Things settle down, repairs commence and Young and Rush seek to find a level on which they function.
In other news - hey peeps extra long chapter! As always kimmy4eytj and CleanWhiteRoom have been truly awesome in beta-ing and helping me work through some issues. Also, alea_senpai has drawn some lovely Rush/Young art kind of inspired by this! It's on Livejournal.
They spent the rest of the morning talking about innocuous topics, or at least as related to Destiny, music, literature, television which Young found himself surprised that Rush engaged with at all. There was a reasonably spectacular discussion about politics which did not quite become an argument. The discussion rambled on, right up to the point that Young's stomach announced itself loudly. He looked his watch and realised with some shock it was lunchtime already.
After a short argument, which Rush lost, Young repeated his actions of the morning, walking out, collecting food and returning with wraps and roast vegetables. The food stores were at their highest levels since they had arrived, but diversity was still low. He banged on the hatch with an elbow but there was no answer. He wondered if Rush had taken the opportunity to leave and contemplated calling out, but did not want to catch anyone else's attention. They were off the beaten track but sound echoed down Destiny's corridors and nowhere in the inhabited area was that far away from people. Scowling, he juggled the food and canteen, managing to catch the door release with his elbow and stepped into the room.
Rush was asleep, curled up on the bed in a tight ball. Young's irritation at being shut out evaporated. Rush looked vulnerable and strangely younger when he slept, his tired face still worn, but without the creases caused by his perpetual scowl or focused stare. The covers were half off him, but his hair had half fallen across his face. Young sat down on the edge of the bed and put the plates on the floor. Rush continued to sleep despite the movement of the mattress.
Young watched him for a moment, wondering exactly how little sleep the other man had had over the preceding few days to make him this exhausted. He wasn't sure he wanted to know. This was still a bizarre situation, and nothing he could have imagined when they arrived on Destiny. He stared at Rush, if someone had suggested he would have been in this position when he was on Icarus he would have told them they were insane. Things had changed so incredibly far, for everyone.
He bent and picked up his plate, eating silently while watching Rush sleep. He finished his food and took a swig from the canteen before shaking Rush's shoulder gently.
"Hey sleepy."
"Mmmph?"
"You need to eat." Young let a note of command edge into his voice.
Rush's answer was an indistinct but apparently negative mumble. He rolled Rush over bodily. The man uncurled as he was rolled onto his back.
"Fuck off." That utterance was distinct.
"Wake up Nick." Young poked him again. "Eat, drink, then you can sleep again." He considered a moment. "I'll even join you."
Rush rolled and glared at him, then pushed himself up to sitting, shoving his hair back off his face and kicking the blankets off.
"Eat." Young repeated firmly, pushing the plate at him.
Rush took the plate and ate, apparently hungry now he was awake. Young watched him, sipping from the canteen then passing it over when Rush had finished. He put the plate on the side and laid himself down again, sprawling on top of the blankets.
Rush closed the canteen, dumped the bottle by his head and to Young's slight surprise sprawled out along Young's side throwing an arm and leg over him and falling asleep almost instantly. Definitely tired. He yawned, folding his hand over the top of Rush's where it rested on his chest and dozed.
xxxoooxxx
Rush woke to Young shaking him gently.
"Hey, Nick."
He blinked and rubbed at his face before focussing on Young, who was staring into his face. Young was sitting up in bed next to him.
"We ought to get some dinner." Young said. "It's dinner time."
Rush took a deep breath and sat up. "Yeah, okay."
"Feeling better?" Young asked him.
It was a rather inane question he thought, but he answered anyway. "Somewhat." He straightened his shirts which were riding up his stomach. "Better than last night anyway."
Young stood and grabbed his pants from the one chair in the room. Rush looked away as he struggled into them, looking round for his own. His jeans had been laid over the end of the bed. He picked them up, noting the frayed patch on the ass which was liable to become a hole to match the small one already worn through the right knee where he kept kneeling down to repair things. Time to requisition some leather scraps for patches.
He pulled them on and stood up, stamping his feet into his shoes. Young was looking at him expectantly.
"Ready?"
"As always." He responded.
They walked out of the small room and made their way to the mess hall. Brody was in the corridor outside, apparently having just finished his own meal. He gave them a slightly surprised look.
