Post 3.01 - The McGarrett Family Home

[gonna_owe_me]

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.

Comments

[thebesteverseen]

She's still all but gaping at him, struggling to put words even together into sentences. Struggling to put them, and her face, and her reaction into any specific box. Making the muscles in his shoulders, between his shoulder blades and down his back, stay at fiercely tensed. Making it too easy, and too pointless. Dropping his keys not far from the door, and looking at the house.

The house that he'd almost let himself forget for a second there, and what did that say about him? What did any of it?

When Cath is tripping on words, like good, and he's not even sure she'd keep that word if she knew it was Danny. Rules are rules. Even if the concept of turning back now, even if it would easier to run through a burning building while it was falling. Rules are still rules. He's pretty sure that glaring confusion would spike rather suddenly sharp if that came up. When? If?

He walked further into the room, raising a hand and rubbing his mouther, before it slid back across his jaw, wrapped at his neck, hard, holding for a second, fingers curled over locked muscles. "It wasn't, exactly, planned."

Danny. Nothing about Danny from twisting the man's arm behind his back, to these feelings, to the things he'd done because of it that he was never going to admit to anyone, to doing everything anything for him if it was needed even if the rest was never seen, to Danny suddenly saying all those things.

Right here. In this room. And everything that exploded in a chain of reactions from there. One that kept going.

It wasn't like he knew this would happen either. This morning. Cath being here, and everything feeling....normal. Normal for a few minutes, even when bricks of thought tripped up his feet every few minutes. Normal in the way he wanted to push everything out and get lost in. Just for an hour or five or a day and half. Before there had to be hospitals, and back to Headquarters.

But even that is slipping away, second by second, heart beat by heart beat, when he's looking back toward her, because if anything he doesn't know how to avoid the glaring crashes coming right for his life. Doesn't know how not to keep adding each new one to his hands, like they aren't already full and overflowing. Like this subject, this situation with Danny, wasn't headed for three or four hard collisions with reality.

Anymore than the whole world focusing on Danny, again, makes Steve feel like something else is missing from here. Him.

[gonna_owe_me]

"I bet."

It's making her dizzy. The echo of Steve's mother's question in her ears -- do you love my son? -- and the obvious answer that probably would never have been the one Doris expected, wanted. Not when she'd been nudging at both of them, sly and with more glee than Cath had found exactly appropriate, given the situation. All the way back to Kono and Lori asking about Valentine's Day plans last year.

But this is so new, and so unexpected. She hasn't even heard him talking about anyone other than his team. Where did they meet? When? How long has it been going on?

Answers she could get from Steve, once wrapping her tongue around the words, but there are so many questions that she's stymied by the number, silent under all her curiosity until she can prioritize them. Most important, to idle curiosity that would be idle for anyone other than the person in front of her, gripping the back of his neck like something awful is happening, the way he does when things go wrong and people start dying.

But nobody's dying here. He's -- seeing someone. Someone else. There is someone so important in Steve's life that he can, won't, slide back into the easy familiarity of sleeping with her.

Maybe it shouldn't be as baffling as it is, but, well, really. Would anyone who knows Steve not be surprised?

She gathers herself, takes a breath, sorts out the first, most important piece of information, and it's obvious, this question, because she genuinely has no idea. Who does he even know, aside from his team? And it's not -- her stomach clenches, uncomfortable. It could be. Kono. Like him in so many ways, native Hawaiian, forever connected to the land and water he loves so much. Always up for a challenge.

So there's a faint thread of trepidation when she asks, even as she's trying to make it as casual as it would be, over a beer, with any of the guys or girls she might normally shoot the breeze with.

"So who is this mystery person?"

[thebesteverseen]

Danny. Danny. Danny. Danny. Danny. Danny. Danny. Danny. Danny. Danny. Danny. Danny. Danny. Danny. Danny.

There's a fierce repetition of his name taking up residence pounding the edges of Steve's head, and the rush of his blood. When he isn't breathing hard, but it feels like his pulse is running away with itself on that question alone. Because it's every answer in his mouth, under his tongue, on his lips, clogging up his throat.

He feels like it should be stitched on his skin, as obvious as ever line of a tattoo. Still fading bruises, and that cracked rib.

But they didn't tell the other two, or if there was something to. Steve's pretty sure Grace won't be told. Still has to be told about Gabby.

He doesn't even know if Danny wants anyone aware of it, swagger and bruise on his collarbone last weekend not withstanding. It's one thing to be shameless about having a mark, from someone no one knows, making it like this great, endless secret you have. It'd be another to realize it's from the guy are the other end, the person ninety-percent of them look up to as their boss.

The guy who gives the orders. The person who sign off on their decisions, their files, their court date testimonies, their pay checks, everything. His partner for over two years, fond of bending the rules and seeing them more as equal, equal footing, this match between The Navy, The Police, and the Government of Hawaii. But that's not how it would look on paper. Not to anyone else.

A litany of reasons he knows.That are stamped on his head, but can't wash Danny out of his skin. Can't even touch that last firm kiss before he vanished. Like he was placing a mark on Steve, that Steve couldn't brush away or wash off, no matter the number of times he considered rubbing his mouth with the side of his hand.

