Hello Dearies, thank you so much for the wonderful reviews last week, they made me happy! Bound in snow once again! Smut-ish (I'd say pg13-ish)like content within, so if you don't like that, skip over most the last section to the last three paragraphs, and as promised, Rush is back - Enjoy!
I still do not own the rights to SGU - Like I've said in the past, Rush would have won every time! :)
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Chloe ran as fast as she could, the radio having woke her in seconds. She hadn't even bothered with shoes, regretting the decision as her bare feet slapped on the occasional grate, she didn't much care anymore. Rush was waking up and she was going to be there to greet him no matter what. She rounded the last corner and slowed to a walk, muscling her way into the infirmary around Varro to go to Rush's side. Indeed he was finally waking up, his good hand rubbing the sides of his face trying to stir the traces of sleep and the gritty feeling of sleep dust from his eyes.
His shoulder was white hot pain, more so than he had ever felt before, as if something had stabbed him with the force of a charging rhinoceros. Rush chuckled darkly at the thought, seeing himself failing about on the massive horn, arms and legs searching for purchase to free himself. He had been shot, he remembered, he and Chloe had been talking, had been collecting data and what might have been food, and the pain that had lanced through him had sent him to his knees. Chloe had been screaming, Greer had been there too. "Water." He breathed, feeling the vague sense of déjà vu. A feminine hand pressed into his hand, fingers lacing between his as he felt his head lifted and a canteen placed at the edge of his lower lip. Cool liquid coursed down his sand-paper dry throat, and finally he was able to push past the grogginess. Young was fitting a lid back on a canteen, Chloe was holding his hand on his other side, her thumb drawing circles over his knuckles.
"Either I've died, and took you both with me, or an apparent like of the movie Fargo has garnered me a bit of grace in the eyes of the bastard who tries to beat me in chess every other day." Rush's lips curled into an easy smile, as Chloe let out a relieved breath.
"We did almost lose our crazy uncle." Young said, setting the canteen back on the bed side stand. "But it appears you're almost as tenacious in your will to live as you are in trying to overthrow me any time you get an inkling to stir shit. You know, if you want to stir shit around that bad, I could put you on septic duty for a while. I'm pretty sure that'd cure you of that need." Young face was impassive as he spoke, trying to keep the fondness he had gradually found for Rush locked up.
"Bloody hell you're as nasty as I remember." Rush groaned as he tried to push himself into a sitting position. Chloe's free hand pressed against his good shoulder, returning him to his previous prone position.
"No. You are going to stay in this bed until TJ says otherwise. And if the Colonel won't order you to do so, I will." Chloe tightened her fingers around his, as he squeezed her hand back weakly.
"And I do order it. Bed rest until we can figure out a way to tie your arm securely enough to allow your collar bone to set and mend properly. We're working on that now, but until then, you're to remain here, immobile, and don't make me bring an armed guard in here to make sure you comply." Young nodded to Chloe then, grabbing his radio from the table. "I'll be back later to check up on the both of you. Follow that order, Rush, or I will send Greer in here."
"Bring the set with you when you come back, we have a game to finish." Rush called after Young's retreating form. If he wasn't to be allowed on his feet, the least he could do would be to beat the Colonel in chess once again. He turned his face to Chloe then, the easy smile returning to his face.
"How are you feeling?" She asked, her hand cupping the side of his cheek, thumb working over his beard. Rush noted how tired she looked, the fear and worry behind her eyes.
"Better now that you're here petting me." He joked, leaning his face into her touch. Such a simple thing, the touch of a beautiful, intelligent woman; he wouldn't even need a sling for his arm, as long as she kept touching him and looking at him with genuine feelings towards him, he'd do whatever she asked. "What did I miss, anything too exciting to leave unsaid?" Rush didn't know what had happened while he had been out. He hoped that the Lieutenant hadn't been ejected out of an airlock, what with the rash behavior that had been happening lately. Chloe pulled her hand from his; pulling the chair over closer to the bed so she could sit with him. Folding her legs Indian style, she took his hand again, nodding.
