Chapter 1

1989

Just below the huge New York City lay a boat beneath a pier. Nothing too big, nothing too small. Just an averaged sized boat constructed of wood that lay silent in the night with a clothesline strung up outside and open windows to allow the air to blow in. It lay just as quiet inside where in different spots of the huge main room of the boat lay five canines in their beds made up of blankets and found scraps. In one corner lay one of the sleeping canines with a cheap alarm clock sitting right next to him which read the time: 4:29 AM.

The digit on the alarm switched to 4:30 AM. It began to buzz as Dodger Herbie Tobacco slapped it off in time so it wouldn't awake the others. Dodger sat up, rubbing his eyes and stretching, realizing that his new day was about to begin.

Dodger was an almost all white if he did not have the brown on his back and head Jack Russell Terrier with quite a unique personality. Dodger then glanced around the boat, making sure that his clock hadn't awaken the others, but they all continued to rest in their calm and quiet slumbers. He pulled himself up out of bed, throwing his camouflage uniform on for work that day and walked over to a sink in the far corner of the room, twisting the nozzle as he splashed cool water onto his face. He threw his wallet into his gym bag, slinging it over his shoulder as he grabbed his keys from a nearby table as he walked outside, taking in the cool November air.

Dodger knew he only had a matter of time to arrive at the subway station so he could ride out of the city to get to work. He would often see his good friend Officer Argento in the subway station, mostly because Officer Argento worked the nightshift so Dodger would often catch him on his way back to his apartment.

While most of the city went to work in one of New York's high rises, Dodger's place of employment was Fort Dix, an Army base over in New Jersey.

Dodger attended Stuyvesant High School until he graduated his senior year. He had lived in an orphanage as a young pup, but as a child he often detested his time there due to the terrible conditions he and the other children were kept under and the sour attitude of the woman who ran the orphanage. Dodger has a very vague memory of his parents, the clearest memory he had of them and one of his siblings being from when he was four years old. He could remember his parents having a very depressed attitude when they realized that they just weren't capable of taking care of him anymore.

So, one day Dodger had to pack up all his items and he remembered being dropped off at The New York City Residential Home for Children, and from then on he had to accept it as home.

Dodger wouldn't consider his days at the orphanage as truly terrible though. It was there that he met another dog named Tito, whom he became great friends with, both due to their common interest in guns and wrestling.

At the age of sixteen, Dodger decided that he just simply couldn't take the abuse of the orphanage anymore. So one night, when Dodger was positive that everybody was dead asleep, he convinced Tito to pack his bags and climb out one of the windows with him. It was on the street that Dodger and Tito were discovered by Fagin, and he took them in. Since they were young at the time, Fagin let them not worry about work or money, but as the two grew older, that began to hit Dodger as a priority.

At the time, Fagin two other dogs. They were Francis and Einstein, both older than Dodger and Tito. At the time, they all lived in an abandoned and beat up wooden boat, and Fagin had the long term goal of one day, when they had the money, saying goodbye to the boat and buying an apartment over in Brooklyn. Fagin eventually told them that they could continue to live with him, as long as they supplied money to keep their home up and going.

Tito went straight into the workforce and eventually collected enough money to buy a small building right across the street from which Dodger and the rest of his, "gang," lived.

Dodger attended Borough of Manhattan Community College for about a year, but suddenly felt that college just wasn't for him at the time. It wasn't until one day when Dodger was riding on the subway back home from the college that he found himself sitting next to an officer in the United States Army in his uniform. Dodger always had the military in the back of his mind incase his other plans didn't work out, and realized that if had an interest in pursuing it, now was the chance to ask questions about it.

He tapped the officer on the shoulder and asked him about his experience with the Army. The officer, Howard was his name and was the rank of Major, answered all of Dodger's questions. Dodger asked him questions such as why he decided that he wanted to pursue a career in the military, and Major Howard told him that his father was a full-bird Colonel in the Army and that he, along with his father, served in Vietnam as a young Second Lieutenant at the end of the war as his father was over there as a Lieutenant Colonel before being promoted to full bird when returning back home, and he chose to follow in his father's footsteps.

He told Dodger many of the benefits that an individual will get from serving in the military and the cool opportunities you will get to experience. Dodger asked what kind of cool opportunities there were, and Major Howard talked about getting the chance to go to Ranger School and getting to be in the 82nd Airborne Division. Major Howard told Dodger that he could tell by the way he was asking questions that he seemed to have an interest. He informed him that he was not a recruiter, but he had any interest in enlisting, he knew where to go. He handed him a brochure, and Dodger thought about the benefits and the opportunities he could get when serving in the military. Plus, Dodger had to face that he and the rest of the gang were poor.