"Apparently," Rush growled, "having a migraine does not excuse one from being forced to eat whatever is being served up in the mess."
Brody grinned, looking from Rush to Young and back again. "I hope you're feeling better."
"Better than I was this morning." Rush admitted sourly.
He strode past Brody and into the mess hall, looking around for an empty seat. There was an entire empty table by the far wall and he grabbed the bowl that Becker held out to him and sat down. A few moments later Young slid in opposite him. Rush did not look up.
A foot poked his shin. "Are you okay?" Young asked quietly.
He squinted up through his hair. Young had not looked up either, was stirring the soup in his bowl with a piece of the heavy bread served up with it. Rush looked back down at his soup.
"I'm fine. I just didn't think you'd want your soldiers to know you've been fraternising with the enemy, so to speak." He muttered.
There was a long pause. "Thank you," Young said quietly, "I think."
Rush snorted but said nothing. They finished their meal in companionable silence. Rush listened to the late dinner time conversation around them. None of it appeared to be in relation to them. Scraping the last of the soup from his bowl with the last piece of bread he pushed his bowl away.
"So," he said, "am I permitted to go and see what my team have been doing in my absence?"
Young looked up at him and laughed. "I guess so."
"Good." Rush said looking around the room.
"See you later?" Young asked him in a low voice. "My place?"
Rush considered how much he might want some personal space and to get some work done, compared to the nightmares and unpleasantness he would likely have sleeping alone when he finally did have to get some sleep. There was no contest really, Young was a surprisingly low maintenance bed partner all things considered. He regarded Young for a moment, before speaking.
"Yeah." He agreed.
Young nodded and Rush stood, catching Young's eye and giving a small nod before he walked out.
"Hey, you seem to be getting on better with Colonel Young."
Rush looked up at Eli's voice, shooting him a sour look. The young man fell in step with him.
"Hey," Eli said again, "Look, I think it's good you guys are friends..."
Rush schooled his expression to severity, hoping that Eli got the impression he was digging himself deeper into trouble.
"...it's not like you both have a lot of friends you know…" It evidently worked as Eli's voice faltered off.
"Thank you Eli for your concern about my interpersonal skills." Rush said allowing the irritation to bleed into his voice.
Eli winced and Rush twitched his lip in amusement.
"Now, do you want to tell me how you got on with the repairs to the air valve for the dome corridor?"
"It's not easy." Eli said. "I'm working without all the parts I need. I was thinking about seeing if there's an area we're not using where I can steal parts from," he waved his hand vaguely in the air, "'cause I mean it's not something we can go without anywhere we're using."
"Okay," Rush said. "I can make some time this evening now, we can run some scans and look for areas where the life support is already down and being covered by neighbouring areas."
Eli nodded thoughtfully. "That would do it."
"Then we can go and get one."
Eli regarded him cautiously before venturing "Are you sure you're..."
"Yes." Rush's voice was flat and hard.
"And Colonel Young won't..."
The look Rush shot Eli cut him off.
"Okay, okay!" Eli raised his hands in a placatory gesture. "Just trying to prevent a few hassles later you know."
Rush ignored the statement and they turned into the core interface room.
xxxoooxxx
Young stared at the list on the laptop screen. A lot of the previous projects had been focussed on a single place in the ship, a component that was broken, a specific hole in the hull, but the damage to the dome area was spread throughout that whole area of the ship and multi-systemic.
Not only had the heat damaged the dome itself, it had resulted in an influx of superheated gases to the room beneath. The inside of the dome room required extensive repairs which could not reasonably be completed until the dome itself was back in place. Additionally the heat bleed into surrounding areas had resulted in burned out or frankly melted components. Some could simply be pulled out and replaced, others required the whole section to be excised back to intact areas and replaced in it's entirety. It was an extensive piece of work and required a significant number of crew allocated to work at the tasks listed in front of him under the supervision of various members of the science team.
He leaned back in his chair and stared at the screen. He had only been up for a few hours, but he was already quite ready to go to bed, he stretched and went back to work. It was a task he could live without this evening, but it was only quarter past ten and he could not justify going to bed yet, at least not until this was finished.
The sound of the door startled him not quite an hour later. He looked up with a start. Rush wandered in, hitting the door closure behind him.
"I wasn't expecting you...this early." He said surprised as Rush walked over to the bed and sat down. In truth he had not really expected Rush to come at all, had considered it far more likely Rush would choose to work all night.
