sat in the Jumper Bay right now, watching him load things for their next trading mission.
"I remember when my people lived on a river," he said as he moved a cooler, courtesy of Atlantis's storage rooms below. "We fed all our people and had plenty to trade," he said. "Agriculture is a different sort of thing for trading, though. That's for sure. I feel like we operate on shortages most of the year."
Anna didn't know anything about it, so she just shrugged. "But it's harder to fish in the winter, isn't it?"
"Yes…" Iskaan said. "We just stored the fish and didn't have any vegetables."
"I would have liked that when I was small. I hated vegetables." Anna laughed.
Iskaan chuckled politely and paused for a long time. Anna watched him in some concern, and waited for him to talk. Finally, he looked over his shoulder. "I'll be gone for a few weeks on this trading mission," he said, and seemed to shrink as he hunched over. "It's a circuit, from planet to planet. We do it every year around this time."
"A few weeks." Anna was surprised at how disappointed her voice sounded. She hadn't realized how much she enjoyed having someone near her own age to talk to. In addition, Iskaan was easy to talk to, nice, and he didn't want to talk about Atlantis power systems all the time like Doctor McKay and Radek did.
"I hope you have a good time," she finished finally, for lack of anything else to say.
"I usually do." He didn't seem as convinced of his ability to enjoy himself this time.
Anna dared not question why, but she turned out not needing to.
"This will be my first time directing the trades on my own. The first time my father isn't in charge of the trading missions." Iskaan turned to face her, his hands on his hips. He no longer seemed so small. He had the build of a quick athlete more than a strong one, but he was only seventeen. In fact, Anna had never noticed how tall he was so distinctly before.
"You'll do well," Anna said.
"I know." Iskaan seemed sure, as he nodded and took a step toward the Puddle Jumper. "It's my first test as an adult in our community."
"You guys do grow up fast…" Anna mumbled. Or maybe the kids on Earth grew up slowly. "I might actually get to start working on actual systems malfunctions and diagnostics with Doctor McKay soon, though. That'll be my own first test." Maybe she was growing up, too… "Maybe even this week."
"This will be exciting for both of us, then," Iskaan said. He closed the distance between them, leaving less than a foot of empty air and contemplation between them. "I'll miss you, though. I've enjoyed your company these past weeks."
"Me, too," Anna answered. "Thank you for visiting me while my ankle was… um, hurt."
Anna wasn't sure what might have happened when Doctor McKay stormed into the Jumper Bay. Anna supposed that if things like that kept happening to them, nothing might ever happen. She wasn't sure if she was okay with that or not.
No, absolutely not.
"There you are, Anna." Doctor McKay sighed and looked at her for a second. Then he glanced at Iskaan, pointed at him. "Who are you?"
"Iskaan." Iskaan gave a bow of his head. "I'm an Athosian trader and hunter."
"Oh, sure, sure," Doctor McKay said with a quick nod and a dismissive wave of his hand. "Anna, I think we should—"
"I was kind of talking to Iskaan, Doctor McKay," Anna interrupted quietly.
Doctor McKay looked stunned.
Iskaan looked horrified.
"Well, what does he need you for?" Doctor McKay demanded indignantly. "It's not like you're flying the Puddle Jumper for him." Then he paused, apparently remembering that Anna possibly could have flown the Puddle Jumper. "Well, you," he stammered, "you aren't, are you? Because that would be inconvenient."
"No, I'm not flying the Jumper," Anna said.
"It's okay, Anna," Iskaan said. "I'll see you in a few weeks."
A few weeks. It hit her again like a rock over the head.
Okay, maybe not that bad…
"There, see, he'll see you in a few weeks. I have a new group of labs on the extremity of the west pier that I think we should take a look at." Doctor McKay walked off, apparently assuming that Anna was going to follow.
"Sorry," Anna whispered to Iskaan before taking a step after Doctor McKay. Exploring a group of labs was exactly what Anna had asked him to let her do with the science team. Several weeks ago. But somehow he didn't forget about her.
"It's okay." Iskaan caught her arm before she could get too far and pulled her back. Rested his forehead on hers. "Until we meet again."
Anna caught her breath as soon as he let her go. "Until we meet again." She gave a small wave and hurried after Doctor McKay, but not quite at a run. Her ankle still couldn't do that.
#
"Rodney." Do not make eye contact. Keep monotone. And, for heaven's sake, use English. "I am already late for a meeting with Kusanagi on the Jumper repairs, I am behind on a half-dozen power consumption limit reports for the lab directors; I do not have time right now."
He didn't have the time, and he did not have the patience. Adamson and Halla, in all their wisdom, nearly melted down a segment of waste management's power systems because they didn't make a distinction in water pressure in the central tower versus the pier. It was a stupid mistake, an oversight. At best, they could have blown out twenty or so junctions. At worst, Atlantis's central tower could have regressed to the state in which they'd found it: under water.
And then they'd yelled at him for falling behind on the mileage calculations for the pumps, because if they'd had that, they would have realized their mistake much sooner, and—
Radek was a physicist! Not a mechanical engineer, or a plumber, or whatever-the-hell-job-title was supposed to be doing work like this.
