A/N : So in brief this very long fic is going to be an AU set along the lines of the current series by CBS, yet my version includes Steve and Catherine being married, shotgun, just after they left the naval academy and having two now teenage children.
Any questions, please PM me or leave a review. I have written a chapter per episode for all the seasons so if you keep reviewing or have suggestions, more will keep coming!
Enjoy, this has been major fun to write and I hope it allows an escape to those Mcroll'ers like myself missing our ship haha… and even those of you who always liked the idea of Steve having children of his own.
Enjoy! Please Review!
1x01: "Pilot"
Original Summary: "U.S. Navy SEAL Steve McGarrett (Alex O'Loughlin) returns to his native Hawaii to find Victor Hesse (James Marsters), a terrorist who murdered McGarrett's father, John McGarrett, a retired officer from the Honolulu Police Department (HPD). He is enlisted by Hawaiian Governor Pat Jameson (Jean Smart) to head a new task force with legal immunity to clean up the underworld of Oʻahu. In turn, McGarrett enlists Honolulu newcomer Danny Williams (Scott Caan), a divorced detective who moved from New Jersey to be closer to his daughter; Chin Ho Kelly (Daniel Dae Kim), a disgraced police officer and a protégé of McGarrett's father who was wrongly accused of corruption; and Kono Kalakaua (Grace Park), Chin Ho's cousin, a former surfer and soon-to-be Police Academy graduate. Together they discover a link between Hesse and a Chinese human trafficking ring with a mole in HPD. After threatening to deport the family of the ring leader. Sang Min (Will Yun Lee), to Rwanda, McGarrett is given the location where Hesse is: a freighter heading to China. McGarrett and Danny storm the freighter and dispatches several of Hesse's guards. McGarrett confronts Hesse and after a fight, McGarrett shoots Hesse, who falls to the sea. By the next episode it is revealed the Coast Guard have yet to find his body."
Plus: Steve's wife Catherine, and their two teenage children Jake and Mia are introduced as well as the rest of the cast. They were born 'shotgun' shortly after Catherine and Steve left the academy. While Steve went on to join SEALS and serve deployments, Catherine rose to the rank of lieutenant though duty station at Pearl, to be based solely in Hawaii where their family home was.
PEARL HARBOUR MEMORIAL – 10:00
Steve's head was full of so much, thinking about his dad, all alone in that little house with a gun to his head... thinking of the time he spent hating him… of the son of a bitch who had done this…
But then there were thoughts about his wife and kids, and what it must be doing to them, were they safe?
He knew they were.
As much as anyone could he knew Hesse. He had gone underground and wasn't going to risk capture by rising up anytime soon.
"Commander?"
The voice was female, but not the one he most wanted to hear, and his rank was not said in the way it usually fell form Catherine's lips…
He turned, cover under hand, showing his back to the Arizona memorial near where his grandfather was entombed.
Before him was a small woman, middle aged, with lines around her eyes and a politician's smile.
"Governor." Steve greeted, although there was no warmth in it.
He shook her hand, and she stared into his eyes as he watched her carefully, both trying to get a read on one another. But he knew what she could tell about him was only skin deep, only what she could read in his file.
There were very few people able to see past the ribbons, purple hearts, navy rank insignia and pressed dress blues.
Very few people got to see the smile beneath the rigid jaw. Even fewer could put it there.
"I am so sorry about your loss." When Pat Jameson released his hand it fell immediately back down to his side as he stood to attention.
Steve looked away briefly when her words affected him.
He wasn't about to break down, or confess all his regrets about his feud with his now deceased father to a woman he barely knew, definitely did not trust.
Steve had come to answer her summons before going home to see his family. He knew what would happen as soon as Cath started to comfort him, and he knew he would find it too hard to put the cover back on and face a woman who quite frankly irritated him, as all those who took part in small talk did.
He would have no patience for it.
"Is this about the investigation?" He asked.
"Yes we have alerts across all the islands..." she spoke to him as if he was just a grieving son, not one who knew Hesse and his working perhaps better than he knew his own father. As much as that stuck in his gut, leaving a bleeding wound he tried to ignore, Steve took issue with her speaking as if what she had just said was enough.
"You won't find Victor Hesse with road blocks and search warrants." Steve informed her, "he has gone underground until he can find a safe way to leave the island. Now why am I here?"
"I suspect you wish to grieve with your family." Pat Jameson folded her arms, "as a service I have had a HPD unit watching your house since the attack on your father."
"Clearly you have not met my wife." Steve gave a small scoff, "no offense Ma'am but Lieutenant McGarrett is far more of match for victor Hesse than anyone of your officers."
"Your father always spoke very highly of her, and of you… and he was besotted with his grandchildren." She told him, as if he didn't know.
Steve swallowed back a bile filled remark about his father adoring his grandchildren in an attempt to heal the wounds he had scarred his own children with.
