Disclaimer: I don't own Sea Patrol or any characters mentioned in this. That said, if i owned Spider i'd be a very happy gal!

The Way To A Man's Heart…

Chapter One:
Wild

The kitchen was quiet, too quiet in her mind, and for a brief moment Rebecca was pleased. And then reality caught up. Something was wrong. Arming herself with a rolling pin, she proceeded to walk slowly around the room, opening the cupboards cautiously and peering into them. Half-way through she heard a loud snort from the doorway and turned with a furrowed brow and narrowed eyebrows. In the doorway of the ship's kitchen, her kitchen, stood her arch-nemisis Billy 'Spider' Webb. He gave her a cheesy grin, one of his trademark looks, and shot her a pair of raised eyebrows.

"Lost something Bomber?"

Rebecca 'Bomber' Brown restrained herself, despite being more than happy to hit him with the rolling pin.

"Just locating your brain Spider." She returned with her own smirk, hesitantly putting down the rolling pin. Spider's grin fell and Bomber knew she'd won this battle, one of many which raged between the pair. Despire being told by Robert 'Ro' Dixon to just ignore Spider, there was something about the man that bugged her terribly. And while Bomber had first been happy to be posted to a ship with someone her own age and level of experience, she soon wished she hadn't.

Bomber glanced at Spider. "What do you want?" It was because of him that Bomber was on edge, checking her surroundings every time things got too easy. It was nerve-wracking.

His reply was as stupid as she'd already predicted. "What's for dinner?"

Bomber actually laughed. "You're one of a kind Spider." She shook her head and turned back to the kitchen bench. "You can wait like everyone else." With that she opened the nearest cupboard and pulled out the first tin she could find, which turned out to be a can of beetroot. She put it on the bench beside her can opener and slid them towards him.

"If you're really hungry you can have that."

Spider gave her a small frown then his best withering look (which wasn't good) and walked away. Bomber just laughed and went back to work.

She put the plates down in front of the crew and Nav looked up at her with a smile. Bomber liked Nikki 'Nav' Caetano, she was slightly more reserved than Bomber, which was what she wanted to be. Bomber was ashamed of her temper and how quickly she'd flare up. Just last week Buffer had nearly put her on disciplinary charges after she'd thrown an egg at Spider, and tried to throw him in the water too. She'd only got out of it after saving herself and the irritating man from a brown snake. Bomber wished many things on Spider, especially muteness, but being bitten by a poisonous snake was not amongst them.

Speaking of the annoying man, he was now analysing the plate of food in front of him and prodding it with his fork

"What now?" Bomber sighed, drawing the attention of Ro, Nav and Kate 'XO' McGregor.

"What is it?"

"Stuffed chicken and a wild rice salad."

Spider looked up at her. "Is normal food so hard?"

Nav laughed. "Oh, get some culture Spider, it's good."

Spider shrugged and started to eat, his expression telling Bomber he really didn't hate it as much as he'd anticipated.

"You know, it isn't hard to say you were wrong." Bomber urged when she came back a moment later with Ro and X's dinners to find Spider had nearly finished it. He just gave a grunt, his mouth still full, and the X translated.

"That's Spider talk for 'thanks Bomber, it was great'."

Bomber smiled. "If you could bring your plates down when you're done." With that she headed back to the kitchen.

As Bomber was finishing her own dinner, eating and cleaning at the same time, Spider came to the door with a pile of plates in his hands. She took them off him and glanced back at see him eyeing a bowl of the wild rice salad that was still sitting on the bench. He saw her watching him and motioned to it. Bomber just laughed and pulled out a spoon, handing it to him with a genuine smile. And, to her shock and relief, he gave her a genuine smile back.