Author's Note: This actually isn't the first time I've written something like this. I did a similar piece for Criminal Minds, though that was more of a character study of Emily Prentiss through the eyes of each one of her six team members. This is really the opposite; this is a collection of three vignettes as Kono reflects on Chin, Danny, and Steve, and just how much they mean to her. So without further ado, I hope you enjoy! Much love to you all.
Disclaimer: I do not own Hawaii Five-0 or any of its characters.
Her cousin. Her partner. Her hero.
The walk to their spot of the shoreline was quiet. It was one they had taken a thousand times before in the two years that had managed to lapse between that day and the present. This time, it was Malia's birthday. Not a remembrance of the date of her death or her and Chin's wedding anniversary, but her birthday. A celebration of her life.
Chin hadn't spoken a word since she picked him up, but Kono didn't expect him to. There was something about him that led her to believe he wasn't thinking solely of Malia, but rather...how Malia would be feeling if she knew of a certain other woman.
He had been like that for the entirety of the day; Chin thought Kono didn't know that he had watched her as she waited for him in his office. He pretended to be unaware of the fact that he saw her touch the slip of paper with Leilani's number on it, and she let him. But the secret was that, when Kono had walked away from his office with that telltale soft smile on her lips, she had seen him in the back of the room. Lurking. Hoping.
Kono wasn't surprised in the slightest when Chin spoke and revealed that they were thinking of the same exact thing – the same exact person. "Do you think it's wrong?" he asked finally, breaking the silence as he stared at the cold water touching their bare feet.
Kono brought her gaze up to meet his at that, her eyes bright and sparkling. "What?"
Chin made a little frustrated noise – frustrated at himself, certainly not at his favorite cousin. "Leilani and me," he clarified; just like Kono had expected him to.
Still, she was stunned that he had actually felt the need to ask the question. "Wha – Chin, no. Absolutely not," Kono said adamantly. She swallowed thickly, wondering how to continue.
She settled with the truth. "If there's one thing I know about Malia, it's that she loved you. She would want you to be happy. You're not doing her a disservice by trying to find that happiness again, cousin." There was a pause as they sunk down to sit in the sand. Kono watched intently as Chin absentmindedly searched for the smallest of pure white shells with those long fingers of his, staring all the while at some spot in the haphazardly painted horizon – the spot with the most beautiful of colors, the spot where Malia had undoubtedly made her new home.
"Malia is irreplaceable," Kono pressed on. "Chin, you and I both know that. But Leilani...she's Leilani. She's not trying to be anyone else. See where this – where she – takes you," Kono said gently, touching his shoulder. "I don't think you'll regret it."
Chin was quiet for so long that Kono feared she had misstepped, that she had said something wrong. She didn't know how she would react if he froze her off, if he became angry at her. Already, she could feel the sinking pain of rejection. She wasn't new to that ache, but with Chin? It would be unbearable.
Thankfully, Chin quelled her fears with a sincere smile that made her heart swell. "You're the best family I could ever ask for, you know," he said quietly, his eyes as bright as hers, though for a different reason entirely.
"Yeah, well," Kono muttered, flushing slightly as she dug her toes into the soft white sand. "The feeling's mutual. You're my hero, Chin," she said simply. "I learned that when I was seven, and it's only gotten truer since."
At her frank admission, Chin couldn't help but draw Kono to him for a hug. In one single embrace, a thousand thanks were given without the need for words; that was just the way they had done it all their lives. Minutes later found Chin blowing a kiss into the distance and letting his whisper of "happy birthday, baby" drift away on the wind.
They sat there for a while longer, reverently watching the sun begin to set, before Chin felt it was time to rise to his feet and tug Kono up with him. "Come on, cuz," he said; and if Kono noticed his voice was uncharacteristically husky, she didn't say a word. "Let's go."
"Yes." She gave Chin's hand a squeeze then stepped to the side to let him lead the way back home. "Let's."
~.~.~
Her student. Her mentor. Her best friend.
Danny had this faraway look in his eyes as they shared their usual table in from of Kamekona's shrimp truck. They had been talking about surfing when she had noticed it; that look that led her to believe the Jersey native's thoughts were being occupied by something much more significant than wave height and wind speed. Kono tilted her head the side, watching him curiously. "What's on your mind?"
He blinked, then seemed to remember she was sitting in front of him. "What are you talking about?" he tried deflecting.
"I can hear practically you thinking," Kono said, arching an eyebrow. "And that's saying something, because the waves are particularly loud today."
He chuckled a little at that before raising his shoulders in a sort of shrug. "I've always felt like a sort of fish out of water. Well, that is, until..."
Kono stuck her spoon into her shave ice and peered at him unwaveringly as his voice trailed off. She would have laughed at the way his lips and tongue were turning purple if the mood hadn't suddenly turned serious. "Until what?"
"This." Danny motioned vaguely between the two of them, then waved around them at nothing in particular – or perhaps, at everything – just like he often did with those hand-motions of his that Steve loved to laugh at. "When I was new to the island, and for a long time afterward, I was irreconcilable," he elaborated. "I couldn't see the appeal of Hawaii, even though it was right in front of me." He smiled at her then, and his smile was contagious; Kono felt her own lips turning up at the sides. Danny shook his head. "I don't know when it was, but it came to the point that Grace wasn't the only one holding me here. You guys were. You guys welcomed me with open arms and I'll never forget that."
