Apparently provoking a feeling of calm was not his forte…she jumped…just about out of her skin. Tom sighed, she was already wiping her eyes and trying to leaver her uncooperative body out of its tight hiding spot when he made his way over and squatted down in front of her.

She stopped trying to get up. But he knew that was more because he had effectively blocked her path with his own body, then any actual desire to stay in his presence. She would not make eye contact with him, still futilely trying to hide the evidence of her tears, only making her usually flawless olive skin even redder in the process. He spoke her name again…

"Rachel."

A loud sob she clearly had lost control over rose from her, at the sound of her gently spoken name. Another followed it, as did heavy tears, that she had clearly not managed to successfully will away. She again buried her face between her knees, he was sad to note that this time she was likely hiding her state from him, rather then simply preforming a self-protective gesture.

His heart went out to her. This strong force of nature of a woman, broken by the events of the last twenty-four hours. He didn't know if it was right or how comfortable either of them would be by the gesture at this moment, but he couldn't restrain the fierce need to hold her again...and so he didn't.

He inched closer, knelt in front of her and wrapped his arms around her tightly. At first she did not more, just froze, but slowly and to his great relief, she started to relax in the embrace…even raised her head slightly so that she leaned on his shoulder, even raised her shock and grief weakened limbs to try and return his embrace, give some support back to him. The actions causes an emotion he could not and would not name at this moment to spark back to life in a corner of the most grief-ridden portion of his heart.

They stayed like that for several minutes, gradually Rachel's sobs grew softer and less frequent and her tears dried. Hypocritical though it was, Tom was glad she had been content to stay like that, facing away from one another, for the extended time. It had given the few tears he could not been able to control either a chance to show themselves without her able to witness, and then hide themselves again as he too got himself under control. Though if she was very observant she may still have noticed the change in his breathing, may still notice the likely redder tinge to his eyes…

It was by mutual decision when they did eventually pull apart, though still close enough that their lower bodies remained in contact, where they both still crouched on the floor.

He looked at her then, met her eyes, she wasn't hiding from him now. He was glad of it, but also pained by what he saw in those brown orbs. He would bet her tears had stopped because she had no more to shed, too numb to what was now their reality to shed anymore. She looked so sad…

"Rachel…I'm…I'm sorry about Quincy." He really didn't what to say, or more likely where to start. There was a lot to say, a lot to apologize for…but Tophet seemed like a good place to start right now. Even sitting in the ruins of her precious lab, he would still bet that it was the loss of her friend, protecting her cure, that was weighing most heavily on her in this moment… Though he knew that the other lives lost and the lives that would still be lost now, that her ruined lab represented, would not be far behind in her worries. They had done it all to get to her and her work, it was what Tophet had given his life for, and he knew she would be painfully aware of it.

He watched as her eyes glazed over at the mention of the man. He was right, she was thinking about him, among other things…

"Thank you, Captain." She replied nearly unbrokenly, shifting her gaze and attempting to subtly wipe her eyew. She was clearly trying to pull herself together again.

Tom sighed, the feeling of her starting to pull away again was as tangible as a slap in the face, had a similar effect too. He didn't want to let it happen though, not yet…preferably not ever.

"Rachel, look at me."

She hesitated a notable moment, clearly considering whether to comply, but eventually her shoulders slumped and she looked straight at him. Not with anger, not with stubbornness…both of which he had seen from her in some of their more tense confrontations of the past. But no, this time she just looked at him, her face as expressionless as she could make it at this sad time, her gaze unmoving. He had her attention again, it was his turn to speak, there was more he needed to say.

"Rachel, there's more I need to apologize to you for…everything actually…I shouldn't have left you there…"

He felt her hand reach out to him almost instantly, felt her grip settle at his shoulder as she spoke.

"Captain…Tom, don't. Please don't, please don't blame yourself for what you could not have known…" She spoke earnestly, but he could not let go of his self-doubt, the selfish part he played in events, if it weren't for his untimely hope…

"But I could have." He argued. "I trusted too easily, I left you alone and unprotected without a second thought because I wanted to believe too badly, wanted to believe it was safe to leave you there and find my family. Even before that, I showed poor judgment in letting Granderson's people come aboard…armed for heaven's sake!"

