gonna_owe_me | Post 3.01 - The McGarrett Family Home

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Post 3.01 - The McGarrett Family Home

It doesn't come as any kind of surprise to her that she hasn't been able to stop thinking about Steve.

Neither does the fact that those thoughts come with a hefty side-helping of guilt. She should have known those trees were too close to the window. She should have been faster, more alert. Maybe they could have caught him, if she'd been doing the damn job Steve told her to do, if she'd done it the way he thought she could.

No surprise there: like she told him, she's not a bodyguard. She's a long way from basic, or doing anything that isn't in a gym or in front of a computer, and he doesn't blame her, but in some ways that just makes it worse.

So she puts in her request for leave right away, requests the weekend, and it's granted without too many hoops to jump through, but she's got to give up her Friday night and part of Saturday morning, which is fine, too. All she needs is to change, find a pair of shorts and a breezy, teal-colored top that hangs loose off her shoulders. Slides a pair of sandals on, brushes out her hair, washes her face, puts on a little makeup. She skips the gym, but throws running shoes, shorts, and a sports bra into the little bag she packs, along with a swimsuit, before slinging it over a shoulder and hitting the pavement.

The sun is high and hot, and she stops at a food truck, first, grabs two cardboard boxes, steaming with a scent that makes her stomach rumble and curl in on itself, before hailing a cab and sliding into the too-warm, hot polyester scented backseat, and giving the address.

It's been a while since she's been here. Cab rolling off in a faint crunch of gravel, leaving her with the tote over her arm, the food in her hand, looking up at the house with eyes squinting in the sun.

Doris left last night. Right? That gives Steve last evening, all night, and this morning to do his thing, be alone, brood if he wants to, deal with the admittedly ridiculous hand he's been given, and she'd have respected that, even if she didn't have to work, which is why she didn't call or text, just let him be, but it's daylight now, and it's gorgeous out, and there's only so much alone time Steve can really take. No matter what he might think.

Leading her up the path to the door, to knock, adjusting the slippery straps of her shirt, brushing hair out of her eyes as she waits. Rearranging her expression just like she does her makeup, or her clothes, so that when the door opens, she's got nothing there but a smile and the usual pleased light at seeing him.

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Her eyebrows climb, and she leans forward against the seat belt to grab the towel, now a little damp and wrinkled. "Oh, did you want this back?"

Bundling it up, she tosses it into his lap, lips pressed into a frown of mock concentration, before sparkling eyes turn back on him. "There you go. Now it's just borrowing."

He's leaning on the console, and she wishes she hadn't buckled herself in, considers undoing the clasp just so she can lean forward, put a hand on his face and draw him in for a kiss to keep this heat building, but they're still out in public and old habits die hard, even if there's no reason to keep personal affections behind closed doors anymore.

So her eyes slide to the steering wheel and back, instead, and she tips her head, reminding. "I would, however, like to steal a shower, so..."

He actually laughs when the towel goes flying, before it's even fully landed in his lap. Arm reaching out to grab the better part of it, when the rest still ends up there. Across his lap, smacking his stomach and loitering over the center console. "It's a start."

Cocky, and without the slightest skid backward for her matching words antics.

Balling it between his hands and tossing it over the shoulder of the driver's seat, not losing the broken wide open amusement in the slightest. Not actually caring where it lands, though he's pretty sure it'll end up somewhere on the ground behind him, piled at least partly on the open bag down there.

Before he digs the keys out of his pocket, turning the truck on, which turns the music and the low air back on. Before he's taking it more carefully out of the parking lot than he'd usually have to. Saturday's. Families. Things he was both glad of, because people were coming out to places like this, because it was an important thing to share and attempt, but that did not keep them from, also, ending up in his way.

Needing to navigate around a group od people who look like they've brought days of camp backpacks for a simple hike.

But eventually, it puts him back on the road, heading them toward the house, considering the time. That he hadn't been a few minutes ago. Showers and a phone call, and when exactly would Chin like for them stopping by. It's a call he still needs to make, and there's still that last text he never got around to sending to Danny. But mostly he just rubs the edge of his thumb on the wheel, not getting toward either.

