Ronon's brow drew down in a frown as he tried to process Grace's words. "I'm sorry. Say that again?"
His wife's expression was slightly exasperated as she dutifully repeated her words. "I want you to take me to Sateda. I want to see it."
"There's nothing left to see. Just a bunch of burned out buildings and dead bodies." His frown deepened. "Why would you want to expose yourself to that?"
To his consternation her answer came in the form of an eye roll. "I'm not some delicate flower, Ronon. I want to know where you come from."
"I'll tell you anything you want to know. You don't need to go traipsing through the ruins to know where I come from." He argued his point as he gestured to the painting he'd taken from the military history museum several months before. "The museum where I got that from… the roof collapsed about thirty seconds after I made it out of the building with the painting. And that drum…" He jerked his thumb to the drum on a column. "I got it from the music school where I took lessons when I was a kid. I tripped over some debris trying to get to it and ripped my arm open. Beckett had to give me seven stitches and a tetanus shot."
Finally, he saw her hesitate. Ronon folded his arms over his chest, doing his best to drive his point home. "I'm glad you want to know about Sateda and my culture, but going there is a bad idea for someone who-"
He knew the moment he had pushed too far when he saw her blue eyes flash and her jaw tightened. She interrupted him with a slash of her hand. "Okay, so I'm not a combat engineer, but Ronon, this is important. Sateda is a part of you, a part of who you are. I want to learn those things. I need to know."
It was then that he realized it wasn't about him, it wasn't even about Sateda. Ronon stared at her, narrowing his eyes. "Bullshit." He shook his head. "What's really going on here, Grace? You're being weird. You've been weird for the last week."
"I'm not being weird. I just need to know." Grace's usual good humor was not replaced by a weary shake of her head. "I'm so close to figuring out why the Makanesh-"
"The fucking Makanesh again?" He snapped, the words passing his lips before he could think better of it. "It's over. It doesn't matter anymore. That was months ago!"
Grace flinched under his temper but didn't yield. "It's important to me. And I don't understand why you're not angrier about this. They were straight out offering up your people as sacrifices to the Wraith. Don't you know why? Doesn't that piss you off?"
Ronon pushed his hair off his face, gritting his teeth. "Of course it pisses me off and of course I want to know why, Grace. But I can't change it. I can't do anything about it. Right now, I'm more worried about the Wraith and the people they will kill."
Her eyes blazed. "And what about vengeance for Sateda? Isn't that what you've been going on about for so long? These are your people! I thought you'd be angrier about this."
"Of course I'm angry!" He roared the words. "I want to find every single Wraith in this fucking galaxy and kill them with my bare fucking hands, Grace. That's what vengeance is. I can't do anything about the people they've already killed, but I can damn well focus on stopping them from killing more." Ronon fisted his hand, pounding it into his chest. "But taking you there isn't an option."
"Why not?" Grace tried to stay calm. She didn't want to fight. She just needed to know.
Because he didn't want her, or anyone, to see what was left of his homeworld. He didn't want her to see what the proud Satedan capital had been reduced to. "Because Sateda is dead." He heard the feral tone in his own voice and instantly regretted it when he saw her wounded expression. He drew in a deep breath to calm himself and then exhaled heavily before trying again. "You won't find out anything worth knowing about Sateda from the rubble on that planet, Grace."
She was quiet for a moment before she nodded. "If you won't take me, I'll find a way to go on my own."
Ancestors, this woman was stubborn. A pulse of unexpected arousal zinged through him at the sight of her standing there, drawn up to her full height, blue eyes lit with determination. He stepped closer, his hands riding to frame her face. Oddly, the irritation dissipated as quickly as it had come. "It was a war, 've been in war zones. You know what they leave behind."
"It's where you come from, Ronon. It's a part of you. And I want to know all the parts of you." The words were so soft he almost missed them. "I need to know."
Those words made his chest constrict. No one had cared about him like she did in so damn long. He'd forgotten what it was like to feel loved. Ronon wanted to wallow in it. He wanted to wrap himself in this woman and never leave this room. It was a dangerous indulgence, but he lowered his head to rest his forehead against hers and let the words touch the air against his better judgment. "Okay. I'll take you to Sateda."