"Why am I here?" He asked coldly
She straightened, as if beginning to realise that small smiles and compliments were not going to work here as they did with so many others.
Steve was no politician. He had no interest in it.
She didn't say it, but he and his father were alike in this manner.
"I would like to help you get what you came back here for," she told him, turning away and leading him along the side of USS Missouri, "your father's death as a wakeup call, to me and every law enforcement agency in Hawaii. Which is why I am putting together a task force and I want you to run it."
Steve barely glanced her way, teeth pushing together, while she continued to watch him intently, striding in her skirt suit to keep up with him.
"You don't know me." He reminded her.
"I know your resume." She was persistent, "Annapolis, where you met your wife," throwing in these snippets about his family wasn't helping her win Steve over, she had to realise that by the look on his face, "five years naval intelligence before six years with the SEALS. Your superiors say you are the best…"
"Let me stop you right there." Steve stated, halting in his strides so she had to turn to look at him, "I have been tracking victor Hesse for five years. If he was bold enough to surface I promise you he already has an exit strategy planned, and he knows I know it, which means I can barely afford the time it is going to take to bury my father," he said bitterly, holding her gaze when she lifted her chin, "let alone comfort my wife and kids who you seem to think you know so much about."
"I didn't say that…" Pat Jameson murmured.
"Then don't imply it." Steve insisted, "That's a request, direct from me to you. Whatever you want me for, you leave my kids alone."
She swallowed and shifted, folding her arms again, "I notice you do not ask the same for your wife?"
Steve could have offered up a wry smile, but it was implied, "like I said, you haven't met Catherine." He put the cover on his head, "and like I also said, you don't know me, excuse me." He gave her a curt nod and strode away.
She sucked in a breath before spinning around, bracing herself in the wind, "I can help you find this son of a bitch."
Steve stopped and looked back at her, eyes hard.
"You will have full immunity and means," she walked towards him, "your task force will have blanket authority to go after guys like Hesse and get them the hell off my island."
She walked right up to him and looked him dead in the eye, "your rules, my backing, no red tape…. And I promise you, commander. What you see with me is what you get."
Steve knew that that was the problem.
"Here's what I see." He informed her, "an election year coming up and a politician who needs the PR, who is willing to do whatever it takes including bringing me to Pearl harbour where my grandfather was killed, and throwing in little snippets to remind me that this is the island where my children and wife call home, as if I need you too," he stated, "so that I might feel some kind of paternal obligation to fulfil my family destiny. Is that about right governor?"
She had looked away, but then she turned back to him she tipped her head, "None of those things make me feel les responsible." She told him, "I knew your father, commander. This is personal for me too."
"Pass."
Steve's voice was grave, and it was the only answer he was ever going to give.
NEAR THE USS MISSOURI GIFT SHOP
"She is a smart lady that one!"
The voice was clearly directed at Steve, who was stood watching Governor Jameson be driven away. He turned and saw a man probably not much older than himself, local, wearing a uniform for the shop behind him.
"Steve McGarrett right?" The man checked, as though he had any doubt he was right.
Steve felt his eyes narrow slightly, "I know you."
"You better!" the man gestured to himself, "Chin Ho Kelly."
Steve's eyes winded and he let out a gasp, "Chin Ho!" He accepted the man's hug, "god it's been years…"
The air settled between them when they both realised that the last time they had spoken, however brief, Chin had been going to work in the patrol car with John.
"I am sorry to hear about your dad." Chin said solemnly, "he was a great mentor to me."
"Yeh." Steve still wasn't sure how he felt about having heard from so many men who great a man his dad was, considering his own turbulent relationship with him, but he knew chin to be sincere, so he didn't give him the cold shoulder.
"Thank you." Steve murmured.
"How is the family?" Chin was leading him towards where picnic benches were.
"I spoke to Catherine just before I landed, going there next." Steve sighed, "Kids are pretty shaken up, they only saw him at the start of the week. He went to Jake's football game."
"Ahhh Kukui high school. You know I was a good quarterback in my day." Chin chuckled, "until you came along and shattered all my records…."
"Well now he's at Kukui Jake's probably gonna see my name scrubbed off that board so what are you gonna do?" Steve chuckled, looking down for a moment. Even as sad as he was he couldn't hide the pride in his face when he thought about his kids.
It had been too long, weeks, nearly a couple of months since he had seen them. It had been his longest deployment for a while.
"I heard about your disagreement with the HPD over your job description." Steve told the man as they began to walk towards the parking lot, "I am sorry, but I'm glad my dad stayed a friend to you."
"He was the man who taught me everything I knew about wearing a badge. He stayed very good to me after I was let go. I know that cost him something." Was all Chin said before he stopped, "but maybe there is something you can do?"
Steve didn't even think about Governor Jameson's offer, "What do you mean?"
