FIC: Taking the Plunge, PG-13, Part 2/2
PART 1/2
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“Rush, we have to talk when you have some time,” he said as he entered the ‘gateroom, seeing Rush and Eli working.
“Can we do it tomorrow, perhaps? I should be done with most of the important calculus then.”
Young nodded and kept looking at Rush for a little longer to see if he could read something from the other man’s expression, but to no avail: Rush was as always professional and composed.
“… may I ask you a question?”
Young blinked a couple of times and looked at Eli who seemed to be a little confused and uncertain. Trying not to sigh was harder than he expected, but he exhaled softly instead and nodded. “Yes, Eli?”
“Scott and TJ said that soon everybody would have to show up to some kind of meeting because you have to tell us something. What’s going on? Any plans or what?”
It wasn’t difficult to notice Rush’s raised eyebrow, but it was easy not to look at him in that particular moment, since Eli really seemed to be concerned about the subject, or as if he had done something wrong.
“It was brought to my attention that there are still trust issues on the Destiny and it looks like once again we will have to talk about it,” he answered calmly and Eli blinked a couple of times, opening his mouth slightly, ready to say something. Before the younger man could say anything, Young tried to explain. “I have a feeling we will keep talking about it until people realize and understand what I tried to tell them the last time.”
“But Cam talked to everybody, right? Everything seemed to be fine. I haven’t heard anything lately…”
“The fact that you don’t see something, Eli, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. You know that. We’ll discuss everything in the right time.”
“Okay, sure.”
“Good. I’ll leave you to your work, then,” Young said and looked briefly at Rush before leaving the room. How should he deal with the same situation all over again to make people understand anything?
***
He had no idea why he was surprised by everything that had happened lately - that was what bothered him the most. He was more or less prepared for it after all. He had known all the risks of getting involved even before it all started, before he got used to having Rush around. But at the time, it wasn’t as… real. Now there were possibilities he’d never bothered to think about and the fact that the scientist hadn’t done anything to make people believe Scott’s suspicions weren’t true.
He knew Rush, he rarely cared about what other people thought of him. It wasn’t anything new, but it meant he always did what he thought was right, without bothering to explain his plans and assumptions. He could ignore everybody for as long as it took to finish his work and he almost never let the others’ opinions change his mind, especially about something he was sure of, unless he saw some obvious evidence. Just like now. Rush was so focused on finding out what was wrong with the ship that he never cared about how his sneaking out of the rooms, working all the time and keeping working on the computers might look like to people who didn’t know anything.
He really had to talk to Rush.
It took some time to finish the next reports, he tried to not let himself be distracted by unwanted thoughts, but when he was reading, almost everything ended up being about Rush. It was irritating, and also yet another thing he blamed on the other man.
When he was back in his quarters, he laid down on his bed, closed his eyes and tried to stop thinking for at least a couple of minutes. It was tiresome and he still had to think of a way to talk to Rush. People were once again becoming suspicious of everything and all the consequences of it made his head hurt. But coffee would probably help him with that. His plans were ruined right away, when he heard knocking on his door. He fought the sigh that wanted to escape his moth when he had heard the sound. The door opened and Rush entered the room.
“Rush…” he started and run a hand thought his hair. Obviously, the chat he’d thought about had to happen sooner than he’d expected. The scientist stood in the middle of the room now, not moving at all, just looking in his direction and it was even more frustrating.
“What did you want to talk about, Colonel?” he asked. “I was wondering what was going on for a while, but from what I have heard from people it has something to do with the last issue of the tremors, am I right?”
“Mostly, but not only,” he groaned, sat back down on the bed and gestured to Rush to sit down on the chair opposite to the bed. He took the place obediently, as if he’d expected the chat to be longer, waiting for Young to explain everything.
“Overall, people are afraid of another disagreement between the civilians and my people.”
“Your people?”
