A/N: Hi everyone. Hope you're still enjoying this story. Thanks to everyone for reading and commenting/reviewing.

CW for retelling of attempted sexual assault - not too graphic.

Emma smoothed her hand along Eva's long brown hair, trying her best to placate the hysterical girl weeping in her arms.

"It's okay," she whispered. "You're okay. I've got you." She kissed the top of her head. "Let it out."

Unwilling to interrupt, Ronon watched from the edge of the bed as he quietly put his boots back on.

Emma had to be only in her mid-twenties and yet he couldn't help but appreciate how naturally this was all coming to her. He watched her, still in the silk nightdress he had been just seconds away from taking off her. He remembered pushing it up to her hips, kissing the inside of her thighs, and distantly noticing the six-inch long pink scar that stretched across her lower abdomen. In the heat of the moment, he had been far more interested in the parts of her below the scar, but as he observed her so instinctually comfort Eva, he wondered how much there was about the young woman he still didn't know.

"I'm sorry," Eva cried, stifling a hiccup into Emma's neck. "I didn't know where to go and I just…" she inhaled a few too many times, still hyperventilating, "I needed my mom."

"It's okay," Emma repeated in a low and calming tone. "I'm here. What happened, Eva?"

Eva shook her head forcefully against Emma's shoulder.

"You'll feel better once you talk about it." Emma glanced back at Ronon, looking as perplexed as he felt. "What happened?"

"I can't," she said in a voice so soft and muffled, Ronon had to strain to hear it.

"Yes, you can," Emma replied, firm but not unkind. "Take it one sentence at a time. Where were you?"

Eva took a breath so deep, Ronon could see her ribs expand through the back of her shirt.

"I went to the security office," she began, lifting her face from Emma's shoulder. As she did, she laid eyes on Ronon's discarded holster that he had rather unceremoniously dumped onto the floor earlier. She pulled slightly away from Emma's grasp, glanced over her shoulder at the bed, and registered Ronon's presence for the first time. "I'm so sorry." She looked back at Emma, whose somewhat tousled appearance and outfit made it abundantly clear what Eva had interrupted. "I didn't know Da – I didn't know he was here. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come," she stammered, completely breaking away from Emma and backing herself toward the door.

"Eva!" Emma spoke sternly, which made the girl look back up at her. "Why were you in the – " She inhaled a quiet gasp. "Are you bleeding?" She hurriedly pushed the girl's hair aside to get a better look at her neck.

"What?" Eva obstusely whispered as she slowly brought shaking fingers to her throat, only to take them away and find them stained with blood.

Emma turned to him. "There's a first aid kit in the cabinet under the bathroom sink. Go grab it for me, please."

Grateful to be of some help rather than an idle spectator, Ronon jumped off the bed and did as she asked. He found the kit without much difficulty and was grabbing a box of tissues for good measure too, when he heard Emma ask, "You were in the security office? Why?"

Ronon returned to the room to see the two women had migrated to the couch; Eva was perched on the edge with her arms wrapped around her abdomen as Emma sat facing her, one arm around Eva's back and a hand on her knee.

Ronon handed Emma the first aid kit, then wheeled her desk chair across from the couch to sit and listen.

"Thank you." She opened it and located an antiseptic wipe.

"I was trying to find some security camera footage," she said in answer to Emma's question. Reluctantly, she lifted her jaw so Emma could clean the small puncture wound on her neck.

"Why?" Ronon asked.

"To delete it." She winced as the astringent met her open wound. "Janus told me to."

"Janus?" Emma repeated. "Here, hold this right there." She placed Eva's hand over a piece of gauze.

"Why would he want you to do that?"

"He went to see the Wraith in the holding cell and he didn't want there to be a record of it…"

"What?" Ronon caught Emma's eyes with his own as she reached into the kit for some bandages and she responded with a shake of her head and a shrug.

"I had to learn how the cameras work so I could go back later and delete it."

Emma gently placed a couple butterfly sutures on Eva's neck before taking a wipe to her own hands and closing the kit.

"There was…someone in there so I asked him about the cameras…"

Ronon's gut turned over on itself. There weren't many people who manned the security office; head of base security was obviously one of them, though.

"Once I felt like I got the info I needed, I went to leave…but then he started asking questions about you."

"About me?" Ronon repeated, eyebrows raised.

"Both of you. I don't know why I didn't leave. I should have left then. I shouldn't have stayed."

