.
I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence and
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
— David Bowie (Changes)
Rachel leaned against the side of the shower wall allowing the hot water to hit her midsection and below. It had been a long, stressful day working with Sorenson. Even the thought of him turned her stomach, and being in the room with him for extended periods was stressful at the highest levels. Neils Sorenson had killed nearly everyone on the planet, and even after all of that, he had left the Russian ship, Vyerni contagious and more than willing to kill the remaining population who were unlucky enough to cross his path. All he had to do was breathe on the uninfected, non-immune masses. He'd done so freely with malice and forethought.
When Neils had been recaptured, it was clear that he had not only hooked up with the Immunes, who were a band of low life fanatics in their own right, but he was helping them spread the disease to unknowing men, women and children using the ruse of a stuffed animal full of Red Flu. And if that wasn't enough, Neils had also ridden around in communities infecting people by breathing on them. To say he was a despicable human being would be giving him more credit than he deserved. When the Captain had insisted that Rachel work with him, she had relented more because of her feelings for the Captain than anything else.
Rachel was loathe to be in Sorenson's presence, but he did have information that she needed to complete saving the world. It was necessary, but with each passing day, it became harder for her not to sink a scalpel into his jugular and watch him bleed out like the pig that he was. She could almost visualize him gagging and drowning in his own blood looking up at her as the bringer of his demise. She wasn't a religious woman, but she did have faith. She had faith that when Sorenson died, he would meet all the souls of the people he killed, all four billion plus.
It was the one time she wanted to believe in heaven and hell again; she could imagine the floor opening underneath him, dragging him down to the fiery gates where they had a seat of honor made entirely of fire — waiting just for him. It was macabre, painful — of course the scene came with screaming and pleading on his part as he was eternally burned alive. It had been a long time since Rachel wished for someone to die, let alone go to hell. The idea of Sorenson's death brought a smile to her face. He should pay for killing the world, and she hoped that one day he would.
"I wish you hadn't forced me into working with him," Rachel voiced to the water raining down on her. "I have rarely felt pure hatred like this. Only one other time came to mind, and it was something she felt guilty and remorseful about — when her mother died and her father did nothing. Rachel remembered her mother's death like it was yesterday.
"I hate you," a young Rachel had said when her father told her it was God's will, "There is no God." She had received a slap for that, but she had not cared. Blasphemous or not, she buried God and her love for her father that day, "I hope you die soon, just like Mom did."
It was because her mother had not just died going peacefully in her sleep. What formed the basis of her rage was watching her mother slowly slip away day after day. She had fought to hold onto life, and Rachel had sat by her bedside as she choked, gasped and tried desperately to breathe as she slowly drowned in her own bodily fluids. Her father had been on the other side of the bed praying along with a prayer circle of people who thought that their faith alone could vanquish the virus. Her mother had also been in pain, but she was told that they waited on the Lord to relieve her agony rather than give her any medication to ease her passing. Holding Rachel's hand so tightly, she transferred some of the pain to her daughter. In the end, her mother had come to, looking at Rachel with the last clarity that comes right before the end..
"Be good. I will always love you, baby," Rachel's mother had whispered. "Don't blame your father. My faith was just not strong enough." Rachel looked at her mother aghast; she had drank the Kool-aid of delusion, and it had finally killed her.
As the tears streamed down Rachel's face, she had vowed that her only God would be logic and science from then on. Her mother had been her rock, because her father felt that his time was better spent preaching the gospel, screaming about how God's wrath would lay humanity low, and ministering to the sick — in other words, he was always gone or busy. As an adult during the Red Flu pandemic, Rachel wondered if he had been right about God's wrath, but she pushed that notion aside, looking to science to find the cure.
Rachel and her mother had shared a special bond that once broken, shattered her faith in life, people and love. At a young age, she mastered picking up the pieces of her grief-stricken psyche and alone putting herself back together. That would be the first of many times she had angrily grieved a loss and moved on. Through the pain, desolation and unadulterated rage that settled in her heart, she had soldiered on. Her relationship with her father had been strained to non-existent; they lived under the same roof, but they might as well have been on separate continents. On the rare occasions when they talked, they argued, and it was Rachel's fury that came to the fore, always throwing out the one ending that stopped all shouting — "I will never forgive you for letting Mom die. I will never love you. I hope you die just like she did, and I hope you go straight to hell."
Rachel saw the pain in her father's eyes, as he backed away from her fury. He would try to talk about God and His will. He would sometimes take the rod to her, too, trying to whip some sense and respect into her. All the former succeeded in doing was to grind in the how unnecessary her mother's death had been, and the latter made her hate him all the more. After a few run ins with the rod, Rachel stopped talking to him altogether, and they lurched towards her adulthood in complete silence. She was biding her time to come of age so she could leave. He knew it, but there was little he could do to reverse her course. They both wound up spending years in isolation and anger.
