Something Fishy part 2

A Loaf of bread, a Jug of wine and Thou.

Tish dropped the large stack of folders on Lee's desk barely hiding her scowl. It landed with a thud splashing coffee from his mug onto the saucer. Wordlessly she stomped out slamming the office door behind her as she returned to Chips office. Normally Chip would be handling the crew rotation reports, but he was currently in sick bay having the ever growing rash taken care of. Doc had determined it was the squid ink had manifested as an allergy. The rash had progressed to weeping blisters which gave Chip an odd smell. The only relief that Doc could give Chip was to spread an ointment on the affected areas.

It was rather clear that Tish had heard about the dating disasters from Agatha. Even Lola and Angie were giving him the stink eye. What started out as a well intended second first date for Chip and Agatha had rapidly dissolved into something best described as Armageddon. For the life of him he couldn't figure out how someone who was five foot three weighing 105 at best could be more dangerous than a tank of sharks. Truthfully it was all Lee's fault.

Lee had worked very hard to make the second first date be perfect. The BOQ he shared with Chip had a nice balcony with a view to the ocean. He'd borrowed a patio table and matching chairs and took time to properly clean the balcony. He'd created a fool proof menu so that all Chip would have to do was extract it from the plugged in cooler and serve it. He had made a picnic dinner for them, a nice collection of cheeses, crackers a steak salad, sliced fruit with different dips, grilled stuffed mushrooms and shrimp kabobs. Even the wine was breathing nicely. All Chip had to do was open the cooler and the meal was done.

The apartment was spotless, it had taken alot of scrubbing the counters and electric stovetop with steel wool to scrape off the stains from Chips attempts of cooking. Fresh towels went in the bathroom, the carpet swept and Lee had even dragged out the basket of fancy soaps Edith had given them. Once Agatha arrived he would make his apologies and leave the apartment to go to Nelson's penthouse.

The quiet knock on the door happened a few minutes early. Chip glanced at Lee and opened the door. There was a shy school boy grin as Chip offered his hand. Agatha took Chips hand and shook it as she struggled to not grin. She smothered a giggle and apologized quickly. "I'm sorry, I'm just used to that ointment being used on diaper rashes." She explained.

Chip shrugged "As long as it works it could be hemorrhoids cream. " He said pragmatically watching her nod in agreement.

" Oh, it's been used for that as well. "

Seeing the two of the warming to each other Lee bid them a good night then headed to where he was going to have dinner with Harry and Edith. He'd closed the door a bit envious of Chip. Agatha, while never would be a beauty had 5aken the time to dress up in a lovely blue silk dress that showed off all the right curves and fluttered above her knees in soft folds. Her auburn hair was was swept back with a bejewled headband tumbling down over her bare shoulders in perfect curles. She had a touch of lip gloss but still looked freshly scrubbed. Grinning to himself Lee had already decided to spend the night in the boat if after dinner the lights were off to give Chip privacy. He was helping seat Edith for dinner when the fire alarm warning system sounded. Lee groaned as it specified their BOQ.

Edith stayed behind to deal with the dinner allowing Lee and Nelson to dash down the steps into the parking lot where they saw thick black smoke billowing from their windows. There was no sign of Chip or Agatha. Taking the steps two at a time Lee and Harriman raced down the hall where thick smoke billowed from under the door. It took precious seconds for Lee to get the door unlocked. From the smell of it, it was an electrical fire. Following the sound of coughing, they located first Agatha and then Chip removing them from the apartment.

The base fire brigade met them at the door escorting them to where the paramedics checked them over. Normally Lee would be refusing someone poking him. His lungs felt as if they were burning. He could tell that Harry was having a difficult time breathing, it was all the smoking he did, Lee supposed. Chip though... Chip was having a tube put down his throat and was covered in fast growing hives. Doc was there listening to Chips lungs as IVs were placed into Chips arms. Lee had seen people close to death and Chip even with his body covered with the greasy lampblack was right up there. Numb, Lee watched the ambulances holding Chip and the admiral pull away and lights flashing, take them to the base hospital.

Lee didn't see Agatha in the mill of emergency personnel. He watched the fire brigade drag hoses into the duplex apartment, the water coming down the steps, the fire starting on the other unoccupied side. The fire brigade chopping holes in the roof. The walls. Finally the smoke cleared. The fire brigade began pulling out the furniture. The beds and chairs and books. The soft quilt that Edith had made them on Christmas. Spraying it all down with water and foam until it was just lumps of refuse. It was just stuff. He knew that. They had their cabins on the sub. They weren't homeless. It was just an apartment much like all the others.

