SGA fic: "Comings, Goings, and Returnings" - PG-13 [Ronon, John]

[tielan]

TITLE: Comings, Goings, and Returning
RATING: PG-13
WARNINGS: None
SUMMARY: Growing into his own skin, with the help of a friend.
NOTES: For lar_laughs in the satedan_grabass John&Ronon Thing-A-Thon who asked for an AU in which larger groups of Satedans survived.

Comings, Goings, and Returnings

Ronon left the tavern after the fourth round, signalling to Tyre that he was out for this one and kicking off a round of jeers about how he couldn't hold his drink any more.

Tyre and Morika were settling them with good cheer as Ronon walked out into the darkness, letting the door close behind him. As it did so, he met the gaze of the Athosian woman - Teyla Emmagan, where she sat in the corner with Heris and the Lanteans, speaking on matters of trade and trouble.

Then the wooden door blocked out the warmth and light and scent of food and drink, leaving Ronon out in the cold night with its pale, starlit edges.

He paused there for a moment, standing by the lane that led out past the fields that several of the Satedans tended, breathing in the mud and the damp, the dirt and the grass, and the scent of woodsmoke and distant leafmulch.

Several thousand Satedans lived in this village beside the Stargate, and close to another ten thousand lived an hour's walk from the gate and travelled between the two by dray and pedalcycle.

They'd built it up over seven years, adding houses of wood and stone, and cobbling together generators to provide power for machine tools and equipment. Still, it looked like a peasant village, out in the middle of nowhere, with barely even running water. It was a peasant village - just one filled with Satedans.

It wasn't Sateda and it never would be.

Ronon glanced back at the tavern, then jogged off down the dimly-lit paths that led away from the town and along the fields. There was more than enough light for him to see his way - he'd travelled by night on much darker planets in his time as a Runner.

Seven years.

The night slid past him as he fell into the rhythm of running.

No Wraith pursuit - never again. The scar from the surgery ached a little, but he drew back his shoulder blades to ease the pull on his flesh and kept going, splashing through the chill water of the river at the ford.

Better to keep running than stop and wait for the pain.

Leaves and twigs crunched beneath his boots, and rich mud squelched under his weight. He breathed in the air of this world - another world he didn't know - and emptied himself to run.

Melena was gone. Sateda was gone. Kel was dead - Tyre had killed him with the Betrayer's Death.

And Ronon? Ronon had spent seven Satedan years of his life running - playing miawunskvi with the Wraith beneath strange suns.

Now he was back among his own people...and what?

What happened next?

He had no answer to that question, so he kept running.

Still, eventually, he had to go back.

He reached the lane running back towards the tavern as the moon was just brushing the tops of the trees with its underside. The tavern was still filled with the noise and laughter of intoxication, easily audible long before Ronon reached the man who leaned against the fence by the field.

"Your friends are still going."

"They'll keep going 'til their feet give out."

Sheppard's smile tilted one corner of his mouth upwards in a wry smile. "Several hours after dawn, then?"

"Yeah." There'd been a time when Ronon would have kept up with them, drink for drink. Not tonight. He glanced at Sheppard. They'd left Atlantis nearly half a day ago, and it had been late afternoon back then. The Lantean guy had to be feeling the time. "You going back now?"

"We got offered rooms in the guest house. McKay and Teyla already headed out that way." Sheppard looked out across the fields. "Have you thought about what happens tomorrow?"

"Get up." That was about as far as he'd considered.

It wasn't what Sheppard was asking.

Ronon hadn't thought about what happened after. In his head, there'd been no real 'afterwards' - only running until the Wraith caught him. If he'd hoped for anything, it had been unrealistic at best, and foolish at worst.

This wasn't Sateda. Ronon wasn't sure it could ever be.

But what else could he do? What else would he be if not Satedan?

"Is your offer still open?"

"You'd stay with Atlantis?"

"Thinking about it."

Sheppard had offered him a place in Atlantis before Teyla had made the connection between Ronon and the remaining Satedans. Afterwards, it had been assumed that Ronon would want to come back to his people. Even Ronon had assumed it.

A stupid assumption. He'd been gone a long time.

"It's open." Sheppard gave him a sideways look. "I thought you'd want to stay with your people."

Ronon shrugged, not sure how to explain it, or even if he wanted to.

"I'd be glad to have you on my team, though. And you can come back here to visit any time you like. Teyla goes back to see her people all the time."

