With barely restrained silence and a giddy grin, Sig peered into the forward tank as the processors heaved armloads of squirming crab into the large brailers. He looked over to Maria, whose intense glare followed the workers' and crabs' every move; laughing at her intense glare, he understood Norman's idea. When his brother had approached him with the idea of putting Maria on weights, the skipper's initial reaction was to refuse. There were a number of cannery workers Sig didn't trust, two of which were loading the brailer under Maria's watchful eye. Trusting Matt and Nick to watch over her from the deck, the skipper reluctantly went about business both on and off the boat.

Hours later, as the offloading was drawing to an end, Sig rejoined his crew on the deck and was impressed by Maria's keen focus, despite her apparent fatigue and discomfort in the cold predawn air. Every so often the two Hispanic men tried engaging the greenhorn in idle conversation. Without tearing her gaze from the tank, the young woman responded with a business like tone. Sig heard the tense undertone in her rapid Spanish as she caught one of the men tossing a dead crab atop the quickly filling brailer.

Catching the dead crab the young man chucked at her, Maria fought the urge to spit in his eye. Instead, she continued to carefully watch the loading. Once full, Maria wrote down the weight as the load was hauled from the tank. Taking advantage of the lull, Sig lit another cigarette and exhaled deeply.

"How's it going out here? They're not giving you any trouble, are they?" Although the blond skipper's nod indicated all four workers, Maria caught his meaning and shook her head.

"No, but if they do, I'll let you know." As the last empty brailer was lowered into the tank, the shorter of the Hispanic men muttered darkly to his friend. Eyes flashing, Maria answered sharply; her hands balling up reflexively, she flinched as Sig's hand on her shoulder restrained her from jumping into the tank. Snatching the clipboard from Maria's grip, he held it out for Nick to take. The skipper then turned his back to the tank as he whispered to the young woman,

"Matt and Nick are on the other side watching them, so I want you to look at me. Is what he said worth punching his face in?" Holding Maria's gaze, he saw her eyes glistening as she struggled to explain her anger.

"Pasco…he questioned my loyalty to my family…he questioned my honor. He knows what happened…everyone in the family knows. Pasco thinks I dishonored my family when I turned my brother and cousins in to the cops. He thinks I turned traitor on my family when I testified against them…that I abandoned my mother and Abuela when I came to work for you." As Pasco yelled at her in rapid Spanish, a dark shadow passed over her face before the color drained from her skin and she turned her face towards the sea. The tone in Sig's voice brought her head around as she fought back the tears. Following him inside, she slid behind the galley table; she studied her cold-chapped fingers as the sounds of Sig filling two mugs with the ever-present coffee filled the relative silence.

Sig sat across from her, pressing a stained mug into her hands and watched as she wiped a drop of coffee sliding down the white ceramic. Taking a sip, he let the silence drag until she said something. The skipper watched her squirm uncomfortably, alternately drinking the coffee and swirling the dark liquid in small circles. Finally, Sig's impatience won out and, draining the last of his coffee, slammed the black mug onto the table between them. Eyes flashing, he glared fiercely at the startled young woman.

"Enough! Enough with your self-pity, self-loathing bullshit! I've had it up to here with your stupid guilty looks and pissing and moaning about how your brother and his stupid friends blame you for their fucked up mistakes." Turning his glare to the mug before him, he sneered as he continued.

"If anyone should be dishonored, it should be them. You did the honorable thing…you did the right thing. You have more balls…and honor… than all of them combined. So quit being so damned pitiful and get over it already!"

"They're finished offloading and Norm went to get the final count…you wanna know what we came up with?" Maria jumped at Matt's unexpected voice and fumbled with her coffee mug as Sig slid off the bench so his three deckhands could sit down. Jake, laden with two boxes and a small sailcloth bag of letters, unceremoniously dumped the boxes on the table. While Nick and Matt worked together to add the weights totals with the Northwestern's two calculators, Sig watched as Maria rose and took her time refilling her mug. When she returned, Matt passed her the clipboard with a grumbled "here, you do it."

Maria set her mug down and snatched the pencil tucked behind Sig's ear before sitting. Running her pencil down the columns, she jotted down each number as she worked; her mouth moved silently as she mentally tallied the numbers. As she added the column totals, she closed her eyes with furrowed brows. Writing the sum down in a blank spot on the paper, she circled it and slid it through the growing pile of goodies Jake stacked upon the table so Nick could check her total.

