Missing Scenes, "Oia'i'o"
by Sammie
Disclaimer, rating, summary in part 1.
On New Year's Eve, Kono told him about Chin Ho.
Danny was driving Grace home. He'd gotten time with his daughter for New Year's Eve, and they'd all gathered to give Grace a tiny New Year's party. As the party ended, Chin Ho said he had some business - business about which Kono looked rather disapproving. As Steve and Kono cleaned up Danny's apartment, she had blurted her distrust of Chin's "business" to Steve - an odd time of sharing, given that Steve had found the cousins, for all their friendliness, were rather reserved and close-mouthed - especially on personal and/or family issues. (In a year, he knew more about Danny's family and family problems than he knew about Chin's, and he had known Chin for many more years AND worked with some of Chin's family - namely, Kono).
Auntie Akela, Kono explained, was Chin Ho's mother and her paternal aunt. She had been the eldest of the passel of Kalakaua children. When Mr. Kalakaua had been very young, his - and Akela's - parents had died unexpectedly. Auntie Akela had gone to work immediately, barely graduating her final semester of high school. She had sacrificed her future - her plans for university, her plans for graduate work - and gone to raise her younger siblings. She had even married late. The entirety of the Kalakaua family had been fiercely loyal to Mrs. Kelly since (though, Kono noted bitterly, not to Chin Ho); Chin Ho's mother had become the de facto mother of the Clan Kalakaua.
Her cousin, Kono explained then, was the eldest son of this woman. Chin Ho just couldn't help himself. He was a nurturer, a do-er, and he had the connections and the know-how to work the system to help those he cared about. He took responsibility for all those around him, even when it cost him personally - and it sometimes did.
Quite honestly, the woman was sick and tired of him always caring for everybody else. Nobody cared for him, she groused (though Steve thought this was rather untrue, since Kono herself obviously was watching out for him), because Chin never mentioned what he did or what he was planning.
When Kono was five, she was a little small for kindergarten, and an older girl in her elementary school started bullying her at recess. Chin taught her how to defend herself, of course. Yet it was the other stuff: she soon found some of her largest teenage cousins suddenly "volunteering" with reading-buddy programs at her school, and they made it a point to greet her in the hallways. Chin himself started walking from the high school a few blocks away to come to pick her up after school, and he always wore his football jersey every time he came by. The bully never talked to her after that. It didn't make sense to little Kono then, and Chin would never admit to it, but years later she suspected he'd set the whole thing up.
One of her geekish older cousins once told her how, when he had been a freshman at Kukui, he'd been bullied in his gym class. The next week everything was resolved; it was really odd, her mother had said, for a freshman like Peleke to have upperclassmen like Chin and Sid in his gym class - and oddly, the only upperclassmen in that gym class. Sid wouldn't talk about it, but he only said he'd had no idea that Peleke had been in trouble until later. That, of course, left Chin Ho as the one person who could have arranged the change in schedules so they could watch out for their younger cousin. After all, Kono said conspiratorially, Chin had always been on good terms with his guidance counselor.
Steve himself had seen it a few months after that New Year's, concerning the matter of the 200 grand, with Chin's uncle. Even a frustrated Kono had been kept out of the loop for most of the scandal until she and her dying aunt had pieced together what happened. Steve knew that he, the outsider, had only found out what happened because Kono had first told him in a fit of anger at Chin and then guilt-tripped her cousin into revealing all of it to their boss, pointing out that IA's investigation into him would affect Five-0 also. She'd blocked the doorway out of Steve's office, arms crossed, a stony look on her face as Chin stood before him and told him everything. That day, as he listened to Chin Ho speak, Steve's first thought had been about Chin's intense loyalty; the second had been about the man's amazing resourcefulness.
These same two thoughts ran through his head now. Steve began to suspect that both he and Danny had misjudged the man.
Chin suddenly materialized, and the officer taking Steve away turned him over to the lieutenant. Steve again noticed the difference between being in the hands of a cop who thought you were guilty versus one who was a friend. There was a complete but comfortable silence as his father's old protégé led him down the hallway towards an interrogation room. Thank God for small mercies.
Chin opened the door and, rather than forcing Steve down into the chair across from the interrogation table, he waved to it, allowing Steve to take his own seat facing the two-way mirror. Steve looked up at him, his brow furrowing in puzzlement. To be honest, he had been unable to figure out Chin's actions. Chin had been offered a promotion, then came running back to 5-0. He didn't accept the position until -
Until after HPD had come to arrest him.
He had never really understood Chin Ho Kelly, had he. The friendly, welcoming face hid cavernous depths which Steve was just realizing he didn't know. Chin passed slowly in front of him, but he gave him a piercing look as he passed between his boss and the two-way mirror. His hand was heavy on Steve's shoulder, and as his body blocked the view of whomever was on the other side of the mirror, he gave Steve's shoulder a squeeze.
The SEAL knew it now. Chin had figured out how it would fall apart, even before Steve himself had. Chin had seen how scandal worked, and he had guessed how everything would unfold: the minute they lost the governor, they lost their support. The minute they lost Steve, 5-0 would fall apart. Kono had never actually worked for HPD. Danny had barely any ties to Hawaii at all. 5-0 had been entirely dependent on two people: the governor and Steve. With the support gone and the head lopped off (or in jail), 5-0 would perish.
Chin Ho Kelly was taking responsibility for the family's survival - just as he always had.
Steve wondered whether it would be worth it for Chin to do what he was doing. He'd just gotten cleared of one scandal; if it came out that Chin Ho Kelly was helping governor-assassin McGarrett, right after covering up for his uncle, there wouldn't be anywhere Chin could go from which he could be redeemed. Steve now knew that Chin would sacrifice himself for the rest of them, if he were allowed to do so. The SEAL was beginning to see why Kono worried about her cousin so much; he himself was beginning to worry about the man. Chin didn't have many job offers left.
His father had good taste, Steve had to admit. Danny might be Steve's partner and his best friend, but Steve was beginning to consider the veteran Honolulu cop his safety net. Chin Ho Kelly had returned to the HPD - swallowing his pride and his hurt - so he could save 5-0; he now brought to bear the entire weight and backing of the Honolulu Police Department. Steve had completely underestimated this man.
Providentially, so had Wo Fat.
end