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

Previously: Radek is in huge trouble (since chapter 120) somewhere offworld, and presumed dead on Atlantis. All in all, not great times to be had around here. But Rodney remembers once, not too long ago, Radek told him to take care of her (chapter 80)…


Chapter 124. Coup D'état.

Anna felt supremely out of touch for the past two days, if it had been two days. Elizabeth, John, and Rodney were neck-deep in some kind of negotiation. She heard in passing that some of the bargaining chips were guns and C-4. Like any sane person, Elizabeth didn't like those things in any hands but her own. Or perhaps sanity wasn't required. Nobody liked guns and C-4 that were out of their hands.

She didn't know whether the negotiations were going well or not when a line of Genii filed through the doors to infirmary. Jennifer stepped up beside her, wrapping her arms around her tablet. "We might need to reclaim your bed, Anna," she said apologetically.

"What's wrong with them?" Anna ignored the gentle, sideways request. Jennifer had been nice enough to let Anna sleep on her couch last night. Anna wasn't sure where the night before had gone, but staying alone seemed unbearable.

Jennifer sighed and tilted her tablet just enough to see what was on it. "Carson thinks it's radiation poisoning."

"All of them?" Anna asked.

"From earlier reports of our interactions with the Genii, Rodney tried to tell them that their safety procedures were… inadequate." While she spoke, Jennifer nodded in rhythm with the steady stream of people entering the door, then cast her gaze around the room. "I'm sorry, Anna, we only have enough in here for our patients right now."

"Where do you want me to go?"

Anna felt a bit of panicked anger bubbling up in her chest, but tried to push it back down into that dark pit in her stomach. All the emotions of the past few days had either expanded that nebulous region or just disappeared in it. When she thought about anything, anything at all, it rumbled and throbbed like a poorly-digested meal. It made her feel sick, empty and heavy at the same time. She expected nothing less from an emotional black hole.

"You don't have to go anywhere," Jennifer said, looking around for a moment before swirling a rolling chair over to her with a smooth motion. "You just can't sit where you're sitting right now. Or for a long while."

"Oh." Anna slid off the gurney. Her feet, to her surprise, held her.

Jennifer smiled apologetically at her. "You gonna be okay?" Her tone was cheerful, an attitude asymmetric with the look on her face.

Anna nodded. "Yeah. I think I'm past the worst of it."

With a smile, Jennifer nudged Anna with an arm and started off to help usher the new arrivals into their beds for testing and treatment.

Anna, in her rolling chair, pushed herself back into the nearest corner.

That dark pit seemed to swallow everything she could have thought to feel about what was going on, what wasn't going on. She felt like she was reading a book or watching a film, entirely disconnected from the events around her even though she knew, on some level, that those events would affect her.

At some point, they might want a memorial service. At some point, they would send the bodies back home. At some point, Anna would probably be attending a funeral and moving back into her aunt's home and a spare room that was never intended to be hers.

Right now, at least for a little bit, she felt nothing. It was better than everything else, so she talked herself into thinking it felt good. All the while she knew she was at war with herself. She didn't believe Radek was really gone, but she knew he was. She wondered if there was some esoteric device hidden in the deepest levels of Atlantis that could turn back time and bring him back. Perhaps if she found or made a ZPM, she could make it work. Perhaps Atlantis would help her if she brought it something it needed…

They were futile thoughts. Just because they rang more of reality than the same denials and bargains she'd made when her mother died, it didn't mean they were actually real.

Jennifer showed a blond young woman to the bed nearest Anna. She did a quick assessment and went on to her next patient. The young woman sat calmly, quietly, looking around her until she saw Anna.

She might have looked back, but Anna must have surprised her and she glanced back. "I didn't know there were children on Atlantis," she said.

Anna shrugged. "Just one."

The woman didn't take her eyes off her, seeming to think about that. "Did you come with the Atlanteans from their home world or are you from the same world as Teyla?"

