![[I saw three ships]](../img/2009icon.png)
This should feel familiar by now—dodging through alleys, carefully looking around corners, easing through marketplaces, always on watch, always searching. Lord knows Evan had done it enough on missions when the City was still in this galaxy, when he'd split his guys up to look for Sheppard's team, the various and sundry times they'd lost themselves.
But Atlantis is gone. Home, if you can call it that—Evan himself being one of the handful who went back in the city who would in actuality call the San Francisco stopover that. And Sheppard's team, as a team, is no more.
But the looking is the same—the dodging and hiding through villages, the watching for a familiar face. At this point, he'd not be choosy about whether the face was friendly or unfriendly. Because either one would be a lead, would be information. Important not to blame, important to just fall back on training, and search without thinking too hard. No one could have predicted the scale of the attack on the skeleton delegation sent back to Pegasus to make nice with the allies and wait. Wait for what, no one had explained; not in any detail. Show the flag, they'd said, back in D.C. They'd picked an abandoned world with a gate, probably over-culled a generation ago, and the orders were defense only, keep a Tau'ri presence in Pegasus despite the return of Atlantis to mother Earth.
Evan tries not to think too much. It was never his job. Except when it was.
Darkness falls, and that makes it easier to conceal the fact that his hair is too military, his beard is too short, and that he has BDU pants and boots on under the robe he's lifted from a fluttering line in the village, silently mouthing an apology.
He is crouched in the lee of a crumbling wall, eating smoked meat on a stick that he's just lifted from a vendor's fire, and scanning faces, scanning shadows. He coughs on his meat, stunned, and does a double take. A man has stepped from a tent, lantern-light behind him. The strong familiar line of clean-shaven jaw, the swell of hair, tied back so as not to be in the way—so familiar. The man looks over his shoulder, toward Evan but not at him, and turns away. Evan bolts down the rest of the meat and rises. He has to be sure. He has to know. Is it Ronon Dex? Or just his twin, here to taunt him unintentionally with the hope of a familiar, friendly face?
The wavering lamplight and firelight help him. And the darkness beyond the tents and pavilions and flimsy shacks is complete. Evan edges up to the tent and listens. Three voices—a low rumble that might be Ronon, and two female voices. He tugs his hood lower over his forehead and folds his arms over his tac vest and leans against the corner of the shack next to the tent, as if he's watching the scurrying shoppers, all intent on buying food and fuel for their dinners.
Nothing out of the ordinary. No one's watching him. Evan turns his head, his voice pitched low and intense, to carry just the distance to the tent. "Hey Doug," he says. "Doug Flutie! Is that you?"
The voices inside fall silent.
The man with the tied-back hair appears in the door again, and looks right at Evan. It's Ronon. Evan walks closer, and only now does his heart start hammering. Ronon raises his hand, palm out, and Evan stops. Ronon turns back. "It's nothing," he says, over his shoulder, and walks out, toward Evan and past him. Evan follows him around the corner of the tent and into the darkness.
"It's Lorne," he says to Ronon's back, just in case.
"You in one piece?" Ronon says.
Evan laughs. There is no simple answer to that. "Yeah, pretty much."
"That's Teyla in there," Ronon says, when they're past the light of the lanterns, the darkness soft around them. He stops and turns and grabs Evan's shoulder. "She'll get rid of Eralda, or put her to bed, one, and then we can go."
"Go?"
"We've been waiting for you," Ronon says, pulling Evan to him.
Evan goes, pressing against Ronon in the dark, and that thing they'd occasionally had, that laughing casual thing, has now become a lifetime, a talisman of the real, as much as his use of Sheppard's informal code. To be among friends and not strangers, to have someone at his back again—and not just someone, but Ronon. Evan feels the relief in his knees, and his arms come up around Ronon's waist, and he just hangs on, smiling. It really was a great code, he thinks, distractedly. Any talk of Flutie, or Hail Mary's, or the whistling of the Boston fight song—Sheppard had taught them, McKay balking until Sheppard reminded him that yes, Flutie had gone on to play for Canada, so he could just shut up and go along, couldn't he.…Evan stops the flood of memories, stops them against the warmth that is Ronon. The guy's as much of a mountain as ever. Evan isn't used to feeling small—never was. But Ronon didn't make him feel like that, exactly. But more like…here was somewhere he could rest. Now more than ever.
"Oh come on," Evan says, against Ronon's neck. "You can't expect me to believe you were waiting for me in particular. You couldn't have had intel like that already."
"You or someone like. But I'm glad it's you." And Ronon abruptly releases him and kneels, turning back to watch the tent.
"What," Evan says, kneeling beside him.
"She's pushing the stuff under the back flap. Must've got rid of Eralda instead of bedding her down for the night."
"Who is—"
"Not important," Ronon interrupts. "Not now."
Evan waits, squinting. He can see the tent wall ripple, three times, four times.
"Glad you waited till dark, too," Ronon says, and wraps an elbow around his neck. Evan, surprised, kisses him back. Whiff of woodsmoke and something like beer, and warm leather. Evan smiles and keeps kissing. It's good, so good, to be close again. To someone friendly, but to Ronon in particular. He could count on one hand the times they'd kissed, back at Atlantis, back before the end of their time in the city, before the trip to rescue Earth. Kissing wasn't part of what they usually did, back then. But it, too, is welcome now.
