Lucy stood on the dock at the Bell Harbor Marina under a rare clear sky filled with stars. She bounced absently on the balls of her feet in front of the locked gate to slip seventeen, looking around, feeling exposed as she waited. Not that there were many people roaming the Marina or Pier 66 at 11:45 p.m. on a Tuesday night, but there were still people in the other boats moored around her, and she felt like eyes were peeking out at her.

Or maybe showers remind me…of “Psycho” too much, she thought, looking at her watch.

She hit the buzzer on the gate again and looked beyond it to the Giovanni, Jared’s forty-one foot boat that doubled as his home. She didn’t know what was taking so long to buzz her in. She might have thought he was out, even though the lights were still on. He might have been out flying around in his Seahawk armor, a fact she might have verified if she’d taken the time to call him on the radio instead of just driving over. But she’d seen movement behind the curtains after her first buzz, so she knew he had to be in there. Of course, it WAS almost midnight, so she might have woken him up, a possibility that would embarrass her more than she already was for being there.

Just as she was really starting to feel like an idiot and thinking about turning around and walking back to her car, or maybe to Holly’s place up on Bell Street (she could call Holly at Armor in L.A. and ask if it was okay if she picked the lock…), she heard the telltale click of the security gate unlocking. Relieved, she swung the gate open as quietly as she could and closed it just as carefully to avoid bothering his neighbors, who were probably all fast asleep (those that hadn’t been peeking out at her, of course).

She climbed aboard the Giovanni and rapped twice on the starboard entry door before she opened it and let herself in. She knew he had security cameras watching his gate, so he already knew it was her coming.

“Hi,” she said, an apologetic tone already in her voice as she stepped down into the salon. “I’m sorry, I just didn’t—”

It wasn’t Jared standing there. Instead, there was a blonde girl, dressed in nothing but what had to be a man’s tee shirt, with a towel wrapped around her hair. A teenage girl. A girl that, after a moment, she recognized.

The girl didn’t look particularly shocked or surprised. If anything, she looked uncomfortable in a sort of a social situation kind of way—like she didn’t know which fork to use at a fancy dinner.

“Hi, Tinker,” she said. Again, she seemed awkward, like friendly greetings were something as unfamiliar to her as salad forks.

“Thresher,” Lucy said, staring, trying to process all of this. “Hi,” was all she could manage after that.

“I’m sorry,” she girl said, kind of motioning back toward Jared’s stateroom. “I found the gate release in there but I couldn’t figure it out for a minute.”

“No, that’s…no problem. Thank you for…you know.” She seemed unable to form full sentences as her brain was still in a holding pattern, waiting for this all to somehow make perfect sense. It hadn’t happened yet. They stood there, looking at each other, wrapped up in a silence that hung with the weight of a wet blanket. The girl finally broke it.

“Oh, Jared’s in the shower,” she said, helpfully, pointing back toward the bathroom.

“Oh,” Lucy said, involuntarily looking up at the towel on the girl’s head. “I see.” Oh, yes. She did.

More silence.

“Hey,” Thresher said suddenly, looking down toward the galley and dinette area to Lucy’s right. “Would you like…can I get you something to drink?” She pointed for emphasis, and seemed a little…what, excited at the idea of getting it?

“No,” Lucy said, holding up her hands, her voice overly gracious. “No, really, I should…I really…” Helpless for more words, she looked back at the entry door and was thinking of just running right back out of it without trying further. She had a feeling that anything she said was going to be disastrous.

But Jared suddenly stepped out of the bathroom door. He wore sweats, but no shirt, and he was rubbing a towel over his damp hair.

“Lucy,” he said, surprised but seemingly not horrified. “Didn’t hear you come in.”

“Jared,” she said, stiffening her jaw and glaring at him. “Don’t worry. THRESHER let me in.”

