Chapter 6:

"Okay everybody I would look to officially introduce you to Reer." The room let out a quiet round of applause as I stepped into the office for the first time. "She'll be our 'secretary' for lack of a better word." McGarrett continued, walking up behind me.

"Finally another girl." Kono joked, reaching out at patting my tense shoulders again.

"Glad to have you aboard." Danny quipped, wanting to be heard in the conversation as if he knew that I would be right for this job.

My legs stood taunt, un-bent as they stuck to the floor beneath me. The office wasn't what I was expecting, and neither was the welcome. It was a bright room, which stood almost parallel underneath the sun, as it glowed down on top of us. There were very few papers, and the ones that I could see, were stacked neatly or seemed to be stored away in the filing cabinets. Not only was the room incredibly organized, the people were kind; unbelievably so, even when I had thought I had made a terrible first impression.

"Reer?" Danny whispered, coming up in front of me. I blinked and turned my gaze onto his. He smiled as he noticed my gathered attention, "Welcome to Hawaii Five-O."

I stepped cautiously into the lime-light as we were called to the firing range. My eyes caught hold of the majors that stood still on the right side of the field, observing all of us as we walked and took our places. Somehow I had the acute sense that someone was watching me, and even among all those people I felt singled out; every hair on my arms stood up as we snapped our attention forward, and faced the firing range in front of us.

"You know the drill boys and girls." The major boomed as he sunk backwards until he had joined the other majors in the line.

My time had come for me to show them what I could do, and as I stepped forward, the prickling in my neck only intensified. Trying to shake away what I presumed to be nervousness I began to load up the gun, but whilst doing that I glanced from the corner of my eye to the majors lined up one by one, shoulder to shoulder. As my eyes raked down the row of green, it landed on the major who had stopped me in the halls a couple of weeks ago. Seeing his smirk I resigned my eyes back to looking out in front of me and as I heard the clicking of the safety go down, I shot quickly.

"Your face is going to stick like that if you keep it that way for much longer," teased Kono as I began to situate myself at the desk. Almost instinctually I felt my face relax and I pulled my mask back up over my head.

The day had surprisingly passed by quickly. There had been no cases of major concern for the day and the majority of the time had been spent inside watching the trees wave side to side with the wind. The commander and Danny had disappeared quickly to scout around the island for some information, but had come back with their hands as empty as they had left. Even Kono and Chin laconically moved throughout the space, often stopping in front of my desk before awkwardly falling back into each other. I could feel each time they would glance my way, but I tried my best to ignore the almost pitying looks they gave me.

The only thing that had bothered me in any sort of way was the reaction I seemed to have when the commander entered the room again. I could feel my heart pulse quicken two fold and I found that no matter what my eyes never quite met his. It could have been the alpha presence that he had, and the old habits that were starting to kick back in, but it didn't feel the same as it had with Lt. Colonel Robert.

Gulping back the name in my throat, as I felt it burning there, I pushed my way forward and out the door, only pausing to make sure that no one was following me. The office was located just down the road of a beach, which seemed to be more vacuous then the other beaches by the Fountain Bar, but yet I found a couple of stragglers walking along. There were no stands along the beaches, so it was safe to walk down the beach without being stopped to buy anything.

I was quick to take a seat, just by the area where the water met the sand. The deep waters washed up along my pants and dampened them to such an extent that they clung to my legs. My shoes squelched as I curled my toes underneath them and the cloth of the converse, lay stiffly against my feet as my toes uncurled. The waves came up again, and the water surrounded me, and as it pulled back it carried the sand in with it. I dug my hands into the sand, burying them until only my wrists were left.

"Reer?"

I could hear that voice in the distance but I didn't feel like responding. The water washed up again and this time I almost wanted it to drag me under with it. The sand around my hand began to clump as I wiggled my fingers, and I could feel the sand beginning to stick onto my skin.

"Reer?"

Why couldn't the current be strong enough to drag me with it?

"You alright, Reer?" Danny whispered next to me as, I felt the sun blocked by his small shadow.

"Yes…" I trailed off and looked as the sun's bottom tip began to sink behind the ocean. The sky was tainted almost bloody red, which faded into a pink; whilst dark clouds splattered around the sky, swaying as the moved. I threw my hands out of the sand and stood up, my jeans still clinging to my legs as I began to walk back.

"Reer?"

"Be careful getting home, sir" I muttered, taking a final glance at the sky, as the sun sunk lower along the horizon.

"What a joke! I can't believe that she was asked to be part of that team?" The boy behind me snickered with his posse, as I picked at my dinner, flicking the pasta around the plate. Ever since that day at the shooting range, I could feel the eyes of the major's following every move that I made; ever mistake I made felt like I was carrying another load of ten pound bricks. I was being judged with everything I did, and I could feel the resolve in me slowly cracking.

"You're in my seat." A voice demanded, pulling me from my thoughts. I glanced up quickly at the man that loomed over me. His straight brown hair, and dark eyes bored right through me, and I was almost shaken so much that I fell out of the chair.

"Got nothing to say?"

Looking around me, I noticed that there were several other seats available for him to sit down in; in fact he was standing by one. "There are other seats open."

"Yeah, so you can move… because you're in my seat."

I glanced around at the edgily silent room and noticed that whilst people were talking, most were glancing our way. Understandably they didn't want to get involved, and most people had turned against me since the notice board had posted my name – but if a fight was about to go down, didn't they see any reason to stop it? I mean, it is just a chair. As many people have said, not stopping the fight is just as bad as being a part of it. Would they bother to stop it?

"I don't see the point of moving - I was here first." I finally muttered and tried to return my attention back to the food on the plate. The pasta had cooled from having sat there for several minutes untouched.

By my side I could hear another chair scraping against the floor, and I glanced out of the corner of my eye to notice the domineering man had sat down beside me. He didn't look as frightful as he shoveled the food into his mouth, and gulped down the water after every bite; and his shoulders were slumped over, and curved around until he was slouched. Noticing that he was about to look towards me, I surrounded myself with the vision of pasta.

"You going to finish that?" the half-muffled voice, grunted as I found his forked hand pointing to the dish in front of me.

I merely handed over the plate to him, and didn't bother to give a glance over to him, because all I heard was that luke warm pasta being gathered onto the fork a shoveled down his throat.

"Name's Chris."

"Charlotte."