Chapter 11

*Record*

"Hey, Rush, it's Eli. Obviously. You can see me."

That was stupid. He deleted the file.

*Record*

"Hey, buddy."

Nope.

*Record*

"We need to talk."

Delete.

"Argh!" Why couldn't he get this right? He'd been at it all morning, trying to put something together to give to Rush, but somehow the words just weren't there. Why was it so hard?

*Record*

"Hey, Rush. Listen, um…I just want you to know that I meant what I said before that first time we were flying into a star. I'm not sorry you brought me here. It's been fun, and I'm really thankful that you roped me into it. I'm gonna miss you, man."

That was a little better. Kind of. Maybe. He kept that file, but it still didn't feel right. This wasn't a fare-thee-well, a happy-trails-and-good-luck-to-you, this was a conclusion. This was time ending, breath stopping, a heart stilling. This was a goodbye. And there was so much more he wanted to say.

So how come I'm not saying it? He chewed on his lip. That was the problem, wasn't it? He was saying things he didn't really care about and not saying things he really, really wanted to. He couldn't come up with any lies. He couldn't think of anything fake. He was keeping the truth inside. Why?

Because truth hurts. There was a reason he was doing this on a kino and not in person. If he tried to tell Rush face-to-face how he felt, he probably wouldn't get through it, either because he would get too upset and be unable to finish, or Rush would interrupt him or send him away, or he'd lose his nerve and turn it into something else. He needed to not be intimidated by Rush's piercing eyes staring right back at him, and even though he knew his friend could just turn the kino off and not listen to the whole thing, he felt better knowing that his message would be intact regardless. Okay, try again…

*Record*

"All right, Rush. Look, I know when we started this whole thing you and I were kind of at each other's throats a lot. We got off to a bad start, and it didn't get better for a long time. You're an overbearing, unpredictable, manipulative control freak, with an ego the size of a blue supergiant. I know, I know, geek joke. But the point is...you have problems. You don't trust anyone and no one trusts you. You made these outrageous, terrible decisions that hurt people, put them into harm's way, caused them pain, got them killed. And you never seemed to care about the damage you were causing. You were cold, distant, and seemed completely empty of emotion or guilt. You just went along and left the feeling to everyone else."

—

Tamara woke up in the infirmary again, after falling asleep in the infirmary again. She sat up sore, with an aching back and a stiff neck, and she stretched her arms above her head, rolled her head from side to side, and twisted in her chair to work out all the kinks. Then she stood up to search out her patient, who should be sleeping in the bed where she'd left him.

Except he wasn't. The bed was empty, and the infirmary was quiet. Her watch said it was 0900, which meant it was after breakfast time. Man, she really must have been tired. She wondered as she reached for her radio if someone had come to take Rush to the mess hall, and she called up Lieutenant Scott.

"What's up, T.J.?"

"Have you seen Rush?"

A pause. "No, not today. Why?"

Hmmm. "Okay, thanks." She summoned Vanessa. "Vaness, is Rush with you?"

"No. I thought he was with you."

"He was…" This might be bad. "Thanks." She wouldn't panic yet, but she went for the door.

—

"And yet...for all the yelling at you we did, all the arguing, all the pushback, how many times did we say, 'Rush is right'? A lot. You were usually right. Not all the time, but even when you were wrong, you were partly right. We could always count on you to make the decisions no one else wanted to make. And you were always so eager to do it. We needed someone like you. Maybe. I mean, you could have been a little nicer about it, but again, I guess if you let yourself feel too bad about what you were doing then you wouldn't do it. I think I understand it, though."

—

"Brody, seen Rush?" Tamara asked.

Brody looked confused. "Nope. Haven't seen him for a day or two, actually."

"Volker?"

Volker just shook his head.

She was already heading for the door. "Thanks." Where was he? Into her radio, she said, "Varro, where are you?"

—

"You always thought of a solution we all would have come up with ourselves, except you got there faster. It's not that you didn't feel. You just didn't feel for as long as we did. You moved on quicker and by the time you were ready to discuss plans and solutions we were still trying to get past the initial shock, so your timing felt heartless and cruel. But you weren't."

