Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts

by Mc Parrot

Damaged and grieving Steve has to fight his own limitations to rebuild his life. Assuming a new identity he literally sails off into the sunset. Years after leaving Hawaii he is at peace and happy with his life when he has a surprise meeting with someone from his past.

2. Chapter 2

Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts.2

John Chung and Henry roomed together again. They picked up their non-relationship again too; fuck buddies, or 'making the most of what was available', as Henry put it. John had thought to take a large bottle of lube and a box of condoms with him this trip. He liked to be fucked, Henry liked fucking him. It was human contact. And sometimes Henry held him during heaving, unhappy nights. It was enough.

It was still winter in the deep south, even though the days had started lengthening. Everything that happened on deck was just that much harder, hampered as they were by layers of clothing and waterproofs. It didn't help that as well as their regular work they had to continually use axes and sledgehammers to knock ice off the superstructure, winches and equipment. The wind roared across the ocean, trying to blow through them, throwing them across the icy, slippery deck. Working outside was twice as hard as it had been. Spring storms whipped the sea to a fury. Down in the bowels of the ship, in the factory, the workers belted themselves in to their work stations and clamored for more fish. Up on the deck, the lines rolled out and came back in, heaving with fish, regardless of the weather.

He was too exhausted for nightmares.

Most of the time.

He woke one morning to find himself cramped and smothered, Henry's heavy body wrapped around him. A heavy sense of foreboding followed him out of bed and into the mess, and didn't go away when the two of them struggled into their gear and slid out onto the deck. It was six am, a thin streak of gray sky showing above the ocean to the east, probably the only sign of the sun they were going to get all day. John shivered. He couldn't remember his dream, didn't remember Henry pulling him into his bed, he just felt wrong.

He was clumsy and wrong-footed all day. He nearly lost his finger, catching his glove in a pulley, and his hammer slipped off the ice he'd been battering and he took the full force of the swing on his shin.

Bruised but not broken was the medic's verdict when Caleb, the new deck hand, helped him to the sick bay. He didn't even get a full day off work.

Life went on.

The day disaster struck he didn't feel any warning at all. That morning as they came out on deck the sun was rising into a clear blue sky. The sea was never smooth but the weather was settled and the swell a comparatively calm two to three metres. He was getting used to metrics. The lines and length of traces, distances between hooks and other things were measured in metres. The catch was measured in tonnes.

Steve was pulling the grappling hooks that he would use to help guide the incoming line into the correct position out of their locker while Caleb prepped the winch to pull in the starboard line. The replacement line, thousands of hooks already baited by machine, was ready to go. The turnaround time was incredibly fast, but they were used to it. It was what they did.

John wasn't paying attention. He was glaring at one of the factory workers who'd come on deck for a quick smoke, wearing only indoor clothes. He was waiting for the fish to start coming in, ready to go to work, when he realized that the line wasn't coming up. Henry looked up from where he was checking the rigging of the life boat hanging from divots on the stern, something he did every morning. The line or possibly the cable leading to it must have caught on something and the winch was still running. Caleb wasn't sure what to do and was trying to make the winch drop down a gear and pull harder while John tried to wave at him across the deck, and he and Henry both shouted, "Turn it off."

"Turn it off."

The sounds of the wind and ocean made it impossible to hear anyone else on the deck.

There was a crack that could be heard even over the waves and the wind. Like a cut snake the broken steel rope writhed, whip fast and deadly as the tension released. Henry was flung through the air to land like a pile of rags by the open hole in the floor that was waiting to receive their catch, a sudden shock of red spreading out across the wet deck.

Sheer instinct took John across the hold, skidding to a stop beside his friend. He'd already made an assessment. His hands knew what to do before his mind had accepted what he didn't want to notice. Henry's right leg was missing below mid-thigh. John yanked the mangled remains of Henry's waterproofs and woollen long johns away from the stump, and shoved his fingers unerringly into the wound, finding the artery and pinching it shut.

A slightly hysterical corner of his mind noted that Henry's leg had been severed just below his Samoan traditional tattoo.

No one else was injured. A miracle under the circumstances.

Another miracle was about to take place.

The ship was at the very outer limits of helicopter range from the very south of the South Island of New Zealand. If a helicopter attempted to fly out to them, they would have less than fifteen minutes to turn around, to be able to make it back to land before the fuel ran out. The ship turned and started running, top speed, back towards New Zealand, hoping to lessen just slightly the distance involved.

Their medic started an IV. Henry was carefully loaded into the ship's scoop stretcher. John didn't let go. When the winch rope and a paramedic arrived with the helicopter two and a half hours later, John lay on top of Henry, face down, and they strapped him in over the top before winching all three of them up together. There was no winch man, just the pilot and paramedic to make the load lighter. The paramedic had to get himself on board before easing the heavy gurney inside. John's cramped fingers held on.

It was hot in the helicopter. The paramedic gave him water, holding the bottle for him. Then he cut his wet weather gear and jersey off him so he didn't have to let go. Both of them knew that it wasn't practical to try and swap places. The paramedic could do more for Henry with both his hands free. Henry, unfortunately for him, stayed conscious the whole trip, floating on a cloud of morphine that was injected into his IV.

The helo had barely five minutes more fuel left when it touched down on the helipad at Southland Base Hospital in Invercargill, roughly two hundred miles from where they'd left the ship. It was some of the gutsiest flying John had ever seen.

A doctor was there with artery forceps. He could finally let go.

The relief was momentary. After five hours of holding on, his arm went into spasm and he finally felt the cramp. His mind did something similar and he collapsed in an aching, shaking heap. He spent a night in the hospital too.

John was never actually admitted, just kept overnight on a cot in the ER, under observation for shock. He was grateful, he had nowhere to go and nothing except his boots and underwear to go there in. He'd even lost his eye patch.

He was still covered in Henry's blood when he was interviewed by a police detective wanting to know about the accident. He supposed that with a rescue flight that had literally pushed the boundaries of helicopter flight, the whole world knew about the accident. A couple of hours later, after he'd showered and dressed in scrubs, a woman from Occupational Health and Safety came to ask a very probing list of questions. She had scary hair that didn't seem to move with her body movements and wanted to know much more about conditions on the ship than just the circumstances of the accident. He thought she wouldn't know anything much about fishing boats but her questions proved him wrong.

It took all his hard won social skills not to simply curl up in a ball and ignore her. He was exhausted, and Henry was apparently still in surgery.

It was just after tea time when a small woman dressed in scrubs knocked on the partition. She smiled at him tiredly. John recognized that look, exhaustion mixed with pride of a job well done. He'd seen it on combat teams after a successful mission. "I'm Henry's surgeon," she said quietly. "I thought you'd like to know. He's out of surgery and he's going to be fine." She gave a quiet snort and shrugged. "Well, you know, he hasn't got his leg, but we've tidied everything up, given him plenty of blood and he should recover well. You did a great job. If you hadn't done what you did he'd never have survived." She sank into the plastic chair by his bed. "Have you got some medical training?"

"Combat first aid." Relief made John weak and he was pleased he was on a bed. He could see that his answer intrigued the doctor so he changed the subject. "His wife? Susan…?"

"Apparently your company's already contacted her. Do you need us to contact anyone for you?"

John shook his head. "No, thank you. I haven't got anyone in this country." The pinch of loneliness hurt. He was never going to work with Henry again, either.

He was offered a sedative when the staff noticed he wasn't sleeping. While the noise level in the ER wasn't exactly conducive to sleep, once upon a time he'd been good at sleeping in just about any condition. It wasn't the noise and the lights that were keeping him awake.

…If he'd run the winch instead of trusting Caleb… If he'd moved when he noticed the cable winch straining… If, if… What if?

