CHAPTER ELEVEN: DUTY

When Rachel finally tore herself away from her work to go have dinner, she was surprised to see that she wasn't the last one to arrive. Jed was seated with his grandchildren, but the chair at the head of the table was empty. "Is Tom still on the bridge?" Rachel asked.

Jed shook his head. "Not according to the Ensign over there," he replied. "He was there a bit ago, but when he left, he obviously didn't come here."

"He's not in his room, either," Ashley piped up. "I checked."

"I went, too," Sam added.

Rachel smiled. "Well, he has to be here somewhere - it's not a terribly large ship. I'll poke around and hopefully we'll be back soon."

~ % ~

There was no answer when she knocked on the door to Tom's stateroom, just to double-check. The Captain's sea cabin just aft of the bridge was also unoccupied. On a whim, she headed for the gym to see if he'd gone there.

As she opened the hatch, she could hear the sound of a punching bag taking some brutal hits. Tom was whaling on the thing, despite the fact that his hands were already red and swollen.

"What happened?" Rachel gently asked as she came to a stop beside him.

"Don't worry about it," he gritted out as he got a couple more hits in.

All she had to do was raise an eyebrow to get him to reconsider taking that approach. Tom had wanted to stay tough, but she was the one person he didn't have to do that for.

"Mike knows," he finally came clean. "About us. And the conversation didn't go well."

Rachel started to feel chilled all over. She knew how much Tom valued the opinion of his longtime friend. "What did he say?"

Tom sighed. He didn't believe Mike was actually angry at him for being happy, but at the same time, the other man's arguments had cut straight through him. "It's too damn soon, it's being unforgivably disrespectful… And I'd be lying if I said I disagreed with him." He abruptly stopped and looked at her. "But I'm a selfish ass because I don't want to give this up. I should - I know I should, but…" Tom didn't know what else to say. With a growl, he landed a few more angry blows on the punching bag.

Rachel was similarly at a loss for words. She wanted to be with him - she scared herself with how much she wanted that. But he had to want it, too.

With one last hit, Tom turned away. "I came down here to try to calm down," he confessed. "Get myself together before facing my kids. Instead…" He looked down at his hands, slowly trying to open his fists. Pain seared its way to his brain. "Instead, I just made it worse. Like I've been doing for a lot of things lately." He sat down heavily on a nearby weightlifting bench.

"Just take a second and breathe," Rachel tried to tell him, then decided it was prudent to follow her own advice. The next words that she had to force out of her mouth were the last ones she actually wanted to say: "If you think this… us… is a bad idea, I understand." She swallowed hard. "We can pretend it never happened, if you're not ready."

Tom's head snapped up. "What? No." He stood, quickly stepping forward and cupping her face in his battered hands. "No, that's not what I want. Not at all. Damnit, I wish this wasn't so hard."

She tried to smile. "I don't think either of us has ever run away from hard."

He smirked slightly. "Yeah… God, I'm lucky to have you in my life."

Rachel unexpectedly felt tears spring to her eyes. "And I'm lucky to have you."

"But that's another issue - I have you, and I have my kids and my dad here, all safe. I'm trying to learn to look forward, but everyone else is still looking back."

She slowly nodded. Many people aboard the ship knew that they'd lost everyone and everything that had been important to them. Others, who could be considered even less fortunate, were stuck in limbo without any concrete answers. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. Everyone on the crew deserves the same chance I got, I know that. But we can't just abandon the ship to rebuild lives ashore. Among other issues, we don't have a reliable facility for you to continue your work."

Rachel shrugged slightly. Despite the importance of what she was doing, she didn't want to be an unduly large part of his decision. "If we can make due here, we can make due anywhere."

"We'd still need some means of transportation. And if we leave the ship, there's no way to know whose hands it will fall into," Tom pointed out. "So far, I've seen enough of the worst of humanity to know that's a risk we can't take."

She nodded. "I understand. But what do you see as the Nathan James' future? She can't keep sailing forever."

Tom sighed. "I know." Someday, they would be overcome by the destroyer's need for maintenance and repairs - and that was assuming they could keep putting fuel in the tanks and food in the pantry until then. The ship would eventually go from being the safest place in the world to a floating death trap. "For now, we don't have a choice. We have to stay with the ship. We'll find a way to keep her going."

"Okay. What does that mean for the crew?"

"I'm not sure… We all have a duty and a mission to carry out."

"They also have duties to their families, just as you did."

"I know… I've never wanted to be the one deciding who we help and who we don't - who lives and who dies."

"Maybe this could be a new solution - use finding their families as a way to spread the cure. Traveling by land, they'll reach places the ship can't go. Perhaps someone will even find a facility capable of helping with production. And if the crew can find and immunize their families, it could ease their minds and help them do their duties here." Tom didn't immediately have an answer. "There has to be a solution that meets everyone's needs."

He finally nodded. "Yeah." He wished he'd gone to Rachel earlier in the day. He hadn't wanted to hurt her with Mike's comments and his own guilt, but talking with her was exactly what he'd needed.

"Are there going to be problems with you and the Commander?"

