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

Previously: Radek is in huge trouble (since chapter 120) somewhere offworld, and presumed dead on Atlantis. All in all, not great times to be had around here. But Rodney remembers once, not too long ago, Radek told him to take care of her (chapter 80)…

Chapter 122. Could Be Worse.

Meetings felt like they dragged time into eternity on a regular basis, but today was worse. Debating the merits of one ZPM versus two wasn't really Rodney's idea of a good time usually. The answer was obvious, and they'd done stupider things for less.

Maybe they could make a little headway fighting the Wraith that way.

Rodney stood uncertainly in one of the many doorways of the conference room, looking across the 'gate room at Elizabeth's office. She had to be a mess, but she was hiding it pretty well. She wasn't likely to listen to Rodney's insane ideas this time, without Radek's sometimes-more-sane voice to back him up. So better to not bring up Anna's continued residence on Atlantis.

It was a stupid idea anyway.

Rodney crossed the control room and pushed in the door to Elizabeth's office. He looked around, as though worried someone else was in there. Thanks to the glass walls, he knew she was alone.

Elizabeth offered a wan smile, but not much else. "How's Anna?" she asked quietly. She looked at her desk, pressing her hands on it as she rose. "I should probably go see her."

Rodney stood uncertainly just past the door. "Yeah. She's with Jennifer. She's, um, you know… terrible." Terrible was putting it nicely. Rodney left her curled up and silent on a gurney. That was worse than her crying. She did say she didn't want to be alone, didn't want to go back home—so it seemed like the best place for her. Jennifer was there if she needed something…

Elizabeth sank back down into her chair. Her breathing was too evenly spaced for her to not be concentrating on making it that way. When she spoke, her voice was shaking. "I should probably go see her, but what am I supposed to say, Rodney?"

Rodney was momentarily gratified that she was asking him what to say. And then he realized how awful this situation must have been that not even Elizabeth could come up with something reasonable.

Finally, Rodney just shrugged. "Nothing."

Elizabeth smiled ruefully. Took a deep breath.

"I'm gonna miss her. You know?" Rodney said quietly.

"Both of them." Elizabeth choked on her voice, shaking her head. "How did this happen?"

People didn't ask him for answers like that. He knew they'd find out what happened and why, and who in time… just not right now. Not when there was a Genii coup happening in days. As much as he hated to admit it, that had to take precedent. "What's next?"

Elizabeth sighed, snatching onto the distraction Rodney offered. "Well, Teyla and Ronon are following up with Doctor Lindsay, but I don't think she has much more information for us. Ladon was at least telling the truth that he's alone. We sent our security team through to search him."

That was something, at least. Something to maybe give him a little bit of distraction, but…

"Hey, um…"

Elizabeth raised her eyes. "Yes?"

"I don't think that, um…" Rodney didn't know where he was going with that. Elizabeth didn't have any say in where Anna went, after all. None of them did. "I don't know. When's Anna going back to Earth?"

Elizabeth lowered her eyes. "Next week, probably. Carson will have everything we need by then. We'll have the memorial service, beforehand I think. She'll go when we send the, um…" She pressed her fingertips into her temples. Shut her eyes. "Thanks, Rodney."

"Yeah…" Rodney tried to figure out if that meant he was supposed to leave. Figured it probably did when she tried to hide that she was crying. If she was.

Rodney backed out of the door, standing in silence on the bridge between Elizabeth's office and the control room.

"McKay."

Rodney spun at Sheppard's voice. "Yeah? Uh-huh?" He shook his hands out idly, trying to find something to do with them. Maybe he just felt like he should be doing something.

"Is Elizabeth, um…?" Sheppard's eyes glanced over Rodney's shoulder for half a second before drifting back. "Okay, I guess not." He stared at Rodney for a good few seconds before he shrugged. "That's fine. I gotta… stand here for a second, anyway."

Sheppard folded his arms and stood there, looking at Rodney like he was looking for something to say.

