"Welcome home, sir," Scott seized him by the hand as he came through the gate, grinning like a little boy, proud of himself and defiant all at once. Camile was waiting just behind the lieutenant, with a sour expression, so maybe it wasn't prudent to give Matt the hug he'd given to Ron, but there were times that prudence was not the right way to go, and this definitely qualified as one of them.
He clapped Scott on the back and echoed his grin, "I understand I have you to thank for the rescue, lieutenant? Nice work."
"Me and Eli, sir."
"Knew I could rely on you."
"Yes, sir."
"We need to talk," Camile was beside him before he'd got three steps past, while he was still trying to process the oddity of recycled air and smooth metal underfoot, shake himself out of relaxation and solitude, reacclimatize to command.
"Hi Camile," he said, trying to forestall the problem, whatever it was, until he'd had time to adjust. "Nice to see you again after so long."
"It's been four hours for me," she eyed his throat as though she meant to go for it, giving him a faintly disgusted look. He tugged his jacket collar further up. "And I have already had to file an official complaint with the IOA over Lt. Scott's reckless behaviour and complete undermining of the command structure it's taken you and I years to perfect. While we are all very pleased you're all right, he shut me out of the decision and acted behind my back, and I will not stand for that, when we had just begun to have a system that worked fairly for everyone on board."
Young heard what she wasn't saying, and was largely relieved. The situation had not required action at gun-point then, good. That would make it a great deal easier to resolve. Plus, if they'd only been gone four hours (as far as Destiny's crew were concerned,) there would have been no time for new systems to grow up in his absence which he might need to destroy, or control, or adapt to. He could slot back into his place without having to fight for it again. All of which was rather better than he had feared, and meant that he could afford to give himself space to think.
He turned towards his quarters, "As I'm sure you can tell, I could really use a shower. Give me a run down of what happened as we walk. Then when I'm not quite so fragrant, I'll have a word with Eli and Scott, make sure it doesn't happen again."
"That would be a great deal more effective if you hadn't just congratulated them on a good job."
He acknowledged the fairness of this point with a slight nod, but left it up to her to tell him what she wanted him to do about it. She was perfectly capable of doing this without needing to be prompted.
"I want you to talk to General O'Neill about it. An IOA rebuke is not going to carry as much weight as a reprimand from the military chain of command. And O'Neill is not as partial towards Scott as you are."
Ducking into his quarters, he listened to her account of the rescue as he grabbed the last spare set of fatigues, a towel and his razor. It came down to the usual dilemma - how much is an individual life worth when weighed against the risk to the entire crew? "Hm," he said, "You have a point. But Eli claimed it was safe?"
"Eli is an untrained boy with no official standing in this organisation."
And - in the absence of Rush - also the person most capable of making that kind of judgement call. Even with Rush present, Eli was often more reliable and always more truthful. Scott had done the right thing to trust Eli's advice and act on it - what else were the scientists for?
But he could see where Camile was coming from nevertheless. The sheer mathematics of the decision would have given him pause too. No matter how he tried to minimize it, sometimes you did have to make the harder choice, and you always had to consider it.
So, how to resolve this fairly? Scott might benefit from having the other side of things pointed out to him – Young was pretty sure he hadn't paused to consider the fates of the eighty equally important people aboard before he'd acted, and that was something he would have to learn if he was ever going to command in future.
Plus, as Camile pointed out, Scott had knocked a hole in the reciprocal trust he'd been trying to build between military and civilian command staff. Camile deserved to know that he took that seriously, that he took seriously his responsibility for the lives and rights of the civilians aboard, as much as for his own people.
He wouldn't put Scott's career on the line to make the point, but Scott's little manoeuvre behind the back of IOA bureaucracy was classic O'Neill in style. The general would undoubtedly be tickled pink by it. Maybe even impressed. It couldn't do Scott any real harm.
Of course, the general would also think Young was a patsy for running to him with something so trivial, but out here O'Neill's good opinion counted for very little. Young was happy enough to sacrifice the general's goodwill in exchange for Camile's.
"I'll speak to O'Neill," he conceded, wrongfooting her anger. "And to Scott. I'll read him the riot act. You want to be there to make sure?"
At the concession she paused and looked at him, bright eyed, with that little cynical twist to her lips that was the only thing about her that made her look older than Chloe. "No, I've made the complaint, I trust you to act on it." And she lapsed into quiet warmth. "I am glad you're back. I had no idea Scott was so... he seems such an innocent."
He smiled back, glad to see her emerge from the shell of her office. "He's growing up. I'm getting grey hairs," he offered, deadpan, watched her snort and walk away with some relief.
They'd washed in rivers and lakes, and lately in pots of hot water, shivering before sunrise, but the shower was bliss. His hair was sticky and stiff with smoke, and the smell of it lingered even after he'd scrubbed it twice with homemade soap, so he hacked most of it off with his knife. Dressed in new clothes, short haired again, he looked at himself in the mirror and wasn't sure what he was seeing. A new start, maybe. A new chance to get it right.
Which meant some painful goodbyes.
