Jack hunched overtop his desk, scribbling down notes amidst the stray pile of the paper that collected all over his desk's top, unable to truly focus. He'd never been one to become fazed by such brutishly necessary actions as tossing a stowaway overboard, yet he'd already determined what had been different in this particular case. What he hadn't an answer for, however, was in own action; he'd already decided what course to take. He'd held a vote, and the stowaway was marked for death; he'd dragged her toward the port side…and yet he paused and looked back over his shoulder, as though expecting his daughter to object.
He ran a hand along his face as an exasperated sigh left him. Angela had made a sound; she'd merely raised her hand in objection. Was she so certain, so confident, that he'd take another glance back toward the group? He couldn't be sure, but could it be, for all he knew about who his daughter was, perhaps she knew just as much about him? Such an idea frightened him, though even then, he didn't know why. Regardless, with a stowaway aboard, he suddenly felt a lack of routine, and that meant a lack of certainty, caution- two of the 'C's he'd had drawn up on a poster and nailed to the kitchen wall years ago, the others being 'consideration' and 'confidence'. Angela knew them all to well, having seen it during her nightly snacks beneath the lightly-watchful eyes of sitters.
A knock broke his train of thought, and he quickly brushed the hair from his face as he sat back in his chair to offer some semblance of leadership as he spoke up, "Yes, come in."
A slow creaking arose as the door swung open to gradually reveal his daughter's face, Angela's expression having been rather dark since the on-deck event an hour ago. Still, she took a step into the cabin and closed the door behind her, stepping back to lean against it as if to prevent anybody from listening in.
"She's in the hold," she spoke up guiltily, rolling her tongue along the inside her teeth as she fought for further conversation, "She's been given enough rope to get into her crate for her own rations- Junkrat has a hell of a time trying to tie an appropriate knot…"
Her father nodded in understanding, Angela was met with only silence as he silently returned to his work, leaving his daughter running a thumb along her fingers, lowering her head as she quietly spoke up, "Mr. McCree sent me back up here. said you wanted to see me after we'd finished."
Captain Morrison nodded with a sigh, dropping his pencil onto his desk with a tiny *thunk* the air was so silent, pushing himself back into his chair as he eyed his daughter with low eyes, "I know you always wanted this sailing thing to be adventurous, and you hadn't much reason to know or understand some of the darker sides of it, but I just want you to understand, now-"
"I understand, father," Angela interrupted, waveringly.
He bit his lip, "If we allow stowaways… You get a reputation, and you get people sneaking aboard, stealing stores and rations, tip-toeing around at night with god knows what in their heads. The threat of death keeps many from attempting it- a sort of, uh, law and order on the sea."
His eyes raised to meet her distant eyes, "You, my crew- you all mean the world to me, and I wouldn't ever dare to threaten any of your lives because a stowaway stole too much food under our noses or met one of you with a knife in the dark."
Quietly, he released another sigh, this one far more pained than the last, as he fumbled along toward the crux of his words, "I just don't want you to think I'm some heartless monster."
"It's the sea, father. I understand," Angela assured, her downtrodden mood betraying her words, "I truly do."
Jack nodded sullenly, leaning back over his desk, "Good. I derive no pleasure from such things. I can trust my crewmen with my life; I can't say a stowaway would ever extend the same courtesy."
"How many…" Angela quietly wondered, "How many have you-…"
"As Captain? None. This was the first time I'd had a stowaway leave port with us; we're usually rigorous enough. Given how late we got that thing aboard, we just hadn't the time to fully examine it, especially given that we purchased its rights at auction," Jack explained, calmly, "In my past, as a deck hand and mate…maybe four? Two of them by my hand."
Angela's eyes caught him sadly, forcing him to go on, "You normally just toss them without a second thought. You don't want to know them. This one being a woman… I couldn't help but offer it up for a vote. Then some of you got invested in her name, her story- I feared such a thing. So long as she can survive on her own stores, my mind is, at least, eased somewhat."
