For the second time in less than 12 hours, Lucas awoke to Westphalen's hazy face swimming over him. He blinked rapidly several times and shrunk back into the pillow of his med bay bed.

"Feeling better?" she asked, smiling expectantly at him.

Lucas took inventory of his various discomforts before answering. He still felt fuzzy and tired, but his head seemed to have ceased its relentless hammering, and he was thinking much clearer than before.

"Yeah," he said, and carefully pushed himself up in bed, so he was sitting against his pillow.

"Good, then you're free to go," she said, picking up a clipboard from the table at the side of his bed and flipping through the pages.

"I am?" Lucas asked, staring up at her in surprise. He'd expected at least an overnight stay – a proposition that wasn't entirely unappealing given how tired and ill he still felt.

"You are," Westphalen answered. She put back the clipboard and moved closer to the side of his bed, her smile disappearing. "We're evacuating again, Lucas."

"What?" he said, bolting upright in the bed. The sudden movement prompted a bout of coughing that took a minute to overcome. Finally, after several deep breaths and a long gulp of water, he recovered and turned back to the doctor again. "We're really abandoning the seaQuest again? Why?"

Westphalen frowned, looking deep in thought for a moment.

"The scientists studying the lava formation believe there could be a recurrence of that split in the ocean floor," she said carefully. "The UEO is transporting several nuclear bombs to the area and will use those to permanently close the hole. But in the meantime, Captain Bridger is just taking a precaution and evacuating all but a handful of the crew. You and I are on the last shuttle out, and it leaves in an hour."

Lucas sat quietly for a moment, staring hard at Westphalen. He couldn't shake the impression that she was holding something back, but he nodded and moved to get out of bed.

"So I should start packing," he said, pushing back the blankets and trying to swing his legs over the side of the bed.

"Not so fast," she said, laying a hand on his arm. "First, change into these," she said, handing him jeans and a sweatshirt. "And then you can leave with Lieutenant Krieg."

"I don't need a babysitter," Lucas grumbled.

"This from the boy who couldn't remember to take two tablets for his fever."

"I'm not a boy," he said.

"Fine. Young man," she consented. "But boy or not, you're not leaving here without Lieutenant Krieg. Doctor's orders. He'll help with the packing."

Westphalen ignored Lucas when he swore unintelligibly under his breath. She slid curtains around his bed to give him some privacy while he changed his clothes. To Lucas' chagrin, he soon was forced to admit that he might need Krieg's help after all. A wave of intense dizziness assailed him as he stood up from the bed to put on his jeans, and he immediately sat down again and closed his eyes until the room decided to stop spinning. He couldn't believe how weak he felt. His legs seemed barely able to hold his weight. He even found it difficult to just raise his arms over his head to take off the gown he was wearing and pull on the sweatshirt. By the time he was done dressing, he was sweating and breathless. Krieg showed up just as Lucas was trying to figure out how he would put on his shoes.

"Here, let me," Krieg said, and to Lucas' great embarrassment, the officer bent down and slid his shoes on. Lucas would have swatted him away and insisted on doing it himself, but he was too tired to bother.

"Thanks," he said when Krieg was done.

"No problem. You ready?"

"Yeah, I think so," Lucas said, and dropped once more to his feet. He wavered slightly, but managed to fight off the dizziness this time. Krieg gripped his arm to steady him, and together they walked out of the med bay.

By the time they had made it back to his quarters, Lucas felt drained of what little energy he had left. He fell into the chair in front of his computer and struggled with a brief but painful coughing fit, then closed his eyes and leaned his forehead into his hands. Despite his scrawny build and tendency to skip meals and sleep, he hadn't been a particularly sickly child and he couldn't remember the last time he'd actually been ill. The constant exhaustion was starting to become annoying.

"How do you ever find anything in this room?" Krieg called from behind him. Distracted by his miserable state, Lucas had almost forgotten Krieg was even in the room with him. "It'll take an hour just to find your shoes in this mess."

"I can't believe I'm being lectured by the guy who kept raw beef in his sock drawer," Lucas groaned.

"At least I keep my socks in a drawer," Krieg said, dangling a sock in front of Lucas' face.

