A/N: Ok, so this 'tag' is late because it refused to damn well end! Seriously, I sat down to write a few thousand word short tag, and it was still nowhere close to done at 3,000. Grrr…! The only way I was actually able to complete it in the end was by not letting myself watch the next episode until this was done and up, AND IT WAS TORTURE! So I REALLY hope you guys enjoy this…I very much suffered for my art in this case. ;-P

LSLSLS

Tom knew he had been derelict in his duty to her…to all of them…and on many levels too. Not only had he thoughtlessly abandoned his people at Avocet, allowing them to be so easily be taken prisoner...putting Rachel's life and in turn the future of the entire human race in great jeopardy. A failing he could never forgive himself for, because he knew exactly how it had happened. Knew exactly why he had acted so rashly and foolishly and it was a great shame to the uniform he wore that he had put his own selfish desires ahead of the safety of so many others without a second thought.

He had been duped so easily because he had not wanted to see the truth, and that was a shame he would never be able to live down. People had died, so many people, his people and many innocent others, because of his mistakes. And it could have been so much worse too. If the crew on the bridge had not successfully kept the primordial from their scavenging invaders, there may not have been any crew left when he had finally returned.

Between her actions at Olympia, her treatment of Lt. Foster and her baby, and every other atrocity Amy Granderson had perpetrated, she had more than proved her capability and even eagerness to do anything that achieved her malevolent goals.

Anything…

Yes, it could definitely have been worse… but that knowledge was of small comfort to him right now.

Tom had just come from the top deck, an impromptu vigil for fallen heroes, at least the ones whose remains still resided on this ship…

He had spoken to Mike, or rather Mike had spoken to him, Tom had had little to say after his brief shell-shocked statement that he thought summed up their entire situation with depressing accuracy.

'So this is home…'

He had learned from him, at least in brief, the tragic events that had played out on the bridge, after he had welcomed the Lion into his den and then promptly left his people to fend for themselves, unwarned and unprepared…

The shame and guilt were like knives to his heart.

There were other blades twisting there too.

His wife…

He couldn't go there right now. It was just another of his failings in all this, that he had been too late to save his wife, and very nearly the rest of his family too… But he couldn't think of that, it was all too much right now, and it was his duty to his people, his ship and their mission that he needed to focus on now…belatedly.

Rachel.

So much had passed since their last real exchange back when she had personally given him her miracle cure that ran through his veins now. He had of course seen her at Avocet before he left…briefly. He had seen her when he had eventually returned to Avocet for her too…also very briefly, but the last time he had really seen her had been back in his office, just the two of them, a simple syringe that had never before represented such immense hope…and a moment of shared celebration and happiness.

Yes, so much had changed since that time…

He had to see her, talk to her. He could wait no more, but at the same time, he didn't want to see her. Because he didn't have a clue what he could possibly say, how to possible justify his desperate failing…to her and their mission.

Ha! There was no justification.

In his misery and self-punishment he even had to admit that he was actually self-centered enough to be more than slightly jealous of Tex! It was a tough pill to swallow but Tom had to recognize that he actually resented that the man had robbed him of his chance to free Rachel himself and in some small way maybe redeem himself for having gotten her captured in the first place.

How sick was that? From what he had gleamed the other man's timely return may be the only reason both the women he had liberated were still alive today. He owed the man his heartfelt thanks and a heavy debt that he would never be able to repay. And that was exactly what he would tell the other man when they finally had a chance to speak properly. He was a big enough man to do that. His own petty shameful emotions could be put aside…preferably permanently.

As Tom made his way through the passageways, it was impossible to miss, despite his crews valiant continuing clean up efforts, that signs of the Nathan James' recent captivity were still everywhere. A bullet casing here, a discarded zip tie there, the utter disarray of any and all usually strongly secured items, and blood…so much blood. Tom knew if he had gotten back to the James just an hour earlier he would have found the bodies of the dead still laying where they had fallen…where they were butchered!

A tidal wave of anger, recrimination and cold hard guilt washed over him with the thought as he passed an ensign mopping up a particularly large pool of blood near the armory. From the amount of it, it was clear it was not from one of his wounded but surviving crewmembers…

The ensign stopped in his task and acknowledged him with respect. Respect he wasn't sure he still deserved, but still, he duly nodded to the man and he saw him grimly continue in his set task as he passed and continued on to his final destination…Rachel's lab.

