Written for the LFWS Challenge
To the Evil ones - thank you!
Home
Tears filled his eyes, blurring his vision. The voices around him were soft and quiet, the hands that touched him gentle and caring. So different from those of a few minutes ago, or was it hours? Days? He couldn't recall. Day had seeped into night becoming endless. Pain became agony, constant and throbbing with no escape, always there, never fading.
He had lost hope. Thought himself abandoned by those he called family, not by blood, but by something stronger, more lasting, forged in battle and camaraderie.
He felt sorrow now, to have doubted them. The tears caught on his lashes, before spilling over. Furrowing through the dirt and blood on his face wiping it clean, pausing for a moment before they dripped from his chin, ending their short existence as they splashed onto the cell floor.
He felt the weight of the chains fall from his wrists, hearing them clatter to the floor. Gentle fingers smoothed his hair, his long dreads gone, savagely hacked off, leaving the short ends matted and tangled. He mourned their loss.
The voices were still there. The hands still gentle as he felt something wrapped around his torso, covering his shredded back. The bandages at his wrists hiding the gouges the manacles had inflicted
Why had he doubted them? When had he lost hope? He couldn't remember. Now they were near it seemed impossible to think that they would have left him. That they wouldn't have ripped apart the galaxy to find him, wouldn't have burned with vengeance for the brutality he had suffered. With the pain fading and joy creeping back into his soul, it no longer seemed important.
They were here. That was all that mattered. They had found him, had made his captors suffer for their cruelty towards him, this odd family that he belonged too. He blinked, sending more tears rolling down his face. The voices becoming clear.
"Ronon? Time to go home buddy," he heard Sheppard say.
He looked up, seeing the three of them. Teyla kneeling beside him, bandaging the worst of his wounds. McKay, looking more solider than scientist hovering close with an eye on the cell door and Sheppard, face impassive, eyes burning with fury and hate with a hand gripping his shoulder that promised never again. He pushed himself to his feet against their protests, their hands holding him steady as he swayed.
"Home," he said.
Thank you to all who reviewed and read my recent short stories. It really does make my day. YOU ROCK!