Disclaimer: I'm only going to say this once: I don't own any of the characters and I'm not making money off of doing this. This is simply for fun.
Present Day (February 21, 2009):
It's about ten in the morning and Jennifer, Laura, Marie and Elizabeth are sitting outside Starbucks having coffee and waiting for Teyla to meet with them. They're scheduled to have their nails done together. Katie, Jamie and Patty had their nails done the day before so they're back at the hotel playing with their kids.
"So has Evan said anything about the Wraith case?" Laura asks Marie.
"Wraith?" Jennifer asks. "Wasn't the wraith the organization that –"
"Assassinated Ronon's family." Elizabeth finished for her.
"John and Evan have been on the case for three years now." Marie tells her.
"Isn't that conflict of interest or something?" Jennifer asks.
"Well not really. The bureau actually assigned the case to them both because of their special relationship with Ronon." Marie explains. "There were only two Satedans who survived that were closely related to the assassinated families.
"Right. Ronon and his bestfriend –" Jennifer says, trying to remember the name "Tyre."
Flashback to the Post Prom Party (May 13, 2000, The Pool House):
After the fight broke out and Ronon pulled Rodney away and made sure he was okay he leaves him and looks for Jennifer.
"Dude." Evan says to him.
"Hey man. Where'd you go?" Ronon asks him as he scans the crowd for her.
"Figured you guys could handle it without me." Evan tells him. "How's McKay doing?"
"Bruised." Ronon says, spotting Jennifer's head.
Evan follows Ronon's gaze. "The child prodigy. So how's that working for you?"
"Don't call her that. It makes her uncomfortable." He tells Evan and Evan raises his hand in surrender. And then he adds "Pretty good. I think she had a great time."
"Cool." Evan says as Jennifer walks to Jennifer "Hey aren't we going to continue our poker game?" Evan asks Ronon.
"Mike's busy with Elizabeth. John's still talking to Carson and Katie. I think I've wasted time away from my date. I'd like to be with her before I take her home." Ronon says without looking back.
"Can I be honest, Ronon, as a friend." Evan says to him, with his back turned. "You're becoming really soft. Strange as it is, it kinda suits you man." Ronon ignores his statement and continues walking towards his lovely date.
"Hey!" Ronon says to her.
"Hey!" Jennifer says to him with a smile. "How's Rodney?"
"He'll be fine." Ronon says.
Jennifer stands on tiptoes, resting her hands on his shoulders and whispers in his ears. "Everyone is still staring. I thought you said they would get used to us."
"They will, but not right away." He tells her, slipping an arm around her waist for support.
"How long will it take?" She asks, taking a step back to look into his eyes.
"You wanna get out of here?" He asks her, realizing how uncomfortable the others are making her. Jennifer nods her head. Ronon then takes her hand and pulls her along with him. They slip into the side yard and walk towards the front of the property. "So do you want me to take you home then?"
"Not really. I mean, only if you want to. Take me home, that is." Jennifer says nervously.
Ronon smiles and then says "I want to spend as much time as I can with you." Jennifer blushes at this. "Do you want to hang out at my place?" He asks, making Jennifer blush even more so he quickly adds "I promise I won't try anything." Jennefer nods then, so he grabs her hand and leads her to the Emmagan property, towards the backyard to the pool house.
He unlocks the door to his room and gestures for her to enter. "This is my room. Teyla's parents figured that I needed my privacy so they said that I could take this pool house if I wanted."
It's surprisingly neat. From the doorway, you step into the mini living room. There's a couch and an easy chair facing a television set. A kitchen to the right side of the entry way, with a small dining area and a door towards the back that she assumes leads to the bathroom. A folding screen separates the living room from the bedroom. The décor is simple. He added a surfboard that's leaning on one corner of the room. A guitar sitting on a stand near the French doors that are on the left side of the space. A few pictures on a console behind the couch.
"Do you want a soda? Water?" Ronon asks her as he opens the refrigerator.
