When Ronon emerged from Camaiya's bedroom later that evening the sun had been down for hours and Jennifer was curled up on their small sofa in front of the fire, holding a cup of tea in increasingly lax fingers as she dozed.

She sat up with a startled squeak when the door clicked shut and she cursed quietly at the tea she spilled on her uniform.

"Sorry." Ronon muttered. He took a seat on the floor near the fire, staring unseeing into the flames with his back to her.

Jennifer fussed over her uniform for a moment and set the tea aside. She pressed her hands between her knees and followed Ronon's gaze, wondering how it was that he seemed to fill a room so much more than other people.

Finding the silence too awkward, she cleared her throat.

"Hows she doing?"

Ronon was quiet for a moment before he responded. "She's tired."

"Understandable. I'm sure today was a lot to take in. For both of you." She finished quietly, pulling one leg up under her. When he didn't respond she continued. "I'm sorry."

He turned to look at her, eyebrow raised in question.

"That I couldn't do more." She shrugged one shoulder. "I can't imagine how difficult this must be for you. First finding out she's alive and now that...that she doesn't have much longer. I'm sorry."

Ronon sighed, returning his gaze to the fire.

"At least this time we get a chance to say goodbye."

Jennifer nodded, biting her lip. It was an optimistic way to look at things. She wasn't sure she'd ever thought of Ronon as 'optimistic' before.

"Listen Ronon um," she shifted, pulling her other leg up into a cross-legged stance. "Maybe this isn't the right time but I um...well I haven't seen you much since...well since the last time we spoke." She swallowed, pushing some hair behind her ears. Ronon's shoulders tensed, so she knew he'd heard her, but otherwise he made no other reaction to her voice. Still, she continued. "I never got a chance to say...I'm sorry...if I hurt you. I wasn't, um...I never wanted to hurt you. And I-"

Ronon suddenly climbed to his feet.

"You're right. This isn't the right time." He moved quickly into the shadows that surrounded the area lit by the fire, heading back to Camaiya's door.

"Oh. Okay." Jennifer whispered, feeling foolish, and pulled her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on them. She waited, but the click and thud of the door to the bedroom opening and closing again never came. She looked up and after her eyes adjusted to the dark, she could see Ronon's body facing Camaiya's door, one hand resting on the doorknob. Motionless.

"It wasn't your fault." He rumbled finally, so quiet Jennifer almost wondered if she'd imagined it. "I was wrong."

"About me?" Jennifer asked and then winced, both at the indelicacy of the question and anticipating his answer.

"No," he sighed. "About us."

Jennifer's eyebrows knitted together, wondering why that made her a little bit sad.

"What were you...um..." She shook her head, realizing she should quit while she still had some dignity left in tact, and yet still somehow unable to do so. "Why do you say that?"

Ronon sighed again, turning around to face her, but stopping just short of the light of the fire, leaving his face too shrouded in shadow to see his expression.

"It's been a long time." He said after a long silence. "I didn't think I could...feel that way. Anymore."

Jennifer bit her lip, unsure of how to respond.

"Rodney makes you happy." He had his hand shoved into his pockets, his eyes roaming Jennifer's face. "You deserve to be happy. I can accept that I won't be the one to do that."

Jennifer was stunned, and she looked it. She hadn't ever thought to associate 'gracious' with Ronon either.

"Maybe I should thank you." He quirked a smile, remembering his mother's advice to thank her for the lesson and move on. "For helping me see that part of me isn't as dead as I thought it was."

Their eyes held one another for a few moments as Jennifer tried to process what he was saying. Sensing the moment was passing, she rushed through the words she'd been wanting to say for over a week.

"I hope we can still be friends." She waited, hoping for his confirmation that nothing would change. As if it hadn't already.

"I'll never not come if you ask me to." He said instead, and Jennifer's gut twisted at all the words he didn't say.

He turned to leave again and Jennifer was suddenly on her feet.

"Ronon wait." She swallowed hard and he turned to look at her expectantly. She was left wondering what it was that made her stop him. Why she suddenly had the urge to keep him in the room, nearby. To say something.

"I...I didn't know you..." Were thoughtful. Were gentle. Were gracious. I didn't know.

"Rodney needs me," she blurted out awkwardly, then continued in a near whisper. "You didn't."

Ronon tilted his head, slowly closing the distance between them. When he was less than a foot away the fire cast flickering light across the planes of his face and the intensity in his eyes made her catch her breath.

"There are different kinds of need, Jennifer." He said quietly. His gaze warmed her from the inside out and he reached up to gently brush a lock of hair behind her ear and she shivered. "I hope you need him as much as he needs you."

He stepped back quickly, putting nothing-more-than-friends distance between them.

"You should get some rest. John and Teyla will be back tomorrow morning." He turned to leave again and Jennifer wrapped her arms around herself, turning to stare into the fire.

"Jennifer?"

She looked up, but he was standing off in the darkness again and she couldn't make out his face.

"Thank you for coming. I needed the best." He paused meaningfully. "I needed you."

This time she heard the soft click when the door opened and closed again as loud as if he'd slammed it shut and she shivered. Despite standing inches from a roaring fire, Jennifer suddenly felt very, very cold.

TBC