Chapter 8

Three days later, Sasha stepped out of the room she and Tom had been sharing. She sunk down to the floor and dropped her head down. She was exhausted not just physically but emotionally too.

She'd never seen a person go through withdrawal, she had no reference to fall back onto. So every twist threw her through a loop. She barely slept, she couldn't stomach her food as she saw the pain and misery Tom was in. It was hard to watch, hard to listen to.

His words bit into her being as he said horrible and hurtful things about her. About their relationship, he made her feel small and worthless as he knew every button to push. He knew every insecurity and weakness she possessed to undo her. But she wasn't about to crack, she just needed air. That's what she told herself.

It wasn't like she was in the room the entire time. Mike and Jeter spelled her from time to time. But both men had duties to perform. Kara and many others had offered to sit with Tom but Sasha felt that Tom would prefer the crew he'd loved and cared for to see him so broken. It was why he'd left them all to begin with.

Right now, Tom was with Rios. The Doc had been fierce in ordering Sasha to leave. Rios had a backbone made of steel as he wasn't bothered in the slightest by Tom's state or his bitter words of contempt towards them. She was envious of him given he could switch off the emotional side of him and be clinical as his whole purpose was to try and help Tom recover physically.

Sasha had to admit she was grateful as she needed to get rest or sleep or this case some air like now because if she didn't leave. Tom would see the crack in her armour. She lifted her head back and sighed as Daniela and Burk came towards her.

"You ok, or should I find a really hot sailor to give you mouth to mouth?" Daniela said, Sasha lifted her head and looked at her and Burk.

"I should feel offended?" Burk asked as he realised the insult in Daniela's suggestion as he didn't make muster.

"Oh, you're just unattractive due to your obnoxious behaviour of following rules unless it's a physical problem that stops you from putting out?" Daniela asked, baiting him.

"I work just fine. Everything about me is fully functional." Burk assured her, Daniela looked at him in amusement as he realised how suggestive his words were.

"Then show me," Daniela told him, her gaze turning salacious.

"No Fraternising on the ship." He told her, flatly but Sasha hadn't missed the gulp Burk made as he obviously wasn't immune to Daniela. "But, if I could, I would rock your world." he assured Daniela.

"What are you two doing up here?" Sasha asked she wasn't angry. If anything she was glad they were here as they offered an amusing distraction, it felt good to not think about what was going on in the stateroom or Tom's last words to her.

"Not much to do on a ship given how uptight about sex; you all are." Daniela commented.

"Is that all you think about?" Sasha asked her, she felt a little lightheaded by Daniela's never ending quest to get laid.

"No, I think about food as well as small puppies. They make me happy." Daniela told her.

"Right." Sasha said with a bemused smile.

"So how's Tom?" Daniela asked, Sasha gave a nonchalant shrug as she didn't want Burk reading too much into it.

"Still rough around the edges." She offered.

"If you want, I can sit with him for a few hours. Wouldn't be the first person I had to babysit on the ship." She said turning her eyes to Burk.

"I'm your escort, to make sure you don't get lost in areas of the ship you shouldn't be. That makes me your babysitter." Burk said correcting her.

"Really? That would explain why you don't let me have any fun. Can you believe him? I ask him to exercise and he thinks it's ah what did you call it?" She asked as she struggled to find the words but they all knew that she knew the words.

"Sexual harassment." Burk supplied like it wasn't the first time he'd said it either.

"Please, like you don't enjoy it." Daniela told him.

"Actually I don't." Burk told her.

"So you don't appreciate being found undeniably attractive and admired by women. I guess that makes sense why you're always exercising around men, you know, I love gay porn. It's fucking hot. Pun intended." Daniela told him, Sasha covered her smile with her hand as Burk's eyes went wide at the insinuations being made.

"I can't win with you." He said. Daniela smiled evilly.

"No, but you are so much fun to play with." She said as she gently pushed his arm to make him lighten up.

"You're exhausting." Burk informed her.

"Wait until you find your first grey hair. I think a week of my company will do it." Daniela promised him.

"Aren't you staying in Europe?" Sasha asked Daniela with a frown as she always assumed the woman would stay behind.

"We're sailing to the Americas as we speak. Apparently the UK government is a little angry at us all for the whole drone strike on UK soil and arresting Fletcher that they might retaliate by reneging on my immunity agreement. Then there's the whole killing a bunch of immunes and the best pal of Peter Smithfield thing. Immunes won't like me." Daniela said thoughtfully.

"She's on a lot of shit lists." Burk told Sasha.

"Charming, but not anything new and the Captain has allowed me safe passage to America." Daniela explained.

"I'm glad you're sticking around." Sasha said, weirdly she meant it.

"See, someone appreciates me. Hey, we're going to the wardroom. Eat with us." Daniela said as she came up to Sasha and held out her hands to help her up.

"I don't know." Sasha said.

"Come on, I could use some girl talk. Please, Please, Please." Daniela pleaded as she shook her hands at her.

"Ok." Sasha said somewhat reluctantly.

Tom woke up, drenched in sweat and his stomach rolled as his throat pulsed. He was going to vomit. He turned to the side of the bed seeing the bucket and dry retched.

