A/N: So here's the deal, lovelies. I felt like I wrote myself into a corner a while ago (like literally a year and a half ago at this point), which is one reason updates have been near non-existent. So I read, and I read, and I read trying to figure out where I went wrong. You may have noticed two chapters posted today. I ended in virtually the same spot with rewrites, so this is an actually new chapter, but the additions after chapter 115 (specifically Chapter 119 is never-before-published and Chapter 116 may as well be) have pushed all these a bit later. Now I can hopefully head in the direction I was going. Terribly sorry for all the confusion that will occur.

Anyways, it's very much not the same now. Chapter 127, this chapter, is also essentially brand new.

Also, in my reading and watching, it's come to my attention that Coughlin is, in fact, German? Don't know how I missed that. So now he says German words sometimes. Very minor updates from chapter 67 on to that effect (I dunno, he just says sheisse instead of oh my god or whatever; lots of effort here).

Anyways, to all you maniacs out there still reading Stargate: Atlantis fanfiction and this one in particular, I love you.

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

Previously: Radek and company were caught offworld in a dangerous place with bombs and bullets (Chapter 120), but (in Chapter 125) they were rescued. But sometimes things get worse before they get better. There were surgeries and bad news and all that good stuff.


Chapter 127. Sweet Dreams.

"I'm fairly certain none of this is necessary…" Radek mumbled as Anna sat him down in a chair in their quarters. She had set up the space with a little table, his tablet, the book he had been reading, and a cup of what smelled like peppermint tea.

"I know it's not." She'd turned away toward the couch, picking up a pillow and blanket, but he could hear her smile. "But I want to." With that, she spread the blanket over his legs and put the pillow down next to him. "Also, I made dumplings."

It was a low bar to have someone be so happy he was alive after all, and it might have been unreasonable to be so pleased about it. He couldn't remember a time he was so happy to be home, and it was nice to share something in that feeling with someone. Even though he would have been dead and unable to feel anything about it either way after that fact, he was relieved that Anna wouldn't have to go through that.

"Of course, I would love some dumplings." Two days of Jell-O and soup, he figured he would have eaten anything with texture and a taste besides cloyingly sweet or too-much-basil.

"Right now?" she asked.

Radek would have answered, but the door's chime interrupted him. He found himself looking at the door in slight confusion, though he could think of a few people that might want to drop by. Rodney, for example, to scold him for too many days off.

Major Lorne was at the door. The combination of unkempt hair, humbled expression, and slouch made him look more like a troubled puppy than a major in the US military. The white t-shirt and jeans also might have contributed to making him look smaller. Even though his off-duty clothes were a more familiar sight to Radek since joining the team, it was still odd to him. Lorne seemed surprised Anna greeted him at the door, though.

"Hi, Evan," Anna said.

"Anna." He gave her a nod, and then glanced past her shoulder at Radek. He smiled a little. "Doc."

"Come in?" Anna stood aside.

Major Lorne didn't respond immediately, either by walking in or saying anything. After two or three seconds, he nodded. "Sure, thanks." He put his hands in the pockets of his black jacket and stood behind the couch. "Beckett said you were doing well enough to let you come home."

"Provided I promised to keep him quiet," Anna said with a smile of pride. As if taking care of her injured father was somehow delightful? Radek didn't know how to take that and didn't have time. Anna went on, "I made ovocné knedlíky. Do you want some?"

"No," Lorne answered quickly, giving her a smile that Radek couldn't help but notice was terribly artificial. "No, thanks, I'm good." With that he looked at Radek. The smile was gone. "How you doing?"

"Doing well," Radek answered. "How are you, Major?"

Lorne didn't say anything for what felt like minutes as he rounded the couch. "Evan," he corrected as he took a seat. "I'm fine." He wasn't fine. He wasn't even close.

"Good," Radek answered, watching the major nod in response. "What's wrong? Is Reed okay?"

Like folding a hand of poker, Lorne—or, Evan, maybe; seemed unnatural—looked away. Didn't have to say anything beyond the set jaw, distant gaze out toward the city. "No, he's not." He took a steadying breath, pressing his palms to his knees. "Chris died. About an hour ago."

