#no death though. maybe an appendix explosion

[analog-autistic]

damn they’re an asshole, I hope they (remembers that wishing death or harm upon others increases the amount of violent intrusive thoughts I have) go to fucking therapy

[eirian-houpe]

Breathe - Chapter 1

Fandom: Stargate Universe, Once Upon a Time (TV)

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Relationships: Belle (Once Upon a Time)/Nicholas Rush

Characters: Belle (Once Upon a Time), Nicholas Rush, Eli Wallace, The Destiny

Additional Tags: Angst, Science Fiction, AU, Smut, Violence, Character Death, Aftermath, Hurt/Comfort

Series: Part 1 of We Three

Summary: As the Lucian Alliance attack Icarus Base, Doctor Rush makes the decision that dialing back to Earth is too dangerous, though that may not at all be his reason for attempting to dial the ninth chevron, persuaded by Eli, and by something Belle had said to him previously, he substitues Earth for Icarus, and the connection is made. In spite of hurrying to urge Belle to the 'Gate room and through the 'Gate, neither he, nor anyone else believes that Belle actually made it on board Destiny...

Thanks to @xiolaperry​ for helping me to find a name for the series.

Read On AO3

Chapter 1 - Destiny

Frozen.

Belle clung to the side of the computer desk beside the huge glowing vertical puddle that had whooshed into being the moment Rush had completed the dialing sequence. Debris fell from the ceiling, and around the room, random explosions took out power lines, and parts of the wall, and machinery that she had no clue as to its function. The longer the bombardment continued the more frantic and chaotic it became around her. She knew she should do as Rush had insisted… follow the others through the Stargate. She still felt the urgent pressure, the tug on her hands as he held them a moment before he mounted the ramp.

But the prospect of the unknown…

If not for the sudden whine of overload of the computer she might have stood there until the explosion of the planet’s core; been vaporized in an instant, but the sound broke her paralysis, and then with the others, her small carry-all slung over her shoulder, she all but ran up the sloping metal ramp, broke the surface of the puddle, and fell into darkness.

Or semi-darkness, she realized as she opened her eyes, and tried to move as someone’s hand hooked around her arm and dragged aside from the direct path of the glowing Stargate. The chaos didn’t end just because she’d left Icarus; they all had.  They brought the chaos with them.

She tried to stand, and winced, letting out a cry that no one heard amid the noise already building in the… what was it, a room?  It didn’t look like a room.  It didn’t feel like a room.  It was more like a vault… metallic. Strange. She scuttled backwards to press her back to the corner, a dark corner, and grasped her ankle with both hands where the pain was. Had she stepped wrong? Landed wrong?  She closed her eyes and put her head back, thinking through all the events of the past two days, since Doctor Rush and General O’Neill had turned up in her lecture hall and whisked her away to this.

…It wasn’t exactly an unpleasant sensation. One moment she was standing in the lecture hall beside Doctor Rush and General O’Neill, and the next… surrounded by the most intense light she could imagine, which slowly faded, leaving spots floating in the air before her eyes, the way they would after looking too long at the sun without shades on, but around her, as her vision refocussed, she saw the darkened, blue lit, gray interior of… well… she couldn’t figure out what she was seeing, nor where she was.

A sudden wave of dizziness swept over her, and she staggered slightly as she tried to straighten herself before the warmth of slender but strong arms slipped around her to grasp both her upper arms supportively and in the next moment, warm breath passed over the space beside her ear, and Rush’s voice, low and with a hint of amusement purred in her ear…

*

…She met his eyes, hers narrowed, and bristled still further at the smirk she saw in his. He knew he had her interest. She’d given herself away and he was using it to lord it over her..  Damn the man, but worse - and she hoped he hadn’t caught her out in this as well - she couldn't help but find him attractive.  In spite of his scruffy appearance, and his two or three day growth of stubble, his eyes were darkly brooding and full of mystery, and the verbal sparring they were engaged in was filling her with an ache of want that would be a lie to deny to herself. Add to all of that the old cliche that smart was sexy, and she knew she was in big trouble.

However, she’d be damned if she was going to let the arrogant bastard dictate what she was going to do…

*

“…Miss French,” he said by way of greeting, and stepped aside slightly, gestured to her to come in.

“That’s Doctor French, and...” she said as she brushed past him. He palmed the door control and turned to face her, just as she slapped the file folder against his chest, “You’re wrong…”

*

…Belle felt dizzy with the taste of his skin, salt and sweet and bitter, all at the same time, like cinnamon sugar.  She gasped as she felt his fingers on her thigh, the light pull of his hand against her leg, and she stood on tiptoes, as she slipped her arms around his shoulders to steady herself against him, lifting one thigh to wrap it against the roughness of his denim clad leg….

*

…She sighed again, and then lay in silence holding, and being held, just breathing together in post coital bliss. Nothing more until something occurred to her, and with a slightly teasing tone in her voice, she said, “You’re still wrong.”

That drew a low, languid chuckle from him, and he craned his neck a little to look down at her, as she looked up. “Trying for round two…? Miss French?”

She moaned softly, and pressed her head against her knees, bracing herself with fingertips on the floor. It was then that she felt it… the hum, the vibration, the living heartbeat of this ship.

“Destiny,” she breathed.

She had seen that word, over and over again in some of the Ancient text that Rush had left her studying, not on the main pages though - the ones he had highlighted as important to discovering the secrets of the Ninth Chevron, but in those barely noticed appendixes and poorly photographed artifacts, all of those pages that everyone overlooked. Had Rush known? Did he know that this was where the ninth chevron would lead and kept it hidden from everyone? Could anyone trust him? Could she, even after what they had shared in the past forty-eight hours?  She looked around, trying to see him amid the chaos, but it was too dark, and there were too many people.

Doubt assailed her, fear and doubt, two sides of an unholy triangle that had dogged her life. Maybe if she kept to the shadows, no one would know she was there. She could keep to herself until she found Rush… found out what he knew; what everyone knew; found out where she stood. Why did she feel so threatened? At that moment she didn’t want them to know that she had made it through. Eli was bound to say something if he knew and if Rush proved difficult, and she knew he would. Eli would tell the others, the military on board that Rush wasn’t the only one that could understand the Ancient language better than his own, basic application. This was too much.

Slowly, biting her lip against the pain in her ankle, she pulled herself up. Clung to the wall for support, almost literally sliding through the shadows until she found the exit. Until she could practically fall around the frame of the doorway and out into the corridor beyond.

She followed her instinct, followed her nose, trying to keep her ears open for any sound of others leaving the room behind her, not knowing where she was going, but not wanting to go far.  She found another doorway , this one with a closed door, but with a control to the left of it. She pressed, and the door slid aside, little more than a dark hole beyond, the lights burned out, all but one. It would do as a place to gather herself and think. She needed to speak to Rush, but… did she want to? Would he want her to?

”Miss French… Belle… we have to go!” Rush squeezed her hands so hard her fingers hurt. “We have to leave. Now. This planet isn’t safe.  Icarus’ core is gonnae go critical.��

For a moment he pressed his forehead to hers.

“Come with me… Please!”

She let the door close in the same instant that the world blurred and stretched around her, a brief, strange sensation passing thorugh her, and the hum around her, beneath her feet, increased. She pressed her forehead against the bulkhead.

“Destiny, where are you taking us?” she whispered.