THE FRIENDSHIP
Before the gunshot.........
Lucas and Shep had made their way along the corridors towards the main frame room. Shep was carrying the collection of recorded disks.
Lucas was surprised about how tired he had become after leaving his room just a few minutes ago. When he had gotten out of bed, his body had given him a false sense of how good he felt. It had only taken walking along to the end of the first corridor for that false to quickly wan and the ache from his muscles in his arms and legs to remind him otherwise.
He was beginning to understand why Kristen had given him strict instructions about staying in bed and resting as much as possible.
Shep at one point had cursed at himself for letting his best friend talk to him into something like this. The fact that Lucas had to stop on two separate occasions and leant against a wall while he waited for the ache to subside, only affirmed his scolding.
"We can go back Lucas," Shep said as he put a supporting hand on his friend's shoulder.
"No we can't Shep. We're in this too deep to try and turn back now," Lucas said, his voice sounding a little hoarse once again.
"But you shouldn't be out of bed yet Lucas. Kristen said you needed to give your body a chance to recover after being so cold," Shep said, trying to use Lucas's health as a way of getting out of their current situation.
"There had to be another way for us to nail Woodcock Lucas," Shep said as he tried to think of a way around.
"There is no other way Shep. If you don't want to do it, I will just have to do it by myself," Lucas replied with an air of determination.
Shep was forced to think back to the conversation he and Lucas had not too long ago where he had sworn that whatever they did, it would be together. Apprehensive he might be, but he wasn't about to let his friend walk into the lion's den on his own.
"We are in this together, no matter what happens," Shep reaffirmed. "Come on, lets get this over with."
"Thanks Shep," Lucas said with a genuine smile of gratitude.
The two teenage friends now continued their way down the corridor.
Shep walked into the main frame room ahead of Lucas. He placed the disks on a table he was standing next to and then proceeded to look around the room in search of the person who had summonsed them to appear.
"Doesn't look like he is here yet," Shep said as Lucas now walked through the door and over to where his friend was.
A voice from the shadows startled them both. "On the contrary Mr Shepherd and Mr Wolenczak, I have been waiting for you to arrive," Woodcock said.
The former teacher took a few steps forward, allowing the fluorescent light to illuminate his position. He was standing behind one of the computer consoles. Woodcock concealed the weapon he carried in the pocket of his jacket.
Lucas and Shep both took a step backwards as Woodcock approached them. Woodcock now spied the disks resting on the table.
He smiled slyly to himself at the fear and apprehension he could see in the teenager's eyes as he ran his hands over the disks and then picked them up to inspect the contents and validity.
"You got what you wanted now Woodcock," Lucas said, gathering a little courage in his voice.
"Almost Mr Wolenczak, almost," Woodcock uttered ominously.
"What else is there?" Shep demanded, a little edge creeping into his words, more out of fear about what might happen next than anything else.
"Eliminate the witnesses of course Mr Shepherd," Woodcock replied plainly. "What good is having only the information about my activities when you two meddlers are still around?"
"But what you were doing was wrong Woodcock," Lucas said, truly afraid of what the man's interpretation of the word "elimination" might have in store for him and Shep.
"My plan was working just fine until you started snooping around in places you shouldn't have been," Woodcock snapped back.
"What you were doing was hurting an innocent group of people over a long time without them knowing about it and then planned to turn that greed to your advantage," Lucas said as he brought out the true implications of what the teacher had done.
"You always were too smart for your own good Lucas Wolenczak," Woodcock shot back at the youth. "But you never did figure out that it was your father's money that financed my activities."
"Doesn't surprise me though," Lucas retorted with no emotion in his voice at all.
"Maybe not, but did he ever tell you that he also paid me to keep quiet about the beatings he used to give you?" Woodcock asked, knowing that little piece of information would hit the teenager like a bombshell.
Lucas couldn't find any words to reply as he felt as though somebody had just punched him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him.
Shep could see the devastating effect such a statement had as Lucas took a step back away from his tormentor.
Shep was currently distracted by Lucas and he was too caught up by haunting memories from the past. Neither of them could see Woodcock reaching into his pocket and revealing the pistol. The weapon was now held out in full view and pointed directly at Lucas and Shep.
Shep was the first to look up and see the immediate peril that he and Lucas faced.
"Is this your solution....... to kill us now?" Shep asked nervously, pausing half way to swallow the lump of dread that was lodged in his throat.
"There are other people nearby that will hear us," Lucas said as he cautiously tried looking towards the doorway that they had come through. "You won't get away with this," he added.
"But by the time they do hear the shots Mr Wolenczak, you and your young friend will be dead," Woodcock said in a cold voice.
Lucas found himself looking back at someone who disliked him and Shep from the moment they had walked through his classroom door. By now it was apparent that this former teacher was prepared to cross the line in order to hide his criminal activity.
"Who wants to go first?" Woodcock asked in a chilling manner. He was determined to do whatever he had to in order to conceal the fraud and dishonesty that he had committed.
Little by little Shep and Lucas were backing away from their would-be killer. Maybe luck would be on their side and they would find a piece of furniture to shield themselves behind before help could arrive.
"You don't have to do this," Lucas said as he tired to get Woodcock to lower the gun. Their progress to get away suddenly came to an abrupt halt when Lucas felt himself up against a wall.
"Oh but I do," Woodcock said whilst inwardly reminding himself that he wouldn't be able to take too much more time with this. It had to end quickly and it had to end now.!
Shep could see by the way Woodcock was pointing the gun that the teacher intended to shoot Lucas first. Afraid as he was for his own safety, something stirred within him that said he had to try and save his friend Lucas from a fate that neither of them deserved.
A look of fear ran across Lucas's face as he saw Woodcock pull the trigger and fire the gun for the first time. Everything after that moment seemed to happen in slow motion.
Lucas's eyes remained fixated on the barrel of the gun and the projectile that had been propelled from it and now hurtled towards his unprotected body.
Lucas tried his best and willed himself to move as quickly as he could out of the way but somehow knew that even those efforts would be in vain.
He squeezed his eyes shut and waited that split second until death struck him full force and everything came to a sudden end.
But the sound that he heard wasn't that of his own life being taken. He heard the bullet strike something like flesh and the cry of anguish and pain that followed.
Something wasn't right though, the cry wasn't from his own lips. He opened his eyes to see what was going on and unfortunately was just in time to take the full weight of Shep's falling body as it fell against him.
"SHEP !!!!!!!!" Lucas cried out in disbelief as he gently began lowering his friend's body to the floor.
Blood was everywhere. At first it was hard to tell where the bullet had struck there was so much. Lucas's mind was almost on the verge of a full panic attack at what he saw before him.
Lucas could now see that the bullet from Woodcock's gun had hit Shep high in the chest.
Shep didn't have the strength at the moment to talk as the pain lacing through his body sapped him of energy. All he could do was utter a pitiful moan and gasp out loud as the fire of pain inside him seemed to grow and steadily get worse.
"Don't move Shep, Kristen will be here in a minute and she will be able to fix you up," Lucas said trying to get his friend to hold onto any shred of hope that he had.
"Don't cry over your friend too long Mr Wolenczak," Woodcock said as he watched the scene before him with indifference. "You will soon be joining him," and with that statement, prepared to re-fire his weapon.
Lucas's sense of fear got the better of him as he knelt beside his injured friend and he got to his feet and tried to run from his attacker as Woodcock pointed the gun at him.
