As always, thanks for beta to Kimmy, and thanks for moral support and nap appreciation to CWR.

Also, tanyanevidimka has done two lovely pieces of art for INY, chess playing and snuggling - adorable :D - easy to find on google.

"The seedship is on it's way back." Rush said from the doorway.

Young looked up. Rush looked wary. Young leaned back in his chair, pushing the laptop away and stretched to work out the kinks in his shoulders. He had been catching up on reports and briefings since they had arrived back at lunchtime Destiny-time.

"What is the seedship mining?"

"Rare earths."

"Rare earths? Like dirt?"

Rush shot him a look of withering derision. "No, rare minerals, they're just known as rare earths. They're used to make superconductors and ceramics among other things. We need them for the seedship to make dome panels. No rare earths, no dome panels. The seedship needs them as an additive to the glass. They'll also be useful for making some components we are going to need if we want spares for our own technology eventually. Hence this mining is important. Very important."

Young nodded thoughtfully, then looked up. "Do you know anything about geology?"

"I do now, but only in Ancient courtesy of the database." Rush snapped. "Unfortunately we're somewhat short on geologists since Doctor Palmer went AWOL within a week of us getting here. I've got Ramirez who has agreed to start researching this sort of thing when he's on Earth."

Young raised an eyebrow. "And you were going to tell me about this when?" He said, his voice dropping an octave and hardening.

"I am now." Rush's face was typically inexpressive, maybe a little irritated, but Young was getting better at reading his body language now and he was definitely uncomfortable at being challenged. "I need to get more specialists trained up and start cross training in case we lose any. The only candidates for new or missing specialisms are your soldiers."

Young chuckled but did not allow his expression to soften. "So you want to poach my soldiers."

Rush scowled. "If you can give me a better option I'm willing to listen." He replied acerbically.

Young laughed out loud. "That's debatable." He straightened his expression and continued before Rush could interrupt. "So what do you think we need?"

"Ideally?" Rush asked. Young nodded. "I need Volker to start training another astrophysicist. I need at least another couple of engineers to work with Brody on repairs so I've got people who don't need to be told what to do, I'd like to keep Atienza and find another, Barnes maybe. I need someone to consider earth sciences from scratch particularly geology if we're going to continue mining, and a people to work with Inman and Park and their team on hydroponics, food and foraging on planets, so ecology, biology, that kind of thing."

Young shifted in his seat and Rush crossed his arms and leaned on the doorframe, frowning and continuing.

"I need a chemist ideally. I managed to work through the recipe for the dome glass with Dr Jones from the SGC, but I could do with access to one more regularly. That's just for starters. Someone who can start on programming would be good but they'd need to know Ancient, so I'll take Calvos for that, he can work with Chloe and Eli." He squinted slightly at Young. "For all of the Bridge crew to start gaining a working knowledge of Ancient and everyone to start with basic engineering and science knowledge for help with repairs."

Young stared at him.

"You asked." Rush said, uncrossing an arm and pushing his hair out of his eyes. "We're stuck out here for the foreseeable future and whether anyone believes me or not, I currently have no way of getting anyone home. We could survive here, certainly, but if we want to start improving our situation, if you want this to be a working command long term we need to multi-skill. There are too few of us." He gave Young a sardonic half smile. "I just didn't think you'd let me anywhere near your soldiers."

"Separate shifts for their different roles," Young said flatly, "and clear lines of reporting. Brody, Volker, Inman and Eli join Camile's management training, I'm not going to try and make you do it."

Rush laughed but Young continued regardless.

"If you want me and my officers training on science and Ancient as well, being as we're all 'bridge crew', and we're training you and your civilians to be remotely useful in defence, something has to give." Young could see Rush thought he was going to turn him down, and raised a hand to forestall his interruption. "So we put some of the less hard science directed civilians like Inman and less combat oriented military like Becker under Camile's direct supervision, leave her to manage our support services. All the civilians unless physically unable will undertake military training so they can defend the ship at least."

Rush looked at him thoughtfully, evidently running through options in his head. There was a long pause.

