Chapter 21
It had been a week since Steve had a phone call from Sarah. Things had been going well, he hadn't heard any more from Sarah, and never told Evie of the phone call. He thought about telling her, but he never really gave Sarah a chance to speak and explain anything, and the only thing it would do was upset Evie. She had started to settle in more. She had spent more time with Chelsea and Jay while Steve was working.
Evie had come home a few times, explaining to Steve what they had done and how much fun she had. It reassured Steve that them moving into together was going to work, and it was the right decision. He had spent little time with Cath, he had spent most of his free time packing, but work was not helping this situation, with Danny away and a large case load it meant they were working long hours.
Cath had missed seeing Steve all that often, but knew that very soon she could wait up for him to come home to her house. She missed seeing him when Evie came over, but since being back at work this took her mind off missing him all the time. Her and her kids had got into a routine, the kids pulled their weight around the house, did some of the cleaning and made sure that everything was in order for when Cath came home.
Chelsea and Jay had spent more times with their friends. They got back to their old selves – after their Nan died they stopped being as social as they had been before – they were going out more and moving on with their lives.
Evie had been to a summer camp and spending time with Jay and Chelsea. She had been enjoying spending time with them. She thought they were a lot cooler because they were older, and she liked spending time with them and getting to know them.
The day of the move...
Steve was up early, he had already gone out for his morning swim and run. By the time he came back, he made breakfast and woke Evie up. Steve was slowly learning that Evie was grumpy in the morning and getting her out of bed was a mission in itself. After finally getting Evie to wake up and get out of bed he was faced with the task of getting the last of his things packed and ready to move.
He and Catherine had spent all day yesterday at the house. The kids had spent the day at their house sorting out Evie's room and making space for anything Steve and Evie brought. Steve and Catherine started the day productively, within an hour of being in the house they were all ready naked and in bed together. They spent a couple of hours in Steve's bedroom before reminding themselves that they had to sort out what furniture they would be brining to Cath's house. He and Mary had decided to keep the house, in case they ever needed it, but also didn't think they could say goodbye to the house that held so many memories for them.
After 5 long hours of work, they had decided that very little furniture would be moved from Steve's to Cath's. Catherine's house had all it needed but Steve wanted to move photos, and ornaments to Cath's house to make it a joint house. Once all the packing of the last few things were done, they had made their way back to Steve's bedroom, to finish off the day. They had both fallen asleep until Steve got a phone call from Evie asking him when they would be back, as they had promised to take them out for dinner.
The kids day had been less than productive as well. As soon as their parents left the kids had moved from preparing the house to going to the beach to meet up with George and Shannon. They had come back early and made a little room, but not as much progressive as Steve or Cath would have liked.
Steve had roped in the help of Chin, Kono and Adam, to help with the moving. Steve was trying to believe that Adam had changed and the only way he could do that was by getting to know him and this seemed like a good way. Well that and also the fact that Danny was still in England and they needed more help.
It was about 10 o'clock when everyone turned up and started moving boxes into the back of Steve's truck. They had started in Evie's room and found out that in the short time she had lived in Hawaii, she had acquired a lot more stuff than she first brought to Hawaii. Steve knew that Sarah had sent all of Evie's stuff over from LA but the amount of boxes she had was a lot more than Sarah had sent.
"Where did you get all of this stuff from?" Steve asked as he and Evie drove the first load over to Cath's.
"Some of it's what mom sent and the other is what you have brought me since I have been here." Evie replied.
"I am sure that I didn't buy you that much since you have been here." Steve replied.
"Either that or I can't pack that well and the boxes are only half full." Evie replied. She wasn't very good at packing and if anything there were a lot more boxes because she had only half filled them, by chucking anything in.
"You only half filled the boxes?" Steve asked in disbelief, if the boxes were fully packed they could have moved a lot quicker.
"Well I filled them until I couldn't lift them." Evie replied.
"You didn't have to lift them, I was going to." Steve replied, not really understanding her logic.
"Good point." Was all Evie could say in return. She hadn't thought of that, but once Steve had said it, it made sense.
Meanwhile...
Cath's morning was not going as well either. She had woken up late in bed with Chelsea asleep next to her, from where she had fallen asleep watching a film. Cath had not realised the time until she woke up and looked over at her alarm. Seeing the time she jumped out of her bed and started getting dressed. Evie and Steve were due in 30 minute with the first load of stuff. She had not got ready for the day, her kids were still asleep, they had not really made any progress at clearing the door way to get the boxes through.
