Heaven Knows - Chapter 6

A/N: this chapter is set straight after the previous one.

The first thing she noticed was darkness.

Then, a second later, she noticed that she couldn't breathe. She could hear her pants of breath, trying to force air into her lungs.

It was just a dream, Kate. A really bad dream. Dylan is alive and well. He is probably snoring on his bed at the moment.

Flinging her blanket to the side, she drew her knees to her chest and held tight.

Deep breath, Kate, deep breath!

But nothing seemed to work. Her brain kept replaying the moment the ship blew up over and over again. She kept losing him. She kept losing her best friend.

Her breath started to hitch. Tears started to develop at the back of her eyes.

She then blindly reached for her mobile phone on the nightstand, scrolling through her list of contact numbers for his. She just needed to hear his voice. Just for a few seconds.

She pressed the green button and waited.

"Dylan Mulholland..." A very sleepy voice answered after the fifth ring.

Tears of relief trickled down her cheek instantly. She had to close her mouth with her hand to muffle her sob that threatened to break through her throat.

Few suburbs away, Dylan was puzzled by the lack of response from the other side of the phone line. "Hello?" he tried again. Still no response.

He then squinted to look at the caller ID on his mobile, cursing himself for not bothering to check before he answered the damn phone.

Seeing the name on his phone screen, his clouded brain was instantly on alert.

"X?" he sat up straighter against the headboard.

When she still didn't respond, his mind started to think of the worse. Was she hurt? Was she being attacked? Was she being kidnapped and this was her way of letting someone knew where she was?

"Kate?"

And then he heard it. A tiny sob.

His gut clenched. "Kate, are you alright?"

A few beats of silence later, he couldn't take it anymore. He put his phone to speaker, got up to his feet and searched for the light switch on the wall. He then grabbed his T-shirt and jeans from earlier and quickly put them on. Grabbing his keys, wallet and jacket, he turned the speaker phone off and brought it up to his ear again.

"Kate, I'm coming... Just hang in there."

"OK..."

When he heard her whispered agreement, his gut unclenched a little.

"I'm going to hang up now. I'll be there in 10..." He replied softly.

"20..."

His lips curved upwards at her protest. "No traffic at this hour."

"I need you alive..."

He closed his eyes briefly at the desperation he could hear in her voice. He finally knew what bothered her. Nightmares.

"Of course. I'll be careful. Just take a deep breath and wait for me on the couch, OK?"

"OK..."

He was about to hang up when she spoke again.

"Dylan?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you..."

"You're welcome."

Kate didn't really pay attention to the time anymore. She sat on the couch quietly, hugging her knees close to her chest. Now that she was somewhat calmer, she couldn't help but feel a little bit ashamed of herself. She had a mini-breakdown because of a nightmare. Not only that, she also had disrupted someone's sleep at 3 am in the morning. And that certain someone was now probably speeding on his bike in his rush to see her, simply to make her feel better. She was toying with the idea of calling him back and telling him to ignore her; to go back to sleep and forget that her call had ever happened. But she couldn't bring herself to pick up her phone and dial his number.

She sighed softly and looked to her reflection in her patio glass door. A tired and pale face was looking back at her, mocking her for being weak and needy. She wondered how Dylan coped with all the nightmares he had after the gulf incident. He had to see his best mate dying in front of his eyes over and over again. And when he woke up, he couldn't call his mate to hear his voice like she did with him, because Lieutenant Ryan was really dead. His nightmares were not a figment of imagination like hers did, his was a horrible memory of what actually had happened.

The sound of her ringtone broke her train of thoughts. Seeing his name on her screen, she pressed the green button for a second time that night.

"Hi..."

"Hey..."

She could hear the tentativeness of his voice and had to smile at that. She bet her last dollar that his next words would be asking her whether she still wanted him to come.

"Do you still want me to be there?"

She shook her head at his typical consideration for her. Behind his macho exterior, he could be really sweet. It was a shame that he only let very few people see this side of him.

"It depends on whether you have pancakes with you."

