Ronon awoke from his light sleep at the sound of the door creaking open. He recognized Curtis’ heavy step as the man closed the door and hung up his hat and coat with a sigh. Ronon was tempted to fall back asleep until his sluggish mind jolted him with memory. Curtis had already stepped into the kitchen and he could hear Liliana’s light step as she left her bedroom to join her husband.

Ronon shoved the covers off him and hastily sat up, only to wince as his healing scabs were stretched. Curtis and Liliana were whispering and he paused long enough to don a loose shirt before shoving back his curtains and rising. He hobbled for a moment until his back cooperated and he could walk normally.

Curtis and Liliana paused their conversation as they turned to look at him when he entered. Ronon looked from Curtis’ face to Liliana’s. Her heart wrenched at his anxious expression. He looked back to Curtis. “...Anything?”

Curtis sighed and looked away. Ronon’s shoulders slumped and he diverted his gaze.

“There are several large plantations upriver. Just because I couldn’t find her at this one doesn’t mean she’s not out there, alive and well.”

Ronon stiffly nodded, looking at the ground. Liliana stepped over and rested a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll find her, Ronon.”

He nodded mutely once more, only meeting her gaze for a fleeting second before swallowing hard and stepping away. He wanted to thank them. He should thank them. He just couldn’t move his vocal chords.

Liliana cast Curtis a pained look as Ronon stepped back to his cot and closed the curtain. He bit his lip as he lay back down, his throat burning. After a few moments of resistance, he gave in and squeaked into his pillow as tears escaped. He so painfully longed to hold Teyla, to bury his nose in her hair, to feel her heart beating against his and to hear her voice... the thought that he may never see her again was enough to make him wish he could stop breathing.

Liliana handed Curtis the bowl of soup that she’d saved for him.

“Thank you, love.” He caught her hand as he sat down and kissed it. She hugged him and kissed the top of his head. “I’ll look again when I go out next week.”

Liliana nodded. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”

She kissed his forehead. “I love you, darling.”

He snuggled her. “I love you, too.”

She pulled away to smile at him before detangling herself to return to bed. She paused when she heard the quiet gasps of tears from behind Ronon’s curtain. She let out a silent sigh and continued back to her room yet after a few moments, she doubled back. She tugged his curtain aside and hesitated only a moment at the sight of the forlorn Satedan. She sat down on the edge of his cot and ran her fingers through his hair. He turned his head away in a feeble attempt to hide his tears so she leaned down and gently hugged him, mindful of his back.

Her voice was a whisper. “It’ll be all right, sweetie.” She brushed a few stray curls off the side of his face. He sat up and wrapped his arms around her as he wept, unashamed of his tears before one who knew the rawest of his wounds. Liliana ran her fingers through his hair and rubbed the healed portions of his back, letting him cry into her shoulder. The fact that he made an effort to hide some of his physical pain during the day yet was now limp in her arms with tears made her heart swell with the trust he placed in her. She quietly sang to him.

“Tempted and tried, we’re oft made to wonder

Why it should be thus all the day long;

While there are others living about us,

Never molested, though in the wrong.

Farther along we’ll know more about it,

Farther along we’ll understand why;

Cheer up, my brother, live in the sunshine,

We’ll understand it all by and by.

Often when death has taken our loved ones,

Leaving our home so lone and so drear,

Then do we wonder why others prosper,

Living so wicked year after year.

Farther along we’ll know more about it,

Farther along we’ll understand why;

Cheer up, my brother, live in the sunshine,

We’ll understand it all by and by...”

He eventually pulled away, wiping at his tears with his shoulder. Liliana smiled at him, tucking his hair back once more. “Only the bravest hearts cry.” He faintly returned the smile and she rested a hand on his opposite shoulder, tugging him towards her, encouraging him to rest his head on her shoulder until his breathing returned to normal.