"Scott is still locked up." She began, Rush noticing that she was no longer calling him Matt. "TJ was able to patch you up pretty well, and Varro watched over you during the early hours. Eli was here, talking to you and running all sorts of diagnostics while you slept. He wants to talk to you as soon as possible, but Young ordered him to go get some sleep since he had been up most of the night. I promised him I'd tell you as soon as you were coherent enough to listen." She smiled sadly up to him, as she noticed he was looking at her with a questioning look on his face. "What?"
"You're wearing my waistcoat." He stated, reaching his good hand down to grab the zip along the scandalously slow vee. She was much smaller than him, and the scrap of fabric was doing little to cover her properly, the zip undone now, hovering around her navel, he could see the swell of her breasts better, his eyes roaming appreciatively over the creamy white skin, his own skin so much darker than her own. Chloe grabbed at his hand, trying to work the zipper back into place, Rush's smile spreading further at her show of modesty.
"It's all I had other than my dress and suit jacket, and neither of those are conducive to sleep. Plus it smelled like you, which helped me fall asleep." She explained, feeling a blush spread across her cheeks, her eyes dropped to their hands at the sinfully hungry look he had in his eyes.
"You'll eventually have to give that back you know, until I can figure out a way to mend my shirts. I'm pretty sure they were cut or ripped at some point." Rush took a deep breath, willing himself back under control. She hadn't told him to stop, but had restrained him. As comfortable as they were with one another right now, that would take time, time he would give her no matter how long it may be.
"I'll figure out a way to mend them." Chloe muttered, holding his hand in hers, fingers drawing patterns over his skin once more.
"How bad has it gotten?" He asked, moving a little to relieve the soreness in his shoulder, he felt the snapped collar bone pinch muscle and hissed as he gave up the idea of moving. That settled that, he would be unable to move until they bound his arm to his chest and helped him up. As frustrated as he was to be trapped in one place, the need to stay still and heal would win out for a little while longer.
"Nowhere near as bad as what we witnessed down planet side. Scott seems to be accelerating in his anger at an alarming rate. Everyone else is settling down some, but the underlying rage is still there in most. Young as much as anyone else, he's been snappy all morning." Chloe finally met his eyes again, the fear gone, but the worry still evident.
"And what about you?" Rush pressed, the feel of her feather light touches along the sides of his fingers, the tips, across each knuckle soothing. Soothing enough to keep him where he was, even if everything was telling him he needed to be up and on his feet as soon as possible.
"Better. Angry still, a bit at least, but not like before, not the constant need to hit something, or to break something. Of course, I'm wondering if I can be explained as just being overly emotional and crazed due to what all has happened up to this point. I mean, I've had it rough, others have had it worse, but I'm not built to handle all this very well." A sad smile worked over her features as she felt his fingers lace back between her own.
"You're stronger than you think you are; just keep that in mind, would ya?" He nodded to her as she finally gave a small nod of agreement. Chloe stared at his lips, unconsciously darting her tongue over her lower lip in anticipation of what might be their second kiss, but the guilt of lusting after his kiss while he was still recovering made her drop her eyes to their interlocked hands. The low rumble of his chuckle rolled out of him as he pushed himself up to his side as best he could, legs slipping from the gurney so he had use of his free hand. Pain shot through his nerves, but he knew he wanted to feel her lips against his as much as she wanted to be kissed.
"Damnit, Rush, you need to stay in bed..." Chloe went to push at his good shoulder, as his good arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her between his legs, so that he could wrap her in his arm, could keep her from bolting, or smacking him, whichever seemed to take her fancy at the time.
Rush's eyes, half lidded slid appreciatively over the vee of his waistcoat on her small frame, the brush with death, yet again, giving him the want to be close to another person. Good hand lightly gripping her jaw, Rush turned her face up to his as his lips pressed to hers, knowing that the trauma of the day prior was catching up with the both of them. "As she commands…" he muttered softly, taking her lower lip between his, teeth starting to worry the sensitive skin.
