Author's Notes: Thanks to Stonedtoad for betaing.
Enjoy.
Jonathan entered the gym finding Kate upside down once again.
"How are you doing restarting your gymnastic career?" he asked with a chuckle when she stood upright.
Kate smiled back, "I'm giving in. Apparently being ten years older and a broken arm aren't conducive to being able to do back flips again. I'll stick to strength." She tilted her head thoughtfully, "Aren't you meant to be getting ready to go and play bodyguard to an ancient box?"
Jonathan frowned at her, "We're about an hour out. I wanted to let you know that your request to attend the course has been approved."
Kate smiled surprised, "That's great."
Clapping her shoulder, "I'll see you later. I have to go play bodyguard to an ancient box."
x
"Want to join the action?" Tony asked when Kate walked onto the bridge a few hours later.
She levelled a cool stare at him, "Tony, you've played me at poker. Why do you think betting against me is a good idea?"
"Good point," he nodded before moving to try to fleece someone else.
Kate rolled her eyes at him before she headed over to where Miguel was intent on his console.
"Hey," she greeted, "Are you nearly finished?"
Miguel gave her a quick nod, "Give me ten minutes here and I'll meet you…where?"
"We'll use your room," she told him, "It's bigger since there are two of you. We'll need the space."
"Great," Miguel grinned, "You can bring the snacks."
Kate chuckled before she headed off the bridge and went to get some supplies. A little more than ten minutes later she headed to Miguel's quarters finding him waiting for her with a stack of paper and several pencils.
"I have snacks," Kate told him, "Let's get started."
Miguel nodded and handed her some paper.
x
"It's never going to work," Kate told him emphatically.
"It could," Miguel argued.
Kate rolled her eyes, "Maybe in fantasy land."
"This is one of Tim's ideas," Miguel argued back, "He doesn't do flights of fancy, remember?"
Kate shook her head rolling her eyes, "Fine. Stick it in the 'Maybe' pile."
Miguel nodded before placing the paper on the small stack in the back corner. His room was now covered in sheets of paper with diagrams, equations and notes separated out into three sections.
Good, maybe and not a chance in hell.
Kate picked up one of the other sheets and looked at the next diagram, "Is it me or does this look like an automated soda dispensing robot?"
"Lucas always hates moving from his computer to eat and drink," Miguel chuckled, "Are you surprised he designed something like this?"
Kate laughed throwing it into the 'Maybe' pile. They both turned suddenly when the door opened revealing Miguel's room-mate.
He looked at the room, saw Kate standing daring him to make a comment and sighed, "I'll go get something to eat."
"Your room would have been a better idea," Miguel reminded her when the door closed again.
Kate rolled her eyes, "Mine is smaller plus he wasn't meant to be finished his shift for another…" she trailed off as she checked the time, "Oh. We've been doing this longer than I thought."
Miguel blinked stunned as well that they'd been working for so long. With the Seaquest staying put while Ford and his team, including Tim, were over on the old colony they'd decided that there was no point simply discussing upgrades for the systems. So they'd decided to go over all the ideas they had and remembered from all their talks then put them down on paper working out which ones were feasible and which were just garbage.
So far they had a lot of paper in each pile.
"There's been a murder?" Kate demanded incredulously pacing the ward room, "In the station filled with science nerds?"
She paused before continuing, "Scratch that, historical science nerds."
Nathan frowned at her for a moment before nodding, "Jonathan has locked it down until they can find who killed Dr Kaufman. If he hadn't, and I could find a valid excuse, I would ask you to go help."
"Unfortunately that's not an option right now," Kate noted grimly.
Nathan sighed as he took a drink of coffee, "Lucas is working on helping with the University translation for O'Neill." He tilted his head thoughtfully, "You're worried about him."
Kate shrugged, "Of course I am."
Nathan sighed again, "What are you and Ortiz up to anyway?"
"Throwing ideas around," Kate replied before shaking her head, "Okay, what can I actually do to help?"
Nathan shook his head sadly, "We have to sit here and let Jonathan deal with this himself."
"Not something I'm good at," Kate reminded him before giving him an amused look, "Neither are you."
