In which Young has a tough time, TJ and Susannah have a painful conversation and Destiny finally drops out of FTL.

Apologies for the long wait for this chapter, real life got a little interesting in the period before Christmas. As always sympathy, beta and cheerleading from Kimmy and CWR was much appreciated.

Shetan200 and academicprobation - there will probably (eventually) be a one shot with the Eli & Calvos story in. Eventually.


They all sat huddled in their blankets in the mess during this abbreviated command briefing. Young hadn't complained that Chloe was there silently sharing Scott's blanket, tucked close into his side, he would quite have liked not to be the only warmth in his own blanket. TJ had walked in, seen Rush shivering in his blanket and immediately slid in with him, wrapping hers round the outside. Rush had glared but submitted to her urgent murmur. Young was very aware of them in his peripheral vision.

It was mainly routine stuff, updates about morale from Scott and Camile, and TJ reported on the general health of the crew. The most serious item had been Rush's feedback on their rapidly dwindling power reserves.

"So there's nothing we can do about the power loss?" Camile asked. "We just have to live with it for a few more days."

"Correct." Rush was shifting under the blanket as if he was rubbing his hands. There was a brief movement from TJ and he stilled.

"Temperatures have been steadily falling all over the ship. I'm certain Destiny's energy reserves aren't sufficient to rectify the situation until after we recharge."

With that dismal outlook firm in their minds, no one waited around after the meeting concluded. They all wished to be warmer, so sought places or people to be warmer with. He could hear TJ having a quiet but urgent conversation with Rush. Young got himself a cup of tea whilst they talked, it was probably medical and he stayed out of earshot, allowing Rush some privacy. They'd had little enough of that the last few days. He waited until it had stopped, sipping at his tea and having a quiet word with Becker about the power allocations for food and tea, the only luxury, to be honest practical necessity, that they had allowed to mitigate the effects of the cold. Behind him he heard TJ leave.

Young and Rush left the briefing together. Young hadn't asked Rush, they simply waited until the others cleared the corridor before getting up. Rush gathered his chess set, hugging it to his chest, shivered and pulling his blanket close, he walked out. Young was slower to get up. His knee had stiffened up and now throbbed in the frigid air. He thought about getting something from TJ for the pain, but then it wasn't like they had a large amount of medical supplies and walking about he figured he was better actually being able to feel where it hurt rather than not feel it and make it worse. Rush was managing as well and Young figured he could tough it out if Rush could.

Young was several steps behind Rush as they headed to his quarters. The limp had kicked back in with a vengeance making his gait roll and he was forced to lean heavily on his cane. He concentrated on moving his knee as smoothly as possible, focussing on not losing his balance or allowing it to twist as he walked. Something internal kept catching, sending sharp spikes of pain up his leg.

Rush didn't look in any better condition, his sharp hiss of pain drawing Young's attention as his hand pressed the door release. As soon as the door was open Rush was making for the bed. Young walked over more slowly as Rush sat on the edge of the bed, the blanket falling from round his shoulders as he fumbled with the buttons of his jacket.

Young sighed, and then sat down, resting his cane between them and reached out. Rush growled as Young pushed his hands aside, but reluctantly submitted as Young undid the buttons on his jacket and shirt and then the buttons at his fly. Young left Rush to drag the clothes off and made short work of his own, before crawling into bed, scooting over to his usual place on the far side. He reached out and dragged their clothes in with them so they would be warm in the morning. Rush wasn't far behind him, sliding immediately over to Young and leaning against him, shivering.

It was too damn cold for either of them to care about anything but getting warm and Young wrapped himself round Rush as soon as the man was close. There was no demur from Rush who plastered himself to Young, tucking his frozen hands in between them. Young tucked his face into Rush's hair and they lay there shivering waiting for the bed to warm up.

It wasn't till they actually began to warm up that Young actually paid any attention to how they now lay in the bed. Face to face, legs tangled, arms wrapped round each other, Young's face buried in Rush's hair and the other man's face tucked into his neck. Young froze. Rush, totally exhausted, had fallen asleep as soon as the bed had got warm enough.

Rush was warm against him and the scent of his hair was heavy in Young's nostrils. The man was now firmly asleep, breathing soft, body a solid weight in Young's arms. As Young's body relaxed into the growing warmth of the bed, his mind was churning. Ordinarily the level of anxiety in his mind would be making him tense, but his level of exhaustion was overwhelming it and threatening to drag him down anyway. Rush shifted against him, mumbling and burying himself more firmly in the embrace.

If Rush was right, the day after tomorrow Destiny would come out of FTL, things would go back to normal and Rush would go back to his own bed. Young's mind was torn between disgust at himself for being so needy to want the company in his bed he'd had the past few nights, and a disquiet that he'd be on his own again. The thoughts turned over and over in his brain, but finally sleep claimed him, a black tide of exhaustion rising to pull him under.