Chloe melted against him, unsure of where to put her hands, not wanting to touch his wounded shoulder, and unsure of if he liked to be touched at all, her certainly had given no indication of minding touching her. She worried as she felt teeth score along her bottom lip, felt the blood rush through her abdomen, pooling in neglected areas. Scott hadn't touched her once they woke, and taking all into consideration, this was the first time she felt aroused in over three years. She rested her hands on the tops of his thighs, happy that the action solicited a deep rumble from him again, this time not so humorous, more carnal; twisting her insides again. She kneaded her fingers across his thighs, alternating between light circling touches and digging her nails into the fabric of his jeans.
Rush tightened his grip on her jaw as her mouth opened in silent need, his tongue sweeping into her mouth, fighting against her own tongue. He felt as she hollowed her cheeks, sucking on the muscle in a scandalous way. He released her jaw, hand fisting in her hair as he pulled her to a better angle to continue ravaging her mouth, all sense leaving him as one of her hands slid over his cock, barely touching him before he felt nails dig into his hips once more, felt as she pushed her own hips closer to his, awkwardly avoiding his arm. If it wasn't for his damned arm he would have flipped her over on the gurney already, thoughts of hearing her lustily scream his name as he lapped against her soaking center making him consider doing it anyway. Wouldn't that give poor TJ a fright when she came in to check up on him?
Knowing they'd be discovered if they continued, and thinking it better for them to continue at a later time, Rush slid his hand to the back of her neck, down the vertebrae of her spine, finally stopping at the small of her back. Reluctantly he slowed the kiss, tracing her lips one more time before he finally pressed several tender kisses to her lips, her cheeks, and finally her forehead. Trying to calm himself, he leaned his cheek on the top of her head, holding her close as he willed himself to calm. Chloe let out a small mewling noise as his lips finally left her skin. "Shhh, dear one, shh." He comforted her. "You and I both know if this continues it will only leave us in a more dire state than if we stop now."
Chloe slid a hand over his heart, feeling the rapid beat there, knew that the ceasing of their ardor affected him as much as it did her. She stayed silent for a time, breathing in for several counts before finally letting her air out, focusing her breathing much like she did in her yoga practice. Soon she found her level of inner peace returning, the fire that had been threatening to have her pushing him back against the bed and riding him regardless of who dared enter starting to abate. As their breathing returned to a mutually calm level, she finally looked up to him, seeing the disappointment in those brown orbs.
"Okay." Chloe strangled out, knowing that this couldn't continue much longer before she would need to feel him again. "Okay…" she repeated, before finally pulling her lower lip into her mouth, tasting his kiss there still. "What do you need me to do now?" She asked, helping him lay back down, before straightening the blanket that had been draped over him earlier.
"Now, I think it's time to have a talk with Eli before we run into anything else that tries to kill us." Rush grinned at her, a playful lit in his voice as the lines around his eyes crinkled.
"I beg to differ; it was only you this time." She pointed a finger at his chest, poking him once. Rush mockingly made a groan of pain, looking wounded that she would poke him.
"Oh, come off it sweetheart." Rush hissed playfully at her, letting a bit of his usual bite seep into his tone. Chloe smiled then, her head dropping as she felt some relief. If he had kept up with the humor act, she would have begun to worry about his sanity. As it was, she was beginning to understand that whatever peace he had made planet side was there to stay, and quite possibly the acerbic attitude with them all had just been to keep them at arm's length, to keep them out of the sphere of his concern, to keep them from being so important to him that he couldn't make the decisions that had to be made when in regards to everyone's welfare.
Absent-mindedly, she wondered when that had taken place. The realization that there were those on the ship now that he cared about, that he had endangered to save her, that he'd endanger again if it came between the people he cared about and certain death hit her with force. After the chair, after he had broken the Master Code, he had changed, they all had in some ways, but him most of all. Wide eyed she stared at him, the internal debate of asking him playing across her features.
"Sometime today, Miss Armstrong, I'm not getting any younger." He quipped at her, the full force of his tone waking her out of her thoughts.
"And now I know you're awake enough to talk to Eli." Chloe turned , squeezing his hand one more time before going to find the only other male on the ship she could trust now.