Like chasing a phantom that wasn't actually solidly there, but never left.

When his hand stays where it is, and he wonders how he and the room both aren't screaming the same answer. The one that isn't the too unhelpful words that come, slow and specifically chosen, and not a lie, but not any help to her question, "A friend."

[gonna_owe_me]

A friend?

Like a friend, friend? The kind his sister said he didn't seem to have? The kind she's never known him to have? An outside of work, entirely new person, friend?

"Obviously they're more than that."

Not to be vain, but she doesn't think he'd throw her over for a new friend, even one he's hooking up with. They've had each other for years, her and Steve, and she follows his eyes as they glance around the room, wondering why he looks half guilty and half wretched and not at all like someone who has somebody special in their life. Which is maybe -- well, she just isn't sure she can picture Steve, newly in, whatever this is, like or lust or infatuation or. It can't be love. Right? She would have known about it. Wouldn't he have said something? Wouldn't it have come up beforehand, when she was asking about the news from the island? Isn't this person, whoever it is, someone who deserves to at least be noted, along with his team-members?

She folds her arms, more over her stomach than over her chest, not to be defensive, just because she literally has no idea what to do with her hands right now, and softens her tone, her eyes, the edges of her mouth, as much as she can, because this is not an interrogation, Steve is her friend, and he clearly has something going on that's going to be difficult to work through.

Why not give her a name? Why not offer any details? What's holding him back and making him look so reluctant? It's not like she hasn't done the same thing to him, now and again, and he'd always respected it, backed off to just friends and ignored the benefits until whatever it was fell through. One hand lifts, off her elbow.

"Well, do I know them?"

[thebesteverseen]

The look that question gets is more exasperated tension going the wrong way, veering way from any sort of softness and very heavily almost toward a seriousness that vying toward a blankness. Less than welcome, the questions, these things bouncing hard and sharp inside his head, and overly ready to defend it. With absolutely no idea what to say. Because she does.

She's met Danny, along with every other Five-0 member. If he says no, it's a lie. If he says yes, it's a dangerously small pool.

He doesn't lie. He might hedge. He might deflect. He's incredibly good at telling Danny, and Kono, the only line he can about files and missions and facts from his past. He's good at can neither confirm or deny, or smirking, lopsided, and telling them if he said anything he'd have to kill them. But he doesn't lie.

Honesty. Integrity. Loyalty. Service. They mean something to him. In every single part of his life, of who he's sworn to be.

It says too much the he just presses his mouth, and goes with, "Cath." Lets a breath leave his nose on the second passing the last syllables. It's not apology or a request or a warning, he knows her too well for those, and maybe it's still is, all of them, because they know each other so well.

"You should get your shower. I'll get mine after." It can wait. He's pretty sure he just signed up for a hell of a lot more of this.

But what else was he supposed to do. He's pretty sure if he hadn't stopped it, he'd feel as sharp and sour-sick as he does now, too.

[gonna_owe_me]

"What?"

In reply to her name, the breath out, the resignation, like he doesn't want to talk about it, and he doesn't answer her question. All of which do nothing but flip a blinking warning light on in her head, because there isn't any reason he wouldn't tell her, is there? No reason at all. If this person is a good thing. If there were nothing to question about whatever this liaison is.

But he's not saying anything, and, worse, he's changing the subject entirely, switching gears with the grace of a derailing train, and that makes her suspicions worse.

There must be something wrong. Maybe she's married. Maybe she's someone he works with, in the court system or HPD. Maybe she...he? is in trouble somehow.

Her one word question still just quizzical, rather than barked. "You can't be surprised if I'm curious, Steve. I would sort of have hoped you might have mentioned that earlier. No offense, but it's never come up before."

Steve's always been...Steve. Autonomous. Never staying in one place for too long. Prone to flings, once in a while, maybe, but mainly seemingly content with being by himself, or with comrades in arms.

This is totally new, and she's going to need a second to readjust her thinking, so the shower can just go ahead and wait.

[thebesteverseen]

Hoped he would have mentioned it earlier, when? In with every other thing he said in the kitchen? Like somehow he could have just slipped that in between the updates of the last week to two months, and a bite of food?

Hey, he and Danny fell into bed together, after this encounter in a diner with another woman and well-accosted coffee cup, and all the lines that made sense, before he left, before those voicemails and Wo Fat and Doris, seem less like lines and more like faded smudged he either can't, or doesn't want, make out in the pitch dark anymore?

That the only defense he has is that Danny is the best cop, father, person he's ever known and he's known a lot of people. Hundreds of the best of the best out there. That sometimes it feels like Danny, there somewhere within twenty feet of him, is the only reason he still remembers to do more than keep breathing and walking in a straight line, doing his job. Reminds him there's more to a day than that.

"I know." Is frustrated, pinpointed by the transparency of it. Of the fact Danny can allude to not knowing, but Cath does.

And. He does. He knows that he should have told her earlier, somewhere, somehow, maybe when he'd been thinking about it on the drive, it like he knows each of the three things he never got around to telling her. All three of those, walking into and out of each other, for vastly different reasons. Kept, and silent both. All. In case. He's always been the best lock box. There's so much in here no one's here or heard of.

