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When they return to Atlantis, guardians once more after the Ancestors decide that their place is no longer terra-bound, Ronon talks Lorne into flying him out to the mainland. He's got a pack with enough supplies to last him a week and a desire to be gone until Atlantis is put back to rights. It makes his skin itch to not see the Earth technology sitting alongside the consoles, mismatched but familiar in a way that Ronon's come to rely on despite that he walked away so easily, and that for so long he wouldn't let anything become familiar to him.
The gaen field is undisturbed and he breathes a sigh of relief when he sees it. There was no reason to suspect it wouldn't be just as he left it but Ronon doesn't take much of anything on faith anymore, especially not now. He used to think that the expedition was being...blasphemous when they spoke of the Ancestors with weary sighs of annoyance and disgust, but he understands, now.
He simply wishes that he didn't.
It's morning and the mainland is hot and bright but the field is shaded; Ronon drops his pack and lays next to it, his body sinking into the giving gaen. He inhales and exhales rhythmically until he can breathe with ease and doesn't have to fight off the urge to gasp and pant and make himself lightheaded.
It was often hotter and brighter than this in the field in Ronon's childhood town. The children would revel in it, running around barely clothed, filthy with blurry streaks of green from tumbling one another to the ground, shrieking with laughter and false-anger. The adults and sentries, on the other hand, often found it too much to spend the entire day outside and exposed, and so they would retreat into sint-gaens, underground rooms that were carved out at the beginning of each hot season.
The gaen field on Sateda had been enormous, stretching out for miles in all directions, Ronon's town set on one edge of it and curved towards the center like the inner bend of an elbow. The town respected the gaen, its vastness and permanence, and worked around it instead of trying to force it into compliance with their own needs, and Ronon sometimes thinks that his new people are starting to learn that lesson, too.
*
He digs out a sint-gaen that night. It's larger than he needs or intends it to be because he's out of practice; he carves the first underground wall far too crooked and when he evens it out the room is twice as large as when he started. The three steps leading down are uneven and of differing heights, and the ceiling in front of them on ground level isn't as supportive as it should be.
But it's more than serviceable, and when he's done he climbs down inside and cuts himself a bed-down, then lines it with his bedding.
It's darker than night down here, and the gaen at this depth is more fragrant, softer and moister, and Ronon has his first good sleep since the Ancestors returned and made him leave.
*
Three days later, early in the evening, Ronon is dressing one of the small creatures on the mainland--the Atlanteans call them Kinda-Rabbits-Sorta-Chickens, and once someone showed him pictures and explained it to him, Ronon thought it was hysterical--when he hears a Jumper approaching. Which isn't entirely accurate, because the Jumpers run silently even when they're not cloaked, but Ronon can feel a slight displacement of the air coming his way, in a steady pulsing pattern that he recognizes instantaneously.
He sets the meat aside and brings the detritus with him into the forest to bait a few of the traps he set the previous day. One of the Athosians gave him a hunting spear the last time he was here, and he uses it to kill two more of the small creatures, which he brings back to the field. McKay and Teyla are just stepping onto the gaen when he returns, the Jumper that brought them over already flying back to Atlantis.
McKay looks rough. He's unsteady on his feet, his eyes are red and bleary, and his is clothing is rumpled and stained. One of his bootlaces is undone and he trips over it as they make their way to the fire; Teyla has to grab his arm to keep him on his feet.
Ronon sets the carcasses down and looks a question at Teyla, who says, "He has not been able to get any rest in the city; there is much to do and he is continuously being called to the labs." Mostly that's McKay's own fault, Ronon knows, for insisting on having his hand in everything. But he's been going non-stop since before everyone came back and even he has his limits. "There was an...incident earlier today, and Colonel Sheppard thought it would be...best for Rodney to come out here."
There's a good story there but Ronon will wait until he's back in the city to get details. "I'll take him," he says and Teyla smiles gratefully when he slings an arm around McKay's waist and holds him up.
"We brought his bedding. If you could perhaps prepare a place for him to sleep?"
Ronon holds out his hand and she passes him the pallet he gave to McKay several months back. "Come on, McKay, let's get you down for a while."
He leads McKay to the sint-gaen but getting him down the steps and under the ground proves to be difficult. McKay is uncoordinated and shaky, and Ronon finally resorts to using the arm wrapped around his waist to lift him up. He practically drags McKay into the cave-like room but McKay is too exhausted to notice or berate him for it. Ronon replaces the less-comfortable pallet in his bed-down with McKay's own and helps him settle in, then carves two more bed-downs out for himself and Teyla.
