A Terrible Burden

by Banshi13

Steve's life was fuller, richer, perfect when Danny and the kids were in it. He wanted them in his life all the time, for all time. He wanted them to be his. #McDanno based. Don't like it, don't read it. Flames/rude comments will be treated with the mighty fire of Drogon. Title from a quote by Mary Margaret from Once Upon A Time.

Author's Note: I really did mean to write the ending to this story that I did. I planned something a little different, but this is what my muse demanded I write and while I tried to argue with her, it obviously didn't do me any good. I was so happy we got to see Mary in this episode. The last time we'd seen her was 6.12, when Aunt Deb came to visit only to pass away in the McGarrett home. I adore the McGarrett siblings and I love the side of Steve we see when Mary is around; the protective big brother who can be just as troublesome as his sister when he wants to be. The relationship between these two is so sweet and it's always a joy to watch them on camera together.

At the end of 9.23, Mary told Steve that she was coming over to the house and staying the night, so I decided to delve into that a bit and the conversations that might ensue.

Also, if you haven't seen 9.25 yet, there are two minor spoilers to be found within this story. They are not related to the main plot of 9.25, but they do relate to what the send off for Joe was, and (begrudgingly, sadly, unhappily, I assure you) the status of Danny and Rachel's (ill-advised, ridiculous, non-sensical) on-going 'reconciliation' process.

Disclaimer: Hawaii Five-0, as well as the characters found within the series, are owned by CBS Productions, K/O Paper Products, and 101st Street Productions. No profit is being made off of this work.

Hawaii Five-0

It had been a long time since Steve and Mary had seen each other, even longer since they'd spent more than a few hours with one another. True to her word, Mary packed her bags and left the (still illegal) Air B&B she'd been staying in, giving one last lingering look at the property across the street which was still teeming with HPD and forensics techs busy gathering evidence from the now discovered and contained meth lab. She tossed her luggage into the back of Steve's truck and climbed into the cab. "What's going to happen now?"

"HPD will call out a contractor to clean up the place, make it livable again," Steve slid into the driver's seat and shut the door. After turning over the engine, he pulled away from the curb and began to head for home. "You have any Claritin with you or anything like that?" His sister shook her head and Steve shrugged. "We can stop at the store on the way home. I'm making dinner tonight."

"Oh? What are you making?"

Steve grinned. "I figured since you're the guest I'd let you pick."

In the end, Mary chose to have what she affectionately termed a 'pig out night' and piled the cart with frozen pizzas – Hawaiian for Steve, Supreme for her -, chicken wings, mozzarella sticks, a 12 pack of Longboards, and the aforementioned and highly coveted Mochi ice cream.

"You know I have two cartons of that at the house, right?" Steve roamed through the pasta aisle, picking up some spaghetti noodles, lasagna sheets, and macaroni and tossing them into the cart beside all of the 'processed junk', as he liked to call it, because it was true, no matter what anyone said.

"I do know that, but I plan to go through at least one carton and then some, so I bought another," Mary grinned at him as they both turned the corner into another aisle. "What's with all the pasta noodles?"

"Oh, for when Danny brings the kids over on the weekends. He usually goes with something Italian at least one of the nights, so I try to have options available." Steve reached for a loaf of bread, completely missing the look his sister was giving him. Probably just as well. Before long, their shopping was finished, and they were back in the truck headed for Steve's house. Mary snickered as they pulled into the driveway. "I can't believe you still have the flowered trellis," she said, slipping from the cab and opening up the other door to begin fishing the bags out. "I'd have thought you'd trade that out for something more manly by now. Didn't I say last time I was here you should do that?"

"You did say that, but uh, I like it," Steve pulled the rest of the bags out and let Mary go in front of him, knowing she had her own key to the house. "Reminds me of the way things used to be." The words 'before Mom faked her death' went unsaid, not because it still hurt Steve to say it, but because he knew Mary would understand without the sentiment being voiced. Mary pushed open the door and entered the living room and promptly got out of the way as Eddie bounded towards Steve, tail wagging and mouth open, his tongue dangling just a bit as he panted in excitement to see his master home. Mary started cooing almost immediately.

"Hi, Eddie," she put the bags on the floor and knelt in front of the dog, scratching behind his ears and under his jaw, "you're so adorable. How'd you get stuck with my grumpy ogre of a brother, huh?"

"I'm not grumpy," Steve walked towards the kitchen and came back out a few minutes later with a glass of water in one hand and a Claritin in the other. He handed both to Mary while looking down at his dog. "Eddie, you tell her I'm not the grumpy one, right? That's Danno, isn't it, buddy?"

A head tilt and a slight whine were his only answers and Mary giggled a little before she downed the pill. "Doesn't sound like he agrees with you."

"Yes, he does, he's just shy in front of new people."

"Steve, I was here last year at Christmas and met him."

"One time, Mary; he's met you once. You're still new to him." Steve rolled his eyes as he headed back into the kitchen. "So, who was the guy who called you earlier? The flake?"

