Chapter Text
Simple Happiness
There really was something called domestic bliss, Catherine thought idly as she stood in the doorway to the kitchen watching Steve prepare dinner with the precision that only the Navy could instil in someone, and she could not help but smile at it. It was a strange sensation to find something so simple so enjoyable.
The transition had not been easy and she knew she had wandered around the house for several hours in the dead of night aimlessly or ran down the surrounding streets in the past few months but now she realised for the first time in a very long time that she felt contented, and a large part of that contentment was thanks to the man in front of her. There was something beautiful about this homely and domestic side of him.
Steve knew Catherine was there, stood in the doorway, watching him as he sneaked a peek at her through his lashes in between dicing vegetables for their dinner which was going to be a simple chicken stir fry. The happiness that was radiating from her was something he had missed seeing in the last few months but he understood it as the transition had been hard on him too even with Five 0’s creation. No one could begrudge her for the stumbling missteps that she had taken as it was hard to find your place after knowing it for so many years. "Well hello there Miss Rollins." He smiled with a hint of teasing in his voice as he finally decided to break the comfortable silence that had enveloped them.
Catherine's smile grew as he had greeted her the same way years before when they had stolen a few hours in between arriving and departing in a foreign port. "Well hi there sailor." She replied happily although she made no effort to move from where she was.
"You look happy." Steve stated without interrupting his dicing of more vegetables.
"I am." Cath did not hesitate to reply as she really was happy and she felt a lot more settled than she had been in a long time. "What are you making?" She finally moved into the kitchen and stepped in behind him, wrapping her arms around him until her hands were flat on his stomach and she pressed her forehead into the space between his shoulder blades.
"Chicken stir fry." Steve answered as he glanced over his shoulder at her before he resumed his preparation as he only had a carrot to slice and then the chicken to be diced before he started cooking. "No MRE's tonight, I promise." Although he had just had a new shipment of them arrive at the office and had bought them home and stored them in the kitchen cupboard.
Cath laughed lightly before she pressed a light kiss to the fabric of his shirt because of course he would have a cupboard full of MRE's after all she had seen him pass up her homemade Ragù for them before but now she found it endearing as it was a way to retain some sort of attachment to the past. "I thought you were a little insane feasting on them but now... now I can see the appeal of having one from time to time."
"Really?" There was a hint of mirth in his voice as he was sure that she had protested him eating them not that long ago when they were at home. He wiped his hands on the tea towel that was beside the chopping board then turned around in her arms hooking his own arms over her shoulders and pressed his forehead gently against her own.
"Don’t get it into your head that I want to have a candlelight dinner with MRE's served as the main course." Cath paused as he chuckled. "But I get it, needing that connection, that tangible link, between what is quickly becoming the past in the present. I didn’t then but now I do, I understand something that I couldn’t then, not really, not like I do now."
Steve stole a quick kiss before he pulled back slightly making her look up at him. "I know it hasn’t been easy, I know that, and I.... and I am here." The words did not always come easy but he meant them.
Cath's hands ran up the length of his body until she rested them on his shoulders letting her thumb catch on his collarbones. "I know and I’m sorry for all of my craziness the last few months. It’s a strange place to be in but I will tell you right now I like this right here, right now."
"Oh so you like me in the kitchen then?" Steve teased as he purposefully rubbed his body against hers after deciding there was nothing more that he could say as there really wasn’t any need to apologise, and he knew that he had been the same way as Danny had not hesitated to point it out in those first few very trying months.
"Never thought I would use these words but I am very much enjoying this domestic bliss that we have created." Cath smiled broadly and stole another quick kiss.
"Domestic bliss, huh?" Steve smiled as it certainly was not a term he would have used but it really did signify just how contented she was with things.
Cath smiled shyly before she retracted herself from him stepping back. "I very much like this, so much so that after dinner I think we should move this domestic bliss up to the bedroom." She made sure her voice was low and sultry sounding knowing just how effective it was on him.
Steve’s smile grew and it turned into a smirk as he certainly could get into this whole 'domestic bliss' program. "Yes Ma'am."
Cath swatted his arm even as she laughed whilst making her way out of the kitchen knowing that if she stayed then dinner would either not get cooked or would get burned and neither of those things were a factor in her plans of their newly found domestic bliss.
