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.
"Well, well, well. Say it isn't so." Jude grinned from ear to ear as he pulled off his headphones and shoved them in the pocket of his gym shorts. "You finally decided to stop hibernating in your cave?"
Catherine held up the spoon she had been using to stir the bubbling pot on the stove and waved it in his face, "You keep up with that attitude and I won't share, Beckett." She teased.
He leaned over her shoulder and sniffed, "Chili?"
She swatted him away and pulled a cast iron skillet out of the oven, "And cornbread."
Jude's eyes rolled back in his head as he dramatically buckled his knees, "Marry me and I'll have your babies." He begged.
Catherine laughed, "No to the first, but I'd be greatly amused by the second." She ran a knife through the piping hot cornbread and hefted a slice on top of the chili Jude had served himself. "I cooked, so the dishes are yours, but so help me- if you wash my cast iron I'll kill you slowly and painfully." She punctuated her threat with a wave of the knife.
He gave her a sloppy salute, "Yes, ma'am. Scrub the hell outta that thing with a scouring pad and all the dish soap we have. Got it." Catherine rolled her eyes and served herself a helping from the pot. Jude hopped up on the counter and shoveled a bite into his mouth, "Do I even wanna know how you acquired all the ingredients for the world's best chili and cornbread in the middle of Afghanistan?"
"If you're nice to the locals, the locals are nice to you. They'll tell you where to find cumin and the best fresh tomatoes and where you can find pilfered US service weapons being resold to the Taliban."
"Hm. Catherine, Purveyor of Karma is back." He mused. "I'm always nice to the locals. I'm nice to everybody." He grinned.
Catherine giggled, "Yeah, the ladies down at the market said you look like you ate GI Joe for lunch. You're a little intimidating."
Jude licked his spoon clean and pointed at her, "Yeah, and if they knew what a mean right cross you had, they'd be more scared of you than me." For a few minutes they stood in the kitchen eating in a comfortable silence. Jude scraped the last specks of chili from his bowl before setting it on the counter. As he filled the sink with water, he gave her a once-over. "Nice to see you in your own clothes today."
Her face turned beet red. Catherine stared into her bowl and poked around with her spoon. It wasn't a secret that she had been wearing the clothes Steve had left in Afghanistan around the safe house. His boxer shorts to bed. His oversized shirts tied off at the waist with jeans. When she was really sad, it was his button ups that brought her back to him. She'd never tell anyone, but she kept those two button ups stored away from everything else. They still held the faint aroma of his cologne and she wanted to preserve that as long as she possibly could.
She shifted uncomfortably between her feet and finished off her chili. Jude shut the water off to the sink and pressed his hands against the lip of the counter. He tilted his head and locked eyes with her. "I just meant it's nice to see you're feeling better." He corrected.
Catherine didn't want to admit it, but she had been feeling better. She didn't miss Steve any less or feel any less guilty for her current predicament, but something Doris had said stuck in her mind. Do your time, get out, and move on with your life. "Thanks." She just hoped that when the time came, Doris's other prediction would come true. That she and Steve would find their way back to each other.
"Ooooh! New girl joining us for team bonding night?" Decker jogged into the kitchen, pressing his fingers to his neck to check his pulse after his run. "Good to see you out and about, Rollins."
She pointed to the pot and directed him to help himself. "What's team bonding night and, dear God, please tell me I don't have to participate."
"One," Decker ticked off his points on his finger, "Team bonding night is a weekly tradition, and yes, attendance is mandatory. If you're living in the house and you're not on assignment, you're expected to be a willing participant."
"Two," Jude chimed in as he scrubbed the dishes, "Decker and I are the founding members of team bonding night, so don't you dare desecrate the tradition, Princess."
Catherine crossed her arms and hopped up on the countertop beside Jude. "So, what is it?"
"We all sit around and play 'Find the Operative'." Decker pointed to the whiteboard set up by the TV. "Jude's been winning for the last couple months. Even being gone to Qala-i-Mirza with you, no one's beat him yet. Fucking photographic memory..."
"What's 'Find the Operative'?"
Jude drained the sink and dried his hands on a dish towel. "We all sit around and watch The Amazing Race and try to pick out CIA agents in the crowd. You see an agent you know, you get a point. Incorrectly identify an agent, lose a point. Spot the agent and a tail? Get two points. You're the agent who's caught on camera? Five points. First person to twenty wins."
Catherine portioned out the leftovers and shoved them in the fridge, "A. I've never watched The Amazing Race. And B. I've been in the Company for what? A couple months? I can count on one hand the number of operatives I know."
"YOU'VE NEVER SEEN THE AMAZING RACE?" Decker's eyes nearly bugged out of his head. "Where have you been living? Under a rock?"
She laughed, "More like an aircraft carrier and then with a SEAL who barely knew how to turn on his own TV, but close enough."
Jude shook his head, "How long were you with Navy Intel again?"
Catherine shrugged, "Ten and change."