If he hadn't trusted Wo Fat to keep them both safe. If he'd taken the left-hand door. If Danny, damn his loyal soul, hadn't been following them…

He cowered on the bed, overwhelmed like he hadn't been in years. With the edges of a headache brewing, he accepted the pill. And woke in the morning feeling ragged around the edges, still vaguely headachy, but not incapacitated. Breakfast helped.

Breakfast also came with a friendly woman named Caroline representing the fishing company. She didn't actually work for the company, she told him; her sister in Auckland did. She brought a message of thanks from the CEO for John's heroic efforts, but even better, she had clothes for him. She was one of those people who have to apologize for everything. The clothes were only cheap chain store gear and she hadn't known his size. John didn't mind. The stuff was one size too big but he wouldn't have to leave the hospital wearing scrubs. Caroline had also brought him an air ticket home to Auckland and $500 in cash for whatever he might need on the way.

The hospital provided him with a toothbrush, a razor, and a cheap and nasty eye patch that would have to do until he got his kit bag back from the boat with his good spare patch in it.

He had a sudden thought. Someone was going to have to pack up his and Henry's cabin. They'd find the lube and condoms. God knew what they'd think. He just hoped the things got packed in his bag and not Henry's. He didn't think Susan would be too pleased to find out about them.

The plane got into Auckland just after 10pm, but it was nearly midnight when he arrived home in Karekare and paid off the taxi with the chit provided by the company. He thanked his lucky stars that he'd left a key under the ugly gnome by the side of the deck so that V could come in and look after the place. His own key was another thing still on the ship in the southern ocean.

He made himself a cup of licorice tea. He'd taken to drinking it before bed when he'd been home last time. He took his drink and sat out on the deck looking at the trail of the moon on the sea. He was disorientated and at the same time he was peaceful and content. Henry had been awake enough to slur a thank you when he'd briefly visited before Caroline took him to the airport. Henry mightn't have his leg but he was alive, and he'd learn to cope.

And John, now he'd had time to process what had happened, realized that he'd done good. He'd done more than done good, he'd done something extraordinary, something more than just what an ordinary fisherman might have done. He might not be fast with his words but in an emergency situation he could react, like he used to, like Steve McGarrett used to. After all this time he thought he'd lost that guy.

He turned the hot water cylinder on and went to bed.

When he woke in the morning it was to the awareness that there was someone in his house. It was the old Steve McGarrett that reacted. V was just lucky that he recognized her voice singing to herself before he got out of the bedroom. She was setting up a laptop on the dining table which already had a large pile of books. She was wearing a school uniform and there was no longer any doubt that she was female. The checked skirt and white blouse gave that away. John slunk back into his bedroom and put some clothes on. "Er. Hello," he said when he came back out.

She shrieked and fell backwards onto her ass. It was gratifying.

"Not at school, I see?"

"Not on a fishing boat," she fired right back, glaring up at him.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. "In my house," he emphasized. He offered his hand and pulled her up off the floor.

"It's study week and we're allowed to stay at home, but Dad says I need to go in and make use of the library and all the resources and like, what? I can do all of that online but he doesn't get any of that so…" she waved a hand indicating her and the house. "Um."

"My house."

"I used to be here all the time with Granddad."

John got that, he really did, but he didn't need a pet and he was terribly aware that he could get into awful strife just from being around an underage teenage girl unchaperoned. "My house," he said again gently.

"You're not even supposed to be here."

"That key was supposed to be for emergencies and so you could get me some groceries before I was due back."

"And that's what I was going to do but you're not supposed to be back for another two weeks."

"And you're not supposed to be in my house."

V sighed. "Yeah, you're right. Sorry." She started gathering her stuff together. "I'll go. Don't tell Dad. Okay? He'll do his nut."

She looked so dispirited that John crumbled. "Hold on. Can you cook?"

When she was puzzled V's left eyebrow quirked. "Sort of. Sometimes. Why?"

"I'm going to have a shower. Make me some breakfast and I'll let you stay."

Two days later, on Saturday, John finally got to meet V's father, Bryan, and had an excruciatingly embarrassing conversation, the gist of which was if John did anything to hurt V, or even looked at her wrong, he was going to lose his knackers. In spite of the unfamiliar terminology he knew exactly what was meant. Bryan then invited him over later in the evening to watch the game. John didn't even know what type of game it would be, but he took beer, figuring that couldn't be wrong. It turned out to be exactly right, and V and Bryan introduced him to the complexities of rugby.

He did one more stint on the fishing boat but his heart wasn't in it anymore. The accident had changed his feeling about the work, in more ways than one. He kept double checking everything and riding the new hands hard. It didn't make him any friends. It was fucking hard work and somehow that wasn't soothing anymore. He wanted to do more. He wanted to use his brain.

On his arrival home he handed in his notice. He'd worked for the company nearly a year, and he wasn't the same man he'd been when he'd signed on. He didn't know what he was going to do, but he took a leap and once again trusted that things would work out. It was high summer and he threw himself into really learning about his new home. Karekare, where his cottage (which the locals called a bach) perched above the cliffs, was part of an area of rugged, forest-covered hills with high cliffs and wild surf beaches. Steve bought himself two bikes, a road bike and a mountain bike, and covered huge distances on them both. Karekare, Piha and the surf beaches made a strange sort of community, with many of the houses used as vacation homes, so that during the winter the place was very sparsely populated but became overrun with people in the summer. Piha beach, just to the north, was extremely popular with day trippers, and many hikers wandered the trails that ran through gullies and spurs of the park. It was a little like the nature reserves on Oahu.

He joined the surf club at Piha and found not just surfing, but a social life with other locals and a sort of 'us against them' thing happening between the locals and the visitors. It was nice to be part of an 'us'. On a whim he did the Surf Lifesaving training and then he was really an 'us'. The lifesavers were a tight-knit team of volunteers who patrolled the beaches, rescuing people who nearly always had vastly underestimated the west coast's ability to ruin their day. As well as rescuing people, Surf Lifesaving in New Zealand was a sport, with competitions where the clubs tested their skills against other clubs from around the country. Huge surf carnivals were held over the summer. That first year John helped the Piha club with the logistics of hosting the heats. By his second year as a lifesaver, John was in one of the top teams.

Through the surf club John learned about the volunteer fire brigade, and he did that training too. He'd already learned most of the skills taught, but it was applying them in civilian situations that made things very difficult. He had to do some special tests to prove that the lack of binocular vision wouldn't stop him from being able to do the work. He also resurrected John Chung's driver's license and did the test to get a New Zealand one. He then went through the process and testing to get his heavy traffic endorsement so he could drive the engine, only to fall at the final hurdle, the lack of binocular vision again. He could drive a car but not a truck. It was a shame he couldn't have used Steve McGarrett's license, which contained a heap of endorsements.

The volunteer brigade members had to carry pagers at all times when on call. He bought a car so as to be able to make it to the station within the response time. They attended house fires, scrub and bush fires, and as first responders, quite a few car accidents, some of which were horrific. It didn't help that, as Steve, he had seen worse; seeing bodies pointlessly mangled never got any better. The camaraderie of the team, though, that certainly helped.

Who would have guessed it, but New Zealanders could make anything a sport. The Piha Volunteer Brigade placed third in the national Fire Fighters games, against some professional brigades. They were all pretty pleased with themselves.

John was settled, and he had a (mortgage free) home and friends, but the money was running out. Then he heard that the Titirangi Fire Brigade, the professional suburban station closer into the city, was hiring for their full-time crew. Things had indeed worked out.

He did have one bad moment when he had to be passed as medically fit for the job. Considering what the job was, that made perfect sense. He found a local doctor and was pleased when John Chung's medical history was taken at face value. To be fair, it would never have occurred to a suburban GP to question what was in front of him.

All was going well until the doctor asked if he'd had any after affects from the bout of rheumatic fever he'd suffered as a child. John sat there opening and closing his mouth like a brain-damaged fish because John had never had rheumatic fever but Steve had. John's notes had only ever been meant as a back-up, in case he'd needed care in the months after escaping the home. He hadn't had time or mental capacity to make them anymore than that.

