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]

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.

[gonna_owe_me]

It's quiet, in the hospital. Quiet when Chin's there, and quiet when Steve finally gets him to leave, and he doesn't exactly bodily shove him through the door, but she thinks the threat is there.

There's no question Chin needs it. He looks rough and ragged enough that he's almost unrecognizable as the smiling man secure in his ability to get his wife a good Valentine's Day present, perfectly pressed in his tailored suit and laughing to himself at Steve and Danny's bickering, smugly certain and full of the serene happiness of a man knowing he'll be going back home to the love of his life.

Now, he's polite, but distant; eyes continually tracking back to the still figure in the bed. Cath wishes she'd met Malia before: she's a beautiful woman, but it's hard to see under her ashy complexion and the dark circles under her eyes. She looks exhausted, even asleep, and Chin isn't doing much better, skin translucent from lack of sleep and food, bags under his eyes, clothing wrinkled and worn. A break is sorely needed, but she can't blame him for being reluctant to go, even with Steve offering to stay and keep an eye on her.

There's a brief moment when she considers offering to go, when they get back, but it passes in an easy question from him about dinner that she bats back, and before she knows it, it's well into the evening and he's showing no signs of forgetting why he invited her to stay.

Instead, it's a companionable dinner, the kind of fresh fish and fruit she can only dream about three months into a cruise, a couple of beers each, empty bottles left on surfaces until they get collected and tossed into a bin, and she realizes the air's gone purple and cooler, with the kind of hazy glow that comes from humidity and the reflected light off water.

At that point, it only makes sense to grab another beer each and retreat to the couch, where she sifts through his limited DVD collection and comments idly on each possibility until he looks a little less distracted and it doesn't feel so suddenly strange to be sitting next to each other there, close enough that her knees brush his leg when she's curled up, one elbow balancing on the back of the couch, movie splashing both of them with light and faintly muted sound.

And it's actually not so bad, once they both relax, and it's clear that just touching each other isn't taboo, isn't grounds for panic and pushing away. She's has worse ways to spend a night off, definitely.

[thebesteverseen]

It ends up something they've seen a handful of times, which gets some abuse, but Steve's never been one for dedicated hours to his tv at it is. Except for games, followed by certain types or shows or movies, he'd generally rather be outdoors doing something else. Until a few weeks ago, it would have been sliding back to the desk and the Champ toolbox, turning pieces over and over, puzzling out how they all fit together.

The movie itself isn't half bad, being old and known. There are parts they laugh and cringe and prod each over like it's still the first or second time. That haven't stopped being great or silly or truly, deeply terrible ways to make civilians think that how that's done. When it's proof they still can, jostle each other, throw pillows from one side toward the other. That make it almost is okay. Being in the same, if not for the same reasons.

Or for the same reasons, the reasons that never change, but with a different outcome.

Night does get around to coming, with it being easy to put out there. She can stay, Mary's room was still made up. They could still do breakfast and he could beat her to the cliffs, too. If there was the smallest bit of a pause, for the obvious reasons, she was right back in there that second later with a sharp, sly, witty retort about not being sure of himself. Which was answer enough.

It's disjointed in its strangeness. Everything just a dozen clicks of place, like he's through through a scope someone configured wrong. When Cath is down the hallway in Mary's room, instead of his. And Danny is on the other side of the city, with Grace, instead of where he was this morning. The way he's actually in his own bed, when he'd assumed three days ago he wouldn't be in this bed, staring at this ceiling, hearing these waves for a month or two, at least several weeks.

How the ghosts in the walls and shadows, the never ending loop of a life lived and utterly lost here, seems even louder because the lynch pin. The one pulled. The one that made everything else explode. Thrust across countries, decades, wrecking so much those left behind had to struggle to look at each other, interact at all, even keep in contact. Because that first domino. That first change. It never happened.

Doris is still alive. Doris, who he can't reconcile to calling his mother, for more than a sour blink here or there in his head. Because maybe that's the only way he can differentiate now. Doris is the one who was alive, who left all these words, and even more questions in his head than he'd had at the beginning. Not two years worth of questions, but twenty-two year worth of questions.

