Reminder:
"This is spoken English."
"This is spoken Czech."
This is a thought.
Previously: Radek's been working on repairing a Jumper that was broken in a crash (since Chapter 82) and just narrowly escaped having to do the test flight on it (last chapter). It's only fair, since he was eating squirrel and had grass in his hair a few days ago.
Chapter 100. All Time Low.
"Her name is Rafaela," Radek offered helpfully.
"Rafaela." Reed repeated her name with more of a trill than Radek put on it.
"That scientist in the Doc's lab?" Lorne asked absently from a few meters away. He had a P-90 spread out in a dozen pieces in front of him. He picked up a piece, and started cleaning it. "Cute smile."
Reed chuckled. "Uh-huh, yeah, sure." Reed started picking apart his weapon. "Cute smile."
Major Lorne didn't answer. Just grinned.
"It's true." Whether "smile" was a euphemism or not. Meanwhile Radek just managed to pick apart his gun and hadn't yet started to clean it. He'd never missed this particular after-practice business as soon as he realized that it was more a ceremony than actual business. Even though Major Lorne offered to take care of it all for him. After all, he said, Radek had another job. Lorne was only a major. Whatever that was supposed to mean.
Coughlin shook his head, as though disturbed with the direction this particular conversation was headed. "I was much more comfortable with thinking of McKay's lab as the least libidinous place on Atlantis."
"Excuse me—Esposito is in my lab." Even though he agreed with that wholeheartedly. Little chance of that now, though. Doctor Brown came by to say hello on her way to see Rodney sometimes. "I have a lab, too."
"Okay. More like the whole physics department." Reed's revision was no less insulting.
"I guess you don't know anything about physicists, then." Radek ignored Reed's low whistle and Lorne's chuckle.
"Yeah?" Coughlin might not have meant for that to come across like the challenge it did.
"I guess we shouldn't forget that somehow Radar^ managed to walk into the Central Tower and walk out with our fearless leader's heart in his back pocket," Reed mumbled, as though he was also concerned with thinking of the physics department that way.
"This is good for you, Reed." Radek looked up momentarily from his gun before putting it back together. "Play your cards right, and you might change your mind about the physics department."
"Looking forward to it."
Coughlin snapped the last piece of his weapon into place before placing it on the nearby rack. "On that note, I'm out of here."
"Maybe a little physics could be good for you, too," Radek wondered as Coughlin walked away.
"Bis später!" Coughlin said over Radek as he left the room.
Grinning, Radek went back to his weapon. Almost done, but Reed had finished a long time ago. He was far and away the fastest, but he didn't often stay to listen to Radek offer veiled references to the physics department's after-hours activities.
What else were they supposed to do after a long day of number-crunching and star-gazing? More number-crunching and star-gazing probably.
"I'm out, too," Reed said after a moment.
"See you in a few days," Major Lorne said.
"Bye, Major, Radar."
Radek kept on in silence for a few moments, listening to the industrious squeak of Major Lorne's rags polishing every available surface of his weapon. He wondered if Reed would be successful in his attempts to even talk to Esposito. She was surprisingly shy for how beautiful she was. Of course, it wasn't every day of the week that Radek talked to a woman like that. It may have just been a façade she wore to drive away undesirables like Reed. And like Radek, come to think of it.
"How's Anna?" Lorne asked a few moments later.
His sigh was almost reflex at this point. "She's fine. Going to the mainland tomorrow."
"Is that bad?" Lorne asked.
Radek shrugged. Not in so many words. He just wished teenagers were a little less prone to the same activities that Reed was. Not to put too fine a point on it. "It's not bad, exactly."
Lorne said nothing.
"There is an Athosian boy on the mainland that she wants to see."
"Oh." Lorne nodded knowingly. "Reed isn't the only one who's noticed the physics department, I guess."
"She's not in the physics department."
Radek was surprised how much he bristled at the implication. She wasn't in the physics department—she wasn't in any department. She was still a child. She didn't know anything, comparatively, about herself or about Athosians, never mind this boy. He trusted her judgement, yes, but only when she had all the information. How was she supposed to make any sort of judgement with so little?
