[ twelve things to do while stuck on a tropical island (with your boss ) 1/1 ]
Title: Twelve Things To Do While Stuck On A Tropical Island (With Your Boss)
Fandom: Sea Patrol
Pairing: Well I guess it can be read as Kate/2Dads but it's more of a general friendship fic. Except to natushka. For her it's ship!
Rating: G
Spoilers: None
Words: 2262
Summary: ‘This would be a whole lot more fun if we had found a whole cellar of rum to drink,’ he mutters, lying back in the sand and enjoying the heat from the fire.
1. Explore
‘This is all your fault.’
For a moment he pauses, unsure how to react. It’s definitely his fault, but he wasn’t the one who had made her follow him. That had all been her idea. But really it was all the drug dealers fault for leaving them there.
Anyway - there were worse places to be stuck than a tropical island in Queensland.
Of course he wasn’t going to tell her that.
‘Probably,’ was what he eventually settled on.
She glares at him and for a few moments the two of them sit in silence on the beach, looking out at the empty sea before them. Suddenly she stands up and starts walking up the beach. He jumps up after her and follows, half wondering if she’s seen something he hasn’t.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I don’t know,’ she doesn’t turn around to look at him and he pauses. ‘Exploring?’
He considers whether or not he should follow her for a moment. It wasn’t a particularly big island and he was half scared she was going to murder him any minute now - but the idea of her being attacked and him having to face the rest of the crew scared him more.
He runs after her.
2. Make a campfire
It was him who had first noticed the sun was setting. She seemed too focused on being mad at him to even think to look.
‘We need firewood.’
It was the first thing he’d said to her in an hour, their only contact having been her occasional rant at him for getting them into that situation. She looked at him in surprise and then up at the sky.
‘It could be worse, we could be stuck on top of a mountain in Victoria. At least it’s warm here. But if we want light we’ll need to get the firewood now,’ he continued.
She watches him for a moment and then stands up, her anger seeming to fade as she turns to face him.
‘OK, so where do we start?’ she asks, brushing the sand off.
He nods at the forest behind them. ‘In there. Just make sure we get the dry stuff, cos if it’s wet we’ll never get it lit.’
It takes them half an hour to gather a decent amount of firewood - clearly no one’s been on the island for years, judging by the level of undergrowth and amount of dead branches lying on the ground. He’s not sure if that’s comforting or worrying. At least they’re not likely to come across any unsavoury people.
He pulls out a box of matches. It’s soaking wet and he realises quickly it’s not going to work.
‘Can you hand me a couple of those rocks?’
The X looks around and sees the stones piled next to her. She picks a couple of small ones up and hands them to 2Dads.
‘They’re more like pebbles, really,’ she comments, and he almost thinks he sees a smile.
It takes him a few clicks of the rocks but it lights quickly and they have a fire.
‘Magic!’
3. Talk about pirates.
‘This would be a whole lot more fun if we had found a whole cellar of rum to drink,’ he mutters, lying back in the sand and enjoying the heat from the fire.
‘Well if you were Jack Sparrow maybe you’d know where to find one.’
He looks at her face, lit only by the light from the campfire and he smiles slightly, not sure if he should be impressed that she got the reference or worried that she sees straight through him.
‘I didn’t pick you to be a movie buff,’ he tests the waters, still unsure how mad she is at him.
‘I’m not.’
They fall silent again and he wonders if he’s gone too far, trying to make conversation. Being stuck on a tropical island with his boss hadn’t exactly been on his list of things to do in life.
He takes a moment to consider how many of the ships crew would kill to be alone on a desert island with the X, and he wonders if that gives him any sort of bragging rights? Spending a night alone on the beach with her.
She looks at him suddenly and he has a vague moment of worry that she can read his mind. Not that he believed in that stuff - but if anyone could do it, it would be her.
‘I like pirates,’ is all she says.
For the first time that day she smiles at him.
4. Form something vaguely resembling a friendship.
‘Is this what you wanted to do? You know, as a kid?’ he’s not sure what makes him ask the question.
Maybe it’s just the part of him that wonders what a woman like her is doing in the Navy. Someone who could’ve done absolutely anything with her life. And while she’s one of the best officers he’s ever met he just wonders why she chose that over everything else she could’ve been.
He never had that choice and wonders how things would’ve turned out if he’d been good at anything else.
‘Well in my fantasies I was always stuck on a tropical island with a pirate or a handsome prince. And there was always treasure,’ she replies.
