Merry Christmas [9/11]
Title: Merry Christmas
Fandom: Sea Patrol
Pairing: Mike/Kate
Words: 2004
Summary: 'She’d almost been glad when she’d heard that they were being crash sailed. It meant that instead of spending Christmas sitting at home moping about the fact that she had no one to spend it with she would be on the Hammersley with her friends.'
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
HMAS Hammersley Austere
2311 , 23rd December, 2010
‘X, you have to lie down,’ Swain repeated.
Charge watched the whole situation unfolding in front of him and he couldn’t help but wonder why he’d never noticed before. The CO and XO were involved - and he was sure they weren’t actually in a relationship but their feelings for each other were suddenly so transparent to him.
It explained everything. Especially the CO’s reaction to Jim, and the way he’d stormed around the ship after 2Dads had spread the rumours about the X and Buffer.
It made perfect sense.
He’d actually just never thought about it before.
‘We need to do something,’ the X replied.
‘You need to rest,’ Charge commented. ‘The others are out there, I’m sure everything will be fine.’
She didn’t seem too convinced but she lay back down, much to Swain’s obvious relief. He looked at Charge knowingly.
Charge suddenly became aware that everyone else was having a much worse day than he was. So far he hadn’t been shot, or had to deal with anyone getting shot, and he’d only really been worried for his life for five minutes while he’d pretended not to be able to fix the engine.
Unfortunately Marcus had seen straight through his trick and he’d had to fix it. However he’d only been able to restore the engine to half its capacity - slowing the ship down to half its normal speed.
The door swung open at that moment and Dutchy and RO entered.
‘What happened?’ Dutchy asked. ‘Where’s the CO?’
‘Marcus took him up to the bridge,’ Charge replied.
‘He wants him to order us all to stop fighting or he’ll start shooting,’ Swain continued. ‘We need to get there before the CO calls off the back up.’
‘He wouldn’t,’ RO replied as Jim and 2Dads stepped into austere as well, 2Dads keeping his weapon pointed out towards the engine room.
‘He will if he thinks it’ll help,’ Jim replied, glancing at the X.
The words were there, unspoken and hanging in the air. The CO would do everything he could to try and get XO to safety, even if that meant putting himself in danger.
They had to get to the bridge before he did something stupid.
Swain glanced at Dutchy.
‘You’re bleeding again,’ he commented.
‘I’m fine,’ Dutchy replied, glancing at his arm.
Charge knew normally Swain would argue with the guy but his friend seemed drained, like he’d completely lost the ability to fight with anyone. He watched as the medic stood up.
‘Are we all in?’ Charge asked.
‘All in for what? We don’t even have a plan,’ RO replied.
Charge turned and looked at him. ‘The plan is to get back the bridge. We knocked out one of the guys who’s up there, although Marcus has probably untied him by now. Another guy is tied up in the engine room. That leaves one more and he’ll be guarding austere from the top.’
‘All of us can take down three men,’ Dutchy commented.
‘I can take them all myself!’ 2Dads said from the door.
Charge almost smiled.
The energy in the room was suddenly lifting, like all hope wasn’t gone anymore.
‘Someone needs to stay with the X and Captain Palmer,’ Swain commented.
‘I’ll be OK,’ the X muttered from the floor.
They all looked at her for a moment. She looked anything but fine.
‘I will,’ Jim replied. ‘You all know the layout of the ship better than I do, and I haven’t slept in over 36 hours.’
‘That’s settled then,’ 2Dads grinned. ‘Let’s get these guys!’
HMAS Hammersley CO Cabin
2319, 23rd December, 2010
‘Got it.’
Bird looked at Ryan as he stood up and pulled the ropes off his hands, immediately starting to untie Bird’s.
‘How did you do that?’ she asked.
‘I worked on the docks for a year, remember? The guys there played all sorts of pranks on each other, one of the more common ones was to use sailors knots to tie each other up and see who could get out,’ Ryan smiled at her as the ropes around her wrist fell off.
