Weather Eye, by kageygirl, for the Blood challenge

attempting to sneak it in...

Title: Weather Eye
Author: kageygirl
Rating: PG
Category: Gen
Spoiler: "The Storm/The Eye", minor for "Hot Zone"
Summary: Radek should have followed that thought through to the logical conclusion, but he'd been too busy.


Weather Eye

Radek Zelenka pushed his hair out of his eyes as he ran yet another diagnostic on the power control system. In the month since the storm had struck the city, the weather had turned warmer and quite humid, taxing the environmental controls. Today, the control room was almost stiflingly hot, as the heat migrated up the tower from the lower levels, and the nonessential personnel had been sent away to work elsewhere.

His console gave a discouraging beep, and Radek sighed, and took off his glasses to rub a hand across his sweaty face.

"Is that thing still acting up?"

Putting his glasses back on, Radek looked across at Rodney, who was trying to convince the environmental controls to cooperate. Rodney had not taken a break in several hours, and he seemed to be running on an uncommonly good-natured burst of stubbornness. Radek said, "I have run the diagnostic seven times, and six times the numbers have not matched any of the previous scans. I am beginning to suspect that it is a clever game intended to drive me mad."

"Mmm." Rodney looked up from the laptop perched on top of his own console, and pointed his chin at Radek's. "Before you start padding the walls of your room, crack open the casing. Maybe the problem's not in the system, but in the console itself."

"I was hoping not to have to move around that much." Radek blotted the sweat off his upper lip with his shirt sleeve, and Rodney gave him a quick smirk before focusing on the laptop again.

Radek was still not certain why Rodney was apparently undisturbed by the heat, when everyone else was in a bad temper. Even Dr. Weir had seemed out of sorts earlier, when she'd come to inquire about their progress. Radek had a recurring theory about Rodney having been designed by the universe as a source of irritation when ambient levels were too low, which certainly explained his current relatively good mood. But it seemed uncharitable to work on the proofs while Rodney was temporarily one of the more civil people in the city.

Of course, such idle speculation did nothing but suggest that Radek's brain was in actual danger of melting, so he took a deep breath and retrieved his maintenance kit from the floor by his feet. With the proper tools, the facing of the console came loose easily, and Radek swore in Czech as he peered into the inner workings with a flashlight.

"What is it?"

Radek turned back to see Rodney frowning at him with concern, and Radek waved him away. "It is nothing. I merely have to kill one or more people, and then we will have many fewer problems."

"As long as we don't need them, be my guest," Rodney said, and Radek chuckled before turning back to the console.

It seemed as though someone had spilled something into the console, and of course they hadn't bothered to let anyone know when it could have been cleaned up quickly and before it had caused their current difficulties. Now, the heat and humidity were causing it to interfere with the control crystals. Radek pulled out the cleaning rod and patches that he had originally liberated from a gun-cleaning kit, and saturated a patch with rubbing alcohol before fixing it to the rod and swabbing at the faint brownish stain coating some of the crystals.

When he exchanged the used patch for a clean one, Radek examined the patch to see what it was he'd cleaned away, and his hands went still.

He'd been thinking it was coffee or tea, but the stain on the white cotton patch had a rusty, reddish tint. Radek couldn't help glancing back at Rodney, head bent over the environmental controls console, muttering in a sing-song tone as he typed.

After the storm had passed over Atlantis, Radek had returned with the first damage control team. They'd been given a minimum of details over the radio about the Genii attack, and when Radek had taken over for Rodney that day, he knew little more than what he observed when he arrived back in the city. This seat had been damp, and there had been dull spots where water had dried on the console. Radek should have followed that through to the logical conclusion about water dripping inside the casing, but he'd been too busy not paying attention to--

"Finally. Thank you," Rodney said, and Radek heard a whoosh as the ventilation system came on high, blowing cool air into the room. As he stood up, Rodney ostentatiously brushed his hands together. "You know, all those balconies and overlooks and terraces are fine when you've got ZPMs to power the life support system, but I'm starting to wish the Ancients had been a little less artistic and a little more energy-efficient."

"I will make a note of that, for when we design our own city that is supposed to last for millions of years."

"Good. Do that." Rodney waved a hand in Radek's direction. "You need help over there?"

"No, no." Radek dropped the stained patch into his kit, out of sight, and started with the new one, looking away from Rodney as he cleaned the last of the blood away from the casing. Rodney had not been too badly hurt that day, and the rainwater he'd been soaked in had thinned what little had run into the console, but Radek wanted to remove all traces of it. He was careful to wipe up even the streaks that were nowhere near the circuitry.

He looked up as Rodney stopped nearby, and shook his head quickly. "It's nothing, really--someone was careless with their coffee, I suspect."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Which should be grounds for denying them rations, except that Elizabeth refuses to see it my way."

Radek replaced the console facing and triggered another diagnostic. "In addition to damaging to the irreplaceable Ancient technology, it's a criminal waste of valuable resources."

"Exactly my point." Rodney turned and walked over to Dr. Weir's office, presumably to deliver the news that the control room was once again fit for human habitation, and Radek was thoughtful as he watched him go.

The day of the storm, Radek had concentrated on ignoring the dark stain on Rodney's right sleeve, because Rodney had seemed to want to do the same. Now that Radek thought about it, though, it was possible that he'd been just as happy as Rodney not to discuss his injury.

It was easier to resist the occasional urge to strangle Rodney if Radek thought of the man as an impersonal, natural phenomenon. But most natural phenomena had the decency not to ruin the effect by bleeding all over the city they were trying to keep from sinking, or asking to be remembered for saving groups of children.

Radek's diagnostic ended on an affirmative beep, pulling him away from his musings, and he finished packing away his kit just as Rodney returned.

Rodney crossed his arms and said loftily, "As a reward for our valiant efforts, I think we should rescue a few cups of coffee from the possibility of being ignominiously wasted."

Despite the not-yet-dissipated heat, Radek smiled in agreement. "That is an excellent suggestion."

"Thank you." They set off, and before they'd even reached the Gate room floor, Rodney had started in on an idea he had for improving the efficiency of the air filtration system, and Radek found himself responding with his own thoughts, before he'd even really articulated them in his own mind.

Rodney did not seem to have noticed Radek's bemusement, but then, forces of nature were not supposed to be concerned with such things.

Radek didn't mind. He simply nodded in response to Rodney's good ideas, disagreed with the bad ones, and allowed Rodney's enthusiasm to sweep him along in its wake.