Mathématique: Chapter 40

“It’s not a date,” Jackson said sharply. “It’s a dinner meeting to discuss Vala’s cultural acclimatization.”

Chapter warnings: Stressors of all kinds. Grief. Physical injuries. Mental health challenges. Panic attacks. Alien-induced psychosis.

Text iteration: Midnight.

Additional notes: None.

Chapter 40

Though Young had only done it a few times, dragging Jackson to O’Malley’s Happy Hour was acquiring the trough-like contour of a forming habit.

“Why do people do this?” Jackson’s hands were empty and restless, in search of something to shred.

“Do what?” Young countered, one hand spread on the lacquered wood of the bar. “Drink after work?”

Jackson didn’t answer.

Young tried to ground himself in the press of warm wood against his fingers, the smell of alcohol and of dust, tried to sink himself in the solidity of a late August afternoon, tried to anchor himself to the pain in his back and the autumnal hue of the light beyond his closed eyelids.

“I’m so sorry.” David coughs, covered with ash and blood. “Oh Christ. Oh shit. Oh fuck, I’m sorry. This is my fault.”

Young blinked his eyes open.

“What’ll you have?” the bartender asked, swiping a towel in an endless circle over the edge of a beer glass.

“I’ll take a Coors,” Young said.

Jackson sighed. “Pick something for me.”

The bartender eyed Jackson skeptically. He set the dry glass on the bar with a quiet click.

“He’ll have a Coors too,” Young said.

“Noooo,” Jackson countered, scooping the word from below, sliding it into something eerie. “I want you,” he held the gaze of the bartender, “to pick it for me.”

The bartender’s glance flicked to Young.

Young gave the man a sympathetic look, then shrugged.

“Pick anything,” Jackson said. “Anything you think the universe wants me to have.”

“Yeah, so I’m pretty sure the universe wants you to have a Coors,” Young growled. He gave the bartender a one-shouldered shrug and mouthed the words, “Rough day.”

Without a word, the bartender reached into a fridge below the bar, levered the top off a bottle, and set it in front of Jackson.

“Arrogant Bastard Ale,” Young read.

“An inspired choice.” Jackson looked searchingly at the bartender, as if he expected him to be someone he wasn’t. “How’d you know?”

“Lucky guess,” the man replied.

“Eh, I’ve met better fits for the ‘arrogant bastard’ label than you, Jackson,” Young said, unimpressed. “C’mon. Let’s find a booth.”

“It’s Daniel, actually.” Jackson gave into Young’s tug on his arm, and followed through a maze of chairs and tables, wood glinting warm in the afternoon sun.

“Yeah yeah, I know.” Young picked a booth out of sight of the windows, out of sight of the piano, which stood silent and ominous in an illuminated corner of the room.

They sat.

Young sipped his beer.

“That was bad.” Jackson braced his elbows on the table. “Yesterday, I mean. That was bad. Was it bad? It was. I know it was. I shouldn’t have done it. It didn’t make a difference.”

Young said nothing, recalling Jackson at the foot of Rush’s bed, shouting over and through a medical emergency, his gaze up, his tone an indictment, his words a demand for intercession, calling down destruction on all he’d studied, all that made his life what it was.

“It turned out okay,” Young said mildly.

“No it didn’t,” Jackson whispered.

“You were trying to help.”

“Yeah,” Jackson said hollowly, his eyes on the pitted surface of the table.

It was only because Young was watching Jackson’s hands that he saw the subtle tremor there as they shifted to lock over the bottle in front of him.

“Thanks,” Jackson said. “Thanks for—” He shrugged, then slid a thumbnail beneath the edge of the label on his Arrogant Bastard Ale. “It’s always nice to have a rock of sanity saying things like, ‘maybe making a direct appeal to ascended beings will be helpful’.”

“I said that?” Young asked, skeptical, trying not to remember the particulars of the previous afternoon.

“You were a little more laconic about it.” Jackson gave him a half smile. “But that’s all to the good. It reads better.”

“It reads better because it’s true,” Young shot back.

“Mmm, yeah, there’s that too. I miss truth.” Jackson took a sip of his beer and made a face. “You hold onto that one as long as you can.”

“Truth?” Young said.

“You have to keep track of it.” Jackson’s gaze was blue fire. “Didn’t you know?”

“Yeah, okay. Thanks for the tip.”

“Any time.”

