Obscurity:
Boundless Abyss:
VIII.
Revelations
Sitting in the chair now, bleeding, beaten, and hurting, Leon was still trying to figure out how to escape.
She'd had him beaten when he'd come to the first time. Fists in the face, in the belly, and they'd taken his vest, so there was no barrier between bone and bone. They hit him and hit him until he almost went numb.
Finally, Raymond had argued, "You're gonna fucking kill him, Rachel! Stop!"
Rachel snorted beyond his ruined vision and grabbed a handful of his hair, jerking his face back. "You stupid bastard, who's the legend now?"
He spit in her face for it.
She head-butted him for the effort.
It cracked, he sagged in his chair, and she snapped, "Give me the goddamn syringe."
Great. They were going to shoot him up with something. She shoved the needle into his neck. Her voice grated on his last good nerve as she said, "Sodium pentothal, you asshole. In about ten minutes, you're gonna tell me anything I want."
"...your tits are saggy."
She slapped his face and made him grunt as he grumbled, "What? Too honest?"
The door slammed on the room he was in.
He shuddered, hurting, hating it, and trying to find the strength to move. His hands were cuffed, this time to the chair itself. No zip ties. They were serious. His mouth twitched, hurt, and had him grunting.
His ruined vision gave him little to work with. As far as he could tell, he might have been on the bridge, possibly in the Captain's office. The smell was likely from the dead body in the chair across from him. The guts were spilled around his ankles like snarled snakes. Nothing stunk worse than an open stomach cavity.
Leon shifted, and his chest ached. He glanced down as much as he could to find his shirt torn and blackened. Great, he thought, shock rods to the chest. Awesome. He was a mess. Even if he could get out of this, how far would he get?
He spit blood from his ruined mouth, flopping sadly on his shoulder. "Shit."
He kicked his feet against the chair legs where they were bound. The chair rocked. He did it again, and it tilted over, spilling him to his side on the floor. He grunted; it hurt, and he jerked on his legs as hard as he could.
The left leg of the chair loosened, so he jerked again. It came clean with a crunch of wood splitting. He glanced down to find a nicely shaped shiv attached to his boot made of shattered leg.
"...cool." His voice slurred, alarming him. He didn't have long here. He jerked his right arm hard enough that his chest bled from it. The door opened, and a man came in with a glass of water.
He saw Leon on the floor and spat, "What the hell are you doing?"
And when he rushed over, Leon drove that makeshift knife on his boot right into the guy's groin. It sunk in, the guy squealed like a pig, and Leon jerked his right arm free of the chair. The wood screamed, the guy dangling off his boot slumped toward him, and Leon groaned, "...no, no n-shit."
The body fell atop his, bleeding all over him. He tried to move, shoving with his right hand, but the damn guy had forced his fucking leg to the side and onto the floor like a lousy yoga pose. Another guy grabbed for the fallen one atop him, and Leon stuck that piece of chair in his right hand right into his throat.
Gush. Burst. Red hot blood sprayed all over him as the dude teetered, and Leon grunted, "Shi-"
And the dude fell atop the other right on top of him.
Pinned beneath him, Leon tried to think of a way free of the pile of people he was building. His whole body throbbed like a bad tooth. He was weak, woozy, and losing his wits by the minute.
He knew the second the drug kicked in because he stopped hurting. He also stopped giving a shit about almost anything. He floated high and swirling in his head.
There was a rustle of sound beyond the door, and his eyes flickered. He heard shouting. He heard fighting. He thought - I'm about to die. And the dark came for him again.
This time it whispered- run all you want...eventually...the dark gets us all.
The feel of hands on his face had him fighting back from the dark. Leon grunted and grabbed for his attacker, and Jill's voice soothed, "Easy. Easy. It's me. Open your eyes, Leon. It's me."
His eyes flickered open. He sat with his back to the wall, and Jill crouched over him. She scooped his hair back to see his face and demanded, "Who are you?"
Hoarsely, Leon returned, "Jesus Christ."
Kevin's snort was followed by, "Yeah? Walk on water, then, asshole. P.S. - Jesus could grow a beard."
Leon gave him the finger and got a chuckle for it.
Jill volleyed her gaze over his face. "You ok?"
Leon grunted, "Been better, gorgeous. Where's Rachel?"
Her brows furrowed. Kevin demanded, "Which one was Rachel?"
"Big tits, lots of blonde hair, filthy mouth."
Kevin snapped his fingers, "Porn star looking chic, right?"
"Right."