It's a little personal triumph, making Steve laugh, creasing lines around his eyes and shining him up like she'd taken a polishing cloth to him, or clicked a sun lamp on in his face. Still damp from the run, just like she is, enough that the air blowing from the fans almost feels too cold against rapidly evaporating sweat, so she hangs her arm out the window and pretends like it's one of those solar panels, soaking up sun and energy.

Low music drifting with the wind, and she tugs the wet elastic out of her hair, shakes it out with one hand, fingers carding through strands to separate them and lift them so the breeze can work it's way under them, against the back of her neck, and dry it out. Too much hair, maybe, but it's easier to pin up this way, and fun when she gets a chance to let it down, so maybe she can deal with it for a little while longer, at least.

Her eyes slide to Steve, the thumb tapping on the wheel, eyes focused on the road ahead. "Any important calls?"

He might have said, if there were, but Steve's not exactly the type to volunteer information, just like he doesn't pry for it, either. It's why so much of seeing each other is catching up, glossing over moments that won't suffer for not being brought up and covering months in a few casual sentences.

In this case, she doubts there's anything -- bad news would have had them tearing out of this lot like hellhounds were yapping at their heels, not inspired this aloha-easy drive.

"No, nothing new," but it's a marvel he doesn't say yet.

He's nowhere near the idea of relaxing down even slightly. With Malia still in hospital and the way every thought of Doris still clobbers him from right out of the black, only narrowing under the feeling of getting slammed in the chest with a steel two-by-four every minute he watched her sleep. Nothing new. Nothing important.

No specific calls he was waiting on, because none of them needed to call or said they would. Or they would have.

"Just keeping an eye out, in case Chin needs anything," He's tossing the whole concept back and forth in his head they way he might toss a ball between his hands, if he were that kind of person. If he were focused out the windshield. Solid and serious. "Or Duke."

Who might. There was no telling. Once you basically firebombed the central hub, there was an all hands on deck feeling.

It might not be the military, but Five-0 would come help if they were called upon. Even if it was just Steve who answered that one.

"I'm sure Duke appreciates it. It's been a rough time for HPD."

And everyone else. For Chin and Malia, and Steve, too. Everyone's alive, and that's the important thing, maybe, because as long as you're alive, you can keep fighting, working, making things better, but that doesn't negate the explosion the other day, or the murder of the Police Chief, or the fact that Chin's wife is in the hospital. "No news is good news, though, huh?"

Watching Steve's new life is a little like finding her land legs again; she's not part of it, is just observing except when he calls in a favor and asks her to get involved, so she can't really say much aside from what she's noted, which is piecemeal at best.

It's fine. If Steve wants her opinion, he'll ask for it, and if all she can do is remark on what happened from an outside perspective, well, she's not here often enough to do otherwise. And really, if she had to draw lines, her priority is him, which means she pays attention to everything else, because everything else is Steve's priority. He can take care of himself, as long as he's not dead, so he doesn't exactly spare many thoughts for his own situation.

Mainly. And if there's something on his mind today, she can hardly blame him, though he seems a little easier, more relaxed now, like she feels, with the slower flood of warmth seeping through muscles and tense joints. A run does wonders, really.

He doesn't say it's been rough time for everyone. He only, barely, lets the thought eek by some far, remote, dark corner of his brain. Moonlighting for half of half a second before it's gone. Because it could always be worse. Tomorrow it could be worse. They lost one man, but his team is relatively in one piece. All of them are alive, is not all awake, or out of the red zone yet.

They lost an important man, a lot of HPD cops, and Wo Fat is at large, but none of them are beaten. They could have lost more.

"Could be worse," which he says with the curve to his mouth still there, even if his voice comes out more the kind of grim determination he couldn't shake if he tried right now. Just keep going forward. "It still beats the odds that they didn't lose anyone else in that explosion."

So many wounded, severely, but that's as much triumph as tragedy in the fact they didn't actually lose another man. That Five-0 got in and got people out fast enough before the bomb went out. It's the kind of odds Steve would mark are nearly imposible, but he's not knocking it either. He'd rather have all of them in one piece, the way the structure isn't and the building isn't, but they'll all get back to.

Duke would see to that, Steve had no doubt about that, whether he took on Fryer's job or not.

"That's for sure."

