A/N — this week my oldest turned twelve and asked for a fish. So tomorrow we will be fish shopping. Wish me luck! xoxo — kals

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Chapter 9

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Sasha leaned against the side of the stadium, attempting to take advantage of the sliver of shade that the seats above provided. At 1300, the stadium was sweltering, the sun directly above, with not even a slight draft to provide relief from the heat. Once again, Sasha wished that she protested more when Rachel picked the twenty-yard line as her staging location. Of course, Sasha's main objection to the location was that it left Rachel completely exposed — after all, the stadium was designed to give everyone there a clear view of the field and that meant a perfectly clear view of Rachel. The fact that this location also meant hours under the Florida sun without a hint of air conditioning only occurred to Sasha afterwards.

Still, even as Sasha protested, she also understood why Rachel chose that location. As they quickly learned in Savannah, directing thousands of people into a small space was never going to be safe, eliminating all of the stadium's changing and meeting rooms from the list, and Sasha wasn't willing to even consider allowing Rachel outside of the stadium. She would have preferred that Rachel remain against the wall close to the second field entrance in a more defensible position, but Rachel had accurately predicted the need for the back half of the field to be used as a staging area to stabilize and then evacuate those who arrived sick.

So the twenty-yard line it was, and Sasha had spent the last six hours watching an unceasing flood of people arrive for testing and inoculation, their efforts seeming to make little impact on the size of the crowd outside. Today, the third day of their efforts, they were seeing people from as far away as New York and Texas. People who must have jumped into the vehicles within hours of hearing about the James's arrival and headed directly here. Still, notwithstanding the size of the crowd outside, Sasha was well aware that they were operating on borrowed time, expecting to hear at any moment that Solace was being redirected to St. Louis. That was why Danny wasn't here sweltering with her, instead having left before daybreak to escort a team from Solace to Doctor Hunter's lab. Although the man himself remained in England, working with a team from Oxford to spread the vaccine throughout Europe, he had given them permission to use his equipment to establish another laboratory capable of producing large quantities of the vaccine.

Watching Danny wrap his sister Caroline in a tight hug after Solace's team boarded the Nathan James had been the single bright spot in Sasha's day.

Shifting, Sasha felt another bead of sweat run down her back just as Rachel attempted to move around the barrier established by the Marines in order to assist a heavily pregnant woman lugging a child. Fortunately, before Sasha had to intervene, Tex did so, herding the woman and child towards the small tent set up on one side of the stadium before returning to Rachel's side. Tex must have made a quip of some kind, because the scowl on Rachel's face softened and she returned to swabbing and evaluating the unending line of new arrivals. Initially, Sasha was baffled by the developing closeness between Tex and Rachel, who seemed to have literally nothing in common. Then she noticed that Danny seemed less puzzled by the relationship, making Sasha suspect that something happened during those terrible days when Danny lay dying. Still, having been the one to deliver the news that Rachel's longtime partner was almost certainly dead, Sasha doubted that Rachel was thinking about Tex in a romantic fashion. More likely, Tex's willingness to let Rachel exploit any and all of his bodily fluids was the true draw.

Taking two steps away from the wall, Sasha once again confirmed that Utt's snipers remained in position, before returning to her original position. Sasha was well aware that the Marines were giving her a wide berth, and couldn't really blame them. She didn't regret the dressing down she delivered after the second time that someone was able to approach Rachel from the rear, but she also knew that she could have handled the situation better. If asked, Sasha would have blamed her mood on the heat and lack of sleep, but she was too old to lie to herself. Florida in August might be miserable, but it had nothing on Columbia, and five hours of sleep followed by some of Mike Slattery's coffee was more than enough to keep her going. No, Sasha knew that her current funk had little to do with the heat and plenty to do with the fact that Tom Chandler wasn't here suffering alongside her.

That knowledge, paradoxically, made her mood even blacker.

At the beginning of the cruise to the Arctic, Sasha had done everything possible to avoid Tom. Yet, without her realizing it, she had become used to having him by her side — begun, unbelievably, to even imagine a future together. One where she and Tom worked side-by-side as a team, spending both their days and their nights together, the way they talked about so many years before. Even as the old dream surfaced, however, Sasha knew it was nothing more than fantasy. She and Tom would never have been allowed to work together. Not if, as the plan had been, they ever wanted to be together openly as a couple. And now, their paths had diverged too far to find a middle ground. Tom was the captain of his own ship, a task at which he clearly excelled at, and one Sasha would never ask him to give up. Yet, by the same token, Sasha could never imagine returning to a more traditional chain of command, one where she would have to take orders from people who followed the rules without regard to whether those rules made sense or not. No, Sasha understood that these days, the ones where she and Tom could work together, were fleeting.

Which is why that kiss was such a mistake.