"I heard through the vine that HPD has put a haloe cop on your father's case…"
McGarrett HOME
Steve shut the door of the cab and walked up the drive, only just making it half way past his truck and his wife's corvette when the front door opened and Catherine appeared.
He put his duffle bag down and didn't remove his cover when she walked quickly towards him, wearing a black knee length dress.
"Steve I'm so sorry…" She whispered, breath hitching around her tears as she threw her arms around his neck, clutching at him, as his hands clasped around her back.
They hugged each other tight, trying to squeeze every silent tears from their eyes before they pulled back.
Steve cradled her face and leant in to kiss her, while she smoothed the front of his uniform with her palms.
"The kids?" HE croaked and cleared his throat, "Jake and Mia…?"
"They are inside." She wiped at her eyes, squeezing his hands, "all dressed and ready to go, service is in an hour…" her voice wavered and she bit her lip, staring up at his pale and stiff face. Her palm moved to rest on his cheek, "Steve I am so sorry…"
"I know." He pulled her in again, "Thank you."
They stood like that for a couple of minutes, him taking in deep breaths of her scent, letting his body shudder with the last of his tears, leaving only a rock hard strength to continue and find justice underneath.
When she was sure he was ok, and saw that what he needed was to see his children. She took his hand and let him lead her up into the house he had grown up in.
It hurt Catherine now to see the pain in his eyes when his teenage children appeared from the kitchen, dressed for their grandfather's funeral.
They were barely out of the academy when she fell pregnant with the twins. They were married in the March, and moved from Ford Island into Steve's childhood home in the July. Jake and Mia were born in the September, and while Steve was deployed for sometimes a couple of months at a time, they all found a way to make it work.
John had had a rocky relationship with his son, but he had not spared a second of time in spoiling his grandchildren, moving to a small place further down the shore so Steve and Catherine could have his former house as their family home.
It was this smaller house John had died in.
Jake and Mia, as well as their mother, meant the world to Steve. They were the most important thing in his life, bar none. Both twins had their parent's dark hair, strong and well placed features… Steve knew it wasn't bias when he said they were beautiful.
While Mia and Jake were their parents respectively in carbon copy, Mia alone had inherited Steve's eyes.
"Daddy…"His daughter hardly ever called him that.
When Mia was four she was diagnosed with epilepsy. Steve had been deployed at the time and flown back nearly eighteen hours straight to be there. He and Catherine tackled it like every other challenge they had faced, shown in not only the fact that their daughter was not a sick child, and that she was living nearly seizure free except every four or five weeks where she sometimes had 'funny turns.'
Jake had no such troubles, and was destined for the academy, once he had finished high school and lived out his football fantasies.
Mia, fifteen years old, was the first to move towards her father.
She hugged him around the waist as he removed his cover and put down his duffle bag, stroking her back and kissing her hair, giving her a squeeze.
"You ok sweetheart?" He murmured, pecking her hair again, looking down at her with wet eyes when she blinked up at him, "hey?"
"Yeh." She sniffed and stepped back, just as her twin and elder by ten minutes brother embraced their father. Although they often shook hands or punched one another in the shoulder, now was not one of those times. Steve always got a hug when he returned from duty. But this was different, this was an embrace.
"Really sorry dad." Jake muttered.
Catherine cleared her throat, seeing burning questions inside her child's eyes, and knowing they were questions Steve wasn't sure of the answers for, much less wanted to answer, right that second.
"Jake can you take your dad's bag upstairs please, and Mia can you check the back is locked up… and both of you make sure you are ready to go." She listed off orders with a nod of their head, "we will have to go soon."
Steve gave his children's questioning eyes a stiff smile in return, trying to wink but his eyes watered again.
He swallowed and watched as his teenage children, dressed in prom suits and black party dress, walked off sombrely to their directed tasks.
Catherine sighed and took his hand, squeezing it. Her eyes flitted through the still open front door to see a HPD patrol car move by slowly. She frowned slightly, "Governor Jameson has had us under watch since," her voice caught, "since it happened."
Steve watched it go and he gave a tight smile, "I told her you would have noticed."
She smiled sadly and laced their fingers, "what did she want?"
Steve glanced at the stairs and sighed heavily, "She wants me to run a task force designed to catch Hesse and people like him. No red tape, full immunity and means she called it."
"Wow…" Catherine straightened his trident badge, "seems tailor made for you."
"That's what I thought." Steve muttered, "And that's what worries me…"
Catherine nodded, "we will find Hesse Steve, I promise." She kissed him gently and he nodded, staring into her eyes.
DANNY WILLIAMS' APARTMENT
By the middle of that afternoon Steve had transferred to Navy reserves, become head of a task force initiated by the governor of Hawaii, was tracking his father's killer, and he had a pretty good idea of who he wanted to help him do it, besides his wife of course.