Young sipped his beer. “You doin’ okay now?”

“Yeah,” Jackson said, as the label on the bottle edged up beneath his persistent thumbnail. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m absolutely fine. I mean, I was also fine yesterday, to be clear.”

“I know,” Young said.

“Good,” Jackson replied. “If you’re going to be—” the man broke off with a frown, doubling his efforts to peel up a shred of the label. He shrugged. “Mitchell and Teal’c and Sam—they get what it’s like. Standards are different. The way SG-1 operates, a little askew, a little to the left, everything slantwise, or something and when people don’t understand that, there, uh, there can be consequences, consequences like—”

“Jackson,” Young broke in, stopping the archeologist’s flow of words before he worked himself up to the point of no return, “so we’re clear: you gave some ascended beings an earful, and Teal’c talked you down. Not a big deal. I get it. SG-1 gets it. Lam gets it. Everyone who was there gets it.”

“Right.” Jackson peeled a tiny shred of label away from the bottle and deposited it on the table.

The silence between them was punctuated by the irregular rise and fall of conversation in the slowly filling room.

“It’s just that there have been times,” Jackson said, without looking at him, without finishing.

“Yeah,” Young said, “I heard as much. But not this time.”

“You heard?” Jackson glanced up, a flash of blue flame on an August afternoon.

“Lam said something.”

“Carolyn?” Jackson repeated, surprised.

“She didn’t say much. She was explaining why the Medical and Psych protocols are the way they are. She said something’d happened to you. Years back. She didn’t say what. But I put together that Psych was overreaching.”

Jackson nodded.

“You wanna talk about it?” Young took a sip of his Coors.

“Huh.” Jackson frowned at the bottle, its red and black and white label. “Maybe. I like that you haven’t already heard. I like that I could tell you the whole, horrible story about the psychopath who tried to steal my life, then managed to induce a psychotic break from beyond the grave. I like that it would be my own story to tell. You haven’t heard it before.  You probably haven’t even heard his name.”

“Try me,” Young said.

“Ma’chello.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Young replied.

“It means ‘butcher’,” Jackson said.

“Ugh. No thanks.”

“He was a great man.” Jackson looked down the length of the room. “Engineer. Artist. Rebel. He overthrew a System Lord. Ares. But Ma’chello was tortured. Driven mad by too many turns in a Goa’uld sarcophagus. His wife was made host to Eris. As a punishment for his crimes.”

“And he stuck around, I guess?” Young offered. “Long enough to do a number on a peaceful explorer from a galactic backwater?”

“Yeah,” Jackson said. “Bitterness will do that. Confer staying power.”

Young watched another strip of the label come free under Jackson’s nails. “You gonna tell me the story?”

“No,” Jackson said. “Not today. There are days when the past has too much power. When it feels like more than prologue.”

“Foreshadow.” Young lifted his beer and turned the tag into a mock toast.

Jackson choked on a mouthful of Arrogant Bastard Ale, got it down, then gave Young a wild-edged grin. “Oh my god,” the archaeologist said, taking shallow, gasping breaths.  

“Breathe air, not beer,” Young advised.

“Foreshadow,” Jackson snorted.

Young shrugged artlessly, then ruined it by smirking. “I know what you mean, though.”

Jackson took a breath, wiped the corners of his eyes, readjusted his glasses, and said, “One of these days, if we live long enough, when I’m drinking a beer I like better than this one, I’ll tell you about Ma’chello, Butcher of Dendred.”

“Or,” Young said, “maybe the footnote to that fucker’s whole life is that he’s the asshole that Daniel Jackson was too busy to remember.”

“The ignominy of obscurity.” Jackson smiled again, but his heart wasn’t in it anymore. He peeled away a tiny strip of label.

“Exactly,” Young said.

“I haven’t thought of him in years,” Jackson said. 

“Well there ya go.”

“I do think of James MacKenzie, though.” The archaeologist traced a grain of wood in the table with his fingernail. “How’s your neighbor?”

“He’s better,” Young said, letting the man have his subject change. “He woke up late last night, and Bill Lee calibrated the cortical suppressants.”

“That must’ve been awful.” Still, Jackson wouldn’t make eye contact.

“Yup,” Young said, knocking back a quarter of his beer in one go. “It was pretty bad.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Why?” Young asked.

“Because.”

“Who the hell are you, anyway, Jackson?” Young asked.

