Hi!
A friend and me were debating the type of woman Vincent/Vox likes, and we came to the conclusion that his type is stem women. We really think Vincent wanted a stem woman in his life, but since he never took a break from his job as a presenter, he never met one (because there weren't any in his social circle, and unfortunately, it was difficult to find one back then in this time 30/40's).
My idea for a one-shot would be for him to meet such a woman (where Y/N is a stem woman) casually, and for her to share a fascination with the ocean (or some other fascination that Vincent finds interesting). They would have a deep conversation, and Vincent would mentally think, "Where have you been all my life?" or something like that.
P.S.: I love your Vox/Vincent x Y/N stories! š
Awš Thank you so much!
I am so into it. Yes Vox/Vincent loves strong women. I mean the thing with Val is on-off. Vox would stick around for sure when he has a challenge!
No heart beats unnoticed I Vincent x Stemp!Reader
Word Count: ~6.4k
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Chapter I: Beneath the Surface
New York City, November 1938. Gala of the National Geographic Institute.
The evening was exactly what Vincent had expected. Meaningless.
He stood at the edge of the hall, whiskey in hand ā his third ā, letting his gaze sweep across the crowd. Academics quoting each other. Financiers pretending to care about science. His producer had convinced him to come with the argument that there were faces to discover for the show. So far, no one had caught his attention who was even remotely interesting enough to function in front of a camera.
Vincent was already thinking about leaving when his gaze caught on something.
Not on someone who stood out. On someone who wasn't moving, while everyone else ran around like startled chickens.
You stood in front of a large-format diagram on the wall ā an anatomical cross-section of a Great White Shark ā, had your worn notebook in hand and were writing. Not the elegant leather accessory journalists carried. A used notebook, with creases in the cover and pencil shavings on the front. You were frowning.
Vincent set his glass down somewhere on a table.
He was halfway toward you when he saw a man step up beside you. Red-faced, well-dressed, with the tone of someone used to being heard.
"Miss. Are you the daughter of one of the featured researchers?"
You didn't stop writing. "No."
"Well, the event is certainly interesting for laypeople tooā" the man grinned.
"I'm not a layperson." You snapped the notebook shut. No anger in your voice. Almost bored. "I'm a marine biologist. My study on Atlantic migration routes will be published in the spring in the Proceedings of the National Academy." A brief pause. "The pectoral fins on this diagram are incorrectly proportioned. I just made a note of that."
A dangerous smile played at your lips.
The man blinked. "Well, that's remarkable. For aā"
"For a woman?" You were looking at him now. Direct, calm, without any attempt to soften it. "Mary Anderson. Windshield wiper, 1903. Hedy Lamarr. Frequency hopping ā the foundation of modern radio communication. Marie SkÅodowska. Two Nobel Prizes." A pause. Your lashes fluttered softly, provocatively. "I only mention it because your expression is familiar to me. And because it's more efficient to address it directly."
Silence.
The man muttered something and disappeared.
Vincent stayed where he was.
He had seen many people deal with resistance in his life ā some loudly, some strategically, some with the nervous charm of someone fighting for approval. You had done none of that. Simply listed facts. Matter-of-factly. As if this man were an incorrect proportion in a diagram that one corrected and then forgot.
Interesting.
Vincent stepped beside you. "You're frowning."
You turned your head. Your gaze met his ā brief, direct. Who are you and why are you interesting.
"The eyes are wrong." No preamble. "Sharks don't have a tapetum lucidum like cats, but the reflective tissue behind the retina functions similarly. The artist made them too human. Almost friendly." You pointed with your pencil at the eye on the diagram. "That's biologically dishonest."
Vincent looked closer. True ā the eyes on the illustration had something sentimental about them.
"You know your stuff." It came immediately. Without thinking.
"Marine biology." No fuss about it. "You're Mr. Whittman from The Whittman Hour."
Vincent's eyes grew slightly wider. He extended his hand ā and noticed he was doing it before he had decided to. "Vincent Whittman."
"(Y/N) (L/N)." You took his hand. It was a firm handshake. So firm that he was briefly surprised. Vincent had never experienced such a greeting from a woman before.
"I've seen your show once." Your hands released. Your gaze drifted back to the diagram, looking for more errors. "You had Dr. Hargrove as a guest. He didn't mention the most interesting part."
"What would that have been?" Vincent let his charm do its work. Automatically, like breathing.
"His olfactory system. How sharks navigate olfactory gradients in currents. Instead he explained three times that sharks are dangerous." You rolled your eyes and jotted something in your notebook. "People already knew that."
