FIClet: In Theory, SG:Atlantis, McKay/Zelenka

[emony]

For cedara who asked for a fic for this icon:

It's not porn, but there is a lecture *g* Much love to maryavatar for the beta. Any remaining mistakes are my fault.

I hope you like it, dear :)



In Theory

*

Like most of the conference attendees in the hall this brisk mid-morning, Radek Zelenka had only come to this particular lecture session because of the rumors.

The theories being expounded on the stage before the assembled illuminati of the international physics world aren't anything they haven't heard or read before. There's something appealing in the delivery, a kind of self-confidence that at once both draws you in and makes you just hate the guy for his arrogance, but it isn't that which holds the audience in their seats.

The prevalent rumor is that McKay is involved in some top secret US military weapons program. Something to do with Son of Star Wars, most likely. They're planning a world-wide network, the conspiracy theorists whisper. That's why they got him - the Canadian government, you know, they're in on it too. And the Russians. That's why he's up there now, working on that side of things with their military. It'll be China next.

Don't be so naive, the more radical conspiracy nuts reply. It's not weapons, it's aliens. He's been working out of Area 51 on the alien spaceships they've captured, and now he's in Russia to set up a program for the European captured spaceships.

Zelenka tends towards the former belief. Governments and militaries wanting weapons he can readily accept, but aliens seem a little far-fetched. Besides, if the Americans really had that kind of technology, they'd have patented it and sold it around the globe like so many bottles of Coca-Cola by now.

Whatever it might be, it keeps Zelenka in the hall, watching as the man in question, be he alien spaceship technician or weapons platform creator or just a physicist giving a presentation, thumps emphatically against the projector screen to draw attention to a slide image.

The lecture draws to an end, and after some polite applause the floor is opened up. No one dares ask the questions that are really on all their minds, but a few brave souls obliquely hint at the possible military applications of McKay's theories. They - and others asking purely scientific questions. There's no indication McKay is even aware of the undertone of the military comments - are crushed like bugs, their questions either answered in a tired and patronizing tone of one for whom the answer is so very obvious, or turned over entirely.

Zelenka feels a kind of vicarious pride for no reason he can put a name to, and doesn't dare raise his hand to contribute to the Q&A.

The session is called to an end, the audience applauds again, and McKay takes a little bow before striding off stage as the chairman moves towards the podium to introduce the next speaker.

Half the audience gets up to leave before the poor woman is even named, and the crush to escape Congress Hall in favor of the more pleasant environment of the restaurant almost covers the crush of voices as discussions break out in numerous languages about the lecture they've just heard, and more importantly the man they just heard give it.

The resultant mix up of words and bodies leaves Zelenka searching the room for his colleagues from the Institute of Physics even as he stands in the queue waiting to be served by the eerily calm girls and boys behind the long restaurant counter. He's still scanning the groups, gathered and bunched around tables, some in sedate discussion, some with hands flying furiously as they debate, when the voice penetrates his brain.

"Is there lemon in this? Don't just shake your head, I need an answer. Is. There. Lemon. In. This? I am deathly, deathly allergic. Do you understand? One little drop of lemon, and I could go into anaphylactic shock and die. Right here on your really horrible carpet. Well?"

The slightly bemused girl behind the counter glances at Zelenka, then shrugs her shoulders at the man in front of her. Zelenka finds himself looking at McKay too. It was different, seeing him in three dimensions instead of the two of pictures attached to journal articles, but it's different again seeing him just one foot away rather than on a podium on the other side of a crowded room.

It seems stupid to say that he looks bigger, but that's the first thing that Zelenka notices. That and more .. just more. As if being up close brings with it all the intensity previously defused throughout a hall full of delegates.

McKay turns and looks at him. "What the Czech for lemon?" he asks, and Zelenka thinks it's an oddly fitting way for him to have introduced himself.

"Citron," he says, after thinking for a few seconds. McKay nods and points towards the girl behind the counter, shaking his hand imperially in her direction. Zelenka takes it as a request to translate the question into Czech, and does so.

"No," the girl replies in English. "No lemon."

McKay nods with a mix of satisfaction and relief and nudges his plate in her direction.

"You speak Czech then," he says, as the girl ladles the lemon-free food onto his plate.

Zelenka blinks, slightly surprised to be addressed again. "Uh, yes. I am here from the Czech Academy of Science, here in Prague." He tucks his conference brochure awkwardly under one arm and pushes his tray along, holding out his free hand to McKay. "My name is Doctor Radek Zelenka."