Before he could ask the question Rodney knew was coming, Rodney said, "If you're going to ask how Anna is, the answer is she's great." Sheppard had no idea how annoying that question was becoming. "She's basically alone in the universe now."

"Lots of people asking you?"

"You have no idea."

"Huh." Sheppard nodded thoughtfully. "I know it probably sounds like a stupid question but there are different types of grief, you know."

Maybe he hadn't been paying attention. His whole life had been a series of losing what he thought he had, everything but his intellect and a sure knowledge that he knew. Knew what, exactly, he didn't know. He'd been kicked out of every club he'd joined, told to quit everything that wasn't the artless pursuit of knowledge. He was estranged from his sister. Their parents divorced and if Jeanie had reacted to that any differently than he had, he hadn't noticed. One of them was dead, the other one might have been; it didn't make any difference. It felt the same.

"Rodney?" Sheppard had been talking, but Rodney didn't hear him. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess there are. I never thought about it."

"I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it…" After what felt like a long silence, Sheppard asked, "Radek has a sister, right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, at least, I think so. I'm sure that makes up for it." He heard Sheppard take a breath, but Rodney cut him off, rolling his eyes as he did. "Sorry. I didn't mean that. She's going back to Earth next week. We'll be sending back the bodies then." He hesitated at the renewed realization. "Oh, god," he whispered.

Sheppard looked sympathetic for a second. "Rodney…"

"I gotta find a replacement now."

Sympathy was gone. "Yeah, what a shame," Sheppard sneered. "Have to break in a new idiot, right?"

They were quiet again, Rodney focusing on breathing. Finally, his voice started working again. "It's not that."

Sheppard nodded, slowly, uncertainly at first. He looked at Rodney. "Yeah. I know."

He wanted to say something flippant like… I'm nothing if not painfully honest. Because that was true. But that wasn't it. The last time he had to replace Radek was because Radek was leaving. And knowing what he knew now... Rodney should have let him. That kind of made this his fault, didn't it?

"Hey, um…" Rodney said quietly, not making eye contact. It didn't matter, because he could feel Sheppard's eyes on him. "You don't, uh… you've lost people in your command before."

It wasn't a question, both of them knew he had; he said anyway, "Yeah."

Now, that. That sounded flippant. "What do you do?" When he looked up, Sheppard was still looking at him. Didn't look like he was close to saying anything. "I sent Collins into that room and I still don't know what I'm supposed to do about that. It's because of me Radek's here and not on Earth with Anna, and…"

"Radek's an adult." Sheppard's interruption made him feel like a rapidly unravelling ball of yarn landing in a heap of knots on the floor. "He made his decision, and he made it because he got to do things here that he would never have been able to do anywhere else. I don't think it had anything to do with you."

To Rodney's surprise, he didn't want to hear that. He did, but he didn't. "But what if it did?" Rodney hated how small his voice sounded.

Sheppard was quiet, and Rodney had high hopes for a moment he was going to impart some sage wisdom. He couldn't imagine what that was. Nothing he could do now would bring Collins back. With the right information or frame of mind back then, he might have done differently. This one… he wasn't sure. Ultimately, Radek and Anna were here because of him. He recommended Radek for a 'gate team, and they took his advice. Because, of course, they did.

Finally, Sheppard spoke. "Then it did. It sucks."

Rodney nodded. Looked down. "It sucks."

"Listen," Sheppard said finally, "I'm going to talk to Elizabeth about paying Cowen a visit. We only know half the story—hell, we probably only know a sixth of the story if it's coming from Ladon. Want to come? Teyla and Ronon are off world working her contacts for any information about who might have done this."

Rodney nodded. "Yeah, sure."

"Even though it had to be the Genii…"

"It is a little, uh…"

"Convenient?"

"Very." Business first. He appreciated that most of the time. Too much to do to dwell on disaster. He hated spinning his wheels, unravelling yarn, coming apart at the seams. He was going to die young of the stress this place imparted after just a few years, wasn't he?

There wasn't a lot else he could do until the ZPM showed up. And even then…

"Beckett to McKay."

