So, I'm posting this because I want to actually get rolling on this story and posting something always gives me a sense of urgency, though the updates will be monthly or every month and a half. Just warning you now.

Chapter 1

Blue:

Blue shuffled from one foot to the other, staring around that the loose arc of green and red and brown jerseys standing in position for their approaching helicopter. She twisted her watch, slick with sweat, around her wrist, pulling it back into position with the watch face on the inside of her wrist. Sweat slipped down her back in one long line, pooling in the small of her back. It had already soaked through not only her undershirt, but her jersey and waist of her pants. She was thoroughly convinced that it was making a valiant attempt to soak through her float coat as well.

They were in the middle of the Pacific somewhere, and somehow it was a hundred and something fucking degrees on the flight deck. Why was is so ungodly hot at midnight? There was no rhyme nor reason, especially since the jets had completed their flight schedule more than an hour beforehand.

The boat rocked sharply, rolling to eclipse the horizon from every side.

'Watch out in all port catwalks. Landing helo 814 on spot 4. Landing helo, spot 4.'

The chop of the rotor blades broke the still night air, and the flashing red of the position lights cut across the black of the night sky. The helicopter's silhouette materialized out of the darkness. Directed by the set of wands held by one of her brand new LSE's, the bird listed over the flight deck, hovering for a moment before beginning it's decent.

Out of the corner of her eye, Blue spotted a flash of olive green, the color of the aircrew and officer flight suits. On instinct, she latched her hand onto the back of their collar, throwing them to the flight deck. "What is wrong with you? What do you think you're doing?" she screeched, staring down at the officer catching his breath from the nonskid. He rubbed at the back of his head, his fingers coming away with something sticky and black beneath the blue lights.

"Why did you throw me?" he groaned. His gloves were torn, the leather bloodied.

"Why?" she shouted so high that her voice disappeared as her brain tried to find the words and means to comprehend this man's sheer stupidity. "You do not go running into my rotor arc while my helo is landing! Do you see that tail rotor and that rotor head? You could have died because you were headed right for them! Not only that, you have have just been blown off the flight deck! How's that for a man overboard!"

"I was simply trying to get to a ladder," he explained, still rubbing at the back of his head. His fingers curled in his hair, his face tightening in pain.

"Then go around! You do not try to dart under a helicopter while it's landing! You wait like ever other person! How stupid can you possibly be?" Everything around them had paused. It felt as if all eyes were on them. Forcing out a deep breath and at least the spitting part of her anger with it, she offered the pilot a hand. "Are you alright? Do I need to take you to medical?"

"Quite possibly," he gritted out, taking her hand and allowing himself to be dragged to his feet. He wobbled, not releasing her hand. "I think you may have given me a concussion." Gingerly, he stood straight, finally looking at her.

This time, the world sped away around them, and they stood still. It was as if they were teenagers again, trying to navigate ley lines and treasure hunters and dead kings and predictions about kissing.

"Gansey," she whispered, tightening her fingers around his, "I... never thought I'd see you again."

A smile spread across his face though pained as it was. "Looks like fate had other ideas despite the fact that you've already killed and saved me once."

Blue's surprised eyes dropped, narrowing to irritation. "You still haven't changed."

"Actually," Gansey began, but his eyes rolled back in his head and he dropped back to the deck.

Ronan:

"Dude, did you hear about that tiny second class who pinned an officer to the flight deck today? She gave him a concussion!"

Ronan remained silent, gnawing on the lollipop stuck in his mouth as he typed through the MAF he was finishing with ill contained contempt, signing it off as he bit through the candy shell. "No, why do I care?"

"Because it was fucking crazy! She just grabbed him by the collar and threw him down like he weighed nothing! I would let her throw me down any day."

Spinning to face his airman, he rolled his eyes, then paused, remembering a feisty girl from his teenage years. "Sounds like someone I used to know."

His airman blinked at him. "Who do you know that is a female under five feet and could take you in a fight?"

