Author's Note: This story is obviously AU as it's set two years following Season Five and features a pairing that was blown to hell by canon with Brain Storm. Thank God for fan fiction.

Disclaimer: No profit being made. No copyright infringement intended.

A long time between drinks. Real life and deadlines are putting me through the ringer. Thank you to everyone who's not only read but continued to read after waiting so patiently for me to get off my duff and update. I truly appreciate it.

To Everlovin' - your timing is impeccable. I was planning to put off finishing this chapter until next week. Thanks for the encouragement and motivation to get it done now instead of later.

The Courting of Ronon Dex

Chapter Nine – Wear my scars pink and proud. Still can't say her name out loud. (Thornley – All Fall Down)

Sand and gravel crunched under a footstep behind him. Ronon didn't look up from cleaning the barrel of his particle magnum. He'd know that gait anywhere. A light heel-to-toe tread with the weight distributed more on the outside of the foot and a short stride. Even if he didn't recognize her gait, he'd know her scent, and if not that, then the delicate cadence of her breathing—nothing more than a whisper on the steady desert breeze, but one that raised gooseflesh on his arms, as if she'd blown a kiss across his skin. He gripped the magnum, clenched his teeth and braced himself for when the lovely Doctor Keller would inevitably plant her delectable backside next to him. The Runner didn't always run.

They'd avoided each other for two days since the moment in the tent when he'd warned her to stay away from him. Fear, sexual frustration and the temptation to give in to her sincere wish for a cease fire between them had left him on a short fuse. The rest of the team stayed out of his way as well. It figured the first person to willingly approach him now was the one who'd put him on edge in the first place. She might not be cautious, but she was tenacious.

Jennifer crouched beside him. "Hey."

His eyes narrowed. He wasn't in the mood for another round of gut-twisting conversation. "What are you doing?"

The corner of her mouth lifted in a faint smile. He liked the way it rounded her cheek. "I'm not stalking you if that's what you're worried about. You left your head scarves in the medical tent." She offered him a neatly folded bundle of dun cloth and set it down next to him when he didn't reach for it.

Ronon leveled a scowl on her. "I thought I said..."

A slender eyebrow rose in challenge. "I know what you said. However, you're not my commander or my dad. Team leader doesn't mean you get to order me off the planet."

"I can lodge a complaint and have you transferred."

She settled next to him and draped her arms over her knees. "Yeah, good luck with that. We have an influenza epidemic and a civil war in progress. Carson needs every medical personnel he can get. I'd have to do a lot worse than make you mad to convince the powers that be to transfer me off M54-R12."

"I'll transfer then."

This time she laughed outright. "They need you as much they need me. And what are you going to say? 'I want another assignment because I don't like Dr. Keller?' I'd give good money to hear that."

He growled under his breath. His threats had as much affect on her as a fly bite on him. "I could just leave."

Her smile transformed to a knowing smirk. "You could, but you won't. She nudged him with her shoulder. "You, Ronon Dex, are a text book example of the ISFJ personality. The Protector-Defender. There are a lot of people here depending on you, and you know it. You might run from a confrontation with me, but you won't abandon them just to avoid me." A frown fast replaced the smile. "And don't even think about tying me up and shoving me through the gate."

Her formidable logic flummoxed him. Her intimate knowledge of his character made sweat bead his forehead. He desperately wished he could sit beside her with the same cold, emotionless resolve that had seen him through seven years of running. Unfortunately, Jennifer Keller was a lot more terrifying than Wraith and had somehow crawled inside his mind to rifle through his every thought. He had considered binding her and forcibly carrying her through the gate back to Atlantis.

She cut him a sidelong glance. "Any other argument you want to present that I can shoot down?"

"No."

"Mind if I sit here with you?"

"Yeah."

She shrugged. "Too bad." She wiggled her hips, planting her butt even deeper into the sand next to him to emphasize her point.