Except that Teyla hadn't spent seven years out of her society, living hand to mouth, on the run from the Wraith. She could go back to the Athosians and never think about it because she was still Athosian.

Specialist Dex of Sateda was dead; the man left behind didn't know who he was anymore.

Worse, he didn't even know who he wanted to be.

Did he want to go back to trying to be Ronon Dex again? Did he want to become a mercenary like Tyre and the others, hiring out to whoever was willing to pay for muscle, irrespective of whether the fight was worth it? Or could he be something else?

Wasn't it better to not fit in among strangers than to not fit in among his own people?

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah. I'll join you." And maybe he'd work out who he was somewhere along the way.

Sheppard nodded. "Welcome to the team."

--

Chilly water gushed around Ronon's knees as he waded through the shallows to reach the fishnets.

"A little more to the left, Ronon!" His distant cousin Heris stood on the riverbanks, her sandalled feet mired in the mud, a baby on her back as she called the children back from the rushing currents in the middle. "You can't see it, but there should be a rock with a ring cemented into it..."

The current was strong, an inexorable tugging at his legs. Feeling his way with his bare feet, Ronon found the cylindrical rock and the ring into which the net had been fastened, and carefully unwound the cord that held the nets in place.

This hadn't been in the original plan when he'd come back to New Sateda to see the camp, but Heris' partner had been injured yesterday trying to bring in the nets and if they let the currents take the nets now, it would take them most of the spring to weave new ones.

On Sateda, it would have been just as simple as buying a new set from the shop.

On Sateda, Heris and Sholin wouldn't have been reduced to being fishermen.

Ronon hauled in the catch. His muscles ached a little, but he was glad of the strain. The last few days in Atlantis had been rough.

Twitchy, but with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Not allowed out of the city as the enzyme worked its way out of his system. Challenging Teyla to bouts (she still won), taking on a half-dozen marines at once (and still beating them), and waking up in the middle of the night wanting to do nothing more than bellow and scream and yell.

Physical action that wasn't running or beating up on someone was a relief.

"Thank you, Ronon." Heris waded into the shallows to help drag the net full of flopping, twisting fish in. The little boy snugged against her back gurgled with delight as water splashed up around him, and Ronon grinned at the big dark eyes that squinted shut in laughter.

Even after the Wraith, life went on.

Heris marshalled the children around them to help grab the fish, kill them, and scale them. Ronon beached himself on a rock, stretched out his cramping calves, and kept a careful eye on the kids and the knives they wielded. These were older children and adolescents, of course - with the exception of the baby - and they worked with the concentration of kids who'd been warned to be careful as they worked.

"So Teyla says you're settling well among the Lanteans." Heris said, wading in a little further to wash the fish guts in the chilly water. "Your Colonel Sheppard seems like a good man. Are they all like him?"

"Not all. Most are more suspicious."

"I suppose in a place that is strange to them, caution is a good thing. Careful, Saavi, point the knife away from you - out towards the river. They say the Lanteans are here to fight the Wraith."

Ronon shrugged. "Someone's got to."

Heris tossed another fish into a carry bag. "Can they succeed?"

"I don't know."

He spoke honestly, with no idea himself. The Lanteans had a better chance than any other planet Ronon had seen or heard of in his time with the Satedans or while moving along as a Runner, but there were times when he wondered if they'd grasped the full extent of the Wraith presence in Pegasus.

They filled the fish bags and released the rest before setting the net again. Then the children scampered back to the village ahead of them while Heris slung her son around her front and Ronon carried the bag of filleted fish.

"You know, when you came back, many took it as a sign that we were supposed to go back into the fight again."

Ronon frowned at her. "Why?"

"Commander Kel's betrayal left us broken, Ronon." Heris' eyes pinned him, keen as the edge of any of his knives. "We didn't know who to trust among the leaders who were left, and everyone who'd been in his counsel was looked upon with suspicion."

"What's that got to do with me?"

"You came back from the Wraith. No-one's done that before."

"It doesn't..." He didn't know how to say it, didn't know how to explain that it wasn't anything special. The Wraith took, but you could escape from them. Their most recent exploit against the hive ship with Ford and his band had shown that. It took skill and know-how and more than a little luck... "I'm not a hero, a leader."

"But you could be."

He didn't have anything to say, and, it seemed, neither did Heris right now, for she walked back with him in silence while the questions burned in his mind.

Heris was wrong. He wasn't a leader. Not the kind that Sateda needed. Not anymore. He'd left that part of him behind when the Wraith turned him into a Runner, along with almost everything else he used to be. It wasn't there in him anymore - what was there was the desire to fight the Wraith and make them pay.

