CHAPTER 47 - BATH-TIME
Biological Agents?! Elizabeth typed furiously.
From what Jack had learned and just told her, the space debris from earlier in the week had damaged a tank and a freezing tube to a storage unit which contained spores and possible biological hazards from Coal Valley which were on their way to be studied on Earth.
Because the scientists on Coal Valley couldn't determine the exact scientific nature of the foreign and previously unknown substances, they had carefully sealed them hermetically and then encased them in liquid nitrogen.
It wasn't until liquid nitrogen had leaked out of a damaged tank, that a crew member discovered that fluctuating temperatures had caused the specimen containers to crack. The contents had thawed and escaped into ship's open air with the very chemical meant to keep them frozen.
It's going to be okay, Jack's reply came over her bracelet.
What do you mean biological agents?! Bacterium? Viruses? Protozoan? Parasites? Poisonous Fungus?
Yes.
Yes? Yes? Which one?!
All of them.
All of them! Oh, God. If it floated into the vents, it went to other rooms. Other levels.
Where have I been since the bombardment?
The cargo bay. Our living quarters. The infirmary. The cafeteria. The cafeteria kitchen.
Elizabeth wracked her brain as she mentally revisited each place she had gone over the last few days. Each time she remembered another place she had been, she became more anxious until she thought she might hyperventilate.
The classroom. The lounge.
The lounge! Jack! No, he said he's okay, she remembered with a grateful sigh.
But what about me?
I may have been exposed to a biological hazard!
I'm going to die. Alone except for a handful of tomatoes! she wailed.
Remain calm. Remain calm, Elizabeth, she repeatedly told herself.
Breathe deep. Relax.
NO! Don't breathe deep! Don't inhale anything!
Okay, that's just stupid. I have to risk breathing.
Remain calm. Remain calm.
Two hours later, she was tired of saying it and no longer needed to. She was bored almost out of her mind. And she realized that if she had been exposed to toxic substance, she probably would have started to have had some sort of reaction by now.
What are you doing? she lazily typed to Jack, hoping she didn't wake him if he was now resting.
She had been typing him every thirty minutes but he had nothing new to report about when she was might be checked. He was back in their living quarters, where he had been sent to remain until the ship was found to be clear.
She wondered if he was taking a nap but a few seconds later he replied.
Still in our room. It's been cleared so it's a temporary holding place.
Are you by yourself?
No.
Who's with you?
Becca. Candy. The guys from the lounge.
What are you doing?
Playing cards.
What KIND of cards?!
Not strip poker. Just cards. How's the baby?
Hopefully not exposed to deadly hazardous biological agents. Or he might have webbed toes and more than ten fingers.
He?!
Not sure yet. Just saying.
He would be nice.
That's what you read in my message? He? What about the webbed toes and more than ten fingers part? Did you miss that?!
Got excited by the he.
If I don't get out of here soon, he or she may just end up being born in a payload bay.
You're not going into LABOR?! ?! ?! !
Not unless labor can be brought on by boredom.
Don't worry about the viruses or whatever. I'm sure you're fine. Its just a slow process to check everyone. So far, no one has tested positive that I know of. Are you feeling okay?
I just threw up but I think that's from eating three green tomatoes. I got bored and hungry.
Don't eat green tomatoes!
I have to pee.
Find a drain in the floor.
That's disgusting.
Guys do it all the time.
I'm not a guy.
Thank goodness.
I'm freezing. There's no heat coming in the vents.
Walk around.
I'm tired of walking around. Come save me!
Jack?
Jack?
Jack?
Sorry, it was my turn. I had a full house. Aces high. I just won you seventeen water-minutes.
Seventeen! Thank you! ! ! !
No problem. Just doing my husbandly duty by looking out for my wife.
Your wife is stuck in a cold barren room. Or did you forget that already?
Jack?
Jack?
Sorry, it was my turn to deal.
Win me some more minutes and I'll give you that sponge bath or shower.
Damn, girl, now I can't concentrate on the cards.
I love you.
I love you.
Elizabeth was sitting in a trough under some grow lights to keep warm when the room's door slid open forty minutes later.
She scrambled to her feet and would have tripped over the metal container's rim if she hadn't steadied herself by grabbing onto a tomato cage.
"STAY WHERE YOU ARE."
With one hand, Elizabeth feebly tried to upright a tomato branch she had broken but she followed the command and remained where she was standing.
Over the shoulder of one of the men in hazmat suits, she glimpsed Jack in the doorway. He had one of his hands on the door jam to keep the door from sliding closed.
"Hi sweetie!" he called out to her.
Elizabeth looked tentatively at the two men approaching her. Actually, she wasn't sure at first if they were both men. They were encased in white suits covering their entire bodies which hid any type of identifying features.
"Hold out your arm," one feature-less body ordered. His voice, sounding firm, echoed through the room.
Elizabeth had barely moved her elbow, when she felt the prick of a needle and saw a drop of blood and then another fall onto a slip of paper.
"Open your mouth, please."