He and Catherine hadn't had the conversation about whether she would help or not but he knew her well enough to not think for one second she would be side-lined.
Sure she was stationed at Pearl with the Navy but she was his wife and best friend. John had been her father in law.
Instead of saying hello upon Danny Williams opening the door to his apartment, still dressed in a shirt and tie as he had been when they met in John's garage, Steve opened with, "I spoke to your captain at your precinct. He said you required a wire be put on a file of someone known Fred Doran." He held up the file he held and stepped past Danny into the small room, "tell me about him."
"Come in, please." Danny muttered, nodding slowly and closing the door.
Steve barely noticed.
Like his wife always said, he was never any good at first impressions.
No longer in Dress blues, Steve was wearing a button down, white tee-shirt, and cargos, boots on and ready to go. And despite being honed on finding victor Hesse and anyone who might lead him to him, Steve was also a father, and had been for fifteen years.
His eyes swept over the messy and basic room and locked on the bright and smiling image besides Danny's grey bed, "is this your kid?"
"Yeh that's stunning detective work." Danny informed him.
"You don't err," Steve gestured around the room, "you don't actually let her stay here do you?"
"What are you, uh, nanny 911? You got kids?" He busted. Danny didn't joke about Grace.
"Yeh I have two, two teenagers." Steve said without looking up from the file, "fifteen."
"Wow." Danny widened his eyes, "twins?"
"Yeh."
Danny pushed his lips together and rocked backwards and forwards on his heels, nodding, "How old were you when you had them, seventeen?"
"I was twenty two, wife was just twenty one." Steve told him.
"Ah, you are married, I wouldn't have pegged you for the type." Danny chuckled without humour.
"Married for fifteen years."
"Shotgun?"
"Something like that."
"Vegas?"
"Pearl."
"Ah she is in the Navy too, what a surprise." Danny rolled his eyes and strode to sit down in a chair, "does she have your people skills?"
"She's in intelligence, works at Pearl." Steve told the man he was about to proposition to be his partner, and pointed down at the file of the wiretap request he had been reading, "Can we get back to this now?"
TWO HOURS LATER
"Ok so she is smuggled in four days ago on a cargo ship from china…" Steve was pacing beside their suspects house, seemingly unaware of Danny's pain, where he was hiding a bandage over a bullet wound beneath his torn and bloodied shirt, "with her parents and a couple of hundred refugees… She gets here, she's traded to Doran..."
"Ok." Danny held up a hand to stop his thought, Steve hated it when people did that, "excuse me, I'm sorry…" he pushed his palms together, "this is typically where you would, uh, say thank you for saving your life."
Steve looked at him like he was insane, "You just shot my only lead."
"Are you kidding me?" Danny tried not to shout in astonishment.
Steve turned away again and started thinking out loud, "if these are the same guys that are moving people out of Asia, they could've smuggled Hesse into Hawaii."
While Steve looked overjoyed that he had put two pieces of the puzzle together, Danny was somewhere close to being in a rage.
"You just took a stupid risk, okay? Understand that." He was close to yelling, "I mean my god! You remember that you have a wife and kids at home, huh?"
"There are risks in my job they understand that." Steve wasn't about to explain his family's arrangements to a man he barely knew, and at this point, didn't like much beyond the man's clear talent for detective work.
"I am not getting myself killed for your vendetta!" Danny shouted, "I am certainly not going to be the one going around to your house as the second cop in three days wearing a uniform and conveying their condolences to your kids."
Steve spun around and Danny straightened, thinking for one moment that the man might hit him.
Steve thought about it.
"I have a daughter too, ok?" Danny snapped, "I know what it would do to them to find you've been popped by a bullet whilst raring around here like a maniac."
"Yeh?" Steve demanded, "Well that girl in there is someone's daughter too."
"You don't get it, you just don't get it…" Danny gasped, "I mean for someone who just lost his father you are pretty dense…"
Steve's voice took a dangerous edge, "What did you just say to me?"
"Oh well maybe it isn't just your father maybe it's your mother, I don't know…" Danny snapped, "Maybe you just don't care about what happens to your kids while you are off saving the world but I do!"
Steve's hand shot out and grabbed his wrist when it approached his face to jab a finger in his chest.
He wrenched it behind Danny's back with a crack and sent the man down onto his knees.
"What are you a ninja let go?" Danny snapped.
"Now you don't have to like me," Steve told Danny through the man's grunts of pain, "but right now there's no one else who can do this job."
"Ok, let me go." Danny gritted out.
Steve nodded and straightened, glancing back briefly as Danny straightened, "right then we need to find these human traffickers…"
His words were cut off by Danny slamming his fist against his jaw.
Steve was sent reeling back a step, before spinning around, full of fight watching as the shorter cop strode away, rubbing his arm and calling, "Yeh you are right I don't like you."
