The air reeks of fear and cordite, and David Telford is in the wrong body. They've been back a little under a month and already there's a crisis? He tries not to smile. It's a good sign.

For three years he had waited to return, keeping the project alive in SGC's files while everyone around him slowly forgot. For three years he had resisted being sent on assignments that would mean he couldn't be there when the communication stones were brought out once more and a desultory watch kept.

For three years he had denied the subtle, unstated assumption that Destiny was not coming back. He felt pretty damn vindicated when they made contact barely two days after SGC set out the stones again. He had stuck to this project even when they muttered behind his back that he was losing his perspective, maybe even his mind. So he felt entitled now, even more than before, to call this his.

Almost a month after Destiny reached her new galaxy, defrosting her crew, and still no one important sat in the dingiest conference room deep under the mountain. When Telford wasn't there it was staffed with cadets and janitors. Life had moved on to other crises, and sometimes he thought there was no-one left who remembered that this was supposed to be the greatest mystery in the universe.

"Am I the only one who still thinks this matters?" he'd asked O'Neill, in the office that smelled of paperwork and disillusionment. "I was promised this."

O'Neill gave him the patented sceptical eyebrow raise. "I was promised I'd get to spend my retirement fishing. See where that got me. There are other things you could be doing."

"This was to be my command." Telford can't explain that Destiny is the path to god-like power, infinite knowledge, maybe immortality itself. Rush convinced him of it long ago, but he knows what it sounds like to the average observer and he prefers never to openly admit it's what he really wants.

"Yeah," O'Neill stops just short of an eyeroll. "But Young's got it now and-"

"Young's not fit for-"

The general's bright, humourous glance barely covers the ice underneath. Telford remembers in time that Young had been O'Neill's first choice and dials back some of the unflattering things he wants to say about Everett.

"I'll admit he was shaky for a while after that whole... torture... thing." O'Neill beats his knuckles on his window as if he desperately wants to get out, a fly trapped in a dusty room. "But he's pulled out of his tailspin and he's doing OK. We're getting regular reports. Our scientists are salivating over the new galaxy and what they can remember of the database. It's all..." He circles a hand lazily, "ticking over. No sense in wasting resources trying to get you there when Young's already doing the job."

Time to play the champion of the little people, defender of the moral high ground. "And we're just giving up on ever getting those people home?"

O'Neill gives him a smile that says I recognise when I'm being fed a line of bullshit, son. "I get the feeling most of them think they already are. The higher ups are already starting to talk about this as Earth's first generation-ship. Time for you to face the fact that you missed this boat."

But David Telford does not admit defeat. Young cannot possibly be worthy of this. All that is needed, then, is to prove Young is still the wrong man for the job, and that should be easy enough.

The promise of god-like power looks less convincing than ever as he gets to his feet now, waiting for the new body to stabilize around him. Perverse as it sounds, he prefers to be in Everett. Young's body is not so different from his, about the same age, trained and conditioned by the same regime. The muscle memory is similar and helpful, and he knows he can use it as he would his own without it giving out on him.

This is, he looks down with a sneer, a civilian. An underweight, under-fit civilian, whose limbs feel mushy and unresponsive around him, whose heart is racing too fast. How is he supposed to carry a rifle in this?

He doesn't recognise the face. It looks like Young too has decided stone-duty is only fit for non-essential personnel these days. Now Telford's back, that's the first thing that's going to have to change.

Eli's waiting to greet him. He's not sure what he feels about the genius wunderkind being elevated to science 2iC without having to jump through the SGC's hoops. It's another example of the sloppiness of Everett's command, that a kid who isn't even part of the organisation gets to boss around scientists who've worked their way up through the ranks for years.

"Where's Rush?"

"Hey," Eli's smile doesn't have the edge of eager willingness to please it once had. "Nice to see you too, Colonel. We've just been through a major battle here and Dr. Rush is busy with repairs. But I know everything he knows, so I'm pretty sure I can help instead, if you'll follow me."

Fobbed off on the nerd? I don't think so.

"Where's Young?"

That's definitely a new expression on the kid's face. Open friendliness layered on top of something unyielding, like a marshmallow with a steel centre. Telford's been around the galaxy enough to recognise when a guy's beginning to grow up. Eli's clearly been tested out here, and he at least thinks he passed.

