Ch. 2 – Golden Curls
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The sunlight streaming through the window woke him.
Danny's first act was to reach across the bed, hunting for Kara and Frankie, but the sheets were once again cold. A glance at his watch told him why. It was already 0814. Kara would be at the modified command center by now. A rustling sound caught Danny's attention and he picked up the small slip of paper.
On shift. F's with R for the day.
She knew, of course. Kara knew that he would panic when he woke up alone, his mind instantly going to another place, another time, those days in Baltimore, back before they understood just how bad things had gotten here on land. Three days of wondering whether he would ever see her again, whether he would ever meet his daughter. Three days of holding his breath every time they located another corpse. Three days of promising himself and God and anyone else who would listen that, if he just got her back, he would never let her out of his sight again.
Throwing off the covers, Danny dressed in his clothes from the night before, ignoring the wrinkles. At times he wondered why they bothered with the uniforms at all. Half of the guards were now civilians – or, at least, they had been civilians in their past lives, the ones that ended the day the Red Flu jumped to phase six and became a full global pandemic. But it was one of the many traditions that they clung to, an attempt to keep a semblance of order in a world that was no longer recognizable.
Danny swung his vest over his shoulder, heading towards Burk's cabin, surprised to see Carlton standing in the doorway, coffee cup in hand. Usually he and Kara worked the same shift, a pattern that Danny and Carlton had fallen into back in the early days when Kara was pregnant and the list of people that Danny trusted to look out for her in an emergency was about three people long – himself included.
"Daddy!" Frankie catapulted herself out of the cabin, heedless of the steps, and into her father's arms.
Dropping his vest, he hugged the child against him, breathing in the sweet baby scent that clung to her no matter how filthy she was. Danny had never been so aware of the importance of readily available water until he had a small child. Despite Kara's best efforts, Frankie's fingernails were a permanent shade of brown and her curls a perpetual mess. Even now the sun was glinting off several grains of sand clinging to Frankie's skull. "Hey pumpkin. You have a good sleepover with Auntie Ravit?"
Curls bounced as the little girl nodded enthusiastically. "Uncle Carlton made us spaceship pancakes!"
"Millennium Falcon, kid. It was the Millennium Falcon," Carlton corrected ruefully.
Ravit appeared next to her husband in the doorway, a hand resting on her rounded belly as she listened to Frankie chatter about pancakes and spaceships. Even now, months after Carlton made the announcement, Danny still found it baffling. Carlton and Ravit had actually chosen to bring a child into this hellhole. Deliberately. Going so far as to ask Captain Chandler's permission in advance. Not that Danny didn't love his daughter with every fiber of his being – hell, he would kill anyone who suggested otherwise – but deep in the recesses of his heart, Danny knew that if he could go back, Frankie wouldn't exist today. Because raising a child in this world, struggling to survive day-by-day, was no kind of life.
Frankie deserved so much more.
He had actually asked Carlton once, one night when they had both had a little too much to drink.
"Why in God's name would you want to bring a child into this world?" Danny demanded, knowing even as the slurred words spilled out of his mouth that he was crossing a line, saying things that shouldn't be said, and couldn't be unsaid.
Yet, as insulting as the question was, Carlton didn't hesitate. "Because I believe that things are going to get better. I believe that Doctor Scott's going to do it. I believe that there is a future."
Danny stared at his best friend, a man he trusted to watch his child, to protect his wife, to guard his backside no matter the circumstances and wondered if he knew him at all. "God, I wish I was still that gullible."
Later Danny had apologized but Carlton had brushed him off.
"Someday you'll see that I'm right. Then you can apologize."
"How are you feeling?" Danny asked Ravit, noticing her hand shifting to her back. He remembered Kara doing that, towards the end of her pregnancy. Of course, back then they were moving once or twice a week, one temporary camp to another, the almost daily hikes putting constant strain on Kara's small frame and probably contributing to Frankie's early arrival. That was an experience nobody wanted to repeat. Immediately upon learning she was pregnant, Ravit was transferred to instructor status, going no further than the compound walls.
"It's getting a bit tougher to chase that one around," Ravit replied, nodding towards Frankie. "We're going to the children's center to meet up with Mrs. Dowler's preschool class for the memorial."
