Debriefing Challenge: Small Stories

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Challenge: Debriefing
Title: Small Stories
Spoilers: Season Two, up through Duet.
Rating: G
Author: Brighid
Summary: The sum of his parts.
Note: This is for Destina, who probably didn't think I could do it. *g*



Small Stories
by Brighid

Elizabeth Weir is slim-boned and lanky, all elegant sinew. She sits awkwardly in her chair, though, across from him, and her gaze skitters and darts all over before finally coming up to meet his eyes. He is surprised at the steel in her intent, pale stare. He is reminded that Wraith, too, look bird-boned and fragile, right up until they swallow your heart whole.

"I need to know a bit more about you, Ronon, before I can let you go out with my personnel," she says finally, decisively. "Colonel Sheppard recommends you, and that's not something I take lightly, but the truth is? We've been played by this galaxy a few times, and I'm not willing to risk that again. I need to know you better before I can make any definitive decision about your presence here." She pushes a slim, silver laptop across the desk. "Part of that is knowing about where you come from. Sateda is ... impressive in a galaxy where so few civilizations have achieved technology to match ours, let alone surpass it. So that's your first job here. Write me a report. I've got the questions I need answered in a file with your name on it. I'll expect it on my desk by tomorrow."

Ronon touches the cool silver of the casing tentatively. "I've never used a device like this one before," he says finally.

A slight smile ghosts over her face. "You could ask Doctor McKay. He's on limited duty at the moment, due to his seizures, and I'm sure he'd welcome the distraction."

Somehow, Ronon doubts that "welcome" is the correct term. He scoops up the narrow silver computer and nods once at Weir before leaving.

)))

The Recruiter came around for the first time when Ronon eight, Gesar was ten and their sister Anwil was eleven. After his parents had washed her feet at the shrine by the door, she'd sat down with them all at the table and discussed the service owed Sateda by all citizens and of the increased need to be vigilant, to be ready.

"How many?" Ronon's mother asked bluntly, midway through the explanation. She had done Barracks when young, had made the rank of Weapon's Master. She had scars on her arms from backfire to prove it. Ronon had seen them clearly only handful of times, though, because she always wore work shirts with long sleeves, and even her prayer shawl was designed to cover her arms.

"One to the Farm, one to the Academy, one to the Barracks," the Recruiter said. "Farm shall return home after six years service. Academy is for life. Barracks is until wounded, dead, or ranked out." There was a pale sadness in her blind gaze. "It'll be Hunger again, soon. It's never been so long without before. All families are being asked as you are, I promise."

Ronon's father, who'd been Farm himself for a full twelve years before breeding, looked at his children. "I'll let you choose," he said finally, which was as much as he could give them.

Anwil, the eldest, chose first. "Farm," she said, and it was right. She was small and her hands were good with growing things, plants and animals both. She'd enrich the store holds greatly, keep them from hungry times.

Next should have been Gesar, but he was silent. Ronon knew the right answer was Barracks, that as the youngest he should have been spared that, but he also knew that his brother dreamed only of machines when asleep and woke only to take everything apart so that he could put it all back together better than before. Besides, he was taller and broader already than Gesar.

"Barracks," Ronon said, and his brother's hand came up and touched his elbow once, briefly. His mother smiled at him, her eyes bright and wet.

It was the only time he'd ever see her cry.

)0(

McKay is all fuss and bluster when he opens his door, bur he waves Ronon in anyways and even offers him a cookie from the plate he's got set beside the work on his desk. Ronon knows others find him annoying, but sometimes he reminds Ronon of Gesar. He's as focused and as brilliant and just as snappish. Ronon knows, too, that he is brave, just as Gesar had been, not in obvious ways but in subtle ones. Hidden ways. The familiarity eases something tight and strictured in Ronon's chest. He finds McKay easy to be around.

"You mean you didn't have computers?" McKay sounds more stunned than scornful. "What did you write on, paper? Or. Oh, God. You are literate, right? You can read and write?"

"Our technology was voice run," Ronon says. "Could do it manually, but why bother? And your programs, they're different." He shrugs, takes the laptop back. "I can ask Sheppard."

