Only Took A Year

Posted on Sat May 24th, 2025 @ 9:21pm by Ensign Duncan McManus & Ensign Madelyn 'Madi' Moore
Edited on on Sat May 24th, 2025 @ 9:30pm

Mission: Remnant
Location: Fuel Planet
Timeline: 409
3386 words - 6.8 OF Standard Post Measure

Duncan was still playing with the fire when she returned, because of course he was. For a few brief seconds, Madi entertained the notion of watching him quietly, stealing assumed anonymity to gather the scattered thoughts her conversation with Mercy had provoked, but the thought was short-lived. Blinking, she caught the blanket dropped over her head at the last minute and pulled at face at the antics, struggling with the bulk as she stepped back over the fallen log to take a seat.

"I wasn't gone that long." A faint frown of amusement followed the gradual dawning of suspicion. "Did you add more logs?"

TAG - I can't figure out a way to link without writing Duncan for you, so I'll leave this but we can figure something out together if you're stuck

Squinting at him through the smoke, Madi's features scrunched into a resigned smile as she fumbled with the blanket to pat the log beside her. "I had plenty of time alone with my thoughts already today, I think I'm good for sitting by myself in the dark for a while."

The man easily walked over and sat down with her spreading out his legs in front of him. “Good, cause I wanted to check on you but the Captain was here.” He admitted.

"She was just checking up on me." The squirm of self-consciousness was not entirely driven by embarrassment for once, it hadn't been lost on Madi amidst the chaos of the rescue efforts that Duncan's initial discovery had been likely the result of an intentional search. Madelyn felt the urge to apologise for constantly winding up in messes she needed help escaping but it still felt undeniably nice to have been missed. "She probably expected to find me in several pieces." A sheepish squint sideways made the best of efforts to poke fun at herself. "Kind of my trademark at this point."

"Of course she was. She is a good Captain. I can see why Morgan made her Executive Officer." Duncan wiggled a little to get more comfortable. "No, it's not. You are a scientist and you are inquisitive... It's what you do." He said, quietly shaking his head. His accent was thick with tiredness but he found himself glancing to her and smiling as he noticed how self-conscious she was.

It was, Madelyn decided, perhaps the best response he could have given. Not because there wasn't some element of truth to her capacity to get herself into situations she struggled to get out of without help but because it was currently very relevant to her recent thought processes to be considered a scientist at all. Somehow, all their encounters with alien species and places had failed to hit home quite as hard as this solitary planet with its quiet, unassuming secrets. Struck once more by the forlorn emptiness, Madi lifted her gaze to the stars overhead and frowned.

"It's what I wanted to do," she eventually replied, a gentle emphasis leaving the question open in regards to whether that had changed at some point. "Though, actually, none of this is what I thought I wanted." Glancing sideways, she smiled ruefully. "Bit hard to fall down holes in the middle of a library."

Duncan raised an eyebrow as he sipped on his drink and contemplated what she had said. He was a smart man when it came to the ship or machines in general, but when it came to this woman in front of him, he was mostly clueless on how to act and how to support her the way she deserved. "And what is it that you want?" He finally asked.

Taking a moment to give that some thought, Madelyn eventually managed a wistful smile and the faint hunch of one shoulder. "Mostly things I can't have." Silence stretched on without elaboration, and for a moment it seemed like that was all he was going to get. Then, though she'd struggled in the past to be as open with him as she had been with other friends, the brunette added, "Like knowing if we're ever going to get home or not." Looking down at her hands, half buried in the blanket, Madi picked at one thumbnail with the other. "Do you ever think about what you'll do?" She didn't meet his gaze. "If we do make it back?"

Duncan shook his head. "I never have a plan for any moment in my life other than joining Earth Starfleet." He admitted with a shy smile. It was the only moment in his life that he had known what he had wanted to do. He leaned over and touched her hand. "But I am sure that if we ever do get back I will land on my feet. I am like a cat according to most people."

The gentle touch, unassuming in many ways, was still enough to derail Madi's thought process. She didn't flinch, which was progress at least, and even managed to slightly relax after the sudden acceleration of blood pounding in her ears abated some. The analogy provoked fondness, though it also produced a whimsical melancholy that was all-too familiar of her mood lately. Outside appearances might have given the impression Madi was just as good at landing on her feet but she strongly suspected she was just good at finding people to catch her.

"I wasn't really meant to stay with Earth Starfleet for too long," she admitted. By now, it was something she had been reasonably open about but it provided too much context for her current thoughts to leave out entirely. "Dad suggested it would improve my job prospects later and I just..." She frowned, still staring at how much larger Duncan's hand seemed when measured against her own. Strong, sturdy, calloused from hard work. The only reason hers looked sullied at all was because it had proven impossible to get stuck underground without tearing up your nails a little bit. "Went with the flow. Like I always did."

