Chapter 24

A couple weeks later,

"Wow, what's wrong with him?" Daniela deadpanned as she looked through the file Sasha had placed on the table during lunch with Azima and Daniela.

"Nothing." Sasha stated, Gabe the Babe was clean. He didn't even have a parking ticket to his name. She had never met a guy who didn't have something wrong with him. People were inherently flawed, this guy didn't seem to have any. It was weird, that he was so normal, clean and above board. Sure, he had a mortgage on his house ad a small business that was profitable. Nothing screamed dangerous or heartbreaker except that he'd been divorced once and widowed once but for a man at 50, it wasn't unusual post pandemic.

"That's good." Azima remarked as she sipped her ristretto with a serene vibe surrounding her.

"Isn't it suspicious?" Sasha asked her, she just kept wondering if there was something to worry about.

"Aren't you being a bit of Betty Buttinsky?" Azima asked with a smile as she was learning more American vernacular. "I think it's cute but if there's nothing to be found. It usually means there's nothing to worry about. Also Andrea can look after herself." she added with a shrug.

"Mm, he is delicious and most likely worth the heartache." Daniela mused as she was looking at the photo in the file.

"I'm just looking out for her." Sasha said to them.

"I think it's cute. Can you do a background check on Joseph for me?" Daniela said as she closed the file and handed it back to Sasha with a grin.

"He's fine, you have nothing to worry about. Now will you tell me what is up with your outfit?" Sasha asked her, changing the topic.

"I had work." Daniela told her as she looked down at her crisp white business shirt and belted waist high pencil skirt that ended at below her knees. She'd spent money that she should've been saving but it was necessary for her to look a certain way. It had paid off and soon she'd be able to afford a wardrobe to compliment it.

"You never dress up this much for your work." Sasha said, observant as always as Daniela was immaculately put together instead of a more relaxed casual look.

"Hmm maybe because I have a new job." Daniela told her and Azima with a winning smile.

"Go you!" Azima cheered with a smile.

"Congratulations, where?" Sasha asked.

"Department of English and Foreign Languages at Norfolk University. I'm going to be teaching Mandarin and Spanish as well as assisting in Russian, Korean and Arabic etc. It's not a big deal." Daniela said downplaying it, but really, it was a huge deal for her. Her first full time job in four years that wasn't going to have shady dealing, very little danger and something she knew would help set her up.

"Not a big deal?" Azima scoffed. "Look at you, all whatever." she added mockingly, Daniela gave a shrug.

"Please, anyone can learn a language. I would love to teach economics but apparently they don't need my assistance there." Daniela said.

"Means you and Tom will be working together. Do you even know how to teach?" Sasha asked in an amused manner.

"Not professionally, but I'll learn." Daniela said with a shrug.

"It's not that hard. I'm sure all the boys will flock to your classes if you continue to dress like that. You're like a walking wet dream in that outfit and heels." Azima told her as she looked Daniela over with an appreciative look.

"Awwh, you say the nicest things." Daniela told her.

"I agree about the teaching, once you find your bearings it'll get easier but still find it challenging, does Joseph know?" Sasha asked Daniela.

"I'm telling him tonight. I didn't want to say anything until the contracts were signed and I had a starting date." Daniela said warmed by her friends enthusiasm.

"We should celebrate with champagne and cake, right now." Azima told them, she rose her hand and signalled a waiter.

Later that afternoon,

"What are you making me cook?" Wolf asked Daniela as she hovered over him in the kitchen of their apartment. With her arm still in a cast, she had to rely on others to help her out on some of the basics like eating and getting around the place.

"Something for Joseph." Daniela told him as she looked into the bowl. Wolf sucked batter off his thumb. "Stop eating the batter. You'll make yourself sick." She told him.

"Tastes good." he told her, as he knew they were cooking a cake but he didn't know why. It wasn't the Captain's birthday. Yet, here they were baking a cake for the guy. As Sister-Brother bonding went; this was weird for him. But he would let it go as it was keeping Daniela out of trouble. "Why are we making Meylan a cake?"

"It's an apology cake. I used his electric razor on my legs the other day." Daniela informed him.

"Oh, that is disgusting." Wolf told her, making a face at her.

"It wasn't like I shaved my papaya with it." Daniela told him as she clearly didn't get it.

"I'm not going there with you." Wolf said as he shuddered at her euphemism as he didn't want to know. Now he just felt even weirder for helping her bake an apology cake.

