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One Problem at a Time Chapter 8

EVEN DRAGONS HAVE THEIR ENDING

Fairy tales are more than true,

Not because they tell us dragons exist,

But because they tell us dragons can be beaten.

~Neil Gaiman

It was dark when the plane landed on the abandoned highway, surrounded by velvety darkness and the empty desert. The hybrid repellant frequency was radiating around the plane, acting as protection from whatever monsters were lurking out there, but just in case it wasn't effective against dragons Abe, Mitch, Jamie and Clementine all waited in the vehicle bay, heavily armed and tense as the cargo door dropped. Mitch rubbed his clean shaven jaw, feeling almost a little naked without the scruffy, stubbly beard but every time he had seen himself in the mirror the reflection was Duncan and he was ready to rid himself of the last vestiges of Duncan-hood once and for all. He had even enlisted Clementine to do something approximating cutting his hair, though she had warned him beforehand that she was better with a wrench than a pair of scissors. Still, the result was passable and he started to feel a little less like Post-tank Mitch, and more like himself, a feeling bolstered when he found one of his old plaid shirts hanging in the back of Jamie's closet, and he grinned as he slid it on, Jamie's soft scent wafting up from it.

When he had joined them all in the bay, Abe saw him first and bellowed, "Well! Hello Mitch Morgan!" with a chuckle, Jamie glanced up from the weapon rack quizzically and her breath caught in her throat but she recovered quickly, looking him over and breaking into a brilliant smile before turning her attention back to the armory. With the press of a button the gun rack opened to reveal a deep, recessed shelf behind it she reached in and pulled out a long, wide case, and Mitch lunged forward to help her with it as she slid it out of the compartment.

He grunted as he caught the end of the case and helped her lower it to the ground. "Ugh, this is heavy. What is it, a case of bricks?" Jamie was busily unlatching the case and she swung it open in triumph, revealing a rocket launcher and a pair of wicked looking missiles. "A rocket launcher?" he asked incredulously, "Really?”

She shrugged, picking up the massive weapon with practiced ease. "You never know when you'll have to blow another plane out of the sky. Or a fire breathing dragon."

“I don't even want to know where you got that thing," he said as she swung it up to her shoulder, opening the sighting mechanism in one swift movement. "Or how you know how to handle it like that.”

Clem piped up, "Speaking of fire-breathing dragon, how long exactly would the plane hold up under an attack from one?"

That had been concerning Jamie too. "The carbon fiber is rated for high temperatures but only for short periods of time. I don't know how hot dragonfire is but I am going to assume that anything longer than three or four minutes will burn through the sheathing and to the actual skin of the plane, which would be very, very bad. Let's hope we don't have to worry about it.”

Now they waited in the open bay; the night air was cool and Jamie felt prickles on her arms, whether from the chill or fear she wasn't sure. A light flashed in the distance and everyone snapped to attention, watching the light as it bobbed closer; within a few seconds moving shadows were visible, though they stayed silent as they approached the plane. The shadows finally trotted onto the plane and Clem immediately pulled the lever to close the bay door, and as it clanged closed they all let out a collective breath and greeted each other enthusiastically. Abe hugged Dariela tight, then drew Jackson to him in a giant bear hug. Jackson thrust two vials at Mitch and panted, "They were refrigerated until we left the dam, about forty minutes ago. I couldn't risk trying to carry the cooler.”

Mitch patted him on the back, cutting him off, "No, this is great. I'm going to go get them in the lab right away.”

"Sorry l couldn't get the dragon or the snake, it was just too dangerous," Jackson apologized, unconsciously touching his injured wrist. "Those are rhino and goat.”

“These are great, two more pieces to the puzzle," Mitch replied, and he motioned at Jackson's injury. "Get Abe to check that wrist. Tomorrow we are going on a little hunting trip and we’re gonna need you in good working order.”

Jackson wasn't really surprised that the plan was in place to go after the dragon and the snake, but he asked, "Are you sure that's a good idea?”

Mitch shook his head. "No, but I'm sure l'm on the right track here, Jackson, know in my gut that these samples are the key to stopping Abigail, the hybrids, fixing everything. We need them and if we have to battle a dragon to get one, that's what we have to do.”

Jackson stared him steadily in the eye but he knew Mitch was right, fighting monsters was what they had been doing for twelve years and he wanted to stop his sister - the biggest monster of them all - more than anything in the world. Destroying what she probably considered a masterpiece of genetic manipulation would be satisfying, but he would never be happy until the hybrids were exterminated and she was behind bars- or dead. He nodded solemnly at Mitch and said, “We’ll do what we have to do.”

Mitch stayed in the lab while everyone else retired to the bar, but Jamie brought him a drink that he accepted gratefully, taking a long swallow before joining her at the computer where he had been working. "They're upstairs talking about the dragon,” Jamie picked up one of the vials of blood and turned it this way and that, studying it in the dim, metallic light of the lab. "Dariela said it was basically a flying razorback the size of an elephant that breathes a jet of fire a hundred feet long. So, you know, nothing we can’t handle," She smiled and gestured at his array of screens. "Find anything out?" she asked, and he hurriedly swallowed the last of drink before plunking the glass down on the desk and taking the vial from her, placing it back in its tray and taking her hand.

“Not yet, I am still processing the samples. I needed to chill them first to keep them stable before I actually started working, so I’ll be here a while." He glanced sideways at her and asked, "Wanna stay with me? Help save the world again?"

She kissed him, his lips bitter with the taste of the vodka, his arms warm around her, but she pulled away after a few seconds, slightly breathless and flushed. "Rain check. Gotta take care of a few things, but I'll be back to help you because that's me, Jamie Campbell, helper of saving stuff.” She motioned at the computers, “You get back to work, Doctor.”

He did just that, losing himself in the work, the answer to puzzle that would save them all. His brain was in science mode, and the next time he looked at the clock he realized she had been gone for two hours. He wondered vaguely where she was but he was too busy to wonder for long. The next time he looked up, Jamie had poked her head into the lab, and asked him, "Are you hungry?”

He was famished, suddenly, and he nodded, stripping off his gloves and washing his hands quickly before making his way into the kitchen, where Jamie had set out two bacon and cheese sandwiches and two glasses of chocolate milk. He gave her a lingering kiss of gratitude, then plopped down at the bar and dug into the food. Jamie picked at hers, mostly watching Mitch, and after a few seconds he stopped chewing and asked, "Why exactly, are you staring at me?”

Her eyes crinkled as she smiled at him. "I like you without the beard. You don't look so grumpy.”

He rolled his eyes slightly and teased, "Is that why you haven’t been able to keep your eyes of me all night? Don't think I didn’t notice.”

Her laugh was tinged with bitterness. "You got me. That's exactly why." Her eyes wouldn't meet his and she swallowed as she said softly, "It was a shock. It's was like I’d gone back ten years, and we were on a beach, making plans to go to Maine to get Clementine, to be a family," Her face softened at the memory, and the years fell away from her and suddenly he was with her there on the beach, making plans for a future they would never have and it dawned on him what his ten year absence had really cost her. Allison Shaw's voice echoed back to him through the years. I know you think she's special and you’re meant to be together, but as someone who knows you very well, you’re not. You’re going to destroy each other. And so they had. But Jamie had destroyed the old Mitch that Allison knew long before Shaw slithered her way back into his life; he had destroyed Jamie when the last tattered remnants of hope she'd managed to cobble together with him after New Brunswick had been snatched away so violently and abruptly that she'd been shattered, and only through vengeance and anger had Jamie pieced herself back together, leaving jagged and sharp edges to protect herself. For the first time he felt a twinge of pity for Logan, because he knew from experience how sharp those edges could be and how deeply she was willing to cut to suit her needs.