"Colonel Young was injured in the attack. He's in the infirmary."

"Then that's where we'll go." Telford wheels and heads off, his host body slouching through the movement, scuffing its feet.

Eli has no problem keeping pace. "Well, yeah," he says, "So TJ says the colonel may wake up today. She also says no one's to visit even if he does."

By sheer force of will Telford draws ahead, though the body's thigh muscles protest at the speed. By his side, Eli's hand stutters out to slow him, drops without making contact. "He's not going to be in any fit state to talk to you. He almost died... twice."

It's absolutely typical of Everett to almost do something and never quite follow through. But the thought is ungenerous enough to give Telford pause. They were friends once. It's a remembered fact and he can no longer recall how it felt, but still, this is not how you should think of your friends.

"What happened?" he asks, giving in a little, dropping the pace and the frown.

In return Eli drops some of his uncharacteristic hardness, gives a bright boyish grin. "It was pretty awesome actually. OK so when the blue aliens cure Chloe they also put a tracker in her – that bit's not awesome, but it's out now and she's fine. So anyway, we're thinking 'yeah, three years, new galaxy, left the stalkers behind' when they drop out right next to us and storm the ship."

He slows to a halt, beckons Telford away from the infirmary to his own cubbyhole, "I've got it all on kino if you want to really see. I don't think I'm doing the action sequences justice."

Not quite so grown up after all.

"Just tell me what happened. I don't need the verbiage."

"OK, so we're taken by surprise. The blue guys come over in these little shuttle-pod things, cut holes in the hull and pour on board. Scott tries to hold them off-"

"Scott? Where's Young at this point?"

Eli waves a hand towards a window, where the swirling blue vapours of FTL are curling endlessly past. "He's in the shuttle, taking hydroponic dome panels out of storage and up to the repair robot. The blue guys have already got the shuttle docks staked out, so he's marooned out there. Scott tells the civilians to lock down in their quarters, and he and the military guys are getting pushed back into the gateroom. Meanwhile Rush battens the rest of us in the bridge with half of the aliens trying to get in."

It certainly sounds like a typical Everett-orchestrated clusterfuck so far. Telford wonders if he can sell it as such to O'Neill. He turns down Destiny's high street, the long spinal corridor that works its way past crew quarters to showers and mess and infirmary.

"So this is where the awesome comes in," Eli falls into step again. "Rush and Young are back and forth on their private channel plotting-"

"Private channel?"

Eli looks shifty. "Yeah. That's a new thing." He shrugs. "I think Camile's on it too. You know, so the elders of the ship can have meaningful talks without us young whippersnappers butting in?"

"Elders?" Thank God the kid hasn't grown any sense of politics or knowledge of the chain of command along with his spine.

"Yeah, you know. The leadership team." Eli shrugs again as though he hasn't just handed Telford a damning indictment of Colonel Young on a plate. The ship's commanding officer is power-sharing? Ruling by committee? Allowing Rush and the IOA anywhere near the reins? O'Neill really isn't going to like that. He manages not to smile.

"He's been ferrying stuff in space, right, so he's in one of the suits. He takes the shuttle over one of the holes, matches speed and jumps in. Then – this is really neat – he walks over to the nearest alien shuttle, hops in, gets rid of the occupants and flies it back to the alien mothership. The aliens think it's one of their own, right, so they let it on board. Meanwhile Rush has talked him through rigging the engine to blow. So he leaves the rigged pod on the mothership and jumps back into space. The mothership blows, and he's left kind of chilling there in the big outside."

The boy's enthusiasm is horribly familiar. Telford's never quite understood how it happens, but Everett has this way of winning people over. One moment they'll be trying to kill him, couple of weeks later they'll be best buddies. It's not exactly a command skill, but it's done him more good than he deserves over the years. It's fucking infuriating to find it's happening again.

"The idea is," Eli goes on, "that Rush will remote pilot Destiny's shuttle to come and pick him up. But that's the point when the aliens crack the bridge door and we have a firefight on our hands. By the time Scott's broken out of the gate room and rescued us, Young's half suffocated. We get him and the shuttle back on board through the cargo hold, and he's conscious enough to get the suit off and breathe for a while.