His mother was this woman who cared about kids, her family, meatloaf dinners, not having too many shaved ices.

This woman a hairsbreadth from never existing at all. Except that he didn't want her to vanish entirely from his mind, the way she had from his life. He didn't want to obliterate the memories as easily as Doris had drug him into her arms in that doorway. It was twenty two years, two people and three bullets apart, and all the same.

A snake chasing its own tail, when all Steve could do was bury his second pillow on his face -- the one that still smelled like Danny; his shampoo, his skin, the faintest sharp trace of sex right at the edges -- and breathe, wait for all the empty spaces (beside him, inside the house, inside his self) to become either less exhausting than his eyelids or just exhausting enough his world would give into the black finally.

[gonna_owe_me]

Sleeping alone isn't unusual. Sleeping alone, in Steve's house, in the guest room, though...that is. It's weird. Especially after how not weird the movie was, when she got a faceful of pillow after tossing her bottle cap at his head, when it turns out touching each other isn't a crime and nobody gets shocked or hurt if they accidentally brush shoulders or arms or legs.

Maybe they weren't curled up together, maybe they actually watched through to the end of the movie, but it was actually pretty normal, by the end there.

Which just makes the night all that much stranger.

She doesn't know this bed or this room, but knows the walls are thin enough that Mary could hear them, before (which still makes her cheeks feel hot, just thinking about it), and she can imagine she hears Steve, shifting in the sheets on that big comfy bed. Wondering if he's sleeping any more than she is.

Part of her wants to get up and go into his room. It's irrational, and, worse than that, actively destructive, but it's a little fantasy she indulges briefly before shaking aside as both unnecessary and sort of cruel. She doesn't want to come between Steve and someone he cares about. It's the last thing she wants, no matter how curious she is, no matter how concerned.

He still had said barely anything; no details, and no identifiers. Giving her that flat, faintly exasperated look when she snuck in references or questions, but no answers.

Which is worrying. Especially this weekend. Especially the time frame she has to work with. When she can't even hear him talking to anyone, though she listens. Whoever it is, it's someone he doesn't call even on the weekend his mother turned up alive and his team went through the fire and came out fractured on the other side. But someone he doesn't want to screw things up with, by sleeping with her.

And, of course, the reason why this weekend, of all weekends, whoever it is should be here: Doris. She's lying here in Mary's room, wondering if Mary knows yet, if Steve decided to call her after all. Probably not. He's the kind who prefers giving bad news in person, which means Mary might not know for months. If ever. Considering Doris has left again.

It's a long few hours of blinking at the ceiling, listening, and continually rolling over to try and get comfortable, but then there's a moment when she blinks her eyes open and it's light out, again.

Which leads her padding down into the kitchen, hair all mussed and beachy, to prod at the coffee maker until it starts percolating and she can bring a cup to sip, at the kitchen table, looking out at the morning slowly rising.

[thebesteverseen]

Night takes forever, and he wake more than once, with a huff of air every time he realizes he doesn't need to seize in fear of waking someone, stays tense, like somehow looking at that empty space isn't heavier. It shouldn't be. He doesn't absolutely need someone there. Either of them. Not really. He knows how much he can plow through.

Knows better than anyone what he can and can't take, and he's managed this snarl for so long already.




Somehow he still ends up with the pillow, in the crush of his arms, an end tucked under his chin, eyes closed, breathing in.




Maybe ignores, outrightly, the fact he wakes up with it still there, held close and flush, at a late enough pre-dawn hour he's allowed to end up back out of bed. Ruffling his own hair, with no real idea how much sleep he did or didn't get. Checking his phone to be sure, before finding swim trunks, and abandoning the house.

When it's easier. Take it all out there. Throw it into the waves, like it's not his own body he's tossing violently at it all. The things he didn't know. Didn't figure out soon enough. His people hurt, two of them nearly killed, another who is important. Things he should have been there for.

Doris. Doris. Doris, Wo Fat, and Delano. How he should have known better about the last two, too. Wo Fat smug, unfazed serenity, with his tea cup. With his lock-up. Delano's smug face in the interrogation room, taunting about saying hello to Kono, when he was playing chicken with Chin and doing his best to drown her less than twelve hours later.

