Author's Note: This chapter was writting all by long hand around a campfire throughout late last night into the early morning hours. Trying to make legible my chicken scratch was quite the comical feat! Today, as promised, I am sending you or suggesting that you check out some of these stories in between my updates. First is by JakeHarrisLover with a great completed work called "So Contagious" pay attention to the rating, it's a "T" like Drifting Anchor. The other work is by IrishCaptain with a wonderful piece called "Old Friends, New Feelings" rated "M". Be mindful of the ratings, I don't need young'ins reading things they best not be reading. ;) Anyway, since the formatting on here eats up hyperlinks, just use the search to easily find both. Highly recommended! With that, we're back on schedule with where we should be on the weekly updates. I've tried my hardest to maintain a steady update for you all, so that I can keep it flowing fluidly and maintain your interest. How am I doing? :) Enjoy this next bit, heavily Viv-involved. OH! And TOLD YA! Northwestern and Time Bandit are back in the saddle, baby! Shout Out to Cohen Gardner LLP for kickin ass and taking names. With that, in no way, shape or form is this a true story. All crew from the Deadliest Catch (eg: Northwestern, Cornelia Marie, Time Bandit, etc) are the rightful owners of trademark and registered publishing for their specific namesakes. I make no claims of ownership; I am just a writer, doing what I love.

"Well I'll be a son of a bitch," Darlington thought to himself, spinning back on his heels trying to void the crew from going after Edgar. "My assistant has training in therapy and emergency crisis, give her a second to work her magic," Darlington smiled, lying through his teeth.

The captains still exchanging a look of 'what the…' Sig sat, shaking his head. "He's a good man," Sig said, "he's just a troubled one" realizing where he was, he looked up "and that better stay off the record!" His stern words could send a chill down anyone's spine, let alone anyone who dared to go against what he said.

"We're off record," Keith noted to Sig "and we will remain so until we start rolling again. But Sig, we really need your brother back here," he told him, concern in his voice. The Hansen men were as predictable as the weather, you think you're on to something and then just like that, it turns on you. Very few individuals over the course of Edgar's life though, could talk him down calmly without severe repercussions.

"You got your opening scene, no?" Sig asked, looking straight to Keith.

"Yeah, we have the most important footage we needed; at this point we can wait him out if it's necessary." While hesitant to say that for fear the other captains would protest or bitch and moan, Keith was relieved to see so long as the men had free flowing drinks and cigarettes at the ready, they would easily wait out Edgar; at least for a little while longer.

xXxXxXx

Pacing back and forth, Edgar began panicking, thinking to himself as he took an exaggerated drag on his cigarette of all the things he confided in Emh. 'Oh God,' he worried, it was a bad idea to be involved with another woman, no matter the situation it would look bad in press. His subconscious kept throwing out terms like 'the other woman' and 'affair'- it was selfish to think of only him in this scenario, it was another to think of Emh getting bad press for being the home wrecker. She was far too innocent in all of this to be dragged through the vicious cycle of bad press. He continued to pace, cursing himself for even allowing this to go on as it had; he felt that his action by getting caught up in the whimsy of Emh were now going haunt him. 'I should have just said who I was to begin with, that would have helped everyth…'

As he was lost in thought, trying best as he could to contemplate a way of handling this, a hand that gently tapped his shoulder startled him back to reality. With a jolt, he turned, half expecting to see Sig, but not shocked to see her kind, sweet face looking at him so concerned. "Are you okay?" She asked worry sprawling across her young face. She gave a few paces of space between them, backing away. His expression upon seeing her caused a churning in her stomach. Not expecting a bad reaction, but bracing for words that could discourage, this very scenario proved they were both on entirely different wave lengths. She worried he was upset that she was there, that somehow she was on grounds that should not have been trespassed. He was more concerned with his actions, that by allowing her in to his life, capitalizing on her ignorance of who he was, just really overcomplicated both their lives.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, still reacting to the surprise of seeing her face.