"Oh, please. Like he's anything but hunt and peck. And he crashes his system at least once a month, because he thinks everything should load with start-up." McKay holds out his hand, snaps his fingers when Ronon doesn't give it back immediately. "So, what's Elizabeth got you ... oh, hmmm. Yeah. How about I set this up as a form for you, so that you can just drop answers in, keep it to the point?"

Ronon looks at where he's pointing, shrugs. "Sure. Can I have another cookie?"

"One more," Rodney says, but Ronon notices that he doesn't pull the plate away even after he reaches for a fourth a little while later. Instead he just snorts and takes another one for himself. "So. You liking it here?" he asks finally, around a mouthful.

"It's better than being chased," Ronon answers finally.

McKay looks up at him, and his eyes are pale blue, nothing like Gesar's at all, except that they're exactly the same. "Yeah, some days, anyway. Though that can change."

"Most things can." Ronon says easily, and McKay snorts but says nothing, just keeps fiddling with Weir's very long list of questions.

)))

Anwil came to visit him his first week in his Regiment Barracks. She touched the still-sore skin of his tattoo. "Fifteen years old and you come out as Primary. Very good, Baby!" she said, smiling. Ronon lifted her up and kissed her cheeks soundly. "So, you have your Twelve-Hour out. Do you have time to eat with your sister, or will you be spending all your time within the Companion House? Not that a yearling like you would need that much time." She said it too loudly, so that all the others in the hall, new Primaries and Secondaries, could hear her.

Ronon blushed scarlet at their laughter, but smiled all the same, because that was so very typical of Anwil. Father said he knew she was meant for the Farm, because of all the earth in her nature. "A man needs to eat before taking on such a mission," he replied. "So I suppose I have a little time for you. Especially since you're buying."

Anwil reached into her beltpack, pulled out a credit strip. "Father sent me money to feed you well, actually, in honour of the family feast you're too far from home for." She pulled out a second credit strip. "Mother sent this for you alone, to pay for the Companion House. She says spend it wisely." Anwil leaned in, patted his arm. "I say spend it frivolously. If you need more than that, I'll loan you what you need. You're only a new Primary once, yes?"

Ronon tucked the strips into his own pouch, and pulled her arm tight against his body. "You," he said, smiling down into her unrepentant face, "are a very good sister."

"I'm the best," Anwil said, poking his chest which had already started to broaden and fill into manhood. "You'll understand that when you're older."

)0(

Sheppard's too thin to carry the weight that he does, too slender and supple. He smiles and jokes and talks about children's games and his hands are so pale you'd think they'd never seen blood. He probably would not have lasted in Ronon's regiment. He never would have gotten to the rank of Task Master in it. When Ronon was still new, he would have scorned to follow such a man. His first Task Master Enjir had been as hard as the Cimrol Mountains, and equally impossible to get around. They'd called him Cimrol behind his back, and they'd meant it as an honour. His last Task Master, Kell, had been a force like a windtwist, destroying everything in his path, fierce and compelling. Ronon had damn near worshipped him.

Ronon hasn't been new for a very long time. He watches how Sheppard watches. Sheppard bends so that the blows do not break him. He is known to his men because otherwise they would be lost in a galaxy of unknowns. He fights hard and dirty when he has to, but he pretends it is easy so that others do not despair. He goes back to Emmagan again and again because it is the right thing to do, to allow yourself to fall and get back up again where those you lead can see it, learn from it.

He expects everything of his warriors, and gives it back to them in return.

He reads Ronon's report quietly as he finishes his sandwich, eyes flickering from side to side, pupils narrowed against the screen glow. "Yeah, that ought to help Weir. Personally, I think it's a formality. She needs to figure you out a bit, know which box to put you in so that she can figure out how to work with you." He leans back in the chair, pokes his dessert with his spoon. "She's a good boss."

"She's a civilian," Ronon says.

"Doesn't matter. She's still a good boss. She cares. She's smart. She's stared down guys with really big guns and not flinched. And did I mention she cares?" He scoops up a wobbling blue spoonful, stuffs it his mouth.

