An all-new chapter added February 2022.
Previously: Just working through some post-traumatic stress we got a week or two ago (the debacle started in Chapter 108, and another debacle started in Chapter 117; but don't worry, we'll get there eventually). Getting back to normal. Whatever that is. At least until things aren't normal again.
Chapter 119. That's Not a Question.
"Alright, thank you." Elizabeth smiled at him from across her desk. "Is there anything else?"
That was cheering. Radek hadn't seen a real smile from her in what felt like ages, and this felt like they were almost back to something like normal. But it still wasn't normal, because she wasn't offering any insight into her schedule. She wasn't talking about Anna. She never explicitly denied anything that Phebus had said to him about her.
Radek couldn't be sure, because god forbid he ever be possessed by an alien consciousness like that, but he knew that was one of the first things he'd do. Look, Esposito is a beautiful woman, but you… He didn't know how he'd finish that. Elizabeth was Elizabeth. She'd been impressive to him since the first moment he saw her, made him tongue-tied even more than he usually was. She was a perspective he couldn't have dreamed up on his own, and that… that was another thing entirely.
She was perfectly okay watching video reports of a Wraith wrestling against his restraints and screaming threats. A Wraith that, day by day, became more and more like the rest of them. A Wraith they'd given an American name, a backstory. Someone put some thought into this ruse and played the game like they were going to accept him as one of them. Maybe they even thought they would. Radek knew in his gut that wouldn't happen. Michael—his new Human name—was a Wraith, and they couldn't pretend forever.
Yes, there was something else. There was everything else. He didn't know who she was anymore.
"Elizabeth, can I… ask you a question…?" He just needed to come up with the question.
"Of course." She slid aside the tablet in front of her. Department reports, he happened to know. His own was six pages long, relatively short with colorful figures and photographs of his team's most recent selection of artifacts for investigation… "What can I do for you, Radek?"
He needed to focus. "It's personal, actually."
"Oh." Her eyes moved off to the control room.
"You're not really acting like yourself…" he said, quietly. He knew since when. He thought he knew why. He just didn't know what. He only knew there was something… there was something wrong with her. Dreadfully wrong.
"That's not a question."
That was right. What was his question? "I guess I don't have a question. I'm concerned about you." He looked at the floor for a second, realized that wasn't of any use to him, and met her eyes.
Elizabeth looked, in a word, unhappy. Possibly insulted at the insinuation that she was acting different, or concerned that he couldn't find a question that she could answer to give him some kind of reassurance that she hadn't lost her mind.
And that, in part, was what he was afraid of. She hadn't lost her mind, not really. But she wasn't who he thought she was, either.
"There is a Wraith downstairs we are in the process of turning into a human," Radek said. "And I want to know what the next step is. What does this mean?"
"Well, he's not quite human yet," Elizabeth said. "Carson is taking the transformation slower this time, more controlled. Michael won't remember his life as a Wraith, which means we will be free to construct whatever background for him that we want."
"Yes, I hear that Michael is from… Texas."
"Yes." Elizabeth nodded with a soft smile. Like this was a good thing.
She had. She'd lost her mind.
What was he supposed to say? I'm afraid you're going to regret this? You're going to question your fitness to run this expedition, your very humanity if you keep going forward on this path? He was unsettled by it—granted, more by the possibility that everything could go wrong and they'd have a Wraith running free within a square mile of his daughter—and even more so by the fact that Elizabeth wasn't unsettled.
Perhaps her trust in the rest of the expedition members was greater than his. Perhaps she knew Sheppard and Lorne and the others were more than capable of subduing a single Wraith in the event of disaster. After so long and so many disasters, it was a wonder Radek wasn't more trusting.
"I wonder if this is taking more of a toll on you than you're letting on." That. That was better. A foregone conclusion that it bothered her, and she just wasn't saying. He'd rather think the best of her.
He hadn't expected her to almost physically shrink. It wasn't much, maybe a centimeter as she drew away and her shoulders dropped from an expression of power and control to one more like shame and uncertainty. "It doesn't matter if it is," she said in a low tone. The way she spoke, he was sure he wasn't intended to see that slight shift in the way she was holding her body but… he had.
"It does."
She shook her head.
