Come For You
Chapter 2
Pairing: Tom and Rachel (duh!)
Rating: T (possibly M, for language if anything)
Disclaimer: Yeah I don't own a thing.
Author's Notes: I really tried to think of "logical" reasons for Rachel to still be in protective custody and every "logical" explanation I could come up with went back to the immunes. Please don't forget to review.
I want to thank tmtcltb, jennparis, Js, bamagirlforever, liasonfan2, jag389, and Scousedancer for reviewing my story Up in Smoke. Thank you so much!
Thank you to tmtcltb, jennparis, bamagirlforever and Scousedancer for reviewing chapter 1.
I was blindfolded, but now I'm seeing,
My mind was closing, now I'm believing
I finally know just what it means to let someone in,
To see the side of me that no one does, or ever will
So if you're ever lost and find yourself all alone,
I'd search forever just to bring you home,
Here and now, this I vow
By now you know that I'd come for you
No one but you, yes, I'd come for you
But only if you told me to
And I'd fight for you
I'd lie, it's true
Give my life for you
You know I'd always come for you
You know I'd always come for you
I'd Come For You by Nickelback
May 2017
Tom was exhausted.
The cyber attack caused the already fragile United States and its people undue stress. There were unofficial reports that the hack originated from Latin America. Everyone was on high alert.
As he has been on shift for going on eighteen hours all he wanted to do was head back to his home and spend time with Ashley and Sam. Unfortunately the president had other ideas in mind. When the president called and requested a meeting, you showed up.
Tom arrived at the president's office fairly quickly and waited patiently for his aide to let him know Tom was there.
"You can head on in, sir." The aide told Tom.
Tom thanked the young man and opened the door.
In the office he saw President Oliver sitting with a man. The men stood when they saw Tom entering the room.
"Tom, please come in. This is FBI Director Edward Wilson." Tom shook the director's hand.
"What is this about sir?" Tom asked.
"Maybe you should take a seat Tom." President Oliver suggested.
Tom cocked his head and put his hands behind his back, "I'd prefer to stand sir."
President Oliver nodded and looked over to the Wilson.
"As you are aware the cyber attack has left many systems in the United States defenseless."
"I am sir." Tom replied.
"The FBI databases have many firewalls in place to protect them from hacking, but even our systems were affected. The person or group behind the attack was desperate to get into the protective custody mainframe." The director paused before continuing "We were able to detect and we tried to build more firewalls around our databases, but they got through. This person or group now has the locations and new identities of every person within FBI protective custody."
Tom nodded, "Sir, am I too assume that you need military support in relocating these people and that is why you have come to me?"
The two men exchanged a look.
"I wish it were that simple Tom." President Oliver stated.
Director Wilson stood and approached Tom. "What I'm about to tell you has resounding implications and I know there will be anger involved, all I ask is that you please allow me to explain."
Tom looked at the director with confusion marred on his face, "of course sir."
"Rachel Scott is alive."
"Rachel Scott is alive. Rachel Scott is alive. Rachel Scott is alive." Replayed through Tom's brain.
He walked over to the window and stared out. Taking deep breaths to control the anger that was coursing through his body. He turned back to the president and Wilson, anger evident on his face.
"Why the hell am I being told now!" Tom yelled. He didn't allow either man to speak before continuing his tirade, "Do you understand what her death did to me? To the crew of the Nathan James? I blame myself everyday for her death."
"Admiral Chandler, we couldn't chance that someone would find out." Director Wilson said.
"I mean no disrespect Director, President Oliver, but whatever excuses your going to give for lying to me are just that... excuses. I could have been told. I should have been told." Tom replied angrily.
Tom took a deep breath, walked over to the couch across from President Oliver and sat down. Director Wilson following and sitting across from him.
"Tell me everything. I don't want any details left out. I deserve the truth." Tom demanded.
Director Wilson nodded and began speaking… "Rachel survived surgery. While she was being operated on President Michener reached out to me. He was extremely concerned for her safety as it was very apparent that there was a leak in the government as Rachel had been acquitted earlier that day and no longer had a security detail with her. Yet Curtis was able to get into a highly secure building with a weapon. To President Michener, he felt it was a little too convenient. Only a select few with extremely high security clearance knew that Rachel was still alive.
