Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Old Ship, New Friend
Ah, I love the smell of the sea breeze in the morning. That, and the smell of woodsmoke, bourbon, and burnt gunpowder. Lucky for me, I get to wake up to the smell of three of those things on the daily. I roll out of bed, walk out of the bedroom, and run into her. She hands me a cup of coffee, smiles, and keeps moving. I walk outside, and take a deep breath. I smell the salty breeze and smile. It's been one hell of a year, and every time I think about her, I start to wonder how I got here. But enough about my morning routine. Howdy. I'm Luke. And boy, do I have a story to tell.
It all started about a year ago. I've always been a red-blooded Texan at heart, even if I didn't always agree with the Whiskey Hotel on things. So, when I got the opportunity to put the last 6 years of college to work on a restoration project, I dove in headfirst. I moved from my tiny little hometown in East Texas all they way down to Galveston, where I'd be helping work on what was, in my opinion, the most beautiful piece of history in the world: the USS Texas. I'd always held her in a special place in my heart, from her stories of World War One and World War Two to her life as a massive steel guardian keeping watch over the San Jacinto monument. I respected her, no, I loved her. Nothing else in the world got a patriotic fire burning in my heart quite like she did, even though I had visited all of the other museum ships. They were all beautiful, don't get me wrong, but there was something special about the Texas. She was a reminder of everything that I and my state stood for. That's why, when I met with the restoration director, I made it clear that I was going to do this right.
"Tom, I promise you, she means as much to me as she means to you, if not more. You won't have to worry 'bout things going wrong." The man I was speaking to was Thomas J. Perich, the chairman of the Battleship Texas Foundation and the head of the restoration project. "I'm sorry that I wasn't here from the beginning, but trust me when I say that I want to do everything I can to get this beautiful lady back in shape again. I think I speak for a lot of folks when I say that Texas is an important part of history, and for myself, she's a part of who I am. My great-granddaddy was her skipper for a long while, and I owe it to her to take care of her as best I can."
Tom laughed and shook my hand. "I believe you, friend. She's a part of what makes this state great, and we owe it to her to make sure she lives on for decades to come."
"Agreed. Now, where do I start?" I asked.
Tom beckoned me to follow him and led me down into the engine room. "I recall that you said you had some experience with these old systems?"
I nodded. "Yeah, I helped maintenance a similar system before on the Lexington. Takes a fair bit of know-how and a gentle hand to get these things running smooth."
"Well, then I leave her engine room in your care, my friend. Try to be careful, though. I'd hate for you to get hurt down here."
"Yeah, I got it. Take care, Tom. I'll talk to you later."
Tom walked back up to the top deck before he went back to the Foundation's offices. Once he was out of the room, I turned back to the engine room. "I promise, I'll do my best to get you in perfect shape again. You're in good hands," I say to seemingly no one, since I'm the only one in the room.
"Welp, best not keep dawdling." I grabbed my toolbox and started to disassemble, clean, and reseal every part in the starboard engine room. I worked my way over the room with a fine-tooth comb, checking valves and clearing pipes. I finished disassembling a valve system to clean it when I heard an unfamiliar voice.
"Want some help? Looks like you could use another set of hands."
I spun around, mildly terrified, to see who got the drop on me. She's standing in the door, holding a toolbox in one hand and a pipe wrench in the other. Her hair, a beautiful hazelnut color, is in a ponytail that reaches down to her middle back. She's got it pulled through a USS Texas BB-35 ship cap, and she's wearing jeans and a short-sleeve Carhartt button-down work shirt. She walks over to me, sits down, and starts helping me clean the valve assembly. "Sorry I startled ya."
I waved my hand dismissively. "Ah, it was no big deal. I'm a little jumpy sometimes, comes as part of the job. Still though, I'm surprised that I didn't hear you coming."
She grinned. "I know my way around this old girl pretty well, so I tend to move quiet because of it."
I nod. "Makes sense. Anyways, nice to meet you. I'm Luke." I reach my hand out to her, and she shakes it.
"Around here, everybody just calls me MT or Em. Glad to meet ya."
"Em has a nice ring to it. Anyways, I suppose I could use some help. I need to get this engine room tore down, cleaned, and rebuilt, and then I need to do the port engine room as well. Granted, I'm not necessarily in a rush, but I'd like to get this beautiful lady back to floating on her own as soon as possible."
Em smiled at me. "Beautiful, huh? I feel ya. This old girl's done a lot, and she could use some TLC. That said, we better get back to work. Lunch break ended thirty minutes ago."
I grimace. "Whoops. Forgot about lunch. Ah well, I wasn't all that hungry, I'll just make dinner tonight."
Em looked at me with an air of curiosity. "You can cook? Cool!"
"Yeah, I'm decent enough to know my way around the kitchen. It's not much, though."
Em giggled. "Still, knowing how to cook is pretty neat. I never learned."
I chuckled and turned back to my valve. "So, what brings you to the Texas? She's not really a project that many would call high-profile."
