Be warned, it's Young/Rush, this means men liking each other and being in the same bed. Deal with it or don't read it.

Rush listened to the door close behind him. It bothered him that Young had evidently woken and moved around, set the alarm, and Rush had not woken up. The idea he could have slept through it…that he had not reacted to Young's presence…

His radio went, thank god.

"Doctor Rush, this is Volker."

He snatched it up gratefully.

"What is it Dale?"

There was a long pause.

"Er, we need you on the Bridge?"

It came out as a surprised question.

"Fine, I'll be there in a moment."

He dragged his fingers through his hair. Put his second t-shirt on and left.

A single burned out square component "thingy", was the cause of the complete loss of close range sensors on the port side. Eli had quickly dubbed the components squingies to Rush's complete disgust. Squingies. It sounded like some kind of cheap plastic toy, but Brody and Volker had picked up on the name instantly, the morons, and Rush had to concede he was outnumbered, not that he admitted this. Thankfully they had a large supply of them courtesy of Destiny's double, but Rush, Eli, Brody and Volker spent eight tortuous and frustrating hours checking every single squingy in the conduits and controls between the data hub in the core room and the main sensor hub two decks down and several corridors towards the back of the port side.

Rush threw himself into the work, up to his elbows in conduits, greasy and filthy dirty. They finally located the burned out squingy it not two metres from the port side sensor hub and it was the work of seconds to replace it once located.

He stopped off in the mess hall early evening just long enough to shovel something laughably dubbed vegetable hot pot into his mouth before disappearing back to check the communications conduits to the starboard side. He worked until the small hours before falling into bed for a few hours.

The next few days Rush gave up on any of the bigger projects in favour in losing himself in the depths of the ship checking the equipment that comprised the sensor lines and getting a better idea of how it functioned. Eli, Chloe and surprisingly Lieutenant James tracked him down intermittently, ignoring his complaints and bullying him to eat if he didn't turn up for a meal. He tolerated Chloe who was quiet and practical, goal oriented in making him eat and then letting him get on with it. He was mainly polite to Lieutenant James who simply ordered him to eat, laughingly threatened him with violence if he didn't and then walked off when he had, but snarled at Eli when Eli tried to help him after coaxing him to the mess. Sometimes he almost felt guilty snapping at Eli, but he wasn't in any mood for company, particularly not Eli's brand of cheerful upbeat banter, and Eli sometimes took a while to get the message unless he was blunt. With the exception of these enforced trips to the mess, he made himself absent when he wasn't specifically required for a bridge shift.

The practical side of his efforts was several replaced squingies which made a significant improvement in the quality of sensor readings from both sides of the ship, the academic side of it that he had a much better grasp of what was going on in there, but the amount of time he could spend on it wouldn't last forever. He just wanted a bit of peace and quiet, though he knew that he couldn't continue avoiding people for too long. He was surprised Camile or Young hadn't sent someone out to drag him back to civilisation already.

The drop out of FTL cut off his self imposed isolation three and a half days in. As soon as it happened he packed up his gear with a sigh and walked up to the bridge. There was the usual crowd on there, Young, Brody, Volker, Eli, Chloe, Scott, Greer, Camile standing at the railing. She looked up at him as he walked in, taking in the filthy shirt and untidy hair with raised eyebrows, but evidently thought better of saying anything. Rush knew he must look a state but frankly didn't give a shit.

"Where are we?" he asked.

Several faces turned round in surprise.

"There's no need to look so shocked." He said sharply. "Conduits are dirty." He snapped at continued stares.

Most of them looked away but Young was looking at him from the command chair with a strange expression. Rush ignored it in favour of walking down to look over Brody's shoulder at the console.

"Three planets." He said. "Are any of them useful?"

Brody shrugged.

"One is locked out, but the other two look okay. One's apparently pretty cold, the other is more like earth."

"Food?" he asked.

"There's a good chance." Volker replied from next to him. "Becker's talking about us bringing back some salt water from the next planet with salt seas and the cold one seems to have them under the ice. We can distil it off for water and for salt."

Rush looked at him.

"Food preservation and cooking?" Dale offered.

"I'm aware of what salt is used for."

"How long do we have on the clock?" Young asked from behind him.

"72 hours." Eli said.

"Gateroom." Young ordered, getting up out of the chair, gesturing to Eli and Brody and walking out. Camile and Rush fell in behind.

The kino showed the temperate planet's stargate was located in a wide plain dotted with stands of trees. It was sunny and clear, and there were what looked like large herbivores trundling in herds across the plain.

