"Mr. Morton! Report to the Admiral's cabin, on the double!"

Chip Morton glanced at Lee Crane in surprise when the announcement came over the intercom. It was rare for the admiral to want to speak to him in the privacy of his cabin. Usually, Lee was the one who received that summons. "What on earth…?" He kept his voice down, and the surprise out of his face. Order frequently depended on little things like that. But he knew Lee was as surprised as he was, in the way the skipper's hazel eyes had widened.

The captain picked up the microphone and said crisply, "Mr. Morton has the word, sir." As he set the microphone down again he added with a smile, "Better hop to it, Mr. Morton. You don't want to keep the admiral waiting."

Absolutely not; keeping the admiral waiting was the quickest way to end a career. Chip nodded to Lee and took off for the admiral's cabin at a run, trying to force down the feeling of dread that invaded the pit of his stomach. He went quickly over everything he'd done today, every order he'd given, looking for anything that might explain this summons, and could find nothing. Great… If he was going to be called on the carpet, he'd at least like to know what in the hell for…

He reached the Admiral's cabin and knocked, receiving the command to enter. Going in, he advanced to the desk where the admiral sat and stood at attention. "You wanted to see me, sir."

The admiral looked up, as if surprised to see him there, and nodded absently. "Yes, yes, of course. Sit down, Chip."

Clearly not a dressing down. Chip sank into a chair and regarded the admiral questioningly. The man looked… shell-shocked, as if he'd been through some momentous and tragic event. His skin was pale, his eyes slightly dilated as if he were looking at something Chip couldn't see. He looked… old… in a way he never had before. "Are you all right, sir?"

The admiral almost visibly pulled himself together and waved the question away. "Yes, yes, but I need to talk to you." But he didn't say anything, continuing to stare into memory, as if he couldn't shake it. Chip waited patiently, but after a few minutes had gone by in silence, he couldn't help prompting again.

"Sir?"

The admiral looked at him then; the pain in those eyes was almost unbearable. Chip rose and reached out to the man, afraid of what he was seeing. This was the man he had looked up to most of his life, the man who had taken him in hand when his father had failed to do so, the man who had pushed through his appointment to Annapolis, and eventually had offered him a position on this best of all boats. He had no idea what was wrong with the admiral, but he couldn't just stand here and do nothing. "Sir, should I call Will? What's happened?"

But the admiral shrugged him off, snapping back to his old prickly demeanor. "No! Will you sit down, Mr. Morton!" He watched irritably until Chip had settled down again in the chair, and then launched into an explanation. "You are going to have a very hard time believing this… But first things first. What day is it?"

For a moment, Chip didn't quite know how to respond. The admiral should have been very aware of what day it was. He had written in the laboratory log just this morning, and Chip had transcribed his notes for him only an hour or two ago. "It's… the third of January, sir. We're at the East Pacific Rim…"

"I know where we are!" The admiral rose and began to pace, but there was now a certain excitement underlying his tension, as if he had just proven some obscure point or successfully concluded an experiment. "The third of January… Thank God, that contraption actually worked!"

Chip rose from his chair again, beginning to be seriously concerned about the admiral's health, but as he did so, the admiral whipped around to face him. "Oh, for God's sake, quit looking at me like that. Just listen to me!" He glared at Chip, until the XO finally subsided into his chair again, disquieted but unsure what to do. The admiral was clearly unwell, but he wouldn't hesitate to pull rank if Chip tried to notify Will McKenzie, and that kind of insubordination could lead to being put on report. It had happened to others who had crossed the admiral. By and large for far better reasons, but Chip wasn't exactly sure where he himself stood with the man – an admission that was painful to make - and didn't want to make waves if there were other ways to handle the problem…

"I'm all right! Just listen!" The admiral paced away, his tension palpable. Second after second passed and he said nothing. At last, he swung around and glared at Chip, as if finding him lacking in something. "You're not much good at believing any wild tale, are you? Maybe I should have called Sharkey…"

No, that wouldn't do at all. Chief Sharkey would go along with whatever madness the admiral proposed, and if the admiral wasn't himself… "I promise to listen, sir, and I'll work on keeping an open mind." He was proud of how steady and dispassionate his voice was. None of his concern leaked into it or betrayed him by so much as a tremor.

But still the admiral shot him a shrewd glare, as if he didn't really believe what Chip was saying. "Well, I'd made up my mind anyway. Best if you know what's going on." He sank into his chair, but said nothing, continuing to regard Chip skeptically, until at last he simply grunted in exasperation. "Well, it can't be helped. Just try to understand…" He heaved a sigh and sat back, steepling his fingers. "Three days from now, Lee Crane will be shot dead by Seaman Nash in the control room."