"Then all the blue guys come gunning after Scott. They trap him and the soldiers between them and the bridge door, and it's looking like a scene from 300-" he nods, encouragingly, "kind of bleak. When the aliens start getting mown down from behind. And hey, there's Young – he's armed the civilians and turned up in a kind of eleventh hour cavalry charge thing. Soon it's just a case of mopping up stragglers, and then mopping the floor. It's like walking in blueberry sundae."

A little nervous joke to cover up distress. As they turn the final corner before the open infirmary doors Eli does reach out and snag his arm, stopping him.

"But then the colonel gets zapped, covering for Brody. So I guess what I'm saying is... yesterday was tough for him. I think he deserves a day off—don't you?—before you hassle him with whatever it is this time."

Let him get his balance back? That would defeat the whole purpose.

"That's a hell of a lot of trust for Rush," Telford says instead. "Spacing himself, knowing that either Rush picks him up or he dies?" Telford wouldn't have that kind of faith in the conniving bastard, that's for sure. He's surprised Young would. "When did that happen?"

Maybe in deference to the infirmary door, Eli answers in a library-whisper, but he carries on smiling as fondly as though he's remembering a family holiday. It looks like some of Rush's madness is rubbing off on the kid. "Couple of weeks ago they spent four months stranded on a planet together."

Telford's incredulous look clearly delights him. "Loopy time stuff. It's exactly as cool as it was in the movies. At any rate I guess they talked down there because they've been lots better since they came back."

They're both whispering now, the quiet of the hallway and the low moonlit blue of the lights casting a spell of silence. Telford's about to shake himself out of it and march on in when he hears Rush's voice, low and private and hurt, say something he can't quite hear. He moves closer, to the door jamb, where he can observe the room without being seen himself.

The infirmary is in night-time mode, lit dimly by the banks of Ancient consoles with their jewelled controls. The other sleepers – because the place is full of injured – create a kind of slow, drowsy, intimate backdrop to where Rush sits on the edge of Everett's bed with one hand clenched in his hair. Everett's bandaged from hip to shoulder. Three tubes in his left arm, but his right hand is clasped around Rush's left, holding tight.

It gives Telford the same queasy feeling he felt when first surrounded by the Ursini - the gut drop of confronting something altogether alien.

"It's just I..." Rush is struggling hard to sound angry but not quite making it. "First there's Gloria, and then there's Mandy. And now you... I'm beginning to feel like some kind of angel of death, and I—"

"Nick," Everett's voice is barely there, a rough scrape in the corners of the quiet, but he smiles the little, sweet, hopeful smile Telford's only seen before in Emily's wedding photos. "You're not any kind of angel, believe me. Come here."

"I should be getting back to-"

"Five minutes. Please. Come here."

Eli steps up beside Telford like he's going to say something. He has the same look of perplexed disbelief that Telford can feel on his own face, so evidently this was something he didn't know either. He stops when Telford grabs his wrist, pulls it back trying to decide if he's affronted or afraid.

Meanwhile Rush has clambered into Everett's bed, is figuring out how to wrap himself around the guy without pressing on the burn or jarring the IV lines. Everett's pulling the little freak in close, carding the fingers of his good hand through Rush's hair as Rush's tense frame slowly relaxes against him. And Telford is cautiously trying to find a way to interpret this that doesn't spell 'lovers', but he's coming up empty.

"You guys. You guys!" Eli's got away from him, is bursting into the room, all flustered bonhomie and gossipy curiosity. "You're an item now? When did this happen?"

Immediately Rush is on his feet and all the way across the room, bristling like a thrown cat, but it's Telford he's glaring at. They've all learned over these past years to recognise him by his gait, his mannerisms, regardless of which body he wears.

Everett closes his eyes, no more. It's a little gesture but the sheer defeat in it means the world.

Telford goes hot all over with triumph. Oh yeah, I'm going to crucify you both with this. You are going to be the laughing-stock of the whole universe, and Homeworld Command will have to give me what is mine then. This ship, this destiny is mine.

"Yes," he says, his face aching from trying to keep a lid on the grin. "Boys. Tell us everything."