Title: Rising Water
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, just the plot and the words.
Summary: While sick with the flu, Kate goes on a mission that goes horribly wrong when she ends up captured and tied up in a sea cave. Can she escape before the tide comes in and fills it up? Mike/Kate, season two-ish.
Author's Note: I haven't written anything in ages. Here's my first Sea Patrol fanfic. I hope you like it, and let me know what you think! I promise the next chapter will be longer.
Guts Watch: 0300
'It's way too early for this,' thinks Kate McGregor exhaustedly. She checks her watch: 0300 on the dot. Rolling her eyes at the horrible sense of timing the world has, she leans over the toilet bowl and heaves again, hoping Nikki can't hear her. Despite the fact that she finished throwing up anything of substance a while ago, her body hasn't stopped trying. She curses the flu for the thousandth time since she woke up feeling nauseous and dizzy around 0100, after only an hour of sleep. Kate decides that after being reduced to dry heaving, she's going back to bed, goddamnit. She hauls herself off the bathroom floor with all her strength and pads back to her rack. By no means a deluxe king-sized bed, it looks very inviting. Quietly turning up the blanket, she crawls underneath it and closes her eyes, trying to will away the nausea.
Morning Watch: 0715
Rubbing her eyes, Kate is not pleased to discover that the flu didn't magically disappear while she slept. Muttering a string of curses at her aching head, dizziness, low-grade fever, and sore muscles, she drags herself out of her rack and puts on her coveralls and braids her hair with the sleepy precision of a robot. She grabs her mug and head down to the galley for some food, even though the thought of food makes her stomach do a few uneasy cartwheels. She takes a plate of Bomber's scrambled eggs and sausages and pours herself a brew. Sitting down, she toys with her eggs, trying to avoid actually putting them in her mouth. She takes a few tentative bites, but decides not to risk it and tries to discretely dispose of the eggs. Edging around Swain, she tips the remainder into the bin.
"Something wrong, X?" Bomber asks. Evidently she wasn't discrete enough.
"They were delicious. I'm just not very hungry this morning," she says, backpedaling like hell.
"You look a little pale," notes Swain from where he's standing in the corner with Buffer.
Kate brushes a loose piece of hair from her face and tries to look as though everything's normal. "Oh, do I? I'm just a little tired, that's all. Didn't sleep much last night," she says, putting her plate in the dishwasher and hastily heading up to the bridge.
"Morning, X," says Mike cheerfully when she enters. The sun's a little bit too bright on the water; it makes her head ache more. "We've confirmed the stash of drugs on the island during the middle of the night. We saw them leave, so we're going to retrieve the stash. I'd like you to lead the snatch party." He covers his yawn with his palm and blinks rapidly. Clearly, last night was a late one. Kate wonders if he even went to bed at all, then reminds herself that she only got about four hours of sleep herself.
"Yes, sir," she replies, sitting down on Nav's empty chair and giving Key Island a once-over. She takes a small sip of her brew, wincing at the acrid taste, but willing herself to keep it down. She tries to mask her gag as a small cough. Acid burns the back of her throat but she swallows it down.
"All right, X?" asks Mike, shooting a concerned look in her direction. She nods quickly and turns away.
"Do we have leads on the location of the drugs?" she says, hoping to distract him.
"We suspect they're in either the sea caves around the coast of the island, or somewhere more inland, but the caves would make them easier to remove, but the tidal conditions have to be perfect," he says, checking the tide charts Nav left out, "which they will at 1117. The tide will have gone out to its fullest. You'll want to be out of there by 1145 at the latest."
"Right," says Kate. "We'll be over ASAP." She rubs her temples for a few seconds, and then looks up. "I have a bit of a headache, do you mind if I go grab some paracetemol?"
"Sure thing, X," Mike nods, and she gets up, putting out a hand to steady herself, and descends to the wardroom, where she knows Swain will have the bottle of painkillers. She roots around as stealthily as possible until she finds his bottle of Advil cold and flu. She swallows a few with a sip of water and reburies the bottle.
Forenoon Watch: 0845
"Away, sea boat," calls Nav, and the RHIB rocks slowly as the crane lowers it into the water.
Kate takes a deep breath and focuses hard on the horizon. Her stomach flip-flops in time with the waves, and she tries to breathe in and out. Swain starts the engine and the smell of diesel hits her like a slap to the face. She turns her head into the fresh wind and swallows, trying to keep her stomach in place. The voices of the others blur into a thick buzz to the beat of the waves. She closes her eyes but that just intensifies the dizziness, so they snap open and take in the sandy beach and thick woods. She scrambles out of the RHIB, happy to have the ground solid under her feet. "Right, Spider with me, searching inland, Buffer and ET, you take the sea caves on this side of the island, Bomber and Swain, the other side," she orders, waiting for Spider to fall into step with her. Their Brownings are cocked and ready. She steps carefully, ahead of Spider. They follow a trampled path, heading up a steady slope. Kate is breathing hard by the time they reach the top. Under her Kevlar vest, she's sweating. She's just glad Spider can't see the patches of sweat she knows are lurking there. All she wants is to lie down, but clearly that's not an option, so she tells herself that the sooner they find the drugs, the better.
Spider cries out, feet sliding out from under him as he tumbles down the hillside. Kate watches helplessly as his ankle twists and she hears a soft pop. Tears of pain fill his eyes, and she watches him topple in a heap against a tree, unable to move. He's lost his pistol somewhere along the way.
"Spider, are you okay?" she yells. "Did you break anything?" She pushes her headset closer to her mouth. "X-ray 82, come in Sierra 82."
Spider untangles himself, wincing in pain. "I don't think it's broken, just a bad sprain, X."
"Can you walk on it?" she asks, batting a mosquito away from her face.
He braces himself, hand on a tree, and tries to stand up, but crumples down again, face twisting in pain. Self-explanatory.
Her radio crackles to life in her ear. "Sierra 82, come in X-ray 82. What's the problem?" Swain's voice is a relief in her ear.
"This is X-ray 82, over. Spider has a badly sprained ankle. He can't walk on it. Get over here, now," she barks. Twigs snap behind her and she whips around. Before she can even react, cold steel is pressed to her temple.