"But I can't--" His hand comes of his neck, with a gesture in the air. "--tell you either of those."

A hard can't, more solid than earlier, more like. More like the black lined in his missions. Because there are other lives it might effect now. There are whole court cases that anything attached to Danny's life and work and world could be effected now. Tip anything and everything that means anything to him, from Five-0 all the way down to Grace, could be hit as a domino.

When it matters, it all matters, and he's trying to think of anything he can say, about the whole thing. Abjectly. For her.

"It's new." If, also, has been there forever. Been knocking Steve stomach out and burning him for over a year at this point.

But with Danny -- with Danny looking at him like that, with Danny knocking out CIA agents, with Danny kissing him good morning and staying in his bed, and having a fucking clue what it means when Steve can't look away, might rather be set on fire and chained to bomb, rather than look away from him. "A few weeks only. It might not--"

Those words come out in a tumble, because they are so linked in his head. And even when he presses his lips together, he knows it's, also, because really there's not much he keeps from her on certain lines. Because this whole space has always been theirs. Fun. Free. Easy. No rules. No requirements.

He shook his head, and finished it, even if it feels like stabbing himself, quick and true. "It might not even last the next few."

He wants it to. He can feel that, clinging to his words and the inside of his entire chest. He can't shake it, anymore than the calls.

And if it doesn't, that was even more reason not to rock the boat, or muddy the waters around it. So that if it goes South or Danny, and that still caught, trapped in amber expression of such shocked and embarrassed almost fear, suddenly does run away from this whole new upended world, thing, sexuality, Steve, then maybe it's better not to have it all out there. Out where it would be like weights on his feet anytime he looked at anyone.

[gonna_owe_me]

"Hey --"

There are a lot of sharp shards of everything in her head right now, but they all get locked away at the tone in Steve's voice, the way he looks at her, almost helpless, gagged by something far harder to loose than a rag or a towel or tape. "Why would you say that? That's hardly optimistic."

Gently sympathetic, with a side helping of the kind of support she's rusty at doling out, at least like this, and not at a bar over some tequila or in someone's bunk. And, everything else aside, her own jealousy and surprise and bafflement, she hates the look that camps across his face, like it's already over, the ax has already fallen. Like he's already bracing himself for the end, even if it only just got started.

So it means something, whatever this is with whoever it's with. More than just pushing her away. It's something he's already afraid of losing, already sure will be lost, and he's still trying to make sure he doesn't actively screw it up. Which makes her feel a little bad about assuming -- about trying -- but she didn't know, and he hasn't been acting any differently towards her. So there's a touch of wryness in her smile, but it's gentle, all the same. "You know, usually I don't worry too much when you can't tell me things, but I have to say, I worry a little when you can't give me a name or a clue."

The only reason she can think of for that is that she does know who it is, and Steve has a reason for trying to keep it from her, which means he probably thinks she'd disapprove, in some way, and she's teasing, a little, now, but she's also more serious than she'd admit as she goes on.

"It's not blackmail or anything, right? Classified, government secret?"

Just tell her it's nothing bad. That his reticence isn't due to some kind of career-ending mishap, or international incident. That no one's putting pressure on him from the outside, and it's half a joke, because the idiot who would try that on Steve is the idiot about to lose use of his fingers, or lungs.

But if it's not from the outside, then it's from the inside, and that...that is a ballpark she's not sure she wants to look too closely at.

[thebesteverseen]

Hardly optimistic. He could point at his week and the level of sheer shock, voiced impossibility, on her own lips as the irony to that statement alone. But he doesn't. He's watching her face, trying not to think that even this much feels dangerous, too. Even if he isn't backing away from it. And her. And the words that already fell out his mouth, prized like splinters from this too-big thing inside of him.

Never said to Danny except the morning after the BBQ, when Danny had simply refuted, saying he didn't want to go anywhere.

"No." Steve shook his head. "It's nothing like that."

Nothing that simple. Nothing he could charge at and body slam into submission.

The problems between here and there, between him and Danny, the ones they eradicate for attention with every inch. Every single reason he repeated, gouged into the walls of his head and backs of his eyes, every time he could help it. With Rachel or Gabby or Peterson, or just Danny being amazing. Leaning too close, being too bright, getting caught in his head, under his skin.

"It's actually-" This one isn't a pause, so much as like a swallow, this momentary check in with all the things that are not Steve. Grounded and settled in this whole idea, his home and bed and people, well, person, one person, and more than
half the days of the week. "-really good."

Which he gets almost quiet on the last two words of. Like saying it. Admitting that is worse. Especially after the last few days, when even impossibly found a way to heart-rending and jacked up. Because even if saying it means it's cruising for a crash next, it still is. There are so many seconds that flood his head when he's torn between trying to swallow that he said those words, while there's too much in his head. Pulling quiet and very slightly at the edge of his mouth.

From Danny on the a tarmac, to him not leaving that whole morning, to the yelling on his lawn, and that second report. Putting all those marks on his skin, and the way Danny, in a voice like blackened lava, told him don't stop. The expression, all warm and nervous on his face, this morning, when Steve first opened his eyes. The way he fits, somehow, perfectly, inside his arms. And how his voice, rattling into a sleepy murmured rant, as the last noise in the dark, make him sleep better somehow.

