Post 3.01 - The McGarrett Family Home

[gonna_owe_me]

It doesn't come as any kind of surprise to her that she hasn't been able to stop thinking about Steve.

Neither does the fact that those thoughts come with a hefty side-helping of guilt. She should have known those trees were too close to the window. She should have been faster, more alert. Maybe they could have caught him, if she'd been doing the damn job Steve told her to do, if she'd done it the way he thought she could.

No surprise there: like she told him, she's not a bodyguard. She's a long way from basic, or doing anything that isn't in a gym or in front of a computer, and he doesn't blame her, but in some ways that just makes it worse.

So she puts in her request for leave right away, requests the weekend, and it's granted without too many hoops to jump through, but she's got to give up her Friday night and part of Saturday morning, which is fine, too. All she needs is to change, find a pair of shorts and a breezy, teal-colored top that hangs loose off her shoulders. Slides a pair of sandals on, brushes out her hair, washes her face, puts on a little makeup. She skips the gym, but throws running shoes, shorts, and a sports bra into the little bag she packs, along with a swimsuit, before slinging it over a shoulder and hitting the pavement.

The sun is high and hot, and she stops at a food truck, first, grabs two cardboard boxes, steaming with a scent that makes her stomach rumble and curl in on itself, before hailing a cab and sliding into the too-warm, hot polyester scented backseat, and giving the address.

It's been a while since she's been here. Cab rolling off in a faint crunch of gravel, leaving her with the tote over her arm, the food in her hand, looking up at the house with eyes squinting in the sun.

Doris left last night. Right? That gives Steve last evening, all night, and this morning to do his thing, be alone, brood if he wants to, deal with the admittedly ridiculous hand he's been given, and she'd have respected that, even if she didn't have to work, which is why she didn't call or text, just let him be, but it's daylight now, and it's gorgeous out, and there's only so much alone time Steve can really take. No matter what he might think.

Leading her up the path to the door, to knock, adjusting the slippery straps of her shirt, brushing hair out of her eyes as she waits. Rearranging her expression just like she does her makeup, or her clothes, so that when the door opens, she's got nothing there but a smile and the usual pleased light at seeing him.

Comments

[gonna_owe_me]

In retrospect, she's not all that surprised that Steve decided to take looking for Shelburne into his own hands. The whole sequence of events is more than a little confused for her: he hadn't exactly given her a lot of details, just asked for a favor every now and again, and the name Shelburne had started popping up with increasing frequency.

Until she found out that he'd been taken captive in North Korea, and found by Joe White and his team.

It's undoubtedly a good thing for her career that they hadn't asked her for help on that, hadn't let her know -- not that any of Five-0 have a good way of reaching her quickly without Steve -- but she still feels a degree of chilliness at how that might all have turned out; the ghost of an op gone wrong.

Not that any of them can dwell on possibilities that never came to fruition, so she pushes past it, because Steve's right here and fine, and he'll get through this like he's gotten through everything. She's just here to make sure he doesn't forget about the good things, along the way. "Did she get off okay, yesterday?"

She's not here to rehash Steve's actions, or make any kind of judgment on anybody. Being around Doris was awkward enough, but the very real danger of Wo Fat means that the important thing is Doris' inability to stay on the island.

Meaning, Steve just lost his mom, again.

It's not a topic she has much experience with approaching; how do you talk to someone about their mom, who was dead for twenty years and then showed up alive and well in Japan, and who is overly interested in your relationship with her son? Even with all the years between them, every intimacy and every time he's had her back or she's had his, she really doesn't know how to ask him about it.

So she just takes the direct route. They've always been honest with each other, and she bets he'd hate feeling coddled more than anything else, right now.

[thebesteverseen]

"Yeah." There's a nod, but there isn't much else.

When he's scraping together what's probably the first of his last two bites left, and thinking a whole mess of other things. That she got off fine. That her plane leaving was far easier than his original plane getting back here. That that isn't all that important or new to him, no matter how much Danny looked pissed and shot when he was told.

That Cath and Danny, and what they need to know, is so vastly different.

Cath wouldn't be all that surprised he walked away from from a plane crash that bad, trekked through the jungle taking people out as needed, and still brought the idiot, who got away, in. Maybe could have even guessed the consideration of shooting him between the eyes that hadn't existed for more than a flicker of a second.

But that wasn't the only thought. No. Oily and sideways and sliding cold in with it, is that thought about how everything had been pretty regimentally on track with her leaving. All things in accordance.

All security checks. No distractions. That everything had been fine.

Until she left the ground, while Danny was saying those words.

What the evidence said. Which went against the statements of everyone there. Settled like an irritable itch between his shoulder blades, where he just couldn't reach to make it be quiet or leave everything else alone. When he could ask her, again. But they have her statement from the night, and he was there for that.