Steve touched his bruised jaw and cursed under his breath, "son of a bitch…"
ONE HOUR LATER - KAMEKONA SHAVE ICE
"This is your ticket back into the game. Call it payback, call it whatever you want, I don't care, but I need you."
"How do you know you can trust me?"
"Because my old man did."
And just like that, an hour later, Chin Ho Kelly was on board.
"Chin had better have a name, that's all I'm saying." Danny muttered mashing his shave ice further down into its cone. His eyes cast around, wandering over Steve who was stood leaning against the Camaro, hand on hip, trying to ignore the fact that he had gone from Navy SEAL to orphaned walking advertisement, the latter being thanks to their 'trusted source' Kamekona's printed merchandise, in twenty four hours.
Danny squinted up and down the beach, between the bikinis, the boards and the sun, "so you grew up here huh?"
Steve glanced at him before out over the water, "Yeh. Then later after the academy we moved here, first to Ford Island, and then into what was my father's house soon after Cath switched to reserves when she fell pregnant."
Upon that offer his Dad had moved to the small house he was murdered in yesterday.
Danny didn't need him to say that part.
He didn't say anything as Steve continued, "I was born here, went to school here, my sister too, then joined the naval academy at sixteen when my mom died."
"How'd it happen?" Danny asked, not baiting, just asking as a… as a friend…
Steve shifted, but sighed. He had said it so much over the years, "it was a car crash. Dad took it hard, sent me and my sister back to the mainland on different planes, things are better between us now but for a long time they weren't, both of us barely got an explanation or a word from dad until I married Cath."
"He was her biggest fan I take it?" Danny hadn't had a good relationship with his in laws, but he saw the way the locked down SEALS eyes danced even at the mention of her name, so he assumed she must be something special. Although quite what woman would team up with commander crazy he had no idea.
The thought frightened him a little bit.
"we played the 'just friends' thing for a while, but then I proposed soon after we found out she was pregnant. Her parents were pissed, rightly so I guess… dad was in the Navy too… but things are all good on that front now, they adore Jake and Mia… I told her she could pick anywhere in the world, even stay in Coronado, but she chose here. Had Jake and Mia on the island," Steve shrugged.
"This is home." Danny summarised.
"Yeh…" Steve glanced at him, "what about you?"
"New Jersey will always be my home." Danny sighed shortly, "But this is Gracie's home now, and tis my job to make it safe, that's why I moved, why I work here… she's all I've got. My home is wherever she is."
Steve nodded, "Yeh I can understand that."
Danny watched the man carefully for a moment before shifting, "Look what I said earlier, baiting you about you flying around the world so much and not seeing you kids, Im sorry…"
Steve flexed his jaw, "I know man."
"Yeh I know but it's not ok." Danny told him firmly, "I have taken a lot of shit over the years from people about how hard I worked while Grace was small, I know what it's like to have a duty to keeping her safe as her dad and as a cop, or a Seal, in your case."
Steve nodded, "ok Danno."
Danny pulled a face, "I told you only Grace calls me that."
Steve chuckled, slurping his ice, "how old is she again?"
"Eight and a half." Danny sighed, "Must seem like a lifetime ago for you right? Or is it just like yesterday?"
"Depends," Steve swallowed a mouthful of cherry ice, which always reminded him of Catherine, starting to mush it with the straw, "depends what day it is, what mood I'm in… I was deployed a lot when they were that age, tried to be there as much as I could for them and Cath when they were very small, and when they started school, but it got harder and harder to avoid deployments, but we made it work."
Danny nodded, holding a secret great respect for a man who could fight battles one minute, and then care for his kids in the next.
Danny had found a quiet respect for Steve McGarrett in the first few hours after meeting him.
Steve didn't say it, but he felt the same way too.
They were partners before they knew it.
The mood was shattered when Chin appeared, laughing harder than necessary at them.
Steve smirked, "You had better have a name."
"Sang Min." Chin said, looking around, "apparently he runs the import export business traffic off of this island."
"Including people?" Danny asked.
"Especially people." Chin nodded, turning to Steve, "how are we going to get background on him? I can't use a HPD server and yours and Danny's won't be booted up yet? How we gonna get what we need to on this guy?"
For someone who an hour ago wasn't sure he could be a cop anymore, Chin was coping pretty well getting back into the old routine.
Steve thought for a minute before digging into his pocket, "hold this a second." He shoved the shave ice at Chin, having no intention of ever taking it back.
He dialled a number put his phone to his hear, listening to it ring before answering, "Hey Cath it's me, Yeh we have a lead. Yeh I'm fine… good… Yeh I need a favour…"
STATE POLICE TASK FORCE HQ
The room was cavernous, grey and brown, with dust sheets over screens and boxes blocking off offices.
The governor had obviously been expecting Steve to accept her offer and find people to join him.