"Maybe I didn't ask him." Vincent actually briefly thought about how that evening had gone.
A longer silence fell between you.
"Yes." You almost breathed it. "That's what I thought."
Vincent opened his mouth. Closed it.
When was the last time someone criticized me so directly ā without the aftershock, without the subsequent attempt to take it back?
"Then tell me about it." He leaned provocatively a little closer. "About the olfactory system."
His proximity didn't intimidate you in the slightest. You wondered more what it was supposed to mean. You looked him up and down. First his face ā the mismatched eyes, left green, right blue, which held you longer than planned ā, then back to what he had said.
That might be worth it.
āāāāąØą§āāāā
Twenty minutes later you were still standing there.
The olfactory system had become deep-sea currents, deep-sea currents had become the hadal zone, the hadal zone had become bioluminescence, and then:
"Imagine living in absolute darkness and still being able to glow." You said it almost casually, but it had a tone that wasn't casual at all. And at the very latest when your eyes lit up, the lie was over. "No external light. Nothing from outside. Simply yourself."
Vincent was silent.
He observed your posture. The way you talked as if the entire crowd around you didn't exist ā as if only the diagram, the shark, and what you knew about it existed. That his interest in marine biology would ever help him meet a woman confused him a little.
But he thought sharply. About spotlights. About cameras. About the attention he had built up over years like an architecture that people admired from the outside ā and that was sometimes surprisingly empty on the inside.
Where, he thought ā and it was unusual, because he rarely thought such sentences ā
Where have you been all this time, my dear?
He pushed it aside quickly. Immediately.
"You should come on the show." His large hands clapped together. His smile was broad and almost too bright. Too enthusiastic for a man who otherwise always knew exactly how much he showed.
You looked at him. Again from head to toe, and your face made it clear: not impressed.
"Not like Hargrove." He didn't let up. "No soothing back-and-forth. I want you to talk about the hadal zone. About the olfactory system. About what we don't know." He paused. Carefully took your hands in his. "That would interest people."
Your eyes went down to your joined hands. You weren't used to this kind of behavior from men. They normally kept their distance from you.
"Do you believe that?" You looked skeptically into his mismatched eyes. In your head you immediately ran through the biological reasons for it. Everything known about heterochromia. Genetic mosaicism, uneven melanin distributionā
"I know it. Because it interests me." A pause. "And I am an excellent measure of my audience." Vincent smiled with satisfaction and released your hands.
You studied him. That direct gaze that let nothing through that it didn't want to let through.
Uncertainty spread. Not fear ā never fear. More like weighing: A woman is never taken seriously. And now an opportunity is presenting itself to show the world what women are capable of.
"I'll think about it." Your lips curved slightly.
Vincent Whittman, who was used to his name opening doors before he even extended his hand ā noticed that this I'll think about it weighed more than every yes of the evening.
When you said goodbye ā notebook under your arm, handshake brief and firm, no effusive farewell ā he watched you go.
He pulled out a cigarette. Didn't light it.
Nothing wasted, he thought. Perfect design.
And wasn't quite sure whether he meant the sharks.
Chapter II: Under the Spotlights
NBC Studio 3B, January 1939.
You had written back to the studio. With one condition: I talk about what's relevant.
Vincent had replied personally: That's what I expect. ā W.
āāāāąØą§āāāā
In the studio, Vincent wore his mask perfectly.
You registered this matter-of-factly, watching from the sidelines as he spoke with the cameraman. More focused. More controlled. The attention he commanded in the room condensed here into something precise, calculated. He knew exactly when to set a pause. When to talk to create momentum.
At the gala he had been more private. Here he was a role ā a very well-played one.
He walked slowly toward you. His charm surrounded his entire aura.
"You're analyzing the studio." His gaze briefly left the cameraman.
"RCA TK-1." You looked at him briefly. "I read about it this week."
That appraising look ā you recognized it from the gala. Here it was sharper.
"Coffee?" he asked, out of etiquette.
"No, thank you." You didn't need anyone acting out of etiquette like an obedient dog. You wanted a man who knew what he wanted ā not one who asked because it was the proper thing to do.
Vincent raised an eyebrow. Minimally. But there.
He said nothing more. Went back to the set.
And if he briefly turned his head on the way to check whether you were still standing there ā well. That was surely just professional interest.
āāāāąØą§āāāā
The recording began at 3 PM.