Grace had braced herself for the devastation. She'd seen the images of Sateda before, but nothing could have prepared her for the level of destruction she saw when they stepped through the gate. It hadn't just been a battle, as Ronon had described it on the rare occasions he spoke about the fall of his planet. It was annihilation.
Neither of them spoke for long seconds after the gate cut off behind them. The silence was eerie. Nothing stirred. It was as if even the wind had forsaken this once thriving city. Not even a bird trilled in the distance, no dogs barking. It was like stepping inside a tomb. Bodies were left where they lay, some bearing mortal wounds, others dried husks.
"Ronon…" She struggled to find something, anything to say. Grace rested a hand on his arm, only to find that he shook it off gently.
His voice was low and threaded with anger. "You want to see what's left of Sateda? Follow me. And stay close."
She knew the source of his anger. Fuck that. It wasn't anger. It was rage. And she couldn't blame him. He led her away from the gate and past the, thankfully intact, DHD. He seemed to know where he was going as he led her through the maze of corpses, debris, and burned out buildings. Nearly half an hour later, he opened the side door to a building. "This was the Academy." He explained softly. "This is the only stairwell left intact. It leads to the roof."
He propped the heavy metal door open with a piece of broken concrete and lead the way up three flights of stairs. The door at the top was the same steel as the one below, but this one didn't latch. He pushed it open and from the presence of footprints, exactly matching his boots, she knew instantly he'd been here before. More than once. There were signs of pacing along what was left of the roof, beside the low wall. The other half of the building was gone except for rubble.
She surveyed the damage quietly, taking in the remains of what had been a dome, with its intricate stained glass shattered, only a few pieces still miraculously intact. "This is where you trained for the military?"
"Yeah." He replied grimly, pointing to the dome. "That dome was at the top of the atrium. Inside, there was a tree. The architect designed the building around it. The stained glass panels were depictions of famous battles, both losses and victories. My strategy professor would hold classes at the base of the tree sometimes, and we'd discuss the battles. Strategies, what went right, what went wrong."
He fell quiet for a moment. "I graduated as the cel mai'om of my class." Grace watched as he paused for a moment, as if seeking the right word. She'd come to understand he did that when he couldn't find the direct translation. As with most languages, there just were just some ideas that didn't have a direct word. A second later, he surprised her though. "Highest marks in all subjects. "Gave a speech and everything. My mother came. She sat right in the front."
"All subjects?" Grace did her best not to betray her surprise.
For the first time, she saw a ghost of a smile. "All of them. Math, science, weapons design, military history and strategy, civil engineering."
"I'm sorry. You took top marks in science and civil engineering? How have you not rubbed McKay's face in that?" The words were out before she could stop herself.
Ronon snorted. "Like he'd believe me. And even so, it's not the same. Your people's science is way beyond anything my people were capable of, and McKay, he's the smartest guy I know."
Grace frowned. "I knew you were intelligent, Ronon, but you shouldn't let McKay stop you from-"
He shook his head firmly. "It doesn't apply, a'ko. It's all different. Everything I was taught applied to Sateda, not other planets and Sateda…" He gripped her by the shoulders to direct her attention away from him and the dome and to the remains of the city. What she saw stilled her breath. Ronon's voice was suddenly harsh. "Sateda is gone."
Ronon's voice shifted again, that note of rage entering it once more. "There's nothing left, Grace."
As she turned her attention to the devastation, her breath caught in her throat. It was one thing to see the destruction at street level. It was something completely different to see it from higher up. For miles in every direction there was evidence of a once thriving, advanced civilization that had been nearly leveled by the Wraith. A few blocks aways stood the remains of the largest building, what had once been a skyscraper, it's spire intact, but only half the building still standing. Nestled at its base were other tall buildings, apartment blocks with gaping holes, debris still visible as evidence to lives interrupted and ended. Further out, she could make out the shapes of houses and parks, all bearing marks of combat. "Oh Ronon." She breathed out his name, her voice betraying that her heart was breaking for him, for what he and his people had gone through. Anger filtered into her on behalf of the unexpected life growing within her, that Ronon's son or daughter would never know this place or its people. Guilt began to creep in as well, knowing that they would never truly know their father either.
