One world away from his home, two, three, he passed through so many it became difficult for him to recall how far he'd ran. They were always close behind, chasing him, almost catching him. One did manage to capture him in a sense. He was something of a special case. Any other wraith would've died at his hand, his gun. Not him. Upon parting he even disclosed his name, well, a name. Morraine. Murry, for short he said. Then he was gone, through the woods, being chased by his own kind for reasons that Ronon did not know and did not think to ask. Ronon still did not know the fate of him, never found him again but for a long time he had kept a lookout for any sign. Murry had informed him casually one night under stars that if Ronon should ever come across a culled world, check for children, if there were no children, he'd had hidden them away somewhere safe and was with them. Ronon kept a crescent-moon-shaped chink of pure white stone hanging on a leather tong that Murry had given him. It was a rarity he said. A very special symbol, but of what he'd never said. Ronon kept it hidden always, even now among his surrogate family, he told no one of the wraith. His wraith.

"Now, the data base says that this world was mainly agricultural and, shall we say, unenlightened, but this information is obviously out of date by now so we can surmise that now there should be technology we could probably use."

Dr Rodney McKay walked to the gate quickly in his usual gait as he talked and checked up on his information via the palm pilot he always carried, running through scores of pages of facts and figures, making sure for the tenth time he was correct in his information. The last trip off world he'd suggested had gotten him shot, one soldier dead, a friend injured and another two pitted against each other to the death. Never again he told himself, never again would he not double, triple check everything that could in the least bit be variable.

Colonel John Sheppard was doing his best in directing the four inexperienced and eager young scientists into a suitable and safer order, just in case of course that this planet proved to be hostile, which it probably wasn't, but there was no danger in being prudent sometimes.

Teyla Emmagen was quietly surveying the serenity of the beautiful city in which she now called home away from home. It held within it a secret of peace and tranquillity that did not match anything she'd ever experienced before. She relished coming here from the worlds they visited, it was so amazing to belong in such a place, to have such flourishing friendships, from the various acquaintances she held through-out the city to her very close friends, her comrades, her team.

Ronon Dex was fingering his gun, leaning against the top railing on the balconey that overlooked the gate and was hoping to find something to shoot. It had been so long since a rush of danger or excitement, since the adrenaline smacked his heart that he was growing bored, restless in the calm of Atlantis, the city that the Ancients built. Not that the good and safe atmosphere here was bad, it would just be good to come back after some fighting. Not that he was deluded into thinking that this might become his type of trip. This was the job for a bureaucrat like Elizabeth, not a warrior like himself. He looked down and watched Teyla, the look of pure happiness on her pretty face and suddenly felt selfish and ungrateful, for the gift he'd been given, for the second chance he'd gotten.

When John had assembled the scientists into an order he felt most secure he called to Ronon to join them and they all again stepped through the gate together, each unaware of how deeply the bonds between them ran, though even to themselves it may not be obvious on the surface to what depth.

The blue rippling surface of the event horizon quivered as they passed through then grew still in their wake and Elizabeth Weir watched them go, having too much paperwork to do and reports left to write up to join them. She felt a little sad in seeing them all go, for she would never be such an explorer, she was a bureaucrat not a warrior as Ronon had once put it quite plainly, but she felt apprehensive too for the events that transpired frequently from these jaunts to other worlds. She hoped that this trip at least would prove fruitful in the efforts to regain some power, if the wraith turned up now it would be horrific. With no zero-point module they'd be literal sitting ducks. With her arms crossed she stood a moment longer, watching until the Stargate closed then strode off to get some headway in the neglected paperwork on her desk.

At the almost exact moment they'd left, they arrived and stopped, not even bothering to go down the stone steps that stood beyond the platform. They stood in the middle of a town square that could've looked right at home on Earth. Smoke encircled the weak blue sky and bodies lay strewn in the streets, some still gripping guns, others now instead with their arms raised in useless efforts to defend themselves and their faces twisted in fear and pain. John, Teyla and Ronon all raised their guns at the same time, cautiously proceeding down the stone steps and onto the street.

"These people have indeed been killed by the Wraith"

Teyla tried to keep the horror from her voice, she'd never seen so many dead at once from a culling, these poor people had obviously took a stand and fought for their lives, and by the look of some wraith bodies, they had managed well under the circumstances. Then she noticed something a little peculiar.

"There are no children here"

Ronon noticed this too but for a different reason, something vague that he remembered from long ago. He subconsciously reached for the pendant that hung long against his skin. Maybe, perhaps, no. It'd been too long his mind told him; he was surely dead by now, in his condition. But he held onto more hope than he usually allowed himself.

"I'm gonna go check around"

He slipped away down one of the streets; it was the explanation he gave and no one challenged him. This was his chance to quash any false hope; he was going to see if he was here. He was dreading and wishing at the same time to find him. If he found him then he'd have to tell the story and become the world's worst hypocrite but at least then he'd have him back.

Teyla also noticed Ronon strange behaviour but did not let on to knowing, instead she followed a slanted route through the streets but always keeping in line with the road that Ronon took. Just in case he needed any assistance, though when she thought about it, that was a poor excuse. A very poor excuse.