‘Very funny,’ he narrows his eyes at her and shakes his head and she laughs slightly. ‘I meant the Navy.’
‘Ah,’ she pauses for a moment, looking into the fireplace and poking it with a stick. ‘I guess it was always a thought, I didn’t really settle on the idea until I was twenty though.’
‘What changed?’
She doesn’t speak for a moment, staring into the fire, but she’s smiling to herself and he wonders if she’s going to share the secret that’s apparently so amusing.
‘Petty Officer Dan Jones,’ her smile extends further and it tells him everything he needs to know about Dan Jones. ‘How about you?’
He pauses. She has to know the story, she’s his XO. He’s unsure why she’s asking, but he thinks maybe she’s just trying to be nice and he should probably continue the conversation.
‘I didn’t have a choice. Jail or military.’
‘I know that much, but why the Navy? Why not the Air Force or the Army?’
Now he understands and it’s his turn to look at the fire.
‘Adventure ma’am. I mean the Air Force has nice planes and the Army has awesome tanks, but the Navy? Well they have these huge ships, and I’ve seen more of the world in the last four years than I thought I’d ever see. Been drunk in more ports that I can count.’
He pauses for a moment and then looks up at her.
‘I love it, ma’am.’
She smiles, softly this time. ‘I’m glad. I’ll take first watch, you get some sleep.’
And with that the conversation is over.
5. Climb a tree.
‘I don’t think this is such a good idea,’ she shouts up from below.
He looks down at her from his vantage point halfway up the palm tree and grins.
‘It can’t hurt to look!’ he shouts back.
‘It’ll hurt if you fall,’ she crosses her arms and squints up at him.
He knows she’s worried and he finds that kind of flattering.
‘But you’ll catch me right?’ he grins.
He can see her rolling her eyes, even from the distance. For some reason that makes him smile even more. He continues climbing and eventually stops and looks around.
There’s not a ship in sight.
‘Not even an FFV,’ he shouts back down at her.
He watches as her smile fades and she sinks into the sand. It’s not that she’s angry anymore, but being stuck on an island with no way to contact the outside world is more than frustrating.
He turns and sees a coconut right by his head. Grinning again he pulls it from the tree and drops it.
‘Bombs away!’ he shouts.
She jumps as it hits the sand a couple of metres from her, but at least now she’s smiling again.
6. Crack open a coconut.
‘You need an axe,’ she comments.
He glares t her and continues hitting the coconut with a rock.
‘I’ve seen it on TV. I mean, monkeys can do this,’ he realises his mistake the moment he’s said it.
‘What does that say about you?’ she smiles and he throws a handful of sand at her.
He wonders if this is what she’s like with everyone else. Usually his interaction with her involves her shouting at him or copious amounts of alcohol. They’ve never really had the chance to talk like this before.
‘In case you hadn’t noticed I get on very well with monkeys,’ he replies, hitting the coconut again.
‘I noticed.’
She’s smiling but for a moment he remembers she’s his superior officer. He tries to ignore her for a moment and takes another swing at the coconut, this time it breaks. He looks up at her.
‘Breakfast?’
She looks up at the sun.
‘Lets call it lunch.’
7. Make a friend.
When they next talk he’s halfway through converting the coconut shell into a face.
‘Now what are you doing?’ she asks, sitting down next to him.
‘Making a Wilson,’ he replies.
He realises quickly from her blank expression that she doesn’t get that reference so he shows her and grins.
She rolls her eyes and looks out at the ocean.
‘We need a way off this island,’ she says quietly.
8. Create a smoke signal.
He watches her trying to light a fire with the stones, she’s not very good at it.
‘Want me to do it?’ he asks.
She looks at him as though she’s about to argue, to tell him she doesn’t need his help but then she slumps and hands him the stones.
‘Only because you made it look so easy last night,’ she comments.
He grins and bends down, lighting the fire in one go.
‘Practice, ma’am,’ he says.
‘I hate you,’ is her response.
They stand back and watch as the palm tree slowly goes up in flames.
‘Is this bad for the environment?’ he asks.
‘Probably, but I’m not staying on this island with you forever,’ is her response.
She doesn’t look at him as she says it and he wonders if that’s meant to be an insult. He doesn’t take it as one. She usually saves her subtle insults for the CO and he knows she’s always been pretty forward when insulting him.
9. Catch a fish.
It was times like these he wished he’d paid more attention when his father had taken him fishing. Holding a home made spear and standing on a rock had seemed easy enough. And that part was. But the whole actually catching a fish part was proving difficult.
