Regrets
By Agent Malkere
Disclaimer: I would love to own Hawaii Five-0. I would love to own some of the actors on Hawaii Five-0. Sadly, none of them are available for a reasonable price on Ebay.
Time is relative. The living use words like "instant" and "immediately," but the dead know that there is an infinity between every decimal point and every millisecond. And Governor Pat Jameson was just recently dead. Very recently, in fact, by the standards of the living. The bullets from Wo Fat's gun had only just ripped through her heart, and she was now hovering just below the ceiling observing the body she had, until just now, inhabited. She supposed it would be a more disorienting experience for those not completely dead, but Pat Jameson had no delusions. Those bullets had torn her heart to shreds. She wouldn't be returning to that body again.
Governor Jameson shifted her observation of the scene below her that wasn't frozen but simply moving infinitely slowly. Wo Fat was lowering his gun a hair's breadth at a time, and Steve McGarrett lay crumpled on what had once been her office floor like a broken and discarded doll.
This was not how she'd wanted things to end.
First Jack McGarrett, then Laura, now Steve – she'd never meant for things to go this far. For everything to spiral out of control this badly.
Governor Jameson could still remember when she'd first met Officer Jack McGarrett and his energetic, reckless son. She'd still been just Pat Jameson then, an aspiring political candidate still relatively fresh-faced and idealistic running for her first term as mayor, a mere thirty-five years old. She'd been walking down the beach one evening and run into Jack and his wife watching their two young children playing in the surf. She didn't remember much of what had happened or what she'd said. What had stuck in her memory even after all these years was what had happened right before she'd taken her leave. Steve had come bounding out of the foaming surf, so darkly tanned he could almost have passed for a native, mahogany hair bleached almost to blond tips from so much time in the sun. He'd been wet and sandy and so unconditionally happy, the wide smile on his ten year old face bright enough to out shine the setting Hawaiian sun. In his hand he'd clutched a large shell, the type any tourist would have been madly excited to find. He'd presented the shell to first his mother, then his father, for approval. Then Steve had turned and looked up at Pat. He'd looked her up and down with such an intense scrutiny that she almost felt self conscious, his smile momentarily disappearing. Then his smile had returned at full, disarming force, and he'd thrust out the shell to her with both hands.
"This is for you. You should smile more. When I grow up, I'm going to be a cop like my dad and keep people safe so that they can smile more."
Then he'd dashed back into the surf again, laughing, never even having asked who she was. Pat had stood on the beach for a moment just staring at the wet, slightly sandy shell in her hands. It was the length of her hand, from the tip of her middle finger to the base of her palm, and the creamy upper curve of the shell had been clipped off, revealing the delicate pink spiral at its center. Governor Jameson still had that shell. Twenty-five years later it sat on a bookshelf in her living room. The next time she had seen Steve McGarrett, he'd been stepping off a plane in his full dress uniform about to go to his father's funeral.
Governor Jameson hadn't realized just how far she'd fallen until that day. Until she'd heard about Jack McGarrett's death and looked at the solemn mask of his grief-stricken son's face. Corruption was a long, slow, slippery slope, and by the time you realized you were sliding it was far too late to turn back.
The Five-0 hadn't been a way of "keeping her enemies close" as Steve had accused her. Not entirely. Mostly it had been a way of relieving some of her soul-crushing guilt. She'd thought that maybe, just maybe, she could undo a little of the damage she had caused through Steve. Maybe then she'd be able to sleep just a little better at night. Governor Jameson had genuinely become attached to the unorthodox strike-force she had allowed Steve to create. Chin Ho Kelly was strong, quiet and intense, a good man despite the derision of his former police colleagues. Kono Kalakaua was passionate and determined, if she was given the chance, she'd mature into a fine officer someday. Detective Danny Williams balanced out Steve's reckless attitude and Governor Jameson almost envied his dedication to his young daughter. And Steve…. Sometimes, when he was with his team, Governor Jameson saw a shadow of that smile he'd worn the very first time she'd met him.
Governor Jameson had gone and spoken to Danny's ex-wife, Rachel, personally when the woman had been threatening to take away all of his visitation rights. She'd sat Rachel down and discussed how cruel such a thing would be not just to Danny but to Grace as well. She'd left Rachel's home with a proper smile on her face for the first time in months.
She'd breathed a sigh of relief and felt just a little more like Pat Jameson again instead of the corrupt governor she had become when she replaced the ten million dollars that the team had stolen to save Chin from Hesse. Because there weren't enough good people in the world and after all this time, covering up the disappearance of ten million dollars seemed a small price to pay for the safe return of one of them.
The only problem was that Steve had chosen his team too well. They'd ended up being a little too smart. They'd managed to connected a few too many dots.
Governor Jameson hadn't realized just how far out of control things were until she'd seen Laura die. Until she'd realized just how much blood was on her hands. She'd liked Laura, genuinely liked the woman, but she should have known that Wo Fat would have her killed. And that thought sickened her. What had she done? Had she really turned into that much of a monster?
And then Wo Fat had decided that the Five-0 had become too much of a liability, and the fragile glass structure of Governor Jameson's world had smashed to complete and utter smithereens.
Now, too late, she wished that she'd done it all differently. That she hadn't arrogantly stepped into the lion's den and expected not to be bitten. Wished that the world hadn't jaded and blinded her so. But it had. It was too late. Her part had come to an end. It was all up to the living now.
There was something like a sigh that went unnoticed by the room's two still-living occupants, and Governor Pat Jameson was gone.