This section was largely written ages ago. I've waiting to post it for so long. Finally...

Dinner was different. For the first time in some time, there was a significant change in the meal. Young had known Becker and Inman had been working on some of the foodstuffs Inman had deemed edible, but Becker had stuck to things that worked already in the interim. Today's dinner was a quiche. Kind of. With no eggs. Apparently it was made with something from a creature they had hunted on Thick Woods.

Young decided it was better not to ask for details. It was the same texture, if not the same taste, as quiche. The taste was rather meaty, but the vegetables in the not-eggs were familiar, the radishy stuff, omnipresent roots and something slightly flaky.

Rush appeared to be eating it with gusto. Young looked round the mess hall, the general response appeared very good. Anything different was always welcome, the complete lack of novelty in their lives and diet was a strong motivator to being broad-minded on what one ate. They finished their dinner in silence, washing it down with a green strongly herbal tea.

Rush grimaced. "This is like drinking mouthwash." He groused.

Young chuckled. "Better than water." He offered.

"I'm not so sure about that."

They decamped to the Observation Lounge for a game of chess. Rush had grabbed his ration of hooch and they sipped as they played, Young feeling slightly more secure drinking in company than alone. Young lost most of the games as usual, but there was an air of relaxation, of contentment that had settled around him and he did not really care.

Even the slightly clandestine route to bed, separating in different directions and finally joining Rush in his quarters to fall into bed was not enough to disrupt his calm. He suddenly realised how tired he actually was, but slightly mellow from the alcohol and the relaxing evening, he lay awake for some time, curled against Rush's back, listening to the other man breathe softly in sleep and appreciating the warmth and the knowledge he was not alone.

xxxoooxxx

"TJ this is Barnes, there's been an explosion in the corridor just outside the Dome area. Chu and Ramirez are down."

Young was standing from his desk before he even realised, shoving away the laptop he had spent the morning with, drawing the radio towards him. Barnes' voice was urgent, tense. The radio crackled slightly before Young heard TJ respond.

"On my way." TJ's voice suggested she was already running. "Varro and Cole to the infirmary and scrub up. Emergency team with kino sled to the Dome corridor."

Young snatched up his radio as soon as he was sure he would not be interrupting anything that TJ required. He was just about to click the button to speak when Rush skidded into his doorway, hauling himself to a stop on the door frame, flushed from running.

"Rush."

"I'm on my way down, I've shut down airflow to that area. Get Brody and Eli to meet me down there and Chloe and Volker to monitor the power flows from the Core Room."

"Volker's on the bridge." Young yelled as Rush departed.

"Calvos then." Came the shouted response.

He spoke quickly into the radio. "This is Young, Brody, Eli, Rush needs you in the damaged area, he's on his way there. Chloe and Calvos to the core interface room to monitor, I'll see you there in a moment. Young out."

He strode out of the room towards the communal areas. Camile was coming out of the mess hall.

"Who's on the bridge?" She asked.

"Scott, Volker and Dunning. Let's get to the core room. Chloe and Calvos will be monitoring." He said. He lifted the radio as they walked. "Barnes, this is Young. Sitrep. What happened?"

"We were taking down bulkheads." She responded. "Second corridor out from the dome, the one where only the sensors had over loaded and Rush wanted to replace them. We had the corridor mostly stripped and one of the pipes on the side blew out. Chu got the worst of the blast...he's gone sir. TJ's here now she's working on moving Ramirez. She says to tell you she needs a surgeon from Homeworld Command..."

"I'll go." Camile said, turning away from him. "I've changed with several of the medical staff, they're familiar with my body."

"Isn't that a safe area?" Young asked into the radio as Camile ran for the stones room.

"It was." Rush's voice came through the radio harshly. "As far as we were aware there was only damage to the environmental sensors in this area, heat overloaded."

"What happened?" Young asked.

"When I know that," Rush snapped, "you'll be the first to know Colonel. Now stop distracting me. Rush out."

"Barnes, evacuate all non-injured personnel from the area, set up a security detail, no-one is to enter the area apart from Rush's team and TJ's team."