He hadn't needed them after his escape and he hadn't seen a doctor in years. Yet in the intervening years, somewhere, sometime, someone had merged his real medical records with John Chung's.

It had to have been Chin.

The doctor pronounced him perfectly healthy, but because of the nature of the job he was applying for, both he and the fire department requested he have a full neurological exam. He went through the works, with a brain scan thrown in for good measure. It cost a fortune, and he got more and more nervous as the technician quizzed him, made him do puzzles and asked intimate questions on every aspect of his life.

His doctor called him back in for the results and sat him down in the chair by his desk. Then he smiled. "No neuro deficits and no cognitive impairment. You're a highly functioning individual." The man knew his history. He knew that John had been a barely functioning version of a human being a few years ago. "Congratulations, you're completely normal."

John's stomach flipped. It meant everything.

Sometime, somewhere, between sailing across the Pacific, being a fisherman and finding a home, his brain had healed.

The Piha voluntary fire brigade gave him a rousing send-off that involved an inebriated stripper and one hell of a hangover for everyone present. They gave him hell about turning pro. The stripper did a private service on request. His mates paid for that too.

Fire-fighting was seen as an essential service, so John had absolutely no trouble renewing his work visa.

He liked being a fireman. It was physical, dangerous and very similar in many ways to being a combat officer. There were long periods of boredom and brief periods of high adrenaline action. He was good at it. Three months into the job he got his first genuine call out to rescue a kitten from a tree, and he and the team laughed and laughed and rescued the stupid furry thing.

They attended house fires, scrub fires, fires in warehouses, and their fair share of car accidents. Some of it was gut wrenching. The night after two small boys died in a blazing house, John staggered home, the stench of burning still thick in his nostrils in spite of having showered and changed at work. His teammates all had young families and had gone home to hug their kids, leaving him alone and bereft. But what was known as the bush telegraph worked really well in these situations and the community was already banding together to support the parents and the fire fighters, ambulance and police officers who had been there. Yvonne, a woman from the surf club, arrived at the cottage and dragged him down to the club, where many people were gathering for something resembling a wake. People bought him drinks all night, which was a complete waste of their money as he chundered it up (a local term) in the sand hills behind the building. Yvonne found him stretched out on a dune, tears streaming down his face, covered in vomit and sand. She took his hand and led him home to her house up in the township, undressed them both and gently showered him before tucking him into her bed and sliding in beside him. John passed out, but in the morning they had sex, achingly sweet and slow.

Between the surf club and the fire brigade, John was easily assimilated into the small community. He admitted to having been in military service and let people think he'd gotten his injuries in combat. Well, he had, really. If he was a little weird, it didn't matter; the slightly hippie community embraced oddness, and he was by no means the weirdest person around. He might be odd, but he was one of theirs and they looked out for him. V was odd too and she got on just fine.

On V's sixteenth birthday John and Bryan got beer and set up camp on lawn chairs on Bryan's back lawn. They watched the entire teenage component of the local community gyrate and writhe to ghastly music in Bryan's living room. They were pretty sure the punch had been spiked. "Has V ever come on to you?" Bryan asked out of the blue.

"Jesus." John nearly choked on his beer. "No. What? No!" Adrenaline zinged through him but Bryan seemed completely relaxed, slouched back in his chair and not about to leap into action and defend his daughter's honor. "Why would you say that?"

"I don't think I've ever seen her make a move on anyone ever. Male or female." He sighed and John realized Bryan was very drunk. "I worry about her. I'm crap at being a father."

"No, you're not. You're great." V's mother had apparently 'buggered off with the bastard from the bank' when V was three years old, and Bryan had never really gotten over it. "You've raised her single-handedly, and look," he indicated the youth invasion of his home, "all of these kids are here because they're friends with her. There's nothing to worry about."

"I just want her to be happy," Bryan said.

John watched her, newly dyed scarlet hair flinging around like a dish mop as she leapt and laughed with the rest of them. "She is."

Later in the night the kids dragged all the living room furniture and every mattress in the house out onto the lawn and turned down the music and looked up at the stars. There was a familiar 'herbal' smell in the air. A bonfire would have been nice but there was a fire ban in place. Blankets were passed out and it seemed that most of the party was intending to stay right where they were until morning. Bryan made them give his mattress back and went to bed. John stretched out in the shadows under the hedge and kept a quiet eye on things. For the first time in ages he thought of Grace. It was a month until her sixteenth birthday. He wondered what her party would be like. Probably nothing like this. He'd find something and send her a gift.

Time moved on.

He saw Yvonne, on and off. She was a solo mother, loud and brash and heart of gold. She didn't want a commitment or even a lover. She wanted sex on her terms and mostly that seemed to mean free of diseases and someone she trusted not to 'do the dirty' on herself or her kids.

She was brusque about his issues with his scars. "Get over it. You're mostly whole, and with a dick like this," it was in her hand at the time, "no-one cares."

He occasionally hooked up with some of the Adonis-like surfer dudes who passed through in the summer, offering them a meal and to share his bed for however long they wanted to stay. It was usually only a few days and they moved on with promises to stay in touch. They never did.

Yvonne truly didn't seem to mind.

He saw a lot of Bryan and even more of V. She would turn up and try out some of her wacky social theory on him or discuss, new to her, versions of world politics and social justice. She decided to study political science. She felt it was entirely unfair that she was two generations too late to join the peace movement. She made John smile and kept him challenged.

They also surfed together and spent a lot of their spare summer time on the water. V wore a wetsuit for surfing and board shorts and rash vest for hanging out on the beach. Her hair was always an outrageous color in a weird undercut style and she had piercings in her nose, ears and tongue. She had plenty of friends, boys and girls. The teenagers surfed, trained and worked at surf rescue, hiked, cycled, skipped school and partied together. Because he wasn't a parent, John was sometimes tolerated and included in the group. He never saw V showing any romantic interest in anyone.

His first reaction when she walked into his living room one Sunday morning, climbed into his lap, and tried to kiss him was total surprise.

"V. What?" He pulled back. "What are you doing?"

She dropped her eyes. "I'm going to university next year. I can't be a virgin." Then she charged forward and mashed her lips to his.

"What? No." He shoved her back. "V?"

"I can't. Please. You're my friend."

John realized that he'd never have known what to do in a situation like this. It wasn't just the head injury. He carefully pushed her sideways and moved himself the other way. "Who says you can't be a virgin?"

V curled into the corner of the sofa, pulling her knees up to her chest. "None of my friends are virgins."

"So? Do you want to have sex?"

"I don't know. Maybe." She gave him what she must have thought was a sultry look from underneath her bangs. Her hair was purple again and had been for about a year. It was obviously her favorite color. Her brown eyes looked really dark. "You want to have sex. You've got a hard on."

That part of his anatomy twitched at the mention. "Pretty woman sits on my knee. Er… Yes, I've got a hard on. That doesn't mean I have to have sex. Men do have a choice."

"You think I'm pretty."

"Yes, I think you're pretty. I also think of you like a daughter, and this," he tried to show everything that was happening with a wave of his hand, "is making me really uncomfortable." He got up and put some distance between them.

"Oh." V's face had flushed brick red. "I just thought you'd do it, to help me out." She burrowed her head behind her knees. "I thought you'd want to. You're the only person I know who likes women and men."

Steve started to get an inkling as to what the problem really was. "And you're not sure if you're one or the other?"

"I'm a girl." She glared at him. "I've got breasts." She grabbed at one and brandished it. "And a vagina, but…" She deflated.

"You're not interested in boys?" God, this was like surfing a huge wave that could crash over his head and crush him.

"No." V gave a brief head shake and sank back into her huddle.

John stared at her. She looked so small and vulnerable. He took a leap. "And you're not interested in girls, either?"

