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

Previously: Radek and Atlantis are looking for Sheppard and his team (since chapter 74). Anna is learning the perils of mountain climbing. Well. Mountain hiking.

Chapter 77. Twist.

Everything seemed to hurt, and it wasn't just the freezing water rushing over her. Jinto and Iskaan hovered over her almost as soon as she opened her eyes. Someone was holding her hand, and touching her shoulder.

"Anna?" Jinto asked urgently. "Anna, can you hear me?"

Anna mumbled, but her lips seemed unwilling to form the words she wanted to. "Yeah…" she said finally, and struggled to sit up. Her hands were shaking and her head was aching. Her eyes were blurry… or maybe that was because she lost her glasses somewhere around here.

"Sorry, I—" Her whispered words scratched her throat. She had dirt in her teeth. She put a hand to her throbbing head and tried not to sob. "Sakra…" *

Iskaan breathed a sigh of relief. "I think you were unconscious for a couple of seconds. Can you get up? Can you walk? We should get you out of the water."

Anna tried to stand, but pain shot up her shin and into her knee, forcing a cry from her lungs.

"What hurts? What is it?" Iskaan asked.

"Um…" Anna brushed tears out of her eyes and tried to figure out where that new pain had come from. "My ankle. I don't… I think I can't walk." She caught in a few breaths, pleased to find that nothing seemed to be too badly wrong with her.

Except she had been unconscious. Her head pounded and felt hot.

"Here."

Iskaan carefully slipped his arm under her knees and around her back. When he stood, he jerked her leg around, driving another bolt up her leg. She couldn't help her whimper of pain as he carried her across the river to the opposite bank and set her on the ground against the side of the mountain.

"Iskaan, she's bleeding," Jinto said quietly. He pulled off his vest and folded a part of it before gently pressing it against her head.

"I know," Iskaan answered. He looked at Anna carefully. "I can carry you the rest of the way, but…"

Anna shook her head, startling Jinto and making herself dizzy. "No, um… wait, can we wait?" She closed her eyes and rested her head in her palm. What if she had a concussion? She had to get back to Atlantis. At least back to Doctor Adams. She knew that much.

She didn't know anything else. Nothing else except she couldn't really think.

Jinto carefully put the fabric back against her head.

"Jinto," Iskaan said a moment later. "You run back home. Get Doctor Adams, tell him what happened. They might be able to come get her or at least… I don't know. If we can, I'll take her further down the mountain. She might have broken her ankle."

Anna pushed her tears away at the mention of broken bones. She really hoped not. She'd never broken anything before.

Before she could ask whether Iskaan thought she'd broken anything or not, Jinto pointed to the orange rock that Iskaan had been carrying. It laid across the river among the smooth pebbles. It didn't seem to be broken or anything. "Should I take that with me?"

Iskaan glanced once at Anna, as though he was going to ask her if she really wanted the rock now. Anna supposed that, if he'd asked, she would have said no. She didn't get the chance, because Iskaan looked at Jinto and answered, "Yes. We won't be able to carry it with us."

She concentrated on the sound of Jinto running off through the river. He scrambled up the embankment and that was the last she heard of him.

"How long do you think he'll be?" she asked.

Iskaan shrugged. "It was going to take us maybe an hour and a half or two to get back. Jinto can do it pretty quick on his own, but he's tired and hungry. And then he has to lead Doctor Adams back here." Iskaan sighed and looked up at the sky. "It'll be a few hours at least, I think."

That sounded like forever.

She couldn't cry, though. That was stupid. She wasn't going to cry. Her ankle just hurt. And her head. When she opened her eyes, she realized that Jinto had left her his vest. She put it on her forehead and winced. Wondered how big the gash was.

"What happened?" she asked. "I mean… after I fell."

"I think you didn't miss a single rock on the way down. Enviable aim," Iskaan joked. Anna tried to smile for him, but she wasn't sure how successful she was. "You hit your head pretty hard on one of the river rocks, so… if you can, we should try to keep you awake. Just in case."

Anna voiced her agreement, but was careful not to move her head. Not since she was still feeling queasy.

