Chapter Text
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New year’s day had passed with just a small fanfare in Chris’ house. And the next day, Kate was moving back to her house.
Chloe had been very teary when she had said her goodbye. But after promises of ice cream from Chris and nightly Skype reading session from Kate, she had managed to extricate herself from the little girl. A few more hugs from Bill, Sue, Deb, and Chris himself had soon followed and she had finally crossed the threshold to enter her own SUV with Dylan in the driver seat.
She closed her eyes as soon as Dylan made a turn off the street and she couldn’t see the family waving at her anymore. As she had suspected, her heart was heavy now, but Chris and her had agreed that she needed to return to normalcy to give herself time to miss them. And to figure out whether a life with Chris and Chloe was really what she wanted for her future. Or whether her feelings and attachment to them had been a result of trauma bonding and therefore would not last if she put distance between them.
“Are you OK?”
She turned to meet Dylan’s curious eyes. “Yes. I miss them already though.”
Dylan smiled teasingly, “I thought I had to pry you and Chris apart before, that hug went a tad too long.”
She rolled her eyes at him, “nothing is going on.”
“You guys haven’t even kissed?” It’s Dylan’s turn to roll his eyes, “Chris is too slow.”
“Hey! Sally just died 6 weeks ago. Have some respect….” Her cheeks got a bit warmer. “Besides, we agreed that we’re just friends for now. There was too much going on in both our lives with our new jobs and Chloe’s rehab and everything else.”
Dylan shook his head exasperatedly, “a few kisses here and there wouldn’t take much time. But it’ll give you both a little bit more certainty than being just friends. What if some mums in Chloe’s class putting their claws on him when he’s doing school pick-ups? Or teachers in her school could target him too? Some women were desperate, Kate, they wouldn’t care that his wife had just died, all they saw was empty ring finger, a decent bloke that doesn’t look too bad in his uniform, and they would fall over each other to get him.”
She could feel jealousy in the pit of her stomach at the thought that some random women were putting their hands on Chris, but she ended up laughing too imagining Dylan’s description of a horde of women chasing after the poor bloke while he was carrying Chloe and her crutches across the parking lot to get away.
“You laugh now, but you wouldn’t be laughing if next Christmas he brought a new woman to our annual BBQ and introduced her as his girlfriend.” Dylan raised his eyebrows at her.
She sighed, “then it’s simply not meant to be. You can’t force people to fall in love with you.”
“But that’s the thing,” Dylan insisted, “he’s falling for you already.”
“You don’t know that….” She thought that sometimes Chris’ eyes were really soft when looking at her, but it could also just be her imagination. That’s why she needed a little bit of distance in the hope that the next time she saw him again, their feelings would be a lot clearer.
“Trust me, Kate, I’m an expert on this stuff. I know the look of a bloke that is too far gone in his feelings already. In his case, he’s just too chicken to do anything about it. It’s probably because he’s out of practice.”
“Unlike you, who had too much practice, hey?” She teased him with a small smile.
“Whatever,” he rolled his eyes at her, “looks like I will need to help him.”
“Dylan…. Stay out of this please. We’re both grown adult. And if it’s meant to be, it’ll happen, if not, then no matter how much everyone interfered, it wouldn’t.”
He sighed, “I promise I won’t push too much, but I will still nudge you both every now and then.”
She chuckled, “fine….”
“Maybe we need to clean your house when we arrive, it’s probably dusty now, you’ve been away for 6 weeks already.” Dylan changed the topic after realising that he needed to leave the two of them be for now.
“True.” She went quiet at the reminder that the last time she had been in her house, she had had her blood and broken ceramics all over her floor. The Tahiti brochure had still been on her bedside table too. She truly needed to burn that.
“You have a cleaner, don’t you?”
She nodded, “yeah. I’m not going to worry about cleaning it today, except changing my bedsheet. I’ll just call the cleaner to come tomorrow if she’s available.”
“Ok, yeah, that’s good. I would’ve helped, but I’m kind of glad that I don’t have to because I’m a bit too exhausted from patrol, I need to get used to the rhythm again after a few weeks of doing nothing,” He confessed.
“Oh yes, I forgot to ask, how’s Childers?” She asked him. She was happy that he got his new posting relatively quickly. Childers’ bosun had just had a newborn, it’s his second child and his wife had needed him onshore. Hence the vacancy.
He shrugged, “not as exciting as Hammersley obviously, but I think it’s OK. The crews seem competent at least. No one stands out as difficult. It’s a little bit cramped on the bridge now with two midshipmen shadowing the crews for their sea placement, including Ryan White.”
