Chapter 20
It was approaching dinner time and Steve and Cath had gone into the kitchen to make dinner. It was the first time all day since breakfast that Cath and Steve had to themselves. They had spent a lot of the day in the garden, with the kids playing. Steve and Jay had got the surf boards out and went surfing for a while. All of the girls knew how to surf but decided to stay sitting on the beach watching them, and just talking.
Cath had enjoyed the time on the beach, not only did it bring her and Chelsea closer, it brought Evie closer to both of them. Evie always seemed to be the a quieter person than Chelsea, and Cath thought that Evie was a little shy to join them, and anything that would bring them closer would be good for when they all moved into together.
After they had all come in from the beach they had sat down in the living room to watch TV. Steve and Jay had tried to get the girls to watch a football, game, but due to the democracy, and there being more girls in the house they ended up watching Ghost. Steve and Jay had spent a lot of the time talking, only to be told to be quiet by each of the girls. When the film finished Steve and Jay shared a look of thankfulness that the film was over, and both wishing they never had to see that film, or a film like that again, but both knew that when they moved in together, the girls would always overrule them on the films they would watch.
"Are you sure your ready for us to move in?" Steve asked. He really wanted to move in and now he was sure that Evie was okay with it, but wanted to make sure that Cath wasn't rushing and things with her kids would get worse.
"I am 100% sure that this is what I want." Cath replied, walking over to Steve and wrapping her arms around Steve's waist and pulling him close. "Being able to do this every day, and going to bed with you every night means I am definitely ready commander."
"Well in that case I won't disappoint lieutenant." Steve said, pulling her closer and giving her a long passionate kiss.
Cath and Steve finally pulled apart, and carried on with the making of dinner. When dinner was almost ready the kids came to lay the table. As they all sat down around the table, Cath looked over at Steve, who gave her a smile and she knew that this was the life she wanted.
"Over breakfast this morning I and Steve were talking. And after we spoke to you last night, and you all seemed okay with the idea about Steve and Evie moving in. We spoke this morning and want to do it soon. We have looked at dates, and think that around 2 weeks." Cath started. "But if any of you aren't happy with it, you can tell us." Cath finished. She waited about a minute to make sure that none of them had anything to say.
"I am okay for this to happen." Chelsea said.
When neither Jay nor Evie said anything Cath started to carry on. "When they come to live with us, we are going to set some new house rules. We are also, going to need to sort out the other room for Evie, but we can start that another time." Cath said.
Over the rest of dinner, they all talked about the plans that they had in mind for when they all lived together. Things wouldn't be that different for Chelsea or Jay, only more people in the downstairs of the house. They had their own space upstairs and space wise things wouldn't matter. Evie was coming around to the idea of all of this, however, she had never lived with more than her mom or her dad. She had never had the idea of living with a type of brother and sister. But they seemed nice enough, and things would be okay.
"Chelsea and Jay washing up please." Cath said once they had all finished their dinner.
"Evie, you can go and help too please." Steve said. He wanted Evie to get used to this, he wasn't sure how often Jay and Chelsea did this but if they were going to live together Evie would need to learn to join in too.
"Well they took it all well. I think this might be the best idea you have ever had." Steve said, when all of the kids had left.
"I don't think it was. I think the best idea that I had was saying yes when you first asked me out." Cath replied.
"Well that is a very close call."
The rest of the day, was spent with Cath and the kids showing Steve and Evie around the house. They told them the basics of where everything was. They went into what would be Evie's room and were going to sort out everything. They knew that there was a very small chance of the room being ready by the time they moved in.
Steve and Jay left the girls inside, while they went out for what was going to become their regular football practice. The girls were talking about how they would make Evie's room right for her. They had talked about all of the stuff they would move into the room, and what they would need to get to make it perfect.
This was the sort of stuff that Evie had missed with her mom. They never spent that much time together when they were she lived in LA. Evie wanted her mother to do mother and daughter stuff with. She knew that this wasn't a very mother and daughter thing to do but it will still spending time talking about interests that she had. Planning the room out they talked about everything. Evie's hobbies, interests, what she liked best about school and her friends she had back home.
In this little time they had together Cath knew that this was not the sort of thing Evie was used to with her mom. The way that Evie seemed quite, and not really open, she knew that this was a new experience to Evie. She really liked Evie; she was starting to see her a little like a younger girl with Chelsea. Cath had missed out on things with Chelsea and although she was trying to make things up with Chelsea, she felt that being like this with Evie, would try and reduce her guilty feeling of the years she missed out on with Chelsea. Cath still had Chelsea and the rest of Chelsea's life to make it up to her, but she needed to make things up to herself.