The assistant counted down. The camera rolled. Vincent sat at the host's desk, you across from him. Then something happened that you hadn't expected: Vincent leaned back, completely relaxed, and looked at you as though this were a normal conversation.
"Ladies and gentlemen." His voice had a different quality in front of the microphone ā deeper, calmer, with weight. "My guest today researches a field that most of us believe we know more about than we actually do. The ocean. More specifically: the inhabitants that frighten us most." A brief pause in which he looked at you. "(Y/N) (L/N) is a marine biologist. Her specialty is sharks. And she's here to explain what we're getting wrong."
He turned to you. "Let's start with the obvious. Sharks ā dangerous. Yes or no?"
"That's the wrong question." Your eyes looked at Vincent, combatively.
Silence in the studio. The assistant with the clipboard looked up.
Vincent blinked. Leaned slightly forward. "Then ask me the right one." His smile was provocative.
"Are sharks a real threat to us? Statistically: no. In 1937 there were fewer than fifty documented attacks worldwide. Fewer than ten of them fatal." You looked at him. "More people die annually from lightning strikes, or falling coconuts."
Vincent blinked in disbelief. "Coconuts?"
"Coconuts." You confirmed it without humor, which somehow made it even funnier. The cameraman was visibly struggling.
"So not a monster." Vincent smiled, almost smitten. "What then?"
"An animal that has survived four hundred million years." You folded your hands on your knees. "Sharks are older than trees, Mr. Whittman. Trees have existed for 350 million years. Sharks for 400. They survived five mass extinctions. The dinosaurs came and went. Sharks remained."
Vincent was silent for a moment. These were all facts he already knew. But he had to bring the audience along. "Why?" he asked the question.
Something in you relaxed, barely noticeably. "Because nothing about them is wasted. Every fin, every tooth, the ampullae of Lorenziniā"
"What are those?" Vincent interrupted you. This question wasn't for the audience. It was for him.
"Gel-filled channels in the skin. Electroreceptors." You briefly pointed to your own face, to your cheekbones. "Here. They respond to electric fields ā below one millionth of a volt. A shark can sense the heartbeat of a buried fish under sand."
Vincent looked at you. Far too long. The image of your cheeks burned itself into his memory.
"The heartbeat," he repeated slowly. It was almost a whisper.
"Yes." You looked at him. "No heart beats unnoticed near a shark."
Something in your eyes was dangerous and Vincent didn't know what to do with himself.
The studio was very quiet.
The assistant had stopped writing.
Vincent cleared his throat to distract. "And the lateral line organ?"
You looked at him briefly in surprise ā so he really had read what he said he'd read.
"Pressure sensors along the entire body. They perceive vibrations in the water. Breathing movements. Heartbeat. Changes in current." You paused. "In darkness, without light, without scent ā a shark still knows what exists around it. It feels it."
Vincent turned his pen in his hand. Slowly. His gaze didn't leave you.
"You're making sharks impossibly eerie right now," he chuckled.
"I'm making them precise." A brief pause. "That's your problem with sharks, not mine."
Someone behind the camera laughed softly. Gerald, probably. Vincent didn't glance at him.
"Anything else we're getting wrong?" he asked.
"Sharks don't sleep."
Vincent waited.
"Not the way we do. They have no deep sleep. Some species must swim constantly because otherwise they can't breathe ā they need the water current through their gills. So they rest with open eyes. Always in motion. Always awake." You briefly looked at the table. "Some researchers say they know no rest. I say they've learned a different kind of rest. One that looks like movement from the outside."
Silence.
Vincent leaned back. His face had a quality he rarely showed on camera ā not the host's mask, not the calculated charm. Simply: thinking.
"That is," he said slowly, "the most interesting thing ever said in this studio."
You looked at him. "That was also the goal."
He laughed ā brief, genuine, the tone that had nothing to do with the studio ā and for a moment, just one, both of them saw it: the camera was rolling, but this was no longer an interview.
āāāāąØą§āāāā
After the recording.
You were packing your documents into your bag when Vincent appeared beside you.
"Dinner." No question. His mismatched eyes briefly swept over you. He knew now who you were. His instinct for people had told him the rest.
You looked at him in disbelief. "That sounds like an assumption."
A small pause. Vincent's features softened. "Would you accompany me?"
Better. Not perfect, but better.
"One hour." You raised a finger.
āāāāąØą§āāāā
The one hour became more than 60 minutes.