She smiled internally at the hint of annoyance that she could detect in Dylan’s voice. “How is he doing?”
“Typical young officer I guess, thinking that you’re better than everyone. He tried to jump first into an unknown fishing vessel before me or the X, so I had to remind him to stay back, and he rolled his eyes at me.”
“Oh dear,” she grimaced, “did the X remind him on boarding protocol?”
“The X did, but I saw him tried again in the next boarding, and this time the X was jumping on the other side, so he didn’t see Ryan doing it, but I did, so I just pulled him back by his boarding jacket. I really don’t care whose kid he is; I just don’t want his inexperience arse to be injured on my watch.”
“Be patient with him. He’s probably just overexcited?” Kate felt confused at the young man’s defiance towards the seniors on board, and in boarding situation, bosun was the 2nd in command just after the XO.
He shook his head, “I think it’s bigger than that. I also overheard him talking shit about the other midshipman, a female. I could see that she’s smarter than him. And during weapons training, she had much better aim than him. She outran him in physical fitness too. He obviously didn’t really like that she’s better, so he called her a she-male, referring to her taller and broader stature.”
“That’s terrible.” She frowned, “his mum is a high-ranking Navy officer, so he should know that a woman is as capable as him to be in the Navy.”
He shrugged, “maybe he resented being in a strong woman’s shadow all his life? And obviously he couldn’t take out his frustration on his own mum, so he chose his peers as target.”
“But Jess said that he’s sweet to her and that’s why she agreed to go out with him,” Kate frowned again, worried now for the young woman.
“I think that’s because he doesn’t see Jess as a threat right now. She has girly demeanour, sweet disposition and small stature. My only worry is that when she starts university next month, it’ll be more obvious that she’s smarter than him. And I wonder if he would then see her as a threat to his ego and would not be so sweet to her anymore.”
“We need to keep an eye on her then.” Kate looked at him seriously.
“Yes.” He nodded back, “I’m thinking that when I’m on leave, I want both of you with me for boxing session. And if I’m on patrol, I’ll make sure one of the boxing instructors at the gym keep up with your training. I’m not taking any chances with both of your safety anymore.”
She smiled softly at his seriousness, “thank you for looking after her too. Can you just observe Ryan during his remaining time in Childers? Hopefully he’s going to adjust his attitude, but if he’s not, then we might need to have a chat with Jess about it, just to warn her to be careful and to notice any change in behaviour as their relationship progress.”
“Of course, Kate. Don’t worry, I won’t let anything happened to Jess.” He smiled in reassurance.
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Kate was reading the agenda for the next monthly defence meeting when her phone rang.
“Lieutenant Kate McGregor speaking?”
“Kate, can I see you for a moment in my office please?”
“Of course, Ma’am. I’ll see you soon.”
“Thanks, Kate.”
She locked her computer and walked out of her small office into Maxine’s much larger one next to hers. It’s so good to be able to walk unaided again. The doctor had given her the all-clear to resume all activities including running and driving from this week. And her wound was now healed with only few crisscrossing lines remaining.
She then knocked on Maxine’s door and waited for the older woman’s permission to enter.
“Come in.” Maxine looked up from her computer, “take a seat, Kate. I need you to do me a favour.”
She frowned, “what’s going on, Ma’am?”
Maxine scowled, “Hammersley or more precisely, Mike Flynn has been giving me trouble lately.”
Kate sighed inwardly, “what has Commander Flynn done?”
“You know the usual practice is to give the CO three choices of candidates for each senior position that is vacant, right?”
Kate nodded, “yes, that’s the norm.”
“Mike has been complaining that all the candidates that were presented to him had been inadequate. And as you know, Hammersley is required to fill four senior positions in one go, XO, Charge, Bosun and Coxswain. So, since Mike is being stubborn, Hammersley hasn’t sailed for almost two months now. And that’s too long for a boat that isn’t on maintenance to be idle. Fleet Command is restless and they’re blaming me because Mike complained to them that we haven’t done enough to source quality candidates for those positions. So, we need to do something to solve this issue.”
“I’m not going back to Hammersley, Ma’am,” Kate interjected, feeling sick that she might be ordered to do so.
“What?” Maxine raised her eyebrows, “of course not. As I said to you, you’re filling your current position permanently, not temporarily.”
The vice on her heart loosened slightly, “then what are you suggesting, Ma’am?”
“We don’t give Mike a choice.” Maxine replied seriously, “I’ve cleared this to Fleet Command just now. Basically, since you’re familiar with Hammersley, I want you to pick the best candidate for those positions among the available choices and we process this with HR and simply schedule Hammersley to sail with all the new personnel. That way Mike would be out of our hair. The longer he stayed ashore, the more trouble he would stir up. So, I want him out at sea ASAP.”
