an: oh man, this chapter gave me so much trouble, you have no idea. had to play around with the timeline a little to make it work, so we're going to go straight into 4.09 (dutch courage), and then maybe come back to the eps in between. I've also tried not to rehash the episode, because I thought it was pretty perfect to start off with, but there will be moments from the ep included.

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you're ripped at every edge (but you're a masterpiece)

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Boyfriend? Kate stares at the young bartender and blinks. Maybe she'd drunk more than she'd thought? She shakes her head, brushing the thought off as she walked towards Dutchy. He's slumped on the bar, his head lying on his arms. She reaches out with her arm, tries to shake him awake. "Dutchy?" No response. She jostles him harder, and then rolls her eyes. This is not how she was expecting her night to go. "Dutchy, c'mon, wake up."

Dutchy shifts his head, mumbling a little before he blinks. "Kate!" He smiles widely, his eyes bright.

She inhales sharply – that smile is deadly, and he's never directed it at her like this. She ignores the butterflies that have taken flight in her stomach and motions for him to stand up. "Hey Dutchy," she says, and smiles involuntarily. Dutchy seems to be a happy drunk, thank god, so he shouldn't be too hard to handle.

"Hi Kate." He pushes away from the bar and stands, swaying. She hurriedly grabs his arm to steady him, and then realizes that he's either too tall or she's too short for this to work out. "Hi Kate," he repeats happily, and then before she can respond, his arms are banded around hers and he's hugging her tight. "I'm so glad you're not dead!"

"Uh, so am I," she says, gently twisting out of his arms. She turns to the bartender, who cuts off her laugh hastily. "Is there anything left to cover on his tab?"

"Uh, no, I've closed all that off, he gave me his card earlier," the young brunette replies, nodding to the wallet, phone and keys on the bar.

Kate gives Dutchy his wallet, watching carefully as he shoves it into his pocket, before taking his phone and keys and throwing them into her bag. "Alright big guy, let's get you home, aye?" She tugs on his arm, relieved when he follows her easily – she's probably had a few too many wines tonight, and she doesn't think she's up to struggling with him.

"Thanks!" she calls out to the bartender as they leave the bar, and she's glad to see that her cab is still waiting. She helps Dutchy in, and then climbs in the other side, looking to Dutchy expectantly. "So where are we going Dutchy?" She prompts when he doesn't say anything.

"Home," he says, leaning over to buckle her in, his fingers fumbling, before he does his own.

She sighs, and waits till he's back in his seat before she asks, "and where's home?" He looks at her blankly. Kate rolls her eyes, and then gives the cabbie her address. He can sleep it off in her spare room. There's a fifteen-minute drive back to hers, and they sit in silence the entire time. After paying the driver, she leads Dutchy to her door, fishing out her keys.

"You could have died," he says suddenly, the smile gone from his face. Kate closes the door behind them, and leads him to the kitchen, pulling water bottles from the fridge, and handing one to him, before taking the other for herself. "You could have died, Kate," he repeats, twisting the top off and taking a long drink.

She ignores his words, and tries not to look at the line of his throat as he swallows. She is not going to have this conversation with him, not now. They've both had too much alcohol, and nope, she is not going there. She drinks from her own bottle, hoping that he'll have forgotten his words by the time she's done.

"What, nothing to say?"

No such luck then. "It all worked out, Dutchy." That's all she's willing to say about it, she doesn't want to think about it. Not about how close she'd come to getting her brains blown out today, not about their mad scramble through the forest, trying to keep Mia going as the men chased behind them. Not about how the smell of burnt flesh seemed to linger in the air after she'd shot one of them with the flare gun. That had been the whole point of going out, after all.

"Always the freaking hero, Kate," he scowls. "Jumping on to that boat has to be the dumbest thing I've ever seen you do," he rants. "They could have killed you, do you get that?"

She flushes angrily, before she takes a deep breath, tells herself to ignore it, to not take the bait. God, had she thought he was a happy drunk? "Look Dutchy, it's late, you're drunk." She turns to leave the kitchen, hopes he will follow her. "I'll show you to the guest room, you can crash there for the night." She shows him the bathroom, pulls out a spare towel, and leaves him to it, desperately hoping that he's not the type to throw up.

"Wait, Kate, I'm sorry," she turns to see him leaning against the door, running a hand through his hair. "You're not dumb. You're brave." He pauses and takes a small step forward before he stops. "You're the bravest person I know, and I just – it's my job to keep you safe, and what if I'm too late, what if I can't –" He cuts himself off. "I'm sorry," he finishes quietly, meets her gaze head on, before he turns back into the room.

Oh. Oh. She watches him close the door behind him, but makes no move to her own room. Kate lifts a hand to her stomach, tries to calm the butterflies. Sure, Dutchy is handsome, but she hadn't really been attracted to him beyond a surface level, his standoffish behaviour and their constant arguing having turned her off. But this Dutchy? Who let her in, who let himself be vulnerable in front of her? That's a whole different ball game.

