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Gia was standing behing Sig, and was jumping excitedly up and down, as he pulled the Northwestern in to St. Paul Island, much to his irritation. Gia was so excited to see Jo and tell her the good news about her and Norman that she could hardly contain herself. The rest of the Northwestern crew was already on deck, waiting to tie the boat up for the offload. Gia saw the Time Bandit come close in to view and she squealed excitedly.
"Why don't you go downstairs?" Sig said suddenly, with impatience.
"Why?" Gia asked, confused by his shortness with her
"So you can help tie up the boat."
"Why do you really want me to leave?" Gia said, not buying it
"Because your driving me crazy. You keep jumping up and down behind me and making these squealing noises. It's making uncomfortable and nervous and I need to concentrate." Sig saw no point in lying. Gia gave him a dirty look before turning her back to him and making her way towards the door that lead to the outside staircase of the wheelhouse which put you directly on deck.
"Whatever." She grumbled. Sig always got nervous and paranoid about every little thing and sometimes Gia got annoyed with it.
"Did you have something to say?" Sig asked, not in the mood for her's or anyone else's shit.
"Nothing at all Captain." She said sarcastically before slamming the door shut behind her and making her way down the stairs. She hadn't been on deck more than 10 seconds when Sig's voice came booming through the speakers.
"Norman, do me a favor and keep your little girlfriend in check, would you? I don't have time for hormones."
Everyone looked to the wheelhouse and then to Gia, who was now glaring angrily to Sig's direction. Norman knew his brother was in no mood for an arguement that Gia seemed ready to give, so he briskly walked over to Gia, taking her hand and speaking soothingly to her, trying to calm her down. She'd actually began to relax when Sig decided to keep pushing her buttons.
"That's a good girl. Glad someone know's how to handle you."
Gia's face immediately went hot and all possibility of remaining calm had just been shot to hell.
"Maybe we should get June out here to come and "handle" you. Maybe then you wouldn't always have a stick up your old, miserable ass!" Gia shouted to the wheelhouse, knowing Sig had heard her perfectly.
"What did you say to me?" He roared through the loud hailer.
"I think you heard me the first time Captain." She said nastily.
"If you value your job, you'll keep your mouth shut...now." Sig warned, growling.
"And if you value your teeth, you'll keep your mouth shut...now." Gia said in the same, if not more, menacing tone. Norman tried his best to intercede, knowing this would not end well if they didn't stop arguing. He stepped in front of Gia, blocking her eyesight from the wheelhouse, and gazed pleadingly in to her eyes, trying to calm her down.
"Gia, baby, please just stop."
"He's wrong." She said angriliy. Everyone on deck watched her with a mixture of amuesment and astonishment. Besides, Edgar and Norman, no one working on the Northwestern would dare talk to Sig like that. It just wasn't something you did.
"I know he is. But I'm asking you to be the bigger person and -"
"She still got something to say Norm?" Sig asked tauntingly.
He just pulled up to the dock and every crew member, who'd been an audience just moments earlier, quickly scurried to their tasks, dropping the anchor, and securing the lines, whatever needed to be done. The only crew members who were not doing their duties, were having a showdown with the man in the wheelhouse, which everyone on deck could hear, though they pretended not to.
"Leave her alone Sig." Norman said, his own voice filled with warning.
"You speak for her now?"
"I speak for myself!" Gia said, unable to control her rising anger. She'd tried twice, for Norman's sake to calm down, but Sig really knew how to annoy the shit out of her sometimes.
"Why don't you go take a midol, or whatever it is you girls take when you're on your periods." He said, with dark laughter.
"Why don't you go and take a nice, long nap or whatever it is you old, miserable, senile men do when you're having your little temper tantrums."
Sig immediately stopped laughing. He'd had enough.
"Get the fuck off my deck! Get the fuck off my boat!"
"Fucking gladly!" Gia screamed, pulling her arm from Norman's grasp and storming her way across the desk. Norman had called out after her but Gia decided to ignore him. She wasn't in the mood to be rational and told to calm down. She was pissed off and she needed to blow off steam and who better to do that with than her good friend Jo. Edgar was standing next to the rail and just before Gia hopped over he said "Take it easy" and she shot him a hard glare in return.
She immediately made her way over to the Time Bandit which was only 3 minutes away. As Gia began to advance towards the Time Bandit, she saw Eddie and Justin taking weights down on paper and Fourtner and Scotty talking about one thing or another as they headed inside the beautiful boat. Her gaze finally landed on the person she'd been looking forward to seeing most since their secret, late night, SAT phone conversation, less than 36 hours ago. Jo was leaning against the rail, looking borderline miserable. Gia knew she'd just gotten off of her "punishment" of wheelwatch and she was not in the best of spirits.