The way that no matter how he feels -- and how right now it would be five or ten or twenty steps up to even get to feeling like all of his skin exploded into a million pieces that was only being held together by super glue, stitch staples, and a grim determination to keep going until he literally, physically, can't -- that Danny still manages to make him laugh, or smile, or bury his face in his skin and breathe in, really breathe, air, the world, himself, Danny.

Dragging it from that dark, rusty place so far beneath everything else more important and pulling it out. Like it's important, too.

[gonna_owe_me]

So maybe it could be. Love. She doesn't know, because she has literally never seen this look on Steve's face before; this mix of happy and hopeful, of wary disbelief. And a sudden shine that comes over him like sunlight skating across water. When four words, it's actually really good, with no embellishments, no further explanation, come like a confession, and she's suddenly looking at the barest she's ever seen him. Even aside from Doris, where there had been a wall around everything he did, every motion and muffling every word.

But, just for a second, he shines.

It doesn't take away from the worry, or the resignation. Doesn't smooth the taut line of his shoulders or the thrum of tension between them. And it lands with a splash in her stomach, in her head, where that mean little voice is whispering that he'd never once looked at her the way he's looking right now about someone he can't even tell her about. Dragging up memories of when she'd wanted that, wanted Steve to be hers, exclusively, before she came to the realization that Steve belongs to no one exclusively, that he gives himself to the Navy and now Five-0 with the kind of dedication other people save for lovers. His scope is larger than that, and she'd learned to be fine with it, learned to appreciate it, love him for it, love what they have, because it keeps her from being forgotten like any other dalliance. Because there's something in their friendship that means more, that she now thinks she prefers.

And she doesn't even want him for herself like that, but she used to, and sometimes those memories are hard to dislodge.

Still, that voice is tiny, and it's nothing to the warm wash of affection and near wistfulness that floods her chest as she watches him, his face open and honest, four words ringing true. A good thing, in a week when nothing has been good.

She can't begrudge him that. And in the end, she's not here to sleep with him. She's here to just be with him, try to cheer him up, pull him out of his house and into the world, and she can do that without falling into bed with him, no matter how she might regret or miss those moments later.

Which makes her smile, because he's still tense and defensive, and he's still cagey as hell, but there's something about this that's good, and he needs that, more than anything else, more than her, even. Her whole reason to be here is to give him that, isn't it?

"Good." A funny little tug pulling at her smile, but it's warm and, you know, she gets it. Past the surprise, past the worry. That look on his face tells her what she needs to know, and exactly how she should take this information.

"Then I hope it works out longer than a few more weeks." As long as it makes him soften like that, as long as he gets that look in his eyes, like he doesn't even know what to hope for, but is hoping anyway.

Her lips press together, thoughtfully, and she nods, like she's agreeing, a tactical retreat, though this is not over, Steve. Still, it's an olive branch. "What were you saying about me getting first shower?"

[thebesteverseen]

His gaze flicks back to focused on her at her word. Uncertain when it had slipped exactly, or whether it had even. But he'd gotten lost in his head for a second. Focusing was probably better in the long run. Hands dropping into his pockets, when he really has nothing for the words that come after it. Because he doesn't have any idea.

It's nice that she's wishing it. He's not sure she actually would if she knew everything else. About it being Danny.

Which makes it harder to want to hold on to it, or admit any part of him want to. When it's just easier. To let his fingers sink into the loose long pockets of running shorts, brushing his badge-wallet and his phone, and just give her am rather patented shrug and nod. Like he'd be fine if it wasn't. Like there aren't hairline fractures somewhere that shiver and seize at the thought.

Like some part of him doesn't want to prove, just as much, that he'd be absolutely fine if, and even when, it happens.

But she gives him the grace of switching back to his earlier encouragement, which for a moment just leaves him only able to nod, again. Because it's almost too much to suddenly actually have her willing to walk off, right past when she dug her heels in. But his mouth catches up the second later, expression collected back in, serious and separate.

"Yeah, you can have it. Least I can do, right?" And maybe it's a little edged, but it tries to roll out as a joke. A too smooth smile being drug out, even when it does push away anything else real in his face either. Like getting the hot water first is some kind of compensation. Even if he won't be carry her up the stairs or following her to it.

[gonna_owe_me]

"It is."

Spoken with a little of her previous arch teasing, as she's slowly finding her feet, the correct gears again. Familiar words, familiar tones, stepping around the sudden gaping hole in the sidewalk she -- they -- usually run down. Giving her the shower is a poor consolation prize for losing him.

Or, not losing him. He's still right there, and she still plans on staying and keeping him company, and she loves him just like she did before, and he's still the one person who just keeps appearing in her life, who is always at the other end of a few months or a tour, and sometimes in between. But losing his throat under her lips, losing the low sounds he makes, losing her fingers slipping into the dip of his back, her legs wrapping around his hips. Losing kisses, and the laughter breathed between them, and playfulness that made them feel like kids, more than adults who are too hardened, seen too much, done too much, been all over the world without roots to pull them back.

One eyebrow arches, and she leans to pick up her tote, sling it over her shoulder. "But don't think you're off the hook."