There's something like tar sticking his lips together, tense hold set even when his jaw isn't set. When all he does is focus on taking those two bites, and eating the end of the box of the food in his hand. Thinking about those minutes racing into that room, again. Cath and Doris already there, both wide-eyed. Wo Fat already gone.

Danny's voice, like the wind through it all, three bullets were in the floor.

No, I'm saying, why didn't she kill him when she had the chance?

[gonna_owe_me]

This is going to be the hardest part of today, probably. This part of the conversation, right here. It's easy to skip to everything else, to talk about his team or put some action in the day; to pretend that this part didn't need to or never did happen, but they do need to at least acknowledge it.

She's not trying to make him go back over everything, relive the last few days. It's not her intention to drag Doris into the weekend any further than she's already going to be there, stuck in Steve's thoughts like a pushpin, but it would be stupid to pretend this question isn't on her mind. "How about you?"

Because are you okay is asking for a lie, and a stupid question. Of course he isn't. Even Steve would be brought up hard by something like this, and she wouldn't expect him to be okay.

What she does expect is to pull him enough out of his thoughts to answer her question with whatever version of the truth he feels like giving her. And maybe she's paused in her eating (if anyone asked, it would be due to how filling the dish is and how she's really not planning on slipping into a food coma this afternoon) to watch him. The shadows starting in his eyes, the distance that means he's getting caught in thoughts or plans or strategies. As if this is something he can take apart and put together in a better, more efficient way, like a football play or taking down a bad guy.

She's gone, and that's for the best right now, but it doesn't mean Cath doesn't think the ramifications of that decision, obvious as it might have been, aren't going to be haunting him for longer than he'd care to admit.

[thebesteverseen]

The second bite goes and down, more like cardboard than fully flavored gravy, yolk, filling food he's finishing. When there's no glance up for the question, not even a twinge of an expression flicker. It goes right on over, like maybe it wasn't a bomb. Like maybe it was wind. Closing the box, and leaning back, like it might have been nothing.

Except that it's not nothing in his face. It's just not rolling out a red carpet. Danny hadn't asked that question. At least not that he could remember. He'd said a lot of other words, and so had Steve, depending on the when and where. Even words he wasn't going to acknowledge ever escaped him.

He considered it, and tossed out a wry answer, as he slid back the chair, scraping chair legs on the floor and standing, to go throw away his empty box, "I could still make muster in three-" He paused, considering. "-maybe two, minutes."

The world falls apart and other things still hold. Other things trained deeper than skin, breath, and awareness. Maybe he couldn't keep it from getting everywhere in his head. But that didn't mean he had to give it everything. Or that he could. Even if he couldn't. It didn't mean he wanted to consider it. The worst of it got last night. Maybe it would again tonight.

But not this morning, and it wouldn't get to have now, while Cath was here. That really was enough for him to hold on to.

[gonna_owe_me]

"I don't think anyone would dare think otherwise."

It comes with a smile that's more in her eyes than on her lips, that's as much acknowledgement of the fact that he hadn't answered the question she asked as much as one they both know can always be answered. How soon can you be ready. Where's your head at. Can you get it in the game.

And Steve always can. Always has, as long as she's known him. She's never seen him fall apart, isn't sure it could happen. He falls back on training that goes past instinct, overrides every other reaction.

As answers or evasions go, it's not a terrible one.

"Well, hopefully you're not going to have to pull that out of the bag today, so we'll have to find something else to do, instead."

It's not like they have a code, or anything. He gets her, and they've known each other too long and too well to beat about the bush. If he wants to open up to her, he will: the best she can do is be here, on offer, and distract him so he doesn't spend the whole day running over scenarios in his head.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve could think a handful of worse things that being detailed today. Not that he really had the space or time for recall -- not that recall really cared whether you did, you signed saying you'd go when they called, no matter what, if the need of the country was so great -- but with everything else, it wouldn't have fit well going down either.

But there is something wistful about the though of it. Almost frustrating in the ease of the thought.

Recall. Reserves. Drill. Duty. Set lines in solid concrete, saying what needing doing in each hour on each day.

He popped the top up and pushed the box in the mostly empty trash can, that no one had really been here often enough to be filling in the last week. He'd been so in and out, even with Danny around on most of the evenings. The house itself hardly lived in, dropped in and out from, for nearly two months. Or was it decades. Did the two years really change anything.

Did it count to count the years that his father had been here, wandering it alone to? Had Doris ever counted those?