How was she supposed to do something she considered repugnant and still hold onto who she thought she was? That was a question far outside what he considered answerable.
"What do you think Wraith music sounds like?"
Another question far outside what he considered answerable… and at least as far outside what he had considered for possible responses. "Promiň?" He shook his head, still recovering from what felt like shock. "I mean, what?"
Elizabeth shrugged. "It doesn't have to be music. Why do all the Wraith we've seen keep their hair long, rather than any variety of lengths? Why do some Wraith have dreadlocks, others pull sections of their hair back, and others do nothing at all?"
"I have no idea."
With a sigh, Elizabeth leaned on her desk, propping up her chin on one fist, and looked out the window into the main gate room. "I don't think we'll ever know," Elizabeth said. "But here's the thing, Radek. I don't think I care anymore. I was more than relieved when Phebus was gone. I was happy."
"Of course, you were. She was using your body and ignoring everything you said to her."
"No, it's more than that." Elizabeth tapped her fingertips on the table in front of her and didn't speak, leaving Radek only to guess what she meant since he didn't want to press her.
Given the extreme violation Elizabeth must have felt, Radek couldn't imagine any other feeling than relief that Phebus had finally gone into that night. That she was kicking and screaming as she'd done so was probably even a bonus. Someone, a much better person than Radek, might have said she was a terrible person to be satisfied with that outcome, more pleased than if she'd gone peacefully. Thalen deserved worse than the relatively peaceful send-off he'd gotten as far as Radek was concerned.
"The Wraith do more than live by killing us, Radek; they seem to enjoy it. They are stronger, faster, and more technologically advanced than we are. The possibility of taking them down a notch, to our level, doesn't appeal to you?"
Put like that, yes, it certainly did.
Radek shrugged. "Sure."
She nodded, as though that were all that needed to be said.
"But you have to talk to somebody about this."
About what and to whom, he didn't know. About Michael, a living creature pursuing basic nutrition and being brain-washed and subjected to dangerous medical experiments for it. About the fact that she must have seen herself as a war criminal. About Phebus, and how Elizabeth blamed herself for everything Phebus had done to her and everyone else.
And about the fact that she wasn't going to do anything about it… He didn't expect her to, but she might.
The next time he looked at her, she clearly wasn't happy. But she wasn't frowning. Just looking at him, passively, like something dead and without a soul. "Thank you for your input."
"I don't mean you can't talk to me," he added, quietly almost in hopes she wouldn't hear. "You can; I just don't know…"
"Yes," she said, interrupting him at the first polite moment. She picked up her tablet. "Thank you."
Radek stood, nodded, and headed for the door. Something in his brain tried to get his attention enough to turn back into the office, to say more. To say, you're hurting yourself and scaring me, and I can't watch you do this quietly because I love you. But he said nothing of the sort. He went out to the control room, past the industrious clacking of keyboards and murmuring among the 'gate techs and down the stairs.
#
"So I'm pretty sure it builds ZPMs," Anna finished, stepping back from the machine and looking at it, as if being able to see the whole thing would somehow help her. "And other crystal controls like you can see in the walls if you open the panels and things."
Iskaan chuckled, picking himself up off his seat and walking over to her. "All that explanation for why we're here and not in Janus's lab?"
That wasn't the explanation, but she didn't know the explanation. Besides, as far as Anna was concerned, this was priority number one now. This would be, if she could figure it out, her magnum opus. She grinned to herself. Not bad for sixteen.
"The reason we're here is because you've been learning Ancient from Doctor Yahaya when he visits the mainland. Which, by the way, why didn't you tell me?"
Iskaan shrugged, put his hand on her shoulder as he looked over at the screen. "If I knew it was important, I would have. Besides, Doctor Yahaya doesn't just teach us Ancient. He also teaches the kids math and writing."
And Iskaan started sitting in on the Ancient stuff because he thought it was interesting, yes, she'd already heard the story. At least since their little run-in with the skeleton in lab three, he found it interesting. Which was fair, considering there was a lot written on the walls that might have solved a lot of puzzles…
"Anyway, he only visits twice a month. It's a little similar to what we use, and… he said I have a knack." His smile and lifted brows showed the small amount of pride he felt at that. "And I enjoy it."