‘I need a grenade,’ he mutters.
She looks at him in shock.
‘Joking!’ he defends himself.
‘Here, let me try,’ she grabs the spear from him without waiting for his response.
He pulls a face at her but doubts she’ll do any better so lets it go. First go she spears a fish. She turns to him and smiles.
‘At least I’m good at something,’ she says, taking the fish and handing him back the spear.
He stares at her incredulously as she walks back to the beach.
‘Hand eye coordination, 2Dads, you should try it some time,’ she shouts over her shoulder. ‘Come on, or I’ll eat dinner all by myself.’
10. Eat dinner.
He eats the last bite of fish and lies back in the sand.
‘Man I was starving,’ he mutters.
‘I noticed,’ she replies.
He looks over at her still eating her part of the fish.
‘If you need help finishing that - ‘
‘Go catch your own fish,’ she interrupts him.
He looks back up at the sky, the sun’s setting and he wonders how things will be between them when they get back on board.
11. Build a sandcastle.
‘What is it?’ she stands over him, casting a shadow and watches as he ads the last bit.
‘The Hammersley,’ he replies.
‘You know you’re oddly creative,’ she observes.
‘I try my best,’ he grins and stands up, looking at his creation.
A wave destroys it as they’re watching and he hears her laughing next to him. He’s almost annoyed.
‘You know, 2Dads, boats are supposed to float, especially Navy ones,’ she says quietly.
‘Yeah, yeah, very funny,’ he replies, greasing off the ocean like it’s a person he moves slightly up the beach and sits down, ready to start again.
‘The Hammersley,’ she says.
‘Yeah, I was going to build that again - I don’t know how to make much else - ‘
‘No, the Hammersley!’ the excitement in her voice tips him off that she’s talking about the real thing.
He looks up and sees it heading towards them.
12. Get rescued.
It almost seems strange when he sees Dutchy and Mike jump off the RHIB onto the sand. They’re both smiling in relief.
‘You guys don’t look like you had such rough time,’ Dutchy observes.
‘We were in need of a good beach holiday, right X?’ 2Dads replies.
She looks at him, ‘I don’t know about you, but next holiday I’d like a bed and a shower.’
They get on the RHIB and head back to the Hammersley, and he’s almost sad to see the island go.
At least he has his Wilson.
Fandom: Sea Patrol
Pairing: Well I guess it can be read as Kate/2Dads but it's more of a general friendship fic. Except to natushka. For her it's ship!
Rating: G
Spoilers: None
Words: 2262
Summary: ‘This would be a whole lot more fun if we had found a whole cellar of rum to drink,’ he mutters, lying back in the sand and enjoying the heat from the fire.
1. Explore
‘This is all your fault.’
For a moment he pauses, unsure how to react. It’s definitely his fault, but he wasn’t the one who had made her follow him. That had all been her idea. But really it was all the drug dealers fault for leaving them there.
Anyway - there were worse places to be stuck than a tropical island in Queensland.
Of course he wasn’t going to tell her that.
‘Probably,’ was what he eventually settled on.
She glares at him and for a few moments the two of them sit in silence on the beach, looking out at the empty sea before them. Suddenly she stands up and starts walking up the beach. He jumps up after her and follows, half wondering if she’s seen something he hasn’t.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I don’t know,’ she doesn’t turn around to look at him and he pauses. ‘Exploring?’
He considers whether or not he should follow her for a moment. It wasn’t a particularly big island and he was half scared she was going to murder him any minute now - but the idea of her being attacked and him having to face the rest of the crew scared him more.
He runs after her.
2. Make a campfire
It was him who had first noticed the sun was setting. She seemed too focused on being mad at him to even think to look.
‘We need firewood.’
It was the first thing he’d said to her in an hour, their only contact having been her occasional rant at him for getting them into that situation. She looked at him in surprise and then up at the sky.
‘It could be worse, we could be stuck on top of a mountain in Victoria. At least it’s warm here. But if we want light we’ll need to get the firewood now,’ he continued.
She watches him for a moment and then stands up, her anger seeming to fade as she turns to face him.
‘OK, so where do we start?’ she asks, brushing the sand off.
He nods at the forest behind them. ‘In there. Just make sure we get the dry stuff, cos if it’s wet we’ll never get it lit.’
It takes them half an hour to gather a decent amount of firewood - clearly no one’s been on the island for years, judging by the level of undergrowth and amount of dead branches lying on the ground. He’s not sure if that’s comforting or worrying. At least they’re not likely to come across any unsavoury people.
