Disclaimer: Do I even need one at this point?
Trigger Warning: Those who are sensitive to the topic of workplace abuse/violence are recommended to skip this chapter.
BKPSDITTEKDL
It was the last day at the kelp forest. The mood of the Octopod was very tense. In the library, Deborah was angrily shelving books, dressed in black and red in lieu of her normal lavender.
"I've been informed that you got into a shouting match with the captain last night," said Professor Inkling. "What happened?"
"It's just not fair!" Deborah griped. "I was only going up to talk to him about what's wrong, and he yelled at me like it was my fault! As if I was to blame for everything that's happened the past few days." She clenched her jaw for a moment, but continued. "And then I got mad, and I…said some things I shouldn't have." She hung her head. "I am so fired."
"I highly doubt he'll dismiss you," said Professor Inkling. "He's been with us since the very beginning, back when he was your age. I've seen him from his first day as a junior lieutenant all the way up to today."
"I know that," said Deborah. "He told me about it."
"Well, I don't know if he told you this, but every time one of the previous Octonauts left for greener pastures, the loss always hit him the hardest. He'd mope for at least a week afterwards."
"Why are you telling me this?" Deborah's anger was fading and being overtaken by curiosity.
"Well, now that's he's the only member left from the original crew, not including myself of course, he'll do anything in his power to keep everyone on board. I know that a single spat isn't going to convince him to let you go."
Deborah was quiet for a moment, before going over and sitting in the chair next to the professor. "Has an Octonaut ever been fired before?"
"Only one," said Professor Inkling with a grim expression. "Seacliff Fox. He came into our lives almost fifteen years ago. When I met him, I admired his strength, and I thought he would be a good addition to the team. After about a year, Captain Amazonite was severely injured and had to retire early, and Seacliff took over." He sighed greatly. "That was when he showed his true colours."
"What happened?" Deborah leaned forward.
"He was reckless, and abused the staff. Things became very tense and gloomy aboard the Octo-Base. Every night, I'd curse myself for allowing Amazonite to be injured. Then one day, he hit a junior officer across the face. She fell and broke some glass. She quit the very next day." Professor Inkling looked at Deborah with firm eyes. "That day, I snapped. I fired him and told him never to return. Not a day goes by where I don't feel guilty for allowing him into our lives. There are still nights where I remember those words...'I can't stay here any longer'." Upon seeing Deborah's horrified expression, his face softened. "But then, things got better."
"How?"
"Not long after Seacliff left, I appointed Barnacles as our new captain. Slowly but surely, we all healed from what happened to us." He adjusted his monocle. "Although sometimes I wonder whatever became of poor little Zulimar. My point is that scars may be forever, but the wounds that caused them heal. You may never forget what he said to you, but as time passes on, the sting will wane."
"I don't want to forgive him. Not yet, anyway." Deborah crossed her arms.
"And it is within your rights to do so. Quite frankly, I was appalled to hear what he said to you. As for you, you may forgive him in an hour, or in a year. Perhaps you may never forgive him. That is a wound that still aches. But even when it does heal, it's up to you to decide whether you want to be angry at the scar, or make peace with it."
Deborah was quiet as she thought about it. "I knew a girl who got expelled from school," she said at last. "Her name was Sarabi. We had some of the same classes together. She had a temper problem, and one day they expelled her for fighting."
Just then, they heard a chattering noise. Deborah got up and went to the door, where she found the Vegimals gathered just outside the library. They looked scared to see Deborah looking so…dark.
"What's going on?" She asked.
The Vegimals babbled to each other for a moment, before Tunip finally spoke. "Cheepa Shellydo!"
"Shellydo! Shellydo!" The others chimed in.
Deborah caught on. "You want to go see Shellington?" All of the Vegimals bobbed their heads in unison. "I'm not sure. I don't know if he wants to see you."
The Vegimals looked dumbfounded. Shellington not want us around? Who could conceive it?
"But I guess you never know unless you try." Deborah herded the Vegimals into a line and brought them to the lab.
BKPSDITTEKDL
Deborah quietly slipped into the back room, with Tunip and the Vegimals trailing behind her. Shellington was sleeping quietly, still clinging to the Imogen plush toy. Deborah gently woke him by tapping his shoulder. He stirred and stretched his eyes open.
"Good morning." Deborah crooned softly. She nudged Tunip forward. "Someone wanted to see you."