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His arm finally bound in place thanks to TJ, Rush listened to Eli as he set out his theory and his reasoning. Rush frowned, his good hand gripping into a fist as he weighed over the implications. If Eli was right, then this whole ordeal was a shared dream and worse yet, when they woke, they might not remember any of it. He might not remember Chloe, or how he wanted her as much as she did now. Worse yet, she might not remember that Scott was a pretentious prick would didn't deserve her and fall right back into being his bedmate.
"But we perceive this as reality right now. As much as I'd like to say you might have solved it Eli, I think there are some seriously biased conjectures in your reasoning." Rush pinched the bridge of his nose as he thought, sure, there were discrepancies, people acting out of their normal character, and even his apparent lack of his baseline disgust for most everyone, but Rush knew it wasn't possible, they had to all be awake, otherwise they had a serious issue, one that he didn't have an immediate idea of how to solve.
"There's something else." Eli rubbed his temples, his head apparently hurting as much as Rush's did from the looks of things. Letting his free arm fall back to his side, Rush muttered under his breath as he tried to get comfortable again, he was sure Eli was about to confirm his latest fear, and unfortunately, a secret he hadn't told anyone before stepping into his pod. "I don't remember how I fixed the stasis pod, or even going into one. I don't remember but for a day or two at most being alone on the ship before I miraculously "woke" up with everyone else, or even how I got out of the pod. I woke up in my messy room, laptop on my chest, like I had been editing Kino footage or something."
"Ah."
"I think I might have sat in the chair."
"Oh."
"That's what I was afraid of." Eli sighed as he leaned over, holding his head in his hands, trying to reason it all out. "If I sat in the chair, then my body is dead, there's no way it would have survived without cryo like everyone else." The hope Eli had been holding out that Rush would tell him his theory was utterly and inconceivably half-witted and idiotic broke into despair.
"Franklin disappeared after the room froze. If we are still under stasis, you could possibly be frozen in the chair interface room." Rush countered, hoping he wouldn't have to outright explain everything. At least Chloe had left them alone to talk, having decided she was going to try and mend at least his tee-shirt for now, so he'd have something to wear other than a flak jacket.
"Need I point out the bad part of that idea – Franklin disappeared!" Eli was beside himself now. Rush took a deep breath before continuing.
"I believe Franklin uploaded himself via the neural interface, because he knew he'd be useless in his body, he was in a nearly catatonic state, at several points unable to even feed himself. It's the only explanation I have of what happened. That or he Ascended, either way not an entirely bad thing, you'd be a being of pure energy, the first of the humans to accomplish such that we could confirm."
"Always looking on the bright side, aren't you?"
"Well it bloody beats being upset about it." Rush snapped, his usual bite in full force. "Either way you're alive if your theory is correct, which means that if you can wake me up at the right time, I can get to the interface room and wake you up, or at least give you reason to not allow yourself to be uploaded into Destiny without the intent of returning to your body eventually. If you Ascended, then well we'll deal with that when the time comes. If we're to figure this out, you need to start looking for patterns. If we're in the interface, then there will be a pattern, a clue to solve the puzzle that one of us is dreaming."
"One of us?" Eli asked, a look of confusion passing over his face.
"You don't really believe I intended to let you figure out the extra pod on your own do you?" Rush scowled, feeling a bit of frustration at how dense the boy could be at times. "I wrote a program into the stasis pods. If, the last pod does not activate two days after my pod activated, it would wake me out of it to help you figure it out. Which means if we didn't have a workable answer, one of us would have sat in the chair to try and find the answer. Which means one of us is working on the answer right now. We just have to figure out which of us it is."
"That's really…psychotic and brilliant at the same time." Eli grinned, nodding his head at the logic. "And if that's the case, then one of us is a simulation, helping the other even if we aren't plugged in, by keeping an eye on the readings. There's only one problem." Eli's grin faded quickly.
"What's that?"
"What if who is on the outside can't bring the other out of the chair?"
"Then one of us is most definitely going to die." Rush breathed, pinching his nose with his free hand.
"That would be an issue." Eli sat back in his chair, scrubbing his hair as he thought. "I've not noticed any patterns recently, nothing repeating like you had told me about when you went in for the Master Code."
"You wouldn't notice them without help. Daniel and Gloria were in mine helping me, I believe Destiny uses memories to help you figure out what it is you're looking for. I was able to complete sentences, and even know things before they happened in mine. I only noticed the discrepancies what might have been just a few minutes before I woke up from the chair."
