Beyond the Sea

Somewhere beyond the sea
My love's waiting for me,
My lover stands on golden sands,
And watches the ships that go sailing.
Somewhere beyond the sea
She's there watching for me,
If I could fly like birds on high
Then straight to her arms I'd go sailing.
It's far beyond a star,
It's near beyond the moon.
And beyond a doubt
My heart will lead me there soon.
We'll meet beyond the shore,
We'll kiss just as before,
Happy we'll be beyond the sea,
And never again I'll go sailing.

Nichol leaned back in the tub, and let out a long sigh as the hot water eased the ache in his overworked muscles. The sigh came from deep in his stomach.

"Yeah," agreed Roger, seated a few feet away.

They had just spent the last several hours laboring over the Cha Cha Maru's hydrojets, under Mikail's almost tyrannical gaze. "I don't get it," Nichol muttered. "We avoided the whole navy on those jets, and now, after we went on a short little hunt, he goes ballistic about repair and maintenance? Too weird."

Roger shrugged.

"But you're right, buddy. You're absolutely right. This is the perfect way to kick back."

There was a long silence.

"Well, that and peeping on Tita," Nichol amended.

Roger gave the helmsman a look. "You're really hung up on her."

"Of course I am!" Nichol responded. "She's beautiful, kind, gentle, courageous, vulnerable, sweet, honest --"

"-- unattainable --"

"-- talented, intel-- what?"

Roger momentarily considered cluing him in on what every member of the crew except Nichol had long since figured out, then decided he didn't want to deal with the shattering that would ensue. "Never mind."

"For as long as I've known her, I've known that someday, someday she will realize how much I care about her, and someday, someday --"

Roger let out a sigh of his own, and stared up at the glass ceiling of the ship's onsen.

"-- she and I will become --"

"Uh ... Nichol."

"-- one. What?"

"Do you know the meaning of the phrase, 'Turnabout is fair play?'"

"Uh ... yeah, it has something to do with people doing to you what you've done to them."

"Okay. Look up, slowly."

Nichol looked up.

Mei waved, and through her diving suit's mask, mouthed the words, "Nice butt."

Nichol wondered how in the world the water had gotten so hot so quickly. Goodness, his skin was as red as a tomato.

That was his last thought before he fainted from embarassment.

* * *

Mei was still chuckling over Nichol's reaction a few hours later as she sipped her coffee in the ship's mess.

"I'm glad someone's enjoying themselves," Balboa said sourly as he came in, carrying a large bag of groceries. "Those two idiots were almost enthusiastic about carrying down the new parts to Mikail and getting press ganged into installing them, rather than helping me bring the groceries up here to where you are."

"I was only trying to reinforce the point Tita kept making whenever she electrified the window," Mei replied in her own defense.

Balboa snorted.

"Speaking of whom," Mei continued, the amusement slowly fading from her voice, "did you happen to spy her while you were in town?"

"No," Balboa replied shortly, stuffing some tomatoes in the cooler. "I didn't see her."

"That's not what I asked."

"Mei, believe it or not, but shopping did take a much higher priority today than trying to catch a glimpse of our beloved captain on her vacation."

"Balboa, I just want to be sure that we're all giving Tita her space. It's the first time she's been free to see Elysse and vice versa in more than two months. Don't you remember what it was like to be young and --"

"No," replied Balboa, refilling the salt dispenser. "But in any event, I didn't look for her, and I didn't see her. Happy?"

Mei sighed.

* * *

"So where is she?" Balboa groused. "We're supposed to ship out at dawn!" He stood with Mikail, leaning on the rail, staring at the sky where the first hints of the sun were just beginning to appear.

"She'll be here," Mikail said bluntly.

"Maybe I should have tried to spy on her after all. There wasn't any answer at her usual hotel ..."

"Ah yes. Piss off the ship's doctor before you set off on a long voyage. Very wise plan," Mikail replied, nodding sagely.

"`Give her her space,'" Balboa snorted. "The problem with that girl is that she's got too much space, and --"

The faint sound of a motor could be heard approaching the dock to which the Cha Cha Maru was moored.

"You were saying?" Mikail commented, a faint smile on his face. "She has finally started to show a little responsibility and --"

"HOIS' DA MAINSIL!"

The two men stared down at their seventeen-year old Captain, who had weavingly stepped out of her carcycle, and now stood on the deck unsteadily, smiling a vacant smile.

"BADDEN DOWN DA MIZ ... MIZU ... WHATEVER THE HELL DAT THING IS!"

"I'll handle her, you park the carcycle," Mikail said with a fatalistic expression.

"Sure," Balboa replied, not sounding at all smug.

"HEY!!! MIKY! BALBY! 'SGreat to see ya!" Tita enthused as they approached her.

Mikail silently tapped a certain spot in between Tita's eyebrows. "Sleep," he said.

"Okay," she replied happily, and collapsed. Mikail caught her before she hit the ground.

* * *

"Oh, dear," Mei muttered as Mikail carried Tita's limp form into the infirmirary. "I'll get the alcohol catalyzer ready."

"Right," Mikail replied as he set the captain on one of the tables. "But no hangover remedy."

Mei blinked. "Why not?"

"She has to learn that these things have consequences. Pain is a very good teacher, sometimes," Mikail answered, his face set.

"All right," Mei sighed. "But so help me, Mikail, if you do anything to compound her suffering tomorrow --"

"Right, right," Mikail said, backing out of the room slowly.

