In Danger and In Love

Authors note: Hey guys! So... yeah, I'm crazy. Hope you enjoy my craziness nonetheless, okay? This was just a little something that was stuck in my head, something I'm not planning to extend for too long, don't worry. And thank you so much for all the alerts/favs/reviews I got for my stories, it really gets me going. Leave a review if you can, okay sugars?

Hope you like it!

…..

"We can't."

The words resonate through the room, hanging heavy in the air as they both take them in, in silence, without saying anything. Kono shifts slightly, pushing away from him to look up at his face, the dark lines under his eyes clear even in the dim light of the room.

"Why?"

She knows she shouldn't be asking this, knows they've gone down this road a thousand times, knows there's no point in bringing it up again, but the words leave her mouth nonetheless, and she isn't all that surprised when Steve sighs and lays on his back next to her, lips pursed into a thin line.

"Kono-"

"No, I know." She cuts him off, laying her head on the pillow. "It just feels wrong. Keeping it from them."

He frowns, turning his head towards her.

"Because they're like family." She clarifies, staring into his deep blue eyes. "I just don't wanna hide anymore."

He closes his eyes, exhaling slowly and turns on his side, holding himself up on his elbow. "But we have to."

"Why?"

"Kono."

"Just-" she huffs, shaking her head. She looks down. "You're right. You're right."

His stomach churns unpleasantly at the sight of her, his arms coming to wrap around her body with a practiced ease, pulling her towards him. "You ok?"

"Yeah." She answers promptly, closing her eyes and moving closer to him. "I'm okay."

They spend a while like that, wrapped up in each other in the darkness and quiet of the room, until she speaks up again. "Do you regret it?"

She always asks the toughest questions.

Does he regret it? How the hell should he know? He wasn't the only one involved here.

It's such a loaded question that he takes his time, going through every possible scenario in his head, but of course, he ends up going for the truth, coincidentally the only scenario that might get him in trouble.

"Yes."

She arches an eyebrow at him, lifting her head. "What?"

He looks back at her, totally impassive and he isn't even trying to take it back.

"You regret this? All of this?" she asks, motioning in the general direction of their bodies and the pile of discarded clothes next to the bed, her voice rising slightly.

He swallows, eyes unrelenting. "If I could go back in time, I wouldn't have done it."

Somebody please tell her he's just trying to get slapped.

She scoffs, almost laughs, even, and is pushing him away and making a move to get up in a second.

He's quicker than her, though, grabbing her arm and throwing her back in the bed. "Where are you going?"

"Where do you think?" she throws back with a biting edge, struggling against the arm pinning her to her place. "I'm going home."

He glares at her, grip tightening on her arm. "You're so fucking insufferable."

Her hand is already midway through the air to hit him square in the face when she feels his weight shift and he's suddenly above her, hands on her shoulders to make sure she doesn't move despite her efforts to throw him off her.

She glares right back at him, an angry fire burning in her eyes. "Well, if I'm so fucking insufferable then, why don't you let me go home and forget about this whole damn thing, Commander?"

He clenches his jaw so hard he's afraid he might break it.

"I said," he starts, completely ignoring her. "If I could go back in time, I wouldn't have done it." He stops, hands gripping her shoulders slightly harder when she tries to struggle. He continues to glare. "I never said I wanted to go back in time, did I?"

Her eyes are still hard, but he sees the littlest bit of confusion creeping in. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means," you hard headed woman, he wants to add, but for the sake of coming out of this argument alive, doesn't, "that I regret starting this. Because now I know I'm not gonna be able to stop." He shakes his head with a sneer. "Or go back in time. But even if I could do it all over again and not fuck my subordinate, I'm not sure I'd want to go back. Do you see my point now?"

The air around them is thick, heavy with unspoken words and anxiety. She's still staring at him, big, silent brown eyes locking with his and the grip he has on her shoulders loosens momentarily, only for her to have him on his back in the next second.

It's exactly in these moments, where she surprises him and goes all kickass – in bed - on him, where he knows he wouldn't be able to go back.

