NOTES: Stages of Love challenge 'commitment'
One Day At A Time
"You should stay." Iliene's the one to broach the topic to him; fearless as ever, her eyes clear and grey in the twilight.
He glances around him at the Satedan camp, at the men and women who've survived the cullings and the run, and he feels the longing to be among his own people again. "You don't need another mouth to feed, 'Lena," he says, using the old endearment. It was a long time ago but they both remember.
"Is it her?" Iliene asks, her eyes narrowing. "Teyla Emmagen?"
Ronon feels his mouth twitch - at last count, everyone in Atlantis has asked about him and Teyla, and the answer's always the same. "No."
Iliene eyes him, unconvinced. "You need us, Ronon - as much as we need your leadership."
"Leadership?" It's the first time anyone's mentioned such a thing to him. "'Lena--"
"Seven years running from the Wraith," she says quietly, "with everyone's hand against you. Kel betrayed us - our families, our way of life. You repaid him for all of us."
"Not slowly enough." He would have drawn it out if he could, made every moment count for the betrayal of everything and everyone Ronon held dear. "'Lena--"
"You should be with your own people, Ronon." There was never any gainsaying her, even when they were children. "You should be with us."
Watching his people later, moving among them and meeting the people Iliene wants him to meet, Ronon feels like he's back home - back on Sateda - for the first time in over eight years.
He finds Teyla watching the fires. "How do you do it?"
She looks up at him, but doesn't ask what he means. Teyla understands.
"One day at a time."
--
The city seems harsh and sterile when they return, as strange as these people who move past him in the corridors without family or bond, without loyalty or oath against the Wraith.
Ronon sits in the briefing and feels more alien than he's ever felt in Atlantis before.
"They want Ronon to lead them." Sheppard isn't pleased by the idea of losing Ronon, but he knows what it is to have responsibility to his people.
"Oh?" Elizabeth turns to Ronon.
"There was much discussion regarding the possibility," Teyla says gravely.
Rodney shifts in his chair. "That woman - Iliene - was really into the idea. Although that might have been because she and Ronon have 'history.'" Rodney airquotes his statement, and Ronon can feel the burning force of unanswered questions in Elizabeth's eyes.
--
"Maybe you should go," she says when he comes to her room late that night.
He's not sure if they're talking about her and him, or the Atlanteans and the Satedans. But the answer's still the same as he gathers the hem of her shirt in his hands. "I don't want to."
From the way she responds to him, she doesn't want him to, either.
When Elizabeth trails her fingers across his features afterwards, he levers himself up on one elbow to look down at her face and feel the warm wash of contentment in his bones. Atlantis isn't Sateda and never will be.
There's home and there's home. For a while, anywhere he slept was home.
And, like his team-mate, Ronon will take it one day at a time.
- fin -