Young sat back in his chair.

"I'm assuming this is a massively complex piece of kit?" He asked.

Rush snorted. "That would be the understatement of the century." He scrolled the plan forward on the tablet, examining a couple of locations. "It's also huge."

"How huge are we talking about?"

"Eighty-three metres long by forty-two metres wide, by nineteen metres deep ." Rush said.

Young nodded. "Okay, then this is the priority project. Who and what do you need?"

Rush grimaced but didn't look up from the screen. "I need Telford to fuck off out of my way."

"You don't start with the easy requests do you."

Rush looked up abruptly. Young had the distinct impression that Rush had thought he was joking.

"I'm serious." Young confirmed. "Who and what do you need?"

"Eli, Brody, Atienza, Olatunde, Chloe, Barnes, Wilson. That's for starters." Rush snapped back.

"Done."

xxxoooxxx

Young banged the base of his crutch on the floor. It echoed loudly on the metal floor plates and the room fell silent.

"Thank you."

He looked around at the military and command personnel clustered into the room.

"Okay," Young gestured at the screen, "we have a serious problem."

The assembled crew stared up at the holographic screen Young had pulled up in the small conference room. It was displaying the schematic of the ship that Rush had annotated and highlighted for him.

"Before I go into that, I need to bring you up to date on a few technical issues."

"Just a question Everett?" Camile asked. "Why are you giving this briefing, not Doctor Rush?"

"Because Dr Rush is with every science or engineering skilled crew member giving a much more technical briefing about the same issue and I'm the only one that's had the full explanation."

"Okay." Camile said. "Thanks."

"At the moment, Destiny is not space worthy outside of a solar system. Also, with the shields at low power, we're vulnerable to hits from space rocks. As we're currently stationary the risk is pretty low and Doctor Volker will be also working on setting the ship's weapons array to take out any large rocks that do pose a risk. According to Rush's calculations, we have air for several years. We're not using the FTL or in system drives so we're using a lot less power, but we're using the gate and we're probably going to need to use it more to access resources and potentially food. The gate is a big drain on Destiny's power resources."

He let them take that information in for a moment.

"That's not new information though." Camile said.

"No," Young shook his head slightly. "I've got two new pieces of information for you. One is that there is a second seedship on it's way to us. It'll be here in a couple of days. It's recently charged up in a star and is bringing us power and a cargo of raw materials."

Young held up his hand to forestall their pleased interruptions, and turned back to the map.

"But, as I said, we have a big problem," Young continued. "Okay, two days ago Doctor Rush had a breakthrough on the work analysing the cold zone. Since then, He and Mr Brody have confirmed his original hypothesis."

There was a murmur of comments, but Young talked over it.

"This is the former cold area. Now not so cold." He indicated the conduits that Rush had highlighted pink on the plan. "This set of pink lines coming into that area is the main conduits from the main power reserve, the yellow thing here, to what they have confirmed is a forward power reserve."

Young looked back to check they were all keeping up.

"We have a forward power reserve?" Scott articulated what Young could see they were all thinking.

"Apparently so. It's this smaller yellow thing here, and is an additional power storage facility. Identifying the systems that were damaged in the explosion is one of the things that Rush has been working on for the last few days."

"Why didn't he identify it sooner?" Scott asked.

"Because Destiny hasn't been using it, it's not working properly, it hasn't been for a few centuries apparently. The science team have focused on maintaining the systems Destiny is currently using." He turned back to the schematic, scrolling it across a little. "You can see that the power conduits then go on to the docking array for the seedship." He reached out with both hands and gestured outwards from the reserve to zoom in. "The orange shading here is the area that was damaged by the explosion. This here is the origin of the explosion, and this next to it is the control systems that manage the flow of power into and out of the forward power array." He gestured to the specific part Rush had indicated. "Which took a bunch of damage in the blast."

"But we don't use the forward power reserve." TJ said. "You said it was broken since before we arrived."

Young nodded. "We don't. I'm not going to go into detail," a small ripple of laughter ensued, "but it has been explained to me that this forward power unit is what caused the recent explosion. It is also the piece of equipment which regulates the power flow between Destiny and the seedships as well as with certain other systems. The control systems that are part of the forward reserve are what we use for the transfer of power, water and air from the seedship, it all passes through here."

Young watched as realisation dawned on all their faces.

"Which is what we're now relying on for additional power while we fix the shields and hull." Camile said. "That's not good at all."

"No." Young agreed. "Up until the explosion it was barely functional, the battery wasn't holding a charge but it was working enough to transfer power and resources between Destiny and the seedships. Now it isn't."