Eli chewed over this additional information. "So if I was in the chair, trying to figure this all out, I would want you and Chloe to be working with me, because obviously Chloe has the know-how to figure out the jumps, to do the math in her head faster than we do. And you, well that should be obvious."
"As well it should be. And the patterns are fairly obvious once you had the epiphany that the answer has been staring you in the face the whole time. The number forty-six was everywhere for me, dates, time, even my damn house number changed, but you get lost in trying to see the actual answer, trying to figure it out that you don't even realize it's been lit like neon the entire time."
"So what if we're asking the wrong question, what if it's not how to fix the pod, but how can one of us survive the three year trip with relatively no oxygen, no power, and no food?"
"It's not entirely out of the question, as long as you had enough water, you can go several days without food at a time, oxygen would be the main issue, on Earth I would say a medically induced coma and lowered core body temperature would be enough to keep a person alive for three years, but that begs the question of how do you keep that persona alive without a feeding tube and someone there administering the food slush at certain periods of time?" Rush rubbed his beard, as he thought. "The plants in the hydroponics lab, we believed would be enough to keep us in oxygen for at least three to four days when we mutinied, if one person was in the lab, and planted all of our remaining seeds, everything we had, and ate sparingly on the dried rations, and it might be possible. You'd have to figure out a way to pump water in from the reserve tanks, and I hate to say it, but bodily functions would have to be recycled. Either fertilizer for the plants, and then distilled water..." Rush trailed off, gears in his brain working.
"Using Brody's still." Eli finished. "One thousand ninety-five days in one small room, with just a bunch of plants, and a constant shit smell from your own waste. Sounds lovely." Eli sighed as he slumped in the chair. "Would the two weeks of oxygen inside the areas of Destiny be enough time to rig up the water pump, and make some sort of workable commode, move the still and rations and enough blankets to keep warm, I have to imagine that it would eventually get really cold in there."
"When we came aboard Destiny, it was still warm, even though the power reserves were at a minimum. Or at least warm enough that we didn't immediately freeze to death. But three years of just floating, on barely enough power to run the cryo, let alone have any sort of heating to that area." Rush continued to turn the problem over in his mind, trying to figure out if he was himself, or just a figment of Eli's brain as he sat in the chair. "We need to look at a map of the ship and figure out which room would be far enough inside the ship to insulate the person from minus two hundred degrees Fahrenheit on average at least. We could even stack some of the crates around the room to help make a buffer, it would be cold once we found the place, but not cold enough neither to kill the plants, nor to be completely uncomfortable with the right amount of blankets and the likes." Rush was calculating the odds in his head, and it was still an incredibly small number; there were too many variables at play that he couldn't take into account. No, the answer had to be to fix the pod, not figuring out a way to survive outside of it.
"As soon as Tamara lets me leave the infirmary, I'll work on the power flow issue on the pod once more, maybe I can figure out a way to solve it, if, as you say, one of us is in the chair and we're just dreaming this right now. Jesus, let it be me in the chair, I don't want you to have to live out your worst fears like I did." Eli stared at Rush for a moment, his brow furrowed in concentration.
"Your wife."
"Aye. And it was no less painful the second time around."
"I'm sorry," Eli started, looking at his hands as he tried to fathom the idea. He was having trouble imagining his father leaving again, of his mom's diagnosis once again. He wasn't ready to live that again. "It has to be you; this isn't my worst fear, by a long shot."
"I believe you're probably correct." Rush pinched the bridge of his nose again, wondering just when having to decide which one of them would have to die had become his worst fear.
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"No, you're wrong." Chloe stated simply, hating the idea of this being a dream, a shared dream, or that she was some construct of Rush's brain. He was wrong, she was living, breathing, solid, she had thoughts of her own, and she had the capability to reason.
"I can see what you're thinking, dear one." He said quietly, his thumb stroking over her knuckles as she sat beside them in his rooms.
