"You have to believe me," the man pleaded, "they're going to send my daughter to Thailand in less than twenty-four hours if I don't come up with the money. I would never steal; I would never hurt anyone. I only wanted to get my daughter back. I figure, these wealthy tourists, they have money, they have insurance, they can replace their things. I can never replace my daughter."
Steve picked up the man's weapon as Chin cuffed his wrists.
"Sir, we're going to take you to Five-O and see if we can get this sorted out, okay?" Steve said. "If your story checks out, then we'll help you get your daughter back."
The man stared up at him, speechless.
"Do we need the cuffs, boss?" Kono asked quietly.
Steve nodded. "If he's being watched, we need to make it look good. His daughter's life could depend on it. Let's go."
#*#*#*#*#
"Steve, what do you have?" Danny asked, rushing off the elevator and into Steve's office, Jax on his heels. "Kono said something about a little girl kidnapped?"
"Our armed robber claims he was trying to gather a ransom for his little girl," Steve explained. "The others are in the conference room with him, going over some mug shots. Jax, I think he's been running on fumes - definitely sleep deprived and dehydrated, probably hasn't eaten in days. We can't convince him to go get checked out but if you can help out without taking him away from trying to help locate the people who took his daughter, that would be great."
"Got it," Jax said, as she headed back to the elevator.
"Danny, I'm going to put a call in to Catherine," Steve said. "We need to add this to the potential human trafficking cases we are cross referencing against Declan Novak's movements."
"He's in custody, Steve," Danny reminded him.
"Yeah, well, that doesn't mean he doesn't have dozens of deals still in progress," Steve said grimly. "And if a deal that he was brokering goes south because he's not around to finalize it . . . "
Danny winced. "It's the victims who suffer first; got it. What can I do?"
"I need you to pull up every open kidnapping and human trafficking case we have. If they can get an ID on someone, I want you to be ready to match it up if there's already an unsolved case," Steve said urgently. "You process the information faster than the rest of us put together. Go do that thing where you absorb a bunch of information at once and then pull it out of your hat when we need it."
"You mean go do what I was trained to do as a detective?" Danny said.
"Yeah, that," Steve said, waving him out. He picked up his cell phone and dialed. "Catherine, we may have a human trafficking case, destination Thailand, to cross reference against Declan Novak." He glanced down at his watch and frowned slightly. "Yeah, okay, I can do that."
He was pressing the end button on his phone as he stood up, grabbing his badge and service weapon as he headed around the side of his desk.
"Danny, Catherine wants to go over what we have in her office so I can look at what they have on Novak in Thailand," he said, sticking his head in Danny's open office door. "Let Chin know - you all find anything, send it to my phone, so I can share it with Catherine."
Danny narrowed his eyes at Steve. "You sure that's a good idea, partner?" he asked quietly.
"What, Danny?" Steve asked, one foot out the door, his hand on the door frame. "Using the phone? I mean, don't send anything classified."
"Not that," Danny said, shaking his head. "Why does Catherine need you in her office? It's just - I think it's odd, is all."
"She has access to files there at Pearl that would have to be unredacted before she could take them off base. It's just more efficient for me to go there," Steve explained patiently. "There's nothing between me and Catherine, Danny," he added. "I gotta go, we're on borrowed time to get this little girl back."
#*#*#*#*#
"Catherine, what do you have," Steve said, striding into her office. It was windowless, and cramped, and Steve realized that for the first time, there was absolutely nothing about being at Pearl that made him the slightest bit nostalgic for Naval Intelligence.
"Well, good afternoon to you, too, Commander," Catherine said, arching a perfect eyebrow at him. The young ensign just outside her office gaped at Steve's imposing figure moving past his desk quickly enough to send a few loose papers fluttering to the floor.
"Sorry, Lieutenant Rollins," Steve said, smiling. "Good to see you, ma'am, and thank you for being willing to share your intel with me."
"I wish I could say that I have something definitive, Commander," she said, closing the door and gesturing to a chair next to her desk.
Steve frowned. He drove awfully fast for nothing definitive.
"What I thought we could do is look over all of the data for anything remotely involving Novak and Thailand, and see if anything jumped out at you," Catherine added hastily. She turned her generously sized computer monitor toward Steve and pulled up a database, then slid a mousepad and mouse in front of him.
"Thanks," he muttered absently, as he began scrolling through entries.
"If we find a connection to Declan Novak, I'll be glad to have my team take the case off your hands," Catherine said quietly.
