Muse seems to love me that week so here's the next chapter. Have fun!
***Chapter 13
When the bell rang, Kate clumsily limped to the door, opened it and looked at a broadly grinning Mike. He held up a paper bag. "I brought something to eat."
Kate frowned at the sight of the brown bag. Mike noticed and hurried up adding: "There's milk chocolate too."
Now the blonde laughed and made way to let him in. She remembered that one perfectly and was pleasantly surprised he did too.
They had had a fun dinner with spring rolls and rice with chicken and vegetables, Mike had told his XO everything about what Commander Marshall had said and about the latest rumors going on at NAVCOM. Now they were sitting at the table with a cup of steaming tea each. Mike looked at the woman sitting opposite of him. She absent-mindedly stirred her tea and sucked at a piece of chocolate.
"A penny for your thoughts."
"What?" Kate looked up. "I was just,..." she sighed. "What is that?"
Now he was confused. "What is what, Kate?"
"You know. What are we doing here?"
"We just had dinner, I guess." Mike smiled at her but she didn't return it. He stood up, went around the table, pulled himself a chair next to her, sat down and took her hand.
"OK, tell me. What is going on?"
Kate pulled her hand back and sipped at her tea avoiding his gaze. "I'm talking about what we're doing right now. Is that two colleagues having business dinner talking about work or two good friends having a fun evening or... ." She didn't finished the sentence. Mike reached out and took her hand in between his own again, holding it tightly. His blue eyes looked genuine when he asked in return: "I was under the impression it was the first two. What do you want it to be, Kate? You know I do care about you."
"Yes, I know. And I do too. I really do. But we are on the same ship and I..." She looked at him, her eyes starting to water.
"I can't tell you how much I care for you. But we have to draw a line here. Have you seen the look on Swain's face when he came into the wardroom after you carried me in? I can't do that any more. We are friends, right? Really good friends that care for each other but nothing more?"
She sobbed, part of her hoped that he would deny it, that he would stand up, call Commander Marshall right now and ask for a transfer. But she knew that wouldn't happen and if she was honest with herself, she wouldn't want him to do so. The Hammersley was part of both of their lives. Mike felt helpless. He couldn't handle seeing Kate crying. Awkwardly he patted her arm, not sure if she wanted any contact now. The blonde threw herself into his arms and wept uncontrollably. Mike hadn't expected that and hugged her cautiously.
"It's ok. Please don't cry." he tried to comfort her. That made her cry even more.
"I don't want you to leave. I want us to be friends." she managed in between two sobs.
"Kate, I'm not going to leave. We are friends and we are going to stay friends. I do care deeply for you and you know. Nothing's ever going to chance that. Not Commander Marshall, not Swain, no one can, I promise." That made her stop, finally. He was glad to see that 'cause there was not much he hated more than seeing her being hurt.
Kate looked up at him smiling faintly. "That's kind of embarrassing, I'm sorry for that emotional outburst. Must be a side effect of the painkillers."
The CO nodded allowing her to save her face although he didn't quite believe that it was all just about the side effects.
"Sure, that it must be."he said, gently stroking her back.
The white numbers were clearly visible on the deep blue background when the truck drove by at the road next to the harbor district taking the exit for the dockside. Of course! He should have thought of that before. Each shipping container is allocated a standardized ownership code, four characters long, followed by six numbers and a check digit. Maybe that was what the numbers are about, Robert thought. It would be next to impossible to find out which container Sara meant 'cause he only had three numbers but he could give it a try nonetheless, couldn't he? It didn't hurt to have a look. The sailor changed direction and headed for the dockside himself.
Dusk was already falling when he reached the container terminal. He could just have asked port authority if he could have a look at the papers but they would probably have laughed. Finding a container with having just three numbers and nothing else was an unsolvable problem. He knew that for himself. But if he was lucky, he could discover something unusual, something that wasn't quite right. The young man crept up on the first row of containers. That was going to take a while. RO sight. But he knew he couldn't sleep anyway so better do something than laying awake all night. He started to check the numbers and slowly made his way through the stacking containers.
Laughing and singing two figures staggered out of the bar onto the street.
"Shall we take a cab or walk?" the younger one asked. He giggled. "You know, she beat you. That was awesome!"
"Hey, you're talking to a senior officer here, pay some respect." his mate mumbled. He looked up and down the street. "Let's walk, it isn't far and I don't want to wait for a cab." Still giggling, the other one agreed and they made their way towards the harbor, supporting each other on the way. The fresh air seemed to have at least some effect on the younger one, he stopped giggling and straightened his clothes. Then he suggested:
"You know, if we take the way through the container terminal, it's shorter."
"Good thinking Spider. Going to make a fine navigator some day." his crew mate teased him but turned for the dockside nonetheless. They walked silent for some minutes then suddenly Charge grabbed hold of Spider's arm and stopped him. "Is that RO over there?"
Spider looked over at the stacking containers and gave a shrug. "Not sure, could be. But what would RO do over there? In the middle of the night!?"
"I don't no. Let's find out." Charge made a move to go over to investigate. Now it was Spider grabbing his arm to stop him.
