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Fact #131: Nothing good comes of idle hands.

Season: Between 4th and 5th Seasons

He started awake, barely stopping his elbow from swinging backward into his attacker's gut. His grip tightened protectively on Danny's forearm. Blinking the sleep from his eyes and shaking his head, he sat up to a myriad of snapping and crackling from his vertebrae.

"Easy, brah. Just me."

He accepted the paper cup Chin held out to him without much resistance. The tantalizing scent of freshly brewed dark roast tickled his nose, not the weak stuff from the vending machine out in the waiting room. The first sip was a wakeup call to his senses and body as a whole. It even had the right amount of cream and sugar in it.

"Thanks," he said, voice gruff with sleep.

He sat back in the chair, removed his hand from his partner's arm, and scrubbed his face. He had no clue when he'd fallen asleep bowed over the edge of the bed nor what time it was now. Through the shades on the window he could tell it was still dark outside.

"It's four in the morning," Chin answered his unspoken question.

Chin sat in another chair that had mysteriously appeared on the other side of Danny's bed. Judging by the iPad, coffee cup, and half eaten bagel, it wasn't a recent addition to the room.

"When did you get here?" Steve asked. It disturbed him that someone was able to pull a chair into the room without waking him.

"About a quarter after midnight. Catherine and I stayed down in the dragon wing for a while to make sure Agata didn't escape," Chin said. His quiet, even voice was like the gentle lapping of waves on the beach, comforting Steve in ways he didn't even know he needed to be comforted.

"Why didn't you wake me?" he asked.

"Kono came up here and found you asleep. After the last few days, she figured you needed it," Chin said.

"Where is she?"

"Down in the dragon wing outside Agata's room. Catherine stayed down there from one to three to let Kono go get a shower and a nap. Then Kono came back and let her go do the same," Chin said.

Steve eyed his teammate. "What about you?"

"I slept," Chin said.

He had a feeling it had been an uncomfortable sleep in the chair much like his had been. However, despite the lack of personal comfort and the worry that had nagged at him until he apparently fell asleep, he did feel better. Not great, but better. His emotions weren't all over the place. Filing them away in neat little boxes seemed easier than it had the evening before.

Danny was still alive. Breathing. Twitching. Eyes under his eyelids moving.

As long as he stayed alive, they could get through this. They would work through the memory loss, they would work through the damaged vision should it be permanent. Steve didn't want to have to consider it, but he did. They would work through what Danny would do if he was no longer able to be a cop. His team wouldn't leave him to figure it out by himself. They'd all be there for him.

Steve looked across his partner at Chin. "I never called Rachel to tell her what happened."

Chin nodded. "I figured you hadn't, so I called her. She's going to bring Grace by in the morning. Or, at a more reasonable hour in the morning, anyway."

"Thank you for doing that."

Steve stood up from the chair and stretched. His back cracked a few more times and one of his shoulders popped. Perhaps he should start doing yoga in the morning in addition to his runs and swims. Then again, it might be too much of a risk. He could easily get blackmailed by Kono or Danny if they caught him doing it.

He sighed, looking down at his partner. He would gladly suffer through all the ribbing and blackmail if he woke up suddenly and remembered everything. Or even if he just woke up.

The thought of not having to worry about Danny getting blackmail on him ever again made his stomach churn.

"Steve."

He looked at Chin.

"You should go home. Get a shower, grab something to eat. I'll stay with Danny."

He ran a hand over his hair slowly. His shoulders slouched and his breath went out in one long exhale. "I know I can't do anything for him pacing here. But I don't want to leave him."

"I know," Chin said in understanding. "It's your call, brah. But, you're gettin' kinda ripe."

Steve made a face at him. He knew he didn't smell like a basket of roses. He had sweated hard chasing down Perez in the heat yesterday, he had tackled some dirt bag at the Columbians' stash house during the raid and still had some mud and blood smeared on his shirt and pants, and his nerves had produced a particular kind of sweat when he had been pacing for hours the evening before.

