He stood on the edge of the rocky outcrop, staring out across the stormy seas, seemingly unaware of the wind-driven rain that now stung his face and soaked his clothes. He couldn't put into words the chaotic emotions that churned inside but dark, swirling clouds above and the riotous, angry seas below reflected the turmoil of his soul. He sighed despondently as he heard the unmistakable sound over the wind of a car door being shut somewhere close behind him. He did not have to turn to see who his company was and he closed his eyes and sighed. Silently wishing that Steve had left him alone, he could not resist the urge to pull away when he felt Steve's hand lightly grip his shoulder.
"Danno?"
"Go away, Steve!" He hissed as he stepped away from the man he once considered his closest friend. "For once, just leave me alone!"
"Danno, I'm sorry." He heard McGarrett whisper quietly. "Please let me explain."
"Explain! Explain what?" He swung around angrily, his blue eyes blazing with the white-hot fury of his soul. "Do you want to explain how you trusted the Feds more than you trusted me? Or do you want to explain why you lied and told me that you had to go to San Francisco to take care of 'important family business' that just couldn't wait!" He laughed derisively as he turned back towards the sea. The volume of his voice dropped minutely but the tone was still scathing. "Or maybe you want to explain why you ignored my advice and went back undercover without any back up or protection? To save a junkie, a heroin addict, who had no intention of ever co operating with us or anyone else!" He shook his head sadly. "It almost got you killed, Steve. It almost got you killed!"
"Danno, please…"
He drew a deep breath in an attempt to cool the volcanic heat bubbling just below the surface. He could sense McGarrett step closer. He could almost feel the hand he knew Steve had raised to place upon his back but knew the older man's uncertainty of his reaction. "Don't, Steve, just don't!" He whispered in warning as he stepped out of the reach of his mentor and best friend. "Please, just for once, do as I ask and leave me alone."
He heard the sharp intake of breath and knew his words had stung. But he also knew that whatever pain he had just inflicted on Steve was dulled in comparison to the ache in his own soul.
"Aikane, please, we need to talk about this." He heard Steve's desperate plea close to his ear.
"You don't trust me!" He managed to fling out through his tightening throat as the tears began to snake down his face, blending with the raindrops. "When it comes to the crunch, Steve, it comes down to the same thing. You don't trust me. There is nothing more to talk about."
"No, Danno, no! That's not true Aikane. I trust you with my life. I always have and always will." Steve objected fervently, horrified that Danno could ever doubt his trust.
Danny closed his eyes, swallowing hard as he felt the bile rise and burn the back of his throat. The memory of just how close he had come to shooting McGarrett in the alley slammed over him like a tidal wave. "I almost killed you! Damn it, Steve, I almost killed you in that alleyway." He yelled as he swung around and stared white-faced at McGarrett, his anger and terror and hurt too readable on his face. "I almost killed you, Steve. " He lowered his voice, as he stared into McGarrett's eyes. "I almost killed you because you didn't trust me enough to tell me what you were up to?"
"I was wrong, Danno." Steve admitted softly as he reached up to lightly squeeze the younger man's shoulder. "I was wrong for not telling you, Aikane, but it was not because I didn't trust you."
Danny's explosive reaction, though not totally unexpected, took McGarrett's breath away as the detective angry slapped his hand away and stepped back, balancing on the edge of the abyss behind him, buffeted by the wind and the rain. "You were wrong!" He shouted angrily. "You were wrong! You were more than just wrong, Steve,you were deceitful! You shut me out! You ignored my advice! You almost got yourself killed! And all you can say to me is you were wrong!" He shook his head in disbelief before he lowered his voice and quietly admonished. "You were a lot more than just wrong."
Steve felt his own face pale as he stood unable to move for fear that Danny would step back into the empty space behind. He had no defense to the stinging rebuke; he knew each one of his friend's heated accusations were true. "I know I was, Danno, I am truly sorry, my friend. Please can we go to the office and talk about it? Just give me a chance to explain."