"I think that's right, but I might be off." Nick's brows rose as he twisted the handheld calculator around so she could see his result. Matt laughed as she squinted and pulled the calculator closer, his voice reaching high-pitched tone as he mimicked her words.

"'I might be off' my ass. How the hell can you add all that up in your head?" Maria smirked proudly into her mug as she drained the last of her coffee. She avoided Matt's question by asking another and returned Nick's calculator.

"What'd you guys come up with?" Nick combined all three totals and passed the calculator to Sig, who whistled softly. The skipper wrote the combined total onto a sheet of paper before collecting the pages and left to finish up at the processor's office.

Returning a short while later, Sig lifted the official results towards the crew sorting through their stacks of mail.

"Damn we're good!" He laughed as Maria snatched the paper from Sig's hand and stared at the total pounds offloaded. Tugging gently, he pulled the paper from her shocked grip and ruffled her hair. Maria's expression of disbelief as the efforts of the past week and a half was summed up on a piece of paper had all five men grinning. On his way up to the wheelhouse, Norman winked at Maria.

"Feels pretty good to see the result of your hard work, don't it Fish?" Maria could only answer Norman's question with a speechless nod. Her crewmates laughed and she hid her embarrassment behind a large yawn. The others laughed again and Sig jerked his head toward the stateroom.

"You should get some sleep while you can. We'll be on the grounds again before you know it." Watching Maria rise and follow Nick into their stateroom while Matt disappeared into the one next door, the skipper missed Jake slipping an envelope into the pocket of his navy hoodie before falling in behind Maria.

Stumbling in her weariness, she felt strong arms steady her from behind. She looked over her shoulder at Jake's murmured concern and smiled reassuringly. Looking past Jake, she caught the unreadable look on the skipper's face. Her smile faltered and she forced herself to look away, fingering the patch she'd found time to sew onto Edgar's hoodie as she sat on the edge of her bunk.

Nothing's going to happen between me and Jake. I won't let it. Besides…when we're done fishing, I'm gonna be stuck at Mother's house until they figure out how I'm supposed to finish working off my community service. It's not like he'll have time to date me anyways.

Not bothering to change, Maria kicked off her boots and curled up under the sheets with her back to the room. Murmuring a soft response to Jake's ritual 'sweet dreams', she sighed and closed her eyes. As the lights were flipped off, she fingered the crucifix still about her neck and drifted into an uneasy sleep. Hours later, as Sig reclaimed his place at the helm and Norman returned to his bunk, Maria's restlessness began to fade.

In the darkness above the shifting greenhorn, Jake pulled the letter from his hoodie. He stared at it through the dark, hesitation and guilt gnawing at his conscious. Chewing his lower lip as he made up his mind, the young man rolled over and dug out the small flashlight from his pillowcase and slid a finger under the envelope's sealed flap to pull out the letters. The top one was addressed to him in English while the one behind it bore Maria's name. Reading quickly through his letter, Jake focused his attention on Maria's. It was written in a neatly flowing Spanish script and his brows furrowed in concentration. Taking his time to translate the letter, he reread it until he was certain of the contents.

Six hours later when Nick stood at his nephew's shoulder to wake him, he frowned at the sound of paper crumpling. He slid the crumpled letter from under Jake's cheek and the young man flinched at the sudden movement. As he turned his sleepy gaze to Nick, he came awake as he watched Nick scan the letter addressed to the younger man. Catching the questioning look on his uncle's face, Jake grimaced at the one Nick voiced as he held up Maria's letter.

"Doing some late night reading? Dammit, Jake, you know better."

"Please don't tell her. We're on a roll out here and that letter'll just kill her. I'll give it to her, I promise…" The wadded letter bounced off Jake's nose as Nick vented his distaste in his nephew's behavior.

"And when will that be, Jake, after the season's over? By then it'll be too late. She needs to get this letter – and the sooner she gets it, the better it'll be for everyone." A clearing throat behind Nick had Jake shoving both letters under his pillow and jumping down from his bunk in an instant. Norman narrowed his eyes in confusion, but let the matter drop as he saw the dirty look Nick shot at Jake.

"Speaking of late, Sig's pissed you're not already on deck. Save this little family meeting for later and get to work." Nick shouldered his way past Norman and as Jake went to move past the deckhand-turned deckboss, Norman blocked his path.

