As the door closed, Steve look at Azucena. He could see the anger and frustration, but there was something else. He couldn't put his finger on it. "You want breakfast? We made eggs, sausage and toast."

"Thanks, but I'm not really hungry right now." She smiled at him. She looked to Catherine, "Good to see you Catherine, I hope you had a good flight out."

"Good to see you as well, and it was nice. Thanks for asking." Offered Catherine, she liked Steve's sister. She didn't know her very well, but the way Steve talked about her made her recognize she was a good kid. When she thought about the age difference between Steve and Azucena, it really made her think Azucena was still a kid.

"I'm going to get cleaned up. Enjoy your breakfast." Azucena smiled at them and hustled up the stairs. She was dirty, stinky, and angry. At that moment, all she wanted was a shower.

#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#

Steve watched his sister take the stairs two at a time; something was off. He thought it was the conversation with Joe, but he wasn't completely certain. She had been a little off most of the week. He looked down at the woman he loved, she was placing bread in the toaster, "Sorry about that."

"There's nothing to apologize about; Joe decided to stop by, drop a bombshell, and then quickly leave. It seems to be his M.O. anymore. Are you surprised?"

"By his behavior, no. I am surprised by the fact that he took the head of the Yakuza by gunpoint and interrogated him. And now they are on good terms. Something doesn't add up."

"It's Joe, when does anything ever add up?" questioned Catherine.

"Point taken." Steve said, as he stood behind her at the kitchen counter and wrapped his arms around her waist. He bent down and nuzzled her neck, as she giggled and swatted at him. The popping of the toast startled them out of their playful behavior.

#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#

Azucena pulled her hair up into two high pigtails and then wrapped them into buns, one on each side of her head. When she was finished she sat down on her bed and pulled out her cellphone, she searched her contacts and selected Tommy:

Is it wrong that I wish we could just go back before everything changed? Don't get me wrong, super happy I found my family, but I miss when our biggest concern was an exam or if we all had Saturday night off work. Miss you, tell Frog hi for me. :-)

She hit send; she missed Frog and Tommy terribly. It wasn't that she was homesick, per se. She missed Silver Pond, but Jack and Clara weren't there anymore. She missed the family she had known for most of her life. She missed the joking and teasing banter of her buddies.

#~#~#~#~#~#~#

Steve stood at the kitchen sink, hand washing dishes when he heard Azucena's footfalls on the stairs. He knew it was her because he could hear the shower in his room running. As she walked into the kitchen, he looked over to her and smiled to himself. She was always doing something different with her hair and this was a look he hadn't seen.

"Hungry yet?"

"Not really."

"What are you going to do today?" he quizzed her.

"I'm not certain. I might go sit by the water and read, but I'm all sorts of antsy, so that doesn't seem like the ideal activity at the moment." She said, as she pulled a banana from the bunch and started peeling it. She tore off a chunk and popped it into her mouth.

"Is it Joe that has you flustered?"

"Yes and no," she leaned against the counter, she was only partially certain. She began to ramble, and Steve truly listened "If I wasn't here, you could go with Joe after Shelbourne. But then I think to myself, how am I the only one in danger? This isn't meant to be disrespectful when I say it, but what about Mary? She isn't on the island, it's not like she's exactly safe from harm. WoFat grabbed me back home and LA is a five-hour plane ride from here. I can't see that she is safe. I worry about her and I don't completely understand Joe's logic."

Steve dried his hand on a dish towel, she wasn't wrong. He worried about Mary too. However, he had an opinion on why WoFat would focus on Azucena and not Mary. "First of all, I want you here. You are family, you are important to me, and I am happy that you came into our lives."

Azucena flushed red, as she did when attention was focused on her. She mumbled a thank you, as she pulled a bottle of water out of the fridge. When she had finished fidgeting, Steve motion to the stool at the island, "Sit down."

As she pulled up one of the bar stools, Steve shared his thoughts, "I don't agree with Joe's decisions and I definitely am questioning his tactics right now, but he isn't wrong."

"How so?" she asked, looking at him with genuine curiosity in her eyes. Steve threw the dishtowel over his shoulder, leaned against the kitchen counter and crossed his arms across his chest.

"Mary's job is very public. She is constantly surrounded by people, whether she is working on a plane or walking to a hotel, she is always with someone. She doesn't live by herself; she has two roommates. It would be difficult for WoFat to come after Mary without witnesses.

"You on the other hand, the people who raised you are gone. Your friends are on the other side of the world. If you weren't living with me, you would be an easy target for WoFat. He could come after you again and use you against me to find out more about Shelbourne."

"When WoFat found out about you, he realized he had the ultimate card to play against our family. You were the sister we never knew we had; in a sense, that makes you a novelty.

"You were easy to kidnap, and now he was introducing an outsider. He knew that I would do anything I could to protect you, sister or not. No innocent civilian should ever be tortured. What he did to you was horrific.

