A Calculation of Entropy
Chapter 2
AN: Thanks for all your reviews. They make my day.
Rip was tossed on a sea of dark, half remembered nightmares. He saw the faces of his family and reached out to them only to have them snatched away. It was hot where he was, he imagined he was in the Sahara where he'd once been sent on a mission to deal with a small war between Morocco and Algeria. Then Egypt, in a cell, desperate for food and water, slowly losing his strength and waiting for his execution, racking his brains for a way out. Then in India, hiding in plain sight as an officer of the British army, drinking gin and tonic to keep the malaria away. He'd been captured by a local warlord and locked in cell with his sergeant, the man he was supposed to protect who would one day save General Wellington's life.
His thoughts were muddled and he was vaguely aware that none of what he was seeing was real, but the heat was and the pain in his limbs. Eventually even that sensation faded out and blackness enclosed him shutting down his awareness. He had no idea how much time passed but consciousness returned slowly, in fits and starts.
He heard a familiar voice. "His temperature is down," said a man. "I think the antipyretics are finally working." Rip associated this male voice with age and knowledge, but couldn't put a name to it in his current state.
There was a cool hand on his forehead and he leaned into the pleasant sensation. It felt familiar, like he'd done it before, but he didn't remember when.
"Thank god for that," said a female voice. "I don't think he could have taken another day of it."
He didn't know who they were talking about. Someone was apparently sick, because antipyretics were only administered for a fever. He faded back into unconsciousness.
The next moment he was aware of anything, someone else was talking.
"Sara, you should get some sleep," said a younger sounding voice.
"I'm fine," said the female voice he'd heard earlier. He recognised it.
"Miranda?" he wondered, even though the accent was wrong. Who else would be with him whilst he was sleeping? Apparently he'd said that out loud because he received a reply.
"No, Rip, it's Sara," she said. The cool hand was back, this time entwining fingers with his. Sara. He did recognise that name.
"Hey, man, are you back with us?" asked the other voice. Young, but not young enough to be Jonas.
He moved restlessly. He tried to open his eyes but they felt weighed down and he gave up, mumbling as he did. "Tired."
"Yeah, I'm not surprised," said Sara. "You're doing fine. Just sleep, okay?"
He tried to nod, but movement was slow and painful. He managed a small gesture and then he was drifting away from lucidity again. More time passed. Finally, he felt reality reasserting itself once more. This time there were no voices, just a lightening behind his eyes. He blinked them open, and immediately regretted it when the bright lights of medbay seared his retinas, and he clamped his eyelids shut. He ached everywhere, and was aware of how heavy all his limbs felt, and how tired he was, despite the fact that he was apparently only just waking up.
He let out an involuntary groan, and heard movement.
"Rip?" asked the voice that had identified herself as Sara earlier. "Come on, two days asleep is enough. Time to open those eyes."
Rip's mind was trying to catch up with the information in that sentence as he turned his head towards the speaker, almost involuntarily. He once again attempted to open his eyes. He found himself squinting up at Sara Lance.
"Bright," he managed to murmur, before shutting his eyes again.
"Gideon, can you turn the lights down to 50%," said Sara, with a glance upwards.
"Of course," replied the AI.
Rip risked another attempt to open his eyes and found that the lights had been dimmed.
"Sara?" he frowned. He attempted to raise his arm and found it attached to the medical cuff, weighed down by tubes, and realised that he was too weak even to manage that. "What happened?"
"You've been very sick," said Sara, gently, "but you're on the mend now. How much do you remember?"
"I went to bed to sleep off the 'flu. You brought me soup…" he searched his memory for anything after that. He shook his head at the lack of anything following that and was rewarded with a horrible dizziness.
"Sometime during the night your fever spiked and you got a lot worse. We brought you to medbay and Gideon started aggressively treating your symptoms, but you've been in and out of consciousness for a couple of days. Ray and Stein have been working on finding an antiviral, but it looks like we won't need it," said Sara.
"Hmm," was all Rip could manage. He didn't get sick and Gideon could usually fix any injury that he acquired. The longest he'd even been in medbay was 24 hours, so this was unprecedented. He looked down at the cuff and the fluids that were running into the vein in his wrist. He still felt uncomfortably warm, which would explain all the dreaming about hot places. It was strange that he'd felt so cold before.