When Iskaan crouched in front of her, she wanted to look away for some reason. He looked right into her eyes, looking between them quickly. "Your eyes are the same, so that's good."

"What?"

Iskaan pointed to his own eye, for some reason. "Last year, Wex fell off a balcony on Atlantis, and Doctor Beckett told us some things about hitting your head. If one of your eyes is bigger than the other, then that means your brain is bleeding… or something."

"Oh, uh… rozšířené zorničky," ** Anna said. She couldn't think of what that might be in English. Big eyes made as much sense as anything.

Iskaan smiled. "I'm going to assume that's your language and not some gibberish." With that, he pulled her glasses from his pocket and handed them to her. "Jinto saw these fell off."

Anna put them on… but they didn't really help her see better. She thanked him anyway.

He moved to sit next to her. "I'm not like any of your Earth doctors, but I think you're okay."

Anna didn't know if she should feel better about his pronouncement, but she did. It was better than being far from home and terrified.

Iskaan reached into his vest and removed his panpipes. "Anything you'd like to hear? Something lively?" He slid the pipe along under his lips a few times. When Anna didn't answer him, he played what sounded like a jig with a strange melodic flair that gave it a longing feeling.

Anna stretched out her uninjured leg, sighed, and stared at the ground. Her ankle throbbed continuously. It wasn't in a very comfortable spot, but she sure wasn't moving it. That would just make it worse.

It didn't look like it was broken, did it?

Ankles were weird, though. There were so many bones in the foot, she could have broken something tiny… she'd never know.

Curse biology. She hated that stuff.

Maybe she was tired.

That thought made her heart speed up. She wasn't sure what she thought might happen if she fell asleep with a concussion. It probably wasn't anything very serious… but what if it was? She looked up across the river to the embankment. It looked really steep. Maybe ten, twenty feet. Lots of huge branches and rocks all the way down. She could swear she could still feel the imprint of one of those logs on her shoulders…

She kept herself busy thinking about Atlantis. She wondered what Radek was doing. He was probably back from his mission. That meant he was in his lab, all safe and sound. Probably had a cup of coffee. Probably swearing at the screen for not doing what he asked it very nicely to do.

He still tried not to swear around her. It was kind of funny.

"Hey." Iskaan moved his shoulder. Anna didn't realize she'd rested her head there and closed her eyes.

"Promiň. Jsem v pořádku," *** Anna whispered. She righted herself on the boulder and fixed her eyes across the river. "I'm not sleeping." Maybe, if she concentrated, she wouldn't fall asleep. "I didn't sleep, did I? How long has it been?"

It felt like two minutes. Maybe. But the forest was golden and the air felt cool. Anna didn't know if that was because it was later or if it had something to do with her. Maybe all her blood was rushing to her brain and her ankle. Trying to fix it. Her ankle was swollen pretty badly.

Iskaan shrugged. "Jinto must have reached home by now."

"It's been an hour?"

"A little more, maybe," Iskaan said.

Anna took a deep breath and looked around. She felt a little better. Still dizzy if she looked too fast, though. She tried to make some sort of conversation about the birds and the animals out there. She wondered if any of them were dangerous, and Iskaan told her, rather unhelpfully, that there were always dangerous animals in a forest. He also said he didn't think any of them were interested in them at the moment, either.

"What will happen when it gets to be night?" Anna asked.

"It won't. Jinto's probably on his way back with Doctor Adams right now," Iskaan answered. "But I can build a fire, and that will keep the most dangerous ones away, for the most part. The animals out here are just as wary of us."

Anna didn't know about that. She sighed, leaned forward, and rubbed her eyes.

"You think I can carry you, now?" Iskaan wondered. He turned toward her, looking at her ankle as if he were afraid it might explode or something. "If we get closer, the sooner you can get home."

"Yeah…" Anna whispered, but she wasn't sure she wanted to move her foot. He was right, though. A little bit of pain now was worth getting back to Atlantis sooner. Especially if she had a concussion. "Yes, that would be good."

Iskaan leaned over her, wrapping an arm around her back and hooking the other underneath her knees. Even the slight movement to her leg was like some kind of torture. He halted all motion when she whimpered, and looked at her critically.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, please, don't mind me." Anna held her breath and willed her tears away. Falling off a mountain was embarrassing enough. Never mind crying at even the smallest twinge to her foot.

