Fic: Malasada's H5Obigbang chapter 17b...The End

[thoughtreflex]

CHAPTE 17 Part B

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“You’re supposed to be taking me home, McGarrett,” were the first words belligerently grumbled from Danny when he woke up in his beloved Camaro to find it parked in Steve’s driveway. “To my place specifically.”

“You know how I feel about your old apartment,” Steve frowned standing outside the opened passenger door and looking down at Danny like he couldn’t understand what the problem was.

“Yes, and you know how I don’t care how you feel about my place of residence despite your unnatural, unreasonable, unfathomable hate of it.”

“I hate it because it’s a shithole.”  Steve was still frowning down at him, holding out a hand now like Danny needed help getting his tired bones out of the car or something.  Danny smacked the hand away and remained firmly in the seat.

“Maybe,” he was so damn tired, “but it’s my shithole with my stuff and I would really, really like to be able to shower, change into my own clothes, and then sleep until I have to deal with the world again.  Is that really too much to ask?  Really?”  He looked over to see Chin marching to the front door, two huge grocery bags in hand and he gave them a quick once over before slipping inside.  For some inexplicable reason that made Danny feel old.

“You deserve better than that,” Steve announced unwaveringly and yeah, it was touching and all, but right now-

“The only thing I want to deserve is shower and bed, in that order, no interruptions.  Right at this moment Steven you are being a very big interruption.  You are an interruption of cosmic proportions orbiting your very own universe.”  Steve had that pleased look on his face that told Danny that he knew exactly what he was and was proud of it.

“My shower has better water pressure,” he stuck his hand out for Danny again and again Danny batted it away.  “I also have a Jacuzzi.”  Jacuzzi.  Danny’s determination to get back to his admittedly crappy apartment with an admittedly small stand up shower that did nothing more than spit water at him dwindled a bit.  He glared at Steve.

“Your clothes are here as well,” Steve stuck his hand out again and this time Danny sighed, heartfelt and put upon but willing to concede defeat when it was a battle he could not win.  He’d had a lot of practice at that lately.  He shoved the dark thought away and grabbed Steve’s hand, allowing him to haul him from the vehicle.

“Fine, you win.  Just don’t expect decent company is all I’m saying,” because there were issues upon issues here that were in need of being dealt with and Danny didn’t know where to start.  He did know that fighting over something he would ultimately lose was a waste of his energy though.

The relief he felt as he began the not so long trek to Steve’s front door wasn’t unexpected: despite his claim at wanting to return home he really didn’t feel up to being alone right now.  The way Steve walked so close to him, their shoulders brushing every step, hinted that it might be mutual.

Chin looked up from where he had parked it on the couch, beer in hand and some surfing competition on in the background.  Kono was curled up on the other end, her head pillowed on the cushioned armrest and bare feet digging into her cousin’s thigh.  Fast asleep.  Chin looked ready to pass out right where they sat as well and Danny swallowed at the sudden onslaught of emotions that threatened at their being here for him.  Chin raised his beer slightly before taking a drink and turning back to the television, giving Danny a chance to get a grip without an audience.  Or a huge audience he corrected as Steve was still right by his side.

“Jacuzzi, hot as you can make it,” he ordered to cover the ache behind his eyes, hands twitching at his sides and Steve pointed him up the stairs without a word.

“I’ll go start running it,” he announced as he stopped outside the guest room that had once been his childhood bedroom.  “You’re clothes are in there,” he retreated so quickly Danny was left wondering if maybe the his partner should put aside his career in law enforcement and become the next Houdini or something.  Of course the moment he stepped into the room he understood the reason for the hasty disappearing act.  Coward.

“Steven!” he barked and it took longer than it should for the guy to reappear, looking nervous and determined, a combination that was not flattering on him.  Not at all.  “What the hell is this?” he gestured at the room beyond the door, at all the boxes stacked up along the back wall, at his sheets on the queen bed in the room, at the wide open closet door that had nice shirts and nice pants hanging from brand new looking hangars.  His clothes.  He eyed the tall wooden dresser sitting pretty beside it and worried that he’d open it up to find his underwear lining the drawers.

“You’re stuff,” Steve gave him a look that said it should be obvious.