As the night got darker, Steve and Jay came in. They had spent a good hour in the garden, Steve helping Jay with his football. They had spent time talking, and practicing the plays he would need. It reminded him of what he used to do with his dad. Steve loved Evie more than anything in the world. She was his whole world, but sometimes he did wonder what his life would have been like if he had, a son instead. Every time he thought about it, he knocked the idea out of his head, he had a wonderful, beautiful daughter and he would never change her for the world. But now with Jay he started to think that although he would never be Jay's and Chelsea's dad but having them in his life, would give Steve a chance to do male things with Jay.
Although Steve wanted nothing more than to spend the night with Cath, he knew that as he had work tomorrow he would have to go home, so he and Evie could be ready to leave in the morning, on time. Spending the night with Cath would also mean that they would have to get up earlier to go home, and for both him and Evie to get home and ready.
The next morning...
Cath, Chelsea and Jay got up early, to go to the therapist. Cath found out that going to the therapist was not the problem she would face with her kids, but it was getting both her kids up early, ready and to be on time for the therapist. Cath was up first, and ready for work before she woke her kids up. She knew that she would have to be up and ready so she could make sure her kids would stay up.
When they got to the therapists, they were the first patients of the day. They all walked in and took a seat on the sofa opposite the therapist.
"Hi, I am Dr Coleman, before we start; I am here not to tell you what to do, but to help you find out how you as a family want to make things better. Today, I want to start with your past, and what has lead to you needing to be here. Now Chelsea, would you like to start and tell us where you think things went wrong." Dr Coleman said.
"Things went wrong for me, when I started believing and understanding the truth. The problems have always been there, but I never understood, or saw them. I used to think that every dad was the same, all dad used to drink a lot, and get angry, and that my mom being away was normal. Then I started seeing other people's lives and I saw that this wasn't normal for family. My mom wasn't there all of the time and that my dad should not be doing this. Then he died, and then my mom never came home. But even with all of that my Nan tried to mask over our problems that we all had. She would never like people to know about problems in our lives, that we lived this perfect life. But they were always there. Then my Nan died, and my mom still never came back, but when she did, we had a few arguments, and I forgave her because my dad and Nan had already died, and I didn't want to lose her." Chelsea said, she hadn't been this open, with anyone except for George, he had problems with his family and talking about this with him meant he understood some of what was happening.
"Okay, for the rest of this session we are going to talk about, what you Cath and Jay both think about what Chelsea said. Next session we will then move on to where you two think things went wrong." Dr Coleman said.
"Chelsea has a point, everything in our lives has always seemed perfect. People would come and see our lives and say you have everything, but we don't. People thought we did because of the way that our lives were perceived. It was normal in our house for dad to drink and for mom not to be around. We had our Nan and I loved her to pieces, but she never really did talk about problems." Jay said first. He agreed with everything that Chelsea had said, when he had his turn he would add more to were he thought more of the problems came from, but for now he would have to stick to were Chelsea thought problems were coming from.
The rest of the session was spent with them all talking, and Cath mainly blaming herself for the problems coming from her. She knew that she was to blame for most of them but didn't always see that they were there. She mostly knew that they were there but didn't want to see them, because every time she did see them, she would remember the guilt and upset that she had for pushing away her kids, for leaving them.
Meanwhile...
Steve and Evie got up early. Steve was also learning a lesson that Evie was not an early riser like himself. She was hard to wake in the morning; it was even harder to make her get ready in the morning.
When they finally got to the office, Steve and Evie were still the first to arrive. Steve took Evie for a walk around the HQ and showed her everything, except for the cells they kept below. Steve showed her the interview room but didn't want to show her any of the cells due to the state they were left in.
When they got back upstairs, Danny had arrived and was sitting in his office. "Evie, can you give us a minute." Steve said, as they walked back towards the offices.
"Okay."
Steve walked towards Danny's office before lightly knocking on the door and walking in. "Morning, I have spoke to the Governor, and he is happy to give you the leave to go to England with Gracie and Rachel." Steve said.
"How did you do that?" Danny asked, he was a little shocked, and worried, for what Steve had to do, to get the governor to let him go. He was thankful to Steve for giving him this chance but he knew that Steve would have to exchange a pretty big favour to get Danny this leave.
"Well I spoke to him, he needed a favour from me to do with the Navy and I asked him for this one." Steve replied. It was sort of the truth, but any detail that Danny wanted about the favour would be classified that Danny would never be allowed to know.
"Can I ask what this favour was?" Danny asked. He knew that it was very unlikely that Steve would tell him but he had to try. He was not going to let Steve do something that was dangerous or stupid just so he could take a holiday.