Rodney touched the radio hooked in his ear. "Yeah?"

Sheppard gave him a farewell nod and Rodney waved, trying to focus on Carson's voice instead of Elizabeth looking up at Sheppard when he entered her office without so much as knocking.

"Could you come down here? Elizabeth, too, if she's not busy."

Rodney looked in Elizabeth's office. She'd stood, rigidly holding herself up against the world in a posture that said the winds were particularly battering today. But in spite of it all, she would hold. Rodney knew he didn't stand like that. Only did when his intelligence was questioned, his plans were mocked, or when he held the lives of everyone in Atlantis in his hands. The second anything came along that couldn't be solved by quick thinking or clever preparation, he shriveled like a plant without water.

She was talking to Sheppard. He couldn't hear her voice, but he could imagine. Sheppard was giving her a minute to collect herself, be the leader that Ladon expected her to be. Be the leader everyone needed, maybe.

"Uh, can it be just me?"

"Sure."

Rodney made way to the infirmary. It was probably nothing to do with Anna, and more to do with the burnt remains in their morgue. Otherwise, Carson wouldn't have called for Rodney and maybe Elizabeth. It would have been more like… just Elizabeth. Except that Elizabeth hadn't even seen Anna yet. Tyranny of the urgent, probably.

Carson slumped in his chair in front of the computer on the wall. He glanced up for half a moment when Rodney came in. "Hello, Rodney."

"Carson." Rodney rested on the desk and scanned the room for Anna. He found her exactly where he'd left her. She looked like she was asleep on the gurney on the far wall. He looked back at Carson. "Is she sleeping?"

Carson glanced toward Anna. "I don't think so. I don't know." He sighed and shook his head. "Doctor Heightmeyer came by, but Anna wouldn't talk to her. She even turned Jennifer away. I gave her a cup of tea and… Well, she didn't talk to me, but hopefully she'll be more… I don't know." He broke off that thought flipped through a few files on the computer and then looked up at Rodney. "I don't get it. It's not them," he said in a whisper.

"It's—what?" Rodney hissed. He turned his eyes to the screen—but what did he know about DNA?

"The bodies." Carson gestured in irritation at his monitor. "I've run the tests three times. It's just not them. It's not any of them."

"Are you saying they could still be alive?" Rodney whispered back. Why he was whispering, he didn't know.

"Aye, that's what I'm saying. I mean… you know, maybe." Carson pointed at the two strands of DNA on the screen and said that one of them was Lorne's and the other was obviously not, though Rodney wasn't clear on what was so obvious about it. "Look, the question is why someone would give us bodies to fool us into thinking they were dead."

"If they wanted to kill them, they would have…" Rodney mumbled. "I mean, why not?"

"I don't know." Carson glanced up at Rodney, looking appalled. "I don't usually try to puzzle out the thought process of murderers, thank you. Or kidnappers. Whatever we're dealing with. Look, the point is that…" Carson dropped his voice into an even lower register. "Major Lorne, Reed, Coughlin, and Zelenka might still be alive somewhere. And I can't think of another reason for fooling us into thinking these," he gestured at the now-John-Does in body bags, "are them."

Rodney nodded. "Yeah, yeah." He couldn't really quantify the relief he suddenly felt at the chance they had at getting them all back in one piece. He glanced at Carson. "Why are we whispering?"

Carson shrugged. "I don't know. Don't want to raise hopes unnecessarily. Just because that body in the morgue isn't Radek's… doesn't mean his body isn't somewhere else. I mean, it could be they died worse deaths than… you know, however these fellows died. I still haven't figured that out, yet."

Rodney shrank at that respectable bit of reasoning. "You're right. Don't tell her until we're sure."

"That was the plan, yeah." Carson nodded, looking patronizing for some reason.

Rodney waved that away. "Good, good." What was the next step? "Well, we have to figure out what someone would want with Major Lorne's team, right?"

