A/N: Whew! It's been a little while. I initially wrote this chapter and it was really short and I just didn't care for it. So I switched the POV a bit, added a flashback, moved some stuff from a later chapter and now I'm pretty satisfied with how it turned out. Hope you all like it!

Thank you to everyone, old and new, who is reading, reviewing, favorite-ing, and following! Let me know what you think. :)

"We couldn't stay at a tavern?" McKay complained.

"You see any taverns around here, Rodney?" Sheppard retorted. "According to the aerial MALP, we won't reach the main settlement for another five hours or so. We'll have to make camp here tonight." He lowered his voice. "And I think someone might need to rest for the day."

"Do not patronize me, Sheppard," McKay snippily said. "I am perfectly capable of walking through the rest of the n—"

"He's talking about me," Emma called to McKay as, with a grimace, she gingerly leaned her weight against a boulder.

"Oh," McKay said, looking rather sheepish. "Really?"

"Sure," Sheppard nodded with a smug grin, thumping him on the back.

Eva watched as Teyla opened up the first aid kit and rifled through it until she found an instant ice pack. She crushed it in her hand and gave it to Emma who smiled, thanked her, and pressed it to her thigh.

"Ronon and Eva, we gotta get a fire going before it gets too dark," Sheppard continued. "Feels like it might be a cold night. I'll go get water from the stream; you two find us some kindling."

Ronon nodded and before Eva had time to protest, she was already following him into the thick of the woods. She glanced over her shoulder one more time, caught a glimpse of Emma nursing her leg, and tried not to think about how lucky she was that bull hadn't gored her to death. It always seemed like the presumably safe missions turned out to be the most perilous. At least, that's the way it was the first time Eva realized just how dangerous her parents' jobs were. She was only five or six years old when it happened...

Her parents had left together early that morning, something they rarely did. They usually made sure one of them could stay home with her, but this time was different. They both kissed her goodbye, told her they would be back later that night, and placed her in the care of the Peters-Lorne family.

Dr. Peters put Eva and her daughter Olivia to work pulling weeds and tending to the plants in the botany lab for the day. After several slow hours in the greenhouse, with dirt caked under their fingernails and smelling a bit like fertilizer, they headed back to the Lornes' quarters and the botanist told them to wash up for dinner. They ate quickly and soon after, Dr. Peters put on a children's movie from Earth for the girls to watch before bedtime so that she could feed Charlotte, the baby, in peace. Eva and Olivia lay on the couch, snuggled under the same blanket, both nodding off as the animations flashed across the television screen. Just as Eva nestled into the pillow and succumbed to her drowsiness, she was startled awake by Major Lorne hurrying through the front door.

"Lacey, where's –" He first laid eyes on his wife and Charlotte, but immediately silenced himself as his gaze traveled to the two sleeping girls on the sofa.

Eva shut her eyes tight, pretending to be fast asleep, as he looked over to her. Peeking through squinted eyelids, she saw him lean over to his wife and whisper something in her ear. Dr. Peters's eyes widened with concern as she stared back at him. Then, once again, both sets of their eyes zeroed in on Eva.

"He wants to take her now?" she whispered back.

Lorne shrugged. "Apparently so."

"But that will traumatize the poor girl," she hissed.

"He said he wants to tell her before she hears any rumors."

Dr. Peters shook her head. "Okay," she sighed. "You finish feeding the baby and I'll get the girls ready for bed. You can take her after that."

He nodded, took the spoon and jar of baby food from his wife and sat across from his youngest daughter.

Dr. Peters walked quietly over to the couch, turned off the television and crouched down to Eva and Olivia's level. "Girls," she whispered.

Eva squinted her eyes and released what she hoped was a convincing yawn.

"Girls, I think it's time for bed." She reached a hand out to each of them and hauled them up. "Up you get." She led them down a short hallway and into Olivia's bedroom, which shared a wall with the bathroom. "I want teeth brushed and pajamas on in ten minutes," she said.

Eva did as she was told and was about to climb into Olivia's bed when Major Lorne came to the door. "Eva, do you know where your shoes are?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Find them and put them on. Your dad wants to see you."

"They're back?" she asked brightly.

He paused before finally nodding. "Yeah. They're back."

Eva practically sprinted to the living room, where she had left her shoes, and shoved them onto her feet. Properly shod, she stood like a soldier at attention in front of Lorne, waiting expectantly. He narrowed his eyes at her and then asked, "Do you have a coat? You might get cold in just your PJs."

She shook her head. Her dad had been in charge of packing her day bag and he was a bare necessities kind of guy.

