A/N: Wow, I'm glad to see that Chapter 15 caused such a response! I'll be honest Elizabeth has always been an antagonist with Mitchel/Thunderer, I've been dialing it up a little more with each of their interactions, but this is building towards something. As for Lusty, well she knows she's got an uphill battle with building trust.

Part Sixteen – Honesty in Sunlight

I had set the pace of the task force of close to twenty knots or around two-thirds of my maximum speed. Thankfully none of the task force had complained about the pace, that had been almost a week ago and we were now cruising through the Caribbean Sea. With it being early in the morning I found myself running laps around my hull, the run was keeping my head clear, letting me focus. As I rounded the stern about to head up the port side of the hull I could see Illustrious' hull close by my own, I came to a halt and took in the sight of it, it left me wondering about the intentions of that half-pint… wondering if I can even trust Illustrious and her intentions at this point, I sigh and bend at my hips to catch a bit of breath while I run this entirely over in my mind.

I heard clicking on my deck plating coming towards me, I tilted my head up to see the very person I was just thinking about walking towards me, a soft smile on her face and I found myself wondering if it was a true smile or something to put me at ease. When she got closer to me she called above the rumbling hum of my drives, "Good morning!"

I straighten up and take the towel I had around my neck and shoulders to wipe the sweat off of my face as I say back to her, "Good morning."

She comes to a stop at an arm's length and asks, "What's wrong?"

I raise an eyebrow and she tilts her head before saying to me, "I could hear it in your voice, something is bothering you."

I nod and move to place my back against my Y turret house and say to her, "There is."

I watch as she moves to stand beside me, leaning her back against the turret, folding her hands in front of her and she asks, "Do you want to talk about it?"

I run the towel down my face again as I ask myself if I really want to say this or not, after a moment I decide to give her a test to see if I might be able to one day trust her words, "Why are you doing this?"

"Doing what?" she asks back.

I sigh and she says, "I'm serving the Royal Navy's interests, just as you are."

I frown at the answer; I knew there was some truth to it, even if I didn't like it. I give her a sideways glance as I say, "How can I believe that?"

She sighs and pushes herself off of the turret house and says as she starts to walk away, "Trust is going to take time… but you're not the only one whose life was irrevocably changed by the New Year's gala."

I sigh inwardly, she was right. I'm not the only one that had their life altered by this… I push myself off of the house and hurry to catch up as I say, "Wait, let me show you something…"

It didn't take long for me to lead her down into the bowls of my hull, to the room I hated, the one that reminded me of everything that I had lost. As we came to the manually locked door, I looked over my shoulder to see Illustrious tilting her head to the side as I pulled the door open. I stepped into the shadows of the room, nothing in this room operated anymore, but I knew where everything was. I reach out with my hand to the switch to turn on the lights as I say, "I hate this room."

As the lights came on, I could see the computer banks, the machinery that made the liquid in the tank that stood in the middle of the room livable for me. The cables that ran from the tank to the computers, the cables that ran into the tanks to provide my body with sustenance, air, and fluids, behind me I could hear Illustrious gasp as she took it in. Without looking back I said to her, "My father stuck me in this, after months of torture to turn me into the central processor for this hull."

I waited for a moment before adding, "He wanted to use me to kill my mother. He made me a blank slate for this ship, made me forget being human… I hate this place."

I felt a hand on my right shoulder as she said, "Then remake the room into something else."

I shake my head as I say, "As much as I hate this place and that it reminds me of what I've lost, it is also the room where I became me."

"Thank you for sharing this with me." She says to me and I get the feeling she wasn't sure about what she should say, but this had given her something to say.

Once we were both back out on the deck, I move to the bow so I could watch the horizon and I sense her beside me and she asked, "What do you think is the best way for me to prove that you can trust my words?"

I sigh and look down at the bow wave as I say, "I'm not sure."

She sighs and says, "Then I'll just be honest with my answers… Do you hate the idea of us being joined? I'm not thrilled with the idea, but I'm not against it either."

I give her a sideways glance as I shrug and say, "I'm not against the idea, I just hate how I feel like I've had very little say in anything in my life. That aside from very few people, I keep getting my trust betrayed by almost everyone. Or they are using me as a pawn in a political game that I don't want to play."

