A\N: I'm so sorry that it took me so long to update this story and all of my other ones as well. Life has been super busy lately. Thank you to my friends on Twitter for telling me I needed to update and for encouraging me. I hope you all enjoy this chapter and please remember to review.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Spoilers: None

Warinings: None

Chapter 14

"Hey Matt," Gabby's cousin Kevin waved him over to the table he and his brothers were sitting at. "Come and sit here, you can bring Gabby to if you want." He joked.

"He's always joking like that, Navy officers," Gaby rolled her eyes under her breath. "Kevin and Antonio always argue over the Navy or the Marines being better."

Gabby and Matt carried their breakfast plates over to the table and sat down. Today's breakfast was less formal and more of a buffet so people could sleep in. It went with the theme of being a relaxing day, mostly to recover from the photo shoots from the day before. On the agenda for today were three surprises for the children, which meant they were being kept in the pool, and surrounding areas with lots of games, activities and a huge inflatable obstacle course in the pool.

As the couple sat down Kevin lowered his voice and said, "The surprises for the kids are a play house version of the White House, a huge swing set and a toddler play set. The playhouse is coming with furniture and accessories. They just need to be installed. We're going to need to set up the swing sets though." Looking at Matt he said, "I hear you have a side construction business. Do you want to help me in being in charge of getting everything set up?"

"Sure," Matt nodded, he'd helped set up swing sets before and although they were difficult he was sure with a lot of people to help it wouldn't be that hard. "Do you have some construction knowledge too?" He asked wondering why the other man was also put in charge.

"No, he just has a big ego like all Naval Aviators. He thinks flying a big plane in the air makes him qualified," Gabby joked.

"Very funny Gabby," Kevin rolled his eyes at his cousin. They were close in age so growing up they'd played together a lot and had a brother and sister relationship. It was nice now to have some time to spend together, "You know I know a lot about planes and engineering as well."

"Yeah I know," She turned serious, "He's great Matt. He's a Lieutenant in the Navy. He'll make sure everyone stays on task. Actually…." She'd never thought about it before but now it suddenly all became very obvious, "You and Kevin probably have a lot in common." Matt and Kevin were both natural born leaders that led by example but knew how to take charge all the same. They were both very moral and family-oriented and good with children and passionate about what they did for a living.

"I'm sure we'll get along great," Kevin smiled, "How about we start coming up with a plan now?" He suggested. "The trucks are supposed to be bring everything in around an hour or so."

"Sure," Matt stood with his plate he leaned in and gave Gabby a kiss on the lips. Since they'd arrived at the reunion he'd never initiated any kind of intimate contact in front of her family, so Gabby guessed this meant that he was getting more comfortable. She gladly kissed him back ignoring the groans and complaints from her cousins.

"That's a red light." Kevin said trying to keep a straight face. He looked at his younger brother who nodded in agreement, "Actually I'm not sure what that was but it was above a red light. If I ever did anything like that on board a ship I'd-"

"Shut up!" Gabby picked up a napkin and threw it at him. She didn't find the jokes about the Navy's Sensitivity training funny or amusing. Although she had to give credit to her cousin that this one may have been a little funny. She just hoped that it wouldn't cause Matt to become nervous again. She wanted him to be comfortable around all of her family, they were a couple and they should be able to kiss if they wanted to.

"Red light?" Matt looked around the table. Everyone else seemed to understand and make sense of the comment. Clearly he was the only one out of the loop. He guessed it was an inside joke or maybe some political term that he'd yet to come across. He was starting to wish he had an acronym and description guide to make sense f everything he was learning. In the four days he'd been at the reunion he what been a shocking test in any political knowledge, he had. He leant so many acronyms for different things already.

"Part of the navy's sensitivity training," Kevin explained. "It was enacted shortly after woman were allowed in combat roles. Green light is normal behaviour, yellow light is something like a remark about how pretty someone looks and red light is unwanted touching and harassment or assault. Since Navy sailors are trained to follow orders it was thought a woman may not be comfortable telling a ranking officer to stop doing something. So they came up with this system."

"Ah," It made sense, but considering that the Navy was more of a boy's club then the fire department Matt would take a good guess in saying that a lot of the time it didn't work. Although he hoped that it had stopped some things from happening as well.

"Right, well we should go," Kevin nodded to Matt and they both stood up and left to go and start making plans to set up the play structures for the children.

