CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: HOME

In the morning, Rachel woke up to the smell of tea and coffee. When she rolled over, she found that Tom was already awake, sitting up reading some papers. Two steaming mugs were on the table beside the bed.

"Good morning," she whispered with a sleepy smile. "How long have you been up?"

Tom shrugged. "Not long. Got us some drinks from the wardroom. Figured that'd let us prolong the morning a little bit." He reached for her tea and handed it to her.

"I like the way you think," Rachel replied as she sat up. "Mmm, thank you."

"You sleep okay?"

She nodded. "Fine. You?"

"Mmm-hmm. I loved having you here when I woke up."

Rachel smiled, leaning over to kiss him. "Me, too," she murmured against his lips.

A knock sounded on the door, and they reluctantly broke apart. "If it's anyone other than my kids…" Tom whispered, annoyed. Rachel chuckled. "Who is it?" he called.

"Us, Daddy," Ashley's voice replied. "Can we come in?"

Tom went to get up and Rachel started to do the same, but he waved a hand in her direction, indicating that she should stay put in bed. "You sure?" she asked.

"Everybody's decent. This won't be the first time they find you here - and it better not be the last," he added with a grin before opening the door. "Good morning," he told his children as they entered the room and gave him a hug.

"Morning, Daddy." Both kids were still wearing pajamas with mussed hair and sleep-crusted eyes. Ashley then realized that Tom wasn't alone and her face brightened noticeably at the sight of his guest.

"Good morning, Dr. Rachel."

She smiled. "Morning, luvs. How are you today?"

"Good. What are you doing here?" Her tone wasn't disapproving, just genuinely curious.

"We're having some coffee and tea and enjoying a lazy morning," Tom truthfully told his kids.

Ashley sat on the bed with Rachel. "Can we stay, too?" she asked her father. "We'd all curl up in bed on Saturdays at home," she explained for the scientist's sake.

"I like the sound of that," she agreed, wrapping an arm around the young girl.

"If you want," Tom agreed as he joined them. "But no coffee for you." Ashley giggled as she laid down with Rachel. The double bed would be very tight for all of them, but they'd make it work. "Come on, Sammy," Tom told his son, reaching to pull the boy onto his lap. But Sam resisted.

"I don't want to," he told his father, and everyone froze.

"You okay, pal?" Tom gently asked.

Sam nodded, not seeming terribly upset, but definitely not moving any closer. "We get to play outside today, right?" he wondered.

"Um, yeah, this afternoon, I think. If the weather holds."

"I hope it does. I want to play snail."

Tom glanced over to Rachel, wondering how she'd reacted to Sam's reluctance to join them. She was still holding Ashley, but her eyes were downcast and he could see the tension in her body. It was a perplexing problem; what was holding Sam back? They'd all been completely comfortable together the night before, stargazing.

"Why don't you two go start getting ready for school?" Tom suggested to his kids.

"But I want to stay here," Ashley protested.

"Please, guys. Go get washed and dressed." With an exaggerated sigh, Ashley got up and the siblings headed back to their room. Tom turned to Rachel, taking her hand. "I'm sorry, that was... I don't even know."

She shook her head as she started to get out of bed and get dressed. "I've been afraid all along that they weren't happy about this. Us."

"They both adore you," Tom countered. "It's just… figuring this out is hard enough for adults. Being nine makes it exponentially harder." In that moment, Tom almost wished he'd been able to hold out longer before acting on his feelings for her. Maybe more time would have made things easier for both his kids and Rachel. He hated that all of them were struggling right now.

Rachel finished tying her shoes. "I need to get the lab," she tried to end the conversation.

Tom caught her arm as she started to leave. "Hey. I love you."

She softened a little. "I love you, too."

"And my kids love you. Just… give us time, okay?"

Rachel gave a very uncertain nod. "Okay."

Tom kissed her softly before opening the hatch for her. He watched as Rachel walked down the p-way, then he went into the kids' room. Ashley had already gone to the head, but Sam was still pulling together his clothes and toiletries.