“I can see that it’s my stuff, Steven” he practically growled, “I assumed some of my stuff would be here, as in a few changes of clothes in a small, easily manageable Gucci duffle.  I’m not even really picky about the bag, make it plastic for all I care.  I’m just curious as to why all of my stuff is here, in this room and not at, and here’s the strange part, my apartment!”

“Your rent came due.”  Steve looked about the room with a satisfied gleam in his eye that he wisely hid when he looked back at Danny.

“My rent came due,” Danny repeated.

“Yeah, a few days ago.”

“A few days ago,” he frowned up at Steve.

“Since you weren’t around to pay up the landlord kicked you out,” he tried to sound innocent but Danny wasn’t buying it.  Not for a second.  The landlord wouldn’t dare throw Danny out, not after he had ripped the guy a new one for entering his apartment without his express permission after only two months of being in the building.  Guy was to too scared to even come near his front door now unless Danny needed something fixing and then he made sure he showed up well before the usual pre-requisite two-week waiting period.

“And you figured, seeing as I wasn’t available to deal with it at the time, you would just move every single thing I owned over here.”  He nearly lost his ire completely when he spotted the picture of Gracie on the bedside table, right where he liked to keep it.

“Chin and Kono helped.”  He said innocently, no guilt at throwing his fellow culprits under the proverbial bus.

“And you somehow, in the “few days ago”,” he was not embarrassed to use air quotes as he said this, “that this happened, managed to pack up allll my stuff and bring it here.  I’m curious, did this happen while you were infiltrating the cargo ship of hell, or sometime during your apparently non-existent flight to LA?”

“Let’s be honest here Danny, most of your stuff was still in boxes anyway.”

“And what, you couldn’t just front the money for the next month and let me pay you back?!”

“Your landlord wasn’t too keen on the idea.  I don’t think you made the best impression while you were there.”

“I make nothing but best impressions.  In fact I win merit awards for my ability to make best impressions, and then I earn merit awards for agreeing to work with people who’s first impressions involve getting me shot and then breaking and entering into my home to steal and relocate all my belongings without permission.”

“You’re never letting that getting you shot thing go are you,” Steve didn’t sound nearly bothered enough about the idea.  Normally Danny would state that Steve wasn’t concerned for his safety enough in general, but things were too raw between them right now to make that usual line of banter anywhere near funny.

Jesus.  Danny felt a wave of nausea attack him followed by the very distinct urge to smash his fist into something hard to distract himself from it.

“Danny?”  Steve was watching him with that sharp, take no prisoners, frown and Danny waved him off.

“I’m fine,” he turned back to look around the room, at all his things (which didn’t amount to too much since the actual act of moving to Hawai’i in the first place was outrageously expensive).  “How about that bath?”  Steve pretty much leapt back to his own suite to check the water while Danny rummaged through the dresser drawers that, unsurprisingly, contained his clothes.  All neatly folded and colour coded.  Freak.

He didn’t comment when he practically stumbled into Steve’s bathroom to see the guy dumping a massive scoop of Epsom salts into the swirling water.

“No bubbles?” okay, maybe one comment to let the guy know he hadn’t decided to disown him yet.

“They’ll have to be self made.”

“Classy.  Go away now,” he ordered and Steve left without a word, carefully closing the door behind him like he was afraid Danny would break at loud noises.  Huh, deja vu.  This time it didn’t carry the gut wrenching sensation of emptiness it had that morning.

Turning the jets on full power and sinking into the hot water Danny finally let himself break, just a little.  The swirling water absorbed the few soft sobs he let lose and he examined his chest, most of the teeny-tiny little scars hidden by the hair but the pain still sharp in his memory.  The scar from the bullet was almost unnoticeable, the one on his hand a long thin line that he could have received years in the past.  He hadn’t seen any scars on Steve when he’d taken his shirt off that morning; then again he purposefully hadn’t looked.

He let the water cool, empty and refilled it once while he was in there, very consciously not examining the nearly overwhelming urge to feel clean that had been crawling over his skin since he had first been forced to heal Marcel’s brother.

He thought about Marcel, briefly, mostly focusing on the fact that he was dead.  He thought about Steve nearly giving up everything for him, of Chin and Kono flying in on a fucking helicopter to save his ass like the world’s most badass gun carrying guardian angels.

He thought about how they had so willingly ordered him to take from them to heal his own wounds.  How much they had trusted him.  He wasn’t sure if they truly understood how vulnerable they had been, not really, despite their shaky smiles and Kono’s decidedly scary demand that Danny fix his busted up knee while he was at it or she’d give him a matching set.  He couldn’t remember the last time he was this pain free.

