Fic: Malasada's H5Obigbang chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Scaling Mauna Kea (and making it down the other side)
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When he finally hopped into the helicopter he caught the tail end of Kono’s effort to contort her body into the front seat beside the pilot. Chin had a pair of headphones ready and as soon as Steve slammed the door shut he dragged them over his ears.
“Let’s go!” he repeated the order from earlier but the pilot was clearly on the ball as the chopper was already lifting swiftly from the ships swaying platform and into the stormy sky. Steve wasn’t interested in his flying skills though, turning to assess the damage to Danny only to come up short when he found his friend awake and watching him.
His eyes were shiny from the shock and pain and Chin had managed to wrap an emergency blanket over his legs but it didn’t look good. His skin was almost translucent he was so pale and sweat was mingling with the rain on his brow. He had a set of headphones over his own ears and he was making an obvious effort to appear alert and, in typical Danny form, irritated. Steve swallowed thickly, his nerves finally emerging now that he didn’t have to be a soldier anymore.
Danny was propped up against the far door, his legs stretched across the seat and Chin crouched in the small space on the floor beside him, his hand pressing firmly into a blood soaked gauzy mass on Dany’s side. Steve was silent, but this time it was because he didn’t know where to start as opposed to not wanting to waste his breath.
Danny was having none of that.
“He gone?” He asked through the headset, his voice raspy in the speakers. Steve nodded affirmative, holding his friend’s sharp blue gaze until he saw the understanding dawn that Marcel wouldn’t be back to bother him ever again. He knew Danny got the message when he closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the window, swallowing thickly.
“Hey, Danny?” Steve reached forward and shook his shoulder gently. Danny’s eyes snapped open with a glare.
“Trying to sleep here,” he mumbled and Steve forced a smile on his lips even if it was the last thing he felt like doing, and shrugged his shoulders.
“Not my fault you couldn’t avoid getting shot. Is it really that hard for you to duck and cover? You’re already so close to the ground,” the dig came out weaker than intended but it got the glazed eyes sparking heatedly at him. Chin frowned by Danny’s shoulder and shook his head at Steve. Steve understood that he wasn’t chastising him for the joke but trying to tell him that Danny was not in good shape.
“I can not believe,” Danny shifted, grimaced, and doubled the intensity of his glare at Steve, “that you waited until now to break out your first short joke. You must have been saving that one forever,” his eyes started to drift shut again.
“Only since I met you, but it wasn’t really appropriate the first time I got you shot,” Steve never would have heard the end of it if he’d even breathed the concept of that joke in Danny’s direction that day. He’d been saving it up for a time when he really needed to keep Danny going.
“So you admit to getting me shot,” Danny grinned victoriously, but it didn’t last and they all knew that Steve had admitted, apologized and bought the tickets to the dolphin hotel to make up for it ages ago. Water under the bridge. “This time doesn’t count,” Danny added softer and Steve almost couldn’t meet the sincere gaze when Danny looked back at him, forgiveness and self-deprecation in his eyes. “This time I’m definitely-” he paused to take a couple of sharp breaths, trying and failing to control the pain and pushing passed it because he had no other choice. “-Definitely the one to blame here.”
“Not your fault,” Steve instantly denied.
“Could have told you about the healing thing, wanted to,” Danny’s eyes drooped half closed and Chin was looking more and more worried by his side. Steve didn’t need to be a doctor to know that Danny wouldn’t make it to a hospital in time, not with four hours of flight time ahead.
“I know why you didn’t,” Steve didn’t know what to do so he just kept holding onto Danny’s shoulder in support. “It’s all good babe.” Danny snorted a laugh and then curled in a little, keening and stilling for a long moment until the pain ebbed slightly. “Listen Danny, I need you to do something for me here,” Steve shifted and leaned further over Danny in the cramped space, tapping his cheek lightly to get his attention and Danny peeled his lids apart enough to glower weakly. “You’re not going to like it,” he warned.
