Le mérite des hommes a sa saison aussi bien que les fruits.
—François de La Rochefoucauld, 1665
"Last one," John says, tossing the pudding cup at Rodney and dropping back down into the chair next to him. They're out on the balcony, enjoying the summer breeze off the water. Ronon's on the other side of the table, napkin in his hands, something dark and curvy wrapped up in it.
Rodney turns the pudding cup over and frowns. "Vanilla?"
"It's all they had, buddy."
It's nearing the end of dinner service and the mess is winding down, only a few stragglers left, and not much to choose from in the way of dessert. John had to settle for instant coffee with lots of sugar.
Ronon holds out his lumpy napkin. "Want some of my St. Olaf's fruit?"
"What is it?" Rodney asks, suspicious. "It sounds like a sex thing."
"It's a fruit," Ronon says. He opens his napkin to reveal a dark red fruit, heart-shaped, with a ruff of pale hair.
"Oh," Rodney says, losing interest. "Fruit isn't dessert."
"Many people find fruit to be an adequate after-dinner sweet." Teyla's on the other side of Rodney, banging around her tea service and looking grim. She's been like this all day. It's either pregnancy hormones or John's done something to piss her off again. He's afraid to ask.
"Fruit is fruit," Rodney says. "Chocolate pudding is dessert. Vanilla pudding is only one step up from banana, at which point you might as well be eating fruit."
"I'll take it if you don't want it," John says, not because he wants it, particularly, but because he knows it's the quickest way to shut Rodney up.
Rodney clutches the pudding to his chest, predictable as ever. "I didn't say I didn't want it."
Ronon flashes John a toothy grin. John learned that particular trick from watching Ronon and Rodney bicker over food off-world. Never fails. Rodney peels the lid off his pudding and gives the underside a big lick.
"You sound tired," Ronon says, looking down the table at Teyla. John braces for impact.
"I did not sleep well. The door to my quarters was opening and closing all night." She covers her cup with a woven mat of grasses and pours her tea through it. "I put in a request with maintenance, but they are very behind, and it will be days before someone will be available to fix it. It would not be so aggravating if I hadn't already been through this three times before." She puts the pot down with a thump and tea sloshes out the spout.
"It's probably a weak crystal," Rodney says, making love to his pudding, completely oblivious to the tension around him. "They're not difficult to replace. I can show you how and you can just fix it yourself if it happens again."
Teyla sighs, the sharp cant of her shoulders easing into something more relaxed, or at least less angry. "That would be wonderful."
John feels a surge of affection for Rodney and the way he sometimes says exactly the right thing completely by accident. Rodney looks kind of stunned himself, frozen in the act of licking his spoon clean, tongue pressed flat to its bowl.
"You say it's a simple repair?" Teyla prompts.
Rodney recovers from his shock and, having found a receptive audience for one of his favorite subjects (Why Atlantis Would Crumble Into The Sea Without Me, Dr. Rodney McKay), begins to dazzle Teyla with the technical details behind her malfunctioning door. She still looks tired, but she's listening intently and she's stopped slamming around her tea pot, so they might survive this one yet. John kicks back in his chair and takes a sip of his coffee. It tastes like the inside of a plastic sack. He makes a face.
"...and that was when I realized that what the entire lab was using as a refrigerator magnet was actually a sophisticated piece of diagnostic equipment specifically suited to this very problem."
"That is fascinating," Teyla says. "How does it pertain to my door?"
"Oh! Well, it doesn't," Rodney says sheepishly. "What you need is a standard A4 crystal and an ammeter."
"Namitter," Teyla repeats.
"Ammeter," Rodney says again. "Short for ampere meter."
Across from John, Ronon's tied his dreads back with the leather thong he wears on his wrist and is working on removing the fur from his St. Olaf fruit, turning it in his hands while scrubbing it with the napkin, its fine, pale hair drifting away in the breeze and getting everywhere—glinting in his beard, swirling around his head, landing in John's coffee. John grimaces and picks a hair off his tongue.
"Is that the thing that looks like a shoespooner?" Ronon asks suddenly without looking up.
"Yes," says Rodney. "Assuming you're talking about a shoehorn. It maps the current travelling through a circuit and tells you which crystals need to be replaced. Swap them out and you're done. Easy."
"If this issue is resolved by replacing a faulty crystal then why does it keep happening?" Teyla asks, the edge returning to her voice.
Ronon tosses his furry napkin aside and reaches across the table to steal Rodney's.
"How'd you know that?" John says to Ronon.
Ronon shrugs. "Been helping the repair crews in the outer parts of the city that got damaged during the replicator attack."
"I haven't been out there lately. How's it looking?"
Ronon pulls a hunting knife from his boot and gives it a cursory wipe with Rodney's napkin. "Bad," he says.
"Hey," Rodney says, interrupting his conversation with Teyla. "That's mine!"