Grace fought against the riding bile in her stomach. What she planned to do wasn't fair. More than that, it was morally reprehensible, something she would have judged anyone else for harshly. The words tugged at her tongue, begging her to give them voice before she wronged this man even more. He didn't deserve any of what had happened to him. Ronon Dex was a fundamentally good man. Quite simply the best man she'd ever known, and she was about to commit the worst sin against him, a betrayal of the worst kind. She opened her mouth to confess, but his voice interrupted her because she could.
His voice was bitter and hard, laden with grief. "It's all gone. My people, my family, the woman I loved. Everyone I ever knew or cared about is dead, Grace. This is why I didn't want to bring you here. You won't find Sateda in this place anymore. There's nothing left."
She turned to face him again, her mouth working soundlessly. He shook his head, stepping forward to take hold of her shoulders gently. "Grace, you're the kindest person I know. Even when you're angry with me, you're unfailingly kind and tenderhearted. I'm not. I can't be like you. There's nothing left here, nothing left of my people, nothing of the man I wish I could be. Sateda is a graveyard now. That's why defeating the Wraith matters is all that matters now."
She knew instinctively that he was exposing a piece of himself that he hadn't intended. He rarely discussed his emotions, he was so intensely private. But she had learned to read him. She could see the determination in the thin line of his lips as he struggled for the words to express whatever was so important to him to get out right now. So she remained silent, and listened.
A few seconds later, he continued. "I look at you and I see the life I could have. But then I look at what's left here, and I see the life I should have had. And I'm so angry all the time, because now I can't have either of them, no matter how much I want to. I have to kill them all, every last Wraith in this galaxy. And I will most likely die in that fight."
Grace stared up at him, at the forest eyes that were saying so much more than his words. She swallowed hard, the realization of what he wasn't saying, what he wasn't able to say, settling over her. "You're never going to let yourself really let go of the grief. The anger. It's the fuel that keeps you fighting."
He dropped his hands as though burned, staring at her as if she'd slapped him across the face. He opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again, watching her for several seconds. The words came slowly, too slowly. "It's a life vow, Grace, and I will never dishonor that for as long as I live. I meant every word. Protector. Lover. Friend. I would lay down my life for you if that meant keeping you safe."
She understood with sickening clarity in that moment what he was unable to voice. He was silently begging her to make the choice he couldn't. "You think I make you weaker, because of what you can't say."
She watched his Adam's apple as it bobbed as he swallowed. She closed the distance between them and lifted her hands to frame his face, tugging down gently as she rose on her toes. She kissed him, her breaking heart meeting his own in a mingling of breath. His lips were soft against hers. When she released him, he covered her hands with his own and rested his forehead against hers. "Yes. You weaken me."
Grace closed her eyes against the rising wave of hurt. But at least she understood now, the terrible truth. "Because you love me."
His answer was a whisper so soft, it was barely a breath, nearly lost in the stillness of that bittersweet moment. "Yes."
She closed her eyes, fighting the tears that threatened. She hadn't understood the depth of his loss until this moment. No woman would be able to fight against it. "It's okay. I understand."
His shoulders dropped as his hands slid to her face, his thumbs stroking over her cheeks. "Someday-" He began, only to cut himself off. A second later, his voice was raw, with a vulnerability she had only witnessed in his worst moments. "There won't be a someday, Grace. No matter how much I want to believe it. You have to make the decision, because I can't."
"I understand." She repeated once more. She lifted her head, delivering another soft kiss to his lips, the last she ever would. She rested a hand over his heart for a moment, doing her damnedest to commit the steady, strong rhythm beneath her palm to memory. "We should head back. I've seen enough." And she had. She'd gotten no answers to what she thought she needed to know before leaving, but she had gotten the answer to the one question she hadn't dared let herself ask. The most important one.
He knew instinctively that he'd broken something inside Grace with his plea. It wasn't what he'd expected to happen when he took her to Sateda, but standing on that rooftop confronted with the unexpected juxtaposition of his two ill-fated lives, he'd been unable to deny it any longer. He loved this woman, needed her like he needed breath in his body. But he needed to carry out his mission. Destroying the Wraith was so much bigger than just his happiness.