“Rush, you know what I mean. Could you at least try not to make this even harder?” at Rush’s nod, Young sighed. “Doesn’t matter how good everything seems to be, I have to react somehow, because it was brought to my attention and I promised to talk with you,” he fought the urge to groan and inhaled softly. Why was he feeling so nervous all of sudden? “People are concerned about your work. Since you mostly work on your own on the tremors, Eli doesn’t really count here even if he’s helping you as much as he can, but you’re spending the most time on it, a lot more than the others. I have to come up with something to control the situation, so I think it would be best to check up on you from time to time,” he finished slowly, looking up to meet Rush’s eyes.
“Matters of trust,” Rush nodded. “You are afraid they are right and I might cause more trouble to you and the crew.”
“It’s not about that and you know it. I had to do what people…”
“I understand, don’t worry. You do your thing, people expect you to control the situation. It’s not surprising. So I don’t really understand why are you so nervous about the whole matter. Trust issues won’t disappear, doesn’t matter what you do, people will believe what they want to believe. I doubt it would change just because somebody told them whom they should trust. I thought you know that.”
“Listen, I told you…”
“Well, if you ask me, you don’t really make much sense at the moment. You do your job well from what I see, but you’re still so uneasy about it. More than you should, actually.”
Young wanted to scream. Was Rush doing it all on purpose? Was he trying to make Young lose his temper, was he playing some sort of a game with him? How could he keep talking like that after he had obviously seen how hard it must be for him to talk about it? He closed his eyes for a moment, preventing himself from looking at the scientist who was sitting on the chair, his arms folded, looking completely relaxed.
But then the scientist stood up right in front of Young, and sat down on the bed next to him, not too close, putting a distance between them.
“I understand, you know. I really do. I also believe I know what you might be thinking right now. I know I’ve never given you much reason to trust me, have I? I doubt my words will change anything, but I am going to try anyway. I want everybody to get back. I also want to save Destiny, it’s not a secret, but I don’t plan on sacrificing anybody to do it, doesn’t matter if the others believe it or not,” he licked his lips and swallowed, still looking directly at Young.
Young just opened his mouth, but no words came out for some time. Everything was silent , only their breathing could be heard in the room. The uncomfortable silence just made him more restless and he was sure the beating of his heart was also louder because of this.
Of course Rush would see everything Young felt. He finally had to get used to the feeling of Rush knowing him inside and out, even if everyday things were getting more and more complicated and sometimes it was difficult to get hold of all the things he experienced, especially when it came to the bond between him and Rush. Relationships meant trusting each other after all, and Young realized after his last chat with Scott just how limited his trust in Rush was, even if everything seemed to be fine for the last couple of months. And he had no idea how much Rush trusted him either, but right now he had to forget about himself. His priority was the safety of people on Destiny, and he had to focus on it. He turned his head around to look into the other man’s eyes.
“Listen, for now… we will be watched by many more people and…” he didn’t have time to finish the sentence, because the whole ship suddenly trembled. Books fell from the bookshelves, everything on the desk was wet because of the spilled coffee and Young heard Scott’s voice.
“Colonel, the quakes are back. Eli and I are already in the ‘gateroom, just in case. Greer and the others are checking up on the scientist and the civilians.”
“Understood. I’ll be with you right away. Young out.”
Young left the quarters along with Rush and headed to the ‘gateroom. Everybody was already there talking quietly with each other, whispering from time to time and it wasn’t hard to notice all the tension and nervous expressions on a couple of faces.
Rush left his side and took a place by Eli’s side next to the console and the computer and they talked about something that was lost on him when a couple of civilians, Rogers and West started to shout at each other, in the process also accusing Rush and the other scientist of doing nothing to help them, or doing everything on purpose to take charge and have Destiny for themselves.
