A Matter of Trust and Loyalty

A tag to Ma Ke Kahakai

" Yeh, well, it makes me sick that no one stuck up for you."

Chin didn't know why he needed to do it. He knew what he was feeling and that was grief for his Auntie Mele. He had kept what had happened, what had caused him to quit the force a secret from Kono and had only just confirmed her suspicions to her. The hurt in her eyes for him and all that he had lost to protect their uncle pained him as well, but what was done was done. Whatever regrets and repercussions there had been, were over. He had told her the truth. He had found belonging in 5-0. By asking him to join, Steve had given back the one thing he had missed about being a cop and that was doing the job. He didn't need the vindication. He didn't even need to prove himself through his work with 5-0. All he had wanted was to do the work again, plain and simple.

As grateful as Chin was to Steve for that, it had been Danny he had decided to turn to for support. He had remembered how fiercely he had fought for his partner, Meka's reputation and how he had vindicated him. More memorably, how Danny had promised him that he would always have his back. Though Chin knew that Steve would also do that, had even said that he had trusted him, he knew that Steve's trust was via proxy through his father. Because his father had trusted him, Steve knew that he could. Danny had no such reference and had made his judgment purely on his own. Chin needed that kind of trust more at that moment.

Chin walked into Danny's office. Danny looked up from his paperwork and watched him sit on the couch opposite his desk.

"Hey, Kono told me about your aunt. I'm sorry," Danny said sincerely.

"Thanks. Thanks for letting us go to her."

"Hey, family first," Danny affirmed.

Chin smiled. His admiration for Danny's compassion as well as his instincts about people was unimpeachable. He had watched Danny display both effortlessly to ever doubt them.

"Grace is lucky to have a dad who cares so much about her."

"Yeh, tell her that when she's 15 and wants a tattoo or worse, wants to date some football jock."

Chin laughed, but Danny felt that there was something more there.

"You okay?"

"Yeh, I will be," Chin started. "My aunt's death, it stirred up some things…"

"Anything you need, just ask," Danny said sensing that Chin needed to hear that.

"Thanks," Chin said.

He gazed down to his hands. He wasn't trying to find the courage to tell Danny. He didn't need it. Danny made confessions like he was going to make easier. Steve had told him that Danny was there for all of them so he knew that he would be supportive not judgmental as his former cop friends had been. For him, it was more about reliving the details of his downfall in HPD again. The abandonment and distrust of his fellow cops still stung. In some ways, he still had a hard time understanding how men he had worked with, some for years, could so easily believe all the lies manufactured about him. Some of them he had saved by putting himself in the line of fire. In contrast, the friendship that he had forged with Steve and Danny in the short time they had worked together felt more solid and unbreakable than any of the others. They had robbed the forfeiture locker to save his life. They had put their own careers and reputations at risk for him. It was a kind of loyalty that he hadn't felt in a long time. He then looked back up to see Danny listening, patiently waiting to hear his words.

"When you defended your partner, Meka, I found myself envying him, that I wished I had someone fighting in my corner like you had for him," Chin said. "My aunt, she was really sick and needed a kidney…my uncle, he was desperate…"

Danny listened and immediately understood where Chin was going.

"You don't need to explain anything to me. I get it. You took the fall for family. I would have done the same thing. You have nothing to prove in my book."

"Thanks, that means a lot."

"Steve was right when he said we're like family. From now on, you got someone in your corner, you got all of us there."

Chin found tears forming in his eyes, still from fresh grief, but also from the conviction in Danny's voice. In many ways, joining 5-0 was the best thing that could have happened to him, that even if everyone realized that they had been wrong about him, it wouldn't matter to him anymore. The only people that mattered were his new "family", Ohana. As long as he had their loyalty and trust, he felt he had earned the best of the best.

FIN. Thanks for reading. Just a quickie after seeing Ma Ke Kahakai.