"Steak!" Brody said staring at the screen.

"Looks like it." Eli said. "Burgers, seriously guys, burgers!"

Young looked at the screen.

"Fine, get a hunting party together. We could all do with some real food presuming they're edible."

Camile looked at the screen over his shoulder.

"If it's safe it might be good to give people some shore leave." She said. "Even if it's just an hour or two sitting in the sun near the gate. Some people haven't been off the ship in almost six months, and it looks like you can see anything coming a long way off there."

"We'll see what the first party find out." Said Young. "If it's safe, then fine. We've got three days, I think we could all do with a bit of open sky."

Hunting happened. Once again Varro and the couple of remaining Lucian Alliance crew members accompanied by a few more crew with hunting experience went out with guns and came back with food.

Rush liked to eat as much as the next person, though he would admit to himself he got distracted and forgot sometimes, so with bad grace he let Brody and Becker draw him into a discussion of how to turn an unused compartment into cold storage by messing with the life support controls for that room, which conveniently also kept him out of the core room and bridge during most people's waking hours for a day.

It seemed a sensible idea, but in the end involved a surprisingly large amount of preparation, including insulating considerations and isolating the temperature controls. After a day where he managed to avoid having to deal with anyone else except Brody and Becker, they managed to set a reasonably large room to subzero temperatures and a second room next to it to just above freezing by the simple expedient of omitting the insulation between the two rooms and turning off most of the life support in that room.

"Someone ought to tell the Colonel he can double the amount of hunting." Brody said, shivering in the freezer.

"Double?" queried Becker. "Four times or more, we can hang over twenty carcasses in here."

Rush shivered as he looked around.

"Well I'm sure he'll be very pleased." Rush groused. "I'll just be pleased to get protein that I have to chew."

He walked off to the starboard conduits, leaving the pair of them to share the good news.

Young had noticed Rush's absence immediately, and if he hadn't it didn't take long for Camile to point it out. She had tapped on the door frame of his open door before walking in.

"Have you seen Rush?"

"Nope." Young said.

"He's not in the core room or on the bridge."

Young looked up from the laptop on which he was slowly typing up a planet report about the temperate planet, using three fingers on his right hand and two on his left.

"No, he's two decks down on the starboard side in a conduit."

Camile looked at him in surprise, hands on hips.

"You actually know where he is."

Young nodded.

"Chloe and Lieutenant James have been keeping an eye on him. They were worried about him when he didn't show up for dinner and tracked him down. They've been keeping me posted."

Camile gave him a considering look, which Young interpreted as a "maybe you have actually got a handle on the situation here" look. She folded her arms.

"What's he actually doing?"

"According to Eli he's making sure we don't have a sensor failure on the starboard side like we did on the port side four days ago."

Camile pursed her lips and Young regarded her.

"You think that's what he's actually doing?"

Young shrugged.

"Eli's probably right. I couldn't tell any better. Why he's doing it on the other hand? Your guess is as good as mine. But there's nothing else that's a 911 emergency at the moment so it's probably easier to let him get on with it than argue."

"And you're happy with him wandering off on his own?"

Young tilted his head to one side.

"Like I said, I have people keeping an eye on him, he's fixing the ship and I don't need him at the moment. If I need him for something the situation will change."

Young's voice was calm and firm, closing down the discussion. Camile expression was a little tense, but she rocked her head from side to side with a look of acquiescence.

"Trustworthy he isn't," conceded Young, "but he's doing what he's effectively here to do, keep the ship running. This is a pointless issue to challenge him on."

Camile's arms came unfolded and the speculative look returned.

"Seems like a change of heart for you." She noted. "Not long ago you two were butting heads on every issue as a matter of principle."

"It's been a long month Camile." Young said tiredly. She gave him a dry look and he knew she was thinking about the argument. "Exactly" he said, a little contritely. "Still, I'm saving my energy for the big issues."

Even so, Young had been surprised to see the state Rush had managed to get himself into when he turned up on the bridge, looking like some sort of vagrant, filthy dirty and hair tangled.

The planet looked like a positive option, all indications was that it was broadly safe with the exceptions of a few larger predators which had been successfully shot when they became a problem during the hunting on the first day. The area around the gate was wide and open and subject to posting armed sentries, it seemed sensible to cycle everybody off the ship for a few hours of R and R.

TJ had been in strong agreement, citing vitamin D deficiency and consequent problems and mental health issues of ship-bound personnel, and that was it, he spent the next few hours organising a shore leave schedule for the next two days.

