A Certain Romance (1/1)
Title: A Certain Romance
Genre: Television
Series: Stargate Universe
Characters: Dr. Nicholas Rush, Lt. Tamara Johansen
Spoilers: 1x16 “Sabotage”, AU after that.
Rating: PG
Summary: She can appreciate the absence of emotion he provides, but even silence isn't nothing.
Author's Note: I fear both characters are OOC, but I'm disinclined to fix it. This is a muse born out of my interpretation that Rush isn't romantic, clearly, but there is a certain charisma in lacking that quality.
And there's the truth that they can't see
They'd probably like to throw a punch at me
And if you could only see them, then you would agree
Agree that there ain't no romance around there
_____
She'd taken to hanging around his lab, after most everyone had gone to their quarters and the lights had been dimmed to simulate night. The ship was always quiet, but it got worse during those times. The ship didn't vibrate with the power of the engines, and there was no low-level hum from the immense energy that ran through the walls. The Ancients were already past that level of primitive engineering when they built the Destiny. Tamara hated that vacuum of sound, the way her footsteps echoed down endless hallways no matter how softly she stepped. She came from a planet where silence was never true, there was always something, but here in the vastness of space there was the potential to be absolutely nothing and her heartbeat echoed like drums in her head.
The baby shifted just under her skin, not old enough yet to be true movement, but enough that she was startlingly aware of its presence. She couldn't sleep with those soft brush strokes inside her body, and no amount of rubbing at the distended skin of her womb could soothe the babe to sleep.
She knew he would be awake, knew that he had taken to catching only a few hours of sleep a night since they'd become stranded in the alien ship. She was everyone's doctor, therapist, and caretaker, and that included Dr. Rush, who was by far the worst patient she had to treat. She couldn't convince him to sleep, couldn't cajole, couldn't threaten; she'd given up on trying weeks ago. He threw himself into dangerous situations again and again, trying to make the ship work the way he wanted to, or poking at the sleeping anger of Colonel Young. Tamara couldn't tell if it was because he had a death wish, or that he really didn't realize how close to the edge he pushed those around him.
She couldn't sleep, and he won't, so Tamara hovered in orbit around him in the late hours, when it's just the two of them and the silence of the ship. His eyes were suspicious as they flashed up at her from his place before the console, but he didn't say anything. She could tell that he believed Colonel Young had sent her to spy on him, despite the new truce that had formed in recent days. He didn't ask why she was there, didn't tell her to leave, and it was just as well because she wouldn't. His fingers were hitting the panel with impatient thumps, but it was the only sound she could hear and she's grateful for it. It made it easier to not think.
_____
He found her a larger shirt, left it on the seat where she sits and does her work when they're alone. She found it oddly appropriate that he would be the one to notice her uniform problems, her growing discomfort with the tightening blouse as the weeks slid by. The Colonel knew of her pregnancy, and she knew that Scott and Chloe weren't very good at keeping secrets, but there was something about displaying the physical proof of the pregnancy that put her on edge. She could feel the crew's eyes watch her, slide from her face to the barely concealed baby bump that would only continue to become more noticeable.
“Thank you,” she whispered, and his only answer is a small hesitation in the rhythm of his fingers hitting the screen before him. She could feel his eyes cut towards her, always so sharp and cold, but she didn't look at him. She waited until he shifted his focus back to his work before she slid off the too small military top and put on the blue button-up. She could tell it wasn't his, they're pretty close in height and he's too wiry for a shirt of his to fit her. Tamara wondered at the small pang of disappointment that surprised her before she shoved it back down under years of discipline.
They work without speaking for a long time, she didn't keep track. He worked on whatever problems that had occurred that day, cursing in an increasingly thick brogue under his breath; she wrote out her thoughts on the crew, who was having problems, who was going to have problems soon, and who was doing better. It didn't surprise her that her lists for the first two descriptions were longer than the last. It didn't surprise her that she didn't write her name on any of those lists.
With her reports done, and she was no closer to sleep than she was hours ago, Tamara turned her attention to Dr. Rush. She couldn't see his eyes, the light from the monitor glared off of his glasses, but he looked rough. His hair was limp around his face, tangled from him running his fingers through it. His face was pale, but she knew it wasn't because of the color of light coming from the monitor. His cheeks seemed more sunken in than normal; he had an angular face naturally, shadowed hollows and thin skin over his bones betraying a brittle strength and appeal that she couldn't dispute. It took only seconds for her to realize what the feeling in her chest was.
“You need at least one night with a full eight hours of sleep,” she announced suddenly, startling him into turning all that impressive intellect towards her.
“I could say the same to you,” Dr. Rush replied, his eyebrow quirking mockingly before his eyes slid down to where her hands had unconsciously slid around her swollen abdomen. “You've been getting as little sleep as I have.”
She couldn't stop the brief smile that slid across her lips. He was cranky and impatient, eager to get back to work and end this conversation, suspicious of her motives behind it, and for some reason instead of letting all of that intensity scare her off as it does so many others, she let it roll off her back and continued like he hadn't even spoken. “You're pale, running a temperature, and your reaction times are starting to lag. Your eyes are glazed over, you have a head ache, and if you don't get some sleep soon, some real rest, you're going to crash. Hard.”
