Mike had gone to Theresa’s cabin, and they sat on her bed, backs against the wall. They were both emotionally exhausted. Theresa stared at the ceiling, talking to herself as much as she was talking to Mike.
“I’m usually such a strong person. Nothing ever bothers me, ya know? Since Ian died, I feel like all I ever do is cry down here. This is so not the mission I thought I was going on.”
“You mean they didn’t tell you we were going on a mission to be infected with some supergerm that turns us all into zombies before it kills us?”
“No, I didn’t get the memo,” she said.
“I’m going to go look for Jim. Is that gonna be a problem between us?” he asked seriously.
She turned to him, reached for his hand, and held it tightly. “And if you find him—then what?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s just it, Mike. You don’t know. And what if you end up getting infected?”
“You’d miss me,” he said with a forced smile.
“I would. There—I said it, okay? Just let it go for a while. Maybe Ted will find a way to get everything under control again and we can just surface and get the hell out of here.”
Mike squeezed her hand. “Hey—”
“What?”
He leaned over and kissed her, and she kissed him back. It lasted a long time. “See? That wasn’t so bad,” he said.
“No, it wasn’t,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder.
He leaned down and took her face in his hands again, gently, and kissed her again. She kissed him back and allowed Mike to roll her across his lap until they ended up lying on her bed together. She wrapped her leg around his and enjoyed making out like a high schooler for a long time. Mike never pushed it further, and it was comforting and warm. They eventually took a break.
“You know, for such a hard-ass, you’re actually very respectful and gentle,” she whispered.
“Want me to lock the door and ruin your image of me?”
She looked him squarely in the eyes. “You want to?”
He didn’t answer. He just got up and locked the door, and standing there in front of her, he pulled his shirt off. She helped him with his pants.
***********
Tony found Jess in the sickbay, where she was working under a microscope.
“Whatcha’ doin, Doc?” he asked.
“I had some of the Deinococcus in a petri dish in the fridge. I had done a few different things to try and kill it. Boiled it, froze it, added hydrochloric acid to it—nothing seemed to bother it, including the UV sterilizers the MC runs when it attempts to sterilize the ship’s atmosphere.”
“And?”
“And then I added regular old rubbing alcohol, and voila—dead as a doornail.”
“Doesn’t alcohol kill almost everything?”
“Usually. Either dehydrates the cell or disrupts the membrane. In this case, it destroyed the cell membrane and completely killed the cell.”
“But acid didn’t kill it. Strange, huh?”
“I’m not a specialist with this stuff, but yeah, it did seem strange to me. Anyway, it means we can protect ourselves.”
“We’ll get Mike’s booze and drink ourselves healthy!”
She laughed. “Not exactly what I was thinking, but it probably couldn’t hurt! What I meant was, simple sterilization techniques with rubbing alcohol should kill the bacteria. I have plenty of alcohol aboard the ship. We can wipe down all the surfaces in the lab, the galley—anyplace where we spend a lot of time. I think it’s a good precaution. I’ll try adding iodine to the alcohol and see if that speeds the process up.”
“We should give everyone a little bottle to keep on them. If they touch anything or come in contact with anything by accident, they can just wipe themselves down.”
“Good.” She shrugged. “It’s something.”
“Hey—you did good. It is something.”