CHAPTER 82 - THE FIRST HOURS

Jack and Elizabeth had plans to take turns watching Aaron. Jack would take the first seven-hour shift after dinner was finished, which would allow Elizabeth to get the much-needed sleep that had eluded her last night`.

"I'll keep him occupied. If he's still awake at the end of my shift, I'll bring him back and wake you up, then I'll get my sleep," Jack informed Elizabeth when they were back in their quarters after the ship's meal of vegetable-lasagna, steamed green beans, and fresh banana bread.

He changed Aaron's diaper, managing to avoid getting kicked by the boy's energetic legs, while Elizabeth got ready for bed as soon as the bathroom was empty of one of their suite-mates.

It wasn't ideal having four adults and two children share a small bathroom but Elizabeth had gotten used to this slight inconvenience caused by living on a transporter. Sometimes she felt like she was back at summer camp sharing a cabin with others, especially when the twins next door were giggling uncontrollable about something silly or talking about short-sheeting their parents' berths.

"Are you sure that you're okay staying up that long?" she asked as she spit toothpaste into the metal sink.

"I'll be fine. I'll drink coffee, and I've got some stuff to work on. Go on, kiss your son goodnight and off to bed with you," Jack instructed. He held his son out towards Elizabeth, who was already moving towards her berth.

"Good night, Acorn," she said as she promptly kissed the little boy on the head.

Jack threw a few things in a diaper bag, and swung the straps over one of his shoulders. He paused as his bracelet made a small beeping sound, letting him know of an incoming message. Setting the boy down on a berth, Jack read the message.

"What's up?" Elizabeth asked. She lifted her head from her pillow.

"Nothing to worry about," Jack replied but his voice had a hint of hesitancy in it.

"What's up?" she questioned again. She knew by his tone that despite his words that there was something causing concern.

"It looks like there was a problem on one of the lower levels. Don't worry. Go to sleep."

"Anything serious?"

"I think more of a hassle than anything. A burst pipe."

"Do you need to go?"

"Yeah," he admitted.

Jack had insisted that he could handle both Aaron and the clean-up from the water pipe explosion on sublevel 1 but he seemed exceedingly grateful when Elizabeth reached for Aaron and told Jack to go do what he had to do.

"It may be a while. They're asking for available people to help with clean-up and repair, and then I'll have to review the report," he told her quickly.

"I'll take the first shift. Just relieve me when you can," she replied tiredly.

Jack was only gone 2 minutes when Elizabeth received a message from him. It was short and sweet and just a single image but it made her smile. Standard images or icons had been deleted from all government-issued devices because they were considered frivolous. Only letters and numbers could be typed. But Elizabeth had found a way around the rule and still allow a little cute romance.

The first time she had shown him how to make the image on his keyboard, Jack had smiled and told her she really was good on computers.

"So I just hold down "ALT" while pressing the number three on the keypad?" he had asked after her instruction.

"You have to make sure the number lock is on. And you use the key pad, not the numbers along the top," she reminded him.

Every since then, he send it to her at odd times. Sometimes when he was just in the next room, sometimes when he was working late. Once when they were in the grocery store and he was in the milk aisle and she was in the cereal aisle torn between Lucky Charms or Wholesome Oats.

Right now, like always, the image filled her with happiness as she cuddled Aaron to her chest.

The lights which normally illuminated every corner of the passage had been dimmed at their standard time. Elizabeth let out a long yawn as she walked down the corridor.

Both she and Aaron had grown bored with their small cabin. There were only so many times that Elizabeth could play peek-a-boo under the sheets before she decided it was a stupid game. If she was there before the sheet was pulled up, she was obviously still there when the starched white fabric was held up by her hands.

Babies aren't idiots. Why would they think a person had just disappeared?

Who invented such a silly illogical game?

Probably some mom who only had to occupy their baby for thirty seconds.

The question now was what to do to occupy Aaron.

Linda from next door was working on a project, the twins were at a slumber party in one of the other cabins, and their father – who had handled raising twin girls – didn't feel confident watching an energic boy who couldn't feel pain and had politely remarked that he was a horrible babysitter and would be going to help with the pipe clean-up.

Knowing that Abigail had to feed the night shift worker's their breakfast, and then get in her sleep before preparing the breakfast for the morning shift, Elizabeth didn't bother to visit her.

When Aaron spit up a mouthful of milk and allowed it to dribble down his chin and onto his chest, Elizabeth decided that a bath was in order.

The laboratory was full of boring metal furniture, and devoid of any fabric except the soft washcloth and towel which Elizabeth had brought with her. It was as unlike her master bathroom in Liskow as possible. There was no soft rug for bare feet, no warming towel bar, no lotions of lavender or lemon verbena, no romantic candles. Instead there were bright lights, autoclaves for sterilizing odd tools, and large charts. There wasn't even a rubber ducky to keep Aaron occupied.

