Authors Notes: Anyone else think that the 'coffee' scene between Mike and Kate was way to short? They went all the way to a cafe, got their coffee, then barely had a conversation! This is my version of what would have happened if they had finished their conversation.

All feedback and comments are welcome...Enjoy!

Chapter Two – Mike and Kate

"X, can I have a word please?" Mike asked hopefully.

"Sure." Kate knew what this was about and tried hard to think of a reason to say no, but quickly realised she couldn't.

"Do you have time for a drink this evening?" Mike asked, desperately wanting to sit down and talk to her about what Dutchy had told him.

"I have something on tonight, I'm sorry." Going out with Mike was the last thing she needed. She was confused enough as it was and wanted to be able to make her decision about Jim without Mike influencing her.

"OK, A quick coffee then?" Mike pressed her, he wasn't going to take no for an answer, he had to hear it from her.

"Is it true?" Mike asked Kate feeling angry and hurt. Not only was he losing her to someone else, but she hadn't told him about the proposal and for some reason had chosen to confide in Dutchy.

"Yes. But Dutchy shouldn't have said anything before I did." Kate replied fighting back tears.

"Don't you think I have a right to know? As CO of the ship." Mike replied, kicking himself as he did. He knew he shouldn't have bought his position on the ship into it, but he was so confused he blurted out the first thing that came into his head.

"As CO of the ship, of course, and I would have told you, once I'd had time to consider it." Kate responded suddenly feeling angry. He was hiding behind is position once again, trying to pry information from her.

Dreading the answer, but wanting to know, he had no alternative than to ask, "And are you considering it?"

"Yes I'm seriously thinking about it." Kate replied, her voice thick with emotion. She may have been angry at him, but she was desperate to avoid hurting the man in front of her.

"I see." He croaked out, trying hard to control his heart and stop it from shattering into pieces. Of all the outcomes for them he had not expected this. It was only a few months ago that she had told him that Jim was not the reason why they had broken up and now a proposal. He couldn't work out what was going on.

As neither knew what to say next Mike and Kate continued to sit in awkward silence taking sips of their coffee until Kate couldn't take it anymore. "I see? Is that all you wanted to say?" The tension had been killing her. From the moment he had asked to talk to her she felt sick to the stomach, and sitting opposite him now she wasn't feeling any better. She was doing her best to contain her emotions but the tension was getting the better of her and she knew she was close to losing it. She knew he was hurting, but she was hurting too.

"Well, what else would you like me to say?" Mike had no idea what he should be saying. He desperately wanted to make a bold romantic speech, but it wasn't his style and he had no idea what he would actually say. The problem was, this conversation wasn't so much about what he wanted to say, it was about what he wanted to hear. He wanted to hear that they weren't that serious, that Jim had the wrong end of the stick and that she was just trying to work out how to say no. He wanted to hear something, anything in her voice that told him he still had a chance.

"You're the one who wanted to talk Mike, I assumed you had something you wanted to say." Kate couldn't read Mike's emotions, and her voice was coming across colder than she intended. She could tell he wasn't himself, and was doing his best to hide the fact that he was upset, but she couldn't quite tell why. She knew that her being with Jim had always hit a nerve with him, but apart from one conversation when he tried to find out if Jim was the reason for her breaking up with him, he hadn't said a thing to her. Adding to her confusion was that after their discussion about Ryan, Mike had admitted to having a connection with Maxine, and she had assumed that the two of them had started something, and that was hitting a nerve of its own with her.

"I was just surprised that you didn't tell me. I didn't realize you and Jim had become so serious." Mike voice was quiet as he stared into his coffee. He was fast losing any hope he had that somehow he and Kate would end up back together.

After another awkward silence Kate regained her nerve. "You know what, there is something I would like you to say...I want an answer to my question." Mike looked at Kate, confusion all over his face until Kate explained, "We were interrupted before and you never answered. How would you feel if I was pregnant?" What she really needed to know was how he really felt about her, and what sort of future he wanted, and this was the only way she could think of to ask him.

Mike took a few moments to answer her question. The truth was, ever since she asked it, it was all he had thought about and he still didn't have an answer. If the child was his, he would have been over the moon. It would be complicated, but he would have worked something out, and as they worked it out she might have even explained why she broke things off with him. But in reality he didn't know how to feel. He knew the child would have been Jim's, not his. How was he supposed to feel knowing the woman he loved was pregnant with another man's child?

Hedging his bets, he replied "I guess, if it's what you wanted and you were happy, I'd be happy for you." It was at least partly true, he would be happy for her, but he would have been shattered that it wasn't with him. Choking back his emotions he asked his own question in response. "Is that how you would have felt, happy?" He knew she wanted children, but what he really wanted to know was would she have been happy having them with Jim.

Now it was Kate's turn to again choke back her emotions as she thought carefully about how to phrase her answer. "I want a family Mike. I don't want to keep coming home from each patrol to an empty house. I want to get married and have kids." She had always thought it would be him she would marry and have a family with, but they never managed to get things between them right and she didn't want to miss her chance at a family because she was waiting for something that was never going to happen.

"And what about me?" Mike voice cracked slightly, holding back from begging her to let him be part of that equation. Kate was the only woman who had ever made him think about marriage and kids, and things had always been so up and down between them that he never really allowed himself to think of how life would be if they could actually work things out.

"You have a family. Ryan, and Maxine." Kate spat out sounding a little more venomous than she meant. She knew that she had no right to be jealous or angry, but that was how she felt. He had a son with someone else, something she had always dreamt of having with him.

"Kate it's not like that. I only just found out that Ryan is my son, you know that. And besides, he has only just started speaking to me again and I think the best I can hope for there is that we can be friends." Mike replied softly. He knew that Ryan and Maxine were a sensitive topic for Kate, even if she didn't let on as much. The reality was they weren't his family.

