A/N: Apologies for the delay in this update. I've been busy over the past week, and this chapter got a bit hard to write in the middle. I don't know what it was, because it was one of my favorite scenes of this story, but now it just frustrates me. I hope it came out well, however. Thank you guys for all the reviews, adds, favs and alerts! Honestly, they pushed me through the short writer's block =) Sorry if I didn't manage to get back to your review. Additional thanks to the anons [Rebecca List, H50 Lady, Michelle, Lily, renii, Sara and Lydia] who I couldn't reply to.
Month 5
It was the middle of the afternoon and the three of them were sat around the table near the windows, allowing the sun to spill into the space between the offices and try to make the task at hand seem less draining than it was. In theory, they were meant to be doing paperwork. In reality, they were sat chatting, bantering and stealing popcorn from the bowl that Kono had made for herself to snack on.
Steve turned his head to look at the main doors when they were pushed open by their missing member. "Wow, Five-0; hard at action," Chin drawled dryly with his trademark zen-like look, making his way over to them.
"Downtime is a blessing. Appreciate it while you can," Danny remarked, affronted, but the older man brushed it off with a shake of the head and instead smiled softly at his cousin who looked at him over her shoulder. He placed the small gift bag that Steve had noticed him carrying on the table in front of her.
"What's this?" Kono asked in a mix of confusion and excitement, sitting up straight and reaching for the bag. Steve eyed both the bag and Chin carefully, wondering if he had forgotten something important.
Chin smiled and squeezed her shoulder as she pulled out a familiar looking bakery box. "Just a small way to say well done on your first year as a detective."
"Aw, you remembered? That's so sweet!" She opened the box to reveal three chocolate frosted cupcakes, shining with what he assumed was edible glitter and some silver candy pearls.
Steve pulled out his phone, taking a glance at the date even as he spoke. "Wait, that was a year ago, today?"
"Yes," she replied with a roll of the eyes before getting up and hugging her cousin. Guilt welled up inside Steve as she embraced the other man close. There were only three dates that he made a note to remember; her birthday, their wedding anniversary and the baby's due date. They both knew that, too. But still, there had been no mention of today or the anniversary that it held by anyone, not even Kono herself. All day, she had sat with them happily, never once chastising them for forgetting it the way she usually would when it came to one of them. "Thank you, Chin."
"You're welcome," he replied when they broke away before rounding the table to take the free seat next to Danny, who had watched on with amusement. Steve had no doubt that teasing would ensue.
"Are those tears I see there, rookie?" Danny asked in faux-surprise, the word 'rookie' used as a term of endearment as he leaned over the table to take a closer look with a smirk playing on his lips. The statement proved Steve right; he had been hanging out with his partner far too long to guess otherwise.
He glanced over at his wife anyway. Sure, her eyes were a bit more moist than normal, but he knew commenting on it would only cause her to rebuke. So he left that for Danny and instead inputted the date into his phone's calendar as one to remember, though he wasn't sure it would be important in the coming years.
"No," Kono quickly snapped back, blinking rapidly as she grabbed one of the cupcakes and focused all her attention onto peeling it. "Stupid hormones," she muttered under her breath loud enough for them all to hear and smile at. Finally peeling it completely, she placed it on the table and plastered on a smile that looked genuine enough. "I'm fine."
"Well, I say this calls for a celebration. Drinks?" Danny suggested, leaning back in his chair, rubbing his hands together with a grin. Steve bit back his own, knowing he was only suggesting it to rile her up. They were all sadists some times; using Kono's hormones against her for their own entertainment. The only reason he allowed it is because they knew where the line was and stayed clear behind it, even if he himself toed it at times.
As expected, she glared at him hard around the piece of the chocolate treat she had broken off and popped in her mouth. "Great idea, Danny," she replied sarcastically, and Steve opened his mouth to reply that he in fact did think it was a great idea, even if it would only be the three men able to actually celebrate with said drinks. However, before he could even form the words, she held up a finger to stop him. "Don't, Steve."
Danny shrugged and nodded. "Dinner, then. Hey, isn't there a game on tonight?" he amended, adding the question on rather quickly and eagerly, clearly projecting his idea without even saying it.
