I'm back! Sorry for the gap guys! It was a crazy week, and 02x10 was just so depressing I had to grieve a little. But I watched Valkyrie last night (like I said, crazy week) and it got me back in the groove. So hope that this cheers some of you up a little after the rough couple of weeks for our ship.
By all rights, things should have been awkward after Tom's outburst in the storage bunk. He had been out of control, had lost his cool. He knew it and he admitted it. He didn't have an excuse for why he had gone so crazy on her. He knew that she was an adult and she could make her own decisions, even if he disagreed with them. And as much as he disagreed with her rescue operation, a part of him was damn thankful that she had saved his life and let them take out Ruskov.
So yes, it should have been awkward. But, somehow, it wasn't. Just like after Tom's outburst in her cabin, he stewed in shame and waited for the awkward discussion. It never came. He had run into her the next morning in the wardroom and had touched her arm, started to apologize with a "hey, look, I'm sorry," but the doctor had cut him off. She cheerfully whispered to him that it was ok, she understood, and that he had a point. Then, everything had gone back to normal.
Rachel Scott continued to surprise him. As stubborn and recalcitrant as she was about everything else, she was the opposite when it came to diffusing Tom's embarrassment. She had done it after the night he burst into her cabin, unannounced, and now she had done it again with his outburst in the storage bunk. Tom Chandler did not make a habit of losing his cool in front of anyone, but it seemed that if he had to lose control, she at least would never hold it against him, never make it awkward.
So Tom wasn't surprised when Rachel tracked him down as he left the CIC a few hours after their completely and totally not-awkward interaction in the wardroom. She looked eager about something, and her eyes were shining. Tom noticed, not for the first time, how small she looked in an oversized sweater.
"Captain," she said, getting his attention in the crowded p-way. Tom turned to find her right behind him. "Got a moment?"
"Sure," he replied, ducking into a quieter hallway. The doctor followed him. She didn't have to duck.
"So, like I told you before, we're going to need to do human trials on the prototype." She was leaning back against the wall as she spoke, looking at him.
"Yeah, you mentioned that," Tom replied dryly. He was definitely having more trouble letting go of their little spat than she was.
"It's going to have to be a limited test. I want to come up with demographic parameters and then do a representative trial. Depending on our resources and air filtration capacity, I'm thinking four to ten people."
It hit Tom like a ton of bricks that she was asking his permission to test on the crew. He felt like an idiot; of course she would want to use his crew to test her vaccine. Who else did they have?
"Are you asking for my permission to do these tests on my people?" Tom asked, looking for confirmation, hoping that he was misunderstanding. Even as he asked the question, he knew what her answer would be. It's not like they had other options.
She looked at him curiously, like the answer was obvious. "Yes. I thought that was clear."
"Are there really no other options?"
She shook her head. "Not really. Anything else would involve much more risk, much more time lost, and would probably also mean conscripting unwilling civilians to do tests against their will. Which, I'm sure you could guess, is completely unethical and not something that I'm willing—"
Tom cut her off with a wave of his hand. "Of course, no, we will not be doing that."
The Doctor nodded, relief on her face. She had to have known that he wasn't the kind of man who would have kidnapped people to test on them? I mean, hell, that was what they had fought against in Nicaragua.
"So," Tom continued, "what do you need from me?"
"Nothing, I just wanted to clear everything with you before I started setting it up."
Tom nodded. He did appreciate that. And he would have been pissed if she hadn't asked him.
"Ok. Well you have it. This is going to be volunteer only. Figure out how many people you need and the basic criteria and get with Jeter and Slattery to set it up."
The Doctor nodded at him and went to duck back out of the small hall, but she turned right before she reached the doorway.
"Thanks, Captain. You won't regret it," she said, smiling shyly, before turning back around and leaving. He couldn't help but smiling at her back as she left. She had a way of putting him at ease.
Rachel was fucking nervous, and she knew that it showed. She had never been a person to show weakness, but she just couldn't do it all of the time. So she did what she could, hid as much as possible, and just dealt with the consequences.
She was sitting with the Captain in his cabin. Well, she was sitting. He was pacing.
He had asked her to come and tell him as soon as she knew the final crew that would be tested, so here she was. It had been past 2300 when she knocked on the door, but he had answered immediately, wide awake in Nathan James sweats.
"So, what's the final word?" he asked.
"Jeter, Tex, Foster, Garnett, Miller, and Gibson."
Rachel watched his face as she told him. He was nervous too, she could tell, and she saw in his expression that he didn't like her selections. To be honest, though, Rachel didn't think that he would have liked any selection at all that involved his people.
The Captain nodded at her, but he didn't seem to have any words. Rachel realized that in some ways, this was even worse for him than for her. He had no control over what was going to happen to his people. He'd given their safety, hell, their lives, over to her. She had to admit, he had kept good on his earlier promise to trust her. Rachel just hoped that she would be able to live up to that trust.
"I know that you're going out on a limb for me here. I know that you don't like any of this. I don't either. But thank you."
