A/N: My thanks to all of you who read this story, the ones who favored, followed and especially to you who took the time to leave me your kind words. Your reviews made me happy and inspired, and made me laugh.

This will be the last chapter in this fic.

Someone asked about a sequel to Crahing, I'm still thinking about it... I will try my best to write one more fic before the begining of the 3rd season. No matter what, I will never write Steve- Catherine fics, I don't care what they do in the new season. I draw the line here...

Thank you all, please let me know what you think, it always keeps the stream of ideas flowing...

R.


"I'm a SEAL, you see?" he tells her, as he stands in the kitchen, barefoot, wearing only an old used pair of jeans.

"Oh... I can see, baby..." she smiles from behind him. She is sitting on the opposite counter, wearing his tee shirt and her underwear, admiring the movements of the muscles of his broad back as he cuts the meet. He turns towards her, when he hears the joyful tone in her voice, smiling despite of himself.

"I'm serious, Kono. Will you please concentrate?"

"Sorry, babe" she tries to focus. He doesn't make it easy for her though, especially when she can still see the straight red lines she made with her finger nails, on his bare torso. It makes her have those delicious flashbacks from a few hours ago, the kind that goes straight to her lower belly.

"All I'm saying is, I'm a SEAL. I need things to be clear and well defined. I need rules."

"Rules? you need rules?" she asks with surprise "you can't see a rule without breaking it."

"That's not the point" he says patiently.

"So, what is the point?" she sighs loudly, biting her lower lip when he bends over to pick a small potato that falls on the floor, giving her a perfect view of his backside in the process."

"Stop it, Kono" he turns around again "I'm trying to have a serious conversation, here" he sees her licking her lips when she sees his bare chest, covered with nail scratches and teeth bites. "For god sake's woman. I'm going to put a shirt on."

()()()

They eat lunch together. He's a really good cook, and he spends a lot of time explaining about the products, and the timings, and encourages her taste a few of the spices he used and tell him what she thinks. She doesn't really listen, it's too confusing, and he uses words that are not even in her vocabulary, but he is so excited and happy, and she didn't see him that relaxed since, well... ever. He looks like a little boy.

"Now what?" he asks in annoyance when he sees her smiling weirdly at him, again.

"Nothing" she shrugs, and goes back to her plate.

"It's too hot in here to be wearing anything else" he points out "so, at least pretend like you're not staring."

()()()

When they clear the plates, and he stands at the sink washing the dishes, she steps behinds him and holds him forcefully against her. She lays her head between he's shoulder blades and inhales contentedly.

"Thank you for lunch, Steve" she mumbles to his back.

"Sure, sweetheart" he says quietly, not stopping what he's doing. "Why don't you wait in the lanai, and I'll join you there in a minute?"

He finds her sprawled tiredly on the only Adirondack chair he has there, and he makes a mental note to buy a new one, now that hopefully, she will be staying more. He picks her up, making her smile at him with surprise, and lies in her place, positioning her on top of him.

"Is it OK for you?" he asks when she rearranges herself around him, and makes some small contented moans he already starts to recognize.

"It's OK for me" she says reassuring him "actually, much more comfortable this way."

They spend the rest of the day in practically the same distance from one another. Luckily, the phone never rings.

()()()

When she has to go give Kally's car back and from there, to her home, they stand in his doorway, kissing slowly and thoroughly for a long long time.

"Can we tell Danny and Chin?" he asks quietly, when they finally break for air.

"hmmm... is it OK if we wait a little?" she asks carefully, and he tries not to be too disappointed by her gentle request. "I know you need things to be clear and well defined" at least he knows she'd listened, "and we will. I promise. But... can you give me some time? just to... define you for myself first...?" if she thinks he is able to deny her anything, she must be delusional. Her beautiful brown eyes look at him with hope and sincerity, and he can only bow his head in agreement. "Thanks, babe" she kisses him quickly, and escapes from the automatic movement of his arms when he tries to keep her there with him "I'll see you at work tomorrow."

He watches her getting into the car and feels an unrecognizable pang in his stomach. He can't be sure, but he thinks he might be missing her already. Thank god his SEAL buddies are not here to see him acting so foolishly. Thank god Danny isn't here, too...

