"Painting?" Mike tried to keep his voice neutral, knowing that he had failed miserably when he heard Andrea snicker. He turned to scowl at her, but Christine was having none of it, propelling him towards the front of the gym where Carlton Burk sat in front of a table full of sign-up sheets, looking abjectly miserable. The same could be said about many of the sailors standing around the room, most of whom looked decidedly uncomfortable with tonight's planned activities.
"Painting and alcohol and no kids," Christine replied, making sure to emphasize the last point. "I think it sounds delightful."
"I can think of better things to do with no kids around," Mike muttered. Even though he was anticipating the elbow to his stomach, it still stung. "But it's good for the crew to see their senior officers participating."
Christine smiled brightly at Carlton Burk. "So what are the options here?"
"You can do watercolors or make a build-a-bear…"
Mike cut Carlton off. "Build-a-bear?"
"To donate to the kids staying at the school while we hunt for their families," Carlton explained. "A lot of them didn't arrive with much."
"What a thoughtful gesture," Christine gushed, and Mike – silently – agreed. He had seen more than his share of misery over the last eighteen months, but the children were the hardest to bear. Teenagers wandering into St. Louis alone or, even worse, with a couple of younger siblings or friends in tow, parents dead or missing. Teachers arriving with elementary school students who weren't allowed home when the quarantines were put in place, a decision which likely saved their lives, but left them orphans. A dozen infants from the NICU at Mercy Hospital in St. Louis who were kept alive by their nurses, most with no surviving parents. The list went on and on.
But no matter how moving the cause, Mike had no intention of building any kind of bear, the toys still bringing to mind Niels' infected teddy bear, a guttural reaction that didn't change no matter how many cute, inoffensive panda bears and polar bears that Miller and Tex inundated Kaito with.
"I'll let Mrs. Foster know that you said so, ma'am," Carlton replied, flashing Christine his most charming smile and reminding Mike why the young lieutenant was such a popular member of the singles scene in St. Louis. "There's a place to paint ceramics as well, although Mrs. Foster seemed a little uncertain about how we would fire them."
"So this is supposed to be moral boosting?" He asked Carlton while Christine signed them up for every available activity. "I figured that it would be things like flag football or a pub crawl."
"I wish," Carlton muttered.
"Guess you should have gone to some of the planning meetings then," Andrea said briskly as she joined them, Kat and Ray following her hand-in-hand. Seeing the two teens together, Mike raised an eyebrow at Andrea, who merely shrugged. Mike opened his mouth to give the young sailor a stern lecture on the inappropriateness of dating an under aged girl, before abruptly changing his mind.
Ray might be a little wild at times, but he had a good head on his shoulders, something he had proven when he managed to keep his posse alive. Besides, after spending almost a year around the crew, Ray had to know that while Mike might put the fear of God into him, Tex wouldn't hesitate to kill anyone who hurt his daughter.
Assuming Kat didn't take care of the problem herself.
"Mrs. Foster suggested it," Kat explained while Ray shifted uncomfortably under Mike's steady gaze, his cheeks flushing. "Said we needed some culture. Dad spent the last two days hunting down bottles of real wine, none of that stuff in a box."
It took a few seconds for Kat's statement to sink in. "There's no beer?"
"Would we do that to you, Mike?" Tom asked with a laugh. At the sound of the CNO's voice, Ray went from red to white. Hiding a smirk, Mike turned to greet Tom and, slightly more surprising, Sasha. "Let's get some drinks. Ladies."
Mike waited until they were halfway across the room before asking the obvious question. "Did you two come together?"
Uncharacteristically, Tom paused. "Yeah. We decided that we weren't going to hide things – from the kids or the crew. "
"Big step," Mike observed.
Tom was silent for a moment. "Dad used to say that living for tomorrow wasn't living at all. I finally decided to listen to him."
"He liked Sasha, didn't he?" Mike asked.
Tom nodded, a ghost of a smile passing over his face. "He used to call her the one that got away."
"How did the kids take the news?" Mike asked, changing topics, knowing that Tom found talking about Jed difficulty.
"Sam was fine, asking Sasha if she would teach him to shoot a gun. I was expecting more resistance from Ashley but she took it surprisingly well. It probably helps that Whitney likes Sasha. Ashley has a major case of hero worship. I guess surviving being kidnapped by Shaw made your daughter something of a celebrity at school," Tom finished dryly.
Not that Mike was surprised – Shaylyn felt the same way about Kat – but the idea of anyone idolizing his eldest daughter was a little scary. With her parents back together, Whitney had turned her attention to the, as she termed it, dismal lack of extracurricular activities at St. Louis's newly reopened high school and even talked Christine into coaching a dance team to perform at various local events. Mike had initially been in support of the idea, figuring that the exercise was good, until he saw how skimpy the uniforms were. The fighting had ceased only when Christine suggested that, given the approaching colder weather, the girls might want to wear leggings under their skirts, a compromise that Mike and Whitney both grudgingly accepted. "And the crew?"