Tom shrugged. "We've already proven we don't have to always agree with each other to lead this crew. For now, I'm letting him cool off." He suddenly realized something. "What time is it? My dad and the kids are waiting, aren't they?"

Rachel smiled. "Yes. But before we go to the wardroom, we need to do something about those hands."

Tom looked down at his fingers, almost as though he'd forgotten how raw and beat up they were. His knuckles were redder now than they'd been before and he winced as he tried moving his fingers. "Shit. Ow."

"Mmm. Step one - ice."

By the time that Rachel had gotten Tom patched up and presentable enough that he wouldn't worry his children, she had run out of time for dinner. She walked along with him to the wardroom in order to grab a plate to take back to her lab.

When they entered the room, the kids had already gotten food and were halfway done eating. Tom felt bad that he'd made them wait so long.

"Sorry, guys. I, uh, got tied up."

They didn't seem to mind. "Sit with me, Dr. Rachel," Sam requested.

"I actually need to head back to the lab," she told him, "But I hope you have a lovely evening."

The children frowned. "Don't go," Sam pleaded.

"Yeah, please stay?" Ashley added. "Just for a little while. Please?"

"We wanted to show you what we learned today in school."

"Guys," Tom gently chastised them, "You can show her tomorrow. Rachel's work is important."

"There's one thing I can't leave without," Rachel told the children. "I don't think I'll be done before your bedtime, so can I get some goodnight cuddles now?" Ashley and Sam both jumped up from their chairs to give her hugs. "Thank you, luvs. Sleep well and I'll see you tomorrow, all right?"

"Okay."

Tom followed Rachel as she stepped over to get a cup of hot water for tea. "I'm sorry," he quietly told her. He'd cost her a well-deserved break for the evening.

However, she just shrugged. "At least we got some time alone."

He chuckled; there was a silver lining to every cloud. "True. Don't work too hard."

She smiled as she headed for the hatch. "You mean there's another option?"

The following night, Rachel was able to actually have dinner with the Chandlers, though she headed back to her lab afterward. When she got another break just before midnight, she went up to Tom's stateroom instead of trying to get some sleep. He quickly answered the door when she knocked; the idea that he'd been hoping and waiting for her to show up brought a smile to her face. "Hi."

"Hey. Come on in."

They ended up sitting together on his bed, with her leaning against him as he idly played with her long brown hair. "Did the kids get to sleep okay?" Rachel wondered.

"Yeah, they were fine. My dad's going to have to find new books for them; they've been tearing through the last ones he picked out."

Rachel smiled. "Speaking of your father… Does he know? About us, I mean? I realized that he's had this… look recently whenever he sees us."

Tom chuckled. "Yeah, he knows. He's the one who straightened me out once I realized how I felt about you. So you can thank him for the fact that I got it together enough to talk to you."

She took his hand, threading their fingers together. "I am indeed grateful." Tom dipped his head to kiss her. "Since people are starting to find out - "

"Not intentionally," he cut her off. "I'm not ready to change that yet. Are you?"

Rachel slowly shook her head. She didn't like hiding, but also didn't want to be fodder for the ship's overactive rumor mill. "No, I suppose not. At least not for most people, but… when are you going to tell your children?"

Tom sighed. "I don't know. I've been thinking about it… I'm not sure how they'll react. I know they adore you, but I think that's as a friend. They're still mourning their mother."

"You're still mourning their mother," Rachel pointed out. "I'm not naive or heartless enough to think that isn't true. But I am not trying to replace her, for anyone."

Tom pressed his lips to her temple, resting his head against hers and enjoying the scent of her shampoo. "I know, I know. And you have no idea how much it means to me that you understand."

The idea of loving someone else had seemed so impossible to him after Darien's death. Even more so, the idea of having someone like Rachel return those affections. Every time he saw her, he found something about her that pulled him in a little deeper.

"Sometimes," he murmured in her ear, "I wish that no one knew, and there was no one we had to worry about but ourselves."

"Another lifetime, maybe?" Rachel suggested. "Although if that was the case, we probably never would have met." Their lives had crossed purely by chance in the middle of a worldwide crisis. "We can't change our circumstances now, just try to… go for…ward…" she trailed off as she felt his lips making their way down the side of her neck. "Mmm, you're… very distracting, Captain," she whispered, her eyes drifting closed.

Tom chuckled, and the vibration shot straight through her body. "You can't multitask?" he murmured, pulling her closer.

All rational thought left Rachel's mind at his touch. She tipped her head, giving him better access. "A-apparently not."

Without warning, the hatch flew open and Sam came in, tears running down his face. Tom and Rachel both quickly sat up.

"Hey, pal," Tom said. "What happened? Did you have a bad dream?"

Sam was frozen in surprise watching them, eyes wide and jaw dropped slightly. He hadn't expected to see an extra person in his father's room, certainly not on his bed with him. They'd moved fast to separate themselves, but not fast enough. Sam wasn't sure what was going on, or what he should do or say. So he turned around and bolted down the p-way.

TBC...

A/N: So much for keeping secrets... How much trouble do you think Sam can find on his own?