Despite the broken weakness in it, the major's voice seemed to have enough physical force to knock the air out of him. Radek mumbled something, maybe an oath of some kind, maybe in Czech. He didn't hear it.

Anna looked up from the dumplings. Glanced from Radek to Lorne as if to ask what she should do. Radek didn't know, so he looked back at Lorne. No wonder he was such a mess.

"What?" Radek didn't know why he'd whispered it; he hadn't meant to.

Evan just nodded. It took a moment for Radek to realize there wasn't much to say to the question he asked. Lorne offered, "I was with him, so… not that it matters." He pressed his fist to lips and was quiet for the several seconds it took Radek to figure out what he was saying.

"I meant what happened?" Radek said.

Lorne shrugged, cleared his throat. "A bad infection. Didn't get him back here in time. It would have been bad either way, but…" He bit off his unfinished sentence, cursed, and didn't continue.

Radek shook his head, but didn't say anything. It seemed a little bit like a prank that Reed might pull, but… Major Lorne wouldn't.

Besides, nothing about the major said he was joking. Everything from his slouch, his fingers clawed on his head, his million-mile stare at the floor screamed loss and defeat. They'd done everything they could have possibly done, and it wasn't enough. Radek had personally and intentionally killed someone and it wasn't enough.

"Doctor Weir told me you might be leaving." Lorne finally looked at Radek. Radek didn't see his thoughts on it. "And not just the team. And I, uh…"

"No, it's nothing to do with you, with the team, I—"

"I just wanted to say that I'm sorry." Evan didn't raise his voice to talk over Radek, but Radek had no doubt everyone heard him anyway. They both stopped speaking about the same time. After a breath, Evan continued, "Right now is not the time to pull your punches, Doc."

He frowned, not quite sure what that meant or how to respond to it. "I'm not punching anything," Radek said finally, quietly. He had all of, what, maybe five years on Evan and none of the combat experience, so what did he know? How did this happen? Reed was supposed to be the one dragging his ass back through the 'gate… And by most metrics, Radek was leaving because of Lorne. His team. Going through the Stargate with them and the admittedly less-than-novel knowledge that it wasn't enough.

Rodney could have done it. He could have gotten his team out and been back in time for lunch. No one would have missed them.

"I'm sorry; I'm so sorry…" he mumbled, realizing a moment too late that he wasn't speaking English.

Evan glanced up. "Huh?"

Radek shook his head. Anna spoke up quietly before he could. "He said he's sorry."

"Oh. Me, too." Evan sighed, apparently not understanding that it was an actual apology, not a condolence. Radek didn't know whether to correct him or not, since he wasn't looking for sympathy. He probably couldn't hear it anyway, not with that low drone under everything. How the hell did this happen?

"When is the memorial?" Radek asked.

"Day after tomorrow before the call. I'm taking him home."

Radek nodded, even though he had the sinking feeling he knew where this was going. Lorne wasn't coming back. Two days wasn't long enough to remember that this place wasn't so bad most of the time, not long enough for anyone to convince him otherwise. Sure, the threat of death was near-constant, and even lab-dwellers like Radek couldn't count on his fingers the number of friends he'd lost anymore. But where on Earth could be better than the possibility of here?

Maybe Lorne saw it differently. He could be shot at just about anywhere if he wasn't terribly interested in the discovery. There were not, as far as Radek knew, close encounters with things like ancient ruins and caches of hidden treasures promised on Earth.

Maybe. Radek didn't know how military careers worked.

Lorne went on. "His family's in Iowa. You ever been to Iowa?" When Radek shook his head, he nodded again. "Me, either. There's apparently a Czech and Slovak National Museum in Cedar Rapids. Figured I might as well check it out while I'm there." His smile was small and joking.

There it was. He planned to miss the Daedalus's next trip from Earth.

"So you…" He didn't know where he was going with that, and didn't particularly care for commenting on a museum in a town he didn't know existed in a state he was only barely aware of. Collins got his undergrad there. "You'll be on Earth a while, then."

