Yeah, we're doing another one!
"I can't think of everybody, Pope, I'm sorry."
"Mason! You son of a bitch!" Pope screamed. He leaped up onto the driver's side running board and lunged halfway through the window, hands latching onto Tom's coat collar and yanking him sideways. Tom shouted and grappled with Pope, and Anne scrabbled for the wheel and the gear shift as the truck rolled idly forward.
"I told her to trust you, Mason! After your little princess murdered Lourdes and flounced out on us, Sara wanted to skip town! And I told her to stay, I told her you were her best bet for surviving this war! I told her to trust you and she stayed because she trusted me to be right about you!" Pope roared, yanking hard on Tom's coat collar.
Behind the rage was something Anne had never seen from John Pope: fear, real fear, desperate and frantic. And it brought a lurch to her stomach because she knew that feeling; it was the terror of knowing someone you love is in danger.
Tom was unmoved. "Well, then trust me now, because we're short on time here and the mission has to take priority!"
"Trust you now?! Ohohoho, Cambridge, right now I wouldn't trust you to tell me a bear shits in the woods!" Pope sneered. "'Can't think of everybody'?! You wanna be the big man in charge, it's your job to think of everybody!"
"Yeah, and it's also my job to make the tough calls, and that's exactly what I'm doing right now!" Tom retorted.
"Tough calls, huh?! Tough?! Because this sure the hell didn't seem like a tough call to you, Mason! You were ready to throw Sara away like trash as soon as you had to make a choice! You didn't even blink, you sick son of a bitch! If it was Anne stranded out there and me with the truck, you'd've chucked me outta that cab on my ass in a heartbeat!"
"If it was Anne I'd have made the same call, she'd know that the good of the 2nd Mass comes first over any one of us," Tom told him. Next to him, Anne looked down at her lap, gut twisting.
"Bullshit! That's bullshit, Mason! How many times did you put the rest of us on the line to protect you and yours?! I wanted to put a stop to that halfbreed daughter of yours before she went and had a body count and if you'd've let me, Lourdes would still be alive!" Pope screamed. "And now you wanna act like you would never, oh, not you, not Tom Mason, you're all about duty first!"
"If that's how you feel, then you ought to be glad I had a change of heart," Tom retorted.
"Oh, yeah, all hail the new and improved Tom Mason, Hypocrite Supreme!" Pope sneered. "The hell is the matter with you?! You've been wrong in the head ever since you came back from your daddy-daughter road trip and we all know it!"
"'Wrong in the head'," Tom echoed derisively.
"Yes! And your wifey and your yes-man over there know it too, I've seen it, they're just too chickenshit to say it!" Pope snarled. "After all those corny-ass speeches about love and hope and how hate and anger aren't enough, how we gotta hold on to who we are and who we love, and now you wanna play the stone-cold badass?! Now you wanna be the tough guy?! Nuh-uh!"
Anne felt a guilty clench at the back of her throat. In her mind's eye she could still picture Tom, soon after his return, demanding she remove her triskelion pendant; not a request, an order handed down to a subordinate with no explanation. Her hand rose to the vacant space below her collarbone where the pendant had rested, and her heart twisted.
"Well, maybe you're not the expert on me that you apparently think you are," Tom said icily. "War demands sacrifice."
"Sacrifice?! I didn't drag your sorry ass outta those mountains on three good ankles between us so you could sit here and preach to me about sacrifice!" Pope screamed.
"Every minute we waste here is a minute closer to that offensive hitting us," Tom warned. "We need to move, we'll circle back around for Sara, I promise. That's the best I can do right now."
"God damn it, Mason, she's alone out there! She might not have that kinda time! There's Skitters and Hornets and God knows what else! You think a Skitter's gonna give a shit about your promises?!"
Anne couldn't take it anymore. "Tom," she said, urgently. "We need to go get Sara first."
Tom scoffed. "You're taking Pope's side?" he asked.
Anne stared at him, aghast. "Pope's side? Pope's side is our side! We're on the same side!"
Tom looked back and forth between them, and then at Weaver. "Dan, you can't possibly think this is the right play."
