I don't own The Last Ship.

Epilogue

Mark Lewis looked at the email that had just arrived in his inbox with some concern. As a journalist he was used to his subjects not liking what he had written about them, but this time it really felt like it mattered. Perhaps because it does, he thought to himself. It didn't always happen, but he had really liked the subjects of his interview and he felt that he had "clicked" with at least one of them.

And that had come through in his writing. And the subject matter didn't hurt either, he mused. His editor had said that it was one of the most powerful pieces she had ever read, and the world had agreed. Both issues of the Sunday Times magazine that his articles had featured in had sold out and their website had crashed with all the demand. In fact, his articles were the site's most downloaded since the Red Flu and within the top 20 downloads on the site of all time.

But he was realistic enough to know that that wasn't down to his writing. No, that was entirely down to the unique couple that were the subject of his piece. And as he stared at Dr Rachel Scott's email in his inbox, he once again recalled that rather surreal day he had met her.

It had started off surreal, right from the beginning. He had known nominally that Dr Scott and her husband stayed in an apartment in the same complex as the King when they were in the UK. It was what used to be called a "grace and favour" home and had been assigned to Rachel on her first visit to the UK after the Red Flu. Well, as the doctor herself had said, her first "vertical visit". She had, after all, been treated briefly in the UK after her rescue from the Vyerni.

On that day, he'd been reflecting on luck. And how his seemed to have changed in the past few years. For starters there had been the Red Flu. He'd been on holiday in southern France when the Flu had hit and he'd gone to ground with the Dubois family with whom he'd been staying, at their farm near Uzès. The well on the property, coupled with the fruit and vegetables grown there, meant that they could stay isolated and free of the virus for a long period of time. It had been hard, manual work but they'd all remained virus-free until the cure had been circulated in their area. So, straight away, he was one of only 10% of the world population that had survived. That was certainly lucky.

He hadn't known what to expect when he came back, but the utter desolation of the cities had stunned him. Nimes and Avignon had been ghost towns and he'd had to hitch lifts north to get anywhere near the UK. Eventually he'd been told, by a policeman no less, to just take a car!

Things hadn't been any better in the UK. He had had to give up his lovely flat in North London because there was hardly anyone there. And that meant no-one to drive the buses, run the Tube, open the shops, fix the electricity or water or tend to the upkeep of the area. Since many of the historic buildings in Central London had been kept open for posterity, the surviving population of the city had clustered more into the centre of town, but the "city" still only boasted a few tens of thousands of people and the administrative capital of the country was still in Portsmouth. That was where the military headquarters was, the King lived, and the fledgling political leadership had also established its base.

So that's where he had headed. It worked for him because his cousin Charlie had been on General Wilkins' staff. In fact, Charlie was his only surviving family. He knew he wasn't in the minority in having most of his close family wiped out, but it still hurt. He missed his parents, sister Jan and his uncle Chris. But Charlie had been great. She'd opened up her house to him and, while they hadn't been particularly close before the Flu, they'd built a relationship afterwards. She was the perfect housemate as well; regularly leaving to go on overseas deployments with her submarine thus leaving him home alone for long periods of time.

The Times had offered him his job back very quickly and he'd been happy to take it. He enjoyed journalism; writing was fun for him and he enjoyed interacting with people. He'd covered the fledgling government and politics until, one day, this job had come up.

He knew he'd only got this job because Charlie had vouched for him. The Times had been pushing for this interview and because Charlie knew he was trustworthy, she'd recommended him to her friends. She'd been quite mysterious about how she'd first met them, but had happily told him that they'd become close on the Family's first trip to the UK when she'd been their local chief of staff (which effectively meant tour manager). She was now classified as a friend of the family and stayed in their house when she was in Norfolk.

Which was why he was there that day. While nobody had heard of Doctor Rachel Scott and Admiral Tom Chandler before the Red Flu, it was probably fair to say that they were the most well-known couple in the world these days. And he was the only UK journalist who was to meet them on this trip. In fact, he was the first UK journalist to get a feature interview with them, ever.

He'd been nervous enough when he'd knocked on the door that morning, without it being opened almost immediately by His Majesty King Henry IX. As he'd stood there trying to catch his breath, the King had inspected him quizzically, "Are you the journalist?" he'd asked.

Mark had only managed a slightly stunned nod, "Don't worry," the King had told him, "she's a pussy cat, really!" He'd grinned at Mark's flabbergasted expression before waving him inside. "I was just leaving," he'd explained, as Mark's legs finally started working. Then he'd called, "Rach! Your journalist's here. Be kind!"