By the time he's done and emerges back on the surface Teyla has skinned and dressed the two freshly killed animals and has them spitted over the fire along with the one Ronon already cleaned.
"How's the city?" he asks as he sits across from her, propped up on one of the slabs of gaen he removed from the ground for the sint-gaen.
"It is very chaotic," she admits. "The scientists are having a difficult time setting up. Everything must be done all over again, and I believe they are running into some problems due to changes the Ancestors made in their absence."
Ronon's hands curl into fists around chunks of gaen and he looks away from Teyla's too-knowing stare.
"Ronon--"
"No, I don't want to talk about."
"Very well," she says carefully. "Then, perhaps you can tell me about the...underground room you took Rodney to?"
"It's called a sint-gaen," Ronon says, grateful and relieved. He tells her about how the adults would use them for shade in the summers and shelter from the snow in the winter, and how the older children would hide away in them and get up to no good. When he's finished, he finds that he's no longer clinging desperately to his fistfuls of gaen.
Teyla arches a brow, wicked but innocent at the same time. "And was it in one of these sint-gaens that you first learned of love?"
Ronon makes sure his grin is more wicked and less innocent than her look and she laughs at the yes it represents.
"Are your people coming back?" he asks a short while later when they're eating the meat with their bare hands.
"They are still discussing it," Teyla replies, sighing and setting aside a bone. "Some believe they would be better off remaining where they are."
"They're vulnerable to the Wraith there."
"But they have free access to the Ring of the Ancestors."
Ronon watched the distance between Teyla and her people lessen after they were relocated by the Ancestors, and it had made her seem both softer and stronger. At the time he remembered thinking that he hadn't really known her before then because he had never seen her so very much a part of her people. "Where do you stand?" he asks curiously.
She averts her eyes and wipes her hands clean on a cloth. "I would rather not speak of it, please."
"Okay," he says, because she gave him the same courtesy earlier. Besides, her desire not to talk about it is answer enough.
*
Later in the evening they put out the fire and retreat to the sint-gaen. It's still as fragrant as it was that first night, but this time the scent of the gaen is joined by the pungent smell of McKay, who seemingly hasn't washed today, and the musky aroma of the Athosian soap that Teyla uses. Another scent tangles around theirs, Ronon's own, which he is immune to on its own and is only ever aware of when it's combined with theirs.
*
In the morning Ronon and Teyla wake with the sun, even though only a few rays of light find them in the depths of the sint-gaen. Ronon straps on his gaen-lits so that he can walk on the morning-wet ground. Teyla takes her own set from the pack she brought from the city and after she puts them on she digs out McKay's set and leaves them at his side.
It's several hours before McKay wakes up, a hissed litany of sharp, confused complaints preceding his clumsy ascent from the sint-gaen.
"Tell me there's food," he says desperately, his movements awkward and clambering as he walks to them in the spiked gaen-lits and drops to his knees.
Teyla laughs at him, in that way of hers that doesn't involve actual laughter, and points at the pack she brought above ground. "The Colonel made sure there were several MREs and many powerbars."
McKay's hands are shaking and fumbling one of the MRE packages before Teyla finishes speaking, and it's obvious he's not going to be able to prepare and eat it. Teyla reaches out and takes his wrists in a gentle hold, and Ronon removes the MRE from his grip. They've eaten these on missions enough that he knows what to do; there's already water waiting. While he's preparing it, Teyla unwraps a powerbar and presses it into McKay's hand. It's gone in less than two bites, and Ronon shakes his head, a little bit impressed, as usual, by McKay's fervor when eating.
The MRE is devoured just as quickly when Ronon hands it over, and Ronon shares a smile with Teyla at McKay's gusty sighs.
Teyla volunteers to check the game traps and once she's left McKay stows his MRE remnants in a plastic bag he pulls from his pack.
"I don't remember actually coming out here," McKay says, looking confused and frustrated. "I mean, I remember agreeing to do it but the trip itself is all a blank."
"Why do you do that to yourself?" Ronon asks. "You've said that you trust Zelenka."
