Chapter 11 – Interlude

A nice short chapter, as the title suggests, acting as an interlude before the upcoming action ;) And I can see a style of writing starting to creep in, so the way I'm telling the story may differ from the original chapters, but I hope its still good :p Enjoy!

Dinner for Don Lino's family was a quick affair. Frankie was, unsurprisingly, not hungry and had spent the most part of the evening picking at his food, a rare event for a pup with a voracious appetite. Connie had not even shown up, and Bambi was obviously still sleeping off the sweets. The whole dining hall, however, was a buzz with excited chatter about the upcoming fight. Practically every shark in the ocean bet on Vincenzio when it came to the final, a rare chance for sharks to square up against dolphins in a show of physical and sporting prowess.

Frankie was sent straight to his room afterwards, as part of his week-long punishment. Don Lino, always soft on his son, did however promise that if he looked after Bambi properly until Saturday, he'd let him off. While Frankie opened his door to see Bambi asleep in the corner, Don Lino opened his office door to a much more unexpected sight.

There was Connie, knocking back another shot of her husband's Skipjack Daniels whisky, not at all bothered by its strong taste. This was something she was apparently used to.

"Connie? Whatch'you doing in here? I didn't see you at dinner…" Don Lino started, cutting himself short as he spied his liquor cabinet open, and the shot glass in his wife's fin. He sighed heavily, rubbing his temple with his right fin and muttering under his breath.

"How many times have we been thru this, Connie," Don Lino continued, sounding more disappointed than angry.

Connie didn't even glance at him as he glided to her side. He picked up his bottle, glad to see that she hadn't drank quite as much this time compared to previous solitary drinking sessions. She didn't fight to keep it at her side, and just let him place it back in his liquor cabinet without a word more between them. His wife had never been much of a drinker, and was practically teetotal in his presence. It was these moments he dreaded the most, when she was alone with alcohol.

For what felt like the longest time, Connie just stared down into the shot glass, letting her thoughts tumble and swirl like the whisky she had just been indulging in. Her cheeks were tear-stained and her eyes bloodshot and puffy, an unattractive image for a shark concerned about her looks.

Don Lino didn't look back at her, instead picking up his jar of meat pieces and feeding his already bloated piranha, something to distract him from his wife's problems. He'd been through all of this before, and had said everything that could have possibly been said. Now, he was out of ways to comfort her and was also running out of patience with her.

"Connie…it's been over a year since it happened – " Don Lino broke the silence, his voice quite soft.

"Oh, and that makes it alright!" Connie snapped.

"That's not what I meant," Don Lino replied.

"You don't know how it felt. Feeling her slip away…it was…ugh…you wouldn't understand," Connie started, but stopped herself, thinking her husband of so many years would have no clue about the troubles of being female.

"She was my daughter too!" Don Lino raised his voice, losing his temper. "Of course I know what it feels like, knowing she's not here."

Connie didn't have a reply to this. In all the sadness, she forgot that Don Lino had lost a daughter as well. She sat at the bar in silence, wishing now that she had put up a fight for the whisky. Eventually, she got up and just swam out of the office without another word, leaving a troubled Lino to contemplate his wife's inner turmoil on his own.

Frankie groggily stirred from underneath his covers, groaning. Bambi was having a nightmare, most likely caused by all that sugar, and she was thrashing around in her crib, whimpering. Frankie sluggishly got up from the mattress and bumped into various things in the darkened room as he swam to her side.

"Bambi? Bambi, what's wrong?" Frankie reached a fin through the bars of the crib and gently nudged her. She didn't respond, and her crying grew more feverish. "Ack, how did I use to open this…?" he grumbled to himself.

He looked all over the crib, trying to remember what used to make this side open, finally laying eyes on the latch in the upper left corner. The side completely slid to the floor. Bambi now stirred awake, but tears still streamed down her face. Frankie struggled to think of something to cheer her up, his eyes settling on Shiny. He grabbed it and brought it to Bambi's side.

"Look Bambi, here's that thing you like to cuddle so much…" Frankie said, waving Shiny around. Bambi didn't react and just cried even more.

"Ugh…I can't believe I'm gonna do this," Frankie grimaced, sinking low out of Bambi's sight. He held Shiny high. "Hi Bambi! Why are you so sad?" Frankie said squeakily, wishing to God that nobody came in and saw him doing this.

The crying stopped. Frankie couldn't believe it had worked! Bambi stared at Shiny with wide-eyed wonder and babbled happily at it until she made a grab for the plushie, wrenching it away from Frankie's grip. He bobbed back up, relieved that she had stopped crying. That noise was beginning to get annoying. As she curled herself around Shiny, feeling the nightmarish images of huge white monsters being banished to the recesses of her mind, Frankie lifted the side back up, waiting for the click of the latch.

He looked at her through the bars, smiling a little. When he settled back onto his mattress, he felt sort of accomplished that he'd managed to calm her down, and fell back to sleep with that proud grin on his face.

Sweat travelled down the muscular contours of Vincenzio's upper body, from his refined head, down his burly shoulders to his slender back. He pummelled the punch-bag with a savage ferociousness, imagining it to be Tooti. Regis looked on, half-asleep, his head drooping. He tried to focus on the clock, his vision blurry. It was well past midnight, and Vincenzio had been training almost non-stop since his return from New Reef City that afternoon.

"Okaaaaaaay, big guy. You should call it a night," Regis said, yawning.

Vincenzio didn't want to stop, his mind stuck in a mental rut, focused only on one thing – revenge. Beating a punch-bag to pulp wouldn't get him any closer to personally squaring off against Tooti, but it made him feel better. He gave it one last punch, and then stood back, breathing heavily. Regis brought a large towel to him and draped it over his immense shoulders.

"Don't stress yourself," Regis said coolly.

"I won't," Vincenzio replied, a little curtly. "Okay, okay, I'll take half the day off tomorrow, how's that?" Vincenzio said, more softly this time, in reaction to a glare from Regis.

"That's better," Regis nodded. "You never trained this hard last year and you gave that whale a serious tail-whoopin'."

"Well, its personal this time," Vincenzio said, sighing.

His hard day's work was beginning to catch up on him, and he regretted it. He loosened his shoulders and just gave his neck a quick twist, hearing a gut-wrenching crack as he did so. Regis shuddered. He hated it when Vincenzio did that, and went for the nearest object he could throw at him.

But Vincenzio had made a quick exit, chuckling and leaving Regis hovering alone in the gym, holding a boxing glove.