Hope that's morphine, he tried to say, but again, he only groaned.
A split second later, he saw two pale blurs hovering over him as the S.T.A.R.S. shadow continued to work over him with warm and gentle hands. The blurs were David and Rebecca, eyes circled with dark, hair dripping, faces tired and lost. "You're going to be okay, John," David said softly. "Just rest now. It's all over."
A spreading warmth started to flush through his body, a delicious, sleepy warmth that banished the roar of pain to a distant and faraway land. Just as a friendly darkness came to claim him, he looked into David's eyes and managed to rasp out what he sud– denly wanted to say more than anything. It took great effort, but it had to be said.
"You two look like somethin' a coyote ate and shit off a cliff," he mumbled. "Seriously…" John was followed into the healing blackness by the sweet sound of laughter. The middle-aged S.T.A.R.S. medic had taken John inside the small cabin on the thirty-foot boat, coming out only once to tell them that everything looked all right. Two broken ribs, some deep tissue trauma and a punctured lung, but they'd managed to patch him up well enough to call him stable and he was resting comfortably. A medevac helicopter had already been radioed for and would be arriving soon, and the medic seemed confident that John would manage a full recovery. David had wept a little at the news, and not been a bit ashamed.
They sat in the back of the boat, huddled under a scratchy wool blanket as Blake and his team contin– ued to set charges, powering easily back and forth across the cove. The Pennsylvania team had already brought up four of the giant creatures before they'd seen the explosive burst of air and debris that had come up from the lab, and it was starting to look as though there weren't any more. David had one arm around Rebecca, the girl lean– ing against his chest as the black sky gradually started to shade to a deep, ethereal blue. Neither of them spoke, too tired to do more than watch the team work, dropping charges and searching the results, back and forth and back again. Blake had promised to send divers down for Griffith's tanks as soon as the cove was clear and John had been picked up. There were two wetsuits already laid out on the bow's deck, a young Alpha, whose name David had forgotten, prep– ping them with studied intensity. He reminded David of Steve a little bit… Somehow, the thought of Steve didn't bring the kind of pain that David expected it would. It hurt, it hurt like hell – Karen and Steve, gone, but when he thought of what they had managed to stop, what they had been a part of…
… it wasn't all for nothing. We stopped Griffith's insanity, stopped him from effectively killing millions of innocent people. God, they would have been so proud…
The pain was bad, but the guilt wasn't as devastat– ing as he'd feared it would be. His responsibility in their deaths was something he knew he'd have to ponder for a long time to come, but he thought that there was a good chance that he'd be able to find a way to come to terms with it eventually. He wasn't sure how, but the tears he'd been able to shed over John had struck him as a step in the right direction. David's tired thoughts turned to Umbrella, to what role they'd played in Griffith's madness. While they surely hadn't meant for their researcher to go mad, they had created the circumstances that allowed it to happen; their complete disregard for human life could only have been encouragement for someone like Grif– fith. And without Umbrella, the scientist would never have had access to the T-Virus…
Someday soon, they'll be held accountable for what they've done. Not today or tomorrow, but soon…
Perhaps Trent would help them again. Perhaps Barry and Jill and Chris would uncover more in Raccoon. Perhaps… Rebecca curled closer against him, her breath warm and even against his drying clothes, and David let the thoughts go for the time being, content to simply sit and not think at all. He was very, very tired. As the first rays of the sun slipped over the horizon, Blake pronounced the waters clean, though neither David nor Rebecca heard him; both had fallen into a deep and dreamless sleep beneath the twilight of the coming day.
EPILOGUE
The meeting room was a study in quiet but unpretentious elegance. Three men sat at the stately oak table, a fourth standing by the window and staring out thoughtfully at the hazy morning sky. The man at the window could see the others reflected in the glass, though doubted that they noticed his careful scrutiny; for as sharp as they were politically, they tended to be fairly dull about watching what went on around them. After the phone conference, the man who always wore blue spoke first, directly addressing the elderly man with the groomed mustache.
"Do we need to discuss the ramifications of this?"
Blue asked. Mustache sighed. "I believe the report covered them," he said airily. The tea drinker broke in, setting his cup down with a rattle. Steaming liquid slopped over the sides, distorting the tiny umbrella design that adorned the side.
"I don't think it's a wise idea to underestimate the magnitude of this… difficulty," Tea said. "Particu-larly not with the current instability factor in develop-ment…" Blue nodded. "I agree. Things like this have a way of getting out of hand. First the secondary in Rac-coon, now the Cove…"
Mustache cut him off with a sharp glance. Blue, properly abashed, cleared his throat, his face red as he struggled to recover.
"That is to say, I believe there should be a more thorough investigation into these matters. Don't you think so, Mr. Trent?"
The man at the window turned around, wondering how these people had ever managed to get where they were. He didn't smile, knowing how much it bothered them when he didn't smile.
"I'm afraid I'll have to get back to you on that,"
Trent said coolly. Blue nodded quickly. "Of course, take all the time you need. No hurry, gentlemen, am I right?"
Without another word, Trent turned and walked out of the room, outwardly as intimidating and precise as they expected him to be, as they wanted him to be. Inside, he wondered how much longer the game could go on.