Love Bites

Jae: Ten

Jae left breakfast with Finn, and they parted ways as Finn went to the deck and Jae to his lab. It was nice, really, to have a normal conversation, one not strained or stressed, and not one that made him anxious as Jack told about another harrowing time he risked life and limb in the name of science. Finn was bright, charming, and Jae smiled a bit, thinking it might be nice to have someone on the ship to spend time with other than Michele Matchmaker or by himself. Bo perked his ears up, and Jae heard Jack's voice as well, but Jae snapped at the dog, keeping him close.

"Not today, boy. We have work to do. You know what that means."

Bo circled around his dog bed when they reached the lab, then laid down, grabbing a toy to keep her marginally busy. Jae was proud of how obedient Bo was. If everything in life was like training a dog, he'd be much better off.

Jae looked up at the monitors, seeing Jack's crew throwing lines and getting things ready, and something seemed off. Today wasn't the day, though, to be off, but it was really none of Jae's business. Jack could take care of himself.

"He saw you at breakfast." Michele walked up behind him, going straight to her samples. "Mr. Panty Dropper made sure of it. Peachy, right?"
Jae groaned, scrubbing his face and slipping on his lab jacket. "It was just breakfast."

Michele mocked his voice, shrugging. "It was just breakfast."

"Don't. Don't do this to me. Not today," Jae threatened, taking his seat at the console and beginning to check out the sonar images Jack's tech Billy had taken last night.

They'd sent out a probe, once they'd dropped anchor off of the island, and everything looked much like the ones Jae studied before the expedition.

The probe turned, and for a few seconds, the bottom disappeared, sonar not hitting enough to ping, and Jae hit pause. He rewound the feed, looked again, and sure enough, there was a second just to the side of a rock formation that had no depth reading. That was more than odd...it was almost impossible.

Jae clicked around, finding the topography of the island and the surrounding ocean floor, and when he pulled up the image, he didn't see the hole. It was about ten feet by five feet on the video, roughly, but when Jae looked closer, he found out why it wasn't seen on the topography map: it was inside the rock formation. Jae followed the formation up to shore, checked and double checked the maps, and from what he could tell, the only way into the dip was going to be through that structure. Spelunking was dangerous, and while he was an above average diver, he hadn't planned on doing any hard core diving like this. He'd have to check the equipment.

Michele's gasp drew him away from his screen, and seeing hers on the monitor of the deck, he could guess why. There, on the hydraulic lift, was a almost a twenty-five foot white shark.

And Jack was on top of it.

Standing. Barefooted.

Jae watched as he finally slid down, straddling the beast and covering its eyes as the new team members went to work.

"They're like little ants. Watch them. He's got them all scurrying around." Michele laughed a bit, and nodded, apparently approving of the way Jack made people hop to.

"Um, I'm sure it has a little to do with that shark, right there, and all the razor sharp teeth."

Jae shrugged when Michele scowled. "You know, you could just say something nice about him. Just once."

"No, I can't. Now," Jae turned away from the monitor, going back to his maps, "back to the samples. I need my data."

It was as if his mind took a moment to catch up with what he'd seen, and he turned back to the monitor and looked at his watch.

Less than ten minutes.

"Shit...," Jae looked down at Bo. "Stay. I'll be back."

Bo twitched, but Jae didn't have time to negotiate.

He took the stairs down to the deck two at a time, swinging on the railing and sliding on some, pushing open the heavy metal door and sprinting out onto the wet deck. He got his sea legs quick when the boat shifted, and he slid into one of the cameramen, not even saying sorry.

Without a quick look, Jae knew where Jack's team was in the process, and careful not to interrupt, he slipped up and over the shark, eyes darting between the head and the tail. And Jack.

But he didn't have time to waste.

Jae's hand traced over a bite mark on the beast, along the gills and down the spine, and used his forefinger to measure the teeth marks, still keeping an eye on his watch.

Four minutes.

Jae took out his phone and took picture after picture, tail markings, dorsal fin, other markings, and finally, carefully, he got on top of the shark to take a picture of the bite marks from the top.

With plenty of time, and with all the caution and ease Jack had taught him, Jae slid off the animal and walked away, ignoring the stares and the questions until he was far enough back not to get too wet when Jack released the shark.

The process was effortless, as it usually was with Jack, and too astonished to remember he was highly pissed at the guy, Jae ran up and grinned wide, yelling out.

"Did you see that? Look! Look...," He pulled out his phone, flipping through the pictures as he spoke. "That bite radius was about five feet. Five feet. I...and...the tooth marks? about five and a half inches. See? This one. And this one."

Jae was fascinated, the possibilities of this nearly knocking the wind out of him. He flipped through the pictures with Jack a few more times, looking up and meeting the guy's eyes.

"You know what this means, right?" He paused for a moment, then blurted out his own answer. "That female was almost a meal for something roughly sixty feet in length. Maybe here. Maybe somewhere else. They weren't fresh marks, but...my god. You know what this means? This means everything we're doing is relevant! Somewhere out there, it's real!"

Jae laughed, running his slick hand through his hair and pocketing his phone.

"I've got some maps I want to show you. Remember that place in Belize? I found something like that, a lot smaller though, and I think it's worth looking at. It's going to be a tight dive, and it looks like we'll have to be on land to access the caves, but it's worth checking out."

Jae seemed to stop mid-thought, looking around, seeing three cameras trained on him and about ten sets of eyes he didn't recognize and a few he did.

He'd forgotten all about there being other people around.

Clearing his throat, he looked down, composing himself, then said in a calm manner. "If you'll come by the lab when you have time, we can discuss this further, Mr. Keller. Excellent work with the shark, and I'll leave you to it."

With that, he turned on his heels, parted the crowd of gawkers, and walked back to the metal door. Something inside him ached, like for a second there was nothing between them, no past or hurts, just something they were both passionate about.

Instead of heading back to the lab, though, Jae made a side trip to the bridge, following a hunch he hoped would pay off.