"Morph!"
The little blob wiggled excitedly around Jim's head with a fork grasped in his little arms and the human tried to catch him, "You sneaky little thief, gimme that!"
Brigit watched silently from behind the stove. She glanced at her mother and then peeked over her shoulder at her father, who was also watching Jim and Morph with an amused grin on his face.
She knew it was wrong of her, but she wanted her mother to leave the galley and eating area so she could go over and talk to Jim. Papa never scolded either of them for talking, but mama always seemed to have something to say about it. She would lecture Brigit forever when she caught them near each other, even if they hadn't even spoken a word. And then she would glare at Jim forever afterward and Brigit always felt so guilty because he looked so sad all the time and when they got to talk he always smiled.
What was so wrong about talking with him anyway? Brigit had grown up hearing all sorts of stories about Jim and papa and Morph and how smart Jim was and how proud papa was of him for going to the Interstellar Academy and for having his own ship in the Navy. She had practically been raised to adore him without ever meeting him, and she really did love him as if they'd known each other their whole lives. She could only imagine the stories he had to tell about after he left the Navy. And now Jim was here on their ship and she couldn't even talk to him for one second before mama would grab her arm and drag her away!
Everyone else got to talk to him. Jim and papa spent a lot of time together in the galley and even Captain Sidon got time alone with Jim.
It wasn't fair!
Jim was really nice to her and to everyone else - even to mama! - and Brigit couldn't even begin to guess why mama didn't like him. He sometimes did swear, which might have been why mama didn't like him so much, but he always apologized and it was obvious he would try not to do it again. And papa swore sometimes too and mama still loved him!
Brigit jumped when she felt a hand on her head and she didn't even have to look to know who it was. She pushed at it, "Papa! You're going to mess up my braid!"
"Sorry, baby girl," he said, but he didn't stop ruffling her hair and she squealed in annoyance.
"StoOOOop!"
"Balaav'a, come now, it takes hours to comb through her hair," Mama whined too but papa only laughed.
"A'right, a'right, I'll stop messin' wid it."
Brigit hesitated before offering, "It wouldn't take so long to brush if we cut it."
It wasn't like it was a silly suggestion, or even that out of the ordinary, but mama looked at her with a raised eyebrow, "Cut it? How short do you think you would want to go?"
"Oh…maybe to my shoulders," Brigit twirled a loose strand around her finger. She admired Jim's hair. It was so straight and silky and he could run his fingers through it and it would lay how he wanted it to. She on the other hand had to brush and brush and brush just to get the knots out, and then it would frizz because of the natural wave and then mama would have to wet it to get it to lie down and then she'd have to brush it all over again. Brigit hesitated before looking out of the corner of her eye sneakily and suggesting. "Or as short as Jim's-"
Jim choked on his bite of breakfast and started coughing, which he looked like he was desperately trying to stop.
Papa sounded nervous all of a sudden and she looked up at him with wide eyes. Papa NEVER got scared about anything, why did he sound like he wanted to run and hide? "Tha's real short, me girl. Why, yer hair'd stick out all 'round yer head 'cause o' them pretty curls ye got if'n we cut it so short…"
"I guess you're right…" Brigit pouted.
That wasn't fair either.
"Bu' it'll look real good righ' 'round yer shoulders, eh Safflina?"
Mama still hadn't said anything and Brigit dared to look at her. She was gazing over at Jim, but she wasn't glaring like she normally did, and Brigit really hoped that mama wasn't mad at him, because he hadn't done anything wrong and he hadn't even suggested it-
"Yes, it would," Mama smiled after a minute and Brigit felt herself relaxing.
Jim very slowly stood up from his seat and snuck in between two of the other crew getting up to take their dishes back to the galley's kitchen. He looked like he was trying very hard to hide from mama's sight as he dropped off his plate and then rushed toward the stairs.
Mama called out before he could disappear, "Oh Jim, before you go-"
He froze solid and nearly face planted into the steps. Brigit started to fidget nervously and she wished again that mama had just left earlier.
"Yes?" His voice squeaked.
"John was going to give Brigit the day off today-" Mama spoke without looking at him, to which papa exclaimed "I wha' now?" but she continued on as if he hadn't spoken, "-do you think you could help keep her occupied so she doesn't get bored?"
"You…want me…to…" Jim turned around slowly, his eyes as wide as the plates papa liked to use to make sure everyone was eating enough. Brigit could feel herself almost starting to vibrate with how excited she was.