Mildly regimental, like a librarian peering over glasses at a tardy book returner. It's all a lot, too much to try and figure out now, and she does sort of feel like a shower might help her take a step back, gain a little perspective.

And yeah. Maybe feel a little sorry for herself, but she can go ahead and get that out of her system before she comes back down, and before he's done with his. It's really the only option, so it's the one she's going to take.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve watches her, head high and shoulders back, grace collected. After the shock has sunk in under the waves, dark and into the deep like the sea. Capable and holding so much and continuing to rock and and roll the water onward, almost untouched. Magnanimous with the pointed teasing, looking down her nose at him like she isn't several inches shorter. Inches she'll never need.

Somehow, that alone, actually makes his smile faintly more real than fake. That warning. That admission. The soft, quiet, nearly muted pain that has no specific spot, but exists in his chest regardless. It's not cheating. The have no rules, and no claims on each other. But it's still a goodbye, without a goodbye, and there wil be no lasts. No last kiss, no last gasping disaster.

He has to wonder if he did as well as her in the time she told him. A little disjointed, like having the weather turn out rainy rather than sunny once you reached the the deck, coming out from below, for all your off hours. But they have been here before. She's done it a few times. Maybe a little more quickly informative about it. There were still dinners and catching up, not the same whirlwind, sucking the marrow from every second, but still there.

He didn't remember minding as much as being surprised, reorganizing plans.

Still there, again, when those people were gone, again. Still here, now, all those years later.

She'd still be here if Danny was gone in a month. She'd still be here even if Danny wasn't gone in a month.

Steve reached a hand back up scrubbing fingers through his hair, fingertips hard against his head as he looked around the deserted living room, listening to the sound of the pipes as the water was turned on upstairs. Trying not to think about too many things. The phantoms of this room. Cath and Danny and Doris all layered upon it all, even his Dad and Mary.

Mary, who he had no idea how the handle still. There was paper vouchsafing the information of Doris's life. Or lack of one. "Doris McGarrett" was still dead. Died twenty-two years ago. Her children were well aware of that fact. It hadn't changed. It was documented. It might have been sealed by now. But he could burn out the part of him, echoed even in some of Cath's first words, days ago, that she deserved to know.

It wasn't something you wrote in an unaddressed card. Your mother is still alive. The number of sanction in that alone that would be broken. But Mary was smart, if more emotional and reckless, more fragile and temperamental. She'd get angry, the way he would have, if someone did that. A sick joke. But she'd believe him. Most likely. If he found a way to say the words.

If he hadn't signed away the right to say them. Was standing here wondering if one of those loyalties was deeper than the other.
A concept that everyone who ever lived in this house seemed to have a problem with figuring out. Family, or Duty.

[gonna_owe_me]

She takes two extra minutes.

It's more than a little weird, going up these stairs on her own, even when she has before. When she was here for the day, waiting for Steve to get back, not long after he came back here, himself. But that was when she was wearing his shirt, sleeping in late in his bed, caught back up in his arms when he came back again, with a bottle of wine and steaks for the grill.

Now, he's still downstairs, and none of that is going to happen. Not today, certainly, and not for a long while, which she can't quite bring herself to add hopefully, so she switches the thought around. Hopefully this person who is good to Steve will stick around, whatever that means for her. It's not like she'll be going anywhere, really. Aside from the obvious physical distance of being on duty. And maybe by the next time she's here, he'll be back to being free.

But she can't wish that, either, so she just makes her way to the bathroom, shuts the door, and turns on the water with the decision that she'll take her time.

Two extra minutes to allow herself to be petty, and sad. Two minutes, maybe not enough of a wake to mourn years of a physical relationship suddenly pulled away from her, but more than enough time to be thoroughly, indulgently, wistful. She's envious as she scrubs shampoo through her hair, sad as she washes it out, back to befuddled as she combs in conditioner, determined when washing suds off her face, eyes closing to the steady stream of hot water, steam sneaking in to relax muscles tense from that conversation and not yet sore from their run.

Which seems like so long ago.

But by the time she's rinsing the conditioner out of her hair and noting how much longer showers take with this amount of it, her mind is back on point. Circling the second important question, the one she hadn't asked yet: where exactly is this person? Steve hadn't expected her to appear this weekend, so it's not like he would have asked for time alone, would have had no way of knowing to tell them to stay away for fear of discovery. If it's been good, why aren't they here, making this awful weekend better? What could be more important?

The hiss of the shower muffles the mean little voice that's been whispering in her thoughts, and when she's cranking the water off again, she feels better. Self-pity washed away, because Steve is still here, and she's still here, and the sex was never the important part of them, anyway. They've given it up before, and still keep coming back.

She steps into bikini bottoms, ties the top, pulls on the jean shorts and the teal top, rubs a towel over her hair, and considers herself in the mirror. Serious dark eyes, skin too pale for Hawaii. Cheeks flushing with warmth. And the determined set to her chin that she can feel insinuating itself.

They're not done yet. And, besides, she wants to know more about this person who can make Steve look like a bemused, befuddled kid for the space of a few minutes lost in thought about them.