He had difficulty wrapping his head around the lines his new family had crossed for him to get him back.

He was well aware that Marcel hadn’t pulled a weapon on Steve when Steve had so efficiently ended his existence on that ship.  He’d heard the gunshots, seen the darkness in Steve’s eyes in the first few moments after he finally climbed into the chopper, before his concern for Danny had overshadowed it.

When he left the bathroom, dressed loosely in sweats and plain t-shirt, his fingers and toes so wrinkled he was almost worried about dehydration, he found Steve over by his bed diligently folding laundry.

“You know this new stalkerish thing you have going is not as endearing as you might think.”  Danny would never admit that it made him feel better to know the guy was close at hand, just in case.  He swallowed thickly understanding that that was just one more issue that he was going to have to deal with.

“I’m just doing laundry Danno, there’s no stalking here,” he outright lied, far too focused on refolding a pair of cargo pants for what could have been the twentieth time.

“Uh huh.”  Danny was still feeling slightly chilled despite the heat of the day and the two baths he’d taken.  “This whole moving me in to your home thing,” he waved around to encompass the entire neighbourhood, “we talking just a few weeks here?”

“I was thinking we could knock down the wall in your room to the next one, create a little more space, paint it up in the shade of that blue tie you always wear.  Grace can take the guest room when she comes to visit.” Danny stared at Steve for a long moment, needing to swallow to find his voice.

“I’m tired,” practically comatose, “I’m going to my room now to sleep.  Do not wake me up or the next time you break a limb you can damn well heal it yourself.”

The grin Steve gave him was enough to chase away the lingering doubts about this arrangement, at least for the time being, and then Steve rounded the bed and dragged him into a crushing hug, wrapping around him like a freaking octopus that didn’t have any intention of letting go.  Danny was okay with that for a long while, seeing as his own arms were kind of locked in place.

“Don’t do that to me again,” Steve ordered, loosing a bit of the command he was probably aiming for when he squeezed Danny tighter.  There wasn’t much Danny could come back with so he just held on a little longer, soaking up the comfort, careful not to take anything extra from Steven to alleviate his tiredness.

“Sleep,” Danny muttered after a long while and pulled away, gripping Steve’s shoulder once more refusing to let the last months experiences to sour physical contact for him.  Especially not with family.  Steve followed him to his new room, the one Danny would be staying in for however long they could stand each other or circumstances changed.  “You gonna tuck me in, too?  Cause I gotta say that’s a little above and beyond…”

“Here,” Steve rolled his eyes and pulled a pill pack out of his pocket, tossing it to Danny and pointing at the tall fresh glass of water that sat on the bedside next to Grace’s picture.  “For the nausea,” he explained.

Danny had thought he’d hidden the symptoms, but apparently not much got passed his new roommate.  He popped the pills out and swallowed them down.

“I thought the nausea was supposed to leave once the boats were out of the picture,” he complained and slid into bed despite Steve still standing by the door.  He’d once fallen asleep in the car during a stakeout and drooled all over Steve’s shoulder; climbing under sheets in his presence didn’t bother him in the least.  The afternoon sunlight was filtering in through the window, warming the entire room and the bed…the bed was glorious.  Mind you at this point any horizontal surface with a sheet would have probably made him happy.

“Land sickness,” Steve explained softly, looking pained.  “Your body got used to the constant motion, now it needs to adjust to being back on solid ground.”

“Wonderful, and here I was worried it was just shock.” Danny was already sinking into sleep, for once not at all concerned about people barging into his room whenever they felt like it.  The only people around here were ones he trusted explicitly.  “’S not fair,” he slurred.

“No, it isn’t,” Steve agreed softly.  Danny didn’t wait around to hear anything else, falling into slumber without any more resistance. 
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“Howzit?” Chin asked softly stepping up beside Steve, a cold beer sweating in his hand as he rested his forearms over the white railing and looked across the back yard to the beach.  Steve glanced at him in acknowledgment before his attention was once again pulled to waters edge.

“Pretty good considering,” he shrugged and took a pull of his own beer, and grimaced when he realized it had turned warm without him noticing.  Below them Kono was moving swiftly across the lawn, bright smile in place and towel in hand with the obvious intent to join Danny and Grace in the water.  They both greeted her with a smile, Grace going so far as jumping up from their sandcastle endeavor to give her a hug that nearly took her out at the knees.