I see her nod her head while putting up a hand to keep her hat on as she says to me, "Well, for now, you are our flagship, this task force is bound to your will, for ill or good…"

That was when it hit me, I had power over these four women that were with me, the same power that the half-pint used against me. For an instant I thought about using it, testing just what it could do, but when I looked at Illustrious, I could see she was judging me with her blue eyes, gauging what I would do with this power. I sigh inwardly and decide not to see what I could do with it before I said, "I refuse to use it."

She smiled at me and nodded as she said, "Just because you have the power, doesn't mean you need to use it."

I grip the safety rail as I say to her, "I was tempted, very tempted to test it."

"I know." She says, turning to put her back to the water.

I watch as she looks down at my decking before looking at me and saying. "Trust, it is the basis for everything. Until we can fully trust one another, we are going to be going in circles."

I knew what she was talking about; the half-pint had been less than subtle with suggesting Illustrious should come back from this trip with something growing inside of her. I had seen Illustrious flush brightly at the suggestion. Clearly, that degree of intimacy was something that wasn't on the table right now. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't been thinking about it since we started this deployment, I mean well she is very attractive. When she noticed I was looking at her she blushed before clearing her throat and saying, "I'm going to find something to eat…"

Right… breakfast… I nod as I say, "Go for it, the galley is fully stocked."

She gives me a nod and a squeeze on the shoulder before she goes; I turn to watch her head down below. As I did that I managed to catch her looking over her shoulder at me, which seemed to make her blush more before turning her face forward and picking up her pace to the hatchway. Once she was out of sight I turned back around and spotted what looked like dark clouds on the horizon, looks like we were going to be sailing through a storm.

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I was sitting on my bridge that night, looking out the windows at the darkness as the rain beat down on my hull. Periodically the sky would light up with forked lightning dancing across the clouds. I sipped my cup of tea and just enjoyed the view and the solitude. I sat back in the captain's chair and turned my cup around in my hands as I thought about how Illustrious had been honest with me every day this voyage, never demanding anything, never trying to get her way with me. Maybe I've been being a little harsh, expecting her to be looking to betray any trust I put in her or her words at the first opportunity. I wish I could talk to my mother about this, but we just weren't in a position to be in radio contact with the Pacific base… we were closer to the Atlantic base right now, if only by a day's sail.

I stand and get out of my chair, moving over to the windows and close my eyes. With them closed I start to run systems checks on both my main battery and secondary batteries. As the weapons cycle, I feel and hear the system's move, the next thing I do is check the rotation speeds and angles, the last time I remember doing this, I was just off the coast of the base, getting ready to shell it from long range. That thought broke my concentration and caused me to return the turrets to their ready positions and I let out a sigh as I opened my eyes in time to catch another lightning flash in the sky.

I lean my forehead against the window and let out another sigh as I ask the universe in general, "Mom, I'd kill for some advice right now…"

I move from the window to the plotting chart in the back of the bridge and start to look at where we're heading. It was what was once Pico Island, after the first war with the Sirens it had been rendered uninhabited, perfect to be taken over by High Command and made the central facility from where to conduct the first war from. By my best estimate, we were approximately six days away at our pace of twenty knots and we should be in a good position for communications with them by mid-day tomorrow, provided the storm clears by then.

I take another sip of my tea just as I hear one of the outer hatches open and close. I lean around the side of the bulkhead that separated the plotting table from the outer hatches and my eyes went wide when I saw Illustrious standing just inside of my bridge, soaked to the bone… She must know what happens to white clothing in the rain, right?

I clear my throat before I ask, "You look a touch damp…"

She looks down at her clothing and flushes brightly, as she tries to cover herself as much as she can with an arm across her bust and a hand dropping down between her legs. After a moment she says to me, "I forgot."

I nod my head and return to the plotting table after taking off my jacket and tossing it to her after a moment I hear her say to me, "Thanks."

I take one last look at the table before I cross the bridge and pour another cup of tea as I say to her, "We're on course, my best estimate should put us in communications range by mid-day."

I'm doing my best not to look in her direction as I hand a cup out and slightly behind me, I feel the weight lifting off of my hand so I let it go just as she says to me, "Thank you for the tea… and trying not to look."

I shrug and sip my cup, looking out at the sea just as another flash of lightning crosses the clouds and I say, "It's not who I am to try and take advantage of a girl."

"I know." She says to me, pausing to sip from her cup before asking, "What's got you up this late?"

I sigh and look at her reflection in the window before I say, "A lot. Oddly enough, none of it has to do with wondering about this operation."

