Welcome to the Journal of Now and Forever. This Journal is a collection of my Star Control and Star Control 2 fiction. Note: Some of this material is, by necessity, extrapolation from the slim information provided by canon sources.

New fiction is posted first at My Livejournal before it appears here. This story is in response to First Lines 1000's Challenge #11.

"I'm doing this left handed, man, you want to keep testing me?"

"I'm just saying, Nick could - "

"If I hear one more word about your stupid roommate – "

"Doug!" Dean called over his shoulder, blinking away the spray of water from the malfunctioning shower unit. "Turn the damn water off!"

Bill – another of the Androsynth that lived on this floor – continued his struggle to fix the connection between the pipes as water sprayed everywhere, as it had for the past half hour. The bathroom floor lay under an inch of water already.

"This is the kind of thing – " Bill broke off to grunt and struggle with the tools again. "Hand me the other wrench, Dean. No, the other other wrench." He cursed roundly as the water pressure increased. "Dammit! Tell Doug to get his arse in gear and shut the water off!"

Dean stood up from his half-crouch and splashed over to the door. "Doug! Why isn't the – " He stopped short and blinked.

In the hallway, looking curiously at him, Nick stood in his vaguely military uniform, with his duffel over one shoulder.

"What's going on?" Nick asked.

Somehow Nick looked different, although the what-are-you-clowns-up-to-now expression was the same as always. His hair was shorter, his skin slightly tanned, his face and body leaner from exercise, but there was... something else. Dean was suddenly aware of his own sopping clothes and hair plastered onto his skull. "The, uh, shower's not working right."

"Yeah, and?" Nick moved forward and looked into the bathroom. "Cripes. Who's pretending to fix it?"

"Bill," Dean gestured at the torso half-visible in the rush of water.

"Oh, for – " Nick's expression changed to exasperation. "All right. Take my bag back to the room – I still live there, don't I?"

"What? Oh, yeah. Of course. You're still my roommate, if that's what you mean." Dean took the duffel, trying to keep it away from the water.

"Good." Nick shrugged off his light jacket. "Bill, get out of there."

"Who's that? Nick? Oh, like you know how to fix it!"

"I do. Get out of there and find a mop and some buckets."

~ ~ ~

Five minutes later, the water had finally been shut off, Nick had fixed the pipe connection, and every Androsynth who was home at that moment was busy cleaning up the mess.

"I installed most of the pipes," Nick was saying as he squeezed the water from a rag mop into a bucket. "Back when we built the housing, after we landed here. The connections are always screwy because they're recycled off the orbital stations we disassembled. I thought someone besides me knew you had to tighten them once a month, though, or this happens."

"No, nobody else knew besides you," Bill grumbled. "You could've told someone before you went to basic training."

Dean expected something from Nick then – the usual outburst of temper – but was surprised by the evenness in his roommate's reply.

"Well, think about that before you go yourself," Nick said. "Everyone's going to go through it sooner or later. So if you want to feel superior to me, don't assume we know what you know."

Nick's personality problems were well known on this floor. This new, calm Nick made everyone nervous, Dean included. Dean noticed that the rest of them tried to keep the talk to a minimum after that.

~ ~ ~

"So what really happened?" Dean asked, when he and Nick were back in the privacy of their living quarters and changed into dry clothing.

Nick shrugged. "Went through training. I'm best suited to throwing things, so they made me a grenadier."

Dean resisted the impulse to say Because of all the tantrums? and instead put on a polite face. "No, I mean how you're acting. You... you're not really the same person."

"Dean," Nick said wearily, "It's been six months of hard labor combined with military training. It changes you. It..." He walked to the window that looked out on the sunset, and leaned against the windowframe. "It made me think about things. When I had time to think, that is. I still have – problems – but I think I'm better prepared to handle some of them now."

"What about your, um... phobia?" There, I've said it.

Nick shook his head, refusing to look at his roommate. "Still there. Still... a problem. One of them," he said with a short, bitter laugh. "But I didn't have to worry about it during training. No time. No real alone-ness."

"Well, we'll work on it now you're back," Dean suggested. "Hey, if you're up to it, I got some wild goat meat in the fridge, we could make something out of that."

Nick finally turned to look at Dean. "How fresh is it?"

"Um... fairly fresh? Couple days old?"

"Eergh... Well, if that's all you have – all we have – then fine. I'm gonna put my stuff away."

"All right." Dean went to the kitchenette, found the meat – it was, perhaps, closer to three or four days old, but maybe Nick wouldn't notice – and started hacking at it with the biggest knife he had. The meat was free, from a friend of a friend's hunting expedition, but it was tougher than Dean had anticipated, and he'd been hacking away at it ever since he got it. He was pretty sure he was doing something wrong, but so far hadn't had any reason to worry about it. Maybe he should have covered or marinated it or something. At this point, however, it truly was all that was left in the fridge.

"Maybe we should go to the commissary instead..." he said to himself under his breath. Then the knife stuck in the meat and refused to come free. Out loud, Dean called: "Nick? Why don't we just go out instead?"

"Sure, fine" came the reply from Nick's room. "Give me another minute."

"All right, I'll just check my messages."

Since paper was in shorter supply here than on Earth, like a great many other processed things, nearly all messages came through the microcomputers that, by contrast, were plentiful, since every Androsynth appeared to have brought at least one with them. Like most Androsynth, Dean left his computer on round-the-clock and didn't bother with passwords or much else in the way of security; there wasn't much "cyber-crime" on Eta Vulpeculae 2, thanks to no real money and not much leisure time. As a result, he usually left the messaging system on for days.

Nothing much in the way of messages today, though; an invitation to a pig hunt next week, weather report, and something from a name he wasn't familiar with. Curious, he clicked on it.

To: Dean (XR4-IT)
From: Eddy (BOOJI-1)
This is to notify you of your requirement for military training and possible service. You are permitted one duffel of personal belongings. You will be away from your current employment for four to six months depending on the level of training required. Please notify your supervisor that you will be away so that he may make plans around your absence.
Please report to the military base at Skyhook at 8 am local time in four days' time...

Dean blinked. Already? He would go, of course, but –

"All right, let's go," Nick said, exiting his bedroom. "Thanks for not moving in with anyone else while I was gone. I'm not ready to, y'know, live alone yet, I think."

There was only slight tension in his voice, but Dean still knew to listen for it. He quickly closed the draft notice. "No problem," he said. "Glad to have you back."

Comments? Email me: laridian at aol dot com