"Babysit, yes."
Brigit turned to her mother, offended, "I'm not a baby!"
She almost expected papa to tease her - he always did - but he seemed as shocked as Jim did as they both stared at mama. But she only smiled at Brigit and ignored the both of them, "I know, it's just a term for watching someone younger than you. Though you'll always be my baby."
Jim broke out of his surprise all of a sudden and his face lit up in a huge smile, "Do you mean it?"
"Of course."
He looked at Brigit now and she found herself already sprinting toward him. She barely thought to shout over her shoulder "THANK YOU MAMA! THANK YOU PAPA!" before she tackled Jim and they fell onto the stairs in a heap. He laughed - which was the first time she'd ever heard him do that - and helped her onto her feet and they both trotted up to the deck.
"I was gonna give her a day off, eh? Who's gonna do these dishes?" She heard papa behind them and then mama started to laugh, "Why, you of course!"
"What are we going to do today?!"
Jim looked a little sheepish, "Well, I still have to work, so hopefully it's not too boring a day off for you-"
"I CAN HELP!" Brigit couldn't contain her joy and her voice accidentally came out as a shout. She clapped her hands over her mouth, but Jim laughed again, "That works for me. First we have to head up to the bridge."
Is this really happening?! Did mama really suggest we spend ALL DAY together?! Brigit was suddenly overwhelmed by the realization and reality of the situation and she gazed up at Jim in awe. He seemed not to notice at first, but then he looked over at her with one eyebrow popped up, "You ok Bri?"
Bri? Her heart felt like it could explode. He gave me a nickname?!
"Yeah, I'm ok," Her cheeks hurt from smiling so hard. But she only smiled wider when she saw him grinning too.
For some reason the millions of questions she'd wanted to ask him since he'd gotten on the ship flew out of her mind. All she could do was stare at him and he gave her an amused look, "You sure you're ok?"
"I'm just excited."
"Me too," Jim whispered.
Brigit almost squealed in her delight. She was sure she'd never been so happy in her life before. She was even happier than when papa had finally helped her convince mama to let her get her ears pierced. Jim led her over to some screens up on the side of the bridge and she hugged up as close to his side as she could without actually hugging him.
He started to press some buttons and she leaned in closer, "What are you doing?"
"Checking the navigation screens," He slowed down and went back a couple screens, "Has anyone ever showed you how to do this?"
She shook her head.
"Why don't we fix that, huh?"
Jim pulled up a screen with a sort of grid on it, "This is the map of where we are right now. These lines are the longitude lines, and these ones going the other way are latitude lines. Each line has a number and each of these boxes also have a number so you can find where you're going. That's how we can find planets and travel without getting lost."
"Oooh, that's cool! I guess Mr. Ash didn't know how to read this right because he was always getting us lost when he was asked to be navigator."
"Oh yeah?"
Brigit nodded solemnly, "Mama had to take over for him, but she didn't like it at all. She was always telling papa how she wanted to never see these screens ever again."
Jim laughed softly, "It's not for everyone. There's a bunch of things you have to keep track of as a navigator, and she's already got a lot of work that she does too, so I can see how it would frustrate her. Oh! You see these here?"
He pointed at several little funny shaped specks going between a couple of the grid boxes. Brigit stared at them for a moment, trying to figure out their significance before she gave up and caved, "What are they?"
"Asteroids."
"How can you tell?" She stared at the screen in awe. They were so little and the screen only had two colors on it, green and white, and Jim must be really good at seeing what all this stuff was-
"'Cause they're over there," He smirked and jerked his head to one side. Brigit looked in the direction he'd indicated and saw that there were a dozen jagged asteroids far off to that side of the ship.
"Oh!"
Jim laughed again and he pointed out a wide strip of similar looking shapes, "I also knew because of this here; we're traveling parallel to an asteroid belt. Most likely those ones over there were in with the rest and something knocked them out."
"What could knock them out of the asteroid belt?"
He shrugged, "Lots of things. Other asteroids, a big ship, a storm, maybe even something we don't know about."
Brigit wasn't sure she liked that last option. It sounded…ominous. She moved closer to Jim, finally breaching the tiny bit of space left between them and bumping into his side. His arm came up and around her shoulders and she could have screamed with how happy she was, but he was talking and she held her breath to listen to every word, "Don't worry, if anything were coming this way we'd see it on these screens."