“I haunt the tail end of the bell curve.” Jackson said, giving Young a rueful smile. “That’s what Nick says. I’m not sure he’s wrong. It sounds vaguely demonic though, don’t you think?”

“Um—”

“Sorry,” Jackson said, “sorry. It’s been a difficult week, and you’re such a vault of practical laconicism, I can’t help myself.”

“Thanks?”

Jackson worked his fingernail under a stubborn swath of label. “You have an incredible capacity to normalize. You might be better than Jack. Mitchell’s not so good at that. He gets concerned, you know?” Jackson imitated Mitchell’s jaw-clenched, cold steel delivery. “Does a lot of intense talking.” He dropped the impression and shrugged. “And Teal’c, well, Teal’c’s going to step in only if it looks like an alien influence is trying to get me to jump off a balcony. He’s got a lot of confidence in—” Jackson spun a finger in a sloppy circle, “—all of it,” he finished.

“That’s a specific example,” Young said mildly.

“See? Look at you. You’re perfect,” Jackson said. “Don’t think I don’t notice.  Don’t think Jack hasn’t either. But you’re dodging my question.”

“You make them a little hard to find,” Young said.

“Tell me about the second calibration. The one he did with you and Lee. I wanted to be there, but even I could see it’d be a bad call.”

Young stared at the pitted wood of the table. “I’m not sure which was worse,” he said, “before he knew what we’d done to him, or the moment he figured it out.”

The blue flame in Jackson’s gaze looked strong enough to kickstart fire season.

“He tried to take it off.” Young tried to forget the way his neighbor had reached for the devices on his head. “The cortical suppressors.”

Jackson nodded.

“There was a window,” Young continued, feeling the echo of strain in his back, remembering the cool press of Lam’s hands over his own, “of maybe about two minutes where—” he trailed off.

The momentum of Jackson’s silence pulled Young forward.

“—where he understood something was happening. That Bill Lee was doing something, that we were all doing something, but he didn’t understand what it was. He just wanted the tech off his head. And we stopped him. Physically stopped him.” 

Young looked away. “It was rough,” he admitted. He cleared his throat. “But he gets it now,” he said, laying the words down like a swipe of spackle. “Rush, I mean.” He took another sip of his beer and looked at his watch. “Perry should be with him now, for his final calibration session.”

“How does he seem?” Jackson asked. “Normal?”

“More or less, yeah. Perry’s trying to give him his mental icing back—whatever it is that lets him do the stuff he does.”

“Mental icing,” Jackson repeated. 

“What?” Young asked, defensive.

“Nothing.” Jackson smiled, quick and small. “I just love it, is all.”

“Okay, well, Rush seems fine, other than the 750K, untested, alien prototype affixed to his head, preventing auditory hallucinations and neurological damage.”

“Yeah,” Jackson said dryly. “Other than that.”

“But yeah, he’s insulting me and science-flirting with Perry, which seems about right.”

“Good.” Jackson stared into the central space of the room.

“Any clue what the hell happened to him?” Young asked. “Lam’s been working on it non-stop for the past forty-eight hours, but she’s keeping her ideas close to the chest.”

Jackson sipped his beer.

“You think it was Altera?” Young asked. “You think it screwed him up?”

“That’s the prevailing theory,” Jackson said. “A delayed reaction to an unknown electrophysiological insult. It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen something like this. It wouldn’t be the first time there’s been a temporal gap between exposure and symptom onset.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re not buying it?” Young asked.

“I buy very little.” Jackson smirked. “Archeologists tend to pillage, by historical tradition.”

“Jackson,” Young growled.

“Daniel,” the other man said. “Like the one in the lion’s den who prayed through the night? ‘Shut up the words and seal the book’?” He mimed, one handed, the closing of a book. “Good advice. Hard to follow.”

“What do you think happened to Rush?” Young asked, beginning to lose patience.

“The same thing that happens to us all,” Jackson said, “when our context picks a fight with our identity.”

Young sipped his beer. “So you don’t know.”

“Not a clue. But the Ancients,” Jackson looked into empty space, “aren’t exactly known for their unity in forbearance.”

“You think one might’ve messed with him?”

“Possibly.” Jackson’s gaze roved over the room. “Unfortunately, in keeping with mythological tradition, I’ve been mnemonically blinded post-interaction with them, which simultaneously warps and clarifies my perspective. I think I—I have a sense for them. When they’re present, there’s something I feel.”

