A/N: Welcome back! So I ended up not being able to post again the other night; I apologize. I hope you enjoy this next chapter because I had fun writing it. ;)

Thank you to my new readers and reviewers! I love and appreciate all your support. Enjoy!

Ronon paced from one gurney to the next as he, Dr. Beckett, and Col. Sheppard waited together in the infirmary. "It's been ten minutes," he groaned. "Who else are we waiting for?"

Beckett, tablet in hand, didn't bother to look up to reply. "Just Mr. Woolsey and Dr. Rogers now."

"And it's only been five minutes," Sheppard corrected as he poked at a tray of surgical tools.

Beckett slapped his hand.

"Ow! Whatever happened to 'do no harm?'" he exclaimed, shaking the sting out of his fingers before lifting his eyes to look at the doctor. "Hang on, Rogers is coming too?"

"Aye," Beckett said with a coy smile.

Sheppard raised his eyebrows. "Carson, is this infirmary about to turn into an episode of Jerry Springer?" His eyes darted ever-so-quickly over to Ronon.

Beckett pretended to be even more engrossed in his tablet. "I'm afraid I don't know what you're implying, Colonel."

Ronon looked back and forth between Beckett and Sheppard, frowning. There was something they weren't saying. "Jerry who?" he repeated. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't worry about it." Sheppard patted him on the back in what would be a reassuring gesture, but Ronon didn't much care for the mischievous expression on his face.

"If you two don't tell me what the hell you're talking about..." He leaned against one of the beds and crossed his arms across his chest, leaving the rest of his sentence up to his friends' imaginations.

Their conversation was brought to a halt by the sound of approaching voices – that of a man and a woman.

"So she's still resting then?" the woman asked.

"Yes, we wanted to continue our interview with her but…thought it was best to let her sleep instead."

Mr. Woolsey and Dr. Rogers, with a genuine smile on her face, entered the infirmary. "That was very kind," she said. "I'm sure she appreciates it."

"Yes, well," he sighed, "even bureaucrats like me have a soft spot for starving children… cantankerous as she may be," he added with a small smirk. He then turned his head to address the crowd in front of him. "Good morning everyone."

"Morning, sir," Sheppard responded with a small nod. "Doctor."

Ronon glanced over to Sheppard and watched his eyes travel up, down, and back as he surveyed the linguist. His stomach clenched slightly. Stretching to relieve the sensation, he looked back at Woolsey who had directed his attention to Beckett.

"I hear you have some news, Doctor?"

"Aye," he nodded. "As you know, we took a sample of Eva's blood while we were performing surgery on her…"

"Good thing she was unconscious while you did it, too," Sheppard muttered. "She probably woulda bit your fingers off if she'd been awake."

"She's a feisty one, that's for certain," Beckett laughed softly. "Anyway, I took the sample and ran her DNA – twice." He nodded for emphasis, raising his eyebrows. He clapped his hands once and rubbed them together. "Ronon…Dr. Rogers, congratulations. It's a girl."

His buoyant expression was met with wide eyes from the group around him.

Woolsey cleared his throat. "Now is perhaps not the best time for jokes, Doctor," he said quietly. "What exactly are you telling us?"

"I'm tellin' you the lass is precisely who she says she is," he clarified. "I compared her DNA to what we have on file for both of you," he looked at Ronon and Emma, "and she shares 49% of her genetic makeup with you, Dr. Rogers, and 51% with you, big man."

"I beg your pardon?"

"What?"

Having spoken simultaneously, they exchanged an uncomfortable look with one another.

"Though after seeing how she fought off all those Wraith the other day, I doubt you really needed confirmation from me," Beckett chuckled to Ronon.

Ronon was grateful to already be leaning against something for he felt suddenly lightheaded. None of this made sense. He chanced a glimpse over to Dr. Rogers, who looked about the same way he felt.

She brought both of her hands to her temples and shook her head. "I'm sorry, but how is this possible?" she breathed.

Sheppard tilted his head and thoughtfully gazed upward. "Well, when a man and a woman –"

Rogers waggled a scolding finger at him. "Don't you dare," she snapped.

"During her interview yesterday, she did claim to be coming to us from the year 2029," Woolsey suggested.

"And we're believing that?" Ronon asked.