Young waited for the hubbub to die down, finally raising a hand for quiet. Camile spoke into the silence.

"So I'm guessing the science team are having a meeting on how to fix it." She tucked her hair behind her ear and looked at the schematic again.

"Yeah." Young nodded. "Brody's team have fixed the coolant leak so the main problem with accessing that area is the big hole in the hull and the lack of shields. Rush's draft plan which he is discussing with the science team involves leaving the shields as they are for the moment. Some of Brody's engineering team with any other available partly skilled crew will focus on patching the hull damage and then repairing the remaining damaged conduit as fast as possible with minimal supervision. The rest of the science and engineering staff will be focussed on understanding and repairing the forward reserve. As long as we are stationary in this solar system, we can manage without the shields and with an interstellar capable seedship, we can potentially run out of system missions to explore and retrieve power and resources."

"If that worked out," TJ said, "we could potentially stay here indefinitely, fixing the ship."

"It comes down to this. With the shields as they are, we're dead in the water. We have air for a considerable amount of time, but only have power for a few months particularly if we want to use the gate. We've food for a few months, and if we use the new seedship for out of system missions, we can hopefully supplement that. As I already said, we are going nowhere without major repairs and we can't do those unless we can couple with the seedship. Therefore repairing the forward reserve is our primary project."

"Okay," Camile said. "What do they need us to do to support them."

"At the moment, not too much. We'll be taking additional bridge shifts to free them up. Chloe will be acting as the general science liaison triaging and dealing with non-repair based issues while the others are busy. Scott and I will obviously be needed to fly the shuttle to move hull parts and potentially to explore this solar system for resources. I'm going to ask Colonel Telford to make himself available for piloting also. Non-science skilled crew-members may be asked to spend additional time on earth to exchange with relevant science personnel."

"Have you said anything to Homeworld Command yet?" She asked.

"No, my next order of business is to go back and have a meeting with the General to explain the situation. Brody will be coming with me."

"Not Doctor Rush?" Camile queried.

"No, Rush says that as an engineer Brody is the best person to explain the structural issues which will need to be undertaken quite quickly so that we can move ahead with fixing the control systems."

"If we can fix them."

Young looked at her. "Yeah, well we aren't talking about that yet."

"Should we be?"

Young took a long look at Camile.

"If we can't fix them then we will be forced to evacuate the ship." Young said bluntly. "If we cannot fix the connection between Destiny and the seedships and cannot make Destiny spaceworthy, Destiny does not have the capacity to support human life long term, and we could be talking months rather than years."

The room exploded into discussions and Young had to bang his crutch on the floor again to call the room to order.

"With the exception of food and life support issues, no other project takes priority over this one." He stated. "This is the only project."

xxxoooxxx

"I need to go back and brief Homeworld Command." Young said as Rush gestured him into his quarters.

There was a tablet, a laptop and a kino remote scattered on the bed, evidently where Rush had been working.

"Can you make them keep Telford from butting in on my business every five seconds?" Rush demanded.

Young frowned but moved the kino chair over and transferred himself to the bed following Rush's gesture of invitation. He kicked off his shoes with his good foot and carefully swung his legs up, sitting back against the wall at the head of the bed.

"I have an idea." He said. "If you can get Gutierrez in on the work…"

Rush huffed at him, but Young continued apace.

"If you can get Gutierrez in on it, we can potentially sell this whole project to Homeworld Command as long term work towards a gate home plan."

Rush scowled, taking a step back towards the bed and opened his mouth, no doubt to snap a reply.

"No, listen." Young cut in before Rush could speak. "The problem with the dial home plan is that it's all about power flows, you've been telling me that enough, and the power flows are screwed." He gestured at the tablet which was showing what he recognised as Rush and Brody's annotated plan of the high tension conduits. "So, if we take control of the power flow problem ," he made quotation marks with his fingers as he spoke the words, "then we have control of the dial home project. David can complain all he likes, but as far as Homeworld Command are concerned, we are onboard with the project." He shrugged. "And we need to fix it anyway."

Rush nodded slowly, lips pursed in thought. "Are you staying?"

Young paused for a moment, then nodded. Rush began to strip off his outer clothes.

"And they'll believe it, just like that?" Rush's voice was slightly muffled by the t-shirts he was pulling over his head. "Y' think so?"

"I can go back and speak to O'Neill, before the briefing with the committee," Young said as Rush's face became visible again, "explain that the deteriorating condition of Destiny has made you reconsider and agree the need for a back up plan. I'll say that discussing the damage with Brody convinced you."

