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"I don't like him." Laura narrowed her eyes and wrapped a hand around her brother's arm, dragging him further down the corridor away from the cockpit.
"Way to say that while he's still in earshot, asshole. And what's not to like? He didn't just beat our last pilot's time; he demolished it."
It had been impressive, to say the least. The baby-faced pilot from an inner planet, all big eyes and twitchy fingers, running a course that made army vets sweat with ease and apparent enjoyment. He hadn't stopped babbling once the entire time, either; compliments to the ship, remarks about the course, at one point a slightly incoherent dissertation on recreational habits of outer rim settlers...Laura grinned. The more he talked the better he flew, too.
Derek shifted his shoulders restlessly, half a shrug and half just an uneasy motion. "He just bothers me, okay?"
Laura rolled her eyes. "Is this a veto? Pretty sure I didn't actually give you veto power over my crew."
"If you had, I'd have vetoed Jackson. And it isn't. Just don't expect me to like him," Derek growled, and stalked off to his cabin as Laura went to welcome "Call me Stiles" Stilinski on board his new home.
~Five years later~
Laura and Derek watched as their new medic slowly filled a syringe with a disturbingly bright green liquid. Motions slow and careful, he injected it into the pale form on the exam room bed. The patient didn't move. Derek turned to look at his sister, brows furrowed.
"Laura. Are you sure this is a good idea? They're trouble. Not just refugee trouble, they're big trouble and you know it."
Laura's eyes were still fixed on the two passengers. The doctor had pulled up a chair next to the bed and was now sitting in it, eyes intent and watchful over his charge. "I do know it."
"So why...?"
"We lost the war, Derek. Doesn't mean we can't still win battles."
She felt her brother tense angrily at that. "We lost a whole lot more than the war! You can't replay Beacon Valley until it turns out the way you want, Laura!"
That got her blood up too, and she felt her hands clench into fists at her sides. "I know that. What should I have done? Dropped them off on a border planet to die? Turned them over to a patrol? That doesn't make us any better than Peter and you know it."
Derek snarled. Sometimes Laura worried a little about how much rage her brother seemed to store inside of him. Not that she wouldn't also happily gut Uncle Peter open if he ever showed his traitorous, murdering, Alliance assassin face near her ship again.
"We have more to lose now," Derek gritted out eventually, and Laura watched his head turn towards the front of the ship, just slightly, to where the pilot's cabin was.
"You think I don't know that? But the brown coat's not the kind you take off. They're running, and we're good at running, and if I can kick the Alliance in the balls while keeping my crew safe I'm going to do it. Are you with me on this?"
"Yes Captain," Derek said after a long pause. Silently, they watched as Allison tiptoed into the infirmary with two mugs of tea. The doctor looked up, brown eyes wide and guileless, and they watched the sight of her hit him like a hammer. Laura snorted with laughter, and even Derek smiled when the kid reached up to rub a bit of engine grease off of Allison's cheek.
"Besides, not sure she'd let you drop him off now. And if the mechanic isn't happy..."
"...the ship doesn't run," Derek finished ruefully. "You win, you win. But I don't like this Scott McCall, doctor or not."
"Careful, or I'll tell your husband you said that. Pretty sure we all know by now that 'I don't like him' is your way of saying 'should I try to find flowers for the proposal or just lock him in my bunk?'" Laura teased, laughing when Derek's tan skin made a concentrated effort at showing a blush.
"Fuck right off, sis. How is your unresolved sexual tension going with our classiest passenger, by the way? What was it that she threw at you last time you accessed her shuttle without permission?"
"It was a teapot and I'm choosing to consider it a token of her devotion," Laura sighed. Less said about that the better. "Speaking of your unfairly idyllic love life, can you have your husband research something for me?"
"If it's whether Jackson is planning to murder you in your sleep and steal both the ship and Lydia's affections? The answer's yes."
"Thanks for that. No, I just want Stiles to do a little digging about our doctor's patient. Clearly they're running from something, but I don't think they're quite telling us everything." She turned back to the infirmary, eyes resting with concern on the still figure on the bed.
"I just want to know exactly what happened to Isaac Lahey."