"So," Gabby turned to look at Kevin's younger brother James, "Are you nervous about your first deployment next week?" James had just graduated from the Naval Academy and was set to board the USS Dwight D Eisenhower in following week.

"A little but I'm excited too this has been my dream since I was little. I have a lot to live up to though," He added with a sigh, "Dad said he'd try to make sure I didn't receive special treatment or any harsher treatment aboard. But I know I'm going to get some." He was having mixed feelings about his first deployment as word would quickly spread that his father was the Sectary of the Navy. "I'm no the same ship as Kevin too. I know it's the ship known to have the best Aviator program, which is what I want to be but I think its only going to make things worse."

Gabby was surprised that her uncle would allow his sons to be aboard the same ship, surely there were other good Aviation destroyers for James to be assigned too. She suspected though that her uncle might have requested the placing so Kevin could keep an eye on James. Kevin was, by all accounts born a Naval Aviator and he had all of the right skill sets for the job. James on the other hand was more of a computer science wiz then a naval aviator. He wasn't generally cocky or arrogant or confident. When he expressed his desire to go into the Navy and become a Naval Aviator the whole family was worried. His father was most likely worried something would go wrong for him and although he'd never cover anything up or let him slide on a punishment, he'd prefer that Kevin was there to help mentor and guide James.

"Just don't let anyone get to you." Gabby advised her younger cousin, "You know you're going to be good at your job. You've grown up on Navy ships. You know all of the ins and outs of them. I'm sure you'll make some good friends, if you have time." She added knowing life aboard a Naval ship was no picnic. They worked all hours of the night and rarely ahd any free time that they weren't using for eating or sleeping.

"I'll try," James nodded. He appreciated all of the advice he could get and knew Gabby knew what it was like to be judged on who your father was and not on abilities.

The White House playhouse was about as big as a large shed. The outside looked like the White House and on the inside was two smaller levels. There were two small tables, a desk and bookcase to be put on the first level. On the top level was an open area with velcroed down mats. The second level was thought of for the older girls to have sleepovers in, as on nice evenings the roof could be open and to have kind of a sleep-out. Along the walls on the top floors was a shelf that could be used for water bottles or bowls of chips and candy.

The two swing sets were also delivered the first one in, seven large boxes and the toddler one in two. As the trucks left Matt and Kevin looked at each other. "Okay," Matt looked around trying to get everyone's attention. He didn't want to stop bossing everyone around but by the look of things he and Kevin were probably the only two who knew what they were doing. There were twelve people helping out building and putting together the structures the others supervising the children in the pool. "Why don't we split up, have five or so people put together the smaller play set and set up the playhouse and the rest of us can start working on the larger one."

"It's a good thing you have a construction business," Nicolas, Kevin and James' younger brother told him, "We're all to rich to know what we're doing," He figured that everyone was trying to avoid the topic of Matt knowing construction and not growing up as rich and privileged as the majority of the rest of the adults did.

"Speak for yourself Nick," Antonio rolled his eyes, "I can put together a play set." He'd always wanted to set one up for his children but he was always so busy. Lately it seemed he was spending less and less time with them. When Laura had told him she was pregnant with Santiago he had, for a while questioned did the baby was his or not. It was only when he remembered the night did he feel a little better about the situation. Still that was another red flag, his marriage and his entire life seemed to be slipping further and further away from him.

"Sure," Rafael rolled his eyes and started laughing at his cousin, "Antonio you're good at a lot of things, not that you need an ego boost but I'd love to see you do this without any help from Matt."

"Oh cool!" Diego ran towards them, "Daddy can I help?" He asked his father, he was dressed in a green bathing suit and even though he had dark complexion it was clear he hadn't had sunscreen put on in awhile.

"Diego," Antonio looked down at his son, "You know you're not supposed to see this." He went to pick him up but Diego skirted away, "Where's your mother?" He wondered how Diego could go without sunscreen for this long and why Laura wasn't aware he was gone.

"Santiago's being really bad. He's screaming and crying and Mommy's not happy at all. She's not being very nice," Diego poisoned out, "Is it because you and Mommy are fighting?" He asked. He was very aware of his surroundings and very smart, Antonio wasn't surprised he'd picked something up. Although no matter how smart his eight-year-old son was, he wasn't preparing for the next question, "Eva said you and Mommy are getting a divorce. Are you?"