Elizabeth twice rinsed the large metal sink with plain water to make sure that it was free of caustic chemicals. To be sure that it was clean, she kept her hand in the warm liquid as she counted aloud for the boy.

It's never too early to teach him how to count, she reasoned with a shrug.

"One one-thousand."

"Two one-thousand."

"Three one-thousand."

"Four one-thousand."

"Five one-thousand."

When her hand didn't blister, lose its skin, shrivel up, turn blue, or fall apart, she assumed the sink which was normally used for experiments was safe for her precious son's body.

Ten minutes later, Aaron looked around with a bewildered expression on his face as if wondering why there was no more water in the sink.

"Because its all over me, silly," Elizabeth said with exasperation when he patted the shallow puddles at the bottom of the sink. "That's what happens when you splash like a duck."

Unfortunately, there was no more available water. The initial water had come from the small reservoir adjacent to the sink, but Elizabeth quickly realized that the burst pipe which Jack and at least fifteen others were currently working on meant that no more water was flowing through the pipes.

"Sorry baby. No more water tonight. We can try again tomorrow."

"Mrs. Thornton, if you don't mind turning off the lights on your way out, I'll be leaving now," a middle-aged man remarked as he walked across the room from an office on the side. The room had a double set of doors which Elizabeth had never been inside.

"Mr. Regents, Bertie? Isn't it? Your experiments. Are they dangerous?"

"Dangerous? Not really. I'm an ornithologist. I work with birds," he answered, slightly perplexed at her question. "I suppose I might get bit but that hasn't happened in years."

"Oh, I thought you used these sinks for chemicals."

"Nope. That's Samuel. He's the one always mixing things. I'm in the other room," he added with a nod to where he had just been. "Want to see my birds?"

"Whatever do you do with them?"

Armed with duct tape, two squishy balls, a diaper bag, a pair of rolled up socks, a cup of ice, a teething toy, a blanket, her laptop, and a baby who had no plans on sleeping anytime soon despite having spent a considerable amount of time talking to birds, Elizabeth made her way down to Level 4.

She walked until she got to Corridor A, which was the most isolated of the corridors. It was also one of the few which was carpeted, a luxury that was allowed because it was above the engine room and the carpeting added extra sound-proofing. The digital clock on the wall next to the entrance door beamed 2200 hrs in blue lights. Ten o'clock at night. The day-shift workers would be in their berths, the night-shift workers would be at their duty stations. No one would be wandering the hallway.

Elizabeth hadn't slept for more than thirty minutes in the past forty-eight hours. Last night's sleep had been continually interrupted by Aaron's incoming tooth, and today, the little boy had, for the first time ever, not taken two daily naps. She was going to try to stay awake as long as Aaron did, but she wasn't sure that even if she remained awake, she'd be able to keep up with his energy. That's where the tape came in handy.

Elizabeth stifled a yawn and set to work. She dumped her supplies on the floor, except for the duct tape. Moving down the right side of the hallway, she tore off a piece of duct tape and used it to cover the door sensor to each room, the stairwell, and the entrance hall. When she got to the end of the hallway, she reversed direction and did the same thing to the left side of the hallway.

"You're locked in, Acorn."

The digital clock beamed 2240 hrs.

Elizabeth stared at her computer screen, eager to watch a hologram. Hours earlier she had picked up the flash-drive at the CC after getting an intercom announcement that a message had finally arrived for passenger E. Thornton.

It's got to be from Julie. Finally.

She'd better not have destroyed our house!

Or maybe it's from mother and father. Telling me that Julie's destroyed our home and is sitting in a jail cell somewhere. Or hiding in a jungle in the Amazon so I don't kill her.

Elizabeth put the flash-drive into the side port of her computer and glanced up at Aaron one more time.

For the last forty minutes, she had been throwing a ball or other object as far as she could down the hall for the small boy to chase after. When he crawled thirty or so feet to the object, he'd play with it until he became bored and then crawl the long way back to her. Then she'd throw the next item and repeat the whole process.

She felt slightly guilty for treating him like a puppy playing fetch, but she decided that her sanity over-ruled any proprietress.

Besides there's no one around to criticize my parenting skills.

They'll all asleep.

Confident that Aaron couldn't injure himself with the ball he was impossibly trying to take a bite out of, Elizabeth returned her gaze to her screen and pushed the play button.

The gossamer image of a man appeared in front of her.

Who is that?

Julie's boyfriend?

Is this someone I'm supposed to know?

For Pete's sake! He's not even talking to me! This is that same stupid guy whose message I got last time. Only now he's talking about dating some girl on Coal Valley. You have got to be kidding me?!

