A/N: What's this? I go for over a whole month without updating and now I'm posting twice within 48 hours? It's a September miracle! And also...I have no control over my life.

Enjoy! Thanks for reading and reviewing!

What a colossal waste of time that had been. And to think, when she saw the red amulet sitting there in a beat-up Bankers Box atop McKay's lab counter, she believed they had taken a crucial step toward a solution. The center stone was definitely a ruby, probably the largest she had ever laid eyes on; they had even taken it to one of the geologists to confirm its high chromium content. McKay himself had been excited – excited enough to join her as they presented their findings to Woolsey.

They had the right location. They had the key. They had a plan. And once again, they had been rejected. It was both exhilarating and infuriating how close they were; and the fact that Richard Woolsey and his overly cautious policies were the only real obstacle standing in their way, made their predicament all the more maddening.

The doors of the East Wing's transporter opened automatically as she approached, and the map display came to life as she entered. After punching the icon representing the South Pier, she leaned against one of the interior walls, closed her eyes, and released a groan of frustration. Half a day – wasted.

When she realized the transporter's doors hadn't yet closed, she gave them a curious peek and straightened immediately at the sight of the man in front of her. His hair was tied back, probably to keep it out of his eyes while he sparred, if the beads of sweat along his temples and the blood dripping from his eyebrow were any testament to his prior activities. She preferred his hair like that, she realized; she could see more of his face, the cut of his jaw, the muscles in his neck. He looked less wild with his hair pulled back and more like the military officer she knew he had once been. She pushed the thought away. Since when was she entitled to a preference about his appearance?

He stood, almost in suspended animation, holding the doors open while he stared at her. The look of surprise on his face to see her there was quickly, though not seamlessly, replaced by his usual cool and intense gaze.

"Sorry," he muttered. "Didn't realize there was anyone in here."

She shook her head, waving off the apology. "No worries. We can share."

He hesitated only for the briefest of seconds before joining her. The already cramped space was instantly eclipsed by his presence. She stepped back and pressed herself into the corner to make room for him, but no matter how she maneuvered, it was clear that this space wasn't intended for people his size – much less a person his size and her.

She cleared her throat. "Where you headed?"

"Infirmary," he said. "You?"

"South Pier."

"Headed to your lab?"

"My quarters," she corrected as she touched the infirmary on the map. The display flickered and she furrowed her brow at the anomaly, but the doors soon closed as if nothing had happened. The interior of the transporter was quiet for a moment until Emma decided to speak up.

"What happened to you?" she asked, gesturing to the cut on his eyebrow.

"Eva."

"Ah," she breathed. "Enough said."

"What about you?" He glanced her way for a fraction of a second.

Self-consciously, she smoothed her hair. "What happened to me?" She still felt exhausted, but she hoped she didn't look it, too.

"No, I meant what are you doing on this side of the city?"

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Oh…I was with McKay."

He turned to her, brows raised. "Like on a date?"

The preposterousness of his question made her stiffen and meet his gaze head-on. "No! Definitely not."

The wrinkles around his eyes deepened and she realized he was cracking a smile. "It was a joke. McKay's not really your type, anyway, is he?"

Ever so badly, she wanted to ask him what he thought her type was, but she found something else to say instead. "McKay isn't anybody's type."

"You'd be surprised."

As he reached a long arm past her to touch the infirmary icon on the screen, she caught a strong whiff of fresh sweat and pine as he moved. Objectively, it might have been unpleasant but the way she found herself wanting to breathe him in left her feeling foolish…no more evolved than a young doe in the presence of a rutting stag. Through the fog, she could almost feel her neurons struggling to fire as they tried to remind her that she had already touched the infirmary on the map.

"Huh," he murmured.

"What is it?"

"We're in a transporter."

"Well ain't you bright as a new penny?" she said, her voice low and Southern twang intensified.

He waited patiently for her to finish mocking him before he explained himself. "If we're in a transporter, we should already be transported."

No sooner had the words left his mouth when the whole city emitted a descending, mechanic groan and the lights in the transporter went out. She couldn't quite stifle the little yelp that left her lips as they were shrouded in complete darkness. What not a second ago had essentially been a tiny, glorified elevator now felt like a chasm, pitch black and limitless. In a movement controlled by something much more powerful than her conscious thoughts, she felt her fingers reaching blindly through the dark until they closed around Ronon's wrist.

There was a quiet whine as he drew his gun from his waistband and spun it once in his hand. Brought to life through kinetic energy, the barrel emitted the faintest, softest orange-red glow which lent a touch of light to the transporter.

Seeing how foolish she looked, holding onto his hand like a scared child, she released his wrist and busied herself with turning on her tablet. She, too, had an artificial source of light within her grasp.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," she whispered as the bright blue light of the tablet illuminated her face. "Just got spooked for a second."

"Power must've gone out." She didn't think it was possible, didn't think there was room, but he took a step closer to her, touched the dimmed map, then knocked on the screen of her tablet with his knuckle. "Think you can tap into it and see what's going on?"

Was it possible to smell adrenaline? Whatever it was, she swore it was coming off of Ronon in waves. The air between them took on a different quality and in such a confined space, soon became heady. Her heart was racing, her breath was short, and her knees were turning to jelly.

"Rogers? Can you do it?"

She snapped back to reality. "Wrong kind of scientist, I'm afraid."

"Too bad you didn't bring McKay with you…" He inspected the doors and inched his fingers into the crack between them.

"Are you saying you'd rather be stuck in here with McKay than with me?"

"If McKay were here, we wouldn't be stuck."

"Oh, thanks a lot."