“You would entrust me to make the final choices?” Kate looked at Maxine in surprise, this would be a big insult to Mike, and she could imagine the hissy fit he would throw at the older woman in front of her.
“You’ll run it by me, of course, and I’ll expect you to provide pros and cons of each candidate and why you’re choosing the one you would choose. And if I agreed with your choices then we’d file this with HR.” Maxine raised her eyebrows, “are you up for the challenge, Kate?”
“Of course, Ma’am.” Kate nodded, “if you could send me the employee files, I’ll look at those in the next few days. And let’s say, I’ll schedule a meeting with you on Thursday morning to discuss my choices and we could aim to send this to HR on Friday?”
“Perfect.” Maxine then smiled tiredly, “I should’ve given this to you sooner, but I was hoping that Mike would’ve done his job and got over whatever resentment he held towards the crews that were leaving him. But obviously that’s too much to ask.”
“None of the crews did it on purpose, Ma’am. We’re all adult that was simply making life choices. And despite what he thought, I didn’t influence anybody else to follow me out of Hammersley.” Kate explained, not wanting Maxine to think the worst about the crews that had left.
Maxine looked at her thoughtfully, “maybe not directly, but except PO Blake, who obviously had his own reason due to the loss of his wife, everybody else left just after your injuries, which I found really curious.”
“It’s simply a coincidence, Ma’am.” Kate said firmly, not wanting to divulge anything to the older woman, “is that all, Ma’am?”
“No.” Maxine sighed, before getting up from her chair and went to close her office door.
Kate steeled herself for deeper interrogation about her injuries; she simply must deflect or straight up lie about it, there was no other choice.
“PO Mulholland used to be your bosun in Hammersley, didn’t he?”
She looked up in surprised at the question, “yes.”
“Ryan was complaining about PO Mulholland making his life difficult in Childers, by influencing the XO and CO to not include him during boarding operation and ordering him to stay on the bridge all the time.”
Kate frowned at the accusation. She remembered Dylan’s stories about Ryan charging ahead without regards of safety protocol during boarding. “PO Mulholland is a decorated sailor and an excellent bosun, Ma’am. If he indeed made the recommendation to Childers’ XO that Ryan should not be present during boardings, then he must have a good reason. It’s not in his nature to be petty just for the sake of being petty.”
“I have spoken with Childers’ CO yesterday about it and he mentioned something about Ryan disregarding boarding protocol a number of times.” Maxine shook her head, “Ryan has always been quite an obedient kid, so I’m surprised that he broke protocol. Ryan also mentioned about PO Mulholland flirting with his girlfriend, Jess, and that’s why he targeted Ryan because he’s trying to steal Jess. Which I think is such a bizarre story that I found myself doubting Ryan for the first time and I just want a second opinion from you as someone who has known PO Mulholland for a while.”
“May I speak frankly, Ma’am?”
Maxine frowned, “please. If you know something, you need to tell me.”
Kate nodded, “the protocol during boarding is that the bosun must jump in first into the target vessel before the XO and anyone else, to clear the way, so to speak. And PO Mulholland had shared with me that Ryan had been jumping in first or trying to before everybody else and he had to remind Ryan repeatedly or in some cases just push him back. This is not about ego, but it’s about safety. PO Mulholland is simply doing his job as bosun. And if he felt that Ryan’s action was endangering the rest of the boarding crews, he might have made that recommendation for Ryan to be doing other tasks such as Navigation on the bridge until he understood the safety protocol during boardings.”
“What about the girlfriend issue?” Maxine asked again.
“Jessica Bird used to be a member of Hammersley crews as well. PO Mulholland and Jess started in Hammersley a few months apart, so they’ve known each other for a while before Jess even met Ryan for the first time. As far as I know, they’re friends. He’s also our personal trainer at the gym when he’s on leave from patrol, so there might be occasions where Ryan has witnessed their interaction and misinterpreted some of the physical closeness during training.”
“So basically, I need to have a word with my son.” Maxine gritted her teeth, “maybe he’s been spending too much time with Mike lately in his free time and that’s why he’s becoming cocky and delusional like him. We really need Mike to be off at sea, Kate, away from us.”
Kate nodded, “understood, Ma’am. I’ll work on those files once you send them to me.”
“Thank you.”
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“Chloe has been excellent today, Mr Blake.”