That startled him, enough that he squeezed reflexively on the magnum's trigger hard enough that if the safety wasn't on, he would have shot himself in the foot. The Jennifer he'd loved on Atlantis would have shied away from his hostile response, apologized profusely and left him to his thoughts. The Jennifer he loved on M54-R12 challenged him at every turn, met his anger head-on and mocked his failed bids to distance himself from her.

They sat in silence for a few moments, she to watch the planet's second sun drop toward the horizon, he to finish cleaning his weapon and studiously ignore her. A small part of him laughed at his efforts and named them futile. She was impossible to ignore. He didn't have to look at her constantly to know what she wore and how well she wore it. Dusty BDUs and military issue boots, a dun colored undershirt darkened at the cleavage with a V-shaped sweat stain, a holstered 9mm strapped to her utility belt. She sported a pony tail, her head free of the scarves he'd grown accustomed to seeing her wear. The planet's harsh sunlight had darkened her skin and painted blonde streaks in her hair. Fly-away strands, glinting red in the fading light, framed her features. Her lips were chapped, and glittering sand dusted her eyebrows. Ronon growled low in his throat. No woman had the right to be so beautiful.

She swiped at her bare arms and dusted her palms together, sending gossamer waterfalls of grit to the ground. "God, I could use a bath. A real bath, you know? One where I can actually submerge in water and soak for half a day." She sighed. "Heck, I'd just be happy for a cloud burst or two."

Ronon grunted and tried not to picture the image his mind so temptingly conjured at her description. "Be careful what you wish for," he said. "This part of the planet gets a storm season. It should move in in about a week or two. You'll get more rain than you ever wanted."

Jennifer eyed him in surprise. "Seriously? Looking at the landscape now, you'd never guess monsoons happen. How long do they last?"

He holstered the magnum and returned her doubtful gaze with one of his own. "How much of M54-R12 did you research before you came here?"

Something flashed in her eyes. Embarrassment? Guilt? He couldn't tell, but his question forced a blush to her face, and her gaze slid to the safety of the horizon.

"The basics. The civil war, the epidemic of course." Her chin came up at his muttered "Mmm," and she frowned at him. "What? I'm a doctor, Ronon, not a meteorologist." Her eyes suddenly rounded, and she burst out laughing.

Caught off guard by her unexpected hilarity, he could only stare for a minute. "What's so funny?"

She gave a last chuckle before clearing her throat. "Nothing. I'm guessing you didn't watch any Star Trek episodes during movie night on Atlantis?"

He shook his head. Movie night. He hadn't thought of that social event on Atlantis in a long time. He'd always attended, fascinated by Earth's culture as viewed through the distorted lens others called Hollywood. He realized he missed those times, that camaraderie with John's inevitable sarcasm, Teyla's puzzlement and even Rodney's annoying dissection of every trope. And he missed watching Jennifer's reactions. She could sit through a splatter film without blinking an eye but hid behind a sofa pillow through nearly all of The Sixth Sense. She was a puzzle of contradictions, one he found both frustrating and fascinating. His mind skittered away from the pleasant thought of taking a life time or six to figure her out.

He picked up a stick and drew a lazy squiggle in the sand at his feet. "The rains last about 2 months. Nonstop. All day, all night."

Jennifer grimaced. "Lovely. We go from parched to soggy and no in between."

He shrugged. "Not a bad thing. Ksaks and Marai depend on the rains for farming. They'll be too busy putting in crops and irrigation ditches or avoiding floods to war with each other."

She offered him another smile. "I never figured you for an optimist."

He didn't either. A decade of fighting, desperation and tragedy had only emphasized his darker personality traits. He surprised himself with his outlook regarding the rains. The good doctor was a corrupting influence. He admired the delicate curve of her jaw, the line of her nose, the way her undershirt followed the elegant slope of one shoulder. "So talk."

She visibly jumped and turned a rounded gaze on him. "What?"

"You've done everything but tie me to a chair so you can talk to me. Here's your chance."

A wisp of hair fluttered across her eyes, bisecting her wary gaze. "Now?"