“We can start over," Mitch said, taking her face gently in his hands. "We can just pick up from the beach, pretend like the last ten years never happened." He squinted at her. "Might be a bit easier for me than for you."

"I'm sure it would." She shook her head. "But learned a long time ago that there is no going back, so this is where we move on.”

More words that echoed from the past, more visiting ghosts.

Can we do what people do sometimes and start over?

Sure, let's...move on.

His face fell, though he tried to hide it behind his glasses, and she put her hand on his arm. Sometimes she forgot that it hadn’t been ten years for him, so those words were still fresh in his mind. "Move on to the next step, together.”

***

Daylight found Mitch still working in the lab, though Jamie had eventually gone to bed since she knew from experience that, like her, Mitch was single-minded in his own way and once he had a problem in his teeth he was going to worry it to pieces. She stayed with him long enough to learn that the goat's blood and the rhino blood had the same molecular signature as the other samples, and they also had different anomalies. Mitch had worked the anomalous molecules into a figure but there were only four of them it wasn't anything but a bunch of angled lines. They needed more.

Once in her room she tried to relax but she couldn't, she had pushed him too fast and she knew it. But that was her, wasn't it? Relentless, obstinate Jamie- let her get something on her mind and there was no dislodging it until she was satisfied. It had been the night that they left the plane for the barrier and Abe collapsed from the deflated lung, Clementine thrust Sam into her arms while she grabbed a knitting needle from her bag to save Abe, and while everything else was going on Jamie looked down into that sweet little face and felt that little hand grip her finger, and it was like the rest of the world had ceased to exist until she looked up and Mitch's eyes met hers, and suddenly she wanted it, motherhood. With Mitch.

As the sun came up the crew gathered in the lab to discuss the next move and the plan was pretty simple, to fly over the dam and as soon as the dragon came into range, shoot with the sample collector and then turn on the repellant frequency and hope it didn't have time to fry anyone. It was a sketchy plan, the best they could come up with, but as soon as they told Jackson he shook his head. "That won't work," he said, "the thing is covered in spikes and scales, bullets just bounced right off of it. And the range of that crossbow is only what, a hundred feet at best? We’ll all be fried to a crisp before we get close enough. Bad plan. We have to think of something else.”

Jamie looked thoughtful, then asked Mitch. "Could we use a missile on it?"

"You really just want to blow something up. don’t you?" Mitch grinned at her over his glasses but shook his head. “I’m not sure there would be enough left of it to collect samples from, and what was left would probably be contaminated. So, no. Try again."

Jamie went to the armory and pulled out another case, opening it next to the launcher. Snug in the padded lining were three small missiles, roughly the size of beer bottles, and a fitting that Dariela picked up and inspected. "Nice, a rifled missile adapter." She picked up one of the missiles and looked it over. "And Demon fire missiles. Tipped with titanium drillbits, the rifling makes them spin at high speeds, basically creating a drill that carries the explosive deep inside whatever the target is before it explodes."

Jamie chimed in. "A small charge. The missile counts on being internalized before exploding, rather than a huge explosive charge. It would probably scramble the dragon's insides a bit but it won't blow it to pieces and that should leave some part of it uncontaminated, right?"

"Could be," Mitch picked one up and hefted it in his hands before looking around the group. "Anyone have a better idea?" They all looked around at each other but no one volunteered a solution.

Jamie spoke again. "We also need to be firing from a stationary place, not the plane." She pulled up some satellite pictures of the dam and the surrounding area. "See this bluff here? There's a straight line of sight to the dam from here. Set me down there with the missile launcher, and you guys bring the plane over as bait.”

Mitch shook his head vehemently. "NO. You are not going down there by yourself, I'm going with you. Jackson obviously knows how to work the plane, he can play captain.”

Dariela said, "I should go to. IF-" she emphasized, "anything should happen to Jamie I am the only one who knows how to use the rocket launcher.

Jamie, Mitch and Dariela perched on a high bluff, some distance from the dam itself, watching the plane as it flew overhead. They could see Jackson and Abe standing on the opened ramp at the rear as they passed. The dragon flew up from the foggy depths of the river and blew a jet of fire at the retreating plane, as it hovered just below the lip of the dam. Jamie pulled the trigger on the launcher, firing a missile that caught the dragon in its long sinuous neck. It screamed in pain and thrashed as the missile bored its way through the flesh and out the other side, drilling into the dam behind it with a horrendous screech, quivering for a scant second before it exploded through the concrete. "Oh, shit," Jamie breathed as the dam slowly, slowly, began to crack, water pouring out of the fissure, spilling concrete and debris down on to the dragon who was flying awkwardly as blood streamed from the open hole in its scaly neck. It screamed again and tried to haltingly fly away from the dam but suddenly the levee split wide, the entirety of the reservoir pouring over the crumbling lip of the ruined dam, the giant water snake slithered out, landing on the back of the dragon and instantly wrapping itself around the flying beast and they both plummeted downward, two behemoths locked in tooth and claw battle.

Everyone stared open-mouthed as the two hybrids, carried on a wave of water as the dam finally completely broke, washed downstream, writhing and screeching amongst the debris and boulders from the shattered dam.

#oneproblem #otp #mitch x jamie #mitch x jamie #mitch morgan #jamitch #jamie campbell #cbs zoo #zoo cbs #zoo #jackson oz #alpha ship

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#A Concept #Everyone seeing through BS of #Jonathan and Nancy being just friends

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Isaac Newton 'Graffiti' Discovered in Historic English Manor

Towering thinker Sir Isaac Newton carved a now-barely visible doodle of a windmill into a stone wall in his childhood home, according to a news release from the National Trust.

The drawing was discovered at Woolsthorpe Manor, the Lincolnshire, England,home where Newton was born in 1642, said the National Trust,which protects the house and other heritage sites in the United Kingdom.

Newton is famous for his laws of motion, theory of universal gravitation and an experiment that involved shooting sunlight through a prism to create a rainbow effect (and inspire a very famous Pink Floyd album cover). But before Newton was a Sir, he was a boy — and apparently that boy had a thing for drawing on walls. Read more.

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Episode 2x11 - Contingency

Coming in at a close second place for Favorite Episode of Season Two…our dynamic duo regains (quite) a bit of momentum. Nothing like a near death experience (or three) to knock those priorities into place. It was difficult picking just 4 gifs (there were a few earlier moments that I liked as well).

1) I loved seeing the return of Protective!Mitch. No matter how strained their relationship is, he still has that instinct to press Jamie back into the corner when threatened by a rampaging killer gorilla. So sweet.  

2) “Alright, I’ve got to get all the way back into the elevator, jam the key, and then get back out before it cuts me in half.” “Sounds good. I’ll watch.” No one can tell me these two aren’t married. That look she gives him says it all. 

3) This moment broke my heart. You can see how much she wants to give in that last inch and cling to him, and he’s…just…waiting. Waiting for her to make the first move because dammit she’s the one who put the distance between them and no matter how much he wants to grab her and hold on for dear life, he can’t make that decision for her. Such a beautiful moment, and I love these two actors for bringing all of that in just a few seconds.

4) “Well, you’ve already lost a toe for this team. I think losing an arm - or a head - would just be showing off.” It’s nice that he can still make her laugh (it’s been a while since she’s done that, I think). I really believe this episode was a tipping point for Jamie, both mentally regaining her footing after Canada and realizing that whatever this thing is with Mitch is still as strong as it was a year ago. 

