A/N: Thank you to Sockie for the beta. As my son would say, she's 'awesome-sauce.' :)
Disclaimer: Nope, I still don't own Hawaii Five-0.
"If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading." – Lao Tzu
"Are you okay?"
Kono stands in his office doorway, looking as though she's just stepped off the beach. Her hair is damp and pulled back into a ponytail. He can smell the sea and see the sand, and if there was ever someone who could solely embody Hawaii in a singular instant, she is it. She's wearing the necklace that Malia got her for her birthday and a look of pity on her face.
There's a pang in his stomach each time he sees her, though he can't put a name to it.
Shame.
Protectiveness.
Fear.
Regret.
Hope.
Heartache.
It's always there, and he wonders if he'll ever be able to look at her without remembering.
They sit there in that moment in which he is stuck between being the man who bares his soul and the man who lies to his cousin. Although it isn't just this moment. It's been the countless moments before this one, and the countless that will follow.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
He says no. He doesn't. Because what is there to say, really?
He can deal with her disappointment. He just really wishes she'd stop wearing that necklace.
~*~H50~*~
Why can't people just leave him alone?
He thinks he has enough food in his fridge to survive the apocalypse. Tako poke. Bao. Lasagna.
He might gain twenty pounds. If he'd only eat.
None of it is fair.
The looks of pity.
The words of comfort.
How are words supposed to provide comfort, anyway? They're just words. Words mean nothing. Words can't change anything.
What's done is done.
Who thought of that saying? Of course what's done is done.
Because what's done cannot be undone. And he is still alone.
Always alone.
~*~H50~*~
Kono knows.
He knows that she knows.
And she knows that he knows that she knows.
All of this knowing should bother him, but it doesn't.
He just stares at her, almost daring her to bring it up. But she doesn't, and he looks away… unable to continue facing the person he's disappointed the most.
"This isn't you, Chin."
He manages to drag his eyes back to her face, and Kono's look is hard.
"Maybe I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning."
It's an old joke between them, but it isn't funny this time. He knows his face is a mask; impassive and cold. Inside him, however, he screams and weeps.
He reigns in his terror of being alone and his debilitating fear of losing everything he cares about.
He lost his mom to cancer at an age when he should have been arguing with her over a later curfew like other normal high school boys. He gained a friend and mentor in the police force, only to lose him when he ate his own gun after a wrongful sexual harassment suit. He lost a job that he loved when he chose to protect his family's honor.
He had been happy in his position with Five-0.
He had been given a second chance with the woman he loved.
Perhaps those are the glaring clues he somehow missed. He'd been too happy. Of course it wasn't bound to last.
Kono pushes away from the door frame and breaches the threshold of his office.
"Don't run away from us," she warns.
"I'm not," he argues.
And he isn't. Not yet, anyway. He has nowhere else to go.
~*~H50~*~
He knows when this whole thing started. He also knows why. It's the how that's a bit shady, but at this point, does it really matter anymore?
He's already tried everything else.
He even got mad at her once, as though dying was her fault. It lasted for a few hours in which he'd ravaged his home, smashing an ugly vase that they'd received as a wedding gift from a distant relative. She had set it on the side table with a joke he couldn't remember, but she had said it with a smile that he'd never forget.
Currently the porcelain vase lies shattered in a thousand jagged pieces. He leaves them sitting there as a visual reminder of what his life has become.
And now he's traveling down a road he shouldn't be. But it's okay.
These days, it drives him. Makes him feel numb.
Because the last thing he wants to feel is alive.
~*~H50~*~
Kono leaves and Steve takes her place. He mentions something about a cold case. Some financials that need to be run. Background checks. Interviews. He nods, agrees to do… something… and is left alone in the office.
Again.
They've been leaving him behind lately. He considers taking it personally, but he doesn't bother. He'd rather be alone anyway. He works better by himself, right?
Right?
He is on his feet and pacing around his desk the moment the rest of the team is out the door. His body struggles with the exhaustion he's been concealing, and he runs shaking hands down his face.
He completes another lap around his desk.
He glances at the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet and shakes his head. What is he thinking? He is foolish to bring it here with him to work.
He circles the desk again.
He isn't sleeping well, and hasn't been since she was taken away from him. It's the same comfortable bed he's been sleeping in for years, but lately he has been plagued by strange dreams. Each morning he wakes with her name on his lips and the coils of anguish devastating his heart.
Another look at the drawer. He opens it and grips the object in his trembling hands.
He has the vague sense of standing on the edge of something vital, and jumping over will change everything.
~*~H50~*~
The grief is all-consuming, but there is a part of him that knows that what he is doing is wrong. It's dangerous. He's being selfish.
And his selfishness could get those around him killed.
Yet he has neither the energy nor the desire to care.
He spends a lot of time on the floor. He eats where she once lay. He sleeps in the same spot she bled in his arms on those frequent nights when the nightmares wake him.
And he drinks. A lot.
Too much.
It probably isn't healthy, and he has yet to mention it to his therapist. But it helps him forget.
It isn't that he wants to forget her. No, he prays that he never forgets a single thing about her. Her quirky smile. The way she sticks her tongue between her teeth when she's concentrating. How her eyes twinkle when recounting a difficult case at work. Her hand as it fit perfectly within his.
Her warmth.
Her laugh.
Her passion.
He vows to always remember.
He only wants to forget that she's gone.
~*~H50~*~
He isn't at the top of his game. He knows that is the real reason they leave him behind. Because if he was, he would have noticed when three individuals enter his office.
Instead, he is staring at the object in his hands with such intensity that his knuckles are white, and he tenses in surprise when he feels a strong hand grip his shoulder.
He looks up at Danny and then over to Steve. At the back of the office is Kono, looking scared and concerned. It's her face that causes his fingers to loosen their hold, and the object in question nearly slips from his hands. Danny leans around him to carefully retrieve it before it falls to the floor.
"Chin."
There is no condemnation. No accusation. Just thick understanding that he doesn't wish to accept. The mask he has been wearing for so long threatens to fall apart, but he can't let it go.
He can feel the cracks, but he doesn't want to break.
"Chin."
Only one syllable. A bit harder this time. A request. A command. A plea.
And like the vase in his home, he shatters. The tears begin to fall before he's even aware of them, and his body shakes with the violent sobs that follow.
The hand on his shoulder is joined by another, and a third, smaller hand cups his wet cheek. Reaching out, he blindly clings to the person in front of him; accepting, for the first time, the comfort he has denied so often.
There are words of healing whispered to him, and he lets them restore his brokenness. They may just be words, but this time they mean something to him. The words change everything.
Because he's not alone.
Not anymore.