Walking in a borrowed body had never required any conscious thought before now. Young had just set one foot in front of the other, same as always, and any necessary adjustments for differences in height, weight, and build seemed to happen automatically. This was a little different. He found himself having to curb a restless urge to cover ground rapidly in long, purposeful strides instead of moving at his usual deliberate pace. This awkward tussle between conscious intention and physical instinct was entirely new and more than a little unsettling.

By the time he had rounded the corner into the hallway that led to his quarters, he was beginning to feel like he had reached a workable compromise between Rush's quick, light gait and his own more ponderous tread. He hoped the result didn't make him look ridiculous, but that was probably unavoidable regardless.

It appeared that having his consciousness planted in Rush's body had not imparted to him any of Rush's lithe grace - that effortless fluidity of movement that Young had often noticed and even appreciated for its aesthetic appeal. He had a feeling he could adapt over time - this body wanted to move according to its usual habits, and it was only the intrusion of his displaced mind that kept it from doing so - but that was hardly the goal here. Rush was right. This was something new, something the creators of the communication stones had clearly never intended, and there was no telling what the long-term physical and psychological impact of taking up permanent residence in an unfamiliar brain and body would be.

The thought of Rush brought with it a vague sense of discomfort. Young had left the stones room reluctantly, and there was still some nagging part of him that wanted to turn around and go straight back. He told himself that there was nothing he could do to help, that he was needed elsewhere, and yet there had been something in Rush's eyes - or rather, in Young's own eyes, turned unusually sharp and calculating-

Young's train of thought was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Camile from an intersecting hallway. She shot him a shrewd look, head tilted, and then offered him a smile that was equal parts weariness and cynical amusement. "Colonel Young, I presume?"

Young sighed inwardly, reluctantly abandoning his plan to spend the next fifteen minutes on his couch, staring at a wall, processing what had just happened to him. Just fifteen minutes to quietly panic and then pull himself back together, that was all he had wanted. But no. Life on Destiny didn't pause just because the commander had just gotten stranded in the wrong body and was facing what promised to be one hell of a fight with Homeworld Command over the future of his chief scientist. Time to suck it up, pretend that he was not experiencing a chaotic internal tug-of-war between his consciousness and his host body, and start addressing the other problems that faced him.

"Camile," he replied, attempting to return her smile. He had a feeling it came across as something closer to a grimace, but it was the best he could do at the moment. In addition to all his other sources of discomfort, the ache in his neck and the pounding in his head had only increased since he had first become aware of them. "I suppose you must have been present for Telford's announcement, then?"

"Oh yes," Camile said ruefully, "we were all there for that, and for Rush's sudden appearance in your body. There's a bit of an uproar over it all. It's been an eventful day, and there haven't even been any aliens involved."

"We don't need aliens," Young muttered. "We make our own fun around here." He started moving toward his quarters and Camile fell into step beside him.

"What went wrong with the stones?" she asked predictably.

Young reached back to rub at the base of his neck, trying to soothe painfully stiff muscles. "McKay did something to them while trying to make the connection between himself and Rush permanent. Eli-"

"Permanent?" Camile interrupted, halting mid-stride. She turned on him with an expression that was both startled and, to his interest and approval, deeply troubled. "I wondered what Telford meant when he said Rush was being replaced with McKay. I couldn't figure out how they were going to manage it, although I should have guessed. But to force Rush to live out the rest of his life in someone else's body… that's such an extreme violation of personal autonomy that I can't even begin to wrap my head around it. Is it even possible?"

Young shrugged. The motion sent little bolts of agony through his neck and into his skull. Jesus. Was this normal for Rush, or did it have something to do with the malfunction of the stones? He might have to see TJ about this if he was going to be stuck in Rush's body for any length of time.

"I don't know, but apparently Telford thought so," he said, trying to maintain a neutral expression through the spike of pain. Judging by the mildly confused look Camile was giving him, it wasn't very convincing. "McKay didn't have time to complete his work. Greer found out what he was doing and broke the connection. Which, all things considered, I'm grateful for. But as you can see, Rush and I got kind of… switched in the process."

Which brought to mind the very interesting question of whether Telford and McKay had returned to the correct bodies on their end. Young entertained himself for several moments with the idea of Telford trapped in McKay's soft, undisciplined body before he dismissed it. Not his problem.

Camile started walking again, more slowly this time, and he followed. She shot him another searching look, and this time there was a hint of concern in her eyes. "Can't you and Rush use the stones to change back?"

"Rush and Eli are working on that right now."

Camile hummed and nodded. "And… how are you?"

Young gave a weak laugh that sounded even more pathetic in Rush's softer, higher voice than it would have in his own. "Honestly, I'm a bit traumatized, and I've got a real bear of a headache," he admitted.

They had reached his quarters by this point, so he slapped the door control and ushered her into the room ahead of him. "I really need to ask you a favor, Camile," he said, trying to keep his delivery matter-of-fact rather than desperate. He wasn't sure how well he succeeded. "Several, in fact."

