Captain Nathan Bridger and Commander Ford sat at the table in the ward room, papers scattered all over. They had been working on the budget for two days. They had only 4 hours left to plan the budget for the military half of the Seaquest crew. They had to decide what equipment could be update, and which crew would get raises, how many miles the SeaQuest traveled in an average month, and many other monotonous details. Only days ago, they had been informed that all of this data would be needed tomorrow at UEO headquarters. Bridger and Ford had spent all of their time since then in the ward room, breaking only for food and a few hours of sleep.
"Do you think we should order more security cameras?" Ford asked showing a request form to the captain.
"Nah, Crocker said-"
"Captain" His sentence was interrupt by the abrupt entry of the only teenager on the boat. "I had this great idea for the Stinger. I was thinking we could-"
"Lucas, I'm sorry but we're in the middle of something. I would love to hear your idea but our report is due in four hours, so how about I come by your quarters after we send it in and you can tell me about your idea."
Lucas stood in his spot by the door stunned. Not only had the captain just interrupted him, but now the captain was telling him to bug off. All of the statements his real father had said to him came rushing in. Lucas, I'm to busy right now, go tell your mother and Lucas, I'm working can't you see that? and worst of all Lucas, I'm in the middle of something, don't bug me right now. He glared at the captain before he responded in anger.
"Fine, I'll talk to you latter." he said as he turned and stormed out the door slamming it shut.
The captain sighed.
"Boy he is moody." Commented Commander Ford.
Sadly, the captain said. "I'll deal with him when we're done" Although he wouldn't trade it for the world, sometimes having a teenager on his sub was very challenging.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
After Lucas had stormed out of the ward room he headed back to his room. He turned his music up as loud as he could and played one of his violent video games on the very expensive computer Bridger had told him not to use for that purpose. He had to kill something virtual and he had to get retribution. Bridger was his friend, or at least he was supposed to be. Sarcastically he thought The honorable captain is to busy to listen to my humble idea. He proceed to kill another virtual monster, attempting to satisfy his fury.
Ben Kreig attempted to knock on the door, even though he knew it would go unheard over the horrendous music the kid was playing.
He opened the door and shouted "Lucas"
Lucas had not heard him, so he yelled louder.
"LUCAS"
Lucas turned his chair and with a scowl on his face turned down the music and responded. "What?"
Kreig was unfazed by the attitude.
"You trying to rock the boat?" he joked.
"I am trying to escape my life. If I take the boat down with me, so be it. What do you want?" Lucas answered turning back to his video game.
"Is the screeching music and the murdering monsters helping?" Ben teased.
"Maybe" Lucas replied abruptly.
"You want to tell me what happened?" Ben asked as he sat in the chair beside Lucas.
Lucas turned to face Ben. He face was sour was he spook. "I went to tell the captain my new idea about the stinger and he kicked me out. He said he was 'in the middle of something'"
"Do you know what he was doing?"
"No, but he has been in the ward room with Ford for two days. I haven't seen him at all and I wanted to tell him my idea but he was to busy."
"Are mad at him because he was busy?"
"No," He replied slowly as if he were talking to a child. "I'm mad at him because he told me to leave him alone because he was busy. He's just like my father."
"Whoa, wait just a second. He's just like your father? Let me ask you this. When is the next time you are going to see the captain?"
"He said he would come by tonight after he was done, but I don't even want to tell him my idea then." He was just too angry at the captain to even talk about the stinger with him.
"When's the next time you are going to see your father?"
"I don't know. What the hell has that got to do with anything?"
Once again Ben retorted with a bit of humor in his voice. "Lucas, you may not realize this but Captain Bridger and Commander Ford have been working on a very important report for the past two days. They need to decide whether or not to give me, your friendly moral officer, and a bunch of other officers a raise. They also have to organize loads of paperwork, and I certainly wouldn't want to be doing it. Furthermore, the report is due in a matter of hours." More seriously Ben continued. "How would you feel if the captain had decided to listen to you instead of doing his work and a lot of people, including yours truly, did not get a raise because of it? Or maybe we wouldn't get the supplies we need on time for the next couple of months? Would that make you happy?"
"No" Lucas spit back at him.
"Look Lucas, I know the captain disappointed you when he said he had something else to do but he still cares about you. Bridger is definitely not like your father. Even though he has gotten only five or six hours sleep in the past two days he is coming down here to talk to you as soon as he files his report. You know when you will see Captain Bridger next. You have no idea when you are going to see your father next. The captain told you he would talk to you as soon as he was done, and you know he will. Captain Bridger cares about you a lot and I think maybe you are taking that for granted because for once he wasn't there the second you wanted to talk to him."
Ben paused to let Lucas process the information. The anger on the teens face turned to unhappiness. Ben continued his one-sided conversation more slowly. "You have gotten used to the captain caring for you," Ben frowned remember his own lost relationship. "Sometimes when we get used to being treated kindly, we don't remember to thank the person who cares for us. We start to expect them to be perfect no matter how we treat them. That's how I lost Katie."
He paused again looking Lucas in the eyes "Count your blessings, kid."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
When the captain came to Lucas door that night, he was pleasantly surprised to find Lucas in a better mood than he expected. He looked for a place to sit in Lucas room and finally decided that the only place that wasn't covered in computer equipment was Lucas bunk. As he sat on the bed, he patted the spot beside him motioning for Lucas to come sit next to him.
"So what was your new idea, Kiddo?"
Lucas replied with concern. "You haven't had much sleep in the past couple of days. I'll tell you latter."
Bridger smiled at the young man sitting next to him. "I really want to hear about it. After all that boring paperwork, a little inventing sounds fun, and I really have missed hanging out with you the past couple of days."
"It's okay captain. I know you were busy. How about I tell you the idea over breakfast? You really look like you could use a couple hours of rest."
"My shift doesn't start until 2:00 tomorrow. I'll get some sleep after I hear about your idea. Are you saying I'm so old I can't pull an all nighter?" he teased.
Grateful for the captain's friendship, Lucas smiled and launched into a description of the tailspin apparatus he had been thinking about. He grabbed a pad of paper and sketched ideas as he described his invention to the captain. A few minutes later, noticing the silence from the captain, he looked up at his mentor. Bridger neck was cocked to the left, as a soft snore escaped his mouth. Lucas grinned remember the number of times he had fallen asleep in the captains quarters while they had been planning, hanging out and/or talking. More than once they had been watching a vid disk and Lucas had dozed off sitting on the captain's bunk. He would awaken in the morning to find that the captain had slept on a sleeping mat beside his bed while allowing Lucas to sleep on the captain's bed. This, however, was the first time the captain had ever fallen asleep in Lucas's quarters.
Carefully he pulled the captain to a prone position. Going to the closet, Lucas pulled his own sleeping mat and then laid it on the floor next to his bed.
He set his alarm for the next morning. And as he lay down for the night he whispered good night to his sleeping captain, and counted all of his blessing. His captain took the first spot on that list.
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P.S. Story named after an old hymn I love. I hope you never forget to count your blessings.