"That first friend I made here, that I had told you about? That's Darlington. He's been having me follow him the last two days; I guess this is what he does…" Despite a few moments passing, Edgar still hadn't responded, "I'm sorry if you're mad. I had no idea. I'm just tagging along; he was trying to do a favor."

"So did you know he works for Discovery this whole time?" he asked, his voice coming off sterner than he had intended.

"He mentioned he worked for them and a Mike Rowe, but until yesterday I had no idea who Mike Rowe was, I still don't, but I have a better idea now that I've spent the last day or so watching him work. I'm sorry, I didn't know…"

"Emh, don't apologize. You don't have a right to be upset or be sorry, but now that my cover is blown, I am Edgar Hansen; deck boss to the fishing vessel Northwestern. I am a part of this huge reality series Deadliest Catch. We all have fans; women that document our every move, that stake out meet and greets and try to be with us. To some people, we guys are kind of a big deal, I'm sorry I wasn't forthcoming about it."

"Why did you feel you had to hide it? This doesn't really change anything for me?"

He paused again appearing deep in thought. He eyed Emh several times, having finished his cigarette and leaning against the back of the building. Looking to her, he squinted, quizzing her; "You really know nothing about this show or what I'm talking about, or what we're doing here?"

"Dear sweet Edgar… Hansen," she smiled, "No, I never had a clue who you were, what you did, nor had I ever a reason to really guess. I assumed it was something to do with real estate, but I figured when you felt it was in my interest to know more about you, you'd tell me. My life back home sweetheart wasn't one that involved fishing, the fishing industry, or a lot of television about the commercial fishing industry. Say I live under a rock if it makes more sense, but when it came to reality television, I had no clue. So no, I hadn't any inkling about any of this, I promise. I know only of what you told me."

The answer seemed to satisfy what it was Edgar needed appeased. "When you walked in, you could have knocked me over with a feather," she continued, smiling. "But even watching you come in and sit down, it wasn't like I had this 'ah ha' moment where everything came together. I was more like 'huh, didn't see that coming' more than anything" Emh giggled, trying to lighten the intensity of the moment.

Edgar looked her square in the eye trying to decipher one last time if she was being honest with him, or trying in her endearing way to just ease his mind. Believing with all he had that she wasn't someone who had that bone in her to being malicious, Edgar struggled with the idea of having something genuine coming from a female. His track record was spotty with women being honest about things, but before he even could begin to say something, she offered up her day to leave. "If you want, I don't have to stay" she said, offering him an easy out so he could get done what he needed to.

"Actually," he laughed to himself, feeling the nerves and stress tighten his neck muscles, tension stiffening them with every passing moment, "I think someone is going to want to meet you," he said, rubbing his neck with his free hand.

"Who?" She asked, looking at him with confusion written all over her

"My brother."

"You look familiar" Trig said, slapping down a white square napkin and asking Viv what she would like.

"Pink squirrel please" she said. Though she happened to miss his reaction, Trig shifted his eyes several times over at the 'pink squirrel' request. He was used to pouring whiskey over the rocks with water, or a rum and coke.

"A pink squirrel?" he reiterated

"Yes please."

At least she was being cordial about it. Thing is, she wasn't in some hip Seattle club that offered things like Creme de Noyaux that was required of a pink squirrel. On top of that she was in Unalaska, the only bar on the island, where bottles of beer were kept in stock and the variety of whiskey far outweighed any crème de somethings. "Ma'am, I hate to say it, but I haven't what's required of the drink here, could I try making you something else that could be comparable?"

"Sure, sure" she muttered. Normally at this point she would have tossed her hand in gesture toward him of her displeasure, but she was trying to change that. Her patience did wane quite a bit, but the pay off was a sweet tasting drink, a little too strong for her tastes, but scrumptious at the very least.

"Tell me about these photos," she demanded, pointing to several behind his back.

"What would you like to know?"

"Their stories of course," she said, fingering through some of the prints that were left on the bar.

"Well first, let me ask you about yourself if I may, to see how I will need to explain myself," he said, somewhat losing Viv in the conversation.

