Work Text:
"So."
Jennifer jolted, looking up from her monitor with equal parts guilt and confusion. She shut off the Rodney recording, glad she'd at least had the presence of mind to have it facing away from the door this time.
Ronon lurked in the doorway, nearly filling it, the top half of him submerged in shadow so she couldn't see or interpret his expression. She knew that her love of reading in dim lighting was one of the reasons she sported contacts nowadays, but it was a hard habit to break. Scaredy-cat though she might have been, when she was by herself, the dark felt like a comfort, like an embrace.
"So," she prompted him, wondering what brought him to her door. Ronon didn't adhere to any strict schedule as far as she knew, but even so, it was late.
"McKay's sister is going home in the morning," he said. "I think she wants to say goodbye to you."
"I didn't realize you two were friends," said Jennifer. She couldn't figure out his motivation for telling her this; if Jeannie Miller wanted to say goodbye, she knew where Jennifer could be found, and she was forthright enough to come do it in person rather than send a message requesting her presence.
Ronon shrugged off the unspoken question. "So he's gonna be okay?"
"Yes, he should be. All of his test results are coming up clear."
"How much does he remember?"
Ronon came into the light for that statement, but Jennifer couldn't meet his eyes. "Very little outside the first few days. It's probably for the best." Jennifer shifted in her chair. "Actually, um, Ronon... I wanted to say... I'm sorry about earlier."
"About what?"
"The whole shrine thing. I'm sorry I didn't listen to you. You were right."
"Yeah," he said gruffly. "S'okay."
Jennifer wasn't convinced it was. She felt terribly guilty about the whole thing, and she wasn't sure why. Still, Ronon seemed to be giving her a pass. She should take it.
"I know why you did what you did," he continued, surprising her.
"Why?" she asked. "What did I do?"
"You like McKay."
Inadvertently, Jennifer's gaze strayed to her monitor, although she'd closed out Rodney's video. "What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean."
Jennifer crossed her arms over her chest, felt her shoulders hunch, as she curled into herself defensively. "It's really not like that."
"It's not?"
Jennifer shook her head vehemently. "No. I'm a doctor. He's my patient. That's all." It wasn't all, though, and she knew it. Still. How was she supposed to say it? Was she even supposed to? Rodney's admission of love came midway through a brain-altering disease. How valid was it? "I mean, we're friends. But that's it."
"If you say so."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I don't talk much," he said. "It doesn't mean I'm stupid."
"I never said that."
Ronon's lip quirked minutely in recognition. "Didn't say you did. But you're acting like you're stupid."
"I... what?"
"You don't seem to realize that you like him. But it's sorta obvious. At least to me." Ronon crossed his arms over his chest. He looked foreboding, but that was pretty standard behavior for him. For the most part, she'd gotten used to it, but it was harder to process it or write it off when she knew there actually was some anger in it. Well, perhaps not anger. She couldn't tell if he was pissed, or disappointed, or... well, she just couldn't tell.
It wasn't a a question. He wasn't asking her if she had feelings for Rodney. He seemed to already suspect-- no, not suspect, know. Ronon had somehow managed to figure out Jennifer's heart before she had.
Jennifer took a moment, took a breath, tried to reason this out in her head. Did she actually have feelings for Rodney McKay? Her heart had thumped considerably watching his tape, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. Anyone would be flattered to have someone say they loved them. And Rodney didn't love anything but himself, and maybe yelling at others, so it meant twice as much.
But say the tape itself was inadmissible evidence. Rodney definitely took some getting used to. And he required a lot of patience. But he was challenging, and that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. He wasn't gorgeous by any stretch of the imagination (he wasn't Ronon, she thought with a guilty twang), but he wasn't unattractive and she really liked his smile. And again, he was a challenge. They could have conversations (or arguments).
When she reached the end of this particularly tumultuous train of thought, she shrugged at Ronon. "I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"How I feel," Jennifer tried to clarify.