Elizabeth's eyes grew wide as she thought that she recognized the second voice. "Mr. Turner! Is that you?"
"It is," he replied. Elizabeth saw a smile behind his plastic face shield. "It turns out that an old man with four degrees, including one in microbiology and another in evolutionary biology, isn't worthless after all. They've put me to work."
As she allowed her mouth to be swabbed, Elizabeth ran her hands along her arms and shivered. Now that she was no longer under the warm grow lights, she felt instantly chilled.
"Put my sweatshirt on her. She's cold," Jack directed as he unzipped his jacket and tossed it across the room.
"I thought you guys would never get to me," she remarked. She quickly put on the sweatshirt while the younger of the men who was examining her ran a calibrator through her hair. Mr. Turner scrutinized her fingers. Running a swab under each of her short nails.
"You're the last one. The rest of the ship has been cleared."
"I thought they were doing us in order," she whined. "By Earth Citizen number."
"They were at first," Jack yelled out across the room to her. "But then just went level by level," he said with an apologetic look.
Fifteen minutes later, Elizabeth had been declared free of contaminants and was holding hands with Jack outside their living quarters.
When the door slid open revealing the crowd of occupants lounging on berths and standing in the small open area, Elizabeth stopped short. She could hardly believe that twelve people could fit in their room. It was twelve people too many in her opinion.
Although the ship had been cleared of biological hazards and the spores were contained, the passengers and crews had decided that there was no reason to stop their impromptu party.
"Hey, she's here. The last of us," someone cheered above the music playing from a computer when he saw Elizabeth standing in the doorway.
An applause went through the room as Elizabeth came inside and made an exaggerated bow.
"You're late for the party."
"I was temporarily detained," she replied with a smile. "Apparently the back room on the bottom level of a transporter is the last place you want to be during a lock time where people are checked in some sort of order."
"We're celebrating that we haven't been killed yet," a young woman shouted humorously.
"Space debris, lack of food, biological agents. Hell, life on Coal Valley was easier than this."
Someone handed Elizabeth a beer, but then, remembering that she was pregnant, took it back.
"Everyone out please," Jack ordered. Although he was friendly, his voice carried a touch of authority which everyone picked up on.
The crowd quickly exited, leaving just the four roommates inside. Becca and Candy both climbed onto their berths and continued a conversation about eligible men and whether they'd rather be stranded on an island with an engineer or a chemist.
The door had barely slid closed when it opened again.
"Ah, there you are, Ms. Thornton. I heard you were the last of the passengers to be cleared."
"I'm fine. You didn't need to come check on me but that was very nice of you."
"I'm not here to see you. It's my daily check-up on your husband- my other Thornton patient," the middle-aged man explained as he motioned towards Jack.
"Lift up your shirt," the doctor routinely ordered.
Instead of lifting his shirt, Jack reached his arms over his head, and used both hands to grab ahold of his undershirt's back collar. He pulled the fabric over his head and tossed the undershirt onto his berth.
Running his hand through his ruffled hair, he stood in front of the doctor. "Just as easy to take it off. I need to clean up anyway."
Elizabeth found herself staring at Jack's exposed bare chest. For the last few days she had looked at it in a clinical way. Now she found herself looking at it in a decidedly different way. It glistened with a thin layer of sweat. While she had been freezing down below, the level of their living quarters had been getting a full blast of heat.
Jack moved away the small bandage covering the recent surgical area and allowed the doctor to scrutinize it
When he moved his body, angling it so the doctor could get a better look as his entire torso, Elizabeth averted her glance.
It's getting hotter in here, she thought as she shifted her feet and then moved to Jack's locker to put away his sweatshirt which she was still wearing.
And I don't think it has anything to do with the transporter's temperature.
She looked inside the locker. It seemed the safest place to keep her eyes focused. Staring at Jack's body made her head spin and her lower body tingle.
Yes. I'll just keep staring at the locker for a while.
Jack followed the doctor's orders to breathe in and out, but his mind was focusing on Elizabeth. He watched her take off his jacket and shove it into the locker.
Her arms were toned. Her tee-shirt was fitting her more tightly than it had months ago now that she had gained a few pounds. He liked it. Her new fuller figure. He had always liked her muscles, but he liked this too. He liked it so much that he found himself wanted to touch it.
Looking at her made him think of what he wanted to be doing with her. About the things he could do to her. The things he would do to her when they were alone. If they were ever alone again.
The doctor was efficient with the wound. Cleaning it. Spraying it with antibiotics. Covering it again. It took less than minute but it seemed much longer as Elizabeth found herself wanting to be alone with her husband.
Finishing with Jack, the middle-aged doctor turned to Elizabeth.
"I might as well as check your vitals now too," he suggested, causing Jack to inwardly groan at the delay in being with his wife.
Jack watched as the doctor lifted up Elizabeth's tee-shirt and put his hand underneath it. He knew that the doctor was being totally professional as he used a stethoscope, but it made Jack feel a twinge of jealousy at what the man was doing. Not jealous of the man. Jealous of the man's hands.