In his haste to get away, Lucas wasn't aware that the direction he was trying to run in was impassable. It was too late and he found himself trapped and no way of dodging what was inevitable.
Lucas reached out and aimlessly, trying to find something he could throw at Woodcock that might distract him or accidentally knock the gun out of his hand. Anything to buy a few more seconds of life for him.
His hand found a small paperweight on a shelf beside him. Lucas wasted no time in throwing it as hard as he could at the teacher.
Again everything happened as if it was frame by frame. The weight left Lucas's hand and travelled simultaneously as the second bullet was fired from Woodcock's gun.
The paperweight seemed to hit the top of Woodcock's right hand just as the projectile left the barrel of the hand gun. The knock seemed sufficient enough for the teacher's aim to alter a few hair's width from it's original position.
The bullet lost none of it's impact as it struck Lucas. His breath was ripped from his lungs and the teenager was driven back against the wall behind him.
Like Shep, he too had no words. He tried to mouth the scream that he felt inside, but could only utter a similar animalistic, guttural type moan as his friend.
The world around him seemed a little fuzzy and hard to focus on. Lucas placed his hand over the area where the pain was the most intense.
Before, his hands had been stained maroon with Shep's dried blood but now as he brought them away from the wound, they were stained crimson with his own fresh blood.
The energy and strength in his legs seemed to seep out slowly rather than all at once. Lucas felt the blood flow freely from his gun shot wound, the energy ebbed away silently. There was nothing he could do to stop himself falling as he slowly collapsed down the wall.
To his knees, and then all of his life force seemed to drain away and Lucas fell face first onto the computer room floor. He had already lost all consciousness and now the blond locks of his hair completely fell over his face, hiding the pale complexion and the pain lines still etched on his face.
Woodcock now looked upon the two unmoving bodies before him. He knew what must be done next. He had prepared himself for this and from the very beginning knew that if it came to eliminating the two teenagers, then he too would have to pay the ultimate price.
Woodcock decided though that his demise would come in a place of his choosing and so he now headed towards the opposite doorway leading from the room. The corridor he entered would take him to a more secluded area of the munitions depot where very few other personnel went to.
He had taken the cheats way out and branded himself as a coward by shooting the two teenagers but he didn't care how the rest of the outside world saw him. There was a third shot fired from the gun, but it's sound was not heard by any of the SeaQuest crew or anybody else on the depot at that time.
***************************************************************
Shep was laying a few feet from where he could see his friend Lucas. He had tried desperately a number of times to try and inch his way closer to see if he still lived but the wound he had suffered only sent waves of pain with each fraction of movement.
It was right about this moment that Shep could hear footsteps running towards him. Obviously somebody had heard the two gun shots and he was more than grateful to see Kristen and Bridger coming through the doorway.
(Author's note - you just have to suspend rational thinking for a moment and believe that although Kristen and Bridger hurried when they heard the two gun shots - they hurried very slowly in order for all the other events to happen in between !!!)
Kristen stopped beside Shep, scarcely able to believe the sight that lay before them. She couldn't worry about the reasons why they had been shot right now. There would be time for questions later on.
Commander Ford and a few others had arrived not a few seconds later. She send them back to get her medical bag and anything else that she might need to help the two injured teenagers. Like her they too knew there would be a time for questions about what had happened at a later date.
For the moment that only left Kristen and Bridger in the room to attend to Shep and Lucas. She needed to assess which boy needed the most treatment.
Even with all her medical training Kristen had a grim look on her face as she tenderly tried to look at the entry point of Shep's gun shot wound. It was high in the chest and as she pressed her ear to his chest, she could hear a slight gurgling sound in addition to the shallow breathing. The boy's lung were filling with fluid. Whether it was blood she wasn't able to tell at this point in time.
"He's very bad off Nathan," Kristen whispered trying not to let the tears forming fall down her face. "Even if we move him quickly enough, I don't know if we would be able stop the bleeding in time. We don't have the facilities here on the depot to cope with such a major operation and I don't think we have enough time on our hands to get back to the SeaQuest."
Nathan nodded at her explanation. He could see Shep's eyes were opened slightly but a little glazed from the pain he was feeling. How much of that conversation he had overheard the Captain couldn't be sure of. His eyes were unfocused and whether or not he could sense their presence in order to help him they couldn't tell.
"Let's check Lucas before the others get back," Kristen said as she removed her jacket and placed it as a cushion underneath Shep's head. The youth was in an awful amount of pain from the look on his face but he seemed to be still alive at this stage.
Bridger turned to see Lucas's fallen body a few feet to his left. As he stood and walked towards the unmoving teenager, he found himself pausing slightly. He didn't know if he wanted to do this. If Lucas was already dead, was he prepared to turn the boy over and look into his face shrouded in death. He had gone through that once already with the death of his wife Carol. He didn't know if he had the strength to do it again and especially since it was Lucas laying there.
"Oh no Lucas not you," Bridger said out aloud to himself as he finally forced himself to kneel beside the inert teenager. He placed his hand on the boy's left shoulder and prepared to turn him over to get a look at the wound he had suffered.
Kristen was near Bridger but she too feared about what would happen to Nathan if Lucas was already gone.
Bridger knew there was no other choice. They had to find out about Lucas and then try and get back as quickly to Shep who was also near death and relying on them to help him.
Bridger felt as though something had stabbed him through the heart with a knife and was now slowly, very slowly pulling the blade back out again. He was almost too afraid to release the breath he had been holding in.
To both of them came amazement though as the Captain gently turned Lucas's unconscious body towards him, the teenager let out a dreadful moan at the pain that was reignited from the sudden movement.
Bridger and Kristen both looked up each other and felt like jumping for joy at such a sound. They both knew that it was the best sound that they could have heard right at that very moment.
The Captain now laid Lucas on his back so that Kristen could take a better look at his wound. She noted that it seemed to be in a more meatier part of Lucas's shoulder. There had been a significant amount of blood loss but his breathing although shallow and laboured, didn't have the gurgling sound that been heard in Shep's lungs.
It was right about that moment that Commander Ford and Ben Krieg came bustling back into the computer room laden with Kristen's medical bag and bandages.
"Commander, you and Mr Krieg attend to Lucas. Use one of those towels you are holding over the wound and try and slow the bleeding. If the towel becomes too soaked, don't remove it place a fresh one over the top and keep the pressure firm and even. It might hurt Lucas some from the pain and he might cry out for you to stop but under no circumstances are you to do so until I tell you to," Kristen said as she went into doctor mode.
"Nathan I know you want to be with Lucas but I really need you over here to help me with Shep," Kristen said, gently as she could. She knew that it would take a lot of convincing to get Bridger to leave Lucas when he was so badly injured.
Reluctantly though Kristen words seemed to filter through Bridger's brain and he knew that Kristen wouldn't ask for his help at such a time if it wasn't absolutely necessary.
"Okay tell me what to do," Bridger replied. He waited until Commander Ford was close enough to take his place and support Lucas's head and shoulders while Ben held the towel over the gun shot wound. The stoic look on their faces said it all. Neither of them could believe what they were witnessing but they were not about to let either boy down when they depended so much upon them.
By now a few other crew members had arrived on the scene, but a quick wave of Kristen's hand as she leant over Shep told them to hold back in case they were needed to relieve Ben or Jonathan later on. They didn't know how long they were going to be before they could stabilise the teenagers in order to move them to more appropriate medical facilities. Too many hands may be more of a hindrance than a help at this point in time.
