Chapter 1
Catherine stood leaning against the side of her car in the pick up/drop off lane of the Manhattan airport. She watched as tourists and businessmen/women ran frantically back and forth either trying to find their airline or a way home or to a hotel.
A few weeks ago Catherine had invited her long time friend Kono Kalakaua to visit New York, and was now waiting for her to arrive. At thought of seeing one of her best friends for the first time in about a year, Catherine couldn't contain her excitement and was bouncing on her toes waiting the other woman's arrival.
Catherine had met Kono when her father was stationed in Pearl Harbor. Kono was training to become a professional surfer and Catherine had decided to enter a surf competition even though she had only been surfing for a few months. Long story short Kono was in first place and Catherine needed a perfect ten to move from fourth to third. Kono had just caught what would probably be her last wave when she carved up the wave to quickly and fell. After close to minute when she didn't surface Catherine, being the daughter of a Navy officer, decided that the competition wasn't worth it and she had to go see if she could help. Kono ended up being fine despite the fact she had blown out her knee, both women ended being disqualified but the two became close friends and we're both devastated when the Admiral was relocated to New York.
As Kono exited the building she spotted her friend leaning against the familiar blue corvette and immediately ran towards her.
"I missed you!" Kono said as the two women hugged.
"I missed you too."
"Am I gonna die, from lack of ocean water."
"You'll only be here for a week I'm sure you'll survive" Catherine laughed, "Anyways is it ok if we stop at the precinct before going to the apartment?" Catherine decided that, since she was alone in the apartment for the next couple of weeks and hotels in New York are expensive and an empty room is hard to come by, Kono could just stay in the guest room while she was here.
"Yeah sure."
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"Hey Catherine." Regina said as Catherine and Kono entered the squad room.
"Hey Regina. Looking for Robin."
"No I'm actually just dropping something off for him."
"Yeah, if you ever see me doing something nice like that for a guy, have Emma shoot me because it's probably an imposter."
"Whatcha talking about?" Emma said as she came up with Andrew and threw her arms around Catherine and Regina
"Guys." Regina answered
"You know, guys are technically useless" Emma said as Catherine wriggled out from under her arm.
"Hey! Without us the population would quickly decline into nothing." Andrew said coming up to the group of women.
"I'm sorry, who gives birth?" Catherine asked.
"Yes, but guys are needed in the whole 'baby process'." Andrew responded, defending his kind.
"Not necessarily. Female bone marrow can be used as sperm and due to there being no Y chromosome in the marrow, and that way the baby could only be female. So, Males. Are. Useless." Emma said mocking one of Andrew's scientific rants.
"Yeah, yeah whatever you say." Andrew responded, "Anyways who's this?" he said pointing at Kono.
"Oh yeah, guys this is my friend Kono, Kono this is Emma my partner, her friend Andrew, and Regina, she's the girlfriend of one of the other officers." Catherine said, introducing them.
"It's nice to meet you guys." Kono said.
"Wait, Catherine you have friends other than Emma?!" Andrew jokingly exclaimed.
"Shut up, chemistry boy."
"Man."
"So? Catherine" Emma said questionably.
"So." Catherine responded
"How's the Super SEAL?" Catherine's face turned a lovely shade of red and the proud Detective Inspector was rendered speechless and ducked her head.
"Whoa, whoa hold up." Kono said. "Who is this 'Super- SEAL'?"
"No-one!" Catherine responded quickly.
"Her boyfriend" Emma corrected and triumphantly marched out to the parking lot with Andrew in tow. Kono rounded on Catherine.
"Spill! NOW!"
"There's nothing to tell" Catherine said walking over to her desk.
"LIES. You forget how well I know you Cath, I know when you're lying." Kono said following closely.
"Ugh. Fine." She said picking up a couple files and heading back towards the door. "His name's Steve, he's a navy SEAL…. uhh I don't know, what else do you want to know?"
"Well first of all I thought your dad said that he didn't want you dating Navy officers."
"He did, but when do I ever listen to what my dad says?" Catherine said as the two women got back into the car.