Finally, Mark was able to speak, "Thank you Your Highness," he'd told the King as they passed in the doorway. The King simply grinned at him and sketched a wave, before heading out the door, closing it after himself.

Mark had discretely pinched himself on the arm. He really couldn't believe that this was happening to him, but the pain told him he wasn't dreaming.

"Looks like you need a cup of tea," an amused female voice had observed from behind him and he swung around to see practically the most famous woman in the world standing in a doorway. She was dressed in a pair of jeans and a figure-hugging cream jumper and her dark hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail. She was grinning at him and he was surprised how much it altered her visage from the file pictures he had seen where she'd looked serious and professional.

He finally managed to get his thoughts in order. "Doctor Scott," he exclaimed, moving forward, hand outstretched, "It's a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for choosing me for this interview."

Her handshake was a firm handclasp and she smiled again, "Well, you came highly recommended and Charlie's a friend," she told him, turning into the doorway she was standing in, "Come with me and you can set up your gear in the dining room. Tom's on a call with the States but he'll be down when he can." She guided him through a room with a couple of sofas, a widescreen TV and a box of Lego in the corner to an adjoining room with a dining table and chairs. "You can set up here," she told him, "I'll leave you to gather your wits," she observed, smiling at him empathically. "Don't worry, I totally understand that bumping into the King wasn't what you were expecting today. Welcome to my life." As he smiled back at her, she grinned again and left to make the tea.

She had kindly given him six or seven minutes, for which he was very grateful. It was certainly longer than it took to make a tea. By the time she returned with the two steaming mugs he had regained a measure of his equanimity and set up his recorder and notebook.

He had enjoyed the tea and had enquired what it was. "A man of taste," she had observed, "unlike my husband! It's Camellia Sinensis," she grimaced, "difficult to get these days but hopefully the supply will open up again soon. His Highness always greets me with some when I come to the UK but he won't tell me where he gets it from. I think he only does it to keep me coming back here!"

"And does it work?" Mark asked.

She winked at him, "I couldn't possibly comment!"

"Do you enjoy coming here?" he asked, "After all this is the sixth or seventh time you've been back since the Flu."

"Counting, are we?" she teased.

"Well, you are kind of hard to miss," he told her.

"I didn't enjoy the first time," she told him, "It was a bit overwhelming…"

"I can understand that," he agreed. Charlie said she was a very down to earth person so being greeted at the airport by the Prime Minister and then having a full police escort along roads lined ten-deep with people waving Union flags and Stars and Stripes, to an audience with the full Cabinet and the King was probably a bit intimidating.

"But after that it's been fine," she continued, "and I'm very grateful that people just treat me normally. Particularly when we bring the kids," she smiled at the mention of Admiral Chandler's children who she was reportedly very close to.

"It must be very strange to you…?" he observed.

"Yes," she told him, looking into his eyes, "it is difficult. I'm not good at politics. At the end of the day I'm a scientist. I'm good with scientists and academics. Politicians – not so much!"

"But you're good with people!" he told her. She had put him very much at his ease, after all.

"Nathan James' crew wouldn't have said so at the beginning…" she observed.

"But they damn well would have at the end!" came another voice and Mark sprang to his feet as Admiral Tom Chandler strode into the room. He wasn't wearing his uniform that day, opting for jeans and a green and white checked shirt, but it was still clear that he was a military man.

"Sorry I'm late," he exclaimed, reaching out to shake hands, "Tom Chandler."

"A pleasure to meet you Admiral," Mark replied, returning the firm handshake.

The Admiral grinned at him, "By the way, it's bullshit that she's not good with people. It's just that she gets so tied up in her work, she forgets to interact."

Dr Scott had sighed exasperatedly, "I'll just let you conduct the interview on my behalf, shall I Tom?" she enquired acerbically.

"Like you can't get a word in edgeways!" he grinned at her and turned back to Mark. "From the smell of it, she made you drink some of that camellia rubbish. Did you want a proper drink?" he enquired, cheekily.

"Actually, I quite enjoyed it Admiral," Mark replied, as Rachel made approving noises, "So I'll stick."

The Admiral shook his head, "You Brits and your dodgy drinks," he muttered, heading over to sit next to his wife.

Rachel grinned, "Don't mind him," she told Mark, "He's still antsy after his SAS mates got him trashed on cider and let him loose on Karaoke!"

"Ha bloody ha!" retorted her husband pithily, "Where I come from, cider doesn't have alcohol in it!"

"Yes, Tom," she replied in a long-suffering way, "But we're not where you come from at the moment, are we?"

"Besides, you weren't exactly falling over yourself to help," he continued plaintively as though she hadn't spoken.

