A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews guys. It definitely motivated me to keep writing. This is the first time I've ever written a legit fanfiction rather than an original story so this truly means alot to me. And just a heads up, this chapter is more centered on our favorite H50 couple Steve and Kovo.

P.S. I do not own Hawaii Five-0. Just the imagination behind the story.

The digital clock perched on the nightstand blinked "9:52 AM". The liveliness of the illuminated digits mocked Steve while he laid on the right side of his bed face-to-face with the brightly lit numbers wondering if he was a step closer to figuring out how epileptic people felt. His head was still throbbing from the aftermath of the beatings he took straight to the face the day before. He had swallowed a good amount of aspirin pills and downed some Nyquil before he knocked out like planned, but it all felt the same once he finally got around to waking up. As if he just endured the world's worst possible hangover. "Man, it feels like the first night of camp all over again," he grumbled irritably as he slowly rolled off the bed.

On most days he would have been awake by 4 AM at the latest, having already performed his morning workout and gotten breakfast by now, but today was a different day. He awoke with a bigger headache than he did when he went to sleep and the color in his bruises seemed to have turned one whole shade darker. Observing himself in the bathroom mirror, he scowled. He looked terrible. The dark circles formed under his hazel eyes were darker than usual and his whole body felt extremely lazy. Steve looked at himself like he had some sort of disease.

"Let's pray a cold shower will wake me up," he said to himself in a low voice as he shook free of the solid black boxers he went to sleep in before stepping into the shower, purposely turning the shower knob so the water would pelt his skin in a slightly colder temperature than usual.

He wasn't sure if it was the humidity of the island or if his body temperature had risen almost rapidly since the moment he got home from headquarters last night. Either way, the feel of the cold ripples on his naked skin soothed him more than he imagined the aspirin would have. Before he knew it his fingertips had begun to prune, a sign that it was time for him to force himself out from behind the shower curtain.

As he ruffled his short brown locks dry, the sound of the doorbell rang through the house. Confused, and a tad bit more awake than he was approximately forty minutes ago, he dried whatever damp skin was left untouched before wrapping the dark blue towel around his waist and making his way to the door.

The doorbell rang two more times before Steve finally got to the door, one hand yanking the handle open and the other carefully clutching the towel wrapped around his waist.

"Hey, Bo—" Kono started before the image in front of her finally came crashing down, "Ho, boy. Um…" she closed her eyes, embarrassed. "I-I'm so sorry, Boss. Is this a bad time?" she asked, afraid to completely detach her hand from in front of her face.

Hesitating to answer before finally realizing what she was referring to, he quickly shook his head to reassure her. "Uh, no, no. Sorry, I just came out of the shower. I didn't think you'd be—"

"—I can always just come back later."

"No, it's fine. I swear," he chuckled, smiling to let her know it was alright. "You just caught me at a bad time, that's all." He waited for her to realize he was giving her the okay to make herself comfortable around him. The way she slowly opened herself up to look up at him again after the whole ordeal with hesitant eyes made him smile. He hadn't realized the curl of his lips until he noticed her giggling at whatever stupid expression was plastered on his face. "Um, you want to, um..." he stifled a nervous laugh. Why was he at such a loss for words all of a sudden? I mean, it was just Kono. "Do you want to come inside for a bit? I'd hate to make you wait outside," he finally managed to muster.

Unsure of how to reply, she waited a beat before shrugging her shoulders. "Sure, why not?"

Steve held the door open for her as she squeezed past his tall frame at the doorway. "Make yourself at home. I'll be back in a bit." He left to go throw on a clean shirt and a pair of pants before turning back to a confused Kono shifting on his couch, "I'm sorry again for all of this."

"It's fine," she smiled, breathing in his recognizable scent as he neared her. She had kept herself busy by glancing around and taking in the entirety of his living room. It wasn't over-the-top glamorous. It was comfortable, just the way she liked it. His scent was musky, yet arousing. She hates to admit it but she's always been the type to be even more attracted to the kind of men who know exactly what women like to smell and Steven McGarrett definitely found himself on that list. "Nice house," she commented, trying to make things seem as normal as humanly possible. "I'm really sorry for showing up at your house last minute. It's just that you didn't show up at headquarters so I got kind of worried and decided to go check up on you in case you were home," she said with a look of concern as she rose from her seat on the couch.

"Ah, it's nothing. I blame the Nyquil," he joked which was well-received by the shorter brunette. She smiled cheekily at him in response.