When she turned 18, she left for college where she channelled her fury into excelling in science. She never looked back. She led a solitary, goals driven existence until she met Richard; he was a couple of lovers before Michael who died in China. Richard's abusive nature reminded her too much of her father, and their rocky relationship ended one stormy night when he slapped her in the face, and she threw a frying pan hitting him squarely on the side of his head. As he crumbled to the floor, she had gone and packed and walked out into the rain, taking her car and abandoning him as she had her father. She never looked back.
Her subsequent relationships were long distance, non-committal trists that satisfied her sexual appetites, but never rising to the level of a deep, committed love. She never let anyone get close enough to know her — not her strengths nor her weaknesses. Lovers were allowed only to delve in the shallows of her feelings; she never risked getting into a relationship deep and honest enough to allow a lover to make a decision that they would still love her. It had worked well, right through Michael, and although his death had been painful to her, she could let him go without losing focus on her goal.
All of that changed when she met her blue eyed, blond-grey haired Navy captain. With him, she was finding her way back to trusting again, of loving deeply and with abandon. Her focus was skewed, warped around her feelings. It was a dramatic change. She couldn't get her mind off of him when she was alone, and she had such high anticipation of seeing him all the time. When he smiled, her heart tightened. When he laughed, her stomach was a flutter. When he kissed her, she wanted it to go on forever.
It was silly and sweet. He was a romantic guy, gentle and kind. And, boy was he sexy. She hadn't had fantasies about a man for a long time. Now they rose unbidden, and made her smile in spite of her trying to keep up appearances. In her past, she had filled her time with non-stop work, traveling the world looking to conquer the next deadly virus. Now, she could feel herself slowing down; not that she wasn't going to ferociously pursue diseases that were a threat to the world. But, now she was also making room for the silly stuff, like being tickled and kissing and cuddling. Tom could say things to her that would get other men killed, and his patience was endearing. Rachel had never felt playful; she had always been serious. It was one of the things she shared in common with Sean. However, Tom brought play and teasing; she could be a cheeky bitch if she wanted and he would just laugh it off. They were already in sync which made things that much easier.
Their relationship was a friendship first, and in spite of her best efforts, he found his way behind her carefully constructed walls, He gave of himself freely, giving her love, stability and the chance to let her walls come down.
As the water ran down her legs, she shifted and started washing her hair. It was on nights like these, when Neils Sorenson had been going on and on about his theories, and why he knew they were right and sound, she had gleaned what she could from him and had the guards take him away before she threw up in his face. After he was gone, she felt like she needed a shower to wash the stench of him off of her. Her hatred for him was on the level of her hatred for her father. Even though, she had come to terms with God on the issue, she had never forgiven her father. Ironically, a stupid joke made by one of her colleagues had allowed God back into her life. She still laughed when she heard it:
During a flood, a man was sitting on the top of his house, and a man came by in a boat and asked him if he wanted to leave. He had told him that he was waiting for God to take care of him. The guy in the boat left and the man kept praying for salvation as the water rose higher and higher. Then a helicopter came by and the man said no, he was waiting on God to save him. As he waited the water was getting higher and higher.
Another man came by in a motorboat and offered to take him off the roof. The man told him no; he was waiting on God. The water came up and drowned him, and since he was a god-fearing man, he went to heaven. When he got there, he asked God why he hadn't saved him, and God looked down at him and said: "I sent you a boat, a helicopter and a motor boat, and you didn't take me up on any of those things. I can lead a horse to water, but I can't make him drink."
The joke meant to Rachel that God had provided the knowledge humans needed to make a cure for most viruses, and her father had ignored it in favor of prayer. She wondered if her Mom had the same conversation with God that they guy on the roof had. It made her belief in God less abhorrent, but she still hated her father for ignoring all the cures put in his path.
Massaging the shampoo into her hair, she wondered how she'd ignored being alone for so long. Part of that empty hole inside her had been filled with music; the rest of her time, she was driven by science. It's what made her the best in her field, and now the best in the world. It had also covered her loneliness, which she had studiously ignored until recently.
Again, a smile graced her lips. The image of Tom Chandler rose in her mind. In just the few months that she had known him, through all their arguments and especially the nicer times when they simply shared each other's space, she had begun to feel the warmth and connectedness of him. Even before they had ever even considered consummating their relationship, the bond between them existed — unspoken yet very real.
And, through that bond with the Captain, she had come to bond with members of the Nathan James crew: Kara, Alisha, Danny, Bacon — the list went on. She had also apparently gained a kind of son named Sean; she wasn't sure how that had happened, but it was clear they shared that kind of friendship.
When they had first met, Sean had radiated loneliness to the level that so reminded her of herself at 18, she couldn't help but respond to it. Rachel had found a similar mentor/father figure in Doctor Julius Hunter who saw her brilliance and drive to be the best. He also saw the rejection and her solitude. For all her brilliance, she was an outcast. When he got to know her better, he began to fill the chasm in her heart left by the father she'd abandoned. He couldn't bring her mother back; he couldn't even repair the rift between her and her gospel touting father. What he could do was become a surrogate, guiding Rachel away from the rocky shoals of fury unbridled.
