Without You.
A little one-shot I decided to do in the middle of my multi-chapter!
Using the prompt 'Person A is worried for Person B' but super lightly.
Set and the end of 'Don't Look Back' Andrea is worried about Mike as she waits for him to disembark. Mike and Andrea are still at the beginning of their relationship but are keeping it all very quiet.
A little bit of sadness, a little bit of humour, just something I came up with.
I've done my best to spell check and edit this, I hope mistakes are minimal!
Reviews are loved and appreciated, I know it's not much, but I hope you enjoy reading it!
Disclaimer – I own nothing.
Andrea looked down at her watch as she waited for Mike to leave the bridge. Since Tom had left Mike had stayed on the Nathan James, everyone else had disembarked, and Andrea wanted to, but it didn't feel right to leave without the captain.
"Checking up on me, XO?" Andrea heard him and her head snapped up. She took a step forward onto the bridge, she wasn't sure how long he'd known she was stood there, but that didn't matter now.
"It didn't feel right to leave without you." Andrea shrugged. Mike chuckled slightly crossing his arms across his chest, still not showing any signs of leaving his chair.
"Nothing about this last year feels right," Mike muttered after a minute, but Andrea heard him as she walked further towards him, coming to stop next to his chair.
"I want to tell you it will get better, but I can't," Andrea told him softly as she reached out for his hand, no one else was on the ship, so Andrea didn't have to worry about anyone seeing them.
"I'm worried about you, Mike." She added after a few moments of silence.
Mike turned to face her, giving her a weak smile.
"Tom walked off the ship today, and with it walked away from the Navy," Mike said, almost as if the realisation had hit him.
"I know, and I think it's going to take a while for it all to sink in, but we need to keep moving forward." Andrea knew that right now her words would mean nothing, but she wanted him to hear something.
It was going to be hard for everyone, but with the fate of Mike's family still unknown and then to watch the man he would call his best friend to walk away from everything he'd even known, Andrea assumed Mike was on the verge of breaking down and calling it quits.
"Tell me what I can do, to make this easier," Andrea said after a moment, watching him carefully. Mike had taken her hand and was holding it tightly, like, if he let go he would lose her too.
"Nothing. I think I knew the moment Christine told me about Lucas, that nothing was going to be easy. I thought Tom would fight it, you know?" Mike turned to look at her, wearing an expression she'd rarely seen on him.
Sadness.
"I think, we all thought he would fight, but for him, he needed to do what he thought was right. It's not just him that went through hell, it was his kids too, and he feels that he needs to protect them." Andrea was trying to justify it, despite being angry herself. She tried to put herself in his shoes, and yes, she could see why he was doing it, but at the same time, she never thought Tom Chandler would fight this hard only to walk away.
She hoped the thoughts on the matter would change over time.
"We should go," Mike said. Andrea nodded in response moving away from the chair but keeping her arm stretched out for Mike to hold her hand.
"What are you going to tell the crew?" Mike asked as they made their way off the bridge.
Andrea frowned slightly, not understanding what he meant.
"If they ask why you stayed behind." Mike supplied.
Andrea shrugged with a smile.
"I was worried about you. Relationship or not, it didn't seem right disembarking without the Captain." Mike thought for a minute, letting go of Andrea's hand as they made it onto the deck.
"When we step off this ship everything changes," Mike said, almost too quietly for Andrea to hear.
"I guess it's us who gets to decide if it changes for the better or for the worst," Andrea told him, in a hope to lighten the mood just a little.
As the pair began to make their way to dry land, Mike turned to look at Andrea.
"Were you really worried about me, or was it just the fear of the paperwork you'd have to do if anything happened to me?"
"Don't ruin the moment, Mike." He didn't have anything to say to that.
At least he stepped onto dry land whilst laughing a little, and with Andrea by his side. For now, that was enough to get him through the next week.
I hope you enjoyed this little one-shot, let me know what you thought! Thank you, Bethany.