Rush didn't reply directly. "You want a hand with those?" He pointed at the oversized BDU pants that Young had borrowed to accommodate his splinted leg.

"Thanks." Young agreed and Rush helped him strip down to his boxer shorts.

Young pushed himself up on his hands, lifting his hips from the bed as Rush slid the bedcovers from underneath him. He settled himself in the bed, pulling the covers up around his shoulders as watching Rush set the computers on the surface next to the bed.

"You reckon you can sell them the story. " Rush asked again.

His back was to Young and Young waited for Rush to turn round and face him again before he replied.

"I think it's a pretty safe bet. It's what they want to happen." He paused and grinned. "And most people don't hang around when their ship is sinking."

Rush scowled, but got into bed next to him.

"Do you think we can fix it?" Young asked quietly.

"Yeah. We can." Rush turned out the light.

xxxoooxxx

" Everett, if you continue to avoid this issue any more I will have to speak to your commanding officer. I'm not joking here. I need your decision on where to send the money. Emily. "

Young looked at the email on the computer screen. He was confused here. As far as he knew he had sorted out the last of the financial settlement, his share of the maturing policies was sitting unused in a bank account gathering interest. There wasn't anything else, he had signed over the house to Emily, as he now had enough money from back wages sitting in his account to buy another house outright whenever he wanted. It was not like he had any overheads at the moment.

He took a few minutes to check his finances, dropped a quick email to his brother letting him know he was still alive and still on a top secret project he couldn't talk about then went back to Emily's email message. It still did not make any sense. He browsed back through the email conversation, but the best he could come up with was he was missing an email somewhere. The previous two emails were talking about money from the house and the house was hers.

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in." He said wearily, minimising the emails.

Telford walked in and Young tried not to react.

"You weren't in the briefing." Young noted.

"I was busy." Telford replied. "I had a meeting about something else."

Young scrutinised Telford's face. "I'm just going back. Are you coming along now?"

"I'm not going." Telford said shortly. "Something came up. Personal stuff."

"Oh?"

Telford gave him a long look, his head slightly tilted. "Nothing to worry about." He said finally. "I'll see you in a couple of days."

"'Kay." Young nodded.

Telford left before he could say anything else.

Young frowned, combined with Emily's threatening email he could put two and two together and make four. He took a deep breath and tried to calm down, this visit had been going well until he received the email, Homeworld Command had accepted the work plan readily, and had lapped up Brody's information about the scheduled repairs.

Emily was her own woman. She had a right to make her own choices. He repeated it to himself a couple of times but it was useless. He gave up and stalked back to the stones room, teeth gritted.

xxxoooxxx

Rush only took a momentary glance at Young as he piloted the kino chair into the Research Lab before he turned back to the console.

"I see you've been in touch with the ex-wife again."

"How do you know I've been in touch with Emily?" Young snapped back in a low hiss.

"Because you've been to Earth and you've come back in a foul mood." He looked up sideways at Young. "If it was to do with the meeting you'd've come and told me already or been closeted with your staff, not sulking on your own."

Young moved the chair up level with Rush. "I am not sulking."

"You are," Rush said bluntly. "You've been back for over three hours and I haven't seen you, not at dinner and not to catch up with what Homeworld Command have planned to fuck up our lives this week."

Young glared at Rush. "I don't see how it's any of your business."

His voice was not quite a yell, but enough to startle Eli as he walked in.

"As I've said many times before," Rush growled, "your obsessive behaviour compromises your ability to lead this ship."

"I don't give a shit what you think." Young shouted, pushing himself up to standing, leaning his weight on the console and looming over Rush. "It's none of your business!"

"You need to get a grip on yourself." Rush snapped in a low voice. "She's fucking Telford. You need to get over it so you can deal with the man when he's here trying to screw us over at every opportunity. The last thing we need is for you to fuck that up."

Young growled and grabbed Rush's collar.

Eli left the room at a panicked trot. As the door opened and closed Young caught a quick burst of worried voices but the door had closed before he had a chance to see who was out there.

"Oh for fucks sake." Rush took advantage of his momentary distraction to yank Young's hand away from his collar and turned to face him. "Now the whole fucking ship will know."

"What?"

"Brody and Volker just caught a full eyeful of you throwing your toys out of the pram." He snarled at Young. "It's not as if you have a choice, is it? She's the one making the decisions and you're not doing yourself any favours obsessing about it. Deal with it!"