Everybody needs a parent in their corner, even if they weren't born to the person playing that part. Hunter had shared that bit of wisdom with her a few years into their relationship, and told her that it was okay that she felt that way. As she grew older, his mentoring had diminished her rage about her past as her work in the paleomicrobiological field blossomed.
Rachel figured Sean was the pay-it-forward section of her life, because Sean's rage, fear and loneliness stemmed from a childhood from hell much worse than her own, but still on par with her feelings of parental betrayal. Her father had given her passive neglect punctuated at points with physical abuse. Mostly, he just didn't care; addicted to the Lord, was what she called it. Sean had been abused on a scale that left one wondering how he remained sane. His answer was heartbreaking and familiar; it was the same answer she had given herself all those years ago — I didn't know there was anything wrong with my life, so I just figured this was the way all families behaved.
Sean channeled his rage into the martial arts which is why he did it so well. However, Rachel saw his real strengths not in the 20 odd ways he'd demonstrated to kill someone with his bare hands. Rachel saw his real brilliance in his love of books, his dedication to learning science and the fact that he picked up things at record speeds. He was plowing through Tom's books quickly. He wanted to go to the Naval Academy, if it ever came back into being. He wasn't sure what he needed to know in order to get accepted, so he studied everything and anything he could get his hands on. It was funny in a way; his scattershot study methods reminded her of her earlier days, too. At least she'd had a university curriculum to follow. If you don't know what to study, study everything.
Rachel rinsed her hair turning her back on the shower head so the water run in her hair and down her back. She loved the smell of her shampoo. Her mind went back to thinking about Tom, of course. That was much of what she thought about these days. She had long known how she felt about him; just being in his presence made her all warm and fuzzy inside. Now that they had a relationship going, she had a hard time thinking about anything else. She tried to concentrate, but likely as not, her mind drifted to him — his blue eyes that seemed to go on forever, soft kissable lips and his gentle teasing that brought giggles and sunshine.
Rachel knew why their relationship felt older than the few days they'd officially hooked up; her feelings ran back a lot further than a couple days. She had respected his marriage, his wife's death and the subsequent withdrawal as he dealt with things. However, what she'd thought was her worst mistake to date — the fevered kiss in the hallway — had turned out quite well. She considered herself lucky; it could have gone really badly.
Finishing her shower, she came out and fished out her blow dryer. Normally, she'd let her hair dry naturally — better for the hair follicles and such — but she didn't want to turn up to dinner with dripping hair. It was too long to dry as fast as she needed, so the blow dryer she kept for emergencies was the ticket. They were getting together with Tex to talk about Sean — she needed to remember to call him Michael in the meeting. They also invited Commander Andrea Garnett as she was his direct commanding officer. Hopefully, she would provide another favorable recommendation about him. The Captain wanted her views on the young seaman, and Rachel hadn't objected. She did, however, let Tom know that while they were talking about him, she didn't want all of them turning up in the gym like a firing squad at dawn. Tom had laughed at that, and promised that wouldn't happen.
Rachel picked out a beige top with a small floral display to go along with her black jeans. She usually wore blue jeans and boots, but this time she wore black with a pair of sneakers, also black. She threw a loose sweater on top, also black and looked at herself in the mirror. Are you going to dinner or a funeral? She opened the drawer where her accessories were housed, trying to pick out something that complimented the shirt she was wearing. She wasn't a big "accessory girl" so it would be against her norm to suddenly show up in bangles and chains. Besides, she didn't own any of that "bling." She did want to look nice for Tom, but she also realized that everyone else there, save Tex who dressed like a hippie, would be wearing some form of Naval uniform. If she suddenly showed up looking too nice, it would be a red flag for everybody.
"Maybe, a different color shirt," she mumbled to herself. "I can't believe I'm trying to dress up for a man." She took off the beige shirt and replaced it with a pastel pink one. She left the rest of the outfit alone, and scrambled through her drawer looking for lip gloss. "You've got to have lip gloss at least." She looked in the mirror. Forget the lip gloss. He likes me just the way I am.
1900 hours came too fast, and she braided her dampish hair and headed out the door. Academia had done nothing for her style sense, and it was at these times she wished she had read a few of those beauty magazines instead of limiting her reading to Scientific American and Paleomicrobiology white papers and articles. Palaeomicrobiology was an emerging field devoted to the detection, identification and characterization of microorganisms in ancient remains. While very interesting, it did little to enhance her outer look, although according to Tom she would look good wearing a potato sack. She wasn't too sure about that one, but he had assured her he loved the way she looked no matter what she did. Rachel walked briskly down the corridor heading towards the Captain's wardroom. Had it been eight hours since she'd last seen him?