"He's not a flake, specifically because he did, in fact, call me earlier. Flakes don't return phone calls." Mary followed her brother into the kitchen, Eddie trailing behind, his nails clicking and clacking gently against the wood and tile flooring. "And I told you who he was, he was this guy I liked back in middle school."

"No, no, no, no, you said he was a guy you dated back in middle school, you called him an ex-boyfriend," Steve started putting things in the pantry while leaving the pizzas and other frozen items out. He wasn't going to get into the appropriateness of his sister dating at such a young age. That way lay madness and information Steve just didn't need to know. Mary followed his lead and prepped the oven, afterwards finding the appropriate pans to put the pizzas on and all the while not answering her brother, who popped back out of the pantry.

"Okay, so before you give me your interrogation routine, yes, I dated back in middle school. No, Aunt Deb didn't know anything about it, and no, I never slept with the guy. I at least waited until high school for that."

"Ay, hey, okay," Steve covered his ears, a grimace on his face, and, hello, proven right within 30 seconds of his resolve to not ask about the dating habits of middle schoolers named Mary McGarrett. "There are many things I don't need to know about, Mare; that's one of them."

"I am serious though," Steve looked at her, "if this guy flakes on you again, I'm gonna find him and he and I are gonna have a little heart to heart, and don't think I won't. I can get a list of all the guys you went to middle school with and cross reference their names with their current known locations. Jerry can get me the address in 15 minutes."

"You're being completely ridiculous right now, but if you need it to feel like the big bad older brother, then you do you, bro."

Steve put the rest of the groceries away - "Steve, when you said you had things stocked, I didn't realize you meant you were running your own personal Foodland Farm" - and Mary concentrated on watching the pizzas and placing wings on another pan to slide in the oven aside the pies. She couldn't help herself though, and while they waited for the food to cook, Mary dug out a carton of the Mochi ice cream along with a spoon and helped herself. "This just doesn't taste the same on the Mainland," she groaned, dragging the spoon slowly through her mouth so she could get every last bit of ice cream before digging it back into the carton again. An indignant huff came from her right and she looked up to see her brother starting at her. "What?"

"No, nothing, there's no one else here that might like a bite of that," Steve walked over the fridge, nudging her gently aside to open the door and grab a Longboard for himself and her.

"You know you can get a spoon and join me."

"I could, but that's gross."

"It's gross?" Mary blinked at him. "You know we're related, right? There's pretty much nothing I have that you don't already."

Steve mumbled something about 'Mainland Cooties', to which Mary just rolled her eyes, scooped a large spoonful of ice cream out of the carton, and took as obnoxious a bite as possible and as close to her brother's face as she could. "So, what's new? Talk to Lynn any?"

"Uh, no," Steve headed over to the oven, checking on the pizzas and sliding the wings in alongside them. "Last time I talked to her was about a week or two after we broke up. I found some more of her things and drove them over to her place." He shrugged. "She seemed okay."

"Well, you guys weren't exactly on your way down the aisle," Mary pointed out. "You always told me things were casual with you two."

"We were, and, you know…" Steve leaned back against the counter, folding his arms over his chest. "She's a great girl, we had a lot of fun together, and I liked her a lot…"

"None of those sound-like reasons to break up." Mary watched Steve quietly as she ate her ice cream.

"I think she wanted something more from me than I could actually give her," Steve shrugged. "She wanted kids of her own, and so do I, I think I'd like to have kids someday, but how do I bring children into the world doing what I do, you know?"

Mary tilted her head at him. "So, do something else? Nothing says you have to be a cop forever, or that you have to head up Five-0 forever. You had that restaurant with Danny, maybe you guys can buy your shares back from Kamekona?"

But Steve was already shaking his head. "Trust me, the one thing Danny and I figured out with that restaurant is that we absolutely, positively, do not want to run a restaurant. And putting that place together made me realize that I love being a cop, I love Five-0. I love my job, Mare; I don't want to give it up."

"But you feel like you'd have to choose if you got married and had kids."

"Yea, I do." Steve bit his lip. "Wouldn't you, knowing what we know now about everything?"

"I mean, I guess, but…"

"But what?"

She shrugged nonchalantly. "You were always more like Dad. You were never gonna be able to have a career behind a desk or something that was safe, away from the action. That was never who you were. I remember even before Dad split us up, you would come home from school telling him and Mom about the latest injustice you'd stopped – didn't matter if it was keeping some poor kid from getting the crap kicked out of him, or stealing that bag of dope from Tommy Perkins so he wouldn't hand it out to the other kids-"

"You knew about that? How'd you know about that?"

"Please, Dad wouldn't shut up about that one for weeks," Mary giggled at him.

"Seriously?" It warmed Steve right up and at the same time, sent a chill through him, the thought of his father being so proud of something his son had done that he'd talked about it non-stop. He was reminded of a still half-way empty office headquarters and a team without a name, a bowl of popcorn, and Chin and Kono watching old football games Steve had played in. When Chin had told Steve that he and Steve's father used to watch him play, that bit of information had come as a shock to Steve, and why shouldn't it? That same feeling of dismay mixed with happiness that his father had been proud of him and anger that the man just couldn't say it settled itself in the center of Steve's chest. He took a breath, trying to relieve the pressure a bit.