It's like Ronon is passing time in a pleasant way, waiting for something, and taking the opportunity of kissing Evan unhurriedly, carefully. Evan lets his questions die on his lips along with his feeling of surprise, and is oddly content to make out with Ronon, kneeling there in the dark on the dry matted winter grass, and wait for whatever Ronon is waiting for. He is on Ronon's turf now, and presumably Teyla's. There will be time for questions later. Some internal clock must be at work for Ronon, because after a while he lets the careful, friendly kissing fade away, and lets his forehead rest against Evan's for a moment. Then he stands up. With a glance that Evan feels more than sees, Ronon heads over to the tent, walking quietly but not really trying for stealth.
There are several bags and packs on the grass behind the tent, which is now dark inside. Ronon picks up two and heaves them at Evan, left hand, right hand. Then he slings the others over his shoulders and heads into the night.
They don't talk for a long time. Ronon walks unerringly in the dark, until a moon rises with a smaller second one chasing it. Evan can tell he doubles their trail at least once. Their way leads over a rise, several miles behind the village, and up a tree-covered hillside behind it. As Ronon leads him aslant on the hill, Evan hears the sound of a stream, down below on his right. Then Ronon slows. In the moonlight, as they reach the head of the little valley, Evan sees the jumbled mass of what look like stone ruins.
Ronon ducks around its corner, and under a half-collapsed archway, and into concealed lamplight. Teyla is waiting for them.
She rises and turns, all one fluid motion, and Evan is hugging her before he is aware of his intention to do so.
"It's so good to see you both," Evan says. Ronon has come up behind him and put his arms around him again, and around Teyla too.
"And you," Teyla says into his neck. She is holding on very tightly, and she leans back and grabs him by the shoulders, searching his face. Evan has no idea what she is looking for, but he meets her eyes squarely. He is tired, and discouraged, and ragged after days of planet jumping, but all that recedes. They feel exactly like home to him, and he smiles.
"We have so much to tell you, and to ask," Teyla says, and her face is very serious, but there is a crinkle that suggests a smile at the corners of her eyes. Ronon's grip on his shoulder hasn't relaxed.
"We don't have to talk now," Ronon says, and Teyla smiles across Evan, up at him, as if humoring him, and her eyes are knowing.
"We don't," she agrees. "Dawn is better for planning, when possible."
"Bed now. Questions in the morning," Ronon emphasizes, and Evan shakes his head, all his weariness seeming to crash in on him at once. Ronon hands him a canteen, and he drinks, and Ronon lifts his borrowed cloak from his shoulders. Evan takes off his tac vest, and by the time he's loosened his boots and rechecked his dwindling supply of clips and the safety on his sidearm, Ronon and Teyla have made a bed. They have spread blankets and cloaks, with the silvery emergency blanket he had rolled small in his vest making the bottom layer. One bed.
He looks at Ronon and Ronon shrugs.
"It'll be warmer," Evan says, wary.
"Among other things," Teyla says.
"Why do you always get the middle?" Ronon complains to her, sitting on a corner of the blankets and pulling his own boots off.
"I don't always. Until Major Lorne joined us, there in fact was no middle." Teyla turns down the gas in what is undeniably a military issue lantern, and darkness falls suddenly. It takes a moment for Evan's eyesight to adjust to the silver moonlight coming through the broken roof, and he finds that Teyla is indeed in the middle and Ronon apparently has no intention of going to sleep yet.
They reach for him, both of them, and pull in close.
"You two," Evan begins hesitantly.
"Thought we weren't going to talk," Ronon says gruffly, shifting to lie on his side, sliding his calf over Evan's.
"Perhaps you've assumed Major Lorne would want this," Teyla says, going quiet, but stroking Evan's shoulder with one warm hand.
"Yeah, I assumed. I know him."
Evan finds Ronon's hand and squeezes it. "I just... I'm surprised, is all. I didn't know. About you two."
Teyla says, "There is no long story to tell about it. But what there is to tell can wait until morning."
"Like I said," Evan repeats, as Ronon kisses first Teyla and then him, "I'm fine with doing the talking in the morning."
"See? Told you," Ronon says to Teyla, and his hand on Evan's shoulder is insistent, and Evan lets himself be pushed down.
As it turns out, by morning he ends up in the middle. When he wakes, curled tight around Teyla, their blankets covered with cold dew, his breath smoking, the first thing he sees is Ronon, crouched over a small fire.
Teyla stirs and Evan squeezes her arm one more time, then sits up and looks for his boots. Ronon hands him a metal mug.
"My god," Evan says. "You have coffee." Ronon smiles.
They eat and drink, coffee and the steeped herb Teyla prefers, and hard bread and cheese. Evan restrains himself until the meal is over and the other two begin the packing up. After he's re-laced his boots, he puts his hand on Teyla's shoulder.
"Your family?"
"They are fine. They remain at New Athos. Ronon and I and some of the others have ventured out to search. We heard what had happened to the new Tau'ri base."
Evan nods, helping roll up their blankets and truss up the packs again.
"Where to?" he says, taking a deep breath. Funny how a little nothing place can seem like home so quickly, because of the people in it.
"To the gate," Teyla says. "I want to cover our trails by visiting two planets in between, but we have found a jumper."
Her grin is conspiratorial, and it flashes and disappears so quickly Evan wants to touch her lips to make it stay.
"Told you it was good news, for a change," Ronon says, leading the way through the arch.
"You didn't tell me a damn thing," Evan points out, but he is smiling, and happy to follow.
![[fin]](../img/2009banner.png){kind=small}