Iskaan hoisted her up off the ground, apparently being very careful to move her as little as possible, and then stepped into the river. "As long as we keep to the river bank, we'll get out of the mountain without any problems."

Anna looked down, slowly, to watch the water swirl beneath his feet. It really was a beautiful place. The world was all shades of gold and yellow, the sun reaching through the branches to glitter off the water like gems. Birds chirped with a wary indecision, perhaps warning their feathered brethren that there were intruders in their otherwise perfect woods.

Anna hooked her fingers over Iskaan's shoulder, resting her head on them. It seemed too heavy for her. Closed her eyes.

"How's life in the city of the ancestors?" Iskaan asked suddenly.

Anna took a deep breath and looked around with a start. Iskaan was right. She shouldn't sleep. Plus… well, Anna could only imagine how boring it might be to carry someone down a mountain and not at least engage in some sort of conversation.

"I don't think you ever told me what it's like for you to live there."

"You've lived there before, though," Anna mumbled. "You know what it's like."

"I know what it was like for me," Iskaan said. "It would be different for you. I'm an Athosian. Your city is mysterious and magical to me. Do you see it that way?"

Anna turned her eyes up a little, before realizing that was giving her a headache. "Um… no." She took a deep breath and tried to figure out how she saw it. "It is like a mystery to me, though. But not like magic. Like a puzzle. Or a maze. I don't know." She sighed. "I don't think I belong there."

Iskaan frowned as he stepped over a larger rock before stepping out of the river and onto a mossy knoll next to the water. "Why not?"

"I'm not like anyone there," she said quietly. "I'm not like Radek or Doctor McKay. They're too smart for me. I'm not like Teyla or Ronon or Colonel Sheppard. They're too brave and athletic. They know everything you'd want to know about hurting someone or getting away. I'm not like Elizabeth. I'm not like Doctor Beckett…"

"That's not bad, though. You're not supposed to be like them." Iskaan glanced at her. "But you are smart."

Anna got the feeling he was saying that just because she knew more things than he did. Sort of. She knew more things, but only certain things. She didn't know how she'd managed to take such a major misstep, though. She couldn't even walk.

She didn't know anything.

"No… you probably think this is pretty stupid, don't you?" Anna asked. She tried to smile, because it was a little funny. She was not even a baby in Athosian standards. She understood the electrical systems of the Daedalus, but she'd almost killed herself on a hike.

"What?" Iskaan glanced at her, one eyebrow arched.

"You wouldn't have tripped and broken your ankle, would you?" Anna asked. She ran her hand down her leg toward her ankle, pulling the feeling off of it. The throbbing came back half a second later.

Iskaan considered that with a half-grin. "Probably not." The way he said that made Anna think he'd never tripped in his whole life. The way he kept his balance and walked so easily even with her in his arms made her believe it with her whole heart. "But that doesn't mean it's stupid. And it doesn't mean you are, either."

Anna wasn't convinced. It was stupid. Nothing Iskaan said would make it any less.

He chuckled and shook his head. He took notice when she squinted at him. "Anna…" He sighed. "You landed a ship of the Ancestors in the field this morning. I don't know if any of my people could do that, and I don't know that they'd even want to try. I'm not sure if I'd want to."

He had a bit of a point. Then again… "There's a big difference between flying a Puddle Jumper and walking. Most people can walk. I should be able to walk."

"You are what you practice," Iskaan said. "I practice walking and hunting. You practice flying ships and… well, whatever else it is that you do on Atlantis. Besides, you tripped once. That doesn't mean anything."

Anna stayed quiet for a couple of seconds until she realized he was looking at her. Closely. Her heart shuddered in her chest when she realized it, and she tried to calm herself down. Iskaan wasn't—not like that.

Maybe she was imagining things. She had a concussion.

He took a deep breath and focused back on the path he was taking down the mountain. It had become rather steep and harder for Anna to hide that the sway of his step hurt her ankle a lot.

"You are anything but stupid, okay?" he said.