It's like Steve to say it could be worse, because she's never known him to think this is as bad as it gets.

Maybe that's what happens when a childhood tragedy winds up a springboard into a career where going to hell means things are proceeding pretty much as expected.

Newly-released hairs tugs across her face, and she pushes it back, tucking it behind her ears without minding that it just slips straight out again. It feels good to have it loose in the breeze, even if it's in the way. It's been worse, and it's not like she's in a combat zone where she needs all lines of sight clear and uninterrupted.

"So I can cross Koko Head off the list. Maybe I will spend some time checking the island out. There's got to be a first time for everything, right?"

Her smile across the cab at him is amused, bright. "Any other favorites I should know about? Maybe I can wheedle invites to those, too."

She gets a glance, off from the road, when her words are nothing but agreeing at the first. There nothing but smoothness there, and for a moment it wrinkles. Like he might have expected something else. Except not from her. She'd get it, and did, the same way everyone else who wore the uniform did. Even if he saw it more an extreme and long term way than most people seemed to take it.

Nothing but smooth agreement, tugged up into teasing and pushing for more opinions and invitations. Smile bright and clear on her face, where the warm glow from the run hasn't faded entirely yet. Her hair being tugged this way and that by the wind coming in from her window.

Beautiful and just a little wild, ready to meet any challenge after some water and few minutes to catch her breath.

"You could give Nuuanu Pali a chance," Steve said, choosing off the top of his head. Reckless and amusing. "So, long as you don't fall off the cliff."

Her smile tugs a little further on one corner than the other. "I think I can manage."

To tell the truth, she wouldn't mind another visit out, another path to run, another test of balance and control. Chasing Steve up and down the mountain, that reckless run to the parking lot, the speed and bounce and arbitrary glee in running like a kid, all abandon and stretching out her stride to its furthest. A coltish gallop along with gravity.

But more than that, she's looking forward to getting back, to stripping out of sweaty shorts and sports bra, ditching her running shoes and socks (thinking fondly of bare feet on the grass of Steve's backyard, the slope down to the sandy beach). Looking forward to a shower, looking forward to the look in his eyes when she wraps her arms around his neck and lets him spill her onto the couch or carry her upstairs like she's barely anything. Her pulse is up and it can only add to the ease of the day, prove a good distraction and a good time, something familiar to lose themselves both in.

That, and he's awfully cute after a run, even all sweaty and dusty, with that little-boy smile and the way it makes him shine.

"Maybe tomorrow," Steve shot back, eyebrows raising and falling. "I don't have anything on it yet."

He could do the drive today, and keep pushing himself. He wouldn't mind, probably would love it, honestly. But she'd already stipulated a shower, and he'd already been clear about needing to get out to the hospital today. The latter of which crossed out the hours available to get out and back and hike up to the windy cliffs. Fun, but not enough to let down his people. Nothing ever was. Chin might not be expecting him, but that didn't matter.

The man could probably use a meal and a shower himself, and if Steve was lucky, he'd convince him to take even thirty.

Which he'd complain about, but he wasn't going to stand for anything less than that. Some space, some breathing, someone to stand by on stand by in case anything happened in each of those seconds that would matter to Chin, in case he needed to be called. It was important. It was how the team was a family, and they looked out for each other.

Today was no different. What happened this week didn't change it. Which was important point to make, too.

The drive curved back through the highway, heading them closer and closer to where they started.

"Sounds like fun. I like this whole being able to stretch my legs on land part of being on land."

And this part, too, where they swing back through the highway, sliding through traffic, big blue truck eating up the miles between the mountain and the beach house. The air smells like flowers and jungle plants and salt and steaming hot blacktop and metal, the sky has that burnished brassiness of a day that's too hot for it's own good, and it'll be good to get inside, out of the sun. She's no wilting flower, but even she prefers to avoid sunburn when she can.

Steve's challenge doesn't go unmet, though, and she lifts her own eyebrows back at him, daring, resting her elbow on the window and propping index, middle finger, and thumb against her cheek and jaw.

"Maybe I'll just steal you for the weekend, if you don't have to go in. Aside from the hospital, of course."

She'd like that. It's what they do; take a few days here and there, live out of time and away from missions for a few hours or a night. Nothing she'd want for too long -- they both get antsy when they're too inactive -- but it's sure as hell a great break.