Ravit waited patiently, knowing that Danny wanted to object, to demand that she keep Frankie here where it was safe. Where she wasn't surrounded by other children and their germs. The argument wasn't new, and it was one that Danny always lost. While Kara was willing to tolerate many of his protective instincts, she drew the line at segregating their daughter from other children, insisting that preschool was important. That Frankie needed to spend time with other children. That she deserved to have as normal of a life as they could give her. And Kara was right about one thing, Frankie loved preschool, chattering endlessly about her teacher and coming home with colorful paintings and strings of macaroni – the one item of food that they never seemed to run out of.
So instead of giving Ravit the answer that he wanted, Danny simply nodded. "You'll stay with her there?"
"She always does, Green, you know that," Carlton interrupted, but neither Danny nor Ravit paid any attention to him. Unlike Carlton or Wolf or even Kara, who would roll her eyes and call him paranoid under her breath even as she agreed to whatever protective measure he was proposing, Ravit never questioned Danny's vigilance. She once told him that life in the camp wasn't that different from her childhood on the West Bank, a parallel that Danny found strangely comforting. After all, Ravit turned out just fine.
Ravit nodded, her eyes solemn. A promise. Nothing would happen to Frankie. "Of course."
"You on duty?" Danny asked Carlton.
"Just waiting on you. Nishioka offered to stay late so I could have breakfast with the girls." In other words, Carlton wanted to talk to Danny before they got to the command center. Carlton disappeared for a moment, presumably to deal with his coffee cup. Ravit was not the kind of woman you handed your dirty dishes to on the way out the door with a kiss and a smile.
"You have fun with Mrs. Dowler." Danny gave Frankie another squeeze, kissing her soft cheek, then set her down. He waited, watching until the last golden curl disappeared behind the closing door. He could never look away until she was actually gone, always wondering if this was the last time that he would see her, whether this would be his final memory of his daughter.
The second the door closed, he turned to Carlton, pulling his vest over his head. "Any word from Doctor Scott?"
"Nothing yet." They both knew what that meant. Quick results were good. Slow results meant she was double-checking, hoping that she was wrong, before she passed along the word. Infected. "I heard you know some of them."
Danny ground his teeth, walking swiftly towards the armory, the familiarity of the routine exhausting him. "Buddy from my hometown. With his wife and kid."
"I can tell them if you want."
"No, I need to do it."
Just as Danny had known that Carlton would make the offer, Carlton knew that Danny would decline. They knew because, when the situation was reversed and Carlton had been faced with delivering the worst news imaginable to his cousin, Danny had made the same offer. And Carlton had made the same response.
And yet, somehow, Carlton still had hope.
Rather than stopping by the lab, Danny headed towards the command center. He knew that he was simply delaying the inevitable, but he wasn't ready to face one of his oldest friends and tell him that his son was going to die. Stepping through the door, Danny was amused by how quickly the personnel snapped to attention. They all looked so much younger than they used to - or maybe he was just that much older. A glance around the room told him that Kara wasn't here, most likely in the lodge liaising with the civilian representatives, a task that took up the bulk of her time these days and would be especially pressing today because of the memorial. At least she and Frankie would be in the same place. "Report."
"Everything is in order, Commander," Lieutenant Nishioka replied. Danny nodded towards Carl. Although he wasn't friends with the man – they did not have a single thing in common besides the Navy, as far as Danny could tell – he ran a tight ship. If Nishioka said everything was in order, there was nothing to worry about.
"Any word from Captains Chandler or Slattery?"
"Tiger team checked in an hour ago. They're on their way back with supplies, including the items that Doctor Scott requested, sir." Danny poured himself a cup of coffee as he listened, grimacing when he took a sip of the weak blend. Luckily Slattery was a coffee snob. He wouldn't be coming back without something decent. "No word from Captain Chandler. But given his mission..."
"He may be out of range," Danny finished, knowing the script by heart. Most of the supplies that Doctor Scott required could be found at any hospital but new equipment was an entirely different matter, usually necessitating a trip to a CDC facility. Assuming they could find one that the Immunes hadn't destroyed.
"Permission to enter?" A soft, lilting voice spoke from the doorway.
"Of course, Mrs. Chandler." Danny watched the petite blonde enter the room, carrying a tray of muffins, the scent of blueberry tickling his nose. Darien Chandler was the consummate Navy wife, never missing an opportunity to stop by with food or coffee, giving what encouragement she could. The woman must be worried about her husband, who had been gone for over a week now, but you would never know if from her demeanor. She would have made an excellent poker player.
