With her face shadowed in the light from the star drive high above her head, Jennifer turned slowly around to face him. Ronon knew from the angle of her chin that she was staring down at him, so he didn't move, choosing to remain seated on the step beneath the doorway. He could feel the scattered beat of her pulse beneath his fingertips, which still loosely gripped her wrist. Her silence was beginning to unnerve him so he spoke first.

"Please?" He asked.

Beneath his fingers her pulse increased in strength until it was almost jumping from her skin to his. He almost released her, but his concern overrode the jerked response and he continued to hold her wrist. It was lose enough she could break away if she wanted, yet she didn't. Instead she simply stood frozen in front of him, staring down, her heart pounding.

When she finally started to move he released her arm in anticipation of her backing away. Yet she surprised him by stepping forward and lowering herself onto the step beside him. He glanced over his shoulder as she pulled her legs against her chest and wrapped her arms tightly around her knees, making herself as small as possible in the limited space – wedged between him and the doorway.

He leaned forward, giving her room behind him should she feel she needed it. Turning his face forward, he pretended to be interested in the bottom of the massive glowing icicle hanging high out over the chasm.

"What do you want to know." She finally asked, her sigh sounding of defeat.

Ronon didn't want her defeated – he wanted her willing to speak to him - but at this point he wasn't going to get the information any other way. He let go of the hurt it caused knowing she was only talking to him because he forced the issue, and concentrated on finding the answers.

"Tell me about the dreams." He said simply, staring blindly up at the bottom of the star drive.

"What do you remember?" She asked, her voice soft.

"Everything." He shrugged.

"What was it like in there for you?"

"It was real. It felt… as though it were an actual place."

She made a soft hmm in agreement. "They're not always like that, you know." She added. "I think that machine… just liked the bad ones."

"It was built to help people analyze their dreams." He offered, thinking it would make sense that the Ari would have looked to the bad ones first. And with nightmares like hers…

"Yeah well if I wanted them analyzed, I'd buy the book." She snorted softly.

"You said you dream about your staff turning into Wraith all the time…" He prompted, when she didn't immediately continue.

"I do." She answered. "And I also have nightmares about being attacked by thousands of tiny spiders, falling off the storage tower on the south-east pier, being buried alive, walking through the gate and ending up in space, going camping and being attacked by an axe-wielding version of hybrid-Michael, losing all my teeth, and being left alone in the woods."

With each admission Ronon couldn't help but turn himself slowly around to face her. With a quick shake to his head, he digested her words as she continued to stare at him, her eyes wide and face serious as she rested her chin on her tightly-gripped knees.

"You do." He asked, taking her short shoulder-lifted shrug as confirmation.

"Do you have any normal dreams?" He asked, unable to believe that was all she could possibly have bouncing around inside her head.

"Define normal…"

"One where someone or something isn't trying to… harm you?"

She snorted. "Of course. Just because I shock myself awake on a regular basis doesn't make me crazy."

"Hmm." He answered with a slight shake to his head, as he turned himself around, returning to his previous position, and looking forward. "So blood and Wraith…" He voiced aloud then angled his head to the side. "Understandable."

She made a soft sound of agreement, but didn't otherwise comment.

"The people at the house…" He then asked, remembering the next scene in her dreamscape. The friendly smiling faces of her relatives who's thoughts were anything but nice.

She inhaled slowly, then exhaled with a sad sigh. "You remember when I told you I never really fit in?"

Ronon nodded, thinking back all those months to their conversation in the infirmary the day of the lockdown. She'd told him she'd never felt as though she'd ever belonged anywhere.

"I never did, you know." She said softly. "I wasn't making that up. If I… tried to have a friend my own age, I was trying to show them up. I couldn't hang out with older kids because… because I wasn't old enough to go anywhere with them… and they sure as hell didn't want to hang out with some kid 5 years younger. It's hard to get a birthday party invitation, you know… when everyone's parents think you're just a stuck-up snot who's too big for her britches. Unless it's the sympathy invite, you know… and then… well… then you're only invited because they feel sorry for you… or they think you're some kind of freak… so they make you do parlor tricks like answer math and trivia questions… and spell impossibly scientific words… just so they can laugh at how abnormal you are… then you hear them thank god that their kids aren't a freak like you. Sometimes all you want is to be stupid and normal and just… have friends."