Their boat wasn't big at all and they had to pray for just the small amounts of money that Fagin would bring in every week just to put a little bit of food on their table. Their phone had been shut off many times because they couldn't afford to pay the bills. Their most primary thing to get money for was food for dinner at nights.

So, the next day after his classes were finished, Dodger stopped by the recruiting office. The walls were lined with Uncle Sam, "I want you for US Army," posters as well as pictures lined up on the walls of the recruiters there deployed in different parts of the world. The recruiter wore his green dress uniform with the rank of Staff Sergeant ironed onto the sides of both his sleeves. The recruiter sat down behind his desk and talked to Dodger and explained to him about the ASVAB and how whatever score you get on it will determine what your specific job in the military based on your score. Dodger looked at the uniform that the recruiter was wearing and spotted how he had a light blue shoulder cord around one of his shoulders. "That blue cord around your shoulder," Dodger said. "What's that for?"

"Oh, that's because I served in the infantry," the recruiter responded. "I've heard about the infantry before," said Dodger. "This might sound like a dumb question, but what is it exactly?" "The infantry is all fighting on foot. If you do decide that you want to do infantry, you will get the chance to wear a cord on your uniform like me here." "I bet you shoot a lot in the infantry, don't you?" Dodger asked. The recruiter smiled and responded, "Oh yeah."

After that, Dodger enlisted, and the infantry was where he found himself. Weeks later, Dodger left for basic training at Fort Benning, and after basic training was over he got the chance to travel down to Fort Bragg, North Carolina for airborne training, and next thing he knew he was in the 82nd airborne division. He went to Ranger School a year later and the minute he turned twenty-one, he applied to go to training so he could be a member of Special Ops. Dodger didn't know how he did it, but when he went through special ops training he kept himself mentally strong and pushed through the hardships when a lot of other soldiers quit, and soon he was a special operations soldier.

Since he survived the hard training, he was able to keep on living where he was without having to move states to attend the other bases in other states because a lot of special operations soldiers were based out of Fort Dix. It turned out that Major Howard whom he met on the subway that one day became his commanding officer since he was both an infantry and a special ops soldier. Soon, Dodger found himself going to Fort Dix every day for work. Dodger's gang was originally not so pleased with that fact that Dodger just blankly enlisted, but soon they seemed pretty proud of him when they saw him in his uniform for the first time at his graduation from basic training.

Dodger walked down the steps leading into the New York City subway station. Even though it was very early in the morning, there always seemed to be people there waiting for a train. Dodger looked and sure enough, he spotted Officer Argento.

"Hey bud," said Dodger.

"Hey man."

"How was the nightshift?"

"Eh, it was alright. Nothing too exciting. Some of the boys though did a drug bust last night. You won't believe this, but one of the users busted actually told one of my guys that some of the drugs that he had had come all the way down from Panama."

"People really risk going from Panama just to make sure that some drugs get sold up here?"

"It makes a lot of money."

Dodger nodded and then heard the sound of one of the subway trains approaching. Half a minute later, the train moved in, the loud squeak sound of the train echoing throughout the small station. The doors opened as Dodger stepped inside. Dodger smiled, waving to Argento as the doors closed and the subway drove off.

Everyday always began with physical training, which was always pretty easy to Dodger since he exercised a lot and took care of himself. Afterwards Dodger's platoon would shower. Afterwards, they report to the mess hall for breakfast, or what the military refers to as, "chow." Dodger and every other soldier in First Platoon wore their Battle Dress Uniforms or what they refer to as BDUs. This uniform was the dark brown, green and black camouflage uniform.

Dodger got his tray and stepped up to the serving line as a cook behind the glass scooped up some pancakes, eggs and bacon and put it on his tray. Dodger grabbed some little packages of butter and filled his empty cup up with orange juice and sat down at a table in the mess hall with some buddies of his. Dodger cut a piece of a pancake and picked it up with a fork and began to chew on it. A private in Duke's platoon sat across from him and said, "I wonder if we are going to keep on doing house clearing today." Sergeant Smith, sitting next to Dodger, responded, "That and also airfield takedowns." Dodger and some of the other soldiers around him groaned because practicing to take down an airfield was something they trained for every day.

