Fic: wait for me, wait for me (by justbreathe80)
wait for me, wait for me (5592 words)
Recipient's name: tielan
Pairing: Ronon/Keller
Prompt used: Keller - Earth, a look into Satedan culture.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Big spoilers through "Quarantine", and a tiny, blink-and-you'll-miss-it spoiler for "Trio".
Notes: tielan - I hope you like this! I had a massive moment of panic at the end of writing this where I was convinced that you weren't going to dig this pairing, but I'm pretty sure you do, so that's good! Many thanks and hugs and kisses to minervacat for encouragement and audiencing and a fine beta. Title courtesy of Rachael Yamagata. And my humble apologies to everyone from Wisconsin - I did my best.
"Come on, Ronon, I'm not stupid. You don't have to get beat up to come and talk to me." Keller stands there, hands encased in latex gloves, her eyebrows raised in irritation as she comes toward his forehead with an alcohol swab.
Ronon shrugs, because, yeah, at first it was just a joke - he liked catching her smile after she'd rolled her eyes at him and Sheppard as they trudged into the infirmary, with cuts and scrapes and bruises. It looked good on her, and she didn't do it enough. It was easy enough to turn into one of Sheppard's blows while they were sparring, and it didn't really hurt enough when she bandaged or stitched him up to stop doing it.
This time, though, it wasn't an accident. He hesitated just one second in the face of an angry, pregnant Teyla, and she'd knocked him down so hard for going easy on her that he lay there on the floor and stared up at the ceiling, the room spinning a bit, until Teyla, looking a really bizarre combination of abashed and smug, came into his line of sight and hauled him up.
"I mean, it's flattering, really, don't get me wrong," she says while she works, and he keeps his arms at his sides and his mouth shut. She's kind of cute when she babbles. "But there have to be easier ways to talk to a girl than getting your face bashed in."
"I talk to you all the time," Ronon responds before he even knows he's going to do it. Keller looks at him, squinting her eyes a bit.
"Yes, well," she says, like that means anything at all.
The truth is, since they'd been stuck together in this room during the quarantine, since their almost-breakout and their almost-kiss, they've been circling each other warily, like they both know exactly what they want and that they both want it, but somehow they're both afraid to take it. On the surface, they aren't much like each other in any way, but underneath, Ronon is starting to see that they are both the same in a lot of ways that count.
"Do you -" he starts, then shuts his mouth quickly. What's he going to do, ask her out? To do what, watch movies and eat bad mess hall food? He can already picture Sheppard laughing at him and how really, really bad he's at this. Not like Sheppard is any better.
"I'm - " she starts.
"Go ahead."
Keller backs up, giving them both enough room to breathe and tossing her gloves and the used up supplies into a container on the table next to the gurney. "I'm leaving tomorrow to go back to Earth.” She pauses, and then her eyes go wide. “Oh, not for good or anything, it's just - it's my cousin's twenty-first birthday, and I promised her I'd be there a million years ago. We grew up like sisters, she's the closest to a sibling I've got."
A quick image of Ronon's own twenty-first birthday (one of the last that he kept track of) flashes before his eyes. Another planet, he'd just gated there and camped out in the woods, hoping that that one would be uninhabited, and he could stay until the Wraith came - and they would come. He'd been on the run for a year by then, and the fear that he'd felt when it all started was already pulling back into something else - pure and unadulterated survival. He wasn't so lucky that day, though, because he had to turn around and gate out again as soon as he saw the welcoming party coming toward the Ring. All that he could hope was that the Wraith didn't bother to go there, that they followed him instead.
He wants to tell her to have a good time. He knows that she misses Earth, and that she's not like the others who rarely talk about being from there, about their families or friends they've left behind. Instead, what comes out is, "I had an older sister. She was a pain in the ass."
Keller stands still, just looking, and she always does that - just like McKay in that way, like if she studies him hard enough she can figure him out. He hates that every time he mentions his past, his family, anything about his life before he came to Atlantis, he can see the pity on others' faces. He's tired of watching the tragedy of his own life resonating off everyone else; he doesn't actually think his life is a tragedy, not any more, not for a while. "Yeah, I think that's what sisters are made for," Keller says, lips starting to turn up at the sides, and there’s no pity there, "but I love her anyway. Listen, um, do you want to come? With me?"
Ronon doesn't have a good answer for that. He thinks he should say no, but it's not like he has anything else to do, and there's something intriguing about getting to know another piece of this woman who manages to make complete sense to him, and none at all, all at the same time.
"Yeah."
*****
"Have a good time, buddy," Sheppard says, clapping him on the back and smiling at him in a way that kind of makes Ronon want to punch him. Sheppard clearly knows that something was up between Ronon and Keller, and is trying really hard (not at all hard enough) not to drive him crazy about it.
"Yeah, I will."
"Wisconsin is really just - fantastic," McKay mutters. "Dairy farms as far as the eye can see. You'll love it." He has his hands crossed behind his back, hiding the way they're wrapped in bandages still.
Keller's there, her own duffel bag slung over her shoulder, waiting for the go ahead from Chuck upstairs and pointedly ignoring McKay. "Ready?" she says, turning around and smiling, and suddenly, Ronon doesn't care that Sheppard is giving him a hard time and McKay is, well, just being himself.
"Let's go," he says, and he turns his back on Sheppard and McKay, tuning them out as he walks through the watery blue, hand brushing against Keller's.
*****
He barely remembers anything about the trip from Cheyenne Mountain to Wisconsin; it happens fast. Earth air travel is really strange - nothing like the sleek spaceships that he'd seen and used on Sateda. People are packed in so tightly inside the airplanes and his knees always bump against the seat in front of him. He feels like every time he comes to Earth, he always ends up in a plane immediately, whether to Scotland or British Columbia or Virginia. He knows that the gate is in a place called Colorado, full of mountains and nothing like the places he'd grown up, but he's never seen more of it than the drive from the mountain to the airport.
When they touch down in Wisconsin, Keller wakes up enough to turn her head and smile at him. "Almost there," she says softly, shifting in her seat and sighing. Her hand comes down on his thigh, and he pauses for a minute before he reaches down and takes her hand in his, and stays that way as they descend, until the chime tells them it's time to get up, to move.