McKay pushes his own tray along before turning back slightly to shake Zelenka's hand. "Rodney McKay. Doctor. Obviously."

It isn't clear whether it is his doctorate or his name that should be obvious. "Yes," Zelenka says, turning back to his tray again. "I heard your lecture. It was very interesting."

McKay snorts slightly. "It was a load of crap," he says. "Recycled theories I published five years ago. Have you ever been to Russia?"

Again Zelenka finds himself surprised, and he nods almost cautiously.

"Then you know why I'm here," McKay says, as if it's a foregone conclusion that Radek will understand entirely. "Any chance to get out of that place. The food is just terrible."

Zelenka smiles slightly. "Yes," he agrees, although he doesn't think it was so bad really. "I remember."

McKay turns back to look at him for a second before smiling slightly.

"Look," he says, as they finally reach the end of the line. "There's a table, by the window. There's bound to be a draft. I'll catch a cold and die of pneumonia, I can tell."

It just seems natural that they sit down together.

*

The first thing Zelenka is aware of as he wakes up, even before he registers being in someone else's hotel room, is that the door is open. He's not sure, as he wakes up further and conscious thought once again overtakes his mind, how he knows this, but even before his eyes are open he senses it. Maybe a draft or the light tells him. Whatever it is, he rubs his eyes and reaches over to retrieve his glasses from the nightstand.

Things aren't much clearer with them. A woman's voice, hard and unmistakably Russian, carries in to the room from the doorway.

"..and it is time to leave," she says, finishing a sentence Zelenka didn't catch the beginning of and brooking no argument.

McKay, however, argues. "There are another two days of the conference. I got here yesterday morning, for God's sake. Do you people want me to suffer, is that it? Did General Hammond tell you to make sure I suffered? I bet he did. Or Sam. Doctor Carter. This is her doing, isn't it."

There's a slight sigh from the woman, long-suffering, as if she's had to put up with this for a few months now and is beginning to wish she'd never agreed to whatever she agreed to in the first place, whatever its initial benefits might have been.

"We are needed back in Russia," she says. "The Program cannot wait."

McKay lets out a short laugh. "It's waited a few thousand years," he says. "I think it can wait a couple of days more."

"Perhaps," the woman says, and Zelenka wonders if Rodney's won this round until she continues. "But my government will not wait. We are leaving, now. We packed your bags yesterday. If you are not in the lobby in five minutes, I will send the Colonel up to get you."

As Zelenka stares at the ceiling and wonders what kind of project generates a joint US-Russian program, and has been 'waiting' for thousands of years, the door closes and McKay stomps into the room like a petulant child, muttering to himself about privacy and underwear and "democracy my ass".

He glances over at Zelenka and sighs. He's already dressed, has been for some time by the looks of things, and he leans down to pull his shoes on as he speaks. "I have to go, or Doctor Markova's going to court martial me or lock me in a cupboard or something." He shrugs, and Zelenka tries not to feel disappointed at so casual a dismissal.

"She sounds very formidable," he says, after a few seconds.

Rodney shakes his head and stands up, shoes tied. "Formidable I can deal with. Actually formidable I find very attractive. That woman is a power-mad control freak."

He looks over at Zelenka for a few seconds before turning away to lean over an open book on the desk that's the only unpacked item left in the room. Zelenka assumes he's checking it for something, marking his place with a scrap of paper maybe, until McKay turns back to face him, slipping a pen into his coat pocket and holding the book out to Radek.

Zelenka takes it, puzzled, and discovering no explanation in the cover he flicks through the first few pages. On the first, below the title and dedication, is a random looking email address. Zelenka looks back up at McKay, who shrugs. "It's probably monitored, I don't know, but I check it, so, you know."

There's an awkward pause where no one knows quite what to say, until McKay turns away and picks up his bags from where they were piled against the side of the desk by his Russian minders the day before.

Zelenka thinks he ought to put the book down, leave it to one side as if it's not that important really, and he might look in to dropping Rodney an email, if he's bored one day, maybe, but he can't bring himself to let it go.

McKay stops by the door and glances back almost nervously. "Uh," he says. "Bye."

He turns and has the door open before Zelenka manages to respond with a "bye" of his own.

He almost seems to pause at the sound, as if he wasn't really expecting it, but then the door slams shut and he's gone.

*

End

Comments

[niennah.livejournal.com]

!! You made it work. So well. Very nicely done. I never thought I'd spend much time empathising with Zelenka, but look, I just did. :)

[emony.livejournal.com]

Hehe, thank you :)