He grimaced and ran his hands over his face, sighed heavily as he did so. His body was stiff from standing in one place for so long and Tamara imagined she could hear his bones cracking with the release of tension were she close enough. “I have work to do.”
“I know that,” she acquiesced, “but there's always another problem just around the corner. You keep putting it off and you're never going to get around to it, and this isn't something you should be putting off.”
“Did Young put you up to this?”
She scoffed and rolled her eyes, slid from her seat to cross the room to stand beside him. “That man can barely even look at me, let alone speak to me for longer than two minutes. I'm your doctor, I don't need higher authority to be worried about you.”
She could tell he wanted to ask about the situation between herself and Colonel Young; everyone knew she was pregnant and knew whose it was. The rumor mill didn't have much else to chew on so she'd become the main course and hated every minute of it.
She laid her hand against his cheek, and could feel the heat that radiated from him. “You're not yet recovered from your surgery or your time on the alien ship. Stop pushing yourself so hard.”
Dr. Rush grasped her hand, pulled it away from his face and stared at it with something akin to surprise. Tamara realized that he most likely hadn't been touched in a friendly or caring manner in far too long, and that perhaps she'd pushed the boundaries of the quiet camaraderie that had formed between them too far. “Just a few more hours, then I'll rest.”
“Do it now, and I'll make sure you're awake before everyone else. No one has to know that you actually left your post and got some sleep.” She spoke before thinking, twisted the plea in a way she thought might appeal to him. It was a reflection of just how closely she'd been observing him, and how much thought she'd given to him, that her plea worked.
“Scott and Greer do a run around the ship at 0700 hours, I'd need to be awake before then,” he replied quietly, wrapped a hand around his neck as he moved his head slowly from side to side, his thoughts already sliding back to his work and she knew this might be her only chance to get to him.
“I'll wake you myself,” Tamara assured him with a smile, sliding between him and his view of the monitor when his attention faltered. “I won't bring it up again for at least a week.”
“A month,” Rush bargained back, stepping back as she moved closer, putting the console out of his reach.
“Okay,” she agreed, smiling at him broadly and watching as an emotion she didn't recognize crossed his eyes, the brown of his eyes darkening with shadows before he recovered from whatever stream of thoughts had crossed his mind. She ignored the small reaction, didn't want to guess as its cause, but reached up and brushed her fingertips across his stubbled chin. She'd already crossed self-imposed boundaries, what was a few more? “Maybe you could even take the time to shave when you wake up.”
There's a tickle in her chest when his fingers again found her hand, hesitating for only a second before he moved away and left the room.
_____
Tamara thought it was like penance, it was the only reason she could imagine was behind his actions.
It wasn't just the way he pushed himself so far past the rational line, or how his silence became self-condemning so easily. The others looked at him and saw him as condescending, but she looked at him and could see self-despondency. She looked at him and couldn't look away because all she wanted to do was understand why. In looking at him she didn't have to look at herself and the mess she'd found herself in.
It started in the mess hall, a few days after she'd convinced him to get some much needed rest. She'd been sitting with Chloe and Scott, talking quietly and eating. She'd seen him come in and take the small bowl of food given to him, seen his eyes pass over the room, locking with her own before nodding in greeting. It didn't matter that she'd just seen him a few short hours ago, that she'd left him to his work and grabbed a few hours of sleep when exhaustion had finally set in. She smiled at him, a small one that no one noticed, and turned her attention back to her companions.
When he moved across the room and sat next to her no one was more surprised than she was. Their friendship had never been tested in public, they only saw each other when no one else was around. Frankly, Tamara hadn't a clue whether he even considered it friendship at all. Sometimes she thought that maybe he was just tolerating her, playing a game that only he and Colonel Young knew the rules to.
She didn't turn to look at him, knew only what he did by the looks on Chloe and Scott's faces. They were startled, but unlike how someone else might have reacted, they weren't affronted. Chloe herself had formed a slight connection with the Scotsman after their ordeal at the hands of the aliens. Tamara also knew that Scott was compassionate and didn't know how to dislike people intensely or for very long. He may have had his problems with Dr. Rush, but he wouldn't bear grudges. There wasn't a better group of people for Dr. Rush to approach, and Tamara could only describe the feeling in her chest as hope. Hope that he would stop being so stand-offish with everyone, that he might be easing up on the reins of his restraint. It wasn't healthy to be as cut-off as he'd made himself, and try as she might, Tamara couldn't be the only chink in his armor.
He ate silently, didn't join the conversation the three of them continued when it became apparent he wouldn't speak, and the only way she even knew he was still there was the soft brush of his arm against her as he ate. Within ten minutes Chloe and Scott made their excuses and left Tamara and Dr. Rush alone. She glanced over at him, saw him glance at her at the same time, and smiled. She deliberately leaned over and pushed his shoulder with hers, her grin broadening when he mock-scowled at her.
“How's your work going?” She asked, resisting the urge to look over at Colonel Young where he ate with Sgt. Greer and Lt. James, though she knew he was looking over at her.
“It's good. Eli is working out the math, but we believe that with the broken FTL drive jettisoned, we should have enough momentum to complete our journey across the void. Certain calculations need to be completed, but the prognosis is optimistic,” Dr. Rush explained, his face and body surprisingly relaxed. Tamara wasn't lost to the cause.
“How is Dr. Perry coping?” She deliberately didn't look at him as she asks.
