CHAPTER EIGHT
IN THE CONSERVATORY

Ronon leaned against the wall with arms crossed over his chest as Cassandra practiced with Bantos rods against Teyla. The small blonde woman kept getting her legs swept out from under her because she didn't remember to move her feet. No matter how many times Ronon shouted out the advice, she never moved enough. If she did step correctly, it was at the expense of her form.

With both Bantos sticks in one hand, Teyla ducked under Cassandra's blow and hit the back of the other woman's knees. Cassandra crashed onto the padded floor with the sound of breath being knocked out of her lungs. She climbed to her feet unsteadily.

"Good session today, Cassandra," Teyla said, and bowed her head. Cassandra put her forehead against Teyla's in the Athosian manner. "Kanaan and I are taking Torren to the park, I believe you called it, later this afternoon. Will you join us?"

"Of course I will. I have to show him all about swings. They're kind of my thing."

Teyla left the gym to Ronon. Cassandra showed signs of wanting to pack up her things and stop sparring for the day. Ronon, however, had other ideas. He removed from his belt two wooden knives carved in the same shape as the flat knives he kept concealed on his body at all times. He held out one to Cassandra, who regarded it cautiously.

"I suppose I could only get away with not learning for so long."

He grinned. "Smart girl."

She had a lot to learn about hand-to-hand combat. That became apparent in a matter of minutes. For all the skills she had gained in learning patterns and using Bantos rods, she was reluctant to use anything that looked like a real weapon. He had to wonder if she had been so reticent to use the wooden staff weapon Teal'c had trained her with.

"You're small, so your opponent is always going to assume you'll duck under his arm and go for his legs or abdomen," Ronon explained. "So you can never do that. Aim up high, like this."

"No," she said, observing him. "No, I don't trust you to know that move. There's no way you've ever had to 'aim high' like that."

"Don't be difficult. Try it."

Cassandra went through the motions slowly, like Teal'c and Teyla had trained her to do. She drew her left arm back, twisted the knife so it pointed down, and raised her arm over her head to draw a harmless line down the side of his neck. She stopped with the tip pointed at his heart. After she had the hang of the basic idea, he started parrying her blows. The third time he batted her hand away, she growled in frustration.

"Short arm, plus short knife means I'm never going to get past you."

Her cheeks flushed furiously the harder she tried, and her technique turned sloppy and reckless which only made it easier for Ronon to push her hand away. At last, she feinted and slapped his thigh with the wooden knife.

"Finally. I thought you'd never get the point of the exercise."

She stared at him for a moment, and then let out a wordless cry of frustration. Ronon took back the wooden knife and tucked both practice weapons into his belt. Teyla and Teal'c would have toyed with her a little more and peppered the lesson with words of wisdom, but that wasn't his way. Kell had taught his recruits by letting them run into brick walls again and again until they figured it out for themselves. While Ronon didn't like much about Kell, he couldn't take issue with his Task Master's methods.

o o o

Cassandra sat on the edge of the exam table swinging her legs back and forth and taking in the infirmary. She hadn't been in the hospital bay much since coming to Atlantis except to pick up Jennifer for poker night or to talk briefly to one of the doctors about work. The Ancient architecture matched the rest of the city, but Earth equipment had almost totally replaced whatever Lantean implements had been here before.

"Ah, Cassie," Rodney said, hopping onto the exam table opposite hers. "I don't see you in here often."

"No, but … are you in here often enough to notice I'm not here?"

Rodney pretended not to hear the question or maybe Jennifer's sudden appearance from her office had distracted him. Either way, he greeted the doctor in a manner entirely too warm to belong to the same Dr. McKay Sam had told her about.

"Are you ill, Cassie?" Jennifer asked, untwining her arms from Rodney's. "I can stay if – "

"No, I'm fine. I'm here to talk to Carson about the ATA gene therapy. Mr. Woolsey hinted that almost everyone in Atlantis has been inoculated, whether the gene took or not, and I should think about it. I don't know if I should even try though since my DNA is different."

"Is it?" Rodney asked. It bordered on a dumb question, and if it wouldn't set off his ego, Cassandra might have called him on it. "Oh, right. Because you're an alien."