This is also our final episode with Allison, and while I cannot say I’m sad to see the character go, I will miss Joanne Kelly’s presence and poise. It was a shame she was written as little more than a speed bump for the OTP, and her parting words to Mitch were seriously jarring and dissonant compared to the rest of her Big Damn Speech™. MYKA BERING DESERVED BETTER.

In recognition of her very awkward, almost comically ill-timed wrench-in-the-works part, here is a gif of Mitch and Jamie almost-but-not-quite looking at each other in perpetuity.

Yep, made it 5 gifs. You’re welcome.

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One Problem At A Time Ch. 7

WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU MAKES YOU STRONGER

Remind me that the most fertile lands

Were built by the fires of volcanoes.

~Andrea Gibson, The Madness Vase

It was slow going, trudging along the rocky, boulder-strewn banks of the Strawberry River, made slower by the rickety, improvised travois that was hauling the sample cooler and a few spare weapons they had managed to salvage from the ruined trucks. Everything else had been absolutely destroyed by the thundering goat herd, and all of their phones carrying the hybrid repellant frequency had long since lost battery power. Morris Brown remembered some kind of a maintenance shack at the edge of Starvation Dam, he didn't think it would be manned anymore but there could be a radio. The dam was only a mile or so away but the terrain was so rough they were not making good time, it was hot and there was little vegetation and scant shade, but when the sun went down the heat would dissipate quickly and it would be best if they were inside if possible.

Tessa and Dariela trudged along together at the head of the line, scanning the rocks and hills ahead for danger. They were both drenched in sweat, and Tessa wiped her brow and said, "This humidity is nuts. We're in the desert."

"We're close to a river." Dariela replied, flicking the sweat from her own forehead, "that would explain some of the humidity, but it’s still really wet out here.”

Tessa panted a few more steps "So, how is Abe doing on the sterility cure?”

Dariela shrugged "He was close to a cure when left. Really close." Tessa hadn't hidden her eagerness for the answer. "You and Jackson going to…?”

Tessa grinned and glanced at Jackson, who was trailing the travois, protecting it from the rear. "I don't know, I mean l want to, I hope he does.”

“I'm going to have two more," Dariela said, looking dreamily up into the barren hills. "I want a girl, at least one." She stopped, pointing up at one of the rocky outcroppings. It was smeared black with soot and she observed, "Looks like there must have been some kind of fire here.”

“Maybe," Tessa gestured at the desolate terrain, "But it doesn’t seem like there's enough fuel around here for much of a fire."

They made it to the dam and any hope of finding help was dashed, Jackson could tell immediately it had not been maintained in some time. The operators had left the spillway open and water crashed ten stories down to the rocks below, forging heavy spray that thickly fogged the river bottom. Cracks zigzagged up the concrete walls and various bushes and grasses sprouted from every orifice where they could get a hold in the side The guard shack could be seen at the top, on the opposite side of the river, which meant they had to cross the derelict dam.

Jackson sighed and they started up the rock-studded cliffs to the top: he, Tessa, and Dariela in the lead, Brown and two of his men pulling the travois, and Brown's other two men guarding their back. They reached the top and started across the spine of the levee. It was narrow, only about ten feet wide, with a dizzying fall to the rocks on one side and a deep reservoir on the other, though as Jackson swept the reservoir he saw something slither through the water towards them. "Heads up!" he shouted, pointing to the wake the monster was leaving in the water, "Water snake! A huge one! Watch the side!”

They started across the dike, slowly, everyone on alert, guns raised. Their concentration was on the reservoir, watching the water for the snake but a loud, rhythmic thumping, like helicopter blades but slower, heavy and dark in the fog below the dam got their attention. Jackson stopped the team to tell them to turn back- if the ramshackle structure was about to collapse they didn't want to be in the middle of it but the whup-whup sound got louder and he could feel the very concrete vibrating beneath his feet and his bones vibrated in the core of his body and suddenly the dusky gray cement of the dam was shaded by a giant black shadow, an unearthly shriek rent the air around them and they all cowered as the shadow soared over them, flapping its leathery black and silver wings as it passed, creating a wind so fierce it nearly knocked Jackson down.

“Holy shite,” Brown said, his jaw dropping. "Is that a...dragon?”

It looked like a huge razorback that had been given wings, all glistening silver and black spikes and huge, slavering teeth and it's long, jagged tail swiped at the two men bringing up the rear as it passed, knocking them screaming from the dam, down to the rocky river below. "Run!" Jackson shouted, and they all sprinted for the other side, but Brown and his two remaining men lifted their rifles and started firing at the monster, Jackson ran back to grab the travois Brown's men had dropped as the dragon circled around, pulled up even with Brown and his men and let loose a stream of fire from his searing jaws that turned Brown and his men to ashes echoing with agonizing screams. Jackson fell to the ground behind them, feeling the scorching fire as it passed over him, trying to get as low as he could as the dragon circled again, then dove back toward the bottom of the dam, disappearing into the misty fog.

Jackson sprang to his feet and ran, catching Dariela and Tessa as they reached the guard shack, broke open the door and dove in, slamming it shut as they sat silent but for their ragged breathing. "Jesus," Jackson croaked, reaching over to Tessa to make sure she was okay. "Is everyone alright?"

Dariela sat up, panting with terror, leaning against a metal desk that took up the majority of the little room. "Brown and his men sure aren’t. That thing barbecued them."

Jackson rose slowly to his feet, favoring his injured wrist as he used the desk for leverage. "Let's see if we can find a radio. As much as I hate it, we need Jamie to come back for us.”

***

Abe was discreet enough to leave while they finished getting themselves together, and Jamie picked up the navigational tablet and changed their course back to the south, at least heading them in the direction of Jackson until she could find out exactly where he was.

"So, a dragon, and apparently not the Komodo type," Mitch said as he sat on the bed, jerking his shoes on testily. “Things just keep getting better and better."

He was still hot about the Abigail/Duncan remark and she dropped onto the end of the bed beside him and leaned against his solid warmth, trying to communicate with her body what she found so hard to put into words. Sometimes it amazed her that as someone who organized words into stories for a living, when it came time to use them in her personal life, her command of them usually deserted her at the most critical junctures. "I'm sorry,” she apologized softly, "about what I said. I'm going down to tell Abe yes, l will test the fertility cure for him," she raised her gaze to his and said fiercely, "because if there are going to be any little Mitch Morgan hybrids running around here, they are going to be mine.” The kiss this time was deeper, longer, intensely possessive, then she was gone, leaving his lips burning and his brain spinning; the bio-drive in his head had been a cakewalk compared to what Jamie was doing to him at the moment, springing babies and fertility on him with no warning and hurling unadulterated commitment at him with such careless abandon. He needed a drink but instead of heading for the bar he found his feet carrying him to the computer lab, where he knew he would find Jamie.

He walked in to Abe's deep, smooth voice, "Jackson couldn't give me much information, the battery in his radio was almost dead. They are on the Strawberry River in Utah, some place called Starvation Dam. Brown and his team was wiped out by the – I can’t believe am saying this - dragon. He has enough radio power left for me to contact him and let him know where to meet us.”

Jamie went to her bank of computers and Mitch joined her, resting his hand lightly on her shoulder in a gesture of forgiveness as she pulled up real-time detailed satellite pictures of the Starvation Dam area and started scanning through them rapidly, searching for a place that would make a suitable landing spot for the plane. "What about the IADG?” she asked, "Do they have a team closer that can extract him? We're still at least two or three hours away.”

