Young looked down at Rush whose eyes were drooping. "I'll let you get some sleep." He said, shifting his weight.

Rush lifted a mittened hand and rested it on Young's arm, stopping him with a touch. "Cole said you pulled me out."

"I led the team down there." Young said.

"She said you ran your knee into the ground again getting down there."

"It'll be fine, I just need to rest it for a few days meaning, I use the cane again for a few days."

"Your rifle."

Young nodded. "Yeah, but it's the right height, and it's got a grip on the end." He ducked his head away, then looked back, with a grin. "Anyhow, it's also the only support available. You oughta be grateful it's not your feet that are frostbitten, At least you'll be walking out of here."

Rush gave a tired nod and a slight smile. "Small mercies. When they finally let me go."

"Rush, no one is gonna put up with your bitching any longer than they have to."

Rush looked like he was going to retort but his reply was swallowed by a yawn.

Young squeezed his shoulder again. "Get some more sleep." Young advised him. "I'm going to my quarters to do the same." He shifted himself carefully off the bed, trying and failing to stifle the sharp inhalation as he put his bad leg down.

"You can't walk anywhere." Rush said in an exhausted voice. "Get back in the bed over there or I'll call that damn doctor over again."

Young turned and looked at Rush, who was blinking as if he was trying to keep his eyes open.

"Don't think I won't grass you up to that doctor." Rush muttered.

Young considered the statement, then shrugged and limped back to the bed and hauled himself in, pulling the blankets up. There was a cup of weak cold green tea by the bed, he sighed and drank it down before rolling on his side and trying to settle. Across from him Rush had his eyes closed, Young closed his eyes and it didn't take long for the tea to kick in, pain to begin to ebb and sleep to arrive.

He woke to voices. It must be late still as the lights were still dimmed to night time levels. Looking across, Brody was standing by Rush's bed and they were talking in low voices. Rush noticed Young looking over and Brody followed his gaze.

"Morning." Young said.

"Morning."

"Hi." Brody added. "How are you doing?"

"I'll be okay, my knee's gonna need a bit of a rest."

Brody nodded. "Well, I'll be going." He said. "Doctor said I only needed to rest. She only kept me here 'cause Cole said the science team can't be trusted to rest. I can go now if I promise to sleep."

Young laughed.

"She said the same about you." Brody added with a grin. "Anyway, I've got work to do."

He walked out, leaving Young smiling resignedly. He looked at Rush who was still leaning back against the pillows.

"Are you going to stay off that knee today?" Rush asked him.

"Unlikely." Young said. "I'm due on the bridge at eight. You on the other hand, are on medical rest."

Rush scowled.

Young slid carefully off the bed and looked around. No rifle. Young found his radio and had Baras bring his rifle-crutch down to the infirmary. Macarthur, with a doctor's ear for movement, returned to quietly re-examine his knee. Rush watched with amusement as Young endured her poking at it and strapping it up again with instructions to keep off it as much as possible.

He sat back on the bed as Macarthur took a look at Rush's hands and ears. They both looked painful, blisters coming up over his fingers. Young watched Rush trying not to wince with pain as she rewrapped the bandages, wrapping his fingers in non-stick gauze and mittening him in some fuzzy looking stuff with more bandages. She gave Rush another beaker of TJ's weird green tea for the pain, holding it up for him to drink. Rush shot Young a glare over the rim of the cup which Young interpreted as embarrassment.

The medication seemed to work fast. Though he quickly became unfocused Rush kept his eyes on Young until he fell asleep. It felt a little uncomfortable being stared at and Young had the nagging feeling he was missing something.

Baras arrived with the rifle and Young limped over to the table where Doctor Macarthur was sitting. She looked up from TJ's laptop, as he lowered himself onto a spare stool.

"How's it going?" He asked her.

She smiled. "Well, I've only got four patients and three will be ready to be released when they wake up. I only kept Mr Brody in so he could get some sleep. Scientists, you know what they're like."

Her smile was tempered with resignation and somehow inappropriate on Chloe's face and Young had the impression that Doctor Macarthur was significantly older than Chloe.

He smiled and nodded. "So, if the other three are fine, how will he be?"

"I think he'll be fine given time. He'll need to stay here for a few days and protect his hands, but it looks like he's avoided the worst."

"Doctor..." Young started.

"Susannah." She said with a grin. "I'm a civilian so I get to have a first name."

He smiled back. "Everett." he said. "Will you be staying?"