Atlantis could give him that as Sateda couldn't.

And Sateda was surviving. Thriving, even - as much as any civilisation thrived.

They came out from the fishing shallows, climbing the track that took them up along the edge of the fields where the growers were tending their crop circles - a term which the Lanteans found amusing for reasons that still didn't quite make sense after Sheppard had explained it.

Down among the circles of plants and trees, the scratchbeasts fluttered and squawked in their pens. Broad-rimmed grass-and-straw hats bobbed among the sprouting plants, or made their way along the winding paths through the crop circles.

And in the middle of the cropfield, the sun reflected off one black head moving easily among the hats, pausing for a chat here and there, drifting along the paths. He saw Ronon on the ridge and raised a hand in distant greeting before finishing his conversation and starting towards the ridge.

Heris hailed several of the children collecting long grasses at the edge of the fields and handed them Ronon's carry bags of fish. "Come by before you leave," she told him and wended her way through the crop circles, speaking briefly to Sheppard before he climbed the track in easy, fluid strides.

"Fishing good?"

"Yeah. Nets were full."

Sheppard glanced out over the busy fields. "They're doing well."

"Yeah." It wasn't Sateda, but this planet wouldn't be anything like Sateda for many years yet. "They're stable."

"You don't get too much of that around here."

"No." Ronon wondered if he should mention what Heris said to Sheppard. If anyone understood, the other guy might.

The moment lengthened, stretched... Passed.

"Do you regret not staying with them? I mean, we like having you in Atlantis, but it's just..." Sheppard waved a hand at the fields and the people. "You've got this." Ronon couldn't see Sheppard's eyes behind the dark glasses, but he wasn't sure that he wanted to. There was an odd note to the older man's voice, something like envy.

"No. Do you regret not staying on Earth?"

"Eh, it's not the same thing. You've got family here."

There was a distant look on the other man's face and Ronon wondered if Sheppard would say more about the past he never spoke of, the family he never mentioned. Sometimes it seemed the man had appeared like a thunderclap, with nothing behind him but empty air and his service history.

Ronon looked around at the fields and the farmers, lifting his face to the blue sky that held no hiveships and the sunlight that poured down amidst the rich green scent of growing things.

"I don't belong here," was all he said.

--

Ronon had never warmed to the Genii back when they'd been humble farming folk. After Ladon Radim had used Atlantis as his stalking horse for his coup, he'd liked them even less.

And that wasn't even going past the fact that they'd developed technology and lied about it to everyone.

But he listened to Radim's proposal because Teyla had asked him here. Because the offer was something she was considering - and hoped he would consider too.

He waited until he was sure Radim had gone. "I'm not going to work with the Genii."

"There are very few peoples who are equipped to fight back against the Wraith," Teyla said in the soft, weary tones of someone who'd argued all this over in her mind already. Ronon noted the shadows beneath her eyes and the slight tension in her pose. She was back with her people and she was happy with them, but she wasn't content.

Hence the meeting with Ladon Radim.

"They would not be my preference either, Ronon. But So long as the Ancestors refuse to allow Earth to return to Pegasus, the Genii have the best hope of successfully fighting the Wraith."

"Not a very good one."

"No," she agreed. "But you are not cut out to be a farmer."

"And you are?"

They both knew the answer to that.

Ronon climbed to his feet, stretching out the kinks in his legs and wishing he could stretch his arms up without hitting the drying herbs and flowers hanging from the inside ropes of the Athosian hospitality tent. Teyla shot him a reproving look and climbed to her feet, making her way outside to the guest soup boiling outside the tent.

He followed her out. "Tyre and the others are back next week. Last time they were on New Sateda, Tyre mentioned they're looking at doing more than fight for merchant pay."

Teyla stopped and turned, surprised. "They wish to fight the Wraith again?"

Ronon shrugged. "They mentioned it."

"I see." Which was Teyla-speak for 'she was reserving her opinion.' "Would you go with them if they did?"

"Would you?"

She'd met his old troop and gotten on with them well enough. Satedans were generally more boisterous people than Athosians - and the troops even more so than the general population. But Teyla wasn't one to immerse herself in a squadron as was the Satedan way - the Lantean's cool methods of assignment and reassignment was more suited to her style, even if she didn't baulk at community living.

Ronon wasn't sure he could go back to the troop squad life again.

