Chapter 71 "Virginia"
A/N: (18 October 2017) Argh, I'm sorry for the long delay! My flare(s) got worse, and my ability to write vanished, I had such brain fog. Worst (and longest) flare(s) in ten years. It's like having the fever-flu that never quits, except you don't have the flu. I think things are letting up, so here we go to see if they are. I am so grateful for your patience and understanding. Auto-immune disorder(s) flares are hard to understand when you don't have them. Once upon a time I was healthy. Sigh.
So let's get back to the story! Thank you to all readers who are still with me! I'm still going to try to finish this by Christmas.
Liking season 8 so far!
CBS owns all things Hawaii Five-0 but our plots and OCs.
Chapter 71 "Virginia"
(Friday, 10 February 2017, 11:15 a.m.)
Danny was watching the brightness of Becca's happy eyes as they surveyed their home. Yes, they had decided to purchase it. They really hadn't needed to take this last look at it to make up their minds, but since it was such an important purchase, they had met the realtor and her sheaf of papers promptly at 11. One more tour of the two-storey-with-daylight-basement home had made it official. There was a clever upstairs master bedroom with its own cute lanai and both a tub and a shower, plus a small room that would make a great office or nursery, three other bedrooms on the main floor, a large kitchen with an attached dining room, a large living room that opened onto a spacious, partially covered lanai with stairs down to the level of the back yard, which had another lanai that opened out from the daylight basement. Downstairs had wonderful open-concept living for half of it, and the other half was a mother-in-law apartment, for when they had overnight guests. The reason they could afford it was the deal the realtor was giving them, not entirely based on the fact that every single room had to be repainted something other than dark purple or shrieking neon. The outside was a horrible overly-exuberant sky blue and had a 1-stall garage plus an extra carport, in the same color.
But the layout was perfect, the windows and appliances new and plentiful, meaning there was a lightness and airiness to it, which actually made the paint colors worse.
The yard featured mature, beautiful landscaping. Every mistake made in painting had not been made in the front yard and back yard. Things were overgrown and misshapen, but a bit of pruning and elbow grease would take care of that. And there was a narrow path beyond greenery and trees in the back that led down to a strip of private beach separated from their neighbors on either side by twin breakwaters. Best of all, they were 10 minutes from Steve's house, 15 minutes from the Cornett's house, and 20 minutes from work, school, Tripler, and everything else they could possibly want. They had already met their neighbors and thought they were fine people.
Danny and Becca were standing on the master bedroom lanai, overlooking their beautifully planted backyard. "I can't believe this is going to be ours," sighed Becca, the brightness of her smiling eyes in her voice as well.
"I love you," said Danny, and it was a good thing Charlie wasn't there to watch as the two kissed for quite a while. He definitely would have been worrying about butterflies in Becca's tummy.
"What color do you want to paint the outside of the house?" asked Becca, her arms around Danny's waist.
"Creamy yellow. Do you like that? It doesn't have to be that color. It's our house, so we should consult on colors."
"Definitely creamy yellow," replied Becca, and they didn't discuss colors right away again, because they were back to kissing and being grateful that their lanai had enough privacy that they could spend some quality couple time out there.
The realtor found them out there and delicately let her presence be known. The couple blushed, and held hands as they talked with her about the house, and the next steps in the "officially ours" process.
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Dinner was a late afternoon picnic, and they set up folding tables and chairs in the newly purchased backyard of Danny and Becca's house. They had ordered out from Kamekona's, and he was presiding over keeping everyone's plate full while enjoying his own dinner. Steve, Hannah, Doctor and Mrs. Cornett had come, and of course Grace and Charlie were there, along with Lou Grover and his family. Danny of course noticed that Grace and Will were sitting hip to hip at the crowded table, their heads together, discussing whatever they were. Apparently Nehele had lost the competition for Grace's affections. Grace's arm was almost back up to full strength since she had gotten the cast off at the end of January. Danny definitely noticed that Will Grover was occasionally lightly caressing that arm, and Grace would blush when he did it.
Steve kept grimacing at the house color. "Danny, did you get a discount because everything is so … I have never seen a house like this. Shrieky."
"Partly," grinned Danny. "But my newfound fame and good-guy-ness and the fact that this place had been on the market over a year and the former owners had to replace the roof in that bad storm around Thanksgiving-" Danny's eyes clouded over briefly and he paused for a second, because he remembered Neil Lane of Ace Oahu Roofing, and made it a point to call his widow very soon and make sure she was doing okay. "And they liked selling to a cop, and made an offer to the realtor that I'd get a sizeable discount if I liked their house. Seriously, if they had just repainted, I would not have been able to afford it even with the discount."
