Title: He Could See It In His Eyes
Author: Sockie1000
Disclaimers: The usual.
Summary: What Steve, Danny, and Kevin were thinking during the closet scene and rescue from episode 1.21, "Ho'opa'i".
Author's notes: I really loved this scene from the last episode. And what I loved about it the most was how expressive Alex and Scott were with their eyes. They both just nailed it, which sent my muse into overdrive. This story is the result. I hope you enjoy it.
And thank you, Cokie316, for the beta.
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He could see it in his eyes.
Steve had it covered.
Danny lowered his gun, holstered it, and then looked away. Sometimes this job just sucked.
He glanced back over at his partner, with sympathy, making sure Steve was all right. Or as all right as he could ever be. Is anyone ever all right after his mother is killed? How does anyone ever recover from that?
Danny saw Kevin huddled under the blanket, his small body shivering as he tried to choke back the sobs.
It was bad enough seeing what he saw in this job; the devastation, the loss, the suffering. And when personal feelings got attached, well, that just made it all the worse. And seeing Kevin there, alone, trying desperately to shut out reality… well, it gave Danny a glimpse into the suffering of another boy, who did the exact same thing 18 years earlier. Regardless of age, the pain was the same. Only the methods of hiding were different.
Danny watched as Steve squatted down beside the mounded blanket and started talking quietly to Kevin.
Steve had it covered.
Danny left the room silently, leaving the sons of murdered mothers to bond together in their own private hell. The older, helping the younger, futilely trying to bind wounds that would never heal.
***H50***
He could see it in his eyes.
Something was wrong.
"I'm a police officer," the man said. "My name's Steve. You must be Kevin, right?"
Kevin nodded and then looked back down. His dad was a police officer, too. He worked a lot. That's what mom always said. His dad had been away for a long time, working, and then he came back yesterday. And Kevin was happy. And so were his mom and dad. They were all together again.
Then, early this morning, Kevin heard some loud noises. He came out of his room and saw his mom lying on the floor. She looked hurt. He tried to go to her, but his dad kept him away. Then some men came into the house, and they had guns. They shot at him. They shot at his dad. He wasn't sure, but he thought his dad got hurt. Just like his mom.
His dad told him to go to his room and stay there until he got back. So, he went into his closet and shut the door. He sat on the floor and pulled a blanket over his head, trying to hide from the bad men. He waited and waited. But his dad never came back for him. And neither did his mom.
And now this nice man was looking at him. He looked like he understood. But he also looked sad. And he was promising him that nobody was going to hurt him.
But Kevin knew that was a lie. Somebody had already hurt him. He just did not know where. But he could feel it. It was already too late.
Something was wrong.
And it would never be right again.
***H50***
He could see it in his eyes.
Kevin knew.
Just the way Steve knew when he was 16 and answered the door to find a police officer standing on the front porch.
Saying that it sucked to know his mom was gone was a gross understatement. There really were no words to describe that horrible moment. The moment he knew she was dead. The moment his life changed forever.
After all these years, he thought he had healed. Or at least he had healed as much as he could. And then he found out his mother had not been killed in an accident. Instead, she had been murdered. It was the sucker punch Steve had never seen coming. And the wound opened up all over again. And days like today just made it bleed all the more.
Here he was, alone with Kevin. Steve's face was the first face Kevin had seen and his voice the first voice he heard as he began his new journey. Beginning a life which would be very much like his own.
"I need you to take my hand so we can get out of here," Steve said, gently. He rested his right arm on the storage box, patiently waiting for Kevin to accept his hand.
As much as Steve did not relish the idea of welcoming Kevin to his new reality, he knew he needed to get him out of the house. The forensic team would be there soon, and the last thing Kevin needed to see was the coroner poking around at his mother's body. Things were bad enough already; he really didn't need to see that.
Kevin took Steve's hand. Steve pulled him up to a stand and then picked him up. He cradled him in his arms and sighed. He tucked the boy's head into his own shoulder, and placed his hand on his head. Steve was trying to keep Kevin from looking, to shield him from the sight of his dead mother. But he was also trying to offer him what small comfort he could. But Steve knew it really did not matter that much.
Kevin knew.
And he did not have to look to see.
***H50***
He could see it in his eyes.
Steve would get the men who did this.
Danny watched as Steve gently carried Kevin to the sliding glass door. Steve paused briefly, glancing down, and then stepped down the stairs and onto the lawn. Carrying Kevin out of what should have been a dream, but had turned into a nightmare.
And although Steve rarely showed it, Danny knew he was in pain. He knew Steve was still reeling from the news that his own mother had been murdered. Not to mention that he was still trying to get over being on the phone when his dad was shot and killed. And just as the scabs were starting to form, this job came and ripped them right back off. The first came off with the ransom call to the parents of the kidnapped kids, a couple more in two separate instances of kids losing their dads, and then another one today with Kevin, losing his mother.
Danny really did not know how Steve did it.
If anything ever happened to Grace, well… Danny didn't want to go there. That was one of the reasons he did this thankless, often miserable, job. He wanted to make sure "there" was a place that, God willing, he would never have to go.
But if the unspeakable ever did happen, he knew one thing for sure. He would not show up, day after day, working on cases that reminded him of Grace. Reminded him of what he had lost. Never knowing when you got to work in the morning if today was the day you would get figuratively gut punched. Again.
No, Danny would not do that. At least he didn't think he would. And he wasn't even really sure if he could.
But Danny knew for a fact Steve both could and would. Danny watched him do it every day.
Steve showed up, day after day, trying to right the wrongs of the world. Trying to catch the bad guys. Trying to help the innocent. Trying to ease their pain. Trying to get justice for those who could not get it on their own.
And Steve did so regardless of the toll it took on him, mentally and physically. Because that was what Steve did. That was how life had shaped him. He could never go back to who he was before. And he would never quit.
Steve would get the men who did this.
He could see it in his eyes.
fin
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