Hey guys well this is the second last chapter and I hope you guys have enjoyed reading it as much as I have writing it! Massive thanks to my awesome beta mirs13 she completely saves my stories! This is a McDanno fic so there is slash unless you didn't know, want to know why I am stating this now check my reviews for the last chapter. Keep Smiling and Mahalo for sticking with Steve and Danny through this xox
As the cab pulled up outside the Palace, the freshly showered and made up Catherine handed the cabby the amount due along with one of her most charming smiles, and exited the cab before turning back to the palace, listening to the cab pull away. Looking up at the building towering before her, she knew one thing was for sure, Steve would never call this place home again if Danny wasn't there. He would probably return to the Navy with her. She had probably just ended Five-0, the best task force she had ever encountered, one that had saved so many lives and kept the people of Hawaii safe. The place she herself called home… maybe there was a downside to getting Danny out of the picture, but it would be worth it in the long run.
"Hey Steve!" She called out as she walked through the clear doors into the bullpen where she saw the team, or what was left of it, surrounding the computer. The three remaining members were staring intently at the screen until her arrival disturbed their trance. Steve looked up at her, a puzzled expression on his face as she moved towards him, flinging her arms around him, pulling him into a deep hug. That was when she knew. She belonged in those arms. She always did and now always will thanks to her ingenious plan. Steve was ripe for the taking now with Danny gone.
"Cath, I am so glad you decided to come, but you really didn't need to." He said calmly, quickly unravelling his arms from around her waist. The hug had been tight and withdrawn, but that was to be expected. Give her some time and she would wear him down. She looked up into eyes she knew so well, expecting to see them just as she always had, but their spark was gone. The light blue irises that were once there were now replaced with a hurt and dulling grey. He was a mess. There was no disputing that fact. Maybe this was going to be harder than she had thought.
"Are you ok? How are you holding up? This must be so hard on you!" She said in the most concerned voice she could muster, resting her hand on his bicep to test the waters, hoping he would see her as a shoulder to cry on and that he could trust her. The only problem she had was making sure that her guilt wouldn't over take her control.
"It has been agonising! I am not going to lie; I have cried more than I ever have before in my life. I almost lost him once before and I am refusing to do it again!" It was clear that he was determined to get his man back, even if it killed him. Catherine knew that not even death would stop him from searching.
"I mean what stupid, sick son of a bitch would do this?" Kono spat, her words causing Catherine to feel as if her skin was burning. How was Kono to know that it was all her fault that Danny was gone? As far as Kono knows, Catherine is just as much of a victim in this as they all are.
"It is because of people who do things like this that made me want to become a cop in the first place. This profession has made it so I can throw their guilty, sick asses in jail and then watch them rot away, knowing they can't do any more harm in this world then they have already done!" Said Chin, tapping the computer as a nodding Steve stood looking at him, completely understanding where he was coming from. Catherine had never seen so much anger from Chin Ho before and she was slightly scared of him now that she had seen it.
In a hurry to change the direction of the conversation, Catherine, who was starting to shuffle her feet and become quite shifty, simply asked, "So what are we going to do about it? What's the plan?" She knew she had to keep them away from the mountains if she wanted this to work. Chin looked up from his screen and stared at her with a kind smile, one she did not deserve, not after what she had done.
"Well, right now I am setting up a trace on the Camaro. Maybe if we locate the car we will be able to locate Danny, seeing as his phone was a complete bust." Chin finished, nodding his head in the direction of the evidence bag holding Danny's phone on the desk behind him.
"How long will that take?" There was a hint of worry and a bit of panic in her voice when she asked and she thought Kono may have picked up on it. Kono stood there and gave her a strange look, but then after a few moments, a smile appeared on the Hawaiian beauty's face.
"It should only take a few minutes. We have good systems here at Five-O. Don't worry Catherine, we will find him!" She smiled as Kono gently rested a hand on her shoulder before pulling her into a hug as well. Just as the two women embraced, the computer pinged. They all directed their gaze to the screen, but what they saw disappointed everyone, everyone except Catherine.
No Location Found. The device you are trying to locate has been dislocated at its source.
The atmosphere in the room dropped too deadly. Chin, who had been resting on his elbows, dropped his head in disbelief. Kono started frantically pacing the office, rubbing her forehead a little too forcefully. Steve was looking at the screen, just staring at it like it couldn't be true. Catherine walked up behind him, rested her hand on his shoulder, and gave it a reassuring squeeze. That was when Steve finally lost it! Shaking her off, Steve let out a shout of pain and anger. Not knowing what to do with himself, his fists clenched, teeth gritted, and a fury building deep inside, he needed to get his energy out or he would burst. His team knew it too, as they had seen it before, but never to this degree. Steve decided the best thing to do was punch the glass wall of his office, forcing it to crack around his fist, but not to shatter, not this time.
Resting his head against the cool glass and letting his tears drip down onto the spotless panes, he felt helpless and he'd had enough of that feeling. "I am so sick of how this keeps happening to us. Enough is enough! When are Danny and I just going to get a break? When will we just get our time?"
