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.


Journal #13
Bitterroot Valley, Montana

I've been here for a week and Thomsen has yet to crack. I have to give him props- Steve's been going at him hard and he hasn't given up Hassan or Greer yet. Steve's been running rendition sessions for five days and hasn't let me near the barn, much less sit in on it.

Part of me wants to go to the other side of the ranch to escape the sounds. The other part of me wants to be in the room. Wants to watch. To learn. To hone my skills.

That's the part of myself that I'm scared of.

We've slept together every night since we got the house cleaned up. Surprisingly, our sexual escapades haven't had a repeat performance. I don't know if he's holding back because he knows this is all temporary or because he really doesn't want to be with me anymore and that first night was just us coming off of the adrenaline. Still, every night he asks if I'm coming to bed with him. And every night I say yes.

In between interrogation sessions, Steve shored up the place of impact from the RPG with a little plywood and some insulation. Now that that spot has been patched, all the bullet holes have been repaired, and the woodstove is sound, winter here isn't all that bad. I actually like it a lot here. It's quiet. (Except for Thomsen screaming, of course.) I haven't been somewhere this quiet in a long time.

Sure, Jude's cabin up in the woods is private, but he's there so there's always some kind of noise. (Usually it's him talking.) Not that I mind. I love being around Jude. But being here with Steve is something completely new for us. We're so isolated. Never in all the years we've known each other have we been this alone. We've always been around other sailors or officers, around his team or our friends, on the island, at his house where people just walk right in all the time. Here, it's just him and me. (And Thomsen.)

We haven't talked all that much. I can tell he's focused on the job. I get that. I respect that. It's a good reminder that this isn't a vacation. This is war.

I tell myself all those things, but then I see him stomping around the ranch in those work boots and those jeans that hug his hips and thighs in all the right places, and that beard… Fucking shit, that beard...

When he was in the SEALs, he usually grew it out. I'd seen it in pictures, but when we'd meet up for R and R, he usually shaved it clean before we saw each other. When he got out of prison, he had a small one. But this? This rugged cowboy? It's a good thing the temperatures are sub-zero at night or I might just spontaneously combust.


Catherine sat curled up on the couch with her laptop on the coffee table and Jude on speaker phone. Notebooks and files were spread out across every available surface as she worked through the intel that they had gathered for the Saudi Arabia op. She was fully committed to helping Steve avenge Joe's death, but sitting around while he tortured Thomsen had gotten old. "So it looks like your target has been making his rounds between oh-three-hundred and oh-six-hundred. In my opinion, your best bet at grabbing him is right at the end of his route. If you and Decker try and grab him before he's made his deliveries, he's going to already have his guard up. Wait until the job is done and then grab him when he thinks he's in the clear."

"Yeah, but what about-"

"I can tap into CCTV and either stay up and watch you from here or give Caroline access and she can do it from your time zone."

Jude chuckled, "You're always one step ahead of us, aren't you, Princess?"

Catherine smiled, "You guys hanging in there?"

He groaned, "We're tired, but we've got this. You take care of Charming and turn Greer's traitor ass into pink mist. We've been monitoring things on this side of the world but so far there's no chatter. With the op where it is right now, we don't have much time for extracurriculars."

"I owe you big time, Jude. Does Langley know I'm not in the field?"

"We've kept it quiet. You're good for now. If Coen starts asking questions we'll be SOL." He paused a beat before asking, "Is someone screaming on your end?"

Catherine smirked, "Yeah, it's fine. Just ignore it. It'll pass."

"Rendition?"

"Considering we're on U.S. soil, I will neither confirm nor deny." She stated. Catherine glanced up as Steve stomped out of the barn and made his way towards the house.

Jude chuckled, "Anything I can do for you?"

"You've already done more than I can repay. Get some sleep. I'll call if I dig up some more intel."

"Night, Princess." He yawned. "Stay safe out there."

Steve leaned against the doorway, stifling a laugh, "Princess?"

Catherine's mouth turned down into a frown, "Eavesdrop much?"

"Please tell me that's your, uh, your codename or something." He grinned, "Because I'm never gonna let you live it down."

"It's not my codename." She mumbled.

Steve leaned his ear closer and tapped his lobe, "What was that?"

"Not my codename." She repeated just a hair louder.