Ronon could hear the bitterness and scorn in her voice as she relived the pain. He'd always known the scientists were a breed apart. They had their own language, their own mannerisms, practically their own culture, which would have come from being forced to form their own faction of society. They cloistered around themselves, safe within the invisible walls of their own kind.

He knew they were routinely ridiculed by the majority here – usually by the soldiers - especially McKay, although Rodney had pretty much earned the respect of every damn member on the base so his taunting came with a healthy understanding that the man had saved their ass more than once. But the others…? It had never occurred to him, until just now, that Jennifer would be one of them. He didn't want to think of all the things people said about McKay or Zelenka, or any of the other lab rats... the teasing… jests… Hell, he'd even said them himself. But to her? About her?

The thought of her being pushed away simply for being smarter… seemed so incredibly useless… harmful… painful… and a host of other words that could only be used to describe the way the Earth people regarded those they considered different. For such a technically advanced society, most of them had the people skills of a tree stump. It amazed him some days they'd survived at all…

But Jennifer's personality, her profession, pulled her out into the social spotlight so much more.

But was it truly her they'd all been seeing these past years?

Or just a picture of who she thought they wanted her to be?

He straightened and sat back against the doorway, blinking with the realization of what her admission was telling him.

Was the face she showed the one she truly wore? Or was it only a mask, put there to show she belonged? He recalled the differences he'd first seen when they were in the infirmary quarantine. They way her hands couldn't stay idle. Her half smile. She'd spoken so softly around him, so hesitant. Shy and reserved. It went against the normally forceful personality he'd always seen when she dealt with him – when she dealt with any of them. He'd thought her change of demeanor had been the effect of being confined alone with him… but what if… what if it wasn't?

What if he'd finally been given a glimpse of her true self? The woman who lived alone with such nightmares?

"Stephanie Bowman really did throw me into the old quarry." She suddenly admitted, breaking into his thoughts. Her voice was slightly muffled as she spoke against her kneecaps, shoulders hunched as she shook her head slowly back and forth. "I offered to help Julian with his Chemistry assignment since he was having trouble. She thought I was trying to show her up – saying she was too stupid to help him with his assignment."

She tipped her head to the side, resting her cheek against her knees, and glanced over her shoulder to where he was sitting against the doorway, his mind still reeling.

"I didn't." She said quickly, her face shadowed beneath the fall of her hair. "Think that about her."

"You wouldn't." Ronon answered, sensing her need for assurance. He could hear the question in her voice, a soft plea for his understanding. "It's not in you."

She stared at him, the silence stretching out with awkwardness before she spoke again.

"They just left me there." She turned her face away. "I sat there wet, and freezing cold, aching everywhere, being eaten alive by mosquitoes the size of Texas, terrified of being dinner for some kind of horrible swamp monster, praying Stephanie wasn't going to come back and finish me off…" She shook her head slowly and straightened, flopping back into the recessed doorway beside him. Leaning her head against the wall to her left, she cursed softly. "I was sixteen for god's sake… I was stuck down there for six hours until it was light enough to see a way out. All because I offered to help a guy with his homework." She rolled her head against the cold metal wall. "And people wonder why I hate the great outdoors."

As they sat side by side, staring out across the balcony, the distant hum of the machinery high above was the only other sound beside their tandem breathing. He could feel her slowly relaxing her posture, with each breath, with each non-movement he made, she slowly straightened until she was no longer trying to hide herself against the far wall.

Nightmares and dreams. Swimming in blood and being attacked by Wraith. Scathing thoughts from people who were supposed to be your family. Children who would hurt others simply for being different. The images flowed together now, locking into place against what he knew… leaving only the final hole.

The last dream.

The question he wanted to ask sat on the edge of his tongue, ready to leap off, but he wouldn't let it. The image of Ellie swam to the surface – blond ringlets and dark green eyes – and he blinked them away, forcing himself to concentrate on the sharp edges of the star drive.

"Ronon?" Jennifer whispered behind him, and he turned, surprised to notice he'd leaned forward.