*****
He follows Keller, both of them with bags in hand, through the busy airport. A glance outside through the huge windows tells him two things: one, it’s midday there, and two, Wisconsin is very different than any other place he's been on Earth. He's always thought that everything on Earth would be studded with mountains like the places he's been, but this place was flat, as far as the eye could see. It reminds him, strangely, of home. He'd grown up on a farm about a hundred miles from the nearest city, Kasla, which looked almost exactly like this one, springing up from the flat earth.
When they finally navigate the seemingly maze-like airport and get outside, the air is fresher than anything he's smelled or tasted on Earth before, and Keller is dragging him by the arm toward a long line of yellow cars.
"We're taking one of these?" he says, as Keller stands waiting for a short man in jeans and a black t-shirt to open the trunk of the car. When he's done and back behind the wheel, she throws her bag in, shutting the door hard and getting in the backseat.
"Yeah, a taxi. It's about an hour and a half to my cousin's place, in Madison, but it's pretty cheap. You coming?" she says, sitting on the shiny black seat and looking up at him expectedly.
He'd thought it would be like the other times, sleek black cars with quiet, well-dressed drivers and tinted windows driving up and taking them where they were going, no questions asked. Apparently, there are other ways to get places on Earth. "Okay. Yeah," he says, sliding into the car next to her. The driver looks back at him nervously, and Ronon feels himself reaching down around his waist for something that isn't there. Keller notices too, and she moves a little closer to him on the seat as they speed off.
*****
"Holy shit, Jen! Oh my god!" He barely gets out of the way before a small, blonde woman, even shorter than Keller, runs by him and launches herself into Keller's arms.
"Hey," Keller says, laughing and wrapping the woman up in a hug.
"I didn't think you were actually going to come, being some big shot top secret military doctor and all that," Keller's cousin says, finally releasing her vise-like grip on Keller and dropping back to the ground. Ronon has almost convinced himself she can't see him when she turns around and pins him down with a fierce look. "Who's this?"
"Um," Keller says, ducking her head. This is the part they'd forgotten to clear up before they'd decided this was a good idea, and it isn't like Keller can tell her cousin that Ronon is a guy from another galaxy who she had almost kissed once while being trapped in the infirmary due to a false alarm about an alien virus. In a floating city in that other galaxy. "This is Ronon - he's, um, he's my - friend. A civilian contractor on the base. Never been to Wisconsin before."
"Sure," Keller's cousin says, a slow, almost dirty smile spreading across her face, looking him up and down in a way that makes him want to squirm in a way he hasn't since he was sixteen. "I'm Gretchen, Jennifer's cousin. Nice to meet you, Ronon."
"Thanks for having us," he says, sticking out his hand the way he'd seen Sheppard do a million times, but instead of taking it, Gretchen practically climbs him and puts her arms around his shoulders. "Happy birthday," he chokes out.
"Thanks," Gretchen says with another wicked smile, dropping back to the floor, sizing him up yet again, like she's still trying to figure out something big, like one of McKay's equations that runs the span of three white boards. "Nice, Jen."
"Gretchen!" Keller says, covering her eyes. "Oh my god."
Gretchen laughs and clasps her hand around Ronon's bicep. She's small but somewhat terrifying, and absolutely nothing like he'd expected. Everyone else on the Atlantis expedition was so guarded, especially with touch, that he'd just assumed it was a cultural thing. People on Sateda used casual touch, like this, for everything, to communicate safety, want, need. People from Earth, in his experience, only used touch in certain circumstances. Death, danger, desperation. Maybe he's pegged them wrong all along, let a few stand for a whole planet.
Keller looks embarrassed, her face flushed red, but it isn't like there’s anything to hide. What she'd told Gretchen was, fundamentally, the truth. They are friends, he is a civilian contractor for the U.S. military, and he really has never been there before. "Oh, lighten up, sheesh," Gretchen says, and then her hold on him turns abruptly into a pull. "Come on, I want you to meet some of my friends. I have plans for tonight."
*****
Every one of Gretchen's friends looks stunningly alike - small, thin, blond or brown hair, face in a wide smile with a bit of awe at the corners. He tries to be friendly as they eat dinner, making as much small talk as he can while Keller sticks close to his side, running some strange form of interference and translation. They are all really nice, in that unwary way that he's learning only comes from people who’ve only know security, who have never faced the destruction of everything they've known. They're young and hopeful and have reason to be, unlike most people their age that he has ever met. They're all in university, learning things that Ronon has long since passed by in favor of survival. And for the first time, maybe ever, he feels shockingly old. He's so used to being the young one, with years of hard life behind him, yes, but still - he'd been the youngest with four older sisters growing up, always the youngest in everything when he was in the military, and the youngest on his team in Atlantis, by far. Here, he's an old man, and he feels it.
"So," one of Gretchen's friends - Maggie? - interjects, clapping Gretchen on the shoulder. "What's the plan for tonight?"
"Well," Gretchen says, "I was thinking of hitting Cardinal Bar, actually."
"Oh, god," Keller groans, shaking her head.
Gretchen folds her arms over her chest, a smug look on her face. "Got a problem with that, Jen?"
"It's your birthday," Keller says, glaring back in the way only an older sister can. Ronon remembers that clearly, even though so many other things have faded.
"Come on, old lady, you'll have fun. I'm sure that you never stepped foot in Cardinal Bar when you were here, did you?"
Keller just looks down, and Ronon remembers everything she's said about her past, about being too young, ahead of everything, and he realized that she'd never had this, the ease of being normal with a team of normal friends. "I was kind of busy with med school and -" she pauses, taking a deep breath. "Whatever you want, Gretch. It's your birthday."
Gretchen smiles again. "Thanks. Isn't she the best?" All of her friends makes sounds of approval, and Ronon, who has been resting his arm against the back of Keller's chair, moves his hand against her shoulder, feeling her lean in a little before they're up and leaving.
*****
Ronon and Keller retreat to their hotel - "Oh, no, there's no way we're staying at Gretchen's. She's a college student. Just - no. Okay?" - and change before taking another taxi ride to the front of a building with a large crowd outside. He's wearing the same jeans and black shirt he'd worn the last time on Earth, figuring it’s appropriate. He isn't stupid; he knows after a few trips that he has to try to blend in a bit, even though people still stare at him like he’s an alien, like the know somehow. Keller hasn't stopped looking at him since she'd come out of the bathroom at the hotel and caught a glimpse, clearing her throat and ducking her head as she put her ID and some money in her pocket. She looks really, really good, in a black skirt and a sleeveless purple top that shows skin at her midriff every time she moves, and, yeah, maybe he hasn't stopped looking either. Maybe that's why he keeps catching her looking at him, because he's looking too.