“She seems to be...taking to it well,” he hesitated in his answer and Tamara immediately wondered at it.
“She's proving helpful?”
“Very.”
Her next question is forestalled by the scrape of his bowl across the table, coming to a rest in front of her. “You haven't finished your...” She struggled for an apt description. “...gruel.”
“Eat it.”
She quirked an eyebrow, a habit she'd picked up from him, and attempted to push it back towards him. “Rations are small enough, you need to finish what you get.”
“You need it more,” Dr. Rush replied as he pushed himself off the bench. He leaned down, inches from her face and spoke quietly. “Eating for two, remember?” She ignored the way his breath on her ear made her shiver. She also ignored the way Colonel Young glared at her even as she reached for Rush's spoon and finished his rations. She'd hadn't given thought to asking for additional rations now that it was common knowledge she was pregnant, wouldn't dare. Food was sparse enough, everyone was struggling already. She knew the dangers of being underfed and pregnant, knew the terrible cost it would exact, but there was little she could do.
_____
“Dr. Perry called you Nicholas. I don't think I've ever heard you called by your first name.”
He didn't turn from the monitor when she spoke, didn't jump or seem surprised by her words. Tamara knew he hadn't seen her enter, his back had been to her, but being this was Dr. Rush she wouldn't be surprised if he had other ways of monitoring who was approaching his lab other than his own eyesight. When he didn't immediately speak, no quick quip to throw at her, she thought perhaps he hadn't heard her. She spoke again. “How come I'm not allowed to call you Nicholas?”
“I never said you weren't allowed. You just assumed and used the same epithet as your colleagues,” Dr. Rush replied immediately, turning from his monitor to gaze at her over his shoulder. “Point of fact, I prefer to be called Nicholas by friends.”
Tamara leaned against the door frame, studied his face in the sparse light of the control room. “Are you going to miss Dr. Perry? Having someone around on your intelligence level?”
He didn't quibble over her change of subject, instead followed the conversation thread as easily as if he'd led it. “I appreciated the assistance she provided, but the personal complications she brought with her are something I wasn't looking forward to.”
“Personal complications?”
“She...was infatuated with me. It was a distraction,” he explained, not looking at her as he did so.
“From what I saw earlier it looked a little like mutual infatuation, like maybe you were into her, too.” She kept her face blank, and tried her hardest to keep her voice the same way.
“Again with you making assumptions.”
She started to snap back at him, but knew it would do no good. They'd never had an argument, not before their late night meetings and she wasn't keen to start one after they'd crossed that line either. “Thank you for sharing your rations earlier.”
He again followed the shift in conversation easily, his fingers danced across the console without pause. “It's nothing.”
She moved across the room to the monitor directly opposite him, better to see him and begin working through her reports. There'd been a rash of injuries during the recent FTL failure, and the reports she needed to file with Colonel Young, and ultimately Stargate Command, had doubled because of it. She pulled up the forms and started to work, letting the silence fill the space between them for several minutes before she broke it again. “I don't need you to take care of me.”
“Someone needs to, since you're so disinclined to do it yourself,” he retorted immediately and not without a little anger. His eyes flashed at her through the strands of hair that have fallen in his face, and Tamara fought the urge to go to his side and brush them out of his vision. Her fingers curled into fists at the instinct.
“I'm doing the best I can,” she started, though he interrupted her.
“You need more food, more rest; someone to help with the work of the medical facilities and responsibilities. Yet, you've never asked for anything, from anyone.”
“I don't want help.”
“What you want and what you need are two different things, T.J. If Colonel Young-”
“Leave him out of this, Nicholas,” Tamara interrupted, her hand raising to point at him threateningly. “He has nothing to do with this beyond a stupid mistake one night, months ago, that we've both regretted since.” She can feel her emotions getting the better of her, and maybe its her hormones but she can't seem to rein them in again. They're creating chaos of the ordered composition of her thoughts and she was saying things she never intended to say, not to Dr. Rush, not to Colonel Young, to anyone. “He loves his wife, Nicholas. I'm the biggest mistake he's ever made and no baby is going to ever change that. I was leaving. I had applied for a transfer, I knew I was pregnant, and I was leaving. I never intended to tell him. Even weeks ago, on that planet, I was going to stay and I was not going to tell him.” She spoke quietly, and if she were a lesser woman she'd be giving in to hormones and emotions. “I had a chance on that planet, there was plenty of food and sun and it was beautiful. I could've raised this child there and it'd have been okay. He came down there and ordered us back to the ship, and he didn't even realize he was condemning this child to death.” She's too strong and resolved to cry. “My hemoglobin count is down to half of what it should be, I'm underweight by five pounds, and according to the latest ultrasound the fetus isn't developing as fast as it should.” She paused, tilted her head as she reabsorbed the information she'd just spoken. She'd never said it aloud, had written it in her medical file with the apathy of a seasoned professional. “He doesn't need to worry about me being pregnant because I'm not going to be pregnant for much longer. And there is nothing, absolutely nothing you can do to help that. There is nothing I can do, there is nothing you can do, there is nothing he can do. We're stuck here, on this ship with very little food, very little hope, and I can't think of a worse place to raise a kid. I'm relieved that it's going to be over soon. I'm relieved, Nicholas.”