"Maybe it isn't," he agreed. He paused, then added grimly, "It's just that I remember a time when you would've gone and done it anyway."
Tom scoffed again, and reached for the gear shift with one hand, his other hand still trying to pry Pope's grip loose. Anne, her hand still on the gear shift, gripped it tighter.
"Tom!" Anne shouted. "Pope and Dan are right! Before you went up there, you wouldn't have had to think twice about this, there wouldn't even have been a decision to make! You'd have gone after her the second you heard she needed our help, mission be damned!"
She saw Pope gawking at her, and it would've been funny in different circumstances.
Finally, Tom sighed. "All right, get in," he said flatly.
Pope let go of Tom's coat and dropped back down, and thumped the palm of his hand against the window frame, eyes wild. "I'm gonna need the flamethrower." He shoved himself off from the truck for momentum and bolted for the gate, hollering over his shoulder, "I'll be right back, do not let him leave without me!"
/
Pope navigated, wedged in on the passenger side between Weaver and the door. He sat as far forward on the seat as he could, like that would get him there faster, with the flamethrower propped between his knees. His leg was bouncing, fingers tapping, tense as a piano wire, breaking the silence only to bark directions at Tom. The closer they got, there was a distinct tremor in his clipped words.
Weaver nudged Pope with his shoulder. "She's a tough gal," he said, voice kept low. "Whatever's out there with her, she'll hold 'em off as long as she can. We'll get her, Pope."
There was a long silence before Pope answered in a strangled voice, "Yeah... yeah, Cap'." He fell silent, then cleared his throat and said louder, "'Course, we could've been there and gotten her already and been on our way to blow up whatever this thing is, if our illustrious leader wasn't off the deep end."
"Pope," Weaver said warningly.
"Oh, what? You know it, I know it, Anne knows it. Not my fault you're both too busy licking his boot leather to say anything about it," Pope retorted. This prompted a chorus of outraged protest from both Anne and Weaver, and Pope sneered, "Oh, boohoo! Were we all just supposed to pretend we didn't notice Dr. Jekyll turning into Mr. Hyde here?"
"Yeah, well, maybe I'll take a few days off and let you take a turn being in charge, maybe then you'll realize it's not so easy making decisions for the greater good, for the good of everyone and not just myself," Tom shot back.
Pope chuckled, sour and humorless. "You wanna talk about the greater good? All those times you were off playing with E.T., y'know where I was? Right here, with the 2nd Mass. All those times I put my ass on the line for you and yours, well now you're gonna do this one thing for me, for my family. Now it's my turn, Mason. How's that for your greater good?"
Tom just shook his head to himself, not answering, and silence settled over the crowded cab again.
Tom, eyes on the road, had a tight grip on the wheel. He wanted to tell himself it was the insubordination that had his nerves on edge. He wanted to, except he couldn't get it out of his head: the appalled look in Anne's eyes when he'd accused her of siding against him, the desperation in Pope's eyes as he'd screamed at Tom... what Pope had said, what Anne and Weaver had said.
When the truck rolled into the clearing, Sara was huddled down with her chest almost on her thighs and shielding herself with her arms over her head. Pope yelled her name at the top of his lungs and was flinging himself out of the cab before the truck had rolled to a halt.
He blasted the ground across from Sara with the flamethrower. Anne spotted the pod that had gotten Sara stuck, and she was astonished at the cruel improbability that there would happen to be one of those pods out there in the woods, so far from any human encampment.
Pope blasted a path of singed and smoldering leaf mulch across the clearing to Sara, then threw the flamethrower aside and shed his leather jacket, tossing it over Sara's head, and she pulled it over herself while he swatted at the things buzzing around her. Swearing in frustration, he picked up the flamethrower again and hit the air around Sara with a few short blasts.
Once it was done, Pope threw the flamethrower aside again and crouched next to Sara, who sat up and dragged the heavy jacket away and sank into the frantic embrace he pulled her into, clinging to one another.
Tom, sitting in the driver's seat still, watched as if from miles away. This was all very touching, but they were losing time. Tom thought to himself that should've driven for the hatchery anyway and let Pope throw his tantrums.