Turning to face his team with a harsh, but slightly sheepish look on his face after his little rant, he sighed, "There has to be something else. We have to be missing someth..." Steve cuts off what he is saying as suddenly his eyes go wide. "How could I forget?" Steve takes off at a run towards his office as the rest of the team looks on. Disappearing inside for only a moment, Steve reappears clutching a small black box. He strides quickly towards the computer table and places the black object inside the box down carefully for everyone to see. "If any of you tell anyone outside of this room about this, I will exercise my full immunity and means to kill you! Got it?" He looks at each team member carefully as they all nod in agreement, but to what they were agreeing to, they did not know.
"Uh, Boss? What is that?" Kono asked as she stared down at the little box, which actually turned out to be a remote. That was when Catherine noticed Steve taking off his ring.
"You have all seen the rings that Danny and I gave each other to symbolise our engagement right?" They all nod, each having a very confused expression on their face. Holding the ring up in front of him he asked, "What do you think is different about them?"
"Different engravings obviously, but I am guessing there is something else. Am I right Steve?" Chin smiled as he took the ring from Steve looking at it more closely, but everything seemed normal with it. Steve turned to the head of the table and addressed the whole team. Catherine couldn't help but start to feel nervous at this point. What was Steve getting at?
"As always Chin, you are correct. We may have gone back to the jewellers to add special features to our rings." He took in a deep breath, uncertain as to how his team was going to react to what the partners did. Some may say they have taken this a little too far.
"You chipped Danny's ring?!" Kono laughed causing her own personalised necklace to swing wildly around her neck. Chin joined in on the chuckling, but Catherine stayed silent. In her kindness, she had given Danny his ring back and now that stupid moment of sensitivity was going to lead Steve straight back to him. Straight back to what she had done.
"Technically, we chipped each other's rings. This one has a chip in it too, but right now its Danny's that we need to find. I can't believe I forgot, especially since we had this done for this very reason. What if I'm too late now because we were chasing all those crappy leads when this would have led us straight to him? I mean, I was hoping I would never actually have to use this, but I was really hoping I wouldn't have to use it after only having the rings for a couple of weeks." Steve said, firmly wiping away a faint tear.
"Steve, even for you, that is a little over possessive!" Catherine exclaimed trying to say it light-heartedly, consciously pulling her jumper down around her hands, clamping the ends shut, and stretching it to its maximum.
"In light of what has happened to us, I wanted to make sure nothing like that ever happened again and right now my over possessiveness may just be saving Danny's life!" he exclaimed as he looked back at Catherine with a chilly stare. The room had gone eerily quiet, but then suddenly everyone was bustling about in action. Catherine was getting Kevlar from the armoury while Kono was getting the guns. Steve and Chin set about getting a fixed location on Danny's ring and after a few minutes of searching, they finally got a lock.
"He hates hiking. Why the hell is he up in the Ko'olau Mountains?" asked Chin as he pulled on the Kevlar Catherine handed him. Steve took his Kevlar from Kono, tightening it and grabbing his thigh holster from the desk behind him, strapping the gun in and still taking the extra fire power Kono offered, it was Steve after all.
"I have no idea, but I remember taking him up there a few years ago. We found a body and I broke my arm." He said taping wildly at the screen in front of him and with one final tap, all their mobiles dinged. "That's me sending you the tracking app so we can track Danny when we get up there. Kono, you go with Chin and take a detour to get Duke and a few extra HPD officers. I promised him as soon as we got a location on Danny that he could come help, he wants him back safe too. Cath, you and I will go up ahead and try to pick up the route. Ready?" he finally asked as they all cocked their guns and looked back at him with determined smiles on their faces. Well, each face bar Catherine's, hers was a smile of worry. "Don't worry Cath, we will get him!" Steve said placing a hand on her shoulder to which she answered with a pathetic smile. "Right, let's move out!"
Arriving at the Ko' olau Mountains car park
"I don't think I would have ever found him back here!" said Steve as he got out of the truck, slamming the door shut, and walking around the front to meet Catherine. It had already started getting dark and soon it would be pitch black, so Steve was glad he had decided to call Chin on the way up the mountain and ask them to pick up the torches on their way.
"Maybe whoever kidnapped him hated him enough to think the best way to punish him was to make him hike!" She laughed trying to lighten the mood; she had no doubt that once they found Danny, these moments would become precious to her. Steve would want nothing to do with her except slap the cuffs on and haul her away to Halawa. Just as she was about say more, the familiar sound of speeding cop cars and flashing lights rounded the corner with Chin and Kono leading the way. Time for joking was now over as the cavalry that just arrived, all armed and ready to bring their favourite haole home safely, raced over to where Steve and Cath were waiting. Chin and Kono chucked them each a torch and then attached their own to their guns.
"Alright team, the path we will be taking is the one leading off to the left over there," he indicated with his torch to show the team the direction they would be going. "We need one person to go up front with the locator device to guide the rest of us to Danny. That person will be looking out for dangers and any attempts at stopping us." He finished, looking at each individual person before finishing on Chin, who just stood there with a look of sheer determination; one he had learned from Steve's dad.
"I will go up front if everyone doesn't mind," Chin stated with a very determined tone, leaving no room for anyone else to volunteer. "So if we are set, let's move out!" With that, they all started the hike up to where the locator said they would find Danny, or at least his ring…