He had no doubt she would be there, not only had Mike just told him that she had only just rushed off to go put the saved primordial strain back on ice, but he had also told him that her lab had been hit hard. Understandably, it was presumed to be ground zero for what the vultures were looking for. Tom knew Rachel well enough to know she wouldn't allow her sanctuary to stay in a molested state for long.

Finally reaching his goal, the door already open, he stepped through it, under the firm belief the he was prepared for what he was to see on the other side… he was wrong.

Damn. He thought his quarters and office had been hit bad. They were nothing compared to this. The usually colored flooring of the room was almost completely invisible beneath the sea of white papers that littered the large expanse. It didn't look like a single file hadn't been pulled apart and haphazardly discarded upon rejection. And that was nothing compared to when his gaze traveled higher.

Machines were tipped over, some very clearly broken, even to his untrained eye. The quarantine area was destroyed, beyond any possible hope of repair. Most disturbingly, several glass vials lay shattered on the floor, their contents leaching on to the papers beneath…

Jesus! Had they really been trying to save and replicate her work? Or destroy it and any chance of reproducing it forever? From the look of this room, one would definitely be predisposed to assume it was the latter rather than the former…

And there in the corner of the room, huddled beside a small bar sized fridge that was laying out from the wall and on its side…was Rachel. Her knees were up and secured by her arms tight around them, her head was resting on her knees, obscuring her face from his view. But he didn't need to see her face to know that she was crying. Her shoulders shook at intervals and he could still hear the smallest sounds of restrained sobs from where he stood in the doorway. Even alone in this room, or thinking she was, she was still attempting to keep a stiff upper lip and hide her pain from others.

Tom wasn't remotely surprised, even though Mike had told him she seemed ok when she left, he wasn't so sure he had believed the man, or his ability to truly see past the mask when it came to Rachel. He knew he was only really just starting to himself…

Among everything else, there was Quincy to consider. It would probably sound strange to anyone else, but despite the fact that the man had been chasing her through the p-ways with a gun and spewing verbal abuse at her not so long ago, he had no doubt that that was in no way a factor in how much she grieved for the man who she had very much still called her friend.

In was a large part of the reason she was such an enigma to others, but she was one that he was starting to understand. No matter how cold and hard she appeared on the outside sometimes…a lot of the time, he was beginning to realize a heart bigger than anyone he had ever known resided on the inside.

He also knew from recent times that her façade did indeed have the habit of breaking under such stress, like any normal person…she was just generally not considered to be a normal person by many.

It had in fact, Tom now realized, been the last conversation he was ever to have with Dr Tophet that had taught him this.

It had been during the trails, after they had lost Gibson. Tom had been angry, at her, rationally or not, for her part in his soldier's death. At himself for letting it happen. At the prospect of five more deaths and god know how many more after that, being just around the corner.

He had just been angry.

It had only been when he had returned to the lab after his own mini meltdown… Mike of all people had been the cool headed and oddly timed Rachel supporter then…it had confused him at the time. But when he had returned to her lab slightly cooler headed, he hadn't been able to see Rachel anywhere. He hadn't even noticed the woman so much as taking a bathroom break since the whole thing began and suddenly she was MIA after one of her charges had died and there was five more than needed her 100% attention to have a chance of surviving.

At first a moment of anger had again overtaken him, easily helped along by the sight of his now biohazard labeled fallen soldier's body being removed from the area. But a mere moment of contemplation had dulled the anger as a more likely truth has occurred to him.

He had taken his moment to break down and feel the tragedy and helpless frustration of the moment…why not the doctor who was probably feeling a hundred times more responsible, having injected her with the substance that stopped her heart herself?

That was when all his anger had vanished in an instant, at least all of it that had liberally been directed in Rachel's direction. There had still been heavy amounts of frustration and anxiety roiling in his veins, but he had let the anger go. There had been no place for it, at least no one to truly direct it to on his ship, they were all just doing their best, and none of them were perfect.

In hindsight he was very glad that that epiphany had come at that moment and not even five minutes later. For if he had still been nursing that giant 'the world is unfair and it is everybody else's fault' chip on his shoulder when he had next made eye contact with Tophet when he had entered the room not long after him, he may have been sorely temped the throw the man back in the brig! Under the reasoning that he was apparently useless in his present job that was the only reason he had been released to start with.