Somewhere between the olfactory system and the deep sea, the conversation had changed direction ā imperceptibly, like a current that turns. You talked about Massachusetts, about your father, about the article at sixteen that had set everything in motion.
Vincent listened in a way you hadn't expected. Not the polite tone of the interviewer. Something quieter. Something that felt like: I'm nowhere else.
"The rest was stubbornness," you said. "My professor explained that field research at sea was no place for women." You rolled your eyes. Your fingers played with the dessert cutlery.
"What did you say?" Vincent drank his wine, hoping his inner self would finally settle down.
"That he was wrong. Then I submitted the study." You shrugged. "It was published. But not under my name." Your teeth briefly ground together.
Vincent laughed briefly. His cheeks were already slightly flushed from the wine. He found you ā he had to admit, as much as he didn't want to ā fascinating from head to toe. Not in the usual way. In the disturbingly real way.
He straightened his posture. Set the glass down. His eyes focused on you. "What did you do with the man at the gala ā that, with the names. Anderson, Curie, Lamarr. You rattled all of that off by heart."
"Yes."
For years. Every day, to every man who needed it. Practiced in front of the mirror at first, until it became routine. You loved these women, each one of them. But it was also exhausting. Like constantly having to explain that you existed.
"How often do you need that?" Vincent rested his head in his hand.
"Often enough that it was worth learning by heart." You briefly looked at your hands, then back at him. "Does it bother you?"
"No." He turned the glass. A pause in which he looked at you ā a moment too long for a neutral evening. "It makes me curious what you would do with someone who doesn't go away so easily."
It wasn't clear. Nor accidental.
You took a sip of wine.
"No one has dared that so far." The words breathed over your lips.
Vincent said nothing.
But he looked at you. A moment too long.
And for the first time that evening ā perhaps for the first time since November ā he thought the sentence to its end, the one he had broken off at the gala.
Where have you been all this time?
He finished his wine. Ordered another.
āāāāąØą§āāāā
The Wednesdays became a rhythm.
Not always the same restaurant. Sometimes a walk along the Hudson, when the weather permitted. The conversations began with marine biology and ended somewhere that had no name.
Vincent learned that you hadn't been back to Massachusetts in three years. You learned that his parents had never really shown interest in his career. Probably a reason why he pushed himself so hard. No one told you that ā his face told you, whenever he mentioned it.
One evening he called by telephone. "I read your study."
"All 465 pages?" You coughed into your tea, mid-dinner, the long cord of the receiver stretched across half the room.
"The passage on magnetoreception ā that's not yet proven, is it?" His voice sounded deeper over the telephone, but still familiar. Strangely familiar, for someone you'd only known for months.
"No. I need more field data." You wedged the receiver between shoulder and head and wiped up a small tea puddle.
"When do you leave?" His words came so quickly that you were briefly caught off guard.
Why would a TV host have so much interest in your research? Sure, he loved sharks ā that was obvious. But magnetoreception?
"In June. It's an Atlantic expedition and lasts 4 weeks." You sat back down, ready to continue eating.
Only the crackling of the telephone.
"I want to come along." Vincent's voice was firm. No questions.
You had looked at the receiver as though you could read it. "This is a research expedition. Not an excursion."
"I know." You could hear the smile in his words.
"I doubt that." Your nails scratched irritably across the table. "There's no comfort. No good food. The sea doesn't stick to the broadcast schedule."
"I know."
It went quiet. You continued eating.
"NBC has a research budget," he said finally. "If the expedition leader agrees, I'll come along. If he says no, this conversation is over."
"And if he says yes?" you asked with a full mouth, without thinking.
"Then I'll bring warm clothes, no expectations, and a film crew."
He hung up without saying goodbye.
You looked at the receiver.
Then you kept eating. But the food tasted somehow better than before.
Chapter III: Open Water
Atlantic, 34Ā°N / 62Ā°W, June 1939. Research vessel Meridian.
The ship was smaller than Vincent had expected.
He stood on the pier in Halifax, looking at the Meridian ā 41 meters, working steel, no promenade deck ā and let nothing show. He had practiced that over years: lock away surprise before it reached your face.
"You're in the way." Your voice sounded behind him.
You slipped quickly past him. Duffel bag on your shoulder, clipboard under your arm, gaze already fixed on the ship. No greeting. No glad you made it. Simply: onward.
He followed.
Behind him came Torres with two camera cases and the expression of someone who wasn't sure whether he was heading toward an adventure or his own end. "Mr. Whittman. The ship is... compact."
"Torres." Vincent was cool.
