Title: Five Seconds
Rating: T for language
Summary: Knowing everything's going to be okay all comes down to five seconds.
Spoilers: Season 1 Finale "Oia'i'o" - this is an immediate post-ep because like many other fans of H50, I simply couldn't just let that finale end where it did.
Five Seconds
It's not very often your world completely falls apart. That the glass house once resembling all that was your life shatters into millions of shards, nicking every inch of you. It's fucked up when it happens. But it's even more fucked up when it happens twice. Mother...murdered. Father...murdered.
What was even worse, and more unbelievable than it happening twice, was it happening a third time. He leaned forward, elbows just behind his knees as he sat on the standard prison cot. Hands ran through his hair over and over. The sweat dried it sticking out at all angles. Palm-flat, touching his forehead to stave off what was sure to become a migraine very, very soon.
Down over his eyes. Eyes that felt like they were full of sand, sand from the beach behind his father's house...his house...no, it was his father's house. His father, shot dead while Steve listened helplessly from too far away to be able to do anything more than feel his gut twist and his heart seize in disbelief.
Over his nose, landing on his mouth. His mouth. "Danny," he had said almost desperately when his partner had shown up at the scene. Danny could fix anything, and Chin...Chin had made the move back to HPD for a reason, Steve knew it as sure as he knew his own name.
"There is no more Five-O!"
Chin's words sliced through Steve's brain like a knife, or maybe it was the migraine finally hitting after all.
"It was Wo Fat."
Steve had given Danny the nugget he needed. With Chin's help, he would get the evidence needed to clear Steve and get him out of there, and with any luck, deliver Wo Fat to the HPD in a body bag. Son of a bitch, son of a bitch, son of a bitch! His thoughts punctuated every punch to the cement block wall, the final leaving him feeling like he had to have broken every finger and knuckle.
But what the fuck, why was Kono in the precinct, why was she getting booked? Steve didn't know anything anymore, he didn't understand, and then suddenly his brain, which had started to feel like an over-boiled egg, put the puzzle pieces together. This wasn't just about taking Steve down, after all, not everything was about Steve McGarrett even though really, it was.
This was about dismantling Five-O for good. Getting rid of Steve had been the goal all along, he knew that now, knew he should've seen this coming. But he'd been so blinded by his own quest for vengeance, by his desperate need to catch his father's killer, and to solve the murder of his mother. Too fucking wrapped up in the thing he should have known better than to get wrapped up in.
Because really, how many times had he seen a blood quest wind up with the one seeking justice being the one who got fucked up the ass? It was the classic tragedy, and if he hadn't been so blinded by the blood-boiling need to take an eye for an eye, he would've seen it. Some fucking SEAL he was. But none of that had ever been personal. They'd all just been missions. Orders. Doing what he was told, what he'd been trained for, what he was damn good at.
But the part of him that was, contrary to anyone else's opinion, more human than even he cared to admit, had allowed his emotions to steal every ounce of common sense, put aside every bit of training he'd ever received, cloud every goddamn instinct he'd been born with. And now where had it gotten him? Sure, he'd gotten his revenge, but in dragging three other people along for the ride, what had he done to their lives? The look on Kono's face had said it all. He had never seen her defeated or frightened even in the face of the fiercest enemy. But she was now both.
He paced the tiny cell, dragging his fingers through his hair, running the painfully swollen hand down his face over and over. Alternately shoving his hands into his pockets before pulling them out and fighting to keep from punching the wall yet again. Danny, well, Danny was Danny and he'd get him out of this mess somehow, he knew he would. He wouldn't think about Danny any further than that because Danny was still on the outside.
The governor...his face twisted in fury and he did swing around and punch the wall again, this time feeling it when the bones crunched but it made him feel alive. He welcomed the pain into his body even as it felt like an ice pick had gone through his frontal lobe.
The goddamn governor of the State of Hawaii had put the ten mil back. To protect him, yeah, right, that's what she'd said, but...his eyes widened as he stopped in mid-step. One socked foot dropped like lead next to the other. That was it. The serial numbers of the money Chin told him had been found half-burned on that ranch, they were traced back to the 8-year old case, and that's what had Kono in the slam now, it had to be.