"Hey, this one's clean," Lucas said, snatching the sock from Krieg.

"How can you tell if you don't smell it?" Krieg asked, wrinkling his nose.

"The clean ones are on the floor. The dirty ones go behind the bed."

"What a system," Krieg muttered. "Look, we should probably get started packing you up. Westphalen will be out for blood if you're late for the shuttle."

"Yeah, all right," Lucas said, rubbing his eyes tiredly. He stood up and instantly felt light-headed, black dots dancing before his eyes. He blindly reached out a hand to steady himself with something solid.

"Whoa, not so fast," Krieg said, jumping to Lucas' side and helping him ease back into the chair. "You okay there?"

"Just a little dizzy," Lucas said faintly. "This sucks."

"I know," Krieg sympathized, squeezing Lucas' shoulder. "Well, why don't I do the packing and you can just order me around."

Lucas rolled his eyes. "Thanks for the offer, but as long as you're doing the manual labor I've got some files on my computer I need to upload. With the memorial service coming up I might not-" He stopped suddenly. The memorial service. His father. Between the fever and his short trip to the med bay and now the evacuation, he'd forgotten about his father.

"Not what?" Krieg asked.

"Huh?"

"With the memorial coming up you might not…" Krieg prompted him.

Confused, Lucas looked over his shoulder at Krieg, who was stuffing a flannel shirt into the bag. Krieg noticed him staring and stopped packing for a moment.

"You all right?"

"Yeah," Lucas said slowly. Krieg shrugged and resumed packing.

Lucas turned back to his computer. Out of habit, he checked his mail first. There were four new messages: one from his mother, one from a former colleague of his father's, one from an old family friend, and, to Lucas' surprise, another message from the prankster pretending to be his father. He opened that one first, grabbing a pen from the top of his desk and absently spinning it around his fingers.

Lucas,

I understand your skepticism. I know it's hard to believe that I survived the explosion. But I promise you, it really is me and I really am alive and well. To prove it to you, I have included with this message a picture of us that I used to keep in my office.

Please write back when you get this.

Love,

Dad

Lucas stared hard at the screen. His heart was racing. He saw that there was something attached to the message, but he felt strangely apprehensive about opening it. His hand shaking, he dropped the pen on the floor.

"Everything okay over there?" Lucas had forgotten again that he wasn't alone in the room.

He didn't answer the question. "Ben, can you do me a favor?" Lucas asked instead. He needed some privacy.

"I'm not already doing you a favor?"

"No, er, yeah," Lucas stammered. "I, um, I think I left my watch in med bay. Do you mind going back to look for it?"

"Sure, we can stop by on our way to the launch bay," Krieg said, picking up more clothes for the duffel bag.

"I kind of need it now," Lucas said, thinking fast. "It, um, well, it was a gift from my dad."

He felt guilty lying to Krieg, but he needed to be alone, and now.

"Yeah, sure," Krieg said, and Lucas winced a bit at the sympathy on his face. "I'll be right back. And don't touch that bag while I'm gone."

"Thanks," Lucas said, watching as Krieg walked out.

As soon as he'd left, Lucas read the message again, his eyes locking on the file that was attached to the note. Almost reluctantly, he opened it. Sure enough, it was a picture of Lucas and his father. He recognized it immediately.

He hadn't often been inside his father's office, but the few times father and son had talked over a vid-link Lucas had noted the framed photo his father kept on the table behind his desk. Lucas hated that photo. It had been taken just before he had joined the seaQuest. Lucas had won a prestigious grant for his vo-corder research, and his father had arrived, late, at the presentation ceremony to smile for pictures and tell his son he was being shipped off to sea.

Lucas gaped at the screen. This message was not from a prankster. It was from his father. His father was alive.

For an absurd moment, Lucas almost laughed out loud. It all seemed so ridiculous. It didn't make any sense. Bridger had told him there were no survivors. The seaQuest had been monitoring the area for hours and surely would have seen a shuttle or escape pod leave.

But maybe, Lucas thought, just maybe, there was a way. He grasped onto that thought, wrestling with it in his mind like he might a complicated equation or a computer virus.