"I'm gonna visit my sister for a bit."

He'd been here less than a year.

A question he didn't want the answer to burned on his tongue. Radek knew he wasn't responsible for Reed's death—he shuddered with the fresh realization that Reed was gone—in as many words. But he also knew he could have prevented it. He knew he could never prove that, but he was sure he could know all the same. He also knew without having to ask that Lorne blamed himself for that same death. Was Atlantis losing both of their second-bests because Radek wasn't good enough?

"You're not…" Radek started, but didn't really know how to finish diplomatically. So he didn't. "You aren't staying on Earth, too, are you?"

Evan flinched like Radek had taken a swing at him, but he didn't answer immediately. That wasn't a no. In fact, if Radek had to put a word on it… he'd say that was a yes.

Radek didn't know what to say, but it was a decision he had to respect or risk unpalatable hypocrisy. He thought it was a mistake. For Lorne and for him. It was a mistake for everyone. Anna was hovering in the kitchen, spooning out dumplings onto a plate painfully slowly. Radek noticed she had taken at least three dumplings out of the pot and put them back in before taking them out again.

"This year has been hell," Evan whispered.

Radek took in a breath and held it. The stitches over his ribs pulled and his chest ached, but he couldn't be sure it was from his injury. This year, as in… when Radek started in with his team? Yeah, that was a pretty bad situation, wasn't it…? "I guess it has," he said. It was really unfair that this was one of the best years of his life, meanwhile Evan had apparently been suffering this whole time.

He never would have guessed. Not really.

Radek watched him for a moment, adjusting this vision to everything he'd seen before. Of course, they were sitting here two hours after the death of a close colleague. Maybe even a friend. There was enough blame here for both of them to feel all of it.

Anna finally came over with two plates, the dumplings still warm. "Here you go," she said, handing Radek one. Then she held the second plate Lorne expressly said he didn't want out to him. "I'm so sorry."

To Radek's surprise, Evan took it, looked at the three dumplings on it. "What'd you say these were?"

"Ovocné knedlíky."

He smiled.

"Fruit dumplings," she translated. "The fruit is some kind of Pegasus apricot-thing."

He turned over one of the dumplings gently and said, "What's it, one more time?"

Anna repeated it in Czech, and Evan said it after her. She corrected his pronunciation and he got it closer the next time. Radek had eaten most of one by the time Evan tasted it. He seemed pleased with what he found, and Anna beamed. She went for her own plate and joined Evan on the other side of the couch.

Anna's presence lightened the mood, death's darkness a quiet hum in the background when faced with someone whose whole life was ahead of her. There was something off-center about his perception, something hollowed out in his ribcage, and Radek decided he'd have to figure that out later.

Radek wasn't technically allowed to have any, but he directed Anna to get out some of his beer. He pretended to have one, and somehow they talked for hours about topics ranging from ideal vacation spots (with the unspoken agreement these spots were all on Earth), sports, and their rather disparate undergraduate experiences. For one thing, Radek was married by the time his was over…

Somewhere in the back of his mind there was a familiar laugh, a toast. An absent friend that wouldn't have any insight into the situation except that McKay could indeed walk on water. To McKay. Na zdraví.

How had this happened?

#

Evan stayed for lunch, and then Anna made enough in the vague hope he'd stay for dinner, too. He did.

After dinner, Anna sat down with her tablet and notebooks and tried to do homework. She wrote a letter to Mrs. Collins instead, and then another letter for Reed's family. She didn't know what sort of things she was allowed to say, so she kept it vague. She knew that on this particular occasion Reed hadn't done anything to save Radek per se, but he would have if he could have.

She was almost done when she noticed that Radek and Evan hadn't said anything for a long time. Evan was staring into the distance out the window, and Radek was squinting in his direction as if there was a puzzle he was trying to solve or a block of text he couldn't read.

"Are you alright?" Radek asked slowly.

"Me?" Evan looked around like he expected Radek to be talking to Anna. "Probably."

Radek stayed quiet.

