Well my muse finally came back but then my computer decided it was overworked and went on strike – for over two weeks! I thought I'd lost my hard-drive but thankfully that wasn't the case. You don't realise how much you rely on something until it isn't there. So now the muse is behaving again, the computer is back from hospital, I've caught up on the backlog of actual work and the last chapter is finally done. Yay! I hope you've enjoyed the story despite the interruptions.

Chapter Nine

Crocker swung the overhead lights back and forth across the structure's walls but there was nothing encouraging to be seen. There had been no further radio contact from the station and absolutely no signs of life. Still, until the commander said to stop, they would keep searching. The idea of leaving people to drown didn't sit well with an old sailor.

On the bridge of the seaQuest the WSKR screen showed the two shuttles as they continued the search. Ortiz watched as Shuttle Four pulled out from behind the station and began another overhead sweep. Shuttle Six was moving slowly along the outer rim. O'Neill frowned as he watched the viewscreen. He knew that the longer this took the lower the odds of finding anybody else, alive or otherwise.

Suddenly Miguel sat bolt upright and slid around in his chair as he called out across the bridge, "You need to get them out of there! I think it's about to give out."

Tim nodded silently as he pulled on his headset. "seaQuest to Shuttle Six. You need to clear the area. WSKR readings show the station is on the verge of collapse."

"Understood, Lieutenant. Shuttle Six out."

"Shuttle Four, stay clear, repeat, stay clear. The search is being aborted."

"Aye, Sir, Shuttle Four is pulling out."

The finality of the words hung in the air. Ten people were still unaccounted for on Banden Station but the order had just been given to call off the search. His order. Tim vividly recalled the commander's words as she had left the bridge.

Try and find those people but we can't do the impossible, Tim.

Somehow that didn't help ease his mind that he was responsible. He stared at the large viewscreen as the WSKRs pulled back and he knew he had just sealed the fate of ten strangers. The assumption was that they were already dead but that hadn't been proven yet. Shuttle Four skirted past on the viewscreen on its way to the docking port.

Before he could say anything further the image on the screen erupted in a violent plume of bubbles. The view was completely obscured but there was no doubt in anybody's mind what had just happened. The weakened station had finally imploded from the enormous pressure of water bearing down on it. There was no sign that Crocker's shuttle had made it far enough away. Tim swallowed down the lump in his throat and called the shuttle crew.

"Shuttle Six, report!" Tim tugged at his headset as the seconds ticked by. "Shuttle Six!"

"All clear … just. On our way in to the docking bay now. The paintwork may need a slight touchup though."

"I think we can manage that, Chief." O'Neill smiled with relief. He really didn't fancy explaining that one of the captain's oldest friends had been lost on his watch. At the thought of the captain he suddenly stopped smiling. There had been no news yet from the shuttle bay.


Katie watched as the door to the hyperbaric chamber was sealed and the pressure was cranked up inside. Beside her, Lawrence did his best to stand still but it had taken two crewmen to pull him back in the first place. Watching his son's apparently lifeless body being taken away was almost too much for him to handle. The doctor had assured him there was a pulse but Lucas' blue lips and almost porcelain skin seemed to belie that. Only the slow beep of a heart monitor showed that the doctor was telling the truth but it was too slow. Much too slow.

In the background Ford had peeled back his wetsuit to the waist and had wrapped a warming blanket and gel packs around himself. As much as he wanted to just sit down and rest he knew he needed to get his body warmed up again. Pacing up and down in the small space made him feel like a caged animal. His hands tingled painfully and the shivers had become even more pronounced.

Ben watched him carefully but felt totally helpless to do anything. Instead he turned his attention back to the two patients. The hyperbaric chamber was quite large but having six people inside it with two gurneys and all the equipment Westphalen's team had brought in made it rather cramped. The two doctors worked simultaneously over their respective patients and they seemed to be comparing data as they went. Ben tried to comprehend what they were talking about but most of it was clinical jargon that made no sense. Words wafted through to him but all his brain could really focus on was the slow beep of their respective heart monitors. It didn't take a doctor to know that both of them were far from all right.