Woolsey shook his head. "What other explanation is there? We can't deny that we've seen stranger."

"So she... hopped on some Pegasus Galaxy space DeLorean and jumped over twenty years back in time?" Sheppard asked with a dubious frown.

"Space what?" Rogers hissed.

"You know, like in Back to the Future."

Emma shook her head at him. "Never seen it."

"Oh, come on!" he shouted with exasperation. "That one's a classic, too. Came out in 1985. I remember, because it was the 4th of July and I was just learning how to drive –"

"I was two," Emma interrupted.

"You have got to be kidding me." Sheppard thrust his hands into his already messy hair and turned his back to the group.

When the occasion was different, Ronon was going to have to taunt him mercilessly for all of this. It wasn't often that Sheppard's usual boyish charm failed to woo a woman, but Rogers clearly considered him less a boy and more a fossil.

"I think the colonel's got a point," Beckett chimed in. "Maybe she's traveled to the past to try to get her parents together, thereby ensuring her own future existence," he mused romantically, looking back and forth between the Satedan and the linguist.

Rogers rolled her eyes. "Oh, please," she scoffed.

Woolsey spoke up. "I don't know about all of that, but I don't think we should rule out time travel altogether. Like I said, we've seen stranger," he reasoned. "We'll speak with her again later today to see what we can find out. And we'll get Dr. McKay working on some possible theories. Is he in possession of the tracking device you removed from her or do you still have it?"

"I'll send it over straight away," Beckett replied.

"Thank you, Doctor. Take your lunch early everyone, and we'll continue her interrogation right after at noon." Woolsey nodded to the group and took his leave.

Sheppard and Ronon filed out of the infirmary together behind Woolsey, who soon vanished into a transporter, but the sound of quick footsteps behind them made them both turn around.

It was Dr. Rogers. "Wait!" She stopped in front of both of them, then looked over to Sheppard. "Can I have a moment alone?" she began.

Sheppard smirked.

"With Ronon?" she finished, her eyes shifting to him.

His smirk dissolved and he nodded, then thumped Ronon on the back. "See you in the mess." He heard Sheppard release a sigh as he disappeared around the corner.

"What's up?" He placed his thumbs through his belt loops and leaned slightly backward as he looked down at her.

She glanced down at the ground, then reached around to the right side of her neck with her left hand and swept all of her hair over her left shoulder. The piercing but floral scent of lavender wafted up toward him. She looked into his eyes as she spoke to him. "Does this whole…Eva situation make things weird between us?"

Ronon shook his head. "There isn't anything between us," he stated matter-of-factly.

"There wasn't," she corrected with a raised eyebrow. "Is there now weirdness… awkwardness?"

"The only thing that's awkward is you talking about it," he alleged.

She let out a quiet laugh but maintained eye contact with him. She inhaled deeply. "Okay, good. Then I won't talk about it anymore. I just wanted to make sure."

They looked at each other for a moment without saying a word until Ronon began to feel uneasy. Aside from Teyla, most women on base never dared to look him in the eye for more than a few seconds. But Rogers hadn't yet averted her eyes. Damned if he would look away first.

"I remember what you told Sheppard the other day," he eventually said.

She narrowed her eyelids.

"You said you're here to work and not mess around." He transferred his weight from one leg to the other. "I plan on respecting that."

The skin at the edges of her eyes crinkled. "I think you might be the first person to actually take that seriously. Usually when I tell men I'm not interested, they try even harder."

"Men like a challenge," he shrugged.

She blinked slowly, the left corner of her mouth lifting a touch. "But not you?"

He wasn't sure if she had stepped closer to him, but the space between them had definitely shrunk. She studied his face for an instant and Ronon realized they were close enough for him to count the few freckles scattered across her cheeks. "Women aren't a challenge for me," he finally declared.

"I bet not," she laughed. She then graced him with a grateful smile that reached all the way to her eyes. "Well, thank you for taking me seriously."

He nodded silently in response.

Before she left, she briefly patted his arm, then headed down the corridor and into the transporter.

Once she was gone, Ronon turned to continue on his way to the commissary, trying his best to ignore the lingering heat on his arm where she had touched him.

A/N: Thank you again for reading, reviewing, favorite-ing, and following!