Dr. Peters materialized from the hallway, Charlotte in her arms. "Have her wear one of Liv's," she suggested.

Lorne reached into the coat closet and pulled out a small purple cotton zip-up sweater and handed it to Eva. She frowned at the color of it, but slipped it on anyway. The major knelt in front of her, zipped it to her chin, then stood once more. He extended his hand to her and she took it in her own before they stepped through the door and traveled down a series of hallways, all in complete silence. Major Lorne's pace was urgent, and though Eva was much shorter than him and therefore took smaller strides, she was so accustomed to keeping up with her father's long gait that she had no difficulty maintaining his speed.

The two finally entered a transporter together and when Eva glanced upward, she saw Lorne had pushed the infirmary on the map. Goosebumps erupted along her arms and she drew the purple sweatshirt closer. Nothing good ever happened in the infirmary. When the transporter doors opened, the distant sounds of men shouting met their ears.

"Ronon, there was nothing you could have done!"

"I should have stopped it! I should have gone to her! I should have been there to protect her!"

The voices were familiar to her; the first belonged to Colonel Sheppard, and the second, obviously to her father.

"You would have put your own life in danger if you –"

"That doesn't matter! I'm her husband, John. I vowed that I would protect her life with my own should I need to and I failed!"

Eva and Lorne walked through the entrance of the infirmary, the voices getting louder as they made their way past empty beds, storage shelves, and dark computers, closer to the source.

"She was a part of our team today. We all had a responsibility to watch out for each other and it wasn't possible. We might all be at fault, but there were just too many of them, Ronon."

Eva and Lorne had stopped behind her father and Sheppard, who were standing around an occupied infirmary bed, blocking Eva's view of its inhabitant.

"No! This –" her father pointed to the bed, "this is my fault!"

Lorne cleared his throat and the two men turned around. Eva watched as their eyes simultaneously focused on Lorne's before dropping straight down to her.

"Eva," her father breathed. He pushed past Sheppard, bent down and scooped her into his arms. "Come here, pup." He hugged her so tightly, she felt like her bones might crush.

"You're squishing me," she managed to say, her voice muffled in his shoulder.

He released her a bit and looked down into her face, then closed his eyes, and brought his forehead, damp with sweat, to hers. She peeped her eyes open and, from her elevated vantage point, could see who was in the bed below them: her mother.

"Daddy," she whispered, "what's going on?"

He lifted his head and opened his eyes, but initially looked over Eva's shoulder rather than at her. "Thanks," he said.

"The rest of Eva's things are still with us," she heard Major Lorne reply. "We'll be thinking about you guys tonight."

Her father nodded and the sound of military boots faded into the distance. He shifted Eva against his hip and held her weight with one arm while, with his other hand, he unfastened his weapons holster. Once unbuckled, he placed it at the foot of the bed, and repositioned her once again in his grasp.

"Daddy," she persisted, "is mommy sleeping?"

"She's unconscious," he replied. "You know what that means?"

She pressed her cheek against his shoulder and shook her head. "No."

"She's knocked out. It's kind of like she's sleeping, except we can't wake her up. She'll only wake up when she's ready."

Eva thought back to the movie she and Olivia had just watched. She perked up and looked into her father's face. "You have to kiss her!"

"What?" he frowned.

"Like in Sleeping Beauty. I watched it today. You love Mom, right?"

He nodded, still confused as to where all of this was going.

"So if you kiss her, she'll wake up!"

He brought his hand to her cheek and shook his head morosely. "I already tried that, pup. Didn't work."

She slumped back down in his arms. "Why not?"

"She hit her head," he answered. "She hit her head really bad."

The pit of her stomach turned cold. "Is she gonna be okay?" she asked, afraid of the answer.

He collapsed into a plastic and metal chair, Eva on his lap, and it was a long time before he answered. "I don't know," he eventually whispered. "We'll have to wait till tomorrow to find out."

Eva looked over to the gurney, to all the tubes and wires attached to her mother's unconscious form, to the dark bruises forming around her neck. "What's that beeping?" she finally asked.

"That's her heart," her father explained. "If we can hear that beeping, she's still alive."

Eva brought her ear to her father's chest and listened for his pulse, comparing the beat of his heart to that of the mechanical beeps filling the room.

He peered curiously down at her.

"Hers is slow," she whispered.

He swallowed and nodded. "It's very slow," he agreed, his voice cracking.

Surprised, Eva looked up at him to see tears collecting in the corners of his eyes as he stared at her mother. She had never seen him cry before.

He blinked, and a tear fell down his cheek before disappearing into his beard. He sniffed and wiped the trail of water away with the side of his hand. He cleared his throat and his voice was steadier when he next spoke. "Your mother is very strong," he told her.

