Chapter Text
The year was 1957, I had just woken up for the day and was making myself a nice cup of hot coffee when I suddenly felt a familiar set of arms encircling my waist gently. I smiled as my rather small girlfriend of just one year tried to stand on her tiptoes so she could lay her head on my shoulder. Despite the fact that we had been together for a whole year I still couldn't comprehend why such a beautiful woman liked me as much as she did.
I am, by my own admission, a rather average looking man.I have brown hair, a light tan, my clothes aren't very fancy, and my job as a deep sea salvager pays me just enough to pay bills and get groceries, leaving barely enough for anything else. There's really only one thing about my appearance that I can think of that might attract women to me; and those are my eyes; I have light blue eyes and have always earned a comment or two about how nice they look.
"Jonathan Thomson what on earth are you thinking about that has you so distracted?" My girlfriend Lizzie asked sweetly with a chuckle which snapped me out of the daze I had been in.
"Oh it's nothing Lizzie, I was just…" I started to say in an amused way, when suddenly there was a knock on the door.
"Now who on earth could be knocking at the door at this hour, it can't be one of your boat friends… even they don't come this early when they decide to come get you." Lizzie said in a shocked way as I nodded in agreement feeling equally shocked that someone was at our door so early in the morning.
With a sigh I walked from the kitchen to the door, when I finally got there and got the door opened I was very surprised to see that there was a man, who was clearly from one of the government agencies, standing at my door.
"Hello sir, can I help you with something?" I asked as politely as I could without looking like I was suspicious of him being at my house which of course I was.
"Yes, as a matter of fact you can. My name is agent Michels and if I'm correct you are Jonathan Thompson; the famous deep sea salvager, right?" the agent said holding out his hand which I politely took and shook despite still wondering why the agent was at my house.
"Well yes sir I am Jonathan Thompson and while I don't really think I'm famous I am a deep sea Salvager. Have I done something wrong?" I asked, trying to think of something my men or I had done wrong while we were out fishing.
"No it's nothing like that, I've just heard from quite a few people at the docks that you and your crew are the best salvagers in all of New York." Michels said kindly, trying to butter me up before he got to whatever point he was casting his line off to.
"Well I suppose we are pretty good, but with as much time as we sometimes spend out there it's really no surprise." I said with a polite smile though not taking the bait right away like he had wanted.
"You won't deny though that you know your way around the area…especially with the bottom of it, you are a deep sea salvager after all." Michels said, tossing me some more bait in hopes that I'd at least nibble on it.
"Well yes sir, I suppose I am well acquainted with the sea. Especially with the bottom of it, still I don't quite understand why that would bring a man like yourself to my doorstep." I said politely, deciding to nibble the bait on the hook a little bit to get him to move this little talk of ours along.
"You see Mr. Thomson…there's been a lot of missing ships lately and needless to say the government has been noticing. We may have found one of said ships, and after hearing a few things about you that I liked, my colleagues and I were hoping that you and your crew might go looking for the ship we think we've found while you're out on your next trip." Michels said finally throwing me some bait I found very interesting indeed.
Of course ,being a smart little fish; I didn't show that the bait had interested me. I wanted to see what would happen if I acted like I didn’t know exactly what Michels wanted from me.
"So let's get this straight Mr. Michels… You're saying that a bunch of ships have been sinking for some reason and now that you think you've found one, you want me and my crew to go out looking for it while we're salvaging?" I asked, letting out the slightest bit of skepticism to show in my tone.
"Yes that's exactly right Mr. Thomson, see we know that there have been a lot of ships that have mysteriously sunken but we don't know how, or why they were sunk...and now we think we've found one and need to try to see if it holds any secrets for us as what happened to the other ones." Michels said looking a bit frustrated as he talked about it.
"Okay I get what you're saying but still… why don't you and whatever agency you're from go out looking for the ship you found yourself instead of asking an average Joe like me to do it?" I asked, feeling even more skeptical about taking the bait than I had before.
"Well you see we have, the problem is that the men we send down there can't find their own office desk let alone a sunken ship lying on the bottom of the ocean, even with the vague coordinates we have. You and your men on the other hand…" Michels said purposely trailing off in hope that I'd nibble on the bait again which I decided I would.
"We know our way around, both above and below the water." I said, earning the first smile from Michels since he had arrived.
"Exactly Mr. Thomson, look all we want you to do is try to find this one ship, and if you don't find anything other than your usual fish then well…at least you tried.' Michels said politely with a shrug of his shoulders.
"So what will happen if I do find this ship?" I asked curiously wanting to be fed a bit more of this new bait before I let myself be caught.
"If you do find the ship, then all you have to do is write down the exact coordinates or have someone up on your ship do it for you so my agency and I can go out to look without getting lost. Also, once we find it and figure out what exactly happened to sink it then we'll be sure to give you all the credit for finding it for us." Michels said catching my eye a bit more than before with this new bait.
"Now if something were to happen to me while I'm out there but I still manage to find the ship and write down the coordinates… would you still give any reward that would have been given to me to my girlfriend?" I asked curiously as in the background I saw Lizzie give me a horrified look at this question.
"Well if that's what you want then…" Michels started saying when I politely interrupted.
"Yes Mr. Michels, that's something I would like very much. If anything were to happen to me then I'd want Lizzie to be able to live comfortably without me, which means that I want her to have whatever you plan on giving me as a reward." I said sweetly, earning the slightest smile from Lizzie who despite the smile I knew was still concerned about why I had requested this deal.
"Well then Mr. Thomson, I promise you here and now that if anything happens to you while you're searching; and you've found the ship that we'll give Miss Lizzie what we would have given you." Michels said in a way where I could tell he was being absolutely serious.
"Thank you Mr. Michels, I do believe we have a deal then." I said finally taking the bait and letting myself get caught as I shook his hand politely.
"That's good to hear, look I'll let you and your poor girlfriend wake up some more since I've come so early in the morning, once you're ready I'll try to meet you down at the docks." Michels said looking extremely excited all of a sudden.
"Wait, are you going to be going out with my men and I when we go out to sea? I asked curiously not understanding why Michels would be going out to sea with us.
"Oh no Mr. Thomson, I'll just be going down to see you off so I can tell headquarters you've started your trip. I don't have good sea legs." Michels said kindly and chuckled at the last part.
"That's too bad, I love the sea almost as much as I do Lizzie… I can't imagine living without either one." I said feeling secretly glad that Michels wasn't coming with me.
"Well then we definitely picked the right man for the job, anyway my good man I'll hopefully see you when you get down to the docks…please take your time though." Michels said with one last smile before he finally left.
"Well that was interesting, I definitely didn't expect that to happen." I said closing the door once Michels was out of sight and turning around only to see the most worried look I had ever received from Lizzie.
"Oh Lizzie sweetheart I'm, I didn't mean to…" I started to add on a caring way though stopping because I knew trying to comfort her wouldn't do any good at the moment.
"Jonathan, I'm going to make breakfast and you're going to get ready like you always do, but once we're both settled at the dining table…" Lizzie started to say before purposely trailing off because she knew that I knew what it was she was going to say.
"Yes love, I know. We need to talk." I sighed, earning a nod from Lizzie before I went upstairs to take a shower to get ready for work and to get ready for a very long talk.