“Story of - my life,” he squeezed out between breaths. Yeah. Steve braced himself for rejection.
“I need you to use that special mojo you got going on and fix yourself, okay brah?” He wasn’t surprised when Danny’s rejection came in the form of not even acknowledging that he’d heard Steve.
He gave Danny a moment to mull it over and then squeezed his shoulder.
“Danny, I’m not kidding around here. You take whatever energy it is you need from me and you fix this!” he put some snap into the words, letting his desperation leak through and that got Danny’s attention. He rolled open his eyes but instead of seeing defiance there was that fear Danny had shown in short glimpses while under Marcel’s care. There was nothing fake or insignificant about the pleading on his face as he looked at Steve now.
“Not gonna do that Steven,” he gasped out and then curled a hand around Steve’s forearm, squeezing hard through a jolt of pain.
“You have to Danny.”
“Don’t have to do anything,” he argued back fiercely.
“Sorry Danno,” Steve stated softly but firmly, “but this time you do. You have to fix it or you’re not going to make it back to the islands.” Danny looked away, his head turning so that he was facing Chin’s chest and he stared fixedly at the pockets there. “God Damn it, Danno! You listen to me and take what you need! Now! Before you’re too weak to do anything to help yourself!”
“It’s not that easy!” Danny snapped back weakly, his struggle to remain aware evident in every straining line in his body and it was killing Steve to watch this, to have to be the bad guy in this when it shouldn’t even be an issue.
“It is that easy!” Steve snapped right back, desperate and unwilling to compromise.
“I could kill you!” Danny whispered, his eyes drifting closed again and this time it took Chin sharply barking his name to wake him up. Steve was too busy processing what Danny could mean and coming up with so many wild scenarios involving childhood disasters and dead parents and foster care that it was bordering on ridiculous, but there was one thing he knew without a doubt.
He grabbed his friend’s face in both his hands, ignoring a gut churning dip as the chopper hit a patch of rough wind, and forced him to meet his eyes. “I don’t care, Grace needs you.”
“You son-of-a-bitch,” Danny snarled, sounding like he had swallowed ground glass as he forced the words out. Steve could see the affect his words had on his partner, and hated himself for what he was about to say.
“Grace told me you left because she gave away your secret, Danny, and it was ripping her apart. She’ll never believe that isn’t the truth unless you come back to her and she’ll never forgive me if I come back without you. I don’t think I could live with that Danno, you hear me? I can not deal with your little girl hating me for the rest of my life!” He felt Danny’s adams apple bob beside his fingers and didn’t dare look away as Danny’s conflicted gaze turned angry again.
“Too much-” he muttered, tears beginning to gather in the corner of his eyes as he willed the pain and fear away. Steve had to fight for his own control, not knowing how else to put Danny at ease.
“Then take a little from all of us,” Chin’s smooth voice cut in, soothing and confident and providing a solution so obvious that Steve could have smacked himself for not seeing it from the very beginning. Danny, for his part, looked a little wide-eyed and unsure and Chin pressed on without waiting a beat. “We can watch out for each other, stop you if you begin taking too much. Keep it in the ‘ohana brah, we’ve got you covered.” Danny blinked at Chin and Steve could see Kono’s own agreement in the way she was hanging over the back of her seat, getting as close to them as she could from the front without interfering with the pilot. The pilot wasn’t saying a thing.
“I don’t-” Danny floundered and Steve dropped his hands from his face to rest one on his chest, careful of the broken finger, and twist the other in Danny’s grip so that their hands were clasping.
“Do it Danno,” he ordered softly. “Don’t make us go home without you.”
Danny glared at him fiercely, not happy in the slightest, and then is eyes softened in a mix of worry and gratitude. The sudden onslaught of fatigue was immediate and foreign and calmed the deep worry clawing in Steve’s chest. He couldn’t help the soft, amazed smile.
