Can't wait for tonight!
**Hate To See You Go, Little Walter**
Kat sat wearily in a folding chair in the corner of the room. When Commander Garnett had asked if she'd like to help with a little project this morning, she'd had no idea what the woman had in mind. But after a few days bumming around her hotel room she'd been pretty bored anyway. She wished her father would let her live at the university dorm where she heard many of the other young people were, but he refused to be parted for any length of time so she was stuck in a giant hotel all day. She was glad she still had her mother's laptop. She had a feeling that if she told her dad she was able to make some kind of satellite internet connection with it and talk to kids from all over, he'd take that thing away immediately.
"There you are!" Her father joined her in the corner. He had cut his hair a little more again and to her eyes he was nearly the most handsome man in the room. "I hear you had a hand in some of this." He half turned to indicate the ballroom. Most of the party had broken up at this late hour but Lieutenant Nishioka was playing tunes and some of the night owls were still dancing.
The lobby and banquet room of the Raddison had been decorated as best they could do on short notice. She and Garnett and Alicia Granderson had been able to round up some red, white and blue streamers from the Nathan James. Some of Bacon's kitchen staff had located the hotel's white table cloths and finer dinnerware and set the tables instead of stacking up trays from the Nathan James. And a woman in judge robes, who she now knew as Judge Siskin from the inauguration that afternoon, had showed up with a box of candles and ribbon and fake flowers she said were left over from family a wedding a few years ago. Once finished, the candle light gleamed on the polished surfaces giving everything a golden glow.
"Yeah, I had nothing better to do so..." She shrugged. Maybe her dad would get the hint and give her a job or something. She'd asked Lieutenant Granderson today if she had any jobs available and she'd said no, they couldn't have people under 18 on the ship except in dire circumstances. She'd suggested asking Lieutenant Foster for a job on the office side of things but that was exactly the kind of thing Kat was trying to avoid. She wanted to do the things she used to do, or at least get out and see something new.
The music changed to something more uptempo and the dance floor opened to everyone else. "Still got your moves?" He dad's eyes sparkled as he held out a hand to her. She suddenly remembered the last time he'd been home. Her mother was supposed to chaperon her middle school dance but had to bail for a work thing. Her dad had taken her place and totally embarrassed her in front of her friends by breaking out some old fashioned disco moves. Well, it had been embarrassing at the time. Now she would gladly dance the can-can if it kept him close by.
"Yeah, I think I can manage not to embarrass myself." She took his hand and he slid an arm around her waist. She wondered if all dad's hands felt warm and leathery and comforting as hers. Her mom had some boyfriends the last few years but she'd never felt safe and relaxed around them the way she did with her dad. They found a spot on the edge of the floor and her dad gave her a swirl. She'd missed being silly and laughing with her dad. "Wish I'd known there was going to be a party." She remarked. I would have brought something more appropriate to wear.
"You look beautiful anyway. More like your mother than I remember." The crinkles stood out around her dad's eyes and she was tempted to say that he looked older than she remembered in response. But she was afraid it would hurt his feelings, even though she didn't mean it that way.
"Well, you wouldn't want your girl to have inherited those wrinkles and gray hair, would you?" She quipped. Her dad threw his head back and laughed drawing looks from around them.
"Well at least you got my sense of humor." They shared a smile. Her mother had been the serious one in the family. "So, I have a question for you." although still smiling she could see her dad had turned serious. "What do you think we should do now?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, do you want me to take you back to Cort's place in Jackson? Do you want to go somewhere else? I could take you to Nevada, see if Grandma's still kickin'?" Her heart constricted in panic and she gripped his hand tighter. She wasn't going anywhere. She'd managed to meet up with her dad and like it or not, he wasn't getting rid of her now."
"Where are you going? She countered.
She saw the moment what she was asking clicked. "Nowhere!" He took both her hands and held them in his, stopped in the middle of the dance floor. "I will be right here in St. Louis, or working out of St. Louis I suppose. I don't really know yet. But where ever you want to make your home, that will be my home too."
"Commander Garnett says you are a hero. That if it wasn't for you Dr. Scott wouldn't have been able to make the cure and share it." She glanced over to where Garnett was laughing with several other officers. "Is it true Dad?" She had already forgiven him. And she would every time he went away. But if this was true, maybe she would feel happier, knowing the world had people like him out there, looking out for everyone, instead of feeling like she wasn't good enough to have a dad at home.
He lead her off the dance floor to a table on the side and sat her down facing him. "I won't lie to you. My work hasn't always been heroism and saving the day. But it's always been part of making the world a better place for you, and your mother, and the people we loved." His eyes were warm and sincere. If he had come back and said those words to her a year ago she would have accused him of saying it just to win her over. But now, now that she'd seen brutality and cruelty up close, the fact that someone had been out there, sacrificing their own time with their family, risking health and wellbeing to make it better, well that meant something.
"Dad, I know your work is important and I don't want to get in the way of it now. I want to help you." She implored him to understand with her eyes. "Mom would have never wanted you to give up either. She always told me I was too hard on you when I moaned and groaned about you missing things. And she told me I'd understand when I was older." Now the hurt was different. Instead of thinking he didn't want to be with them, her heart ached to think he might get hurt or die without the people who loved him close by.
He gave a rueful smile. "You know your mother wasn't really just a truck dispatcher, right?"
