Title: Sometimes, you just need to be held

Rating: G

Characters: Steve, Kono, Friend!ship

Summary: Missing scene of sorts for the end of episode 6 - Ko'olauloa. Kono is subjected to an unexpected moment of care.

Disclaimer: Don't own them, but it would be awesome wouldn't it? to own the snarkiest, coolest, most awesome team ever to walk the earth?

"What are you still doing here?"

Kono looked up from where she leaned over her desk, looking over the last of her paperwork before she filed it away. Steve leaned on the doorframe and was watching with a weird look on his face. Not the 'angry face', she surmised as she stood straighter and waved a hand over the desk, more concerned, watchful. The kind of face Chin usually gave her.

"I had some stuff to finish up," she explained.

"You can do that tomorrow." Steve informed her, entering the room fully. He wasn't a stickler for the paperwork, everyone kept up so he didn't need to hound them on it. Anyway, he figured he'd leave the hounding to Danny. He had the technique down perfect. "Thought you'd have gone home after-,"

He tailed off the sentence and looked about a little awkwardly at bringing up the death and funeral of Ian. Kono looked away for a moment as well, controlling herself. Grief was a weird emotion that no-one ever got used to and Ian's death was still fresh. She couldn't get the vision of him falling from his board so, violently, like his whole body had taken the force of the bullet, the waves still moving his board forward with their speed. The weird arc of his form as he hit the water, board spiralling out of control, waves covering him. Squeezing her eyes shut she pushed the memory away, enough to compose herself.

"Yeah well, I knew I had stuff here to do so," she gave a little shrug, biting back the tears.

She didn't usually give in so easy to tears, but the last few days the threat of them lingered along with the grief. Like a knot in her stomach, a lump in her throat, itchiness at the back of her eyes, head heavy from trying to keep it together. It was exhausting. Dropping the file on the desk she sighed, because she knew it wasn't because of paperwork she'd come back. She just didn't want to go home, alone with her thoughts and grief and trying to figure out why she felt how she felt and why she couldn't shake the feeling. A tear sprang into her eye and blurred her vision and she chastised herself for it as she angrily wiped it away with the back of her hand. Just what the boss needed, her crying, again. Steve wasn't exactly the type who seemed comfortable around emotional outbursts, unless it was Danny letting his mouth go again about something he'd done wrong. Steve usually found those amusing.

"I'm nearly finished, I'll be gone soon," the lump in her throat made her voice sound strange and she could have cried just because of that. Because it was embarassing, not just for her but for Steve and that just made her more self concious. She expected him to make an awkward exit before the tears really flew but instead he had drawn nearer.

"Hey, come here," he said, putting a hand on her shoulder and turning her round to him. Before she had a chance to realise what was going on he'd pulled her into his arms and held her there. She wasn't sure what to do with this unexpected show but he was telling her it was okay, everything would be fine and she wasn't sure if it was what she needed to hear or just simply what people told each other in these circumstances. She found herself crying against his chest, grateful of the comfort.

"It's okay Kono, it gets easier, doesn't exactly go away but it gets easier." He tells her and she realises that he knows, he understands because he really did lose a father. Murdered by a cold blooded killer and she feels a small stab of guilt about it because here she is acting like she's the only one hurting in the world.

"I'm sorry," she apologises, for the guilt, for the loss, for being ridiculously emotional which isn't at all her style usually. But grief and loss does that to a person, changes them and makes them not themselves for a little while.

She realises that in the last few days this is what she's needed, just a hug and a comforting word to reassure her that the world puts itself to rights eventually. When the haze of tears subsides and it stops hurting so much. In fact the guys have been what's helped her hold it together, Danny's little pep talk which puts him into great practice for when Grace is older. Chin's stoic quietness and watchful eye which always puts her into a settled ease. Steve being on the same wavelength would be a surprise if it weren't for the fact he knows exactly what shes going through because he's already gone through it. The hug came totally out of left field but it proves he is an actual person and not some emotionless machine.

He pulls back only when she's stopped crying and she gives him a weak smile of gratefulness. There should be a tense moment of 'what now' but he gives her shoulder a squeeze and pulls her towards the door.

"Come on, lets get Chin and Danny and go for a drink before the next bad guys show up and spoil the quiet."