I do not own The Last Ship, I am not affiliated with TNT. This is just a fanfiction.
This is set in season 2, just after the assault on the hospital ship. I watched an unaired clip on youtube of Foster telling Green not to leave her to raise this baby alone. We've just reached episode 7 of season 2 in the UK yet, so not sure which episode it should've/will be in and we've not had much Foster and Green interaction recently, so trying to fill the gaps with my imagination. Tried to keep it as true and fitting to the storyline, hope you enjoy.
Lt Cdr Andrea Garnett settled back into her bunk, she hadn't expected her family to still be alive but the confirmation of their death had still hit her hard. She looked at the picture on the wall that she'd saved from her old home. She picked up Chung's acquisitions report from her desk, perhaps reading about the supplies picked up from Norfolk would distract her. There was a tentative knock at the door, so quiet that Garnett almost missed it.
"Come in?" She questioned, wondering if one of the crew had simply just brushed past the door. The door opened and Lt Foster stood there, looking uncomfortable.
"Kara?" she smiled gently at the younger woman, their time together during the trial had left Garnett with a soft spot for the junior LT. Kara failed to meet her eyes.
"Ma'am, I, er, need some help." she said words that Garnett was not expecting to hear, Foster was usually calm and self-assured.
"Well, you're not an engineer, so I'm guessing it's not a work related problem." She motioned for her to come inside the cabin, "Was everything ok at home?" she asked, trying not to think too much of her own home visit. Foster looked at her feet,
"I'm sorry to hear about your husband and little girl," she said quietly. Neither of them had much discussed the activities inside the biohazard tent, the details blurry, though both have some recollection of Lt Cdr Garnett singing to Kara and referring to her by her daughter's name. It had created some sort of strange maternal bond between Garnett and Foster, unspoken of and it was this that had led Foster to Garnett's cabin.
"I didn't expect…. I hoped… but ….. " Andrea trailed off, "Thank you. Will you sit down?" Kara sat at the desk chair and Garnett just waited.
"I don't know what to do," the younger woman eventually said, breathing out heavily as if this was the first time she'd openly admitted what was weighing her down. "I went home, my mom is still alive, she's helping to run the safe haven at the bowling alley. She was an alcoholic, y'know but she hasn't drunk for months. I honestly thought it would've been the thing that pushed her further into drinking." Kara felt embarrassed for having such low expectations of her mother, though in the past she'd often been right.
"Well, disaster can often be the thing that proves us, brings out the need to be in control,"
"Yeah, she's doing well." She smiled a little to herself, "she knew about the baby, I don't know how but she knew." She shook her head, the small smile still playing her lips, as she said it, still trying to work out how her recovering alcoholic mother could've have had such insight. Suddenly the reason for Foster's visit became clear to Garnett.
"You chose to come back to the ship, you didn't want to stay ashore?" she probed gently.
"No, I didn't tell my mom because she'd have asked me to stay and even though it's not home at the moment, I'd have felt I had to. I think she knew that, which is why she didn't ask. For the first time she understood why I was going back to the Navy. I can be at sea until 20 weeks," she gave a slight shrug with her shoulders, "though right now I'm not sure how many weeks pregnant I am. They thought at Baltimore I was about 10 weeks but it wasn't exactly an obgyn appointment….. I know I made the right decision to come back to sea but I don't know what to do," she repeated.
"Well, I think part of your problem is that the "doing" has already been done," she said with a wry smile, motioning to Kara's abdomen with her head. Kara smiled ruefully and touched just below her belt. "I stayed onboard until I was 20 weeks pregnant," Andrea volunteered, she smiled remembering back, "I met my husband onboard."
"You did?" Kara asked, a little surprise. Somehow, despite spending some time together in the Arctic, until going through the trial together, she had known and still knew very little about her senior's personal life. She'd never been stand offish but she'd also never openly talked about her life back home, though Kara had very rarely heard her talk about anything other than work, she often took meals outside of the mess, working in the engine spaces. Maybe she talked to others about her life, those in the same social position with a spouse and children back home, though Kara suspected there wasn't a secret "parents away from home" support meeting with the CO, XO and Chief engineer attending being held in the wardroom every week. Something had changed though, Foster felt they were more friends than colleagues now.
"He was a pilot, a bit, well, a lot older and very much more senior than me but I never saw it, he had me from hello. We were deployed together for 8 months. That 'no fraternisation' rule is hard," she said with a twinkle in her eye. "He was the CO of an embarked squadron, they'd come onboard for the deployment." She looked at the wall and Kara followed her gaze, next to the picture drawn by a small hand was a squadron badge, tacked carefully to the bulkhead.
