Forgotten Eulogy
Steve McGarrett woke up from sleep. He opened his eyes, realizing again where he was. He wasn't in a cell, hanging from chains being tortured and beaten. Nor was he dead, but by all rights he should be… if not for Jenna Kaye. Steve was lying in his bed, staring wordlessly at the ceiling. His body ached from burns and bruises, and the bandages crisscrossing his body were tender to the touch. Steve still remembered the despair in her eyes, and her voice choked with agony.
"I had no choice."
It had been three days since his ordeal and Jenna's death. Governor Denning ordered Steve to rest for a couple of days. The members of Five-0, especially Danny, agreed. While the others were looking out for his physical well-being, they had forgotten the most fragile part of Steve: his vulnerability. Since the rescue from his team and SEAL team 9, Steve had fought the overwhelming emotions of rage and sadness at Jenna's betrayal and ultimate death. He smiled and laughed with Danny, Chin, Kono, Lori, and Joe at the appropriate times. They didn't seem to notice that Steve locked his emotions deep inside. His trust had been shaken, even more than it had been when Governor Jameson had betrayed him. Steve gritted his teeth as he remembered Jenna throwing him the key that had cost her life. Without her, he would be dead. Like his father, mother, Makoto, and Laura Hills.
"Why?" he had asked. And still, he didn't know the answer. He didn't understand why Jenna did what she did.
Stiffly, he moved towards the small beach outside. The waves collided with the sand, and Steve vaguely recalled telling Danny that waves were relaxing, and that the waves could calm people. Danny had dismissed that idea, and Steve wondered for the first time if Danny had spoken the truth. Throughout his thirty-five years, the waves had brought him nothing but calm. Now it was the opposite. Whenever Steve heard the waves, his mind refused to forget Jenna's glassy stare as she died, and him shouting at Wo Fat. "You're a dead man! You hear me? You're a dead man!" Every time when the memory resurfaced, he clutched Jenna's locket in his hand until pain flowed through his hand, as if reminding him of Jenna's last sacrifice. Steve had taken the locket from Jenna when she had died, and kept it with him. No one, not even Danny and Joe, knew that he had Jenna's locket.
Steve knew that they had left Jenna behind. They had no choice. It was either Jenna or him. Somehow the thought made Steve feel worse. Her body would never be recovered, even if she was at last with her fiancé. It pained him beyond what he thought he would feel once Danny told him that they couldn't recover Jenna's body. Steve and Five-0 had trusted Jenna, and treated her as one of them. "So you decided to trade him for me." Would he be happier if Jenna and Josh had lived and he died? Steve wasn't certain. Jenna had no family. Her parents had died five years ago. So why was he holding on to her locket? There was no one to give the locket to.
"If anyone could survive…He's a lot like you, a fighter, you know."
Steve sighed. He was willing to do anything for his family, his ohana. One of them had betrayed him, and now she was dead. Jenna had believed Wo Fat to the very end. She wanted to believe that Josh was alive. Would he have done the same? Steve remembered getting a call from Victor Hesse, an associate of Wo Fat. Victor Hesse was holding his father hostage. He wanted Steve to let his brother go. If Steve corroborated, his father would not be killed. Steve knew from his training that terrorists and kidnappers would kill their hostages anyway. That was why he didn't corroborate. Jenna had told Steve that Victor was in fact working for Wo Fat later on, and Victor Hesse had in fact eliminated his father. But Jenna must have known as well. Did she love her fiancé so much that she was willing to take the risk that he was actually dead? She had clung to hope, while Steve hadn't. "If you kill him, you'll get nothing." Did that mean that Steve didn't love his father as much as he thought? Would Steve be willing to sacrifice anything, including himself, for someone he loved? His team? His sister? Catherine? Everything was uncertain. He remembered what Joe had said to him months before Jenna's death. Joe had asked if he was ready to sacrifice people for his vendetta against Wo Fat, and now, someone close to Steve had been sacrificed to save his life. Was Steve willing to have more blood on his hands?
Steve closed his eyes, remembering Jenna's last moments. She had thrown him a key to unlock his chains at the cost of her life. "It wasn't for nothing." Jenna had smiled slightly to him, a determined glint again in her eyes before the light faded forever. She had trusted me just as she trusted Wo Fat, Steve thought. She firmly believed that I would survive, not only from the torture, but from her betrayal. She saw me as Josh. Steve had first met Jenna when she tried to get information from him about Wo Fat. Then he had broken down her door, and had forced her to explain. Jenna Kaye, like him, had been a victim of Wo Fat's cold-blooded murders. Her fiancé had been killed, and Steve's parents had been murdered as well. Mary was kidnapped. There began a partnership. They were willing to do whatever it takes to help one another, and in the end, their trust had ended fatally. Jenna Kaye was never coming back.
Steve opened his eyes to the fair and beautiful sky. He imagined that Jenna and Josh would have loved to see Hawaii sunsets. The colors of orange, purple, pink, and yellow were amazing. "Kaye," Steve began, his voice a mere whisper, "I mean, Jenna." He paused. "I want you to know that you were a loyal friend. I know that you loved your fiancé very much…and I want you to know that I forgive you." At those last words, Steve threw Jenna's locket into the waves. Steve watched as the locket slowly swam with the tide, and with a final gleam, disappeared into the ocean below.