Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate Atlantis, and make no profit from this story. It is for fan enjoyment only!
AN: I got to thinking about poor Radek, and what he was going through while the episode occurred…
Mr. Mom
By KerrAvon
Radek Zelenka was not a happy man. He didn't so much walk as stomp down the path towards Keras's village and its malfunctioning EM field generator. The very fact that it was malfunctioning prevented their using a Puddlejumper, so not only did they have to waste time on this child-infested rock, but they had to hike in to do it.
"Oh, Rodney thinks he's so clever. Just wait until our return from M7G 677." Zelenka muttered under his breath in Czech. "Your laundry will be pink and two sizes too small," he promised. "There will be dead seafood in your ventilation duct. Your toilet will overflow. Your coffee will be forever DECAF!"
The other three members of his team exchanged uncomfortable glances as they progressed, all inordinately grateful that they didn't understand a word the scientist was saying. The intermittent "Rodney" or "McKay" gave them a pretty good idea what their boss was upset about, and they decided en masse that silence was the prudent course of action.
Zelenka didn't notice the unnatural quiet as he ruminated on his own dark thoughts. He hadn't been exaggerating to LTC Sheppard about his nephew; Kazimir was a true terror. He had visited his sister once when the boy was five, and barely escaped with his life. OK, OK, so he wasn't actually in mortal danger…
"Radek, it's so nice you could visit!" Ivana threw her arms around him in a bear-hug that literally lifted him off his feet. Despite being nearly two years younger, she had always been taller than he. Married life had been good to her as well; always stocky, she had never lost the extra poundage she'd put on with pregnancy, so now she seriously outweighed him as well. She finally released her smothering embrace, holding him at arms length as he gasped for breath. "Let me get a look at you…" That was when they noticed that his cloak was on fire.Then again, maybe he had been mortal danger after all. By the time the week was up, half his wardrobe had been singed, melted or charred beyond recognition courtesy of the little pyromaniac that was his nephew. Most of the remainder sported new finger-painted designs which Ivana doted on as the work of a 'child prodigy' rather than 'budding vandal'. Radek's departure was laced with vague promises to return again 'soon'…like after that kid had graduated college!
At the time the experience was traumatic enough to make him swear off ever having children of his own; yet somehow, here he was, sent to a planet where the oldest inhabitant was 25. When he got back to Atlantis…
"Are you from the 'old people planet'?"
Zelenka's quick reflexes had prevented a number of experiments from shattering in the past; this time they kept him from accidentally trampling the munchkin who had mysteriously appeared on the path in front of him. Golden-haired, she stared up at him with wide, blue eyes that oozed innocence. Radek was not fooled; Kazimir had blue eyes as well.
Nervously shoving his glasses up with his index finger, he stared down at the moppet. "We are here from Atlantis," he emphasized. "Not 'the old people planet'."
A second urchin suddenly materialized. "Same thing," the little boy shrugged. "Where's the chocolate?"
"Excuse me?" Radek was confused. No one had mentioned anything in the mission briefing about chocolate. Was this some local custom that he was unaware of? Since when was there chocolate in Pegasus, anyway?
Fortunately, Dr. Wright was somewhat quicker on the uptake. "Here, kids, I have some." The red-haired woman magically produced two gold-wrapped bars and handed one to each of the youngsters. "Now, why don't you run on ahead and let your people know we're coming."
"Thanks!" said Casta as he turned away. "But hurry up; the elders are waiting." He and Cleo fairly skipped down the path away from the group. Zelenka turned to the others, shrugged, then trudged forward to meet their fate.
Once at the village, the quartet was met by a soft-spoken young man who clearly carried responsibility on his shoulders. Flashing the new arrivals a relieved smile, he approached Radek and grasped Zelenka's hand warmly in both of his own. "Hello, I am Keras. Welcome to our village. You are the scientists from Atlantis?" His gaze took in each of their faces in turn. Apparently satisfied with what he saw, he headed for a nearby rope ladder. "Come. We will discuss how we may aid you."
'At least he didn't call it 'the old people planet'," thought Radek as he glanced nervously at the tree house suspended about twenty feet above his head. "No, no, that will not be necessary. Only…" He gulped as the young man turned an open face towards him and descended. "If someone could show us the location of the machine?"
Keras nodded and smiled. "It will be as you wish." He gestured to the two youngsters lurking nearby. "Cleo, Casta. Please show our guests the path to the old city."
"Sure!" Cleo's eyes fairly danced above her grinning, chocolate-smeared mouth. "Come on!" She grasped Zelenka's hand in her small, sticky one, and dragged him forward. With a resigned and vaguely disgusted sigh, he allowed himself to be pulled, the remainder of his team following behind.