"Ok, well can you focus and whisk." she said impatiently. He snorted a laugh at her as she was fairly uptight about following the recipe to the letter.

"Wow, you care about him." Wolf teased as he hadn't seen her so worked up about anything like today.

"Yes." Daniela said frustrated as he wasn't whisking fast enough for her liking.

"Didn't think you had it in you. But 3 weeks and you're head over heels or is it the concussion still acting up?" he asked jokingly, she gave him an unimpressed look.

"Don't be an asshole. I only have one arm." she told him, reminding him of her broken arm.

"You owe me a TV." He reminded her, the empty space in the lounge room was fairly obvious but he hadn't missed it. Too much. If anything it motivated him to get off his ass more. He knew in a couple more months, he'd be able to go back to full time work. He just needed to get his fitness level back up to his standard and be signed off by medical.

"It'll take me a couple of weeks but you'll get your TV. I got a new job, so that will help." She said casually, that Wolf nearly missed out that she had told him she had a new job.

"Congratulations, doing what?" he asked as he continued whisking the batter.

"Language teacher at the Norfolk University." she replied.

"Seriously?" he asked, surprised at the move of professions but if he were honest; he had no real image of what she should be doing.

"Yes, I speak a lot of languages and I'm very worldly. Also very well known business woman according to google. You should check it out." She said as she pushed the buttered cake tin in his direction. He dutifully dolled the batter into the tin.

"It was never in question. Just surprised, thought you were happy where you were." Wolf said.

"I am, but let's face it. I need something that will be a little more mentally stimulating. So I can stay out of trouble and I also get paid more." Daniela told him.

"Good for you, we should celebrate." He told her with a grin.

"Let's celebrate if I last the first week." Daniela told him.

"Sounds good." Wolf said as a knock sounded at the door. He went to answer and when he opened the door; he was gobsmacked. "Mum?" he asked in disbelief. She hadn't mentioned she would be visiting. Seeing her in the flesh, he smiled.

"Wolfie." his mother Cynthia said as she came into the apartment. She dropped her carry on bag to the ground and pulled into a warm hug. He had to admit there was some uncanny resemblance between her and Daniela in physical features that he hadn't put together until that moment. Yet there were many differences like hair and skin colour.

"How- when?" he asked Cynthia.

"Just luck." She said pulling back to look at him. "You look well, are you ok?" she asked him with motherly concern.

"Yeah, I'm good." he told her, he turned and gestured to Daniela who was standing frozen in the kitchen.

"Mum, this is Daniela. My roommate." he said making the introductions, he wanted to say she was his twin. To tell his mother who she really was but he kept his mouth shut out of respect to Daniela. He could see she wasn't ready.

"Daniela, so nice to meet you." Cynthia said.

"You too." Daniela told her, pulling herself together and plastering on a smile.

"You two are baking a cake?" Cynthia asked.

"My boyfriend likes cake." Daniela said lamely, she looked to Wolf. "We need icing sugar. I'm going to get that." she said as she made a hasty exit with her wallet.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Cynthia asked him after Daniela left the apartment.

"Tell you what?" he asked.

"You think I wouldn't recognise my own child?" she asked him, she looked so hurt by their mild deception.

"That's it. We have a full compliment." Mike said with a sigh as he piled all the files together. They'd gone through all the new recruit files and found fresh blood for the Nathan James. Now all they needed was the ship to be cleared from dry dock. The rest was all smooth sailing or at least that was the hope.

"Good, I'm sure the President will be happy. So how are you going to handle deployment?" Meylan asked him, Mike sat back in his chair and gave a shake of his head as he didn't know.

"Not sure, I'm thinking seriously about a permanent shore duty posting as it stands now, I'd have to put the girls into foster care if I was deployed. I'm not thrilled at the slightest chance of losing them to the system." Mike said honestly, as he was still mulling over what he was going to career wise to make things work for him and his kids.

"I wouldn't either." Meylan said.

"You'll get your Command back but on a better ship." Mike pointed out, a grin on his face as he poked fun at him. Meylan pursed his lips and pretended to not be amused.

"Mom always told me never to compare ships. Someone will end up disappointed." Meylan told him in a light and mocking tone.

"How's Daniela?" Mike asked changing topics.

"Good, she'll find out today if she got that job at the university campus in the city." Meylan said, Mike already knew as he was a character reference for Daniela on her resume.

