Chapter 32

Steve and Mary got home from the airport to a quite house. The kids were all upstairs in their rooms and chin and Malia were sitting outside talking quietly.

"This is a nice house." Mary said taking in the front room. When Steve said they had moved into Catherine's house she assumed it was a lot like Steve's house but it was a lot difference bigger, decorated better and was more family orientated. Mary had only met Cath once but this house didn't reflect her.

"Thanks, I will show you to your room." Steve said walking up the stairs. The guest bedroom was just a bed in a room upstairs, it was simple as they had yet to finish the rest of the house up. Evie's room and the old study were not complete and they were still trying to finish it up before Cath left again for the Navy.

Once Steve had shown Mary her room he was going to go in a see each of the kids but decided to speak to Chin and Malia so they could go home.

"Thank you for today." Steve said sitting down outside.

"You're welcome, we're going to head home but if you need anything just call." Malia said, standing up and giving Steve a hug.

"I will see you tomorrow Steve. Trust me we will find her." Chin said resting a hand on Steve's shoulder.

Steve just sat looking out at the sea for a while. Hoping to see the ship that Cath was meant to be on but he couldn't see it, he didn't want to see it because it just reminded him that she wasn't safe on the ship, she was somewhere else and properly wasn't safe.

"I am going to start making dinner for you guys." Mary said stepping out beside her brother. She knew that Steve wasn't in any mood to cook and properly wouldn't but they needed to keep up his strength.

"Okay, I am going to talk to the kids." Steve said moving from his chair.

Once he got upstairs he went into Chelsea's room and found both Chelsea and Jay on the bed. Chelsea was lying asleep but Jay was holding a photo, of what though Steve couldn't see.

"You okay?" Steve asked Jay quietly.

"Yeah." Jay said getting off the bed and walking out. "Have you found her?"

"Not yet but we are going to find her. We have people working on it 24/7." Steve replied. This was the first time that Steve was positive about them finding Cath. It was the first time he had admitted to himself that people were looking all the time.

"Okay." Was all Jay could manage to say.

"How's Chelsea?"

"She is doing okay I guess. She spoke to Shannon, George and Jordon, then she seemed to relax. She fell asleep about an hour ago, it's the first time I had seen her complete calm since you told us about mom this morning."

"Okay. My sister Mary is downstairs, she has come to stay with us. She is in the middle of making dinner, I am just going to go and check on Evie." Steve said turning away.

Jay went back into Chelsea's room, lying back on the bed trying to sleep and just relax for a little while. He had to trust Steve and he knew how good Steve was at his job.

"Can I come in?" Steve asked standing in the door.

"Yeah." Evie said looking up from her book.

"How are you doing?" Steve asked, already knowing the answer would not be good.

"Okay I guess. Although my mom sent me away at least I know that she is okay."

"Yeah. Aunty Mary is downstairs." Steve said.

"I will go down in a minute. You any closer to finding her yet?"

"Not just yet, but we are working on it and we will find her." Steve said. Being with the children made him start to think more positively. He had to reassure the kids and although he didn't realise it, it was making him start to believe that it was true.

"You are going to find her aren't you?" Evie asked.

"Of course we are." Steve said pulling his daughter into a hug. "I am going to go and help finish with dinner it will be ready in 10 minutes." Steve said withdrawing the hug and walking out of the room.

"Okay." Evie said looking back at her book.

On Steve's way back downstairs he stepped back into Chelsea's bedroom.

"Dinner's ready in 10 minutes." Steve said. "When was the last time Chelsea ate?" Steve knew that they probably hadn't eaten that much all day, she needed to eat but she needed to sleep as well."

"She had some breakfast and a little bit of a sandwich for lunch." Jay replied, thinking back to see if he could remember if she had eaten anything else.

"Okay, if you want to wake her up in 10 minutes and bring her down for dinner." Steve replied.

"What are you cooking?" Steve asked stepping into the kitchen.

"Well it was a choice between boiled eggs and pizza, so I decided on pizza." Mary said. She was not sure why she offered to cook her cooking skills were very limited and even pizza was only occasionally cooked perfectly.

"I am sure it will be fine Mare." Steve said, grabbing plates to go and lay the dinner table.

Over dinner no one really said anything. No one really knew what to say. They could make small talk but no one would be interested because all they could think about was Cath. No one wanted to talk about Cath because they didn't know what to say.

