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

Previously: Radek and Rodney are headed back to Atlantis after weeks away working on a project (since chapter 43)

Chapter 47. I Try.

"It's good to see you, Anna." Radek noticed her almost the exact moment he stepped out of the Jumper. She looked pleased to see him, a surprise considering that they hadn't exactly parted on the friendliest of terms.

"It's good to see you, too. How is Project Arcturus?"

"Seems to be going well," Radek answered. He looked over his shoulder at Colonel Sheppard as he exited the Jumper with Rodney. He nodded to Anna, and she smiled back, but he said nothing otherwise. "We're only back to report our findings."

"I hope that goes well. I would join you for lunch, but I promised Teyla and Ronon that I would practice with them today."

"Teyla and Ronon," Radek repeated with a sigh. "That's fine. I have to hurry to get to the meeting anyway."

Anna smiled. "Dinner, though."

Radek nodded. Dinner. He didn't realize until she said something about a meal that he was hungry. And he had a good forty-five minutes before the meeting. Better to get something to eat first. "I will see you at dinner."

Anna hesitated a moment before trotting off to practice knocking heads.

Radek wondered what he thought about that. It suddenly didn't seem so mundane. He'd barely talked himself into thinking it was practically harmless, and then Ronon had to step into the picture. Atlantis barely knew him. And somehow Anna had stumbled into… feeling something… Sheppard was right; it was nothing. Was he supposed to do anything about a fifteen-year-old broken heart?

Nonsense. It was nothing.

Radek picked up a sandwich and glanced around. Not many were there, since the usual lunch hour was passed. Only the late eaters were there now, leaving the mess hall quiet. Tranquil almost. Tranquil except for his tumultuous thoughts.

Would he ask her about Ronon? No. That was ridiculous. Like Sheppard said, she would grow out of it. He took a seat at a deserted corner table with his sandwich and looked around. The sun shone in through the huge windows and the sea glittered.

It was good to be home.

"Do you mind if I sit here, Doctor Zelenka?"

Radek looked up to Doctor Heightmeyer standing with a cup of tea next to his table. He was halfway through his sandwich, but she had a serious look to her. She had something important to say and he'd better well listen to it or it would be mandatory weekly evals for the foreseeable future. That just wouldn't work with the Ancient outpost.

Doctor Heightmeyer knew most of the expedition thought her services were a punishment. She'd learned to embrace it.

"Please, sit." Rodney would have to wait.

It might do him some good.

"I talked with Anna this morning."

"Yes, how is she?" Radek wasn't sure that was the right question to ask the psychologist.

Doctor Heightmeyer of all people would know that he had no idea how to relate to her. Who she was. How to spend time with her. So he hadn't. Granted, it had been very difficult since they got back. His free time had been consumed entirely by sickness, and Rodney periodically invented emergencies.

Project Arcturus felt like an invented emergency. Of course, it was important to increase their power stores if at all possible. But Rodney acted like it had to be done yesterday. They were safe for the time being. They wouldn't be if Rodney kept rushing headlong into mistakes that destroyed a planet.

"I'm concerned." Doctor Heightmeyer spoke carefully. Too carefully for it to be anything too serious, somehow.

Radek knew he couldn't afford to think that all the same. Anna was his daughter. If anyone should be concerned, shouldn't he? "What's wrong?" he asked.

"I get the feeling that she's very lonely," Doctor Heightmeyer said. "She misses her mother very much, and I'm afraid there isn't another figure—or even group of figures—in her life that have taken that spot very well."

Radek nodded, considering his words. "I'm ashamed to say I haven't seen her recently. And it feels as if she's been avoiding me lately."

Doctor Heightmeyer took that in stride, apparently content to put the majority of the blame on him anyway. It was a wonder she and Rodney didn't get along better. "I recognize how difficult it is, as a single, working parent—"

"No, it's not that."

Radek wasn't sure why he didn't just take the excuse he was given. Rodney was a pretty convenient excuse, too. But he probably could just look Rodney in the face and tell him that one day a week was off-limits. If he wanted to.

But he didn't do that. Did that mean he didn't want to?

Did that make him a terrible person?

Maybe only terrible people wanted what they wanted at the expense of everyone and everything else. He would have liked to give himself the benefit of the doubt, think that he didn't know what he was doing when Anna was little. He didn't know what he wanted back then. Still, the fact remained that he didn't want to go to a five-year-old's violin recital. Radek didn't remember thinking that Anna was a waste of time, but he acted like she was.

But did terrible people admit they were wrong? Try to fix it? Even if it was too late...?

"She is uninterested in getting to know me, and even more uninterested in me getting to know her." Radek took in a deep breath, unsure why that was so difficult to say. "I don't know what to say."

"Anna believes that you don't care about the same things she does."

Radek wasn't sure how that could be, seeing as she probably didn't know he cared about anything besides work. But there was obviously something else that Doctor Heightmeyer wasn't being clear about. Her roundabout verbiage was one reason Radek wasn't fond of her in the first place.

"I'm sorry," Radek said. "What specifically?" Truth be told… he had no idea what Anna cared about. So how could he care about that thing? Whatever it was?

"I believe Anna feels as if she's the only one who cares about your ex-wife's death."

