"In case you haven't noticed, Colonel" Rush said, "I'm busy."
"So help me" Young growled, "you are going to participate if I have to have Greer there holding a gun to your head."
"Nonsensical requests backed by threats of violence. Typical military tactics."
"Well, pardon me, Mr. Pragmatist. I just had the wild notion that you might care to participate in some of the wonders of parenthood. Especially seeing as you're not likely to get another shot at it."
"I'd scarcely call attending a birthing class with a man who only happens to be having my baby due to a random act of technological misunderstanding is in any way an obligation and YOU, I might add, have absolutely ZERO use for any birthing lessons considering this labor will, by necessity, involve major surgery rather than anything nature might have to offer, and as for my odds of having other children you know damn well that my wife died of cancer and my brilliant girlfriend died at the hands of the man YOU let roam virtually free on this ship, and further more if I wanted another woman I could damn well get one anytime I like!"
"How? You planning on asking Brody to build you a woman? Because you certainly can't be counting on your natural charm to…"
"I'll have you know that woman love me. I was beating them off with a stick back in Scotland."
"Now who's threatening violence?"
Rush rolled his eyes, "I'll be on the bridge. Call me if anything of actual importance turns up."
Young glared at Rush's retreating back, "Yeah, sure, just walk away! Why don't you go get a big stick and club a woman over the head, because that is the only way you're ever getting a woman into your quarters again!"
Rush turned briefly, "I'd say that sounds more like your style, Colonel. Pure knuckle-dragging Neanderthal behavior..."
"Yeah, well at least I've got a woman!" Young yelled as Rush disappeared into the corridor.
"What's that about you having a woman?" TJ asked, startling Young who hadn't heard her come in.
"I… we were just talking about relationships and responsibilities and stuff."
"Uh huh" TJ murmured, not sounding convinced, "He didn't want to attend the birthing class with us, huh?"
"That would be a negative" Young confirmed, "He seems to think it's a waste of time, just because I'm a man."
"Weeeell… he is sort of right about that on, Dear."
"But this was your idea?!" Young sputtered.
"I know" TJ said, placing a soothing hand on her husband's chest, "and believe me it's a good idea, it's just that Rush is right about it being somewhat unhelpful for male childbirth."
"Then why…"
"But what it might be very helpful for, is for you to learn some calming breathing technics to help you keep your blood pressure down. You've been yelling quite a lot recently."
"If you want me to stop yelling and keep my blood pressure down then it might just be more helpful if you just kept Rush the hell away from me as much as humanly possible!"
"Everett, you have to see Rush at the briefing every day and in the mess most days when he's not too busy to eat and despite the size of this bucket you can't help but run into each other half a dozen times a day anyway. Avoiding Rush just isn't practical. You need to learn to take his comments in stride."
"Fine" Young said, slowly running his fingers through his newly short hair, "I'll try."
"Try harder" TJ said.
(O)
"Eve?" Rush started, slightly taken aback at finding his grown-up daughter and his grandson waiting for him outside his quarters.
"Hey, Dad" Eve greeted him, "Say hello to your granddad, Nicky" she said, waving the sleepy infants tiny arm at Rush.
Rush smiled and held out his hands.
Baby Nicholas didn't weigh much, but he certainly made his displeasure at being removed from his mother's arms into the arms of a relative stranger by emitting an ear-piecing wail.
Rush tried to thrust the baby back into Eve's arms, but she pushed him back, saying, "Just give him a chance to get to know you. It may take a few minutes, but once he feels safe and comfortable again he'll calm down. Just talk to him in a nice soothing voice and stop holding him like you're afraid he'll break."
Rush nodded, I guess it's worth a try, "Hey, there grandson" he said as he clumsily tried to rearrange his arms without letting the baby's head droop.
Eve giggled at his uncharacteristically awkward behavior and then helped him to get the baby into a more comfortable position for both of their sakes. Baby Nicholas fell back into a drowsy stupor as soon his head hit his granddad's shoulder.