"Steve?"

"Yea, I'm okay, just… you know Dad; he didn't really like to show his feelings all that much, you know?"

Mary knew enough to let it go at that point, understanding her brother needed to take a few minutes and recalibrate. They made idle chit chat about Joanie while waiting for the pizzas and wings to cook and when the bell sounded on the oven, plates and napkins were drawn from their cupboards by Mary while Steve sliced the pizzas and plated the wings.

"Salt?" Mary looked over her shoulder and Steve pointed towards the bread box, thinking nothing of it until he heard his sister's confused voice laced with a touch of concern.

"Uh, Steve?"

"Hm."

"Why is there a bullet hole here?"

Well, shit.

Steve had remembered to replace the fridge and caulk the holes in the various walls and cupboard doors, but he'd kept forgetting to buy a new bread box. Of course, his sister finding the bullet hole would be his thousandth reminder that he needed to do so. He felt his face pinch as he thought of a way to answer her question without scaring her. He'd told her about Joe, but only that he'd died in an ambush on his ranch. She didn't know the details, and she certainly didn't know that Steve had been attacked in his own home, that someone had tried to kill him in the very kitchen they were standing in currently. Steve looked up at her, and he didn't know why he hoped not to see that expectant look on her face, but it was there, plain as day. He took a breath.

"Let's take all this outside."

Once they were both settled, beers and food aplenty before them, Steve launched into the story. He told Mary about the attempted assassination, how all of his SEAL team buddies had been murdered, about the ranch in Montana and how he and Joe had fled there only to have been followed by the mercenaries charged with killing them. He (wisely) left out the impromptu trip to Laos and the more gritty details – there were things he knew his sister did not need to know he was capable of – but he provided enough particulars so that Mary would know she was getting as much of the story as he could legally (and safely) tell her.

"So basically, you had a pissed off ex-girlfriend who worked with the CIA, she decides to betray her own country, sell secrets to our enemies and because she was so mad that you caught her, she decided to sell you and all of your friends and Uncle Joe out?"

"Yea," Steve leaned back in his chair, willing his leg to stop bouncing as a foreign feeling of anxiety coursed through him from head to toe. "You're uh… you're taking all of this awfully well."

"I'm actually not, I'm actually really pissed that you're just now telling me about this," Mary shoved some of the pizza in her mouth, glaring at her brother while she chewed.

"Mary, a lot of the stuff that happened I had to go silent on, okay? I had no way of knowing if they'd stop at my old SEAL team, I kept Five-0 out of it to protect them, I mean, one of my buddies lived in California; what if they hadn't stopped at my old team, what if they'd gone right for you and Joanie?"

"Yea, what if they had gone after me and Joanie? We definitely would've never known until it was too late."

Steve huffed a harsh breath from his nose and closed his eyes for a few moments before opening them again. "Okay," he finally murmured, looking at her. "That's a good point. You're right."

Mary leaned back in her chair, folding her arms over her chest. "You can't protect me by doing what Dad did to us, Steve. You can't protect Joanie like that either. I know you want to; I know that's where your head was at, that you thought you were doing the right thing and that these people were just after you and Joe and people you've served with, but…" she shrugged her shoulders, taking a breath. "You're a lot like Dad, you know? In a lot of ways. You're stubborn and you're really smart and you have the biggest heart and you want to protect everyone, but not telling me stuff like this? That's the one way you can't be like Dad."

"Mary, there are going to be some things that I can't tell you, that I can't talk to you about-"

"The Navy SEAL stuff and all of the other international crap you get yourself into, that's fine. I get that. But when someone's trying to hurt you, and kill your friends to hurt you? When they might go after your family? I'm not giving you a choice, Steve; you tell me."

Mary held her brother's gaze until Steve answered her with a sharp nod of his head. "Okay."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

"Good." Sufficiently pleased and mollified, Mary picked up a chicken wing. "Where's Uncle Joe buried?"

"He's actually not," Steve looked out over the ocean, watching as the sun's light began to fade into the dusky oranges, pinks, and reds Hawaiian sunsets were known for. Appropriate timing considering their current subject of conversation. "He left instructions that he wanted to be cremated."

"Are you going to keep the ashes?"

"No," Steve shook his head. "No, I've got a friend that's going to take a trip to Vietnam and scatter his ashes on a beach there." At Mary's confused look, Steve grinned. "Joe told me about this beach that he saw while he was serving there during the war. Said it was the most beautiful beach he'd ever seen." The seemingly nonchalant shrug that rolled from his shoulder didn't fool Mary in the least, but she didn't call him on it. "What about the ranch?"

"What about it?"

"What are you going to do with it?"

