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Ronon would never have said it to Heightmeyer or the woman who eventually replaced her who he had also been obliged to talk to on occasion (for a given value of talk). But every time he ran, every time he shifted his posture, picked up the pace and moved at speed, he could feel the Wraith at his back whether they were there or not. Running through the city levels with Sheppard, running through the buildings of Earth that mirrored Sateda just enough to make him think, racing back to the Jumper laying down cover fire. Ronon could feel the adrenaline race through him, his hands itching for a weapon even when he was already holding one. Ronon was no longer a runner – but he became one every time he ran. He'd mostly stopped wondering if that would ever change.

However it was not inaccurate to say that even now long after he has stopped being a runner that the Wraith had often been at his back. Right now - as he dodged through the empty corridors of the Daedalus trying not to think of Jennifer's stubborn, stupid sacrifice which he should have seen coming - that was certainly the case. Todd would kill her, Ronon was sure. Never trust a Wraith and right now Ronon had had enough of running as he had so many times before. He would stand, he would fight, Wraith would die and as he listened to the footsteps of drones and a prisoner, he realised he could do a little more good at the same time.

He ducked into an armoury and grabbed a extra gun.

The next bit was more complicated but whatever the reason for the design, the hand holds in the ceiling were thankfully obvious. He clambered up bracing himself. Now it was just a matter of waiting and he did not have long endure inactivity long. He shot quickly as he swung down before the orientation of the angle could confuse his aim and handed the spare gun off to Jennifer, dampening down his surprised relief that she wasn't dead because there were still drones coming.

Then there weren't. There weren't live drones. There wasn't Jennifer. There was no more Daedalus. There were trees, there was snow on the ground, two prone Wraith drones and the gun he had handed her lying on the jungle floor. One Wraith twitched and instinctively he put another blast of energy into it before bending to check they both were dead. He snatched up the machine gun and examined the area. There were no tracks. None. Snow normally made tracking easy - and this didn't look that freshly fallen.

Ronon had never seen Wraith tech that could do this and were normally incapable of using anything ancestral. But there was little he put past them even this had been an odd moment to try it. Todd had already betrayed them.

"Jennifer?" he called, first outloud and then into his static filled ear piece, receiving no response. He shivered, shrugged, armed his energy weapon picked a direction and set off at pace. Running again.

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Jennifer nodded. "Yes, Kaylee, I think her name is," she said. "I haven't met her, but I heard she looks like me." She was a little apprehensive about meeting her, though she'd heard Kaylee was a friendly person, easy to get along with.

She watched Ronon fidgeting, probably trying to get warm, and shook her head. "You need to come in out of the cold," she said, glancing him over for signs of hypothermia. "My date with Frosty here is over--why don't you come inside with me and you can tell me more about when you came from."

"I can tell the difference," he assured her, "had to convince her I wasn't going to hurt you before she gave me directions." And clearly he'd been very convincing - having left the double to her snow play as soon as he had what he wanted.

"I'm fine," he told her glancing at the apparently personified sculpture. But he followed her in, not needing a lecture now when he wasn't even injured. "I was with you," he told her, "on the Daedelus. Saving you from the Wraith."

"You're not fine," she told him, her doctor-voice--which she hadn't used in a while, given there seemed to be about a 1-to-5 ratio of doctors to general islanders, or at least that's what it seemed--creeping to the surface. She took one of his hands between hers for a moment, then shook her head and made a disapproving tsk noise and closed the door. "Your hands are freezing," she informed him, "and your lips are turning blue. It's not like you're dressed for the weather."

The furniture in her little hut was sparse and rickety but it got the job done: a bed, a rough dresser for her clothes, a couple of rickety chairs and a table, and a bookshelf that went almost to the ceiling. She pulled a neatly folded blanket off the foot of the bed and handed it to him. "Wrap up in that," she told him, "and later we'll go to the compound and find you a coat, at least." Not that Ronon would probably be caught dead wearing Earth-style clothes, but it would do him until he could kill something and turn it into a coat.

She put aside for the moment the mention of him having to 'convince' Kaylee--she'd ask him about that later--because the idea of Ronon having to save her from the Wraith had all her attention. "What do you mean, saving me from the Wraith?" she asked, confused. "I don't remember that... oh." It dawned on her then, and again she felt silly. "You must be from some time after me."

Ronon grinned at the lecture letting her inspect his hand - it was only a bit of cold but she liked to fuss and he'd never got far arguing. Nor did he ever really try. He took in everything about the small hut, noting straight away in his head that he could do better. He wrapped up in the blanket and felt oversized in the rickety chair he took. He didn't know what the compound was - and given it seemed to be a source of earth style clothing he was not particularly interested in learning.

At her mention of him coming after, he wondered just when but simple made note - he could find out later.

"We were on the Daedalus," he said. "Todd said he wanted to try your gene therapy - you know - feed the Wraith food but it was just a trick, they took the ship. Everyone but us." He cleared his throat, "we stopped the engines but then they knew then they knew we were loose - you er, you tricked me so you could turn yourself in - Stop Todd killing people."

Jennifer sat down hard on the other chair, staring at Ronon. "I...turned myself in to the Wraith?" she asked, incredulous. She couldn't imagine what would possess her to do something like that, since she wasn't exactly the brave sort. She was the type that couldn't even climb a ladder without her vertigo acting up, she didn't have it in her to be the self sacrificing hero type.

"Yeah," said Ronon shaking his head, because it was foolish - brave but foolish and it had made taking care of her hard. "I told you not to and you agreed with me and then snuck off." He's been really annoyed and "I was uh pretty sure Todd had killed you so I decided start to taking out his drones. But he hadn't and I'd just shot the drones that had you when I ended up here." With the drones - without her. Or so he had thought.

Edited 2008-12-29 01:17 (UTC)

"Well, that was pretty stupid of me, I guess," Jennifer said, feeling her cheeks heat up. Stupid, but brave, maybe. She didn't think she really had it in her, but maybe somewhere she did.

Ronon shared this opinion because he didn't trust that it would have made any difference to who Todd killed or didn't kill. But Jennifer had had to try and Ronon should have seen that coming. "You wanted to save lives," he said, "should have that known you were planning something."

Edited 2008-12-31 00:50 (UTC)