Chapter Fourteen "We Will Be"
Mia threaded her fingers through her hair, undoing her ubiquitous braid. The breeze pulled at the red-brown strands, scattering them over the smooth skin of her face and neck. She looked out toward the ocean, eyes unfocused.
Steve stood off to the side, watching her, wishing he could run his fingers through that hair, wishing he could take her in his arms and make everything better. He wanted to erase all the pain she still harbored.
But Steve couldn't save Mia. He couldn't make her let go of all the guilt and hurt she still had. And who was he to preach acceptance anyway?
The wind picked up. Mia's hands wrapped around her elbows, pulling at her thin sleeves. She shivered slightly, and the hair, now falling to her shoulders blew to one side revealing more of her long neck.
In his mind, Steve saw his hand reach out to touch her skin. It trailed down her back and came to rest on her hip, and he pulled her into his arms. In his mind.
"Steve?" Mia was looking at him now. "Why are you staring at me like that?" she asked.
"I was just thinking," he said and moved so that he was looking out toward the water.
"About what?" Mia asked.
Steve hadn't thought ahead that far, and the response jumped out of his mouth before he could stop it. "You," he said.
Instead of reacting like someone bitten by a snake, like he thought she would, Mia reached over and rested her hand on Steve's arm. She'd touched him before, however briefly, but this was different. Steve turned to face her. He brought his hand up as if to brush some hair from her forehead, but he stopped.
"Can I..." he couldn't say what he wanted.
Mia nodded.
Steve smoothed the hair out of her eyes, moving his fingers slowly over her skin. His hand ran over her hair and down to her jaw. He took the way she leaned into his hand as permission. Still, he moved slowly, as if she were a wild animal, and he desperately wanted not to spook her.
Mia tilted her head up toward his. Her lips parted as if she had something to say, but she didn't. Everything about her seemed to be inviting, her eyes, her mouth, her hand still on his arm.
For a second, Steve forgot to breathe. He'd done this plenty of times before, but he had never wanted it so much. He'd never been so afraid of ruining everything he wanted.
Mia moved closer to him. That was it. That was the sign he needed to know that this was okay. That it was time. He still wasn't breathing, but he angled his head downward.
At first, it was as if they weren't even touching. As if the tiniest measure of distance were between their lips. And then there was no more distance. All the tension and fear between them was gone.
She was warm and soft just like he knew she would be. Her fingers around his arm tightened, and her other hand reached for his neck. Steve put his other arm around her waist. For the first time, he held her. For the first time, he felt like he could be everything to her.
H-5-O
Zach wandered up and down the street for a while looking in shops for cool souvenirs to take to his niece and nephew. He thought it would be a better idea to ask Kono where to find something than to blindly shop all the tourist traps.
But Kono was occupied, and Zach wasn't about to interrupt his brother and the first person to make him look halfway human in the last five years. Of course there was the distance to consider, but Kirk was impulsive enough to move across the ocean if he found someone that made him happy. It was early, but Zach had a feel for these things. He only hoped Kono would want Kirk as much as Kirk clearly wanted her.
"Aloha, brah," a man in a shop called to Zach. "You lost?"
"Define lost," Zach said. "I know my way back to where I came from, if that's what you mean."
"Too bad," the man said. "I'd have sold you a map."
"Well, I could do with a map anyway. I like knowing where things are."
"Cool."
"Say, do you know a place to find really good souvenirs? Not the touristy stuff, but something that really says 'Hawaii', you know?"
"You buy this map, I'll point you in the right direction."
"Deal."
Soon Zach was on his way, glancing down at his new map as he passed landmarks. He found the shop the man had suggested and knew he was where he wanted to be. From the outside, the place looked like a hole in the wall, but inside, it was brightly decorated and full of all sorts of wonderful things.
Amy would want something pink and girly. Something either made of flowers or with flowers on it. Michael would be more interested in something made of wood or stone. Zach prided himself on accurate knowledge of his family members even if he didn't really understand them.
As he browsed through the store, Zach came upon something that surprised him. It was a necklace made of leather and the wood of some tree he couldn't pronounce. There was a word carved into the middle of an intricate design of waves and flowers in the wood: "Ikaika." The tag said it meant "strength."
Zach had to get it for Mia. He wasn't entirely sure why, and that didn't bother him in the least. He also knew that she rarely wore jewelry unless it had sentimental value. She hadn't even been wearing the ring their parents gave her when she graduated high school. She loved that ring.
Zach was not trying to make sense of his sister's psychology. He knew that was as useless as her trying to understand his.