“Thank you,” he whispered to his friend when Danny suddenly released him from his shaking grip and Kono’s own hand was insistently pushing between them to take Danny’s in a firm grasp. Danny’s response was to close his eyes and press back the moisture in the corner of his eyes that had been threatening to fall.
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When they landed the sun was barely peaking over the horizon, the world cast in darkness with streaks of gold and pink infiltrating wherever it could reach.
Danny hopped out of the chopper and with the five of them working together they had the bird back in the hangar bay under hidden lock and key before the morning light really began stretching her fingers. Moko had been hard pressed to hide his grin, the adrenalin of the firefight still singing through his veins and he waved off any concern for damage to his bird, including the blood stains on the upholstery.
“Forgot how much I missed the action,” he grinned and shook their hands, clamping the cigar Kono slipped him between his teeth. “I can patch up a few bullet holes, throw a little bleach around and have her painted up in company colours by tomorrow night. Anyone reports a chopper’s presence on that rig they’ll never suspect me. We’re good.”
It was probably much more complicated than that, and if Danny gripped Moko’s hand a little longer in gratitude none of his teammates commented on it or the fact that he told the guy that he should lay off the cigars: they were bad for his health. Moko’s grin softened, solemn sincerity in his tone as he glanced at Danny’s blood drenched shirt with the tiny, tiny little tear in it before meeting his eyes. “We’re good,” he repeated, pumping Danny’s hand again and then ordering them to get the hell off his property before some schmoozing employee showed up for their shift early.
Leaving the airfield under the cover of early morning had been almost ridiculously difficult. Danny was chomping at the bit to get home, weary and exhausted and needing to see his little girl. It couldn’t work like that though; he couldn’t just reappear out of thin air without any explanation as to where he’d been all this time.
Trying to explain an unsanctioned rescue mission on a foreign ship in the middle of the ocean, while enlisting an ex-navy-turned-civilian pilot, would not fly with anyone. Add in the body count and it didn’t matter how many illegal weapons they found in those crates: their careers would be over and a full investigation would commence. Jail time would probably be a given and somebody might eventually discover why Danny was snatched in the first place.
When they reached their cars, parked relatively close to the airstrip, Chin had quietly taken in the way Steve was hovering around Danny like a freakin’ mutant mother hen, bypassed Steve entirely as he handed the keys over to Danny, rattled off an address, and left in the other vehicle with Kono peeling from the area like a bat out of hell. Danny mourned the thought of never being able to remove Steve’s bad, bad influence from her young, impressionable mind and tossed around the idea of signing them both up for HPD’s defensive driving recertification course. It would be easy enough to get Steve’s signature on the paperwork, all he had to do was shove it in his face and say it was an order form for something explosive.
Steve gave him a sour look, like he somehow knew exactly what Danny was contemplating. He also looked ready to snatch the keys right out of Danny’s hand, protest visible in every line of his exhausted face as he stepped forward and Danny leveled him with a glare that promised evisceration by toothpick if he even thought Danny would let him drive. He backed off quickly, unable to hide a slight limp as he rounded to the passenger side of the vehicle and quietly climbed in.
Steve sat rigidly in his seat, eyes scanning their surroundings as Danny steered them through the back streets. The silence wasn’t awkward but it reeked of things unsaid and eventually it began to make Danny twitchy even though he felt at ease. Things were good, they were fine. He was back on the island, driving an ugly ass car he’d never seen before with the promise of Gracie, malasada’s and a years worth of sleep in his own bed. It couldn’t be better.
It took every scrap of self-restraint that he had to not turn the car around and go speeding off to see his little girl. Distraction. He needed distraction.
“Who the hell just has a supply of cyanide on hand for their nefarious deeds anyway?” it came out as more question than derision and Steve broke his staring contest with the outside world long enough to glance Danny’s way and shrug. Yeah, that about summed it up. There were a thousand and one thoughts cartwheeling through his head and he didn’t know how to say any of them save the most obvious and most painful ones. Maybe verbal distraction wasn’t the best mode of attack just then and he doubled his focus on the nearly empty roads.