And already he'd learned more practical Ancient than Anna had in a year of studying the coding they'd cobbled together using it. "Well, if you don't mind helping me, I think we could crack this room pretty quick. Or more than I'd be able to do alone, that's for sure…" Anna fiddled with the screen, barely lit from the lower power levels allowed into this room.
That was manual by one of the techs. They didn't want this room diverting all the power it would have needed to function. There were lots of things more immediately important than whatever secrets this room held, and manpower was too low to work on this. So, Anna adopted this, too. She felt like she'd adopted a lot of things… and it wasn't just to brush off the anxiety, emotional highs and lows, and whatever else had happened while she was paying attention to other life-threatening matters or locked in her room.
That was another reason they were here… because she didn't want to be here alone. She'd tried that a few days and found it hard to concentrate, always looking over her shoulder.
"You know I don't care where we are, right?"
It had been a long week or two. Longer than a week or two should have been.
"What?" Anna only just registered the words he'd said, and looked up over her shoulder.
Iskaan just grinned, brushing his knuckles up her jaw. "If you're not allowed to stay on the mainland very long, then I don't mind coming here." Suddenly, he was leaning in close to her.
She turned away from him. "Please, no, Radek would kill me."
"He wouldn't kill you." With a laugh and a kiss on her temple that she wasn't quick enough to dodge, he said, "He'd kill me."
Anna giggled, shaking her head. Radek would certainly not. He might want to, but he wouldn't. "And that would be bad for me, too, don't you think?"'
Iskaan considered that, obviously pleased, and nodded. "Alright, what is it we're doing then? You said you don't even have the materials you need."
"We can do that later. I do have these." Anna pointed at another box she'd brought sitting at her feet, scavenged from storage and random broken Ancient artifacts. One of them was a spent personal shield that Anna really hoped they could get working again. "For testing. I think making these little chip crystals shouldn't take too much power and then we can know if it even works at all."
"Good plan." Iskaan picked up the box and sorted through it, sounding like so much broken glass.
"They're like ingredients," she said, and pointed at the menu dimmed in front of her. "We just need to figure out where to put them and when."
"Is that all?" Iskaan put the box down.
Anna pulled up what she thought was the correct procedure based on what she'd pieced together from the menu labels and Janus's notes. She and Iskaan got to work matching words to other words, representations of atoms with words from the analyses she'd done of her raw materials. It took almost all day, leaving them lying on the floor, the tops of their heads together as they stared at the ceiling.
"My neck hurts," Iskaan complained in the silence.
"Yeah…" It was a familiar feeling, the ache that spread into the shoulders from leaning over homework too long and too seriously. "Maybe we should take a break."
"Yeah."
They sighed together, and then were quiet. Anna lifted her tablet above her head so she didn't have to move to see it, and tried to scroll through it before her arms got too tired.
"I thought we were taking a break," Iskaan said.
Anna lowered the tablet to her chest. "We are."
"You coming back to the mainland again tomorrow?"
That was an excellent question. She'd hitched a ride to the mainland every day for the past four. Radek didn't want her staying overnight there, which a part of her understood and all of her agreed with, though she never would have admitted that. But getting off Atlantis and into the bright air and crisp sunshine had been great. She didn't have to talk to Radek or Elizabeth or Carson…
But she had to get over it at some point.
"I don't know," she said finally. "I haven't actually gotten permission to take the summer off and Rodney will be expecting my homework to be done at some point."
Iskaan didn't answer for a bit, then it occurred to her that summer holiday might be a foreign concept to him. But he didn't say anything about that. "Well, I'm going back tomorrow with Doctor Griggs. He's getting in his puddle jumper practice hours so he'll be certified to fly alone."
Anna whipped onto one side, propping herself up on her elbow. "You can do that?"
Iskaan chuckled, tilting his head back to look at her. "I don't know why anybody would lie about that."
"Yeah…" She wanted to be puddle jumper certified…
It occurred to her that she didn't know about it because Radek didn't want her to be flying puddle jumpers alone. And since she wasn't even sleeping in her own bedroom, she couldn't exactly call him out for not treating her like her age.
She sighed and sat up. "Well, do you want to go eat dinner? I think we've done all we can do here for today. There's not much to do before the test, I think."
