Chapter 11

"Melena," Ronon whispered, standing up carefully and stepping out from behind the trees. "Over here."

He saw Melena jolt at the sound of his voice, the surprise on her face illuminated by the light of the welcome sign. As Ronon stepped out into view, she suddenly launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around his body. Ronon paused in shock for a moment, before returning the embrace and soaking up the warmth of her body.

"You're freezing! Ronon, what is going on? Are you alright?"

"I told you, I'm not hurt. I'll tell you more on the way, but right now we've got to get moving."

He pulled away from her and led her back toward the trees where he'd been hiding before she could say anything else. It was just light enough to see the outline of Sheppard's still body.

"Who is he? What happened?" Melena asked, dropping immediately to the man's side. Ronon watched her shadow reach out and press her fingers into his neck. "He's ice cold. Ronon, what is going on?"

Melena's voice hissed through clenched teeth and Ronon could almost feel the tension rolling through her. He shook his head then realized she probably couldn't see him.

"Help me get him into the vehicle, then I'll tell you everything. I promise."

It took much longer than Ronon felt was safe. They were totally exposed out here on the side of the road. He lifted Sheppard under the arms, hefting most of the man's weight. Melena grabbed his legs, and together they wrestled the cold, limp body into the back of the vehicle. The back seats ran perpendicular to the front seat, and Melena collapsed the long bench on the driver's side, giving them room to lay Sheppard out.

Ronon grimaced. The man looked a hundred times worse in the soft overhead light of the vehicle's rear cabin. His face was gray with smears of black rubbed under his eyes. One side of his face, near his left eye, had a purplish green patch and Ronon remembered the beating Kell had given the man in the tent. He was surprised there wasn't more swelling or discoloration, but the cold river might have helped in that regard.

Sheppard's mouth hung slightly open, his jaw slack. Ronon could just see the whites of his eyes under almost closed eyelids, and the bandage he had haphazardly wrapped around Sheppard's head in the dark was soaked through with blood.

He looked dead. If it weren't for the rapid rise and fall of the man's chest, Ronon could have easily convinced himself he'd spent half the night carting around a corpse. He shivered at the image and forced it out of his mind. Sheppard was still alive for now, and Ronon intended to keep him that way.

"What happened to this man, Ronon? He needs a hospital." Melena had crawled into the vehicle to examine Sheppard, and she turned back to stare wide-eyed at Ronon.

Ronon shook his head. "No hospitals—can't risk it. Ready to go?"

Without waiting for a response, he shut the door and ran around to the driver's side, sliding into the cushioned seat. His lower back was tight with anxiety, but he felt himself unwind a little as he sat down and gripped the steering wheel

Not yet. We're not safe yet, he berated himself. He was starting to shiver badly, and he turned the heat up all the way before easing out onto the dark road. He glanced back at Melena and saw she'd pulled out her medical bag.

"Can you save him?"

"I don't even know if a fully staffed hospital can save him, but he'd certainly have a better chance there. Ronon, please—if we don't take this man to a hospital or a clinic, he will die."

"If we take him to a hospital, he'll die for sure. And so will we," he bit out, then forced himself to take a deep breath. He was exhausted.

"What's going on? Who is he?"

Ronon spoke softly, giving Melena as many details of the evening's events as he could. It was probably more than was necessary, but he felt he owed it to her. She had a right to know what he'd dragged her into. She was quiet throughout the entire accounting, but Ronon could see her moving almost frantically in the back as she tried to care for Sheppard.

"I'm sorry, Melena. I'm sorry I dragged you into this," Ronon said after they'd been driving in silence for a few minutes.

Melena didn't answer right away, and Ronon felt a pang of guilt wash over him. What had he done? What had he dragged her into? He'd ruined her best chance of getting off the planet, and now she was in the middle of Kell's plot, whatever it was.

"You know," she finally said, "Hali begged me to ask you to reconsider my assignment to Kell's team. I wasn't even going to bring it up with you, but I guess it's a moot point now."