Rachel was quiet for a moment, he could only assume that she was finding it hard to refute some of his claims, and to his mind that was about right. There was no refuting them.

"Captain." So she was back to formalities. The change had been brief, but he had liked it more than he knew he should have. "You trusted people who should have been trustworthy. They were the remains of government, of law enforcement, a trusted member of your crew's own Mother… All of us have learned a hard lesson in this, literally no body can be trusted on face value now… A lesson I would point out you most need to remember if we ever come across anyone left of the US military…or any other for that matter. I think it would be hardest for you to go against supposed superiors orders, even after all this. But Captain, I would stress that we only know this now. Before, nobody could possibly have predicted how far they had fallen from the ideals they had all been sworn to uphold."

She spoke with conviction, and there was some truth in her words, especially her warning about trusting and taking orders from anyone from now on. It had actually crossed his mind already. In all this he had acted like his word being the highest law was a temporary state, just until they could again establish contact with back home and some semblance of a chain of command.

He had never wanted to turn his ship into a permanent dictatorship and in truth his desire to restart some form of a land based chain of command was probably partly to blame for his overly trusting actions in all this, though he knew desperation to get to his children home safe had been the large part too…

But it was actually true that if Amy Granderson had proved to be a leader worth following, follow her he would have. Tom felt sickened at the thought. If he had found his family at that Tyre Shop, so much could have been different.

He was nauseous at the thought that Granderson might have been able to successfully hide her true nature and the nature of mission from him. They all could have been duped into far more than just willingly handing over a few dozen doses of the cure to thoroughly undeserving people.

It was painful to admit, but they could easily have been tricked into becoming complicit with genocide.

He was drawn out of his tumultuous thoughts by Rachel's voice. Realizing not quickly enough that she had taken his long silence as disagreement to her words…well, some of them he wished he could truly believe.

"Captain, things went badly because we, yes, walked into the vipers den unprepared, but contrary to your belief, I don't belief we could have acted much different or figured it all out any sooner than we did. Honestly, it could easily have taken a lot longer to get a handle on what was really going on. It was almost amazing we did figure it out as quickly as we did, given the strangle hold Granderson had on the city and the flow of information." She paused and he could see her trying to will him to believe her words with her eyes. She continued.

"I still can barely believe that she and Hamada went to so little trouble to hide the truth of what was going on in the lab. They actually made no effort at all that I could see to hide the ingredients for the real serum they were giving the sick. And they really seemed to think I would read it and believe that their highly toxic drug was working as a treatment…it's still unbelievable to me!" She spoke the last part almost to herself.

"The point, Captain." She again searched for his eyes and for his faith in her and her words. "…is that as hard as all of this already it, and as hard as it is to imagine, things could have gone worse for us in Baltimore. A lot worse, and that is what I am trying to remember and focus on, there was some victory even in our defeat. Not only could we have lost the primordial but it sounds like there was a great fear onboard that if they had found it, the entire crew would have become quickly expendable…"

Tom nodded, he had heard the same thing and believed it too. After seeing what Granderson had being doing at Olympia, what she had sanctioned done to Lt. Foster…it was just impossible to envision any moral or ethical boundary she would not willingly cross.

"You're right, I shudder to think what would have happened then. I know it was Quincy who played a large part in keeping it from them. Mike told me he knew, knew what it would mean if they found it, knew exactly what he was doing when he pulled his own clamp. Not just trying to save his wife's life, but the whole ship…it was a heroic action, Rachel." Tom wondered if she noticed when his voice broke slightly on the word 'wife', he wasn't sure if she even knew about what had happened in regards to his own family…

She was silent for a long while. He could see she was fighting with her emotions. Eventually she nodded to him, apparently accepting his words and his praise of her now dead friend.

And it seemed she had picked up on his slightly broken speech, even if only subconsciously, because her next question was the one he had been dreading.

"What about you? You went after your family…you found them, yes? They were sick? But it worked? The cure, it worked? Someone told me a boy had a bad reaction, was that your son? I'm so sorry, I had planned to go and find them but then I needed to bring the primordial to the lab and…" She gestured to the surprisingly still operational fridge they were crouched beside as her words trailed off.