"Lieutenant O'Neill take a few others with you down some of these corridors and see if you can find any sign of who might have done this," Bridger now instructed the bystanders. At least it would give them something to do.
"W...Woodcock..." came the exhausted whisper from Shep's lips, barely able to be heard over Shep's laboured breathing.
"See if you can find this Woodcock guy then," Bridger as the injured teenager named his assailant.
Tim O'Neill took Miguel Ortiz and Katie Hitchcock with him to search the maze of nearby corridors as requested. All of them held grave fears for the safety of Lucas and his friend, they were grateful for the opportunity not to see the sight of their blood or hear their moans of pain. They would find this Woodcock guy and kick the living daylights out of him for the two boys before delivering him to the appropriate authorities.
Kristen was concentrating on trying to stop the bleeding from Shep's wound when the teenager tried to talk to her and Bridger. At first she didn't think he was being coherent and that he was just havering as a result of the pain medication she had just administered to him. She quickly went over to Lucas and also gave him an injection of 5ml, not wanting to overdo it until they could be stabilized a little more.
While Kristen knelt beside Lucas, Shep stared back up at Bridger and repeated the words he had uttered. Somehow Shep knew that his time on this earth was growing short. He had overheard enough of Kristen's diagnosis about Lucas to know that his friend was in much better condition.
"Don't let him grieve too long for me," Shep now said, making sure that he held Bridger's full attention as he spoke his final words.
"Tell him that no matter what we will be friends forever, even after I am gone."
Bridger wanted to tell the teenager that everything would be alright and that he too would be fine once they got him patched up. Instead though all he could do was look down at the mortally wounded boy with tears rimming in his eyes.
"Promise you will continue to be his friend for me," Shep said as his voice began to fade away.
"I promise."
"Kristen I think you need to get over here in a hurry," Bridger now shouted in alarm as the look of pain began fading from Shep's face.
But by the time she appeared back at the Captain's side, both of them knew it was too late. Shep's face now held no look of pain and all lines had been erased and he almost looked untouched.
She held a hand to the artery in his neck to check for a pulse. There was none. When she leant over his face and place her ear near his mouth and nose, she could no longer hear any breathing. His chest now failed to raise or fall at all with rhythmic breaths from his lungs.
"He's gone," Kristen said as her own tears washed down her face.
Jonathan Ford and Ben Krieg both looked at each other and could scarcely believe what the doctor had just said. It didn't seem to make any sense at first. How could he be dead. He was just alive wasn't he? Injured maybe and badly so from all the information, but he was still a living person. Now they were being told that he was dead.
How could somebody's life just ebb away in just such a short space of time? Nobody in the room seemed to have the answers to any of the questions that they wanted to ask.
Tim O'Neill and his party had just come back into the room and immediately they noticed the wall of silence that seemed to be building. They saw the tears running down the faces of their friends and the painful looks on the faces of Commander Ford and Ben Krieg.
"Shep has passed away," Kristen said in a soft voice not daring to say anymore.
Tim and Miguel just stood shocked and stunned as Katie buried her hands in her face and wept for somebody they had just come to know. Shep had seemed so full of life and so willing to help others, much like Lucas. Now he was dead.
"We found the teacher down one of the far corridors," Tim O'Neill now said, not really knowing why he was now sharing the piece of information he had. After what they had just been told it seemed to be of little consequence. "He has shot himself. Probably the same gun he used to shoot Shep and Lucas."
"Thank you Mr O'Neill," Bridger answered, not really caring what had happened to the teacher.
All of them seemed to be lost in their own little worlds of grief for a few seconds until they were brought back to reality when Lucas moaned low and long from the pain he was still feeling. The pain medication had been of little benefit up until this point.
"We have to get him back to the SeaQuest so I can perform surgery and get that bullet out as quickly as possible," Kristen said, temporarily forgetting about how she felt. As a doctor she would have to put personal feelings aside for the time being and concentrate on saving Lucas first.
"Krieg you and Nathan carry Lucas as gently but as quickly as you can back to the air lock. Katie, you go with them in case they have a problem with the air lock. Tim and Miguel, I ask a very difficult task of both of you in carrying Shep's body back to the SeaQuest so that we can contact his family and organize for a funeral at a later date," Kristen said, running through the list of things to do in her head.
"Commander do you think you have enough other leaders left on the depot to get the rest of the people out of here without us?" Bridger now asked. They still needed to make sure that the other people on the depot were also kept safe and attended to.
"I'll take care of it Captain," Ford said seeing the sadness in his Commanding Officer's eyes. He knew that the most difficult task of all was yet to come for the Captain: to tell Lucas that his best friend had died. Jonathan wasn't at all sure how either of them would cope over the coming weeks. He needed to take on whatever leadership role was demanded of him during that time.
Skipping ahead a little until after surgery on board SeaQuest.......
"How is he?" Bridger said as he rose to greet Kristen as she emerged from the operating theatre. She looked tired and haggard. Fatigue had allowed her to age almost over night. Bridger knew that those years would be lost once Kristen had a chance to get some decent rest again.
Bridger didn't dare look into a mirror at the moment for fear of what he might see. He didn't know if he looked very aged at the moment, but he sure felt 10 years older. He too had had little sleep since bringing Lucas back aboard the boat. Short dozes on a chair whilst waiting for news of Lucas's condition was all he had managed so far.
Jonathan Ford had been true to his word and had even contacted Admiral Noyce to enable another sub to be arranged to take the residents away safety from the depot without disturbing the sombre mood aboard the SeaQuest at the moment.
Noyce had displayed shock and horror of his own at the news that Joshua Shepherd had died at the hands of Woodcock and that Lucas had also suffered a gunshot wound and had to undergo surgery. He promised to contact Nathan to see if he needed anything after some time had passed.
"Luckily the bullet didn't go into deeply into his shoulder," Kristen explained, removing her latex gloves and the surgical apron that was splattered with Lucas's blood. "It tore up quite a lot of muscle and tissue but missed anything vital and his shoulder blade. He is going to be very sore for quite a while to come and won't have the full use of his arm again for a number of weeks.," she continued.
Bridger didn't have any other way of asking this question right at the moment, "How do we tell him Kristen?" she said and sat back down on a chair with the reality of what he had to do once Lucas had recovered enough from the surgery.
"It is going to be terribly difficult Nathan I know, but we have to be totally honest with him from the beginning. That boy doesn't deserve the pain that he is going to experience but he has to know," Kristen said as she sat beside Nathan, combining what little strength they had together and supporting each other.
Shep's body had been treated with the utmost respect. Noyce had offered to pay for the funeral due to the boy not having any immediate family to come forth and claim him. Bridger however wouldn't hear of it and paid for it himself, making all the arrangements as best he could until final decisions could be discussed with Lucas.
The whole idea about the U.E.O. paying for the funeral after having to admit making a mistake about sending the two boys to such a place to begin with just reeked of bureaucracy trying to cover it's own butt in red tape.
Once surgery was complete, Lucas was taken back to the Med-Bay and made more comfortable. His shoulder was bandaged down to his waist and padded thickly to compensate for any unexpected movement. The anaesthetic he had been given would keep him sedated for quite a number of hours, allowing his body to recover some of the initial strength he had lost through the bleeding.
Nathan sat on a more comfortable chair and dozed intermittently while waiting for the boy to awaken. The crew that had remained had tried to get him to rest in his own bed, but he wouldn't hear of it and had compromised with the chair.
