The next day they reached New Cape Quest, where Nathan Bridger was waiting impatiently to board.
"Where have you guys been? I got here early, I've been waiting for you."
Oliver Hudson scowled. "We're here now."
"Where is he, can I see him?"
"He's in quarantine, but the doctor wants to see you first. She's in her office."
They walked along in silence. Hudson couldn't help but feel that Bridger was a big part of why they were in this mess. For his part, Bridger agreed.
Why had he not been more clear when he told them he was leaving? He could see - easily - how this had happened, and he was ashamed of himself and horrified at what his thoughtlessness had led to.
"Captain Bridger, Doctor Perry."
Her cool, slightly disapproving look told Bridger that she, too, believed him at least partially responsible for this mess.
"I wanted to fill you in on his medical condition."
Bridger nodded and sat down.
"He's been beaten, starved and tortured. He was kept in a loud room filled with video screens and an electric current running through the floor to keep him awake constantly. His femur was broken by a man with a steel bar, and he has a virulent new strain of TB. Our biggest concern right now, however, is that he's currently experiencing PTSD. He gave us a report, but he hasn't talked to anyone beyond that. He's bottling it up inside, and he needs to talk to someone. I'm hoping that could be you?" She phrased it as a question.
He nodded. "Yes. Yes, of course. I'll do my best."
She thawed slightly. "Thank you. If you're ready, I'll take you in."
Again Bridger nodded. He couldn't believe it when he was handed a hazmat suit. "Is this really necessary?"
Doctor Perry had also been getting very little sleep lately and was in no mood to hear criticism. "No, we just do it to torment the boy!"
Captain Hudson allowed himself a smile.
"We're living in a closed environment. This is a mutated virulent strain of tuberculosis, do you know how easily a disease like this could spread in here?"
Bridger looked shamefaced. "Yes, of course. I'm sorry."
They stepped inside, and Captain Bridger drew in a breath.
Lucas lay restlessly on the bed, mumbling incoherently in his sleep. His face was swollen around his eye, jaw and cheek, and multi-colored with bruises.
He was painfully thin. His arms were like sticks, both of them bandaged at the wrists and one wrapped at the elbow. His leg was bandaged and encased in a brace, and seemed to be suspended in traction. Captain Bridger decided that Doctor Perry's abbreviated version of Lucas' injuries hadn't gone far enough to prepare him for the boy's appearance.
Doctor Perry moved forward and placed a hand on his shoulder. He woke with a start, his eyes at once wide and terrified. It took him a minute to steady his breathing. Doctor Perry spoke loudly but gently.
"Sorry, Lucas, but you have visitor." She raised the head of the bed for him. His eyes moved to the others in the room. They widened when they found Captain Bridger.
"Captain?"
"Hello Lucas."
He saw him frown. Doctor Perry muttered in an undertone, "Louder, his hearing was damaged."
Bridger looked startled, but spoke again in a louder voice. "Hello Lucas." He sat beside him. "How are feeling, kiddo?"
Lucas opened his mouth to speak, and couldn't find any words. Tears started to rundown his cheeks.
Bridger rushed forward and hugged him so tightly that he gasped.
Perry spoke in an undertone, "He has cuts on his back."
The captain loosened his grip and moved his arms slightly, but continued to hold him.
"I'm sorry, kiddo, I'm so sorry," he repeated over and over, as he held him close and rocked him as he sobbed in his arms. Doctor Perry left them alone.
They broke apart when Lucas started to cough. He reached beside him and grabbed a cloth. Bridger was horrified when Lucas drew it back from his mouth stained with blood. Although he had been told that Lucas had TB, he hadn't realized that it had progressed to this level.
Lucas laid his head back on the pillow, exhausted.
Bridger leaned forward and wiped away a little blood from his mouth. He brushed the hair from his face and moved his chair beside him, pulling him closer. He wished that he could hold him without the suit coming between them.
"What happened, Lucas?"
"Didn't they tell you?"
"A little. But I want to hear it from you."
Lucas shook his head.
"Lucas!"
"I made my report, I don't want to talk about it again."
"Doesn't matter, kiddo. A report is different. You need to talk about it, you need to tell me what happened."
"I can't!"
Bridger took the boy's chin in his hand and made him look him in the eye. "Yes you can! You've done harder things than this in your life!"
Lucas shook his head.
"You've never taken the easy road, why would you start now? Graduating from High school at 13 wasn't easy, neither was going to Stanford and graduating at 15. Coming onto seaQuest wasn't easy, but you did it and you made a place for yourself here. And all the things you've done since being here - were any of them easy? Was it easy to fight terrorists? Mason Freeman? Clay Marshall? Was it easy to go back and save Marcus Rawlins? No, of course it wasn't. But you did it anyway. And you can do this now."
Lucas opened his mouth to say he couldn't, but surprised himself by saying, "I woke up on that beach in Bali. You know, where we found the dolphins..."
It was a hard story to tell, and there were parts of it he thought he'd never get through; just as there were parts that he couldn't tell because he really couldn't remember or because reality had started to slip for him by then. When he got to some of the harder parts of the story, he found himself skipping over a lot of it because he knew it would upset the captain.
And then they reached the moment that they both knew was coming; when Lucas raised his eyes to his captain's and asked, "Why didn't you ask to see me? When we came back, why didn't you ask about me then?"
Bridger looked away from him in shame.
"I'd dragged you all to a war on another planet, and you lost ten years of your lives. People died. I thought you must all hate me, I hated myself for it. The Hyperions told me that everyone had been returned safely, so when I didn't hear from you I assumed that you blamed me too."
"I would have given anything to be back here with you. It was the only thing I held on to, that you were out there somewhere looking for me. All that time, I believed in you. And after all that, it was just luck that it was the seaQuest that came for me. No-one was trying to find me, they all believed I was dead. Because of what you'd said."
Now his eyes were accusatory. He'd suffered for so long because of a stupid misunderstanding. He couldn't help it, he was angry.
"I know. Saying I'm sorry just doesn't seem to cover it, but I am. I didn't think, it's as simple as that. I should have made a full report and given them the names, but I was grieving for Wendy and feeling sorry for myself. I didn't consider the consequences of that. I've been thinking ever since that the families involved had right to expect something more from me, and I let you all down. I ran away again."
Lucas thought about it as he listened.
If he was honest, he knew that about the captain. He retreated when things got tough. He did it when Robert died, he did it when Carol died and now he'd done it again. He loved the captain; he would always love this man who had made him feel loved when he so desperately needed it, but now that he was older, he understood him better.
For someone who had just encouraged him to talk about the hardest experience of his life, Captain Bridger didn't like to face his demons.
And because of that, Lucas had suffered more than he needed to. If they had realized at the beginning that Lucas hadn't died, he had to believe they would have looked for him. And he'd left clues for them, like his name. Nate Bridges, a variation of the first name that always came to him when he was in trouble. The Macronesians liked to keep records, any decent hacker could have found him.
He sighed and leaned his head back on the pillow.
He suddenly felt drained. It seemed like too much to handle in one day. He had relived with Bridger at least some of the terrible things that had happened to him, confronted the captain about his own part in the mess, and then been hit by the revelation of what sort of person the captain really was.
While he'd been talking he'd felt all of the emotions he'd described - confusion, fear, hope, terror, hopelessness, anger. He couldn't feel any more today.
"Captain, I'm sorry, I'm really tired. Do you mind if I sleep?" Even as he spoke, he felt himself drifting away.
He didn't even hear Bridger saying, 'Sleep well, kiddo. Sleep well."