She stared at him, her features barely visible in the dim lighting. Yet even with such little illumination, he saw the worry and fear in her eyes, the hitch in her breath as she struggled to keep her lungs working at a steady pace, the twisting of her fingers. She'd offered him the opening – and they both knew exactly what it was she was talking about. He knew she was terrified of the answer. Just as he knew she'd give him the truth if he would but ask.

"Why?" He managed to speak before an uncharacteristic panic of his own welled up and shut him down. Why is that your nightmare? Why did you dream it? Why did you run away from it? Why did you push me away? Why would you sacrifice it all… Why?

She smiled sadly, her eyes bright beneath added moisture.

"Because it hurts."

"What hurts?"

She looked away, her throat working as she swallowed hard, her eyes blinking furiously. She reached up with her index finger as though to remove a speck of dust from her eye, but he knew it was a tear she pulled away. She pushed herself forward, moving to stand and this time he let her – but followed – rising up off the step with her.

She moved to the balcony, gripping the railing with such force that even in the dim lighting he could see the whiteness creeping out across her knuckles. He stood beside her, and with a deep breath, he leapt over the hidden barrier inside his mind and placed his left hand lightly over her right.

Her skin was still so cold beneath his palm, and he inhaled sharply.

Yet she didn't pull away.

"What hurts?" He asked again, angling his body so he could see her profile beneath her fallen bangs as she stared down at his hand covering hers.

Her fingers moved slightly - slowly lifting - her small, pale knuckles appearing between his larger, darker ones. She curled her fingers down across his, and he hooked his fingers between hers, locking their hands together.

"Being close enough to touch…" She finally answered, her voice a cracked whisper.

Ronon exhaled, then shook his head. "I don't understand."

"I know." She admitted softly. "I'm sorry… I don't know how to… to… put it into words…"

"Try." He urged.

When she finally turned her face towards his, he was so taken aback by the sadness he saw reflected there, he physically winced. She flinched at his response and dropped her gaze to the abyss below, hiding her face behind the fall of her hair. Ronon secured his grip around her fingers, keeping her beside him, silently willing her to tell him why she was in such pain.

"Jennifer…" He began, then stopped, unsure of how to convince her to trust him. He knew she used to… trust him implicitly. But now… Now… time had passed.

He felt her fingers tense against his a fraction before she answered.

"I miss you." She confessed to the railing, her voice barely audible. Then she let out a squeak and slapped her hand over her mouth, pulling back to stare up at him. "Ohmygod… I said that out loud… oh I'm sorry…" she exclaimed, her words mumbled behind her hand as she stepped away, frantically twisting her wrist, trying to pull her hand away from his.

Ronon didn't have to look to know her face would be seven shades of scarlet – but he did look – then straightened quickly to see her wide eyed, horrified expression. She missed him? What the hell did that mean? Missed him… how? Why? He hadn't gone anywhere? He snapped his fingers together when she tried to yank her hand away, her head shaking frantically back and forth.

"Jennifer…" Taking one step forward for each step she took backwards, he followed her until she bumped against the far wall. "I haven't gone… anywhere." He shook his head with confusion.

With no other place to retreat to, she finally lowered her free hand from her mouth, but only so far as to plaster it against the base of her throat. "I just meant…" She blurted out, dropping her chin to stare down the front of her body. "I mean… I didn't mean… I'm sorry…"

"Why are you sor-" He snapped his mouth shut, swallowed, then tried again. "Jennifer... I'm not going anywhere."

"Not like that…" She snorted sadly and shrugged her already hunched shoulders, her hair swinging side to side as she shook her head.

"Then… what?" He stared down at the top of her head, refusing to back away.

She didn't answer, simply stood in front of him, her forehead practically touching his chest, her hand hanging limply in the air, supported only by the pressure of his fingers.

He waited, unmoving, until he heard an unmistakable sniff.

With a soft groan he moved forward, releasing her hand in order to free himself to wrap his arms around her. "Hey…" He whispered against her hair, as she slowly released her stiff posture and clamped her arms around his torso. Her fingers twisted in the material of his shirt knotting it against his lower back.

"This…" She mumbled into his chest. "I missed this. So much. It hurts."