She giggled, "You were already rat-arsed by the time I got there, remember? Besides it was just too funny watching you murder I Will Survive!"

The Admiral shook his head at her in a long-suffering way, "You are so dead," he groaned.

"Uh, uh," she shook her finger at him, "Remember – I've got the video!"

Mark couldn't believe it. Here he was watching Rachel Scott and Tom Chandler, the heroes of the world, bicker like kids. He had smirked. After all, their banter was hilarious.

"Sorry, Mark," Rachel told him, noticing the smirk. She tried to make a contrite expression but couldn't quite manage, which somehow made it more endearing, "Sometimes we can't help ourselves. Ask away."

He put on his game face, "So you've been married for what, a year now?" They both nodded, "How are you enjoying married life?"

Tom reached out for her hand, and smiled at him, "From my side it's been great," he replied, "Rachel?"

She looked at him, "I agree. It's much better than I ever thought married life would be."

"Oh?" he queried.

She shrugged again, "Well I never thought I'd get married," she confessed, "I was always married to the job. Men tended to fall by the wayside when you had to drop everything to run off after the next virus." She smiled at her husband, "Luckily I don't have to do that anymore, but even if I did, I know he'd understand." He nodded, and she continued, "But I wouldn't anyway – it's not fair to the kids."

They both smiled. "That would be Ashley and Sam?" he queried, and she nodded. "Any plans to have any more?" he asked.

They smiled at one another sadly, "Unfortunately not," she replied, squeezing the Admiral's hand, "My experiences when I was kidnapped mean that I can't have kids."

"Oh my God!" he exclaimed, "I'm so sorry. I hadn't meant to bring up a difficult subject."

"It's OK," she tried to smile, "We've accepted it now. I won't say it didn't hurt but we found out a while ago and we've gotten over it as much as we can. Besides," and here she managed a genuine smile, "We've got two beautiful kids anyway." This time he grasped her hand and Mark could see in his eyes how much it meant to the Admiral that the Doctor clearly loved his kids.

"You touched on your experiences when you were kidnapped," he prodded, "You seem to have dealt with that quite well?"

She looked down before taking a deep breath and facing him, "In public I probably got away with it. But in private it's been tough," she told him, "There've been a lot of false dawns. I thought I was OK and then it came back. The PTSD, I mean." She looked down again, gnawing her lip, "To be honest, I don't know if the old, pre-virus me would have been able to cope, but I've been very lucky in my friends and my new family and they've really supported me through it. It's amazing to think that I have a better support network now than I did before the virus. I'm very lucky."

"Bullshit!" The Admiral exclaimed, turning to his wife, "You made your own luck. And there's not one of us that won't be there whenever you need us." He squeezed her hand again, before turning to face Mark, "She's the bravest person I've ever met," he explained, "Both for what she endured on the Vyerni, and for how she's handled its aftermath. She doesn't give up, and most importantly she doesn't bottle it up. She tells us when she's having a bad day, and that works for us. We can help her when we know. And we do."

"You haven't told journalists this before though?" queried Mark, slightly shocked by the amount of information he had been given.

"No," replied the Admiral, "But Charlie told us we could trust you, and His Highness is leading a campaign on mental health awareness. We agreed to talk a bit about our experiences. It is important that people talk to their friends and family and we wanted to show that, for us anyway, it does work."

He understood now. Charlie must have known this. Boy, had she done him a favour! This was definitely worth a case of that minging beer she drank! Mark looked at the woman sitting across from him. Her eyes were moist and she bore a haunted expression, but her back was straight and the only other sign of stress was the way she gripped her husband's hand like a talisman. The Admiral was right. This was a brave woman. He sought to change the subject to give her a chance to recover.

"Was it strange having both the President of the United States and King Henry at your wedding?" he ventured.

She smiled at him gratefully, aware of what he was doing. "Totally," she replied, "but the President is our Boss and, anyway, Tom saved his life, and I can't quite believe that King Henry is a personal friend to both of us! Sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming." Mark smiled internally, thinking about how he had felt after bumping into the King.

"And how did that happen?" he queried.

They looked at each other, and the Admiral replied. "Well, the King was already a fan of Rachel's," he grinned, as if to some private joke, "and then we met a couple of times when he conferred our knighthoods and again when we brought the kids to the UK. He sort of adopted the kids and us, I suppose. And now he bribes her with that gross tea."

"Oi!" retaliated his wife, then she looked at Mark pensively, "I think this virus was a big social leveller," she told him, "Like all of us, His Highness lost a lot of people he cared about." She paused, "You make new friends where you can. There are so few of us left you don't have to stand on social classes or religion or anything like that. It truly is a brave new world."

