Busy - SGU Fanfic

Title: Busy
Author: Elaiel
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: None
Word Count: 380-ish
Summary: Some messages are best not repeated verbatim.
Characters: Eli, Young, Rush, unspecified military person.
Author's Notes: Written for Challenge #054 "re-written" at sgu_challenge
Disclaimer: I don't own SGU, not mine, just borrowing, yada yada yada.

"Eli there's some kind of error message coming up here, in Ancient." The sergeant squinted down at it in confusion. "Did I do something wrong?"

Eli wandered over to take a look. The little red box had a very short message in it.

"Eli, stall Young, busy, found something interesting. Rush."

"It's a message, from Doctor Rush," Said Eli. "It's um, just a quick note to say they're going to be a while."

"How long is a while?" Asked Young, walking in to the Core room. "And where the hell is he? He's meant to be in the Gate room."

Eli felt his stomach turn over, he had no idea where Rush had gone off to or who with, as the Ancient grammar in the message appeared to imply plurality as far as he understood. He shuffled his feet then stopped as Young actually turned to look at him. Young walked over towards him and Eli touched the message making it disappear, unsure if Young was able to recognise his own name in Ancient yet.

"He didn't say how long it would take. And he's gone to check on a faulty relay that's causing us some intermittent problems." Eli tried not to look guilty as the lie rolled off his tongue.

Young raised an eyebrow. "Couldn't anyone else do that?"

"Um, it's in a part of the ship that we haven't really looked at yet." Eli temporised.

"So he's decided to use it as an excuse to have a poke around the ship." Young said, filling in the implied details. He grimaced, half in annoyance, half resignedly. "So message him back and ask him how long he's going to be."

Eli tapped a message back into the console in Ancient.

"Doctor, the Colonel wants to know how long you are going to be. Eli"

There was a significant interval whilst they all waited.

"How long is a piece of string? Tell Colonel to insert himself in himself. Busy. Rush"

Eli, looking down at the console, goggled at the message for a moment, then realised he didn't know how to say "fuck himself" in Ancient either.

"Eli?" asked Young, watching him.

Eli made the message disappear quickly

"He says that it's a little more complex with the relay than we thought. He doesn't know."

"Great," muttered Young, "just great!"

He stalked out to the Core Room. Eli finally let out the breath he'd been holding.