Leaning back in his chair, Lucas plucked another pen from his desk and nibbled at it thoughtfully. He tried to imagine his father's escape, how it might have happened. The biggest mystery was how a shuttle had managed to avoid the seaQuest's sensor equipment. The WSKRS were nearly infallible, the most sensitive instruments of their kind in existence. It just didn't seem possible. Lucas frowned in concentration, trying to figure out the puzzle.

The extreme heat from the lava had been wreaking havoc on the outer skin of the submarine. It was possible that the thermal energy had produced enough distortion to throw the WSKRS offline too, at least temporarily. If the shuttle had left during a window when the WSKRS weren't fully functional, it was possible that it could have escaped unnoticed. It wasn't likely, he admitted. But the circumstances had been far from ideal that day. And Shan had been manning the WSKRS – not his field of expertise. If Ortiz had been monitoring the WSKRS as usual, surely he would have caught any malfunctions and fixed them immediately. But Shan, well, it was possible he could have missed something.

Still, once the shuttle hit land the UEO should have found it. Lucas supposed that his father easily could have disabled the locator beacon in a shuttle, thereby keeping it from drawing UEO attention. If the UEO wasn't looking for a shuttle, if they believed that everyone had died in the explosion, then it was possible they hadn't found an abandoned shuttle on an isolated beach. Again, not likely, but possible.

Lucas was a firm believer in possibilities. His life so far, his science and his computers, all of it stretched the boundaries of what most people considered impossible fantasy. No one had believed a dolphin could talk, but he was making it happen. He'd seen aliens and studied geological events most people would never even hear of. After everything he'd seen, he could certainly believe his own father was alive. He had to.

Lucas squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed a hand over his face. It all seemed so utterly unbelievable. He looked down at his hands and saw that they were shaking. He also felt like throwing up, but that could have just been the flu.

He looked up at the computer monitor again, the letter sitting there, looking so innocent in the middle of the screen. His father was expecting him to write back, but Lucas couldn't even begin to figure out what he would say. "Hey, Dad, glad you're okay," just didn't seem to fit the mood, but it was the only thing that came to mind right now. He hadn't even started to mourn his father, and now he was supposed to celebrate his return to life? Lucas shook his head slowly, exacerbating the headache that was pounding between his ears. He was so tired, his eyes itchy with exhaustion.

Lucas leaned back in his chair and pulled his hands through his hair in frustration. He was running out of time. Krieg would be back at any moment. Lucas thrust forward in his chair, slipping the pen into his mouth, and reached his hands toward the keyboard.

Dad,

Lucas stopped. Already it felt bizarre just to type the word. He just didn't know what to say. He'd been so angry with his father just before he'd "died." Now it felt as though that anger and hurt had all but disappeared, but he wasn't sure if it could be that easy. He finally settled for a simple approach.

Dad,

I believe you.

Please write back and tell me what happened. I won't tell anyone about you, but I need to know that you're really okay. How did you escape without anyone noticing? What's going on that is so dangerous?

I love you too.

Lucas

He stared at the screen. The note seemed far too short, but it would have to do. They were the only words he could find for now. Lucas read over his brief note several more times. He hit the send button just as Krieg came back.

"I'm sorry, Lucas, I couldn't find your watch. It must be around here somewhere."

Lucas stared at him for a moment, confused, then gave Krieg a short, embarrassed laugh.

"It was in my desk," he said, holding up his wrist to show Krieg the watch that he'd actually been wearing the whole time. "Sorry."

Krieg laughed with him. "That's okay," he said. "I actually got to watch Westphalen crawling on hands and knees trying to find it under your bed. There's a sight I probably won't get to see again."

Lucas laughed again, and it occurred to him that despite feeling sick and exhausted, and knowing that he was evacuating his home, a warm relief had swept over him. He felt almost relaxed, and more than a little bit excited. With a small smile, Lucas turned fully around to his computer, remembering what he'd initially set out to do. He really did have to upload some files before they evacuated the seaQuest. He and Krieg worked in silence for several minutes when Lucas heard the officer swear suddenly.

"Sorry," Krieg said sheepishly when Lucas turned around. "We're late. Westphalen really is gonna kill me."

"Better you than me," Lucas grinned.

"What makes you think she won't kill you too?"

