"Hello, Camaiya, is it?" Jennifer approached the bed with a friendly smile. She turned the chair Ronon had been using the right way around and sat, pulling her medical kit onto her lap.
"Yes." The woman replied simply, but not unkindly. She made no move to offer any other information.
Jennifer smiled tightly. Ronon was always a difficult patient, now it seemed he came by it honestly.
"Are you able to sit up for me?"
With a sigh, Camaiya did as she was asked. She stiffened when she felt the cold stethoscope pressed against her back.
"Sorry," Jen pulled the earpieces out of her ears and began her physical examination. "So you've been experiencing some fatigue? Anything else?"
The older woman hesitated, but remembering her promise to Ronon, she spoke up.
"Some pain," she conceded. "I seem to be tired all the time."
Jennifer hmm'd in response, focusing on her examination. She asked a few more questions about family history and more specifics on her symptoms and Camaiya answered concisely.
"You are friends with my son?" She asked when Jennifer began rummaging in her bag for the mobile medical scanner she'd brought.
"Um, yes. We are." She said, keeping her eyes on the device, hoping it made her look busy. Jennifer decided it wasn't exactly a lie since it had only been just over a week since Ronon stopped speaking to her. She didn't know for sure he was avoiding her, of course. But…that's what it felt like.
"It's strange, after more than a decade he is all at once a boy I've always known and a man I don't know at all." Camaiya said, sounding tired and wistful. "Tell me about him?"
"Oh, I don't...I dont really know," Jennifer started to shake her head, lifting the scanner to move over her body. She trailed off and pursed her lips, feeling Camaiya's intense gaze on her skin. She sighed.
"He's…very strong. Never complains. Never sits still when there's work to be done." She began, searching her memory for moment's she'd spent with Ronon, wanting to say things a mother would want to hear. Camaiya's expression softened and she watched the younger woman intently.
"He's…fiercely loyal." Jennifer continued, "And much smarter than people give him credit for." She nodded, remembering being in several briefings with SGA1 where Ronon had had more to contribute than anyone expected. "He has this way of looking at you like you're the only person in the room. He's very serious, but he can be funny. His smile…you don't see it very often but when you do it's sort of…dazzling." Jen realized she'd gone on much longer than she'd intended and Cam was staring at her with clear, green, insightful eyes. Embarrassed, she cleared her throat and went back to the scanner, a blush creeping into her cheeks. "He can have a short temper. He…doesn't talk much…sometimes you don't quite know where you stand with him." She finished, trying to backtrack on some of what could have arguably been called gushing. Anyway, those things were true too.
"The temper he gets from me, unfortunately. The quiet nature, from his father." Camaiya snorted. She hesitated and then continued carefully, "What about women?"
Jennifer's blush deepend and she shook her head.
"Oh, we're not…um…I mean. I'm seeing someone. So…"
Camaiya just stared at her and Jennifer realized she had probably just been curious. She hadn't meant her. Why would she? She couldn't imagine Ronon sharing something like that with her after all this time.
"Um, I don't…." She shrugged. "I don't know."
Camiaya was quiet for a few more minutes, staring at the ceiling as Jennifer continued her scanning. "He is nursing something of a broken heart." She said, thoughtfully.
Jennifer paused. "He is?"
She nodded. "You spoke of his loyalty. I'm glad that has lived on in him. There was never a shortage of attractive young girls at our dinner table when he was younger. But once he set eyes on Melena, it was as if no other woman existed in the galaxy."
Jennifer didn't doubt it. And the idea of being the subject of that kind of single minded focus, Ronon's steady intensity, it made Jennifer shiver.
"It seems his heart has been twice broken," Camiaya frowned, remembering how restless and unhappy Ronon had sounded when he spoke to her. "I hope it can be mended someday. That he can open up a third time."
"Yeah." Jennifer stared at the wall behind the bed, considering. She hadn't really thought of Ronon this way before. He'd always seemed so strong. So stoic. She hadn't considered he could be hurt like that. It made her feel uncomfortable and guilty to think she might have been the cause of that kind of pain in the man.
"Are you finished with your examination?"
"Oh...not yet." Jennifer blinked and turned back to the scanner and they sat in silence for a few minutes as the scan finished.
When it chirped happily that the scan was finished, Jennifer's stomach dropped to her feet upon seeing the results. She wasn't surprised, she'd started creating a prognosis during her physical exam and the signs all pointed in one direction. But still…she'd thought maybe she was jumping to conclusions. Maybe the ancient devices at her disposal would give her an edge she wouldn't normally have. Or tell her her gut was wrong.
"It's not good news." Camaiya stared at her, expecting. It wasn't a question.
"You know, this handheld scanner is relatively limited," Jennifer smiled comfortingly. She knew it was probably too late. Inoperable. Still, she felt compelled to give hope. "I have better equipment back in my infirmary. If you came back with me I could…"
She trailed off when Camiaya tilted her head at her and reached over to grasp one of her hands where they were twisting tightly in her lap.
Jen swallowed and looked down. Tanned, wrinkled hands wrapped around her cold pale fingers, steady and warm. Strangely familiar.
"There is nothing you can do, is there?"