He wondered what it said about him that the Lantean method of fighter assignment was more attractive to him than the thought of Satedan immersion into a unit. Tyre and the others had joked about him abandoning Satedan ways before, about no longer thinking Satedan. Maybe they weren't so far wrong on that.

"I should have to think about it." Which was Teyla-speak for 'probably not'. She continued briskly. "Will you be staying for the meal?"

"I will if he won't," came a voice out of the darkness, familiar and easy. "That smells good."

They'd turned in unison at the words, and saw not only Sheppard and McKay, but also Weir and Beckett emerging along the path to the Stargate.

"John!" Teyla's delight rang out in her voice, but Ronon had to swallow past the lump in his throat.

"Hey." Sheppard's smile warmed on Teyla then turned to Ronon, inclusive as a clap on the shoulder. "Good to see you both."

"It is good to see you - all of you," she said, too pleased to see what Ronon saw.

Sheppard and McKay weren't back here because they'd returned to Atlantis. If so, they wouldn't have brought Weir and Beckett along.

"Something's happened," he said, and knew it for the truth when he met Sheppard's eyes.

It was a very short briefing. What the Lanteans knew, what they suspected, what they planned to do.

He and Teyla were in, of course.

"You're sure about this?" Sheppard asked later. Teyla was sending her people off to uncover the stores the Lanteans had left with her people - caches of weapons, ammunition, and armoury to reinforce what Sheppard and the others had stolen from the SGC. McKay had gone back to the 'jumper to fuss over the systems, and Weir had gone with him since Beckett was advising Athosians on medical stuff.

That left Ronon some time with John.

"Were you when you left Earth?"

The smile tilted sidewards, understanding. "How've things been?"

"Quiet. You?"

"Yeah. Okay. Surviving."

"Doesn't sound much like you." Ronon flashed a grin to show he was teasing and warmed to the other man's soft snort of laughter.

"Guess I made up for it, leaving against the General's orders."

"Will it be a black mark?"

Sheppard shrugged and sipped from the bowl of soup he'd served himself from the pot. "Probably depends what happens here. If we get Atlantis back, if we get out of this, if we rescue O'Neill and Woolsey..."

"A lot of 'ifs'."

"Yeah." Sheppard glanced over. "I wasn't expecting you to be here. Thought we might have to do a separate run to New Sateda."

"Teyla wanted me to come by."

"Oh?"

Ronon crooked a smile. "To talk about working with the Genii against the Wraith."

"They were recruiting you?"

"Trying to. Some of the Satedans fighters are thinking of coming back to take on the Wraith again. Small-stuff, not like before." Sateda would never be able to fight the way they had before, but maybe they could still cripple the Wraith here and there, in some small things.

"Oh. That'll be good for you. Working with your people again, I mean."

"Nothing's confirmed. They're just considering it." Ronon shrugged. "Getting tired of fighting for pay, I guess."

"Well, if they did, we'd be happy to work with you."

"Us?"

"I figured..." Sheppard frowned down at his now empty bowl. "Wouldn't you rejoin your friends if you had the chance?"

"Yeah, probably." Ronon hadn't really considered it in the light of his present employment with Atlantis. Yeah, he missed his people and the easy, unthinking acceptance of the things he did. But living in Atlantis, working with Sheppard and Teyla and McKay and Weir and the others... He'd missed that, too. "Never really thought about going back."

"Sometimes we don't. Sometimes we do."

Ronon had the feeling they weren't talking about him anymore, but Sheppard didn't say anything more on that topic, just sat there with the empty bowl in his hands for a few seconds more before he roused as though from a reverie. "Anyway, you'd be a good leader if you wanted to go back."

The other man meant it; that was clear. But there was a touch of wistfulness in Sheppard's voice, even if the other man didn't say anything directly.

"I'm still here," he said as voices drew close outside - Teyla's tones clear above a man's murmur.

Sheppard's smile tilted again.

--

If it had been up to Ronon, he would have left John behind to recover. A steel bolt through the side was a serious injury.

"What is it the Lanteans call it?" Morika wondered as they moved through the halls of the Odyssey. "Mind over matter?"

Ronon grinned. "Get the others and McKay. I'll meet you in the transporter bay."

"We'll be ready." Morika promised, her tiny plaits swinging around her pointed cheekbones. "If I have to pick Rodney up over my shoulder."

"Just tell him we're getting Teyla. That'll be enough."

The halls of the Odyssey were brightly lit, a harsh illumination on the strained expressions of the men and women who passed Ronon on his way to the infirmary.

