Chapter 40: Gary

I was trying desperately to hold on, to keep from getting swept out, aching to stay with them. Unfortunately ... I woke up.

I'd been dreaming one of those dreams – probably been bouncing around in for the last half of the night. It was vividly colored, and full of strong feelings. And Lisa was in it, and Paul as well, and it hurt to lose them again as the dream faded. Moira and Kate had been there too, and a bunch of other people making irrational cameos that only muddied the picture. But there was something in that dream that I needed to remember to hold onto. Saralinda had been telling me something, something important about Moira and Lisa being the same. Only that isn't quite what she'd been saying, but close. And, of course, Moira and Lisa aren't the same – except for singing, they're not really even similar. And I kept trying to tell Saralinda that, but Burt would pop in to tell me about a contract, or Kate would be urging me to buy Microsoft stock, or Jake would ask if I needed the limousine tonight, because otherwise he was going to take Saralinda out in it. But Saralinda kept coming back to me, trying to tell me something. Something important.

But then it was all gone, except for the feeling of loss.

Moira wasn't all gone, though. She was in the bed with me, and I pulled the covers straighter and pulled her closer. She snuggled in against me, burrowing deeper into my embrace, probably fighting to stay asleep, herself.

But there was sunlight streaming into the room, and there was a Silvereye singing incessantly outside the window, reminding me that it had been far too long since I'd been out birding. I needed to get out birding. I also needed to get down to the dojo, as I hadn't trained in weeks. That would have to happen after breakfast. And then I needed to get us to sail over to Taveuni Island, so I could go up Mt. Devo with Moira and Saralinda. I'd read a web report and it sounded like a great birding hike; I was pretty sure Moira would like the plants and bugs and stuff, too.

But all of that would have to wait until after we got up, and neither one of us wanted to do that. We kissed and we snuggled, and there were lots of tight squeezes, of the sort that mean 'I never want to let you go'. Sometimes Moira would pull back a bit and stare into my face. We'd talked and cried so much the night before, and I could see the unasked question in her eyes.

Now what?

Now what, indeed. I knew that whatever Saralinda had been trying to tell me in the dream was part of the answer, but maybe I'd have to wait until the real Saralinda could make clear what the dream girl couldn't. I wracked my brain, trying to find the revelation within me. But the best I could do was to reach up and brush a stray strand of hair out of Moira's face.

"Moira, I love you."

She kissed me tenderly before telling me she loved me too, but we both knew that didn't answer the unasked question.

But we did get up. I wanted to shower with Moira, but she said she wanted to go back to her room. "My clothes are there, and ... I want to check up on Saralinda..."

She let herself out, wrapped in a robe, and carrying her clothes from the day before, leaving me alone in my room. And that felt wrong to me, somehow...

I shaved and then showered, with all of this running through my head. Could I want this to be Moira's room too; to not want her to leave? What about Saralinda, and Kate, and Simone? Was I really thinking what I thought I was thinking?

That way lies madness...

I found myself, sometime later, still in the shower with the water streaming over my face. My brain was blank, empty, washed out. Slowly, concepts solidified in that cavernous space: ... coffee ... juice ... breakfast...

I shut the water off, dried myself, and found some clothes. I was just heading to the sliding door to find Moira when she came back in, looking distracted. Some tension within me, that I hadn't noticed, eased when I saw her.

"Good morning, Love. You ready for breakfast?" I asked her.

"Mmmm, I was just coming to fetch you. Saralinda wasn't there."

"She's probably already gone down. I mean, we did kind of sleep in a little bit..."

Moira looked up at me and nodded, but I could tell something was still bothering her.

Saralinda was, in fact, in the dining room having breakfast with Jake, and there it sounded like she was ribbing him about something when we arrived. He was looking embarrassed. But when Moira and I came in, Saralinda popped out of her seat and came over to Moira and gave her a long, long hug.

"Hey, Boss," Jake said to me, standing up. "Sit down, I'll get some coffee for you. You look like you need it." Saralinda and Moira sat down next to me, with Saralinda clutching Moira's hand.

"What about you, Moira? Coffee or tea?"

"What? Oh. Um, coffee this morning, I think. Thanks Jake," Moira managed.

Jake was quick bringing back two cups of coffee and a thing of cream in one hand, and a platter of pastries in the other. He put them on the table, then sat down. He gave a glance at Saralinda, who smiled back at him. As I stirred the cream into my coffee, Jake piped up again.

