Chapter Text
Brad sat down, the chair creaking slightly. It always creaked. The rest of the senior staff were all taking their seats as well, along with Mariner. She always wormed her way into this meeting, which was awfully convenient for Brad. Nobody questioned him if he was following Mariner. Jack sat down next to Brad, and immediately kicked his legs up on the table.
“Ransom?” The Captain raised an eyebrow.
“Let’s just cut to the chase,” Jack said. “This is a time loop, we’ve done this before, please just trust me on this.”
“What?” T’Ana, as usual, was incredulous.
“That’s a big claim,” Freeman said, narrowing her eyes. “I don’t know if I can just trust you on that without proof.”
Jack glanced over at Brad. Brad rolled his eyes. “I don’t know why you always try that,” Brad said. “It never works.”
Jack shrugged. “You never know.”
“Yes, I do! We both know it never works!” Honestly, that man. Jack smirked slightly and Brad just shook his head.
“Wait, you too, Boims?” Mariner glanced sharply at him.
Brad turned his attention back to her. “Yeah,” he said.
“Then you’d know—“
“Purple cow on Venus,” Brad deadpanned. Jack just smiled next to him.
Mariner blinked. “Oh. Shit. They’re telling the truth.”
Brad leaned forward. “That or we’re suddenly telepathic and read your mind to know your time loop password.”
Mariner narrowed her eyes.
“Brad, you’ve got to stop doing that,” Jack said.
“Why?” Brad asked. “She always points that out! It’s way more fun to cut to the chase.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Jack said.
Mariner’s eyes were still narrowed. “Yeah, no I believe them,” she said. “Those two are never this in sync.”
“I’m inclined to agree,” Freeman said slowly. “Alright, then. I assume you two know what’s causing it?”
“Most definitely,” Jack said. “There’s this archway on the planet below us, and it’ll explode at exactly twenty-one hundred tonight. The initial cause of the explosion hasn’t happened again, though Brad and I were caught in the first blast.”
“But, we think we know how to fix it,” Brad quickly added. “We’ve tried a variety of things, obviously. But we think if we recreate the blast it’ll counteract the first energy wave. Very basically.”
Everyone else glanced at each other.
“Alright,” Freeman said. “Walk us through the science.”
Jack leaned back in his chair and nodded at Brad. Brad stood up and cracked his knuckles. He pulled up the map of the planet, and launched into his latest idea.
***
The plan had been signed off on, and Tendi had helped Brad get the timing just right. Jack had coordinated with the rest of the staff to get it to go off without a hitch. Even with all of that, who knew if it would work? Brad didn’t get his hopes up about any of their plans working anymore. He watched as Rutherford and Tendi patched together the bomb next to the archway. Jack came over and they stood just close enough that their shoulder’s touched.
“You think this will be the one?” Jack asked.
“Probably not,” Brad said. “But it’s been a bit since we’ve put together a big effort like this. Nice to see everyone working together.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “So, dinner tomorrow in my quarters?”
Brad smiled. “That sounds nice.”
“Sweet,” Jack said. “Well, shall we get this show on the road?”
Brad nodded. He followed Jack over to where everything was being set up.
“How are we looking?” Jack asked.
“Almost set up,” Rutherford said. “This is going to have a lot of blast power.”
“A very precise amount of blast power,” Tendi quickly added. “Based on Boimler’s calculations this should be perfectly matched to the initial explosion.”
Brad nodded. “That’s the idea.”
Rutherford crawled out from underneath of the bomb. “That should it,” he said. “We’re all set up.”
Tendi crouched down, and immediately joined her. They started to set the timer. Brad had done this enough that he knew the exact second everything reset.
“Alright,” Jack said. He raised his voice. “Everyone, time to clear out! We don’t want anyone else caught in this.”
They evacuated the area, everyone moving to a secure place. And then, the explosion went off. Brad closed his eyes. And when he opened them again, everyone was still there.
“No way,” Jack whispered.
“Oh my god,” Brad said. “Oh, my god.”
“Did we do it?” Mariner asked.
“We did it,” Jack said, dazed.
The shock wore off. Adrenaline started to course through Brad. “We did it!” Brad launched at Jack. Jack hugged him, and they laughed manically.
“No way!”
They couldn’t do much more than giggle for a minute, and Brad pulled Jack into a long kiss. When they finally pulled apart Brad couldn’t tear his eyes away from Jack.
That was, until Mariner swore loudly. “What the fuck?”
Brad started and realized everyone was staring. Tendi smiled brightly at him as he blushed.
“Huh,” Jack said. “Everyone is gonna remember that. Guess we should finally fill out some paperwork.”
Brad couldn’t quite wrap his brain around that. People were going to remember that. Time…time was moving forward again. What the fuck indeed.