Steve opted for a long run on Sunday morning, pushing himself past the last of the lingering pain from his exterior building exit. The sweat stung his still-healing injuries, but he dismissed the sensation and focused on keeping his pace and breathing steady.
He slipped quietly in the kitchen door, but the sound of the shower upstairs meant Jax was already up and moving. The coffee maker beeped as it finished its timed brew, and he smiled and poured two cups, adding a heaping spoonful of butter to each.
The bedroom door was ajar, and a disheveled Pupule raised his head from the middle of the bed.
"Did she abandon you, buddy?" Steve asked. "I'm sorry. Take it up with her boss."
The sound of running water stopped, and Jax emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in an oversized towel.
"I smell coffee," she said, padding into the bedroom. She smiled as Steve handed her a mug. "And testosterone, and endorphins. I smell those, too."
"Guilty as charged," Steve said. He wiped at his face with the hem of his tshirt.
"And butter," Jax continued, her face buried in her mug. "You put butter in my coffee."
"Healthy fat and calories," Steve argued. "The doc said you were still a little on the light side, and with your new aversion to meat -"
"Just because I don't want to eat things that bleed doesn't mean I have a new aversion," Jax said. "I ate shrimp the other night, too, and that's meat."
"Shrimp is shellfish," Steve said.
"Danny was right, you are incorrigible," Jax said, gesturing, her towel slipping precariously.
Steve smirked at her.
"No," she said firmly, as she hitched her towel back up. "I have to be on time for work. What are you going to do today?"
She pulled on her clothes as he answered her from the bathroom.
"I thought I'd go in to the office," he said, his voice muffled by the shower. "Caviness and his team offered to take the weekend, but we got the babies' room done yesterday, and you have to work today so . . ."
As usual, he was finished in moments, coming out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped scandalously low around his hips. Jax tilted her head and admired him shamelessly.
"And now you smell good, too," she said absently.
"You need to be on time for work," he pointed out. "Is this still a second trimester thing?"
"Twenty-six weeks," she said. "Almost to the third trimester. So it might just be a thing. You're still -" she gestured helplessly with her hand - "with the muscle and the ink and the . . . but I'm all -"
"You're all curvy and glowy and sexy as hell," Steve said. He cupped one hand around her face and pressed the other gently against the curve of her belly. "Anything exciting going on this morning?"
"Give it a minute," Jax said, grinning up at him. "They like the coffee."
He stood still, smiling down at her, until he felt the flutter under his hand. "Holy shit," he said. "I will never get over that. It's the butter. I bet they like the butter."
"Are you serious right now?" Jax demanded.
"Hey, it's a SEAL thing," he said.
"So?"
"Baby seals," he said triumphantly.
#*#*#*#*#
WoFat stood in front of the closet - such as it was - and examined the contents by the harsh light of the exposed overhead lightbulb. This time, he was leaving nothing to chance. He turned off the light and made his way down the narrow underground corridor to the communications room.
"They're still monitoring this frequency?" he asked.
"Yes," the young man said. "The false cell phone transmission you had me send this morning was definitely intercepted by Pearl Hickam. What next?"
"Prepare the video equipment," WoFat said. "When we send the message, let there be no mistake as to who they are dealing with."
#*#*#*#*#
"No, I'm absolutely sure," Brian said. "I'm not interested. Honored that you'd consider me, but not interested. Keep me posted on the husband situation, yeah?"
Brian hung up the phone and then stood in the doorway of his bedroom, watching Kono sleep. They'd worked for hours at a time, only stopping to rest briefly when their fatigue put them at risk for missing something important. He'd only slept for three hours when the San Francisco office called, and it was evidence of Kono's deep exhaustion that the phone had not woken her.
She stirred, tossing a long, slim leg over the covers and mumbling something about swells and Sandy's. He smiled, crossing his arms and leaning against the frame of the door. She mumbled again, soft phrases of pidgin that he didn't understand yet.
"You're creepy," she complained half-heartedly, not bothering to open her eyes. "What time'zit?"
"I have no idea," he admitted. "I've lost track. Go back to sleep."
"Only if you are," she said. She sat up, running her hands through her hair. "Otherwise, I'm going to shower and hook up a coffee IV."
"I'll make a food run," he offered.
"Or you could join me in the shower, and we could eat leftover pizza," Kono suggested. She stood up, stretching, the hem of her shirt slipping up to reveal her perfectly bronzed navel.
Brian laughed and reached an arm to the back of his shirt, pulling it up and over his head in one smooth motion. "If they think I'd give this up to go to the main headquarters, they're crazy."
"Damn straight," Kono said, kicking her tiny sleep shorts toward the hamper and sauntering toward the bathroom. "Wait. What?"
#*#*#*#*#
Danny sat in the rocker, holding Charlie in one arm and his cell phone in the other. Rachel could hear him, laughing softly as he chatted with his sister. She listened as he recounted some lively tale of their childhood.
"Maybe Easter," he said. "But nah, we can't make it for Thanksgiving or Christmas, not this year . . . well, yeah, it's a lot less complicated now that we're back together, but the baby is really little for flying. For Ma and Pop? Yeah, that's a great idea. Count me in. Okay, bye sis."
He looked up, noticing Rachel in the doorway.
"Hi, beautiful," he said softly. "Charlie's almost asleep."
Rachel came into the room and curled into the corner of the sofa. "You miss them," she said. "Your family."
"Sure," he said. "Of course I do."
"With the task force on your resume . . . the department would jump at the chance to get you back," she said. "NYPD . . . any of the big cities."
Danny felt his heart stutter. "Babe, what are you saying? Do you - you want to go back to Jersey?"
"Do you?" she countered. "You only moved here because I forced your hand. You're free to do as you like, now."