"That's-" she pauses, pursing her lips, her full weight on top of him to make sure he stays where he is. "Not exactly sweet. But since we've all figured out you're too fucking scared to let someone in your life because you're afraid they'll disappear in the air the next moment, I'll settle for that."

And since he really doesn't know what else to do when she's all up in his face, the teasing tone back in her voice and her eyes full of mirth and warm and home, he kisses her. Hard.

Because somehow, she can always know more about him than himself.

He feels the tension leaving her body, the hand that isn't already buried in her hair moving to the small of her back, pressing her down onto him. Kono giggles.

"Seriously?" she mumbles against his lips, letting herself get rolled over onto her back.

"Well," he kisses her again, pulling back almost immediately. "It's been over an hour."

The room isn't so quiet after that.

…

"Hey! Where were you?"

"None of your business, Daniel." Steve answers, making his way to his office.

Danny's eyebrows shoot up. "None of my business?" he laughs sarcastically. "Oh boy, now that's rich. Exactly, like you flying off to Japan without telling anyone isn't my business, or you leaving us alone to rule this place isn't my business, or-"

"Danny." Steve cuts him off, sighing around his coffee. "What do you want?"

Danny stops rambling, squinting his eyes at him. "You are late."

"It's not the first time." Steve reminds him.

"Well, the other time you were late you got an unexpected, quite unpleasant nightly visit from five ninjas in black masks, and I'm pretty sure that didn't happen today."

Steve rolls his eyes, walking through the door to his office with Danny close on his heels. "No, it didn't."

"Ok." Danny acknowledges, waiting for Steve to sit down to continue. "So. Why are you late?"

Steve purses his lips, looks towards Danny with annoyance written all over his face. "I overslept."

Danny laughs. "That's good, coming from the man who gets up before the fucking sun."

Steve sighs, placing his coffee on the desk and turning on the computer. "Danny, I overslept, end of story."

Danny nods, looking down at his feet. He tilts his head. "Did you oversleep with someone?"

He's not surprised when a pen comes flying his way.

"Hey guys." Chin steps into the office, file in hand. "We got a case."

Danny holds the ramble off for the sake of their duty. Thank God for small miracles.

….

"A man gets shot in your bar and you didn't see anything?" Steve raises an eyebrow suspiciously, eyeing the bartender.

"No." she shakes her head. "The only thing I heard was the gun-shot and then everyone rushing to leave the bar. This is gonna be really bad for business." She nods, looking at Kono as if she's waiting for Kono to back up her theory.

"Ok, then." Kono says in a not so friendly tone.

"Give us a call if you remember anything." Steve says and gives her the card.

The fucking Barbie behind the counter gets a sudden glint in her eyes. "This your number?"

Kono raises an eyebrow. Uh-oh.

"Yeah." Steve answers, showing no signs of wanting to clarify further. "Like I said, give us a call."

"Can I give you a call?" Lani, they eventually find out is the bartender's name, asks with a bite of her lip.

Oh please. Someone shoot her.

Steve's eyebrows shoot up, casting a confused glance at Kono. "Uh, yeah."

"You know, you should stop by sometime." Lani continues, smiling sweetly. Kono has to contain a snort. "Maybe we can meet up after my shift. You single?"

Oh, honey, are you fucking serious?

"Yes, I am, but if you don't mind, we have work to do." Steve says with finality, and they're already halfway out the door when Lani realizes what just happened.

Outside, though, is kind of a different story.

"Are you kidding me?" Kono asks as soon as they're out of range, making him turn around to look at her.

"What?" he asks back, genuinely confused.

"What the hell happened back there?" Kono furrows her brow, and for fuck's sake, she can't understand why she's acting like a hysterical girlfriend who just found her guy in bed with someone else.

Steve frowns. "You were there, I'm pretty sure you saw me turn her down."

Kono blinks at him, as if she's so stunned she can't even talk. "You're single?"

There's a moment of silence between the two before Steve scoffs, looking away from her. "So that's what this is about."

"You're single?" she repeats, almost a squeak this time.

