Chapter Text
82 Days Later…
Alex woke to the sound of his alarm, he had been asleep for just three hours but it felt like he had barely put his head down.
He stretched out a little and felt Michael behind him take his hand and pull his body back into him.
Alex smiled.
“That’s the alarm Guerin,” he said. “Time to get up.”
“I am up,” he mumbled against the back of Alex’s neck, sending a shiver through him.
“Yeah, I can feel that,” he grinned.
Michael lifted himself up and over so that he was straddling Alex under the sheet, pinning his wrists down to the bed gently. Alex lay on his back and looked up as Michael’s curls hang loosely around his face and his lips turned up in a smirk.
“You’ve been in this bed not even four hours, you can stay for another ten minutes,” he said, leaning down and kissing Alex softly on his jaw.
“Oh, ten minutes you think?” Alex said, letting himself close his eyes again.
“Maybe fifteen,” Michael said, pressing his hips down a little and gently nipping at his neck.
Just as Alex thought about giving in, the door to his bunk flew open.
“Liz says it’s time to – whoops,” Max said, averting his gaze a little as Michael sighed and looked up without bothering to move. “Time to get to the bridge.”
He finished his sentence with a small grin, not bothering to close the door or move much at all.
“Can we get a minute?” Michael said, looking up at him.
“You’ve had enough minutes!” Liz’s voice rang out from somewhere behind Max who just let out a chuckle.
“You get that?” Max said, looking back in at them and Alex pulled a hand away from Michael’s grip to put it to his forehead as he laughed.
“Got it,” Michael answered. “Now get out.”
Max grinned again before he stepped out and closed the door.
“How did you live up here for so long with no lock on your door?” Michael asked.
“Well for starters, it was just me in here,” Alex said. “And then there’s the rule we had where we respected one another’s privacy and just, knocked?”
“Wouldn’t that be nice,” he said, leaning in again to kiss Alex whose lips were still spread tight in a smile.
Michael started to deepen their kiss when the door swung open again and Isobel stood in the doorway.
“I know you have selective hearing Michael but tick-tock, time to get up,” she said unabashedly.
Michael huffed loudly as he pulled himself away from Alex’s lips.
“Okay you know the next person who stops me from blowing Alex’s–”
“We’re getting up,” Alex said, his hand reaching up to cover Michael’s mouth and stop him from finishing his sentence. “Give us two minutes.”
Isobel raised an eyebrow with the hint of a sparkle in her eye and shut the door on them.
Alex let out a loud sigh and took his hand away from Michael’s mouth.
“I was going to say mind,” he said and this time it was Alex’s turn to raise his eyebrows.
“Sure you were.”
Reluctantly they both got out of bed and got dressed, heading out to the bridge to meet the others.
Alex looked out the main window to a familiar and yet foreign sight. The space station was before them on a backdrop of black and stars and the Earth. From so far away you wouldn’t know she’d ever seen any troubles.
Liz sat in her chair and Max stood behind it, his hands on her shoulders. Kyle walked in from behind Alex, clapping him on the shoulder and heading for his chair as he adjusted his suit.
“We ready to do this?” he said as he sat down, and in a moment, all eyes were on Alex.
“I know I am,” he said, taking his seat at the centre of the console.
“So how are we going to do this?” Liz asked, looking up at Max and then back to Alex. “We can’t exactly waltz in with three extra bodies.”
Alex had been thinking about it during his last shift on the deck, how they could make it work. His idea could have been called crazy, but it was the only way it would work.
“Have they made contact with us yet?” he asked, opening up the landing software and plugging in some information.
“Nothing yet,” Kyle said. “Not since we logged our last location seventeen hours ago.”
“Okay good,” Alex said, not looking up from his screen as he focussed.
“Wait don’t we need them to prepare the bay for landing?” Liz asked.
“No,” Alex said.
“Then how are we going to latch?” Kyle asked.
“We’re not landing there,” he replied. “We’re not landing on the space station.”
Kyle and Liz exchanged a look.
“Uh, you want us to crash-land for a second time?” he asked.
“It’s the only way to get these three off safely, and you know what I’m not really interested in their politics, or having to answer their questions,” Alex said.
Michael smiled proudly as he looked over at him, the last few months he had loved watching Alex in his element, taking control and steering them home. It was a part of him he hadn’t seen back on the Oasis and he couldn’t wait to see more of it.
“Bold move,” Isobel said with a grin.
“We know where they sent Arturo and Rosa,” Alex said with a look over to Liz. “I can put us down not far from there, smuggle these guys into the refuge. And then come up with a plan from there.”
Liz’s mouth hung open for a moment as she thought about it, turning to Kyle with a shrug.
“I can’t let you do this for me,” she said.
“It’s not for you,” Kyle said. “It’s for all of us.”
“Kyle your job–”
“There is a hell of a lot of need for doctors down on Earth,” he said with a smile. “I didn’t get into this gig for the fancy pay-check.”
“We’re really doing this then?” Liz said with a nervous smile.
“We’re going to have to ignore them, they will reach out when they start tracking our course,” Alex said. “We land, and we get out of there as fast as we can. Before they can reach us for a rescue.”
“Hide the aliens in plain sight, I like it,” Michael grinned, taking a seat in the fourth chair at the front console.
“Oh, now you’ll call yourself an alien?” Kyle said, Michael having made a point about never accepting that title.
“We all clear on the story?” Liz asked, strapping herself in unlike their last landing.
“Yeah it could get a little messy,” Alex said, followed by a grin. “Valenti this is where you and Iz take some time to seize the moment before you have any real regrets.”
Max laughed, walking over to the seat by the left wall, pulling the straps over his shoulder to strap himself in.
Isobel smirked as she started to walk over to the seat on the right wall, “No regrets here.”
She flicked an eyebrow at Kyle, who turned a bright shade of pink as he looked back to Liz and Alex’s dropped jaws.
“Valenti!”
“Kyle!” Liz yelped. “How could you not tell us, and when?”
“We were leaving,” he said defensively. “And I wasn’t going to be the only one who didn’t have sex with an alien at least once.”
Liz started laughing loudly and Michael made a lewd face over at Isobel who shrugged, the wicked grin on her face only growing.
“Never have I ever heard that one,” she said.
As they laughed they heard the first broadcast reach them from the space station, asking them to confirm their trajectory.
“Okay everyone, take a seat,” Alex said as he locked in his course.
He heard the sound of everyone starting to buckle up in their seats, urging the ship forward onto his course, getting closer and closer to Earth.
He took one more look over at Michael, eyes glued to him again with a smile pulling at the corner of his lips. He grinned, somehow happier than he had ever thought he would be to return home.
Maybe it was because this time, he wasn’t returning to it, but bringing it back with him.
“Buckle up,” Alex said, putting two hands on the landing gear and looking back out the main window. “Prepare for landing.”
End.