Gretchen and her friends are waiting in the line when they pull up to the curb and he gets another hug from Gretchen and some appreciative looks from her friends. Keller must have noticed too, because she steps forward and loops her arm through his. She smells really good.
They wait for ten or twenty minutes, and the guy at the door who is checking IDs (Gretchen presents hers with a look bordering on giddy) is a good three inches smaller and forty pounds lighter than Ronon, and just nods and doesn't bother with the ID, even though Ronon's is as good as anyone else’s.
He isn't really prepared for the inside - a large, open space absolutely packed with people, music loud enough that he can't hear anything else, and lights making it hard to see clearly. He reaches down again, and before he can get his hand anywhere near where his gun should be (should be, so stupid not to have it), Keller is anticipating his move and tightening her arm around his. "It's okay," she murmurs. "Don't worry, it's totally safe." She relaxes her own body, as if she's trying to send him a signal, and he takes a deep breath and unthreads his arm from hers, putting it around her waist.
"Okay," he whispers back, leaning in close to her ear, feeling her hair brush against his cheek. He pulls her closer, figuring that if they're here to pretend that their lives are somehow normal, that they live like this every day, he's going to go with it. What the hell.
Gretchen comes bounding up to him, wearing what he isn't sure even constitutes clothing, just bits of fabric covering most of the important parts. "Jen, I'm going to go -" she points at the floor, where people are doing something like dancing. "Okay?"
"Yes, we're fine, have a blast." Keller smiles and Gretchen, drink in hand, dances her way out into the crowd. Keller watches her for a minute and then turns her face up to Ronon, her expression hard to read. "I think I need a drink."
*****
One drink turns into two into three for Keller, while Ronon nurses the same beer for a whole hour, just watching her. She stays at his side for the first two, leaning a bit too close and driving him so crazy; he wants to kiss her, work his fingertips between the waistband of her skirt and the bottom hem of her shirt, which looks so soft. As she’s starting in on her third, she smiles lazily at him and holds out her hand. "Dance with me," she says carefully, her consonants slurring just slightly.
He reaches forward and takes her hand, which is still wet from the condensation on the glass, but doesn't move forward. "No, it's okay, go ahead."
She looks at him, the same look she's been giving him since she bandaged up his head in the infirmary the day before - maybe even before that. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I'm sure," he says, as softly as he can over the pounding music. He squeezes her hand firmly, and then laces their fingers together, watching as her eyes slide shut.
"Okay," she says, opening her eyes again and pulling away. "I'll be back, okay?"
He nods and downs the last of his drink, warm and kind of disgusting, watching as Keller walks away and throws her arms around Gretchen on the dance floor. He can't remember ever seeing her smile exactly like that on Atlantis - totally open and comfortable, even though he's the only one in the room who knows what's behind it. And maybe she just has different smiles, different ways for everyone on Earth than she did in Pegasus. He can understand that.
She comes back a dozen songs later, swaying just a bit to the music but her feet still firm on the ground. She’s drunk, no question about it, but she isn't messy, and the look on her face still makes him feel like he's seventeen again, despite all that. "Hi," she says, backing him up against the wall he’s standing against. "Are you having a good time?"
He's spent the better part of an hour holding an empty glass, feeling like he'll never have control of this situation - wouldn’t have it even if he still had his weapons - and watching her. It doesn't seem like it should be fun, but, still, he says, "Yeah. You seem to be having fun too."
Keller laughs, tipping her head back enough to expose her throat. "Well, yeah, I - I never got to do this when I went to UW. I was either too young or too dorky or had no friends or too busy, whatever. It's nice. And," she reaches down to tug at her shirt, "I'm glad you're here."
It's been so long since Ronon has done this, this careful dance of yes and no with someone else, and when he'd met Melena, things were already so tenuous on Sateda that hesitation had seemed like a foolish waste of time. He'd come here because she'd asked, and because he wants to know her, in a place that knows her and with people who did. She is beautiful, the pink and blue lights reflecting off of her hair, her face flushed and a little damp, her bare arms and shoulders like a revelation after months buttoned down and zipped up on Atlantis. So he reaches up and presses his hand against her face, and just because he can't hear the sound she makes over the thumping bass line, it doesn't mean that he doesn't feel her lean into his touch. "I'm glad too," he says, near shouting, but it's for her only. She smiles, and this time, there's nothing behind it at all.
"I'm going to go say goodbye to Gretchen, okay?" she says, reaching her own hand up to cover his before letting go and heading back out into the sea of bodies.
*****
The ride back to the hotel seems longer than it had on the way to the club, and this time Keller doesn't seem to be looking at him at all, just staring out the window with her fingertips pressed against the glass. Ronon decides to do the same, and notices for the first time that this strange city grown up out of farmland is surrounded by water on all sides. The taxi speeds through the quiet, late-night city streets, and when they turn there's water on one side, and then a little while later, the other. In the most bizarre of ways, it's like Atlantis.
They don't say anything as they leave the car and Keller pays the driver, as they make their way up three stories in the elevator and get inside the generic, too-small room. He's toeing off his shoes by one of the beds when he hears her say, her voice cracking, "Ronon." When he looks up, one shoe on and one shoe off, she's standing there, in bare feet, and he can’t remember why they’ve been circling for so long.
It doesn't even seem like he needs more than one good stride to get across to where she's standing, right inside the door, her chin up bravely, and he does what he's wanted to do since that day in the infirmary, since before then. He wraps one hand around the back of her neck and kisses her, and he should have known, after everything, that she'd give him one mere second of hesitation before she got on board, fully and completely.
Keller's hands come up to tangle in the hair at the base of his skull, her mouth soft and lush and wet as she pushes her tongue against his, hesitation completely gone now. He can't remember ever having this - the luxury of space and time and the lack of danger - with a woman. He was so young, mostly still a kid even though he couldn't show it, when he'd been with Melena. He hadn't known what the hell he was doing, even though they learned a lot of it together. There had been a few times, when he was running, when there was someone for twenty minutes, maybe an hour if he wasn't the most careful, but he could count those times on the fingers of one hand and Keller was the first person in ten years he'd touched like this whose name he'd even known.
She's making small, desperate noises against his lips, and he wants to - he has to - touch her, get his mouth on her neck, on the top curve of her breast right under the neckline of her shirt. He pulls away, both of them breathing hard, like it's more than either of them can bear. "God, Keller," he says before he can stop himself, taking in her half-closed eyes and her graceless slouch against the door.