Bird smiled back. She liked Ryan - she’d always liked him. But this was the first time she’d really seen this side of him. And she could tell he as going to make a good sailor.
‘So what now?’ he asked.
For a moment she was slightly taken aback - somehow in this situation she’d turned into the leader. She’d never thought of herself as a leader, but in that moment she realised that Ryan was turning to her for advice.
‘I guess we head for the bridge, reclaim our ship,’ she replied.
‘Can we do that by ourselves?’
She could see Ryan was scared, and she wondered for a moment why she wasn’t. Everything inside her at that moment just wanted to fight for her ship, her home, without any concern for herself.
She stood up and turned to Ryan, something fell to the floor from the CO’s bed as she did so. She didn’t take any notice of it.
‘We can try,’ she replied.
Ryan knelt down and picked the photo that had fallen up from the ground. Bird looked at it in his hands.
‘Is that the XO?’ he asked.
‘Yeah,’ Bird replied.
Her heart sank a little bit as she looked at the photo of her CO and XO. Half of her wanted to know what it was doing there, and the other half of her just wanted to know that the X was OK. She needed for the XO to be OK.
‘I knew there was something between them,’ Ryan muttered.
‘Let’s go,’ Bird said.
She watched as Ryan shoved the photo in his pocket seemingly subconsciously and she wondered if she should tell him to leave it there. She didn’t.
They had more important things to worry about.
HMAS Hammersley Austere
2324, 23rd December, 2010
‘How is he?’ Kate asked, watching Jim sit next to his man.
Jim shook his head. ‘Not good.’
She tried to take in every detail of Jim, trying to remember how she’d moved on from him. If someone had asked her what her perfect guy was like in her youth she would’ve described Jim. He was sort of like an action hero toy, except one with a heart and a great personality.
He wasn’t a bad dancer either.
And she couldn’t remember how she’d accepted him leaving her so easily. She had sat by Mike’s side that whole night, reflecting on what had gone wrong, and even then she hadn’t been able to figure it out, distracted by Mike’s condition at the time.
Maybe they were just a victim of their circumstances.
‘You know, one day we should meet under better circumstances,’ she commented.
Jim stood up and walked towards her, sitting down on the floor of austere and taking her hand.
‘Tell me about it,’ he replied.
She wanted to ask if he’d left her for any reason other than Mike, because if he had only left her for that then she wanted him to know he’d made a mistake. She could’ve been happy with Jim, she knew that, she’d known that then. He must’ve known that too?
She was about to open her mouth and speak when he did.
‘Why haven’t you told Mike Flynn that you’re in love with him?’
Kate froze inside. No one had ever said it like that to her before - in fact most people danced around the topic rather than asking the direct question. Jim had never danced around anything, he’d always stormed straight in, true SAS style, and said what he’d wanted to say.
‘I…’ she looked at Jim, suddenly realising she didn’t know how to answer the question.
She could blame it on a hundred things. Her father leaving her as a child, her mother failing to ever tell her that she loved her, the fact that every man she’d ever fallen for had left her with some sort of weak excuse.
She was too scared.
‘He knows what I want,’ she whispered after a few moments.
‘Want me to kick his ass and make him make a move?’ Jim smiled at her
This whole situation was far too confusing to her. She just wanted things to be simple, she wanted Jim to sweep her off her feet and make her forget about Mike completely.
She knew that was never going to happen - but the whole lying on the floor of austere with a bullet wound to the stomach, discussing her feelings for Mike with Jim was a little bit odd.
Jim pushed aside a strand of her hair and suddenly it felt OK.
He had never judged her for anything, he’d always been there for her - and she knew he was probably the closest thing she had to a friend at that moment.
‘What if he doesn’t - ‘ she broke off her sentence.
Maybe that was going too far.
Jim laughed and she instantly felt defensive. Why was he laughing at her?
‘Kate, when will you realise that the man is as much in love with you as you are with him,’ Jim replied. ‘I noticed his feelings for you a long time before I realised you returned them for him. He sat here all evening by your side without moving a centimetre. You stopped breathing for only a few seconds and he had tears in his eyes. Kate, the man is an idiot if he hasn’t done everything he can to be with you - but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to.’
