Part Three – Bravo Echo Delta

I had spent all week trying to figure out how to tackle what I knew and I just didn't have an answer, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that maybe, just maybe I cared a lot more of Eugen than I thought I did. I mean when I started putting my mind to it, I couldn't come up with a reason as to why I kept her on as my secretary, lord knows I could find less frustrating girls to work with here, and yet the idea of changing secretaries isn't something I know I want to do.

I spin my chair to look out the window at the port and sigh, why can't things be easier? I take a moment to look up at the clock and see that it's getting near seventeen hundred, on a Friday, I know any minute now Eugen is going to come in with the end of week mail. I was so lost in thought that I didn't hear my door open, or hear her cross the floor to be behind me, not until she blew in my ear, causing me to jump slightly as I say, "I hate it when you do that."

She laughs as I turn in my chair to face her, her arms folded under her bust, making it more pronounced, she leans forward at her hips into my personal space and I see her eyes dart down to my lips and then back up to my eyes before she teases, "No you don't."

She straightens up and puts the mail on my desk before she rests her stern on the edge of my desk, using her arms to prop herself up, she gives me this relaxed smirk while saying to me, "Come on, Kommandant, relax, have some fun, it's the weekend."

As I look at her like this, my mind strips away her clothing as I know what she looks like under it all, thanks to last weekend. I had to admit, she has a fantastic body, but is that all I see of her now? I mean until this last week she was nothing but a pain in my ass, and now? Now, what did I see her as?

I sigh inwardly, I know given the chance she'd try to tease me to get a reaction out of me, I wonder what would happen if I turn the tables on her so to speak? I mean could I do something like that, and not risk getting in trouble with the brass?

What the hell, why not?

I get out of my chair as I say, "You're right Eugen."

I move very close to her, putting my hands on either side of hers, our thumbs touching at the tips, my lips very close to hers and I see she starts to blush, her eyes darting down to my lips again and I whisper, "Having some fun, sounds like a good idea."

Her eyes close and she tilts her head and starts to bring her lips up, just before they touch mine I step back and ask, "What did you have in mind?"

She looks like she's expecting a kiss for a moment before her eyes open and I see confusion in them for a split second before she pats down her hair with both hands and adjusts her uniform before saying, "I was planning on going to the south beach this weakened and getting a good tan, why?"

Interesting, the south beach is the one that gets the least amount of visitors; I wonder why she's planning on that one? She folds her arms under her bust again and looks off to the side as she says, "But first I need to get a new beach outfit… I refuse to wear one that will leave me looking like Hipper."

I laugh and sit back in my chair as I say, "I don't know how that would be possible."

She gives me this smirk as she uses her arms to lift her bust before letting it fall back down as she says, "Why, do you want to see me in a swimsuit?"

I give her a sideways glance as I say, "I've already seen you in less."

She shrugs and pushes off my desk and walks away with more hip sway than normal as she says, "I know you liked what you saw, Kommandant."

She was right, I did. I sigh inwardly and I decide to push my luck as I say, "I know what you meant from last weekend."

She stops dead in her tracks, looking over her shoulder with one fire red eye at me as she says, "The real question is, Kommandant, was I joking or not?"

I adjust how I'm sitting as I counter, "Based on the call you gave me Sunday night, I don't think it is."

She spins to face me, her face bright red as she trips over her own tongue, "I… I don't know what you're talking about!"

I raise an eyebrow and say, "Check your video chat history."

I watch as she stuffs a hand into her cleavage, taking out her phone and I'm more convinced now that it's an extra pocket or seven in there. She starts to scroll to her call history and I see her eyes go wide and she changes to an even brighter red and I stand to walk around to the front of my desk and she looks up at me, her mouth hanging open and I say, "You moaned out my name."

Wow, she is clearly embarrassed about this; let's see how she tries to recover from this.

Eugen's eyes dart around the room quickly before she shoves her phone back into her bust, running a hand through her right tail of hair before crossing back across the room to me, and placed her right arm across my left shoulder, slipping one of her legs between mine and pressing herself against me as she whispers, "Maybe I did, maybe I've been having fantasies…"

She trails off as she slides her left hand down my chest to my belt before adding, "But those are private thoughts and dreams."

Damn, we're now playing a game of chicken I think. How far am I willing to push this? Is this something I want to push? She smells nice.

I take a risk and slide my hands to her hips and lean my head in and whisper to her, "Maybe indulging in those could be fun."

She whispers back, tilting her head in the process, "Maybe it could."