Kate shakes her head, trying to dispel the thought. It's the wine, it has to be the wine. She gets ready for bed on autopilot, her mind stuck on the man sleeping in her guest room. She settles on her pillow, arms folded under her head, and stares up at the ceiling. Sleep will be a long time coming tonight, she thinks.

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Kate bolts upright, the scream caught in her throat. The gunshot echoes in her ears, even as she shoves sweat drenched hair out of her face. Her phone buzzes insistently on the bedside table, becoming progressively louder. She takes a second to steady her breathing before she reaches out and picks it up, answering automatically.

She listens to Mike's apologetic voice as he tells her they've been crash-sailed and have to be back on Hammersley in three hours. Hanging up, she slumps back into her pillows, her head pounding. Ugh, she probably should have stopped after the first three or four glasses of wine. She tilts her head, and groans as she catches sight of her alarm clock, the red numbers steadily ticking into four AM. She has not had enough sleep for this. Kate pulls herself out of bed, ignores the siren call from her pillow. She strips, stumbles into the shower and waits till she feels a bit more human.

She's in the middle of packing her sea bag when an unfamiliar ring tone sounds through her room. She stops, wincing as she tries to hunt the source down, and it's not till she pulls the phone out of her purse that she remembers Dutchy is crashing in her spare room. She quickly switches the phone to silent, and bites her lip. He'd opened up, just a little, last night, and she can't help but let it colour her thoughts.

Kate knocks on the closed door, softly at first, and then a little harder. When there's no response, she opens it carefully, switching the light on. Dutchy's sleeping on his stomach, his face turned away. He'd stripped off his shirt, and the sheet was lying low, exposing his tanned skin. "Dutchy?" She calls, hoping he'll wake up and she won't have to enter the room.

When he doesn't show any sign of waking up, she sighs. She doesn't have time for this – they have to be on the ship in two hours, and they still need to pick up Dutchy's car from the bar. She moves closer to the bed, reaching out to place her hand on his shoulder, and tries to shake him awake. "Dutchy, wake up, we've been crash-sailed."

He groans, turning his head. She moves her hand, waits for him to open his eyes. "What – Kate?" His voice is thick with sleep, and somehow the sound of her name in that tone sends a tingle skating down her spine.

"We've got two hours before we have to be on the Hammersley," she says, brushing off her reaction. When he merely looks at her, a confused look on his face, she adds, "you were too drunk to give me your address last night, so you crashed at mine."

"Oh," he rubs a hand over his face. "Uh, thanks." He turns and sits up, let's out a groan. "Christ, what did I drink last night?"

"About two thirds of a very expensive bottle of whiskey, from what I could tell." She pulls back, adding, "I'll go get you some nurofen while you get yourself sorted, yeah?"

She closes the door behind her and stops by her room to finish packing her bag, before heading downstairs. By the time he makes it downstairs, dressed in yesterday's clothes, she has a bottle of water and painkillers ready for him. She waits till he's done before she speaks. "I'll take you to yours so you can get your bag – I don't think there's any point in getting your car right now."

He nods. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm still over the limit, if you're right about how much I had." He sculls the rest of the water, grimacing. "What happened last night? The last thing I remember is the bartender cutting me off."

She blinks. "Nothing," she says, her voice quiet. Maybe it's better that he doesn't remember what he'd said. "Nothing to worry about, anyway."

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She breaks up the argument between RO and Dutchy, ignores 2Dads quip. The cut on her neck itches, and it feels like every swallow stretches the skin and reopens it. Mike hadn't held back, and she feels guilty that they have no excuse. The boarding had been a complete write off, even if it had started well. The grog had been a good find, and then suddenly there had been cold steel at her neck.

She tries to run through the events in her mind, and then decides to find Dutchy. She needs answers. When she comes across him in the senior sailor's mess, he's staring blindly into the distance, and it takes him a moment to notice her. She watches him withdraw, can almost see the walls going up.

"There a problem, X?"

"I don't know Dutchy, you tell me."

He tries to brush it off, and they seem to be going in circles. She doesn't know how to respond to his question, doesn't know if she would have made the same call if their positions had been reversed. They stare at each other, silently waiting. She moves aside to let him leave, watching his back as he moves further away from her.

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Kate stands at the entrance of the café, wondering if she should approach him again. He's brushed her off numerous times in the last couple of days, and honestly, she's not even sure why she's still trying. But Mike had been serious about starting disciplinary procedures, and she's not willing to let him stuff his career up. There is something going on with him, and she's determined to find it out. Steeling herself, she approaches him as the waitress leaves. "Waste of a medal, just throwing it away. Hear they're worth a fair whack on eBay." He turns to her, before looking away. She sighs, pulling off her cap and sitting down at the table. "Dutchy, I don't know what's going on with you, but you just left the boat again without asking permission."