The next time he broke the silence it was with the gentle closing of his car door after he’d pulled into the parking lot of one rundown building in a long line of them.
“What a shithole,” he muttered when Steve joined him at his side, reluctance and unease making his entire body practically vibrate as he stared at the single story, concrete block masquerading as architecture.
“Danny-” he started, his voice croaking a bit and Danny immediately waved a hand at him, trying for unconcerned, cutting his partner off.
“Let’s get this over with, eh? You promised an unlimited beer supply waiting at Casa McGarrett that I fully intend on getting up close and personal with as soon as humanely possible.” He clapped Steve lightly on the shoulder, fully aware of the injuries the guy still sported, before forcing his feet to move towards the building one heavy step at a time. The unmistakable sound of latex gloves snapping into place followed him and he withheld any sarcastic comments as Steve neatly passed him, limp and all, to open the door with his covered hands.
They both took deep, unhappy breaths before passing through and picking their way around a few scattered chairs and a large vacant desk before getting to the heavy set black door in the back. This time when Steve opened it Danny couldn’t hide his unhappiness as they stepped into the tiny, windowless room. He nearly flinched when Steve flipped the lightswitch and the weak glare from the bare bulb overhead illuminated the space.
“It’s almost as big as my place,” Danny joked weakly, looking away from the dirty mattress and exposed toilet to the neat pile of canned goods. On the other side of the room was a large, less ordered pile of empty cans and crushed bottles of water. “Remind me to never piss off a man as tenacious and thorough as Chin Ho Kelly,” Danny ordered as he took the scene in. It looked like someone had been parked there for a month.
“Two hours Danno,” Steve promised in response, gripping his shoulder in support and Danny sighed, dropping the bag of clothes he’d been carrying and stripping the high end noir cloth Marcel had so graciously provided off. One sacrificed water bottle and Steve’s shirt (which Steve had peeled off without provocation and handed to Danny to use as an impromptu wash cloth like it was the most logical course of action in the world) and Danny was blood free and dressed in ripe smelling clothes that he would be burning very, very soon.
Steve took the repacked bag of soiled clothes in hand and turned those soulful, freakin puppy dog eyes on Danny like he was the one being left behind.
“Stop with the look,” Danny groaned, his stomach suddenly flipping uncomfortably and he paced back and forth a moment to hide the discomfort. Steve, for maybe the first time ever, ignored their game and just kept watching Danny with concern. Danny’s not so calm temper tried to break to the surface and he forced it back with deep breaths and then shook his head. “Idiot,” he moved over to Steve and reached out. When Steve took a step out of reach and his concerned look turned to angry in a moment Danny was more inclined to roll his eyes at him than get upset. After year of practically living in each other’s pockets he was fluent enough in ‘Steve’ to know he was just having a moronic moment.
“Don’t do that Danny,” Steve glared, “you’re still not a hundred percent.” Yep: moronic.
“Just shut up and put up McGarrett. We don’t have time to have a pow-wow over your delicate sensibilities and, frankly, you’re not much better than the walking dead right now. That might be slightly suspicious to our fellow law enforcement officers seeing as the last time you were at work you probably weren’t broken.”
“I’m not willing to compromise your health-” Danny shoved him against the concrete wall, maybe gripped his shoulders a little harder than necessary whin Steve flinched at the contact, and healed him. Broken bones and bruises and cuts and all. When he was done Danny stepped back, slightly dizzy and trying to hide it. So maybe he wasn’t still a hundred percent, but Steve didn’t have to know that.
“Feel better now?” Steve pushed him away a little but kept a hand on his elbow until Danny gently shrugged him off.
“No,” Danny growled and looked around the miserable little room come cell. “Would you just go already? Please?” He asked softer. “I want to go home and the longer this takes...” he could probably sound more pathetic but it would be a difficult expectation to live up to. The frustrated huff Steve gave pretty much told Danny the man would be happier tossing this plan to the sharks and hauling ass out of there with Danny in tow. Instead he nodded and moved stiffly to the thick metal door.