"Not with this," McKay snaps, then relents a little. "I mean, yes, I do trust him with this, but--" He clears his throat and looks to a point to the left of Ronon's face. "I just--we're back and I didn't--that is, I wasn't sure we'd be able to come back and it seems--I feel like--I still can't really--" He closes his mouth shut tight, lines of white pressure spreading like webs from the corners of his lips.
Ronon nods. "I get it."
"Oh, yes, I'm sure you do," McKay scoffs.
"Why do you think I'm here instead of there?" Ronon says sharply. McKay jerks, his eyes wide, and Ronon gets to his feet and heads for the sint-gaen. "I'll bring up your bedding."
*
"You are not coming back with us?" Teyla asks in the afternoon, when a Jumper lands to the east to pick up her and McKay.
Ronon busies himself with putting out the fire they used to cook lunch. "Not yet."
"Ronon," she starts, hesitant and precise, but McKay interrupts her.
"It should only take a few more days to get everything...back the way it was," he tells Ronon, who looks up at him with surprise; it's not often that McKay manages to be insightful. "I'll send Sheppard out to pick you up when we're done." Ronon doesn't know how to respond and after a few uncomfortable moments McKay lifts his chin and adds, "And for god's sake, find some time to bathe yourself between now and then. You smell like the ass-end of those goat-things on MX5-261."
"I've been out here for four days," Ronon says. "What's your excuse?"
McKay glares at him and he looks away and smiles.
*
Two nights later Sheppard arrives at the sint-gaen in the middle of the night.
"It's just me," he says when Ronon automatically reaches for his gun upon waking and charges it. He's at the top of the steps and Ronon can just make out a solid black outline of his head and shoulders. "Jesus, I can't see a damn thing."
Ronon trades the gun for a flashlight, which he turns on and points directly at the source of Sheppard's voice.
"Damn it!" Sheppard hisses and puts a hand in front of his eyes to block the light aimed at them. Ronon laughs and moves the light, and Sheppard scowls at him as he lowers his hand. "You're an ass, you know that?"
"Yeah," Ronon agrees. Sheppard has a pack with him, and after he climbs down the steps he dumps it on the ground next to one of the empty bed-downs. "What are you doing here?"
"Orders from Rodney," Sheppard drawls, sounding bemused. "He said to tell you they're done."
Ronon considers that as he shines the flashlight at Sheppard's pack so that he can see to unload his bedding. "It couldn't wait until morning?"
"Yeah, according to Rodney it couldn't." There's a question in Sheppard's tone that Ronon chooses to ignore. "Anyway, I figured I'd finish the night out here and we could head back tomorrow. Luckily Teyla told me about this little hidey-hole of yours or I wouldn't have found you."
Ronon stays silent and Sheppard doesn't say anything else as he prepares his bed-down, then takes off his boots. He nods at Ronon, who turns the flashlight off and listens to the appreciative groan Sheppard makes as he settles in. Not long after Ronon begins to hear Sheppard shift and mutter under his breath, and he knows that the other man is trying to adjust himself away from the sharp points of the feather ends that are coming through the pallet hide.
"You know," Sheppard sighs eventually, "Rodney had the balls to order me out here in the middle of the night--he did that snapping thing at me, too; I hate when he does that--and when I asked if I could borrow the comfortable bedding you gave him he looked like I'd asked him for his last powerbar or something."
Ronon can't help but laugh; it's so very like McKay to be selfish while being thoughtful. "Stop complaining and go to sleep," he tells Sheppard.
*
There isn't much air flow in the sint-gaen, so there are still vague hints of Teyla and McKay's scents trapped in the space, which now has Sheppard's added in, too. Ronon has spent so much time with the three of them, on missions and off, that he knows their scents as well as he knows their faces. With all of them in the air he can almost imagine that the last few months haven't happened, that he didn't have a second home taken from him even for a brief period of time.
*
Sheppard sleeps until after the sun's been up for several hours, then climbs out of the sint-gaen easily, comfortable and confident in his gaen-lits.
"Want breakfast?" Ronon asks, then points at the two carcasses he retrieved from his traps. Sheppard nods and then sits next to him on a chunk of gaen.
"Are there anything except Chicken-Rabbits out here?" Sheppard asks idly.
"Those big beasts to the north are the only other game I've seen."
"The Elephant-Giraffes." Sheppard looks horrified and fascinated. "Yeah, those are really disturbing."