Young raised his eyebrows. “You get a sense of it back there?”

“I did,” Jackson said, “which is why I went a little overboard. I went too far. I always know it’s too far when it’s Teal’c talking me down.”

Young nodded. He followed Jackson’s line of sight. The man was looking at the piano in the corner, barely visible from their booth.

“What happened,” the Jackson asked, “when he played?”

“It sounded like shit.” Young took a swig of beer.

It hadn’t sounded like shit, exactly. It’d sounded expert but knocked askew. Distorted. Intensely troubled. Intensely personal. Impossible to explain unless witnessed.

“Strange,” Jackson murmured. “I wouldn’t have predicted that.”

“He was having an off day,” Young said, deliberately minimizing, throwing a shield over the memory of an unprotected mismatch of virtuosic fingering and tonal dissonance that might guard Rush by proxy from Jackson’s exploratory compassion.

“Mmm,” Jackson said, as if he understood Young’s intent. As if he approved.

“He needs some damned duct tape over those cortical suppressors. That shit glows.”

“I noticed,” Jackson said dryly. “That’s the problem with Lantean technology. It’s a blend of form and function, so it’s meant to look pretty.”

Young sighed. “Would it’ve killed McKay to encase the crystal component?”

Jackson peeled another microscopic strip of label away from the bottle. “They’re already working on version 2.0. Apparently it won’t glow and won’t broadcast an EM signature that’s detectable for kilometers.”

“Yeah, that’s great,” Young said. “Except for the part where in the meantime he’s trackable and looks like an extra in Total Recall.”

“We can remember it for you wholesale,” Jackson quoted in sing-song.

Young rolled his eyes.

“Let’s talk to Sam,” Jackson said. “We’ll do it now. You’re right. They won’t let him off the base with The Future attached at the temples, and staying on base is enough to drive anyone crazy.”

“Agreed.” Young knocked back the last of his beer and fished in his pocket for his car keys.

They found Carter in her lab, one hand pressed against her still-healing chest. She sat in front of her laptop, studying a screen filled with morphing waves.

“Uh oh.” Jackson pried his teammate’s attention away from the science with the familiar slide of long practice. “You have that look.”

“What look?” Carter flashed a quick smile. “Hi Colonel.”

“Hey,” Young replied.

“That look like you’re trying to phase-shift something. Again.”

“Daniel,” Carter said, “wouldn’t you like to be able to unphase shift? Because that’s the point of gaining reliable control of de Broglie waves. I’m not doing this for my own amusement.”

“Yes you are,” Jackson said, unmistakably fond. “You definitely are.”

“I’m doing it for you.” Carter gave Jackson a wide-eyed look that was a little too earnest to hit as genuine. “Next time you touch something you shouldn’t—”

“Um, okay, that’s not me anymore? That’s Cam ‘New Guy’ Mitchell?”

Young and Carter exchanged a significant look.

“Hey! What’s that look?” Jackson asked.

“What look?” Young tried to channel a little of Carter’s pure innocence.

Jackson boosted himself onto a lab bench. “The look they teach you at Colonel-Day-Camp, or wherever you people get indoctrinated into the jingoistic rituals of this inverted temple to military superiority.”

“And you’ve worked with this guy for how long?” Young tipped his head at Jackson. “Ten years?”

“Give or take.” Carter looked at Jackson expectantly. “‘Inverted’?”

“Gate’s at the bottom.” Jackson waved a hand, palm down, as if smoothing an invisible fait accompli into the air. “We have a question.”

“Thought you might.” Carter’s sky-blue eyes flicked over to Young. “Regarding Dr. Rush, I presume?”

Young shifted his weight. He leaned into the edge of a lab bench, trying to ease the strain on his bad hip. “Bottom line,” he began, “there’s no way he should be leaving the base until his alien accessories don’t glow.”

“Yeahhhh.” Carter winced. “It wasn’t an oversight. Nobody wants him to glow. It was a matter of speed and easy access for calibration.”

Young crossed his arms. “So can we close ‘em up?”

“Yes. Once we’re done calibrating,” Carter said, “we’ll soldering a piece in place to block the light. Until then—” She broke off, rummaged in a drawer, and came up with a roll of electrical tape hooked around her finger.

“Seriously?” Jackson asked, eyebrows pushed together.

“What’d I tell you,” Young said, glancing in his direction.