"You're the babysitter," Lucas said with a shrug. "The babysitters always get blamed. Trust me on this one."

"Not this time, kid," Krieg said, stuffing another handful of clothes into the duffel bag. "Did I miss anything?"

Lucas turned away from his computer to do a quick survey of his room. All of his important personal items were still packed in another bag from the first evacuation. It looked like Krieg had fit most of his clothes into the duffel.

"Nope, you got it all," Lucas said.

"I'm nothing if not thorough," Krieg said with a proud grin, and Lucas groaned. "Come on. Let's get out of here."

"Just another minute," Lucas said, staring hard at the computer monitor as though that would make the files upload faster. He watched as the files flew by in a rush of undistinguishable letters and numbers, impatiently drumming his fingers on the desktop.

"Lucas-"

"Almost there," he said. Lucas noted in frustration that one particularly large file seemed to be taking longer than the rest to upload. Then he saw the name of the file, and he actually gasped in surprise. Frodo.

It had been at least 10 years since his father had called him by that nickname.

"Something wrong?" Krieg asked. Lucas jumped in surprise at his voice.

"Um, no," he said, quickly recovering from the shock that had frozen him in front of the computer. "No, it's fine. Everything's uploaded."

"Good. Let's go."

Part of Lucas wanted to refuse. He didn't know of any files called "Frodo" on his hard drive, and Lucas knew every file on his computer. Which meant that this one must have been placed there, and fairly recently. Which meant it could be from his father. Lucas had to know what was in that file, and he had to know right now. If he left, it would likely be at least a day or two before he had access to a reasonably private computer and got a chance to download the file.

"Seriously, Lucas, we've got to go now."

Lucas took one more desperate, longing look at his computer. He didn't have a choice. He turned off the computer and stood up.

"Let's get out of here," he said. With one more quick glance around his room to make sure nothing important was left behind, Lucas grabbed a coat from the back of his chair and followed Krieg out of his room.

xxxXXXxxx

Bridger may have put up a resigned and accepting front for the visiting scientists, but the truth was, there was no way in hell he was diving his submarine into the floor of the ocean without a fight. Or at least looking at some other alternatives. In fact, he had assigned no less than a dozen of the seaQuest's own scientists – many of them among the most esteemed geologists in the world – to come up with a solution, any solution, that would save this boat. But with almost all of his crew now evacuated and just a few hours before Dr. Wu's worst prediction was supposed to come true, no one had any answers. At least, none that didn't require sending the seaQuest to an untimely death. And so Bridger was back on his bridge, practically pacing a rut into the grilled floor and ignoring the concerned squeals coming from Darwin's tank.

"Why hasn't Darwin been evacuated yet?" Bridger barked to no one in particular.

"The last shuttle leaves in 20 minutes, sir," Ford answered from directly behind the captain, startling Bridger with his closeness. "Darwin will be on it."

Bridger turned to face the commander and nodded once. Ford was worried. Bridger could read the concern in the way his eyebrows were knotted together and his eyes kept darting around the bridge, as though he were making sure no one else was watching. He wanted to say something, and Bridger knew exactly it was. The captain sighed deeply and sat in his chair.

"What's on your mind, Commander?"

Ford spared one more cautious glance around the bridge before he stepped closer to the captain's chair, leaning over Bridger so he could talk without being overheard.

"Are you really going to go through with this, sir?"

"I certainly hope not," Bridger answered, lowering his own voice in deference to Ford. There really was no reason to keep anything from the rest of the bridge crew, though. They all knew what the plan was. "Commander, I have every intention of doing anything in my power to save this submarine. But if destroying her is the only way to save the planet, and at this point that's the way it looks, then I'll do my job. And I expect the same from you."

"Of course, Captain," Ford said, looking stunned at the suggestion that he might not be up to task. "I never-"

Bridger waved a placating hand. "I know. I know I can count on you. Let's just keep hoping that Dr. Wu is as bad at predicting major geological disturbances as he is at reporting for routine health exams."

