For the second time in the same hour, Jennifer found herself standing outside quarters that were not her own. This time she did hesitate before she swiped her hand across the door chime. And when she finally talked herself into doing it, there was no response.

Jennifer frowned. She knew she had the right quarters. She also knew Teyla and John were not with Ronon at the moment. Had he gotten away by himself? Was he perhaps asleep and she was disturbing him?

Maybe this was all a huge mistake.

"He's not there."

Jennifer swung around, her breath catching in her throat, she already recognized the voice.

"Oh, Rodney, hi," Jen stammered, wondering if he would see right through her if she pretended to have been walking down the hall and not loitering outside Ronon's room.

"He doesn't usually stay in his quarters much when he's in a mood," Rodney kept talking as if he was neither surprised to find her there nor much bothered by it. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the West Pier. "Theres a place out by the water that he, uh, likes. You know, a bit better."

"Oh." Jennifer nodded, glancing at the door and shifting her weight. Her cheeks grew hot as Rodney came to stand directly in front of her. The awkwardness of standing in front of the doors to Ronon's room together was not lost on either.

"Rodney, I'm sorry..." She said finally, gesturing toward Ronon's door. "This is...I didn't mean..."

"Don't be." Rodney cut her off, his face red but smiling. "We agreed, remember?"

"Yeah. I know. I just..."

"Thank you." Rodney interrupted again.

Jen looked up, confused. He was wearing one of those soft smiles she'd seen so rarely but enjoyed so much. "For what?"

"For being worried about...hurting me. You're always worried about everyone else. It's...one of the things I've always loved about you." He cleared his throat and glanced away from her at this admission. His smile turned self-deprecating. "I'm not like that."

Jennifer bit her lip, touched to her core at hearing such openly affectionate words from the man. She clenched her hands to keep from reaching out to him, still worried that doing so might do more harm than good.

"Oh Rodney." She sighed.

Rodney brought his eyes back to hers with some effort and nodded, assuring himself of his decision. "That's why he'll be good for you. He'll always think of you before anyone else."

"You don't give yourself enough credit Rodney."

This time his smile was tempered with genuine mirth, shaking his head, imagining what Sheppard would say if he heard her say that.

"Oh trust me, I do."

Jen smiled and shook her head. The silence descended again and this time Jen couldn't help herself. She leaned forward and, grasping one of his hands, she pressed a brief kiss to his cheek. She leaned back and bit her lip.

"I think there is a part of me that will always love you Rodney."

Rodney smiled, nodding. "Me too. Now go before I change my mind."

Jen gave his hand a quick squeeze. "Thank you." She let go and ran off in the direction he'd indicated.

SGASGASGA

She found him on one of the lower platforms at the bottom of a long, ornate staircase. The platform was narrow, and true to Ancient design, there was no railing seperating them from the 50 foot drop to the sea below. Ronon sat on the ground under a small overhang that looked to be shelter for a small powered down workstation beside him.

"How did you know it was me?" Jen smiled when Ronon addressed her by name without opening his eyes.

"Your footsteps." Ronon said, his eyes still closed and legs stretched out before him and crossed at the ankles. The city glowed behind them and the ocean crashed continuously against the escarpment below. He leaned back against the wall that towered over them several stories above where the more trafficked part of the West Pier lay.

"Sheppard wears those heavy boots." He continued, "Rodney is usually talking to himself. And Teyla wouldn't stand there staring at me wondering if she should have come at all." He opened his eyes and smiled slightly to soften the teasing in his words.

Perceptive, Jen thought, adding it to the list of things she never thought to associate with Ronon, and funny.

Jen smiled and pointed at the empty spot beside him. "May I?"

Ronon angled his head in answer and waited silently as Jennifer sat down and got comfortable.

Jen sat a moment, hands clasped loosly around her knees while listening to the waves crash into the city.

"You were gone a long time." She said finally.

Ronon didn't answer except to shift his weight, uncrossing and recrossing his ankles.

"Where did you go?" She tried again, this time hoping a direct question would draw a direct answer.

It did, but it was slow in coming.

"I escorted Siria to the planet where her betrothed lived." He rumbled, barely audible over the waves.

Jennifer nodded and then, after a beat, "So you stayed with them?" Jennifer doubted this to have been the case, he was unlikely to have acquired the injuries he had sustained if he had returned from some farming planet.

"No." Ronon responded simply. "I just...wasn't ready to come back yet."

Jen nodded. "I know Atlantis can feel a little claustrophobic sometimes. Especially to you. I'm sure it was nice to get some fresh air."

Ronon almost smiled. Fresh air. If only that had been what he was searching for. That would have been less painful to find. But then again, the pain had been what he'd wanted, what he'd needed at the time.

But how could he explain that to her? How would she ever be able to understand?

He'd been searching out pain and she made it her life's work to cure it.

"No." He said again, "it wasn't that." He didn't try to explain any further, afraid of what she would think of him if he did.

Jennifer turned to look at him, searching his face for longer than she'd ever allowed herself before. The shadows that crossed his face despite the light around them. The sharp planes of his jaw and cheekbones that held pain and greif and dark eyes that had seen so much more than he deserved.

"You went looking for a fight." She said finally. Ronon's eyes snapped up to hers, surprised.

Jen almost smiled. "Don't look so shocked. I've been stitching you up for a while now. I've only seen you that messed up after going a few rounds with a Wraith or two."

Ronon's eyes danced across her face for a few moments and he almost looked like he would say something, but eventually he turned away again and the impassiveness fell back across his face.

She sighed. Jen turned back toward the ocean but her gaze fell to her shoes.

