Later that night Loren looked at her little girl spread out on the living room floor. She was lying on her stomach with papers, crayons, and coloring books surrounding her in a semi circle. She was amazed at how much the little girl was a perfect mix of her and Jake, Hannah's father. Both Loren and Jake had blonde hair and blue eyes but the curls and freckles were all Jake while her nose and smile was all Loren. The mix didn't stop there though, Hannah had Jake's easy going nature and it took a lot to get her riled up but once there her temper and glare was a smaller version of Loren's. What truly amazed Loren about her daughter was her intelligence. After her first week of Kindergarten she had been moved up to the first grade and she was still having difficulty finding a challenge.
Loren was broken from her musings when Hannah sighed and rolled over to face her. "I'm bored, Mommy. Can we please read?" Loren glanced at the clock and realized she'd been daydreaming for much longer than she'd thought.
"Let's clean up and get ready for bed and then we can read together." Loren answered, smiling at her daughter. The two blondes made quick work of cleaning up Hannah's mess and after a bubble fight in the bathroom they curled up on Hannah's twin size bed together, an open book between them. Loren read to her daughter for nearly 20 minutes before realizing she was asleep and she slipped quietly out of the room, shut the door so only a crack remained. She quickly grabbed her blanket, pillow, file and service weapon and set it all up outside her daughter's room. She wasn't taking any chances tonight.
Victor froze when he walked into the break room on Monday morning. He and Lieutenant Singer were in there alone and completely isolated from the other JAG members.
"Good morning, ma'am." Victor said, deciding to bite the bullet.
"Good morning, Gunny." Loren replied curtly.
"On Friday, before I realized you had given me the wrong file, I saw some of your notes." Gunny said softly, as if approaching a skittish animal. He mentally slapped himself upside the head when he realized the Lieutenant looked almost beautiful when she blushed. 'She's a Lieutenant, GUNNY, get a hold of yourself!'
"It's just..."
"I know what it is, ma'am, I'm just wondering how you know." Gunny said smiling slightly at the still blushing Lt.
"My grandfather taught me. He was originally from New Mexico and spent a lot of time with the tribes down there. After he came back from WWII he decided to move to Virginia. What about you?" She asked, her blush finally under control.
"I grew up speaking it and when I was old enough my grandmother taught my sisters and I how to read and write it. We used to pass notes to each other and pretend they held top secret information when we were kids." Seeing the nostalgic look on his face Loren quickly produced a piece of scrap paper and a pen and scribbled out a note. Victor accepted the paper she slid down the counter and after reading what she had written he quickly scribbled out his own note. As he was sliding the note back down the counter it was caught by the back draft of the break room door opening and flew to the floor directly at the feet of the Admiral and another older man with him. Both he and the Lieutenant froze as the older man picked the paper up and looked at them bot in shock.
"This is incredible! Absolutely incredible!" The older man quickly hobbled towards them, supporting himself on his cane. The two younger people in the room backed against the counter as the man with the cane quickly crowded them mumbling about how incredible everything was.
"Howard, do you mind explaining to me what's going on?" The Admiral asked looking between his friend and the two outcasts of JAG HQ who were pressed against the counter and looking between each other and his crazy friend in fear.
"They are absolutely incredible, Albert! If they are in fact the ones that wrote this note. Did you two write this?" His mighty grin turned into a frown for a moment and at their hesitant nods it quickly grew into a grin again. "And you can understand everything written here?" Again the two hesitantly nodded and the crazy old man tilted his head back and laughed.
"Quickly, I must make sure this is really it! To think I've been looking for forty years for someone such as yourselves and I find you now of all times! Absolutely incredible! Now, I'm going to give each of you a paper and you will write what you understand. With out looking at what the other has written!"
"Sir?" Lieutenant Singer asked looking at her commander with confusion and something akin to fear.
"Just do it, Lieutenant, and I'm sure Howard will explain everything in a moment." The Admiral answered with a sigh and a pinch to the bridge of his nose. Withing moments "Howard" had sat Victor and the Lieutenant at opposite ends of the break room table each with a page full of what the Admiral thought looked like squiggles and hieroglyphics, a blank sheet of lined paper, a pen, and Howard's briefcase between them. The Admiral watched in amazement as two of his people quickly began glancing between the squiggle covered paper and their blank papers began to fill with English words. Within a few minutes the two were finished and Howard and the Admiral looked at the two papers. They didn't have the exact same translations but the two papers carried the same meaning. The Admiral just glanced between the two papers and his people while Howard began to once again exclaim how incredible it all was.
"I must have them, Albert!"