"No. I guess not." Lorne slowly disassembled a few more bits of his gun and seemed to think long and hard about the piece in his hand. "She might be someday."
"Not if I have any say in it."
"Don't know if you do, Doc."
Radek hated euphemisms. He really did.
He sighed. "I know." He'd rather talk about Reed's adventures in the physics department, or commiserate with Coughlin's discomfort with the idea of McKay and Brown. Almost anything.
His daughter was no longer just a little girl with ladybug clips in her hair. And he hated that, too.
"Fortunately, I never had to worry about that kind of thing." Lorne didn't sound like he considered that so fortunate. But Radek didn't know what to say if that were true.
"Could still, someday," he said after a moment.
Lorne shook his head. "Nah."
If he hadn't been surprised at his offering a hopeful maybe about Major Lorne's future family situation, he may have been surprised at Lorne's immediate denial.
"Not my thing."
Whatever that meant. Maybe he meant that he didn't want a family. After all, a family didn't necessarily mix well with their jobs. Or maybe he meant it more… sideways. Not that kind of family.
"Oh," Radek said with a nod. Tried not to sound too knowing. Because he didn't know. Ubiquitous maxim of the military was not to ask. It was one Radek had followed for most of his life, and he wasn't even military, to great success. He'd spent most of his life hoping that others would extend him the same courtesy, and it'd worked out so well most assumed he'd never been married, never mind any additional assumptions.
It was unfair in this case. Lorne was probably just smarter than Radek—didn't want the kind of stress that came along with having a family.
"Just think it'd be unfair, you know?" Lorne said. "I can't imagine a world where I'd be home enough."
Radek understood that. Too well. But he hadn't thought it through in time, not like Lorne seemed to. "I wish I'd known that when I started. I might still be married." He hesitated, then backpedaled. "Well, I mean, until—never mind." He wouldn't still be married. He would have been married longer, though. He'd be a widower now, instead of divorced almost ten years ago.
Lorne half-chuckled, maybe for Radek's embarrassment. "You seem to be doing okay now. Family sorts itself out, right?"
"We'll see." He sure hoped so, anyway.
Radek put his weapon back with the others. Lorne was still knee-deep in his weapons-cleaning.
"Later, Doc."
Radek gave a farewell nod. "Major."
He headed toward the Central Tower. He had some sensor tests to run. Part of his bargain with Rodney, which he still considered his side the short end. It was going to take an awfully long time to make up for breakfast squirrels and face paint. Besides, diagnostics were better than worrying over Anna, physicists, and the qualities of a cute smile. The idea that anybody out there might be looking at Anna like Reed looked at Esposito.
Having a daughter sure changed a person, didn't it…?
The tower was quiet and lonely even though it was the middle of the day. Elizabeth was in her office, staring intently at her computer screen. He decided not to interrupt her and instead went to the open chair at the console in the back behind Chuck.
The sensors went about their work, monitoring away. A few science teams were training in the upper atmosphere, flying Puddle Jumpers through some very simple runs. McKay's Jumper Six skimmed over the ocean on the other side of the planet. So far, so good. He'd be back in an hour or two.
Radek and Chuck exchanged pleasantries and stayed quiet for the next twenty or so minutes. It was an unusually calm, pleasant day. Since when did pleasant calm put Radek on edge?
Probably because Chuck spoke up about twenty seconds later. "Um. Doctor Z?" Chuck's brow creased in confusion as he turned about his console. He pressed a few buttons uncertainly before continuing, "Are sensors functioning normally?"
Radek gave the readout a glance. "I don't see anything strange."
Chuck didn't explain himself for two agonizing seconds. "I lost Jumper Six."
"What?"
Radek pushed himself up from his chair to go see what Chuck was seeing. As Chuck said… he saw nothing. Jumper Six had just disappeared. Jumpers One, Two, and Three were still showing on their training runs, the moon was still in orbit, and even deep space sensors were chucking out information at a quick clip.