"No." Abe said in a tone that made them both look up from the satellite pictures. "The IADG evacuated east of the wall, and they are trying to help people flee. The hybrids are spreading, even though it hasn't even been 48 hours. Look," he tapped on one of the computers and a news broadcast came on, a somber newscaster recounting the horrible things happening in Boulder as people's pets and farm animals were being killed by some creature or creatures, then coming back as a monster and attacking anyone they came in contact with, even their owners. The accompanying video was littered with the bloodied bodies of humans and animals alike.

Mitch shook his head in frustration at the news but without the samples there wasn't much he could do about it, and at the moment another question was on the front burner. "We need to get the hybrid repellant frequency information to IADG. It could be useful to them, Abe, can you help me with that?" Mitch jerked his head at the lab and motioned for Abe to follow him. Once they were safely out of Jamie's hearing, Mitch said in a near-whisper, “Um, so Jamie brought up an interesting point a little while ago and I would like to get your opinion on it. Doctor/patient like opinion," he clarified.

They trotted down the stairway to the lab, and Abe's curiosity got the better of him. "I would love to give you my opinion. Doctor patient opinion, of course.”

Mitch stopped on the bottom step. "Jamie seems to think that because I had to be put in the stasis tank well before the twelve hour period it took for the TX-14 gas to spread, and was likely not taken out until the gas had diffused into the atmosphere enough for it to be ineffective on me, l may not be sterile. May not have ever been sterile." He shuddered at the idea of what Abigail could have used him for but pushed the thought away.

Abe nodded his head as Mitch spoke, smiling as the implications and possibilities hit him. "Yes, she is correct, I don't know why I didn't think of it myself. Would you like me to test you?"

“Well, yeah," Mitch whispered snidely, rolling up his sleeve. “Especially since Jamie has agreed to be your little practice egg factory. I kinda want to know what l'm getting into.”

Abe chuckled as he opened a nearby drawer and took out a needle and a glass vial. "I gave her the first treatment a few minutes before you joined us. I wondered if she was going to tell you about it.”

“Well, she did," Abe quickly swabbed Mitch's arm with alcohol, slid the needle in and then removed the vial with a swift movement as Mitch rolled his sleeve back down.

“It seems you two are closer than ever,” he smiled heartily at Mitch, "I am glad to see it. I was afraid that her recent poor decision making would be the end of you two, but it appears to have brought you together." Abe carried the sample to one of the workstations, opened a cabinet and took out a bottle of clear liquid, siphoning out a couple of cc's of the fluid and dropping it into a glass tube. He then used a syringe to withdraw a few drops of Mitch's blood from the vial and added it to the solution, placing a gloved finger over the opening and shaking it gently, "But then what does not kill you only makes you stronger.”

Mitch rolled his eyes. "Thanks for the words of wisdom, Obi Wan. I should look like the Hulk by now.” He jerked his head at the tube in Abe’s hand. “How long is this going to take?" Abe just smiled as he stopped shaking the mixture and held the glass tube up to the light.

The liquid had turned a bright blue and the delight on Abe’s face was the only answer Mitch needed. “Oh-kay. Well, that was faster than l expected." He took a deep breath and cut his eyes at Abe, just to be sure. “I’m not sterile?”

“No, my friend, you are not," Abe chuckled, patting Mitch on the back. "Congratulations!”

“Yeah,” Mitch replied tersely, handing Abe a small drive from his pocket; he suddenly needed a drink. "The hybrid repellant frequency information is on this drive, get it to the IADG, I’m going to go see if Jamie has come up with anything." He ducked out of the lab, clattering up the stairs to the bar where he poured himself a shot, downed it in one swallow, then marched down the hallway to what had been his room, knocking softly on the door until Clem opened it. She was holding Baby Sam to her breast while he nursed, and Mitch recoiled as she pulled the door open, turning away and covering his eyes. "Come on, Clem," he said, "I know it's just a biological function but you're my daughter and I am barely used to you having a baby much less…lady…parts…” he finished lamely as his daughter rolled her eyes and turned her back on him, motioning for him to come into the room. Sam was sleeping in Mitch's bed and he looked much better, though Mitch was fairly sure it was the nurse more than the nursing that was helping him heal.

"What's up, Dad?" Clem asked, laying baby Sam over her shoulder and covering herself up. She patted his back gently until he let out a loud, drooling belch, then she gently wiped his mouth and handed him to his grandfather. Mitch handled the bundle awkwardly for a second, then got Sam comfortably tucked into his arms and he cooed and smiled over the baby, marveling at the little creature that was his grandson. "So, we have turned around and we are headed to Utah to rescue Jackson, Tessa, and Dariela. Apparently they were attacked by a – bear with me here - dragon, and need a ride.”

"A dragon? Like a fire-breathing giant lizard?” Clem asked in surprise, then grinned as she said softly, "Grandpa would have loved that. A truly mythical monster." She caught Mitch’s expression and added, "But that's not why you're here, is it?"

“Uh, no, it isn't." He kissed his grandson on the forehead and muttered, "I need to talk to you. About Jamie. A...situation has come up and you are probably the only person who can tell me what I need to know."

Clementine folded her arms across her chest and stared at her father "Well, am intrigued. What kind of situation?"

Mitch lifted the baby in his arms a fraction and said, "This kind." He wrinkled his nose as a particularly noxious smell reached him and he handed Sam back to his mother and said, "Your department, Mom." Clem took her baby and took a whiff too, turning her face away with a grimace. "Anyway, Jamie brought up an interesting point earlier, that because of my time in the stasis tank I may not have been sterilized with the rest of the world, so l had Abe test me. Turns out Jamie was right, I am a fully functional baby-maker, and in a really fun twist, Jamie has agreed to be Dr. Kenyatta's sterility cure lab rat and has already taken the first treatment-“

Clem interjected, "Does Jamie know? About you?"

"Well, not definitively. yet. She suspected it, it was her suggestion-“

"Tell her now." Clem was immediately serious. "This isn't the kind of thing you keep from someone.”

“I know, Clem, but that is kind of the reason I'm here." He felt his face flush hot with embarrassment, and glad that Clem wasn’t looking at him, plowed ahead. "I haven't asked you much about.. what it was like, for you, growing up, but l need to know... what was she like? As a mom, when you lived with her." It was still painful, knowing how much he had missed of her life, and between lack of time to talk and the unpleasantness of the beer revelation he hadn't asked her much about her past, with Jamie or with Max.

Clem smiled as she lay Sam out on the bed, swiftly removing his soiled diaper. “She was amazing. We struggled at first, I mean we were both very sad and very angry and she blamed herself for...well, for a lot of things. But she tried to make it as normal as she could, made sure l went to school, and ate healthy food, and did my homework, and we went to the movies, and museums-“ she stopped at the look of wistful sadness on Mitch's face. "And she made sure I knew you, who you were, what you did, everything about you. She talked about you all the time and she would just glow, thinking about you made her light up, even in front of Logan," Mitch smiled at that, and his heart twisted around Jamie's a little more. "I know she's different from who you remember, but she's still Jamie." She paused as she deftly re-swaddled the baby and cuddled him close as he closed his eyes in contentment.

"We’ve only been together for a couple of weeks...it's a little sudden-“

Clem scoffed at his reasoning. "You and Jamie have been together for eleven years, Dad, you just spent some of it apart."

“Some of it? That's a bit of a stretch," he snorted in turn, then added, "but I get your meaning." He sighed irritably and rolled his head to the side, squinting at Clementine. "She told me today that she wanted to make little Mitch Morgan hybrids.”

