Title: Come back and stay

Author: Lala Sara

Fandom: SeaQuest

Pairing: Ben/Lucas

Archive: Yes

Feedback: etkitty@yandex.ru

Rating: G

Status: Finished

Disclaimer: Don't own them, never will.

Authors notes: ficlet, or even drabble, I don't know. I've wrote it long before Jonathan Brandis' death. I hope he hasn't died, just went to another planet as Lucas...

Series/Sequel: don't know yet

Warnings: spoilers for ep. "In the company of ice and profit"



Come back and stay
by Lala Sara

When he saw him there, in the ice, with the rime all over his long tousled hair and puffy chin... He decided it's his imagination playing with him. His imagination, sick with cold, lack of food and sleep, with all these frozen-hearted years of torpidity. His voice, so familiar, called him and he decided that it's a trap of his mind, he mustn't even dare to believe. And this big, too big "dagger" was distracting so much, and all this white that was striking his eye...

"You're dead!" - yelled he trying to shut his shivering mind up, as he did many times to stop this foolish stubborn hope. It can't be you.

I'm finally going crazy. Maybe in a minute I'll be glad but now I still can't give up. There's a people who needs me and I must do everything about they could have something I lost a billions years ago. A place called home. If only just for a little while. To feel a warm even at this -300. But the hallucination was persistent. It called him for response, for care, for recognizing. For believing. And he finally gave up. If it's time it is time. He felt warm when it hugged him. And it felt like home. I've been holding out too long, he wondered.

When he woke up it was a white again. The white of sickness. The sickbay. Of course. He's crazy at last. He has to be here. He felt better. There were no more weariness, no weakness. That's right. I always knew that. Why I didn't give up earlier? No more exhausting struggle for sanity. Peace and quiet. Not really. Other mad people? No bothering. I can ignore them. I have my boy now. And here he comes.

"You fainted." - said the hallucination and handed him the plate of food. "You must eat. They filled you with vital stuff but I guess you're starving for the real food."

He took the plate and smiled to his craze. "I love you." - thought he. He knew that he hasn't to speak it aloud. The boy wasn't real; he was in his head, where he can hear him.

"When I've been returned... OK, when I was back at SeaQuest, I've checked up your whereabouts. No trace. The last location was somewhere in Macronesia. I was scared you might be dead already for all this. When I got this mission, I had a thrill of hunch. And as ever I was right. Don't scare me *that* anymore, OK?" And after the pause of that sweet familiar chatting: "Well, I'd scared you, too, I think. But this wasn't my fault, really. Are you alright?"

"Now I'm all right." - thought he and swallowed something... what-was-in-plate...

"Say something." - demanded the boy.

"I love you." - repeated he to himself.

"This isn't good. Have you nothing to tell me after all these years? OK, I have last time seen you only months ago, but for you it is a long ten years, am I right? And you have nothing to tell me? Are you mad at me?"

"I'm mad about you. And don't be such annoying, you're *my* illusion, don't be such a pest. I want to enjoy the food now... whatever it is." - thought he with a little frown at his idiotic face.

"Don't think I'm reading your mind. At least I don't want to. I want you speak to me. Reassure me you're real, won't you?" - that sounded... weird. The illusion want a reassurance of *his* reality.

"What about you?" - said he aloud.

"What about me? Have I missed you? Do I still love you? Look, it's no place for conversations like that, you know. This is your neighbors... Your friends. We'll talk about it later. Maybe, I'll even show you. Will you wait?" - whispered the boy, took his hand and squeezed it promising.

"Are you real?" - asked he with thrill.

"No, I'm a hallucination. What are you thinking about? Do I look too vague?" - said the boy and nipped him to the lobe of his ear.

"All right, all right, I believe."

"I thought you had believed at the iceberg."

He wasn't mad. And he wasn't dreaming. Was it what it is? Wait a minute. What he was talking about? The returning with no loss of age? Strange and impossible thing, but who cares at all. It is SeaQuest, isn't it? And... who's coming, hah?

"Ford! Tim! I'm glad to see you!"

"Ben! How are you?" - steady known voice.

"We didn't wanna disturb you two." - mumbling as ever.

"We're not alone, as you can see." - said Lucas showing Ben's neighbors. "Pity."

"We just come to say hi."

"Yeah, don't give attention on us."

"Where're the others?" - asked Ben with cheerful voice. "Bridger, Ortiz?"

Lucas swung his head "no".

"We doesn't know actually." - said Ford.

"We *know*." - pressed O'Neil.

"I'm not sure." - sighed Lucas.

"Miguel is *dead*." - pressed harder Tim. Krieg recognized this pressure. That is how he was pressing his own hope after Lucas... He reached the young man's hand and squeezed it. O'Neil looked at him with surprise. He read compassion in another man's eyes. Deep pain in it.

"We better go..." - it confused Jonathan. And they went away.

"Poor boy." - said Krieg. "Somebody watches after him? Ford?"

"*I* watches after him. Don't worry, he'll get over."

"I don't think so. *I* didn't."

The boy suddenly understood. He looked in his eyes and said with the best assurance he could manage:

"It's all right now. Really."


END