He was stood, braced and armed at the side of one large desk, leaning against the back of a chair. Danny was sat, and Chin was looking around.
"You know it must be really handy having a wife in naval intelligence?" Chin asked, "It would have made my life a sure of a hell lot easier when I was a cop running leads."
Steve laughed through his nose and shrugged, "well I'm a very lucky man."
"What about you Chin, you married?" Danny asked.
"Nah I was engaged once but that…" Chin lifted an eyebrow knowingly, "that sort of fell apart when I got accused of taking money by IA and HPD."
There was a knock on the door and they all turned to see a HPD officer step away from the glass door, opening it and allowing a dark haired naval officer inside.
Catherine was wearing her cammies, hair in the regulation bun, holding a file in her hand. She smiled when she saw Steve.
"Hey," she could hardly hide the worry from her eyes, knowing how hard he was running around getting leads to find his fathers' killer, "consider the favour fulfilled commander."
The question of how they both were flashed between them without words when she handed him the file.
"Thank you." He smiled and turned to the others, "Catherine this is Detective Danny Williams from New Jersey."
"Ah, Jersey," she smiled, "take it you are a Jets Fan?"
"Not the giants?"
"Nah." She scrunched up her nose.
"I like you all the more." He shook her hand, "call me Danny, am I meeting a fellow Jet or-?"
"I'm a Cowboys fan." She made no apology.
Danny dropped his hand away like she was on fire and shuddered, "seriously?" He looked to Steve.
He glanced up at between them, "don't look at me that's not my team."
"He's right," Catherine gestured to her husband with her head, "He's a redskins fan."
"Of course he is." Danny rolled his eyes.
She laughed and turned to Chin, reaching across the edge of the desk to give him a one armed hug, "Chin! Nice to see you again, say thank you to your mom for putting the kids to work for some pocket money by washing cars. I heard they did quite a few."
"Yeh sorry about that," Chin chuckled, "it got mentioned and then all my aunts and sisters were wanting the help, as well as the rest of the people on their block…"
Catherine waved it away, "well she has my thanks. The only issue is now they won't wash our cars for free anymore."
Chin nodded knowingly.
"Now." Catherine turned back to Steve and took the file from him, putting it down on the table and spreading out its contents, "this is Sang Min. He came here from China eight years ago, and according to your man Kamekona, he runs the islands human import-export business, along with other finer merchandise." She brought up photos of their perp.
"Holy Mullet." Danny muttered.
Nothing shook Steve and Catherine's business like, professional, razor sharp focus though as she pointed to different parts of the information, "he fits the profile of a man victor Hesse might use to get on and off the island."
"Let's say this guy is for real, he has no reason to tell us where Hesse is though." Danny said, then waved a hand, "not that I don't appreciate all you have found in only an hour, your intel skills are sublime…"
Catherine ignored the compliment, "well perhaps if you find some leverage, twist his arm with it…"
"Define leverage" Steve asked.
"Simple bait and trap, wire up and undercover and send him in."
Danny pointed to her, "I like you."
"That might work on the mainland," Chin folded his arms, "but we are on an island with less than a million people, which means the bad guys, know the good guys. So we need to look for our bait outside the box."
"What do you suggest?" Steve asked, "Although looking at your face, I take it you have the perfect guy in mind."
Chin smile and nodded knowingly.
"Alright then, let's go." Steve grabbed the file on Sang Min and stood, bending to kiss his wife's cheek, "I'll see you later."
"Promise me…" she murmured.
"I'll be careful." He strode away, "I've got these boys watching my back."
Danny stopped beside Catherine and shifted, gesturing to the blood on his shirt from his earlier bullet wound he blamed Steve for, "I'm sure that makes her feel really good…"
McGarrett HOME
Danny wasn't sure who he had expected to see when he knocked on the door to Steve's home, but to find it answered by a girl who looked just like Catherine, except with her father's clear eyes, caught him off guard.
"Can I help you?" She asked politely, opening the door wide and standing there, one hand on the frame.
"erm Yeh, hi," he said, gesturing to the box in his hand, "my name is Danny Williams, detective Danny Williams, your dad he err, made me his partner this afternoon, he asked me to bring over some surveillance gear."
Err eyes widened slightly and she looked down, shifting but not moving, "you are working on who murdered grandpa?"
"Yeh." Danny murmured, "I'm really sorry."
She nodded, "thanks." Before she stepped back, "please come in."
She led him into a large open plan house, with big rooms and photos on every wall. It was far more of a family environment that Danny had ever through Steve would exist in, but then again he hadn't expected him to have two teenage kids and such an amazingly intelligent wife…
Lucky son of a bitch.
"You can put it on there," she pointed to a desk, "dads just in the shower but he will be down in a bit. Do you want a beer while you wait?"
She had an easy smile and her hands in the back seat of her jean shorts.
