Chapter Eight : A Total Moron
Theresa was pushing her cart through rows of the grocery store, humming some tune she heard on the radio on her way over in the car. She grabbed milk, eggs, bread, bacon and cheese, knowing that she won't be in the country long enough to use all of the milk before it goes sour, but the rest she could stuff in her freezer until she got back.
"No, just leave me alone." A woman said in a loud whisper. Looking up from the contents of her cart, she spotted a tall man looming over a cowering woman. Her anger flared and she clinged to herself control with all of her might. She was a member of the United States Navy and hitting a civillian could be seen as assult and she would be dishonorably discharged.
She was about to turn around, but then Theresa saw the man grabbing the woman by the upper arm harshly and she decided to step in, but made sure to shove her hands in the back of her denim shorts. "Hey man, I'm pretty sure the lady asked you to leave her alone."
"This ain't any of your bussiness, walk away." The big, burly man snarled at her, but Theresa wasn't scared. She had faced terrorists, looked at the dead or burnt bodies of small children and stared in the eyes of hopeless situations. This man was just a big bully and not someone worth being scared off.
She looked at the woman, saw the fear in her eyes that was begging Theresa to stay and walked closer to them. "See, I can't do that. She said to leave her alone and now it looks like you're hurting her, so why don't you walk away?"
With his free hand, the man reached out to shove Theresa away from him. Years of training and practice allowed her notice the man lifting his hand and she quickly side stepped to avoid the hit.
"Try to touch me again, and you're gonna regret it." The female Seal growled at the man, a killer glare coming to rest on her face.
"Look, I've been nice so far, but you've given me no other choice." Then he let go of the woman and rounded to face Theresa. He took a sloppy swing at her and acting on reflex more so than intent, she ducked, reached up to grab his arm and twisted it behind his back, before the man could even so much as blink.
"Stop struggling against my hold, you are going to dislocate your shoulder." Theresa warned and the man immediately stopped struggling. She looked over the woman properly and saw a fresh blue eye sitting on the right side of her face. Rage flew through her chest and she took a deep breath. "Now, Mister, I think you own that lady an apology."
"Like hell." The man scoffed and Theresa twisted his arm a little harder. "Jesus, who the hell pissed in your cornflakes?"
"You did." Theresa answered darkly. "I'm not hearing anything."
"I'm sorry I hit you, Amelia." The man looked like it physically pained him to say those words and the woman's jaw dropped open. Even though Amelia knew he didn't mean it, it made her feel slightly better.
"That was beautiful." Theresa said flatly, wanting nothing more than to give this man a blue eye of his own, but she knew that it would only lead to trouble for her. "You don't know me and you don't know what I'm capable of and if you have any sense of self-preservation, you wouldn't want to find out. Now, when I let you go, you are going to walk out of this store and pray to God I don't ever see you again. And if I do, then Amelia better not have a mark on her. That is to say she ever wants to see you after what you've done."
Theresa let go of his arm and the man sighed in relief. He turned to her, eyes furious. He opened his mouth, but just closed it again and walked past her when Theresa balled her hands into fists and narrowed her eyes.
"You okay?" Theresa asked the woman. Amelia nodded shakily. "There is a boxing gym five miles east of here. Go there and ask for Randy. Tell him Four sent you for help."
"Uh, that won't be nessacary." Amelia stammered. Theresa surpressed a sigh. As much as she wanted to help this woman, she knew she couldn't get involded because if she ever did see that man again, chances are she would break his nose.
"Yeah, it is. You are small and unless you start to fight back, you are going to keep on pulling the short end of the stick, but you don't have to, so do yourself a favour and go." Theresa said, her voice stern. Then she walked back to her cart before pushing it to the cashier and leaving the shop. She hoped the woman took her advice.
In her car, she rested her head against the steering wheel. How did the world become so screwed up that people aren't even safe in a grocery store anymore? She pulled her phone out of the front of her jeans shorts and hit number two on her speed dial.