But he doesn't quite want those thoughts in there. Questions with no answer, from either ghosts or people lost in the wind, faded back into the black. He shoved at it, without so much as a twitch in his face, and walked back toward the door to the dinning room. Leaning on the side of it, looking at Cath, pristine and right for sunshine and relaxing, for being on break for a few days, having a breath of fresh air, off the clock.

Everything but something he felt anywhere inside himself now. He felt tired in a way that had nothing to do with having gotten enough sleep, and just needed shoving into something else. Something that might drag it thinner and thinner, until it was diluted out entirely. Which made an interesting thought in itself pop into his head.

"Have you been out to Koko Head yet?" It's not exactly sensitive, even if he hasn't been out there since Lori, before Asia, when that had seemed bigger. Which it was; big. But that was definitely a smaller, lesser one than the one already beating its own space in his head, even if it still mattered. Plus, it might fit well enough to several other things.

[gonna_owe_me]

Maybe one day she'll stop being impressed and a little amused at the way he can put food away, but it won't be today, as she pushes aside the remaining half of her own meal.

(If she's going to keep up with Steve, it's best not to weigh down with too much, anyway, just enough to fuel up for the day.)

"Not yet." She folds up her own box, puts the fork on top, leans on the table with her arms folded over the wood. "What exactly am I getting myself into?"

Everything is a competition with Steve. Who can be faster, better, get it all done and more, and she's learned it's best to just expect that the things he wants to do will generally end in a flat-out race to the finish, that he usually wins.

Nothing wrong with that; at least she can give him a decent run for his money, most of the time, and it would be good to get out and be active in the kind of space that just isn't available on a boat, no matter what size the deck or how impressive the gym.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve drug a smug smile from out of the blue, tipping his head. Letting it roll out a little across his mouth and most of his body in some kind of ease that hadn't been there seconds ago. It was a good way to do it, and he wouldn't really mind having her there at his side. He never did.

Which made it far easier to bluff, arrogantly. "Consider it a surprise."

There was the most minute beat, before the raised one hand gesturing toward her.

"But you're going to have to change out of that." Which lists toward a smirk. Even an appraising one.

Because she does look very nice, in her silky shirt, with the straps that have been sliding this way and that across her skin when she shifts. Which of course, is half the point. A warning that might be a hint, that might be a compliment, that might be any number of things. "Not that it isn't nice, but it won't help you much where you're headed."

[gonna_owe_me]

His smile switches on an answering one from her, matched with one arching eyebrow and a voice thick with skepticism. "Intriguing. Okay, I'll bite."

Sliding out of her chair, and heading past him to put her leftovers in the fridge. And, sure. Feeling a little smirk of her own, with that once-over. Not like Steve doesn't know what she looks like, in and from all stages of uniformed-pressed professionalism to nothing at all, but it gives a girl a little extra spunk to her step, when a guy like Steve gives her a look. Even if it's almost as old a joke as any others, even if it's as much for show, for a game, as the teasing and banter. Even if it's been years since either of them felt the need to hold back any type of admiration or expectation.

Which leads to that eyebrow being joined by another one, as she gives him a quick up-and-down of her own, taking in jeans, tee, shirt, tan. Feeling the familiar thrum, like an itch to scratch. Last spring was a long time away. "Looks to me like you're probably going to have to change, too."

Leading to the strong possibility that they won't actually make it out of the house this afternoon, at all. There's this tendency, when one or both of them is trying to change, where other hands tend to start helping and then hindering.

None of which she minds, today, she considers, as she puts her box in the fridge and shuts it again. It'll be good to go out, it'd be good to stay in. Put that doofy smile back on his face, in his eyes. "I can be ready in two minutes."

Less, probably. Which will be necessary when he invariably boasts that he'll need only one.

[thebesteverseen]

Her word get a droll almost disappointed flicker to his face. One that never reaches into his eyes, that are light even for that fact they never lighten entirely at all. "I guess I can wait for you."

Like two whole minutes was something to endure through. For her.

"I'll grab us some water and start up the truck while you're taking in the sights," Steve tossed over a shoulder headed from the kitchen, off for his bedroom.

Pounding up the stairs like maybe the best part of this isn't how normal it feels.

The edge of her smile and the knowledge the hours will sort of melt away. That they could keep batting these words back and forth the whole time, and maybe between her and The Steps he won't think about for a while. Any of the crazy all of it he can't stop following the complicated loops and knots on.

Though it really will only take him seconds to change out of this and into shorts, shirt, shoes all for running. He still had a towel in the back of the truck, but a clean one might not hurt either.

[gonna_owe_me]

"You say that like I won't be out there ahead of you."