"I'm sorry, one more time. My ears are still ringing from all the screaming."

Catherine rolled her eyes and turned to face him. "It's not my fucking codename. It's just what my partner calls me." She would have argued further, but poking fun of Jude's nickname for her seemed to bring him the slightest bit of joy. She wasn't going to deny him that. "Taking a break?"

He nodded as he continued his warpath to the sink to scrub the blood off of his hands, "Yeah, he, uh he passed out. Gotta give him some time to come to."

They both nodded as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Catherine glanced at the clock. It was still too early for dinner. She gathered her files and stacked them neatly on the coffee table. As she closed her laptop, Steve wandered in and sat down on the couch. She'd known Steve McGarrett for twenty years and still, his presence was intimidating. This version of Steve? The fuck-hot mountain man? He smelled like pine trees, flannel, and bad decisions.

Steve had been tempting fate every damn night. Every night, he waited for her to crawl under the covers and curl up beside him. She fit so perfectly into his side. Catherine was stronger than he remembered. He could feel the ripples of her well-toned muscles through the thermal shirts and long johns. Age had done her well. He had always been attracted to the fresh-faced Naval lieutenant, but this woman? This curvy, sharp-tongued, smart mouthed, beautiful woman? She brought him to his knees. It was only by a miracle and some very cold showers that he kept his cool around her.

When he had walked in, she had been focusing on work. That little line on her forehead brought a smile to his face. She had changed, but she was also still very much the same. She was enticingly new and intimately familiar all at once. She was everything. She was home.

He couldn't think of anything he wanted more in that moment than to grab her and pull her into his arms and kiss her until her lips were bruised and full. But if he kissed her now, he wouldn't stop. And that wasn't what he had brought her here for.

"Wait here." His husky growl cut through the silence. Steve's voice sounded like gravel and honey and sex, "I'll saddle the horses."


They were the sexiest six words Catherine had ever heard in her forty years of living.

Wait here. I'll saddle the horses.

When they were sitting on the couch, she had almost leaned over and kissed him. She wanted to desperately, but there was that dangerous look in his eye that told her if she did, he might come unhinged.

Now, she was on the back of a chestnut colored quarter horse, plodding through the half-melted snow behind Steve on his stallion.

Steve had taken her in the opposite direction of the tree. He wasn't ready to revisit that spot yet. Frankly, he didn't know if he ever would be. Catherine took control of her horse like an old pro. He pulled back on the reins just enough to slow down so she would be in front of him. For a fleeting moment, he let his guard down and allowed himself to admire the perfect lines that her jeans created, contrasting against the leather saddle. She turned her head, her inky hair feathering in the wind, and smiled.

That smile.

A wrecking ball crushed into his chest. After all this time, how did she still make him so weak and so strong all at the same time? She didn't want what he wanted, he reminded himself. She had a job to go back to. A purpose. A calling. He was only opening himself up to a good ass-kicking when she inevitably went back to the CIA. And it was going to hurt more because Catherine was the only one who saw him, he realized. The only one who really knew all of him.

He pulled back on the bridle and slowed the horse to a trot as they met at a stream. Steve slung his leg backwards off the saddle and eased down from the stirrup. "Give me your hand." He urged. Steve took her hand and caught her by the hip as she hopped down.

"Not bad considering I haven't done that since we were in Afghanistan." She smiled, "I'm gonna be sore as hell tomorrow."

He smiled sheepishly as he took the reins from her and led both horses to the stream for a drink, "Sorry about that."

She shoved her cold hands in the back pockets of her jeans and sided up to him, "Nothing a hot shower and some Advil can't fix." Catherine took a chance and bumped her hip into his, "Feel free to join."

For the first time in days, he looked at her. Really looked at her. "Letting ourselves get comfortable isn't gonna end well, Cath."

Catherine decided to hedge her bets, "Maybe. But what if that's not the point? Why can't we just enjoy this, for what it is, right now?"

He turned and stood toe to toe with her, "Because if I know, right now, that this is going to end, how can… How can I torture myself by indulging in it?" Steve stroked her cheek with his thumb as his fingers delved into her hair. His coarse words turned into a gentle caress. "I'm just gonna keep getting attached to you, and it's… it's gonna fucking break me all over again when I can't keep you." His voice cracked on the last few words. "Do you know how hard it was for me to, uh, to make that phone call? To ask you to do what I needed you to do and come out here? To, uh, to ask you to stay?"

