Young woke. Everything ached. His leg was throbbing but in a dull way that suggested he had been given some serious painkillers. He felt fuzzy and unfocused, it was hard to think, but then TJ's current painkillers tended to have that effect. There was a heavy weight, warm against the side of him that was uninjured or at least less painful and he didn't have to open his eyes to know that it must be Rush, despite the fact that they were in the infirmary.

He opened his eyes. The infirmary was dim, nighttime lighting. Their beds were surrounded by screens, the one they were on and the empty but untidy one next to it that had obviously been Rush's.

Rush was wrapped around him. He had limited memories of what had happened on the planet. He remembered falling, Rush and the makeshift tent and had vague memories of a cave and gunfire. The gun fire must have been Rush. The arm around his neck shifted, but did not slacken, and the fingers slipped beneath his shoulder where Rush was pressed against him twitched, but Rush didn't wake.

Young sighed, wondering how far the cat was out of the bag now. With any luck only TJ had seen them. Rush snuffled into his shoulder and Young could not help but smile down at him. Maybe it was the fact he was dosed up on pain relief, but the sleeping mathematician snugged up against his side gave him a warm feeling of contentment. He rested his head back against the pillows. It would be sensible to sleep whilst the pain relief was still working. And whilst he was warm and comfortable. He let himself drift back into sleep.

xxxoooxxx

Rush woke with a jerk that forced a pained groan out of Young, although when Rush opened his eyes he could see that it had not actually woken Young. Carefully he slid off of the bed. He took couple of steps over to the bed that had been his and sat on the edge.

TJ appeared around the edge of the screen.

"You're awake."

"Yeah."

"How do you feel?"

"Like death warmed up."

TJ chuckled. "No surprise there then." She glanced at Young.

"How is he?" Rush asked.

"Okay, mostly. He's got a badly fractured ankle, broke a lot of the bones in his right hand, three cracked ribs and a bad concussion. He's probably damaged his knee more, but it's hard to tell past the large number of general scrapes and contusions."

Rush frowned, looking past her at Young, still asleep on his bed.

"You'll be keeping him in here though?"

"For some time. He won't be walking for a while."

"Crutches?"

"Brody's already making some, but that's a while off yet. He couldn't even use them with the damage to his hand. Eli's going to make some sort of smaller kino-sled for him, instead of a wheelchair."

Rush nodded. "It won't stop him being in command though?"

"As far as I can tell, not at all. On the ship, even in a wheelchair - kino-sled," she corrected herself "shouldn't make much difference."

Rush looked reassured. "Can I go?" He asked.

"Once I've checked you over, there's no reason you have to stay.

xxxoooxxx

Rush made it out of the infirmary in time for lunch. He had managed to get away with only his wrist strapped up from where the recoil of Young's gun, fired at a less than ideal angle had damaged his already weak wrist. The bandage was actually helpful, though that did not stop him complaining the whole time that TJ had been applying it to his wrist.

As soon as he sat down at a table with his plate of food in a quiet corner of the mess hall, Camile and Greer were joining him.

"How's the Colonel?"

Rush tilted his head to look up from his plate at Greer.

"He'll live." He said.

Greer's face froze.

"He's going to be fine." Rush clarified shortly. "He's got a few broken bones, ankle, hand, ribs, an' a concussion, but TJ and Dr Macarthur say he's going to be fine. He's just goin' to take a while to recover. Won't be on his feet for a while."

Greer's breath hissed out in a sigh. Camile was nodding in relief in the background.

"What is it?" Rush demanded.

"Colonel Telford has been here." Greer said, quietly but angrily. "Questioning the Colonel's decision to take you both off the ship."

Rush frowned. "How do you know?"

"He overheard me talking to Telford." Camile said.

"What's Telford doing now?" Rush asked.

"He's gone back to Homeworld Command. I told him if he had a problem he needed to take it up with General O'Neill."

"Good." Rush took a moment to eat a couple of mouthfuls of food.

"We're going to need to have a consistent front while the Colonel is unavailable." Camile said.

Rush nodded as he chewed and swallowed. "Well, my point o' view, we have our orders from the Colonel, there are long term science projects under way repairing the ship. I'm not changing anything."

"Even if Telford puts pressure on you from Homeworld Command?" Camile asked.

"It's not as if Destiny is going anywhere without us doing these repairs is it?" Rush countered.

"But if the focus moves back to another attempt to gate us back home?"

Rush scowled shaking his head. "Destiny is in no fit shape to manage something like that." He said categorically. "The coolant leak, the conduit blow out, and the fact out shields are shot to shite? Putting that much pressure on Destiny's systems at the moment would be a mistake. Potentially a fatal one. We're not even in a position to refuel in a star."

Camile looked worried. "We can't refuel? I thought it was just we couldn't get to a suitable star?"

Rush huffed a breath out in irritation. "The same shields that protect us while we're moving are what stop us being cooked to a crisp in a star."

"So how long do we have?" Greer asked. "To get the shields working?"

"Not moving we use a lot less energy." Rush said. "My rough calculation is a month or more."

"What about the seedship." Greer asked.

"This star isn' the right kind and the seedship we've got has no interstellar capability without Destiny."

Camile shrugged. "Just let us know what we can do. I'll liaise with Lieutenant Scott and set up a command team briefing this evening."

Greer nodded. "That ain't that long though, a month."

"It's not as if we've got any other options now, is it?" Rush sighed.

xxxoooxxx

The command briefing over and done, with Rush made his way to the Bridge. Chloe, Barnes and Varro were there. Chloe was in the command chair.

"Any news?" He asked.

"Colonel Telford came back." Chloe said. "But Dale needed a pilot, Scott can't leave the ship with the Colonel injured, and Greer is working with Brody and Dr Olatunde on repairing one of the damaged bulkheads."

"What was important enough to get Telford off the ship?"

"A seriously large quantity of metals." Chloe pulled up a display on the panel in front of her. "There are a couple of asteroids that are mostly made of metal that he's interested in. Also, this planet has aluminum. Quite a lot of it."

Rush blinked. That was a serious quantity of metals. "Okay, that's...impressive."

"I know." Chloe agreed.

"What's the seedship doing?" Rush reached over her arm to manipulate the display..

"Mining." She replied, shifting sideways so he could reach the screen better. "Iron and nickel from another big metallic asteroid."

Rush nodded as he pulled up the manufactory work queue. "Hull repair supplies."

The seedship was quite happily mining what it needed to make hull panels and the manufactory had put the workqueue he had set it on hold and was solely making hull repair supplies. Rush left it to its own devices, there was nothing more important than the hull at the moment.

"Ah, Doctor Rush?" Barnes asked. "I've been seeing this on the screen for a while now, and I think I've worked out it's a signal." She squinted at the screen again. "From another ship. It's sending us a message."

Chloe shifted out of the command chair immediately and Rush slid in, pulling up displays even as he sat himself down. The communications menu was not something that they used regularly and it took him a moment to find the appropriate commands.

He began to laugh. Chloe looked at him strangely.

"It's another seedship." He said. "It's on it's way to us now. It's just come within full communications range and it's talking to Destiny."

"Why is it coming here?" Chloe looked at the star map hologram Rush had pulled up. The seed ship was clearly travelling towards them.

"Power." Rush grinned. "It's bringing us power."