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

Previously: Even though Radek's been busy offworld (since chapter 43), Sheppard made sure he came back for Christmas. Radek's feeling guilty he hasn't seen Anna in a long time, so she gets to come check out the planet when he goes back. This can't go wrong…

Chapter 52. Před Pádem.

"And you'll be very quiet. Stay next to Colonel Sheppard." Radek sighed, unable to figure why he was doing this.

Oh, right. He hadn't seen her in weeks. Doctor Heightmeyer knew how to lay on the guilt, even if he hadn't seen her for weeks, either. Whatever the case, Radek already knew, acutely, the depths of his faults as a father. Any outside comments on the matter was basically adding insult to injury.

"Yes, yes, of course. I won't speak unless spoken to, I might not even be seen and most definitely not heard."

Anna's sarcasm was just the icing on the layered cake of shame he'd made for himself. If it hadn't been such a stilted comparison, he would have congratulated himself.

Radek sighed. "You know that's not what I mean."

Anna waved that away. She smiled a little, but Radek couldn't tell if it was sarcastic, too. "I know, I know. This is the test-firing of a very powerful weapon. I won't get in the way."

Things didn't usually blow up in their faces, but when they did, there was no question. It was scattered in a trillion pieces across half the galaxy. Besides, Rodney's attitude this time wasn't giving Radek pleasant dreams.

Just because the Ancients made mistakes didn't mean Rodney would?

The Ancients aren't perfect, of course. They're all dead.

Only one saying came to mind for Radek in regards to all this… Pride comes before a fall. He wasn't even religious, but the Good Book was certainly right on this one. Giving that section a thorough and thoughtful read might do Rodney some serious good.

Skipping all the painful lessons of parenthood and skipping right to Anna's teenage years was what Radek considered a superfluous message in humility for him. The person who really needed a teenager around was Rodney.

No. Radek wouldn't wish that on anyone. Not even a bratty teenager.

Besides, Anna was not bratty. Better to count his blessings.

"Yes, it's dangerous," he said quietly. "Or, it could be. It won't be. But we will need to concentrate." He led the way to the Puddle Jumper where Colonel Sheppard waited with the rest of the team.

Sheppard nodded at him when he and Anna sat on the bench inside.

"Congratulations," Sheppard said to Anna with a grin. "You've convinced him to let you come."

"She didn't convince me," Radek muttered. "I'm still sure this is a horrible idea."

Anna looked at him, aghast and hurt. What had he said wrong this time? "It wasn't my idea!"

"I didn't say it was," Radek answered. "It was my idea. I doubt my own ideas."

"More of us could use that quality…" Sheppard muttered, probably thinking of the enthusiastic communication they'd shared with Rodney that morning.

They would run the test when Radek returned, and it would work like a charm. Something like that. Rodney wasn't even considering the possibility that he'd made a mistake or looked right past a glaring concern staring them right in the face. Radek took his normal seat behind Sheppard and motioned for Anna to take the co-pilot's chair. Better that she was there. She'd find it more interesting, and he wouldn't obsessively check every reading and monitor within reach.

In all likelihood, this test was going to be a supreme failure. Not that it would blow up; no, odds of that were incredibly low.

Odds that the results would be spectacularly anti-climactic? That Rodney would be in a sour mood for the next week while they looked for their mistakes and look-pasts? And Rodney was bound to blame everything on his team. On Radek. Not on Rodney, not for going too fast, not for setting his sights so high that not even the Ancients could reach.

Radek let a sigh escape. "Před setřením bývá pýcha, a před pádem pozdvižení ducha." *

Anna gave him a strange look, well deserved. Everyone else would probably think Radek was waxing eloquent on Rodney's many shortcomings and the questionable legitimacy of his parents' marriage.

He wasn't. Even if Rodney might have needed it, Radek wasn't one for proselytizing. It would have been hypocritical of him to say anything more. He wasn't as pure as the driven snow.

But he wasn't as arrogant as Rodney, either. He'd take what he could get.

#

Anna's first hint that something could go wrong today was Radek's unusually jumpy demeanor. He struck her as perpetually jumpy in comparison with Doctors McKay and Collins, but not like this. Even Collins seemed a little on edge, and he was usually so laid back.