"The Jolly Rogers," Kara recognised the motif, referring to the squadron's nickname. It had never occurred to Kara that Garnett had been married to the CO of a fast jet strike squadron, in fact she'd never really considered what her husband might be like. In the back of her mind she'd perhaps pictured him to be a passive man, allowing his wife to assume the role of wage earner whilst he stayed at home to raise the baby.
"Yeah, he looked good in a flight suit," she said with a twinkle in her eye. "The world has changed since then though, I stayed onboard until I was 20 weeks pregnant, then I worked in the engineer's office at Norfolk until my maternity leave. I used to go home after work to a husband that would rub my feet and bring me a pizza." as the comment floated off into the air, Kara suspected that there would be very little opportunity on the Nathan James for Danny to rub her feet and the pizza place certainly wasn't still delivering. "No one onboard knows and I suppose it's not important now but I was going to put my notice in after we got back to Norfolk from the Artic, see out my time on the ship. John had an old training buddy that was setting up a courier business, wanted good pilots. I was going to be the one to stay at home, play "mommy", we even talked about having another baby."
"Was it hard to leave your daughter and come back to sea?" It was the bit that Kara didn't want to think about, leave the ship or leave the baby.
"Every time but John was a fantastic father. He retired just as I finished my maternity leave. We moved into base housing at Norfolk just before I came back to sea. It's all Lilly ever knew, that her father stayed at home and her mother went away. "
"I didn't plan this," Kara said quietly, "I really tried, I tried to stay away. I knew I was breaking the rules, we were only meant to be away four months and then he should've left. We planned to date once we got back and we could. I didn't want to be this woman, I feel like I've let myself down by getting swept away and pregnant." That was it, she'd said it and the first tears started to fall. "I don't know what I'll do, I know I can't stay on the ship but I'm not sure where I'll go. My mother is doing better but I don't what she'll be like in six months time….. probably back on the bottle. Nothing teaches self-reliance better than a childhood where a mother repeatedly fails to live up to the role." The tears stopped and Kara mentally checked herself. She loved her mother but too many times she'd been let down and she wasn't going to open herself up to that again. She took a deep breath, "I can raise this baby, I know the world is different now but I can do this, I might not be on the ship but I can still be in Norfolk, we'll need to start again, there's plenty of things I can be doing…" she told Garnett forcefully, her eyes darting from side to side wildly.
"Kara," Andrea softly interrupted, searching her face and meeting her gaze, "It take two people to make a baby."
"Huh?" Kara replied, frowning slightly as the comment registered.
"You haven't mentioned Danny once."
"I don't know what he wants. It's all so accelerated and the crazy world in which we now live isn't helping. When he told me I was pregnant, he looked so happy and in awe but at some point reality sets in. It's awkward, we can't be together onboard, we can't have those moments that other couples have and I don't want him to feel he has to choose between the mission and a baby…."
"Kara, he loves you, anyone with a set of eyes can see that but you have to let him in or else you will push him away. Have you talked to him about this?"
"No," she shook her head, "I hurt him this week. I didn't introduce him in a good way to my mother, I didn't tell her about the baby, I never introduced him as anything more than my friend and even though she knew I still… I didn't do it to hurt him though, I just needed to stay detached from her. If she'd asked me to stay, I would've felt that I had to and I don't want to be apart from Danny but we can't be together here either."
"Kara, unless you talk to Danny, he's not going to know what you're thinking."
"I don't want him to see me scared and unsure, I don't want him to feel obliged. Since Norfolk he's all about the mission now, his new team and "useful" emotions." She rubbed her hand over her face in a dejected manner, "I'm sorry, I just needed someone to talk to."
Andrea moved herself near to Kara and put a reassuring hand on her back, "As flattered as I am that you felt you could come to me, I'm not the one you should be talking to. He's the one you need to talk to. As for not being able to spend time together, I'll speak to the CO, I'm sure some revision to the no fraternisation rule can be made to accommodate your unique situation. It'll be ok."
The conversation was interrupted by the buzz of the ship's tannoy coming alive. The pipe went out for the Chief Engineer to report to the man engine space. Andrea stood up, retied her hair into a bun, "I'm sorry Kara, I have to go but you have to tell Danny this, he's part of this, that little life inside of you makes you a family and you can't make a decision on how he feels for him. Talk to him, you'll be surprised." Garnett made her way to the door, "Just let yourself out when you're done thinking." And the door closed behind her, leaving Kara alone to mull over the conversation.