The Best of the Bad Ideas (part 3)
Title: The Best of the Bad Ideas
Author: Shenandoah Risu
Rating: PG-13
Content Flags: some bad language
Spoilers: Season 1 up to "Divided"
Word Count: around 18,910
Summary: It shocks her to the core when she sees the sadness in his eyes, which suddenly don’t seem so alien any more.
Characters: Everett Young, Tamara Johansen, the Destiny crew
Author's Notes: Written for the LJ Comm syfybigbang
Disclaimer: I don't own SGU. I wouldn't know what to do with it. Now, Young... Young I'd know what to do with. ;-)
Thanks for reading! Feedback = Love. ;-)
( part 1)
( part 2)
( part 4)
( part 5)
( part 6)
The Best of the Bad Ideas (part 3)
“Is he gonna stay tied down like this the whole time?” Volker ponders Young’s body.
“That’s what the doctor ordered,” Greer confirms.
“Then why don’t we cut a hole in the chair and put a bucket underneath? Wouldn’t that make the cleanup a lot easier?”
Everyone stares at him.
“I’m just sayin’.”
“No, no, you’re absolutely right,” Brody says. “It’s not like he can move around, like Franklin. He might as well be stuck on the pot.”
Greer grins. “I have to admit, that’s fucking brilliant. There’s hope for you yet, man.”
Volker turns beet red, but the others have already sprung into action. Within a short period of time they have lugged another chair to the room and Brody starts cutting through the seat.
Chloe wanders by.
“Oh,” she exclaims in delight, “A potty chair! Who came up with that idea?”
Volker blushes. “Umm, I did.”
She gives him a quick hug. “You’re my hero today,” she smiles and gives him a quick peck on the cheek.
Moving Young’s body into the new chair turns into a major wrestling match, but they manage.
“There. Sound engineering. Form follows function. Practicality wins again,” Brody beams.
***
“… So the white liquid is very high in raw proteins and sugars. I would imagine that this is the food intake.” Dr. Inman holds up the small vial and shakes it gently. “It looks pretty much like what we’ve been eating. We could try to give him a little drop orally, see if he has any kind of adverse reaction.”
TJ sits down, sighing heavily.
“What we need is a full set of x-rays and some contrast medium, so we can see how his digestive tract works.”
“I agree,” Inman says with sympathy in her voice, “But at the moment this is all we have. You could probably pull the suit off a little more, see where the tubes end up.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. It just seemed really painful to him, and the Colonel has a pretty high pain threshold otherwise. These creatures may live their entire lives in those suits. Maybe they have the hoses implanted at a young age and then they just go with that.”
“Well, we may never know. Camile says she wants to have a crack at talking to the alien - maybe she can find out more.”
TJ nods.
“Now this blue stuff-“
“Oh good god, that reeks something fierce.”
“Yep. Whew. Anyways - lots of dead cells in here, always a good indicator for a waste stream.”
“All right - we got the food and the poop line. What about the other two?”
“The clear liquid is basically water - some amino acids, some sugars, a little salt and other electrolytes.”
“Like an energy drink?”
“Yeah, pretty close. A weak one - and it might just be for flavor. Who knows?”
“That makes the pink stuff the pee, right?”
Inman smiles. “I think that’s a pretty safe assumption.”
“Fantastic. I can make gravity feed bags for the intakes and collection bags for the waste. Good thing we have a case of Ziplocs, and we reuse everything here.”
She gets up and wipes her eyes.
“You okay?”
TJ nods. “I just can’t stand the thought of him being trapped in there, and he can’t even help us.”
Inman squeezes her shoulder.
“But he is helping us. He’s done everything you asked, and he’s keeping it together. Sometimes, that’s the best you can hope for.”
***
“Hi, I’m Camile Wray. TJ says you’ve been good about accepting water, so we’re going to try a little bit of food. I’m told this is pretty close to what you normally eat, just not how you eat it.”
Camile sits down in front of the alien in Young’s body. He struggles for a while and hisses and spits at her, but she just sits and waits him out.
“I can out-stubborn you, believe me,” she smiles, keeping her voice light and friendly.
“Now, about the food. Here is how you get it down - same way as the water. Like this.”
She turns sideways and demonstrates. The alien watches with a blank stare. She toasts him with the cup.
“There, see? It’s not good, I won’t lie, but it has kept us alive thus far. Wanna try some?”
She carefully holds the cup to his mouth and tilts it a little, just enough to cover his lips. He snarls and gags, but some of it does end up in his mouth and Camile chalks one up for herself.
It takes a long time to feed him, but after a while he’s more willing to accept the food, and she praises him profusely like a particularly difficult and finicky child.
Shortly thereafter the new chair is called into service for the first time, and it works like a charm.
***
Chloe is having another nightmare.