"You weren't using it. Should've, though."
"What? Do I have pudding—?" Rodney wipes at his mouth and drags the back of his hand over his chin, then belatedly notices what Ronon's doing with his napkin. "Oh, excuse me, but is a Bowie knife really necessary at the table? Why can't you eat your hairy beet like a normal person?"
"This is normal," Ronon says.
Rodney scowls, but he must realize he isn't going to win this one because he turns back to Teyla, muttering about napkin-stealing barbarians.
Ronon, unbothered, cuts a thin wedge from the fruit and eats it right off the blade, tongue flicking out to catch a stray drop of juice. If John tried to do that, he'd probably cut off a finger—or his tongue—but Ronon's hands are sure.
John's seen him use that same knife to cut them free from Wraith cocoons, stab untold numbers of angry bad guys, gut cucumber snakes to cook over pitiful campfires, and once, to give Teyla an impromptu field haircut when her ponytail got caught in a honeybug nest. Ronon's knives have gotten them out of a lot of trouble over the years. Under the guise of Being Team Leader And Knowing That Kind Of Stuff, For Tactics, Right? Not Because He's Curious Or Anything, John has tried several times, without success, to get Ronon to tell him how many blades he carries.
There's the hunting knife, the short dagger he keeps tucked in his belt, and the thin, flexible blades hidden in his hair, but there's also a rotating armory of folding knives, the Italian switchblade Rodney gave him for winter carnival that only seems to come out for special occasions, and even a random table knife he took a liking to while they were eating at a Denny's after Carson's funeral. John never knows what Ronon's going to pull out of where.
"Want a piece?" Ronon says, holding the knife out to John, a slice of fruit speared on the tip. "It's good."
John takes it carefully, a wedge of translucent pink flesh dotted with tiny black specks and a surprisingly tough hide. Rodney, always on the lookout for new foods as long as John has tried them first, has turned around completely in his chair and is staring at John expectantly.
The fruit's slippery and John fumbles it into his mouth before he can drop it. It hits his tongue with a sweet tang and dissolves almost instantly, fizzy and tickling, leaving only the skin behind.
"Wow," he says, and sneezes twice.
Rodney grabs John's arm. "Good wow or infirmary wow?"
"The fruit reacts to your saliva," Ronon says. "You can't bite into them or they explode."
"Wow," John says again, blinking tears out of his eyes.
"You made him cry," Rodney says to Ronon in wonder. "Is Olaf the patron saint of public weeping by any chance?"
"Trap Ossif St. Olaf wasn't like your religious intercessors," Ronon says. "He was a statesman in the 4th Era."
"Named after a fruit?" Rodney says.
Ronon eats another slice off his knife. "Fruit's named after him."
"And they named a fruit after him why?" Rodney asks, visibly annoyed at being drawn into a discussion he clearly doesn't care about, but still wanting answers. Everyone but Rodney has figured out Ronon does this to him on purpose.
"He talked a neighboring city-state into forming an alliance and then killed their leader."
"Well," John says, still chewing on St. Olaf's tough hide, "that's not very neighborly."
"The other guy started it," Ronon says.
Teyla stirs her tea, looking thoughtful. "And he is remembered for this act?"
"For that, and for what came after," Ronon says. "We were taught that unimpeded access to the floodplains led to improvements in agriculture and health. A population boom. Advancements in art and science. Increased trade. The memory keepers created St. Olaf's fruit to honor that time." He turns the fruit in his hands. "There were orchards all along the river where I grew up."
"What do you mean they created a fruit?" Rodney demands.
"They made it."
"How?"
"Botany, I'd guess," Ronon says.
Rodney's fist clenches around his spoon. "That's a—"
"A beautiful way to keep your ancestors near," Teyla says, interrupting before things can get heated. She looks down the table at John. "Do your people have a traditional way of honoring one's antecessors?"
"Airports, mostly," John says.
"Yes," she says, leaning forward, eyes gleaming with commerce. "I have seen your airports. They are impressive marketplaces."
"Good food, too," Ronon says. "Sweet buns the size of your hand, and—Sheppard, what was the other thing called?"
"A Bloody Mary," John says, reluctantly.
"Fermented tomato juice," Ronon says to Teyla.
John had been a witness to that meal. The memory still makes him queasy.
Rodney's finished his pudding and is staring off into the distance. "When the people of the Pegasus Galaxy make a fruit to honor me, I want it to be coffee," he says, dreamily. Then the logistics must catch up with him because he starts in on Ronon again. "Who do I speak to about that? And can it be while I'm still alive, because if I have to drink another cup of that instant sludge we might not make it to—"
"Shut up and try it," John says, wiping his nose on his napkin. "It's like Pop Rocks. Did you have those in Canada?"