"Good morning, Tessa." Brock greeted, his voice way to cheerful for Theresa's taste.
"There is nothing good about this morning." The female Seal bit back with a light huff. "Are you on base yet?" She asked before he asked her to elaborate on her comment.
"Yeah, I am. Unlike some people, I actually show up on time." Brock teased, hoping to lift the mood that he could hear his best friend is in.
"We're Tier One, Brock, the only time we need to be on time, is when we have a mission briefing." Theresa retorted, rolling her eyes.
"Well, you're in a good mood this morning." Brock deadpanned sarcastically. Spend three years being Theresa Kane's best friend and you learn a thing or two about the wonderful Language of Sarcasm. "Also, don't roll your eyes at me, it's rude."
"I didn't." She lied.
"Okay, I believe you." The canine handler snorted. "Don't you have a Green class today? Maybe you'll feel better once you see lover boy."
"First of all," Theresa began, her voice sharp. "He is not my lover and I have no idea where you even got that stupid idea in the first place. Second of all, yes, I do have a class today, but they're only running hills and going through exfil scenario's and it's only at 11H00."
"It's nine." Brock pointed out. "Never mind. We are getting way off topic here. You wanted to ask me something." He reminded her.
"Oh. Yeah. I forgot." Theresa said, minding snapping back to the reason she called her best friend. Tone darkening when she remembered what happened in the store infront of her. "You up for some sparring?"
"Sure." Brock agreed immediately. He knew that tone - it meant she wanted to punch the life out of someone. The male winced to himself, knowing that he would end up with some bruises. When she was angry, Theresa was even more vicious that usual.
"Yeah, say twenty minutes?"
"See you then."
SEAL TEAM
An hour later, the two best friends has been sparring for fourty minutes. Theresa was dressed in an old Navy shirt of hers and running shorts, while Brock wore sweatpants with a bright red t-shirt with the saying 'What are you looking at?'. They were in the middle of their seventh round, Brock lasting this long because after three years of training together, he knew most of her fighting style just like she knew his. Not well enough to use the moves on her, but well enough to hold his own for longer than sixty seconds.
Which is more than anyone else - the rest of Bravo included - can say. And he was quite proud of it. Brock knew that Theresa wasn't completely 'Rage Crazed' yet, so he wasn't worried. When she picked up the collection of knives - that Bravo contributed to on a yearly basis - in her cage an started throwing them while angry, then he'd get worried.
Theresa stepped back and roundhouse kicked him. Brock braced himself, expecting a fist to the ribs or his stomach, but neither of those happened. Theresa dropped to the ground and swiped his legs from under him before he could even step back or jump in the air to avoid it.
"Okay, I'm out." He tapped the mat with the back of his left hand, chest heaving up and down heavily. Nodding once, Theresa made her way over to the punching bags. Brock got up, grabbed a bottle of water from his duffle bag before taking a seat a reasonable distance from her.
"So, what happened?" Brock asked, catching his breath and drinking his water while Theresa furiously punched and kicked the sand bag. He frowned at her, where the hell did she get all of that energy?
"Men are pigs, is what happened." She snarled, landing a few powerful punches to the bag.
"Geez, thanks, Tessa." He gave her a faux smile, watching her bare hands hit the leather. "Mind your strength, or I'm going to be listening to you bitching about split knuckles for the next three days." Theresa, like all of Bravo, hated wounds. Not because they hurt, oh no, but because they're annoying. Spilt knuckles are small wounds and doesn't seem like much, but the more strength you use, the worse they get. And when she can't close her fists all the way because her knuckles are swollen? Man, she can complain your ear off.
"You know what I mean." Theresa made sure to slack a little the force of her punches.
"Yeah, I do." Brock nodded, taking a sip of water. He stood up and held the punching bag still for her. "What did my gender do to offend you on this fine morning?"
