A/N: I've been binge watching Sea Patrol again and this idea popped into my head after watching The Hunted. Kind of a missing scene thing dealing with the after effects. Disclaimer: I own nothing. It all belongs to the original creators and I make no money off of this.v

It had been a week since the events of the Exped on Crab Tree Island or what she had dubbed Psycho Island. A week of sleepless nights and jumping at the smallest things. Swain had offered her something to help her sleep, but she has refused. She had never liked taking sedatives and she was afraid to sleep anyways. It seemed like everytime she closed her eyes she was transported right back to that island and fighting for both her life and the lives of her friends. Sometimes she saw 2Dads, RO, and Dutchy cut down in different gruesome ways. Other times she was just running through an endless jungle being chased by an unseen hunter.

Jess sighed as she stared at the bottom of the rack above her. She looked at the illuminated face of her watch. 0230. Her arm thumped back down on the bed and she finally gave up on sleeping. She got up, slid on a pair of shoes, and headed for the galley. Maybe a cuppa would help. It certainly couldn't hurt.

In the galley she pulled a mug down and filled the kettle before putting it on to boil. She did enjoy how quiet and peaceful the ship got at this time of night. The engines provided a hum of white noise that reverberated through the ship and between that and the sound of the kettle boiling she was lulled into a drowsy trance.

"What are you doing up Chicken Legs?"

Jess jumped at Dutchy's voice coming from behind her. She whirled and smashed her knee into a cabinet handle. She yelped and would have toppled over if Dutchy hasn't rushed over and grabbed her elbows to steady her.

"Steady there Bird. Jumpy much?"

Jess shoved a piece of hair out of her face. "Yeah sorry. You just caught me off guard." She looked down to where he was still holding on to her. "Literally."

The kettle snapped off behind him and he let go of her so she could step past him to prepare her tea. She felt Dutchy watching her as she chose a sachet of chamomile tea amd placed it in her mug along with a small amount of honey before she poured the hot water in. A comfortable silence settled between them while she let the tea steep for a couple of minutes. She got rid of the tea bag and turned back to face him.

He was leaned back against the counter, propped up by his hands braced on the edge. He gave her a small smile.

"So you never answered my question. What are you doing up? You're not on duty for another five hours."

Jess stared down at her mug and shrugged. "I can't sleep."

Dutchy nodded in understanding. He had a suspicion as to what was keeping the young sailor awake. He suspected it was the same thing that had made him volunteer for guts watch every night this week since they had left that island of nightmares. He had been keeping an eye on all three of the junior sailors since they had gotten back on board Hammersley, but he had been keeping a closer watch on Bird. Outwardly she seemed fine, but he had noticed how jumpy she was lately and the ever-darkening circles under her eyes. He knew she had talked to the Navy shrink about her experiences, but he knew some things could only ever be understood by someone who had been there.

"I'm on guts watch again tonight. Why don't you come up to the bridge and keep me company?" he asked her.

She nodded. That sounded like an excellent idea. She didn't really fancy being alone right now.

Dutchy smiled and pushed off the counter. "Good. Let's go chicken legs."

Jess followed him up to the bridge and settled in the navigator's chair while he took the command chair. The sailor on watch who had temporarily relieved Dutchy nodded to him and resumed his hourly patrol.

The two sailors sat in a comfortable silence for a while. The seas surrounding the ship were calm. She could hear the water washing up against the hull through one of the open windows. The peace and serenity of it all was a stark contrast to the images that plagued her dreams. Jess laughed to herself. The irony that being awake wad more peaceful than being asleep was not lost on her.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Dutchy asked her.

She looked up at him. "Just thinking of the irony that being awake is more relaxing than sleeping."

"Having nightmares?"

"Every time I close my eyes I'm right back on that island. Sometimes it plays out the way it happened. Other times it's different. I've seen you and RO and 2Dads killed so many times in my dreams that I'm sometimes surprised to see you all walking around the ship." She swiped a hand over her eyes when she felt herself start to tear up. "And I can never seem to stop crying whenever it comes up.

"I feel so stupid. I should be over it by now right? The rest of you are fine." She stopped herself from continuing her rant. He didn't need to here her complaining. She lowered her gaze to the mug in her hands. A tear dripped off her cheek and dropped into the liquid. She watched the ripples stretch out to the edge and bounce back. Jess was so lost in her thoughts she didn't notice when Dutchy got up and came over to her. He reached over and took the mug from her hands and replaced the lid before he set it aside.

"Come here Jess," he urged. He took one of her hands and gently pulled her into his arms. She held tightly to him and soaked in the comfort that he offered as he wrapped his arms around her.

"I'll let you in on a secret. None of the rest of us are fine. We just have different ways we show it. RO is more prickly and particular than usual. 2Dads throws more energy into his pranks and would probably play that mug in a game of poker if it meant distracting himself from what happened."

"And you?" she prompted from where her head was resting on his chest. When he paused talking she could hear his heartbeat under her ear, steady and dependable, just like him.

"Me? I volunteer for guts watch. It gives me time to get my head straight without too many people around. I also have trouble sleeping so at least I'm doing something productive with my time. I've discovered too that it helps me to sleep either early evening or early morning when most of the ship is up so there's someone to keep an eye on things. I still have nightmares, but they happen less often than they used to. I also tend to work out more in the hopes that expending all that energy will let me sleep in peace."

Jess sagged against him. The knowledge that she was not alone and that the others were still just as effected as she was came as a bit of a relief. "I just can't seem to cope with it. Even therapy doesn't help. I'm just so tired."

Dutchy wrapped his arms tighter around her. "It takes time and honestly, this is the kind of thing I don't think any of us will fully move past. I know I will probably have nightmares about this for a long time and I probably won't be able to hear a chicken noise without having an adrenaline dump for a while. I've felt hunted before in Afghanistan, but there it made sense. It came with the territory of being in a hostile area where you know who is trying to kill you and why. This? This makes no sense and knowing how close we came..." He trailed off, but she knew how that sentence ended. It was a sentence she had thought many times over the last week. Knowing how close they had all come to dying.

He pulled back and stooped slightly to look her in the eye. "But thanks to you we are all still alive. You saved all our bacon out there and I've never been prouder of someone in my life. Don't you forget that."

Jess swiped a few more tears from her eyes and nodded. "Thanks Dutchy."

"Anytime Chicken Legs. I'm always here if you need to talk or just someone to lean on."

"Same goes for you too," she told him.

One corner of his mouth crooked up in a smile. "We'll get through this together, yeah?"

"Together," she agreed.

A/N: As always I would love to know what you think. Leave me a message after this note. ~Naomi