The Army had given Susan two weeks of convalescent leave. She didn't think she needed that much, but decided not to argue about it, especially when it could be time well spent moving in with Duke. Susan was finding for the fist time in her life that she was genuinely happy and that retirement from the Army was looking better all the time. All because she's met a silver-haired Hawaiian police sergeant with a quiet manner and the stability of a mountain range. All because Maggie had met that one tall state cop.

Lillie's little pug started barking. Susan looked out the window to see that same tall state cop walking up the path to the front porch. She opened the door before he had a chance to ring the bell.

"What's up?" she asked, concerned. The man was as pale as a ghost and looked as if he could start crying, something she really didn't think she could handle. Then she saw the book he held.

"I see you found it," she said, sighing. "Come on in. I'll make you a cup of tea. Don't even think about suggesting coffee, this is a tea conversation." She led him into the kitchen where she put on the kettle, got out the mugs, and placed them on the table next to the sugar bowl and a plate of lemon slices. She poured hot water into a teapot. He recognized the smell of chamomile.

"Do you remember how I said that if they ever split us up, something bad would happen?" Steve nodded, remembering the conversation they'd had the night Maggie had been injured. "This time, when they split us up, it was at my request. Don't give me that look. I did it trying to save her life."

"Was she suicidal?" he asked.

"I think so," Susan said, sipping her tea, "only I didn't know how bad it was until she got here, and thankfully, by then the worse was over and she was five thousand miles away from Arlington."

"What's Arlington got to do with it?"

"That's where they're buried. Micheal and Lydia. After Lydia died, they were forced to make a decision no grieving parent should ever have to make. It was either cremation or burial in the American cemetery there in Munich. Lydia was cremated and they took her remains back home until they could be reassigned to the States, then they'd decide if she'd be interred in Louisiana or Massachusetts. Only the Gulf War got in the way. After the war's over and I'm at Maggie's packing up her stuff there's a knock at the door. And there's Colonel Alden standing there, looking at me like I'm some sort of alien life form, as if I'm intruding. All he said was that Micheal was being buried at Arlington and Lydia was going in with him. That's all he wanted. That little tiny pink and white box with the painted on roses. I gave it to him, and he didn't even say thank you, just took her and left. I tried to say grief turned him into an asshole, only I knew him too well."

"She went to Arlington a lot when she was at Walter Reed?"

Susan put down her mug. She knew Maggie didn't like to talk about the Gulf War or the time that followed. She looked across the table at Steve. There were dark circles under his eyes and weariness had etched new lines around his mouth and eyes. Susan sighed and decided to tell him everything. "Once she was back on her feet, there was no stopping her. You see, she'd missed the funeral. She was still in ICU when Micheal was killed. She didn't know until nearly a month later, and by that time he'd been returned to the States and buried at Arlington. She felt guilty about not having been there, so saying she was there a lot doesn't even come close. Try every day. The MP's found her out there one morning around three. They called to tell me they'd found her passed out on the grave. I think that may have even been the first attempt. Guess you could say the tolerance she'd built up to pain killers saved her life that night."

"Now it makes sense," Steve said. "That must be why she's refusing all pain medication. About the only thing she'll let the nurses give her are sedatives, and then only enough to sleep for a few hours. Did she get addicted to the pain killers after she was hurt?"

"To be truthful, I really don't know, although I have a strong suspicion she was. We were both assigned to the Pentagon Public Affairs division after we got sprung from Walter Reed. She'd gotten so quiet during that time it was hard to know what she was thinking or feeling. She damn near quit talking to anyone. That's when I talked the the Colonel and he agreed that the best thing we could do for her was to get her away from Arlington. Sent her to Ft Bragg for the next two years. She didn't like it much but there wasn't anything she could do about it. Drink your tea, I've got something for you. It'll help."

He drank the tea, the taste of chamomile reminding him of how often Maggie would taste of chamomile with just a hint of lemon. He knew she had been in a bad place after the war, and that she had only just began coming out of it. Susan and Vinnie had already told him that he was the reason she was slowly coming back to life. She didn't like talking about anything pertaining to the Gulf War. He had gotten her to tell him how she'd been injured only once, and she refused to talk about it ever again. She had came back from the Gulf War with a wired together spine and bad case of PTSD that left her with nightmares, an extreme dislike for crowds, and an aversion to sudden loud noise. And now she was back in the hospital thanks to a psycho with a grudge and it was all his fault.

Susan came back carrying a sealed envelope. The bruise Big Chicken had left on her cheek was beginning to look a little better and not nearly as colorful as it had earlier in the week. She gave Steve the envelope. "She knew that eventually you'd find the book. That's why the note on the first page. She couldn't tell you herself. She was that afraid of losing you."

"I'm not going anywhere," he said.

"She didn't know that then." Susan said.

He opened the envelope and took out a folded sheet of ivory colored paper.

Steve,

You saved my life.

If it hadn't been for you, I don't think I could have made it another year. Yet here I am, and soon we will be married.

Do you know when it happened? After that first night we spent together, you showed me the sunrise.

We were on the beach, you were holding me.

