Pehea wau i ʻike ai i kou makuahine
Based on the characters and stories of Hawaii Five-0.
Hawaii Five-0 is owned by CBS and their respective creators.
"Catherine, you're being irrational." Steve did his best to reason with her in a calm manner, but calling a pregnant woman 'irrational' is basically a death sentence.
Catherine leveled him a look that nearly castrated him on the spot. "Excuse me?"
"We've been through this. A home birth is NOT a good idea." He pleaded. "You're having this baby at the hospital and that's final. At your age, the number of complicat-"
"AT MY AGE?" Her anger went through the roof. "So now I'm irrational AND old?!"
"Cath, come on." He groaned, "We just got here!" Steve motioned around the farmhouse. "I don't wanna argue with you when you're supposed to be resting. Your blood pressu-"
"My blood pressure was low ONE DAY and I got a little faint and all of a sudden you think I need to be on bed rest. I'M FINE!"
Steve laughed sarcastically, "A little faint? Catherine, I came home from work and you were nearly passed out on the kitchen floor!" He shouted.
Catherine groaned. She knew he had her dead to rights. "Just because you're loud, doesn't mean you're right." She hissed.
"I am right, Catherine. Now sit down and relax." Steve commanded as he stepped towards her and firmly pushed her to sit down in the window seat that overlooked their ranch in Montana. "That's an order." He stated as he handed her a book. He leaned down and kissed her pursed lips. "I'm pulling rank, Lieutenant." He murmured.
Steve's husky whisper sent shivers down her spine. She wanted to keep being angry, but she knew he was right. Catherine also knew he was probably going to give her some space, and that meant that he was going to go build something in the workshop that was just within view from her window. If she was lucky, she'd get quite the show.
What a show it was. Catherine watched from the window as Steve strutted out to the workshop. His jeans hugged his thighs and hips in all the right ways. He kicked a brick with the toe of his boot to prop the door open while he worked. Catherine watched as he cut and sanded and fitted pieces of wood together for an hour. Steve glanced back towards the window and smirked. He knew she was watching. He tugged off his shirt in one swift motion and tucked it in his back pocket. Catherine laughed and shook her head at his antics. Damn that man!
Sweat glistened off of his chest and abs. Even for a man of his age, his body was still up there with the twenty-somethings that dropped by his office to talk every day. Being away from Five-0 had given him the time to start properly working out again and she was more than okay with it. If Catherine hadn't been pregnant, she'd stomp out to the workshop and have her way with him. Hell, who was she kidding - she didn't care that she was pregnant!
Shelby looked up from her play mat and yawned. "Oh good." Catherine smirked as she scooped up Shelby Jo and walked towards the crib. "Nap time."
A few minutes later, Steve looked up from the board he had been sanding to see Catherine making a beeline for him. He pulled off the clear safety glasses and set them aside. "Come to apologize, Mrs. McGarrett? Tell me I'm right?"
Catherine pushed him away from the various saws and sanders, "Oh shut up, Commander." She smirked as she planted a passionate kiss on his lips.
Steve pulled away for a brief moment, "Where's Shelby?"
"Nap time." She grinned as she kissed him again. Steve flipped so that she was the one pressed against the wall. "Does this count as my apology?"
He chuckled as his hands slipped up under her shirt, "I dunno." He removed one hand and pressed his fingers under her jaw where her pulse throbbed. "How's your blood pressure?"
Catherine smiled and tugged his lips back towards hers. "I'm a little weak in the knees."
"FALL BACK, FALL BACK!" Catherine wasn't sure who had shouted the order, all she knew was that bullets were flying out of her gun seemingly faster than she could pull the trigger. Somehow, their routine sweep of a nearby village turned into a stand off between her intelligence unit and a group of heavily armed insurgents.
