Authors Note: Thanks for the reviews, enjoy this chapter!

Chapter 11

A year, it seemed crazy that it had been a whole year since she and Ronon had sat in this restaurant, two tables over, on their first date. She'd asked him because she was making a point to Elizabeth, and because she had been a little attracted to him. By the end of their first date she'd known it would be more, hoped it would be, and now here they were.

"To one year," Teyla toasted. Ronon clinked his glass against hers with a smile.

"It's been a good one," he told her. "And you achieved your goal, though us dating had nothing to do with it."

"You mean getting John and Elizabeth together?" Teyla questioned and Ronon nodded. "I'm not particularly proud of how I achieved that in the end. Outing them both the way I did was kind of cruel, they were infuriating me and I reacted. At least they're both happy now."

"Think they'll be having dinner a year from now?" Ronon asked.

"They damn well better be," Teyla told him. "I may have achieved it through less than polite means but getting them together was hard work. I can't believe how much things have changed since we first started at Pegasus, I didn't even know you and now I can't imagine not knowing you, or any of the others. It's as though we were all meant to find each other."

"Fate?" Ronon grinned.

"I know you don't believe in that kind of stuff, I don't even know if I believe in it entirely. I'm just saying, it's amazing how we've all come together, it's like a second family," Teyla explained.

"I know what you mean," Ronon said with a thoughtful expression. "I barely remember my family; I've been in the orphanage so long it's hard remembering what came before but what we have here, it does kind of feel like family."

Teyla smiled and took his hand; she knew how much it took for him to talk about his past. He rarely brought it up, even with her, and she knew better than to push him to talk about it. She doubted he would ever know how much it meant to her that he could open up to her as much as he did. "I think we're going to be stuck with these people for life."

"I don't know whether that's a nice thought or a terrifying one," Ronon smiled again and Teyla leaned back in her chair again.

"I think it's both," she replied. "As much as some people infuriate me, I don't think I could do without any of them. I hope we don't become one of those groups that makes all these plan to keep in touch after we finish and then don't do it. I've already lost contact with most of my friends from before Pegasus, I guess people drift apart, I just hope it doesn't happen to all of us."

"With people like you and Vala in the group, I don't see how that would even be possible, you wouldn't let us all lose touch with one another," Ronon told her and she nodded.

"I guess that's true," she said as she looked around the restaurant, except for the family in the corner, everyone in the restaurant appeared to be couples. She wondered how many of them were here on first dates, or their fifth, how many were here for anniversaries, how many of them would still be together a year from now.

"I got something for you," Ronon told her and she smiled as he pulled out an envelope from his pocket. She eyed it for a moment, opened it, pulled out two tickets to the theatre event she'd been talking to Elizabeth and Janet about a few weeks ago. She hadn't thought for one second that Ronon would be interested in going.

She looked up at him with a smile she couldn't quite keep off her face. "Really?"

"I heard you talking about it, you sounded like you really wanted to see it so..." he trailed off and despite where they were she yanked him forward, placed a hard kiss on his mouth.

"I kind of love you," she said when she released him. They didn't say it often, only a handful of times between them in the entire year together but it was true and she made a mental note to say it more. "And here is your gift."

She reached into her purse and pulled out the small box she'd wrapped a couple of weeks ago. He smiled like a boy on Christmas as he opened it. It was a leather cuff, the symbols of courage, honour and dedication embedded into it. He took it out of the box, examining it closely, his face giving nothing away and Teyla started to feel a little self-conscious as she waited.

"It's not as cool as theatre tickets, I know," she said as Ronon put the cuff on. He looked up at her and grinned again.

"It's perfect," he told her. "I love it, and you."

She couldn't stop the smile that spread across her face, "I'm glad to hear it."

The doctors told him it was a pulled muscle, the reason his leg was in agony and he'd limped his way to the infirmary was a pulled muscle. Rodney demanded that the doctors check again because there was no way it was just a pulled muscle. They checked again, Rodney suspected they were just humouring him but they gave him the same diagnosis, handed him some medication for the pain and told him to rest for a couple of days.