That was silly. Not unreasonable, of course. It wasn't as though the topic came up over breakfast very often. He wasn't weeping about a love lost almost ten years ago. He regretted her death, of course. He regretted the life they could have shared. He regretted a lot of things.

Regret changed nothing.

"She wants to talk about her, and, since you knew her quite well at one time, you're the most likely candidate. Anna is most familiar with you," Doctor Heightmeyer said.

How untrue that was. But who else would she be familiar with? "I will try," Radek said finally. But it wouldn't help anything if she didn't want to talk, would it? Did Radek want to talk about her?

He rarely allowed himself to think about her. He wouldn't know what to say.

Doctor Heightmeyer gave a tight smile. "That's all I can ask for. So how are you?"

What a segue… "How am I…?" If only she knew. If only he knew. Radek sighed. "I have no time in the day to eat and sleep, much less for the things I consider most important."

He hadn't meant to snap. His direct superior was an insufferable, arrogant man who took pleasure in condescending his staff and Radek especially. He was working in an outpost that made all of Earth's nuclear arsenal look like a food fight. And that wasn't even the worst of it.

All he could think of was that conversation with Colonel Sheppard in the Jumper. He didn't know his daughter at all. He knew it. Everyone on Atlantis knew it. "I try to change, Doctor." He stood up. "But perhaps now we both realize why my ex-wife wanted me to leave. Will you excuse me?" He gathered his plate and napkin.

He couldn't bear Doctor Heightmeyer's clearly shocked look. Maybe it was the first time anyone on Atlantis had been explicitly honest with her.

"Doctor Zelenka," Doctor Heightmeyer said gently before he turned to leave. He waited in case she had some sage wisdom to impart, but he seriously doubted it. "I'm the first to admit that I don't know you very well. But I do know this: everything you've tried, you've done your best. Look where it's gotten you."

Radek pressed his lips together. This was not the sage advice he was expecting.

"I'm not asking for much," she finished. "I'm just asking you to try. Talk to her. She'll listen."

It was all he could do to nod and walk away. It was pretty rich for a psychologist to tell him all that. After all, she was trained to talk to people. He simply was not. He'd never used it as a crutch, but…

No. He'd never done that. He didn't take excuses. And, besides, he wasn't oblivious.

He had a meeting to get to, anyway. He would see Anna at dinner.

#

Anna spied Radek in the corner of the mess hall, picking over his lasagna. It wasn't his favorite.

She slid her tray across from him and sat down. "Doctor McKay sounded excited about the meeting." She offered him her cookie. Oatmeal raisin cookies might have made up for the poor luck of being back at Atlantis the one night they were having lasagna.

He eyed the cookie. "Yes. What is this for?"

Anna shrugged. "Nothing. You like them, don't you?"

He took the cookie like he thought it might bite him. "Alright." Then he cleared his throat and shook his head. "Um, yes, Project Arcturus is looking very promising." Ah. Switching language gears. "It's really… it's quite exciting, actually."

"Good." Anna arranged herself more comfortably on her chair and leaned over her pasta. "Vacuum energy?"

He grinned. This was obviously a conversation he could get into. And Anna was interested. After all, who wouldn't be? Potentially limitless energy? "It does pose a few questions, of course," he said. "You know, it's very unstable. Creating exotic particles in other space-times isn't as much of a problem. But we have to live in ours."

Anna chuckled. "Yes. And Colonel Sheppard told me that it powers a really huge gun on the planet."

He shook his head slightly. "No. Well, yes. Sort of."

"Oh." She waited for him to explain.

But he never did. "How have you been? It has been almost two weeks, hasn't it?" He looked apologetic.

"I'm okay. I've been spending time with Elizabeth and Jennifer."

"And Colonel Sheppard tells me that he and Ronon have been teaching you how to use some of the guns and throwing knives?" He didn't sound like he approved of the exercise, but she couldn't figure out what. He paused before the guns… didn't seem to think twice about the knives.

What was he so hesitant about?

Anna nodded. "Yes." She waited a moment, looking at him sideways. "Is that okay?"

"Oh, yes, of course. That's fine." He obviously didn't mean that at all. He was trying to mean it, though. That's what counted. "Are you interested in that kind of thing?"

Anna shrugged. "A little bit. It's not my favorite thing, but I want to try everything I can. We're in another galaxy… I should try new things." She sighed and sliced up more of the lasagna. "Because everyone's off Atlantis, I don't have any new science work to do. It's all botany and sociology."

"I see."

Anna chuckled. "I almost forgot. Colonel Sheppard has been trying to teach me what he calls 'military history' in football terms."

"What?" Radek laughed, too.

Anna would have appreciated to learn military history, of course. She might have appreciated to learn about anything more exciting than some new lily they found on the mainland. But Anna didn't know American football—and certainly no idea why Americans called the sport Anna called football, soccer and… Well, it was all very confusing. So far, the "class" had consisted of Sheppard subjecting Anna to video upon video of football games.

"I guess it's kind of cool," Anna offered. "But you know me and sports."

Radek hesitated. Probably thinking that he didn't actually know how Anna was with sports. She'd almost forgotten. But he could surely guess. Did he like sports?

"Not your favorite subject, I imagine?" he guessed.

"Far from it. But I'll try to just suffer through."

He chuckled. "Good girl."

Next time: There is a specific set of things that can be killed that I am very, very good at killing.