She wagered that his boots were steel-toed and stepped up on the tips of the worn leather, "I'm here, aren't I?" Catherine gripped onto his coat to steady herself as she balanced precariously on his boots, "When are you going to realize that I'm not running? Where we are right now… Me going back to work when we're done here... It is what it is. But I'm not running from you."

Steve's fingers dug into her waist as he held her against his body, "What are you saying?"

"I've tried, Steve…" She rested her forehead on his shoulder, "I've tried to get over you and I… just can't."

His firm grip turned into a gentle hold. His hands slipped under her layers and branded her skin. "Cath, you can't... You can't keep doing this to me." He begged.

"Doing what?"

"You keep me hanging on. Keep me hoping that… Hoping that things will change. That there's gonna be a chance for us when I know damn well that there's not gonna be one."


Catherine turned carefully under the spray of the hot shower. Horseback riding with Steve had been a great stress reliever, but it had left her tired, sore, and feeling a little abused. Her joints shouted profanities as she braced herself against the tile wall and closed her eyes.

She had put herself out there and Steve said no. Simple as that. Nothing had made her feel quite as trampled on as him pulling the horses away from the stream and saddling up, claiming he needed to get back and check on Thomsen.

Thomsen was hanging on by a thread. Catherine had caught a peek of him when Steve left the barn door open. He had been beaten to a pulp. He wasn't going anywhere. Steve just wanted an out.

Catherine cut the water off and stepped out onto the bath mat. Still feeling a little humiliated, she pulled on a clean set of clothes and dialed her anger all the way up to righteous. She stormed out of the bedroom and began to shove her things back into her bag.

"Catherine." Steve called out from the front of the house.

Ignoring that, she zipped up her toiletries and made a beeline for her laptop.

"Cath." He shouted again, "Where you at?"

The thumping of his boots on the hardwoods told her he was coming down the hallway, getting closer with each stomp. She continued on her own warpath.

"Catherine, I've been calling yo-" He looked around at her bag sitting on top of the bed, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Packing."

He jumped into her path and stopped her, bracing his hands against her shoulders, "Whoa, hold on. Did you get called back to your assignment? Why are you leaving?"

Catherine body-checked him and shoved her laptop into the bag. "I'm leaving because there's no reason for me to be here."

"Is this about what happened when we went riding?" He ran his palm down his beard, "Look, Cath-"

"Don't, 'look Cath' me." To emphasize her point, she stabbed a finger at his chest. "There's no reason for me to be here. I brought you Thomsen, but you don't want me to split interrogations with you. Hell, you won't let me anywhere near the fucking barn! On top of that, you obviously have issues with my being here because of, well… us. So get out of my way and let me get the hell out of here."

Steve made a grab for her stabbing finger. "Will you calm the fuck down for two damn seconds so I can get a fucking word in?"

The cold air from the ride had whipped across his face, leaving it red and stinging. She could still feel the coolness leaching off of his skin, but his hand was warm on hers. "I'm good at my job, Steve. So either you're blind to that or you don't trust me. Either way, you're a stupid bastard to bench me."

"This is different. There's no oversight. No rules." He growled.

Her whiskey eyes narrowed in on his, "I work for the fucking CIA. They threw the rule book out the window a long fucking time ago."

Steve, through his cloud of anger, could smell her soap. The lingering fragrance of coconut and vanilla. "Catherine, I wanted you here because I need you here. You wanna know why you're here and not Danny? Or Junior? Because you fucking know me. Because you know when I'm about to go too far. Because you've seen me like this before- when I've had to do this shit. They haven't. If I go too far with this, I know you'll pull me back. You're… you're in my head. If I let you in there with him, there's a good chance that neither of us will come back from this."

The sliver of air between them was charged and she was chomping at the bit for a good fight. His eyes locked with hers. The hurricane grays were mixed with something else. Something darker. The tic in his jaw, masked under that damn beard, flared. "Anything else?" She hissed.

He felt the charge too. That electricity that pulsed in her fingertips, itching to cause some physical justice, arched to his skin and lit him up like a firecracker. "Yeah." He curled and flexed his hands from balled fists to flat again. The skittering static only intensified, "I think I'm gonna kiss you."