"Soda." Jennifer says absently as she picks up a picture frame, taking a seat on the middle of the couch, one leg tucked beneath her.
Ronon walks to the couch and sits behind her. Setting her soda on the coffee table. He leans over her shoulder, his arm resting on the couch's back rest. "That's my family."
"Your grandparents?" She asked, pointing to two older people.
"Yup."
"And this is you." She says with a smile.
"Yeah, three years ago." He tells her. She sets the picture down and picks up another of a pretty girl who looks to be about fourteen or fifteen. "That's Melena."
"Your girlfriend?" Jennifer asks warily, a hitch in her voice. Does he have a girlfriend in Hawaii?
"Same tribe. A very old tribe. And so our families were really close friends." He takes the picture from her and looks at it. We dated for only a year, but we had known each other since we were little."
Jennifer frowns in confusion and turns her head to look back at Ronon. "Had?" She asks.
"She was killed along with our families." He told her.
"Oh, God, Ronon, I'm sorry." Jennifer begins. "I – I –"
"It's okay. I've never really told anyone aside from the F.B.I. who were working on the case." Ronon tells her, putting the picture back on the console. Leaning his chin on her shoulder.
"You don't have to tell me if you don't feel like it." She says to him.
"Do you want to know?" He asks her, turning his head to face her, his cheek resting on her shoulder.
"I want to know about your family." Jennifer says, turning around to face him, cupping his cheek, cradling his face. "But if it's too painful for you, you don't have to."
He turns his head in her tiny hands, holding her wrists and kissing her palms. "My parents were very powerful in Hawaii. They were killed because of it. By the Wraith. Another powerful but illegal organization headed by a man named Michael Kenmore. They didn't exactly like what my parents were doing."
"Which was?" Jennifer asks carefully.
"Help people." Ronon says. "They were assassinated." Jennifer stiffens at this new information. "Nobody knows except for the F.B.I., John, Teyla and her family. And Tyre."
"Tyre?"
"My best friend." He tells her. "We grew up together. He's Satedan too. And we were together when it happened." He clears his throat and then leans back onto the couch. "There was a big party at my house. And Tyre and I were surfing. There was a big wave coming in and we didn't want to miss it." He takes a sip of his coke and then continues. "As soon as we swam back to shore there were men in uniform waiting for us. They ushered us into black SUVs and brought us to a warehouse. An agent explained to us what happened and said that they were flying us out of Hawaii that same night, for safety reasons."
He pauses and then looks at Jennifer, and threads his fingers through hers for comfort. "But Tyre and I got out and we headed back to my house. They hadn't cleaned it up yet so we saw everything. I saw my parents, my grandparents. Cousins and friends. Tyre's family. Melena."
"Melena. That was her name?" Jennifer asks. Ronon nods. "I'm sorry, Ronon."
"Don't be. I tried to move on. But I couldn't." He says to her. "But that day, your first day in school, when I first saw you –"
"At the clinic." Jennifer finishes for him.
"No. That's where we first met." Ronon tells her.
Flashback to Jennifer's first day in School (March 1999):
John, Ronon and Evan are hanging out at the parking lot, leaning against Ronon's truck. Evan is flipping through some cd's from Ronon's cd organizer. John is checking his pager for messages, while Ronon is throwing a football up in the air.
"Sweetheart, I'm sure you'll be fine. Don't be nervous."
"Please, dad, just come in with me. At least until after my meeting with Dean Woolsey."
Ronon stops throwing the ball around and stares at the girl. His heart stops as he watches her pass by. Melena? It can't be. She died. But she looks just like her. Ronon shoves the ball in John's hand and walks towards her.
"Dude." John says. Ronon doesn't hear him. "Dude!"
"What?!" Ronon says, annoyed, turning around.
"What the fuck man?" John says, shoving the football back and bending down to pick this pager up.
"Sorry." Ronon mumbles before turning back to look at the girl. She's already gone.