"Please, we practically invented them," Rodney says, watching as Ronon slices off another wedge and holds it out to him balanced on the flat of the knife. "Am I going to start crying and drooling like Colonel Weepy here?"
John sniffs. "Hey."
"Nah, never seen that happen before," Ronon says. "Just Sheppard."
While Rodney dithers, obviously weighing the lure of new food against the risk of public spectacle, Ronon turns and offers the fruit to Teyla, who picks it up and pops it neatly into her mouth. Rodney monitors her for signs of distress, epi-pen held at the ready.
Her eyes widen and her mouth curves into a smile. "That's remarkable. I've never had anything like it."
"My turn!" Rodney says, practically bouncing in his seat, fingers wiggling impatiently. Ronon holds out the knife and Rodney reaches for his slice, using one finger to push it off the blade and into his other hand. He sniffs the fruit first, rubs his thumb over it, waits, then licks his finger. It produces an unsettling sizzling sound. "Okay, that's just weird. Here goes."
Rodney passes John the epi-pen, takes a deep breath, lets it out, and tips the fruit into his mouth. Everyone who's ever sat next to Rodney at a table in the Pegasus Galaxy is familiar with this process, his own abbreviated version of the universal edibility test. Once, during their third year, John caught him giving the same treatment to an Earth potato and accused him of going native.
Rodney swallows, and coughs once, breath coming out in a hitchy sob. "That's delicious. It's like candy."
"Told you," John says.
"Did you get it on the line?" Rodney asks, craning around to peer through the balcony windows at the mess. "Are there any more?"
"Not here," Ronon says. "I found it at the market at Sol's Wing. The trader had it in a bin of junk." He shrugs. "Not a lot of people left anymore who know what it is."
"So that's it then?" Rodney looks disappointed, but Ronon looks the way Ronon always looks, confrontational and a little bored, like he might kick your ass, but could just as easily take a nap.
"Until I find another one, yeah," he says, slurping a piece off his knife.
And doesn't John feel like an asshole with his pudding cups and his instant coffee while Ronon sits across from him, lucky to find just one reminder of home. John doesn't know how he does it. If he thinks about it all the time, or only in pieces, or if he somehow tries to forget. He doesn't talk about it much. But maybe that's the only way he can live with it.
Ronon offers John the next slice.
"You should eat the rest, buddy," John says. "It could be a while before you come across another of these."
Ronon just shakes his head, knife steady in his hand. "Better shared. This way three more know."
"We will carry the memory with us," Teyla says, bowing her head.
John wishes he had something cool to say, a meaningful gesture he could make to show Ronon he's got his back on this, but all he can do is take the piece of fruit, raise it in Ronon's direction in an awkward salute, and let it dissolve on his tongue. His eyes start to prickle immediately and he ducks his head to wipe his face on his sleeve.
Teyla and Rodney take their slices, but Rodney doesn't eat his right away, poking at it instead, examining the black specks inside the ruby flesh while it quietly melts in his hands. "Are these the seeds? Katie would, well," he corrects himself, embarrassed, "probably not Katie after, uh, everything, but the botany department's working on a seed bank for indigenous plants. I could put them on this and we could have our own orchard in a few years."
"Won't work," Ronon says. "You need to plant the whole fruit."
"What? Why didn't you say something earlier! If I'd known, I could have—"
"McKay," Ronon growls.
Rodney makes an abrupt, frustrated noise and shoves the fruit in his mouth. The grumbling turns into a happy sigh, and he leans back in his chair, absently sucking his fingers clean. "Mm," he says, "next time we're on Earth we'll have to find you some Pop Rocks. They..." he trails off, looking confused, mouth open as if about to sneeze, and lets out an enormous belch. His eyes go comically wide and he looks so horrified at himself that John starts laughing, terrible honking snorts made worse by his tears, which sets Teyla off, her high, musical laughter echoing off the windows of the balcony, while Ronon stares at them like they're all a few posts short of a fence.
"Oh my god," Rodney says, "that wasn't my fault, I swear; it was Olaf!"
"Nice, McKay, blame the dead guy," John says, laughing and wiping his eyes. Rodney only looks more stricken and John gets the idea that might have been insensitive. He glances over at Ronon to see how badly they insulted him. "Too soon?"
But Ronon chuckles. "It was 4th Era. They were still having belching contests after meals," he says. "McKay would have fit right in."
Rodney's nose wrinkles, and for a second it looks like he might explode in outrage, but he lets out a tiny burp, instead, and then sighs. "I don't think Olaf agrees with me."
"The trap got along with everyone—except for that guy he stabbed," Ronon says.
John and Teyla's eyes meet across the table and it's obvious they're wondering the same thing—if this was the same guy as before or another one.
"Was statesman maybe a different job on Sateda?" John ventures. "Because our, uh, politicians don't usually kill people so...directly."
Ronon's teeth flash in a feral grin. "4th Era was a more direct time."
