Rebecca had been lying on the cot in the Lab for several hours, but couldn't keep her eyes closed for more than five minutes at a time. It had been over 36 hours since Michelangelo had collapsed, and he hadn't woken up. Rebecca imagined that the mutated cells were enraged by the attempt to eradicate them, and were taking out all their aggression on the fragile landscape of the turtle's lungs.
She'd heard the docs continue to discuss Mike's blood oxygen count, and Becky recognized how unstable it was without anyone needing to tell her. Rebecca had barely left the room for more than a few minutes at a time, and repeatedly heard varying levels of oxygen being discussed between two or more of the medical hands. The mechanical ventilator remained in place to help him breathe, but she knew it couldn't convert the oxygen and carbon dioxide for Mike, which was leaving him vulnerable despite the support.
She didn't care if she was in the way of the doctors at this point - they could ask her to move. The steady hum of machines and the beeping of the monitor had become a kind of white noise that Rebecca barely noticed in the background, except when an alarm announced that Mike's oxygen levels were dropping again.
From her front row seat at the turtle's side, she was witness to exactly how many hours everyone was putting in. Luke, Marcus, and Donny were on a constant rotation keeping an eye on Mike, but Caleb had hardly left the third floor at all. She was sure the three hours of sleep the older man had relented too inside the Lab earlier that day was the only rest his eyes had seen. Rebecca hated the way Caleb was avoiding her gaze, as if everything happening to Mike was really his fault. From where she was sitting, it looked like a physical weight was resting on his shoulders as he was hunched over at the desk. Rebecca recalled the older man telling her that a lot of his equipment was automated, and didn't require his physical presence supervising it. Regardless of that, it didn't seem like he was going to be abandoning the desk for the second night in a row.
The young woman glanced at the thick book sitting on the end of the cot, and reached to retrieve the Bible. As it fell open in front of her, she leafed through delicate pages, skipping past the bookmark in the Psalms. She'd read through those passages for most of the day, and now she was looking for something different. When the book of Hebrews flashed by her, something twinged in her spirit, causing her to hesitate. Turning a couple more pages, Becky found herself face to face with first verse of the eleventh chapter.
"Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things that we cannot see."
Rebecca was about to continue reading the chapter, when she noticed the two letters that had been handwritten inside the margin next to the verse in question. SW. Smith Wigglesworth. What was it my mom used to quote from him? The young woman closed her eyes briefly as she tried to remember, visualizing her mother's voice in her mind. "I am not moved by what I see. I am not moved...by what I feel. I am only moved by what I believe."
Rebecca had been clinging to all of the faith she was capable of mustering, but fear was still clawing her heart in the midst of it. She repeated the quote in her mind a couple of times as she lay back down in the semi-darkness, trying to block the terror from getting a stronger foothold in her mind. As she rested her head against the pillow, she kept the olive-green Bible at her side.
The texture from the cover of the hard-back book was comforting underneath her fingers. The Bible had belonged to her mom before she'd passed away. The seam was starting to come apart from years of wear and tear, but Becky couldn't bring herself to part with the book. Reading the same Bible as her mother had made her feel like she still had a connection with a woman, as she skimmed passages the woman had highlighted, or read the notes she'd left behind.
She'd spent most of the day reading or in prayer when she wasn't distracted. The need for sleep was now tugging on Rebecca's mind, but she hadn't been able to force herself to let go yet. After waiting a few more minutes to see if she would be able to drift off, Becky sat up on the edge of the cot once more, resting a hand lightly against her stomach. Sometimes she was certain she'd felt the baby moving, but it was hard to tell if it was only her imagination or not.
Where there's life, there's always hope.
Donatello had repeated those words a couple of times over the last 36 hours, and they comforted her for more than one reason tonight. The baby is with us, and Mikey still is too. There's no call for panicking, no reason to fall apart, she assured herself. Despite the valiant attempt to encourage her heart, fear and sorrow continued playing tug-of-war with her in the background.
The young woman rested her arms on the cot, and pushed off the mattress for leverage to get to her feet. She approached the turtle for the hundredth time that day, and rested a hand over his wrist. You've got to hang in there for a couple of days, Mike. I know you can last through this. Whatever pain you're in, it isn't permanent. It will pass. Don't give up. None of us are letting you go that easily either.
Tears welled up as she stood there, conflicted between faith and fear. The hand that had been grasping his wrist stretched to touch the silken orange material of the turtle's mask. She longed to see his blue eyes looking back at her, dancing with the pure joy he'd had weeks ago when they'd found out they were going to be parents.
Rebecca didn't fight tears from falling, though she tried to stay silent. She didn't want Caleb to see her crumble. I feel like he's in such a fragile state himself, if he sees me lose it, it will only make things worse. The sudden concern of the man noticing her crying made Rebecca glance at him surreptitiously.
The bespectacled man was staring down at the desk, his glasses on the verge of falling off his nose altogether. The image of his forlorn figure moved Rebecca, and she found herself walking toward him before she had a chance to think about it.
"You do realize he was sick before you got here, don't you?" she reminded him softly. "You're not the reason this is happening, Caleb."
The man shook his head. "I knew it would be difficult coming into it, that this particular type of tampering with genetics hasn't been attempted with a humanoid creature. Yet at the same time, I still feel as if I failed him, just like..."