When he'd had his head so far up his own business, he'd just gone. And he had been. Gone. Gone, when they all needed him most.

And what did he have to show for it now? Three bullets in the floor. More than half of his team ripped up, even as they struggled to carry onward, kept on their feet. Delano in the morgue and Wo Fat melted into the dark. The endless anger, revulsion, necessity that all of that stirred up.

If he thinks about that. About letting them down. About needing to be better, do better, put everything else aside. Shove harder and harder, until his lungs are burning and the side of his ribs is throbbing with the terror of his elevated heart rate each time he goes deeper for longer, pressing beyond words, beyond thoughts, beyond their hallowed eyes, apologies, promises to keep doing the job.

Until it's just an endless tugging tide, lost in the waves, in the lack of air, the fire in his muscles, then maybe he won't think about the rest of it. There won't be a rest of it. He'll just walk out of the waves, and he won't feel like the sight of that house is like have glass shards rubbed all over already lacerated skin. He won't feel so angry that's it a cold that doesn't even feel like anger.

Like a free fall into nothing. Absolutely nothing. Seams already ripped free, pretending they still have some cohesion.

That cohesion is a word that exists in a world where it was made to keep everything else together.




Because if that first thing never happened; did any of the rest of it, was any of it actually real.
The parts before. The things after. The places went. Choices made. Vows made. Himself.

When every single words spoken was as suspect as every year tattered and torn further.



Steve's only narrowly not breathing hard still by the time he makes it back to that house, in through that door, meeting the person who not Danny in his kitchen with a nod, still shaking his head without moving, all the noise and silence in it. Trying to find a space through the din. But it take some time.

A bottle of water. Half a protein shake. Then a coffee cup later. Before he feels less like old, broken metal rust flakes, too loose and too tight, threatening to clench into a fist and come apart at every joint, and more like the half-edge smiles he's been pushing out while describing to Cath, where they'll be headed to for the morning.

A cute little place just outside the state park, where they can get breakfast brought to them.

[gonna_owe_me]

They do end up going to the cliffs.

Breakfast first, after some coffee at the house, even though her leftover loco moco is still sitting there in the fridge. They end up going to the cliffs, and it's actually pretty great: her muscles feel good, stretching after the run up the mountain, faintly complaining in a way that just makes her want to push them further, faster, harder. Out under the bright bow of sky, that clouds suddenly and buckets them with rain until her hair is soaking and Steve's shirt is sticking and everything around them is getting washed clean.

A sudden downpour that vanishes, 'island time' a myth to the weather, which changes when it pleases and usually abruptly and for the very temporary worse, which means that by the time they get back and find lunch, it's beautiful again, and that beach gets put to good use.

She does love it. The beach. The calm swell of water that's nothing like open ocean, or sky. The smell of sand and synthetic coconut, slippery sunscreen getting rubbed into her skin. The sunshine she lounges her in charging her up like a solar battery, until she feels like her skin is hot and glowing with it, and all her muscles are relaxed, grateful for the break after two days of trying to keep up with Steve.

Plenty of time to swim, matching out long smooth strokes that pump her heartrate back up to a steady run. And they could, go someplace. Do something else. But though they both somewhat halfheartedly consider finding waves or another park or leaving the house, they don't. Which is no bad thing. She wonders if it might partly be getting back up on the horse, Steve staying here. Like he needs to prove it'll be fine, even with this weekend, even with the years of tragedy and loneliness soaked into those walls.

But he stays, and he's even good company, even if sometimes his smiles seem a little dimmed and he gets a little lost in his thoughts, now and again.

Her questions have minimized, though, too. Asking the only specific, whether whoever it is is busy this weekend, rather than pointing out her concern that it's been a day, over a day, and there hasn't been a single other person here. She's not even sure he's checked up with anyone aside from Chin and Kono.

[thebesteverseen]

Offering to grill for dinner is easy. Dragging out a little of everything, maybe because she's been good to put up with him, with the moments he just tunes out, with the fact she keeps asking questions he gives the shortest answers to, with how he still hasn't told her everything about the last few days either. So, little of everything. She deserves it, at the very least. For staying, for making the day more than he would have without her.