Our lips were almost touching and I take this moment to spin the both of us around so that she was against my desk while I move that last little bit in and make contact. As soon as I do, I feel her right hand go to the back of my head, lacing her gloved fingers into my hair while her left leg went up and onto my right hip as her left hand let go of my belt and went around to my rear and she let out this sound like she had made on the massage table. I slip my hands from her hips to her stern and lift her onto my desk, as soon as I do that her right leg goes around my waist, locking with her left one, pulling me in closer. When my lungs start to protest their need for air, I broke the kiss and she licked her lips as she said, "That was good."

I place my hands against my desk and place my forehead against hers as I say, "It was."

She takes her hands off of me and puts them behind her to clear my desk as she asks, "Do you wanna?"

To be honest, at this point, yeah, yeah I do. But I know that doing that changes the equation. It always makes things more complicated. On top of that, it'd been a long time since I'd done that, I'd likely be a bit of a disappointment. I sigh and say, "As much as I'd like to, it's been a while and I'd hate for it to be a disappointment."

She pouts a little, leaning back against the desk as she sighs out, "But I'm lonely."

I groan as she rocks her hips from side to side, making it clear what she wants and she teases, "Sounds and feels like you want to."

I sigh and hang my head before I say, "I do, I really do. But I also don't want to in the office."

She sighs and props herself up on her arms and says, "Fine, we can go back to your quarters then."

I blink a couple of times as I recall the revelation about my birthday she had told me almost two weeks ago now. I sigh again and say, "Eugen, this isn't something I want to risk having any regrets about."

She unlocks her legs from around me and slips off my desk and moves to sit on my couch and asks, "What do you mean?"

I sigh and sit beside her, running my hands through my hair, looking at the floor I tell her, "I'm not the kind of guy to fool around and move on. Doing that is not something I take lightly, it means something to me."

She nods, crossing her knees before she says, "I've never done it. I talk a big game, but I've never had to follow through."

I nod this time and lean a little forward and say, "Then why don't we try actually dating first?"

She looks down and away before saying, "I wasn't joking by the way. It just kind of happened, I woke up one night having had a dream about you, then they just kept coming, the more time I spent with you, the happier I was feeling."

I place a hand on one of hers and I say to her, "To be honest about it, as much as you are a pain in my ass, I don't think I'd like to go a day without you being a pain in my ass."

She laughs and leans over, resting her head on my shoulder before she whispers, "Ich liebe dich."

I move my arm to wrap it across her shoulders and pull her in close against me before I ask, "So if we are going to try actually dating, where'd you like to go for our first one?"

She laughs and says, "I think we already had it."

"When?" I ask a little confused.

She smiles and draws a little circle on one of my thighs as she says, "Last week when you finally went to lunch with me."

I could see how it could be seen like that so I ask, "So then, what date do you think we're up to then?"

She's quiet for a while, clearly thinking on it before she says, "I'd say far along. I mean we've gone away on a trip, even if it was to the local spa, seen each other naked, taken meals together, and slept next to each other."

That was a fair point; if I think about how things progressed with my last real girlfriend doing all of those things would've been almost a year into a relationship. About the only thing we haven't done yet is sleep with each other. I close my eyes give a slight smirk and a half-laugh to myself as it sinks in that we've done things out of order really, that was when she asked me, "I know that you do that when you find something ironically amusing, so what is it?"

I sigh and look up as I say, "We did things out of order."

"There is an order to things?" she asks.

I sigh and explain to her how things normally work between humans and relationships and she shrugs before saying, "I like being different, this works for us as far as I am concerned."

What surprised me was when she reached across hers' and my bodies to lace the fingers on her right hand into those on my left; I looked down at the top of her head and suggested, "Why don't we try dinner and a movie in then?"

She was about to say something, likely contrary to that as the rain started to come down and she laughed and said, "Well so much for suggesting going out to the beach."

It didn't take us long to shut down our respective offices and lock up, when I got outside, Eugen was already waiting there with an umbrella and she said, "Walk with me to my dorm, so I can get a change of clothes, alright?"

I nod and move down the steps, just as I get down there, she shifts the umbrella to her right hand and laces her left hand through mine before winking at me and whispering, "Maybe I'll bring an overnight bag too."

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It was the smell of coffee that brought me out of the black; I started to feel around in my bed, seeking the frame of the one that had joined me in it last night, not finding her that was when my ears picked up the sound of my shower running. I roll to my back and open my eyes slowly and I look around my room, I can see her clothes on the floor, her overnight bag open on a chair in my room and I recall last night and how little sleep I actually got. I find a smile creeping onto my face, it'd been a long, long time for me, and thankfully Eugen had been good about not mocking me about how fast things ended the first time.

I make my way downstairs for a coffee, god I need one right now. As I pour out a mug, I look up at my collection of mugs and reach for one I had gotten during my time with the Iron Blood fleet and set it beside the machine just as I feel hands slide around my side and up my front followed by Eugen saying, "Good morning."

I smile and touch her hands with my own as I say back, "Good morning, I'd ask if you slept well, but..."