That was more profound than he expected. And it begged a question. "Doctor Scott-"

"Rachel," she interrupted.

"Rachel," they shared a smile, "The world has been clear of the virus for nearly 14 months now. Do you think it could ever recur?"

She looked down, and then directly at him. "That's a really difficult question Mark," she told him, "Will that virus ever recur? No. We're protected now and unless something happens to mutate it – no, that one will not threaten us again. But could another virus threaten the human race? Yes, it could. We believe this was an ancient virus that was exposed by the melting polar ice caps. The polar ice caps are still melting, despite the fact that with 90% of the Earth's population dead we are emitting 90% less Greenhouse gas, and they probably will go on melting for many years to come. So, yes, unfortunately the answer to your question has to be yes.

"The good news though is that Dr Connie Hu and myself and all our staff have spent the past 18 months rebuilding the CDC, and it's a truly global organisation now. While it'll take decades to rebuild the human resources we lost to the Red Flu and the Immune attacks, we're starting to build a skeleton global network again."

The Admiral interjected, "And I gather that, for some reason," here he grinned, "all the kids want to be virologists these days, so maybe they'll be better funded than they used to be!"

"We can hope," his wife agreed, "but I give it five years before we have to fight for every dollar of our budget. Let's face it; politicians have short memories!"

The Admiral's face was a picture as he asked, "Don't you want to rephrase that Rachel?"

"Not really," she told him defiantly, "It's true."

She was right that she certainly wasn't a politician. Hard-pressed not to laugh, Mark dropped in another question, "So Doctor Scott, before you got married did you have a conversation about changing your name?"

The Admiral swung round to stare at him, and Mark got the distinct impression he'd hit a nerve. Rachel smiled and observed, deadpan, "It did come up."

"Oh?" he queried, making sure to look at her and not the Admiral, whose glare was really quite intimidating.

She looked at her husband fondly, "We arrived at a deal," she explained, "Somebody here's a bit of a traditionalist," she said, nudging her husband, "but we agreed that I would remain Doctor Scott professionally, even though I'm Mrs Chandler for everyday life."

"Oh, I didn't know that," he replied.

"Well, since the world knows me as Doctor Rachel Scott, I'm not surprised," she observed, impishly. "If it wasn't for the kids I would have suggested he became Admiral Scott!" She paused as her husband had a coughing fit, "There, there darling. Just kidding!" she grinned at the glare he sent in her direction.

Seeking to defuse the tension, Mark had dropped in some background questions and Rachel had winked at him as she recognised what he was trying to do. The interview had broken up shortly after that as a priority call had come in for Rachel from her co-Director Connie Hu, and she had had to go away to take it. Interestingly, even though he was friendly enough, Mark had found Admiral Chandler significantly less loquacious than Rachel. And quite intimidating as well. While Dr Scott was definitely Rachel, he wouldn't dream of calling Admiral Chandler "Tom".

He had spoken to a number of their friends and contacts for background material. He already knew Charlie of course but she had been deployed with Talent at the time so they had had to speak remotely. In the UK, Charlie had recommended he spoke to Professor Trevor King who had been at Uni with Rachel. In the US, Rachel had put him in contact with Dr Connie Hu (who had been a riot, and had known Rachel for over 10 years before the Flu) and Jed Chandler, the Admiral's father, who had originally been a bit distrustful but had warmed up to him over the course of their conversation, and had shared a few brilliant anecdotes about the Admiral, and also about Rachel, who he appeared to dote on.

Nobody had got this sort of access before to the world's hottest couple and he had tried to do his best to do justice to their story and to them. Not because he was angling for more access but because he thought he owed it to them in light of their achievements, and everything they had gone through to realise those achievements.

He thought he'd written a good article. He could only hope they did too. Taking a deep breath he opened the email.

Dear Mark,

While Tom and I don't make it a habit to read most of the things that are written about us, a little birdie pointed us in the direction of your article. Both Tom and I are very grateful for the emotional sensitivity you showed in the way you reported our story. While we are private people and we don't really like to talk about ourselves that much, you made it easy and relatively painless. "Admiral Scott" told me to tell you he's thankful as well. We certainly wouldn't rule out meeting again in the future, given this experience. Best wishes.

Rachel

Happy days.

A/N1: Probably a bit different from your average epilogue, but hopefully still interesting. Trying to answer some questions about what it's like living after the virus, as well as how their lives developed.

A/N2: Mark Lewis also features in the sequel to this story which I have now finished planning out, but haven't even started writing. So, don't expect me to post anything soon, although I do still plan to post a sequel. For those wondering, his cousin Charlie is Commander Charlotte Richardson of HMS Talent.