Antonio ignored everyone now looking at him, all probably wondering the same thing. Laura had brought up the topic of divorce more times then he'd ever admit lately. He wasn't getting a divorce though, they could work thins out without therapy too. At leas that's what he kept telling himself.

"No Diego," Antonio told him seriously, "Sometimes adults fight and right now your mother and I are fighting. You don't have to worry about anything though. Now lets go back to the pool."

"Mommy told Tia Gabby that she' glad she doesn't have t see you much today," Diego informed his father.

Antonio shook his head. He wished his wife wouldn't talk about their problems, openly like that, especially to his younger sister and when their children could overhear things.

"Well then I'll take you," Matt stepped forward and took Diego into his arms, "How about we go and find some freezes too."

"Basement, freezer," Antonio told Matt. He was glad Diego liked Matt but it made him frustrated when, because or it spit o his current marital problems Diego seemed to like Matt more.

"Alright, just open the boxes and start by organizing things by size," Matt instructed, "I'll be back as soon as I can."

The inflatable pool climber was large, taking up most of the pool and leaving just enough space for the children to swim towards it. Near the shallow end there was a climbing wall and a slide and a few things to jump on. Towards the deeper water there were more climbing walls and an obstacle course with lots of punching bags and other obstacles. At the end of the obstacle course there was a large slide.

The children's laughter could be heard around almost the entire area. Matt carried Diego onto the large pool deck and set him down. "That's pretty cool," He pointed to the climber, "Can I use it?"

"No Matt!" He shook his head and laughed. He went running off to go back in the pool but Gabby snuck up behind him.

"Diego Dawson!" She turned him around, "You know better then to run off! Where were you?"

"I went to see Daddy. He says I don't need any stupid sun screen." Diego lied to his aunt. He hated the feel of sunscreen and he never burnt anyways. Plus he knew his father didn't wear any so why should he have to?

"You don't talk like that," Gabby led him away, "You had your mother worried sick. She went inside to look for you."

"With Santiago," Diego rolled his eyes.

"That's enough," Gabby told him sternly as she began putting on sunscreen, "You keep it up and you can go back inside and do some chores. And don't you dare pull away from me," She grabbed his hand as he turned to run away.

"If you don't get sunscreen on you can't come and get freezies with me," Matt didn't like how the boy was acting.

Diego shook his head but stood and let Gabby apply sunscreen to him. When she was finished she put a shirt over his head. "Thank you Diego. Now you listen to me. You younger brother is inside and your mother is taking care of him." She looked to see Eva needed more sunscreen as well and reminded herself to call her out of the water shortly, "You need to listen to the other adults right now. You know how this works young man, you respect all adults and you behave nicely and politely."

"Yes Ma'am," Diego hated being punished in front of large groups, it always mad him feel so ashamed.

"Good now go and get some freezies with Mat," Gabby ushered him away. Turning to Matt she said, "There in my parent's cabin in the basement. There's a large freezer and you'll find them. Just grab all of them. There should be more then enough. There's a cooler near the freezer and grab scissors too."

"I got it," Matt nodded.

"Lets go Diego," Matt took the boy's hand and led him away. Twenty minutes later they returned with the freeze's. "Alright Diego now you can find the colour everyone want's alright."

"Okay," Diego nodded his head. He was more then happy to help Matt out, He liked helping, especially in a somewhat leadership role.

"Who want's a freezie?" Matt called out. The pool cleared and all of the kids ran towards him all talking at the same time. "Hey!" He called out sternly, "That's enough!" He'd dealt with angry mobs before, this was nothing, "Form a line and you can all have one. Just tell Diego what colour you want. Don't cry if you don't get the one you want."

Holding Daniela Gabby stood back and watched in amazement. Matt was a natural leader and had take-charge attitude. He easily got the kids organized into a line. Some of the kids complied the line was taking to long but Matt told them that if they complied they wouldn't get one and she figured they knew he was serious as they stopped fussing.

"Matt's a firefighter right?" Audrey, Kevin's wife asked. She was carrying her two children, two-year-old Sophia and seven month old Charlotte. She put Sophia on the ground next to Daniela, bot girls smiling at each other.

