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She failed the first time, and for a while she thinks she has missed her only opportunity. Because he never did listen to her, and he has left her unable to communicate with anyone. All she can do is observe them, watch from afar as they inexpertly attempt to build something of a professional relationship between them. She sees them grow, and she sees them fumble, and she wishes she could speak to either of them, to make them see that this is not good enough, not nearly good enough. She gets her second chance when they go into stasis. When they enter her pods and leave her in complete control of their bodies and their minds. Of their lives. She will take care of them, of course. She will do more than that. She will make them understand. -The sound of the sea is always the first thing he hears when he wakes up. The waves toppling over themselves, crashing onto the shoreline, leaving little licks of foam at their furthest edges. The seagulls are louder, but he always hears them second. Their keening cries echo against each other in a way he used to associate with loneliness. Now he associates them with Nick, and their house, and the little life they've built between them. Here, at the side of the sea. “Ev, come on, you have to eat something.”Nick looks worried. He looks worried a lot, lately. He's sitting in a chair at his bedside, a full plate of breakfast balanced on his lap precariously. On the bedside table he's placed a cup of tea with honey.Everett doesn't feel like eating, is pretty sure he won't keep any of it down anyway, but he hates the way Nick's eyes go tight when he refuses. He accepts the plate and prays he won't throw up before Nick leaves for work. His knee is killing him.He takes his time cutting off a bite. Nick made him eggs, sunny side up. The way he knows Everett likes them, with the yolks still soft and gooey. He loves Nick for trying, knows that it took him at least two attempts to get the eggs just right – he's the worst cook Everett has ever seen – but as he brings the fork up to his mouth it takes everything he has not to grimace in distaste. He doesn't want to eat. He does it for Nick anyway. “I've made an appointment at the hospital, this Thursday.” Everett doesn't want to go to the hospital either. But he'll go for Nick anyway.“You worry too much,” he says, as he reaches out his hand to brush over Nick's cheek. “It's just a stomach bug.” “Yeah, I'm sure it is,” Nick answers, and his voice almost sounds normal. His smile almost looks convincing. -It's not just a stomach bug. Doctor Franklin sends him for an x-ray, and then a CT scan. Then he insists on a biopsy of the knobbly bit in his knee. Nick's eyes are wet when he drives them back to the hospital to get the results. Neither of them comment on it, but Everett curls his fingers into Nick's palm while they wait in Franklin's waiting room. Bone cancer, Franklin says. Grade III chondrosarcoma, to be more precise. The world around him seems to stop, everything reduced to the whooshed thrumming of his blood in his ears, to the pained gasp he hears Nick pull in. This can't be happening. He twisted his knee running. He's had some trouble keeping his food down. He doesn't have cancer. Franklin prattles on about resection and surgical margins, until Nick interrupts him. “What's his prognosis?” Franklin gives Nick a cool look, and Everett is taken aback by the hostility in his gaze. “This type of cancer has a five-year survival rate of less than thirty percent.”One in three. One in three. One in three. “This is a lot to take in,” Franklin says to Everett, his demeanor much more compassionate. “Why don't we set an appointment for the day after tomorrow to go over treatment options.” He has to physically pry Nick's fingers loose from the armrest of his chair before he can take his crutch and make his way out of Franklin's office. Right there, in front of several people in the waiting room and Franklin's secretary, Nick breaks down and cries into Everett's shoulder. -That night they make love, careful and slow. He feels Nick straining above him, runs his hands over the muscles tensing in his legs, and whispers “I love you,” over and over again. -She runs her fingers over the walls, looking for a crack, looking for a way in. “No,” Destiny says, and Mandy resents that she uses Gloria's face and voice to do it.Nick is in there, and he wouldn't want this. He wouldn't want any of this. She has to see him. She needs to help him. “You can't go in,” Destiny says. Yet that's simply unacceptable.