"That you're out of your damn mind?!" She asked, refusing to look at him. "I am not a dream. I am here, I am living, and I am not some figment of your imagination placed before you by Destiny to figure out a problem. We both know Destiny would give you someone brighter than me to help you with this." Chloe could feel the tears welling up, she was real, damnit, and this wasn't some simulation. "She would have given you Dr. Perry, not me." She added trying not to feel bitter resentment inside.
"I agree with you on that point, but if Eli's theory is correct, then either I am a figment of his imagination, or you are a figment of mine. It's just a theory, the best one we have at the moment. He and I are both trying to imagine everyone being in better moods, of acting more rationally, with more logic. If one of us is in the chair, then we should be able to control the actions of others around us, we just need to become aware of which of us is in the chair to influence the simulation." He tried to soothe over her comment on Amanda, feeling a delicate touch was needed there, knowing that he had to keep to himself that no matter how happy he had been that Chloe had been able to save Amanda to the ship, that when he had hugged her close in Chloe's body, that he relished the chance to hold her close. Perhaps Amanda had been right about her programming of their shared simulation, perhaps he hadn't really loved her at the time, just the idea of her. The idea of someone wanting him; wanting him enough to actively show it.
"Shut up, and stop acting like this is no big deal." She ordered, standing up and pacing back and forth from where he sat on the edge of his oversized bed. "What if neither of you are in the chair, what if someone else is there? And for that matter how are the two of you so damn certain that we didn't make it across the gap alive and this is just some hallucination from a fruit or a berry we picked up from one of the worlds?" There had to be a better explanation of what was happening to them, something biologic, or pathogenic in nature. Sadly, if that had been the case, TJ would have been able to find some cause for the issues. Chloe wished suddenly that the blue aliens had given her more knowledge than just flipping the math switch in her head. She stopped by the chess board and made her next move, putting her bishop in danger, but her queen would then be able to take his rook.
Rush frowned, scratching at the end of his nose. "When you woke up from cryo, Chloe, where were you? Were you in the pod still, watching as the door opened and seeing others around you? Or did you suddenly find yourself in your own quarters like you had just fallen asleep?" Chloe rounded on him, her mouth hanging open as she tried to remember waking up. She couldn't. She watched as he reached forward and took her queen with his knight. Damnit, she hadn't even been paying attention to his knight, knowing he favored the rook for taking most of her pieces. She had two moves to check-mate now, and the game was starting to irritate her. When he had invited her to his room after he had been release from the infirmary, she hadn't imagined it would be to play chess.
"The first thing I remember was that Scott was beside me, making insinuations that you and I were sleeping together, and I punched him." Chloe felt the world fall out from under her. She didn't remember waking up, nor until around three days after they had been released from the pods. Absent-mindedly, she reached out towards the chess board and knocked her king over, watching the white piece roll back and forth on its rounded base.
"Neither do I. I woke up slumped over the console on the bridge, like I had dozed off while doing something. Eli woke up with his laptop in his quarters. Point in fact, no one that we've discretely talked to so far remembers waking up in the pod and stepping out of their own accord. Every single person remembers just waking up like they had fallen asleep doing something. They remember going in, they don't remember coming out." Rush started to place the pieces back on the board, setting up for another game. Inside he was pleased at her progress with the chess board. If nothing else, it confirmed for him that she was real, that she was in there. He had played an easy gambit on the opening move, but the last round she could have still won. Had she been a simulation of Destiny's devising, then she would have been able to easily beat him in chess. Now, all he had to do was convince her of this; while it still did raise a new question of whether he really was in the chair or not now.
"TJ said it might have something to do with how long we were asleep, that it might just be the brain rebooting after being shut down for so long." Chloe continued, coming back to sit down next to him as the theory started to make more sense the more she looked at all the facts presented to her. Her shoulders slumped as she felt Rush's arm pull her close, hand in her hair as he held her with his good arm. The touch should have been comforting; instead it was lighting fire throughout her abdomen once again.
"I have an additional theory I am working on, my dear. I believe that it is the correct one, but Eli has given me pause to consider an alternative. Of course, there's a little theatrics that will have to be involved to test his theory." Chloe nodded as she molded to his side, thankful for the warmth radiating off of him. She felt the brush of his fingers along the nape of her neck, behind her ear; damn him and his roaming hand, knowing just where to touch her to make her insides quiver with need. "Just be ready to react normally to whatever may happen."