Rush deposited a thick but very battered paperback on the counter and emptied his pockets next to it, his radio, a mobile phone, notebook, pencil stub and a few other oddments in a heap. "It is my day off." Rush said, pulling off his outer shirt and kicking his shoes off. He gave Young a look. "And I don't fancy sleeping with my nightmares."
Young gave him a surprised look as he stripped off his pants and slid into the bed grabbing the book and opening it, back propped against the wall behind the bed.
"What are you reading?" He asked curiously.
"Stephen King's The Stand." Rush said. "It was Spencer's apparently. It was in the bag of his personal stuff Chu found hidden in the small square storage room." He looked up at Young. "I have no idea if it's any good."
"Doesn't matter." Young said trying not to sound too eager. "Can I have it after you?"
"Not read it?" Rush asked with a chuckle.
"Probably the only book on the ship I haven't."
"Me too, you can have it when I'm done."
Young stood and stripped quickly before sliding into the bed next to Rush. Rush was opening the front of the book, turning to the first page.
"Haven't you started it yet?" Young asked curiously.
Rush gave him a suspicious look. "You're going to read over my shoulder." He accused.
It was Young's turn to laugh. "Of course."
He leaned against Rush's side, resting his shoulder against the other man's. He heard Rush huff, but the man shifted his hold on the book slightly so it was tilted towards both of them, moving his arm slightly behind Young so he was more comfortable. Leaning into Rush, Young settled in to read the book Rush held.
xxxoooxxx
Being in FTL gave Young the time and relative security to order a complete survey of the accessible parts of the seed ship. Whilst many of the crew were involved with the work around the dome area, those who were not and were otherwise unoccupied, Young scheduled into surveying parties. The seed ship, with the exception of a couple of very badly damaged areas was in reasonably good condition, better than Destiny.
Starting with the bridge of the seed ship and working outwards along the corridors known as safe towards the manufactory, rooms were catalogued and consoles photographed for identification as generic or specialised and what their particular use was. The science teams identified many of the rooms and consoles at least to the specialised or generic definition, and after Eli managed to rig up one of the holographic emitters in the observation lounge, the "What's my function?" game became a staple of the evening entertainment for a week or so. Although the guesses were usually wildly improbable.
Rush was another surprise. Despite the fact that he appeared to have gone back to his usual pattern of working late into the night and getting practically no sleep, he seemed to appear across the table from Young in the mess usually once a day, and over the fortnight had appeared in Young's room three times to sleep. Although once he had slid in at some point in the middle of the night, without waking Young, surprising him by his presence in the morning.
All in all it had been an almost pleasant couple of weeks. Which meant that he was going to enjoy this announcement even more than usual, he thought looking at the report from Inman. He stood and went to find her.
xxxoooxxx
"Inman has finished testing the last of the plants from down below." Young said as he walked into the core interface room. "There's a new tea. The plant that she pulled for further testing at the last minute after we'd collected eight crates."
Rush looked up. Young was grinning at him.
"And?" Rush demanded sourly. There must be something interesting about it to make him look so smug.
"It tastes pretty weird..." Young said slowly, looking extremely pleased with himself, "but apparently it has caffeine in it."
Rush blinked.
"I'm rationing it." Young said with a smirk.
"Bastard." Rush said without much heat.
Young chuckled and walked away. Rush realised Brody and Eli were staring at him.
"What?" he snapped.
"Did you really just call the Colonel a bastard and he just laugh and walk away?" Eli asked.
Volker looked nervous and Brody just tilted his head to one side, waiting for the response.
"No." Rush said flatly, "evidently it was a figment of your imagination as nothing like that could ever happen."
"Not without the universe exploding from a serious warp in reality." Eli muttered.
"Sorry?" Rush's voice was sharp.
"Nothing."
"Then I suggest you get your tools and go and collect the next air valve then." He said pointedly.
Brody and Eli grabbed radios and equipment and left quickly. He glared at Volker, who was still giving him a strange look.
"What are you waiting for?" He snapped.
"Uh...nothing." Volker faltered.
"Well, being as you're due on the bridge for your shift in," he checked the time on his phone, "forty minutes, I suggest you go and get some food while you still can."