Rush had, as soon as the planet had been examined via kino, evaporated again, and Young put him on a shore leave group on the third day. He wasn't sure if Rush would actually take it up, but TJ had been quite clear this was a health issue for the crew.

Eli and Chloe were both off the ship when it came time to track Rush down, but he sent James off to find him and let him know about his trip off the ship. She returned a while later saying she had failed to find Rush anywhere and there had been no answer from his quarters. Young dismissed her and picked up his radio.

"Rush, this is Young."

He waited, no response. Tried again. No response. He gave it a break hen tried again a few times to no avail. Finally he got up and left the room. He swung past the core interface room, the bridge and Rush's corridor just in case, but he wasn't in any of them. Young checked the time. Half past nine in the morning.

Rush's quarters were, unsurprisingly, slightly off the beaten track. Probably better, Young really didn't want anyone to see him just walking into Rush's quarters. He hit the door release and stepped straight in closing it behind him. Rush was curled up, fully dressed in the filthy t-shirts, on top of the covers in a loosely foetal position. He had evidently been asleep and was blinking sleepily at Young which transitioned smoothly into a solid glare.

He stretched out his legs and sat up.

"What do you want Colonel?"

"I'm here to let you know about your shore leave. You weren't around earlier when the allocations were handed out."

"I'm busy." Rush said flatly.

"Yes," Young shot back, "you look really busy, Rush."

He knew as soon as he'd said it, it was a mistake. Rush scowled and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

"Nice to see you value what little time I actually get for sleep."

"Look Rush…" Young started crossly, stabbing a finger out at him.

He stopped, this was senseless, he was about to start a pointless row with a tired, filthy, probably slightly crazy man, with no hope of success, no real point to make and no-one around to even care. He realised Rush was staring at him, probably as he had stopped mid-sentence and zoned out for a moment staring at Rush. He took a deep breath, licked his lips and started again, dropping his hands to his hips.

"TJ says it's a health issue, something to do with sunshine and vitamin deficiency and people going crazy being stuck on a ship. I don't care if you take your lap top and work, or a blanket to lay on and go to sleep, but TJ says for everyone's continued good health we all need a few hours in the sun and we don't know when the next safe planet will be."

He tried to keep his voice neutral. Rush was still watching him intently. Young waited for a response, feeling uncomfortable under the continued scrutiny.

"Vitamin D deficiency." Said Rush finally.

"What?" Young asked. He had been expecting a refusal.

"Vitamin D, the body needs sunlight to manufacture it. The lights on Destiny probably aren't strong enough to prevent vitamin D deficiency."

Young nodded slowly.

"Right."

"Fine." Rush said. "When?"

"Three hours time. We're completely out of synch with the planet's day. That should be dawn."

Rush stood.

"I'd better shower then, hadn't I?"

Young nodded. He turned to leave.

"Colonel?"

Young turned back.

"When's your shore leave?"

Young's brow furrowed a little.

"Same as yours. " he said.

Rush's face clouded a little.

"Keeping tabs on me?"

Young shrugged.

"Didn't think I'd get you off the ship if you thought I might try and subvert your work or science team behind your back." Young replied honestly.

"You don't need me off the ship to do that." Rush pointed out, but despite the sarcasm his expression had returned to neutral.

Young shrugged.

"See you in three hours."

Rush gave him a single nod and Young left quickly.

When Young was gone, Rush grabbed his towel, hand towel sized and somewhat threadbare, and his wooden comb, homemade, and made for the showers. In the shower he stripped his clothes quickly and made for the nearest cubicle. The dirt from the conduits was greasy and hard to shift. Contrary to what he'd seen in people's eyes on the bridge and in Young's just five minutes before, he'd had a shower a day whilst working on the sensors, but crawling through access panels got you filthy dirty fast.

He combed the snarls out of his hair, which took some time and was vaguely aware of someone else coming in but when he looked up they had gone without using the showers.

He scrunched most of the water out of his hair and scraped most of the liquid from his skin with the side of his hand, letting it drip from his fingers to the floor. No point in getting his towel any wetter than he had to, it was hard enough getting it dry.

Stepping out of the shower he noticed a stack of black clothes under his grubby t-shirts and jeans. Unfolding the fabric it turned out to be a sleeveless undershirt, underpants, a military shirt, Icarus issue with the name removed and a pair of well worn BDU pants, all clean. He looked at them. It had to be Young, he realised, he was the only one who knew he was coming here. A peace offering maybe.