Anna didn't know what to say to that, if anything. She leaned against him once again and waited to get used to the pain. Assuming that could happen. When it felt like it had been an eternity, though it was probably only a few minutes, she looked up at him.

"Hey, um, Iskaan?"

"Let me set you down here." He interrupted. "I need a minute or two to… um… not that you're exceedingly heavy." He smiled.

It might have been a funny joke in any other circumstance, but she was just about to start weeping again. It would have lost its effect. "Yes, please," Anna whispered, holding her breath while Iskaan set her down near the water's edge. It was so close that Anna could put her fingers into the mountain's icy stream. "I think we should just wait here, I think."

"Are you okay?" Iskaan asked.

"Yes, I'm just… I'm just dizzy." Anna busied herself taking her shoe and sock off to put her foot in the cooling water. A moment later, she discovered that Iskaan's hand was on her shoulder and he was looking right into her eyes.

Anna couldn't figure out if anything was there. Anything except that he was obviously making some sort of medical assessment with his hackneyed knowledge passed on from Doctor Beckett after a fall down the stairs.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

Anna shrugged. "Yes. I'm not great. But not awful, either."

"Okay." He sighed and looked more concerned than Anna expected.

Made her a little more worried than she felt a few seconds ago… but she could barely think, so she wasn't too worried, either. Which did worry her? It was confusing. And all she wanted to do was sleep.

"At least your head stopped bleeding." To see the scrape tearing into her hairline on the side of her head, he carefully brushed his fingers along her jaw to turn her head. It was like static electricity, jumping between his skin and hers.

Or maybe it was just the concussion.

"Could be worse," Anna agreed quietly.

Iskaan chuckled, backing away. He took a seat across from her, so they could see each other. "Could it?"

Anna really walked into this one, didn't she? She couldn't think of anything to say but her initial thought. "At least you're here with me."

Iskaan looked surprised. Not upset, not pleased. Just surprised. Anna was surprised, too.

Anna didn't even get to explain that she meant she probably would have died up here had it been just her. The mountains were a big place, and search parties would probably not be able to find her in that gorge. Except life sign detectors existed, so they probably would have found her immediately.

"I see them! They're this way! Come on, hurry!" Jinto's voice echoed through the trees just in time for Anna to pull back and look at the ground instead of into Iskaan's eyes.

"They're here." Her voice wasn't cooperating.

"They are." Iskaan watched her for several seconds, then stood and shouted, "Over here!"

Anna smiled when she saw Griffin stomping up the gorge with a flashlight, Doctor Adams on his heels. Griffin looked like he was possibly having he time of his life. Doctor Adams… less so. Two Athosians followed, but Jinto sprinted through the woods to reach them first.

Jinto knelt beside Anna, put his hand on her shoulder. "Are you okay?" he asked.

Anna laughed a little at his concern, and nodded. Slightly. Her headache was making her dizzy. "Thanks for getting them so quickly."

She glanced up at Iskaan and realized that he was smiling a little at her.

Except she might have a concussion. Her head was bleeding. Not exactly the optimum atmosphere for a… kiss? Her first kiss? Was that seriously just about to happen?

Anna supposed now she'd never know.

She had a concussion. Better to not think about anything like that. Anything she didn't know. Anything that required any sort of reasoning whatsoever.

Doctor Adams unloaded his backpack next to her, asked a hundred questions about her ankle, and made several comments about how swollen it was. Anna felt like she didn't need a doctor to tell her all that, but he said he couldn't tell anything for sure until he got her back to Atlantis to run a few scans. He did say he didn't think it was broken, but she may have badly sprained it.

Then he asked her a hundred other questions about her head. He shined a penlight in her eyes and didn't seem too pleased with what he saw. "Alright. Better if you don't walk on your ankle, then. Let's get you back home." He pulled a strange-looking thing with bars and tarp from his backpack. "I have this, uh… this stretcher." He turned it around and upside down as he tried to figure out how to unfold it.

Finally, he did. Iskaan and Griffin both moved her carefully onto the stretcher. Anna laid back while Doctor Adams carefully set her ankle in a more comfortable position. Then he put a hard brace on it, and that hurt. That hurt way more than she expected.