"She ran for it when the fight started. She's out there somewhere."
"Figures," Leon groaned and tried to stand. Jill put a hand under his elbow to help him up as he added, "She fucking tortured me."
A flash of anger was on Jill's face as Leon soothed, "Just my pride, Valentine. Just my pride...and my goddamn balls."
At least the ache in his nuts reminded him he was still alive. Alive, and currently not fond of women. He looked around for his weapons, "Any chance my guns are lying around?"
Kevin shook his head. "Doesn't look that way. What's with the taser?"
Leon gave him a look. The moment ticked by, and the big guy winced, "Jesus, really?"
Jill looked between them, "What?"
When neither spoke, she finally glanced at the taser and back at Leon. Her brows winged up, "Seriously? You meant literally your balls? Lord."
Leon snorted weakly, "Women like to torture my nuts; what can I say?"
Against his ear, she murmured quietly, "You have the strangest effect on women."
Leon chuckled dryly, "I do. Either trying to bang me or kill me...sometimes both."
"Simultaneously?" Kevin queried as he opened the door and cleared the room beyond.
"Story of my life." Leon grumped and had the big guy patting his back.
"Can you move? I can carry you if you need me to, but I expect a kiss afterward for saving the day."
Leon snorted again. "I can move."
"Then let go of Valentine and do it."
Right.
He let go of Jill's shoulders and stepped back. She gave him a long look that had Leon asking, "What? Everything ok?"
She shook her head and turned back to the door. He sighed. Maybe she thought less of him now. He couldn't blame her. Honestly, he thought less of himself for letting some big-breasted bitch get the drop on him.
They emerged into the bowels of the ship. The sway of the water beyond made the hold rock as they moved. Jill took the lead, with Kevin pulling up the rear. They emerged into the beautifully ornate hall, and Kevin urged, "Let's get down to the Casino. Schematics suggest that's the way to the lab."
They turned to head through a double set of doors labeled just that.
It was dark inside the Casino. A few floodlights had clicked on to show the woman waiting atop the stairs with her tray out as if expecting your discarded drink. Machines lingered around them, silent, speaking to a time before the world had imploded on this ship. A fountain burbled and offered fish to the eye of the beholder. It cascaded pretty water down on the swimming inhabitants, giving you the idea of a happy life for being confined.
Jill mused, "You wanna dig in there for that missing phone number?"
Leon chuckled.
At the top of the stairs, Jill tried the door to the office and mused. "Locked. Give me a minute."
She crouched and got to work on the lock. Kevin touched his boot to a slot machine. "I never had much luck at gambling."
"No?" Leon returned, "What about that hippy waitress you took home in Calgary?"
Kevin snorted. "I gloved up. The risk was minimal...the smell of patchouli stuck around for weeks, though."
Leon leaned on the railing of the stairs, gathering his strength. It was annoying to find himself limited. He started to make a crack about bitches stealing his balls, and the fountain started hissing.
Kevin backed up as the water turned red like blood and started cascading into the waiting pool as if someone had punctured an artery and it was bleeding out. "Jill? You wanna hurry that up?"
She returned, "Working on it."
"Faster, please."
Leon urged Jill, "Gun. Now."
She gestured to her thigh. He took her sidearm and sighted on the fountain.
And the fish decided it was time to give up confinement.
What came out of the water wasn't cute - it was monstrous. Thousands of teeth and flapping bodies hit the ground and moved way too fast for formerly water-locked creatures. Kevin started shooting, Leon picked off the ones that got cocky, and Jill announced, "Done."
She rose just as a fish tried to eat Kevin's ankle. He kicked it like a soccer ball, splatting against the wall as he grunted, "Jesus, I hate seafood."
Jill stepped into the office with Leon behind her. She was studying security feeds when she mused, "Anybody know the password for the lab?"
Kevin announced, "Try BIGBOOBZ."
Jill gave him a droll look. Leon offered, "Let me see it."
She moved aside so he could mess at the computer. Her eyes scanned the feeds. On all of them, monsters prowled, and bodies lay forgotten - a sad tableau of what life looked like on a cruise liner overrun by bioterror.
There was a click and a hydraulic hiss as the floor opened a panel, and a ladder emerged. Kevin laughed, "You just hack a server?"
Leon shrugged. "I have all kinds of toys, boy wonder. And tricks you ain't never seen."
"And those tricks aren't for kids."
Jill started down the ladder while they chuckled. The good thing about Kevin, he worked almost as hard as Leon did on keeping things light. There wasn't room in Kevin's arsenal of weapons for anything but good nature.