Ronon settled back, resting his weight on his elbows and forearms, legs stretched out, ankles crossed in casual repose. He hoped the nonchalant pose belied his own nervousness. He'd never been good at this sort of thing. "Any other plans?"

She followed the line of his legs before snapping her gaze back to his. A light blush dusted her cheeks. "Uhm, no." She tucked the strand of fluttering hair behind one ear. "Wow, you're good at making me flounder."

He almost laughed at the irony of her statement. And you're good at making me bleed.

A frown line marked the space between her brows as she pondered what she would say. Ronon's gut slowly wound itself into ever tightening knots as he waited. The line eased and faded. "Okay, why don't we start with a question. Are you also angry with me because in your mind Rodney won?"

Of the many questions he imagined she'd ask, that wasn't one of them. He thought they had that one settled. "We went over this. A couple of times already."

Arms crossed, she scowled at him. "Some of it, yes, but not all." The light of battled sparked in her eyes. "Be honest, Ronon. How much of that anger is due to Rodney getting one over on you? A kick to the teeth of male one-upmanship?"

He returned her scowl and sat up. "What are you talking about?"

"Rodney told me about your conversation in the gym. The one where he asked if you had any intentions toward me. You told him none and said it without a second's hesitation."

"I changed my mind," he said in a low voice. This whole talking thing was a bad idea.

Jennifer's eyebrows did a fast climb toward her hairline. "Just like that?" She snapped her fingers for emphasis. "What? You had some kind of instantaneous cosmic epiphany?"

A what? He tried not gape at her.

Jennifer pointed an accusing finger at him. "You guessed he was interested. He even told you he was interested. Then it became competition. You never expected I'd choose him."

No, he hadn't, and that choice had been a kick to his heart, not his ego. He hadn't imagined the connection that blossomed between them during their quarantine. Though her hesitation sprang from different motivations than his, she'd been as gun-shy as he was about relationships, but it had given him hope, made him wonder about a life with a woman who reminded him of Melena in some ways and yet was so different in others. The idea that his affections had been all one-sided on his part had left him soul-sick.

"Ronon?"

She was relentless in her bid to make him open up to her. He made a mental note never to invite a heart-to-heart with a woman, no matter how well intended, ever again. "It started out that way. Things changed. It wasn't about who won or lost. Not for McKay. Not for me."

Jennifer exhaled a sigh thick with regret. "We all lost. Bad decisions, bad timing, wrong assumptions."

He snorted and didn't bother holding back his sarcasm. "So you came to M54-R12 because you want to fix a mistake."

She absorbed his mockery without flinching. "Who doesn't want to fix their mistakes? I lost a friendship and want to recover it, no matter what it takes."

Confused, sometimes unsure, but definitely not weak, and he was well aware of how difficult he'd been since she'd landed on M54-R12 and shattered his fragile peace. "You've changed."

Jennifer chewed on her lower lip and rubbed her knees with nervous hands. "Coming from you, I don't know if that's good or bad.

Ronon shrugged again. "Just different." A warning voice inside him shouted it wasn't a good idea, but he asked anyway. "So now what?"

Her hands fluttered before she clasped them together at her shins. He'd startled her again. "I'm not sure. I'd like my friend back." A tentative hope glimmered in her eyes. "Maybe we can start small? You can sit with me at dinner. I've saved the best MREs for just this occasion. Gourmet meal in a bag, a little conversation..." She trailed off and dropped her gaze.

"I'm not good at the second."

She grinned. "As long as you promise not to bite my head off or set me on fire with one of your glares if I mention Rodney's name, I can handle conversation for both of us."

Anticipation surged through him on an electric wave, despite his best effort at shorting it out. "I have perimeter patrol until twenty-one hundred."

Jennifer checked her watch. "And I have inventory to take. Want to meet me at the surgery tent when you're done?"

"Okay."

She scrambled to her feet and dusted off her BDUs. In the dying light, her features took on the desert's twilight colors—rose and gold, hints of pale lavender beneath her cheekbones and jaw. He froze in place, seduced by the sight.

"Ronon?"