Angela nodded sadly, though she still felt slightly empty by the inhumanity of it all. While it comforted her, slightly, to understand that, at the very least, it wasn't a localized sort of thing by her father- by his own tone, he seemed to regret being forced to do such things. She didn't want to believe that she could think any less of this one man she called 'father'.
"Are you going to check on her?" she wondered curiously.
Her father nodded, "I'll have Hana and Junkrat down there from time to time. They were most emphatic in defense of tossing her, so I won't have to worry much."
Angela's ears perked up at his words. Worried? Worried about what? she wondered. Her eyes suddenly jumped up toward her father, meet his own glance as he began to understand that she hadn't thought of his course of action. Jack's lips tugged distastefully as his brow fell, knowing, too, how his daughter should react to such a thing.
"I don't want you down there," he spoke, gravely, "I know you. You'll get to know her, and your affinity for adventure and all tha-"
"What?" Angela retorted incredulously, "You think- Why on earth would you-?!"
She stopped herself, her face turning serious in an accusing sort of stare, as she bit the air before her, "Oh I get it. It's because I told you that I'm-"
"Angela!" Jack interrupted with a shout, slamming a fist into his desk for emphasis, nearly rising to his feet in the process.
Had she not already been against the door, she'd have recoiled, but Angela could merely flinch in response to her father's suddenness, quickly calming herself as Jack lowered his shoulders, standing there with a pensive stare, as though peering right through his daughter.
He spoke cooly, "If you would ever presume that I would ever treat you different from anybody else for any reason, I'd be more than happy to toss you in the brig for insubordination, like I would do for anyone under my command. You are my crewman, but you will always be my daughter first, and I wouldn't dare presume to send you off, alone, with a stranger, much less one with a penchant for subterfuge. If you believe my care has to do with anything further than your own safety, you're sadly mistaken, and quite frankly, you insult the man I've spent the last fifty years trying to become."
He slowly descended back into his chair, taking in s deep breath as he did so, eyes closed, before finishing, "Have you anything more to say, Angela?"
She shook her head gingerly, though it was her silence that informed her father, who simply spoke up quietly, "Good. You have your orders, dear."
Jack returned to his papers, living Angela to spin around and leave the room, slightly shaken by her father's stand. She'd had thoughts of her father doing as he'd just claimed, treating her no different for anything other than her lack of experience upon this ship; even the crew partook in very same judgement of her. Still, it hadn't ever been explicitly told her her, and especially not after she'd accused him of doing much the opposite.
Even after what had just happened, however, she couldn't help but have her curiosity piqued as she turned her head down the stairwell, thinking of the near-feral stowaway that had nearly frightened her to a premature death. She frowned, shoving her hand into her pocket and taking hold of the necklace that sat there, her brow curling in thought as she wondered what to do in order to get back at that woman for trying to subdue her.
Ultimately turning to make her way back up toward the deck, Angela let the matter be, dropping the glass jewelry back into her pocket's depths, thinking little of that stowaway whom she'd saved, despite her ferocity. Her mind gave a cursory thought to why she had done so, simply chalking it up to not wanting to see anybody die before her eyes. Even so, it fascinated her why she'd waited to act. why it seemed as thought her father had expected to, shooting a look back toward her after the fact.
She was lost in thought, lost in an ocean of ideas that threatened to capsize her mind, leaving her with little more than an upset grumbling as she walked out onto the deck in search of a fresh breath of air.
Dinner that night was, as most of the crew could have expected, rather quiet, filled with little more than minor conversation, often murmured so as to not disturb the grey cloud of uncertainty that had been cast over the ship since the incident with the stowaway. Regardless of its necessity, it still left the crew rather uncomfortable, the emotionless mood of their Captain especially catching most of them off guard. It wasn't often at all that Jack Morrison acted with nothing of note from his emotions; that chilling sort of behavior was very rare, to the point where the newer crewmen had only witnessed it, perhaps, once since coming aboard.