Pope fussed over Sara, checking her over. He kept holding her face and tucking strands of her hair aside. It felt weird to Tom, seeing such tenderness from Pope of all people. It was a stark contrast to his usual leering sarcasm; proof that even John Pope had a heart.
Heart or no heart, though, they had a mission to do. And Pope had been right: Tom would easily have put the mission over Sara's safety. He'd been entirely willing to leave her to take her chances with whatever was out here in these woods with her. Such was the lot of the leader; sometimes you had to be heartless. Perhaps Tom hadn't always understood that, but he did now. "Rebecca" had shown him the necessity of toughening up.
Pope rested his forehead against Sara's, and Tom knew this moment was not meant for his eyes; he doubted Pope would be so openly affectionate if he knew they were being watched. Then again, the man was full of surprises. Maybe the experience of deeply caring about someone besides himself would blunt some of those sharp edges.
Bad timing on Pope's part; now was the time for the 2nd Mass to make their edges sharper, not softer. And Pope was the 2nd Mass's sharpest edge; the last thing they needed was their berserker losing his touch.
Across the clearing, Pope was saying something to Sara, their foreheads still pressed together. Tom felt a guilty clench in his throat. He supposed he was being hypocritical, after the lengths he himself had gone to in protecting those he loved.
But times had changed. Tom had changed. He had needed to change. They all would need to change. That was what "Rebecca" had shown him. It was necessary. It had to be.
As Pope helped Sara to her feet, she stumbled and grimaced. Pope guided her over to the truck, and Tom was close enough to see streaks of blood on the thighs of her jeans.
"Anne?" Pope shouted.
Anne, standing beside the cab, had seen the blood and was already in motion to grab her med kit. She shouted back, "Bring her over here!"
She motioned them around to the back of the truck, opened up now so Pope could hoist Sara up to sit on the edge of the frame. Weaver and the rest of the crew inside gathered around, watching with mixed confusion and worry. Anne wasted no time fetching the scissors from her med kit and cutting away the bloodied denim. With a sickening lurch, she saw the deep gouges in Sara's skin and remembered the mutant bug that had bitten Tom. They'd torn away denim and flesh alike.
"That's not a reassuring face," Sara remarked, mustering a nervous chuckle over a wince.
Anne recovered herself and gave Sara a gentle smile. "You'll need some stitches, but it's nothing I can't handle."
The bites were mostly on her thighs; her lower legs had been tucked under and she'd been shielding her face and neck, and the bugs had found her shearling coat a tougher defense than the denim jeans. Even so, Anne spotted a few gouges in the outer suede. Anne made quick work of disinfecting and stitching the wounds, all while Pope fretted over Sara like a mother hen. Sara's insistence that he was worrying over nothing did little to dissuade him, and Anne thought she might've been protesting too much anyway; she looked like she was enjoying the attention.
With the bleeding under control, Anne packed up her things and gave Sara a light squeeze on the shoulder, then headed off to reconvene with Tom. She was halfway back to the cab when the muted crunch of boots on leaf mulch caught up behind her.
"Hey, Doc-" Pope called. She paused and turned. He made a couple false starts at saying something. "...I owe you one," he managed at last, nodding stiffly.
Anne smiled wryly. "I'm the doctor, it's what I do."
"Not just for that, but for- for having my back before, with your dear darling husband." The bite in his voice on the moniker seemed like a token effort, more force of habit than actual venom, betrayed by the very real awkwardness in his tensed posture and darting eyes.
It was always surprising, these moments when Pope's smart mouth and lashing wit failed him and he was forced to be genuine. Even the 2nd Mass's resident jackass was human after all.
"You'd have done the same if it had been me, or Dan," Anne said.
Pope smirked. "You think so, huh? There's a fair few things I've been called in my day, but 'team player' is not one of 'em."
Now it was Anne's turn to smirk and she did, cocking her head. "No? So why wasn't it Dan that went over the wall in the ghetto? Because, uh, from what I heard..." Yep, that shut him up.
