Part Five – Meetin' Mama

I stood out on the tarmac, checking my phone and I find I say out loud, "She's running late."

Looking back up into the sky, I keep searching for my mother and sister's Greyhound, it should be arriving any minute I had no worries about that plane running behind, rather it was NC and her task force that was pushing ten hours overdue right now. The last I had heard, they were only running behind a little bit, but that was twelve hours ago. My thoughts are interrupted as my ears pick up the sound of a twin-turboprop plane on approach from the southeast. Putting my hand up to the end of my cap to shield more sun from my eyes I search the sky for the noise and spot it turning and heading for the glideslope and I sigh out, "NC, where are you?"

I know I'm not going to get an answer on that right now. Right now I've got to be ready to show my mom and little sister around my base and be ready to explain to them what everything is. I start running through my mind, how to approach any possible question. At least when I get the one about where NC is, I can answer it honestly and say that she is currently on deployment. My attention is taken up by the sound of a water droplet hitting the brim of my cap, looking up I see that rain clouds had rolled in from the North West, scratch that, storm clouds going by the look of them. Well, at least I won't have to explain away lots of women in bikinis today.

As the plane comes to a stop and powers down, I wave forward the manjuu to ground the plane and get it fueled up. These planes are great and all, but due to the nature of this base, I can't have them stick around longer than they need to, doubly so when it's outside the normal delivery schedule. Not a heartbeat after the little chickens get to work, the ramp comes down and I hear my mother before I see her, "Jackie!"

I smile to myself, my mom is about the only one I'll let call me that these days. Once the ramp touches the ground, I see them both, my mom with her greying blond hair tied in a loose short ponytail and dressed for warm weather. Just behind her, I see my little sister, and my head tits to the side as I notice that she's dyed her hair bright pink. I almost do a double-take, I mean she looks like she could slot right into the Atlanta class or even the Lexington class. My mother hurries down the ramp and wraps me in a tight hug as she says to me, "Oh I missed ya."

I hug her back tightly as I say, with that southern drawl coming out, "Missed you too mama."

She squeezed just a little harder before letting go, inspecting me for a moment before looking around and asking, "So? Where is she?"

I rub the back of my head as I say to her, "She's on a deployment right now, she should be back today."

My sister grabs their bags and tossed them into the jeep as she asks, "Can we go inside? It's starting to rain."

I laugh and gesture to the jeep as I say to my mom, "Come on, I'll take you to my quarters and get you settled in. After that, I'll get us some take-out from the town."

As we climb into the jeep, my mom looks at me and asks, "Town? I thought this was a base?"

I sigh inwardly, before I say, "It's a long story and one that is going to have more questions that I think you'll need to be sittin' down for."

My mom laughs and teases, "That drawls comin' outta ya."

XXXX

Oh, how I wish I had managed to drive to my quarters without coming across any scantily clad kansen. But well the universe had other plans for me it seems. But that was nothing compared to what happened when we got to my quarters and my little sister spotted a meowfficer at my doorstep and she called out, "Jack, how did you ever get a cat to wear a sailor costume?"

My attention snapped to my porch and I saw it, looking at the name on the cap my head tilted to the side and I yelled out over the rain, "SG, is something wrong?"

As I got out of the jeep, SG shook its head from side to side and I hurried up the stairs with my hand out. As soon I was close enough, SG reached behind it and pulled out a letter, and handed it to me before scampering off. I opened the letter right away and started scanning it for information, behind me I heard Kristin ask, "So, are we just not going to talk about a cat that understood English, handed you a note, and left?"

I shake my head and state in a tone that suggested this was normal, "The meowfficers are not simply cats, they perform operations on the base. SG's main duty is to monitor coms, and it must be important as they why they came out here to hand-deliver this to me."

I feel a hand on my shoulder before my mom asks, "Everythin' alright, Jackie?"

I finally hit the important part of the note and I breathe a sigh of relief before saying, "NC and her task force were delayed by the storm that rolled in right on top of them. She says that they chose to wait out the storm and it put them ten hours behind."

Folding the note and putting it in a pocket before I unlocked the door in time for Kristin to rush inside, while my mom asked, "So, I saw a few ladies on the base that were not wearing much." She paused and looked around before adding, "But I didn't see any guys, are you the only one here?"

I hang my head and close the door while I sigh out, "Yeah."

