Our Bruised Bodies | Bradley Bradshaw

ACT FOUR - PART THREE

Cheers to this chapter!

<><><>

Watching her husband, who was sitting opposite her, Grace let her gaze wander over his uniform, there was not a single wrinkle in the fabric. He was sitting still like a statue, reading something on his laptop, to make sure the uniform would stay in the perfect condition it was, while Grace was sitting there in a pair of wide black jean short, that ended right above her knees. Being wider around her legs than around her hip and a white tank top with a long flannel in shades of green pulled over her shoulders, the fabric old and tattered, but also well loved. Her necklace was tangling around her neck, just as her dog chain.

Grace didn't look like a Navy Commander right now. The clothes made her look even younger than she was, like a teenager really, a bit like Cyclone's son Michael. With her foot placed on the seat with her, her knee pulled towards her chest, she looked like a moody teenager, not like the wife of an Admiral and somehow that bothered Cyclone. Everyone who would see them, would instantly guess that Grace was his moody teenage daughter, not his wife that was worried for someone's life, not a Navy Commander. She looked like a brat.

"I won't be able to come with you to the hospital." Beau decided to address, rather than keeping glancing at his wife over the rim of his laptop. "I need to do some people a favour or two. I will meet with Admiral Knight and then I will have to have lunch with our ambassador and the Japanese minister of defence. I will come to find you around the late evening." He told her, not expecting her to remember. He knew that there were other things on her mind right now and that was understandable, of course, but he did feel the need to let her know why he wouldn't come to the hospital with her.

It's the way the Navy worked, he needed to call in a favour, had to find a plane to get them to Japan and the other Admirals were all eager to help in exchange for a favour. So now he was taking Teagan's meeting with Knight and his lunch with the ambassador and the minister of defence. And all this just to get them to Japan. He didn't even want to know what other favours it would need for them to be able to stay in Japan until it was over, or Bradshaw could be send stateside. Extending Grace's leave won't be that much of a struggle, not when Stafford and he both were covering for her, but his own leave, that was nearly impossible. He barely managed to get the week, the wanted to use for their honeymoon. He was just glad that all Grace wanted for their honeymoon was to go to Hawaii, where he had a house as the rear Admiral.

"That's fine." She told him, but Beau could tell that she was far away in her head, letting her fingers run over the little airplane charm around her neck.

It was fine, because she didn't want him there when she would go and see Bradshaw. Beau knew that. She didn't want any strangers to witness it and, in that moment, no matter what a legal document said, he was a stranger.

"Maybe you should call your father and let him know what happened." The Admiral said, which had his wife pulling her gaze from the point in the middle aisle she had been blankly starring at for the last twenty minutes.

"I think it's better if I see him before I worry them." Grace muttered, before letting go of the airplane charm, and sitting up more properly, while looking at Beau, who clearly searched for the right thing to say. He didn't want to stress his wife even more than she already was, but not letting her father know would be a mistake. It was a personal experience he had made, a painful one. Coming too late to someone's death bed was terrible, especially after promising to be there, after swearing it.

"Do you think the Lieutenant didn't tell the truth about his condition?" He asked her, causing Grace to shake her head right away. Of course not, no Lieutenant had any business lying to a superior.