"I live in Washington, I'm up here trying to retrace some of the steps my husband has taken as he has been a deck hand for a boat."

"Oh is he now," Trig questioned, looking to her and calling her bluff. "What ship?"

"Aleutian Ballad," she lied, knowing fair well she could make up some story based off the information she had learned from the captain the days before.

"What's his name? I probably know him,"

"He was a one-season green horn. Couldn't stomach the sea, so I really doubt it; I'm just curious to retrace some of his steps. He said I'd never make it up in Alaska, too cold, too this, too that, so I'm here without him knowing," she smiled slyly, putting to use some of the terms she remember from the conversation with that captain, "so about these pictures, tell me some stories."

"Well," he said, turning and leaning against the bars counter, getting now the same view and perspective that Viv had. Closing in on a picture he pulled it from the wall, the one above and the one to the right were of the Northwestern crew, she sighed quietly as he approached her.

"The Cornelia Marie" he said, pointing to each and every man in the photo. "One of the nicest Captains around, Phil here," he noted, pointing to the man center in the picture "is a regular, a damn good tipper and one hell of a drinker. I'd love to see his liver," he laughed, coming off a bit creepish to Viv. "He can party it up like no other I've seen. His sons are taking after him," Trig laughed, "oh the stories these walls could tell that just involved the Harris guys." Taking a moment to highlight in his mind a reel of the crazier times, Trig leaned forward and pulled another, one of the Northwestern.

Viv's heart began to race violently, "and these guys, what a bunch," he chuckled to himself. Viv could tell this man would have the juicier details, he could tell Viv things she's sure none of the crew would ever think would have made daylight again. "Where to begin, this crew is primarily made up of Norwegian brothers. They're full blooded, speak the language fluently and have fishermen blood coursing through their veins for generations upon generations. They've been regulars on and off for years. I've been tending bar for 20-years and I've seen them come in and out here that entire time. One more so than the others, but the captain Sig, has definitely taken up everything this bar has had to offer."

Suddenly Trig had a light go off in his head and paused. "You're not a reporter or anything, are you? Cause I will be the first to deny everything I'm saying here if someone comes back to facts check," he laughed, half kidding.

"No, I'm just a patron, no reporting being done. Only for my curiosity"

Content with the answer, he continued. "When this place was the Elbowroom, this was genuinely one of the gritty, thrown-down types of bar. There'd be fights, we wouldn't condone them but we also didn't stop them. They'd take it outside, come back in and whoever was in the wrong often rang that bell over there," he pointed, "and would offer up an entire round to whoever was inside," smiling, "myself included. There'd be days where everyone in here was drunker than the next." Seeing her look of somewhat disgust, "ma'am, we don't have much up here to do, so we drink. We fight, we fuck and we fish."

Taking a sip of her drink, she looked to him "continue…"

"Well Sig here, when he started coming up here he was just a kid; late teens. He would get drunk out of his mind and one of resident females on the island showed him a good time just over there," he said, watching as Viv turned to see where he was pointing. A dimly lit hall, cramped quarters to say the least; she had a bit of her old self bubble to the surface wondering how kindly Jules would take to that piece of information. 'Yeah, so Jules, your husband became a man in a bar hall for the rest to see by the resident whore.' Viv had to rethink her motives and why she was here. Yet again, this would be just another piece of information she's come along that would remain with her and only her.

"Drugs for awhile flowed through here freely. Cocaine was the choice drug among the crews for its ability to give them boundless energy. It was something Captain Phil would use regularly to keep him up for days on end. It didn't really tarnish his image either it just explained why he was able to be up so long. There were no secrets among crew members here. Again, fishermen fuck, fight and fish. It's a saying that's that rawest, truest reality up here. But a lot also use up here. There are uppers and downers, but the use has really died down since unions and other administrations came in here and revamped a lot of things in the 90's. The hay day was all the way through the 80's. Debauchery in its top form; but it was fun."

"So did that captain use up here?"

