Disclaimer: I don't own it.

A/N: Well, who am I to turn down so many requests for a little Ronon whumpage?

Chapter 20 - Plexus

As hard as it was to have to search fruitlessly for Teyla, he was sure that dreaming of her was worse. It wasn't every night but it was often enough that it was starting to gravely affect his mood. He felt better while he was in the dream, as if it was a retreat, a safe-haven. But the second he woke, he was forced to face his failure, forced to realize that she was still missing.

Ronon's dreams about her nearly always hinged on them being together, on him admitting his feelings and her returning them. Sometimes he dreamed about things that really happened, their one kiss, the times they had spent together or worked together on missions.

He knew that Dr. Heightmeyer would have some long, wordy explanation for why he was having his dreams but he was more practical. He spent every waking moment looking for her, it would only stand to reason that she would be on his mind.

It was some of the other dreams he would have a harder time justifying. It was the dreams that were more like fantasies that he both craved and dreaded in equal measure. Sometimes he dreamed of making love to her or holding her or simply sitting and speaking to her. He welcomed the comfort and despised the emptiness he felt when the dreams were done.

Teyla believed that dreams meant something, that sometimes they were trying to tell you something. He had never shared that belief until just a couple of weeks before he found her.

He went to sleep in his room on Atlantis. He was refilling his supplies in between planets and his narrow bed was by far the most comfortable place he had slept in nearly a month.

As he slid into sleep, he found himself sitting on a beach. He didn't have to look around to know that the Athosian village was settled some distance behind him. The waves were crashing gently in front of him but the water was a ridiculous shade of blue so that it was nearly impossible to see where the water ended and the sky began. He squinted his eyes as he looked up. The sun was bright and looked close enough to touch but the moon was tucked in beside it, appearing just as brightly and just as dominant in the sky.

He felt a rock next to him. It was smooth and round. He tossed it idly at the water and smirked as it skipped along the surface of the waves until he couldn't see it anymore. "Impossible." He murmured.

"It is because you are dreaming." He heard from a distance. He looked up and found the source of the familiar voice. Teyla was approaching slowly, a glowing smile appearing on her face. His breath caught as she moved toward him. She was stunning.

She wore white. Her shirt was cropped and snug. It seemed to sparkle in the ethereal light. Her midriff was bare and lean and he had to swallow as his eyes tracked down. Her skirt hung loosely on her hips and flowed to the tops of her bare feet. He let his eyes drag back up her body to her smiling face. "You never look at me like that in real life." Her voice was amused.

"I do, just not when you can see. I like your hair." It was curled lightly, a white flower tucked behind one ear.

She moved closer and settled into the sand next to him. "I do not think I even own anything in white and I sure do not curl my hair."

"That's alright." He couldn't take his eyes off of her. "It doesn't matter to me."

"White suits you as well."

He looked down as his own clothes for the first time. The buttons of his shirt were open over a pair of loose drawstring pants. "Huh." He said. "Wonder what this is all about."

She shrugged. "It is your dream, your fantasy."

He glanced sideways at her as his arms encircled his raised knees. "I miss you."

"I know." She stared at the water. "You must keep your hopes high."

"I am. I wish I knew that you were alright."

She smiled at him and his heart lurched again. "You will know, one way or another, soon enough."

His brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"Keep on your path. It will lead you to me."

"And then?"

She leaned her head on his shoulder and his arm moved around her back. "It depends."

"On what?"

"Whether I am still alive. Whether I am healthy." She stood suddenly and turned to face him, he lowered his knees as she moved close. She straddled his legs and lowered herself slowly into his lap.

"If I didn't know I was dreaming before…" He muttered.

She chuckled and leaned her forehead to rest on his. "Your dream."

"Yes it is." He said with a grin.

"We are going to be great together."

"Yeah?"

"It is an inevitability." She laced her fingers behind his neck. "If I am alive, you must figure out how to make this real. Things will not be easy while I recover. You will have to be strong."

"I can be as strong as you need."

"You will need to think before you act. I will be counting on you."

He sighed shakily as she nuzzled her face against his neck. "I'll try. For this, I will try."

She stood up again and backed away slowly. "You will forget. You will forget and it will cost us everything."

"What do you mean?"

She turned and started down the beach, back the way she had come. "I have to go now."

"Teyla? What do you mean I will forget?"

He stood and tried to start after her but found that his feet were sunk deep into the sand. "I have to go now." She said again. "And you must wake up. Wake up and find me."

His head was foggy, his vision hazy as his eyes slid open. He could hear a man's voice beckoning him to wake up. "Wake uuuuup!" He sang in a way that immediately made Ronon want to punch someone.