As soon as they had all finished dinner they all separated again into different rooms. Steve went into the office to carry on working. He was going through all of the evidence he had collected on Wo Fat in a hope that something would lead him to where Catherine was.

Later that night…

Steve had sat up for almost 5 hours looking for anything. After going through everything 2 times he decided he needed to sleep to fully awake for tomorrow. He knew he would probably only get an hour of sleep but he had to try.

He went upstairs, checking on Evie first who was lying asleep on top of the blanket. He walked into her room and carefully lifted her up to lye her under the blanket. He put her down, tucked her in and kissed her on the forehead before walking away. He stood in the doorway for a couple of minutes just watching her sleep.

Once he left Evie's room he moved across to Chelsea's room to again find both Chelsea and Jay lying on the bed asleep. He stood in the door for a while reminding himself of why he had to bring Cath back. It wasn't just him he had to get Cath home for. He had to bring Cath home for her kids. Since they found out they had become different children. They had become quite and didn't interact.

The next morning…

Steve was awake and at work early. He was the first person of the team at base ready to start work. He made it to the investigation room but was told he was not allowed in until either Commander Gutchins or Joe arrived.

Waiting seemed like ages for one of the two to come. When finally Joe arrived he was allowed into the investigation room. The room was filled with less people than there had been yesterday. There were surveillance photos on boards, details of missions on another and people tapping away at computers.

"Steve the team think they have found something." Joe said.

"What have they found?" Steve asked.

"They think they have a location, but they need to collect more intelligence. We are putting together a team and plan of action and the information should hopefully ne ready to act by tomorrow morning." Joe explained. He had, had a briefing earlier that morning and had found this out. It was also made clear that Steve would only join the team to bring Cath home with the permission of the leading officer of the mission.

"Do we have any information to if she is dead or alive?" Steve asked the dreaded question.

"All the information leads us to believe that she is alive, but there is no solid evidence but we are optimistic."

Steve let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding. For all the time Cath was missing he had little hope knowing the risks of Cath's survival chances. But this information had given him hope that we would grow old with Cath one day. "Okay, what do we have to do?"

"You, nothing. The intelligence officers are working on finalising the location. There is a SEAL team being put together. I believe that Sam Hanna is leading the team on the ground. He is flying over as we speak and there is another 4 SEALs being drafted in." Joe stated. Steve tried to interrupt but Joe was not having any of it. "You can be part of the team on 3 conditions, firstly you are not commanding officer. You and Sam are equal rank in any other circumstances but in this case he out ranks you in the mission, but that being said the second condition is that he agrees for you to be a part of the team. And finally you have nothing to do with the planning. You will be told everything once you are there. These are the conditions you either agree or not." Joe said.

"Fine. What do you want me to do while this is happening."

"Well I have spoke to the Governor, he is happy for you and your team to take 2 weeks off. That means that you can go back home for a couple of hours. Have breakfast with the kids, call your team and tell them what is happening and then all of you can come back in at 1200."

"Okay."

Once Steve got home from base everyone was still in bed. He set about making breakfast. He was still deciding whether he should tell the kids about the progress. The truth was that Steve knew the information was still not definite, that they still had do to more checks to make sure they the exact location and getting the kids hopes up might not be the best idea. He wanted to know where the information had come from but that could wait until after they had Cath back.

Meanwhile...

Cath was still trying to work out who the figure on the floor opposite was. She must have been unconscious because she couldn't remember anything that had happened for a while.

She heard people walking towards the room she was being held in. She decided to pretend to be asleep hoping that if she was and the body on the other side of the floor were not moving they might leave.

Once they walked in they came straight towards Catherine. There was two of them both tall males that was all she could tell.

"Wake up." One of them said kicking her twice to get her to move.

Catherine stirred a little bit before deciding to open her eyes.

"Water." The other one said bending down and pouring water into her mouth.

"What's going on?" Cath asked.

"I am sure it will all become clear once our boss gets here." One of the men said.

"Who is your boss?" Cath asked.

"We can't tell you that too early." With that last statement they both left and Cath was again alone, cold and in more pain than she was before.

Meanwhile...

"Morning." Steve said, looking surprised that Chelsea was the first person awake as this was a very rare occasion that Chelsea would be up before Jay and Evie.

"Morning." Chelsea said moving towards the table and sitting down. "Your meant to be at the base." Chelsea said.

