…..

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another chapter! There will only be one more chapter after this, so things are quickly drawing to a close. It makes me incredibly sad (and some of you have expressed the same sentiment), but it's definitely time. It's been such a fun journey, thanks in large part to all of you that have read, reviewed, favorited, followed, and private messaged me. I've enjoyed getting to know those of you that have reached out.

As you know, I gave everyone the opportunity to vote (via review and/or private message) on what my next story would be, and option one narrowly won! If you've forgotten what option one was, here it is:

Steve McGarrett was married once, many years ago. He thought that maybe living and working in his home state of Hawaii would give him the distance that he needed to try to put the heartbreak far behind him once and for all. But when his ex-wife moves to the island with her family, he realizes that there is a very real possibility that moving on is never going to happen.

I've not yet decided on a title, but I have started working on it already and the first chapter should be out soon, so be on the lookout. And thank you so much to all of you that voted; it was really fun to see your thoughts and opinions.

Happy Reading!

…..

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Ready to Pop!

Steve

"Ready?"

Allie buckled her seat belt and sighed. "Why do we have to get out of the house, again? And at six in the morning?"

Grinning because I found her irritation adorable, I answered, "Kono said that they needed to decorate the house."

"The party isn't until one. Who needs seven hours to decorate a house for a party?"

"Apparently, Kono." I looked over my shoulder and began to reverse. "She was very secretive about the whole thing."

"That can't be good."

I chuckled. "We're going to go and get some pancakes, take a walk on the beach, go see that movie you've been wanting to see, and then go and get your hair and makeup done. And all of that is free because everyone chipped in to give us a free date day before the baby comes."

"Couldn't it have been a date evening?"

"Guess not." I laughed and grabbed her hand. "You've gotten pretty lazy since you resigned from Five-O."

She tried to look angry, but she was losing the battle to hold back her smile. "Forgive me for wanting a break after pulling off a completely badass heist in France. And before the baby gets here and I have to be up all night."

We'd recently attended childbirth and newborn basics classes at the hospital, and I'd been disappointed to learn that sleep training wasn't typically recommended in the first few months. Especially with breastfed babies, and Allie's plan was to try and breastfeed.

"I'll help at night," I told her. "You wrote that down and made me sign it, remember?"

She laughed. "I did. You'll regret signing it."

"Well, if we do have to be up at two in the morning, there's no one I'd rather be up with," I said and reached over to place a hand over her very small bump. She hid it very well beneath looser-than-normal clothes. Most people didn't even know that she was pregnant unless she said something.

Ari kicked and I smiled. I'd been feeling him moving for a while now, but it never ceased to amaze me that Allie and I had created a life together. It was, without a doubt, my greatest achievement.

We arrived at my favorite diner – now Allie's favorite diner as well – and as we walked in, she groaned in frustration.

I looked over at her with a smile. "You have to go to the bathroom?"

"Perpetually," she complained. "As if I didn't just go before we left."

With a kiss on her cheek, I said, "I'll be in our favorite booth."

She joined me there a few minutes later, where I already had a vanilla iced coffee waiting for her, along with a water. As we ordered and then ate, we talked about anything and everything. The parenting book that she'd just finished, the burglar that Five-O had apprehended the day before, Allie's bad dreams about Medici… all of it.

After our wonderful breakfast at the diner, we took a walk on the nearby beach. Even though it was early, there were plenty of people out and about. It was a Saturday, after all, so those that were busy at their jobs during the week were taking advantage of their free time, just as Allie and I were.

We walked in the sand for a bit and then Allie said that she was tired and wanted to head back to the truck and go to the movies. She'd been wanting to see some suspense thriller for a while, and Kono kicking us out of our own house had been the perfect opportunity. We armed ourselves with popcorn, a pretzel, and a soda to share and then sat down to watch. I left nodding in approval.

"Good," I told her as we walked into the beauty shop where she was going to be getting her hair and makeup done for the shower. "But why didn't he just take the gun and shoot the guy?"

Allie rolled her eyes. "Not everyone is a former Navy SEAL. He obviously didn't have much experience with firearms. Also, not everyone is as trigger happy as you."

