Hey there, yeah it's me, I'm alive. I'm not even going to try and justify how long has it been since I last updated, life got in the way and being a resident unfortunately doesn't let much free time to write. But I was always determined to continue this story, is very special for me. I even started this chapter a few times, but I guess what has made me finish it - and very quickly by the way so I'm sorry if it feels rushed – is the devastating news of Hawaii Five-0 ending next month. I'm very sad about it and suddenly I needed this piece of fluffy comfort. I hope you like it anyway, if anyone still remembers the story I'll continue it now that I discovered I can still write.

I would love to hear your thoughts as usual.

No beta and not my first language, sorry for the possible mistakes!

Danny sighed, not for the first time today, waiting for the light to go green. He was exhausted and worried. The weekend away with Steve had been so great – sure, it had had a rocky beginning, but the end was still reverberating on Danny's brain. Sadly, the recent events made him feel like it was years ago.

He was dreading the conversation he needed to have with Grace, he knew she was a great kid and she loved her uncle Steve with all her heart but…he had to face the fact that she was a teenager now and you just never knew in what mood she was gonna be.

Thinking of that he had decided to take her away for the weekend, he had talked about it and decided with Steve that it was better for Danny to break the news alone to give Grace the time to wrap her head around the idea without the added pressure of having Steve there. Danny knew Steve pretty well though, and he knew that his lover didn't want to be there if Grace rejected the idea of them being together, simply because he would be crushed. Well both of them would be.

So he headed off to a little house near one of Grace's favorite spots on the island to spend the weekend and left Steve to enjoy his own family time with his aunt, sister and little niece.

They had a great time. It had been a while since they had spent some quality father-daughter time alone and it felt like old, happy times. But as Danny had expected, the conversation about how him and Steve were now kind of an item hadn't been an easy one.

Grace's face had gone from shock, to disbelief and finally to anger in just a matter of seconds. She had shouted to him that he lied to her and called him a hypocrite before running to hide in a room, of course slamming the door in the process.

Danny hadn't followed her, wanting to give her some time, and had sat on the couch replaying the conversation in his head and trying to figure out what to do next.

Until his phone rang.

Aunt Deb had died.

Steve sounded broken in a way that made Danny want to hold him and never let go. But he sounded kind of calm too, because of course he hadn't called until today, knowing too well that he would have rushed back home to his side if he had called earlier. He wanted to be mad at Steve for not letting him be by his side at a time like this, but couldn't get himself to it while fighting the intense need to comfort his partner right now. He was so grateful that at least Mary was with him. Maybe they really needed this time together as a family, the two of them alone, Steve told them they were going to scatter the ashes from the top of a cliff and while Danny thought that was a nice and healthy way to deal with the loss, a few hours later he couldn't stand not being with his lover anymore.

That's how he got here, in the car with his daughter, both in silence on their way back from the beach. Grace hadn't said a word since he broke the news, her eyes going wide before rushing to pack her things. And Danny was too dammed overwhelmed by the whole situation to engage in another conversation that could potentially get very ugly very fast. So he sighed, again, and looked at his daughter who has staring vacantly through the window.

"Listen Grace, I can take you home now if you want and—"

"I love you, Dad. And I love uncle Steve too."

It had all come out fast, and Danny didn't dare moving a muscle. He had been waiting all day for her to let her feelings out and to be honest he had expected the silent treatment to last more.

"I'm sorry I reacted like that this morning, I don't want you to think I have anything against you and uncle Steve being together, because I don't. I think it's great and it makes me happy to see you happy Dad but...I felt betrayed. You've always said to me that the most important thing in our relationship, the most important thing with family, it to be honest with each other. It's...to trust one another. So why didn't you tell me this before?"

Danny took a few seconds to close his mouth and absorb everything his daughter had just said, feeling happy that she seemed okay with the idea and also a little bit ashamed because damn, she was right.

"I...I'm sorry Grace. You're absolutely right, and I should have told you time ago but...I wasn't sure about your reaction and most importantly, I wasn't sure about the direction this new relationship with Steve was gonna take. I wasn't even sure it was going to be a relationship, you have to understand this is new for us and not something we expected. But the important thing is that both of us wanted to tell you, your uncle Steve too, he just wanted to give us some private time first."

Grace kept looking at him intently and then smiled sheepishly at him. "Then you two are dumber than I thought, Dad. I suspected something was going long time ago, but I always thought if you two actually got together, you'd tell me. But it's okay" She added seeing the guilty look on his father's eyes "I get that you didn't hide it from me on purpose, and I get you had to sort things yourselves first. Just don't hide things from me from now on okay?"

Danny thought he needed to close his mouth soon or risk it staying open forever. God he loved his daughter so much, and he shouldn't underestimate how mature she could be too.

"So...you're okay with me huh...having a relationship with...a man?" Danny could feel himself blush, like he wasn't having a hard time already.

Grace snorted in response. "Dad, c'mon, it's the 21st century. I have gay friends, I have friends with gay parents…that doesn't bother me a bit, why should it? But…I would like to be there when you tell mom, pretty please?"

Danny let out a nervous giggle at that, he didn't even want to think about that moment. He just wanted to enjoy for the moment the feeling of a heavy weight being lifted off his chest, the overwhelming feeling that he had the best daughter in the world.

"Come here monkey." They hugged as tightly as possible in their current situation inside the car, until a car horn startled them. The light was green and they weren't moving. Danny started driving again and looked sideways at his daughter.

"So, do you want to go home or—"

"No, I want to go see uncle Steve first, make sure he's okay."

Grace's voice was determined, so was the look he was giving him, and Danny wondered not for the first time how could his daughter remind him of Steve so often. Maybe her uncle was a greater influence on her than he thought, and he found himself smiling at the idea.

