CHAPTER TWO
SONATA OF THE SEA

An audience had gathered to watch the sparring match. Ronon Dex was used to that by now. Every time he fought an opponent some faction of Atlantis thought equal to him, they turned out in droves to prove each other right or wrong. Money changed hands more often than not, something Ronon found amusing, though he did want to know who bet against him so he could demonstrate his skill.

He reached out a hand and helped Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell to his feet. The so-called 'Sodan versus Satedan' match had been decided in favor of the Pegasus galaxy. No surprises there. The other man looked a little dazed from that last fall, but his blue eyes slipped back into focus, and he stood up straighter to try and match Ronon's superior height.

"Better luck next time," Ronon said, repeating a phrase he often heard the marines use with each other.

"Next time?" Mitchell asked in his drawling voice and cocked an eyebrow dramatically. "I know I don't look that stupid."

Now that the sparring session had ended, the scientists gradually dispersed back to their labs and the marines wandered out to enjoy the rest of their day off. Mitchell and the other member of SG-1 in Atlantis, the dark-haired woman called Vala Mal Doran who liked to flirt with every male in the city, left the gym in a debate over how much he owed her for losing.

"They thought that guy was a match for me?"

A towel appeared in the air before Ronon, and he reached out to snatch it just before it slapped his face. Draping it around his shoulders, he grinned crookedly at Teyla Emmagan who alone remained in the room. The leader of the Athosians wore a patient, slightly chiding expression on her handsome square face and shook her head so that her long hair bounced around her shoulders.

"His style was impressive, but not meant to combat blunt force, Ronon. He deserves credit for even facing you, knowing as he must that you fought with Teal'c for over an hour."

"Yeah, I guess so. He did get me in the side once." Ronon touched a hand to his tender left side. Mitchell's blow would probably leave a bruise, but it didn't hurt too badly yet, and he'd been through much worse against the Wraith and Replicators.

In silent unison, Ronon and Teyla exited the gym and went their separate ways for an hour before their scheduled team meeting in the conference room above Stargate operations. Not that Ronon knew what there was to discuss as a team. Since Atlantis had landed on Earth, their missions had been the same: track down every single Wraith that had made it to Earth in darts. Even the status reports on repairing the city were all the same: progress was being made, but there was a lot to do still. Meanwhile, the Wraith in Pegasus had free run of the galaxy.

Ronon wasn't handling life on Earth as well as he'd thought he would. When Atlantis had left Pegasus three months ago, he'd known the chances of the Ancestors' city returning were slim. Knowing it and living it were two different things. Atlantis had come from this planet millions of years ago, but it didn't belong now. Everything felt wrong about the city being on Earth. The constant hum of the cloak drowned out the waves lapping against the piers. More disconcerting still were the sudden glimpses of the sprawling city on the coast and their strange giant red bridge from every balcony.

But his friends were here. Woolsey and Sheppard had offered both himself and Teyla a ride back to Pegasus on the Daedalus, but he had declined. He wouldn't desert his friends, no matter what.

o o o

A cool shower washed off the sweat accumulated from a run with Sheppard earlier in the morning and the sparring session with Mitchell and gave him a reason to stop thinking entirely. Seven years he'd gone without things like showers every day, and now that he had them, Ronon didn't disregard the magnificence of the most ordinary comforts.

After a long time just standing under the showerhead letting the water run over his olive skin, he decided the time had come to head to the briefing. Woolsey got upset if anyone walked in late, and with the stacks of paperwork mounting (although Ronon saw no evidence of it in Woolsey's office, Sheppard explained it was a metaphor), the personnel in the city had collectively taken pity on the little man and made sure to show up on time for meetings and tried not to dial home in the middle of firefights.

Dressed in black clothes with his gun holster fixed to his belt, Ronon headed for the nearest transporter. As he waited for the doors to open, he tied back his long dreadlocks. Three more people discussing the ongoing repairs, all newly assigned from Stargate Command, joined him. He didn't know their names, but they recognized him as a permanent resident in the city.

"Do these things always take so long?" a short, squat man inquired. "Should we look at the interface to see if there's a problem?"

"There's no problem." The doors opened and Ronon touched the button on the city map to direct the transporter to the central tower. "More people, more waiting," he added helpfully. The three men exchanged sidelong glances and said nothing.

Ronon left the scientists at the transporter and took the stairs to the control room two at a time. Chuck sat at the console pointing at a laptop connected to the DHD while Zelenka peered over his shoulder nodding empathically. Every time he came up here, Ronon felt a sense of loss not seeing Amelia around the city anymore, but she had to go where she was assigned, and the IOA wanted her elsewhere.

