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would grab an ice cream at the Sweet Shop and walk in the moonlight. Then maybe we’d find a bench, or sit out on the pier, and gaze up into the night sky.” Turk looks up to the ceiling of the sleeping cabin, as if it really was the night sky, and points up. Juliana looks up as well.
He continues, “While gazing up, we notice a small bright dot, the brightest dot in the sky besides the Moon, a dot that we know is Jupiter. Then we would look at each other nonchalantly and say: Yeah, we’ve been there, we visited her moon Europa and took a stroll hand-in-hand.”
Then Juliana adds, “…and then we’d say - We’ll always have Europa!” They both bust out laughing, hunched over now, trying not to be too loud and attract attention.
Turk gently places his hand on her cheek, to return her gaze to his eyes and says, “Yes, it’s a little strange isn’t it? We’ve spent our whole time together so-far in space and now on this moon. I guess you can say we have a far out relationship!”
“ Oh Jeez! ” she says shaking her head, as she does a lot with Turk, as he is always saying something off-the-wall. Then she perks to attention and says, “Hey… wait a minute, did you say relationship ?” She locks her eyes to his, still being a bit silly.
“Ah, well, what I mean by that, is… well, you know…” Turk says, playfully stuttering, now looking at the floor.
“No… I don’t know. What?” She is now leaning over to him, their faces just a few inches apart as he looks back into her eyes.
“Well Juliana, I guess I mean… I love you!” Turk says a matter-of-factly, keeping his eyes locked with hers.
Juliana’s eyes widen, she pulls back a bit and chuckles slightly. “What? What did you just say mister?”
“You heard me!” He responds.
“Jeez, are you being serious?” She asks, peering at him with squinting eyes.
He reaches around and grabs the back of her head, pulling her nearer, then leans over and kisses her soft lips. She looks deep into his eyes for a second before returning the kiss, a little harder this time. It had been a few weeks since they were able to be passionate with each other, and now they could hear their hearts starting to thump in their chests, as they started going at it a little stronger.
“Ah hem!” is heard from the port door. They separate and see Hicks coming inside.
“Sorry, did I interrupt something?” Hicks booming voice asks, knowing darn well that he did.
“Ah… no, we were just talking , come on in,” Turk says with a little chuckle, while giving Juliana a wink; then squeezing her hand. She just looks at Hicks and smiles with blushing cheeks, giving him a hello nod. Then she looks at Turk with a complete look of shock and surprise on her face, as she tries to determine if he was joking around or being serious. He once told her that he had never told a girl ‘I love you.’
     
Turk and Hicks start talking mission details.
     
Juliana is lost in thought.
     

Chapter 7: Nuclear Heated Torpedoes
“J uliana… Juliana… wake-up…” Turk is shaking her, trying to rouse her from a deep sleep. A little spittle is on her chin and now her eyes are open very wide, looking around as if she doesn’t know where she is.
“Hey-hey there sleepy head, it’s time to get rolling! Ah… you’ve got a little, ah, drool right there on your chin. Very sexy ,” he whispers.
She wipes her chin dry, rolls over to her side, still a bit dazed. “Jeez, what time is it?” she croaks in a raspy voice.
“Wow, you were really out of it. It’s 7:05am already.” Turk answers, pulling on her hand to help her out of the lower bunk. She whips her legs out and just sits there; hunched over so she doesn’t bang her head on the top bunk, as there isn’t much room between them.
“Oh, okay. I had trouble falling asleep,” she mumbles as her elbows are resting on her legs and her hands are holding up her head by her chin. “I don’t think I dozed off until after 2:00am, I was afraid I was