"Very sensitive, Rodney," the doctor chided. "Come on. Let's go get seats for the movie. We'll save you one, Cassie."

"You don't have to," she replied. "Ronon said he'd save me one."

Jennifer and Rodney both paused and turned curious gazes on her, but Jennifer recovered quickly enough and dragged Rodney from the infirmary before he could make another boorish comment. For that, Cassandra was grateful.

Carson came to her bedside a few moments later with an open medical chart in his hands and wearing his most sympathetic face. She knew what that meant before he began talking, but she didn't mind so much. The gene therapy had been Mr. Woolsey's idea and not one she would have ever dreamed up on her own.

"I'm sorry, Cassie, but I don't think we should try the gene therapy. I've had a look at the analysis Dr. Fraiser – your mother – did on your DNA after – around your sixteenth birthday. However your DNA was repaired, it is still not exactly like humans who evolved on Earth. You also have naquadah in your blood, and we have no way of knowing how that will affect the treatment."

"That's what I expected, Carson, but I had to ask. What about the other thing?"

The doctor brought up a full body scan taken under the Ancient scanner on the screen beside the exam table. It showed the physiology of a normal humanoid, but with all the mystery medical images held for everyone not a doctor.

"As you can see, Cassie, you have nothing to worry about. The scan shows the naquadah in your blood is just the same as anyone previously host to a Goa'uld symbiote. Just as your mother predicted twelve years ago, there is no indication of the explosive device or any foreign object anywhere in your body. Can I ask why you asked about this now?"

Cassandra hedged, but decided to answer. "I can feel the Stargate. When it activates or establishes a wormhole or even when it's idle, I can feel it there. I know former hosts and Jaffa can sense each other, but no one has ever talked about being able to feel the Stargate. I didn't know if it was because the device is still in my system waiting to be reassembled."

"I seriously doubt that, Cassie. It would take a level of technology far beyond the Ancients at the height of their civilization to not show up on these scanners."

"Thanks, Carson."

Cassandra hurried from the infirmary to the makeshift movie theater with a lightness in her step. She felt the incoming wormhole in the central tower high above, but for once, it didn't cause her worry or alarm. Maybe the next time she talked to Sam she would ask about sensing the Stargate.

She entered the theater and took the seat next to Ronon just as Sleepless in Seattle – surprisingly, Major Tildy's pick – played the opening credits. He leaned over and down to whisper to her. Apparently, Colonel Sheppard had thoroughly instructed him in movie theater etiquette.

"Your boring job keep you at your desk again?"

Cassandra chuckled and shook her head. "I went to see Carson about the gene therapy, but he said it's not a good idea. I figured it wouldn't be. There's no indication the Ancients were ever on Hanka from what SG-7 and Daniel put in their mission reports."

"But your people came from Earth thousands of years ago, right?"

"Yeah. Daniel thinks they were from somewhere around the Balkans and taken by a Goa'uld posing as a Greek god who later was defeated by Nirrti. Who knows if they ever had any contact with the Ancients on Earth, though."

Someone behind Cassandra hissed at her to be quiet. Socialized to obey demands to be quiet at the movies, she fell silent instantly. Ronon turned around and glared at Rodney, but Cassandra put a hand on his arm to let him know it was okay and she was done talking for now anyway.

o o o

As she did every other morning after her run through the east side of Atlantis, Cassandra made her way to the gym to meet Ronon and Teyla for sparring. She had progressed very little in the two weeks Ronon had begun teaching her to use the wooden knife, but at least she had not fallen behind on any of the new patterns Teyla taught her.

"Ass kicking can now commence," she quipped. "Oh, Colonel Sheppard."

She was surprised to see the Colonel in the gym so early. He normally came later in the day after the senior staff meeting. He was not dressed for sparring, however, but wore jeans and a black t-shirt.

"Off duty," he said, pointing to his clothes. "It's John. And I've just talked Ronon into having a tour of San Francisco, if you can spare him for a day."

"Finally," she said, laughing and glancing over at Ronon. "It's about time you actually leave the city."