"You like him, trust me." Ronon even attempted a small grin, which made her feel oddly terrible. "I was right about the shrine. And I'm right about this."
"I... okay, you were right about the shrine. And... maybe I do." She couldn't pretend that it didn't mean something when he said that he loved her. And not just in a self-centered 'someone loves me' way. But he wasn't the sort of person who just doled out love, so he must have meant it. In a not-entirely-medical way, maybe the parasite worked the same way as excessive alcohol did. Drinking just made a person less inhibited to do or say something that they already thought or wanted, but were too controlled for. Rodney was not exactly the epitome of self-control, if his rapid-fire mood swings were any indication, but maybe a lifetime of loneliness made him keep some of the more emotional stuff heavily under wraps. Particularly after the whole Katie incident.
But. And this was an important but. She was somewhat compromised, because she'd been developing something with the man in front of her. An undeniable attraction was there, definitely.
Of course, if Ronon was all but throwing her at Rodney, maybe she was wrong, and completely overestimating her own relationship with Ronon.
"Maybe I do," she said again, because it helped make it more real for herself, "but what about..." and she gestured, suddenly shy, "us?"
Ronon took such a long time before speaking that she was almost afraid of what he'd say. "I don't think you ever liked me as much."
"I don't know if that's true," she said honestly.
Ronon hefted a shoulder. "Maybe. But you're hot."
"I..." Jennifer could only hope to control the fierce tide of her blush. "Um, thanks."
He was absurdly matter-of-fact. "A guy like McKay doesn't get the chance to be with a girl like you very often," he said. "Sheppard told me. Besides, he seems to really like you."
"So you'd just... give up?"
"Yeah."
"Even though you and I have something?" she said, and then regretted blurting it out, because maybe she really was wrong. Maybe their... whatever had been only nervously one-sided.
"Yeah," he said simply, which made her stomach flip excitedly, and made her feel terribly guilty all at once. "But like I said, I don't think you ever liked me as much. At least, not in the same way."
The guilty pang grew into more of an actual pain. There had absolutely been a very sexual attraction there, but not the same sort of intellectual connection with Rodney. Jennifer hadn't quite realized the magnitude of this until it'd been said aloud. It didn't seem fair to want one man for one thing and the other for another thing. It seemed flighty, flaky, and the exact sort of thing she used to hate about girls back home. The ones who "dated" several guys at once, just because they could. She wondered if she'd been upset simply because she was jealous, although now she could only ask how they did it. Jennifer knew someone was going to get hurt. She included herself on that list.
"That's not true," she said, although she didn't know how much of a lie to spare his feelings it was.
"It's all right," he said. "Maybe some other time. Just make it worthwhile."
Jennifer stared up at him, stunned by this big, beautiful man, who had nothing, and yet was content to give what little he had up for the sake of his friendship with a man who would probably never realize what happened. (Who, she realized, would not be as quick to make the same sacrifice.) Spontaneity was never Jennifer's forte, but she was awash in such a rush of affection and respect and awe that she ended up flinging her arms around Ronon's solid waistline in a gesture both juvenile and sincere.
"I hope..." she said. "I'm sorry I didn't live up to your expectations."
"My expectations?"
"That I'd be like that woman you knew on Sateda. I guess I'm not really like her after all."
To her surprise, Ronon smiled. "Only this way." He disengaged himself. "McKay's lucky."
"Thank you," she said, both for the compliment and the gesture it prompted.
Ronon stared at her for a long moment, then turned and left. She was left to her own devices now, in more ways than one. Jennifer was going to have to suck up her courage, or get some sort of brain slug to eliminate her inhibitions, and make a move. She had nothing holding her back now, no theoretical flirtation with Ronon to hold her back. Or to fall back upon.
Without a parasite to give her false courage, though, she wasn't sure how to go forward. Instead, she went back and cued the video to the right spot. Just to be sure.