"Whatever it is, I like it better than thinking I'm not real." She muttered, turning her face so that she could breathe in the scent of him, still masculine, spicy and earthy rolled into one intoxicating scent, despite being in space as long as they had been. "That this isn't real." She breathed against his chest, mindful of the arm that was still tied securely to allow his collarbone to heal properly. She started to wonder if he had even been shot, if this was a shared dream.
"Well, it seems real to us, but my theory is a bit more, creative… to say the least. Some galaxies, even at FTL travel would take hundreds of years to make the voyage, and we're billions of light years away from Earth at this point. Possibly even trillions, I stopped looking at the map trying to calculate the distance a while ago." He grinned into her hair, glad that the strands still felt like water, even if the cleaning agent they used recently had to be harsher than a regular shampoo. "I believe, and mind you this is just a theory, but I believe that even that long in cryo would be too much, even for the Ancients to handle, let alone a human brain, no matter how close to Ancient physiology and genetic make-up we are ."
Rush continued to caress behind her ear, fingers slipping through the silk of her hair as he continued on with his theory. "I think that once the last pod closed, once Eli figured it out, it uploaded all of us into a simulation, of life as we know it, so that we didn't spend three years, or hundreds of years just dreaming. That Destiny somehow knows that when the cryo pods are activated, that the mind needs to have stimulation; even coma patients dream, people in near vegetative states have brain function somewhere, the ship knows that without that stimulation that we'd wake, disoriented, confused, lost. That we would need some sort of false memory to make the transition from one time to another easier, that the brain is more likely to accept waking three years into the future if there was some sort of time flow during the time asleep." He pressed a kiss to her forehead, letting his cheek rest there as he held her close, eyes closed, savoring the feel of her chest rising and falling against his side.
"That we're living in a shared simulation so that we don't wake in shock that we're able to return to the mission as fast as possible." She continued, her hand sliding up to the side of his face, finger tips trailing across his beard, feeling the coarse hairs tickle the pads of her fingers. "What about the anger?"
"Those who aren't adjusting well. You're less angry now, as is Young. Camille was outright pleasant for once the last time she stopped by. Scott, for all his dickishness, has calmed as well. And of course you'd be angry, waking up with no memory of a couple of days, disoriented as to the lost time you cannot account for, but once everyone settled into a shared routine, once we all were in the simulation – that Eli activated the last pod – everyone started to calm down. And if we are just sharing a dream among us all, then there's hope that when we wake up eventually," Rush trailed off, unable to speak his next words, because if his theory was the correct one, it might mean losing Chloe, just when he was starting to become comfortable with the idea that she was his, wholly. He kissed her forehead again, squeezing out the small amount of dread that crept up along the back of his neck.
"It might mean that I forget this." She finished, finding it easier now to complete his sentences than when she had first started to realize that she wanted him, him and no one else.
"That we might forget this, aye." His voice was rough in her ears; filled with unspoken emotion that threatened everything he had held to be true thus far.
"I won't forget."
"You might." He cautioned, realizing that no matter how much he was dreading waking now, they'd eventually have to, that residual glimpses from the shared dream might continue on into the waking world, even if they didn't fully understand them.
"I won't. I can't." Chloe sat back from him, both hands coming to his cheeks, her head tilting as she pressed a desperate kiss to his lips, searing the memory of his lips into her brain; she wouldn't allow herself to forget if his theory was right. She would wake up, however long from now, and the first thing she'd do would to be throw herself into his arms and kiss him as if the rest of the world could burn down around them as long as they had one another, and she wouldn't let him forget either.
She had spent too long calculating her long term happiness, her chance at long term happiness, to forget that he was the one she wanted, every single inch of his stubborn being, of the harsh exterior, of the true warmth inside. She wanted his experience, his possession of her, his desire for her, his respect for her mind as well as her body, his awe at her genius, his appreciation of her hands. She didn't want young supple skin over bulging muscles, a brain that couldn't string coherent thought together, and a mentality of order over exploration. She wanted lithe, stubborn to a fault, passionate. The life written in his face, the need to solve the universes greatest mysteries in his soul. Chloe pulled back from the kiss, satisfied that she had put the full intention of her need of him into the action. "I won't let you forget either." She whispered against his lips, her forehead resting against his as she held to his cheeks still. "Don't you dare forget me." She ordered as she started to cry.