"Did we leave it too long?" The words were almost whispered but Ford caught his meaning anyway. He was also wondering about the answer to that question but he shook his head anyway.

"They made it this far, Ben. Don't write them off now."

He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and saw Katie had moved around to their side. She smiled reassuringly at him and he smiled back. Without thinking he placed the palm of his hand on the glass and she only hesitated briefly before placing hers against it on the other side. She waved her PAL at him and he nodded to himself as he pulled his out of his pocket.


Crocker strode onto the bridge, his face grim but controlled. He headed straight for O'Neill.

"Sorry, Lieutenant but there was no indication anybody was still alive. Before the station gave way, I mean." He could see the look on Doctor Jamison's face and it was all he could do to maintain his composure.

Tim nodded at him. "We found nothing from here either, Chief."

"Any word on the cap'n and Lucas yet?"

"Nothing yet. We know they made it back but so far we haven't got any information on their condition beyond hypothermia."

Tim looked at the older man standing in front of him. "Why don't you head down and see what you can find out for us, Chief?"

"Aye, Sir!" Crocker spun on his heel and headed for the door before he had even finished speaking. Tim turned back to Jamison.

"I need to let my colleagues know what has happened."

"Of course. I'm sorry, Doctor that we couldn't do more."

"Lieutenant, none of us would be alive if the seaQuest hadn't come. Your own people risked their lives to help us. Believe me, we are grateful for all that you did."


Lawrence seemed rooted to the spot as he intently watched every move Doctor Levin made. Finally he realised the commander had moved away from him and he saw that she was talking to one of the men inside. He shook his head as he tried to recall the man's name. He knew that Lucas was close to him but couldn't drag the name out of his memory. He wasn't sure if it was due to his recent blood pressure problems or another aspect of his illness beginning to assert itself. That wasn't a thought he wanted to pursue as a scientist couldn't function well with memory loss problems. Instead he decided it was more likely due to the day's dramas. As he slipped over closer to Katie he overheard them talking. Ben! That was his name.

"Do you know what's going on?" All three of them looked up as Lawrence cut in on the conversation.

"Please, what are they doing in there?" he tried again.

"Well they're trying to get them warmed up again. I don't understand all the stuff they're saying but I think they're using those blood machines to rewarm their blood."

Ben tried to reassure Lawrence but the truth was he wasn't very reassured himself. He had heard the doctors talking about dialysis but he thought that meant something to do with kidney failure. Both Bridger and Lucas were hooked up to something that was pumping their blood around but he really wasn't sure why. Waiting for Kristin or Levin to come and talk to them was taking forever.


Crocker marched though the door from medbay and headed straight for Hitchcock. He stopped in front of her and straightened up.

"The search has been called off, Ma'am. I'm sorry to report there were no further survivors from the station before it collapsed. Ten still unaccounted for."

Katie sighed before nodding at him. "We did our best, Chief."

He nodded briefly at her but he still didn't look convinced. "So how are they doin' in there?" He inclined his head towards the glass.

As if she had heard him Kristin moved over towards the group. Stray wisps of red hair hung around her face and she absently tucked them behind her ear. She tried to smile but her face still looked strained.

"They are both still seriously hypothermic and we are trying to bring their core temperatures back up to normal. Warming packs and thermal wraps all help but the best way we can do that is to rewarm their blood through a dialysis machine."

"How long? Before they wake up?" Ford asked the question they were all thinking.

Kristin looked over at him and shook her head. "Probably not for some time yet. Now, Commander, how are you doing?"

"Well the shakes are starting to wear off," he grinned.

"But?" She looked at him closely.

"But I still feel strange."

Kristin was already examining his hands before he finished speaking. "You are still very cold. Ben could you get me another of those gel packs please?"

As he handed her a warming pack she pulled back Ford's blanket and pressed the pack against his chest. She smiled at the awkward look on his face as he grabbed hold of it before tightly wrapping the blanket back around himself.