Jennifer wanted to shake her head. There was plenty they could do. They could try. They could always try.
And if nothing else she could make her comfortable. Give them a few more days. Weeks maybe.
But when she raised her eyes again to look into the older woman's face, she was struck by the ferocity there. The green eyes that didn't blink in the face of death were sharp and clear. Not cloudy with pain medication. Not shadowed with fear. The warm hand that wrapped around her own wasn't weak from lack of use, scarred from repeated blood draws and IV pokes.
She knew then, she wouldn't want to die that way. To Camaiya, a few more weeks in that state would not be worth the trade of meeting death head on, probably the same way she'd faced life.
"...No." Jennifer licked her lips. "There isn't."
Camaiya released her hands and nodded. She laid down on the bed and sighed, letting her eyes fall closed.
"Um…do you want me to…tell them? Or did you want to?"
Camiaya spoke without opening her eyes. "He will try to convince me to go with you. But my desire is to live out my final days in my home."
Jen nodded, swallowing. Hoping that someday, when the time came, she could face her last days with a fraction of this woman's grace.
"I'll tell them. Him. You just get some rest."
Camaiya thanked her and turned to her side, facing away from Jennifer toward the wall. Jennifer took extra care packing up her equipment, needing extra time to process all that had been said.
All that had yet to be said.
"Camaiya?" Jennifer paused at the door. The woman turned to look at her over her shoulder. "It was really nice to meet you."
Green eyes smiled at her. "And you as well, Jennifer Keller."
SGASGASGA
When Jennifer emerged from Camaiya's bedroom John, Teyla and Ronon immediately stopped talking and stood to meet her, joined quickly by Siria from the kitchen.
"She's resting." Jennifer sighed and then, meeting Ronon's intense gaze, she angled her head toward the privacy of the kitchen. "Would you come with me?"
He shook his head quickly. "Anything you say they can hear." Ronon was a private man but knew if they didn't hear the prognosis from Jen they were going to ask him about it eventually anyway. This way he would be saved from having to repeat what Ronon was becoming more and more concerned was going to be bad news.
Jen pursed her lips, not altogether surprised. She glanced quickly at Siria. The young woman stood to her side, biting her lip and wringing her hands nervously.
"Um, are you..."
"She's family." Ronon anticipated her question and cut it off with a note of finality.
Again, Jennifer nodded. She took a deep breath.
"Well I found a few lumps in her lymph nodes during my examination," she swallowed, avoiding Ronon's gaze. John's severe expression contrasted starkly with Teyla, Ronon and Siria's concerned but bemused faces. Being that he was the only one from Earth, it made sense he was the only one to anticipate what was coming.
"I confirmed it with my scanner." She continued quietly. "Cancer."
"Can you do anything for her?" Ronon asked quickly, rather than seeking clarification of what the word meant. John's muttered curse beside him told him all he needed to know.
Jennifer looked anguished as she shook her head.
"I can make her comfortable. I'm sorry. It's gone too long being untreated."
Ronon's reaction was immediate, his movements so sudden that Jennifer jumped slightly when he spun around and strode to the door in a few steps, whipping it open and slamming it shut behind him.
Immediately Teyla moved to follow but John's hand on her arm stopped her.
"Give him a minute."
"What does it mean? Cancer?" Siria asked, looking to each of the strangers in turn.
Jennifer took the young woman by the arm and carefully guided her to the seating near the unlit fireplace, explaining in low tones as best she could what the diagnosis meant and how long she thought the older woman might have left. By the time she finished Siria was staring at her hands in her lap.
"Are you alright?" Jennifer moved to lay a hand on her arm.
Siria nodded, then inhaled sharply, moving to stand.
"Excuse me," she muttered, her voice thick, and quickly disappeared behind the other door off the main room.
Jennifer sighed, watching her go.
"I hate having to give that kind of news."
"I'm kind of wishing we hadn't come here." John murmured, pacing back and forth, pausing in front of the window where he could see Ronon standing stone still at the end of the lane staring at nothing.
Teyla sighed and sank to the seat Siria had vacated.
"I agree this has not been the reunion I had hoped it would be for Ronon."
"He seems to have really bad luck with those." John muttered, running a hand over his face and into his hair.
Teyla and Jennifer glanced at each other and nodded, each remembering, as John was, how terribly Ronon's reunion with Tyre, Ara and Rikai had gone.
"Woolsey to Colonel Sheppard." Radios sounded in all three of their ears.
"This is Sheppard."
"Colonel I apologize the interruption. I require your presence as soon as possible. And if you could bring along Ms. Emmagen that would be most helpful."
Sheppard frowned, looking at the two women standing nearby. "Is there a problem?"
There was silence filled with the standard white noise that always accompanied radio transmissions through the wormhole before Woolsey responded. "Not yet."
"We'll be there shortly. Sheppard out."
Sheppard sighed and Teyla met his concerned gaze.
"He should not be alone," she said quietly, though Jennifer heard her plainly.
"I'll stay." Jennifer said, smiling tightly, "I should probably be here to check up on Camaiya anyway."
"Thanks Doc." John said, smiling like he knew how difficult the next few hours would be for her.
TBC