Tag for Tabula Rasa (Ronon)
Summary: Ronon's POV after stunning John.
Distant Memories and Shooting Friends
I run away from the closed Jumper with a feeling of deep regret. I can already hear Sheppard's complaints about my shooting him when he wakes up, but I really didn't have a choice. Time as Colonel Carter said before we left is of the essence and I really did not have the time to try and explain to him what is happening. I would only have to explain to him five minutes later what is going on anyway.
So do I regret shooting my Commanding Officer?
Yes and no.
Yes, I regret shooting my friend, he has stood by me so much since I joined Atlantis and became a part of his team. He stood up for me to Weir and convinced her he needed me on his team. I had been running for just a little over a year when I encountered Sheppard and his team as they hunted for their missing man. How I made myself listen to them at that point I am not sure about, but I thank the Ancestor's that I did. Sheppard kept his word fully and had Carson remove the tracking device from my back, then he tried to contact Sateda for me. When we found my entire world was in ruins and no one had survived, he offered me a place here, not only on Atlantis but on his team.
The only time I have regrets about is recently when we met three of my kind, not only from Sateda but incredibly from my own platoon. I would have given this up in a single shot. I would have left Atlantis and my friends to join the others and it would have been the biggest mistake of my life.
Wraith worshipers. The very idea makes my blood run cold. After what they did to our home world? I want to rid the galaxy of every single one of the Wraith and they ended up worshiping them?! That makes them traitors to me, pure and simple. When I think that I could have lost the people that are fast becoming a replacement to the ones that I have lost. It would have ended up being one of the worst mistakes that I could have made.
I hurt them, I know I did, how could it not have hurt them? I saw it in Sheppard's face when he couldn't look at me on the journey back and then I found that Rodney had taken the picture from the wall in my quarters... Each of them had shown in their different ways that I had hurt them and that hurts me. The people I did that for were really not worth it. Liars and murderers each it is that simple.
No, because if I don't stun him he could die and that is one ending that I do not want to even think about. It is that simple, when we lost Sheppard to the travelers and I thought we would loose him for good this time it had hurt almost as much as loosing Melena. This was the man who had given me a second chance. The man who had not lied once to me since coming here to the City of the Ancestors.
I drop into a steady jog, Fast enough to be well paced and ground eating but not enough to tire me out. A bit like the jog I use when with Sheppard and doing our daily runs. Enough to push Sheppard and make him sweat and enough to make me feel as if I have tried to run. There has only been one time that Sheppard has beaten me or come close and that was when Sheppard had been infected by the Retrovirus and he was slowly but surely changing into a bug. It is a time I do not like to think back on, I really thought that time he would die, as when Kolya captured him and let the Wraith feed on him. There have been many times that I thought that and each time he has managed to beat the situation and heal. All I can do is hope that this is not the time that I am proven wrong and I loose not only Sheppard but all my friends and trust me when I say I have lost enough of my friends already.
Carson hurt a lot, he was a very good friend and I miss him every day. When he shot that Wraith who reimplanted the tracking device I think he thought that I was going to physically harm him. I would never have done that to the man who had just saved my life.
Elizabeth was willing to let Sheppard have the benefit of the doubt when I first came to Atlantis even though all her instincts shouted at her that it was a mistake. It showed how much she trusted John Sheppard and his opinions. It is something I will always thank her for. That and giving me back a family even when I did not realize it.
It makes me wonder how long it would have been before Tyre and the others turned on me when I would not join them in their love of the Monsters they had come to love. They were as fierce in their belief as I am. What is the word that McKay used to describe them? Intractable, that was it. Or as Sheppard told me later when I asked what it meant, unwilling to bend from believing something.
I can only hope that Sheppard forgives me when he recovers from being stunned. The thing that I did not like doing was tying him up. But he is too experienced to leave untied and to wonder on what is still an unknown world.
I slow down as I come to a clearing and begin to look for the plant that was identified on the Ancient Data Base. I can recall the time I was made to drink the remedy for this ailment. I had been ten years old and had arrived home from school with the same headache and dizziness that Sheppard and the others had complained of accompanied by fever and lethargy that they had not experienced. My mother had gotten the remedy from the Doctor and mixed it with hot water. It had tasted foul, so awful it made me want to throw up but it had worked. I can only hope that the Doctors can make a remedy in time to stop any permanent damage.
I find the plant and start to fill the bag I brought with me, I have several with me but I'm not sure I will find enough of the plant to fill more than just one, I can hope though.
I end up finding several clearings with the plant in abundance and fill two bags full to brimming. I have to admit I am pleased with the amount I have gathered and should have more than enough with just these two bags (I have the bags packed so much I doubt that Sheppard could pick up the two bags and would struggle with one) and I head back to the Jumper. The sooner I get back to Atlantis with
Sheppard the happier I will be.