"Are they going to be all right?"

She nodded at them all. "I think so. Once we get them warm again we need to stay in here through the decompression cycle and then we can get Nathan into surgery to sort out that leg. Actually it's ironic but the hypothermia may have saved his life."

As Kristin looked around at the faces before her she could see their confusion. "That railing was very heavy and injuries like that often lead to crush syndrome. Toxins build up on one side of the weight and when it is released suddenly the toxins rush into the body and can cause heart failure. The fact that his blood circulation was so severely reduced slowed them down and we could treat them in time."

As Kristin watched him, Lawrence swayed slightly on his feet.

"Commander, I think Doctor Wolenczak needs to be back in medbay."

Lawrence raised a hand to object but she quickly cut him off.

"Sorry but you are no use to Lucas if you pass out. I promise we will call you as soon as he stirs."

Katie gently steered him by the elbow back towards the medbay door. He clearly didn't want to leave but he was very unsteady on his feet as he walked. She knew he had already had a close shave himself today and didn't want any further dramas. As they stepped through the door a nurse came towards them and she quickly took over. Katie excused herself and turned back towards the door.


The disembodied voices in the dark seemed to float in and out of range. Somebody was nearby but he couldn't work out who it was. It seemed strange that anybody could be talking to him underwater but nothing seemed right anyway. His head throbbed painfully as he tried to focus his senses. He decided the torch batteries must have finally died because he couldn't see anything. Eventually he stopped trying to make sense of his surroundings and allowed the darkness to swallow him again.

Ben watched quietly as Lucas stirred slightly before settling back into a deep sleep. It was the third time he thought his friend was going to wake up and the third time he had been sorely disappointed. He glanced behind him to an identical bed where Captain Bridger was just as soundly asleep. Lawrence was slumped in a chair beside his son's bed. Despite being ordered back to bed he had dragged the blankets off it and settled in to wait. At first he and Ben had tried to make awkward conversation but eventually they had settled into a comfortable silence. Finally Lawrence had given into his own exhaustion and his head dropped back onto the chair rim.

Ben seemed lost in thought and was startled as Kristin moved over beside him and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"They will wake up soon enough. Right now they both need to rest."

Ben smiled at her and nodded.

"I know. I just need to know he's … well … that we didn't …" He swallowed the lump in his throat as he tried to express the fear running through his head. "That we didn't wait too long."

"They both have a good heart rate again and we've stabilised their core temperatures. Nathan's leg has been reset and will heal properly."

"So why haven't they woken up yet?" he demanded.

"Because they have both suffered extreme trauma and the human body can only take so much. Don't worry Ben, they will wake up. I promise. Now, how about you take the chance to get some rest yourself?"

"Sorry, Doc, but I'm not leaving."

Before she could argue any further with him, Commander Ford walked through the door. It was unusual to see him out of uniform but he had been ordered off duty until further notice.

"So, Commander, have you had any sleep yet?"

"A couple of hours."

"Still feeling any tingling?"

"Nope, I feel fine."

Kristin was already checking him over as he spoke and Ben tried not to smile as he watched. He had been the least poked and prodded of the group since their return but Ford hadn't been so lucky. The strange sensations in his hands were possibly indicative of decompression sickness but their stint in the chamber seemed to have done its job. Even so, Kristin wasn't taking any chances and continued to monitor him. Ben almost laughed as he realised the commander would be under her scrutiny for a few days yet.

"Lucas? Lucas, can you hear me?"

Ben was surprised to hear Lawrence's voice behind him and as he spun around he noticed that Lucas was finally awake. His eyes seemed unfocused as he pulled urgently at the oxygen mask on his face. Lawrence leaned forward and gently eased his hand away.

"You need that to stay there for now. It's all right, you're safe."

Lucas began to settle a little at the sound of a familiar voice but his hand still moved back to the mask. He tugged at it while trying to speak but nothing came out. Ben could see the desperation in his eyes and quickly moved to reassure him.