"Oh, won't you pansies stop complaining," Sergeant Smith said. "Don't you guys see what this means? This constant training, they might have something planned for us soon." Dodger noticed that some of the soldiers around him started giving Sergeant Smith a curious, wide-eyes stare as if expecting him to suddenly tell them something exciting that he might have been told.

"I mean, I don't know about anything like that, I really don't. I am just basing this off of former deployments of mine where we were required to train for specific missions without being told why, and then we deploy and we finally get to learn about what we have been training for for so long and actually do it." "Yeah," the private said. "But why do they pick specifically an airfield for our training?" "Didn't I just say that I have no clue?" Sergeant Smith barked.

Sergeant Smith was a soldier described as being, "tough as nails." He suffered from an abusive stepfather as a child and decided when he wanted to enlist when he was in high school. He claims that he hoped he would get the chance to protect people from terrible things like what he experienced as a child. But every soldier in Alpha Company, First Platoon knew that if you were going to be friends with Sergeant Smith, you could not have a soft and sensitive personality because he had a tough attitude, but every soldier knew that underneath it all he cared for everybody he served alongside with.

Jumping out of a plane. Something people pay tons of money for, this was in these soldiers' paychecks. Everyone knew their part of their training exercise. Dodger's duty was to seize the mock air-traffic control tower down below. Dodger had done this so many times though, he could do it in his sleep. Dodger looked to his left at his teammate Corporal Johnston.

Dodger took a deep breath to calm himself down, this being something he always had to do before a training jump. Today they were doing a static-line jump, a jump where you are attached to a steel cord above your head and when you jump out of the plane the cord you are attached to pulls your parachute out. Dodger and everybody else in the platoon also had a reserve chute on their stomach, but the military being how squared away it is, Dodger hadn't witnessed any accidents in any of his jumps. Major Howard stood at the front of the plane and then stood up and told everybody to hook up. Everybody obeyed and stood up, attaching their cords to the cable hanging above their heads. A jumpmaster stood next to the open door they would all jump out of. Before they could jump, Major Howard did a quick safety check and made sure everybody was strapped in right and then did an equipment check to make sure that everybody had everything they needed for the jump.

There was a little panel at the front on the wall with a round red and green light with the red bright right now signifying not to jump. Everybody had to help with the safety check with pertained every soldier tapping the soldier in front of them and yelling their number and yelling that they were okay. This began at the end of the plane and continued up to the front. There were twenty men in Dodger's platoon and he was right in the middle. The check began and in a few seconds the soldier behind Dodger tapped his shoulder, yelling, "Eleven okay!" Dodger tapped the soldier in front of him, yelling, "Ten okay!"

This eventually made its way up to the front and Major Howard was the first to jump out, followed by another soldier immediately. Dodger and the soldiers behind him had to run up to the front since the soldiers were rapidly leaping out, one right after another. Dodger was then up and he leaped out as the static line opened his parachute. He then looked down at the airfield 1,500 feet below him as he slowly descended towards it.

After the training assault, Colonel Miller, as he always did, told the platoon what he saw when observing them with the training exercise. Dodger seemed pretty impressed with what the Colonel had to say about their performance. The Colonel told them that there were a few things here and there that he felt they should try to improve on, but other than that every day they seemed to be looking better and better.

The platoon lowered the flag, and the day was over. Everybody got their things and began heading for their cars. Dodger saw Major Howard walking towards his car with his keys in his hand, so he ran up and caught up with him. "Excuse me sir," Dodger said. Major Howard looked over at Dodger as he opened his car door. "This morning at chow I was talking to Smith about all these things some old airfield training exercises and how we keep doing them repeatedly. Do you secretly think they are planning something for us?"

"Well, I only know as much as Smith and everybody else knows," Major Howard responded. "If I had to guess I would say maybe, but still, I haven't been told anything. I'll catch you tomorrow Tobacco," he said as he got in and started the car. "Actually Dodger, where you headed to?"

"Subway station," Dodger responded. "Eh, get in. I'll take you there," Major Howard responded.

Here Dodger was again, sitting on the subway just as he had done that morning. Dodger noticed that his days went by a lot quicker since he joined the service. Dodger put his gym bag around himself, stepped out of the train, and then walked up the steps leading up from the underground station. Dodger glanced around at lower Manhattan surrounding him. The two huge towers of the World Trade Center stood just right across the street from him, and to the right of him the following year a new fifty-six story hotel named, "The Millennium Hilton," would be built. A sign stood out there showing a model picture of the structure and said, "Coming in 1990."

