Not Your Average Sailor

By Somebody's Angel

Summary: It was an ordinary day, an ordinary boarding, just another illegal fishing vessel…or was it? "How did the guy manage to shoot two of my sailors when there were six armed personnel on his ship?"

Disclaimer: If I owned them, I wouldn't be writing fan fiction.

January 12, 2009

1415 hours

RO and Charge pressed firmly on the wounds in her shoulder and leg, but dressing after dressing turned red with Nav's blood. Bomber worked feverishly to set up a saline IV, wondering where the hell Swain was. As soon as Nav went down the captain had told the boarding party to get back to the ship ASAP…that had to have been at least ten minutes ago – the RHIB was within eyesight of the Hammersley for crying out loud!

With the IV finally in the crook of Nav's left arm, Bomber turned her attention to the actual wounds. RO reported that the bleeding from her leg was slowing, so the chef moved up to Nav's shoulder. She cut away the overalls, shaking her head at the thought of the number of her fellow sailors whose uniforms she had cut off in the past year. When both the overalls and undershirt were sufficiently cut, Charge lifted up the dressing and Bomber pulled away the clothes, enabling her to look at the bullet wound in Nav's shoulder.

"Uh, Bomber…" RO's voice was uncertain enough to cause both Bomber and Charge to look up at him. He pointed a finger at Nav's midsection, where the fabric had fallen away to reveal her stomach.

Her smooth, rounded, clearly pregnant stomach.

All three sailors were speechless for a moment, but before anyone could comment the door to the ward room burst open and Swain entered.

"Swain, thank god. Nav was hit twice when that lunatic-" Bomber trailed off when she saw what was behind Swain.

A stretcher, with an unconscious Spider lying on it, blood streaming from his arm.

Swain's eyes widened when he saw Nav's wounds, and he stopped in his tracks at the sight of her abdomen.

Bomber, on the other hand, moved quickly, pulling Swain out of the doorway to let the stretcher inside the room.

Buffer was the lead bearer, and almost dropped it at the sight of the woman lying on the table. Bomber managed to steady him and helped he and Rhino manoeuvre Spider onto the other bed, though not without clumsily bumping RO out of the way.

The second the weight of RO's hand let up, the wound in Nav's leg started bleeding again, much heavier than before. The sight of the red stain spreading over her grey overalls spurred Swain into action, and he took over from RO, his firm pressure causing Nav to cry out in pain.

"I'm sorry Nav, but we need to stop this bleeding. How did this happen, Bomber?"

"Stupid…scared…ET." Nav's voice was croaky and soft, and Swain had to strain to hear the syllables.

"ET's fine, he wasn't hurt." He reassured her, patting her good leg. This calmed her down, and she smiled briefly, then passed out.

As she worked to stabilise Spider's condition, Bomber relayed the events that had occurred on the ship whilst the others were boarding the FFV. Swain watched in amazement as the chef prepared and inserted an IV into the seaman's arm while simultaneously giving a concise account of how Nav had been injured. Whenever he was doing anything medical-related he had to focus all his attention on what he was doing and thus communicating about anything other than that was out of the question. It's true, he thought, women can do more than one thing at once.

"OK, that explains the bullet holes, but what the hell is that?" Buffer pointed at Nav's rounded stomach, avoiding actually touching the skin.

Bomber and Swain exchanged a look, both unsure how to break it to him.

"Uh, Buff…she's pregnant." Swain eventually spoke, moving a hand up to touch the small bulge. "Judging from the size, I'd say about…five months along."

Before Buffer could reply the captain and ET entered the room, leaving even less room to move in the already overcrowded ward room.

"Oh my god, Nikki!" ET exclaimed, rushing to her side and almost knocking Charge over in the process. "Nikki…" He repeated softly, moving a piece of hair away from her face.

"Swain what…happened?" From the look on his face, Mike was just as shocked about Nav's pregnancy as everyone else.

"Uh, sir, with all due respect, we're extremely busy here. Request all non-essential personnel leave the ward room immediately. Once they're stabilised we can do a debrief."

Mike nodded, "Right, of course. Charge, RO, you help Bomber and Swain. Everyone else out."

"But sir!" Buffer and ET's protests were simultaneous, though neither sailor had looked at the other since ET's appearance in the room.