She didn’t know how to respond. She didn’t think she’d ever seen Mike even close to tears in the ten years she’d known him. How did Jim see so much when she saw so little? And if Mike was really that in love with her why had he done his best to hurt her so much over the years?
‘Kate, who dares wins,’ Jim commented.
‘You know you don’t have to discuss this with me,’ she said quietly, squeezing his hand to the best of her ability.
‘I want to make sure I didn’t give up the woman of my dreams for nothing,’ he responded, a wounded look flashing across his face for only a second.
And suddenly her slightly uplifted mood was gone. Jim had left her because he’d thought it was what was best for her.
‘Jim…’ she replied. ‘We could’ve worked.’
‘I would never want to date someone knowing I could be the thing preventing them from being with the person they really want to be with,’ Jim replied, squeezing her hand back. ‘There’s been moments I regretted it, but then I told myself you were probably happily married to Mike Flynn with a baby on the way by now and I felt better.’
She felt the tightness in her chest again, and she knew it wasn’t caused by the bullet wound. It was too familiar for that.
It was that easy. It should’ve been that easy. And it had been almost three years since Jim had left her standing in that hospital hallway - confused and alone, and that should have been plenty of time for things to change between her and Mike.
But it hadn’t.
‘Jim…’
‘I shouldn’t have brought it up,’ Jim cut her off. ‘You should be resting.’
‘I’m OK,’ she replied.
‘I’m going to check on Captain Palmer,’ he said, standing up slowly and letting go of her hand.
She didn’t want him to, but she knew he probably needed space for a few moments. He’d gotten the answer to his question, and she’d received the answer to hers without even asking.
She wondered how her and Mike had managed to get so stuck in their situation.
The PA system suddenly jumped to life.
‘This is Mike Flynn, would all Hammersley personnel please return to the bridge.’
Kate looked at Jim.
This was a trap. All the could hope was that the others got to the bridge before the rest of the crew thought the siege was over.
Next.
Fandom: Sea Patrol
Pairing: Mike/Kate
Words: 2004
Summary: 'She’d almost been glad when she’d heard that they were being crash sailed. It meant that instead of spending Christmas sitting at home moping about the fact that she had no one to spend it with she would be on the Hammersley with her friends.'
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
HMAS Hammersley Austere
2311 , 23rd December, 2010
‘X, you have to lie down,’ Swain repeated.
Charge watched the whole situation unfolding in front of him and he couldn’t help but wonder why he’d never noticed before. The CO and XO were involved - and he was sure they weren’t actually in a relationship but their feelings for each other were suddenly so transparent to him.
It explained everything. Especially the CO’s reaction to Jim, and the way he’d stormed around the ship after 2Dads had spread the rumours about the X and Buffer.
It made perfect sense.
He’d actually just never thought about it before.
‘We need to do something,’ the X replied.
‘You need to rest,’ Charge commented. ‘The others are out there, I’m sure everything will be fine.’
She didn’t seem too convinced but she lay back down, much to Swain’s obvious relief. He looked at Charge knowingly.
Charge suddenly became aware that everyone else was having a much worse day than he was. So far he hadn’t been shot, or had to deal with anyone getting shot, and he’d only really been worried for his life for five minutes while he’d pretended not to be able to fix the engine.
Unfortunately Marcus had seen straight through his trick and he’d had to fix it. However he’d only been able to restore the engine to half its capacity - slowing the ship down to half its normal speed.
The door swung open at that moment and Dutchy and RO entered.
‘What happened?’ Dutchy asked. ‘Where’s the CO?’
‘Marcus took him up to the bridge,’ Charge replied.
‘He wants him to order us all to stop fighting or he’ll start shooting,’ Swain continued. ‘We need to get there before the CO calls off the back up.’
‘He wouldn’t,’ RO replied as Jim and 2Dads stepped into austere as well, 2Dads keeping his weapon pointed out towards the engine room.