"Erm Yeh sure, thanks…" Danny watched, looking around, as she slipped into the kitchen and got him a beer from the fridge, "thanks." He took it from her, "I take it you are Mia, your dad was speaking about you earlier."
Mia flushed, "thanks…"
"Don't pull that face, that's the face my daughter gets when I boast about her, but he didn't say anything too bad, I promise," Danny chuckled as she led him through the house and out into the large back yard.
The sunset was stretching out over the ocean which lapped the bottom edge of their private beach, and two wooden chairs were silhouetted against the orange light.
She led him down towards he chairs and Danny glanced around, "aren't you gonna tell your dad I'm here?"
"Nah he will have heard the front door even from the shower, and he will have checked through the window who it is I am speaking to." She laughed and flopped down on the arm of one, gesturing for him to sit in the other, "don't worry, he doesn't have a sniper rifle up there…"
"Bet he has that trained out over the front yard through right?" Danny chuckled, "for when you start bringing boys home."
She rolled her eyes, "Dad can be a little…" she scrunched up her nose in a way which when Danny knew Catherine better would remind him of her, "protective."
Danny shrugged, inclining his head, "I don't think that it's a bad thing."
Mia lifted an eyebrow, "so you got a daughter huh?" She found the detective very easy to talk to.
"Yeh Grace, she is eight, and a half, and a half," he held up a hand, "she gets upset if I don't mention those six months. She goes to 'The academy of the sacred heart.'" He told Mia, trying to hide the bitter taste that school left in his mouth.
"I did some volunteering there a couple of month's back, some tutoring… she's, Grace Williams right?" Mia asked.
"Yeh." Danny's brain clicked together, "You were here mentor? You're that Mia?"
Mia smiled, "Yeh I did her history and maths with her, she was really nice, kind, unlike some of the other kids who were pretty stuck up… she talked about you all the time."
"Really?"
"Yeh." Mia smiled, hair fluttering in the wind, "You sound like a really cool dad… Danno."
Danny blinked at her laugh, "oh that's the way it is going to be is it? Where is your brother I need home for some ammo against your father for when he continues to use that nickname even though I have expressly asked him not to…?"
"Jake's gone to football training at Kukui tonight, mom is picking him up on her way back from base." Mia stared out over the ocean and narrowed her eyes slightly, "she said that we should try and carry on as normal, even though…" she sighed and looked down at her hands before glancing back at the house, lowering her voice, "I know she's worried about Dad."
"Your mom is a smart woman." Danny told her, "and you know your dad is one of the toughest guys I have ever met. I would be worried for the men who hurt your grandpa, not the other way around."
Mia gave a small smile, encouraged, and Danny saw the well-known spark in her eyes of a kid who had one or more parent doing a dangerous job.
"So, how old are you, fifteen?" Danny asked, "You thinking of signing up for naval intelligence like your folks then or what?"
Mia laughed, "Jake's in the process of signing up to the Navy, now he has come down off of the cloud of wanting to be an NFL legend … I wanted to be ballet dancer until I was fourteen, still kind of do… seen as they won't let me in the Navy because of my epilepsy."
"Yeh you're dad told me…" Danny smiled softly, "must have been rough?"
"It's got better now im older, and it hasn't stopped me doing lots… just… I have to be seizure free for three years to learn to drive and I can't see that happening… mom and dad have always tried to treat me and Jake the same but it hasn't been easy… I know it hasn't…"Mia told Danny, looking around for a moment and confessing quietly, there was something about this man her dad had partnered up with that was so easy to speak to.
"I know your dads a SEAL and your moms a navy genius… but they'll be proud of you whatever you do, I promise. That's a parent's job." Danny sipped his beer and toasted it to her with a wink.
Mia tipped her head, "You are a good Dad Detective Williams, Grace always spoke really highly of you."
"Yeh well…" Danny's words were almost bitter, but not at her, "if I get myself killed chasing some meth-head scumbag around this sweltering Island as a cop I'm not a very good one am I?"
Mia studied him with eyes so like her father that Danny almost let uncomfortable under her scrutiny, but them she was speaking again.
"You know we always looked up to our father for that, Jake and Me…" She told him, "mom too… both of them have made sacrifices for us, and for their jobs, putting safety above everything else…" she smiled almost sadly, "when he as gone for weeks at a time I used to wake up wondering where he was, if he was safe, if he was thinking of us… but mom always knew what to say, always knew that by reminding us that Dad did his job because he loved us so much, things seemed a little bit better." She rubbed her hands together, "and dad always came back, no matter what…"
"It must have been tough."
Mia lifted both eyebrows briefly, "we haven't known any different… and we are really proud of him. I am sure Grace feels the same way, it always seemed like she did."
Danny nodded, "well that is very kind of you to say…"
"Hey."
