A bit of an episode tag for H50 S9E02

We were just following orders . . .

Following orders . . .

Orders . . .

The words echoed in Steve's mind. Had been, all afternoon. All evening. And now . . . half the night. He sighed and threw the tangled covers aside. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he grabbed for a tshirt and pulled it on, mindless of it being inside out.

He headed down the stairs on autopilot, not bothering to turn on lights in the house he knew from childhood. He'd been through a lot with this house, in this house - repaired bullet holes in the sheetrock with his own hands, healed from bullet wounds in his flesh . . . recovered with part of Danny's liver inside him. The house was equal parts nightmare and comfort but tonight it was neither; tonight it prison walls that echoed his recriminating thoughts.

He stood at the edge of the water, chewing on his lip. The sound of the waves lapping against the shore, the scent of salt, the feel of sand beneath his feet - all reassuring, but not enough. Not enough to trust himself to slip into the water and be able to hold it together, be able to not confuse the ocean with the tank and . . . Danny wasn't here to pull him out.

He settled uneasily into the old wooden chair, slumped forward with his elbows on his knees, staring out unseeing at the water. He replayed the missions in his mind, one at a time. How much had he known? How much had he ignored?

We were just following orders . . .

Greer's face, mocking him.

Following orders . . .

Every mission. Every set of orders. Every set of intel and then . . .

The next set of intel. Sometimes immediately, sometimes weeks or months after. Sometimes it was good news: progress toward peace, toward democracy.

Sometimes . . . it was more complicated.

He rewound the complicated ones. How much had he known, going in? How much had he ignored?

When did he question what he and his team were doing and when did he just . . . do it?

He was vaguely aware of the sky growing lighter but his thoughts were a hemisphere away. His stomach felt like lead. At what point had he . . . known?

Following orders . . .

The op in Venezuela? That drop in the little village a few klicks outside the Stan?

Following orders . . .

Marrakesh.

God, Marrakesh . . .

A soft brush across his shoulder, a sensation of sudden warmth radiating at his collarbone, had him launching out of his chair, spinning, hands raised defensively.

"Whoa, easy, Steve."

It was Danny, standing in front of him, a coffee in each hand.

The lead weight lurched from his stomach to his throat, leaving him unable to speak.

"You with me?" Danny's eyes were crinkled in concern. Steve hadn't missed it, those little glances, constant since that damned tank. He dropped his eyes, unable to meet Danny's gaze. He didn't deserve Danny's concern, his loyalty, his friendship, not after . . .

If Danny knew, if he knew . . .

"Steve?"

He managed to get a shaky breath past the vice-grip of guilt in his chest.

"Yeah, sorry." He patted absently at his empty pocket. Damn. His phone - "Sorry, we got a case?"

"No. Had to drop Gracie early for practice, wanted to come by . . . you didn't answer your phone."

A cup of coffee entered his line of vision and he took it automatically, fingers curling around the warmth.

"You wanna tell me what's going on?"

No, God, no, Danny, if you knew . . . you'd never forgive me.

"Excuse me, what?"

Shit. He hadn't meant to say that out loud.

Danny's hand was on his shoulder, and Steve, God help him, he didn't deserve it but he leaned into it anyway, unable to deny himself this small comfort.

Danny sighed. "Sit down." He steered Steve into the chair as easily as he would have Charlie.

Steve sat, hunched, his elbows back on his knees, his hands wrapped around the coffee. It felt like the only source of heat against the chill that seemed to wrap around him.

"This about Greer?"

"Yeah. No. It's -" Steve stopped, took a sip. The coffee was hot and perfectly bitter, and it helped more than he had any right for it to.

"Classified," Danny suggested.

Steve turned that over in his mind. Classified. He could, technically, hide behind that indefinitely. It was, of course, classified - beyond classified. It was so classified it was you will be disavowed.

Danny cleared his throat.

Steve took another sip of coffee.

"So, the Special Activities Division," Danny said slowly, "started somewhere around the time of the Vietnam War. Excuse me, the Vietnam conflict. Joint operations between the CIA and the Navy. The Navy, specifically, not necessarily the other branches but -" he made a dismissive gesture. "Around the time politics, and war, further blurred previously clear lines."

Steve hazarded a glance at Danny and was rewarded with that soft, fond smile. The one he didn't deserve, had never deserved.

"What, you think I meet people like Joe and Doris and don't start doing some bedtime reading?"

Steve chuckled. Of course Danny would have looked into it. His curiousity was second only to his sarcasm.

"And black helicopters are real," Danny stated.

Steve's snapped his head up at that, intrigued..

"You said it, like a throw-away comment, one day. I was joking, you were on the phone, you turned around and said to me, 'They are. Black helicopters are real.' So I figure, you've been up close and personal. With the black helicopters. And with . . . other stuff."