"Hey, buddy. You sure you're okay?" Sam nodded. "Because you know you can talk to me if you're upset or worried about something?" Another nod. "Are you worried about something?"

Sam hesitated for a long moment before he shook his head. It was obvious he really meant the opposite, but wasn't willing to talk about it. "Can I go get ready now?" he asked his father.

"Sure, bud. Go ahead."

Something was definitely going on. Tom wondered how bad the fallout would be when he finally found out what that something was.

A couple days later, the Nathan James returned to Norfolk. It was time to see if the fears they'd all secretly been harboring were legitimate. When it came time for the ship to pull back out of port, would they be missing members of the crew? Tom wasn't sure which would be worse - dealing with several deaths or several desertions. Either could be devastating for morale. Were they about to find out that this whole endeavor had been a bad idea?

The ship remained in the mouth of Chesapeake, between Hampton and Norfolk. There was no reason to risk docking again; they'd just refueled off an abandoned ship at sea. Tom watched from the CIC as their two RHIBs headed in to port to see who - if anyone - was there waiting for them.

"We're approaching Pier 14," the team lead from the RHIBs reported back. "No signs of anyone yet."

The atmosphere was tense; everyone was listening and waiting with their fingers crossed. The crew had become its own family over the past several months, and they needed all of its members back.

"Got movement on Pier 8," they heard over the radios. There was a long pause before he reported in, "Teams 8, 13, and 15 are present and accounted for. We'll be heading back for the ship as soon as everyone's aboard."

There was a lot of clapping and cheering throughout the room. "Settle down!" Tom called to all of them. "We've still got a lot of people to bring home." He turned to Lt. Cdr. Garnett, who was standing beside him. "You can handle things here?"

"Yes, Sir."

Tom left the CIC and headed straight for the deck. A three-man tac team, led by Lt. Green, was there finishing suiting up. "We ready to go?" Tom tasked as he grabbed gear for himself.

The younger man nodded. "Yes, Sir."

"Good. Hopefully this little trip won't take too long, but there's somewhere I need to go."

Silence reigned as the team made their way across the base on foot. They passed some bodies in uniform, others in civilian clothes. They averted their eyes from the children.

Finally, they reached a pretty house with a wide front porch and a stone facade on the first floor. The flower bushes had been trampled, and the grass obviously hadn't been mowed in months. A US flag still hung from one of the porch's columns, but the windows were shattered, likely a result of people scavenging to try to stay alive.

"Sir?" Lt. Green asked. "You want us to check it out, make sure it's clear?" The Captain nodded, so the team made their way inside. Tom remained in his front yard, looking up at his house.

He hadn't been ready to go there a month ago. He could have made this trip the first time the Nathan James arrived in Norfolk, but he hadn't thought himself capable of facing those 'four walls and a roof' that they'd called home. The place where his family had been building their lives. He still wasn't sure if he was ready, but he'd decided to take this last chance. He had to.

Tom walked up the steps and through the front door. The living room had been ransacked, furniture overturned and books scattered on the floor. The kitchen was a nightmare; everything had been torn apart in a desperate search for food. The fridge and many cabinets hung open. The pantry had been cleaned out. The kids' drawings and magnets, which had been attached to the refrigerator, were scattered around the room.

"The house is clear, sir," Lt. Green reported as he returned to that level.

Tom nodded. "Thank you."

As he walked back through the first floor, he noticed Sam's baseball glove was on the floor by the door. Tom picked it up and stashed it in the duffel bag that he brought. He then climbed the stairs to the second floor.

The children's bedrooms had largely been untouched. The pale yellow walls in Ashley's room were still covered in her favorite posters, and her white, low-post bed was still made. Sam's shades-of-blue bedroom normally was a mess, and that wasn't any different now. It was clear that someone had rifled through the children's dressers, but there was no other obvious damage. Tom grabbed a few outfits for each of his kids and took the quilts off of their beds. Darien's mother had made the blankets out of different significant items from their early childhoods. The kids had each had a teddy bear on their beds, and he packed those away, too. In Ashley's room, he found a small box with her jewelry-making supplies. It had been tossed to the floor, but wasn't broken, so he added it to his duffel.