"Agreed," Rush said. He gave a twist of his lip, a sardonic half smile, before adding, "if Camile agrees, obviously."

Young nodded, he looked down at the report he had been reading, the latest repair results from while they had been away. "We've got five days before Destiny jumps again. You and I have the last two days as our final shore leave, that's not going to leave time for work rebuilding the dome."

Rush shook his head. "No, but we can get the preparatory work around the dome finished in FTL. I expect Destiny will be making some longer stops in the reasonably near future to get herself back in position in relation to the seedships and to allow us to undertake more repairs."

Young repeated his nod and gave a look at Rush who was looking down, rubbing his jaw with the heel of his hand. Rush looked tired and Young knew he had thrown himself straight back into the repairs around the dome area when he had returned. Young looked for his watch to check the time.

"It's twenty past midnight." Rush said.

Young stood, removed his reading glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose with thumb and index finger.

"And your watch is in my quarters." Rush added. "It ended up in my bag, you forgot to put it on this morning on the planet."

"Show's how much time I've had to use it today."

Rush nodded. "You should get some sleep." He said turning to leave.

Young stood, and cleared his throat. Rush stopped and turned back.

"You want to stay?" Young asked quietly.

xxxoooxxx

Rush was already running through the crew roster in his head as he turned.

"You want to stay?" Young asked looking away almost as soon as he'd said it.

The offer stopped Rush's train of thought dead. Rush realised it was the first time Young had actually asked him to stay for no specific reason.

There was silence and Young looked up after a moment. Rush watched him. Their eyes met. Young shifted uncomfortably and a flush was creeping up his neck. Young looked nervous and maybe a little hopeful. Rush felt tired, and although he was not sure he wanted to admit it, the idea of sleeping alone was deeply unappealing.

He stepped in before he could second guess himself and hit the hatch closure. "Yeah," he said. "Come on, let's get some sleep."

Young was already making his way to the bed, shedding outer clothes. Rush followed him to the bed, stripping himself, putting his phone on the counter by the bed and sliding in next to Young. Young turned out the light and as Young turned back towards him he rolled into the other man almost gratefully. Shifting his position so he was a little further down the bed he allowed Young to wrap around him, after a moment fisting his fingers into the other man's t-shirt in between them.

"You okay?" Young asked him, a murmur into his hair.

Rush sighed. "Yeah. Just tired." He rested his forehead on Young's chest.

"'Kay." Young said. He shifted, sliding a knee between Rush's and settling their weight against each other more securely.

Rush lay there, listening as Young's breathing drifted into sleep, letting himself settle into to the warmth. He realised he was too tired to continue worrying about how much he was appreciating not sleeping alone. He knew what date it was and at his count they had slept in the same bed fifteen of the last twenty five nights. He was getting used to it and he realised he did not care.

Whether he deserved the comfort or not was a completely different matter. Rush lay there with his eyes closed, listening to Young breathe. He took a lot longer before he followed Young into sleep.

He awoke the next morning when the alarm on his phone went off. He struggled out of Young's embrace and grabbed it to turn it off. He looked back over to Young, who was blinking at him blearily.

"I have to go." Rush said, climbing out of bed.

Young slid out opposite, giving him a look. Rush avoided his gaze.

"You sleep well?" Young asked.

Rush nodded. "Yeah." He said, pulling on his clothes.

He had, once he had finally fallen asleep he had slept like a log. He shifted uncomfortably. "I'll get on with refridgerator and the dome preparation." He said. "I've got the late bridge shift."

He could see Young wanted to ask something and thought it was probably would he see him after.

"I'll see you later." He said a little roughly, and walked out before Young could continue the conversation.

xxxoooxxx

The seedship arrived back a couple of hours later. Young went to the bridge to watch it dock then spent the rest of the morning with Inman, Park, Camile, Scott and Brody discussing the priorities for the final days of foraging from the planets. Of the five planets only Hoth 2 had been less useful, only providing salt, but Young supposed that it was just randomly in range of the other four planets.