At the bottom of the ladder, Jill took in the first level of the lab. Sterile, typical, it had a door at one end of a long hallway and a sterilization room just beyond that. There were two ports for people to enter the sterilization chamber. She went in; first, the door sealed behind her, and a voice said, "One minute for complete sterilization."
Kevin and Leon entered the second room with a glass wall between them.
Kevin waved to her as the fine mist started, splattering them with disinfectant. Jill rolled her eyes and watched him do a monkey dance through the glass. Then his expression changed. He slapped the glass though it was soundless.
Jill's gaze flicked to Leon, who signaled with his head behind her and mouthed a single word.
And she just ducked.
It saved her life.
A swinging arm went over her head, soundless, the movement and noise lost under the rain around her and the machines firing to disinfect. She ducked, rolled, and came up shooting on one knee. She blasted the thing back into the wall, where it splattered black tar-like blood onto the wall and the floor. It kept trying to get her while she riddled it with bullets.
One of those tentacled hands gripped the barrel of her gun and jerked, pulling her forward. She released the trigger, let it pull her in, and drove her knife thrice into its gaping face. She sealed its snapping jaws shut around the barrel filled with the teeth of its snout. It panicked, and she jammed the gun again into its body and emptied her magazine. The beep beep of finished sterilization was the only sound until the body hit the floor a moment later.
The doors opened, and Kevin and Leon came around to her meet her on the other side.
Leon mused, "You were almost a snack for that thing."
Jill shook her head with a sigh. "That's me - food for the monsters. Sandwiches. Snacks. It's all I am."
Kevin teased, "Maybe it's because you're so tasty."
Jill started to answer his teasing, and a loud blaring siren filled the air. She turned slowly as a screen flickered above them. The gorgeous face wasn't familiar to her, but apparently, it was to Leon because he immediately cursed under his breath as a cooing tone oozed the words from the crackling speakers, "You didn't really think I'd let you walk in and out with what was mine, did you?"
Leon eyed the face on the screen and answered, "So come on down and finish me off. Although, I'm not tied up this time with your taser in my balls, princess, so it won't be quite as easy."
"No?" Quipped that sly face, "All I have to do is cry pretty and shudder, and you'll think I need saving, Mr. Textbook Hero. Must suck to be a fucking pathetic white knight under all that wasted skill."
Leon snorted, shook his head, and bitched again under his breath, "...women."
Kevin returned in a blase tone, "So, what's the game here? Self-destruct sequence?" He tilted his head, considering, "Timed escape? Gauntlet of monsters blocking our way out?"
Rachel glared at him, laughed lightly, and finally answered, "How about all three?" She eyed the controls before her and added, "You'll have just enough time to make one vaccine. Just one. So, one of you gets the juice, and two of you die."
Her gaze flicked to Leon, "Unless you wanna turn yourself over to me now and save me the trouble of killing your friends."
He started to answer, and Jill snapped, "Fuck you and your bargains, you bitch. Hit the switch and run like the coward you are."
Rachel arched a perfect brow. "Oof, this nasty little kitten has claws. Shame I already found what you three nerds are down there chasing." She lifted a container with the plagas sample floating in it, "This bad boy is aquatic and already enhanced with T-Abyss. So, guess what?"
Quietly seething, Leon ground out, "You're gonna release it somewhere with a controlled populace on the water and see what it can do."
"You betcha," Rachel cooed and grinned, "Because we know something you don't know, hot stuff..."
When he glared at her, she finished, "We know how to control these fuckers."
His eyes flickered as she flirted, flashing a lot of cleavage, "Play nice, and I'll let your girlfriend over there live."
Amused, Kevin wondered, "What about me?"
Rachel snorted, "Honey, you're just the fifth man on the away team today - the backup Kennedy. Your whole purpose in this story is to die like a hero so the real one escapes."
Kevin sighed dramatically, "Figures. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride."
Leon offered, "Come on, Rachel. Come on and get me. I'll surrender. I'll make it easy."
Jill grabbed his arm, snapping, "The hell you will-"
Rachel laughed, "You're a lying sack of shit, Kennedy, but you sure as hell look good doing - though god knows you looked better before I tortured the shit out of you."
Leon's mouth twitched. "So, give me a chance to redeem myself."
She rolled her eyes. "No thanks, bro," he had to laugh as she added, "By the way...that timer starts now. So, I suggest you start running."