"Like you?" she asked.

He smiled, but the expression didn't quite reach his eyes. "Stronger."

She rested her head against him and watched as her mother's chest rose and fell with every shallow breath she took. A thought occurred to her. "Do I have to sleep at Olivia's tonight?" she asked.

"No, pup," he replied. "If your mom's sleeping here tonight, then so are we."

She nodded, grateful to be able to stay by her mother's side, and closed her eyes. With the sound of her father's steady heartbeat pounding in one ear, and the faint beeping of her mother's in the other, she eventually fell asleep. And though her father had said he would too, she wasn't convinced that he got a single minute of rest that entire night.

"Not that one – it's too thick."

His voice had wrenched her from her thoughts. Eva shook her head and blinked the tears from her eyes. "I think I know what kinds of branches to use in a fire," she spat before adding the log to the top of the stack of wood in her arms.

"It'll smoke too much," he warned. "Rogers -"

"Rogers what? Afraid the smoke will trigger her asthma?" she jeered.

"Asthma? Is that what it's called?"

"Look, don't pretend to care about her because it's obvious you don't."

"What are you talking ab -"

"You should have shot that bull sooner!" she shouted.

"What?" He looked completely taken aback.

"The bull that was charging at M—" she paused to correct herself, "at Emma. You should have shot it before it even had a chance to get near her." She bent down and picked up another branch.

"It looked like she had it under control," he shrugged.

"The thing nearly gored her to death. She obviously didn't have it under control."

"It was backing down," he argued. "Whatever she was doing was working."

Eva shook her head. "You waited too long," she whispered. "You put her at risk."

Ronon took a deep breath to calm his growing temper. "She told me not to."

"And what? You had no choice?" she taunted. "Do you just do whatever people tell you to do, even if it means leaving them in harm's way?"

Ronon scoffed, turned his back to her, and continued gathering firewood.

She refused to let him ignore her, so she said what she knew would hurt him most. "You should have protected her," she murmured, just loud enough for him to hear.

He spun back around. "Why me?" he snapped. "Why not Sheppard? Why not Teyla or—or even McKay? I was the only one who went to help her so why are you blaming me?"

"You know why!" she shouted.

"Look, kid. Let's get this straight. There is nothing between me and Rogers. I hardly even know her. It's not my job to look out for her."

"You know it is! You should have protected her but you failed!"

He threw a log at a nearby tree and dropped the rest of his pile. "I did!" he snarled, advancing upon her. "I shot the beast! I ran to her, alone, and got her out of there! Safe."

The muscles in her neck tensed and she looked away from him, shaking her head. "She could have died," she whispered.

"I did what I could," he growled.

"Whatever," she whispered with an eyeroll. She strode several yards into the depths of the forest and out of sight.

"Don't go far!" Ronon ordered, but this time it was her turn to ignore him.

That little girl had a way of getting under his skin. He tried to focus on gathering the kindling, to not perseverate on what she had said, but he couldn't help but think…had he done everything in his power to save Rogers? Apart from a bruise, she had come out of the encounter mostly unscathed. Eva was overreacting, wasn't she? But what if he had missed his shot? What if the herd had charged? What if they had lost her?

Ronon turned his gaze skyward and closed his eyes, trying to see things from Eva's perspective. Rogers, though technically not yet, was still her mother. The woman as Eva knew her had literally given her life; she had nurtured her since before her birth, had no doubt nursed her, kissed and bandaged her injuries, tucked her in at night… And she had almost witnessed her death today. He sighed and reminded himself that he was the adult in the situation. He opened his eyes, listened to the woods around him, and, with a chill in his blood, realized Eva was no longer within earshot.

"Eva!" he called.

No response.

"Eva!"

Still nothing.

He dropped his kindling for a second time and pulled his gun from its holster. "Eva, where are you?!" He ran into the trees where he had last seen her. "Eva!"

She appeared from behind a large trunk. "What?"

He let out a sigh of relief and let his blaster fall limp at his side. "I told you not to go too far!"

"Well, you found me, didn't you?" she asked, voice full of sass.

"Come on, we're going back."

Ronon was going to have to make a stern request from Sheppard when they got back to camp; no more commanding-officer-mandated father-daughter bonding time, no matter how amusing the colonel thought it might be.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed! I'm debating whether to post my next chapter as I have it written, or to skip it and post the one that comes after it. It's not critical to the plot, but it's kind of a cute mother-daughter, group singing songs around the campfire, relationship building kind of scene. What do you guys think? Post it...or scrap it and move on?