"True." Kono laughed, "Anyway do I get to meet him?"
"Umm, I don't know. He's not scheduled to be state-side for about another week or two, but that changes sometimes."
"See that is why people know you're related to a navy officer."
"What?" Catherine asked, clearly confused on her friends random comment.
"You said 'state-side'. No one says that unless they know someone in the military."
"Whatever."
"Anyways, how did the two of you meet?"
"Well I guess it's story time then. Emma, Regina's boyfriend Robin and I were working this case where the killer was leaving a bunch of ash at the crime scene. We had absolutely no leads but we had four victims, one of which was a Navy Seal. Anyway Robin, Emma and I were sitting in the squadroom when Steve came in, clearly upset. He said that the NYPD wasn't doing it's job and some other stuff I don't remember, honestly I was lost in his eyes, but I managed to get him to agree that the NYPD needed to be able to have the case. Just then though Andrew burst through the door, almost tripped over a desk and then pretty much solved the case." Catherine frowned at this last part.
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Catherine Rollins walked into the police department and stopped short at the sight of a three foot, purple and orange glowing lava lamp situated on her desk.
"Who the hell did this to my department?" She demanded. Andrew walked in at that moment. He looked at the lava lamp and frowned. The glowing blobs weren't reaching the top of the lamp.
"Heeyy! I did not pay for that kind of lamp!" He pouted, glaring at the lamp as if that would make it work better.
"I should've known." Catherine sighed and walked over to her desk. Emma entered the department to see Catherine frowning and Andrew pouting.
"Err..." She said looking between them. "What's with the lamp?"
"Why? Because I can." Andrew said going over and hugging the lamp. "Ow!" He jumped back, the lava lamp burning his hands.
"It's outta here in the next 5 minutes or I'm dumping it in your car." Catherine said to Andrew. Andrew crossed his arms and smiled.
"I don't have a car!" He said smugly.
"I don't think that's something you should be proud of..." Emma muttered.
"Well then how'd you get here?" Catherine asked. Andrew pointed to Emma.
"Emma drove me." He said.
"Fine." Said Catherine, unplugging the lamp. "I'll dump it in Emma's car." Emma whipped around.
"Back away from my baby or so help me I will skin you alive!" She yelled. Andrew and Catherine stared at her.
"It's your fault for bringing him here." Catherine said to Emma.
"What was I supposed to do?"
"Not bring him here."
"He would just come anyway." Emma said shrugging.
"Fine." Catherine turned to Andrew. "You're officially banned from this Department."
"What?" Andrew yelped. "You can't do that!" Catherine calmly picked up a piece of licorice from the bowl on her desk.
"Wanna find out?" She looked innocently at Andrew. He huffed and walked out of the room.
"Nice." Emma said, picking up a file. Catherine smiled. Emma looked up, puzzled.
"Can you even ban anyone?" She asked. Catherine looked thoughtful.
"Who knows?" She bit into her licorice. Emma shrugged and both women walked out of the police department.
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"Andrew!" Emma called as she let herself into Andrew's apartment.
"Whoa, no need to shout I'm right here." Andrew said from the couch.
"Oh…" Emma started as she turned around from closing and locking the door. "Holy crap!"
"What?!"
"It's… it's clean. You picked up all your equipment. Whoa this is weird."
"Hey it wasn't that bad!" Andrew said defensively and then returned to the papers spread across the coffee table in front of him.
"Yes it was. Anyways what's all this?" Emma said indicating to the papers as she took a seat beside Andrew on the couch.
"Research."
"Research?"
"Yes." Andrew said trading the paper in his hand for another one in the pile.
"Why don't you just do research on your computer?"
"I was. When I narrowed it down to a couple key sources I printed them out to read and compare them closer."
"Okay. You do you Andrew. You do you." Emma said picking up a page from the table. "So why are you researching…" Emma paused to read to title of the article, "Dopamine?"
"I'm distracting myself, and trying to get ideas for a new experiment."
"Wonderful, just what the world needs, another one of your inane experiments."
"I think you meant effective."