I'd never seen anything so beautiful or wonderful or peaceful in my life.

Sunrise in the tropics.

And you were holding me after we had made love the night before.

Everything was right.

I should have told you then, but I was afraid.

But I did tell you later.

I love you.

Please don't be angry with me.

Maggie.

Steve crumpled the paper in his hand as his eyes filled with tears. "She was so depressed she was thinking about suicide and she was afraid I would be angry? She was almost killed in that damned war! It scares the hell out of me to think about how close I came to never having met her and now I find out she wanted to die and she was afraid to tell me?"

"Not anymore, Steve. Not after she got here and certainly not after she met you. Maybe it's like that damned Jimmy Buffett music she's always listening to. Change latitudes and change attitudes. Maybe she just needed a total change of scenery. We both spent too much time in Europe and in DC. Maybe she needed to be by the ocean. But please believe me when I tell you that since she met you all she wants to do is spend the rest of her life with you. And she wants it to be a long and happy one."

Inside his head, he heard her soft drawling voice echoing the words that had gone straight to his heart and embedded themselves in his soul. "You have all these hopes and dreams and then one day, in a matter of a few seconds, everything changes. For a while there I thought my world had ended. Only it didn't. The earth kept turning, the sun kept coming up, and the moon kept on shining. Life went on, and as much as I tried to avoid it, it seems that it's found me and I'm ready to start living again. I'm glad you're here. For some unfathomable reason I'm very glad you're here."

"She does more than make me happy." Steve said. "She makes my life complete. I didn't know how much I needed her until I almost lost her. It's hard to explain. She's got this, I don't know what to call it, this energy around her that's calming and passionate at the same time. Like earth and fire. Maybe it's that whole modern day pagan hippie thing she has going on. Whatever it is, it's beautiful."

"She has no idea the effect she has on people," Susan said. "Not a clue. She's kept me out of more trouble than you can ever imagine. She's got this aura around her, something that let's people know she's not ordinary. Micheal Alden knew it the minute he met her, and I have a feeling you did, too."

"Kono says she has magic in her blood. Five minutes after he meets her, he's calling a woman from Louisiana a menehune."

"She is kind of magic. So's that loony sister of hers. I think it must run in their family. Did you notice they could finish each others sentences? I've heard of that happening with twins, but not with two women born ten years apart."

Vinnie was a younger, brasher, version of Maggie and a Gulf War veteran as well.

"Vinnie is unusual to say the least," Steve said, still slightly annoyed at finding a very hung over Kono trying to sneak out of his house at four in the morning with the help of an equally hungover Vinnie. "You're right, put those two together and strange things happen." Especially when you throw yourself into the mix, First Sergeant, he thought.

"I have a feeling that Bahrain is never going to be the same again. One dimwit from the Aussie Navy propositioned both of them. Said he'd always wanted to do twins and they were close enough. They drank him under the table, stripped off his uniform, and dumped him on the pier in his underwear. I disavow any knowledge of the incident."

"What was she like?" Steve asked. "Before the war. Before she got hurt. Before the PTSD."

Susan stared off into the distance, trying to remember. It was as if the War in the desert and afterwards, the battle with cancer, had erased large portions of her memory, taking away too many of the good ones and leaving the nightmares in place. She had the same shrink at Walter Reed that Maggie had. Neither of them had been willing patients. Both had be ordered to go as a requirement for reenlistment. The doctor, thankfully one of the few female shrinks on staff, was a firm believer in two things. One was taking all the bad memories, shoving them into a box, and locking them away behind a steel door where no one could get to them unless they were needed. The other thing was primal scream therapy accompanied by smashing glass. Susan couldn't vouch for the former, but the primal scream thing just plain worked.

"That's a hard one." she said, staring off into the distance. "She has always had this innocence about her. Something otherworldly. Something that the rest of the world couldn't touch. And she was fun to be around. Always laughing, always joking. She could tell a story, especially after she'd had a few drinks. I swear Micheal use to buy her drinks just to keep her talking. The more she drank, the more the Southern came out. She'd be telling stories and everyone would be laughing and Micheal would be happy to just sit there and listen to her, knowing all the while that he was going to be the one who got to take her home. He was ten years older than she was, and outranked her so much that it could have been a problem if they hadn't been assigned to different units. He was MI and she was a print journalist. He also encouraged her to write."

"Write about what?" he asked.

"Anything other that what she was writing about for the paper. She's got a brilliant imagination trapped inside that little head of hers. She has an entire world of her own making in there. Or it was until that damned war came along. Micheal kept encouraging her to write it all down. He was convinced he was married to a female Faulkner."

"Was it a happy marriage?" he asked, jealous of dead man, as irrational as that sounded.

"The only problem they ever had was the obvious one. They wanted kids. Maggie couldn't have them. She miscarried twice and then Lydia came way too early. That placenta abruption thing. She nearly bled to death. The docs wanted to do a hysterectomy then, only she refused. She wanted to give it one more try. Only Micheal got killed and she got hurt." Susan reached out to take Steve's hand. "I'm sorry. I know she really wanted the baby. She never even got to tell you."