This message isn't even from Earth!

It's not even for me!

Stupid communication center mix-up!

Elizabeth slammed shut her lap-top and struggled to her feet. "I'm coming, sweetie. Let's come up with another game to play," she called out to Aaron.

"Elizabeth, is that you? And the baby? What are you doing down here?" a woman's voice called out from behind Elizabeth. "Are you alright?"

Elizabeth, who was low to the floor on her hands and knees, turned around slowly so that Aaron wouldn't fall off her back. She put one hand up to steady him and then brought him to the ground before standing up. "Hi, Becca. I'm keeping Aaron occupied."

The beautiful woman from navigation gave Elizabeth an odd look. "By acting like a dog?"

"I'm not a dog, I'm a horsey. A horse," an embarrassed Elizabeth replied. She suddenly felt incredibly stupid.

"Were you choking?" Becca furrowed her brown and looked at Elizabeth with concern.

"I was neighing," she replied with a mumble.

"Oh. Okay. But it's past midnight. I'm no parent, but shouldn't he be asleep? And you too? You look exhausted."

"He's not tired," Elizabeth said with a sleepy nod to Aaron. "Long story. What are you doing up at this hour?"

"Just had a late date," Becca replied with a knowing smile, which caused small dimples to form in her perfect cheeks. She casually ran a hand through her hair, moving some off to the side, where it unintentionally formed a sexy wave. "He was divine. He managed to steal some champagne from the purser's office -don't tell Jack. I don't want my best date on this ship getting arrested- and I stole some food from the cafeteria – don't tell Abigail, and we had a nice night of-"

"Stolen food", Elizabeth interjected as she bent down and picked up Aaron who was trying to climb up her legs like they were tree trunks.

Becca smiled. "You'll never guess what we did."

"Planned a jewel heist? Since you're now pros at stealing stuff," Elizabeth replied sarcastically.

The navigator laughed and smiled at Aaron who giggled back.

"I won't say around the little one's delicate ears. But, oh. It was nice. My tee-shirt was all wet from helping with the pipe clean-up earlier, and, well you get the picture," Becca giggled.

Elizabeth couldn't help but think of her nickname for the woman. Perky Breast Becca.

"You were in a clingy wet tee-shirt with a divine date and champagne. Yep. I get the picture."

"Speaking of tee-shirts" Becca said hesitantly with a nod towards Elizabeth's chest. "Um, did you know that yours is wet?"

"It's breast milk and spit-up stain," Elizabeth stammered as she looked down at her clothing. If Becca was sexy and perky, Elizabeth was more along the lines of sexless and droopy.

"But look at you two having fun down here," Becca, clearly feeling embarrassed for Elizabeth, changed the subject. "Aaron is adorable. I have a nephew about his age. He's going to change so much while I'm gone. Just looking at this one makes me miss my sister's boy."

Elizabeth paused for just a split second before blurting out a suggestion. "How'd you like to spend time with Aaron? He's so fun. And you can pretend he's your nephew."

Becca smiled. "That's fine. I don't want to steal your son from you." She ran a hand along the boy's soft hair. "So adorable."

"Really!" Elizabeth said a bit too enthusiastically. "You can borrow him for an hour or so."

"Why?" Becca asked in confusion.

"Because he's so entertaining! And it will make you feel closer to your own nephew. And it's good practice. So that when you get back to Earth, you won't be out of practice with babies. It's really really important not to go too long without holding a baby or they'll be able sense that you're not comfortable with it," Elizabeth stressed. "Honestly, you've probably gone too long already."

"What would I do with him?" Becca's eyebrows scrunched together.

"Take him for a walk. Tell him about your new boyfriend. Teach him how to steal food and drink. No better not do that," she quickly retracted the last suggestion. "Jack wouldn't approve. Tell him about your job. Teach him navigation."

Becca scoffed. "Teach him navigation?"

"He's a good listener. You just have to be careful with him that he doesn't hurt himself," Elizabeth hurriedly explained as she tried to hand her son to the other woman. "You can keep him as long as you want. Hours. I'll pick him up or have Jack get him later. Seriously, you can have him for hours."

"It's okay, Elizabeth. If I need some baby time, I'll find you some time. It's late and I'm off to bed."

Becca gave Elizabeth a knowing smile before continuing. "Now, if it were the other male Thornton – your handsome husband -who you wanted me to spend a late night with, my answer might be different," she teased as she walked away. "I could teach Jack a thing or two. And have fun at it."

"Just pry it open," a disgruntled Elizabeth offered when Becca got to her door and saw the taped-over sensor.

Elizabeth waited until Becca had disappeared into her cabin before quietly reprimanding Aaron. "Next time, look cuter."