"If you're even thinking about a cookout at our place to watch the game, you best think again," Kono warned him exasperatedly before referring to the mess they had left last time, but all Steve could focus on was the way her hand moved to her stomach to rub the side of the baby bump where he presumed their child had kicked her.
It had began only a couple of weeks earlier, coming few and in between, but they had grown in strength so much that even he had been able to feel it a couple of times. The sensation against his palm had been amazing, making him speechless and basically throwing him deep into ecstasy that he was pretty sure he had been smiling all day.
She caught his eyes, smiling at him softly whilst shaking her head almost imperceptibly to tell him it was nothing he would be able to feel, as conversation carried around them about their plans that evening. Danny had asked them a question about something when his phone began to ring.
Steve groaned mentally at the sight of HPD's caller ID on the screen. "Hold that thought, guys."
...
Kono smiled innocently at the mild glare Steve threw her when they both left their respectful cars. She had pulled up right behind him, having kept a tail on Danny's Camaro easily despite the driver's insistent speeding. Considering she liked fast cars too, it hadn't bothered her. Until she noticed the needle on her speedometer dropping to an average closer to the legal speed. She knew it had been for her benefit, and as irritating as it was to be controlled by him from a whole other car, seeing his annoyance about it balanced it out.
They were drawn to the other side of the road by the crowds of people currently surrounding the tape. HPD guided them further into the crime scene, far beyond the trail and speckles of blood which Kono spotted immediately in the dry dirt, and right up to the edge of the land.
"Down there? What, leaving the body on the side of the road like normal people isn't good enough anymore?" Danny asked in outrage as they all peered over the side of the cliff to see a pair of bodies on the ledge about 15 feet down.
"Normal people don't leave bodies anywhere, brah," Chin retorted with a laugh and a pat on the shoulder before heading back towards where Duke was, probably to gather more information on the situation, she guessed.
She backed away from the edge a moment before the other two. Say what they might about her carrying small, but even the smaller baby bump was throwing off her centre of gravity. She had already had to give up on surfing, much to her dismay and Steve's joy.
"Alright, let's go, Danno," Steve stated in all seriousness when they both joined her, gesturing with a hand towards where their victims laid.
Danny spluttered at his words, to her amusement. "Wait, what? Me? Why me? I hate these kinds of things. You know I hate these kinds of things," he grumbled with matching agitated hand movements.
"I thought you might enjoy some rappelling. Kono usually goes with me, but you know, she can't now," Steve shrugged in reply and Danny merely glared at him, unimpressed.
Chin re-joined them, throwing her a bemused look in regard of the two whilst shoving an electronic tablet into her hands without another word. There wasn't any need for them; they all knew that it was now exclusively her job to follow up with any statements that had been taken if they needed to.
"Well, I could. It's not that far down," she muttered with another innocent smile when she glanced back up from the tablet towards Steve. He gave her an exasperated look that only made her want to smile more. Chocolate always helped even out her mood swings, and the dose she had had not an hour earlier from the cupcake was still working it's magic.
"You even try- You even move from this general area, and I will have your badge," he told her tightly, words leaving no room for arguments or jokes because they all knew that he would indeed follow up on it if she dared to go against him.
Kono put on a mask of professionalism in seconds after years of practice. "Yes, sir," she said in mock obedience. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Danny roll his eyes and Chin shake his head, ultimately deciding against commenting on it.
The blonde detective cleared his throat before turning their conversation back onto the job at hand. "Chin will go, won't you?" It was posed as a question but the tone of suggestion was heavy in the words when Danny looked at the other man.
"Yeah, sure," Chin agreed, shrugging lighting to which Steve nodded before heading to pick up the supplied they'd need. Kono could hear Danny rant as he followed his partner for a reason she didn't want to know. She glanced over at her cousin when she felt his eyes on her. "You weren't actually serious, were you? About going down there with Steve?" he asked with a nod towards the side of the cliff.
Scoffing, she shook her head with a smirk. "No, of course not. It's just fun to tease him sometimes."