"You know more operatives than you think you do." He reassured her.
She walked over and studied the whiteboard. Jude was in a solid lead with fifteen points. Decker and Marshall were tied up behind him with eight points each. Three other agents, who's names she didn't recognize, trailed the pack with three points each. All the way at the bottom was Coen, with negative seven. Catherine smirked. At least she'd be beating Coen with her big, fat zero. "How'd this all start?"
Jude followed Catherine and stood behind her at the whiteboard, his chest to her back. "One time Decker flipped the show on a couple seasons ago and spotted an agent he knew from a previous assignment walking down the street where they were filming one of the challenges. Ever since then we've had a running game to see who can spot the most agents." He reached around her and picked up the dry erase marker. Popping the top off, he drew a line and started a new column. His chest rumbled as he chuckled and labeled the new section 'Princess'.
Two hours later, the living room was full of the most elite covert operatives in the world eating popcorn and shouting at a reality TV show. "MANDY ELLIS!" Caroline Marshall screamed as the camera crew caught sight of a dark haired woman sitting in a cafe in Bangladesh. "SUCK IT, DECKER! I'M FINALLY AHEAD OF YOU!"
Catherine laughed. Never in all her life did she expect the command of CIA operations in Afghanistan to be spending her evening off playing a made up game. Her fingers flew over the laptop keys as she typed in the agent's name and confirmed that Marshall had identified her correctly. "One point for Marshall." She verified.
Caroline ripped the cap off the dry erase marker and did a happy dance as she added another tally mark to her column. "I'm coming for your lead, Beckett!" She sing-songed as she sat back down in her chair.
Jude grinned, "Please, it's taken you a month to go up one damn point. Call me next season when you're finally closing in."
"If only the taxpayers knew their hard-earned dollars were going to a frat house with automatic weapons and game night." Catherine giggled.
Decker dropped down onto the couch, sandwiching her between him and Jude. "Don't hate, Rollins." He grinned, "We have semi-autos too."
Caroline stood up and stretched as the credits began to roll, "Alright, kids. I'm calling it a night. Got an early morning with D.C., so keep it down."
Catherine looked up from the laptop to say goodnight when she caught the previews for the next episode. The host was chattering on about the next adventure for the teams in China when a familiar face darted through the wide angle camera shot. "Sienna Greer." Jude, Decker, Caroline, and the rest of the agents looked at her like she was crazy. Catherine snatched the remote out of Jude's hand and paused the TV. Pushing the laptop into Jude's hands, she repeated, "Sienna Greer. Confirm it."
Jude typed in the name and nodded when Greer's face appeared on the screen of the CIA database. "Confirmed." He smiled down at Catherine, "Princess is on the board."
"Hey."
"Hey." Jude eased onto the roof, mug in hand. "What, uh, whatcha doin' up here?"
Catherine laid back on the flat rooftop and stared at the night sky. "Just getting some air."
"You know it's against every security protocol in the book for you to be up here, right?" He set his mug down on the dusty concrete and sat beside her.
She peered out of heavy eyelids and smirked, "Then why are you out here?"
"I'm your security detail, remember?" He offered her the mug of coffee and watched as her jaw hit the rooftop when she saw the cinnamon swirling on the top of the brew. He read her mind and before she could respond, he simply pointed at himself and said, "Spy."
Catherine took it from him and eyed him suspiciously, "Are you drugging me with truth serum?" She asked as she sipped it. Perfection.
Jude grinned, "Please, we both know that truth serum isn't real." They exchanged stifled snickers at his statement before breaking down in a full fledged roar of laughter.
She laughed as she wiped the tears away from her eyes, "Seriously, Beckett. Why are you up here?"
"Because you shouldn't be alone."
Catherine rolled her eyes, "I'm not going to throw myself off the roof, Jude."
He shook his head, "I meant you should have to be alone." He leaned over and nudged her shoulder with his.
"Thanks." She didn't know why, but she tilted her head to the left and rested it on his shoulder. Jude draped his pillar of an arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his side. The crushing weight of his muscles across her back was a comfort that she wasn't going to deny.
"You wanna tell me about him?" He offered. Truth be told, Jude had spent a lot of time reading through the files on Doris McGarrett's son and Catherine Rollins's lover, but as he knew all too well, the humanity of the person was often left out of all the action reports.
Catherine closed her eyes as she toyed with the dog tags that were draped around her neck. "Not really." She wanted to, but now wasn't the time. They were about to roll out on a new assignment and she needed to have her head in the right frame of mind.
"You thought about what you're gonna do when we get R and R after this one?"
That, she had thought about. Endlessly. Her car- her baby- was at Steve's house. Her life was packed away in a storage unit in Aina Haina. She didn't want to have to face him, to have to dive back into the lie, but she couldn't saddle him with the skeletons of their life together for six damn years. "I've gotta go back. Gotta get things sent to wherever I decide home is gonna be."