"How do you feel?" asked Sara.
"Like I was run over by a bus," said Rip, his brow furrowing as he took stock.
"Yeah, this virus kicked your ass," said Sara, matter-of-factly. "You'll be back on your feet in a few days though."
"Days?" asked Rip.
"You'll need some recovery time after this," Sara pointed out, her eyes and tone a little apologetic. "Gideon doesn't want to let you out of here until your fever's down another couple of degrees."
Rip sighed. "And how long is that going to take?"
"The way it's been going, you might get out of here tomorrow," replied Sara, with a little smile.
"We don't have that kind of time," he pointed out. He attempted to push himself up and into a sitting position and very quickly realised that he simply had no strength. His muscles had all turned to jelly and were refusing to respond. He slumped back, breathing hard.
Sara just raised an eyebrow. "Well, that was stupid."
"Yes, I did notice," replied Rip, with resignation. "The point I'm making is that I can't lie here for another day."
"You're going to have to," said Sara. "Because until Gideon says you can leave, you're staying right here. You need complete rest to beat this thing."
Rip let out a tired sigh. "Apparently I don't have enough strength to get up yet anyway, but you have to promise me that we'll jump as soon as Gideon thinks I can take it."
Sara looked distinctly unimpressed. "I'll see what Gideon says."
Ray wandered back into medbay, his head down, reading a tablet. He was totally engrossed in whatever was on the tablet.
"Ray?" asked Sara.
He looked up with a little surprise, clearly having missed Sara's presence. He looked over at her, and then noticed that Rip's eyes were open.
"Hey, you're awake," he said, a giant smile breaking across his lips. "I guess we won't need that antiviral after all."
"I think my immune system finally stepped up," said Rip, croakily. Even his voice sounded weak.
"I'm still a little concerned," said Ray. "Martin and I have been doing some research on this influenza strain and it's a little weird."
"How so?" asked Sara.
"It's hard to go into if you don't have some understanding of how viruses work, and it's taken me a while to get up to speed myself. It's a structural thing. This isn't really an influenza virus, even though it looks a lot like one," said Ray.
"But Gideon said that it was 'flu," said Rip, blinking red rimmed eyes at the inventor. "She very rarely makes mistakes."
"Yeah, because someone probably wanted her to decide that's what it was. It had me fooled too until I started picking it apart, and honestly I probably wouldn't have spotted it if it hadn't been for Martin helping me. Looking at stuff on the molecular level is more his thing than mine, despite my codename," said Ray.
"That's very interesting," said Rip. "But I fail to see the difference between real 'flu and almost 'flu," said Rip. "Whatever it was, it has been quite an unpleasant experience." It still was, if he was being honest.
"I can imagine," said Ray. "But the point is that I think this virus was manmade."
"Manmade?" asked Sara. "You're saying someone created this virus?"
Ray nodded, with a worried glance towards Rip. "Yes, even in 2016 that's possible, but this looks more sophisticated than anything that could have been done in our time."
Rip blinked tiredly. He was having trouble thinking, but he definitely got the significance of this. "So, this wasn't a random occurrence, someone targeted us?"
"I think so. The question is how did they infect you and what did they expect to happen?"
"This, I'd imagine," said Rip, with an attempt at a gesture towards himself. "We've already been stuck here for days, waiting for me to be well enough to resume our chase."
Sara had a very dark look in her eyes. "Then why not just create a virus that infected all of us quickly and killed us? This doesn't seem a very efficient way of dealing with us."
"You have a point," said Rip, with some disappointment in himself for not seeing that.
"None of the rest of us got sick," said Sara. "I mean shouldn't we all have caught it from Rip?"
Ray gave a shrug. "It is weird. I need to look into it further, and I think Professor Stein and I should finish off the anti-viral just in case one of us does come down with it. We don't have the benefit of Rip's improved immune system."
"His what?" asked Sara, with surprise.
"Oh, yeah," replied Ray. "Rip's immune system is definitely something unusual in itself."
"Not for a Time Master," said Rip. "I did say that they gave us vaccinations for everything. They were about to send us off into history and the last thing they wanted was for us to succumb to the Black Death, or typhoid, or malaria or some other historic outbreak while we were working." He coughed harshly. That sentence had been too long and much too difficult for his scratchy throat.
