I was watching Season 5 of the Last Ship and it's sad to see how badly it compares with the first two series. For me the decline in LS stems totally from the decision to write out Rhona Mitra and go in a different direction from Season 3. I've seen series survive writing out key characters before, but LS wasn't one of them. I reflected that neither we the fans nor the characters ever really got a chance to say goodbye to Rachel Scott and that's how this story came about.

I do not own The Last Ship.

Chandler

Tom Chandler rested his head against the wall outside the medical bay. He didn't know how long he'd been here, sometimes dozing, sometimes awake. Waiting. Hoping. Praying. Worrying.

He should have been sleeping. But instead he was sitting outside Nathan James' sickbay waiting to hear whether the woman he respected and cared for more than any other might have a future.

They both should have been sleeping. Enjoying a rare full night's sleep after four months of almost constant stress. Well, he supposed, it was four months for me. It was many more months for her. Sometimes when he thought about it, he didn't know how she could be as strong as she was.

Because Rachel Scott had literally had the fate of the world on her shoulders. For nine months, he supposed. How terrible must it have been for her, as more and more labs went off the air, to realise that it was her, and her alone, who was the only person who had any chance of finding a cure and saving the world?

As he was used to working as part of a team, so was Rachel. She was a Medical Director at the Centre for Disease Control. She had told him once that there had been seven other people in her immediate team and lots of others all over the world that they worked with. Each of those had fallen away, leaving only Rachel and Quincy Tophet to find a cure for the whole human race. And there was no denying who had done most of the work and had most of the responsibility among that pair.

And he hadn't known. Not until that October day when she had told him about Phase Six and what that meant. When his whole world had come crashing to the ground.

But she had already lived with that stress every day for four months. And every day for the next four and a half months as they all tried to stay alive while she found a cure.

And then she had. And she had cured his family and many others. And they had thought that they'd won. But then the Immunes had destroyed the labs. Killed most of the remaining scientists. And she'd had to start again. To find a cure that didn't have to be manufactured. That could be spread with no infrastructure.

And she'd done it again. And instead of thanking her for doing it again he'd been obsessed with how she'd done it. How she'd killed Niels Sorenson to make the cure. Not that that son of a bitch hadn't had it coming. He'd told her she'd have to pay for what she did and as he'd looked into her eyes at that moment, he had known that what he'd done would be difficult to come back from.

But they'd come back from things before and he had thought that maybe they could again. As he saw it at the time, he had needed to punish her to convince the crew and himself that the United States, the system that they served and believed in, still existed. That murder was wrong. Even murder done for the right reasons.

And he still believed that they could come back. Tonight had proved it to him. Her eyes had told him that they could when they'd finally parted. But only if they had time. And time was the one commodity that now it seemed they didn't have. And he had wasted so much of it.

They could have had weeks together, if he hadn't been so stubborn. If he hadn't been so stubborn, maybe they would have been sleeping in the same bed tonight. She wouldn't have needed to have gone off to her own room. Wouldn't have needed to get away from him at all.

But she had left tonight and as he'd shut the door and as he leaned against it cursing himself again for a coward and wondering why he couldn't just tell her what she meant to him, a single gunshot had rung out through the hotel and in that second he had known it was her. Not thought, or worried. He had known.

As he slammed the door open and ran in the direction in which she had headed, he tried to clamp down on his fears. He turned the corner and cannoned into a man by the emergency exit and barged past him, pushing him through the door and then he rounded another corner. And there was a sight he'd never get out of his mind. Rachel lying there in a pool of blood.

He had run over and knelt down and seen the wound in the right of her chest. Dark red arterial blood was pouring her abdomen. The amount already pooling around her told him it was a serious wound. He shouted for help even as he pressed on the wound with his hands as hard as he could. Her eyes flicked open as he shouted again for help.

"Sir! Sir!" It was Green, rounding the corner with Halsey in front. Unsurprising that the SEAL was the first to get there. He had an ear for trouble and the dog must have heard the shot.

"Green! Get help!" he shouted, "Rachel's been shot. Secure the President."

"Aye aye!" Danny called as he turned around and sprinted back the way he had come, and Tom had leaned closer to Rachel, knowing that Green would take care of it.

"Tom…" her voice was weak and he had to lean close to hear it.

"I'm here Rachel," he had told her, seeking to reassure her. "You're going to be fine."