"Her teaching the minds of the future. There's a horrifying thought." Mike joked.

"She's not teaching ethics, she's in the languages department." Meylan said with a smile as he wasn't worried in the least. But Mike did have a point, Daniela's views skewed into a grey area.

"With Tom, that should be fun. Your Missus and Sasha's Mister, while you're both here on the base." Mike said with a chuckle, the world seemed rather small but it was good to see it getting along. So far.

"Tom seems happy with his new job. Apparently he was very popular at Naval College back in the day as a guest lecturer." Meylan said.

"Yeah, I was surprised by his decision. I figured he'd be back in uniform." Mike said not judging Tom for his choices. "But I gotta say it would be interesting to hear Daniela lecture on Ethics and Morality instead of the pious, dry material they normal drill into the students' heads." Mike said thoughtfully.

"Wow, look who's warming up to my girlfriend." Meylan said mockingly. Mike gave a slight smile.

"The girls like her. Speaking of, I've gotta head off and pick them up from school." Mike said calling it a day. He rose from his chair and picked up his cover.

"See you tomorrow." Meylan said.

Daniela stood outside her apartment door with a bag of icing sugar. She didn't even need it but had to escape the apartment. She knew her mother would show up eventually, she had just planned to be somewhere else when it happened. She didn't want to know her mother, she knew it was stupid but she felt abandoned by her. She felt that she was too much like her father and her mother would hate her for it.

She was afraid her mother would pity her as well as dislike her as she hadn't been this brilliant woman. She had been a criminal and a rich one too. While Daniela felt she had changed, she just didn't think she could meet the standard next to her twin brother or half siblings who were all seemingly normal and perfect people.

But she didn't have a choice, she had to face her mother. She couldn't ignore the woman or a piece of her past that had been eluding her. She took a deep breath and opened the door; stepping in to find Wolf and their mother laughing over something.

"Hey, the cake turned out good." Wolf told her.

"Good, I got icing sugar." Daniela said feeling nervous, she never prepared herself for this eventuality.

"Excellent, now Wolf tells me that you're dating his commanding officer. He's very handsome." Cynthia said in a warm manner as she clearly didn't know the truth and Wolf hadn't told her. How could the woman not know? didn't a mother recognise her own child? Daniela felt like she was almost looking in a mirror except her Mother was like a preview of what was to come.

"I did not say he was handsome." Wolf said.

"It was implied." Cynthia told him with a sly grin, her Australian accent was thick and her tone rich like she was weaving a beautiful story every time she spoke. "Now, I'm going to help you make icing as I am a gold medallist in cakes for my council area." she told Daniela.

"Ok." Daniela said dumbly as what else could she say.

"Home, sweet home." Tom said as opened the door. The kids raced in not even taking a moment to soak in that they were home. Bruno chased Sammy into the house. "Ok." Tom said under his breath. At least they were happy to be home in Norfolk for the weekend.

Andrea had looked fairly upset as did Ashley about parting ways but it wasn't permanent. They had decided with the kids to have them finish out the school year in St Louis. Tom felt it gave them all time to adjust to the transition and for Tom to really get a handle on his life.

He didn't feel like he was going to fall off the wagon. He just needed to work through his anxieties and emotional turmoil, something he didn't want his kids to become a victim to. He knew they could see it. They knew he was a different man but they hadn't seen him at his darkest. He didn't want to lash out at them in his darker moments.

"You changed your room." Ashley said as she came back downstairs, she wore a frown on her face as she started moving around the house taking stock of the changes.

"I took down a few photos and packed up Mom's stuff. I kept it all and stored it up in the attic. I didn't throw anything away." Tom promised her.

"Why?" Ashley asked, her expression was pinched with pain as she clearly didn't like it.

"I thought you'd like it some day and it also hurt for me to look those things around the house. I'm not erasing her from our lives." he assured her.

"I know, it's tough for me too." Ashley told him, she moved to where the wedding photos used to hang, he'd replaced them with baby photos that included Darien and himself. He liked the photos as they were some of the best memories of his life that he remembered with good feelings. "I thought maybe you got rid of it because of Sasha." she added in a careful tone.

"No, Sasha told me to keep it all." Tom told her.

"You've known her a long time." Ashley stated.

"Yeah, she and I were together long before Mom and I met. We broke up because we wanted very different things at the time. We couldn't be what the other needed at that time in our lives." Tom said, giving her honesty but in brief terms as it was so long ago it barely mattered anymore.