Ronon groaned as his vision cleared. His hands were bound and he could feel warm blood oozing out of a wound at the base of his skull. He tossed his head back to move his hair out of his eyes and pain shot through his head and down into his neck. He clenched his teeth against the pain and let his eyes focus on the man in front of him.

"You." He growled as the man in glasses grinned at him.

Vardis smiled as he watched Ronon struggle against his bonds. "Teyla spoke of me?" He rocked back on his heels in pleasure and delighted as Ronon's struggles grew more desperate. Vardis nodded at his associate and grinned wider as the man delivered a well-placed punch across Ronon's cheek.

Ronon's face erupted in pain as the fist connected. Just as he started to groan, he felt the hand connect again and then again. Vardis stepped forward and grasped Ronon's hair, jerked his face back so that he could see the man's eyes more clearly. "You are friends with Teyla." Ronon growled and ignored pain in his cheek as he again struggled with his bonds. "Perhaps more than friends? She is a pretty little thing, isn't she?" He gripped Ronon's hair tighter as he fought to free himself. "Apologies for having to leave her scarred but she really is quite stubborn, you see."

Vardis released his hair and stood back. "You'll have to forgive us for not having the time to show you the finesse that we showed Teyla. You have only now, only this one chance to tell us what we need to know."

Ronon felt thick blood oozing out of the fresh cut on his cheek. He struggled against the strong rope at his wrists and felt the fibers dig into his flesh. "I won't tell you a thing."

Vardis smiled and rocked back on his heels. "A pity. I will ask my questions anyway."

Ronon listened with half an ear as the man droned on about coordinates, about Atlantis and Earth. All of his focus was trained on the tiny disc he had slipped into the hem of the sleeve of his shirt, the little tracking device he had made a grab for just as he was surrounded. He willed his thick fingers to cooperate, willed the itchy fibers of the rope to loosen just a bit. He felt the little device slide into his fingers and for a moment, felt completely and utterly triumphant.

He flipped the tracker in his fingers, preparing to flick a nail across the activation switch when he saw the man in glasses nod again at his associate. Without even realizing he was doing it, Ronon tensed, the tracker was clutched tightly in his fist so he did not drop it. He yelled out in pain as his attention was jerked from the tracker and back onto the men in the room.

A knife was being thrust carefully into his thigh. The man left it there and Ronon panted through the pain. "You should answer my questions." He heard dimly through his pain. "It will not get any easier if you do not."

Ronon gritted his teeth and as he forced his mind away from what the men were doing and back onto the tracking device in his hand, he had only one thought in his mind as he tried to shift his focus from the piece of metal lodged in his thigh, he'd be damned if he was going to use crutches again.

Teyla's first trip back through the gate was not as joyous as she might have imagined. Everyone was on edge. Carson kept throwing her sideways glances as if he was afraid she was going to fall over at any moment. He didn't have to say anything for her to know that he was against her clearance. She didn't care. At the moment, she couldn't bring herself to care about much except for Ronon.

Her leg was aching just a bit as they trudged through the woods on the very planet where she was first captured and held. She masked her limp, forced herself to walk steadily so as not to cause Carson any more concern.

John was following Rodney closely as he used a small device to find the motion sensor they had planted. She could see John tensing more and more the further they moved from the gate. His own limp was pronounced and she watched him grit his teeth more than once when the terrain became uneven.

In spite of the circumstances, Teyla felt unbelievably right being out with these people again. She had missed this, missed them more then even she knew and as she fell into her normal role of protecting the group from the rear, she felt her months of absence begin to melt away.

She eyed the woods as they weaved between the dense trees. There were rocks beneath her feet and she had to be mindful to keep from tripping. She did not recognize anything on the planet. Once they made their way through the trading area where she had been abducted, nothing looked familiar. It was a little disconcerting to her, knowing that this completely strange place was such a key piece of her ordeal.

The group stopped as John raised a hand and Rodney started chattering in an excited whisper. John cut him off and motioned to Teyla. She moved to the front and inched slowly toward a half open shaft in the ground. John gave her a meaningful look and leveled his own gun. She flicked the tack-light on her gun to the on position and shined it down the shaft. She found her footing on the steps and descended slowly.

She hadn't been overly fond of the dark since she returned to Atlantis and as the walls started to close in around her, she found she wasn't overly fond of small places either. She pushed it to the back of her mind as she had learned to do with so many other things. Injured or not, this was her job. She and John were the warriors, not Rodney and Carson. She or John went first, no exceptions.