"I'm sorry, Steve, there is nothing more to talk about." Danny sighed, as the anger faded from his eyes and was replaced with a look of resignation. "You showed me that you no longer trust me as your second-in-command. There's nothing more to say than I resign. You will get my written notice in the mail."
"No Danno, please…" McGarrett's words were lost on the wind as the younger man brushed past him but his heart felt plea fell on deaf ears as Danny walked away.
He stood on the edge of the rocky outcrop, his back to the stormy seas, seemingly unaware as the wind driven rain stung his body and soaked his clothes. He couldn't put into words the chaotic emotions that swirled inside but dark swirling clouds above and the large angry seas below reflected the turmoil of his soul. His actions and deceit had caused the best detective he had ever known to resign and lost him his closest friend.
xxxxx
His chest tightened as he stared at the envelope that had been placed on his desk. The distinctive, bold, capitalized letters told him whom the sender was without the need for him to turn the envelope over and confirm it from the return address. Reaching down, he picked up the envelope in a shaking hand. He did not need to open it to discover what it contained; he already knew. A strangled sob escaped his throat as he fingered the slim envelope. He knew that he had to try one last time. Wiping away tears that he had only now realized were falling, he placed the envelope quickly into his pocket as he turned and grabbed his jacket before moving towards the door.
He would never remember his drive to Danno's apartment; he would only remember the different ways he tried to think of to explain the ill-advised actions of that fateful day. But explanations just seemed like excuses and every apology seemed inadequate and unable to repair the damage he had done. He knew that all he could offer was the truth, as painful and revealing as that may be, and an apology that came from the heart.
With a strange mixture of determination and desperation, Steve parked the large Mercury before he climbed out to stride to the elevator. He had almost reached his destination when he stopped and changed direction, heading to the parking spots allocated for Danny's cars. His heart beat rapidly as the trepidation crept through his thoughts. The fear that he was too late and Danny was gone. A soft sigh of relief slipped from his lips as he saw the white sports car parked in its spot. He turned and hurried back to the elevator; the need to talk to his closest aikane was overwhelming.
He hesitated as he reached the apartment door. He knew Danny was home since the Mustang was in the underground garage. He could hear the sounds of movement from within. He was also aware that Danny did not want to speak to him; his previous entreaties to talk things out over the phone had been firmly denied. Deciding not to knock for fear of not being permitted to enter, McGarrett reached into his pocket and withdrew his keys. Opening the door with the key he had been entrusted with years ago, he entered the apartment and quickly glanced around, searching for its occupant. The sound of a drawer closing from within the bedroom alerted the detective to where his friend was and he moved quickly across the small living room, quietly pushing open the bedroom door. "Danno?"
Jumping in surprise at the soft voice behind him, Danny dropped the clothes he held in his arms and spun around. "Steve, what are you doing here? How did you get in?"
"I used the key and let myself in." McGarrett guiltily explained. "We need to talk, Aikane." He caught sight of the half-packed suitcase lying open on the bed. Breath catching in his throat as he realized what the younger man was doing, he needed to clear his throat before he could speak. "Going somewhere?" he managed to whisper as he nodded towards the bed.
"I'm booked on the one pm flight to New York." Danny shrugged. "I need to get away." He answered as he eyed the older man closer and asked again. "What are you doing here? You should have received my resignation. I have nothing more to say, Steve, except aloha."
McGarrett reached out and grabbed Danny's shoulder as his friend began to turn away, preventing him from doing so. "Please Danno, just give me a few minutes to explain the reasons why I did what I did. If you still feel the same way after I have finished, I promise I won't try and prevent you from leaving. In fact if you still want to leave, I will drive you to the airport myself."
Holding his breath, McGarrett silently waited as Danny rubbed his hand indecisively through his curls before he finally nodded. "Okay Steve, you win. We'll talk." He sighed in a reluctant agreement. "But only on the condition that if I decide to leave, you won't try and stop me!"
McGarrett released his breath and smiled in relief, slapping the younger man lightly on the shoulder. "I promise, Danno. If you still want to leave, I will carry your bags onto the plane personally."