Anna couldn't tell if that was honesty or not. Or had she imagined that moment Evan admitted things weren't going well for him here? She knew she hadn't so… She wasn't a psychologist, and Radek would never to suggest Evan go talk to Doctor Heightmeyer. Surely that was part of procedure after something like this anyway.

Finally, after some thought, Radek shrugged. "You want to talk about it?"

Evan didn't object, just hummed a bit like he was thinking. It almost sounded like an agreement to Anna. Then he said, "You send a couple of guys, your friends, into a cave and toss a grenade in after them, you…" He gestured off to one side, helplessly. "You get off easy. In one piece. Not even a goddamn reprimand."

"I don't remember that being… exactly how that went," Radek offered.

"Oh, you don't?"

It was condescension. Radek couldn't know what it was like; he wasn't there. Anna cringed when Radek spoke again. "I read the report."

"You read the report." Evan rotated the beer in his hand, an intense eye-contact that could have broken the glass if it were a physical thing. "Did it say they were screaming?"

Radek shook his head.

"Yeah. I guess it doesn't matter."

For not getting a reprimand, this sure sounded like one. Anna carefully stood up from the table and went back to the couch, sliding over the armrest to sit across from Evan again. She balanced her tablet on her raised knees, though she knew she wouldn't be doing homework anytime soon.

"Both of you know this wasn't your fault, right?" she asked quietly, looking more at Evan than Radek. She was certain she could talk to Radek more later. Evan, she wasn't so sure.

Evan glanced at her, and then at Radek. "You think this is your fault?" He scoffed.

"Perhaps not in so many words," Radek said, looking pointedly at Anna before continuing. "Of course, if I'd been able to come up with something more clever than electrocuting a single guard, then maybe…"

"Doc, you did everything you could."

"Oh, and you didn't?"

Anna blinked at the edge to Radek's tone. Radek looked almost as surprised, glancing at Anna as if to ask her how to apologize for his outburst. But Evan didn't seem to notice.

He turned his eyes into his palm. "No, you're right. Of course, you're right. Hell, you probably know better than anybody else on Atlantis." He scoffed and shook his head. "That snarky son of a bitch."

Anna looked at Radek, who was smiling. He understood, apparently, just like Evan had said.

"I tell myself he's good because he's lucky," Radek said.

Evan chuckled. "There is something to that."

"But he's not—I mean, Rodney, anyway. He isn't always lucky."

Anna didn't imagine Evan could have felt the same way about Sheppard as Radek felt about Rodney. Hate them or love them, their luck was other-worldly. Sheppard should have died at least two times that Anna could remember off the top of her head. Rodney survived in spite of himself.

"You remember the project on Doranda?" Radek asked, with a small sigh. "One of the scientists…" He paused and looked at Anna.

Evan didn't know what they were talking about. He looked between them as if he might find the answer written in the air between them. If the world had any fairness to it, it might have been. Anna knew she thought about Collins a lot—whenever she wished there were someone nicer to grade her homework, someone for her father to share drinks with after work.

"Will Collins," Radek picked up where he'd left off like the silence had been long enough to be respectful. "He was brilliant, he… was a friend. Recruited me to the Stargate program, actually. He died this past December during a test of an Ancient experiment that was too big for us."

"Oh…" Evan looked at Radek sideways. He looked a little embarrassed, probably because he didn't remember Collins' name. Wouldn't have known he had a first name even if he'd managed to remember the last. But, to be fair, Anna hadn't remembered Walker or Stevens' names—she was sure she'd never known their first names.

"I think the things we're doing here are important; I know Will agreed. It's why he was here. I wish we hadn't made the mistakes we did…" Radek looked down at his hands.

Anna wished he would have finished. Didn't mean Collins was Rodney's fault. Didn't mean Ford was Sheppard's. Didn't mean Reed or Walker or Stevens were Evan's.

The silence that followed was, to Anna's surprise, not uncomfortable. Even though it had been days and the danger was over, she thought could still feel Lorne's arms wrapped around her in the infirmary, the solid assurance that everything was going to be okay. She could feel it even now, even with the knowledge that his second-best was going to get somebody killed. Had gotten somebody killed.

