A/N: Hey again. Once again, I'm sorry for the long wait between the last chapter and this. I hope the fact that it's rather long makes up for it. RL just got in the way. Thank you all for the reviews, adds and favs, and the comments on tumblr. They all helped motivate me to write and update quicker =D
Big thanks to teenycee for the beta'ing, motivating, pushing and brainstorming my ideas, night or day!
Month 8 (part 2)
Spending his birthday with his sister as well as finishing up the nursery seemed like the perfect day for Steve. In theory. In reality, however, the mix of both was grating on his last nerve. "All you have to do is hold it, Mare. That's all. Got it?" he instructed pointedly to the woman currently sitting on the floor next to the pieces of the crib that they were currently attempting to put together.
"I think I can handle it," she replied dryly, holding the final side to the otherwise completed item of furniture. With a nod, Steve turned away to lean over the crib and begin with twisting in the final two screws. "You're doing it wrong."
Scoffing at her retort, he carried on with what he was doing. "There aren't many ways to put a screw in," he informed her with a roll of the eyes that he knew she could, and would, see.
"So it's kinda surprising that you're doing it wrong then!" Mary Ann rebuked, making him jump slightly when she kicked him in the shin. Scowling in her direction, he took a step away from her before continuing with the task at hand. "Steve, it's not going in!"
"Just hold it still, Mary," he muttered with a sigh, silently wondering why he had agreed to allow her to help him with the crib. The elation he had felt that morning with the breakfast that Kono had surprised him with must have temporarily altered his sense of judgement when his sister had offered a hand.
"I am holding it still," she replied pointedly with a tone that Steve noted as exasperation. He wasn't too sure why she was the one exasperated, though. "You're the one causing it to tilt."
Choosing not to comment on either her words or his thoughts, Steve waited until the screw would turn no further before standing up straight once again and brushing his hands down his jeans. "There, done. You can let go now."
Mary Ann hurriedly jumped to her feet and joined him a foot away from the crib where he was eyeing the wooden masterpiece. A small frown marred his features when he finally spotted what she had been talking about; the left side of the crib tilted ever so slightly under the rest of it and was, therefore, unbalanced and unsafe.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to look like that," she commented, clearly amused. Steve was anything but. "Why didn't you just follow the instructions?"
"I did," he grumbled, hand tightening around the screwdriver he still held as he picked up the sheet of instructions that came in the box with the crib from the floor. Skimming through both the pictograms and captions explaining each one, Steve couldn't see where he had gone wrong. If anything, he was proud of the fact that he had followed it so accurately. Yet, when he lowered the paper, the proof was not sitting in front of him.
"Men," Mary Ann huffed, breaking him out of his thoughts and snatching the screwdriver out of his hand before he could even react. "Move. I'll do it," she said with a small shove and approaching the crib once again.
"No, it's fine," he replied almost immediately, if not a bit too urgently, stepping up next to her to block her access to the side she wanted to get at and turning to face her.
"I wasn't asking, Steven," she told him, pointing the screwdriver at him menacingly as she uttered his given name. The sad part was that he was sure she would use it on him if he pushed her too far.
"I wasn't either," he countered. He tried to grab the tool out of her hand, but she stretched her arm out in the other direction so that if he did go to try and forcefully take it off her, he would have to move.
"We only have one try at this, and if you break it, not only will Kono be mad, your daughter won't have anywhere to sleep," Mary Ann pointed out matter-of-factly, still holding her arm out of reach though Steve had given up on trying to retain it, crossing his arms instead as he held her current glare.
Her words held more than a glimmer of truth to them, and he took a moment to consider it. There was no doubt in his mind that if he did break the crib, Kono would hurt him severely, even in her heavily pregnant state. Or maim him. The crib was her favourite piece of furniture that she had picked out, and the only reason she wasn't there helping to put it together was because she physically couldn't. They had both learnt that the hard way a few days earlier, when her growing baby bump had restricted a lot of movements necessary for doing DIY.
