After tossing and turning for several hours, Nathan sat up right in bed. The ship's movement seemed exaggerated this evening, the rolling of the sea underneath giving him a slight headache. Leaving the bedroom, he made his way through the dark, to the bathroom in search of some pain reliever. A groan caught his attention. "Lucas?"

Heavy breathing from the sofa area, and a weak voice answered, "Captain."

Flicking the light on, the Captain hurried to the sofa bed and found the teen curled in a ball, bathed in sweat. "What's wrong? Why didn't you wake me?"

"My stomach. The ship - rolling, rocking... I think I'm....seasick," the teen said miserably. "I didn't want to bother you. It seems so .... stupid. I thought it would go away if I laid here for awhile."

Swallowing a chuckle at the teen's situation, the Captain laid a hand on the teen's forehead. "You don't have a fever."

"I feel horrible! Shoot me now, and put me out of my misery." The teenshifted, trying to sit up and his complexion went gray. Clamping his hand over his mouth, Lucas leaped out of bed and ran into the bathroom.

Bridger followed him and rubbed his back comfortingly as the boy vomited into the toilet and then helped him back to sit at the edge of the bed. Wetting a face cloth in the sink, he wiped Lucas' face and hands. Opening the dresser drawer, he pulled out a clean, white tee shirt and helped the boy change, and then told the boy to lay down. Knocking lightly on Kristin's door, it was only a minute or two, when the door opened and Kristin appeared, wrapped in a robe, still groggy with sleep.

Before the Doctor could protest the late night disturbance, Nathan simply said, "Lucas is seasick."

Instantly, Kristin became alert. "I have something to give him," she remarked before she disappeared back into her room.

Sitting back on the bed, Nathan patted Lucas' hand and reassured him."Kristin will fix you up right away."

When Kristin came back with a glass of water, she opened her hand to reveal two pills and extended a glass of water to the teen with the other. "Swallow these and you'll feel better in no time." When he stared at her in disbelief, she added, "Unless you'd like a shot instead." She grinned when he promptly changed his expression and grabbed for the pills and water. Rearranging the blankets on top of him, she sat down on the bed next to Nathan. "We'll stay with you till you fall asleep."

Lost in their separate thoughts, there was silence in the room and five minutes later, the teen had dropped off to sleep. Moving quietly to the adjourning door as so not to disturb the boy, Nathan put an arm around Kristin and pulled her close. "Thanks. Sorry to wake you," he whispered. "He was suffering in silence, didn't want to bother us."

"No problem. Let me know if he needs anything else." Stretching up, she gave Nathan a brief kiss on the lips and slipped back into her room.

Nathan went back to the sofa bed, smoothed the teen's hair back gently."Feel better, kiddo." He went into the bathroom, took the pain reliever that had been his reason for getting up in the first place and went back to bed.



****

Lucas was bored. Kristin was shopping. No. Lucas wouldn't exactly call it shopping since he hadn't seen any money exchanged as of yet. They had been walking for two hours and Kristin hadn't bought a thing yet. I'm just looking was all she said with a smile when Lucas had questioned her. When he found out that they were going to Alaska, the teen had pictured the wilderness, wild animals, glaciers. Not the city of Vancouver, their first port of call. They could have stayed in Pearl Harbor if shopping was all they were going to do.

Trudging slightly behind Kristin and the Captain, the teen let out a small groan as Kristin pushed open the door of yet ANOTHER shoe store. Bridger turned the other direction, crossing the sidewalk to have a seat on the bench at the edge of the sidewalk. It was the same thing he had done for the last thirty two million stores that the Doctor had gone into. Throwing a disgruntle look at the Captain, he lowered himself into the seat next to Bridger.

Giving Lucas a bemused grin, Bridger just shrug his shoulders. "It's the way it been for years - the women go out to gather and the men sit."

Lucas hadn't been shopping with his parents since his early childhood. Maybe there was something to be said for spending life alone. He squished the ants on the sidewalk with his foot, wishing he had stayed on the boat. His stomach rumbled softly. At least there was food there.

The sound of childish laughter caught his attention and he looked up to see family he had been watching at the pool yesterday. The mother went into the same shoe shop that Kristin had gone into as the father sat on the bench on the other side of Bridger. The children were eating ice cream cones and playing a game of tag, dancing around each other and circling the bench.

"Waiting for your wife, too? My credit card is smoking, it's been used so much this morning. I'm Charles Morgan. I saw you on the Ocean Princess yesterday." Mr. Morgan finally stopped talking to take a breath, giving Nathan and Lucas a friendly smile.

"Hello. I'm Captain Bridger and this is Lucas. And Kristin's not my wife, she's just a friend," Nathan explained.

"Oh, a Captain. In the army are you? You and your son having a little vacation?" Morgan ignored his kids who were doing gymnastics on the sidewalk, focused intently on the Captain.

"Actually, I'm with the UEO. And he's not..." Nathan stopped. It just wasn't worth going in to it all with a stranger. "We're having a great time. Looking forward to some kayaking on Glacier Bay."

"I would have like to have done that but the wife thinks the kids are too little for that. It must be great to have a teenager like your son, so much easier...."

Lucas leaned back against the back of the bench, eyes closed as Morgan prattled on. It seemed that he was carrying the whole conversation because all he heard the Captain say was yes and you don't say. The children were really starting to annoy him with their running and yelling. He thought back to the night before when he puked all over the bathroom like a little kid. God, how embarrassing that had been. He was sure that this would be the last time the Captain and the Doctor invited him on vacation with them. They hadn't mentioned it that morning at all but he knew what they were thinking.

Suddenly, something very cold and wet plopped onto his chest. Bolting upright quickly, he looked wide eyed at the blob of chocolate ice cream starting a slow slide down the front of his shirt. The Morgan children stood in front of him wearing identical stunned expressions, the boy holding an empty cone. "Crap!" he yelled loudly as he stood up and the ice cream fell to the ground. Exhaustion from lack of sleep translated in anger as he became fed up with the whole morning, with the Doctor and the Captain and children in general. Pulling the sticky shirt away from his chest, he informed Bridger icily, "That's it. I'm going back to the boat." Setting off down the sidewalk, he left Nathan and Mr. Morgan without a backward glance, not wanting to let Bridger talk him into staying.

Kristin came out of the store, a woman close behind. "What happened?" She queried as she watched the teen storm down the sidewalk.

"Melissa, Billy, what did you do now!" The other woman demanded of the children as everyone started talking at once.

A half hour later, Nathan and Kristin let themselves into the cabin to find Lucas sprawled across the sofa, asleep.

"Should we wake him?" Kristin whispered to Nathan.

As a warm feeling swept him, Nathan couldn't believe how young the teen looked, his blond hair tousled, cheeks pink, his arms flung wide apart. "He was really grouchy this morning. Let him sleep through lunch and get something later. God knows there no shortage of food around here." Reaching out, he patted the boy's arm softly before they left the cabin.

********