He got a moan in response, which he took to mean no. Oh, god. "Sweetheart." He was at a loss. Carefully he sat down beside her but she didn't seem inclined to jump him again. "V. Everyone is different. There's a whole range of sexuality." He didn't want to blatantly say that some people had none. "None of it is wrong and none of it is right. You just have to be right for you." He was floundering, but V let him put an arm around her and pull her in against him. "You just have to be you, and it's no one's business but your own. If you're a virgin who's to know?"

They sat in silence for a while, V slowly relaxing and molding in against his side. "You'll find someone one day," he said. "Someone you'll love and they'll be just right for you and it will all be fine."

"Really?"

"Yes. Really."

"Did you find someone?"

The pain he felt when he remembered was familiar now, an ache that no longer made him gasp. He could even smile. "Yes, I did."

"What happened to her?"

"He died." He didn't realize he'd unconsciously touched the scar on his cheek until V pulled his hand away and replaced it with her own.

"When this happened to you?"

"Yes." And that pang did hurt.

"And then you came here?"

"By a roundabout route, but yes, then I came here."

V was watching him.

"What?"

"So you're bisexual?"

"Yes. Didn't you say that before?" and he remembered being a conflicted and confused teenager. He'd had no one to confide in. He could be here for V. "It took me years to work out my sexuality. I was military. If I'd been found out I'd have lost my job. So for years I hid my feelings, even from myself. It wasn't until I met Danny…" It was the first time he'd said the name since… Probably since he'd died. It took him a moment to speak again. "He could see me. The real me." His chest was tight but it wasn't crippling anymore. "Danny let me be me. I'd tried to be normal for all those years before and it just made me awkward and unhappy." He grinned. "Don't do that."

"I don't know what I am." She looked so lost.

"I know. And it doesn't matter. You're a wonderful, clever, loyal, fun, friend of mine." He took a breath, "And I need your help." He stood and pulled her up. "I'm trying to work out the roster of lifesavers for this damn schools' surfing competition. I had no idea it was such a big event when I said I'd help." Out of the corner of his eye he could see V pulling herself together. He woke the computer and opened the spreadsheet he'd been working on. "The North Beach club haa offered all their juniors to help. You know them better than me. Would Bronnie be able to lead a squad?"

V came to stand at his shoulder and read the screen. She sounded nearly normal when she spoke. "Bronnie's got all the qualifications but she's really fluffy, she couldn't lead a team. If things went bad she'd just sit in a corner and scream. Dillon would be better."

John fit Dillon's name in the box. "Okay. Good to know. What about you? What shifts shall I put your crew on?"

"I can do any day."

"What about school?"

Her lip curled up in a sneer. "Weekends, then," she said sulkily

An hour or so later they had the roster beaten into shape and V stood up to go home for her lunch. John had been thinking hard about what to say to her. "V?" She turned to face him. "Sex is fun, okay? I'm not saying it's not. And I don't think the old 'save it till you're married' thing applies anymore at all, but," damn, his words were leaving him again, "sex isn't fun if you don't want to do it. Don't ever let anyone talk you into doing it if you don't want to. Okay?"

She smiled. The bubbly teenager was nearly back to normal. "Yeah. Okay."

"And V?" He smiled at her fondly. "I'm honored that you asked me. Really. But don't do it again. You scared the crap out of me."

She laughed out loud and left with a spring in her step.

The World High Schools Surf Contest had seemed like a good idea back when the club had bid to host it. Once they'd won, though, the logistics became a pain in the ass. "I cannot believe," Bryan groused, "that our paraplegic toilet is not up to standard. It's going to cost a couple of thousand to bring it up to spec, even if we do all the work ourselves. And then no-one will ever use it."

"I heard that one of the teams has a manager in a wheelchair," V said as she breezed through.

"I can't believe how many countries have schools that surf," John said. "Did you have any idea what we were letting ourselves in for?"

"Nah, mate." Bryan clinked his bottle against his.

"I assumed that the 'World' part of the title meant that there was a team from Australia tacked on to the local teams, or something like that."

Bryan snorted. "Wrong." He ticked the teams off on his fingers. "Australia, New Caledonia, Japan, South Africa, England, France, the Ukraine; that's a surprise, have they even got a coast? Then we've got Canada and your lot from the USA. And us, of course. We're going to have to extend the car park."

The day before the contest's opening ceremony John checked that all the countries' flags were present. He got a surprising pang out of seeing the Stars and Stripes folded there in the pile.

He went outside to check that the flagpoles were all strung correctly, only to find that the one on the end was sticking when he tried to run a pennant up the pole. The parking area was full with the team buses and the beach was packed with young people, many of them in the water trying out the conditions, others just enjoying the beach and relaxing before the pressure of the contest. The heats were being held at several other beaches along the coast as well as at Piha, but the finals and the opening ceremony were happening here. It was a big deal. There were hundreds of people converging on the beach and TV cameras had been setting up all day.

The US team was congregated over at the far end of the beach. He thought he might go over and say hello when he'd finished up with the flagpoles. The kids were probably mostly from California, but there might be some from Hawaii. It would be nice to find out. He gave the rope a yank but nothing happened. He cursed; it looked like he was going to have to drop the pole back down to fix the pulley. Still, it was better to find out now rather than tomorrow during the ceremony. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted V, who was supposed to be at school. It was her last couple of weeks before her final exams. She shouldn't be taking time off now. He was furious. He yanked the rope harder and it moved. "Yes." He'd give V a piece of his mind later. He stepped backwards to stare up at the pole and knocked into a girl walking up the path. "Sorry."

He didn't know her. About V's age, five foot five, tanned, dark hair worn short, tee shirt and shorts. The tee shirt he did recognize, Kukui High School's logo on its left breast. If he thought the Stars and Striped had moved him, then that nearly forgotten logo swamped him with memories of school days. He smiled. "Hi."

She stopped and gaped. "Uncle Steve?"

"Jesus." With a jarring feeling of disconnect, he did know her. He grabbed on to the flagpole to stay upright. "Grace?"

A huge smile spread across her face and it was her mother he saw. "You are here. Uncle Chin thought you might be." She grabbed his arms and pulled him into a hug. "It's so awesome to see you."

Shock knocked the breath out of his chest. He hadn't expected to see her. It had never occurred to him that she might be in a team, but maybe it should have. Grace had loved surfing, in spite of her father's reluctance. Why wouldn't she be a champion surfer? "Grace…" He fought to take air in. "Oh, my god." He hugged her back. She smelled of sunscreen and salt water and something else he realized he recognized, Grace herself.

His knees were weak and he held on, his chest tight. "I never thought I'd ever see you again," he told the top of her head. Biting his lip he pulled back and peered at her. There were tears in her eyes. Steve thought his own smile was going to split his face. "You have grown up… so beautiful."

She grinned back. "Good genes," she joked. "You look good too."

"Thanks." And his words left him. Too many thoughts tangled through his brain, he couldn't figure out what to ask, what to say, but he couldn't let her go. He didn't even know what to do next.

He wasn't sure he wasn't dreaming.

Then Grace turned back over her shoulder and shouted, "Hey, Danno. I found him."

He knew he had to be dreaming. Or at the very least he'd misheard. He took a choked breath and turned to follow her gaze. At first his eyes slid past. By the buses there was a man in a wheelchair checking gear in one of the luggage holds against a clipboard. Then his eyes slid back to familiar shoulders, blond hair. "Danno?" His heart stuttered and Grace grabbed for him as he staggered.

The guy looked up. And stared. He flung the clipboard at the bus and surged towards them, powerful arms powering the sports chair up the track. "Steve?"

Steve sat down.

He found himself looking up into a beloved face. A face he thought he'd forgotten but was so familiar. And concerned. And vaguely pissed off. "Oh, for god's sake," Danny's voice said. A hand shoved his head down between his knees. "Don't pass out on me, you idiot."

"You're dead," he told the sandy ground.