She'd been two months missing. Teyla would be due very soon, if not already. And if she'd already given birth then she was dead and, according to John, so was Pegasus.

The thoughts raced through his head as he headed for the infirmary. Doors hissed open and Jen glanced up from her patient and her mouth pulled sideways into a grimace. "I tried to talk him out of it..."

"He won't." Ronon knew that much. "I'll look after him."

"He shouldn't even be--" She closed her lips around the criticism. "Look after him. And yourself, okay?"

Ronon nodded and went on past to the room where they'd brought Sheppard after his surgery. The doors hissed open just as he reached it, and Sheppard emerged, his shoulders as set as his expression when he saw Ronon.

"You're going to tell me I shouldn't be on this mission."

"You already know it."

"I need--" John broke off, his lips white at the edges, his eyes desperate. Too proud to beg, too damn stubborn to let someone else do the job.

"Yeah, you do. Which is why I'll back you up on this." Ronon understood. He didn't approve, but he understood. "You're coming with us."

"But?"

Smart man. Or he knew Ronon well enough after the last couple of years.

"If I think you're holding us up, I'll have Rakai put you over his shoulder and drag you back. You're no good to Teyla dead and neither are we."

The wide mouth quirked a little. "Okay."

It felt weird telling Sheppard what he could and couldn't do; but McKay wasn't going to be commanding Rakai and the others, and Ronon was getting used to this leadership thing, working with the Satedan squadrons and Atlantis both.

More difficult was the feeling of being pulled in two directions.

He had a feeling the whole situation was going to become more complicated once they'd gotten Teyla back. Teyla's disappearance had focused both Atlantis and the Satedans on a single purpose, instead of turning what should be co-operation into conflict.

"Are you crazy?" Rodney pronounced when they reached the armoury. "No, forget I said that. Why hasn't Jennifer locked you up and thrown away the key? You shouldn't even be standing!"

"Teyla needs me."

"She needs people capable of doing the job," Rodney snapped. "And right now you couldn't pick up a kitten!"

"McKay." Ronon cut him off. "You ready?"

McKay patted himself down in a routine as familiar as Ronon's own jacket and harness set. "Got everything. I still think we should leave Sheppard behind."

"Shut up, Rodney."

"You're not in charge--"

"No," Ronon interrupted, suddenly feeling like the parent of two squabbling kids. Had Weir felt like this at times? Did Teyla? This leadership thing was a real headache. "I am. He's coming. We're going."

Rodney stalked ahead like an angry cat, deliberately ignoring them for the moment. That would change the first time they got into trouble on the ship, of course. McKay might be annoying but he was loyal, too, with his own brand of courage under fire.

"Thanks, buddy."

Ronon grimaced. "Wait until we've got Teyla back."

Only once they had Teyla back, John was back in surgery for further damage to his wound while they were getting out of Michael's hiveship. Ronon waited to make sure his troop was seen to, then pointed them towards the mess, and went looking for John.

He paused by a sleeping Teyla and her newborn son, wondering at the tiny thing in the medical crib, then continued on through to where Jen had pointed out John was.

"He'll be drugged up, though. Don't expect him to be coherent."

But when Ronon found the other man, John was staring somewhat blankly into space.

"Hey."

Greenish eyes focused on him. Sort of. "Hey, buddy. It's kinda blurry in here. You okay? I hear the food in the mess isn't all that great - not that I'm going to get any of it in here."

"Feeling better?"

"Yeah." John's smile hazed in and out a little. "You okay? Thanks for carrying Teyla out. I'd have done it myself but...you know..."

"Yeah." Ronon assayed a smile. "Need anything?"

"Nah. They got me drugged to the gills." John fell silent, staring into space, then blurted. "We got her back."

"You got her back."

"We got her back. Good work."

"You, too."

"No, I mean it. Leading your guys in there, keeping it all together." John grimaced. "I wasn't much help on that front."

"You were there. You kept us going." If Sheppard was going to be on this mission, injured and in pain, who was going to say 'we've wasted enough time' and backed out? "We got Teyla back."

"Yeah." Except that now John looked a little lost. "What now?"

There was a bigger question in there - one that Ronon wasn't ready to answer. "We go home to Atlantis," he said, truthfully.

Home to Atlantis with Ronon's family - new and old and new again.

Ronon sat by his friend until he fell asleep, then went looking for the Satedans.

Someday he'd have to make a choice; just not today.

fin