I still don't own SGU; I still don't want to. It's all of because of Dr Rush's eyes.

Kino Vision Number 5
By EllieV

Chloe Armstrong marched along the corridor humming. The kino followed her discretely. If she noticed it she would tell Eli and he would recall all the kinos he had previously forgotten. Chloe had been humming a lot of late. The kino had listened in on a conversation she had with herself that she shouldn't be humming at all; she was stuck on a derelict spaceship out in the far-flung reaches of space and that was no reason to hum. Her father was dead, she told herself as the kino listened; that wasn't a reason to hum and it wasn't a reason to be happy. On the flipside, the kino said to her silently, she had a 'boyfriend', if that's what he was, and a devoted slave in Eli. The kino preferred Eli to Lt Scott.

Chloe was on her way to meet Eli. She found him and in a stage whisper said, "He's not here, is he?"

Eli looked up and said, "You're tiptoeing." He grinned. "And whispering."

"Shhhhh," she said.

Both of them giggled.

Eli said, "What are you worried about?"

"Rush and Colonel Young had another argument this morning," Chloe said. "In the mess hall—in front of everyone."

The kino had missed that one and made a note to follow Colonel Young a little more often.

Eli made a face. "What about this time?" he asked.

"I don't know, some numbers Rush came up with for something," Chloe shrugged.

"About the inaccessible areas of the ship?" Eli asked, his face arrested.

"Uh yeah, I think so," Chloe said. "Does it matter? They're always arguing; Colonel Young should do something about him."

"They were my numbers," Eli said, a look of faint worry creasing his brow. "He got me to work those out."

The kino remembered the conversation. Eli was obstreperous so Rush was short with him and the kino had wondered if Rush was simply tired of doing everything himself. Take the day off, the kino had told him to no avail. Eli worked out the numbers and had flung himself out of the room. Rush had gone over them again and again until he had finally incorporated them into whatever it was he was working on. Eli hadn't come back for the rest of the day. The kino had hung around Rush so it didn't know whether Eli had gone off to do something for Young or if he was just in a snit.

The kino watched as Eli flirted clumsily with Chloe. It was painful to watch his crush and Chloe's indifference, though perhaps indifference was the wrong word; unaware was probably better. The kino decided after getting very bored watching the pair of them to go find either Young or Rush to see what the fallout from the argument was.

It found Rush first. He was sitting on the stairs in the gateroom, notebook in hand, although he wasn't leafing through or writing in it. He was simply sitting, watching the gate, his face introspective. The look on Rush's face bothered the kino so it decided to make itself known and zipped a couple of times around his head. Rush scowled at the kino and said incomprehensibly, "Yah daftie mincy heid."

He got up and the kino followed, dashing around a corner, when Rush glanced back at it. It wanted to see the look on Chloe's face when Rush turned up but just as he arrived so did Dr Park. The kino liked Dr Park. She was funny and oddly enthusiastic about everything. She held one of the computer things various of the scientists carried around. Rush didn't; he preferred his notebook.

"Oh, hey Eli, Chloe," Park said cheerfully. "Dr Rush, could you take a look at this?"

Rush had given an infinitesimal pause when he saw Chloe but otherwise had no reaction. Chloe had looked guilty so the kino wondered what she'd been saying; presumably it was about Rush. He took the computer from Park and clicked through the screens. He held up the computer to Park without saying anything.

She grimaced and said, "I was kind of hoping you wouldn't notice that."

Rush still didn't say anything though he raised an eyebrow.

Park said blushing, "So, how about I fix it?"

Rush nodded and handed her back the computer. Park shoved the bulky thing under her arm and went to leave. She paused at the entry and said hopefully, "The rest of it?"

Rush said absently, "Good."

Park beamed, as if she'd received the best compliment ever and went off with a little skip in her step. Rush was already concentrating on the console as if Park had never been there. He ignored Eli and Chloe who stood awkwardly. Eli cleared his throat.

"Uh," Eli said. "I hear Colonel Young had a problem with my numbers."

Rush said, busying himself at the console, "They weren't a problem."

"But Chloe said …" Eli began.

"He doesn't have a problem with the numbers, Eli," Rush said, putting a stress on 'numbers'. Eli caught it but Chloe didn't.

"Maybe if you'd said they were Eli's numbers instead of claiming the credit yourself," Chloe put in.

Eli cringed immediately and hissed her name as Rush looked up, staring across the room at her. "I beg your pardon," he said between his teeth, very icily.

"You didn't once say that Eli worked out those numbers," Chloe said, not backing down.

"No," Rush said, his voice brutally sarcastic. "Perhaps I should have mentioned that yonder golden-haired math boy worked them out but given Colonel Young got into the swing of my daily scolding so very quickly, I didn't get much of a chance."

She snapped back, "It's your fault we're stuck here."

"Yes, it is," Rush said flatly. He stabbed at a button on the console. He wasn't looking at her now but the kino saw his face and shrank back into the corner.

"And my father's dead because of you," she said, her voice hot.

Rush's finger paused on a button. This time he did stare across at her; his response had no kindness in it at all.

"You know, Miss Armstrong, I'll take the rap for getting us here in the first place but I don't remember going to your father and saying, 'Excuse me, Senator, but we're all going to die, so would you mind just popping down to the shuttle to sacrifice yourself for us?' No memory of it at all, so perhaps you could ask around and find out who actually did so we can have ourselves a proper wee lynching," Rush said, his voice vicious, his accent stronger than usual.

Chloe's face was white and the kino got that she had been the one to tell her father about the door that wouldn't shut. Eli got it, too, as did Rush whose lip curled just ever so slightly. She burst into tears and stormed out. Eli followed her, his voice calling, "Chloe? Chloe?" There was a small silence and then Eli said, "Oh shit, man."

Rush put a shaking hand up to his head.

The kino stayed very still.

FINIS