"It's a kidnapping, Catherine, and it's Five-O's case," he said, not taking his eyes off the screen.
"I just thought . . . maybe it would be too much," Catherine said.
"It's our only open case at the moment, it wouldn't be too much," he replied, continuing to scroll.
"I meant personally," she persisted. "It might be too much, personally, for your team to handle."
He stopped, then, and looked at her. "Catherine, what the hell are you getting at?"
"Well, Danny has a little girl, and . . . " she hesitated.
"You think Danny hasn't worked kidnapping cases before?" he asked, incredulous.
"And then there's the personal history between you and Novak," she continued. "And Officer Nolan . . ."
He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, the data forgotten for the moment. Catherine tried not to think about those powerful arms, which had once wrapped around her . . . and that intense gaze, which had at times been fixed on her in very different circumstances. She cleared her throat.
"I've read the files, Steve, remember? What Novak did . . . torturing those men in front of Officer Nolan, forcing her to watch . . ." she trailed off.
"And?" Steve gritted out.
"Well, I just can't imagine . . . she has to be traumatized, not to mention the concussion, and the-"
"Wait, why are we talking about a concussion?" Steve demanded. "How is that pertinent to the - and how did you know about the concussion? I hope you just assumed, based on the visible bruising that she had when we came into the operations room."
"I -" Catherine opened and closed her mouth, momentarily nonplussed. "I said I had the files. That includes her medical file."
Steve stared at her a moment, then leaned forward. "The discharge report, after Novak had her?"
"Steve, I just think that you're minimizing how incredibly fragile she could be right now; mentally, emotionally, and physically. She's a law enforcement officer, not a military officer. I sincerely hope that she's already undergoing professional counseling, but even with that, this trauma, on top of everything else . . . I mean, based on the behavior of the Miobe brothers, even though it didn't happen, before Novak boarded that boat, she had to be anticipating a third assault -"
"No," Steve said, pushing his chair back violently. "Catherine, please tell me you didn't - her entire medical record? You accessed her personal medical records?"
"I have clearance," she said defensively. "Novak held her against her will for hours. I needed to know everything that he might have known. She admitted that she lost hours . . . we have no idea what she might have told him; what he might have found out so that he could use it against her. I needed to know, so that I could try to anticipate his next move. I was just trying to protect your team."
"I am really trying hard to give you the benefit of the doubt right now, Catherine," he said hoarsely, "so if you have anything to add to your explanation you might want to go ahead and do that."
"Steve," she said earnestly, "I . . . okay, at first, I thought Jax might be really good for you, you know? With the whole PTSD . . . she could understand a part of you that I never really could. But I think - I'm just thinking of your best interest, and hers - maybe the similarities are just too strong to be healthy for either of you. Look, Steve, I know that military doctors are careful in how they word things, but you and I both know that you struggle with PTSD as well. Not to where anyone would know, on the job, but I've been there, after all, in the middle of the night."
"I fail to see what that has to do with investigating Novak's movements related to human trafficking," Steve said.
"It has to do with trying to keep you from getting in so far over your head that you're no good to your team," Catherine insisted, "and unable to maintain enough objectivity to be effective."
"Cut the politically correct jargon and speak your mind, Lieutenant," Steve demanded.
"She's damaged," Catherine said bluntly. "I think she's too damaged to be an asset to you, professionally and personally."
"Wow," Steve said, leaning back in the chair again. "So that's what happens when you're given permission to speak freely. You've obviously given this some thought." He paused, thinking about Danny's hesitation for him to come to Catherine's office, and marveling again at Danny's impeccable instincts. He decided to try a slightly different tactic.
"So, Catherine," he said, leaning forward in his chair again, his elbows on his knees, looking at her, "if you think it's not a good idea for me to be involved with Jax . . . what about my involvement with you? Was that . . . better? Professionally and personally?"
Catherine smiled. "Of course it was. We're both Navy, both officers . . . I can support you in your needs because I'm not carrying around the exact same trauma and damage, from being captured, and tortured . . ." she shuddered delicately. "You don't need someone that you're going to have to take care of off the job, Steve; you need someone whole and healthy who can take care of you." She smiled at him warmly and gave his arm a gentle squeeze.
He placed his hand over hers, rubbing her knuckles gently with his thumb. They were delicate, the skin over them unblemished, soft, and unscarred. He thought of Jax's hands, the faint webbing of scars that criss-crossed her knuckles, from the many times they had split open from punches connecting on people twice her size . . . the way she rubbed her hands sometimes when she thought no one was looking, from hairline fractures long healed but still aching . . . the nails, trimmed completely blunt so that she wouldn't rip holes in her medical gloves.