"And Maxine? Are you going to try and tell me that it was one night twenty years ago and nothing since? Because I can see you have a connection, you even admitted as much yourself." Kate replied. She didn't know if Mike and Maxine were together, or if they were good friends with a complicated history. Part of her didn't want to know, but the other part of her needed to know.

"Maxine and I, we're friends, it's complicated, and it's different to you and me..." Mike was about to continue when Kate cut him off.

"Mike I'm not angry, and I'm not asking for an explanation." Kate's voice was quiet as she stared into her half drunk coffee, she just needed to know. She knew she had no right to be asking him for an explanation, it was just the thought of him with a family and her alone made her want to burst into tears. It wasn't that she didn't want him to be happy, but for so long she hoped that she would be the one to be happy with him.

"So what do you want?" Mike asked, not taking his eyes off Kate, just in case she glanced up at him. A few months ago he knew what she wanted, and he knew what he wanted, what he still wanted. Kate. But he didn't know what she wanted anymore.

"I want to stop feeling guilty for being happy." It shocked Kate to hear herself saying this because it was the whole truth. When she was with Mike she felt guilty because, apart from one night, she knew they were breaking the rules and both of them would end up in serious trouble if they were found out, him more than her. With Jim, she felt guilty knowing that at least on some level Mike hated seeing them together, and she was always trying to avoid being seen by him when they were together, which was unfair on Jim and it made him wary of her and Mike

Accepting defeat Mike responded, "I want you to be happy Kate, I hope you are happy. That's all I really wanted to say." The hurt and anguish was evident in his voice. It was nowhere near all he wanted to say, but he had the feeling that if he laid all his cards on the table it just would have caused them both more pain, and the one thing he couldn't do was cause Kate any more pain. As much as seeing her with Jim may have hurt, it hurt him more when he could see that she was unhappy and he didn't want to be the cause of that.

"That's all...That's all you wanted to say?" Kate asked in disbelief and disappointment. "Well if there is nothing else there are some other things I need to do." Kate said gulping down the last of her coffee, as if that would give her an excuse to leave. The reality was she had nowhere to be, and nothing to do, but she couldn't sit in awkward conversation with Mike any longer. Her heart was breaking all over again, she had obviously misread the situation and Mike was not here asking for her to give them one last chance. In fact, it almost seemed like he was giving her his blessing.

"I'll see you back on board." Mike stood with Kate as she turned to leave. He knew there had just been a lot left unsaid by both of them, trouble was, he only knew what he had left unsaid. He had wanted to tell her not to marry Jim, and that he loved her, that they could work things out. But how could he tell her when his heart had been shattered? He knew Kate was holding back, and while part of him desperately hoped that she was holding back her feelings for him, there was a nagging doubt that she was holding back from telling him how happy she was with Jim.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box and opened it revealing a St Christopher medallion. It was something his mother had given him when he joined the Navy to help keep him safe, and something he had planned to give to Kate when she took over command of Hammersley. It held such special value to him and he had imagined so many times giving it to Kate, not only would it protect her, but ensure that part of him would be wherever she was. Now looking at it, it looked like nothing more than a trinket. Jim had proposed and offered her the life she wanted, and he was planning on giving her a medallion. Shaking his head he closed the box, put it back in his pocket and walked away.

As Kate meandered through the shopping mall, her thoughts wandered back to Jim. Part of her did love him, and he made her happy, but she had never seriously considered a future with him. Now, after his proposal, and the conversation she had just had with Mike, she allowed herself to seriously think of what their future would be like. She reached into her pocket and carefully pulled out the engagement ring and slid it onto her finger. She couldn't help but find it partially amusing that the first time she was proposed to she was on duty and drinking coffee, then the first time she put the ring on, she was alone, in a shopping mall, on a set of escalators.

She had often imagined what it would be like to be proposed to – on a beach or in a fancy restaurant, with champagne, strawberries, wearing a fancy new dress that she had bought for the occasion. She had never thought that it would be on the deck of Hammersley, wearing her DPNU's, and putting the ring on in a Westfield Shopping Centre on the escalators, after hurting the man she had loved for so long, but who was not the man who had asked her to marry him.

If she wasn't so confused, she would have found the whole situation even more amusing. As she felt the ring on her finger, a comforting feeling ran though her body. Even though she was alone, she knew that with that ring on her finger she would never be alone again, and her hope for a family resurfaced. Walking past the shops she paused outside a wedding dress store, admiring the dresses on display. Deciding this whole thing couldn't get any more strange she walked into the store and asked to try one on. As the dress was tightened around her the comforting feeling that had been running through her body quickly evaporated.

All she could hear was Dutchy's voice in her head 'if you are having doubts now, before you've even said yes, then I think that's telling you something'. She was standing in a wedding dress and instead of thinking about Jim, all she could think about was Mike. The comforting feeling of never being alone was replaced with sadness and loneliness.

With the thought that she might end up alone hitting her like a freight train, she knew she couldn't marry Jim. It was not fair on him – he had swept her off her feet and offered to fulfil her dreams at a time when she was felling very low. Even though her feelings for Jim were strong, he was not Mike. He could never replace Mike.

She barely registered the shop assistant asking her when the big day was and she felt like the oxygen had just been sucked out of the air. She knew there would be no big day and that she was going to hurt Jim, someone who showed her nothing but love and kindness. She uttered something about not having set a date yet and that she had somewhere else to be. With that the assistant helped her out of the dress, she put her uniform back on and made her way out of the store as quickly as was possible. Once outside she made her way back to the docks and clung to the railing as she looked into the water below. She took several deep breaths and closed her eyes, hoping that she would be able to get through the next few days.

To Be Continued