“If he doesn’t like looking like an ambassador for the future, he can tape over the exposed portions. It shouldn’t cause any problems.” Carter mimed tossing the tape to Young.

He held out his hand, and she sent it in a neat arc.

“Thanks,” Young said.

“Not my best work.” Carter gave him an apologetic shrug. “But we’ll get there.”

“Thanks, Sam,” Jackson said.

“No problem,” Carter replied. “Anything else you guys need?”

Jackson looked at Young.

Young shook his head. “How’s the uh—” he gestured at his own chest.

“Sore,” Carter said ruefully, “but healing well, thanks to Dr. Lam. I’ve started rehab.”

Young grimaced in sympathy.

“You know, colonel,” Carter said, “tomorrow night we’re having a ‘Che’swings Night Part Deux’ at my place if you’re interested. Vala says you play chess.”

“How does Vala know I play chess?” Young asked.

“Oh, she has her ways.” Carter hesitated. Looked down. Looked back up. “You could, um, bring your neighbor? Maybe? Dr. Lam said something about releasing him tomorrow—” Carter lost momentum.

“Um,” Young began.

“Sam is dying to pick Nick’s brain about computational complexity theory.” Gently, Jackson nudged Carter’s chair with the toe of a boot.

“Well it’s kinda awkward now,” Carter said defensively. “I can’t, like, walk in there and be all ‘hiiii, you don’t know me, but I was part of the team who adjusted the EM interference signature determining your subjective experience of the world; now let’s talk about polynomial time’!”

“Actually that sounds super reasonable,” Jackson said.

Carter scowled at Jackson. “You’re the worst.” She looked at Young. “He’s the worst.”

“What?” Jackson sputtered.

“It’s so weird,” Carter said. “That would work for literally no one but you. My idea is much better.”

“What was your idea again?” Jackson asked.

“Inviting him to an evening of chess and wings. Like, yeah, maybe it’s a little questionable in terms of social norms for someone accustomed to the wine and cheese platters of academia, but—”

“Yeah okay. I’ll ask him,” Young said, interrupting Carter.

“Er…about tomorrow,” Jackson said slowly.

Carter and Young looked at him.

“Well, I, uhh, so it turns out that I can’t make it?”

“Excuse me?” Carter asked, eyes flashing. “I almost died, Daniel.”

“I know, I know! And I’m so relieved you’re alive Sam, so relieved, but we’ve done, like, three mandatory team events in the last month? That’s a lot for me. Also, I’m not made of time, and I—I have a—I have kind of a dinner meeting?”

“Don’t get kidnapped by a politician,” Carter said sulkily. “Or a tech billionaire. Again.”

Young snorted.

“At least this’ll be a good trial run to see if Mitchell can beat Vala without your back-seat chess-driving,” Carter said.

“Yeah, so about that.” Jackson glanced at Young, then shifted his eyes to the doorway. “Vala—um, Vala won’t be there either.”

Young raised his eyebrows.

“Oh really,” Carter said, drawing the words out. “Is Vala invited to your ‘Dinner Meeting’?”

“Yup.” Jackson slid off the lab bench.

“So it’s you and Vala and—” Young trailed off expectantly.

“Well, it’s just the two of us, but it’s very—”

“Oh my god,” Carter said, grinning. “Teal’c owes me twenty bucks!”

“God damn Jackson,” Young said. “Finally.”

“It’s not a date,” Jackson said sharply. “It’s a dinner meeting to discuss Vala’s cultural acclimatization.”

“Where are you taking her?” Carter asked, grinning.

“We’re having our meeting at Il Fiore Bianco.” Jackson wrapped his arms around his chest and gave himself a hug.

“Il Fiore Bianco?” Carter repeated gleefully. 

“I hear it’s on the list of top ten Colorado Springs romantic restaurants,” Young added.

“It’s a meeting,” Jackson said. “I made this VERY clear to ALL PARTIES.”

“Right,” Carter said. “So when I ask Vala about this—”

“She will, I’m sure, tell you that we’re having a meeting about cultural acclimatization,” Jackson said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, those inscriptions from P3X-whatever aren’t going to translate themselves.” With a significant look at each of them, he strode out of the lab.

Young waited a beat, then, “Lotta work?” he asked, glancing at the doorway through which Jackson had disappeared.

“You have no idea,” Carter said.

“Maybe not,” Young replied, “but you might be surprised.”

