A/N: Thank you to all that have stuck around. I'm not entirely happy with this, but if I don't just bite the bullet and post, then it will sit forever. I'm honestly trying so hard, but things have been really tough lately. But it's a goal to get this finished. So hopefully I can do that. Thank you thank you thank you
"No, I haven't heard anything." RO reports wearily without looking up from his bonsai, before Dutchy has even opened his mouth to ask the question.
Dutchy scowls, despite not being able to quite put a finger on why this response irritates him so. Of course, RO was bound to get sick of him asking if he'd heard anything about Kate, but all the same, he was the communications expert. If anything new had happened in the police investigation or from NAVCOM, or indeed from Kate herself, RO was sure to know. "Right." Dutchy kneads his fist into his other hand, wondering, for about the millionth time, what Kate was doing now, and where she was. "And nothing from the feds or-"
"I just told you, no." This time RO turns around, although it seems more to give a pointed look in the direction of the door than any other effort at eye contact. And so Dutchy leaves COMCEN, slamming the door behind him, and makes his way up to the bridge.
"What about Abigail?" Zac mumbles into her neck later that night as they lay listening to the sounds of the night outside the tent. His arms are wrapped around her stomach - have been ever since they finished setting up the tent in a new clearing, as though if he ceases physical contact, then the... geez, the baby... will cease to exist. "…If it's a girl, I mean."
"Hmm..." Kate hums, eyes still closed. Telling him had been such a weight off her shoulders, and now that the tension has gone, she feels as though she could sleep for a thousand years. Beyond them, the nightlife around them chirps and rustles and clicks, but inside, it's just them and their baby in their own private world. "And if it's a boy?" She asks. She can feel his chest rising and falling against her back, and she matches him breath for breath, feeling the calm wash over her.
She can feel his smile against her skin, even though she can't see him. "Arthur?" He suggests, one of his hands walking two fingers over her stomach, as though it's a vast landscape to be explored rather than just her belly.
"Artie." Kate grins in spite of herself, and he presses a hiss to the back of her head.
"Well, maybe not Artie then." He muses.
He shifts, pulls her closer, and she relishes in the closeness of it all. "I like Noah." She confesses.
"Noah." Zac says the name as if it's water in a desert, liferaft in a stormy sea. "Kate, I can't believe we're having a baby." His eyelashes flutter against the back of her neck. "We're going to be so happy together, Kit." He promises. "We're going to make it work."
Of course, there's still the unspoken fear. The uncertainty of the future yet to come.
Tomorrow, they will pick up their new passports. And Kate McGregor and Zachary Tate will cease to exist.
2Dads finds himself bearing the brunt of Dutchy's anger. It's subtle at first - always volunteered to assist with maintenance, or stay with the RHIB during a boarding. He doesn't notice it at first, which is probably naive to say the least. And he accepts Dutchy's half-hearted apologies for forgetting his drink when it was Dutchy's round, cheerfully moving up to the bar to buy his own. It isn't until Charge tells him it's a shame he was too busy to join them fishing ("What do you mean you didn't know? Dutchy said you were out with your mates and couldn't come.") that he realises it's been ages since Dutchy has engaged in conversation with him.
He knows why, of course. Ever since he had gone to see Kate and returned without her, Dutchy had tried to wheedle her location out of him, growing steadily angrier each time 2Dads refused.
Of course, knowing his bosun blames him for Kate's disappearance, and knowing what to do about it are two entirely different things, and he finds himself valiantly trying to start conversations with Dutchy. He makes an effort to bring him a brew or some biccies from the galley, asks him about his shore leave. Hell, he even reads the latest issue of every motorcycle magazine he can get his hands on (okay, so he's broke and he gets them from the local library, but that doesn't mean he cares any less), so he can try and make conversation about Dutchy's motorbike. But his efforts remain unappreciated, and the brews grow cold.
He doesn't think anyone else notices. After all, Dutchy is not actively hostile to him. He still communicates professionally, relaying information and, to the casual observer, nothing was wrong. Except Annika Patel isn't just a casual observer, and she calls them both into her cabin one evening with an unimpressed look on her face.
"Alright, I want to know what's going on." It isn't a question, it's a demand. She stands there with her arms folded, frowning at the both of them as though they're her children, and 2Dads feels himself shift guiltily, despite the knowledge that, this time at least, he had done nothing wrong. When neither one of them respond, she continues. "This little... disagreement or whatever it is between the both of you, it needs to stop. We are a team of trained professionals, and a breakdown between two team members can have catastrophic consequences for the rest of the crew."
"I haven't got a problem with Petty Officer Mulholland, Ma'am." 2Dads settles on, not meeting Dutchy's gaze.
She clicks her tongue. "And you, Petty Officer?" She presses, peering at Dutchy. He says nothing, and she continues to speak. "Lieutenant Commander McGregor's abscondment is no one else's decision but her own. I know both myself and she would be very disappointed if this proved to disrupt the flow on Hammersley. Now, Dutchy, if you have something to say to 2Dads..."