Chris didn’t know what to do as Chloe’s teacher, a 20-something-bubbly woman who insisted that he called her Jenny, had been standing closer and closer towards him and he’s becoming quite uncomfortable. He had taken a step back a few times, only for her to match his steps too.
He really wanted to take Chloe home as he could see that she’s tired and started to frown at her teacher for stalling them. He should be firmer and just left but this was Chloe’s first day at Prep, and he didn’t want to be rude to someone who would be Chloe’s teacher for the whole year, what if she treated Chloe badly because of his demeanour.
“Hey, I’m so sorry I’m late, I got held up in meeting with defence.”
And of course, Kate would come to his rescue at just the right time.
“Kate! You come!” Chloe hopped with her crutches to Kate’s side and Kate greeted his little girl with a hug.
“Sorry Chlo, my meeting went longer than expected,” Kate pulled Chloe to her side and held her shoulder firmly so that Chloe could rest against her waist. “How’s your first day?”
“Tiring….” Chloe pouted. “I want to go home.”
“I’m sorry, are you Chloe’s mum?” Jenny, the teacher, looked at Kate in confusion, thinking that the handsome dad had been single but suddenly this woman had appeared out of the blue.
“No, Miss Jenny. I told you my mummy had gone to heaven already, remember?” Chloe frowned, “Kate is my friend.”
Kate just pulled Chloe closer to her in sympathy before looking at the young teacher with a smile and offered her right hand to her, “I’m Kate McGregor. I’m a family friend. You must be Chloe’s teacher.”
“Oh…. Yes, I’m her teacher. It’s nice to meet you. As I said to Mr Blake here, Chloe has been excellent today.” Jenny said with a smile towards Chris.
Chris just smiled back politely before following Chloe’s lead and stepping to Kate’s other side and putting his hand on her waist.
Kate greeted him with a teasing smile at the contact, as if knowing exactly why he’s positioning himself that way. Of course, she caught out the teacher’s attempt at flirting with him.
He just looked at her sheepishly and greeted her with a brief kiss to her temple.
She gave him a soft smile in return before looking at the teacher again and smiled politely at her, “It’s great to hear that Chloe is doing well on her first day. If you don’t mind, Chloe is still recovering from her injuries, and we would like to go home so she can rest.”
“Oh of course.” Jenny’s smile was now noticeably less brilliant, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Chloe. It’s nice to see you both, Mr Blake and Ms McGregor.”
“Likewise.”
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“You know, Dylan warned me about that.”
Kate rested her head on Chris’ shoulder as they watched TV together after Chloe had gone to sleep. She had come prepared today with her duffle bag so she could spend the night in Chris’ house.
Today had been Chloe’s first day at Prep and Chris had wanted her to come and celebrate with cake at dinner. Just something to remind themselves how lucky they were to be back at normal life. Chris had started his new job today at the same time as Chloe starting prep. And they just felt grateful that they made it this far after Sally’s death.
“About?”
“Women circling you like vulture, especially mums and teachers during school pick-up time.”
Chris laughed, “he has good imagination. There were no hordes of woman wanting to mob me. The teacher today was the only one. And I swear I didn’t push her away only because I was afraid that she might not be nice to Chloe if I was being rude to her on the first day.”
Kate just looked at him fondly, “you really didn’t see it, did you?”
“See what?” Chris frowned, quite sure that no other women had come up to him or smiled at him today during pick-up. The only familiar face he had expected to see was Shizuka, Anna’s mum, but Chloe had said that Shizuka had picked up Anna quite early as Anna had had a dentist appointment straight after. So, he hadn’t crossed path with her and hadn’t recognised anyone else.
“When I arrived, I saw so many women loitering around with their kids, just chatting amongst themselves presumably about you because they were checking you out, Chris.”
“No….” Chris looked at Kate in disbelief, “surely not….”
“Yes, they were,” Kate teased him, “you’re a cop, you know, you are trained to observe people and your surroundings.”
Chris shook his head, “no, we’re trained to recognise danger among us and prevent it from happening, not to observe women during school pick-up time. If they were indeed looking at me, it made sense that I didn’t recognise it, as there was no danger to me or Chloe.”
“Only a danger to your virtue maybe,” she waggled her eyebrows at him, “you know, you have so many options if you only look around you.”
“Why would I want to do that for?” Chris frowned at her, not understanding, “I don’t want to look around. I’d rather spend time with you and Chloe.”
