A/N: The big news for this chapter is that I now have a beta to help catch some of the mistakes I make.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters and make no money doing this. I'm just having fun playing with them. All mistakes are my own.
Chapter 68
Waving as Chin's car pulled away to take Dianne to the airport, Steve stood with Grace propped on one hip, her head resting on his shoulder, and Danny tucked under his other arm. Watching the trio, Kono slid her phone out of her pocket and snapped a picture. Knowing they would want it she texted it to both men before heading back toward the house with the rest of the group.
Phones buzzing at the same time, Steve and Danny separated to reach for them. Seeing the picture from Kono, Steve held his phone up so Grace could see. "Looks like someone was being sneaky."
Rejoining the others in the living room, Danny playfully punched Kono in the arm. "Practicing for your side job as a paparazza, Kalakaua?"
"You complaining?" She elbowed him in the side.
"No breaking each other before the fun starts!" Cath pushed her way in between the pair.
"You are no fun sometimes." Danny stuck his tongue out at Cath before turning back to Kono. "And no. I am not complaining. It is a good picture."
"That is what I thought." She grinned at him before facing the other woman. "Can I beat on him now?"
"No, you cannot." Steve's voice interrupted. "Danno and I have a date with Grace's bedroom walls before either of us are allowed to play. If Alyssa is going to start painting later this week, we need to have the walls done. Which means we need to move furniture out, and get the room ready to paint before we are allowed to have any fun."
"So where we putting everything?" Cath asked.
"We?" Steve raised an eyebrow at her.
"The moving part will go a lot faster if you have help." Sam interjected, assuming that was her point. He started laughing at the look of abject mortification on the SEAL's face. "What?"
"Having you wash my dishes was strange enough." Steve started.
"If it will make you feel better, I will invite you over next time we decide to start moving things around at my place." He gave Steve a challenging look. "Either way, the lady is right. If we all pitch in, that part will take no time."
"Fine. The furniture in the worst condition is actually the stuff in the room Mary and Dianne stayed in, so I had planned on pulling it out and putting the stuff from Grace's room in there. She can stay in that room until the painting is done, and by that time her new furniture should be here."
"It should?" Grace sounded confused.
"Well, it should be if we order it in the next few days. That just means we need to make a decision on which set you want." Steve clarified. Everyone headed up the stairs since it appeared McGarrett was not going to balk at the idea of help. "We might as well put the mattress straight in my truck. I will have to haul it off later. Everything else can go outside since it is not supposed to rain, and I will see about getting it donated."
"Want me to call my cousins? They can take it to the same place they took Danny's stuff." Kono offered.
"Go for it." He was not going to argue with that.
She ducked into Grace's room to make the call while everyone else headed to the guest room. When she rejoined them several minutes later, Grace, Beth, and Catherine were all missing, apparently already have taken their first items out of the room. Of the three remaining, Danny was ranting at Steve about the proper way to carry something, while the governor looked on with an expression of amusement.
"I have an idea." Sam interrupted before Danny could get too heated. "How about Kono helps Danny with the dresser, and I will help Steve with the bed. I would rather you two not end up divorced before you even have a chance to get married."
Kono doubled over laughing at the expression on her boss and Danny's face when the governor's words registered.
"But we aren't…"
"Not yet, but I have no doubt you will be and I see no reason to let you kill each other moving furniture before that happy day comes." Sam deflected.
"Come on, other boss. I promise I won't drop it on your toes." Kono grabbed Danny's arm, tugging him over to the dresser.
"Fine, but if he gets you killed hauling furniture down the stairs, I do not want your crazy security team coming after us." Danny grumbled as he and Kono hauled their load out the door.
Steve just shook his head as he and Sam started reaching for the mattress. "Promise I will not get you killed."
"I did not think you would. Don't you dare tell Danny, but I thought it might be easier for us to maneuver things since we are of a similar height." Sam's voice dropped low just in case the detective was anywhere near hearing range.
Steve laughed so hard he had to set his end of the mattress back on the bed frame. "No way in hell am I repeating that to him. He would kill us both." Finally recovering from the laughter, the SEAL grabbed the mattress again. "Let's get this thing out of here before the women girls are back for their next load."
By the time Chin returned from the airport, they were putting the last few items from Grace's room into the guest room. Knowing it would be a week or better before she was able to move back into her actual room, Steve had insisted on having all of her things set up nicely in the guest room so she would be comfortable.
"Wow. You guys have been busy." Chin smiled. "Looks like the airport run was the easy job this afternoon."
"Watch it or we will make you paint." Danny sniped at him.
"Worse yet, we will make you help with the taping." Steve set the bag of painters tape in the middle of the now empty room with a groan. Painting he did not mind. Taping he loathed with a passion. The trim around the ceiling was not bad, but crawling around to tape the floorboards sucked.
"Why don't you take the high ground," Beth grabbed a couple rolls of tape. "I will show Grace how to do the floor while her dad does the windows."
"What are we supposed to do?" Chin asked.
"Patch holes and such?" Steve asked, giving him a choice.
"I can do that." The Hawaiian confirmed.
"What about the three of us?" Cath asked as she stood with Kono and the governor.
"It appears you have a reprieve for a while." Steve shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, if you were serious about getting trained, we could start on that?" Cath offered Sam an option.
"Just don't break me." He laughed at the two women. He had witnessed them holding their own against the men, so he knew they were more than capable of doing plenty of damage.
"We won't hurt you. We promise." Kono smiled sweetly as she led him toward the door.
Steve laughed at his boss's expression as they followed Kono, Cath hot on Sam's heels. "Use the pads!" The SEAL yelled after them.