Maybe the Jumper's transmitter just stopped working. It would have been reasonable if a few non-key systems had a few rough spots left. They'd basically just rebuilt the thing. It would make sense if a few little things had a crossed wire or two.
It couldn't be a huge problem. It couldn't be.
"Okay. Uh. Hm." Radek paused and tried to figure out what to do. He had to tell Elizabeth. Even if it was nothing. He pointed vaguely at the screen. "Take down all the information we had about it before it dropped off… direction, speed, altitude, everything… I'll be right back."
Chuck gave some sort of affirmative while Radek went to talk to Elizabeth. This wasn't going to be a fun conversation. And it was shaping up to be a pretty terrible day, too.
#
The hustle and bustle of the Central Tower seemed more demure than ordinary. Anna realized that she used to "hand-deliver" her emails with papers attached for Elizabeth. She'd stopped doing that as soon as she found out about Elizabeth and Radek. That couldn't have been fair.
It wasn't unfair.
It wasn't the most mature response ever, either.
She was surprised to see Radek hunched over a monitor, his head in his hands. A pencil laced between his fingers. She approached him carefully, seeing that he was thinking about something. Very, very hard. He didn't seem to notice she was there.
His console seemed to be sending out a message on a loop… like some sort of distress call.
"Are you okay?" she said quietly.
He glanced up for half a moment, shook his head, then looked back down. "Uh, yes. Thank you. Fine."
Was she supposed to believe his words or his mannerism? "Are you sure?" she asked. Maybe she should have just gone straight for the issue and asked what's wrong instead. Cut out a few unnecessary sentences. But she figured, at this point, it was a sort of game.
"I just lost Rodney's Jumper. That's all." His voice trailed away as he consulted some complicated-looking charts and then made a few notes on tablet under his elbow. "Hydrodynamics is a pain in the ass."
Anna smirked. Tried not to. "Is it?"
"I always hated it." He pointed at his screen, the one displaying some sort of map. It looked almost like a topographical map, but with arrows over it going in all sorts of directions. "Currents, speed with which the Puddle Jumper will sink. If it sinks. How deep can it go before the pressure will crush it?" His voice trailed off momentarily.
Anna looked to the map, recognizing a half dozen of Radek's notations over the screen. He drew very peculiar arrows; maybe these were supposed to indicate currents. He wrote things in Czech like speed and direction and what he thought the Jumper would do under these conditions. Anna knew one thing for sure… she didn't know that the Jumpers could work like submarines, but she definitely didn't want to be the first to find out.
"I'm not even sure they crashed into the ocean, yet."
"So they're just missing?"
He didn't answer for long enough that Anna felt her heart shudder. Was Rodney… dead? It wasn't an uncommon question, but it wasn't usually weekly. And it wasn't usually Radek's fault.
"Yes. They could have flown to the mainland and landed there for Rodney to make repairs."
Anna glanced at another of his computer screens. "Do you want somebody to go look for them?"
She made a quick guess as to where they might have taken the Puddle Jumper on the mainland if that were the case. According to some of his earlier graphs, they were headed in a roughly northeasterly direction. That put the mainland several minutes away from the place they lost contact.
"Because I could," she added before turning back to look at him.
He was smiling, though apparently trying to hide it. "No. That's very nice of you, but I don't think that will be necessary. We have other Jumpers out. They are going to go check out the mainland as soon as they're done with their training."
"I'm done with my training," Anna pointed out, adding in a mumble, "mostly."
"I know…" Radek hesitated, then, like maybe he was considering it. "It may not be a bad idea. I'll see about assigning you to one of the search teams."
Anna almost jumped up to hug him, but that would look weird, so she didn't. She settled for bouncing slightly on her toes. "Thank you! I know a few tricks with the sensors, also. John taught me."
"Don't get your hopes up, okay? But maybe you will teach your copilot something…" Radek sighed and looked back at his graph.
