AN: So, I got an idea a while ago for a story and worked on it, but then I found a pic of Sheppard online and it sparked a related idea. I decided to do a series on all the people Sheppard has lost - and found! Most of them will probably be short chapters more like one-shots, but they all tie together time-wise.
Hope you enjoy, and don't worry! I'm still working on the other stuff, but with my new job it's hard to find enough time. Thanks for your patience so far - I haven't forgotten about you all!
Chapter One:
(Tag to "Outcast")
Ronon can see Sheppard inside the small room, his lanky frame surrounded by huge urns of flowers. Sheppard's head is bowed slightly, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his dark blue suit, and though he can only see his friend's back, the set of his spine tells Ronon that Sheppard is both relieved and sad. It's the relief that puzzles Ronon – he does not truly understand why it's there, on such a terrible day for the colonel.
Sheppard's hand escapes the pocket and hovers above the polished wooden coffin, as if he wishes to touch it but is afraid to. A soft sigh whispers from him, his fingers flex once, twice, then leave off hovering to run through the brush of dark hair on top of his head before returning to the safety of his pocket.
Ronon wonders for only a moment why Sheppard does not speak, but soon understands. Warriors like himself, like the colonel, mourn their dead in silence. When words are spoken over a grave or beside a pyre, they are not spoken for the dead – who cannot hear them – but as comfort for the living. As they had traveled from Atlantis to Earth, Ronon had heard a small portion of the childhood Sheppard had faced with the man in the coffin, and now he figured that Sheppard neither needed nor wanted that comfort. Despite his feelings for the man, however, Sheppard had still decided to come here. Ronon thinks that maybe it was for some sort of closure, but what kind he couldn't even begin to guess at.
Ronon is about to walk away when a quiet sound reaches his sensitive ears – a single word, spoken in little more than a whisper.
"Goodbye."