At the end of the hall was the master bedroom. Tom lingered in the doorway for a long moment, just looking around. The blue and white bedspread had been Darien's favorite. Pictures on the wall depicted the kids at various ages. A vase of long-dead flowers was on her dresser, surrounded by various hair and makeup products. He just stared for a long moment, taking it all in. They'd had a good life together in that house. But it wasn't his home anymore; that chapter of his life was over. He could look back on it now and remember the good more than the pain. It was time for a new chapter to begin.

Slowly, Tom pulled his wedding band off of his finger. After considering it for a moment, he laid it on his dresser beside a framed picture of him and his late wife. He hadn't planned on doing this when he left the ship, but he felt calm and sure.

"I won't forget," he swore to her. "And I won't let the kids forget. I'll do everything I can to make them happy, I promise you that."

Tom turned away, left the room, and walked down the stairs. "Let's go," he told the waiting tac team as he headed for the front door.

He didn't look back. He didn't need to.

As Tom's team made their way back through the base toward the harbor, they crossed paths with Mike's search team. "Welcome back," the Captain called to his XO.

"Good to see we're not too late," Mike replied. "We ran out of gas a couple miles from the gate."

He had his arm around a young, light-brown-haired girl, who Tom recognized as Mike's middle child, 11-year-old Katie. However, his wife, Christine, and other daughter were nowhere to be seen. "What happened?" Tom quietly asked his friend.

"That safe zone in Deer Park wasn't so safe anymore," Mike replied. "Everybody was dead… I thought Katie was, too, at first, but…" He smiled down at his daughter. "She hung on long enough for me to get there. And the cure actually worked on her." They'd never tried it on anyone so far gone before. However, once he'd felt his daughter's pulse, he'd been ready to do anything it took to save her. "We almost decided to make camp that night instead of pushing on to Deer Park. Thank God we didn't."

Tom looked away. "I'm sorry," he told his friend. The other man had had so much taken from him while he dutifully served his country. It wasn't fair.

Mike nodded. "Yeah, I am, too…" He hugged Katie closer. "But at least I didn't lose everything."

Tom couldn't suppress a smile as they walked, marveling over his friend. Mike could have been rightfully furious at the world; he'd lost his son, wife, and eldest to the Red Flu. Tom knew he had to be hurt and angry and grieving the terrible losses. But he could put that aside - at least in Katie's presence - in favor of the joy of snatching one child back from the jaws of death.

"Ashley and Sam are going to be really happy to see you," Tom told Katie. The children had all gone to school together in Norfolk; Ashley and Katie had been in the same grade. "They're on the ship right now." As they rounded the last building before the water, the Nathan James came into view out in the harbor. "See?" She nodded.

One of the RHIBs was sitting at the dock waiting; they could see the second was currently on its way back to the ship. "You got an extra life jacket?" Mike asked the sailors on the small boat. One of them handed one up to him and he started putting it on Katie.

Tom tossed his duffel of items down into the RHIB. "How many teams have showed up so far?" he asked one of the sailors.

"All of them, Sir."

Tom did a double take. "All of them?!"

He nodded. "Four teams had some casualties, but… Everyone able came back."

Suddenly, the sound of distant, quick-succession gunshots reached them. Everyone looked out to the Nathan James. Tom knew the sound of every weapon aboard his ship; the 20mm CIWS was firing repeated bursts at something on the far side of the ship, out of sight from their vantage point.

"Weapons test?" Mike wondered, but Tom shook his head.

"Not on the schedule."

There was the unmistakable sound of an explosion, which caused everyone to flinch. A tower of orange fire and black smoke rose from the ship.

TBC...