"I need to go back and check in, but I think it would be best if I came here in the daytimes for a few days if Chloe is happy to spend her days at Homeworld Command. Or someone else would volunteer." She looked down at the laptop in front of her then around at the room. "This is very interesting, fascinating even."

"What are you reading?" he asked.

The stream of words that came out of her mouth were pretty much gibberish to Young.

"TJ asked me to look at the data and the method she has been using to prevent rejection in Doctor Volker's kidney while I'm here." Susannah explained. "Not my specialism, but I can do some more research for her on Earth, speak to some colleagues." Her eyes flicked back down to the laptop and up again. "This data is remarkable. I've been reading for most of the night."

Young smiled back, the woman's enthusiasm was infectious.

"Make sure you get some breakfast, it's not great but it's better than it used to be."

"I'm promised by Becker its savoury rutabanana wraps this morning." She said. "I have absolutely no idea what that is, but it sounds worth a try.

"It's more edible than some mornings." Young said, remembering the white stuff from the plains planet. "Probably last night's leftovers fried up with flatbread." He said. "Well, I'll leave you to it."

Young limped awkwardly up to the bridge, taking a while to get used to using the rifle to support himself again. Camile was sitting in the chair with Ramirez and Calvos at the consoles. He wasn't sure if Ramirez knew what he was doing, he hadn't been trained to stand a bridge watch yet. Calvos however had arrived during the Lucian Alliance attack already half trained in Ancient technology. As Young came round the corner he realised that Volker was in a chair wrapped in a blanket.

Camile looked at him taking in the limp and the rifle.

"How's it going?" he asked her.

"Very quiet." She replied. "Still in FTL. Still no sign of coming out." She sat forward in the chair. "How are you Everett?"

"Fine." He said. "I pushed my knee a bit too far but it'll heal if I take it easy."

"Yeah." She said smiling. "I wasn't expecting you up at quarter to six in the morning. You want to sit down?"

She moved as if to stand up but he shook his head.

"I'm just checking in. Restless I guess." He nodded at Volker. "He okay?"

Camile smiled. "Volker said he'd stay in case we needed someone, but he's just spent most of the shift asleep. He and Eli spent hours trying to work out what went wrong." She sighed. "They didn't figure it out. How are the others?"

"Doctor Macarthur says TJ, Greer and Barnes can go today, Rush has frostbite, and she's keeping him in there for a few days. Brody she only wanted to keep in overnight to make sure he rested." He shifted his weight a little. "He and Varro pretty much saved them you know, with that Lucian Alliance door device."

Camile looked a little surprised.

"They didn't say."

Young realised how much he liked Brody, a decent guy, no whining, and got things done. He was even beginning to appreciate Varro.

"Well it worked." He said. He gave a sideways nod at Ramirez. "I didn't realise Ramirez was trained for bridge duty."

"Not really, but he's actually bothered to learn some Ancient and can get by without a lot of hand holding." Admitted Camile, "We're a little short of qualified crew considering how many bridge crew are out of commission. Everyone else was pretty much dead on their feet"

Young raised his voice. "Ramirez."

Ramirez looked up.

"You're on the next training roster for bridge crew."

"Thank you sir." Ramirez grinned at him.

Young turned back to Camile. "Are you okay here for another couple of hours?"

She nodded. "As I said, no changes, no alerts. We'll be fine"

"That's what I like to hear. I'll take over at eight hundred hours." He said. "I'm going to have to consider changing the shifts, with Rush out of commission for the next couple of days and only three of us available."

She nodded. "We can manage, but we could always try Brody and James for the quiet night shifts as we're still in FTL. It's unlikely they'll have any issues they can't wake us up for."

Young considered the options. "Possibly." He mused. "With experienced crew support[comma] I'll consider it."

Young left Camile and made his painful way to the mess hall.

Despite being seated for most of his bridge shift, sitting in the chair still put strain on his knee and it was aching ferociously, and he suspected it had swollen up again. By the time he made it up to the infirmary after dinner for the meeting he had scheduled, his arm and hand were painful too. Despite being the correct height for him, he'd forgotten how much the rifle weighed. Gripping the stock and lifting it constantly left his arm tired and his hand aching and he'd join Rush with a collection of blisters as well as muscle strain by tomorrow if he wasn't careful

Camile, Scott, TJ, Brody and Eli were already there, waiting for him. Lieutenant James was getting her first experience in the centre bridge chair supported by Volker and Greer. Young reflected how odd it was that they'd never known it existed for a year or more and just left Destiny to do her own thing. Now they knew it was there, they couldn't leave it alone.