"That is so gross." A woman with a thick South American Accent said.

Tom looked up, tears blurring his vision as his throat burned. There where Mike or at least Sasha should be seated was a stranger. But then memories flashed through his mind. They were vague but he remembered her. Not who she was but that they had fought one another.

She sat in the chair; dressed in Navy coveralls that were missing rank and name tag. She also was wearing it wrong as the sleeves were rolled to the elbows and the legs of the pants were rolled up to mid calf. She wasn't wearing boots as her bare feet propped on the bed, she had a bowl of what looked to be a mixture of melted ice cream and cereal. He swallowed his own revulsion and laid back down.

"I'm Daniela Soto. Yes, we've met. No, you cannot have my breakfast." She informed him in a no nonsense manner. He heard the crunching of food which had to be her. "God, real food is so hard to digest. I know I'm going to stink up your bathroom something fierce but it'll be worth it for me. But you? you'll survive as you smell so bad I doubt you'll notice." She added before eating another bite.

"Why are you here?" he asked her.

"You pissed off everyone else." She replied in a rich amused tone. He looked at her incredulously as she made it sound like he was doing a good thing.

"It's about time." he said agreeing with her.

"Really? Cause these people you got are pretty fucking amazing. They are kind, incredibly good looking people. But I can see why you hate them. They won't put out, there's no alcohol." Daniela pointed out.

"No drugs." Tom added. He wondered when he'd be out of the hell he was in as he couldn't take it any longer. He wanted to feel nothing instead he felt everything magnified a million times over.

"You don't need them, trust me." Daniela told him.

"How would you know?" he scoffed, he then gave a groan as pain prickled through his body. He tried to relax but his body tensed up making him suffer more.

"I used to be hooked on oxy, my god the times I had on them but then my husband cut me off. He tied me to a chair and made me dry out. Then beat the shit out of me for thinking I could escape this world without his permission." She told him, Tom balk at her blunt confession. It also put things into perspective, the little voice in his head that said he could escape. That this person he was; wasn't him.

"How long?" Tom asked.

"A year, though I was chained to him for much longer." She said thoughtfully as she ate a spoonful of ice cream. "No one, was there to help me, no escape. The problem of monsters like him and that old man is that they create people like me." she told him.

"And me." Tom said bitterly.

"No- well maybe in time. It really comes down to you allowing them to change you. You still have a choice, me; it's ingrained in my bones." she admitted, he didn't know why but he was grateful she didn't let him off the hook as others did. They made his addiction the excuse like he had no choice in the matter. It was the drugs that made him weak willed but it was also a part of him.

"How's Wolf?" he asked, the first time he'd actually thought of another person's condition bar his own. Perhaps the grip the drugs had on him was fading afterall but as the question was said, darker thoughts crept in of how he'd run away. He'd left Wolf to bled out.

"He was in a coma, now he's unconscious. Though your doctor promises me he'll live and wake up when he's ready. No, thanks to you or I." she told him.

"You're supposed to prop me up." Tom told her, it was what everyone else had been doing for days. It had made him angry and bitter and here this woman was laying blame at his feet. She didn't sugar coat and she acted like they were talking about a funny cartoon in the newspaper and not their dark world.

"Fuck off, you're strong enough to get back on your own damn feet." Daniela said incredulously.

"I'm not." He said shaking his head as he was tired of crying.

"You are, you have everything you need to get back to the man you want to be. All you have to do is reach out and grab onto it. You have people who love you, fuck- you have kids who need you. That should be enough motivation to get clean." She told him.

"They moved on. Everyone moved on." He said, the old man's words coming out his mouth.

"We wouldn't be here if they moved on. No child moves on from the absence of a parent. It just leaves carved out holes in their heart that nothing can fill." She said, she looked off into the distance and traces of pain filled her expression but her words struck a cord within him.

"They won't know me." he told her, confessing his darkest secret to a stranger.

"They don't care, but if you do care for them, you'll get clean and stay clean for yourself to be better than all of this. The rest of whatever garbage you carry goes in the backseat. You go to them, be what they need." Daniela told him.

"How do I do that?" he asked sarcastically.

"Get help when you're back in Norfolk. Attend meetings, they are anonymous for a reason and maybe you'll appreciate how un-unique you are. But first you need to hit rock bottom to understand there's a way out." Daniela informed him.

"How is he?" Mike asked Rios a couple days later, Rios was writing on Wolf's chart but they both knew he was talking about Tom. Wolf was looking better, but given the extensive nature of his injuries he had been taken out of medically induced coma but hadn't woken yet.

"I have no idea how long it will take for him to dry out." Rios said honestly. He could only guess based on textbook knowledge of other drugs but this Nostros was something different. Tom was getting better but his emotional and mental state was a different matter. That was outside of his wheelhouse.

"It's been six days. I don't think we can take this much longer. What are we supposed to do with him stateside? There are no rehab centres, and we have no clue how to fix this as we don't have the drug to test." Mike said, he'd wished he'd pushed Daniela to score some for them but even now in hindsight couldn't do so.