Steve looked down again and nodded.

Danny waited, sipping his coffee. The light was stronger, now, the reflection sparkling off the water.

"It made sense, perfect sense, the first couple ops," Steve said. "I never questioned what they asked us to do. Extractions, usually, people caught where - where they shouldn't have been. Americans."

Danny nodded.

"Then a couple times we were taking . . . taking people where they weren't allowed to go, and . . . the way it was explained to me, it was just . . . it was more expedient. There were time-sensitive issues at stake and going through . . . usual channels just wouldn't . . ."

Danny lips pressed into a thin line.

"Yes, well, Doris and Joe certainly were models of expediency."

"Danny," Steve sighed. He knew Danny's feelings about Joe were mixed at best. And Doris? Danny had stopped trying to hide his outright disgust for her. The coffee churned into acid in his stomach. If Danny knew . . .

"Hey. What's going on in that head of yours, hunh?"

Steve took a shuddering breath and shook his head. He couldn't tell Danny. He couldn't not tell Danny. What a clusterfuck. They sat in silence . . . strangely comfortable, but after eight years together . . .

"Ah. You think I couldn't understand, that I couldn't possibly relate to the positions you've been in." Danny took a long, thoughtful sip of his coffee. "You think that someone who shot Marco Reyes in a basement in Columbia couldn't possibly find a shred of empathy for a young Naval officer assigned joint missions with the SAD."

Steve was prepared for Danny's disappointment, fully expected his anger, had braced for losing his respect. He hadn't anticipated his understanding, and he had no idea how to accept it. If he stopped, stopped right now, stood up and went into the house and got ready for work, he could leave it there. He could leave it vague, ambiguous . . . just like the ops. Danny had given him an out, given him absolution, why wouldn't that be enough?

Why couldn't that be enough?

Catherine knew every bit of it, slept easy every night, and chose a life in the shadows.

Lynn . . . didn't know any of it. Didn't understand anything about his military past . . . didn't want to know why he woke up screaming. She wanted to help, in her way, but she couldn't bear to know. And Steve was just too damn tired to work that hard to keep her from knowing.

Danny. Danny knew, hell, had been there for a lot of it, but he didn't know the things Catherine knew, the things that he had done before Five-0.

"You don't know all of it, Danny, and when you do, I'm afraid . . . "

"When."

Steve looked at Danny, trying to read his expression. It was one he'd seen a thousand times: patient, fond, almost amused.

"You said, 'when you do', not 'if you do'."

"I did?"

"You did. You've already decided you're going to tell me. So, tell me."

Danny's hand was on his shoulder again, squeezing gently. When had Danny pulled his chair closer? Steve stared at the water, sparkling even brighter now, but not glaring. A perfect morning in paradise. The sand under his feet was soft, cool. It had been so different, elsewhere: harsh, blistering hot. How had he ever thought he could come home, really? Was that why Catherine had ultimately chosen the CIA over making a life with him? Had she known all along, that people like them, people who had blurred the lines of right and wrong so many times, could never really come home?

"Hey." Danny was speaking softly, so softly. "Hey, babe, come on."

"I was still in intelligence," Steve blurted out. "So after the ops, sometimes there'd . . . I would read reports, or I'd hear . . . sometimes I had no idea what we were doing, Danny, it was like delivering a package. We called it that, you know? The package. It was, you know, a person, or a team. I was so - my job was to keep people alive. The - the person, the team. My team. I was focused on keeping people alive, I didn't . . . if I'd focused on what we were doing or why, I could have made mistakes. Fatal mistakes."

"I get that."

"But then after . . . I'd find out that, maybe, a faction suddenly had weapons, supplies . . . things that were in the best interests of our country, Danny."

He sat back in his chair and looked at Danny, still studying him with that same patient expression. Even his hands were still, which was more than a little unnerving.

"And I thought, back channels - if the end result is that, you know, Mary could sleep safe and sound at night, then . . . then it was okay. If it was in the interest of freedom and democracy. Right?"

"The American Way."

"Yeah. But then . . . sometimes, no matter how I tried to spin it, I just - I just couldn't. I would come back from risking my life, damn near getting my team killed, only to find out that we'd - that I'd - it was . . . strategic. I'm sorry, it's - I can't -"

"It's classified."

"Before I got tagged to focus on anti-terrorism, before I was put on the trail of the Hesse brothers, there was an op. We - my team - we were responsible for security, for protecting a convoy. Trucks, seven of them, across lines. I was told it was medical supplies, medicines, MREs, baby formula. Diapers. The village had been cut off, surrounded by fighting. It took days. There were . . . there were IEDs. Snipers. We lost a driver, I lost two guys, but we got those supplies safely to a village, a village that we were told was sympathetic to - well. We were told they were the good guys."