Her implication was clear, she had got as far as her lab, put her much-valued sample back on ice and then it had promptly all become too much for her, and she had been unable to hold back the emotions that had been threatening for nearly a day. He wasn't surprised it had happened here and now, in the wake of the battle amongst the stark evidence of why they and so many had been forced to endure so much.

She was looking at him now, waiting. Waiting for his confirmation, his consolation that something in all this had worked out well for someone. On so many levels he hated the qualified success he had to report to her.

He could see how much she wanted some really good news in all this. And the absolute last thing he wanted was for her to in any way blame herself…something he doubted he could stop any more than he could stop himself from second guessing any and all of the actions and decisions that had lead to him not being able to save and bring his entire family home.

"Rachel, yes, they were sick, but the cure did work. I unfortunately had to leave them not long after finding them. I heard that Sam did have a bad reaction, but he seems much better now… Of course, I would appreciate it if you would look at him when you can…and Ashley and Dad too." There, that was it. She was far too smart to not pick up on…

"But…what about your wife? ...Darien?" She asked, not entirely sure she had picked out the right name, likely having never used it, merely heard it somewhere…

He couldn't prevent his eyes from clouding as he stared at her. Grief and regret were going to be his familiar bedfellow for some time to come, he knew.

He willed himself to speak, even though he didn't need to, he could see clearly that she had read the truth it in his eyes. He watched as her gaze also shadowed, mirroring his own.

"I didn't make it in time." He said simply. More words meant a much higher chance of him not being able get them out without them breaking.

His answer seemed to cement what she had already assumed. He watched as a tear once again rolled down her cheek.

"Oh, Tom…" She looked grief struck, even more so than for her own personal loss. She really cared too greatly, this woman who many would question if she cared at all. That was just because she let so few people see her, really see her. He was glad he was becoming someone she would let in, he was well aware she had just lost one of the few who could also see her.

He tried to put on a brave face, but he suspected she could see right through it. "As you said, it could have been far worse. It so very nearly was…when I found them…Darien…she was already gone... but Dad, the kids…they were in line at Olympia." He finished meaningfully.

"Oh, god." She uttered in genuine shock, eyes wide. She clearly only had the very barest of information on the events of the past day, outside her own experiences, of course.

Tom guessed it was the common story on the ship, everybody knew of the tragic events that occurred closest to them. But will the battle taking place on both land and water, everyone had the specifics of at least one side to catch up on. And given everyone's current state's of shock, scuttlebutt was not moving at even close to its usual breakneck speed.

Even some of what Rachel had said about her time at the lab at Avocent had come as a surprise to him, and now that it was over he wasn't even sure if he wanted to know the entire story of what had been going on with Lt. Foster and her presence at Avocet. Though knowing their enemy as he now did, he suspected his bone-chilling guess was not far off the money.

Again he was pulled from his musings by Rachel's words.

"God, I'm so sorry… If I had just been a little faster. If I had just figured out that…" Yep, he knew she was going to think this way, blame herself…

"Rachel, listen to me. As you said yourself, this could have been a lot worse, but it couldn't easily have been much better. We didn't have the information we needed in order to make it so things could have been better, so more people could have lived! If you want me to try and believe that and not blame myself, I'm going to need you to do the same." He spoke adamantly and with outward conviction. For himself, he wasn't even sure if not blaming himself was even possible, but for her sake, and if it would make her try to go a little easier on herself in return, he would give it a go…or just keep his own negative thoughts to himself. It would probably depend on how good a day it was.

"Do we have a deal, Rachel? I'll try and not blame myself and think of all the 'what if's' if you do the same. Can you make that promise to me?"

"Depends, can you really promise me too?" She questioned, some of her old sparkling defiance reentering her eyes.

He almost laughed. At this moment, looing into her eyes, he was strangely confident the he might be able to keep his word. "Yes, I promise." He smiled a sad smile at her.

"Then I promise too." She returned his smile in their brief parlay of mirth.

Tom knew the battle against self would be one that would be ongoing for both of them, but this was a start.

THE END

A/N: There! Done! Finally! I seriously have to go watch episode three now, I have done my time, I NEED my reward… lol ;-P