She didn't quite know when, exactly, she began to notice Ronon Dex.

It wasn't that she hadn't noticed him before, she had. Tall, dark and handsome with a side order of being intimidating as hell. The man would be hard to miss anywhere but it was completely impossible on Atlantis. So she'd noticed him around base, saw him with his teammates or alone, but she hadn't 'noticed him' noticed him.

So it had surprised her when one day a few weeks before she'd seen him walk into the infirmary with a gash on his chin and practically ran in the opposite direction. It had surprised her because she hadn't even realized she'd developed, it sounded so juvenile when she thought about it, a crush on the man. A man she'd barely spoken to except about medical matters. A man she knew next to nothing about. A man who she was currently blushing over while she kept her head buried in the medical file of a Marine she'd never treated. It was embarrassing and unprofessional and immature and she was going to stop the moment he left the infirmary.

"Doc?"

She stiffened slightly, he was talking to her? Jennifer mustered her courage and called up every ounce of professional within her before looking up, way up, into the face of Ronon Dex. She could do this, she really could, so she pushed down all thoughts of running her tongue all over his body from his toes to his arms - was that a cut?

"What happened - wait, don't answer that - sparring with Teyla?" she asked, immediately launching into 'doctor mode' at the sight of the wound on his left bicep. She grabbed his uninjured arm and steered him to a nearby bed before heading off to gather her supplies. "That's going to need stitches."

"That's what Teyla said."

They were silent as Jennifer cleaned the area before stitching up the wound. She tried to be especially gentle with him, even though she knew Ronon had a high tolerance for pain, because she didn't want to add any unnecessary hurt to his life. Maybe that made her too tenderhearted and maybe it was completely unprofessional but it was her nature and she wasn't about to change it now.

"There, all done," she said with a smile and a final touch to the bandage's edge. She was surprised at how at ease she now felt when only moments before she had been a blushing quivering mess.

"I won't tell you to take it easy - I know you're going off-world in a few hours," she said, her confidence rising as she dared a look into his eyes. It was a mistake. The sight of him looking at her with an intent expression on his face caused her heart to speed up and her face to heat. "Just be careful. With it. The bandage, I mean, don't get it wet because it'll fall off and you don't know what bacteria are living on that planet or who-"

The touch of his hand on her arm, his fingers barely gripping her wrist, stilled the avalanche of words coming out of her. She looked at his hand, large and strong, wondered where the man attached to it had been, what he had seen, who he was behind the scary façade. She took a breath before looking up once more, tearing her eyes away from his hand in order to meet his. But his eyes weren't waiting for hers, just the top of his head as he studied his hand on her wrist. He slid his hand over the top of hers, Jennifer's eyes now following its path, as he gently turned it over. Ronon ran his thumb over her palm once before letting go suddenly.

"Be there in a second. Sheppard needs me. Thanks Doc."

He was off the bed and halfway across the infirmary before Jennifer got herself together enough to respond. She had no idea what had just happened, her heart was hammering in her chest and she wasn't entirely sure she could move without collapsing in a heap on the floor. It was all so…unexpected, that was the word. First her unexpected attraction to the Satedan and now this completely unexpected moment. It was a moment, wasn't it?

It didn't matter if it was a moment or not, he was going off-world soon and she still had 4 hours left in her shift. No time to build castles in the sky, not when there were wounds and alien viruses to vanquish. So with a sigh and a roll of her shoulders, Jennifer pushed away her thoughts of Ronon and their maybe moment and focused on the work before her.

Five hours later found Jennifer exhausted and eating alone in the mess hall after Dr Beckett had forced her out of the infirmary, telling her that she was benched from active duty until her next shift. She barely tasted anything she ate, just put the food in her mouth and chewed out of habit. All she wanted to do at the moment was pull on her pajamas and climb into bed but, as tired as she was, her brain just wouldn't turn off so, instead, she sat and ate a meal she didn't taste in the mess hall.

It was a moment, she was sure of it. She had never had a moment before, had barely even had a boyfriend, but she was almost positive that it had been a moment in the infirmary with Ronon. She'd waited her whole life for that moment, had dreamed of it as a little girl. Stupid, romantic dreams she had thought as she'd grown older, too young to be invited out by her classmates, too smart for most boys her age to find attractive. So she'd let the childhood dreams go, had dated a safe boy for a time before focusing on medicine and her career.

She always thought she'd have time to find someone but being out here in another galaxy where the threat of death loomed large every day was starting to change her perspective. Maybe those dreams were foolish and overly romantic but maybe she would miss her chance at love, real love, if she didn't let herself still believe in the fairytale. Or maybe she was completely crazy and exhausted and focusing too much on a possible moment with Ronon.

Whatever it was, she wasn't going to get any answers tonight. Ronon wasn't even on base and it wasn't like she was about to march up to him and demand to know if they'd had a moment or not. So she stored it away - the memory, the feelings and her questions - and gathered her things. It was time to go to bed, things would be clearer in the morning as her father always said.