She hummed softly, enjoying the closeness and the soothing tone of his voice. Curiosity got the better of her after a while and she peered closer at the screen, "How did the asteroid belt get there?"
"This one in particular? I'm not sure. A lot of astronomers say that asteroids are created when two bigger objects collide and break apart, like two planets."
The idea of two planets crashing and turning into millions of pieces was absolutely terrifying. It reminded her of how papa told her how Treasure Planet exploded in a huge fireball and flying pieces. That was always her least favorite part of the story, because her papa and Morphy and Jim were in danger in that part. Though she knew that everything turned out ok, it used to give her nightmares; what if everything hadn't been ok? She shuddered.
Jim squeezed her shoulders gently. Brigit finally gave into the urge and she threw her arms around his waist and hugged him back. They stood like that, his arm draped protectively around her shoulders and her gripping him in an embrace almost as hard as she could, as he switched to another screen.
This one was similar, in that it had the same longitude and latitude lines, but instead of the strip of dots indicating the asteroid belt, this one had a bunch of swirly looking cloud-ish things that moved over and over in a short pattern.
"The system on this ship is really advanced," Jim hummed pleasantly. Brigit looked up at him. His blue eyes were on the screen, a gentle smile on his face, and he met her gaze, "Captain Sidon must have paid a good amount of money on this whole panel. We didn't even have weather trackers this sophisticated in the Navy."
"Oh…that's because Raeleth…um…Captain Sidon's mate…" Brigit bit her lip and tucked her cheek back against Jim's chest. She heard his heartbeat change and she listened for a moment as she tried to figure out how to word her thoughts, "She got hurt in a big storm."
He was silent for a while until he whispered a soft "I see".
Jim cleared his throat, "Well, it's a really nice system. We can see what the weather could do up to eight hours from now."
"So these are clouds?" She pointed at the billowy things.
"Pretty much. If you go more in-depth or ask a meteorologist they'll argue about what these actually are."
"Meteorologist?" This was the second word he'd said that she wasn't entirely sure what it meant.
"They study the weather."
"Oh! And what's an astronomer?"
Jim grinned, "Space scientists."
Brigit blinked up at him, trying very hard to imagine what that meant. His grin widened, "They study space."
"All of it?!" She raised an eyebrow.
"I dunno," Jim shrugged, "I'm just a navigator. I don't know what all astronomers study."
"I'm glad you're a navigator…that way you can stay on this ship with us forever…since we wouldn't have one without you?" Brigit chanced a peek up into Jim's face again.
His soft expression had changed; his jaw was tight now, eyes distant and downcast, the lines under his eyes (papa always called these 'worry lines') were more prominent. Brigit hugged tighter, "Right? You'll stay on the ship with us? Please?"
"I…" Jim swallowed and turned his eyes away from her. That sad look he had all the time was back for only an instant before he replaced it with a small smile and he met her gaze, "I'll stay as long as I can. Does that work?"
"You promise?"
The smile faltered, but he pulled it back up quickly, "I promise."
He swiped to the next screen, "Alright, last one. Can you guess what this is?"
Just like the other two this one had the longitude and latitude grid, but it also had a circle that started at one little point and spread over the screen until it disappeared beyond the edges and then it started again. Brigit's eyebrows jumped up as she watched, "Uuuh…"
"We're right here," He tapped the screen lightly with a finger right where the circles were originating from, "This is radar. It's how we can see other ships or other objects around us. It's really helpful at night when we can't actually see what's coming."
He motioned at another screen further down the desk, "That's a radio for picking up short-length transmissions from other ships. The captain has a more advanced system in his stateroom that can reach transmissions from much further away."
Brigit stared curiously at the whole setup. She'd been up to the bridge a few times before, but for the most part she followed either mama or papa around until she became the official cabingirl. Mama sometimes was the one to steer the ship, which meant that Brigit sat or laid on the floor at her feet and tried not to die of boredom. Up until now she really hadn't cared about all the stuff that was up here, but Jim made it all seem interesting.
"What's that?" She pointed at the funny looking cone-like metal sticking up out of a long skinny pipe from the floor. Mama talked into it sometimes, and Brigit had held giggled conversations between her and whoever was on the other end, but she didn't know its exact purpose.
"That's how a ship's officer contacts the mechanic to either speed up or slow the ship down from the engine room. Though it looks like there's a system up there to control the throttle as well," Jim moved closer - she shuffled along with him to stay pressed against his side - to where a series of buttons and levers were. She motioned at those now, "And all of these?"
