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

Previously: Radek learned the hard way that you can't keep a secret (since chapter 83) from everyone forever. But, you know, it couldn't get much worse (than chapter 87). If only Anna were not hanging around some bored 'gate technicians. Also, Radek needs to work out his schedule because it would be pretty awful if he had to go offworld on the anniversary of his ex-wife's death (as per chapter 86).

Chapter 88. I Don't Care.

The door slid open at eleven o'clock, which seemed pretty usual for a poker night. Anna stood when Radek walked in. She watched him take his jacket off and lay it over the nearest chair. He took a few steps before he realized he was being watched.

Radek paused and looked around, as if trying to decide what she was looking at. "How are you?"

"Fine."

He nodded slowly like he had no idea what was going on. Maybe he didn't have any idea what was going on. He was just that oblivious.

He seemed to sense something was wrong, though. "Um, Anna…?"

"Where were you tonight?" Anna asked before realizing she would have absolutely no way to tell if he was lying or not. She didn't want to think of herself as the kind of person that automatically assumed someone was lying to her… but he had been lying to her.

Radek came a few more steps into the room before answering with the predictable, "Poker night." As he said his words, he glanced around the room as if checking for something to be there that wasn't there. "Anna, I have something to tell you."

Anna couldn't take it anymore. She found her hands clenching into fists. Shaking. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Radek pursed his lips for just a moment.

"Did you think I wouldn't notice?" Anna demanded before he could even start his thought. "I mean, what did you think I was going to do if I knew?"

"I wanted to tell you—I think. Are we talking about the same thing?"

Anna half-laughed at his baffled look. "You wanted to tell me? What does that mean? Why does everyone know before me?"

"Everyone? Hold on a second, no one should know. Who knows?"

"Nicholson, for one."

"Nicholson? Who is Nicholson?"

She was right. He had no idea who Nicholson was and somehow that random 'gate technician ended up knowing that Radek and Elizabeth were together before Anna did. And somehow he didn't think that was messed up. She pressed her eyes closed with her fingers and tried to push away her angry tears.

"Anna," Radek said quietly. "Anna, I am not exactly sure what it is that Nicholson knows, but if… I think… I didn't want anybody else to know before you knew. Are we talking about me… and, um…?"

"You and Elizabeth?" Anna asked. Her hands flew back down to her sides in fists again.

Radek sighed, his face contorting for half a second in frustration or anger or something like that. He cursed. "I was going to tell you. Right now, just now as I came in—that's—I wanted to tell you last week."

"So it has been going on for weeks?"

He didn't seem to know what to say about that.

Neither did Anna. Now she thought about it, she had no idea why this made her so angry. But it did. "Did you think I was stupid?"

"No, of course, I don't. Anna, that's ridiculous. I wanted to—"

"I know, I know, you wanted to tell me. But why didn't you? Why does everyone else know first?"

"They don't know. They shouldn't know. I don't know how they know. Not because I told them, that's for damned sure."

Anna tried to take a mental step back and look around. It made sense that word would get around without anybody having to say anything. Small places were like that. Middle and high school were like that. Anna could remember a few times word of one girl or another having a crush before that girl knew. Now that she thought about it, she could actually imagine Radek being in the same sort of unsuspecting position. Given the right time and place, anybody could know that Radek was dating even before Radek knew.

Except Doctor McKay. Rodney would probably remain oblivious.

But he wasn't even answering the right question. Anna didn't really want to know why everyone else knew first. She was upset about that, sure… but why didn't he just tell her?

"But… why didn't you tell me?" she asked again.

"Would you believe me if I told you it was because I didn't know what to tell you?" Radek looked so sincere and baffled it was impossible to not believe him. Suddenly, he shrugged. "That's part of it, anyway. I wanted to be sure it was something real, something that might last longer than a couple of weeks before I told you."

"A couple of weeks…" Anna repeated quietly, feeling more and more stupid the more he talked. Now that she was thinking about it, she should have seen it. He had been coming back late. He wasn't in his lab sometimes when she thought he should be. He was happier than usual.

And why didn't she see it?

"Stay on Atlantis long enough and you see that…" He hesitated. Sighed. "Things don't last here."

"What do you mean?"