Clementine burst out laughing. "I know you aren't the best at reading women, but that's pretty straightforward." She smiled and held up her son, freshly changed, sleeping soundly in her arms. "Just think about it. A kid that's half you, half Jamie? That's going to be one brilliant know-it-all little badass.”

***

She was still flicking through satellite photos when he came back to the computer lab/kitchen, carrying a bottle of vodka and two glasses. He poured her a drink and handed it to her as he snarked, "If you get pregnant you cant drink for at least nine months.”

She didnt raise her eyes from the screen but took the glass and swallowed a long, deep draught before replying, "Well, that’s a deal breaker, then."

"Good to know, Ill make sure I keep the bar stocked." He pulled up a chair and sat down next to her, looking over her shoulder at the barren desert in the satellite photos. "Because it turns out you were right." He took another swallow of his drink.

"I know I am,” she replied cheekily, "Can you be more specific?"

"Very funny," he retorted. "You know what mean."

Jamie leaned back in her chair, her usually warm brown eyes afire as she turned to him. "And how do you feel about that?"

"Confused. Stunned." He paused, and took another swallow of his drink, meeting Jamie's eyes over the rim of the glass as she quirked an eyebrow at him. "Excited.” He broke the gaze. “Scared.”

Jamie was quiet for a few seconds, then she leaned forward in her chair and took the bottle from Mitch, pouring herself another drink. “l never thought would want to be a mother. When my friends were all pushing baby dolls in carriages and playing with Barbies, I was playing reporter and asking my uncle about dairy prices and hog futures." She chuckled a little to herself at the memory, then raised her gaze to meet Mitch's. "Then my mother died and you know how it went from there. Children were never a priority, they were an afterthought, something l would consider after l brought Reiden down, after l avenged my mother, and my hometown, and everyone else they had destroyed-“ she reined herself in, swallowing the words at the tip of her tongue and a paused a second to collect herself before she continued, "And then you came along, with your lions acting lion-y, and your genius theories, and love for your daughter," she laughed with a rueful shake of her fiery hair, “and your inexplicable faith in me despite my obvious shortcomings, and for the first time l allowed myself to think about a family with you, and with Clementine, and who knows? Maybe that's what we would have done in Maine but," she looked away from him, "fate had other plans, didn't it?”

“I wanted you to be Clementine's family," Mitch said gruffly.

“It's not the same and you know it," Jamie replied sharply. "But even if you hadn’t…died, we would have been sterilized, so I came to terms with it, just like the rest of humanity. Even when you came back to me, I didn't let myself dream of family again, I was too far down the rabbit hole.” She stopped, her gift of words deserting her again so she set her drink down and took his hands. "Then I held your grandson, Mitch, and l looked into those beautiful little eyes, held that tiny little hand in mine and something in me changed. My...priorities changed.”

Abe's deep baritone interrupted their silence. "I just finished up with the IADG, they are very appreciative for the information and they are going to implement the repellant frequency as widely and as quickly as they can," he poked his head in before entering, making sure he wasn't interrupting anything. "Have you had any luck finding a rendezvous point for Jackson?”

“Ye- yes," Jamie said, taking her hands away from Mitch's and turning back to the computers as Mitch cleared his throat and picked up the vodka bottle and glasses, and Jamie tapped at the screen. "An abandoned highway, about a mile and a half north of the dam. Looks like they built a newer road and didn't tear up the old one. Long enough to land the plane and take off again.”

Abe bent over the screen to take a look and nodded. "Yes, that will do well. Let me get the coordinates and I will radio Jackson immediately. How long before we get there?”

Jamie tapped the screen thoughtfully, doing some mental calculations and said, "About two hours. Give or take." She jotted down the coordinates and handed them to Abe, who pulled a radio from his rear pocket and pressed the call button. Jackson's voice crackled over the speaker. "Give me good news, Abe.”

Abe relayed the coordinates to the makeshift runway to Jackson, who said, "Okay. Be careful, the dragon is still here, flying around. It knows we're still here, it's waiting for us to make a move but the sun is going to set soon, we’ll head out then, maybe it won't chase us in the dark." The radio started to cut out and it crackled as he said, "There's also a giant water snake in the upper portion of the river.”

Mitch interjected, "Tell him to get blood samples if he can!”

Jackson retorted, "Tell Mitch to go fuck himself. He can get his own samples if he wants them."

Abe and Jamie laughed, but the gears started turning in Mitch’s head. "Copy that," he answered, and let Abe finish the radio call before asking, "I have an idea. I think we can get some dragon blood. Do you still have the sample collecting crossbow you got on Pangaea?”

***

#zoo cbs #zoo #mitch x jamie #mitch x jamie #mitch morgan #jamie campbell #jamitch #jackson oz #abraham kenyatta #dariela marzan #tumblr fanfiction #kristen connolly #billy burke #oneproblem #otp

[sarahsilverdog-blog-blog]

Happy birthday Billy Burke!

A very very very happy Birthday to Billy Burke, the man of many faces and one of the most versatile actors and singers of our times. May you have a great birthday weekend with friends, family and lot of love, food and music..and find time for some poker to relax :)

#billyburke

[sarahsilverdog-blog-blog]

I am already in line.

#outlander #jamie x claire #sam heughan

[sarahsilverdog-blog-blog]

Happy #Thanksgiving!!!! So much to be #thankful for, especially for #BillyBurke for using his talents to make us laugh, cry and think, and all of of you for your wonderful support and love for BBFP!!! How many of you feel just like this when it’s time for Thanksgiving dinner !!!

[sarahsilverdog-blog-blog]

It hasn't worked yet but I keep trying.

#outlander #jamie x claire #sam heughan #alcohol #drinks

[sarahsilverdog-blog-blog]

The best of Mitch Morgan

[sarahsilverdog-blog-blog]

I miss him.

The best of Mitch Morgan

[sarahsilverdog-blog-blog]

One Problem At A Time Ch. 6

NOTHING BURNS LIKE THE COLD

Nothing burns like the cold. But only for a while. Then it gets inside you, starts to fill you up, and after a while you don’t have the strength to fight it.

~George R R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

The three armored trucks drove northwest across rough terrain, and Jackson, Tessa and Dariela bounced along with Morris Brown in the rear of the caravan, heading towards an area the Australian knew to be rife with hybrids. Mitch had rigged a cooler in the back of the truck to keep the blood samples cold and safely cushioned, but even with refrigeration they would only be good for Mitch's purposes for a week so they were to head north, collecting what samples they could, and rendezvous with the others at an abandoned airstrip in San Francisco in six days so Mitch could do what he could with the samples he had.

It felt good to be back out on a safari and Jackson was honest with himself also glad to get away from Jamie- and Mitch, whose decision to let Jamie out of the cell without consulting anyone else was a clear delineation between the two of them and the rest of the team. Mitch was always going to side with Jamie, and Jackson didn’t trust Jamie, she was cold-blooded, dangerous, a liability. She didn’t care who her schemes hurt, who they put in danger. She supposedly cared for Mitch but she'd let a dangerous psychopath inhabit his mind in order to commit a murder, he thought she'd cared about him but she'd still let her novel expose him as Robert Oz's son and he'd had to leave his life behind to go into hiding. He hated leaving Sam behind and his grandson, and he ached to tell his son the truth about them but Sam wouldn't believe him now. Maybe he never would, but he was going to let the boy heal before opening up new wounds.

“So, Dylan, Green," Brown said to Jackson, beside him in the passenger seat, "there's just the four of us now so no worries. Tell me the truth- that's not really your name, is it?”