His car. His beautiful red sports car had been in the garage with the top down. All that water the soot... It would be a loss as well.

Mentally Lee went down the list trying to think of something that could have started the fire. Everything had been off when he left, there was no cooking needed. The cooler had been used dozens of times and the fuse boxes checked twice a year. He saw the chief of the fire brigade in a white helmet speaking to several of the men. Pulling the o2 mask from his face he shook his head as the paramedics tried to get him to put it back on. He had to find Agatha. He had to know what had happened. Coughing he spat out some black gunk. Lee's chest still felt as if it was on fire. It didn't matter. He'd convinced himself of that.

"Agatha?" Have you seen Agatha?" Lee asked one of the men. He was turned and pointed to a figure sitting on the footboard of the fire truck wrapped in a blanket with a corner over her head. Something blue was wadded up on their lap in a plastic bag. The headband was on top. As Lee approached he saw her head rise and the blanket over her head fall back. Her beautiful auburn hair, half of it was gone, to nearly an inch of her scalp. The other half was wadded clumps of something. He strode forward and gagged. He knew the wadded clumps was vomit. Lee saw her eyes blaze as she stood. For a brief second he saw the blue lace under the blanket as her sweet right hook gave him a match set.

When Lee was able to partially open his eyes the first thing he saw was Edith pacing next to his hospital bed. He had an IV in his arms, leads to a heart monitor and an O2 mask on while hi wore a too short hospital gown and thin sheet which wasn't warm enough.. "Edi?" He managed to croak.

Edith stopped pacing. She let out a sigh of relief then became very stern. "You were very lucky Lee Crane. "

"Chip...?"

"Alive. He will be off duty a while. Harry and you will have to have nebulizer treatments but Doc is confident you can be discharged tomorrow. That young woman..." Here Edi frowned.

"Agatha." Lee supplied. He watched Edith nod.

"Agatha. Tish is with her now. She's having a difficult time of it all. "

"How did it start?" Cripes those few words tore at Lee's throat starting him coughing again. Edi helped him to sit up and take sips of warm water.

" From what Agatha remembered, She had just put the kettle on for tea and Chip opened the cooler. All of a sudden he'd tried to push her out of the way to get to the ended up vomiting over her. The next thing she knew there was smoke everywhere and something flashed fire... The only thing that saved her face was it was covered with Chips vomit. She'd tried to get chip out but the smoke was too thick. Did you know she only had two nice dresses? Well the paramedics had to check for burns and in full view of everyone just popped the dress off over her head and wrapped her in that blanket. She was beyond mortified Lee! It's your fault you know! All of it!"

Lee looked sadly at Edith. " I know."

It would be several days before the fire brigade chief had answers for them. The closest thing they could determine was they thought it was from a few strands of steel wool had remained on the underside of the stove element which ignited the alcohol from the open wine bottle. More investigation determined it was a short in the apartment wiring that had smoldered which had caused the fire. Salvage crews would work through everything but it looked like a total loss. They had placed everything in a storage warehouse to be cleaned if possible.

Doc was still working out why Chip had become ill. He'd tested negative for shellfish allergy, the squid ink though had caused the initial rash. Doc had gone over the menu with Lee and nothing was an allergy. Chip was improving slowly. In the meantime Lee took over Chips workload as well as his own and grabbing a few short hours of sleep that he could. Lee couldn't blame Tish or the others. He had brought disasters on the people he cared about.

Sighing he threw himself into the folders Tish had brought him. It was quite late when he finished clearing the work from both offices. Placing the work on Tish and Lola's desks he found himself at Nelson's office.

"With your permission sir, I would like to take a few days off. There are some personal matters I need to attend to...Everything's been caught up..."

" Of course. Take what time you need."

" Thank you Sir."

" Lee... If you need to speak with someone..." Harry leaned forward studying the young man. He could see the dark circles under his eyes.

" About what? " Lee saw the sympathy in Harry's eyes.