"Jennifer," she says, her voice rough as she moves back in. "Please."
"Okay. Jennifer." Ronon says, trying to figure out how she's moving him, inexorably, across the room, until his knees hit the bed and he sits down, hard. She's standing in front of him, and he loves her, just a little, in that moment for being as scared as he is, and trying to be brave, to keep this moving. Ronon doesn't know if Jennifer is a common name for people on Earth, or if it's considered beautiful, but Jennifer is, standing a little unsteadily on her feet and reaching down to pull the flimsy shirt over her head to reveal pale skin and breasts encased in a simple black bra.
He just wants to look at her, to never stop looking, because he remembers being seventeen and alone for the first time with Melena, and this is nothing like that at all, because he knows now how fragile this is. He reaches down to pull his own shirt over his head and holds out his hand, like she'd done at the club. "Come here," he says, and she does.
After that, it's slow and blurry at the edges. They shed their clothes, taking time between dropping each item on the floor to kiss and touch, to learn the irregular maps of their bodies. Jennifer runs her hands across the scars on his chest and arms, the ones McKay hadn't healed, and he learns the delicate skin of her neck, the hollow of her hip, on the back side of a thigh. It's like she comes unwound as they get going, reaching out more, bolder, moving him the way she wants him. He's afraid that he'll do something wrong, screw this up, but it all seems right, no matter what he does. They don’t say anything, even though he's said more to her than he has to anyone but Sheppard and Teyla in ten years, but now they have the evocative language of fingertips and mouths and bodies.
When they are (finally) naked, Ronon spreads her out on the bed and just looks at her. Jennifer isn't perfect - she's a bit too skinny and pale and her knees are knobby - but she's so incredibly beautiful. She throws her arm over her face, shielding her eyes, and laughs nervously. "Ronon, what are you doing?"
"Just looking. Is that okay?" Because he really doesn't want to stop.
"Yeah, I just -" she moves her arm away from her eyes and looks up at him, eyes clear, still smiling. "You're crazy."
"I know," he says, and climbs up the bed until he's pressed against her, skin against skin. Everything shifts then, from leisurely touch to urgent desperation and her fingernails are digging paths in the strangely unmarred skin of his back. "I want - "
"Yes," Jennifer gasps, "I want you to, please." He maneuvers one hand between their bodies, propping himself up on the other, hoping that he remembers what to do, how to make it good. He slides his hand down until his fingertips move against her, so wet she's going to ruin the sheets. Two fingers against her clitoris, and she's hitching up her hips and wrapping her legs around the backs of his knees.
"Wow," he says, smirking, and she slaps him halfheartedly before shifting her hips and getting his fingers at her opening.
"Shut up," she says, still moving, shifting. "Listen, Ronon, I hate to be blunt, because not that I'm not enjoying this, because I really am, but I'm pretty much ready to go here, so - " And that's it, because he has two fingers deep inside her, and she tilts her head back against the white sheets. "Fuck," she bites out. "Okay, yeah."
A few minutes later, she's reaching down at the side of the bed, twisting a little to get to her jeans on the floor while he fucks her, slow but not soft, hard enough that she makes a sound every time he bottoms out inside her. "Here," she says, twisting back and handing him a condom, and he quickly opens the package before she turns back into a doctor and ruins the mood.
There's a part of Ronon that want to go slowly, to make this last, but he knows, with a bone-deep certainty about something good for the first time in a long time, that this isn't going to be the only time they do this, and so he lets himself take what she's giving him, pushing inside her steadily until his hips are flush with hers. He stays there until she starts moving, mouthing just this side of too hard at the soft skin of her neck. He sets a slow pace, rocking up into her, fingers back on her swollen clitoris, cataloging her grasp on his arms, his hips, the way her breath comes faster and her face flushes, how hot and tight and wet she is until she grips him tightly and cries out. Then he’s pushing her out flat on the bed, arms up and pinned above her head, thrusting inside her while she's still clenching around him, and follows her over.
*****
He wakes up a few hours later, the sun just starting to come up, and the warm skin of Jennifer's back is underneath his splayed fingers. She's still asleep, and he watches her for a while until she blinks her eyes open and smiles up at him.
"So, not a dream, huh?" she says sleepily, wiggling a bit closer.
"No," he says, leaning forward to put his nose in her hair. "Do you want it to be?"
"God, no way. I've been - I've - I wanted that. I've wanted it for a while. Why did we wait?"
He shrugs, tracing the deep groove of her spine. "I think we were scared."
She considers him for a moment, and then stretches up to kiss him, almost chastely, with her mouth closed. "I'm not. Not anymore." She ducks her head down, and he can feel her breath warm against his chest. "What time is it, anyway?"
"Six."
"More sleep then," Jennifer says softly, already fading out. "We don't have to meet Gretchen until nine."
"I'll wake you up," he whispers, and doesn't loosen his hold.
*****
Ronon wakes first, and then Jennifer does, stretching her small body in his arms and smiling before she removes herself and gets up to go into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her and turning on the shower. He swings his legs over the side of the bed and starts to pick up his clothes. He pulls on the jeans first, knowing he probably needs a shower too and not caring enough to bother. He's sure that anyone that sees them in the next few hours will know how they spent their night, and he can’t say that it bothers him. He tugs the shirt over his head and on, and is looking for his second shoe when Keller comes out of the bathroom, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.
"Good morning," she says, coming closer and hugging him, her wet hair against his face. She smells like soap and the water on Earth and he holds her back. He'd been vaguely worried about the aftermath - worried that he'd pushed it too far, that they wouldn't be able to work together after this, that maybe they hadn't done enough figuring each other out to bring sex into it. He can't stop thinking about how she'd looked, how she'd felt when he was inside her. "Are you ready to go? Gretchen is already going to freak out when she sees us - I'm sure we look like we were up to something. I don't want to give her any more ammunition by being late."
She's making this easy on him; they aren't going to talk about it, and they aren't going to question it, because they're both due for some comfort and closeness and simplicity, after all this time. Ronon wants this, whatever this newborn thing is, like he hasn't let himself want anything in so long, because he couldn't. There were so many years when he was too wrapped up in grief to want, and then another set of years when he hadn't thought he had the right to want anything from anyone, not when the consequences were so harsh if he reached out to take it.
Ronon's spent enough time taking what he can get and he knows a good break when he sees it. He’s not going to let it pass him by, so he takes her hand in his and grins at her, holding nothing back. "Yeah, let's go."