Which is the thought in her head when she's sashaying back down the stairs, tipping her head towards the upper floor. "All yours."

[thebesteverseen]

He doesn't flee the room, no matter how standing in it does nothing for relaxing his shoulders at all. This room covered in memories, the ghosts of people, blood, lives. Good things that are more than he wants to even give the time to remember, when all of them feel betrayed. Maybe they won't end up staying long. He managed the morning, but the whole of it. Everyone everything that keeps happening right here lately.

He untied his shoes and got rid of his socks. Emptying his pockets and ending up at his wallet badge and phone in his hands, again. Flipping it over, opening it, and sending Chin a short text telling him that he'd be dropping by shortly. Hedging for a just second, before he did actually send a short one to Danny. Just saying everyone had the all-clear. It might have been an hour or two after he'd talked to Kono, but he did say he'd keep Danny updated.

Letting himself wonder how they are, and what all they've gotten up to in only a handful of hours. Whether it ended up being the aquarium or the beach or something else all together. Whether Grace knows, and how much better Danny probably is for having gotten to see her. He didn't know when he left for Japan, while Danny was with her, when he assumed it would, and so much worse was in Danny's face when he came back.

His finger hovered over the small text window, but he looked up as the water went off, and instead sliped both pressed pack together in his hand. It's only the better part of another minute and half, maybe two, before she's back down. He can't help that the efficiency and quickness actually is pleasing. The kind of thing Danny wouldn't have done if he was being paid for. Hadn't been when he lived here, argued and bartered for more time recently even.

And, there she is. Still looking radiant, with semi-dry hair and the tank top, with slipping straps back, smiling and headed down the stairs like she still owns them a little. Maybe even more so, because of being graceful against it all. Able to smile and toss it out, as well as take it in. Still smile, no matter what the waves brought in. He has to smile. There really isn't two ways about it, when nods, and heads up against her heading down.

"I'll be back in five." Long enough to lose clothes, to get washed, to find new clothes. But not enough time to let himself get tripped up on walking into the bedroom, on thinking about Danny pacing and shouting, and reaching out to touch the bruises on his chest with such livid, helpless anger in his eyes. No. None of all of that. He can wander around it, rather than childhood memories, even thicker stacked and louder, later.

For now, he skips steps, grabs a handful of clothes, and ends up in the bathroom and shower, quick.

He might even let out a surprised sigh, tense skin releasing a notch, at the first fleet of hot water hitting him like needles.

[gonna_owe_me]

She nods, but he's already moving past her, all efficiency and deliberation, like they need to be regulation today. As if she could blame him for wanting to get moving, for wanting the few moments of solitude allotted by a shower.

The floor is cool under her bare feet, and she sets the tote back down by the couch, looks around the room, hands settling on her hips. It's quiet, and neat and clean, but there's an odd feeling of disconnect that sends her turning on her heel to find another spot.

She ends up walking outside, heading through the kitchen and dining room, fingers trailing over the island and table, before reaching to slide open the door to the lanai and step into the sun. It's warm and peaceful out here, out of the direct sun, and the grass is soft under her feet as she wanders down towards the chairs set up there, looking out over the water, moves past them to the unkempt line where lawn gives way to beach, no more tickling blades brushing under the soles of her feet, just soft, slippery sand, and the back-and-forth hush of the waves. It's a beautiful spot, Steve's house; she thought so the first time she visited it, close to two years ago, and she still thinks so now. The sea breeze is sheltered here; it's not raw across an empty deck, or whipping water into a white frenzy. It smells like salt and hibiscus and the faintly metallic edge of thick humidity, and she breathes in deep, lowers to sit on the sand. Stretches out, legs long and bare, one arm folding beneath her head, closing her eyes to the sunshine and watching it flicker patterns of pink on the backs of her eyelids.

It's still a good way to spend her weekend. Exercise, truck food, and some time at the beach -- isn't that what people expect out of vacation on Hawaii?

[thebesteverseen]

Getting clean takes few minutes, habits long worn no matter how much they are necessary or mandated. It's easy, regimented, the space of a few breaths and he's out, again, toweling his hair and pulling on cargo pants, soap and shampoo as forgotten as any attention he might have paid them at all while using them. Finding news his under and over shirt, socks, boots, a badge clip and holster for his belt.

Headed back down very nearly on five minutes, or shortly after. Which isn't really a problem at all, being late or early, when he comes back down to a very empty living room. Kitchen. Dinning room. Her bag still present and accounted for, on the couch, where he stared, so he tries her name once, in case she ended upstairs somehow and he just didn't hear her. Even if the possibility is slight. It only takes a moment, scanning the back lawn to spot her.

Dark brown hair and bright teal shirt laid out against the sand and the sky. Sending him that way, quietly. Or maybe it's more than when he gets as close as the break between the grass and the sand, where the rocks are heavy and dividing, loitering the top of where the stand stops, that he does, too. Stops. Watches her laying there, eye closes, face tipped toward the sun, breathing in and out.

Letting the past ebb in and out, on those waves not very far from her. Any other day, he'd walk down, pretending not to see the way her smile curved when he was close enough she could hear him walking. Lean down and kiss her, taste the sunshine right off her skin, until the sound of her breath was louder in his ears than the wind, and her fingers were getting sand in his hair. Lets it come in, and fall away. Watching her.