"Nick's right. First chance you get, you need to give her the letter. Or I will, understand?" Jake's face paled at Norman's promise and nodded silently. The older man pushed away from the doorframe in a manner identical to Edgar's and Jake found himself once again missing his mentor. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs and suited up. As he struggled to secure the hatch, the youngest deckhand grimaced at Sig's sarcastic greeting.

"Glad you could join us, Junior. Now hurry up before you miss the fucking pot."

Peering into the shadowy half-light of dusk, Jake sized up the strength needed to nail the pot and let the hook sail through the air. Even as the hook landed with a muffled smack between the buoys, Jake was pulling in the slack line. With the routine motions of hauling gear crowding out all thoughts, the young man sighed heavily.

Matt stood on the other side of the raising pot, helping his friend to guide the metal and mesh pot onto the block. The lack of Jake's usual cheeriness, especially when luck and Sig's skill landed them back on the crab, felt out of place…and wrong. Pulling the last crab from the mesh, he stepped aside as Maria arrived to rebait the pot and understanding narrowed his eyes.

Where once Jake couldn't take his eyes from the Northwestern's first and only female greenhorn, the young man took one glance at her and guilt filled his eyes as he turned away. In the mere moments it took for the pot to be baited and returned to the ocean, everyone on deck knew his heart wasn't in the work. Maria placed herself by Jake as she assisted the sorting and kept glancing at him from the corner of her eye. His unusual silence perturbed her; his inability to meet her eye saddened her. Every attempt to engage Jake in conversation was met with resistance and by the end of the string her patience was running thin.

On the run to their next string, Maria deliberately sat next to Jake and rested her head on his shoulder. Closing her eyes against the stinging tears as she felt him tense beneath her cheek, she sighed and straightened. Her eyes opened as Jake's hand slipped into her own with an apologetic squeeze. She forced a smile as she met his gaze, faltering as he weakly returned the gesture.

"¿Jake, qué se equivoca? Por favor, dígame. (Jake, what's wrong? Please, tell me.) Jake…wait…" Tears stung her eyes again as Jake pulled his hand from hers and disappeared around the corner towards the galley. Drawing her knees to her chest, she wrapped her arms tightly around them and buried her face against the sea-soaked slickers. Her shoulders shook with silent sobs as she mentally cursed herself. Feeling a hand rub her back, she turned to look at Nick sitting next to her.

Nick winced at the hurt in Maria's dark eyes. Unable to do anything else, he continued to rub her back comfortingly as the tears slid down her cheeks. Uneasy in the awkward silence, Norman and Matt retreated to the galley for coffee. Nick remained silent for a moment before clearing his throat and returning his hand to his lap. Maria sniffled and bit back the remaining tears. She peeled off a glove and scrubbed the tears from her cheeks; resting her chin on her knees, she stared unseeing at the block before her. Nick debated on telling Maria about the letter Jake had kept from her, but decided it was ultimately Jake's responsibility. Instead, he settled for another reason for his nephew's odd behavior.

"Fish, Jake gets moody sometimes. He says it's because of his sisters, but…look. He didn't mean to hurt you. I think he's just trying to figure you out. Heck, we're all trying to figure you out. Give Jakers some time; he'll come around." A shadow of a smile twitched at her lips as she sniffled again.

"After all we've been through in the month we've known each other…you're still trying to figure me out?"

"Hey, you're not the easiest girl to figure out, y'know. Emmie's easier to figure out than you are." Maria laughed despite her hurt and looked at Nick.

"Yeah, well…Emmie's four, Nick. Just wait until she gets older." Nick shuddered at the thought and held up his hands as if to ward off the thought of his daughter growing up. They both laughed at his 'don't even go there' and by the time Matt returned with a mug of coffee for each, Maria's tears were dried and her spirits on the mend. Taking a sip of the scalding liquid before setting it down in the storage room, she watched with a faint smile as Jake took up his place at the rail.

Give him some time to figure me out, huh? I guess I can do that.

A/N: I've been taking some time away from this story, but I'm back working on it. Slowly but surely it's coming back to where I want it to go. The story's almost finished now...a couple more chapters are all that's left. Any questions, reviews, and constructive criticisms are most welcome.


Story Copyrighted Alissa Franko 2009-2010