Rios had caught him before his return and told him that the treatment to save the others, that Tophet had argued so fervently for, had not in fact worked.

But nursing a cooler head he had been able to see the truth in the man's face. He had just been trying to help to the best of his abilities, abilities that both of them should have known Rachel surpassed.

Yes, the man had probably been the most imperfect of all of them during this crisis, despite his skill and knowledge of the very beast they were fighting. He had failed more tests than he had passed, but then Tom knew he had to remember that he had been handed more tests than anyone of them too. And now it was with cringing awareness that Tom remembered that when it had come to the moment when he had had the chance sitting right in front of him to act now and save his family, he too had chosen ill and blindly and Rachel and others had suffered for it…just like the choices Tophet had made under the blindness of desperation and hope.

After breaking eye contact with the clearly shamed man, he too very notably aware that his plan had not in fact borne fruit, his thoughts again had strayed to Rachel, her wellbeing, and her whereabouts…

Not sure exactly why, put picking up on some nonverbal clue, he moved towards the hatch Tophet had just emerged from…only to be stopped by the man himself.

"Rachel's in there." Was all the man had said, offering no more information but standing somewhat defensibly in his path, thus giving him all the information and validation of his theory that Tom needed.

It had been strange to see the man who had so recently been verbally abusive and even violent towards Rachel, now acting noticeably…and believably…protective of her, but Tom had to admit that stranger things had indeed happened, since the world had changed…and before.

"That's good, she's the one I'm looking for." Was all he had said. Not giving away that he had a fair idea of the condition she was in and the reason Tophet was acting all 'night in shining armory' all of a sudden.

"Just…give her some time." Was all he had returned with. For the first time giving away more overtly that she was indeed in a condition to need it.

"We don't have much time." He had returned calmly. Stating the obvious. Despite their seemingly hopeless situation back then, he had still held some small hope that they were going to pull it out of the fire, and by they, he meant Rachel, but for that he had needed her to be present and aware.

"She won't need much, she never does. She'll come back…soon, she always does." The man had stated the facts so calmly and resolutely that it had been impossible not to believe and trust him then. Which was quite a feat considering the most recent massive failure of something else he was absolutely sure of.

Again, very strangely under their not so long ago circumstance, but that was probably what he was going to miss most about the man. Something he had only just begun to discover him. He had been a window, a cheat sheet, into Rachel and her idiosyncrasies. One that events had not allowed him to really recognize for a long time and then one he hadn't really been able to trust when he had started too.

But he had been, Tom had started to really see the extent of their bond in what were to be the man's last days. He would go so far as to say the man could have been the keeper of all Rachel's secrets, at least the ones she had let another human being know. If she had, or had been unable to avoid it, it was his bet that it had been Tophet that had known of it…and now he was gone. Likely the person Rachel had been closest to and relied on more than anyone else alive…and now he was dead.

Tom very much suspected that he was going to miss the insights and help the man could have been to Rachel, in what was clearly going to be a very troubled coming time. From there experiences of Baltimore, it unfortunately seemed impossible that there was even the smallest chance of things getting much better, before they got so much worse.

And on that occasion the other man had been right, it had only been minutes later when a reinvigorated whirlwind by the name of Doctor Rachel Scott had blown back into the lab and saved the day and as it had been believed back then, the world… Only time had taught them that what they had believe to be their last battle and victory, had actually only been there first of what was probably going need to be a great many.

A louder sob broke Tom was his painful reminiscing. His gaze once again locked on her small figure in the corner, made to look all the smaller by the huddled nature of her current misery ridden posture. Her head was still buried and had not lifted. It was a safe bet she had no idea he or anyone else was interrupting her tearful solitude. The mask would be being pulled firmly back in place if she did…her sobs would not be getting louder and less controlled, of that he was certain.

From what he knew and could guess, the woman did not take moments like this to truly let herself feel often enough, and thus he was loathed to interrupt her…but by the same token, he simply couldn't turn around and leave her in this miserable state. Neither his body nor his mind would cooperate with such and plan.

While he could not leave her like this, his mind had also found extreme fault with him remaining in place as a silent voyeur to her vulnerable state, and so he spoke…soflty, calmingly he hoped…

"Rachel."

TBC