A/N: Yay, a third chapter and the beginnings of an actual plot! Don't worry though, there will be little plot and mostly amusement in this story.

Anyone want to comment on how well I pulled off soldier talk in this chapter? I think I did pretty well, to be honest.

That's it for now. This story might take a back seat as I've gotten a bunch of ideas for Echo (another one of my stories; you should read it, yeeesss) recently and'll probably be working on that for a bit.

Routinely Disorganised

A week after the Seekers arrived, things in flat 221B had settled down into a sort-of sedate routine: Katie would wake up – the Seekers (excepting Cindy) would already be up and about; they would eat whatever breakfast was available, usually toast (not made by Rob, thank God) and whatever conserve could be found or bought beforehand (Scott and Tim were strawberry jam men through and through; TC and Cindy had a strange fascination with Katie's mum's homemade (and mailed from Ireland to the States) bramble jam; Sam only ever had lemon curd, although he said "everything else is delicious too"; Dirk had blueberry(?!)jam and marmalade; and finally Sky smuggled his precious Marmite in despite Katie's repeated declarations that she did not want that bloody travesty of a spread anywhere within a hundred miles of her.

Next, Katie would go out to the Tower if it was one of her working days (Monday, Wednesday, Thursday or Saturday), and by then Cindy would be awake and arguing with the boys. Soon after the customary mocking of Scott's F-15 Active the Seekers would presumably get bored of verbal sparring and go out to their hangars, climb into their planes, and then practice aerial manoeuvres until dinnertime (apparently they had lunch in their planes, which Katie figured would make a dreadful mess) when either Scott or Katie or occasionally Sky would make some kind of food – Scott could literally only make cookies and ravioli for some reason, and Sky made steak dinners when he wanted something from either Katie or Cindy, who obliged him for the sole reason that Sky's steak dinners were bloody amazing – while the rest "helped" on a rotational basis. Cindy was best at "helping", but no kitchen jokes were made unless the perpetrator (read: Sky) wanted to either sustain third degree burns or lose a rib.

They would all watch either the news (there was some sort of trouble in Brazil; a nationalist government with designs on the rest of South America had come to power, and it looked like the US would get dragged into it somehow. The Seekers were enthusiastic at the prospect of some action; Katie was less so) or old reruns of Sherlock – in which Katie was expected to have some sort of sixth sense being both called Holmes and being from the UK – over dinner while TC read his Tom Clancy novels.

Therefore, at this point, Katie had gotten living with the Seekers down to an art. So, for example, if, as was the case now, a black F-15C Eagle with purple accents came screaming out of nowhere to buzz the control tower, instead of falling out of her chair in shock like the rest of Ground Control, Katie calmly flicked on her radio.

"Callsign Skywarp, this is Control, over."

"Roger Control, what can I do you for, sweetness? Over."

"If you don't stop buzzing the control tower, I'm locking you in Slip's room armed with only a pencil. Over."

"Say, have you done something to your hair, KT? You look much prettier than normal, over."

"Is your name Sunstorm or Skywarp? Stop it. Over."

"Woah. Right away, Control. Skywarp out."

Suffice is it to say Katie was used to this kind of thing. After Skywarp had flown back into formation with his wing, she leaned back in her chair and swivelled it left and right with her toes a little. The ground controller who sat just across from Katie, a straight-talking "Southern gal" who went by AJ, got up off the floor and whistled. "Tarnation, sugarcube. How in the hell didja get the Seekas all wrapped aroun' your finger like that? Ev'n their AWACS handl'r can't control 'em like that."

"It's fairly simple when you learn how to deal with them." Katie replied. "You just have to be all professional and militaristic with Starscream, shoot Skywarp's flirting down quickly before he gets going, stand up to Thrust's aggression, do the opposite of whatever Ramjet says, just run with Sunstorm, be nice to Dirge, and I usually agree with Slipstream so that's fine. Thundercracker is the best behaved of all of them."

"Ground Control, I'm about to take off on Runway 4, over." Ramjet suddenly announced.

"Roger that, Ramjet. Control out." Katie answered, then switched to the loudspeakers over the whole airfield. "Clear Runway 4 for an aircraft landing."

She turned to AJ. "See? Easy."

A large contact suddenly appeared on Katie's radar screen. "Ground Control, this is Seeker One-One. How copy, over?" Starscream said over the radio.

"One-One, Lima Charlie, over." Katie replied. She could see the faint shapes of a red, white, and blue F-15 Active and a dark blue MiG-25 flanking a big AWACS aircraft. There was smoke and flame belching out from the AWACS plane's engines.

"Be advised, our AWACS plane callsign Rainmaker has engine trouble and is coming in for an emergency landing. Myself and Seeker Two-One are escorting, over."

"Copy One-One. Clearing Runway 6 now. Cleared for emergency landing. Interrogative: how did Rainmaker sustain engine trouble, over?" Katie asked, making the necessary arrangements.

"Control, this is Thundercracker. We were engaged by three unidentified bandits over neutral airspace. Managed to splash the bandits, but Rainmaker took a hit, over."

"Understood, Thundercracker, over. Rainmaker, this is Control, do you copy, over?" Katie asked, switching frequencies.

"This is Rainmaker!" a man's voice said, the sound of a fire in the background. "We've taken damage, but we're holding it together for now, Control, over!"

"Rainmaker, you have emergency landing clearance on Runway 6. Recovery teams are already Oscar Mike, over."

"Copy that, Control. Tell Seeker Flight thanks for the assist, but we're good from here, over."

"Roger. Control out, Rainmaker." Katie finished, then switched back to Seeker frequency. "Seeker Flight, peel off. You have landing clearance on Runway 4. The rest of your squadron is already wheels down. Control over and out."

"Looks like Rainmaker's down for the count." AJ commented. "Wonder what poor sucker they'll assign 'em next?"

Naturally, as soon as Katie got home, there was another buff-coloured envelope on her doormat.

Let's face it, we all know who's going to be the Seekers' new AWACS. Anyone want to put forward ideas for a callsign?