He'd left his place in front of his console, moved to her side while she spoke. She wouldn't look at him, her face forward as if she couldn't even sense his presence so close to her side. She knew that he was unsure of what to do, he didn't know how to handle this side of her that he'd never seen before. Nicholas reached out and took her hand, though, and she turned to him because it was the only thing she could do.
They're the same height, their eyes meeting in the brief space between them and it's unconsciously more intimate than they'd ever been. Her words had drained her, physically and emotionally, and she didn't know what to say now. Tamara didn't think there was anything left to say.
As typical, Nicholas wasn't lost for words; she'd never seen an encounter where he hadn't gotten the last word.
“We've faced dangerous and hopeless situations before, I didn't give up then, we won't give up now.”
_____
He gave her half his rations. Every meal, without fail, he was there sitting quietly beside her, would slide over half of whatever he'd been served without a word.
It didn't go unnoticed, not with Chloe and Scott as her meal time companions. They noticed, and with significant looks between them, silently joined the “Feed T.J.” campaign. With no encouragement from Dr. Rush, they even went so far as to take it a step further.
Chloe spent larger amounts of her time in medical with Tamara, moving to do heavy lifting and grunt work without being asked to. When Scott was off-duty, he joined her, taking over where Chloe was doing physical labor so that she could seamlessly shift to help with the large amounts of computer work and inventory that Tamara had to stay on top of.
Tamara thought she could handle the surreptitious help if it hadn't continued to spread through the rest of the crew. Her rations increased, in small increments, but increased nonetheless. She noted which crew members eyed her cautiously while imbibing their smaller rations, and which ones seemed oblivious to the change in quantities that the others had volunteered for. While she was grateful for the care the others had begun to have for her, unexpected as it was, it didn't stop the pessimistic thoughts that continued to persist.
She and Nicholas had gone back to rarely speaking, and it suited Tamara's mood of the past few months. Neither were prone to gratuitous small talk, and the quiet wasn't awkward for the two of them as if often was with another partner. She worked across from him, her workload lightened considerably, and spent more time observing him working than she had before.
“The anemia is going away.”
He didn't look up from his work, though his fingers paused in their movement before they continued. “That is good.”
“It is,” she agreed, casting her eyes downward to finish the report she'd been working on.
____
Halfway through the void between galaxies most of the accessible areas of the ship had to be powered down. The estimates the scientists had given for power needed to cover the great distance proved too conservative and extra measures had to be put into effect. The crew was ordered to bunk up, as many as three to a set of quarters, so that as much of the active ship could be sealed and powered down in the interim.
Tamara didn't mind the close quarters, it reminded her of base training when privacy was nonexistent and there was nothing you could do about it. It was never quiet in the night anymore, the crew had taken to living in shifts of three, with one person sharing the quarters on duty, another off-duty but awake, and the third off-duty and asleep. Most of the people liked the arrangement, it gave a semblance of normality and seclusion in the irritable atmosphere the new measures had provoked.
As the medical officer Tamara didn't get the luxury of a set shift schedule like that, and more often than not when she had enough time to seek out a bed to sleep in, it was occupied. At the same time she neared the end of her pregnancy roughly, and the new circumstances did nothing to ease the discomfort the babe was causing in her tormented body.
She knew that Nicholas was having difficulties as well, with many of the scientists before forced to work in or around his workspace for much of the time. Though he too had been assigned other crew members to share his quarters, it was no secret that they made a point of not doing so. No amount of goodwill built between him and everyone else could bridge the distance between the two. They might have respected him, and even feared him, but few liked him, not the way Tamara did.
She sought him out in the early morning, and found he wasn't at his console for the first twilight in months. Eli and Adam Brody were working on something, both spared her a smile before they went back to focusing on their work; Dale Volker was smiling to himself as he worked on a console, his attention not even splitting long enough to greet her. There was no sign of Nicholas Rush, however, so Tamara left without speaking and sought out his quarters.
She didn't alert him before she entered, by knock or chime, instead she let herself in. He was sprawled across his bed, still dressed and awake, blinking slowly at her as the brighter light from the hallway entered his dark quarters. “Tamara?”
“Move over,” she demanded quietly, shuffling across the room in what was more inclined to be a waddle than a stride. She unclipped her hair and tossed the pins onto his bedside table, waiting until he had made sufficient room before sinking onto the mattress beside him.
They lay in silence for almost half an hour before she spoke again, turning her head to try and see his face, though it was too dark to do so. “You're the only one who calls me Tamara.”
He didn't reply, but she felt him move beside her. He drew the covers over her tired body, and she welcomed the warmth the blanket provided. She turned onto her side, toward him, and wondered when he'd become her favorite source of comfort.
Nicholas was again still beside her, and he didn't object when she inched closer. Her hair curled over the pillows, she wondered if the length of it touched him, if it irritated him. She thought of raising from the bed and leaving, returning to her temporary quarters or even just using one of the cots in medical. She couldn't find the strength to leave, however, and she could feel her eyelids growing heavier with each minute that passed.
Her head fit comfortably in the hollow between his shoulder and chest. They didn't speak, didn't need to, and in the morning he was already awake but didn't move until she'd awoke as well. They shared their meals, went their separate ways to work, and when artificial night had overtaken the ship once more it didn't seem so outlandish to return to his quarters to rest.
He was in bed when she entered, but he'd left the covers turned down on half the bed and didn't wake when she slid into the spot as if she belonged there.