"No. Who told you that? What?" The hand on his head stroked his hair. "Hang on." The hand disappeared. There was a whump, and the next minute Danny was sitting on the ground beside him. "Who said I was dead?"

Tight pain filled his chest. He was having a heart attack. Hallucinating from lack of oxygen. "You were dead," he told the hallucination. "I saw you."

"What? When?" His head was forced down again. Grace sat on his other side.

"Then." He struggled to explain. "In the warehouse. The explosion. I saw your body. All broken." He choked. "Dead."

"Oh, Jesus." And he knew the sound of Danny winding up into a rant. "And nobody told you I wasn't? Hang on. You can't have seen anything in that warehouse. You were unconscious. You had half your face blown off. You were the one that nearly died."

"I saw you," Steve insisted.

"Not dead," Danny said and he nudged Steve.

Steve cautiously lifted his head and looked at him. He looked older, face fuller, gray among the gold in his hair. Danny smiled and his eyes were the same familiar blue. "Not dead," Steve agreed. "Oh god, Danny. I thought…"

"Oh, babe…" Danny looked at him like he was something precious and fragile.

Steve couldn't talk, could barely breathe, thought he might be sick. Danny's hand settled on the back of his neck. "Easy, babe."

They sat, quiet, the hive of preparations and activity swirling around them, but all Steve was aware of was the people, solid and real, on either side of him. "Well, I was hurt," Danny said after a time, "obviously. I was in the spinal unit for months. Then rehab was a bitch."

"I was in rehab too." Steve's world view was broken.

"And you didn't want visitors."

"You were dead."

"I'm sure someone told you I wasn't."

He took a deep lungful of the sea air. "I don't remember."

"Your head wasn't quite working right." Danny gently stroked the hair at the back of Steve's head. "You were pretty sick. You said you didn't want anyone to see you like that and we wanted to give you some say in your life. To be fair, it probably never occurred to anyone that you needed to be told again." He sighed. "And then you ran away and haven't been in touch."

"Oh, god." He tore his gaze away from Danny's eyes; stared out to sea, at the familiar beach that he knew so well. This morning he'd been feeling happy, content, excited about the contest, at home. Now his whole world was shaky. "I'm sorry."

"John?" V was suddenly standing right in front of him. "Dillon's got glandular fever, but I could lead his squad."

He stared at her blankly.

She dropped to crouch in front of him. "John? What's wrong?" And all of a sudden he didn't know if he was John or Steve anymore.

"He's had kind of a shock," Danny said. "Hi. I'm Danny Williams. I'm an old friend of Ste… John's."

"Danny?" V stared at Steve, obviously adding two and two, probably from the way he had to be the color of milk. "You're Danny?" She glared at him. "He thought you were dead."

"Yeah," Danny said sadly. "I've got that."

"Danny?" A boy came charging up from the bus parking area. "Have you found it?"

"Damn." Danny reached behind him, and with the ease of long practice swung himself up into the chair. His upper body strength had to be phenomenal as his legs dragged uselessly. "Sorry. I gotta sort this out. We've got a missing gear bag." He was already wheeling down the track. "Don't run away, McGarrett. I'll be right back. Grace," he turned back over his shoulder, "Make sure he doesn't go anywhere."

Steve didn't think he could go anywhere if he wanted to. If he tried to stand up he'd keel over. V sat down where Danny had been. She and Grace were giving each other stink eyes. It was quite funny, really. Steve just sat and let things sink in. Both girls were touching him, a hand on either arm.

"You're competing, then?" V said to Grace. "I'm a lifesaver. Of course I can surf as well."

Grace, it turned out, wasn't just her high school's champion but was also Hawaiian State Champion in her age group. Danny would have been… oh, God. "Danny's alive."

Grace patted him. "Yeah."

Steve remembered something else. "You said Chin thought I might be here? Have you guys been keeping tabs on me?"

Grace grinned. "Of course, Uncle Steve."

"Steve?" V laughed. "I knew your name wasn't John but I thought it might be something more exotic than Steve."

That inanity was enough to kick-start his brain again. "Okay, princess, yuck it up. And no, you can't take Dillon's shifts. You've got another two weeks of school yet, remember."

"Oh, come on. You're here for the whole week. They're only study days. And besides, you're not my dad."

"I have had to take annual leave to be here and your dad would kill me if I put you on when you're supposed to be at school."

"Something like this is never going to happen again."

"She's right," Grace said.

He was finally able to stand. The world felt surprisingly solid under his feet. "Okay," he told V. "If your dad says yes, you can work as a lifeguard for the whole contest. But I want him to tell me that."

It was one of the weirdest days of his life. Grace kept close, mostly with a hand touching him somewhere. V kept close, glowering at Grace. Danny was busy. Danny was alive. Steve hadn't killed him. Danny was right over there. Danny was crippled and that, that was all his fault. He was Steve but he was John, and John was busy too, putting together the sound system, briefing his teams on what he expected of them during the week, handing out their brand new uniforms, stopping Arthur from panicking over the amount of toilet paper they'd bought for the week. He was John. He was Steve. Danny was right over there.

His head was going to explode.

He brushed Arthur off and headed down the beach flanked by his girls. The American team was running relay races in the sand. Even in a wheelchair Danny was a ball of compact energy urging them on. He still talked with his hands. Danny glanced up and saw him and just stopped dead, looking nearly as flabbergasted as Steve was. Danny's face broke into a huge smile. Steve's mind imploded. Danny might not have known where exactly Steve was or what he was doing, but he had known he was alive. Steve hadn't known that about Danny. Seeing him was overwhelming. He was losing it.

He stood rooted to the spot, Grace on his right, V on his left. Danny got a fond look on his face and came towards them. "Babe," he said softly. He reached up and took Steve's hand. "Grace. You want to make sure nobody wanders off? Get everyone in the water for another practice. Steve and I are going for a walk." He gave Steve a tug. "Come on, babe, show me this beach of yours." Then he turned to V. "And you're relieved of Rottweiler duties. I promise to bring him back in one piece. Okay?"

V glowered but gave a reluctant nod.

Way down at the north end of the beach, on the other side of Lion Rock, they stopped. Danny lifted himself out of his chair and dragged himself back up onto the dry sand. Steve couldn't stop staring at his useless legs. Danny patted the sand with his left hand. "Sit. Come on."

Steve sat. Had Danny done it deliberately, sat Steve so that Danny wasn't on his blind side, or had things just happened that way?

"Danny?"

"I'm real, if that's what you're wondering."

"Danny, what…?" He had so many questions.

"I'm fine. In case you were going to start guilt-tripping over this." He waved a hand over his legs. He was wearing jeans and sneakers. The shoes were completely unworn. "It took me some adjustment, and yeah, I was mad for a while, but my life's good now. I'm doing all right. Got Grace, got a good job, good friends." He grinned. "Someone was missing, but hey, you can't have it all."

"Good job?" Steve repeated stupidly.

Danny laughed. "I keep forgetting you don't know. I'm head of Five-O."

Steve gaped.

"Yeah, I don't get out in the field much, but I can still run things. My brain still works. I've got four field agents and an administrative assistant." Danny looked proud. "I got Lori back. We needed someone who knew the ropes and the right way to do things and when not to, if you know what I mean. We're a little bit bigger and probably a whole lot tamer than what we used to be but we've still got one hell of a hit rate. We're still the Governor's elite task force."

"Jesus." Steve flopped on his back and blinked at the sky. He was startled when he felt Danny's hand on his face.

"May I?" Danny asked gently.

Steve took in a ragged breath. Nodded.

"I'd never seen this," Danny said as his hand smoothed across the puckered skin on Steve's cheek. "I heard what had happened…" His fingers stopped against the strap of the eye patch. "Can I…?"

Steve shut his eye, not wanting to see Danny's face. He nodded again. The eye patch was lifted gently away.

