Patterns - An Academy Story

Movie Night - Part 3 - Come, friends, let us away

A/N: Thank you for being patient with me while the boys were being difficult! I am sorry it's been so long since I last updated.

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With the surprise apple pie in the oven and baking, Victor and I headed down the hallway to the family room to join the others. The room was dark and the movie was already playing. I found a seat on the end of one of the sofas, next to Kota.

"What are we watching?" I whispered to him.

"Battleship, have you seen it before?" he asked quietly.

"No, I haven't seen it."

"The quick synopsis is that aliens invade multiple cities across the globe. They land one of their ships in Pacific during scheduled navy games between the US and Japan. It's based on the kid's game and the US and Japanese ships are trying to locate and destroy the alien ships."

"Ah, thank you!" I smiled at him. Even in the darkened room, I could see his return smile in the glow of the light from the big screen. He leaned closer towards me and whispered "you are most welcome."

I tucked my feet in and settled back against the cushions to watch the movie.

"What a pompous ass. 'What is NASA present in this room for?' Trying to save your collective asses, that's what."

"Yes, you sent out a signal and got back an alien response. What did you expect?"

"Hey Kota, what's Lawrencium?"

"It's a radioactive metal that can only be produced in a particle accelerator."

"Shit that thing's big."

"Dude, I wouldn't do that if I were you. Chief is right, LT."

"I wonder what brand of binoculars his brother is using. It'd be nice to have that kind of clarity for ones we use on jobs."

"Don't do it, you're climbing on an alien craft. Don't touch ..."

"Told you it was a bad idea. Now you pissed of the aliens and you're stuck behind a force field over most of the Hawaiian Islands."

"You send a drone first, not a fighter pilot. What a waste."

"Nope, not good at all."

"Warning? You call making a big noise a warning to three huge alien vessels facing you down?"

"Shit, now that was a warning."

"Oh man, the sailors manning the torpedoes can't see the alien ships. They have no idea who they're shooting at."

Hearing the guys' running commentary on the movie made me smile. I appreciated the fact that they didn't seem to be acting any different than they normally would during their movie nights. It made me feel like I wasn't intruding or that they invited me because they felt obligated to after we had dinner last night.

"This dude is badass. 'I ain't never seen an alien.'"

"I guess it's a good thing those rangers didn't offer them a ride down the mountain."

"Shit, that thing's ugly. It's uglier than the alien from Independence Day."

"Its beard looks like a freakin' porcupine."

"You're just NOW getting a bad feeling about this?"

"Nice rifles. Sang, you ever shoot one of those?"

I looked to see who asked the question, and saw Luke looking at me.

"Dude, she was shooting her rifle open sites. She doesn't need some fancy scope on hers!" I heard Nathan answer.