She disconnected. The glass beside them cracked as something mean and hateful smashed against and water started to spill around their feet. Kevin glanced down at the spiderweb of a wall beside them and mused, "So...split up? Stick together? How do ya'll wanna die today?"
Jill surged toward the waiting lab door on the other side of the room, "We don't die today...but that bitch? She's flashed her last titty shot."
She was a few steps forward when Leon shouted her name. She started to turn, and he tackled her to the ground. She hit, he was on top of her as they slid through water and smacked into the wall, and the air sparked with fire where she'd been. Beneath him in the wet, Jill muttered against his ear, "...shit...lasers."
He leaned up to look down at her and mused, "Yeah. My favorite thing."
Her eyes almost twinkled.
And then an alarm started blaring. It was so loud Jill cringed. It made their ears ring. The self-destruct sequence had been activated. Jill bitched softly, "...cliche witch."
Leon snorted and helped her rise. He kept her against the wall and instructed, "I can get to the lab and get the vaccine. But I need you to stay right here and use that."
He gestured to the fire extinguisher on the wall beside her. She jerked it free and aimed it at the air. On the other side, Kevin mused, "You want me to just toss off bad one-liners like a sidekick in a stupid movie?"
Leon returned, "Isn't that what you always do?"
Kevin laughed and gave him the finger. Jill sprayed the air and watched his face. He studied the lasers and memorized them, just like that, in a handful of seconds. She urged quietly, "You sure about this?"
He winked at her, backed up, and started running. She sprayed again just to be sure, and he sprung up, tucked, and rolled through one set of lasers. She sprayed, and he ducked and slid. She sprayed, he did limbo, and crawled on his belly. He likely didn't need the additional sprays, but she had to figure he appreciated them.
When he disappeared behind the lab door, Kevin mused, "I could do that too, ya know."
Jill eyed him blandly. He cleared his throat. "I could."
She rolled her eyes. "Big as you are, you'd lose an arm, a foot, and both testicles."
Kevin winced. "Good thing I have three."
She couldn't stop the laugh. If she had to die, she thought randomly, better to die with two quipping heroes than two desperate, scared ones. The wall cracked under the weight of rising water.
She and Kevin both glanced at it, and he remarked, "...well...here we go...why we always swimming, Valentine?"
Jill shrugged, and the glass let loose two little streams of water. It sprayed the laser beams and started hissing. She braced her legs and told him, "Stay toward the ceiling when the water rises; try to avoid the goddamn lasers."
"Aye, aye, sugarboobs."
Jill rolled her eyes, waited, and watched the glass shatter in a burst of musical explosion. The rupture hit the lasers, and the world went red with filthy water as it hit them. It wasn't gentle. They both were thrown into walls by force as they swam toward the ceiling. She saw Leon swim free of the lab and headed for the surface.
When the opportunity came, she swam for the shattered glass. Her arms and legs shoved and worked. Her lungs protested but held as she went up, up, up, seeking air. She nearly panicked when she pushed free, gasping wildly as she broke the waterline and found her lungs screaming with relief.
She glanced around, figuring she was at the engineering level of the ship based on the chugging machinery around her. She swam for the suspension bridge, now barely above the water, and leveraged herself up the ladder to the surface. As she climbed free, she heard the roaring.
Too slow, she turned to find something burst free of the water. It had wings or didn't, and could fly or couldn't; she didn't have enough time to decide. It landed on the deck beside her, and she blasted it back into the water while it squealed. Fish or bird, she didn't give a shit.
Three more landed around her, and a shout drew her attention upward. "Here! Hurry!"
She raced for the ladder and started up it, trusting Leon to pick off her pursuers from the upper deck where he waited. As she reached the landing, he caught her belt and practically tossed her beside him. Jil found her feet and demanded, "Kevin!?"
Leon shook his head, "I couldn't see shit in that water! He knows where the evac point is?!"
Jill nodded. Leon commanded, "Then he'll get there. Go!"
They raced for the far door. It was a fast and desperate escape. They ran out of bullets. They ran out of breath. They ran out of energy. The monsters poured around them in a gauntlet just like Kevin and joked.
As they hit the satellite tower on the ship foredeck, Jill demanded, "Where is he!? Kevin!?"
The storm outside raged as they burst into the rain. The ship kicked wildly, the waves tossing the hull and bow as if in the hands of an angry toddler in a bath. Jill stumbled, and Leon caught her elbow to shout, "There's no time! Get on that goddamn chopper!"