"I'm sorry—"

"Stop saying that, Ronon. Stop apologizing. I think…" She was picking her words carefully, and Ronon forced his eyes away from the rearview mirror and back to the road.

"I think you did the right thing. Even if we can't save this man's life, you did the right thing."

Ronon felt tension he hadn't even realized he'd been holding uncoil and drift off his shoulders. She was giving him a way out—he'd ruined his career, her career, and possibly forfeited both their lives, but she was letting him off the hook. Whatever else happened to them, he could never let her get away. Life without her was unthinkable. He opened his mouth to say as much, then bit his lip. He never was very good with timing, but he couldn't say what was on his mind. Not now—not like this.

"What's his name?"

"What?" Ronon asked, jarring himself out of his thoughts.

"His name."

"Oh…uh…Sheppard. John Sheppard."

"The off-worlder? This is one of the off-worlders—Sateda's great new allies?"

Ronon snorted, then chuckled, then chuckled harder. The vehicle sailed along the dark road, and he laughed until he was slapping his leg. He glanced up at the mirror and saw Melena looking back at him with a mixture of anxiety and disapproval, and he broke up into uncontrollable laughter again, the euphoria of surviving spreading through his tired bones.

The vehicle pulled into the long, dark driveway of Ronon's grandfather's house, and Ronon killed the lights. He felt a sudden unease, and envisioned the quiet house erupting with noise and lights as Kell and his squadrons exploded out of their hiding places and surrounded them. The tension thrummed through his muscles, and he gripped the steering wheel until his fingers were white and beginning to tingle.

Melena had refused to talk to him for almost twenty minutes after his breakdown into hysterical laughter, but then she'd demanded to know where they were going. The release of tension had been expected, but as the adrenaline of the evening wore off, Ronon had struggled to stay awake. His body had begun to scream its injustices as well, and a headache had blossomed behind his eyes, making it difficult to concentrate on the road.

Melena had slipped him some water and painkillers, which had helped, but he needed to lie down. He wouldn't admit it, but he knew he couldn't do much more for the rest of the night and maybe even the following day. He was still cold, despite the hot air blasting through the vents.

The house appeared in front of him, just as he remembered it. The last time he'd been here was to close everything up. His grandfather had just passed and he'd been a few weeks from starting his military career. He slowed the vehicle down and stopped near the front door.

"This is your grandfather's home? Ronon, it's beautiful."

It really was. It was a large, two story brick building set in a small clearing and surrounded by forest. Two large black chimneys rose from either end of the house, and a small, disconnected garage sat off to the side, almost behind the house. It was dark and empty, the silence settled so thickly around it that Ronon knew instinctively that no one had been here in years.

"Yeah," he answered, turning the engine off.

"Your mother's father or father's father?"

"Father's," Ronon answered. "My mother's father died when I was young of Second Childhood. They lived south, near the cliffs. My father was mad as hell when my grandfather bypassed him and left me the house instead." Years of memories flooded toward him, but he shook his head, stemming them off. He didn't have the energy to deal with them tonight. He could feel Melena's eyes boring into the back of his head—he rarely spoke of his father or his father's side of the family.

"How's Sheppard?" he asked, changing the topic.

"In bad shape, but he's still alive. We need to get him inside," Melena answered and Ronon saw her bending over her charge in the back seat.

It took him awhile to find the hidden house key, then some more time starting up the generator that provided electricity to the house. The night was clear and crisp this far south and seemed to have avoided the thunderstorms drowning the capital region. When he returned to the vehicle, Melena had packed up her supplies and sat waiting for him, and she looked suddenly small and scared next to the sick man in the dark of the back seat.

Ronon managed to carry Sheppard into the house and upstairs to one of the bedrooms. Melena ran ahead, pulling the covers off the furniture in the room. He set Sheppard on the bare bed and noticed the bandages around his head had been changed. The dressings were white and clean, but thick on the right side, reminding Ronon of the seriousness of his condition.

It took more time to track down the linens, which were clean but smelled of having been stuffed in a closet for years. Melena decided they were good enough for tonight. While she set her medical gear up in the room, Ronon moved the vehicle around to the back of the house. The garage was piled with firewood, and he grabbed an armful for the fireplaces.