Sara moved to get him some water and returned seconds later with a glass that she helped hold to his lips so that he could sip it. He would have complained, but he already knew that he couldn't raise his arms long enough to hold anything as heavy as a glass of water. He was trying very hard not to find this fact humiliating and only succeeding slightly.
"You okay?" asked Sara, as the coughing calmed.
Rip nodded. "I feel like I'm missing something about all of this."
"Right now, all you need to do is rest and get better," said Sara.
"Hmm," was all Rip could manage to that. His eyes were already closing because he was so tired that he couldn't keep them open any longer. "Maybe sleep is a good idea," he murmured, and then he was off into desert dreams again.
Ray and Sara moved away from Rip's bedside to give him chance to fall asleep properly. The readouts all showed that he'd moved into deep sleep, but she wouldn't put it past Rip to be able to fake it.
"I know that look," said Sara, as Ray's eyes lingered on Rip. She was keeping her voice down, because she didn't want to wake Rip. "You've figured something else out. Something that you don't want him to know."
Ray had that startled rabbit look that he did so well. "Well, I think we have to consider the possibility that they targeted him, and maybe that's why none of us have caught it from him."
Sara frowned. "They wanted Rip to get sick? But we're back to why they just didn't create something that would kill him."
"I can't answer that," said Ray. "But maybe it would help to know how he was infected. Gideon hasn't found any suspicious puncture wounds so it's safe to assume that no one injected him with it. Unless it was done months ago and it's been dormant all this time, but that would really be playing the long game."
"Okay, well, let's scratch that for now," said Sara. "What other ways are there to infect someone with a virus?"
"Too many to count," said Ray, "it might have been something he ate or drank, something he touched or something airborne that he breathed in. It could even have been a person, if they touched him, or even just coughed in his direction. If this was tailored to only infect Rip, then someone could carry this virus and never get sick."
"Great, so we have no idea how he got infected," said Sara.
"Sorry," said Ray. "Hopefully we'll have more of a chance when Martin and I have picked this thing apart. Then we might be able to work out the incubation period, and how long it was between infection and symptoms appearing. If it's mimicking influenza then it could have been as little as day between being infected and him getting sick."
Sara's shoulders sagged, as she groaned with realisation. "Damn it! It was the smoke grenade in the warehouse. Their chief goon only had one and he aimed it straight at Rip, right after he said something about us being people who'd interfered in Zero's operation before… and that Zero had an idea of who we were. I thought that he was saying that to all of us, but now I think he might have just meant Rip."
"That's probably not good," said Ray. "Maybe we should go back to that warehouse and check out whether it left a residue."
"That was four days ago," said Sara. "I doubt there's anything left to find."
"Even so, I'd rather cover all bases. Mick and I can go," said Ray.
Sara didn't really think there was much to be gained, but they weren't going anywhere at the moment. "Okay, but don't let him burn the place to the ground."
Ray gave her a look which indicated that he knew the enormity of that task, but nodded.
"We're going to have to tell him," said Sara, looking back towards Rip. "If someone is out to get him then he needs to know."
"I know," said Ray, "but he's been really ill. I think he needs a bit of recovery time before we drop this on him."
Sara pursed her lips and considered this before deciding that Ray was right. Rip didn't need to know that he was probably the target of a bioweapon just yet. "I agree, but as soon as Gideon gives him the okay to jump, we'll have to tell him."
Jax entered medbay. "I just put Grey to bed. I found him asleep at his desk."
Sara sighed. "He deserves the rest."
Jax nodded. "He's been pushing himself. How's Rip doing?"
"He woke up," said Ray, "but he's still running a temperature."
"Yeah, he's got a couple of days of recovery time ahead of him before he'll be well enough to jump out," said Sara. "You should get some rest too, Ray. You've done everything you can for now."
"I am tired," replied Ray, rolling his shoulders. "Okay, I'll see you all in a few hours." He headed out of medbay, still reading his tablet.
"You could do with it too," said Jax, looking Sara up and down.
Sara gave him an amused look. "Who put you in charge?"
Jax folded his arms over his chest. "No one. It's just that you, Ray and Stein seem to think that sleep is optional right now."
"You'll stay here and keep an eye on him?" said Sara, with a look towards Rip.
"Yeah, I guess we won't be getting the Time Master desert destinations guidebook now he's on the mend," said Jax.