"I take offense to that," I informed her and went off to the corner to pretend to pout while the woman in the shop got to work on Allie's hair.

An hour later, we were headed back to our house. Allie had changed into a pale blue dress that was loose and flowy. Her hair had been curled, and her makeup was a bit fancier than normal. She looked beautiful, but she always did.

I had just remained in the same clothes – a gray polo over jeans. No matter what I wore, I would look insignificant next to her.

"Jesus…" Allie breathed as we pulled onto our street and saw the cars lined up nearly bumper to bumper. "How many people came?"

"Kono didn't tell you?" I asked her and maneuvered into our driveway, where someone had courteously left us a spot. "She said something about, like… I don't know… Seventy people, maybe?"

Allie's jaw dropped. "There are going to be seventy people at this thing?"

I grinned at her. "More presents for Ari."

"Kono better be cleaning all of this up."

"She said she was." I took the keys out and opened my door. "Ready?"

"I guess I don't have much of a choice." Allie slid out and joined me as we walked towards the door, slipping her hand into mine. "Here we go."

"Here we go," I agreed and opened the door.

We were met with loud cheers.

Allie

"What is she doing here?" I whispered to Kol with a sneaky point towards our mother, who stood over in one corner of the living room talking with our father and Uncle Edward.

Kono, who had been passing by, stopped and gave me an apologetic look. "I'm so sorry, Allie. I didn't issue her a personal invitation, but I did send one to your dad, and he brought her. Do you want me to kick her out? I can kick her out."

Kol pointed at Kono, and his expression said that he thought that she'd made a wonderful point. "She can kick her out."

As tempting as that was… "No. I don't want to create a scene. I'll just stay away from her. There's enough people here that I shouldn't have a problem with that."

The party was going on all throughout the kitchen, living room, and backyard. People were everywhere – and there were somehow some people there that I hadn't met yet. But I'd seen several people that I did know. My family was there, obviously, as well as most of the people that had helped me in France. Joe White had given me a big hug as soon as he'd seen me, and he'd introduced me to Wade, who apparently still worked with the SEAL team on the island. Several of the HPD officers had come, as well as some of the lab people.

The turnout was incredible.

And Kono had done an amazing job with the décor.

The theme was Ready to Pop, which sounded cliché, but she'd made it look so cute. Blue, gold, and silver balloons were everywhere, as well as matching streamers. In the living room, there were two tables – one for snacks and one for drinks. The one for drinks held chilled glass bottles of all different kinds of soda from all over the world. The snack table held a popcorn bar, with cute blue popcorn boxes to put your popcorn in. (I had already sampled the nacho cheese and garlic parmesan popcorn, and they were both amazing.) Out in the backyard, there was a table with blue cake pops and mini bottles of champagne.

"You did a great job," I informed Kono with a smile. "Everything looks perfect."

Her eyes sparkled with a secret. "Just wait until you see the rest of it."

Confused, I said, "The rest of it?"

"Later," she promised and pointed. "Look who just showed up."

Imran had just walked through the door, and headed my way when he saw me. Kono and Kol excused themselves after they'd told him hello.

I hugged him. "Thank you so much for coming."

"I wouldn't have missed it," he assured me. "You really went all out with this."

"Not me," I assured him. "Kono threw the shower. In fact, I was kicked out of my house this morning so that she could get it all set up."

"Ah," he laughed. "Where's Steve?"

"Out in the back with most of the men. Kono set some games up back there and they're all playing. Let's go say hello."

Imran and Steve began to talk, so I moved around and chatted with various people until Kono announced that it was time for presents.

She had Steve and I sit beside the table in the backyard that held a mound of presents, and she assured us that she would be taking notes of who had gifted what so that we could send out thank you notes later.

The next half hour was spent opening so many gifts that I felt like my head would spin. Diapers, wipes, a play yard, a diaper bag, a baby monitor, lotion, toys… the list went on and on. And the amount of clothes that we received was almost ridiculous. He was definitely never going to have to run around naked. Michael, Max, and Trent had even jointly bought the four-hundred-dollar travel system that I'd registered for.