Edited 2013-02-02 00:34 (UTC)

That's good, right? That she does still like it. It's definitely something.

Something attached to a line of thought he isn't following down yet. In a few minutes, or a few hours. When he has to.

Especially because she's raising her delicate eyebrows right back, and staking her claim on the time. With obvious proviso's, that makes him nod. Because it's, really, not actually impossible. He'd consider it good time on shitty events in any other space and time. He really would have. She'd have been a saving grace.

"Aside from those two--" Duke, and Malia. "--it's probably set to be quiet. Chin's going to be at Malia's side. Kono's already back to being po'okela--" there's a wave of a hand, lifting from the wheel, with something like begrudged pride for this, even when he knows she won't know the word, or that he shifts his voice, making sure the inflection is always correct in the pronunciation. "-- in the water, showing them who's boss."

And, yeah. Because no list is complete without. "And Danny's got Grace this weekend, at some aquarium. First time he's seen her since Rachel delivered him with a custody modification. In the middle of the week, and all of that."

The world falling down around HPD and Five-0's ears, and Rachel just had scarily good timing, even she hadn't meant to match up at the same time as every one of Delano and Wo Fat's moves.

She makes a face at him for using Hawaiian, but the gist is coming across loud and clear: Kono's on the water, Chin's in the hospital. The team is scattered this weekend, and maybe that's no bad thing, especially when he goes on to tell her the last piece of news. Less tragic than the others, maybe, but it's another blow, and she's starting to wonder if maybe everyone in Five-0 is ever going to be able to to so much as walk around a corner without being suspicious of it again.

That gets her eyebrows arching again, in a totally different way, surprise and concern, if the latter just slightly vague. She doesn't know Danny that well, but she's heard about his daughter, remembers something about an ex-wife, and it doesn't matter how little she knows the man, that has to hit hard, this week of all weeks. Or ever. "Wow. She really has spectactularly bad timing."

It seems like nobody on Steve's team escaped unscathed this week, even if not everyone was attacked, or had a previously-thought-to-be-dead relative turn up, and her mouth thins, sympathetic. "I'm sure he and his daughter are hoping for a quiet weekend, too."

"Yeah, probably." It's not careful, or near it. His mouth is closer to a pressing line, watching out the window.

It takes him a long second, trying to pull too many lines. Grace and Danny, Rachel and Stan. Vegas, and just how far away that is. How much sometime in his chest is already tightening again. About his lungs like it might smother them. How that doesn't even change his thoughts about Grace. About the whole hypocritical situation, he's least suited to be impartial to.

There are so many reasons he's not impartial right now. At least three, to five, different people's lives worth of reasons he's the last person who should be asked for an opinion on the whole situation, and at least one solid reason he'll probably be the person who hears the most about it. When, or if, Danny has to let it out. When, and if, Danny will have to be off the clock for court.

When, and if, Danny has to turn in his letter of resignation. Just like Lori. Gone somewhere too far, like Lori and Jenna.

"There's no telling if Grace knows yet, but Rachel's vying for full custody to move her to Vegas, where Stan's new job contract is. Which Danny decided to contest," The last of which is complicated. Thick, almost stacked with too many thoughts that muddle and blur the emotions that might want to come out in it.

"Vegas?"

That hardly seems like a great place to raise a kid, but what does she know? The possibility of moving is hardly a specter to her, especially these days, when being on the move, having no real set address, is the norm.

Still. She's not sure Steve or Danny would appreciate that Vegas isn't too far, as the globe goes. She's been on the other side often enough to have a skewed idea of distance, but then, she's not exactly a poster family girl, has no roots and doesn't really mind being far away for months at a time. "That's pretty rough."

And maybe not just on Danny. This is not a weekend Steve needs to be thinking about fractured families, or parents being taken away or left behind. And this is making him tense up. Throws a shadow across his face, and under the tone of his voice. "How's it look?"

Custody arrangements, what little she knows about them, seem to be pretty nasty things, and they've got to be worse when moving is involved.

"It hasn't started--" Is clear enough really, when it only was delivered and contested three-four days ago. When those whole three days have been filled with the worst of the worst being thrown at Five-0, HPD, Hawala and Hawaii than they've seen put together all at once before.