Some of the things that Rip had said whilst delirious were quite an eye opener about what he'd got up to whilst being a Time Master. She was going to have to remember to ask him about those.
"Okay," Sara said, "but call me if anything changes."
"Yes, ma'am," said Jax, with a small smile, and a two-fingered salute. He arranged himself as comfortably as he could on the other chair in the room.
Sara gave him an amused nod and headed for her bed.
Sara had been gratified that Rip was recovering, but his temperature was still too high and Gideon had informed her that the virus was not beaten yet. They were also stuck in 1982 until Rip was well enough to travel through time again, something which wasn't making anyone happy, least of all Rip. Gideon hadn't even allowed her Captain to leave medbay for 48 hours, which also had not gone down well. Sara was certain that it was only because Rip was still sleeping for most of the time that he hadn't rebelled completely. Just to be on the safe side, they'd made sure that someone was always in the medbay keeping an eye on him.
Ray and Mick had returned to the warehouse and Ray had collected his samples uneventfully. Mick had been persuaded not to set the entire place alight in retribution for Rip's illness and they'd returned to the Waverider. Martin and Ray had both been enthused to have new samples to study, but had found very little to help them.
Since then the two of them had been working on finishing their analysis of the virus that Rip had been infected with, and therefore in and out of medbay. Martin seemed engrossed in picking apart the mystery of what this virus actually was, but he and Ray were growing increasingly frustrated by their lack of progress. Jax had found himself bringing his nuclear partner food and reminding him to go to bed rather than pull yet another all-nighter, as Martin attempted to learn all there was to know about virus infection.
Sara made her way to medbay and found Rip sat on the edge of the chair, attempting to pull on a dressing gown without much success. Despite two more days in medbay, Rip was still weak and hardly eating. However, Gideon was finally letting him leave, but only on the condition that he didn't do anything strenuous for another couple of days. Gideon's idea of strenuous was also not Rip's idea of strenuous and the two were currently arguing.
"I'm not a child, Gideon."
"Chronologically, that is true, Captain. However, you are currently displaying many of the traits of an adolescent."
"I've just spent four days lying in medbay doing nothing. I think I'm entitled to a little impatience," replied Rip.
"What's the problem?" asked Sara, grabbing the flailing arm of the dressing gown and helping Rip to get his hand into the armhole.
"I think that I would be fine to time jump. Gideon disagrees," said Rip, crossly. "I realise that it might set me back a day or two in my recovery, but it will be entirely worth it if we can pick up Zero's trail again."
Sara regarded him with an appraising eye. He still looked pretty awful, but he was definitely better than he had been. For one he was sitting up and moving rather than just sleeping.
"Gideon, can we compromise on jumping after 24hours?" asked Sara, with a glance towards the ceiling.
"Yes, Ms. Lance," said Gideon.
"See, was that so hard?" asked Sara, turning her attention to Rip, who looked decided annoyed.
"It is likely that the Captain will still feel quite unwell, but it will not be seriously damaging or put back his recovery significantly," said Gideon.
"Oh good," said Rip, with little enthusiasm.
"You'll be pleased to know that we tracked down another aberration that we think is linked to Zero Hour," said Sara.
"Well, that's something at least," said Rip. "Where and when?"
"The highlands of Scotland 84AD," said Sara.
Rip groaned. "It would have to be…"
"What's wrong with that?" asked Sara. "We get to dress up as Romans."
"I have not had good luck with missions involving Roman centurions," said Rip, with a touch of resignation to his voice. "And 84AD would be around the date of the battle of Mons Graupius, which also involved Picts, who are not known for their good manners or fine culture. It was a decisive Roman victory, which means we'd have to deal with the Picts, as they'll be the ones with the anachronistic weapons. So, no, we don't get to dress up as Romans. We get to dress up as primitive tribes people, and then we will probably have to watch them get slaughtered by vastly superior Roman troops, because that's what has to happen." Rip's shoulders had slumped at his somewhat negative assessment of their job.
"You won't be dressing up as anything," said Sara. "You're going to be staying on the ship where it's nice and warm, and you don't have to exert yourself in any way."
"Yes, well, that we can both agree on, because I can guarantee that if we're jumping all the way back to 84AD, I'm going to be very unwell indeed. Even the healthy amongst us will probably experience some side effects from a jump that far back. I should probably warn everyone," Rip added, looking a little distracted. "Do we know why Zero picked this particular period to sell arms?"