She is walking down one of Destiny’s corridors and sees a strong light shining through the porthole of a door. She steps closer and sees herself approaching a brightly lit hole in the ceiling. She screams a warning, but the other her is drawn up into the blinding glare.
Then she’s in the tank, and across the room she can see other people, trapped like her: her dad, her mom, others she can’t recognize. There are blue aliens wearing black Air Force uniforms. One of them hisses at her.
She wakes up with a scream.
Matt tries to calm her down, he doesn’t understand, and his gentle attempts at soothing her just infuriate her more.
She gets up and gets dressed.
Walking down the hallway she has an eerie sense of déjà vu, and as she passes by the mess hall she notices Rush sitting there at one of the tables.
He nods at her. “Same dream?”
“Yeah.”
“Me too.”
She sits down and looks at him. “What did they do to us?”
Rush shakes his head. “I don't remember everything.”
“Yeah, me neither.” She draws circles on the table with her finger. ”Maybe that's a good thing.”
He shrugs. She turns and checks if anybody’s there.
“Everyone thinks we're safe,” she whispers. “They think that they'll never find us again. We're not safe, are we?”
Rush looks at her. “No,” he says simply.
“They’ll be back.”
***
Camile has lined up a few people in the alien’s quarters.
She points at her chest.
“Camile,” she says.
Then she places her hand on Becker’s chest.
“Darren.”
Then she introduces Ronald Greer, Vanessa James, Dale Volker, Adam Brody and Matthew Scott.
The alien fidgets and snarls ill-temperedly.
Camile sighs and starts over, always placing her hand on each person.
“Camile. Darren. Ronald. Vanessa. Dale. Adam. Matthew.”
The alien cocks its head. She repeats the names. Then she points at its chest.
“Krr-tk,” it spits out.
“Kyrrtik?”
“Krr-tk.”
Camile smiles.
“Everybody? Meet Kyrrtik.”
***
Young is dozing. Lisa is asleep over the book she has been reading to him.
He wills himself back to consciousness and watches her for a while. His back hurts, and he’s a little dizzy. He should probably eat something soon, but he isn’t sure if that’s really it.
Lisa blinks and swallows, then notices he’s looking at her.
“Colonel?”
“Ssa,” he responds.
“Hey,” she smiles. “Are you okay? Do you need anything?”
He taps on the keyboard. Lisa hurries over to read the screen.
PAIN
“You’re hurting? Where?”
BACK
“Oh dear. Yeah, I can tell there’s not a lot of padding on this body. You must be getting sore by now.”
One tap.
Lisa pulls up her radio.
“TJ, come in please.”
“This is TJ - what’s up, Lisa?”
“Colonel Young says he’s hurting. His back is sore, probably.”
“I’m on my way.”
Lisa turns to Young, her features thoughtful.
“My grandma was in a convalescent home for a long time. She was bedridden, and one of the biggest problems was the bedsores she developed. You know what they did to fix it?”
Two taps.
“Beanbags. See, those little styrofoam beads won’t develop any pressure points, and they shift easily.”
She suddenly beams at him.
“We have some styrofoam blocks in the packing crates, from the evacuation. If I unravel a few and stuff them into a pillow, that might just do the trick.”
He tries to smile and then taps the armrest once.
TJ enters with a tub full of bags and tubing.
Lisa jumps up excitedly.
“I have an idea on how to solve the sore bottom problem.”
TJ sets the tub down. “Do tell.”
“A beanbag! I’ll go and make one right now. Be back in a jiffy!”
And she runs out the door.
***
“Apparently his name is Kyrrtik. He keeps saying that whenever Camile points at him.”
Eli shrugs. “That could mean what his race is called, or ‘Get your mitts off me’, or ‘Fuck you’.”
Chloe shakes her head. “No, I don’t think so. He gets all excited when someone else says it.”
“I can’t believe you’re that interested, Chloe.”
“I got nothing else to do. And I promised I’d help out. And I’m really in no mood to help out with the Colonel. That body just creeps me out.”
“They both creep me out,” Eli mutters.
Chloe nods. “I don’t blame you. Still, what can we do? I mean, we all want them to switch back, but then what do we do with Kyrrtik?”
Eli has no answer for her.
***
Rush is sitting in the observation lounge, whittling.
It’s not something he’s ever considered before, but right now he feels safer with a weapon of some sort on him, and he’s found a few pieces of wood from a crate in one of the storage rooms. At first he was just randomly filing off splinters, and then it became something else.
A knight of a chess game.
Crude, yes. But perhaps worth pursuing. People leave him alone when he’s whittling. Maybe they’re afraid he might accidentally cut himself. Truthfully, he’s done that a few times, but not so bad that he couldn’t handle it himself.
And it gets him away from the others.
His chest hurts.
And he’s scared.
***
TJ closes the door.
Young hangs his head.