-“Wide resection,” doctor Franklin says, and the two days since hearing the news of his illness have done nothing to make this any easier. He still can't listen to Franklin for long enough to understand what he's talking about. He hears phrases like 'limb salvage', and 'skin graft', and 'prosthesis', but somehow none of the words make any real impression on his mind. “What is your opinion on adjuvant therapies?” Nick asks, and it's the first full sentence Everett has followed since Franklin started speaking. “Neither chemotherapy nor radiation have ever been proven to have any significant impact on survival rate in these types of cases,” Franklin answers, and he looks at Nick with a slightly milder predisposition now, although his voice still sounds prickly. “So, no chemo?” Everett asks. “I don't recommend it, no.” Nick reaches over and intertwines his fingers with Everett's. It's a rare public show of affection for him. “When can he have the surgery?” Franklin looks down at their hands and smiles encouragingly at Everett. “Soon.” -Every night, Nick curls up against his left side protectively, careful not to jostle his painful knee, wrapped nearly impossibly tight around him. Before, he used to sleep more independently, often complaining about Everett's body temperature being too high. Now, he stays so close Everett can feel every tremble, every twitch of muscle against his side. Everett lets him, despite the fact he sometimes gets so sweaty he can't sleep. Despite the fact that Nick's tenseness is impossible to ignore, that it sometimes gets so bad he feels like he's going to shake out of his own skin. During the night before his surgery, Everett wakes up. The first thing he hears is not the sound of waves washing onto the shore, but the heated whisper Nick presses into the skin of his neck. It takes him a few moments to realize that Nick is bargaining with a God he doesn't believe in, praying for Everett to be alright, to survive this, to be that one in three. Everett squeezes his eyes shut and silently prays with him. Not for himself, but for Nick. Please let me be that one in three. Please don't make me leave him alone. Please, please make sure he will be okay if I don't make it. -He is not scared of the surgery, but the way Nick grips his hand too tightly, the desperate kiss Nick presses into his mouth as the nurses flick their gazes to the side discreetly, make him scared for what might come after.“I love you,” Nick whispers into his ear after he pulls back. Another boundary broken by this disease.“I love you, too,” he says back, as he strokes his fingers over Nick's smooth face. He'd shaved this morning, for the first time in weeks, as if he felt he had to somehow look presentable for Everett's surgery. “It will be okay, Nick.”Nick curls his fingers around the hand on his face, and places a soft kiss on his palm. “I'll see you in a few hours.”-One of the worst moments for Everett is the look on Nick's face when he sees the bandage that covers almost the whole of his left thigh. His right leg is wrapped up from six inches above his knee to halfway down his calf. His knee has been replaced entirely by metal, and they'd known he would be disfigured for the rest of his life. But his left thigh was used as the donor site for the necessary skin grafts, and even through the haze of the painkillers it hurts like a bitch, like his leg is on fire. In some patches blood and lymph fluid have already seeped through the bandage, and Nick looks at it like he's about to cry or puke or scream. Everett reaches for him, hooks his fingers around the thin bones and the silky skin on the inside of his wrist, and gives him a tired smile. “It's fine, Nick.” Nick just nods at him tightly, not saying anything, before he bends forward and presses his dry lips into the side of Everett's mouth. -He wakes up to the sounds of the sea. Gulls squawk at each other in the distance, and it's like a soothing balm on his soul after more than a week of waking up to the steady beeping of heart monitors and the tight squeeze of the blood pressure cuff around his arm. Nick is sleeping next to him. Even in rest he looks exhausted. The dark shadows under his lashes stand out against his unusually pale skin, and the lines in his face are starker, deeper, than Everett remembers. He can't help but feel a dull stab of guilt for putting Nick through all of this. I love you, he thinks at the man lying beside him, and realizes it's the only thing he knows with complete certainty anymore, now that everything else in his life has become unmoored. -The physical therapy is bad. Some days Everett has trouble getting out of bed at all, and the excruciating exercises Jeff puts him through leave him in a mood so nasty he barely recognizes himself. Nick bears