"Okay then, let's go."

They arrived at Steve's shortly after and left themselves in, the door wasn't locked.

"Steve? Where are you?"

They heard noises coming from the kitchen and then Steve appeared, big dark circles under his eyes and looking completely exhausted, both physically and emotionally.

"Hey…" He looked up and surprise showed on his face when he saw Grace standing beside Danny. "Oh, hey Gracie, how was the—"

He was interrupted by a handful of teenager slamming into him and embracing him tightly. Steve hugged her back, his expression relaxing visibly and a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. Danny was rooted to the floor observing the scene, a warm feeling filling his chest.

"Uncle Steve, I'm so sorry…I know how sad you must be but you're not alone, you have us. I love you." Grace had said all that with her face plastered on Steve's chest, so Danny could only see his face, and he knew how hard he was trying to fight back the tears.

After a few seconds he managed to speak. "Thank you Gracie…I'm so thankful to have you two, I love you too so much." He held her even tighter until Grace suddenly extricated herself from the embrace and looked at Steve intently.

"You don't want me to stop calling you uncle Steve now that you two are together right? Because I won't, I like uncle Steve."

Steve's face went from dumbstruck to bright red in just two seconds, and Danny couldn't help but be amused by his lover's reaction, poor thing didn't see it coming.

"Oh…huh…I…I mean…"

Danny thought it was time to help him a little bit. "It's okay babe, I told her earlier today."

Grace smiled brightly at Steve, who finally managed to speak normally, well, almost. "Oh, okay… Grace, I'll always be your uncle, nothing will change that."

Grace nodded and looked between them with her index finger raised. "I'm super happy hay you two finally decided to get together, took you long enough by the way. But, never lie to me again, got it?"

Danny and Steve looked one another, shocked, then both smiled. Steve hugged Grace again. "Okay ma'am, no more lies, I promise. I love you."

Danny joined them briefly, hugging them both and kissing the top of Grace's head before telling Steve that he would drop Grace at Rachel's and come back.

The way Steve kept looking at them longingly from the front door while they left made Danny break some speed limits on his way back.

Danny let himself in, calling softly Steve's name, not wanting to disturb him in case he had fallen sleep. But Steve was nowhere to be seen, so he stepped out into the lanai.

There, sitting on a deck chair Danny himself had recently bought so he had somewhere decent to relax out there was his partner. He was hunched over some old pictures laid between his legs, and when Danny got closer he could see the trace of tears glistening on Steve's face under the faint lights of the lanai.

"Babe…"

Steve startled a little bit, and Danny thought again how exhausted he had to be to not hear him getting closer. He sat straighter and went to wipe away the tears with his hand. Danny sat behind him and hugged him tightly.

"Babe, you don't have to do that. I don't want you to hide your pain, I want you to share it with me. I'm here, you hear me?"

Danny felt his lover sag in his arms, the tears falling free now, and it was such a strange situation to watch Steve show his vulnerability like this that he felt honored and overprotective at the same time.

He held him lovingly during this much needed breakdown, caressing softly his arms, laying kisses on the back of Steve's neck and murmuring words of comfort from time to time. After a while the sobs subsided and Steve tried to move as if to get up and out of Danny's embrace. As if Danny was gonna allow it. He reached in front of them for the pictures laid there.

"What are these babe?" Danny held the pictures in one hand, using the other one to guide Steve to recline against his chest, so they were both lying on the deck chair, Steve safely cocooned in Danny's arms.

Steve went willingly, once again relaxing against his lover. There were two children, him and Mary he guessed, and a very young aunt Deb. They were at the beach, Steve holding Mary's hand and aunt Deb smiling broadly at them.

Steve sighed before speaking. "That's us right here on the beach, back then when mom was…still here. Aunt Deb had come to visit us and we were playing on the sand when Mary decided she wanted to go swimming. The thing is, she didn't really know how to swim yet, that's why I was trying to stop her from going into the water."

Danny couldn't see Steve's face from this position, just his long lashes. He kept rubbing circles with his thumb in Steve's abdomen with one hand and holding the pictures with the other. Steve sounded more tired by the minute, his voice low and heavy.

"It's strange, I don't remember a lot of things from these days, back when I was little and we were a happy family but…I remember this day perfectly. Maybe because it was great…but now, all that is just gone."

Danny had been letting him talk, let it all out, but he couldn't keep quiet anymore. "Babe…it's not all gone. I mean yeah, that exact picture is the past but you have family now, you have your sister, our ohana, and of course you have me…and you will always have me Steve."

Steve was silent for a few moments, and when he finally talked it was barely a whisper. "I know Danny. Thank you…you don't really know how much it means to me. I love you."

"I love you too babe." Danny kept caressing him, and kissing the top of his head, waiting for Steve to make the next move, to let him know if looking at the pictures right now was too much or they should keep going. But when he didn't say anything for a few minutes, Danny held another picture in front of them.

"What about this one babe?" No response. "Steve?" Nothing.

Danny straightened out a little bit, trying to watch Steve's face without disturbing him much. Steve's eyes were closed, his breathing deep and rhythmic. The exhaustion had finally got to him and it had hit him hard judging from the fact that hadn't stirred at all with all the movements.

Danny lay back again, embracing Steve with both arms and resting his cheek on top of his head. He would make Steve believe that he wasn't alone, even if it took him the rest of his life.

He reached carefully for the blanket on the chair next to them, covering Steve with it and getting as comfortable as possible in their current position. He wasn't going to risk waking up Steve because he might not fall asleep again, so this would had to do even if they spent the night there. With a last kiss on Steve's head, he also closed his eyes.

I hope you liked it even if was just some fluffy scenes. I felt like they needed that. If there's still interest, they'll be back to their naughty self on next chapter. Let me know!