"What where you thinking?"
He stopped abruptly, turned towards her only half way before ducking into his cabin, hoping the confines of his personal space would deter her from the crusade about to be unleashed.
"Why on earth would you do that to him?" She instead demanded, squeezing past without hesitation to turn him against the door. With her standing in the middle of his cabin, arms held steady on hips, he wondered when she'd found the audacity to switch of the alarms that used to sound whenever they were in the same room. Six months earlier, he mused, she'd never have dreamed of sitting on the edge of his desk or bunk. Now she seemed to own the place.
He collapsed into his chair, bringing a hand to rub at the headache already forming.
"If any other sailor had dared…"
"If any other sailor even had half the courage to do what he did today it would be a bloody miracle" she yelled, interrupting his quiet defence.
"I had to reprimand him!"
"He saved the ship. He saved our lives. How can you stand there and dress him down in front of everyone when we wouldn't be here if it weren't for him?"
Catching her eyes a moment he saw her anger, could read the fury etched across her features that churned his stomach and made him wish he could back down.
"I had to reprimand him," he stressed "So that the others, who don't have the ability to pull off a stunt like that, don't get it into their heads that blind courage is enough. Because it isn't Kate, you know it and I know it. They don't."
His fist, now clenched against the papers scattered on his desk, dug into the palms of his hand as she stepped closer, leaning forward.
"I think you're afraid of him," she whispered softly.
He scoffed in disbelief.
"How?"
"You're afraid because he's you – five, ten years ago. He's exactly the type of risk tasker you've always been. Jumping into situations before you've thought them through, diving between boats and off cliffs to stop the danger without even realising you've created another for yourself. But right now you're afraid he won't stop they same way you did and one day he'll fall right off that cliff and never come back"
"Stop it" he scoffed, mind churning with her accusations.
"So that's why you berate him every time he goes outside the boundaries. That's why you dress him down, try to humiliate him…"
"I didn't…" He trailed off slowly, wondered when Buffer had begun to intrude on his thoughts. Infiltrate their discussions and arguments. Even kilometres away having celebratory drinks in the pub and his presence was stuck right there, in the space between himself and Kate, leant against his desk with her hip pressed to the wooden surface, face peering down with certainty. The anger had drained with her victory and the passion that flared across her features brought the dead feeling back to his stomach.
Sometimes he could no longer tell whom the passion was for.
His fists dug into his palms. He hated when the debate turned vindictive, when their arguments became more than fun stimulation and instead he was left making the remarks that quietened her from him for days on end. He couldn't help it sometimes, turning the defence into attack, and no matter how he hated the days of silence that followed he still continued to bite.
"Funny, eh?" he mused quietly. He ran a finger across his desk, barely stretching until his hand brushed her hip and she stirred gently. Her eyes, an icy green, met his own.
"Funny how we always fall for the same type of person"
"What are you talking about" she sighed softly, head falling gently to the side. Her eyes darted to his finger still running lightly across the desk, brushing once against her hip, then a second time.
He shrugged softly, drew his finger up the side of her shirt until she snapped back in surprise. He nudged the door open for the exit he knew was coming, awaited the cold fury that would be his penance the next few days.
"You always fall for the bad boy hero" he bit, watched her face turn to stone.
Her presence lingered well past her exit, pressed up against him as he struggled to draw breath. He whispered softly.
"And I follow, even when it's not me"