"Where do you get off telling me that I'm so messed up?"

Rush looked at him coldly.

"The simple difference, Colonel," Rush spat the word out like an insult, "is that I know I'm a mess. I'm in no denial of that fact."

The door opened and Camile walked into the argument, her face concerned, Over Rush's shoulder he could see Eli trying to get her to leave again. She evidently had no idea what it was about. Young could see Brody and Volker's worried faces in the doorway. She looked to Eli, who shrugged helplessly but said nothing.

Rush evidently saw Young's face change and turned to see Camile and Eli. "Shut the door Eli." He snapped.

Eli closed the door, shutting out the others. Camile was looking at Young and Rush, where they stood, with maybe a foot between them, tense and wary."What?" Rush demanded.

"What's going on?" Camile asked.

"We're having a discussion." Young said.

"What about?" Camile didn't look convinced.

"Nothing important." Rush said evenly. "We were just discussing our plans for tomorrow."

Even to Young it sounded evasive.

"It looks more like a stand up argument." Camile said. "Added to the fact the Brody and Volker both say that they walked in on you gripping Doctor Rush by the collar, Colonel and it looks less like a discussion and more like an argument getting seriously out of hand."

Young could see Eli standing behind her and as he caught Eli's eye, Eli threw his hands out with a look that said "I'm sorry I couldn't stop her".

"It's personal." Said Rush.

"Personal." Camile gave them a long look. "I'm sorry, but as your interpersonal history includes one of you trying to kill the other, and one of you trying to frame the other for murder, you'll forgive me it I take that lack of explanation with a pinch of salt."

"It's personal." Rush reiterated. "And I have no intention of discussing my personal issues with you, Camile."

"Colonel Young." She turned to Young and he noted she didn't call him Everett, meaning she was being official. "Would you like to explain what I'm missing to me?"

Young shrugged, shifting his weight against the console.

"Rush is right, it's personal."

Camile looked from one to the other.

"I really don't want to insist, but I can't leave this. We are the command team on this ship, and breakdowns in working relations between the command team place everyone at risk."

Young could see Eli cringing in embarrassment behind Camile.

"Camile," Rush said, "our relationship is none of your concern."

"Actually it is, as I just said."

Rush turned his head to look at Young.

"You're obviously a better liar than I gave you credit for, Young." Rush told him. "She has no idea."

"Camile?" Eli was tugging on her arm, "I think it really is personal."

"Fighting in the leadership team over personal issues?" She turned back to Rush and Young. "Now, I suggest we sort this out reasonably."

"Camile," Young said, trying to mimic her reasonable tone when he felt anything but, "I can assure you there's nothing in the current relationship Rush and I have that is going to lead to any incidents like the two you mentioned."

He saw Camile's eyes flick down to Rush's now bare right hand.

"Oh for fucks sake." Said Rush.

He turned, grabbed Young by the hips, hauled him in and kissed him, one hand sliding behind Young's waist. Young tensed in surprise, then tentatively brought a hand up to Rush's jaw, sliding his right hand to cup Rush's hip. This was a real kiss, Rush's hands were firm around him, his lips were moving over Young's confidently, plucking at his bottom lip gently, Rush's tongue dipping into his mouth. His hand tensed on Rush's hip and he kissed back softly, the tips of his fingers stroking at Rush's beard.

He vaguely heard Camile say "Oh!"

"I told you it was personal." Eli said, a little fraught.

Rush pulled away, dark eyes staring into his. Young searched his eyes, dropping the hand on his face to his shoulder. Rush pressed his lips together, giving Young one of his frustratingly unreadable long looks, then without stepping away, spun in Young's arms to face Camile.

"Personal." He said flatly, his back against Young's chest.

Young's heart was thumping in his chest as he watched Camile's reaction over Rush's shoulder. Camile stood there, shocked, and he watched as she deliberately composed herself.

"Way to out yourselves, guys." Muttered Eli.

"Eli!" Rush and Young spoke in tandem.

"You were right about one thing Camile." Rush said. "Secrets between the command team are problematic and dangerous," he paused, "but I do expect you'll maintain our privacy? You of all people understand what this could mean."

Oh you utter bastard, thought Young a little admiringly as he sat back down in his kino chair heavily, play on her sympathies and put her in a place she can't say no.

"I didn't realise either of you were bisexual." Camile said, almost conversationally.

Nice save, impressive.

"We're not, as such." Said Rush. "We just sleep in the same bed sometimes."

"And kiss."

"That too occasionally."

