To The Moon And Back

Chapter Twenty

"Man, will I be glad to get home and sleep in my own bed," John groaned, stretching his aching body out as best he could while sitting in the pilot chair.

"You and me both, fella," Scott agreed, rubbing his tired eyes. "I could use a little vacation."

"Well, you know, if you need a break you could always take a turn in the space station once in a while," John joked, "and let the rest of us get some action."

"Looked to me like you were getting all kinds of action the rest of us don't," Scott said breezily, casting a calculating sideways glance at his brother, watching his reaction.

"What do you mean by that?" John asked, his tone far too casual as he turned to study their course a little too closely on the nearby monitor.

Just as he'd suspected, Scott couldn't resist digging a little further. "That girl? Selene?"

"What about her?" John continued, still maddeningly calm, although Scott could see the way his hands had tightened on the lever he was adjusting.

Scott rolled his eyes. "Contrary to popular belief, I'm not stupid."

"Could have fooled me."

Scott folded his arms and stared pointedly at his brother. "Do you think I didn't notice the looks between you two? The way you helped her a little more than everyone else, the way-"

"She was the one who called for help," John interrupted, feeling the need to defend himself.

"That doesn't explain the 'accidental' hand holding," Scott pushed before striking his final blow. "You're sweet on her."

"No, I'm not- I mean-"

Scott raised an eyebrow. "I know when you're lying."

John slumped in defeat, giving up all pretence. His brother knew him far too well. "I didn't think you noticed, you didn't say anything."

"Wasn't my place to," Scott said, shrugging it off. "Besides, kinda seemed like she was into you too."

John shook his head, dismissing it firmly. "No, she was just scared, in a stressful situation and she-" he was cut off by Scott's disbelieving snort.

"Yeah, that's the reason."

"It was."

"Sure, if you say so."

"I do," John insisted, pleased that his brother had taken his word for it. He reached for his cup of coffee and took a fortifying sip.

"But let me ask you something," Scott continued, ignoring the force with which John slammed his cup back down into its holder. "Do you think someone who was just scared would care about you the way she did?"

John turned to his brother for the first time, knowing that Scott would see the pathetically hopeful look on his face, but unable to stop himself as he asked, "You think she did?"

Scott leaned back in his chair, propping one foot up on the console, resting his elbow on his knee in order to tick off the points on his fingers. "When she came through that evacuation tube she didn't want to leave you." He lifted a second finger. "Then she not only defended you to her friends, she sided with you over them. Friends that she had known for years, over someone she'd met a few hours ago." He lifted a third finger, then gave up, dropping his hand, his tone turning serious. "Every step of the way she was trying to protect you as much as you were her. She went after those guys to help us, to protect us, not because she had some grand hero complex, but because she was scared, not for herself, but for us, to protect us. She likes you, any idiot can see it."

John shook his head dismissively even while replaying their kiss in his head. He wondered briefly if he should tell Scott about it but, as much as he trusted his brother not to rat him out to the others or make fun of him, he wanted to keep it for himself. He wanted his own, private, memory to bring out and examine, to remember her when the loneliness of space got a little too lonely. He just wished he could shake the feeling of having lost something important or like he'd left behind a one-of-a-kind, perfect-for-him item in a shop and now couldn't stop thinking about how he really should have bought it. It would be one of those times he'd known instantly that he would always regret. But there was nothing he could do about it, it was out of his hands.

Scott was watching him expectantly, waiting for his input and he forced out a casual, "She's just crazy."

"Crazy about you, maybe," Scott scoffed, "but otherwise -apart from the fact that she dared to steal food from you, something even Gordon wouldn't do, and more to the point, you didn't stop her- she seems sane enough to me. A little out there in her thinking maybe," he conceded when John raised a disbelieving eyebrow, because hello, protest trip to the Moon, "but her heart and intentions are in the right place, which I would guess makes her just about the same level of crazy as us."

John's sigh held a wistful note as he popped his chin on his hand. "She fitted right in with us, didn't she?"

"Sure did," Scott agreed, chuckling softly. "We could use someone like her back at base, might liven things up a little."

"I thought the same but I..." he trailed off, shoulders slumping defeatedly. "Why are we even talking about this? You know nothing can come of it. I don't even know her last name."

"Never say never, little brother," Scott said, patting John on the back.

That was the same thing Alan had said, and once again John was forced to face the reality of the situation and say firmly, "I'm saying never. Because we're never going to see her again, I'm never going to see her again." John pushed back his chair, needing to move, he'd spent enough time trapped to last him at least a year, longer if he played his cards right.

"I couldn't tell her who I really was, who we are. It's not like I can meet her as a regular person now, because she already knows too much, it's too late to make up something about our jobs, and we don't exactly get the time to date even if we wanted to," John continued to rant, his stomping boots tapping out an accompaniment on the metal floor.

"Dad never expressly said we couldn't date, he just said that no one could know about International Rescue-" Scott started to point out, but John cut him off with a raise of his hand.

"This isn't like with Alan with Tin-Tin, she already knows about us, or your meet 'em and leave' em dates while you're on vacation, this is about someone that I really liked and can't have. We knew when we started that we would pretty much be giving up our lives to the organisation for the foreseeable future. So, if you don't mind, I'd rather talk about something else," John finished, flopping back down into his seat with a resounding thump.

"Okay, okay," Scott conceded, raising his hands in surrender. "I give in, I'll shut up."

"Good," John huffed, still scowling, although his voice softened as he offered a genuine, "Thank you." In some way he had needed this, to have someone else see what he had, to receive confirmation that she had liked him after all and he hadn't misread the signs or made it all up in his head. And hopefully, sometime in the future, he'd be able to think about it without feeling a surge of loss and regret.

"I'm just saying though, stranger things have happened," Scott added, diving out of his chair and sprinting for the elevator before John's smack hit home.

"It's going to be a long flight," John muttered, shaking his head as his brother's grinning face vanished from view.