Kristen was now resting too but knew when the time came that Nathan and Lucas needed to be alone for the devastating news that the youth needed to be told.
Nathan awoke with a sudden start, unaware of what had caused him to do so. He was just about to nod back to sleep when he spotted Lucas laying on his good shoulder. The boy's eyes were open but they were fixated on somewhere else in the room. Lucas had trouble not wanting to meet the Captain's eyes for fear of what he might see.
"Shep didn't make it did he?" Lucas asked in a very low voice, keeping his eyes on the wall across the room. Somehow he already knew the truth about what had happened to Shep. He just had trouble accepting it to be real.
"I am sorry Lucas," Bridger said, stumbling over his tongue and not really knowing what to say.
When somebody close to you died, there was just this emptiness inside that consumed you. Sometimes it kept on consuming you until you didn't know who you were anymore. That had almost happened to Bridger when Robert had died and then his wife Carol.
He had been saved from his own self-destruction by one thing and that was the youth that was laying in bed before him now. Lucas's ability to somehow work his way into Bridger's heart had stopped Nathan falling into the cataclysm of non-existence and made him see the value in cherishing what you had for as long as possible.
"Why?" Lucas now asked. By now Bridger had expected the boy to be heaving with sobs of grief over the loss of his best friend. The fact that Lucas's expression still remained unchanged made him worry more about how Shep's death would affect the teenager.
"I wish I had the answers Lucas, but I don't know why," Bridger said, remembering Kristen's words about being totally honest.
"You know what Woodcock said to me back there before he shot us?" Lucas asked. It seemed even though he had been seriously injured, the events of what had happened directly before were still very fresh in his mind.
"What did he say?" Bridger replied in question, wanting to know everything about how the boy was feeling and anything he had to say at this point in time.
Lucas gave a small fake laugh as he said the next series of words. "He said that my father had paid him to keep quiet about the beatings." After the sentence he remained silent. It was like a bad joke that had left an after taste in his mouth.
It was after that comment that the emotional tide Lucas had been riding came to an abrupt end. He could no longer hold back the hurt and grief that he was feeling inside. He laid his head on his arm and let the tears start. After a few moments, the tears became harder and harder until his shoulder began to ache from the sobs that coursed through him.
Bridger made sure that through the whole process he was there for Lucas. He knew that there were some things that Shep had wanted to tell Lucas.
"Shep told me to tell you not to grieve too long for him Lucas," Bridger said cautiously. Taking a punt he decided to add what few words of comfort of his own he could think of. "You need to make sure that you live your both for you and Shep. Go out and do all of the things that he would have wanted to do with you and have twice the amount of fun doing it, just for him."
Lucas lifted his head up and listened the to words that Bridger spoke. Tears still ran down his face.
"Friendship doesn't end with death Lucas. It just delays it for a little while," Bridger said, something similar to what he had said to himself after Carol had died. He too held onto the fierce hope that she and he would meet again one day. Maybe not today and probably not tomorrow, but their love would someday reunite them. Lucas needed to know that it was the same with his friendship with Shep.
"You will always be friends, you have to believe in that." Bridger reaffirmed.
Two weeks later at the funeral for Shep.................
Bridger knew when he had awoken this morning that today would be one of the
most emotionally draining days of Lucas's life. Today would be the day that they laid Shep to rest and said goodbye forever.
Lucas had spoken to the Captain about the arrangements that he had already put partially into place about how the funeral was to be conducted. At the end of the day, Lucas decided that Shep wouldn't have liked pomp and ceremony. Instead he opted for a very low key affair with just a few members of the crew that had been especially invited and had come to know Shep the best during his brief stay aboard the SeaQuest.
At the funeral, Lucas didn't wear a suit. Shep had never worn one in his life so Lucas wasn't going to start on this day. He wore a collared shirt and dress trousers and comfortable shoes. Something which Shep would have been happy enough to wear himself.
Although a minister of the church was involved, they had made it clear to him that Shep had never really held any religious beliefs. Tim O'Neill had read a few appropriate psalms from the bible that he had hand chosen. A few encouraging words were spoken by the minister.
By the end of it all, most of the crew had left Bridger and Lucas lone to complete the final acts of respect. They knew that Lucas would have wanted it that way. The crew walked to the cars that waited nearby in case they were needed. Ben Krieg was very sombre in mood, not a single word of fun to be heard from him on such an occasion. Kristen had tried to be strong as she could for Lucas, but she had grief of her own.
Lucas seemed to be playing with an object in his pocket for the last few minutes. Bridger was totally unaware of what it was. He was too busying keeping a close eye on Lucas's face for any signs that the boy wasn't coping well.
Shep's coffin had yet to be lowered and unbeknown to Bridger, Lucas had told the minister to give them just a bit longer for a particular reason.
Lucas now revealed the small object he held in his hand and placed it on top of the oak stained coffin covered in floral tributes. It was the blue and chrome harmonica that Shep had been so proud to play for them often.
"I never could play it anyway Shep, like you said, so it's better off with you," Lucas said in a tear-stained voice. He now gave a nod of his head and the signal to let the coffin slowly descend into the grave.
At this point in time Lucas didn't know what life had in store for him next. He had been dealt so many bad hands during his life that he just took each day at a time now with no guarantees. He didn't have the answers to why he lived and why it had to be Shep that made the ultimate sacrifice.
Although he would never admit it to the crew or Bridger, there had been one night back in the Med Bay during his recovery that he had prayed to God to allow things to be in reverse and he be the one being prepared for his funeral and Shep recovering after surgery. His prayer went unanswered.
As Bridger and Lucas started to walk away from the grave towards the crew waiting by the cars, Lucas was sure he saw something that he could never explain.
Maybe it was the sunlight shining at the wrong time of day or just a reflection of something that wasn't really there. Lucas couldn't be totally sure. When he looked at one of the older headstones a few metres away, he could have sworn that he had seen a pale figure of Shep happily sitting on the edge and playing away with his harmonica.
He turned towards the front to where he was walking and looked back over his shoulder again, but the image was gone. Had he really seen Shep as a ghost or was it just the heaviness in his heart that wanted to see.
"You okay?" Bridger asked, as Lucas looked over his shoulder. The boy's features were a littler paler than he would have liked. Possibly the boy was still feeling more discomfort from his shoulder wound than he would admit coupled with the emotional torment of the day.
"Not right now...... but I will be," Lucas said in reply.
He knew that there would be days ahead when he would miss Shep's voice and his antics. Or at night when he thought he heard Shep's voice.
As Lucas and Bridger got into the cars ready to drive away, the pale figure stood beside a tree and watched them all leave...........
Friendship a strongest bond that could never be severed by distance or space.
THE END
Okay - please don't hate me for ending it this way. When I first started this story, I had already planned to kill off whoever the new character was. I wasn't quite prepared to kill Lucas off in any of my stories and wanted to try and write about a special friendship between Lucas and somebody else.
I am sorry for all those out there who grew fond of Shep. I don't intend to write too many more stories where I kill of characters - unless it is the baddies.
I didn't spend a great amount of time in detail about the depot in this part but as you can see that it was only one part of a much more significant plot. I know that Woodcock probably didn't get what he deserved either.
Hope you enjoy this part and the entire story - please let me know what you think even if you didn't like the ending. This is my first death scene so I didn't quite know what to write.
An extra note - some of the other stories might be a little bit longer delayed - my computer is still playing up and needs to be rebuilt in a couple of weeks. It is a massive job but hopefully I won't loose any of the stories I have already half-finished.