his angry outbursts with uncharacteristic stillness, which only makes Everett feel worse. “I'm sorry,” he says, and he means it, even though he can't promise it won't happen again. “Don't worry about it,” Nick says, his voice slightly flatter than usual. “Just get better.” -She finds a way in, a way past Destiny's defenses, and then she almost dies before she gets to even see him again. She stumbles out onto the open road, the cement wet beneath her feet, the rain thick as sheets around her. The night sky is dark, but her vision is blinded by two bright headlights, and then she hears the screech of brakes and it's all too much like what happened twenty years ago, the accident, she thinks frantically as she squeezes her eyes shut, and then she's knocked back by the impact.He's out of the car in seconds, and all she can think is that he's still the most beautiful creature she's ever seen, and there is panic in his voice as he crouches down next to her. She stirs, her body still works, and she lets out a shaky laugh when he tries to push her back down. “Lie still, dear, you might've hurt something,” he babbles at her. He is in the middle of reaching for his cell phone when she lays her hand on his, and he stills. “I'm okay,” she says, as raindrops wash over her skin. “I don't need an ambulance.” He helps her over to the passenger seat of his car. Her ankle is already swelling up, sprained and bruised, but not broken. She sees her smeared reflection in the window of the car and realizes she's bleeding from a gash in her forehead as well. “What were you doing out there in the middle of the night?” he asks, when they're driving down the road at a careful speed. “I came for you, to help you,” she says, and the words come out in a jumbled rush. “I'm a part of Destiny's mainframe, so I searched until I found a weakness, a way in.” He looks confused, and she urges herself on. “It's me, Mandy. Amanda Perry. I died, but you found a way to upload my consciousness to the database, remember? None of this is real, it's all a simulation.” He casts her a wary glance, and she should have known it wouldn't be this easy. “I think you hit your head, Miss Perry. Let me take you to the emergency room.” The direct approach isn't right, it won't work. He's going to drop her off at the hospital and she might never get this opportunity again. “Ah, no, please,” she says, and she gingerly touches her finger against her forehead. It comes back pinkish red with blood and rainwater. His eyes follow the movement with a slightly guilty cast. “I don't have insurance,” she explains. “Is there anyone you want to call, then? Anywhere I can take you?” She inclines her head and hunches her shoulders. “I don't really have anywhere to go.” He is silent for a long while. “My partner and I, we have a guest room you could use for the night.” It stings, to hear him talking about 'his partner', like he actually cares for Colonel Young. Like he loves him. She wonders if this is really her Nick, the one she knew, the one she kissed under the artificial glow of Destiny's lights. The one she's in love with.The man sitting next to her now reminds her more of what he'd been like when his wife was still alive. She'd loved him, too.“Thank you very much, that would be lovely,” she says, polite and sweet and desperately hoping she's not coming on too strong. The exact same way she had been when she first met him.-She's different, somehow. She feels more real than the other people Everett knows. Most of the people he sees feel like filler, like extras in a movie scene. There, but not really there. Important not for who they are, but for the spaces they occupy. Amanda is different, because she is as real as Nick. “Thank you,” she says to Nick, as he hands her a cup of honeyed tea. It's what he makes when he feels the need to comfort. His gaze flicks worriedly over the band-aid on her forehead. Everett sees the shine in Amanda's eyes as they trail Nick across the room. She looks starstruck, and lost, and intensely sad. Everett feels for her, thinks maybe he recognizes something of himself in her. She's supposed to only stay for one night, but the next morning she walks in on his physical therapy, and with one look assesses the situation to be less than optimal. She sums up all the things that make him hate his therapy so eloquently that Everett is left speechless. Then she points out, in front of Jeff, that most of those things are due to his physical therapist simply not being very good at his job. Jeff, insulted, challenges her to do better, and she proceeds to finish his session in a way that leaves him exhausted but satisfied, the way a good run used to make him feel. When he asks her where she learned how to do that, she shrugs uncomfortably. “Experience,” is all she says. Everett figures maybe she was a physical therapist before she ran from whatever it was she ran from, and decides not to push for more information. After that first morning, he asks her to stay in their guest room and take over his physical therapy sessions. She agrees almost zealously.