Jackson just laughed, though Tessa could see his shoulders stiffen from the backseat. "Well, yeah, it is," Jackson answered, "What makes you think it's not?"

Morris Brown was shrewd, no doubt about it. “It started knocking about my noggin when I recognized Miss Campbell. As l said before I’m a big fan of her novel, mostly because after my experiences in Australia during the animal uprising l felt the ring of truth about it, knew that she wasn't just writing about the damn thing, she had lived what she was writing. Now, if know women, the female lead in the novel is most likely based on Miss Campbell herself, and here she is, on a fancy laboratory plane, with Dr. Mitch Morgan, who just happens to be a scientist - and her love Interest- so he of course would be the veterinary pathologist in the book. Mrs. Kenyatta," he nodded at Dariela in the backseat, “strikes me as the lady Army Ranger who married Mr. Kenyatta the safari guide. So, that leaves you, Tessa Williams, who l know to be ex-IADG and only recently acquainted with the group, and you," he winked conspiratorially at Jackson, "Dylan Green, as the remaining piece of the puzzle. Or should l say Jackson Oz?"

Before Jackson could pull an answer together the radio crackled and Brown's guy in the lead vehicle said, "Hey, Brown, there's a herd of rhinos up ahead. Looks to be about ten or twelve of them, on the move, headed north.”

“Copy that, let's round 'em up, get ourselves a blood sample for the Doc!" Brown swiveled around and grinned and Tessa and Dariela in the backseat, then at Jackson as he said in his broad Aussie accent, "Well, Jackson Oz, are you ready for a prehistoric rodeo?"

Jackson grinned back at Tessa. Why deny it anymore? "I have already gone a round with one of these guys," he said, "As the rodeo clown.”

***

The plane was in the air on its way to Alaska. Clementine and Baby Sam were in the kitchen, reheating some of the cold breakfast leftovers for herself and Sam, who was still recuperating in Mitch's room. Abe was working on the sterility cure in the lab and, knowing how little he himself liked to be disturbed when he was in his science zone, Mitch left him to his work and instead migrated to the bar with a tablet, trying to figure out if there were some connection between all of the hybrid animals they knew about that could possibly lead them to the rest they would need, like the links in The Courier had done ten years ago. He barely glanced up when Jamie joined him some time after takeoff, grunting a gruff hello as she went behind the bar and poured them both a drink. He didn't look up at her until she slid onto the barstool next to him, leaning over to see what he had on his tablet. "What are we looking at?" she asked, taking a sip from her cocktail.

He cleared his throat and pulled himself away from the screen taking the glass Jamie slid toward him. "Thank you." He look a long drink, then plunked the glass down and pointed to the tablet screen. "I have been trying to find some kind of connection between the animals Abigail has used to make hybrids. but so far I haven’t been able to come up with a thing. Bears, snakes, wolves, rhinoceros, spiders, goats, mammoths, dinosaurs- they have no common denominator that l can find, unless go back to the original glob of primordial ooze that slithered up onto land." She leaned closer, putting her hand on his leg nonchalantly as she peered at the screen; it honestly wasn't helping his concentration but he certainly wasn't going to ask her to move it either. He noticed she had abandoned her Early Jamie' clothes and was now wearing what he considered Post-Tank Jamie' outfits- skin-tight leather pants and a very complimentary black sweater. He had to admit, while he missed the Jamie of ten years ago, he didnt mind her change in style so much. "How long before we land, and where exactly are we going?”

"Anchorage, about four hours. There have been three reports about our polar bear, all three within a twenty mile radius of the city of Anchorage. When we land we go to the local wildlife refuge, and a park ranger will lead us to where the bear was last seen." Her voice tightened with barely suppressed anxiety, "It's only September and they already have six feet of snow, which is unheard of there." She shivered almost imperceptibly, though Mitch could feel the vibration of her hand that still rested on his thigh and he realized she still hated and feared the cold the way she had after being stranded in Canada so many years ago.

“Hey, it's okay," he said, covering her hand with his, "you don’t have to go, Abe and Clem and l can handle it, you stay here with the baby. He likes you, remember?" He smiled, to lessen the sting he knew she was feeling, the idea that her fear was stronger than herself; his smile faded and he said softly, "Nothing burns like the cold, Jamie. I know you dream about Caraquet, you wake me sometimes, calling out for,” he swallowed and looked away from her, "for Logan, and telling him he has to burn the money because you're freezing…”

She sat back on the barstool sharply, taking her hand away from Mitch's grasp with a jerk and glancing automatically down at her foot, though it had been more than ten years since she had lost her toe to frostbite in the wilds of Canada. "I'll be fine," she said, withdrawing from him at the mention of Caraquet; her PTSD diagnosis had its roots in that town and everything that surrounded it and while she would never step foot in British Columbia again she visited the place often enough in her nightmares. Mitch’s observation was a bit too on the nose because in those awful, paralyzing dreams she was always freezing. so cold she couldn’t move her legs to run, or her arms to fight off the polar bears when they came to attack her and Logan and the other shadowy people on the school bus. In those nightmares Mitch never showed up with the rescue team and they were all killed one by one and then the bear would get its jaws around her throat, claws raking her body as she watched her blood spatter on the windows and she’d wake up in a frigid sweat, hoping she hadn't vocalized the strangled scream that echoed in her mind for hours afterward. And now here she was, flying off into the glacial northern wilds of Alaska to get blood from a polar bear, it was like a nightmare and she was trying to keep it together but her voice was bitter and edgy as she said, "I hope blood will be enough for you. I don't think we want to try to get a polar bear the size of my Mustang on the plane.”

“Oh, I don't know," Mitch said testily, draining his glass in one long swallow, trying not to be hurt by her reaction or to think about his own heartache after Caraquet, still so fresh for him; Jamie’s bewildering retreat from their relationship, the confusion brought on by Allison and his father-he suppressed a wave of sadness at the thought of Max- the emotional upheaval and stupid missteps he made with Jamie that pushed her further away, mistakes which he seemed determined to repeat here and now. He reached over the bar and plucked the bottle of vodka from the rack. "Sometimes you have to shoot for the stars."

It was uncomfortably silent as they both retreated to their shells, but then Jamie tapped her fingers on the bar and said, "Stars...stars...what about constellations? There's a bear, snake, and a goat at least." Mitch looked unsure, but it was a straw to grasp at in their awkwardness so she went to one of the drawers behind the bar where they had searched for the CB radio two days earlier. "l think I saw a star chart here somewhere," she bent over to rummage through the drawer, her back to Mitch, giving him a fine view of her posterior, he poured another drink and downed it in a swallow, his eyes never leaving her as he said, "Of course. Who doesn't keep a star chart on a self-flying plane?”

Jamie pulled out a large square of folded paper and peeled the corners back, peering inside, "Here it is." She unfolded the chart and spread it out over the bar. The night sky opened out before them, and Jamie traced a few familiar star formations, learned from countless nights on the farm, laying outside in the grass on warm summer nights, watching the sky and praying to the Gods- any Gods- to save her mother. The frostiness between them was dissipating with the comfort of action, as Jamie quickly scanned a list of the constellations on the side of the poster-with a grid pattern to tell how to find the constellation in the sky- she let out a breath. "There's so many.”

“Some aren't animals though." Mitch ran his finger down the side of the chart, counting rapidly. "Oh." He looked over at Jamie, "Forty-two.”

“Forty-two. Well, that's quite a few." She added under her breath “It's also the meaning of life, the universe and everything.”

Mitch was bent over the chart but he gave her a sideways smirk. "Nerd”

"English major," she corrected.

