NEW AUTHORS NOTE: 1/24/16: Have edited this chapter. I am sorry for the lack of posting, but now I am trying to trim up the first few chapters. Reread updated chapters! New chapters are also in the works! This is not over by far! :)

Author's Note: So this is my very first story. Please review! This is Ronon/OC. I am doing this for fun either way, but it would be nice to know what you think. :)

The story starts immediately after the episode where Dr. Weir is infected with the nanites, and is induced into a false reality. –She realizes that even though the dream wasn't real, she needs an assistant to take the stress off of her position as leader of Atlantis.

*Coinsides with "Common Ground" in the 3rd season. The one where Sheppard is kidnapped by Kolya and the wraith feeds on him while imprisoned. I am just using this as a starting place to get a feel on the character.*

After this chapter, the story will be AU. :)

Ronon was just back from a basic mission on the planet Hath with Dr. Beckett giving out medical supplies for a local illness. He intended to report a successful mission to Dr. Weir and Col. Sheppard when he stepped into the control room, only to find Teyla and a woman he had never seen alone in pleasant conversation.

"Hellllooooo, who are you good sir? Why didn't they introduce me to you sooner?" The stranger jeered as she moved to shake his hand. He gave Teyla a confused look that she greeted with a wide grin and a stifled laugh. Teyla doubted that anyone had ever dared to tease him before.

"Ronon Dex." he said as he took her hand in a more than usually forceful grasp, but if she noticed, she gave nothing away. She continued to smile at him with just an edge of a laugh in the corner of her mouth.

"Nalani Sanders and it is nice to meet you." She gave a lighthearted laugh while eying him up and down. Her green eyes practically crackled with energy that could light up the universe.

"Ronon is on Colonel Sheppard's off world team with Dr. McKay and myself. He has just returned from a supply mission with the facility's physician, Dr. Beckett." Teyla volunteered as they broke the handshake. Neither turned to look at her.

"Best news I've had all day, hopefully we will see a lot more of each other. I'm Dr. Weir's new assistant." Said Lani. She didn't take a step back from him, her eyes shifted wildly across his face, filtering and categorizing each expression.

"Why does Weir need an assistant?" he asked. His expressions ranged from guarded boredom to mild interest.

"I'm not too sure myself, I've just met the good doctor, but she put in a request to the IOA to have someone sent out to help her in her off-world duties. It seems that she thought the team needed someone with people skills to broker trade agreements and assist her team with certain difficult people, because she can't be constantly away from her post here in Atlantis." Lani said as she gestured grandly around the room.

"You have people skills?" He said sardonically as he raised his eyebrows. She was standing close enough to see the incredulity in the movement of every freckle.

"Oh, the big man has jokes!" she said with a burst of a laugh. "I have the skills of persuasion necessary if you should ever like to see them in action." She said as she winked at him.

He eyes betrayed a glint of humor, but he turned his attention to Teyla, "Where's Sheppard?"

"He is waiting for you and Dr. Beckett in McKay's lab, along with Dr. Weir." Teyla said. Ronon nodded and without another word he turned and walked out of the control room. Nalani could feel the air around her get instantly colder, his absence stealing the warmth from the air where he stood.

A slow smile spread across her face while watching him walk away. "Well," she said "that was refreshing." She turned to Teyla. "Is he always that loquacious?"

Teyla smiled softly, "He was in a good mood, the mission must have gone well."

Ronon reached McKay's office quickly and found them all in deep conversation about something on Rodney's screen. Like usual, he was complaining that he didn't know the answers to all their questions.

"How am I supposed to know?! It isn't as if this is a problem that occurs on a regular basis!" Said McKay

"Just tell us what it means." pleaded Sheppard in an almost appeasing voice.

McKay looked at him with astonishment. "It means there in a good chance that there is a ZedPM at this dialing address that the Genii gave us." He looked around to Dr. Weir. "It is worth a chance at least." He said.

"Very well, as soon as Ronon gets back with Carson, take the team and scout out the planet." Weir agreed as she lifted her head she saw Ronon standing in the doorway. "Oh, good, your back. How was the mission?" She asked.

"Uneventful." He said bluntly. "When do we leave?"

"As soon as we can, where's Teyla?" Sheppard asked. Ronan sunk heavily into an empty chair. There was a brief flit in Sheppard's eyes durning the short pause.

"She's in the control room with Weir's new assistant." Ronon said.