And the Woolworth Building, the first skyscraper in New York City that was at the time the tallest not only in the city but the world as well until the construction of the Empire State Building in the 1930s stood close to him as well.

Dodger stopped by a small Chinese restaurant on a corner, remembering that he was supposed to buy everybody in the gang dinner tonight. "Thank you," he said as he opened his wallet, tossing a few dollars down on the glass counter. "You have a nice night," he said as he walked out, carrying two full plastic bags with him.

Dodger whistled a tune to himself as he walked down the sidewalk. For this time of the day, Dodger thought that the city sounded pretty quiet, but then heard a sound that sounded like it was coming a few feet away from him. Dodger couldn't make out what exactly the sound was at the moment. He glanced to his right to notice an alley next to where he parked. He heard the sound again. He believed it to be a whimper. Knowing he wasn't making the smartest decision in the world, he began walking down it.

As he walked down the quiet alley the sound he heard seemed to grow louder each time he took a step. Another quiet sound emerged, this time the sound sounded like somebody was moving around. Dodger slowly approached a small, abandoned building up ahead with a large dumpster behind it and peered around it.

A little boy sat up with his back against the building, eating soup out of a can with a spoon. The boy was dirty and smelled, wearing ragged, dirty clothes, obviously homeless. Dodger could see that the boy's teeth were yellow and his fingernails were dirty and unkempt. He had a winter hat on top of his head, filled with holes.

"Little boy," Dodger calmly said. The boy looked up at him, obviously nervous. "Woah kid, it's alright," Dodger automatically responded.

"Who are you?" the homeless boy asked. "I can ask the same for you," Dodger responded. "But since you asked, everybody's got a name, and mine happens to be Dodger. What about you?"

"Me?" the boy asked shyly. "Yeah," Dodger responded. "Timmy," the little boy quietly said. "Timmy huh," said Dodger. "What?!" Timmy said defensively. "Oh nothing, I like that name. I'm just curious where your parents are at Timmy."

"My parents?" Timmy asked. "You sure do ask a lot of questions kid," said Dodger. "But yeah, your parents. Momma, papa, madre, padre, mom, dad, maman, papa…" "Madre and padre?" Timmy asked.

"Mom and dad in Spanish."

"What about maman and papa?"

"French. Well, whatever you call your parents, where they at kid?"

Timmy looked down at the ground with a saddened expression on his face. "I don't have a mom and dad." "Oh…" Dodger said, feeling awkward and not knowing what to say next. "Well, how long have you been living out here for?" "A couple of weeks," Timmy responded. "A couple of weeks?!" Dodger snapped. "Yeah," Timmy said quietly.

Dodger stood quietly, letting that soak into his brain for a minute. They both sat in silence for a few minutes until Timmy looked at the uniform Dodger was wearing and asked, "Are you in the Army or something?" "Yep, 82nd Airborne," Dodger responded. Dodger figured Timmy probably wanted to begin asking him questions about the military now, but that wasn't what he could focus on. He knew he couldn't leave an orphaned boy on the streets of New York City like this, especially in an alleyway. We're poor though, Dodger thought. I'm the one with the best paycheck and I still have a hard time paying the bills.

Dodger knew that he couldn't just leave Timmy out here alone any longer. "Are Army guys nice?" Timmy asked. "Eh… the guys like me are. Some guys don't have a problem with it, some do. But, that's everywhere you go in life." Dodger paused. "Here," he said while motioning with his paw for Timmy to follow him.

"So, this is where you live?" Timmy asked as he and Dodger walked down a staircase into the main room on the boat where everybody had been sleeping that morning. "Yep," Dodger said. "We're all like one big happy family. We're a group. There's a girl who lives here with me named Rita.

She and I have known each other since grade school, and I met Tito who lives across the street while living in an orphanage. The three of us were good friends in high school. We used to climb up on the roof and school together, go to movies, pull pranks."

"How did you guys get on the roof of your school?" Timmy asked. "There was a ladder. It wasn't that hard," Dodger responded. "Hey wait," Timmy said nervously. "Your friends… they're nice right?"

Dodger smiled. "Oh yeah. Definitely," he said. And they walked down into the main room, the smell of cigar smoke hit the two like a bullet. Fagin, Einstein and Francis all sat at the kitchen table, lit cigars hanging from their mouths with beers at their sides as Rita and Tito stood talking.

They all looked over at him, all happy to see Dodger but then the same level of confusion filled all of their faces when they noticed Timmy with him. "Timmy, I'd like you to meet everybody," Dodger said.