The ladder hit the deck. The helicopter bobbed in the turbulent sky as it tried to keep itself steady. Jill denied angrily, "I won't leave him!"
Leon started to answer her, and the door burst open as Kevin pounded across the slick ship in a lumbering run. "Go! What the hell are you two still doing here!?"
Jill started up the ladder as Leon shouted, "Valentine wouldn't leave you!"
Jill climbed into the chopper. Leon was right behind her as Kevin waited for his turn to join them and remarked, "That's sweet, Valentine. Stupid but sweet. You wanna get married when this is over?"
She laughed and leaned heavily on the wall. She started to answer the goddamn ship below them and decided it was a good time to explode. It erupted, burping fire and death into the sky in mass rage. The concussive boom threw the chopper into a tailspin. The ladder caught fire as if it were doused in kerosene. Kevin was forced to jump off it and grab wildly for anything else to hold onto. Warning sensors wailed in anger as Leon hung half out the chopper and caught Kevin's arm. He dangled into the dark, forearm to forearm, as the big guy shouted, "I was kidding! I was kidding! I take it back!"
Jill grabbed Leon's belt to hold him, her other arm hooked over the emergency strap to secure them. Leon grunted angrily, "Jesus Christ, Ryman, you weigh nine thousand pounds!"
"All muscle, Slenderman, don't be jealous!"
Kevin grabbed the slick toehold on the chopper and shoved, throwing himself up. He landed face to crotch on Leon and made the other man grunt. After a few moments, Leon demanded, "...you gonna keep your face in my balls, you better at least buy me dinner."
And Kevin laughed.
He shifted and helped Leon up. They all leaned against the walls, breathing heavily. Leon remarked, "I need to upload the sample on the Omega, and then we can inject one of you."
He started to do that, and Kevin answered, "Ladies first because I'm a gentleman."
Jill snorted, "Since when?"
He grinned and opened his mouth to quip something clever in response, and then his face collapsed with pain. His eyes rolled back in his head. Jill shouted in horror as he started to seize against the wall, body smacking steel and mouth foaming. "Leon!"
Leon reached him as she did, collecting the other man in his arms to brace him with Kevin's back against his chest. Jill stuffed her belt in Kevin's mouth to stop him from biting off his tongue. She searched him for wounds, demanding in a terrified voice, "Where!? Where is he wounded?!"
Leon shook his head. "It doesn't work that way, Jill. Not all the time. Remember? But if it was in the water, he swallowed plenty."
Jill glanced at the Omega. "Is it done!?"
Leon shook his head again. "It needs another ten minutes to upload at this altitude. It's only at about twenty percent."
Kevin jerked and groaned, blood spilling from his left ear. Jill pinned his flailing arms to his chest as Leon secured the big man's legs in a crab hold from behind. She gave Leon terrified eyes and shouted, "He doesn't have ten minutes!"
Face resolute, Leon returned, "...I know."
She glanced at the Omega and back at Leon. It was barely twenty-five percent. "Is it enough to reconstruct anything with a number like that!?"
Leon shrugged. "I don't know. I can't say."
Kevin went still in their arms. Terrified, she glanced at his face and found his left eye bleeding. She moaned softly in fear. "I...I can't let him die. I can't. What do we do!?"
Leon held her eyes and returned. "What he'd want," Leon gruffed when she whimpered and denied it quietly, "kill him before he changes, Jill. It's what he'd want."
"...I can't."
Leon offered his left hand, "I know that...give me your knife, and I will."
Jill's hand hesitated on the knife at her thigh. He urged again, harder now, more commanding. "We've got seconds here, Jill. Seconds before, he changes and kills us both. Hand it here, and look away. Let me do this for him...and for you."
Jill's hand shifted from the knife. It grabbed the Omega. He saw what she'd do written all over her face and demanded desperately, "Don't! Don't do it, Jill. It will give us nothing to cure you. Don't do this."
She reached for the eject button on the Omega and declared, "I'm sorry...partners save each other...it's what we do."
"Damnit, Jill, this isn't the BSAA. You do this, and we'll lose you both!"
She lifted the Omega as Leon started shoving Kevin's limp body off him to stop her. Softly, she whispered, "I know...I'm so sorry."
"Jill!" Leon roared, "Stop!"
Her finger touched the eject button, the sample fell into her palm, and Leon caught her wrist, wrenching her arm around to shove it against the wall of the chopper. She fought him, kicking and shoving, shouting, "Let go! Let go of me!"