Teyla bit her lip, her fingers nimbly moving over the berries, skillfully avoiding the thorns. Today was a good day – harvesting from the vines meant that she and her fellows didn’t have to bend in the fields all day. Yet without the ache in her back to distract her, her mind had begun to wander. She should have bled by now. She’d seen the moon wax and wane. There was the possibility that she was with child... Ronon’s child.

Half of her rejoiced at the thought, of once more being able to touch and feel a part of him, to give her heart to a little star that shone with both she and Ronon’s light. Yet her hopes were twisted and gnarled in the darkness of the life around her, feeling like her wings of potential happiness were weighted down by the cracking whips of the slave drivers. She’d seen firsthand how difficult it was for a child to survive the harsh conditions of slave life.

If Ronon had not died, she might have considered attempting to force a miscarriage to avoid her child being born into such circumstances and for taxing her body. She flushed at the selfish thought but she knew it was pertinent – some evenings she was just too tired to even walk to the latrine so she would wait until morning. Though the idea of doing anything to harm her own child, much less the child that would be the bittersweet remembrance of she and Ronon’s brief time together, was enough to make her divert her thoughts somewhere else, as if she could ignore the problem long enough to make it go away.

Binti was working nimbly beside her, also enjoying the lighter workload the vines provided in comparison to the fields. But as Teyla glanced at her and her stoic features, a voice whispered “If not now, then later.” One driver or another would attack her again. Even if she did not carry her and Ronon’s child to term, chances were that she would carry one of the drivers’. Straining an already weakened body, bringing an innocent into a world of starvation and blood, a lifetime of pain for the mother... all for ten minutes of pleasure for men who truly believed they deserved what they took.

She yanked too hard on a berry and broke off a few leaves. She slowed when she was struck with the thought that the Wraith often had more dignity than the humans she and her team had fought so long to spare and protect.

“We walked all the way to the creek today. You know that one that comes out of the ground up over by that big cliff?” Bo said as Liliana finished helping Sanura into her seat then took one herself at the full dinner table.

“It’s not a cliff, Bo, it’s just a hillside,” Brianna quipped as she buttered herself a slice of bread.

“It is too a cliff, isn’t it, Ronon?”

Ronon was afraid to look up from his plate as he served himself peas, lest either girl fix him with one of their “side with me” gazes. “Well... looked more like a hillside that had half fallen off, making a kind of cliff.”

Curtis chuckled. “You sure you aren’t a diplomat, Ronon?”

Ronon flashed the older man a brief smirk as he passed him the peas. “I’m sure you learned to be one a long time ago.”

Curtis laughed heartily as Ronon chuckled. Liliana shook her head at the two but was glad to see how well they got along. Ever since Ronon had pulled through his fever, Curtis had stopped his playful griping about being trapped in a house with four women. She’d often wished they’d had a son, knowing she’d go insane trapped in a house with four men, and couldn’t help but notice how her husband treated Ronon not only as a welcomed guest, but as a long-lost cousin or nephew. She knew by the light in their eyes that it was good for both men.

Though he’d hardly spoken of his life before slavery, Liliana had picked up more than enough clues to piece together her own patchwork of Ronon’s possible past. He’d said that he was a Runner and that his homeworld was destroyed, which would be enough to break any soul, but Ronon held on like a lone reed in the wind, bending and giving but never bowing, never breaking. At first she’d assumed that he’d come from a large family which was why he found his way so easily into hers, but after watching him with her daughters, noting how there were times that he seemed to be retreating into a himself, she wondered what sort of a family he’d had at all growing up.

Her musings about him entertained her mind while she washed dishes and beat out rugs, providing her a breath of fresh air as distraction from the many details of her daily life that, at times, could latch onto all corners of her mind and bog her down. He provided such novelty, in fact, that she hadn’t yet felt the desire to visit a friend or to go into town just to speak to someone outside of the walls of her cabin and her pre-teen’s mood swings and eight-year-old’s stubbornness and her toddler’s clinginess. But if that’s all I have to complain about, she thought, I am truly blessed. All she had to do was look at Ronon to be reminded of how blessed a life she led.