Steve almost pouted. "It's twice as big as mine."
"Not twice, but we do have the basement. And you have zero mortgage, what are you complaining about? You and Hannah will have plenty of room in there to start a family."
Steve turned to Hannah, and they shared one of those wordless, loving, "thinking alike" moments. "We sure will."
Charlie, still in his Very Dramatic phase, groaned. "No butterflies, please!"
Sarah Cornett spoke up then. She and her husband were finding their way into their expanding family very comfortably. "Charlie, sweetheart, what do you mean about butterflies?"
Charlie sighed. "Bobby-"
("School friend," explained Danny quickly.)
"-told me where babies come from."
Which of course led to the adults blushing and beaming over the cute story of how Charlie believed babies came from.
Dr. Cornett furrowed his brows at Danny. "You haven't told your young son the facts of life yet?"
"Uh, no," replied Danny. "Because he's so young."
Charlie pouted. "And every time they almost tell me, because Uncle Steve said he would today-"
"No, I didn't," corrected Steve. "Danno was the one who was going to tell you, but you had to take a bath instead."
"Whatever!" continued Charlie. He huffed. "They always change the subject, or make me wash my hands, or offer me a snack. They aren't ever gonna tell me where babies come from."
"Oh," said Dr. Cornett. "Well, I could tell you."
Sarah Cornett chuckled when Danny and Steve looked horrified and terrified at the same time. "Trust him."
Danny looked wide-eyed at his future in-laws, and swallowed around the biggest rock his throat had ever held. "Uh. Are you sure? He's not even five!"
Becca leaned against his shoulder, completely relaxed. "Oh, Daddy's had lots of practice with this. You can trust him to be age appropriate."
Danny almost felt queasy. But he had to trust Becca, Sarah, and his doc. "Uh, okay."
So Charlie looked expectantly at the man he already called Grampa.
Dr. Cornett led Charlie off into the yard so they could have this "man to man" talk in private. Danny's hands were sweating, his stomach churning, his mind whirling, and even Steve was wearing terrified face, which he hardly ever did. "What's he telling him?" asked Steve after Charlie's expression turned from interested to confused to 'sorry he'd ever asked' as the ladies all started to laugh very quietly.
Sarah was grinning so big, and so proud. "Oh, you can tell. He's using terminology."
"Oh no," greened out Danny. He popped one of his real anti-nausea pills into his mouth and swallowed a sip of water.
"Oh yes! But you must remember, he's a doctor, so he knows doctorese, and poor Charlie!"
Eventually Charlie and Dr. Cornett returned to the table. He sat down, a bit wobbly, and uncertain. Dr. Cornett kissed Sarah and patted Danny on the back. "There! All taken care of."
Sarah leaned toward Charlie. "Tell us what you learned, Honey."
Charlie screwed up his face a bit. "The butterfly thing was a lot easier." He was deep in thought. "Well, apparently lady people can make these huge eggs, and man people can make these tiny whales, and the trick is that they don't always make the right kind of whale because the lady egg has armor and then the whale has to find the door before he can get in, and I'm not sure about this next part, because Grampa used a lot of words like 'flipping tubes' and 'oh very' and 'U-Taurus' (they could see the question marks in Charlie's eyes) and 'Virginia', plus some other words I'm not sure about at all. So once the little whale finds the door into the big egg, something I didn't understand happens, called 'fertile nation', and even then sometimes the nation doesn't quite work, I guess like politics or something, but if it does, then a baby happens but is super-small and has to grow for nine months until it wants out, and Grampa told me how the baby gets out, but I just don't understand except that mommies have to push the baby out in Virginia. How do lady people ever have babies in Hawaii? I think the butterfly part makes a lot more sense, since eggs and tiny whales, I mean, whales are always big and eggs are always small, so I have a feeling Grampa doesn't really know either."
"He tried, Charlie," wheezed out Danny, having a terrible time suppressing a laugh that came from his toes. Dr. Cornett was biting his lips and turning the color of beets while bursting into a chortle he would immediately suppress; Steve fall off the bench onto the stone floor of the lanai, hiding as best he could his own laughter, and Charlie just asked for more shrimp while Danny finally lost it and hysteria-ed out in falsetto, "Virginia!" He reached out and smacked the doctor's arm. "Thank you."
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A/N: um. So there you have that! Comments and reviews are always welcome!