"Pretty sure Danny would say something like, 'Go take a shower, you animal.'" Chin quirked a grin at him.

Steve smirked. "Yeah. You're probably right. Call me if he wakes up or anything else happens."

"You know I will," Chin said.

Steve patted Danny's shoulder and then turned and walked out of the room. The hospital was devoid of life in the hallways this early in the morning. A few nurses with the honor of working the night shift milled around their station further down the hallway and a single janitor mopped the waiting room floor.

His phone vibrated.

In the dead silence on that floor, it was loud enough to grab the attention of the nurses. They shook their heads and went back to what they were doing when they saw it was only him.

"McGarrett," he answered as he headed for the elevators.

"It's Fong."

He stopped. "Fong. Tell me you have something."

"Yes and no. Do you want the good news or the bad news first?"

"Bad news."

"We're still not one hundred percent sure what the ecstasy was tainted with. I'm not sure what kind of money your drug dealers were raking in, but this batch would have put them out of business."

Steve stood to attention near the elevator. The coffee Chin had delivered had helped clear the fog from his mind and with four uncomfortable hours of sleep under his belt, he was ready to go again.

"Why's that?" he asked.

"Besides several unknown substances we're still processing, it was cut with powdered milk, synthetic cathinones, and levamisole."

"Synthetic cathinones? Aren't those bath salts?" he asked. He wondered if Danny's angry outburst the day before had been the result of having a brush with that lovely drug.

"Yes. And levamisole is cattle dewormer. This batch of ecstasy, had it flooded the streets, would have resulted in utter chaos, especially in the younger generations that it's popular with. I would estimate we would have had numerous deaths on our hands, as well."

A scowl tugged at the lines on his face. Either the Columbians had received a randomly bad batch from Agata, or it had been sabotage to put them out of commission.

"Thanks, Charlie. Let me know if you guys find anything else. I'm going to let Danny's doctor know," he said.

"Will do, Commander. Take care."

He slid his phone into his pocket. Glancing up and down the hallway, he wondered where he could find Mauna or a nurse to relay the information to her. He made his way back towards the nurses' station.

The only male nurse sitting there directed him to check the parking lot for her Jeep. She usually slept in it when she was pulling long shifts.

It was already warm outside. Walking through the sliding doors outside was like wading into the shallows. The humidity from the rains the evening before was tangible. It stuck to him as soon as he left the air conditioned safety of the hospital.

He tilted his head up at the sky.

No stars. Only the lights from the city reflecting on the bottoms of heavy storm clouds. The distant rumble of thunder echoed a warning of more rain to come and the breeze rustling the palm trees on the edge of the parking lot smelled strongly of rain and wet asphalt.

Picking through the cars in a reserved parking section, he finally located the red Jeep.

He knocked on the window.

No response.

He knocked again.

He knew the doctor needed her sleep, but he needed to tell her what he'd found out from the lab. Any information that could help her treat Danny was worth facing her wrath if he woke her up and robbed her of her precious spare nap time.

Footsteps gradually approached him from behind.

He settled his hand on his holster, muscles bunching in his legs as he pivoted to see who was up at this dark hour in the lonely parking lot.

"Shoot me, McGarrett, and I guarantee you'll never stop looking over your shoulder."

The smoky voice and familiar snark left no doubt as to who was out jogging in the wee hours.

"I didn't peg you as a runner," he said, looking at her from head to toe.

Mauna braced her hands on her hips and rolled her shoulders back. She had ditched her teal scrubs and was clad in shorts and a sports bra instead.

"I don't particularly like surfing in the middle of the night. What's wrong?" she questioned, pushing past him to get into the driver's side of her Jeep. She checked her phone and then folded her arms on the top of the door with it dangling from her hand. "I didn't get a call about Williams, so why're you stalking around my car at four in the morning?"