"Yes sir, Barnes out."

Young walked quickly towards the Core Interface Room. He could hear radio traffic between TJ, Camile on her way to the stones and Varro and Cole in the infirmary and stopped at Eli's quarters to grab spare kinos and controller. With a little fiddling with the controls he managed to send four in the direction of the dangerous area and kept walking to the Core Room.

Chloe and Calvos were at two consoles opposite each other.

He handed Chloe the Kino remote. "There's four on their way down there, use them to talk to Rush, keep the radios clear for emergencies." He ordered.

She nodded, transferring control of two of the kinos to her console. She held out the kino remote. "Could you...?"

He nodded before she had even finished, and handed the remote to Calvos. He watched as Calvos identified and connected his two kinos, but before Calvos had finished, Chloe was speaking.

"Dr Rush this is Chloe, can you hear me?"

He strode back over to Chloe's console looking over her shoulder as the kino arrived and she swung it round to get a better view of Rush.

"Yes Chloe, I can hear you." Rush said without turning.

Young could see him in the kino feed, examining a conduit with what appeared to be half a broken valve hanging off it. The valve had evidently blown out from the inside and half of it was not there anymore. The metal of the conduit was buckled outwards.

He watched as the science team started the work of identifying what had gone wrong, listened with half an ear to the radio as the doctor from Homeworld Command arrived and was directed down to the infirmary and he waited. There was nothing he could do now, nothing until the problem was identified and Ramirez either made it or did not. He had the best crew addressing the problem, had cleared the area of all extraneous personnel and posted a guard.

He tried not to pace. There was no job for him here now and he would simply be under foot in the Infirmary but at least here he could hear the conversations between Chloe and Rush and know that no-one else had been hurt.

Time passed. He waited, he went and got cups of tea for Chloe and Calvos, and he stood at a console and read off figures to Chloe. At least those he recognised automatically courtesy of the count down clock.

"Colonel this is TJ."

He knew immediately from the broken sound of her voice, even crackling through the radio that the news was not good.

"I'm sorry to say...we lost Ramirez."

He pulled his radio from his belt. "You did your best TJ, I'll be down there in a moment."

Chloe and Calvos said nothing, but they were both looking at him sympathetically. Young sighed, lips pressed together, eyebrows furrowed, then nodded slowly and turned to make his way to the infirmary.

xxxoooxxx

"Eli." Rush interrupted.

"It's my fault, I should have checked the valve!" Eli's hands flailed in front of him as he talked.

"Eli!"

"I knew it was a bad idea, I…"

"ELI!" Rush shouted.

Eli stopped and stared at him. Rush took a moment to rein his anger in.

"It was a different valve." Rush said quietly. "You know it was. One that appeared fine, not close to the damaged areas. Not one we had even touched. It was just old." He pushed his fingers through his hair, suddenly extraordinarily tired. "Go, find Brody and Calvos and relax." He ordered the younger man wearily. "Get drunk or something. Go. I'll finish the last bits here and Volker is on the bridge. Get lost."

Eli took a deep breath, then with a look of intense gratitude that made Rush deeply uncomfortable, he nodded. "Thanks." He said.

Rush nodded back and watched Eli walk slowly out. He went back to running his figures.

Rush looked up as the door opened. Young walked in to the core room. He had not had time to pay any attention to the radio chatter, but Rush could see from his expression that TJ had not been able to save Ramirez either. Young stopped in the doorway and his expression was raw.

"TJ lost him as well." Rush said pre-empting Young's pronouncement.

"Nothing she could do." Young said. "We got a surgeon from Homeworld Command but we just don't have the facilities."

"How is she?"

"I convinced her to get some rest." Young said, but his voice was rough and his eyes dark shadowed and Rush realised it must have gone far beyond that. "She's asleep now."

"How long did you have to stay with her?"

Young's eyes flickered in exhaustion and Rush guessed he was somewhere close to emotional collapse himself.

"Such a stupid fucking way to die." His eyes floated downwards as he spoke then he looked back to Rush. "You're on your own." He noticed.