Tunip began having second doubts about wanting to see Shellington. He looked terrible; his face was pale and crestfallen, and his fur was frazzled and a bit greasy. Tunip thought he looked like a ghoul.
"Deborah?" Shellington croaked. "I'm sorry."
Deborah cocked her head. "For what?"
"For getting you in trouble with the captain." Shellington sat up and gave the Imogen plush back to Deborah.
"Oh, don't say that." Deborah sat down on the bed. "It's not your fault that he can't control his goddamn temper and not scream at an intern and call her a brat."
Shellington was a bit taken aback by Deborah's harsher-than-expected-from-a-normally-sweet-as-sugar-girl tone.
"It was like being yelled at by my dad all over again." Deborah huffed.
Shellington shuddered.
"But this isn't about him," said Deborah. She sat down on the bed and handed the Imogen plush back. Tunip pulled himself onto the bed as well, signaling for the other Vegimals to come into the room and crowded around their favourite caregiver.
"Shellydo gabadazu?" Tunip gabbled.
"I think so," said Shellington. "I felt very empty and alone for the past day or two, but I'm beginning to feel like myself again. I find that reading my books makes me feel a lot better." His stomach bubbled. "Oh, but I don't know if I'm still sick or just hungry."
Deborah squeezed his paw and the Vegimals all clung to him.
BKPSDITTEKDL
"We'll be taking off in twenty minutes, captain." Dashi said in an unamused, almost monotone voice.
"Excellent, Dashi." The other Octonauts had been very cold and distant with their captain since the incident from the previous night. He didn't argue; he believed he deserved it.
Just then, the screen began to beep. Dashi pulled up the storm tracker. "There's an undersea twister coming our way. We'll have to take off early." She began to prepare for launch when there was a yelp from outside the Octopod. A little fish was flitting around, looking scared. "That creature looks like it needs our help."
"Stand by. I'll go get 'em." Lekona went down to the launch bay, out through the Octo-Hatch, and into the water.
"I'm lost! Can you help me?!" The fish swam circles around Lekona's head.
"Calm down, li'l fella. We're here to help. Follow me." Lekona put in a call. "Lekona to Deborah."
"Deborah here," said Deborah, from the lab.
"We've got a lost fish out here who needs your help," said Lekona.
"That's an angelfish," said Deborah. "They don't belong in the kelp forest. I'll be there soon."
BKPSDITTEKDL
A few minutes later, the angelfish was in a nice, spacious tank.
"Thank you all for helping me. My name is Jellybean. I don't belong in this kelp forest; I'm supposed to be on more open waters."
"We're moving our ship into open waters soon," said Deborah. "We could drop you off there."
"Oh, that'd be wonderful," said Jellybean.
Deborah was taking notes to keep for later, when all of a sudden, the Octo-Alert took her by surprise!
"Octonauts, to the HQ!"
The Octo-Alert blared throughout the Octopod, and the crew rushed to HQ.
"Octonauts, an undersea twister is approaching fast. We have to leave the area immediately. Everyone must secure any items that could fall or be damaged."
The Octopod was put into manual steering and took off, while the Octonauts all rushed to secure the ship.
Deborah returned to the lab and slipped into the back room, where the Vegimals were all babbling out a story to Shellington. "We're taking off," she said to the residents of the room. "You might want to hold onto something." The Vegimals all clung onto Shellington.
Deborah was running over to Jellybean's tank to secure the lid when the whole Octopod began to tilt. The tank shifted and tipped over onto its side. The water splashed all over the floor. Deborah managed to catch Jellybean in a bowl before she hit the floor.
"Oh, no! This simply will not do!" Jellybean splashed her fins. "I can't survive in such shallow water!"
"Hold on," said Deborah. "There's another tank in the ship. I'll get you there." She entered the hallway in pursuit of the sick bay.
Up at the steering wheel, Captain Barnacles was struggling to keep the Octopod on the right path. If they went back any further, they would be sucked into the twister.
The ship faltered. The twister was strong.
Down in the hallway, Deborah was stumbling her way towards the sick bay, struggling to keep both the water and Jellybean in the bowl.
With a mighty roar, Captain Barnacles pushed forward, and escaped the slipstream of the twister. The ship was practically in turbo mode as they blasted forward, away from the danger.
In the hallway, Deborah finally reached her destination. She burst into the sick bay.
