**Hunger Strike, Temple of the Dog**
"Chief of Navel Operations Office, this is Valerie speaking." Ray gulped. He had expected Kara or Kat to answer the phone and Val's greeting threw him off guard. He glanced at his watch and frowned. Last he knew Kat worked with Kara from noon to six every day. He hoped something wasn't going on with the kids that he hadn't heard about yet. "Goddamn it, I thought I fixed the call dropping problem at the switchboard." Val's muttering brought him out of his stupor.
"Val! Don't hang up. It's Ray, uh Seaman Diaz."
She sighed. "Well this is a surprise. Commanders Green and Chandler are busy at the moment. I don't think I'm authorized to take your report. I guess I can, ah," He heard papers shuffling around the desk. "…take a message? Kara's having her baby but Chandler will be back soon. At least I hope he will." She trailed off into some muttering about special pink message slips.
Burk always called in their reports but he supposed that she might not know that. He was still a little fuzzy on what exactly Val's role was, other than being Alisha's girlfriend. To hear Kat talk about it, Kara was already planning the couple's wedding. But still, if she was in the office every day she could probably help him.
"Actually, this is a social call. I'm trying to-"
"Seriously! You know these secure lines are for urgent business only. What if Green's team tries to call in from the field and gets a busy signal? Or a foreign country reaches out to us for the cure and can't get through, huh?"
"Sorry. I did know that. But it is urgent. I've been trying to get in touch with Kat all day and she's not answering my calls. We're headed out of port and I'll lose the cell reception so I had to try. Is everything all right there?"
"You mean other than no one being available to man the office except me because Kara is busy with the new baby? Yeah, it's just peachy."
"Where's Kat? Doesn't she usually handle the phones?"
"Shit!" She paused. And then she muttered a quiet "Fuck, why do these things always fall on me?" Ray's mind immediately launched into imagining wildly bad scenarios where Kat was hurt or one of the kids was hurt. He flexed his sweaty hand around the phone receiver and tried to calm himself down. "Listen Bud, I don't know how else to say this, but, Kat's gone. I don't know how you couldn't have gotten the message but I guess with everything happening so fast.."
"What?" No one had told him! How could no one have told him? He was sure Kara would have known. "What happened, when how? Was she with the kids? Are they OK?" His voice began to break at the end and he paused to suck in deep breaths. There was a long dead space during which his heart began to collapse in on itself. That was all he got? One month with her?
"Oh for goodness sakes, you kids are so overly dramatic. She's not dead! She's just moved with Tex, for his new assignment. I honestly don't know all the details but whatever happened, it was juicy. Oh, and she was pissed at you kid. Spent over an hour sitting in this chair making a mess of Kara's ink blotter blubbering about you the other day."
"Tex has been reassigned?" He didn't understand. That sounded like the kind of thing Kat would have texted about. He fumbled with his phone to check if he'd missed any messages even though he knew that he hadn't missed a single thing.
"He's been booted actually. Thanks to you we figured out that he was the one sending messages about Michener's whereabouts. I can't believe it was right under our noses all along. The guy isn't even from Texas!"
A shudder rumbled through the ship as they changed course in the current making their way out into Puget Sound, and he was torn between a desire to run away as far as he could from St. Louis and the desire to jump over the rail, find a car, and head right back the way he came to fix it all any way he could. But first he needed to know what had happened. "Thanks to me? I don't understand." How could he have possibly helped with that?
"Yeah, if it wasn't for you telling Burk that Tex spoke Paiute we would have never figured it out. You've saved the day twice in two months. That's a pretty good track record for a newbie."
He ignored her cheeriness. "Where did they go?" His voice was barely a whisper; his throat had closed itself off. Why had he opened his big mouth? Was fitting in with the guys as important as Kat? He'd promised to protect Tex's secrets that night after Miss Kitty's and now he'd carelessly ruined everything. No wonder she wasn't responding to his texts.
"I'm sorry, I'm not at liberty to share that information. Look kid, I have to go. Unless this is official we really do need to free up the line."
He hung up the phone without saying another word. Somehow he made it back to the cabin he had been assigned to share with Miller and two other guys and crawled into his bunk. Later that day when Burk requested the team meet to discuss their next orders he went through the motions of dressing and made it to the wardroom.
"Green's team thinks they have a lead on where the MCF took the vaccine making stuff. The Nathan James is coming back up from South America as fast as they can but there is no guarantee that they will make it in time. Chandler asked the Hayward to get in position to help with exfil in the event that things in the desert get hot. That means we're heading south and once we have them on board we're probably heading to a lab in Hawaii. I know this was supposed to be a short trip, but chances are we're going to be at sea a long time." Burk explained. "Diaz, Chandler wants me to offer you a choice of staying on here or going back to St. Louis to train more. Miller, you can transfer to the Nathan James if you request it. Taylor, he wants you to know you are welcome to stay on but if you decide you need to go, he says there will always be a spot for you. He made it clear that you're all overdue for R&R."
Ray glanced at Miller who chewed the inside of his lip before asking, "What are you going to do sir?"
Burk stared at his boots for a full ten seconds before he answered. "The James has been the best ship I've ever been on. And I know I would continue to learn and grow under Slattery's command. So I managed to convince Cam to request a temporary transfer to Slattery's command."
Miller rocked on his heels. "Well if we are needed at sea, I will stay here."
Taylor nodded. "I do want to get back to 'Straya as soon as I can, but since the Hayward is headed in the direction I need to go, might as well take advantage of the free ride. What about you kid?" He bumped Ray's shoulder "You're not full of your usual questions tonight."
Should he take the chance to go back to St. Louis and maybe work out a way to go see Kathleen in person? He owed Tex an apology if nothing else. But maybe it was for the best that he give her some time to cool off. "If the rest of the team is staying, so am I." He'd already screwed up one good thing. Better not mess with the next best thing he had.
And so we conclude Seek First to Understand. Thanks you for reading! I'll admit, my heart is a little bit broken right now. Kara had the baby early and Danny doesn't even know about it yet; Danny's dad turned out to be the one spying on the President; The country is in shambles; Tex is leaving town in apparent disgrace; and Kat and Ray have split. If you want to see how it all ends tune in for the 7th and final installment of the Seven Habits series entitled Think Win-Win coming an a few months. In the meantime, I will be posting a shorter story about an OC who will have a significant part in Think Win-Win called The Forest and the Trees. Happy reading! -Tess