McGarrett Home, Honolulu, Hawaii, Wednesday morning

[grenadesandohana]

It wasn't that Steve didn't love his early morning exercise routine in Fandom, complete with frigid Atlantic waters and porg dodging, but there was something about diving into the familiar waters off the beach of his childhood home that soothed something inside of him.

He did twice the length of his normal swim just to give his muscles a real wake-up before heading back for shore. He walked back out of the water, heading for the weathered wooden chairs and the towel he'd slung there before getting into the ocean and paused, a light frown on his face, when the towel wasn't there any longer.

"Looking for this?" a female voice asked and Steve stopped staring at the chair long enough to spot Catherine in the shadow of a nearby palm tree, holding out his beach towel.

Well, shit.

[OOC: Multilating parts of Ep 5.25 for our own entertainment for the rest of this week! Whee!]

Comments

[hawaii_5ohana]

Catherine tried to stop the nerves from showing and to keep the ogling to a bare minimum as Steve stood there, wet and with the sun coming up behind him like a Hawaiian tourism poster. They hadn't had any contact since their satellite phone call a year ago when she'd decided to stay in Afghanistan to help stop child trafficking along the border with Pakistan. That didn't mean she hadn't been keeping tabs on him from afar whenever he popped back up periodically in Hawaii.

He just didn't need to know about that, or the sources who were keeping her updated.

"Hey, sailor," she said softly, stepping closer.

[grenadesandohana]

Steve wiped the salt water out of his eyes with the back of his arm, trying to buy himself some time to get recalibrated. "Catherine."

[hawaii_5ohana]

"Look, I know, I should have called," Catherine said, biting her lower lip, "and...and I wanted to, I just--"

She realized she was clutching the beach towel like a security blanket and she was a grown person, a woman with skills and intelligence who would not be incredibly distracted by Steve's general everything, "--I didn't know what to say, so I just figured if I just came in person that it would just be..."

She trailed off. This had gone much more smoothly in her head.

[grenadesandohana]

Steve reached out to pull her into a hug. A damp hug.

She was one of his oldest friends, no matter how awkwardly it had ended between them, and he was very glad to see her here, in one piece, and not captured by the Taliban or any of the other groups prowling the borders in Central Asia.

He held on for a long while before pulling back to ask, "When'd you get in?"

[hawaii_5ohana]

Catherine let out a little laugh. "Um, this morning. I came here straight from the airport."

Did that sound a little needy? Shit. She pressed on. "I wasn't going to miss Kono's wedding, come on."

There. Better. As long as he didn't ask how she found out about Kono's wedding all the way in Afghanistan.

[grenadesandohana]

Steve's eyebrows furrowed for a second because it wasn't like he'd had Cath's forwarding address to give to Kono for a wedding invitation, but he decided to let it go. He threw a glance towards the house. "Listen, why don't you let me dry off, I'll throw some civvies on and take you out to breakfast."

Away from the place where Danny was probably still asleep.

"We've got a lot to catch up on."

[hatesparadise]

Too late there, they'd already gotten a work call.

"You better not still be splashing around like an ot--" Danny came up short at the sight of Catherine. "--ter. Cath."

Well, mark that on the list of things he didn't expect to see today.

[hawaii_5ohana]

Make that two of them being surprised. Cath blinked for a second before smiling. "Danny! What a nice surprise."

[grenadesandohana]

"Catherine flew in for Kono's wedding," Steve said, running the towel through his hair and wrapping it around his waist.

Wasn't that fun, Danny? So great. Zero percent awkward as hell.

[hatesparadise]

Danny shot him a look that asked if he was okay here before smiling and holding his arms out for a hug in greeting to her.

"Kono will be thrilled," he said honestly. Because how Cath had just disappeared from their lives hadn't been as much of a gut punch to the team as a whole.

[hawaii_5ohana]

Cath gave him a quick hug back, then glanced between Danny and Steve, trying to work out why Danny was at Steve's place. "Is there a work thing?" she guessed.

[hatesparadise]

"There is a work thing," Danny said. "Which this putz would know if he wasn't in the water all morning."

Instead they just called Danny because, well, they knew he'd be in the same vicinity as Steve.

[grenadesandohana]

Steve grinned at him. "It was a nice day for a swim," he countered. "What do we have?"

Would breakfast have to be postponed? Oh nooooooo.

[grenadesandohana]

Steve and Danny pulled up to a small private runway just in time to see the ME coming down the stairs from the private jet parked there.

"What've we got, Max?" he asked as he got out of the Camaro.

[hawaii_5ohana]

"Time of death was within the last 90 minutes," Max reported. "Your victim was shot point-blank in the cranium, fracturing his left parietal bone and killing him instantly. He was also still buckled into the captain's chair, which suggests he was murdered after the plane touched down."

[grenadesandohana]

"So he was the bus driver," Steve guessed just as Lou started coming towards them as fast as he'd ever see Lou move. "We need to move out of here-- everybody, we got to move back," he was yelling, herding the rest of the HPD officers towards where Steve and Danny were standing. "We got to get the hell away from this plane right now."

"Lou, what the hell's going on?" Steve asked.

[hawaii_5ohana]

"Department of Defense called," Lou replied, huffing a little as he got close. "That plane's from Minot Air Base outta North Dakota. Thirty minutes before the plane took off, there was an unmarked military convoy that was hijacked two miles away from the airport." He ran his hand over his bald head. "They stole nukes, McGarrett."

[hatesparadise]

"Nukes?" This was awful. Beyond awful even.

[grenadesandohana]

"And they're here," Steve said, closing his eyes for just a second. Fan-fucking-tastic.

"Commander!" a guy with an ominously beeping machine called out. "We're picking up levels north of 100 CPM's."

Steve pressed his lips together and nodded. "The nukes were definitely on that plane," he translated for Danny.

[hatesparadise]

"Fantastic," Danny ground out.

[grenadesandohana]

"It's only residual radiation," Steve said. "We'll be fine."

He turned his head at the sound of another car driving up on the gravel road. Chin and Kono popped out of the car.

"You're getting married on Saturday," Steve scolded, pointing at Kono. "You're on leave."

[hatesparadise]

"You don't have to be here," Danny said. And not just because of the nuclear stuff. Noo, nooo.

"I said the same thing, but she didn't listen," Chin added helpfully.

[hawaii_5ohana]

"If you guys are working, then I'm working," Kono said as Lou got off the phone again.

"They say that the attack team used two vehicles and a steel cable to literally cut the convoy in half," he relayed. "Payload of six W80 nuclear warheads, five recovered at the scene."

"Well, there's some good news," Kono said with a philosophical shrug. "Only one to worry about."

[hatesparadise]

"There's one," Danny repeated. "You really only need one."

Hence the whole fear of them.

[grenadesandohana]

"If they went to the trouble of attacking the convoy, why did they only take one?" Chin wondered.

Steve stared through the plane, mind racing. "All right, look. Whoever's behind this had to know we would track that plane back to Minot and learn about the stolen nuke. So either they don't care about getting caught or they're not planning on sticking around here very long."