Griffin sighed and looked down the gorge. "We're already going to be a few hours late. Better get going."

Anna found herself lifted up between Griffin and Iskaan, almost like she weighed nothing to them. She had nothing to do but watch quietly, gripping the sides of the stretcher while they started moving. Jinto stepped up beside her.

"Thank you," she said to Jinto.

He smiled and shrugged. "You're welcome." Jinto glanced up at Iskaan.

Iskaan took a few careful steps before catching his stride. He never tripped even once.

Anna wished that everyone would talk a bit more on the way back, so she might be able to tell if she lost consciousness. So she'd have something to think about. No one said much of anything, even Doctor Adams as he walked along beside her. Jinto zoomed off into the woods sometimes, only to return quickly. Maybe he was trying to keep the wild animals scared off.

The only one who said anything was Griffin, and that was only to tell her it looked like she wasn't flying back after all.

#

Dread. For just a second, a fraction of a second, that was the only thing. His feet were already taking him to the infirmary before rational thought reasserted itself. Carson already started to reassure him, anyway. Just in case Radek couldn't do that by himself.

"She's fine, like I said." Yes, Carson did say that. Led with that, actually. Anna's fine, but… It was the "but" that got him. "Just a sprained ankle. A concussion." A catalogue of cuts and bruises followed Radek into the transporter.

"What the hell was she doing, Carson?" Now that his worst fear had been calmed he was… angry? Weird.

"Radek," Carson scolded. "Uklidni se. She was just doing some rock climbing and took a bit of a tumble."

"Oh. A tumble. Nádhera," **** Radek snapped sarcastically. Like the setting on a clothes dryer, maybe she fell into a bunch of fluffy blankets. He sighed when Carson just chuckled. "You make it sound like a concussion and sprained ankle are normal."

"Aren't they?" Carson asked. "Here's a question: what were you doing when you were sixteen?"

Radek stepped out onto the infirmary level and slowed his frantic pace. To be honest, he barely remembered sixteen without significant effort. What was he doing? Mostly studying and working. Radek had to imagine his Czechoslovakian youth was much different from Carson's in Scotland. But… yes, there was occasional wall-climbing, fence-hopping, dodging irate school teachers, friends' fathers as much as his own. But that was mostly in attempts to keep his little brother out of trouble.

"I guess I was in more trouble than that," Radek answered, stepping into the infirmary.

"Já taky, kamaráde." *****

Radek looked around. Carson was on the far side of the room, looking at some x-ray film. He gave a nod of greeting, but didn't walk over. Radek scanned the room and saw Anna on a bed on the far wall, Doctor Keller standing beside her.

Anna didn't look fine. She had a couple of bruises—just that he could see—on her face and arms. Tiny bandages held together a cut on her forehead. Her foot was lifted up on a bunch of pillows and hugged on all sides by towels and ice packs.

She was smiling, though, talking to Doctor Keller about "liquid stitches." Radek was no medical doctor, but that seemed counter-productive.

"And then it will just come off in about eight days, or maybe ten." Doctor Keller shrugged, and smiled at Radek when she saw him coming. She glanced back at Anna to continue, "Just don't scratch at it." Then they both fell silent, quite suddenly, and looked at him.

"Hey." Radek tried to say it like he hadn't almost had a heart attack on the way here. "How's the head?" And the ankle. And the ribs. And the…

"Fine," Anna said with a sigh. "I just tried to step where the ground wasn't."

"Carson said you were rock-climbing."

"I was…" Anna agreed tentatively. "But not when I fell. It's kind of embarrassing."

Radek felt justified to smile a bit in apology. "Sorry you inherited my poor coordination." He watched her smile weakly. She was still in pain. Still embarrassed. But, like Carson said, she was fine. "Did you have fun?"

Doctor Keller told Anna to call her if she needed anything.

As soon as Doctor Keller left, Anna nodded her answer to Radek. "Yeah. It was fine." She didn't exactly sound enthusiastic. Of course, no matter how much fun she had during the day, it still ended in the infirmary. "Did you?"

Radek shrugged. "Uh. Not really. Colonel Sheppard's team went missing before lunch and we've been looking for them all day." If their track record held, they'd show up sometime in the middle of the night… Radek wasn't quite to the stage where he was worried yet.