“Hey,” she says softly. “It’s okay to say you’re hurting. We don’t want to damage this body, so you need to let us know if something doesn’t feel right.”
One tap.
She kneels down next to him and lays a hand on his arm.
“We figured out what’s in the tubes, and it turns out we have acceptable substitutes. At least we think so. May I do a little test on you?”
One tap.
“Okay. Here is some of the protein mix from the mess hall. Just one drop, all right? We’ll see how this body can handle it.”
“Rrrah,” he says and opens his mouth.
TJ gives him a little mix from a syringe. He smacks his lips and purrs.
“So far so good. Let me check on the levels in the tubes, and then we can pull the suit back up.”
She uses her pen light to check on the markings.
“Yep, we were right. White and clear have gone down, blue and pink have gone up. Quite a bit actually. I’d say we’re just in time for a refill.”
He hisses softly and she gently pulls the suit back up over his shoulders and then marks the valves accordingly. Young sighs with relief as the closes the seam in the back.
“Better?”
One tap.
“Great. Now, I’m going to hook up the collection bags, and then we wait a while and see if the protein mix is going to work. Then we can set up a simple gravity feed and you’re all good to go.”
One tap.
She gets to work, slipping the ends of two tubes over the valves and running the other ends into bags in the tub. Soon after she’s done pink and blue liquids appear in the tubes. She smiles, satisfied with her setup.
She notices Young is slumped over in his chair and she kneels down in front of him again, gently raising his chin to make him look at her.
And it shocks her to the core when she sees the sadness in his eyes, which suddenly don’t seem so alien any more.
***
Destiny drops out of FTL and the gate dials. Matthew Scott lines up an away team. The Stargate is very close to a large lake, and so they hurry to fill as many water containers as they can, dial back and toss them through. They manage almost a dozen dialing cycles and acquire a large amount of water.
Everyone available is lugging containers back and forth, and Eli’s kino sled comes in very handy.
Suddenly an alarm goes off in the Control Interface Room.
“Oh my god, they’re back.”
Eli frantically reaches for his radio.
“Matt? Doctor Rush? They’re back. They just appeared on our sensors.”
“How much longer until we jump into FTL?”
Riley checks the countdown clock. “About 10 minutes.”
Scott bites his lip.
“All right. Recall the offworld team.”
Riley nods and dials out.
The away team dials back immediately and they come tumbling through, dragging the last few containers.
Vanessa removes her helmet. “What are they doing?” she pants.
“Nothing yet,” Riley eyes the clock.
They all feel the impact on the shields.
“They’re firing on us,” Eli shrieks. “What do I do?”
“Nothing, Eli,” Rush’s voice comes over the radio. “Divert everything we’ve got to the shields. Firing the weapons will only weaken it.”
“How did they find us?” Riley looks deeply disturbed.
“We have one of their people,” Scott ponders. “They probably want him back.”
“Maybe the alien works like a beacon? Like a tracking device?”
“Two minutes.”
They all stare at the clock.
Destiny jumps.
***
“Your people want you back,” Camile tells Kyrrtik. “Believe me, we’d rather see you go as well, but not in this body. I’m sure you’d rather have your own back, too.”
Kyrrtik struggles in his bindings.
Camile suddenly feels sorry for him. At least Young is among his own kind.
Kyrrtik has nobody.
And so she stays with him until they’re safely back in FTL.
He tilts his head back and wails.
And this time she knows exactly what he’s saying.
***
“Oh my god,” TJ whispers. When they both sense the impact of weapons fire she holds him, his chin on her shoulder.
Young is tense but does not fight her.
And when they feel the shift back to FTL he finally relaxes into her embrace.
She pulls back after some time as he avoids her gaze.
“Screw this,” she mutters, and loosens the straps holding him down, untying his chest and legs.
He cries out as she helps him to get up. She has to support him as he’s too weak to stand.
Slowly she lowers him to the ground and settles down behind him, careful not to disconnect any of the hoses.
She holds him like that for a long time, and he falls asleep in her arms.
***
He’s got a rook, a knight and a queen finished.
He has so much work to do, but oddly enough the physical activity calms his nerves and distracts him from the fear of the aliens’ next return.
Rush knows all too well it will happen again soon.
***
“You can’t just untie him,” Volker whispers. “What if they switch back now?”
TJ looks up.
“He was in pain. And now he’s asleep. It’s my call.”
Volker relents and leaves quietly, passing Lisa Park on his way out.
“Careful,” he whispers. “He’s out of his chair.”
Lisa holds up the pillow.
He nods. “Go on in. He’s sleeping.”
She looks through the porthole and sees TJ holding the spindly blue creature, rocking him gently and stroking his head. She turns away.
“It can wait.”
***
( part 1)
( part 2)
( part 4)
( part 5)
( part 6)