()()()

"What's wrong with you?"

"Again? really?" he looks sideways at his partner shaking he's head. "Honestly, Danny, I have no idea why you even bother asking me this. We both know that even though there is absolutely nothing wrong with me, you'll spend the next thirty five minutes explaining to me that there is..."

"You're in a good mood."

"I don't follow."

"You smiled to the cop at the murder scene, you helped the suspect up after you knocked him down when we took him in, you slowed down for two different pedestrians when they tried to cross the road instead of almost running over them like always, and worst of all, you paid for our coffees!"

"OK... Is this a bad thing, now?"

"Do you think I'm stupid?"

"Well..."

"Don't answer that, you Neanderthal prick"

"Danny, you were all over my case a few days ago when you claimed I was depressed. You're supposed to be thrilled."

"Thrilled? to have a partner with this kind of mood swings? why do you think I got divorced? so I don't have to deal with fucking mood swings anymore, that's why. For crying out loud, it's like you're having your period or something."

"A. I am not having mood swings. I was upset, and now I'm better. It's a well documented phenomenon, even in men, and B. Have you just suggested I am having my period, and compared me to your ex-wife? because I've put people in hospital beds for less..."

"Are you mad now?"

"Suggest that I'm acting like a girl again, and you wouldn't have to wonder."

"Thank god. It actually feels much more natural this way..."

()()()

He shouldn't open his door without looking. Yes, definitely. And he shouldn't open the door without his gun in his hand. But he really thought, or rather hoped, it was her. It was only later that he realized, they actually didn't make any plans, and that when he went to see the governor around six PM, she was still working in her office with Chin. But he was hoping, so when there was a knock on the door a few hours after he got home, he opened it without thinking. Only it wasn't her. It was her mother, and it didn't look like it's going to end well.

"Er, hello."

She doesn't even answer, pushes between him and the door and gets inside the house. He can recognize the gesture. Her daughter was doing the same thing, at the time. Must be a family trait.

"Can I help you with anything?" he asks dryly, when he finds her in the living room scanning her surroundings suspiciously, holding her gaze on the few pictures he has of his family.

"Aren't you going to ask me to sit down?" she asks eventually, looking at him head to toe with a tight expression.

"I was about to ask you to come in, when you simply barged in here. I figured further invitations would be redundant."

"Don't be rude, young man" she warns, taking a sit on his couch. He situates himself in front of her on one of the chairs, and crosses his arms and legs.

"My daughter is under the impression that you hate her."

"I doubt that." he says evenly. Kono is a good detective, she can read people very well. There's no way she'd interpret his actions as hateful. You don't stick your tongue into someone else's throat for an hour, (and he tries to keep it PG, here) if you hate them. At least he normally doesn't.

"She said you don't talk to her."

"I certainly do talk to her. Why don't we give her a call, I'll tell her you're here, and you can hear us talking" he reaches for his phone.

"Of course you are not going to call her, she will be furious." He wonders who will she be furious with, her mother or him. He can't really be sure at this point, so he puts his phone away.

"What do you want from me?"

"Ideally, I would want you to try to remember you are her boss, and not sleep with her." Yes. They might be having a problem with this one, actually.

"Look, I don't..."

"Don't bother to deny it" she tells him, reaching for the corner of the coffee table, and touching a small scratch in the wood. He can totally relate to that, that little scratch and the damage to the furniture drives him nuts every time he sees it, too. "In a more realistic way, I came to see who you are, and to see for myself what my little girl sees in you."

"Look" he stands up, and motions to her to do the same "my... connection to your daughter is between us. And I certainly not going to talk to you about it behind her back" obviously he is not that brave. "I don't know what she'd told you about us..."

"Don't be ridiculous" she dismisses "sit back down. She didn't tell me anything. I had to guess for myself. Apparently, I have guessed right. I'm only going to ask a few questions" Something tells him he had gone through interrogations training series that were easier than what's on her mind.

"So, you are a haole, I can see that."

"No. I was born on the island" he says quickly, but his smug expression with her mistake is short lived.

"You are a navy SEAL."

"Lieutenant commander."

"Obviously, very good looking."