"Mom, what are you doing?" Chelsea asked from the bed. Her head was still buried in the pillow and her eyes clothes. Her mom was panicking, she could tell this through how fast and how much noise she was making.
"Steve and Evie are due in half an hour and we still have a lot to do." Cath said, not stopping moving around her room. "I am going for a shower, can you go and wake up your brother and both of you be ready in 20 minutes?" Cath asked. She knew that this was a big ask of her kids, getting them ready within 20 minute was never unlikely to happen but she at least needed to try.
"20 minutes. I'll try." Was all Chelsea said before she jumped out of her bed and made her way towards Jay's room.
Cath was the first downstairs, she had took her timing skills she learnt in the Navy and made it downstairs within 20 minutes. She started to push some of the front room furniture out of the way.
Jay and Chelsea were downstairs a little while after, just as Steve and Evie had turned up. Cath had mostly sorted out the living room ready for the first load that they brought.
"Good morning." Cath said to Steve as he walked to the front door, giving him a kiss before he came in.
"Good morning." Steve greeted back.
"Morning Evie, how about you and Chelsea go upstairs and start sorting out your room?" Cath asked. She knew that Evie would not be staying in her room for at least a week. They had a lot to do, clear it out, decorate it and put all of Evie's belonging in there. Starting now would get both the girls out of the way but also get the room done a lot quicker.
"Okay." Evie replied and followed Chelsea up the stairs towards her new room.
"Are you ready for your new room?" Chelsea asked.
"Yeah it is better than the one at the old house." Evie replied. Chelsea had never seen the old house just heard about it, and by the way both her mom and Evie described it, it was a lot smaller and had a lot more of an older feel to it.
"Well I'm sure we can make it a lot better. First I think we just need to pack everything into boxes, things we are going to keep and things we don't need." Chelsea said as they walked into the room. Over the last few weeks since they had known they were moving in together, Chelsea and Cath had gone through the room and started to pile most of the stuff, of what to keep and what to get rid of. They just need to go over, a lot more items and pack them into boxes.
After Cath, Steve and Jay had moved the first boxes into the house, Steve and Jay drove back to his house to collect the next boxes they he needed and hopefully, Chin, Adam and Kono had moved a lot of the boxes downstairs, and if they all loaded their cars this could hopefully be the last trip.
Chelsea went back downstairs to see that Cath was struggling to move all of the boxes around.
"Mom, Jordon said he is free all day if you want him to come round and help with the boxes." Chelsea said, this would be a good way for her mom to meet her boyfriend, if he was there helping them maybe she would definitely see him in a good light.
"That would be great." Cath said. She did take a minute to think about it, but she could kill two bird with one stone. She could meet Chelsea's boyfriend and, while Chelsea was upstairs do a little of investigating, but also got help with sorting the boxes out.
It was about 15 minutes later Jordon knocked at the door. He was followed up the driveway by Steve and Jay, in what Cath assumed was Kono's car.
Jordon was greeted at the front door by Chelsea, who pulled him into a kiss. They hadn't seen each other in about a week, because Jordon had got back of holiday and then went away again to see family. She had missed him and didn't care if her mom was watching.
"Jordon, this is my mom Cath." Chelsea started. "And this is her boyfriend Steve McGarrett." She continued when Steve and Jay had walked in.
"Ms Rollins, Mr McGarrett. It is nice to meet you." Jay said shaking hands with both of them. "Jay, how are you?" He then said turning and shaking Jay's hand. He and Jay were never really friends until Jordon had started going out with Chelsea. Since Jordon and Chelsea had been going out Jay would not really class them as good friends but he was nice to him because he was after all Chelsea's boyfriend. But he had no doubt in his mind that if Jordon ever did anything to Chelsea he would kill him.
"I am good thanks, how are you?" Jay replied being civil.
While Jay, Jordon and Chelsea were talking Cath turned to Steve. "What are you doing back with an empty car?"
"Kono, Chin and Adam said they were alright with the loading of the truck and thought that we would be at better use here. But I see you have recruited other help." Steve said with a hand around Cath's waist.
"Well, Chelsea said he was free, I needed to meet him, and what better way to get some alone time with him, while Chelsea is upstairs with Evie." Cath said.
"If Chelsea hears you saying that she will never forgive you for scaring him off." Jay said, as he walked over to them.
Luckily for Cath, Chelsea and Jordon were engaged in what must have been one of the longest hugs she had ever seen. Why did it have to be her daughter that was going out with this boy? He seemed nice enough, but standing in front of her, kissing and cuddling was not what she wanted to see her fourteen year old daughter doing. As long as they were not going upstairs she didn't have a problem.
