Spoilers: Set post Season 1 finale (heavy spoilers for Oia'i'o). Vague spoilers for the whole Season 1.
Warning: mental breakdown*, some light cursing. Semi-happy ending.
Disclimer:Not mine. I borrowed them and I broke them. Don't know if I'll return them fixed.
Summary: Another take on post Oia'i'oAU. I'd like to believe this one is a bit . . . different. Steve finally crashes after being declared not-guilty of the murders of Laura Hills and Governor Jameson.
Thank you: to the best Beta in the world, bigj52 for her incessant patience with my bad grammar and punctuation, especially now that she's on vacation. Really I should be ashamed to even ask and she's awesome to always say, 'throw it at me'. Love you! I don't say that nearly enough.
- to mecurtin for a post that gave me the courage to pursue this idea and for alpha-reading the story for me and pointing out some issues. I still think my approach is too OMG draaamatic but I couldn't tone it down. Perhaps I didn't really want to. I addressed something you mentioned but yeah, it was filtered through my experiences.
- and last but not least to anuminis for and amazing and inspiring banner she made for this sotry. Unfortunatelly FF doesn't support graphics but you can view it on my LiveJournal, or on AO3 (I'll post a complete story there later)
_
* Brief reactive psychosisis a short-term, time-limited disorder, sometimes caused by severe stress.
"You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don't trust enough"
~ Frank Crane
LIVE IN TORMENT IF YOU DON'T
1.
"I don't trust him." Danny doesn't like the edge in Steve's voice; all sharp consonants and no vowels.
"Relax," he pleads when he himself is all but relaxed
"Don't you see?" Steve retorts and his words fall like from a machine gun. "Gordon was with Governor Jameson's office all along! He knows all the same people." His eyes keep darting around, like he wants to peer into the soul of every man and woman walking down the street. "Now he's Acting Governor, at least until the election. Who knows if he didn't have his part in all of this?"
"You can't suspect everybody," Danny says tiredly. He really doesn't want to be here, now, doing this. He looks into Steve's agitated eyes and he hates what he's about to tell him. "Maybe you should take a step back," he stalls, "take a break?" Damn it, the last few days were draining. Two sleepless nights and he knows for a fact, even though Steve had never openly admitted, that he'd been having trouble sleeping much longer. Danny would bet his collection of Bon Jovi records that nightmares began when those envelopes started appearing on his doorstep which - coincidentally - occurred almost exactly half-a-year after Jack McGarrett had been murdered.
The night before McGarrett broke into the Governor's mansion - against Danny's sound advice of course - and last night . . . At least Chin Ho Kelly, brilliant Chin Ho Kelly managed to recover Governor Jameson's confession because otherwise Steve would still be locked up and facing murder trial.
Instead, he is a free man and they've just left the Acting Governor's office where they learned that Mr. Andrew Gordon wants to reinstate the Five-0.
That brings Danny back to his own dilemma and he tries to pour some of it onto McGarrett.
"Don't you think about leaving?"
"Leaving?"
"Yeah." Danny shrugs and looks away. The sun is shining, the afternoon is warm. Here they stand in the parking lot before the Palace and the world still revolves on its axis like no disaster happened. "You don't have to run this task force," Danny speaks up and turns back to Steve, tries to meet his eyes. "Just. Take a moment, you know? Rethink your priorities. Don't you ever wonder about that? What you want from life? Maybe you'd want to go back to the Army, huh, Steven?" The joke falls flat. Steve only casts him a fleeting glance, like he grew a pair of fangs, then returns to scanning their surroundings as if they were in the immediate risk of being ambushed. Danny catches a brief shake of his head but he's not sure if it's a response to his question. Instead he glares at McGarrett's temple and is there more gray hair? He wants to touch but holds his hand down. "C'mon," he says because he has those qualms about that thing he hadn't yet mentioned. "I'm sure Chin Ho would deal with Five-0 splendidly, what with Kaye's help. And Gordon seems to want him in this position anyway." He shrugs and almost chuckles but then McGarrett's words make blood freeze in his veins.
"That's exactly why I can't leave," McGarrett snaps. His voice is not like his own, too harsh, too quick. "I don't trust him either."
"Who? Chin?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"He arrested me, Danny!"
"You know why he-"
"He cuffed me! Read me my rights!" Now Steve looks directly at Danny, leans down, invades Danny's personal space in his rage and Danny resists the temptation to take a step back. He looks into Steve's eyes and sees fire there, fever. "He betrayed me!" Steve seethes.
"He did that to protect you," Danny lays his hand on Steve's arm in an attempt to calm him down, ground him and Steve jerks away like he got burned, backs off, unsteady. God, he's like a live wire, all he needs is a plaque saying 'danger high voltage' attached to his forehead! "Steve, this was the best way to stay close to the investigation, to find something that would clear your name and he did-just-that. He found the recording, he-"
"He handcuffed me and read me my rights," Steve repeats as if that was all that mattered. He runs his hand through his hair then wipes his face.
Shit, Danny was so wrong to have this conversation now. He realizes he can't talk to McGarrett in his current state of mind; he can't try to persuade him, reason with him. He can't request a favor. He's been selfish, thinking only about what he needed, while McGarrett has truly been through Hell.
"C'mon," he attempts to pat Steve's arm again and stops short when he sees his friend stiffen. "You need to rest. You need to sleep, Steve, have a shower-" Danny shakes his head. "I'll take you home, okay? You'll eat something decent - and don't even try to tell me that you're not hungry because I know that you are - and you'll go to bed. Get in." He gestures for his car and goes for the driver's seat himself. Steve doesn't protest but when Danny reaches for the ignition he tenses up again and almost bolts out. The engine roars and Danny has the image of Laura Hill's car before his eyes. He knows what's going through McGarrett's exhausted brain. The man really, really needs to get some rest and Danny feels bad that he wanted to dump another bomb on him just moments ago.
He can't make himself stop missing his Monkey and Rachel, that's just not going to happen. He longs to see them again, to hold Gracie, hear her say 'Danno' but he's going to have to wait another day to book that plane ticket and fly away. Tomorrow. Tomorrow he'll ask for Steve's signature on his transfer back to New Jersey and then - he'll finally be home.
t.b.c