Character: Juan "Gator" Mejia
Setting: San Juan, Puerto Rico - Three months after Season 2
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Juan "Gator" Mejia stumbled over another downed tree, wondering how the hell Lieutenants Burk and Green were managing such a quick pace given that the road was literally buried in branches, mud, and other debris. Glancing around, Gator took several deep breaths. With everything they had seen on the mainland, he thought that he knew what to expect. But nothing could have prepared him for what they found here in San Juan. The double punch of the Red Flu, followed by a massive hurricane at some point soon after, had crippled the island.
Two hours of trampling through city streets revealed not a single survivor - only flooding, collapsed buildings, and bloated corpses. Poor Diaz was such a wreck that Petty Officer Cruz eventually sent the kid back to the Nathan James, deciding that there were some things that the teenager shouldn't have to see. Not yet anyway. Green actually suggested that Gator go with Diaz, throwing out some lame excuse about Captain Slattery needing assistance navigating around the island, but Gator wasn't fooled. He could tell that Green and Burk and Miller and Cruz were all worried about the same thing.
They were all half convinced that there really were no survivors here. That the weather had finished off those who the Red Flu hadn't. After all, Puerto Rico wasn't that big. Only three million people on the entire island. Four hundred thousand in San Juan. And fewer than five thousand in tiny Celada, where Gator grew up. Gator was reasonably good at math and a ninety percent infection rate meant that, at best, only three hundred thousand people survived the Red Flu. The hurricane that followed could easily have taken out the remainder.
As Nishioka would say, the odds of Gator finding his family alive were vanishingly small. The odds of running across the decomposing corpse of someone he knew, not so small.
But Gator couldn't leave. He needed to be here and see what had happened to his home with his own eyes. To go by the home where he grew up and where his parents still lived. Or used to live. To check on his brothers and nieces and nephews. But, most critically, to look for Isabel.
His beautiful, angelic Isabel.
At first, when he saw the note in their Norfolk apartment explaining that his wife returned to Puerto Rico as the virus began to spread, Gator had been relieved. After all, the virus had decimated Norfolk. Surely Puerto Rico, being an island, would have better containment procedures. Isabel left early, before the virus began spreading exponentially. And once she was there, he had told himself that she could have hunkered down. Riding out the worst of the virus surrounded by friends and family.
Now that he was here, though, Gator could recognize that he had been lying to himself. Puerto Rico was no different than Norfolk or St. Louis or Gitmo or anywhere else that the Nathan James had put in since their return from the Arctic. The paradise of his memory had turned into a ghost-town.
"Sir, I have someone over here!"
Javier Cruz was speaking in rapid Spanish as they approached and Gator began to translate, knowing that Green's Spanish was barely passable and Burk, Miller, and Kowalski spoke none at all. "Sounds like everyone fled inland during the last storm. There are some survivors. Most people are holed up in small settlements in la Cordillera Central." At four blank looks, Gator gestured towards the mountains. "Up there."
"Can he show us where?" Green asked, the question directed at Cruz.
In response, the man in question switched to English. "I heard a radio. You have the cure?"
"Right here." Burk held up the now familiar bright yellow case.
As they inoculated the man, who Gator now knew was Tomas, Cruz continued to pepper him with questions about the situation on the island. But Gator was hardly listening, just wanting to start moving again. It was only when Tomas mentioned Caguas, the slightly larger town to the west of his childhood home, that Gator focused his attention back to the present. "What about Celada? What happened there?"
"I don't know about Celada, but the safe zone in Caguas held," Tomas explained, switching back and forth from Spanish to English as he glanced around at the group.
Gator stared at him, hesitant to hope. "So there are survivors?"
"Si," Tomas replied simply.
Having followed enough of the conversation, Green took charge. "Burk, you, Cruz, and Kowalski go with Tomas back to Bayamon and start vaccinating people. Look for a decent spot to drop the helo with supplies. Pretty sure that these people need just about everything. Gator, Miller and I are headed east to Cag-whatever-it-was to check the safe zone there. Everyone stay frosty, just in case."
This time Gator didn't care how fast Green moved, it was still too slow. Knowing that there was a chance, an actual chance, that his family might have survived more than enough motivation. He wondered how Isabel would have done living for months in an evacuation center designed to provide only short term habitation during hurricanes. From what they had seen, the niceties such as indoor plumbing were long gone but, more importantly, the hurricane had destroyed swathes of crops. What would they have done for food? As they got closer, Green began sending out a message at regular intervals, switching between English and butchered Spanish.
"This is the United States Navy. We have the cure to the Red Flu. We are looking for any survivors. We are currently headed towards Caguas. This is the United States Navy..."
The lack of response was almost worse than before. The hope of hearing that the safe zone might have held, followed by the deathly silence from the very place that should be bustling with life. They had reached the outskirts of Caguas - there was no direct route to Celada - before running into another human, this one very different from Tomas. The man stepped out from behind a roadblock, M4 aimed directly at them. "Vete! No queremos que estés aquí."
Go away. We don't want you here.
Green set the CDC case - the universal sign for medicine, from what Gator could tell - down. "We're with the United States Navy. Our ship arrived this morning. We have a vaccine for the Red Flu."