“Grace?”  Chin asked, and there was no way to misinterpret the wealth of questions in that one word.  Steve rubbed the back of his neck a moment before shaking his head a little.

“Rachel says she’s had some restless nights.  Nothing too serious, but she’s been calling Danny at all hours just to check that he’s really home, making sure he hasn’t disappeared on her again.”

“Staying here the next few days should help.”

“Her mom pulled her from school for the week.  They’ve been on the beach all day.”  At that Steve couldn’t help a little grin.  Danny might not like the sandy beach all that much but for his little girl he would do anything, up to and including burying his legs in the sand so she could sculpt him into a merman.  Steve had pictures; he planned on pulling them out the next time Danny was being a dick about paperwork.  Maybe he’d blow one up to poster size for the break room.

“I can tell, even from here he looks like he’s as red as a mountain apple,” Chin looked as amused as he was worried by this and Steve nodded.  They were all going to be overprotective of their Jersey implant for a while, there was no way they could avoid it.  They’d lost Danny, violently and without a trace and Steve knew they had all had darker moments where they’d written him off as dead.  Now he was back and, aside from his obviously malnourished state there were no signs of the trauma he had been through.  When Steve closed his eyes at night he saw Danny’s blood mingled with his own on the ground.

The guy still hadn’t told him what all the tiny, infected and bruised looking puncture marks that had been littered all over his chest and stomach had been from, but Steve could guess.  From the hard, angry glint he sometimes spotted in Chin’s eyes when the man was unobtrusively watching Danny he knew he had figured it out as well.

“SPF 50 and after only half an hour he can blend in with a lava flow,” Steve shook his head.  “Grace made him wear her sunhat.”  That got a full grin from the man and it lit up his whole face.

“The one with the pink and purple hibiscus print?”

“Yep.”

“Tell me you got a picture brah.”

“I’ll send you copies later,” Steve shared and Chin gazed in amusement down to the beach where Danny had retreated to the shaded beach chair while the girls went swimming.  Steve watched as he all but collapsed onto the seat, the exhaustion visible now that he wasn’t setting his full attention to entertaining his daughter.  It made Steve tense all over again and beside him Chin’s amusement petered away.

“He sleeping through the night?”  Chin asked and Steve wanted to laugh at the concept.

“Between Grace’s phone call’s and the land sickness he’s lucky if he gets four hours uninterrupted.”

“Nightmares?”

“Not yet,” Steve took a swig of his beer despite its warm flatness.  “It’s only been three days, I don’t think he’s over the shock of being home yet.”

Chin was polite enough, at least for now, to not ask after Steve’s own insomnia.  Between the nightmares that he still had and with the nearly irresistible need to check on Danny every damn hour it was probably a miracle he could function as well as he was, navy training or not.

“Kono tells me the morning went well,” Chin announced, his tone as dry as ever and at that Steve did snort in exasperation and shook his head.

“It was too soon,” to go into the office, he thought.  “The investigators kept insisting on getting the interviews done and Danny insisted on getting the paperwork done and the Governor insisted on stopping by for coffee and digging around to see when he would be ready to come back to full duty,” the irritation was quickly leeching into anger but he didn’t bother to put a lid on it.  Here and now he wasn’t the boss, he was the friend and Chin was well aware of the situation.  “Between that and his stubborn pride to prove that he’s okay he was wiped out by lunch and then half his old department decided to try and drop in one by one, acting like they had given two shits about him before he transferred over to Five-O and trying to get the inside scoop.”

That made Chin stiffen, because if anyone here knew how it felt to have people who had never had your back suddenly burst forward with a false show of support it was him.  Although Steve still doubted Chin had had a lot of the Honolulu police department trying to do anything but show him the door since he’d been reactivated on Steve’s team.

“You didn’t break any limbs before you dragged him out of there right?”  He asked, only half serious, “because they’re not gonna want to be placated by me these next few weeks.”  Of course by the tone in his words Steve figured Chin was more than ready and willing to deal with any disgruntled individuals, but they probably wouldn’t be leaving the Five-O office any happier.