"Did you get laid last night?" Theresa glanced at her best friend to frown at him, remembering his cheery greeting when she called him that ealier.
"Don't change the subject." Brock said and Theresa could have sworn that she saw a faint flush on his cheeks.
"Am I wrong?" She raised an eyebrow a him, stopping her punching.
"Did I say that?" He retorted with a pointed look.
"How is Elena?" She asked instead, a smile spreading on her lips. She liked Brock's wife and Elena liked her too. Well, now she did, after she realised that Theresa had no intention of seducing her husband or sleeping with him. Ever.
Now Elena just kind of hates the female Seal when she calls Brock in the middle of the night because she's bored and can't sleep. She hates Theresa even more when her husband leaves their comfy and warm bed to go entertain his best friend.
"Still thinks you should be sent for anger management classes, but she invited you for dinner after I called her earlier to tell her that you're in a mood and asked if she'd make Lasagna for you." Brock snorted, a loving smile tugged on his mouth as he thought about his wife. Then he shook it off and narrowed his eyes at his best friend. "Don't change the subject, Tessa."
"Tell her I'll be there." Theresa huffed before she walked to her duffle bag and grabbed her own water. The two best friends straddled the nearest bench, sitting back to back and leaning against one another.
It was silent for a long while before Brock broke it. "Come on, Tessa, the only way you're going to feel better is if you talk to me."
"Maybe I don't want to feel better." Her voice was petulant and Brock rolled his eyes in exasperation. Getting her to talk was like pulling teeth.
"If that were true, you wouldn't have called me." He pointed out.
Theresa's face fell at his words - he had her there. And he was right anyways, she did want to talk and get the anger out of her system. It's what she asked him to do. She nudged his elbow with hers to let him know that she was about to sit upright - they've done this a few times. bHeaving a deep sigh, she started talking, "I was out grocery shopping this morning, minding my own bussiness, when this woman asks a man to leave her alone. I was going to walk away, keep my nose in my own business when the man grabs her like she's a piece of meat."
"What did you do?" Brock asked, giving her a slightly wide-eyed look. Oh man, he did not like where this story was going.
"I was actually very calm about it. I ask him to leave her alone, like she asked." Theresa told him, a kind of proud beam on her lips and Brock smiled lightly in return. "He tried to shove me, I moved out of the way, but then he tried to take a swing at me."
Brock winced and almost felt sorry for the dumbass who tried it. He - and any man on Tier One - couldn't take a swing at Theresa even if they tried - and they tried. And they are all fully trained Navy Seal's. "What did you do then?"
"Then I twisted his arm behind his back and made him apologize to her before threatening to find him if he so much as farts in her direction." Theresa answered and had at least the good sense to look sheepish about it. And okay, yeah, he defenitely didn't like where this story was headed.
"Tessa!" Brock exclaimed, eyes wide. "He's a civillian, you can't do that."
"He is a total moron who gets a kick out of hitting that poor woman." Theresa scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Besides, he threw the first swing."
He gave her a deadpan look, "Because he stood such a big chance going up against you."
"Hey, I didn't tell him to hit me." Theresa defended, nudging his elbow with hers to let him know that she was going to sit upright.
Brock snorted as they pulled apart in unison and spun to face each other, "Don't you mean, try and hit you?"
"Same difference." She shrugged indifferently before glancing at him sideways. "Think you can handle another round?"
"Sure." He nodded in agreement. They got up from the bench and walked to the mat.
"Hey, can I ask you a question?" Theresa halted in her movement just as they were about to start their sparring. Brock paused as well and nodded his head. "Do you think I'm an intimidating person?"
SEAL TEAM
Theresa was glaring. At everything and everyone. Everytime she remembered the resounding 'yes' Brock had answered to her question, she felt anger tore through her chest with the force of a tsunami. It didn't help matters that she was standing in the scorching sun while the person that told her that she is intimidating, is not to far from her.