She shined her light down the narrow hallway as her feet ran out of steps to climb down. She could see a light ahead and she turned her tack-light off and moved stealthily down the hallway. She could hear John starting his own descent as she moved slowly down the little tunnel. She couldn't let herself dwell on the fact that the walls were brushing against her shoulders as she walked. Her captors had often held her in tiny, dark rooms and it would not take much to throw her right back there, right back to that crazed place of pain and hunger and fear. So she didn't think about it, just focused on the light ahead and John's quiet footsteps behind her.

Teyla pressed herself against the wall as she neared the end of the hallway. She didn't know what she was expecting to see, but a single man sitting at the little table was not it. He had a lamp pulled close as he poured over a sheet of paper and a book. His brown hair stood on end as his fingers thrust into it again and again. She could see frustration written plainly on his face.

She held a hand up to John and signaled quickly that there was one unarmed man ahead. Teyla leveled her gun easily, feeling as if it was an extension of her arm that had been taken from her months ago. She rounded the corner in one smooth step, suddenly feeling exactly like her old self, confident and sure and prepared for anything. Her feet moved on their own as the man stood up from the table. He raised his hands in submission as she moved to the side to let John through.

"You." He said simply. "You're alright."

She raised her eyebrows and glanced at John. "Who are you?" John's voice was strained as his finger hovered over the trigger.

The man kept his hands high as his eyes darted back and forth from John to Teyla. "I am called Bradus and I owe you a world of apologies."

Teyla looked back at John and lowered her gun as he motioned that he would keep his leveled. "What do you mean?"

Bradus thrust a hand into his hair again and then thought better of it and smoothed it down quickly. "I am from Istene, same as the man you held, Cayus."

Teyla narrowed her eyes as she considered him, she had seen so many different people during her time in captivity. "I do not recognize you."

He shook his head. "No, you wouldn't. I had nothing to do with what was done to you after you were captured."

"Then why do you apologize?"

"I chose you." He braced himself, halfway expecting her to strike out at him.

Instead she breathed deeply, her face a practiced calm that masked her confusion. She felt Carson and Rodney move into the small room behind John. "You chose me?"

He nodded and spread out his arms. "I have much to tell you, all of you. I am unarmed. Feel free to search me. My gun is in the room behind me, a knife is in my boot. Take them."

Teyla looked to John. "Go ahead." He said to her before addressing Bradus. "Surely you won't mind if I keep my gun right where it is."

She searched him quickly, finding his knife right where he said. She moved to the rooms in back, her gun leveled again as she opened first one door and then the other. She paused as she opened the little cell where she had been held. Her reaction to the tiny space was visceral as her entire body shuddered. She turned away quickly and opened the other door. His gun was discarded on the bed. She scooped it up and turned to nod at John.

He lowered his gun and motioned for Bradus to sit again. John sat across from him as Rodney settled into a third chair and Teyla and Carson leaned back against the hewn rock. "Now." John said, "I think it would be best if you started at the beginning."

Teyla felt drained as Bradus finished up his story. She didn't know how to feel. On the one hand, he was responsible for her capture. On the other hand, if it hadn't been her, it would have been one of her friends. Besides, what wouldn't she do to protect her people? He had been in a bad position but he had felt remorse from the beginning, he was striving to make amends and to protect his people in a way that didn't get other people hurt.

She felt detached as they made their way back through the gate, as Carson scanned Bradus, as she watched John hit him over the head with the butt of his gun. They had to take him to Elizabeth and he simply couldn't be conscious as they went through the gate. As glad as she was that Bradus seemed to be willing to work with them, she couldn't help the feeling of crushing disappointment that was threatening to consume her.

They were no closer to finding Ronon and as she stepped through the gate, she finally understood how he must have felt as his search for her turned up nothing but dead ends and false leads.

But there were things that Teyla did not know. She didn't know that Bradus was willing to give up information freely. She didn't know that Ronon was still clutching a tracking device between ever-weakening fingers. And she sure didn't know that apart from finding Bradus, this was all part of one, very ill-conceived plan.

Note: This chapter got a little long so it didn't end up quite where I thought it would. This story might end up having more chapters than I originally thought but oh well, it will be exactly as long as it needs to be. Besides, I had to beat up on Ronon just a bit after so many reviews and e-mails requested it.

I also had a blast writing this flashback. I alluded vaguely in the second chapter to Ronon dreaming about Teyla so I thought I'd write a full dream. I could have done three-thousand words all on that beach in Ronon's dream.

OK, I have a lot of the next chapter written already (and have for like a year) so review so I will be motivated to finish it quickly ;).

Thanks for the support, the reviews, and the alerts. Happy New Year!!!

Brynna