5:45am
Everyone woke with a groan. As far as they were concerned, it was too early in the day to go snake-hunting out at sea.
"Matt, wake up," Anton shook the Case Manager. Coop, Lindsay, Peter and Anton had decided to go for a swim before leaving to find the serpents. They all had their bathing suits/swim trunks on and their usual dark blue robes. They just couldn't wake Matt up.
"Peter, don't you think the snakes might still be in the water after they fell?" Lindsay asked, half-jokingly.
"I dunno... maybe, but I'm not that concerned about it for some reason," he replied, not joking at all. "I think someone's at the door."
Jillian Derby came quietly into the room, her hands clasped in each other. "Mind if I join you this time?" she asked, not nervous at all. She glanced from the small white bandages on Peter's temple and arm to Cooper's bandage on his chin, now not so sure she wanted to go.
"You all look like you got beat up bad," she commented.
Matt turned over and opened his eyes. He glanced back and forth from the members of his team to the guest standing just inside the doorway, wincing in pain as he scratched the bites on his arm against the side of the bedframe. "Ow."
Lindsay shook him fully awake and offered him one of Peter's extremely strong mugs of coffee as starter fluid. He gratefully took it, almost spilling it on himself as he sat up.
"Matt, you wanna come swimming with us before we head out this morning?" Anton asked the not-yet-awake man.
"Do I have a choice?" those being his first official words of the day.
"No. We'll drag you out in your pj's if we have to," Peter joked.
Jillian just looked on, amused slightly at their childlikeness.
"Sure, you can come if you want, Jillian, but be warned, the snakes aren't exactly pleasant," Peter warned.
"Nothing seems pleasant to you," she insulted him.
"Ha ha. Very funny, young lady."
Peter headed out of the bunkroom, off to make more coffee. 
"Hey, look what I found!" Peter exclaimed, coming back up from under the murky water, holding a handful of seaweed. "Wait, that's not it..." he dove back under.
They all seemed to be having fun, Jill noticed. Kind of like a vacation.
"Hey you guys, it's almost 8:00..." Jill called out to the people on the beach. After having a seaweed and clam fight, they had moved up onto the sand and lay down on their towels. Peter and Cooper had fallen asleep after talking about phobias for a while; Lindsay and Anton were reading and having more coffee. Matt was still in his bunk, Peter not having taken him up on the promise. Jill, who had been sitting at the top of the knoll for quite some time, started throwing sticks at them to get them up, considering herself too comfortable to move. When there were no more sticks in her reach, she started with the rocks. Not having the most terribly acute sense of aim, she accidentally hit Peter in the stomach, making him sit up abruptly and cough, interrupting his steady breathing, which had previously been altered by a stick. His coughing awoke Cooper, who looked around frightened, not noticing the cause of the noise was sitting beside him.
"Finally! I've been trying to get you guys up for two billion and sixty-four hours!" she shouted, once again over-exaggerating.
Everyone got up, putting their robes back on but not bothering to tie them up. The day was getting hot, typical weather there. Hey, it was Hawaii, what do you expect?
After showering and cleaning up the sand they had left all over the lab, everyone, including Jillian, went into the conference room. She had come to be a familiar face with the team, and they all felt perfectly at ease with each other. They were friends now.
"Axon, have you decided whether you're coming with us or not?" Matt asked sorta-sympathetically.
"Yeah, I have. Besides, you need your scientist, don't you?" he seemed to be in a childish mood lately...
"Yeah, sure thing Pete... You and Lindsay cover audio and video surveillance. Anton, you stay on the cockpit and watch the scans. Coop, you stay outside. I want you to get more 'samples' if the snakes fall again. Jillian..."
"Jill," she corrected him.
"Whatever. You stick around, don't go far."
"Aren't you going to give me something to do, too?"
"There's nothing really for you to do. We have everything covered."
She stormed out of the room, not terribly pleased, but not terribly upset, either. The snakes had disturbed her, and she didn't feel the urge to see them again; but still, she wasn't as afraid of them as Peter...
"Pleasant one, isn't she?" Matt said, not even bothering to check if she was out of earshot.
"Aw come on, she's not that bad..." Cooper disagreed.
"As long as she doesn't have sticks or rocks, I like her," Peter said, disagreeing with everyone, as usual. "I'll be back."
He rose from his seat and went after Jill. He found her sitting morosely on the metal steps to the Mobile Lab. He took a seat beside her and gazed at his feet.
"Sorry about Matt. He's an ass." Peter tried to console her in a nonchalant way.
"You think I haven't noticed? Just because I'm a kid doesn't mean I'm stupid," she replied coldly.
"I never said you were. It's just we don't have any extra jobs right now. Maybe you can come along tomorrow."
"With my luck, you won't be going tomorrow."
"With my luck, we will." He looked up from his shoelaces. "Maybe you can do a secondary surveillance feed. I don't think Praeger would mind too much."
Jill looked up at him. "You think?"
"You never know... you can never have too much surveillance..."
They looked at each other for a moment, but feeling uncomfortable, Peter opted to talk to Matt.
"I'll suggest the idea," he said, getting up to leave.
"Yeah, thanks."
Peter left to talk to the sometimes insensitive Case Manager. |