He looked back at her and raised his bloody eyebrow. "But seeing as we are stuck…I'm damn glad it's you in here and not McKay." Digging his fingernails deeper into the space between the doors, he started to pry them apart.

"Stop! Don't do that!"

"Rogers, we're trapped."

"But what if we're, like, mid transport?"

"I…don't think that's how it works."

"You don't know where we might be when you open those doors."

"We probably never left the East Pier. I didn't feel anything, did you?"

To say she had felt nothing would have been a lie, but she was also pretty sure that wasn't exactly what he was asking. "No, but…"

"Attention Atlantis personnel." The announcement was distant, muffled by the transporter's walls, but she could still hear every word. "We are experiencing a temporary power outage. We have identified the source of the problem and expect power to be restored momentarily. We appreciate your patience as we deal with this issue."

"See?" she said. "Let's just wait a few minutes for them to get the power up and running before we break the transporter."

He moved away from the door and leaned against the wall behind him, spinning his gun back and forth in his hand, flicking the switch between stun and kill, stun and kill.

"Ronon?" she began.

He glanced over to her.

"You're not a fan of small spaces are you?"

"I don't like feeling helpless."

She nodded slightly and took a tiny step toward him. "So what did Eva do to you?" After his generosity and kindness toward her the night before, the least she could do was distract him until the power was restored.

"We were sparring, practicing knife skills. She got me."

"She won?" The surprise in her voice was obvious.

Ronon looked up to her and gave her his usual, frustratingly enticing smirk. "I said she got me. Didn't say she won."

"Oh, come on. You couldn't throw her a bone? Let her win a few rounds?"

He shook his head. "We had a bet."

"A bet?" She was intrigued. "What kind of bet?"

He finally stopped fiddling with his gun. "I caught her trying to sneak into McKay's lab earlier today. Wouldn't tell me why. Told her if I won, she'd have to tell me what she was doing."

"And did she?"

He shook his head. "She got pissed and stormed off."

"Sounds like her."

His head hung low and it looked like he was debating whether to say more. "I uh…I told her she wasn't my kid." He peered over at her to gauge her reaction.

"Ronon…" As soon as she said his name, she regretted how reproachful she sounded.

"What? She can yell at me and shout about how I'm not her father, but I'm not allowed to agree with her?" He returned his gaze to the floor.

"She's a kid," Emma said. "She's allowed to say stupid stuff she doesn't mean."

"But she's not a kid. Not by Satedan standards. Where I come from, you're an adult at sixteen."

"Then why don't you treat her like one?"

He let out a deep sigh as his head fell back against the wall with a dull thud.

"Besides," she started, unsure if she should step into this territory, "she's not one hundred percent Satedan."

He didn't look at her, but he did open his eyes. "You're right. She's not."

"And…for her to say you're not her father, well, it hurts you less. You don't have memories of her. You don't remember seeing her for the first time, or holding her hand when she was scared, or tucking her in at night because none of that has happened." Yet. She forced the word back down her throat before it even had a chance to escape.

This time, he did look at her and he looked deep. She was grateful for the dim atmosphere, otherwise she would have felt unbearably vulnerable under his gaze.

"Eva does, though," she continued, pressing through her discomfort. "She has sixteen years of memories of you. Or…of a version of you. Sixteen years of memories of being your daughter and so for you to say that to her…"

"Fuck." He brought his hand to his forehead and pressed on his temples. "This is why I don't talk."

Maybe she shouldn't have said anything. She had successfully distracted him from their current predicament, but had probably ended up making him feel even worse than he already did.

"I'm sure she'll get over it," she said, hoping that it would bring him some comfort, but he gave her nothing more than a defeated shrug in the form of a reply.

They needed a change of subject.

"I wonder if Eva was trying to sneak into McKay's lab because she somehow found out about the amulet."

Ronon gave her an interested look. "Amulet? What amulet?"

There was a rising whir, the lights flickered a few times, and it was as though the floor dropped out from under her. With the room spinning around her, she lost her balance and, just as she reached for the wall to break her fall, a pair of reassuring hands gripped her forearms.

"Whoa," he said, steadying her.

Blinking hard, she tried to regain her composure and looked curiously down at his hands.

His eyes followed. "Sorry about the grabbing." With the apology, she expected him to take his hands off her, but he kept them tight on her arms.

"It's okay." She took a deep, replenishing breath. "I'm okay. Just a bout of vertigo. The lights and everything…I just got disoriented." As soon as she said it, her stomach released the most embarrassingly loud growl. And as close as they were, there was no way he hadn't heard it.

The doors slid open and Ronon frowned before glancing over her shoulder at the transporter map.

She directed her gaze out into the hallway and squinted with confusion. "Wait a minute. This is the –"

"West Pier."

She looked back at him, only to see that he was already staring down at her.

"When was the last time you ate?"

"Um…" she began, hoping that if she concentrated hard enough, the red on her cheeks would disappear.

"If you can't remember, then you need to eat." He gestured for her to exit the transporter before him. "Mess hall's open for another half hour."

She stepped out of the transporter and looked over her shoulder to see that he was close behind. "Oh. You don't have to come with me," she insisted. "You should make sure you go to the infirmary, get that cut checked out."

The corner of his mouth turned upward. "I'll be okay. I don't think I'll pass out from the blood loss. You on the other hand…"

"No, really. Don't worry about it. I'm fine. I –"

"I like to eat," he interrupted, effectively putting an end to her protests. "Plus, I wanna hear more about this amulet."

And so somehow, in spite of trying to avoid him all day, she found herself accompanied to dinner. Perhaps the day wouldn't be a total waste.

A/N: Let me know what you think! Any ideas on why the power went out?