Tom's eyes met hers as she spoke. His look was serious, but not grim. He gave her a single nod as he spoke. "You've earned it. I know we've had our differences about some things, but you've proven yourself. I might not like testing on my guys, but if we're going to have to test on them, I'm damn glad that it's you doing it."
Rachel smiled at him. "Thanks Captain."
Silence hung in the air for a moment. Rachel guessed that there wasn't much more to say. This was happening, the people were selected, and it was either going to be really good or really bad. They would find out tomorrow. Rachel was the first to break the silence.
"When I first came to the U.S. to do my doctorate at Yale, I took a week over Christmas break to see the East Coast. I wanted to see D.C., New York, Boston, Philadelphia, all of the big American sites. My first stop was D.C., and on the first day I saw your White House, your Capital, the government buildings. The second day I went to the Smithsonian. I spent the next week there. I never made it to New York."
"Anyway, one of the reasons I couldn't bring myself to leave the Smithsonian was a special exhibit on Jonas Salk and the polio vaccine. For a budding virologist, it was amazing. I knew so much about the history of the polio vaccine and Salk, but the exhibit really gave me new insight into the man and his life. One thing that stuck with me was a journal entry of his."
"See, Salk had actually tested the vaccine on himself before anyone else. He injected himself with his vaccine, then with the virus, and he survived. Then he tested it on his wife and his children, and they survived. I hope that one day, people will remember our six people that we're testing the same way that we remember Jonas Salk. I hope that they can be remembered as heroes, and that one day, there is a Smithsonian exhibit about them."
Rachel kept her eyes on the Captain. That had been sappy, but deservedly so, she thought. He had watched her seriously while she was talking, but his expression didn't give any idea of what he was thinking, what he thought of her.
"I hope so too," he said. There was silence again. Rachel fidgeted with her hands in her lap, picking at her fingernails. She felt awkward and nervous and exposed. Like always, the Captain seemed to sense her weakness and offer up his own.
"I actually saw that exhibit on Salk too, you know. Ashley was a baby, maybe a year old. I had just come back from a deployment, and Darien – my wife – she was so frazzled. She'd just spent six months taking care of a baby all by herself. So I sent her for a spa weekend and took the baby up to D.C. I had no idea what I was doing. I hadn't ever been overnight alone with her, much less out of town for four days."
Rachel watched Tom as he spoke, and his eyes practically gleamed with his memories, with his love for his family. It broke her heart to see how much he missed them; how much he had given up for her. But she just listened as he continued.
"I spent the first two days holed up in the hotel, no idea what I was doing, trying to get Ashley to sleep. On the third day, I took her out to the mall to play, and she loved it. By the last day, I was brave, and we went to the Smithsonian. It was amazing. Something about the exhibits and the people calmed Ashley down so much, and we had a blast. I remember taking her stroller through the Salk exhibit, just being so happy that she wouldn't have to deal with polio."
Tom's nostalgic smile vanished as he reached the end, and Rachel saw his eyes go from remembering the good times to thinking about the present.
"I thought she was safe from all of that. I was so wrong."
Rachel shook her head at him. "She will be. They will be. After these tests, we'll get them the vaccine, and they'll be safe again."
Chandler locked eyes with her, icy blue to brown. Rachel felt like he was looking straight into her soul, and also like he was three thousand miles away. "You do that, you save them, and I will never be able to repay you."
Rachel had no idea how to respond, so she just said the first thing that came to mind. "I'm not doing it alone. We're going to save them together. All of us."
It had been five hours in the lab, watching his guys through plastic, and everyone was still ok. Tom had told Slattery that it felt like watching Sam in the NICU, but honestly, this was worse. At least when Sam had been born, there had been legions of doctors and nurses around, constantly telling him that everything was ok, that Sam would be fine. They had statistics and percentages and even though it had been hard to see his baby so small and hooked up to machines, in the back of his mind, he had known that everything would be ok.
This was so different. The opposite, really. Now, he was watching a bunch of people who were ok, but he had no idea what was really going to happen. He watched them chatter inside of the containment plastic, but he didn't have anything to reassure him this time. All he had was hope, and his trust in Doctor Scott.
Speak of the devil, Tom thought as he saw Rachel approaching his location. He had stepped out on the aft deck outside of the helo-bay-turned-lab for a breath of fresh air, and it seemed that she had the same idea.
"Any idea how it's going?" he asked.
She shook her head. "Not really. Foster and Miller are running fevers now, but that's common with vaccines."
Tom nodded. He remembered. "My daughter ran a fever for two days when she got her first shots. Didn't let us sleep all weekend."
"Exactly."
The Doctor had walked up to where he stood, only a few feet from the wire guardrails that separated them from the sea. Her back was to the bow, and the movement of the ship made her ponytail flutter. Tom just watched her. He could tell that she was as stressed as he was.
"When will we know?" he asked.
"Within 24 hours? Maybe sooner. Maybe not. Honestly, I'm not completely sure."
Tom shrugged. "Guess we'll just wait."