She felt her heart thumping faster at the implication, but she knew she had to do what’s best for Chris and Chloe instead of following her own desire, “other women have less baggage than me, Chris. Look at the teacher today, Jenny is beautiful and bubbly, obviously great with kids and probably hadn’t been through relationship trauma like I did. She’s not jaded, her expression is open, and she is obviously not trained to hide her emotions like I am. I can be a difficult person, stubborn, opinionated, downright cold if I’m angry. I’m not very motherly. I don’t look at babies and coo at them….”
“Kate,” Chris interjected, “why are you listing your characters as if I haven’t known all of that already? Are you trying to put yourself down? If yes, then I’m going to stop you right there. Because I don’t think you understand how much you are admired by the people around you. Chloe’s teacher seems like a nice person, but she’s not you.”
“But you haven’t even looked around and gotten to know them.” Kate replied exasperatedly, “I just don’t want you to limit your options. There could be someone waiting for you out there that could be your perfect fit.”
Chris pulled Kate fully towards him and held her tight. In return, she buried her face to his chest, her heart feeling quite heavy.
“I think we make our own definition of a perfect fit, Kate.” Chris finally said after a few minutes of silence. “I think the last couple of months have proven to us that we make a good team outside the confines of Hammersley. We brainstormed together, we executed plans, we discussed things as adults trying to understand each other. Surely those were steps in the right direction for us going forward?”
She looked up from his chest with a sigh, “at the end of the day, I want you and Chloe to be happy.”
“Didn’t you see Chloe’s face when she saw you made it to school today? She was ecstatic to see you. Probably happier than seeing me.” He tapped the tip of her nose teasingly, “and I was certainly happy to have you rescue me from the teacher’s claw before. And I’m happy here now, having you in my arms and watching TV together. We’re happy when we’re around you. Don’t you realise that?”
“Truly?” She searched his eyes for any sign of lies, but she knew she wouldn’t find any. He meant what he said and that made her heart swelled.
“Yes,” he stared at her seriously, “and if you said that I had so many options if I just looked around, then I would say the same to you. There would be better men out there than me; single without kids, less baggage, higher rank, better job, richer, better looking and so on. I should say to you to look around for better men for your own good. But I won’t, because I trust you to make your own choices about your life and who you spend your time with. So, can you trust me to do the same please?”
“Of course.” She reached up to kiss his cheek softly, “I’m sorry about the teacher before. I guess I’m just seeing Dylan’s warning coming true in front of my eyes and I just….” she sighed and went quiet.
He chuckled, “he warned me too; about you meeting lots more people as you’re now working outside the confines of Hammersley, and one of the men might steal you from me. So, he said that I need to be quicker in locking you down.”
She rolled her eyes, “I told him to leave you alone. Apparently, he’s not listening.”
“He’s not wrong, you know. I’m back at work now and I’m bound to see you around at Navcom. So, I will get a taste of what you just experienced before. I will see admiring glances directed towards you from other men. And hopefully I would be as calm as you were today at school and not acting like an arsehole.”
“No one would be admiring me, Chris.” She shook her head in denial, “so I don’t think you would need to be worried about that.”
“Believe me, Kate, you are a vision in your whites. We’re lucky in Hammersley that we didn’t see you too often wearing those, otherwise everyone would be distracted.” He joked.
She scowled at him, “it’s just a uniform that everyone wears. Nothing special about it. I could say the same about you.”
He caressed the frown lines forming on her forehead, “I don’t know why, maybe it’s a combination of your fair complexion, blonde hair and the white colour. It makes your green eyes popped even further. It just works.”
She shook her head in disbelief, “men are weird. Maybe I should just wear potato sack instead.”
He laughed, “that we are. And in your case, I don’t think potato sack would work either to hide your beauty.”
She blushed a little bit seeing the admiration in his eyes, “then maybe we should have lunch together every day if our schedule aligned, that way then other men wouldn’t get funny ideas about my availability.”
“I don’t want them to speculate or gossip about us either.” He sighed, “it’s funny how things work sometimes with these kinds of things. You’re damn if you do, but you’re damn if you don’t either. So, I think we should be friendly but professional at work, as if we’re still in Hammersley, but more relaxed. Does that make sense?”
She nodded, “friendly touches are OK, but no handholding or hugs or kisses. Do I address you by your rank or your name?”
“Our rank, I think,” he frowned, “and especially in my case because you’re higher than me, so I can’t just call your name. Unless nobody is around of course.”
“Ok, that’s fair.” She then added, “how about a standing appointment for lunch every Wednesday then, unless we have other meetings, then we’ll reschedule to Thursday or Friday?”
“That sounds good.” He smiled, “I can’t wait to see you around Navcom then.”
“Likewise, Petty Officer.” She smiled back brilliantly before resting her head on his chest once more.
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To be continued....