"Well she will never know." Cath said.
"Right well now it seems you have got everything sorted at this end we can go back and help Chin." Steve said.
"Before you go I was thinking, would you like to ask them all over for a BBQ later, we have enough food and it would be a great way to thank them for their help." Cath said. It would also be a good way for her and her kids to get to know the people Steve worked with. She knew them to some extent but her kids had only met them once when Steve was in hospital.
"That sounds like a brilliant idea." Steve said before kissing her and walking out the house closely followed by Jay.
"Okay, back to work Chelsea." Cath said trying to separate the two of them. Since Jordon had arrived, they had been in physical contact for almost all of that time and she had seen enough.
"Okay, see you soon." She said to Jordon. "Don't be horrible." She whispered to Cath as she walked past her to go up the stairs.
"So you and my daughter are going out." Cath said, once she was sure that Chelsea had disappeared back into the bedroom out of ear shot of anything she was going to say.
"Yes Ma'am." Jordon replied. "Where would you like me to start." He continued.
"Just move them boxes into the study through that open door." Cath replied, as Evie's room was not ready yet they had started to put all of her stuff in the study until it could be moved to her room once it was complete. "I have seen you two kiss."
"Yes Ma'am" Jordon replied, he was starting to feel uncomfortable with were this conversation was going. He knew that she was building up to something and got a strange sense that he was not going to like it.
"Do you plan on doing anything else?" Cath asked, she wasn't really sure she wanted an answer to this question but wanted to make sure that he and her daughter were not going to do anything that would make her worry.
"Ma'am, I would never do anything that Chelsea didn't want me to do." Cath just looked at him. He could tell from her face that he had not answered the question just gone around answering it. "But to answer your question, no I do not plan on doing anything else with her for a least another year." He and Chelsea had not talked about sex but he knew that unless Chelsea wanted to he would do nothing.
Catherine thought for a moment and thought about what he had said. Yes she was happy they would wait before they had sex, but a year they would both still only be fifteen and still underage. She decided that now was the time she would make it to her point. "I am just going to get to my point. I am not entirely happy with my daughter choosing to date so young. But I will allow it, however, if I find out you did anything at all weather she was happy about it or not, or you upset her in anyway, I will personally, come down on you like a ton of bricks. Do you understand?" She asked.
"Yes Ma'am I would never do anything to hurt her." He agreed.
"Good, then we can move on." She replied.
The next few hours were filled with moving boxes and placing them in the right room. They had finally finished moving the boxes and just had to unpack them. It hadn't taken them that long. They had taken a break for lunch, and in that time, Chelsea and Evie had given up sorting out the boxes as it was getting long and boring. They thought spending the next few hours sorting out other boxes would give them a break. This was the plan, but after only a hour of doing this, Chelsea and Evie had made their way out back to the beach and gone and had a long break.
It was not getting to the time, that they all wanted dinner. Cath and Steve had started to prepare food for the BBQ and people coming over. They had moved most of the boxes out of the way for people to make their way through the house. The gathering had started off small but after Jay and Chelsea had invited people over, Cath invited a couple of friends to join too, making it a lot bigger than originally planned.
"Do you think we have enough food?" Cath asked Steve. They had quickly popped out shopping to get more food for the more guests but Cath was still panicking that they didn't have enough for everyone.
"I thought you said that only 6 more people were coming, not the whole of the Enterprise." Steve said jokingly. He thought that all the food they had got would feed nearly all of the sailors on Cath's old ship.
"Funny, but you know, Jay, Jordon and George will eat a lot, I am sure that that you, Chin, Adam will eat a lot too. You have to leave some for the rest of us." Cath said.
"If we manage to eat all of this tonight, I will pay for you, Chelsea and Evie to go for a spa day." Steve said.
"Is that a deal?" Cath asked.
"Well it depends on what me and Jay get if we still have food left." Steve said, walking over to pull Cath close to him.
"Well I am sure that I will pay for you both to go and watch a football game, anyone you want, and even a tour of the stadium, however, if we win I want a spa day and full works, with dinner and treatments." Cath replied.
"Deal, but if we win you also through dinner in." Steve said.
"Well we are one." Cath said pulling Steve closer to her so she could kiss him.
As Cath brought the last of the food outside, she couldn't help but smile. Her 'boyfriend' -she hated using that term- was cooking, laughing with his team, his ohana around him. Her kids laughing with friends and Evie, it made her think how much her life had changed, this time 1 months ago she was stuck on a ship, working and spending her free time in a little cabin. But now her life had changed, this was the life she wanted for her and her kids. They were happy, she was in love.