"Good thinking, Rodney." Carson sighed and slid the DNA results into the medical data repository. He stood up next to Rodney, tapping his arm. "Rodney, I don't know what kind of weird magic you have to pull to get this to come out alright, but… I'd really appreciate it."

Rodney sniffed in sarcastic laughter. Magic, right. He'd like a bit of that, too. Whatever was happening here seemed a bit too convenient to begin with. An apparently rogue Genii showing up with a ZPM? An offworld team killed—but not killed? That couldn't be a coincidence.

"I don't know what's going on here, but we're going to figure it out."

Carson offered a smile. "I know."

#

Lorne tried to catch him when the Genii threw Radek into the cage after him, but he stumbled to the floor too quickly to catch himself. The oxygen coming in quick gasps wasn't enough. Neither were his hands covering the bullet wound somewhere in his torso.

It all happened so fast, he hadn't even been able to take a self-assessment yet. Only thing coming to mind right now…

"To je na hovno tohle to." * He tried to pick himself up, but gave up on that. Why couldn't he breathe? Because… because, he should be able to at least breathe. It wouldn't be fair if he'd been shot and then his lungs decided not to work, too.

Unless his lung had been shot.

He looked for the hole in his jacket, but it was hard to find. Lorne knelt on one side, Reed on the other. They moved and talked so quickly he couldn't see or hear. All he knew was he was in an incredible amount of pain, he couldn't breathe, and he had never been so sure he was about to die.

"Sheisse," Coughlin mumbled, the first thing Radek could understand outside of his own mumblings… which were only just barely coherent anyway. "Why'd you have to be the one to get shot?"

Good question. "Kdo to vymyslel že?" ** He squeezed his eyes shut as someone pulled him over. Maybe they were gonna get a good look at his bullet wound. He couldn't get a good look at anything. His chest heaved and he found himself coughing… or trying to cough.

Why did he taste blood?

"Damnit," Lorne hissed a second later.

"What is it now?" Radek pulled the back of his hand over his mouth. It wasn't bright red like the hemorrhage somewhere in the vicinity of his ribcage. But it was certainly pink.

"Nothing," Lorne muttered. "Just might have a nicked lung."

"Nicked lung?" Radek tried to gasp in some oxygen, but it just wasn't coming. "Is that some obscure English term for a collapsed lung?" He always wondered if it would be impossible to talk with a collapsed lung…

No, he didn't. He never wondered that. Why would he? He was supposed to be in a lab. He was a scientist, not a commando. He should be maybe yelling at Rodney or—

After what felt like an eternity, something happened. It was better. Not completely, but a little. He could breathe again, a little. The pain was still horrible, but since he could breathe, better, it was manageable.

Anna. He couldn't die. He couldn't do that to her.

He wasn't sure what made him change his mind from earlier. She already thought he was dead. And now that he had a better chance of that actually happening, he couldn't just let it slide. He had to fight it—whatever it was. The hole in his chest.

"Thanks for calling me out, Doc; I was trying to make it sound a little better. Reed?"

"Shut up," Reed said. "Trying to concentrate." That was when Radek noticed his wrist was in Reed's hand, fingers pressed against that vein. That one vein doctors took heart rate with.

Lorne looked around and started doing… something. Probably some sort of field first aid. Radek was too distracted by trying to breathe to take notice of what he was doing. Too distracted worrying about what would happen to Anna if it was worse than just a "nicked lung." Whatever the hell that was. Coughlin moved away to the cell door and yelled for bandages. Radek couldn't really hear.

"Major," Radek said, his voice coming as more a rasp than anything.

"Yeah, Doc, try not to talk. Here." Major Lorne pulled Radek up by his jacket collar, despite Radek's meager objections. He leaned him against the wall and went back to work on the wound just as quickly. "That better?"

Radek waited a moment to figure out whether it was or not. Surprisingly, he found he could actually breathe much better. He wasn't sure if it was just a psychological side effect of really believing or hoping that Major Lorne knew what he was doing.

"Yes. But Major—"

"What did I just say?" Major Lorne snapped.