"I guess not," Em said. "Regardless, she holds a special place in my heart, and I'm tickled pink to be here."
I smiled brightly. "Glad to hear that we're on the same page. Now, lets actually get something accomplished before we leave for the day."
A few hours (and multiple shared stories about the Texas) later, and Em and I were wrapping up for the day. We'd managed to get all of the valves rebuilt and most of the manifolds clean in the starboard engine room, but we still had quite a ways to go before we could start working on the boilers and gearboxes. Regardless, we both walked out of the bottom of that ship covered in oil, grease, and dirt.
As we walked out onto the deck, I took a deep breath. "Ahhh, feels nice to breathe fresh air again. As much as I love working on the pretty girl, it gets kinda stuffy down there."
Em looked at me quizzically. "Again with the pretty, huh? You fancy the ship a little or something?"
"Depends on what you mean. Do I hold her in high regard as, in my humble opinion, the prettiest ship around? Yeah, obviously. Do I find her to be my favorite ship, active or not? Of course! Do I respect this ship and honor her as much or more than anything else? I suppose I do. But hey, I have every right to. She means quite a lot to me. My great-granddaddy was her captain for most of World War Two, and I owe her for bringing him home safe."
"Well, I guess I can appreciate that. Glad to see that somebody still cares that much..." Em trailed off. I couldn't see her face, since her back was to me, but her tone seemed a bit sad.
"Hey, you okay? Sorry if what I said bothered you or anything. Didn't mean anything by it."
She spun around, a smile on her face. "Nah, don't mind me. Anyways, wanna go get dinner? I'm starving!"
I chuckled a bit. "Yeah, food does sound pretty good. Anything you got in mind? My treat."
She perked up a bit at that. "Oh, trying to impress a lady, huh? I gotcha." Flabbergasted, I couldn't find a response to that, so she continued. "I know, just messin' with ya. How's a burger sound? I know a pretty good place."
Having recovered from the initial befuddlement, I managed to come to my senses. "S-sure, sounds good. I could go for a good burger." And maybe a drink, too, after that fiasco, I thought.
Having settled on where we were going, I opened the passenger side door to my '77 Chevy K20, and she hopped in. I closed the door back before walking around to the other side and clambering into the cab. I closed the door, and she giggled.
"Never thought I'd meet another old soul. You got one classy ride, buddy. Love the truck."
I blushed a little. "Well, this old boy belonged to my dad, and I've put a lot of miles on her. Just rebuilt the engine and transmission a few weeks ago, actually." With that, I turned the key. The Chevy's 454 Big Block roared to life before settling into a smooth, sexy rumble. I grinned. "It took a hell of a lot of work to get that sound out of this fella, but man does it hit just right every time." Em, seemingly lost in the rumble of the engine, didn't respond. Her eyes were closed, and she was smiling a soft, content kind of smile. It wasn't until now that I actually bothered to pay attention to her appearance. We'd been too caught up in swapping stories and technical know-how for me to notice, but, just, damn. She was quite the looker, as my dad would say.
I mentioned before that she was a brunette, right? Yeah, she was. But, as I was just now noticing, she did have some lighter highlights as well. She was on the taller side, not quite my height, but she was still probably close to 6'. Maybe 5' 10"? She was still wearing the USS Texas ship cap, but she had changed out of the Carhartt work shirt and jeans and was wearing a T-shirt with the Texas flag on it with a pair of khaki cargo shorts and sneakers.
I looked at her cap again. "Hey, where'd you get that hat?"
She looked over at me, grinning. "Why, jealous? Kidding! Yeah, I actually ordered it custom. There's this website that does caps like this for a lot of ships, so I bought one for myself."
"Okay, now I gotta go order one for myself. I always thought the ship caps for the newer carriers and such were awesome, but now I definitely have to get one for the Texas."
She chuckled under her breath. "Nah, don't go to all that trouble. Here, have mine! I've got extras at home." She took her cap off and smiled at me. "Here, look at me for a sec." She put the cap on my head before reaching around and adjusting it to fit me properly. I could tell she was happy to give me the cap, because there was a glimmer of pure, unadulterated joy in those soft brown eyes of hers. "There." She flicked the bill of the cap. "Looks good on you."
I blushed a little. "Thanks, Em. I'll pay you back later."
She looked on in mock horror. "How dare you try to pay me back for a gift?"
"H-hey, it's not that big of a deal, I'd just feel bad if I-"
"Hush. You won't be paying me back for the cap. It's no biggie. Got it?"
I looked at the floorboard, flustered. "Y-yes ma'am. I got it."
She giggled. "Fine, if you really feel like you need to pay me back, you can treat me to dinner. Fair?"
Now I was smiling again. "Fair. Dinner's on me. Now, let's go find that burger joint, yeah?"
She nodded. "Yeah. Now hurry up so we get there before the dinner rush."
I gave her a mock salute. "Yes ma'am."
I tore out of the parking lot feeling like a million bucks. I mean, I was taking a gal (who happened to be EXACTLY my type) out to dinner. Who wouldn't be feeling good about that?