She laughs and releases her hold on me to come around beside me in just a towel and says, "But we did everything but sleep."

I watch as she takes her cup of coffee black, sipping from it as she asks while leaning against my counter, "Any regrets?"

Sipping from my cup with just a touch of cream in it I answer, "No, you?"

She thinks for a moment before bumping her hip against me and saying, "A little chaffing, but no, no regrets."

There was an awkward silence for a moment before she said, "I still want to go into town to do some shopping today, want to come along to offer your thoughts on the new swimsuit I want to get?"

I raise an eyebrow and ask, "What kind were you thinking of?"

She shrugs, sipping more coffee before saying, "I was thinking about something that borders on not being there at all. I know I look good, and I wanted to entice you with it."

I laugh before I say, "I'm not sure a bikini could do that after going to the hot spring with you."

She moves to stand in front of me and presses her stern into me while resting her head on my chest as she says, "True, but at the time that didn't seem to get you going and I asked Atago for any ideas on how to tease you to get your motor running."

I blink a couple of times before asking, "Why would you go to Atago?"

Eugen shrugs and says, "I will just say that she has some experience with previous commanders."

I tilt my head to the side and probe a little more, "Just how often do relationships form between commanders and kansen?"

"Every time," She says to me, pausing to sip her coffee before pushing off of me and heading towards the stairs as she adds, "you were just the first I found interesting."

Huh.

Wait a second, if this happens, every time then I need to look into the regulations around this. I grab my copy of the Azur Lane UCMJ and get comfy on my couch as I start looking into things.

As I dug through the rules and regulations I was left with a sinking feeling, things weren't exactly clear. One passage stated that the kansen were hardware and property of their nations, another said that they were Azur Lane personnel that operated outside the normal command structure, and yet another said that they were part of the command structure. I close the book after I dog-ear the relevant pages and it hits me that I need to spend some time crafting a letter to BUPERS to try and figure out what I need to do.

With an inward sigh, I grab my laptop and start to draft my letter when I suddenly feel something resting on the top of my head before I hear Eugen ask, "What are you doing? It's the weekend, you need to relax."

I reach over and open one of the relevant passages and key typing as I say, "If I want to really see this through, I need to let BUPERS know what I'd like to do and find out what I need to do."

After a moment or two, I hear her say, "Why are you making an argument about me being a person and not a thing?"

I sigh again and tell her about the conflicting passages and she starts to laugh before saying, "Well, it's not like there is a ton of president for ships with feelings."

I laugh and lean back as I say, "Very true, still, it raises some questions and highlights changes that are needed on the books."

Eugen tilts her head to the side and asks, "Are you going to be at this a while?"

I look down before I nod and say, "Yeah, but it's important."

Eugen sighs, folding her arms under her bust before she says, "Fine, but you need to come to the beach with me tomorrow."

"Deal." I say to her, turning my attention to her and I suddenly feel like I'm going to be missing something when I see her in a tight black top and red skirt.

Eugen smiles at me before kissing me deeply. Once the kiss breaks she says those words in her native language again, "Ich liebe dich."

As she starts to turn away, I take her hand causing her to turn to look at me as I say back without thinking about it, "I love you too."

She gives me this smile when I say that, a smile the likes of which I had never seen before she says, "I'll send you pictures later then."

I squeeze her hand as I say, "Looking forward to it."

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I spent all day working on that letter, sighting the relevant passages, rewriting it two or three times before I was happy enough to send it into Central Command that was located in the Atlantic. With that done I go and start looking in the fridge for something to eat, just as my phone trills with a message, I go over to it and see that it's from Eugen so I open it and see an image of her in a thin, almost non-existent black string bikini and a message below saying 'I'll see you at the south beach tomorrow.'

Damn, just damn.

I yawn a little and take out some of the leftover dinner from last night and heat it up in the microwave, when it's done I take it with me back to the living room and turn on the TV just as I see an e-mail come back to my laptop from High Command. My head tilts to the side as I bring it up and start to read through it. A smile slowly starting to grow on my lips, apparently they are aware of the need to rewrite the UCMJ to reflect the current understanding of the kansen. The other thing that helps build my mood is seeing that they are approving the relationship between me and Eugen, stating they are curious to see how she develops.

I close the message and lean against my couch and I notice how relaxed I feel right now, I had no idea how much it was weighing on me and how I feel like I've wasted so much time, holding back. I take out my phone and message Eugen back, saying that I was looking forward to it.

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A/N: This seemed like a good spot to end this chapter, much like the original version of this story that I took down, chapter 4 will be the shortest version as it it more or less just putting a bow on this story. So thank you to everyone that has read this version of it, working with Eugen in a T rated story is HARD! She's the kind of character that just comes into her own in a M rated one..