Sara shook her head. "No, all we know is that things didn't happen as they should. Gideon can give you the details." She paused and then decided that she needed to get this out of the way, suddenly finding it hard to look Rip in the eye. "Actually, there's something that I need to tell you."
"And what would that be?" asked Rip, with barely disguised resignation to it inevitably being something bad.
"We think that the virus that infected you was targeted to only infect you," said Sara. "We think Zero was trying to kill you specifically."
Rip frowned. "No, that's preposterous. Why would Zero be interested in me alone? He'd know that if I died you'd just carry on without me."
"Would we?" asked Sara. "The ship's yours and so is this mission."
"Really? You'd give up on protecting time so easily?" asked Rip, giving her a look of mock disappointment. "I thought I knew you all better. You'd be more likely to hunt down Zero and exact revenge on my behalf, surely?"
Sara raised an eyebrow, and allowed a small smirk to play across her lips. "You know us so well, oh Captain, my Captain."
"Yes, but right now your Captain would like to move to the comfort of his quarters so that he can get some more sleep, because that's all I seem capable of doing at the moment," said Rip, using the armrest of the chair to help him to his feet. He gave himself a second to make sure that he had his balance and then let go.
"You good?" asked Sara, who had carefully moved herself into a position where she could catch Rip if he faltered. He seemed stable enough.
"As good as I'm going to be," replied Rip.
Walking however proved to be a little more tricky. Rip managed two steps before he swayed and put a hand to his head.
"Dizzy?" asked Sara.
"A little," admitted Rip.
Sara offered him an arm. "Come on, I'll escort you."
Rip hesitated. "I think I can manage to walk to my quarters."
"I didn't say you couldn't," said Sara. "You're less likely to fall on your face with some help though."
Rip didn't look terribly happy but he put his arm through Sara's. The two of them set off out of medbay and towards Rip's quarters at a somewhat slower pace than either of them would have set normally.
"When you're feeling better, I want you to go through the Time Pirate files again. There's got to be someone in there that holds a grudge against you and would want to do this," said Sara.
"All of the ones that might have held a grudge against me were executed by the Time Masters," said Rip. "If they're in the files that I gave you, it's because one of my fellow Captains failed to catch them. Gideon and I had a perfect record when it came to Time Pirates." There was the slight swell of pride to his tone.
"Oh really?" said Sara, with slight amusement. "Maybe they just don't like former Time Masters."
"That is a distinct possibility," replied Rip.
"Then perhaps you could see if any of them had any arms connections," said Sara.
"They're pirates, of course they have arms connections," replied Rip.
"I don't know then, maybe arms connections that fit with the times we've been chasing Zero?" suggested Sara, with a little irritation. "We need to find a better way of tracking him down and so far, all we know about him is that he's selling weapons to people in different time periods. We don't even know why. We don't even know how he's travelling through time."
"I do realise that," said Rip, "but we can only go through the files so many times."
"But last time we weren't looking for a connection to you," said Sara.
"As I've already said, I don't think there's one to find," said Rip, tiredly. Sara was feeling him lean more into her at every step. It was just as well that it wasn't far to his quarters.
"Then let's at least rule it out," said Sara.
"Fine, I'll go through the files again," said Rip. "I'll get Gideon to send them to the tablet in my quarters."
"Not until you've eaten and slept," said Sara.
"Have you been colluding with Gideon?" asked Rip, with some resignation.
"Only a little," said Sara, as they reached Rip's quarters. Jax was coming down the corridor in the other direction with a tray that had a plate of something under a metal cover on it.
"Don't get any ideas that this is going to be a regular thing," said Jax.
"Of course not," said Rip, with a slight inclination of his head.
Sara gave Jax a smile, because he'd volunteered for this duty despite his bluster, which she was sure was mainly for Rip's benefit. Everyone was aware that Rip and Jax had been spending hours up to their elbows in circuit boards in the engine room whilst Rip taught Jax about the Waverider. The two were definitely friends, and Jax had been as worried about Rip as any of them.
Jax put the tray on Rip's desk. "Gideon chose the menu, so I don't want to hear any complaints."