“Two hours, I promise,” he looked balefully at him from the other side of the threshold.
“Go put a freaking shirt on you exhibitionist.”
Watching the heavy door close and hearing the lock turn in place was nearly enough to make him lose his cool and rush the damn thing. He wanted to kick and scream and demand to be let out but he knew, without a doubt, that Steve was waiting quietly on the other side for exactly that excuse to come charging right back in and check that Danny was okay all over again. Then it would take a natural disaster to get rid of him. Instead Danny walked on suddenly shaky legs to the mattress and sank down on it. The dirt didn’t matter at this point because his ‘new’ clothes were pretty much on par in the filth department.
The low level nausea that had been acting up since he landed suddenly demanded to be noticed and he bit back a groan of discomfort. He’d take nausea over a bullet any day, but it still sucked the big one.
He leaned back against the wall, watched the door, and waited.
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Steve got the call exactly one hour and seventeen minutes after he stepped through his front door. He hadn’t done anything but clean himself up and sit silently at the edge of the couch watching an untouched glass of water on his coffee table. At nearly seven in the morning he was usually awake so he didn’t bother to pretend he was asleep, answering the phone promptly.
Dispatch informed him that an anonymous tip had been called in moments before with the possible location of one missing Detective Daniel Williams. Units had already been dispatched to the given address.
He called Chin to relay the information as he was jumping in the Camaro and speeding off to Danny.
The area where the run down, abandoned building sat was transformed from a mere two hours before. No less than nine cruisers, an ambulance and a fire truck had responded to the possible rescue of a fellow officer. Steve was jumping out of his car before it had fully shifted into park, ready to storm the building guns a blazing despite the fact that he knew exactly what he’d find beyond the doors. The deep guilt at being the one to lock Danny up this time was ignored only because of the necessity of the act.
He detoured when an officer he’d been speeding by stopped him and, with a grin, announced that Danny was just fine and that the medics were checking him over by the ambulance. Steve did not sag in relief, but it was a damn near thing. He spotted Chin and Kono across the lot and Kono gave him such a sunny smile that a cop whom had been passing by her nearly tripped over his feet as he stared.
“-lucky we found him when we did; he would have been out of clean water in another week” a gruff older cop imparted gravely to his younger partner as Seve passed.
“…usually built like a brick house…”
“…tried to conserve his food…”
“…pale as a coconuts guts…”
“…locked in there the whole time…”
“Poor son of a bitch…” he overheard as others went about their work around him. He careened around the fire truck, passing a group of hose jockeys leaning against the pumper’s side compartments. They nodded respectfully and he returned it absently as he finally spotted Danny perched on a stretcher in the ambulance looking wrung out and annoyed as one medic took his blood pressure while the other watched carefully.
Danny looked up as Steve nearly slammed into the back of the ambulance in his haste to get to him, looking him over to see if the guy had somehow managed to damage himself in the few hours he’d been out of Steve’s sight.
“Danny,” Steve cracked a small grin and just like that Danny’s tired, bloodshot eyes sparked to life just in time for Chin and Kono’s arrival.
“Steven,” Danny returned softly “Chin, Kono.” His entire posture sagged as he took them in, the relief that it was finally over clear for all to see but only for them to truly understand.
“You in one piece?” Steve tried to assess from the ground that Danny hadn’t somehow managed to break himself a little more in Steve’s two-hour absence. The image of his chest, mottled blue and purple with tiny red holes and gashes demanded to be remembered as Steve stared at his closest friend.
“I’m fine,” Danny waved off any concern. Steve had a feeling he’d have to watch out more for that in the future. “Get me out of here?” It was nearly more plea than demand.
“Let’s go.” Danny was peeling off the medics pressure cuff before Steve had finished uttering the agreement.
