A/N: Thank you for reading and favoring and especially for commenting on this fic. I know some of you didn't like the ending of the date. Well, not the actual outcome, but certainly the people involved in the action. Common guys, Have I ever let you down?
Please tell me what you think.
Danny is way too pleased. Which could have been fine. Really. If he only had the decency to keep his mouth shut and stopped trying to include her in his victory march. Her victory march, when you come to think about it. After all, she was the one responsible for the greatest success in 5-0 history, as Danny puts it, by getting her boss laid. With a great girl. Pretty and smart and sexy as hell, as Chin emphasized the next afternoon, in some misguided cousinly pride. So, she doesn't speak with Chin anymore. And with Danny. Of course. And she's going to kill Lilly the next time she sees her in the Kalakaua luau, and she doesn't give a damn about her aunts or her mother or her grandmother. She's pissed, and she feels betrayed, and the really annoying thing is that she actually has no apparent reason to be annoyed. Steve, who just stands there in the room with the rest of them, as Chin and Danny are celebrating his love life in such a public and irritating manner, only watches her with some mixture of puzzlement and silent curiosity, moving his eyes slowly on her tensed figure and her fingers which run on the smart table, a bit more shakily than she would like, searching for something. She has no idea what he wants from her, after all she's a weak, pathetic and cowered woman who hasn't even have the courage to look him in the eyes.
She keeps dating James for a while. Usually they meet outside the base and drive to a restaurant, or to the movies, or just to the beach. He's nice and sweet and he listens to her carefully, smiling at anything she says. When they sit on the sand, under the sunset, he moves his arm around her shoulders and kisses her cheek gently, murmuring sweet nothings in her ear.
"I'm going on a mission, soon" he whispers to her, kissing her ear shell gently "I'll be gone for about a week."
"You are?" she says a little bit too enthusiastically than she thinks is appropriate.
"Yes, and I was never so upset about going on a mission as I am right now" he continues, biting her neck gently.
"Why?" she asks with surprise "what's wrong with this mission? Is it too boring?"
"Bo...Boring...? No" he laughs at her "of course it's not boring. I just..." he smiles, when he moves the hair away from her face and watches her lips with intent "I just don't want to leave you."
"I..." she's almost speechless "I'll be fine" she grumbles.
"Of course you'll be fine" he smiles "but I'll miss you. I'll think about you all the time." She looks at him doubtfully "I will" he laughs "I'm thinking about you constantly as it is, and this is when I actually get to see you every couple of days."
"I see" she blushes a little. She's not entirely sure she likes this position he puts her in, no matter how beautiful he is.
"I leave in two days" he continues quietly.
"Well" she smiles "I hope you'll have a nice mission, then." It only makes him laugh even more for some reason.
"I thought maybe, as it is our last evening together, you'll give me the proper farewell party..."
"A party?" she thinks he just lost her there.
"I private party" he smiles, leaning in to kiss her jaw line "at your place" he kisses her behind her ear, as his hand strokes her hair "maybe you'll even let me stay the night for once..."
"You've already stayed the night" she mumbles absentmindedly "the first night we met."
"Yes" he grins against her skin "only after you didn't let me take your car, because you said you have to be at work early the next morning, and you forced me to sleep on the couch, and called me a cab first thing in the morning, even before I woke up. I thought to get an upgrade this time. You know... to actually have s..."
"You broke up with him?!" Chin is looking at her in what can only be described as sheer mortification.
"I didn't break up with him" she tries desperately to calm him down "I just told him I don't think we should see each other anymore. That I don't think it's working, and that he should find someone else who'll suit him better."
"Why?" Chin's horrified look is still piercing her, and she really hopes he would start concentrating back on the road soon, before they'll both get killed in a freaky car accident.
"Why?" she looks at him with confusion "because I really don't want to see him anymore and I don't think it's working. Why else would I tell him this, really?"
"I didn't mean... oh for god's sakes" Chin sighs "I thought you liked him."
"Of course I did" she confirms, trying not to cringe when her cousin almost crashes into a parking car in the busiest street of Honolulu.
"You said he's good looking."
"He is" she agrees.
"That he's sweet, and kind and very gentle with you."
"He is."
"You said he really likes you. Keeps telling you how attractive you are, how amazing. Said he can't get his hands off you."
"Yeah..." she grumbles "that sounds about right."
"So..." he looks at her with anticipation, almost missing a red light, and forced to break the car violently, making her hold her seat belt forcefully. Shit, she can suddenly see Danny's point about driving around with Steve. She's a stupid woman for trying to throw this, apparently ticking bomb on her cousin during a mission and not... you know... when he's half drunk, after a long week of high cases load. She looks suspiciously at Chin. The guy never gets even quarterly drunk. She actually had no other choice. All and all, with his overreaction here, maybe she actually made the right call. She might get lucky, and he might end up tipping the car over and get her killed before completing this awful discussion.