Rip disengaged himself from Sara's arm, shuffled to his desk and collapsed onto his chair.
"I do my best not to offend Gideon," said Rip. "And I appreciate that you have more important things to be doing."
"Hey, dude, I know I joke around, but if you need anything, all you have to do is say. You're part of our team and we care about you," said Jax, with a pat on Rip's shoulder.
Rip looked taken aback by this declaration. "Er, thank you." He looked over at Sara. "Am I allowed to eat and work at the same time or is that a step too far?"
"Gideon?" asked Sara, with a glance upwards.
"As long as you rest afterwards then there shouldn't be a problem," replied Gideon.
"Very well, then perhaps your best course of action is to leave me to my lunch and Time Pirate files. I'll let you know if I come across anything relevant," said Rip, already reaching for his tablet.
Sara looked around the room and checked that there was everything that Rip might need. She was pleased to see that there was a full jug of water, clean bedding and a bottle of painkillers within easy reach.
"Okay, don't forget to take your pills. Someone will come by with dinner later, and Gideon has instructions to rat you out if you don't actually get some sleep."
"Noted," replied Rip, removing the lid from the plate on the tray. The pasta dish that was underneath elicited a small smile. Sara was already aware that Gideon had described it as comfort food for their Captain, and hoped that he actually ate some of it. The signs were good that he might, as he had picked up his fork. She did her best to ignore the slight tremors which were running through his hand.
Jax and Sara exchanged a look, both reasonably happy with their arrangements for Rip, and the two of them left him to it. She noticed that he didn't immediately command Gideon to shut the door either.
Rip was very disappointed to discover that none of the Time Pirates instantly stood out from any of the others. It would have been a blessing in disguise if it had turned out that he'd somehow had a run in with one of them and simply forgotten about it. Perhaps he had managed to annoy one of them before they actually became a Time Pirate, but that wasn't the case. However, some digging did suggest that he might be able to narrow down the list of potential suspects.
He was somewhat annoyed by the Legends constant interruptions to remind him to rest, but he supposed that given how serious his illness had been, he had to expect a certain level of concern. He took the tablet to bed with him and continued to go through the files between naps, even though it probably wasn't the most efficient way of working.
He was somewhat surprised to find that he was able to come up with a name. There was a Time Pirate going by the name of Calliope Dane, and she actually did have form in all the relevant periods that Zero had been operating in. Rip had to wonder why she'd decided to go by a new alias, as even assuming this was the right suspect, knowing where she'd been didn't necessarily help with where she was going next. Several of his fellow Captains had tried to hunt her down and had no luck, although it looked like the Helios and Captain Meaden had made the most recent attempt.
He passed the file on to Sara, who informed the team. Something was still bothering Rip about the entire situation, but he couldn't put his finger on it. His lingering 'flu symptoms weren't helping him to concentrate and he was still taking painkillers every few hours and sleeping for longer than was normal. His temperature was consistently a degree above where it should be and he ached, but it did seem to be improving.
However, today's main concern was the jump to AD 84, which Rip was certain was going to be unpleasant. Jax had arrived at his quarters that morning to take him to the bridge, which had amused Rip rather than annoyed him. He was actually feeling a bit better this morning, and was rather less wobbly on his feet than he had been. He had even managed to dress in something approaching his usual work clothes, if at the casual end of them, going for a grey long sleeved t-shirt rather than his more usual white shirt.
He walked onto the bridge to find everyone getting ready for the jump. Sara was currently sat in the pilot's seat, which he'd expected, because as it turned out, she was at least as good a pilot as Rip. What he hadn't expected was the bucket and blankets that sat beside one of the chairs on the second row. Sara turned around to face him.
"Okay, so Gideon gave us a few instructions," said Sara. "She thinks the most likely thing that's going to happen is that you'll throw up, but she also pointed out that you're still running a slight temperature and this will probably make that worse, so blankets, and you'll probably get at least one of temporary blindness, hearing loss, headaches, word salad or vertigo. Or you might just pass out on us."
"You missed a few possibilities out," said Rip, dryly. "And that I could get all of those together."
"This does seem to be rather foolish," said Martin. "We could just wait another day."
"By which point, time will have solidified and we won't be able to stop Zero's arms deal, or at least not as easily," pointed out Rip, as he sat in the indicated seat. "We've already waited long enough, and this most certainly won't be the first rough time jump that I've experienced."