"Oh, she is friends with Nalani now, is she?" McKay burst out, "That woman is manipulative and she is wildly inappropriate. She has nothing valuable to offer this team, this city nor anyone in it." He flailed around as he spoke, almost making contact with several pieces of valuable equipment. He struck a standing lamp and lunged to catch it, righting it with unsteady hands. "What kind of jokes did she make at your expense Ronon?"

"She hurt your feelings?" Ronon said, with a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Rodney was awfully squirmy about the new girl, whatever she said to him, he was bummed that he missed it. He raised his eyebrows, hoping to entice Rodney to spill the details.

"I- she-"

"She made McKay feel… uncomfortable." Sheppard said with a smile. "It wasn't too difficult for her either, and it didn't make it better that she called him on it."

Rodney looked around incredulously, "Her insinuations about my… endowments… were totally unprofessional." He looked down at his computer screen as he blushed bright red in an obvious mixture of rage and embarrassment. Ronon grinned at Sheppard. He thought of how close she stood to him, refusing to allow more than a few inches between them, never taking her searching eyes from his face. That alone was enough to make Rodney uncomfortable. She pulled out all the stops with him.

Dr. Weir smiled as she moved towards the door, "I quite like her. Anyone who can make you blush is a friend of mine." She winked at Sheppard as she passed. "Tell Dr. Sanders to go see Carson for her acclimatization physical. I want her ready for the field as soon as possible.

Lani exited the medical bay after getting the green light from Dr. Beckett to find the place abuzz with activity. No sooner than she put in her ear piece it barked.

"Dr. Sanders, to the gate room immediately." It sounded like Weir, but her voice was terse and stressed.

"On my way now Doctor" she said and broke into a run. She had barely been here for a few hours. God, it was going to be a long day. When she jogged into the room it was crawling with soldiers.

"Sanders, where have you been? I have been trying to contact you for 5 minutes." Weir said. Her eyes where hard and worried, definitely a drastic change from their earlier softness.

"Sorry for the delay; Dr. Beckett just finished up with my physical and I am officially approved for active duty, ma'am." She said. The professionalism in her tone bewildered everyone in the room, considering she had flirted and teased everyone she met shamelessly since she arrived that morning, regardless of gender. McKay looked around the room incredulously, not quite as advanced at social graces as everyone else.

"Could someone please tell me why this girl is here, and why we had to wait for her?" he said impatiently.

"Dr. Sanders is a highly advanced negotiator as well as interrogator, and she will be taking my place in the field for this mission, and therefore needs to be briefed on the situation." Said Dr. Weir. "Teyla, fill her in while we discuss tactics, she will have to multitask."

There were lies flying all over this place. She wasn't a diplomat. She had no interrogation experience nor was she a skilled negotiator. She was supposed to be employed here as a behavioral analyst. If Weir just wanted to tell if someone was lying or not, Lani was her girl. This was the lie they had come up with as her cover because Weir didn't want the rest of Atlantis knowing her true purpose here just yet.

A few things were clear, even if it wasn't much to work with: Colonel Sheppard had been taken. By someone, but no one knew who. To be taken somewhere, but no one knew where. The only lead they had was the Genii, who had been historically hostile towards them, but recently had come under new leadership and the relationship was on the mend. After a few minutes of muddled talk around the room the gate activated to deliver the Genii leaders from their home world. Everyone shuffled into position behind the team and Dr. Weir.

"Sanders. By me. Eyes on their leader Ladon primarily. I will call him by name. Scan the others." Weir said in a hushed tone. "Security teams stand by. Lower the shields."

As the unfamiliar men stepped through the gate, Lani was scanning them, looking for incongruity. As soon as Weir could call their leader by name, Ronon was towering over him already questioning what he had done with Sheppard. As they stripped away their guns, Lani studied the micro-expressions of the whole group. It was evident that these Genii at least had no part in the capture of Sheppard and were not lying. Ronon was so angry that he was about to jeopardize all the progress they had made with this new leader. Lani had seen his expression on so many others; frustrated, and confused, he felt backed into a corner and the only way out was this man whom he had to get information from, one way or another.

"Sanders, I want you to go with them." Said Dr. Weir. "Be my eyes and ears and get them out if you see anything." The Genii leader had given them the name of a planet that corresponded to their own long list of possible dialing addresses taken from the stargate. Lani had no idea what she was supposed to be looking for, this was a raiding mission. She saw little opportunity for her to analyze, that is is Ronon left anyone on that planet alive.