"Yeah. But he's a natural leader, he loves kids and they respect him. He has that personality, soft yet strict," Gabby attempted to explain to her. She continued to watch Matt with the children and found herself, not fir the first time picturing there on children in the future. She imagined them having three children, possibly a boy and two girls. She'd love it for their children to have his natural kindness and compassion. Matt had a tempter and she was stubborn so she knew any child they had would be hard-headed, she'd love them to use that to do goof things in the world not just in politics or being a fire fighter but doing whatever they wanted. No matter what she'd never expect them to be anything they didn't; want to do. She was lucky her father never pushed her to hard, she knew he at times pushed Antonio and Antonio often resented that, he was never allowed to choose his own path. Although if he had he might have gone into politics but he might have stayed in the Marines longer as well or even in the Chicago Police Force as he quite liked being a Detective.

"Want to come and get a freezie with us Sophia?" She picked up both girls in her arms

"You two each agree on a colour and then you can spilt it," Gabby explained, she hoped that they'd be able to agree on a colour. There was over a year age difference between the two and developmentally there was a wide range as well. Daniela was talking quite well and she was able to do more things like the older children although slower, Sophia had just turned two and was still getting a hold on talking and even at times walking long distances.

"No red?" Daniela pouted, "Blue pees," She saw a nice blue one. The blue ones always tasted really good too. She looked at Matt and smiled, "Matt!" She clapped, "Eia Matt," She pulled on the girl's hand as if she was introducing them.

Sophia waved a little before seeing the freezies and pointing excitedly to them.

"Alright," Matt laughed a little. He took a blue freezie and cut it giving each girl a small half.

"Tank woo Matt," Daniela said taking the freezie.

Sophia looked at Matt and moved her hand from her chin and then looked at him wait for a reaction.

"That's 'thank-you' in sign language," Gabby explained, "Sometimes babies are taught sign language to make in easier to commutate until they can talk."

"You're welcome," Matt kissed Sophia on the cheek and then kissed Daniela.

"Alright girls," Audrey stepped forward and led them away, "Let sit down and eat these. You can have some water too and I can give Charlotte a snack."

"Any left for me?" Gabby looked at Matt.

"Here Tia Gabby!" Diego pulled out another blue freezie "I told Matt blue ones were your favourite."

"Well thank you," Gabby took it and smiled, she ruffled the boys hair. "Have you already had a freezie?" She asked, when he nodded his head in acknowledgment she said, "You can go and swim now if you want. Just remember no running away."

"Here," Matt handed Gabby the scissors, "I should go back to helping set up everything."

Setting up everything took longer then originally expected, when Matt got back to the area he saw that everyone was still trying to figure out where to put everything and the instructions on how to build the climber. They all knew it was going to be a big climber but it seemed to be very complicated to set up. The toddler climber for the most part was already set up and so Kevin handed the detections for the big climber to Matt and he studded them for about fifteen minutes. From that he as able to get a sense of how it would look and what needed to be done.

Four hours and a lot of swearing later the climber was set up. It was in the shape of an open tree house almost, with two slides on opposite ends and a small rock climber wall and rope to get to the top. Stretching out of the climber were four swings one of which was a baby swing.

Since it had been hard to keep eighteen children in one area almost all day word got out about what was going on. All of the children were excited and impatient and when they were finally told they could go explore they all went nuts.

The young school age children ran right to the huge climber and began trying everything. Diego especially loving the rock climbing walls as he and the other boys had competitions to see who could go up the fastest.

"Hey!" Kevin scooped up Sophia into his arms before she could get to the playground, "Listen up kids!" All noise stopped, they knew that tone of voice, "I want all of you to thank Matt. He worked really hard to put this together, without him you wouldn't be playing on this.

"Thank you Matt!" Sang an out-of-sync ring of children's voices.

"You're welcome," Matt appreciated the thanks but hearing the laugh and seeing them all have so much fun was all of the thanks he needed. Feeling the sweat beating down his face he decided he needed to swim to cool down before dinner. He walked up to Gabby, who was pushing Daniela on a swing and smiled,

"Tank woo Matt!" Daniela smiled broadly at him, "Watch me go high!" She laughed as Gabby pushed her and she went higher and higher.

"Pretty soon you're going to be able to touch the clouds," He joked back. He walked to Gabby and stood behind her, "You want to go and have a swim with me before dinner?"

Gabby felt her body tighten at the suggestion. She wanted to but Antonio and Laura were having a huge fight in the main house and she wanted to keep Daniela occupied.

"I need to stay with Daniela. Her P-A-R-E-NT-S are F-I-G-H-T-I-N-G" She spelt out the words so Daniela wouldn't understand.

