Steady (A JAWS Story)

July 3, 1971

"Meredith," he called. She paused on the stairs.

"I'm not going."

"What about your trip?" Meredith asked him. She knew how much it meant to him to finally be invited to go. He shouldn't miss it.

"I mean, why travel for thousands of miles to prove my theory if I've got a shark here that could help support my research."

"I have a Great White here." he shrugged. "It'd be kind of redundant to go study sharks when this one is proving several theories I'd be trying to prove out there for eighteen months and there's no promise I'd even see one shred of evidence proving me right." he shrugged. "I'll call the doctor after we meet with the mayor." I smiled lightly, and then raised an eyebrow.

"You're staying?" she asked, voice cracking.

"Yeah," Matt nodded at her, "I wanna see this through to the end."

She exhaled a breath she didn't know she was holding in and rushed him. He quickly had her wrapped in his arms, blonde head of wave tucked under his chin. Matt closed his eyes.

She remembered that back in university she could stand for what felt like hours in his arms, listening to his breathing and heart beating. It calmed her down like the sound of the waves crashing into the shore. Constant. No breaks in the measured pace.

They would study together out on the green or in the biology hall. Meredith would find herself sitting up against his back leaning against him just so she could hear his heart.

There were only a few times that things became heated between the two. Hair ruffled, Matt's glasses crooked on his nose, and breaths a little less regular. Meredith always gave him a quick kiss on his dimple when he dropped her off somewhere. It was the last kiss she gave him. It was the last kiss she gave anyone.

She never felt the need to push their physical relationship past those bounds and Matt never pushed too far and he never asked. Looking back, Meredith supposed she was too afraid to push the boundaries and Matt was too shy.

She was never sure with herself and what she was supposed to do. She'd spent her life trying to keep people from being upset with her, especially men, and her relationship with Matt meant everything to her. She never wanted to push him too far or do something and cause him to be upset with her. To this day, Matt had never raised his voice at her. Sure they'd had disagreements but Meredith remembered that he could always make it lighthearted.

Hell, Meredith wasn't sure if Matt was capable of letting his anger get the best of him.

We parked across the street in a pull off spot, and walked over to the bottom of the grassy hill where Larry Vaughn was standing, waiting for us. He had a pack of cigarettes out and plucked one from it, before he turned and started to climb the hill, the three of us on his heels.

"What in the hell is going on?" he asked, thus opening a door for what we hoped would be a floodgates of revelation when he found out the truth about the shark.

"This is a great white Larry, a real big one. Any shark expert will tell you it's a killer, a man eater." Martin was explaining to Larry who was chewing on the end of his unlit cigarette.

"Look, the situation is that apparently a great white shark has staked a claim in the waters off Amity Island." Matt said pointing to the water. "And he's going to continue to feed here as long as there's food in the water."

"There's no limit to what he'll do." Martin said quickly. "I mean we've already had three incidents."

"Two people killed within a week?" I asked and shrugged. "It's bound to happen again."