Message-ID: <3702EF1E.BFF7F8F1@netzero.net> Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 22:59:28 -0500 From: Ann Marie Tajuddin Subject: SoS 4 Ann Marie K. Tajuddin Sink or Swim 4 ------ "Sink or Swim" Part IV September, 1986 Gulf of Alaska, AK "What do you mean, she's in bad shape?" Sam demanded in hushed tones. "Sure, she's a little woozy, but-" "Sam," Al interrupted, gesturing to the handlink, "Allen told the Coast Guard later that he'd been worried about her, that she hadn't been eating or, more importantly, drinking. And you know as well as I do that when you're around sea water, you need to keep drinking. Especially when you take medication for motion sickness." Sam started to speak, but Al held out his hand. "Go finish baiting those tubs before you get fired, okay? I'll be back in a little bit." Sam opened the door to go out on deck. "Okay, just hurry back. Apparently we don't have too much more to do." "Yeah, you'll probably be out there another hour, maybe more if the weather keeps getting worse. You'll have to redo what you've already done." Sam groaned. "Why can't we just do it after the weather gets calm?" "Because," Al explained patiently, "then you'll lose time that could be spent fishing." He continued quickly, cutting off Sam's inevitable protest, "Just go do your job. I'll catch you in an hour or two." "Right," Sam mumbled, and went back out into the rain and wind. Al cast Sam a sympathetic look as he went, thankful their positions weren't reversed. He lifted the 'link to punch out, then changed his mind and walked towards the back of the cabin to Kate's room. She was curled up in the fetal position on top of her sleeping bag with a book propped up in front of her eyes, but she wasn't reading. Instead, her gaze was locked on the porthole, a miserable look in her eyes. Kate sighed as if giving into something, then slid her legs into the sleeping bag and faced the door leading out onto the deck. The paperback drooped in front of her. From her vantage point, Al thought, she couldn't have been able to see more than just the top left corner of the hatch. "Now I understand cabin fever," she sighed to herself and tucked her wool sweater under her head as a makeshift pillow. Al squinted at her, trying to gather any additional information for Sam that he could. "Just relax, hon," he said aloud, even though he knew she couldn't hear him. "Sam'll work it all out for you - you just need to hang in there." As if she could hear his reassurances, her eyes drifted shut and her breathing began to even out slightly, but he suspected as the weather worsened, she wouldn't be able to sleep at all for fear of being tossed around. Why nobody ever created bunks with seat belts, he'd never know. The sound of the outside hatch door opening reverberated all the way back to them and she opened her eyes quickly and sat up, pulling the book back up. Elliot entered and spared her a brief glance as he changed the music in the tape player hooked to the outside speakers. "Still working hard?" he asked. Al was starting to get tired of hearing the question. "Just ignore him," he advised, "he's a real nozzle." "Sure thing." For an instant, Al thought she had heard him. Then she smiled sweetly at Elliot and Al could see little or no trace of her discomfort. Elliot grunted and nodded before returning to his work, and she sighed and laid back down again. Al eyed her worriedly. "No wonder nobody really had any heads-up on this. You're very convincing," he added to the young woman. His subconscious tugged at him again and he remembered Karen waiting in Stallion Springs for him. "I'll be back," he promised her. "For goodness' sake, take care of yourself, sweetheart." With those words, he punched out. ~~~~~~ November, 1999 Stallions Gate, NM Al hated to do what he was getting ready to do, but he knew Sam would need him again soon to try and get to work on helping Kate and he just didn't have the time to spare going the hour (40 minutes, if he really laid on the gas, which he was more likely to do) in and out of town every time he wanted to speak with Karen. So, instead, he arranged for quarters for her on the upper level of the project, treated her to a quick lunch in Santa Fe, and headed back to the project. Karen sat silently in the seat beside him, staring out the window as they drove. "Where are we going?" He cast her a sidelong glance. "Military complex. I work near there and they've got a room for you. You can stay there while you're in New Mexico." Now she looked at him with bright, intelligent eyes. "You said you'd take me back to Cary's." He sighed and gripped the steering wheel more tightly. He should have known this wasn't going to be so easy. "Karen..." "No, just tell me why you lied to me." "I didn't lie to you," Al insisted. "I was just hoping-" "You were hoping to change my mind about it." She resumed her watch as the desolate, yet somehow serene land passed by them. Remote patches of life flourished in random patterns across the desert floor and she focused her attention almost passionately on the small clumps of vegetation. "You really came to get me to convince me to go back home, didn't you? Is that what my father asked you to do?" "Your father wanted me to help make things right between you." "He told you to send me home." It wasn't a question and Al chewed on his lower lip, trying to find a diplomatic answer. He couldn't. "Yes." "You don't understand what's going on here. You've been gone for years, now." Inwardly, Al winced. But he had no responsibility to hang around with this girl, not like her mother had. "What do you know?" she asked quietly, tentatively, as if afraid of the answer. Al maneuvered the car onto the side of the road despite the fact that it wasn't exactly a high traffic area to begin with, and turned off the ignition as the dust began to settle along the length of his Ferrari. He twisted in his seat, pulling off his seat belt, and faced her. "He told me your mother's been gone for three years, now, that she left you guys and hasn't been in touch much. He told me about the night you left, that he'd been yelling