"You'll tell me how it goes?"
Anna nodded. "Of course. You're going to help me make a ZPM."
Iskaan didn't look at all upset at having been volunteered. "That would be impressive."
"Yeah… it would." Perhaps, not if she wasn't sleeping in her own room. Of course, she had a long time before she could reasonably make a ZPM. Materials notwithstanding.
Iskaan was standing in front of her, offering her a hand up. He helped her up to stand, and followed her out of the room. "So if you get your homework done, you'll come to the mainland."
#
"I think I'll sleep in my own room tonight," she said.
Radek smiled, but he tried not to convey how wonderfully good timing that would be for tonight. "Alright. Are you sure?" He didn't want to talk her out of it, necessarily. But she had been sleeping so well since dragging the mattress to his room that even he noticed the improvement.
"Yes." She nodded, and sounded extremely confident.
"Good." But perhaps now was not the time to be skipping out on staying here. Of course, it wasn't as if he'd be gone all night… "I was thinking of dropping by the Central Tower to get a few readings before going to bed," he said, and immediately felt absolutely rotten for lying. "Is that okay?"
Anna's expression twisted in confusion. "At midnight?"
"When most of the systems are not in use or on standby, yes," he said. That, at least, was true. Actually, he could think of plenty of things to use these imaginary readings for. So many things, he thought they might not be imaginary after all. They'd be purely academic, but he considered the academic one of his areas of strength. "I won't be gone for very long."
"Oh. Well, okay. I'll probably be asleep anyway."
"Please call if you need me; it's really nothing important."
Anna nodded. She retreated to her room after another ten minutes. He made tea before heading out with a mug in hand. He wasn't sure what Elizabeth's favorite tea was, but Radek supposed she would be happy with anything working late. He wasn't even totally sure she would be working this late…
She was. Sort of. Radek wasn't sure how much work was technically getting done at the moment. Sheppard was in her office, reclined in one of the chairs, Elizabeth still at her desk. They weren't talking about business, not judging by their laughter. It was good to see her like this, but…
Asking for John wasn't my idea, by the way.
The guy has game when he wants it, and, believe me, he wants it.
Radek set the mug down on the center console, and idly tapped into the system. He wasn't jealous. Or really all that concerned. After all, if the gossip was correct, Sheppard had been successfully rebuffed before; he didn't need to worry. In fact, he was happy she seemed so happy.
Disappointed. That was all.
He was easily distracted by those standby readings, anyway. There was probably more savings in active systems set to lower levels overnight. Some systems they could restrict because, really, who needed to be sorting through an Ancient library at three in the morning…? On the other hand, he didn't begrudge their local insomniacs the ability to be productive when the mood struck. After all, here he was, at midnight. Wide awake.
Maybe the smallest bit jealous. Because, no matter what he'd said—if he'd said anything—he did want Elizabeth to explicitly deny everything Phebus had said. Particularly the one thing Phebus said Elizabeth had said. Even though he knew without doubt that Phebus was a psychopath, probably a sadist, and definitely a liar.
"Radek?" Elizabeth said from her doorway. She was smiling, that weirdly endearing half-smile, and Sheppard waved at him through the glass. "Did you need something?"
He looked down, as if to remind himself what he had here. Nothing, really. "Readings. I'm looking for power savings, consumption for systems on standby, that kind of thing…" She looked interested for a second, and Radek realized he didn't want to lie after all. "I came to see you, actually. But I don't want to interrupt."
"Oh." She cast a glance back at Sheppard, who either didn't hear or didn't care. Still, she held the door open for him, nodding for him to join them.
He picked up the tea on the way, putting it in her hand as he walked by, as if it were something they'd arranged beforehand. He nodded at Sheppard as he entered, going to the chair by her desk that he usually took.
"Radek," Sheppard said.
Radek wasn't aware they were on a first-name basis, but if he insisted… "John." Very weird. He hated it.
"John was just telling me about Ronon's violent opposition to physical therapy," Elizabeth said, taking a slow walk back to her desk as she inhaled the bright aroma of the tea Radek had brought for her. She sipped it, and looked at him. "Thank you."
He shrugged, and looked at Sheppard. "Physical therapy doesn't sound like something Ronon would have any part of."
