A/N: Hello again! Hope you like this next chapter and I hope the pacing hasn't slowed too much.
Disclaimer: I know nothing about firearms, so if there are mistakes...my bad! I Googled, read some military forums, and consulted the Internet Movie Firearm Database to see what kind of guns they use in SGA (pretty helpful website, btw!).
Anyway, please read and enjoy!
At first, she smelled woodsmoke. It hung in the light morning breeze, lingered on her hair, on her sleeping bag, and on the rough hands that had built and stoked the fire the night before, now wrapped around her waist, tending to her own warmth. There was sweat, too. Just a trace, dried on his skin by the cold, autumn air. The kind of pheromone-filled, somehow intoxicating rather than repulsing sweat of male exertion, now a day old. And finally, she smelled leather. It enveloped her; the rich and earthy memory of boots, of saddles, of tack sheds…of home. Body heat like a blazing furnace aside, that scent alone would have been enough to shelter her from the elements.
A small bird chirped in the distance and another one sang in reply. The sun was about to rise, which meant she only had a few more minutes with him. She barely knew the man, but had sensed from the moment she met him that he was the kind of person who rose with the sun. You can always tell who those people are when you first meet them. Teyla was one of them for sure, her father and sister, too, as was Sister Mary Catherine, her high-school Latin teacher … and Ronon. Though her bones were stiff, her hips sore from being molded to the flat and solid earth the entire night, she dared not move for fear of waking him prematurely, of losing his presence to the coming light of day.
Her back was thrust to the floor. A dreadful cold, rooted in her heart, permeated her entire body. A pale hand, fingers long and sprawling, sharp and black nails digging, anchored itself to her chest. It took from her…took what she could not get back. She screamed, cried as loud as she could, but produced no sound. But it continued to take…
It was her father's voice, muted and distant, that finally brought it all to an end.
"Hey…I, uh, didn't mean to wake you up."
She opened her eyes, relief upon realization that it had been a dream warming her blood like a long dram of Ruus wine. Thinking he was speaking to her, she blinked the sleep (and the horror) away and looked in his direction. But his back was to her and he was too far away for the comment to have been directed to her. She watched as he carefully slid out from under his sleeping bag, unzipped and laid out like a blanket, to reveal her mother lying next to him. At first, their sleeping arrangement seemed so normal that it took a second before Eva's dream-addled brain fully comprehended what was going on. She reminded herself that this Emma and this Ronon weren't her mother and father. They weren't husband and wife. In their own words, they were colleagues…at best. But for as much as they had both denied it, sharing a sleeping bag definitely didn't seem like something two people who "hardly knew each other" would do.
Suddenly uncomfortable, like she shouldn't be intruding in their waking moments, she took a deep, steadying breath and looked down at herself to see, in her nightmare-fueled frenzy, she had pushed her body halfway out of her own twisted bedroll, leaving her entire torso and arms exposed to the fall air. That explained her dream, at least.
With a crunch of wet leaves, heavy footsteps drew near and she shimmied back into her bag; Ronon was headed her way. Pretending to still be asleep, she quickly shut her eyes tight as he passed by to join Teyla at the campfire. She squinted one eye open and watched as Teyla greeted him with a knowing raise of an eyebrow before handing him an empty mug.
"What?" Ronon barked, the intonation of his question sounding more like a demand than anything else.
Teyla lifted the silver carafe off the fire and poured some of the steaming liquid into his cup. "Nothing," she said with a not-so-innocent smile.
The two stared at each other in loaded silence for a moment before Ronon spoke again, this time more quietly. "You got another one?"
Teyla's smile grew as she poured another cup of coffee and handed it to him.
Eva stole a surreptitious glance over to her parents' sleeping spot. Emma's lower half was still tucked away under the layers of nylon, but she sat up straight, concentrating as she put her contact lenses back in. She blinked a few times to settle her lenses and a yawn escaped her mouth. Right as she reopened her eyes, Ronon reappeared at her side. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked curiously up at him. He paused for a moment, then bent down and offered her one of the two cups of coffee in his hands.
"We didn't bring any cream or sugar with us."
Wide-eyed, she glanced down into the silver mug and took it from him. "I can drink it black." The look Emma then gave him was one of such astonishment, it made Eva wonder if she remembered their late-night balcony conversation from the week earlier. "Thanks."
He nodded, then turned back to sit with Teyla around the fire.
Eva smiled to herself and began the process of getting up and ready. By the time she had twisted her unwashed hair into a tight, no-nonsense braid, put her shoes and coat on, and rolled up her bag, Emma had already beaten her to the edge of the campfire and was sitting next to Teyla, sipping her coffee. Ronon was too busy tearing away the top of an MRE with his teeth to greet her, but she took the open spot next to him anyway.
"Coffee?" Teyla offered.
"No thanks," she replied with a shake of her head. "It'll stunt my growth."
Emma, amused, snorted quietly into her cup.
"How's your leg?" Eva asked with a quick lift of the chin in Emma's direction.
She swallowed a hot mouthful of coffee before answering. "Painful. But getting better. Thank you for that salve, by the way," she added, directing her attention to Teyla.
The Athosian nodded and smiled.
