The Not Knowing by it_mightbe_love [Family Challenge]

[it-mightbe-love.livejournal.com]

Title:  The Not Knowing
Author:  it_mightbe_love
Rating:  PG
Category:  Gen, slash if you squint really hard.
Word Count:  920
Characters:  The Team, OFC
Pairing: Ronon/Rodney (SQUINT REALLY HARD) John/Teyla (more eye straining squintage)
Spoilers:  Set in late S4.  Spoilers through Runner (if you squint)
Summary:  Ronon tells the team about his sister.
A/N:  First ever SGA fic, so be gentle pleeease.

Ronon rarely spoke of life on Sateda; the rare few times he did it was usually in his quiet, rough voice eyes staring off behind someone's shoulders. Dark with remembrance.

 

He has spoken of Melena his wife, the one who died in the explosion when she refused to evacuate, he talks of her because her loss hurt the least.

 

But he does not speak of his family, specifically his young sister.

 

Rhissa was close to five years younger than he, a difficult child from the moment she was conceived, resulting in the death of his mother and the subsequent withdrawal of his father. He was ten years old, and he remembers holding her for the first time, all red and squishy and scrunchy faced: screaming with all the vigor of a newly born child who is clearly already at odds with the world.

 

He remembers thinking she was the most beautiful thing in the Galaxy.

 

He celebrates her birthing day ever year (April 3rd Earth time) in traditional Satedan fashion. Every year he gets clearance from Elizabeth (though during his Running years celebrating was more difficult it did not stop him from traveling through the Ancient's Ring to pay her homage). And he travels back to his home world.

 

It is a dusky night when he tells his teammates of his sister, a fragile creature with a voice he would joke, 'a Satedan could hear half a continent away'.

 

Rodney is surprisingly quiet, and Ronon knows in a familiarly intimate way that this is because Rodney has a younger sister whom he spent years of his life caring for and raising.

 

John's lips purse in that odd half frown, expressive eyebrows drawing together as if he is about to say something but thinks better of it.

 Teyla merely smiles and asks him to continue.

Ronon tells them how when Rhissa was four she got her hands on his triple barreled shotgun and blew a hole the size of a cat through the door and the hallway wall, it was the single most terrifying moment of his life. Even worse than knowing Melena would die inevitably at the hands of Wraith.

 He tells them that Rhissa was also one of the most beautiful women he has ever known, she was gifted with bright sun burnt orange hair that when she was seven she chopped off. (An incident with a paring knife and too much sticky butter)

He remembers having to crop her hair so close to her head she looked like a newly minted Satedan ten piece. (Roughly the equivalent of fifty earth cents).

Rodney snickers because he remembers Jeannie had done something similar when she was a toddler, he nods in commiseration, John looks slightly confused and Teyla laughs outright.

When Rhissa was thirteen Ronon had been applying to join the military, they got into a huge fight and she ran away.

The Wraith attacked right afterwards and Ronon spent four hours hiding in a sewage dock biting his lips until they bled to keep from screaming for her, she had been hiding under her bed the entire time.

 
When Rhissa was fifteen she demanded she and Ronon get something to celebrate his promotion in the military. The tattoo artist took one look at the symbol and sat them both down to ink it into their necks.

 

John interrupted, hazel eyes dark in the dim light of the dying fire, "What does it mean?"

 

Teyla turned and gave him a look, "Hush John and let him continue speaking." Teyla understood the nature of talking just as she understood that Ronon rarely spoke of his past and so one should listen when he chose to speak of it.

 

She disappeared a year later, several hours before a Wraith attack: he received a single message, 'don't worry' before, according to witnesses, she walked through a disengaged 'Gate and did not come out the other side.

 
He confesses that this is what hurts the most and is the most difficult to deal with.

The Not-Knowing.

Because it is one thing when you have the aged, and decrepit husk of a person, or the emaciated corpse.
But having nothing, and never knowing if she is still alive, or if she is dead, he says it kills him inside.
He confesses that this is why he returns to Sateda every year. In the hopes that she might return.

 
He says that sometimes he thinks he sees her, in the corner of his eye all bright sun burnt hair and laughing eyes. He says she smelled like the berries from the planet with the 'dinosaurs'.

 

(Rodney laughs, "Nutmeg...it's a comforting smell.")

 

The fire is mostly embers when he finishes speaking and the two moons of this particular planet are riding high in the sky, the smaller chasing the larger like a lost lover. Trailing in its dull red wake, like Eros chasing the ever illusive Psyche, the wretched love of his heart.

 
Teyla is silent as she stands and beckons John with him to her tent, leaving only Rodney to offer Ronon comfort.

 
The last thing either see is Rodney leaning across to place a tentative hand to the Satedan's knee, and murmuring quietly, though quite loudly in the quiet air.

 
"May I come with you next time?"

 
Neither hears the answer but both are sure that Ronon says yes.

 

The scent of nutmeg lingers in the wind, the soft caress wrapping around the smooth canvas of their tents. The night is silent but for the lingering sound of wind.