"As a matter of fact, I do."

Stunned that her joke had backfired, she went silent for a few seconds.

"Kate?" Worry crept back into his voice.

"Are you seriously bringing pancakes?"

He laughed at her incredulous tone. "Yes. Is that so hard to believe?"

"You are crazy. You know that, right?"

"I know..." he replied with a small smile on his face. "So, do I pass the test to come through the door?"

"It's not locked," she grimaced on how stupid that sounded. The first thing she did when she went down the stairs from her bedroom was unlocking the door for him. Now she realised that it was a pretty dangerous thing to do. Her house was in a gated complex, but still, there were a lot of bad people out there. What was worse, she had actually forgotten that she did that until he mentioned the door.

"Kate..." He couldn't believe what he just heard.

"I know... I know..." She could hear his disapproving tone. "Could you please just get in here and lock the door behind you?"

"Fine. But, we are definitely going to talk about this."

She rolled her eyes at his words. This was the side of him that annoyed her sometimes. The overprotective one.

"Fine. Now, could you please..."

He chuckled softly. "OK. I'm hanging up now."

After pressing the red button on his phone to end their conversation, he walked to her front door and turned the door knob. The door opened without any resistance, exactly as she said it would. He shook his head at her carelessness. For her to do something like this, she must be absolutely distracted, which meant that the nightmare must be really horrific.

He stepped inside the house, locking the door behind him. He turned to the direction of her kitchen first; intending to store the pancakes inside the fridge. Once that was done, he then moved through the hallway once more. He could see her silhouette on the couch in the dimly lit living room. He briefly considered hitting the light switch on the left wall to brighten the room up, but then decided to ask her first.

When he finally reached her couch, what he saw made his gut clenched once again. Sitting there in one corner of the couch with her arms hugging her knees close to her chest, she looked so impossibly small. She had such a commanding presence at work that sometimes he forgot the fact that there was only a small difference between hers and Bird's statures. Seeing her like this, he had to fight the urge to just lift her to his lap and hug her close.

He then put his keys and helmet on her coffee table, before gingerly perching himself to the seat next to her.

Feeling the couch dipped under his weight, she lifted her chin from her knees and took in the sight of him.

"You're really alive."

The obvious relief in her voice made him wondered what exactly had happened to him in her nightmare. "Come on, it's not that easy to get rid of me..."

Her lips curved upwards slightly at his attempt to lighten up the atmosphere.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

She shook her head softly. "Not really."

"Talking helps, you know. I wished that I had someone who would listen to me when I had nightmares like this. It wasn't until I went home to my parents' a month after the gulf that someone cared enough to encourage me to talk about it. Well, 'encourage' might be the wrong word for it, my mum practically beg me to tell her; simply because she couldn't stand to see me being such a mess and wanted to share the burden."

She looked at him with tears in her eyes. She was reminded by how much he cared for her. He cared enough to come and buy her pancakes at 3 am in the morning. He cared enough to share one of his lowest points of his life simply because he wanted to make her feel better.

"We were back in front of Hammersley on that dock in Samjung Island." She took a deep breath before continuing. "Every event was exactly the same. The argument with that horrible woman. The frustrating conversation with you about the extra plate on your vest. Then, I was standing on that dock, waiting for you to come out. Except that..."

"I never did..." he continued softly.

"Yes." She reached out for his hand. Understanding her gesture, he gripped her hand in his and held tight. "The ship blew up. I could still smell the smoke. I could still feel my ears ringing at the sound of the explosion." A few tears escaped from her eyes at the memory. She wiped it angrily. "This is stupid."

"It's not stupid."

"Yes, it is!"

"Kate..."

Few more tears escaped from her eyes when he said her name. This time he closed his distance and pulled her to his chest. Circling his arms around her petite frame, he then kissed the top of her head softly, ignoring the fact that he no longer had the right to do this. She needed him and if a hug was what she needed, he would give it to her.

Burying her head on his chest, she could hear his heart beat, a strong reminder of the fact that he was alive and well. She gripped his shirt tightly; no longer cared of the fact that they had crossed the physical boundaries they had set after that late night conversation in the galley.