Nodding his acceptance of the older man's promise, Danny turned and led them back out into the living room. "Drink?" He asked as McGarrett settled into one of the chairs. At McGarrett's shake of his head, Danny moved towards the bar. "I'm going to have one anyway." He announced as he poured himself a large shot of Bourbon before he returned to the sofa and sat down heavily across from McGarrett.
McGarrett watched silently as Danny took a large gulp of his drink. Studying the sullen-looking man who sat opposite him, it was obvious that his actions over the past few days had deeply hurt his closest friend. He knew that an apology would not suffice this time. Danny needed more than that. No matter how hard it was to bare his soul, Danno deserved no less than the truth. All he could do was explain and hope that the younger man could find it in his heart to forgive.
"I want to start by telling you that I have never lost my trust in you, Aikane. In fact there is no one else in the world that I trust more!" He began nervously, the soft snort of disbelief tearing at his heart as he continued. "I wanted so much to tell you what was going on but I couldn't. I was under orders by the Feds not to reveal to anyone what I was doing."
"I thought we didn't take our orders from the Feds!" Danny growled softly, his eyes blazing with the pain and the anger that still bubbled close to the surface over the deception.
"Sometimes we aren't given a choice; you know that as well as I do." McGarrett snapped his voice rising with the sting of the barb. He pushed back his own defensive anger, knowing that he only had one chance to do this right. "I argued with them to let me tell you what was going on, my friend, but they refused. They wanted to keep the whole operation on a need-to-know basis and they decided that no one in Five-O needed to know. I was gagged."
"So you went along with the Feds' demands. You decided to not trust your own team – me – to keep silent about what you were up to because they told you to? You lied to me, Steve!" Danny's pain and disgust at the revelation was evident in his voice as he slammed the glass down onto the small coffee table that separated them, ignoring the liquid that splashed over his hand. "You just didn't trust me and that hurt Steve, that hurt more than you will ever know or understand." He added more softly as he stood and walked away.
Steve remained where he was seated. He had known he had hurt Danny with his clandestine actions but this was the first time he really caught a glimpse of how deep that pain was. He shook his head as the words he wanted to say caught in his throat. He swallowed hard as he rose from his seat and walked across to where his friend stood. "I never meant for this to happen, Danno. I never meant to hurt you in any way."
"Why, Steve? Why did you do it? Why did you listen to the Feds?" Danny asked, his back to the older man.
McGarrett felt his heart race. This was a question he had asked himself over and over since that fateful day. He wasn't sure if the answer he had found would satisfy his friend but it was the only answer he truthfully could give and only answer Danny deserved. "The Feds approached me a few weeks ago, Danno, requesting my help in their investigation of the dock corruption. They knew with Krebs' murder that if they had someone on the inside who could get close to Frankie, she might turn state's evidence against the members of the group involved in the racketeering as revenge for the murder of her boyfriend. They didn't want to frighten Frankie off, so they didn't want any chance of leaks. That's why they decided that this was to be on a need-to-know basis."
Danny turned towards him and shook his head in disagreement. "Steve, we both know that if you had really insisted, the Feds would have let you brief us. But, for some reason, you didn't. Maybe it was because you knew that I would object to the danger that you were placing yourself in or maybe you just wanted to play super cop. I just don't know. But whatever the reason you did it, it showed that you did not trust me enough to be honest - even after we arrested you in that alley. You didn't trust me Steve and that almost got you killed. That scared me. It scared me because I was the one who was almost responsible for your death. It scared me because you wouldn't heed my advice and were almost killed a second time in the cabin but it scares me even more because I no longer trust you." Danny turned away as he asked. "After what happened, how can I trust you? How do I tell if what you tell me is the truth or a lie? " He stared out at the ocean, his back to the older man. His voice sounded defeated as he asked. "How do I know if you are even telling me the truth now?"
"Because I know that more deception comes at too high a price, Danno." McGarrett answered softly. "I am hoping that the truth and my apology will help mend some of the damage that I have done. I don't want to lose you, Aikane. I don't want to lose the closest friend I have ever known and I don't want your resignation. Please, let me explain some of the reasons behind what I did. Nothing I did was because I didn't trust you, Danno; I trust you with my life."