She glanced sideways at him then before craning her head towards the trees, an intentional attempt to acknowledge the direction of the nearby abandoned settlement though her aim was a little off in the dark. Silence lapsed, comfortable in its own way, and Madi was grateful to be given a chance to gather her next thoughts. "If I hadn't deferred to him, I probably never would have experienced anything like this." She paused and dropped her gaze again, adding what was more of the pressing point, "Or met any of you."

TAG

"While I was down there, waiting..." Madi paused to concede, "When I was down there, stuck because I'm an idiot, I realised...this could be us one day. Nobody really wants to talk about it, I know I've been going around in circles trying not to accept it, but we're...we're probably not getting home any time soon. Maybe ever. Almost definitely not soon enough for us to just hit pause and do nothing with our lives." Briefly, Madi thought of Leroux, taking the plunge into motherhood amidst the uncertainty of an ever-changing future, and frowned. "And maybe one day, time will run out, and all that will be left of us is some writing on a wall that nobody understands and some self-depictions that don't tell the full story."

"I keep waiting. For someone to tell me what to do next, for the uncertainty to disappear, for something to just take away all these choices that don't seem to match up. I think... I think if I do what makes the most sense here, what brings me purpose and happiness here, it won't be the same as what I expected my life to be back home. And that would be okay, if I knew for sure that I was going to spend the rest of my life here. But I don't know if what I choose now will still be an option back on Earth, if changing what I want won't just leave me with nothing if we do find a way home."

"There's a lot more opportunities back on Earth." Madi stared at the fire, unable to risk eye contact as she finally found the courage to put into words a very large part of the problem. "Less need to compromise or settle for best available option. What's good enough here...might not be enough there." I might not be enough there. The words hung, unspoken though implied.

Duncan frowned and looked at her carefully, trying to find some words that would be enough to tell her she was enough but he could not find them there and then, so he settled for pulling her close and kissing her hair. "My words are never going to be enough to convince you that you are the option for me, Madi. But I hope my actions, even clumsy and well... Scottish, are enough to convince you that you are. I would not have come looking for you earlier." He pointed out. "But... you are very much enough for me, and I am one who should be demanding if I am enough for you."

If she was honest, Duncan baffled Madi with his capacity to cut a straight line to the heart of the matter while she was still caught in the twist and turns of the hedge maze of her thoughts. She had been referencing more than just where things stood between them but that had been an intentional muddying of the primary concern, and the fact that he had seen right through that was... Actually, she had no idea how she felt about it. Unprepared for a start, which seemed a little unfair since she had provoked the conversation in the first place. She had just expected to have to explain her thoughts about her career choices before dancing around where she thought she landed in the list of personal priorities.

At least pulled against him like this meant she could stare at the fire without seeming rude. And as much as her pulse was racing a million miles a minute, he was sturdy and strong and eventually it felt good to just allow herself to relax and lean her head against his shoulder. That much, at least, was probably not presumptuous, he had instigated it after all.

She wasn't convinced he wouldn't have come looking for her for purely platonic reasons though. The alternative made him sound like a jerk, and he was anything but.

"I didn't think you'd be interested."

It sounded somewhat pathetic now the words were out of her mouth but it was honest and raw and made it perfectly clear that there was a strong chance they'd been on separate pages for a while. Duncan spoke as if mutual attraction was an established fact and Madelyn was left to scramble, wondering if it had been obvious and she'd just...been Madi about it.

“You did not think I would be interested? Whatever for?” He demanded softly. He had spent the last couple of months wondering if he had completely misread the situation but here and now that confusion fogginess was gone. It was nice to see clearly for the first time with Madi when he had been thinking it was one sided or neither would take any move forward.

An audible exhalation released some of the tension Madi had been holding onto, though it didn't buy her nearly enough time to tie a nice, neat bow on her thought process over the past year. "The same reason I didn't protest when I got put into hydroponics, even though I knew I wouldn't be very good at it." Still staring into the flames, Madi considered the sheer volume of speculation she'd amassed on the subject and opted, instead, for a tired summary. "I thought all this was temporary. It seems naïve now but all I've done this past year is wait for everything to go back to normal. Then, suddenly, we'd been at this a year and I guess I just realised, this is normal now. And I don't want to keep waiting anymore to get on with my life, even if I am ridiculously scared that anything I try to start here will just disappear if we do get back."

"You will never live thinking like that." He said kindly. "It is not naïve, it is hopeful." He told her softly. He hated that she had carried all of this for the last year. "I wish you had told me," Duncan admitted as she pressed a kiss to her hair before he turned to look at the fire himself.

"I tried." It was still harder to recall her drunken meltdown without cringing but Madi chose not to dwell on the memory. "But I just don't think I knew myself what the problem was until...well, now really." Mercy's pep talks had helped but something about sitting alone in an underground cavern, contemplating the existence of a long-extinct stranger upon whose hopefully-exaggerated likeness she was perched, had helped solidify her thoughts. "Besides," Madi chewed her bottom lip nervously as she tried to navigate her next words with what she hoped was enough courage to make the intent clear, "Most of my energy when you were around was spent on not falling on my face and looking like an idiot."

