A/N: I gave up reading about virtue for my AP Literature class to type this up for you guys. I felt like it was getting to long without an update. I'd like you guys to know that I'm making this up chapter by chapter. Math is being a bitch to me. I'm barely passing. What the hell was I thinking taking math when I don't need to? ___
Remember that I'm only doing about two more chapters here. The rest will be at PEPPERUP (at) deviantART.
Only Jackie Anahid and the Pepperup crew, and the Aleutian Flare and it's crew belong to me. Everything else belongs to the real people.
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The group reached The Elbow Room and crammed in through it's doors. Everyone split into their respective cliques and the two captains head over to an empty booth. As they settled into their first bottles, the doors burst open to the boys of the Cornelia Marie. Josh and Jake came in with a showy whoop, creating a scene for attention. Captain Harris walked towards the booth where Sig and Jackie sat in.
"Hey Phil!" said Jackie as she got up to greet him. Phil smothered her with a huge bear hug and ruffled her hair.
"How's my favorite little girl?" he asked with a grin.
"Not a little girl man!" She fake pouted and punched him playfully.
"How're you doing Sig?" asked Phil as he sat down. Another beer came around to him.
"I'm doing good. Pretty decent season," replied Sig nonchalantly. His eyebrow arched at the questionable hug.
They talked about the little tid bits of the events that happened on their vessels and laughed like good friends. The stories were good and the atmosphere was relaxed. At the start of a new song Phil got up and pulled Jackie to dance.
"Come on and dance princess."
After a few turns and swirls Phill got distracted and went after his sons. Jackie made her way back to the booth where Sig was drinking alone.
"You wanna dance?" She offered her hand to him with a silly grin.
"I think you've had too much to drink Jack," responded Sig with a stern look.
Jackie grabbed her bottle and sloshed it around in front of his face. It was only half empty.
"My first one, man."
With that she pulled him to his feet and set out to drag him to dance. Sig resisted to gulp down the rest of his beer. Jackie gave him a look that said 'What ARE you doing?'.
"Someone's gotta be drunk for this to work," he said laughing.
The two danced awkwardly and moved like they knew what they were doing, but it was all bogus. They cracked up and grew more aware of their crews laughing at them. You would think that they would stop in embarrassment. Well, they did.
Back at their booth, they plopped down breathless wearing huge grins. With another round of drinks, the mood was set back to calm.
"So. How do you and Phill know each other?"
"He's been like a father figure to me."
"What happened to your birth parents?' Sig asked curiously and naively.
Jackie froze as if she was seeing a flashback.
"Err.. Sorry. I didn't mean to touch upon a bad subject." Sig winced at his stupidity and mentally slapped himself upside his head.
She snapped back. "Oh no, no! I might as well get over it now."
"Have you heard of the grand Aleutian Flare?" Sig nodded in silent response.
"She was a great thing; painted fire red. On top of the fishing with a great crew. My dad was her captain and my mum was her homemaker. Aboard the Aleutian Flare, we were a close knit family. My mum and dad were the parents of the crew. I would learn the ropes from my father and Glenn. Glenn was a young deckhand for my father. He's like an older brother to me. I had so much fun.
We didn't fish for a living. It was a way of life for us. We didn't have to work to live comfortably. This is how we enjoyed living. Risk and adventure. That's what fishing was about for my parents and the crew.
Then during a season of opilio, bad luck struck hard. First, one of the engines stopped working. Then the electricity went out at night. With most of our pots on deck we could be swept far away or crash into a rocky shore. We could see what was out in the ocean. My father called a pan pan over the radio. We tried all we could to get power. A huge wave struck the side of the Aleutian Flare. The engineer went down to the engine room to find anything to get some power on. It was flooding. At an extreme rate. When word reached the wheelhouse my father sprung into action. There was no way we could make it to any harbor in time even if we could get power going. We were sinking fast. Father told use to get into survival suits. No one was sure if we could even survive the Being Sea.
My father told Glenn to make sure I get out alive and survive. Father and mother weren't in survival suits. They were going to stay back. A captain and his wife and his vessel. A loyal captain and his loyal wife and his grand vessel. They were going to sink with the boat.
Of course I wanted to stay back with them, but Glenn carried me out to a life raft. There wasn't another moment that I hated him that much.
There, we watch the boat sink. The grand Aleutian Flare with her captain and his wife, forever in the unforgiving waters of the Bering Sea. Forever in their watery graves. The glory of the Aleutian Flare was gone.
The sea was still kicking us, kicking a fallen dog. The crew in the life raft was tossed around. They fell out and Glenn and I were left, desperately clinging on for dear life.
Lights were ahead. It was the Cornelia Marie. Captain Phil saved us.
He took me in as the daughter he never had and raised me with his sons. Glenn worked as a deckhand for the Cornelia Marie. I regained my happiness through the love of Captain Phil and the antics of Jack and Josh.
When I reached eighteen, I used the small fortune that my parents left and commissioned the Pepperup. Fire red. It was my life. Fishing is my life. There was no way I could back away from that. This was between the Bering Sea and me. Fishing was my way of revenge.
I asked Glenn to be my deck boss, but he declined. Instead, he stayed as my deckhand and engineer. He pledged to keep the Pepperup in tip top condition. "
Jackie wiped her eyes on her sleeve and grinned unexpectedly. "That made me feel a whole lot better."
"Wow… You sure are chipper. It takes guts to face the Bering Sea after a tragedy like that. Your father and mother would be proud," said Sig quietly.
"I'm just lucky to have people that care a lot." With that, she drained her bottle.
"Alright everyone! Time to close up!"
The people slowly trickled out the doors and headed home in a slightly drunk manner. Some more drunk than others.
Sig got up and offered his arm to Jackie. With a smile, she took his arm and they walked slowly to door, almost the last ones out. Their crews were sort of waiting for them. They slowly walked so that the two could catch up.
As they reached their boats the group stopped and talked on for a while. Sig turned to Jackie. His face had a serious expression. Not a mad serious. He cupped her face in his hand. Slowly, he leaned in to kiss her. Jackie's eyes went wide, but they shut as she leaned in.
They broke apart grinning, hearing the cheers and whistling around them.
"Yeah! You go man!"
"Ha ha ha! Only on Dutch!"
Jackie blushed as red as her boat and jogged quickly into her wheelhouse. Need some alone time.
Everyone was in good spirits, save for two men of the Northwestern. Norman and Edgar had worried looks about them.
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A/N: Ooooo! Conflict! It would be a good cliffhanger just to stop posting the chapters here, but I promised a few, not a couple. xD
A note on the "pan pan": It's pronounced "pon pon", but it's really spelled that way withe the "a"s.
ANOTHER thing: I was wondering if you prefer The Elbow Room or Latitudes. So sad that it closed down. T___T