The third day was hard. Young had an early bridge shift, but he struggled to pull himself out of the warmth of the bed. When he woke Rush was practically on top of him, head buried under the covers on Young's chest. They were pressed closely together with the covers pulled around them and he was warm, though as his foot moved away from them, the bed outside of their tightly wrapped nest was icy. He reached his arm out into the freezing cold and turned off the alarm on Rush's mobile phone.

"Rush." Young shifted. "Rush, wake up. I gotta get up."

Rush groaned, shifted and settled again. Young brought up his knees for leverage and rolled his hips to try and tip Rush off.

"Rush." He grabbed the man's shoulders and shook him gently. "Nick."

Rush twitched, grabbed at him and then started to struggle with the bed clothes. Young extricated them both from the tangled blankets. The room felt even colder than the previous night. From what Rush had said it probably was, but he had no way of telling.

"Come on," he said, "let's get some breakfast."

They dressed as fast as possible, then wrapped in blankets made their way to the mess hall. It was only when they arrived Young realised he hadn't even given a thought to getting caught. He felt his stomach turn over, but no-one seemed to notice or care as they made their way to the counter for a large bowl of thick porridge type stuff. Sitting opposite each other they ate silently. The room seemed pretty quiet and as Young looked around he realised that pretty much everyone in there was a silent and focussed as they were. Camile walked in wrapped in a blanket and collecting her food sat down next to Rush.

"You okay?" Young asked her.

He realised he had no idea who she was sharing with. By now all of the crew were sharing. Cole and TJ walked in as Camile picked up the spoon and Young guessed that probably answered that question.

"Yeah," Camile said, taking a mouthful. He waited while she took a few more mouthfuls. "I'm cold," she said with a wry smile, "but if it's only another day I'll manage."

The look she shot at Rush was hopeful.

Rush nodded. "I haven't checked this morning." He said. "But the last figures I had yesterday were still indicating it would be tomorrow."

"Thank God." Camile said. "I'm not sure any of us could take any more of this."

Young scraped the last of his porridge out of the bowl. He swallowed it then picked up his tea. "What's morale like?"

"Stoic." Camile said. "Pretty good considering. If we don't drop out and refuel tomorrow I think it will be difficult, but presuming Destiny performs as expected, I think we'll be fine."


"My goodness it is cold here." Susannah looked around her. TJ smiled at her from where she was waiting in the doorway to the stones room. "You weren't lying when you said it was a problem. Well, I'm here for the check ups. How is everyone? How are you, how is Nicholas?"

TJ felt her cold tense shoulder muscles relax just a little now Susannah was here. "Cold, but mostly fine." TJ said. She led Susannah out of the stones room and into the deserted corridor, checking it was empty before she spoke quietly. "We've mostly been sharing beds for warmth. I was a bit worried about Rush, but somehow the Colonel managed to convince him to share with him."

Susannah looked at her. "That surprises you?"

"To be honest, yeah." TJ said turning her head to look at Susannah's expression.

Susannah nodded slowly, pulling Camile's blanket more tightly round her as she walked. "Everett spent a lot of time playing chess with him when he was in the infirmary."

TJ chewed on her lip. "Historically their relationship is…" She paused and looked at Susannah.

"It's fine." Susannah said. "I'm not going to be carrying tales back to Homeworld Command. I don't see it as a relevant issue in my treatment of them that I would need to record, you say it is not a current problem. Anyway, I'm a civilian, doctor-patient confidentiality."

Reassured, TJ gave her a grateful look and pressed the door release on the infirmary as they walked up to it. She waited till Susannah had stepped though and closed the door behind her before speaking.

"So, their relationship is troubled?" Susannah continued.

"Hostile. Possibly violent." TJ admitted. "Early on when we were here…I'm pretty certain they both tried to physically hurt each other. That they fought." She looked at Susannah to gauge her reaction. "I've got no proof," she added a little hurriedly, "neither of them ever said anything, and it's not the same now."

"Is it calmer now?"

"They seem to have come to some agreement. The Colonel agreed to stay on Destiny to help Rush complete the mission when Telford was trying to get a wormhole open and send everyone back. Rush doesn't seem to be trying to undermine him anymore and the Colonel seems more tolerant of Rush now."

"Did you agree to stay on Destiny?" Susannah asked her.

TJ sighed, walked over to the desk. Behind her she knew Susannah was listening, waiting for any answer TJ was willing to give, though she wouldn't push it. "Yes." She said finally, staring at the desk, not turning. "I've got nothing to lose. I'm…going to die. We had this…time travel thing, where there was a version of me, of all of us except Rush. It was the thing with Telford and two copies of the Destiny when he went back to Earth. He made it through but there was a problem with the gate and the rest of us after him went back in time and started a civilisation two thousand years ago in the last galaxy we were in.

