A/N: I'm so excited to finally be posting again! The well of inspiration was really low for this chapter for so long, but finally I got it done. Fight/sparring scenes are so hard for me to write, so I tend to put them off. But it's done! And you can hopefully expect quicker updates for the next few chapters, as they're almost ready to go.
A quick note about Hanson. Mittengal pointed out that in the marines, Lieutenant is actually a higher rank than Corporal. I totally thought I had researched that, but apparently had not. Whoops! So thank you so much to Mittengal for pointing that out. I appreciate it. That's why, in this chapter, Corporal Hanson is now Captain Hanson. Hopefully I've got it right now. I'm too lazy at this point in time to go back and edit all the Corporals to Captains in past chapters, but I'll get there eventually.
Thank you so much for reading and reviewing. I appreciate all of you. And to all of my new readers, welcome! Enjoy. :)
The clatter of the sparring knife falling to the floor drew Ronon's attention and he turned to see that Eva had shaken her hair out of its ponytail and was messing with it.
"You don't need to look pretty for this," he snidely remarked.
Her hands paused. "It's in my eyes."
She resumed, divided it into three sections and began styling it into a long braid. In a flash of déjà vu, he pictured Rogers, sitting in his bed the night before, doing the very same. They hadn't even gone one round yet, but the resemblance between the two was so striking, he felt like he had already taken a blow to the face.
Eva glanced to the side and noticed Ronon staring at her. "What?"
"You braid your hair like that, you give your opponent something to grab onto. He'll yank it, take you with it, and slit your throat."
She gestured to his own head with her chin. "You're one to talk."
Biting his tongue, he took two of his locks and tied them together to keep the rest out of his face.
"And don't think I don't know that." She held the strands of the plait together in one hand and, with the other, rubbed her fingers together and released one long dark brown hair that floated lazily to the floor. "I'm not done yet." She then twisted the braid up into a knot on the top of her head. "You know, the hairs don't get ripped out as easily if it's braided? Means it hurts less if someone does get a grip on it."
He narrowed his eyes and furrowed his brow. "Who told you that?"
"My mom," she answered plainly, securing the knot with a large elastic.
Ronon's heart stopped. How would Rogers know something like that? Sure, he had caught glimpses of her in the gym before, but she was usually running, maybe doing yoga, or on rare occasions lifting weights. He had never seen her spar with anyone and, as far as he knew, she had never enrolled in a hand-to-hand class; at least, not any that he taught.
"See?" Eva tilted her head toward him. "Now you can't grab it anymore."
Ronon shook himself from picturing that bruise on Rogers's wrist a few days ago and forced his attention back to Eva.
"All right," he said. "Beauty parlor's closed. Pick up your knife."
"Beauty parlor?" she giggled. "Who still calls it a beauty parlor?"
"What're you supposed to call 'em? That's what they were called on – never mind." He chose to let the issue drop. "Pick up your knife. Edge of the mat. The objective is to disarm."
She did as she was bade (albeit a bit more leisurely than he would have liked), shaking her head and muttering the words "beauty parlor" under her breath as she walked to the opposite side of the mat. When she turned around, he could see that she still bore the same amused expression that his apparently archaic turn of phrase had elicited, but in the moment she looked up into his face and took her fighting stance, it all evaporated.
The instantaneous change in demeanor sent an uncomfortable chill up his spine. There was something unnatural about how fast it happened, something ruthless in her ability to smother her previous emotions. He had always been able to sense a killer when he saw one; years of looking into his own reflection had taught him to hone the skill. Now, like a looking glass, those same eyes – dark and cold – were staring back at him.
Eva bent her knees and settled into a defensive position. It was clever, he thought. Against an opponent so significantly larger and stronger than her, defense was the only intelligent stance. She knew what she was doing. Giving her no chance to anticipate his first move, he lunged across the mat and struck immediately for her chest. Expertly she dodged, feinted right, swung back to the left and scratched the side of his arm. Had they been using real knives, she would have drawn first blood.
They locked eyes and circled one another slowly about the mat. Each step, each adjustment she made closely mirrored his own, giving him the odd sensation that she could predict his every move. In that moment, he realized his disadvantage: her entire fighting technique was predicated on his own. She knew his style, his weaknesses, his idiosyncrasies; she knew them because not only were they his, they were hers too. Differences in size aside, the only discrepancy between their training was that Eva had the added benefit of twenty years wisdom and practice to perfect her technique.
And so, he faced a dilemma. Should he completely change his fighting style in an attempt to throw her off? Or should he double down on the familiar, turn the tables, and rely on the hope that he could draw out her weaknesses before she had a chance to exploit his own?