"Evan."

Major Lorne paused for perhaps half a second before finishing ripping open the another package of gauze he'd produced from one of his many pockets. "Yeah, what?"

Radek didn't know what he wanted to say. But being shot—that certainly didn't bode well for their future, and his specifically. Radek finally looked away, shaking his head. Even if it was reasonable to be afraid right now, he couldn't bring himself to say anything about it. Couldn't bring himself to give voice to that kind of thinking.

Perfectly reasonable.

"I can't do this to her."

Major Lorne sighed and put a hand on his neck. There was blood on it. His. It seemed to only serve to make Radek more anxious. That was a lot of blood—his blood. It was already all over him, so why did it matter that it was on his shoulder now? And Major Lorne… his eyes were really dark for being blue. Or grey. Hard to tell in this light, with this blur.

"You'll be fine, okay."

It wasn't a question and it wasn't comforting. He didn't ask anything else, but only because he wasn't sure Lorne had the composure to answer properly. For two seconds—Radek counted—the Major rested his forehead on his wrist, his hand still on Radek's shoulder. His hand was shaking; Radek liked to imagine it was more anger than fear, but both were equally plausible.

Actually, it didn't matter which it was. Radek carefully raised one hand and put it on Lorne's wrist. Leaned his head back on the wire. "I am sorry."

Major Lorne straightened and went back to work with the gauze. "You got us out of here; this…" He paused to look at the hole in Radek's shirt, pull away some of the loose, ripped fabric to see the hole in his body. Radek saw a piece of plastic sticking to his skin, practically glued on by the blood. Something about it looked odd, but he didn't know what. "This is on me."

"No. No, it's not." Radek looked around, his eyes focused long enough to see Coughlin standing at the door to their cage, his fingers hooked in the holes, and Reed sitting on the floor. He looked like he was in much more pain than before. "This is me; I shouldn't be here. I'm sorry, if only you had Rodney here instead, you'd be out and back at Atlantis by now…"

Lorne looked up, squinting at his sudden switch. "You know you aren't speaking English anymore, right?"

"Yes, I know. It doesn't matter…" A sudden wave of pain seized him and stole his breath. The lack of functional lung made it difficult to get more. All he could do was groan and hiss a few obscenities through gritted teeth.

"Hey, hey, Doc? Listen to me."

Radek shook his head; he couldn't listen, he couldn't focus.

"Radek. You're not gonna die, okay?" Major Lorne sighed quietly. "Look at it this way. It could be worse?" He grinned, and it looked real.

"Worse?" Radek demanded, his voice ragged. "How?" Radek knew the answer before Lorne even offered that signature smirk. "Bože, nenávidím tě…" ***

"Well, it could be worse." Lorne checked some of his other pockets. "You could be McKay."

Czech Things

* Apparently "rather explicit" according to Stargate episode transcripts. But sanitized: "this sucks." I just hope it isn't situation-specific… (?)

** Something like "Who invented that?" (thanks, Grace Under Pressure). The answer, in this case, is me. I invented it. Sorry.

*** "God, I hate you."

A/N: Now we know why I did this whole thing. Because I started using the "At least you're not McKay" thing as a joke and eventually I thought to myself, "You know, Lorne would say that even if Radek got shot. Radek's bleeding, and Lorne's all, 'It could be worse, Doc.'" And that's the story of the story for this episode. Thanks for nothing, myself.

But good for drama, no?

Even if it's not... I do what I want.

Also, I'm obviously not a doctor or any kind of medical professional. I feel like suspending a little more disbelief is at this point isn't much to ask. There's like 300k words here to total nonsense.

Thank yous

Ghost - That's such a great compliment; thank you. ;-; I try to make it sound and feel like the show, as easy to slip in as possible. I'm glad you liked the chapter! It's all very exciting. Part of me also wonders about that alternate universe where Rodney is surrogate father, but this alternate universe is already too big for me...

Next: I meet all the requirements. At least the most important ones. Don't I?