31 December, 1892 / 1 January, 1893 — The Voyager, At Sea — East of Africa

It was a warm night — there were seldom cold nights, in this part of the world — so rather than staying holed up in his cabin for the evening, Alfred had dragged the large, comfortable arm chair from his office out to the main deck. He would have been just as at ease perched on one of the bollards on the deck, or atop a pile of sailcloth, or just sitting on the deck itself, but he was the Captain and this was an occasion, so he figured he'd might as well do something interesting. He leaned back in the chair with his boots kicked up onto the rail of the Voyager (the wood on this part of the rail was discolored, slightly; it had been replaced and grafted into the older rail while they'd been repairing the damage from the kraken attack), a whiskey glass in one hand and the bottle wedged between his hip and the arm of the chair. The mast creaked above them and the waves murmured below them. Alfred checked his pocket watch.

"Ten minutes to midnight," he announced to Pablo, who was sat in a not-matching but still comfortable armchair to his side. He slid the watch back into his coat pocket and offered the whiskey bottle, in case Pablo needed a refill. He wondered what everyone back home was doing, and then wondered whether or not Zelda had received his last letter yet.

"Chance I might get ambushed in our next port call," he said, though he did not seriously believe Zelda would do it. She might be annoyed with him, and he would make whatever apologies she demanded in order to smooth things over, but he did not expect her to be really angry. Certainly not angry enough to deal with requisitioning portkeys. Maybe if he'd told her about the letter he'd drunkenly sent to Jo, but he hadn't. It wasn't relevant, he had determined — that, and he didn't much fancy the idea of trying to apologize for something he only vaguely remembered.

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Pablo Medina Clarissa Cosgrove

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

It was always easy for him to lose track of the days when they were underway. He was aware that it was New Years Eve though. It would soon be 1893 and he had to wonder if there would be anything new in the new year for him. This trip had come at a good time though as he had been feeling apathetic and bored with life as of late.

At the current moment, he was perched in an armchair beside Alfred. He was already feeling a pleasurable buzz from the whiskey. He took the bottle and filled his glass before setting it down on a makeshift table that was between them.

As Alfred spoke, Pablo waited a beat to see if he would elaborate and inquired when Alfred did not so do. "And why might that be?"

  

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There were a limited amount of things that he might have done to warrant an overseas ambush. He didn't feel the need to specify that he'd gotten himself into a bit of trouble lately. Trouble might have been the wrong word, but until he got a return letter from Zelda he wouldn't know whether he was in trouble or not. Regardless, things had certainly gotten a little... sticky, lately. He was under no delusions that Zelda would be happy to receive the last letter he'd sent her.

"I ran into Jo Smith in Capetown," he said, settling back into the armchair. He eyed the whiskey bottle where Pablo had placed it on the cargo crate and wondered whether it was secure enough there. The seas were gentle tonight, but Alfred had been out to sea in enough rough weather that as a rule he didn't like to leave anything that could break (or that was heavy enough to break someone if it fell on them) in an unsecured location. "And then I wrote Zelda about it a few days ago."

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

"Ahh," Pablo said as Alfred revealed he had run into Jo Smith. Pablo himself wasn't personally fully acquainted with the woman. Then again, it was also the same with his friends wife. The latter was a little more of an oddity considering she lived with Alfred at a resort that belonged to Pablos cousin.

"Do you think your wife will be lying in wait on the next dock?" Pablo asked in amusement. Seeing Alfreds current predicament was a solid argument for why Pablo himself was still a bachelor.

  

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"I haven't ruled it out," Alfred said, with a mock 'toast' gesture in the direction of the open ocean. He took a sip of his drink, then shrugged. "Zelda's not actually like that," he clarified, in case Pablo had misunderstood him and thought this was anything approaching a genuine concern. "I'm just worried about how she'll take it, is all. Wish I'd told her in person."

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

He chuckled as his friend spoke. "At least you told her. I can't speak to how your wife thinks but if she had somehow heard about it elsewhere, she might have ended up thinking you had been hiding it," Pablo mused. He might not have been married or anything close to it but he'd had experiences. "You have both gone through worse, haven't you?" He figured the married couple would be fine. Pablo was also certain his friend was not the type to stray from his marital bed.

  

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"Yeah, you've got that right," Alfred acknowledged. The worst possibly turn of events would have been for Zelda to hear about his conversation in South Africa from Jo herself. The two didn't talk much now, he didn't think, but he'd been wrong about that sort of thing before — Jo had gone to see Zelda when she was first back in the country, and Zelda hadn't told him about it. And Jo had a history of making everything worse when she tried to offer explanations — see the pink cheek debacle over Valentine's Day, which Pablo had already heard about second-hand.

"Just because you've gone through worse doesn't mean it gets any easier," he pointed out, pulling a face. "But yeah, you're spot on. It'll blow over."

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

"You have a point there," Pablo conceded. Would his own marital life be so chaotic if he were to wed someday? He had yet to find someone he would even consider marrying though so he doubted that would be an issue for a while yet.

"And things are truly platonic and Zelda has no reasons to worry?" Pablo couldn't help but ask. His friend had never struck him as the type to stray from his marital bed but it also wasn't like Alfred had ever been married before.

  

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It had not been ten minutes yet, but Alfred compulsively checked his pocket watch again anyway. He returned it to his pocket and next checked his glass to see if he needed a top off from the whiskey bottle, but he didn't. Nothing to do but respond, then.

"Didn't get that drunk in Capetown," he joked. He hadn't gotten drunk in Capetown at all, actually, but that wasn't the point — the point was to say something humorous in the hopes that it got him out of having to actual answer the question.

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Pablo chuckled in response to the others comment. He was glad to hear it though he would not have judged his friend either way. A lot of married sailors tended to step out on their wives though in those cases, it was usually a brief, physical thing.

"Maybe not but I certainly have plans to get drunk tonight. We've made it through another year, ol' chap. To think that only a few years ago the world had thought us gone from this mortal realm."

  

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