There was an air of awkwardness for a minute before my mom asked, "Also isn't it kind of strange to see so very few people on a base with this many ships?"

Of course, she takes note of that.

I sigh and walk over the railing on my front porch, leaning against it as I look out at the rain coming down and say, "That's why this base is so classified it isn't funny."

My mom moved to stand beside me and asked, "How so?"

I look at her out of the corner of my eye and shrug as I say, "Every lady you saw is a ship."

She's quiet for a moment before asking, "I don't get it?"

I give a slight laugh before I go about explaining what kansen are to my mom, how it's my job to help them to learn how to be more human for when it's decided by the powers that be, for the kansen to be introduced to the general population. That was when the big question came in, "An' this lady your seein', is she one of 'em?"

Well, time to see if my mom is going to be willing to accept the idea or not, I sigh and hang my head again as I ask, "Would it matter? I mean she makes me happy, I'm excited to see her and talk to her. I worry about her when she goes out on a deployment, and believe me, I know I'm the weaker partner in the relationship."

I fully expected to hear my mother go off on some racial rant or some religious rant about how it was against the laws of nature. But what I got, kind of surprised me when she said, "I'll hold my judgment till I meet her."

After a moment, my mom brushes her hair with one hand and asks, "So, what kind is she? What does she look like?"

I get what she's worried about; she's worried I might've attached myself to one of the destroyers or younger-looking ones. I laugh a little and shake my head before I say, "She's socially acceptable. In fact, you'd have a hard time telling that she's kansen at all. But to answer your question, she's a battleship class, she's the N-"

I was cut off when I heard my name said with that southern drawl, "Jack!"

I look out into the rain and see NC running on the road, her shoes in one hand. She's looking soaked in the rain that's coming down. From beside me, I hear my mom whisper to me, "Is that her?"

With a nod, I say with a smile on my face, "Yeah."

Once NC gets up to the porch she bends and her hips to catch her breath as she says, "I got here as fast as I could, I even pushed myself to get here faster than the rest of the task force."

I get off the railing and move over to her as I say, "It's alright C-"

Before I could finish that thought she stood upright, and locked her blue eyes on my mom before offering out a little curtsy as she said, "I'm North Carolina, a pleasure to meet ya, Mrs. Bellamy."

My mom went around me to walk around NC, inspecting her from bridge to stern before asking, "Are ya really The North Carolina? I remember seein' her in Wilmington when I was little."

NC looked down and fiddled with the hem of her dress before saying, "I don't remember a lot from that time, just a lot of time bein' board, missin' Enty, an' Washy."

My mom gave her a sideways look as she asked, "Who?"

I cleared my throat before I answered, "The Enterprise and NC's sister, Washington."

My mother turned slightly, looking at me with one of her green eyes over a shoulder as she said, "Jackie, sweetie could ya go an' check on Kristin?"

I knew better than to stick around, that was my mom's way of telling me to get lost. I look to NC and see her give me a nod, telling me without words that she'd be fine, I sigh and head inside.

As soon as I close the door behind me, I see my little sister with her phone out, typing away on it. Running a hand down my face before I put my hand on her phone and pull it away as I say, "I can't have you texting away from this base."

She protests my actions by calling out, "Jack, what the hell?! I was just talking with Kimmy."

I roll the phone over and see the unsent message; she was telling her best friend that she's on a trip and meeting my girlfriend on some top-secret base. I delete the message I look back at her as I say, "You could get shot or thrown in prison for talking to someone about this place, Kristin. And just so that you don't get any funny ideas about sending it later, you should know every transmission out of this base is monitored by the Office of Naval Intelligence."

She folds her arms across her chest before looking out the window in the living room at our mom and NC, before she says to me, "She's pretty, is she the one you've been seeing?"

"Yeah, she's pretty great." I tell her.

"Is she one of those k-whatevers?" she asks me.

"Kansen. Yeah, she's the embodiment of the will and soul of the U.S.S. North Carolina." I say with a smile on my face.

"She looks human enough, does she have girl parts under her clothes?" my sister asks me.

I give her a sideways glance and admit to her, "Yeah, if you didn't know she wasn't human, you'd never know it."

Kristin gets up on my couch, resting her chin on her arms, and watches the two of them as she adds, "Looks like mom is really trying to dig into her, you sure she'll be okay?"