—

Now she was getting really worried. Varro had been in the mess hall since 0600 and said Rush had not been by. Chloe hadn't seen him and was now searching too. Tamara hadn't yet informed the colonel of the situation, but she was starting to wonder how much longer she could keep it quiet. It was a big ship, and Rush was starting to lose his mental faculties. He could get lost very easily. If he got sick while he was disoriented, he would be frightened, confused, possibly suffer another panic attack. Or he could straight up die somewhere in here, and if that happened, he'd die alone. The thought filled her with fear and spurred her feet toward the colonel's quarters.

—

"And what hits fast usually hits hard, so I'm willing to bet that in the short time you spent grieving, you went through the whole range of emotion all at one time, not gradually like the rest of us. You felt just as much, but faster, like this giant tsunami wave just came down on you at once, and when you broke the surface the rest of us were still just beginning to drown." Eli had to take a breath. He thumbed away a tear. "Anyway, I just want you to know that in spite of it all, you're still one of my favorite people on this ship. I still look up to you. I respect you. I'm really, really sorry I let you down. Thank you for getting us home. And I wish it hadn't turned out this way."

He saved the file and put the kino aside, covering his eyes with his hand. He didn't want to cry anymore. He didn't want to hurt anymore. He wished there was a way out, a way to wake up and find out that this was all a terrible nightmare. He would give anything to open his eyes and learn that they'd been in stasis this whole time and it had all been a dream, no one was dying, everything was all right. He would even give up the Icarus planet if that's what it took.

He peeled his hand from his face, and was disappointed once again that it was all still real.

"Everyone with a radio, this is Colonel Young. Rush is missing."

Eli jumped and stared in confusion at his walkie-talkie.

"I need everyone who is able to start searching the ship. He may be unstable when you find him so please proceed with caution. Radio immediately upon location. Young out."

Eli scrambled up from his bed. He slapped open the door of his quarters and started out, kicking something that went CLUNG when he hit it, sending a jolt of pain through his foot up and up his leg.

"Argh!"

He hobbled a little, irritated and scared and now in pain, over to the stupid little thing that someone seriously should not have left outside his door-

Whoa. It was a kino. And it had his name written on it with a black marker. It was almost enough to make him forget what he was supposed to be doing, but when Chloe ran by with T.J., he decided it would have to wait.

—

"He's not in the Apple Core."

"He's not in the chair room either, I just checked."

There was radio chatter all over the place. They were broadcasting on all channels, trying to hunt down their missing scientist, holding conversations that went on and on and on. He ignored them all. He would tell him where he was when he was good and ready.

"He's not in his math hallway." That was Chloe.

"Someone check the bathroom!"

"Just did, he's not there."

He wanted to see it one last time. It was magnificent, a truly glorious piece of technology, that used to take his breath away every time. Being around it for so long had dampened some of the impression, but now…now that he was closing in on his final day, now that the time he could spend here was painfully limited, he found himself drawn once again to its perfect design, beautiful lines, flawless curves. It awed him like the very first time he ever saw it.

"He's not on the observation deck."

"He's not in the shuttle."

"This same thing happened yesterday," came Lieutenant James's voice. He turned the volume of his borrowed walkie-talkie down to its lowest setting just above mute. "He got confused and wandered off and couldn't remember where he was."

"He could be anywhere!" That was Eli.

No, Eli. I'm not "anywhere". I'm where I need to be right now.

He reached out a hand and touched the Stargate. It was cold, but he found it soothing. Remarkable. Fascinating. Surreal.

And so, so not worth it.

With a sigh he stroked the empty fourth finger of his left hand. He missed his ring so strongly it made him ache all over. "You know, I spent the last years of your life away from you," he said out loud. "All because of this. This…thing, this piece of metal, that can no more breathe or think or feel than any other hunk of tin on any other planet…This thing became more important to me than you were. And now it'll be gone too."

He walked from one side to the other, weaving through the middle, and eventually stopping in the center. He wished he could dial it just to see the event horizon once more. His memory would have to do.

