Author's Note: Finally saw episode 10 today. This is what came out of that viewing. See End Notes for more information.
You are ruthless baby, and that's why we're alive today.
The man from Reno hadn't been wrong with his choice of words; she is ruthless, and the bloody parts of a dead man in her lab cooler speak volumes to such a savage nature. Her instinct is anger and retribution, two things that don't mix well with your standard fare of tea chat and paleomicrobiologist gatherings.
There is a drive in her that burns away social convention and instills a fervent need to discover and conquer, regardless of the consequences of that need. She has spent years vanquishing diseases, following their every hop and step and mutation, knowing their DNA closer than she could ever know the ingredients to the cold dinners that sustained her so often.
There is something feverish inside her.
It won't allow her to stop.
She has fears, she has doubts, but she has no reservations about the path she is on. She was right about the primordial strain, she was right about the reasons for its mutations, and she was right, Christ she was right about the final piece to humanity's dance with this red death.
A man simply had to die for that piece to become reality.
A man had to die, a man who had killed billions. Billions. Most minds couldn't fathom such a number, as great as it is, but her mind, with its brilliant way with detail, could count each and every one of those billion if it needed to. So many dead, for an ego, for bragging rights. So many dead, and she couldn't have stopped it then.
But now is different.
Now she has placed her foot on the throat of a virus that has haunted her for months, that has left ghosts to pursue them across the world.
And he has the audacity to say she will be tried for her crimes.
His words shake something free in her, remind her that these people will never understand, they will never comprehend the fanatical drive to explore and ultimately subjugate a disease so deadly it covered the world in death with little effort. She did that. She understands this virus. She brought it to its knees. And it is only her that took the step needed to finally overthrow the disease's hold for good.
He judges her when he says it isn't his place, he says it was never about what he wanted. She can only think how cowardly he is, how foolish and selfish he is to think that none of what she did, what they did, wasn't for him. Of course it was for him. He knew he could rein her in with a mention of his wife and children; he knew he could turn her in circles by bringing up how the world once was. He would look at her and she would think for a moment that he understood, because his beautiful face would tell her he supported her, tell her he wanted her to continue for them.
For him.
She sees him now as another man too wrapped up in his rules and his faith to ever consider a reality outside the one he has painted for himself. And it isn't a faith of the soul - not like her father's, not like his sickness - but rather a faith in the system and structure he has been raised in, and continues to foster on the metal leviathan they are all calling home.
He was unwilling to take that step.
So she took it for all of them.
And look at the result!
She has solved it, solved the puzzle, solved the greatest problem of any age, and she has done it on board a ship in the middle of the sea. She has done the impossible by tearing her way through expectation and rules, forging her own path through all the pain and suffering, and ended up here.
Here, where there is a dead man and a cure.
Here, where there is impotent judgement and salvation.
You are ruthless baby, and that's why we're alive today.
Author's End Note: I have an entire meta for this episode, and how it plays out with the rest of the season. I don't think this is immediately an end for them, but I do think a few things need to happen with them both (Chandler in particular) before they can move on. I would love to talk more about this, but that would take up far too much space to be considered simply "end notes". If you would like to discuss more on it, you can reach me here via PM or on tumblr as disasterintow.