"My mother died a few years ago." She said quietly, studying the neat double knot in her laces. She heard Ronon turn to look at her as she continued. "I was trainging for my first marathon at the time. I...I remember I didn't even cry at first. I would just step outside and go running. For hours and hours and hours. Sometimes I couldn't sleep and I would run all night. I wouldn't stop until I literally fell down because I couldn't put one foot in front of the other anymore."

Jen dropped her head back against the wall, sighing at the memory. Ronon blinked at her slowly entranced by the heartbreak in her tone. It was...familiar.

"My dad told me I would kill myself if I didn't stop." She swallowed, remembering her fathers tired, desperate voice when he confronted her about it. The memory of the way his voice cracked when he told her he couldn't bear to lose her too made tears spring to her eyes as if hearing it for the first time.

"I...don't know what I was doing. I told myself I was training but..." She shook her head, and unlocked her hands from around her knees, rubbing the sweaty palms on her pants. "There was just something about that pain...it was so...deep. It felt insurmountable. Somehow the pain of overtired, aching muscles was easier to take."

Ronon watched her gnaw on her lip nervously as she stared out at the ocean but he doubted she saw it.

Jennifer Keller had surprised him again. She'd surprised him with her strength of character by becoming CMO when he'd been sure she wouldn't last two weeks on Atlantis. Over time she'd surprised him again and again with her ability to fit in with the rest of them, to outsmart diseases no one else could and now...to understand a pain he'd been sure he would forever suffer alone.

He started speaking before he even realized he'd decided to open his mouth.

"It was a wraith lab." He turned his head away at the same time Jen turned toward him. "After I brought Siria to Maniracore I...just ended up there. On this wraith planet. I don't even remember dialing." He drummed his fingers on his thigh and Jennifer held her breath, listening in earnest to the most words she'd ever heard Ronon string together at once.

"I barely made it out alive but..." I could breathe again. I could sleep again. Though he guessed silently that Jen would not consider passing out from a probable head injury was the same as sleeping. He sighed, choosing not to voice those thoughts. "Every time I went back..."

"You went back?" Jen exclaimed before she could stop herself.

Ronon winced. "Yeah." He nodded. He knew it was stupid. Reckless. Dangerous. If he'd told John the man would have been inconsolable with rage and possibly have grounded him to the base forever.

He shook his head and said as much.

"Maybe," Jen sighed. She relaxed a little and the shift brought their shoulders in contact. "But the Colonel hasn't always been the poster boy for healthy coping skills either so...maybe he would understand."

"Maybe." Ronon agreed quietly, allowing himself to be slightly distracted by her warmth and nearness.

A few moments passed in the silence of the crashing waves.

"Why did you decide to come back?"

Ronon opened his palm to reveal a small jewel on a leather cord in his hand. He held it up and Jen took it. It was a multi-faceted teardrop shape, a bit smaller than a well balanced skipping rock and colored a deep, rich red.

"It's beautiful." She smiled, handing it back. "What is it?" She asked, knowing it had to be significant by the reverent look in Ronon's eyes.

"A promise of the future." He said simply. "My mother gave it to me because she believed I had one. I realized if I kept going the way I was I wouldn't live to see it. The next address I dialed was Atlantis."

"I'm glad you did."

Ronon paused wondering at the softness in her tone and turned to look at her, a question in his eyes, but he couldn't quite make it pass his lips. The wind had whipped a few peices of hair out of her ponytail and they danced near her cheeks and ears. Jen stared back, entranced for just a moment by the intensity of his attention. But no longer intimidated.

Sitting as close as they were already, she could feel his breath on her face and was certain he could hear her heart in her chest.

For as much as she wasn't afraid of him, she found she also couldn't sit still.

Standing quickly, Jen paced away toward the water's edge.

"Maybe this isn't the right time," she said finally. Then, she smiled. "But it's never stopped me before."

A smile whispered across Ronon's face and he waited, watching her twist her hands when she turned back around to face him.

"You were right. About everything. About me and Rodney. I didn't need him..." she bit her lip. "But...I need you." She swallowed hard, wishing she could read just a little bit more of his stoic expression. "I...I don't think I've ever needed anyone the way I need you."

Ronon was quiet for several moments before he finally, slowly climbed to his feet and approached her. He put one hand on her hip and pushed one into her hair, cupping the back of her head. She held her breath and her eyes fell to his lips, assuming he would kiss her. She even wanted him to, and her heart began to triphammer in anticipation and panic.

Instead, he pulled her flush against him and dropped his face into her hair, inhaling deeply.

Jennifer melted against him, wrapping her arms around his back, relishing in his warmth and the steady beat of his heart, such a contrast to her own erratic one.

"It's good to be home," he rumbled, after a moment.

Jen smiled and nodded, almost happy for the change in topic after what amounted to baring her soul to a man she'd rarely had the courage to look in the eye.

"I bet. I imagine you've been enjoying being back in your own bed after the last couple weeks."

Ronon shook his head and then squeezed her once.

"No. Here. You." He sighed deeply and she felt him relaxing in her arms. "Home."

Jen's breath caught in her throat and tears sprang to her eyes at the emotion, the need, he could convey in a string of four words.

"Oh." Was all she managed in response.

Several hours later found them still out on the pier, huddled against one another in the shadow of the city at dawn. Jennifer sat wide awake as she had the whole night through, her mind buzzing and silent in turn. Ronon was half laying across her lap, his arms wrapped around her waist snoring softly.

Home, Jennifer thought with a smile. A new word to associate with Ronon. Her favorite word so far.

Ronon had been in the throes of a tragic ending, but with him in her arms asleep and warm and the sun rising over the endless ocean like it was the first time, Jennifer had never felt so sure that something new was beginning.

END