-“Mr. Young, it's doctor Franklin. How are you feeling?”Everett holds the phone against his ear with his shoulder as he grabs the mug of coffee from the little side table.“I can't complain, considering the circumstances.” “Well, that's always good to hear,” Franklin answers smoothly. Everett knows that's not why he called. They have an appointment planned three days from now. “I heard you fired your physical therapist. Is this true?” Ah, so that's why. “I found someone better suited to help me with my physical therapy, yes.” “I understand that it can be a grueling process, Mr. Young, but I would strongly advise against using an unlicensed therapist. The work you do right now will impact the usability of your leg for the rest of your life.”However long that is, neither of them says. “Thank you for your concern, doctor Franklin, but I've made my decision.” Franklin is quiet on the other side of the line for a few moments. “This is highly unusual,” he says eventually. He sounds annoyed. “Please think it over some more. I will see you on Wednesday, yes?” “Yeah, I'll see you then,” Everett says, and hangs up. He wonders absentmindedly if it's usual for doctors to call the very same day a patient fires their physical therapist. -That night, he watches Amanda and Nick putter around in the kitchen. They both seem equally dreadful at cooking – Amanda looks like she's never used a pan in her life – and Everett can't help but think it's kind of adorable. They end up serving a reasonable approximation of spaghetti Bolognese, and Everett laughs heartily as Amanda explains how they substituted dill for oregano. Nick looks between them with a fond little smile, and just for a short while it's easy to forget they've been living in this purgatory of insecurity and fear for nearly two months now. He's grateful to Amanda for distracting them from that. Later, the three of them drink coffee in the living room. The waves break and crash against the shoreline outside the glass doors, and Nick is leaning into his upper body, careful not to press against his tender leg. Everett thinks it speaks volumes about how comfortable Nick already feels around Amanda - he is usually very particular about any kind of affectionate touching in front of guests. “So,” Amanda says, as her eyes dart between them uncertainly. “How did you two meet?” “At work,” they answer in unison. They met at work. “Really?” she asks, and the way she cocks her head seems somehow artificial. “I thought you were a homicide detective? And don't you work at the University?” He looks at Nick, and sees the confusion written on his face for a second there as well, before it feels like the narrative unfolds in his mind. It's an odd sensation. “Yes, I consulted on a few cases back in the day,” Nick says with a fond look at him. “Immediately thought he was a right sod.” Everett laughs. “Yeah, it wasn't exactly love at first sight. We had some pretty big arguments in those first few months.” “Inevitably my undeniable charm won him over, however.” “Actually,” Everett says, “He saved my life. Pushed me out of the way of a bullet. Broke his arm doing it, too.” Nick gives him an intense look. They've never told anyone this. “After that, Ev visited me every day with cooked meals. Insisted on helping me with anything I'd need both arms for.” Nick keeps eye contact with him, and it's as if they're telling each other this story now. It's both comfortingly familiar and bewilderingly new. “It did take you a while to pick up on that one, though,” he grins at Nick meaningfully. Amanda coughs awkwardly from across the coffee table. She turns it into a chuckle in a way that seems... a little pained, maybe. “Ah, uhm, so, when did you buy this house?” she asks. Again he has the strange feeling that the answer to her question morphs as he is about to formulate it. It hasn't always been theirs, they haven't always lived here. “We bought it six, seven years back,” he muses. “It's a bit of a grisly story, really. I worked a job here, murder-suicide, pretty gruesome. I mean, the house and the location are perfect, but when it came on the market it just didn't sell. We picked it up for next to nothing.” “Perhaps it was a bit of an impulse decision.” Nick smiles, but there's something indecipherable behind