"Unfortunately," Nathan sighed, "It's what happens when you're in charge. You have to stay put while your subordinates go into danger on your orders."
Kate grimaced at him, "Well thanks for cheering me up," she let out a sigh, "I'm going to go see Darwin. Maybe swim with him."
Nathan smiled slightly, "I'd join you if I didn't have a ton of work to do."
With a forced smirk, she left him alone to brood on his team trapped with a killer while he could nothing but wait.
x
The water was warm when Kate slid into it, Darwin wasn't in the pool at that moment but she knew he would appear very soon. He always did when she entered the water no matter what he was doing. After a few minutes the resident dolphin appeared from beneath her making her smile.
"There you are," she rubbed him.
"Kate swim," the translation came through the vocorder.
She chuckled, "That's why I'm here."
Darwin ducked under her so she caught his dorsal fin; Kate slid the breather on just before he started through the aqua tubes. They swam for about twenty minutes through the entire boat before Darwin returned her to the moon pool.
Breaking through the surface of the water Kate pulled the breather out and tossed it onto the floor just outside the pool before she turned to Darwin.
"Thank you," she smiled petting him for a while. She chewed her lip for a moment before checking the room was empty.
"Darwin," Kate took a breath, "Can you find Tim?"
The dolphin gave a look she interpreted as confused, "Tim not on Seaquest."
"I know," she said, "But you can find him anyway, can't you?"
Darwin nodded.
"Is he okay?" Kate asked softly.
"Scared, worried, fearful," Darwin said.
Kate grimaced, "I don't know if that made me feel any better or not."
"Alive," Darwin added.
"Good point," she smiled before she pulled herself out of the water, "Thank you for the swim."
"Kate, swim more," Darwin reminded her.
Reaching in to stroke him again she nodded, "I will try."
The atmosphere was tense and Tim wished this was over so he could get back to Seaquest instead of sitting here trying to stay awake when his body craved sleep. He couldn't get the image of Dr Sommers standing over the body of Professor Kearny nor the voice out of his mind. It sent a shiver along his spine.
Automatically his hand moved to the crucifix around his neck, a comforting gesture that wasn't as comforting as is usually was.
He decided to distract himself by reviewing the communication checklist in his mind but as he started it slipped away from him and he began instead to think about the conversation he'd had with Kate before he left the boat.
"Have fun," she'd chuckled knowing the mission he was going on, "Miguel and I are going to play 'Who's idea' and 'Is it any good'. We'll let you know the results."
Tim wasn't sure why but he felt a bit slighted that they were going to work on the ideas when he wasn't there. At least half of them had come from him.
To be honest it wasn't the first time recently he'd felt like an outsider looking in. The past few weeks he just felt like he was playing catch-up with his friends. Kate and Miguel had been working together a lot on the WSKR maintenance; making him slightly jealous which he knew was ridiculous but it seemed that they were together constantly.
Tim sighed, he just needed to get away from this place and back to the Seaquest for a sleep.
x
Dr Crichton was dead.
Tim wasn't sure what to feel as he helped move the man's body back to the launch along with the other two who had been killed by a creature he wasn't sure he wanted to admit existed.
"Tim?"
At the Commander's voice Tim looked up, "Yes, sir?"
"I know asking if you're okay is a bit moot," Ford said grimly, "I know I'm not."
Tim shrugged, "It's been an odd day."
"You're not kidding," Ford agreed, "Captain Bridger is expecting us back on the boat. Are you ready to get out here?"
"More than I can say," Tim told him.
Ford clapped him on the shoulder and headed to the front of the launch sliding into the pilot's seat. Taking his seat Tim let out a sigh as they started home.
Reaching the Seaquest didn't take long, the bodies were moved to the infirmary and Tim joined the others to debrief the Captain in full. When they were dismissed Tim started towards his own quarters wanting to sleep, though worried he wouldn't manage to just now.
"Tim," Kate smiled when he nearly walked into her and Miguel coming the other way, "You're back."
He nodded.
"Good," she continued, smacking the back of her hand off Miguel's chest, "We need a tiebreaker."
Unable to get a word in as Miguel started to argue back, Tim followed on feeling even more disconnected than he had before he went to the station.