Eva was inching forward, testing his boundaries, when his instincts kicked in. He charged at her, knife drawn, and attacked. But he missed. In one rapid and artful spin, she was already behind him, aiming a blow at his shoulder that he parried from underneath his left arm just in time. A millisecond later, she would have had him.
Clearly, she understood how her size could be an advantage. She had so little mass that any move she executed was tighter, cleaner, and more precise than if he were to do the same. He sensed that she relied on these dance-like acrobatics to disorient larger opponents like himself and had figured out how to turn their greatest ally – momentum – against them.
If he couldn't rely on his strength or momentum to best her, at least he could rely on his height. Though she knew how to make the best of her small stature, that didn't change the fact that he was taller than her, had longer legs than her, and most importantly, had a longer reach than her. Still twisted backward, blocking her knife with his own, he extended his free arm, grasped her by the neck, swept his foot behind her legs and sent her to the floor. The knife fell from her hand upon impact and Ronon snatched it.
Hand to her throat and wide-eyed, she stared up at him. Maybe her father didn't know that move…or maybe he had never used it on her. After waiting for her to regain the breath that had been knocked out of her, he offered her the knife but, right as she lifted a reluctant hand to take it, drew it back.
She gave him a confused look.
"Why were you in McKay's lab?"
Eva propped herself on her elbows and glared up at him, refusing to answer.
He sighed. "We had a deal, Eva."
"Two out of three." Her voice sounded strained.
"Fine."
She took his hand in hers and he was helping her to her feet when a warrior-like yell from several yards away attracted their attention. Captain Hanson was spiraling midair as Lieutenant Williams slammed him to the mat with a floor-shaking thud next to Santiago who already lay there clutching his stomach. For a completely silent moment, the lieutenant stood in place, staring down at his commanding officer, stunned. Ronon felt some of his animosity toward the young lieutenant dissipate – anyone who caused Hanson any form of pain was deserving of some respect in his eyes. Williams's gaze flitted over to Eva and, just as a tiny smile formed on his lips, Hanson rose to his feet and hooked him square in the gut.
Eva let out a strangled exclamation by Ronon's side and in a wave of intuition, he flung his arm out in front of her to stop her from rushing over to the other mat.
Williams dropped to his knees, croaking as he gasped for air, as Hanson stormed out of the gym.
"What the hell was that?" Eva asked, looking up into his face. "That wasn't fair. They had finished the round. He did what he was supposed to do and – "
Ronon shook his head. "It's not your concern." He handed the sparring knife back to her. "Go back to the other side of the mat."
It took her a minute to take her eyes off Williams, but she eventually made her way to the opposite side of the pad.
This time he waited for her. He wanted to see what she would do if she had to be on the offensive. When she eventually advanced, he could tell that making the first move was not within her comfort zone. And who could blame her? She had been a runner; defense was all that had been asked of her. She lunged and he dodged and then, patiently, he waited. A few seconds passed before she came at him again, but he evaded her once more and could tell that she was becoming frustrated with this new dynamic. After another moment of hesitation, she charged one last time, but he caught her wrist in his hands, twisted her arm behind her back, and readily disarmed her.
"Why were you in McKay's lab?" he asked again as she turned to face him.
"Three out of five." She held out her hand for the knife and he gave it to her.
"Make it five out of eight." He smirked. "I could do this all day."
They lost count of how many rounds they had gone, but they hadn't lost track of who was winning. Ronon had disarmed her every single time. There were a couple of times that she had come close, and she had landed plenty of hits on him – the blood he was blinking from his vision attested to that – but every single time her knife had ended up in his possession.
For what had to be at least the twentieth time, he found himself staring down at her on the gym floor. "You need to maintain eye contact," he chided.
When she looked back up at him, he noticed a glistening sheen of tears pooling against her lower lashes. She was upset. He couldn't blame her. If he had been knocked down as many times as she had, he would have been upset, too.
"I was." Her voice was soft and cracked a bit as she spoke.
He offered to help her up, but she rebuffed him.
"I thought the point of this was to disarm – not to beat the shit out of your daughter." She said it low enough that one could have assumed she had meant to keep the comment to herself, but it was just loud enough for him to hear, and he retracted his proffered hand.
A wave of heat rolled from his back through his neck and into his face. That's not what he was doing. They were sparring. She was just another sparring partner and if she couldn't keep up, then…
"You're not my daughter." The words spilled from his mouth before he had time to think them through. "I thought we were in agreement about that."
The wet glimmer in her eyes intensified, causing them to take on a distinctly familiar green hue. And for the first time since he had met her, she had no response. No clever retort, no surly rebuttal, no derogatory name to call him. Silently, she rose to her feet and he could feel the stale, sweaty air thicken with her anger. Refusing to look at him again, for which he found himself thankful, she left.