Last time: Radek is running himself ragged (since chapter 23) trying to get Cadman out of Rodney's head. Anna's lost a bit of respect for him, probably, but she's trying to get over it.

Chapter 28. Just a Couple of Girls.

Jennifer grinned and took a drink of her juice. "I don't know. He is kinda cute."

Anna giggled and looked around. She figured this was as close as she was going to get to high school gossip. It was nice to know that adults were pretty much just like children sometimes… Or maybe that was the opposite of nice. Anna hadn't quite decided.

Even still, when Anna told Jennifer she was taking the day off of school work, Jennifer offered to join her for lunch. Jennifer seemed like the closest to her in age and temperament. Even if that wasn't true, Jennifer was kind enough to take Anna's mind off things with trivial conversation.

"Kind of cute," Anna repeated. "I don't think so."

Anna didn't have anything against Doctor Moreau, but she also couldn't dream of affixing the adjective "cute" to him, either. He was pretty average, maybe a little on the chubby side for the typically immaculate physical condition of everyone on Atlantis. He spoke French, English, and assorted botanical languages. But it was easy to think someone was cute when they showed so much interest and had an endless supply of roses.

"All right. How about you?" Jennifer asked, looking around them.

Anna grimaced and looked. They were all pretty… old. In comparison, of course. Still, Anna knew exactly who she thought was cute, but she couldn't bring herself to say it. She shook her head and blushed. "Not Doctor Moreau."

"Oh, so there is someone." Jennifer looked extremely interested.

Anna shook her head. There was most certainly not someone. Well, he didn't know it, anyway.

"Hold that thought," Jennifer said. "I don't want to miss a single word." She held her hand to her ear to activate her ear piece, still grinning. "Keller here." Then her smile disappeared. "He what?" She looked at Anna with grave concern. "Is he okay?"

"Who?" Anna whispered.

"Yes, of course. I'll be there in just a second." Jennifer rose, picking up her bottle of apple juice. "Doctor McKay had a seizure."

"A what?" Anna stood, too.

Jennifer was already walking out of the mess hall. "A seizure. Carson has to take care of him, so I'm get to fill in for an hour or so." She tossed a look back at Anna. "Sorry."

Anna shrugged in response, not mentioning that, while she heard exactly what Jennifer said, she didn't know what that word meant. Sometimes, when it came to some scientific and medical terms, Anna could guess at the meaning in English because it sounded a little similar in Czech. She'd never heard of a seizure before, though. But the look on Jennifer's face meant that Doctor McKay was getting worse.

"Is he okay?"

Jennifer didn't answer immediately. "Yeah, I think so. We'll see."

Anna fell in step next to her. She was relieved she wouldn't have to divulge her silly crush, but sad the conversation was over. If something was wrong with Rodney, though, she was willing to bet Radek would be there, too. She wasn't sure she wanted to be there.

But she should check on Rodney, right? He was sort of important to her education and to Atlantis as a whole. He was sure of himself even when he was wrong.

"Can I come?" she asked. "To see if he's okay?"

Jennifer shrugged. "Maybe in a bit," she said. "Sometimes after a seizure people are... fuzzy."

"Fuzzy?" What did that even mean?

"Sometimes they don't know where they are," Jennifer explained, her voice quiet. She stepped into the transporter, Anna beside her. She put her hands in her pockets and continued, "If they remember it, or if they don't. They can be scared. He might not be awake yet." She smiled a little bit, obviously trying to put on a brave face for Anna. "You can come visit him, just maybe in an hour or two, okay? I'm sure he'd like a visitor."

Anna took a deep breath to arrest the heavy weight of worry on her chest. It didn't help very much. "Should I be worried?"

Jennifer smiled and shook her head. "I'm sure he'll be fine. Your dad is working on a solution to get Cadman her own body back. I'm sure that it will work out just fine. From what they tell me... things somehow usually do."

Anna nodded and hung back. "I'll come by later." She wasn't sure if Jennifer heard her.

It was a long day with nothing to do and everyone mostly preoccupied with the issue of McKay/Cadman, and that issue seemed to only be getting worse. She still had no idea what a seizure was, and almost no idea where anyone else was. Radek was probably slaving away over the Wraith dart, trying to undo his mistake… his mistake of rematerializing Doctor McKay at Colonel Sheppard's less-than-informed command.

Anna finally looked up from her studying in the mess hall at seven o'clock and realized that Radek hadn't been in there to eat. He must have been hungry.

He was an adult. He could come and get his own food if he wanted to.

She decided to visit Doctor McKay instead. She traced her way through the huge, open halls until she reached the infirmary. Doctor McKay sat on a gurney distant from the door with a platter of food on his lap. He picked at it.

Anna could think of no better indication that something was wrong with him.

He glanced up when she entered, rolled his eyes and looked back down. Anna didn't know what exactly warranted that response from him, but she walked to his bedside anyway. Maybe he was waiting for someone to have some good news.