But it was a big test. It was perfectly safe. Doctor McKay had assured everyone.

It struck Anna then that was why they were nervous. What was McKay going to do when it didn't work? Because, from what Anna could gather, everyone in the room except for Doctor McKay seemed to think that this was going to be a massive failure.

Anna stood off to one side next to John while Radek and the others finished up the last bit of preparations. Anxieties tightened the closer they got, but over it was a light and airy excitement. Anna decided to hold on to that. No one, no one but John and Radek, anyway, seemed to be overly worried.

"What do you think?" John asked in a low whisper. Maybe he didn't want to interrupt the scientists calling to each other a few feet away.

"It's exciting," Anna said, adjusting her flak jacket. She didn't know why they were both wearing this getup, but none of the scientists were. It wouldn't protect them if it exploded.

"Exciting, yeah." John didn't sound too excited. "Know what's going on here?"

"A little," Anna said. She started to explain what Project Arcturus was for: extracting vacuum energy from their universe, as opposed to what some of the scientists called a "pocket universe" in the ZPM. "I wonder if the weapon was even the point of this at all. Or if it was just something they had to build to act as a sort of failsafe."

John pinched his lips together. "How much have you talked to Radek about this?"

"None," Anna said. She smiled when he raised his eyebrows as though impressed. That was when she realized that, while she and Radek hadn't talked much while he was back, the times they had spoken had been almost exclusively on the topic of Project Arcturus. "Maybe a little."

John nodded like that explained everything.

The scientists all seemed to take their places like they were putting on a staged play. Collins and Radek stood side-by-side at a pair of monitors spitting out power readings. Anna could just barely see half of each of their screens, but that was it. Not enough to tell if anything interesting was happening. The only indication that something was happening was when Doctor McKay announced they were initiating the test sequence.

Collins glanced around the room, his eyes suddenly resting on Anna. "Come here." He waved Anna over to his computer screen. She squeezed between Collins and Radek and looked at his screen.

Radek watched Anna for half a moment before looking at his screen monitoring the power fluctuations of the machine. She didn't have to see the look on his face to tell he was confused and stressed. He didn't want her to be here…

"Radek," Doctor McKay said. "Talk to me."

"I'm picking up some minor power fluctuations," Radek answered. "Chamber temperature's holding steady…" And then he paused. Hissed. "There it goes again."

Collins leaned over to look.

"Everything okay?" John asked.

"Everything's fine," Doctor McKay snapped. "The containment bubble was designed to automatically compensate for any sudden changes in energy output."

"This never happened in the simulations," Anna whispered. The simulations were, for lack of a better word, promising. Radek still seemed on edge. Maybe Doctor McKay was right. He was too skittish for this job.

"Excuse me?" Doctor McKay asked.

"It never happened in the simulations," Radek repeated, giving her a glare.

She wasn't about to open her mouth again.

"Maybe we should abort," John said.

Anna wouldn't have pegged John as the skittish sort, either… She turned her back to the desk. John was watching Doctor McKay's screens intently, like he knew what was on there. Doctor McKay was checking every readout screen he had access to and made adjustments as he went.

"I said it's fine," Doctor McKay said. "Collins, see if you can boost more power to the field manually."

"You got it."

Collins brushed past Anna as he put on his goggles. A moment later he was in the long, white hallway, door shut behind him.

Doctor McKay looked at John, a smug grin on his face.

"Prepare for test firing on my mark."

Before Doctor McKay could say anything about a mark, alarms blared and lights flashed. Radek slid over to Collins' screen, setting her aside like a rolling cart. "Levels just spiked into the red." The screen flashed in his face. Overload.

"What?" Doctor McKay asked.

"Shut it down," John ordered.

Anna slowly crossed the floor to Doctor McKay's station. Radek and Doctor McKay yelled frantically at one another, John interjecting with confused orders. It wasn't working. She paused halfway between them, her heart beating to the rhythm of the alarms.

"We should evacuate," John said.

Doctor McKay shook his head. "Just give me a few seconds."