Mitch pushed his glasses back on his nose and gave her a quick smile then pointed to the list where Canis Venacti, Canis Major, and Canis Minor were grouped together. "Some of these animals are redundant, for instance there are three different constellations named after dogs; Canister Venacti, the hunting dogs, Canis Major, the Big Dog, and Canis Minor, the Little Dog. Same thing with snakes, serpents, there's Hydra, the water serpent, Hydrus, the water snake and Serpens, the serpent. Two bears, nine different kinds of bird, three different horses, if you count a centaur as a horse, which we do, I think?"

"There are several different kinds of birds but no vultures," Jamie said, "maybe she wasn't exact? Maybe she combined DNA from more than one bird?"

"Well, that's easy enough to test," Mitch said. We have one of the things on board."

"There's no rhinoceros here," Jamie said, skimming the list.

"No, but there's a Unicorn. Monoceros, ‘one horn'.”

"Wait," she said, pointing at the upper portion of the map. "All of these are Northern Hemisphere constellations. Goat, bear, snake, eagle. Unicorn." She shook her head, her red hair swinging to frame her face. "No spider or mammoth though. Or dinosaur."

“But here's Lacerta, the lizard," Mitch said, pointing between Cassiopeia and Cygnus, also in the Northern Hemisphere, "That fits a dinosaur, right? And as for the mammoth," he pointed at another area of the chart, "Cetus, the whale. It's the largest constellation in the Northern sky, and is close to other water signs like Pisces and Aquarius. Whales are the largest mammal but making hybrid whales probably wasn't really an option, or very productive, since they would only threaten sea traffic but the elephant or similar Mammoth is the largest land mammal. Maybe she just adapted. Or maybe we're just grasping at straws.”

“So long and thanks for all the fish," Jamie muttered under her breath, then continued, "And here's Aquila, the Eagle, and Cygnus, the Swan. I guess a vulture could be a cross between an eagle and a swan. Long neck, bad attitude?”

Mitch cocked his head to the side in agreement. "Sounds about right.”

The excitement of possibly finding a link, solving a puzzle was growing, and Jamie said, "That's seven of the eight we know about. The spider?”

“Cancer, maybe? It’s a crab, maybe crabs just had too limited a range for her needs, having to stay close to water, but they would be fairly terrifying so, I don't know, this is all conjecture anyway, just like the spiders and unicorns we’re worried about.” He was getting frustrated, she could tell by the set of his shoulders and the ugly tone creeping into in his voice, though he was trying to tamp it down. "So what's left in the Northern Hemisphere?" he asked.

“Leo, scorpius and draco. Lion, scorpion, dragon." Jamie looked up in alarm. "Oh my God, you don't think she made a dragon hybrid do you?"

Mitch added them up, trying not to show his concern either. "Well if she did that's eleven, and unless she's a Stranger Things fan, that's a weird number.”

"Wait," Jamie said, looking at the chart, "there's this one too. Bootes.”

"Bootes?" Mitch said, wrinkling up his nose under his glasses. “What the hell kind of animal is a Bootes?"

"It's not an animal," Jamie said, looking up at him with concern. "It's The Shepherd.”

***

Getting the sample from the rhino had been relatively easy, it was the eight foot tall goat that had been the bitch.

They were northwest of Boulder, on the Strawberry river about a mile above Starvation Dam in Utah. They had gotten a sample from the rhinos after Jackson snuck up on one with a needle and syringe and ran like hell when the beast turned on him. Brown waited a second or two before turning on the hybrid repellant frequency, just for a laugh, and he was whooping as Jackson jumped into the truck, brandishing the syringe and breathing heavily as the herd thundered away. They kept going northwest until they came to the dam, and Brown started to tell them how the place acquired it's odd name. “So the party of fur trappers were caught in a blizzard but they stumbled on an abandoned Ute Indian camp, only it wasn’t abandoned and when the men came back from fruitless hunting and discovered their only food devoured by white men, they ousted the fur trappers from the camp, and they stumbled to the banks of the river to die of the cold. But in a cruel twist of fate, the Indians perished also because the trappers had eaten the only food they had and they were trapped by the storm.”

“Well that's depressing," Dariela said. "Remind me not to tell it to Isaac for a bedtime story." Thunder rumbled in the distance and a dense brown cloud rolled across the rocky landscape around the river. Brown rolled to a stop beside a large rock formation, with lots of crevices and holes and he got on the radio shouting, "Abandon vehicles! Cover in the rocks!"

Jackson grabbed his rifle and his backpack, helped Tessa and Dariela out and they all ran in confusion to the rocky formation, ducking down into sheltered caves made by the boulders, Brown and his four remaining men jumped down among them, and they crouched down as the rumbling grew louder and louder and the ground began to vibrate beneath them. The rocks began to shake and pebbles and sand sifted down on them as the light suddenly vanished beneath thundering so loud Jackson couldn't even think. He looked up and all he could see was flashes of shadow and bright fur, he looked sideways at Brown who shouted, "Goats!”

Jackson pulled a ready syringe from his backpack, took off the safety cap and motioned for Brown to hoist him up. Brown looked at him like he was insane, then shrugged uneasily and motioned to one of his men to help lift Jackson close to an opening in the rocks.

He waited, knowing he was only going to have one blisteringly quick chance to get any blood at all from one of these monstrous creatures. Now that he was so close he could see them a little more clearly and they were huge- the hooves that flashed within inches of his head were easily the size of dinner plates and looked to be frighteningly sharp. Taking a deep breath, he waited until a shadow was just right, then jabbed the needle up, pulling the plunger as soon as he felt contact and jerking the syringe back down through the rocks as his unwilling subject squealed and kicked, catching his wrist with one of those deadly hooves.

Blood sprayed from his wrist as Brown brought him down; his hand suddenly wouldn't work right and Dariela darted forward to catch the syringe before he dropped it. Miraculously, it seemed to be filled with enough blood for Mitch's uses.

Tessa ran to Jackson, supporting him as she checked his wrist, which was still bleeding but not spraying, and he grinned at her and whispered, "Spicy.”

The herd had passed, a thin haze of dust floated in the air, and after a few minutes Brown climbed out of the rocks and descended back to the riverside. The trucks were destroyed, turned over and trampled into junk, and Jackson and Dariela ran to the one they had been in, digging around for the cooler. Tessa found the first aid kit and wrapped Jackson's wrist and Dariela found the cooler intact, prying open the lid briefly to check the rhino sample and add the goat. "It's all good." Dariela said, "but who is gonna carry this thing? Because those trucks aren't going anywhere.”

“Anybody have a radio?" Tessa asked. "I think we need to call a cab.”

***

They lost track of time going over the star chart, knowing that it was probably a useless endeavor but needing something to do to feel productive. The plane's cool, pleasant PA voice interrupted them when it chimed and said, “Wheels down in Anchorage, one hour." Mitch stretched his arms over his head, groaning at the aching muscles in his shoulders as he leaned away from the chart, thankful that Jamie had changed the plane's voice back from Logan. "So, tell me what we have," he said, as he rubbed his eyes under his glasses.

“Well," she said, "If we run with the Northern Hemisphere constellation theory we have to find a scorpion, a lion, and," she sighed as if she couldn’t believe she was about to utter the words, “a dragon. And a Shepherd”

"The dragon could refer to a Komodo Dragon, but that wouldn’t be much better, those guys are nasty. A Shepherd," he repeated, pushing his glasses back up again, “that can only be Abigail. We need to contact Jackson, tell him what we found and what he needs to be looking for."

Jamie snorted a bitter laugh. "Hey, Jackson, be on the lookout for a dragon!”

