He began to toss and turn, finally awakening with a start from a sound sleep. Fat drops of sweat beaded his forehead. The pulse at the side of his neck was going a mile a minute. He was in his cabin, but for a moment, that instant before being fully awake, he was dazed, unsure where he really was.

Confused, he lay stone still until he shuddered, a coldness weighing against him. She would come into his cabin and light the whole cramped space up, not saying a word. Regal. He, waiting on her every word…

Tom peered at nothing, probing absolute darkness until he gasped. Forcing himself to breathe in, next he held his breath. He tingled, longing for her touch. Another moment dragged by, melding into another; he flinched. Was that her face he saw?

Was it, or merely faint shadows writhing on the wall?

Impossible it was she, but when he thought about her intently, the seemingly impossible transformed into substance…

Her calming, rich voice reached his ears and whispered, "I'm waiting…waiting for you, Tom. Where are you? I can't do this alone. We're a team. We're inseparable." That last bit reverberated in his ears.

Shirtless, he shivered, not due to any cold. The air in his cabin was on the stuffy side. There had been no change in the air chilling him. Far from that; he was thrilled whenever he heard her speak his name, so impossibly inviting, as though he could reach out to touch her.

"Find me…find me…find me. I'm here for the taking…"

"Where must I look, Rachel? Though ravaged by fear and uncertainty of what the future holds, the world is still a pretty big place."

Intensely, he reminded himself, as the hard scowl on his face deepened, swallowed up by the inky night, that he's never accepted her death. To accept it would mean subjugation to crippling despair. Their lies would not defeat him.

In his gut, he knew she lived. Their smokescreen wouldn't work on him. Her voice, despite its being in his head, although maybe what he heard so often wasn't all him, spurred him on. Unfinished business was unfinished business. She won't let him forget; she'd been a pawn. Had they all been? Were they still?

If, for whatever reason they had been, and still were being used, it was up to the Nathan James' loyalists to uncover any and all misdeeds.

Things had never added up from day one when no one could ascertain what had happened to her, aside from the vague information that she'd been attacked. Rachel, whether in reality, or in figment, was reaching out to him.

Not stopping himself, surly, Tom grunted all too familiar words, "A cover-up isn't out of the question. Michener's handling of things never felt right. Not with me, and Mike. What had he really been up to? Perpetrating his own agenda. Now he's gone. What did he do with Rachel?" His breath caught in his throat as he sighed. "I won't let her go. I'll never let her go. I see her, feel her everywhere. Hear her voice whisper in my ear so no one else hears. She's not dead. Someway, somehow…Rachel's alive!"

The boyish side of him, that he would never truly surrender, as determined as he was to keep it under wraps, gave the mind-set three cheers. That side of him constantly reminded Tom about his prize being out there in this sick, both figuratively and literally, world. She called to him and it was up to him to get to her, rescue her from whatever it was that kept them apart.

He scrubbed a hand over his face as he relived what they'd shared, all the nuances, the triumphs, the defeats they had weathered together, if not actually hand-in-hand, at least soul-to-soul. He revived her bewitching eyes, mentally gazing into them, getting thoroughly lost, but found. Rachel's fortitude and courage would always leave him weak in the knees.

He had never said goodbye to her, never would. Not in his mind, nor in his heart, since she possessed them both.

Too wired to convince himself that he needed to go back to sleep, Tom decided spending time with his unfading memories served him best. Those times he treasured being with her rejuvenated him. They spurred him on to greater heights, feeding his will to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding the supposed lifeless Rachel's enigmatic disappearance.

Tom, along with the rest of his crew, had learned of her being shot. Those had been the only details provided to them, despite Tom's having pressed. In the shuffle of his assuming his new post, going along with Michener's insistence, learning what had really befallen Rachel had gotten lost.

Why hadn't any of them been permitted to view the body? Michener and his people had spewed some mighty powerful rhetorical double talk until they had gotten their way.

No one from the Nathan James, not even Chandler, had been permitted to see their adopted fellow crew member. Not as much as a word had been disclosed as to her body's whereabouts. Just words spoken at a quickie memorial, where again, supposedly, her ashes in a dull grey metal urn had been deposited.

Circumstances surrounding her alleged demise had been swept under a bureaucratic rug all too well. No one, not Chandler, not even the members of his medical team had been allowed to actually see her body for themselves. Their having been kept away from Rachel gnawed at Tom, always embedded in his mind, noting it as being 'fishy.' He'd had nothing solid to go on. He couldn't call any one person, or any persons out without concrete evidence that Dr. Rachel Scott had been the victim of homegrown foul play.

The idea of what lay ahead for people still reeling from the Red Flu's aftermath and what had arisen from the horizon, the mutation, along with the naming of this new president, Howard Oliver, filled Tom with foreboding.

What agenda did the former Vice President embrace? It was becoming ever-more apparent that non-Nathan James-affiliated personnel seemed to have one.

"Find me, find me, find me," echoed in and through Tom's mind, snubbing out all other thoughts.

"That's what I wanted you to do with me, after your tour of duty for Michener," he mumbled for his benefit, adding a long sigh. "I will find you, Rachel. I promise you that. There's too much unfinished business. So much need…" He thought about what they were up against now, the virus' new mutation, the villainy running rampant in untold corners of this perilous earth-wide environment fraught with untold woes.

Striking alliances to serve the greater good bespoke of expedience, but 'making nice' with sketchy persons and their affiliations could prove grievously unwise in the long run. So went the way of this toxic new world.

"I need you too—won't rest until I know what really happened. I've promised you many things, my darling…" His voice trailed, his tongue lingering over those last two words. For once he wasn't blinking back tears prickling his tired eyes. "Finding you isn't a promise…it is my mission."

Having said that, Tom eased his battered torso back down in conjunction with scooting up his legs. They were bent at the knees with the soles of his feet planted firmly in the mattress. A grim expression settled over his face; his eyes were closed. His mind languished as her lips devoured his, reminiscent of that kiss aboard the Vyerni, their souls merging, and his deep chuckling echoed in his cabin.

No one would call Thomas Chandler, Chief of Naval Operations mad, at least not to his face. Maybe Mike, if he really thought he was since the new captain of the Nathan James had quite a pair.

No, he wasn't mad, Tom told himself, thinking just how sane he was. Rachel breathed his name, making everything clear.

He was possessed.

There was a difference. Captain Ahab would readily come to mind, serving to remind him.