An old seadog himself, even if Jesse had voted against Jack's actions, he featured nothing different from his everyday mood, eating as meticulously as he often did. Aside from a cursory glance toward the other crew to attempt to ascertain the cause of the silence, he simply went on as if nothing had happened. He was the only one whom Captain Morrison's coldness hadn't fazed; he'd seen it often enough from far more callous shipmates in his past that it nagged very little at his mind, if at all.
Hana's face was mildly spun in discomfort, though only because she'd been sent down to check on the stowaway before the meal. It was a deep offense to her; stowaways were akin to murderers, if not worse, more vile and calculating than such filth. She'd taken a seat far along the communal table where they often all ate, deciding to sit beside her only conspirator from earlier, Junkrat, even if their boatswain was more lost in his supper than any thoughts from earlier, his mouthfuls of food asnarl as he immediately dug in.
With Lucio having taken lookout duty in order to relieve Lena, the third mate perhaps wanting to have chosen not to do so, given the somber air, she'd acquiesced only on Lucio's insistence that he not have to endure it. While often showing the same excitement as Junkrat at dinner, Lena now merely played with her food, her appetite from earlier having been lost as quickly as her excitability. Her head low, Lena's eyes peered up toward her Captain, Jack choosing to eat politely as he always had, only taking the liberty of carefully avoiding his silverware tapping the edge of his plate, a further indictment on just how silent it was in the mess room.
Given Jesse's predisposition to be hardened to such things, it didn't take him long to speak up, however quietly, as he dropped his fork onto his plate, pushing himself up to his feet, "Well, that's it for me, I suppose. Lucio left explicit instructions to lay all our stuff in the new 'mess cask', so when you're all done-"
He cut off as he dropped his wooden bowl into the barrel, along with his fork, "Voila. Angela's already making jobs easier around here."
Rounding back toward the table, he groaned achingly as he fell back into his chair, leaning back against it as his arm hung lazily back over its side, "We stoppin' by Hawaii on the way, Cap'n?"
Jack nodded slowly, "It's on the chart, yes."
"Great," came the reply from Jesse, grinning as he leaned his chair back on its hind legs, "That'll make souvenir shopping easy. Every night before I shove off, we convene on their bed and get a list goin', a very broad one, of what all I need ta be lookin' for."
He turned up toward Angela with a knowing nod, "Singapore's got everything, and I mean everything. The amount of trade that goes on down there, it'll make ya head spin the first time ya find Italian noodles swimming in some curry or somethin'."
Junkrat's lips began to whet with drool.
"Anyway, Hawaii's pretty close; it's not a tradin' mecca or nothin', but you can usually find a lot of stuff," Jesse confirmed with another nod before beginning to pick at his teeth with his fingernail.
Captain Morrison shrugged with a dismissive air as he leaned forward for another bite, "That's why I try to pay you all before we get there."
"Like a dad sendin' his kids off with a handful a' nickles to a smoke shop," Jesse grinned, almost nostalgically, with a sigh, his head falling backward as he shut his eyes, resting against the back of his seat.
Captain Morrison finished his bite before taking a breath, placing two open hands onto the table as he warily smushed his lips together, "Okay, well- Thanks to Jesse, with the air somewhat open for discussion- I like to pride myself on being open with you all, as you know. If there's anything any of you have to say, I'm more than willing to hear it. That's concerns, grips, any-"
"Were you gonna do it..?"
Jack paused, lowering his head regretfully before turning to eye Lena Oxton, his third mate still buried in her bowl with her hair falling down across her face. He took a quick look around the table to find everybody's eyes on him, even Junkrat's, and he took a deep breath as his lips tugged to the side.
"Would it have made any different if it had been a man?" he asked, returning to Lena, speaking as carefully as he could.
Lena remained silent, though Jesse's voice broke the air once again, "Hell yeah, it would'a. A man's a man; he ain't got any attachments to this world outside 'a the wallet in his pocket. A woman, y'know, they could have children 'n stuff ta look out for. A man's a man, a woman's a woman and anythin' that comes after her- two different things. That's why I voted to keep 'er aboard. She might be scum for what she's doin', but I ain't about to ruin her kids if she does have, or ever will have, 'em."