"Keep it," Steve shrugged, "fix it up a little bit. It's a nice piece of land, Mare, really." He sniffed once, cleared his throat. "You and Joanie should come see it some time. Maybe we make an actual family vacation out of it." He folded his hands over his stomach and leaned back, no longer hungry and caught Mary looking at him. "What?"

"I'm really sorry he died, Steve. And I'm really sorry you had to be there and watch it and…and that you weren't able to save him. I know that's what's eating you up inside."

"It did for a while, but not so much anymore. I did everything I could. I know I did. In the end, there's nothing I could have done to save him." He chuckled mirthlessly. "Danny hit me over the head with that enough that it's sunk in, you know. And he's right; even if the medivac had landed and we'd gotten Joe stabilized, his liver was shredded. He'd have needed a donor, and I couldn't give him mine - mine is Danny's, that wouldn't have worked. He probably would've died in transport…"

Steve cleared his throat again and when he spoke, his voice was tight. "So, he chose to die where he wanted to; at his ranch, during a sunset like this, near his favorite tree."

For a long time, the only sounds that could be heard were the echoes of local night life calling out their territories for all other creatures to hear. Steve and Mary finished off the pizza and wings, and when Mary took the dishes inside to dump the remains and put the plates in the sink, she came out with two cartons of mochi ice cream. She handed one, along with a spoon, to Steve and reclaimed her seat as she opened her own carton, eagerly scooping out a spoonful and savoring the first bite.

"It just doesn't taste the same back in LA."

"Y'know, that's the second time you've said that tonight. Sounds like even more reason for you to just move back home."

"Joanie's already in school though, and she has scouts, she's made a lot of friends where we live," Mary took another bite of the ice cream. "She's settled, you know? I don't want to upset that."

Steve sighed. "Yea, and I get that, but Mary, you don't have anyone in LA. Okay? And I miss you, Mare. I hate not seeing Joanie grow up, I hate having to go months without seeing you – the last time before this was two Christmases ago." He opened up his own carton and tried the ice cream, ignoring Mary's pinched face.

"I do too have people in LA. I have friends, okay, I'm not completely pathetic."

"You don't have me."

"So, you move to LA."

Steve barked out laughter. "No way I could live in Los Angeles, Mary. I don't know how you do it, and there's the little matter of me running a statewide task force, plus I've got Danny to think about, Grace and Charlie, and there's Nahele, the rest of the team…" Steve shook his head, fixing his gaze on his sister once more. "I'm serious, Mary. Joanie's still young enough where if you decide to move, she'll be alright. You can live here, okay? Junior's still looking to get his own place, though with the way he and Tani are going, they may be living together before the year's through." He meant it as a joke, but Steve wasn't blind. He could see what was building between Junior and Tani, even if the latter didn't want to see it herself.

"The way you're talking about Danny these days, there may not be enough room for me and Joanie." Mary smiled sweetly at Steve's confused face as she ate another bite of ice cream and pulled the spoon out from between her lips slowly.

"What're you talking about, Mary? He's my partner, my best friend, I talk about him all the time."

"Yea, but it's the way you're talking about him lately that's a little different."

"Oh God, is this the 'surf buddies' talk again? Didn't we clear that up a few years ago?" Steve's attempt at deflection was both very noble and quite useless. It was too much to hope for that Mary would simply leave it at that and let it go. And just as Steve predicted, like a dog with a bone, his sister plowed forward.

Steve took another sip of his beer. Preparation was key here.

"I don't think we cleared it up so much as you just stopped entertaining my questions about it." Mary watched as her brother stabbed at his ice cream. "Whoa, okay; what did that ice cream ever do to you?" She watched as Steve rolled his eyes, stabbed the spoon into the carton one more time, and set it on the table.

"I think Danny wants to get back together with Rachel."

To say that Mary looked as if her eyebrows wanted to lift clear off her head was an understatement. "Rachel, his ex-wife? That Rachel?"

"Yea."

"Didn't she like, hide one of his kids from him or something?"

"Yea, she did, for three years." Steve's nostrils flared. "And the only reason he ever found out is because Charlie got really sick and needed a bone marrow transplant from a biological parent, which Rachel couldn't give him because she wasn't a match and Stan couldn't give him because he wasn't his real father."

"Whatever happened to him, by the way?"

"Who, Stan?" Steve shrugged. "He lives in Las Vegas now, but he still talks to the kids. He bought Grace a car, which she wound up totaling when some jerk ran her off the road and almost killed her."

"What do you mean she almost died?"

"A guy had been bothering her and a friend at Zippy's, and when Grace told him to get lost, he waited for them to leave, followed them out of the parking lot, and tried to scare them. Instead, Grace lost control of the car, flipped it, and was almost killed. She was in surgery for hours." He stuck his spoon in the carton of ice cream again but after a few seconds he set it off to the side, no longer hungry. Mary followed his lead after a few moments.

"I didn't know it was that bad." Her voice was soft as she examined him. "You told me that she'd gotten in an accident and landed in the hospital, but you never mentioned anything about her almost dying… I mean, what happened?"