"Well I hope it soon," Rachel said with a smile. "Because I swear, if I have to hear Tex try to do another James Bond impression, I might kill him myself. Americans cannot do British accents!"
Oh, that woman didn't know who she was dealing with.
"Hey, don't judge all of us on Tex. I'll have you know that I was renowned at the Naval Academy for my Bond impressions. Second place in the plebe talent show."
The doctor cocked an eyebrow at him, and Tom could read the skepticism in her eyes. "Really?"
"Yes. Do you find that so hard to believe?"
"Kind of."
Tom cleared his throat, and looking the Doctor right in the eye, gave her his best impression. "Well, my dear girl, I'll do anything for a woman with a knife…or perhaps, in your case, a monkey."
Oh, Tom was rusty, but he knew that he'd passed Doctor Scott's test by the chuckle that escaped her pursed lips. Her chuckle turned into a full blown laugh. Tom was glad to see the laughter reach her eyes. He leaned, pleased with himself, against the half-wall behind him, folding his arms over his chest.
"Well, Captain, you've surprised me again. Not bad at all."
"So I'm better than Tex?" he asked, smile on his face. He played it off, but a part of Tom knew that he wanted her to admit it.
Rachel leaned back against the guardrails and nodded. "Oh, without a doubt, Mr. Bond."
"Fuck," Rachel muttered to herself. Then again, louder. "Fuck!" Before she knew what she was doing, Rachel found herself throwing stuff across the storage room. "FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!"
Gibson was dead. The look in Chandler's eyes, Slattery's eyes, Miller's eyes when they had zipped up the body bag…she couldn't take it. Rachel had thrown up everything in her stomach, and the dry heaves were still coming. She had killed Gibson, and she was going to kill the rest. It was all her fault. Fuck!
Now, they were dying in that containment zone. People had been invited to say their goodbyes. Danny Green was sitting in there with Foster. Foster. The baby. Another death, her fault. She just knew that Chandler and Slattery were watching it, watching it happen and knowing that Rachel had killed their guys. Ruskov had only killed three of their people. She was twice as bad!
Rachel couldn't face them. She couldn't face the Captain. She just couldn't. She should never have done this. Why had she thought that SHE could create a vaccine? That SHE could save the world?
Rachel slid down to the ground, head between her knees, trying not to vomit again. Even behind her closed eyelids, she saw Tom Chandler's face, saw the disappointment in his eyes. Well, fuck.
"We have it. We have a vaccine," Tom said, barely believing it. He had gone through so many emotions in the past few days, from nervousness to skepticism to anger and despair. But now, now he could feel the hope and the elation bubbling up inside of him. He just had to hear her confirm it.
"We don't just have a vaccine," the Doctor said, her eyes looking straight into his. "We have the cure."
"You mean…?" Tom let his words trail off. He hadn't even thought of that.
She took a step towards him, her eyes on his, only an arms-length away. "I mean that we can save people who are already sick."
Oh, fuck. Tom didn't even know what to say. After everything that they had been through, she had actually done it. He had believed in her, sure, and he had told everyone else to, too. But so many times, he had thought doubted, hadn't believed that she could do it. Hell, an hour before he had been furious at himself for believing in her. But now…?
He didn't have words. He could tell that she didn't either. She had tears in her eyes, and he knew that he did too. So instead of talking, he just took her into his arms.
His first thought was that damn, she smelled good. He wrapped his arms around her, telling himself that this was purely out of excitement, purely celebration, completely platonic, but a part of him knew he was probably enjoying it a little too much. She hugged him back, her arms thin, her hands resting against the muscles of his back and shoulders.
Tom thought that this was one of the happiest moments of his life. They had done it. He buried his face in her neck, smelling her, feeling her. A tear escaped his eyes. She would feel it, but for once, Tom wasn't even worried about looking weak. No, she could know. He smiled against her skin.
Eventually, they pulled apart. Tom thought that she almost seemed reluctant, but she did it, grazing her hands against his upper arms as they extricated themselves from each other. Tom felt cold and lonely as soon as they parted, but he put on a smile.
"You're a damn genius, you know that?" he said.
She grinned back at him. "I still can't believe it."
"Well, believe it. You did it."
Rachel took a deep breath before exhaling it, shaking her head at him. "No, I didn't do it. We did it."
Tom laughed and shook his head back. "No. You did it. The rest of us just kept you alive long enough for you to do it."
She nodded, leaning back against the rolling storage container behind her.
Tom felt giddy, like a little kid. "Well, I'm damn excited. I could almost hug you again," Tom said, slightly regretting the admission as soon as he said it. Oh well.
"So," he continued. "What now?"
"Home. Let's go home."
Ok, hope that wasn't too disappointing! Next is the finale, which I will probably keep canon compliant. I'm not sure if I'm going to wrap this fic up at the end of season 1, or if I should keep going through season 2. If I did season 2, it would definitely NOT stay canon compliant. It's hard enough to WATCH the last few episodes, much less write them. So any ideas? Anyone interested in slightly more shippy season 2 than the writers are giving us?