Subtly shaking his head, he cleared his mind and held out a hand towards her. "I'm not going to break it. Give me the screwdriver back," he said in what he considered was a rather civil manner. When she refused to comply, he dropped his hands to rest on his hips. "Mary!" he growled out, irritation building up. If it was anyone else, he would have dropped kicked them by now and taken it from their limp hand afterwards. Too bad he actually cared for his little sister.
"Just let me have a go!" she insisted, grabbing onto his forearm to try and move him. At least he had his strength and a height advantage over her that kept him rooted in his spot. Mary Ann glowered after letting go, and he had to bite back a smirk at her reaction. "What's the worst that can happen?"
Steve narrowed his eyes at her. "The last time you said that in this room, you jumped off that balcony and you broke your foot," he reminded her, lifting a hand off his waist to point towards the doors that he had already secured. "And I was grounded until it healed," he added with a hint of irritation; something he could recall feeling 25 years previously when he had been chastised by his parents for not looking after his baby sister. He had tried to argue that he had tried to stop her, but the girl had been a force unto her own for as long as he could remember, only learning from her mistakes and consequences.
"Jeez, bro, forgot you had a freakishly good memory," Mary Ann exclaimed in awe after a beat of silence in which she blinked at him as if the memory was suddenly all coming back to her. With all the complaining, moaning and crying she had done over the 6 weeks her foot had been in a cast, Steve didn't believe for a second that she had forgotten about that moment in their lives. "Is that why you've locked and guarded the doors? To stop the next generation from doing something similar?" she asked with a smirk and genuine curiosity.
Raising an eyebrow at her incredulously, he dropped his hands to his sides. "A mix of me and Kono? She's bound to do something crazy like that," he admitted with a deep sigh. When his sister merely laughed in agreement at his words, he rolled his eyes and stepped closer to her, changing the subject back to what they had initially been talking about. "Here, give me the screwdriver and let's try again," he said, holding out a hand for the tool.
"No, I want to try," she reiterated, knuckles whitening around the hold she had on it as she held it by her side, stepping away from him and going around to the other side of the crib.
Giving up on trying to be gentle, Steve practically lunged across the wooden furniture between them to try and get a hold of at least her if not the screwdriver. "Mary-" he began when he missed and whacked his arm on the opposite railing of the crib, sending painful vibrations all the way up to his elbow.
"Why don't you go try and fix the bathroom some more?" Mary Ann asked him sarcastically, nodding towards the ensuite doorway as she tapped the screwdriver against the palm of her hand almost teasingly.
"It's fixed. I finished it last night," he told her, words coming out stiff and curt when he clenched his jaw to try his best not to yell or raise his voice. It worked for the moment.
"Really? By yourself?" she asked in an astonished tone. A smirk crossed her features when he glared at her, unimpressed by her surprise. "After, what was it, 3 months? You don't have that kind of time with this crib."
Steve decided not to reply to her matter-of-fact statement, he kept up with the glare before trying to snatch the tool away from her once again. "Just give me-" he began, cutting himself off as he failed to catch her flailing arm that she now held aloft and out of his reach. It wasn't helping his patience or his frustration levels that he, a Navy SEAL, was being outmaneuvered by his sister.
"No!" Mary Ann huffed, hiding her arm behind her back and retreating away from him as he began to stalk around the crib towards her.
"Hey! Seriously, you two do not make having siblings sound like fun!" The exclamation froze them both in their places momentarily before turning to face Kono in the doorway of the bedroom. Though her tone had been annoyed, there was a clear look of amusement on her features as she stood eyeing them as if they were complete idiots.
"It's not when your sibling is a control freak who can't accept any help!" Mary Ann retorted, looking over at her brother even though her words were in reply to Kono's. Steve rolled his eyes and turned back to face her once again.
"I've let you help with the nursery since you've gotten here, haven't I?" he reminded her pointedly. Seeing his wife move out of the corner of his eye, he heard her laugh as she took a seat on the couch in the corner of the room.