"No," Danny said slowly, "I'm free to do what we decide, together, is best for our family. Do you think we should go back to Jersey?"
"Your family is there," she pointed out. "And you've said you miss them."
"You're not answering me," Danny said softly. "Tell me, Rach. This isn't a trick question, but you brought it up. Do you want to go back to Jersey? Stay here? Hell, move to the west coast? What do you want, Rachel?"
"I . . . this was about what you want, Danny," Rachel said. "You hate it here - or, you did. I thought . . . I thought you would want to leave. Do you want to leave, Danny?"
#*#*#*#*#
Chin heard a crash from the kitchen and hurried to check.
"Malia?" he asked softly.
She stood in front of the sink, her hands over her face, and her shoulders shaking with silent sobs. Broken shards of ceramic surrounded her.
"Don't move," he said kindly, as he crossed the kitchen in a few strides and swept her into his arms. "I have on shoes, you don't."
She pressed her face into the crook of his neck. "I'm sorry," she said. "I just . . . I want this to be over."
"We all do, sweetheart," he said. He carried her out onto the private lanai, automatically scanning for any suspicious looking passersby. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he sat down, still cradling her in his arms.
"This is so unfair to you," she said, wiping her face.
"Let me be the judge of that," he said. "I wouldn't change a thing."
"What if they make me move?" she asked.
"Well, we cross that bridge when we get to it," he said. "I could petition to go with you."
"But your family . . . your friends . . . " she protested.
"Would understand," Chin said. "And it would only be until your situation is resolved. I believe Caviness will get to the bottom of this sooner, rather than later. And you've got Five-O to protect you and back up the marshals."
"And I've got you," Malia said. "Somehow, beyond all reason, I've got you."
#*#*#*#*#
The Five-O offices were dark and quiet when Steve stepped off the elevator. He went into the conference room and stood at parade rest, letting his eyes drift over the pictures and maps, not focusing on any one in particular.
A long time passed, before he pulled a photo of his father out of his wallet and hung it on the wall. He returned to standing, motionless, his muscles relaxed.
"What did you want to tell me, dad?" he murmured. "And what the hell does WoFat want with our family?"
#*#*#*#*#
Jax grinned at the sight of Danny's Camaro in the driveway, parked behind Steve's Silverado. She slid the driver's seat back to accommodate her exit - a new development, and one that she found incredibly frustrating.
Her running shoes were abandoned by the hall table, along with her hospital ID and stethoscope, nestled next to Steve's badge. She padded silently through the kitchen and toward the sound of Steve and Danny's voices, in the chairs by the water.
"So, she's saying . . . we could go back to Jersey now," Danny said. "I hadn't thought about it, but the kids . . . they could grow up, you know, with their grandparents, their aunts and uncles, their cousins . . ."
Jax froze, then turned and tiptoed quietly back into the house.
"Shit, Danny," Steve said quietly. "Are you going to do it?"
"Do - move? Back to Jersey?" Danny said. "I hadn't thought of it. When Rachel asked, I was surprised. Surprised that she would consider it . . . and surprised that . . . I'm no longer interested. My parents - my siblings - yeah, they're great. And loud, and overbearing, and . . . best loved from a distance, you know?"
Steve laughed. "I've met them," he said.
"And . . . our family here," Danny said. "It's . . . okay, wiseass, this ohana thing you have going on here, it grows on you."
"It grows on you," Steve repeated, grinning.
"Like a fungus," Danny groused. "Hey, we heard Jax's car, where the hell is she?"
"Eating, maybe, or changing clothes," Steve said. "Or cleaning something . . ."
"It's gets weirder the closer you get to the end," Danny said ominously. "Welcome to the third trimester. Let's go find her before she does any damage."
They entered the house to find it strangely quiet. Pupule was pacing at the bottom of the stairs. He raised a huge paw and rested it on Steve's knee, meowing anxiously.
"Hey, buddy," Steve said. He bent and pick up the cat, snuggling it against his chest. Pupule butted his head against Steve's chin. "She upstairs?"
"Steve, you think she's okay?" Danny asked quietly. "I'll wait down here in case . . . maybe you need a ride or -"
"Yeah, thanks, Danno," Steve said. "Hold on, I'll be right back." He took the stairs two at a time, calling Jax's name softly.
He found her in their bedroom, trying to untangle herself from her scrub pants, wrapped around her ankles.
"Hey, whoa," Steve said, trying to get to her before she tripped completely. His strong hands wrapped around her elbows, holding her steady. He guided her to sit down on the edge of the bed. "What the hell is going on, Jax? Is everything okay?" He carefully untangled the fabric and slipped the pants off, tossing them toward the hamper.
"Danny's leaving, isn't he?" Jax whispered. "I mean, it's great, right, for Gracie and Charles Nolan. Danny . . . he misses New Jersey, I know he does, and -"
"No," Steve said, cupping his hand around Jax's face.
"And, you know, his family really has missed out on the kids, and -"
"Danny's not leaving, ku'uipo," Steve repeated. "Danny, Rachel, the kids - they're staying here."
"They are?" Jax asked. Her eyes filled with tears of relief and she brushed them away impatiently. "You're sure?"
"He's staying," Steve said.
Jax threw her arms around Steve's neck and pressed her face into the crook of his neck. "I just didn't - with the babies coming, I wanted him - I'm being selfish . . . "
"Then I am too," Steve said, "because I about had a stroke when he first said it. DId you -"
"I guess I didn't hear the whole thing," Jax said sheepishly. "You're sure he's staying?"
"Ask him yourself, he's still downstairs," Steve said. "We were worried about you."
Jax kissed Steve quickly and rushed toward the bedroom door. Steve cleared his throat sharply.
"Pants, seriously," he said, with a pained grimace. "I mean, I know you and Danny are close, but really."
#*#*#*#*#