“You can’t just leave-” the young man argued, his disbelief clear. “You need to see a doctor after the stress-” Danny shut him up with look that would have sent some of Steve’s SEAL buddies to the water. Mind you it could have been the combined glare of the entire five-o squad that shut the guy up, especially when his senior partner shook her head at him to let it go.
Kono wrapped Danny up in the hug she hadn’t allowed herself to give earlier the moment his feet touched the asphalt, Chin stepping in to grip both their shoulders firmly and if it took Danny a fraction of a second longer than usual to respond Steve put it down to Danny being overwhelmed with the sheer amount of people around them at the moment. Steve could hear the forensics team lead already giving orders by the buildings front door.
“We’ll take it from here,” Steve told the senior medic who, while looking concerned, could do nothing but accept. After a long moment with Kono whispering something in Danny’s ear that made him huff out a soft laugh, they broke apart.
Danny was even more washed out in the early morning sunlight than he had been under the florescent lighting on the ship.
“Gracie,” Danny demanded, taking a step towards him and who was Steve to deny the guy any longer.
“Yeah.” If he had to reach out twice to steady Danny’s slightly shaky walk as he squinted, nearly blind, in the glaring morning sun neither of them commented on it as the rest of the force quietly watched their slow retreat.
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Her heart started pounding the moment the gate buzzer had gone off and she’d seen the gleaming silver Camaro waiting beyond the wrought iron bars that separated the outside world from her home. For the last month it had been the same every single time Steve came around to the point where even delivery people calling up from the gate made her feel weak and dizzy with nerves.
Stan had taken to answering the calls when he was home these last few weeks, giving her soft looks of understanding despite the fact that it was her ex-husband she was so distraught over. He understood that life and death put other, more petty emotions in their place and she loved him all the more for his effort to help her and Grace through it. It helped that Stan had softened up to Daniel slightly since that fiasco with the housing commissioner all those months ago. But Stan had had to go to his office this morning for an important meeting so she was the one who answered the buzzer without saying a word, simply opening the gate and moving to stand on the elaborate interlocked driveway to await Steve.
She took deep breaths, steadying herself. Preparing for the worst. Every time she prepared for the worst, it was part of the reason her marriage with Daniel hadn’t worked out in the end; she hadn’t been able to handle the fear that sat deep in her heart every time he had gone off to work. She had thought it might be easier with distance, with no longer being in one another’s lives aside from their connection with Grace.
She had been wrong.
She had come to hate seeing Steve McGarrett pulling up to her home to update her and visit Grace. She hated the fact that he drove Daniel’s car like it were his own. Hated the fact that he could calm her daughter when she was falling apart over her missing father when everything Rachel and Stan had to say just wasn’t enough. She hated the fact, and she knew it was beyond petty, that Daniel had found somebody here, so far from everything he knew, that he could lean on and trust in a way that she had never been able to build with him. Not even his beloved adopted family had been able to inspire such unquestioning loyalty from Daniel. Nor herself. Be it because they were the type of men who understood each others drive to serve, or the fact that they were both lost souls just looking to belong somewhere, longing to have a family that would support them unconditionally, unfailingly, who understood loss and abandonment. After not much longer than a year she understood that this bond they had was more permanent than anything she had been able to build with the man she had married.
In her darker moments it made her seethe with anger.
In her better moments she was beyond relieved that the first love of her life had found somebody that wouldn’t abandon him because things were too hard.
In the moments in between she just felt guilt and relief.
But seeing him drive up in Danny’s car, watching him approach, nearly undid her every time.
It wasn’t until the vehicle was halfway up the short drive that she realized there was more than one person in the front seats. She lay a hand on the column beside her to steady herself, just in case, and didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until the car stopped and the engine shut off. When the two doors opened in perfect synchronicity and she set her eyes on Daniel for the first time in far too long she nearly sobbed. It took every effort to stop herself from launching off the raised stone step and go to him: she wasn’t sure if she wanted to hug him or slap him and as she took in his full appearance she wasn’t sure he was ready to handle either.