She coughed, blood frothing on her lips. That's not good. A small portion of his brain told him. She was trying to talk again.

"I'm sorry," she managed.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," he told her gently, meaning it, "it's my fault."

"No," she whispered hoarsely, twitching her hand as though to hold his. He so wanted to hold it but knew if he took his palms away from her chest she could bleed out.

There was a rumble of running feet and he knew help was here. Rios stormed around the corner followed by Green and Milowsky. The docs paused at the scene, but recovered themselves and rushed to kneel at his side.

"What happened sir?" asked Rios.

"Single gunshot wound to the right upper abdomen," he stated, knowing this was important, "I was here within a minute, but she's lost a lot of blood and she's got frothy blood on her lips. I've applied pressure to the wound and the bleeding's been slower. She's conscious."

"OK sir, we'll take it from here," Rios told him as Milowsky's hands took over applying pressure. He leaned back as Rios leaned in, "Rachel, can you hear me?" he called. Tom looked down at his hands. Covered in blood. Rachel's blood. He couldn't take his eyes off it. It wasn't the first time he'd seen blood. Of course it wasn't. But to have the blood of this woman coating his hands. I failed, he thought.

"Sir?" Green was at his elbow, pulling him gently away.

"Tom?" It was Mike. "Tom?" Mike's voice was louder, "did you see the shooter?" How could they ask him about this when the woman he loved was bleeding to death on the floor, "TOM!" his eyes snapped up as Mike shouted in his face.

"N-no," he stammered, shocked, "but I did bump into someone by the fire escape," he remembered.

"Green," ordered Mike and Danny turned and left, already calling for his team. In the semi-privacy of a dead end in the corridor Mike closed the distance between them and seized his hands, "Tom," he gritted out, eyes wide and focusing on Tom's, "we need you. The crew need you."

He stared at Mike, fighting to focus. Fighting to function. Mike was right, but it was oh so hard. "The President?" he asked to give himself some time.

"Safe," replied Mike, "worried about the Doctor." He paused, "So is the crew. There are no hospitals here so we're taking her back to the ship. As soon as she's stable, we'll move her. Andrea and the Chief have gone back to get everything sorted."

"Sir?" It was Rios. The docs had been working while they were talking and now Rachel's dress was cut away and dressings covered her upper body. They both turned.

"We've stabilised her as much as we can for transport, but she's asking for you." The Doc's professional poker face slipped, "Be quick Captain, we need to move her as soon as it arrives."

He bent down next to her, Mike looming over his shoulder. She was very pale, eyes closed, breathing shallowly, her lips almost blue against her white face.

"Rachel, I'm here" he told her, gripping her hand.

Her eyes flicked open, "Tom," she murmured, looking behind him, "Mike," the edges of her mouth creased up, "the dynamic duo."

"Rachel," came Mike's voice over his shoulder, "you look like shit."

Tom was shocked, but she smiled for a second before a cough wracked her. "Still prettier than you," she murmured. Blood dribbled down the side of her mouth and Milowsky dabbed it away gently with a tissue. He shared a look with Mike as the hoarseness of her voice and the deep red arterial blood registered.

"Glad you're….both here," she told them, seemingly oblivious of the effect her efforts at talking were having on those around her, "wanted to thank you…the crew…"

"Thank US?" he rasped, stunned. What did she have to thank them for. This woman had saved their lives. Their country. Their world.

Her lips quirked up again, "Never had a family… not really," she murmured, closing her eyes, the effort of speaking too much, "the last few months it felt like I did…". He was pleased her eyes were closed so she couldn't see him crying. From the sounds of things he wasn't the only one.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The Doc had closed it down at that point, insisting that Rachel shouldn't be talking. They had rushed her out of the hotel into a waiting chopper and back to the ship. He had come with her but had been exiled to the corridor outside the operating theatre where he had sat for hours while they fought to save her life. And he hoped and prayed. Because he didn't want to imagine a world without the crazy, stubborn, complex force of nature that was Rachel Scott.

He knew he should be taking care of his crew. Mike had been down a few times and told him that most of the crew were back on board, hoping, praying, waiting for news. They just wanted to be there for her, as she had been there for them.

Then the door to the medical bay opened.

A/N: I haven't written any fiction in a long time. I'm laid up after an operation at the moment and had a week off and this wouldn't get out of my mind. It's 9 chapters including a two-part epilogue.