Wake up Call

[Gage Silver 0]

Blaming exhaustion for the stupid things you say or do is like blaming it on the five beers you didn’t drink: a lousy excuse. So Gage forgot the idea of shedding his damp uniform and gave Cass her space, drying in the recycled air of the mess for another thirty minutes after she left.

 

By the time Gage dragged into the berthing compartment, the curtain on her bunk was drawn and the light out. A chorus of breathing and snoring had joined the ship’s pervasive hum. It was either a stroke of luck or unconscious foresight that Gage had taken a top bunk on the opposite side of the compartment. Difficult to cross the line with an entire compartment of sleeping teammates between you. She had all the space he could give her. Asking the ship’s XO to dislodge his crew to accommodate their petty issues was out of the question and wouldn’t fix the problem. They had to work together. It was his job to keep things copasetic. No more raillery: no more icy encounters.

 

He climbed into his bunk and dozed just shy of waking. A vision of Cass clubbing him like a baby seal in the night for an indiscretion jerked him back to reality. He glanced at her bunk across the compartment, curtain closed and still. She wouldn’t, he assured himself and relaxed, hands behind his head. Not for his dreams, at any rate.

 

He hadn’t had a lot of dreams that would justify clubbing him. Fading moments with Mariah that, a long time ago, felt so real he thought he was awake. Nightmares that preyed on darker memories and personal fears. Few included Cass. Except that recurring dream where Cass was swooning in the middle of a fight with Romulans, but it was just one stupid dream. Right?

 

And that other dream—

 

Someone turned over and mumbled in their sleep. Better forget about dreaming, he thought.

 

Lot of good that did.

 

 

Gage rushed down the hallway and barely negotiated the corner at a full run, catching a flash of his target at the next intersection. Jaw setting, he pressed forward, fueled and blinded by his hatred for the target.

 

He burst into the lobby and collided with a secretary. She yelped. He sidestepped and tightly hugged her to his chest, his footwork keeping them upright as she stumbled along. She gave him a wide-eyed look as they came to a stop, dark hair spilling and the stylus that had secured the twist on her head tumbling to the floor.

 

Gage smirked. “Afraid this isn’t a good time to tango; you’ll have to take a raincheck.” He smirked at the beautiful woman tangled up in his arms. At his clever remark. At the embassy where he’d served his tour of guard duty. Knowing this moment would end in his favor and more than willing to play along in this memory.

 

Her eyes narrowing, she released her clutch on the fabric of his uniform and pushed free of his grip. “I wasn’t trying to dance with you,” she retorted, stepping back to check buttons and smooth her blouse. “You ran into me, because you weren’t looking where you were going. A Marine! Running down the hallway!”

 

“Guess I owe you an apology. Dinner and dancing? Tonight?”

 

She eyed him with a sigh and then tugged on the hem of her miniskirt. “While I appreciate the gesture, Corporal, it’s not necessary and, to tell you the truth, I’m tired of telling you ‘no’ every time you ask me out.”

 

“Could say ‘yes’,” he quipped and teasingly complemented her. “That’s a nice little skirt you’re almost wearing.”

 

Her face flushed and eyes snapped up, bright with fury. The slap rang in his left ear, stinging deep into the oozing, feverish claw marks on his cheek and smearing blood.

 

He groaned, cringing. She gasped at a rising nausea, appalled by the blood coating her hand and finally noticing the red streaks on his face but too offended to care. From somewhere down the left hallway that ended in a t-intersection at the lobby, came a crash, curses and the vexed yowl of a cat. He glanced over her shoulder and seconds later a tabby with white paws skittered across the opening and down the opposite hall, pursued by a flying object that shattered.

 

“That’s my cue,” Gage announced. “So, one slap for ‘yes’, two for ‘no’?”

 

Sly trick and maybe unfair. Seeing her wind up, he grabbed her by the waist and ducked, weaving beneath her swing to come up from behind.

 

“Your place. 7,” he promised lowly, then let her go.

 

She spun and howled at his back as he jogged after the cat. “I’m not going on a date with you, Gage!”

 

Fifteen minutes later, a chime rang in the embassy’s diplomatic-housing wing and Gage could hear the muffled rattle of a tea cup against its saucer. He could imagine Ambassador Hamisi on the other side of the door, stiffly sitting in a large armchair, inhaling to calm his ruffled nerves. “Enter,” Hamisi invited, not making the effort to rise or look at Gage as he entered.

 

“It’s Corporal Silver, Ambassador Hamisi. I have your cat, sir.”

 

“Thank you,” Hamisi affectedly replied and waved from behind the chair. “You’re dismissed.”

 

“Sir.” Gage retreated across the carpet and the door closed behind him, what must have happened next playing out in his head.

 

Hamisi sipping at his tea, then giving the empty chair next to him a puzzled expression. “Mr. Mittens?” Another sip of tea.

 

“Why don’t you join me, Mr. Mittens?” he asks with a smile.

 

A muffled whine reaches his ears and he pales. Scrupulously placing his tea on the leather ottoman at his feet, Hamisi stands and casts his gaze down into the entry. There is Mr. Mittens on the sideboard, rigid like a statue, coated and fur spiked in a dried industrial wax.