"What's it to you?"

"I'm your divisional officer, it's my job to know what's going on with my sailors." She leans forward. "Look, I'm just trying to understand you."

"That big a mystery, am I?"

She resists the urge to whack the smirk off his face. "You are overprotective of me, and you have been on boarding's ever since you stepped foot on Hammersley," she wonders if she should bring up what he'd said last night, before deciding against it. "But in day to day running of the ship, you avoid me like the plague. I don't get that."

"There's nothing to get."

"Do you really hate me that much?" Christ, she sounds like she's back in high school, and she hate's that it's actually a valid question right now, considering how he's been treating her.

"No." He says quickly, before continuing. "Look, you just, you've got it all wrong, okay?"

"Oh, have I?" She draws back, frustrated.

"What do you want me to say to you X, that I'm sorry?"

"No, I don't want your apologies – "

"Well, what do you want?"

"I want you to trust me," she replies, leaning forward again to emphasize her words.

"It's not you I don't trust, okay."

"But why don't you trust yourself?" She holds her breath as he pauses, hoping that he'll let her in and talk to her. Instead, he sees the grog-runners truck, and suddenly she's holding onto him on the back of a stolen motorbike as they race across the streets, trying to keep up.

Before she knows it, she's waiting nervously behind the truck, watching out for Dutchy's return. Instead, she hears the distinctive slide of a shotgun behind her and closes her eyes. "Hello again."

He presses the barrel of the gun against her back, pushing her forward. "Get to the boat, nice and easy now."

She stumbles forward, her heart in her throat. Had they found Dutchy? On the boat, she bites back a cry at seeing him laid out on the floor. The man pushes her forward again, before starting a heated discussion with the others, but she ignores it, kneeling next his prone body. "Dutchy," she whispers, relieved when he lets out a groan. He's not dead.

She follows the demands of the grog-runner, pulling off her DPNU shirt so they can search her for weapons, before tying it off around her waist. They do the same to Dutchy, before he barks out a command and then the boat is moving. "Where are we going?" She asks, keeping a wary eye out. "They're going to be looking for us."

"Good," he says, before he rears back. The last thing she remembers is a blinding pain in her temple before her eyes slide shut.

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She comes to slowly, swearing as she realizes that she's tied up. The small room is dank and smells musty. "You okay, X?" Dutchy asks from behind her and she twists, trying to see his face.

"Yeah," she says. Her head is pounding, but otherwise she is fine.

He struggles against their bindings, letting out a grunt as he fails to get out of them. He pants, his heavy breathing loud in the enclosed space. "It's no good. This is my fault, I dragged you into this."

She shakes her head. "It's not your fault, I made my own choice."

"Yeah, to trust me. I tried to keep you safe," he pauses and she waits. "I just didn't do a very good job of it." She looks towards him, a little confused. "If I was quicker, if I was smarter, if I anticipated the danger," he continues, his voice thick.

"You couldn't have anticipated this," she says. Dutchy continues as if he hasn't heard her, and suddenly she realizes that he hasn't. "You're talking about the Gulf."

"… and I score a medal for it," he scoffs. "How bloody ironic is that?"

"I've read the report. You were saving the lives of six sailors, the boarding officer's death, it wasn't your fault."

"I was his buffer – second in command. I should have been by his side, protecting him."

His voice cracks a little, and she can hear the grief buried deep. Suddenly it feels like a veil's been lifted, as if all their interactions become clear in this context. "Is that why you're always protecting me, and why you can hardly talk to me, have you been that petrified of it happening again?"

"It did happen again – I froze. Almost cost you your life."

"Dutchy, it was a split-second, that was all," she says, trying to get him to believe her. He's quiet, and they sit in silence. She doesn't say anything, trying to process what he's said. Oh Dutchy, she thinks, her heart aching, a little. She can't imagine what it's been like, if he's lived with this guilt since the Gulf. Kate shifts. Her hands are going numb, and she flexes her wrist, trying to get the feeling back.

"Hey, I think I can feel something," he says suddenly.

"What?"

"It's like a kink in the rope." She can feel him tugging on the rope. "Can you just bend your wrist back a bit further." She does, though she's unable to hide the gasp of pain. "Sorry, I know it hurts."

She flexes further, pushing the pain aside and waits till she feels her wrists slip free, before she turns and unties him. "Are you okay," he asks her quickly.

"Are you okay?" She asks him in return, her eyes searching.

He nods, looking down. "Let's get you out of here."

They climb out, and she squints against the brightness of the sun. They're standing on a pontoon, and all she can see ahead of her is miles of ocean. "Where the hell are we?"

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please let me know what you're thinking, I really appreciate the reviews!