Called up after him, the disappearing footsteps, making her jog into the living room to snag her tote and shimmy out of her shirt. There's no one out here, nobody likely to glance through the windows, so she shucks her jean shorts and replaces them with light running ones, pulls the sports bra over her head and tugs out the other, stuffs it and the tanktop back into the tote, a little haphazardly. Wrinkles can be steamed out -- it's more important to keep up with Steve, who she can hear upstairs. No shirt needed -- in this heat she'd rather have bare skin than the added layers, even with sun. That's what the sunblock in her bag is for, and the water he says he'll bring, right?

She's tugging on her running shoes when he comes back down, feet feeling strange in ankle-short cotton socks and sneakers, hopping on one foot with an index finger tugging the shoe over her heel.

"Better hurry up, or I really will beat you out there," she says, all grins and bouncing hair that will need to get tied up in a second. Not that Steve has actually lost his edge, but it's part of the play: the bullshit, the banter, the way they push each other to go faster, harder, take on more.

"Come on, sailor. We're burning daylight, here."

[thebesteverseen]

The shirt and jeans get left, hanging off the end of the bed. A towel tossed over one shoulder, still tugging his shirt, loose workout shirt with the SEAL's emblem at the left chest side, up over a second shoulder, and down across his side, when he's making it back down. Fast efficient movements. It helps that there were no shoes to get rid off that weren't house shoes, having gone nowhere or set to anything that wasn't on the beach or in the main rooms since Danny left.

And there is a momentary thought in that direction. Whether they've made it to the aquarium, and mental post it note, that at some point he still needs to send Danny the all clear for Kono, too, making it back to him as three for three on people checked in with and posted him on. But it's not right now. No.

It really isn't, when Cath is doing this little hopping dance with jamming her heel into a shoe, and throwing him that smile.

It can wait. All of it can wait. Because all of his people are okay -- or as near to okay as medically or legally possible for this morning, for -- right now, and that means he can switch hats. Just let the irrepressible smile saunter across his lips at her teasing, the challenge and words spilling something warm wide across his chest like it got splashed there suddenly by an unexpected wave, while he throws a hand out.

"You don't think there's water in the car already?" Headed for the door, rather than any of the back rooms, holding the towel, along with the bundle of his sidearm and one the wallet-badge sets, lingering only long enough to scoop up keys and toss open the door. Letting in more sunshine than this room has seen except in the seconds of Danny leaving and Cath arriving.

But until this second he can't really remember having seen it either of those times, and now it's buttery-gold. Like this morning, tossing at him the remembrance of Danny's skin. His hair. The fingers tangled with his, not letting go. Pouring into the lingering shadows of the room, even with it's wide open windows lighting the place. Catching on things he hadn't really thought about looking at either.

He can feel the warmth already trying at his shoulders and the back of his neck, when he's smiling at her.

"Don't tell me they've let you forget being ready at all times already." Steve tipped his head, smirk tugging at the corners, all shine and ribbing. "They do still call it 'a job,' when they have you sitting in a chair all day, sinking ships and catering to fly boys, right?"

[gonna_owe_me]

"When you say you need to get water, no, I don't."

Tossed at his head, as she follows to the door, arms up, tying her hair into a heavy ponytail that bounces against the back of her neck and brushes the top of her shoulders. It might be time to go short again, especially if she's going to be spending any amount of time in this heat, but right now she kind of likes the way it feels, silky and heavy and with a fun sort of flip to it when she moves.

Like now, as she makes her way to the door, hands on her hips, and takes a second to lean into his space, head tipped back in a dare or a challenge or just an attitude of go ahead, impress me. Smile tripping her up, teasing at her lips and eyes, smug and expectant and it's just damn good to see him, no matter what the circumstance. He smells good, up close, and she considers pushing up on her toes to kiss him, but leaves it, for now, though she's close enough to brush his chest.

"It could be worse. I could be catering to sailors."

Not that they don't try, the boys on the boat. And not that she hasn't, occasionally, taken part in some mutual catering of a distinctly unprofessional sort. But Steve's teasing is just that, good-natured ribbing that she's gotten every day she's known him and all the boys like him, running off to join the Navy, serving the country, a mix of bold and brash and crass and gentlemanly that she sometimes despairs of and sometimes adores and always watches with varying degrees of exasperated affection. It's who she is, too, and keeping up with the boys is as much a part of her job description as anything else.

Keeping up with, beating -- it's academic, really.

"At least I'm a whiz at Battleship."

All amusement, before she tips her head and tugs at his loose shirt, stepping out into the sun. "Are you going to keep interrupting out there, too? Is this some kind of pitiful attempt to distract me so you'll get a head start?"

[thebesteverseen]

Words are getting tossed at his head while her hair is pulled back, hands busy but no where near passive. Flashing smile, taunting words, and getting up into the space of the doorway with him. Her eyes bright and light, sparkling with laughter and that challenged when she leans in. Insulting sailors, herself including.