"Are you sure it is a good idea to leave them unsupervised? If they break him, somehow you will end up taking the fall." Danny snickered.
"He will be fine. They know he respects their abilities, so they have no reason to try to prove a point and actually hurt him."
"True. Still, we should probably hurry up before they get too excited and forget he is not one of us." Chin was already patching the second small area he had found on the wall.
Before long, the room was taped off and any small imperfections were patched. Steve would need to pop in and sand the patched spots later, but this would mean they could get the first coat of paint on early Monday before he and Danny were supposed to meet with the school about Grace's pending return.
Swinging Grace up onto his back, Steve trotted down the stairs and into the kitchen. "Let's grab some water and take it out." He leaned down as he opened the fridge, and Grace stretched out to grab a couple of bottles.
"I'll grab the others." Beth smiled at the pair after Steve grabbed two more bottles. With water for everyone, the trio followed the others outside to see how Governor Denning was holding up against Catherine and Kono.
"Ouch. That looked uncomfortable." Steve winced on behalf of his boss as the other man doubled over after a hit from Catherine.
"Oops. Sorry. Didn't mean to hit that hard." She reached out to grip Sam's shoulder, trying to reassure him.
"S'okay. Pretty sure I will live." He wheezed. "Though seeing how the rest of the crew is here, perhaps I will have a seat and let you beat on someone else for a while." Sam gave her a smile as he headed toward a blanket that Danny had just spread on the ground.
"Regretting your decision yet?" The detective queried.
"Nope. Wasn't so bad until that last hit, and that was partially my fault. I stepped the wrong way." He accepted a bottle of water from Beth with a grateful smile. When Steve and Danny were both sitting next to them, giving the other three a chance to work with Beth and Grace before they jumped in for some fun, Sam turned to them. "George called me this morning with an update on the potential interview. It took him a couple of days to connect with her, but it appears his first choice is more than willing to follow the rules. I am sure she and her network are aware of the opportunity they have been presented with this."
"So we are really going to do this?" Danny looked to Steve. "You are sure you are ready to go this public? Once we do this you can't take it back." He did not want his partner to regret the decision later. They were all prepared to face some potential backlash, but even with the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell this was still a bigger risk for the SEAL.
"I am sure. We are not going to subject Grace to getting ambushed by shady reporters because I hesitated to stand my ground. We have been over this. We agreed we were not going to hide this." McGarrett was adamant. "Not to mention, word will get out fast enough. Intentional or not, I am going to kiss you in public and people will see it." He gave Danny his best cheesy wink.
"That is true. Expecting you to keep your hands and lips to yourself is a lost cause." Danny leaned into Steve's chest. "So when is this all going to happen?"
"They put together a proposed timeline that takes into account the fact you wanted to move quickly. If we approve tomorrow they will send us questions to review by end of day Wednesday. They were going to put it out on tomorrow's broadcasts that people could submit questions to them if we approve early enough, so you might get some crazy ones to weed out." Both men snickered. They could all imagine the crap that would lead to, but they may also get some good ones. "We would have until first thing Friday morning to review and then film the interview Friday to air next Monday."
"I say we do it." Chin hollered at them as he side stepped an elbow from Beth.
"Me too." Kono yelped after Grace landed a hit.
"I guess that settles it. Tell George to give them the go ahead. Want to come over Wednesday night and review questions? Something tells me we may need a few drinks for that."
Sam laughed heartily. "I will bring a fresh supply of alcohol with me."
"And we won't argue with that offer." Danny laughed.
"Hey boss!" Kono yelled at Steve. "You want to get in here before Kamekona gets back with dinner?" The big guy had left shortly after his arrival to go work for a while, but had promised he would be back with shrimp for dinner.
"Sure thing." Steve hopped up, rolling his neck and circling his shoulders to loosen up a bit. "You coming Danno?" He reached a hand down for his partner.
"Are you actually going to let me do anything? Or am I just supposed to stand there and look handsome while you knock the rest of our team senseless?" He let Steve pull him to his feet.
"You could always join our side." Cath suggested. "The four of us versus Super SEAL. That seems fair to me."
Grace plopped down next to the governor as Beth slipped off to the house to throw together salad to go with dinner.
"Any guess on how this goes down?" Sam asked Grace.
"He will try to avoid fighting against Danno, but he'll have to do it eventually. Danno won't let him get out of it. It will end in Danno ranting at him for not actually trying."
Sam watched in silence to see how accurate she was. As expected, Grace could not have called in better. Steve managed to take out each of the other three, but kept sidestepping Danny's attacks rather than actually defending himself or fighting back.
"Seriously, Steven! What the hell are you doing? Stop sidestepping and hit me you freakin' Neanderthal!" Danny was fuming after several minutes. "Either fight back or I swear you will be sleeping on the couch tonight."
This threat made Steve pause even as Danny approached. When the detective through a punch this time, Steve ducked it, grabbed Danny's arm and twisted it around. If you weren't paying attention, it looked just like the first time he had done it to Danny after they met. If you were paying attention, you could see the care he took not to actually hurt his partner.
"Better, but don't think I missed what you did. That hurt a lot worse last time." Danny glared at the SEAL as he righted himself, but his anger faded at the look on Steve's face. "Oh come here." He pulled him closer for a tender kiss.
"Alright you two, break it up. We better get cleaned up for dinner. The shrimp will be better fresh." Chin started ushering them all toward the door.
"Yes, Dad." Steve mocked as he let Danny tug him to the door.
Teasing each other as they headed for the house, the entire group was nice and relaxed. It felt strange not to have Dianne with them, but they had a good day of getting things done and having some fun.
/ GUARDIAN/
A/N: You know what to do.