Chapter 3

"I'm pregnant Danny." Saying the words out loud still felt so strange to her.

"You're… pregnant? What? How? Who's the father?" His mouth was moving faster than his brain could keep up.

"Excuse me?! Who's the father? Are you really going to stand there and ask me that question Danny?" It was taking every fiber of her being not to leap off the sofa and attack him.

"Whoa, hang on there, calm down… it's not like you've been undercover in a convent the last few years. So, judging from this," he gestures at her noting that she looks like she could come off the sofa and end him at any moment, "I take it Steve's the father?"

"I'm not even going to dignify that with a response Danny!" His name slid off her tongue slowly and precisely trying both to convey the seriousness of her words but also to allow herself time to try and temper her anger before she snapped.

"Ok… Catherine," he matched her tone as he drew out the syllables of her name. "How did this happen?"

At this she laughed, "I would have thought that you would have had that part figured out by now, what with Grace and Charlie and all… but, if you need me to explain it to you I can."

"NO! For the love of all that is holy, NO! There is no scenario on this earth where that conversation is going to happen. You know what I meant… so… uh… you were in Montana for a bit then I take it?"

She nodded.

"So… ah… does ah Steve know?"

"Yes, Danny, Steve knows. Do you honestly think I would tell you before I told him?" His reaction was to tilt his head and smirk at her.

"Seriously?"

"Well… it wouldn't be the first time you came back and he took the 'no questions asked' approach to your visit."

"I told him last night."

"And….?" He was clearly not going to leave it at that.

"And… it went… well, it went, how's that?"

"Yeah, that's not gonna cut it Cath. How'd he take it? Is he ok?"

"He's fine." She started but didn't go any further under that patented Danny Williams glare. "Ok, he'll be fine, how's that?" That seemed to appease him, for the moment.

"Tell ya what Danny, how about you stop pacing and have a seat, and I'll tell you what happened once I got here last night?"

"Alright, ok, that's a start. I can do that." Danny conceded and sat down next to her on the sofa.

Catherine took a deep breath to steady herself and began to tell Danny everything.

*****Flashback*****

She touched down in Honolulu shortly after 11:00pm. She grabbed her duffle from the baggage claim and headed outside. She really hadn't thought this part through. The conversation… that she had been obsessing over since the minute she found out she was pregnant, for almost 2 weeks she had tried to imagine every possible way this conversation could go. During all of her obsessing, worrying, and assessing every aspect of her life and what a baby would mean to that life she had planned out every conservable outcome but now standing outside of the airport with her duffle in her hand she was paralyzed by indecision. Should she grab an Uber to his house? It's late, what if he's on a case? What if he's already asleep? What if he's on a date? Maybe she should just take a hotel somewhere near the airport and wait until tomorrow…

'Get it together Rollins!' she reprimanded herself trying to snap out of the cloud of indecision swirling around in her thoughts. 'It's now or never lieutenant.' She was stalling, even though she thought she had run through every possible scenario regarding this conversation the truth was the only purpose that seemed to have served was to make her more nervous.

She confirmed the Uber before she could talk herself out of it and trained her focus on watching the car arrive via the map on her phone.

It was shortly after midnight when she the car pulled into his driveway.

'Now what?' she thought as she thanked the driver and slowly stepped out of the car.

'Well, he's home… and his truck is the only car in the driveway, that's a good thing, right?'

"Uh, is this the right house ma'am? Do you want me to wait or…"? the driver was clearly confused why she was hadn't moved from the spot she occupied when she got out of his car.

"No, no, it's fine… thank you. Have a nice night" She waved him off as she started walking towards that house.

She knew as well as anyone that Steve was a creature of habit, this gave her an idea. Glancing at her watch she confirmed that it was after midnight. He is in bed by now, has probably been asleep for hours… no sense in waking him now… she would just let herself in quietly and crash on the couch for a few hours taking care to set her alarm to make sure she was awake before he was. She let out a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding and moved with more confidence towards the door.

She knew the code to his security system and had never either been asked or had offered to return her copy of his house key.

Rounding the corner to the front porch however her heart sank into her stomach. There were lights on in the back study. Peering carefully through the front windows from the cover of the porch she could see Steve sitting at the table across from his father's desk. Without seeing the project in front of him she knew from his posture that he was dismantling and cleaning whatever weapons he had in the house.

She swallowed, hard. She knew from experience that Steve up late at night working on this task meant that something was going on, something was weighing on him. She could guess, from experience, that this project was most likely preceded by a nightmare that left him unable or unwilling to go back to sleep. Her rational mind told her it was most likely about Joe or a particularly difficult case but she couldn't shake the itch at the back of her mind that wondered if she was the cause of this late-night cleaning session.

She pulled out her phone making the decision to grab an Uber back to town and try this again tomorrow... or maybe the next day. She again stopped herself and took a deep breath.

'You've got this' she thought to herself, 'it's Steve, no matter what happens between us, he will love this baby and he deserves to know about her, or him, sooner rather than later.'

With one more deep breath, for courage, she walked up to the front door and rang the bell.

It felt like forever before the hinges creaked and the door cracked open.

"Catherine?" Steve was starring at her as if he wasn't sure if she were real.

"Yeah, it's me… uh… mind if I come in?"

Shaking himself from his stupor Steve stepped aside opening the door all the way, "yes… yeah… of course, come in."