Long story short, Rodney needed to keep his mouth shut.
But Rodney didn't take blatant instructions. Forget polite hints. "That's fine," he said. "I'll walk with you."
"Fine."
When Rodney said nothing for a moment, Radek wondered if he was somehow out of shape so that he couldn't walk at a quick pace and talk at the same time. Or perhaps he was just waiting for Radek to say something.
"What is it, then?"
"I just wanted to let you know that tonight, Anna is coming with me, Jones, Talbot, and, uh, that other guy? Anyway, it's a lab in the lower west pier. Should be boring, but she'll be back late and she asked me to pass it along, since, you know, I was going to see you."
"Fine," he said. "How is she doing?"
"Oh, you know, she has no idea what's going on, but she hasn't blown anything up yet." He smiled, fondly and with amusement. "It's cute."
Radek bristled. "Say that about my daughter again, and I may blow something up." And Radek more-or-less knew what was going on.
"Come on, Radek," Rodney groaned. "You know what I mean. It's great—you know, I never considered how rewarding teaching could be. I mean, yeah, students are morons, but it's great to catch them before they commit a bunch of idiotic notions to memory."
To think, for a moment Radek was hopeful for Rodney's humanity from the initial direction of that sentence. "Yes?" he said. "Good. I'm glad she hasn't had much a chance to let idiotic notions contaminate your opinion of her."
"Yeah…" Rodney kept following him, for some reason, even though Radek couldn't imagine where else this conversation could go. Rodney suddenly turned a bit toward him with a prideful smile. "She calls me Rodney, now, you know."
"I'm—uh—good?" What was he supposed to say? She calls me by my first name, too?
"Wait, so you're going to work on Jumper repairs?" Rodney asked suddenly.
Radek nodded. Rodney knew that very well, having given him the assignment to oversee Jumper repairs. Radek figured he might as well get some enjoyment out of it and handle some repairs personally. "Jumper Six went down."
"Yeah, I know, I read the report," Rodney snapped.
Radek stayed quiet. It had been months since Radek last worked on a Puddle Jumper, mostly because he'd finished mapping out the necessary combinations of crystal alignment from the rear crystal panel. He traced every single electrical signal from the controls to the drive pods and knew the door mechanism like he knew his own shoes. He spent weeks on that, the very first thing he did on Atlantis, hours backed to hours in the back of a Puddle Jumper.
That was how he knew it was going to be good here. He didn't draw the short straw for once. He was working on Ancient spaceships.
For a while, he was the de facto expert on Puddle Jumpers, but he'd been called away from his precious machines more than he wanted and eventually he was transferred to an entirely different department. And then he was put in charge of another department.
Oh, yeah, he brought his daughter to Atlantis, too.
He wasn't an expert on anything anymore. Least of all that last thing.
"It got shot down by the Wraith, right?" Rodney wondered.
Radek was about to make some jab about his having read the report, but he didn't get to say much else. He walked into the Jumper Bay and his breath caught in his throat. Rodney gave a small, shocked cough.
The Jumper was open, the sides all mangled and scorched. One of the drive pods had been pulled out, but it was a miracle it was still connected. Since the Jumper was powered up, it flickered and sparked pathetically while a handful of technicians and military members on cleaning duty approached with mops, buckets, and latex gloves.
The most noticeable thing, by far, was the Jumper's window. It was built to withstand a vacuum, crash landing, Wraith weapons fire. Of course, should a human skull impact the window, the skull would break first.
Dried blood smeared the window and pooled on the controls. That was all Radek could see from his vantage outside the Jumper.
"I didn't realize it was this bad," Rodney mumbled.
Radek pulled out his tablet to take another look at the brief from the Jumper's last mission. "They ran into a Wraith culling," Radek said. "Cloak was functional when they went down, so none of the team was culled, but propulsion and inertial dampers went out, along with… well, a bunch of other systems…" He let his voice trail away when he read the latest update, just ten minutes ago. "Higginson didn't make it."
"Oh, my god. Higginson? My—the Higginson that works in my lab? That Higginson?"
Radek sighed and handed Rodney the tablet.
"Even if she'd lived, she'd never been able to walk again. A burst fracture, seven broken ribs…"
Radek imagined the list went on even further than that. Rodney didn't continue, though, and just handed the tablet back. Radek took it and pulled up the initial reports from the scans on the Jumper. At this point, there wasn't anything on the Jumper they didn't have to fix.
"Patterson died in there," Rodney said quietly.
Radek didn't even know Patterson, and doubted Rodney did, either. It wasn't a friendly thought, though. Patterson was apparently the one with the head broken on the Jumper windshield. Just another way to remember that going offworld wasn't at all safe.
"I'll leave you to it," Rodney said quietly. "Good luck."
Radek just nodded and Rodney left.
No wonder Elizabeth sounded so distraught when she contacted him this morning to ask about something to do with the chair interface. Using it to control something. Radek didn't remember, because he put it on his list of things to do later. Things to do when he wasn't about to drop dead from exhaustion.
She had condolence letters to write.
If only he could stick to working with the Jumpers forever.
So long as he didn't have to fly in them.
Next time: "Sat on a roof, named every star." – Coldplay "Amazing Day"