"You made me open up the presents and organize it into the drawers. Kono did half of it!" Mary Ann reminded him, pointing towards the other woman with the screwdriver that she still held onto. Taking his chance, he tried to grab it, only missing it when she pulled it out of his fist just as he was about to tighten his grip on the cold metal.
"Don't involve me in your little tiff," Kono warned them, words slightly flat and distracted, but claiming their attention once again. Her eyes were glued to the piece of furniture behind them. "What happened to the crib?" she asked with an icy tone and a raised brow that was aimed solely at him.
Clearing his throat, he glanced back at the crib before shrugging and looking over at Kono. "Nothing. I'm fixing it," he assured her, not waiting to see if it had worked before turning to his sister when another example popped into his head. "You painted the bathroom door too."
Mary Ann narrowed her eyes at him, and he knew that he hadn't won that argument either. "Outside," she exclaimed.
"Time out, guys. I think Danny and Chin just got here," Kono interrupted them, stopping Steve from arguing that it hadn't been a decent job anyway, and he had had to repaint it himself because he could see the brush strokes in the dried paint. In hindsight, it was probably a good thing that Kono had spoken up and stopped him from saying anything. His sister had a temper and as much self-control towards people who pissed them off to match his. "I'll go greet them, then," she added, pushing herself up from the couch and heading out of the room whilst muttering something under her breath that Steve couldn't hear but was pretty sure was about their sibling rivalry.
By the time Kono left and Steve turned back to the crib, Mary Ann was already working on taking out the screws that he had put in last, having taken advantage of his distraction to get started on it. Exhaling deeply, he kept his mouth shut and held onto the side that was about to detach and fall off. He figured that he could take over once she was done because she was bound to drop the screwdriver by then.
They work in silence for a couple of minutes before the familiar Jersey accent rang out from the hallway. "Why do you have a baby gate on the stairs already?" Danny asked, though Steve wasn't sure whether it was meant for Kono, him, or the world in general. By Kono's roll of the eyes when she entered the room a few seconds before the other two men, it was obvious that she was passing his partner's question on to him.
"What do you mean 'why'? We're having a baby. Therefore, it's needed," he answered factually, still holding onto the crib. He reached out with a hand to take over from where Mary Ann was struggling with one tightened screw, only to have his hand slapped away by the blonde and hiss that she can handle it.
"He also secured all the sockets, covered all the sharp corners and put a lock on all balcony doors. Some don't even open anymore," Mary Ann spoke up without taking her eyes off the job she was doing. Although he stood not more than two feet away, he could hear the smirk in her voice rather than see it on her face; something the others heard too, if their chuckling was anything to go by.
"You baby proofed the house?" Chin asked, both amused and incredulous, peering around the room to take it in. It hadn't changed much since the last time they had been there, but with the new information, Steve knew he was trying to see if they could find any of the baby proofing.
"It has to be done," he said, shrugging nonchalantly. He didn't know why they were making such a big deal out of it. If anything, Steve expected them to be impressed that he was taking such 'normal' precautions.
Danny chortled at that, glancing into the en suite bathroom before turning towards him. "Sure. When she's like a toddler or something. Or hey, when she can actually move by herself," he remarked with a grin. Kono was the only one to respectfully turn her laugh into a cough when Steve shot them an irked look.
"Better safe than sorry," she commented. If the sheepish look she threw him was anything to go by, the smile on her face was completely out of her control as she tried, and failed, to sound as earnest as she could.
"I hate to think how you're going to react when you take her out and about," Danny quipped, leaning against the chest of drawers with one arm as the other hand flailed around in the air. Steve watched him intermittently over his shoulder as he held on to the crib and prayed that his sister wouldn't break the thing in front of Kono. "This world, my friend, is not baby proofed. The minute she leaves the hospital in the no doubt top of the range, probably equipped with special SEAL protection stuff baby car seat, she's going to be open to all kinds of danger."
