Hey everyone! So my big plan today? A dentist appointment. Ha. What about you? Anything interesting? Anyways, my thoughts go out to pbgurl, Its. Not. Me. Its. You., rustupidorjustnotbright, SmileShortLaughTall, Rio's Desire, Sunnyboy02, Devilish Kisses, violet-eyez, AmbriannaM, CLOUDSTRIFELOVER4ever, twilight24, and Evanescence's Love. You guys are sweet and amazing and I do hope you continue to give me your feedback. It means so much to me! Have a great Saturday, and thank you so much again!

011. The End

“I know enough to know when someone trusts you”

It was quite a switch of roles when Daniel grabbed Gemma’s wrist and led her to his car. He opened the door for her, an act which had surprised her. And here she thought chivalry was dead. Maybe it was only alive in Europe. She would have to go to that continent one day… As she was buckling her seatbelt, Daniel slid into the driver’s seat and started the car.

“So where are we going?” she asked as the Rolling Stones began to fill the 2004 Aston Martin. Of course Code Blue would be a driving a car like this one. He couldn’t not be a secret agent from England without a super cool car to go with his persona.

“It’s a surprise,” he said in his usual crisp tone.

Gemma refrained from rolling her eyes and instead glanced out the window. “You’re not the guy threatening my life, are you?” she asked him, her brows perked.

“What are you talking about?” Daniel asked, giving her a blank stare.

“Like in the movies,” Gemma said in a tone that said it was the most obvious thing in the world, meeting his eyes. “It’s always the person you least expect, you know. How genius would it be if you were really the man who had threatened my life, you know? And now that you have me alone…” She gave him a wary glance.

Surprising Gemma, he let out a wolfish laugh. It was the first time she had ever heard him laugh so fully, and Gemma felt her lips twitch up. It was a nice, pure sound. She silently decided he should laugh more often. Whenever he smiled genuinely, his whole face lit up and he kind of resembled an angel. It was the same when he laughed.

“You really like movies, don’t you?” he teased, making a left at the light. “But, I can promise you that I am not threatening your life in any way, and if I was, I would tell you.”

Gemma smiled at this. She had never really believed Daniel was the man behind the threat, but if her life was a movie, it would have definitely been a good possibility. The young woman had always had a strong sense of intuition and she believed it more so than she believed logic. And when she was with Daniel or thought about the man, she didn’t get any sense of foreboding. In fact, if she was completely honest, Gemma felt safe with him. Sure, he could be annoying and the reason she might have high blood pressure at such a young age, but that didn’t deter from the fact that she trusted he would keep her safe.

She trusted him.

Huh.

That was interesting.

Gemma was very guarded unless she had known someone for a while. She had many acquaintances, but she only had one best friend and that was Gillian. Code Blue was definitely not her friend, but she already trusted him. The fact didn’t scare her as much as it interested her, but she wouldn’t question her own feelings. If she couldn’t trust herself, who could she trust?

What’s gotten into you, Gemma? a voice asked inside her mind. She shook her head as subtly as she possibly could, hoping to rid her thoughts of trust and Code Blue and everything else she didn’t want to think about out of her head.

“Thank you,” she told him suddenly, her voice quiet but his words sincere. “For this, I mean. Taking me away from the church, the priest, my parents…”

“I have a question,” Daniel said, cocking his head in her direction but keeping his eyes on her. “I get the feeling that you don’t want to get married in a church, and while I respect that, I can’t help but wonder, then, where do you want to get married?”

Gemma pressed her lips together, deep in thought. She had never actually spent time on the location of her wedding when she was musing about the trivial day. But now that she thought about it, a picture was starting to take place.

“I want a small wedding,” she told him. “I would love to get married on a ship on the ocean at sunset, with the ship completely decorated in sun flowers.”

“Sun flowers?” Daniel asked, the left corner of his lips curling up in amusement. To be honest, he was expecting something fancy like roses or lilies or something along those lines. Not something as familiar and simple as sun flowers.

“I find that sun flowers are the happiest flower,” Gemma explained, despite how illogical it sounded. She didn’t care; this was what she felt, no matter how silly it sounded. “They’re big and yellow and they reach out to the sun, despite how far away it is. They’re not roses, or anything elegant, but they make me smile and that’s what counts.”

Daniel said nothing, but he smiled, as though he was proud of her answer. He finally turned off the road and pulled into a familiar parking lot.

“Hey,” Gemma murmured, her brow furrowing slightly. “We’re at the docks.”

“I was planning on taking you here when we left the church,” he explained, clicking the button that released his seatbelt. “You just happened to mention the fact that you wanted to get married on a ship… Well, that was purely a coincidence.”

“There are no such things as coincidences,” she told him, and though her eyes were teasing, there was a seriousness about her words.

The two exited the car and Daniel led her down to the wooden docks. It was a small part of the larger arena where people housed their various types of boats all throughout the year. The smaller section was for smaller boats, and as Gemma looked around, she felt a flutter of excitement in her heart. Ever since she was a kid, she loved boat rides. She never got sea sick, never worried about the sea…

She always had an interesting outlook on life and death. If it was her time to go, Gemma knew she couldn’t exactly stop it. Might as well go doing something she loved. And she loved sailing.

“A sailboat?” she asked when she saw where Daniel had stopped.

Daniel snapped his head in her direction, checking to see if she was mocking him or even disappointed. However, a brilliant smile eclipsed her features and her green eyes were sparkling. Daniel had to blink, she was shining so bright. He had never seen her look so… beautiful, and he smiled because of it.

“I love sailboats,” she told him, meeting his eyes with hers. “I mean, yachts and speedboats and everything else are fine, but it’s sailboats and ships – real, actual ships – that are the best kind. You feel this whole sense of accomplishment; it’s just you and Mother Nature working together to get to your destination.”

Daniel smiled at her, surprised by her evaluation. “I agree,” he told her genuinely. “I don’t think it counts if you’re on any other vessel other than something you actually have to do manual labor on, and steering a wheel doesn’t count.”

The two hopped on the sailboat which was relatively small. Besides the two of them, they could probably fit two, maybe four more people maximum. But neither of them seemed to mind. Oddly enough, the two worked incredibly well together, unfurling the sail and getting out of the dock and into the actual ocean.

While Gemma looked at the sea as though it was the first time she had seen it, Daniel looked at Gemma, almost in a new light. There was something remarkably endearing about the way she spoke, the way she looked at the sea the boat was sailing on, and she definitely knew her way around a boat. In fact…

“I’ve never met a girl who had as much passion about all things relating to the ocean besides you,” he stated. Though his voice was crisp, it was not condescending. He was serious.

Gemma turned her head away from the ocean and looked at him. Her expression was enigmatic but her cheeks were tainted red. “Then you haven’t met many women,” she told him as flatly as she could, but her voice wavered slightly, indicating to him that his words meant more to her than she was letting on.

He smiled at that. Yet another thing the two shared in common; pride.

“How do you know so much about boats and ships and whatnot?” he asked, deciding to change the subject, if only slightly.

“When I was a kid, my parents owned a sailboat, and they both loved it, especially my dad,” she explained, though her eyes refused to look at him. “We would go out practically every day in summer and my dad would teach me everything he knew about boats, the ocean, even pirates. His passion kindled my own. But as I got older, we stopped going as much. Things came up, we were too busy… But I never got tired of it.” She looked at him then, and he practically fell over upon seeing that she was looking at him with what appeared to be a shy look. “So thank you again. For this. It brings up fond memories.”

It took Daniel a couple of minutes to respond only because he wasn’t sure what to say. “My pleasure,” he finally murmured, and when he said it, he actually meant it.