I move to the kitchen to set the coffee maker to start as I say back to her, "NC's tough, and she doesn't put up with my crap."

I hear my sister say, "Oh sh-" before some quick movement from the living room right before I hear the front door open. Leaning out of the kitchen I see both my mom and NC walk in, NC stops and takes off her nylons before walking in and asking, "Jack, do ya mind if I borrow a shirt?"

"Button up or t-shirt?" I ask as I lean back around to the coffee maker.

"Doesn't matter." She says as I hear her move to the staircase and up them.

My mother comes into the kitchen and starts getting out a couple of bowls and asks me, "Do ya have any chicken?"

"Yeah?" I half sate and half ask.

I watch as she goes into my fridge and gets out the chicken I had in there, before getting out the flour, eggs, spices, and other ingredients. But it was the look on her face that told me, that things didn't go as smoothly as I would've liked out there when I ask, "What's wrong mom?"

She puts a bowl down, hard, on my counter and takes a moment before saying, "While I'm sure she's lovely, I'm not sold on her."

I sigh and hang my head and ask, "How so mom?"

She rounds on me, her green eye starting to water a little as her voice started to crack a little and she said, "She said that you called her fried chicken the best you've had in a long time."

I blink a couple of times, really, fried chicken?

Clearing my throat a little I venture out a question, "So, you want her to prove to you that she's a good cook?"

"Darn right I do. If she's going to be takin' my baby away from me, she'd better be able to cook at as well as I can." My mom said before she returned to getting everything ready for making chicken.

With a shrug, I head upstairs to check on NC.

XXXX

As I open my bedroom door I hear NC moving around in the bathroom and I ask, "Carol, everything okay?"

"No!" She snaps back before adding, "I chose to sail through that typhoon 'cause I saw the time and got worried about gettin' here! I ran through the streets, ruinin' a good pair of nylons in the process only to have your Mama think I'm not good enough for ya!"

I move more into the room and see her come out of the bathroom and throw her nylons into my trash bin so hard it rocked around on its base. From what I knew about nylons it'd have to be pretty waterlogged to have enough weight to do that. I can see that she's just in her underwear at this point, and she's moved over to my closet, looking for hangers. I sit on the end of my bed and she starts throwing clothes out of my closet as she continues to vent at me, "An' these clothes of yours, we need to do somethin' about 'em! They looked like they were picked out by a frat boy."

I'm doing my best not to take offense to that, I know she's just mad and looking at things through that lens. After she's found a couple of hangers she goes back to the bathroom and I can hear her hanging her uniform up before she comes at sits down beside me, leaning her head against my shoulder as she says, "Sorry. I ain't mad at ya, I just pictured this goin' better is all."

I slip an arm around her shoulders and pull her close while I lean my head against hers and say, "Well, thank you for trying to be here. Thank you for making the effort to try and impress my mom, if she can't see why I love you right away, she's going to have to learn to look for it."

I feel one of her arms sneak around my back as she sighs out, "I love ya, Jack. But your Mama doesn't like me much."

My hand slides off of her shoulders and down to her waist before I tickle it and say, "Then we should show her. She's down there getting fried chicken ready, how about we head down there and you show her your cooking?"

NC takes a deep breath and makes an animated gesture with her arms as she says, "Fine." Before she smiles at me and adds, "But only since it's you askin' me, Jack."

XXXX

Once we were back downstairs, I pulled my mom out of the kitchen and onto the covered back porch, this was going to be a direct conversation. As she closed the door behind her, I pinched the bridge of my nose and was very blunt about how I went at this subject, "Mama, I love you an' all, but you're going to have to get used to the idea of Carol. I know you've had issues with girls I've brought home in the past, and truth be told, I haven't felt the way towards them that I do towards Carol."

My mother was silent for a moment before asking me, "Why are you callin' it, Carol?"

I press my lips together before I say, "She likes to be called that. Her friends and sister call her that, she asked me to call her that."

My mother moves to lean against the railing of the porch, looking out over the water behind my quarters, and says, "Jackie I-"

"Jack." I say in a tone that gives her pause.

She gives me a slightly wounded look, and I get the feeling that I forcing her to accept that I'm not her little boy anymore. She clears her throat before trying again, "Jack, I hear ya. But it's hard for me to understand that it… she, is just a shi-"

"She isn't just a ship. She's got feelings, she's got dreams and she has a mind of her own." I say, moving to stand beside her as I add, "She sailed through a god damned typhoon to be here mom because Carol understood that this was important. Not just for her but for me as well."