"A cursed girl who killed my best friend because she loved him and brought him back for the same reason. Also, she couldn't take me. I was the one who taught her to fight."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"It's not supposed to, to your puny brain." Ignoring the airman's indignant cry, he ran over Blue's and Gansey's and Noah's faces in his mind. Something about the second class needled him. He needed more information. Well, in reality, he nodded to stock back up on lollipops, and he had just the person to go to for both. "I'll be back. I'm going to talk to the other Lynch-Parrish. I'm in the head if Chief asks."

The airman scoffed. "You mean you're getting head if Chief asks. Seriously, how did you manage to get stationed on the same boat as your spouse? Aren't there rules against that?"

"I'll never tell."

"You sucked someone's dick."

"I slept with a woman."

"That is a dirty lie, and I know it!"

Adam:

"Blue is on this ship."

Adam paused in his work, sitting back against his heels and wiping the back of his hand across his forehead. "Well, hello. My day is going just fine. Thank you for asking, Ronan," he said cheekily, suppressing the shudder that tapped up his spine. It was a common occurrence, this far out from land, especially in Ronan's vicinity. Cabeswater couldn't reach him as easily, and he can't help Cabeswater even if it could.

Dropping down beside him, Ronan pressed a quick, chaste kiss to his lips. "You're lying if you're saying your day is going fine. A day on the boat is never 'just fine'."

"Maybe not for you with your hard won green shirt, but I've never known the struggle of the brown jersey. We didn't have that much today, but even so, those alerts have murdered our work force."

Ronan clamped his hands down on his ankles, leaning forward on locked elbows. "You're telling me. We have a FDC, a CDI doubling as an LSE, and three 'chocks and chain'ers. My guys haven't been able to do jack shit all day. No eating. No resting. Pissing off the catwalk."

"Are you the CDI-LSE duo?"

"Yes."

Adam nodded, glancing down at the exhaust assembly he was putting back together. His hands were black with exhaust, and sweat had guided it down his arms to soak into his jersey cuffs. He wiped at his forehead again, looking at Ronan. "So, you think Blue is on the boat."

"I'm nearly certain she is, the little maggot, not keeping us updated and shit."

"To be fair, we didn't keep her updated either. We didn't tell her about this." He held his hand up, pointing at the silver and onyx ring encircling his ring finger.

Ronan took his hand gently, muttering, "That's FOD," even as he pressed his lips softly to its warm surface.

Adam allowed this for a long moment before continuing. "Why do you think Blue is on this ship? The Navy is not that small."

"No, but the aviation side is."

Blinking, Adam simply waited for him to continue.

"She threw some officer to the flight deck earlier today. Gave him a concussion."

A snort of laughter burst from Adam. "Didn't she do that to you when you were teaching her?" Ronan simply glowered at him. "I'll ask around. What squadron is she with?"

Ronan's mouth popped open with an answer, but no sound left.

"You didn't ask, did you?"

He looked mortified, but didn't deny the fact. "I know it's a helo squadron though."

Adam pursed his lips, staring at him until Ronan realized his mistake. Before he could conjure up a derogatory retort, he said, "I'll look into it. Someone will know what squadron she came from. An enlisted giving an officer a concussion? That will have spread like wild fire."

Gansey:

Gansey woke to a splitting headache and a cold press being reapplied to his forehead. Blinking into the overhead fluorescent, he groaned, closing his eyes tightly against the intrusion. Dragging up a hand, he placed it over his face.

"Gansey, don't go back to sleep and don't make any sudden movements. You have a concussion, and I will not be picking you up off the floor again. I've had the pleasure of doing that one too many times in this lifetime for my taste."

Turning his head towards the voice, he squinted through the slits of his fingers, limiting the amount of light filtering to him. "You gave me a concussion?" The hint of laughter in his voice had her frowning irritably.