Camile crossed her arms loosely in front of her and settled herself on the back of his couch. He dropped onto his bed facing her. They regarded each other speculatively for a few moments.

"I think I can guess one of them, at least," Camile said finally. "You're hoping I can get the IOA involved on Rush's behalf. They probably have the best chance of getting Homeworld Command to reverse the decision to remove Rush."

He nodded.

Camile looked off to one side, apparently considering it. Her thoughts played over her face in a series of small tells - a slight frown, pursed lips, a twitch at the corner of her mouth. Then she met his eyes again. "I can try."

"I know he's not exactly a favorite with the IOA-" Young began.

Camile snorted at the understatement.

"-or with you, for that matter."

"That's hardly the point, I think," she said. Her tone, while calm, was tinged with a low, smoldering kind of anger that Young could readily identify with. "We're talking about forcing someone, against his will, to relinquish control over his own body. Stargate Command spent the better part of a decade fighting an alien race that made a habit of doing just that."

It was a good angle to start with, but Young wasn't sure he found it entirely convincing. "Well, to play devil's advocate here," he pointed out, "the Goa'uld took control of bodies still occupied by their original owners. Homeworld Command will make the argument that they're offering Rush a perfectly functional body in exchange for his."

Camile raised an eyebrow at him. "And how's that working out for you, Colonel?"

He bared his teeth in a humorless grin.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," she said quietly. "It's not his body, so it's not an equal exchange. And when you take into account the dangers of living on this ship, it becomes even more problematic. If two people were permanently connected and then one of them died, wouldn't the other die as well?"

Young absently brushed Rush's hair out of his eyes (it immediately slid right back into place, goddamnit) and rubbed the back of his neck. "Presumably," he said, considering the point.

"How do you rate McKay's chances of survival against the threats we face out here compared to Rush's?"

"I don't know McKay well enough to judge, although the man is a bit of a legend," Young said. "But Rush is about the hardest son of a bitch to kill that I've ever met."

He chose to ignore the pointed look Camile was giving him, one that clearly said and you'd know, wouldn't you? "At any rate," she said aloud, "Rush's life would forever be at the mercy of McKay's choices, and it's unconscionable to subject him to the dangers inherent in that kind of connection against his will."

"There's something else that worries me," Young said, and then hesitated. Camile looked at him expectantly, but he let the silence expand and thicken the air between them before he finally broke it. "I wouldn't expect this to weigh with the IOA or Homeworld Command, but for us, at least, it should be a real concern."

"You're worried about how this would impact Rush psychologically," Camile guessed.

"I know how it would impact him," Young said quietly, meeting her eyes steadily from under a curtain of unruly, grizzled hair. "It would break him. Destiny and the mission, that is what he has. That is what he lives, eats, and breathes. I don't know what he would do if he lost them forever, but I know what I would do if I lost my last shred of hope, Camile, and it terrifies me."

Camile shifted her weight slightly and stared back at him meditatively. Then her lips quirked into a strange little smile. "You care about him," she said, and her tone was a complicated blend of surprise, doubt, and curiosity.

Possibly. Definitely. Definitely, in that Young didn't want Rush to end up killing himself out of spite because everything he had ever cared about had been ripped away. Definitely, in that Young had trouble imagining life on Destiny without that infuriating, irascible genius swaggering up and down the halls like he owned the ship and was sharing it with the rest of the crew out of the benevolence of his twisted little heart. Definitely, in that Rush had become so intertwined with Young's perception of Destiny's mission that he had trouble untangling the two concepts in his mind. But none of that had any bearing on this conversation. At all.

"I care about every member of this crew," Young said, dropping his eyes. For the first time, he was glad to have Rush's hair to give him a little bit of privacy while he collected his thoughts. Maybe that was why Rush kept it long. "And he's definitely been acting more like a real member of the crew recently. I know we've had our differences in the past, but things are getting better. Much better. So I'm certainly not going to abandon him to what, for him, would be a fate worse than death."

"But as you said," Camile said quietly, "that isn't likely to influence either the IOA or Homeworld Command in their decisions."

"Right," said Young, rising to his feet. He began to pace back and forth across the center of the room, unconsciously giving in to the restless energy that belonged to this body and not to himself. "So we lead with the ethical argument, and then sell them on Rush's credentials, his level of dedication to this mission, and the contributions he's made since arriving on Destiny. No one knows this ship like he does, no one has spent as much time going through Destiny's database as he has, no one wants this like he does. And now that he's working in partnership with the rest of the science team, and with you and me-"

"You can't tell me that you really trust him completely," Camile interjected. "He still could be keeping any number of secrets from us and we wouldn't know."

"Eli would know," Young said.

Camile tilted her head to one side and offered him a faint smile. He didn't know if that meant she put less faith in Eli's ability to detect Rush's machinations than he did, or that she simply found his confidence in the boy endearing. It could go either way, really.

Young sighed and came to a halt in front of Camile. She looked up at him thoughtfully, brows lifted in an unspoken question.