Volker left the room at speed and Rush sighed and shut down the console. Sometimes being in charge here was not too far different from supervising students, age difference notwithstanding. He ran down his mental list of tasks, check on Barnes and Atienza who were supervising more removal of damaged panelling near the dome, get lunch and catch up with Chloe for some calculations after she came off her bridge shift.
Chloe had taken over quite a large number of the bridge shifts, covering for the rest of the science team who were engaged in repairs as her skills were still focused on the theoretical rather than practical. However he needed her to run some scans checking the effects as various parts were replaced, and also to run some calculations on power flows around the dome. He was also keen for her to check some calculations of power flows through the cold area to see if a second eye over the problem concurred with his own assessments. He did not really doubt it would, but no sensible scientist relied on only one assessment of risk before considering trying anything risky.
He walked out to the dome area. Sidling past a stack of heat warped bulkhead panels he found Barnes, Atienza and a team of four in the centre of a corridor stripped of panelling, bare structure, conduits and systems open to the air. The group were carefully manhandling a new bulkhead panel off a kino sled and onto a stack of three more in the centre of the corridor. He waited till they had finished, looking around, noting the careful stack of reclaimed rivets and scrap metal in a crate lid, ready to be recycled in the manufactory. The group finished and Barnes turned to Rush.
"Doctor Rush." She greeted him. "We're almost done with this corridor. She gestured at the stack of bulkhead panels. "We just need to bring the rest of the new panels in and take the scrap back to the manufactory. We should be done before dinner."
"Good." He said, meaning it, they were now a day and a half ahead of schedule. "Are you all still off shift tomorrow?"
Only one of the group shook his head. Rush pursed his lips.
"Fine, well the rest of you, Calvos is starting teaching a basic Ancient course in the observation lounge tomorrow, I suggest make sure you're there." He paused a moment. "Good work" He added, then walked off.
"Learn Ancient?" He heard behind him, a stage whisper. "Us?" One of the airmen in a faintly disbelieving voice.
"Well I'm going to go." That was definitely Barnes. "If we stay here it's useful and if we go back it'll be better for my promotion..."
He walked out of earshot, trying not to laugh. He gave it about three months before Barnes was part of the science team.
xxxoooxxx
Young watched as the airman in the chair twitched and looked around in surprise.
"Doctor Jones?" He asked.
The man focussed on him and nodded.
"I'm Colonel Young, welcome to Destiny." Young stepped forward and held out his hand. "Pleased to meet you. It's a bit odd the first time. Not used the stones before?"
The man shook his hand. "No, first time."
"Well, welcome to the other side of the universe. This is Eli Wallace, one of our science team. He'll give you a bit of an orientation and show you the manufactory. Hopefully I'll see you at lunch."
Eli greeted the still a little bemused scientist and shepherded him off out of the room. Behind Young another airman sat down in the chair. As Young turned the airman reached out for the stone and as soon as it hit the plate he looked up and stared at Young.
"Everett?"
The inflection and accent was unmistakeable. "David. I wasn't expecting you."
"I wasn't expecting to come." He said, standing. "But I'm here to bring back Airman Stanford. His wife's called, a medical emergency, his daughter has cancer."
The statement stopped Young's irritated train of thought dead in its tracks. He pulled out his radio.
"This is Young, Lieutenant Johansen are you available."
"Johansen here. I'm in the infirmary, Colonel. I'm not busy."
"I'll be there shortly."
xxxoooxxx
Young sat at the counter, resting on his elbow, chin propped on his fist, staring into space a mug of tea gone cold in front of him. He should get up, go somewhere, do something, but he was too tired. Too tired to do anything but too stressed to want to even find his way to bed. He contemplated going and getting his ration of Brody's hooch, but he had been avoiding that. Avoiding it enough that his personal ration was building up. He guessed he could save it. Maybe donate it next time they had something to actually celebrate. Alcohol was not a good idea for him right at the moment. He was too tired to even run.
Young sighed, checking his watch, it was gone midnight. He was tired, in a bad mood and his knee ached. He had been concentrating all day on being supportive to Airman Stanford, organising a schedule for him on the stones to get the most time possible with his family and when he got back concentrating on not thinking about how much he wanted to hit David. He really did not want to be alone.