"As she commands." Rush breathed against her lips, knocking the chess board to the floor, white and black pieces scattering in a jumble of noise. He pulled her into his lap, damning his arm for now, and held her to him, her arms sliding around his neck as her lips returned to his, demanding him as he willingly complied. Their tongues touched, slid across one another as they fought for dominance of the kiss, both too far lost in the other to give up the higher ground.
Chloe felt the zip of his waistcoat pulled, the vee deepening until the zip gave, and the edges of the fabric caught on her nipples, already overly sensitive from their heated exchange. She broke the kiss, her head falling back, the tiny gasp of surprise rising from her throat as she felt his hand brush the fabric aside, thumb and forefinger rolling over the darkened nub, tenderly at first but as he captured her mouth again he added more pressure before releasing her, palm over her breast as his fingers squeezed down, alternating between an almost painful grip, to the most delicate twist of her nipple again. Chloe arched her back, pressing her chest closer to his hand, her hips grinding over the hardened length of his erection, his own hips moving in time with hers.
Chloe released her hold from around his neck, shrugging her shoulders and letting the vest fall to the floor, feeling her legs forced wider apart as he spread his knees wider, feet planted on the floor to give him leverage to continue rocking against her. Other days, Chloe would have cursed the thin fabric of her yoga pants, today she was thankful for them, gasping into his mouth as the slight change of position opened her further, allowing his upward thrusts to slide the full length of him along her clit, the fire that had been just barely licking at her threatening to consume what little trace of rational thought she had left.
Rush slipped his good arm around her back, leaning into her as he kissed a trail from her mouth, down her jaw, tongue tracing the rapid pulsing artery in her neck, dipping into the hollow of her throat, teasing a trail down her skin. "Yes," she breathed, leaning back into his arm as his lips surrounded the hardened nipple he had teased, lips suckling tenderly before she felt his teeth pinch at the nub, making her hips jerk against his, soliciting a higher octave cry from her.
Awkwardly, he looped his arm under one of her knees, flipping them, Chloe's back hitting the bed, a soft "oof" before he was above her, his good arm flexing with effort to hold himself off her as he repeated the same torture to her other breast. Chloe dug her fingernails into the denim fabric covering his hip, her other hand sliding under his shirt, up over his back, feeling the lean muscles of his back contract under her touch, realization setting in that he was stronger than he appeared to be, much stronger.
"Rush come in." The crackle of radio sounded through the room, as Rush pointedly ignored the summons, his hips still moving in time to Chloe's, the flush on her face and tightly screwed shut eyes telling him she was close to her release already, before they really removed any clothing, the first in a series had planned on their alone time becoming. "Rush, come in or I'm sending Greer to fetch you."
Groaning with frustration, Rush pushed himself upright, falling over on his back, his free arm going to the radio. "This had better bloody well be life or death Colonel; otherwise you're going to see what an extremely angry Scot looks like." Pressing her advantage, Chloe swung her leg over his side, straddling him as she continued to seek her release, despite the radio and clothing in the way. Rush barely had to let go of the radio's call button before he moaned, the feel of Chloe's knees pressed into the side of his hips, her hands shaking as she tried to remove his belt, heedless of the call that took his attention from her.
"We need you and Chloe." Young continued, pacing the space beside the chair, his eyes sweeping over the form sitting there, motionless. "Eli's in the chair."
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Dangit Eli! Why'd you have to go and do a thing like that! Hope you enjoyed reading as much as I liked writing this one. This has been my longest update on Sensitivity so far. Next Week - Realization! Thank you again for reading, and to my lovely lovely reviewers: CharlotteAshmore (WOOBIE! *swoon*), badkidoh (you made me really think on some of the items in your last comment ;) ), Anawey, and the lovely lovely Guest! Major love to you all! - Sedation