"That's cold, cuz," Chin replied after a pause in a tone of disbelief.
"What? I'm not allowed to have fun at the expense of the baby? You guys do it all the time," she reminded him with a half-hearted glare and a smug smile before going over to join Danny where he was following the blood trails she had spotted earlier to get on with the job they were there to do.
...
"How's it going?" Steve greeted her when he entered their bedroom, pulling off his top as he went. He picked up the clothes that she had dumped on the chair in the corner earlier to place them all into the washing hamper before finding a new top to wear.
Kono unashamedly titled her head back against the headboard to watch, quickly hiding the almost empty packet of Twizzlers that she had been eating under the pillow next to her as she did so. She grimaced in reply to his words. "I'm not sure if I want a complete natural birth anymore," she told him with a small internal shudder at the images she had seen and people's experiences she had read during her research on her laptop. "If anything, I want every drug they can give me."
He laughed at her words but nodded nonetheless. "Make sure you write that down in your plan."
"Ah yes, my plan, which I have not started yet," she replied with a lopsided grin. The doctor had suggested making a birthing plan to help with everything to go smoothly when the time came. However, she had also given Kono a deadline a couple of months off and she had always been that type of person who did their homework the night before, something that had barely changed. "How's the clean up going?" she asked him to change the subject.
"Almost done," Steve informed her after pulling a new shirt over his head, ruining her view. He had been working on clearing out the room next to theirs for the past two days in preparation for the nursery.
When it had come to choosing which room to convert into a nursery, it hadn't taken much thinking except for the process of elimination. They had four bedrooms in their house; theirs, Mary Ann's, the guest room and the master bedroom that use to be his dad's. Theirs was theirs; Mary Ann's had been ruled out on the basis that Steve hadn't wanted to clean it out from what she guessed was sentimental value; their guest room was on the other side of the house, which had left only the master bedroom precisely next to theirs. In fact, it was actually connected to their bedroom via a small ensuite with a bathtub, sink and toilet in between the two bedrooms. An ensuite that she had never known to have existed and had chastised him about because it would have been very helpful when she had been suffering from morning sickness. But a huge closet, one he had vowed to move before the baby was born, blocked the door that led into their room.
The room itself, let alone the ensuite, hadn't really been touched in all the time that she had been living there; used more as a room to store stuff that she had brought with her from her place that they couldn't find a room for in the rest of the house, but she hadn't wanted to throw away. On top of everything else that had belonged to his father that was still in there, it had been a mess.
However, Steve had assured her that he would take care of it and she had let him because it was clear that it was something that he wanted to do for the baby. And when he put his mind to something, there would be no changing it. He had shunned Kono from the room, claiming dust and too many obstacles made it a dangerous place for her to be in. She had rolled her eyes and complied, merely because there wasn't anything she could have done to help him anyway.
"A few more boxes left but I've got to shift some things around to find space for them in the basement," he told her with a soft groan whilst climbing up onto the bed next to her.
"You know, people usually put boxes they want to store in the garage," Kono told him pointedly, closing her laptop and placing it next to her. Steve scoffed lightly at her words, curling a hand around one of her jean-clad knees as she shuffled down a bit in the bed and he shifted towards her slightly. They were his jeans because all of hers were becoming a bit uncomfortable around the waist to simply lounge around in and she knew he had recognised them immediately, if that specific ignition of heat in his eyes usually achieved by his possessive trait was anything to go by.
"I already have something I want to store in the garage," he replied a moment later, fingers skimming up and down her thigh teasingly. "I'll figure something out, don't worry," he murmured before twisting to bury his face into her neck, nuzzling it gently with his nose with the softest brush of his lips following.
"Oh, I wasn't. You know better than to leave this until the last minute," Kono answered amusingly, tilting her head in the other direction until his lips worked their way up to hers and his hand began to travel from her leg to the bed on the other side of her body. She pulled away when he pushed himself up onto his other elbow to hover over her with clear intentions to take things further. "Hmm, no, Steve. You're all dusty and sweaty."