"That's... well..."

"You keep your house very clean and tidy."

"Always" well, unless her messy daughter is here. Then all hell breaks loose...

"And you're older."

"Yes."

"So you must be looking for something serious. Marriage, children..."

"Yes, I do. Look I don't th..."

"Don't worry, you're doing fine" she smiles encouragingly. That's nice of her, but he really thinks Kono would freak out.

"I don't think Kono would appreciate..."

"My daughter is a beautiful, sweet and amazing young lady" she certainly is "but she's young, and reckless, and a hard head who doesn't know what's good for her." that's one way to put it. "I want to see her happy, and married, and I don't really care in what order."

"Wait, what are you...?"

"Leave it to me, commander" she looks like she came to a decision. "You just show up to the luau on Sunday. Your all team is invited, of course. You'll also have the opportunity to meet all of Kono's family, which she neglected to introduce to you last time at Chin ho's."

"Yeah, we weren't really talking at the time..."

"We'll fix it then. There are her 56 cousins, her father and her five brothers. You'll be fine, just leave it all to me" she taps his arm reassuringly as she shows herself out.

When he closes the door behind her he wonders how exactly she got him to talk about marrying her lovely daughter, when he can hardly keep the girl in the same house with him. He also doesn't know for sure how is it that she was able to make him come to the mass luau she is organizing, even though it sounds like a nightmare. He would have asked Kono, how her mother does this mind game thing of hers, but he truly believes that he should keep their highly inappropriate meeting from the woman, for as long as he can. Mainly for safety reasons. His safety, if you want to be specific.

When he goes up to his bedroom, he stops suddenly in the middle of the staircase. "Hang on" he says to the wall in front of him "did she just say five brothers?!"

()()()

He tries to make her come with him to the luau. He asks her repeatedly, to please, please go there together. He is so desperate, he even plays dirty and asks her to go with him while they take a shower together, and she's naked, pressed to the bathtub beneath him, and he's inside of her. She still says no, but she makes that special movement with her legs, the one when she's anchoring them high on his back, the one that drives him crazy every single time, when she says it, so at the end, he's not as offended as he's supposed to be.

()()()

This is why he is standing in the middle of the garden of the Kalakaua household, with Danny and Grace by his side looking with barely concealed mortification, at the big gathering around him. It looks bigger than what was going on at Chin's, like the whole family had multiplied since then. He wonders if it has to do with the hostess, and with what appears to be a generalized inability to refuse her.

Chin and Malia are swallowed quickly by the chattering crowd, Grace is off to run around with the other children and Danny is drawn to the enormous amount of food like it was a big magnet, so he remains there alone, trying to avoid the curious looks he earns from all the family members around him. It was much easier before, when Mary Ann was there with him, and he spent most of his time and energy avoiding Kono.

He sees Kono standing in the middle of the garden with four older Hawaiian ladies around her, and they speak to her at the same time. She is taller than them, and stronger, but they all keep chattering and pushing her around. I'ts amazing, but her can see how she shows an uncharacteristic amount of restraint. It is quite disconcerting, because they all shout and talk animatedly, and he's not sure if they all annoyed with her or what. When she senses him watching her curiously, she mouth to him "you see?", and he realizes that this is why she didn't want him to come with her in the first place. She acts bravely, and pleasantly, nodding vigorously to the endless stories they tell her and articulate her condolences and understanding to quite an alarming amount of misfortunate events they are telling her about. When one of them raises her skirt, and reveals a red, swelled, partially bandaged leg, he thinks to himself, that protecting him from this, is probably her way to show how much she cares.

()()()

He is brought out of his musing by the voice of conversation around him. When he turns his head, he sees five tall Hawaiian young men, standing around him looking at him curiously.

"She said he was tall, but I think he's shorter than Kapali" he looks between them, wonders who Kapali is.

"Maybe she meant, old" Ouch, that's was uncalled for.

"You think he surfs?"

"Has to surf, she wouldn't touch him unless he surfed" Makaio says decisively.

"Doesn't look so tan though" Nohokai is the skeptical one, probably got that from his mother.

"Never thought she would go with a haole..."