"Rachel's point of contact was Special Agent Jennifer Hammond until about six months ago when Jennifer took over the protective custody unit. Agent Hammond's point of contact in a Chicago immune group was Agent James Ryan. Agent Ryan was in very deep within the group. Their leader, Sean Marlowe, is an adamant believer that Rachel is still alive, but overall most immunes believe that she is dead….we were originally hoping to release Rachel in July two thousand fifteen, unfortunately when the immunes learned of the virus mutation they began prophesying, again, about being the chosen ones.
"We knew it wouldn't be safe for Rachel. When the red rust occurred, other reports started circulating about how again they were the chosen people to survive. We knew if we let Rachel out that she would…"
"Continue her work and determine the virus destroying the crops." Tom finished.
Wilson nodded and his statement.
"It is important to note Tom that Agent Hammond wanted you to know...she felt you had a right to know. She never shared her reasons why, but monthly she would argue for you knowing. She knew that you would want Rachel to be safe and remain in custody as long as there was a threat against her. She just felt that you needed to know."
"Agent Hammond is correct, I would have insisted Rachel remain in custody for her protection. But it doesn't negate that I should have been told."
Tom looked over the two men. He had read enough people in his life to know that there was something else.
"There's something else, isn't there sir." Tom stated.
Director Wilson inhaled and exhaled a large breath, "After the discovery of the information being hacked, Agent Hammond reached out to agents in the different cities to relocate the individuals."
Tom didn't need to be told, he just knew, "Rachel's missing isn't she?"
When I'm standing in the fire
I will look him in the eye
And I will let the devil know that
I was brave enough to die
And there's no hell that he can show me
Steeper than my pride
Cause I will never be forgotten
Forever I'll fight
Somebody to die for
Somebody to cry for
When I'm lonely
Somebody to Die For by Hurts
Tom demanded all the information the FBI had regarding Rachel. Where she was, what her new identity was, everything. Director Wilson began to protest but President Oliver gave one look and he shut up. He assured Tom he would have all the information emailed to him within the hour.
Tom also told the two men, in no uncertain terms, that any information pertaining to Rachel would no longer be kept a secret from him and that he would be telling people he trusted with the information and that they would find Rachel. Again, Director Wilson tried to argue that this was an FBI matter, but President Oliver intervened again on Tom's behalf.
Tom left the office and immediately placed calls to Mike, Danny, Kara, Sasha and Wolf. All he asked was for the four of them to meet him as his home in thirty minutes. As Tom never was one to ask this of them, especially with such cloak and dagger, the five agreed immediately.
Tom was greeted by Ashley and Sam when he came home. They were definitely a sight for sore eyes and hugged each of them longer than he normally did. He wanted to tell the kids right then about Rachel, as them knowing wasn't a national security issue (plus he figured he had most twenty four hours before the media picked up the story), but figured he would wait until the other adults got there, that way he only had to relay the story once. Afterwards, he knew he could respect the children to "make themselves scarce".
The kids could immediately tell something was on their fathers mind. Tom had decided long ago that he would never lie to his children and he wasn't going to start now.
"Dad, what's going on?" Ashley asked.
"Yeah dad, you're being a little weird right now." Sam stated.
"I promise I'll tell you, let's just wait until Mike, Danny, Kara, Sasha and Wolf get here okay?"
Ashley and Sam exchanged glances as their dad walked away. They knew it was something serious as Uncle Mike was coming over this late, along with Kara and Danny.
"What do you think it's about?" Sam whispered.
"I'm not sure Sam, but I don't think it's good."
The two kids didn't have to wait long to find out as within ten minutes of Tom getting home, Mike arrived. Sam and Ashley greeted him enthusiastically. Shortly after Mike arrived, Kara and Danny showed up, with Wolf and Sasha following closely behind.
Ashley lead the adults into the living room and offered them drinks while they waited. She told them that Tom had gone upstairs to shower and change quickly and would be down shortly.
Tom joined the adults, Sam and Ashley five minutes later. While he was freshly showered and changed, his mind was still racing with the news that he had been told not an hour ago.
"Hey guys, thanks for coming last minute." Tom said, shaking the Mike, Danny and Wolf's hands and giving Sasha and Kara hugs.
"Of course Tom, what's going on?" Mike asked.
"It sounded pretty urgent." Kara said.
"Let's all take a seat." Tom told everyone. Kara, Danny and Sasha took the couch with Wolf and Mike taking the open chairs. Ashley and Sam made themselves comfortable on the floor.
"What I'm going to tell you stays in this room for now. Eventually the media will pick it up, but for now..." Tom told the group trailing off. The group nodded.