Steve looked up, it was statement not a question that Chelsea said and Steve was trying to decide if he should tell her the truth or just make up another reason.

"Joe called this morning told me to spend the morning here. He said that they had everything covered in looking for your mom and that I should spend the time with you until 11.30." Steve opted for that choice. It was the truth, he just never explained that they were looking into the location of her mother

"Okay."

"How are you feeling today?" Steve asked.

"Okay I guess." Chelsea replied.

"You know we will find your mom." Steve said giving her hope that he still held.

"Dead or alive?" Chelsea questioned.

"We are going to find her, and she is going to be okay. You know your mom can survive anything." Steve said, taking a seat next to Chelsea.

"They said that about my Nan she was strong in the hospital and could survive and she died. We both know that the longer she is gone the bigger the chance she is dead. You said other people were killed in that mission how do we know that her body just hasn't been found or just taken away to hold to ransom of something." Chelsea replied, looking out the window down to the sea.

"Okay I will be straight with you." Steve started. "Please don't tell Jay or Evie this just yet."

"Okay I wouldn't tell them yet." Chelsea repeated.

"I went to base this morning, spoke to Joe. They think they have found your mom alive. But we just need more information before we can do anything. They are about 90% sure that they have found her but there is still more checks that need to be conducted."

"You weren't going to tell us?" Chelsea questioned.

"I was going to tell you, a little later because there was still checks that needed to be conducted. We just want to make sure first." Steve explained hopping Chelsea wouldn't kick off and say something else.

"But you think that she is there and that she is alright?" Chelsea looked up at Steve and for the first time since they had found out Cath was missing she looked hopeful.

"I think there is a very strong chance." Steve said allowing himself to hold onto hope that Cath was going to come home safe.

Back at the base...

"Sam good to see you." Joe said shaking Sam's hand.

"Good to see you Joe." Sam replied. "What's being going on."

"Well Steve and Cath finally moved in together with their kids. But Cath was called back to active duty and she was part of a team that was ambushed. They took Cath and another sailor, with think we have found them. That is where you come in, we want you to lead a team to come back." Joe explained.

"Wait, before we go onto official reasons why I am here, Cath has kids?" Sam asked surprised that he had only just found out about this.

"Yeah, twins a girl and a boy 14 years old. Steve only found out about them a couple of months ago but they finally started to become a proper family and then Cath gets taken."

"Okay. About this team, what is Steve's part?"

"Well with your permission we are allowing him to be part of it. You are in charge and his to do everything you tell him. We had long talks about letting him in on the mission and decided that he would be more volatile if he was not involved. However, that being said we don't want him to know everything all at once. We want him to have small pieces of information about what he has to do, to make sure he doesn't do something stupid."

"Fair enough, who else is in this team?"

"We have Freddie flying over, Lieutenant Jacks, who is part of Gutchins teams, Ensign Wilcoxs and Ensign Peters."

"Well if that is all sir, I will go and start a plan." Sam said.

"Steve will be back soon, don't let him get too involved." Joe said.

A little while later...

Steve had just arrived at base. He had spent the last couple of hours talking to the kids, Chelsea was still the only one who knew about Cath, if everything else went well today Jay and Evie would find out tonight about what was happening. He had called his team and although he had told them the governor had given them time off they all decided to go to HQ and be working on bringing Wo Fat's men in ready to take the whole of Wo Fats 'gang' in when they arrested Wo Fat.

Steve walked into the intelligence room to see a team of SEALS in the corner looking at a site plan on the table. Once he entered the room Sam Hanna looked up and over at him, before walking away from the table and coming over to him.

"Steve, it goods to see you. Although I wish it was better circumstances so you could buy me that Steak dinner you owe me." Sam said shaking Steve's hand.

"If you bring Cath back you can make it as many steak dinners as you like." Steve said.

"I can't believe it took you this long to finally admit you love each other." Sam said.

"Yeah." Was all Steve could say, he knew that Sam was just trying to make small talk but that could wait until Cath had been brought home safe.

"We are just planning the mission, I spoke to Joe and I am happy for you to join the team, but I was told to send you to find Joe before we talk about the mission." Sam said.

"Cheers, do you know where he is?" Steve asked looking around the room and not seeing Joe.

"Him and Gutchins are in the room down the corridor talking to the Admiral." Sam said.

I know this chapter is shorter than the rest. Will try and update again soon. Sorry for the slow updates.