"The lab finally called me," he said.

"And?"

"They said the ecstasy was extremely tainted. So far, they've been able to identify powdered milk, bath salts, and levamisole," he said.

Mauna scratched the back of her neck. "That's one way to tank your business."

"Or have it sabotaged by a rival gang."

She raised a brow, but didn't comment any further. "Don't know if I've ever seen ecstasy cut with levamisole. That's something you see in cocaine."

"Do you think any of those could be affecting Danny?"

She crinkled her nose and looked off to the side. "Unless he actually ingested it, I doubt it."

Steve dipped his head. He leaned on her Jeep and rubbed his eyes with the other hand. "I don't get it."

"Dragons process drugs, especially substances like ecstasy, differently than humans. Whatever the unidentified substance is, our labs can't find it. My guess is that it's already been metabolized by his and Agata's systems," she explained. She grunted and flicked a hand out. "We almost need to see a full blooded human exposed to it. Might have a chance to identify it before it's metabolized."

"It's possible one of our victims may have been exposed to it, but the labs can't find anything from his toxicology reports, either," he said.

"How long has he been dead?"

"Over twenty-four hours, at least."

She shook her head. "Need something more recent. Preferably someone still alive."

"Can't expose someone else to it. If it's done this to two full bloods, it would probably kill a human," he said. He berated himself for wondering if there was a way to do just that without killing or maiming someone.

"I wasn't suggesting we go grab a guy off the street," Mauna said, though she looked vaguely amused by the thought. She sobered and reached into her Jeep, grabbing a fresh pair of scrubs. "It was only wishful thinking."

He started to nod, then stopped abruptly. His eyes widened.

"It may not be just wishful thinking," he said and pulled his phone out.

It occurred to him that there had been a third person involved in the brawl between Danny and Agata.


"Are you sure you don't want one of us to come with you?"

"No. Stay at the hospital. I'm just running by Marsden's place," Steve said.

"Okay, brah. But I'm letting Duke know where you're headed. If I don't hear back from you soon, I'm sending some squad cars that way."

"Fine. You might want to have an ambulance on standby, too," he said. "I'll call you later, Chin."

Instead of heading home to take a shower and grab some food, Steve had swung by the Palace to look up Marsden's contact information. The young security guard that he'd sent with Danny in the theater had been in close contact with Agata according to his partner's report. The three of them had wound up tangled up on the ground before Marsden could stun her, plenty of opportunity for him to have come into contact with the tainted ecstasy.

He could've palmed his forehead. Stupid, stupid! They should have checked on Marsden earlier when they first suspected Danny and Agata were suffering from exposure to the ecstasy. In all the excitement of Danny's tirade and collapse and Agata falling ill, the young man had slipped his mind.

And after several failed attempts to get a hold of Marsden, he feared the worst as he drove out to his small house. It sat on a much larger property with several other small rentals dotted around it, the landlord's full-size house rising up toward the back of the place.

He cut the engine of his truck in front of the rental with the numbers that corresponded to the ones in his phone.

The place was quiet. A lone sedan sat in its gravel parking space in front of the small deck. Dawn was beginning to cast gray light on the horizon, stars winking out of sight as the sky lightened, but here the land was still in shadow. The license plate was hard to make out, but the make, model, and color matched the car on Marsden's file.

He waited in his truck for a moment, letting his eyes adjust and looking for anything amiss. All seemed well.

Marsden didn't have any family on the island according to his records. No one to miss him if he fell seriously ill. He could be all alone in his rental. Possibly dead. The other rentals were far enough away that someone might not hear a cry for help.

Steve hopped out of his truck and walked across the grass up to the front door. He couldn't hear a TV or radio on, but then again Marsden might have been asleep at this hour. As Danny liked to remind him, not everyone got up as early as he did.

He knocked loudly.

"James Marsden? It's Commander McGarrett, from Five-0," he said.

He banged louder when there was no answer.