"It's your own fault for not wearing your cranial. Why didn't you have it on? Flight operations were still going on. They have impact shields for a reason."

"I didn't realize your bird was returning. I was checking on my colleagues one last time before I transfer to HSC-14 when you guys landed."

Blue blinked at him slowly. "You're a jet guy, aren't you." Her tone was as flat as the moonless sky. It wasn't a question. Judgment was the only thing that could be heard in her tone.

"I've flown jets, yes. And I've had the pleasure of flying a helicopter once or twice. And yes, it is true that I prefer jets to helicopters."

Staring down at her hands as she chaffed them against one another, trying in vain to rub away the blackness that seemed to have permanently stained her skin, she asked, "Then why are you transferring into my squadron? I'm sure there are plenty of jet squadrons or even the prop squadrons biting at the bit to secure Mr. Richard Campbell Gansey III in their grasp."

Gansey closed the gap between his fingers, furrowing his brows. "There is something that I am looking for. After I found Glendower, I was challenged to find another impossible thing about a year ago."

"You're not Ronan. That shouldn't have fazed you."

"Well, after what happened when we found Glendower, I seem to have less control over my impulses. It seems that you were at least forty percent of my impulse control." He breathed out a long, heavy breath. "There were things said by my challenger that I need to discredit. And what I am looking for has been searched for for centuries by every manner of person."

Learning forward, arms crossed on the edge of Gansey's cot and her interest piqued, Blue started, "What does that have to do with my squadron, Gansey? I don't want you crashing my helicopter, and I distinctly remember your sister telling me once that you are shit at flying helicopters."

A wry smile pulled at the corners of his lips. "I've gotten largely better. I need to be able to look from the air, like we did with the ley lines, and I can only get low enough to do that from a helicopter. Not only that, but in the coming weeks, your squadron has terfs planned for every other day, giving me the chance I need to search before we make port. Then, I would hope you'd assist me in my most recent search."

Forcing down her grin, Blue asked, "What kind of question is that?"

Noah:

Noah quickly and silently closed the door to one of the many hidden spaces on the ship, trying his best to block out the sounds of pleasure coming from the darkened room. A loud moan cut through his concentration, and he bolted up the stairs, taking them as quietly and quickly as he possibly could. Few people knew of the space and even fewer regularly visited it, but when they did, it was usually in pairs to conduct the activities most prohibited from the ship. That was the first time he'd stumbled across anyone in his search for solitude though, and the trauma would be everlasting.

Shaking his head, he climbed to the second deck before slowing down. Palming the can of soda he'd shoved in his pocket, he glanced down at his watch. He'd been missing from his shop for a total of two hours. It was a long moment, but they never usually noticed when he was gone. Not much had changed since Glendower had given him his life back. He was still a ghost, easy to miss until you didn't, easy to forget until he did something unforgettable.

Two men in brown jerseys passed him, their heads inclined as they whispered quickly. "Yeah, heard she kicked out his knees and flung him to the ground before straddling him and slamming his head into the ground. Can you believe that? She was a second class and the guy was like an aircrew chief or something. She's totally going for mass for that shit. I hope it's an open mass because I want to get a look at her."

The second man shook his head vigorously. "Dude, no she won't. She was keeping him from getting himself killed. Walking into a rotor arc is like the equivalent of walking across the flight deck during recovery."

"I don't think it's quite the same thing..." the first man said haughtily, arrogance saturating his voice.

The second man narrowed his eyes at the first. "We are not fucking getting into this again. If you start something, I will fuc-" They slammed a hatch closed, cutting off their voices.

Noah frowned slightly, staring after them. He usually didn't listen to ship gossip, there was no point to it, but something about this specific rumor...

Slipping into the passage at his elbow, he bolted up the stairs, taking steps two at a time to get to his shop.

If there's any terms that I used throughout the chapter, or chapters to come, that y'all have no clue what it means, just ask me and I'll give you an answer and/or add that definition to the end of the chapter.