Into her face, against the whip of helicopter blades and battering of wind and storm, his answering roar was still somehow so loud, "I will never let go of you! Do you hear me!? Never!"
She started to answer that desperation, and her eyes flicked over his shoulder. They widened in fear as she warned in a scream, "Duck!"
He took her with him as he did, dragging them both down as Kevin's arm swung where they'd been. It struck the wall of the chopper, and Leon spun around, tackling the big man away. Kevin hit him in the face for it, throwing him out and into the rack of safety gear. The pilot shouted, "What's happening back there!?"
Jill shoved her knife against Kevin's throat and begged, as she had with Leon in Spain, "Stop! Stop it! Please!?"
His hand closed around her throat, his red eyes wild and calm at once. Kevin lifted her off her feet like she weighed nothing and put her dangling body out of the hangar door into the wind. Terror closed around her throat. She kicked, hands scrambling out to try to grab him. Her body took the buffeting of the storm, and she couldn't see anything but those red eyes. His hand around her throat loosened, and she thought - why am I always falling to my death? - just as he let go of her.
She plummeted, the world becoming a dark, cold, and wet wind tunnel. The hand caught hers and slapped, holding on. She was dangling in that vortex and trying to see her savior. Leon? Was Kevin dead?
She was tugged up through the gale-force blasts of air and staring at those red eyes again. Kevin had dropped her...and Kevin had lifted her to safety.
Desperately, she urged, "Ryman!?"
He set her on her feet in the chopper, but he didn't quip, and he didn't laugh, and he didn't even seem to know she was there. Behind him, leaning on the wall with his mouth and nose bleeding, Leon commanded, "...get away from her."
Kevin did just that. He moved away, staring at nothing like a puppet or a doll - lifeless and ready to be commanded again.
Leon's red eyes met Jill's as he demanded, "The vaccine, Jill...use it on him, now."
She grabbed it from the floor and thrust it into Kevin's throat. His body didn't even register it. It just stood there, still and scary somehow. Voice thick with pain and gruff with something she couldn't name, Leon commanded, "Tie your ankles together and sit down, Kevin."
The big man did that, too. He waited while Jill bound his hands. He stared emptily forward as she scurried back from him, moving to help Leon up where he was slumped against the wall of the chopper. He lifted a hand at her to halt her, "Don't...don't. Stay away from me."
Hurt, she paused, she waited, and then she breathed, "It's ok. You won't hurt me. It's ok."
His angry eyes held hers as he answered, "No, I won't hurt you. Hurting you isn't what I want right now. You need to stay away from me until I regain control."
Her head tilted. "It costs you something to command others."
Leon nodded. "Yeah, looks that way. I wasn't even sure I could. I did it once in that cave, and I wasn't sure...but I can. I can command them...but it doesn't feel...right. It doesn't feel..." he shook his head helplessly, "human. It feels alien - a monster. I don't feel entirely like me right now...so...just...stay away."
Jill sat down near the farthest wall with Kevin and Leon in opposite corners from her. She felt miserable; she felt afraid. Her eyes flicked to the Omega, "Did it get entirely uploaded?"
Leon shook his head, "Eighty percent...maybe enough to recreate a prototype from it."
Her breath trembled. "...I'm gonna turn into that, too, then."
Leon shook his head. "I can't feel you."
Her head tilted. He shook his again. "I can't feel you in my head like I could Kevin. You're not...hive."
Her breath hitched. Her body trembled with fear. "...are you?"
His mouth flickered sadly. "...looks that way, sweetheart."
"But you're still...you."
Their eyes held as he confessed, "Maybe...but not just me...not anymore."
The storm buffeted the chopper as they sat watching either other. The rain slashed the sky, and lightning lit their faces. She kept on staring at him until his eyes bled back blue. She didn't look away even when he did.
As she watched the pain on his profile, the regret, and the acceptance, her hand opened and lay flat on the floor between them, palm up.
His gaze shifted to it.
Softly, she encouraged, "...you're still you...take it."
He started to deny her, and she commanded, "Take it, Kennedy...and I won't let go either...ever. I swear to god we will find a way to get this thing out of you."
He held her eyes. Hers were steady, determined, and strong. His were scared, tired, and hopeless. But his hand slid into hers and gripped, hard, palm to palm. He channeled her strength and said gruffly, "I'm glad you're here, Jill."
Her lips lifted in a smile as she answered, "I'm not going anywhere."
And neither looked away even as the chopper landed on the tarmac, and the truth of what he'd become swirled around them like the storm beyond that chopper.
