A/N: I'm so happy. This is the chapter that I have been dying to post for months. I really hope you all like it. Thank you again for reading! Please let me know what you think. :)
He lay on his bed staring up at the ceiling, light from the solitary candle casting flickering shadows along the walls as a soft sea breeze wafted through an open window.
It was nearly one in the morning.
He should be asleep. Or at least trying. But the nightmares were always worse after a Wraith encounter and the past few nights had been no exception. He needed a distraction – something to replace his thoughts of dark hallways, dank cells, and feeding hands – but it was too late to find a sparring partner, too dark to go for a run along the pier, and the firing range was long closed for the night.
Eventually, if reluctantly, he resigned himself to yet another night of fitful sleep and bad dreams; but in the instant he closed his eyes, the chime at his door sounded. The sound was so bright, so cheerful, so completely incongruous with the rest of his nighttime surroundings, the effect on his nervous system was akin to flicking all of the lights in the room on at once. Wary as to the identity of this late-night intruder, he grabbed his blaster from the nightstand before cautiously making his way to the door. He ran his hand over the sensor and the door slid open, but upon seeing who was on the other side, he immediately dropped the weapon to his side.
"Hey," he said, eyes squinted in confusion.
"Hi." She crossed her arms across herself, her gaze shifting first from his now lowered firearm, to his bare chest, and finally up to his eyes.
"What are you…" he shook his head, "what are you doing here? Why are you up so late?"
She looked to the side and brushed a few strands of red hair out of her face. "I…I can't sleep," she whispered. "I keep thinking about Janus and about Eva, and being aboard that Cruiser, and that damn video footage McKay showed me and I…it's like I can't get my brain to shut off."
"Uh huh." He knew the feeling. But it didn't explain why she was at his door.
"And it seems like no matter what I do, I just…I don't feel safe."
"Rogers, this is Atlantis. This is the safest place in the galaxy."
"I've tried everything, Ronon," she carried on as though he hadn't said anything. "I went for a run earlier to – to calm me down. I took a hot shower, I tried reading, I had a glass of wine…" She glanced to the side. "Okay, two glasses… I did some yoga…"
In other words, she had spent her evening naked, tipsy, and stretching. And now she was here. Great.
"I've tried everything I can think of and I just can't fall asleep."
"You go to the infirmary?" he asked. "They've got all kinds of stuff that'll knock you out."
"You know as well as I do that if I ask for any sort of sleeping pills, they'll pull me from active duty and require a psych eval. And I can't stop working…not with everything that's been going on."
He paused. "All right," he put his hands on his hips and shifted his weight from one leg to the other, "you can't sleep and you can't go to the infirmary. But why are you here?"
Her eyes flashed to his with an intensity that sent an electric jolt through his chest, but after a second, she diverted her gaze and ran a shaky hand through her hair. "Don't…don't make me say it, Ronon. You know why I'm here."
If he were being honest, he didn't exactly know why she was there…though he had a guess. However, her baggy gray sweatpants and oversized, faded maroon sweatshirt weren't quite the appropriate attire for what he had in mind.
She slowly lifted her spectacled eyes, heavy with fatigue and ringed in dark shadows, up to his. Her expression was pleading, almost desperate, and he felt his dam of reservations starting crack.
He had asked for a distraction, hadn't he? This certainly qualified.
"When was the last time you slept?"
"Does falling asleep at my desk count?" she asked with a feeble laugh.
He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at her. "You know it doesn't."
"Then, I guess," her eyes misted over with exhaustion, "it must have been that second night back on M5R-233."
Almost four days ago. The woman hadn't slept in nearly four days.
With a small nod, he stepped aside so she could enter his quarters. Whatever she needed, he was going to give it to her.
It took her a moment before she accepted his invitation, and once she crossed the threshold, she planted herself an awkward couple feet from the door. From that vantage point, she looked hesitantly about the room, fidgeting with the sleeves of her sweatshirt. Ronon ran his hand over the door sensor and it shut with a definitive hiss, enclosing the two of them together in palpable silence. What little light that had filtered into the room from the hallway was snuffed out, but even in the dim glow of the candle, he could clearly track her eyes as they darted from the door panel, to the fur pelts on the bed, to the open window, to the artwork on his walls, and back to the bed.
"Rogers," he started, suddenly very aware of his own heartbeat, "I still don't really get why you're here. Are you here to…?" He cleared his throat. "I mean, did you come here because you wanted to have –"
Her eyes widened and locked onto his. "No," she said with haste, vigorously shaking her head. "No. Oh God, that is what this looks like, isn't it?" She brought a hand to her mouth.
Ronon tilted his head to the side and shrugged.
"No," she shook her head once more.
"Then what's going on?"
Her hand fell to her side, but she hesitated. "I think I'm having trouble sleeping… because," she took a long, deep breath, "because I'm alone. And I just…I need to know someone else is sleeping near me."
Ronon raised both of his eyebrows at her.
"And well, because we shared that sleeping bag a few nights ago, you were the first, really the only person I thought of." Her chin trembled and he could see the force of sheer exhaustion tearing down her walls.
"The first?" As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted his tone – dubious, accusatory, maybe even envious of a certain Corporal who acted like the woman in front of him was his.
"Okay, maybe not the first," she admitted.
He knew it. Clenching his teeth, he fixed his gaze on a spot on the wall behind her.