When there was nothing left for him to do, nothing more he could think of to ensure they were safe, Ronon trudged back into Sheppard's room. Within minutes, he had a roaring fire going, and he thanked his grandfather's memory that the chimney was clear even after all these years. He settled into the stiff desk chair and watched Melena work. She was wrapping Sheppard's arm carefully, moving the limb only enough to secure the bandages.

Ronon wanted to ask her how Sheppard was, what the extent of his injuries were, what else needed to be done, but his energy flowed out of him completely and all at once. He couldn't even dredge up the effort needed to string words into coherent sentences. His arms and legs felt shaky and he was desperate to lie down, but he sat frozen in the chair. Even his mind was too tired to think.

"Ronon?"

Melena's soft voice drew him slowly out of his stupor. He glanced around in confusion for a minute, and his gaze drifted to Sheppard settled warmly in the bed, an array of tubes and bottles of liquid hanging haphazardly from the coat rack that he had sworn had been in the front hallway.

"Hey…"

Ronon's eyes shifted to Melena's worried face, and she smiled at him, resting a hand on his cheek.

"You're shivering. Are you cold?"

He nodded, realizing he was suddenly freezing.

"Okay, just sit still for a moment and let me look you over, then we'll get you into bed and under warm covers."

Ronon opened his mouth to protest, but Melena's hands were already fluttering through his hair, her fingers digging into his scalp looking for cuts and bruises, or something more serious. They moved down his neck and chest, then his arms, and he grunted at the dull stab of pain that reverberated from his shoulder down to his fingertips and wrapped around his ribs.

Melena pushed him forward and slipped the dirty brown hospital jacket off, tutting at the spectacular bruise covering his arm from elbow to the top of his shoulder. Her pushing and prodding revealed more bruises, a deep gash across one of his shoulder blades, and a sprained ankle, but luckily no broken bones. He was still shivering slightly, and before he knew it, Melena was dragging him to his feet and down the hall to the next bedroom.

The bed was made, and the covers over the furniture taken down. Ronon stared at it in confusion, wondering who had fixed the room up, and then Melena was pushing him back onto the bed and pulling thick, warm blankets over him.

"Sleep, Ronon. Everything's going to be okay," she whispered, brushing her lips against his forehead.

He saw an image of Kell in the tent barracks, waving a gun around, of Sheppard falling into the river, of the soldiers raking the woods. They weren't safe. He had to make sure they were safe. They had to get away.

"Not safe," he muttered. "Not safe."

"Ssshhh," Melena soothed. "We're safe Ronon. We're okay. You need to rest—everything will be okay."

His eyes pulled heavily, and despite his best efforts, he allowed Melena's melodic voice to lull him into a deep, desperate sleep.

Light streamed into the room, curling around the edges of the thick drapes over the window behind his head. Ronon opened his eyes to a bare white wall, a chair with clothes draped over it, and a dark wood door opening into a hallway. He was suddenly seven years old again, spending the summer with his grandparents. His bedroom had glowed with the anticipation of another day hiking, hunting, fishing, and exploring the wilds with his grandfather, but he had always curled up under the warm covers in the morning, his body so relaxed he could hardly move until the smell of his grandmother's cooking had prodded him out of bed and down the stairs.

He blinked back the memory. It had been years since he'd thought of his grandparents. Ronon lay unmoving in the bed, soaking in the warmth. It seemed like he hadn't been warm in a very long time, and he didn't want to break the spell it had over him by shifting or looking around.

He was in his grandfather's house. Light spilled into the room, bright and warm. He listened for any sounds, but heard nothing. He could almost believe he was alone, but then he remembered Sheppard, and the fight at the river, and the race to escape Kell's clutches.

And Melena. Melena was here somewhere, caring for the off-worlder. Was he even still alive? Ronon risked looking around the room and realized the sun was too bright for morning. It had to be at least midday, if not later. How long had he been asleep? He pushed himself up slowly and looked down to see he was in nothing but his underwear.