"Wait! If port watch catches us? We can't just roam around here in the middle of the night. That's suspicious!"
Charge nodded. "Exactly! And that's why we go and find out what Robert is doing over there!" He freed himself from Spider's grip and sneaked up on the first row of containers. The brown-haired seaman sight and followed. Concentrated on the countless containers in front of him, the radio officer didn't notice his crew mates coming closer and continued his arduous task of searching for the right combination of numbers.
"Kate, how many of these painkillers did you take today? I thought your ankle was getting better?" Mike looked as if he wouldn't accept an excuse. Kate squirmed then admitted that it still hurt a lot and that she already had taken three of the pills Swain had given her.
"But I walked around too much! I go and sit on the couch the rest of the evening, I even could sleep there so I don't have to walk around any more than necessary." she added trying to justify her behavior.
"No way. You're going to see a doctor right away, X. After all we know, something could be broken or you could have a torn ligament. I take you to the hospital, no excuses!"
Mike helped his XO with the jacket and the shoes and resolutely escorted her to his car, letting her no time to argue at all. When he started the engine, he heard her mumbling: "Thanks."
Sara prayed that it was just a dream. It couldn't be him, could it? Sure she was still dreaming. A voice interrupted her thinking: "You know, that's rather impolite. You should look at the people who want to talk to you."
I really do have a wild imagination, she thought, had to be the sedatives, and risked a glance. Fairly sure to be alone she was therefore shocked when she saw a face next to hers smirking. "Hello sunshine, missed me?"
Sara tried to sit up but her muscles wouldn't obey. The nurse call button! Frantically she groped for it. Where is that damned thing? It must be somewhere ready to hand.
"Looking for that little thingy?" Walker let the button dangling in front of her, holding it up by its cable. "Can't let you have that, sorry. We do want some privacy don't you think? You know, it's pretty hard to get rid of you. I admit I had some sleepless nights after I heard rumors of a diver being found left behind at sea. But there's nothing you can keep secret at the harbor district. So here I found you. Aren't you happy to see me again?"
Sara shook her head vigorously. How could I get out of that situation? "Just leave me alone." she said trying to talk her way out of it. But all that came out was something like 'vemee loan'. Walker laughed.
"I'm just guessing here: you want me to leave you alone?" The woman nodded. "Sorry, can't do that. I hate to have unfinished business."
With that he grabbed one of the pillows laying at the visitor's chair behind him and turned around to face her again. "Don't take it personally."
"We have to go now!" Spider urged tugging at Charge's sleeve. "See the light over there? That's the harbor watch on its tour. Do you want to explain him why two really drunken sailors are sneaking around between the containers? I don't!"
"Come on Spider, it's not that big deal, is it? I'll find something to say if we get caught. Anyway, RO just looked inside that blue container over there. I just want to know what's in it and then we can go, OK? My rack is calling too."
The boatswain's mate nodded his approval. "But only that last container over there! I go alone if you don't come then!"
They carefully closed up and Charge opened the door just a crack to have a look inside. It was all dark.
"You don't happen to have a flashlight with you?" he asked.
"Lucky you! Actually I do take one with me every time I go have a drink." his mate answered. With his head still poked inside the dark container Charge couldn't see Spider rolling his eyes and failed to notice the ironical undertone. He stretched out his hand backwards.
"Give it to me."
"Really? Come on, Charge. Do I look like having one?"
Spider was annoyed now. He just wanted to go back to Hammersley and hit the sack. To get over with this quickly and be able to do so, Spider pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and using its light to illuminate he pushed the engineer aside and squeezed himself through the crack. Andy followed at his heels.
Up until now, the watch had been deadly boring. Sam was on his second tour and looked forward to get back to the guardhouse. There he had been watching a movie with the other night-watchman on duty. Now the other one took a nap while Sam went to have a look around. They had divided the tours so both could catch at least some sleep. That wasn't going by the book but nobody had bothered so far. Sam adjusted the earpieces of his mp3-player and pressed play to start the music. Humming along with the song, he let the beam of his torch sweep around. "I'm on the highway to hell."
His fingers snapped to the beat of the music while he made his way through the endless rows of containers waiting there neatly stacked to be loaded onto ships the next morning. "On the highway to hell, highway to... ." Sam stopped in the middle of his sentence. The blue container in front of him stood open. It was just a crack but it hadn't been open before. Maybe that was why they were supposed be on tour in twos. The guard looked around, there was nobody to be seen. Carefully he pulled out his radio and checked in with the man back at the guardhouse.
"You sure? Just water bottles and cans of lemonade? No valuables at all?"
He waited for an answer then added: "Yep, I don't think so either. Maybe the door just wasn't shut right and opened itself. I'm going to close it and come back then."
Sam did as he had announced and made sure twice he had slid the bold across. "Nobody's gonna slow me down..." Singing along again he made his way back towards the guardhouse. "Gonna spin it..." Absorbed in the music Sam didn't hear the desperate knocking behind him.
As Mike would say: a penny for your thoughts :-)