Tatouine was of limited use, but had provided a significant supply of calcium carbonate for the air scrubbers, not that they needed it yet, but no-one was taking any chances, and as writing chalk for teaching and notices. There were also other substances that had been retrieved including salt and some alkali which would apparently be useful.

As regards food their situation was comparatively excellent. They hadn't been this well supplied since they arrived. Becker and Inman's conservative estimate was that they had five months food if they continued tight rationing. Young had allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief when they had all left.

Brody had reported that Rush had sent him and he had left Rush with Atienza and Barnes working on the second refridgeration room. It seemed Rush had already coopted the two for engineering, but a quick check of the rota spreadsheet on the laptop had established that neither had any other shift today and Young had let it go.

The afternoon was spent in front of the laptop again, trying to build a draft of what a military training schedule would look like for the civilian population. It wasn't as if they had enough ammunition to start training them on a firing range and they had already been undertaking general fitness with the military. After a couple of hours he called in Scott and James and handed his very basic notes off to the pair.

"What do you think?" He asked them. "What would you add."

They sat hunched over the laptop reading through.

"I think you can add more hand to hand combat to that." Vanessa mused. "And more war games."

Young waited for her to think it through.

"People get bored." She said, looking up. "You'll get them to engage more if it's entertainment as well."

He nodded.

"Teach some of the science staff explosives." Scott said. "They've got the background understanding to manage it and if we get them interested they might start to make us more, we could do with more munitions. And teach Volker to fly the shuttle."

"Why Volker?" Young asked curiously.

"He's an astrophysicist." Scott said. "And I think Rush will miss him less than Brody or Eli."

"I don't know what Rush has against him." James said.

"I always guessed it's cause he doesn't fight back." Scott offered. "Rush doesn't respect people who are pushovers. But I think if we're talking flying spaceships, an astrophysicist is probably a good option from a research point of view and if we're working on the hull then he's less likely to be actually conducting repairs than Brody and they work well together on those projects."

Young nodded. Both points were good.

After the discussion concluded he went to find Rush. It took some time, the new refridgeration room had already been completed and when Young arrived Becker was supervising several crew members moving supplies in. Rush was not on the bridge or in the Core Interface Room but Barnes and Atienza were sitting in the mess hall and suggested Rush had talked about running through some figures on the Ancient database.

He found Rush in the Chair Room, but everything was dark except the console that Rush was working at. Rush looked up at him and scowled.

"I thought I'd put this room off limits." Young said in irritatedly.

"I'm not using anything related to the chair." Rush snapped back. "I just wanted a quiet console, and where better to find one than a room that's off limits."

"What are you doing?" Young asked him walking over.

Rush took a moment to reply and Young guessed he was deciding how much to tell him.

"Looking at some data on power flows." Rush replied.

"Power flows where."

"The cold area." Rush replied, his tone a little aggressive, obviously expecting a fight. "I wanted to look at what the power requirements might be when we bring that area back online."

Rush opened his mouth to speak again, and Young reached out and placed his hand on Rush's upper arm to quiet him so he could speak. Rush flinched under his hand and Young stopped before he had even started. He looked quickly into his eyes, seeing something startled and…something… that shut down fast. Young squeezed Rush's arm and felt a very slight shudder. Young searched his face again hesitating and almost snatched his hand away, but a split second decision made him leave it there.

Only a couple of seconds had passed, a momentary but noticeable pause, before Rush continued more slowly.

"I had some time free." Rush said.

"Hey, what you do in your spare time..." Young said.

Rush took a deep breath, Young realised he was holding his, waiting for Rush to snap something and pull away but Rush let his breath out.

"Considering what it is, there's some extremely large power conduits passing into that area ." Rush said voice still a little slow. "I've not been able to track where they come from, they pass through the heavily damaged area and through the large hull breach on the underside we haven't worked on yet."

Young's fingers had tensed somewhat on Rush's arm and he took his hand away. Something passed over Rush's face but Young was not able to read it. He had the sense that something had happened but neither he nor Rush appeared to understand it as Rush was looking uncertain also. Rush stepped back and leaned on the console continuing the conversation despite the incomprehensible subtext.