Steve's never been through one of these, but he knows enough to know waffling and kindness won't help Danny. He can't tell his face is getting more focused on some point between the couple on the bike weaves in between him and a small red hatchback. Because there are worse problems than losing a war.

Like heading into one both unprepared to fight and unwilling to consider the option of it.

"But he doesn't want to drag Rachel through the mud, which is not a problem her lawyers have ever had."

Nor has Rachel ever had the problem of calling on them, and sending Danny over the hill, about losing in more of his time with her. Because the money is there, and the fear of the danger of his job getting in the way, before. When the problem of Danny being too good, into the marrow of his bones, not willing to shut it off and tunnel focus and do whatever it takes to win Grace, might be just as bad for him.

It's starting to work on him; there's a spot ahead in the middle distance somewhere that he's focusing on, and he's driving with a little more deliberation, and she gets it. This loyalty Steve's got for the people on his team, his people, who he'd go to bat for again and again, whenever's necessary, whatever's needed. And Five-0, the people on it, they're hand-picked. Tighter than tight. Backing each other up on everything, aside from being there at the other door at work.

And Danny's Steve's partner. The first one picked up for Five-0, and the fact that it was more than half by accident doesn't make a difference. The two of them bicker and argue like an old married couple, but Danny's always got Steve in his sights and Steve's always got Danny in his, and half the time at that fundraiser it looked like whatever words they were using to prod at each other weren't even the ones that were the real conversation.

It made her laugh, at the time. It was good to see Steve like that, if faintly surprising.

So the idea of anyone going after Danny, even an ex-wife, is bound to hit hard, to rub the wrong way against that loyalty and the thick streak of determination that turns the impossible into 'probable, if you know what you're doing.'

Steve's team got thrown to the sharks this week, didn't it.

"Then I'm sure he's grateful to have her this weekend. Maybe it'll be a push in the right direction."

Or maybe not. She doesn't know, but she knows Steve would be miserable if some outside force he couldn't attack managed to take one of his people away. No criminal to hunt down, no revenge to exact or mission to rescue -- courts are insidious and tough to work around.

It really is a mess, everywhere, here.

"If there is one." It shoves out of his mouth with more force than necessary, like the crack of a gun, even low. Like his body is begrudging letting it out of his mouth. Because he is loyal, and he never wants Danny to lose, and not, especially to lose Grace, because he never will. But he'd lose everything else, he walks around saying vehemently that he hates.

Because the last time he tried to have an honest opinion, to warn Danny about what this was doing he was yelled at. And the yelling, sure, he doesn't give a damn. Danny yells about everything. It's his default setting. But that didn't make it any less true. This situation had several doors on each end and none of the outcomes were stellar. Either way someone lost, with and without counting that every single way Grace lost.

Which would kill Danny, even more than the rest of the situation was already hanging him out to dry. Even angry, even with that stupid ring tone striking its beats for a second in his blood and his bones, remembering it, he knew. Danny would even hate himself for taking Grace from Rachel. Because Danny was that good, and he might talk a big game, but he'd hate hurting Rachel, or Grace.

Maybe even more than he hated that this was being done to him already. That anyone dared take his daughter from him, again.

It was a situation with absolutely no end game that won out for everyone. It was like watching the cars in front of you, aimed for each other and a terrible crash, with the feeling like you were powerless to get in the middle of it and make it stop before that moment happened.

There's not a lot she can say to that. It sure doesn't sound like there's a good way out of this mess, but people move on all the time, and she didn't think Danny seemed like he liked Hawaii all that much, anyway. "I guess Vegas could always use good cops."

It's a clumsy sort of attempt at finding a silver lining, because it's true and she's sure he'd do fine there, with Five-0 behind him and his daughter there, but she's not exactly looking forward to Steve losing his partner to something as arbitrary as the family court system.

And Steve is down about it. There's no mistaking that; it punches out of him like he'd rather be taking it out on a heavy bag, just like the news about Chin and his wife and cousin, added to the confusion of Doris, and she feels a little lost, unsure how to help, aside from sympathizing. "But like you said, it only just got started. Maybe it'll work out."