“Oh,” he said, looking at the girl. “Thanks. You figured out the—”

“Yeah,” she said, half pointing at the stateroom in sort of mime explanation. “I’m just…” She backed up toward the galley, the opposite direction of his stateroom, and indicated that direction with her thumb. Beyond the galley was the boat’s other stateroom, the one that was used by Jared’s son, Gabriel, when he was staying with his father, which was not this week. “I’m going to…go in here.”

“Okay,” he nodded. “Can I get—?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m fine.” She took that salad fork tone as she spoke to Lucy again. “It was nice to see you, Tinker.”

“You, too, Thresher,” Lucy said with a forced smile, waving reflexively. Both she and Jared watched as the girl disappeared into the stateroom and closed the door.

Without hesitation, Lucy turned and punched Jared in the shoulder as hard as she could.

“Owww!” he half-cried, half-whispered, grabbing his shoulder and falling back a couple of steps. “What the hell—?”

“Are you out of your MIND?” she whispered at him harshly. “That girl is maybe, MAYBE, eighteen years old!”

“Just wait…” he whispered back, rubbing his shoulder and wincing.

“How stupid ARE you? Aside from the fact that you could go to jail if she’s not eighteen, which she probably isn’t, her boyfriend is the prince of a goddamn undersea kingdom and could start a goddamn war with the surface world just because you couldn’t keep it in your goddamn armor!”

“Lucy…”

“And what if word got out about this? You know what the media would do with it? You know what this could do to the team—?”

“It’s NOT,” he whispered sternly through his teeth, leaning right into her face, “what you think. Calm…the hell…down!”

“Oh, so you were just sharing a PLATONIC shower in there?”

“We were not sharing!” he bit back, running the words together. “I was showering. She was not. Her hair was wet from the swim over here so I gave her a towel to put around it so she wouldn’t be dripping all over my furniture. And her costume was wet, too, so she asked me for a shirt to put on, so I gave her one.”

“Oh,” Lucy said, relenting for a moment but then starting up again. “That still doesn’t explain what she’s doing here on your boat in the middle of the night, half-naked and offering me beverages like she’s Mrs. Seahawk.”

“She needed a place to stay for a couple of days,” he said, slowly, like he wanted to make sure she was understanding him.

She looked at him, then looked toward the closed stateroom door. “How come?” she asked, calmer, but cautious.

“Sit,” he told her, and they both did so on the salon couch. He reached for his cigarettes on the coffee table. Normally he didn’t smoke indoors around Lucy, but after her just leaving what was going to be a nasty a bruise on his shoulder, she figured that was his way of paying her back in a small way, so she said nothing.

“I ran into her while I was out patrolling,” he explained, lighting a Winston. “I was underwater, suddenly she was swimming next to me. We broke the surface and talked. She asked what I was doing, I said looking for contraband boats. She asked if she could help, and instead of just being smart and saying ‘sure’, I asked where Kell was. She proceeded to spout out some four letter words I didn’t even know existed, using all of them to describe him. Then she started crying.”

“She cries?” Lucy asked, remembering that they were talking about the teen queen bitch of the Seven Seas.

“That was my reaction, too. I didn’t know what to do. We’re so used to her being this eco-warrior, tough-gal, abrasive…”

“Little bitch,” Lucy completed, lowering her whisper further.

“We forget she’s still a teenage girl. And one that seems to have gotten into a big fight with her boyfriend.”

“Oh,” Lucy said. Then repeated, “Oh,” with more sympathy, looking back at the stateroom door again.

“She doesn’t really know anybody but us in Seattle. Not like she gets to the surface that often anymore. So she didn’t have anywhere else to go. She asked if she could stay here. She was a wreck. What was I doing to do?”

“Awww,” she said, with big, heaping portion of sympathy now, still looking the door. She suddenly felt like Queen of the Ass People. “The poor thing.”