What he wanted, being completely honest with himself, was to go to bed and curl up and sleep for at least seven hours, ideally with Rush. He wondered about the likelihood of inducing Rush to come to bed. He was entirely not sure how Rush would take any such request. He stared at the cold mug again. Still, even being rebuffed he did not have that much to lose did he? At least it would get him up from here, break into the inertia of exhaustion.
He stood and left the room. The original agreement had been if they had a very bad day they would likely fall into bed together, Rush's words not his, so he was going to find Rush.
He eventually found Rush at a console just outside of the area under repair round the dome. Young looked around. The area was deserted, he had not seen anyone in the corridors since he had left the observation lounge, and Rush was unsurprisingly alone. He walked towards Rush, but the man did not look up as Young approached.
"Nick." Young opened.
"Colonel." Rush said in irritation, still staring at the screen.
So that was how it was going to be. "You don't even know why I'm here." He countered.
"I can imagine." Rush said sardonically.
"It's late Nick."
"I'm aware of that."
"You're still working." Young shifted and leaned against the wall.
"I haven't finished it yet."
"When will you be finished?" Young tried to keep his voice calm.
Rush looked at Young over his shoulder, scowling. "It won't be completed any faster with you hassling me."
Young shrugged. "You need to sleep."
"I need to finish this set of diagnostics so that the work can continue in the morning." Rush said and turned back to the console.
Young watched him for a few moments realising he was getting nowhere. He needed a complete change of tack here. He mused for a while as Rush tapped at the console, what was most likely to make Rush consider finishing up here for the night. He wanted to drag Rush off, pull him into bed, curl up in the warmth and hide.
"Watching me is not going to make any difference to the outcome of these diagnostics." Rush growled.
He took another look around and listened for a moment, wondering who would hear if he just asked. There was no-one around as far as he could tell, there should not be, the area was restricted, but still... He considered tapping Rush on the shoulder, but discarded the idea as counterproductive as Rush was liable to snap at him. Impulsively he decided to damn all proprieties and walked up behind Rush, putting his arms round the other man. Rush froze.
"Staying up all night is not going to enhance your productivity." Young said, not letting go and resting his chin on Rush's shoulder.
Despite how risky this felt, to be this close in a public area, he could feel himself wanting to fold himself into the warmth coming from Rush.
"Trying to do this when I've got a horde of morons buzzing round like flies on shit is even less productive." Rush snapped back.
"Fine." Young responded firmly, "That suits me; I'll borrow them for the morning to look at some of the arising issues on the seed ship." He settled his arms round Rush's waist, stepping a little further in to lean into the warmth of his back. "Then you can have them back when you're finished."
"What are you doing?" Rush asked, still standing stiffly, but no longer concentrating on the screen.
"I'm tired, today's kinda taken it out of me." Young said with a sigh. "I've been managing David all day and TJ and I had to go back to Earth with Stanford for a two hour meeting. His kid's been diagnosed with leukaemia and we've been trying to arrange for a consistent replacement for him to exchange with on a regular basis." He let his head rest against the side of Rush's. Rush's hair was ticklish against his cheek. "I wanna go to bed, but I could do with some company." He admitted.
"So you're cuddling me in a corridor." Rush said. "Seems a little dangerous, considering we're where anyone could walk up."
Young could not see Rush's face but he sounded amused and his body relaxed a little.
"I've not seen anyone since I left the observation lounge and this area is off limits to anyone who isn't part of a repair crew. There shouldn't be anyone walking around in this area." Young countered. "Not even you on your own. But it got your attention though." Young felt a little embarrassed. "Anyway, we do it all the time." He said a little defensively. Damn, he felt about twelve asking like this.
"Not in this context." Rush said wryly. "But yes. We do now I suppose." His head tilted down to the console and his hands began to move again. "Let me finish this. I suppose I can leave the longer diagnostics running."
He tilted his head so he could see down the corridor and kept an ear out for any sounds, but rested himself against Rush and let himself just appreciate the physical contact while Rush worked on whatever he was doing. It still amazed him that he had not realised how much he missed physical contact and something that at least passed for vague affection from someone until this bizarre situation had occurred. He sighed and one of Rush's hands brushed lightly over the back of his knuckles where his hand rested on Rush's stomach.
"How is the child?" Rush asked.
"Huh?" Young asked, miles away in his own thoughts.
"Airman Stanford's child?"