Anne's smile softened and she said, "You were right. We need to take care of our own, above all else. That includes Sara- and it includes you, too. You're just as much a part of the 2nd Mass as any of us, even if you don't want to admit it."
He made a rueful face, somewhere between a grimace and a reluctant smile, and nodded. "Yeah... that's what Sara always says, too."
Anne nodded approvingly, patted his arm and said, with a tinge of teasing, "She's smart, you should listen to her."
/
The mission went off smoothly, but Tom was stonily quiet and pensive on the drive back to Chinatown. Anne and Weaver said little, stifled by the heavy silence in the cab.
It was late in the evening when Tom got word that Pope had been looking for him. Tom found his way to the back door of the tea shop basement that Pope and Sara had claimed for themselves. His first knock at the door got silence in return, and the second knock prompted an irate 'This better be important!' from within.
"It's Tom," he said. "I heard you were looking for me?"
There was muffled talk, some shuffling noises, and finally the door opened just wide enough for Pope to squeeze through and shut it behind himself.
"Ah, Professor!" he said, all exaggerated cordiality that only served to make more obvious his annoyance at the interruption. "You are indeed just the man I wanted to see! 'Course, not at this exact moment, but we might as well get this outta the way."
"And what is it we're getting out of the way?"
"My letter of resignation, Cambridge, that's what," Pope said, smirking and spreading one hand expansively. "Now, we're a little short on pens and official 2nd Massachusetts letterhead, so you're gonna have to use your imagination here."
"I'm really not in the mood for your games, Pope," Tom said shortly.
"Good, me neither." Pope wasn't smiling anymore. "It's been a hoot and a half, Mason, but this is where we say our goodbyes. Me and Sara, we've been talking it over, and we decided it's high time we hit the road."
Tom stared, then scoffed. "You're quitting the fight? What, your girlfriend gets in trouble once and that's it? Big, bad John Pope runs off, tail between his legs?"
"Who said anything about quittin'? We're gonna take our guns with us, we don't need to be your lapdogs to bust some Skitter skulls," Pope retorted. "Besides, that ain't why. It's war, war's dangerous, I know that and Sara knows that. Hell, neither of us would mind goin' out in a blaze of glory."
"Then what's this about, Pope?"
"You, Mason. The new you: Mister Stone-Cold Badass." Pope wiggled his fingers in the air mockingly. "See, we're not feeling all that confident about the new you. You're not cut out for the 'tough guy' act. The fuse is a-burnin' and we're not sticking around for the fireworks. We're not dying for the new you. This is not what we signed up for."
Tom heaved a sigh. "Do you want an apology? Is that what this is? You're expecting me to say I'm sorry that I was willing to make a choice for the greater good?"
Pope chuckled sourly. "And we're back to the greater good. Now, tell me again how being ready and willing to toss your people away like misfit toys figures into this 'greater good' thing?"
Frustrated, Tom said, "That's not- Pope, I understand how you were feeling before. And I understand how it must've looked to you, when I was willing to make that call. Of course I wouldn't have wanted Sara to get hurt out there, but she is one person, and I have the entire 2nd Mass to consider-"
"Yeah? And what is the 2nd Mass, Mason?" Pope sneered. "Because it looks to me like every man, woman and child in the 2nd Mass is just one person."
"Yes, they are, and in order to save as many of them as we can, sometimes we have to be willing to risk one person to save the rest," Tom said.
"And how many times do we sacrifice just one person for your greater good? Huh? 'Just one person' here and there, someday there won't be anyone left! What'll be the point of your greater good then, huh?" Pope snarled.
"The point is to win a war, Pope!"
"And what do we win if everybody's dead? What's the grand prize when you're the last man standing?"
The words sat heavily between them, as did Tom's silence in response. Pope scoffed, shaking his head.
"Must've been one helluva sales pitch your new pals gave you, huh?" he jeered. "I mean, for you to go and ditch everything you once held sacred, all that love and hope crap-"
Tom snorted derisively. "Sales pitch? So, what, you think they're putting one over on me? Or maybe you want to accuse me of being a sleeper agent again, is that it? Been a while since we did that routine!"