"Yes?" Torres was slightly rattled.
"Breathe."
āāāāąØą§āāāā
Dr. Ellison was a compact man in his mid-fifties, with the handshake of a seaman and the skepticism of someone who had experienced too many journalists who thought field research was an excursion.
He looked at Vincent like something unfamiliar that he hadn't yet figured out. "Y/N says you want to document."
"Yes." It came tersely from Vincent.
"That means: no questions while we're working. Follow the safety instructions. Don't go overboard." A pause. "That last one wasn't a joke."
"I thought it was." The sarcasm was clearly audible in Vincent's voice.
Ellison sized him up briefly. Then, almost imperceptibly, a nod.
You stood nearby and watched it.
Internally you noted his behavior. Unexpected.
āāāāąØą§āāāā
The open sea was not the sea one knew from the pier.
It had no edge. No horizon in the usual sense. Only water in all directions, beneath a sky without end, and the ship between them ā which suddenly seemed very, very small.
Vincent stood on the afterdeck, hands in his pockets, and let it wash over him.
There's nothing to moderate here.
That was new.
You found him there, on your way to the lab, and slowed briefly.
"The brain looks for a fixed point," you said. Matter-of-factly, stepping beside him. "On open water there isn't one. It passes. Usually by the second day."
Your gazes met and something pleasantly warm settled between you.
"And if not?" Vincent teased you with a smile on his lips.
"Then you had the opportunity to turn back at the pier." You walked on.
Vincent watched you go. Then back at the water.
He noticed he was smiling.
āāāāąØą§āāāā
The first evening at sea.
The crew ate together in the small galley ā too little space, too many elbows, the ship rocking gently, and Torres had already lost his spoon twice. Ellison talked about the course. Two biologists argued about sample bottles.
Vincent sat across from you. Watched as you ate and simultaneously leafed through your notebook, as though eating were a side activity.
"Do you always read while eating?" he asked charmingly.
"Reading is always." You briefly looked up. "Does that bother you?" By now Vincent knew that this does that bother you? was an invitation to verbal combat.
"No." He drank his coffee. "I'm just trying to figure out whether you sleep at all."
"4 to 5 hours. Enough." You rummaged on, completely disinterested.
Torres looked up from his soup bowl. "For a human?"
You looked at him. "Yes."
"Okay." He looked back into his soup. Completely intimidated.
Vincent bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. You saw it anyway. You quickly looked away, but not quickly enough.
āāāāąØą§āāāā
On the second day Vincent asked something for the first time that wasn't for the camera.
You were standing on the foredeck, the Meridian cutting quietly through the water, Torres filming the wave formation somewhere on the stern. Good. Far enough away.
"Magnetoreception." Vincent leaned against the railing, arms crossed. No camera. No notes. "You believe sharks use the Earth's magnetic field like a map."
"Not believe. The data suggests it. The field evidence is still missing." You looked at him briefly. "Why?"
"Because I don't understand it." He said it without hedging. "How does something navigate by a field it can't see, can't hear, can't smell?"
You looked at the water.
"How do you navigate in a foreign city?"
"Signs. Streets. A map."
"Sharks have their own built-in map." You briefly pointed to your own head. "The magnetite crystals in the tissue react to the Earth's magnetic field like a compass. No signs needed. They always know where north is." A brief pause. "Some researchers believe they feel changes in the field as something like pressure. As though the space around them has a direction."
Vincent was silent.
"That is," he said finally, "either very reassuring or very unsettling."
"Depends on whether you can imagine always knowing where you are."
Vincent looked at you briefly. "Can you?"
Your lips parted uncertainly. A heavy breath.
"At sea, yes." You closed your eyes and savored the wind.
Vincent savored the sight of you.
But he noticed you had left out the land.
āāāāąØą§āāāā
On the third day Torres lost the tripod overboard.
It was his own fault ā he hadn't secured it properly, a small wave, and it was gone. Torres stood at the railing watching it go. He knew he was about to deliver very politely some very bad news.
Vincent stepped beside him. Also looked at the water. "When did you last properly secure it?"
Torres startled and screamed. But calmed himself again.
"That... Halifax?" he looked at his boss uncertainly.
Silence.
"Mr. Whittman, the tripod cost 300 dollarsā" it burst out of the cameraman in a panic.
"Torres." Vincent placed a hand dangerously on Torres's shoulder.
"Yes?" The panic was barely concealed.
"The sea now has a tripod. What are you going to do about it?"
Torres swallowed. "Nothing?" It was more of a question.