“Stop it! That’s an order!” Young finally said loudly, trying to remain calm, Scott joining him a couple of seconds later to help him with keeping people from fighting. “I assure you all,” he started again after majority of people in the room had calmed down enough to hear him loud and clear, “we all do what we can to find a way to stop the tremors, and Eli along with doctor Rush…”
“They both have something to do with it! Everybody knows Rush cares only about this ship!” somebody from the last row of the group shouted and through the whole group echoed voices of agreement and nodding. Young glanced at Scott, who looked right back and it was clear he agreed with the statement even if he kept silent. Young knew that if he didn’t do something people would start shouting and it was going to be hell.
He glanced in Rush and Eli’s direction, but noticed that both of them were focused mostly on the computer screen. With the corner of his eye Eli spotted the shouting people and a slight grimace appeared on his face, but he kept working. Rush on the other hand looked like he wasn’t noticing anything in the room besides his notes and the computer. Well, at least one person was…
“Roger, you know that’s not true,” TJ said right away and when she stood up everybody’s eyes were on her directly. “Doctor Rush, Eli and all the other scientists work the hardest of all of us to find out what is happening. They are not sleeping, instead they keep working to help us all.”
Chloe and Camile agreed without any protest and Young took a chance to glance at working Eli and Rush again. Now they both seemed to be lost in some other world, not hearing anything that was happening around them, about which Young was actually very happy. When he was looking at Rush at that moment he wondered how could he accuse or even think about accusing Rush of not doing anything to help them all. He wanted to scream at himself.
“TJ is right. Doctor Rush and Eli both do everything they can…”
“Yes! We found it!”
Young blinked a couple of times and turned his head around to see Eli’s excitement and a small, subtle smile forming on Rush’s face as he run his fingers through his hair slowly, clearly satisfied. Eli was almost jumping around or would have if he wasn’t held in place by Chloe’s arms around his neck. At the image Young felt like smiling, but he had to hold back. Obviously not everybody was so excited about the news as most of the people were.
“Eli, would you like to explain?” he asked, curious himself, and the younger man blinked a couple of times, still holding on to Chloe. He exhaled, relieved, before answering.
“All the tremors were part of the ship’s reacting system. On three decks there are four small generators.” He licked his lips and exhaled again, probably searching for the right words to explain everything properly. “At first we thought they just protected the Destiny from overheating or something like that, because they were ensuring the level of heat and draining the heat to the four biggest, main rooms, so we left them alone, thinking they had nothing to do with the situation. We started checking out all the systems over again, but nothing really worked. Just now Doctor Rush noticed a leak of the energy in one of the generators, which made the whole system of linked generators a little crazy,” he looked at the computer screen once again.
“Was this one generator responsible for the whole mess?” asked Scott, incredulous. He probably wasn’t the only one and Eli must have noticed it, because he continued.
“The broken one started sending impulses to the others about the leak through the computer. The messages went unnoticed because our equipment is adapted to this kind of messages so it was kind or… regular, so to say, nothing unusual, so the computers never detected any problems. We think the computer never reacted, because the system is used to dealing with situations like this itself, but this time it had problems with regeneration, because the energy that was supposed to be used was taken by people on the ship and the tremors were the ship’s way to inform us about the lack of energy and the leak. “
“But everything seems to be under control now,” Rush interrupted as he turned around to look at the screen of the nearest computer. “I already directed and sent more energy to the damaged generator. I had to cut off a little from the less used parts of Destiny, so the tremors shouldn’t bother anybody anymore.”
“How long it’ll take to fully regenerate everything?”Scott asked.
“I believe about twelve hours with all the energy I directed to the generator. At least twelve or at least that’s how it looks like when I look at the data from the previous regeneration process. Everything is saved in the system, so if anybody has any questions about the last events, I believe Eli will agree to provide all the information and every explanation needed. Now, please excuse me. I still have some more work to do,” he turned his head around to nod shortly at Eli, Camile and Chloe, but before leaving the ‘gateroom his eyes locked with Young’s. Young wasn’t really sure what he saw, but it wasn’t anything good, that’s for sure. Young blinked and in the next second Rush was gone.