"The city of San Francisco is quite lovely," Teyla said, and she seemed to be working very hard to be persuasive. "Cassandra showed us to an excellent playground, and Torren enjoyed the swings greatly. I am sure you will have a good time today, Ronon."

"It's your day off," Ronon said to Cassandra. "We were gonna go to the east pier."

From the corner of her eye, she saw Teyla and John exchange sidelong glances and smiles. She did her best to ignore them. "It's okay. We can do that later. You should see San Francisco. It's my favorite American city, after Chicago and Denver."

"You know, Cassie," John started leadingly, "if you wanted to show Ronon around your third favorite city, that would probably be better than my tour considering how much better you must know your way around."

Cassandra opened her mouth to protest. Colonel Sheppard had gone to Stanford University, and therefore, must know San Francisco much better than she as a tourist ever could. Either he thought she wouldn't know that or thought she would be glad of the excuse to spend her day off with Ronon. She looked to Ronon to decide how to answer, but he was so difficult to read when he wasn't angry that she couldn't guess if would rather spend the day with her or with his best friend. In the end, she decided against calling John on his intentional error.

"I don't want to intrude on any plans – "

"Nothing was set in stone. You two kids have fun."

John slapped Ronon on the back on his way out of the gym, and Teyla made an excuse to depart too. Part of her wanted to laugh at the obvious matchmaking and part wanted to cringe, but the largest part was happy to have a whole day ahead with Ronon.

o o o

After changing into civilian clothes – jeans and her 'badass' t-shirt, which earned an appropriate guffaw from John – Cassandra met Ronon and a group of off duty personnel in the jumper bay. The Satedan had donned his probably only pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Like he had for the appeals hearing, he looked so different, she gaped for a moment.

"What? Not Earth enough?" he asked.

"No, no it's definitely very Earth. I just don't think I can ever get used to seeing you wear our clothes. You don't even have an Atlantis base uniform or standard off world uniform, do you?"

"Nope. Clothes don't change who I am, so why bother with your uncomfortable get ups? I'm only wearing this because Sheppard said I had to if I didn't want the IOA revoking their decision. I could care less, but … you worked hard for it."

Cassandra couldn't keep the smile off her face. It wasn't the sort of sensitive compliment one expected from a man who looked like Ronon which made it all the more touching that he considered her work important, if boring.

"Let's go, folks. We're burning daylight, and I've got a family barbeque to get to," Major Lorne called. He wore civilian clothes too and motioned the small cluster of expedition members into the back of a puddle jumper.

For some time now, a puddle jumper had been commissioned for the sole purpose of ferrying off duty personnel to San Francisco and surrounding towns. The bedlam in the city with ongoing repairs, double the number of teams, and continuing research had grown exponentially worse when coupled with off duty personnel creating their own recreation. As long as one of the off duty personnel piloted the cloaked jumper to the mainland, Mr. Woolsey had no qualms getting them all out of the city to burn off their energy far, far away from Stargate operations.

Cassandra and Ronon joined Lorne, Radek, three botanists, and Colby – Cassandra's helpful Corporal – in the jumper. On the flight, Lorne told everyone to keep their radios on in case of an emergency, to be back at the jumper by eight o'clock, and for God's sake to remember where he landed it. That location turned out to be the roof of a building owned by the NID and used as San Francisco headquarters.

Not really knowing what about San Francisco, or Earth in general, Ronon might find interesting, Cassandra played it safe and headed for the one place she thought had a little of everything: Golden Gate Park. On the cable car ride over the steep inclines and declines, she pointed out places of interest: the Transamerica pyramid, places featured in films, and Alcatraz in the bay.

"So it's a prison colony, like on Olesia?"

Cassandra had never heard of Olesia, but assumed it was a planet in Pegasus he had visited either with Colonel Sheppard or during his years as a Runner. "No, not anymore. It used to be a prison, but now the National Park Service has taken over. There are gardens and wildlife there, and you can take a tour of the cell blocks."

"Can we do that?"

"Yeah, of course. You can't come to San Francisco without seeing Alcatraz."

Really, visiting the former prison was the last thing Cassandra had planned on. She'd hoped to visit the De Young Museum again and eat at Red Java's House and relive the first time she'd come to the city with Tessa over Spring Break her first year in art school. Tessa hadn't appreciated being dragged around an art museum all day, however, and Ronon probably would not either.