‘He will if he thinks it’ll help,’ Jim replied, glancing at the X.
The words were there, unspoken and hanging in the air. The CO would do everything he could to try and get XO to safety, even if that meant putting himself in danger.
They had to get to the bridge before he did something stupid.
Swain glanced at Dutchy.
‘You’re bleeding again,’ he commented.
‘I’m fine,’ Dutchy replied, glancing at his arm.
Charge knew normally Swain would argue with the guy but his friend seemed drained, like he’d completely lost the ability to fight with anyone. He watched as the medic stood up.
‘Are we all in?’ Charge asked.
‘All in for what? We don’t even have a plan,’ RO replied.
Charge turned and looked at him. ‘The plan is to get back the bridge. We knocked out one of the guys who’s up there, although Marcus has probably untied him by now. Another guy is tied up in the engine room. That leaves one more and he’ll be guarding austere from the top.’
‘All of us can take down three men,’ Dutchy commented.
‘I can take them all myself!’ 2Dads said from the door.
Charge almost smiled.
The energy in the room was suddenly lifting, like all hope wasn’t gone anymore.
‘Someone needs to stay with the X and Captain Palmer,’ Swain commented.
‘I’ll be OK,’ the X muttered from the floor.
They all looked at her for a moment. She looked anything but fine.
‘I will,’ Jim replied. ‘You all know the layout of the ship better than I do, and I haven’t slept in over 36 hours.’
‘That’s settled then,’ 2Dads grinned. ‘Let’s get these guys!’
HMAS Hammersley CO Cabin
2319, 23rd December, 2010
‘Got it.’
Bird looked at Ryan as he stood up and pulled the ropes off his hands, immediately starting to untie Bird’s.
‘How did you do that?’ she asked.
‘I worked on the docks for a year, remember? The guys there played all sorts of pranks on each other, one of the more common ones was to use sailors knots to tie each other up and see who could get out,’ Ryan smiled at her as the ropes around her wrist fell off.
Bird smiled back. She liked Ryan - she’d always liked him. But this was the first time she’d really seen this side of him. And she could tell he as going to make a good sailor.
‘So what now?’ he asked.
For a moment she was slightly taken aback - somehow in this situation she’d turned into the leader. She’d never thought of herself as a leader, but in that moment she realised that Ryan was turning to her for advice.
‘I guess we head for the bridge, reclaim our ship,’ she replied.
‘Can we do that by ourselves?’
She could see Ryan was scared, and she wondered for a moment why she wasn’t. Everything inside her at that moment just wanted to fight for her ship, her home, without any concern for herself.
She stood up and turned to Ryan, something fell to the floor from the CO’s bed as she did so. She didn’t take any notice of it.
‘We can try,’ she replied.
Ryan knelt down and picked the photo that had fallen up from the ground. Bird looked at it in his hands.
‘Is that the XO?’ he asked.
‘Yeah,’ Bird replied.
Her heart sank a little bit as she looked at the photo of her CO and XO. Half of her wanted to know what it was doing there, and the other half of her just wanted to know that the X was OK. She needed for the XO to be OK.
‘I knew there was something between them,’ Ryan muttered.
‘Let’s go,’ Bird said.
She watched as Ryan shoved the photo in his pocket seemingly subconsciously and she wondered if she should tell him to leave it there. She didn’t.
They had more important things to worry about.
HMAS Hammersley Austere
2324, 23rd December, 2010
‘How is he?’ Kate asked, watching Jim sit next to his man.
Jim shook his head. ‘Not good.’
She tried to take in every detail of Jim, trying to remember how she’d moved on from him. If someone had asked her what her perfect guy was like in her youth she would’ve described Jim. He was sort of like an action hero toy, except one with a heart and a great personality.
He wasn’t a bad dancer either.
And she couldn’t remember how she’d accepted him leaving her so easily. She had sat by Mike’s side that whole night, reflecting on what had gone wrong, and even then she hadn’t been able to figure it out, distracted by Mike’s condition at the time.
Maybe they were just a victim of their circumstances.