"Hey beautiful! You come here often?" Gia said jokingly as she finally reached the Time Bandit and Jo's face immediately broke in to a wide grin. Gia was just about to hop over the rail when Andy's voice came through the loud hailer, halting her in her steps.
"Don't you know you need to ask permission before boarding another person's boat?" Andy asked, dissapprovingly.
"She doesn't need permission. John let's her on anytime she wants." Jo told him sourly.
"John's not the Captain for Opilio Season though, is he?" Andy said, challenging Jo's earlier statement. When she did nothing but glare at him, Andy turned his attention back to Gia. "You got something you wanna ask?"
"No, she doesn't." Jo said, hopping over the rail and she and Gia embraced.
"Get your ass back on this boat Jolie Smith!" Andy growled, warningly.
"I'll be back later!" She replied, pretending to be ignorant of his disapproving attitude. Before Andy could say more, Jo grabbed Gia's hand and they ran towards one of the two cars that Discovery always left with the processing plants for each boat, incase of an emergency. Gia and Jo mutually decided they were both going through a crisis, so taking one of the car's was called for. Jo called shotgun, which was fine with Gia. Together, they laughed and drove to the nearest pub which was about 5 miles from the processor plant. They jumped out the car and arm in arm, they strode inside and ordered themselves a pitcher of beer.
"I'm so glad to see you." Gia said, filling up her glass.
"You have NO idea how happy I am to see you and get away from that damn boat" Jo said, exasperated.
"Still mad at Andy?" Gia guessed.
"Yeah. He's been on my ass a lot since he got mad at me and the guys the other day. Any other time he would've let you come on the boat, with or without permission, no problem. But just to get at me he put you through all that "permission to board" crap."
"Everything okay with you guys? You're not on the brink of a break up or anything are you?"
"No way!" Jo said, laughing "This just happens sometimes. There are times when he feels like I don't know the boundaries between 'boyfriend' and 'Captain' and there are times when I feel like he doesn't know the boundaries between 'girlfriend' and 'deckhand.'
Gia nodded, taking another sip of her beer.
"Elaborate for me."
"Well.." Jo said, shifting slightly in her seat to get more comfortable "Sometimes he doesn't always treat me like a "real" deckhand. For example, if the weather's REALLY bad, he wont let me go on top of pots and beat the ice, or he won't let me throw the hook because he thinks a wave is going to come crashing down on me and sweep me overboard, and there were a couple times he's even called me off the deck, but still let everyone else work. Stuff like that pisses me off because then I get teased about it or the guys get annoyed because they have to pick up the extra slack when Andy pulls me off deck or wont let me do other things that need to be done. It's not fair to them. We all signed up for the same job, so we all should do the same amount of work and suffer the same conditions and pains of working on a crab boat. And then they get annoyed with me like I asked to pulled off deck, when I want to be right out there working with them. I feel guilty about it and then I get annoyed with Andy because he's in Captain mode and what he says goes and I shouldn't question his authority. That's why I feel like he doesn't know how to seperate "buiness" from "personal. I like it better when Johnathan's captain. He lets me have a lot more fun and treats me like everyone else when it comes to work"
Jo took a big swig of her beer before continuing
"And then there are times when I talk back to Andy because I get frustrated with the way he treats me differently and he gets all pissed off because he says when we're out at sea I'm a "deckhand" and not his girlfriend, so I shouldn't talk back, especially in front of the crew and blah blah blah. He thinks I take advantage of the fact that we're together and that's the only reason I have the balls to get in his face the way I do. Being in a relationship and working together, especially in our profession, gets frustrating at times. But don't worry, we're not breaking up. He loves me so much and I love him the same. I just get annoyed with the over-protectiveness sometimes and he gets annoyed that I want to be "one of the guys." "
Gia nodded, as she refilled her glass.
"Well I'm glad to hear everything with the two of you is solid. Though I think he's gonna have your ass for leaving the boat when he told you not to, taking one of the Discovery cars and leaving with your friend and not even telling him where you were going."
Jo grimanced, realizing the full extent of her actions
"Yeah I'm really gonna get it when I get back. Sometimes there is a downfall to dating the Captain of the ship." Jo said with a sigh and began to drink off the rest of her beer.
"Well I guess it's a good thing then that I just date the deckhand."
Jo immediately began choking on her drink, her eyes bugging out as she stared at Gia in shock. Gia laughed and gave her a few pats on the back to help with her coughing.
"Are you serious?" Jo said excitedly, once she was able to stop coughing
"Yes!" Gia said with just as much enthusiasm
"Tell me EVERYTHING!"