" You've lost- all your possessions, your apartment, your car..." Harry began

" Harry, that's just ...stuff, it can all be replaced. Chip and Agatha are alive. Your alive. That short could have happened at any time... I'm going to still sleep on the boat, but I need time to sort through everything... At least my dress uniform was at the cleaners and my pins in my desk on board the seaview. Even Edi's quilt came back from the cleaners looking nearly as good. The base housing steward said our new quarters will be ready in a week. May as well use the time to get ready to be moved by then. " Lee watched Harry nod

" You still don't need to do this alone Lee."

" For now, I do Harry. I'm ok."

" Alright Lad. On the condition you do check in with me..." Harry said in a forced parental tone.

"Yes Da." Lee grinned. Lee retreated to his cabin onboard the sub and laid out his dress uniform for the next day. Part of him panicked, then he let out air. It was the right thing to he took a brief shower and climbed into bed. It was going to be a very long day tomorrow. Lee was gone by the time breakfast came and went. He had grabbed a cup of coffee from the ward room and borrowed a car from the motor pool. Beside him was a package, and the trunk held several more.

Agatha was unprepared to see the boxes on her desk when she entered work at the center for the afternoon shift. Even more so to hear a familiar voice coming from the playroom. Long strides carried her to the Dutch door. Inside the playroom sat Lee, his cover on the head of a toddler who sat on his lap. The others curled around him half asleep as he read from a book she didn't recognize. There were stains on his now rumpled once immaculate dress uniform, stains she did recognize. Formula, baby vomit, grape juice from a leaky sippy cup. Strawberry jam hand prints. A smear of peanut butter on his chin. Even his cover had a suspicious brown stain on it. He glanced up from the book and just nodded to her. The dry cleaners would be called to task to get the uniform clean. Stepping away quietly she went to the directors office. "What's he doing here?" She demanded half angry.

"Captain Crane said you informed him his voice was suitable for putting children to sleep, and I agree. He's doing a splendid job. Oh, and he brought you some things, the dresses are hanging on the back of your door. "

Not waiting for further explanation, Agatha returned to her office and glanced behind the door. There were several very lovely dresses in different garment bags, all her size. In the boxes, matching shoes, underwear, and purses. The last box contained the contents of the purse that had been left in the fire, replacement credit cards, and licences. Dazed, she sat in her chair. She had told Tish if she never saw him it would be none too soon. This though, This she hadn't expected.

Lee stayed the entire day, helping her lock up the center. He hadn't tried to explain anything and everything spoken was all job related. The director was so taken with him she invited him to come back at any time. He happily agreed. Now he walked Agatha out to her car, carrying the dresses and several of the boxes for her. After placing them in the trunk and hanging the dresses Lee watched her turn towards him, a single word on her lips.

"Why?"

Unmindful of the dirt Lee sat down on the grass beside her car. He spread his handkerchief on the grass and assisted her down. "It's not... not... what you're probably thinking. It's not guilt, or believing that the secretaries will ease up with the stink eye... " Here she snorted. Lee let out some air. "I realized... I realized I felt panic when I didn't see you with the paramedics and I knew you hadn't been taken to the hospital. I've lost men from accidents, from duty. I felt panic because I couldn't bear the thought of losing you. " Lee studied her face, now framed in the nearly shaven to the skull auburn hair that spiked out. It would take years for her hair to grow back.

"Are you saying you're in love with me?" She asked with suspicion.

" Your sweet, and gentle, and kind. Your more Chips type than mine, your someone though I would very much like to be friends with even if we have nothing in common." He admitted.

" Your very good with young children..." She said looking into his golden brown eyes as he shook his head.

" No, that was all guilt and feeling the need to be punished would make me feel something other than feeling sorry for myself. I know I didn't cause the short in the kitchen wall, which Doc determined was the reason Chip became ill. He'd been breathing those fumes all morning. If I hadn't been nose blind from cleaning I should have been able to smell it as well. I am so sorry Agatha. I just, want to be friends and I don't want to lose that in my life."

Agatha took Lee's hand in hers. " Apology accepted. How about when Chip is better, we go out on a group date? "

" And who would be coming on this date?" Lee inquired curious.

" Oh, Edith, and her brother Harry, I rather like them. Chip, Tish, and you and I... Someplace simple, like the park... Unless you would like to join the children and I on a field trip to the aquarium? Not in your dress whites of course, it's far messier than lunch time."

" I think that all can be arranged... Though, I thought you were an introvert?" Lee asked puzzled. He watched her nod her head.

" I am... But, it's not so bad with you as my friend." She said grinning.