Dr Macarthur had declined to let Rush out of the infirmary, even for a meeting. Therefore the meeting was being held around Rush's bed since she had confined him to bed rest. She claimed she had learned the hard way that "scientists were never to be trusted with their own health", and given any opportunity would conveniently forget to adhere to doctor's orders. Young was impressed that Susannah had figured this out so quickly after joining the Homeworld Command. The best way to work around scientists ego's was to ignore them.

Rush was evidently not a happy camper. As soon as Young walked through the door he was fixed with a solid granite glare. He, or someone, had removed the bandages over his ears. They were on the table next to him. Young grinned at Rush, receiving a scowl in return.

"Sorry people." He said apologetically, limping towards the beds. "Are we ready?"

"Sit down Everett." Camile said. "That looks painful."

TJ stepped forward taking his arm, firmly steering him towards where Scott sat on a bed near Rush. Scott started to slide down off the bed but as Young drew level with Rush, Rush pulled his feet up, tenting his knees under his blankets, silently making space for him. With a slightly amused look, Young propped the gun up and with help from TJ and Brody pulled himself up on the end of Rush's bed. As TJ shoved a stool under his foot, the relief to his knee was palpable, and he blew out a long breath.

"Okay," Young started when he was settled, "this is a planning session. Tell me about the big kitchen." He looked at Brody.

Brody seemed a little startled to be spoken to first. "Uh, it's got plates, knives, spoons and stuff. We…uh…think most of the equipment isn't transferable, but we can resupply Becker with pots and stuff for the mess, maybe shift some of the smaller pieces of equipment."

Young nodded "Fine, we'll send a party with kino sleds." He said. "What else?"

Brody shifted a little as everyone watched him, but seemed to gather his thoughts. "Well, now the route seems secure we can branch out from it, I guess. I'd like to take a look at a couple of the rooms we didn't have a chance to investigate properly. There's some possible storage a bit further on. We did take a quick look at the corridors in that direction and it looked fairly intact."

Young leaned forward, nodded. "What are you expecting to find in the storage?" he asked.

"I don't know about expecting." Brody replied with a sigh. "But there's got to be some spare parts stored aboard Destiny somewhere. And realistically, we aren't going to be able to fix the dome unless we find some of that clear molecular sheeting material to replace what blew out in the star."

Young nodded thoughtfully, trying to recall the area on the map. In his peripheral vision Young could see Rush nodding as well. He turned to look at Rush. "Anything to add?"

"There are two large areas further along Mr Brody's path." Rush said. "Warehouse sized rooms. We could find something useful there. I think Brody's right about the spares, but I think that should be a short, focussed, trip. We need to fix the coolant leaks we encountered further forward."

Young furrowed his brow. "Why?"

He received a look from Rush that seemed to suggest Rush thought he was only compounding his current levels of stupidity with foolish questions, but he pressed on anyway.

"No, why? Seriously Rush, we've just had five of you in the infirmary all night, give me a reason."

It was Eli who interrupted. "It's a big drain on Destiny's systems." He said. "A lot of the damage, stuff like the hull breaches and coolant leak means Destiny's using extra power to keep the air in and stuff." His hands sketched squashing something together. "If we fix the coolant leak, Destiny won't need to use so much power to keep whatever she's keeping cool, cool as well."

Rush used his elbows to push himself up to sitting from where he'd been propped up on the pillows, his feet pressing against Young's hip as he came up. "We don't have much choice about dealing with the damage," Rush said sharply, "it's a significant power drain and it's only going to get worse as the problem spreads."

Young sat up straighter. "What's down there that's being cooled?"

Eli's face was animated. "More computers." He said excitedly. "Like totally half as big as what's online now." His fingers were twitching as if he already had a console.

Rush gave Eli a look of condescension. "There's a whole separate computer core down there that isn't currently online." He said.

Camile cocked her head to one side slightly as she spoke. "But won't bringing it online just use more power?"

Young was grateful Camile had asked the question, not him. He was fed up of getting it in the neck for asking questions he could never have been expected to know the answer to. He could feel Rush's toes clenching and releasing against his hip, but it seemed to be an unconscious gesture as his entire attention was focussed on Camile. Young shifted slightly, adjusting the angle of his knee.

"Not if we fix the coolant issues first." Eli said. Rush gave a sharp nod.

Young sighed. "What would we need to fix it?" He asked.

"I'd suggest we deal with the main leak using the suits." Rush said. "It should prevent any repeat of yesterday's incident."