There was still a lot that we would need, but I was so grateful for everything that we'd gotten so far. "Thank you all so much for all of these gifts," I began, but Kono waved for me to stop before I could continue my speech.

"That's not all," she said, and she looked like she was about to burst wide open. "If you'll follow me up the stairs, please."

"Umm… okay?" I looked to Steve, but he just shrugged and stood with me.

Kono and Kol led the way upstairs, and I noticed halfway up that no one else was coming. "Just us?"

"Just us," Kono confirmed.

Kol took a small digital camera out of his pocket and turned it on as he reached the second-floor landing. "I'm going to film it for everyone, though."

I was thoroughly confused, and the look on Steve's face said that he was right there with me. "You've completely lost me, Kol."

"That's the point."

We walked past mine and Steve's room and made it to the end of the hall, right outside of the door that was supposed to be the nursery.

"Oh," I realized as Kol turned the camera on to begin filming. "I get it. Someone got the crib, I saw on the registry. Was it too big to wrap, so it's just sitting in there?"

"That makes sense," Steve said.

Kono and Kol exchanged a smug look, and then Kono turned the handle and pushed the door open. "See for yourself."

When I stepped inside, I gasped, and Steve had the same reaction.

Though I'd had a plan for the nursery for quite a while, we hadn't executed it yet. The only thing that we'd done had been to change out the carpet to a softer, off-white shade. We'd also bought the paint and the painting supplies, and they'd been sitting in there so that we could check that off of the to-do list the day after the shower.

But it had been completely transformed.

The white crib had been not only bought, but set up against the wall right where I had wanted it. The mattress – covered with the navy and white striped crib sheet that I'd picked out – was already in it, and the navy crib skirt brushed the carpet. A mobile of blue sailboats with white sails pulled the whole crib together. Above the crib was a big white canvas with a gray anchor that had 'Ari Steven' painted on it in beautiful calligraphy.

The walls had been painted wonderful gray, and the navy and white striped curtains that I'd bought but hadn't done anything with yet were hanging in front of the window, tied back on either side with thick coils of rope much like the ones used to tie off boats. In the corner by the window was a white glider with a small navy 'Sail Away' pillow sitting on it. And beside it was a custom bookshelf made to look like half of a rowboat. It had been painted to match the room, and there were already some baby books sitting in it, waiting to be read.

A long white dresser sat opposite the crib, and a changing pad with a navy and white striped sheet on it sat in the middle of it. On the side closest to the glider was a navy fisherman table lamp, while the other side held a white wipes dispenser and a small navy storage basket with some diapers inside. Above the dresser hung an old-fashioned map, much like the ones I imagined old ship captains using.

On the small wall behind the door hung an oar that had been hand painted to match the room. Someone had put four hooks on it, so we could use it to hang jackets or towels or whatever we needed. Above that was an obviously hand painted sign that had mine and Steve's quote over some waves. My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep. The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite. On the floor beneath all of that was a small white wooden box shaped like a rowboat that would serve as a toy box.

Next to the closet door was a large wooden growth chart, navy with a white anchor painted on. Next to that were some navy shelves hung by some rope similar to the kind holding the curtains. On the shelves were various nautical objects. Looking up, I noticed that someone had painted a nautical compass around the ceiling fan.

It was only when I spoke that I realized that I was crying. "It's exactly like I pictured it." I turned to Kono and Kol, who stood nearby with soft smiles on their faces. "How in the world did you pull this off?"

"It was a huge group effort," Kol admitted in a rare moment of humility. "And Kono's idea."

She shrugged, but was smiling. "You guys have been through a lot. And Chin, Danny, and I hate that we couldn't be there for you in France, so we wanted to take this piece of stress off. We contacted everyone and asked them to pitch in. Like Kol said, it was a huge group effort."

Kol nodded. "Chin, Danny, Kono, and I got here right when you guys left this morning and painted the room. Then, we started setting everything up while our other brothers did the second coat after it had dried a bit."