All because Sheppard seemed to defy gravity itself sometimes.

"I know it doesn't make any difference," Radek finished. "But we are here because we know what we're doing is more important than the fact we might die." With a sigh, he looked down at his hands for a moment before looking up at Anna. "I know if Chris was here, he'd say the same."

Evan nodded and rested his forehead on the open bottle of beer in his hand. Closed his eyes.

Everyone was quiet for a long while, and Anna decided she couldn't fathom what either of them were thinking… so she tried not to put anything on them. The general sadness in the room was enough for her. She quietly swiped at the tears in her eyes—probably more tears of sympathy for what Radek and Evan were going through than sadness that someone had died. Though, to be fair, it was a little bit of that, too. Chris had a family, and it wasn't fair they should lose him without saying goodbye.

Anna pushed up off the couch and crossed the room to where Radek was sitting. He looked up at her, obviously as much at a loss as she was, if not more. He was feeling it, too. She kissed the top of his head, to his nearly comical surprise, and paused next to Evan only long enough to think he looked like he really needed a hug.

She didn't do anything, though. Just sat down next to him and pulled up the Daedalus schematic she'd been working on. After a few minutes, Lorne was looking at it with her, offering advice on the labels and asking questions, some of which she knew the answer to. He was pretty drunk, so some of it was even funny… even though it wasn't. Radek read his book and listened.

The rest of the evening went by without much interest. Evan dozed off, leaving her and Radek to stare at one another in silent contemplation of what to do about this turn of events. Radek did her no favors by rising from his chair almost silently and shuffling toward his room.

She followed him quietly in socked feet, whispering urgently, "Wait, do we just leave him there?"

Radek shrugged, gave her a little smile, and went into his room. "Goodnight, darling."

Anna stood outside of Radek's room, staring at the closed door. "Thanks a lot." Was that an invitation for him to stay?

She spun, gripping her arms as she tried to breathe quietly. Evan snoozing on the couch in a deep sleep borne more from too much alcohol and exhaustion of all kinds was not one of the problems she anticipated dealing with today. Of course, just a few days ago she thought she'd be dealing with a much different problem, and this was much better in the scheme of things.

Nobody should be alone like that…

She went to her room and got a few extra blankets out of the box by her bed. She never really used them, the temperature on Atlantis being what it was, but she liked to curl up in them sometimes anyway. She didn't have an extra pillow, so she hoped the one on the couch would do.

Anna still felt the sympathetic ache in her chest from the loss that Lorne thought was his fault, that Radek thought was his. She'd learned Reed was from a place called Cedar Rapids, Iowa, or somewhere really close. He was one of five adopted children, one of which was his biological younger brother. Evan relayed a few of Reed's stories: deer hunting, building a tree-house, building igloos in the winter, and playing in the creek, apparently for Anna's benefit. Most of them were funny, things like nailing Reed's little brother's belt to the treehouse with the boy still buckled in. Even Radek offered a few tales of a more modern Reed, mostly stories of the friendly derision between them. Everyone knew that Reed would have stood between Radek and a bullet if it came to it. If he could.

All of them would. Anna hadn't thought about it before. That was the job. And Evan still took it a step further, sitting in the infirmary with her until there wasn't a single thing left to be reasonably done.

Anna stood a few feet away from Evan and tried to figure out how to go about this. She had never known anyone to drink this much, not even Radek, who loved to drink but not for any particular reason that Anna knew of. It was neither his vice nor coping mechanism of choice. Radek would sooner lock himself in a room with an abacus and graph paper, and Anna felt like she would be better prepared for that expression of shock and grief.

Anna carefully tapped on Evan's shoulder, drawing him down to the couch as she did. "I have a blanket for you," she said.

Evan lilted to one side like a sinking ship until his eyes opened. "Oh, no, I'm—I should go." His words were so slurred with a combination of sleep and alcohol it was hard to make out. He looked at the chair Radek had been in, and then looked around. "Sorry."