The voice made them both turn, and Steve walked around the chairs to face them, "I saw you brought the surveillance gear, thanks." He nodded to his partner, "You want another beer?"
"Yeh sure, why not, I got nowhere else to be." Danny nodded, "thanks."
Mia stood, "I'll get them, you want one dad?"
"Thanks." He touched her cheek, shifting the file he held into one hand, before sinking down into the wooden chair beside his partner when she walked off.
Steve opened the file, turning a page and showing it to Danny, "you know this guy?"
"No, who is it?"
"Jovan Etienne. He was in my father's house when he was murdered." Steve's voice was low, "his file says he worked for the Russians as a computer programmer in SVR."
"Where'd you get all that?" Danny eyed the folder but then inclined his head, "of course, why am I even asking. Catherine right?"
Steve didn't seemed to hear him, "I found his palm prints in the study and partial boot prints to match."
"Wait." Danny narrowed his eyes, "how do you know the boot prints didn't belong to Hesse?"
"Hesse where's a size eleven like me except double E. The prints I found were smaller, and Hesse gets his footwork custom made. Direct-injected polyurethane midsole with a natural all-rubber outsole." Steve spoke as if everyone knew this.
"Oh." Danny nodded, "your brain must be a miserable and numerical place…"
"Chin called." Steve told him and closed the file, setting it down, "He is setting up a meet with Sang Min as we speak."
"You really think Kono's up to it?" Dann asked.
Steve shrugged, "she seems to have enough street experience. She is competent and young. Sang Min won't see her coming."
"It's risky."
"Chin's her cousin and she understood what we asked. It's her decision." Steve shrugged as Mia came back around, Jake and Catherine behind her.
"Hey." Catherine greeted Danny and Steve stood, taking the beer from his daughter and slipping the file under the empty bottles on the picnic table. He leant in to kiss his wife as Danny stood and then caught the ball Jake tossed him.
Steve caught it in one hand and Jake cheered, clapping his hands, "with hands like that how is it your records are so easy to beat?"
"Sorry?" Steve lifted an eyebrow, standing toe to toe with his son as Jake reached for the ball, lifting it high in his palm above his head, so even Jake, tall for his age, had to take a running jump to get it. Steve moved it ever higher and turned, meaning Jake had to run back around him.
Catherine chuckled fondly, and Danny knew how it must have cheered her, made things a little easier, to see that despite his grief still was dealing with it, focussed, but happy to be with his children.
Her eyes were tinged with sadness as Steve threw the ball to Jake, and then Mia, banter passing between them.
She could watch their happiness for hours, and it upset her to think that John never would anymore.
Danny handed his untouched beer to Catherine with a, "I really should get going, I want to call Grace before an exciting day tomorrow…" His voice trailed away.
She smiled and touched his arm, "Thank you. See you tomorrow."
Danny knew what she was thanking him for, and it was the safety of the man across the yard, now locked in a fierce game of catch with his children.
"Don't mention it." Danny said and gave her arm a squeeze, before waving goodbye to the others, and letting himself out.
Catherine sighed and approached her little family, catching the ball in one hand and holding it firmly, feet locked, so when Jake dove to catch it he had to fiercely skid so he didn't crash into her.
She lifted an eyebrow and bounced it in her hands, before laughing and gesturing with her head towards the house, "right you two, inside, set the table while I start dinner."
Jake and Mia both thought about complaining, but one look from their dad meant the teenagers set off, before it quickly became a race, and they shrieked at one another, barrelling into the house.
Catherine dropped the ball on a chair and wrapped her arm around Steve's middle as he sipped his beer, picking up the file from earlier and walking with her up to the house.
"They've kept the McGarrett competitive streak that's for sure…" She commented.
Steve snorted, "Excuse me, that's all you lieutenant."
She smiled and tipped her head thoughtfully on his shoulder for a moment, hugging him a little tighter around the middle as he gave her a squeeze.
She sighed, hearing her children arguing good-naturedly inside, "Do you ever think how different our lives would be now if we hadn't had the kids so young… we would probably both still be deployed." She nudged her head on his shoulder, stroking her palm over his chest.
He let out a breath and moved his hand to rest on the side of her stomach, thumb stroking it gently, "or we might have retired or switched to reserves already, and had the kids later… either way I wouldn't change anything for it." His lips touched her hair.
"Me either." She smiled and tipped her head back to look up at him, "love you, you know."
He grinned and kissed her soundly, "I love you too, and thank you, for helping me with what I need to catch Hesse."
She pecked his lips again, "I rather think your task force, Danny, Chin and Kono, deserve those thanks too, and mine, for keeping you safe and finding the man who did this."
"They will get them." Steve assured her, "I promise."
They kissed again before walking up into the house, the prospect of tomorrow, and possibly closing the case, settling in their stomachs, along with the overwhelming feeling that this was only the beginning.