Fish. Chicken. Shrimp. Sausage. Cherry Tomatoes. Ball onions. Pineapple. Mushrooms. Green, Yellow, Orange Peppers. Smaller amounts, wider variety. All of them sliced and skewered and grilled while the sky was going giving the world the inverse of dawn. Pastel colors woke up, but the evening here sometimes seemed to set the very sky on fire. Like the sun wanted to be remembered. Brilliant and glorious colors stitched across the satin beauty of silver waves.

Giving them ribbons of light when he's got a large plate of kebabs finally finished, yelling across the space to where she wants all of this to go. He could have drug out a table and the lights, again, and the could have ended up in the dinning room, but they end up back on the couch. Plate on the table in front of them, barefoot and loose from the weekend, with something on the tv neither of them are really following.

Or at least he isn't. Even when he's giving her the stink eye for throwing a cherry tomato at his shoulder, for a deservedly crass dig, because really. He could care less about the tv, and tomorrow he's going to miss her when she goes back on shift. For however long that is before Five-0 steals all of his attention and he forgets for a few days. When, where, how long, other people. Even her.

Which made it worth trying to remember the end of these long hours, and the fact she stayed through them all, too.

[haole_cop]

He doesn't even stop at the apartment, after he drops Gracie off.

After sucking up every possible second of the weekend with her, like each drop is the only water he'd have before six months in the desert. Starting with breakfast, where she had French toast and drenched it in coconut syrup and the fake maple that still reminds him of the diners back home (and man, he misses those diners, misses the corned beef special, piled high on rye and stuffed with coleslaw and Thousand Island. The closest thing here is Spam, and that just, really. Doesn't cut it.) and he had sunny-side-up eggs, because, as he explained, this was a sunny-side-up sort of day, getting the be with her.

It's not even one hundred percent a lie. Just picking her up, catching her in a hug she'd run into and feeling her arms go around his neck was enough to improve his outlook on life by about a thousand percent, while simultaneously reminding him why he has to fight this thing, why he has to try and keep her, because she is the single best part of his life, the single best part of him. Smiling and beautiful, looking forward to their weekend together. Rolling her eyes at him when he made that stupid joke about the eggs, but her smile curling and pleased.

It's enough that the ache is manageable, for the day.

A day he spent at the aquarium, and then a park, until blue twilight began falling and it was time to take her out for a nice dinner, dressed up, at a properly adult restaurant, because she's getting to be a young lady now, and this, Grace, this is the sort of place you should hold out for, thirty years from now, when you start dating.

Do you like it?

It's nice, Danno.

Even when it led to questions about Gabby, and the explanation he gave her, sober-eyed over shrimp cocktail and her Shirley Temple, about how he and Gabby decided not to see each other anymore, and it's no one's fault, okay, they just decided they wanted different things, which he does not specify, because Gabby wanted him, and he wanted, well...

Steve.

Which does not come up on the lists of recommended topics for discussion with your pre-teen daughter, none that he's ever seen or considered, so he skated past it, hands folded on the tabletop, against fine white cloth, acutely aware of the phone not ringing in his pocket.

She took it like a champ, disappointment and all, but her wistfulness all but disappeared once they were home and he commanded both of them into pajamas before pulling out the sofa bed and tossing her, shrieking, into a nest of pillows and blankets. Held up DVDs one by one, for appraisal, to be sorted into piles, first, of 'definitely could watch' to 'maybe if we're desperate' to 'never again, why do I own this movie to begin with, are DVDs flammable?'

(The answer to which is a resounding...not really. More melty than anything.)

The process for picking a movie was long and intense, but they agreed on one (Grace's choice), and she curled into him, ice cream and popcorn balanced in the folds of the blankets, and she fell asleep there, too.

He managed to even make it through most of the night without admitting that was his plan all along. Not bad, considering there hadn't been a second of the day where he wasn't wondering about Steve, thinking about Steve, wishing Steve and Steve's ridiculous mass were taking up the entire fucking pullout bed.

