Fic: Welcome Home (Comfortember)

[csi_sanders1129]

Title: Welcome Home
Chapters: 1/1
Author:csi_sanders1129
Genre: Romance.
Ratings: K+
Word Count: 1116
Pairings/Characters: Steve McGarrett/Danny Williams
Synopsis: Five months, twenty two days and sixteen hours after he leaves Hawaii, Steve comes home.
Comments: Written for Comfortember 2020, Prompt: Baking. Episode tag for S10E22. Comments and kudos would be awesome. Enjoy!

Five months, twenty two days and sixteen hours after he leaves Hawaii, Steve comes home.

He doesn't know exactly what he expects to find when he gets there. He drives through a familiar neighborhood, pulls into the familiar driveway and is somehow surprised to find that the house looks exactly the same. He feels like it shouldn't – he feels like something should have changed, he's changed.

For one, he's realized he didn't need to go anywhere.

That thing he'd been looking for, that something missing he'd been so sure he desperately needed to leave in order find, he'd realized almost immediately that he'd walked away from it on the beach the day he'd left. And now, he doesn't know if he's lost it entirely, if he's too late, if he's missed his chance with Danny.

Sure, they've talked since Steve left. Frequently. They'd kept up a running text conversation from the minute Steve settled in on the plane. Called at least every other day. Steve sent random pictures – the sunset on a beach in Mexico, a shot of himself in front of the Coliseum in Rome, a snapshot of the view from his hotel room in Paris, the city all lit up at night. Danny would send back pictures of Eddie, or of a plate of malasadas, or of Grace and Charlie when Grace had come home for the summer. There'd been one of the three of them together on the beach and that one Steve had saved. He'd made it his phone background, and missed Hawaii that much more.

But none of that means that Danny hasn't moved on with his life. It isn't like Steve could expect him to just sit here and wait for him to figure his shit out. He'd been the one to walk away when it was clear Danny didn't want him to go – all of the things he should have said on the beach that day remained unsaid, after all.

His phone dings with an incoming message and he realizes he's been sitting in the car for a solid ten minutes. 'Get in here already, you big goof,' it reads.

Steve takes a deep, steadying breath, steels himself, and gets out of the car.

Surprisingly, when he finally does make his way inside, the house is empty.

For a second, he feels the edges of panic creep back in – the idea that something happened, that recurring nightmare that someone took Danny away from him again, but there's no sign of a disturbance.

Another text comes through, this time a picture of an empty chair, waiting for him. The panic fades, and Steve manages a smile.

Danny's right where Steve left him.

Maybe he isn't too late.

He moves through his own house, and for once he doesn't see all the ghosts that time has trapped in it, just the echoes of the life Danny's built up inside of it – Charlie's scribbled drawings stuck on the fridge, a new blanket on the couch that Grace must have brought home from college, Eddie's toys scattered on his bed in the corner.

Steve heads out to the beach, follows the familiar path to their spot, where Danny's waiting, staring out at the ocean. Eddie spots him, then, let's out a happy little 'whuff' and runs up to greet him. Steve pauses to appease the dog for a moment before continuing on to Danny.

Steve approaches slowly, a little unsure of the welcome he'll get. It's clear Charlie isn't here, no one from 5-0, either. He'd left it up to Danny who to tell that about his return and he'd evidently wanted it just the two of them. That's either… very good or very bad.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Danny asks, still looking out at the waves as they crest and crash, the last traces of the setting sun disappearing on the horizon.

"Yeah," Steve answers, finding the nerve to add, "Just now, actually."

Danny laughs a little, and Steve can just make out that small smirk of his playing at the corner of his lips when he looks over his shoulder at him. "You know, I was kinda hoping you'd say something like that." Finally, he turns around, meets Steve's eyes. And it's not until then, really, that he realizes just how much he missed seeing little things like that in person – Danny's smile, the determined look in his pale green eyes. Danny's hand lands on his arm, warm and strong, pulling him in closer

With the other man finally close enough, he pulls Danny into the closest hug he can manage. He holds on tight, head resting against Danny's shoulder, reveling in the arms that curl around his back, holding on just as fiercely. After a long moment, there's a kiss, and Steve isn't sure exactly which of them made that move, only that he's got his lips pressed to Danny and he feels lighter than he has in more than a decade, like that thing he went off to find finally slotted itself into place. He steals another kiss and another and another, until finally Danny breaks apart to offer up a typical Danny quip. Steve missed those, too, they'd been hard to come by with their limited communications.

"Next time you wander off to Paris or Rome or Mexico or wherever else you went, you're taking me with you, I hope you know."

"Wouldn't have it any other way," Steve laughs, forehead still pressed to Danny's. He contemplates claiming another kiss, but something catches his eye.

There's a cake sitting on the table between their chairs.

Steve stares at the haphazard green lettering atop a layer of equally haphazard white icing. It is covered in a truly absurd about of sprinkles, and he stifles a laugh.

"Charlie helped," Danny explains, though that much was clear. "I needed something to do while I was waiting for you and… well, it kept me from staring at the clock for the last eight hours."

Steve knows Danny's made the cake enough times over the years to know the recipe without having to look up any of the measurements. It was his mother's favorite cake for every occasion; she made it for every birthday, every holiday, every visitor. It was just a simple yellow cake with a few special touches to make it her own. When they'd moved from Jersey to Oahu, Danny had committed it to memory since cakes from the mainland would be in short supply.

He glances from the cake's message to Danny's face, open and easy to read, and finds they're both saying the same thing. It's the best thing Steve's ever seen.

'Welcome Home!'