Silent bitter assent led them to find a private place for the conversation – the confrontation – they both knew was inevitable.
They settled for Colonel's office behind locked doors and Rush showed no signs of caring that he was, effectively, on Young's ground. But then he'd never once shown a sign of relenting or giving way in anything. How the man had survived and returned to Destiny – it astonished Young.
The Colonel still took the offensive – diving right in. "I have the video of you in Spencer's quarters, so don't think for one minute..."
Rush laughed at him. Laughed at him! Young stopped and stared at him, glared at him, startled. Those familiar feelings of frustration and inadequacy swirled back over him. He'd never understand Rush; never been able to catch up with that brilliant, inscrutable mind. What the hell was Rush thinking?
When Rush stopped chuckling, he speared Young with penetrating eyes. "Go ahead, Colonel. Show it. I'm surprised you didn't. Why didn't you? I doubt anyone mourned for me regardless." Rush's shaggy-haired head tilted to the side, considering. Young felt like he could see the thoughts racing in Rush's mind like Destiny at FTL speed. "Were you hanging onto it just in case someone questioned your story about a 'rockslide'? Or if I managed to find my way back, you thought you'd have something to hold over my head, eh?"
The chuckle was harsher this time and only half of Rush's mouth twisted into a smile. "Well, I did make it back, Colonel, but you're not holding anything over me. Go ahead, go ahead and show your little video clip." He waved a dismissive hand in the air. "You have my full permission. Show it." And then his face hardened into the cold, fierce expression that had haunted Young's dreams since the incident on that planet, since he'd left the scientist behind. "And then you can explain afterwards how you deliberately attacked me and abandoned me to die."
"No one will believe you!" Young yelled, struggling for a defense, but even in his own mind, it fell flat. He'd always prided himself on never leaving anyone behind and then he'd done it deliberately. It had been something worse than Young had ever thought himself capable of; it still tore at him. He'd tried to kill this man.
Rush shook his head, looking at Young with pure disdain in his eyes, disgust in the curl of his lips. "Really? I wonder how many people already have doubts. I wonder how many people would start to consider that if you left me behind, you might leave them next time. They'll start to question the beneficence of your command, Colonel. Don't tell me there aren't a lot of doubts already."
"They'll still believe me over you, especially when they see that video, Rush. They may have some doubts about me, but they hate you."
Rush tilted his head downwards, a pair of dimples creasing the right side of his mouth. When he refocused those huge, fierce eyes back on Young, his response was simple.
"Do you actually think I give a damn what anyone thinks about me?"
Prior to this moment, the Colonel had considered Rush's eccentric, acerbic behavior either the general instability of a genius mind or a deliberate act - being difficult because it amused him. But in this instant, he suddenly understood that Rush simply and honestly did not care.
The realization of how wrong he'd been left Young speechless. He stared at Rush who stared right back. Young again could see Rush's mind leap intuitively to understanding, the flicker in those big, brown eyes.
"So the penny finally drops, Colonel. Bloody hell, you're slow. Why do you think the SGC hired me for this project in the first place? Did you stop to consider that?"
Young just shook his head. Hiring Rush had seemed obvious. The man held 3 doctorates from Oxford, had an IQ so high they didn't have a scale to measure it; he was miles ahead of anyone else in his fields of study. What more reason would they have needed?
Rush shook his head condescendingly, obviously reading Young's thoughts in his expression. "Yes, Colonel, I'm brilliant and I have the qualifications. That goes without question, but what about the teamwork, the supervisory responsibilities, the political niceties of dealing with oversight committees and senators and funding? Do you honestly think I was anyone's first choice in dealing with those? Given my reputation?"
"Then why, Rush?" Young finally found his voice and made the demand. "Why?"
Rush glanced away briefly before gazing back at Young, his mouth tightening, deep furrows cutting into the skin around and above his eyes.
"It's quite simple, really. I have nothing to lose."
Again, Young was reduced to feeling left behind, something he had come to bitterly hate doing in front of Rush, but his expression obviously spoke it for him and Rush continued without a verbal interruption.
"My mother died giving birth to my sister when I was 5. My sister died seven years later. My father died ten years after that. I buried my wife three years ago, barely 6 months before Stargate Command contacted me with the job offer." He paused and stepped closer to Young, penetrating his personal space. "Don't you see, Colonel, I had no one left alive to distract me from the work. No one to care whether I lived or died, so that when I led this expedition into the unknown beyond the Ninth Chevron, there would be no awkward questions, no explanations needed. I could vanish and no one would notice. I'd just buried my wife; the fact that I disappeared from academic circles – well, who'd question that?"
Rush leaned in so that their faces were practically touching and Young could feel the other man's breath on his skin. "I have nothing left on Earth but decomposing corpses. All that matters to me is my work, Destiny, and what I can learn from it.
"But you, Colonel, you care about what these people think. About what your officers think. About your wife back on earth, your parents, your siblings, you have ties that bind, which is only one more reason why you're unfit for commanding this mission, a mission that was never expected to return. You can't look beyond those ties, but I can.
Remember that, Colonel. You have something to lose. I, on the other hand, I have absolutely nothing to lose."
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END