Fifteen minutes later, Young rounded the door to the infirmary to find Vala standing next to Rush’s gurney, pink and blue blouses in hand.

Seemed about right.

“I’m leaning toward the blue, gorgeous, but what do you think?” Vala held the shirt to her shoulders.

“I don’t have an opinion.” Rush’s arms were crossed, he’d graduated to normal clothes, lost his IV fluids, and the look of skeptical disapproval he was giving Vala would’ve been right on point if he hadn’t been sporting a fairy tale halo that chipped away at the put-upon math professor routine the guy had down pat.

“But you have excellent taste,” Vala countered.

Rush sighed.

“Pink is more classically feminine. Maybe a good color choice for someone who spends their days in the gender-neutralizing regalia of your culture’s military uniforms?” Vala held the rose shirt up to her shoulders. “Don’t you think?”

Young cleared his throat.

Vala spun with a flair of shirts and hair. “Oh hello, handsome,” she said. “What do you think, pink or blue?”

He glanced at Rush. The mathematician cocked his head in subtle greeting, his hair mostly obscuring the small devices affixed to his temples.

“Blue,” Young said.

“See, gorgeous, that’s how it’s done.” Vala twirled back to Rush. “Just pick one.”

Rush rolled his eyes. “I recommend you perform your own cost/benefit analysis and come to your own decision.”

“Pink or blue,” Vala said, unperturbed.

“Blue,” Rush sighed, defeated.

“Blue,” Lam called from the periphery of the room. “The cut’ll be more flattering.” With that, she rounded the corner and vanished into her office.

“Thank you, hot stuff,” Vala called after her. “She’s very fashionable,” she stage-whispered to Rush. “Did you see her shoes?”

“No,” Rush said pointedly.

“You’re welcome,” Lam shouted, already invisible in the recesses of the back hallway.

“What’s the occasion?” Young limped forward to take a seat on the end of Rush’s gurney.  

Rush shot him a significant but, unfortunately, uninterpretable look.

Young shrugged at him.

Rush rolled his eyes.

“I,” Vala said primly, “have a date.”

“Oh yeah?” Young crossed his arms. “With who?”

“With Daniel,” Vala replied airily.

“I heard it was a ‘dinner meeting’,” Young said mildly. 

Rush shot him a disapproving look.

Young gave him the ghost of a shrug.

“Yes,” Vala admitted, “that’s what he’s calling it, but it is, most definitely, a date.”

“For the record,” Rush said, “Y’could do better than Jackson.”

“Um, I’m pretty sure everyone agrees Jackson’s the pinnacle of humanity,” Young said.

“Not everyone,” Rush replied.

“Are you volunteering yourself, gorgeous?” Vala asked, raising one eyebrow. “Or simply indulging your winning penchant for iconoclasm?”

“Good question,” Young said, looking at Rush.

“It’s a terrible question, actually,” Rush replied. “False dichotomy.”

“He hates those,” Young said.

“You can’t blame a girl for trying.” Vala dropped the pink shirt on Rush’s lap, and ran a critical eye over the blue shirt, as though she might need to sew a replica from scratch.

“I suppose not,” Rush said.

“Next question. In reviewing the available human literature on ‘dates’,” Vala began, “the issue of what to do about post-dinner ‘coffee’ seems particularly complex.”

“Maybe don’t overthink it,” Young offered.

“Terrible advice,” Rush said. “There’s no such thing as overthinking.”

“You’ve never played a day of sports in your life, have you?” Young asked. “Not one.”

“I was otherwise engaged,” Rush replied. “Every day.”

“Boys. Please. Are we a ‘yes’ on the post-dinner coffee or a ‘no’ on the post-dinner coffee? This is important! I need an answer. Keep in mind, it’s a first date, we’re professional colleagues, and our meet cute was hours long, brutal one-on-one combat in a stolen, abandoned space vessel.”

“What?” Young said.

Rush, not at all thrown, said, “You’re omitting a crucial variable. Jackson needs coffee to survive.”

“That does complicate things,” Vala mused.

Young rallied. “Just go with your gut.”

“Or design an algorithm that’ll guide your decision-making,” Rush replied. “For example, if Jackson refuses to admit that you’re on a date for the entire night, then post-dinner coffee loses all significance.”

Young rolled his eyes at Rush. “Pretty sure you don’t need an algorithm to tell you that.”