He bought the necklace, forgetting his real purpose in the store, and headed back toward the restaurant where he'd left Kirk and Kono. It was the warmest part of the day. People were moving slowly along the sidewalks, and Zach thought that falling asleep in a beach chair sounded pretty good right now. Upon even this smallest of acquaintances, he was certain that he liked Hawaii very much and wouldn't mind trading the smog and traffic for the calm contentedness. Maybe that was the reason for the Andrea look.
Zach shook his head to himself. Thinking about that inevitably led him places he didn't want to go. No one knew, or would ever know, how he felt about that woman. How her betrayal was far worse than even Ricky's in his mind. Zach didn't like to be angry. But the few things that made him that way seemed to be aligning perfectly today.
H-5-O
Kono inhaled a long breath of fresh air. Kirk walked beside her as they ambled down the sidewalk. She thought they might be searching for Zach, but not very enthusiastically.
Kono found it interesting that she'd only spent most of the day with Kirk, and she already felt like she'd known him for years. Probably because he was so open, but there seemed to be more to it than that. She actually wanted him to be. Most of the time she would consider the conversations they had too personal for someone she just met. This was different.
Of course, she could tell Zach was trying to push them together with his comments on Kirk's facial expressions and the way he so obviously left them alone. But instead of being annoyed, Kono thought it was kind of sweet of him. She could tell he just wanted his brother to be happy, and from their conversation, Kono didn't think Kirk had been for the last five years.
That was a lot of pressure, but Kono was used to pressure. Whether it was surfing in front of a thousand people or chasing down a ruthless murderer or enduring an IA investigation. Still, Kirk O'Brien might turn out to be another creature entirely. He was a person who'd been hurt, but she knew what that was like too.
She wondered what had happened that really made Kirk's marriage fail. He said he was hard to live with and that she decided she didn't love him anymore, but there had to be more too it than that. It was never so simple.
It was in the midst of these thoughts that Kono saw Zach coming their way. He had a small package in his hand as well and a small map.
"Did you get lost?" Kirk asked with a smile in his voice.
"Why does everyone say that?" Zach asked.
"You have a map." Kono pointed.
"I like maps."
"Whatever happened to your innate sense of direction?" Kirk said.
"It likes maps too. Besides, my innate sense of direction can only handle the myriad freeways and back alleys of Los Angleles. However, it is interested in learning a less evil system of roadways."
"So this sense of direction is sentient?" Kono asked.
"Yes." Zach looked at her as if he were confused by the question.
Kirk shook his head, but he was smiling, and Kono noticed a look in his eyes like he was enjoying a bit of nostalgia. She could tell that Zach frustrated him sometimes, but he was making the choice to rather be amused.
She found that the more and more she watched them, the more she became attracted to this family, Kirk in particular. If Zach's comments bore any merit, the feeling was mutual.
H-5-O
Mia felt a steady thumping under her hand, much faster than she thought it should be, but she wasn't that kind of doctor. Steve's arms around her waist and shoulders kept her safely pressed against his chest, but she thought that maybe he wasn't feeling as secure as she was. He wasn't certain of her.
She didn't blame him, really. She'd given him no reason to think she would be consistent, and she wasn't even sure she could be. In another minute his hold might change from comforting and reassuring to suffocating and terrifying. Mia didn't want that to happen. She didn't want to let go of this feeling; it was too good.
Steve's heart-rate quickened, and Mia realized it was because she had become rigid in his arms. He loosened his hold and held her shoulders so that he could look her in the eye.
"Are you okay?" he asked, worry coating his words.
"Yeah," Mia replied, but it wasn't very convincing. "I just..."
Just what? She didn't know what to say. She crossed her arms, closing off again, and she knew it. She could not do that now. She willed herself to put her arms at her sides. It was the most she could to at the moment.
"Freaked out a little, I guess," she finished.
"About what?"
Mia shook her head. She didn't know how to even begin to answer that question. "You know," she said. "You're nothing like him."
Steve seemed genuinely surprised by that comment.
"Ricky," Mia went on. "You're nothing like Ricky." She started crying, and she didn't care. "But it's taken getting to know you to realize how wrong he was for me, even as I thought he was. He was impatient, pushy. I just thought all guys were like that. I thought he was normal."
"Well," Steve said. "To confuse the matter further, I'm not exactly normal either."
"No." Mia smiled. "But you're better than normal. You are right for me."
Steve moved his hands down Mia's arms until he was holding her hands in his. "I hope so," he said.