"Sorry Danno it's classified. Now you have 4 hours, until the flight leaves." Steve said checking his watch. He pulled out an envelop from his back pocket and passed it to Danny.
"Thank you. See you in a few weeks. Try not to get anyone killed or blown up." Danny said almost running out the office.
Steve walked back to his office, and saw Evie sitting on the sofa in his office. He sat at his desk and started to think that brining Evie to work with him wasn't one of his best ideas. He started to think that brining Evie would just bore her, and he wasn't sure what he was going to do if they caught a case. He couldn't leave her here by herself, but definitely could not take her with him on a live case.
"You alright?" Steve asked when they had sat in silence for a while.
"Yes, just a little bored." Evie said, she had told her dad that she wanted to see her work but spending the whole day there whilst he was working was not part of the plan. She loved the holidays, however, when she had nothing to do, or no friends to see, but here, where she had no of that, she was looking forward to starting school.
"I know you are. If I don't get any cases then we can leave early and go to the beach and then dinner." Steve said.
Before Evie could answer, Chin had arrived and came to Steve's office.
"Morning." Chin said, as he walked into Steve's office.
"Morning, Uncle Chin." Evie said as she got up off the sofa to hug the older man.
"Are you alright?" Chin asked Evie.
"Yes, just a little bored." Evie replied.
"How about you come with me to my office, and I think I might still have a few games on my computer?" Chin asked. He had met Evie a few years ago, when she had come to stay with John McGarrett, and she had been bored at work with him, and remembers her playing games on his computer, and knew she enjoyed it.
"Okay." Evie said.
"Be good, and let Chin do some work." Steve said. He didn't mind Evie going with Chin, it gave him a chance to work quicker than he would when Evie was with him, it would give him chance to finish his work quicker so they could go home sooner.
"I remember the last time you were here." Chin said when they had got to his office.
"I came to work with Granddad and I played games on your computer whilst he worked on case." Evie said. She remembered that day. She had spent the day with Chin, who was fun, and let her play on his computer even when he had work to do.
"I think I might still have one of them games, if you just let me log on." Chin said.
Once he was logged on he loaded the game up and moved to the chair on the opposite side of his desk, to finish paperwork. This was one of the few things he hated about working for Five 0 they very rarely did paperwork, and when they had to it, took too long and was one of the most boring jobs he had to do.
Once Evie had left Steve's office, he started working going through all of the work that needed to be done. His phone started ringing, he took it out of his pocket and looked at the number. When he saw the number he didn't recognise the number.
"McGarrett" Steve said answering the call.
"Steve, it's Sarah. I wanted to talk to you about Evie." The voice on the other end of the phone. He hadn't spoken to Sarah since he had arranged for Evie to come and stay.
"Sarah, this isn't a good time, I am at work, and to be honest I am not really interested at the moment what you have to say. You sent Evie to stay with me so you could live your youth. When you gave birth to Evie you chose to leave all of that behind." Steve said. He was angry, he never had a chance to speak to her about the letter, and everything she said was still fresh.
"Let me explain..." Sarah tried again.
Steve was not interested to listening to what she had to say. "No what is there to explain Sarah, you didn't want her anymore, you left her. You sent her away and now you are feeling guilty or something and want her back. I know I wasn't there all her life, but I had a job, I know I have been a crap father over the years but never once did I say I never wanted her, never once did I not call her for longer than a few weeks, if I did it was because I was working." Steve said, he and Sarah had never seen eye to eye since they broke up but this was taking it to a new level.
Steve was going to continue but before he had the chance his phone started to beep, when he looked at the phone Sarah had hung up.
Kono had just walked into the office. She had seen Steve in the middle of an angry phone call. She looked into her cousin's office finding him and Evie sitting at the desk. Kono turned around and put herself between Evie's line of sight and Steve's office. She was not sure what was going on, but Evie did not need to see it.
Once the phone call had ended Kono waited for a couple of minute to let her boss calm down. She knew that going in straight after would take more of her anger out on her. When she was satisfied that Steve had calmed down enough, she walked over to his office, knocked on the door and let herself in.
"Everything okay boss?" She asked stepping into the room.
"Evie's mother trying to justify what she said in the letter. Why do we have EXs?" Steve asked.
"Because boss if we got rid of them, we would both be in the cells downstairs, and people would be charging us with murder." Kono said trying to lighten the mood. "Do you belief her justifications?" She asked, when Steve didn't respond to her first statement.
"I didn't give her a chance to fully explain. She did it a lot when we were younger. Do something wrong, then try to justify that what she was doing was okay." Steve explained. He knew what she would do from when they were younger. He knew that she didn't mean it, she just wanted to make sure that people's image of her wouldn't change.