Irreverent bubble expanding inside his chest and shoving everything else to the corners and the shadows, when he's raising his eyebrows half accusing her of transgressing against herself and their own and half lost in the he fact they all know the worst jokes of their own. Especially on a cross-branch assignment. The way they worked for only people who built ships on purpose to sink them.

Shoulders and chest brushing him, soft and firm, in very little clothing, before her fingers grasped his shirt pulling. A tug with an insult, but he can feel the strength behind it, knows what she could bring to a fight. And. This close its impossible to miss they way her eyes drop to his lips, holding for half a second, against the answering surge of warmth as normal as the continued antagonizing that comes out if her mouth.

While something shifts awkward, clunky, heavy as a brick, in the center of his stomach. Dropping hard as a stone, surprising and a little interiorly disorienting, even when he was pulling the door closed behind him, locking it and stepping out following the hand dragging his shirt, tossing back. "Big words for someone who doesn't even know what they're getting into."

Which is one of the things he does love about her.

Sunshine pouring down over her as she steps out dragging him, like he isn't taller and heavier and trained to break through anything out in his way. The glow catching up in her pale skin, the same delightful color all over every time she came in from mouths in ship, and dark hair, always such and amazing contrast. The brilliance in her eyes, warm in her voice, wide in the smile at her mouth that is as much a challenge to try and beat him, no matter what it is, as it is the promise of what she's offering when he inevitably wins.

All of this is. Things he loves about her. Things that have never changed.

Which doesn't change that there's even more she doesn't know. That might have changed.

That was. He didn't even. It was like stepping into a sudden puddle of water in the dark, not expecting it. Even when his hand was already catching the back of her waist, the higher part of the small of her back and propelling her forward toward the truck. Because maybe that was easier than looking at her face for a second here.

"Get in the truck already. The mountain isn't going to wait for you all day."

[gonna_owe_me]

"So you admit it's a mountain."

All knowing, like he'd given up a tactical advantage. Not that it helps, seeing as the whole island is, essentially, a mountain, the result of lava flow and cataclysmic geological events over the hot spot that pumped each island into the sea, but that's hardly the point.

The point is Steve's ragging on her, like she's being slow instead of matching him step for step. The point is the familiar warmth of his hand on her bare back, and the way her hand lifts to go around his waist in response, tucked close to his side, steps getting sloppy and loose, gravel and shells crunching underneath her sneakers. Tossing her head so her ponytail flips against his shoulder as she squints a challenging, all too-amused glance up at him. "Don't know what I'm getting into? You mean I should expect something different than what always happens, hanging out with you?"

Lifting her free hand, she checks off past memories on her fingers, listing them with definite, deliberate accusation. "So you haven't found some ridiculously intense path that would make the kids at boot camp wet their pants? I am not going to look at whatever you have planned and immediately regret thinking working out with you was a good idea?"

Teasing, light and light-hearted, as she snakes her arm back from around his back and pulls open the passenger side door, stepping up into the cab with a last grin spotlit and and satisfied. "Anything else and I'd be disappointed, Steve. Don't tell me you've gone soft with your new civilian lifestyle."

[thebesteverseen]

He rolls his eyes, even as his fingers are rolling off her back, with a last push at the same time as she's stepping away. Taking large strides toward the other side of the car, trying not to think, very seriously, made of exasperation and affection and a sudden shit ton of lopsided, that her first answer is the same kind Danny would have thrown right back at him.

Which is, just, a weird thought for this second, okay.

This second when it's easier to be sliding into the car, shoving his phone and badge-wallet in one of the low hanging pockets of the running shorts, and his sidearm, safety-on, in the glove box. When he'd take the next second to focus, but she's still heaping on the torment with her smile, turning it toward personal accusation even with that curve of her mouth never changing.

Steve had the good form to look offended almost, even if it never hits center, never once touches his eyes. "Basic is just for weeding out the squids who might be able to hack something more than lugging text books and licking up bootblack. Take 'em all and throw 'em in Coronado, and we'll see what's left of that group calling themselves the newest round of crew mates."

Boys in blue and green and brown, struggling against the sound of the bell and a long line of helmets that started on day one. If more than four people on her whole cruiser had what it took, he'd have been surprised. But then there were only roughly two thousand of them, in the whole world. And what they consider any amount of basic training, was first hedged by months of what would break everyone else.

Because that was the whole point of the weed out. Finding the only people in the world who wouldn't.

There was a derisive scoff and hard look. "We'll see who's complaining when you get halfway through."
Which was probably his favorite part. Standing at the top. Hawaii rolling out in everywhere direction.