And maybe it won't, but the words are a gentle reminder that there's no use worrying about something that hasn't happened yet, when it's not Steve's problem to worry about. Not that Steve would ever see it that way, and she loves that about him, but it's worrying, too. He'd take a bullet for any of these people, but he can't help Malia in the hospital and he can't fix Danny's custody problems any more than he can go back in time and convince his mother to stay, or to stop lying.

It's how he is, how he'll always be, and she can't wish he'd be otherwise, but she can at least try to be someone outside it all, on the other side of his life, not mixed up in it and with her only bias working in his favor.

Those first few words sear like a bullet. Or maybe bullets. Even if knows rationally, it's not far off of what he said to Danny. There are worse places than Vegas, to raise a kid. It's not stellar, but it wasn't other countries. Or war zones. Or places where children were never safe. But tilted this way, he hates the thought, even when it's not wrong either. Because no matter where Danny ended up, he'd be stellar.

The same cop he'd been before Grace was born, and through the whole time he'd known Steve. Plucked out of anything but anonymity, which is what happens when you box yourself off from everyone in the Force and the island by hating them, and slammed into Steve's way by the sheer, stupid, luck of the draw with who got the McGarrett case and who didn't. That Steve had liked his background.

Liked his choice of living in that squalid little all-window place he first found him, if it was for his kid. Before he even knew a good eighty percent of who Danny was and what he did was for Grace. He'd still be that guy, amazing father and the best cop that Steven had personally ever known, during all the time, not just the best of times. He'd still be that guy, if he wasn't with Five-0.

Or Steve.

It shouldn't feel like Five-0, too, might be dissolving in his hands, a handful of beach sand grabbed up in a fist, falling through his fingers, with no way to keep it all together, all in one piece. Unbroken, and untainted, and untampered with and uninjured. There was nothing about this job, being called in for the worst of the worst, ending up on those people's radars, that could make it that way.

Steve couldn't break it away, tossing it into driving but not a response. The draining feelings, that he was right, that she was right, that everything that happened this week was still his responsibility to have been there, and stopped, at least even caught onto before it had all come spinning down around their heads. Before the shock of his life, had wiped that nearly off the map, even.

Except he can't. All he can do is push the truck a little harder and watch the short distance to home evaporate before him.

Edited 2013-02-03 02:23 (UTC)

Steve doesn't reply, and she's sort of exhausted her limited trove of appropriately sympathetic responses, so she doesn't add anything, either, just watches the road unroll in front of and around them, bleeding into a familiar neighborhood, with plants and a street and houses she knows.

She hopes Danny doesn't have to go, but her hope really has no place here, when she's so disengaged from Five-0 as anything other than updates from Steve and one evening of black tie formal wear that gave her a skewed mental image of what they all look like on a daily basis. Trying to reconcile Kono, in her slinky silver gown and elegant hair, with the reckless, near-fanatical surfer, the next best hand-to-hand combatant in Five-0 after Steve. Or Danny and Chin, with their suits.

She barely knows them, which makes it hard to have an opinion that isn't entirely informed by the effects their lives have on Steve's, and easy to have one that boils down to not wanting to see Steve run on the edge of the rails, left without a team, or with one falling apart. He'd keep them together by sheer willpower if he could, she's sure.

And if anyone could, it's Steve.

But there's not much else to say that hasn't been said, so she lets it lie, watches as the house comes into view, the driveway that will crunch under the tired, before glancing over at him. "Seems like a weekend off will be good for everybody. Even though I know you're allergic to free time."

It matters more than it should; or is that as much as it should, given? People come and go, orders come and go, even the people in SEAL teams come and go. He's seen more people than he could even count come and go, between boats, assignments, missions, and teams. More than he could count, though he could probably still name three-fourths of them if he sat down and thought about it hard enough.

He never viewed them as exchangeable, but he never viewed them as something he needed to keep at the end either. Rather the same as how he viewed all the places he'd been or the apartments he'd kept, none of it mattered, even if it could be detailed out like facts. And this. Danny. Which brings him right back to that, as the truck is crunching up gravel and he's looking at that house, heavy and impending still.

With too many memories of people who don't exist. Officially. That he'll never forget are alive. Shouting it, loudly.