"Fucking Kabul." She cursed as she peered through the scope of her rifle and took out a rebel who was preparing to throw a grenade. One shot and he was down. Catherine glanced over as each member of her unit began to retreat. Static blasted over her earpiece. "FUCK!" She groaned as it pierced her eardrums. She listened carefully to the voice on the other end as they gave her an update. "REINFORCEMENTS, COMING IN HOT. T-1 MINUTE!" She shouted.
Her C.O. threw up a hand signal in the direction he wanted them to go. "COPY! MOVING!"
Catherine gripped on to her partner's shoulder as they flanked an abandoned house. The rhythmic thumping of a helicopter caught her attention. One soldier leapt from the strut and landed on a rooftop, immediately falling to his belly and assembling his rifle with remarkable speed. Sniper - she thought. SEALs are here. One by one, the men quickly exited the aircraft and began to move in on the village. Static blasted in her ear again as another update came through. "Intel, do you read me? SEAL Team seven and five are approaching your location. Channel four."
"Copy! Switch to four." Catherine shouted to her unit as she tapped her earpiece and connected with the SEALs frequency. "Team Five, Team Seven, this is Intel. Do you read me?"
"Loud and clear!"
Shots rang out from the sniper's nest as insurgents fell to the ground. "Ground crew, what's your status?" The sniper barked.
"Moving!" Another SEAL shouted.
"Two tangos on your three, Smooth Dog!"
"I'm a little busy!" The sniper groaned. "Quarterback - you got it?"
"Copy, Smooth Dog! QB Moving!"
Catherine stepped out from her position and ducked behind a pile of rubble. She peered through her scope as the two hostiles made their way to a rickety staircase that led to the sniper's nest. Two shots flew out of the barrel of her rifle and the men crumpled to the ground. "Thanks, QB!" The sniper shouted.
"Wasn't me, Smooth Dog."
"Who took the sho- RPG! RPG!" Steve shouted. He watched from the rooftop as a rebel popped out of a foxhole and turned to aim the rocket-propelled grenade at the pile of rubble. He looked through his binoculars at the target and read the name on the fatigues. "Rollins." It was barely a whisper but his blood turned to ice. "QB! GET HER OUT!"
Catherine glanced over and saw Billy Harrington rushing towards her like a freight train. There are very few moments in life where everything moves in slow motion - this was one of them. Catherine barely had time to squeeze the trigger as Billy tackled her. Two shots ripped through the rebel. Only one came from Catherine's gun. The barrel of Steve's rifle smoked as the other bullet exploded out of it. The insurgent was dead, but they hadn't been fast enough. He had already pulled the trigger to the RPG.
The pile of rubble exploded, showering the area with concrete and shrapnel.
"CATHERINE!" Steve shouted her name across their comms as rocks blasted into the sky.
"SMOOTH DOG- STAND DOWN." Billy shouted as he rolled off of Catherine. He was sure that it was a lost cause, but he repeated the order. "MCGARRETT - DO YOU COPY?! STAY ON OVERWATCH."
"What the hell?!" She shouted as she pushed him off of her while bullets flew all around them. Everything was silent aside from the deafening ringing in her ears as her senses came into focus. Catherine groaned weakly as she coughed and tried to catch her breath when the dust settled.
"QB! GET. HER. OUT." Steve ordered.
Catherine's body lurched as Billy grabbed the back of her collar and dragged her across what used to be a street. He pushed her up against the wall of a secluded alleyway without a word before heading back into the firefight. She had saved Steve McGarrett. Now she was going to kill him.
She could tell that the rebels were beginning to become outnumbered. Two more units had arrived from the base in Kabul to support the SEALs and her unit. Catherine watched as Steve picked off insurgents from the rooftop and gave Billy directions. Billy commanded the SEALs on the ground as they worked their way through the village, taking it by storm. Her unit from intel followed his orders as they came alongside their brothers in green and secured the village. Catherine grimaced as she pushed away from the wall and grabbed her gun. "Dammit!" She exclaimed. Out of fucking bullets. She slung the rifle across her back and pulled her sidearm out of her holster. She jogged across the street and joined in with her unit as they swept the area.