Steve froze at his words, not only because they were true and upsetting to think about his child in a world that was as dangerous as it was, but because of the same reason that Kono now stood with widened eyes. "We don't have a car seat," she announced in shock, eyes meeting his.
There's a moment of quiet in the room, broken only by Mary Ann's handywork and occasional grunt of hard work, before Chin spoke up. "Cuz, you do know they won't let you go home without one, right?" he said in the soft mannered way of his.
Steve cleared his throat before speaking up. "We know. It must have slipped our minds," he said, shaking his head and wondering how something so obvious had been missed off their list.
"Oh, so you can remember to baby proof the whole house for the upcoming years, but you forget to buy the most essential thing needed to actually bring your daughter home?" Danny chortled in sarcastic glee, looking around at everyone before returning back to Steve, who merely stared back. There was no way he was going to be able to escape the teasing that this was going to ensure from his partner for the next year or ten.
"We'll get one tomorrow," Steve nodded at Kono's reassurance, ignoring Mary Ann's mutter about how she hoped it was already assembled. Clapping her hands, Kono turned to the other two men and smiled brightly. "Right now, we have a meal to prepare, so get moving!"
"Yes, ma'am!" Danny said with a mock salute and a quick turn on his heels to leave the room before she could catch up with him.
…
Kono heard the creak of a loose floorboard a few seconds before he appeared in the doorway. Having recognised the light footsteps, she glanced over without the small shot of panic that usually flowed through her in the middle of the night when she heard something out of place.
Steve's half naked form appeared on the lanai a moment later, glancing to his right first and then towards her. There was clear relief on his face and in his greeting when he finally spotted her. "Hey."
She smiled back at him from the far side of the comfy loveseat that sat outside. "Hey, I didn't wake you, did I?" she asked worriedly, having had tried her best to be as quiet and slow as she could when she left their bed. It had been a surprise that he hadn't woken up there and then like he did on most occasions when she left his embrace, but after a long and tiresome case, he had been quick to fall into a deep sleep.
Shaking his head, he sat on the other end of the seat and leaned his elbows onto his knees. "It's fine. You should have woken me up when you got up," he muttered into his hands as he rubbed them over his face and into his hair. The pillow has mussed it up already, giving him that sleepy look that Kono had always found quite attractive.
"It hasn't been long. She kept kicking me in the ribs so I thought a change in position and some food might help," she told him, keeping her voice low to match his in the darkness of the night. Rubbing her stomach gently, she smiled when he reached across and placed a hand of his own upon the bump. "I think she's sleeping now."
"That's good," Steve smiled, leaving his hand on her nonetheless. Covering it with one of her own, she thumbed the cool metal of his wedding ring as they fell into a short silence with only the sounds of the waves lapping at the far shore and the nocturnal animals that roamed the area turning it into a sense of tranquillity.
Kono had never truly appreciated where they lived until she had become pregnant and spent time here and there outside on that very bench. It was more than just a beach front house with a piece of the ocean to herself. It was simply beautiful and relaxing; a paradise in its own right because it was where everything she loved met home. And in the depths of the night, be it raining or clear skies, there was no other view that could match the one she saw from where she sat because it was right there, not too long ago, that she had realized that somewhere along the line her life had become relatively something she had never thought it could be; perfect.
"We can't keep calling her 'she', you know. We need to decide soon what we're going to name her," Steve spoke up to break the silence, fingers strumming lightly against her stomach causing her to stop with her own ministrations.
"I already gave you my suggestion," Kono reminded him, making him exhale loudly and sit back, retracting his hand back to his side. There was something akin to a pout on his lips, but it could have just been the dimness of the moonlight fooling her.
"I don't see why you get to choose her name. Isn't this supposed to be agreed upon?" he asked her with a hint of petulance that made her reconsider her stance about the pout.
"We've tried that, remember? It's why she's still nameless," she stated, arching a brow at him and twisting in her seat to lean back against the cushioned armrest with her feet resting on Steve's lap. "Besides, why are you complaining? She gets your last name."