"I have nothing to say to him, Ma'am." Dutchy manages, still staring blankly ahead. The unspoken ever lingers in the air.
The day she becomes Emily is no more or less outstanding than the day that had come before it. And she marvels at the absurdity of it all – that Emily Stark had been born without a mother to welcome her into the world. There was no hospital room, no signing of papers to signify her birth.
No.
Emily was born with the tipping of a paper bag, and the slide of a passport, opened by shaking fingers.
Emily. Emily Grace Stark.
Emily and Adam.
Adam.
And she can't quite put into words why this causes her to mumble something to Zac- Adam – about needing a bathroom and lock herself in a cubicle, tears running down her face. Because even though she still has him, and they're still the same people, there's an incredible sense of loss that makes her feel as though the world is splitting in two.
Gone are the days of Kate and Zac. Gone are the days of Hammersley and friends and her mother and his sisters and every other person that Kate McGregor once knew.
Because now, it was just Emily and Adam against the world. And it's all well and good to tell herself that it's just a name, but now... now she's overwhelmed with the crushing realisation that it's name, her identity, her life and everything she has ever achieved seem to have been encompassed in those eighteen letters. Kate. Kate McGregor. Kate Violet McGregor, who'd come to Australia and joined the Navy and lived and loved and pushed herself onwards.
Emily.
Emily.
She doesn't know how long she sits there, leaning heavily against the cubicle door and shaking with sobs. Only that it must be some time, because there's a knock on the door and she hears Z… hears his voice at the door. Zac. Adam.
She wonders if he's having the same internal crisis that she is. Or if he's used to changing his name.
"K- uh… Em? Are you in here?" Em. It almost knocks the breath out of her. Already, he's made her name his own. Made it sound familiar and friendly on his tongue, even though she's still spiraling.
But she'd chosen this. Had known, realistically, that this day would come, from the moment that she'd chosen to hide him. So she forces herself to take a shaking breath, and swipes furiously at her eyes. "Yeah." She calls back. "I'll be a second."
"I'll quit." 2Dads' words break the tense silence between them, and despite his anger, Dutchy finds his eyes snap to 2Dads. He hadn't even heard the younger sailor approach, so intent was he upon staring out at the waves and feeling the salt-spray on his lips. "I'll quit Hammersley, Dutchy."
"And what the hell would that achieve?" Dutchy snaps back, returning his gaze to the sea once more. Not so long ago, he'd been standing here with Kate, joking about... something. Something unimportant. But they'd been happy. He wracks his brain, trying to remember just what had been so humorous, but already his memories of her are slipping through his fingers like water.
"Patel is right, Dutch." 2Dads takes a step forwards. "We're a team. And the ship can't have its bosun distracted like this. And I know you can't forgive me. So I'll leave."
Dutchy lets out a dry snort of laughter, even though there's nothing funny about reality now. "And that's supposed to make me feel better?" He challenges. "It's not going to bring her back. She's gone."
For a moment, there's nothing but the hum of the engines and the churning of the sea. And then 2Dads speaks, his voice soft and low, as though at the sickbed of someone very dear. "She'd not dead, Dutchy."
She might as well be, he thinks bitterly, the words leeching like poison through his bloodstream. Yes, Kate McGregor had gone, had left them as completely and abruptly as Swain had. She might as well be dead.
"I... I loved her too, you know." All the breath catches in Dutchy's throat at 2Dads' next words, and he has to fight the lump in the back of his throat and the prickling behind his eyes. "I loved her. Not like you did. But... if I could have brought her back, I would have."
"Well, you didn't." He spits.
"I couldn't." 2Dads corrects. "I tried, Dutchy. But... she's happy. She's happy with him and she's... she's safe."
Dutchy pushes off from the railing, rage flooding through her. "She didn't even have the decency to say goodbye!" He snaps. A hand slaps hard against the bulkhead, as though to emphasise his point. "She just left! No goodbye! No fucking farewell! She chose him and she just took off into the night!"
He's mad now. Furious. And he hates that 2Dads is just standing there feeling sorry for him, as though he was the weak one. Looking at him like a jilted lover, a broken-hearted fool. As though he was something to be pitied. "That was wrong." 2Dads agrees softly. And Dutchy can feel the young sailor standing behind him, but still, he refuses to look at him. "That was wrong, leaving like that. And I know she feels awful about it."
"She knew what he was like! What he had done! And she still bloody chose him over- over all of us! Chose him and took off without anything! It's selfish is what it is! And then you found her, and... and you took away any opportunity for me to... to..."
"...to get closure." 2Dads finishes softly for him, sighing heavily. "Dutchy, hit me. Yell at me! Scream! I can take it. But I can't bear to lose Kate and you over this. We were mates, Dutchy. All of us."
"Do... do you honestly think she's safe?" Dutchy asks softly, looking him properly in the eye for the first time.
2Dads gives a sad sort of smile. "I wouldn't have left her there if I didn't believe that."