My mother runs a hand through her hair as she gives me a sideways look and says, "An' I want grandbabies. If you're goin' to be stickin' it in a ship, then I'm goin' have to rely on your sister to give 'em to me."

I hang my head, is she worried that kids with NC wouldn't be a thing? After a moment I let her know, "That's a real possibility, I mean in one of the other pacific commands, a captain there married one of them, and they are expecting their first child in the summer."

"Ya mean?" my mother asks, I can almost hear the hope in her voice.

I bob my head up and down as I continue, "Biologically, she's human, for the most part. There are some differences; she's stronger than I am, faster than I am, tougher than I am. And at the same time, part of my job is to teach them how to be human. When they are first summoned; they have no concept of things like clothing or even eating and drinking. I'm thankful that I didn't have to teach any of them how to use a toilet or about their cycles."

"So, they're like babies when they first arrive?" I can almost hear my mom's eyes going wide at that.

Again I nod as I confirm, "They are. Their frames are summoned near maturity; they grow a little here and there, but after a couple of years they stop. For example, I've got two sisters here; one of them is fully mature the other one looks like she's in her teens, the difference between them is only a couple of years though." I laugh a little as I add, "And the older one acts like a big sister bordering on single mom to her little sister, it's kind of interesting to watch."

I was about to say something else when both of our attentions snap to the house and we look in the window to see my sister talking with NC, they both seem to be laughing about something. That was when my mom said, "I ain't never seen Kristin take to one of your girlfriends like that before."

I nod as I add, "Neither have I. But then again, Carol is special, mom."

XXXX

After dinner, I tried to get NC to stay over, I mean it was really coming down out there, but she excused herself and borrowed an umbrella, telling me she'd bring it back to the office as well as my shirt. I had whispered in her ear that it looked better on her and she should keep it. As I close the door behind her, I sigh and hang my head, I really wished today would've gone better.

When I get to the living room, I see that Kristin is nowhere to be found, but my mom is sitting there with a cup of tea, looking out the window. I cross into the room and take a seat on the couch just as my mom says to me, "Kristin was sleepy so she went up to bed." She paused, sipping her tea before adding, "Jack, I'm sorry. I shouldn't've jumped to conclusions about her."

I shake my head as I twist to look out the window and say, "It's alright mom. It took just over a year before we even started dating and that only happened because I overheard a conversation between Carol and Enterprise, that happened a day before a game of twister."

My mom laughed as I mentioned twister before she said, "Ya mean public sex with clothes on?"

I laugh and hang my head as I say, "Yeah… Carol, Enterprise, Reno, Phoenix, and Bremerton all set me up to get into a compromised position with Carol. From that we had a heart to heart about what each other wanted and that we were both wondering the same thing about the other."

I hear a sipping sound of the tea before my mom asks, "It must be hard bein' her boss too?"

I nod as I say, "It is, we're trying to be professional in the office, but I'm noticing little slips on that from time to time. When we first started dating, we referred to each other as one would expect between our positions, but now when the doors are closed we call each other by name. We started off keeping our affection for each other out of the office, now though we don't, just like I don't make her knock before coming into my office anymore."

"Sounds like the lines are getting a little blurry." Says my mom before asking, "What does your boss think? Do they even know?"

I nod before saying, "Admiral Thatch knows, she's even signed off on it. But she asks for weekly updates on the progress as well as observations on how it seems to be affecting Carol."

"Does she know you're doin' that?" my mom asks.

Again I nod as I admit, "She does, I even get reports from her on how she thinks it's affecting her."

I hear my mom sigh before saying, "Then it sounds like everythin's above board then. I just need a bit of time to get used to the idea that you care so much about i- her. An' accept that you're not my little Jackie anymore."

I smirk as I correct her, "Mom, I'm always going to be your son, and I only drilled that into you, to make you understand that I chose Carol; that I want to be with her. I mean well it's not like I didn't have anyone to choose from in this place, it's been hell this past year, especially in good weather."

My mom laughs before asking, "We'll I'll just have to meet some of these other ladies then."

XXXX

XXXX

A/N: That was a fun one to write, writing it so that NC was instantly accepted by the mother maybe a little cliché, but it's a fun one to use.