"She had a lot of head trauma, and when she was in surgery, the doctors ran into some complications – they had to relieve the pressure on her brain." Steve ran a hand down his face, suddenly feeling drained. Why had he started talking about this? He didn't want to talk about this.

"Steve?"

Mary, he was unhappy to see, was giving him a calculating look mixed with disappointment.

Damn if she wasn't Doris and John McGarrett's daughter. He responded the only way he knew how.

"What."

"Why aren't you telling me these things? Why did you keep everything about Joe quiet, why didn't you tell me Grace almost died? Why are you just now telling me that you think Danny wants to get back together with Rachel?" She pinned him with a glare, and Steve had the good sense to lower his gaze when he saw the hurt there. "Why are you shutting me out?"

"I'm not trying to," he muttered. "The stuff with Joe, I honestly thought I was protecting you, Mare, and I'm sorry about that. But Grace's accident, Danny seeing Rachel more… I just…" he shrugged, not knowing how to finish his thought, not really wanting to. So, Mary did it for him.

"You didn't tell me because you would've had to talk about it, and you don't want to talk about it because it hurts too much." She shrugged at Steve's shocked face. Did the man really think she didn't know him? Maybe others found it difficult to read her brother, but Mary had always found it as easy as reading Hooked On Phonics. "You did the same thing when Catherine left." She waited him out as Steve digested that observation and saw the exact moment when he realized there was no way out of this conversation for him. Mary leaned back, folded her arms across her chest, and watched as her brother took a deep breath and dove in.

"Grace and Charlie are probably the closest I'll ever get to knowing what it feels like to be a father." Steve leaned his head back against his chair and closed his eyes. "When I heard that Grace was in the hospital, when Danny told me how bad it was, Mary… I don't think I've ever been so scared in my life. And if I was that scared, I won't even begin to imagine what Danny was feeling. There are fathers who love their kids and then there's Danny. He lives for Grace and Charlie. Everything he does is for them, everything. He gets up for them every morning and goes to bed for them every night, there's not one thing he does in his life where he isn't somehow thinking about how it affects his kids. And seeing him like that, seeing him just completely helpless, powerless, having to sit in that waiting room, both him and Rachel, and all they could do was wait – wait and pray that Gracie would wake up and that she'd be okay?" His head lulled to the side and he opened his eyes, meeting Mary's quiet gaze. His sister had a look of pure understanding on her face, and why shouldn't she? She was a mother, she probably understood what Danny must have gone through that night more so than Steve could.

"After the accident, Danny and Rachel started seeing each other more, talking more. At first, Danny just said what he always says, that it was the first time in a long time that they didn't want to kill each other, things like that. But then Rachel spent the night at Danny's when that hurricane came through a few months ago, and then his ex-mother-in-law, who he never got along with, came into town and they wound up patching things up. He and Rachel had been taking Grace on college tours together before all of this happened, and I just… I feel like an asshole, because I should want Danny to be happy, right? All Danny's ever wanted was to fix his family, all he's ever wanted was to have his family back, and nine years ago he walked away from that chance because I got in trouble and he stuck around to get me out of it. Now, he has that chance again, I know that's what he's thinking. This time, it's different; this time, he and Rachel are getting along, and her mother doesn't hate him anymore, they almost just lost their daughter to a car accident and… I should be supporting him, and I should want this for him."

"But you don't." It wasn't as if Mary was revealing any great secret.

"It doesn't matter what I want. I just want him to be happy."

"But not with her."

"It's not…" Steve ran a tired hand down his face. "I don't think it's possible, Mare. I don't. And I don't want him to get so far in, get so deep, get his hopes up so much that something happens to make it all fall apart, because it did before, at least twice. He's thinking, 'hey, maybe third time's the charm', and I'm just…" He settled a hand over his heart and took a breath while Mary reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. "What are you doing?"

"Calling Danny."

"What?!" Steve shot out of his chair and launched himself at his sister. "No, no, no, no, no you are not calling Danny, Mary; put that phone down! Put it away!"

"Why?" And while she lowered the phone and stopped scrolling down to Danny's number, she didn't put it back in her pocket. "Because if I know you, you haven't said any of this to him. I'll bet whenever he's mentioned it you've just given him some kind of monosyllabic gorilla grunt or a look that would probably make anyone think you'd just eaten an entire lemon, or you've joked about it and let it roll off your back."

"Mary," Steve was caught between exasperation and an illogical panic as his eyes darted from his sister to the phone in her hand. "Look, it'll work itself out. It doesn't matter-"

"Yes, it does!" Mary tossed her phone on the table and stood up, actually pushing her brother back as she got to her feet. "Stop saying it doesn't matter! It does matter! It obviously matters a lot to you, otherwise you wouldn't have this look on your face like your whole world is going to fall apart if Danny gets back together with Rachel! Jesus, Steve; stop shutting me out when it's obvious that this is killing you!"

