Hi Everyone! I wrote this as an episode tag to Kame'e, with hints towards Mea Makamae. I'm a huge Catherine fan, so when I started watching Season 2 for the first time (I've skipped around a lot) and saw the potential the producers had put between Steve and Lori I was completely annoyed. So I wrote this piece to put any doubts of where Steve's heart stood to rest. I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Hawaii Five-0 or any of its characters.

Old Friends

Steve had stood with him team watching the Navy SEALs take out their target. Watching the kind of missions he had once gone on. Remembering the seriousness, remembering the heart pumping life or death gunfire, remembering the camaraderie between the team, the unwavering trust they had to have between them, and remembering the one person who had kept him focused through them all. Not only because she helped run the op from the ops center, but because she was the image in his mind that he had to get home to.

And now he couldn't get Catherine Rollins off his mind. He was sitting around the fire pit behind his house drinking beers with Danny, and while Danny rambled on about something Steve's thoughts were thousands of miles away on the Enterprise. Catherine was one of his oldest friends, one of those friends that knew him better than anyone, maybe even Danny; she was someone a little more than a friend, without any other definition. She had always been the one who asked him to come home safe when he was estranged from his family. She'd only said it once, that he had to come back to her. She always told him to be careful, but he could see it her eyes, feel it in the way she hugged him. Their feelings always defined in the physical and never in the verbal. He was thinking about one such time when a nagging sound started to cut through the memory.

"Hello! Earth to Steve! Anybody home?" Danny's voice finally got through his musings and Steve looked over at the irritated face of his best friend.

He tipped his beer towards Danny, an apologetic smile on his face, "Sorry Danno."

"Where's your head at man, you've been someplace else since we left the base earlier." Danny put his beer down so he could use his hands for emphasis and with a suggestive smile said, "Let me guess, you're thinking about one Lori Westen, aren't you?"

Steve shook his head in amusement, "Really? You never give up do you? Okay, yes, Lori is an attractive woman, and yes, we flirted a bit when we first met before the governor assigned her to the team, but she's not where my mind wanders."

Danny sat back, "Fine. Fine. Then who?"

Steve looked at his friend in exasperation, but there was a smile on his face, "Fine! If you must know, it's Catherine. I was thinking about Catherine."

"I knew it! She is more than just a friend!"

"What do you mean, you knew? You've been pushing Lori on me every chance you get!"

Danny waved that away, eager now, "That's just teasing, and any time you talk about Catherine you get this dopey little smile on your face."

Steve felt the smile on his face, but though he tried he couldn't do anything about it, and Danny jabbed his finger at him in triumph, "See! See! That smile right there! Tell me more."

Steve tried to say something, anything to contradict Danny, but all he could do was smile, finally he started to laugh before saying, "What do you want me to say? She's just Catherine. One of my oldest friends. When I was estranged from my family she was the one who asked me to come home safe." He smiled, "She said it was so I could repay all the favors I owed her." Then he shrugged, "She's the image in my head that keeps me focused. She's Catherine, I don't know how else to explain it."

Danny just stared at him for a moment before shaking his head at him and taking a swig of his beer, "Babe, you got it bad."

"I do not!" Steve tried to protest, but just ended up laughing, "It's not even worth it. I'm not going to argue with you about this."

Danny opened another beer, "That's because you know I'm right. When do you see her again?"

"She'll be in town next week actually."

"You going to whisk her away on some romantic night out?"

Steve shook his head, "Nah. I'll come up with some favor I need from her, and she'll agree to it, and then I'll take her out to dinner, wherever she wants to go, to thank her." He shrugged, "And we may or may not make it to our reservations. It's our thing."

"Your thing, huh?"

Steve grinned, "Yeah, our thing."

Danny shook his head, "Poor Lori, she doesn't stand a chance."

Steve looked at him in surprise, "What are you talking about?"
"Some detective you are. Lori's got a thing for you." Danny's look clearly said what he thought of Steve's intelligence.

"Oh give me a break, where do you come up with these fantasies? Lori is just a friend and that's all she thinks of me as, a friend."

Danny handed him a beer, "If I'm living in fantasy land, then you are living in delusion my friend."

Steve took the beer, opening it and taking a drink. Lori was a friend, could maybe even become a good friend, but Cath, Cath was an old friend, and old friends know you best. She was Catherine, a little more than a friend, and that's all he knew. He laughed. Danny was right, Lori didn't stand a chance.

The End

I think I made Steve a little more sentimental and open then he would normally be, but we'll blame it on the beer! Hope you enjoyed! Keep an eye out for a full-length story coming in the next couple weeks.