The next time John spoke, it was more a growl. "We may not have that time."

"Wait, wait, wait." Radek interrupted. Anna glanced back at him. "It's stabilizing." He waited for his computer screen to stop moving. All the lights shut off, leaving only their Earth-made lights powered from their backups.

Radek looked up. "Generator is offline."

"What the hell just happened?" John demanded.

"Obviously there was a surge of some kind." Doctor McKay looked at all of his screens and then gestured vaguely behind him. "Look, Collin—Collins!"

Doctor McKay dashed for the door to the access tube, John and Radek right behind him. Anna ran up next to Doctor McKay as he threw open the door.

She choked on the breath she'd been taking. Smoke curled up from his uniform, his skin red and blistered, rigid and… dead. Her stomach flipped and, for a moment, she was afraid she was going to lose it. Lose what, she wasn't precisely sure. She put her hand to her mouth and sucked in a breath.

"That's it," John muttered. "We're going back to Atlantis."

Doctor McKay turned in a daze. "Yes. Yes," he said. He went to his computer.

Anna wanted to turn away, but she couldn't. Not until Radek took her by the shoulders and forced her to look at him. "Are you okay?" he asked. "Anna?"

It was a stupid question to ask. It was even more stupid to try to answer. She shut her eyes and shook her head, hand still over her mouth. He seemed to not know what to do. What was there to do? Collins was dead.

Before anyone could say or do much else, Anna dashed for the jumper.

#

Radek watched her go. He wasn't sure if he should follow her but… he couldn't.

Stepping back from the gaping door to the access tube, he put his fingers through his hair.

"Oh, god," he mumbled helplessly.

"Zelenka," Rodney said from somewhere. "Help me with this; there's work to do."

Their friend was dead and he wanted to just get back to work?

Radek's friend. McKay didn't have any friends.

He shoved aside whatever he might have thought to feel and looked toward Rodney standing at his station.

After making a quick check with his life signs detector, Sheppard ran to get the others to pile them all in the Puddle Jumper to leave. Higginson bustled around, her shock putting her in a silent daze. Robert didn't even move in the corner, completely baffled. McKay's brow was knit in anger and confusion, the buttons on the flat screen flashing as he pressed them in quick sequence.

"But shouldn't we—?"

"We'll send a team with radiation suits to take care of it. We need to shut this down."

"Radiation?" Radek repeated before catching up. He scoffed in disbelief. "It?"

"Yes, yes, radiation," Rodney muttered, waving his hand toward Radek. "Shut the door."

Radek did as he was told with a last careful look down the white hallway. Rodney was right: they didn't know exactly what had killed Collins. They shouldn't have opened the door, but the radiation monitors on the computers outside the door didn't read anything dangerous. Still, it paid to be careful.

Careful. What happened? Weren't they careful? It wasn't the best idea to send anyone into the access tube during the test, but who would have known? No one could know; no one would guess.

Reality managed to strangle away his rationalizations and explaining and the very ability to breathe.

Collins was dead.

Radek shut down the two computers he'd been looking at earlier. The screen Collins was monitoring. "We should have shut the test down," he said quietly.

"Yeah?" Rodney snapped. "How was I supposed to know the field was going to expand asymmetrically like that? I mean, look at this." He jabbed his finger at a tablet he was holding, a jumbled report of the tragedy that just happened. A model of a bubble of energy popped out in a way that didn't seem, for all Radek's experience, like it was physically possible.

All the numbers and graphs in the world wouldn't give it any sense. All the nonsense in the world wouldn't it make it okay or forgivable.

"We tried to tell you, Rodney," Radek found himself saying a moment later.

"Please, like-like you knew that was going to happen any more than I did," Rodney said. He threw a few files across the screen into a removable disc.

The Ancients aren't perfect.

"I didn't know, but the skeletons were one hell of a tipoff."

They're all dead.

"Oh, come on, we run into skeletons every other week," Rodney said.

"Will is dead!"