John followed another road and without realising it, left Rodney alone and in charge of horrified and terrified young scientists. Charming, Rodney thought, rolling his eyes, as one of the softer boys vomited all over the ground at the sight of the corpses.

Ronon had scoured the street and was about to give up and move on when he saw a flash of white out of the corner if his eye. He turned, ready to fire, when he saw that it was just white paint that had been splattered onto a small brown door in haste, it had dried in a crescent-moon-shape. He walked over and kicked the door in, hearing from below the high crying of a very young child and the quiet murmuring of children hushed but whispering in fright. He also heard a softly crackling, stuttering voice, a voice he knew too well. He kicked away the dusty rug that covered the floor and dragged open the trap door to reveal ten frightened faces, guarded by a vicious scarred wraith whose eye twitched occasionally and who clicked his teeth when nervous. as they were clicking now.

Ronon smiled down at the wraith, expecting a return smile or at least a nod of recognition. What he did get was a snarl and knife blade pointing at him.

"You-u don't c-come d-down here and n-no one gets h-hurt"

From experience Ronon knew that Murry was terrible at any kind of hand-to-hand combat but no one could escape his deadly accurate aim or his unbelievable speed.

"Moraine, it's Rono…"

Before he'd even finished saying his own name he found himself being hugged by a wraith who barely stood up to his shoulder, who was so light he could fly if he ran fast enough, who'd been so badly tortured by humans and by his own kind that it sent him to the brink of insanity. He shoved Murry away but in an affectionate way, in just enough time to see Teyla run from the doorway and begin firing at him. If it had not been that in the moment Teyla began to shoot she tripped over the folded rug, sending the bullets off their intended target, Murry would've died either from blood loss or trauma. Two hit his shoulder and the others flew erratically into the ceiling. The impact from the bullets sent him flying into the wall, he lay there, quite still and held his wounded shoulder from which blood spurted. Ronon raised an eyebrow and Murry nodded, taking some bandages from his pocket and wrapping them carefully around the wound. The children ran from the trapdoor in the floor, to the wraith and not to those who looked liked them, saying much about how far the wraith had gone to protect them. Ten children cowered around the wraith, showing their courage by shielding him from the shooter, who'd picked herself and her gun up, returning for the kill.

Teyla stood amazed as the children who'd been missing from the scenes of death and carnage sheltered the very thing that had destroyed their world. The wraith stood up but still in the gloom that fell beyond the light of the doorway and Teyla could only discern the whiteness of his hair and the blackness of his clothes. When he walked slowly forward, with his hands in the air no less, into the light Teyla's eyes widened to the state of his face. Scars criss-crossed his features, from his forehead to his chin, from his eye socket to his nose and mouth. From what she could see, the scars turned into burns further down, a thick purple slash that wound it's way around his neck from what she could see. His hands were no better, burns and scars ruined the skin on his palms to a point where she could no longer see the feeding line. His eyes were solid ice, nothing held in them, but a crazy calm held his mind, she could feel the very brink of it through her link to the Wraith. He allowed her inside, a lost smile tugging wistfully at his mouth, and she gasped. Such pain and fear, torture beyond what the scars could show. He released her quickly, his eyes downcast now, no longer ice but full of tragic tears that he let drip to the floor. The children saw this sorrow and two of the oldest, both teenagers one a girl with raven hair and brown eyes full of fire and one a boy with brown hair and blue eyes that were filled with a kind of respectful pity, held each a hand in their own. The younger children scrambled to hug him. Teyla had never seen such a sight of a group bonded in such terror, so many children charmed by a monster that if it was some kind of bewitching it was a kind of magic she had never met in a wraith before.

Ronon had not yet moved. Instead he held the pendant tightly in his grip, not daring to believe it. When Murry lifted his sorrowful gaze from the floor to see Ronon, he forced a smile, it did not sit well on him and he struggled to hold it steady. When Ronon shook his head and walked towards him the children parted, standing under the watchful eyes of the oldest children.

Ronon put his hand on the Wraith's uninjured shoulder and pulled him into a careful embrace for when in such a grief filled mood Murry could easily snap within his own badly wired and haunted mind. When he didn't and Ronon let go, Murry stood but a little higher than before and a small yet real smile braved his face.

"I k-know you…Ronon Dex? N-no it c-can't be…"

Murry's eyes lit up with recognition and his hand shot up Ronon's shirt, bringing out the pendant from underneath. He stared at it then at Ronon; he followed the outside curve of the pure stone with one of his fingers and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were full of such happiness.

"Ronon Dex, huh, I-I've m-missed you so m-much"

He embraced the ex-runner of his own accord and at that point Sheppard spoke into Ronon's ear, his tone full of incredulity and concern mixed together in a cocktail of what John was and always would be.

"What the hell is going on down there?"

Ronon stared down at the wraith then at Teyla who stared back at him, her eyes full of disbelief then at Murry once more. He shrugged, hustled the children and walked out the front door, ducking to get through, then wandered content down the street with Murry loping beside him and the ten children and Teyla in pursuit.

When Rodney saw them coming up the blackened street he was in such shock that the first thing that crossed his mind was that Ronon looked like some kind of twisted Pied Piper, walking the dead streets of a Hamlet that was long gone.