 

Gage smiled, picturing Hamisi's fist shaking in the air as he screamed. “Silver!”

 

The inevitable disciplinary action couldn’t keep Silver away from the girl he really wanted. He arrived on the secretary’s stoop and rang the bell five minutes to seven in that evening. Her resolve hadn’t improved from the look on her face when she opened the door, but she was home and he decided it was a sign.

 

“I heard about what you did to Hamisi’s cat,” she greeted. “Do you ever take anything seriously?”

 

“Take you seriously,” he answered.

 

“I wish you would give up,” she irritably replied.

 

Gage shrugged. “You make it hard to.”

 

She rolled her eyes.

 

“I’m gonna keep asking until you say ‘yes’, so you might as well just say ‘yes’.”

 

“Or I could report you for stalking me,” she retorted and sighed. “If I say ‘yes’ will you quit asking?”

 

“Maybe,” he reluctantly answered, “if you really want me to, but don’t think you will.”

 

“Oh, I do,” she assured and turned like she meant to close the door.

 

The sincerity in his voice stopped her. “Mariah,” he said. “Look, I know you’ve been burned before. But I’d be honored if you’d go out with me tonight. Give me a chance. Give you my word: all really want is to see you smile.”

 

He heard her sigh again, but she would later admit that she felt intrigued.

 

“I’ll get my coat,” she said. She turned on the porch light and paused as her gaze caught the intense redness on the left side of his face.

 

“I’m sorry I slapped you,” she apologized before realizing it.

 

Gage shook his head. “Don’t be. I deserved it,” he answered, surprisingly earnest.

 

Her head tipped to the side in apparent confusion and she gingerly fingered his cheek. “It feels like it’s on fire,” she quietly exclaimed. “Did a doctor look at it?”

 

He still gave her a sheepish look, despite feeling a fringe of rising panic. “No.”

 

“I’ll be right back,” she announced and rushed back inside. She returned wearing her coat, carrying a jar of salve, and cozily pressed against him to dab it on his wounded cheek—

 

That’s not what happened, he thought.

 

“Gage,” she said in the voice that always got his attention.

 

Not what happened, the thought repeated as he stood by and watched her subtly age into the wife he had lost. He swallowed. “Yeah?”

 

She tucked the jar into her coat pocket, caressing his good cheek. “It’s time to wake up.”

 

When she kissed him, the world dissolved.

 

 

Gage quietly woke, staring into the darkness at the overhead. It took a few hours to fall asleep again and his dreams were increasingly disjointed. By the time his watch started beeping, he had Rhett Butler’s, “frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn”, and Cass as an inverted Queen of Hearts stuck in his head. He felt robbed of sleep and something else he couldn't articulate, but he was still the first out of his rack that morning.

 

He checked on Cass first thing, ensured she was holding up after the shock she’d received last night. But today he would make an all-out effort to behave and keep his distance. Maybe he couldn’t completely stop joking around, but he’d learned an important thing or two over the years. Trailing her to the mess for breakfast, he waited until she looked comfortable and then sat at the farthest table in the farthest corner from her. He realized his mistake when they locked gazes for the second time. He should have sat facing the other direction.

 

A tray clattered on the table and Gonzales slipped into the bench, blocking most of Gage’s view. Okay, that worked, too.

 

“You got security issues, bro,” Gonzales remarked, plowing eggs onto his spoon with a biscuit.

 

Gage leaned back. “Yeah?”

 

“Yeah,” Gonzales emphatically replied, “she knows about Six.” He looked from the cooling food on Gage’s tray to the man who wasn’t eating it. “When you gonna come clean?”

 

“Don’t need to. Got my orders from BUPERS.”

 

“Goin’ through with that transfer, huh?” Gonzales didn’t have to follow his gaze to know what Gage was looking at and that he made a lousy wall. Worse than a window.

 

“Does she know?” he asked, gesturing in her direction with his head.

 

“Don’t think so,” Gage said, absently rubbing his face.

 

“Probably better,” Gonzales observed between bites. “Calestorm isn’t gonna like it.”

 

Resolve shaking the thoughts that preoccupied him, Gage finally looked his teammate in the eye. “Skipper doesn’t have a choice.”

 

Gonzales shrugged in agreement. “She talk to you yet?”

 

“Nope.”

 

“She will when we get back. Timing’s not great; gonna look like you’re bailing on her because of Grayson. What’re you gonna say?”

 

“Tell her the truth,” Gage flatly replied. “Don’t trust my objectivity.”

 

“Uh huh. That’s gonna go over well. No one trusts her objectivity, but ya don’t see her giving up the Captain’s seat.” He shoveled another spoonful of green chili and eggs into his mouth. “If you don’t trust your objectivity, then why’re you still on the team?”

 

The look Gage gave him was all the answer Gonzales needed. “Yanno what?” he said, pointing the half-eaten biscuit at him. “I’m glad you’re transferring, ‘cause you’re a pain in my ass. You and your big-brother issues.”

Edited September 25, 2012 by Gage Silver