JULES
Before the gunshot.........
Lucas and Shep had made their way along the corridors towards the main frame room. Shep was carrying the collection of recorded disks.
Lucas was surprised about how tired he had become after leaving his room just a few minutes ago. When he had gotten out of bed, his body had given him a false sense of how good he felt. It had only taken walking along to the end of the first corridor for that false to quickly wan and the ache from his muscles in his arms and legs to remind him otherwise.
He was beginning to understand why Kristen had given him strict instructions about staying in bed and resting as much as possible.
Shep at one point had cursed at himself for letting his best friend talk to him into something like this. The fact that Lucas had to stop on two separate occasions and leant against a wall while he waited for the ache to subside, only affirmed his scolding.
"We can go back Lucas," Shep said as he put a supporting hand on his friend's shoulder.
"No we can't Shep. We're in this too deep to try and turn back now," Lucas said, his voice sounding a little hoarse once again.
"But you shouldn't be out of bed yet Lucas. Kristen said you needed to give your body a chance to recover after being so cold," Shep said, trying to use Lucas's health as a way of getting out of their current situation.
"There had to be another way for us to nail Woodcock Lucas," Shep said as he tried to think of a way around.
"There is no other way Shep. If you don't want to do it, I will just have to do it by myself," Lucas replied with an air of determination.
Shep was forced to think back to the conversation he and Lucas had not too long ago where he had sworn that whatever they did, it would be together. Apprehensive he might be, but he wasn't about to let his friend walk into the lion's den on his own.
"We are in this together, no matter what happens," Shep reaffirmed. "Come on, lets get this over with."
"Thanks Shep," Lucas said with a genuine smile of gratitude.
The two teenage friends now continued their way down the corridor.
Shep walked into the main frame room ahead of Lucas. He placed the disks on a table he was standing next to and then proceeded to look around the room in search of the person who had summonsed them to appear.
"Doesn't look like he is here yet," Shep said as Lucas now walked through the door and over to where his friend was.
A voice from the shadows startled them both. "On the contrary Mr Shepherd and Mr Wolenczak, I have been waiting for you to arrive," Woodcock said.
The former teacher took a few steps forward, allowing the fluorescent light to illuminate his position. He was standing behind one of the computer consoles. Woodcock concealed the weapon he carried in the pocket of his jacket.
Lucas and Shep both took a step backwards as Woodcock approached them. Woodcock now spied the disks resting on the table.
He smiled slyly to himself at the fear and apprehension he could see in the teenager's eyes as he ran his hands over the disks and then picked them up to inspect the contents and validity.
"You got what you wanted now Woodcock," Lucas said, gathering a little courage in his voice.
"Almost Mr Wolenczak, almost," Woodcock uttered ominously.
"What else is there?" Shep demanded, a little edge creeping into his words, more out of fear about what might happen next than anything else.
"Eliminate the witnesses of course Mr Shepherd," Woodcock replied plainly. "What good is having only the information about my activities when you two meddlers are still around?"
"But what you were doing was wrong Woodcock," Lucas said, truly afraid of what the man's interpretation of the word "elimination" might have in store for him and Shep.
"My plan was working just fine until you started snooping around in places you shouldn't have been," Woodcock snapped back.
"What you were doing was hurting an innocent group of people over a long time without them knowing about it and then planned to turn that greed to your advantage," Lucas said as he brought out the true implications of what the teacher had done.
"You always were too smart for your own good Lucas Wolenczak," Woodcock shot back at the youth. "But you never did figure out that it was your father's money that financed my activities."
"Doesn't surprise me though," Lucas retorted with no emotion in his voice at all.
"Maybe not, but did he ever tell you that he also paid me to keep quiet about the beatings he used to give you?" Woodcock asked, knowing that little piece of information would hit the teenager like a bombshell.
Lucas couldn't find any words to reply as he felt as though somebody had just punched him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him.
Shep could see the devastating effect such a statement had as Lucas took a step back away from his tormentor.
Shep was currently distracted by Lucas and he was too caught up by haunting memories from the past. Neither of them could see Woodcock reaching into his pocket and revealing the pistol. The weapon was now held out in full view and pointed directly at Lucas and Shep.
Shep was the first to look up and see the immediate peril that he and Lucas faced.
"Is this your solution....... to kill us now?" Shep asked nervously, pausing half way to swallow the lump of dread that was lodged in his throat.
"There are other people nearby that will hear us," Lucas said as he cautiously tried looking towards the doorway that they had come through. "You won't get away with this," he added.
"But by the time they do hear the shots Mr Wolenczak, you and your young friend will be dead," Woodcock said in a cold voice.
Lucas found himself looking back at someone who disliked him and Shep from the moment they had walked through his classroom door. By now it was apparent that this former teacher was prepared to cross the line in order to hide his criminal activity.
"Who wants to go first?" Woodcock asked in a chilling manner. He was determined to do whatever he had to in order to conceal the fraud and dishonesty that he had committed.
Little by little Shep and Lucas were backing away from their would-be killer. Maybe luck would be on their side and they would find a piece of furniture to shield themselves behind before help could arrive.
"You don't have to do this," Lucas said as he tired to get Woodcock to lower the gun. Their progress to get away suddenly came to an abrupt halt when Lucas felt himself up against a wall.
"Oh but I do," Woodcock said whilst inwardly reminding himself that he wouldn't be able to take too much more time with this. It had to end quickly and it had to end now.!
Shep could see by the way Woodcock was pointing the gun that the teacher intended to shoot Lucas first. Afraid as he was for his own safety, something stirred within him that said he had to try and save his friend Lucas from a fate that neither of them deserved.
A look of fear ran across Lucas's face as he saw Woodcock pull the trigger and fire the gun for the first time. Everything after that moment seemed to happen in slow motion.
Lucas's eyes remained fixated on the barrel of the gun and the projectile that had been propelled from it and now hurtled towards his unprotected body.
Lucas tried his best and willed himself to move as quickly as he could out of the way but somehow knew that even those efforts would be in vain.
He squeezed his eyes shut and waited that split second until death struck him full force and everything came to a sudden end.
But the sound that he heard wasn't that of his own life being taken. He heard the bullet strike something like flesh and the cry of anguish and pain that followed.
Something wasn't right though, the cry wasn't from his own lips. He opened his eyes to see what was going on and unfortunately was just in time to take the full weight of Shep's falling body as it fell against him.
"SHEP !!!!!!!!" Lucas cried out in disbelief as he gently began lowering his friend's body to the floor.
Blood was everywhere. At first it was hard to tell where the bullet had struck there was so much. Lucas's mind was almost on the verge of a full panic attack at what he saw before him.
Lucas could now see that the bullet from Woodcock's gun had hit Shep high in the chest.
Shep didn't have the strength at the moment to talk as the pain lacing through his body sapped him of energy. All he could do was utter a pitiful moan and gasp out loud as the fire of pain inside him seemed to grow and steadily get worse.
"Don't move Shep, Kristen will be here in a minute and she will be able to fix you up," Lucas said trying to get his friend to hold onto any shred of hope that he had.
"Don't cry over your friend too long Mr Wolenczak," Woodcock said as he watched the scene before him with indifference. "You will soon be joining him," and with that statement, prepared to re-fire his weapon.
Lucas's sense of fear got the better of him as he knelt beside his injured friend and he got to his feet and tried to run from his attacker as Woodcock pointed the gun at him.
