Comforts of Home, by the Azure Cascade (Return challenge)
Title: The Comforts of Home
Author: The Azure Cascade
Spoilers: "Return" the first.
Rating: PG-13 for cussing. :)
Summary: For the Return challenge. Ronon's take on the city.
The Comforts of Home
Ronon liked the city of the Ancestors.
It was big, for a start. On bad mornings, when his legs started to itch and the walls felt a little too tight and too familiar, he could pull on his shoes and run, a long looping circuit from the South Pier to the Northwest Concourse and never run out of road. He lost hours that way, threading new paths through the smooth metal wilderness, the smell of steel and salt in every deep breath.
He couldn't fault the indoor plumbing, either. Shitting behind trees, bathing in river water and eating with dirt-stained hands, well, it wasn't the worst part of running, but he'd missed hot showers. The ones they had in Atlantis were strange - water shooting from all sides, instead of down from the ceiling like back on Sateda - but they were high-pressure and never had leeches or biting fish in them. He couldn't quite bring himself to pick his hair out, but Sheppard found him special soap for it about a week in and he'd felt clean for the first time in seven years. And he hadn't gotten sick once while living in Atlantis, among people who understood hygiene and germs and had places to wash their hands before dinner.
Cold food, too. There was nothing on Sateda like the ice cream the Lanteans liked so much, but there were nurtle berries, thick fleshy fruit that bit the tongue when properly chilled, and frozen juice for hot summer nights. Sometimes at night he went into the mess and just stood in front of the fridges, listening to the quiet hum and staring through the clear doors at the meat and fruit and drinks and the thin layer of frost on the inside walls.
And the skyline. Ronon had always been a city boy, raised in an eighteenth story apartment with steel and glass on every side, and he could never quite get used to the wide open sky. Even before the Wraith, it had never quite felt safe to him. When he was running, he stuck to forests, close between the trees, where he was hidden and there was always something there to break the hard line of the horizon. Atlantis, with its endless lights and towering spires, was a sanctuary. It didn't look like Sateda, of course, but then he probably couldn't have lived there if it had.
But what Ronon liked the most about living in Atlantis was Sheppard, with his stupid grin and his endless jokes and his absolute refusal to ever leave a man behind. And Weir, with her bright laugh and the surprising strength in her smile, who would die for any one of her people with a warrior's pride. And McKay, who never shut up, full of the energy and wonder of the most unruly child and the duty and loyalty of the hardest soldier. And even Carson, who was far braver than he believed himself to be, who had saved him from seven years of running wild, and from losing everything that mattered to his desire for revenge.
What Ronon liked the most about Atlantis was his family. And while sometimes he missed working toilets, and cold food, and sprawling towers, it was his family he dreamed of every night after the Ancestors drove them out.