"This is not just about protecting Rush," he said, allowing conviction to color his tone. He liked the effect it had in Rush's voice, so flexible as it was, so capable of conveying emotion. It did lose a bit with Young's flat American delivery, but that didn't matter. He had Camile's attention. "I truly believe that Rush's place is here, on this ship. This is where he belongs. And I might not always trust him, but I trust in his vision."

"That's a good line," Camile said. "Maybe I'll use it."

"Maybe don't include the part where I still don't necessarily trust him."

"No," Camile agreed, "but that part about believing in his vision. I like that. That will play well with the IOA, I think."

"Good," he said, smiling as he began to feel marginally more hopeful. This would be an uphill battle, but at least he had Camile in his camp.

Camile's expression lightened in response to his smile, and there was an unmistakable twinkle of humor in her eyes. Laughing inwardly at whatever he was doing to Rush's face at the moment, he suspected.

"This is weird, isn't it?" he asked.

Camile laughed outright at that, and he felt momentarily warmed by the clear, bright sound of it.

"Creepy, even?" he prodded.

Camile shook her head. "Rush in your body, that's creepy," she said. "You in his? It's actually kind of cute." Her smile turned vaguely apologetic.

He blinked at her. No one had called him cute since he was five years old. He wasn't quite sure how he felt about it.

"Slightly pathetic," she added, "but cute."

"Oh, thanks," he grumbled. He pushed his hair out of his eyes - again - and tried to tuck it behind his ears, but it was much too fine and slippery to stay where he put it. Nothing at all like his own coarse, wiry curls. A thought occurred to him. "Camile, you don't happen to have a pair of scissors, do you?"

Camile's eyes sharpened at the question, and she stretched out a hand as if to ward him off. "Oh no," she said. "I refuse to be an accomplice to any crimes committed against Rush's hair. Especially not while he's in your body."

Ah. Well, there was that. Young thought of a looming presence encroaching on his personal space. He thought of the nervous flutter of his pulse, the stiffening of the muscles in his back, the narrowed focus of his vision. He thought of the instinctive internal shrinking of prey facing a known and formidable predator. And most of all, he thought of gazing up into his own face and seeing satisfaction radiating from the foreign presence behind his own eyes.

He understood what Camile meant. Probably better than she did.

"You think he'd be mad, then?" he said, brushing the unsettling memory aside. Rush had just been enjoying himself. Making a point. There was no reason to suppose that there would be a repetition of that little performance.

Camile shrugged. "He might not care at all. But if someone borrowed my body and cut off my hair, I'd toss them out an airlock." She softened the threat with a smile, but the fact that she had made it at all showed how far she had come since she had arrived on Destiny. The old Camile had not casually joked about murder. It went to show what living under the constant threat of calamity did to a person.

"Well, I guess we won't do that, then." he sighed, abandoning the idea with reluctance. He massaged his neck again, desperately willing the spasming muscles to relax.

"Colonel," Camile said after a pause, "you don't look like you're doing well."

He really wasn't. The excess energy that had sustained him up to this point seemed to have finally dissipated. He felt achy and weary and overwhelmed, struck once again with the magnitude of what had taken place and the uncertainty over whether it could be fixed. He walked back to the bed and dropped onto it, rubbing at his face with both hands. But the sensation of Rush's scruff against his palms was an unpleasant reminder of dark days when Young had given up on his own personal grooming in the depths of his depression, so he let his hands fall into his lap. "It's… a bit of an adjustment," he said.

"I imagine so. You said there was more than one favor?" Camile reminded him.

"Yeah," he murmured. "Can you tell everyone what happened to me and Rush? And let them know that Rush is not going to be replaced?"

"I can do that."

He nodded his thanks. "Now I need to talk to Scott. Fill him in on how we're going to tackle this Rush issue."

"I can do that, too," Camile offered. "Honestly, you look like you need a nap."

Young huffed out a bitter laugh. "I need a lot of things right now, Camile."

She smiled sympathetically and rose to her feet. "I'm serious. I'll talk to Lieutenant Scott and pass the word around to the rest of the crew. And I'll be on standby to meet with the IOA whenever the stones are fixed. In the meantime, try not to torment yourself over all of this, okay? I know how you are."

Try not to torment yourself. That was a bit like telling him, try not to breathe. He could make the attempt, but it would probably only last for about thirty or forty seconds before he gave up. But he nodded anyway, grateful to have her assistance, and grateful for the period of solitude she was offering him. Maybe he would take that nap. He felt like he hadn't slept in days. Knowing Rush, it was quite possible that he hadn't.

He let Camile to show herself out. Once she was gone, he pushed himself to his feet and went to stand in front of the tarnished mirror that he used for shaving. A stranger looked back at him from the glass. It wasn't him, but it wasn't really Rush either.

Young deliberately relaxed his face, letting all expression bleed away until even the ghost of his consciousness flickered out like a snuffed candle behind Rush's dark gaze. There. Now it was Rush staring back at him. Rush, with bones like blades and eyes like windows on a starless void, his fifty-two years recorded in lines and furrows across a canvas of tanned skin.

"We're going to put this right," Young whispered to the man in the mirror. "All of it. I promise."