The geometrically designed doors opened with a pneumatic tone to allow Ronon into the conference room. His teammates had gathered around the polished wood table already. Teyla sat next to Rodney McKay who hunched over his tablet computer so low his nose almost touched the screen and it cast a bluish glow over his ruddy skin. A perpetual frown marked his face, but after four years as a team, Ronon had learned the nuances of his expressions. Something genuinely vexed McKay today.

"Am I late?" Ronon asked, claiming the chair next to Colonel John Sheppard.

Their team leader lounged casually in the leather desk chair with a little smirk in the corner of his mouth and a light in his brown eyes that told Ronon he was thinking about needling McKay about something. He seemed to decide against it in the end and entertained himself by running a hand through his already messy dark hair.

"Just by a few minutes, but since Woolsey isn't here anyway …." Seeing Teyla's concerned look, Sheppard explained why their always punctual expedition leader was behind schedule. "He went to Chicago to try and shanghai an assistant."

"I hope he succeeds, for his own sake," Teyla observed. "His workload lately has been unmanageable for only one person."

"If these SGC teams would stop beaming in all over the city and arguing how their missions are more important than ours, maybe it wouldn't be so bad," Ronon said. "I say we let the General deal with their whining and let Woolsey get back to the important stuff, like repairing the city."

Sheppard said nothing, probably because he couldn't complain about a superior officer, and the team let the subject drop. They discussed instead any little events that had happened in the course of the morning, but had nothing much to do with their missions. Save for the fact all these things happened in an Ancient city-ship previously from another galaxy, they sounded like a group of best friends chatting about their day. Except McKay, who continued to scowl and moodily jab his finger at the tablet computer.

Woolsey entered twenty minutes behind schedule looking flustered and out of breath. He wore a suit and tie instead of his standard gray base uniform, but didn't seem to notice it at all. Teyla greeted him and inquired about recruiting his assistant, to which a frown matching McKay's appeared.

"I'm afraid she is more reluctant than I'd hoped. I figured she, of all people … but I think I convinced her to seriously consider the job." He moved his index finger around the touch screen of his tablet, and then addressed the team in his more formal manner. "Shall we begin the briefing?"

It was exactly what Ronon had suspected: more of the same. They needed to track down Wraith, the SGC would keep beaming in teams to go off world, the battlecruisers in orbit were being refitted with new technology. All of this Ronon knew, and he struggled to stay focused on the topic at hand.

"Teyla, how are the Athosians handling life on Earth?"

The woman offered a half-smile as she carefully considered her words. "The few of my people in the city do not know what to think. They can see the city is undergoing repairs, and I have explained the Stargate is secret on this planet and they cannot go to your mainland. They are content for now to stay here and assist however they can."

Woolsey nodded. "We appreciate their help, and I'll leave it to you to find work they are best suited to. While we're on the subject of Pegasus galaxy natives in the city …." He took a deep breath, as if steeling himself. "The IOA wants a proposal on what we should do with Todd. It's been three months since he's fed, and no one thinks his natural healing ability can compensate much longer."

"Good," Ronon said with a sneer. "But I say we kill him now. You don't want to keep a starving Wraith around."

"On this planet – In this country," Woolsey corrected, "we don't summarily execute our prisoners simply because we don't know what to do with them."

"I've had this conversation before," Sheppard said, "and I stand by what I said. Wraith prisoners are not the same as human prisoners. Ronon's got a point. Imagine you haven't eaten for three months and someone is dangling a sandwich in front of you. That's what the guards are to him. I'm not saying we kill him outright, but we can't keep him here."

"It's cruel and unusual, I know, and so does the IOA. That's why they want a solution."

"And yet," Teyla said, "you have also said in the past that once a prisoner is turned over to Area 51, they are not likely to be returned to us, and so we have fought to keep Todd in Atlantis in case he can be of use to us."

"I think we might be beyond that point very soon," Woolsey said. "I value your input, and I'll be sure to consider all viewpoints when I make my final recommendation."

"You didn't consider mine," Ronon said.

Woolsey looked like he wanted to say something, but changed his mind and turned to McKay. "You've been awfully quite, Dr. McKay. Do you have anything to add?"

