Fic: Rolling Down to Old Maui
Title: Rolling Down to Old Maui
Characters: Steve
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Hawaii 5-0 does not belong to me, and no infringement is intended.
Summary: Steve thinks about home on his way back from an assignment. This story was originally posted to the Hawaii 5-0 Flash Fiction community.
Steve leaned back in his seat and let a song flow through his mind. He didn't know where he first heard the music; it wasn't a style he usually preferred. The longing for his beloved islands had made the song stick with him though, and the melody ran through his head whenever he'd been away too long. As the plane lifted off, finally taking him home, he relaxed and thought about the familiar words.
Rolling down to Old Maui, me boys
Rolling down to Old Maui
We're homeward bound from the Arctic ground
Rolling down to Old Maui.
This time, he really was heading home from the "Arctic ground." He'd been recalled to active duty as part of a team tracking a plot against the Alaskan oil pipeline. The terrorists had decided that attacking in the dead of winter would be best because they thought that the chances of anyone finding out about their plan, tracking them down, and being able to stop them were ridiculously low. They had been right. What they hadn't counted on was Alaska itself fighting them. The terrorists had lost half their crew to the weather and wildlife even before Steve's team got to them. The SEALs had only lost one man, but Steve still thought that was one too many.
Six hellish months have passed away
On the cold Kamchatka Sea,
But now we're bound from the Arctic ground
Rolling down to Old Maui.
It had been six weeks, not the six months of the song. Six weeks of ice and snow and darkness. Six weeks where they always seemed to be one step behind the people they were hunting and one step closer to disaster. Steve and the other SEALs had been trained and equipped for the climate. They had all done other cold-weather ops; that was part of why Steve was called in for this one. None of those jobs had been as long or as badly plagued with problems though, and the whole team was suffering from hypothermia and at least mild frostbite by the time they completed their mission. Even after several days of debriefing in nicely heated offices, Steve still felt chilled. He couldn't wait to get home and lie in the sun until his bones were warm again.
How soft the breeze through the island trees,
Now the ice is far astern.
Them native maids, them tropical glades
Is a-waiting our return.
Even now their big brown eyes look out
Hoping some fine day to see
Our baggy sails runnin' 'fore the gales
Rolling down to old Maui.
Even more than the sun and physical warmth, though, Steve was eager to get home to his ohana. He hadn't realized how much he had come to rely on them until he spent this time with a different team. The SEALs on this mission were all excellent -- well-trained and in top form. They worked well together, but they all knew that they would go their separate ways after the job was done. Some of them had been friendly, but there was always an underlying coolness. They kept their distance, not getting too familiar with one another. Steve missed the warmth of 5-0, the closeness that came from eating and drinking and playing together, in addition to working together. He knew that Chin, Danny, and Kono were waiting, not just for their team leader, but for a friend as close as family.
Steve needed the caring and comfort they all gave each other. He needed to know that someone had his back against sorrow and stress and second guesses, just as they did against bullets and knives and physical attacks. He needed the warmth of home again.
A brief history and the full lyrics of the song "Rolling Down to Old Maui" are on Wikipedia.
The broad concept for this story has been nibbling at me for a while -- I thought that the longing for home in general, and the Hawaiian islands in particular, would resonate with Steve, who spent so much of his adult life away -- but it wouldn't come together until I saw the flash-fiction challenge. Many thanks to the mods for giving me the push I needed to get this done!
Characters: Steve
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Hawaii 5-0 does not belong to me, and no infringement is intended.
Summary: Steve thinks about home on his way back from an assignment. This story was originally posted to the Hawaii 5-0 Flash Fiction community.
Steve leaned back in his seat and let a song flow through his mind. He didn't know where he first heard the music; it wasn't a style he usually preferred. The longing for his beloved islands had made the song stick with him though, and the melody ran through his head whenever he'd been away too long. As the plane lifted off, finally taking him home, he relaxed and thought about the familiar words.
Rolling down to Old Maui, me boys
Rolling down to Old Maui
We're homeward bound from the Arctic ground
Rolling down to Old Maui.
This time, he really was heading home from the "Arctic ground." He'd been recalled to active duty as part of a team tracking a plot against the Alaskan oil pipeline. The terrorists had decided that attacking in the dead of winter would be best because they thought that the chances of anyone finding out about their plan, tracking them down, and being able to stop them were ridiculously low. They had been right. What they hadn't counted on was Alaska itself fighting them. The terrorists had lost half their crew to the weather and wildlife even before Steve's team got to them. The SEALs had only lost one man, but Steve still thought that was one too many.
Six hellish months have passed away
On the cold Kamchatka Sea,
But now we're bound from the Arctic ground
Rolling down to Old Maui.
It had been six weeks, not the six months of the song. Six weeks of ice and snow and darkness. Six weeks where they always seemed to be one step behind the people they were hunting and one step closer to disaster. Steve and the other SEALs had been trained and equipped for the climate. They had all done other cold-weather ops; that was part of why Steve was called in for this one. None of those jobs had been as long or as badly plagued with problems though, and the whole team was suffering from hypothermia and at least mild frostbite by the time they completed their mission. Even after several days of debriefing in nicely heated offices, Steve still felt chilled. He couldn't wait to get home and lie in the sun until his bones were warm again.
How soft the breeze through the island trees,
Now the ice is far astern.
Them native maids, them tropical glades
Is a-waiting our return.
Even now their big brown eyes look out
Hoping some fine day to see
Our baggy sails runnin' 'fore the gales
Rolling down to old Maui.
Even more than the sun and physical warmth, though, Steve was eager to get home to his ohana. He hadn't realized how much he had come to rely on them until he spent this time with a different team. The SEALs on this mission were all excellent -- well-trained and in top form. They worked well together, but they all knew that they would go their separate ways after the job was done. Some of them had been friendly, but there was always an underlying coolness. They kept their distance, not getting too familiar with one another. Steve missed the warmth of 5-0, the closeness that came from eating and drinking and playing together, in addition to working together. He knew that Chin, Danny, and Kono were waiting, not just for their team leader, but for a friend as close as family.
Steve needed the caring and comfort they all gave each other. He needed to know that someone had his back against sorrow and stress and second guesses, just as they did against bullets and knives and physical attacks. He needed the warmth of home again.
A brief history and the full lyrics of the song "Rolling Down to Old Maui" are on Wikipedia.
The broad concept for this story has been nibbling at me for a while -- I thought that the longing for home in general, and the Hawaiian islands in particular, would resonate with Steve, who spent so much of his adult life away -- but it wouldn't come together until I saw the flash-fiction challenge. Many thanks to the mods for giving me the push I needed to get this done!