“I figured it was best here. I’ve got the water exit so she can come and go as she pleases without being seen. She probably just needs a day or so to cool off. Figure maybe I’ll see if I can find Kell and let him know she’s okay, see if I can find out what’s up. See if I can keep him from trying to kick my ass for putting her up.”

“I’m sorry I hit you,” she said, sticking her lower lip out in apologetic shame.

“So am I,” he said, twisting his arm slowly. “Good punch, though.” He said this with a little pride. He’d been the one schooling her in the arts martial for the past couple of years.

“And I’m sorry I thought you went all Thorn Birds.” She smiled just a little. “Thought we were going to have to change your name to Seadog.”

“She offered you beverages?” he asked, suddenly leaving the guilt portion of their discussion.

“Yeah, she asked if I wanted something to drink.”

“Huh. That’s good.”

“It is?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, smiling. “That’s a good sign. She’s trying to…you know, be normal and interact with people. You may have noticed she normally has the social graces of a crackhead?”

“Once or twice I noted that, yes,” she nodded, thinking back on various moments when she’d wanted to choke the girl during the time they’d known her.

“She’s not used to the surface world anymore. Maybe she never was. She’s had a screwed up life. Brother in Forte that gets killed, sister that goes villain, probably some kind of abuse in there somewhere. No wonder she hides away in an underwater city away from us humans. Maybe she’s trying to reach out. Maybe she’s giving us a chance again.”

“Then you’re right. That’s good.”

Something else suddenly occurred to him. “Hey, wait a minute. Why are YOU here, anyway?”

“Huh?” she said, innocently.

“It’s midnight. You didn’t call, you didn’t radio. You just showed up at my front door.”

“I’m sorry, I should have called.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he said, putting out his cigarette. “You know it’s cool anytime. Just….what’s up?”

“Um…” she said, pressing her lips together and studying the ceiling.

He watched her, waiting patiently.

“I just…” She hesitated, then sighed. “I needed a place to stay for a couple of days.”

“Oh, my God,” he moaned, shaking his head.

“I just didn’t know you’d have—”

“I’m running a goddamn women’s shelter.”

“I’m just having kind of a situation. With a guy.”

“Color me shocked.”

“Kind of a stalker thing. I just don’t want to be home for a couple of days. I’ll deal with it, it’s just…I can’t deal with it tonight.”

“You okay?” he asked, touching her hand, kidding aside.

“Yeah,” she said, drawing the word out uncertainly. “It’s just, you know. Me.”

“I do know,” he grinned sympathetically. “Sorry, Lucy.”

“But you’ve already got company. So I’ll check with Holly, see if I can break in and shack up there. I just came here first because I’ve stayed here before and—”

“No, no,” he said, a light bulb going off in his cranium. “Stay. This is perfect.”

“Why is this perfect?”

“I’ll go. I can crash at the base.”

“Jared. I’m not going to chase you out of—”

“I think you’re just what she needs right now.”

Lucy looked from him to the stateroom. “Wait, what? Oh, Jared, no…”

“Come on,” he said. “What am I going to say to an eighteen year old girl with a broken heart? She needs someone to talk to. Someone like you.”

“Last time we talked she said I had a fat ass.”

“She was angry.”

“She’s ALWAYS angry.”

“Come on,” he convinced, sliding closer to her. “You’re having man problems, she’s having…well, fish-man problems. This’ll be good for both of you. Some girl talk, some chocolate, some good old-fashioned man-bashing… Plus, this’ll be a chance for her to connect with people again. We’re seeing some cracks in the shell. Maybe you can help her out of it.”

“I don’t know…” she whined.

“Lucy…” he prompted, putting his hands on her shoulders and looking into her eyes expectantly.

She pouted a little and looked around the room, then back at him. “You really have chocolate?”

“I do,” he said, enthusiastically.

“It’s not just the box of candy I bought you last Valentine’s Day still sitting unopened in a drawer?”

He cleared this throat. “No…” he lied, badly.