"I never realise how much I miss you saying my name." She lifted her head from his chest slightly, allowing her to look at his blue eyes.

"It must be my sexy voice then," he teased her playfully.

She scowled at his grin. "You are such an incorrigible man."

He chuckled. "But you wouldn't have me any other way, right?"

She could only smile at his antics, before resting her head on his chest once more.

"So... You agree that there will be no more Dutchy and X stuff off the ship?"

"Hu-uh."

"What about hugs? Are we allowed to do that for special occasion? Or tonight is an exception?" He couldn't help himself, he had to ask. After all, she was in a relationship with another man and as far as he knew, her relationship was leaving the status quo behind, especially in the light of her impending promotion. The last thing he wanted was making the boss jealous and possibly ruining her happy ending for his own selfish need.

"Dylan... It's just hugs. People hug each other all the times. We're not stranger, we're best friends. So yes, we can hug each other sometimes. Not on board the ship though," she said thoughtfully.

"Good," he whispered his agreement softly and tightened his embrace a little. "Do you want to go back to sleep? It's only half past three, you must be tired."

She shook her head strongly. "No... Not now. Could we please just sit here and talk?"

"What do you want to talk about?" he asked curiously.

She was quiet for a few seconds, contemplating the future topic of their conversation. "How about you tell me something that I don't know about you."

"Hmm. There's a lot that you don't know about me, Kate," he grinned at her.

"I know." She grinned back at him. "Pick one then."

"Well... I can cook. And before you ask, I don't mean grilling meat on a BBQ. I can honestly cook from scratch."

She looked at him suspiciously. "You're not pulling my leg, are you?"

"Nope. My skill is quite rusty though. I haven't had a lot of practice for the last year or so." He smiled at her dumbstruck expression. "Don't look so surprised. Most executive chefs are men, you know."

"But we always order take-away, eat-out, or we eat my cooking when we hang out together. Why don't you ever say anything about that skill of yours?" she asked incredulously.

He grinned at her questions. "I like watching you cook. You look so adorable when you cook. The way you bite your bottom lip when you try to figure out a recipe. The way your forehead frown in concentration when you made a stir-fry."

"I don't look adorable. I was cooking. It's the thing you have to do to produce a meal." She couldn't help but blushed at the notion of him watching her.

"See... that's where you're mistaken. You attacked cooking as if it was a task to complete, like boarding a vessel. But cooking is not like that. It's supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be about family time, about caring for the people that you cook for. When you look at the satisfaction and wonder in your family's faces as they eat their dinner, all the long hours in the kitchen are forgotten and cooking becomes a joy."

She looked at the man beside her silently. Watching him passionately defending his view of cooking made her realised that she had never had that. Not even when she was little. Cooking for her was a survival method. She didn't realise that even after all these years, she still treated it like that.

As she went from blushing to being very quiet, Dylan wondered if he offended her with his analysis of her cooking. He was about to open his mouth to apologise when she started to speak.

"I've never had that. Fun dinner time." Her gaze was fixed somewhere around her house, avoiding to see his penetrating gaze. "My mother never cooked for me either."

"Then who..."

"We had a chef when we were back in England. But once we were here, I cooked. I've been cooking since I was tall enough to reach the kitchen bench."

"That's just wrong..." He was outraged for her. Hell, he was livid. No kids should be cooking alone. They could help, like what her mother used to ask him to, but to cook for herself and her mother, without anyone else's help, that was just unbelievable. How old was she when she could reach a kitchen bench? 11? 12?

"It might be wrong. But that's the way it was. I cooked for myself with food that I bought with my own money from working after school. With a mother that could barely able to hold a job when she was sober enough to do so, money was scarce. Even though the store could only give me minimum wages because I was a child, at least I was able to buy pen and blank notebooks for school and small amount of food to feed myself."

"Where was your father when all of this happened?" he asked with a barely contained anger in his voice. As she looked at him with sadness in her eyes, he knew that her story would change from bad to worse.