"Oh, it's worse than that." Sheppard grinned.
Sheppard recounted the story that involved at least one broken crutch. To Radek's surprise, he laughed, too. It seemed rude, or insensitive, to take such pleasure in Ronon's frustration, but he figured of all the people that could stand a little bit of ribbing on his physical ability, Ronon was the one. He knew he was capable of just about anything, regardless of how true that actually was.
It was actually true. Ronon was capable of just about anything. Except sitting still, apparently.
"Anyway, Carson thinks he'll be out of the infirmary in a day or two."
"With permission this time, I assume?" Radek said.
Sheppard chuckled. "Yeah, with permission."
"That's good news, but I think it might be best for him to take it easy…" Elizabeth said. "Secretly, of course."
Sheppard looked mildly insulted. "Of course. Teyla's agreed to help by having him tag along on some of her trading missions. Even though it's apparently a danger to peaceful relations."
They segued from Ronon to Rodney seamlessly with that. It was a topic upon which Sheppard and Radek had a lot in common and a lot to talk about. Surprisingly, neither of them hated him. That was clear probably only to the two of them, though any outsider might have thought differently. He made for some excellent stories, too.
Eventually, Sheppard said goodnight and left.
Radek didn't, instead somehow very comfortable in the chair across the desk from Elizabeth at a quarter to one in the morning. Elizabeth was scrolling through her tablet, his favorite kind of companionable silence. It was slightly less companionable considering he was working up to a conclusion he didn't like. There was something extremely wrong with what was going on, and he couldn't quite find it.
He'd said his piece in the meeting, anyway. Got away with calling Carson a Nazi, albeit sideways, something he never thought he'd have need to do. Some of the others around the table even agreed.
"You're putting a lot of thought into this," Elizabeth commented, not looking up from her tablet, but she was smiling. "Unfortunately, I think everyone involved just has to live with it in the end."
"Yes," Radek agreed. "To be perfectly clear, I personally don't care about what we do with the Wraith. It's an unfortunate fact of life that some things have to be killed." He cringed. Was that what he meant? Either way, he'd said it, and it was close enough to what he meant to not try to take it back or start again. "But I do care about you, and I don't think you agree with… whatever it is I just said."
With a glance up, Elizabeth smiled and shrugged. "You're right; I don't know if I do."
"I thought I saw Michael going to Heightmeyer's office today…" Radek said.
"Yes." Elizabeth looked back at her tablet. "Carson has turned and reverted Michael three times so far. He hasn't broken the barrier of his needing treatment every day to remain human."
"He had three marines with him," Radek said. It had been an odd sight, to be sure. What looked like a regular man escorted by three large men in body armor and carrying large guns. But Elizabeth just nodded, as if that required no explanation. "How long do you think that will last?"
"As long as he has the chance to revert," Elizabeth said. "This isn't a permanent solution. Until it is, it's a useful weapon."
"Oh." Radek put his hands through his hair. "We are making them humans to make them easier to kill."
"Obviously, it's not the ideal situation." Elizabeth took a breath and looked up again. "I don't like it, but we can hardly have a Wraith walking the halls of Atlantis without an escort."
Radek nodded without a word, because he agreed. "But Michael doesn't know he is a Wraith, right? His memory has been reset three times. He thinks he is human."
"What's your point?"
"I suppose I just cannot think of a situation where keeping a secret that directly affected someone led to a good outcome…" He should have told Anna about his relationship with Elizabeth from the beginning, for example. A small example that didn't involve killing anyone or taking his memories or lying to him about who or what he was. "Why not try it and see what happens?"
"Try what?"
"Telling Michael he's a Wraith," Radek said with a shrug. "And that we're experimenting on him. What is the worst case scenario that he could do?"
Elizabeth grimaced, but didn't argue, didn't offer any doomsday predictions of what Michael could do that would put any of them in serious jeopardy. Not as a human, anyway. Not with three marines following him around.
"If it doesn't work, Carson can always let him revert and reset."
She nodded, thoughtfully. "It's worth a try."
That didn't solve the problem, but maybe being honest about what she was doing to the person she was doing it to would help. And, who knew? If they were honest with Michael about this, then perhaps he'd think they were trustworthy. Whether they were or not, he might think so. And if he thought they were, he might have a different view of the Wraith. Might have a different view of what he had been, and of what they hoped he would one day be.