He crosses his arms defensively, looking at the five young men around him. They are all tall, and two of them are even taller than him. They are all tanned and fit, and look suspiciously similar to one another. Two of them are practically identical. He estimates their ages to be between 15 and 25, and they all speak simultaneously about him, as if he's not even there. What's going on with this family, anyway?

"Did you throw a grenade at a witness to get him to talk?" Akela asks, while the rest of them nod beside him. They seem to be particularly interested in the answer to this question.

"I didn't throw it, I tied it to his door, because he refused to open it when I asked him to" they take the time to absorb this piece of information for a while, and when they do, they appear to be quite satisfied with his explanation.

"Did you threaten to throw a suspect off the roof? Kale's question, also seems to earn the unequivocal support of his brothers.

"I didn't threaten to do so" Steve answers thoughtfully "It was more like a promise really, and I would have thrown him, unless for your cousin's interference."

"Figures" Nohokai says nodding solemnly "Chin ho always ruins all the fun. He made Kale and Akela apologize after they painted the principle's dog yellow, and shaved its fur to look like a buttercup.

"The dog's name was buttercup, we thought it was appropriate" Akela explains "mom was furious."

"I'd bet" Steve says slowly, looking intently at the two young identical surfers who stand before him.

"Dad and Kono thought it was quite funny, though" Kale adds, and Steve finds it quite expected.

"I hope you realize what you're getting into..." Kapali, the eldest, says crossing his arms.

"What do you mean?"

"Mom says you want to marry Kono."

"Let's say that I am, just for the sake of argument" he says it carefully, because he has no idea what they're talking about, and he wasn't even thinking about marriage before their mother forced it into his head.

"You're a navy SEAL, I suppose you must be very brave..." Kapali says thoughtfully "but dating Kono, that's not for everyone" The last few weeks, which took all of his energy is a proof of that, he totally admits it.

He wants to answer. To tell them that he's not so easily intimidated, but there's a big commotion when Kono's mother, Kono, and a very big older man who must be her father come to stand around them with quite a few more people. It's unfortunate really, that Kono hears her brother's last statement, because she gets ballistic. She starts shouting at the five of them, tells them all to stay away from him, and leave him alone. When her mother tells her to take it easy and explains that they're only trying to look after her, and that she did the same when she went to visit him in his house, recently, it practically makes her to explode.

()()()

So basically, Kono is standing there in the middle of the garden and explains loudly to everyone around, that it's none of their god damn business who Steve is, and what he is like, because if she chose him to be her boyfriend, they should count on her that she made the right choice. Says they should be careful, and there's no point in trying to scare him off, or make him feel unsecure, because he knows that she loves him, and she will never let them do anything to him, not that they could, anyway, even if they tried, because obviously, he's a one badass navy SEAL, and he can eat all her five brothers for breakfast and have the rest of her cousins for desert. And she turns to her mother, and tells her to back off, because as she can clearly see, she was quite able to make the right choice on her own, and get, who appears to be, probably, the best man of the island, and if she doesn't leave them alone and stop messing with them, there will be no grandchildren for her, so she'd better watch her step!

There's a deep tense silent, when she finishes her little speech, and she takes a deep breath and shakes her hair behind her shoulders, looking pointedly at everybody, before she pauses on Steve's stunned face. She comes to stand in front of him, examining him carefully and asks him, conversationaly "Is this clear enough for you?" so he only nods silenltly, because it really is.

"Good" she smiles broadly and puts her arms around his neck, and stands on her tip toes, kissing him. He kisses her back, and strangely enough, he doesn't really care that all her family is looking at them, and they deepen the kiss, carried away with their new discovered circumstances, and he thinks he sees her mother smiles triumphantly from the corner of his eye. He really couldn't be happier, he thinks, really. Only...

"I knew it" Danny shouts indignantly from behind him "you uninhibited child molester. You lied to me, and you made the sweet girl lie to me too."

"I told you what will happen if you sleep with her... " Chin adds warningly from next to him.

He looks at Kono, when he hears them, and she looks back with a questioning look, because they really care about their team, after all. But he presses his lips together decisively, before he leans to kiss her again. He knows they're upset, and he's sorry, but unfortunately, they just gonna have to suck it up this time.