"So, is there an agenda for the day?"

God, the coffee was good. I tried to formulate coherent thoughts. Agenda for the day. Oh yeah.

"Mmmm, I was thinking that after breakfast, I could really stand a couple of hours of training in the dojo. You up for it, Jake? It's been forever since I've been down there, and I'm aching to get back at it."

"And you'll be aching afterwards," Moira said quietly to me with a sly grin.

"No problem," answered Jake, ignoring Moira's aside. "Tori and Henri will be down there too, and maybe some of the others. I think they said something like ten a.m."

"Good. The other thing that I was thinking was that it's been ages since I've been birdwatching. I figured we might sail over to Taveuni this afternoon, and then maybe Moira, Saralinda, and I could hike Mt. Devo in the morning. It's supposed to be a really good climb with great birding." I looked to Moira and Saralinda to see if they were game.

"Can Jake come along?"

Saralinda's question surprised me. I think it surprised Jake too, as he kind of looked over at her funny. She gave him a look – the kind of look Moira sometimes gives me – and then Jake nodded. I glanced back at Moira, who was staring at the two of them as if they were space aliens, but then she closed her eyes and a trace of a smile came to her lips.

I looked back to Jake. "Sure, if you want to. You're always welcome, Jake. Though I warn you, we'll be birdwatching, so there will be times when we'll be going really slowly and quietly."

"Um, well, if it's not a bother, Boss, I'll come along."

"You'll need binoculars, Jake," said Saralinda. "He can use one of the pairs from up there, can't he?" she asked me, pointing to the bow window area where the bird books and binoculars were.

"Of course," I assured her.

Saralinda popped out of her seat, grabbing Jake on the way, and moments later she was showing him the pair she used and was getting him to try some of the others. Moira watched them for a bit, and then she looked back at me. I raised my eyebrow with a bit of a question in the look, but she just smiled slightly and gave me a slight shake of the head,

"The hike sounds nice," she said to me quietly. "I think it would do us all some good. I'm sure Tony and the crew will be happy to get back to sailing, even if it's only for a couple of hours. They've been rattling around the ship like lost marbles for the last week, Lord knows. You'll have to make sure Carol hasn't disassembled anything critical, though. She may have been thinking we'd be in port for a while more yet, and you know how she likes to get her hands greasy."

Idly, I noticed that Saralinda and Jake were out on the forward deck, trying out binoculars. They were standing very close together, and it dawned on me that there was a bit more touching that was absolutely necessary between them. I felt a sudden pang.

"You finally noticed?" Moira's voice was just a low, wistful purr. "Her bed wasn't slept in last night, nor mine," Moira continued.

Images of Joanne and Burt came to my mind, and I felt a little bit of tightness in my chest, but then I noticed Moira watching me with a smile on her face. I felt myself relax. Saralinda looked very happy. Jake did too. And Moira was smiling at me. I smiled back at her, and felt myself relax. Really relax.

I picked a pastry off of the tray.

"You shouldn't have too many of those before Aikido," Moira reminded me.

"Mmmm," I nodded in agreement. She was right, as usual. I'd just have this one, and a banana, and a glass of juice. And maybe that pastry as well ... But only two. Really.

Jake was all business on the mat, which was just what I needed. First he led us in some stretching. The subsequent ritual of bowing in and clapping of hands helped to clear thoughts from my head. And then I was his uke as he demonstrated the first technique we'd be working on. Aikido is totally a defensive art – you study how to subdue an attacker without injuring them. But that means that you have to take turns being uke – the attacker. We switched off with pairings in a regular fashion, so sometimes I was training with Henri, sometimes with Jake, and sometimes with Tori. Within a pairing, we'd take turns being uke, and we'd practice the technique on both the left and right sides.

It was great to see how Tori and Henri were progressing. They were still only 4^th kyu white belts, and I couldn't bring my full energy into an attack on them. But Tori was no longer flinching, and no longer hesitating. With Aikido, the way to respond to an attack often involves meeting the attack sooner than the attacker expects. Uke attacks nage, but nage steps in closer and sooner, and steals the initiative. Many techniques involve essentially an anticipatory shifting of position that allows nage to direct uke down to the mat, using uke's own energy to power the move. That requires confidence and timing, something that Tori found difficult at first. Other techniques involve moving slightly off of the line of attack, then breaking the balance of uke. Again, uke's own momentum is used against him. Some rather nasty joint locks that work on pressure points are used to control uke until he concedes.