There was a distinct shuffle in the house. A small, barely perceptible, sneaky shuffle. It wasn't moving towards the door to answer it.

Steve unholstered his gun and kicked the door in. It wasn't a very big place to clear by himself. A tiny dining/living room area, a kitchenette, one bedroom, one bathroom. No sign of Marsden, but the window in the bedroom was thrown wide open.

In the early morning gloom, he spotted someone running away from the house.

He launched out the window and hit the ground running. His adrenaline pumped. A grim sense of satisfaction overcame him. Finally, he had an outlet for all this pent up emotion. This was how he dealt with a problem. Head on.

He leapt onto the fleeing person's back.

They both fell face down in the dirt, rolling in the dewy grass.

"Five-0, freeze!" he said as he disentangled himself and stood up.

"Look, man, I don't want any trouble."

The man got up slowly with his hands raised. This wasn't Marsden for sure. Marsden had been a younger man with a slighter build and a more Oriental face, and he didn't have a southern drawl. This man was stockier with hair that fell almost to his shoulders.

Steve's inner early warning system went off.

"Hands above your head," he instructed, shifting his weight back a bit.

He was right to do so. This guy was far more trained in combat than Marsden had been.

Steve chided himself when he was taken by surprise by the man striking out lightning quick and twisting the gun out of his hands. He had felt this guy was dangerous. The surprise didn't last long.

He lunged before the man could put any distance between them. Guns were only useful at a certain range. He knew better. Pushing the gun arm aside, isolating it so the gun couldn't be turned on him, he swung at the man's face.

His fist clipped the guy's jaw. He reared back for a more debilitating blow.

"Ain't happenin', bubba," the man grunted.

The man kicked the inside of his knee while ducking his punch at the same time.

Steve faltered, but managed to block his blow with his forearm.

The man yanked his arm free and, using Steve's raised arm to his advantage, swung low and hit him in the ribs.

Steve gasped through clenched teeth. He angrily swept his leg out and took the man's feet out from under him. He made a grab for his gun again. They grappled for it for a brief moment in the wet muddy grass before the man was able to plant his feet in Steve's gut and send him flying back.

Steve rolled with the kick and was back up on his feet in the blink of an eye.

"What were you doing in Marsden's house?" he questioned. His lip stung from where he'd caught an elbow or a knee in the scuffle. "Where's Marsden?"

The man was already up, one side slicked with mud, a cut below his eye bleeding, a scowl firmly in place, and pointed at him. "Back off. I don't wanna hurt you, Commander."

Steve snorted. That cocksure attitude rubbed him the wrong way. And he didn't do well with people telling him to back off.

The man was ready for his next attack, but Steve was more wary this time.

"Damn Five-0," the man snapped. "Can't ever take the easy way out."

The man grabbed his arm, directing it past him and pivoting to swing his elbow at his jaw. Steve caught his elbow before it connected. He kicked the back of the man's knee, dropping him down.

The man didn't let go of Steve's arm, but rather used his hold and the momentum of his fall to pull Steve over his shoulder and onto the ground.

His breath whooshed out of him upon impact. His shoulder protested as he was put into an arm bar.

"When I let you go, I'm walkin' away."

"Like hell you are," Steve snarled.

The man was pure muscle, a force to be reckoned with, but now Steve wasn't in a good mood. He hadn't been before, but he'd been keeping it cool. It was too easy to do a lot of damage. But now he was mad.

Bones shifted in his back and arms, scales patterned across his skin. He broke the arm bar and freed himself, standing up and getting ready to take a chunk out of the man, but he paused in his shifting.

The other man got to his feet and stepped back, one hand up in a halting gesture and the other pressed to his ear.

"Hold on!" the man told him. He focused back on whatever he was hearing. "What?"

Steve watched him carefully, panting for breath. His bones went back into position and his scales disappeared. His hands shook. The lack of food plus lack of sleep had made a partial shift like that far more draining than it should have been. The preceding fight probably hadn't helped with his energy levels, either.