Jason and Ray were at another check point - having decided to keep a safe distance from her when they made a joke about her anger and she snapped at them - making sure that the teams didn't try to take any short cuts.
"You wanna talk about that dark cloud above your head?" Adam raised his eyebrows at her when he walked up to her, two bottles of water in his hands.
"Nope." She didn't even look at him, but took the bottle of cool water he offered and Siever took it as a good sign that she didn't throw it at his head.
"Okay then." He nodded in acceptace, quietly standing next to her as they waited for the teams.
Spenser's team was last to arrive at the final check point were Siever and Kane stood. The rest of the instructors was standing a few feet away from the duo - no one else had the balls to face her killer glare.
"You miss your exfil window and are now in enemy hands. Congradulations." Adam deadpanned as they all stood breathing heavily, trying to fill their burning lungs with air. "You've won the chance to run it again." He walked over to the blonde, lowering his voice when he spoke. "You know, Mr. Spenser, there is such a thing as being to unselfish. Team's only as fast as its slowest guy."
Adam walked away and Clay looked over at Theresa, who had already been staring at him, the darkening glare on her face catching him somewhat off guard. This was the first time that he had been on the recieving end since of it since the day she called him out on his dirty fighting move with Brian.
"Keep it up, Spenser, and you're never going to make it to Tier One." The venom in her voice was enough to make him falter and make his heart ache terribly. For the first time since the moment it happened, he absolutely hated the fact that he fell in love with her.
Theresa saw the hurt flashing in Spenser's eyes and her anger vanished into thin air, leaving guilt and sorrow in its wake. Immediately she wanted to take back her harsh words. She tried to push it down, not able to break eye contact with him as she hoped he couldn't see the emotions in her eyes.
Theresa couldn't show it or allow herself to feel this. She didn't do anything wrong, there wasn't anything to feel guilt about. It was nothing she hasn't said to someone else on Green team. There is nothing special about Spenser. And yet, tried as she might, Theresa couldn't get rid of the guilt nagging at her mind.
It made frustration well up in her chest, eyes still locked onto Clay's - the female Seal not being able to tear her eyes away from his. Why the hell did she even care so much if this cocky, arrogant, over-confident, blue-eyed, blonde haired idiot, was hurt because of her words?
Her phone chimed and, finally, the female SEAL was able to break eye contact with him.
Reading the text, she was relieved for the distraction of a mission briefing. Purposefully ignoring Spenser's gaze - she could feel his eyes on her body and the realisation caused a shiver to climb up her spine - she looked for Adam.
Only to find him already looking at her and Spenser with curiousity in his eyes.
For some reason, it made her defensive hackles rise. Theresa straightened her spine and looked at him coldly, before saying, "Bravo's being called." And walking away.
On the way to the team room, she thought about Spenser's words to her. Intimidating and kickass. You are. Very. And then her best friend's very clear and confident 'yes' when she asked him if he thought the same. Her anger reared its ugly head once more and she let out an indignant huff as she stomped to the team room, fellow Seal's and base personal stepping out of her way the second they noticed her.
Shoving her phone into the plastic container outside the team room, she ripped open the door with such force that all of Bravo turned to the door. Seeing the thunderous look on her face, the canine handler snorted while the rest of the team - except for Jason and Ray, who was already aware of her foul mood - looked baffled.
Sonny looked at her best friend, "Brock, what's wrong with our lovely little lady?"
"Don't mind her, she's just having a bad morning." Brock waved them off, pulling out the empty chair between him and Trent and gesturing for her to take a seat. Narrowing her eyes at him, Theresa walked over, gave him a overly sweet smile, grabbed the chair and wheeled it to the other side of the table, took her seat behind Sonny, glaring at him before spinning her chair and looking away from him completely.
"Oh you can't seriously be mad with me." Brock said incredulously, laughing a little as Trent wheeled up to take the space where Theresa's chair had previously stood, the medic snorting in amusement.