In his haste to get away, Lucas wasn't aware that the direction he was trying to run in was impassable. It was too late and he found himself trapped and no way of dodging what was inevitable.
Lucas reached out and aimlessly, trying to find something he could throw at Woodcock that might distract him or accidentally knock the gun out of his hand. Anything to buy a few more seconds of life for him.
His hand found a small paperweight on a shelf beside him. Lucas wasted no time in throwing it as hard as he could at the teacher.
Again everything happened as if it was frame by frame. The weight left Lucas's hand and travelled simultaneously as the second bullet was fired from Woodcock's gun.
The paperweight seemed to hit the top of Woodcock's right hand just as the projectile left the barrel of the hand gun. The knock seemed sufficient enough for the teacher's aim to alter a few hair's width from it's original position.
The bullet lost none of it's impact as it struck Lucas. His breath was ripped from his lungs and the teenager was driven back against the wall behind him.
Like Shep, he too had no words. He tried to mouth the scream that he felt inside, but could only utter a similar animalistic, guttural type moan as his friend.
The world around him seemed a little fuzzy and hard to focus on. Lucas placed his hand over the area where the pain was the most intense.
Before, his hands had been stained maroon with Shep's dried blood but now as he brought them away from the wound, they were stained crimson with his own fresh blood.
The energy and strength in his legs seemed to seep out slowly rather than all at once. Lucas felt the blood flow freely from his gun shot wound, the energy ebbed away silently. There was nothing he could do to stop himself falling as he slowly collapsed down the wall.
To his knees, and then all of his life force seemed to drain away and Lucas fell face first onto the computer room floor. He had already lost all consciousness and now the blond locks of his hair completely fell over his face, hiding the pale complexion and the pain lines still etched on his face.
Woodcock now looked upon the two unmoving bodies before him. He knew what must be done next. He had prepared himself for this and from the very beginning knew that if it came to eliminating the two teenagers, then he too would have to pay the ultimate price.
Woodcock decided though that his demise would come in a place of his choosing and so he now headed towards the opposite doorway leading from the room. The corridor he entered would take him to a more secluded area of the munitions depot where very few other personnel went to.
He had taken the cheats way out and branded himself as a coward by shooting the two teenagers but he didn't care how the rest of the outside world saw him. There was a third shot fired from the gun, but it's sound was not heard by any of the SeaQuest crew or anybody else on the depot at that time.
***************************************************************
Shep was laying a few feet from where he could see his friend Lucas. He had tried desperately a number of times to try and inch his way closer to see if he still lived but the wound he had suffered only sent waves of pain with each fraction of movement.
It was right about this moment that Shep could hear footsteps running towards him. Obviously somebody had heard the two gun shots and he was more than grateful to see Kristen and Bridger coming through the doorway.
(Author's note - you just have to suspend rational thinking for a moment and believe that although Kristen and Bridger hurried when they heard the two gun shots - they hurried very slowly in order for all the other events to happen in between !!!)
Kristen stopped beside Shep, scarcely able to believe the sight that lay before them. She couldn't worry about the reasons why they had been shot right now. There would be time for questions later on.
Commander Ford and a few others had arrived not a few seconds later. She send them back to get her medical bag and anything else that she might need to help the two injured teenagers. Like her they too knew there would be a time for questions about what had happened at a later date.
For the moment that only left Kristen and Bridger in the room to attend to Shep and Lucas. She needed to assess which boy needed the most treatment.
Even with all her medical training Kristen had a grim look on her face as she tenderly tried to look at the entry point of Shep's gun shot wound. It was high in the chest and as she pressed her ear to his chest, she could hear a slight gurgling sound in addition to the shallow breathing. The boy's lung were filling with fluid. Whether it was blood she wasn't able to tell at this point in time.
"He's very bad off Nathan," Kristen whispered trying not to let the tears forming fall down her face. "Even if we move him quickly enough, I don't know if we would be able stop the bleeding in time. We don't have the facilities here on the depot to cope with such a major operation and I don't think we have enough time on our hands to get back to the SeaQuest."
Nathan nodded at her explanation. He could see Shep's eyes were opened slightly but a little glazed from the pain he was feeling. How much of that conversation he had overheard the Captain couldn't be sure of. His eyes were unfocused and whether or not he could sense their presence in order to help him they couldn't tell.
"Let's check Lucas before the others get back," Kristen said as she removed her jacket and placed it as a cushion underneath Shep's head. The youth was in an awful amount of pain from the look on his face but he seemed to be still alive at this stage.
Bridger turned to see Lucas's fallen body a few feet to his left. As he stood and walked towards the unmoving teenager, he found himself pausing slightly. He didn't know if he wanted to do this. If Lucas was already dead, was he prepared to turn the boy over and look into his face shrouded in death. He had gone through that once already with the death of his wife Carol. He didn't know if he had the strength to do it again and especially since it was Lucas laying there.
"Oh no Lucas not you," Bridger said out aloud to himself as he finally forced himself to kneel beside the inert teenager. He placed his hand on the boy's left shoulder and prepared to turn him over to get a look at the wound he had suffered.
Kristen was near Bridger but she too feared about what would happen to Nathan if Lucas was already gone.
Bridger knew there was no other choice. They had to find out about Lucas and then try and get back as quickly to Shep who was also near death and relying on them to help him.
Bridger felt as though something had stabbed him through the heart with a knife and was now slowly, very slowly pulling the blade back out again. He was almost too afraid to release the breath he had been holding in.
To both of them came amazement though as the Captain gently turned Lucas's unconscious body towards him, the teenager let out a dreadful moan at the pain that was reignited from the sudden movement.
Bridger and Kristen both looked up each other and felt like jumping for joy at such a sound. They both knew that it was the best sound that they could have heard right at that very moment.
The Captain now laid Lucas on his back so that Kristen could take a better look at his wound. She noted that it seemed to be in a more meatier part of Lucas's shoulder. There had been a significant amount of blood loss but his breathing although shallow and laboured, didn't have the gurgling sound that been heard in Shep's lungs.
It was right about that moment that Commander Ford and Ben Krieg came bustling back into the computer room laden with Kristen's medical bag and bandages.
"Commander, you and Mr Krieg attend to Lucas. Use one of those towels you are holding over the wound and try and slow the bleeding. If the towel becomes too soaked, don't remove it place a fresh one over the top and keep the pressure firm and even. It might hurt Lucas some from the pain and he might cry out for you to stop but under no circumstances are you to do so until I tell you to," Kristen said as she went into doctor mode.
"Nathan I know you want to be with Lucas but I really need you over here to help me with Shep," Kristen said, gently as she could. She knew that it would take a lot of convincing to get Bridger to leave Lucas when he was so badly injured.
Reluctantly though Kristen words seemed to filter through Bridger's brain and he knew that Kristen wouldn't ask for his help at such a time if it wasn't absolutely necessary.
"Okay tell me what to do," Bridger replied. He waited until Commander Ford was close enough to take his place and support Lucas's head and shoulders while Ben held the towel over the gun shot wound. The stoic look on their faces said it all. Neither of them could believe what they were witnessing but they were not about to let either boy down when they depended so much upon them.
By now a few other crew members had arrived on the scene, but a quick wave of Kristen's hand as she leant over Shep told them to hold back in case they were needed to relieve Ben or Jonathan later on. They didn't know how long they were going to be before they could stabilise the teenagers in order to move them to more appropriate medical facilities. Too many hands may be more of a hindrance than a help at this point in time.
