"No, that's fine, thanks, Becky," began Jack.  All he needed to do right now was to sleep.  "I-"<br/><br/>He stopped.  Realized what a fool he was.  What he needed was not to dismiss this vision of beauty.  On the contrary.  He needed an excuse to make her come back.<br/><br/>"Urm, actually, there is<span style="font-style: italic">one</span>thing..."  he got out.  "It isn't urgent, but if you get a spare few minutes."  He indicated his ipod, lying on the bedside table.  "Does the shop have a charger for my ipod?  I seem to have lost it in my travels, and the battery's nearly run down."  In fact it was full, but he wasn't going to tell her that.<br/><br/>As Becky left, he tried not to look at her rear view.  The sight was affecting him more than he'd have liked.  He noticed that the one flaw to her pefect grooming was that the zipper at the rear of her uniform was down, just an inch or so.  Without even thinking what he was doing, he said...<br/><br/>"Oh - hang on just a  moment."<br/><br/>And, when she stopped, he went across to her and zipped it up.  After all, he didn't want the poor girl to get into trouble with the captain for being improperly dressed.  Not to mention that, innocent as it was - it was the touch of a woman, more or less.  Or, at least, nearly so.  "Your zipper," he said.  "It was down a bit.  Just..."<br/><br/>Then sanity took over and he wondered why he'd done such a weird thing!<br/><br/>*****<br/><br/>A few minutes later, he was lying back on his bunk.  The pain was still there, but he refused to take painkillers.  Last thing he wanted was to get an addiction to the things.<br/><br/>And then there was a timid rap on his door.<br/><br/>"Come in, it's unlocked," he said, assuming it was the nurse returning with the meds he'd promised.<br/><br/>And then Jack's jaw dropped as he saw who was walking into the cabin."