At the pier, Cassandra led the way to the Alcatraz ferry service and took care of purchasing two tickets. Ronon got a salary from the IOA, but she didn't know if he'd ever actually spent any of it on Earth. Daniel had said once that Vala went crazy on eBay and , but Cassandra couldn't see Ronon browsing online stores. He had probably never handled American money, at any rate.

The high wind across the bay felt good on the warming June afternoon. Cassandra took out her small digital camera and snapped a few pictures of Alcatraz ahead, and some of Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge. It was odd to think Atlantis floated cloaked somewhere in between.

"Smile, Ronon," she ordered, turning the camera on him.

"Is that a joke?"

She pushed the flash just in time to catch a smile from him and a flash of white teeth behind his goatee. She flipped the camera around to show him the still image. He took the camera, and after a few attempts, paid Cassandra back with a smiling picture of herself.

"Oh, here. Let me," a middle-aged woman said, holding her hand out for the camera. She wore the oddest collection of clothes that marked her as the worst kind of tourist: jeans, a yellow t-shirt and a red sweater tied around her waist, a white tennis visor, and a fanny pack. But she had a pleasant smile on her faintly lined face, and Cassandra handed over the camera. She fell into the standard two person pose naturally, leaning in to Ronon and giving a big grin. He seemed a little less sure because the stranger waited to take the picture for a few moments. When she handed the camera back, Cassandra flipped it over immediately. It was a good picture with just enough light piercing the overcast sky and not so much breeze they looked windswept.

"Thank you."

"My pleasure, sweetheart." The woman took a seat beside her presumed husband and daughter, but addressed Cassandra and Ronon still. "Where are you two kids from?"

Ronon glanced at Cassandra, as if to say 'you field this one.' She did it easily, having been prepared for the question the minute she encountered another tourist. It was the requisite topic of conversation, after all.

"Originally Colorado Springs, but Chicago now."

The ferry arrived at Alcatraz Island before the friendly woman could ask any more of the standard questions for these encounters.

"People on your planet are friendly." A passing child, maybe seven or eight, did a double take. He seemed to decide Ronon was an extraterrestrial because he ran forward, grabbed his sister's arm, and began whispering furiously in her ear. Cassandra watched this with amusement. "Unless they work for the IOA."

The line to enter the cell block had swelled with the new ferry arrivals, so Cassandra suggested seeing the gardens first. They strolled around the flower beds paying more attention to the ships sailing around the bay than the plants. Cassandra paused suddenly, eyes fixed on spots of flaming magenta and burning orange against the steely gray sky.

"Cassandra?"

"Look, kites." Ronon followed her line of sight to the colorful specks. "I've loved flying kites since I was a little girl. I actually have a recurring dream about it. I'm in this meadow of tall reeds, and I'm flying a pink-and-teal hummingbird kite with … someone. Maybe my mom or Sam, I'm not sure. I even sign my artwork with a kite."

"Since you were little on your home world? Or since you came to Earth?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. It must have been Earth because kites are an Earth invention. So why would we have had them on Hanka?"

"We had them on Sateda." Cassandra's head swiveled to peer up at him. "Only we made ours round and attached blue streamers so when they caught the wind and spun, they looked like the active Stargate."

Cassandra shivered in the high wind. She had never considered kites a universal toy – literally, universal apparently. The meadow had always been somewhere in Colorado and the woman in her dream had always been her mom or Sam.

"I think the line is going down for the tour now," she said.

o o o

Everyone made it back to the roof of the NID building before eight o'clock, and Major Lorne piloted the jumper across the water and into the jumper bay on Atlantis. The foreign botanists conversed rapidly in French the whole way, but Cassandra, who knew French, let them share their thoughts on Americans and the city without interruption.

Back on Atlantis, Cassandra and Ronon walked together from the jumper bay toward the residential quarters. They skipped the crowded transporter in favor of passing along the outer corridors and observing the city of Atlantis lit up with the sprawl of San Franciscan lights beyond. Not halfway to quarters yet, Ronon made a detour to a balcony overlooking the north pier. From that vantage point, Alcatraz was just visible as an outline against the water.