"Let's go Rodney," Radek said before Rodney could object again.

Rodney glared after the doctor as he got down from the bed. "It's like they're not even concerned."

"Probably because there's nothing to be concerned about," Radek replied.

The doctor had walked over to another bed where a girl was sitting, she had a bag packed next to her, she'd obviously been here for a while. She gave the doctor a half hearted smile as he approached.

"You're free to go now," he told her. "If you have any more hallucinations you need to come back and tell us."

Rodney turned his attention to Radek, feeling bad for eavesdropping. "Let's just get out of here so I can take these pills."

He limped his way to the cafeteria and sat at the table where Sam and Vala were deep in conversation about Vala's date. They both looked at Rodney as he dropped into a chair with a deep and heavy sigh, he shouldn't be made to suffer this way, he didn't deserve it.

"Leg feeling better Rodney?" Sam questioned.

"He's pulled a muscle," Radek explained. "They gave him something for the pain, told him to rest."

"It' not just a pulled muscle, I'm sure of it," Rodney replied.

"Pulled muscles can hurt pretty bad," Sam pointed out.

"I'll go and get you some water to take those pills with," Radek told him leaving the table and returning a few minutes later with two bottles of water and a plate of fries. "So who are you going on a date with Vala, is it the same guy you went on a date with a couple of weeks ago?" he questioned as he sat down again. Rodney grabbed the bottle of water and took one of the pills the doctor had given him, how long did these things take to kick in?

"No, it's a third year I met last week," she told him and then glanced at the silver watch around her wrist. "I should probably go and get ready actually, have a nice evening guys."

"Sure I'll have a nice evening, sitting here in agony," Rodney muttered after Vala had gone. "What a thing to say to someone in obvious pain."

Elizabeth knocked on the door of Carlie's room, it opened a moment later to reveal her sister, dressed to impress, more than usual. She took in her sister's appearance as she stepped into the room. "Going somewhere?"

"We're going to the clubs in town this weekend," Carlie told her. "I'm trying to decide what I should wear. Do you think I should where this blue dress," she said gesturing to what she wearing and then picked up a pink one from the bed and holding it in front of herself, "or this one?"

"You always look best in pink," Elizabeth replied and Carlie looked in the mirror and nodded.

"You're right, pink is my colour," Carlie agreed and then tossed the dress back onto the bed. "Are you just here to check up on me?"

"I promised our father that I would make sure you settled in here," Elizabeth replied. "He wouldn't be happy if I didn't."

"Well, there's certainly more you could have done to help me settle. You kind of ran off and left me on our first day and I've had to work most things out for myself but I've managed just fine. I'll be sure to tell father you've been checking in with me at least," Carlie replied with a smile as though she was doing Elizabeth a favour.

"I appreciate it," Elizabeth told her. "How are your classes going?"

"Oh, they're classes, they're mostly dull but they're going fine. I can't believe how much homework they hand out, it's like they don't think we have lives outside of our school work," Carlie told her looking at her desk where a couple of books were piled up on the edge underneath several different kinds of makeup and her hair brush. Carlie turned her gaze back to Elizabeth, her face serious. "I hope you got that whole Allinyas thing sorted out, it wouldn't do to have that kind of a mark against our family. When is that trial?"

"It was last week," Elizabeth said. "It went fine, Cal was found guilty."

"That's good," Carlie nodded her head. "If he hadn't then those rumours could have done even more damage to our family than they already are."

"Yeah," Elizabeth replied. "It's also good that my friends and I got justice for what was done to us."

"That too," Carlie waved her off. "Speaking of things that father wouldn't like, I've noticed you spend an awful lot of time with John Sheppard. It's one thing to be friends with him at school Elizabeth, which father and I have tried to tell you is a mistake itself, but it's another thing to be dating him."

"Carlie, I choose my own friends and it's up to me who I date," Elizabeth told her.

"He's the future governor of Caldera," Carlie pointed out. "Our county and his are political enemies. If father were to discover you're seeing him then he would be very displeased Elizabeth."