"Nah, not this time," Pope shot back. "This time, I'm thinking maybe you were full of shit all along. Hell, you dropped the 'noble, sensitive academic' act quick enough!"
"So now I'm a fraud?" Tom flung his hands out, exasperated. "I don't suppose there's any room in all that cynicism for the possibility that I just might've changed?"
Pope regarded him, then chuckled dryly and shook his head, lip curled in a sneer. "You wanna know why I stuck around this long, Mason? It's not because I liked being around you, that's for goddamn sure. But you got results. You and your harebrained schemes always pulled through somehow. And you stuck to your guns, and that's something I respected. But now you take a joyride to the moon for a few days and you come back spouting this 'find your warrior' bullshit? You come back a changed man, just like that? It was that easy, huh?"
"And that's a problem? I thought you of all people would appreciate that I was toughening up," Tom jabbed. "I had my eyes opened, that's all it was. they showed me a different way of fighting this war- a better way."
"A better way?!" Pope hollered. "You used that poor bastard Scotty's corpse as Skitter bait! That kid Denny got ripped apart and you barely had two words to say about it! She and your darling lizard-boy used to be two peas in a pod back in Charleston, and now she's dead and you had nothing to say to send her off! You never would've gone after Sara if Anne hadn't spoken up, and I bet you wouldn't have lost a wink of sleep if she'd died! People stop being useful to you and you're ready to drop 'em like a bag of dog shit, and you wanna stand there and tell me to my face you've changed for the better?!"
"Change isn't always easy," Tom barked. "They told me-"
"I don't give a good goddamn what they told you!" Pope shouted, red-faced with fury. "Our planet, our turf, our rules! Your new masters don't like it, they can come down here and take it up with me!"
"Well, I guess we'll find out who's right one way or another, won't we," Tom said icily.
"Yeah, I guess we will. Or, uh, you will," Pope said. "If this is how it's gonna be then I want no part in it. Everybody's got a line in the sand somewhere, Mason, even me. First thing tomorrow I'm getting one of these rust buckets up and running, and then it's adios, amigo."
"That's it?" Tom said. "After everything, that's it?"
"Sure is. Sara's thinkin' we ought to go and see what's left of Key West. We'll raise a glass to your warrior from the porch of our beach house." Pope took a slow inhale and exhale, then his teeth flashed in a sharp grin and he clapped Tom on both shoulders. "You have a good evening, Cambridge." Pausing, he glanced back at the door and then leaned over and added conspiratorially, "I know I will!"
Chuckling crassly, Pope threw him a mocking salute and ducked back into the basement, leaving Tom to stare in affronted disbelief at the door as it shut behind him.
As Tom made his way back towards his and Anne's quarters, people here and there nodded to him, or called out in greeting. Some, busy with their own tasks, paid him no attention.
He passed by Dingaan in animated conversation with Cochise and headed towards his makeshift workshop in a hurry.
Anthony was one of those that nodded in greeting as Tom passed by. Anne had been worried about Anthony's mental state since Denny's demise, hadn't she? The way he'd taken his rage out on the captured Skitter had, Tom supposed, been rather out of the ordinary for the man.
...Denny. What had he said by Denny's pyre? She and Ben had been close in Charleston. He'd almost forgotten. He had forgotten. She'd been a good fighter. A good kid. Smart, cheerful, brave. She'd been 2nd Mass. What had he said at the side of her pyre?
Passing by the meal tent, a few fighters stood around laughing. One of them reached over and wiped a dot of stew off another's nose, saying something teasing about it, judging by the twist of her mouth and eyebrows.
Just one person. They were all just one person, like Pope had said. Just one person. Just one person, but each of them was someone to somebody, he supposed.
Even John Pope had somebody that was someone to him now.
The 2nd Massachusetts ceased to exist without all those one persons. Take those people away one by one, what would remain? An idea with nobody left to think of it.
He remembered, then, the vision that he and Lexi had shared in stasis: a dinner table with those he knew and those he had come to know sitting around it. His family. All of them, family. His sons, Anne, Weaver. Even Pope, a comrade of nearly three years, who in spite of his infuriating tendencies was always by their side when it mattered most.