"Good." Vincent clapped him briefly on the shoulder. "Secure everything from now on. To everything." Vincent's voice was dangerous.
You had observed the whole thing from the laboratory entrance. When Vincent turned around and saw you standing there, he briefly raised his eyebrows. Yes, I know.
You looked away. But your mouth twitched.
āāāāąØą§āāāā
On the fourth day: the first shark.
Early morning light, calm sea, the sky still pink at the edges. A dorsal fin, 30 meters from the ship. Slow and steady ā as though the ship were a trivial thing one took note of and then forgot.
Vincent already knew sharks. Had seen them before, but as always it felt both calming and exciting to him.
His gaze drifted to you.
You had the binoculars up. Eyes fixed on the fin, and your face had a quality he recognized ā but here it was different. More open. As though the ship, the water, and this morning had together opened something that in New York had always been half-closed.
He watched you longer than necessary.
"Female," you nearly called out without lowering the binoculars. "About 8 years. She's already patrolling ā females do that differently. She's following the corridor." Now you lowered the binoculars. You looked at him. "Well?" you added with a grin broader than anything else.
"Bigger than I thought," said Vincent and fell in love with that grin.
"Not the shark." He made a vague gesture.
Carefully you stepped toward Vincent, to lean against the railing too. But something between you had changed. Something crackled.
"The feeling of coming home." Vincent's voice was calm. His hand was tempted to cup your cheek.
"Yes," you breathed. "Exactly that."
Torres cursed behind you, because he'd gotten the camera up too late.
"Torres," said Vincent indignantly, without turning around.
"I know." The poor boy shook.
"You missed the entire shark." Vincent added and turned fully to face him. Internally he hated Torres right now. He had ruined the moment between you and him.
"I know, Mr. Whittman."
"The entire shark."
"Thank you, I'm awareā"
"Torres."
"Yes?"
"Tomorrow morning. Camera ready. Before the sun comes up."
A pause. "...how early is early?"
You said, without hesitation: "5 o'clock." You turned your gaze from Vincent to Torres.
Torres looked at the water, where the fin had long since disappeared. Then at the sky. "Well, great."
You and Vincent looked at each other briefly.
And this time you laughed ā brief, genuine, the laugh without reserve. Vincent registered it with a clarity he couldn't explain, and laughed with you.
āāāāąØą§āāāā
The days on the ship had their own rhythm.
Mornings: data, samples, observations. Torres filmed, you worked, Ellison navigated, the two other biologists spoke exclusively with each other about things even Vincent didn't understand.
Afternoons: Vincent began asking questions. First for the camera. Then no longer.
How deep can a Great White dive? (Up to 900 meters. Rare, but documented.)
How old do they get? (Over 70 years. We don't know exactly yet.) Seventy. (At least.)
Do they really never sleep? (They rest. A different kind of rest. Always in motion, but consciousness drifts. We call it paradoxical sleep.)
You noticed that he listened. Not with the host's brain that was already formulating the next question, but with the face of someone to whom what you were saying actually did something.
That was rare.
You also noticed that you started telling more than was asked. A sentence longer. An extra detail. Because there was someone who took it in.
You noticed that with some delay.
āāāāąØą§āāāā
On the fifth evening you sat on the afterdeck, the sun not quite down, the water orange-red.
Vincent had a glass of water in his hand ā the ship had no whiskey, which he had initially considered a serious problem, and which he had by now forgotten to miss ā and looked at you from the side.
"Why not a university?" he asked out of nowhere.
You looked at him briefly. "What?"
"You could have had a professorship. Why field research?" Vincent leaned on his arms.
You looked at the water.
"Because the sea is not a theory." Said simply. "In the lab you can analyze samples. Evaluate data. That's important. But the animal in the water is something different from the animal on paper. I want the real thing."
"Even when the real thing is uncomfortable?" a smile played at Vincent's lips.
"Especially then."
He turned the glass in his hand. A pause in which he considered whether to keep asking. Decided to. "And in private? Is the real thing always better there too?"
You looked at him briefly. The question had a different tone than the ones about sharks.
"That depends on what the real thing is," you said finally.
He nodded slowly.
āāāāąØą§āāāā
The storm came in the second week without warning.
First a freshening of the wind. Then waves that began to rock the ship ā gently at first, then more. Ellison called everyone below deck. Outside it rained, waves taking the ship from the side.
The Meridian worked. That was the word Ellison used: The ship works. It groaned and swayed and nothing that was set down stayed put.