"We didn't hear anything about a vaccine." The man sounded suspicious but not hostile, and Gator wondered whether he was military himself. It was harder to tell now, without the classic haircut as a give away.
"Happy to talk you through it, soldier. We've been making radio calls all morning," Green continued, apparently having come to the same conclusion as Gator.
"Marine," the man corrected.
Green smiled, flipping open his military ID and taking a step closer so the man could take a look. "Mountain Warfare Unit. Lieutenant Danny Green. You?"
"1/2 Scout Sniper out of Lejeune, sir," the man replied, standing up a bit straighter. "Private First Class Miguel Enzo."
"You from here, Enzo?" Green continued, voice casual, as though there was nothing unusual about standing around chatting while people were dying. Apparently sensing Gator's growing agitation, Miller gave Gator a quick shake of his head, and Gator forced himself to remember that the TAC team had far more experience than he did at actually convincing people they were for real.
Enzo was shaking his head. "Nah, I'm from New Hampshire. Our unit was sent down to hold the quarantine. When things got crazy the commander divided us up and assigned us to the various shelters. Things weren't too bad until the first hurricane hit and knocked out pretty much all of our communication systems. We haven't heard much from anyone since then but orders were nobody in or out to avoid infection. So we've stayed put."
Green was nodding. He gestured to Gator. "One of my guys grew up near here. We're just trying to find his family and get them the cure. We brought plenty with us for everyone. If you want, we can stay here while you talk to someone who might recognize Juan Mejia. He's originally from Celada."
"That makes sense, sir." Enzo looked around briefly. "You'll stay put? Shouldn't take me more than ten minutes."
"We'll be here," Green replied, brushing off an overturned tree root and sitting down, eyes drifting shut. Miller followed Green's example although he didn't quite manage to look as casual.
Gator stared at them in disbelief as Enzo left. "We're just going to sit here?"
Green cracked an eyelid. "You think going in guns blazing is a better idea?"
"Well, no," Gator admitted.
Green sat up slightly, sighing. "I get that it sucks, Gator. But think of it this way, that right there is probably why this safe zone is intact. It's a good thing."
Unable to sit, Gator tried to pace, only to quickly figure out that the only thing he was likely to do was break a leg given how much damage the hurricane had done. The next few minutes seemed to take hours as Green sat, eyes closed, unmoving, and Miller attempted to copy him. Far more than ten minutes passed before Green and Miller stood up, eyes focused on the spot where Enzo had been standing, and Gator felt his heart begin racing. Wondering who would appear. His father or a brother or...
"Juan?"
And, suddenly, she was there. His Isabel. In jean shorts and a red top, her hair tied back in a neat braid. Her voice, quivering and hoarse, was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. "Isabel!"
"Juan!"
He wrapped his arms around her, spinning around, almost tumbling them both into the debris. She was crying and laughing and Gator felt the tears running down his face as well. But none of that mattered. The only thing he cared about was that she was alive.
Then she pulled away, her hands coming up to frame his face. "Juan. We thought you were dead. We hadn't heard anything in so long. I didn't believe that it was you! And you have a vaccine?"
"Not just a vaccine," Gator replied, his grin broadening. "A cure. We can cure the sick."
Again Isabel threw her arms around him. "It's a miracle!"
Laughing, Gator pulled away, grabbing her hand. "Here, let me get you a shot."
But when he went to move towards Green, who was already retrieving a dose, Isabel pulled back. "First I have someone who I want you to see."
Gator turned, puzzled, but willing to do anything that his wife requested at that moment. And then he saw his father. "Papa!"
His head was spinning in disbelief as he charged forward, only realizing at the last moment that the man was holding a small child. Fortunately, Isabel was there to take the child, while Gator and his father hugged and then stood back to study each other from head to foot. "Mama and the others?" Gator whispered.
"We are all here. All of us." His father beamed, gesturing towards Isabel and the child. "Including Lola."
Confused, Gator glanced towards his wife, who stretched out her hand to grasp his. "Juan, meet your daughter."
"Daughter?"
For a moment, he thought he was going to pass out. A thought that was apparently shared by others as, abruptly, Gator felt Miller and Green move to stand on either side of him, holding his arms. "Steady there, Gator."
He blinked at Isabel. "What? How? When?"
She was laughing, even as tears rained down her face, the little girl she held looking around in utter confusion. "I found out that I was pregnant just after you left. That's why I came here. I wanted to be with the family, whatever happened."
Gator continued to stare, his focus now moving to the little girl - Lola. His daughter. And then he was laughing again. "A daughter? I have a daughter?"
"Congratulations Daddy," Green said, slapping Gator on the back.
Mind still whirling, Gator looked between Isabel and Lola. "Can I hold her?"
"Of course." Without warning, Isabel plopped Lola into Gator's arms.
He stared at the child, uncertain of what to do. Lola regarding him curiously, before stretching out a hand to try to grab his glasses. And Gator felt a rush of emotion - love, wonder, terror - that he had never before imagined. He had a daughter.
"Hello Lola. I'm your papa. And boy do I have a story to tell you."