Like an island all her own, floating beyond it all. Him. The world. Everything. He can't even label the feeling that curves at all the edges of his head and chest. Can't even get it to define if it's more about something he can't possibly touch or can't possibly consider letting go of. It's a minutes maybe two there, watching the breeze toy with her hair, watching her chest rise and fall with each breath in and out, catching this moment more than any camera ever could, before he finally speaks.

Hands in pockets, instead of crossed in front of him, soft by distant expression, trying not to let his voice be too jaring against the wind and the waves, when it's forward-facing. "You could stay here, if you wanted."

It's not even that they have to go this very second, so much as that she looks peaceful. She looks like she belongs there. Breathing in and out, the sea and the sand and the sun. Pale skin and dark hair, equally soaking up the brilliant warmth. At once only feet from him, and still whole worlds and worlds away.

Which she shouldn't have to give up, simply because he isn't. Any of those things.

[gonna_owe_me]

It's hard to hear over the soft sounds of wind and water, but he;s not trying to sneak up on her and she's not edgy enough to tense or startle at his voice when it comes. Just opens one eye, squinting the other closed harder, and peers up at him, lifting one hand to shade her face. "Do you want to go by yourself?"

Still relaxed, in a way nothing but the sound of the ocean and the feel of sand and sun can make her. It's beautiful here, and it'll stay beautiful no matter what, until the island sinks into the sea, and then it will be a beautiful stretch of water, made a little sadder, a little more wistful for the place that it used to wash around.

Not for years. Generations. Thousands of them. Each wave nibbles at the beach, but each wave brings a little sand back, too. Give and take, that's the secret. The water isn't the enemy, even if the island isn't permanent.

But she's got no plans to stay here without Steve, hang out like she did before. Of course she's welcome, just like she's sure she'd be welcome to stay the night...in a different, maybe Mary's, room? Which is a strange thought, and one not worth worrying about right now, as she's tipping her head back, wet hair scraping in sand, catching it and weighing down strands that will slip free of it all once dry.

Of course she can. But she's not going to, even as she shifts her shoulders against the sand. "You want to get going?"

[thebesteverseen]

He could go either way, and either way he will be going, so the question sort of walks into his head but doesn't have a direction that first one. When she's looking up in an endlessly familiar way, which is still the way almost anyone on a beach does. Except she's without a towel or sunscreen or anything else for beach going. Just like she hit the doors and all if called her name, so she went as she was.

Something Steve understands all too well, hooking his gaze briefly out on the endless waves. Somewhere he ends up every morning, and sometimes at night. When it's there even now. Some thick, dark, nearly pulsation thing in the back of his head and the pit of his stomach, that could just go, right now even. Throw it all out, keep going and going, until it eats all the faces, all the facts, all the questions.

That he keeps pulling back from. Controlling down. Shoving under his thumb. Dragging himself away from.

The way he drags his eyes from the waves and back to her, when she asks the second question.

"It's being wishful to think Chin went home at any point after getting off the case yesterday morning."

At the time when it was pushing it to even call it morning. It was lucky if he'd seen anything more than vending machine food, whatever Kono brought him, when Kono'd been there, and sleeping in one of those chairs. If you could ever call it actually sleeping. Especially if Malia had woken up today.

If it'd been Mary, or one of his team, teetering on that peak,he might not have even slept at all.

[gonna_owe_me]

"Better get going, then."

Said while pushing herself up, to sitting, before standing. No pausing, or lingering; just back in motion, levering up off the sand and bending down to brush it off the damp bare skin of her legs, off the back of her shirt. Agreeable to whatever his plan is, just along for the ride.

She's sure Chin could use a break, no matter how long he's been there. Poor guy, he probably hasn't eaten or rested, and she's sure Steve will still have a hard time convincing him to do either of those things, if it means leaving his wife for even a second.

It must be strange, being that tied to another person. Or maybe not, probably not, not from within it all, but she's on the outside looking in, perfectly fine with being by herself, in a crew of hundreds. It's hard to imagine being that wrapped up in someone else, when the job takes up every breathing moment of her life, aside from a few days liberty now and again.

He's lucky, Chin. She can't imagine how anyone could get past losing that person.

Sand shifts beneath her toes, digs a little, before she can step back onto the grass and head over to him, shaking sand out of wet hair. "Do you want to call and see if he needs anything from home? We could pick it up on the way."

[thebesteverseen]

He's not any more surprised she up n' at 'em than he would have been if she stayed there.

They've known each other too long, not to known both side. Sailors who can roll out of a bunk at an alarm's notice with almost less than a minute to grab clothes and run, and people who've lazed hours, forgetting the world existed for a day or two's hours, in several countries, on several continents, wherever it happened to be that time.

"Nope," Steve said, hands not moving in his pockets, where one was against his phone, while she was brushing off sand from her legs. He had thought about, hours ago, but all he'd done earlier was send a text. Rather on purpose. He was remorseless about the simple way he refused Cath, too.