But he wasn't. He was alone. In a way that would drive Danny crazy. To drink. Up a wall and over the edge. In a way that Danny wasn't, all weekend. Through Saturday and into Sunday, which turned faintly gray at the edges after lunch, when the countdown to dropping her off started and ended with a last hug and her goodbyes still in his ear.

Leaving him feeling slightly like the sidewalk was tilted under his shoes, before finding his keys, his bearings, the car, and driving away. World in a blur, driving by instinct and memory as much as paying attention, until he snaps out of it, and makes the turn that won't bring him back to his house. Pushing the pedal down with sudden urgency, heart thudding hard and worried in his chest. It's been all weekend, and he's heard nothing, gotten only one brief text. Guilt is shoving itself into the cracks between his ribs, lengthens his steps when he pulls up to the gate, lets himself in.

The lights are on, and he can hear the TV, and, crap, maybe he should have brought some beer, or something, or gone home and changed out of weekend clothes, t-shirt and jeans from going outside and trying to coax Grace into playing catch, but he's here and it's already been way too long, so he just opens the door instead, and strolls in with an acerbic greeting already on his tongue before it dies there and dries to leather.

Steve's there. Yeah.

But Steve is not alone. Not at all. Not like Danny's been thinking he was. Not even a little. Because Steve is sitting on the couch, with Catherine tucked comfortably next to him, smiling at something she's saying. With an empty plate in front of them, scattered with the remnants of, oh, that looks like it was pretty good. Noted, in a daze.

Just like he notes the way Catherine smiles, sudden and bright and beautiful, and, God, she really is. Beautiful. And smart and strong and in the Navy and everything a guy like Steve could want, or any guy, really, she's great, Cath, and she doesn't deserve the way he suddenly hates her like she's actually a swarm of locusts, and he is actually losing it, seriously losing it, right here, half out of Steve's doorway, as she's saying Danny all pleased and how was your weekend with your daughter? and he's got nothing at all. Can't even reach into the gaping hole that was his brain and pull out words.

He thinks he says something like "good" or maybe it's "sorry to interrupt" or maybe it's both, but either way he's backing out the door and closing it soldily before the words hit the floor and shatter this suddenly tissue-thin icicle of a thing that had been racing back here.

[thebesteverseen]

There's not an off section of his day, his week, his head really. Not, especially, this week. When the impulse for the door unlatching to their side is still for Steve's hand to slip toward the piece at his hip. Knowing the safety is off, at the same time as the knowledge that there is only one person on the island of the peace of the mind that his front door is revolving door that doesn't require knocking, as the knowledge it must be late, have gotten late, if Grace is back with Rachel.

So many thoughts and absolutely not a single one is sticking, because Danny is walking through his front door, which he can see straight over Cath's head. Blonde hair and -- yeah. Yeah. Steve can't even help the bewildered, amazed smile that smacks his face suddenly -- and blue jeans. T-shirt, too. But blue jeans. Looking like he came straight from whatever it was he got up to with his daughter.

Which is good, right? They had fun. Steve will just stop considering those pants and drag his eyes back up to Danny's face.

Where all the puddle of warmth that suddenly splattered everywhere like somehow water had started bubbling up, air started coming in, again, freezes on Danny's face. Pale, like he's going to faint, more like he suddenly wants to lose his dinner on the floor of Steve's landing. Mouth twitching like there are words that keep almost, but never finding his voice.

Eyes so wide and so bright it's kicking up Steve's chest, aimed for the dead center, like a sharpened icepick.

As Danny's eyes were focused on Cath, hardly evening moving at all. Any second the gaze moves back in his direction it goes back to her. Cringing just enough Steve thinks it's ratchets off like the bullets that slammed his back this week, when Cath's words hardly seem to touch him, before he's backing away. Panic and desperation, sickened confirmation, denial and something else, something Steve can't even name, but he hates it so much already, skittering wildly on that face.

When Danny's retreating faster than the few steps he came in, scatter-shot words in a tone so sharp and unfocused it could be its own weapon. Before the door was slamming. Only it seemed to keep slamming, the door and his his heart, somewhere up in his throat and his ears, even at the same time as he'd pushed up from the couch, with "Danny--" all at the same time as the door went.