He pulls out a box of matches. It’s soaking wet and he realises quickly it’s not going to work.
‘Can you hand me a couple of those rocks?’
The X looks around and sees the stones piled next to her. She picks a couple of small ones up and hands them to 2Dads.
‘They’re more like pebbles, really,’ she comments, and he almost thinks he sees a smile.
It takes him a few clicks of the rocks but it lights quickly and they have a fire.
‘Magic!’
3. Talk about pirates.
‘This would be a whole lot more fun if we had found a whole cellar of rum to drink,’ he mutters, lying back in the sand and enjoying the heat from the fire.
‘Well if you were Jack Sparrow maybe you’d know where to find one.’
He looks at her face, lit only by the light from the campfire and he smiles slightly, not sure if he should be impressed that she got the reference or worried that she sees straight through him.
‘I didn’t pick you to be a movie buff,’ he tests the waters, still unsure how mad she is at him.
‘I’m not.’
They fall silent again and he wonders if he’s gone too far, trying to make conversation. Being stuck on a tropical island with his boss hadn’t exactly been on his list of things to do in life.
He takes a moment to consider how many of the ships crew would kill to be alone on a desert island with the X, and he wonders if that gives him any sort of bragging rights? Spending a night alone on the beach with her.
She looks at him suddenly and he has a vague moment of worry that she can read his mind. Not that he believed in that stuff - but if anyone could do it, it would be her.
‘I like pirates,’ is all she says.
For the first time that day she smiles at him.
4. Form something vaguely resembling a friendship.
‘Is this what you wanted to do? You know, as a kid?’ he’s not sure what makes him ask the question.
Maybe it’s just the part of him that wonders what a woman like her is doing in the Navy. Someone who could’ve done absolutely anything with her life. And while she’s one of the best officers he’s ever met he just wonders why she chose that over everything else she could’ve been.
He never had that choice and wonders how things would’ve turned out if he’d been good at anything else.
‘Well in my fantasies I was always stuck on a tropical island with a pirate or a handsome prince. And there was always treasure,’ she replies.
‘Very funny,’ he narrows his eyes at her and shakes his head and she laughs slightly. ‘I meant the Navy.’
‘Ah,’ she pauses for a moment, looking into the fireplace and poking it with a stick. ‘I guess it was always a thought, I didn’t really settle on the idea until I was twenty though.’
‘What changed?’
She doesn’t speak for a moment, staring into the fire, but she’s smiling to herself and he wonders if she’s going to share the secret that’s apparently so amusing.
‘Petty Officer Dan Jones,’ her smile extends further and it tells him everything he needs to know about Dan Jones. ‘How about you?’
He pauses. She has to know the story, she’s his XO. He’s unsure why she’s asking, but he thinks maybe she’s just trying to be nice and he should probably continue the conversation.
‘I didn’t have a choice. Jail or military.’
‘I know that much, but why the Navy? Why not the Air Force or the Army?’
Now he understands and it’s his turn to look at the fire.
‘Adventure ma’am. I mean the Air Force has nice planes and the Army has awesome tanks, but the Navy? Well they have these huge ships, and I’ve seen more of the world in the last four years than I thought I’d ever see. Been drunk in more ports that I can count.’
He pauses for a moment and then looks up at her.
‘I love it, ma’am.’
She smiles, softly this time. ‘I’m glad. I’ll take first watch, you get some sleep.’
And with that the conversation is over.
5. Climb a tree.
‘I don’t think this is such a good idea,’ she shouts up from below.
He looks down at her from his vantage point halfway up the palm tree and grins.
‘It can’t hurt to look!’ he shouts back.
‘It’ll hurt if you fall,’ she crosses her arms and squints up at him.
He knows she’s worried and he finds that kind of flattering.
‘But you’ll catch me right?’ he grins.
He can see her rolling her eyes, even from the distance. For some reason that makes him smile even more. He continues climbing and eventually stops and looks around.
There’s not a ship in sight.
‘Not even an FFV,’ he shouts back down at her.
He watches as her smile fades and she sinks into the sand. It’s not that she’s angry anymore, but being stuck on an island with no way to contact the outside world is more than frustrating.
He turns and sees a coconut right by his head. Grinning again he pulls it from the tree and drops it.
‘Bombs away!’ he shouts.
She jumps as it hits the sand a couple of metres from her, but at least now she’s smiling again.