He answered slowly, as if the words were being drug out by force. "After I found out, after Compton had found the card from the hospital and Duke brought it over to me, for about an hour, I hoped, god knows I hoped, that everything would work out. That she'd be okay and in February we'd be parents. Now I'm just glad she's still alive." He reached up to gently stroke Susan's bruised cheek. "I'm glad you're alive, too. I don't think Maggie or Duke would have been able to cope if anything had happened to you."

Susan gave him a sad little smile and got up to get him a fresh cup of tea. "You know, this time, when she starts feeling blue, remind her if it wasn't for her, I'd have never met Duke, Robbie Compton wouldn't be dating Ivory Thompson, Dan Williams would never have married that little sailor, and Grace Thompson wouldn't be seeing Pacita Mendoza."

"That is quite the list. I'm missing something here. Mendoza sounds familiar, I just can't place him right now."

"Could be because he's a she. She works down in your computer lab. Cute little Filipina. Don't look so shocked. Happens in the best families."

Steve shook his head. "Does Colonel Dale know?"

"Colonel Dale has been a firm believer of 'don't ask, don't tell' his entire career. Always said he had more trouble from straight soldiers who though TDY meant "temporary divorce, yahoo!". He doesn't care who sleeps with whom as long as it stays out of his office."

"It looks like I dumped a hell of a mess in his office. Susan, this whole thing is my fault. Chicken wanted to get to me and used you and Maggie to do it. You both could have been killed."

"I've had this same conversation with Duke and I am going to tell you the same thing I told him. Stop that nonsense now! There is no way in hell you could have known what that psycho was planning. He had months to prepare. He just forgot to take a few things into consideration, the biggest being he was under the impression we were helpless females. Oops! Now drink your tea before it gets cold."

Steve drank the tea, noting that the chamomile was a bit earthier tasting than before. He added sugar and lemon and finished the cup. "You are both very special ladies," Steve said, dropping his face into his hands. "Scares the hell out of me to think how close I came to losing her."

"She's going to fine," Susan said. "We can't let her get depressed this time, is all. The damned PTSD isn't going to make this any easier, either. And you, Mr. Supercop, look like you're about to fall over. You need to get some sleep."

"I'll be okay. I need to get back to the hospital."

"No, you need to go to bed. I'm turning Eddie's room into a guest room, only I haven't had a chance to get the posters down yet. I hope you don't mind pictures of scantily clad females."

Steve suddenly felt to sleepy to argue with her and let her show him to the guest room. As it turned out one entire wall of Eddie's room was covered in posters of bikini wearing females. Steve couldn't remember women looking like that when he was twenty. Or at least if they had, they hadn't been at Annapolis.

Susan brought him a pair of Duke's pajama bottoms that were going to be at least three inches too short. He thanked her and undressed after she had closed the door. He got into bed, telling himself he'd only take a short nap.

He didn't wake until the next morning.

Susan was sitting in the swing on the front lanai, reading, when Duke got home. He bent to kiss her, once again thankful that the only injury she had sustained from Big Chicken was a bruised cheek. "How's my magic lady this afternoon?"

"Happier now that you're home," she said, closing her book and setting it on the small table by the swing. "Want a beer?"

"Yes, thank you," he said, sitting down beside her. "I think it's going to take twice as long to retire from HPD than it did to join." Duke had called Susan earlier to tell her he would soon be Five-O's newest detective.

"Just like the Army," Susan said. "Hurry up and wait and while you're at it, fill out these forms in triplicate." She kissed him and went into the house. She returned a few minutes later, carrying two open bottles of ice cold beer. "I take it you're still on loan out to Five-O until all the paperwork gets processed?"

"You got it. The only difference is I'll be wearing a suit to work instead of a uniform. And a tie. I hate ties." He took a long drink of beer. "This is good. Isn't that Steve's car? Where is he?"

"He dropped by a couple of hours ago. He's sleeping in Eddie's room."

"How'd you manage that? Doc Bergman and everyone at Five-O has been trying to get him to take a break for days. I doubt if he's slept more than six hours this entire week."

"Chamomile tea with a generous helping of Valerian root mixed in. I know it was a sneaky thing to do, but he looked like he was ready to pass out. Needs must and all that."

Duke smiled at the tall blonde from Indiana. His Kukana. "You are the only person on this Rock who'd dare drug Steve McGarrett with a cup of dodgy tea."

"He needed to rest. And so do you. We've all had an awful week. The only thing I want is for you to hold me until morning."

He kissed the top of her head. "Given any thought to a wedding date yet?" he asked.

"How about New Year's Day? Start the year off right."

"Good idea. New Year's Day it is. I was thinking maybe a traditional Island wedding on Hilo."

"Duke," Susan said, "I don't care if it's at the Justice of the Peace's office as long as I get to spend the rest of my life with you. I had to travel across three oceans and a couple of continents to find you. You are so not getting away!"

Duke put down his beer and wrapped her in his arms. He tilted her face upwards and kissed her softly. "I'm not going anywhere." he whispered. "Except to take you to the bedroom. Come on, my Kakana. We can discuss the honeymoon afterwards."