When I come into the clearing where the Jumper is situated I stagger to a halt and use a few Satedan swear words. The Jumper door was open. I wish to the Ancestor's that I had a third arm and hand. Sheppard is missing. The Jumper is completely empty. Either he has managed to escape or there is something or someone here who we know nothing about.
I'm so shocked that I move forward to look in and make sure that Sheppard really is not lying in wait in the pilots seat.
It is the biggest mistake I have made in a long time and that is saying something. I seem to be changing my views on what my worst mistake is by the second!
I should have realized that he would be awake by now and that he would find a way of getting out of the plastic restraints that we all use. He is good at escaping, I should have realized that, he has the most escapes from all of us on is team. I'm not sure if that is good or bad. I'm sure that McKay would be able to give me an answer to that and say it in more fancy words than I know the meanings to! Or would have been able to before this whole mess started. I would give anything to hear Rodney McKay spout off as Sheppard puts it.
I rush into the jumper and there before me is an open box that holds the guns stored there in case of emergency. By the Ancestors! I had forgot that there were guns in the lockers in the Jumpers! It is my luck that John Sheppard does not remember me but he could remember how to get out of the restraints, recall that the Jumpers hold stocks of handguns and how to get the jumpers to respond to him. I put the sacks of the herbs down and draw my blaster checking to see that it is on stun, the last thing I want is to hurt him when he has no idea of what he is doing. I leave the jumper and before I know it there is a click of a gun, the safety taken off and then Sheppard's voice tells me to put my gun down and then my hands in the air. I have little choice but to do as he asks and then I turn around.
I square my shoulders and look him straight in the eyes. What I see there makes my blood run cold and that is saying something!!
For John Sheppard, a man who does not scare easily has a look in his eyes that I never want to see there again. For there is a look of uncertainty, a look of unease that he does not usually possess in his eyes mixed with determination to find out what is going on around him.
Sheppard opens his mouth to speak and I am alert to what he is saying, the little nuances and moves that usually gives me some hints as to what my friend and Military Leader is thinking and planning.
All the time the clock that I know is ticking in the back ground is edging ever closer to the point where I will loose my friends and family permanently even though I have the antidote in the sacks I hold in my hands not so long ago...
The end
Distant Memories and Shooting Friends
I run away from the closed Jumper with a feeling of deep regret. I can already hear Sheppard's complaints about my shooting him when he wakes up, but I really didn't have a choice. Time as Colonel Carter said before we left is of the essence and I really did not have the time to try and explain to him what is happening. I would only have to explain to him five minutes later what is going on anyway.
So do I regret shooting my Commanding Officer?
Yes and no.
Yes, I regret shooting my friend, he has stood by me so much since I joined Atlantis and became a part of his team. He stood up for me to Weir and convinced her he needed me on his team. I had been running for just a little over a year when I encountered Sheppard and his team as they hunted for their missing man. How I made myself listen to them at that point I am not sure about, but I thank the Ancestor's that I did. Sheppard kept his word fully and had Carson remove the tracking device from my back, then he tried to contact Sateda for me. When we found my entire world was in ruins and no one had survived, he offered me a place here, not only on Atlantis but on his team.
The only time I have regrets about is recently when we met three of my kind, not only from Sateda but incredibly from my own platoon. I would have given this up in a single shot. I would have left Atlantis and my friends to join the others and it would have been the biggest mistake of my life.
Wraith worshipers. The very idea makes my blood run cold. After what they did to our home world? I want to rid the galaxy of every single one of the Wraith and they ended up worshiping them?! That makes them traitors to me, pure and simple. When I think that I could have lost the people that are fast becoming a replacement to the ones that I have lost. It would have ended up being one of the worst mistakes that I could have made.
I hurt them, I know I did, how could it not have hurt them? I saw it in Sheppard's face when he couldn't look at me on the journey back and then I found that Rodney had taken the picture from the wall in my quarters... Each of them had shown in their different ways that I had hurt them and that hurts me. The people I did that for were really not worth it. Liars and murderers each it is that simple.
No, because if I don't stun him he could die and that is one ending that I do not want to even think about. It is that simple, when we lost Sheppard to the travelers and I thought we would loose him for good this time it had hurt almost as much as loosing Melena. This was the man who had given me a second chance. The man who had not lied once to me since coming here to the City of the Ancestors.