Rush looked over the console. "I sent them to find their beds. The problem is fixed, at least temporarily. I already shut down power to the air systems in that corridor and Brody disconnected power from that entire section of the air system. It'll be running off the ventilation from surrounding areas, but won't be a problem for the moment. Well, not dangerous. We'll have to fix it though. We'll have to check the valves in the whole inhabited area, it was eroded on the inside, probably just wear."

He sat up from where he was hunched over the console, grabbing the back of his neck, pulling at his shoulder, rubbing the muscle with his fingers and grimacing.

"We could never have predicted it would happen." He said looking up at Young through his hair.

The expression on Young's face said he couldn't believe that yet and while Rush knew academically he was right, his body agreed with Young. His muscles were still tight, still angry with his failure. He should have known. He rubbed at his shoulder.

"Who's on the bridge?" He asked Young.

"James, Volker and Camile, though Volker is asleep in a chair. He volunteered to stay. Camile slept on Earth so she could take over when she got back."

"I should take over from Volker, he's been there for ten hours."

"And you've been doing this for the same amount of time." Young contradicted him. "They'll wake him if they need him." Young said.

Rush closed his eyes and rubbed at his aching neck again, then flinched as Young's hand wrapped round his shoulder. He looked up.

"Are you done here?"

Rush looked at Young, trying to read the other man's face.

"Yes," he replied eventually, "I'm done."

Young nodded, then turned and walked to the door and while he didn't look over his shoulder the implication was clear. Rush watched him leave, stared at the empty doorway for long moments. He took a few minutes to shut down what he was doing on the console. Reaching out he shut the laptop, locked the console and walked out.

By the time he reached Young's quarters, Young was in bed, brown eyes black in the half light. Rush shucked out of shirt, shoes and BDUs and slid into the bed in his t shirt and underpants.

There was no pretence of shyness. Rush could see Young's feelings were too raw, too painful for him to have the energy to engage in any subtle dancing round the topic, it was all need and the fragile balance of someone who has been strong for too long. As soon as Rush slid under the covers Young was reaching for him, grabbing his wrists, drawing him in and wrapping limbs round him like he was drowning. Bare legs tangled in his own and when Young's face pressed against his jaw and shoulder it was wet.

He had nothing left, all the energy was gone, adrenaline all run out just leaving tired trembling muscles and the bone weary cold exhaustion of a god awful day filled with failure and death. He slid into the heat of Young's skin, the warm space Young had already heated in the blankets and collapsed, limp and drained.

"You're cold." Young murmured.

"I'm tired." He mumbled into Young's t shirt.

"Yeah, of course."

Young stirred, thighs shifting, settling his legs closer along Rush's, rubbing a hand from elbow to shoulder and back, friction skipping palm over skin, warm burn of dry skin chafing over dry skin, and it was just a little too much, a little too intimate but he didn't have the energy to complain as the hand rubbed his shoulders, neck and down over his back to settle in the small of his back rubbing lazy circles through his t shirt.

A mounting unease built in him. It was not sufficient to make him move, but he could feel Young's body pressed against his, flush against him cheek to ankle and it did not feel like the innocent comfort against the cold, or the gentle circle of someone else's arms keeping the nightmares at bay. Young was not doing anything more than rubbing warmth into his chilled skin, but this was about touch, connection and emotion and Rush had no idea what territory they were moving into.

One of Young's hands was on his lower back, moving over fabric and as it circled the fabric shifted, not even deliberately, and Young's hand was moving over his bare skin. Could he even go to sleep like this? And did he even want to, laying here with the warmth leeching from Young's bare skin into his? There was a certain fear to the concept.

"You're thinking too hard." Said Young quietly. Rush's own phrase, and true enough, though he had no idea how it meshed with Young's thoughts, or what Young was suggesting by it.

Young shifted slightly and they settled against each other completely, not just flush against each other, but weight resting into each other. Rush was reassured to realise that at least so far Young's touch appeared to be completely innocent, and tangled together like this there was no way he could miss it.