It was only now, with the benefit of hindsight, that Sasha understood how badly she screwed up. She had broken her cardinal rule — failing to play it out to the end — and she had encouraged Tom to see a future where none existed. Worse, no future could exist. She should have held the line that she established the day she joined the Nathan James, appreciating this time for what it was, an opportunity to see Tom again, to work together to save the world, and then to part amicably to return to their lives. Their separate lives. Yet something about Tom made her impulsive, willing to throw caution to the wind and see what happened.

To grab the dream with both hands and trust fate that it would all work out.

Today, when Tom received an emergency call from his father just as they were preparing to leave the James, Sasha found herself torn. In that moment, she hadn't cared what happened at the stadium, wanting only to stay by Tom's side — and the realization that she was willing to risk her career for Tom, again, was a shock of cold water. Because with Danny and Frankie on their way to Doctor Hunter's lab, and Rachel insisting on accompanying the team to Doak Stadium — granted permission by Amy Granderson herself — there was simply no question that Sasha needed to go with Rachel. Yet, Sasha hadn't wanted to go. Worse, with communication between the stadium and the ship limited to critical information passed along by the helo crew as they dropped off the vaccine and cure, Sasha was left to speculate what could have happened to force Jed — one of the most independent and capable men Sasha knew — to make an emergency call to his son.

The most obvious scenario, one that made Sasha feel slightly nauseous, was that one of the kids was sick.

Five days had passed since Sasha gave Jesse the package to be delivered to Jed, which was more than enough time for both the vaccine and the cure to arrive. Of course, there was always the possibility that Jesse was delayed or, worse, never made it at all. Pushing away the slight panic that flared when she considered whether delivering Sasha's package might have gotten her friend killed, Sasha reminded herself that Jesse could take care of herself. Besides, Jesse was only Plan A. Anders had offered to help Danny get doses into the safe zone as well. Between the two of them, chances were good that at least a few doses of the cure made it, and from there more could be replicated. Even if Ashley and Sam were sick, they would ultimately be okay.

Or, as least, that's what Sasha kept telling herself.

Shifting again, feeling a bit of sweat rolled on her back, Sasha considered the email she received from Jed several months ago. The email was a cover, of course, the actual message encoded. But there was no hiding the fact that Jed was a proud and involved grandfather who adored his only two grandchildren. One of the pictures was of Sam and Jed fishing and, on the very left side of the photograph, Sasha could see the edge of a shoulder. She had wondered, when looking at the photo, if Ashley cut Tom off when she took the picture or if Jed cropped it before sending it to Sasha. She recognized the location immediately. The pond was a family favorite, not far from the home where Jed and Sylvia settled after Jed retired, and Tom took Sasha fishing there a few times. Picturing the scene, Sasha tried to imagine what it would be like if she was there with them. Just another family Sunday, with Tom's children and father. Yet try as she would, the image simply didn't form.

It wasn't that Sasha disliked children. Over the years, she babysat for Shannon's brood regularly and had even watched Emma for Berchem a few times when he and Missy were still trying to work things out and going on "date nights." Sasha fully expected that she would be asked to stand up as godmother for Danny and Kara's little one and would actually be hurt if Danny didn't ask. But spending time with Tom's children felt different. They had a life, one created with just the three of them — four if you included Jed. And just as their work paths diverged so completely, Sasha saw no role for herself in Tom's family.

She was forced from her increasingly maudlin thoughts by Utt's arrival. Sasha fought the urge to purse her lips, keeping her stance against the wall intentionally relaxed. She nodded briskly. "Commander."

He returned the gesture. "Commander."

Sasha waited, anticipating a complaint of some kind. It was that sort of a day, after all. "I heard from Barco that you were up on the roof. Checking on the snipers."

And there it was. The expected criticism, the suggestion is that she was in some way overstepping, just as Utt complained when Sasha went over his head to get her team out of Mexico. Of course, this time was different from the last time they tangled. This time, this was Sasha's mission, and she was the one in charge. Meaning that she had every right to be up on that roof checking to make sure that Utt's men were doing their job.

"I did." Sasha moved so that she was looking directly at Rachel. "While I was not the one to approve Dr. Scott's presence here at the stadium, I will be the one to return her to the Nathan James in exactly the same condition that she left. And if that means ruffling Barco's feathers, so be it."

Sasha had expected Utt to make some sort of protest, to assert a defense on behalf of his team. But instead Utt moved to stand next to her, back to the wall, although Sasha noted that he didn't actually touch it. "I agree. I told Barco to pull in every spare set of hands from Lejeune. The crowd outside has doubled again. We're attempting to screen people for weapons as they enter the stadium, but it would be easy enough for someone to sneak in. There are too many entrances."

Sasha was glad that they weren't facing each other, not wanting her surprise to show on her face. "Thank you. We may want to rotate the teams as well. It's hot up there."

