Chapter 36
The door slid closed behind her and she kicked off her shoes. The thin wisps of hair that usually curled around her head were plastered to her skin with sweat and overall she just felt gross. M'Rhinna had run half of the city at full tilt before heading back to her and Ronon's room. Looking around the room, her excellent night vision allowing her to see in the pure dark, she realized that it was going to be a bit before she would be showering. She snorted and shook her head as she saw him laying face down on the bed, the sheet just barely covering his lower half. M'Rhinna picked up his pants, underwear, and vest from the floor and tossed the skivvies in the laundry bag before folding the vest and the pants, setting them in a neat pile on the low dresser. He seemed to have a problem with keeping the floor of his room cleared of clothes. His holster belt complete with pistol and knives hung from a piece of Athosian art that Teyla said she had given him some time ago when they celebrated the Earth holiday of "Christmas". Apparently it was customary to give and receive gifts so she had given him a piece of wall art made of the long thick antlers of a game animal that the Athosians' often hunted. M'Rhinna took the belt off the piece and hung it up in its usual place on a hook by Ronon's side of the bed.
She found various knives scattered around the room (some in their sheaths some not) on pretty much every flat surface and she found homes for the ones that were bare; the thin ones going into hidden sheaths in the leather gauntlets that were lying on the bit of column that he had taken from Sateda. When the room was as straightened away as it was going to get she went into the bathroom to shower but stopped in the doorway and sighed. It wasn't horrible, but Ronon's long blade was lying in its holder across the back of the toilet and the gun that she had given him was lying on the sink, the shoulder holster complete with a sheath for a Noctin sword (his sword was too wide and needed it's own sheath while a Noctin sword tended to be thinner with a gentle curve to the blade) was hanging over the towel bar, the sheath carrying its blade down the back. She slid the gun into the holster and secured it and grabbed his sword, going back into the bedroom to lay them down on the dresser. Finally, she could get clean.
After her shower, she towel dried her hair and put it up in a bun before she dressed in her soft dark pajamas, crawling into bed and laying on her side with her back to Ronon, going to sleep.
M'Rhinna knew instantly that something wasn't right. She in a dream, yes, but it wasn't her dream. She hasn't been in a dream of Ronon's since before she came to Atlantis, since then he's been invading her dreams. Right now she was standing in the hallway outside their room, dressed in white hospital scrubs and when she put her hand to her side she felt the tacky warmth of blood. There wasn't any pain, there usually never is in dreams, but the fact that it was there worried her. She looked up from the gaping wound in her side as John ran past.
"John!" she called out to him, but he didn't seem to hear her and kept running, disappearing around the corner. She followed and he led her to crew quarters atrium where Ronon was holding Kavanagh up by his shirt, his top lip curled back. She watched as his gums split and his eye teeth lengthened into daggers. "Ronon!" she cried out but it was too late. Ronon pulled Kavanagh to him and Kavanagh gave out a strangled cry as he sunk his fangs into his neck. He began to worry at his throat like a dog with a piece of meat, shaking his head back and forth in jerking movements, causing the most damage possible. Kavanagh soon went limp and Ronon dropped him to the ground, no blood came out of the horrible neck wound, Ronon had drained him completely dry. His head suddenly whipped around and he looked at her, his teeth shrinking back to normal.
Her injury flared to life and blood poured in a thick steady stream down her side. Ronon moved to her but she was dead before she hit the floor.
M'Rhinna came awake with a gasp, her chest burning as if she had been holding her breath. She sat up in bed and coughed great hacking coughs as air rushed back into her lungs. Ronon was already awake, sitting up in bed with his knees hugged to his chest.
"You weren't breathing." He said. "And you were cold."
"I think we have to talk." M'Rhinna said, her voice hoarse and looked at him. There was a ring of blood around the inner edge of his lips and at her prompting, he pulled back his top lip, showing her deep cracks in the gums above his eye teeth that had already started to heal. "We really need to talk."
The next morning, almost everyone noticed a dramatic shift between Ronon and M'Rhinna. They weren't sitting together in the mess hall, they barely looked at each other and whenever someone brought up the other, they changed the subject.
"We should split up, take them separately." John suggested to Teyla after several days of this when they entered the mess and saw M'Rhinna sitting at one end of the room and Ronon at the other, their backs to each other. "You take M'Rhinna, I got Ronon."
"Hello, M'Rhinna." M'Rhinna looked up from the tablet at the smiling face of Teyla, David in her arms. "May I sit?"
"Go right ahead." She said, waving her hand at the chair opposite from her.
"So, what's up buddy?" John asked as he sat down across from Ronon.
"What do you mean?" Ronon asked, leaning back in his chair, his mug in his hands.
"Usually you and M'Rhinna are attached at the hip. What's with the distance?" he asked.
"Ronon and I aren't going to be spending much time together anymore." M'Rhinna said.
"Why not?" Teyla asked.
"What do you mean, you and M'Rhinna broke up?" John asked, surprised.
"I don't want to talk about it." Ronon said.
"He had a feeding dream, Teyla." M'Rhinna said.
"I don't understand." Teyla said.
"Noctin children right before their first Quickening have feeding dreams." She said and Teyla made a noise of understand, nodding.
"And you're worried that you might be slowly turning him." Teyla said.
"I told her that she didn't have to worry about it." Ronon said. "But she wouldn't listen."
"That doesn't mean that you had to split." John said. "You two are great for each other."
"How do you figure?" M'Rhinna asked.
"You and Ronon have this bond."
"That 'bond' is little creatures swimming around my blood. You saw them!" Ronon said and John nodded. "She over thinks everything…"
"He never thinks before he acts…"
"I can't understand a word she's saying when she starts speaking science…"
"It's hard that I can't talk to him about what I did in the lab that day, he gets this empty look in his eyes…"
"I sometimes get the feeling that she's looking down at me…"
"He's just so incredibly young…!"
"She doesn't talk about her time on the Hive ship…"
"He closes up when I try to bring up his experiences as a Runner…"
"I have to know that I can trust her…"
"And I just don't think I can trust him, Teyla." M'Rhinna said. "It hurts when I'm not around him."
"I can't think straight when she's not here."
"I miss him so much."
"She moved out of my room and it just feels…empty."
"I feel like crying all the time."
"It feels like my chest is caving in."
"No matter how much he annoys me…"
"Even though she's so aggravating sometimes…"
"I love him."
"I love her and I want to spend the rest of eternity with her."
"But I won't turn him, I won't steal his humanity away from him like that."
"But I know that she would rather watch me die of old age than turn me."
"So it's best if we're not together."
"So now she's going to try to protect me from her." Ronon finished gave out a huge sigh. "It felt good to get all of that out."
"Thank you for listening Teyla, I really needed that." M'Rhinna said and reached across the table, smoothing a soft lock of dark hair away from David's face. "I know little one, and thank you."
"What did he say?" Teyla asked.
"He said that he's here if I ever need to talk." She said with a small smile and stood. "Rodney is expecting me."
Ronon stood from his chair, grabbing his tray.
"I've got a sparring match with Lorne." He said and the two couldn't help but notice Ronon and M'Rhinna avoid each other as they crossed the mess hall, each going their separate ways.