This is my first SoUE fic, but it was a plot bunny that wouldn't go away. So all advice to character-handling would be greatly appreciated.
He who hesitates is lost. That had always been Captain Widdershins' philosophy, ever since that value assignment back in middle school—though that one had actually been referring to a color scale and what else would one pick out of an art class? But it was still his philosophy, and one that had served him well over the years. He had never seen a reason to change it, for it was still going strong.
Where would he be now if he had hesitated? Especially that wonderful day, with the museum fire and the malfunctioning vorpal fire deluger that had left them both soaking wet—him and the new volunteer Clarissa. He hadn't hesitated to use that deluger, he hadn't hesitated to apologize profusely, and he certainly hadn't hesitated in inviting her to get some hot cocoa afterwards in his new baby the Queequeg. Aye, hesitation, especially around a lovely woman, was not a wise thing.
Heck, three months of courtship was pressing it. Lulu had practically said it was destiny, and apparently the only thing Josephine wasn't afraid of was urging romance.
So that's why he wasn't hesitating now. Aye, there had been no hesitation in shoveling out half a year's income on a ring and some flowers, and there was certainly no hesitation as he marched up the steps of Clarissa's home. No hesitation whatsoever. Not even as his fingers hovered before the bell.
"He who hesitates is lost," the captain whispered to himself. He rang the doorbell.
Clarissa answered immediately. He liked that. Apparently she wasn't hesitating, either.
"Hello!" he exclaimed, louder than he had intended. "Greetings and salutations, my darling, my sweet! Aye, but you look pretty!"
"Oh, Captain!" She giggled, twisting the car keys in her hands. "You always say that."
Now this was appropriate. No hesitation now. He gallantly, as gallantly as he could with his pounding heart, handed her in the flowers, and then fumbled for the ring box in his pocket.
But she just kept talking. "I'm so sorry, but I didn't know you were coming over, or I would be more prepared for entertainment." She jangled the car keys again, and pushed past him with a kiss on the cheek.
His fingers slid over the velvet cover of the ring box. "But—"
"I'm sure you have some romantic underwater adventure planned for me and all that jazz, but I'm afraid that it's simply going to have to wait an hour or two, because I have a very important meeting that I have to attend."
"What meeting? Why wasn't I informed?"
"Because it doesn't concern us." Clarissa rushed to her car, blowing him a kiss.
There was still time. He could do it now. Why was he hesitating?
"Oh, but since you are here, I do have a favor." She paused, hand on the car door. "The babysitter is late, and I was going to trust the kids to handle themselves for a few minutes, but now that you are here, could you possibly keep an eye on them? Just until the sitter arrives?"
"The kids? Aye! I could do that! I could watch them!" Anything to please her. If only he could just bring out the ring. "Aye! I would love to watch the kids! Even though I haven't yet met them!"
She laughed. Oh, he loved her laugh. "Well, then, this will be a marvelous opportunity for you to get to know them. They'll love you, I'm sure of it!"
Just run over to the car right now and hand her that ring and say those words. He had promised himself he wasn't going to do this.
With a final blown kiss, she drove off, exhaust spiraling around the bay where he had dared bring the Queequeg.
The captain wanted to drown himself. Well, he could wait till she was back. That wasn't hesitating, was it? She was the one who was gone. It wasn't his fault. So all he had to do was await her return and put himself to the task at hand.
The kids. He had always known that Clarissa was a mother, two children from her first marriage to that poor man that fell into a volcano. Clarissa mentioned the kids often, but somehow he had never gotten around to meeting them. But if he did plan on marrying the woman, he probably should get around to it eventually. And why not now? Aye, yes, this was a perfect time. Only five minutes, until the sitter arrived.
He opened the door and marched into the house.
A water balloon instantly met his face.
"Score!" a young voice shouted. "Fiona, fill up another one!"
"Agwoo!" an even younger voice replied, followed by the sound of a kitchen facet turning on.
Captain Widdershins wiped the water from his eyes. "Aye! What was that for? What are you thinking? Is that any way to treat someone?"
The only response was another water balloon and giggling.
He forced a laugh. Kids today. He shook the fresh water away, finally enabling himself to see his attackers, across the living room where it broke into the kitchen area.
Two children and a plastic bag of balloons were at the sink, a young boy around ten or eleven and an infant girl with triangle-shaped glasses, actually sitting in the sink and clumsily fitting balloons around the facet's spout.
"Are you the babysitter?" the boy asked, cradling a heavy balloon in his hands. "'Cause this is how me and Fiona always greet babysitters."
It was almost an insult. He was the captain of the Queequeg! A member of the V.F.D.! Did he look like a babysitter? "No, I'm not the sitter, I'm—"
The baby girl, Fiona, shrieked and pointed a chubby finger at him.