"We don't mind," Anna said. "Besides, I'm not sure you could walk all the way to the transporter without help, much less hit one of those tiny dots." She smiled, since it was obviously an exaggeration. Well, the walking to the transporter was. The tiny dots, perhaps not. "At least, not the right one."

"Hm…" He didn't seem to agree, and there wasn't much Anna could do to make him stay. Could try offering more beer… "Nah."

Anna sighed and sat on the coffee table. "It's only fair."

"Fair." He thought about that, apparently very seriously judging by the furrowed brow and squinted eyes. He drew a breath whistling past his teeth, then directed his gaze back in her direction. "What?"

Anna looked up toward the door behind him, the one through which she was sure he'd be walking in just a few minutes. Without anybody to talk to in a whole galaxy. She couldn't think of any other reason he'd spend so much time here. Of course, a lot of people on Atlantis were lonely. Everyone had friends, but she wasn't sure who they were supposed to go to when what seemed like the worst happened. She had Radek, and Major Evan Lorne was the reason she did.

"You didn't have to sit with me in the infirmary," she said quietly. "You didn't have to play Prime/Not-Prime with me."

"I've been here all day," Evan said.

"And you would have sat with me all night, too," Anna said, though she didn't know that exactly. All the same, she didn't even have to ask because she knew she was right. And right now, she would do the same. She wasn't tired, anyway. With a sigh, she looked down at her hands. "You shouldn't be alone. That's what I think."

He didn't deny it. When she looked up to see what his response was, he was staring out the window at the city. After a few seconds, he took a breath. "It isn't that bad. It's messed up, but it's not that bad. Probably just got a little bit carried away, and, frankly, it doesn't surprise me that Czech beer should be leagues better than anything I ever had at home..."

Anna didn't doubt that, about the beer or about it being "not that bad," whatever that meant; Reed's loss probably wouldn't affect Evan like Radek's would have her. But that wasn't the point, was it? Even if family wasn't always the way she thought it should be, she had someone to comfort her when she was scared or angry or sad, someone waiting for her and wondering where she was, someone to eat lunch with. Everyone needed that, and, she thought at least of Evan, deserved that.

"It just seems lonely," she said finally.

"Lonely as hell." He looked as surprised he'd said that as Anna was.

"You should stay." She held out the quilt to him.

He nodded, took the quilt in both hands and looked at it. "You know, this is really weird?"

"I'll tell anyone who asks that I hid your keys."

Evan smiled a little. He whipped the blanket out and stared out the window across from him. He didn't lie down, but he said, "Thanks."

"Hezké sny," she said, and started to walk away.

"What's that mean?" he asked.

Anna turned back around. "Nice dreams."

"Oh." He was quiet, but the feeling of the air and his eyes on her made her think he had more to say. She was right. "Hezké sny?" When she nodded that he'd pronounced it alright, he did, too. "Okay. Hey, Anna?" She waited for him to say whatever he meant to say. "When you and your dad get to Earth, tell him to look me up."

Even though she didn't mean it one bit, she smiled. "I will." He couldn't leave Atlantis… they couldn't. But now wasn't the time to argue about it.

He stretched out on the couch, facing the window. "Hezké sny."


A/N: You know, I love Lorne, and I love Kavan Smith and I'm glad they brought him in as a regular. But Lorne's timeline is really… weird. Like, how do you go from the guy that vomits seeing a dead body (I don't know, it was probably a mess, but he was the only one with that reaction…) to Atlantis' XO two years later? Even though it might not be a right interpretation, I think it's a not-too-unreasonable one that he wasn't quite ready for this. Either way, I know the reason Lorne gets more new team members is the same reason everyone else that isn't Sheppard gets new team members. Because they aren't main characters.

Either way, he's not even in the next two episodes, and this is my story so I can do what I want.

Thank Yous

Ghost - Well, hopefully, the emotional impact wasn't just undercut by whatever I just did! But, yeah, there is an incredible amount of stuff that's affected by just a good nights' sleep and/or a meal? Not only for kids, but poor kids just get grumpy with no idea why. People are weird. They do be weird. Thanks much for reading and commenting!


Next time: I stand so corrected.