at you for something that wasn't your fault, and that he regrets it." Now she faced straight ahead, her hands clenching her arms tightly. "He didn't...tell you what the fight was about?" He leaned against his seat and touched her shoulder carefully. She didn't respond positively or negatively to the action or to him. "No, he didn't." "He didn't tell you about Nick? Or why my mother left?" Nick was her older brother, a year and a half older. Al had never known him as well as Karen, but he knew the two of them had been close growing up. "He told me Nick died some time ago." Karen nodded slowly, her eyes locked on some distant point, bright in the desert sun. "Did he tell you Nick died a little over three years ago? Did he tell you that-" Here, her composure slipped for the first time since he'd picked her up from her hotel room, and she stopped, blinking rapidly and wiping away any moisture before it could be released. "That I let him die?" The reassuring pressure on her shoulder loosened slightly from Al's surprise. "What do you mean?" She shrugged his hand away completely and leaned away from him against the door of the car. Then, as if she was suffocating in the heavy air, she fumbled frantically with the handle and tumbled out into the warm breeze. He got out after her, crossing hurriedly over to where she stood, bent over with the weight she was bearing on her own. "Karen?" he asked in concern, afraid to touch her. "It's my fault," she gasped between violent breaths. She looked as if she was going to pass out. Now he did touch her, guiding her to the hard ground, trying to calm her down enough to speak with. "Karen. Karen, hon, just relax, okay? Just breathe." "I'm - I'm sorry." She leaned against the passenger's door, steadying herself. Al knelt down in front of her, holding her face in his hands until she met his even gaze. "Don't be sorry. I just want to understand what's going on here. Why do you say it's your fault? Was your father blaming you the night you left?" She nodded and a tear finally slid free. "Honey, he told me it wasn't your fault, that he was wrong. He made a mistake." "No," she pulled back, shaking her head and staring at her knees. "No, he didn't. It's my fault - the whole thing's my fault!" He clasped her hand firmly in his. "Tell me what happened." Her free hand cradled her opposite elbow tightly, pulling herself inwards. "We were...at the lake my grandmother lives at, swimming out back. There was no-one else home: Mom, Dad, and Grandma had gone out to run some errands or something, I don't remember. And Nick, he-" She choked and he steadied her as best as he could. "Take it easy. There's no rush," he said soothingly, praying he was right and Sam and Kate would be okay on their own for a while. "He had a seizure and passed out," she explained as she started to shake. "I - I panicked. I didn't know what to do: I was just frozen, staring at him. I should have... God, I've gone over this so many times! I should have pulled him out of the water, gotten help, called 911, something! But I didn't, and he drowned. Oh, Al, I killed him!" Al crouched next to her in the dirt and pulled her close, letting her emotions spill out into the vast nothingness of the desert. "No. No, Karen, you didn't. It was an accident, a mistake, but you didn't kill him." "I did! It was my fault!" She gripped Al's sleeve in her fist and turned his words of comfort away, releasing only aching sobs against his embrace. ~~~~~~ September, 1986 Gulf of Alaska, AK "You about ready for me to cook up some dinner?" Sam asked as cheerfully as he could manage. In actuality, his back ached, his cut thumb throbbed, and he was exhausted. Baiting tubs was as monotonous as Al had promised it would be and he wondered if Al had ever done it before. She laid on her back in her bunk and stretched. She didn't look particularly distressed, physically or emotionally, but Al's prediction rang in his ears and he couldn't ignore it. Still, maybe Ziggy was wrong. "Not right now; maybe later. Did Steve say how much longer it's going to be this bad?" Sam tossed his glove linings into the washing machine in their stateroom. "No, but we didn't finish the tubs. He said it was getting too bad to be out there, plus we were spending as much time redoing it as doing it." Her grin was mischievous. "Then how you gonna cook? I can see pot roast flying everywhere..." "Didn't think of that..." he said before he realized that it would be something Allen definitely thought of. With impeccable timing, Steve emerged in the doorway. "Better eat now, while you can," he advised them. "Hey, now," Elliot countered from the galley, "the microwave may attack you, but you can still eat!" Even Sam smiled a little at the comment. He turned to Kate as Steve turned to attend to his own dinner, assuming this meant he wouldn't be cooking anything. "You coming?" She shook her head. "Naw, I'm fine... I'll just sit here and ride it out, I guess. I'll eat when my food doesn't move if I put it down for a minute." "Why don't you get outta this room and join me in the galley?" Sam suggested casually. "We must have something relatively safe to eat - like an apple or something." She looked about to resist, then the sounds of the TV filled their room as Elliot started a movie going. She sighed reluctantly, but watching a movie promised little activity, and possibly a chance to lie down on the benches in the galley. She got up, tossing the book aside. "Sure. Depressing play, anyhow." Sam chuckled, encouraged by her attempts. "With our luck, he'll be watching the movie adaptation." "Oh, that's not a problem," she said with a grin, "it just loses something on paper. Loses a _lot_ on paper," she added and entered the galley, striking up a conversation with Steve, leaving Sam to wonder if he'd just missed some inside joke. Then, with a shrug, he followed her out. [Quick explanation about that last part: While I was on one boat, I got incredibly bored and a deckhand directed me to a stack of books, one of which was the play "Long Days Journey Into Night", a movie/play Dean was in. Guess which book I read....? -amkt]