“Well it never hurts.” Vala gave Rush a deeply serious look. “Hold that thought, gorgeous. We’ll talk later. First thing’s first. I’ve got to choose some pants to go with this top. Maybe a pencil skirt? I’ll be back.”

“Of that, I’ve no doubt,” Rush replied dryly.

Vala rounded the doorframe with a vanishing flash of blue and pink, leaving Rush and Young in the quiet infirmary.

“Seriously,” Young said, “an algorithm? You’re messing with her.”

“I happen to be gifted in the art and science of algorithm design,” Rush replied. “And whether one is explicitly aware of it or no, all decision making is algorithmic in structure.”

Young snorted. “You’re not serious.”

“You’ve met Jackson, correct?” Rush asked. “She needs all the help she can get.”

“The guy is not that bad,” Young said.

“So you keep asserting.” Rush arched a brow at Young. “Any chance y’might find me a laptop?”

“Today? Forget it. You’re supposed to be taking it easy. How was the session with Perry?”

“Successful. I’ve got rid of the rhyming problem and retained higher order cognitive processing.” His gaze flicked to a packet of math on the bedside table beside him.

Young picked it up and leafed through the pages of impressive looking equations. “Genius level IQ fully present and accounted for?”

“So it would appear,” Rush replied. “One can never be certain, of course, when replicating a subjective experience.”

“Speaking of subjectivity,” Young said, “how are you feeling?”

Rush, amused, looked like an angelic troublemaker in the light of his tech halo. “Fine.”

“No headache?”

“Yes well, there’s always a headache, isn't there?”

“Yeah yeah. You feel okay otherwise?”

Rush nodded. “Any chance you can get me out of here?”

“Maybe tomorrow,” Young said. “Maybe.”

Rush sighed.

“C’mere.” Young shifted, dragging his bad leg onto the gurney. “Let me see these things.”

Rush slid closer and angled his head.

Young swept the man’s hair out of the way and examined the tech at his neighbor’s temple. The metal had an iridescent edge that he’d only seen in naquadah alloys. The unit was about the size of a quarter, elegantly curved. A sweep of wire and a chip of glowing crystal were visible within the open casing.

Gently, Young angled Rush’s head, trying to see a little more of the device’s inner workings. “That’s one hell of a glow,” he said, as the small stone burned a little patch of gray into his visual field. “Is all Ancient tech this bright inside?”

“Haven’t the fuckin’ faintest,” Rush replied.

Their eyes met.

Young let Rush’s hair fall. He looked away. “You need a camo job,” he said gruffly.

“Pardon?”

Young pulled the electrical tape out of his pocket. “Camouflage. Tape. Right over that light. Problem solved.”

“You’re planning on putting fuckin’ tape over an indicator light?”

“A stupid indicator light,” Young muttered.

And Rush, like he was pouring poisoned tea down the back of Young’s shirt, said, “Dr. Perry likes it.”

Young cleared his throat. “It makes you look like a dork.”

“I didn’t design it.”

“Not saying it’s your fault, but you wouldn’t be outta place in the Wormhole X-treme line at Comic-Con. Just a fact.”

Rush gave him an eloquent stare of mortal offense.

Young snorted. “The tape’s only temporary. We’ll solder plates once they’re sure they’re done with whatever calibrating they gotta do.”

“So I’ve heard.” Rush watched as Young pulled out his pocketknife and cut a small piece of tape. When Young had sized it, the mathematician removed his glasses and swept a handful of hair away from the device at his temple. 

“You,” Young said, “need a haircut.”

“Yes yes,” Rush replied. “I’m aware.”

“But maybe not until you get rid of these things.” Young stabilized his hand against Rush’s cheekbone as he positioned the tape to block the emitted light.

Rush let his hair fall back into place.

“Not bad,” Young said, studying him.

Rush turned, angled his head, and pulled his hair back to expose the second device.

Young cut another piece of tape, sized it, and pressed it into place.

Rush let his hair go.

“Much better,” Young said. “You look less like you crawled out of a Philip K. Dick novel.”

“If only I felt that way.” Rush eased the earpieces of his glasses over the cortical suppressors.

“We’ll get this figured out, hotshot.”

Tentatively, slowly, leaving more than enough space and time for Rush to move if he wanted, Young adjusted a lock of the mathematician's hair to conceal any hint of the metal beneath it.

“Thanks,” Rush said.

“No problem,” Young replied.