[gonna_owe_me]

All that derision in his voice makes her laugh, which she knows was the intent behind it to begin with. Steve's not the guy to look at anyone in any level of the military and say they aren't good enough simply because they aren't the best, like him. He could. He could pass judgement everywhere, tell people to suck it up, try harder, and he does, when it's needed, when it's necessary, but he's not the kind of guy who'd tell the men and women working their asses off that they need to be better.

It's something she loves about him. The way he appreciates people, all of them, for everything and anything they can do. Like they still manage to surprise him with their heroics and strengths and intelligence. If he holds himself apart from the rest, it's not for thinking he isn't in good enough company.

After all, he keeps finding her again, doesn't he? He respects the job, the uniform. People just trying to protect everyone else, or to make the world a better place. Optimism he doesn't always allow himself, but she sees it shine, now and again. More often, these days, with his team, their work. He's lighter now than she remembers seeing all that often. Smiles easier -- or, no. Not easier, but without the glaze of charm and disinterest that colored it so often before.

Maybe not today, but he's seemed pretty happy here, and that, in her opinion, is never a bad thing. Whatever he's doing is working, and he's doing good stuff, even if it's not the same as before.

Which just makes it all the more important that he not slide back today, into dark thoughts and old memories. There's a time and a place for that, but it's not in the brilliant island sunshine, when she's smiling at him, buckling the seatbelt across her hips and chest.

"Well, get her in gear, Commander, and let's get out of here."

[thebesteverseen]

Steve let that one go, mouth pulled wide, with half as hake to his head. But it'd be a very stiff toss up to whether that's at her words themselves, or that fact he puts up with her at all. You know. Smiling as he shoves the truck in reverse, carefully backing out of the front area, mindful of the trees, grass and that gate, all loitered with flowers.

Things he barely sees when the car is jumping gears as soon as he hits the road, racing in the direction of Koko head. Not at break neck speed, since he isn't in a chase, but he more than a little idles the truck at a hop, skip and jump above the speed limit. Which is easy when Hawaii's easy in its morning, its Aloha weekend. Driving a little slower. Headed for the beach, sights, friends, family.

Hesitating in his next step only by a momentary pause that twinges his hands on the wheel.

Thinking about that morning briefly with this next step contemplation.

But maybe it's more a devil may care dare at the universe to bring it-- because what else could happen, what could be worse that the things he was lugging around, listening to skitter in the back of his head, roughly shoving into all his thoughts-- when he rolls the windows all down halfway with one hand, before reaching out to hit the radio on, turning classic rock up to match the breeze and speed.

When you're going through hell, you just keep going.

Especially when you know the easiest day is always the one right behind you, and you can let things be taken with each yesterday or you can dig in refuse, grit your teeth and dare the world to do its damnedest to keep trying to take it from you.

[gonna_owe_me]

The wind through the windows is already trying to tug her hair, strand by strand, out of the ponytail. Nothing pinned up, slicked in place like when she's on duty, every hair perfect and precise; it's the weekend, she's hanging out with one of her favorite people, and a messy ponytail is as good as it's going to get, today.

Besides, it feels good. Warm, and cool and the same time, toying with the fine strands at her temples and forehead, sunshine thick everywhere around them, music drifting with the wind tunnel sound of open windows and a fast drive. The truck pushes through traffic the way Steve pushes through a crowd, all large frame, shouldering people gently out of the way. Cars meander, sunlight sparkling off paint and glass, windows open, hands lying easy out the driver's side windows, surfboards moving through the roads like they're some new kind of wave.

Everybody looking cheerful, relaxed. It's Hawaii, right? Land of eternal vacation. An island paradise. She's seen all kinds of places in the world: cities and deserts, one port much like another, surrounded by the gray of metal and the blue bowl of sea and sky, but Hawaii is still a spot all it's own.

It's partly down to Steve, sure, but she'd have to be pretty far gone on the guy to say that he's the only charm a place like this has.

"You know, I could get used to this," she says, leaning back, getting comfortable. "If we're here long enough, I may even get to surf a little. Try out this mysterious R&R I keep hearing about."

And maybe -- maybe -- keep an eye on Steve, who is looking fine, sitting over there, all loose shoulders, listening to his classic rock, but she hasn't known him for so long for nothing.

And it might not be such a bad thing to see more of him for a little while, either.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve was studying the back of the car in front of him, the loose box of the four cars within thirty feet of his truck. Already beginning to pick where he was shifting, where he'd weave based on the tilt of the cars alone. People were predictable enough, especially here, if you knew what to look for. The obsessively defensive notion behind driving that was in opposition to Asia.