He stared at her incredulously, probably more to do with the fact that she was denying him sex when it was usually the other way around these days than anything else. "I am not. I changed my shirt like 5 minutes ago. You saw me," he reminded her indignantly to which she rolled her eyes. Nonetheless, he acquiesced, sinking back onto the bed next to her.
"Your shirt isn't, but you are," Kono told him with a laugh, scrunching up her nose in faux-disgust before grabbing the wrist of his hand that was on the other side of her body and pressing it to the side of her stomach where she could feel their baby start to kick. "Here, feel. Your son-slash-daughter agrees."
His touch was still as tentative as it had been the first time she had pressed his hand to her stomach to try and feel the baby kick, but she could feel a now-familiar warmth of it on her skin even through her top. "Getting stronger every day." The smile that adorned his features was clear in his words, turning into a smirk before speaking again. "My son-slash-daughter better behave at the next scan so I know what colour I can paint the nursery."
With his eyes fixated on where he soothingly rubbed the tips of his fingers over the same spot after the kicking had stopped, she had no doubt that Steve was speaking more to the baby than her. Not that she minded because it was rather cute; a word she could barely ever use to describe her husband.
Laughing at his words, she rolled her eyes. Their next scan was in two weeks, a special re-scheduling after her 18 week scan had failed to show them the sex because the baby hadn't co-operated with them. Finding out had been one of the easiest things for them to agree on as neither one of them had much patience, and they had justified knowing whether they would be having a boy or a girl by convincing themselves it was so they could be prepared.
"Well, we both know stubbornness runs in the McGarrett genes," Kono teased, shrugging her shoulder lightly to jostle him when he laid his head upon it. She hadn't realised how much she had missed his heavy weight against her since getting pregnant, usually in the middle of the night or early mornings when he use to be sprawled out over her, until right then.
Steve's scoff broke into her train of thoughts, bringing her back to reality. "Like yours are any better," he retorted tauntingly. She smirked; ready to tell him that they sure weren't as bad as his when a proud smile crossed his features as the kicking started up once again. It didn't last long; a couple of light movements to which Steve rubbed comforting circles with his palm once he couldn't feel them any more. "What, no witty comeback?" he asked bemusedly, glancing up at her when she remained silent.
Shaking her head lightly to clear her mind, she brushed her lips against his forehead. "I love you."
Despite his momentary confusion at her sudden exclamation, he smiled softly at her when he replied. "I love you, too."
"You're going to be a great father," Kono told him, covering his hand with her own when he casted his eyes down back to it in response to her statement. Becoming a first time parent was scary enough, she should know, but she had spent a majority of her life with babies and kids around her in her huge family. Steve, however, had not, and it was no secret his family life had been less than ideal after his mother had died. And even though he would never admit it to her, probably so not to make her think about anything she didn't need to in her 'delicate condition', she knew he worried. "You are," she reiterated with emphasis and squeezing his hand. "There's a lot of good in those McGarrett genes of yours, too."
He laughed lightly at that, but still didn't meet her eyes. "You're not so bad yourself, I guess," he teased in a dramatic put-upon tone. "Just stop eating all the candy all the time, though. It's bad for you; you'll get diabetes."
"What candy?" she asked in as much incredulity as she could muster up. It couldn't have been as much as she needed because she could practically hear him roll his eyes when he pulled his hand out from under hers and dig out the Twizzlers packet from under the pillow next to her. Opening her mouth to protest, she quickly shut it when she realised that there was no point in even trying. There was no hiding anything from this man.
Steve sighed and threw the packet onto the table next to the bed with ease. "I think I'm finally realising where you're getting all this energy from."
...
The shifting of the bed and loss of warmth woke her up. With the sun already up, making her squint, she let her eyes fall close again before she could take anything in, and buried herself back into the covers. "Hmm, what time is it?" she managed to murmur.
"It's early. Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you. Go back to sleep," came the reply in a voice much too alert for her liking but soothing enough to start to lull her back into sleep.
A hand brushed her hair back from where it had been tickling her cheek, replaced by the skimming of soft lips, and she groaned in annoyance as her body reacted and kept her from falling back into deep sleep. "Stay. We slept late."