"Babe," Danny breathed, his fingers ghosting over the skin. Steve felt Danny's breath against his cheek and then had to bite back a moan as he felt Danny's lips place a soft kiss on his ruined eye socket. "Babe," Danny said again quietly and then he replaced the patch and moved back.

The sounds of the waves were loud here but there were other noises too; seabirds, a lawn mower grinding away somewhere in the village, the wind in the trees and through the marram grass on the dunes. Steve didn't know if he should try to break the silence or not.

"I was angry," Danny said after a time, his voice coming from the sand near Steve's head. He must have lain down beside him. "I was so angry. I thought my life was over. I did the whole why me thing."

Tentatively Steve moved his hand, found Danny's, and felt something warm inside him when Danny's fingers twined with his.

"I wasn't angry with you," Danny said. "Not then. It wasn't your fault. And you'd been damaged too. You were so hurt, your life was changed more than mine was." Steve was going to argue that when he felt Danny shift, turned his head to look at him. Danny's eyes met his, hard and blue. "I was highly pissed off when you took off. I was coming for you, babe. I was still working on how to do it, how to pay for care givers, get us both what we needed to live together. Find a suitable house. I wasn't going to leave you there in that place."

"I thought you were dead," Steve's voice came out in an embarrassing squeak.

Danny looked sad. "I'm sorry."

They lay there some more, quiet. Then Danny started grousing about sand getting everywhere and sunshine and beaches in general. Steve was grateful. And freaked out. He couldn't even work out where to start with things he wanted, needed, to say.

"So this is what you do now?" Danny asked. "You're a lifeguard."

And Steve laughed. "Only for fun. It's volunteer." He grinned. He was proud of himself. Proud of what he'd done and achieved. "I'm a fireman. That's my job. I like it." He sat up. "Come home with me, Danny? You and Grace." He saw Danny grimace. "Just for dinner. Let me think…" The words were tangling up inside. He whacked himself on the forehead. "I still have trouble… My words aren't working. If I have longer…"

Danny leaned up on his elbows but he kept hold of Steve's hand. He was smiling fondly. "You were never any good with words." He pushed himself into a sitting position. "We can't come to dinner, babe. I'm sorry. I want to, but I'm the manager of a team of teenagers and it's the night before their competition starts. I'm the responsible adult here and I can't just ditch them." He pulled his chair closer and with a hand on either side swung himself back up into it. He made it look easy. He grinned down at Steve as he used his hands to tuck his legs back into the right place. "We are here for ten days and they will call at least one rest day. I'll come visit then."

Steve left the beach about four, after Danny had packed his charges back into their bus and they'd been driven off. He fumbled his front door lock and flung himself face down on the sofa. He was utterly exhausted. A confused, painful exhaustion like recovering from the brainstorm he'd had sailing to Fiji.

V must have filled in her father because the two of them bustled in later with food for the barbeque and a whole lot of beer. "I'm not calling you by a different name," Bryan told him. "That would just be too weird."

They were out on the deck, just finishing eating, when Yvonne arrived, finding her way around the edge of the house and coming to stop in front of Steve with her hands on her hips. She didn't even bother saying hello. "The rumors flying around the club are pretty incredible. That girl called you Uncle Steve. So, John, tell me. Who the hell are you, really?" He couldn't tell if she was actually pissed at him or not.

Bryan passed her a beer. He was practically biting his tongue to not ask anything and Steve appreciated that, he really did, but it probably was time to come clean. He swallowed and found the words weren't that hard to find. "My name's not really John Chung. But just about everything else you know about me is true." Haltingly and with the help of a lot more beer he told his friends, these people who had become his family, who he was and how he came to be here. It was difficult. His background was so tangled up and complicated that when he told the bare facts it sounded so unbelievable and tragic.

Wrung out and nearly incoherent, he staggered to the end of his story. Yvonne was holding his hand while V sat close on his other side. Bryan was on a lawn chair, leaning in close. They sat there watching the sun go down and then stayed put in the long twilight until it finally got dark. No-one got up to go inside and switch on the outside light.

Steve finally spoke. "What's the Maori word for family? Far…?"

"Whanau," V said, pronouncing the wh so that it sounded like an F.

His whanau. It meant the same as ohana in Hawaiian. V and Bryan were definitely whanau, and what he had with Yvonne, well, it wasn't a grand passion on either of their parts, but they cared about each other, were fond of each other. And she was still sitting here beside him.

"I had whanau in Hawaii too." He indicated them all. "And I had Danny." He was surprised, but Yvonne didn't let go of his hand. He chewed on his lip and ended up confessing, "I think… We were in love. I loved him."

"Does he want you to go back with him?" V asked, getting to the crux of things.

"I don't know."

"You don't have to make any decisions tonight," Bryan said. "But you probably should get some sleep. It's going to be a busy week."

Yvonne didn't stay the night.

After the opening ceremony the surf teams dispersed to various beaches for their heats. The American team were competing at Muriwai further up the coast. While Steve desperately wanted to see Danny and Grace, it was a lot less distracting to not have them there. And it gave him a bit of breathing space. He organized his lifeguards, took his turns on duty, ran up and down the hill from his house to the beach and managed, pretty much, to be so exhausted at bedtime that he had no choice but to sleep.

The heats were completed by Tuesday afternoon and as the weather seemed stable for the rest of the week, Wednesday was declared a rest day, with the semis to start on Thursday. He asked Danny to spend the day with him.

On Wednesday morning he drove up to where the team was staying in Titirangi in a big Scout Lodge. He had V with him. She and Grace had been Skyping, apparently. V was going to bus into the city with the American kids and show them the sights. She justified it to Steve by saying she was needed to make sure they didn't get lost. Steve didn't really care. He was just delighted to be able to have Danny to himself for the day.

"And I want you all back here by eight," Danny reminded his charges as they trooped out the door. "And for God's sake, make sure Maddie and Carrie don't do anything to injure themselves. We need them for the semis tomorrow. Don't eat anything weird, either. We're in a foreign country. They might put pineapples on pizza but who knows what the meat is."

Most of the kids seemed to decide he wasn't serious.

"Oh, and be careful crossing the road. Look both ways. In case you hadn't noticed these people are crazy and drive on the wrong side of the road."

Grace dropped a kiss on the top of his head. "Yes, Danno."

"Yes, Danno," the group chorused.

"Oh, go on," Danny waved his hands. "Get out of here. Have a great day."

"Bye, Uncle Steve," Grace said quietly. He could tell she was dying to stay. V gave Danny a narrow-eyed glare over her shoulder as she left.

"So what do you want to do?" Steve asked when they'd gone. "I could take you sight-seeing. If I'd thought of it I could have gotten my boat ready and taken you sailing." An irregular pounding of his heart was making him breathless. "We could cruise up to the hot pools, or..."

Danny grabbed for his hand. "I just want to be with you. Okay? Let's go to your house. I want to see where you live."

Steve swallowed. "Okay," he nodded.

After a small glitch when Danny headed for the wrong side of the car, things went fine. Danny transferred himself across to the car seat, stopped Steve from helping, "I'm used to this, it's easier on my own," dragged his legs in and then fiddled with the chair until it folded, and let Steve stow it in the back. He grinned as Steve settled into the driver's seat. "This feels all wrong, you know." Steve had to turn his head to see him, but before he could apologize or even work out what was wrong Danny was laughing at him. "It feels like I ought to be driving sitting here, and you never let me drive." Things were all right after that.

Steve took a detour up through Titirangi, the suburb that was the edge of the city before the area became more rural and rugged out near the beaches. "That's where I work," he said pointing at the fire station.

"Do you drive the big trucks?" Danny asked.

Steve snorted. "No, I don't drive the big trucks." He turned his head, grimaced. "Only got one eye. No binocular vision. Remember."

"Oh, babe." Danny's hand found his knee. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well. I can do everything else."