Everytime he stepped through the gate, there was now a worry he wouldn't come back. It was just like when he'd been with Melena. He'd always carried that niggling fear that he would be the one who didn't make it home to her. He'd thought back then that the stakes were high, but now they seemed so much higher.
When they'd come back from Sateda, she'd acted as though nothing had changed. For a week and a half, he'd come back to his quarters every night to find her there, waiting in his bed. Intimacy had taken on a new light after his confession in that one moment of weakness. Love wasn't enough, but for just a little while every night, there in the dark, as he listened to the sound of her steady breathing, he fought against the urge to break the tenuous status quo, to take back the words he'd spoken in that moment on the roof.
"Ronon, if you're going to help, you have to actually look at the ship instead of literally staring off into space." Sheppard's voice held a thread of annoyance.
Ronon blinked away his melancholy thoughts and focused his gaze on the Daedalus as it floated in space. "Sorry."
Sheppard cast a skeptical glance his way as he maneuvered the jumper so they were beneath the belly of the Daedalus. "What's going on with you lately?"
"What do you mean?" Ronon cocked his head as he scanned the ship's exterior for any signs of lingering damage to the hull from it's last encounter with the Wraith. "I see scorching but no breeches."
His commanding officer and best friend gave a sound of confirmation and engaged the thrusters, expertly moving them forward a bit. "I mean that you've been moody lately. Not that you aren't always moody. Just… more pissed off than usual. You wanna tell me what's going on?"
Ronon shook his head firmly. "Nope." He kept his eyes glued to the Daedalus. "You know, except for some touch-ups to the paint, she looks pretty good considering how bad the damage was when she got here. The welds on the rail gun bases look fine."
"Yeah, those took a pretty bad beating." Ronon glanced toward Sheppard as his friend's fingers moved over the console, noting things that Ronon didn't know to look for. He'd volunteered to come up here just to get a breather from the city for a while. It had been almost a week since he'd been off-world. "Hey." Sheppard's voice piped up suddenly. "You ever tried surfing? MWR sent us some boogie boards and surfboards on this last shipment from Earth."
Ronon arched a brow as Sheppard moved them along the ship to the next point. He shook his head as he dutifully began to study the ship's exterior once more. "No. What is surfing?"
"Riding a floating board over big waves in the ocean. Seems to me it'd be a very Satedan thing to do. All the stories you tell, you and your people both seem to like a good adrenaline rush." There was a beep from the console as the results of some kind of a scan came back.
"Surfing." He let the word linger on his tongue for a moment. He could almost feel the water on his skin, the warmth of the sun. How long had it been since he'd done something for the sake of enjoying it? Other than screwing Grace through the mattress, which was always enjoyable. "Sure. I'll try it."
He could hear the grin in John's voice as the other man nodded. "Great. I'll reserve the boards for next weekend. There's a little spot on the mainland that has great waves."
"Perfect." Ronon murmured his agreement as he continued the most boring task he'd ever volunteered for, staring a perfectly good ship floating in space. "She looks good, Sheppard."
Sheppard gave a nod, reaching out to activate the comms. "Daedalus, this is Sheppard. Visual check of the hull looks good, scan results show no radiation leakage. Looks like you're all set."
"Thank you, Colonel. You can head back to the city whenever you're ready." The comms went silent as Sheppard gripped the controls and turned to head back for Atlantis.
Less than fifteen minutes later, Ronon was entering his quarters to change for the sparring sessions he led for the marines who volunteered for an ass-kicking. It was nothing tangible, but a ball of dread had formed in the pit of his stomach the moment he stepped inside. Something was off. He scanned the room, tensing for a moment before realizing it wasn't an intruder, as instinct told him it would be. Then he noticed it, the first small thing. Grace's radio wasn't in the charging base on her side of his tiny bed. Then the second thing, the top left drawer of the dresser was closed, rather than cracked open as he'd left it two hours earlier.
His stomach dropped as he stepped toward it, to pull it open. The spot where his wife's collection of lacy underthings had once been neatly folded beside his own more practical boxer briefs was empty. He slammed it closed and pulled the second drawer open. His shirts were neatly folded in a stack, on the left, but the right side, the spot her own shirts usually occupied was nothing but blank space.
