Danny Green sat staring blindly at the three body bags laid out on the floor of the helicopter bay, ready to be moved to the makeshift morgue where Kudelski's body waited, twisting the dog tags in his hand.
Four men. He had lost four men in the last twenty-four hours.
Eddie Kudelski
Henry Wallace
Jonathan Butler
Teylor Cruz
Danny was ashamed to admit that he barely knew Kudelski, Wallace, and Butler. All three had been marines prior to the outbreak and had volunteered to join the team in St. Louis. Upon their arrival on the James, Danny had assigned the bulk of their training to Wolf and Teylor, as he had taken on a large chunk of the day-to-day activities of running the ship, freeing Captain Slattery and Commander Garnett to focus on the logistics of cure distribution. Danny had also skipped the majority of the card games that Tex arranged to establish unity and camaraderie among the team, knowing that his presence had almost as much of a dampening effect as Commander Slattery's presence used to have back in the Arctic on the rare occasion that he crashed their poker games. Danny had grudgingly accepted that he had been downgraded from fun team leader to old married guy, even laughing about it with Cruz (who was only a year younger) and Wolf (who was actually three years older). But now it haunted him, realizing how little he knew about the men who had served under him – who had died under his command.
A year ago Danny had never lost a member of his team. It was a fact that he had been proud of, one that he used to think was the result of careful training and planning and execution. Now he knew better. Now he knew that it was all luck, or fate, or some combination of the two that determine who was going home in a bag.
Frankie Benz
Steven Berchem
Jason Smith
Sean Cossetti
Max Walker
Ravit Bivas
Jacob Kudelski
Henry Wallace
Jonathan Butler
Teylor Cruz
Over the course of a year ten members of his team had died – a statistic so terrible as to be laughable – and yet it never got easier. Teylor's death hurt just as much as Frankie's did. Maybe even more. It just felt so blasted unfair that yesterday they had been cheering over Wolf and Teylor's miraculous survival, and today Cruz was on his way to the morgue.
Like God or Fate or Destiny was playing some cruel joke on him.
When Danny had first seen Teylor, blood seeping from his neck, the injury was so jarringly similar to the one Teylor received at Gitmo, for a minute he had sworn that he was back on the beach in Cuba. But they weren't in Cuba and they weren't on that beach – and this time there was no Doctor Scott waiting in the wings to pull Teylor back from the brink. To save him from the inevitable.
And yet it hadn't been inevitable at all, had it. Teylor should never have been on that island to begin with, not after the crack he had taken to his head barely fifteen hours before. Without Doc Rios on board, Danny and Carlton had taken turns sitting with Teylor last night, waking him every two hours to check his pupils, assuming that he had a concussion. Danny had even suggested that Teylor remain on the Nathan James with Carlton, but the man had been insistent that he was fine and Danny had caved, knowing how badly Teylor – like they all – wanted to find their people. It was a choice that Danny would now have to live with, always wishing that he had made a different one. Just another thing to add to the list of regrets.
Not telling Benz to slow down on the stairs.
Allowing Berchem and Smith to surface without checking for boats.
Taking Cossetti to the Vyerni before he was ready.
Not getting to the rig in time to save Bivas and Walker, as well as Lynn and Chung.
Letting Kudelski take the first crack at the mine.
Not personally training Wallace and Butler.
Letting Cruz out of sick bay.
And yet, mixed in with his regrets and grief, was a sense of relief. Relief that one of those bodies was not his. Relief that he might see his wife again, that he might meet his son. Relief that Captain Chandler would not have to tell Kara that she had become a widow only months after becoming a bride. And there was also gratitude. Gratitude that he had lived long enough to experience the joy of loving a woman with all of his heart, the wonder of fathering a child – experiences which Teylor (like Frankie) had been denied.
How many more times could he beat the odds, Danny wondered. How many more times could he escape death before he, like Cruz, reached his final mission? How many more times would he leave this ship before he asked one of his brothers-in-arms to tell Frankie that his father had died a badass? How many more times before Captain Chandler made that call to Kara?
As his fist tightened around the dog tags, Danny ached for Kara, wishing more than anything that he could wrap her in his arms as he had at Gitmo and New Orleans, releasing his grief in a wave of tears. But even as he craved her presence, he was thankful beyond words that she was safe and sound in St. Louis.
Danny glanced up when he heard the sure footsteps of Captain Tom Chandler approach. He had seen the Captain enter the helicopter bay earlier and move from person to person, a softly spoken word here, a hand on the shoulder there, comforting everyone with his mere presence. Danny waited for Captain Chandler to reach him, to do or say something to make the loss of four men – including one who had been with them from the beginning – tolerable. But when their eyes met, instead of the resolve that Danny had been expecting, the Captain's eyes revealed his own grief and anguish over the loss of so many lives. A moment passed, then two, until Danny nodded, letting the Captain know that he understood.
Sometimes even the strongest of men needed a moment to grieve.
A flicker of solidarity, of appreciation, passed over Captain Chandler's face before he turned back to the make-shift hospital that Doc Rio had set up on the other side of the helicopter bay, leaving Danny to his thoughts.
Minutes – or hours – later footsteps once again sounded next to Danny. They were softer, lighter than those of the Captain, and Danny knew without looking who it was.
Alisha Granderson.
She settled next to him on the crate, taking one of his hands in hers, no words necessary as they clung to each other.
Silently mourning the loss of their friend.