Mitch shrugged. "No stranger than a wooly mammoth or a prehistoric rhinoceros. Or earthquake sloths for that matter.”

“Maybe not.” The chilliness between them earlier had gone, but something was up with her, there was something else she wanted to say, he could tell by the way she played with her straw and looked studiously away from him and he sighed, reaching forward to touch her face gently. “What is it, Jamie? I can hear the gears grinding in your head from here.”

It had been nagging at the back of her mind for a while now since finding him alive, - or if she really wanted to pinpoint it, since the first time he put his glasses on and looked at her with his deep brown eyes, and she actually knew it was him, so familiar behind the plastic frames- a kind of unease, a fingernails blackboard feeling, and with the mention of Caraquet earlier, the subject of the cold, she realized what it was that was bothering her: guilt. Guilt for being so distant with him before he...he died, guilt for squandering the time they had on misunderstandings and anger; she had beaten herself up for years over it but managed to put it behind her but here he was, her regret made flesh and bone before her. "I'm sorry, Mitch." She stopped him, knowing he was about to say something about Duncan but she had apologized for that already and this went much deeper. She took a deep breath and said, "I'm sorry for how l treated you after l came back from Canada. I'm sorry for all of the time I wasted between us because.. because you had gone on living after you thought I was dead.” The words came tumbling out before she could stop them, and truthfully, she found she didn't want to stop them. She was tired of secrets and lies and darkness. Mitch was the person she trusted most in the world, he was the man she loved, he was her path to the light and she wanted him to know everything while they had time to say it because they had both learned in excruciating ways how easy it was to lose each other in the blink of an eye. She'd almost lost him again over the Duncan fiasco and she knew she couldn't bear to lose him again, and she was going to do whatever it took to make sure she didn’t. "I'm sorry," she gripped the hand that was caressing her cheek and held it tightly, "I'm sorry l gave up on you. knew you weren't dead, l knew it in my heart, I looked for you for years, I followed every lead, l went to Pangaea...I interrogated every Shepherd l caught because I hoped that one would have information that would lead me to you, alive. And then...I lost hope and l gave up. I gave up on you, Mitch Morgan.” She took a deep, hitching breath as tears started to run down her cheeks. "You were alive and l loved you and I gave up on you.”

The only noise was the soft rumble of the planes engines, and Mitch pulled her close as she wet his shoulder with her tears. "When we were on the plane from Africa to DC," he murmured huskily in her ear, "and you kissed me, I couldn’t believe it was happening, couldn't believe that you wanted me, because l had been in love with you since the day you took me to your mother's grave, amazed at the way you were so open about her and how you felt and I- I had been avoiding my emotions for so long...l hid it, because was afraid of a relationship, I was afraid of you, of what you could do to me mean to me if let you in." He swallowed hard, and kissed her forehead. "And when I did let you in, BAM! You were gone-“ he choked a little at the memory of the plane falling, feeling Jamie's hand torn from his as they spun into the icy North Atlantic sea, how he screamed her name and swam from floating body to floating body until Jackson forced him onto a rescue boat, saving him from drowning because he would have died trying to find her. "You were gone, and I didn't go on living. I gave up on everything except trying to drown myself at the local bar. You were alive, I loved you, and I gave up on you too. After only three months, I may add.” He was quiet a moment, feeling her breathing against him. "I’m the one who should be apologizing.” He put his finger under her chin and lifted her face to his. “Then I got a miracle call, and had a reason to live again," he whispered, wiping Jamie's tears away as she gave him a sniffling smile that he returned, remembering how it felt to hear her voice that morning at the bar, to realize that she wasn't gone, that he had a second chance. His heart started to hammer and he rasped, “How about we don't waste anymore time on the past? We have about forty minutes until we land, I bet we can find something to do until then.”

****

“I have something else to tell you." Jamie said, and Mitch peeled an eye open and looked over at her, sprawled against him on the bed.

“No good conversation has ever started with those words," he said, and with a groan lifted his arm to look at his watch. "You have about ten minutes to talk before the plane starts yelling at us to get up for school.”

She rolled over on her side and kissed his chest lightly. "Abe stopped me in the hall shortly after we took off, he wants me to be his test subject for the sterility cure. The formula is finished, he wants to test it soon and since Clem is already fertile, and Dariela isn't here…” His body stiffened almost imperceptibly but she felt it and frowned slightly to herself as she continued, "Anyway, it would only be a test to see if it produces a normal ovulation cycle and a viable egg.”

“So what are you going to do? Wh..what did you tell him?" He looked like a deer trapped in the headlights and she felt kind of bad for springing it on him here, like this. She hadn't meant to, she had intended to bring it up as soon as she found him at the bar but he had been so into his research that she didnt want to interrupt, and well, the time had just never seemed right. Sure, Jamie, this is really the right time.

“I told him that I had someone else to consult about it." she said, looking up at him until he met her eyes. "I think the person who shares my bed every night has a say in whether or not we can suddenly make babies." She felt him relax a little, though he was still eyeing her warily, as if she might produce a child at any time and thrust it at him. She would have found it funny if his reaction wasn’t mildly insulting. "What do you think l should do?”

“I think it's up to you," he said, as he remembered a very important point about the current world. “I’m still sterile so if you want to be the guinea pig who saves the world, go ahead.”

"You're the pig here, Morgan,” she retorted, and then with a flick of her wrist stirred the shit pot just a little. "Are you though? Sterile?" She sat up, the sheet falling away from her as she rose from the bed, bending down to pick up her clothes and Mitch felt himself start to rise even though they had just- God, she was beautiful. He dragged his attention back to what she was saying with difficulty. "Have you been tested since you came back? Because you went into the tank before the TX-14 gas had spread and by the time you came out the gas was probably diffused into the atmosphere enough to not affect you. And there's no telling what Abigail did to you, or what she had planned, she was probably going to make a family of little Abby/Duncan hybrids to rule over her apocalypse kingdom!"

Mitch shot out of the bed liked he'd been fired from a rifle with a look of panicked horror that was so comical Jamie burst out laughing as he pulled his boxers from his pile of clothes on the floor. "That's not funny." he snapped, pulling his clothes on hastily, as if he was suddenly afraid Abigail was going to barge in and force herself on him. It was obvious that this was something that hadn't occurred to him and she was immediately sorry- after all, in Mitch's world three weeks ago his daughter was eleven and now she was twenty and he was a grandfather. Things were upside down for him.

Before she could apologize there was a tentative knock at the door and Abe's somewhat embarrassed voice floated in. “Uh, Jamie? Sorry to...bother you but Jackson just called, they have run into some problems. Apparently their convoy was destroyed by a...” his reluctant sigh was audible through the door. "A dragon.”

***

#oneproblem #renew zoo #cbs zoo #zoo #mitch x jamie #jamitch #jamie campbell #mitch morgan #otp #fanfic #jackson oz #mitch x jamie #abraham kenyatta #billy burke #kristen connolly

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Everyone was so busy asking “who’s the last jedi?” that no one bothered to ask “how’s the last jedi?”

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This is probably my favorite little moment of the entire series. Jamie's step back and pained expression at seeing Mitch with his glasses is just so fantastic and Kristen Connolly absolutely nails it.

#zoo #jamiecampbell #mitch morgan #mitch x jamie #billy burke #kristen connolly

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So sweet.

You know, out of all of my brother’s friends, you’re my favorite. You’ve always been my favorite.

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One of my favorite passages ever, Pale Blue Dot. Happy #CarlSaganDay

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Happy #MilesThursday #BillyBurke #Revolution #ThrowbackThursday