“Dick,” she sighed.

He moved his hands to the sides of her head, pulled her toward him, and kissed her forehead loudly. “Thanks, Lucy. You’re the man.”

“I’m the man,” she agreed, tiredly, as Jared got up and headed for his own stateroom.

“Just going to get dressed and pack of couple of things, and I’ll be out of your hair,” he said.

“Great,” she said, again with out much oomph. He closed his stateroom door behind him.

Lucy blew a strand of hair off of her forehead and flopped back on the couch. She’d just wanted to hang out and be depressed and avoid Gary. Now she was supposed to play Miracle Worker to a social Helen Keller. Reluctantly, she made herself regret that thought. Thresher was having man problems, and that was something Lucy had a P.H.D. in. Even if there was a lot of seawater and fish between their two worlds, she supposed they were both part of the same sisterhood, and maybe a little pain sharing was, in fact, the best thing for both of them.

She sat up and looked at the magazines on Jared’s coffee table (Sports Illustrated, ESPN the Magazine, Boating Magazine) and waited for him to come back out. Then they would explain things to Thresher, see how she reacted (maybe she didn’t want Lucy there. Maybe this whole thing was just a way to be alone with Jared after all. I’m a woman, Father Jared!), and then Lucy would go back to her car and get her bag. And then deal with the weird idea of sleeping in Jared’s bed. Especially with him having just been all touchy and shirtless and hairy-chested and good-smelly like that…

She’d been absently looking through the current issue of Boating when her reading light was suddenly blocked. Confused, she looked up.

And was staring right at the back of a pair of green satin panties.

She looked up further and saw the matching green bustier hugging a slender back. And further, where she saw not blonde hair covering the bared shoulders, as she’d expected (but was still at a loss to figure where Thresher had gotten the Victoria’s gear from and why (the more disturbing question) she had suddenly put it on), but brown hair.

The woman in the lingerie turned around and gasped. Lucy gasped back.

It was Nightsable.

Samantha had just teleported into Jared’s living room, obviously having no idea that Lucy would be sitting there. And teleported in wearing do-me jammies.

They stared at each other, unspeaking. Samantha looked absolutely terrified. Lucy didn’t, for a minute, understand why.

Then her eyes grew wide, and she looked from Samantha to Jared’s closed door. Her mouth fell open and she looked back to Sam’s face, and pointed at the door in revelation. She cupped her hand over her mouth and fought the urge to stamp her feet and scream like she was in junior high.

Sam’s face turned pleading and she brought her finger to her lips, silently begging for Lucy’s quiet.

Lucy managed, only by keeping her hand over her mouth for a couple moments longer. She pointed at the door again, then back and Sam, then made a very juvenile non-verbal sign for sexual intercourse, making a circle with the thumb and forefinger of one hand and poking the circle with her other forefinger, making it a question.

Sam blushed, smiled, and nodded.

Lucy did stamp her feet this time, but very lightly, barely making contact with the carpet with her toes, working her legs like pistons in her excitement and whipping her hair around.

Sam put her hands together quickly in a praying/begging gesture. Lucy nodded through her big smile in understanding. Sam didn’t want Jared knowing that she knew. Lucy took a few breaths and spread her arms in a wide shrug. Her when-and-how-did-this-happen gesture was met with a shy shrug from Samantha, who was still blushing. Lucy, in turn, pumped her fist in a “you go!” motion, which made Sam fight back laughter. Sam then opened her hands toward Lucy and shook her head in a what-are-you-doing-here gesture.

A stateroom door opened. But it wasn’t Jared’s.

Thresher stepped out, wearing Jared’s Randy Johnson Mariners tee shirt, squeezing her long blond hair in a towel.

She stopped in the galley as she noticed Sam. For the moment, she simply blinked.

Sam had turned that way when the door had opened. Now, after a pause for a stare, she turned back to Lucy, her eyes flaring, her mouth agape in shock and indignation and growing rage. She was going red very fast.