6. Crack open a coconut.
‘You need an axe,’ she comments.
He glares t her and continues hitting the coconut with a rock.
‘I’ve seen it on TV. I mean, monkeys can do this,’ he realises his mistake the moment he’s said it.
‘What does that say about you?’ she smiles and he throws a handful of sand at her.
He wonders if this is what she’s like with everyone else. Usually his interaction with her involves her shouting at him or copious amounts of alcohol. They’ve never really had the chance to talk like this before.
‘In case you hadn’t noticed I get on very well with monkeys,’ he replies, hitting the coconut again.
‘I noticed.’
She’s smiling but for a moment he remembers she’s his superior officer. He tries to ignore her for a moment and takes another swing at the coconut, this time it breaks. He looks up at her.
‘Breakfast?’
She looks up at the sun.
‘Lets call it lunch.’
7. Make a friend.
When they next talk he’s halfway through converting the coconut shell into a face.
‘Now what are you doing?’ she asks, sitting down next to him.
‘Making a Wilson,’ he replies.
He realises quickly from her blank expression that she doesn’t get that reference so he shows her and grins.
She rolls her eyes and looks out at the ocean.
‘We need a way off this island,’ she says quietly.
8. Create a smoke signal.
He watches her trying to light a fire with the stones, she’s not very good at it.
‘Want me to do it?’ he asks.
She looks at him as though she’s about to argue, to tell him she doesn’t need his help but then she slumps and hands him the stones.
‘Only because you made it look so easy last night,’ she comments.
He grins and bends down, lighting the fire in one go.
‘Practice, ma’am,’ he says.
‘I hate you,’ is her response.
They stand back and watch as the palm tree slowly goes up in flames.
‘Is this bad for the environment?’ he asks.
‘Probably, but I’m not staying on this island with you forever,’ is her response.
She doesn’t look at him as she says it and he wonders if that’s meant to be an insult. He doesn’t take it as one. She usually saves her subtle insults for the CO and he knows she’s always been pretty forward when insulting him.
9. Catch a fish.
It was times like these he wished he’d paid more attention when his father had taken him fishing. Holding a home made spear and standing on a rock had seemed easy enough. And that part was. But the whole actually catching a fish part was proving difficult.
‘I need a grenade,’ he mutters.
She looks at him in shock.
‘Joking!’ he defends himself.
‘Here, let me try,’ she grabs the spear from him without waiting for his response.
He pulls a face at her but doubts she’ll do any better so lets it go. First go she spears a fish. She turns to him and smiles.
‘At least I’m good at something,’ she says, taking the fish and handing him back the spear.
He stares at her incredulously as she walks back to the beach.
‘Hand eye coordination, 2Dads, you should try it some time,’ she shouts over her shoulder. ‘Come on, or I’ll eat dinner all by myself.’
10. Eat dinner.
He eats the last bite of fish and lies back in the sand.
‘Man I was starving,’ he mutters.
‘I noticed,’ she replies.
He looks over at her still eating her part of the fish.
‘If you need help finishing that - ‘
‘Go catch your own fish,’ she interrupts him.
He looks back up at the sky, the sun’s setting and he wonders how things will be between them when they get back on board.
11. Build a sandcastle.
‘What is it?’ she stands over him, casting a shadow and watches as he ads the last bit.
‘The Hammersley,’ he replies.
‘You know you’re oddly creative,’ she observes.
‘I try my best,’ he grins and stands up, looking at his creation.
A wave destroys it as they’re watching and he hears her laughing next to him. He’s almost annoyed.
‘You know, 2Dads, boats are supposed to float, especially Navy ones,’ she says quietly.
‘Yeah, yeah, very funny,’ he replies, greasing off the ocean like it’s a person he moves slightly up the beach and sits down, ready to start again.
‘The Hammersley,’ she says.
‘Yeah, I was going to build that again - I don’t know how to make much else - ‘
‘No, the Hammersley!’ the excitement in her voice tips him off that she’s talking about the real thing.
He looks up and sees it heading towards them.
12. Get rescued.
It almost seems strange when he sees Dutchy and Mike jump off the RHIB onto the sand. They’re both smiling in relief.
‘You guys don’t look like you had such rough time,’ Dutchy observes.
‘We were in need of a good beach holiday, right X?’ 2Dads replies.
She looks at him, ‘I don’t know about you, but next holiday I’d like a bed and a shower.’
They get on the RHIB and head back to the Hammersley, and he’s almost sad to see the island go.
At least he has his Wilson.