"Then you must be a stranger," said the boy. "And we're not supposed to talk the strangers." He arched back his arm, the balloon tight in his hand, and reeled forward.
Somehow Captain Widdershins managed to dodge that one. Sort of. At least it didn't land in his face. "A stranger? I am most certainly not a stranger! And I am mostly certainly not the babysitter. I am going to watch you until the real sitter arrives."
The boy blinked at him, apparently confused. "So… who are you, then?" His eyes went wide. "You are Mom's boyfriend, Captain Widdershins!"
So at least she had mentioned him to her children. "Aye, that is I."
Fiona glared at him from behind her glasses.
Apparently she didn't like him. He sighed. "And who might you be?"
The boy eyed him strangely, then shrugged. "I'm Fernald. Do you have a submarine? Mom says you have a submarine."
"Boat!" Fiona shouted. She had already prepared another water balloon.
Fernald ran to the door, where the blurred view of the Queequeg could be seen in the dangerously shallow waters of the bay. "Neat! You do have a submarine!" Then he was out the door, running across the yard, and leaping into the water.
Clarissa would kill the Captain her son drowned. "Hey! Stop that! Come back here and get back in the house!"
"I can swim!" Fernald called back.
"Twooble!" Fiona said.
Captain Widdershins rolled his eyes and picked up the little girl from the sink. "Aye! Come on. Let's go. We need to get your brother." At least the kid hadn't hesitated.
"Twooble!" the baby girl repeated, clutching the edge of his shirt in her little hand.
She was kind of cute.
By the time they made it outside, there was no sign of Fernald. For a moment panic clutched the Captain's heart—only to increase as he thought of a more horrible fate than the boy drowning.
"My baby!" he screamed, not referring to the baby in his arms. Who knew that Fernald was doing inside the submarine? If he ruined one thing…
Well, that top hatch was emerged from the water, left slightly open… He moved Fiona to his shoulders, where she proceeded to yank painfully at his hair, and waded out to the submarine.
"Boat!" Fiona shrieked.
"No, Fiona, it's most certainly not a boat. Or any kind of ship, for that matter. It's a submarine. A submersible trans-aquatic unit of transportation and exploration. Not a boat."
"Boat," she repeated.
"Never mind," he sighed. Whatever Fernald was doing was more important than Fiona's ideas. He fully opened the hatch door and climbed down into the submarine, Fiona screaming "boat" every five seconds.
When was the babysitter going to arrive?
The Captain found Fernald in the kitchen, going over… the Captain flinched. He had forgotten he had left out maps during his morning coffee! And those were very important maps, ones the V.F.D. had specifically trusted him to take care of. They were even encoded…
There was still a pot of coffee on the counter.
"Can I have some coffee?" Fernald asked innocently. He had already crumpled the edge of one map in his grubby little hands.
Clarissa doubtfully allowed a ten-year old to drink coffee. "No, I'm afraid not."
"Do you want some coffee?"
"No, I'd—"
"Let me get some for you!" Fernald leaped dramatically to the counter, knocking it and leaving the pot twirling precariously before thankfully settling down. He had grabbed the old coffee mug—probably now all reeking of bacteria, and dumped into it an obscene amount, sending coffee spilling over the edge. He balked as it ran onto his hands. "Ow! It's hot!"
"Aye, that's why you shouldn't be touching it." The Captain set Fiona on the table next to the maps. "Just leave it alone."
The boy looked dejected.
The Captain sighed and accepted the mug of coffee. "Though I do thank you for this."
"Good, 'cause it was really hot." Fernald sat down back at the table. "You already spilled coffee all over these maps, you know. Mom says that's really sloppy."
"Sloppy?" Captain Widdershins grabbed a map and pointed at one of the so-called "spills". "I'll have you know that these most certainly are not spills! It's a secret code! A secret way to reveal information to those who know all about it and not one soul more!"
Both children stared at him.
"These coffee stains are there for a reason! They dictate places on the map!"
More stares. They did not look impressed.
"So you're saying it's okay to spill coffee over things?" Fernald asked.
"Aye! In some cases!" He wondered if the babysitter were there yet. She was probably at the house, wondering where her charges were. Perhaps he should get the kids a snack. He currently didn't have a cook as part of the crew—heck, he didn't even have a crew yet—so apparently that task would be left up to him. "Are you two hungry yet?"
Fiona threw her little hands in the air. "Numum!"
He took that as a yes. Now, what did he keep in the cupboard that was okay for babies and young children to eat? He opened a cupboard to check. Chopped garlic? No…
"A'dear!" Fiona exclaimed.
There was a snicker from her brother. "Fiona, you helped!"
What now? The Captain turned around. He shouldn't have left the coffee mug on the table. An ugly brown stain far too large to be of any use on any map for any secret code was quickly absorbing no less than three maps.
"I help!" Fiona said, beaming up at him.