Dodger's friends were:

Francis, a very light brown bulldog who spoke with a British accent. Francis was somebody who always preferred to be called by his real name and despised nicknames. He had a burning love for theatre and art. Dodger had caught him in the past mimicking lines from lines and TV shows he was watching.

Tito, a very, very small Chihuahua with a very hyper personality. He always had a green bandana tied around his head and his left ear had a chunk missing, but nobody really wanted to know the explanation behind it.

Einstein, a very far from intelligent dog, this being funny how this was even his name. He is a very kind and friendly character. He had light gray fur and was a big breed, actually being the biggest member in the group.

Rita, the only female in the group. She was a brown saluki and wore blue eye shadow around her eyes. Dodger met her while they had been in elementary school and she had joined the gang later on in life. She had dark brown hair with two long side bangs.

And Fagin, the only human in the group. Fagin had been described in the past as a, "petty criminal." He wasn't a bad guy at heart, and he loved the gang beyond limits. Fagin would often maybe even have to commit small crimes to help get money to support the gang. He at times would be so desperate for money, he could be seen taking worthless junk to pawnshops in hopes of trading some of it for cash.

"Well," Dodger said, getting everybody's attention. "Look who I found. This is Timmy, he's an orphan I found living in the street. When I found him, I thought, "Well, he needs a family to live with, and we're just like a family, so why not?" Timmy slowly waved to them all and shyly said, "Hi." "Hi," everybody said, slowly retuning waves. Dodger put his hand on Timmy's shoulder. "Yep Timmy, I'd like you to meet everyone."

Duke pointed to everyone. "Yeah Timmy, this is Tito, Einstein, Francis, Rita and Fagin." Timmy smiled. "How long can I stay with you guys for?" he asked. "Hey kid, as long as you need to. Don't worry about that. Alright?" "Alright," Timmy responded.

Hours passed. Fagin showed Timmy around the house and they allowed him to shower for the first time in a long time and provided him some clean clothes. They even mad a bed for him in the corner of the boat close to Dodger's bed. The clock that lay next to Dodger's bed read 9:45 PM. Timmy had crawled into his bed while everybody else left for their houses. Rita went over to go tuck Timmy into bed and hopefully comfort him, knowing that this was probably weird for him since he was spending the night in an unfamiliar place.

Rita sat down next to him and began to run her hand through his hair. He smiled up at her. "I sure am glad Dodger found me." Rita smiled and said, "I am glad that he found you too." Rita kissed him on the forehead and stood up to walk away when he said, "Wait, will you say a bedtime prayer with me please?" She turned around and responded, "Sure."

She walked back over to him and sat down next to him. "Do you believe in God?" he asked. "Always have," she responded. "My aunt Jessica used to say bed-time prayers with me all the time when I lived with her." This sounded pretty shocking which made Rita automatically want to ask, "Well, why don't you anymore?" But, instead she said, "Really?"

"Oh yes Ms. Rita. Every night she would come upstairs and put her hand on my head and pray with me. My uncle Jason never did though. I pray for him a lot. My aunt Jessica would tell me that he was addicted to beer. I would lay in bed at night and listen to him scream at my aunt Jessica downstairs, and would sometimes even hear smashing from down in the kitchen."

Oh my gosh, Rita thought. "Where were your mommy and daddy when all of this was happening?" "I never met my daddy. He was in the Army just like Dodger is, and he would be gone a lot. My aunt Jessica told me one day that he apparently packed up his bags, told my mommy when she was pregnant with me that he never wanted to see her again, and then left. Didn't even bother to say goodbye."

"What about your mom?" Rita asked, nervous over what he would say. "I don't know where she went. She apparently gave birth to me and then apparently gave me to my aunt Jessica and then took off. No one has seen her since." Timmy looked and saw Dodger walking up the staircase holding a cigar and a lighter. "Where is Dodger going?" he asked Rita. "Oh, just up to the dock for a few minutes for what he calls his, 'alone time,'" Rita responded. After hearing that, Timmy got back to his story.

"Yeah, eventually I ran away from my aunt Jessica's apartment. She one day fell on the floor complaining that her head hurt and told me to call 911. Hospital people came and took her to the hospital. She had to go live in one of those special homes after the incident, so I was stuck living with my uncle Jason. He called me stupid one night and then hit me. He then drank a lot of beer and fell asleep on the couch. So I went and simply ran out the door and never went back. Sometimes at night I even have nightmares of him finding me in the city."

