Justified – Story 1 in the Unbreakable series

Disclaimer: Characters belong to the writers & producers of Hawaii Five-0. My own characters belong to me

Rating: T (for romance)

Pairing: Steve/OC, Steve/Danny (friendship - no slash)

Author's Note: Oh, Julia & Steve... so tempting, but she can't give in to her feelings... and neither can he? Hope you enjoyed the last chapter - we find out a bit more about Julia as Steve struggles to figure out why he is drawn to her. Updated chapter.

He had spent years of his life chasing and capturing terrorists, in a small part to prevent losses like hers. Was it her grief over the loss of her mother that he had sensed in her earlier at her office? Was that why her eyes seemed to be so much older than her years? He watched her working at his desk, avoiding his presence. Deciding he should let her focus on her work, Steve turned to quietly leave his office.

"Hey Romeo, how is our own Jessica Fletcher doing?"

His momentary distraction ended, Steve looked at Danny who was still working at the smart table. "Sorry, what? Who is Jessica?"

"Jessica Fletcher? Mrs. Fletcher, Murder She Wrote?" Danny sighed. "Novelist by day, murder investigator by night. Seriously, did you just sleep through the eighties?"

"No, but I generally didn't watch geriatric murder mystery shows like you, Matlock."

"Hey, hey, hey. Do not bring Andy Griffith into this discussion. The man was a genius. Just because you do not know who Angela Lansbury is, or remember a show that was on for like twenty years, does not mean that you can pick on one of the greatest whodunits on television," Danny retorted, gesturing at Steve. "Besides, you just said that to avoid the question."

"What question? I was not avoiding a question that was never there," Steve said, a bit defensively.

"The question was, Romeo, what exactly was going on in there between you and our resident crime-solving accountant?"

"I have no idea what you mean. I got her a bottled water, started up my laptop, and she began working. End of story."

Danny looked at his partner warily. Steve might say it was the end of the story, but he knew him well enough to know that something she said or did rattled him, although he was impressed with Steve's Matlock comment. But who didn't at least know about Murder She Wrote? Clearly they would have to bone up on Steve's television knowledge. He wouldn't be surprised if Steve had never watched an episode of Jake & The Fatman either.

Taking a breath, Steve asked himself the same question as Danny. What had happened in there? How did a seemingly innocent question by Julia get him so rattled? Why was did he still feel unsettled? He needed to find out more about her. "Danny, let's go talk with Chin."

Steve stopped briefly at Kono's office and tapped the glass, gesturing for her to join them. The two headed over to Chin's office and shut the door. Kono came in right behind them, joining Danny on Chin's couch. Steve stood stiffly in front of Chin's desk. "What did you turn up on Julia?"

Chin typed a few things into his laptop, and then turned it around for them to see as he stood. "Julia Abbott, Ph.D., born Julia Reeve Somers, April 5, 1978 at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York. Mother is Lisa D'Ambrose Somers, father is Robert James Somers. Julia grew up in Katonah, New York and graduated from John Jay High School a year early. She graduated from MIT in 1999 summa cum laude in Math, then went to Harvard where she earned an M.S. in Theoretical Mathematics in '01 and a Ph.D. in Accounting in '03. Needless to say, she's one smart lady."

The screen showed an archived article from the local newspaper of Julia beaming as someone presented her with a high school award. She looked much as she did today, only with her eyes bright and excited. Another article detailed her volunteer work with a local group for developmentally disabled children, and included a picture of the pretty young girl with her arms around a child with Down syndrome as they both grinned for the camera.

Chin turned the computer back for a moment, and began typing. He turned it back around and showed a New York Times article about of a middle-aged woman who resembled Julia. "Her mother was a bond trader who was killed on 9-11…" Chin started. The room fell silent. Chin continued, "She worked on the 97th floor of the South Tower. According to the article, she was able to leave a voicemail for her family after the plane hit. It mentions Julia briefly, stating she was in a doctoral program at Harvard at the time. She also has two older brothers, Erik and Jim, and a younger sister, Marie. Her father was a mechanical engineer for a small firm outside of the city." Chin glanced at his teammates, their faces somber as they remembered the thousands of innocent people lost that day, and the ripple effect that 9-11 had on the families and friends of the victims. He went back to the computer and typed a bit more.

Chin brought up a wedding announcement from the Times, showing Julia in a beautiful formal engagement portrait. "She married Peter Abbott, a biologist with NIH, in 2005. No details on where she was working at the time, but they lived in Falls Church, right in the middle of the D.C. suburbs. From there, it gets a more hazy, but her curriculum vitae that I got from her department website at U of H mentioned that she had worked for Bain Capital in Boston and the Brookings Institute in Washington before she came to the University in 2009."

Chin nodded to Kono to continue. "Her social media profile is lean – no pictures beyond the same profile picture that is on the University website, a few friends, no postings. The only thing I found in a Google search for her was a few hits on RateMyProfessors and other similar websites. Her students say she's strict and hard, but funny and sexy. Gotta love a job where students can say whatever they want about you on the internet," Kono chuckled.

Kono brought up a few articles on Chin's computer. "I also checked academic journals, and Julia has published several articles in the past four years, all way above my interest or understanding of the subjects. She was listed as a co-author on a few journal articles when she was in graduate school, mostly on accounting but some others on prime numbers and number theory. I asked one of my former math professors about her, and he mentioned that he knew her reputation for forensic accounting. At his suggestion, I tried to find a copy of her dissertation, which is almost always published, but I couldn't find it anywhere. Not that any of us would be overly interested in her doctoral dissertation," Kono smiled. "Still, if anyone has trouble sleeping, I could print off a few of her articles."

Steve leaned forward to look at the titles of the articles on Chin's computer, then stepped back and shook his head. It was beyond what he needed to know, that's for sure. No red flags, and she had the expertise to help them with this case. He didn't expect any surprises but there was something still that seemed a little … odd. Her record was almost too perfect, too consistent. Steve rubbed his brow and stepped back. I'm just being paranoid, he thought. She's got the qualifications, the knowledge, and her record is clean. Let it go, man. The problem was, he couldn't let it go. Something was nagging at him about Julia.

"Thanks, guys. Hey, Danny, can I use your office for a minute. Mine is otherwise occupied."

Danny deadpanned, "Occupied? So because you let Dr. Strangelove use your office, now I'm booted out of mine? What for?"

"What for?" Steve responded. "Really? Five minutes, brah. That's not too much to ask." With that, he nodded to Chin and Kono and left for Danny's office next door. Sometimes Danny could be just such a nosy pain in the… Clearing his head, Steve sat on Danny's couch and pulled out his cell. He should have made this call before they had headed over to the University to meet Julia.

"Hey, Cath. I need you look up two things." He listened to her distractedly. "Yeah, definitely, we're on for dinner next time you're ashore," he paused, as she went on a diatribe about how much he owes her, and how she could get into trouble for helping him off the record. "The first is a victim we can't ID, could you run her picture against State's passport records? I'm texting it to you now." He pulled the phone away from his ear, pushed a few buttons and sent the picture of Jane Doe to Catherine, then picked up the phone again. "The second," he stopped for a second, unsure if he should continue. Everything was clean, he thought. Chin and Kono are very thorough when they pull someone's file. But there was something bothering him about the whole thing, something that just didn't seem to add up. Steve decided his instincts were nearly always accurate. If he had reservations about Julia, he needed to resolve them, now. "The second is a deep background on Julia Somers Abbott, Ph.D., age 33. I have a feeling she was previously a Federal employee or in the service but I'm not sure what agency or branch."