He blinked. "Yeah?" His question sounded far more abrupt than he intended.

She hesitated, her shoulders lifting briefly. "Never mind. See you after 21:00."

Perimeter patrol was a non-event, as it most often was. The only interesting thing to come Ronon's way was watching a sand viper chase a rodent through the scrub. Nights in the bush got so black, even the starshine couldn't penetrate the darkness, but he'd viewed the predator-prey chase clearly through a set of night vision goggles. Despite his boredom and a growing restlessness to see the end of his shift, he'd kept his focus and scanned the surrounding countryside for any unusual movement. Parker replaced him at exactly 21:00, and Ronon updated the Marine on what he'd observed.

"The doc and I are getting something to eat. We'll probably settle in over there." He pointed to a table-top slab of rock that jutted over a gentle slope. "I'll still keep an eye out."

The other man nodded. "Enjoy dinner, Chief."

He found Jennifer inside the supply compartment of the surgery tent, a clip board in her hand as she counted the numerous boxes spread across one table. She offered him a smile and a wave with her pencil when he entered. "Hey!"

The unfiltered illumination from the EMI lights washed her skin a ghostly white. She still wore her BDU pants but had exchanged the sleeveless undershirt for one with short sleeves for better protection against the rapidly cooling air. Tucked into her pants, the shirt hugged her waist and the curves of her breasts. Ronon's mouth went dry, and he had to unglue his tongue from his upper palate before he could speak. "You ready?"

She tossed the clipboard and pencil on another table. "Yeah. Just let me repack these gauze strips and I'm done."

He helped her pack away the supplies and stack them in an orderly tower in their assigned spot. Jennifer took the last box of gauze from him, her fingers grazing his knuckles. "I wasn't sure you'd come."

His hand tingling from her touch, he took a safe step back. "Why's that?"

"I don't know. I thought you might change your mind." She winked at him. "You've gotten really good at avoiding me."

Were she not so resolute in tracking him down, he'd still be avoiding her, though one might argue his resistance this time had been feeble at best. "I'm here now."

Another sizzle hurtled up his arm when she touched his hand a second time. "And I'm very glad you are."

She accompanied him to the storage tent where the MREs were stocked. Ronon grabbed the nearest pouch without looking at the contents and waited as Jennifer perused the limited selection before settling on one containing chicken fajitas. She grimaced at the package and sighed. "The second we get back to civilization, I'm ordering a pizza." Neither mentioned that while the main base had a lot more amenities than what they had now, it didn't offer pizza.

Ronon guided her to the rock he'd pointed out to Parker earlier. "We can eat here. Close enough to camp for light." He sat first and was inordinately pleased that she took a spot close beside him. This dinner was a far cry from the lunches they'd shared on Atlantis, with its floor to ceiling windows and panoramic views of the quiet ocean, and yet this one, in its bare simplicity, made his heart beat harder. If Jennifer's expression, revealed by the camp's light, were any indication, she felt the same.

They opened their MREs, heated them with the flameless heaters and bartered with each other over the tiny bottles of Tabasco sauce for a package of M&Ms. Ronon emptied both bottles onto his roast beef and vegetables and scooped the mix out of the package with wheat crackers. Jennifer, on the other hand, smashed her chicken fajitas with her fork as if she was trying to kill a nasty bug crawling across the food. She took a careful bite and winced. She noticed him watching her.

"It's better than some of the MREs I've had." Her turned-down mouth said otherwise. She raised her head to admire the night sky dressed in black and bejeweled in twinkling stars and a half moon. "You know, one of the things I found hardest to adjust to when I arrived in the Pegasus galaxy was the night sky. None of the stars were familiar. I kept looking for things like the Big Dipper and Orion's Belt or even the Southern Cross. It was weird not seeing them there."

He knew the feeling. "I thought the same when I visited Earth."

Her soft laughter caressed him. "I bet you did." She took a swallow from her water bottle. "Sometimes I think it's the little things that remind us of how far outside our element we are, how 'alien' alien really is. Then again, the big things hit home too. I knew I wasn't in Kansas anymore when I first encountered Wraith."