Which is as far as he's made it when Cath is settling back in her chair. Loosening up, instead of preparing.

"It's a myth," Steve batted back fast and hard, like it was some other kind of sport. Serve and return. Eyebrows pinching up, and looking at her more from the side, over a shoulder. Like she'd just suggested some other kind of terrible thing were true. Like that whole notion wasn't even true from the ground.

Not that he didn't moonlight toward it from time to time. But coming here, even living here, hadn't been about that, still wasn't about that for the greatest percent of all of his days. That he'd come because of his Dad's last cryptic message before he was murdered. Stayed because it was going to be the long game. Stayed for various other reasons, too. Important ones. But that one had always been mixed in at the foundation.

A mystery that two years later was still only getting bigger and more multifaceted, from then until yesterday.

"You thinking about taking in the sights or just laying on the beach during this little vacation?" The last word is almost slanderously mocking. Curving up the edge of his mouth, even when his eyes stay a little more serious this time.

There are dozens of places and thoughts for things from the past. Most forgotten halfway to them. Halfway to meals, halfway to the front door, halfway out of a car. They did make it to places now and again, but he tally isn't lost on him, when he's thinking he could point her at things, sideswipe tickets to nearly anything she might be interested in, drag her to others, like Koko Head, time permitting on the Navy or Five-0.

Danny. When, if, she's still here once the weekend has rolled over.

[gonna_owe_me]

"Can't I do both?"

Truthfully, she's not all that one hundred percent set on needing to do either. It's not like she hasn't missed out on beach days or sight-seeing here, before -- they just never quite seem to get out the door. She's faintly impressed that they even managed to get this far, when every minute with Steve is another minute where she wants to sit a little closer, put her arms around his neck, lean up and give him a kiss.

It's not that she thinks of herself as distraction, or that she wants him to think that's what she's here to offer. There's nothing that's going to really distract Steve from what happened this week, and it shouldn't. Besides, what they have might be casual, and fun, and as much of a part of vacation as beach time or hiking or surfing, but Steve's hardly just a good time, and she'd be surprised if that was all he thought of her, either.

But, seriously, they could probably both use it. Nothing wrong with calling a spade a spade, or wanting to be close to someone for a little while, especially when that someone is an old, good friend.

She rolls her window down the rest of the way, drapes her arm along the hot metal and rubber, fingers loose in the wind, rolling her head against the headrest to look at him.

"Admittedly, actually getting to see some of the sights would be kind of a novelty. Maybe I should make that my priority."

Dark eyes warm with teasing and affection and maybe just a little something else, because it really has been too long since she's seen him, since they've gotten to fall back into this easy banter, just being around each other. Months will go by without so much as a phone call, but this just never goes, and she hopes it never does.

[thebesteverseen]

"It could happen." Flippant. But it is the first time he thinks that it can't.

Which makes it all that much sharper in contrast. That Cath is beautiful.

Long, lean, always in shape, very flexible, lines relaxed in his car. The hair that's slipped free from her pony tail, blowing at her temples, across her ears and the cool, pale stretch of her neck, ends not quite long enough to brush her shoulder. The dark, warm color of her eyes and how she doesn't look away for long.

An irritably annoyed wave of uncertainty. Not at her, or the things he can read in her smile, the curl of implication in her words. That she doesn't have to see anything. Not The Stairs. Not Hawaii. She'd be just as glad as any other time, for him to pull the car over, drag her close, and not leave the ring of his arms, his bed, his house until that leave was over.

It's not at that. That's clear.

It's that it's suddenly there. The phantom knowledge of the softness of her skin, the brush of her hair, falling around her face, on him. The way she laughs, low in shoulder when picked up. The soft gasps she makes. The way she kept him as challenged there, as ever with following him out to The Stairs. The point when she loses control and can't help how loud or vocal she gets.

It's not just that. But it is, too. She's one of the oldest things to stay in his life. Definitely to stay this long. Someone he trusts to help, bend rules, meet in the middle, enjoy everything while demanding almost nothing. And three feet way, she suddenly feels like something else ripped from him now. So close she isn't there. At all.

Except that she is. There. Soft, smiling, amenable to everything, normal.

While he's doing everything not to eye the elephant in the corner of his head. The one all but battering the walls at every edge of those other thoughts, while he's turning on to Kalanianaole Highway, saying, "The islands definitely have some unmissable sights."

[gonna_owe_me]

"You know, I keep hearing that's the case."

Idly, amused little smile sidling across her lips before she looks away, out the windshield, absently tucking a few loose strands of hair behind her ear.

It feels good. Like it always does, being with Steve. He gets her, they get each other. Never wanting more than what they've got, but living it up for those few days or nights or hours, with plans continually getting pushed aside for the way her leg curls over his hip, for the weight and warmth of him and the laughter that gets carried up into his bed or hers.