Rush grinned and whispered over the babies head, "It's not that hard to master you know. I just needed to get the parameters down."
"He likes you" Eve said.
"Well, it's nice to be liked" Rush said, hardly able to pull his eyes away from the enchanting sight of a sleeping newborn.
"I like you too" Eve said, leaning her body against the still closed door to his quarters.
"So we're… close… you and I? In your timeline I mean" Rush asked.
"I thought that would be obvious when you consider that I volunteered to give birth to your clone" Eve said.
"I just thought, the other me, would have had to talk you into it."
"He didn't need too, he tried," Eve said, "but I volunteered without having to be talked or tricked into anything. We were pretty close."
Rush looked away, choosing to study the lite fuzzy tufts of hair adorning his grandson's scalp instead of looking at Eve, "So you'd say I was a good father to you? I was there for you when you needed me?"
"Not at first. It took you a while to warm up to me and me a while to warm up to you, but like any child, what you want most in life is your father's love and attention."
"And I gave you those things?"
"Eventually. Like I said it took us both a while to warm up…"
(O)
Divergent Future Timeline – Eve - Age 12
Rush watched Eve out of the corner of his eye. She wasn't paying the slightest attention to his lecture on re-charging inside a star, instead she kept glancing behind her to watch Young who was at the moment leaning on a console talking to Eli.
Rush's mouth twitched ominously. Young was about half an inch away from butt dialing the stargate and if that should happen again… Rush paused mid-lecture to daydream about the delicious pleasure of reaming Young a new one at the next meeting.
All three of the children he'd been in the process of lecturing on Destiny's power systems were fidgeting now. Rush reluctantly filed his daydream away and returned to the task at hand. Trying to get a twelve year old, his daughter Eve, a ten year old, Alan Scott and a nine year old, Dale Greer, to absorb at least the basics about Destiny's systems considering they were going to have to run the place one day. God help us all.
As his lecture continued, Eve's fidgety behavior and her constant glances behind to look at Young continued too. Granted Eve was already familiar with the ship's systems, not to mention she was also brighter than the other two combined and she might be finding his lecture boring.
Rush was just about to reprimand her when her spotted it; a tiny little corner of pink sticking out from under the basic black cushion of Colonel Young's command chair. Rush smiled. She must've gotten it from Brody.
Suddenly Young stood up, said goodbye to Eli and was clearly about to leave the bridge.
Rush smiled again and paused his lecture one more time, this time deliberately.
"Colonel Young" Rush called, halting the other man before he could escape out the door.
"What is it, Rush?"
"Could you just check the communication panel on your command chair, please? Brody said it wasn't working earlier and I need to know if it's fixed."
"So why don't you do it?"
Damn it, he's suspicious. I should never have said please, "I'm busy, Colonel. As you can plainly see. Just call your wife and make sure you actually get the infirmary and not the mess."
Young his eyes, "Fine" he said as he strode to the command chair. You know Rush? You're a hell of a lot of work." He sat down.
Phiffffffffffft!
The whole bridge dissolved into laughter as a long farty noise emerged from the Colonel's bottom.
Young glared at Rush. He knew exactly who was to blame for this one.
Rush shrugged and winked at Eve, who was suddenly acting as innocent as a newborn lamb.
Young eyed everyone on the bridge with disapproval which had the intended effect of silencing the laughter.
"A whoopy cushion? Real mature Rush. Real mature." Young got up and straitened his uniform jacket in an over long display of decorum. "I'll be in my quarters if anyone wants to come by and, I don't know… shove a pie into my face."
"We have pie?!"
"No, Eli. There's still no pie" Young sighed and walked out.
The laughter resumed as soon as the doors closed on Young's retreating back.
Eve grabbed Rush's hand to get his attention and quietly whispered the words, "Thanks, dad."
And thus a new alliance was born as Rush and Eve suddenly realized they had so much more in common than simple genetics.