"Lieutenant O'Neill take a few others with you down some of these corridors and see if you can find any sign of who might have done this," Bridger now instructed the bystanders. At least it would give them something to do.
"W...Woodcock..." came the exhausted whisper from Shep's lips, barely able to be heard over Shep's laboured breathing.
"See if you can find this Woodcock guy then," Bridger as the injured teenager named his assailant.
Tim O'Neill took Miguel Ortiz and Katie Hitchcock with him to search the maze of nearby corridors as requested. All of them held grave fears for the safety of Lucas and his friend, they were grateful for the opportunity not to see the sight of their blood or hear their moans of pain. They would find this Woodcock guy and kick the living daylights out of him for the two boys before delivering him to the appropriate authorities.
Kristen was concentrating on trying to stop the bleeding from Shep's wound when the teenager tried to talk to her and Bridger. At first she didn't think he was being coherent and that he was just havering as a result of the pain medication she had just administered to him. She quickly went over to Lucas and also gave him an injection of 5ml, not wanting to overdo it until they could be stabilized a little more.
While Kristen knelt beside Lucas, Shep stared back up at Bridger and repeated the words he had uttered. Somehow Shep knew that his time on this earth was growing short. He had overheard enough of Kristen's diagnosis about Lucas to know that his friend was in much better condition.
"Don't let him grieve too long for me," Shep now said, making sure that he held Bridger's full attention as he spoke his final words.
"Tell him that no matter what we will be friends forever, even after I am gone."
Bridger wanted to tell the teenager that everything would be alright and that he too would be fine once they got him patched up. Instead though all he could do was look down at the mortally wounded boy with tears rimming in his eyes.
"Promise you will continue to be his friend for me," Shep said as his voice began to fade away.
"I promise."
"Kristen I think you need to get over here in a hurry," Bridger now shouted in alarm as the look of pain began fading from Shep's face.
But by the time she appeared back at the Captain's side, both of them knew it was too late. Shep's face now held no look of pain and all lines had been erased and he almost looked untouched.
She held a hand to the artery in his neck to check for a pulse. There was none. When she leant over his face and place her ear near his mouth and nose, she could no longer hear any breathing. His chest now failed to raise or fall at all with rhythmic breaths from his lungs.
"He's gone," Kristen said as her own tears washed down her face.
Jonathan Ford and Ben Krieg both looked at each other and could scarcely believe what the doctor had just said. It didn't seem to make any sense at first. How could he be dead. He was just alive wasn't he? Injured maybe and badly so from all the information, but he was still a living person. Now they were being told that he was dead.
How could somebody's life just ebb away in just such a short space of time? Nobody in the room seemed to have the answers to any of the questions that they wanted to ask.
Tim O'Neill and his party had just come back into the room and immediately they noticed the wall of silence that seemed to be building. They saw the tears running down the faces of their friends and the painful looks on the faces of Commander Ford and Ben Krieg.
"Shep has passed away," Kristen said in a soft voice not daring to say anymore.
Tim and Miguel just stood shocked and stunned as Katie buried her hands in her face and wept for somebody they had just come to know. Shep had seemed so full of life and so willing to help others, much like Lucas. Now he was dead.
"We found the teacher down one of the far corridors," Tim O'Neill now said, not really knowing why he was now sharing the piece of information he had. After what they had just been told it seemed to be of little consequence. "He has shot himself. Probably the same gun he used to shoot Shep and Lucas."
"Thank you Mr O'Neill," Bridger answered, not really caring what had happened to the teacher.
All of them seemed to be lost in their own little worlds of grief for a few seconds until they were brought back to reality when Lucas moaned low and long from the pain he was still feeling. The pain medication had been of little benefit up until this point.
"We have to get him back to the SeaQuest so I can perform surgery and get that bullet out as quickly as possible," Kristen said, temporarily forgetting about how she felt. As a doctor she would have to put personal feelings aside for the time being and concentrate on saving Lucas first.
"Krieg you and Nathan carry Lucas as gently but as quickly as you can back to the air lock. Katie, you go with them in case they have a problem with the air lock. Tim and Miguel, I ask a very difficult task of both of you in carrying Shep's body back to the SeaQuest so that we can contact his family and organize for a funeral at a later date," Kristen said, running through the list of things to do in her head.
"Commander do you think you have enough other leaders left on the depot to get the rest of the people out of here without us?" Bridger now asked. They still needed to make sure that the other people on the depot were also kept safe and attended to.
"I'll take care of it Captain," Ford said seeing the sadness in his Commanding Officer's eyes. He knew that the most difficult task of all was yet to come for the Captain: to tell Lucas that his best friend had died. Jonathan wasn't at all sure how either of them would cope over the coming weeks. He needed to take on whatever leadership role was demanded of him during that time.
Skipping ahead a little until after surgery on board SeaQuest.......
"How is he?" Bridger said as he rose to greet Kristen as she emerged from the operating theatre. She looked tired and haggard. Fatigue had allowed her to age almost over night. Bridger knew that those years would be lost once Kristen had a chance to get some decent rest again.
Bridger didn't dare look into a mirror at the moment for fear of what he might see. He didn't know if he looked very aged at the moment, but he sure felt 10 years older. He too had had little sleep since bringing Lucas back aboard the boat. Short dozes on a chair whilst waiting for news of Lucas's condition was all he had managed so far.
Jonathan Ford had been true to his word and had even contacted Admiral Noyce to enable another sub to be arranged to take the residents away safety from the depot without disturbing the sombre mood aboard the SeaQuest at the moment.
Noyce had displayed shock and horror of his own at the news that Joshua Shepherd had died at the hands of Woodcock and that Lucas had also suffered a gunshot wound and had to undergo surgery. He promised to contact Nathan to see if he needed anything after some time had passed.
"Luckily the bullet didn't go into deeply into his shoulder," Kristen explained, removing her latex gloves and the surgical apron that was splattered with Lucas's blood. "It tore up quite a lot of muscle and tissue but missed anything vital and his shoulder blade. He is going to be very sore for quite a while to come and won't have the full use of his arm again for a number of weeks.," she continued.
Bridger didn't have any other way of asking this question right at the moment, "How do we tell him Kristen?" she said and sat back down on a chair with the reality of what he had to do once Lucas had recovered enough from the surgery.
"It is going to be terribly difficult Nathan I know, but we have to be totally honest with him from the beginning. That boy doesn't deserve the pain that he is going to experience but he has to know," Kristen said as she sat beside Nathan, combining what little strength they had together and supporting each other.
Shep's body had been treated with the utmost respect. Noyce had offered to pay for the funeral due to the boy not having any immediate family to come forth and claim him. Bridger however wouldn't hear of it and paid for it himself, making all the arrangements as best he could until final decisions could be discussed with Lucas.
The whole idea about the U.E.O. paying for the funeral after having to admit making a mistake about sending the two boys to such a place to begin with just reeked of bureaucracy trying to cover it's own butt in red tape.
Once surgery was complete, Lucas was taken back to the Med-Bay and made more comfortable. His shoulder was bandaged down to his waist and padded thickly to compensate for any unexpected movement. The anaesthetic he had been given would keep him sedated for quite a number of hours, allowing his body to recover some of the initial strength he had lost through the bleeding.
Nathan sat on a more comfortable chair and dozed intermittently while waiting for the boy to awaken. The crew that had remained had tried to get him to rest in his own bed, but he wouldn't hear of it and had compromised with the chair.
Kristen was now resting too but knew when the time came that Nathan and Lucas needed to be alone for the devastating news that the youth needed to be told.
