The next few days went fairly smoothly, with only two life-or-death situations and only one near-death scare involving a Stargate. Somehow, two of the aforementioned moments still had to do with Rush screwing things up – if he'd just stopped lying and told someone he stuck Rex in the engine to one of the shuttles, Young would have significantly less gray hairs.
And if he hadn't run through an open wormhole, there wouldn't have been any near-death scares at all.
It took everyone a moment to register that the little boy had just gone through. Then –
"OH MY GAAAAWW—"
"FUCKING HELL –"
"NIIIIIICK!"
Without waiting for Eli's Kino to go through, Chloe, Park, Greer, TJ, and Young all ran in after Nick. They tumbled out on a dusty planet rife with forests. Panting heavily, holding her First Aid kit, Nick Edition, TJ started on a search.
After splitting up, they found him.
He was pretending to be an airplane, spinning on top of a rock.
"NICK!" Young snapped, resisting the urge to stamp his foot. "You get down here RIGHT NOW!"
Duly scolded, Nick clambered off the boulder and went right to TJ, who gave him a quick and somewhat tearful examination.
"No boo-boos, sir," she informed Young, pulling Nick into a tight hug. She kissed him on the forehead before coming to her senses and pulling away, giving him a steely glare. "Nick, we do not run through Stargates! You could've been seriously hurt, or killed! And then we could have been killed coming after you!"
Nick looked stricken at the thought. Sighing, Young rubbed a hand over his face and looked at Greer and Chloe, who were a bit pale. Park was in tears.
"OK," he said heavily, "back to the ship. Let's organize a search team."
He grabbed onto Nick's hand and refused to let go.
It was hard to ground a kid from a perfectly safe planet, especially when all the kid got otherwise were empty halls and a complete lack of sunlight. But after a few hours planet-side, to Young's surprise, it was Nick who requested to go back onboard.
"How come?" Young asked him as they headed back to the Gate. Nick shrugged.
"I miss my friend."
Young cast his eyes about – Greer and Park were snuggling by the river, Chloe was talking to Matt, and Brody appeared to be napping. He couldn't think of any other friends Nick meant – he didn't play with anybody else.
When they stepped through the Stargate and Nick scampered off, Young figured he would just let the matter go. But then, as the day wore on, he found himself going in search of the little guy, unsettled.
He found Nick alone in a disused console room, murmuring under his breath to … no one.
There was no one in the room.
"Nick…?" said Young. "Who're you talking to?"
Nick jumped and turned, his eyes wide. Young saw the barely-perceptible twitch of Nick's fingers as the boy removed them from the console, pretending he'd been doing nothing. It was a long time before either of them spoke.
"Gloria," Nick answered finally. Young felt his eyebrows furrow.
"Imaginary friend?" he asked. Nick stared at him, face blank. His eyes flickered to the empty space beside him.
"Yeah."
Young nodded and grabbed the boy's hand, helping him down from the boxes he'd set up as a stool. It didn't escape his notice that Nick's sleeves no longer made it past his wrists.
They headed off to the mess hall.
Nick was hyper today – Young figured he'd have run it off on the planet, but he had no such luck. At first, it had been kind of cute, especially since other members of the crew were playing with him instead of Young. But now, when it was time for Nick to go to bed, things were a little more difficult.
"Nick," he said, trying and failing to grab the boy's arms and make him stop bouncing. "Could you calm down, please? It's time for bed."
"Not tired."
"Why not?" Young fell back on his haunches, exasperated. "You haven't had a nap today. You even spent four good hours running around outside – how can you not be tired?"
Nick shrugged. He jumped up and down on the bed again, expression thoughtful.
"Can I go back to the console room?" he asked. "Or the Apple Core?"
"No. It's bedtime."
"Please?"
"Why do you want to go?" Young made sure his tone made it clear he only wanted clarification; Nick was still going to bed, whether he liked it or not.
"I wanna work on the computers," said Nick.
Young stared at him.
"Bed," he said. "Now."
It was hours before Nick went to sleep, and even then, it was a fitful doze that kept Young awake, too. The boy woke up three times in the night and finally, at four a.m., decided it was time to get up. He tumbled out of bed and just walked around the quarters, examining things.
His trouser legs were a little shorter that morning, it seemed.
When Young finally resigned himself to fate and got out, too, he became convinced the little guy was sick. He wasn't speaking much; he seemed sullen all day, refusing to play more than half-heartedly with Greer and telling Park in a flat tone that he could read now, and didn't need her help.
Young could see the hurt in everyone's eyes – his only comfort was that despite how oddly he was acting, Nick still held his hand.
And that was fine, until Nick called Volker a useless asshole and threatened to put the astrophysicist through an airlock.
"He understands what I am, right?" Volker exclaimed indignantly while Young gave Nick a talking-to. "I'm an astrophysicist! He's a freaking mathematician - if anyone's useful on this ship, it's me!"
"Shut up, Volker."
...
..
.
"Nick?" said Colonel Young. "You seemed kind of sick today."
"Hn."
"Are you feeling OK?"
"Yeah."
"You want to talk about it?"
"… No."
It was twelve o'clock, much later than Nick normally went to sleep, but his bout of insomnia had carried over from the night before. For the past few hours, they'd been playing chess - Young was surprised when it ended in a draw. He hadn't known Nick was paying that much attention to their lessons.
The boy was just starting to look sleepy, and Young decided it was time to put his foot down. He scooped Nick up, intending to put the boy in bed. Instead, Nick's eyes widened and he let out a startled scream.
"Whoa, whoa!" Young cried, fighting to keep the boy still. Nick thrashed and shouted, face twisted in fear. "NICK!" Young roared. "Quiet down! What's wrong?"
Gulping, with tears streaking his face, Nick shied away, Young shifted closer, his voice low and soothing.
"Nick," he said again, more softly this time. "What happened? What's wrong?"
Nick hid his face behind a trembling arm and mumbled something Young could barely hear.
"I never beat you up!" he protested quietly, completely baffled. "Nick –"
Then, unbidden, a memory of leaving Dr. Rush – full-grown, manipulative Dr. Rush – to die on a planet rose in the colonel's mind. His mouth went dry.
"Nick," he tried again, "when I beat you up … was it in a desert?"
Words barely distinguishable from sobs, Nick said yes.
"It was just a dream," Young told him, feeling numb. He gathered Nick up in his arms, feeling the boy shake and cry against his shirt-front. "Just a dream, Nick. It's not real."
They fell asleep like that, Young cradling Nick until his tears subsided.
When he woke up, Nick was gone. In his place was a still-slumbering, stark naked Dr. Rush.