He pulled them on, leaving the shirt unbuttoned. They weren't a bad fit, only a little large, although the trousers were a little long. He rolled them up a couple of turns and bundling his own clothes up, made his way back to his room.

He caught sight of himself in the mirror as he put his clothes down on the counter. The unaccustomed black clothes and his sharp features and dark eyes suddenly gave him the impression of a crow staring back out of the mirror at him and snorted at the ridiculousness of his own thought. Bird of ill omen indeed.

He folded a spare blanket, grabbed a pillow and tied them together with the belt from his jeans. His laptop needed charging if he was going to take it off the ship on this shore leave and he grabbed it up as well and walked out.

He hadn't been entirely prepared for the strange looks he got and it took him a couple of minutes to realise it was probably the fact he was dressed like one of the soldiers. He ignored the looks and resolved to spend the remaining time in the core room, catching up on what he had meant to read in the database.

Young himself stuck his head in the door two hours later to Rush's slight surprise and slightly greater discomfort.

"You ready to go?"

Rush nodded.

"The clothes." He said. "You?"

Young nodded and shrugged.

"Seemed better than you getting back into the others. You looked a bit…"

Rush cut him off with a nod.

"Whose are they?"

"They were Gorman's." said Young. "It was that or some leather pants from the Lucian Alliance," he grinned, "and somehow I couldn't see you in leather pants."

"Not since I was about twenty five." Rush snorted.

Young gave him a slightly disbelieving look.

"I haven't been old forever." Rush countered the look.

Young raised his eyebrows.

"Hey, have you seen…" Eli walked into the room and they both started.

Young saw Rush's face close down again. Eli gave them both a suspicious look.

"What are you guys doing?"

"Nothing Eli." Rush said. "Nothing important anyway, what did you want?"

Eli looked at him.

"Oh, hey, you actually. TJ sent me to make sure you go off the ship for your sunshine."

He looked awkwardly at Rush, obviously expecting a snapped response. Rush bent down and lifted the bundle of pillow and blanket from behind the console.

"I'm already ready Eli."

"Wow, cool. Hey, you look cool in black, suits you, not that your other stuff…"

"Eli." Rush cut in sharply."

"Uh yeah?"

"Go away."

Eli looked a little affronted.

"The colonel has appointed himself my designated watcher to make sure I get off the ship." Rush slid off the stool. "You can assure TJ that the Colonel will no doubt remove me through the gate at gunpoint should I baulk at the last minute."

Eli looked from Rush to Young a little concerned, shifting from one foot to the other.

"Maybe not gunpoint," Young said mildly, "arm twisted behind the back maybe, or dragged by the collar."

Eli gave them another confused look, as if there was something he thought he must be missing here.

"The colonel is attempting to be funny, Eli. Go. Go tell TJ we are both leaving the ship."

Eli nodded with a little self conscious bob and wandered out.

"I have a name you know." Young said.

Rush looked at him.

"I wasn't aware you wanted to be on first name terms with your subordinates."

"I wasn't aware you viewed yourself as one."

"Touché." Rush said with a quirk of his lips and came out from behind the console. "I suppose I had better make my way to the gate room before Lieutenant Johansen breaks out the big guns, or" he turned and gave Young a sideways look, "you club me over the head and drag me out by my collar."

Young laughed and walked out.

Rush picked up his bundle and laptop and followed him out, they stopped by the mess hall to pick up a couple bottles of water and made their way to the gate room.

The gate room was busy with the excited chatter of the twenty something people waiting for their shore leave. Rush realised most of them were soldiers and people he didn't have regular contact with and was quietly grateful that there was no one who would feel like they had to talk to him. He realised Young was watching him, and gave him a nod.

"Are we all here?" Young asked.

Barnes was there with a check list and she counted off the waiting crowd.

"You're good."

Lieutenant Scott and Camile were waiting by the controls and Rush watched Young walk over and have a quick chat, no doubt handing over command to Scott. Rush himself looked over to Brody who was at the gate controls.

"Don't let Eli and Volker do anything bloody stupid while I'm gone." He said.

Brody gave him a slightly surprised look, but nodded.

"See you in six hours." He replied. "It's nice there."

Rush nodded and turned back as Brody hit the gate controls and the event horizon whooshed out. The soldiers all wandered through in an orderly group followed by a small gaggle of civilians. Rush stood for a moment before the puddle, before he felt Young grab his shoulder.

"Come on Rush."

And he was pulled through.

