It's another day at the library, work's never over, more books shoved onto shelves, checked out, sorted, the whole nine yards, and it's slowly coming up on lunch hour, the hour of which people adore, and certainly people in the library enjoyed it immensely.
Usual crowds, checking in books, checking out books, requesting books to different branches, every which way the wind blows, lunch can't come soon enough, and there's already plans made for making a trip to a place outside the library for lunch.
With a lull in business, it gave Bill and Lila time to talk to each other as they manned the counter for their floor, people mingling around the aisles adjacent to them, some sitting at the library computers, or others at the tables with stacks of books in front of them as they quietly read to themselves.
There's excitement coming from Bill and Lila's trying to keep her calm, but Bill's eagerly excited for something she's been set on.
"Bill, calm down, you're turning into a kid who got into the candy cauldron after midnight!" Lila calmed Bill as she's excited about a chocolate focused restaurant, whatever they call those places, opening down the road from the library, complete with a promotion that the first hundred or so customers there before the opening gets a year's worth of free meals, which Bill obtained from determination and sacrificing a chance of putting mousse in her frizzled hair.
It was a worthy sacrifice for free chocolate inspired dishes, that Bill planned on going after work, on her mind what she wanted for her free item of the day.
Pouting, Bill's glossy lips glistened under the soft light as she said, "Hey, it's a free treat every day for a year, how can I not be?"
Touché.
"Yeah, but don't forget the golden rule. You eat there everyday you're going to get sick of chocolate, eventually," Lila warned that if Bill isn't careful, her favorite treat in the whole world's going to be something she avoids out of grown disdain due to eating too much of it.
Gasping with her manicured nails shimmering under the light on her chest, Bill exclaimed, "Lila Ann Watson, I'd never!"
If there's one thing about Bill that needed saying, she loves chocolate, and if anyone told her differently, she'd accuse them of blasphemy.
Giggling, Lila mused that when Bill's girlfriend comes down, at least she has a date spot on tap, if Bill shares her spoils with her love.
Eying her disapprovingly, Bill swears that she shares, leading to a yawn as Theodore, wearing an outfit only 80's Don Johnson would approve, wandered over with the empty cart after he returned books to their proper places, overhearing what they're talking about, commenting, "She did almost bite my hand off when I asked for a piece of Lindt!"
Shooting dagger eyes with her dark eyes, Bill swears that she shares her treats with people in the library.
Snorting, Theodore pointed out that when he tried to take a Lindt chocolate from her, she nearly bit his head off!
"You go through twenty before you're finally done!" Bill retorted that Theodore's prone to overeating, that giving him one Lindt results in him eating twenty!
Theodore tried to defend himself, but Lila, in her infinite wisdom, pointed out how she's barely able to get something simple as a cup of coffee without him taking the whole pot for himself.
"If you spent any time in his meetings, you'd want the whole pot, too!" Theodore defended himself against the allegations of taking whole pots of coffee for nefarious caffeine reasons, that it was his brother's fault for causing it.
Shaking her head at this, Bill mused that Hammond never made them sit through meetings as much as he put Theodore through them, leading him to hiss, "He does it on purpose!"
Causing Lila to add to the list of why Hammond's strict with Theodore, "You did turn K9 off and use it as decoration."
Flabbergasted as he censored himself around Bill, Theodore says it shocked him one too many times, for no reason!
"You keep leaving books around, steal his jelly babies, and sleeping through meetings, are you surprised?" Bill noted that Theodore wasn't innocent as he made himself out to be, pointing out the transgressions that resulted in Hammond's science project shocking him relentlessly for it.
Scrounging his face, Theodore hissed, "Why're you taking his side?"
He heard a response behind him with a retort, "I don't know, dear little brother. Why would they?"
Turning swiftly to face him, Theodore sees Hammond leaning on his umbrella with a look on his face.
Crossing his arms, Theodore responded with a dry, "Oh, don't you have papers to sort?"
He felt the tip of the umbrella pressing down on the top his suede shoe as Hammond sternly said, "I did that already. Now, tell me, little brother, why aren't you doing your job, hm?"
Hammond informed Theodore he needed to finish filing paperwork, leading him to raise his nose at this, before Hammond reminded him of his place.
Groaning, Theodore asked him, "We have emails, now, why aren't we using that?"
Pointing at him with the tip of his umbrella, Hammond retorted, "If you hadn't sat on the paperwork for so long, we would've been using it, but unfortunately, little brother, procrastination doesn't work. See to it that it's done before the end of the day, hm?"
A thinly veiled threat at the end made Theodore roll his eyes, only for him to get lightly poked by the tip of the umbrella as Hammond also added, "And so you're aware, I've changed K9's components around, so I don't want it turning off unexpectedly, again, understand?"
Groaning, Theodore exhaled as he agreed to Hammond's terms, of course he couldn't help himself by hiding insults in his words exchanged with his older brother.
While exchanging leers with each other, they're stopped when a man cleared his throat.
Turning their heads, they see a lanky man in his late 50s, about Theodore's height, with muscled forearms, wearing a standard naval engineer uniform, fine lines around his mouth, and one arm behind his back with his free arm at his side.
Lila's chestnut eyes glistened as she nearly leapt over the counter, instantly recognizing the man.
"Heya, pumpkin," her father smiled warmly as Lila wrapped her arms around him, squeezing him near blue, as he struggled to breathe while Lila hugged him tightly.
She let him go, finally, as he patted her back, his smile never leaving his face.
"Daddy, you didn't tell me you were on shore leave!" Lila looked at her father, disheartened that her father didn't inform her that he was going on shore leave.