People were leaving the room, whispering amongst themselves. Some of them probably not really convinced, but for now he couldn’t do anything more. It they didn’t want to believe, he would never force them to change their minds.
When he felt a pair of arms around his neck, he turned his head to look at TJ, who was now smiling. Not a full, bright smile he was used to seeing. There was also concern on her face made him feel a little lost.
“Go to him. He’s had a hard time lately. He doesn’t talk much, but… he cares,” she said slowly the concern in her voice was clear. He sighed.
“Right now people…”
“I will take care of them, Everett. You have friends who want to help.”
“I can’t just go and leave them here. I’m responsible for…”
“Yes. But you forget you are not alone in this. You are not alone here. We all help each other with everything, why this time should be any different? You care about everybody here. But I think it’s time for you to do something for yourself now.”
“TJ…”
“Go, Everett.”
Young sighed once again and looked in TJ’s bright eyes. She was truly an amazing person, Young thought when he looked at her, when he felt her warm hand covering his and squeezing it lightly in a comforting, reassuring gesture. Young licked his lips, smiled and squeezed her hand back. She returned the smile and he felt like she was one of the most wonderful people he had ever met. He gave her a quick hug and when she broke the embrace she whispered, “I want you to be happy, Everett.”
“You’re amazing, TJ. I want you to know that.”
“Oh, believe me, I know.”
Young smiled again and left the room, once more glancing back to see TJ talking with a couple of civilians. He sighed and left to search for Rush. He had one idea where the other man could’ve gone, so he went to the second deck right away. After all the scientist looked like he needed some space when he was leaving so he wouldn’t have gone the places where anybody could see him. It meant he needed silence.
The observation deck was dark and quiet so he blinked a couple of times to let his eyes get used to the lack of light in the room. He looked around and finally saw a figure sitting on the bench and it looked like Rush was… lost in space.
For a moment Young wanted to just leave the deck and let Rush sit in peace without disturbing him, but something inside him made him go forward. He wasn’t trying to hide his presence in any way so he could give Rush a chance to say he didn’t want anybody disturbing him. If Rush told him to go, he would. Slowly, he closed the distance between the scientist and himself. When the other man was in front of him, he bent over and in kneeling position, he rested the elbows on his knees, as if sheltering the scientist. He noticed Rush’s right foot pushed under the railing, hands linked in front of him, but he didn’t even move or acknowledged Young’s presence in any other way. A few minutes of silence passed until Rush finally moved. Young was a little surprised when instead getting up and leaving, he felt Rush leaning back against him a little, and wrapped one arm around Young’s bent leg, relaxing even more. Young exhaled slowly, not wanting to make too much noise when everything was so peaceful and Rush’s fingers slowly massaged his knee. He brought the other man closer to him wrapping both arms around the scientist’s shoulder, letting Rush lay back against him even more, basking in their closeness.
They had rarely spend time on touching that didn’t lead to getting both of them in bed sooner or later, and they were both fine with it, it was what they both needed, what they both wanted and what they both got used to. But now, something seemed to be different. Now Rush clearly needed to be close, and in a way, just being here wrapped around the other man, offering him comfort he needed felt better than having sex with him. This whole new level of intimacy was… welcome. And he knew he wouldn’t mind getting so close to Rush like this more often.
He was sure nobody would come there, so he let himself relax, too, enjoying the quiet, peaceful moments in Rush’s company. But this moment wasn’t about him. It was about Rush and the fact that even if the scientist was used to people’s opinions about him, he still needed reassurance, somebody who would be close, somebody who would maybe believe in him. Young didn’t know if it was the time to ask. He was just glad Rush trusted him enough to let him be this person.
He wanted to say something for a moment, but he realized he didn’t have to. He lowered his head, resting his lips against the top of Rush’s head, breathing in the familiar scent and smiled lightly, when he felt Rush’s tightening the hold on his knee a little.
No words were needed between them at the moment. They were together and everything seemed to be just fine, didn’t matter what the others had thought about it.