Jack wanted his own fingers underneath Elizabeth's tee-shirt. And there was no need for a stethoscope for what he wanted to be doing.
Elizabeth barely paid attention as the doctor moved the medical instrument across her chest and her back. Dropping the instrument, which remained looped around his neck, he picked up her wrist and felt her pulse.
"It's a bit fast," he observed with a mild frown and he counted her beats.
"Yeah, um. Whatever," she replied as realized her thoughts about Jack were having physical manifestations.
"Hmm. Still. I'd like to see it a bit lower. Are you feeling okay?"
"I'm fine," she said dismissively. The last thing she wanted was the doctor to spend any more time in their living quarters.
"Lie down on the berth."
Those are supposed to be my words, Jack thought with a frown. He was finding that Elizabeth's long hair, tousled from her time in the tomato trough, was somehow seducing him.
Elizabeth followed the doctor's instructions, allowing him to lean over her prone body and gently press on her stomach.
Jack sighed in frustration and rubbed his hands together, fighting the urge to cross the room, push aside the doctor, and crawl on top of Elizabeth.
Elizabeth looked over her shoulder at Jack who was now leaning against one of the bunks. Her cheeks became flushed as she thought the most unladylike thoughts.
Oh my! What I'd like to be doing with him. How can one shirtless man be so sexy?
Jack looked up from the floor and their eyes met. She saw by the look in his eyes that he was having the same thoughts that she was having. There was no hiding the desire.
"Becca. Candy. Would you two mind giving me and Elizabeth some space? We need to talk," Jack said seriously after the doctor had walked out.
Both women looked up from their laptops, gave each other curious looks, and then tentatively closed their computers.
"Sure," Candy replied with a slight worry in her tone.
"How long do you want the place? Fifteen minutes or so?" Becca asked as she jumped down from her berth.
Jack frowned as if contemplating a matter of concern. "Actually, we'll need a lot longer. Maybe an hour or so. Sorry. It's just with my stomach and the long day, I'd rather not have to go somewhere else to have a private conversation."
"We'll be fine. Dinner hour starts soon," Candy offered hurriedly. She hoped that there wasn't trouble in their marriage.
The door slid closed behind the two roommates who had quickly left to give the married couple some much needed space.
Jack walked to the door and punched in a code. Locking everyone out.
He moved the short distance to Elizabeth, who was sitting up on a berth. Her chest was moving in and out as her heart rate became more intense.
Taking her by the waist, he gently pulled her to him. Without hesitation, he kissed her possessively before separately ever so slightly. Leaving less than an inch between their eager bodies.
His voice was husky as he looked in her eyes.
"I believe that earlier I agreed to let you give me a sponge bath. And I have been waiting an awful long time."
He fingered a lock of her hair before focusing his eyes on her mouth. "I have spent the last few hours thinking of nothing else."
"Really?"
"I lost almost all my water minutes because I forgot that a pair of twos doesn't beat a royal flush," he said in a low voice.
Elizabeth giggled softly. "You didn't?"
"I did. Finally, I realized that without water minutes, there would be no sponge bath. I ended up going triple or nothing and won them back."
"So you were worried about a sponge bath –"
"Or a shower," he interrupted. Somehow he made the word 'shower' sound like a passionate activity which had nothing to do with getting clean.
"Not worried about my safety from biohazards?" Elizabeth asked.
"Nah, you're my Elizabeth. I'm with you forever."
Jack's words were breathed onto her neck as he moved his mouth. "And when I began to worry, I just thought of your nickname."
"My nickname?" she managed to gasp. Her mind was finding it hard to concentrate on his words as his tongue now making tantalizing movements against her left earlobe.
"Mmm mmm" he mumbled while his hands now found their intended target.
"Dandelion?" Her voice faltered.
Speaking in a full sentence was too difficult for her as his hands and mouth assaulted her senses. In a good way. A very good way.
"I've never known a dandelion that wasn't resilient. I had faith in you. You always come through danger unscathed," he noted. "I, on the other hand, am dangerously close to losing all control."
"Let go of my waist and I'll get a wet washcloth", she answered with a breathless gulp.
"Oh no. It's now too late for that", he replied hoarsely as he leaned closer and cupped her face in one of his palms. She closed her eyes, anticipating his touch. But instead of his lips on hers, his mouth brushed against her eyelids. Her cheeks. The hollow of her neck.
Elizabeth's heart quickened even as she felt herself grow weak under his scrutiny.
"You see, all that thinking of you touching me, well . . . I have a strong feeling that I'm going to be getting sweaty in the very near future," he informed her in a low intimate voice before claiming her lips again.
"You're hurt," she reminded him with a whisper when she pulled back slightly.
Her hand touched his chest. He sucked in his breath as her fingers ran along his skin.
And then he was kissing her again.
And slipping her tee-shirt over her head.
His strong and gentle hands stroked her arms, her sides, the dip in the lower part of her spine.
His tongue moved against hers as if the last three days without a passionate kiss had been a month. A year. When in reality it had only been days.
Which was far too long for the couple in love.