They hadn't gone fifty feet before the little girl began gabbing. "So, whatcha gonna do?"
"I am here to repair the EM shield generator."
"What's that?"
"It's the machine in the old city that keeps the Wraith from knowing that you are here."
"What's wrong with it?" The child was persistent.
"It intermittently stops working." Zelenka was trying to be patient.
"Oh." The little girl pondered that for a second. "What's 'intermittently' mean?"
Zelenka rolled his eyes and bit back the Czech curse that had sprung unbidden to his lips, choosing to remain silent in the face of a barrage of meaningless questions.
Casta meanwhile had fallen back to a position between Dr. Taylor and Dr. Schneider, and was staring unblinkingly up at the black man. Finally, Dr. Taylor couldn't stand it any longer, and snapped, "Can I help you?"
Rather than being embarrassed, the tyke took the question as an invitation, and started in. "Why is your skin so dark?"
"I was born this way," he explained.
"But why?" whined the boy.
"Because the genome controlling my skin pigment…" he stopped at the increasingly blank look in Casta's eyes. He considered going into genetics theory, Darwinian selection, or even the molecular make-up of melanin, but he finally opted for, "Because my mother was."
"Oh." The boy pondered this as they continued to walk. "OK," he eventually conceded, satisfied. They walked a few more minutes in a companionable silence, then Casta turned his attention to Dr. Schneider. Pointing at the man's nearly-bald pate, he demanded, "What happened to your hair?"
The older man had expected the question, after hearing the query to his colleague, so he had an answer ready to impress the five-year-old. He leaned over and, in a conspiratorial whisper, replied, "It was burned off by a dragon."
The lad's eyes widened as Schneider congratulated himself on his cunning. His smug smile disappeared with the next query, however.
"What's a dragon?"
It was going to be a long trip to the old city.
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For two hours Zelenka and his team methodically disassembled the control panel, trying to identify the problem. The electronic gremlin in the console that caused the villages to become periodically visible to scans was incredibly allusive, and frustration levels were building. The interminable questions from the youngsters didn't help matters much.
"So why is the sky blue?"
Zelenka slammed his wrench onto the console, then leaned forward, taking deep breaths in and out. "Dr. Wright, could you come here a moment?" he ground out between clenched teeth.
"Yes, Dr. Zelenka?" the red-head kept her tone calm and level.
Without meeting her matter-of-fact gaze, he quietly gritted, "You seem to have dealt with these…children…the most effectively so far. Could you please deal with them now?"
Wright's eyes narrowed. "Because I'm a woman?" she hissed, offended.
Radek closed his eyes in resignation; he knew she'd take it wrong. "Because you were the only one clever enough to bring chocolate!" he whispered emphatically, and then added under his breath,"Besides, eating one of them would probably cause an intergalactic incident..."
She straightened up, blinking in surprise. "Well, yes, I'd heard that the planet was mostly children. Seemed reasonable."
Radek's eyes turned on her in full puppy-dog mode. "I would consider it a…personal favor…if you could take them away from here for an hour or so."
"All right…but you owe me!" The woman turned towards the children, plastering on a fake smile.
"Hey kids, you look like you could use a break. What say we go play a game?" She placed an arm around each of their shoulders and began to lead them out of the cramped, vine-covered enclosure.
Taylor dropped his head in relief. "Thank God," he muttered.
Schneider nodded towards Radek. "No, I'm pretty sure you can 'Thank Zelenka'."
Zelenka flashed them the first smile to grace his face that day. "Let's get some work done, shall we?"
An hour later, after determining that the problem could only be approached through the base of the device, he lay awkwardly on his back, covered in sweat and grime, half-obscured by the console, with bits of Ancient technology strewn on the ground around him. At this rate, he'd almost have rather been working on his old Skoda…
Then he saw it; a metallic flash visible where no exposed metal should be. It took over half an hour and innumerable shocks and bruises, but he finally managed to snag the offending material with a pair of long needle-nosed pliers. Scooting out as fast as spasming back muscles would allow, he carefully carried his prize into the sunlight where he could examine it better. The two other scientists crowded around to examine what Radek had retrieved.
"That clumsy, blundering, incompetent, gluttonous son of a dray-horse!" Radek cursed as he finally recognized the origin of the troublesome item.
"What is that?" asked Dr. Schneider, peering nearsightedly at the thin, irregular triangle his boss was vehemently profaning.
Spitting incoherently, Radek stood up and shoved the object at the balding scientist, then crawled back underneath to reassemble the shield generator. Schneider turned the fragment over to look at both sides, with Taylor peering anxiously over his shoulder. "This looks…familiar…"
Taylor's eyes widened. "That's part of a Power Bar wrapper!" he yelped.
