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As the funeral ended, the members of Five-0 came to offer their condolences to Steve. Kono gave him a hug and a kiss. Chin shook his hand. But it was Danny he really needed.
Without a word, Danny opened his arms and enveloped Steve in a bear hug. Steve accepted the hug gratefully, and then he started to cry. He hadn't cried for Freddie before, but now that they had recovered his remains, it was finally real.
Danny held him, parted his back and whispered to him, "It's okay. I'm here. Let it out."
Steve did just that, safe in his partner's arms.
A few hours later, at Steve's house....
"It meant a lot to me, you being there today, " Steve said to Danny. "You didn't know him, but you were there anyway."
"I know you," was Danny's reply. Steve had said the same to him at Meka's funeral. Then Danny said, "You loved him."
"Yeah, I said that. I told his daughter that I did." Steve didn't understand what his partner was getting at.
"No, I mean you loved him. Not as a fellow SEAL, not as a brother in arms. You loved him."
Steve was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "You're right. I did love him."
"Want to talk about it?" Danny asked.
Steve hesitated at first. He'd never told anyone about his relationship with Freddie. He'd hidden it because of "don't ask, don't tell." But things had changed, and he realized that he wanted to talk about it after keeping quiet for all these years.
The whole story came pouring out. Their relationship had begun soon after Steve stopped Freddie from quitting the SEALS. They'd had to hide it, of course, which had caused a lot of stress on them. They'd both kept their girlfriends in order to maintain their cover. Even today, Catherine didn't know that Steve had been sleeping with Freddie while he was seeing her. That was one of the reasons he'd tried to stop her from going with him to retrieve the body.
Eventually the strain of trying to keep both the Navy and his girlfriend from finding out about his relationship with Steve had caused Freddie to break things off. A few days later he'd announced that his girlfriend was pregnant and that he was going to marry her; that was the day he was killed.
Steve was crying again as he finished the story, so Danny took him in his arms and held him. When Steve recovered his composure, Danny was going to release him, but Steve held on. Then he kissed Danny.
"Whoa," Danny said. "Steve, what are you doing?"
"Sorry," Steve said, looking ashamed. "I shouldn't have done that."
"Look at me, Babe," Danny said. "It's not that I didn't like it. I just think this is the wrong time for it. Your emotions are pretty raw right now, and I don't want to take advantage of you when you're vulnerable."
"That's a pretty speech, Danny, but what does it mean?"
"You just buried a man you loved. For all I know, maybe you still love him."
Steve sighed. "I will always love Freddie. But I've made my peace with his memory. I've wanted you for a long time, but I didn't make a move because I felt like I was betraying Freddie somehow. I don't feel that way anymore. I laid him to rest today."
Danny was still uncertain. "Steve...."
Steve kissed him before he could say anything else.
Danny pushed him away with reluctance. "You still have a girlfriend."
"Catherine isn't really my girlfriend. More like a friend with benefits. But I'll break it off with her. Besides, what about you and Gabby?"
"Gabby was a fling. A brief one. It's over." He looked at Steve. "What do you want, Steve? What are we doing?"
Taking Danny's hands in his, Steve said, "I want you to be my partner off the job as well as on the job. I want to wake up next to you in the morning and fall asleep next to you at night." He looked into Danny's eyes. "I love you, Danno."
"Oh, you just had to call me that, didn't you," Danny laughed as he threw himself into Steve"s arms. "I love you, too."
END