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[stardrive_pilot]

The first time he came back to Earth, he'd been stunned to find it was no longer home. There's nothing quite like figuring out that the planet you'd lived on your entire life didn't feel like the place you belonged anymore to throw a guy a little off his balance. Of course, that was over a year ago, and he's as used to feeling out of place back on Earth as he ever will be.

What he's not used to is the fact that he's here and this is now and it's all actually happened. Every day, he still expects to wake up with the sound of the ocean in his ears and the spires of Atlantis sparkling in the pink-tinted light outside his window. And every day since he wound up back here, he's woken to the very mechanical and very different sounds of the SGC, his eyes fighting to adjust to the cool dark of his underground guest quarters. He misses the windows that look out over the city, the balconies, the sunlight, even the sound of the water in those silly little fountains the Ancients had all over the place.

He misses all of it, but none of it's what really matters. That's just the trappings, the superficial stuff a soldier gets used to having change around them with new postings. He's used to changing settings, used to never quite feeling like he's settled in anywhere. He's even used to leaving behind friends. Those are things he's handled before. They'll get better with time, but other things won't.

He was the military commander of the whole damn Atlantis Expedition and now, what, they're going to stick him on SG-4 like none of that ever happened? His team's split up, his command's gone, and it's awfully like all those times he's been shunted aside and made somebody else's problem because nobody wanted to deal with him. And this time, he's SG-4's problem.

Or they're his. He hasn't quite figured that out yet.

It was probably a good idea when Landry sent him packing.

Of course, it didn't feel like a good idea, felt like he was just being shoved aside like they all were from the moment they dragged those damn Ancients back to Atlantis from their stupid busted spaceship. He spent the whole damn trip simmering resentment, tapping his fingers on his knees and glaring out the window, like that could make the commercial airliner into the Daedalus and his destination into Atlantis.

He doesn't like being this far away from the SGC, even though he knows the Daedalus could lock onto his subcutaneous transmitter and beam him up and there in moments if it was needed. Could, sure. Would? That he's not so sure about.

In the end, though, he'd had no choice. Landry had insisted he take his leave somewhere that wasn't Colorado, and what the hell.

He might as well go somewhere nice, right? So he's settled on Hawaii. It's not like he has to worry about cost; a Lieutenant Colonel's pay goes a hell of a long way when you're in another galaxy.

Of course, it's not Atlantis, but it is something he's missed: the beaches in Pegasus might be pristine, but there's a buzz and atmosphere to a sweet surf spot that you just can't get when there's nobody else there. There are more people than he's used to, and it's still a little weird being surrounded by all the symbols of modern life everywhere he looks, but still, it's better than he could have thought. It brings a smile to his face for the first time in far too long to be standing on the beach, leaning on his board and looking out to sea, his things in his USAF-issue duffel bag flung on the sand at his feet.

It's been a hell of a time since he last stood here, and those are some sweet breakers waiting for him.

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[thebesteverseen]

Steve keeps his eyes open, out of the way of more forming waves, or people cutting down and riding through. Letting himself get far enough from it not to chance a collision while he's setting out the sharp throbbing pain. Or at least it's sharp and throbbing when he deigns to give it any mind. When he's not, it's more like the insistant movement of someone tapping a pencil against his rub.

Just a frictive action, like a pulse between bone and skin. He's done so much more on so very much worse.

But neither will a two-three minute break, some air, and letting his head above the water kill him.

So he stays there. Sits, floating on his board, hands resting against the broad mostly white center, squinting inward at the nod of a guy on sand. While something pricks at the back of his head. Enough that he stares a long second. It's still a pretty good distance out, so he mostly casts it aide. But not enough that he doesn't shift a glance over, following the guy's movements, as much as watching the people nearby him.

Several who succeed at the caliber, or even beyond the caliber, of work he was doing seconds ago, and yet only one or two -- no, only one really, that guy way far to right, and further out than most people were going here -- who even begins to come close to how good The Kid is. How she belongs here, talking the wind and the water, like they were always going to be part and parcel with her skin.

[stardrive_pilot]

Some time later in this trip, he'll head for Waimea and take on the big waves, because there's no rush in the water like that rush, and a rush is what he needs. His mind's still three million light years away, and he needs to escape. If he can't go back to Atlantis, at least he can carve up the waves and ride the roar of the ocean to the freedom he's lost. Just for a while.

There are plenty of people around who can't understand the need to fly, the need to surf, the need to feel the world rushing past, to see if disappear below or behind or fall behind a collapsing spray of water. It's always been what makes all his doubts and burdens vanish. Now, with a life a galaxy away that he can't reach out to and tied to the ground for who knows how long, he's going to ride those waves to his escape.

