Five Secrets Lorne and Zelenka Share
1.
When Lorne arrives in Atlantis, the sudden noise in his head is so distracting that he lives in a half daze for weeks until he accidentally walks into a slight, mousy man in glasses. Scientist, he thinks. Ever since his job description became babysitter, he'd developed a sixth sense for scientists, like those dogs that sniff out drugs and chocolate. The man takes one look at him and grimaces.
"New gene carrier," he says. It's not really a question, but Lorne knows enough scientists to know that it should be.
"Yeah," Lorne answers. He rubs at his temples to try and shake loose some of the static in his head and forgets what he was about to say.
"Follow me," the man says and doesn't wait for him to answer but grabs him by the elbow and drags him along.
They end up in what Lorne thinks is the very bottom of the city, somewhere dark and a little wet. It's a space in the city without the city, full of water pipes and ventilation and power conduits and devoid of any ancient technology to buzz in Lorne's mind. He closes his eyes to breathe in the silence and when he opens them again, his scientist is disappearing down the hall, checking the wires and muttering in a language Lorne doesn't know.
Lorne needs to resurface soon, but he comes back often, whenever the city makes it hard to think. Usually he is alone, but sometimes he sees Zelenka moving through the mechanical parts of the city. When he passes Lorne, they nod to each other once and are silent.
2.
Two months later, Zelenka is offworld for the first time and Lorne gets angry when the other marines smirk and hide snickers behind coughs when he jumps at small noises. The marines won't admit it, but Lorne knows that just because the fear of stepping onto a new world and the nausea from gate travel is mitigated by training and experience doesn't mean they don't still exist.
Back on Atlantis, Lorne types up two pamphlets for offworld survival and gate travel. He illustrates them cartoon style, so Zelenka knows they aren't meant as mockery, and leaves them under Zelenka's keyboard on his desk. The next time Zelenka's offworld, Lorne catches him keeping an eye out for his assigned marine (Hint #2: The Buddy System) and when it turns out that the natives don't like strangers and Lorne signals them to fall back to the gate, it's Zelenka who passes the message to the other two scientists who weren't looking (Hint #7: Military Hand Signals Explained).
The mission reports that land on Sheppard's desk commend Zelenka as a model scientist when offworld and the marines stop complaining that the scientists don't understand the concept of self-preservation.
Lorne figures out why when his team is assigned to babysit a new botanist offworld. He's waiting for them at the edge of the gate and Lorne can see that he's buzzing with nerves. He has a crumpled piece of paper clutched in his hand, the edges of a cartoon Stargate peeking through his fingers. Above in the control room, Zelenka smiles at him slowly and blinks once.
3.
One day he wakes up to an email from McKay in his inbox, telling him to find Zelenka the next time he gets a midnight urge for some science. Lorne never does figure that one out, but since it's the only email of its kind and Lorne is sure he has never wanted to talk physics with McKay at any time, he shrugs it off as an anomaly and hits delete.
It must have sparked something though, because a week later he has a weird dream where he shows up at Zelenka's lab in the middle of the night to ask him why a duck's quack doesn't echo and two nights after that he dreams that he meets Zelenka while wandering through the science labs and he wants to know why test tubes are made of glass.
Zelenka tells him there's a glitch in the sensors in his room and spends some time tinkering in Lorne's doorway. After that, Lorne stops dreaming that he meets Zelenka in the science labs and starts dreaming that he shows up while Lorne walks through the city barefoot; in the mess hall, the transporters, the dark space where it is quiet. They walk together back to Lorne's quarters and when he wakes up those mornings, he always feels tired.
4.
Everyone talks to the city shrink. Weir made it a requirement after the expedition was a month old and Carter knows a good idea when she sees one. The saner members go once a month, the crazy ones go once a week and the new arrivals go every day until the culture shock wears off. However often it is for Zelenka, Lorne decides it clearly isn't enough when he's walking through the halls and suddenly a hand grabs his jacket and yanks him sideways.
When the world rights itself, he's faced with a very angry Zelenka and before he can ask what the hell is going on, he's hit with a stream of Czech that's so fast it sounds like gibberish. Zelenka is making hand motions that are eerily reminiscent of McKay, so Lorne decides to let him talk and makes commiserative noises when he pauses to breathe.
It happens again the next week and it makes Lorne wonder what it is that McKay is doing to the poor man and whether he does it purposefully. He doesn't really mind though, because this time he has a rant of his own brewing and it turns out to be extremely relaxing to let it out to someone who isn't going to ask how he feels and whether he thinks he needs to work on his coping strategies.
It becomes a regular thing and Lorne comes to expect being pulled away. Zelenka never does speak English, but Lorne learns to judge his agitation by the fluency of his language and whether he needs to be yelled at or listened to.
5.
Lorne should have known really. No one knows the city like the scientists who keep her running, so when Lorne finds a hidden balcony away from the lights that's perfect for stargazing, it doesn't surprise him to see Zelenka already there. He's on his back with a life signs detector by his knee, which explains why he doesn't even look up to see who has interrupted him.
"I'm looking for Earth," he says. Lorne lies himself down next to Zelenka and doesn't say anything. He looks for Earth more than he likes to admit, in the scant factual information from the Ancient database, standing under a holographic sky with Earth glowing green, in the small windshield of the puddlejumpers.
"Second star to the right and straight on till morning," he says at last. Zelenka lets out a huff of breath that might be a laugh.
Lorne starts talking because he needs to say something, so he tells Zelenka about a little boy and how when Lorne left he was gaptoothed where he'd lost his two front teeth falling off a slide though he isn't anymore, it's been three years. Then there is only silence stretching in all directions around them.
"I left someone on Earth," Zelenka says. Lorne lets himself shift a little closer because didn't everyone? "I shouldn't have." Not many of the expedition think it and Lorne knows of only a handful who admit it and of those, none who stay.
"If Atlantis were safe…" Zelenka starts, then shakes his head and snaps his mouth shut.
Lorne already knows the rest of the sentence. He isn't one who admits it, but he thinks of it with increasing regularity: about backyards and how little boys grow up fast. Out of the corner of his eye, Zelenka has fallen asleep. Lorne stays awake and looks for Earth.