"I'd be interested to find out what they are for," Rush said, his voice a little more normal, "I was running a quick analysis of their probable maximum level and it's high."

"When did you find out about these conduits?" Young asked.

"When we were stuck in there, there was the back of one in the open console I was looking in." Rush said.

Young rolled his eyes suddenly coming to a realisation. "And you went back to take a look when?" He asked pointedly.

"I went back to the secured area to see if I could see any conduits entering the area." Rush growled. "I'm not a complete idiot."

"On your own into a dangerous area." Young snapped.

"I think I'm aware of the inherent risks, and I wasn't in an area that was liable to be open to vacuum or coolant fluid."

"On your own in a dangerous area!" Young repeated a little more sharply, the image of Rush unconcious, wrapped in a blanket and covered in frost surfacing in his memory. "I don't want you to..."

"So you're going to restrict my movements..."

"Rush!"

"I've got enough..."

"Nick!" Young reached out and touched Rush's arm again to stop him cutting in again.

Rush closed his mouth. Then opened it again.

"You keep touching me." He said suspiciously, looking at Young through the curtain of his hair.

"You keep interrupting me." Young closed his hand round Rush's arm and squeezed his bicep again gently. "Look, when we pulled you out of there it was a nightmare. I don't mean trouble I mean absolutely fucking terrifying. I thought all four of you were dead when we got there." He swallowed hard, feeling his fingers tighten again, unsure of what to say. "I sat on the kino sled with you and TJ on the way back. I thought you were going to die." He paused again. "I thought you were going to die. Don't go back there on your own."

He knew his voice was too soft for it to be an order. He took a deep breath of his own, looking at Rush and trying to read his expression. His body language said 'startled' Young thought. He let the breath sigh out then squeezed Rush's arm again and left, feeling Rush's eyes on his back as he walked out.

He barely saw Rush for the next couple of days. He spent most of the next day on the bridge, followed by working with Brody's party, welding as he was directed in a corridor near the dome. According to Brody, Rush had worked on the dome area for most of the day but had returned to a console sometime before Young had arrived, ostensibly to check the progress of the manufactory and run some sensor sweeps of the area. Young suspected Rush was avoiding him but he was not going to push the issue.

The following day Young was shuttle pilot, ferrying load after load up from Down Below, mainly bales of a fibrous plant that he was assured would provide fabric and crates of roots and a weird brown nut that stank and stained the fingers orange. By the time he fell into his bed the whole day of concentration on piloting meant he did not have any energy to do anything except sleep, immediately.

He woke early the next morning, hurrying out of bed to try and shower off the worst of the orange stains and to pack his bag for the last overnight shore leave. This one would not have any rest period at the end. The area within reach of the gate was pretty much foraged out, but this would be a last desperate push to get all of the items that had been listed as non-essential but to retrieve if possible and had been located on Big River. They would be bringing back wood for carving, crates of dirt to start up the hydroponics as soon as it was available, grass and reeds for baskets, fibre from the herbivores, sand and a series of other requested supplies from the crafts project list which was going with them.

When he got to the gateroom, Inman, Camile and Brody were hunched over the numbered list, written in one of the last sharpie markers on a piece of waste decking. On a separate piece, Calvos was drawing a rough map and adding the locations of requested supplies.

Young pushed a kino sled covered in crates out of the way and walked over.

"Are we ready?" He asked.

"Two minutes." Said Calvos, adding to the map then handing the precious sharpie marker back to Eli.

Rush walked up, pack in hand and stared at the list and map. There were big dark circles under his eyes, and he looked worn out. Young raised an eyebrow at him, receiving only a slight scowl in response.

"Are we ready?" Rush asked.

Calvos grinned at him. "Yeah, we're ready." He put the map on the kino sled and they watched as the gate hissed out.

"Come on then." Said Young, and walked through the wormhole.