"I didn't realize what should have been important," he went on. "You were important. But I put you aside, my love, to use the time I should have spent with you finding the solution to some cosmic question that I couldn't even answer in the end. I wasn't enough. Neither were you. But you should have been. And now all of this, my life's work, is all gone." He felt his eyes burning and his throat tightening. "I'm so, so sorry."

What have you become, Nicholas?

It was a fair question. And he had no answer. The change must have been gradual - a subtle shift in priorities, a progressive need to distract himself from her illness. He would never have consciously neglected her that way. Not that it mattered. The end result was still the same. She was gone, and he hadn't been there for her as he should have. He'd wasted those precious years and he would never, ever get them back. There was no way to fix it, no way to change it, no way to take it back or make it right or even apologize. He knew she would have forgiven him, but it wasn't the same.

Oh, how he missed her.

He sank to the floor at the base of the Stargate, overcome by all of the emotions twisting through him, the pain, the exhaustion. He hung his head and covered his face.

A very soft voice from the door of the room didn't even make him flinch: "I found him."

—

Ronald Greer had only seen Rush cry one time, and it was on that wasteland planet during the manhunt for Simeon. He hadn't known what to do then, and he didn't know what to do now. There was no Lieutenant Scott to step up and try to offer comfort. He had never been very good at the whole compassion thing. He'd watched Rush talking to himself - or talking to his hand, or the gate, or whatever - wondering if the good doctor had lost his mind, but when he saw him drop to the floor, he knew that this was a serious matter.

"Greer, where is he?" came the colonel's reply.

"Stand by." Greer slowly stepped closer to the pitiful figure crumpled at the foot of the gate. Rush had to know he was there, but he did not acknowledge him. Crouching down at Rush's side, he put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, Doc."

Rush just nodded.

"You scared the crap out of a lot of people just now. Half the ship is looking for you."

"I know."

"Everything okay in here? Need T.J.?"

Rush shook his head and pressed his palm against his eyes. "No, I'll be fine. Just…"

He trailed off, but Greer understood. There was only so much a man can take, and Rush had taken more than most. He was militant about this ship and its mission, the only one of them who didn't want to go home, but he had completely given up on the pursuit once he discovered the Icarus planet they were flying to in order to get the crew back to Earth. And now he would never be able to complete it again. Life as he knew it was over. Compounded with his illness and the attitude of the crew members who disliked him, plus the stress of whatever the IOA was doing, it was a wonder Rush hadn't broken down before this. Greer felt nothing but perfect pity for the man. He could feel Rush shaking under his hand.

"Greer, report."

"Just a minute, sir," Greer responded.

"Just tell me, is he okay?"

That was a matter of perspective, but Greer answered, "He's fine."

Rush got his own radio in hand. "This is Rush, I'm all right. We're in the gate room."

"Copy."

They sat in silence. Greer wasn't sure if he should withdraw his hand or not, but Rush wasn't reacting to the contact, so he decided it wouldn't do any harm to leave it where it was. He went back in his mind again to that wasteland planet, when he'd told LT Scott that he'd never forgive Rush. He could remember the anger he was feeling then, the frustration, the hopelessness, but he couldn't access it anymore. It felt so far away. He could no longer relate to that Greer. Whether that was because Rush had changed so much that he had finally earned forgiveness or because Greer had changed enough to be able to give it, he might never know. He just knew that he really, really wished Rush wasn't dying. He had been surprised to learn that Future Rush had said Greer was the first to volunteer to stay on the ship and continue the mission. The possibility of that didn't feel so remote anymore. Greer respected this man, and Greer's respect, once earned, was eternal.

Rush began the process of pulling himself together again. He steadied his breathing and dried his face on his t-shirt, then straightened his legs to stand. The movement seemed to destabilize him and he fell against the Stargate.

Greer reached for him. "Whoa, you okay?"

Rush just nodded, but he accepted the sergeant's hand. "Yeah, fine. Dizzy is all."

"T.J.'s on her way."