"Someday I'll know how to spell," Daniela frowned; she hated it when adults spelt words out. She wanted to know what was going on and not be so left out. She wanted to be like Eva who she thought knew what was going on. In reality she didn't but she had an idea and it only made her angry and hurt.

"I'll watch her," Stella offered walking up to the couple. "I miss when Maddie was this young." When she was younger she'd wanted more then one child, but fate seemed to have different ideas for her. The older she got the less and less likely it wad for her to meet someone and have another biological child. She didn't even know if she would be willing to put her career on hold to do it but she'd like the option.

"Thanks Stella," Gabby smiled gratefully to her cousin.

"You're welcome," She winked, she knew what was going to happen, "Remember to keep this G rated." She laughed.

"We will," Gabby promised her, although it would be hard to do so, she couldn't wait until she and Matt had a hotel room to themselves and she knew what the first thing she anted to do was.

Gabby was already in her bathing suit and since Matt didn't want to go back into the main house he just swam in his shorts. He jumped into the deep end and felt immediately refreshment when he resurfaced. The inflatable obstacle course had been removed so there was plenty of room to swim. He looked at Gabby who was wearing a two piece bathing suit and swam up to her, "Come on Babe!"

"Oh yeah," Gabby pulled herself together and sat down and slipped into the pool. She'd been admiring his wet chest, watching as the water trailed down underneath his shorts. Usually she didn't have these kinds of thoughts, she didn't know if it was because it had been so long but she was getting turned on.

When Gabby was in the water Matt wrapped his arms around her and kissed her, the kiss was sweet and long, both of them savouring the moment alone time they had together.

"I love you," Matt spoke lovingly to her as their lips pulled apart, "You pushing Daniela on the swings was so sexy." He loved seeing her with children, her maternal instinct were so natural.

"I love you too. You're the one who's great with the kids. The way you got them all o line up and I know you put together the climber on your own."

"I directed people," He corrected her although she was right; he did most of the work as the others were finding it rather difficult.

"Call it whatever you want," Gabby kissed him again.

"Hey Matt!" Kevin walked into he pool area covering his eyes, "Want a beer? Or are you and my cousin doing something I don't want to know about?"

Gabby tried to splash him but he was to far away, "Kevin! Can't anyone get any privacy in this family?" She smiled, as he got close enough to splash.

"No. Antonio and Laura are throwing things at each other, she wants to leave him, something about a deal he shouldn't be making."

"Oh boy," Gabby ran a hand over her face, this was bad, "I have to go," She gave Matt another kiss, climbed out of the pool got her clothes on and jogged back to the main house. She opened the door and heard yelling. Both of them were crying and seemed emotionally drained.

"I said I'm done Antonio!" Laura backed away raising her arms and raced out of the house and past Gabby without even looking at her.

Gabby really hoped she hadn't heard right but seeing how angry and hurt her brother was she fussed she had, "Antonio?" She looed at him, "What happened?"

"I don't want to talk about it!" He began punching on fist into the palm of his hand.

Gabby wasn't having it, "Is she leaving? Taking the kids and going back to D.C?"

"No. She wants us to get therapy but that's...you know that'll look bad, especially with an election coming up."

He was right but so was Laura, "Antonio right now I think you need to not be worried about the election. You guys need to sort this out. All of us want things to work out. The press will say more bad things if you get a divorce, counselling mead you want to work things out, it make you look more human."

"Not to the opposition," He pointed out, "She's mostly mad because I'm closing in on a deal she doesn't like."

"That doesn't sound like Laura," Gabby knew the other woman very well. Things wouldn't get this bad this fast over that. "What else is going on? I know you've been having small arguments since before Santiago was born but this is worse."

"It's not the best deal but it'll help me get re-elected. Look. If I tell you you'll hate me too. The only reason I told Laura was because she walked in on the phone call. I don't like going against Pop but.." As soon as he said that he knew he was dead.

"Antonio!" Gabby shook her head, "If you go against Dad you'll ruin your career not to mention hurt the family. I can see you don't want to make this deal. Whatever it is can't be worth all of this pain? Is it just for money? Just to get away from Dad? What is it?"

It was everything but Antonio didn't want to tell her anyone. She wasn't seeing it from his point of view and he was tired of defending himself. He turned and walked outside and didn't look back.

TBC

A\N: Uh-oh what's going to happen to Laura and Antonio's marriage? Will they get a divorce?