"I should be able to walk today without any issues." She opened her mouth to say something else, but closed it and shook her head.
Eva narrowed her eyes. "What?" she prodded.
Emma shook her head again. "It's nothing. I was just gonna say that you seem to be in a better mood than you were yesterday."
Eva shrugged. "Guess I woke up on the right side of the bedroll this morning."
"Good," Ronon mumbled through a mouthful of rehydrated sausage. "Maybe you'll be less of a pain today."
Eva glowered at him and thought about saying something back, but was interrupted by Sheppard's arrival. He appeared from the edge of the woods, tightening his belt, and headed toward their campsite. "All right, gang," he called. "Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey!"
Teyla raised an eyebrow at him. "Eggs and bakey?"
"Wakey wakey MREs and instant oatmeal just doesn't have the same ring to it." He looked around at the group. "So…how'd everybody sleep?" There was a roguish glint in his eyes and Eva thought she felt his gaze linger a fraction of a second longer on Ronon and Emma than the others.
"Very well," Teyla answered with her usual pleasant smile.
Ronon merely shrugged in response, muttered the word "fine," and dug his fork deep into his breakfast bag.
Emma, on the other hand, took a long drink of coffee and refrained from replying at all.
The colonel's mischief was contagious and it bubbled inside Eva's chest. She couldn't resist. "Was anybody else cold?" she asked with a smirk.
Emma stared fixedly down at the ground and Ronon sputtered on the bite of food he was taking. Sheppard whacked him on the back a few times to help clear his airway.
Eva tried to hide her grin. Maybe there was something there.
Sheppard gave Ronon one last smack on the back, then rubbed his hands together to warm them up. "Where's McKay?"
"Rodney has yet to rise," Teyla replied.
"That lazy…" Eva couldn't hear the rest. He marched over to McKay's sleeping spot, knelt down, and with one swift motion stripped the sleeping bag off the scientist who shot straight upright and yelled.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he screamed.
"Rise and shine, Rodney. Everybody's up but you. Get your ass outta bed." Sheppard returned to the campfire and sat on the other side of Ronon. "Ok, here's the plan." He tore open a packet of dry oatmeal and dumped it into a cup. "Take another 15 minutes for breakfast, then we'll walk the other five hours until we make it to the settlement. We'll poke around, see if we find anything, and go from there." He picked up the kettle, poured the boiling water onto his oatmeal and gave it a swirl.
Eva raised her hand like she did in school.
Sheppard looked up from his mug, raised his eyebrows, and played along. "Yes, Miss Dex?"
"Do I get to carry a gun today?" she asked.
"Do you know how to use one?" he asked back.
"Yes."
He lifted his submachine gun and showed it to her. "Ok, then… what's this?"
"FN P-90. FN for Fabrique Nationale," she said with a heavy French accent. "It's Belgian."
"Very good." He turned to Ronon. "Chewie, hand me your gun."
"No fucking way," he answered, mouth once again full with his breakfast.
"Never mind..." He looked over to Emma. "Doctor, your sidearm please?"
She obliged, pulled the firearm from her holster and carefully handed it to him.
"And this?" he asked Eva.
"Beretta 92FS."
He gave the pistol back to Emma, and unholstered his own sidearm. "What about this one?"
She smiled slyly. "You don't like the Berettas. The grip is too bulky. You prefer the Para-Ordnance P-14 Limited."
"Caliber?"
".45."
He started to re-holster his weapon, but Ronon stopped him and held his hand out in an expectant gesture. Sheppard frowned, but handed him the gun anyway.
"Just because you can memorize all that stuff, doesn't mean you know how to use one." Ronon released the magazine, then locked the slide to the rear and checked the chamber for any remaining bullets. Unloaded, he offered the gun to Eva. "Clean it," he ordered.
Eva took the gun from him and inspected it closely. "Is there something wrong with it?" she asked Sheppard.
He shook his head.
"Have you fired it since you last cleaned it?"
He shook his head again.
Everyone's eyes were on her. It was a test. She looked at the gun once more, contemplated the task for a moment, then handed it back to Sheppard. He raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"Trick question. You shouldn't clean a firearm in the field unless there's something wrong with it. You risk losing a piece or getting debris in the mechanism. You should wait until you're in a more secure area." She glanced over to Ronon and she could have sworn he was trying to conceal a smile. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Ronon handed the magazine over to Sheppard, who reloaded the gun and returned it to his holster. "Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner. Looks like the apple didn't fall too far from the tree on that one."
She had passed the test…with flying colors. She leaned back in her seat, crossed her ankles, and put both hands behind her head, beaming with confidence. "So, do I get to carry today?" she asked again.
Sheppard and Ronon consulted each other in non-verbal conference until they both looked back at Eva. They spoke simultaneously.
"NO."
A/N: Quick note about the coffee - I just had to put it in there 1) because it's something Eva mentions earlier and 2) because that's how my own parents met. They were at some church thing and my dad saw that my mom didn't have any coffee left so he asked her if she wanted another cup. Simple and sweet and I couldn't resist.
Hope you enjoyed! How does the balance feel? Enough Eva? Enough romance? Too much of one or the other? Thanks again!