"No one's ever ready for the Wraith."

"An unarguable truth."

He recalled an old myth, one told amongst many of the Pegasus civilizations. "There's a story I used to hear as a child on Sateda. Teyla's heard it too. About a woman known as the Wraith Wife."

Jennifer paused in obliterating her meal with her fork. "Considering they're a hive culture that sounds almost counter-cultural."

"A Wraith took a human as his life mate."

She reared back as if the bug she'd been searching for in her food had suddenly jumped out of the package. "Eww! Really? Was she a Wraith worshipper?"

Ronon shrugged, enjoying her dramatic show of disgust. "According to the legend, no. Some say she was Wraithkin, others a human immune to a feeding. She was a Wraith hunter yet saved one from death. He took her as his wife. Kept it a secret." He searched the black heavens, remembering his own revulsion at the idea of a human mated with a Wraith. "His queen would have fed on him if she'd known."

"I didn't think Wraith capable of that kind of emotion. Not to sound flippant, but knowing how Wraith view humans, that's sorta like falling in love with your cheeseburger." She glanced down at her MRE with a longing gaze. "I could easily fall in love with a cheeseburger right now."

He allowed himself a faint smile. "It's just a tale. I don't believe it."

She pointed her fork at him. "Legends have a grain of truth, and it makes for a great story. Don't stop there. What happened?" She waved the fork back and forth. "Wait. If you say they had a bunch of kids, I'm going to be sick."

The idea made him a little queasy too. "My grandmother use to say they meet when the Wraith awaken so he can give her the Gift of Life to keep her from growing old. She still hunts Wraith. He still feeds on humans."

Jennifer harrumphed. "Talk about a relationship in conflict. It makes the mess between you and me easy by comparison." She eyed her dinner once more, her upper lip curled. "You know, for something that has fifty-two grams of fat in it, it should taste a lot better than it does." She held the MRE out to him. "You want the rest of mine?"

He took it with a nod of thanks and forked into the nearly full helping of fajitas.

She watched him while she crunched on a handful of M&Ms. "I don't know how you can eat that with such gusto."

He shrugged. "It's food." From the corner of his eye, he caught the stillness settling over her features. She looked to her bag of candy then back to him. Even with night full on them and all reds turned to shades of gray, he could see the blush staining the ridges of her cheekbones.

"How often did you go without a meal when you were a Runner?"

"I didn't count." As a Runner, making it through each day alive was a triumph, eating on a regular basis, a bonus.

She passed him the second bag of M&Ms she'd bartered her Tabasco for at the beginning of their dinner. "Here. Too much sugar isn't good for the teeth."

They both fell silent for a moment while finishing their dessert. Jennifer broke the quiet by pointing to a spot in the sky. "You have a better knowledge of the Pegasus star systems than I do. What are those three stars? There in the east?"

He followed her line of sight to the three lights. It took him the space of an inhalation to determine those weren't stars. He sprang to his feet.

Jennifer jumped at his sudden movement. "Ronon?"

He tapped his comm, linking everyone into his signal. "Incoming! Get down! Get down!" The words had barely left his lips before the night lit up in a series of flashes and an eruption of sand and pebbles shot skyward before raining down on them.

Before he could reach for her, Jennifer had leapt from her spot next to him and was sprinting toward the camp. Ronon cursed and bolted after her. He laid a hand across her back, urging her silently to keep her head down and her profile low. Explosions thundered next to them and overhead. A yurt burst into flame and Marai villagers swarmed in every direction, carrying children and leading livestock toward any cover offered by the landscape.

Parker's voice echoed in a tinny crackle across the comm. "Three fliers! Similar to Huey Cobras with two machine guns and an auto cannon." The rat-a-tat-tat of return fire on the fliers punctuated his sentences.

They reached the middle of camp where Ronon joined the other Marines in the firefight. The whine and concussion thump of his blaster rifle played supporting chorus to the jitter of M16s as the team worked to fend off their attackers. A carefully placed shot from the blaster sent one of the ships careening off to the west like a spinning top, leaving a spiraling smoke trail behind it. The ground vibrated with the impact as a column of flames and sand billowed upward.

