Anything For Rachel

Chapter Twenty Nine.

I dropped down to my knees beside him and brushed his limp hair away from his forehead. "For what?" I asked, looking into his sad eyes.

"That all of this is happening." He replied. "I feel like we are testing fate by continuing to try to be together."

"Don't say things like that." I chided him. "I love you, and I don't want anything else than to be with you." I told him quickly. "Yes, everything is turning to shit right now, but if it weren't for you being at my side, I wouldn't be able to handle this." I admitted. "Can I tell you something?"

He glanced up, a bit of wonder in his smoky blue eyes. "Anything." He whispered.

I took a deep breath and leaned forward to kiss his cheek. "Calvin, it may have seemed like I was ok over the last five years, but I wasn't. I had been lying to myself for all of that time, trying so hard to move on from something that I should have known was eternal." I professed to him, and he raised a hand to cup my face gently. "Everything might quite literally be falling apart now, but I have more hope, with a dream of a future for the two of us and our daughter, than I ever did when everything in my life seemed to be going as planned."

"What did I do to deserve you, Rachel?"

I laughed lightly and leaned in to kiss him. "Honestly, I wonder the same thing about you all of the time." I professed. I was about to mention to him that I was ok with being his blood source when he was ready, but he began to stand and I lost the nerve to say anything. It was an awkward thing to mention in a normal conversation anyway.

I helped pull him up and he held the back of my neck and kissed me hard before he took my hand and led me into the main room. "Let's get this over with." He muttered and I squeezed his hand a little. "Please." He tacked on the end, then looked down to smile at me.

"Rachel, come let me get you ready." Octavia said softly, but I held my hand up to her.

"You relax and build your strength back up." I told her. "I can manage."

I went back into the bathroom and freshened up my face and freed my long hair from the band and brushed through it with my fingers. I pinched my cheeks to give myself some color, and then rushed back out.

Logan was digging through his big bag and he pulled out a folded up white shirt and tossed it over to Calvin, then a black suit jacket that the camera was wrapped up inside of. Cromley and Octavia went to work with the camera and getting it hooked up, while Calvin got dressed and I helped him get his hair looking less of a mess before the camera was ready to be turned on us.

"Here," Octavia said, walking up behind us with the sheet off of the bed. "This will keep anyone from trying to figure out where you are." She explained as she held the sheet high over her head so that we'd have a nice neutral backdrop.

I turned to Calvin, a few nerves slipping in. "What do we say?" I asked him. "I mean the whole reason the rebels are even doing any of this is because of you and me and Rose."

Calvin frowned. "I don't know, honestly." He sighed. "But if we don't make the official announcement soon, there will be confusion, fights, and possible spread of the disease, which I cannot allow to happen."

I nodded my head, but I was still feeling pretty lost.

Cromley came over with the wired mics and hooked them up for us, then chewed his lip nervously. "There is an interviewer who wants to conduct the announcement." He said sheepishly. "She's one of the only ones left and she insists that the people want their questions heard."