‘You know, one day we should meet under better circumstances,’ she commented.
Jim stood up and walked towards her, sitting down on the floor of austere and taking her hand.
‘Tell me about it,’ he replied.
She wanted to ask if he’d left her for any reason other than Mike, because if he had only left her for that then she wanted him to know he’d made a mistake. She could’ve been happy with Jim, she knew that, she’d known that then. He must’ve known that too?
She was about to open her mouth and speak when he did.
‘Why haven’t you told Mike Flynn that you’re in love with him?’
Kate froze inside. No one had ever said it like that to her before - in fact most people danced around the topic rather than asking the direct question. Jim had never danced around anything, he’d always stormed straight in, true SAS style, and said what he’d wanted to say.
‘I…’ she looked at Jim, suddenly realising she didn’t know how to answer the question.
She could blame it on a hundred things. Her father leaving her as a child, her mother failing to ever tell her that she loved her, the fact that every man she’d ever fallen for had left her with some sort of weak excuse.
She was too scared.
‘He knows what I want,’ she whispered after a few moments.
‘Want me to kick his ass and make him make a move?’ Jim smiled at her
This whole situation was far too confusing to her. She just wanted things to be simple, she wanted Jim to sweep her off her feet and make her forget about Mike completely.
She knew that was never going to happen - but the whole lying on the floor of austere with a bullet wound to the stomach, discussing her feelings for Mike with Jim was a little bit odd.
Jim pushed aside a strand of her hair and suddenly it felt OK.
He had never judged her for anything, he’d always been there for her - and she knew he was probably the closest thing she had to a friend at that moment.
‘What if he doesn’t - ‘ she broke off her sentence.
Maybe that was going too far.
Jim laughed and she instantly felt defensive. Why was he laughing at her?
‘Kate, when will you realise that the man is as much in love with you as you are with him,’ Jim replied. ‘I noticed his feelings for you a long time before I realised you returned them for him. He sat here all evening by your side without moving a centimetre. You stopped breathing for only a few seconds and he had tears in his eyes. Kate, the man is an idiot if he hasn’t done everything he can to be with you - but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to.’
She didn’t know how to respond. She didn’t think she’d ever seen Mike even close to tears in the ten years she’d known him. How did Jim see so much when she saw so little? And if Mike was really that in love with her why had he done his best to hurt her so much over the years?
‘Kate, who dares wins,’ Jim commented.
‘You know you don’t have to discuss this with me,’ she said quietly, squeezing his hand to the best of her ability.
‘I want to make sure I didn’t give up the woman of my dreams for nothing,’ he responded, a wounded look flashing across his face for only a second.
And suddenly her slightly uplifted mood was gone. Jim had left her because he’d thought it was what was best for her.
‘Jim…’ she replied. ‘We could’ve worked.’
‘I would never want to date someone knowing I could be the thing preventing them from being with the person they really want to be with,’ Jim replied, squeezing her hand back. ‘There’s been moments I regretted it, but then I told myself you were probably happily married to Mike Flynn with a baby on the way by now and I felt better.’
She felt the tightness in her chest again, and she knew it wasn’t caused by the bullet wound. It was too familiar for that.
It was that easy. It should’ve been that easy. And it had been almost three years since Jim had left her standing in that hospital hallway - confused and alone, and that should have been plenty of time for things to change between her and Mike.
But it hadn’t.
‘Jim…’
‘I shouldn’t have brought it up,’ Jim cut her off. ‘You should be resting.’
‘I’m OK,’ she replied.
‘I’m going to check on Captain Palmer,’ he said, standing up slowly and letting go of her hand.
She didn’t want him to, but she knew he probably needed space for a few moments. He’d gotten the answer to his question, and she’d received the answer to hers without even asking.
She wondered how her and Mike had managed to get so stuck in their situation.
The PA system suddenly jumped to life.
‘This is Mike Flynn, would all Hammersley personnel please return to the bridge.’
Kate looked at Jim.
This was a trap. All the could hope was that the others got to the bridge before the rest of the crew thought the siege was over.
Next.