"Well, you have nothing to fear here and just remember that we all care about you," Rita said. He smiled. "Here," she said. "Let's pray." She took his hand in her paw as they both bowed their heads and closed their eyes. "Do you want to go?" Timmy asked. "Sure," Rita said.

"Dear God, as little Timmy here goes to sleep tonight I pray that you will stand guard over him and protect him and keep him safe. God thank you for bringing him to us and God I pray for blessings for him in the future. We love you Father, amen." He sat up and wrapped his arms around her. "Good night Ms. Rita," he said. She hugged him back. "Goodnight Timmy," she said. She kissed him again on the forehead, smiled and said, "Goodnight."

Dodger sat in his fold out chair on the roof, holding the burning cigar in his hand as he exhaled smoke out of his mouth as he gazed at the Twin Towers towering over lower Manhattan and all the smaller buildings surrounding them. Rita climbed out of the rooftop access hatch and walked over, sitting down in a chair next to him. "Dodger, we need to talk," she said. "But Rita," he said as he put the cigar back in his mouth and then pulled it out and blew out smoke. "It's happy hour." Dodger then leaned back against a wooden pole as Rita snatched it away from him and threw it. Dodger saw it splash in the river. He sat straight up.

"Hey!" he said. "The heck was that for?"

"Listen Dodger, you will not believe what Timmy just told me!"

"Was it really that important that you felt the need to interrupt me in the middle of happy…"

"Yes Dodger, and don't start with that again. Timmy, I… It sounds like he was abused by an alcoholic." "What?!" Dodger said. "What makes you think that?" "Well, he asked me to say a bedtime prayer with him and then tells me about his aunt Jessica and how she used to pray with him every night before bed but his uncle who he described as being, 'addicted to beer,' never would and how he could hear crashing coming from downstairs. His aunt Jessica ended up having a stroke resulting in her going away and him having to live with his abusive uncle and he ended up hitting him, so he ran away from there. He even said that he has nightmares of this crazed uncle finding him here in the city."

"Oh geez," Dodger blurted as he then walked over to the end of the dock and sat down, legs dangling off the side as he looked down at the water below him. Rita walked over and sat next to him. "Can I be honest with you about something Dodger?" she asked. Dodger nodded, not saying a word. "I just worry about how we will be able to take care of him. I mean, look at us. We are barely able to take care of ourselves, much less a child. Do we even have what it takes to raise a little boy, to make him into a good man?"

Dodger continued to stare down at the sidewalk below him. "I don't know Rita, I really don't." He then looked up at her. "I mean… I practically raised myself, and I guess I turned out alright." Dodger paused and took a breath. "Yeah well," he said. "You never know. Maybe we will find some rich family who might adopt Timmy."

"I can care less about them being rich," Rita said. "If we can find
Timmy a family, I want them to be good, Christian people." "Yeah, you're right," Dodger said as he looked back down at the ground below.

They both sat in silence for a minute. Dodger then broke the silence. "Do you ever think past now?" he asked. Rita looked over at him. "You know, like who you'll fall in love with, becoming a parent, other things you might do in this world? I mean, I joined the military because of that feeling. I would often just lay there at night, thinking and thinking of my future, and I was disappointed in what I was able to imagine myself doing.

Just walking around the city, unemployed, doing whatever I could just to make a few dollars, hoping and praying that Fagin would return with money so we could eat. I… I just felt so useless…"

Dodger then shot his head to the left and looked at Rita, and then, something happened. He stared into her eyes, and not like any normal making eye contact with somebody, this was different. He stared deep into her eyes, and she stared deep into his. Then, this love for each other that they didn't think they had that strongly for each other this way just seemed to grow. The whole group loved each other as a family, but this love was intense.

At the perfect moment, they both leaned towards each other and gently pressed their lips together. Dodger wrapped his arms around her and held her as they kissed. They both realized something during this private moment: they loved each other. And this wasn't any type of crush, this was pure love. After a few seconds, their lips moved away.

Dodger stared at her in the moonlight for a minute, thinking she was the most beautiful thing in the world. He knew that he purely loved her. She stared at him, thinking he was the most handsome guy she ever laid her eyes on, and she knew that she loved him. They sat there speechless, trying to realize the fact that they had just kissed each other.

"Ummm…" Dodger began. "You know it is pretty late, and I have to be at the base pretty early in the morning." "Yeah, I understand," Rita responded. "Well um… I guess I will see you tomorrow," said Dodger. "I'll see you tomorrow as well," Rita responded. They both then silently, without a word, climbed back down into the boat together, leaving the dock quiet and empty as it had originally been.