But the governor herself had made sure the money had been replaced. Surely there'd be a way to connect the dots, to lead from the non-missing money that according to those serial numbers should be missing, back to the governor, back to Wo Fat. Dammit, he needed to talk to Danny, dammit! He shook his hand which had turned from a welcomed intruder into downright throbbingly painful to match what was bouncing around inside his skull right now. He didn't even realize he'd squeezed his eyes shut against the way-too-bright fluorescent bulb in the light of the goddamn tiny cell he'd been thrown into.
Okay, so Danny was still out, Chin, he was back with HPD. Stick to the facts. He could still think, albeit barely, as he sank down onto the cot and stretched out full-length. The uninjured hand covered his eyes, trying desperately to block out the damn light. Chin had seen this coming and he'd gone where he could do the most good for his former teammates, his former boss. But that didn't make any sense because why would the HPD so warmly welcome Chin back, but not even just welcome him back...let him lead the charge to the governor's residence?
In spite of the fact that his head felt like tiny piranhas had been let loose inside it, he shot to his feet, swaying just a bit as his eyes popped wide open. That was it, that was it, it had to be. HPD offers Chin his badge back just on the cusp of Five-O being ripped apart, right before the governor is murdered in cold blood by Wo Fat, immediately prior to the framing of McGarrett himself for that murder and putting Kono out of commission.
The thought came to him clear as day. Someone was still trying to help them. Someone, someone, but who? Steve ran a hand down his face for the millionth time and then the migraine took final hold of him and he staggered to the cot and fell into it face-first. He had to think this through, because when he got his phone call...they still got a phone call last time he knew...it was going to be to Danny and he'd give Danny enough to fix it.
Okay, okay, so what did he have? Kono and him, locked up. Admittedly, Steve facing much worse on the spectrum of charges, but still and all...he felt a twinge near his shoulder and his hand clapped to his neck. Taser. Wo Fat had tasered him...look at the evidence the way HPD will...why would he have had the mark he knew had to be there, he couldn't possibly have shot the governor after being hit with an M26. Even freaking ninjas, and his mouth quirked hearing Mary's voice in his head calling him that, couldn't overcome a hit from a Taser well enough to murder someone.
Right, the Taser would be another fact to impart to Danny. But back to someone on the inside, and he felt a strangled growl in his throat as the blood rushed through his ears so loudly he actually clamped his hands over them trying to make it stop. Chin at HPD. Danny still free and clear. It didn't make sense in the real world, because they'd been a team, a task force, they'd been Five-O. And truly, what one of them had done would get them all locked up for nothing less than being accessories.
At the very least, Danny could've been booked as an accessory to the theft of the ten mil, because after all, he'd been right there with Chin...Steve cringed as he remembered the look of fear on Chin-Ho's face with that bomb strapped to his fucking neck. God, what, they'd expected his boss and his cousin to just let him die? No, no, no, back to facts, back to facts. Steve's whispered groan against the full-force migraine's power to incapacitate him felt like it'd been a guttural yell as he rolled to his side with both hands now covering his eyes.
No, back to Danny...they could easily have booked him, taken him down along with Kono. It didn't take much to play the blame game when four people were involved. And that led back to Chin-Ho, because how the hell would HPD not only have welcomed Chin back with open arms, but made him a Lieutenant and sent him to Jameson's house to coincidentally find Steve just rising to his feet with a gun in his hand and Jameson's dead body in her chair?
Migraines made thinking downright impossible for most, but for Steve it seemed to make it all completely circuitous. And so he was back to the idea that someone was on the inside, someone was trying to make the best out of this hellhole of a situation and someone was still on their side after all. Who, who, who? Steve moaned again, he could barely string a coherent thought together, but he heard the click of the lock and forced his eyelids open. Just a slit, but enough to see that two cops were entering his cell.
"Up, McGarrett," the thinner of the two said.
Steve drew on every reserve he had, teeth clenching, eyes squeezing shut as he forced himself to his feet.
"You get one phone call," the other cop told him as he shackled his ankles.
The thinner one cuffed his wrists behind him and out they went. Steve was glad for the shackles because he could shuffle along without thinking about having to walk, and right now through the axe splitting his head in quarters, walking was more work almost than it was worth. But the phone call...Danny, he'd get him now, he'd tell him everything he'd figured out. Primary goal. He would accomplish it.
He was led to a wall phone. One cop took up residence either side of him after removing the handcuffs, then cuffing his left wrist to the bar next to the phone.