Kono heard him chuckle quietly and the bed sheets rustle as he did what she asked, sliding back under the covers next to her, half-propped up by the headboard. She sighed in comfort when she immediately shuffled over to him, wrapping an arm tightly around his waist and laying her head on his bare chest.
"Whose fault was that?" Steve questioned dryly, his own arms coming around her to hold her to him, a hand brushing down her back in what should have been relaxing way.
"You weren't complaining," she informed him with a sigh, closing her eyes to try and coerce herself back to sleep.
"Because you never gave me the chance to," he muttered into her hair but she could hear the smirk in it. Kono hummed a sound of agreement, well on her way back to dreamland, when she felt him press a kiss to the top of her head before resting his cheek against it; his morning stubble covered jaw faintly grazing her temple and sending a tingle down her spine in a way she was sure such a small thing shouldn't.
Twisting into him as much as she could without putting any weight onto the baby, she exhaled deeply and tucked her face into his neck. "I can't sleep."
"You haven't tried," Steve replied amusedly after laying his head back against the wooden board.
"You know what'll help?" Kono asked suggestively, a smile gracing her features and resting her chin on his shoulder to look up at him. He stared back, arching an eyebrow at her in disbelief.
"You're insatiable, you know that, right?" She merely shrugged at his rhetorical question but he shook his head at her. "C'mon, you need to rest," he said half-heartedly, like he knew she was going to get her way no matter what he said but felt as if he should at least try to convince her otherwise. It was actually rather sweet, and if she wasn't currently a slave to her hormones, it might have had some sort of effect.
"You can't say you're not enjoying it," she told him matter-of-factly, trailing a finger across his abdomen and watching his muscles dance under her touch. "Just once, I promise," she whispered against his lips after pushing herself up onto her elbow.
"That's what you said last night, remember?" Steve reminded her, a smile curving on his mouth when she didn't back down. Kono felt his resolve break and finally give in wholly, pushing her down onto her back and hovering above her in one smooth move. "And at 4am," he added before she pulled him back into deeper kiss.
"Shhh," she hushed him in between kisses, arms finding their way around his neck and a hand into his hair to keep him in place. She could feel his body heat from the tips of her toes to the ends of her hair, despite the fact he was barely touching her, keeping all of his weight off of her with an arm by her side. It was exactly what she needed, chasing every ounce of sleep away and finally keeping her mind single-tracked, when the shrill ringing of a cell phone broke the passionate atmosphere. "No, dammit," she groaned when Steve pulled away with a sheepish look.
"Two seconds, babe," he assured her, rolling away to grab his phone from the bedside table and letting out a deep breath when he saw who it was. Kono turned back onto her side when Steve answered the call and swung his legs over the edge of the bed to perch on the side.
The one-sided conversation was muffled by the covers she had pulled up over her head in frustration. It didn't last too long; a few minutes of short answers and pauses but she heard the phone being replaced on the table.
"A case?" she asked cautiously, pulling down the covers and staring at his back.
"No. The Governor just wants to see me later," Steve informed her, rubbing his face with his hands in a way that worried Kono. Pushing herself up, she frowned.
"Why? Nothing's wrong, is it?" she questioned, trying to think back to the past few cases that they had but nothing out of the ordinary came to mind. They had done everything according to the book, mostly because the cases themselves hadn't been that hard to get to the bottom of with suspects not being that hard to find or crack.
He lifted his head up and smiled at her over his shoulder. "No, no. It's probably another review about the last case or something," he assured her, turning to rest a hand on her leg and rubbing it gently.
"Oh, ok," Kono nodded acceptingly before breaking into a sly smile. "Hey, later, right?" she asked, grabbing his arm and tugging him back towards her.
"Kono!" Steve laughed, following her directions nonetheless until her hand snuck around his neck to pull him into another kiss.
She giggled breathily when they broke apart, his lips working their way across her jaw immediately. "Ah, stop complaining. You love it really," she told him, to which he scoffed before carefully pushing her down to lay back down onto the bed and stealing her ability to talk anymore in a way only he knew how.
A/N: That's Month 5, over and out. Hope you all enjoyed it! Lemme know what you thought and I'll be back to update soon =)