Atlantean. Anna hadn't thought of herself as an Atlantean, but it made sense for the people of this galaxy to think of them like that. "I'm from Earth," she said. "Same as everyone else on the expedition."

The woman edged her legs around the gurney so that she could watch Anna without twisting around completely backwards. "My name is Dahlia."

"Anna."

"I didn't know there were children here." Dahlia searched her, perhaps a little too intensely. She looked exhausted and sad.

Anna imagined they were mirrors of each other in some way. Still, she shrugged and tried to focus on the otherwise inane direction the conversation seemed to be taking. "There aren't, really. It's just me. My father…" She paused. So much for an inane direction. "He worked here."

Dahlia nodded, then she paused, too. "He did?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"I'm sorry."

The silence sank in the room like a dark sludge, sucking up all the light and enough to slip in. It was a darkness all too familiar, one that even still lurked in the back of her mind and the corner of her vision. It never went away. At least, she could have the happy thought that he'd gotten a whole extra year on Atlantis that he might not have gotten if they'd stayed on Earth.

She was only missing a lifetime of having a father she knew and loved.

Before she knew it, her tears reappeared. "I loved him, you know. I was mad at him for a long time, but he's still my dad."

Dahlia looked at her. Maybe that look said she was crazy. Anna wouldn't be surprised. She felt a little crazy. Talking to strangers like she'd known them for her whole life. But what did she think she was going to lose from it? She'd already lost everything. Her parents were both dead, she was losing Atlantis and a future she'd started to plan for as if it was sure and not a crazy dream.

It was still a crazy dream. Since nothing would make it better, it seemed like she should be able to keep one thing. And that one thing, the only thing still within reach was Atlantis.

"I don't think I ever told him." She shrugged as if that explained everything, rubbing her tears off on her sleeve.

"He probably knew." Dahlia's voice was soft and so was her smile. "I think the people we love know. We'd give everything we have for them."

Anna nodded. "I hope so."

Unceremoniously, Doctor Beckett stepped up Dahlia's gurney. Maybe he didn't hear they'd been talking; he seemed very distracted. "Alright, dear, let's take a look at these tests."

Anna drifted away from the conversation, because she wasn't sure what Genii privacy laws were like. She wasn't sure they applied in the Pegasus galaxy. She wasn't sure it mattered.

#

Fifteen minutes.

That was Colonel Sheppard's expiration date if Radek understood correctly. At this point, he wasn't sure whether he envied him or not. He knew that the expiration date on his own wasn't that far off without additional medical intervention.

Someone had dropped Rodney against the chain wall a few feet away from him, directly in front of him. It was some kind of punishment, he thought. Or else reassurance from the universe that there were some things even Rodney couldn't do. He'd been unconscious for the last two hours like the rest of his team, coming-to with Sheppard kneeling next to him to explain the situation in a few small words.

Major Lorne was sitting next to him now, hadn't moved for an hour. His arms were folded over his chest, and he looked at the floor as if all the answers to his problems were there, if only he could see. Or perhaps he was avoiding looking at Reed, pale, soaked in sweat, and slumped in the corner, asleep.

God, Radek hoped he was asleep. Please, just be asleep.

But it might not matter. Colonel Sheppard and his team were here, in the same cage with them. Radek noted even Rodney, a few feet away from him, eyes closed. He'd wake up with an awful headache, if he woke up. Why would they cage dead men?

Coughlin sat on the cage's singular chair, his head in his hands.

He hadn't saved them. He hadn't saved them, and he tried. Damnit, he killed someone. And now, Rodney, Sheppard, these other marines… they were all going to die.

The others started to wake. Sheppard hadn't barely gotten through his explanation on what was going on—not that it would have done Radek any good anyway—when the cage door creaked open. Radek couldn't see who it was, but a gun leveled at Sheppard.

"Time's up."

Radek closed his eyes. He knew the Genii were barbaric, but hunting fish in a barrel like this seemed… even worse. Especially in front of the other fish.