Lucy looked over at Thresher, too, and quickly started waving her hands at Sam and tossing her head left and right, doing her best to communicate that it was not, not, not what Sam thought.

Sam looked back at Thresher, then back at Lucy, her violent shrug asking for an explanation. Lucy licked her lips, thinking fast, then, as a quick afterthought, jerked her head toward Thresher made the universal “shhhh!” gesture with her finger. Thresher raised her eyebrows in detached confusion, having no idea what was going on here, but remained silent.

Lucy went back to making gestures at Sam, dismissive ones in Thresher’s direction suggesting there was a reasonable explanation for all of it. Sam looked wary, and still quite pissed, but was thinking it over.

Suddenly the sound of Jared’s closet door shutting made them all look that way.

Lucy grabbed Sam’s hand to get her attention, then raised her other hand to the side of her own face, sticking out her thumb and pinky to make an imaginary telephone, and mouthed the words ‘I’ll call you’.

Still confused, Sam nodded, then squeezed Lucy’s hand. Lucy smiled again and made a little cheering gesture, which brought a smile back to Sam.

Jared’s door abruptly opened.

Sam disappeared into thin air.

Jared came out, dressed, now, in jeans and a black tee shirt, with a leather bag hanging down by his waist and a garment bag held over his shoulder. He looked up from adjusting his luggage, and saw Lucy and Thresher there.

He looked them over oddly, wondering why both were silently staring at him.

“Hi,” Lucy said, lamely.

Jared gave her a queer look and walked to where she was in the salon, but directed his words to Thresher. “Hey, listen,” he said. “Turns out Tinker needs a place to stay, too, and I thought, hey, maybe it might be better if—”

“Okay,” Thresher said, nodding.

He took pause at this sudden response. “Oh. So, I’m just going to stay at the base, then, but you guys can feel free to—”

“We’ll be fine,” Lucy chimed in.

He looked down at her on the couch. She smiled, with teeth.

“Yeah,” Thresher agreed, sounding casual in a way that was not casual at all. “We’re…cool. You go ahead.”

“Oh,” he said. He apparently hadn’t expected it to go that quickly or smoothly. “Okay, then. I guess…I’ll just be going. If you guys need anything or have any questions…”

“We’ll call,” Lucy said, standing up.

Jared nodded. “Well. Sweet dreams, then.”

“You too,” Thresher said with a cheesy thrust of her fist, and looked like she immediately regretted it.

He turned to Lucy. “You’re good?”

“Yeah, great! Get out of here, you!” She shoved him at the door playfully. “Go get some sleep. You have work in the morning. We don’t want to keep you up. I’ll call you at work tomorrow.”

“All righty,” he said, climbing through the door and out to the deck. “Good night.”

“Good night, Seadog.”

He looked back at her curiously. Lucy just smiled, waved, and closed the door on him.

She stood there with her hands, and one ear, pressed against the door until she heard his shoes making their way to the dock. Then she leaned over and pulled a curtain slightly askew and peered out, watching as he headed toward the main pier.

“Wow,” she breathed, taking all this in.

Thresher motioned casually to the spot where Sam had been standing. “Why was Nightsable just here dressed like a hooker?” she asked, conversationally.

For just a moment, Lucy thought about responding as she normally did to Thresher when something like that came out of her mouth. But it wasn’t like that had done a lot of good to date. And suddenly, Lucy was in a much better mood anyway. So she took a different path.

She turned to the girl with a mischievous smile and bit her lower lip. “Can you keep a secret?” she asked, confidentially, and raised her eyebrows twice.

Thresher looked around a little—maybe to make sure that it was her that Lucy was talking to?—and then her face softened into something a little shy, a little intrigued, perhaps a little happy.

“Okay,” she said with a tiny smile.

And there, Lucy thought, was a perfect place to start.

 

END.

 

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