"I'm not talking to you right now." She snapped, pointedly not looking at him and to the screens, seeing a photo and schematics of some kind of a ship.
"Hey, you asked." He defended, raising his hands a little while the rest of Bravo wondered what the hell Theresa asked Brock and more importantly, what was his answer that made her so angry?
"Well, you're wrong. I am not."
"Yeah, you are."
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
"AM NOT!" She smacked her hands on the table.
A loud whistle broke up their petty back and forth shouting match, heads snapping to the source.
"Do you need to be seperated?" Jason asked when he had their attention.
They both pulled comical faces at the mere thought and answered in unison, "No!"
"Then quiet down so we can actually get to the briefing of this briefing meeting." He ordered sternly, lately feeling all to much like a dad with two rowdy teenage twins that were constantly at each other's throats where Theresa and Brock where concerned. Then again, Theresa has been like his own since the moment he met her when she was fourteen.
Jason nodded to the CIA Agent and she took it as her que to start briefing them. "The Centaurus, a U.S. flagged research vessel doing oxygen-level surveys in the South China Sea. We think it was hijacked this morning."
"Wait a second, you think? What do you mean, you don't know?" The Master Chief asked, looking a little dumbfounded.
"Well, whoever took it hasn't made contact yet." Amanda answered.
"How do we know anyone took it at all?" Theresa asked with a frown as she looked over at Mandy. "I mean, you just said it's an oxygen-level research vessel. What's to gain?"
Mandy pressed a button on the remote and a clip of a panicked voice began to play. "This is Dr. Vincent Barbour, aboard the research vessel Centaurus. We're approximately 100 miles off the coast of Iloilo. We're being overtaken by what appears to be a gang of- Oh, God! No, no, no, no!" Theresa lowered her head and eyed her dossier that containted more mission information as automatic gunfire and screaming was heard. "No, please, no! What do you want? What do you want? Who are you?" Gunfire and more screaming was heard before the call was ended and only static was heard.
The silence that fell on the door was defeaning and Amanda took it as a sign to continue. "Dr. Vincent Barbour, professor of Ocean and Climate Science at Stanford. We believe it's his voice on the sat recording. Dr. Julia Clark, also from Stanford. These two are due to get married next month."
"There's more photos on your laptops, plus full bios for the scientists. They don't ask crew members to post bios - on the faculty website." Lisa informed them.
"You know that's right." Quinn said and the logistics spesialist hummed in agreement.
"You two best watch the 'exploitation of the working man' talk. People might get the idea you've gone commie." Ray teased good naturedly.
"Oh, please." Davis rolled her eyes as Theresa opened her laptop and started fliping through the photos of the hostages. It was easier to remember little details this way. They don't know what the hostage-takers will do to them.
"What the hell'd you just say?" Sonny grumbled around his toothpick with a slight glare. Laughter sounded around the room, but Theresa didn't join in, her anger still simmering beneath the surface.
"So that's the hostages, and now we come to the hostage-takers, and for that, this is my colleague, Sam Roberts. Sam's the Agency's top analyst on Southeast Asian piracy." Amanda told them, gesturing to the man that was seated atop the table that was besides Jason.
"Wow, you got more than one expert on Southeast Asia piracy. Okay. No offense, bud." Jason deadpanned and despite her bad mood, Theresa snickered loudly at Jason's words, not looking up from her laptop.
"None taken." Sam assured him. "Uh, actually, although the Horn of Africa still gets the most attention, the waters of Southeast Asia have become the most dangerous in the world. Now, the good news for us is that, unlike the Horn, the region surrounding this area is relatively stable. There's just not a lot of harbors for pirates to hole up in and negotiate ransom. Most of the local pros use the Anambas Islands. Centaurus's GPS shows her 400 miles east of Vietnam, headed south-southwest. Puts her in the Anambas day after tomorrow."
"Okay, that's great." The Master Chief said.
"What's the bad news?" Theresa asked, looking up from her laptop.