His clothes had been wet. He'd jumped into the river after Sheppard, then crawled through the woods. He'd torn his shirt up to use as a bandage, and his pants had never really dried. He turned to look at the chair he'd first noticed upon waking and saw his pants slung over the back, stiff and moisture-free.

He pulled them on slowly, feeling every last scrape and bruise of the night before. There was no shirt. He'd have to hunt through his grandfather's things to find one. Ronon had grown tall and strong, the spitting image of his grandfather, and with luck, the clothes in the house would fit him well enough.

He stepped out into the hallway and looked around, but it was utterly quiet. Where was Melena? She wouldn't leave him alone, would she? His heart suddenly raced at the thought of her leaving him, of refusing to be dragged into this mess.

"Melena?"

The house creaked distantly, but gave no other sound. Ronon padded down the hallway in bare feet until he reached Sheppard's room, limping slightly at the ache in his twisted ankle. The door was only partially open, and he pushed it open with a sudden sense of trepidation.

It looked much as it had the night before. The drapes were drawn and pulled tight across the edges of the window, leaving the room in near darkness. Ronon glanced around but Melena wasn't there. He could tell from the lump shape on the bed that Sheppard was in it and in almost the exact same position he had laid him down. The coat rack held bottles of fluids that snaked down tubes and disappeared under the bed covers.

Ronon crept over to one of the windows, pulling the drapes back about a foot to let light fill the room. He had the sudden urge to see Sheppard, to stare at the man who had…okay, he hadn't gotten him into this mess, but he was part of it. He'd been in it with Ronon since the very beginning.

The desk chair had been pulled around to the bedside, and Ronon wondered how long Melena had sat there keeping watch over her patient. He sat down heavily, his body stiff and tired despite the long sleep he'd had. He rubbed at his eyes, then leaned forward.

Sheppard was as pale as ever. The bandage around his head was thick, obscuring the brown hair underneath. Dark discolorations, the remnants of bruises, marred his left eye, chin, and the right side of his lip. He was utterly still, except for the slight rise and fall of the covers over his chest.

Ronon remembered the icy touch of the man's skin, and he reached forward, brushing his fingertips lightly over the man's cheek. When Sheppard didn't stir at all, he pressed his hand more firmly into the skin, gauging the temperature. The skin was warm, though whether it was too warm was beyond Ronon's medical abilities.

Sheppard was alive. He had saved the man so far. He certainly would have been dead if Ronon had let him wash away in the river. He could have just turned around and gone home, read about the discover of the off-worlder's bloated corpse a few days later.

He shook his head in revulsion, pressing a hand to his stomach as it suddenly flipped inside him. It was a disgusting thought, one he wished he'd never let enter his mind. Instead he forced himself to think of Karakor and the rescue mission he'd led. Sheppard had been vibrantly alive. His back had been covered in blood, but he'd been running hard toward the ring, and then Ronon had gone down, and Sheppard had turned back and come for him. Saved him.

Ronon reached for the man's shoulders, wanting to see his back. He should have told Melena about the shrapnel wounds, how they'd bled. How Sheppard had been in the hospital all day before going to the military base that evening. He looked again at the bandaged head and the stillness of the man and shook his head. He shouldn't move him—that might hurt him more.

Maybe it was because he was in his grandfather's house and his memories of childhood and exploration were closer to the surface than they'd been in a long time that Ronon reached again for Sheppard's face, his heart beating with adrenaline like a child who had been told to stay out of a room but snuck in anyway.

He wanted to see the off-worlder. He peeled back first one eyelid, then the other, and stared at lifeless hazel eyes. From there he pulled back the covers and ran his fingers over Sheppard's bare chest, the bandages around his ribs, the heavy cast over the right arm. Melena had attached an IV to the left arm, and Ronon's fingers danced over the tubing and tape entering the vein in the crook at the elbow. He turned Sheppard's hand over and looked at the palm, then flipped it back to look at the knuckles.

The hand was rough and calloused—not the hand of a man used to sitting behind a desk. He was a warrior, a fighter. Ronon had heard him taking a beating, and he hadn't given into Kell. He hadn't answered Kell's questions.