"Care to talk about it?" she asks before sitting in the captain's chair, crossing her legs at the knees and using one hand to hold my jacket closed.

I sigh and hang my head before I say, "Reflecting on the words of a few people from the weeks leading up to the gala… from being told that what I want didn't matter, to being asked to try and find some happiness."

I see her reflection nod as she sips her tea and says, "When I was doing my research on you, I talked with my sisters, I wanted their input on this, and they told me much the same."

I sigh and run a hand through my hair, I wanted to trust her words right now, I really did… but, what I want doesn't matter… After a moment I ask her, "What is it that you want out of this?"

She's silent for a moment, buying time by drinking from her cup before she says, "To do my duty to the crown… and try to be happy doing it. I don't know if I could live without happiness, or love for that matter. What about you?"

I blink a couple of times, that wasn't something I'd been asked, in a long time, I lean forward against the console in front of me, my brow knitted together before I tried to speak honestly, "To feel like I have some control in my life again, to feel… happy. I was just starting to get there, after so long…"

I can see her nod as she tells me, "That all seems reasonable. The question becomes, how do we approach what we both want?"

I take a moment to put my cup down before I turn to face her as I shrug and say, "I don't know. Because of how this happened, I don't know who I can and can't trust right now."

She looks sad as I say that, getting out of the captain's chair and putting my jacket down, I can see that her clothes have mostly dried, but they are sticking to her skin, and I guess she must be a little chilly still… She takes a step towards me and says, "Well then, what do you find most important in a girl?"

I'll admit my attention was on her bust for an instant when she said that, I heard her sigh and add, "Seriously, could you look me in the eyes when we're speaking?"

I felt my cheeks get hot as I look up and into her blue eyes as I say to her, "Sorry…"

Her lips press together as she states, "How disappointing… I thought you were better than this."

I shake my head as I say, "That's not the most important thing. It helps, but it's not the most important."

"Well what is then?" she asks as she folds her arms under her bust.

"I need to feel compatible with her; I've got to like who she is, more than what she looks like." I say, trying to defend myself.

I see it in her shoulders; she relaxes a little before telling me, "Well, perhaps there is hope for you yet then."

"Hey now…" I start to protest, but then I notice that her lips have slightly curled upwards at the edges before she takes a hand and pushes some of her hair behind an ear and asks me, "Since I really don't want to go back outside to get back on my hull, do you mind if I sleep on yours tonight?"

I nod as I say to her, "Sure, the Captain's stateroom is open… I'll show you the way."

It didn't take us long to reach the Captain's stateroom, as I opened the door for her, she looked around and said, "It seems so spartan in here…"

I nod as I say, "It is; all the quarters on my hull are."

She turned to me and asked, "Have you ever thought of decorating them? Or at the very least, the room you keep for yourself?"

I run a hand over my head as I say, "Honestly? No… since I've been comfortable enough to live in the dorms, I haven't spent much time on my hull."

She nods before turning back to step into the room as she says, "You might want to consider doing it; it might help you feel some of that control you want."

I shrug as I say, "I'll think about it, sleep well, Illustrious."

She gave me a little curtsy as she said, "Good night, Thunderer… don't stay up too late."

Once the door was closed, I returned to the bridge to watch the storm… I felt calmer now, I wonder if my talk with Illustrious had anything to do with it?

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I had sat for hours just watching the storm, waiting for a sight that I enjoyed seeing. The first flash as the sun first peeks over the horizon bathing everything in light of the new day. There was nothing like seeing it over the ocean, it was just so awe-inspiring to see. By my count, it should happen in the next couple of minutes.

My attention was taken off of the horizon as I heard the inner door to the bridge open, I turned to see Illustrious standing there, she looked exhausted and she asked me, "I can see why you chose to stay up… if all of your beds are like that one, you'd never get a good night's sleep."

I shrug and return to looking out the window as I respond, "I can sleep fine on them… lack of comfort is something I've gotten used to in most things."

Out of the corner of my eyes, I see her go over to the teapot I have on and she pours a cup before moving to stand beside me as she says, "I love watching the sunrise, do you mind if I join you?"

I shook my head as I stood and offered her the chair and said, "Not at all… I enjoy that moment just as the sun peeks above the horizon, the way the light drives across the open water…"

"There is just nothing else like it." She finishes for me.

Huh… maybe we can find some common ground then. I turn my head slightly to look at her, as she turns to look at me and Illustrious says to me, "Perhaps this can be the start of a new chapter for both of us?"