Recipient's name: tielan
Pairing: Ronon/Keller
Prompt used: Keller - Earth, a look into Satedan culture.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Big spoilers through "Quarantine", and a tiny, blink-and-you'll-miss-it spoiler for "Trio".
Notes: tielan - I hope you like this! I had a massive moment of panic at the end of writing this where I was convinced that you weren't going to dig this pairing, but I'm pretty sure you do, so that's good! Many thanks and hugs and kisses to minervacat for encouragement and audiencing and a fine beta. Title courtesy of Rachael Yamagata. And my humble apologies to everyone from Wisconsin - I did my best.
"Come on, Ronon, I'm not stupid. You don't have to get beat up to come and talk to me." Keller stands there, hands encased in latex gloves, her eyebrows raised in irritation as she comes toward his forehead with an alcohol swab.
Ronon shrugs, because, yeah, at first it was just a joke - he liked catching her smile after she'd rolled her eyes at him and Sheppard as they trudged into the infirmary, with cuts and scrapes and bruises. It looked good on her, and she didn't do it enough. It was easy enough to turn into one of Sheppard's blows while they were sparring, and it didn't really hurt enough when she bandaged or stitched him up to stop doing it.
This time, though, it wasn't an accident. He hesitated just one second in the face of an angry, pregnant Teyla, and she'd knocked him down so hard for going easy on her that he lay there on the floor and stared up at the ceiling, the room spinning a bit, until Teyla, looking a really bizarre combination of abashed and smug, came into his line of sight and hauled him up.
"I mean, it's flattering, really, don't get me wrong," she says while she works, and he keeps his arms at his sides and his mouth shut. She's kind of cute when she babbles. "But there have to be easier ways to talk to a girl than getting your face bashed in."
"I talk to you all the time," Ronon responds before he even knows he's going to do it. Keller looks at him, squinting her eyes a bit.
"Yes, well," she says, like that means anything at all.
The truth is, since they'd been stuck together in this room during the quarantine, since their almost-breakout and their almost-kiss, they've been circling each other warily, like they both know exactly what they want and that they both want it, but somehow they're both afraid to take it. On the surface, they aren't much like each other in any way, but underneath, Ronon is starting to see that they are both the same in a lot of ways that count.
"Do you -" he starts, then shuts his mouth quickly. What's he going to do, ask her out? To do what, watch movies and eat bad mess hall food? He can already picture Sheppard laughing at him and how really, really bad he's at this. Not like Sheppard is any better.
"I'm - " she starts.
"Go ahead."
Keller backs up, giving them both enough room to breathe and tossing her gloves and the used up supplies into a container on the table next to the gurney. "I'm leaving tomorrow to go back to Earth.” She pauses, and then her eyes go wide. “Oh, not for good or anything, it's just - it's my cousin's twenty-first birthday, and I promised her I'd be there a million years ago. We grew up like sisters, she's the closest to a sibling I've got."
A quick image of Ronon's own twenty-first birthday (one of the last that he kept track of) flashes before his eyes. Another planet, he'd just gated there and camped out in the woods, hoping that that one would be uninhabited, and he could stay until the Wraith came - and they would come. He'd been on the run for a year by then, and the fear that he'd felt when it all started was already pulling back into something else - pure and unadulterated survival. He wasn't so lucky that day, though, because he had to turn around and gate out again as soon as he saw the welcoming party coming toward the Ring. All that he could hope was that the Wraith didn't bother to go there, that they followed him instead.
He wants to tell her to have a good time. He knows that she misses Earth, and that she's not like the others who rarely talk about being from there, about their families or friends they've left behind. Instead, what comes out is, "I had an older sister. She was a pain in the ass."
Keller stands still, just looking, and she always does that - just like McKay in that way, like if she studies him hard enough she can figure him out. He hates that every time he mentions his past, his family, anything about his life before he came to Atlantis, he can see the pity on others' faces. He's tired of watching the tragedy of his own life resonating off everyone else; he doesn't actually think his life is a tragedy, not any more, not for a while. "Yeah, I think that's what sisters are made for," Keller says, lips starting to turn up at the sides, and there’s no pity there, "but I love her anyway. Listen, um, do you want to come? With me?"
Ronon doesn't have a good answer for that. He thinks he should say no, but it's not like he has anything else to do, and there's something intriguing about getting to know another piece of this woman who manages to make complete sense to him, and none at all, all at the same time.
"Yeah."
*****
"Have a good time, buddy," Sheppard says, clapping him on the back and smiling at him in a way that kind of makes Ronon want to punch him. Sheppard clearly knows that something was up between Ronon and Keller, and is trying really hard (not at all hard enough) not to drive him crazy about it.
"Yeah, I will."
"Wisconsin is really just - fantastic," McKay mutters. "Dairy farms as far as the eye can see. You'll love it." He has his hands crossed behind his back, hiding the way they're wrapped in bandages still.
Keller's there, her own duffel bag slung over her shoulder, waiting for the go ahead from Chuck upstairs and pointedly ignoring McKay. "Ready?" she says, turning around and smiling, and suddenly, Ronon doesn't care that Sheppard is giving him a hard time and McKay is, well, just being himself.
"Let's go," he says, and he turns his back on Sheppard and McKay, tuning them out as he walks through the watery blue, hand brushing against Keller's.
*****
He barely remembers anything about the trip from Cheyenne Mountain to Wisconsin; it happens fast. Earth air travel is really strange - nothing like the sleek spaceships that he'd seen and used on Sateda. People are packed in so tightly inside the airplanes and his knees always bump against the seat in front of him. He feels like every time he comes to Earth, he always ends up in a plane immediately, whether to Scotland or British Columbia or Virginia. He knows that the gate is in a place called Colorado, full of mountains and nothing like the places he'd grown up, but he's never seen more of it than the drive from the mountain to the airport.
When they touch down in Wisconsin, Keller wakes up enough to turn her head and smile at him. "Almost there," she says softly, shifting in her seat and sighing. Her hand comes down on his thigh, and he pauses for a minute before he reaches down and takes her hand in his, and stays that way as they descend, until the chime tells them it's time to get up, to move.
*****
He follows Keller, both of them with bags in hand, through the busy airport. A glance outside through the huge windows tells him two things: one, it’s midday there, and two, Wisconsin is very different than any other place he's been on Earth. He's always thought that everything on Earth would be studded with mountains like the places he's been, but this place was flat, as far as the eye could see. It reminds him, strangely, of home. He'd grown up on a farm about a hundred miles from the nearest city, Kasla, which looked almost exactly like this one, springing up from the flat earth.