Ronon jerked, mortified at what he was doing. He dropped Sheppard's hand back on the bed and pulled the covers over the man's chest and up to his neck. He glanced at the open bedroom doorway and sighed in relief that no one had caught him. It was ridiculous. Sheppard might be an off-worlder, but he was just a man, like any other Satedan man.

The injured man hadn't reacted to Ronon's touch whatsoever, not even when he'd peeled his eyes open, and Ronon began to fear for his condition again. He was alive, but for how long? How bad was the head wound? He'd been shot after all. Ronon had saved the man from certain death, but for what? So he could die a slow death in a strange house on a strange world? Maybe he was in a coma. Maybe he'd never wake up again and one night just stop breathing and slip away. Maybe it would be better that way.

Ronon heard light footsteps on the staircase, and he sat back in the chair, trying not to look at Sheppard. Melena poked her head in the room, double-took on Ronon's lanky form next to the bed, and broke into a wide, relieved smile. She walked into the room carrying a tray with a steaming bowl of soup, and the scent filled the room.

"You're awake," she whispered. "When did you wake up?"

"Just a few minutes ago."

"I was about to get you up. You've been dead asleep for hours now. Are you hungry?"

Ronon nodded, and Melena set the tray on the small desk in the corner of the room. Ronon moved his chair over and inhaled the smell of the food. His stomach growled in anticipation.

Melena perched on the edge of the desk as he ate, smiling at his appetite. "How are you feeling?"

"Good," Ronon answered between bites. "Kind of sore, but nothing that won't go away in a day or two."

Melena nodded, but she continued to stare at him. Behind her smile there was a hint of worry. Ronon tore at the piece of bread.

"Where'd you get the food?"

"I got the food before I picked you up. I wasn't sure what to expect, but you sounded like you were in trouble. I guess I figured it wouldn't hurt to have some food around."

Ronon waved his hand toward Sheppard. "You brought a lot of medical stuff."

"Yeah," Melena sighed. "I had to stop to get my medical bag at the hospital anyway, so I decided to grab as much stuff as I could. You said he was badly injured."

Ronon drained the last of the soup, using it to wash down the last of the bread. He had inhaled the food. He hadn't realized he'd been so hungry. He sat back in the chair and rubbed his full stomach in satisfaction; the lingering fear in Melena's eyes finally winked out, replaced with genuine happiness.

"How is he?" Ronon asked with a quick glance at the bed.

Melena sighed, staring down at her hands for a moment before replying. "Not good. The bullet glanced off his skull, causing a deep gash and a severe concussion, but I couldn't find any evidence that it had penetrated the bone. With this kind of injury, though, there could be untold damage to his brain that I can't see."

"Is he going to make it?"

"I don't know, Ronon. He's deeply unconscious right now. He may wake up and be fine or he may simply fall so far into a coma that his body just quits. Besides a broken arm, four broken ribs, and a badly sprained knee, he's covered in cuts and bruises. The bruising on his stomach is bad enough that I'm afraid he might be bleeding internally, but he's breathing on his own for now. I can't make you any promises or give any projections on his recovery, though. We're just going to have to take things one day at a time."

"If we'd gone to a hospital last night, maybe tracked down his people—"

"Maybe that would have helped, maybe not. Don't second guess yourself, Ronon. I spent all night and all morning thinking about what you saw and heard. I have no doubt that Kell would have found us and John very quickly if we'd gone to a hospital, and all three of us would be dead right now."

She reached out and rubbed his arm. "Let's find you a shirt before you freeze to death. It took me half the night to get the two of you warmed up from your little midnight swim and traipse through the woods."

Ronon laughed and pushed himself up out of the chair. He wrapped his arms around Melena, and felt her lean into him. "I don't know what I'd do without you," he whispered. He buried his face into her hair and kissed the top of her head.

"For starters, you'd probably get sick from the cold. Come on." She pulled out of his embrace but just far enough to turn him toward the door. Ronon smiled and let her lead him out of the room and into the brightness of the rest of the home.

TBC…