The bald statement dropped into the silence like a bomb. Chip's mouth dropped open, and his hands clenched on the arms of his chair. What in the… How could the admiral even think something like that? It was impossible! Nash was a plank-owner, an artist at interpreting radar, and as steady as any man on the boat…

Or he had been… Lately, Nash had been different. Lately he'd been skulking around, muttering under his breath, accusing some of his peers of spying on him. Classic paranoid behavior that had Chip worried. Nothing serious. At least not yet, but he definitely bore watching.

Still, Nash surely wouldn't dream of harming the captain, and how would he get hold of a gun anyway? Only Lee, the admiral, Chief Sharkey, and the Master-at-Arms had the keys to the arsenal. Nash wouldn't have been able to open the door, much less get a gun, and make it all the way to the control room to shoot Lee… "Sir…" What could he say? The admiral's intense blue eyes were fixed on him, and Chip didn't have a clue how to even respond to this. "How… How could you know this, sir?"

"Because I was there." The admiral's voice was calm, his eyes steady. No matter how strange the tale, he clearly believed it, and that belief was making Chip more uncomfortable by the moment. He slid open a drawer, extracted a handsome antique pocket watch, and tossed it to Chip. Instinctively, Chip lifted his hands to catch it. "I used that to travel back in time to now. So that I could prevent Lee's death."

Chip looked at the pocket watch. At first, he didn't really see it, too caught up in the admiral's obvious madness to be able to focus on the watch. When he did finally understand what he was looking at, it didn't make the picture any clearer. The watch marked more hours than it should… Thirty-six to be exact. And a smaller dial held the date. At the moment, the date read January third, which was correct. There seemed to be more buttons than a normal pocket watch would have. The case was gold, probably eighteen karat… It was hard to read the exact time on a dial that registered thirty-six hours instead of the normal twelve, but he thought the time was right on the money, too. But despite its strangeness, there was nothing about this watch to suggest that the admiral's tale was true. He looked up at Admiral Nelson, searching his eyes for anything that would alleviate his fear that the man had gone mad. "Sir…" He swallowed nervously. "Maybe I should call Will, sir…"

"Damn it, man, will you just listen?" The admiral was angry now, sweeping out of his chair, and snatching the pocket watch from Chip's hands. "When have I ever lied to you, Chip?"

That was a loaded question. The admiral had indeed never lied to Chip's face, but there had been numerous times when the admiral hadn't told Chip everything he really needed to know, either. That was a hazard of the job, and Chip accepted that Admiral Nelson's confidence in him had slipped in the last few years, after Lee had come aboard as captain. He wasn't really sure how or why, but after Captain Phillips' death, things had changed between them. The admiral wasn't as likely to tell him what was going on – forcing him to work in the dark, on more than one occasion, when it would have been far better to know so that he could do what was needed - or use his mathematical expertise, as if the captain's death had somehow negated the reasons why the admiral had chosen Chip to be XO in the first place. And he had become shorter-tempered, more likely to bark, but less likely to offer even a half-hearted well done.

All of that could be traced to grief at Captain Phillips' death. They had each reacted to that grief in different ways. Chip had thrown himself into the work, striving to be the man that Captain Phillips had seen in him. The admiral had withdrawn and allowed his irascible temper to rule him. It was harder to please him, much harder to win any sort of smile from him. Those hard blue eyes had lost their twinkling good humor. He devoted himself to his lab, and often came up with strange, almost miraculous saves, pulled from some unknown corner of his brilliant mind just in the nick of time…

But a story like this? Traveling in time to save Lee's life? Might as well tell Chip a ghost story; it would be as believable.

But the admiral wasn't really looking for belief. Just understanding. And that was something Chip could still offer, even though it felt like the admiral knew a lot more than he was telling. Besides, arguing with him now might just make the problem worse and that was something the boat absolutely didn't need. So… "Never, sir. But…"

"Yes, I know, it offends your pragmatic sensibilities," Admiral Nelson's voice twisted the words into a sneer, as if a sense of pragmatism were one of the seven deadly sins, "but just stay with me here. I'm telling you that Nash is going to go berserk and kill the skipper in just three days. I need you to investigate this and try to prevent it."

And that required an answer, whether the admiral liked it or not. Chip spread his hands apologetically, but could not keep from saying, "How do I investigate something that hasn't happened, sir? I can't just throw Nash in the brig on your say-so, not when there's no proof!"

"Then find proof! That's what you do, isn't it, Mr. Morton?" The admiral smacked his fist against his desktop, and the noise made Chip jump. "Trail Nash, see if you can catch him getting the gun! Put a guard detail on Lee… I don't have to tell you how to do your job, do I?"

Chip stiffened at the implication and rose slowly, fighting to keep his face under control. "No, sir. I know my job." Fairy tales weren't in the least bit part of that job, either.

"Good. Then go take care of it. I don't need to tell you we'll have a disaster on our hands if Nash gets to the control room and pulls that trigger." The admiral glared at Chip, as if the whole preposterous tale were his fault. "Three days. That's all we have. I'm counting on you to stop this. And not a word to anyone."

Chip nodded, swallowing his misgivings, and walked away.