"Oh, they're pretty positive she's gonna make a full recovery with treatment."
"Good." Rush said.
"She's twelve and she's gonna lose all her hair with the chemo, but Stanford spoke to her on the phone and was saying she's already planning on what wigs she wants. At the moment she's thinking of a long blonde one and a pink one apparently."
Rush chuckled.
"The air force is covering all her medical bills and they're relocating the family temporarily to closer to Homeworld Command so that Stanford can be there as much as possible, even for short periods."
Rush locked the screen and turned. Young relaxed his arms enough so that Rush could spin round, and he was surprised again when Rush wrapped his arms round his shoulders and hugged.
"How old is she?"
"Twelve." Young said. "And she's already read into the programme so she knows her dad is in different bodies."
"Good."
Young rested his head on Rush's shoulder, glad that Rush just let him stay there for a moment.
"What was the problem with Telford?" Rush asked.
Young huffed out a breath against Rush's neck. "He wants his crew to be involved in the exploration of the seed ship."
Rush snorted. "He would."
"But can you see Gutierrez' team being happy to just catalogue and move on?" Young asked. "I just don't trust them not to touch anything or to know what's liable to blow up on them."
Rush let out a proper laugh. "I thought I was meant to be the distrustful obstructive one?" He asked sardonically.
"You probably trust them even less than I do." Young said. "And I trust Gutierrez even less than I do David. He has that kid in a candy store look every time he gets here." He said sourly.
"I knew I'd bring you round to my way o' thinking eventually." Rush said sounding amused.
Young chuckled, but didn't reply, just relaxing into the comfort of physical contact. He realised he was swaying slightly and shifted which made him wince as his weight shifted across his aching knee.
"Your knee?" Rush asked.
"Yeah." Young said. "One of Gutierrez minions swapped with me. I have no idea what he was doing, but it feels like he's been on his knees all day."
"They were examining the corridor with all the bulkhead panels removed." Rush said. "The one Barnes' team have just stripped for repairs. I've powered down everything but the lighting so I didn't think they could do much damage."
"Probably was on his damn knees all day." Young shifted his weight uncomfortably.
"Is Telford still here?" Rush shifted an arm round Young's waist slipping his shoulder under Young's arm so he was taking some of Young's weight.
Young tried not to sigh again with the relief as it took some pressure off his knee. "Yeah. There was a quick game of musical chairs with bodies so Telford could swap with Stanford."
"I'm not surprised he's putting himself forward to swap with Stanford. He's just itching to get more time here." Rush released his arms a little. "Come on. Let's get some sleep."
xxxoooxxx
Rush looked down at the console. He had analysed the diagnostics that had run overnight and run a few more based on the output of the original outputs, pulling up the results at his usual console in the core interface room, blissfully un-harassed by the rest of the science team or random crew. True to his word the previous night Young had kept them all busy on the seed ship all morning.
Considering the fact they were over a day ahead of the planned schedule it had not made much of a difference taking the time out last night and it was clear that Young had needed the time out. Damn Telford, always managing to throw some sort of spanner in the works.
He saved his results, copied them across to his laptop and unplugged it from the console. It was past the time that Becker would be serving lunch and he suspected he would find most of the science team in the mess hall as well as Young. Now he was finished he could find Young and reclaim his minions.
He left his laptop in the small conference room and walked to the mess hall, wandering in and looking around the crowded room for Young. The science team were clustered around a couple of tables and he acknowledged Eli's overly cheerful wave with a brief nod but continued scanning the room, failing to find Young. Lieutenant Scott was sitting at a nearby table with TJ and Chloe and Rush walked over.
"Where's Young?" Rush asked Scott without preamble.
Scott looked up. "On the bridge with Colonel Telford."
Rush scowled. That was the last thing he needed. He strode out.
Telford and Young were standing on the balcony looking down at the Bridge, Young standing in a parody of his normal relaxed parade rest style stance, hands clasped behind his back. Camile was in the chair and from the set of her shoulders she was as tense as Young was. Young's tension was obvious to Rush, he could see Young's muscles were tight and the hands clasped behind his back were white knuckled.
"I don't understand why Rush won't let Gutierrez join in with the repair effort." Telford said to Young before turning to see who had walked in the door.