Ronon's been tempted to hunt one ever since he saw the things, but Weir sat him down and made him promise not to after three of the Athosians were killed by one. He thinks she's being ridiculous but since she did get him to promise--and he's still not sure how that happened--he'll keep to it.
"It's really nice here," Sheppard says, looking around. "Why don't you come out here more often?"
"Don't know," Ronon says and sets the two spitted carcasses over the fire. "I forget it's here." He tosses Sheppard a quick glance. "Think that's odd? That I forget?"
"Nah. It happens, it's natural." He taps his fingers against his knee. "Teyla and Rodney looked...better when they came back. I think we should come out here regularly. Unwind a bit. Get Rodney away from the labs. What do you think? Good idea?"
Ronon thinks about taking them here in the late autumn, when the gaen will start to dry and shrink away, like it's distancing itself in small steps from the coming winter. He thinks about bringing them out in the height of the cold season, and how they'll have to shovel away a deep blanket of snow to get to the ground, then dig their way through the cold-hardened gaen and carve out ventilated sint-gaens in which they can light fires. He thinks about what it will be like after the thaw, when he knows the field will have grown another few inches higher, be plusher and greener, like it's welcoming them back, like it missed them during the long cold months when it was somehow less.
They'll be able to watch the field come into its own as time passes, become more than what Ronon dreamt up and Parrish created and designed, until it's not something there for them, just something that is wholly there, in all ways.
"Yeah, okay, I like that idea," he tells Sheppard.
*
They leave before the sun is directly overhead, after having hauled all the gaen back underground and done their best to fill in the sint-gaen again.
"Jumper's not far," Sheppard says as they shoulder their packs. "I set down by the trail."
On the short walk there, Sheppard says, "Oh, hey, I forgot to tell you: the Athosians decided to come back. We're going to start shuttling them over next week."
"Huh," Ronon mutters. He knows what that means for Teyla, and he thinks that Sheppard's idea to come out to the field regularly couldn't have come at a better time.
They don't say anything else until they've boarded the Jumper, Sheppard at the controls and Ronon in the seat next to him.
"So, you ready to head back?" Sheppard asks as the displays flash into life in front of him.
Ronon opens his mouth to answer, but nothing comes out. No matter what he's been telling himself, Atlantis is not going to be the same as it was, not even if McKay and the others have a dozen more days to work at it. Ronon isn't sure he's ready for that difference, that change.
"Ronon? You okay, there, buddy?"
"What was it like, being home again? Did you want to stay?" Ronon asks, without realizing he's going to ask. He can feel Sheppard looking at him, but doesn't turn his head, just stares out the window of the Jumper at the well-trod path in front of them.
"Being home again is great," Sheppard answers evenly, "and I definitely want to stay." Ronon whips his head around in surprise and Sheppard meets his eyes calmly. "When Rodney ordered me out here, he said, 'tell him it's okay to come home now', and when Elizabeth sent me off, she said, 'bring him home'." Sheppard smirks at him. "You know, in case you were wondering how the others would answer the question."
"I hate them for what they did," Ronon admits and it's like speaking around a throat filled with rocks.
Sheppard leans back and the displays fade away. "You're not alone there. I know it's different for us. I mean, we don't consider the Ancients deities, or anything. But some of us held them to a pretty high standard that they really didn't live up to."
"You didn't hold them to any standard."
"No," Sheppard snorts. "The Ancients were people, Ronon. Really smart and a bit more genetically evolved, from what I've heard, but still people. All I care about is that, in the end, we got Atlantis back."
Ronon thinks about that and eventually nods.
"Can we go home now, or do you have any other traumatic fallout that we need to deal with?" Sheppard asks wryly.
Ronon flashes his middle finger, which makes Sheppard laugh, and then they're in the air, over the ocean, and the city is majestic in the early morning light, soft and welcoming despite her pointed, jagged spires, and Ronon finds that he's smiling.
*
It's not the same as it was. Some of the labs have been moved around, some of the Earth technology is set on different consoles than it used to be, and Ronon can see trails of wires that he never used to see. New faces replace old familiar ones that didn't return, too.
But McKay spends an entire meal rambling on about all the new systems they've got online due to the ZPMs the Ancestors left behind, and all of the remarkable and automated functions the city's starting to perform. Ronon thinks that Atlantis is like the gaen field, and it will come into its own, evolving naturally to become more than the sum of its parts, changeable in some ways but immutable overall, and he thinks that's the definition of home, maybe.
.End