Heart pounding, he headed for the bathroom. It was gone. It was all gone. Her make-up, her hair ties, her toothbrush. Even her shampoo and conditioner were missing from their spot next to his in the shower. Ronon slumped against the wall for a moment, his mind racing. There was still one place she could be.
He exited his quarters and sprint through the atrium and toward the stairs, taking them two at a time until reaching the landing of her floor. He was running at full speed by the time he reached her quarters. Sliding to a stop, he waved his hand over the door controls. Instead of sliding open, it only beeped a refusal. Confused, he tried again. He'd never been denied access to her quarters, not in months. Frustrated, her raised a fist, knocking on the door. "Grace?" No answer. He tried again, this time pounding against the metal. "Grace, open up." Again, nothing.
He lifted a hand, tapping the radio he still wore. "McKay, you there?"
"Yes, of course I am. Where else would I be?" The curt response was delivered with McKay's normal sarcasm, holding a note of distraction. In the background, Ronon could hear the sound of typing.
"I need you in crew quarters, level 9." He managed to somehow keep the rising panic from his voice.
The sound of typing stopped and McKay's voice took on a note of exasperation. "Did you lock yourself out? You know, the last time this happened, I told you I wasn't going to drop everything to come let you in. Oh god. Wait. You're not standing outside your door in nothing but a towel again, are you?"
"Rodney!" Ronon growled into the radio. "Now."
He could almost hear his team mate's eye roll through the line. "Fine. I'm on my way. But so help me, you'd better be wearing pants."
The line went dead and the seconds stretched into minutes. Those minutes seemed to go on and on until McKay appeared, bearing a tablet. After waving him down, Ronon stepped aside. "This is not my job. You know, anyone on the maintenance team can get you into a locked room. You don't have to call me every time. I have important stuff to be doing."
"Just open it." Ronon slapped a hand to the door in emphasis. "It's an emergency."
"Oh. An emergency, why didn't you say so." This time he got to witness the eye roll as McKay elbowed him out of the way. "Move so I can get to the controls."
Ronon watched as McKay unceremoniously shoved the cover to the door controls at him. He gripped it, his unease rising as McKay attached the tablet to the crystals with a cord and tapped on the screen. A few interminable seconds later, the door slid open. "Next time, call the maintenance staff." McKay disconnected the tablet, staring at him in open annoyance. "I am not your personal safe-cracker."
Without answering, Ronon pushed him out of the way with a hand to the shoulder and stepped inside. "Hey! A thank you might be nice. I did just drop- this isn't even the level your room is on." McKay fell quiet as the lights came on.
Ronon swallowed hard as he stared around the room that looked as if no one had ever occupied it. No picture of bright flowers on the wall, no stacks of books teetering, not even the scent that he associated with her. "You know, it's not really an emergency when it's not your quarters and there's no danger to someone else, right?"
Behind him, McKay continued bitching about emergency access protocols not seeming to notice that Ronon's world had just come to a screeching halt. "Wait. These were Becque's quarters, weren't they?"
Ronon stepped forward to the table beside the bed, spotting the one thing that remained beyond. A white envelope bearing his name and the ring he'd given her, the marriage ring her people wore. She'd done it. She'd left Atlantis, left him. Ronon reached for the ring, his fingers shaking as he slid it onto his pinky, it's bright blue stone winking at him as if to mock him. He lifted the envelope as McKay's words finally registered. "Were Becque's quarters?"
He spun to face his teammate, only to find McKay staring at him in annoyed confusion. "Yeah." The answer came simply. "She requested a transfer back to the SGC a couple of weeks ago. She left on the Daedalus."
That was it. She was gone, without a word, without a fuss. She'd made the decision for him, just like he'd told her she had to. Shoulder's slumping in defeat, Ronon pushed past McKay once more and headed back into the hallway, ignoring the other man's protests. When he was back in his own room, he locked the door and dropped onto his bed, staring at the sealed envelope. It didn't matter what it said. The contents of the letter wouldn't change anything.
Ronon waited for the relief he'd expected to come with this moment to wash over him. Instead, there was only a rising nausea. The ring on his pinky was suddenly heavy. The scar on his palm, now a thin white line, was the only evidence that he'd ever had a wife. She'd erased all traces that she'd ever existed from his little world. So where was the relief? Why did he just feel… empty?