And thats exactly what Gia did. She told her everything to the night when she got off the SAT phone with Jo, to the song he dedicated to her, to when she unreasonably woke him up to know exactly what he was trying to say and how he told her he loved her. Jo screamed excitedly and thew her arms around her Bering Sea sister, giving her a big hug.
"I'm so happy everything worked out with you two."
"Yeah, me too. And truth be told I didn't think it would even happen, with the way things were going between us."
"I hear yah. But if things are going so good between you two why'd you look like you were about to kick some Hansen ass when you came over today?"
"Because I was. Just not Norman's."
"Care to elaborate?" Jo asked, clearly lost. Gia sighed, taking another swig of her drink before speaking.
"It was Sig."
"Sig?" Jo said, completely surprised. She'd been expecting Gia to say Edgar, the infamous pain in the ass, on the Northwestern "But you love Sig. You guys NEVER have a problem and you always speak so highly of him."
"I know, but today we got in to it." Gia said and proceeded to tell Jo about the blow out they'd had just before she arrived at the Time Bandit. Jo let out a whistle and poured Gia another drink before pouring herself once.
"It was bound to happen, I guess." Gia said, reflectively
"How do you figure?"
"Well, whenever I have a problem with someone on the boat it's always a Hansen . First it was Edgar, then it was Norman, and now Sig. I guess it goes from youngest to oldest."
Jo laughed, but nodded at her logic.
"Think he'll fire me?" Gia asked casually before she took a drink of freshly refilled glass of beer.
"Doubt it. Norman wouldn't have it."
"But Sig's the Captain."
"True. But Norman owns just as much of that boat as Sig and if he says your staying, your staying."
"Let's just hope Norman isn't as pissed off with me now as Sig is."
"You wanna go back?"
"Not really."
"Good, me either." Jo said, approvingly.
So for the next few hours Gia and Jo, drove around the very small island of , eating at a local diner, looking at some scenery and talking about anything and everything that came to them. They'd even called Becka on Jo's cell phone to give her the updates on Gia and Norman's relationship. It was 10:00 pm and very dark when the car began running out of gas.
"Think we should call it a night?" Gia asked
"Yeah. I don't wanna push my luck with Andy. He might leave the dock without me and that's when we'll have some REAL problems."
Gia laughed, nodding her head.
"Yeah. I don't want Sig to leave without me either. Hopefully he's calmed down and Norman isn't too mad at me."
"Only one way to find out." Jo said, putting the car back in gear "But listen, if one of us does get left behind, let's go on the other's boat."
"It's a deal." Gia agreed, making the pact with her Bering Sea sister.
The two girls decided to stop for gas before heading back, not wanting to be rude for whoever else might need it. After they did that, they drove back to the processing plant and pulled up to see that both the Time Bandit and the Northwestern were still tied up at the dock. They both let out a collective sigh of relief, but that relief was short lived when the girls saw both Andy and Sig standing in front of the Time Bandit, arms crossed, waiting for them.
"If my body mysteriously "disappears" at sea, you know why." Jo said, giving Gia a look before jumping out the car. Gia laughed as she unbuckled herself and got out as well. They walked over to the two Captains, both recieving hard and disapproving looks. No one spoke for a few moments, the tension seeming to hard to break. It was Sig who finally spoke.
"Well Andy, it was good seeing you. We'll have to get together and have a drink when we get back to Dutch."
"Yeah man, definately." Andy said, shaking Sig's hand and then giving a brief hug.
Sig then looked to Gia, a look that said "Let's go" and began walking away without a word. Gia quickly gave Jo and hug and whispered "good luck" in her ear before turning to walk away. As she was catching up with Sig, she heard Scotty Hillstrand's taunting voice saying, "Somebody's in trouble." and Jo's testy voice saying "Shut up!" and Gia laughed to herself. She was finally walking next to Sig, matching his pace, but he still said nothing to her. Only when they reached the Northwestern and were about to hop over the rail, did he stop and turn to Gia, addressing her.
"Listen. Sometimes I get aggravated and frustrated and I take it out on the crew. It's nothing personal, it's just the way I am. But if you want to work for me, you've got to learn to take me shit just like every other crew member on this boat. They understand I'm the Captain, and right or wrong the listen to me and do what I ask, without an attitude. Atleast not with an attitude in my face, got it? You don't get special treatment because your my brother's girlfriend."
"Roger."
Sig looked at her a moment and then pulled her in to a hug.
"I don't say this often, but I'm sorry. I went a little overboard today. Love you kid." Sig said and placed a kiss on her forehead before releasing her from his grasp. She smiled at him and together they hopped over the rail.
"Love you too." Gia said as Sig began to make his way to the wheelhouse from the outside stairs and she began making her way to inside to the galley.