"I don't think he's in a listening mood," the man said and eyed Steve.

His face pinched in confusion. The man must have had an earbud in. An earbud didn't come with the standard thief or kidnapper. That was either agency related or belonging to a high tech operation.

"Fine." The man dropped his hand. He picked the gun up off the ground and handed it grip first to him.

Steve looked at it warily before accepting it.

"Who are you?" he asked, holding his gun steady but pointed at the ground. He also made sure he was out of arm's reach this time.

The man swiped his thumb across the cut on his cheekbone, smearing the blood away. "Eliot. We haven't met before."

"I would remember you if we had," Steve said. His fighting style was effective and honed to near perfection. It was something he would like to train against on the mats.

Eliot chuckled dryly. "Yeah. We usually try to avoid Five-0 when we're here."

Whoever they were, they obviously knew about him and his team. His first thought immediately went to Shamrock. Danny had told him she had ties to various gangs, so running into one of her people on this case wasn't too far of a stretch.

"You a freelancer, or do you work for someone?" he asked. All he needed was a powerful criminal getting involved.

The man didn't speak for a few seconds, apparently listening to his earbud. He frowned, but nodded. Then, looking at Steve, he said, "Remember when Burke and Williams were taken by a dirty FBI agent a couple months ago?"

Just yet another close call on the ever growing list. "Yes."

Eliot gave him a grin that would irk most men and make most girls melt. "I was involved in that rescue operation."

The lightbulb flickered on. Steve knew exactly who this guy worked with. "You're one of Ford's people."

"You gonna try and arrest me again?" Eliot asked, raising a brow at the gun still in his hands.

Steve glanced at his gun and then holstered it. He didn't think it'd go well, anyway. His heart was pounding and sweat trickled down the back of his neck, but Eliot didn't look like he'd done more than take a stroll down the beach. It was irritating, and Steve wanted to believe that if he had some food in his system and more sleep, the odds of him coming out on top would have been different. As it was, he stored some of his moves away to analyze and put to use at a later date.

"Why were you in Marsden's house?" he asked.

"Was tryin' to find out where he went," Eliot said. He furrowed his brows at Steve. "Why were you lookin' for him?"

"He might have been exposed to some tainted ecstasy during a takedown Monday night." He left it at that, not wanting to reveal his partner was in serious condition in the hospital.

Eliot stared at him. The way his eyes narrowed slightly made Steve think there was a whole conversation going on in his earbud unheard by him.

"You want the good news or the bad news?" Eliot finally asked.

Steve exhaled heavily. He looked up. Rays of golden light were beginning to break over the ridges of mountains, bringing with them the promise of a new day. Of hope. But he didn't let himself hope for anything too drastic, no matter how badly he wanted everything to be magically reversed.

"Okay. Tell me some good news," he said. Unless the man knew Danny had died in his absence, he didn't think the following bad news could crush him anymore than he already had been.

"Good news, Williams and Agata haven't been exposed to tainted drugs."

He started. How did he know about Danny and Agata? They hadn't let it be widely known an officer was down from mysterious causes. They didn't want ghosts of criminals past to come crawling out of the woodwork to try something.

He scrubbed his hands over his dirty face. "What's the bad news?"

"James Marsden doesn't exist."


Next week on "Dragons", Steve will do anything to unravel this whole fiasco, including working with a bunch of criminals.

So, a note. When I move into S5 eventually, it's obviously going to be canon divergent. I've tried to have this fic running parallel to whatever season of the show corresponds to the timeline, like rewriting episodes and mentioning cases from actual episodes, but I think I've got to a point where that may not be feasible.

That said, I want to know what you guys would like to see from S5 appear in this fic. Whether it's episodes, cases, characters, or moments. Let me know. I'll try to work them in there.

Thanks for reading and reviewing!