So many questions, so many things left unresolved. It's crazy to be here when there's a war to fight, a war that needs him. A place he needs to be like he's never needed to be anywhere before.

He's not sure how long he's been staring out over the ocean without seeing it, but when he catches it, he pulls a face. It's not going to do him good to dwell. Coming here was about not dwelling, and that's the attitude he takes to the water.

It's good.

It's been a long time since he had a chance to surf back in Pegasus. There's always something to do, never the time to do it in, and even those sweet breakers on the South coast of the Lantean mainland have to wait until there's a slice of time large enough for a break, and that's a rare occurrence. That beach is solitary, no sound but the waves breaking on the shore and an occasional distant animal. Here, the beach is full of laughter, children shouting, people talking, an occasional surfer shouting at someone for muscling in on a wave.

Once he's out where the waves are cresting, at last, nothing else matters. He paddles out, picks his wave, and catches it, riding the momentum as it builds, turning into and out of the tunnel it forms like he's playing hide and seek with the licking foam that whitens the water. It kicks up around him as he turns up and down the face of the wave, testing it, testing himself. He's a little rusty, in some ways, but there's no taking the beach out of him, not even after the years since he's lived somewhere he could do this regularly.

He's always gonna be a surfer, and there's always gonna be joy in it for him. No matter what.

He's grinning for the first time in too long, wind in his hair, as the wave dissolves into foam and he rides the remnant, crouching back down as the momentum dissipates.

He tosses his head, droplets flying from his hair, and his attention's caught by the same guy he'd been watching surf earlier. He can see him closer now, dark hair wet and sleeve tattoos circling his arms.

There's something about that guy. Is that what caught his eye in the first place? Is the guy reminding him of someone lost to time and distance? Is Earth so full of ghosts for him now that he's seeing the faces of people he knows everywhere?

Maybe. He's sure met a lot of guys with tall strong builds, a lot of them even with tattoos.

None of them guys he'd expect to find surfing in Hawaii, though, right?

[thebesteverseen]

He knows what it is after a few minutes. Watching the guy take to a wave like several other people who hit the shores in Hawaii. The set of his shoulders, the efficient ways of movements that never slip out of everything. That men and women keep even dozens of years after service ends. More than forty-five thousands people counted in the military bases of these small islands, it's almost easier to guess than than it is to lean toward natives.

He's younger still though. Not young, but younger. Enough the movements scream it now. Now that he knows what he's looking like. But it bullrushes into the ride then. Which reads like a book. The ocean always does. How you're doing, how well you can let go. He starts out a little rusty, edges all wrong, even though the movements are right. Which raises questions, of course. He's either new, from somewhere else. Or he doesn't get out often. Except.

The guys knows how to surf. It comes back like a skin, slowly cleaner and clearer. Like a bike you don't forget riding. Just the edges are rusty. But everything is wearing off a he watches. It's becoming more natural, rubbing off the slick of everything else coloring it. The way the ocean does. Selfish and demanding, the water and waves give you time for nothing else. Nothing more than the ride, the high, listening to how it's changing, where it's going, how its flowing. There isn't time for anything.

The wave ends the way they all do, tossing a surfer free and sucking half back into the surf, while sending smaller and smaller waves forward, on and on, to the beach. Endless movement, happening dozens of places around them, when he's still watching. Because he comes out closer, he comes out attentive. Short hair and wiry build, even solid, but closer, and it's all Steve needs.

It locks into place, even from this far out. The face settling to a hazier set of space and time, but pulling up familiar. Dark uniforms and darker deeds. Sheppard. Enough to make him wonder, how here and why now, even though he knows the twisted roads lead everywhere and anywhere, eve here. After all, he's in Hawaii and he was never going to end up coming back here except for funerals and maybe the occasional vacations, far in the future, when ran out of other places to be in port, or on mission.

But the wind and the waves, the wicked paths of time seem to have had their way again, when he's raising a hand, giving half a wave. Sort of like an attention, but nowhere near a salute. Dropping it to his curve around his mouth, when he's calling out, over the roar of crashing water, with the edge a sardonic smirk, even though it's opened his face up all amused and bright with the surprising settling into him like sun, "You should keep your day job. You fly better than you ride still."

[stardrive_pilot]

He's used to the feeling of being watched. In Pegasus, it followed him everywhere. Strangers, friends, even allies, whatever they were, he and his team were always set apart from the people on the planets they visited, and what's different draws eyes. There's something relieving about being able to just slip into the background back here on Earth, relieving and at the same time strange, because there's so much going on in the world around them that these people don't and can't know.

