Page 61 of A Wilderness Within

Lincoln left and returned with a bottle of baby formula. He handled it to Caroline, who picked the baby up and held her against her spacesuit-covered chest. The baby drank greedily from the bottle, and Caroline felt like she could finally breathe a sigh of relief, at least for the moment. Caroline waited for Dr. Kennedy’s results, her heart pounding.

“The virus doesn’t seem to be replicating. Ellie’s system is fighting back. A few more days and her immune system might be able to remove the strains of the virus from her body altogether.” She paused a moment before feeling confident enough to add, “I believe we have our cure.”

Caroline bit her lip to hold back a sob of relief. Lincoln put an arm around her, their spacesuits crushing against one another.

“She’s going to be okay, Caroline. Now you need to rest,” he said.

“You both do,” said the doctor. Caroline met his gaze. His brown eyes were dark and stormy with emotions, but he was just as exhausted as she was.

Jason entered the lab, grinning. “Lincoln, you and Caroline need to see this.”

“What is it?”

“Just come.”

“You know, at some point I’m going to have to remind people what the chain of command is,” Lincoln muttered. They followed him out, careful to follow the decontamination procedures. Then they went to a tall bank of windows that looked out over the CDC courtyard.

“There,” Jason said, his voice soft and reverent. “Take a look.”

Caroline stepped up to the windows and looked down. Hundreds of candles and lighters filled the night as a thousand people held a silent vigil below.

“My God…”

“They heard about Ellie. They’ve been there since midnight. Men, women, children. Praying for and believing in you. Caroline, you did this.” Jason paused before he continued. “We were broken, a nation scattered on the winds, and you brought us back together. You made us one people again. A nation to fight for.” Jason paused again. “You weren’t simply just giving us hope. You spent the last week sharing ways to rebuild, safe zones, how to find supplies, blocked roads, the locations of wildfires. You told us what to do. You gave us a blueprint to come back to ourselves as a community.”

Caroline stared speechless at the dots of light, and she remembered a poem her father used to read to her.

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

“William Henley?” Jason asked, still smiling.

She nodded. “‘Invictus.’ My dad loved poems. He used to read them to me and Natalie all the time.”

She looked out once more at the sea of candles, her heart bursting with hope and pride. Lincoln wrapped her tightly in his arms.

“Ellie is safe. You’re safe,” he whispered.

“We’resafe,” she corrected.

“What do we do now?” Jason asked him.

“What I’ve always said we’d do. We rebuild,” Caroline said. “We make a list of the survivors, find out their knowledge, skills, and former jobs. We get the power on, we get farms going, we start searching for other survivors, the ones who didn’t hear the broadcasts. We rebuild.”

Miles joined them at the windows. “Finally, some orders we can follow.”

Caroline leaned her head against Lincoln’s shoulder and drew in a slow, deep breath.

“I love you,” she whispered quietly enough so that only he could hear. His arms tightened around her, and he rubbed his cheek against the top of her head.

“I love you too.”

But the words were so much more than a simple declaration. They were vows that went deeper than blood, deeper than the necessities of survival. They were vows whole new worlds were built upon.

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