Kono decreased the space that lingered between them, lifting her hand to glide over the imperfections on her boss's tainted complexion to which he reacted with a flinch. "Still hurts, huh, brah?" She jerked her hand back in reaction to his violent fidget and began to rummage through her pockets while Steve looked on at a loss.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to call Chin and tell him I found you," she muffled, her hair draped over her face while she bent down to relieve her phone from the warmth of the pocket of her denim shorts which Steve noticed were showing off the incredible length of her tanned legs. He had unknowingly shot his eyebrows up suggestively until Kono's voice thrust him out of his daze, "First Danny and now you?" she teased as she pressed the speed dial on her phone to get in direct contact with her cousin. She waited until the first ring to shift her body away from Steve's to update him on the "Find McGarrett" case. "Hey, Cuz... yeah, I found him. He's with me right now."

Kono continued conversing with Chin, pacing around the limited space she was given in Steve's living room. First Danny and now you? He knew Kono was teasing like she always did, but he couldn't seem to overthink those words. He knew he shouldn't have been so drawn to her legs knowing the consequences consisted of her outing him as a pervert like a little sister would an older brother, but he couldn't seem to shake his gaze from them. They were tempting him to stroke them. Wait, when did he start thinking like this? Maybe the swollenness of the bruise below his right eye was clouding not only his vision, but his mind. Or, at least presenting him with only half of his regular mentality. He knew he already made the one mistake of getting involved with someone within the same workspace once. Catherine Rollins. After that experience he promised himself he would never get involved with anyone else he worked with, and there was only one girl on the Five-0 force which was Kono Kalakaua. The day they settled the case on Roland Lowery's kidnapping, he swore he would protect her from getting caught up in that much danger again. They were like a family and they loved each other. There was no way in hell he would ever get involved in Kono. He'd hate to relive another relationship like his and Cat's again. He convinced himself that everything would go back to normal once his head stopped throbbing and the discoloration on his face healed.

That's when her words ran through his mind again. Danny? His reassurance that nothing was going on between them diminished. Immediately after Kono stuffed her phone back in her pocket and turned to face him with her familiar dimpled smile, he couldn't stop himself from blurting out, "Are you and Danny...?" he paused to let her fill in the blank.

Her eyebrows scrunched in frustration at this question. She was completely baffled. "Me and Danny? What would make you think that?" she asked with wide eyes.

"Before Chin called you said..." he shook his head, blowing it off. "A-And yesterday when I walked in on you guys—"

"— talking. We were just talking, Boss."

"I told you you can call me Steve."

"I know, I'm just... at a loss for words right now. I'm sorry," she said, shaking her head. "Honestly, I wouldn't dare to get involved with anyone on the team. That's not right. So, no, Danny and I are not..." she trailed off, gesturing with her hands in reference to what Steve had implied.

He nodded. "Yeah. I believe you."

Kono chuckled, trying to break the awkwardness of the situation. "So, now that you're up and out of bed, do you wanna go figure out where the hell Romero's men took him this time? Unless you wanna actually listen to me this time and get that properly taken care of," she said, pointing to the evident marks. "No one's going to take you seriously with all that going for you."

He shrugged, his typical stone-faced expression in play. "I heard the ladies love bad boys," he joked.

"You know, it's really hard to tell whether you're trying to get me to take you seriously or not," she laughed. The problem with Steve was that no matter what emotion he was feeling, the expression on his face seemed to almost always represent no emotion. "Can you manage a smile every once in a while?"

"I do smile. What are you talking about?" he questioned her, seemingly bewildered.

"The last time any of us have ever seen you smile was when Catherine..." she stopped herself before continuing, mentally scolding herself for mentioning her boss's ex-girlfriend's name. A distant look had glazed over Steve's eyes at the mention of her name, forcing him to shift in place as he roughly stuffed his tense hands in the front pockets of beige cargo pants. Kono took a step towards him, a sorry expression cast over her naturally tan complexion. "Steve, I'm—"

He waved her off, gesturing he didn't want to talk about it. "It's fine." He peered back at her as a small smile slowly crept across his lips. Kono could tell it was obviously forced for her benefit, but it was best to accept it as it was if she wanted to keep the case going and secure her position on the field. "Do you want to head out now? Romero could be back in the mainlands right now for all we know," he suggested her.

"Yeah, sure."

"Come on. I'll drive," he offered, ushering her back out the door to his luxury car parked beside hers in the driveway. "But I have to warn you, Danny doesn't exaggerate when he complains about my driving skills. I can go pretty fast."

Kono smiled, a small giggle escaping her delicate pink lips. "Just the way I like it," she smirked before realizing the hidden innuendo in her claim. "Well, you know what I mean," she laughed as she led the way out the door. Steve smiled, content with himself as he closed the door behind the them, jingling his keys in his hands while Kono made her way to the passenger's side of the car with Steve following shortly behind her.