Anna wouldn't have any good news. But no bad news, either. That was almost good.

"What is it?" He looked around. "Zelenka send you to tell me it's hopeless?"

Anna shook her head. "I haven't talked to Radek."

"Oh." He looked a bit brighter, but confused. "Why are you here, then?"

"To be your company," Anna said. She sat on the gurney next to him and crossed her legs. "Alone in a hospital room is probably the worst thing to be."

He nodded tentatively, like he wasn't sure that was the worst thing. He rolled a Brussels sprout over on his plate. "Drowning?" he suggested.

"That's a pretty bad way to die," Anna allowed. Maybe she hadn't said what she meant correctly. "But alone in the hospital room is the worst way to live."

"Hm." He nodded, slowly. Maybe she'd said something wrong again. He chuckled darkly and tapped his temple. "Not alone."

Anna smiled. "Are you both okay?"

"Aside from the seizures," Doctor McKay mumbled. "Great." He put his plate aside and then looked back ahead. Tapped his fingers on his legs like he was waiting for something. "Yeah… It's not like—"

Anna waited. Maybe he was going to explain seizures. On the other hand, he sounded kind of irritated, so she could only guess what was about to come next. Finally, Doctor McKay heaved a huge sigh.

"Listen, uh, Anna, I should probably apologize that you were there for that," he said suddenly, quickly. "My, uh… I probably shouldn't have said those things. To Radek, I mean."

Anna shrugged and looked down at her hands. "You were right, anyway."

Doctor McKay seemed indignant. "What do you mean by that?"

"He shouldn't have rematerialized you. He should have done something different," Anna explained. "He knew that, but he didn't. He doesn't…" He doesn't, what? He doesn't listen? To himself? Other people? He doesn't even notice. "He doesn't do anything right."

"No, no, no," Doctor McKay said. "Remember what—"

"He does, but he doesn't." Anna felt a little bad for interrupting, but Doctor McKay obviously had no idea what she was talking about. And why should he?

Radek was never there, not ever. That was all she ever remembered her mom saying about him a year ago. Sometimes she would even get mad that Anna still kept that picture of the three of them at the park on her desk. Not always, but sometimes she did. She'd say that wasn't Radek. Maybe it was who Radek wanted to be once, but he'd never gotten there. Or maybe he decided he didn't want to be that person after all.

And then when Mom got sick, she tried to lie, like Anna hadn't been there for years.

"You don't know what I mean, Doctor McKay. You were wrong to say those things, but you weren't wrong about what you said," she finished.

"Wait a second." Rodney looked up with finality, locking her in the gaze of his weird, ice blue eyes. Darker than Radek's eyes, somehow. "Wait. I was wrong, and I'm sorry. Look, it's not any big secret that I'm terrible with people. And, yeah, while it is a very stressful situation I know I… you know, I should be more careful about what I say. No one deserves that kind of disrespect."

Anna blinked once. Everyone said that Doctor McKay never apologized.

"And, for the record, your dad is one of the best scientists I know," Doctor McKay added.

They stared at each other in stunned silence. Doctor McKay looked rather certain about himself for a few seconds, and then his mind seemed to catch up with what his mouth said. He shriveled a little, nodded a bit and murmured, "Yeah…"

Anna didn't know what to say. She couldn't just tell Doctor McKay all that, could she? Tell him that waiting here for Radek was pointless, because he never showed up. She'd waited for Radek before… when it was most important, it took months and years.

"So how's the homework going?" Doctor McKay asked.

Anna shrugged in response. "It's fine. I know how to reroute power to and from a lot of things on the Daedalus, but not… everything."

"It wasn't everything. Not even close," Doctor McKay objected. "There were no more than twenty items on that list."

"It's not fair that I can't ask for help," Anna said.

"You have the Daedalus simulation. What else do you want?"

"I need to guess?"

"You'll end up learning way more than twenty rerouting paths that way."

Anna sniffed. "I guess we're lucky that not everything has to work that way." She grinned a little, remembering Doctor Jackson's stories. "Or else you'd still be on Earth waiting for everyone else to figure out how the Stargate works."

"That's true, but we aren't on Earth, are we?" Doctor McKay suddenly paused. For a very long moment, he didn't say anything. He didn't move.

Was he having a seizure?

"Wait. The 'gate! We can use the 'gate."

"You mean for you and Lieutenant Cadman?"

"The 'gate dematerializes you as you step into it, sending your information to the next 'gate so it can be rematerialized on the other side." He paused, then nodded. "Yes, of course." Maybe to something Lieutenant Cadman said.

Anna didn't see how that would help them since the information was already in the dart. Then she remembered… the control crystals Radek was looking at—oh, it seemed like ages ago now. "Can you do that?" She watched Doctor McKay slide off the gurney and tie on his bathrobe. "Interface the crystal control modules with the dart?"

"I don't have time to explain this to you." Doctor McKay was already on his way out the door. "Tell Carson I went—I don't know—somewhere."

Next time: Did that just happen?