I drop into a steady jog, Fast enough to be well paced and ground eating but not enough to tire me out. A bit like the jog I use when with Sheppard and doing our daily runs. Enough to push Sheppard and make him sweat and enough to make me feel as if I have tried to run. There has only been one time that Sheppard has beaten me or come close and that was when Sheppard had been infected by the Retrovirus and he was slowly but surely changing into a bug. It is a time I do not like to think back on, I really thought that time he would die, as when Kolya captured him and let the Wraith feed on him. There have been many times that I thought that and each time he has managed to beat the situation and heal. All I can do is hope that this is not the time that I am proven wrong and I loose not only Sheppard but all my friends and trust me when I say I have lost enough of my friends already.
Carson hurt a lot, he was a very good friend and I miss him every day. When he shot that Wraith who reimplanted the tracking device I think he thought that I was going to physically harm him. I would never have done that to the man who had just saved my life.
Elizabeth was willing to let Sheppard have the benefit of the doubt when I first came to Atlantis even though all her instincts shouted at her that it was a mistake. It showed how much she trusted John Sheppard and his opinions. It is something I will always thank her for. That and giving me back a family even when I did not realize it.
It makes me wonder how long it would have been before Tyre and the others turned on me when I would not join them in their love of the Monsters they had come to love. They were as fierce in their belief as I am. What is the word that McKay used to describe them? Intractable, that was it. Or as Sheppard told me later when I asked what it meant, unwilling to bend from believing something.
I can only hope that Sheppard forgives me when he recovers from being stunned. The thing that I did not like doing was tying him up. But he is too experienced to leave untied and to wonder on what is still an unknown world.
I slow down as I come to a clearing and begin to look for the plant that was identified on the Ancient Data Base. I can recall the time I was made to drink the remedy for this ailment. I had been ten years old and had arrived home from school with the same headache and dizziness that Sheppard and the others had complained of accompanied by fever and lethargy that they had not experienced. My mother had gotten the remedy from the Doctor and mixed it with hot water. It had tasted foul, so awful it made me want to throw up but it had worked. I can only hope that the Doctors can make a remedy in time to stop any permanent damage.
I find the plant and start to fill the bag I brought with me, I have several with me but I'm not sure I will find enough of the plant to fill more than just one, I can hope though.
I end up finding several clearings with the plant in abundance and fill two bags full to brimming. I have to admit I am pleased with the amount I have gathered and should have more than enough with just these two bags (I have the bags packed so much I doubt that Sheppard could pick up the two bags and would struggle with one) and I head back to the Jumper. The sooner I get back to Atlantis with
Sheppard the happier I will be.
When I come into the clearing where the Jumper is situated I stagger to a halt and use a few Satedan swear words. The Jumper door was open. I wish to the Ancestor's that I had a third arm and hand. Sheppard is missing. The Jumper is completely empty. Either he has managed to escape or there is something or someone here who we know nothing about.
I'm so shocked that I move forward to look in and make sure that Sheppard really is not lying in wait in the pilots seat.
It is the biggest mistake I have made in a long time and that is saying something. I seem to be changing my views on what my worst mistake is by the second!
I should have realized that he would be awake by now and that he would find a way of getting out of the plastic restraints that we all use. He is good at escaping, I should have realized that, he has the most escapes from all of us on is team. I'm not sure if that is good or bad. I'm sure that McKay would be able to give me an answer to that and say it in more fancy words than I know the meanings to! Or would have been able to before this whole mess started. I would give anything to hear Rodney McKay spout off as Sheppard puts it.
I rush into the jumper and there before me is an open box that holds the guns stored there in case of emergency. By the Ancestors! I had forgot that there were guns in the lockers in the Jumpers! It is my luck that John Sheppard does not remember me but he could remember how to get out of the restraints, recall that the Jumpers hold stocks of handguns and how to get the jumpers to respond to him. I put the sacks of the herbs down and draw my blaster checking to see that it is on stun, the last thing I want is to hurt him when he has no idea of what he is doing. I leave the jumper and before I know it there is a click of a gun, the safety taken off and then Sheppard's voice tells me to put my gun down and then my hands in the air. I have little choice but to do as he asks and then I turn around.
I square my shoulders and look him straight in the eyes. What I see there makes my blood run cold and that is saying something!!
For John Sheppard, a man who does not scare easily has a look in his eyes that I never want to see there again. For there is a look of uncertainty, a look of unease that he does not usually possess in his eyes mixed with determination to find out what is going on around him.
Sheppard opens his mouth to speak and I am alert to what he is saying, the little nuances and moves that usually gives me some hints as to what my friend and Military Leader is thinking and planning.
All the time the clock that I know is ticking in the back ground is edging ever closer to the point where I will loose my friends and family permanently even though I have the antidote in the sacks I hold in my hands not so long ago...
The end