"And how long ago was this exactly?" Rodney asks.
"Sateda was in its 9th Era when it fell."
"Right," Rodney says, a pinched look on his face. "I don't know what I—sorry."
Ronon shrugs and carefully cuts another slice of fruit. "Not your fault."
Rodney opens his mouth and then apparently thinks better of it and closes it again. Ronon offers him the slice of fruit and he takes it.
"You said you grew up by a river," John says, figuring he can at least ask. If Ronon doesn't want to talk about it, he won't. "What was it like?"
"Busy," Ronon says. And for a moment it seems like that might be it. But he goes on: "When the fishing boats came in, the sky would fill with sea birds, and you could hear the old women cursing at them as they repaired the nets. My grandmot ran her own boat, and I'd help out when I wasn't in school. Spent a lot of time with a mop. She said I had to work my way up to the lines." He smiles. "Never did make it."
A silence settles over the table, broken by Rodney saying, "I went fishing with Carson once. We brought coffee—real coffee—in a thermos and some little cookies his mother made. The whole thing with the boat and the fish was a complete waste of time, but that part was nice. We played cribbage."
"Carson loved being out on the water," John says. "I'd see him out on the lower pier, sometimes, not even fishing, just standing there, looking out at the ocean."
This time the silence feels more deliberate.
Teyla takes a sip of tea, then puts her cup down and asks, "Have I ever told you about the time my father took me to the market at Lyou?"
"Lyou?" John says, feeling like he forgot to study for the quiz because she tells a lot of stories, many of them having to do with getting a good deal on grain, and it's hard to remember all the places she's been. Rodney, clearly in a similar situation, mumbles something noncommittal, but Ronon is shaking his head and John quickly follows his lead because Ronon never forgets a thing. Teyla gives John a look like she knows exactly what he's doing. He gives her an innocent look in return and she rolls her eyes at him. Lovingly, though. Probably.
"Lyou was a large community at the junction of two rivers," she tells them. "It had a lively port and a year-round market that drew visitors from across the system. I'd never seen its like and found all the activity very exciting."
Ronon's knife stills in his hand. "The gate's by a canyon?"
"It is," she says. "About a day's walk away."
"I knew it as Rau," Ronon says. "Though there wasn't much left when I got there."
"Our loss is great," she says, lowering her eyes. She gives a moment to the memory and then, as John has seen her do so many times before, gets on with it. "Every ship that travelled the water stopped there to trade, and the market was filled with exotic goods. It was my father's intention that I would stay close to him and act as his second, but this is not what happened." She gives an impish smile.
It made John uncomfortable, at first, the way she could look grief straight in the face and then change the subject, but he gets it now.
"The port was crowded with merchants, in shops and stalls and in the streets. They were even doing business on the gangways of the ships. As I had just reached the age of majority—a little younger than Jinto is now—I was eager to prove myself by making a good trade, and, in my enthusiasm, accidentally boarded a ship bound for Hamt. When I disembarked several days later, I had a sore head from the spirits and a father irritated by the delay, but I'd also obtained a source for much needed materials, so he could not criticize my methods."
"You came home with a hangover at fifteen?" Rodney sounds scandalized.
"And a valuable trade deal," she reminds him, looking remarkably pleased with herself. She takes the slice of fruit Ronon hands her and slurps it down.
"I could have come home with a Nobel Prize and my parents still would have killed me."
"My father was a disciplined man, but he understood that sometimes you have to drink from the same cup in order to reach a mutually satisfying agreement."
Now John and Ronon are making eye contact and wondering what happened on that boat because it sounds kinda sexy.
"Well, my father," Rodney starts off hot, as if about to read off a list of the man's crimes, but then stops abruptly, like he reached for that well of old hurts only to find it wasn't as deep as he remembered. He looks a bit bewildered. "...was probably doing his best. I couldn't have been the easiest kid to parent."
"Yeah, it's a real mind fuck," Ronon says. "Realizing your parents are just people."
"A mind fuck," Rodney repeats, dazed. He blinks. "I should call Jeannie."
It seems like a big moment for Rodney, so John slings an arm over the back of his chair and pats him on the shoulder a few times, then leaves his hand there because he doesn't know how much of this he'll be able to say, but he'll give it a try.
"I can't think about the water," John begins, "without thinking of my mom and her sister."
Ronon passes him a piece of fruit, and they sit under the setting sun, talking about the people they've loved and the rivers they've known, sharing St. Olaf's fruit, piece by piece, until there's nothing left but the memory.
A/N: The epigraph is from François de La Rochefoucauld's Maximes: "Man's merit has its season, like fruit."
And a fact check because Rodney's just making shit up: Canada didn't invent Pop Rocks—General Foods chemist William A. Mitchell did—but according to some accounts, it did serve as an early test market in the 1970s.