'Friends with benefits' doesn't cut it, which brings her back to that question, the one that stopped her dead to rights, staring at Doris McGarrett with disbelief and teenage, coltish awkwardness written all over her suddenly too-clumsy mouth and body. Does she love him?

How is it even a question? Of course she loves Steve. She loves Steve like she loves her uniform, her duties, her days off. She loves him like she loves the sight of a long, sweeping stretch of sea, like the rush of surfing and the crest of a wave. It's like breathing. Infatuation burned out years ago into this: comfortable. Like wearing an old flannel shirt on a cool evening. He's Steve. How else is she supposed to feel about him?

Even if she knows that isn't really what was asked, or what made her so uncomfortable. It's the same feeling she gets when her mom asks about Steve, asks why Cath hasn't brought him over, asks why there isn't more of a commitment. It just -- isn't needed. Or wanted. Right? It's what they've fallen into, what they are. Boyfriend too specific, friend too general. Nothing that really covers the way he makes her smile, how her heart lightens like a helium-filled balloon when that goofy picture of him pops up on her phone.

But it's good. What they have. And she loves it, and loves him, too. Just, in her own way. Which, she has to say, she doesn't think is any less than what was implied. Just, not the same.

[thebesteverseen]

But that doesn't mean it's not there. The fact he's faintly angry, frustrated, exhausted toward losing even more things in these three days. That doesn't actually stop it. From shoving in between the spaces. Breaths. The first second he looks away from her. Pushing, stretching, making space for itself. Blinding strobe light in every movement.

Danny. She doesn't know about Danny.

Which isn't even in the same category about not knowing about Doris and Wo Fat.

He doesn't know that he can tell her. Should. Can. If there's a way out of today without having to, if this is only the first hour. If this is all going to go like normal. Toward normal. Doesn't really know what the words are to explain it even. It's not Kono, teasing Danny over the table about his new girl friend. It's Cath. It's not like he could end that conversation with saying he isn't in the mood.

Because, Christ, that would be a lie. Even right now. Some part of him. Large, half-sour and half-not, can feel that tug. How easy it would be. To fall into her. Fall into the only normal thing to touch his world in -- months? Two, three now?

And he wants that, too. Which he knows he couldn't say to either of them. She's gorgeous, fun, good fun, a great distraction, event, time whether its hours, a weekend, days. Several of his favorite memories from the last decade, when not listing the ones that involved his work. One of the near only reasons he ever came off the clock, off the job, out of missions, longer than required by an order.

Cath doesn't deserve that, and Danny wouldn't even want to hear it. He's sure.

He doesn't even know what words go there. He what, has a complicated, thing? A non-casual one, that was ranted in panic at him. He doesn't know if Danny actually wants anyone to know. He doesn't know if he does. If anything good can come of mentioning it to someone who will see all the cracks in the glass they are both willfully ignoring every time they touch, that could explode and take every single most important duty from them both.

If there is anything to know aside from the fact they keep falling into each other, which is only ever occasionally into a bed.

That there were phone calls. Coffee cups. Words he didn't say. Did.




That it's always been there, too. In the simplest, most inconvenient ways. Those are words not to say, too.

[gonna_owe_me]

Steve doesn't actually reply; doesn't toss anything back or insinuate that she might not see any of those sights this time, either. Doesn't protest that it's hardly his fault she hasn't before, even though she really could pin that on him just as much as on the United States Navy, and when she looks over at him, there's a thin line to his lips that wasn't there before, and distance in his eyes that has nothing to do with watching the road he's currently following.

"Hello? Steve?"

Her eyebrows lift, but it's as much concern as it is curiosity. Look, it's too much to expect Steve to be lighthearted and all aloha this weekend, and she doesn't, but when he goes quiet like that, it's hard to know the best steps to take. She's never been great at pretending things are fine when they're not, gets mired in awkwardness and second-guessing herself. Neither of them are strangers to personal or professional tragedy, but this is different -- like a death in the family, but without any prescribed actions or offers. The loco moco she'd brought sitting in his fridge like the casseroles church ladies bring to a house in mourning -- or just leftovers, she doesn't know.

Of course he's going to detach, distance himself. And there's nothing wrong with that, except it makes her think of the lost look on his face when he opened the door two days ago, the way he'd reached for her wrists, belatedly, after she'd put her hands on his chest.

"So are we almost there?"

It's what she goes with in the end, because there's nothing she can say to make it better -- at least, nothing that will ever have the same effect as physical exertion, endorphins, sunshine, fresh air. Not exactly doctor's orders, maybe, but they've both always felt best when being active.