"You know, Catherine, you're right," he murmured. "You're not carrying around any trauma. No damage."
She sighed. His hand on hers felt so familiar, so perfectly right. And obviously, he was feeling it too.
"You know why?" he continued. "Because you've never cared enough about anyone, or anything, to take that much of a risk. You're undamaged, because you're not the type of person who would provoke a gang of thugs to turn on you so that a young girl could get away free. You're not the type of person who would block a civilian's body with a car and take a direct hit, so that they wouldn't get run over."
"But Steve, don't you see? Only someone with serious, serious issues would break protocol and fly in the face of self-preservation and common sense like that," Catherine insisted. "That sort of maverick behavior goes against everything we've been taught about chain of command, about protocol. Come back to the Navy, Steve, and let's try a relationship for real. You don't have to live like this."
"Live like this? Like what, Catherine? With immunity and means? With team mates who defy protocol and common sense and throw themselves on the line, willing to sacrifice for others, whether it makes sense or not?" Steve said.
Catherine huffed in frustration.
"Live with someone who dives headfirst into an elevator to save her best friend's life? Live with someone who came to this island, beaten within an inch of her life, suspended from duty, and volunteered for a dangerous undercover mission, because she knew that she was our best chance to stop a serial killer?" Steve continued. "I don't have to live with someone like that, right? That was reckless, a complete disregard for protocol. No, I could live with someone . . . undamaged. What was it you said . . . whole."
"Steve, NYPD turned a blind eye; she isn't even fit for duty, really. You know the Navy would never keep someone who had lost their spleen, for goodness sakes," Catherine said, exasperated. He wasn't listening to reason. "No, she's not whole, technically."
"No, because she was too busy trying to get as many civilians as she could off the streets of Manhattan before the towers fell," Steve said, pushing his chair back and standing up. "Of course, you know that, because you've completely disregarded her privacy and read her damn file. So that you could, what, make an argument for me to come running to you, on the basis that she's damaged goods? That you're the picture of mental and physical health and she's, what, too traumatized, too broken, too -"
"I could give you children," Catherine interrupted, blurting it out without thinking. Her eyes widened in horror and her hands flew to her mouth.
"Catherine." Her name came out a sigh, his voice and face full of reproach.
Her eyes filled with tears. "Steve," she whispered, "I'm sorry - I - "
"I thought we were friends, Catherine," he said, stricken. "We never made each other any promises. I thought you were happy for me; and I'm sorry if you're disappointed, but that doesn't justify . . . how could you?"
She shrank back into her chair. Anger would have made sense; yelling she would have expected. But this - this bone-deep disappointment . . . it was crushing.
"Let me make it perfectly clear, Catherine," he said quietly. "She is traumatized, in every way you describe and probably more severely than I'm willing to contemplate. And yeah, the Navy and possibly NYPD would have benched her but Five-O doesn't have to play by their rules, and neither do I. But you're wrong about the similarities being a bad thing, Catherine, because I'm not interested in being with someone who isn't willing to risk themselves for someone or something they believe in."
Catherine looked down, fidgeting with her perfect, flawless hands.
"I'm going to say this once, as gently but as clearly as I possibly can: I love Jax; I am in love with Jax. I intend to build a future with her, professionally and personally, trauma and damage included. And since you brought it up, yeah, I really hope that future includes a family together, and I'm perfectly content if that means something other than biological children." He paused, leaning forward, his hands gripping the back of his chair. "Now, I understand what it's like to lose something you didn't realize you wanted, Catherine, and I'm sorry if you got hurt in this. I am. So I understand if that hurt motivated you to make some poor decisions, and prompted you to start a conversation that you now regret."
She nodded, trying desperately not to give in to the tears threatening to spill over.
"I've always valued our professional relationship, and our friendship, and I'm willing to put today behind us," Steve said, "if, and when, I can trust that we've settled this issue once and for all, and that it's not going to come up again."
"I understand," she said quietly.
"I'll give you some space," Steve said, moving toward the door. He put his hand on the knob, and then turned back to her. "But Catherine - if I find out, at any point, that you've further violated Officer Nolan's privacy by repeating anything that you read in her medical file, make no mistake: I'll have you court martialed."
He didn't wait for a response, but slipped quietly out her door, closing it quickly behind him.
