Week 11 - UDC 3

51. Denial

Coming inside after dismissing the officer in the Service Khakis, Chelsea joins Noah on the couch while the twins play with toys on the floor. Noah nudged her, waiting. "I sent him to the Police Station. If he's not redirected there, he'll be talking to Harry."

"You do realize that that might have actually been a friend of Nora's, right?"

She nodded slowly. "I do. It's also been three years, Noah."

Noah sighed, knowing that she was right, that it had been three years since that night, and five since another event which was still haunting everyone. "I feel like we should warn Alan, just in case."

"That what? We've got a Naval Officer playing nice and asking questions and I sent his butt to Arlington?" Chelsea let it hang in the air between them, a roiling unpleasantness, for minutes, and then she sighed. "All right, fine. I'll go call the station and head him off."

52. Sadness

The phone call had been an odd one, Officer Rockford Santos reflected as he opened a file cabinet and started looking for the right file. If Miss Lowell was correct, then he needed to find it now. He found it and opened it to review with an emotional pressure settling over him. The case had not been a nice one, and he still remembered sitting on the Lowell/Finney porch, listening to the Pi sequence...

Turning, he went to find the copy machine to make a copy quickly. With any luck, whoever this was that had been sent their way would actually care.

53. Anger

Quickly changing into gym clothes, Nick stowed his backpack in the locker and made his way down the rows, checking in each one. Finally finding who he was looking for, for he'd actually switched PE classes, too, he watched the interactions silently. Was it his imagination, or was Pete angry and hiding it really well?

The two guys opposite kept throwing snide remarks at him that to others would seem innocuous, but... "Hey. Which way is the weight room again? Still new and this place is a maze."

Pete's head came up, the anger melted away, and he smiled. "That so? Let's go, then."

The two guys, who were two more of their JROTC members, eyed Nick with incredulity, and he shrugged. "What can I say? I still get lost."

54. Guilt

"You didn't have to do that," Pete said on their way out of the locker room. "And don't you have history this period?"

"Switched," Nick told him. "Didn't like my original history class anyway."

A rare chuckle came from his Tiny Terror. "Same homework, though. Are you actually doing weight training?"

"Yes. You?"

Pete sighed. "Archery."

"Let's go see if they'll let you do weights, huh?"

"Is it more fun than shooting targets?"

"Depends on your definition of fun."

55. Acceptance

In the weight room, Jennifer came bouncing up to them with a grin while he talked the instructor into letting the youngest (and smallest) student on campus switch from Archery to Weights. He also noticed Bart was in this hour of Physical Education and wondered how he'd missed him in the locker room.

Mr. Leland looked down at Pete with a shrewd expression, then shrugged. "A bit of weight training will do you good, kid."

Pete nodded to Nick. "His idea."

"Well, it's a good one."

Later, Nick learned that he'd missed Bart because his locker was in the last row by the exit doors to the outside.

A/N: In the movie novelization of Top Gun, it was mentioned that weight training helped fighter pilots cope better with G-Forces, and this aspect was also mentioned in a special on the Blue Angels hosted by Dennis Quaid: Blue Angles Around the World At The Speed of Sound (1994).