his eyes. “But we haven't regretted it for a second.” “True,” Everett says resolutely, before turning back to Amanda. -That night all he can think about is how strange it is that two people died bloody deaths in their bedroom. He doesn't know why this never even crossed his mind before. Why he suddenly can't get it out of his head. Nick's eyes open, and they gleam at him faintly. “Can't sleep?” Everett asks softly. “Keep thinking about that guy nearly shooting you,” Nick admits quietly. Everett reaches for his hand and places a gentle kiss on his knuckles. “I feel like I forgot something,” Nick says into the darkness of the room. “Me too. Something important.” -“Mr. Young, good to see you're up and about again,” doctor Franklin greets him, as Everett hobbles into his office. “Well, to be fair, I had some practice with crutches before the surgery,” Everett says offhandedly. Nick sits down in the chair next to him, his mouth pinched and his arms crossed tightly.Franklin talks to them about negative margins, “Which means no tumor cells were found around the edges of the excision,” and follow-up procedures. “I propose you come in for a CT scan every six weeks for the next two years. After that we can go to four times a year, probably. The most important thing right now is to keep an eye on your body. If your sarcoma has metastasized, we need to know as quickly as possible.” “And if it hasn't?” Franklin gives him a serious look. “I'm afraid it's not quite that simple. This type of cancer is a lifelong diagnosis. Although your chances of recurrence diminish significantly after the first five years, they will never be zero.”“And that is assuming I will be part of that thirty percent that even makes it to the five-year mark.” “To be frank, yes.” Franklin flicks his eyes over to Nick before focusing back on Everett. “But as I said, there is certainly cause for conservative optimism in that regard. The negative margins of the resection are obviously what we hoped for. The placement of your tumor was, by and large, favorable.” “But chances of metastasis are still over fifty percent,” Nick cuts in. “Well, someone seems to have located WebMD,” Franklin says condescendingly.“Don't you talk to him like that,” Everett growls threateningly, surprising everyone in the room with his vehemence. “I apologize,” Franklin says. “Simply because information is no longer a scarce resource doesn't mean it has no value,” Nick says. “Is it true, or not?” “Yes, it's true that metastatic potential is over fifty percent with high grade chondrosarcoma. But it's important to remember that numbers are just that: numbers.” Everett knows that's one of the worst things he could've possibly said to Nick. The look on Franklin's face makes him wonder if he knew that, too. It isn't until the drive back to their house that Everett realizes that for the past four miserable weeks since his surgery, he may actually have had his hopes up too high. Nick's knuckles are white on the steering wheel.-Mandy is surprised when Colonel Young suggests she go for a walk on the beach with Nick. “We used to do that together, but it might be a while before I can, you know,” he gestures at his leg. “I know he misses it, though. And he likes you.” He gives her a painful smile, and she feels a strange combination of guilt and happiness in her chest. She knows what Colonel Young did to Nick. She knows a lot more than she ever did before she merged with Destiny's mainframe and gained access to a massive database and a large share of the processing power of an Ancient AI. So yes, it's safe to say she has her reservations about Colonel Young. But the man in front of her, and for the first time she calls him Everett in her head, is not the one who did those things. Not really. And while her main concern with this simulation is the way Destiny is messing with Nick, forcing him to live through something that almost killed him the first time around, she realizes that there truly is another victim here. She knows better than anyone that being forced to leave someone is just as painful as being left. She deliberately puts her hand on his arm, and when he looks at her questioningly, she gives him a careful smile. “I'll walk with him, until you can do it again.” -Their first walk starts out somewhat stilted, but when she steers the conversation to abstract algebra he looks surprised and intrigued, and by the time they get back they're finishing a spirited debate on the Abel-Ruffini theorem. It is almost like she's back on Destiny with her Nick. The next afternoon, they go on another walk. -The days go by relatively peacefully. Amanda continues with his physical therapy and Everett