_____
Review, please.
Genre: Television
Series: Stargate Universe
Characters: Dr. Nicholas Rush, Lt. Tamara Johansen
Spoilers: 1x16 “Sabotage”, AU after that.
Rating: PG
Summary: She can appreciate the absence of emotion he provides, but even silence isn't nothing.
Author's Note: I fear both characters are OOC, but I'm disinclined to fix it. This is a muse born out of my interpretation that Rush isn't romantic, clearly, but there is a certain charisma in lacking that quality.
And there's the truth that they can't see
They'd probably like to throw a punch at me
And if you could only see them, then you would agree
Agree that there ain't no romance around there
_____
She'd taken to hanging around his lab, after most everyone had gone to their quarters and the lights had been dimmed to simulate night. The ship was always quiet, but it got worse during those times. The ship didn't vibrate with the power of the engines, and there was no low-level hum from the immense energy that ran through the walls. The Ancients were already past that level of primitive engineering when they built the Destiny. Tamara hated that vacuum of sound, the way her footsteps echoed down endless hallways no matter how softly she stepped. She came from a planet where silence was never true, there was always something, but here in the vastness of space there was the potential to be absolutely nothing and her heartbeat echoed like drums in her head.
The baby shifted just under her skin, not old enough yet to be true movement, but enough that she was startlingly aware of its presence. She couldn't sleep with those soft brush strokes inside her body, and no amount of rubbing at the distended skin of her womb could soothe the babe to sleep.
She knew he would be awake, knew that he had taken to catching only a few hours of sleep a night since they'd become stranded in the alien ship. She was everyone's doctor, therapist, and caretaker, and that included Dr. Rush, who was by far the worst patient she had to treat. She couldn't convince him to sleep, couldn't cajole, couldn't threaten; she'd given up on trying weeks ago. He threw himself into dangerous situations again and again, trying to make the ship work the way he wanted to, or poking at the sleeping anger of Colonel Young. Tamara couldn't tell if it was because he had a death wish, or that he really didn't realize how close to the edge he pushed those around him.
She couldn't sleep, and he won't, so Tamara hovered in orbit around him in the late hours, when it's just the two of them and the silence of the ship. His eyes were suspicious as they flashed up at her from his place before the console, but he didn't say anything. She could tell that he believed Colonel Young had sent her to spy on him, despite the new truce that had formed in recent days. He didn't ask why she was there, didn't tell her to leave, and it was just as well because she wouldn't. His fingers were hitting the panel with impatient thumps, but it was the only sound she could hear and she's grateful for it. It made it easier to not think.
_____
He found her a larger shirt, left it on the seat where she sits and does her work when they're alone. She found it oddly appropriate that he would be the one to notice her uniform problems, her growing discomfort with the tightening blouse as the weeks slid by. The Colonel knew of her pregnancy, and she knew that Scott and Chloe weren't very good at keeping secrets, but there was something about displaying the physical proof of the pregnancy that put her on edge. She could feel the crew's eyes watch her, slide from her face to the barely concealed baby bump that would only continue to become more noticeable.
“Thank you,” she whispered, and his only answer is a small hesitation in the rhythm of his fingers hitting the screen before him. She could feel his eyes cut towards her, always so sharp and cold, but she didn't look at him. She waited until he shifted his focus back to his work before she slid off the too small military top and put on the blue button-up. She could tell it wasn't his, they're pretty close in height and he's too wiry for a shirt of his to fit her. Tamara wondered at the small pang of disappointment that surprised her before she shoved it back down under years of discipline.
They work without speaking for a long time, she didn't keep track. He worked on whatever problems that had occurred that day, cursing in an increasingly thick brogue under his breath; she wrote out her thoughts on the crew, who was having problems, who was going to have problems soon, and who was doing better. It didn't surprise her that her lists for the first two descriptions were longer than the last. It didn't surprise her that she didn't write her name on any of those lists.
With her reports done, and she was no closer to sleep than she was hours ago, Tamara turned her attention to Dr. Rush. She couldn't see his eyes, the light from the monitor glared off of his glasses, but he looked rough. His hair was limp around his face, tangled from him running his fingers through it. His face was pale, but she knew it wasn't because of the color of light coming from the monitor. His cheeks seemed more sunken in than normal; he had an angular face naturally, shadowed hollows and thin skin over his bones betraying a brittle strength and appeal that she couldn't dispute. It took only seconds for her to realize what the feeling in her chest was.
“You need at least one night with a full eight hours of sleep,” she announced suddenly, startling him into turning all that impressive intellect towards her.
“I could say the same to you,” Dr. Rush replied, his eyebrow quirking mockingly before his eyes slid down to where her hands had unconsciously slid around her swollen abdomen. “You've been getting as little sleep as I have.”
She couldn't stop the brief smile that slid across her lips. He was cranky and impatient, eager to get back to work and end this conversation, suspicious of her motives behind it, and for some reason instead of letting all of that intensity scare her off as it does so many others, she let it roll off her back and continued like he hadn't even spoken. “You're pale, running a temperature, and your reaction times are starting to lag. Your eyes are glazed over, you have a head ache, and if you don't get some sleep soon, some real rest, you're going to crash. Hard.”
He grimaced and ran his hands over his face, sighed heavily as he did so. His body was stiff from standing in one place for so long and Tamara imagined she could hear his bones cracking with the release of tension were she close enough. “I have work to do.”