Tom shot Mike a look. "Miller slipped and told me that Tex won the betting pool. Seems like nobody was the least bit surprised."
Mike shrugged. "Hard to keep secrets with this group. God knows how Foster and Green managed it as long as they did."
"We were distracted by a pandemic," Tom pointed out. "And, thinking back, I'm pretty sure that we were the only ones who didn't know. None of the crew seemed very surprised when it came out."
Mike scanned the room as he and Tom arrived at the make-shift bar, where Bacon was busy setting out drinks and appetizers. "Where is Green, by the way?"
"Officially Green's watching the baby since Mrs. Foster is coordinating the event," Tom replied. "Unofficially, Kara let him off the hook in exchange for letting her sleep late."
"Not much of an ask." After considering the options, Mike selected a Sam Adams Lager for Christine and a Stone Brewing IPA for himself. He tipped the bottle at Bacon. "I haven't seen an IPA since before we left for the Arctic. My compliments."
"Turns out that Castille had a pretty nice stash," Bacon replied, beaming. "I'll save the rest of them just for you, Captain."
"Thanks." Mike waited while Tom picked up two glasses of almond champagne. "Champagne?"
"It's Sasha's favorite," Tom explained. "I suspect that Kara wasn't thrilled about the choice of events either. Her suggestions were a shooting competition or softball. Mrs. Foster nixed shooting but reluctantly agreed to softball. Danny and Kara probably flipped to see who was stuck coming tonight."
"Lucky bastard," Mike muttered.
"Well, it's not like you couldn't have used the same excuse," Tom pointed out.
Mike shrugged. "Eh, you know how much Christine likes this couples stuff."
And not that Mike would admit as much to anyone, even Tom, but he didn't mind it either. Christine had begun signing them up for various classes back when Whitney was a baby and the only way to have an uninterrupted conversation was to get out of the house. Besides the cooking class – which was an unmitigated disaster – Mike had been surprised to find that he liked trying new things. There wasn't much to complain about at the mixology classes, of course, and the dancing class turned out to be useful as he moved up the ranks and attended more formal functions. Even yoga wasn't that bad once he accepted that he would never be able to contort his body into those poses and focused on the view instead.
"How are things going?" Tom asked, nodding towards Christine and Sasha, who were chatting with Andrea, Ray and Kat having disappeared.
"Good. Better than things were before I left on that last cruise, honestly. Although having a baby again is an adjustment. I'm too old to be up in the middle of the night." The last was said wryly but, truthfully, Mike knew that Kaito was one of the reasons that things were better. Not because he replaced Lucas – because he didn't – but because Kaito kept him and Christine busy in a way that the girls didn't, forcing them to focus on the present rather than the past.
"Where is Kaito?" Tom asked.
"The girls are babysitting. I think Shaylyn was more excited than we were about tonight. She had the entire evening scheduled, complete with an art project."
Tom turned to check that Mike was serious as they joined Andrea, Sasha and Christine. "Kaito's five months old."
"I know. " Mike said proudly, passing Christine her beer. "She decided that she wants to work in a daycare and needs to practice."
"Are you talking about Shaylyn?" Christine asked. At Mike's nod she smiled. "It's nice having a built in babysitter. Is this Sam Adams? I haven't had one of these since we lived in Rhode Island. Oh, Mike, Sasha is going to teach us Japanese!"
Caught off guard by the abrupt change of topic, Mike sputtered on his beer. "Um, why?"
Christine's eyes narrowed. "Did you read any of those books on international adoption that I gave you?"
"I skimmed them," Mike replied, although it wasn't exactly true. He'd read them, as requested. But, knowing Christine, she had studied them in detail, outlining a plan for the "best" way to make sure that Kaito learned about both his biological and his adoptive family's cultures. Mike's input wasn't really necessary.
"It's important that we teach Kaito about his heritage and learning the language is a first step. If Kaito was born deaf wouldn't you want to learn sign language to talk to him? It's the same thing." Christine continued chattering on about the importance of exposing Kaito to his birth culture as the crowd around them scattered, Andrea with an amused gleam in her eye and Tom with a sympathetic one. Once they were alone, Christine arched an eyebrow at Mike. "Are you going to admit you read the books now?"
"I suppose that I can learn a few words of Japanese," Mike replied, ducking the question.
Christine gave him the same look she used on Whitney when the teenager claimed she had finished her homework at school. "You fold the corners of pages down to mark your spot when you read, Mike. You might be fooling your crew, but I know there's more to you than the gruff, hard-ass sailor that you want them to see."
Mike stared at Christine for a moment before bursting out laughing. "Have I mentioned recently how much I missed you?"
"That's because I keep you honest." Christine took another swig of her drink. "Now let's go paint."
Grinning, Mike mock saluted his wife. "Yes, ma'am."
Christine narrowed her eyes before smiling at him. "Be nice. Otherwise I'll tell everyone how much you actually enjoy these things."