I was about to say something when she added, "Look!"

My attention followed her right index finger as she pointed out to sea just as the light started to drive towards my bow as the sun crested the waves and I said to her, "Perhaps it can."

As I said those words, I felt her place a hand on mine before she squeezed my hand and said, "I would like to give it an honest try."

Her hand felt so soft and warm, part of me wanted to pull my hand away, I had to be careful with who I dared to put trust into… but I am going to be expected to be joined in a union with her and a relationship filled with distrust is doomed. How can I ever expect to trust her, if I don't give her a chance to be trusted?

She smiles up at me and asks, "Can we share breakfast today? Let it be a step in the right direction for what is going to be expected of us?"

I give a nod as I say, "We can, but I'll warn you, I'm not much of a cook…"

She smiles and offers a musical laugh and says, "I am decent enough in a kitchen, though I am now Howe or George…"

I laugh and say, "I don't know who would be a match of them…"

Illustrious gets out of the chair and starts to head to the doors leading deeper into my hull, stopping to look back at me and she offers a welcoming smile as she asks, "Well, shall we?"

I grab my jacket and lead her down to the main galley on my hull, once we were in there; I sit back and watch as she starts to look in the cooler room, before coming back with eggs, bacon, and potatoes. As she places them all down she asks, "Would you mind peeling the potatoes, while I get the bacon going?"

I shrug and grab a bucket before I take the potatoes, a paring knife and flip over a second bucket. Just as I get started stripping off the peels I hear and smell the bacon starting to cook, Illustrious looks back at me and watches how I go about removing the peels and she asks, "Have you done that a lot?"

I laugh as I think about some of the disciplinary actions I had received in the academe, peeling potatoes to feed the mess hall for a meal and I tell her, "Some… I got into trouble a few times when I was at the academe, nothing ever that bad, but bad enough to get me KP duty."

I watch as she flips the bacon and asks, "So, what did you do then?"

I shrug and say to her, "Usually food prep, cleaning pots and pans… scrubbing the floors…"

She laughs and says, "Not what I meant, I meant what caused you to get these tasks?"

I stop peeling potatoes and frown as I try to recall one of the events; it still felt fuzzy, like I don't fully remember the event. Then all at once it comes back and I feel my cheeks get hot and I say to her, "I… I'd rather not say…"

"I would like to know, it will help inform me about you…" she says.

I sigh and rotate the potato I had in my hand as I say, "I got caught fooling around with a classmate… it was her idea that we do things in a space that should've been empty and… well… an instructor walked in on us in a state of undress."

"Oh." That was all she said, I heard her put down the spatula, in time with her words, but it was the tone of voice she had, it was devoid of any emotion.

After a moment she spoke again, "I guess it was unrealistic to think that you did not have relationships in the past."

I shake my head as I say to her, "No, not at all. I'll be honest; I'm all kinds of complicated… At times I have a hard time remembering my life before I became Thunderer, other times things are so clear like they happened just yesterday."

I sigh and put the potato down on the worktop as I add, "The person I was before, that person is dead. Both figuratively as well as legally too, when I became who I am today, he was registered as dead with Azur Lane High Command."

The air in the room felt heavy, after a few moments she asked, "Can I trust that you will be faithful to me in the future? Can I trust that you will not have a dalliance with someone else?"

"I've never been the kind of man to be with more than one woman at a time, when I commit, I stay committed to that one person." I say to her while I cross the room to stand behind her.

I watch as she rolls her shoulders and says, "Good."

I tilt my head to the side and ask, "Are your shoulders sore?"

I see her head nod and I take a deep breath before I reach over and start to rub them. She jumps at my touch at first, before she relaxes and sighs out, "That feels nice."

As I start to work her shoulders deeper with my hands she lets out a little moan before saying, "You can do this whenever you want, I could always use a good back rub."

She makes another noise like she really likes this before she says, "As much as I want you to keep going, I need to get the potatoes in the pan and get the bacon out so it doesn't burn…"

I take my hands away and she sighs before getting the rest of our breakfast going and I say to her, "Maybe we can explore this later?"

She looks over her shoulder and winks at me before saying, "I'm not opposed to intimacy, every now and then… It just takes trust."

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A/N: Chapter 16 done. This is the real start of Illustrious and Mitchel/Thunderer starting to get to know one another, to try and build a level a trust between each other as they move closer to the Mediterranean.