"Kono," Steve starts with a warning tone, looking her deep in the eyes. "Let it go."

"What-"

"Kono." He says again, with a little more edge to it. "Thisisn't the time."

She wants to kill him. She wants to fucking kill him.

She walks past him and towards their car, getting in her seat and buckling up, waiting for him to get in so they can leave. She sees him hesitate before sighing and climbing up to his seat, starting the car and driving away.

Despite the constant glances he throws her way throughout the drive back to HQ, she remains silent, jaw tense and mouth pressed into a thin line.

….

"Hey." Danny greets, halting to a stop at the smart table. "Everything ok?"

Kono cats a sidelong glance at Steve, who still seems totally focused on whatever he's looking over, and nods back at Danny. "Yeah. Everything's fine."

Danny raises an eyebrow. "Ok. Good." He goes to stand on the edge of the table, waving a file over in his hand. "We got a suspect. Mr. John Taylor. Our victim, Henry Watson, owed Mr. John twenty thousand dollars." Danny grins. "Hell of a motive, huh?"

Kono raises her eyebrows. "Yeah. Why did he even owe him that kind of money?"

"Gambling." Danny says, looking between the two. "I'm guessing Taylor here got a little tired of waiting."

"Yeah," Steve interrupts, walking over to Danny and grabbing the file out of his hand. "Good thing we can prove he was in the bar."

"Wait, how did you know the cameras caught Taylor?"

"Chin called me," Steve answers, already grabbing his gun from the table and ignoring the raised eyebrow he gets from Kono. "I was just waiting for you to get here. I'm going to the suspect's last known address, see if we get anything."

Danny nods. "You need back up?"

"No, I'm going in alone. Call me if anything comes up." Steve calls back, and then he disappears behind the elevator's door.

Danny purses his lips. "He doesn't seem very happy."

Kono looks at him sideways before turning back to the smart table. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know. Sounds tense. Curt. Sharp. The Navy SEAL Steve, not the usual aneurism Steve." Danny explains, hands already waving around.

Kono suppresses a laugh.

"Did Catherine stop by?"

"No." Kono says, and tries not to blush at the speed she says it with.

"Oh, ok. I'll just ask him when he gets here."

Kono nods but doesn't say anything further.

Danny's already walking out when he stops and calls her name. "You sure you're ok?"

Kono musters a smile. "Yeah brah. Don't worry."

"Brah? Really?"

"Would you prefer haole?"

Danny laughs. "I got it water woman. Let me know if Chin calls, ok?"

"Ok."

The sound of his office door closing is the last thing heard before the HQ suddenly turns very quiet.

….

The whole neighborhood looks bad. Houses decaying, guys looking at him like a hawk when they notice the badge, girls on the corner giving him a (kind of scary, really) onceover. It creeps him out.

He should have talked to Kono. A shill runs up his spine at the thought that's she's probably mad as fuck at him right now. He does not want to face angry Kono.

Last time that happened, she didn't talk to him for a week and a half. And there were one too many coffee accidents that required him to go back to his house to change shirts.

He shakes his head. Not the time to think about it. Steve checks the GPS on his phone. This is the house.

It looks abandoned. The roof is one step away from collapsing, he's sure, and the door looks like it would be blown off its hinges by a small breeze.

He frowns, and the gun's drawn and in his hand in a second. He looks around, eyes hard and focused, and climbs the three steps that lead to the porch, carefully. Once there, something stops him in his tracks.

He crouches down; alert to everything around him before he eyes the drops near the wooden bench.

Blood.

His finger tightens on the trigger, getting up in no time and ready to enter the house.

The idea for backup doesn't even cross his mind.

It should have.

"Commander!"

He has exactly one second to turn around before he feels something hit his head full force. And then everything goes black.

TBC…

Authors note: Been a while since I've left a chapter in a cliffhanger. Hope you liked this, and see you in the next chapter!

Thanks a bunch to Sidalee, Tiana-P, teenycee and h50rookie. They have been so sweet to me, and without them this wouldn't have happened, so thank you so much!

See you soon!