He didn't explain himself for a while, maybe because what he said didn't make a lot of sense. He thought things didn't last here? How about on Earth? Top 100 song lists cycled by the week. Love lasted only as long as it took the ink to dry on a contract. People were dead and buried before anybody even bothered to notice.

Anna blinked at her tears and shook her head before he could put his words together. "It doesn't matter."

She spun to her room.

"Anna, wait; it does matter."

She waved him and his words away. It really didn't, but she couldn't explain that to him. Not without bawling her eyes out, and she couldn't do that. Not right now, not right here. He objected again when she walked away, tried to argue when she said to leave her alone. Just leave her alone.

She slipped into her room and the door shut. She wondered for the briefest of moments what Radek wanted to say, but that didn't matter, either.

"Things don't last here," she whispered.

She knew that, and she didn't need to repeat Radek's words to figure that out. It was supposed to be some small comfort, but it wasn't. Some small comfort that in a few days she'd forget the stabbing emptiness leftover from last year. Someday she'd forget what it was like to hurt from her loss. Someday she'd forget what it was like to feel like nobody cared.

Because nobody cared. Nobody cared about any of that. Radek couldn't be bothered to tell her something important about himself that was happening right now? Why should he care about anything that happened before, and to someone he couldn't possibly love anymore?

Anna wasn't sure if she was thinking of herself or her mother. Radek didn't put up a fight to stay close to her. Radek didn't say one word to her in almost a decade. Radek didn't tell her. Radek didn't care.

Anna tried not to care, either.

"Don't be dumb, Anna," she scolded herself and sank onto the bed. Her tears came anyway, though she pushed them aside with her knuckles. "Don't be dumb."

#

After about five minutes, Radek had run out of rude words to call himself. For good measure, he added, "You are an idiot," before dropping onto the couch.

What was he supposed to do now? It was very late and Elizabeth had gone to bed. But he wasn't going to call Elizabeth about this. No, that was stupid. Granted, it was partially her fault. She was better spoken than Radek was. Odds were that she could explain what happened better than Radek could. But Radek couldn't say he would have told Anna even without Elizabeth's objections. There would be that speck of dishonesty, the assurance that he never said what needed to be said at the right time. His timing was awful.

He didn't know how to tell her. Now he knew for sure: it was better to say something completely wrong than to say nothing at all. It was better to tell Anna himself than to let somebody named Nicholson do it for him.

Who was Nicholson?

Radek didn't care enough to look it up. He picked himself up off the couch and headed toward the door. Bound for the lab, probably. He had no idea where he was going. At this time of night, there might not be anybody there, except Rodney was running some tests on database function. Something like that. It was better to do things like this in the middle of the night.

Was it the middle of the night?

Not quite. But people kept early hours on Atlantis. Probably to allow for middle-of-the-night testing.

As Radek expected, Rodney was plugging away at his keyboard when he arrived. Rodney took Radek's offer to help with no small amount of confusion, but put him to work anyway. For the first time in his life… well, okay, maybe not the first time in his life. But for the first time in a long time, his work didn't take his worries away. It seemed to make them worse.

It just somehow seemed even more urgent that Radek be on Atlantis next Thursday. He put his hands out flat on his desk to try to ignore the tension that would have put them into fists. "Rodney," he said, and didn't wait too long for a response. Rodney didn't even look up. "I really can't go to M7G. Is there anybody at all who can go that isn't me?"

Rodney heaved a sigh and looked up. "What, this again? No. Look, it's—"

"It's my—it's the anniversary of Anna's mother's death," Radek interrupted. "She will be alone and I'm…" Sure that even Rodney could see why he didn't want Anna to be alone? Especially not now. Not now that Anna probably thought Radek thought very little of her. It wasn't true, but Radek hadn't done much to communicate that lately.

"Oh." Rodney paled. "Um, well, you know." He shrugged uncomfortably. "Is there someone else she can spend the day with?"

"Rodney!"

"Sorry! Look, I didn't know, and-and-and you're not picking a great time to speak up about this, you know."

Radek sighed. "I know, but I didn't think it would be a problem. Besides my times with Major Lorne's team, I've been offworld about two or three times in two years. Could you blame me?"

Oh, that was the wrong question…

"Yes!" Rodney said. "No. I mean, no. It wasn't my decision that Major Ivanov is going on Thursday. I don't make the schedules, I just assign to them. But if you're not going, it has to be me, and I've had my fair share of that place, and I can't go anywhere because I have things."