“Daniel,” she whispered and he approached, a tired but real smile on his too thin, too pale face, his hair brushed back on his head but lacking the order he was usually so careful to maintain in his style.
“Rachel,” he returned and stopped a few feet from her, Steven not too far behind with his dark, sharp eyes that were watching everything at once. She recognized this look, it was the one that said everything was still new and fresh and he wasn’t ready to lie down and accept that everything was okay yet. Looking at Daniel now she wondered how close Steven had come to not successfully retrieving the father of her daughter. She decided she didn’t really want to know.
“You look wretched,” she managed, realizing that her hand had been drifting forward to touch him and she dropped it slowly, uncertain of what he had been through, if touching was okay. He answered her by stepping forward and taking her hand in his, his fingers as strong and warm as she remembered, but he didn’t make any further move than that. She could accept it; she knew she didn’t truly have the right to want more.
“As charming as ever,” her smile was watery as he squeezed her hand once before gently letting go and looking beyond her to the door. “Has Grace gone to school yet?”
“No,” she cleared her throat and pulled herself taller, soft smile still in place. “She’s upstairs in her room, she wanted to change her outfit before I drove her in.” She swallowed thickly once more and embarrassingly had to clear her throat again. Behind Daniel Steve’s eyes softened in her direction. “I suppose I should call her teacher and let her know she won’t be in for the rest of the week. When you’re ready I’ll have breakfast on the table,” she stepped aside and, with a thankful nod of his head, Daniel swiftly moved by her and into the large house. Rachel and Steve followed and she paused at the base of the large staircase just as Danny disappeared down the hallway and out of site.
She suddenly, briefly, wished her home weren’t so large as she might have been able to remain closer to the reunion. Gracie’s loud screech a moment later and a soft thump was all she heard before the door was practically slammed closed upstairs. Still she watched the top of the landing a moment longer before shaking off the feeling of exclusion and turning politely to the six feet of tall, tired man standing a polite distance behind her. She wasn’t surprised to find him watching her quietly.
“Breakfast won’t cook itself,” she announced and led the way to the kitchen, pulling out her fine china cups and putting a pot on to boil for tea. He sat back and let her do her thing as she prepared a fruit salad, whisked eggs in a bowl and set a stack of fresh, whole wheat bread aside for when Daniel and her daughter came down from upstairs.
When she began pouring the tea her hands were shaking and Steve gently took the pot from her and finished the task. Even now she wanted to hate him, she just couldn’t find the resentment anymore. Mostly she was just ridiculously grateful.
“Where was he?” she asked softly, and he looked up from the delicate cup he was turning on the plate.
“Abandoned building on the west end. Belonged to an uncle’s step-cousin of the two men that hijacked your car under Bruce Hoffman’s orders. He was locked in the back room.”
“All this time?” she asked through a shaky breath and he nodded, swallowing heavily and distracting himself by adding sugar to his drink. In all the times he had been here since Daniel had gone missing he had never added sugar.
“It was set up like a self contained prison. Had food, water, a mattress and waste facilities but nothing else.”
“Animals,” she hissed and then had a horrible thought. “Did they do this because of the trial with Bruce Hoffman? Because of the situation with Stan?” And she couldn’t help but feel immensely guilty when Steve gave a little half shrug. Daniel had told her everything had just been a misunderstanding after he had allowed them home after that entire fiasco. A lie. She wasn’t surprised; she had always known Daniel kept things from her, important things about his work, about his childhood and his time in foster care before he had met Paul and been accepted into his family. She had hated it then and she still felt the same now. It was hard to hold onto her anger though as Steve watched her with those assessing eyes.
“Hoffman hired the two men to take Danny out of the picture so he wouldn’t be an issue when he came to trial. From what we can tell they took him that night we were at the club and locked him there, intending to go back later. We know for certain one of them is dead, his body found in the ocean weeks ago and we suspect the same of his brother.”
