A/N: I own nothing in the SGA universe, and make no money from writing about it.
The Woman Who Said Yes
Ronon Dex was experiencing a mood that some other man might have described as mellow. It wasn't a sensation that he was particularly well acquainted with these days, but the Satedan wasn't wasting his time trying to define it – he was content to simply enjoy it.
It wasn't as though he was usually uptight and worrying about things like Weir or McKay – after all, so far as Ronon was concerned, most problems could be solved with the proper application of persuasion… or by having a bigger weapon than your opponent. But he was normally incredibly careful about being alert – about watching his own back, or, which was more important, about watching his friends' backs. Unless, of course, they had been irritating him. He wouldn't deny that there had been a few times when he had 'accidentally' let some practically-harmless-but-rather-painful projectile slip past him and enter McKay's soft skin for no other reason than he was sick to death of listening to the man complain.
But not this evening. This evening, they would have to watch their own backs. Because Ronon was feeling mellow. It could have had something to do with the cool, brown bottle of beer that Sheppard had pressed into his hand – not for the first time since the celebration had begun – but somehow he doubted it. Usually, alcohol tended to have the opposite effect and he ended up cracking a few heads together or otherwise amusing himself. Perhaps he wasn't drunk, then? Ronon decided to see by rising to his feet and the world around him tilted slightly in response. He sat back down. All right, so perhaps he was a little bit drunk. But mellow with it.
He relaxed back in his chair, with his strong, lean legs stretched out their full length before him and his big leather boots resting comfortably one atop the other. Occasionally someone would trip over them, drink sloshing, and they'd stand and swear drunkenly until their groggy brains processed whom it was they were cussing at. But Ronon didn't care tonight.
He rested one arm behind his dreadlocks and the other – holding his beer – against his knee. It came to him that it was a beautiful night, and a beautiful city, and that life was being good to him. Actually, he couldn't remember life having been this good for quite some time. Certainly not since he'd been made a Runner – and not for a while before that either. But now it was good. Now it was intensely good.
Music drifted through the air and Ronan slouched comfortably, watching, with half-hooded eyes, the movements of the few people left dancing. There was Elizabeth, moving slowly with John, his arms around her waist and her head against his shoulder. To the right, Laura Cadman, swaying to the gentle beat with Doctor Beckett, their bodies pressed close. McKay with his hands wrapped around the hips of his little redhead, looking drunker than anyone else there and the girl laughing loudly. A smattering of other couples circled around them, some he knew, and some he couldn't remember seeing before. Zelenka with a dark haired girl.
Ronon's eyes merely grazed over the dancers until he found the object of his interest. Then he sighed, and smiled, and looked at her, relaxing and sliding even further down into his chair. He watched a woman who danced alone, her eyes shut, her head thrown back and a brown bottle of her own in one hand. The fingers of her other hand swayed above her head, reaching out to the beat, and her lithe body moved of its own accord to the rhythm of the music. She moved with the same grace, the same passion, the same soul, that she moved with when she fought.
She was the most beautiful woman there.
She was the reason he was mellow.
She was the woman who had said yes.
Teyla's eyes opened as she danced and, when she smiled at him across the space between them, they were the only ones there.