"You probably had to work really hard to prove that too. Didn't you?"

Steve swallowed. "Yeah." He started the car again. "We won't go in and say hello. They'd want to know all about who you are."

"Yeah," Danny agreed. "Could be complicated." He patted Steve's knee then pulled his hand back. "What's the story with the Rottweiler?"

"You mean V?"

"V. What sort of name is that? Is she even a girl?"

"Yes, she's a girl. She's my neighbor." He smiled. "My cottage used to belong to her grandfather. I had no idea when I bought the place that she came with it." They were heading out of town, into the bush.

"This looks a bit like the North Shore," Danny said. "Or somewhere on Maui."

"Yeah, it does. I like it here."

"So V? And her family, I guess. Anyone else around to keep an eye on you?"

Steve wasn't taken in by his casual tone. "The team I work with. Most of the surf club and the lifeguards. That what you mean?" It was difficult with Danny on his blind side.

"No? Not that I'm not pleased that you've got people around you. I could see that the surf club crowd thinks a lot of you. You know what I mean." He nudged him. "Anyone special?"

"Not sure it's any of your business."

"Well?"

"God. You're still annoying."

"So does that mean there is?"

"There's a lady I see sometimes. It's not…"

"It's okay. You're right. It's none of my business."

They pulled up into his driveway and he got the wheelchair out of the back. "This is it. It doesn't look like much from here. This is sort of the back. It's better from the front." The walk was gravel and it was difficult for the chair. Steve gave it a shoved onto the lawn and then pushed Danny around to the deck at the front. The view across the cliff tops, dark green forested hills behind and the ocean in front, never failed to please him. "This is it." He waited nervously.

"Wow," Danny said. "Babe, this is… Wow…" and again everything was all right.

Steve had spent yesterday evening with a saw and hammer and built a ramp to get a wheelchair up the small step to the deck. Until he'd thought about showing Danny around Steve would have said his house which was all one level was easily accessible. It wasn't just the doorstep, the bathroom was also very much unwheelchair friendly. If Danny wanted to use it he was going to have to carry him in and out. The main room, however, that was fine. "This place is the first place I've ever had that's really been my own."

To his surprise Danny laughed. "I always wanted to shift you out of that place on Piikoi Street. It was one hell of a nice property but it wasn't good for you. It had way too many ghosts."

"This is too weird."

"What?" Danny asked, surprisingly gently.

"It seems lifetimes ago." Steve looked around his familiar, comfortable living room. "I live here now."

"Sit down, why don't you. You're too tall. It's giving me a crick in my neck."

Steve flopped into the old leather recliner that was actually awfully similar to the one that used to be in his father's living room. Danny wheeled to face him, looked him up and down. "I didn't really expect to find you here." He reached for Steve's hand. There were calluses on his palm from pushing the chair. "And I had no idea what you'd be like." Steve wasn't sure what he meant by that but sat and waited. Danny had never been backward at completing an idea. "I mean, we knew you'd bought a house. We saw the title. A while later your medical records were accessed but we didn't know why. Did you hurt yourself or something?"

Steve shook his head. "Became a fireman. Needed a physical. I'm fit," he added.

"I can see that," and Danny gave something like his old lascivious grin. "The thing was, we didn't know… We had no way of knowing what level of functioning you were at. Last time anyone saw you, you could barely string two words together. Now look at you, babe. You're good."

Steve knew he had a stupid smile on his face. "Yeah, I am. I'm good. I've got a good job that I like, a nice house. It's not fancy but it's enough for me. I've got friends. Yeah. I'm good." He stroked the back of Danny's hand. "What about you? Is life good for you?"

"Well, it sure beats the alternative. Oh. Your old house has got tenants by the way. Me. I had the ground floor remodeled. I hope you don't mind."

"Uh. No."

"Good. That's good. Ah, yes. So, good job, yeah, I got that. Place I like to live. It's got a few ghosts but I'm okay with them now." He gave a soft smile. "My daughter is growing up to be so beautiful. Did you notice that?"

Steve smiled. "Yeah. I noticed that."

"She lives with me a good chunk of the time. She's going to college next year. Oceanography. Can you believe that? You. That's all your fault. You and your talk about wave patterns and surfing and saving the whales."

Steve spluttered, but couldn't get a word in.

"She's a champion surfer. Have you noticed that too? Even though she didn't actually manage to get into the finals of this hellishly expensive exercise here. Have you got any idea of what it costs to come here to compete in a surfing competition? No. Of course you haven't."

Danny was smiling, the familiar proud father smile, and his free hand came up to rest on Steve's cheek, on the good side. His thumb stroked across Steve's lips. "It's been worth it, though. Every cent."

"Can I take you to bed?"

Danny's hands jerked back. "What?"

Steve made a grab and got Danny's hands back. "I want to see you. All of you. Touch you. Can I do that?"

"I can't have sex with you." Danny sounded panicked.

"Oh." Steve pulled back. "I'm sorry. Is there someone? Have you got someone now?"

"No, babe." Danny gave a sad smile. "I've never been… I've not been in the right space." He gave a wry laugh. "I haven't wanted a relationship the last few years." He sighed and gazed at the ceiling. "I meant I physically can't have sex." Danny patted his lower stomach. "I have no sensation, no feeling at all, from about two inches below my belly button." He thumped his right leg, hard enough that it should have hurt. "Can't feel a thing." Lips pursed, he finally looked back at Steve. "Can't have sex."

Steve felt helpless, horrified and sad. "Danny."

"So yeah, not much to offer anyone in the relationship department. Not to mention, well, I'm pretty ugly without my clothes on. My muscles have atrophied. My skin's all white and a bit… well, damp. I have to check myself morning and night for pressure sores. I'm incontinent. Have to catheterise myself three times a day, give myself an enema in the morning. The whole thing's not pretty." He shuddered. "You can see why I don't really want to try the whole dating thing with anyone."

"I'm not just anyone," Steve choked out. "Please, Danny. I want to see you. I want… no, I think I need to hold you, and with you in that chair… We can't even hug."

"A hug?" Danny grinned. "You're asking for a hug. Where is Steve McGarrett and what have you done with him?"

"I'm not Steve McGarrett anymore, Danny. I haven't been, since... Well, since…"

"I was joking."

"I know. But it's true. I'm not Steve anymore. Come to bed with me, Danny. Please."

A world of emotions ranged across Danny's face but in the end he nodded. "Sure."

In the bedroom Steve turned down the covers, and Danny pulled himself out of the chair and sat on the edge of the mattress. He grinned, seemingly okay with the idea. "This goes both ways, babe," he told Steve. "From what I can see around those tee shirts and shorts, you're in pretty good shape. Strip."

Steve grinned back and did what he was told. "Oh, man," Danny breathed. You are in good shape. Bit skinnier than you used to be but looking good. Come here."

Steve came. Danny reached out and gently ran his hand down the scar tissue on his chest and side, then slid a hand up his arm across the scars that had taken his tattoo. "You've been through so much." His hand continued up to Steve's face and he smiled. "You're still the most beautiful man I have ever seen."

Steve's heart ached and his words seized up. Instead he took hold of Danny's tee shirt and lifted it over his head. He ran his hands over the warm and vital flesh, taut muscles shifting beneath his hands. "Get up on the bed," he ground out. Danny complied, scooting himself back up the bed to lean up against the head board. "May I?" Steve held his hand over Danny's fly. Danny nodded, wriggling his body from side to side to help as Steve pulled the pants down, pulling off his shoes and socks on the way. It was Danny's body but definitely not as he remembered it. "You don't smell bad," was the first thought that popped out of his mouth. Danny had made it sound like he might. He ran his hands down Danny's thighs. The flesh was soft, no tension of muscles held waiting to move like in his upper body, but still warm and alive. An ugly scar ran down his thigh and another across his knee.