Rodney glanced up from the screen with his most sardonic face. "I am simultaneously entering energy distribution protocols, running life support diagnostics, regulating power to the city cloak, and attempting to ignore the deluge of whining e-mails from under qualified second rate scientists who desperately want my attention. All of this may sound very easy, but in fact, it is all very difficult. Except the last part. Ignoring people is actually pretty easy. And cathartic. But, to the matter at hand, would I like to add to the discussion about Todd? Sure. I can be a brilliant diplomat in addition to astrophysics super genius. I'm with Ronon." And with that, he unceremoniously buried himself in his computer screen again.

A smile hidden in the corner of Ronon's mouth by his long goatee also lit up his hazel green eyes. McKay could be irritatingly conceited to the point of distraction, but sometimes it was downright amusing too.

The briefing broke up a few minutes later with the standard parting message: if any Wraith or darts were spotted on Earth, they would be notified immediately.

o o o

Walking through the gate room used to feel something like entering a place of worship. The wide open space with the metal walls sloping away and the balconies that ringed the room gave the Stargate in the center an almost holy reverent aura. The sun or stars filtering in through the stained glass windows had cast everything in peaceful, welcoming light. Ronon had liked that moment of calm before entering the rippling blue event horizon and being sent across the galaxy into an unknown and potentially deadly situation. He had especially appreciated it when returning home.

The gate room felt nothing like that now. Teams jostled for elbow room with the permanent compliment of SFs guarding the gate. Sometimes, two or three teams lined up waiting to go through the Stargate like it was one of those strange circular revolving doors Earth humans loved so much. The Stargate was a tool, and Ronon appreciated that. But it was an Ancestral tool, and Satedans had revered the Ancestors and all their creations.

"No, I'm sorry, but I said no. It's not possible with the schedule today," Woosley's voice carried down from the balcony outside his office. Ronon flicked his eyes up to see Colonel Edwards from SG-11 turn and stalk away. Woolsey sighed deeply, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and retreated into his office. He considered going to see their leader and offering to put Edwards in his place, but already three more people had crowded into the office to ask questions or make requests.

The crowd parted easily for Ronon as he made his way out of the gate room and towards the mess hall. The people who knew him, the ones who had been on Atlantis in the Pegasus galaxy, greeted him as they passed in the wide corridors, but mostly scientists and doctors shrank against the wall to give him plenty of room.

"Ronon!" an accented voice called out. He knew without looking back Carson Beckett trailed behind him. Sure enough, the Scottish doctor came around the bend in the corridor a beat later. His normally calm, reassuring face had taken on a hint of irritation, and he had the look of a harried man about him. "I've been trying to catch you since you left the control room, but the crowds don't exactly part as easily for me as they do for you."

"Come on, doc. Let's get some lunch. Talk to me on the way."

The doctor fell into step beside Ronon and began gently chiding him for not coming in for his regular check-ups. It had been three months since the Wraith killed and revived him, and Ronon felt that was enough time to be sure his health was back for good.

The mess hall was just as crowded as the gate room, control room, and everywhere else in Atlantis, but it felt less claustrophobic with everyone seated at tables. Ronon heaped a tray full of food while Carson went on nattering at him. He accepted all the implied criticism about being reckless and cavalier with nonchalance because Carson meant well and he was a friend.

"Yeah, okay. I'll come see you tomorrow."

Carson frowned. "You say that like a man who plans on conveniently forgetting about his appointment."

Without comment, Ronon beat a path to the tables on the balcony outside. The red bridge crossing the bay had ceased to fascinate and no one snapped pictures of it with their cameras anymore. He joined Rodney and Sheppard at a table on a promenade with a good view and almost guaranteed fresh breeze. The astrophysicist had abandoned his computer for food.

"So this assistant Woolsey wants," Ronon began. "She gets here and things go back to normal?"

"Not unless she's Wonder Woman," Rodney returned. He didn't know who Wonder Woman was, but Sheppard had a more comprehensible answer. "No, but if Woolsey's not distracted by petty things, then he'll have more time to press the IOA about speeding up repairs and doing something about the Wraith in Pegasus."

"Good. Then I hope she gets here soon."

"Oh, Mr. Woolsey has an assistant, does he?" Carson inquired. "You know, I suggested that to him several weeks ago when I noticed how much stress he's been under. I know Jennifer did as well. Do we know who this new person is?"

"He didn't say, but she also hasn't agreed. And if she knows about the mess we've been dealing with for three months, I'm not entirely sure she will unless she's …" Sheppard didn't finish, but touched a finger to his earpiece. "I'm on my way. Ronon, with me. We might have a mission."