Rush's bandaged hands shifted restlessly on his tented up knees and his feet flexed against Young. Young shifted on the bed. That really was very distracting. "The suits are being used on the dome." He said. "Food has to be our first priority."

"Yes," Rush said acidly, "but as Mister Brody just said, that project is pretty much stalled until we can find or make spare parts to fix the blown out area of dome."

Eli was shifting from foot to foot "Why do the hydroponics have to be in the dome?" He asked looking around the group. "I mean, that's just for show isn't it? It makes it feel like a greenhouse. But we don't actually get any useful light from the dome or anything," he waved a hand vaguely from side to side, "it's just a big high ceiling. If one of those big warehouse areas is empty couldn't we set up the hydroponics garden in there? I mean, it'd be a big job, but then when we fix the dome we've got two hydroponics gardens..."

He tailed off, realising they were all staring at him.

"Bloody good idea." Rush said with a satisfied expression. "Finally something sensible! There's your hydroponics garden project Colonel, in a project considerably more likely to achieve a result."

His voice was mocking. Young decided he really wanted to slap him. Not hard, just for being so bloody irritating. Young turned and looked at Rush steadily, lips pressed together, head tilted back slightly. Rush just stared back.

"We'll have to find someway of providing soil." TJ said.

"We would have anyway, being as the last garden was cooked to vapour in a star." Snapped Rush.

"Can't we compost waste?" Scott asked. "What does Destiny do with our...uh...waste? I mean, someone said when we were running out of water the liquid is…filtered out."

Camile pulled a faintly disgusted face.

"Good question." Young said.

"Look," Rush cut in sharply, "this is detail on a project I'm certain Dr Park and her horde of green fingered helpers will be much better placed to answer. I thought we were meant to be planning?"

Young shot him a glance, and Rush stared back a little confrontationally. Young raised an eyebrow. "Fine," he said, "Dr Park can convene a working team to establish how to resolve the soil problems. Brody can arrange another trip to explore the area around the kitchen. Time permitting, his team can try to access the purported warehouse areas, and estimate capacity for Dr Park's team. If it looks feasible, then we can think about relocating hydroponics to this new area."

He looked around the group, there were no dissenting voices and nods.

"Now," Rush said, "can we please get on to the coolant leak."

"Do we even know how long this leak has been on-going? Why is it so important that we fix it now?" Young asked him pointedly.

"Have you not been listening to anything Eli and I have been saying?" Rush said in exasperation. "Firstly, it is draining significant amounts of power from Destiny. Destiny expends power to heat the ship for us. Despite the hull and the shields, there is a constant heat drain into space. If you add a large area of subzero fluid, which she is also chilling for other reasons somewhere else, it means Destiny is wasting a significant amount of power chilling fluid only to reheat it somewhere else."

Young nodded. That actually made sense.

"Additionally, it appears as if the leaks are getting worse. The situation will only deteriorate faster if we don't address them soon. Quite possibly, the second computer core is what is being chilled in the first place. Considering the contents of the database we have access to at the moment, don't you think we might actually want any information that's available on there?" Rush looked at him, waiting for a response.

"Okay." Young said. "Eli, Brody and Scott can go in using the suits to assess the problem."

"I should..." Rush started.

"Not a chance." Young cut him off. "Doctor Macarthur is clear you're off duty for a few days. If the leaks are as much of an issue as you say, I'm not waiting. You can support via kino."

Rush scowled at him and Young could feel his feet pressing into Young's hip as his legs tensed in irritation.

"You can't take any risks with the cold at the moment." TJ added firmly. "Dr Macarthur was very clear, and I agree with her, no damage to your hands, not even a knock for the next few days, and no going in the cold for a few months."

Young knew TJ, knew the piece of information was for him and probably Brody to hear. Rush needed the voice of reason, sometimes pounded into his head with a mallet.

Rush took a deep breath in, held it with an angry expression, then let it out. "Fine." He said coldly.

"Okay." Young said. "I think we're done for the moment then."

People shifted, sliding off the beds, wandering away. Young waited until they had all left, although Camile gave him a strange look as she went. He put his hand down on the bed, avoiding Rush's feet to turn himself towards the man. He winced as it pulled at his knee.

"Put your leg up on the bed." Rush said sourly.

Young hauled his leg up carefully, straightening his knee with some pain to lay along the side of Rush's leg. He looked at Rush. Rush had lifted his hands off the blankets as Young moved and couldn't quite suppress a slight wince of pain as he put them down again. The man looked tired, really tired, dark circles under his eyes. Worse than usual. His nose was also reddened at the end.