"My mother left my father when I was 9. She then brought me all the way from England to a small mining town in Queensland to follow an opal miner by the name of Tom. But it turned out that he was just playing with her. So, left broken-hearted with a nine-year-old in tow and small amount of money in the middle of nowhere, she became lost to the bottle, drugs and whatever else she could get her hands on."

"Please tell me that there were some good memories too when you live in that town." He couldn't stand his imagination of a young Kate McGregor with a sad eyes and pale face, working in a general store or washing dishes in a diner any longer. He unconsciously tightened his embrace around her, almost wishing that he could travel back in time and asked his parents to adopt her and get her out of the kind of misery she experienced.

"There were. But it was very few and far in between." Sensing his desperation, she racked her brain for any happy memories that she could still remember. "There was Mrs Fields, who lived few doors down from my house. She was nice."

He breathed a sigh of relief when he heard that.

"She used to bake cookies for me and she let me stay with her when my mother was in her violent mode. Although..."

She snorted unamused. "I chose the wrong memory, Dylan. I'm sorry."

His heart clenched for her. "What happened?"

"My mother found out that I had been staying at Mrs Fields' house and asked her current boyfriend at the time, a low-life named Barry, to ransack the old lady's house."

"Christ..." He kissed her temple softly. "I'm so sorry, Kate."

"Don't be." She lifted her head to look at his eyes once more. "I learned a lot from my less than ideal childhood. That horrible upbringing shaped me to become what I am today. I think I turned out to be alright despite the circumstances."

He smiled at her. "I think so too. You are a great woman, Kate. Never forget that..."

"Thank you." She reached up to kiss his cheek briefly and then placed her head on his shoulder. "You said you brought pancakes before?"

"Yes. They're in the fridge," he turned his head slightly to look at her. "Do you want them now?"

"Hu-uh... All this talking made me hungry," she said sheepishly, choosing not to tell him that she didn't have dinner the previous night.

He chuckled at her confession. He then remembered that he could do something to cheer her up besides eating their normal pancakes. "Do you want me to make you something instead?"

She raised her eyebrows at his offer. "Eager to show off, aren't you?"

"Hey..." He said in mock outraged. "Here I am trying to make you feel better and you accused me of showing off...tsk...tsk..tsk..."

She rolled her eyes at him in mock annoyance, but she was smiling. "What do you have in mind?"

"French toast."

Her eyes lightened up at the mention of the culinary delight.

He smiled at her obvious excitement. "I take that as a yes then?"

Not waiting for her answer, he let her go from his embrace, got up from the couch and extended his hand in front of her; inviting her to join him in the kitchen.

Her eyes softened as she looked up at him. She wasn't blind. The man still had feelings for her. She knew that she didn't deserve his affection anymore and yet, here she was, telling him her less than stellar childhood stories and using his chest as a pillow once more. There was just something about her best friend that made her wanted to share her burden with him. Maybe it was his endless patience when he listened to her. Maybe it was his amazing level of consideration for her feelings that no one had ever given her in her whole life, not even Mike. Whatever the reason was, she knew that she was lucky to have him in her life.

"Kate?"

She shook her head free from her thoughts and then put her hands in his. He pulled her up from the couch and led the way to her kitchen.

"Dylan..."

"Hmm..." He rummaged her pantry and fridge to look for all the ingredients.

"You don't have to make up for my mother's inadequacy by doing this."

He carefully put the eggs on one of the benches, before turning to look at her. "Kate, no one can do that and I'm not trying to. I just want to make you French toast because I can and I'm good at this." He grinned broadly to emphasise his last statement.

She couldn't help but grin back at him for his usual tendency to be over-confident. "You better make this worth all the mess, big fella."

"Believe me, when you taste this, you wouldn't want to taste any other."

She raised her eyebrows at his outrageous claim. "Then what are you doing still standing in my kitchen doing nothing, huh? Start cooking, Petty Officer!"

"Yes, Ma'am."

To be continued...