"I went to my friend's before this to see if I could sleep on her couch."
Her couch? The muscles in his jaw and back relaxed, almost of their own accord, as he returned his eyes to hers.
"Lacey Peters, the botanist, but she uh…she had company over and before I really realized where I was going, I was here." She glanced at the floor and swallowed hard. "Ronon, you're the only person on base that I've slept with…platonically or otherwise. And Lord knows why, but I trust you."
"You trust me?" he countered, still unable to control his tone but regretting it all the same. "I saw the way you looked at me when I woke you up during the Wraith assault."
She pursed her lips together and stared at him.
"I've never seen anyone look relieved to hear the Wraith were attacking."
"Well you try waking up in the middle of a dark forest, disoriented, with a large man pressed on top of you with his hand covering your mouth and see what kind of conclusions you jump to!" she hissed. "If you had just called my name or shaken me awake, I wouldn't have screamed; I wouldn't have revealed our position." Her voice thickened. "Not if I had known it was you." She pulled the collar of her sweatshirt up to her eye and angled her face away from him, thereby revealing a dark, thumb-sized bruise on the side of her jaw.
And all of a sudden it was like he had been punched in the gut. Consumed by the heat of the moment and the impending Wraith attack, he had been rough with her – too rough – and yet, for whatever reason, she had come to him tonight anyway. Now, fueled by a wounded sense of honor and, if he were being perfectly honest, not an insignificant amount of sexual frustration, he was lashing out at her. She didn't deserve that.
He finally nodded to her, then headed toward the center of the room to look for a shirt to put on. As he slipped the collar over his head, he glanced back at her to see that she was still standing near the door. "Most people sleep on beds," he said, rolling the hem of the fabric down over his chest and stomach, before lowering himself onto the edge of the mattress.
"Your bed is bigger than mine," she finally said, her voice hardly above a whisper.
"Yeah." He stretched his legs out to their full length and crossed one ankle over the other. "Well. I'm a bit bigger than you."
She bit the inside of her cheek and nodded. "What, um…what side do you normally sleep on?"
"The middle."
"I see," she breathed. "Look, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come." She turned to leave. "It's not fair to ask you to do this for me."
"I'll sleep closer to the door," he offered, interrupting her before she could swipe her hand over the sensor. "You take the side by the window."
Her hand hovered in midair as she debated her options, but when she turned and saw that he had gotten to his feet – something he hadn't even realized he had done – she gave him a small nod and tentatively approached the bed. Without another word, they found their spots on opposite sides of the mattress and Ronon leaned toward the nightstand to pinch out the candle. She slipped under the bedclothes and he watched curiously from over his shoulder as she pushed all of her hair to one side of her neck and began deftly twisting it into a long braid. Within seconds she was done.
Before she lay down, she tugged her sweatshirt over her head, tucked her glasses into the front pocket, and set it in a folded pile at the foot of the bed where there was still a little bit of room; her feet didn't reach the edge like his did. Then, just like she had done on the dirt ground of M5R-233, she lay on her side facing the window and with her back toward him. Ronon, however, hesitated in joining her. Having a beautiful woman in his bed, so close, he could already feel his body reacting to her presence; but this time, they didn't have layers of sleeping bag between them. And although his bed was larger than the average Atlantis cot, it wasn't exactly roomy.
With some strategic rearrangement of the fur pelts, he got into a comfortable enough position on his back and flexed his thighs as hard as he could in an attempt to redirect the flow of blood in his lower extremities. The traitorous bed creaked under his shifting weight and, with a surreptitious glance toward his new companion, he hoped the dull roar of the ocean outside was strong enough to cover the sound.
After a few moments, he broke the silence. "I should apologize."
Rogers rolled onto her back and looked into his face. "For what?"
"For giving you this." He reached out and lightly brushed the bruise on her jaw with the knuckle of his index finger, before bringing his hand to rest under his head. "For scaring you then…and for giving you a hard time about it just now."
"It's okay," she said with a forgiving shake of the head and a shrug. "We were in a stressful situation and…you didn't want anyone to get hurt." The small smile on her face blossomed to a full-blown grin.
"What?" Ronon asked as a smile tugged at the corners of his own mouth.
"I'm sorry I bit you," she said, trying to stifle a giggle.
He let out a quiet laugh and shook his head. "Don't worry about it. I deserved it."
After a few adjustments to the pillows and covers, they shared in a whispered goodnight, and settled into their respective sides of the bed. For a long time, they lay as they were, untouching, on their backs and side to side like soldiers in formation. Ronon once again stared at the moonlit ceiling and found himself listening to Emma's breathing, slow and steady like the night waves outside his open window, a sure sign that she had finally, thankfully surrendered to fatigue. The minutes passed, and as the temperature in the room dropped, human instinct overcame social boundary. Emma turned onto her side and, likely seeking the closest source of warmth, rested her head on his chest. Careful not to wake her, he shifted his arm from under his head, wrapped it around her back, and drew her closer; and for the second night in the short span of a week, he allowed himself to enjoy holding a woman against him. The scents of smoke, wax, and sea salt, now joined with lavender, mingled together into an aroma that smelled seductively of sleep. He breathed it in deeply, closed his eyes and as peaceful slumber began to steal him away, he heard her speak.
"Just for tonight," she whispered, her breath dancing across his chest. "I promise."