Ray had grabbed the blanket and was rather ineptly tucking it around Rip, and Rip had just given up any idea of protesting at this point, because, apparently, his team were all going to be even weirder than usual about this. Jax pulled down the metal restraint, and handed Rip the bucket.
"No puking on my floor."
"I wouldn't dream of it," said Rip, wondering when Jax had started referring to the ship as his. That was an interesting development.
"Okay, take your seats everyone," said Sara. "AD84 here we come."
Rip clutched the bucket to himself, steeling himself for the jump as the hum of the drive built beneath the deck plating. He doubted the others realised quite how bad this was going to feel. One of his least favourite bits about being a Time Master had been the necessity of occasionally time jumping when injured, and he'd always spared the Legends that because it was both horribly dangerous and extremely unpleasant. Time travel was hard on the human body, but did get easier the more it was done, which was why he very rarely experience side effects from time travel anymore. He doubted Gideon would have let any of the other members of the team even attempt this. It was going to be like his first time jumping, but with the added complication of a weakened body and a long jump back to AD84.
He watched Sara expertly lift them up from the ground and into the atmosphere, then into the timestream, Rip could feel his vision beginning to blur and his body protest, but it was the exit that would hurt. Sara navigated them out of the timestream just as skilfully and towards their chosen landing site, but it was like he was being pulled sideways out of reality for a moment, ripped out of his body and then deposited back into it but not quite in the right order of parts. Everything was jumbled and wrong.
His aches had turned into burning lines of fire that ran down his muscles, and he was freezing cold. The shiver that ran through him physically hurt, jarring everything. He screwed his eyes shut because he couldn't make them focus and it was easier just not to make the attempt. His brain was telling him that he was falling and his stomach was very unhappy with that idea. Luckily the bucket was still firmly clutched in his hands so that when he inevitably vomited, he had somewhere to do it.
He heard his name being called but it sounded like it was a long way off. Then, suddenly, it was closer.
"Rip?" that sounded like Sara, but he didn't think she'd been the one to call him before.
"Hey, man, say something," said Jax.
"Urgh," was all Rip could manage and a somewhat miserable groan as he continued to freeze and shiver painfully. His body was trying to make him throw up again but there wasn't much left to actually expel. He was breathing hard at the effort though.
"At least he's alive," said a gravelly voice.
"Yes, thank you, Mr Rory. I think the throwing up gave that away," said Martin, with distinct annoyance.
"Maybe we should move him to medbay," suggested Ray.
"N…no… med…dd... Medbay…" he said as the shivering took away his ability to even get two words out without stuttering. Rip did his best to shake his head to back up what he was trying to say, and instantly regretted it as the motion had him toppling sideways. He could feel hands catching him with a "woah there" and getting him back to vertical. He let his head flop back against the head rest in the hopes that all this would pass quickly. He felt utterly awful.
"Sorry," said Sara, "you're going to medbay until you can actually form coherent sentences and stay upright. Mick?"
Rip let out a resigned sigh, but couldn't force even a single word out in opposition because he was trying very hard not to pass out. He opened one eye and instantly shut it again as letting any visual input into his already scrambled brain seemed to be a very bad plan.
"Come on, English," said Mick, and suddenly he was being lifted, bridal style, as someone else took the bucket from his now limp grip. He'd have protested at the indignity of it all, but he was currently trying to persuade his inner ear of the true direction of up, which it seemed to be having issues with. Vertigo really sucked, and the muscle pain was as bad as it had been two days ago. He found himself unconsciously curling towards Mick Rory's chest, because there he could rest his head rather than trying unsuccessfully to keep it upright. His only half-formed thought was that Mick's jacket smelt of burnt wood and smoke. He found himself grabbing hold of a handful of it to calm his irrational feeling of falling as Mick carried him down the corridors, and was glad that nothing was said about this.
Mick put him down surprisingly gently on the medbay couch, and connected the cuff to his wrist. Again. He'd only left here a day ago, and as much as he was aware that this was where he needed to be, he would have very much preferred the bed in his quarters. Medbay did not afford much privacy to its unfortunate residents. He was suddenly tired and only had enough time to register that Gideon had most likely decided to sedate him whilst he rode out the worst effects of the jump before he was drifting into unconsciousness.