Steve kissed the scars and moved down. He picked up Danny's foot, flexed it, pressed his thumb into the ball. Even though he knew he wouldn't get a response it was still disconcerting. He looked up. Danny was watching him, his face blank, lips pursed. On his knees Steve stalked back up the bed, stopped, straddling Danny's hips. Danny's eyes held his, shy and uncertain in a way that Steve just didn't like to see on Danny.

"What do you think?" Danny whispered.

"I think I want to kiss you." He deliberately did his eyebrow kink, although heaven knew how it looked over an eye patch. "Do you still kiss?"

"Sort of out of practice," Danny admitted, but he leaned forward to meet him. Steve pulled Danny close in against him and rolled them onto their sides. Danny's arms came around him and their mouths found each other, breath mingling, familiar and warm. Steve kissed him with all the pent up fury of years of thinking he would never do this again and Danny gave it all right back, his big hands clutched tight to Steve's back. Steve's whole body was shaking, close to breaking, his breath coming in great lurching gasps when they finally pulled back to breathe. "Oh, God." He was crying, Danny's thumb wiping the tears from his cheeks.

"Babe," Danny said quietly and Steve was glad to see he was as wrecked as Steve felt. Then Danny's hand walked down his body, his touch so familiar, so like coming home, and he grasped Steve's cock, big hand curling around the shaft.

Steve gasped. "Danny." He tried to jerk away. He'd been trying to ignore his arousal. It felt wrong to even want sex when Danny couldn't even feel anything. "You don't have to…"

"I want to," Danny said, voice husky. "Come on, babe." He gave a pump and Steve gave in as Danny expertly worked his cock, remembering all the little tricks that drove Steve wild. He was gone, so quickly, all his senses overloaded, and crying through his orgasm as Danny held him close and kissed his tears away.

Steve let Danny pull him across his body, Steve tucked over his chest and under his arm. Danny kissed the top of his head. "You want to grab the blankets? I can't reach."

Steve did, yanking them awkwardly over them. Then he yawned.

"Take a nap, why don't you? We'll talk later."

"I know you're going to ask so I'll say it first," Danny said later when they'd woken up and kissed some more. "Yes. I really hate it that I can't have sex."

"Danny." Steve froze, his hand on Danny's stomach. "I'm so sorry."

"See," Danny said, "I knew you were going to say that." He placed his hand over Steve's. "And that's why I had to bring it up. Because I knew you'd feel like that. Babe, I need you to know," Danny turned Steve's face so he had to look at him, "I hate that I can't have sex, that I can't even have those feelings, but I don't hate my life and I don't resent you or hold you responsible." Steve didn't know where to start with answering that, but this was Danny, he should have known that he wouldn't get a word in edgeways anyway.

"See, babe. My life is like this." Danny drew a big circle in the air. "And sex," he drew a small circle inside, but off to the side of his big circle, "it's only a little bit of my life. Using my legs… walking…" He drew another small circle about the same size of the sex one. "But everything else," he sketched filling in the rest of the space, "my life is full. Sure, there's a couple of holes in it, but hey, I'd rather live like this than not live at all. Do you get that, Steve?" Danny surged upwards and flipped them, pushing Steve onto his back and lying on top of him. "I don't hate you. I don't blame you." Danny pressed forward into a blistering kiss. Steve's brain finally caught up and he went with it, answering in kind, enjoying the contact, the intimacy, the feeling of Danny here and alive, and finding surprisingly that right now he didn't need sex, either.

Danny finally pulled back, a fond smile on his face. He kissed the eye patch and then the scar below it. His lips moved higher, kissed Steve's forehead and then down, and oh so tenderly kissed his good eye. "I'm okay and I'm so happy to find you're okay too." Then he pushed himself back onto his back and started to sit up. "Okay. Hungry now. What's for lunch?"

"It's nice here," Danny said later. They were dressed and back in the main room. Steve was throwing together a salad for lunch, proudly washing greens from the little vegetable garden he had growing around the back, away from the wind.

"Yeah," he agreed. "I like it here." He pointed out the doors to the deck with the vast ocean beyond. "I love this view."

"Suits you," Danny agreed. He cocked his head to the side. "I want to ask you something, but I don't know what you're going to say."

"Go on." Steve put the salad on the coffee table next to the ham from the butcher in Titirangi and sweet cherry tomatoes from Yvonne's garden. He grabbed the loaf of bread and hoped it wasn't too stale.

Danny forked a slice of ham and added it to his plate on his lap. "Hey, are those homegrown tomatoes?" He snagged one and shoved it in his mouth, making pornographic moaning noises. "You know most people eat off their table."

The table was completely covered in paperwork involved with the surf contest. "Only me here most of the time. I eat at the breakfast bar or outside."

Danny smiled. "Grace and I are going back at the end of the week after the contest. Come with us?"

Steve had known that was coming. He'd barely slept the last few nights, working out the pros and cons, the to-and-fros, so he'd be ready for the question. It had been a really hard call but he was sure it was the right one.

"Something I'd like to know," he said instead.

Danny looked cautious. "Yes?"

"Chin got me that passport. He played with my medical records. Did you guys know everything I was going to do? Did you let me do it? Was it supposed to make me feel independent?" Because it would kill him if he hadn't actually achieved what he thought he had.

"Not quite." Danny looked embarrassed. "We knew about the passport but we missed what you were going to do with the boat. Even with getting a passport it hadn't actually occurred to anyone that you would try to leave the country by sailing away in a tiny boat." Steve could see the edge of fear in Danny's gaze. "Chin saw you collect the passport and sail out of the marina and then we lost you."

"Well, good." Steve grinned, but it was hard remembering that time, when life had seemed so bleak, and sort of hopeful too. "I worked hard to get lost."

"We couldn't find you for weeks. We should have put a transmitter on the yacht. Jesus, Steve. What is it with you? See, that was our problem, we thought brain damaged you would be more cautious than ordinary you. How stupid could we get?"

Steve wasn't sure if he should be insulted.

"You fell off the face of the earth and we were all thinking the worst. We were all hoping you might have set up another identity we didn't know about, but really," Danny swallowed, "I think that privately, we were all thinking you were dead." He huffed. "When you turned up in Fiji, we couldn't believe it. Kono and Kamekona got together and threw a big party." He shuddered. "It was one hell of a night."

Steve laughed. He remembered hoping that Chin would be aware that he was safe on land again, but he hadn't thought that anyone else would have cared much. He gave Danny a sad smile. "No."

"No, what?"

"No. I won't go home with you."

There was silence for a long beat. Danny didn't seem that surprised. And then, because Danny deserved an explanation, John said, "I'm not Steven John McGarrett anymore. I haven't been him since… that explosion that changed both our lives. I couldn't go back to law enforcement, and there'd be all these people expecting me to be the man I was, the old Steve. And I'm not. It would be… awkward. I'd be on edge the whole time.

"I'm John Steven Chung and I've gotten used to him. He's a good man. He's happy and settled with a responsible job. He saves lives." Suddenly it was easier than he could have imagined. "He's got friends, whanau. I'm happy here, Danny. You can come and visit. I might come for a visit…" Suddenly he laughed. "I'd like you to come and stay. Hell, we could have some bizarre long distance relationship if you want to, but no. I'm not going back with you."

Danny took a moment before he spoke. "I can't say I'm not disappointed, but yeah, I get it." He huffed out a sigh. "I watched you at the surf club. You were nervous with me around, I could tell that, but you were comfortable too. You belonged there. People like and respect you. I could tell that too. I had a feeling the way this conversation would go." He looked nervous. "You mean it about staying in touch, though? You won't disappear again? Because I don't think I could stand that, now we've found you again. Maybe we could even use email, Skype, all that modern stuff?"

"Yeah, I can do that." Steve plopped down on the sofa beside Danny. "I'm gonna redecorate. Upgrade the bathroom. Make it wheelchair friendly. What do you think?"

Danny gave him a wide smile. "Cool."