Captive in the Silence

Written for the prompt : Hawai'i 5-0, Steve McGarrett, Captive in the Silence

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Captive in the Silence

There's a part of him that doesn't know how to talk, really talk about all the things that seethe and writhe inside his head on a daily basis. He acts. It's that simple. He does something to fix whatever went wrong. Find Dad's killer. Get Mary back. Get the guys that did that to Mary. Find out who killed Mom. Make them pay.

Simple. But it's not.

It's not that simple because none of the tasks he's setting himself are really that easy. Also no matter how much he really wants to just splatter their brains out without a moment's consideration to whether it's right or not and despite Danny's frequent rants that imply he's a lunatic, Steve does exert control over his actions, does use only reasonable force and does his best to see justice served.

It's also not really that simple because it doesn't stop the seething and writhing that's still going on inside his head. Even when a job is done, it doesn't take away the fact he has to live with why it needed done in the first place. Dad is still dead and so is Mom. He and Mary spent years apart and out of touch and alone, he was always so alone with all the things that were going on inside his head.

And everything has changed and it's better so now Steve should be fine, he should be normal, shouldn't he? For all Danny's jokes about him not being held as a kid or dropped on his head as a baby, Steve knows that he was held plenty and never dropped, right the way up to his mom dying and that's when it all fell apart. He wonders if it's worse that way than never having known it at all, because he knows how he doesn't work right anymore. And he really wishes he knew how to put it right.

He's got Mary back now, she visits sometimes and they talk on the phone . . . or rather he prompts and she talks and he hopes that's enough because he doesn't know how to tell her what's really going on inside his head.

He's got the team as well and he'd do anything to look after them. He's so proud of all of them and so grateful that they let him in, let him see what it's like to be normal. He tries to be what they need both as a leader and as their friend, but he's got no way of knowing if he hits the mark, no way of judging where he's going wrong or right.

He's got all this good stuff but inside his head there's still all the bad and the two entwine and they still writhe and seethe after all this time and he just wishes he knew how to make it go quiet, how to just let him be happy with things as they are now.

In the meantime, he smiles and laughs and jokes with his team and he's grateful for the way they bring him out of his head long enough for it not to matter for a while. He gets a little peace, some quiet and respite and maybe he's just going to have to live with that, because maybe with everything that's happened in the past, it's never going to go away completely.