Don't be shocked...I'm back! I know it took A LONG time, but it was a crazy summer for us! But I am back in the swing of things now, so here we go...
Chapter Twenty Eight – Return to Normal
"The night is always darkest just before the dawn. I promise you, the dawn is coming,"
~The Dark Knight
Harper James' hospital room at Honolulu Medical Center, the next morning…
Sunlight streamed cheerfully though the window of Harper's hospital room, gliding silently across the tile floor and alighting on the faces of the occupants of the bed, currently resting in peaceful slumber. The red head shifted at the bright glare beyond her eyelids and the strong arms encircling her waist tightened in response as he pulled her closer to his chest. A slow smile formed on her lips as she finally gave in and opened her eyes to the new day. The sigh that escaped her lips was not one of frustration, but contentment. The quiet sound caused Commander Steve McGarrett to automatically wrapped his arms around his ex-wife and pull her even closer, smiling softly in his sleep. She gazed up into his face, features softened in sleep. She lightly traced his features, marveling that this man could make her feel so secure. He began to stir and his warm eyes met hers. He leaned in and captured her lips in a sensuous kiss…
"Ahem."
Harper reluctantly pulled away from Steve's embrace to see that they were no longer alone in the hospital room. Detective Danny Williams was standing awkwardly in the doorway, looking as though he wished he were anywhere else in the universe at that moment.
"I'm sorry to interrupt, but…"
Steve was up and out of the bed like a flash. Not out of embarrassment, but because he knew that if Danny hadn't high-tailed it out of the room the moment he saw what was going on then it must mean he had something important to say.
"What've you got?"
"A surprising new development," the New Jersey detective informed his partner, speaking in a hushed tone, "Do you remember Louis Kealoha?"
"Honolulu PD Police Captain," Steve replied quickly, recalling the name from somewhere in his sleep addled brain, "What about him?"
"You're never going to guess who his wife's kid brother is," Danny replied, holding up a file that the team had dug up during the night and opening it to reveal a familiar face.
"Michael Sugimoto," Steve breathed, clenching his fists.
"Kai Akino's second in command," his partner agreed and then continued, "He was with Akino in Chicago on the night Samuel Norval was killed and his prints were found in Harper's hotel room. When confronted with that evidence, Uncle Lou had no choice but to admit that he has been Wo Fat's man in the HPD all along."
"He confessed to killing Akino?" Steve asked, shaking his head, "How did that happen?"
"He says that he thought he was killing a cop killer…"
"Well, he was," the Commander reminded his partner, "On the orders of the man who had ordered Norval's murder in the first place."
"Well, he had a few things to confess about Sam Norval's murder too," Danny Williams' hushed words were uttered in urgency, and the moment they left his lips he glanced over toward the redhead in the hospital bed.
"Such as?" Steve asked, crossing his arms over his chest and narrowing his eyes.
"Captain Kealoha says that Detective Samuel Norval was the Chicago based snitch for the Yakuza…"
"No way…"
Both Steve and Danny quickly turned their heads toward the hospital bed and the feminine voice that interrupted their conversation. Sitting up against her pillows and eyes blazing at them in anger, Harper told them, "Sammy was not working for Wo Fat."
"Jimmy,…" Steve began as both men approached the bed, "Calm down."
"I will not calm down," Harper bit out, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and preparing to stand up.
"Don't you dare," her ex-husband warned, reaching her side and lifting her legs back into the bed, "You aren't going anywhere. Let us handle this."
"There is nothing to handle!" Harper hissed, focusing her anger on Danny, "This information came from a murderous cop who confessed to killing a man in his own interrogation room and taking orders from a notorious crime lord." Swinging her eyes over to Steve, she asked, "Do you believe this?"
"No," he answered quickly, causing his partner to raise his eyebrow. "If you trusted Sammy, then so do we."
"We do?" Danny asked before receiving an elbow in the gut. Undeterred, the detective continued, "Look, I know he was your partner Harper…but haven't you asked yourself why he was targeted? I mean, he wasn't a random victim. Wo Fat sent two of his top henchmen all the way to Chicago to dispose of him. Why would he do that if…"
"It wasn't because Sammy was in bed with the Yakuza." Harper insisted, pulling back the covers and trying to get out of bed again, "And if you're not going to figure out what the REAL connection was, then I will."
"You most certainly will not."
Chicago Police Superintendent Michelangelo Vincent James managed to fill the entire doorway of the small hospital room, so even if his daughter had managed to get out of the bed and past her ex-husband she wasn't going to get very far.
"They are accusing Sammy of…"
"I did not accuse him of anything," Danny defended himself, "Captain Kealoha accused him of being a Yakuza and I was just relaying the message."
Ignoring the New Jersey detective, Mickey James never took his eyes off his daughter as he commanded quietly, "Get back in that bed."
Looking from her father to her ex-husband, Harper knew that she was outnumbered by overprotective men and did as her father told her. Leaning back against the pillows, she huffed, "This is so unfair."