Who was he kidding? He was always worried.

"How's my most adventurous patient today?" Carson asked, coming over with his plastic films.

"I just went hiking," Anna objected.

Carson chuckled. "Well, my other patients today have been… insomnia and headache. So unless something comes up in…" Carson paused to check his watch, "four hours, today, you are my most adventurous patient."

Anna smiled and shook her head at his reasoning.

"Want to see what a not-broken ankle looks like?" Carson asked, and came to stand between Radek and Anna. He held the sheet between them. In Radek's eyes, it looked remarkably like… a foot. "Quite nice ankles, actually." He said it like a joke, but Anna immediately frowned.

"Oh, thanks," Anna said sarcastically. "I made them myself."

Carson chuckled and shook his head. "Alright, alright. But you did sprain your ankle pretty badly. You've got a few mild tears in the ligaments here." He ran his finger up and down the picture of Anna's ankle. Radek didn't see anything that looked like a tear in anything, but… x-rays only showed bones, didn't they? "You'll have to be very gentle with it for several weeks. And, I'm afraid no jumping around in the gym for at least two months."

"Two months?" Anna sounded incredibly upset.

Radek didn't realize how much jumping around in the gym she'd been doing. Enough to like it, apparently. Enough to like it a lot.

"At least," Carson repeated. "I have a brace for you, but there'll be no walking for a week or so, aye?"

Anna sighed and nodded. "Okay. That'll be no problem right now." She offered a bit of a smile.

"If it gives you trouble when you're trying to sleep or something, let me know and I'll give you something to ease the pain." He paused. "As for your concussion… I'd like to keep you overnight just to make certain you're alright. Your brain has endured quite a bit of knocking around. Are you tired?"

Anna nodded a little. "Yeah," she said quietly.

"Alright." Carson smiled and patted the pillow she leaned against. "Lie back and rest."

"Thanks, Doctor Beckett…" Anna leaned back on the pillow. She glanced at Radek and gave a smile. Shut her eyes.

"Hezké sny, miláčku." ****** Radek followed Carson over to his computer and leaned on the desk while Carson made a few adjustments to a file he was working on.

"So it is only a mild concussion, though?" Radek asked quickly.

"She'll be back to normal in a few weeks," Carson said, not taking his eyes off the files. As if Anna wasn't so injured as to require his full attention. Radek couldn't decide if he wanted that full attention or not… then he realized that Carson was examining a picture of a brain. Probably Anna's. Then he sighed and nodded. "Yes, she'll be just fine, but it will take a while."

"Is it bad or not?" Radek prodded.

"What do you mean by 'bad'?" Carson chuckled a little. "She was complaining of dizziness and a headache… though I have to say that wouldn't be unusual for hitting your head even half as hard as she did." He glanced toward Anna with a bit of concern on his face that only made Radek feel worse. "She was also a bit sluggish with the memory and attention tests I gave her."

"Wait, what do you mean? She's damaged her brain?"

"No, no, no. Just banged up a bit. A bit of rest to give her time to heal should do it. The brain is a very… complex organ." Carson shook his head with a tone of worry. Or maybe that was awe.

"I know; that's why I don't study it."

Carson smiled. That was a little cheering, since Radek doubted he'd be so light-hearted if something was really wrong with Anna.

"Will she be okay?"

"Yes, of course." Carson leaned on his desk and stared at the computer. "I'm going to ask that you watch her closely for the next few days, or weeks, though."

"Weeks?"

Carson chuckled. "Why are you only hearing the worst parts of what I'm saying? Anna will be fine."

"Then why the watching for weeks?" Radek challenged.

Carson sighed. "Various health issues can arise from injury to the brain," Carson explained cautiously. "She'll certainly have headaches, and probably problems sleeping. There could be psychological side-effects—anxiety, depression—or a decline in cognitive ability."

"Wait, what?"

Carson was talking about insomnia and depression… and decline in cognitive ability was where he interrupted…?