Ford laughed, and for the moment the spell of tension was broken. The commander drifted away from the captain's chair to check in with the crew scanning the ocean floor, and Bridger was again left alone with his thoughts. He stared quietly out the main viewscreen, frankly awed by how completely innocuous the scene in front of him appeared. The water was calm, the ocean floor appeared stable. The only sign that anything traumatic had happened a few days ago was a pile of rubble; the remains of the underwater facility itself had been blown to pieces or buried under tons of rock.

And yet, bubbling under this peaceful scene was a ferocious river that could, literally, steal Bridger's dream right out from under him. The captain had been faced with dozens of similar risks in the past, times when he thought he might lose his boat. But always those situations had come up suddenly, when the danger to his crew, the people he had come to know and love, had been more pressing, and so the seaQuest herself was something he could hardly spare a worry over. But now the people were safe, at least most of them, and it was the boat he was afraid of losing. And here he sat, with hours to prepare for that loss. It was agonizing, he decided. Almost unconsciously, Bridger reached out and lay two gentle hands on the console in front of him.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

Almost as if in response, a blinding flare of red light filled the main viewscreen, and the seaQuest shuddered. The end was about to begin.

xxxXXXxxx

In the shuttle, Lucas' first inclination that the seaQuest was in trouble came with a sudden jolt that shook him out of an impromptu nap. After Krieg had escorted him to the shuttle bay, Lucas had wandered to the back of the shuttle, still sick and weary beyond belief, and tucked himself into a corner where he rested his head on his balled-up jacket and dozed quietly. With that first jolt, awareness had assaulted his tired mind and he suddenly heard Krieg shouting outside that they had to leave, and right away. The murmurs of panic that Lucas had barely noticed in the shuttle cabin suddenly grew to excited and furious chatter. Lucas woke up enough to ask the ensign sitting next to him what was going on.

"I guess it's true," the young ensign said, clutching to the underside of his seat to ride out a roll of turbulence. "I guess they're really gonna do it. I just wish they'd hurry and get us out of here."

"Do what? What's true?" Lucas asked, his voice rising.

"The captain's gonna destroy the seaQuest," the ensign answered. "They say it's our only choice."

Lucas didn't bother to wait and find out who "they" were. He bolted out of his seat, immediately stumbling from both the unnatural shaking that was rocking the shuttle and his own dizziness. Not one to be deterred, he fumbled his way to the front of the shuttle cabin, where Westphalen was frantically flipping through the pages of a clipboard.

"Doctor, what's going on?" Lucas demanded when he'd reached her side.

"Lucas! You need to sit down!"

"Is it true the captain's going to crash the seaQuest?"

Westphalen spared him a brief, searching glance before nodding. "I don't have time to explain everything now, Lucas, but yes, that's exactly what he's doing. Now sit down!"

"But-"

"Lucas, I mean it. We're leaving right now!" She squeezed his shoulder briefly and nudged him back toward his seat.

"What about Darwin?" Lucas asked.

"We've got him!" called back an ensign from the front of the cabin.

"Lucas-" Westphalen started.

"Okay," he said, shrugging off her hand on his arm and stalking back to his seat, where he all but fell into the lap of his neighboring ensign when another tremor shook the boat. "Sorry," he muttered, and crunched himself back into his corner.

Lucas was fuming, to say the least. He was sick and tired and now they were treating him like a mere child – lying to him and mollycoddling him.

And the worst part was that he was scared to death.

xxxXXXxxx

"Shit!"

Ford's undignified but not at all inappropriate swear rang across the bridge as the crew, almost in one motion, raised hands to shield their eyes from the blinding red light that filled the viewscreen. As suddenly as the light came, it disappeared, replaced by a violent rumble that swept through the seaQuest like a shiver through her spine. This shiver rocked the submarine severely, and everyone on the bridge was forced to latch onto whatever solid support they could find to keep from toppling over.

"Damn. It's early," Ford yelled, catching Bridger's eye from the far side of the bridge. The captain nodded.

"I know," he called back. "You know what to do."

Indeed, Ford and everyone else on the bridge knew exactly what they had to do. With no more time for drawn-out farewells to his beloved boat, Bridger gave his console one more affectionate pat and then sprang to his feet.

"Shan, join Krieg in the shuttle bay and make sure that last shuttle gets out of here now."

"Aye, sir," Shan called, and raced off the bridge.