"What did you think of San Francisco?"

He leaned against the railing with forearms braced against the cool metal, and she stood with her back to the mainland. The sounds of the city carried across the bay like a muffled movie soundtrack, and the high wind whistled through the spires of Atlantis.

"I've been to so many worlds it's hard to impress me, but I think maybe the cable cars did." Cassandra laughed. "Are all your cities like that?"

"I think only San Francisco has cable cars. Chicago, though, is a fantastic city. We have a Metra, which come to think of it, probably wouldn't impress you. Actually, what I love about Chicago is the architecture along the Chicago River. It's like a crazy mix of the past and present all blended together. There are these parks around the city too. Sometimes I'll be walking through Washington Park or Grant Park and completely forget I'm in a huge city."

"I'd like something like that. I couldn't get used to living in a big city again, but maybe something like your Chicago parks would be nice."

Cassandra wanted to ask about his home on Sateda, but she didn't. The last thing she ever wanted to talk about was her village on Hanka. He had lived in a big city, and so Satedan civilization was more advanced than Hankan society, and that was probably all she would ever know.

"My favorite place in the whole world is Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park on a Sunday morning. You can sit there on the benches and listen to this incredible fountain, and see beyond it Lake Michigan, with no one to disturb you. And then you turn around, and there's the whole city rising above the treetops. It's really incredible. I'll show it to you, if we ever have a chance."

She became aware that Ronon was staring at her and not the city anymore. She met his level gaze and read his intention there. It was a thought that had occurred to her as well, and she leaned in to give her silent permission.

"Cassandra!" Mr. Woolsey's voice called out. He appeared around the corner and stepped onto the balcony. "Just the person I wanted to see."

"Why does this always happen?" she heard Ronon mutter.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Woolsey?"

"Oh, hello, Ronon. I heard you went to San Francisco today. I hope you enjoyed yourself." The expedition leader looked between Ronon and Cassandra, and recognition dawned. "You went together. I see. Please pardon the intrusion." He backed away self-consciously.

"It's fine, Mr. Woolsey. Did you need me to do something?"

"Oh, no. No. We'll discuss it tomorrow morning before the senior staff meeting. Have a good night, both of you."

A moment of awkward silence rested between Ronon and Cassandra after Mr. Woolsey hurried away from the balcony.

"Well," she began, "since I have a full day tomorrow, I guess I should probably …"

"No. Wait." Ronon had taken hold of her wrist as she turned to leave, and held her arm in a surprisingly gentle grip. "I've been through this before. There's a distraction, and then …." But whatever came next, he didn't elaborate. "I'm going to kiss you now."

When he tilted her face up with one strong hand and leaned down to press his lips against hers, she had no thought in her head except the thrilling jolt of his touch. It might have been the matter-of-factly stated intention or his natural intensity, but afterward Cassandra could only conclude that Earth men just didn't do it as well as Satedans.

o o o

Cassandra dreamed of kites.

The reedy grass tickled her calves and knees where the light purple sundress ended. The intense summer sun overhead brought beads of sweat onto her forehead, but still she ran as fast as her short legs could carry her. The hummingbird kite trailed behind her, bumping and tangling in the grass. A woman's laughing voice rang out, calling for her to stop.

The hummingbird had a battered wing where a reed had poked through the heavy paper. The younger Cassandra stared down at her battered toy with tear-filled eyes. A steady pair of hands smoothed her hair and warm lips pressed a kiss to her forehead. She said something, but the dream wind stole the words.

In that moment, Cassandra woke from her dream to find her quarters in Atlantis bathed in soft light from the spires outside her window. She had the impression she had called out in her sleep. She seemed to recall a hazy half-memory between sleep and wakefulness when she had said, "Can you fix it, mom?"

Cassandra rolled over and stuffed her fists into the pillow to fluff it up. The yellow city lights fell across the pictures on her desk illuminating one of her mother at the front. The voice in the dream had not been Janet Fraiser's. She felt tears stinging the back of her eyes as she drifted back into a deep sleep, but she didn't know why a dream should make her cry.