"So?" she sighs "what do you want from me?"
"What's wrong with him?"
"He's..." she tries to think carefully "he's too gentle."
"What?" Chin laughs dryly "the guy is a Navy SEAL. How gentle can he be?"
"He always opens the doors for me" she accuses.
"The bastard!" Chin shakes his head.
"Shut up!" she frowns "and he brought me a flower."
"A flower?" Chin raises his eyebrows.
"A single red rose. To our second date."
"You're right" Chin shakes his head "the guy is a monster!"
"He refused to talk about guns."
"What?" he looks at her with confusion.
"I asked him what he's shooting with, and he refused to answer."
"Maybe it's classified" Chin suggests gently "the guy is an active SEAL... maybe..."
"He refused to tell me what's his favorite gun, too."
"Well... Maybe he doesn't have a favorite gun..."
"That's impossible" she looks at him with anger "what kind of a man doesn't have a favorite gun? I mean, seriously."
"Right" he looks at her strangely for a few seconds.
"He said it's not an appropriate topic of conversation."
"Well..." he looks a bit unsure all of a sudden "maybe he has a point, I mean, when you date someone, you don't usually talk about guns."
"Malia was a doctor. She was against guns and hated everything about them." Kono reminds him.
"She did" he agrees.
"So, when did you talk to her about guns?"
"Second date" he grumbles "she asked why I have two locks on my garage door."
"Precisely!" she glares at him in triumph.
"Fine, fine" he gives up "what else?"
"Nothing special" she shrugs "he's a good guy, very kind, and quiet, and I think he really likes me..."
"But..."
"He lets me win in all our arguments."
"Arguments? You had arguments?" he almost bursts up laughing "you were dating for a month and a half, what the hell did you have to argue about?"
"Just... things..." she says sheepishly.
"What things?"
"All sorts of things" she looks out the window, fascinated with the passing view all of a sudden.
"Kono..."
"Fine" she sighs "food, music, pets, exercise routine, traditional Hawaiian culture, professional football, and women in the military... you name it..."
"You had arguments about that?" he looks at her, like he can suddenly recognize something. Like he just realized what she's talking about, and she takes it as a good sign.
"Not really" she says "I told him what I thought, and he listened, and sometimes he mentioned that he sees things differently, but refused to say what his real opinions are. I mean, what kind of a crazy person just sits there and doesn't voice an opinion? I need someone who has strong views on these topics. Who has a sense of commitment to certain values, who'll tell me what he thinks even if he doesn't think the same way as me, and will fight for what he believes. I need someone..."
"Like Steve."
"What?" she looks at him in alarm.
"You two argue about these things constantly" he points out "you give each other hell about it."
"We're... communicating" she mumbles "that's what friends do."
"Communicating?" he looks at her silently for a few seconds.
"Yes" she says decisively "that's how it's called."
"Communicating…" he says again, slowly, chewing the word in his mouth "nice. It sure sounds like a nice name for it. Strange, I thought it was called something else."
"Really? Like what?" she looks at him, interested.
"Foreplay."
"How the hell are you so miserable again? I just don't get it."
"Miserable? I'm not miserable. I'm fine."
"You are miserable" Danny insists, pushing another shrimp into his mouth "you're walking around with your head buried in your ass, you're annoyed about everything, you shout a lot… and your suspects-shooting average had risen in 37.2%. What the hell is wrong with you? I thought we were already past this."
"I have no idea what you're talking about" Steve is looking at his partner, irritated. The exact same conversation is being held between them, repeatedly, almost every day now. It's so exhausting that yesterday he even found himself looking at the calendar to see when Danny's vacation is coming up. It's coming up in three weeks, apparently. He looks silently at his partner staffing his face with fried shrimps and mayo (yes, fucking mayo!) and realizes they aren't gonna make it another three weeks in this rate. The guy will be lying dead in one of the ditches along the Kamehameha highway, way way before that "I'm doing fine, Danny. I swear. You have nothing to worry about."
"How is it going with Lilly?" he asks out of the blue. Looking innocently at Steve.
"Who…? What…? Oh, Lilly…" he catches himself just in time "it's going fine. Pretty good actually."
"You mean, she didn't dump you yet?" Danny looks at him skeptically "she still likes you?"
"Of course she still likes me" Steve says with resentment "I'm a very likeable guy" he smiles smugly towards his partner, and can see that some of the tension and skepticism is clearing away from the blonde's piercing blue eyes.