"Because he doesn't know the ship, he annoys the repair crews with stupid questions and gets distracted." Rush snapped. "I...we...need these repairs completed quickly and efficiently. Allowing Gutierrez to participate would negate both of those. If Osborne and Fong want to participate they can, they at least know how to follow orders, Colonel."
Telford looked furious.
"Rush..."
"I'm sorry," Rush cut in, "I only came to find Colonel Young." He turned to Young, "I need you to agree this latest work plan, we're ahead on the power conduits and ready to move on to the life support."
Young nodded. He turned back to Telford. "I'd better go get this out of the way. I'll catch up with you later."
"I'll come..."
Rush cut in again. "I'm sure I don't need two Colonel's to check the work roster."
Telford gave him a suspicious look and a glower, but Young was already walking through the door.
"I'll catch up with you later." Rush told Telford. "I've got some information I'd like you to pass onto Doctor Jones at Area 51 about the dome glass. It should make manipulating it easier."
Telford nodded suspiciously and Rush walked out, closing the door after him.
Rush walked up the corridor, looking both ways at the t-junction, looking for Young. Young was leaning against the wall a few yards away, face strained. As Rush walked up to him, Young raised his hand in front of him.
"Don't..." Young said in irritation, "just...don't. I know I'm not handling this well."
Rush looked at the expression on his face, then reached his hand out and interlaced their fingers. Young flinched, then furrowed his forehead in confusion, staring down at their joined hands in front of his chest. Rush squeezed his hand silently for a moment, then let go, turning to walk away.
"The rotas are on my laptop in the small conference room next to the core room." He said over his shoulder.
Footsteps behind him told him Young was following. He turned into the small room and waiting for Young closed the hatch as the man walked in. Young stopped and took a deep breath. Rush reached out took his shoulder and turned Young to face him.
"You okay?" He asked.
"Yeah." Young said nodding. "He's just pushing and pushing. It'd be annoying enough even without knowing..."His voice tailed off.
"Quite." Rush said. "What are you going to do about it?"
"He's pushing me to make concessions for Gutierrez on the seed ship." Young said. "Which I'm not willing to make. Gutierrez can't wait to get his hands on it."
"So what are you going to offer?" Rush asked, dropping his arm from the other man's shoulder and scratching his beard.
Young shrugged. "I'd thought to suggest Telford gets involved with the seed ship survey himself." He moved away and sat in the chair nearest them, leaning heavily on the table. "He's got the most detailed knowledge of the seed ships of any of us."
"Presuming the layout is the same, yes." Rush agreed. "And he's less likely to injure himself or anyone else accidentally, having a better idea of the ship, and less novelty value. It would keep him busy and out of your hair. He may even actually know what some of it is."
Young gave him a quizzical look. "Something that he hasn't offered already?"
"If I was feeling generous I'd say he hadn't had the opportunity to use any knowledge he has in a useful context." Rush paused. "In practice, I doubt he'd share anything he didn't have to."
"You really think that?" Young said curiously.
"I wouldn't," Rush said bluntly, "were I in his position."
Young looked at him for a long moment. Rush wondered briefly if that had been the right thing to say.
"But you're telling me everything now." Young said. It was not quite a question, more a statement Young was daring him to contradict.
"Even if you don't trust me still, it's in my best interests to cooperate with you." Rush said quietly. "We seem to be working from broadly the same game plan."
Young looked at him again, it seemed a long time but was not more than a couple of seconds. Rush tried not to tense or look guilty, just for a change he currently had no reason to. Not that Young knew that, and not that it would not change in the future if it was required for the benefit of mission or crew.
"We do." Young said. "And bizarrely Nick, at least at the moment I trust you."
"You should." Rush shot back, "I'm the one who's got your back here."
"And isn't that a strange turn up of events." Young countered.
Rush stared at him, their eyes locking, he reached out and put his hand on Young's arm, going to say something when Young turned into the touch, leaning forward in what appeared an unconscious motion to...to what? Their eyes were still locked and Young tensed as if he realised what he had done, the intense look drained from his eyes and he ducked his head away with an uncomfortable laugh. Rush snorted out a chuckle himself at the sheer absurdity of the situation and Young looked up.
Their eyes caught again, and then, almost as one, they started to laugh. Proper laughter breaking the tension. Rush blinked as Young stepped into his space, giving him a hug.
"Thanks." Young told him. "I needed this."