"What're you thinking?" He asked finally, very quietly.

Young seemed surprised, a slight tension of muscles, a press of stubbled cheek into his. There was a pause.

"That it's been a terrible day." Young said, speaking quietly and almost directly into Rush's ear. Once he had started the floodgates appeared to open. "That I spent the last four hours in hell, briefing Homeworld Command and writing to two families. That it took an hour of that to wind TJ down from the mess she was in, sitting in the cold on the edge of her bed, watching her cry her heart out. Stripping their damn corpses 'cause we can't afford to waste a damn stitch of anything and I'm damned if I'll make anyone else do that. That this was all a fucking accident. That this is all my responsibility. That I can't do today anymore. That it would be so easy to crawl into a bottle. That this, here with you, this is as addictive as the fucking bottle is and equally as likely to come back and bite me on the ass."

It wasn't Young's fault. It was his. The ship was his responsibility. The crew was Young's, the ship was his.

"It wasn't your fault." Rush said. "You aren't responsible for the state of the ship."

"And you are?"

"Yes, and for us being here in the first place. All of this is my fault. Everyone that dies here is my fault, not yours."

Young was silent again. "You really think that?" He asked Rush after a few seconds.

"I know it."

There was an absolute certainty in Rush, and it obviously came through in his voice as Young pulled his head back, separating them just a little down to their chests, t-shirts bunching between them, looking into his face. Young's gaze went on just a little too long, and Rush realised that maybe Young agreed with him, had always agreed. Certainly he had accused him of it enough times.

"What are you thinking?" Rush asked again.

Young answered his question with a question. "How hot did we come in when we arrived here originally?"

"Surely you're aware of that yourself."

"Tell me."

"Fast, much faster than a normal gate trip. The power levels were spiking much higher even to start with, and there was a whole planet's worth of naquadria discharging at the same time, the power levels were astronomical. You came in fastest last, with the final discharge of the planet exploding no doubt and probably the explosion behind you."

"But the journey, the distance here, took most of the power that was propelling us like that through the gate."

"Yes, of course, we're trillions of light years away, that takes power. Where are you going with this?" Rush asked with some suspicion.

"Nowhere." Young said, his voice quiet but sounding certain and final. "I'm going nowhere. Do you want to sleep?"

The sudden change of topic threw Rush, but he was tired and confused, which was unfamiliar and unwelcome and Young was right that this was addictive, kept him coming back to hide himself in the bed of a man who he had shared an uncertain relationship with at best, homicidal at it's worst.

"Well, yes, go ahead."

Another long pause. Young was looking at him, concern evident on his face. Rush stared back at him, he did not want sympathy from anyone, he did not need it. He did not deserve it, least of all from this man and there was no censure in that gaze.

Young was still staring at him, still concerned, Rush could feel the other man's fingers rubbing into the tense muscles of his shoulders, trying to gentle him, calm him. Rush tried to relax the tense muscles of his face, hoped Young would give up. Young closed his eyes, and paused, Rush could see him thinking but could not read his expression.

Young took a breath and opened his eyes again staring straight into Rush's eyes. His face held nothing but concern and a slightly wistful look. Rush frowned, not understanding the play of expressions in front of him. Young pressed forwards gently and brushed his lips over Rush's.

"Then go to sleep Rush." He murmured, so close Rush could feel Young's lips brush his again as he spoke, warm breath drifting over his jaw. "It's not all your fault."

Another soft brush of lips, and Young was settling back into him, cheek to cheek, arms wrapped round him, a foot tucking behind Rush's ankle to lock him against him.

Christ.

A hand was rubbing up and down his spine, Young settling.

"Go to sleep Rush. "Young repeated into his neck. "It's late, we're both exhausted."

Surely Young didn't expect him to go to sleep after that.

"Young."

"What?"

"Why?"

"Because I wanted to."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that. Just take it for what it was Rush, we'll talk about it in the morning."

Rush had no idea what it was, but he was exhausted, and Young was on the verge of collapse and unlikely to engage in further emotional discussion. Rush let exhaustion carry him down.