"Except we didn't," she shrugged, "it was a time travel thing." TJ put her hands flat on the desk, leaning on it. "We met our descendents. Everett and I were married, had children but...I'm going to start showing symptoms of ALS in five years time."

"Oh sweetheart." Susannah said, coming up behind her and drawing her into a hug.

"Back then we didn't know, Everett and I, we married, started a family, and then I got sick and died and left him to raise our family on his own."

"So now you know and now you won't get close to anyone." Susannah said. "Because whoever you get close to is going to lose you."

TJ nodded mutely.

"They all know this?" Susannah asked. "Everyone here?"

TJ nodded again, throat too tight to speak.

"Then let them make the decision." Susannah advised her. "You don't have to keep everyone at arms length. Let them make the decision as to whether they can handle it. They're adults. You're allowed to have friends at least, it's not contagious." TJ felt the tears rising and Susannah patted her back as finally her chest started to hitch. Susannah turned her round and hugged her as TJ sobbed into Susannah's shoulder.


The descending hum, the shuddering tone and the feeling that the universe was sliding sideways from underneath you caught Young unawares. The universe steadied again. He looked up immediately, his gaze instantly going to where Rush was sat at a console to see that weirdly Rush's first reaction had been exactly the same. Their eyes locked for a moment, before by some unspoken agreement they both looked away. They had all been waiting for it, waiting for Destiny to drop out of FTL and things to go back to normal.

Young wasn't sure what normal was anymore.

The previous night had found both of them so cold and Rush in so much pain that there had been no thought of anything else. They had just shivered until the bed had warmed and fallen asleep, drunk with exhaustion, as soon as the bed was warm enough to do so. Young had woken this morning uncomfortably aware that he was in bed with Rush. The necessity that had driven this was disappearing. He had tried to relax in the warmth, despite his thoughts it was still unbelievably cold out there, but had failed.

Rush had seemed equally as restless when he had woken. They had eaten fast and by unspoken agreement made for the bridge where Young had relieved Scott of his bridge duty and Rush had taken over a console.

He swallowed down a flurry of jumbled thoughts that welled up. "Where are we?" he asked as Volker started to pull up screens on the console.

"We're moving in towards a star." Volker said. "Five..." he stopped and stared at the screen

"What is it?" Young asked.

"We have five gates in range, all unlocked." Rush said.

"Why?"

"I don't know yet." Rush snapped. "Destiny is also steering towards a suitable star to recharge herself."

"How long do we have on the clock?"

"No clock yet." Said Volker in surprise.

"I'm receiving some kind of signal here I think." Calvos said from the other console.

Rush's fingers were flicking over the console and Young turned from Calvos to watch Rush.

"It's a seed ship." He said. "It's damaged, but still online."

"What's it doing?"

"Exchanging and updating a list of resources. It's apparently been waiting for Destiny." Rush was scanning down the console. "The seed ships have manufacturing facilities."

"They can make stargates." Young agreed.

"Yes, among other things."

"So what is it making?"

"Apparently hull plating and decking." Rush said. "It's been mining."

"And we've been using up Destiny's supplies of those." Young said.

"It's probable that the AI is aware of the repairs we have undertaken on Destiny and is arranging a resupply now she has the facilities to undertake repairs."

"Facilities?"

"Us." Rush said shortly. "A crew."

"Clear panels for the dome?"

"Not yet. Destiny is also asking for a transfer of atmosphere. She's lost a lot with the reduction in the shields, and she doesn't have any spare, over 80% of the ship is still open to vacuum." Rush turned away from the console to look at them. "This is working to Destiny's priorities, not ours. No doubt the AI has a hierarchy of needs. On the grounds we have no way of completely understanding what is truly important to keep the ship running, I'd strongly advise that we accept her priorities, Colonel."

The star began to be visible in the far distance ahead of the ship, a bright spot slowly growing larger.

"One gate has dropped out." Volker said. "Must be in the system ahead."

Young pulled out his radio. "This is Young. Be aware Destiny is approaching a star to refuel." He put it back down and turned back to the bridge. "Where actually is the seed ship?"

"Volker." Rush's order was brief.

Young turned to Volker as he changed the readouts he was looking at.

"Upper atmosphere of a planet in this system." He said. "Apparently collecting more air." There was a pause. "Wow. I didn't realise they could do that."

"What's it doing?" Young asked.

"Well, collecting air." Volker said. "It's pretty cool."

In Young's peripheral vision Rush shook his head in disbelief.

Young sat back while they waited for Destiny to reach the star. From everything Young had seen it was a pretty typical star for Destiny to pick. Eli, Rush and Volker on different occasions had all explained Destiny's preference as regards stars. Unsurprisingly Volker's explanation had made the most sense to Young, despite the fact that Rush had been the teacher. Lecturer, professor, whatever. Eli was just too fast, Rush too clever. Young realised he didn't know if Volker had ever taught, but he had a way of explaining things in terms dumb enough to make sense to Young.