Vincent sat in the common room with your notebook on his knees ā he couldn't leave it on the table, it would have slid right off ā and watched Torres hold his coffee cup with one hand while clinging to the table with the other, with the face of a man reconsidering his life choices.
"Torres."
"Yes, Mr. Whittman."
"Are you alright?"
"No, Mr. Whittman."
You came down the narrow stairs, one hand on the railing, a coffee cup held firmly in the other. You sat beside Vincent ā not across from him as usual, beside him, because the bench against the table offered more support ā and held your cup with both hands.
The ship rocked. Rocked again.
Torres stood up. "I ā I'll just lie down for a bit." He disappeared, slightly greenish.
You were alone.
"Seasick?" Vincent asked, looking at you.
"No." You drank coffee. "I like storms."
He looked at your calm face. "Oh really?" The sarcasm was back.
"The ship is more alive." You briefly glanced at the wall behind which the sea was. "Normally you sometimes forget you're on the water."
The ship took a wave from the side. You both groaned at the same moment, both simultaneously reached for the table with your free hand.
A brief pause. Warmth flushed your cheeks.
"Okay," said Vincent. "I understand that."
You looked at him. Your mouth twitched slightly. "You're not seasick."
"Obviously not." Almost annoyed, while holding on.
"I didn't expect that." You provoked him.
"I was surprised." He drank from your coffee cup without asking. "But the rockingā" He considered. "It's like the open water on the first day. No fixed point. Only this time not a still one either."
You looked at him for a moment. Had no problem with him simply taking your coffee.
"Exactly," you said quietly.
The ship lurched again. Somewhere something fell over, you could hear it crash. Ellison called out something in English that wasn't the kind of English one used in polite company.
Vincent briefly glanced toward the sound. Then back at you. "The follow-up study."
You raised an eyebrow.
"The magnetoreception data you'll need next year." He held your cup while the ship worked again. "NBC has a research budget. With the material from this expedition I can argue for a follow-up show that co-finances the next expedition."
You were silent.
"That's too generous," you admitted.
"It's sensible." Vincent smiled.
The next wave seized the ship.
Not like the ones before ā bigger, from the wrong side, the Meridian threw itself sideways with a jolt, the bench gave no hold, your coffee cup was gone, your hand found nothingā
Vincent's arm was faster than any thought.
He pulled you to him. Firmly. His arm around your waist, his hand on your arm, your face against his chest ā and the Meridian righted itself again, the swaying became smaller, the storm outside farther away, and you: still.
Neither of you moved.
You felt his heartbeat. Faster than expected. Much faster, for someone who looked as though nothing could shake him.
His arm stayed. Not loose, not polite ā firm. As though he had no intention of changing that, as long as the sea had something to say about it. You felt the warmth through the fabric. The matter-of-factness with which he had reacted. No question, no announcement.
Simply: there.
Men kept their distance from you. That was the rule you knew. Those who didn't kept it wrong.
This wasn't wrong.
Slowly you raised your head.
Vincent was already looking down at you. Not the host's gaze. Not the calculated charm he wore like a well-fitting jacket. That didn't exist right now. Only him ā Vincent, not Whittman ā and his heartbeat under your hand, which you only noticed now, because your hand was still there, flat against his chest.
"Are you alright?" he asked. Quietly. Almost too quietly for the storm.
You wanted to say something, but didn't.
Not because you had no answer. But because the answer would have been too honest: Yes. Unusually yes.
"Yes," you pressed out.
Vincent nodded. His gaze didn't leave yours.
The ship kept working. The storm outside. Ellison's voice somewhere in the corridor, far away. And here, the bench that was too narrow. His arm still around you, your hand on his chest and the silence between you, which didn't feel like silence.
You took your hand away. Slowly. Very slowly ā not because you had to, but because it was the sensible thing. Because you were on a ship.
But you didn't move away.
Neither did he.
"Y/N."
You looked at him.
He said nothing more. Just your name, in a tone as though that alone were a question he didn't yet have an answer to ā and as though for the first time in a long time he wasn't sure how this continued.
The ship rocked more gently. The storm retreated.
You looked at his hand, still on your arm.
Then at him.
"The study," you said finally. Quietly. Almost inaudibly.
A twitch at his mouth. Not the broad smile he used in front of cameras. Smaller. More real. The one he rarely showed. "The study."
"Write me the proposal." You almost commanded it. Because you had to say something that wasn't what you actually wanted to say.
Vincent knew that. You could see it in him.
