Some Kind of Curse (Hawaii Five-0)

Chapter Three

Kris and Steve spend a few hours with Duke and the chief of police arranging their father's funeral for the next morning. They decide to bury him at punchbowl, as he was a veteran, and many people on the island considered him a hero for being such a great cop. Steve and Kris ultimately decide that they will put up a plaque for him at the family mausoleum next to his wife and parents, who all have a plaque there too. Oddly enough, the only McGarrett body buried there is of Jean, the widowed wife of Ensign Steven McGarrett, who died in the Pearl Harbour attacks. Once the meeting is over and everything is set in stone (thankfully HPD was already mostly done with their funeral plans for their father, because they knew that Steve and Kris were overseas at the time of his death), Steve and Kris head back to their hotel to finally get out of their uniforms and relax for the night. They end up grabbing a bite to eat again at the restaurant and have a few beers to unwind before heading back to their room for the night. During dinner, Steve steps out to make a phone call to Mary to inform her of their father's death, and to ask her to come to the funeral. Mary, who essentially grew up without any parents (she was only ten when their mom died and their father sent them away), said she would think about it, and then hung up.

The next morning, Kris find herself reluctant to get out of her bed after a night of minimal sleep. Her mind was racing all night, just trying not to think about her father's funeral in a few hours, and how miserable it truly is to bury both of your parents before the age of fourty. Neither of her parents will ever be able to be grandparents if Kris or her siblings have any kids down the road, and they will never get to see how their kids have grown up in so many ways. Deep down, it breaks Kris' heart to think about, but she knows that it is something that is completely out of her control. All she can do now is take care of her siblings and make sure that they keep the memory of their parents alive and (hopefully) make them proud.

Kris continues to lie in bed for the next little while, trying to muster up all the power and courage in her to get up while Steve goes out for a run to try and clear his mind. Kris would love to go with him, but she can't risk popping her stitches quite yet. Half an hour into Steve's run, Kris hauls her ass out of bed and trudges into the bathroom to freshen up a little bit and make herself look presentable for the funeral today. After washing her face, Kris looks at herself in the mirror for the first time in a while. Her brown hair that was recently cut (by Steve during a little bit of off time on base) into a choppy bob to stay out of her face during missions, and be as low maintenance as possible, is now a mess from her restless (lack of) sleep. She notices a few more wrinkles on her forehead and around her eyes- something that comes with aging and stress, she assumes. But her eyes... oh boy her eyes. Specifically, the bags under her sad, blue eyes that prove she hasn't slept in a while look rather daunting. If she had any makeup right now, she sure as hell would be using it to make her look like she was a living human being and not an exhausted person who probably hasn't had a good night's sleep in the last seventeen years of her life. Taking off her pyjama shirt, she sighs and takes a closer look at the rest of her body. Her chest is now littered with black and blue bruises from the bullets she took in her vest yesterday- she doesn't dare to touch them because she knows that it will hurt like a bitch. Kris sighs and looks at her left shoulder, which is still dressed in a white bandage that's probably due for a change. She carefully takes off the dressing and winces as she touches the tender skin around her bullet wound. From there, she grabs some saline, a new dressing and some medical tape from her medkit, then applies a new dressing, thinking about how this wound is going to lead to yet another scar on her body. Throughout her career in the Navy and Military, Kris' body has slowly begun to be covered in scars from bullet wounds, shrapnel, cuts, broken bones and the occasional surgery. It's just one of the joys of being on the front lines with the men and going out on dangerous missions all the time; Steve has plenty of scars and aches too from it. One thing that Kris loves about her body though, is her tattoos. Each upper arm has a tattoo, and she loves to look at them whenever she gets the chance. Her left arm has a beautiful custom Navy piece that she got with Steve when they graduated from the academy, and her right arm has a black and white mandala with some thick black stripes near her elbow. Kris then gets changed into a new pair of underwear and a sports bra, and washes her face, hoping it makes her look and feel less tired.