When he's still stuck back at that first thought. It matters more than it should; or is that as much as it should. Now.

Which is only shaken from his head, by Cath trying to drag out hopeful words. He almost feels bad, for a wash there, that she's someone thrown her lot in with him today. When he can't be the best of company. Not with all of this, everywhere. If the house looks pristine, and the car does, and he isn't bandaged up, it doesn't change the everything, everywhere, tripping up his feet every five or ten minutes, is a mess.

The last words, can't a snort that's more a breath out his nose, when he's tossing her a look and pushing his door open, getting out. "Didn't I just give you, like-" There's a wave of hand, fingers together, hand slicing the air once as he looked upward, like he has to consider, think about it at all. Which would help if he weren't dragging out a half rusted edge toward a smirk. Trying for her sake. "-two? hours of it? Are you going to tell me that wasn't enough?"

It doesn't quite fit as easily across his face as Steve might like it to look, but she lets it slide, because dragging all of this stuff up from the depths is about as far from her intentions today as possible. She's here to try and lighten his mood, which is why she tips her head thoughtfully to the side, eyes tracking like she's following a thought process, before shaking her head, firm and knowing.

"Nope. I'm going to have to barter for more."

Arch and winsome, falling into step back towards the house. Steve's not the only one with a forceful will, here, and she'll cheer him up if it takes her all day.

Which it won't. Even now, Steve seems better than when she first arrived, even if it's just physical, the result of exertion and adrenaline and endorphins, biology that can't be denied, even if it can be somewhat ignored. Steve will keep circling back to it all, tripping over it with every other thought, if he's not distracted, and that's no way to spend a free weekend.

Even if it's raw and rubbing, all those thoughts, and the front of the house getting closer and closer, he's still glad she's actually there. Pushing and prodding, about as involved as she isn't at all. Caring enough to ask, but not enough to give any of the situations twenty questions. So he doesn't have to bang around in his head, with the lights off, over all these sudden stairs and pitfalls.

"It might be a steep price," Steve shot back, without much thought to it. He was lucky that she was. There. That she didn't mind at all getting out of the way, or falling in line with his other plans, that are so much more like work than they are like anything near leave-vacation this time.

He walks up stairs he walked up all his life -- except it wasn't all his life, because of -- and unlocks the door, only marginally give half a glance at the unused security system. That really should be used more. It's the whole reasons it's actually there. But, then, the house stood here for over thirty years before it had a system, too.

Tries a little not to pay attention to how much it would be so much easier to get into a physical altercation. How like running, he could throw his all into it, and he might be able to forget. To feel like he was doing something more useful that turning over ghosts. Delano dead in the morgue. Doris, gone, somewhere not far enough away she stopped being real. Wo Fat, and three bullets at his feet, but not his head.

There's always some variation on this. Like flirtation, if they didn't both know where it was going to go already. Easy banter that sounds and feels the same after all these years, no matter how different the words might be. Who might give in first. Who's going to take the first, familiar step.

If it even is a first step, now, or if it's just a continuation, something that they both know and expect and might not be the best part of being together, but is absolutely right up there. "Isn't it always?"

Teasing, because he's the one who owes her, because his tally is yards long and hers, if not squeaky clean, can't even be a fraction of it. If either of them is paying anything, it ought to be him, but her mind's not on that, not now, when the door's opening and they're headed into the cool open living room, door still closing behind her by the time she's stepped smoothly up close, arms reaching to circle his neck like they have a thousand times before. Smile all promises and warmth, when she's looking up into his eyes and lifting up onto her toes. "But you know..." Considering. As if it might be a brand-new idea. Something unexpected, instead of the next known and familiar step. "I think I've got just the thing to offer."

Spoken a breath closer, eyes dropping to his mouth before her hand slides into his hair, fingers gentle and comfortable, and she reaches up. Smells sweat, salt, the sunshine on his skin, feeling the old familiar ripples, the echos of the butterflies she used to get, when this was new, when he was unreachable but still let her reach for him, when she went to sleep dreaming about those blue eyes and the boyish smile that appeared all too rarely.

Her own tugging her lips into a curve, the fingers threading in his hair, curving around the back of his head to pull him down for a kiss.

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