Emma's eyes flicked up to Ronon's and this time, a fully-fledged chill shocked up his spine when he realized she shared his suspicions.

"Eva," she said in a low voice, but the girl continued.

"He closed the door behind me and I knew something was wrong, so I grabbed my knife but he had his gun. I waited too long; I should have attacked." She shook her head and the tears returned to her eyes. "He pinned me up against the door and I couldn't – I couldn't move, I couldn't defend myself. I don't know why I couldn't move. I should have been able to take him. I've trained with men bigger than him; I've taken out Wraith bigger than him. I tried what we taught the other day – I kept playing the defensive maneuver over and over in my head to get him off of me – I know how to do that, I should know how to do that, I should have been able to break free!" She inhaled a sob. "But he's a marine, you know, so he already knew what I was going to try – knew how to stop me."

Ronon registered a change wash over Emma at the word marine.

"Somehow, I got my arm free and I cut him across the face, but he drew his gun at me. I threw the knife and tried the door, but he had locked it and he used my own knife against me," she brought her hand to her injured throat, "and he trapped me again and –" Her voice died away, like someone shutting off the tap to a faucet.

Ronon was seething. "What did he do to you?" he demanded.

Eva's eyes met his with surprise, like she had forgotten he was there. She looked down at a spot on the coffee table. "He put his hand up my shirt and grabbed me."

"He…" Emma swallowed. "He grabbed your breast?" she clarified. She kept her tone level, but Ronon could see how much she struggled to do so.

Eva nodded, holding tighter to herself.

"And then he started to undo the laces on my pants and I was completely silent. I didn't scream, I didn't say 'no,' I didn't say anything. I don't know why I didn't think about screaming. I should have screamed. Someone would have heard me."

She fell quiet for a moment, her eyes still glued to the blemish on the tabletop.

Emma was the one who eventually broke the silence. "Then what happened?" Her voice was low and tactful, but he could see the anger and ferocity in Emma's expression and was impressed by how well she kept the emotion out of her tone.

No one wanted to hear what came next, but they all needed to.

For the first time, Eva lifted her eyes and looked directly at Emma. "He said," she sniffed, "he said I looked just like you and that he thought I, thought I –" She buried her face in her hands, unable to finish her sentence.

By this point, Emma had also begun to cry. "That's okay," she said through tears. "You don't have to repeat what he said." She rubbed a comforting hand back and forth between Eva's shoulderblades.

Ronon couldn't listen to this anymore. Rage, fear, and disgust warred with each other as his mind jumped to the inevitable conclusion of her tale. It was time to accept the responsibility he had been trying so hard to shirk: time and reality aside, he was Eva's father. This was no longer her battle; it was his.

He was already out of his chair, snapping the leather of his weapons holster as he roughly buckled it around himself.

"Ronon?" Emma asked with an alarmed look on her face.

"This was Captain Hanson, wasn't it?" Ronon asked through gritted teeth. "Head of base security?"

"How do you –"

Ronon shot a look at Emma, who dropped her gaze to her lap.

"That bastard told me he would make my life a living hell. I didn't think he'd actually succeed," he said under his breath.

Emma spoke. "Ronon, what are you –"

"Stay here," he ordered as he turned his back to the two young women, ran his hand over the door control panel, and left the room.

The effects of shock had begun to set in, fraying the edges of Emma's mind. "Eva, I don't know what to say."

How could this have happened?

If you had just reported him from the start, none of it would have, a nasty little voice inside her head said. This is your fault.

"Mom," Eva whimpered. "I – I think I killed him."

Emma turned to look at her so fast, she almost pulled a muscle in her neck. "What?" she breathed.

"I don't remember anything else after him saying those things to me. It was like I blacked out." She frowned. "Or…whited out. Everything went fuzzy and white."

Blacking out during a traumatic experience was definitely something Emma had experienced, and not from injury; it was the body's way of protecting the brain from experiencing something debilitating, something that could break you. But blackouts could also be a symptom of PTSD. Emma thought back to Ronon's story about Eva on the Hive. Battle sickness, he had called it.

"When I came to, he was sprawled on the floor and," she swallowed, "and his head was turned…too far. I don't think he was breathing."

Every hair on Emma's body stood on end.

"I need to go get your father," she said, as calmly as she could manage, wrapping a blanket around Eva who was still trembling.

Eva merely nodded in reply.

"Drink this." She handed her the glass of clear liquid from the table. "It should help you calm down a bit."

Eva sniffed it. "What is it?"

"Vodka."

"Oh."