Danny nodded.

"A couple weeks later, I - the neighboring village was . . . obliterated. There were pictures, it was . . . there was nothing left. Burned. Bodies in the street. Men, women. Children. God . . . babies."

"I'm so sorry," Danny murmured.

"By the end of the year . . . there was a pipeline. Through what used to be that village. We'd delivered weapons. We'd delivered weapons, to supply a civil war between villages, and . . . they took those weapons and wiped out an entire village. Genocide. I think - I think I participated in genocide."

"You couldn't have known," Danny said softly.

"I didn't look in the trucks. By that time, I'd . . . I'd learned it was just . . . easier. If I didn't look. If I didn't know."

Steve stood up, dropping his coffee gently into the sand at his feet.

"God help me, Danny, somewhere along the line I'd learned not to look."

Danny was silent. Steve couldn't bring himself to look, couldn't stand the thought of Danny's disappointment reflected on his face. He stumbled toward the water's edge. The sparkling morning sunshine became flashes of muzzle fire, too-bright desert sun reflecting off truck mirrors. He closed his eyes. It was worse. Images, still in horrifying detail . . . bodies in the street, none of them in uniform, none of them moving. Small bodies, only partially visible under the bodies of their parents, who died trying -

He hadn't realized he was retching until he was on his knees, a thin stream of bile spilling into the water, washing away with the tide. He sat back with a thud, his feet at the very edge of the water, foam seeping up over his toes and then soaking into the sand. He felt a shadow on his back, and a water bottle was slowly moved into his field of vision. Danny knew - he'd learned early on, hadn't he? - not to startle Steve. He took the bottle gratefully, swished a mouthful and spat into the sand, then a cautious sip. He was shocked when Danny - Danny, of the I hate this island, I hate this sand, sand gets everywhere, everywhere, Steven - sat down next to him. He'd discarded his shoes and socks, and fetched water - how much time had Steve lost, he wondered, absently worried, losing time - losing time, after that damn tank, that could be bad -

"Steve."

"I'm sorry, Danny, I'm so sorry -"

"Hey. Hey, you listen to me. This whole . . . damn Greer, damn the CIA, and fuck the SAD. Fuck them for how they used you. Manipulated you."

Steve shook his head. "I should have known, Danny, I should have . . . I chose not to know."

"Maybe. Okay? Maybe, at some points, on some level, you did. You know what else you chose?"

Steve stared, unseeing, at the horizon.

"You chose to put your Navy career - your brilliant, promising, Navy career - on the slow track, and you chose to put down some roots, run a task force. You've helped people, Steve. You've built a life and a - a family here. Out of the shadows. In the light." Danny's hands gestured expansively at the brightening sky.

Steve felt his lips quirk up. "Out of the shadows, in the light? That's poetic."

"Damn straight, I am eloquent. I am also right. Maybe you didn't make a good choice on that operation. Maybe you made some bad calls on a few. That doesn't make you a bad person."

Steve pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, trying to block out the unwelcome images.

"Where are you right now, in that head of yours?"

Steve felt his breath coming in shallow pants. He tried to slow it, tried to fend off the impending panic that had been clawing at the edges of his mind since the pool.

Danny's hand reached around him, landing strong and solid on his far shoulder, his arm warm across his back.

He broke, finally - not from the torture, recent and past, not from the years of guilt, but from the weight of Danny's compassion.

When he could breathe again, deep gasping breaths, Danny was still holding on to him, grounding him.

"Okay, here's what's gonna happen," Danny said. "I'm calling Lou and the kids, they're taking care of things today. You're getting into a hot shower while I make you some coffee and decent food. Then I'm gonna change clothes because, sand, Steven, I have sand in places."

Steve felt a laugh forcing its way through his still painfully clenched chest.

"And then . . . we're going to Tripler, or Pearl Hickam, or wherever you need to go. You're going to talk to someone about this."

"Danny, I -"

"Someone other than me, someone who has clearance, maybe, if that's what they need to have. Someone who is trained, specially trained, to help you sort out all the crap. And I don't mean just the ops, I mean . . . you're trying, Steve, but since that ship, and that damn tank, and that fucking god-awful red rubber suit . . . I can see it, you're not back with us. Not all the way. Not yet."

Steve rubbed the back of his neck. He could fool himself and everyone else, but not Danny. Never Danny.

"Rather just talk to you," he mumbled.

"What do you think we've been doing this morning, you schmuck? Of course you can talk to me. You'll talk to me after. You'll tell me all about it, about what the doctor or therapist or whoever says, and what we can do to help. Burn off some of this nervous energy of yours putting another couple coats of poly on the bar while I try that carbonara thing."