A few moments later, the "medicine" was ready. Mei loaded the hypospray, and jetted it Tita's system. Over the next minute, the rate at which Tita's body metabolised the alcohol flowing through her blood sped up several thousandfold. The alchohol broke down into its chemical components at blistering speed.

Which meant that a few moments later, Tita woke up with a hangover and immensely hungry.

She opened her eyes a crack, and let out a cry of immense agony. "Turn it off!"

Mei quietly dropped the lights in the sickbay down to minimal levels.

"And stop makin' so much noise ... ooogh."

"I'm sorry, Tita," Mei whispered.

"Mei?" Tita asked, a note of fear in her voice.

"Yes?"

"Did I have a wreck? Is that why I feel like I've got third degree burns all over my body?"

"No, Tita. You're wearing your skeinsuit." Hyperaesthesia was never fun to watch.

"Oh." There was a long pause. "Oh, geez."

"Hungry?"

Tita made a vague gesture that looked like a nod.

A few minutes later, having started her off with orange juice and worked up to a dish of porridge, Mei felt confident enough to start asking questions about it. "How much do you remember of what happened?"

Tita chewed silently. "Too much," she finally sighed. "I met Elysse where we planned to meet ... street where we met for the first time." She smiled, but it was a sad smile. "Everything was going great. We went shopping together, we saw a movie, we went walking through a park ... and then ..."

Mei's desire to give Tita her privacy warred with her concern over her actions for a moment. Concern won out, as it usually did. "And then what?"

"And then we went back to her place," Tita replied simply. "It was nice."

Mei coloured slightly. "You don't have to tell me about that if you don't --"

"THE HOTEL ROOM WAS NICE," Tita growled.

"Oh."

"She can really afford to stay in some fancy places, what with her job with the government," Tita continued. "So she got out the wine. It was nice wine, I guess. And we were drinking, and talking, and she asked me about the job, and ..." She let out a long shuddering sigh. "... and I, in the grand Tita tradition, babble about how we've got those big contracts now. How even though we're the best Pet Shop Hunters on Yietta we're still gonna be out to sea for over two months."

"And she tells me about how her job is going. How perfecting the gravity belts is gonna be taking up all her time. How it's probably gonna be another year before she gets as much time off as she's getting now."

Tita swallowed. "And of course, I'm an idiot, so I ask her to throw it all away and come with us.

"And we had a fight." Tita drew in a deep breath. "She told me that I cared more about the sea and the ship and the crew and everything else than I did about her. And I told her that if she really did care about me as much as I did about her, she'd come with me and oh god what've I done?"

She finally began to cry.

This time, Mei didn't have to debate with herself. She held the sobbing teenager to her, rocking her gently and cooing softly. A few moments later, when she was coherent again, Tita muttered, "She said that the sea was stealing me away from her. She's right. She's completely right. I love her, and the sea is trying to keep us apart --"

"Sh. She's not completely right. You might as well say that her work is stealing her away from you."

"But --"

"Shh. The two of you are going to have to work together to get this relationship to work, Tita. Anyone can rescue a princess ... it takes effort to make a life after the rescuing is done."

"But how am I supposed to work with her if she can't find time to see me?" Tita protested. "How'm I supposed to make a life with her if she's not there?"

Mei met her gaze evenly. "If she's not there, Tita, if she can't make time to be with someone she loves ... then it was never really love to begin with. Just infatuation. And you'll know that it's time to move on."

That made her cry a little more. Mei held her as she did.

Eventually, Tita felt in control of herself enough to stand and walk to the door. "Thanks, Mei," she murmured.

"Tita. There's still a few hours before we ship out. You could call her, and ..." Mei trailed off as she saw her captain slowly shaking her head.

"They're too fresh," she said. "Uncovering them now ... it'll just hurt more. Besides," Tita continued with cheer Mei knew had to be false, "I gotta go take a leak!"

And she dashed off.

Mei was a doctor. She knew very well that it was much more painful to re-open old wounds than fresh ones.

* * *

At dawn, the Pet Shop Hunter "Cha Cha Maru" set out on her newest voyage, without any fanfare or exclamation, but with her captain in the center seat.

A single figure stood on the dock, watching the ship sail away on the ocean of gas, gazing after it until it vanished against the horizon.

And then, as the wives and lovers of sailors had for millenia, Elysse turned away to go on with her life.

The End.

Author's Notes

Plastic Little has gotten a bad rap, in my opinion. Yes, there's nudity, but I don't find it any worse than the onsen scenes in Tenchi Muyo or El Hazard. Yes, the climax is almost Trekian in its technobabble deus ex machina, but then so are most anime technological solutions.

And in any case, neither factor had anything to do with why I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it because it's a nice, unpretentious, subtle love story whose "inamorata" happened to be both female. While I can enjoy an angst-filled journey of self-discovery as much as the next person, I truly enjoy stories that dare to say that it's not such a big deal -- that gay people don't just sit around thinking and talking about what it means to be gay, that they don't really act any differently from straight people when it comes to how they feel and act toward the people they love.

Because isn't that kind of the point? That "the love that dares not speak its name" is love first and foremost?

Plastic Little was created by Satoshi Urushihara and Kinji Yoshimoto, and brought to North America by AD Vision. This story, while incorporating characters and situations held under copyright by others, is copyright 1997 by Chris Davies.

Nobody sue me okay?

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