If he did, she would've planned time-off to spend time with him.
Weakly shrugging, her father tells her that it was unexpected, he didn't think he'd get shore leave for another month, but there was a change of plains.
"Oh! But, uh, I was in Sapporo for a little bit and I happened to pick up something on my way back," Lila's father remembered as he moved his arm from behind his back, showing Lila a medium-sized container of individually wrapped cookies.
Shiroi kobito.
One of Hokkaido's specialities.
Rarely, the Watson family went up that far, but Lila's father had business in Sapporo, and figured something from the Hokkaido region would brighten Lila's day.
"I was considering getting you a jar of the finest kimchi from my time in Seoul, but I figured cookies was the better option," Lila's father smirked as he handed the container to Lila as she carefully took it into her hands.
As she held the square container, Lila looked up to her father, asking him, "So, where's Beavis and Butthead?"
Her father responded, "Billy's in Berlin en route to Normandy and Ethan's en route to Sydney."
The brothers busied with their respected duties; their father couldn't meet with them easily as he could with Lila.
Curious, Lila asks her father, "So, what's this change of plains?"
Rubbing the back of his head, his graying brunet curly hair shimmering under the light, her father said, "Er, you know I can't talk about certain things, pumpkin."
Under orders, her father can't tell her much, but he can say, he'll be closer to her for once.
"Really?" Lila's chestnut eyes twinkled as her father nodded, saying that while he's barred from telling her specifics, he'll be stationed in the UK for the foreseeable future.
"Wh-when?" Lila gestured with her free hand as she asks her father when he's stationing in the UK.
Lowering his hand, her father said that it's in the motions as they speak. He only heard this a little while ago and didn't have a chance to tell Lila until now when his ship docked.
"What about Beavis and Butthead, are they stickin' around here, too?" Lila asked about her brothers and her father says that they'll remain as they are, it only applied to him.
Again, he couldn't tell her anything more due to the sensitive nature of it, but in short, he'll be able to see her more.
"Daphne already knows, I think she's thrilled about not having to take the trash out all the time," Lila's father mentioned someone that Theodore didn't know about and he saw a look hidden in her eyes at the mention before she asked, "So, you're not living on the ship, anymore?"
Shaking his head, her father says that they told him that he can live on the ships he works on per usual or live nearby, he chose the latter.
"I'll tell you, pumpkin, you'd think the thirty years I put under my belt would mean something, but my hips aren't the the types to settle," her father says that the beds on the ships aren't comfortable then and aren't, now, so given the option, he went for an actual bed that isn't just padding with starchy sheets.
Slowly nodding, her chestnut hair bobbing as it's tied back in a loose bun, Lila says that she's happy either way, her father's closer to her, now.
His chestnut eyes moving past her, her father sees the three people staring at them, recognizing two of them.
"Hey, Bill, Hammond," he called out to them as he went over, his military boots clanking against the laminated floor, his hand reaching out to shake Bill and Hammond's hands, before looking toward Theodore with confusion.
Theodore introduced himself and Lila's father introduced himself as Paul S. Watson.
"Mr. Watson," Theodore acknowledged as he shook Paul's hand.
Paul apologized for suddenly showing up like this, but he was nearby and wanted to swing around to tell Lila the news in person before he's back at the dock for departure, as he won't know if he gets any time to pick up the phone when they depart.
"Oh, it's almost break time, Mr. Watson, no trouble," Hammond politely tells Paul that he didn't have to worry, they're coming up on break, and as he noticed, the influx of people coming and going are slowing down due to it becoming closer to lunchtime.
Nodding, Paul thanked him, remembering how fickle Hammond was about not knowing about him showing up in advance, but Hammond says that Paul hadn't been around for a while, that it's only fair.
Turning his head slightly, Paul noticed Theodore looking at him with infusion, and asked what was on his mind, only for Theodore to say, "Oh, sorry, you look like someone I met."
Something about his face, Theodore swears it looked uncanny to someone he met, with the only exception of Paul's nose, but Lila told him a while ago that an accident broke it, and it didn't heal like it should.
"It happens. I met my doppelgänger in, oh, Norfolk around 0800 hours sometime last month, I think, believe it or not," Paul tells Theodore that finding similarities in people's common, he's no exception, in fact, Paul ran into his doppelgänger during his time in Norfolk.
Well, he says doppelgänger, it was really a stretch, but the man he met had a similar face to his, looked younger than him, about, and British.
"Eh, it's the semantics that counts," Lila shrugged.
Checking his wristwatch, Paul noticed the time, and said he should head back before the traffic swells.
He hugged his daughter one more time, telling her that he'll let her know when everything's finalized, before saying his goodbyes to the others.
"Remember, pumpkin, stay out of trouble," her father reminded her as he's about to leave.
Lila swatted the air with her free hand as she swears, she won't get into trouble, before her father mentioned, "Pumpkin, do you remember our old neighbor, Lieutenant Priscilla?"
Blinking, Lila harkened back to her childhood, before saying she vaguely remembered him, before her father says, "I bumped into him the other day and he mentioned that his windmill came apart after, oh, twenty years, give or take. He says he doesn't know how, but he found red paint chips lodged into the wood. You remember it being pastel white, don't you?"
Trying to remember, Lila thinks it was, and then her father mentioned that some of the blades on the windmill looked dented in areas, too.
That area never got any major storms, and nothing could've dented them at that height, nor did they dent naturally.
"Weird isn't it, pumpkin?" Lila's father winked at her before he took leave.
THE END