"Dr. Weir, I have no combat training, I will be of little use to anyone." Lani said. She hoped to be in Atlantis at least for a few days before her first mission. No one knew her, they didn't trust her and they wouldn't listen to her even if she did see something. If this was a horror movie, she would be the extraneous character that died first, and she had no intention of dying.

"Hopefully you won't have to be in direct combat; have you ever fired a gun?" Weir asked.

"Yea, just never at anyone." Lani said apprehensively.

"Just stay behind me." Ronon said above the crowd to no one in particular, but at least it made her feel better. She walked up beside Teyla, with a gun she had never used strapped on her shoulder. She shot her a worried look as they were about to step through the gate, and Teyla gave her a reassuring smile. Lani wanted to punch herself for that stupid memory that saw the pinched skin above the eyebrows that told her Teyla was even more worried than her, but she didn't need to be an expert to see Ronon's emotions. She wanted to flash him a smile to ease his mind, but she didn't want him to think that she was being cavalier about the Colonel being kidnapped. Instead she responded to his aggression by not changing her face at all, this was a man who responded to action. His anger would fade as soon as Sheppard was back on Atlantis and not before.

Silent. Lani's heart was punching the inside of her ribcage. Be silent. She told herself. The storming of the Genii warehouse began. Ronon threw a grenade in the window. A grenade? What the fuck? Who is this guy? Why is a grenade his go-to solution here? Ronon kicked in the door and everyone rushed in behind him. Not her. No thank you. I'll just stay right here for a bit. This shit was crazy.

"Just the caretaker" She heard Ronon say. She let out her breath and cursed inwardly. Shit. Square one. She closed her eyes, and leaned back and slid down the metal wall of the warehouse.

KAT-KAT-KAT

Lani lept to her feet at the sound of the gunfire and rushed through the warehouse door. Dr. Rodney McKay was firing wildly at something in a corner as the whole team arrived at his location.

"Rodney?" Dr. Beckett looked at him inquiringly.

"I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I just, uh, I ... you know, I reacted." McKay said nervously.

"What is it?" asked Teyla.

"It's, um ... a mouse. Really big one, though. More of a rat, really. Possibly rabid." McKay said sheepishly. Lani lowered her weapon with a roll of her eyes.

"This isn't the place, is it?" Beckett looked at Teyla, looking a little deflated.

"I do not believe so." She reponded.

"No. Sheppard wasn't here." Ronon said.

"And we've just wasted two and a half hours." McKay reminded them, in case anyone hadn't noticed.

"Let's move out!" Ronon barked to the team.

"... and a mouse." McKay added quietly.

Lani spread all the related files at her disposal in a complicated pattern across her floor. She wasn't even halfway done. But the time had come. She had to make a decision now. She was sitting crosslegged in the middle of the document labyrinth she had created for herself. She stood slowly, stretching her stiff muscles, bones and joints cracking and popping in the melodious sounds of an intellectual at work. Her joints were much older than her 23 years. Long hours sitting in contorted positions with your head stuffed into books would give anyone back pain. She really should start working out again. She left her room as it was and pulled on her jacket, zipping it up halfway. Decision time: Was Ladon telling the truth? She took the long walk in the hallway to consider her verdict.

It was harder when she had barely met the good guys, much less the bad guys. She stretched her neck from side to side. She had read the files, and of course remembered every word, but sometimes knowledge is nothing until it is experienced. And now Ladon wanted to go back to his home planet to interrogate his so called traitorous prisoners. She knew that her observations could only come to one of two conclusions, only one of which could be right. He was either lying since he arrived in Atlantis, about everything, or he was telling the truth, about everything. There could be no half-truths. He had been congruent in all of his statements and actions, never changing anything. What she needed was for him to say something that she knew to be true, that way she at least had a baseline to work with.

Nalani stepped into the control room, ready to give her answer. That was before she saw Weir.

The failed mission on the wrong planet had already taken its toll on the doctor. Her eyes were more sunken, the veins under them were more pronounced and the skin on her whole face looked more like jam that had been spread too thin. No one else in Atlantis would be able to tell, except for Lani. She knew what people were supposed to look like under normal circumstances, right down to how many times they blinked per minute, or if they said a word in a different tone than usual. She was the best at what she did and she could spot a liar within three sentences.

"Do you have a decision yet?" Dr. Weir asked. Lani realized how much was at stake. Not just for her. The team was desperate to get their Colonel back. He influenced everything here. So many people cared for him. Teyla and Ronan would be beside themselves. Sheppard personified moral in this city. He had to be returned. The choice was clear.