"Buff, I need you to take Swain's place in interrogating the fishermen." Mike's request was curt, and left no room for further argument. "ET, I understand you don't want to leave Nav, so you can take Charge's place, provided you are going to help, not just stand there." He gave the younger man a meaningful look, and ET instantly stood up straighter and nodded firmly.

"Here, ET, keep pressure on her leg, I've got to change her IV." Swain slapped a new dressing pad onto Nav's leg and pushed ET's hands down over it.

Buffer threw one final glance at Nav's prone form and ET's worried expression, before following the others out of the room.

"Swain…" Bomber's voice wavered worryingly, and he quickly inserted the new bag, leaving RO to finalise the opening of the line while he turned his attention to Spider.

"What's…oh god."

Bomber had just finished cutting Spider's overalls away from his wound, and now the two medics stared in horror at the wound that went all the way through his forearm and into his abdomen.

X chose this moment to appear in the doorway brandishing a radio. "Swain, fleet medical have a doctor on stand-by."

He looked over his two patients as she looped a headset around his neck. "Any word on the med-evac?"

The blonde shook her head, "Not yet. There is one helicopter on the way back to base, but it'll need to be refuelled before it can come out. So we're going to meet it halfway, but it'll be at least an hour."

"X, we're not equipped to handle one sailor with these type of injuries, let alone two. They both need to be in surgery ASAP. Not to mention that complication." He indicated Nav's pregnant stomach.

X's face was grave, and she locked eyes with ET for a moment before turning back to Swain. "Just do the best you can, Swain."

He merely nodded and started speaking to the doctor over the headset. Such was their dynamic he didn't even need to ask Bomber to check the blood pressure of their patients – she had the numbers ready by the time he needed to relay them. Both of them were borderline hypotensive, in urgent need of blood, and Spider was probably bleeding internally, but there was no way they could confirm it.

Swain checked Spider's dog tags and his face fell, "He's O-negative."

Bomber looked up from dressing Spider's arm, worry etched into her face. "O-negative, that means he's a universal donor, but…"

"They can only receive blood from other O-negatives." Swain finished, speaking to the captain over the internal radio. "Could you please check with the rest of the crew, I can't check the records while they're both still in danger."

There was silence in the ward room, aside from the crackle of plastic being ripped open as new dressings were applied to the wounds of both sailors.

"O-negative occurs in about ten percent of the population, with twenty people on this ship the odds are pretty good that there's someone else on the ship who can donate." Swain tried to reassure Bomber, who was now bandaging Nav's shoulder with a determined look – he had to admire her fortitude, her ability to operate semi-normally while her boyfriend's life hung in the balance.

"There is someone." Bomber's voice sounded strangely detached considering the words she was saying. Swain and ET turned away from their tasks to look at the female sailor, who was holding Nav's dog tags in her palm. "Nav is also O-negative."

A minute later the confirmation came from the captain – Spider and Nav were the only sailors on board who had O-negative blood. Swain got back online with fleet medical and frantically discussed options with the doctor while RO helped Bomber secure the dressings on Nav's shoulder and Spider's arm.

ET remained motionless, keeping pressure on the still-bleeding wound in Nav's leg and staring at the unconscious form of the woman he loved. From where he sat her swollen abdomen blocked his view of her face, and for the thousandth time he wondered why she had waited so long to tell him about the baby. In fact, he would hazard a guess that if he hadn't found her hunched over the toilet that morning, he would still be in the dark. Intellectually he understood why she hadn't told him immediately – there was no way he would have been able to contain himself, and as soon as his friends knew, so would the rest of the ship, and as soon as the captain knew Nav would have no choice but to take the maternity leave that was required from four months onwards. As a navigator her job wasn't as dangerous as most other sailors, and she spent most of her time on the bridge, thus she had obviously felt she was capable of continuing work. But his heart ached at the thought of her going through early pregnancy alone – the nausea, the tiredness, the cravings.

He also wondered exactly how she had managed to hide everything for this long – ever since the incident with Zuraya, when they had finally defined their relationship, they had spent almost every shore leave together, and he knew he wouldn't have missed the changes in her body. But as he thought about it more, they hadn't had shared leave for a while now – and when they did it was a short time frame, leaving them little time alone. And what about on the ship? She had a roommate, how had Nav managed to hide her expanding stomach from the X?

ET's thoughts were interrupted by Swain slamming his fist against the wall, causing a deep metallic sound to echo throughout the room.

"Shit!" The medic exclaimed, pounding the wall again.

……………………