Nathan awoke with a sudden start, unaware of what had caused him to do so. He was just about to nod back to sleep when he spotted Lucas laying on his good shoulder. The boy's eyes were open but they were fixated on somewhere else in the room. Lucas had trouble not wanting to meet the Captain's eyes for fear of what he might see.
"Shep didn't make it did he?" Lucas asked in a very low voice, keeping his eyes on the wall across the room. Somehow he already knew the truth about what had happened to Shep. He just had trouble accepting it to be real.
"I am sorry Lucas," Bridger said, stumbling over his tongue and not really knowing what to say.
When somebody close to you died, there was just this emptiness inside that consumed you. Sometimes it kept on consuming you until you didn't know who you were anymore. That had almost happened to Bridger when Robert had died and then his wife Carol.
He had been saved from his own self-destruction by one thing and that was the youth that was laying in bed before him now. Lucas's ability to somehow work his way into Bridger's heart had stopped Nathan falling into the cataclysm of non-existence and made him see the value in cherishing what you had for as long as possible.
"Why?" Lucas now asked. By now Bridger had expected the boy to be heaving with sobs of grief over the loss of his best friend. The fact that Lucas's expression still remained unchanged made him worry more about how Shep's death would affect the teenager.
"I wish I had the answers Lucas, but I don't know why," Bridger said, remembering Kristen's words about being totally honest.
"You know what Woodcock said to me back there before he shot us?" Lucas asked. It seemed even though he had been seriously injured, the events of what had happened directly before were still very fresh in his mind.
"What did he say?" Bridger replied in question, wanting to know everything about how the boy was feeling and anything he had to say at this point in time.
Lucas gave a small fake laugh as he said the next series of words. "He said that my father had paid him to keep quiet about the beatings." After the sentence he remained silent. It was like a bad joke that had left an after taste in his mouth.
It was after that comment that the emotional tide Lucas had been riding came to an abrupt end. He could no longer hold back the hurt and grief that he was feeling inside. He laid his head on his arm and let the tears start. After a few moments, the tears became harder and harder until his shoulder began to ache from the sobs that coursed through him.
Bridger made sure that through the whole process he was there for Lucas. He knew that there were some things that Shep had wanted to tell Lucas.
"Shep told me to tell you not to grieve too long for him Lucas," Bridger said cautiously. Taking a punt he decided to add what few words of comfort of his own he could think of. "You need to make sure that you live your both for you and Shep. Go out and do all of the things that he would have wanted to do with you and have twice the amount of fun doing it, just for him."
Lucas lifted his head up and listened the to words that Bridger spoke. Tears still ran down his face.
"Friendship doesn't end with death Lucas. It just delays it for a little while," Bridger said, something similar to what he had said to himself after Carol had died. He too held onto the fierce hope that she and he would meet again one day. Maybe not today and probably not tomorrow, but their love would someday reunite them. Lucas needed to know that it was the same with his friendship with Shep.
"You will always be friends, you have to believe in that." Bridger reaffirmed.
Two weeks later at the funeral for Shep.................
Bridger knew when he had awoken this morning that today would be one of the
most emotionally draining days of Lucas's life. Today would be the day that they laid Shep to rest and said goodbye forever.
Lucas had spoken to the Captain about the arrangements that he had already put partially into place about how the funeral was to be conducted. At the end of the day, Lucas decided that Shep wouldn't have liked pomp and ceremony. Instead he opted for a very low key affair with just a few members of the crew that had been especially invited and had come to know Shep the best during his brief stay aboard the SeaQuest.
At the funeral, Lucas didn't wear a suit. Shep had never worn one in his life so Lucas wasn't going to start on this day. He wore a collared shirt and dress trousers and comfortable shoes. Something which Shep would have been happy enough to wear himself.
Although a minister of the church was involved, they had made it clear to him that Shep had never really held any religious beliefs. Tim O'Neill had read a few appropriate psalms from the bible that he had hand chosen. A few encouraging words were spoken by the minister.
By the end of it all, most of the crew had left Bridger and Lucas lone to complete the final acts of respect. They knew that Lucas would have wanted it that way. The crew walked to the cars that waited nearby in case they were needed. Ben Krieg was very sombre in mood, not a single word of fun to be heard from him on such an occasion. Kristen had tried to be strong as she could for Lucas, but she had grief of her own.
Lucas seemed to be playing with an object in his pocket for the last few minutes. Bridger was totally unaware of what it was. He was too busying keeping a close eye on Lucas's face for any signs that the boy wasn't coping well.
Shep's coffin had yet to be lowered and unbeknown to Bridger, Lucas had told the minister to give them just a bit longer for a particular reason.
Lucas now revealed the small object he held in his hand and placed it on top of the oak stained coffin covered in floral tributes. It was the blue and chrome harmonica that Shep had been so proud to play for them often.
"I never could play it anyway Shep, like you said, so it's better off with you," Lucas said in a tear-stained voice. He now gave a nod of his head and the signal to let the coffin slowly descend into the grave.
At this point in time Lucas didn't know what life had in store for him next. He had been dealt so many bad hands during his life that he just took each day at a time now with no guarantees. He didn't have the answers to why he lived and why it had to be Shep that made the ultimate sacrifice.
Although he would never admit it to the crew or Bridger, there had been one night back in the Med Bay during his recovery that he had prayed to God to allow things to be in reverse and he be the one being prepared for his funeral and Shep recovering after surgery. His prayer went unanswered.
As Bridger and Lucas started to walk away from the grave towards the crew waiting by the cars, Lucas was sure he saw something that he could never explain.
Maybe it was the sunlight shining at the wrong time of day or just a reflection of something that wasn't really there. Lucas couldn't be totally sure. When he looked at one of the older headstones a few metres away, he could have sworn that he had seen a pale figure of Shep happily sitting on the edge and playing away with his harmonica.
He turned towards the front to where he was walking and looked back over his shoulder again, but the image was gone. Had he really seen Shep as a ghost or was it just the heaviness in his heart that wanted to see.
"You okay?" Bridger asked, as Lucas looked over his shoulder. The boy's features were a littler paler than he would have liked. Possibly the boy was still feeling more discomfort from his shoulder wound than he would admit coupled with the emotional torment of the day.
"Not right now...... but I will be," Lucas said in reply.
He knew that there would be days ahead when he would miss Shep's voice and his antics. Or at night when he thought he heard Shep's voice.
As Lucas and Bridger got into the cars ready to drive away, the pale figure stood beside a tree and watched them all leave...........
Friendship a strongest bond that could never be severed by distance or space.
THE END
Okay - please don't hate me for ending it this way. When I first started this story, I had already planned to kill off whoever the new character was. I wasn't quite prepared to kill Lucas off in any of my stories and wanted to try and write about a special friendship between Lucas and somebody else.
I am sorry for all those out there who grew fond of Shep. I don't intend to write too many more stories where I kill of characters - unless it is the baddies.
I didn't spend a great amount of time in detail about the depot in this part but as you can see that it was only one part of a much more significant plot. I know that Woodcock probably didn't get what he deserved either.
Hope you enjoy this part and the entire story - please let me know what you think even if you didn't like the ending. This is my first death scene so I didn't quite know what to write.
An extra note - some of the other stories might be a little bit longer delayed - my computer is still playing up and needs to be rebuilt in a couple of weeks. It is a massive job but hopefully I won't loose any of the stories I have already half-finished.
JULES