"Fucking can't follow orders." Steve muttered as he saw Catherine close ranks with her unit. Why did she have to be so hard headed all the damn time? Another second behind that pile of rubble and she would have been turned into confetti. Billy had gotten her out in the nick of time. She should have sat her ass down in that alleyway and stayed where Harrington put her.
Harrington directed the units from the front of the pack. "Smooth Dog, how's it look up there?"
"Overwatch is clear. Calling transport. You're first in, I've got eyes, I'm last out."
Billy glanced around as the units converged. "Copy that, Smooth Dog." His eyes locked with a very angry Catherine as he mouthed the words, "I'm sorry."
Catherine hissed a sharp breath as the combat medic dabbed antiseptic on her bloodied forehead. She had gotten lucky and she knew it. A cracked rib and a couple cuts and scrapes were a small price to pay for not being hit point blank by a rocket-propelled grenade. Deeper still, she knew that luck had absolutely nothing to do with her being alive. Steve and Billy had been a godsend. Just because they had been swift enough to save her didn't mean she was in the forgiving mood, though. "Rollins. Debrief in 203." Her commanding officer stated as he made his rounds.
"Yes, Sir." She nodded as her C.O. gave debrief assignments to the rest of her unit. As soon as the medic cleared her to go, she made her way through the rows of buildings. It hadn't been incredibly long since she had been in Kabul, but it had been long enough that the tents she had once worked and slept in had been replaced with equally drafty, but slightly better sprung buildings. She found room 203 and knocked before walking in. Catherine met eyes with the man across the room who had his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. She leveled him a look so hot it could have seared a steak. "Fuck." She spat. Steve was the last person she wanted to have to answer to right then. All she wanted was to debrief with some uninvested third party and then track him down and kiss and make up. There was no way in hell that was happening now.
Steve pushed off the wall and made a beeline for her. "'Fuck' is damn right. You screwed up and you fucking know it." He snapped as he pointed his finger in her face.
"I screwed up?! Oh that's rich. YOU'RE the one who told Billy to fucking tackle me! You could have gotten us BOTH killed!" She yelled.
Smoke practically poured out of Steve's ears, "I SAVED YOUR ASS." He shouted in her face.
"I SAVED YOURS!" She shouted back. "JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE LOUD DOESN'T MEAN YOU'RE RIGHT."
"YOU'RE ALIVE SO YEAH. I THINK I'M RIGHT." He yelled.
A knock at the door silenced their shouting but didn't keep them from their death glares. "Everything alright in here?" Billy popped his head in. "You know these rooms aren't soundproof, right?"
Steve ignored Billy's sensible warning and continued on his warpath, "You disobeyed a direct order from your C.O. to fall back."
"I saved your ass! I shot the two hostiles heading up to you." She yelled.
"You made stupid choice, Catherine!"
"NO! YOU made a stupid choice because you couldn't separate your feelings for me from the job!" She waved her finger in his face. "If I had been ANYONE ELSE today you know for damn sure that you wouldn't have put HIS life in danger." She hissed as she pointed at Billy.
"That's enough!" Billy barked as he stepped in between them. He put one hand on Steve's shoulder and pushed him away from Catherine. "You're done, McGarrett. I'll finish debrief. You can either sit in on it or you can go take a lap and cool off."
Steve glared at her. He would have sacrificed every single man and woman in that village - including himself - if it meant that Catherine had made it out safely. Why didn't she see that?! He clenched his jaw as he stormed past her - muttering something to Billy, and slamming the door behind him.
Catherine slumped down in a chair and rested her bandaged head in her hand. "What a fucking shit show." She muttered.
Billy sat down in the chair across from her, "Are you okay?" He asked softly as he pointed to her wounds.
A defeated smile flickered at the corner of her mouth. "Thanks for asking… probably something he should have done."