Robert took his eyes off the wall. Higginson glanced up for a moment. They had that look children have when their parents argue, and Radek hated that look. Hated the respect they gave Rodney when all he ever did was... well, save their lives. Put them in mortal danger. Ridicule them, scold them, disrespect them. Take them for granted, and not care if they should suddenly be swept away by radiation, viruses, life-sucking, electrocution, pick any way to die in the Pegasus galaxy. Rodney wouldn't even notice, would he?

Damn good scientist. Deplorable human being. He could strangle Rodney right now and not feel a thing.

"You think I don't know that?"

The room ached with the silence. Rodney blinked, and a Rodney that Radek had never seen before nearly spilled out. He turned away before Radek could make head or tail of it.

"Look, Sheppard will be back any minute. Everyone, get your things and get to the Jumper." Rodney picked up his few mechanical implements. Higginson hurried down an adjoining hallway and Robert started looking for something under a desk on the other side of the room.

Radek took a short step closer, but couldn't figure out what he was doing. Was he sorry? He didn't know whether to be or not, yet. But no one could fault his confusion at a McKay that maybe had a heart. The McKay that lived in relative silence for a month after Dumais' funeral. The McKay that wasn't quite normal since he left on an offworld mission with Sheppard, Gaul, and Abrams, and only half of them made it back. Rodney moved on quick; they all did. They had to.

It didn't mean they wanted to.

Radek left the room with a sigh, turned the nearest corner, and found himself in the empty hall between the main room and the outdoor landing zone where the Jumper waited.

What the hell just happened?

Had that just happened?

Thinking about this was impossible at the moment. Besides, the sound of muffled sobbing filled the still hallway as he neared the Jumper. He'd figure it out later. Figure out exactly what he thought later. The back of the Jumper was open, the empty numbness pulling him inside. "Anna?" he said quietly as he walked beside her.

She sat on the bench against the divider between the cockpit and the cargo space, her back to the wall. Her knees drawn up. Arms wrapped around. Forehead on her knees and her shoulders shaking with sobs.

"Anna, I'm so sorry you were… you saw that." He didn't know what to say, but that seemed better than nothing. Maybe. Sometimes nothing was good.

After a moment of sniffing, her eyes looked up with a flash of outrage. "Saw that?"

He didn't know what he'd said wrong. But he couldn't scold her; he could hardly speak.

"You're acting like I just saw an argument between my parents or something. Not—not—" Anna gestured toward the open Puddle Jumper door not too far away. She shook her head and turned her eyes back down to her knees. "Why? Why, why, why?" Her words were drowned in tears.

Radek reached for her shoulder and knelt beside her. He meant to wrap his arm around her, but she shied away from his hand. Turned into the wall, away from him. It was alright; she was sad. He was angry, but not sad. He'd feel it tomorrow. Maybe. Soon.

Why Collins of all people?

Words meant nothing. Helped no one. Especially not Anna. Not about this.

He knew she wasn't asking why Collins. She was asking why at all. Why her mother. The universe didn't choose her specifically for this; the universe didn't choose anything at all. But sometimes, it felt like it. There was no reason, but it would almost be nice if there were.

Hanging his head, he told her, "I'm sorry, Anna; I don't know why."

Czech Things

Ah, two Czech chapter titles in a row. That's weird. But I really, really, really wanted to use this one and you can't stop me. So there. Anyway, the chapter title here means "Before a fall," as in…

* From the Bible's Proverbs 16:18, which goes: "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." A large percentage of the Czech Republic's population is irreligious, and Zelenka is likely among them. However, he could have exposure since apparently there was a spike in religiosity right after the revolution. I imagine a twenty-something Radek's parents in a newly-liberated Czech Republic being like, "Hey, come to church with us. Because." And Radek, you know, he's a pushover.

Uh, or I might just be influenced by my beta's headcanon, to which I do not ascribe, that Radek is Roman Catholic. *shrug* I have no explanation. He has yet to give one.

A/N: It's coming to that time of year again. Good luck to those of you in school/university. Finals will come faster than you think... if they haven't already come and gone, that is. Finish strong! And thank you all for reading. ;) Not a bit of exaggeration to say this thing gets me through the semester.

Next time: Remember that "Fumbles McStupid" crack? Remember that? Do you?