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SGA: Nothing Like Summer Camp
Title: Nothing Like Summer Camp
Genre: SGA, Episode Related, Gen (though a tiny bit Ronon/Keller if you squint)
Rating: PG
Spoilers/Season: 4.07 Missing
Synopsis: After the events of missing, Keller wants to sign up for something new.
Disclaimer: I don’t own them, people with a lot of money do. I’m just borrowing them in a solely not-for-profit way.
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“Ronon? Do you have a moment?” a voice called from behind him.
He slowed his steps to allow the hobbling doctor to catch up. Normally he was the one seeking her out, not the other way around. “What do you need?” he asked, gesturing to a nearby doorway. It led to one of the many balconies in this city, and had the added benefit of having padded benches for the injured woman to rest on.
She followed him, standing for a moment as she twisted her hands nervously in front of her. One pointed look at both her and the bench and she sat down heavily, many of the fine lines of stress disappearing from around her eyes.
After biting her bottom lip, she finally began, “I was wondering something...”
“Kind of figured that’s why you stopped me,” he teased, bringing a brief smile to her face.
Her features became serious once more as she asked, “Will you teach me to fight?”
He leaned back against the railing, eying her up and down, noting both the obvious weaknesses and the hidden strengths. He could do it, but he wanted to know why. “Is this about what happened on New Athos?”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, duh,” she admitted, brushing a strand of hair away from her face. “What other life-threatening survival experiences have I been through lately?”
He smiled. He liked her sense of humor. “From what Teyla said, you handled yourself pretty well,” he told her, knowing she had been told the same, but it wasn’t sinking in.
“I was a liability,” she scoffed. “I have no survival skills and managed to get myself injured right away. When it came time to fight, I hid.”
“You kept yourself alive,” he corrected. “You kept the gate address away from the Bola Kai and took down a Wraith Worshipper. I’d say you did pretty well.”
Her body tensed as she adjusted her walking cast, stretching her foot out in front of her. “I should have been able to help her fight, she shouldn’t have had to do it alone. I had no idea where to even begin, and that’s probably why we ended up getting captured in the first place.”
“Hey,” he called, focusing her attention on him. “She’s trained for that. She’s been fighting since she was a kid. You’re a healer, have been training for that for years. You can’t expect to be on the same level as her and she can’t expect to be on the same level as you. Comes to fighting, Teyla’s better. Comes to fixing broken bones or curing sicknesses, you’re better.”
She leaned back against the softness of the bench, narrowing her eyes. He could see her reasoning things through, fighting his logic and coming up with her own. After a moment, she said, “Teyla can be taught about healing and I can be taught about fighting. I might not ever get to her skill, but she might not ever perform open heart surgery, right?”
He smiled; she was using his own reasoning against him. “True,” he admitted.
“Look,” she said, waving a hand through the air in a way scarily reminiscent of McKay. “I know I’ll never be the best, but that’s no reason not to try. I just don’t want to be a liability, or as much of a liability, as I was this time out. The SGC taught me to shoot before we even left Earth, told me it was a skill I’d need out in the great unknown, but they never taught me the real stuff, what to do when you’re out of weapons and out of options. They said it would never happen because we’d always have backup. I don’t want to be reliant on backup, I want to take care of myself.” She paused, meeting his eyes ruefully, “Or at least as much as I can.”
He reached his decision. Actually, he had reached it pretty much the moment he asked, but wanted her to examine her reasons for asking. She knew why she wanted this, why she needed this, and it wasn’t just embarrassment over what happened. She wanted to help, had a need to not rely on others. It was something he could understand. “Okay,” he shrugged.
She blinked several times, the surprise evident on her face. “Okay?” she confirmed. “So you’ll do it, you’ll teach me?”
He nodded. “On one condition: we do this on my terms,” he amended.
“Your terms?” she asked wearily. “You’re not going to make me kill a goat and wear its skins or something, are you?”
“What’s a goat?” he teased, knowing full well what it was from previous strange discussions with his own team.
“Never mind,” she shook off the question. “What are your conditions?”
He looked pointedly at the cast on her ankle and the slice on her lip. “We wait until you heal. The other docs have to give their okay before you step into the gym.”
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” she swore. “They were just being overcautious and strapped this one me so I didn’t aggravate it again getting hit by a gurney or something.”
He knew exactly how bad it was, hearing both her story and Teyla’s. A simple sprain, made worse by hiking through the woods, falling off a bridge, getting captured and beat, and wrestling a Wraith Worshipper. The last one really upped her cool points in his book. The bulky contraption they had her wearing was overkill, but he had heard the nurses talking about it maybe stopping her from getting into trouble again before she finished healing. He doubted it would stop her completely, she was too much like his Melena for that, but it might slow her down for long enough to give it a chance. “My terms,” he repeated.
She pushed herself up to a standing position, and he stopped himself from helping. She offered out her hand in a way Sheppard had done many times, saying simply, “Deal.”
He took it and shook it with a nod. Before he released her, he made a show of looking her up and down with mock criticism. “You sure you know what you’re getting into?” he asked.
“No,” she admitted. “But I trust you and know you’re the best one to teach me.”
She shrugged as if the praise was nothing, though it was far from it for him. He still wasn’t used to others relying on him again, still tried to both impress and not show off, but the casual admiration common to these people still took him a bit off guard. “You might regret it,” he warned, leading her back to the door and inside the city once more.
“Probably,” she readily agreed, hobbling along. “Just as long as there’s no more swinging rope bridges over gorges or raw mud squid thingy, I think I can handle it.”
“Mud squid?” he asked doubtingly.
“Raw,” she repeated.
“Gross,” he commented, making a face. The answering smile he got in return was enough for him to stop himself from adding they tasted best grilled with taba root and a strong ale. He figured she would find out soon enough.
End.
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