He reached over the table and gently laid his hand on her arm, "Catherine… are you okay?" His repeated statement emphasized the fact that he wasn't at all concerned with her injuries.
Catherine nodded. "I'm fine."
Billy nodded and retracted his hand and began going through the list of routine debrief questions with her. When they were finished, he signed his name to the bottom of the debrief document before sliding it over for her signature. "Just give him a minute to cool off." He suggested as he closed the file.
"How long are you guys here?"
"Team Seven's gonna be here for a while. Five's moving out soon. We assisted them with an HTV extraction and had just secured the target when your call came in so we all showed up. Steve's gotta escort the target out for rendition."
She looked down at her folded hands, "Do you know when they lift off?"
Billy glanced down at his watch, "He's already gone." He hesitated but added on, "McGarrett asked me to keep you here until his bird lifted off."
Catherine felt like she had been shot. She hated being vulnerable, but hearing that Steve had left her, all of her strength immediately abandoned her body. Her words were more of a whimper than a question. "He left?"
She didn't hear from Steve for three weeks after that. After leaving her debriefing, Catherine texted him: Why'd you leave without saying goodbye?
Silence. There was nothing but silence from the person that had always been there for her.
"Hey, Rollins."
Catherine forced a polite smile as Billy sat across from her in the mess hall. "Hey."
Billy shoved a bite of food in his mouth, "He's gonna call."
She laughed disparagingly, "I'm glad one of us is optimistic."
He reached over and rested his hand on top of hers. "Catherine, he's gonna call. He just needs some time to cool down… Get his head out of his ass - you know."
"Froghog." A female officer walked by and muttered the insult as she passed Catherine and Billy.
Catherine quickly retracted her hand as her face flooded with heat. She saw Billy about to come to her defense, but instead she held up her hand to stop him and snapped, "Save it." Catherine didn't know which was worse: the fact that everyone knew what had gone down on the battlefield, the fact that everyone knew about her and Steve's fight in the debrief room, the fact that Billy seemed to be so damn insistent on being her rock, or the fact that as much as she didn't want to admit it to herself, she wanted him to be. Catherine felt her phone buzz in her pocket and quickly yanked it out to look at the text. Her heart skipped a beat as she smiled and typed out a response.
Steve: You free to talk at 2100 your time?
Catherine: Copy that. Talk to you soon.
Maybe there was something to that optimism thing that Billy seemed to have going for him. "Told you." He smiled.
"Steve, why the hell haven't you talked to me? Why did you leave without so much as a 'see you later'? Look. I get that you're mad about what happened... but seriously?"
There was a long silence on the line before Steve spoke up again. "You were right."
"What are you talking about?"
"I let my feelings for you affect my decision making. We both have jobs to do right now and I can't be worrying about running into you in the field all the time." Steve didn't sound like himself. He had been rehearsing the same damn sentence for weeks and yet could barely convince himself that it was the right thing to do.
Catherine felt a lump forming in her throat as acid built up in her stomach. "What are you saying?" She whispered.
Steve grimaced. "Us… I just… I can't do this anymore, Catherine."
Tears rolled down her cheeks as he said the words he had been fearing. "So this is it?" She cringed, "I save you, you save me - we're even… so we're just… over?"
"I'm sorry, Catherine. Take care of yourself… okay?" And the line went dead.
The phone slipped from Catherine's hand as she hugged her knees and silently sobbed. That's what hurt the most. Not the breakup, but the fact that he had told her to take care of herself. She no longer had Steve McGarrett to watch her six.
Steve hung up the phone. The polaroid in his cargo pants pocket was burning a hole through his leg. Somehow Catherine had slipped it to him before he stormed out of the debrief room weeks ago. He looked over at Sienna Greer who set down her coffee. "You know that was the right decision." She soothed. "She's a distraction and distractions get you killed. This was really the best option for both of you."
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Dun dun duhhhhh!
Leave your reactions in the reviews, loves!
XO,
-Mags-