"Sig dabbled, he tried almost everything but he at the end would just stick to the women and whiskey. Eventually when he had a good woman back home, he just kept to the whiskey. His other crew members I couldn't say the same thing about. He has two brothers," Trig said, not having the slightest clue that the mere mention of his two other brothers made Viv's heart and stomach sink. "Norman is an odd fucker," Trig laughed, his language very loose, "man hardy said a word in all the times he's been up here. He was the cleanest, wouldn't try a single drug nor dabble with a single woman, but did drink like a fish. He could polish off a bottle in a night, and still seemed relatively unfazed. I'm convinced those Norwegians have alcohol running through their veins, not blood."

Viv laughed, "They sound like my husband," she retorted, feeling she needed to say something to urge along the conversation to what she was most desperate to hear about. In some ways things internally were screaming at her to plug her ears, chant 'la la la la la, I don't hear this' yet at the same time, she'd have cold hard truth coming from this bartender on whether her husband had been telling her the truth when she tried so hard to pry.

"I kind of feel sorry for the other Hansen, Edgar," Trig sighed, using his bar towel to rub down a water ring Viv's glass had left. "He really got hit hard by his taste for the coke." Switching out glasses, automatically refilling for Viv just assuming, "I was here the night he first very apprehensively tried it and I knew it wouldn't end well with how lively and jovial he became. It was like every good characteristic in him was enhanced and he became the life of the party. I still remember how he kept saying 'this is fucking great, I feel awesome' because initially it was comical, then it became a bit disturbing when he hadn't come down and was still all hopped up. That night they had just finished off their Opilio season and he and Phil were the ones to shut down the joint. It was like that day woke a beast and for years I've seen him try to take it head on and clean up."

Viv's ears were deceiving her, she couldn't comprehend the story she already knew, but was being told to her so uncensored and factual to what her husband tried telling her. "For years after, his older brother Sig would confide in me to the best of his ability that he felt responsible and at fault for his addiction. Many times his drunken binges would be fueled by the guilt he felt for being the one to first introduce his younger brother to it. Sig used but used briefly, Edgar was a repeat offender and I often thought of him when he'd head back to Seattle, thinking if he used when he was down there, or if that was solely for when he was up this way."

Viv fell into deep thought thinking all throughout their courtship if what Trig was describing of Edgar, she saw when they were together down in Seattle. Edgar's claims were that he only used up there, and per Trig's descriptions of what Edgar was like when high, Viv knew her husband was honest when he said it was only in Dutch where he dabbled.

"He changed or seemed to change every season I saw him. He never found comfort in the women down here, maybe once or twice when his face first started showing up here, but that may be wrong information. He was just our drinking user, never synonymous with women. He, like Sig, did calm down substantially when he found a woman back home. She was the topic of discussion many a nights, especially when he started throwing around the marriage idea. We always give men up here shit about it when the start talking marriage, they always change, they always end up whipped or somehow less of the rugged man we've grown up with."

"Did he change at all? You'd think it would be harder having a family back home, rather than a swinging bachelor lifestyle where you didn't have a worry left behind…"

Trig stopped to think, clearly going back into the recesses of his mind to find out whether Edgar did change. "You know, parts of him did. He was a lot calmer, seemed to go through periods where he would have severe homesickness, miss his family. You could so clearly see the rollercoaster ride the marriage was causing for him. She was hard on him; his biggest complaint was the guilt that she made him feel. He stands out among the sea of fishermen because he seemed so troubled with how his marriage was going."

"How is that?"

Completely oblivious to the fact they had already spent a good half hour on just Edgar alone, Trig continued, enjoying this give and take conversation he and this lady were having. "She made him feel guilty for being up here despite Edgar having mentioned she came from some kind of fishing background. He laid his cards all out to her, or at least was telling us he was. When they finally got married for the first couple years there seemed to be no issues. But then things started getting rocky when they had their first kid. I think when his second kid came around, his son, things really fractured. He drank so heavily up here when they came back, he was just sick to himself that he had missed the birth. We never really understood the personal demons he had or the issues with his marriage, but all of us could see he began to change."