Disgusted tones floated up from where Zelenka was restoring the generator. "Yes, YES…Power Bar wrapper! No doubt dropped when asinine, fatuous, clumsy pig made 'improvements' to shield. Very good; children no longer kill themselves for population control; but glorious leader cannot keep track of own trash!"
Radek's tone promised mayhem when the team returned home; to defray that, they studiously and efficiently helped him with the rebuild.
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"Must you leave so soon? We were going to have a celebration this evening to herald your success." Keras spread his arms in quiet supplication as a dozen or so imploring faces turned towards them. In the distance they could see others gathering together wood for a bonfire.
Radek tiredly wiped the back of his hand across his grimy forehead and exchanged exhausted glances with the rest of his team. "Look, I appreciate your hospitality," he quirked up a corner of his mouth reassuringly, "but we really need to be getting back. We've been gone for hours." His eyes narrowed, "I wouldn't want Dr. McKay to worry."
Cleo, hanging onto Dr. Wright's hand in supplication, screwed up her face in displeasure. "That's the mean man!" she exclaimed petulantly.
Radek smiled at her for the first time, then knelt until they were eye-to-eye. "Yes, he is, and we wouldn't want him to get angry with us, would we?"
Cleo and Casta both shooke their heads vehemently.
"Then we have to go now." Zelenka stood and dusted himself off. At least Rodney's next trip here wouldn't be pleasant.
The children began to make disappointed noises, but a stern look from Aries silenced them. Keras nodded once more. "Then go with our thanks. We will anxiously await your return." Handshakes were exchanged, and the team finally drug themselves towards 'The Well'.
The trip back seemed to take forever. Radek sighed in relief as the DHD came into view. Dropping his pack to the ground beside it, he rapidly entered the code for Atlantis.
"What happened?" asked Taylor. "There's no Wormhole."
Zelenka's glasses slid unheeded to the end of his nose as he glanced up in alarm. "What? No Wormhole?" He looked down at the DHD and very deliberately re-entered the address. Hitting the center button, he cursed when nothing occurred.
"May I try?" Schneider asked.
Radek threw his hands up in frustration. "Sure, why not?" He turned and began pacing, flailing his arms wildly. "It's that unspeakable, low-life, son-of-a…." He sputtered incoherently, then waggled his finger as first Schneider then Taylor failed as well. "I don't know how, but somehow Rodney McKay is responsible for this!"
"Do you suppose…something might have happened to them?" Dr. Wright hazarded tentatively.
That stopped Radek mid-rant. Finger still poised in the air, his mouth opened and closed briefly like a beached fish as the new concept sunk in. He paused, considering, then shook his head negatively. "No…no…" He paused again. "Well, maybe…"
Taylor and Schneider were at his side in a heartbeat, yammering in concern. "You think the Wraith found them?" "Maybe the Genii are back?" "What if they sank?"
"Well, let's check our end first," suggested Zelenka. "Anyone know an alternate address?"
Wright spoke up, "Try M8R 433. It's a deserted but otherwise safe planet. If we can establish a wormhole, then we'll know for certain."
Taylor nodded, then dialed the address. A wormhole obligingly ka-whooshed to life.
"Not on our end, then," concluded Schneider.
Zelenka rested his chin in his hand as he pondered furiously. Suddenly his eyes widened and he snapped his fingers.
"What?" asked Schneider.
"Maybe it's not Atlantis; maybe it's just Atlantis' gate!" Zelenka crowed triumphantly.
"Well, sure, but why would they take the Gate off-line?" asked Wright.
A self-satisfied smirk graced Radek's face. "Maybe it malfunctioned. Who was the last person scheduled to do maintenance?"
Taylor thought for a moment, then clapped his hand over his eyes. "Oh no. That was Kavanagh's last assignment before he shipped out on the Daedelus."
"And what are the chances he did it correctly, as he was preoccupied with getting back to Earth?" Zelenka shrugged. "Well, for the time being, there is nothing we can do except wait. We might as well do it in the relative comfort of the village."
The other three sighed in agreement, and the group shouldered their packs and trudged back again. Zelenka couldn't help fretting, however; as much as he wanted to believe that their problems were either due to the 'Walking Excrement' or to 'The Ego That Wouldn't Die', his mind kept running through the innumerable ways Atlantis could have been destroyed completely. If that were the case, they might have to be prepared to stay a long, long time.
TBC….
AN: Sorry I've been away for so long; real life, and all that…some daysmy 'real life' seems 'realer' than others…Anyway, as always, I appreciate reviews - it's nice to know that I'm not forgotten!