"But Mom was?" Ashley asked as she sat down on the lounge, Tom joined her and sat on the other end.

"Mom ever tell you how we first met?" Tom asked, Ashley shook her head as the question hadn't come up.

"She t-boned my car and had the nerve to tell me that I ignored a 'Stop' sign when it was her who ignored road safety. She was late for work and had been doing her make up while driving. Luckily, only the cars were damaged but she convinced the cops that I was at fault." Tom told her with a grin.

"Did not!" Ashley said in disbelief.

"She did, your Mom was a terrible driver and she couldn't afford another strike against her licence." Tom told her, he chuckled at the memory.

"Yeah, she kind of was a bad driver," Ashley admitted begrudgingly.

"We spent two months arguing over insurance and who would pay what for repairs. Which shop to get the cars repaired in. Then she asked me out for dinner and the rest is history." Tom said with a smile, he knew it wasn't overly romantic but it had been at the time and he had to censure a lot of the information. He and Darien had a very passionate and confusing relationship that evolved into a beautiful marriage and life together.

"When did you know she was the one?" Ashley asked him.

"Probably about six months into our relationship. But I don't believe there is just 'one' person meant for one person. I think we have this huge capacity for love, to love others deeply. There's no ranking system. No one is supplanted or replaced." He sighed as he felt he was rambling and his thoughts were scattered, "It's just different and just as special. It's hard to explain." He said honestly.

"I think I get it." Ashley said.

"Hey, how was the airport?" Gabe asked Andrea as she got out of car. He was raking his front lawn but stopped to walk up to his side of the fence.

"It was ok," Andrea lied, it had been hard. She knew the day was coming when the kids would move on from her and back into Tom life full time. But it was tough. She had driven around for a couple hours gearing herself up for an empty house.

"Come on." Gabe told her, he motioned his head to his house. "I got you a gift." he told her.

"Not interested in your 'gifts'." Andrea told him dryly.

"It's rude to turn away a gift." He told her, with a charming smile as he was not put off by her prickly exterior.

"Why did you get me a gift?" she asked him as she moved to the fence and gave him a no nonsense look. She couldn't understand what he saw in her. Maybe because she wasn't easy to get, who knew.

"Cause, I knew the kids would be visiting their Dad and thought you might like something to cheer you up." he told her.

"If the gift is in your pants. Then you can keep it to yourself." Andrea told him.

"Promise, it's not in my pants." He told her, "This time." he added cheekily.

"Fine, let's see it." she said, not able to shake the smile on her lips at his mischievous humour.

"What's in my pants? Andrea, you minx." he joked, Andrea shook her head as she walked over to his side of the fence, she followed him up the front path to his house. He walked up the stairs and opened the door.

She was about to step in when he held up a hand stopping her. "Just stay here." he told her, she was about to quip that he was afraid of her being in his house when he gave a wolf whistle.

She frowned but then she heard the familiar sound of tiny paws and nails scrapping across the floor. A few seconds later, a small beagle dog came into view, it looked no older than two years old as it cheerfully came at them.

"You got a dog." Andrea said obtusely as she was wondering what her gift was. She knelt down to the ground and caught the dog in her arms as it excitedly licked and jumped at her.

"For you, her name is Ladybug. She's two years old or so. House trained and all up to date on her medical, spayed; just looking for a home and companion. Saw her and knew you two would get along." Gabe told her.

"You think I want to replace Bruno?" she asked him.

"You said you were thinking about fostering kids, why not adopt a dog? She's pretty charming and she loves you." Gabe said, he simplified her wishes in a way that was annoying but it was hard to be angry at him when the dog was so adorable and loving.

"You're an evil man." She told him as they both knew she was taking the dog. He crouched down beside her and reached out to pet the dog.

"I prefer thoughtful, kind and giving." He said correcting, he smiled in a wicked in way that made her heart flip flop and her insides melt.

"Thank you." She said as he had cheered her up and his gift was thoughtful.

"Thank me by letting me take you out to dinner tonight." Gabe told her with a grin. She looked down at Ladybug and pursed her lips; she knew it was a slippery slope saying 'yes' to Gabe but he did give her a dog and made her smile when she had needed it most.

"One dinner. Nothing more, and I'm not putting on a dress and no funny business." Andrea told him in a firm tone.

"Yes, Commander." he replied with a victorious grin.