Chapter 12 Aunt Elizabeth
Ronnie and Hal left quickly and Bogg sat down on the edge of the bed. He hesitated, unsure what to say. "What's wrong?" he asked.
"Nothing," Jeff lied.
Bogg looked at the floor. "Well, something's been bothering you for a while and I wish you'd tell me, maybe I can help?"
Jeff half smiled, "there's nothing you can do."
"I can listen," Bogg told him.
Jeff took a deep breath, maybe if he talked about it he'd feel better. "I just keep thinking about my Aunt Elizabeth, that's all."
"You never mentioned her before" Bogg said quietly.
Jeff shrugged, "she's my father's sister. I was living with her when you fell into my room."
Bogg nodded, "and you didn't exactly mind leaving her, did you?"
Jeff shook his head. "She never did like me, not even a little," Jeff finished quietly.
Bogg paused, astonished by Jeff's comment. "Was she mean to you?" he said finally, a catch in his voice.
"She let me live in her apartment and she fed me, that's all," Jeff answered, his voice shaking with emotion.
"Why are you thinking about her now?"
Jeff wiped his eyes and looked away as he took a deep breath. "I don't know. I tried to forget about her, I thought I did too, but lately," he took an unsteady breath, "she just pops into my mind."
Bogg sat back in silence. "She must be an idiot, not to care about you."
Jeff shrugged and realized he did feel a little better after all.
"Well, I know one thing," Bogg continued, "are you listening, cause this is important," he said.
"What?" Jeff said.
"When you're in pain, everything seems worse than it really is." He paused and then continued, "so why don't you rest awhile, let that medicine work and then we'll get something to eat, okay?"
Jeff smiled back, "okay," he whispered.
A half-hour later they walked to the cafeteria and had supper. On the way back they passed a crowd staring up at a display board. "Hey Bogg, your name's up there," Jeff said excitedly. Then, as he read the title and smaller print he turned to Bogg and spoke again. "It says here that you're ranked 10th out of 140 voyagers," he said staring at his partner.
"This is called 'The Big Board'," Bogg explained. "The omni keeps statistics for each voyager, and every year we're ranked."
"Based on what?"
"Percentage of missions successfully completed."
Jeff stared at the list thinking. "We didn't ever fail to complete an assignment. Why aren't you first?" he asked.
"Last year I was, see?" Phineas said and pointed to another display nearby.
Jeff walked over to it and stared. "Wow!" he exclaimed. "I always knew you were the best voyager there was."
Bogg smiled and motioned for them to leave, but Jeff didn't follow. "So what do you get for being the best?" he asked.
"Well, if you meet another voyager in the field, the top ranking voyager makes the decisions. The omnis know which one takes precedence." Bogg paused, "don't you remember when Olivia wanted to go back to the Titanic? If she'd been ranked higher than me, she could have taken my omni and gone back."
"So why aren't you at the top any more? We complete all our assignments."
Bogg looked at him and shrugged, "I don't know, the omnis decide ranking." It wasn't really a lie, just an omission.
Author's Note: I got the idea for ranking the voyagers from Bogg's comment in the "Voyagers of the Titanic" episode. In that episode, he told Olivia, "Don't make me pull rank on you". I always wondered about that, and so I wrote it into this story.
