When her phone went off, Kate had been pinning a 'welcome back' sign in the living room. She smiled, seeing Lucy's name.
“Hey, love. You waiting for your transport?" Kate asked, answering the phone.
“Yea, um… I’m not gonna make it back in time for your ceremony,” Lucy says without preamble, “I’m so sorry, babe.”
Kate sighs silently, "It's okay. Has your return been postponed, or is it just a transport delay?"
“Transport, Navy accommodations aren’t as fancy as the FBI jets y’all have,” Lucy says.
"Okay, well, do you have a new time frame?" Kate asks; she isn't sad that Lucy is missing the award ceremony; she missed Lucy and just wants her back in Hawaii.
"Just a few hours; I'll probably get in late, I don't want you to wait up, but I also didn't want to scare you when I come in late.”
"I'll stay up, I miss you, and I wanna hear all about your adventures.”
“You’ve heard all of them,” Lucy chuckles.
"Not true; I don't know what the medical emergency was from a couple of weeks ago," Kate says, still remembering the phone call with Lucy that had ended with an alarm that said it wasn't a drill.
"Oh well, that is a good one," Lucy agrees, "but I think before that tale, I wanna do something a bit less vocal.”
Kate heard the innuendo, “I don’t know, you can get pretty vocal when I do that thing with my tongue.”
"Kate!" Lucy says in mock horror before continuing, "well, it is good. And it's been so long. I need to have my hands on you and your hands on mine."
“I need that too, so just one more day?” Kate confirms.
“One more day,” Lucy agrees.
"You could always wake me up when you get in, and we could…." Kate trails off when she hears a knock at the door. She walked to the door and opened it to see Jane Tennent standing in a crisp pantsuit.
At Kate’s surprise at seeing her, Tennent said, “I thought you deserved a driver for the night. The FBI’s Medal of Valor is a big deal.”
“Is that Tennent?” Lucy asked over the phone.
“Yea,” Kate said into the phone and then to Tennent, “It really isn’t necessary.”
“That’s what family does,” Tennent reminds Kate.
"Uh, okay, I just need to finish getting ready," Kate says to Tennent, who nods, and she goes to the bedroom.
"I can't believe I'm gonna miss you in one of your pencil skirts with your hair in the tight DIA Officer Whistler bun," Lucy says sadly.
“My what?” Kate asks, “Is that really how you see me having my hair in a bun? DIA Officer Whistler?”
"Oh yea, all business, no fun. It's crazy hot," Lucy confirms.
Kate laughs, “I love you. I need to go so I can finish getting ready.”
"Okay, I love you too, babe, and I am crazy proud of you."
They hung up, and Kate finished getting ready before heading back to the living room to Tennent, where Tennent was staring out the balcony door looking at Kate and Lucy's view.
"I think you need to host our tequila gatherings sometimes," Tennent says, nodding towards the view.
"Yea, I would love to," Kate says, heading over to the kitchen where she had set her rings down the night before.
"You ready?" Tennent asks. Kate looked over at the flowers she had bought for Lucy's return and couldn't help but be sad that Lucy was going to miss the ceremony. The last four months had been hard but good for them. But Kate missed Lucy and wanted her to be back already.
"She'll be back soon," Tennent says, correctly interrupting the silence.
"I know, but the delay so close to her return is just…." Kate let the sentence trail off.
"It was for me too, when I was meant to come home, and it got delayed; somehow, the extra day or two were always worse than the months away."
Kate nodded, and they left and headed toward where the ceremony was taking place. Tennent and Kate parted ways, and Kate went to ASAC Curtis, who was in a suit along with the SAC. The speeches were long and about her and it took immense willpower to not squirm at the attention. Eventually, Kate had to make her own speech which sounded just as cheesy and awful to her now as it had when she wrote it. She just did what was needed for them to complete their mission and get a dangerous gang member off the streets.
Then came a lot of handshakes, and eventually, she got over to where Tennent, Jesse, and Kai had been seated, and after a double take, she saw Ernie, who was wearing pants, shoes, and a blazer. He still wore a Hawaiian shirt, but the pants and shoes alone surprised her.
"Wow, Ernie," Kate says, not knowing how to convey her thoughts without sounding rude.
"I know, right. Pants. Didn't think he owned a pair other than his court ones," said a familiar southern accent. One Kate knew very well. Kate spun around to confirm her suspicion.
“Lucy!” Kate says and throws her arms around her girlfriend. And Lucy returned the hug just as enthusiastically.
“Surprise!” Lucy says.
"How?" Kate asks, noticing that Lucy's team wanders off to give them some privacy.
"I thought I would surprise you. Ernie picked me up, and I got these for my brave warrior lady girlfriend," Lucy says, turning and picking up the flowers sitting on a chair behind her.
Kate smiles, "my favorite," and leans in to smell the flowers.
“I know,” Lucy says and holds Kate’s hand that didn’t have the flowers in them.
“Why didn’t you just come home? We could have ridden together. Snuck out without anyone noticing,” Kate says.
"Exactly, I want you to enjoy this moment. I mean, it's not every day you get awarded the Medal of Valor. It's a big deal, and I wanted you to enjoy it." Lucy explains.
"You still could have told me you were on the island," Kate mutters.
“That would have ruined the surprise,” Lucy smiles.
Kate leans forward and kisses Lucy, "I'm glad you made it."
"Me too; I really am proud of you, Kate."
They smiled at each other, turned, and headed back toward Lucy's team to enjoy the rest of the night with their family.