"Yeah. She told me all about it when she took me to Cort's about four months ago. And I understand why you were away so much now. I won't mind if you have to go away again. I'll miss you." She felt the grief for her mother's death well up inside her. "But I'll be brave. And I'll be proud of you."
Her father squeezed her hand and dropped his head a moment, taking a deep breath. It felt strange, having this conversation while everyone was laughing and carefree around them. But it had to be said. She had to say it. She felt like she was stepping out a doorway, moving into a new part of life and she needed her dad to know he could do the same. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." He reassured her. "So you want to stay with me, wherever I am based then?"
"Yes I do." She leaned over and bumped shoulders with him, letting her head rest on his shoulder like she had when she was a little girl. She felt some of the tension in her own shoulder flow away as he put an arm around her shoulders. She hadn't realized until this moment how much she had been worrying about what would happen next. Attempting to lighten the mood she released him and gave him a cheeky grin. "But you need to let me have some freedom during the day. I am going crazy staying in this hotel. Pretty soon I'm going to start working in the kitchens just for something to do."
"Ok, Ok. I can't say when we're going to have any kind of school up and running." He ran a hand through his gray hair. "But I'll try to find something for you to do tomorrow." He looked a little pained when he asked "What do you do for fun now? The last time I was living at home you still played with dolls, but I've got to imagine those days are over."
Kat realized then that her father was embarrassed to have to ask. Still, she was touched that he asked at all. "Well, I got back into horses while mom and I were at Cort's place. All those lessons in my younger years really did come back just like riding a bike. And I write a lot. But that's all I've been doing cooped up in that hotel room so I want to do something active, or at least with other people my age."
"Wanna join the Navy?" He glanced toward where Chandler and Michener were deep in conversation a few tables away. "You can pretend for an hour a day. There's a fairly large group that does PT together at 6 AM sharp." He patted his stomach. "I started getting back in shape on the ship."
She thought about the lives her parents had lived. Always apart, always aware of the evil in the world. It wasn't what she wanted. "If I'm getting cabin fever in a hotel room the size of four staterooms I think I'd better find a different career than the Navy."
Tex laughed. "Yeah, I'm not really too keen on shipboard life either. Hopefully we're on track to get back to normal soon. But you can't just wander the city alone. There's still the danger of immunes, not to mention everything else a 17 year old girl should be wary of."
"But if the Red Flu hadn't struck we'd be arguing over whether I should go to Stanford in September or take a gap year. New world or not, I am pretty close to going out on my own anyway."
His eyes crinkled at the mention of his alma mater. "For the record, I would have voted for the gap year. But your mother would have said straight to school. And you know she would have won that." He was right about that. Her mother had been a force to reckon with.
They were quiet for a moment, watching the party wind down. What she really wanted to do was be useful in some way. Help get life back to normal somehow. "Well, maybe this is my chance at a gap year now? You could teach me more about defending myself and I could do my exploring locally? I don't want to twiddle my thumbs all day. I want to do something to help. Besides, I'm going to need to take care of myself when you start traveling again."
He looked her straight in the eye. "This is it Kathleen. Your last chance to be a kid ever again. Can't you just enjoy it and stay safe?"
She rolled her eyes. "You're forgetting whose daughter I am. I saved myself from those bandits that broke into Cort's place. I made it from Jackson to Memphis by myself." As she spoke she watched her father's face. He grimaced at the mention of Cort but his lips perked up as if he was trying to hide his pride when she reminded him that she'd found him, not the other way around.
"I did hear that you handled yourself pretty well that night." They both knew he was talking about the night her mother was killed. "I guess Cort taught you well."
"Dad, you're not jealous of Cort are you?" When he didn't say anything she figured she'd hit a sore spot. All these years she's assumed he'd left her mother but maybe…
"Well, he did get your mother to leave Nevada. I tried and tried but she would never even consider it." He looked heartbroken. The idea swirled in her brain, rooting out painful memories of her parents fighting, of her mother crying while he was on yet another tour somewhere. Suddenly those memories took on a more complex character where her mother wasn't the only victim.
Her father was staring at his shoes. "I was stationed out of Fort Sam for years and years and she refused to move. Said it was important you grow up near Grandma and learn all the traditions, all the old ways." When he glanced up his eyes were glazed, remembering something long ago.
Her heart twisted. If she hadn't forgiven her father the instant she heard him calling out in the crowd in Memphis, she would have in that moment. "You know we moved to Florida to follow a horse."
He cocked his head. "A horse?"
"Yeah, his name was Waha'yoo Taba. She brought us to Florida to train him for racing."
His head jerked up. "Two Suns?" She nodded. "Figures, your mother always did love her horses."
"Besides, Cort might have taught me the mechanics of firing a shotgun, but it was the things you taught me that really saved my ass."
He raised a skeptical eyebrow "Me? The last thing I remember teaching you was how to ride a bike."
She mirrored his incredulous expression "Han shoots first? Move a little strange you're gonna get a bullet? Live your life while you've got a good one."
He laughed out loud. "Ok, Ok. Those are some of my most tried and true rules! But you need a better teacher than me. I'll see what Lieutenant Green is going to set up for training recruits."
That wasn't what she wanted at all. "You did a great job. I'm still alive…" The words died on her lips as a young man in uniform came tearing into the lobby screaming for Doc Rios. "Come quick Doc. Rachel has been shot." The whole place erupted in chaos.