"It's OK, Lucas. You need to calm down. Everybody made it back safely." He decided the full story could wait a while. "Captain Bridger is still sleeping but you are all going to be fine."

Lucas glanced back at his father's anxious face and finally seemed to relax a little. His hand slid down from the oxygen mask as his body slipped back into sleep.


Kristin had long since turned down the lights and finally managed to get Lawrence to sleep in a nearby bed. Lucas had been more alert the last time he woke up and his father had reluctantly agreed that he was all right to be left to sleep.

She sat between the two beds absently running a finger around the rim of her empty mug. She wasn't sure if she could handle another cup of tea but she needed something to keep her awake. It had been a hell of a day and she would have loved to just crawl into bed and sleep for the next twenty four hours. Lucas was clearly on the mend but so far Nathan had refused to wake up.

"Stubborn old man!" she whispered at him. Tears pricked at her eyes as she watched him sleep. The rhythmic rise and fall of his chest was reflected on the nearby monitor. It wasn't that long ago that the same monitor had shown him very close to flat-lining. She drew in a sharp breath as she recalled her first sight of him in the shuttle. Those awful first few moments before establishing a pulse. She smiled slightly as she knew it was probably stubbornness that had kept him alive. His own and Lucas's.

She glanced over at the boy in the next bed and began to tear up again. He could have easily justified bringing his father back on the shuttle and yet he had chosen to go back for the captain. She wondered what was going through his mind as he made that choice. As she looked back and forth between the two of them she thought about how alike they were. Their passion for science and knowledge. Their love of the ocean. Their loyalty towards those they cared about. The strength of the bond between them that made Lucas recklessly disregard the danger of going back for his friend. No. More than a friend, she thought. More like a father.

As that thought ran through her head Kristin couldn't help but think of Lawrence. She frowned as she thought again about the unexpected revelation of his medical condition. He had claimed he was there on the seaQuest to tell Lucas about it but somehow she wasn't sure if that was true. After today's events would he still tell his son the truth? Lucas deserved to know but she was bound by oath not to reveal what she knew. Doctor/patient confidentiality was something she rarely questioned but there were always exceptions to any rule.

Kristin was startled out of her musings by a sense of movement beside her. She looked over to see Nathan watching her. She smiled at him and leaned in closer.

"Welcome back."

He tried to answer but the words stuck in his throat. Instead she gently placed a finger over his lips.

"Don't try to speak. Just rest. Everybody is all right and you are in medbay."

As his eyes began to focus better the captain tried again to speak. It came out in a hoarse whisper but Kristin caught his question anyway.

She pointed over to the other bed and he turned to look. "He's just fine. It took us a while to warm you both up but he is just sleeping. Something you should be doing."

The mock sternness in her voice made him smile slightly before he closed his eyes and drifted back into the morphine.


Lucas paced around his room while his father sat on his bunk. It had been three days since he was released from medbay and Lawrence seemed to have become a self-appointed shadow. For all the times he had wished his father would pay more attention, right now Lucas wished he would just go away.

At some point while he was lying in medbay Lucas had remembered his father had dropped a couple of bombshells on him. He couldn't be sure exactly when he had come to the realisation but as he thought about his father's disease it occurred to him that he had said it was genetic. Passed on from parent to child. From father to son. Maybe.

"Do you think you could sit still for five minutes and listen to me?" Lawrence asked hopefully.

Lucas wasn't sure he wanted to hear any more of what his father had to say but finally he stopped pacing and dropped onto the chair by his computer.

"Like I said, Byrnes disease can have a different progression in different people. In my case my pre-existing hypertension is a problem. I am under medical supervision for it and when I take my meds it is under control. When I'm stressed I get the muscle tremors and that's a sign I need to slow down."

Lucas stared at the floor. He had done his own research since leaving medbay and the information he had dug up wasn't encouraging. This illness could be relatively mild or quite savage. Symptoms ranged from slight tremors to muscle paralysis. Hypertension and dying from a stroke seemed to be quite common. Even though the onset of symptoms may not occur until a person was in their forties or fifties, the statistics on mortality rates were scary to say the least.