"Deal with it," both Steve and Mickey said at the same time.
Raising his eyebrows yet again, Danny looked at both men and tried very hard not to laugh. Instead he turned to Harper and said in his most professional voice, "Kono has put all of the information you gave us yesterday into the computer and is busy narrowing down the spot where you could have been held. As soon as she gets some photos of viable locations, we're going to need you take a look at them. Do you think you're up to that?"
"Yes," Harper answered, her anger at him subsiding quickly, "But wouldn't it be faster if I just went down to Five-0 Headquarters so that…"
"No," All three men answered at once.
But Harper was not deterred. Barely stopping to catch her breath, she continued fiercely, "We can't waste any time. God only knows what Wo Fat is doing to Jack now that I've escaped."
As the three cops exchanged worried glances, Harper rolled her eyes and muttered, "I'm not losing my mind. Jack McGarrett is alive. I saw him. I talked to him. It was not a drug induced hallucination or some kind of mental protection from trauma thing…I SAW him! And…"
"Jimmy…"
"Stop 'Jimmy'-ing me!" she interrupted, "I am not crazy! Your father is alive! You didn't see him get shot, you only heard it…over a telephone! But for some reason you are choosing to believe that instead of me. He's out there and no one is looking for him…"
"That's not true," It was Steve's turn to interrupt as he tucked the blankets around her like she was five years old, "Danny just said that Kono is working round the clock to find out where Wo Fat held you."
"Because you want to find Wo Fat, not because you believe me about your dad," Harper shot back. Slapping his hands away, she hissed, "Stop treating me like a child!"
Ignoring her last comment, Steve informed her, "When we find Wo Fat, we find my dad." And after dropping a quick kiss on her lips, he and Danny high tailed it out of the room.
Blowing out an angry breath, Harper turned to find her father smirking at her.
"What?"
"No one can get under your skin the way that man can," Mickey reminded her with a chuckle, "And that is saying something."
"I can't believe he doesn't believe me about something so important…"
"Sweetheart, when you woke up you were rambling on about a hidden dungeon under the earth and secret tunnels," the Superintendent told her seriously, settling his large frame in a chair near her bed, "It was pretty hard to decipher what was real and what was the drugs talking."
"Do you believe me?"
Harper couldn't believe how much she sounded like a 4 year old child as she asked that question. But without flinching, her father nodded and simply said, "Yes." He paused for a few minutes and then said, "But Steve has spent the last year mourning his father…a father who he had a very complicated relationship with and who died while the two of them were not on the best terms. He's had to accept that there was nothing he could do to stop it from happening and go on with his life. What if someone came in here and told you that Vinnie was really alive and…?"
"I'd do anything I could to find out if it was true," Harper interrupted, shaking her head stubbornly, "Because I would give anything to have him back."
"Cut him some slack, baby girl," Mickey admonished, "He's had a rough week."
"Wait a minute, are you sticking up for him?"
"I guess I am," her father admitted with a smirk.
"Now I really do think I'm hallucinating," she admitted, laying back against the pillows.
Taking a deep breath, Mickey James told his daughter slowly, "He loves you, baby girl. And he almost lost you…again. There's only so much a man's heart can take and it might just be easier for him to ignore this whole 'father back from the dead' thing until he settles everything else going on."
As he was speaking, the elder James had reached out and taken his daughter's hand. Playing with the wedding ring he still wore on his left ring finger, Harper whispered, "I'm still mad at you."
"I know," he whispered back, eyes filling with tears, "and I can deal with that. As long as you are safe." Watching her eyes fill up with tears also, he murmured quietly, "I know I've hurt you, but I was just trying to keep you safe."
The regrets she'd felt when she thought she was going to die without ever having the chance to forgive her father came flooding back over her. Her eyes softened as she squeezed his hand and simply replied, "I know."
"You do?" Mickey asked, his tired eyes registering his surprise.
"I love you, daddy," A tear made its way down Harper's cheek as she smiled a soft smile at her father, a look of forgiveness lightening her eyes, "And I know you were just doing what you thought was best. It was underhanded and kind of sneaky…but it's in the past. Let's leave it there, okay?"
"Okay."
"And when all is said and done, you have always been my safe place to fall." she whispered lovingly, a tear sliding down her cheek, as she gave the man who had given her so much a tender smile. "And you always will be."
"I promise you, baby girl," Mickey swore emotionally. "I'll always come for you when you need me."
"No, don't promise me that," Harper said with a shake of her head, "Promise me that if Steve and I manage to work things out between us that you will stay out of it this time?"
"If he hurts you again…"
"Promise?"
Their eyes held for a long moment, the love and bond shared between them palpable, before Mickey finally agreed, "Promise." Brushing a stray hair out of his only daughter's face, he whispered, "I don't know what I would have done if I lost you.
"I'm not that easy to lose," the child told the parent in a soothing tone, lifting their entwined fingers so that she could kiss the back of his hand.
Smiling down at her, Mickey told her honestly, "Good to know."