"Then why did you do it, Steve? Why did you stop me from doing my job? Why did you ignore my advice and go back undercover after we caught you in that alley?" Danny pleaded for the answers he needed to hear.
"I guess I saw something in Frankie that no one else seemed to see," Steve sighed. "Underneath the drug addict that you saw was a lady in pain. She was hurting and scared, Danno. Vulnerable with no one to turn to. She needed someone to watch out for her, someone to protect her. Like Cathi did…"
Danny frowned as he tried to follow the train of McGarrett's thoughts. "Cathi – Cathi Ryan? Are you comparing Frankie to Cathi?"
"Yeah, I guess I am." McGarrett admitted. "I remember when I first met Cathi, she was scared and hurt, not for the same reasons as Frankie. But the fear and the hurt were still there. I remember just wanting to hold her, wanting to do what ever I could to protect her." Steve's voice dropped and he wiped away the tears that began to fall as he quietly continued. " I loved her and I couldn't save her. I 'm a cop and I couldn't protect the woman I loved. I wasn't going to let that happen to Frankie." He paused; the softly-spoken revelation startled him as he found himself acknowledging the truth that he had never allowed himself to acknowledge before.
Danny turned and stared at his friend in shock, uncertain if he heard correctly what Steve was trying to tell him. He knew that Steve had fallen deeply in love with Cathi Ryan (episode- Man In a Steel Frame). Steve had been devastated when Cathi was murdered. Steve had blamed himself for the death not only because he felt he had not protected her but also because the woman that he loved had been cruelly murdered just to frame him. Was Steve now trying to tell him that he felt the same for Frankie? A druggie who had shown no loyalty to anyone except for herself? "Steve, what are you saying?" He managed to ask. "Are you saying that you had … feelings … for Frankie? Is that the reason why you risked your life? Because you think you fell in love with a junkie?"
Flinching at the question, Steve shrugged uncertain, "I'm not sure if love is the right word of how I felt." He admitted softly. "There was something between us. Whether it was love or pity, I'm not sure. All I do know for certain is that I wanted to keep her safe. I wanted her to know that someone still cared about what happened to her. I wanted to show her there was another way, that people were willing to help her." Blinking, he looked into Danny's eyes as he answered the second question that Danno had asked. " Yes Danno, I was willing to risk my life to protect her. But in the end it was Frankie who risked her life and lost just to protect me. She died trying to save my life. In the end, she deserved a lot more recognition than just being known as a junkie."
"She had choices, Steve. She had the opportunity to get the protection but she didn't want that, all she cared about was the drugs. She didn't want help; she didn't want protection!" Danny snapped angrily, unable to believe that even now McGarrett could not see what Frankie really was. "She just wanted someone to take care of her. Someone who would help her find a place to sleep, someone who would take care of her when she was stoned! That's all she wanted, Steve, she was not interested in you. She was interested only in what she thought you could do for her. You risked everything, Steve! You risked it all on a junkie." Danny laughed ruefully. "You know, Steve, you trusted her to cover your back more than you trusted me!"
McGarrett's eyes opened wide at the accusation as he gently grasped the younger man's arms. "That's not true Danno. I never…"
"It is, Steve! You trusted a junkie to keep you safe. You trusted her more than your own Second In Command!" Danny yelled in anger as he pulled away. "I thought that keeping you safe was a part of my job! But you fight me every time I try and do it! You won't take my advice, you argue with me whenever I try and give you protection and then you do whatever you decide to do!"
"Danno, I'm sorry, I never meant to…"
"You never meant to do what, Steve? You never meant to have a Second-In-Command who took his job seriously?" Danny shouted, all the fear, anger and pain erupting in an explosion that would rival any volcanic eruption that Pele could ever create. "In the last few days, you have made me question why you even keep me on the team. You have proven that you don't trust my advice nor my loyalty. But worst of all you have shown me that you don't trust me to watch your back!"