"Peso! Tank! Jellybean! Breathe!" She sputtered. Peso, despite Deborah's poor grammar, got the message and released Jellybean into the tank.
Deborah heaved a great sigh of relief. "Thank God."
Not long after, the Octopod landed. They were safe.
Peso released Jellybean from the sick bay tank into the open water. Outside, Jellybean flitted about.
"This is exactly where I belong! Thank you, Octonauts!"
BKPSDITTEKDL
Later in the evening, Captain Barnacles slipped into the back room of the lab, where Shellington and Deborah were reading a book together. Upon seeing him, Deborah narrowed her eyes and furrowed her brow.
Captain Barnacles shook his head and looked past her. "How are you holding up, champ?"
"The ride was very bumpy…but I didn't throw up."
Captain Barnacles brushed his paw against Shellington's forehead. "You don't feel warm anymore."
Shellington smiled. "That's good. I've been feeling so sweaty."
Captain Barnacles nodded, then turned to Deborah. Deborah refused to even look at him. He sighed. "I understand that what I said you struck a nerve."
Deborah didn't respond.
Captain Barnacles sat down next to her. "What exactly did your father do to you?"
"He's an old bastard," said Deborah. "We had to tell him I'd been accepted into a good college on a fully-paid scholarship just so I could come here, 'cause I know he'll have a friggin' conniption if he finds out I'm working under a polar bear."
Captain Barnacles stiffened his expression. "Your father only wants you working for another deer."
"Yeah," said Deborah. "He couldn't do anything about our schoolteachers 'cause it was public school and all the other parents would tear him a new one if he tried to pull his crap there, but everything else is fair game for him. That's why Margaret had to quit her part-time job at Triton's Go-To Mart; cause her boss was a tiger and not a deer. That and he thinks a woman's place is in the home."
Now Captain Barnacles was starting to get pissed. "Is that so?"
"Yeah. He told her she had to be home after school helping Mom cook dinner. Plus, my mom couldn't work once she married him. Oh, but David can go out and be up all night working at the gas station with stupid Walter. He probably would have let us do that too, but noooo, we couldn't 'cause we were Margaret and Deborah and not Michael and Dennis."
Captain Barnacles was almost shaking with silent rage. "That was who I reminded her of. That racist, no-good son of a bitch…and I was acting just like him."
"You know something? I was bet if it was Margaret who suddenly came home with a baby, he would have thrown her out and never spoke to her or the kid ever again. But no, it was David who turned up with a newborn out of the blue, and wouldn't ya know, little Stacy is now his 'golden grand-girl'."
"Hold on, what do you mean, 'out of the blue'?" Both men were confused.
"Stacy was a bit of a surprise. David's girlfriend Pamela originally was gonna wait until marriage, but they slipped up and had her a few months before their wedding. David didn't tell our parents about Stacy until after she was born because he and Pamela were so scared about how they would react. We all love her, and so does Pam's family." Deborah sighed. "I just hope Stacy wants to take after Pam's dad and not mine. Pam's dad is the greatest."
Shellington shook his head. "Bigotry is never inherited; always learned."
"It's so dumb! And it's not even David's fault! He tries to only visit when my dad isn't home because he doesn't want him around Stacy." Deborah pouted. "Hell, you're more of a granddad to her, and you don't even know her!"
Captain Barnacles was a bit taken aback. He didn't know what he expected from an angry Deborah, but it sure wasn't a declaration of honorary grand-fatherhood. He put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm truly impressed that you never punched your father in the nose for everything he's done, alright? I would have beaten his ass for that. And I can't even begin to tell you how sorry I am that I said those things to you and ever acted like that useless lump."
Deborah scrunched up her face. "I don't care what my dad says anyway, cause my mom, Margaret and I have still done great things. My mom was in the Home and School Association for fourteen years, Margaret leads a great Girl Guide troop, and I'm an Octonaut. So his opinions are useless, cause I and all the other women in my life are stronger than he'll ever be. Even that snooty girl Karen from school."
Both smiled and hugged each other; things were forgiven. "Listen, princess, I can't fix your father," said Captain Barnacles, "but I can certainly give you a shoulder to lean on. That much I can do."
Deborah cooed and laid her head on his shoulder. Things were peaceful again down in the deep blue sea.
BKPSDITTEKDL
Information about the angelfish taken from Fishlore