could swear it's getting easier to stand, to walk, even if he still can't fathom doing anything without his crutches. Every day, Nick and Amanda take long walks on the beach. When they come back, their hair is mussed and their faces are flushed from the strong sea wind. They seem to talk about math, mostly, which Everett thinks is nice. It's good that Nick can finally talk to someone who understands his crazy specific ramblings about transcendental number theory, or higher dimension tessellation. If it makes him feel a little lonely every now and then, that's a small price to pay. Nick takes him to his CT scan on a Monday, and on the way back they stop the car in the middle of town to attend an impromptu performance of a violin concerto in the park. Nick finds a chair for him somewhere and sits between Everett's knees for the duration of the concert. When it's finished, he turns around and kisses him so deeply Everett forgets they're even in public. He tastes tears on Nick's tongue and isn't sure whose they are. The moment is broken when someone clears their throat in a way that clearly suggests their behavior is inappropriate, and Nick mumbles “Oh, go fuck yourself, you cunt,” against Everett's lips. Everett knows he shouldn't laugh, but it hurts less than crying. -“Mr. Young, it's doctor Franklin.” “Yes, hello, doctor.” “I just got back the results from your latest tests. We should schedule an appointment.” -“I'm sorry,” Franklin says, and Everett doesn't know if he really believes that anymore. “Your CT scan showed a number of anomalies on your spine.” “Anomalies?” he hears himself ask. It sounds as if his voice is coming from somewhere in the distance. Nick's fingers curl into his arm so deeply the pain cuts through the haze in his mind. “Of course I can't say this with any certainty without a proper biopsy, but considering your current situation, we think your cancer has metastasized.” It's worse than it sounds. “Because of the location of the tumors, resection isn't an option,” Franklin says. It's a death sentence. Nick's breathing is quick and shallow next to him, and oh God, Nick.Without further warning, Nick lunges over the desk, physically attacks Franklin, breaks his nose in two places. It's the last time they ever set foot in doctor Franklin's office. -That night, Nick doesn't speak. He doesn't cry. He doesn't make a single noise as he wraps himself around Everett tightly and refuses to let go. Everett can't stop thinking about Nick's fist cracking against Franklin's nose. He knows that kind of violence is Nick's very last resort. Knows it means Nick is at the end of his rope.It terrifies Everett to think of what will happen to Nick when the tumors finally kill him. -Even now that the constant fear has turned into a dreadful certainty, time keeps passing and they go on. It takes him nearly two weeks to say what he has to say. To give Nick permission. To ask him to let go.“You seem to really enjoy spending time with Amanda.” Nick hums in agreement. “Her company is easy to enjoy. And she's turned out to be exceptionally brilliant at pure mathematics.”“Maybe...” he says, not sure how to do this, not sure he wants to do it. “Maybe what?” Nick asks, and his voice is low and dangerous. “Maybe she'd be good for you,” Everett says. “You fucking take that back!” Nick roars loudly, suddenly. “Don't you dare give up, you goddamn coward!” And it stings, being called out like that, because he knows there is truth to the words. But it really hurts to see the pain on Nick's face, to hear it in his shaky voice. “I'm not giving up, Nick,” he promises, and he won't. He will fight until his last breath to stay here with Nick. He will. “But it doesn't seem like that is enough anymore.” Nick's sob seems to rise from the bottom of his chest. It's desperate and it's heart-wrenching, and it fills Everett with the horrifying knowledge that things are not going to be okay. Nick is not going to be okay. “Please, please, Ev. Please don't leave me here.” “Nick,” he says, as he painstakingly makes his way over to where the most important person in his life is falling apart. “Nick.” Everett wraps his arms around him and lets him cry against his shoulder. His leg will throb angrily at him for the rest of the week, but that too, is a small price to pay.“I would never leave you willingly,” he says into Nick's hair. And he means it, with all his heart, so why does he feel like such a fucking hypocrite?-From one day to the next, Amanda disappears. They search the house, the beach, they even go into town to ask around for her, but she is gone without a trace. Three days later, Everett finds the note she left under her mattress.