"Like what?"
"Nothing," he replied shortly. "This isn't about her."
"It isn't about who, Caleb?"
"Susan. My twisted psyche keeps trying to bring her into this."
Becky sat down in another chair beside him. "I know how emotions and memories have a way of surfacing at inconvenient times, Caleb, but that doesn't mean you can't talk about them." She felt a little awkward as the words left her mouth. The young woman almost felt as if she was trying to advise an "elder" with what small wisdom she'd gleaned from her own experiences, and it felt presumptuous.
Caleb finally looked at her. "You would know better than me. You were extremely close with your family, weren't you?"
Becky nodded. "As close as any American family who's serving in a dangerous country with no one to depend on but themselves. But I don't need to talk about my family right now, Caleb. What's going through your head?"
When he didn't answer, Rebecca took a sharp breath. "Well, you haven't failed Mikey, and I have a hard time believing you failed your wife. Mike told me that she had cancer, didn't she? That certainly wasn't your fault."
The older man twisted in his chair, sighing heavily. "Rebecca, it isn't that I blame myself for her cancer. But I should have noticed something, I should have recognized how sick she was getting. It's absurd. The signs were there, and I didn't pay attention to them. I was wrapped up in myself and my work. Susan was never one to complain, even when my research separated me from her for hours and days. I never met a more long suffering woman in my entire life. She was so good to me, and still supportive when I was locked inside my most obsessive state.
"But I didn't support her when she needed me the most. We were locked away on this stupid mountain, completely cut off from the rest of the world. In hindsight, it was so obvious that it's painful to think about. She started cutting down on the number of guests she was accepting at the Bed and Breakfast, and eventually shut it down completely. I should have realized what was happening before it got that far, but I was too selfish."
The man focused on the desk again. "I'll never be able to forgive myself for letting her down. By the time I got wise, the tumors had spread too far. She had...weeks left to live." He took a deep breath that shook with emotion. "She wasn't bitter. All Susan wanted to do was come back to Lotus Salvus, and spend every last minute she had on earth here on the mountain that she loved so much." Caleb sniffed as he paused for a few moments. "I never deserved her."
Rebecca hesitated, thinking hard before she spoke. "Caleb...you won't get anywhere by holding this over your head."
"How do you get over letting down the one person you promised to stand by forever?" he asked. "I realize I probably seem a little old to you, but I didn't picture losing Susan like that, not so soon. I thought I had time. Deep down I knew I was neglecting her, but I comforted myself with the knowledge that I was building a better life for both of us. I don't know why I thought that taking on this case with Mike would change something."
The woman cocked her head. "What did you think would change?"
Caleb laughed humorlessly. "In some ridiculous way, this was partially an attempt to redeem myself from some of my old mistakes. I'm doing a great job with that, huh?"
Rebecca felt a little frustrated. She didn't know what she could say to convince him of the appreciation she felt for everything that he'd done for them.
"Caleb, we had no hope at all until you got here. We wanted to believe that it would work out somehow, but we knew how slim Mike's chances really were. You took on an impossible case that offered no benefit to you, and you pushed your own projects aside. That doesn't sound selfish to me. If Susan could talk to you right now, I don't think she'd tell you to feel guilty for the rest of your life. I think she'd want you to be happy again."
A stray tear escaped his eye before he could brush it away, and Caleb pulled his glasses to set them on the desk. "I'm so sorry, Rebecca. You don't need to sit here comforting an old man."
"You need to talk to someone, whether it's me or somebody else. You also need to get some sleep. I think you're pushing yourself too hard, Caleb."
The man folded the bows of his glasses. "I'm not sure how much more my eyes can take tonight."
"You should take a breather...for like eight hours."
"That's not going to happen," he said firmly.
"Are you going to be inside your best frame of mind if you don't bother getting some real sleep?"
"Well..."
"And didn't Luke ask you to go wake him around 1am? That was well over an hour ago."
"The rest won't hurt him."
"Caleb."
The man got to his feet and shuffled a couple of steps forward. "All right, I'm going to get him; but only if you tell me that you're going to sleep too."
"I'll go back to my cot now. When you lay down your head, I want you to remember that you've been a hero to all of us over the last couple of months. Then you can wake up tomorrow, and be ready to hit the ground running."
"I'll do my best," he said wearily. "Good night, Rebecca."
After he'd gone, the curly-haired woman sank back down on the low cot, and swung her legs over the side. Luke will be up here soon, and he'll keep a close eye on Mike. I really, really need to get to sleep at some point.
On a whim she reached for the little zippered bag that housed her mp3 player, and took a few seconds to untangle the headphones. As the back light of the screen popped on, Rebecca began scrolling through a couple of different play-lists, before settling on a particular song from Matt Redman. She lay back down with the music player, closing her eyes as the music filled her ears.
"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
Your perfect love is casting out fear
And even when I'm caught in the middle of the storms of this life
I won't turn back, I know You are near
And I will fear no evil
For my God is with me
And if my God with me
Whom then shall I fear?
Whom then shall I fear?
Oh no, You never let go
Through the calm and through the storm
Oh no, You never let go
In every high and every low
Oh no, You never let go
Lord, You never let go of me..."
The song lingered on the edge of her consciousness even as she felt herself drifting off, and fear was finally put to rest.