Lennah woke from a pleasant sleep and felt the familiar warm tangle of limbs. She knew she could quite comfortably stay there forever. But part of her wanted to wake Ro, even if for no other reason than to fall asleep together again. She made due with his arms around her as she stared up at the ceiling. Absently, Lennah stroked the back of his hand.

She poked at the darkness in her mind. Prodded it. With the slightest tug it fell like a tapestry before a door.

It had happened like they said. The windows were down and her hair was blowing in the wind as Ro drove. He did well and was careful. He'd panicked when he lost control They veered off the road and up the bank into a tree. She'd gotten out to help Ronon but the door was jammed. There was a crowbar in the trunk. But before she reached it she'd been grabbed from behind. She kicked and writhed but dropped into the trunk of another car.

As she'd sat there in the trunk, she had caught something he'd said as he'd closed the trunk.

"Why don't you die?" His eyes were saucers and his face a twisted mask.

She didn't know how long she was stuck. He weaved and wove and it was suffocating. She readied herself to spring an attack once the trunk opened.

Then finally, the trunk was flung open and she sprung out into bright night. He looked perfectly at ease until he swung the shovel. They tussled but he flung her around and she went sprawling into the woods.

"I was gonna make it quick and easy for you but this works for me!!" He shouted at the trees. "You're miles away from anywhere and no one will ever find your bones. They don't even know where you are!" He was bent over as he screamed. He seemed to falter in indecision but then he turned with the shovel and started poking into the darkness of the brush. He got closer and closer as he stabbed into the underbrush where she hid. She turned and fled, loudly stumbling over the vines and branches. He threw the shovel at her like a javelin and it narrowly missed her. She scrambled to her feet and vanished.

Ronon stirred at her side, pulling her into his chest. She put her head against him and listened to his heart and lungs as he sighed and hummed.

"How long have you been awake?" He whispered. They were twenty some odd levels underground in the soft light of a night lamp. Soft Bossa Nova guitar played from a small radio. Time was beyond identification.

"A while." Lennah sighed. She nuzzled further into him and settled. "I remember everything now."

"Yeah?" The interest in his voice had it going up in volume and the vibrations of it sent chills everywhere. He caressed her arm and felt the goose bumps.

"Yeah." Her voice softened as he continued to coax little shivers through her.

"That's good." Ro nosed into the crook of her neck and kissed the top of her shoulder.

"When did you come in?"

"Few hours ago." Ro could get by on three or four hours of sleep. He stepped his game up and his hands became vices.

Admittedly and without shame, she came very close to allowing him to continue. But she put her hand on his and turned her head.

"How far did they get?" He harrumphed and the whoosh tickled her ear.

He squeezed her and sighed. "They calmed him down. But that's about it. Guy was strung out on something. They had to allow him to sober up."

"How long will that take?"

"Not very, as Keller tells us. She's gonna try a bunch of stuff to hurry it up. Dialysis, hydration, stomach pump, something called an 'enema'… a few things."

"Ew."

"That's what McKay said."

"Ro?"

"Yeah."

"I wanna talk to him."

"Yeah."

"Please?" She looked up at him but couldn't see much in the soft light.

He inhaled and held it for a second before humming. "If you need to."

Lennah settled back into him. "Will you stay with me?"

He snorted a laugh. "Yes." He was emphatic.

"Ro?"

"Yeah."

"Do you think you would ever want to go on a road trip with me again?"

"Yeah. I'm pretty sure of it."

"You're not still thinking of making me go to my mother's."

"Yeah."

"Wouldn't you rather see the Grand Canyon?"

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"Cause it's Thanksgiving. And you always talk about your Mom's cooking."

She laughed and relaxed. He held her tight and the tenor of the moment changed. Then he surrounded her and invaded. He didn't so much kiss her as swallow her soul and she didn't so much let him as return in kind.

Heat tapered off into a slow burn and they traded sensual advances with their hands in each other's hair. She was stunned into a pleasurable daze as he continued trailing lips and fingers.

"I want you to know."

"Uh-hmmm."

"It's kinda important."

"Hm-mmm."

He leaned his head on one elbow and traced lines down her cheek to her collar bone. "When you backed off."

Lennah waited. They both realized she was holding her breath.

"When it looked like you lost interest, I was approached."

"Yeah." Lennah nodded.