That was, one of them.
"I don't know if it is." With a shrug, Radek sighed and stood up. "But I think it might help."
"Help what?"
Radek didn't know why he'd said that. "He thinks he's human, but we know he's not. We're fine with making him human enough to kill him like one. But not human enough to let him live like one. We know that, and I think he does, too, with the marines and everything."
Elizabeth nodded. "We are easy to kill, aren't we?"
That was a turn for the macabre he didn't really need at two in the morning. "I suppose. Relatively speaking." If it could take little more than a touch from a Wraith, then maybe… Even Radek, given the right tools and motivation, he could probably do it. Hopefully, he never would, but…
Elizabeth rose and came to stand next to him. "She was going to kill you," she said quietly, hugging the tablet to her chest. "It was about Thalen, but she was a complete psychopath. I could tell from the moment I came to, she wanted to hurt me. Us. Everyone on Atlantis. For no reason."
Phebus again. Radek wondered if there would be a time in the near future when he wouldn't think about her, and imagined that time would be even longer for Elizabeth. "And she could have done so easily…"
"So I did the only thing I could think to do… and I told her about John. I couldn't hide you, of course, but… I thought he could defend himself."
"He probably would have, better than Carson." Radek frowned. Would Thalen, with Sheppard as an unwilling ally, have been able to find what he was looking for, kill Phebus with Elizabeth? He'd never know.
"Anyway." Elizabeth shrugged, like she was trying to shake an uncomfortable feeling, a shiver on her spine. "I can't say there was no truth to it, and I…"
For a reason not even he could figure, Radek almost laughed. He was able to rein it in to a smile. "Oh, I see. You were feeling guilty about some attraction you may or may not seriously have for Sheppard and so letting me stew about it." He meant it jokingly, but it was possible she wouldn't take it like that. Either way, it would tell him something.
"Not when you put it that way…" Elizabeth blushed, and he put a kiss on her cheek. "I couldn't exactly say it wasn't true; what was I supposed to say?"
Perhaps that was a fair question, but not for him. She was supposed to say what she was supposed to say, which was that it wasn't true. Even if it was, a little bit.
Still, he shrugged and looked at the door through which Sheppard had left just about an hour ago now. He wasn't jealous… "Whatever you feel. And I can't tell what that is." Just disappointed. "I would like to know what that is." He stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets and looked at her. He guessed he could wait all night if that was what it took.
If only he could tell what she was thinking somehow, without having to hear it…
He once read somewhere that men confessed to falling in love faster than women did. They were the first to say "I love you," more often than not. He had a few guesses why that might be, but motivations at this point meant little when the expression of sentiment felt true. That wasn't to say there was no other woman on Atlantis he looked at. Hell, if pressed, he might have to admit that some of them were more attractive than Elizabeth.
All the same, none of them were more beautiful. It was a bizarre fine line he couldn't imagine himself sharing in her office with glass walls anytime soon. Elsewhere, though. Perhaps somewhere else, he would.
Elizabeth sighed, apparently giving it some thought. It didn't take two seconds for her to grimace, and shake her head. "No. He's too flippant. I can't imagine having a conversation with Sheppard like this."
Radek pulled back a chuckle, looking at the floor for lack of anything else to do. "Well, if that's important." It didn't seem to him like a reason, especially since he couldn't imagine having a conversation like this, either. And, yet, here he was.
Maybe that was important.
They stood in silence for minutes. Just as Radek was trying to decide whether it was awkward or not, Elizabeth spoke up again. "I don't know what else to say about it. I didn't mean it at the time, and I don't mean it now."
If that was all he was going to get, then that was all he was going to get. "Okay, then."
"Okay?"
What else was he supposed to say? Radek nodded. "Okay. I mean… I mean, I believe you."
"Ah." Elizabeth smiled and headed for the door. She held it open for him. "Well… thank you."
Radek took a breath and nodded. He really should get back to Anna, just in case… But if there was an emergency, she would have called. He walked out the door and took Elizabeth's hand as he passed. "I'll walk you to your quarters."
Next: I won't fear for my life, huh?