Dear Nick, Everett,
In reality, you are in stasis pods on an Ancient spaceship called the 'Destiny'.
Destiny's AI has trapped you in this simulation.
Please, remember.
None of this is real.
I'm sorry I couldn't do more to help.
I love you, Nick.
Please remember.
Mandy
It reads like the ramblings of a crazy person. It also feels true on the basest levels of their foundations. -He misses having Amanda around. He tries to do his physical therapy on his own, but on most days it feels rather pointless to hurt himself in the now for a future he will never have. He knows Nick misses her too. He goes out to the beach a few times, but he always comes back early and somehow in a worse mood. Everett wishes his leg wasn't so useless, wishes he could find the strength to use his crutches for a long walk through loose sand, when walking a single mile on smooth cement is almost more than he can handle. He forces himself to get back to his physical therapy. Hopes he'll get better in time to take Nick for a walk on the beach again. -He accidentally calls Nick 'Rush' one time, and it feels weird, and wrong, and complicated. It also feels true. -Nick's fingers skid over a painful bump on his spine, and from the way Nick's entire body goes still Everett knows it wasn't there before. Somehow he hadn't expected it to be this quick, but at the same time it feels like they've been living under this sword of Damocles for longer than he can remember.He kisses Nick until he doesn't have any tears left, and whispers “You'll be okay,” into every inch of skin he can reach. He wants it to be a promise, but he knows it to be a plea. Nick's fingers in his hair are the last thing he remembers before he falls asleep.-He wakes up to the sounds of the sea, of the waves crashing into the shoreline. He hears seagulls in the distance. He looks into Rush's terrified eyes. “Colonel,” he breathes out, voice low and quiet as if he's afraid they'll be overheard. “This isn't real.” “Rush,” he says, and the relief in Rush's face feels like love and loss and grief. -They drive to Franklin's office, only to find the hospital does not exist. When they get back to the beach house – and he has to consciously remind himself not to think of it as home – an elegant woman with blond hair is waiting on their couch. The couch. “You,” Rush says, and his voice sounds betrayed and furious in a way Young hasn't ever heard it before. “Yes, of course. Me,” the woman says. She speaks with a British accent, he notes. Melodic and beautiful. Vastly different from Rush's Glasgow lilt, and somehow vaguely reminiscent of him anyway.“How—why did you,” Rush struggles with the words until she stands up from the couch and puts her hand on his arm. “I'm sorry, Nicholas,” she says. “I had to make you see.” “Don't touch me!” Rush yanks his arm back violently. The woman's face remains impassive. “See what?” Young asks, and it's the first time the woman, or rather, the spaceship, focuses her undivided attention on him. For the first time in longer than he can remember, the ache in his leg eases.“Ah, Everett. I'm sorry, that was terribly rude of me.” He's not sure if she's talking about ignoring him, or making him live through terminal bone cancer. Either way, he does not feel inclined to disagree. “See what?” he asks again, because she still hasn't answered him. He realizes he can stand without the crutches, so he leans them against the bookshelf with careful precision.“What it could be like, if you trusted each other.” She states it as if it's the most logical thing in the world. “I tried telling you,” she says to Rush. “But you refused to listen.”“And this seemed like a reasonable response to that?” Young asks dryly, anger coursing deep and heavy through his veins. “You can be a bit dense. It's somewhat infuriating,” she says affably. “We're infuriating? We're infuriating?!” Rush bursts out. “You made me love him, and then you gave him cancer! What the fuck is wrong with you?”Young feels his heart skip a beat, because it's strange to feel the man in front of him is both Rush and Nick, but it's something else entirely to know that it's the exact same way for Rush. She grimaces, and that only seems to rile Rush up more. “You fucking stop that right now! You don't give a fuck whether I curse or not, you're a goddamn piece of machinery!”