"I—I hoped… it was temporary." Ro kept going even though she wanted very much for him to stop. "This other woman. She came to me thinkin' we, you and I, were done." Lennah's stomach clenched. "I'll say she was trying to be persuasive. But I'd already made up my mind."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." He paused. "I decided that no matter what made you change your mind about us, I was gonna convince you it wasn't over."

Lennah felt her chest swell and couldn't speak.

"If I couldn't do that… Then I just was meant to be alone."

"And when I came that night to talk to you, what were you thinking?"

"I was mad. I had… second thoughts."

"And what—what changed your mind?"

"I went back to Sheppard's after you'd left. I had more to say but you'd already gone. I walked in to hear Price and Sheppard going over the letters and the intel you'd collected. I heard a bit of the journal you kept. 'I'm not going to let this hurt them. It's my job to protect the ones I love. I cannot fail them. But I do wish I could lean on their understanding'. It was very similar to the feelings I had about protecting my people while they argued over how that should be done."

Lennah nodded but was silent.

"I want you to know you can tell me anything. You never have to fight anything without me. Or Shep or Teyla. We're a team and we work best as a team. Never forget that."

She nodded again and held his face as she spoke softly, conveying the intensity of her conviction with the passion in her voice. "You will never be alone." He could smell her tears and quickly found them with his lips. "Even without me, you have Shep and Teyla and you are never going to be alone again. And even without Shep and Teyla and the whole city of Atlantis, you will always have me, Ro."

"I will not be whole without you."

"That's kinda the point, I guess." And they chuckled..

In the soft light of the little room, hours may have passed but it seemed like forever and not enough. Lust had passed tentatively into something more they'd only just danced around. Words would only have scared it away. Suffice it to say they could not be parted easily now. The bonds had grown stronger and stronger just as the passing of time had solidified their little 'pack' into a cell, a unit both unstoppable and powerful. A pride.

These pillars stood against all things that would tear down their world. Together they supported their unified beliefs and each other, one's faults complimenting the others' and strengths compounded into one body of success. As they stood in unfamiliar territory of the SGC, it was loudly apparent how prominent they were. These walked as titans and moved almost with a telepathic sense of each other and additionally the primary target.

Everyone was in question. By this single fallacy of the system designed to keep them safe, everyone was doubted. Their priority was to discover how Marcus had hidden away his illness and, secondarily, how to prevent it from happening again.

He was sober now. And questioning had started but as one of their own, he knew all the techniques they'd attempt. He was as solid as a wall.

Lennah watched from the observance room as first Sheppard and then one of the SGC interrogators barraged him with insults, threats, sympathy, and negotiations they had no intention of honoring. There was no remnant of Marcus left. He was no longer easy-going and boisterous. He was battle hardened from a war only he had faced. There was trauma and wounds he hid and licked in private. And underlying everything was a raw hatred.

Not for himself, in guilt or shame. Not for his life, in self-pity or denial. But for her.

But why?

No one could ascertain this. It was his most guarded secret and only the presence of the threat itself could coax him out of his prison fortress.

Sheppard entered the room from the hallway where he'd gathered his frustrations and his fraying patience. He crossed to the coffee maker and rubbed his palm on his forehead.

Lennah looked up at him and he caught her look.

"Is it my turn yet?"

The room stilled as they each wondered what could happen, many probable scenarios running through each head but at the center of thought on each mind was the awareness that Colare was the center of gravity for this convoluted circling. If she moved closer to Marcus's obsessive revolution, his orbit would crumble and a direction could be followed. They had really no alternate, as Ronon's presence hadn't incited him. The key was absolutely Colare and they still felt the sting of her last horror.

Sheppard stared off into space and watched the proceedings from a distance. He nodded his head and set the ball in motion. Marcus was chained again, having been loosed to facilitate a bond, which had failed. All other items were removed from the room. The SGC personnel required that she be searched before entering the room. She agreed to it with out question. This man had recently tried to kill her and accomplished harassing her before that. Any sane person would want recompense.

Ro went with her of course. She couldn't have smiled at him otherwise. Marcus's pulse spiked and his blood pressure rose but he remained still as his face reddened. She sat across from him as Ro stood beside her.

"Who are you?" She quickly demanded.

"I am Major—"

"No, I'm asking who do you think you are?" She leaned forward and he trembled. "What gives you the right to prevail yourself on me? You have no say in what I do or who I—… who I love."