He raised his eyebrows at her statement, hands landing on her legs. "She can have yours if we can call her 'Nai'a'," he told her flippantly. She glared at him half-heartedly at the suggestion. "Exactly."
"Hey, you should be happy that she's getting your last name," Kono exclaimed, pointing a finger in his direction. "Do you know what the name 'Kalakaua' was worth back in the days? We were royalty. But I am willing to let that go for you."
Steve rolled his eyes and draped an arm along the back of the seat to face her as he spoke. "You hate it when anyone brings that up. You threatened to shoot Danny just last week because of it," he reminded her, making her grimace at the memory of their teammate teasing her when she asked him to pick up a pen that she had dropped. With her pregnant stomach, she couldn't reach it, and though Danny had been more than happy to help her out, he couldn't do so without a quip about her heritage and calling her 'Your Majesty' along with it.
"That's 'cause Danny's a jerk," she huffed with a small scowl at the memory before shaking her head to rid herself of the residual irritation it had brought up again. Her emotions were not entirely in her control at the best of times, let alone when she was tired. Rubbing her temple with her fingers, she tilted her head back to look up at the wooden slats of the roof and dropped her hands to rest upon her stomach. "Can we discuss this another time? It's too late to have this conversation right now," she asked in reference to the original topic of baby names and took Steve's lack of reply as an affirmation.
"I got a call the other day. From the Navy," he announced suddenly, causing Kono to snap her head back down again. The last time he had randomly told her he had gotten a call from the Navy, he had been deployed to places she still didn't know about for over two months. Her face must have portrayed her thoughts because Steve hurriedly carried on. "Not that. I would have told you that straight away."
Exhaling, she relaxed once again and quirked an eyebrow at him. "Yeah, after last time, I'd hope so." Steve cleared his throat at her retort, choosing not to comment or defend himself for the umpteenth time about how it had taken him over a week last time to tell her about the orders and having only told her a few days before he had to go. "So what then?"
"I need to do my final training drill for the reserves before I take my leave. I've been putting it off for," he paused with a noncommittal shrug and a furrowed brow as he thought about it. "Well, about 7 months now."
Fighting the urge to roll her eyes at his impeccable timing for choosing that moment to bring it up and ignoring the fact he hadn't told her sooner, she nodded at his sheepish admittance. "When?"
"Probably in a couple of weeks. It'll just be for a weekend and it'll be most likely be at the navy base here," Steve explained, not giving her the chance to even think of the questions as he hurriedly dove into answering them.
A pang of guilt ran through Kono at the realization that he had put this off to avoid leaving her alone during her pregnancy and as time went on, more things had cropped up that stopped him from going. She was sure that if it hadn't been compulsory, he wouldn't go at all.
"Just for a weekend?" she asked him softly, to which he nodded. "And you'll be right here?" she made sure, and when he nodded again, Kono let out a breath and smiled at him. "What's the problem, then?"
"Apart from the fact you'll be a few weeks away from the due date?" Steve asked incredulously, fingers unconsciously tightening their grip where they laid on her calf as if the mere thought of it stressed him out. It probably did.
Ignoring his words and his grip, she tilted her head a bit and narrowed her eyes in thought. "Wait, is this why you've been hammering away with the nursery and all the baby proofing and wanting to decide on a name?"
There was a beat of silence before he answered. "We have to get it done anyway," he told her with a sharp edge of defensiveness to the words, eyes drifting downwards as he did so. Kono licked her lips to hide the smile that threatened to break out at his sudden embarrassment.
"Steve, I assure you, if I am to go into labour whilst you're away, the last thing I'll care about is if all the sharp covers have been protected," she said matter-of-factly, laying a hand on the arm he had stretched along the back of the bench and squeezing it gently. "Plus, we get a few weeks before having to submit the birth certificate, and that's without the strings you could pull for us."