"Are you sure?" he insists "I mean, she could just be using you for sex. She's way more sophisticated than you, you know. At least, according to Chin and Kono, and also, we all know you're a bit… delusional, some times, especially when it comes to women. Are you sure you two are actually dating?" In a second thought, three weeks would take a miracle. The guy is a fucking walking dead. A walking and extremely talking dead.
"I did everything you wanted me to do" he groans in despair "haven't I?"
"Well…"
"I went on that double date you forced me into. I found a girl. A girl all three of you approved in a heart bit. I took her out. I kept dating her for weeks. I'm seeing her on average, twice a week. We have dinners together. I make sure to take her to restaurants at least thirty percent of the time, and we even went to the movies once, if you, you know, ignore the fact that we had a call right in the middle and I had to leave her there and go to that murder scene in the motel. God Danny, you told me to do it, I did as you asked, I thought you'd be happy for once in your life time, and leave me alone."
"I am, Steven" Danny reassures him "I'm very happy. Ecstatic even. And for the first time in a long time I even feel hopeful about your pathetic love life."
"Good."
"I just have one question for you, if you don't mind."
"One?"
"Maybe two."
"Jeez, man."
"Shut up, and answer the question! So you're seeing this beautiful girl. This nice, smart, funny and very accomplished young girl."
"Yes..."
"And under heavenly guidance, miraculously, you are able to understand and to employ some basic skills in the dating arena."
"I'm hope there is a point there, somewhere…"
"And after a very long time, since Catherine crushed your heart and killed the tiny little trust you had in the entire women race, at last you even… you know… are able to get some…"
"Fuck you, Danny!"
"No, no" Danny smiles proudly "Fuck you, Steve! I mean it."
"Danny..." he groans.
"So my only question at this point would be..."
"Yes?"
"Why the hell are you still so fucking miserable?"
They go back to HQ and Danny is still alive. A very encouraging result considering the fact that he is heavily armed and even more short-tempered than ever.
It's not Danny's fault. He knows that perfectly well. It's just… He knows she keeps dating that James guy all these weeks. He sees her at work every day, and she looks calm and happy and beautiful. She is laughing at Danny's rants, she's forcing them, again, to have those unhealthy junk food feasts in the break room, and he even caught her singing on the phone to Charlie one day. They were arguing about an old Hawaiian children song they were all listening to growing up, and Chin was there, and both guys were not sure, so she sang for them. He stepped out of his office when he heard her voice, saw her standing in the middle of the room, singing and smiling, and radiant. And Chin said something, and Charlie too, and she just burst out laughing, shaking all over, her hair spilling on her perfect shoulders, making him stop breathing for a few long moments.
It's everything they promised him it will be. They said, once she'd meet another guy she'll be happy again. They said she'll get back to her old, familiar, lovely self, that she will come back to them for real, after they almost lost her for Adam. They were right. Suddenly the beautiful, kind and magical image of Kono Kalakaua was back there in front of him, spinning his world around.
It took him an entire day to realize what it means.
She was dating James. He was making her happy. She was broken and angry and he couldn't do anything about it, but James could. He kept waking up sweating, dreaming about the two of them kissing and having hot sex in her bed. Fuck! It took him hours of cold showers, swimming and running, to get rid of that image and get to work in a partially stable state of mind.
He tried to be reasonable about it. Despite Danny's conviction, he is, in fact, a very reasonable man. She was doing well, and working with her was good, and the team looked stable again, and back on track. He was the one to introduce her to that… that… two timing, treacherous fucking SEAL. He was the one who chose him. He did it for the sakes of his team, and for the sakes of her, and as a responsible team leader he stood right behind his actions. Also… she really was happy. He looked at her sweet little smile, when she worked there on the table in front of him. Maybe it was all worth it… She yawned suddenly. And he realized this vibrant and energetic woman is standing there, tired at 08:30 in the morning for some unknown reason.
The wave of cold envy that ran through his spine, and straight to his groin almost made him smash his fist into something. When they drove to their crime scene later that day, Danny and him, and he crashed the car into that ice cream kiosk on the beach, chasing their runner, he had the distinct feeling that this specific action was not entirely reasonable.
"Don't tell Steve" she asks when they are driving back to HQ a few hours later.
"He's our boss" Chin looks at her strangely "I think we should tell him we haven't find anything. I mean, this is our only suspect, maybe he would like to change tactic."
"Not about the case. For god's sakes. Of course you should tell him about the case. I mean… about the other thing..."
He looks at her curiously for a few seconds, and she's sorry she even brought it up. "You mean about James?"
"Yes" she sighs. Why everything with Chin ho Kelly is turning into a heavy discussion? "Please, If you don't mind."
"Okay cuz" he says after a few long silent moments "I wouldn't say anything. But..."
"Thank you" she says abruptly. She doesn't really want to hear the 'buts' in this case.
"But I think he would really like to know about it."