The word seemed to do the trick. His head cocked to the side and his eye twitched. The pressure built to the boiling point and the release gauges flipped.

Marcus yelled obscenities and flung himself forward. Ro deflected the dive and carried Lennah out the door flung open by ready guards. He was quickly sedated and further restricted.

Analysis of his yelling showed he'd been saying things quite illuminating.

"He seems to feel that you are crucial in the fight against the evils of Pegasus." The Marine psychoanalyst pointed out.

"Then why did he try to kill me?"

"That is the determining factor." He continued, no elaboration. "His current belief system hinges on your death. But I don't believe it's intended to be you specifically, you just happened to trigger this reaction."

"Then who does he think he's killing?"

"Anyone that would stop him from bringing about the end to the Wraith."

Marcus's tongue was much freer now and he spoke at great length about his mission, 'The Call'. He quoted whole verses of foreign scripture from some nonexistent religious text. He was elaborate but nothing made sense. His delusion was profound enough to have the Marine psychoanalyst shaking his head in awe.

The most sense they got out of him was when he talked to Sheppard. He seemed to think Sheppard a man joined with him in the cause, similar enough to himself to understand.

Marcus rambled on and on and Sheppard stood there. Regardless of being the target of the speaker, he was no more a part in the process than a chair.

He only spoke again when he reentered the observance room. "That's just not right. For a good while there he sounded like—… talking about how it's fine for me to do as I like with the natives but it's our responsibility to prevent the females from acting inappropriately and hurting the cause."

McKay stabbed wildly into the much hated 'soft-science' "His focal point is the relationship between Ronon and Lennah. But I fail to see how that could tip the balance of the war on the Wraith. She's not an important figure—no offence—so anything she does really doesn't matter."

Lennah felt the resonance of an idea that held the ring of truth. "Not me. But what about Ronon. His… distraction from anything besides revenge against the Wraith… say his… attachment to me."

The analyst took up the line of thought. "To have lost the fire for revenge and found peace with someone so very alive who, moreover, reciprocates: this would indeed cool the flame hungering for the end of the Wraith."

"Just because I'm with Lennah doesn't mean I'm going to stop fighting. I have that much more to protect now."

"Yes, but Marcus doesn't see that. He sees the need to kill rather than to let be. He can't trust that people will grow and learn without his influence. He must act on what he believes in the most violent way possible. He is a man to be feared in the worst way possible. He is a man with faith in something terrible."

McKay had his moment of revelation. He franticly shook his hand and snapped his fingers. "What makes someone believe in something so beyond their current logic process that I could alter their brain waves and completely change the way they think?"

Sheppard shrugged a shoulder. "Beer?"

….

A team was dispatched to the planet but all they found was a burned out building. One of the village elders had gone batty and hidden relics in the mountain caves. He was easy enough to capture. Hephaestus was a slow man but they still didn't find the ark.

Marcus was put in a clinic under constant observation but it's not likely that he'd be able to recover without the original ark. McKay said it was as though someone had mashed the buttons and what came out was something between Ancestral worship and population control. Sheppard took volunteers for a team to camp out until it could be found.

The holiday with Mom was… interesting. She tried to talk with Ronon on just about everything but he was monosyllabic. But he beamed at her over a mountain of food and she blushed. She may have even developed a crush on him.

Another psyche eval was required. Mom wasn't too happy about her coming home beaten again. Lennah deflected with humor and sarcasm. Mother began to rely heavily on Ronon to try and talk sense to her. Lennah tried to get her to let Ro share her room but it was the couch or the porch or the nearest Motel 6.

They made up for it when they went out to see the sights. The county fair grounds held giant pumpkins and the state's best pies. Bundled in coats and sharing cotton candy, they strolled through the games and attractions. He didn't get the roller coasters. Why would people willingly get on the ride just to be thrown around and scream their heads off? It looked like riding in a Jumper with no internal dampners.

Lennah smiled and took his hand and pulled him toward it. "It's a lot like life."

"Shit happens?"

She laughed and handed over the tickets. "That's one way of looking at it." She pointed at the people getting off. Their hair was wild and they were flushed with excitement. Everyone was smiling. "Question is: is it a broken Jumper or a good ride?"

"Isn't that one about a cup of beer?"

"Half full?"

Ronon nodded. "As long as it's beer. Sheppard, of course."

"Of course."

"You do know what the real question is though..."

"What's that?"

"How am I gonna fit in that little harness?"