His arm slid slowly from your shoulders ā but his hand stayed a moment longer on your arm, before it too let go. As though he had no particular desire to be quick about it.
The ship rocked. Your shoulders touched. Stayed.
In the common room of the Meridian, while the storm outside grew smaller and the Atlantic came to its senses, Vincent Whittman sat beside a woman who never told him what he wanted to hear, who carried a worn notebook like a treasure ā and thought for the first time in years that this woman was perfect for him.
Just don't let it stop.
āāāāąØą§āāāā
The ship was heading toward Halifax. The sea completely calm, as though the storm had never existed. Stars that you would never see in the city.
Vincent sat alone on the afterdeck.
He had been holding the cigarette for a while without lighting it. Looked at the water. Thought about nothing in particular ā or tried to.
Footsteps behind him.
You came without your notebook. A rare moment during the entire expedition. Vincent noticed immediately ā the empty hands, the way you walked without the weight of the clipboard. A little calmer, a little less purposeful.
You sat down beside him.
Not across. Beside. Like on the bench during the storm, only the ship was still now.
Neither said anything.
The water slid past the ship. The engines deep and steady beneath you. And above you the stars, so many that it seemed almost dishonest, as though someone had overdone it.
"I've missed this," you whispered finally.
"What?" Vincent turned his head toward you.
"That." Peacefully you closed your eyes. "Sitting outside without reason. I always work. On the ship there's always something to do." A small pause. "But this..."
Vincent looked at you from the side.
Your profile in the faint light ā your calm brow, your hair that the sea wind had made a little wilder than in New York. No effort, no intention. Simply you, as you were when no one was watching.
"What are you taking with you?" he asked.
You looked at him briefly. "From the expedition?"
"Yes."
You thought it over. Really. "The female on the fourth day. The storm night." You paused. "And something else."
"What?" Vincent asked curiously. His heart beat faster, as it always did around you.
You were quiet for a moment.
Then you looked at him. That direct gaze ā the one that never let through what it didn't want to let through. And this time it let something through. Clear and still like the water tonight.
"That's a strange question for someone who was there himself." You opened your eyes again and tilted your head.
"I'm asking because I know my answer." His voice was calm. No calculation in it, no charm. Just him. "And I want to know if yours is the same."
"What's your answer?" you asked.
Vincent turned fully toward you.
"That some things are better when there's no microphone around." His smile was real and looked even more beautiful out here.
You looked at him for a long time. Longer than you looked at most things ā and you always looked at things long enough to understand them. Slowly your cheeks grew warm.
This time you couldn't find a word for it.
"Yes," you said finally. Quietly. Not the matter-of-fact quiet. The other one.
The wind came very gently from the water. The ship barely rocked ā only that light, steady rhythm that you no longer felt after two weeks, because it had come to feel like breathing.
You looked back at the stars.
And then ā slowly, without announcement, without a decision you could have explained to yourself ā you leaned your head against his shoulder.
Vincent held completely still.
Not out of surprise. More like someone afraid of making the wrong movement and ending something he doesn't want to end. His shoulder was warm. His breath was calm ā or he was trying very hard to make it seem so.
His heartbeat wasn't.
You could feel that too.
Slowly he laid his head against yours.
Nothing more. No word, no gesture, no explanation. Only that: his head against yours, his shoulder beneath your cheek, the quiet gliding of the ship through a night too still to feel real.
You closed your eyes.
Vincent stared at the water and saw none of it.
Where have you been all this time? he thought ā the same sentence he had been forbidding himself since November, and which tonight stayed, calm and undriveable, like a current you couldn't swim against.
My dear.
This time he let the sentence stand.
The cigarette in his hand ā he looked down at it briefly, then tucked it away.
You noticed. Lifted your head minimally.
"You've barely smoked in two weeks," you said quietly.
"No."
"Why not?"
Vincent looked at the water.
"No idea," Vincent breathed.
That was a lie. You both knew it.
You leaned your head back. He let you.
Halifax was still hours away and neither of you wished it closer.
At some point, without either of you having decided when ā your hand drifted to his. Not firmly, not definitively. Just your fingers beside his on the deck. A touch that was a question.
His hand turned.
And took yours.
The ship glided through the night. The ocean dark and endless around you. And below, in the depths, four hundred million years old and perfectly in their element ā
ā the sharks swam.
No heart beats unnoticed.
Vincent closed his eyes.
And this time he didn't think the sentence to its end.
He didn't need to anymore.
End ā for now.
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