In other words they’d never be certain why Danny had been locked up alone, for weeks, beyond the notion that they had intended to come back and finish the job later. Maybe they had been holding him for ransom, they were going to contact Rachel and Stan and demand money in return for his life after they had collected their assassin’s fee from Hoffman. She nodded and moved off to start making toast, needing to do something so she didn’t have to watch Steve watch her. It was a few long moments before she felt ready to speak without her voice wavering embarrassingly.
“You promised Grace that you’d bring him home,” she faced him and he nodded slowly, hand tightening nearly imperceptibly around the cup. “I was furious with you when she told me that.” Because what if he had been wrong. What if it had been a promise he couldn’t keep and Grace’s heart was broken by the false hope. What if her own heart had been broken when this man before her made promises that could have very well never come to fruition. Why had he been so willing to place himself in that position to take their anger if he failed?
“I know,” he said without a hint of apology and she realized he would say the same things again if, god forbid, something like this would ever happen to Daniel a second time. He would say it and mean it just as strongly as he had the first time and it was because he believed it himself. Believed it enough to follow through in every way.
Something heavy and dark that had been clawing at her insides eased slightly, merely scratching now instead of raving to get out. She found herself blinking back tears again and pouring them both another cup of lukewarm tea before setting the kettle again.
“Thank you,” she rested her hand on his forearm very briefly as she passed to sit on the kitchen islands seat beside him. He gave her that look again, the one that had taken her by surprise that time he had come to visit Grace in her purple playhouse and she had thanked him for coming. She thought she understood it better now, she understood that he didn’t want to be thanked because there was no other course of action he could have contemplated taking. She had the sneaking suspicion that he would become very possessive of the people he claimed as family, of Danny. She had her suspicions confirmed a mere moment later when he responded in an unexpected way.
“Danny’s going to be staying with me now,” he watched her carefully absorb this new information.
“For how long?”
“Long.”
“And he’s aware of this new arrangement?” she asked and was almost amused when Steve let a quick, smug little grin loose before taking a gulp of his drink.
“He will be soon.”
She waited a beat to see if he was willing to add anything else. She thought about it, thought about the tiny, run down little hole Danny had been residing in up until this point and refused to feel guilty at being the one who forced him into that situation in the first place. She knew between the divorce, the child support payments and the sheer cost that was living in Hawai’i he hadn’t been able to get on his feet enough to afford better at the moment.
Commander McGarrett had a nice big home with plenty of living space and extra room for Grace to come and visit. Not to mention he had a home security system and ‘stupid ninja skills’ as Daniel had once informed her. If it meant the man was going to keep Daniel safer than he would be alone she could hardly begrudge that. Besides, Grace would be thrilled.
“Allright,” she gave her consent, fully aware that Steve couldn’t care less what she thought and would do what he felt was best with or without her support. It made her feel better though.
They spent the next two hours silently drinking tea and doing crosswords as Steve pretended not to be falling asleep where he sat before Daniel and Grace finally came downstairs. Their eyes were puffy and red and Grace was wrapped securely in her father’s arms, babbling away about a school camping trip that was in the works a month from then. The smile that Daniel had given her when he had first arrived ages ago was five times as large now, his entire person relaxed and at ease and beside her Steve relaxed himself. Finally.
She firmly pulled back on the bubbling jealousy.
“Breakfast?” she asked instead and Daniel looked a moment between her and his partner.
“Breakfast,” he agreed, as assured as he ever was, and then went about preparing the food himself like it was his kitchen. She went to help but a light touch to her shoulder from Steve held her in place. She looked at him questioningly and he just shook his head and nodded to where father and daughter had everything well in hand.
She didn’t like not being in control, and in that moment realized why Steve had held her back. Let Daniel run the show for now, his eyes pleaded. With a nod she settled back on the cushioned seat and spent the rest of the morning pretending that everything was perfectly fine.
If she fell apart in Stan’s arms later that night the only two that would ever know of it was her and her husband.
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On to the FINAL PART