“I said this was a bad idea. I told Sheppard. I told you. You can’t trust the wraith. Now see where we are.”

~Specialist R. Dex, excerpt from incident debrief.

Ronon scowled, keeping his eyes on the wraith. No one in Atlantis seemed to care how dangerous the wraith was. Just because this one had helped Sheppard out that one time he got a pass on the whole enemy number one thing. Not with Ronon though. Never with Ronon.

The wraith continued to pretend to ignore them. Ronon could see through it though. Humans were prey to it, and it was highly attuned to them. For reason’s he couldn’t understand, it seemed more attuned to Sheppard than any other Lantean. Ronon suspected the wraith was so aware of Sheppard because it had already fed on him. Some of the wraith worshippers who had escaped to the Travelers had whispered tales of wraith who drained a particular worshiper only to bring them back repeatedly because they enjoyed the “taste” of the human in question. It was the only thing Ronon could think of to explain why the wraith had reached out to Sheppard, why it pretended to help them.

Yet Sheppard did not seem to know or care the danger he was in. If the wraith was truly obsessed with tasting him again, it would stop at nothing to attain it’s goal. The wraith would turn on them, the only question was when. They should all be vigilant or better yet kill the thing. Instead, McKay was getting laid in his office and Sheppard wore the look on his face that preceded one of his pranks. He turned that expression towards the wraith, as if you could play a prank on a wraith and pal around with it like you did the members of your team. The people you trusted.

“Why can’t you see how dangerous this is?” he groused as Sheppard returned the pad of clingy paper to McKay’s station with a slightly disappointed look. “This will come back to bite us.”

“One could hope,” the wraith growled.

“Stay out of this,” Sheppard snapped before Ronon could say anything. “You’re not helping.”

“I could help bite him if it would stop his complaints,” the wraith rejoined, chuckling at his own dark humor.

“You also aren’t funny.”

“Hmm.”

Ronon snorted, tempted to let it eat Sheppard for his stupidity, but damn it all the man was his friend.

“It ate someone, in front of you, less than two weeks ago and you’re making jokes with it,” he gestured wildly.

“And we’re not letting it happen again,” Sheppard replied, exasperation in his voice. For the moment, we need him. And perhaps more importantly he needs us, enough to try and work with us. We can’t trust him, but I have a certain amount of faith in his opportunistic nature. He isn’t going to betray us until he’s gained the advantage.”

“Sheppard,” the wraith rasped through a grin that revealed his sharply pointed teeth. “You say the sweetest things.”

It sounded for all the worlds of the galaxy like the damned thing was flirting with him.

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Enraged Ronon spun on his heel, lashing out at the cart of uncatalogued plants instead of Sheppard. Several samples crashed to the ground, one of the plants from the top of the cart flying across the room and striking the wraith in the arm before spilling dirt and the alien plant across the wraith’s keyboard and workstation.

Sometimes, in the heat of battle there’s a moment of perfect clarity, when everything seems to still and all the pieces align. In that moment cunning and instinct intertwine and become something more than either alone could be. That moment marked a changing of the tides of a battle, although you could never tell if it was in your favor or against you. He had felt it for the first time on his second day as a runner.

He had been slogging through a swamp, slapping his arms to fend off the biting insects with which it was infested when the wraith had come charging at him. He had dropped himself into the mud to avoid its flying leap. The submerged root of a tree had caught him in the stomach and prevented him from sinking into the mud. He flipped himself onto his back to watch for the wraith and braced his arms behind him to push himself up.

He locked eyes with the wraith, perched on the branches of the tree directly above him. The moment stretched out and he felt like he could feel multiple possibilities all stretching out around him.

The wraith would drop on him, pinning him to the root and draining him of his life.

The wraith would drop on him and he would rise with his knife and strike it through the palm of its feeding hand disabling it for the kill.

The wraith would drop on him and snap his spine.

The wraith would drop on him and he dragged it under the water.

His surroundings came into full clarity, the root beneath him, the fetid water that surrounded them, the patch of white sand that rippled slightly as the waves of his fall struck it, the wraith high in the tree, peering down at him with its cold yellow eyes through the branches and vines that climbed the tree, while the hot sun poured down and illuminated them both.

The wraith dropped. He rolled backward on the root, using it as leverage to bring his legs up and meet it with a double kick that threw it several feet away from him. It landed in a three point crouch, one hand and both feet bracing it as it kicked out on the white sand to launch itself back at him. Its feet and hands sank into the sand, the leg which had kicked was buried almost up to its thigh. Ronon sat panting on the root, watching with satisfaction as the wraith struggled to drag itself from the sand, but the more it struggled the faster it sank. It scrabbled madly at the bank, attempting to grab any piece of scrub or shrubbery to pull itself free.

After it drowned, the body floated back to the surface of the sand. He waited until the sun began to sink and the body still lay facedown in the sand to use a sawed off portion of vine to retrieve the body. He stripped it of weapons, and slit its cold throat just to be certain.

It had been his first solo kill.

The wraith stared down at his hand. A spattering of dirt lay across the back of his hand. The plant was small, long dark green leaves tinted at the corners with black and a long stem of tiny jade green flowers which danced across the back of the wraith’s hand and rolled across his fingers before they finally landed on the keyboard. A series of emotions flashed across the usually so controlled face in quick succession. Irritation. Recognition. Surprise and fear. A flash of rage. The tide was turning.

With a bestial roar the wraith flicked the plant back across the room into Ronon’s face, the sample cup striking his cheek and drawing blood from his cheek.

The guards raised their riffles as Sheppard stepped forward into the wraith’s space with a hand held out to placate him.

“Don’t touch me!” it hissed, drawing back.

Sheppard continued forward, he opened his mouth to say something.

The wraith palm struck Sheppard in the chest, sending him stumbling backwards into a computer terminal.

Ronon brushed a hand over his cheek, taking in the heat and wetness of blood. With a wild grin he shoved the cart towards the wraith and followed behind it. He drove his fist into the wraith’s mouth with a satisfying crunch.

The wraith snarled and threw Ronon across the room with a speed and strength far beyond what he had expected. Ronon thudded into the wall, cracking his head against the door frame, his last sight was of the wraith, pushing off with one foot towards him in a mighty leap.