Rush just nodded, trying to stay steady on his own feet.

T.J. arrived with Colonel Young, Chloe, Eli, and Scott. A collective expression of relief spread from face to face. "Rush," said the medic gently. "Everything okay?"

"Fine."

She came closer and took his other hand, the one not holding on to Greer's forearm. "Let's go."

The trio walked together, Greer supporting most of the scientist's weight, all the way back to the infirmary. He stayed at Rush's side until he was safely on a bed, then a minute more to ensure he was comfortable as he could be, then he retreated out to the hallway where the colonel was waiting for him.

"Good find, Sergeant," said Young.

"Thank you, sir."

"Dismissed."

Greer took one last glance inside to Rush, who nodded at him in what he believed to be gratitude. He nodded back and took his leave.

—

The day passed. Tamara informed Colonel Young that she planned to keep Rush pretty much confined to the infirmary from that point on, as he was beginning to deteriorate so much that he couldn't even walk without help. Rush spent the hours lying on his bed, facing away from her, withdrawn inside his own mind. He didn't speak to anyone, and eventually Tamara forbade any visitors for the day. The afternoon died away and the ship darkened as the simulated night took control.

Colonel Young came by one last time before bed. He stood in the door of the infirmary and kept his voice very quiet. "How is he?"

She just shook her head. "He won't talk anymore. He hasn't even asked to go back to work. He has barely moved since this morning. The blood clots are everywhere, Colonel. They're just everywhere. I can't stay ahead of them."

The colonel sighed. "How confident are you that there is a cure back on that planet?"

"Honestly?" She looked to the motionless Rush, who had burrowed beneath a blanket and appeared to have fallen asleep. "At this point, it doesn't matter. He'd be dead before we made it there."

The sigh that escaped him was one she'd heard often aboard this ship. It was one of hopelessness, helplessness, despair, and resignation. He said nothing, simply nodding, and walked away. She returned to her desk, but was too distracted to work. Or sleep.

She was still up hours later when she heard Rush begin to stir. She noticed his breathing change first. Gone was the slow, even in and out of sleep, cut off by a short gasp and replaced by the shallow, quick shudders of someone fighting pain. Then he began to move, and when he didn't stop she got up from her desk and went to his bed. She found him sitting up, one hand wrapped around his middle and the other holding his head.

"Doctor Rush?"

He groaned. No other response. Tamara kept the light off and crouched down at his side. His eyes were screwed shut, his face tight and tense. He turned to look at her. "Lieutenant…it's so bright in here."

It was 0100. With the simulated daytime off, she had left on two small lamps that cast just enough light to carve white silhouettes out of the darkness around the objects in the room. She could barely see as it was. "How about some more pain medicine?" she suggested softly. He nodded. She got up and went to the table by his bed, picking up his bottle of pain relievers. She shook the bottle and paused. There wasn't much left. With a sigh she handed it to him. "Here you go."

He let go of his head long enough to take some of the powder, then put it right back again. "It's so loud."

Tamara couldn't hear anything except the low whir of her equipment and the hum of the FTL. "What's loud, Rush?"

He grunted again. "Lieutenant, make it stop."

Her heart wrenched. She didn't know what she could do, but she went around the room switching off everything she could find that produced light or sound. When she finished it was completely dark and she stood lost. Blind.

"Thank you," she heard him barely whisper. And then there was silence.

—

"Eli, what can I say? It was nice to have someone on this ship that I could have a decent conversation with. You'll understand how valuable that is in the coming years, of this I'm sure. I am…very proud of you. Very proud. It was truly rewarding to me watching you rise to your potential. There's no one else I'd have rather had by my side. I mean that. Thank you for solving the mystery and for showing me what my life's work accomplished. That means everything. If you ever regret taking this journey, just remember everything you have seen and learned. I sincerely hope it was worth it to you. Please know that I think your father is a disgrace. Take care of your mum and yourself, and know that I hope she stays well. Best of luck with everything."

Eli huddled at his desk in the dark, staring at the console with the kino he'd found outside his room. He had never cried so hard.