Steve was by the bbq, with Chin, Kono and Adam sat just behind him. "This the last of the food?" Steve asked, as Cath walked over with a tray of food in her hand.
"Yep, you better start looking for spas." Cath said.
"All the food hasn't been eaten yet." Steve said, not quite ready to admit defeat. He knew that now the last of the food has been brought out he would lose the bet, but was still hoping that everyone would decide that they didn't want anything else to eat.
"You two made a bet about food?" Kono asked. She knew that Steve was competitive, but in the short amount of time that she had known Catherine she didn't think she was competitive.
"Well Steve didn't think we could eat all this food and I was sure we wouldn't so I thought why not gain something out of it." Cath said.
"Good idea. With prizes like spas, remind me to start betting with you boss." Kono said.
"Losing this one was a one off." Steve said trying to defend his record of winning bets.
"I am sure it is." Chin said, not sounding very sure of himself.
The night carried on with the adults sitting and talking to each other until the kids came up and suggested a game of football. The adults V kids seemed like the best idea. Steve took the game very seriously giving his team strategic talks of what to do. To which all they could do was laugh. This game proved to be a great way for Steve and Chin the chance to see what Adam was really like and how happy he made Kono. That didn't mean that they would make life easy for him. Until they were both 100% happy that he had legitimised the Yakuza they would always be concerned about his and Kono's relationship.
Once the football game was over, and Steve had yet again in the same night admitted defeat, Chin left to go home and see Malia for when she got home from work. Kono had headed in side to help Catherine with washing up, leaving just the kids down the bottom of the garden and Adam and Steve sitting together on the lanai.
"I see how happy you make Kono." Steve started. "I haven't seen her this happy since I first met her. However, until I can see that you have and the Yakuza have changed I will not trust you. If you do anything that will hurt her or put her in danger, I will personally hunt you down and kill you." Steve said not breaking eye contact with Adam.
"I wouldn't have it any other way. Chin has already had this discussion with me, but I promise that I will not hurt her; I will not put her in any danger because I love her." Adam said.
Meanwhile inside...
"How are things going with you and Adam, you seem really happy together." Cath commented to Kono. She had seen them together today, and for this first time she had seen that they both looked happy.
"He makes me happy, and I think I might love him." Kono said, smiling as she looked out the window to where Adam and Steve were sitting.
"I bet Chin is happy about you two." Cath said.
"I understand where him, Steve and Danny are coming from, but I know he has changed, and I want them to see it too, I want them to stop seeing him as Hiro Noshimori's son and see him as Adam." Kono said.
"Well I know for Steve, that he will never fully trust Adam." Cath started. She carried on quickly before Kono could interrupt her. "He is like that with everyone. You could be going out with one of HPD and he would still not trust them, it his protective streak coming through."
"I understand that but sometimes I just wish they would put their protective sides away and just try to get along with him." Kono said.
A couple of minutes later Cath and Kono walked outside, they were greeted by the sight of both Steve and Adam engaged in a conversation, about what they weren't sure, but they looked to be getting along quite well.
"I think Steve might have put that side away." Cath said, walking past Kono to go and sit down next to Steve.
Kono smiled towards Adam, and sat down next to him. Giving him a kiss once she had sat down. Things were starting to go right for her. Hopefully now that Steve was getting along with Adam, Chin would follow and start to accept him, and not mind about them going out as much.
"Well I think it's time we called it a night." Adam said to Kono, it was starting to get late and after helping Steve move it had been a long day for all of them.
"Yes, well thank you for having us, and for the lovely food." Kono said giving them both a hug, while Steve and Adam shock hands.
"Any time and think you for helping us move." Steve said. He started to lead them towards the front door.
When he came back in he saw Cath sitting and watching the kids who where further down the garden.
"They look happy." Cath said, when she sensed Steve's presence behind them. "I remember the last time I saw them this happy was about 2 years ago." Cath was thinking back to times when she had come back on leave and her kids had truly been happy.
"They are happy Cath, you can see that they have always been happy. I think it's time to call it a night." Steve said glancing down at his watch.
"I will go and tell them to come in. I am sure that Shannon will probably be stopping anyway." Cath said.
She walked down to the beach telling the kids it was getting late. Once they had all said goodbye the kids including Shannon made their way upstairs to bed. When Steve and Cath went upstairs to go to bed they stopped by Chelsea's room to say good night, to find that they were all asleep in Chelsea's room, with Jay on the sofa and Chelsea, Shannon and Evie all curled up in bed.
Hope you are enjoying the story, please review and I will try to update soon.