Somewhere in their stilted conversations about it all the question had come up of Lucas being tested. The bloodtest was very simple and the answer was black or white. He either had the gene or he didn't. Yes or no. Live to an old age or die prematurely.


Nathan leaned back against the wall and tried to read the report in his hand. For some reason his thoughts kept drifting and he had to keep re-reading the words. He sighed as he realised nothing was sinking in so he dropped the folder on the bed. He glanced down at his leg and considered calling Kristin. The steady throbbing was getting worse and he checked his watch. Almost time for another painkiller. Before he got a chance to call there was a knock at the door.

"Come in," he called out.

Kristin pushed the door open and smiled as she closed it behind her. The smile faded as she looked at the pile of reports on the bed.

"I thought I told you to rest!"

"It's just a little bedtime reading," he grinned at her. "Besides, I can't do much else can I?" His tone suddenly turned serious again.

She knew where his thoughts were going and hurried to stop them. "You did more than was expected."

"But ten people still died out there. This report says the station's aquatubes failed. They still haven't determined why."

"Nathan, you may hold the patent on aquatubes but you are not personally responsible for every one that is installed. You risked your life to get that shuttle out of the docking port. If not for you then five more people would be dead."

As she watched his face she knew he was holding something back. Something more was bothering him and she had a fair idea what it was.

"And if you hadn't taken Lucas over to the station, none of those people might have survived. There was no time to waste in getting into the system and Lucas was your best choice."

"Kristin, I almost got him killed!" She knew the anger in his voice just masked his fear and she leaned forward and took his hand.

Neither of them spoke for a few moments. The tension in his face was obvious and she knew he was rehashing all the possibilities of what could have happened. Eventually Kristin reached into her pocket and pulled out a bottle of tablets. Before she could speak there was a tentative knock at the door. Kristin got up and opened it. She was surprised to see Lucas standing there, his hand poised to knock again.

"I know, I'm supposed to be asleep," he smiled weakly. "I need to speak to the captain if he's awake."

Bridger called out from his bunk, "Come in." He tried to keep his face from displaying the rising pain in his leg.

Lucas stepped into the room and looked around awkwardly. Kristin noted his discomfort and suggested that she should leave them to talk alone.

"No, please, this concerns you too,' he assured her.

"I've been talking with my father and I've made some decisions. First up, I've decided I'm not going to have the blood test done."

Kristin nodded slowly, "If you are sure about that."

"I am. I need to be able to live my life without waiting for the sky to fall on me. If I do have the gene then I figure I've got another twenty years at least before I develop any symptoms. A lot can happen in that time and somebody might find a cure. "

Bridger waited for the next part. He knew Lucas was still struggling with the information his father had revealed over the last few days and really had no idea how the teenager was going to react. Right now he seemed unsure of himself but the captain decided he would support whatever decisions Lucas made.

"I also need to request some time off."

"To do what?"

"Apparently I have some family to meet."

The captain nodded slowly. "Sounds like a good idea to me."


Lucas hoisted the small bag over his shoulder and straightened up. He closed his eyes briefly and sucked in a deep breath. When he opened his eyes he didn't feel any less nervous but he tried to put on a calm face anyway. The sounds of other passengers filtered through his thoughts and he glanced around. It had been a long flight and everyone seemed eager to get off the aircraft. Everyone, except him it seemed.

As he passed through the airport security barrier he barely registered what was being said to him. A customs official had to repeat a question and he looked strangely at her.

"Sir, are you all right?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Just a bit jetlagged." He smiled wearily.

"Your passport please, Sir."

He nodded and fished it out of his jacket pocket. The woman ran it through the scanner before rattling off a list of standard questions. When he finally got to the end of them she smiled at him and waved him through.

"Welcome to Paris, Mr Wolenczak. Enjoy your holiday."

A/N I figured that was the right place to end this story but I plan to write a sequel and follow up on what happens from here. When I have some more time!