Back to the Post Prom Party (May 13, 2000):
"I saw you in the parking lot. You were walking with your dad. At first, from afar, I thought you looked like her. You're about the same size. Almost the same hair." He feels Jennifer shift uncomfortably, so he quickly explains. "But when I saw you up close at the clinic, I knew you weren't her. But I still felt drawn to you." He says, his eyes filled with so much emotion. Jennifer shifts in her seat and then leans her head back onto his shoulder. Ronon pulls her closer to him and rests his cheek on her head.
Back to the Present:
"Apparently, Tyre joined the wraith." Marie tells them.
"He what?" Jennifer asks incredulously.
"Tyre was taken to a foster home. First in Los Angeles, and then he found his way back to Hawaii." Marie says.
Jennifer recalls Ronon telling her that Tyre was sent to a foster home unlike him, who was sent to a distant relative who welcomed him with open arms. "He was at Ronon's eighteenth birthday party. Did he move back before then?"
"I think that's how it happened. But he didn't join the Wraith until seven years ago." Marie says.
"And Ronon knows this?" Jennifer asks.
"He went crazy for a bit." Teyla says as she sits down to join them, Torren sitting on her lap. "Sorry, I'm late."
"No problem." Laura and Elizabeth say.
"He went –" Jennifer starts to say.
"Crazy." Teyla finishes for her "Not like crazy crazy. But he locked himself up in his room for weeks. He felt betrayed. He came to terms with it though."
Jennifer realized that this happened only a few months after she left. She feels so much remorse over this. Did he need her? Could she have helped ease the pain? Would he accept her now?
"I remember how lost he seemed when he first moved in with Teyla's family." Elizabeth says, shaking her head.
Flashback to August 1997:
"Hey Teyla, who's that guy over there?" Elizabeth asks from Teyla's bedroom window.
"Ronon Dex. I just met him a few days ago. Apparently he's a distant relative or something." Teyla tells her as she looks through her closet.
"So is he visiting?" Elizabeth asks. "Too bad, he's kinda hot."
"Actually, no. He's moving in with us." Teyla tells her. "He's taking the pool house."
"Why?"
"Coz he doesn't have family anymore. His parents were killed." Teyla replies, moving to the window to look at Ronon, too.
"Oh god, really? That's so sad." Elizabeth says. "How did it happen?"
"We're not suppose to talk about it, sorry." Teyla says.
"Not my business. I understand. So your parents took him in, then? Wow."
"Not that he really needs to be taken care of." Teyla tells her as they watch Ronon wax his surfboard by the pool. "He could probably hire a bunch of servants, business managers and accountants to do everything for him. His family was very wealthy and he was an only child. So everything was left to him. But my father insisted that he needed a family around him."
Elizabeth nods in understanding. This Ronon fellow must be really wealthy for Teyla to actually say the words out loud because her own family was considered to be one of the wealthiest in town. John's family being on top of the list. They watch him tend to his surfboard. His head bent. He drops his surfboard to ground and leans his forearms on his thighs, his hands raking through his dreads in anguish. Pulling at the girls' hearts.
Back to the Present:
"I've only seen him that way twice since I've ever known him." Elizabeth says absentmindedly.
"When was the other time?" Jennifer asks.
"When John, Ronon and I were really drunk one night and I mentioned your name –" Elizabeth stops suddenly and realizes what she had just divulged. Jennifer stiffens at this. Elizabeth's eyes grow wide in shock at her tactlessness. "I. I –"
Laura and Marie exchange looks, while Teyla interrupts and says "John, Ronon, hello."
She's saved from saying anything further when, John and Ronon walk up to the group. Other women in the coffee shop eyeing the gorgeous men. John pulls up a seat beside Teyla and grabs Torren from his mother. While Ronon grabs a vacant chair and sets it beside Jennifer, taking her coffee cup and smelling the contents before taking a big sip from it. The ladies in the other table sighing in disappointment.
TBC.