Catherine heard the muffled voice of the young ensign who was responsible for recording her phone messages and other communication, and then Steve's clear response.
"No, I'm sorry, Ensign," he said, kindly but firmly, "Lieutenant Rollins is working on very sensitive information. She shouldn't be disturbed until she notifies you herself that she's available."
#*#*#*#*#
Steve drove back to Five-O in silence, trying to get his thoughts refocused on the case. He knew that in an instant, if he needed to, he would be able to compartmentalize, set this aside, focus. But these quiet moments, between Pearl and the palace, with no new information to consider, no team members coming to him, he was finding it difficult.
Danny's little frown kept coming back to him . . . it's odd, is all, Danny had said, and he'd brushed him off.
You don't need someone that you're going to have to take care of off the job, Catherine had said, and he'd brushed her off, too, for good reason. Sure, he helped patch Jax up plenty of times, but the reality was that in every way that really mattered, she took care of him. He'd had more solid nights of sleep in the time she'd shared his bed than in the fifteen or so years before. She was the one who saw through the SEAL mask that he wore on the job, knew when a case got to him, and it was her gentle hands that would press him down into the sofa, hand him a beer, and then sit next to him; demanding nothing, a silence presence of unconditional support.
He put the truck into park and rubbed his hand over his face. Catherine may have been right about something without realizing it: maybe Jax was the one who didn't need someone to take care of off the job.
Deep in thought, he found his way inside the building and in Danny's office without realizing that's where he was heading. Danny looked up in surprise, and then shook his head at the bewildered expression on Steve's face.
"Oh, babe," Danny sighed, "I had hoped maybe I was reading too much into it; Catherine asking you to come over to Pearl." He stood up and closed his office door as Steve dropped into a chair.
"She suggested that I come back to the Navy, give a relationship with her a serious try," Steve said, still incredulous.
"Wow, she just went straight for it then," Danny said, shaking his head. "Steve, you and Jax both . . . I don't know what happened in your sad childhood years that neither of you seem to understand that people want you. Plain and simple. Not just the ridiculous attractiveness, either . . . you both have beautiful souls. Everyone around you can see it, and you see it in each other, but you have no clue . . . jeez, you're just alike, the two of you."
"Catherine said we were both damaged, both traumatized, and that it wasn't fair, and she's right," Steve said, ignoring Danny's sincere compliment because he just couldn't wrap his brain around it.
Danny's eyes turned hard and cold. "Come again," he said quietly.
"It's not fair to Jax, Danny," Steve said. "I . . . you know how you're always saying that it's a scary place, inside my head?"
"Yeah . . ."
"Well, you're right. I shouldn't . . . Jax deserves someone without all this . . . Danny, I'm the one who's damaged goods. She shouldn't have to deal with all of my crap," Steve said. The rest of the team, along with their desperate prisoner, were drifting into the main room and Chin was starting to pull files up on the plasma. Steve watched Jax as she stood next to the trembling man, her small, strong hand firm on his arm, grounding him.
"Steve," Danny said, pulling his attention back to him. "You think it's a happy, sunny place inside her head? Come on, man. I've spent enough nights at your house to know better. If Catherine is right about anything it's that you're equally traumatized, but that's not a bad thing. Rachel and I couldn't make it, in part because she just couldn't relate to what I had to see sometimes. You think there are a lot of guys out there that could deal with some of what comes spilling out of those dark places in Jax's mind in the wee hours of the morning?"
"I guess you're right," Steve said, his eyes drifting back to Jax, and his face relaxing into the open, soft, and slightly goofy expression that Danny knew so well.
"Of course I'm right, you, there, with the Smitten Face," Danny said.
"Yeah," Steve said, standing up and moving to the door. Danny stepped in front of him.
"But Steve," Danny said, his hand on the doorknob but not opening it yet, "one thing you need to understand, buddy."
"What's that, Danny?"
"It's great that you can relate to what she's been through, that you're able and willing to deal with the fallout but . . . " he hesitated.
"Danny?" Steve prompted, confused.
"It doesn't mean that you're the one to . . . Steve, I still think that at some point, she's going to need more than understanding; she's going to need serious, professional help," Danny cautioned. "Just . . . it might fall to you, buddy, to see that she gets it."
"Okay, Danny," Steve said, his eyes drifting back to Jax, who was now hunting and pecking something into the touch screen keyboard.
"Now, quit staring at her ass, it's disturbing, not to mention unprofessional," Danny groused, "and let's go get this kid back."