The remaining two ships broke off, arcing out of range to sweep across the landscape. Ronon wasn't fooled. The successful scuttle of the third ship had surprised the Ksak pilots, and they'd retreated long enough to regroup. They'd be back, and they'd strike hard and strike fast. He scanned the blasted camp, noting the bodies sprawled next to dead animals and burning yurts. The surgical tent had been reduced to a heap of scorched canvas melted to the black skeleton of the twisted metal frame. The quarantine tent stood miraculously untouched. He caught sight of Jennifer escorting those ill with the influenza from the shelter, giving instructions to family members and other villagers who'd come to help.

Corporal Murray's shrill whistle cracked across the white noise of crying children, shouting adults and the bleats of panicked livestock. The sound made Ronon's ears buzz out for a moment but was effective in catching everyone's attention. She stood next to the village chief. "Sir," she called out to him. "The chief says there's a rock shelter positioned near a gulley not far from here. It's camouflaged by a lot of scrub and hard to see, even from the air. We can't stay there long, but it'll give us enough time to regroup.

He nodded. "Do it. The sick, the young & the old first. Someone too weak to walk, carry them. Leave the livestock. They'll slow us down."

She saluted and left to coordinate with the rest of the team while Ronon jogged to the quarantine tent. Jennifer met him at the entrance, a crying toddler balanced on her hip. Flames from the ruins of the adjacent surgery tent cast undulating shadows across her face, turning her already grim expression even grimmer. "If they come back..."

"They're coming back." He took the child from her and passed him to a waiting Marai woman who nodded her assent when he told her the latest plans in the local dialect. "There's shelter nearby. We'll get there before the Ksak return if we hurry." His gaze passed over Jennifer, searching for injuries, blood, anything that would likely send both is blood pressure and his anger skyrocketing. Except for her compressed lips and a fine coating of sand that made her skin and hair sparkle in the fire's light, she appeared unfazed by the attack. "You okay, Doc?"

She offered a small smile. "Always the protector. I'm good." She treated him to the same thorough visual inspection. "You?"

"Not a scratch."

The smile turned speculative. "You wouldn't tell me otherwise right now anyway."

"Probably not."

She shook her head and motioned for him to follow her. "I have three more in the tent—two men and a woman. The men are well enough to walk. The woman is still too weak."

He signaled to three Marai who came to wait at the tent's entrance. Between them, they helped the two sick walk out of the tent. Ronon carried the woman and handed her off to a man she recognized as her brother. He re-entered the tent, intending to tell Jennifer to hurry it up when he caught the high, vibrating hum of the approaching fliers. Behind him, the village erupted into another swell of panic as the team worked to get those still alive out of harm's way.

"Jennifer!" His shout bled out to nothing against the explosions that struck the village in a second wave. The ground rocked beneath him. In the sparking flash of shattered EMI lights, he saw Jennifer stumble against one of the makeshift beds near the back of the tent.

The distance from the tent entrance to the back yawned before him, greater than the span between stargates. Time slowed for him, split seconds stretching into minutes, hours. Another world, another battle superimposed itself on the scene. Melena faced him, pale with terror but unwilling to leave, no matter how much he pleaded for her to come to him. A colossal wave of fire swept toward her.

"It's not your fault. She chose to stay. Don't put that blame on yourself."

Words of absolution spoken by a shy woman whom he'd once held in contempt and then grew to cherish.

Jennifer regained her feet and turned to face him. Behind her the tent wall lit up in a wash of color-scarlet and yellow, hot tides of orange and searing white. They cast her in silhouette, unwilling worshipper before the rise of a destroying sun.

Pumped up on adrenaline fueled by sheer horror, Ronon bellowed her name and raced to reach her. "Jennifer, run! Run!"

"It's not your fault. She chose to stay."

"Jennifer!"

"She chose to stay."

"She chose to stay."