“No broken anything,” Steve was only slightly dejected over that.  “How’d your morning go?”  This was said softer despite the fact that there was no chance of being overheard, anywhere, and he stood straighter and faced Chin, who was wearing an equally serious expression.

“No trace found on the ship will link back to you or Danny.  Just don’t give anyone any reason to do a DNA comparison of you two until the investigation is closed and you’ll be good to go.”  Steve nodded, his chest tight with apprehension but at this point all they could do was wait and see if any connection would be made to Danny.

They hadn’t had time to swipe or destroy any of the medical information that they had compiled on Danny or Steve, but Danny was pretty positive that Marcel wouldn’t risk exposing his identity to ‘competitors’ by putting his real name in the files.  Steve hoped to god he was right, but on the off hand chance that he wasn’t he and Chin had designed a back-up plan to try and keep Danny safe from anyone, including the government.  It involved fake ID’s and passports, unregistered weapons and cash and packed bags sitting at the back of his closet.  He was ready to grab his partner and run at a moments notice whether Danny wanted it or not: he was stuck with Steve.

“Good,” Steve nodded.

“Nobody’s connected anyone to the anonymous tip for Danny’s location and an early forensic report is turning up no fingerprints but Danny’s own on all the cans and bottles in the room,” Chin continued and they both looked down to where Danny was practically comatose on the lounge, an evening breeze sweeping the palm fronds far above his head.  It seemed that even after everything Danny had still had the forethought to put his hands around every item he could in that dingy room they had locked him in, making their cover story that much more plausible.

“The other anonymous tip that provided the Dutch navy cause to perform a surprise inspection of Marcel’s ship has also not been traced to anything more than a burn phone originating in Japan.”  That made Steve smile in sharp appreciation.  When Chin put a plan together he didn’t half ass it and the Dutch ship that had conveniently been making tour across the Pacific had reached Marcel’s cargo ship only five hours after they had left.

“Marcel’s brother?”

“He hasn’t made any moves that I’m aware of, but seeing as Marcel is MIA he has his hands full with running his business and dealing with the fallout of the massive weapons shipment and dead bodies on the ship.  Danny thinks the guy was too sick to recognize him from the healing and he never saw him in person again afterwards so we’ll need to keep an eye on him with our fingers crossed.”

“What about any other clients Danny was forced to help?”  It made his skin crawl thinking about it and Chin shook his head darkly.

“Danny said Marcel made him cover up identifying features as much as possible.  There’s no way to tell if they will be able to figure out his identity.”

“We’ll need to be prepared for the possibility though, no surprises,” he said darkly and Chin nodded.

“No surprises,” he made it sound like a pact, which Steve supposed it was.  He rubbed absently at his chest and missed the knowing look Chin gave him as his attention was once again drawn to his partner down on the beach.  “He looks thirsty,” he announced and Steve looked to him with a frown and then glanced at the bar-b-q that was more than warm enough for the steaks to be thrown on, to which Chin gave him a very unimpressed eyebrow frown.  “I think I can manage the steaks Steve.”

“Right, you sure?”  Steve checked just in case and looked at the tray piled high with meat that he had been in charge of cooking.  Chin’s answer was to ignore him and turn to inspect the cuts of meat and Steve didn’t need to be ordered again.

Switching up his beer for two fresh ones from the fridge and grabbing a carefully sealed paper bag off the counter he moved quietly down the stairs (it paid to practice his stealth), across the lawn that was in need of mowing, and up to the chair beside Danny.  He pressed the chilled beer to his partner’s neck and only felt mildly guilty when the guy jumped violently.  He held nothing back in the venomous gaze he sent Steve’s way and any hint of guilt disappeared as Steve sat in his own seat and held the offering out.

“Beer?” he asked the obvious and waited for Danny’s ire to show itself in its normal verbose fashion.  Danny was rarely one to disappoint.

“Sure, yeah, I’d love to imbibe, just give me a moment to get over this heart attack and I’m all yours babe” he snapped without any real heat.  The fact that he had already taken the bottle from Steve didn’t help the façade of irritation.  He took a small drink, barely a sip, before resting it on the edge of the chairs arm and looked out to the water.  Steve followed his gaze to where Grace and Kono were leaping through the waves, occasionally waving spastically with their arms and squealing like dolphins.  Earlier in the evening Steve had managed to avoid pretending to be an actual seal by convincing Grace it was more fun for him to just throw her around in the water while her dad hollered at them about spinal injuries and whiplash from under his shady tree.  “Need to give you a bell,” he muttered just loud enough for Steve to hear.