After a few seconds, there was no sound, so Radek, against his better judgement, opened his eyes. The man with the gun seemed to be in some kind of deep conflict with himself, and finally he spoke. "Weir says your Doctor Beckett can cure the people I sent through the 'gate. Is that true?"

Sheppard kept his eyes on the man threatening his expiration date, nodded. "Beckett's the best doctor in two galaxies. If there's a cure, he's got it."

As quickly as it raised, the weapon lowered. Radek let go of a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

"We're letting them go."

Sheppard stood, dragging Rodney up beside him by his collar. He looked at the floor beside Radek—it took him a second to remember that was where Lorne was sitting. Radek turned his head to see Lorne looking up at Sheppard, a cautiously optimistic question in his eyes.

Is this for real?

Radek had no idea, but, unlike Lorne, he wasn't going to question it. Of course, he wasn't in any position to act under his own power. Radek looked up at Sheppard, and then found his eyes and Rodney's locked in some kind of disbelieving glare.

He wasn't sure, but he thought Rodney looked relieved. Maybe happy.

"Come on, Doc." Lorne knelt next to him, pulling his arm around his neck and standing without asking. Because there wasn't a choice.

Radek gritted his teeth and tried to help, but pain shot up into his shoulder some reason, radiated out from the hole in his chest, prodding a barely-concealed groan. He tried to stand, but ended up kind-of slumped against Lorne.

"Sorry, Doc, just a bit longer…" Lorne said quietly, watching Coughlin try to raise a response from their unconscious comrade.

Reed didn't respond to Coughlin's words. The only time he moved was when Coughlin shook him. When none of that worked, Coughlin didn't check to see if he had a pulse. Throwing Reed over his shoulder, he stood, nodding at the other men in the cage with them.

"We have to hurry," the bearded young man said. "Hidden away at the bottom of this building is a nuclear device."

"And how'd you get your hands on that?" Sheppard asked, though Radek thought that was a waste of breath. Where nuclear weapons came from, especially when imminent activation was a factor, mattered far less than where they were now.

But, really, anything to keep from thinking about the pain blurring his vision. But as they walked through the labyrinth, Lorne dragging Radek's feet over the streak of his own blood, Radek realized he was using his own feet less and less. Radek didn't know for sure what he weighed, maybe 70 or so kilos. Whatever it was, it had to be less than Reed, mostly muscle.

He missed most of the conversation, but heard Rodney say something about the bearded man starting his coup. Then Sheppard said, "You were just gonna leave us here to be vaporized with the others?"

"Yes, I was," the bearded man replied. "But things have changed."

Radek wasn't sure what changed except the scenery, which seemed to be blinking in and out of existence. Whatever was happening, he could feel an expanding slick warmth dripping down his side. He was bleeding again, a lot, too much. Actually, any bleeding was too much.

He could hear a conversation in snips.

"Oh, god. That's… he's bleeding."

"I know." That was Lorne. "Not a lot I can do about that right now, McKay."

"A lot."

"I know, McKay." Radek could hear Lorne's clenched teeth.

He heard another few voices he didn't recognize offer to help carry him. Radek couldn't tell if Lorne accepted the offer. All he knew was he was suddenly slung up over someone's shoulder, and that was it.

Was that it? Was that really all there was?


A/N: Alright, right in this section is why this takes several days. Ladon walks Sheppard back to the cell and is like, "We've been collecting samples for some time!" No, you haven't, bro! By my count, if I'm being generous, you've had them maybe sixteen hours. Less than a day. You don't get to say you've been doing this for some time. I helped him out a little bit, is all. It's been a few days now for sample collecting (which I still didn't expound upon… but it could have reasonably happened is the point). You're welcome, Ladon.

Thank yous

Jedi - Yes, personal growth for Rodney! Sort of. Somewhat. Mostly. We'll go with mostly. It's pretty good for him, anyways. And than you for reading and for the compliment!


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