It was a stand off of sorts, Mary with her hands on her hips, Steve mirroring her stance, both their tempers running high and each one unwilling, at least for the moment, to back down. But Steve had underestimated Mary's resolve on this one, and when it became clear that the stubborn, bullheaded younger woman was simply not going to let this go, the SEAL did something he was quite unaccustomed to and which always left a bad taste in his mouth.

Steve backed down.

He backed down, dropped his arms to his sides, and took a breath. Mary's face was mulish as she watched him back up a few paces. "If I don't get to get down on myself for my bad decisions with people I've hooked up with, then you don't get to hide what you're really feeling from me anymore." Scratching the back of her neck, she looked at the bottles and ice cream on the table and moved about to gather them up. "I'll clean up."

The lanai was quiet as Mary picked up the remaining dishes, cartons, and half empty bottles of beer and carried them into the house, leaving Steve alone with the backdrop of the ocean waves gently lapping against the shore, a complete antithesis to the jumbled and anxious thoughts which were racing in Steve's head full throttle, bouncing off of each other so loudly he had to close his eyes and breath in and out for a few seconds just to get his bearings. When he opened his eyes again, he could see Mary through the window, her gaze directed studiously at the sink, arms moving about as she rinsed and washed the plates, all the while refusing to look up and out the window.

Well, Steve thought to himself dryly, not how I planned for this night to end.

But Mary had a point. He'd nearly seen red earlier that afternoon when his sister had continued to disparage herself to him. In many ways, Mary had gotten the worst of the deal when their mother had faked her death and their father had sent them away. Steve had been 16 at the time, and while it had been hard on him, while he'd felt abandoned and angry, he'd been two years shy of 18 and had gotten his ass in the Naval Academy as soon as he'd been able. Knowing now what Joe had done for him when he'd stolen that car a year after he'd been sent to the east coast only made Steve feel that much more guilty that he'd had the opportunities he'd had, because, as he'd learned over the years, for Mary it had been quite different.

Mary had just reached the tender age of ten when everything happened, and as much as Steve knew he'd been hurting, no matter how much he'd tamped down on his feelings, he couldn't imagine the pain Mary had gone through. She had been her father's eyes, a Daddy's Girl in every way, and for her to have been shipped off to Aunt Deb in California, for her to not be able to see her father again, Steve knew that had to have killed some part of her.

Years ago, when he and Mary had finally been reunited and she'd mentioned she'd had a few run ins with law enforcement, Steve had run her record. The charges were minor in comparison to the many things he'd seen during his time running Five-0, but still, looking at a wrap sheet that showed his little sister's mug shot along with charges of possession of marijuana, DUI's, and disturbing the public had still been a kick to his gut. While Steve had thrown himself into regimented discipline and had used the Navy and his SEAL team to replace the family he'd lost, Mary had, quite simply, gone wild. And while he knew, logically, that he was not to blame – the fault lay squarely with John and Doris McGarrett and how each parent had chosen to handle things – he still felt a sense of responsibility. He was her older brother. He was supposed to protect her, be there for her.

For the last ten years, they'd been trying to make up for lost time, and they'd done a good job of it. From their first reunion, when he knew Mary hadn't trusted him worth a damn and he'd had no idea or expectation that she'd stick around, to making it a priority to keep in touch with her after he'd sent her back to Los Angeles for her own safety, to meeting Joanie and having Thanksgiving and Christmases together, the relationship they'd been able to build was nothing short of miraculous.

Steve loved his sister, had the utmost respect and admiration for her – she was resilient in so many ways that he wasn't. She'd chosen to adopt a child on her own, had continued trying to find that perfect person who would make her happy and secure for the rest of her life. Mary never stopped believing that having a spouse and children, having a family like she'd used to have, was possible.

Steve knew that was the main reason Mary insisted on being told all of the things that he'd neglected to mention to her. Every time he clammed up, especially about important, life altering events like what had happened with Joe and Grace, and what was currently going on with Danny, he knew it must make her feel insecure about her place in his life, that their relationship really hadn't come as far as it had in the past decade.

He glanced through the window again and saw his sister still at the sink. Mary's face had relaxed somewhat, but instead of looking frustrated or angry, she now just seemed resigned and sad. That wouldn't do. He puttered around the lanai for a few more minutes before taking a fortifying breath, opening the back door, and heading inside, making his way through the dining room to the kitchen. He hovered over the threshold. Mary's back was the only greeting he received, but he knew that she was aware of his presence; the reflection of her eyes in the window darted up and paused on his before returning to the soapy task beneath her fingers. Steve lifted his hands, pressed the palms together in a prayerful expression.

"I don't want to talk about Danny getting back together with Rachel because that possibility hurts me more than any bullet or injury or form of torture could." And having suffered from all three of those examples, Steve knew it very well.