He'd told Lexi that what made them human, what brought them all together, was the human capacity for regret, grief, guilt, compassion. Love.
Tom was barely aware that he'd stopped walking. He stood in the midst of Chinatown, throat suddenly heavy, eyes misted.
Love. Compassion. Regret. Family. What else was it, if not those, that had gotten them this far? What else were they fighting to protect, if not those two things?
The Dorniya had shown him another way to fight, certainly. Perhaps even a good way to fight. Perhaps, strategically, a better way.
But what had they gained since then?
What did they risk losing?
/
The next morning, Tom found Pope up to his elbows in the engine block of one of the wrecks scattered around Chinatown. He was muttering and swearing under his breath as he labored over the car's inner mechanisms.
Tom rapped on the raised hood. Pope spared a glance at him from beneath the rusted steel, then he went back to work.
"Come to see us off? You're a little early and I'm kinda busy, Professor," Pope drawled.
"I'm sure. Could you find a minute, though? I'd like to say something," Tom asked.
"Not sure there's much left to say, if I'm being honest." He didn't bother lifting his eyes from his work this time.
"Actually, there is something. I came over here to thank you," he said, smiling wryly. Pope sprang up from beneath the hood, eyebrows sky-high.
"You're gonna thank me?" Pope echoed, hand pressed to chest in overwrought shock.
Tom smiled ruefully and added, "Yeah, well, brace yourself, because I'm going to apologize too."
Pope looked genuinely astonished now. Turning back to the wreck, where Sara was packing up the back seats with supplies, he called, "Sara, c'mere! Come witness a historic moment!"
Sara glanced over, shielding her eyes against the glare of the low-angled morning light, then she ambled over. "Yeah?" she asked, looking expectantly back and forth between Pope and Tom.
"Oh yeah." Pope turned back to Tom and gestured. "Proceed."
Tom sighed a little and rolled his eyes long-sufferingly, but he took a breath and began anyway.
"You were right, and you were right to call me out. That whole 'find your warrior' thing... what I saw out there, after the power core mission... what she- it- they- told me... it felt like the right idea at the time. I thought, maybe I did need to get angry. Maybe I did need to let my hate and rage run wild. But you were right, that's never been me. And that's not what got us this far. And I realized that again, because of you and Sara. It's protecting the people we love, protecting our people, banding together and supporting each other. That's what's gotten us this far, not hate, not rage, not anger. I had lost sight of that, and I'm sorry I let that happen. I'm sorry I let it come to this, get this bad."
Sara was smiling slightly, nodding slowly. Pope regarded him silently, then rubbed his hand over his face and sighed. "Well, shit, Cambridge, I didn't know you were gonna get all weepy on me."
Tom chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder. "You know, if you and Sara aren't too set on Key West, there's still a place for you here," he said. "It won't be the same without you."
He chortled. "Is this where we swap 'Best Friend' bracelets, Mason?"
"I mean it. Friends or not, maybe we don't always get along, but you've got a place here. I'm gonna be honest, it's hard to imagine the 2nd Mass without you," Tom said. To Sara, he added, "I know we haven't known you for very long yet, but I'm glad Pope found you and that you decided to come back to us- that you decided to trust me. I failed you as a leader and as a friend yesterday, but I'd like to do better, if you'll stay."
"Well, damn, with an offer like that..." Sara remarked wryly, but her smile was genuine.
"This is an unconscionable level of sentimentality, Cambridge, even for you," Pope told him, but the corners of his mouth twitched. He heaved a sigh and slung an arm around Sara's waist, squeezing lightly. "What d'ya think, babe? Do we hightail it to the Keys and break this poor man's heart?"
"Mmmm... I don't know, I've been pretty big on second chances lately," Sara said, with a sly sidelong glance at Pope.
Pope spread his free hand in a 'what can you do' gesture. "Guess we're gonna hold off on that beach house, Professor. So, what's next, O' fearless leader?"
Tom smiled, turning to take in the camp around them as it woke up. Ahead, the last days of a war. Beside him, comrades. Family. What next, indeed?