With the last shuttle off, that would mean the seaQuest was left with a total crew of 20. They would be the last ones to leave the boat, using the same shuttle that had transported the scientists to the seaQuest a few days ago. Bridger would be leaving in the Stinger – a matter that Lucas likely would bitterly challenge once this whole mess was behind them. He could just hear the whining now: "But I should've been the one to pilot her!"

Bridger smiled tightly at this thought. He'd have plenty of time to deal with Lucas and all of his manifest frustrations later. Right now, he had a boat to crash.

"Okay, people, you all know what we have to do," Bridger called out to his crew. A few eyes swerved in his direction, but everyone stayed on task. "O'Neill, Ortiz, secure your stations and get your people to the shuttle bay. Crocker, you've got 10 minutes to make sure no one else is left onboard." Ordinarily such a precaution wouldn't have been necessary, but with disaster looming even closer than anyone had expected, he wanted to be sure.

"Aye, Captain," Crocker said with a short nod, and he gathered four security officers for one more cursory survey of the seaQuest.

"Hitchcock, keep her steady," Bridger yelled when another jolt shook the submarine and he fell sharply to one side.

"We're trying, sir," Hitchcock called back, never turning away from her own console and barking soft but stern orders to two nearby crewmembers.

Ford fell hard against Bridger's station when another sharp blow hit the boat just as he was making his way to the captain. The commander winced with the impact but immediately turned wide, serious eyes to Bridger.

"Are we really going through with this, sir?"

"I don't see how we have any other choice," Bridger said matter-of-factly, meeting Ford's intense stare. "Unless you have any last-minute solutions you've been holding out on me."

Ford shook his head, clutching onto the captain's console to ride out another wave of trembling in the boat.

"I didn't think so. Come on, let's do this."

There was no hesitation on Bridger's part as he reached beneath his shirt for the keys that hung around his neck. Following his lead, Ford sighed and did the same, and they leaned together over the console to arm the seaQuest's weapons.

"Captain, we can't hold her much longer," Hitchcock called from up front.

"Just give us two more minutes, Commander," he yelled back.

The weapons ready, Bridger grasped Ford's forearm and offered his second-in-command a resigned smile.

"You served her well, Commander," he said. "Now get out of here. Give me a minute to relieve Hitchcock, and then you get that shuttle away from here as fast as possible. I'll take care of the rest."

"Captain, you can't-"

"Yeah, I can," Bridger interrupted. "Now go."

Ford looked dazed for a moment, then nodded firmly and called out to the remaining crewmembers to follow him off the bridge.

"Be careful, sir," he said, and then offered a barely successful grin. "I'll see you in a few minutes."

"That you will, Commander."

With just himself and Hitchcock remaining on the bridge, the captain secured his own station and rose unsteadily to his feet, the boat now tipping dangerously from side to side. He fumbled to the front of the bridge until he was clinging to the chair where Hitchcock was trying, rather unsuccessfully, to control the boat.

"I'll take over from here," he said, resting a hand on her shoulder. Hitchcock seemed prepared to argue over the dismissal, but quickly nodded once and moved aside.

"She's rough, sir," Hitchcock warned. "It's a lot more chaotic out there this time than last time. I don't know how long you'll be able to control her."

"It doesn't need to be long," Bridger said through a grimace, grappling with the controls.

"Good luck, sir," Hitchcock said. In a rare and sudden gesture, she gripped his shoulder and squeezed tightly. Brigder risked a look away from his console to give her a grateful smile.

"Thanks, Commander. Now get out of my sight."

And he was alone. Bridger fought for control of the boat for an agonizing eight minutes. By the time he intercepted the all-clear signal from the shuttle with the last of his crew, his arms were practically aching from the physical strain of steering the ship. Once they were safely away, he set the seaQuest – his dream, his pet project, hell, in some ways his best friend – on a course that would crash her into the ocean floor in 10 minutes. At least, he hoped he had 10 minutes.

Bridger leapt from his seat and sprinted off the bridge, fighting to stay on his feet in the turbulence. As he ran, he didn't spare even one backward glance. He'd already said goodbye.

AN: Many thanks to the keen-eyed Nodi for catching my misuse of the word "delusional" in the previous chapter. I hate mistakes like that!