When they finally navigate the seemingly maze-like airport and get outside, the air is fresher than anything he's smelled or tasted on Earth before, and Keller is dragging him by the arm toward a long line of yellow cars.
"We're taking one of these?" he says, as Keller stands waiting for a short man in jeans and a black t-shirt to open the trunk of the car. When he's done and back behind the wheel, she throws her bag in, shutting the door hard and getting in the backseat.
"Yeah, a taxi. It's about an hour and a half to my cousin's place, in Madison, but it's pretty cheap. You coming?" she says, sitting on the shiny black seat and looking up at him expectedly.
He'd thought it would be like the other times, sleek black cars with quiet, well-dressed drivers and tinted windows driving up and taking them where they were going, no questions asked. Apparently, there are other ways to get places on Earth. "Okay. Yeah," he says, sliding into the car next to her. The driver looks back at him nervously, and Ronon feels himself reaching down around his waist for something that isn't there. Keller notices too, and she moves a little closer to him on the seat as they speed off.
*****
"Holy shit, Jen! Oh my god!" He barely gets out of the way before a small, blonde woman, even shorter than Keller, runs by him and launches herself into Keller's arms.
"Hey," Keller says, laughing and wrapping the woman up in a hug.
"I didn't think you were actually going to come, being some big shot top secret military doctor and all that," Keller's cousin says, finally releasing her vise-like grip on Keller and dropping back to the ground. Ronon has almost convinced himself she can't see him when she turns around and pins him down with a fierce look. "Who's this?"
"Um," Keller says, ducking her head. This is the part they'd forgotten to clear up before they'd decided this was a good idea, and it isn't like Keller can tell her cousin that Ronon is a guy from another galaxy who she had almost kissed once while being trapped in the infirmary due to a false alarm about an alien virus. In a floating city in that other galaxy. "This is Ronon - he's, um, he's my - friend. A civilian contractor on the base. Never been to Wisconsin before."
"Sure," Keller's cousin says, a slow, almost dirty smile spreading across her face, looking him up and down in a way that makes him want to squirm in a way he hasn't since he was sixteen. "I'm Gretchen, Jennifer's cousin. Nice to meet you, Ronon."
"Thanks for having us," he says, sticking out his hand the way he'd seen Sheppard do a million times, but instead of taking it, Gretchen practically climbs him and puts her arms around his shoulders. "Happy birthday," he chokes out.
"Thanks," Gretchen says with another wicked smile, dropping back to the floor, sizing him up yet again, like she's still trying to figure out something big, like one of McKay's equations that runs the span of three white boards. "Nice, Jen."
"Gretchen!" Keller says, covering her eyes. "Oh my god."
Gretchen laughs and clasps her hand around Ronon's bicep. She's small but somewhat terrifying, and absolutely nothing like he'd expected. Everyone else on the Atlantis expedition was so guarded, especially with touch, that he'd just assumed it was a cultural thing. People on Sateda used casual touch, like this, for everything, to communicate safety, want, need. People from Earth, in his experience, only used touch in certain circumstances. Death, danger, desperation. Maybe he's pegged them wrong all along, let a few stand for a whole planet.
Keller looks embarrassed, her face flushed red, but it isn't like there’s anything to hide. What she'd told Gretchen was, fundamentally, the truth. They are friends, he is a civilian contractor for the U.S. military, and he really has never been there before. "Oh, lighten up, sheesh," Gretchen says, and then her hold on him turns abruptly into a pull. "Come on, I want you to meet some of my friends. I have plans for tonight."
*****
Every one of Gretchen's friends looks stunningly alike - small, thin, blond or brown hair, face in a wide smile with a bit of awe at the corners. He tries to be friendly as they eat dinner, making as much small talk as he can while Keller sticks close to his side, running some strange form of interference and translation. They are all really nice, in that unwary way that he's learning only comes from people who’ve only know security, who have never faced the destruction of everything they've known. They're young and hopeful and have reason to be, unlike most people their age that he has ever met. They're all in university, learning things that Ronon has long since passed by in favor of survival. And for the first time, maybe ever, he feels shockingly old. He's so used to being the young one, with years of hard life behind him, yes, but still - he'd been the youngest with four older sisters growing up, always the youngest in everything when he was in the military, and the youngest on his team in Atlantis, by far. Here, he's an old man, and he feels it.
"So," one of Gretchen's friends - Maggie? - interjects, clapping Gretchen on the shoulder. "What's the plan for tonight?"
"Well," Gretchen says, "I was thinking of hitting Cardinal Bar, actually."
"Oh, god," Keller groans, shaking her head.
Gretchen folds her arms over her chest, a smug look on her face. "Got a problem with that, Jen?"
"It's your birthday," Keller says, glaring back in the way only an older sister can. Ronon remembers that clearly, even though so many other things have faded.
"Come on, old lady, you'll have fun. I'm sure that you never stepped foot in Cardinal Bar when you were here, did you?"
Keller just looks down, and Ronon remembers everything she's said about her past, about being too young, ahead of everything, and he realized that she'd never had this, the ease of being normal with a team of normal friends. "I was kind of busy with med school and -" she pauses, taking a deep breath. "Whatever you want, Gretch. It's your birthday."
Gretchen smiles again. "Thanks. Isn't she the best?" All of her friends makes sounds of approval, and Ronon, who has been resting his arm against the back of Keller's chair, moves his hand against her shoulder, feeling her lean in a little before they're up and leaving.
*****
Ronon and Keller retreat to their hotel - "Oh, no, there's no way we're staying at Gretchen's. She's a college student. Just - no. Okay?" - and change before taking another taxi ride to the front of a building with a large crowd outside. He's wearing the same jeans and black shirt he'd worn the last time on Earth, figuring it’s appropriate. He isn't stupid; he knows after a few trips that he has to try to blend in a bit, even though people still stare at him like he’s an alien, like the know somehow. Keller hasn't stopped looking at him since she'd come out of the bathroom at the hotel and caught a glimpse, clearing her throat and ducking her head as she put her ID and some money in her pocket. She looks really, really good, in a black skirt and a sleeveless purple top that shows skin at her midriff every time she moves, and, yeah, maybe he hasn't stopped looking either. Maybe that's why he keeps catching her looking at him, because he's looking too.