"Look, I will be right back. Two minutes. You can time me. But I have to go find him."

Eva nodded. "Two minutes."

Without even putting on shoes, Emma ran out of her quarters and down the hallway in search of the furious Satedan. As she rounded the corner on the way to the transporter, she caught a glimpse of his outline. Astounded that she had caught up to him, and that he wasn't running, she called out his name.

He stopped where he was and turned to look at her.

"Ronon, wait!" she said as she ran to him.

"You're not gonna be able to stop me, Emma." His voice was a low growl.

"Ronon –"

"Look, you're a grown woman who can take care of herself and make her own choices, so when you asked me to keep your incident with Hanson secret tonight and leave him alone, I honored that. But Eva is a girl!" He glanced at the ground, as if searching for his words there. "She…she is our girl and I am going to handle this for her, because she shouldn't have to! This should have never happened!" Tears of rage rushed to the corners of his eyes.

"You're right, Ronon! You're right! I wouldn't try to stop you." Ronon looked down at her, pulsing with barely contained fury, but she grabbed him by the forearms anyway. "Listen, all of this is my fault. If I had just reported him after he attacked me in the hallway, this wouldn't have happened to Eva. I wouldn't care anymore what you do to him," she said fiercely, shaking her head. "Maim him, kill him, castrate him… I wouldn't care. He deserves it. It should have happened already."

"Then why are you here?"

The words stalled in her throat. "He…he might not be alive anymore. Eva thinks she killed him."

Ronon's eyes widened.

"Come back, please come back, and let's get the rest of her story." She grasped him by the hand to lead him back to her quarters, but he didn't follow. She looked at him over her shoulder to see why he wasn't moving. "Ronon," she whispered, "please."

With their hands still connected, he pulled her in and wrapped her into a tight embrace.

"It's not your fault," he said quietly into her ear. "None of what he did is your fault."

Her hand in his, he followed her back to her room, while she filled him in on what Eva had told her. The girl said she had blacked out, then come out of the episode to find Hanson dead on the floor. Ronon recalled the way she had gone after the Wraith that had killed Coughlin on the Hive - the low, underlying pain in his healing nose was as fresh as the memory. Unbridled fury, violence, and rage. He had seen firsthand the kind of damage she could cause when in that state.

When the doors opened, Eva was still on the couch, wrapped in a blanket and drinking from a glass that shook in the hand she held it. Emma went to sit by her side again, but Ronon couldn't sit – not with the amount of adrenaline cascading through him.

"Eva, can you tell Ronon what you just told me?" Emma asked.

Eva recounted essentially what Emma had told him in the corridor, but with a bit more detail.

"He was on the floor and his head was turned to the side like…like someone had snapped his neck. I – I don't remember doing it, I swear, but I think I did. I must have," she murmured, looking at both of her hands in disbelief.

Ronon heard Emma take a deep breath as she steeled herself for her next question. "Eva," she started gently, "did he rape you?"

Ronon was thankful to Emma that she was asking the difficult questions he could not.

Eva shook her head.

Emma looked to the ceiling and let out a massive, but silent, sigh of relief.

"He couldn't figure out the laces," she said. "If…if I had been wearing leggings or…or jeans, I think he would have."

Ronon wanted to be as easily convinced as Emma, but wasn't. "How can you be sure?" he prodded. "You blacked out. You said you don't remember anything."

"Ronon!" Emma chastised.

Eva's eyes went wide and she looked to Emma for support, but answered him without her assistance, anyway. "I would know. I would have felt it. It – it would have hurt," she stuttered, the implication clear.

Ronon looked abashedly away from her. He shouldn't have made her explain herself like that, not after what had just happened to her.

"How did you get out of there?" Emma asked. "You said he had locked the doors."

"I… dragged his body to the door and held his hand up to the sensor and it opened."

Clever, Ronon thought. In a similar situation, he wasn't sure he would have had the presence of mind to do the same. But then, she wasn't a carbon copy of him. The piece of shit captain was right about one thing; she was a lot more like her mother than most people realized.

"That's when I felt that he didn't have a pulse." An unnerving calm fell over her.

"Where's his body?" Ronon asked.

"I…I left it there," she answered.

Ronon looked over to Emma, who got to her feet, predicting his intentions before they had fully formed in his own mind.

"I'll take care of her," she said as she took both his hands in hers. "Come back when you're done." She gave his fingers a firm squeeze then released him, knowing what he had to do.

He touched his hand to her cheek, turned away, and left.