“I’m not really the jewelry type Danno, but if you really want to buy me something pretty there’s-”

“No,” Danny cut him off with an emphatic wave that had Steve relaxing just a bit more.  “No I am not buying you anything that is shiny, sharp or goes kaboom so just forget about it.  In fact you should be buying me something nice and shiny to make up for the fact that you have, for the second time in the last two years, caused a complete upheaval in my very comfortable life without even a hint of approval.”

“That’s not true,” Steve felt the need to point out with his drink, because he had learned a long time ago that if he didn’t argue with Danny about pretty much everything then the guy would assume that meant he agreed with him, which was infinitely worse in the long run.  “I had both the Governor and police chiefs approval when I transferred you to Five-O,” he took a victorious drink and lowered the bottle to see Danny’s glare of disapproval.  “And I got you a nice new shiny set of keys for the front door.”  Danny’s glare deepened at that which only made Steve feel even better as he grinned smugly.

“Keys which I already had and did not need upgrading to a pretty, pink, Disney princess pattern thank you very much.”  And of course Steve had made sure to give the brightly pictured keys to Danny with Grace right beside him so he would need to carry them around for a few weeks at least before he ‘accidently’ misplaced them.

“Give them to Gracie then,” Steve shrugged, good naturedly giving him an out and just like that Danny’s entire demeanor softened and his glare lost its intensity.

“You sure?” he asked softly and looked back out to where his daughter was happily splashing around and smiling when she caught him looking and waved.  “Because giving her keys would be announcing that I’m staying and if you don’t really mean it” he gave Steve a pointed look that hid his anxiety over the situation well enough.  The thing was Steve was pretty damn good at hearing underlying emotions in his partner’s tone, and that always gave him away.

“Your brothers are arriving tomorrow morning and your parents and sister in another two days.  I’ve got air mattress’s set up in the den, enough beer and food to host two pig roasts and a plan to put them all to work on demolishing the wall in your room to double the space.  Have I somehow given you the impression that I’m on the fence about this whole thing?”  Danny looked away from him at that, his throat bobbing as he swallowed and then he took a large drink of beer to stall for time.  Steve just leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, waiting.

“No,” Danny finally admitted and in true Danny form he sounded touched and irritated at the same time.  “And don’t get me wrong, because what you’re doing here: inviting me into your home, letting me infiltrate your life like this…I appreciate it.  I really do,” Steve sensed a ‘but’ in there and he didn’t have to wait long before Danny turned to face him head on, the way he always did when he had something he felt was important to say.  “But I have to wonder whether or not you’ve actually thought this all the way through, because this” he gestured at his self and his eyebrows rose to help make his point, “I’ve been dealing with this, this thing, this way that I am since I could walk.  I was dealing with it when I fixed up a kid who fell out of the tree in a very public playground and my parents made the choice to abandon their entire life and run to keep me safe.  I was dealing with it when” he paused here and his lips curled into each other a moment before he forced himself to relax and took a breath.

“I’ve been dealing with this since my parents died in a car accident running from another home because I couldn’t restrain myself.  I have been dealing with this through foster care and finding Paul and Matty and their family and marrying Rachel and having my little girl.  My point is that I know what it means, what it really means to be this” he gestured at himself again, “way and I have had the reality of it shoved in all our faces this last month.  It is very possible that it will not be an ideal future I have ahead of me.  There is a reason I kept this thing about me contained, a reason my parents died for it, a reason I only use it when it’s life or death and even then I’ve passed people by,” his voice thinned out at the admittance, misplaced guilt evident before he found his resolve and hid it away with a firmer voice.  “I just need to make sure that you really know what you could be getting into here.” He paused and took a breath, his eyes a storm grey as he tried to stare Steve down, tried to glare into him the idea that he was being the biggest moron in the world for insisting on making Danny a likely permanent part of his.

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He was scared, but Steve already knew that.  Steve understood, maybe not to the same depth as Danny but enough to know where he was coming from.  He was scared and he was damaged in a way that his gift of healing couldn’t whisk away, but that was okay because Steve was damaged too and he was fine with them being broken together.  He had this strange notion that they would work better that way, that they would be better that way.