She had given up her entire life and fortune and now she was in their care. Wolf was in their care, the man was still in a medically induced coma. He knew Daniela had been visiting her brother daily. For a woman who claimed to only care for herself, she had a funny way of showing it given she'd forged friendships with some of the crew. She asked about Wolf and her sexual harassment seemed solely centred on Burk instead of the entire crew.

Mike was turning a blind eye to it, as he'd tried to explain to Daniela that it was wrong to do so but the conversation always backfired with hilarity. That and Burk was holding his own and hadn't caved if Daniela's bemoaning was to be believed. Frankly, he didn't care or want to know unless Burk truly felt uncomfortable and wanted it to stop. But he was beginning to think the man liked it.

"I can make more calls when we dock in Norfolk." Rios told him.

"That would be good. I don't think he's in a fit state to see his kids." Mike said.

"No, I agree." Rios said as he'd felt the brunt of Tom's anger that was in full force this morning. He did not envy Sasha who had taken over for him.

"I fucking hate you! You should have left me to die instead you're making me suffer like that old man!" he shouted at her, he threw the framed picture of him and Mike against the wall and waited for her to scream back at him, he needed her to say she hated him. To show some sign of contempt but instead she stood there unmoved by him. He fell to his knees and leaned over as tears fell down his face in anger and resentment not just of himself but everything and everyone around him.

He heard her move and looked up to see her go to the gun safe in the room and pinned in the code. Tom frowned as he didn't understand one; how she knew the code and two; what she was doing. At least he hadn't until she pulled out a Sig Sauer P226, she took off the safety and held it out to him; handle first.

"Here." she told him blandly.

"What?" he said confused as he looked to the gun and back to her. She wore a tired but serious expression.

"Take the gun," she ordered darkly, he frowned as he wondered what the game was here. "I hear you. You're tired, you're done, you want out. So I'm giving you that 'out' you've been screaming at me to do for days. Here it is. Take the fucking gun." She told him in a quiet and deadly tone as she motioned for him to take the gun.

"This -" he started but before he could finish it, Sasha knelt down in front of him.

"You say the man I know is dead, then what the hell are you doing here?!" She asked him vehemently, her anger finally showing as she had finally snapped. Daniela had warned her of this. But she was so damn tired, she just wanted the Tom she knew back. To see just a glimmer of that man she loved under the mess of the man before her.

"You brought me here!" He told her.

"No, I helped save the man I love and he's told me repeatedly that I'm delusional and that you're not him and you just want out. Here's the gun, it's easy. Here," she grabbed his left hand and yanked it to the gun's handle. She wrapped his hand around gun with her hand on top and pushed the barrel of the gun to his head. "You put it to your head and you pull the fucking trigger. This is what all of this is about." She said viciously, he tried to push back but she was stronger, healthier thus she had the upper hand.

Tom was shocked as she helped him put the barrel of the gun back to his temple and held his hand around the barrel with their finger on the trigger together. The cold steel of the barrel tip, should've comforted him, the sense of finality and relief should've washed over him but it didn't. Instead he felt that same hesitation as he'd felt every time he'd picked up the syringe of Nostros. It was the same hesitation he'd felt when Daniela had told him to hit her. This wasn't him.

"I can't fix you, remember what you said to me before you left all those months ago. I told you whatever you think was broken, that we can fix it together. But you didn't believe me just as you don't right now. So I'm admitting defeat. I'm wrong. We can't fix it, but this is the solution. The only one left as I refuse to watch you shrivel up like a fucking coward after everything we've been through." Sasha told him, tears fell down her face as her face was twisted in pain and anger. But she wasn't angry at him, she was angry at herself because she couldn't save him.

"Sasha-" he started but she shook her head. She dug the barrel of the gun into his temple to the point it was bruising him but he didn't care because he realised in this moment that this wasn't how he was supposed to go. It wasn't right, how could she love him so much that she'd do this, how could he push her so far, he'd become the monster the old man had said he was. He was destroying everyone around him.

"Which speech do you want your kids to have, Tom? The one about you being a 'casualty of war' or would you prefer 'the Hero who died for a cause'? That you fought for them all the way?" she asked him, tears continued to roll down her face as she made no effort to hide what she felt. "Tell me Tom, tell me how you want this to go?" she demanded.

They stared at one another for a long moment, heaving for air and not moving as they were both frozen by how poisonous their thoughts were, how in this moment they couldn't turn back time. This moment was marked forever but it was not their ending.

"Do you really believe I can come back from this?" he whispered to her, his throat hurt as the answer to this one question would make or break him as he truly believed that if should would help him kill himself then he was gone.

"Yes," she told him, he reached over with his free hand and pushed the gun down and away. Sasha's hands dropped away and she sat back. She covered her face with her hands and sobbed as it was too much. Tom put the safety of the gun back on and placed it on the desk before he crawled to Sasha.

For the first time since she'd walked back into his life, he pulled her into his arms. She was unwilling at first but then she relented. He wrapped his arms around her tightly letting her cry, he'd hurt her immensely but in holding her, he felt like the old version of himself. The one long thought dead, he just wanted to make her feel good, to make her better and hope it helped him. As this right here, even with everything that wrong with him, this felt right.