“I know that,” she acquiesced, “but there's always another problem just around the corner. You keep putting it off and you're never going to get around to it, and this isn't something you should be putting off.”
“Did Young put you up to this?”
She scoffed and rolled her eyes, slid from her seat to cross the room to stand beside him. “That man can barely even look at me, let alone speak to me for longer than two minutes. I'm your doctor, I don't need higher authority to be worried about you.”
She could tell he wanted to ask about the situation between herself and Colonel Young; everyone knew she was pregnant and knew whose it was. The rumor mill didn't have much else to chew on so she'd become the main course and hated every minute of it.
She laid her hand against his cheek, and could feel the heat that radiated from him. “You're not yet recovered from your surgery or your time on the alien ship. Stop pushing yourself so hard.”
Dr. Rush grasped her hand, pulled it away from his face and stared at it with something akin to surprise. Tamara realized that he most likely hadn't been touched in a friendly or caring manner in far too long, and that perhaps she'd pushed the boundaries of the quiet camaraderie that had formed between them too far. “Just a few more hours, then I'll rest.”
“Do it now, and I'll make sure you're awake before everyone else. No one has to know that you actually left your post and got some sleep.” She spoke before thinking, twisted the plea in a way she thought might appeal to him. It was a reflection of just how closely she'd been observing him, and how much thought she'd given to him, that her plea worked.
“Scott and Greer do a run around the ship at 0700 hours, I'd need to be awake before then,” he replied quietly, wrapped a hand around his neck as he moved his head slowly from side to side, his thoughts already sliding back to his work and she knew this might be her only chance to get to him.
“I'll wake you myself,” Tamara assured him with a smile, sliding between him and his view of the monitor when his attention faltered. “I won't bring it up again for at least a week.”
“A month,” Rush bargained back, stepping back as she moved closer, putting the console out of his reach.
“Okay,” she agreed, smiling at him broadly and watching as an emotion she didn't recognize crossed his eyes, the brown of his eyes darkening with shadows before he recovered from whatever stream of thoughts had crossed his mind. She ignored the small reaction, didn't want to guess as its cause, but reached up and brushed her fingertips across his stubbled chin. She'd already crossed self-imposed boundaries, what was a few more? “Maybe you could even take the time to shave when you wake up.”
There's a tickle in her chest when his fingers again found her hand, hesitating for only a second before he moved away and left the room.
_____
Tamara thought it was like penance, it was the only reason she could imagine was behind his actions.
It wasn't just the way he pushed himself so far past the rational line, or how his silence became self-condemning so easily. The others looked at him and saw him as condescending, but she looked at him and could see self-despondency. She looked at him and couldn't look away because all she wanted to do was understand why. In looking at him she didn't have to look at herself and the mess she'd found herself in.
It started in the mess hall, a few days after she'd convinced him to get some much needed rest. She'd been sitting with Chloe and Scott, talking quietly and eating. She'd seen him come in and take the small bowl of food given to him, seen his eyes pass over the room, locking with her own before nodding in greeting. It didn't matter that she'd just seen him a few short hours ago, that she'd left him to his work and grabbed a few hours of sleep when exhaustion had finally set in. She smiled at him, a small one that no one noticed, and turned her attention back to her companions.
When he moved across the room and sat next to her no one was more surprised than she was. Their friendship had never been tested in public, they only saw each other when no one else was around. Frankly, Tamara hadn't a clue whether he even considered it friendship at all. Sometimes she thought that maybe he was just tolerating her, playing a game that only he and Colonel Young knew the rules to.
She didn't turn to look at him, knew only what he did by the looks on Chloe and Scott's faces. They were startled, but unlike how someone else might have reacted, they weren't affronted. Chloe herself had formed a slight connection with the Scotsman after their ordeal at the hands of the aliens. Tamara also knew that Scott was compassionate and didn't know how to dislike people intensely or for very long. He may have had his problems with Dr. Rush, but he wouldn't bear grudges. There wasn't a better group of people for Dr. Rush to approach, and Tamara could only describe the feeling in her chest as hope. Hope that he would stop being so stand-offish with everyone, that he might be easing up on the reins of his restraint. It wasn't healthy to be as cut-off as he'd made himself, and try as she might, Tamara couldn't be the only chink in his armor.
He ate silently, didn't join the conversation the three of them continued when it became apparent he wouldn't speak, and the only way she even knew he was still there was the soft brush of his arm against her as he ate. Within ten minutes Chloe and Scott made their excuses and left Tamara and Dr. Rush alone. She glanced over at him, saw him glance at her at the same time, and smiled. She deliberately leaned over and pushed his shoulder with hers, her grin broadening when he mock-scowled at her.
“How's your work going?” She asked, resisting the urge to look over at Colonel Young where he ate with Sgt. Greer and Lt. James, though she knew he was looking over at her.
“It's good. Eli is working out the math, but we believe that with the broken FTL drive jettisoned, we should have enough momentum to complete our journey across the void. Certain calculations need to be completed, but the prognosis is optimistic,” Dr. Rush explained, his face and body surprisingly relaxed. Tamara wasn't lost to the cause.
“How is Dr. Perry coping?” She deliberately didn't look at him as she asks.