The star gradually loomed ahead of them. Young's fingers tightened on the arms of the chair. Young still found the trips through stars to recharge incredible, it never got old or boring, still shook him every time. The sheer terrifying power of what was surrounding them never failed to impress. The shuddering of the ship and hull was still intense, but sat in the chair he relaxed into it. Destiny, his home, was pretty incredible.

It made him feel slightly grateful they had fixed the hull breaches. He knew that in the star it was the shields that really protected them from the star, filtered out the worst of the star's heat, radiation and protected them from damage. Still, having solid hull between him and the power of a star, well it made him feel better. The vibration of the ship began to abate and the ride stabilised as Destiny pulled out of the star. He saw the turn in the window ahead as Destiny changed her course?

"Rush?" he asked without thinking, still looking out of the window.

"Seed ship." Rush responded.

"Good." Young looked away from the window and back to the bridge.

Volker gave Young a funny look then a quick glance to Rush who had remained hunched over his console. It looked like Volker was going to say something, but his console suddenly brightened and he turned back to it. The lights came up brightly from their minimum level and the other consoles and readouts on the bridge all came on line.

"Tazhbezh!" Calvos said turning to grin at them all. Young nodded at the man with a smile, hurray indeed, in whatever language.

"Power levels are good." Volker said. "We're as full as we've ever been."

Young picked up his radio.

"Young to all crew, we are back up to good power levels, things are going to warm up. Young to Scott, Scott can you please ask Doctor WIlliams to arrange a suitable charging schedule to get all our equipment back online. Start with military and repair equipment."

"Scott here, will do sir."

"What's next?" Young asked.

Rush looked up from his console. "We'll dock with the seed ship, there'll be atmosphere and water transfer and then once that's complete we'll gain access to the seed ship."

"Is this seed ship occupied?"

"It's online and talking to Destiny and according to it's sensor logs it hasn't been accessed by anyone since it left the Milky Way. It's dumping a large amount of additional information into Destiny's memory, largely about the five planets in range." There was silence as Rush started working through the information. "I think Destiny is targeting a significant resupply." He started a little as a box came up on the screen.

"What is it Rush?"

"I'm being given a list of supplies, locations on the seed ship and locations of storage on Destiny. We're being asked to undertake the manual transfer of supplies."

"What supplies?" Young asked.

"The Hull and deck plating," Rush said, "but also squingies, raw materials, other components. The seed ship's manufacturing facility is active and appears to be turning out hull plating, components and conduit rather than star gates. Lots of hull plating. Destiny appears to be asking for somewhat of a refit. Not unsurprising, the Ancients could never have expected Destiny to complete her mission without some sort of repairs and refitting and there's no way that she could have held enough spare parts to last even tens of thousands of years."

"Where's it getting the materials?" Young asked.

Volker had been silent for some time, but spoke up. "It's what we said, it's been mining, asteroids mainly, throughout the system." He scrolled through more information.

"How much has it got?"

"Lots. It's been mining for about..." Volker stopped. They waited. "It started ten days after we arrived on Destiny. Over four years."

Rush laughed. "Looks like Destiny has been planning to take advantage of our mobility for some time." He said.

Young nodded. "How long is the count down."

"Well that's the other interesting thing." Rush said. "The count down is twenty six days."

Silence again.

"Twenty six days." Young repeated in disbelief.

"I think that's what I said." Rush said acidly. "We altered Destiny's course ignoring the end of the last galaxy. The course information Destiny has plotted suggests she thinks she's too close to the first and second waves of seed ships. I suspect we'll have some long stops in the future, while she corrects that."

"Twenty six days to forage for food." Calvos said.

"Twenty six days to undertake repairs." Rush added pointedly. "Like the coolant leak and computer core."

"Atmosphere and water levels on the seedship are being transmitted." Volker interrupted.

"Where's the water come from in space?" Young asked.

"Clouds?" Calvos asked, then looked embarrassed. "It went in the planet's atmosphere." He added as they all looked at him. "To get the air?"

"Quite possibly." Rush said.

"Okay, so we're in range of five usable planets?" Young leaned back in the chair and

"Four and the one we're close to." Volker confirmed "Two aren't going to be giving us any food, one's arid, one's like Hoth. Three that look kinda like Earth, one here, two elsewhere."

Young looked at Rush.

"Gate room." Rush said before Young could .speak.

Young nodded. He pulled out his radio. "James this is Young."

"James here."

"I need you to take the chair on the bridge."

"On my way."

"Young to Scott."

"What is it Colonel?"

"Round up Camile, Eli, Brody and TJ and tell them we'll meet them in the gate room. Tell Eli to bring plenty of Kinos, we have four planets in range."