"He is being truthful." Lani said as she looked over Ladon. This was a lot to place on her shoulders the first day. If she got this wrong, everyone would blame her and a specific Satedan would most likely cut off her head and put it on a spike above his door. Teyla, so far the only person she seemed to be even on the road of friendship with, would always doubt her, never truly trusting her judgments. She had to be sure about this. This was the only way to get Sheppard back.

As Ladon passed through the gate, McKay asked "Why do I have this sinking feeling we just made a terrible mistake?"

"Because we have." Ronon responded with a glare at Lani. He moved over to where she was standing, and towered over her, angrier than she had ever seen anyone. But she kept her face blank and expressionless.

"I am sure about this." She said. If she was going down, she was going down with conviction. She lowered her voice, so only the few around them could hear. Ronon wanted a scene, and she wasn't about to give it to him. "He showed no signs of deception before he knew it was this man Kolya that took Sheppard, and once he found out, he showed undeniable signs of disgust and guilt, most likely the guilt of letting him and those who were his spies get away with this." She said. She took a step up to Ronon, who was obviously challenging her. Her voice amplify in its intensity. "This is what I do. You have what you do best; and it is very obvious that impartiality is not your gift. That's a good thing, in your position, but you are out of your league on this one. This is my territory and when I say that I have seen it, I have." She said. She glared right back up at him, even if she was far less intimidating being over a foot shorter, she had to show him that he couldn't scare her. Not that she wasn't scared of him, she was shaking in her mental boots, but Lani was not standing down, and Ronon hadn't accepted that yet.

"Why should we trust you? Sheppard was taken only hours after you got here." He said in an accusatory tone. Nalani's eyes narrowed. But what could she say? She could already see that he was the one who asked the most prominent questions, those that no one else wanted to be accountable for, but that everyone needed to hear. He was right, it seemed suspicious, but she had been with another person every second since she arrived here. She knew this, but no one else would confirm that there wasn't mere seconds that lapsed where she could have contacted some enemy she learned about 3 hours ago. She stared up at him defiantly as she searched for the right words.

"If you want to actually question me, fine, but I will not have your misplaced aggression land on my shoulders because you feel guilty about escaping that planet when your friend didn't." Lani said. Ronon's defensive position faltered for a mere second before resuming its original strength, but it was too late, she had seen the truth. Lani raised one eyebrow as a sign that she knew she hit the core of it. She spoke to the few others around her as she turned her attention from him "I know it is hard to trust someone who has not even been here for a full 24 hours, but you can believe me when I say that I know what I am doing. Even if I barely know the man I am doing it for, I will help you bring Col. Sheppard back." She said. Then she turned to go without another word. She needed to go over more documents. She may have a photographic memory, but she needed to actually see the document before it could work, and she had barely made it through a third of the reports on the events that transpired the last time the Genii tried to take over Atlantis.

Once the Genii leader had confirmed the new gate address of the planet Kolya was hiding on, Lani felt a lot more at ease. She was officially off the hook at least for her little outburst with Ronon, Ladon had been telling the truth after all. She silently thanked her gods and picked up the pace of her reading as she walked, she had only 10 minutes before the jumper departed and she was required to be on it, even if she didn't want to be.

It wasn't that she was afraid of fighting, but she was an absolute realist. She knew she wasn't ready. Even on the uneventful mission to the wrong planet she had been shaky. She felt ill prepared, a feeling she was neither familiar, nor comfortable with.

She boarded the ship and strapped into a rear seat next to Teyla, who seemed a lot more relaxed now than she was on the move again. Ronon walked in behind her and shot her an eerie smile as he sat down across from them. She looked away from him, but she could feel his eyes boring a hole in the side of her face. They rode in silence until they picked up Sheppard's transmitter and one other life sign. They landed quickly and started their silent approach to the source of the signal.

Lani stopped dead in her tracks as she saw movement in the clearing. Something ragged was bent over Sheppard, touching his chest with his right hand. Surrounding them was a circle of men that barely resembled men anymore. Ronon grabbed the creature and hurled it away from Sheppard as he drew his gun. Its yellow eyes met hers for only a moment, but every one of those seconds seemed like an eternity. She saw his desperation. So many emotions swirled in the eyes of the wraith. He had given Sheppard the gift of life, but that didn't matter to everyone else with guns. Until the Colonel ordered them to lower their weapons, she almost felt sorry for the first wraith she had ever seen.

Sorry for the slow start! I promise more action soon! :) Please review!