Altruism

Eidolon: an ideal: perfect or supremely excellent

"A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out."
~ Walter Winchell

Nelson stopped talking. He needed to pause, to collect his thoughts. Reflect on if he had missed anything up to this point. He glanced over at Lee. So far he had been very careful not to intrude on Lee's privacy by staring or watching him too closely. Lee needed time and space.

Lee sat still as stone. He hadn't moved at all. Hadn't given even a hint of whether the story was heard let alone understood or believed. Other than agreeing silently to Nelson sitting down he hadn't acknowledged him since turning away, sheltering behind his shoulder.

As Nelson glanced toward him he thought he saw Lee's eyes move sidelong in his direction, just his eyes, not his head. It broke his heart, the last time Lee had looked at him it had been just like that. It had been a sidelong glance of incredulous shock at trust broken, the disbelieving look of a brother betrayed to death. In that fleeting moment the desolation in his best friend's eyes had been chiselled indelibly into his heart.

Nelson's breath left him in a gasp. He wanted to reach out a hand to comfort and console, but he couldn't. He controlled himself as best he could keeping his movements small and slow. His hands, cuffed together, came up to his own chin instead; he rubbed his chin with his thumb, his self comfort move. His hands silently lifted the extra inches to wipe under his brimming eyes with his fingertips.

Nelson was more than distraught flipping pages and wrestling with navigation charts. He had just shot his best friend, the man he called a brother and almost thought of as a son. He shot him in cold blood, without warning, without a word of explanation, without even giving him a chance to acknowledge the approach of death or to make his final peace.

He took the coward's way. Shot Crane from across the room and in the gut. If he had really wanted to stop Krueger he would have taken a head shot and destroyed the body Krueger desired. Put a bullet into the brain Krueger wanted to exploit. Crane's body without the brain wouldn't see, hear, smell, touch, feel, or breathe, all the things Krueger wanted. Nelson could have kept his bargain, saved the crew and destroyed Krueger's plans along with his best friend. But no he hadn't had the courage to end it. He wasn't able to steel himself to destroy his friend's face or the brain that made Lee who he was. With a wavering hand he shot Lee in the belly guaranteeing Krueger the body he wanted and sentencing Lee to eternal subjugation. How could he have done that? Was it misguided hope that he could somehow fix everything after the fact? With that cowardly shot he condemned Lee to relentless unending slavery.

Looking across the table at Crane he wondered if Lee knew anything about it? What had happened to Lee, the man he knew … his friend, while he was possessed? Was Crane's consciousness gone or just covered over by Krueger's malevolent mind? He didn't know which possibility was worse, his friend prisoner forever unknowing or prisoner forever aware. He shook his head trying to evade the thoughts. Either way he was guilty of whatever horror Lee's experience of forever would have been.

He had watched as Krueger invaded his friend's still living body. That was important. Krueger had asked him to kill Crane but Crane wasn't dead. Krueger took him; violating him while he still breathed. Crane still alive was what all their hopes had been pinned on through all that happened after.

Standing out in the passageway waiting with the others, Chip thought back over the next chaotic events. There had been the frantic run south. Krueger had flown the flying sub (FS1) to the South Pacific and they had to scramble to get there themselves, somehow find the Skipper in the vast reaches of the ocean and rid him of Krueger's spirit before his critically wounded body died. No small order.

They didn't know how long Krueger could or would keep Lee alive.

Chip knew he was really out on a limb here. Especially when he let Nelson off the boat with a rubber dinghy and a gun. Why did he trust Nelson? It made no sense to give Nelson a loaded gun to go look for the man he had already tried to kill. Rationally Chip had no leg to stand on for allowing this gamble. He felt the aloneness of command as he waited.

He sure hoped that his friends, both of them, would be restored to him. That was the whole point of Nelson leaving while technically still under arrest. If this didn't work out they were all ruined; Chip to disciplinary court martial, Nelson to prison, Lee to the unending horror of possession by a phantom.

Chip thought back to the things they had discussed, the reasons he let Nelson go. They were counting on Krueger not being able to kill off the flicker of life left in Lee's body. Krueger had told Nelson he could not kill the body he wanted. They were banking on that. And on the unexpected fact of Krueger somehow managing to possess Lee while he still lived. That was their hope; that Lee could be rescued while life endured, freed of Krueger, and returned to them from wherever he was. So close to death but not yet dead.

Then Chip had done the thing that put the nail in the coffin of his career. He fired a missile on the order of a man under arrest for attempted murder. Nothing was going to get him out of that accountability.

Nelson speaking quietly finished off his story up to the point of Krueger's demise. He had a final thought to add. An important one. One he wanted Lee to know.

"Chip did it, Lee. Got you back. Chip believed me a little bit. Not a lot, but enough to let me out of a straight jacket to search the charts, enough to head Seaview to Mulayo. He wanted you back enough to let me off the boat to go find you. He fired the missile that destroyed Krueger."

Although Nelson had wanted Lee back desperately himself he did not want Lee to feel any obligation to him. If Lee censured him that was fair, he had tried to kill him after all. That was unforgivable. But he wanted Lee to know who had been the real mover of his rescue. "Chip was the only reason we got you back." Nelson gave the credit where it was due.

Chip had stood friend to both of them.

Lee looked ashen as he pivoted slowly toward Nelson still not looking at him and leaned forward to rest his forearms on the table. Then barely above a whisper Nelson heard him. "God, sir." Lee's head dropped and he inspected the tabletop with eyes that couldn't see, flooded as they were with tears. Lee blinked rapidly and lifted his hands to wipe the tears from his eyes.

Nelson looked across the table at him and wished he could enfold Lee into a hug. He looked so thin, pale and alone. But he restrained himself, sat quiet and still as tears welled up in his own eyes. Lee knew his story now.