His body was healing, but there was often a distance in his eyes, deepening the thin lines in his face, aging his shoulders. She knew he was most likely thinking about Teyla, but she also knew that he must grieve the many years stolen from him by circumstances out of his control. When Sanura would smile at him or climb up on his lap his eyes would scrunch up in a rare, heartfelt smile, and she could tell that a part of him raged against the life he’d led and his warrior philosophy and longed for something more meaningful: fatherhood.

“See? It is a cliff,” Bo’s insistence on her point of view drew Liliana back into the present. Brianna just narrowed her eyes at her little sister. Bo stuck her tongue out. Sanura mimicked her, making a funny sound and they all laughed.

“That’s about four miles roundtrip, isn’t it?” Liliana asked.

Curtis nodded. “Just about. There was a big mudslide three winters ago – took off half the hillside.”

“That’s pretty far. Did your back bother you at all, Ronon?”

The Satedan shook his head no.

Bo grinned. “He’s almost all better, then he can build a room and live in it instead of that cubby and he can stay here forever.”

Ronon gave her a lopsided grin and Bri bowed her head to take a bite, trying to hide her smile.

“I don’t know about that, Bo,” Ronon lightly chuckled.

“Hell, why not?” Curtis asked. “There’s a beautiful patch of land just across the river. It would be the perfect place for a little house.”

Ronon eyed him for a moment. “But that’s your land.”

Curtis shrugged. “So? You and your lady could build yourselves a place and we could join forces, become a joint farm.”

Ronon studied him, fighting back a blush at Curtis’ generous words. “I... I couldn’t... you worked hard for that land.”

“Then if it makes you feel better, you can pay me off when you have the money.”

Liliana eyed Curtis in surprise. Her husband was a kind man who gave everything to his family, but he’d become suspicious and slightly paranoid after years of hiding his abolitionist sentiments. He didn’t trust easily. He was also a hard worker and a good problem-solver, but he didn’t think the fastest on his feet. He generally needed a few hours, at the least, the weigh the pros and cons of a given situation, or to determine the most expedient way to do a thing. His affection for Ronon truly was as strong as she’d suspected: he’d been planning this out for some time.

“I wouldn’t mind sharing if it’d keep you around longer, kiddo. Rumor has it you like to wander a fair bit.”

“Not by choice,” Ronon caught himself saying before he’d given it much thought. The realization that he’d been living in Atlantis for three years up until now struck him as odd, and what Cutis offered was more than enough to make his heart leap. Remain near this family he now considered his own, live a life where he could have the luxury of devoting himself to Teyla, day and night, while living off the land, being the recipient of the fruits of his labors for once.

“Well, think about it.” Curtis smiled and Ronon sheepishly returned the gesture.

“You’re welcome to stay as long as you like, Ronon,” Liliana added, “as I hope you well know.”

The Satedan nodded, his voice dropping in tone as his fleeting eyes betrayed his humility before their generosity. “Thank you.”

Curtis patted him on the shoulder then stabbed some noodles with his fork. “It’s the least I can do.”

Something about Curtis’ response sent a shiver of warning down Ronon’s spine. He didn’t sort out why until that night as he tried to fight off his worry over Teyla enough to sleep. While he didn’t doubt this family’s warmth and honest affection, what Curtis had said made him realize that both Curtis and Liliana may be going to such lengths of welcome for him out of a sense of guilt because he’d been a slave. “It’s the least I can do...” Ronon hadn’t done anything for which he needed to be repaid. This family didn’t need to give and give because they pitied him, as if by caring for one slave they could somehow mend the institution itself.

His brow was deeply furrowed, half-disgusted by his own thoughts. They care about me, of course they care about me... and of course it matters that I was a slave. So why does that bother me? The answer came on a sigh as he shifted to lie on his side. Because I’m not even from this world. Because there are thousands of slaves more deserving of this kindness than me... and Teyla’s one of them.

Branded Heart

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