Utt accepted the comment with his own nod, although Sasha doubted that he would take the suggestion. One minute passed, then a second. Finally, Utt spoke. "I noticed that Captain Chandler didn't come with you today."

Sasha's mind flashed back to the moment when Slattery arrived, pulling Tom aside to tell him that Jed was on the radio, once again wondering what had happened. "The Captain was unavoidably detained on the ship."

Utt opened his mouth, before hesitating, then committing. "Radios are still out. Barco thinks SATCOM must be down."

Wondering if that was the real reason for Utt's appearance, Sasha carefully considered her answer. "We've been having the same problem. The Nathan James is working on the issue."

Which, Sasha understood from Kara, would not be resolved for at least six more hours. Danny was less than thrilled when Sasha looped both Tom and Kara in on the plan to prevent Amy Granderson from relaying directions to Solace, not wanting a whiff of scandal attaching to Kara's name, but Kara was the only person who had a reason to be communicating with the satellite at all. Sasha could only hope that Val's allegedly foolproof plan to convince the thing to do a full twelve-hour reboot was as good as the woman claimed and wipe all trace of the prior directions. Because if Val was wrong, Sasha suspected that she would be fielding complaints from both Danny and Tom.

Utt shifted slightly, catching Sasha's attention. She waited, silently, until he shifted again, hands moving to his back and then back to his front. Was Utt nervous? "Do you remember Corporal Weeks?"

After the way that the man leered at her in Mexico? Commenting on her ass in Spanish without checking to see if she understood? Utt had to be joking. "No."

"Weeks talked to his wife this morning. She got routed to Arnold Air Force Base when they closed Lejeune to non-military personnel. Most of the guys' families are there," Utt paused again. Sasha remained still, waiting. "Apparently a shipment of the vaccine got delivered from Lejeune yesterday. The pallets weren't marked so nobody knew about the mix-up until the C-17 left. Colonel Jeffrey didn't want to waste them so he distributed the doses. The guys in the EDC think that they can replicate it, make enough to start distribution to civilians."

"EDC?" Sasha asked, eyes fixed on Rachel as Tex attempted to convince the doctor to sit and take a drink of water. It was a good reminder, and Sasha lifted her own canteen.

"The Engineering Development Complex," Utt responded. "It has some pretty smart guys."

Pretty smart guys. Sasha fought the urge to shake her head. Arnold might specialize in hypersonic research, but a critical part of testing any new aircraft was keeping the people inside alive, necessitating the presence of biomedical engineers. Sasha also made a mental note to tell Danny to be more careful about his "screwups". At a minimum, a little advance warning would be appreciated, in case of situations like this.

"I'm glad to hear that your men's families got the vaccine," Sasha said, confident that her voice betrayed nothing.

Another two minutes passed before Utt spoke again. "In Mexico, I told you that breaking rules killed people."

Despite the heat, Sasha felt a chill. For all that she clashed with Utt previously, she hadn't seen him as an actual threat, assuming that he could be managed. The man always seemed honorable, if nothing else. Memories of Danny in that quarantine tent, his voice fading in and out as he asked for Kara again and again, flashed through her mind and Sasha's voice was too sharp when she spoke. "I remember."

"I was wrong," Utt said, taking the winds out of Sasha's sails. She half turned her head before catching herself, and returning her gaze to Rachel. "This thing, this virus. It doesn't play by the rules. Which means that we can't either. Not if we want to beat it."

Shocked, and yet relieved that she hadn't misread Utt after all, Sasha felt herself relax. "You weren't wrong. I did almost get my team killed."

"Green looked fine to me." Utt replied. "One thing I never doubted, Cooper, is that you would never ask your team to do something that you wouldn't do yourself."

They were interrupted by a shout from the field. "Hey Commander Mensch!" Utt made a choking noise that might have been a snort as Tex approached. "Helo crew has a message for you from the Capitan."

Sasha pushed away from the wall, hoping for good news from Danny. Once Doctor Hunter's lab was up and running, they would be capable of supplying the stadium with the vaccine long term, allowing Solace to move on. Sasha was three steps away when Utt spoke again. "Just so you know, Cooper, I always repay my debts."

Sasha glanced back. "You owe me nothing, Utt."

Ironically — since Utt really didn't owe her anything, not for this — Utt didn't back down. "Protest as much as you want, Cooper, but nothing you say will change the fact that I owe you. For helping my men."

Unfortunately, Tex was close enough to hear that last. He laughed. "My man over there has you pegged, Cooper. You know, up in the Arctic she was the one ... "

"Tex!" Sasha cut him off, having quickly learned that Tex was never predictable. She glanced back at Utt, feeling a connection for the first time. For both of them, their people came first. "If I ever need your help, Jeremiah, I'll let you know."