“She seems to be...taking to it well,” he hesitated in his answer and Tamara immediately wondered at it.
“She's proving helpful?”
“Very.”
Her next question is forestalled by the scrape of his bowl across the table, coming to a rest in front of her. “You haven't finished your...” She struggled for an apt description. “...gruel.”
“Eat it.”
She quirked an eyebrow, a habit she'd picked up from him, and attempted to push it back towards him. “Rations are small enough, you need to finish what you get.”
“You need it more,” Dr. Rush replied as he pushed himself off the bench. He leaned down, inches from her face and spoke quietly. “Eating for two, remember?” She ignored the way his breath on her ear made her shiver. She also ignored the way Colonel Young glared at her even as she reached for Rush's spoon and finished his rations. She'd hadn't given thought to asking for additional rations now that it was common knowledge she was pregnant, wouldn't dare. Food was sparse enough, everyone was struggling already. She knew the dangers of being underfed and pregnant, knew the terrible cost it would exact, but there was little she could do.
_____
“Dr. Perry called you Nicholas. I don't think I've ever heard you called by your first name.”
He didn't turn from the monitor when she spoke, didn't jump or seem surprised by her words. Tamara knew he hadn't seen her enter, his back had been to her, but being this was Dr. Rush she wouldn't be surprised if he had other ways of monitoring who was approaching his lab other than his own eyesight. When he didn't immediately speak, no quick quip to throw at her, she thought perhaps he hadn't heard her. She spoke again. “How come I'm not allowed to call you Nicholas?”
“I never said you weren't allowed. You just assumed and used the same epithet as your colleagues,” Dr. Rush replied immediately, turning from his monitor to gaze at her over his shoulder. “Point of fact, I prefer to be called Nicholas by friends.”
Tamara leaned against the door frame, studied his face in the sparse light of the control room. “Are you going to miss Dr. Perry? Having someone around on your intelligence level?”
He didn't quibble over her change of subject, instead followed the conversation thread as easily as if he'd led it. “I appreciated the assistance she provided, but the personal complications she brought with her are something I wasn't looking forward to.”
“Personal complications?”
“She...was infatuated with me. It was a distraction,” he explained, not looking at her as he did so.
“From what I saw earlier it looked a little like mutual infatuation, like maybe you were into her, too.” She kept her face blank, and tried her hardest to keep her voice the same way.
“Again with you making assumptions.”
She started to snap back at him, but knew it would do no good. They'd never had an argument, not before their late night meetings and she wasn't keen to start one after they'd crossed that line either. “Thank you for sharing your rations earlier.”
He again followed the shift in conversation easily, his fingers danced across the console without pause. “It's nothing.”
She moved across the room to the monitor directly opposite him, better to see him and begin working through her reports. There'd been a rash of injuries during the recent FTL failure, and the reports she needed to file with Colonel Young, and ultimately Stargate Command, had doubled because of it. She pulled up the forms and started to work, letting the silence fill the space between them for several minutes before she broke it again. “I don't need you to take care of me.”
“Someone needs to, since you're so disinclined to do it yourself,” he retorted immediately and not without a little anger. His eyes flashed at her through the strands of hair that have fallen in his face, and Tamara fought the urge to go to his side and brush them out of his vision. Her fingers curled into fists at the instinct.
“I'm doing the best I can,” she started, though he interrupted her.
“You need more food, more rest; someone to help with the work of the medical facilities and responsibilities. Yet, you've never asked for anything, from anyone.”
“I don't want help.”
“What you want and what you need are two different things, T.J. If Colonel Young-”
“Leave him out of this, Nicholas,” Tamara interrupted, her hand raising to point at him threateningly. “He has nothing to do with this beyond a stupid mistake one night, months ago, that we've both regretted since.” She can feel her emotions getting the better of her, and maybe its her hormones but she can't seem to rein them in again. They're creating chaos of the ordered composition of her thoughts and she was saying things she never intended to say, not to Dr. Rush, not to Colonel Young, to anyone. “He loves his wife, Nicholas. I'm the biggest mistake he's ever made and no baby is going to ever change that. I was leaving. I had applied for a transfer, I knew I was pregnant, and I was leaving. I never intended to tell him. Even weeks ago, on that planet, I was going to stay and I was not going to tell him.” She spoke quietly, and if she were a lesser woman she'd be giving in to hormones and emotions. “I had a chance on that planet, there was plenty of food and sun and it was beautiful. I could've raised this child there and it'd have been okay. He came down there and ordered us back to the ship, and he didn't even realize he was condemning this child to death.” She's too strong and resolved to cry. “My hemoglobin count is down to half of what it should be, I'm underweight by five pounds, and according to the latest ultrasound the fetus isn't developing as fast as it should.” She paused, tilted her head as she reabsorbed the information she'd just spoken. She'd never said it aloud, had written it in her medical file with the apathy of a seasoned professional. “He doesn't need to worry about me being pregnant because I'm not going to be pregnant for much longer. And there is nothing, absolutely nothing you can do to help that. There is nothing I can do, there is nothing you can do, there is nothing he can do. We're stuck here, on this ship with very little food, very little hope, and I can't think of a worse place to raise a kid. I'm relieved that it's going to be over soon. I'm relieved, Nicholas.”