"Five minutes," the thin cop said, and Steve's vision was so blurred he couldn't make out the name on the gold-plated tag.
He couldn't even make out the push buttons on the phone, but he lifted his fingertips to touch them and he knew which numbers to press. He cradled the phone in his neck and dialled. It rang once. He let out a puff of air, sagging against the wall as tears leaked out of his eyes. Fuck, getting shot didn't hurt this much. It rang twice and he fought the surge of panic that threatened. What if Danny didn't answer, what if...what if they'd gotten to him too?
What if he'd been arrested, maybe they were just waiting until the big boss was behind bars and then it'd all be over for Danny and Chin, too? Worse yet, and he felt the pain become almost unbearable because it wasn't just from the migraine this time, but worse yet, what if they-
"Williams."
"Danny," in the same ragged and desperate voice from before.
"Steve? Listen, what the hell, and no I will not shut up on this one, what in the hell were you doing at the goddamn governor's home, I mean, did I or did I not, and I very clearly remember that I did, tell you to go get some sleep, that we'd look at the evidence in the morning, like, what the fuck were you-?"
"Listen to me, Danny, you just shut up and you listen to me, there's someone helping us, you gotta listen to me, Danny."
"All right, all right, calm down, whaddya mean someone helping us, 'cause I don't mind telling you, Babe, Chin-Ho shoving you in the back of the cruiser for murdering the governor does not seem helpful at all-"
"Danny," and this time he knew he sounded more than desperate, but at least it shut his rambling Jersey partner up long enough for a two-minute recap of what he'd figured out in between wishing he could just sink into the floor and spontaneously combust for all the relief his goddamn head was giving him.
"Okay, okay," Danny said a full twenty seconds after Steve had finished. "Okay, this I can work with, I'll get with Chin, all right? I'm gonna get you outta there, McGarrett, you hear me?"
"Yeah," Steve ground out. He grasped the phone so tightly he thought it might just crumble and he'd lose that thing he needed right now more than even Excedrin...his lifeline, his grounding...Danny. "Yeah."
"Hey, you don't sound so good, what..." Steve heard the sigh and could imagine Danny's hand rubbing his forehead. "You didn't go all Super SEAL on them, tell me you didn't fuck up your own chances of getting the hell out of there once we clear your name by being a fucking lunatic. Please tell me you stopped and thought about your partner before you did something completely stupid again, just tell me you haven't maimed a cop."
"No." Keep talking, Danny, keep talking, I need a rant right now, I need to know you're there.
Steve would have laughed out loud if he hadn't felt like the ass end of a downed sub, because Danny always came through.
"Good, because let me tell you something, partner, and yes, I'm still your partner, I don't give a shit if there's no Five-O, they haven't stripped me of my badge, so you're still my partner, you hear me?"
Steve winced when he nodded. Danny couldn't see him, but Danny would know.
"So let me tell you something, you keep your mouth shut, Steven, you keep your goddamn arms and legs to yourself, you don't say a word, because I got your back."
"Always," was all Steve could say through clenched teeth, and he hated that even over the pounding of his head and the rushing blood in his ears he could hear it came out more like a sob.
"That's right, always, and I'm here, I'm staying right here until I wrap this up with a big fucking red bow and set it on the Lieutenant Governor's desk with a big, bright flashing neon fucking Hallmark card that says, 'Love, Steve and Danno,' you got that, you hear me, right?"
"Yeah, Babe," Steve's voice was vibrating his entire body as his vision blurred to the point where the phone was nothing more than a shadowy blob of something.
"Thirty seconds," the thin cop said, looking at his watch.
"Danny."
There was a full ten seconds of silence on the other end before Danny's voice, low and gravelly, and not at all like the tirade voice, said, "I know."
Steve tightened his grip on the receiver like it was his best, last and only hope and wanted to say so much more, so much, but it couldn't happen through the fog that had descended over his brain, or here in a fucking precinct hallway and his head was killing him but none of that mattered now because Danny knew everything and he'd fix it.
He could hear Danny's breathing at the other end of the line as the cuff around his left wrist tugged mercilessly, not letting him slide down the wall and allow the pain to envelop him. Ragged, heated breaths that reassured him, let him know it was okay because Danny had his back, like always.
And in those last five seconds of silence before the bigger cop wrenched the receiver from his tight, tight grip, Steve McGarrett heard every word Danny Williams said.