He turned to look out at the ocean. "Do I still miss Jersey?" Danny asked, quieter now, and Kono would have been able to see the wistfulness on his expression if she had been blind. "Hell yes, and I always will. But Hawaii has a couple things Jersey doesn't. Three things, really." You, Steve, and Chin. "It got to the point that, when Rachel said she was taking Grace to Vegas...for a long moment, I didn't know what to do. I would drop anything for my daughter in a heartbeat, don't get me wrong, but that doesn't mean it would have been easy: leaving you guys, my family, behind and going to yet another place where I'd feel alone." He grinned at her, then swiftly stole a spoonful of her shave ice, laughing at her resulting peeved grumbling. "Somehow, I don't think a witty surfer girl or suicidal Navy SEAL would have pulled me into their tight knit group in Vegas, of all places. And I hate the desert."
Kono was still laughing when Danny finished talking, but he could see past the mirth sparkling in her eyes and to the sincerity that he valued so much. Her words to him only further proved what he had already known: Kono Kalakaua was one heck of a woman.
"You're a good man, Danny," she said. "And Rachel is a fool to have gone without recognizing that."
His expression softened, his cheeks reddened. "Thanks, Kono."
And then, there it was again; that mischievous little grin that mirrored his from earlier. "Nah, brah, don't get all sentimental on me," Kono brushed off. "I'm just doing what best friends do."
Danny answered her with a good-natured roll of his eyes. "Smooth. Real smooth," he muttered. "Listen, sweetheart, you have got to stop spending so much time –"
"– with McGarrett. Yeah, I know, we've been over this."
Their shared laughter could have been heard from miles away.
~.~.~
Her boss. Her lover. Her partner in crime.
Steve made a fussy noise in the back of his throat as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and reached over to the other side of the bed – only to find it cold, empty. Opening his eyes and pinching his brow together in confusion as a quiet clicking noise met his ears, he forced himself up onto his elbows to peer around the room. Nothing looked different or out of place; except there, in the far corner, where the muted light from a table lamp was casting shadows on the walls so that the only thing visible other than the lamp itself was Kono's silhouette.
With a quiet huff, Steve managed to pull himself out of bed and padded barefoot, bare-chested to where she was sitting in her favorite chair, knees pressed against her chest as she busied herself with...something. He couldn't prevent the small smile from curving his lips when he recognized the small metallic body of the gun he had given her on her graduation resting in her hands.
Reaching over, he flipped the light switch, immediately illuminating the entire room. When he looked back at Kono, she was looking up at him expectantly with that beautiful smile flirting across her lips as well.
"Hi," she said simply, stretching her limbs a little and using it as an excuse to drink in a sight she never got tired of: Steve McGarrett, shirtless and revealing those delectable tattoos of his.
"Hi," Steve returned, admiring the spread she had on the table: the ejected magazine, extra cartridges and bullets, cloth rags, solvents, brushes, oil. It made his smile widen. "Why didn't you turn the light on?" he asked, leaning back against the table. "It would have saved your eyes from the strain."
"I didn't want to wake you up." He kissed her at that, breathing out a winded laugh as he felt Kono's tongue tracing the outline of his lips. She was the one to break the kiss, though it had been much too short, waving the newly cleaned Kel Tec PF-9 in his face. Steve knew it gave her something to do, so it didn't question why she was up at two in the morning with her favorite gun instead of in bed with him. For Kono, it was a comfortable habit to fall into while her conscience worked on bigger things, letting her fingers move while she worked out the kinks in her life and finally, finally relaxed.
On cue, Kono let out a contented sigh and rose to her feet, putting the gun back in its box, under his smoldering gaze all the while. She couldn't have possibly been happier; she was taken, she was his, he was hers. "You know," she began slowly, resting her forehead against his, "I basically fell in love with you the day you gave me this."
Steve murmured something intelligible, but it was clear to both of them that it was a sound of approval and pleasure. "Really now?"
Kono hummed a little against his mouth. "Yeah." To this day, she wasn't sure how she – how they – had gotten here; when they had crossed that line of boss and subordinate and given into what their hearts had wanted the entire time. She didn't know when that day had been, but she had never been more thankful that it happened.
"Want to know when I fell in love with you?" Steve asked in return, his voice deliciously husky as she deepened the kiss in answer. "The first time you showed me you really knew your way around a sniper rifle."
That caught Kono by surprise. "When we brought down Hesse to save Chin?" Right. Because that's the only reason why we killed him.
"Yes." Reaching behind himself to close the box he had presented the gun to her in, Steve brought her up in a fireman's carry and walked her back to their bed. "Crazy, right?" he asked against her skin as he pressed her into the mattress.
"Not crazy," Kono said as she gazed deep into his beautiful blue eyes. "Perfect."
THE END.
Author's Note: Thoughts? I really enjoyed writing this and I can only hope you enjoyed reading it. Please let me know if you liked it! It's always such a joy to read your feedback, so many thanks in advance!