Young walked through into warm sun and a gentle breeze. Wide plains spread out ahead of him, and in the distance he could see the faint dark movement that must be a herd of the herbivores. The area had the look of the African savannah, although probably not as hot, Young wouldn't know, he'd never been there. They walked down the steps from the gate platform.

The soldiers and civilians were spreading out and the designated guards taking up their posts. They'd already had their turn at fun on a previous trip. The rest sorted themselves out four of them settling down immediately on blankets to sunbathe or read and the rest quickly setting up a game of touch football with a homemade ball that appeared to be made of a pillow squashed into shape and wrapped in duct tape.

He joined in with the football for a bit until his knee began to ache and raising both hands in defeat he backed out of the game grinning and clapping his "team mates" on the back. His water was on the side line and he wandered over to take a drink.

In the distance herd beasts thundered across the plain. He looked around for Rush. His blanket had been spread out on the grass near the gate, it had to be his, he was the only one who had brought a laptop, which was sat next to what looked like his wadded up shirt, but he wasn't with it.

A stab of concern shot through Young and he looked around, still not seeing him. He strode over to the nearest guard who turned out to be Atienza, sitting staring out from the vantage point of the gate platform.

"Where's Rush?" Young demanded.

"Out there."

Atienza pointed and Young followed his gaze to a small figure standing on a slight rise a couple hundred yards away.

"He's not going anywhere." Said Atienza, "So I guessed I'd just keep an eye on him."

Young nodded. He took another gulp of water, closed the lid of the bottle and walked out towards Rush.

Rush looked unfamiliar, the military undershirt and black pants looking decidedly unmilitary on him, more like some sort of Russian mobster or gang member. The sleeveless undershirt displayed more skin than Young thought he'd ever seen on Rush, normally dressed very conservatively, and despite his slight frame he had a wiry musculature to him. The slightly overlarge pants had no belt and were slung low on his hips, a slight crescent of skin showing across the small of his back. For a second Young had a flashback to the sea cave and the feel of Rush's scar under his hand and suddenly, maybe, he could see the small savage boy surviving a little in this Rush.

He walked up the slight slope to join him.

"Young." Rush greeted him without turning.

"Rush."

"You'd be the only one who'd be coming out to find me." Rush said, answering Young's unspoken question.

He offered Rush the canteen, watching as Rush took a swig without taking his eyes off the herd of herbivores in the distance.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine."

Young didn't push the issue, took back the canteen as it was offered to him, looking down to re-cap it and noticing that Rush was barefoot, his narrow feet covered with powdery dirt.

They stood for a while, looking out over the plains, Young glanced at Rush a few times but Rush was face front, not turning and it was only when he shifted his weight and moved a half pace forwards he realised that Rush's eyes were slightly reddened, as if maybe he'd been crying.

Young sighed, took another gulp of water, handed it over and waited. Rush would either talk or he wouldn't, Young couldn't force him. They watched the herd ebb and flow, a sudden rush of beasts from the edge of the herd out across the plains seemed to startle Rush and Young saw him shudder as if something had walked over his grave.

"I killed Simeon with a stampede of wild creatures." He said finally. "I wasn't stupid enough to think I could take him in a fair fight, so I ran him down with a herd of beasts larger than a cow, then put a bullet through his head as he lay bleeding on the floor."

Rush took a drink of water.

"Bastard." He said viciously.

Young could see there were tears in his eyes again and turned his gaze forward, giving the man some privacy. A stifled sob startled him.

"You want me to go?" he offered.

"Go, stay, I don't care." Rush said. "Doesn't matter either way."

He folded at the knees and dropped to sit on the ground with his legs drawn up, arms wrapped round them, hand pressed to his mouth, eyes streaming with tears. After a moments reflection, Young dropped to the ground next to him, reached out and put a hand on Rush's shoulder.

"Was fine until I saw those damn beasts." Muttered Rush.

Young settled himself, shifting till he was sitting shoulder to shoulder with the other man. He could feel Rush's quiet sobs, his shoulder hitching against Young's. Cautiously, expecting abuse or to be thrown off, Young put an arm round Rush's shoulders. Rush continued to cry quietly, but leant in very slightly. Young stared out at the plains, not moving.

"Little Miss Brilliant I called her."

"You were friends for quite a while?" Young ventured.

"A few years." He said. "She was smart and kind and didn't expect me to be anything I wasn't. She was bloody brilliant."

He was silent for a long while before he spoke again.

"Fine holiday this is."

"Funny how something random can spark off things you thought were over." Young said.

"Too fucking right.