Anna doubted that, but she was at least somewhat certain that she wouldn't be… Well, she liked to hope that she wouldn't be a pain in the ass, at least. She noticed he'd trailed off to continue working on his calculations, so she left him to it. He muttered something about it being unlikely that communications would go down at the exact same time as propulsion.
Finding missing Puddle Jumpers sounded like a tough job.
Anna pushed on the door into Elizabeth's office and waited for a moment to be acknowledged.
"Good morning, Anna." Elizabeth finally said something, but she sounded tired and stressed. Maybe losing a Puddle Jumper could do that to a person. "How are you?"
"I'm okay. How are you?" She was actually quite happy, since Radek made it sound like she could actually do something slightly important. Assuming things went well for the next few hours. Maybe hours. Or poorly. She didn't know what to wish.
Elizabeth shrugged, set aside whatever she was working on, and looked at Anna straight on. "Well as can be expected. I wouldn't have picked for a Puddle Jumper to go missing today." She paused, then smiled. "Or any other day."
"Radek's working on it," Anna offered.
"Yes, he is." Elizabeth looked no less concerned about the situation for that bit of information. "I haven't seen you in a while," she said after a moment of silence.
"Yeah…" Anna sighed. "Sorry."
"It's good to see you again," Elizabeth said with a bright smile. "What do you have for me?"
Anna didn't get to answer, because Radek came in. "You know, Elizabeth—sorry, Anna—I was thinking that it's possible that they haven't crashed in the ocean. Maybe their transmitter just went dead and they landed on the mainland to repair it."
"Is that possible?" Elizabeth asked.
Radek nodded. "I think it's worth sending a few Jumper teams to search for them."
Elizabeth sighed and nodded. "That would certainly be better than trying to search the ocean for them." She took a moment to narrow one of her eyes on him. "But is it likely that's what happened?"
Radek shrugged. "It's not unlikely. Jumper Six was in immaculate condition as far as I could tell, but malfunctions happen. Malfunctions don't usually happen everywhere at once. If their transmitter is down… well, it could mean that they crashed, but it could also mean the transmitter just went down."
Elizabeth nodded. "Alright. I'll send out Lorne's team…" She looked down at her tablet.
"It was actually Anna's idea." Radek glanced between Elizabeth and Anna for a moment. Anna held her breath. "Could she go, perhaps? She has experience with Jumper sensors."
Elizabeth didn't look up, but smirked at her list of personnel who'd passed the Puddle Jumper training. "I'm sure Major Lorne would like to have a copilot."
"Thank you. Excuse me."
Radek slipped out before Anna could offer even the smallest expression of a thank you. He hurried back to his desk, picked up his pencil on one hand and a stylus in the other. He started talking to Chuck.
Elizabeth glanced up at Anna. "I guess whatever-it-is can wait. You'd better get to the Jumper Bay if you're going to go."
Anna almost bolted out the door without saying anything, but it occurred to her she should say something. "Yes, ma'am!" she shouted just before the door slammed shut behind her.
Ma'am? Where did that come from…?
Who cared? She was going on a search and rescue mission!
A/N: Ayyyy! 100! *throws confetti*
To celebrate, I guess I tossed Rodney in the ocean. And named the chapter ironically. Simple pleasures.
Here's to you all, for reading so long. Here's to the next hundred. May they be interesting.
Fun stats (approximately), for fun: "I hate you" is said once, in Czech, by Anna to Rodney in Chapter 93. The exact phrase "I love you" is used for the first time in the next chapter, when Anna recalls her mother's last words to her. The phrase is first said in its entirety in the chapter following that, by Radek to Anna. "Anna" is used 3,131 times. "Radek" is used 2,975 times. "Dad" is used 40 times, though never by Anna to refer to Radek. "Atlantis" is used 400 times. "The" is used over 14,500 times.
Thank yous & Etc.
Adela- Glad you're still enjoying it. Hm. I actually doubt that one can get actually seasick in a puddle jumper (unless it's completely psychological) because of inertial dampeners. But as to whether or not Anna gets seasick? Well... we may never know. :o
Next time: Just don't panic, okay? Are you panicking?
