hth | the january project, part one: Alpha Centauri

myalexandria requested Alpha Centauri, two months in the future.

Only she requested "not porn," too. Which was hard, because two months after Graceland? Still very much the honeymoon period. What the hell are they going to be *doing* besides having sex, two months later?

But then I realized that, if Graceland falls between "Sateda" and "Progeny," then two months later is squarely in the middle of season 3, so I thought, episode-related! More specifically, "Common Ground"- related. And, um, I apologize for the lack of visible Rodney; rest assured, he's with them in spirit.

Alpha Centauri
two months

The Marines put up the ropes course in one of the newly opened sections of the city, in a room that the anthropologists think was built – huge with rounded, thick walls – for practicing or performing music. They don’t have a lot of musicians on Atlantis, but they have Marines, so now it’s a ropes course.

Ronon beat the course the first time he tried it, and unlike a living opponent, he knows it’s not going to get any harder, so he doesn’t go back very often. Only when he wants to work out and hide at the same time.

Sheppard finds him, though, of course. Rodney probably found Ronon on the computer and gave him up; there aren’t too many disadvantages to Rodney and Sheppard getting along, but this is one of them. Ronon stays on the bench, lacing up his boots, because he’s got nothing to say right now – nothing that won’t cost him his fucking marriage, anyway, and he thinks he’s going to keep on wanting it. Eventually.

Sheppard lifts his arms up, taking hold of two of the ropes suspended from the ceiling, wrapping them around his wrists and leaning his weight forward on the balls of his feet so he’s swinging idly in place. “You want me dead?” he says, lightly, like this is some kind of joke, but he’s giving Ronon that careful, searching look.

Ronon jerks the laces on his boot roughly to tighten them. “I don’t want you dead,” he grumbles.

“I don’t really want me dead, either.”

He looks up then, and they’re alone, so what the hell. “If you had died, I would’ve found Kolya, and I would’ve killed him. I would’ve broken his neck with my hands – fuck. I would’ve put my thumbs through his throat. And then he probably has – I don’t know. Somebody, some son or brother or favorite, and that guy would’ve come after me and maybe killed me, too.”

“And that’s just fine with you,” John says, not exactly accusing and not exactly approving, either. Just the voice of someone who knows Ronon, really well.

“Yeah,” he says. “That’s fine with me. That’s how it is. But what you did....”

There aren’t even words for it. Not words that he can – that he can even think alongside Sheppard’s name. No matter how true they may be.

“I gave my word,” Sheppard says quietly.

“You have the most fucked up sense of honor possible.”

That makes Sheppard smile a little. “I think I said something like that to you, once.” He takes the chain of his dogtags in his hand and lifts them out of his shirt, holding them up so they flash under the light. “You want to keep these until you stop hating me?”

“This isn’t a joke!”

He drops the tags, and the joking mood. “I’m sorry,” he says, which stops Ronon’s hands. He doesn’t know if Sheppard has ever apologized to anyone for something that happened in the field. At home, yeah, sometimes. Not when he’s in command. “What do you want me to say?” John says, shrugging awkwardly with his arms still over his head. “I gave him my word. That means something to me.”

“It means shit to the next person he kills,” Ronon says. “It means shit to her husband, to her daughters. You gonna apologize to them, too? And do you think they will ever, ever give a fuck what your reasons were? And do you really think – did you really think for a second that I would be on your side?”

“Yeah,” John says, sounding a little puzzled by it himself. “I guess I did.”

“I love you,” Ronon says, because it needs to be said. “But you’re responsible for this. You’re responsible for him from now on. They’re your murders, too.”

Sheppard untangles his wrists, dropping back solidly on the floor. “He wasn’t...like I thought he would be. That’s not an excuse, but....”

“No,” Ronon says. “It’s not. And if you came here to hear that I forgive you, I can’t. Not for this.” He’s on his feet before he realizes it, and then he’s in John’s space, up against him, and he puts his hands alongside John’s neck and feels the tension in his body, sees the fear and the defiance in his eyes.

He sees what he hasn’t seen in a very long time: a stranger.

He holds John tightly in place and kisses his forehead. “I forget sometimes,” he murmurs against John’s skin. “I forget you come from...so far away.” That he won’t ever think like someone who’s spent his whole life side-by-side with what the Wraith leave behind when they pass through.

“He was just...one.” John’s voice falters, like he wants to believe in his own choices and doesn’t know if he does.

“So was I,” Ronon says, with something that feels a little like a laugh in his chest. “Does that make it okay – what happened to me? Because it doesn’t count if it’s just one life?” He feels the twitch in John’s face where his thumbs brush his jaw – the flinch.

“I’m sorry,” John says, and his voice breaks this time, a hint of desperation. “Is it.... What happens now?” Ronon lets him go and shrugs. “Well, what the hell does that mean?” John says impatiently.

“I don’t know,” Ronon says simply. “Do you think I’ve ever been here before, either?”

John looks at him for a long moment, as if he’s weighing the choice to speak. Finally he says, “Do I think you ever loved somebody who let you down before? Yeah, actually. And I happen to know what you did to him, so pardon me for having kind of a vested interest in exactly how much of your trust I just betrayed.” And no matter how flippant he tries to sound, the truth is right there in John’s eyes, and it’s not Ronon’s gun he’s scared of, not Ronon’s anger at all, no matter what he says.

Fortunately, this is the one and only thing Ronon is sure of right now. The one thing that it’s still easy to give is his loyalty.

He goes down to his knees, knowing that Sheppard loves it and hates it when he does that, but more importantly, that he understands what it means. He tangles his hands with John’s and says, “I hate the way this ended. I hate the way I feel right now. But I don’t hate you. And I don’t want to lose....”

It took so fucking long to get what he has now: this home, this fragile peace, this future with these complicated, difficult, aggravating, amazing men. He leans his head against John’s thigh, and John’s fingers lock into his hair and hang on. “I don’t deserve this,” John says roughly, and Ronon isn’t quite sure if he means the weight of Ronon’s life in his hands, or the weight of Ronon’s fidelity. He’s not even sure if it’s a burden or a gift. Both, maybe.

It’s both to Ronon, so why not to Sheppard, too?

“You did what you thought was right,” Ronon says. “That’s what makes you different from him. Kell would’ve killed it.”

“Which is what you want,” Sheppard reminds him.

It’s hard to explain in words; he sort of figured Sheppard would just get it, but maybe not. “Yeah. But he would’ve done it for the wrong reasons. He always did have this way of...turning on anyone he didn’t have any more use for. You’re not like that. You never were, and I can’t exactly love you for it and then expect you to be something you’re not at the same time. I don’t know if I can forgive you for doing it your way, but I know I couldn’t trust you if you were the kind of man who wouldn’t do it like that. Does that...make sense?”

“No,” John says, his hand sliding around to cup the back of Ronon’s neck. “But a lot of my life doesn’t. Especially the good parts, for some reason.”