Camile looked at Eli, who was standing, with his tensest 'get me out of here' face on, then back at them.

"Who knows? Apart from Eli of course who keeps all of your secrets."

She shot Eli a look which he ducked his head away from.

"TJ." Said Young. "Possibly Chloe. That's it."

"Impressive," said Camile, "considering I'm guessing it's been a while."

"A few months." Said Rush noncommittally.

"And what do you intend to tell Brody and Volker?"

"Nothing." Rush snapped.

Camile frowned. "I seriously doubt you'll be able to keep it a secret forever."

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." Rush said.

Camile looked at Young, who nodded.

She sighed, then shrugged. "Well, there's nothing I can do about it even if I wanted to. Whether Homeworld Command will have an opinion when it finally comes out is another matter."

"As I said…" Rush replied.

Camile sighed again.

"And your thoughts, Everett?"

Young shrugged. "Eventually, maybe. Not yet." He looked up at Eli. "You'd better tell Brody and Volker that Camile is arbitrating our dispute. Tell them to go work in the Core."

Eli nodded and as he walked to the door Rush took two large steps away from him, before the door opened. Young felt the absence as a momentary sharp sensation as Rush moved out of his arms. Eli walked out closing the door behind him, Young could see Brody and Volker's faces, expectant as Eli came out. The door hissed shut.

"I can't say I'm not surprised." Camile said. "It seems pretty unlikely."

Rush grimaced. "It seemed like a good idea at the time." He said shortly.

She leaned on the console.

"It's not easy." She warned them. "There's people who won't like it. Maybe not on Destiny, though I think it'll take people a while to get used to it, but you'll have to prepare yourself for some bad reactions."

Young laughed. "Not the first time I've disappointed people. I'll worry about it then if we make it home. We're both single, I'm not breaking any code of conduct now am I? Until then, I doubt it's likely to come up off of the ship, is it?" Young said.

She looked at him. "It could be argued it compromises your roles as leaders."

Rush snorted derisively. "It's not as if the Colonel is the type to allow anything to get in the way of what needs to be done for the ship now, is he?"

Camile blinked at him. "No, but maybe Everett Young is? Or Nicholas Rush?"

"Doubtful. We'll both do what needs to be done, same as always." Said Rush categorically.

Camile looked thoughtful. "Well, I guess it's congratulations then." She said. "I'll leave you two to it."

She smiled briefly and left.

Young turned to Rush as the door closed. Rush had turned straight back to his console and was already getting back to work. After a moment he seemed to become aware of Young's scrutiny.

"What." He said, not looking up. "Did you think we shouldn't have told her? She won't mention it."

"No, I agree we needed to tell her, and I'm impressed with your emotional blackmail."

Rush looked at him. "It needed to be done."

He turned back to the console and started working again.

"What are you still staring at?" Rush asked after about a minute.

"Why did you do it like that?"

Rush looked up. "It seemed the best way to prevent her telling anyone."

"No, the kiss."

"I had to kiss you so she'd accept it; she'd never have credited it otherwise."

Young couldn't work out if Rush was being deliberately obtuse. He pushed himself back up and leaned closer to him, then took his jaw and kissed him, moving his lips gently to pull at Rush's bottom lip. He slid his other hand round Rush's waist, drawing him out from behind the console and pulling Rush against him. Slowly Rush reacted, lips parting a little to kiss back, hands sliding round Young's waist. He was startled as Rush tipped his head slightly to get a better angle but this time neither of them pulled away.

Young pulled back first. "Why?" he asked Rush.

"Because I wanted to."

Young gave Rush a look, but supplied the line anyway. "Just like that?"

"Just like that."

Young licked his lips a little tensely.

"Go away Young," Rush said, "go work, like I need to. I'm sure you can find time to discuss this later."

xxxoooxxx

He was waiting in Rush's bed when he finally decided to turn in for the night.

"I'm sorry." Young said quickly before he could get a word in. "I said is was none of your business and that's not true."

Rush stripped off his t-shirts and pants and slid into the bed in his underpants.

"You're as…" Young paused. "This is a relationship, a kinda weird one, but you...matter...too."

"Shut up Young." Rush muttered, but there was no bitterness in his voice.

Young leaned into him.

"What?" Rush demanded.

Young kissed him. "I'm sorry."

Rush huffed a little, but caught his eyes. "Apology accepted. Now can we get some sleep?"

Young rolled over and felt Rush spoon around him. He took Rush's free hand and tucked it into his chest.

"Of course." He replied. "G'night."