For the first day it seemed that the gate was open more than it was closed. The crates of dirt went through first, filled, sealed and slid through to be stacked awaiting the refitting of the garden. As soon as they were done the retrieval of other items on this list started.

By the time it got to the evening, Young ached all over. His back and shoulders were protesting strongly at the amount of lifting he had done and his bad knee had a decidedly uncomfortable twinge to it that suggested that Susannah would be deeply unhappy with him and that it might be an idea to use the stick for a couple of days when he got back.

The group on the planet was the same as their previous trips with a few extras. Young had wondered who would bunk with who, it was going to be pretty crowded with three in a shelter, but by the time it came to dinner everyone was so exhausted he was too tired to think about it. People started to drift off to bed as soon as the food was consumed, and it wasn't until he was looking at Rush who was nodding over his bowl of food, he realised that no one had any intention of bunking with them. Lucky really.

He pushed himself to his feet and walked over to Rush.

"Hey there." Awkwardly on sore muscles he sat himself on the log next to Rush. "You need to eat that up and get into bed." He said quietly.

Rush gave him what might have been a glare if it's effect had not been completely overwhelmed by the sheer exhaustion that was apparent on his face. Young nudged him with his elbow.

"Hey, have you had any sleep the last couple of nights?" Young asked him.

"Some." Rush replied.

Young could see that was hedging, he suspected that some meant Rush had grabbed an hour or two, or had maybe fallen asleep over a console. He had no idea what the man had been doing but it definitely wasn't sleeping. He nudged Rush.

"Come on, eat up, then we can sleep."

Rush found some focus from somewhere and scooped the last few mouthfuls of food into his mouth. Young dragged himself to his feet, took the bowl out of Rush's hand, dumped it near the fire and look a look around.

With the exception of Brody who was on watch staring out over the dark grassland, they were the last ones not in bed. Young turned back to Rush, grabbed his hand and hauled him to his feet. Rush came to his feet a little unsteadily, lurching into Young who grabbed at him to stop them both going over. They swayed there a moment, clasped chest to chest, arms round each other.

"I don't think we wanna get caught like this." Young murmured. "Let's get to bed Rush."

The hay on the pallet in the shelter was a little hard packed and they had not had the time to add any more when they had arrived. Young did not think Rush would notice it though and he certainly would not. They struggled out of clothes and into the bed. They had not thought to light the lamp, but Young could feel that Rush was tense, laying on his back next to him. He reached over him, grabbed the arm on the other side and rolled Rush against him, sliding an arm under his neck and bodily shifting him so he was settled against Young's chest.

Rush had tensed, but Young wrapped the arm behind Rush firmly around his back and used the other hand to grab Rush's arm, pulling it to wrap around his waist.

"Sleep." He said firmly.

He felt the moment that Rush gave up, all the tension going out of him as he practically collapsed into Young's side. Young chuckled quietly, but it appeared that Rush was asleep almost within moments. Young followed him quickly after.

Sunlight filtering through the shelter woke him where he lay on his back, staring into the roof of the shelter. The camp was still quiet and Rush still asleep curled against his side, an arm round his waist. Young took a moment to just lay there, warm and relaxed. This was the last time they would do this, they would not be staying on the planet tonight. Destiny's departure was scheduled for first thing the next morning Destiny time, which was late this evening planet time. Everything had to be off the planet at least two hours before then.

He knew he was going to miss this, sleeping surrounded by the scent of plants and earth, waking to sunshine and fresh air and a warm body completely relaxed into him. They were never this relaxed together on the ship and he had come to the conclusion that he enjoyed having someone to curl round, someone who wanted to be there, relaxed with Young's arms wrapped round them. Even if it was Rush, the idea of whom relaxed and cuddled up was almost laughable. He shifted slightly to look down at the man sleeping against his chest. Rush was still sound asleep, hair half across his face, mouth open a crack, drooling slightly into his beard. Young stifled a chuckle, he doubted he looked any better in his sleep, and Rush shifted, closing his mouth and sleepily rubbing his damp cheek against Young's chest without waking. Young wrapped his arms round Rush letting himself doze.