Jude sighed, "You ready to see him?"
"No." She admitted. "I'm not ready to have to walk away again."
His grip on her shoulders tightened as his thumb stroked the tip of her shoulder. "Need some moral support?"
She tilted her head back to catch his gaze, "You're not gonna go visit your family?"
Something between pain and sadness flashed across his face and Jude averted his eyes. The flickering moment of rawness was gone and he quickly replaced the vulnerability with his mask of congeniality. "Nah, I just pick a quiet corner of the world to crash, work on my tan, do a little reading, and uh, get laid." He tapped his finger on her shoulder to signal that they should go back inside. "Seriously, Princess. If you want someone to travel with you and help you deal with getting your shit in order, I'm more than happy to try out Hawaii for my slice of paradise."
"I'll let you know." She compromised. Catherine pushed off the ground and dusted the dirt off her pants. "So since we're self-proclaimed best friends," She leaned against the door that led to the rooftop, "Are you gonna tell me why you spend your R and R getting laid and learning languages instead of visiting family or being home?"
Jude let a hearty chuckle escape his mouth as he dipped back inside, "That almost sounded like you cared." He smirked, "Don't worry, Princess. I won't tell the house that there's a heart in there."
Journal #2
Kabul Safe House
I'll never admit it - even to Jude, but I think I'm starting to like it here. The days are full and it keeps my mind busy. Sometimes I'm putting together intel packages for special operators going to take down targets, sometimes I'm out in the city gathering intel from the locals. Occasionally I'll go on base with Caroline and read in operators on assignments. It feels good to be useful. To have a place.
I loved working with Five-0. I loved working with Steve and seeing him in his element. We always made a great team. But honestly? There's only so many felonies you can wrap up before you start itching to eavesdrop on a conversation happening in Farsi and translate it to Pashto to run it by your asset and then to English for the ground op team who will use the intel for an HVT snatch and grab.
Living in the house isn't bad. All the boys being former military means that beds are made and the house stays spotless. And when they slack off, Caroline is there with a chore wheel and threats of violence until everything is in ship shape.
Tonight I was introduced to 'Find the Operative'. It's like a real life Where's Waldo. It was fun until I got my first point for finding, you guessed it, Sienna Fucking Greer. A decade later and that snake is still living rent-free in my mind. I'll never forget the way she said that Steve wasn't the type to ever settle down. It echoes in my mind to this day. The one thing I never accounted for was that maybe I wasn't the type to ever settle down either.
Jude has been my saving grace in all this. He's always two steps ahead of me. He even offered to let me talk about Steve if I wanted to. If that isn't a friend, I don't know what is. He's got some demons. Some shadows that he doesn't let out. I think the natural charisma is a wall to keep them contained. Like, if he puts on a smile and cracks a joke, that they won't wreck him from the inside out.
Maybe being in the CIA won't be so bad, but being away from Steve has me gasping for breath. He's always been my lifeline. The one I could count on when everything else failed me.
Catherine crawled into bed beside Steve. His hands found her waist and tugged her into his arms. "Shelbs go back down?"
"Mhm." She nodded.
Steve peppered her back with kisses. He pressed his forehead against the star at the nape of her neck. "Where's your head at, Lieutenant?" He murmured.
Catherine stared listlessly at the wall as she contemplated her answer, "Far away." She admitted.
"Talk to me." He gently urged. "Tell me."
She rolled and faced him as he pulled her closer, "Just thinking about when I was away." That's how she had chosen to refer to her time in the CIA. She wasn't particularly fond of saying that time I was blackmailed into leaving you or when I was doing really illegal things in countries that would be less than pleased to know I was inside their borders. "Thinking about how much I missed you."
The pad of his calloused thumb stroked her cheek as his fingers delved into her hair and cradled her head, "I missed you every damn day." His husky growl sent sparks flying across her skin. "But I'm here now. You're here now. Let's not waste it." Steve McGarrett possessed an intrinsic magnetic pull that would forever draw her to him. There's no fighting a love like that. It's like trying to swim out of a rip current. You can't fight it. You'll lose every single time. He tilted her chin up and studied her eyes. Once upon a time, she had saved him when he was ready to throw in the towel - when his demons threatened to overtake him. Now, it was his turn. "I don't know how I got this lucky, but I'm not taking a single day for granted, Catherine." His grip on her body tightened as he pulled her in and closed the space between them. "I'm choosing you- choosing us- every damn day. Even when it's hard. Even if one of us wants to give up. We're gonna fight for this and win. And we're gonna do it every day for the rest of our lives."
Tears welled up in her eyes. She nuzzled her forehead into the crook of his neck as if to draw strength from him, "I love you, you know." She whispered.
"I love you too."
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Leave your thoughts and comments in the reviews, loves!
Shout-out to Alicia. Sending you love and support from afar!
SEAL Team fans- did you find the Easter egg I hid in this chapter? Let me know!
XO,
-Mags-
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