They pulled up outside Rush's house. It was ordinary, suburban, tidy looking and Chloe was a little surprised
"Maintenance service." Said Rush tersely as Chloe looked at the trimmed grass and hedges.
She paused on the path, looking at the house as he walked up to the door. She could hear Daniel closing the car door behind her. As Rush fumbled in his pockets for the key he realised she was not there and looked back. She looked uncertainly at him and in that moment, he didn't see Carolyn Lam at all, but Chloe, clear as day standing nervously on his path.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
She took a couple of uneasy steps forward, to sensible talking distance.
"Are you sure you want me to come in?" she asked.
He looked at her for a long moment and she waited.
"I've made my peace." He said. "I've been…" he stopped and looked away. "The chair." He said.
She nodded and he turned back and unlocked the door.
"Come in." He said, stepping in and holding the door for her.
She stood in the hallway, looking around.
"Is this you?" she asked gesturing to the room.
"Maybe," he said, "it was." He looked around. His tone changed. "I lived here for two years off and on after she died, you know." He offered.
Chloe understood what he was trying to tell her, but it felt uncomfortably personal being here. In contrast to her neutral, interior designed room, in her mother's fashionably impressive house, this was a home that had been lived in, chosen, appreciated and worn like a comfortable pair of shoes. She wandered through the ground floor after Nicholas, feeling like a ghost, feeling like she had walking through Destiny for the first time. All his past resided here, overwhelmed her with its difference. She stopped and stood in the lounge, staring out at the garden.
She wanted to ask him what was his, what he had chosen, what his taste was in anything. They had so little on Destiny and what they had was largely what was available, not items they had chosen. Their focus was so narrow on the ship, survival, work, each other, that this was something they had never discussed. And maybe never would, she admitted to herself, her taste having been concealed in a veneer of fashion and social and political expectation and his blended with Gloria's where Chloe would not dare to tread.
She heard Daniel call out he was going to the store for milk and coffee and went to find Nicholas.
He was standing in his study. It could only be that, walls hidden by whiteboards and pieces of paper, an untidy desk, a computer, shelves of books and a couple of filing cabinets. Chloe looked at the equations on the walls.
"The Ancient puzzle." She said.
He nodded, looking around.
"I virtually lived in this room, when I was here." He turned on his feet, surveying it. "Five years ago."
Chloe cleared a space on a chair and sat down.
"It feels less and more somehow." She mused.
He turned on the computer and cleared space around a shredder. The computer beeped as it booted up. He unlocked one of the filing cabinets and took out a laptop which he set up on the desk and turned on as well, as it moved through it's start up, Chloe saw the SGC logo and log in request pop up.
"It doesn't feel like five years on Destiny, not even the two and a half we've actually lived." She picked up a familiar looking notebook from the floor and put it on the desk. "But all this, being back here, that should feel normal feels an awfully long way away from what's real."
Rush looked at her, then nodded with a slightly sad expression. His brow furrowed in an effort of memory before he turned and tapped log in and password into the computer then the laptop.
"What should I do?" she asked.
"Everything on the boards and walls can go in the shredder." He said, staring at the screen. "It's not like it's needed anymore. If they need it, you or I or Eli can write them the proof from memory." His lip twitched as he looked up at her, and he went to push back hair that wasn't there, dropping his hand back quickly when it didn't meet hair.
Chloe began to take everything from the boards, collecting the adhesive putty as she went and rolling it into a fist sized ball. She wiped the boards clean and put the paper through the shredder, for once glad to have normal hearing as it ground and sliced the sheets and scraps of paper to confetti. Watching it go into the shredder was a rather cathartic experience.
When she looked up he was sitting at the desk, staring at the email on the computer.
"Five years of email?" she queried.
"Not so much as you'd expect." He replied.
"People trying to track you down?"
He didn't reply. She walked over, trying not to read over his shoulder or look like she was doing so. He was still staring at the screen.
"What is it?" she asked.
He looked up.
"It's from my nephew."
She stared at him in surprise.
"You have family? I thought you said they were dead."
"It's my youngest sister's boy, Michael."
He scrolled down through the message.
"Did you keep in touch?"
She wanted to ask him a million questions, coming here had been a blessing and a nightmare.
"I've been paying for his education, and apparently now his PhD."
She looked surprised again.