Duncan laughed and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Well, stop wasting that energy. I don't care if you fall on your face. I'll pick you up and you could never look daft to me. I find you ridiculously adorable." Duncan stated gently trying to not scare her off but being firm in his feelings for her.

It seemed to be a description destined to follow Madi through life. Never beautiful or lovely or, more worryingly if she was honest, sexy, but cute. Adorable. A roly-poly puppy that had never quite grown into the size of its feet. It wasn't an insult, far from it, there was comfort in the connection to her old self because Madi had felt very much distanced from her of late, and even though there was naturally a part of her that hoped Duncan at least occasionally felt those other things about her too, it was better that this was where he had landed because it was real. It meant she was real to him and that the last year of feeling like she'd been slowly losing herself hadn't set up false expectations.

Hopefully.

"I wouldn't be alive without you." The quiet words were meant literally, he had been the one to bring her back over a year ago, when all this had started. "And I'd probably still be down a hole now if you hadn't come along. Thank you." It seemed long overdue and certainly wasn't the first time Madi had attempted to express gratitude, she was just very aware that most of the time she had cancelled out the poignancy with extreme awkwardness. Now, there was a moment of comfortable silence before Madi felt the urge to add a reciprocated honesty, even if she was once again extremely grateful he wasn't looking at her as she tried. "And you're pretty cute yourself."

He grinned at being called cute as he pulled back to look at her properly. he would accept that from her. Cute was not so bad in his opinion. "I am sure there will be plenty of time for you to keep me alive." He promised, taking in the flickering expressions across her face. One day, he might be able to work out what they all meant, but for now, he would take her words for what they were. He caressed her cheek and shook his head. "Nah, I am sure that others would have come looking for you sooner or later, but I got worried when you missed lunch and did not do your hourly check-in in so I started retracing your steps."

Madi found herself trapped by the conflict of being acutely aware of where they were and, by direct contradiction, completely unable to process anything other than Duncan's proximity. Whilst part of her craved the touch, a little voice inside her head was panicking that they'd get caught, the combination of which wasn't doing a lot to help her figure out what she was supposed to do. So she smiled ruefully, failed to wrench her eyes away from his, and carefully hunched a shoulder as if scared that any rushed movement would scare him off. "You still noticed first."

"Always." He promised, smiling as he caressed her cheek before looking away. He did not want to overwhelm her when it had been a long time getting to this point. "But how are you feeling now? Do you need anything?" He wondered, knowing she must have been tired physically and mentally from the day. He wanted to help her if he could; it's what you do for people you like.

Disappointment. Relief. Madi wished her brain would pick one and stick to it. On the balance of things, once the initial ping of anticipation had faded, she found herself mostly grateful for Duncan's understanding and restraint. He had an uncanny knack for figuring out what was best before she'd arrived at the realisation herself, which was a decent analogy for the differences in their personalities. She envied his ability to forge a path directly forward; Madi was pretty sure if you gave her brain a pencil, it would draw a line that took up the whole page just to get to the same point.

"I probably just need to eat something and get some sleep," she admitted. Part of her wanted to stay up all night talking to him but they all had jobs to do and it wouldn't be a terrible thing to have some space to process the day. "I think my body's just starting to remember I threw it down a hole and then tried to climb outside my skill-level." There were definitely muscles in her shoulders and neck that were starting to wonder why they'd been called to action.

He was pretty such she was feeling like crap after her day. He really wished he could help other than going to get things for her. “Food, sleep and some painkillers.” He listed off what she was going to need. Duncan looked around and leaned over and kissed her forehead softly. “Want me to go get you some food and painkillers?” He wondered. He really did not mind going to do that on his way to bed.

"I'll probably just eat a ration bar." It wasn't a proper response but, by now, Madi was too flummoxed by the attention to process more than the intense sense of warmth that came from simple gestures of physical affection. "And I should be okay without medication, they gave me some when we first got back." Lingering awkwardly, Madelyn then rallied, glanced around herself and rose to carefully shed the blanket around her shoulders and lay it neatly over the makeshift seat for anyone else coming in from a cold night's patrol. It gave her a split second to figure out how to say goodnight, which turned out not to be nearly long enough. Turning back, she once again hesitated.

"I guess...I'll see you at breakfast?"

The man wanted to argue and tell her that a ration bar was not going to cut it as he could make her something but he did not want to overwhelm her. “You will indeed see me at breakfast. If you need anything you know where I am though right?” He said quietly just wanting to confirm for the last time that she knew he was there for her.

A muted nod didn't seem nearly adequate enough. Spurred on by a rush of pent-up adrenaline, Madi stood for a split second in rigid silence, listening to the sound of her pulse racing past her ears, and then rose swiftly to plant a kiss on the engineer's cheek before she entirely lost the nerve.

"Goodnight, Duncan."

Her tent seemed a million miles away suddenly. It took all her willpower not to look back.