In Return by tigs (PG)

[cinaed.livejournal.com]

Rec Category: Radek Zelenka
Pairing: None
Category: Atlantis, Gen, McKay-Zelenka friendship, McKay-Sheppard friendship
Warning: None
Author on LJ: tigs
Author's Website: Sarah's Story Page
Link: In Return

Why This Must Be Read: tigs describes this a "post-Trinity McKay-Sheppard-Zelenka fix-it fic," and that is exactly what this is. Her characterizations of Rodney, Radek, and Sheppard are brilliant and dead-on, her prose is lovely to read, and the story is engaging and feels like something could have actually occured in the aftermath of Trinity.

Excerpt:

"I am going to resign from Sheppard’s team," Rodney says a moment later. "Take a leave of absence, something." Still, he is not looking at Radek, but he sounds as if it is taking great effort to form each word with his mouth. "I was going to put your name forward as my replacement. Thus, favor."

Radek blinks, then blinks again. He feels his mouth moving, in an attempt to form words, but there is cosmic good will towards him apparently, because no sounds come out. He is afraid that he would say ‘yes.’ He is also afraid that he would say, ‘absolutely not,’ or possibly, ‘do you really hate me *that much*?’ That is the phrase he is most worried about saying, because he knows that Rodney means for this to be a compliment. It is Rodney’s way of saying that he trusts Radek to do as good a job on the planets as Rodney himself does.

Radek is not Rodney, though, and he is not a person who can look an unknown danger in the face, and then willingly go back and do it again the next week. Known dangers, yes, dangers that he cannot avoid, yes, but willingly walking into unknown situations that do not always hold the promise of great scientific gains? It is not his idea of a good time.