He headed for the infirmary before he could second-guess himself, got TJ's best smile as he walked in, the big, pleased, semi-mischievous one that made the ends of her lips curl up. Such a contrast to her usual solemnity. These days, only Varro received that smile on a regular basis, which was a great deal better than the dubiously-ex-pirate could possibly deserve.
"Lieutenant," he said, feeling rebuked by her happiness. "I keep thinking I need to catch up on the last four months, but I gather it's only been half a day for you?"
"Yes sir. " She toned the smile down, let him breathe a sigh of something - guilt maybe? Relief? He wasn't sure. Something complicated and painful, at least. He sat on the edge of the nearest gurney and told himself that it didn't matter any more. "Nothing's actually changed since you left."
That was nowhere near true, but then she wasn't to know.
"Dr. Rush has just been for his check-up," she pulled out a blood-pressure cuff and motioned for him to take off his jacket. "I can't believe he came back from that place significantly healthier than he was when he left. I assume he has you to thank for that."
He folded his jacket, his back towards her, put it down carefully and smoothed the creases out. "I guess. He's got the skills now, but he still hasn't got the temperament to last for long on his own."
She had turned to lay out stethoscope, penlight and thermometer on the table next to her, so he faced her and let her pull the cuff tight around his arm, her gaze on the dials. "I can see that," she agreed. "He's a sprinter, but long term survival is all about patience and stamina, which you've got in spades."
She looked up, and four months ago his heart would have leapt at the warmth in her eyes. Constantly wrestling it back down, putting a lid on it for the sake of career and crew and professionalism had been another one of those things that had left him so very worn that he had scarcely anything left to give back.
It was still like an icepick to the chest when her smiling blue gaze alighted on his throat. He watched her catalogue the bite marks no longer hidden under his jacket collar, watched as the warmth and the light went out, and she slammed down the facade she used for dealing with strangers.
"So," she reached up a hand to his jaw and pushed his face to one side so she could look at the bruises more closely. "I'm guessing you two are getting along a little better these days."
His instinct was to apologise, because he had hurt her, because he was still hurting her, but he held it back. She wanted Varro, that was pretty damn clear, now there was no reason why she should not have him. He had been messing her up with mixed signals for far too long, and this was the right decision, not something for which he needed to say sorry.
So he shrugged, uncomfortably. "You could say that."
She turned away. A long moment with her back to him, one hand down on the table of instruments, the other pressed to her mouth. Again, instinct told him to get up, hug her, at least put a reassuring hand down in the centre of her back, let her know he was there for her, that he cared.
And he was, and he did, but this was not the time.
Eventually she straightened up, picked up the penlight, now with the solemn serenity of a statue of the Madonna. He put that expression on her face too often. Hopefully this was the last time.
"Do I have to give you the talk about domestic violence?" she asked, blinding first one eye and then the other as she checked his pupils.
"I'm sorry?"
"I noticed Dr. Rush was sporting a split lip and grazes. Are you hitting him?"
That was a low and unexpected blow. Revenge, possibly, because surely there was no way she could really believe it? "TJ! Don't you know me at all?"
She gave a faintly watery laugh and curled her fingers around his wrist to time his pulse. "Because he's never turned up after an away mission with you looking like he's been through a mincer."
That she could think such a thing of him was like being sucked out of an airlock. He went cold. He couldn't breathe. "That was different and you know it."
"Then do you want to explain how he came back injured?"
Bloody Rush. God. This was what came of attempting to give the man what he wanted – more misunderstandings and accusations. If this thing between them was going to carry on in future, he was going to have to draw some very firm lines. "He got the marks the same way I got mine. You really think I'd beat up someone I was... involved with... like that? In that context?"
For the first time she looked him in the eye again, softening, like she couldn't hold off the resurgence of her compassion no matter what the cause. Or maybe like she found his squirming embarrassment amusing.
"No. No I don't," she allowed at last, with a small reminiscing smile. "In fact, you're the last person I'd think it of, normally. But you have to admit, he's always been the one exception to your rules. I'm... I'm just a little concerned that an intimate relationship between the two of you is likely to be every bit as dysfunctional as your working relationship. He brings out the worst in you."
And yes, initial reaction aside, he could see her point, though he wasn't sure if she wasn't talking to the wrong guy about it. Neither of them would have bruises if it was up to him. "Yeah, I hear you. But we've been working some of that stuff out. I think we're good. Better, anyway, than we were."
He passed a hand through his newly shorn hair, still surprised that it finished long before he expected it to. He wanted to find a way to explain that this wasn't just about him going off with someone else, it was about his belief that she should now feel free to do the same. But that was pretty patronising, wasn't it? It wasn't up to him to tell her what to think.
So he settled on a resigned sigh and some painful honesty. "Besides, I don't even know whether he's going to want to keep this up, now we're home. It was very much an 'only other human on the planet' deal, you know? He went straight back to avoiding me the moment we came on board."
He wasn't sure what he'd said to amuse her, but her lips quirked. "You do have a history of picking them, don't you sir?"
As always, she kept on being stronger than he feared, as admirable as she was beautiful. He smiled back, relieved. "What are you talking about, lieutenant? My taste is irreproachable. It's only my timing that could use a little work."