He simply couldn't imagine anything worse to happen. Anxiety? Fine, fact of life. Depression? Whatever, whatever. Personally, he could lose both his legs, he could suffer migraines every day for the rest of his life. He would be Rodney's next-door neighbor for eternity before he'd chose losing his ability to reason as an acceptable alternative.

"She'll return to normal in a few weeks," Carson rushed. "But you have to understand she'll get worse before she gets better, okay? Try not to be too worried. I'll check up on her every couple of days to make sure there's no reason for concern."

"No reason for concern…"

"She will make a full recovery." Carson waited, looking at him. Maybe he was supposed to say something? Maybe Carson was letting his last words sink in. "I'm keeping her under observation tonight to make certain the swelling is going down. I know it is, but it can't hurt anything. Try not to worry about her tonight, okay? I'll watch her personally if that would make you feel better."

It would, but it was hardly fair for Radek to ask Carson to pull an all-nighter for a concussion… even if it was his daughter he was talking about. "I… no. Of course, not. That's fine." He sighed and looked toward Anna. Propped up by pillows, cocooned by blankets, there was really no safer place Radek could think of. It looked like she was already asleep, in fact. He looked at Carson. "Can I stay with her?"

Carson smiled, but Radek couldn't decide if he was amused or pleased. "Of course."

Anxiety. Right, Anna was the one with a concussion and Radek felt like he'd just taken on all the side-effects in sympathy. Dizziness and nausea included. "Carson, what if—?"

Carson sighed heavily to cut off Radek's apparently obvious question. What if Anna had damaged her brain permanently? It would be fine; they'd figure it out. But she was so bright. He wasn't sure who would feel more cheated if she never caught back that mental quickness. But what if?

"Here's the thing," Carson said, as if he was finally going to start telling the truth. "She'll be confused for the next few days. And then irritable and frustrated after that when she's not as quick as she used to be. I'll tell her not to rush her recovery, not to worry about not being able to keep up with Rodney's science homework, but she will get better. Okay? It'll just take time."

Just take time. Don't worry.

"Radek. She'll be fine."

Easy for him to say.

"Okay," Radek said finally. "Sorry, it's just been a long day."

Carson eyed him. "Not that I know anything about it," he said with a tinge of humor, "but you look like you could use a bit of shut-eye yourself."

That was probably true. He wasn't sure how well he was going to sleep in here with that in mind. He quickly put that out of his mind. He didn't know what, exactly, he thought he was going to do here by staying with Anna, but…

Ah, just stop trying to think. Radek sighed and shrugged. "You know what happens when Colonel Sheppard's team goes missing. The rest of us don't get any sleep, either."

"What do you suppose happened to them?" Carson asked.

Radek had a few guesses, but he didn't say them at first. They were all depressing. They all made him think that he might be in charge of the science team, and how much he actually didn't want that. "It looks like they were taken offworld against their will. I identified some planets for the teams to check, but I doubt any kidnapper would be stupid enough to go straight from one planet to their hideout planet. Unless, you know, they know somehow that we aren't able to track them down."

"We aren't?" Carson asked. He sounded so surprised.

"No," Radek answered. "The DHD doesn't store previously dialed addresses."

"Huh…" Carson considered that for a few seconds. Then he shrugged. "I didn't think it would. But I didn't think it wouldn't, either."

Radek chuckled. "Yeah, well, it doesn't. I'm not hopeful for any of them coming back with good news. No bad news. But no good news, either."

"They say 'no news is good news,'" Carson offered.

Radek stared at Carson, trying to figure out if he meant that seriously or not.

They shared a moment of laughter.

"Well, who the hell are 'they'?" Radek demanded.

Carson shrugged helplessly. "No one around here, I guess."

Czech Things

All the Czech this chapter; and all the thanks to the wonderful zcvoknout, who put up with about a thousand and one of my silly language questions.

* Damn.

** Dilated pupils

*** Sorry. I'm alright.

**** Calm down. / A phrase to express recognition or praise (like "great" or something?), but can be used effectively in sarcasm, too.

***** Me, too, my friend.

****** Sweet dreams, darling.

A/N: Pretty sure this is my favorite chapter... So thank you for reading. I hope you like this one as much as I do.

Next time: Ow. Don't do that again, okay?