Radek waited for Rodney to stop rambling. He took a breath to speak.

Rodney interrupted again. "Because, you know, next to me, you know the ZPM connections and that machine is really old and dusty and I don't want Heyerdahl touching it."

Radek sighed. He'd thought of that. He figured he was the best person to do it. Besides Rodney. But Rodney definitely wasn't going to do it. Radek wasn't sure if Rodney could, if he had time. Radek shook his head and shrugged. Wanted to say it wasn't important; he'd figure out something else. He didn't know what.

"Look, it's not like I don't care or something."

"No, I know." What? No, he did not know that. But the point was that it was Radek's problem. It always was. Probably. "I, uh… I'm going to talk to Carson. See if he's going to the mainland or something."

"Okay, yeah." Rodney averted his eyes back to his computer.

Radek left the lab and the sound of periodically-pressed keys. Whirring servers and quietly beeping alerts on screens. After whisking through the transporter, though, he found himself on the floor Elizabeth's quarters were on. Not sure why. He probably needed advice. If he wasn't going to ask Carson, Elizabeth was the next best option. Or maybe the absolute best, with Carson in second. He needed her advice for that other thing, anyway.

That other thing. She was that other thing.

After waiting for several seconds at her door, it slid open. Eyelids heavy, wan smile. She stepped aside to let him in anyway. "Is everything alright?" she asked, looking concerned.

Concern was appropriate. Radek shook his head and slid to stand by the wall. "No. Uh… where to start…?"

"The beginning?" she suggested.

Well, it all started in a university library in Czechoslovakia… "Okay. I was going to tell Anna about us."

"Oh, no," Elizabeth murmured, maybe thinking that Anna simply hadn't taken the news well.

Radek had no idea how she'd taken the news. The way she'd gotten the news was obviously worse, though. "No, it's worse than that. One of the 'gate technicians had already told her. Actually, it seems like rumors of your personal life have made it through all of Atlantis." Radek hesitated. Shrugged. Rodney seemed none the wiser. "Well, most of Atlantis, anyway."

"My personal life?" Elizabeth wondered. "Not yours?"

"I'm a tired topic of conversation, I guess…"

It was not as if people didn't talk about him when he brought Anna to Atlantis, maybe even some before that. He was strange, after all, even compared to the other strange people on Atlantis. He had just enough social skills to say the wrong thing 70% of the time. And there were those who wondered early on about his English proficiency, and therefore his intelligence… And then proceed to wonder out loud whether Radek understood anything they were saying when he was standing in the room.

"Atlantis is very small," he finished.

Elizabeth stared into blank space for what felt like minutes. When her trance broke, she smiled a little, apologetically. "I guess that didn't go well," she said quietly.

He chuckled ironically. "No. It went very poorly."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't. It was my fault, you know? I should have told her earlier."

They stood in silence for several more seconds. Should he tell her about Lorne's team? Radek had no idea where Reed got the idea that he and Elizabeth were.. seeing each other was an appropriate phrase, right? After all, they were technically "seeing each other" more than usual. Not much more.

"Would it help if I talked to her? I should talk to her." Elizabeth didn't even give Radek time to answer before nodding to herself.

Even though he wasn't sure it was a great idea.

But Elizabeth was nodding like she was already sure it was. He wasn't going to argue. It probably couldn't get any worse…

Who was he kidding? His entire recent life was built on the cornerstone of "things can always get worse." He wasn't about to give it up now. But let Elizabeth try to fix this mess he'd made. It would probably turn out better than any of his earlier attempts.

"I guess…" he said finally. "I just thought you should know that."

"Thank you."

Radek nodded and backed toward the door. "I should go."

Before he could get to the door, she placed her hand on his arm. Even though she may not have meant to stop him, he slowed his step. She kissed his cheek. "Good night."

He got the distinct impression he was being manipulated, but he didn't like to think that. So he just smiled and said, "Good night, Elizabeth."

A/N: Spring break for me. Do you know what that means? Because I don't think so. I don't think so.

Thank yous & etc.

Adela- I'm glad you liked the chapter. It is sad, though. Unfortunately, I feel like a lot of problems (both in fiction and real life) could be avoided if people just said what they meant...

Next time: "Without you" was never the plan.