“Steven?”  Danny prodded after a moment when Steve just kept staring at him, which was apparently a moment too long in Danny’s world of fast flowing words and take no prisoner’s way of charging into conversations that clearly made him anxious.  One thing was for damn sure: they would never have to worry about where they both stood on the house rules as living with Danny probably meant he was going to hear about every single thing that pissed him off the moment it happened.

“Danno,” he sounded as confident as he felt and leaned forward that tiny fraction more to help emphasize his point.  “I know what I’m getting in to.”

He held his partner’s gaze to make his point and then leaned back to gaze out at the water.  Danny didn’t move for a long moment but then he sat back in his chair and, finally, his shoulders loosened as he accepted what Steve had committed to.  Of course that didn’t mean he accepted it quietly.

“I know what I’m getting into he says,” Danny mock repeated with a hopeful smile in his eyes.  “I pour my heart out and that’s all he has to say.”

“I didn’t ask you to dictate a novel to me,” Steve grumped back, delighting in the disparaging glare Danny graced him with.

“I’m just pointing out yet another way the army has arrested your ability to communicate and express your feelings like a normal human being,” Danny waved his barely touched beer around before letting it sit on the armrest and Steve nearly balked at the normality of the gesture.  The normality of this entire evening when a few short days ago it was looking less and less hopeful that they would ever be able to come home.

“Navy Danny, I was in the Navy,” he annunciated, hesitated a moment, and then thought to hell with it: despite Danny’s ability to talk an ear off a statue he had proven that he very rarely said anything of deeply personal import and Steve needed to get this important, driving expectation into the air so that Danny understood exactly what Steve was demanding from him.

“This thing you have, Danny?” His switch back to serious had Danny tensing up again but it couldn’t be helped at the moment.  “This habit you’ve apparently developed where it’s okay to fix us without a moments hesitation?  You can’t keep going like that.  It can’t just be you giving all the time.  We’re partners here and that means we work together.  That moment on the helicopter when you nearly gave up on yourself because you were afraid of somehow hurting us?  That never happens again.”

“You don’t-”

“No,” Steve cut him off and let a little of his anger, a little of his fear, saturate his words as he stared out at the water.  “No excuses.  I know there’s a reason you didn’t want to do it, I know something happened to make it a legitimate fear and I don’t expect you to tell me what it is unless you want to, but you will never compromise your own life like that again.  You will not compromise your own safety by helping me at any time, and you will not hesitate to borrow a little whatever-it-is from me if you need it to fix things like that third degree sunburn you’re currently a proud owner of.”  He turned to Danny to find him glaring at him and then after a moment he held out his hand and wiggled his fingers.  “Fix it, now, so I don’t have to go buy industrial strength vinegar and a giant aloe plant to deal with all the bitching about the pain later.”

“I’m not going to-”

“You healed yourself once for something a hundred times heavier,” Steve put his foot down with a glare.  “You’re not alone in this anymore Danny.  Give and take, keep the circle flowing” he reached his hand out a little closer to Danny demandingly.  Danny stared at him for a long moment before exhaling loudly out his nose and grabbing Steve’s wrist.  Steve closed his own hand around Danny’s and couldn’t help the content smile he knew was on his face.

“Do not think that, just because we’re figuring out this back and forth thing here, that I will magically heal every little boo-boo you get.  You go jumping from one moving vehicle to another just because you can then you will be dealing with the consequences lone wolf style Steven.  I will not be an excuse for you to do even crazier crap than usual; I will be divorced from your industrious search for self-inflicted pain and I will laugh at you very loudly with every single hangover you parade before me.”

“I don’t get hangover’s Danny,” Steve pointed out as Danny practically tossed his arm back to him in feinted disgust.  Steve looked him over, noting that the painful looking red on his skin was now a faint blush and he didn’t feel any worse for wear.  Danny was getting better at balancing the energy transfer already and Steve wondered if, with more practice, Danny would be able to draw on the energy of everything around him and not just through direct contact with other people.  It was something to consider mentioning in the future, months from now when they weren’t as raw and on edge.  Maybe then he would bring up the fact that since Danny had met Steve, Chin and Kono he had begun healing people without even being aware of it.

“Of course you don’t, your liver probably turns booze into pre-oxygenated blood cells that give you the energy to scale Mauna Kea in one breath.”  Steve grinned and then, remembering, he grabbed the paper bag he had put on the ground and tossed it at Danny, who fumbled to catch it while not losing his drink and glaring at Steve.  “What’s this?” he demanded even as he was putting the beer down and pulling the top apart to peer into its depths.