Steve watched as Mary continued to wash the last of the dishes, and the only sounds in the kitchen were of the soapy mixture swishing in the sink, the clink of the plate against the sides of the basin, and the running of water from the faucet. Steve felt his heartbeat pick up; he'd always considered himself pretty good at waiting someone out, but Mary was an absolute, consummate professional when it came to taking her sweet time in deciding whether or not to give someone her attention. The worst part was that Steve knew, eventually, he would get it – he just didn't know when or in what form that attention would come.

Finally, Mary turned around to face him and folded her arms over her chest, leaning back against the countertop. "Why does it hurt you more than all of those things?"

Well, Steve could answer that one, that was easy. "Because I don't trust her with him."

"Why?"

"Mary-"

"Why, Steve?"

"What do you mean why!?" And seriously, was she for real with that question? Mary knew Rachel had hidden Charlie from Danny – wasn't that more than enough reason to not want his best friend and his best friend's ex-wife to start knocking boots again? Hadn't they just had that conversation 20 minutes ago on the lanai? "Mary, she hid his kid, okay? The first thing that attracted me to Danny was how he was as a father, how absolutely in love with Grace he was, how it was so clear and obvious to anyone who was blind, deaf, and dumb that he would put anything and everything on hold for his daughter, all she had to do was say the word! I mean… for Rachel to do that? To treat Danny as if he were some kind of danger to his own child? His own son? Do you know how devastated Danny was when Rachel lied to him and told him that Charlie wasn't his? That they'd gotten the dates wrong and that Charlie was Stan's?"

Mary shook her head.

"He stayed in Hawaii for me nine years ago. He gave up getting his family back, gave up knowing that little boy as his son from the second he was born just so that he could get me out of trouble." Steve slumped against the wall, tired and exhausted and sick with anxiety that he wasn't used to feeling.

"When Rachel gets mad, she gets vindictive, and she got mad at Danny a lot for a long time, and when she did, she'd either threaten to cut off Danny's visitation or she'd get her high powered lawyers to draw up new custody documents that she'd hold over his head until he did whatever it was that she wanted." He looked at his sister helplessly. "I want to be happy for him, Mare, I do. But how can I be happy for him, how can I support this with everything that's happened? Knowing that it killed Danny to go through all of that? Knowing what the kids have been through watching Danny and Rachel go back and forth?"

A kitchen was never supposed to be as quiet as it was at that moment, not when there were people in it, but even a spec of dust falling from the ceiling to the floor could have been heard in the silence that followed Steve's soliloquy. While Steve tried to get his pounding heart and teeming nerves to settle, Mary chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully, and when she finally looked up at him once more, Steve's heart rate doubled. He knew that look. That look brought with it invasive questions; comments and observations that she'd drummed up that he knew he either wouldn't like, or would rather shove away in the dark corner of his mind reserved for things dealing with his parents and Catherine.

Mary's voice, quiet and gentle as it was, may as well have been like nails grating into his skin for all the implications and pressure it put on him. "Bro, is it possible that maybe you're feeling like this because you think of Danny as a little bit more than just a friend and your work partner?" Steve sucked in a breath, darted a nervous tongue between his lips, and shifted his feet.

"I know there've always been jokes," she continued, speaking as if she were talking to a spooked stallion, "Hell, I've made more than a few; I mean, the surf buddies one was always good for a few laughs, but a lot of times I felt like they were always rooted in truth a little bit, you know? And I don't know if you realize this but just a second ago, before you went into that big long rant, you started it off with, 'The first thing that attracted me to Danny', so…"

Steve did know. Steve knew very well. Over the years, he and Danny had chatted back and forth every so often about the reputation they'd garnered for being the 'married-but-not-really-married' cops from Five-0, and each time, they'd laughed it off and gone on their merry way. But ever since he'd been put in that tank all those months ago and had spent over six hours alone with nothing but his thoughts to keep him company – literally nothing but those thoughts since his eyes, nose, and ears had all been clogged with gutta percha – and had come out of it only to see Danny's worried yet hopeful face hovering in front of his and practically begging Steve to remember his name, Steve had started to believe that perhaps there was something more than just friendship between him and his partner. He should have realized it when he and Danny had made the decision that the trigger for Steve to come back if he went too deep was Danny; his name, specifically. Danny was to ask Steve what his name was, how long they'd known each other, and other questions designed to bring Steve back to reality if the sensory deprivation took too strong a hold of him.

Following the whole episode with Kang and Greer, Steve and Danny had been spending more time together, and Danny had been bringing Charlie over to his house to play on the beach more often too. Steve had made his peace with Catherine, Danny had made his with Melissa. For a while, it had been like the old days, and Steve relished in it, loved the time he spent with Danny and Charlie when it was just the three of them, four when Grace could come along. Maybe Steve had enjoyed it a little too much, had allowed Danny and the kids to become to embedded in his routine, his life, his soul. His heart.

And then Grace had gotten into her car accident, and out of the necessity of tending to their daughter, Rachel and Danny were thrown together once more, and after a while, it became clear that perhaps the former lovers were reminiscing on some good old days of their own.