"I don't want to go and leave you in the lurch, that's all," he said, eyes jumping back to hers with all sense of embarrassment gone and a serious glaze taking its place. "It'd be less stressful if everything was ready, and I'd worry less about leaving you by yourself."
"Contrary to popular belief, pregnant women don't require constant supervision," Kono retorted dryly, earning herself a mild glare that somehow seemed less than threatening in his dishevelled state. Shaking her head gently with a sigh, she smiled and slid her hand down from his arm to his hand to squeeze it. "I'll be fine, babe. I have Chin, Danny and Mary nearby if I need them. Not that I will. The nursery is practically done, we now have a car seat so she can actually come home, and we will decide on a name," she listed to assure him, though from the frown marring his features, she wasn't sure if her words had had the intended effect.
"Are you sure? Because I can pull some strings with the Navy too and push it back for another few months or so," he informed her steadily, hand gripping back at hers as his gaze held steady with hers.
"And what, leave me alone with a newborn?" she replied, smirking and raising a brow, to which he acquiesced with a nod and finally averting his eyes from hers. "It's fine, Steve," she assured him once again, lowering her voice in hope that it would sooth him and his worries better than before. When he seemed to relax in his seat, slumping against the back more than he already had been, Kono figured she had managed it right this time.
"I'll be nearby, too, so in case anything does happen, I can get home or even to the hospital rapidly," Steve added, rubbing his hand up and down her leg reassuringly as he did. The sensations made her skin tingle in the middle of the night, and she jerked her foot gently to make him stop.
"You don't need to convince me; I already said ok," Kono reminded him teasingly, sitting up straighter and dropping his hand as she crossed her legs to get them away from her husband.
"Sure?" he asked her, eyeing her carefully when she nodded. He must have decided that she was being truthful when he let out a breath and carried on in a strict but soft manner. "If you change your mind, tell me, alright? I won't go if you don't want me to."
Kono blinked at him momentarily at the amount of control that he had handed her regarding his career. His Navy career that had been his life for so long before Five-0 had came about. "I-" she began to say to tell him that she understood and that she wouldn't change her mind regardless because it wasn't something she felt like she should control. But instead, she put on a smile and nodded once again. "Ok."
"Good," Steve simply replied, returning the smile with his boyish charm that came about from the residual sleep still lingering in his features. The mere look of it made her body crave for sleep again.
"Can we go back to bed now? My back is killing me and I think she's got her feet up against my ribs, ready to kick them again," she asked him, who stood up and chuckled at her words. Ever since she had described to the best of her abilities how their baby kicking her ribs felt, he had found it amusing how much it irritated her when she was sort of use to her ribs being less than fine on most occasions.
Holding out his hands for her, she took them gratefully to help ease her up from the loveseat. Time and the baby bump had slowly made it harder for her to do it by herself. "Thanks," Kono murmured when he pulled her closer to him in his arms.
"Sure," he replied in the same tone, watching as his eyes flittered from hers to her mouth and back again like they use to when they had first started dating; when close touches and kissing were still part of a learning curve for their relationship. The learning might have been left behind, but the butterflies in her stomach, the light-headedness and the tingling sensations still remained whenever he kissed her.
Such as right then. With everything disappearing but the sound of the waves and the feel of his body against hers, hands holding her to him whilst hers rested on his chest, she could almost make herself believe it was four years ago. Until she felt the familiar kicking once again.
Breaking the kiss somewhat reluctantly, Kono could tell from the look on Steve's face that he had felt it too; the mix of amusement and the always-present pride underlying it. When he leant in to press his lips to hers again, she pulled away with tiny step back and created a space between them.
"Bed," she said in answer to his questioning look. "I want to sleep. We can make out another time,' she added before turning around to walk back into the house.
He groaned even as he followed her, closing the lanai door behind them. "Such a romantic," she heard him mumble sarcastically under his breath not a second later. Kono couldn't do anything by laugh to herself at the irony of his words.
A/N: Only one more month to go! Thank you for reading. Lemme know what you thought =)