Steve shifted uneasily. "We can just go back to the palace, we need to -"

"No."

Steve glared at Danny. "Who died and put you in charge?"

"You came pretty damn close. Come on, stop bitching, call and set up whatever. And help me up, my knee's killing me."

Steve let Danny drive. He was fine, he was sure of it, except - he had lost at least a couple minutes, at least a couple times, that morning. And he'd never admit it, not in a million years, but there was a sense of relief, in Danny taking over. Danny had accepted the keys with nothing more than a quirked eyebrow.

"Why are you doing this?" Steve asked. He had been staring out the window, but he turned to look at Danny, waiting for his response.

"Come on, you're my partner, I love you," Danny said.

"I really screwed up, Danny. People died. Innocent people. Even the Geneva Convention doesn't allow 'following orders' as an excuse."

Danny shook his head. "I don't think you're in that territory, Steve, not even then. Your orders were to deliver medical supplies and food, right?"

Steve thought that over for a moment.

"But it was weapons. It wasn't medical supplies."

"But your orders, your orders were to deliver medical supplies, to protect the trucks and the drivers. Your orders weren't to deliver weapons."

"I should have checked."

"Yeah. Maybe you should have. Maybe by that time you were getting a little too comfortable with some sketchy stuff. Maybe I should have tried to bring Reyes in, take him into custody. We'll always live with maybes, Steve."

"Reyes was different. Danny, I know - I know how you feel about the CIA, about this kind of thing. I don't understand how you can be okay, how you can be -" his throat closed up, moisture pricking hot in his eyes.

Danny pulled over to one of the hundreds of overlooks. Not his overlook, they weren't on that road, and this view was of the city, not the water.

"What are you doing?"

"Get out. We have time, get out."

Steve sighed and unfolded his legs from the passenger seat. He paced by the open car door. Danny pointed to a low ledge.

"Geez, Danny." Steve rolled his eyes but he sat, anyway.

Danny stood in front of him, arms crossed.

"How I can be what?" he said, looking down at Steve as if he was a suspect.

"What?"

"You said, you didn't understand how I would be okay, how I could be . . . what?"

"Come on -"

"How I could still be your friend? I told you, I love you. You think talking more openly about stuff that I already assumed, that I've assumed since I read your file the day your father was murdered, found out you were a SEAL and also in Navy intelligence, is gonna change that?"

"Well - yeah," Steve said. He spread his hands out wide, open. "Yeah, Danny, it - it usually does. It always has. Why do you think I live like a monk, hunh?"

Danny stared at him.

"You familiar with the concept of unconditional love, Steve? Hunh? You seem to be able to extend it to everyone else. It's that hard for you to understand that it could apply to you?"

Steve swallowed hard.

"Just because no one in your life has loved you unconditionally, doesn't mean you don't deserve it." Danny sounded fierce, almost angry.

"So, we're still good?" Steve asked. He could feel himself almost daring to be hopeful that he hadn't lost Danny's friendship and respect, maybe not completely. "Still with . . . with Five-0 and the restaurant and . . ."

"And?"

"And the kids?" Steve asked, so softly that Danny had to lean forward to hear him.

"The - what do you mean, the kids?"

"You're still . . . okay with me being around the kids, being part of Gracie and Charlie's life? Even knowing . . ."

"Steve. Shit, Steve, yes, with the kids, what are you - yes, okay? Yes. We love you, my kids think you're a superhero and a role model, God help me. They love you. I love you. We're not going anywhere. Okay?"

Steve nodded, trying to push down another rush of emotion threatening to overwhelm him.

"Okay?"

Steve nodded again.

"And I was wrong."

Steve looked at him, confused.

"Gracie, Charlie, Joanie. Mary. They love you, unconditionally. Grover. Tani and Junior. Right?"

"I - yeah. I guess - yeah." Steve cleared his throat. "Not . . . not like you, though, Danny."
"Yeah, well, obviously," Danny said, grinning, cocky and smug. His smile was incandescent. It warmed Steve, lit a flicker of hope in him.

"Gimme the keys." Steve held out his hand, snapped his fingers impatiently.

"Oh, that's how it's gonna be?"

"Yeah, your driving makes me sick, it's good you pulled over. I'm driving. And after this - we're not working on the carbonara."

"Oh, no?" Danny asked. He slid into the passenger seat while Steve made an obvious and deliberately exaggerated movement of sliding the driver seat back.

"No. We're working on the pineapple chicken pasta dish."

"We - no. No, Steven."

"Yes, Daniel. I'm telling you, it could be a signature dish."

"Signature - what, my grandmother's manicotti is going to be the signature dish."

"I'm just saying, this is Oahu, a signature dish . . ."