"As I was leaving the office I received a call from President Oliver asking me to come in as he needed to speak to me. I assumed it was about the attack. When I arrived, not only was Oliver there but the director of the FBI was there too." Tom took a deep breath before continuing, "there is no easy way of saying this, so I'm just going to say it….Rachel is alive."
A chorus of "what's" and a "are you fucking kidding me!" cascaded through the room. Tom had to hold up his hand in an effort to get the group to be quiet.
"While I didn't use the choice language you just used Mike, that was my reaction as well. Rachel survived the surgery. Michener reached out to the FBI and had her taken into protective custody. Long story short...the FBI had undercovers within the immune factions across the United States who reported that it wasn't safe to have Rachel come out of protective custody."
"Dad, why would the FBI take her into custody in the first place?" Sam asked.
"The person who shot Rachel, he was an immune. He felt that Rachel never should have made the cure and that is why he shot her."
"But why not just give her a security detail? Why take her and lie to everyone?" Ashley argued.
"Ash, I wish I knew. The FBI and President Michener felt this was the best option to keep Rachel safe."
"Tom." Mike said, "if it wasn't safe, why the hell did they tell you now?"
Before Tom continued, he looked over to Ashley and Sam. Ashley immediately picked up on her father's look.
"Come on Sam, let's head upstairs and watch a movie."
Sam agreed, having also seen the look Tom gave. The children got up and went upstairs. The adults waited to continue talking until they heard a bedroom door close upstairs.
"The FBI servers got breached from the attack didn't they sir?" Kara asked.
"Whoever is behind the attack deliberately went after the servers. They wanted to know who was in protective custody."
"But they could have been looking for anyone." Sasha pointed out.
"I would have said the same thing except that when the FBI sent agents to relocate Rachel they discovered she is missing. If she's the only one missing…"
"Then they were looking for her." Danny finished.
"Which also means that someone knew she wasn't dead and that she was in protective custody." Wolf supplied.
"If that is the case, not only are we dealing with a cyber attack, but we are dealing with a breach in security, a breach that starts in the FBI but goes much further."
The group sat in silence for a moment, digesting the information.
"What's the plan sir?" Danny asked.
"The FBI is sending me all their files on Rachel." Tom said and looked at his watch, "I should have already received the encrypted file. We need to find out where she was relocated too. Send a team there to do some recon, find out about her life. She only would have been abducted in the last ten to twelve hours, someone may have seen or heard something."
Kara got up and headed to Tom's study and grabbed his laptop. He logged into the computer and his secure email. He handed the laptop back to Kara who began opening the attachments and begin the decryption process. The file was extensive and when all was said and done the FBI had sent over a hundred pages in documents. To divvy out the work Tom had Kara print the documents. Once printed, Kara gave each person a handful and they began looking through for pertinent information.
"Found it!" Sasha shouted, "They relocated her to Bremerton, Washington. Makes sense, if the FBI needed immediate assistance all they would need to do is reach out to Naval command and Rachel could be picked up."
"I found her new identification" Wolf told the group and showed the group the picture. Rachel's hair had been changed to a deep brown and she had glasses on.
Danny took the picture, "well it worked for Superman." When the rest of them looked at him confused, he continued, "hello, all Clark did was put on a pair of glasses and people didn't put two and two together."
"He's a comic book character Danny. This is real life." Kara said to her husband.
"Okay, but do you all remember the actor, Henry Cavill...he played Superman in the movie Man of Steel." Danny paused to allow the group to think and when he got a chorus of "yeahs" he continued, "After the movie came out, Henry was curious why people would do that, ignore the glaring similarities. He wore a superman shirt around Times Square in New York City without glasses on. He had a friend record him and when he had the glasses on, people ignored him. It was like they didn't recognize him. " He held up the picture of Rachel, "the changes are so subtle that to the normal person they wouldn't notice the similarities, even with the ration cards."
Tom took the paper from Danny and looked at the picture for a moment before speaking. "Her new name was Lauren Anderson. Do we know where she was working?"
The group shuffled through the stack of papers, "got it" Mike said, "they had her as an associate professor at University of Washington."
"Danny, Kara...how do you guys feel about a trip to Seattle?"
AN: So Henry Cavill really did do this! Inside Edition reported it and he spoke about it on Jimmy Kimmel. It's pretty funny. So if people can't recognize someone as famous as Henry Cavill, I doubt anyone would recognize Rachel in this "new world" post red flu, even with ration cards. Henry did this little experiment for the movie Batman v. Superman, but as that movie was released in 2016 (IRL), for the purpose of this fiction he did this experiment with Man of Steel (released 2014).