Of all the things Nathaniel Taylor could be reliving, it had to be this.

Wash could scream at the unfairness, but she has to keep her cool. Reynolds and the Shannon kid are behind her now, but that doesn’t mean there’s no danger. This scene was difficult enough the first time. It’s going to be just about intolerable a second time.

“Ayani’s dead?”

She knows what’s coming, and uses that knowledge like a weapon. Her hand drops to the holster at her waist, unfastening it. Playing her part. The first time, her sidearm hadn’t been secured to begin with. You don’t leave your weapon inaccessible in the middle of a war zone. “Yeah.”

“Well, why would I want to remember that?”

It’s only because she knows what’s coming that she’s able to keep her cool as she shoots him. Again. Behind her, she hears a scream, but it’s the least of her worries right now. Wash knows what’s coming next, but not how this is going to end.

There’s still too big a chance it could be badly. It came frighteningly close to that before.

“Reynolds, get over to the hospital. He won’t be under for more than four or five minutes.”

“Unconsciousness from a sonic blast usually lasts at least twenty —” Maddy Shannon begins.

“Not for him.” She doesn’t bother to explain how she knows this, because there’s no time to talk about the permanent metabolic alterations from the drugs they’d been fed in Somalia, or to tell them she’s seen Taylor wake from a sonic shot before. It’s not something these kids should ever have to understand anyway. That’s why they came to Terra Nova.

“Get over there now,” she insists. “We need him in restraints before he wakes up.”

Reynolds takes off at a run. Wash takes her chance to grab the knife, but she knows there are countless other ways Taylor can hurt himself. She chants the seconds in her head like a mantra. Two hundred eight. Two hundred seven. Two hundred six.

At one hundred three, the door explodes back open again. Two medics. A stretcher. And — thank God — two sets of medical restraints.

“We’ve got ninety seconds if we’re lucky,” she snaps, snatching one set and going to work on his hands. “Thirty if we aren’t.”

They end up somewhere in between. Taylor starts struggling before he’s all the way awake, but the restraints hold. “We’re taking you to the hospital now, sir.”

“What’s the point —”

“Don’t argue with me!” She follows the medics. This was part of the drama before, too. Just because she doesn’t know the ending doesn’t mean she’s not going to stick to her part. It’s the only one she knows how to play.

The ending isn’t a bad one, but she’s not sure it’s a happy ending either. He comes awake suddenly, but as soon as she sees the look on his face she knows he won’t try to hurt himself again.

It doesn’t mean he doesn’t remember what happened though. “Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir.”

He sounds just as startled and bewildered as he had the first time they played out this scene. “You shot me.”

There’s really only one way to respond. “I did, sir.”

He’s silent for a moment before responding. “Good job.”

She leaves rather than risk saying anything else. She knows. It’s what he’d told her the first time she shot him, too, which had been right after the first time she’d told him Ayani was dead.

Until today, it had been the only time she’d ever shot someone she cared about.

Of all the things Alicia Washington could be reliving, it had to be that.