Author's Note:

I know some of you were expecting Wray to be next, but since we have TJ here, we may as well focus on her viewpoint before too much time passes from the moment Young tried to comfort her. Don't worry. We'll meet up with Wray again very shortly.

Chapter 3: Tamara Johansen

TJ waited until Everett and Wray left her makeshift infirmary, mildly surprised that they were speaking civilly to one another. She sat and placed her head in her hands. She wasn't sure why Everett had picked that moment to comfort her. She did know that her emotions were raw and although she'd eventually managed to control her tears in front of him, she very nearly hadn't succeeded.

She listened to her breathing and heart rate return to normal in the silence of the infirmary. It was quiet here, easy to think. Rarely, unless there was a medical emergency, did people burst in on her solitude. The infirmary was the last place anyone wanted to be voluntarily. It was the realm of death and illness, and she was its keeper.

Her emotions were always raw after they'd lost someone. It took time for her to recover. Oh, sure they'd lost people before. Rush was not the first. Nor, she had to admit to herself, would Rush be the last.

Their first loss had been felt deeply since it had been Chloe's father dying while saving the crew. His death had an aura of general awe reserved for those who had died for something they believed was important. But it was still a loss all the same.

The loss of Dr. Andrea Palmer and Master Sergeant Curtis at Destiny's first planet stop had come as something of a surprise, but served as a warning that they must all be aboard Destiny before time ran out. She had thought two lives were enough of a terrible a price to pay for that lesson. They shouldn't have had to lose Rush the same way.

The loss of Corporal Gorman to the alien bugs was tragic. Everett had told her that she had done everything she could but she couldn't make herself believe it. If she had done everything she could, Gorman would still be a member of Destiny's crew today.

The fact that Rush's loss came hard on the heels of Sergeant Spencer's suicide didn't help. Sergeant Spencer's body lay in a body bag on the far side of the room where they'd moved him from the military issued cot she'd set up as her primary medical bed. They'd needed the bed for the, as yet, still living Dr. Franklin. Franklin lay motionless on the cot. His eyes remained fixed on the ceiling, refusing to stay closed.

Rush had been in this room only once. He seemed to actively avoid entering whenever he had reason to be here. Yet he remained forefront on her mind.

Even when they'd brought in Dr. Franklin after he'd so foolishly placed himself in that damned ancient chair, Rush had set foot in the infirmary only as far as 16 inches. She remembered Rush haunting the doorway, standing in the shadows, trying to see and hear what had happened to Franklin without overtly entering the room or running into Everett. It hadn't helped, of course. They'd ended up in a shouting match in the hallway anyway, as they so often did.

She wondered if the rockslide that Everett had described had killed Rush or simply knocked him unconscious. It was true that there had been very little time left. If there had been a rockslide, as Everett said, there would have been no way to get Rush out and both of them back to Destiny in time.

Still, she wondered. Those two should never have been alone together on a strange planet. There should have been someone else with them.

It dawned on her that the soldiers and scientists who had gone with them had probably been sent back. The only one who could have given the order to return to Destiny was Everett. If he wanted to be alone with Rush, then ….

She didn't want to go down that line of thought. But now that she had started, she found the conclusion so compelling that she couldn't stop. Could she honestly believe that Everett had deliberately left Rush behind? Or worse, had he killed him?

She knew Everett the way no one else did. She saw the strain he had placed on himself over these past months and the way he had slowly changed in these harsh circumstances. She had treated his scrapes when he had returned from the planet where Rush had died. His answers to Camile's questions had never deviated. There was a rockslide. I couldn't reach him in time. It was nearly a mantra. She had sent him off for rest, thinking him in mild shock that rest would cure. But that tone of voice sent doubts gnawing at her. She'd heard that tone before. To her who knew him best above anyone else aboard, that tone meant he was hiding something.

What was she thinking? Did she honestly believe him capable of such an act? And if she did, what could be done about it? TJ resigned herself to straightening the supplies again. Nothing could be done. Not for Rush, not for Franklin, not for any of them. Even if Everett was entirely guilty (something she desperately didn't want to believe), nothing could be done. Rush would still be dead in a matter of days at the very most – if he wasn't dead already. They couldn't go back for him. They couldn't do anything for him. Helplessness ate at her soul.

The supplies couldn't be more organized if she tried. She vaguely considered dumping them out on the floor just so her hands could be busy organizing them again. Ridiculous, she thought, pointless. She went back to watching Franklin's chest rise and fall as he breathed.

Sounds of yelling echoed down the corridor. Destiny's halls seemed to channel all shouting matches in the hallways to her makeshift infirmary. Or maybe she was just sensitive to hearing it. TJ could clearly make out the timber of Everett's voice shouting something indistinguishable. A female voice, probably Wray, was shouting over him, trying to be heard. Failing.

So, the discussion had turned into a shouting match after all.