When he saw what it was he hesitated a moment, blinking rapidly, and took a deep breath before reaching in and pulling out a freshly baked malasada.  He held it in the air a long moment, just looking at it as some of the sugar flaked off and landed on his white t-shirt.  His gaze drifted over the sandy beach to his daughter and Kono playing in the surf, and a slow smile, one of the rare true smiles came out once in a blue moon, softly lit up his face.  He held the opened bag over and Steve didn’t hesitate to reach in and grab one of the golden, doughy treats for himself, feeling the sugar press into its soft surface between his fingers.

“To scaling Mauna Kea,” Danny toasted, raising it up and Steve knocked their malasada’s together.

“And making it down the other side,” Steve finished and shoved the entire baked good into his mouth.  It was a tight fit, but he managed and gave Danny a dough filled, sugar laced grin.

“Remind me again how you got the nickname ‘Smoothdog?’  because I have yet to witness evidence to back up that claim-” he started but had to pause as he bit into his own malasada and then held the bag out as Gracie, apparently a bloodhound for anything sugar coated, came splashing out of the water with her eyes locked on the target and a greedy, shark-like grin on her face.

“You know how I got it,” Steve managed around the dough and Danny, for once, didn’t have anything contrary to say.

===================================================================== 
...Two Months Later…

“-authorities have closed their investigation into the multiple-homicides that took place two months ago aboard the Netherland based cargo ship that was found delivering a massive cache of illegal firearms, explosives, and harmful chemicals across international waters-”

Governor Jameson frowned, ignoring the old images of the cargo ship being hauled into a port in Rotterdam on the television as she looked over the file that lay open before her.  Over the last month she had gone over the same file countless times, trying to spot something that she knew she was missing and unable to figure out what.

“-rumoured that the attack which took place while they were travelling across the open Pacific could have been anything from a rival weapons dealer to opportunistic pirates-”

Sipping from her tumbler filled with expensive brandy she stared down at the large glossy picture, willing the answers she wanted to jump to the forefront.  Three more folders sat off to the side, updated and complete and she rested a hand on the top one briefly, wondering if the answers she was searching for were in that pile instead.

“-evidence that certain rooms aboard were specifically designed to detain people-”

She hadn’t even suspected anything out of the ordinary until Woo Fat had contacted her and begun inquiring, in an offhand way, about Detective Daniel Williams.  Looking down at the headshot from the mans official employee file she remained in the dark as to the reasoning behind the sudden interest.  The one thing she did know was that Williams had suddenly drawn enough interest from the criminal mastermind that he had momentarily lost interest in Steven McGarrett.  This was enough to get her attention one hundred percent.

“What is it about you?” she muttered softly as she looked at the blue eyes staring up at her.

“-some of the deceased include an ex-special forces soldier from the Dutch military and a physician who was cast from the respected medical community due to allegations of involvement with questionable stem cell research-”

She gently closed the folder, hiding away the detective’s face and tapped her finger on the pale manila a few times before frowning in frustration and opening the bottom drawer of her desk.  She gently placed Detective Williams file on top of the short pile that already rested there and then, after a long moments deliberation, placed the files of the rest of his team in there with him, McGarrett’s name boldly challenging her from the top.  She closed the drawer and locked it, sitting back in her seat and finally letting her attention drift to the flat screen across the room. She was done for the night, she’d wonder on this latest mystery later, and with that in mind she left her office for the evening, trusting that her aid would ensure the place was closed up properly as CNN’s reporter droned on in the background and was lost behind the closing door.

“At this time we can only speculate on the death of Alfonse Van Hoorn just last week and what it really means in connection to his famiy’s business in the illegal arms trade.  All we can say for certain is that the need for vigilance and caution are tantamount in these uncertain times and we can only hope that terrible deeds such as these shall steer far and clear of our lives.  I’m Andrew Webber for CNN news, signing off.”

-END-

Holy Crap it’s finally so sad that its over!  Maybe now I'll find a chance to read the other bigbangs posted!

If you managed to stick with me all the way through I hope you enjoyed the ride!!! :)

PLEASE  let my wonderful artists know how beautiful their art work is!

Notes and ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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