Unfortunately, Daren Chandler's timing was piss-poor, as she had barely set down the tray when Doctor Scott breezed through the door with her usual lack of protocol. "Commander Green! I need to talk to you immediately."
"Of course you do," Danny sighed, pretending that his stomach wasn't growling as the muffins began disappearing. He probably should have asked Carlton in there were any more pancakes. Lunch felt like a long time away.
Luckily, Doctor Scott ignored his attitude – if she noticed it at all. The woman was nothing if not focused. Four years. Four years of failure, and yet the woman remained as committed as ever. Danny equally admired her passion, and wondered whether she was a little off her rocker. Of course, that last could be said of any of them.
"Only two of their tests came back positive," Doctor Scott continued, slapping a file and CDC case down on the table in front of Danny. "It may still be possible to save the rest of them. I've made some modification to the vaccine. I'm fairly confident this time."
Just like she was last time, and the time before, and the time before that. This would be the twenty-third trial and every single one had failed.
Danny took a sip of his coffee, contemplating the file before him. The one with the test results. There had been a time, back at the beginning, when he would have done anything to help this woman. Back when he believed that it was possible to stop this. He had actually volunteered for the first trial, only to be turned down because of a cold. The luckiest break of his life.
Russ Jeter, Andrea Garnett, Erik Miller, Maya Gibbs, Steve Berchem, Katie Bell.
Six volunteers. All dead. Dying in the most painful way possible. The second time Doctor Scott settled for four volunteers.
Stanley Lynn, Jeremy Wright, Nina Mir, Michelle Marks.
New group, new vaccine, but the same result.
That's when Doctor Scott came up with a new method to test her trial vaccines, and when Danny gained a new job. It was simple really. Wait until they ran across an infected group. Not all infected, of course, but enough for the rest to be at risk of exposure. Tell them that they might have been exposed. Then offer them hope in the form of a vaccine. They were all suspicious at first, but eventually someone would cough or get a sore throat and fear would win out. They would all agree to try the vaccine.
It never worked.
There were times when Danny wondered who he was now. Wondered what happened to the naïve young man who set sail for the Arctic all those years ago. The one who saw a pretty girl and pursued her relentlessly, without any regard for the frat rules. The one who cried happy tears when he found out that he was going to be a father, despite the terrible timing. The one who insisted on a formal wedding, complete with dress uniforms and a diamond ring, because he was only going to do this once and he wanted to do it right. Picking up the file, Danny braced himself before looking at the names of the infected.
Jocelyn Kemper. Richard Ermer.
A flash of relief. Two of the other men, the guards. Probably exposed when gathering supplies. Neither had noticeable symptoms when Danny drew their blood five hours ago, leaving a chance that Eddie and Amber and Tyler hadn't been exposed. Danny reached for the case but Doctor Scott stopped him, biting down on her lip in an uncharacteristically hesitant manner. He narrowed his eyes. "What?"
"I ran out of ethanol. I only had enough to make eighteen doses," Doctor Scott explained.
Eighteen doses for twenty-two people. Danny took a deep breath, closing his eyes. There were moments when he wondered what kind of monster he must have been in a past life to deserve this.
"Sending out eighteen doses is asking for a riot." Carlton crossed his arms across his chest.
"I am aware of the problem, Lieutenant," Doctor Scott said tartly, popping the case open to reveal twenty-two vials of light blue liquid. "That's why I included four vials with a placebo."
Danny looked down at the identical rows. "Which are the inactive ones?"
The doctor hesitated. "I wasn't sure you would want to know."
And he didn't. He didn't want that knowledge or that responsibility, but that didn't change the facts. He needed to know. He couldn't waste a possibly life-saving dose on someone who was already dead or accidentally give a placebo to a kid. Doctor Scott grabbed a pen, placing blue dots on the top of four vials, before handing the case to Danny.
Backtracking to grab a muffin – if this was going to be his last meal, it might as well be a good one – Danny nodded towards Carlton. "You're in charge."
"Take Taylor with you."
At the door Danny hesitated, remembering the flash of Frankie's hair as she disappeared into the cabin, before looking back at Carlton. "If anything happens…"
"I'll take care of them. I promise."