And as much as Steve didn't like it, as much as it scared him that Danny might go through more pain with Rachel if he continued on this path, who the Hell was Steve McGarrett to stop Danny from trying to put his family back together? It was the one thing Danny had wanted, and Steve would never deny him that.

His sister murmured his name again and Steve took a moment to look up at her. She must have seen something on his face because within seconds, she was standing in front of him and wrapping her arms around his waist. He had no other response but to do the same, and he pulled her into a tight hug. Mary laughed after a few quiet moments.

"Mom and Dad really fucked us over, didn't they?"

"Yea, they did," Steve gave a wet chuckle, squeezing her a little tighter.

"You really care about Danny like that, don't you?"

"I don't know," Steve hedged and leaned back, taking Mary with him. For reasons that did not escape him, it was much easier for him to talk now that he couldn't see her eyes or face, only the top of her head. "I just know that when he's around, everything's better, and when you throw the kids in there it's…"

"Perfect?" Mary guessed, leaning back so she could see him.

"Yea," Steve released a tightly held breath; it felt good, in a way, to admit it finally to himself, that he felt more than friendship for Danny. He quirked his lips. "You're supposed to be my little sister. When'd you get so smart about this stuff, huh?"

"Hey, if I were really smart about this stuff, I'd be married to an awesome husband already with another kid on the way." Mary pulled away, running a hand through her hair. "I'm gonna take a shower and go to bed. Don't torture yourself anymore tonight, okay? That's my job."

"Oh, well, wouldn't want to make you feel like you're slacking, would I," Steve grinned and leaned forward, brushing a kiss on Mary's forehead, and bidding her a good night as she left him in the kitchen with nothing but a sink full of suds and his own thoughts.

It figured it would take someone else to drag his feelings out into the light, and he couldn't -wouldn't- begrudge Mary taking the bull by the horns and making him open up like she had. He knew he had to talk about what he was feeling sooner or later and who better than his sister to do that with? Well, other than the obvious, but the obvious was not available, and from the looks of things, the obvious might not be available for some time, especially since Steve was pretty sure that Danny was planning a little get-away with Rachel.

Danny hadn't said anything outwardly; actually, he'd made mention that he was going to New Jersey on short notice and that he wasn't taking the kids with him, but that Steve shouldn't worry, that there was nothing wrong. But it was the way he'd said it, the way Danny had looked -or rather hadn't looked- at Steve when he'd first told him. And Steve got it, he did. If Danny was looking to progress in his relationship with Rachel, feel things out, give things another try, it wasn't something that he was going to want to openly discuss. Steve knew Danny better than Danny knew himself sometimes, and the reverse was also true. When his partner was unsure of something, Danny kept it under wraps, played it close to the vest. He'd done so with Gabrielle when he'd first courted her, and with Melissa too afterwards. Steve knew that Danny just wanted to sort things out on his own without anyone else's opinions or feelings getting in the way, and as much as it pained Steve to admit it, that included his own thoughts on the matter.

Of course, the situation was more complicated now. Danny would never guess that Steve maybe sometimes thought about what it would be like to just sleep next to Danny, to hold him, to have dinner just the two of them on the lanai over a bottle of wine. To spend the weekend together making breakfast and dinner and talking over beers on Steve's beach while the sun set, and the moon rose as they sat in their chairs listening to the water lap against the shore. To wake up to the sounds of Grace and Charlie getting ready for school and helping the kids with their homework at night.

Danny would never even think to imagine that perhaps some of Steve's fears and concerns for Danny were driven by the idea that he cared more about Danny than he'd initially realized, that somewhere along the line, he'd developed feelings for his partner that were slightly past the line of platonic. Steve's life was fuller, richer, perfect when Danny and the kids were in it. He wanted them in his life all the time, for all time.

He wanted them to be his.

The water to the shower cut on over head and Steve took another breath, quieting his mind for the time being. He wanted a lot from Danny, he knew that. He likely wanted things that Danny couldn't give him, and he knew that too. But above all else, Steve knew what Danny was thinking – that there was a chance, a real chance this time, that he could have his family back. That his son could grow up with both his mother and father living happily under one roof, and that his daughter could see that couples, even ones with as many problems as Danny and Rachel had, could work things out, could come together again. Danny truly believed he could have all of that again. Steve knew better than anyone how desperate his partner was for that.

Which was why, as Steve flicked the light off in the kitchen and headed up the stairs to bed, he resolved to keep his worries about Danny and Rachel to himself, and his feelings for Danny closely guarded. If there was one thing Steve was good at, it was compartmentalization. He could tuck his fears and thoughts away, deep in his mind, seal them under an impenetrable lock and key, never to be seen again until he deemed it necessary. Danny was a grown man who could make his own decisions, and all Steve wanted for him at the end of the day was to be happy and safe. If trying to make things work with Rachel achieved that goal, then he would find a way to live with that, for Danny's sake.

And if that meant that Steve had to swallow his own attraction, his own feelings, his own wishes about his partner so that Danny could have the life he always wanted without being burdened by Steve's untimely case of unrequited love?

Then so be it.