He glanced down at her with a cocked eyebrow, "That's the throttle, these are for testing and turning the thrusters, right here is an emergency shut off switch, that's a…battery gauge, that's pretty neat, most ships don't have that at the bridge…"
"Cool…" Brigit whispered as he continued to list off everything that could be controlled from this one spot on the ship.
"Has no one ever explained all this stuff to you before?"
She looked up at him with a start, and then back down sheepishly, "Um…no, not really-"
"What?!" Jim gasped. She looked back up at him with wide eyes. He looked mad, but he was also smiling, and he pulled out of her arms to lean over the railing, "PAPA! Bri just told me you never taught her what everything at the bridge does! How is she supposed to be the best spacer in the history of the universe if she doesn't even know how to run a ship's bridge?!"
Brigit's heart nearly burst. She rushed to join him at the railing and she looked down at papa, who was dumping a pot of dirty water over the side of the ship. He gaped up at Jim, eyes wide and jaw slack with surprise and she giggled (she heard Davey at the helm giggling too). He finally managed to splutter out, "P-papa?!"
"Yes, I'm talking to you! That's your name, isn't it?" Jim winked at Brigit and she had to cover her mouth with her hands so she wouldn't laugh. Papa just continued to stare up at him like he'd heard something absolutely incredible. Jim tutted and shook his head, " I can't believe you; handicapping her like that. You should be demoted to cabin boy and Bri can take over your job."
"I wanna be a navigator like you, Jim. Papa can keep being the cook."
Papa's mouth dropped open more, but then he squared his shoulders and grinned a little, one hand going to his hip, "Now hol' up, I though' ye wanted te be jest like me when ye grew up!"
"I changed my mind!" She threw her arms around Jim's waist again and his arm went back around her shoulders.
"Jimbo, what nonsense're ye fillin' me girl's head with?"
"Nonsense! I'm training her to be the best spacer there ever was! With no help from you, clearly."
Papa's eye flashed red as if he were angry, but he was smiling so wide Brigit knew he was only joking, "I should tan yer hide fer talkin' back te yer betters like tha', young man."
"Hah! You'd have to catch me first! And we both know you're too old and frail to even leave a bruise. I'd have to help you and tan my own hide!" Brigit looked up just in time to see Jim stick his tongue out at papa before he started to laugh, "I'm going to be banned from the galley for sure now."
"Damn righ' ye are!"
Jim and Brigit gasped as one, both sharing a look before Jim smirked down at him and whispered-yelled, "Papa, 'damn' is a swear word!"
Papa stiffened again and he made a teary sort of expression up at Jim when he used the name 'papa', but he recovered quickly and glanced over his shoulder, "Now, don' ye go tellin' on me te Timetra, ye little brat."
"Brat?! Ouch! Love you too, dad."
Brigit looked up at Jim. He'd clearly been teasing at first, but then his voice had gotten gentle when he said that he loved papa. His expression was that happy-sad look he'd worn earlier, or maybe it was anxious-happy, she couldn't quite tell. Papa just stared at him with the level of shock that Brigit would have expected if Jim had spit out every swear word in existence.
Jim cleared his throat and turned away, "So, Bri, wanna go bug the lookout with me?"
"No ye don'! Ye ain't runnin' off after sayin' somethin' like tha' te me!" Papa barreled up the stairs faster than she'd ever seen him move and both she and Jim were scooped up into his arms and the air was crushed out of them with the force of his hug.
"Damn kid makin' me 'motional," He grumbled softly, burying his face first in Brigit's hair and then in Jim's, "Dammit…I love ye too, Jimbo."
"It's ok, right? If I call you dad?" Jim murmured.
"O' course it's ok!"
Brigit wriggled so she could hug the both of them and she squealed, "Does that mean you're my big brother?!"
"Uh…yeah, I guess it does."
Papa finally set them back on their feet and Jim glanced sheepishly over at Davey, who turned away quickly. Both she and Jim got a heavy, affectionate hand on the top of their heads, and papa gave them an adoring look. He whispered in a way that made her think that he didn't mean to speak out loud, "Me kids…"
"Now that you're officially my big brother, you HAVE to stay!"
"I promised, didn't I?" Jim's smile dropped a little bit as he asked quietly. He held his pinky out to her, which she quickly clasped with her own in a 'pinky promise', "I'll stay as long as I can."
And then they were swept back into a bear hug from papa and Brigit didn't think she could ever be happier.