"His father upped and left when he found out she was pregnant, she was barely sixteen. She's never had any money, but he's a bright lad, and I had enough to spare. Just a regular cash transfer each month, enough to cover his accommodation." He looked up at her. "I'd completely forgotten." He bit off a short laugh.
"So what's he saying?" she asked.
Rush opened an attachment, a photo of a laughing young man evidently after receiving his doctorate. There was a distinct resemblance.
"That I don't need to send him any more cash. That he's grateful. That his mother's worried I've disappeared. That he's proud of his doctorate."
Chloe put her hands on his shoulders and stared at the young man.
"What's he been studying?"
"Molecular biology." Rush said. "He's in medical research now."
They heard Daniel walk back in through the front door.
"Will you reply?"
Rush shrugged.
"What would I say?"
Chloe sighed.
"That you're not dead, that you're working on a classified project for the military which takes you away most of the time. That you're happy? That you're pleased for him?"
Rush rubbed the bridge of his nose with his knuckle. Chloe watched him till they both jumped at a tap on the door. Daniel pushed the door open, carefully balancing a tray of coffee in his other hand.
From the study they moved onto the living room, Rush sorting items into three areas, store, give away and a small pile to give to Gloria's family. Chloe and Daniel packed and stacked items until they ran out of packing crates and materials and Daniel made another trip to the store. When he returned Rush had the living room organised and Chloe was cleaning. As soon as the boxes and packing materials arrived they went back to packing and it was as Rush handed her a stack of records that she saw the change.
"Telford." She said coldly.
He looked around, surprised.
"Has Destiny dropped out of FTL?" she asked.
Telford blinked and shook his head. He looked annoyed and rather disoriented.
"No, Dr Lam sent me back."
Chloe stared at him.
"Why?" she asked.
Telford gave her an angry look which suggested he wasn't happy with being questioned.
"They should have warned us. Get out." She said sharply. She turned to Daniel. "Daniel, please take him away."
Daniel looked at her.
"I'll be fine." She said. "Just take him out of here."
She stood and waited, she could feel the tension building in her chest. Telford stood, he dug in the pockets of his pants, checking the contents, and putting the door key down on a table walked out of the room, finding the front door and walking out. Chloe stood in the living room, looking around. Daniel put his hand on her shoulder and he jumped.
"I'll take him to somewhere he can be picked up from and come back." He said, looking into her face. "Then I'll come back. Are you sure you'll be okay?"
"I'll be fine." She said. "Just...find out how Nicholas is and if he's coming back. I'll finish packing these and start on the clothes, he's already said he'll keep most of them."
He patted her shoulder again.
"My number's in the phone you were given." He said. "Call if you need me. I'll ring if I'll be longer than a couple of hours."
He left and Chloe heard the car go. She took a few minutes to calm down again, her heart was thumping in her chest. After a while she sighed and set back to packing the items from their groups into the appropriate boxes and, but it didn't take long and she was left standing in the living room. She walked out and finally went upstairs.
There were two obvious guest rooms a bathroom and a room that was obviously his, or maybe theirs. After 2 years it definitely looked like his. The room was a little untidy, the bed was pulled into shape but the duvet cover was creased and the pillows piled into a heap in the centre of the top of the bed. There was a pile of books and a stack of papers by the side of the bed. She looked in the wardrobe. There was a selection of shirts and pants hanging up, mainly jeans or casual in a variety of muted colours and neutral tones, casual jackets, some vests, waistcoats her mind reminded her, a couple of very conservative but well made suits and several pairs of shoes. In the drawers she found underwear and a selection of t-shirts all in similar colours to the shirts. She ran her hands over them.
She retrieved a box from downstairs and began folding clothes, packing them neatly in layers in the box so they creased as little as possible. She emptied the wardrobe and drawers of clothes then stood there wondering what to do next.
The en suite bathroom still had half dried out toiletries in the cupboard and she threw them in the trash, folding the towels and starting a pile of general linen in the bedroom. That took another twenty minutes, retrieving sheets, pillow slips, towels and the like from rooms and cupboard. Everything except the bed.
She sat down on it and a sudden wave of loneliness washed over her. Slipping off her shoes she slid onto the bed and pressed her face into the pillows. The scent was faint, not the all encompassing scent she was used to at home, but it was there and she inhaled his smell. She curled up, wrapping her arms round the pillow and rested, just for a little while.