"No, you didn't!" He scooped her up, handed her to Fernald, and quickly threw up the maps, trying to shake as much coffee off of them as physically possible. No, too late. The maps were ruined.
"Were those important?" Fernald asked quietly.
Of course the V.F.D. would replace them but… He clenched his teeth, choking back a yell. Think of Clarissa. He sighed. "No, they weren't important. Fiona, were you burnt?"
The baby girl was already happily licking coffee off of her tiny fingers.
He wondered how long it would take for that caffeine to kick in. "Perhaps we should go back into the house."
"No!" Fernald and Fiona shouted in unison.
"This is fun," Fernald elaborated. "I wanna explore the submarine. Can I?" Without waiting for an answer, he was off, Fiona in his arms.
Great.
It took approximately twenty minutes to find them. He hadn't realized the submarine was that large. They were situated before a port window, a can of blue paint he didn't know he had even had on board splattered over the window, the room, and them. Fiona even flicked a glob of paint at him as he entered the room.
"Icky," she explained. He wondered how she could see through her now-blue glasses.
"You have a fun submarine, Captain Windershins," Fernald said, tracing his name with his finger in the paint-covered window. "Submarines are fun. You can see fish out of the windows." He stared hard at the window. "Or could. Sorry it's now blue."
Hopefully it would come off. "Where did you even find that paint?"
"In some closet," Fernald said, pointing vaguely out the door. "It was really hard to get the lock off, but we did it! Hey, can we still have a snack?"
"Hungee!" said Fiona.
Well, there didn't seem a way to be getting the paint off of them now. "Will you let me take you home, and then get in the tub, if I do?"
All he received in response were blank stares. He decided to just take those as yeses.
"Aye, then. Come on and let's go to the kitchen."
The snack wasn't much. All he could find were a box of saltine crackers and some stuffed mushrooms in a doggie bag from some fancy restaurant in the fridge.
"'Usooms!" Fiona shrieked the moment he brought them out. "'Usooms!"
Confused, the Captain handed her one, which she actually started to pet.
"'Usooms." She, at least, seemed satisfied with her new stuffed mushroom friend.
Fernald also seemed happy enough with the snack.
Tired, the Captain slid into the chair. What a day. Still, it seemed rather awkward to just sit there with two small children. "So, what do you kids like to do?"
Fernald shrugged. "'Lots of stuff. I like reading." He pulled out a pocket-sized book from his pants pocket. "I'm reading this right now."
Captain Windershins gasped in horror when he saw the title. "Where did you get that monstrosity from?"
"The school library…"
The Captain ripped the book from Fernald's hands and threw it across the room. Any child of Clarissa's… did she have no idea? "You can't read the poetry of Edgar Guest!"
"Why not?"
He couldn't hesitate on filling the boy in on proper literary taste. "Edgar Guest was a writer of limited skill, who wrote awkward, tedious poetry on hopelessly sentimental topics."
Fernald stared at him, then at the book. "I… I didn't know. The librarian said he was good. I'm sorry."
"That's all right. It's just one more reason why you should never trust librarians. Now, lets try and find something that's good for you to read. Have you ever tried Herman Melville?"
It was the right thing to suggest. Fernald nodded happily. "Oh, I look him! Mom reads him to me sometimes. Is he a writer enormous talent? I like how he writes about poor sailors and exploited youngsters."
The Captain actually smiled. "Yes, he is. I actually have some of his books. And poetry by other writers than Edgar Guest, if you insist upon poetry." He glanced at Fiona, who had finally gotten around to actually eating her mushroom. "I might even have a book on fungi for your sister."
"Fungi?"
"Mushrooms."
Fernald seemed to consider this. "Maybe later. I wanna play cards instead, now. Wanna play?"
Why not? "Aye, d'you have a deck?"
"No. Do you?"
He did have a deck in one drawer or another. An expensive one, and after the coffee incident… but why not let the kid have some fun? "Aye, I do."
Fernald was thrilled. "Good, because I have my own game I made up…"
Captain Widdershins didn't even hear Clarissa entering the submarine, her feat pounding across the floor, calling his name and the kids. They were still in the kitchen when she found them, Fiona asleep in his lap, cards strewn about the room, and Fernald absorbed in a book of decent poetry.
"Clarissa!" he exclaimed. "I… sorry about this. The sitter didn't come. Or if the sitter did come, we were in here."
She put her hand to her head, trying to calm herself. "Oh, never mind. I was just worried. But when I saw the submarine, I assumed… But still, you shouldn't scare me like that! How were they?"
Coffee was still dripping from the table. The kids were still covered in paint. "Aye, it was fun. They were fine."
"That's good. Interesting first meeting for you. Perhaps a lot more than my appointment. Something silly about manatees." She sat down next to him. "So, why did you come over today?"
It was difficult to get the ring out again without waking Fiona, but somehow he managed it. He who hesitates his lost.
The End!