He's lived with that kind of secret before, but secret is just what it is, and here, he's fading into the crowd, or trying to. Trying to pretend that he still belongs in this world, with these people, that it's not still jarringly disorienting to remember that he's a galaxy away from his home of the past two and a half years.

It's strange to realize that the guy whose surfing he'd been so idly watching before is looking at him, and it sets sensitive senses on alert, the senses that are honed to alert him to danger in his surrounds, to the tell-tale whine of the Dart or the launch of a trap, the rustle that precedes an ambush.

(Sometimes, the pressure of that horrible hand feels like it's still there, on his chest, sucking away the life; keener senses, better awareness, would have prevented that horror show of nightmares becoming real.)

It's not some sort of magical sixth sense or anything; this time, it's just observation. He's looking and he's being looked at in return. As he looks at the tattoos and the strong, stern face, that face is looking back, and then there's a moment, a flash of recognition across it, and a hand, raised in recognition.

It's the voice that brings it back to him, though: low, gruff, a voice he knows from another time, another place, when he still held a precarious grip on the life he had here. The face gleams with water, moisture sparkles in his hair instead of the ubiquitous sand and dust that always seemed to cake everyone and everything back in those days, but he knows it now, remembers the dry wit, the teasing rivalry, the iron determination they'd all known. McGarrett, like a page from the book of his past come alive.

"I'm just getting started."

Defensive words, maybe, but the smile that sneaks slow and stealthy up one side of his face makes a lie of them.

He'd wondered what it would be like to see those guys again, but in all the scenarios, all the recriminations, all the swirling things he'd been told and told himself, he'd never imagined one of those SEALs recognizing him across a wave half a world away from where it all happened, let alone the smile.

It's barely even a conscious decision to take a few paddled strokes towards McGarrett.

"'Course, it's not like surfing's much of a job skill in the Air Force."

[thebesteverseen]

He can fill in the sharp, caustic smile even at this distance. History filtering into present, setting itself with his ocean, and island.

When he slides on his board, legs back and arms forward, and sets himself to swimming. Hands cutting through the water, pulling on well warm and stretched muscles from the workout he's gotten out here all morning. He does look to the sides now and then, making sure they aren't cutting in on where anyone is heading out, and keeping an eye out for those who are riding out and washing out of waves that aren't all that far off.

It's honestly, insane. The moments when that life slips into this one. It's not like the island isn't full of service members. It's as close to the middle of the ocean as you get. Necessary on so many different levels. But he doesn't expect it. Passing hundreds of thousands of them whom he doesn't, only to be rewarded with another familiar face. Even if the last set of familiar faces didn't go over so well.

Enough he knows it'll be in Danny's reaction the first time he mentions it. If he does. If there's even a reason. There might not be. But the memory does clog up his throat a little. Members of his SEAL team and the memory that everything, everything, can change for certain people given all this time. But the words, irreverent and amused do make the thoughts slip.

"They still let you get away with excuses like that, over there?" Coming as he's pushing himself back up into a seated position on his board, not too far away. And, yeah, it's been a while. A good, long while even. But he looks pretty much the same. A few more lines. But the same, too. Which drags a smile to stay, amused wide on his lips. He might blame the local and the surprise if anyone asked.

[stardrive_pilot]

That was a long time ago, back before those dark days when recriminations and reprimands, consequences and conscience had shattered his life as he knew it. There'd been so much blame to go around in those days that he's almost expecting it to darken McGarrett's smile, but it doesn't.

Not everyone blamed Sheppard for what happened, but plenty of them had, either for going against his orders at all or for not doing it soon enough. He'd been caught between his comrades on one side and his commanders on the other, and seeing one clear smile is like a lifeline thrown out to pull him through the blame he still lays on himself, sometimes.

(There's a lot more of that to go around than he'd ever thought there would be when the fallout had finished, but starting a galactic war, even by mistake, will do that to a guy.)

He'd always kind of liked McGarrett, who had a hell of a record and a hell of a reputation and was still a good guy, still kept a sense of humor and a generosity, still valued loyalty and dedication and looking after his own like just about nobody else.

Looks like Sheppard still counts.

McGarrett's paddling over towards Sheppard as Sheppard heads for him, both of them looking occasionally into the waves at the other surfers so they're not in anybody's way. McGarrett moves on the board with confidence that matches the clear surfing ability Sheppard had been admiring earlier.

"You're right," Sheppard agrees, after a moment of squinting at the SEAL with a pretense of thoughtfulness, "it could use a little work."

Of all the people to find when he came here looking to get away from the present. The face from the past is a few years older, sure, but the smile that was always kinda rare is still just the same, still lightens the stern, serious, set of McGarrett's features.

"It's been a while. Good to see you, McGarrett."