Kate wakes to her phone buzzing somewhere near her sleep-muddled head. Muttering something unintelligable, she rolls over and finds herself tumbling off the edge of the lounge, landing heavily on the tiled floor. "Ow! Shit!" Kate curses, disentangling herself from the blanket and fumbling for her phone.

"Such profanity!" Mike's cheery voice snaps Kate to reality. "My ears are not a toilet!"

The fire. Crying. Mike.

Kate pushes her hair from her face and sits up, blinking rapidly around at her surroundings. "So, evidently, you're not a morning person?" Mike quips from his spot in the kitchen. Now that she's awake, Kate can't see how she'd slept through the sounds of sizzling and scraping, or the hissing and grinding of the coffee machine, not to mention the bright light streaming in through the open blinds. "Got you a ridiculously potent coffee on the way." He smiles. "Feeling better?"

She has no mirror to take in her appearance, but judging by the light tickling around her face and neck, her hair is flying in every direction. She stifles a yawn, before securing her hair in a messy bun. "Sorry." The apology tumbles from her lips. She's not exactly sure what she's apologising for - crying all over him, or sleeping on his lounge, or... oh, God, she'd kissed him. "Thanks for..." Again, she lets the sentence hang. Thanks for actually being human? For not taking advantage of me?

"No problem." Mike nods. "Ah, here's a coffee. Breakfast should be ready in a few minutes. The girls are just getting dressed."

Bridie. "Crap, school. We need to-"

"Don't stress about it." Mike cuts her off. "Rose has a spare uniform she can borrow and the lunchboxes are sorted." Kate catches sight of Bridie's lunchbox on the bench next to Rose's, already packed. As Kate cranes her neck, she notes that there's not a plastic package in sight. Somehow, she can't quite gel together the image of Mike baking what looks like muesli slice and making fruit salad. "She said she wasn't allergic to anything. Now," Mike claps his hands together. "Would you like pancakes, or bacon, or eggs? All of the above?"

"Why are you doing this?" Kate blurts out, before realising just how rude that seems. "I mean, not that I'm not grateful, but..."

Mike shrugs and busies himself with the fridge, pouring juice into glasses. "You were having a tough time. You looked like you could use a little help."

There's a clattering of feet, and the girls appear. Bridie smiles as she catches sight of Kate, wrapping her arms around her mother. Kate returns the hug with just as much enthusiasm, breathing in that sweet smell of her girl. As Bridie pulls away, Kate plays with the end of Bridie's hair. "Look at you!" She exclaims.

"Mike braided my hair." Bridie reports, as she fingers the bright yellow flower on the hair tie securing the end of the braid.

Kate looks to Mike. The idea of him cooking and preparing lunches was one thing, but him actually braiding hair? She raises an eyebrow, but Mike gives an embarrassed sort of smile. "YouTube teaches many things." He winks at Rose. "I can also do all the dance moves to Let It Go."

Partly to cover up her complete bewilderment with the ridiculously domestic situation she's found herself in, Kate glances at her phone and sees a text from Marshall.

Counselling session at 10.30am.

"Full disclosure, I did look at your phone to grab Cal's number, just to send her a message that you were okay." Mike slides a plate across at her. "And while I was there I did happen to note the interesting contact name you've assigned me."

"I..." Kate hesitates for a moment, then shakes her head. "You're bluffing."

Mike raises an eyebrow and picks up his own phone. A moment later, Kate's screen announces an incoming call from Arsehole.

Bridie leans over and giggles. Kate stabs moodily at her eggs. "Thanks." She mutters sarcastically.

Mike gives her a sweet-as-pie smile. "Anytime, Kate."

When she arrives at work the next morning, Kate sees that the rest of the team don't seem to have had the best night either. Not entirely comfortable with spending the morning with Mike, she heads to work straight after dropping Rose and Bridie from school (because, dammit, even though Mike's done everything else, she can at least insist on dropping the girls off at school), and so arrives almost an hour before her allotted time slot. Buffer shuffles his feet moodily as he waits, both he and 2Dads looking distinctly puffy-eyed and hungover. As Spider emerges from his appointment, he too looks quite battle-worn. Dutchy arrives with barely two minutes to spare, tossing his motorbike helmet angrily onto the lounge and walking into the office as though the counsellor had personally tortured him. With each exit from the office, each person remained silent, barely pausing to exchange a nod before carrying on.

When Kate is finally called, she doesn't sit in stony silence, but she doesn't share her entire life either. This is hardly her first mandatory session; she remembers after severe bushfires back in the mountains, they'd all been instructed to attend, and she has no issue with them. She says how she's feeling, explaining what happened, and then she takes the advice and reassurance. It's not going to change her life, but it's not exactly making it worse either. The woman - Siobhan - talks to Kate about how life is fleeting, about the limitations of the job, and about Kate's own physical limitations. Then she talks of faulty fire sprinklers and poor organisation, as though she actually knows what she's talking about.

By the time she finally emerges, mercifully cleared for duty and a feeling a little less volatile, she makes her way straight home, thinking of nothing more than a warm bath. A note on the fridge reveals that Cal is at uni, and that there's leftovers in the fridge if she's hungry, before a tacked on, call me if you need me. Love you Sis.

She's not exactly sure when she and Mike became texting buddies - at any rate, he seemed to have abandoned his long-winded sarcastic voicemails in favour of multiple pictures of the kayaks he is building, or himself Titanic-ing on the bow of one of his houseboats. In between work, and sleep, and spending time with Cal and Bridie, she very rarely finds the time to reply; and realistically, what possible response is there to a video of him, sliding down a pole at the local playground with the caption training to be just like you.

But his current message is almost... normal, with no hint of his usual grating sense of humour. Movies tonight with Rose and I? No sooner has the thought entered her mind, then another message comes through, completely demolishing Mike's newly-achieved mature persona. Movie is strictly PG, so you'll have to refrain from getting handsy with me during the pre-movie ads. Just in case that's a deal breaker.

Now that sounds more like the Mike she knows. Somehow, the joking makes her feel more at ease, especially after his period of acting the solemn and serious friend. Acting? No, being. And friend?

Is he becoming her friend?

And why doesn't she feel more apprehensive about that?

"You're crinkling." Kate observes as she settles herself in the seat beside Mike.

"Shh!" Mike rolls his eyes. "Narc." Looking around carefully, he seems to check for any workers around before extracting a bag of maltesers, a bag of skittles and a tube of Pringles from the inside pocket of his jacket. Kate can't help but burst into laughter, and Mike shushes her once more. "If you get us busted, McGregor, so help me..."

"You snuck all of that in?" Kate scoffs incredulously. Mike raises an eyebrow and gestures towards Rose, who gives a tired look, but extracts several more packets of junk food from her own clothing. "And here I was wondering why you were both wearing jackets."

"Hey, you'll be singing a different tune when you decide you want some snackage." Mike grins, before thrusting a packet in her direction. "Choccy?"