He'd left his place in front of his console, moved to her side while she spoke. She wouldn't look at him, her face forward as if she couldn't even sense his presence so close to her side. She knew that he was unsure of what to do, he didn't know how to handle this side of her that he'd never seen before. Nicholas reached out and took her hand, though, and she turned to him because it was the only thing she could do.
They're the same height, their eyes meeting in the brief space between them and it's unconsciously more intimate than they'd ever been. Her words had drained her, physically and emotionally, and she didn't know what to say now. Tamara didn't think there was anything left to say.
As typical, Nicholas wasn't lost for words; she'd never seen an encounter where he hadn't gotten the last word.
“We've faced dangerous and hopeless situations before, I didn't give up then, we won't give up now.”
_____
He gave her half his rations. Every meal, without fail, he was there sitting quietly beside her, would slide over half of whatever he'd been served without a word.
It didn't go unnoticed, not with Chloe and Scott as her meal time companions. They noticed, and with significant looks between them, silently joined the “Feed T.J.” campaign. With no encouragement from Dr. Rush, they even went so far as to take it a step further.
Chloe spent larger amounts of her time in medical with Tamara, moving to do heavy lifting and grunt work without being asked to. When Scott was off-duty, he joined her, taking over where Chloe was doing physical labor so that she could seamlessly shift to help with the large amounts of computer work and inventory that Tamara had to stay on top of.
Tamara thought she could handle the surreptitious help if it hadn't continued to spread through the rest of the crew. Her rations increased, in small increments, but increased nonetheless. She noted which crew members eyed her cautiously while imbibing their smaller rations, and which ones seemed oblivious to the change in quantities that the others had volunteered for. While she was grateful for the care the others had begun to have for her, unexpected as it was, it didn't stop the pessimistic thoughts that continued to persist.
She and Nicholas had gone back to rarely speaking, and it suited Tamara's mood of the past few months. Neither were prone to gratuitous small talk, and the quiet wasn't awkward for the two of them as if often was with another partner. She worked across from him, her workload lightened considerably, and spent more time observing him working than she had before.
“The anemia is going away.”
He didn't look up from his work, though his fingers paused in their movement before they continued. “That is good.”
“It is,” she agreed, casting her eyes downward to finish the report she'd been working on.
____
Halfway through the void between galaxies most of the accessible areas of the ship had to be powered down. The estimates the scientists had given for power needed to cover the great distance proved too conservative and extra measures had to be put into effect. The crew was ordered to bunk up, as many as three to a set of quarters, so that as much of the active ship could be sealed and powered down in the interim.
Tamara didn't mind the close quarters, it reminded her of base training when privacy was nonexistent and there was nothing you could do about it. It was never quiet in the night anymore, the crew had taken to living in shifts of three, with one person sharing the quarters on duty, another off-duty but awake, and the third off-duty and asleep. Most of the people liked the arrangement, it gave a semblance of normality and seclusion in the irritable atmosphere the new measures had provoked.
As the medical officer Tamara didn't get the luxury of a set shift schedule like that, and more often than not when she had enough time to seek out a bed to sleep in, it was occupied. At the same time she neared the end of her pregnancy roughly, and the new circumstances did nothing to ease the discomfort the babe was causing in her tormented body.
She knew that Nicholas was having difficulties as well, with many of the scientists before forced to work in or around his workspace for much of the time. Though he too had been assigned other crew members to share his quarters, it was no secret that they made a point of not doing so. No amount of goodwill built between him and everyone else could bridge the distance between the two. They might have respected him, and even feared him, but few liked him, not the way Tamara did.
She sought him out in the early morning, and found he wasn't at his console for the first twilight in months. Eli and Adam Brody were working on something, both spared her a smile before they went back to focusing on their work; Dale Volker was smiling to himself as he worked on a console, his attention not even splitting long enough to greet her. There was no sign of Nicholas Rush, however, so Tamara left without speaking and sought out his quarters.
She didn't alert him before she entered, by knock or chime, instead she let herself in. He was sprawled across his bed, still dressed and awake, blinking slowly at her as the brighter light from the hallway entered his dark quarters. “Tamara?”
“Move over,” she demanded quietly, shuffling across the room in what was more inclined to be a waddle than a stride. She unclipped her hair and tossed the pins onto his bedside table, waiting until he had made sufficient room before sinking onto the mattress beside him.
They lay in silence for almost half an hour before she spoke again, turning her head to try and see his face, though it was too dark to do so. “You're the only one who calls me Tamara.”
He didn't reply, but she felt him move beside her. He drew the covers over her tired body, and she welcomed the warmth the blanket provided. She turned onto her side, toward him, and wondered when he'd become her favorite source of comfort.
Nicholas was again still beside her, and he didn't object when she inched closer. Her hair curled over the pillows, she wondered if the length of it touched him, if it irritated him. She thought of raising from the bed and leaving, returning to her temporary quarters or even just using one of the cots in medical. She couldn't find the strength to leave, however, and she could feel her eyelids growing heavier with each minute that passed.
Her head fit comfortably in the hollow between his shoulder and chest. They didn't speak, didn't need to, and in the morning he was already awake but didn't move until she'd awoke as well. They shared their meals, went their separate ways to work, and when artificial night had overtaken the ship once more it didn't seem so outlandish to return to his quarters to rest.
He was in bed when she entered, but he'd left the covers turned down on half the bed and didn't wake when she slid into the spot as if she belonged there.
_____
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