Maybe only just then catching himself, between surging up and the fact Cath was between him and the door.

Making his gaze drop to her, even as he knew he had to go, shoulders suddenly frozen for a half dozen other, newer, reasons.

[gonna_owe_me]

It's impossible not to notice. Any reaction. Starting with the glance she takes at Steve as she smiling, saying hi to Danny, who has popped in out of nowhere. It's nice of him, she's thinking, to stop by, especially since this was just his weekend with his daughter, and she likes Danny, is glad to see him.

But not as glad as Steve is. Steve, who is smiling this helplessly brilliant smile that she's not sure she's ever seen on him before. Who looks suddenly like he can breathe again, like he'd just broken surface and can gulp in fresh air to lungs shrieking for it. She'd thought he was relaxed a second ago, but that's nothing to this, like he's been living in shadow all weekend and the sun finally rose, which makes her take another quick look at Danny, who is stumbling over an answer to her question and some apology that rings strangely painful.

Who isn't smiling. Whose eyes are trained on her, wide and surprised and alarm that isn't alarm so much as it is -- what, what is that? Who is looking like Steve actually pulled that piece at his hip and shot him in the gut. Like he's about to be sick. Before the door closes again after being open for the space of about five seconds, and he's gone.

Just as Steve makes an abrupt, cancelled motion, and she turns back to him, lips wanting to form a question, but then she sees his face and it's like turning a key. Sudden panic and desperation painted over what had been the best smile he'd given all weekend, every inch of him halted in mid-motion, like he's actually sprinting for the door but she'd managed to pause him like she can a movie, just before the spring.

Clues slotting together in her head. Everything he couldn't tell her. No name, no clue whether she knew who it was. Where that person was all weekend and why they weren't here, because that person was, is, Danny, and he had Grace, but he must have come immediately from dropping her off.

The raw look on Steve's face and the belated,reflexive way his name comes out, shortened, interrupted by the door, is all the confirmation she needs.

She's torn, momentarily, between reactions, but one wins out, the one he knew would, so he didn't tell her, but this, this is insane, this is so much worse than just reticence, it's actively damaging, to both of them. Moving on the couch cushion so she can get a better look at him, feeling the need to move, to do something, to smack him in the head and get him to think about what he's doing.

"Are you kidding me? What are you thinking, Steve?"

[thebesteverseen]

What was he thinking? It hits like another bullet, ricochets through his head, his chest, louder and louder and louder.
Just keeps going off. Like a siren and spotlights in a compound break-in or break-out. Loud and blinding.



What was he thinking?



He was thinking that Danny was probably trying to make it back to the camaro as fast as he could. That somehow with one look he'd grabbed Steve's stomach, his lungs, all his vital organs. Caught them clean and fast with a shining sharp hook, and they were jerking further and further from his grasp with each of Danny's steps he couldn't see, but felt like it was tremoring the ground.

He was thinking about that sick shot of sour embarrassment and sharp defensiveness that slammed together in his head, shoulders, everywhere to his edges, like he was slamming the ground in the plane again. Because he can't defend the implication of her words, but he can't stand the notion of anyone implying the there is a downside to Danny aside from ludicrous rants and being as over-protective as he is over-reactive.

He was thinking that the whole world had narrowed down to the wide, disbelief in Cath's eyes, like he'd actively struck her. The shock and -- was that disappointment? there in her face. Making the words come shooting out like everything else she'd ever considered had been rational. Everything except that she just figured out. The he'd chosen Danny over her. That he'd chosen something possibly career blocking, if not tribunal earning over her.

He was thinking that he had to leave, had to go, now now now, even if it was going to make this even more wrong.

Even if it was going to make her even more right. But he couldn't actually lose Danny. He couldn't lose Danny who stood not fifteen feet from this spot and told him, asking just to be fired quietly and left alone. Who took on the CIA, and North Korea. Whose heart was nothing like Steve's: messy, exposed the elements on his shoulder, not less but more for each sucessive beating, fragile enough to be trampled in a glance.