Roberts was startled by the words of the female Seal. She was staring so intently at her laptop that he didn't think she was listening to him. Obviously, he was wrong. "Excuse me?" He spluttered, much to his great embarressment.
"You said that was the good news." Theresa pointed out. "Now, what's the bad news?" And suddenly the rest of Bravo turned to the piracy analyst, wanting to know the answer as well.
"Well, uh, the bad news is if they turn off the tracking system, they could take the Centaurus anywhere and we'd have no way to track it." Sam told them, watching the different array of displeased looks on Bravo's faces.
"Fantastic." Theresa deadpanned with a light sigh, rubbing a hand over her face.
"How long till we're greenlit?" Jason asked, wanting to get to the vessel before the hostage-takers had a chance to turn of the GPS and disappear.
"Working on it now. Apparently, they're having one of those office politics situations up at CentCom. A couple two stars trying to show who's got more juice." Eric answered him and Theresa made an incredulous sound at the back of her throat.
"You're kidding me, right?" Hayes asked with raised eyebrows.
"I wish." Blackburn denied. "War on terror."
"War on terror, yeah." Jason scoffed ligtly. "We should be airborne right now."
"Well, you know I'm trying." Eric said and Jason sighed.
The Master Chief looked at Theresa and Brock, wondering what happened between the two of them. "You two wanna tell me what's going on between you?"
"It's nothing, just something stupid." The curly hair man told his boss.
The next moment, a paper ball came flying through the air, hitting Brock straight between the eyes. Making the rest of the team hide chuckles by coughing into their fists.
"That was stupid." Theresa glared at him. "Our argument isn't stupid."
"Right, well, are you able to put whatever it is aside, or do I need to ground one of you for this op?" Jason asked, intervening once more, wondering not for the first time what the hell this was about. He had never seen Theresa this angry at her best friend. Come to think about it, Brock is the only person on this team that's she's never been angry with.
Him - because he wouldn't let her out in the field after she got shot in the upper arm, even though the doctor cleared her for active duty.
Sonny - because he asked her if there was something between her and Brock way back in the begining of their friendship and she still didn't do much more than glare at the rest of the team.
Trent - because he was the one who told Jason that she wasn't ready for active duty after the doctor cleared her when she was shot in the arm. (And okay, maybe she lied to the doctor to get back to active duty sooner and she was pissed because Trent figured it out somehow - to this day she still doesn't know how - and was of duty for two more weeks.)
Ray - because he once hid her collection of knives with Sonny as a prank. (She retorted by adding shaving cream to his shampoo.)
Eric - because he wouldn't let her punch an General in the face after he called her Bravo team's weak link. (Although she was more angry at the General than at Eric, but she let out her anger verbally at their Commander - switching from English to Russian to Spanish and back to English as she cursed the General and his mother all the way to the deepest pits of hell.)
Nate - because he disliked the fact that she was so young and a female on their team for the first year or so.
But Brock? Never.
Which is why he is feeling a little out of his depth here.
"No!" Theresa yelled out without being able to stop herself. "You don't need to ground us, I can put my personal feelings aside. I mean, just look at me and Amanda." She gestured to the CIA Agent with one hand. "I don't like her one bit, but I look past that when we're working."
"Yeah, but this isn't Mandy, who you don't like. This is your best friend, who you like very much." Jason pointed out.
Theresa rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest defensively. "Why are you only talking to me, huh? What about him?"
"Brock doesn't have a temper shorter than Sonny's with a tendancy to punch the person who made him angry in the face, you do."
Theresa frowned at Jason. "Not with him. Not with any of you." She gave a pointed glance to everyone on Bravo, save for Mandy.
"Okay." Jason nodded after a long while of silent contemplation. "But the second I see something I don't like, I'm pulling you both."
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm so excited for deployment, you guys!
I know, I know, a bit boring and Theresa being a bitch to Clay, but it is necessary for my story line. You see, either in the next chapter or the one after that.