Viv began feeling like she was marching up to a firing squad, her guilt so palpable and undeniable, this honest look at how she was to her husband and how it affected him was becoming too much to hear.

"When that King Crab season ended not that long ago, maybe a season or two, I've never seen what I saw with someone that night. He came in here, didn't speak to a soul, kept to himself and just sat there, hood up, drinking so fast and so much, it was like he was trying desperate to forget something or … I can't really place it. He was inconsolable. He had an 'emergency flight' back to Seattle but they wouldn't be taking off for a few hours. His brother sat next to him, not saying a word, but just him being next to Edgar was so bizarre. We left them alone."

"Ever find out what happened?"

"When Edgar left, he went on the flight alone. Sig came back here, just before closing, and just had the world biggest meltdown I think I ever bear witness to. Some kind of screwball threat came from his wife, messed up his brother pretty bad to the point that Sig was worried for him. He was going to go back to make sure he was alright and "didn't do anything stupid" but he couldn't leave the boat with the start up of Opilio so quickly. He was already now a man short; he couldn't leave his crew to 4-men. We never really found out the details, or really, I never found out the details, but I can say that man has not been the same since. He had come in here since then as a raging alcoholic, coming in with his own bottles, while also drinking our supply. He hasn't been himself since."

"Do you think it's the job that did him in?"

"Absolutely not; I watched this man grow up in this profession, season after season, year after year. He loves this job, it's all he knows and he at one point loved it. He became full share, trained in as a captain, it was his life. It's the marriage that screwed him up and then the kids that gave his wife leverage. He also made side comments about his constant worry that their mother wasn't a good mother to his children. Little things he'd obsess over that she'd say or do. It ate away at him. I'd be surprised if after this last blow up we ever see Edgar up here again."

In brief but awkward silence, Viv sat in shock as Trig moved from their end of the bar to the other when a few rough looking patrons walked in. Dirty up to their eye balls they had been working on a vessel in the ship yard and needed a break. Since happy hour didn't exist at Latitudes, since every hour was happy hour, the men sat and talked amongst themselves as Trig once again returned to Viv.

"They've had a lot of drama on that boat in recent seasons, because then another deckhand of theirs found out mid-season that his father had disappeared. Literally a missing persons case somewhere up in Washington. It's like a sudden black cloud began to torment and follow that crew, and with the Hansen's as superstitious as they are, Sig couldn't handle all the 'bad juju'. He has been obsessing about things he can do to alleviate all their problems, but at last check, things are still pretty messed up for him and his crew."

"Wow," was all Viv could muster up. "What a heavy conversation," she said trying her hardest to use a genuine laugh to brush off all the emotions her body and mind were raging with.

"And then this crew…" he said, taking off another picture on the wall of the crew from Time Bandit. "I don't even know where to begin with these guys…" Trig roared to life with laughter, but it was all for not, as Viv tuned him out, deep in her own thoughts now with all the information she just had received about her husband.

The reality seemed pretty grim that she could ever undo all she had done and caused for her husband. He was damaged goods now, all done by the hands of his spouse that pledged to honor and love him till death do they part. Throwing a $20 down on the counter, Viv left the bar in one swift movement. Her eyes streaked with tears as she tried searching for the red car through her blurred teary vision. She had been there nearly two hours. Two hours that would kick start the events needing to take place in order for her to ever try and reconcile with her husband. The feeling of being mortified of her actions, the level of shame she felt and the worry that it was too late flashed before her. "I need help," she confessed, making her act of contrition to the empty parking lot surrounding her. "I have been so unspeakably wrong, so devastatingly terrible and awful to the man I still love." Waiting for a familiar red car to appear, the sky opened up with a clap of thunder in this unpredictable climate she was in. As the rain began coming down, harder in its intensity, it felt poetically justifiable. It suited her mood, where she could no longer shed anymore tears; Mother Nature did so for her.