"His mission in that bunker was two-fold. The first part was to get information on Shelbourne but the second part, was to determine how valuable of an asset you are. He doesn't need Mary to get to me."

"This is disturbing and not normal. You do recognize that, right?" she offered, troubled at his insight.

"Unfortunately, it's a part of combat. WoFat is a masterful manipulator and he will wage war in the physical and psychological sense." Shared Steve, as he sat down on the barstool next to her. "I don't tell you this to try and frighten you, I just want you to understand. Joe isn't wrong."

"You want to go, but I'm stopping you. That isn't fair to you." She stated, matter-of-factly.

"Life isn't fair, you of all people should know that." He answered, patiently. "Besides, I'm needed here by Five-0 and you. And if we are being honest, I need to be here."

"Why?" she asked, softly.

"My life is here now. Don't get me wrong, I want to find out the truth about Shelbourne and I want WoFat out of our lives, but I'm building my life here. I have never stayed this long anywhere in my adult life and I'm starting to put down roots." He said, his voice softer than she was used to.

"It scares you." She observed, she had known he was nomadic before coming back, but he was admitting it now.

"Kind of, some parts more than others." He lifted his head towards the upstairs, "She's become more important to me over the last year or two. I want her in my life, and not just when she's on leave. Had you asked me three to five years ago if I would ever say that, I would have said no."

"That's not a bad thing."

"No, it definitely isn't." he took a deep breath, "So for now, I'm going to let Joe go back to Japan and see if he can find out anything further about Shelbourne. I will stay here and continue to monitor the WoFat situation and see what I can find on Shelbourne. We are going to get this figured out and keep each other safe in the process."

"One last question." She said, looking at the kitchen island, her hands spinning a butter knife that had been left out on the counter, "How can you be so calm about everything and trust that Joe is going to tell you the truth?"

"I don't trust Joe and I highly doubt everything he told me today was the truth. He frustrates me more than you will ever know, but I learned a long time ago not to give anyone power over me. If he knows he irks me, it gives him power; so I try to stay calm in front of him."

"Are you always successful?"

"Maybe only half the time." He answered with a slight laugh in his voice. He gently placed his hand on top of hers, the butter knife ceased its spinning, "What's eating at you? Somethings been bothering you for most of the week."

"It's the lies. I'm so angry about all the lies and I feel this anger just eating away at my insides." She paused, "I think I had all that time to focus on healing, and then Deb and Mary came out, so I was distracted. Now all I can think about is how he knew about everything and didn't deem it important enough to tell us. Or it was 'for your own good.' God, I absolutely hate the phrase, it's like equating eating your vegetables with lying to us our entire life."

"Mrs. Robert's phone call set it off?" he asked, trying to keep a straight face. He loved the analogy of eating your vegetables. He found her terribly funny at the most inappropriate times.

"When she told me he pretended not to know about Jack's death, that's when it really hit me. I don't think he has ever been honest with me." She paused, she looked away from him and whispered, "I miss Jack."

Steve wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her into his side, careful not to pull her off the barstool. She wrapped her arms around his torso. He was a 30-year-old man when he lost his dad; she was 18 when she lost her third parent. He had witnessed her survive so much that he forgot how young she was and all that she lost. She had had the childhood he never had, but it cost her a great deal.

"I know how you feel kiddo." He kissed the top of her head and just hugged her for a minute.

He felt her getting antsy and loosened his grip. She extracted herself from his arms, stood up and opened the cabinet for the toaster. He wasn't surprised by how she abruptly changed emotions. He had witnessed her shut her emotions off regularly over the last few months.

"Catherine and I are thinking about spending the rest of this morning hiking out to Likeke Falls, having lunch there and relaxing in the waterfall. You want to join us? It's about 4 miles to the falls and back."

She slid two slices of bread in the toaster and looked up to him, her voice back to normal, "Thanks for the invite, but I don't want to interrupt your time with Catherine. You guys don't get to see each other very often."

"She actually would like to get to know you and it was her idea to hike out there and invite you. I just got around to asking you before she did." He answered, smiling as he thought about the genuine care on his girlfriend's face when she broached the topic with him.

"This won't be third wheel territory, will it?" she asked, wearily eyeing her brother.

"Absolutely not." He smiled, her mannerisms making him laugh internally.

"When are you thinking about leaving and will I get eaten by bugs?"

"After I get changed, we will make a lunch to take and head out that way. As for bugs, probably not, but you will need sunscreen and you'll want to wear your swim clothes under your hiking clothes."

"All right, I'm in."

#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#

For those of you that continue to read this story, thank you. I don't always know where the next chapter will lead and this is already far longer than I ever anticipated it being. For those that leave encouraging words/notes, THANK YOU! They mean the world to me and make me want to write more.