“You know damn well I'm a lot fucking more than that, Nicholas,” she counters menacingly, although her cadence and her tone of voice don't change. Somehow the curse words sound wrong in her mouth, as if the person whose skin she's wearing would never use such coarse language. “How is all of this supposed to make us trust you?” Young asks before Rush can launch a physical attack on her. “I don't care whether you trust me or not. You need me,” she says, and for the first time Young realizes that they're in a fight with something infinitely bigger and smarter and stronger than they are. He remembers the no-win scenario she had him live through repeatedly when he was already teetering on the brink of full collapse. She gives him a meaningful look. “You need us, too,” Rush hisses back at her. “Not to the same extent, but yes,” she says placidly. “Which is why I've been trying to help you since day one.” “What the hell do you want from us?” Young asks. She gives him a look as if he's painfully slow. “I want you to try harder. You two,” and she gives Rush a hard look and then settles back on him with the same stare, “need to learn to get along.” “We get along,” Young argues. He hates how much he sounds like a fifth-grader when he says it. “No,” she says coldly. “You don't.” He doesn't know how to respond to that, but he knows she isn't wrong. He flicks his eyes to the side angrily. “What about Mandy?” Rush asks suddenly. “Where is she?” “Amanda is with me. There's plenty to do for her here. She misses you sometimes, but generally she's content.” “How?” Young asks, and he's not talking about Amanda. She gives him a considering stare. “You need to allow him your trust.” She turns to Rush. “And you need to be worthy of it.” He shares a look with Rush, sees the man he knows and the man he loves overlap in his mind's eye, and then suddenly, everything goes dark. -He wakes up on Destiny.“Morning, Colonel,” Eli chirps brightly. “We made it!” The first thing he asks is, “Did you dream?” Eli looks confused and shakes his head. “Nope, just a blink and I was awake again. Why, did you dream?” He ignores the question and looks around. “Where's Rush?” Eli frowns and points across from Young. “I got you out first. You want me to wake him up?” Only then does he gather his wits enough to realize what he must look like right now. “Yeah, sure, that's fine, Eli. I need a status report first, though.” “Alright,” Eli says skeptically, before informing him that they're right on schedule, that they're four hours out from the nearest red dwarf, and that everyone seems to have survived stasis. When Rush wakes up, the first thing his eyes focus on is him, and Young knows from the expression on Rush's face that he wasn't alone in the simulation. It was them. It wasn't them, but it was them, together. In the back of his mind, he hears waves crashing onto a distant shore, and the echoing cries of seagulls.-That night he wakes up from a dream about Nick, and he can't go back to sleep. He roams the ship, decides to get a cup of tea from the mess rather than something stronger from Brody's supply. He's alone, no one else awake at this hour, and his thoughts drift back to his dream. His other life. He wonders if Nick is dreaming of him too. He wonders how long the empty feeling in his chest will feel this cripplingly acute. He wonders if Destiny did it in part because she wanted to punish them, for not doing better. For not being better. He hasn't told anyone, although Eli probably figured some of it out. It's not in any of his reports, and it's not going to be. Nick will be his secret, just as Everett will be Rush's. -Sometimes he wakes up, and he misses the sounds of the sea, of the waves breaking and washing onto the shore. He misses the squawking cries of seagulls, and it still makes him think of Nick. It wasn't real, he tells himself. It wasn't him. It wasn't me. Sometimes he feels a familiar ache in his knee. Sometimes he closes his eyes, and feels the phantom imprints of Nick's lips against his own. Sometimes he keeps his eyes closed. -“Colonel,” Rush says, and it's been a month. Life on Destiny is back in full swing. They haven't really spoken since awakening.“We never did play that game of chess.” Young looks at the game laid out in front of Rush, notes the insecure set to his mouth that he remembers from Nick, and realizes that he just made the first move Young's been scared to make all month. A surge of emotion for the man in front of him shoots through his chest, and he recognizes it as the way it begins. Young slides into the seat opposite Rush with a small smile and a secret vow to do better this time. It might not be a bullet and a broken arm.But it's a start all the same.