"How are you feeling?" he asked him.

"Fine." Rush replied.

Blatantly a lie. Young shifted a little to settle his leg, trying not to drag at the blankets. "I heard what TJ said about your hands." He said. Rush shot him an irritated look "How bad are they?"

"I'm padded so I can't knock them and smash the skin up." He said. "She's worried about my ears as well." He pushed back his hair with a mittened hand and Young could see the tips of his ears were still reddened and painful looking as well. "Apparently I have poor circulation and was playing with cold consoles, which is why I'm like this and the others aren't."

"Will it all heal up?"

Rush shrugged. "She doesn't think she'll have to cut anything off me."

Young gave him a slightly disbelieving look.

"Apparently if it dies and doesn't just scab off you get surgery to cut away the dead tissue." He said. "She doesn't think that'll be necessary."

"How long are you in bandages?" Young asked.

Rush scowled. "Just until I can get the woman to get them off." He growled.

Young smiled at him in amusement.

Rush glared. "A few days." He clarified with a sigh.

"Will there be any long term effects?"

"Pain apparently." Rush said sarcastically. "Pain, numbness if I'm unlucky. But she says it looks like I've avoided the worst."

"Small mercies." Young said.

Rush looked at him. "Fuck off Young." He said, tiredly.

"I would have thought you would have wanted some company, being as you can't use a laptop."

Rush gave him a look. "And you're offering yourself?" he asked. "Very noble of you."

Young let his eyes float up to the ceiling in exasperation. "I'm off shift," he said, looking back at Rush, "and it's not like I'm gonna be walking around the ship doing anything. I could get someone to get your chess board."

Rush stared at him, and Young had the feeling that Rush was trying to work out Young's angle on this. Young wasn't sure of his angle himself, but sitting here playing chess with his leg up reasonably comfortably was better than lying in his quarters being bored or feeling like he ought to be doing something else.

"Fine." Said Rush. "You can't be any worse than Eli is at chess."

Young was better than Eli at chess. He actually beat Rush a few times. Not as many as Rush beat him, but there were several times it was close.

"Rook to king four."

Young leaned forward and moved Rush's piece for him.

"I underestimated you again." Rush told him with a speculative look.

"I said I played chess. You're gonna win again though, in about three moves."

"Two."

Young moved his bishop. Rush took it. Young put the piece on Rush's side of the board and stared at the board. "There's no way out." He said. "You've got checkmate next move whatever I do."

Rush shifted his hands again in an overly careful way that suggested they were giving him a lot of pain. Young moved his knight, then Rush's queen as directed.

"Checkmate." Rush said.

Young nodded ruefully.

"You've played a lot?" Rush asked him.

"I've spent a lot of time killing time off world and it's more interesting than checkers. I've played chess with a travel board, with rocks with the pieces drawn on in sharpie, with pieces drawn on little scraps of paper. Several of my old gate team were obsessed with it. It was learn or get left out."

"But you enjoy it." Rush's eyes were bird bright and penetrating.

"Yeah." Young admitted with a laugh. "I do."

He shifted his leg and the blanket moved under Rush's hand drawing a sharp inhalation from him. "You need some more of that green tea stuff." Young told him, glancing over at the beaker of now cold green tea the doctor had left.

"I need to not be doped up to the eyeballs." Rush said.

Young shrugged. "It's late, I'm gonna be hitting the sack soon anyway."

He thought Rush looked almost disappointed.

"Look, half a cup of the stuff won't knock you out too bad." Young said, unsure why exactly he was cajoling the man. He moved the chess board aside and slid carefully off the bed, taking a couple of halting and rather stiff steps to the table and taking the beaker.

"Bugger off."

Young grinned. "Seriously Rush, get a grip, drink the damn painkiller and get some sleep."

"Or what?"

"Or I'll set the doctor on you again." Young told him with amusement. "And she'll make you drink the whole cup."

Young could see Rush was tired and in pain. He leaned forward and held the beaker to his lips. "Drink the damn painkiller." He said gently.

He tilted it and was a little surprised, but Rush drank it, over half of it, before moving his head away.

"Do I get a lollipop?" Rush asked cynically.

"What?" Young didn't follow him for a moment, the phrase seeming completely out of context.

"Candy for taking my medicine. That stuff is foul."

Young laughed again. "You wish. But I'll let you beat me at chess again tomorrow if you want."

Rush shrugged. "If you want." He said noncommittally, lying back in the bed, but he didn't meet Young's eyes.

"I'll see you tomorrow." Young said.