Gretchen and her friends are waiting in the line when they pull up to the curb and he gets another hug from Gretchen and some appreciative looks from her friends. Keller must have noticed too, because she steps forward and loops her arm through his. She smells really good.
They wait for ten or twenty minutes, and the guy at the door who is checking IDs (Gretchen presents hers with a look bordering on giddy) is a good three inches smaller and forty pounds lighter than Ronon, and just nods and doesn't bother with the ID, even though Ronon's is as good as anyone else’s.
He isn't really prepared for the inside - a large, open space absolutely packed with people, music loud enough that he can't hear anything else, and lights making it hard to see clearly. He reaches down again, and before he can get his hand anywhere near where his gun should be (should be, so stupid not to have it), Keller is anticipating his move and tightening her arm around his. "It's okay," she murmurs. "Don't worry, it's totally safe." She relaxes her own body, as if she's trying to send him a signal, and he takes a deep breath and unthreads his arm from hers, putting it around her waist.
"Okay," he whispers back, leaning in close to her ear, feeling her hair brush against his cheek. He pulls her closer, figuring that if they're here to pretend that their lives are somehow normal, that they live like this every day, he's going to go with it. What the hell.
Gretchen comes bounding up to him, wearing what he isn't sure even constitutes clothing, just bits of fabric covering most of the important parts. "Jen, I'm going to go -" she points at the floor, where people are doing something like dancing. "Okay?"
"Yes, we're fine, have a blast." Keller smiles and Gretchen, drink in hand, dances her way out into the crowd. Keller watches her for a minute and then turns her face up to Ronon, her expression hard to read. "I think I need a drink."
*****
One drink turns into two into three for Keller, while Ronon nurses the same beer for a whole hour, just watching her. She stays at his side for the first two, leaning a bit too close and driving him so crazy; he wants to kiss her, work his fingertips between the waistband of her skirt and the bottom hem of her shirt, which looks so soft. As she’s starting in on her third, she smiles lazily at him and holds out her hand. "Dance with me," she says carefully, her consonants slurring just slightly.
He reaches forward and takes her hand, which is still wet from the condensation on the glass, but doesn't move forward. "No, it's okay, go ahead."
She looks at him, the same look she's been giving him since she bandaged up his head in the infirmary the day before - maybe even before that. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I'm sure," he says, as softly as he can over the pounding music. He squeezes her hand firmly, and then laces their fingers together, watching as her eyes slide shut.
"Okay," she says, opening her eyes again and pulling away. "I'll be back, okay?"
He nods and downs the last of his drink, warm and kind of disgusting, watching as Keller walks away and throws her arms around Gretchen on the dance floor. He can't remember ever seeing her smile exactly like that on Atlantis - totally open and comfortable, even though he's the only one in the room who knows what's behind it. And maybe she just has different smiles, different ways for everyone on Earth than she did in Pegasus. He can understand that.
She comes back a dozen songs later, swaying just a bit to the music but her feet still firm on the ground. She’s drunk, no question about it, but she isn't messy, and the look on her face still makes him feel like he's seventeen again, despite all that. "Hi," she says, backing him up against the wall he’s standing against. "Are you having a good time?"
He's spent the better part of an hour holding an empty glass, feeling like he'll never have control of this situation - wouldn’t have it even if he still had his weapons - and watching her. It doesn't seem like it should be fun, but, still, he says, "Yeah. You seem to be having fun too."
Keller laughs, tipping her head back enough to expose her throat. "Well, yeah, I - I never got to do this when I went to UW. I was either too young or too dorky or had no friends or too busy, whatever. It's nice. And," she reaches down to tug at her shirt, "I'm glad you're here."
It's been so long since Ronon has done this, this careful dance of yes and no with someone else, and when he'd met Melena, things were already so tenuous on Sateda that hesitation had seemed like a foolish waste of time. He'd come here because she'd asked, and because he wants to know her, in a place that knows her and with people who did. She is beautiful, the pink and blue lights reflecting off of her hair, her face flushed and a little damp, her bare arms and shoulders like a revelation after months buttoned down and zipped up on Atlantis. So he reaches up and presses his hand against her face, and just because he can't hear the sound she makes over the thumping bass line, it doesn't mean that he doesn't feel her lean into his touch. "I'm glad too," he says, near shouting, but it's for her only. She smiles, and this time, there's nothing behind it at all.
"I'm going to go say goodbye to Gretchen, okay?" she says, reaching her own hand up to cover his before letting go and heading back out into the sea of bodies.
*****
The ride back to the hotel seems longer than it had on the way to the club, and this time Keller doesn't seem to be looking at him at all, just staring out the window with her fingertips pressed against the glass. Ronon decides to do the same, and notices for the first time that this strange city grown up out of farmland is surrounded by water on all sides. The taxi speeds through the quiet, late-night city streets, and when they turn there's water on one side, and then a little while later, the other. In the most bizarre of ways, it's like Atlantis.
They don't say anything as they leave the car and Keller pays the driver, as they make their way up three stories in the elevator and get inside the generic, too-small room. He's toeing off his shoes by one of the beds when he hears her say, her voice cracking, "Ronon." When he looks up, one shoe on and one shoe off, she's standing there, in bare feet, and he can’t remember why they’ve been circling for so long.
It doesn't even seem like he needs more than one good stride to get across to where she's standing, right inside the door, her chin up bravely, and he does what he's wanted to do since that day in the infirmary, since before then. He wraps one hand around the back of her neck and kisses her, and he should have known, after everything, that she'd give him one mere second of hesitation before she got on board, fully and completely.
Keller's hands come up to tangle in the hair at the base of his skull, her mouth soft and lush and wet as she pushes her tongue against his, hesitation completely gone now. He can't remember ever having this - the luxury of space and time and the lack of danger - with a woman. He was so young, mostly still a kid even though he couldn't show it, when he'd been with Melena. He hadn't known what the hell he was doing, even though they learned a lot of it together. There had been a few times, when he was running, when there was someone for twenty minutes, maybe an hour if he wasn't the most careful, but he could count those times on the fingers of one hand and Keller was the first person in ten years he'd touched like this whose name he'd even known.
She's making small, desperate noises against his lips, and he wants to - he has to - touch her, get his mouth on her neck, on the top curve of her breast right under the neckline of her shirt. He pulls away, both of them breathing hard, like it's more than either of them can bear. "God, Keller," he says before he can stop himself, taking in her half-closed eyes and her graceless slouch against the door.