As quick and heated as the explosion had been, it ended and Steve found himself watching a weary and defeated man. Danny looked older than his years. The face he could read so well spoke silently of disillusion and pain - evidence of the damage he had caused for the world to witness.
"You're right, Danno," he started softly. "You are right about a lot of things." The softly spoken statements caught the younger man's attention and he hurried on to explain. "I have made a lot of mistakes that I am not proud of but worst of all I have hurt my closest friend more than I can ever imagine and for that I am truly sorry my Aikane, more than I can ever put into words. When the Feds first came to me, I have to admit the idea of going undercover and catching some of the slime who are terrorizing honest workers on the docks appealed to me. I wanted justice for the victims; I wanted to get the scum off the streets. I didn't think of how you would feel being left out of the loop. I thought that you would never know what I was up to until after the operation was finished." He swallowed hard, blinking back the tears of regret. "I thought once it was finished, that I would tell you then what I had done and that you would understand my reasons why. It was so foolish, my friend, I know. I was selfish! I never thought about how you or anyone else would feel. It was never because I didn't trust you that I never told you, Aikane."
He shook his head. "When you caught me, I was so ashamed, so embarrassed. I knew that you knew instantly who I was. I saw it in your face. I'm sorry that I punched you, Danno but I had to keep my cover intact…just in case." He wanted to look away, wanted to escape the piercing blue eyes that studied him intently but he knew he had to continue. "I considered pulling out, Danno, when I spoke to you at HPD. I saw the hurt and disappointment in your face but after I heard what Frankie told you in the interview room, I knew that I just couldn't leave her unprotected. I hoped that you would understand. It was never a matter of trust! I have never doubted you for a moment but this was something I just had to do whether you agreed or not."
The flash of anger in the young man's eyes warned McGarrett that he needed to choose his words carefully as he continued to bare his soul. "I saw a little bit of Cathi in Frankie, Danno, maybe that's why I did what I did or maybe you were right and I subconsciously just wanted to play Super Cop but I hope it was compassion and not ego that deafened me to your advice. I thought I could handle any situation that arose. I misread the danger and it almost got me killed." He gave a small sad laugh. "I didn't think that someone would recognize me. I thought that I could bluff my way through. I was wrong. I was so wrong in many ways! I should have listened to your advice. You have never let me down. I should have accepted the back-up, I should have kept Frankie under arrest. I made so many mistakes. Misread the situation entirely. In the end all I managed to do was get Frankie killed and now I have lost the best friend I have ever had, all because I wouldn't listen to my Second -In -Command, all because I was too stubborn to take good advice." Steve paused as he reached up and placed his hand on Danny's shoulder. "Sometimes I forget that I have a good man as my Second-In-Command, someone I trust someone I have come to depend on. A friend that I too often take for granted. I'm sorry, Danno, sorry for so many things. Please let us work through this together. I don't want to lose you"
"I don't want to go either, Steve. I know that you are sorry for what happened and I can even understand why you did what you did." Danny answered quietly, ignoring the tears that now flowed freely down his face as he spoke. "But I just don't know where we can go from here. How do I know that this isn't going to happen again?" he asked quietly.
"You don't, Danno," Steve answered truthfully as he squeezed the shoulder under his hand. "All I can do is promise that I will never do it again. I never want to lose your friendship and trust, Aikane. I know that at the moment you might find it hard to believe what I say after all that I have done but there is no one else I want or trust to be my Second-In-Command. And no one else that I ever want to be my Kaikaina. Please Danno, stay."
Danny swallowed hard and nodded. "I'll stay this time Steve but if this ever happens again…"
"It won't Danno, I promise but if I ever break that promise, I will drive you to the airport myself."
"I'll hold you to that promise, Steve." Danny smiled through the tears. "I hope that it will never come to that."
McGarrett smiled, "Want a hand unpacking?"
"I guess so." Danny answered as he turned towards the bedroom.
Steve McGarrett stood a moment and watched his friend move towards the bedroom. It was close this time, too close. His actions had almost lost him his closest friend. This was one promise he intended to keep, to break it would cost too high of a price, a price that he was not willing to pay.
PAU