Kono picked up where he had left off. "I just gave everyone jobs for setting up the party and we split the workforce between that and this. So, everyone chipped in with setting everything up for you."

"Who did the boats?" Steve asked, gesturing between the bookshelf boat and the toy box one.

"Team effort," Kol said. "Max designed them and then Trent, Michael, and I put them together. We made Max paint them by himself, though, since he refused to pick up a tool."

I made a slow circle, just soaking it all in. "But how did you know where I wanted everything?" The room looked like it had just jumped straight out of my head.

"You showed me, remember?" Kol asked me. "Two weeks ago, we came in here and you were pointing out where you wanted everything, once you had it." He tapped his temple. "And my brain is like a steel trap."

"I was thinking we were a little light on presents, for how many people were here," Steve mused.

He protested when I hit his arm. "Ungrateful."

"Not ungrateful," he disagreed. "Something just seemed off."

"This is amazing," I sighed as I once more looked around. I couldn't soak it in enough. "Thank you so much for doing all of this. I feel like I'm in shock."

Kono laughed. "Well, let's go tell everyone how much you loved it."

"And please make sure you mention how much you love the crib," Kol added. "Danny bought it, so he insisted on putting it together and it was not easy for him."

"He kept saying that they've made them so much more difficult since Grace and, well… you can imagine," Kono laughed.

Steve rolled his eyes. "I don't even want to know."

"Gush about the crib," I nodded. "Got it. Who did the dresser, though?" It was bigger and looked even more difficult to put together.

"Wade and Joe," Kono said and headed for the door. "So, feel free to gush about that, too, because there was a fair amount of cursing going on up here as they were doing it."

"Catherine was up here putting the sheets on and said that Wade smashed his fingers three times," Kol added and also headed for the door.

Overwhelmed, I grabbed Steve's hand and looked up at him. "Ari has so many people that love him already."

Gratefulness exuded from him. "And two parents that would give anything for him."

Steve

"What, exactly, is the point of this?" I asked as I held up the blue and white hospital gown that was folded neatly beside the open suitcase. "Don't they provide gowns for you at the hospital?"

Allie snatched the gown away from me and put it back from where I'd grabbed it. "Stop messing with things! I'm trying to get this hospital bag packed. I'm almost thirty-nine weeks, you know. We should have done this a few weeks ago."

"You started a few weeks ago," I reminded her and watched as she put my box of granola bars into the large rolling suitcase. "You made the checklist and said that had made you exhausted and you needed to eat something. And then you never went back to it."

"Well, you should have reminded me." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, almost as if in pain.

My sensors went off. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." She took another breath and then opened her eyes again. "I've been aching all day, but it's getting worse. I think just because I spent all day cleaning."

"Nesting," I corrected her. She'd been scrubbing and organizing like crazy for weeks now. "And are you sure that's what it is? You could be in labor."

She rolled her eyes and began to put clothes into the suitcase. "I'm not in labor. I'm just aching."

"You said it's getting worse."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean anything."

"You're basically describing exactly what the childbirth class teacher was saying about labor coming on naturally. And you have a high pain tolerance, so take that into account. If you were just achy, I doubt you'd hurt like you're obviously hurting." She'd gotten that look of pain on her face again, and this time she was gripping her side with one hand.

When she finally opened her eyes again, I could see the fear and apprehension there. "Okay… maybe I'm in labor."

Adrenaline began to course through my body and I started to throw things into the suitcase.

"Hey, careful!" she protested. "We have to make sure that we get everything on the list!"

"You just laid out everything on the list," I reminded her. "It's all here. And if we forget something, Kono or Danny can bring it." I zipped up the suitcase and hauled it up into my arms. "I'm going to load this."

"I'm going to take a shower," she said. "That should help with these awful contractions. Feed Gideon, will you? And let everyone know that we're about to head to the hospital."

An hour later, Allie informed me that she didn't think she could take much more.

"Ready, then?" I asked her, one hand on the doorknob and one hand ready to catch her if she fell.

With determination in her eyes, she nodded. "I'm ready."

I smiled. "Then let's go meet our son."