"Jennifer," she says, her voice rough as she moves back in. "Please."
"Okay. Jennifer." Ronon says, trying to figure out how she's moving him, inexorably, across the room, until his knees hit the bed and he sits down, hard. She's standing in front of him, and he loves her, just a little, in that moment for being as scared as he is, and trying to be brave, to keep this moving. Ronon doesn't know if Jennifer is a common name for people on Earth, or if it's considered beautiful, but Jennifer is, standing a little unsteadily on her feet and reaching down to pull the flimsy shirt over her head to reveal pale skin and breasts encased in a simple black bra.
He just wants to look at her, to never stop looking, because he remembers being seventeen and alone for the first time with Melena, and this is nothing like that at all, because he knows now how fragile this is. He reaches down to pull his own shirt over his head and holds out his hand, like she'd done at the club. "Come here," he says, and she does.
After that, it's slow and blurry at the edges. They shed their clothes, taking time between dropping each item on the floor to kiss and touch, to learn the irregular maps of their bodies. Jennifer runs her hands across the scars on his chest and arms, the ones McKay hadn't healed, and he learns the delicate skin of her neck, the hollow of her hip, on the back side of a thigh. It's like she comes unwound as they get going, reaching out more, bolder, moving him the way she wants him. He's afraid that he'll do something wrong, screw this up, but it all seems right, no matter what he does. They don’t say anything, even though he's said more to her than he has to anyone but Sheppard and Teyla in ten years, but now they have the evocative language of fingertips and mouths and bodies.
When they are (finally) naked, Ronon spreads her out on the bed and just looks at her. Jennifer isn't perfect - she's a bit too skinny and pale and her knees are knobby - but she's so incredibly beautiful. She throws her arm over her face, shielding her eyes, and laughs nervously. "Ronon, what are you doing?"
"Just looking. Is that okay?" Because he really doesn't want to stop.
"Yeah, I just -" she moves her arm away from her eyes and looks up at him, eyes clear, still smiling. "You're crazy."
"I know," he says, and climbs up the bed until he's pressed against her, skin against skin. Everything shifts then, from leisurely touch to urgent desperation and her fingernails are digging paths in the strangely unmarred skin of his back. "I want - "
"Yes," Jennifer gasps, "I want you to, please." He maneuvers one hand between their bodies, propping himself up on the other, hoping that he remembers what to do, how to make it good. He slides his hand down until his fingertips move against her, so wet she's going to ruin the sheets. Two fingers against her clitoris, and she's hitching up her hips and wrapping her legs around the backs of his knees.
"Wow," he says, smirking, and she slaps him halfheartedly before shifting her hips and getting his fingers at her opening.
"Shut up," she says, still moving, shifting. "Listen, Ronon, I hate to be blunt, because not that I'm not enjoying this, because I really am, but I'm pretty much ready to go here, so - " And that's it, because he has two fingers deep inside her, and she tilts her head back against the white sheets. "Fuck," she bites out. "Okay, yeah."
A few minutes later, she's reaching down at the side of the bed, twisting a little to get to her jeans on the floor while he fucks her, slow but not soft, hard enough that she makes a sound every time he bottoms out inside her. "Here," she says, twisting back and handing him a condom, and he quickly opens the package before she turns back into a doctor and ruins the mood.
There's a part of Ronon that want to go slowly, to make this last, but he knows, with a bone-deep certainty about something good for the first time in a long time, that this isn't going to be the only time they do this, and so he lets himself take what she's giving him, pushing inside her steadily until his hips are flush with hers. He stays there until she starts moving, mouthing just this side of too hard at the soft skin of her neck. He sets a slow pace, rocking up into her, fingers back on her swollen clitoris, cataloging her grasp on his arms, his hips, the way her breath comes faster and her face flushes, how hot and tight and wet she is until she grips him tightly and cries out. Then he’s pushing her out flat on the bed, arms up and pinned above her head, thrusting inside her while she's still clenching around him, and follows her over.
*****
He wakes up a few hours later, the sun just starting to come up, and the warm skin of Jennifer's back is underneath his splayed fingers. She's still asleep, and he watches her for a while until she blinks her eyes open and smiles up at him.
"So, not a dream, huh?" she says sleepily, wiggling a bit closer.
"No," he says, leaning forward to put his nose in her hair. "Do you want it to be?"
"God, no way. I've been - I've - I wanted that. I've wanted it for a while. Why did we wait?"
He shrugs, tracing the deep groove of her spine. "I think we were scared."
She considers him for a moment, and then stretches up to kiss him, almost chastely, with her mouth closed. "I'm not. Not anymore." She ducks her head down, and he can feel her breath warm against his chest. "What time is it, anyway?"
"Six."
"More sleep then," Jennifer says softly, already fading out. "We don't have to meet Gretchen until nine."
"I'll wake you up," he whispers, and doesn't loosen his hold.
*****
Ronon wakes first, and then Jennifer does, stretching her small body in his arms and smiling before she removes herself and gets up to go into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her and turning on the shower. He swings his legs over the side of the bed and starts to pick up his clothes. He pulls on the jeans first, knowing he probably needs a shower too and not caring enough to bother. He's sure that anyone that sees them in the next few hours will know how they spent their night, and he can’t say that it bothers him. He tugs the shirt over his head and on, and is looking for his second shoe when Keller comes out of the bathroom, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.
"Good morning," she says, coming closer and hugging him, her wet hair against his face. She smells like soap and the water on Earth and he holds her back. He'd been vaguely worried about the aftermath - worried that he'd pushed it too far, that they wouldn't be able to work together after this, that maybe they hadn't done enough figuring each other out to bring sex into it. He can't stop thinking about how she'd looked, how she'd felt when he was inside her. "Are you ready to go? Gretchen is already going to freak out when she sees us - I'm sure we look like we were up to something. I don't want to give her any more ammunition by being late."
She's making this easy on him; they aren't going to talk about it, and they aren't going to question it, because they're both due for some comfort and closeness and simplicity, after all this time. Ronon wants this, whatever this newborn thing is, like he hasn't let himself want anything in so long, because he couldn't. There were so many years when he was too wrapped up in grief to want, and then another set of years when he hadn't thought he had the right to want anything from anyone, not when the consequences were so harsh if he reached out to take it.
Ronon's spent enough time taking what he can get and he knows a good break when he sees it. He’s not going to let it pass him by, so he takes her hand in his and grins at her, holding nothing back. "Yeah, let's go."