"Our counties are not political enemies," Elizabeth said, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at Carlie making it more dramatic than it needed to be. "Our father doesn't like the governor and governess of Caldera, it's a personal issue, their politics are actually not that different."

"That's really not the point Elizabeth, you know how our father feels about his family. It's disrespectful of you to start a relationship with him knowing what father would think about it. Besides, I don't know how many times I'm going to have to tell you this Elizabeth, he's using you and probably for more than one thing," Carlie said as she sat down at her dresser and started touching up her makeup. "I know you don't want to hear this Elizabeth but someone has to tell you before you embarrass yourself and our family."

It took Elizabeth a moment to reign in her temper. "I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions about who I spend my time with. I don't need you, or our father, passing judgements on people you don't even know."

Carlie looked affronted. "We're just trying to help you."

"No," Elizabeth replied. "You're not. Have a good time this weekend Carlie."

She left then before Carlie could get another word in. She'd been planning on heading to the library to get some work done after checking on her sister but she was too annoyed to be able to concentrate on it. She needed to walk off her mood so she pulled her coat tighter around herself and headed for the trees. It wasn't until she had cleared the trees and reached the river that she stopped and realised that the conversation was going to bite her in the ass later.

Carlie would write to their father, tell him everything and Elizabeth would be trouble. Her sister had been right that her father probably wouldn't approve of her relationship with John, she'd already considered the possibility and decided she would deal with it when the time came. Now she was going to have to deal with her father's anger about that and his anger about the way she'd talked to Carlie, which she had no doubt would be exaggerated by her sister.

"This is why you don't get along with him in the first place," she told herself. "You're too outspoken, you don't know when to shut up."

She hadn't done anything wrong though, not in dating John and not in standing up for herself to Carlie. She was tired of her sister and father telling her what she should and shouldn't be doing, she was almost twenty, they couldn't keep controlling her and she couldn't keep letting them. She needed to stand up for herself more, and not just to Carlie.

They had opted to work on their project in the cafeteria instead of the library since this wasn't the quiet research part of the project. They were starting work on their presentation boards which would be used as visual aids when they delivered the presentations to the class after Christmas. They had several large, thick pieces of card piled up at one end of the table, glue sticks and scissors that they kept losing track off and they'd had to drag over one of the trash cans so they could get rid of all the excess bits of paper they were generating. They'd requested copies of various pictures from books and the school's copy department had done their thing and magically copied the image onto paper for them.

John sucked in a breath through clenched teeth drawing everyone's attention, "False alarm," he breathed, staring at the half cut out picture of a man in his hand. "I almost cut off this guy's head."

Elizabeth looked at the mess around them; they'd been at it almost an hour and they'd barely made a dent in what they needed to do. "We're not even going to get close to finishing this today."

"Good thing we still have two and half months to work on it then."

"We still have some research left to do but we should have it done in plenty of time," Teyla said as she glued a piece of paper that read 'Alternative methods of learning magic' to the card. "We made an early start on the project; I know most groups haven't even started the research yet."

"Wow, you guys have made a mess," Marcus stated as he and Carson sat down at the empty table next to them. "What are you doing?"

"Magical ethics assignment," Jack answered as he tried to peal something off his card that he'd glued into the wrong place.

"You guys are putting the presentation together already?" Marcus questioned. "We've barely started looking into the issues we're supposed to be working on."

"My group only started the research last week," Carson added.

"See," Teyla said with a grin. "We're ahead."

"I feel like I need to go find Laura and Janet and get to work," Marcus said as he looked at the only card they'd managed to finish, the 'introduction' card. "What issues did you get?"

"Unofficial and illegal magic training and use of illegal gaining magic," Elizabeth told them.

"We got the gaining magic one too," Carson told her. "Glad we didn't get the unofficial magic training one though, that's a big topic to cover. I'm going to get some food, do you guys want anything while I'm up there?"

"No, we've got a lot of snacks in Jack's bag," John said.

"Unless there's cake," Jack shouted when Carson and Marcus headed for the food.

TBC