"Well that's a dumbass thing to-"

The rest of her words were lost as if they'd been wiped clean from her mouth. His lips, firm and warm, latched onto hers, coaxing the breath right out of her lungs. Steve spun her until her back bit into the wall. Tilting his head, he changed the angle of the kiss. When she opened her mouth to tell him how incredibly daft he was, Steve took possession.

His tongue swept into her mouth and rendered her completely senseless. When a quiet moan tried to escape her throat, he leaned into her, his hips pinning her against the wall. Impatient and tired of being controlled, she yanked his shirt out of his waistband and slid her hands up his chest. Even with her eyes closed, she knew his body like the back of her hand.

The growl in his chest was so primal, so alpha male. So beyond the cool, calculated Steve that had been sulking around the ranch for a week. Catherine hooked one leg over his hips, angling for more. Steve obliged. The kind of heat he was packing below the belt was on a hair trigger.

Steve stopped kissing her, but didn't move away. She couldn't look away from those eyes. His voracious gaze bore into her. Intimacy, raw and spontaneous, stripped her bare under the intensity of his stare. He stumbled backwards, keeping his eyes locked on hers, "I'll wait outside while you're in there with Thomsen." His tongue darted out and sucked in the last of her taste from his lips. Citrus and cham-fucking-pagne. "Show me what you got, Rollins."


"Tell me something." Jude began as he walked to the side of the ring and grabbed his water bottle. "What was it like. You know, making the transition from doing what you and Catherine did to, uh, being married. Having kids."

Steve popped his mouth guard out and grinned, "You, uh, you mean from running black ops and enhanced interrogation to playin' peek-a-boo and watching Dora on repeat?" He chuckled and popped the top off his canteen, "I dunno man. Just kinda came naturally." Steve sat down on the side of the boxing ring and tugged his gloves off, "How's Five-0 workin' out for you? Danny says you're stayin' pretty busy."

Jude wiped his face with the sweat towel and tossed it back into his gym bag, "Busier than I'd like. I'm taking on more days with them right now 'till I get acquainted with everything, then I'm gonna scale it back and just fill in when they need a body." He smiled and shook his head, "I'm getting old. I just need something to keep me occupied."

"Cath said you're lookin' to settle down. Wife and kids?"

He shrugged, "I'd like to. Thing about being a spook for most of your adult life is you end up being shit at dating when the time comes."

Steve laughed, "Yeah, I heard Catherine tried to when she was with the agency. She said it went sideways." Jude's bark of laughter told him that Catherine may have undersold what a trainwreck it had been.

"Sideways makes it sound better than it was. Down in flames would be more like it."

He just chuckled and shook his head. "Look, man. Five-0 - it'll be a good transition for you. Keeps you sharp, gives you something to do, and uh, and if you find a girl, you can actually tell her what you really do." Steve looked over and saw his phone light up. Reaching over, he grabbed it and pressed it against his ear, "Hey, Princess." He teased.

Even through the muffled call, Jude could hear Catherine swearing up a storm. That was his Princess alright, he thought. Now he just needed to find his queen.

"Yeah, we're, uh, we're just finishing up. I'll be home in twenty." Steve paused while Catherine no doubt berated him for using the nickname, "Yeah, I'll tell him…. Copy that... Love you." He tossed his phone back in his gym bag and groaned as he got to his feet, "I'll be paying for that one later." He grinned. "And you're invited to dinner on Tuesday. Danny'll be there too."

"'Preciate it." Jude grabbed his keys and headed to the door, "Thanks for the workout. It's been a while since I've gotten in the ring with someone who can keep up."

"Same here. Cath and I used to spar all the time. Then she started winning." He grinned. A flash of blonde caught his eye as he unlocked his truck. "Watch out for that one." He hollered, pointing across the parking lot, "She's got a mean uppercut."

Ellie Clayton laughed as she headed into the gym, "Rematch next time you're here, McGarrett!"

Jude stood wide eyed beside Steve. His statement was punctuated by curiosity and lust, "Who is that?"


AUTHOR'S NOTE

Happy Tuesday! Leave your thoughts and comments in the reviews! QUESTION: If you were to ship Jude with someone from the H50 universe, who would it be?

XO,

-Mags-


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