Chapter 4

The past

Ronon Dex walked around the Alpha site base camp. They had been trying to find somewhere better, somewhere that wouldn't be a target for the Has'parians, but for now, the Alpha site would have to do. It gave the Satedan time to think.

They had ran. Like frightened children during a culling.

They had left people behind.

They had let people die.

They had ran.

Ronon kicked at a stone in his path. It was Sateda, all over again. He had lost his home, his team and his friends. Teyla, Woolsey, Sheppard…. They were gone.

In his morose mood, Ronon almost walked right into Major Lorne, who was sitting on a rock with a sketch pad balanced on his knees.

"Watch where your going, Ronon." he chided, rubbing out the smudge that had been caused by the knock.

Ronon looked closer at the drawing. "Didn't know you were into art." He commented, watching Lorne put the finishing touches to his work.

"Yeah, everyone seems to say that," Lorne replied with a chuckle. He made a last mark before holding up the sketch pad to admire the finished work. It was Teyla, with her hair billowing as the wind caught it. She was holding her son, with Kannan putting a protective arm around her as they both looked over the city. Ronon smiled at the image, the tranquillity and peace captured on the page.

"May I?" he asked, indicating the sketch pad. Smiling, Lorne handed the pad to Ronon. He flicked through the pages. All depicted in these drawings. Some were group shots of several people, others were individual portraits. One of Woolsey in his office. Zelenka fiddling with some piece of tech. Keller and Rodney in the cafeteria. Carson treating an Athosian child. Sheppard with his feet up on a table reading a magazine with snacks in one hand and beer in the other. Almost every member of the Atlantis expedition that hadn't made it. One image however, made Ronon pause.

"Why'd you draw him?" he growled.

Lorne looked at the offending picture. It was the wraith, Todd, depicted aboard a wraith hive ship. Lorne shrugged.

"It felt right." he replied, "After all, he's the reason the Has'parians let any of us go."

Before Ronon could answer back, the whine of a wraith dart filled the air. Grabbing his gun from his holster as the Major grabbed his P-90, Ronon saw the blue flash of the dart's beam hit the ground only a few metres away. Instead of snatching them up however, it beamed down a single wraith.

It stood there, head bowed, hands clasped in front of it, as Ronon and Lorne approached. It was unlike any wraith he had seen before. It was wearing a ragged robe-like cloak, with the hood pulled up. As they drew closer, it raised its head. It- she- had long dark grey hair that framed its elderly face. What freaked out Ronon most wasn't the ancient appearance of the wraith, even though he had believed that they didn't age like normal humans. What unnerved him most was its blind white eyes. It stared first at Lorne, then at Ronon, before smiling and revealing its needle-like teeth.

"Do not be alarmed," it stated, its voice deep and musical, "I mean you no harm. I have come to discuss a proposition on behalf of my brethren."

"What exactly are you offering?" Lorne asked, warily.

"An alliance. Against a common enemy," the wraith tilted its head, "I believe you have already encountered beings known as….Has'parians, and their metallic pets."

"We've allied with wraith before," Ronon growled, making the wraith turn its blind eyes towards him, "Every time, we got betrayed. How'd we know that you won't do the same?"

"The same way we do not know if you will kill us as you have done to other hives, there is no other choice but to trust each other." The wraith closed its eyes and raised its face up to the sky, "If you wish to survive when the Has'parians arrive here in two days time, then I can only suggest that we do so. The choice is yours."

Ronon hated running. But he knew it was their only way to survive.

The wraith had made him good at running.

***

The Present

They'd discovered a wrecked hive ship.

That wasn't what was bothering him.

The wraith scientists and Rodney said that they should be able to scavenge what they needed from the dead ship.

That didn't bother him either.

They had suggested that everyone should go down onto the planet the dead ship orbited as the genetic dampener that had been hiding the wraith genetic signal for the past three years was playing up and needed to be repaired.

That bothered Ronon.

Because he knew the planet that the lifeless hive was orbiting. It had been his home for many years.

Sateda.

"What was this building?"

The question brought Ronon out of his repose. He and several others had been scavenging the ruined buildings for anything of use. He tried not to think about the friends that had fallen here as he, Molly and Lorne stripped the dead of their weapons and armour. He and Lorne were able to work with a professional detachment to the dead, but Molly carefully removed each item with a gentleness and reverence, as if scared she might hurt the dead bodies.

"Museum." Ronon replied gruffly, trying to stay focused on their task, but his eyes kept drifting back to the girl. The way she stood, her tenderness, her naivety, all reminded Ronon of what he had lost here.

"What's a museum?" she asked, looking puzzled.

"A place where you learn about the past," answered Lorne, looking under fallen masonry, "Y'know, like early settlers, what the planet was like hundreds of years ago. That sorta thing."

"Oh, you mean History Houses. There are many on Reilith, on my home world." She looked around the gutted building, "What sort of History House?"

"What sort?"

"I mean was it a House of Natural History, an Archive House. What kind of history did it store?"

She was looking expectantly at Ronon. He shrugged.

"Dunno. Never came here much when it was intact."

She looked crestfallen, but continued to search. The light shining on her curly hair highlighted the lighter shades of brown in her dark hair. She was different from any other wraith Queen Ronon had seen or killed. She was special.

He continued to rummage amongst the fallen stone work and general clutter. After several goes, he was able to lift one of the larger blocks, to reveal a crushed display case underneath, including all the treasures it had stored.

"Hey! Over here!"

Lorne and Molly struggled their way across the debris to Ronon and helped him sift through the artefacts he had unearthed.

"These are Ancient," gasped Molly as she searched, "they all are!"

"Must have been a museum for Ancient history then," Lorne joked, and received a sharp nudge from Ronon as a result. Molly held up a small device.

"What does this do you think?"

"Hang on, Rodney found one on Atlantis once. It's a personal shield generator," he described an event from the early days on Atlantis, how Rodney had used the personal shield generator to rid the city of an energy creature, while Molly turned the device over in her slender hands.

"So you just place it on your cheast and-" she shrieked as the device lighted up as she placed it.

"I keep forgetting you have the ATA gene," he sighed as Molly tried to bat the device off and was blocked by the shield, "You have to think it off."

Molly looked around wildly for a moment, then closed her eyes in concentration. The device shut down and fell off.

"See? At least you got it off better than Rodney." Molly smiled weakly at Lorne's jest.

"Sorry I screamed," she apologized to Ronon as Lorne moved off, "I didn't mean to scare you."

"What?" Ronon looked at her critically, making her blush and hang her head.

"I didn't read your mind, but when I screamed, you looked worried. I…thank you."

"What for?"

She looked directly into his eyes, "For caring for about wraith, about me…"

Ronon never got a chance to reply. The ruined building started to shake.

"What the-? Everybody out! The structures unstable!" Lorne was shouting at them, trying to get them to follow. But they couldn't.

Because at that moment, the ground fell out from under their feet.

Please R&R, it's always nice to know what you think.

I'm going to have to leave you with this cliff-hanger however, because I have a promise to keep to those that wish to learn Sheppard's fate....