Ronon fishes a cube out, slurps it down. "Seems to be the way you Earthers do things. Caring."

Sheppard's gaze is suddenly intent upon him, laser-sight focused. "Is that a bad thing?"

"Don't know," Ronon says finally, after scooping up the rest of the cubes. "Have to see. It's different, though."

"Yeah," Sheppard says. "That's what I thought at first, too."

)))

The alarms had been flashing in the streets all day: three hive ships, coming fast. Four days out, at most. They'd all been given a 12-Hour, to fuck and feast and say goodbye. Ronon had called his Mother, and she had saluted his new rank, Specialist, and he had touched the tattoo that was now one line more than hers. It had felt to him a little like the few times she'd kissed him, years ago, a fleeting brush of lips when he was almost asleep. It was the only softness she'd ever shown. Then he'd called his siblings; his sister met him on the Temple steps, as had his brother, and they'd prayed together under the great stone Elementals, their arms wrapped tightly around one another. At the end of Song, Gesar had kissed his hands, Anwil had kissed his breastbone, and they'd gone to their separate shelters.

Imchi found him on the temple steps three hours later and sat beside him. Her neck was red with its new tattoo, and her armour had been polished to a glistening blue-black. "I've been assigned to protect the West Bunkers," she said finally. "I've managed to get the section Gesar's in. I'll do whatever I can."

Ronon leaned sideways, rested his head atop of hers, his locked hair mingling with her redleaf braids "Thank-you."

They sat in silence for a very long time, and then Imchi said, her voice thick, "Tell me again."

Ronon closed his eyes. "We would have stood in the garden behind my mother's house, under the tree where my father rests," Ronan said finally, his voice rusty and raw. "I'd have washed your feet and legs, your belly and breasts and arms. I'd have dropped three stones into your mouth. I'd have taken them back again with a kiss, saved them to put in the foundation of our first house." He stopped, his breath ragged and harsh.

"I'd have touched your lips with sweet wine, and your chest, and the crown of your head. I'd have torn the bread in two and given you half." Her voice cracked and she paused, breathed deeply once, twice to steady it. "I'd have gone to your bed and lain down with you, and your mother would have covered us with the sheet, my father with the blanket, and I'd have held you all night long in my arms."

"I think we did all those things, already," Ronon said finally, into the small silence that fell between them.

"I have to leave in an hour," Imchi said.

"That's long enough," Ronon said. She reached up to touch his face, and her fingertips came away wet.

"No it's not," Imchi said, licking the salt first from her fingers, then from the edge of his beard. "But it will have to do."

)0(

Ronon watches as Teyla sits on the balcony, cross-legged, and waits for the sunrise. When it crests she bows, then takes a slow sip from a mug of tea that's been steaming into the cold morning air.

"You greet every morning?" he asks when her mug is emptied, coming to sit beside her. She does not flinch, merely angles her head in acknowledgement.

"Every morning that I am able to, yes. It reminds me of ... home, of connection." She stretches up. "It provides me with ... steady ground, stillness, things too easily lost in a life such as this."

"Ground's always moving under my feet," Ronon says. Only now that he's stopped running does he really feel how truly tiring that is.

"It is for all of us. That's why one must seek the stillness inside, why one must cultivate it." She smiles at him. "If you will teach me how to close the holes in my defence, perhaps I can try to help you find your stillness?"

"You can try," Ronon says finally. He doesn't think that she'll be able to, but then, he'd never pictured any of this, either. So ... perhaps. "I've got to go give Weir my report." He stands up, offers her a hand, but she rises easily without it.

"I'll go with you," she says. "In the morning, Doctor Weir has a pot of jasmine tea, now that contact to Earth is restored, and she is always willing to share it. It is very nice."

"D'you think she'll have jell-o?" he asks. Because he'd liked that. It had wriggled. And McKay said it came in other colours, not just blue.

"I do not think it is a traditional Earth breakfast, no," Teyla replies. "But perhaps if you ask?"

"I'll do that." Today he'd ask for green.

It had been Gesar's favourite colour.

)0(

End