"I sent him a message saying we'd be on our way sometime soon, and not knowing," Which was implied as not asking the way he was looking at her, head tilting one way as he brought a hand up and out, "--is as good a reason as any to make him leave: get a shower, at least one change of clean clothes, things he'd know she'd want where she is awake longer than five minutes, and at least pick up a meal that isn't from the mess."

[gonna_owe_me]

She saunters up, sliding her hands into her back pockets, and comes close enough to tip her head back in order to look up at him, mouth pressing into a faint smile. "Good luck getting him out of there."

It's typical of Steve, to try and take the load off someone else, when he would hardly allow the same loads to be taken off his shoulders. Would probably never leave that room, if he didn't have a mission or the job, if it were him.

Because it suddenly could be him. He is suddenly capable of having that connection. Even if this, whatever it is with whoever it is, doesn't end up lasting, or being that perfect thing that Chin and Malia have, it's suddenly a possibility when it never was before.

Which leads to an all-too innocent tilt to her voice and lift of her eyebrows, an oh so casual faint tilt of her head, just curious for curiosity's. "Anyone else you want to call to come along?"

With envy set aside, she's feeling a ravenous sort of curiosity, starved further by his reticence to tell her who it is, to give even a name or the first sort of clue. He never told her to stop asking, and it's as much to lighten the mood as anything else, a sort of way to say it's okay without actually having to come out and say the words. Because he knows. And she knows. And they'll continue on, because she's not losing him for anything.

So it's fine.

But she's still curious.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve raised his eyebrows and pressed his lips, jaw tensing but not moving into tightening, unappreciatively at her innocent little lilt there. Which shifts easily into a looser shake of his head, like she's gone toward acting like exasperating teenager, or even just a a girl now. Prizing and teasing and leading, and getting easily, "No."

"But it's nice to know you've suddenly decided I suddenly might need more supervision to drive my own truck and take care of my own men," which would be harsher maybe on anyone else. But it's her, and she's joking about it. Which is better than it could have been. Even when he was right about that subject being nowhere near done.

"Let's go. Before I forget why I invited you to stick around, again," Steve tacked on, lobbing back toward her. When she'd already be well aware he was nowhere even slightly near that being the truth. All of this would have been vastly different if that were the truth. The whole morning, and that earlier conversation.

The fact there are no real invitations, because all of it just is, and it is really all old hat, even when it isn't.

They've done this all before, right? They can do it all, again, just with a new twist to it.

[gonna_owe_me]

She wrinkles up her face at him, squinting in the sun, unrepentant and unmoved by the lolling sarcasm of his response. "I haven't suddenly decided anything."

Certainly not if the type of 'supervision' she'd have suggested is the kind he needs, and a few misgivings start tapping on the glass, despite her best attempts at ignoring them. Asking that question again. If he cares so much, where is this person? Why aren't they around to be there with him in the hospital, or at home?

Still, she slides her hands out of her pockets and turns back towards the house, walking briskly, shoulders straight and relaxed, calling back over one of them, "don't worry, I'm sure I'll give you some reminders."

And she's not done. Not by a long shot, but Steve has always been close-lipped and difficult to crack when he's got information he doesn't want to share, and she knows she's not going to get a name or details tonight.

That's fine. There's plenty she can ask about that has nothing to do with names or identifying information. He'd said a few weeks, but he was in Japan a few weeks ago. So did it happen right when he got back? And how is it aside from good, and something that can give him that open, vulnerable, unconsciously soft look on his face?

But they've got all night, and right now, there's a hospital to get to.

[thebesteverseen]

It's not, actually. Easy.

The harrowed weariness is everywhere in Chin's face, wire-tight in his shoulders, posture tilted toward the figure quietly sleeping in the bed no matter whether he's talking to them or to the nurse who was there were they arrived. The way he looks barely awake on his feet, but entirely fixated. Steve doesn't blame him. Especially if waking up for a few minutes is happening more than just the once.

But it doesn't mean he backs off of the point, if anything it's an even stronger solvent. If she is waking up more often, even for short durations, things are getting better, and Chin can go take care of himself, knowing that Steve'll be right here, able to call him at a second's notice. That, hey, it's not like he's asking him to go catch the three or four hours it looks like he needs, just a shower, get some real food, bring Malia the clothes, books, blankets, any of the things he knows best she'll like having near her.

Things only he'd known or realize because he knew her best. Because it was their house, and she was his wife.

He did give in the end, saying he'd be back as soon as possible. The words still far more for her ears than either Cath or Steve, but Steve didn't pay that any mind. If anything, boats and mission bunks made them both as equally ready to pretend you weren't standing five to ten feet from another person having a very private moment that was about them, and no one else around. Before it was just them left in the room.

Tripler was as quiet as this ward ever got, really, but being there a good enough reason to request for a status report on the HPD officers that had ended up there, too. A general all around update, without ever venturing far from the Malia's door in the Intensive Care Unit. The way the time slipped quickly enough by, barely hitting an hour by the time Chin was back, carrying a food box that didn't look like it had been opened once yet, but in fresh clothes, with a fully stuffed duffle and a brightly colored, if worn-thin, patchwork quilt.

Relief still palpable on his face when he first saw her, again, like breaking the water and being able to breathe, but he did thank them before they were headed out again.