Choices. Consequences. They ran circles around her head.

Intellectually, Dr. Keller knew that she didn't have anything to do with what happened to Weir. The doctor had made her own choices, including the choice to go on the mission the first place, including the choice to stay behind so that the rest of the team and the city could have a chance. Viscerally, she felt responsible for the woman's not-even-certain death.

It had been her idea to use the nanites, after all. Rodney had only programmed them the way she had told him to.

All right, maybe not exactly the way she had told him to. It wasn't as though she knew anything about programming, but she had given him the idea, told him that it might save Weir's life. And he had pulled it off, brilliantly.

And then had come after, and the replicator city, and now Weir was trapped and maybe dead in enemy territory. And Dr. Keller couldn't help thinking that if she hadn't suggested it...

"Then what?"

Keller spun, eyes wide. She hadn't realized she'd been saying anything loud, let alone that she had company. "Dr. Zelenka. I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were there. Did you need something?"

"No, no. Just thought I would come in and check to make sure all the terminals are back on and properly functioning." Radek smiled, and she couldn't quite help but smile back. He was like that.

She shook her head as she turned back to what she had been doing, which, what was that again? She couldn't remember. Behind her, Radek went back to work.

"If you hadn't suggested it... then what?"

Dr. Keller sighed. He wasn't going to leave it alone, was he? "I was just thinking about Elizabeth," she said after a moment. Oh, that was right, she'd been taking inventory of supplies. "I'll have to talk to Colonel Carter, some of these antibiotics are getting a little too low..."

"I'm sure she can arrange for a resupply trip to earth," he said, "and you're changing the subject."

She was. She had hoped he hadn't noticed.

"I was thinking about Elizabeth. About how we don't know if she's alive or dead, or if she's even Elizabeth anymore. If she remembers who she is or that she's human at all. We don't know what the replicators might have done to her." She might have been wringing her hands, but she wasn't sure. "And if I hadn't told Rodney about the nanites, the hadn't suggested that he could reprogram them to..."

"To save her life," Radek pointed out. "To save her, and then to help her save the rest of us. What you and Rodney did saved us all. And it was her choice to make, staying behind on the replicator planet."

She nodded, not that made her feel any better. Somehow this all had started with her, never mind the untenable position they had already all been in. She had failed as a doctor. She hadn't been able to save someone's life without the assistance of alien technology, and in the end that alien technology had killed her. Probably. It felt like a defeat. It felt like her fault.

"What's really bothering you?" he asked, and she realized he had set down the data-pad a few moments earlier.

"I don't know," she spread her hands. "But I feel as though I should have done something more. I know," she added, before he could say it. "There wasn't anything else I could have done, and it was our responsibility, and it was her choice to stay behind, and I accept that. At least, intellectually I do."

Emotionally was a different story, and now that she was actually explaining it to someone she wondered when she had become such a mess. He was probably wondering that, too.

"Have you spoken with Dr. Heightmeyer about this?" he asked, after a moment. "It seems like more of her specialty."

She nodded, slowly, then realized she meant to shake her head. "No, I mean, it seems like," she started. Then, gathering her thoughts: "Maybe I should. I haven't, yet, I didn't think I needed to." It sounded like an admission of guilt, almost. Perhaps that was what it was. Being a medical professional, she should have recognized the signs of post-traumatic stress, even as mild as they were.

Like that one. Taking on guilt where there was really none to go around. It sounded so much more obvious when she voiced her guilt aloud.

"We've all been under great deal of stress, lately." At least he didn't tell her she sounded like a broken record, or an idiot. She would have accepted either or both.

"I just wish there was something I could have done, something more." But this time there was no wringing of hands, and there was a world of difference between I wish there was something more I could have done and I screwed up.

"You did the best you could." It sounded as though he knew what she had been thinking, and maybe she wondered a little if he had. "And, who knows? Maybe she'll find her way back to us someday."

"Maybe," she admitted. With even a little bit of a smile.

They watched each other for a moment, with little smiles identical in their awkwardness and their attempts at reassurance. And, she realized, shyness. It was that realization in particular that made her look away, going back to her inventory with what was certainly not a bit of a blush. Behind her, she heard Radek cough and turn back to his fiddling with computers.

"I'll go speak to Dr. Heightmeyer about an appointment, after this," she said then, thinking that it might reassure him a little that his advice had done some slight good.

"Good," he said, then sound a little embarrassed at his enthusiasm. "I mean, I hope it helps."

"Thank you," she said, turning, and then they were staring at each other again.

"Well. It was, uh, good to see you. Again." Even bobbed a little bow. A formal bow, she amended mentally. "Dr. Keller." Touching the brim of an imaginary hat.

"Jennifer." Her cheeks were turning pink, she just knew it.

"I... uh, oh." He smiled. "Jennifer."

"Or Jenny."

"Jenny," he smiled. "Will I see you at dinner?"

"I should think it would be likely." She had already made the decision to see him there.

"Until dinner, then." And this time he really did leave, smiling.

"See you then," she said, to empty air, and with the first real smile on her face.

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