His chair hit the floor as he crossed his arms, shrugging, "I doubt ya would'a asked, if it'd been a man stowin' away, about his name."
Jack watched his second mate with a dark stare before returning to Lena once again, her shoulders trembling as she quietly uttered in reply, "I sure would've."
A scoff came from Jesse as he shook his head in disbelief, though it was Angela who reminded him with a steady air, "I wasn't the only one introduced to this stuff today…"
Jesse froze for a moment before turning to stare at Lena from across the table, shrugging, "I guess you're right. I keep forgettin' Lena's only ever been on this ship."
The air was so silent that a gentle plop sounded, echoing throughout the small mess room as Lena quivered, unable to hold back her tears as her head shook, "My father… We hadn't a dime to our name; just my father, sister, 'n me. He went off one day, tryin' to get to the mainland for medicine for my sister, he never came back. I sat at the harbor for a week, waiting for him from sun-up to sun-down, every day, and he never showed up. A boat came in, bragging about a stowaway, and when I went to check it out…I found him."
Her voice shook, "They had the courtesy of proudly strapping his body up to one of the masts like a flag. Just hung there like an unfettered flag. They got their pay, his life for a couple a' coin, a subsidy to deter such things, and then they buried him in the harbor waters."
Lena's head arose, her face a reddened canvas of tears, "If you don't listen to somebody's story- Maybe our stowaway has a sick daughter at home, waiting for a death that her sister can't do anything for besides administering a pillow stained with tears."
Her head shook in negation of Jesse's view, "If you want to talk about lives having no meaning, then feel free ta toss me, too; I guarantee you, I haven't a family- my life has amounted to less than anybody you've ever thrown."
Jesse shrugged, "You're a respectable woman, Lena; you've worked your ass off to earn passage aboard this ship. More than anything, that makes you who you are out on the sea. The ocean is the cruelest mistress to grace this world; if you want to tango with her, it's a different dance than bein' back on land. That's just how it is."
Before Lena could recharge another breath, Captain Morrison raised a hand, "Look, regardless, what has happened has happened. One of the perks to taking votes- I share responsibility. To answer your question Lena, yes, I would have done it, but only because the crew, at the time, had decided upon it. Next time, taking you into account, if you want to share your own stores with stowaways, that's your business, but regardless of all else, stowing away is illegal, and I'm not going to trade the lives of my crew for the life of a stowaway, I don't much care the reason for their doing so. At the end of the day, it's wrong, and is deserving of the same fate it offers sailors."
He took a sharp breath before lowering his shoulders, the vicious air taking its toll as he concluded, "As it stands, I still don't want anybody conversing with her, that's final. Lena, your heart is in the right place, but we have an assignment, and we're sticking to it; we're not going to get involved in the life of a stowaway."
"Even if it's my-"
"That's final," Jack asserted, his voice growing as he did so, quieting Lena as she returned her attention to her bowl.
He reached for a napkin, wiping his lips as though cleansing himself of his sudden burst of authoritative boister, his nose releasing a hot breath as he turned to Hana, whose elbow was on the table, allowing her body to contort away from the others, "Officer Song, how's our route coming?"
Hana's body jumped at being called, and she rushed to present herself in some sense of respectability, clearing her throat before speaking, "It takes nineteen or twenty days to reach Hawaii. Given our ideal conditions continue, we have around a week and a half to go, rather ahead of schedule."
"Superb," Jack nodded, "Then we'll stay the course. I don't want our stowaway taking away from your jobs, alright? As soon as we arrive, she'll be handed to the proper authorities. Until then, so far as you're all concerned, we've nothing in the way of distraction."
He turned toward Angela, "Our newest crewman has exceeded expectation, and as Jesse pointed out, she's been bringing innovation to a few posts as well."
Reaching a hand out to pat her applaudingly upon her shoulder, Angela allowed a meager sort of smile to escape her, though it didn't last long as he continued, "Let's hope for a fine catch tomorrow, as well."