Missing Scenes, "Oia'i'o"
by Sammie
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. If they were, Kono would have SO MUCH MORE TO DO!
RATING: T
SUMMARY: As he sits in booking, Steve ponders the two cousins on his team. Steve-Kono, Steve-Chin Ho.
THIS AUTHOR'S NOTE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE STORY. Thank you to everybody who has read my last few FF, and a special thanks to those who take the time to review. As a writer, while it's gratifying to see people put a FF on "favorite story" or "story alert", it's even more pleasing to get a review which says what exactly the reader liked and didn't like.
THIS AUTHOR'S NOTE ALSO IS COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT. The best quote on the night of the season finale: "Goodbye, red BMW. You performed your service well, but alas, you weren't a Chevy and had to die." - Jennifer6973, Twitter.
(To Jennifer: I mean no offense posting your Twitter quote; if you wish me to take it down, I will.)
Benevolent dictators make sure their subjects were safe. That's why they are benevolent.
Steve mentally counted through his people as the patrol car rolled through the dark streets. He wasn't exactly excited about these developments, and he wasn't happy that Danny was right - Danny, who was perpetually warning him he couldn't play the cowboy forever before it would all catch up to them. Still, at least he wasn't bringing anybody down with him.
Danny would be safe - he could go back to HPD. He had Grace, and he had Rachel. Steve decided not to dwell on his concerned thoughts about how his old friend had reunited with his still-married ex-wife.
Chin Ho had landed on his feet - apparently the newly-minted Lieutenant Kelly led a force. Steve glanced over at the passenger's side of the car, trying to process everything that had just happened. In some ways he was glad that Chin had been the one to arrest him, despite the fact that there were others who could have, yet he wasn't sure what to make of all this yet. He had to admit to feeling a little abandoned by his father's protégé.
Kono - Kono, who had no record at all, who hadn't been a cop long enough to have a record - she would be safe. Kono was most likely the safest of all of them. The worst scandal she'd ever had connected to her personally was most likely getting too surf-happy.
He wasn't even that concerned about the burned money. They'd watched it burn, yes. But he had done everything in his power to protect her; he'd promised to do so the day he handed her a gun. He'd ensured that, when they broke into the asset forfeiture locker, that she wasn't the one going in: she wouldn't enter the building, she wouldn't enter the locker, she wouldn't get the money, it wasn't her bag with the money inside. If anything happened - if he left any marks or DNA or something behind, it would be he who was caught, not she. With her native Hawaiian looks and pidgin, who would question her, especially hidden under a city worker's uniform?
When they'd gone to meet Hesse, he had taken pains to make sure the man never knew Kono was there, even when the scum had awakened after their fight and was arrested. Steve had bundled her away into his truck before Hesse awoke, and then he watched the murderer be driven away by law enforcement before he allowed her to reappear. Who was going to tie Kono to that mess, anyhow?
He heaved a sigh as the car came to a stop. After a few moments, the door opened, and the cop who was driving reached in to pull him out, then stopped. Steve frowned, slightly puzzled, and then saw Chin step into his view. Chin stood next to the door expectantly.
Well, thank God for small favors.
Steve swung his feet out of the door and stood up, stumbling slightly when unable to use his cuffed hands for balance. A strong hand caught him, and he looked out of the corner of his eye to see Chin standing next to him - looking forward and not at him, but a steadying hand on his shoulder.
Inside, Chin uncuffed him and turned him over to the officers there - and then Steve learned what it was really like to be in the hands of somebody who thought you were guilty. He was pushed forward to get his picture taken when he noticed a flash of familiar pink outside the corner of his eye. He turned his head towards it.
She said nothing, did nothing, but her eyes were worried and frightened and resigned and haunted, all mixed together. He stared at his youngest team member, as if unable to comprehend what was happening.
She was supposed to be safe. He had done everything to make sure she was safe.
"Turn and face the camera."
He was unable to move, staring unbelievingly at her. It finally struck him; everything he had done finally caught up to him. Danny, Chin Ho, Kono - they had loyally followed him everywhere, and they were suffering for it. He knew this, but he'd never felt it so intensely. Even with the bomb around Chin Ho's neck, he'd known this. Laura Hills' death - she died because she was helping him. The weight of her death sat on his shoulders enough as it was, though they only knew each other marginally. He knew that he could possibly bring them down with him, but it had never sunk in completely - until now.
Kono did not do scared. Kono did angry, amused, happy. Kono did not do scared - but right now he could see the uncertainty and fear in her eyes.
He could feel the bile rise in his throat.
Yet even as he stared back at her, dumbfounded and helpless, he saw no condemnation in her eyes, no accusation in her face. She was frightened and sad and resigned; she was not accusatory. He knew that, unless he did something, she'd take the rap for both of them.
He was a do-er. When Hesse had targted Chin Ho, even when HPD came to arrest him for Laura's murder - he never stopped thinking and coming up with (increasingly desperate) solutions. What were his options now? He'd be willing to do anything to get her off the hook.
Yet he ran into roadblock after roadblock. Everywhere he turned mentally was another dead end. Even more frustratingly, with each failure and with each reminder of his own helplessness - he HATED being helpless! - his mind seemed to slow down until one thought remained: he'd dragged Kono into his mess, and he couldn't fix it. For the very first time, his guilt stopped being just intellectual; it drilled straight downward from his mind straight into his gut. Everything he'd been doing - Kono was going to pay for it.
"I said, turn and face the camera," snapped the cop.
He hadn't heard the cop the first time. He turned, as if in a sudden daze, as though walking in a nightmare. His eyes lingered on hers a moment longer, almost willing her to disappear from the building. When she didn't, he turned blindly, unblinkingly to face the photographer and the flash of the camera, her face swimming before his eyes.