Sorry for the lateness posting this chapter, but a whole section needed to be written this morning, lol.
Shout out to Phoebe Miller for beta reading!
Fact #154: Sometimes, justice is gray.
Season: 5th Season
Eric sat on the couch with a huff. He loved his grandparents, but being stuck at their house for days on end was beginning to wear on him. He didn't even have classes to attend to get him out of the house. It was by some miracle that all of this crazy stuff had happened on a week where his classes were postponed due to the professor having to leave town for a medical emergency. All he had to do was watch TV and text Jessa.
Then Aunt Tiffany moved in after her scare. The already crowded space was that much more crowded. His grandparents only had four bedrooms in this house. The master bedroom where they slept, and then three spares that had at one time been his uncles' and aunt's and mom's bedrooms. At first, he had been by himself and Kono had slept on the blow-up mattress in his mom's room. Then with the addition of Tiffany, he had been forced out of the second bedroom and into the bedroom Steve and Danny were sharing. That wasn't awkward at all.
And the cherry on top was Reuben. He'd been hanging out since yesterday and sleeping on the couch. Keeping an eye on Tiffany. Annoying Eric. Brown nosing Eddie and Clara. Eric didn't see all of the family all of the time nor hang out with them, but he'd always liked Joseph and Reuben.
Then Uncle D had shown up.
He would give anything to send Reuben home so the incessant ranting about his uncle would cease. The dude worshipped the ground Steve and Kono walked on, and did the exact opposite to Danny. It was giving Eric a headache.
"Would you just sit down and watch some TV like a normal person?" Eric asked.
Reuben was not so casually leaning on the entryway into the living room with one ear intently tuned into the conversation going on in the dining room. It wasn't that Eric wasn't curious about what the latest news about the case was, but he figured he would ask his uncle later and he would either get told or he wouldn't.
"Why doesn't he just arrest this Shamrock person and be done with it?" Reuben grumbled.
Eric sighed and scooted to the edge of the cushion. "It's this little thing called evidence. If you don't have it, you can't arrest someone and make it stick. Besides, she's the one being framed."
"So? She's got to know something. I'm sure Steve could figure out a way to make it stick and get the information out of her. If it was his family they had gone after, I bet he'd have this all wrapped up by now and not be dragging his feet, too afraid to shake some trees like Danny," Reuben said.
Eric took a deep breath. He didn't know a whole lot about Shamrock, only what his uncle had recently told him, but he did know his uncle shook her tree quite a bit. And he knew that there was an angry beehive sitting high up in her branches, waiting to drop on his head. On their heads.
"Dude, just leave it alone," Eric said. "They're working on it, okay?"
"No, Danny's just whining about how it's too hard," Reuben snapped back. "Steve was the one who went and got this Hudson guy. Kono's gathering the intel. What's Danny doing?"
"Keeping you alive, for now," Eric said. He dropped his voice to a low mutter. "Though I'm starting to think he should let you get shot at a few times."
"What was that?" Reuben questioned.
Eric glanced up at him. Reuben was older and taller than him, and currently had his shoulders back and chest puffed out. Not unlike a schoolyard bully. But, instead of feeling fear and dread when facing this bully, anger burned under his collar and flushed his cheeks.
"You heard me," he said. He stood up from the couch and paced across the rug with his hands gesturing. "All Uncle D's done since he's got here is try to protect us, and all you've done is drag him through the mud. Why?"
"Are you kidding me right now?" Reuben pulled away from the wall and started to walk across the rug to meet him in the middle. One hand flipped out towards the kitchen. "I don't know what you see in that guy. He's a cop who's lost two partners, he abandoned his wife and kid in favor of his job, and then he ran off to Hawaii and left his family!"
Eric exhaled heavily. Reuben was keeping his voice down enough so the team couldn't hear them from the kitchen and neither could the others upstairs.
"He moved to Hawaii to be with Grace. Do you think he would have left his hometown where all his friends and family and favorite restaurants were, where he had a steady job, for any other reason than he loves his kid? Huh?" Eric asked. "You think he'd rather have stayed here to hang around a schmuck like you instead of Grace?"
Reuben scowled and jabbed a finger at him. "That's not the point."
"Then what is the point?" Eric held his hands up imploringly. "Because you're the only one that's whining!"
"My point is that Danny puts everyone in danger. You notice how this family never had a problem until he became a cop? Then everything went downhill. He put Eddie and Clara through hell every time he got shot or stabbed or beat up by someone bigger than him, his training officer turned out to be a crook, he lost his partner because of something stupid he did, he lost Rachel because he wouldn't choose her over his job, he let Grace slip through his fingers, he left us to fend for ourselves."
There were a thousand things he wanted to say in retort. His grandparents were proud of the man their son had become. His mom and his sister admired him for it, but teased him relentlessly because they were siblings and that's what they did. Eric remembered the divorce partially. He remembered his uncle trying so hard to keep Rachel and Grace.
"And he couldn't even prevent his own brother from fleeing the country."
Eric paused. His hands dropped to his sides. "That's what this is about? You're pissed about Uncle Matt?"
Reuben dug his fingers through his hair and flashed his teeth in a snarl. "If Danny wouldn't have left, he would've been around to have kept an eye on his brother, his blood brother, and kept him home. Kept him on the right track."
"Matt was a grown man, Reuben, he made his own choices," Eric said.
"Well then the least Danny could have done was kept him from leaving the island! Now he's who knows where doing who knows what with who knows who. He might even be dead."
Though Eric was in a younger group than his uncle and Reuben and that set of cousins, he knew that Reuben and Matt had been close. When news of Matt's disappearance reached them, they had all been devastated, but Reuben had been hit the hardest out of the cousins.
"You can't keep blaming Uncle D for that," he said.
"Why aren't you mad? You almost drowned the other night because of him," Reuben said.
"He didn't shove me off the bridge. Some big thug did. We live in Newark. There're always thugs. I'm just glad I didn't get shanked!"
"Next time you might. Have you heard them in there? His ex-partner works with all kinds of criminals now, and your precious uncle is in bed with them, too. Take him off the pedestal."
Eric clasped his hands together and pressed them to his mouth to stifle his disbelieving laugh. "I get it now. I get it."
Reuben glared.
"You're jealous. It all makes sense now," Eric said, turning in a circle and wiping his hands down his face.
"I'm not jealous of a short, stubborn loudmouth who can't keep a hold of a woman and his own kid," Reuben hissed.
But Eric was on a roll now. "A loving daughter, a respectable job, a self-made family, and he's a full blooded shifter. I get it now. You don't have any of that."
"Shut up."
"No, you shut up and pack your crap. I'm so sick of you whining about how he can't do anything. And what're you doing, man? I don't see you out there in the middle of the danger zone."
Reuben squared his shoulders. "I have just as much right to be here as you do, you pissant."
"Dude, they didn't even care enough to send thugs after you." Eric couldn't help it. He was laughing. It wasn't funny. He must have inherited his uncle's penchant for hysterical giggles.
Reuben sighed dramatically and palmed his forehead. "You get it now? No, I get it now. You love Danny because he's just like your father."
Eric's face hardened and the giggles died.
"Do you think he really cares about you like a son? Grow the hell up, Eric. He barely takes care of his own kid, never mind some lazy nephew like you. One day he'll step out–"
Eric wasn't one hundred percent sure what had happened through the red haze, but his knuckles stung and Reuben looked stunned. Then he was in a chokehold.
"You half-pint punk!"
Eric grasped his forearm and stomped on his foot.
"Eric!"
He barely caught a glance of Tiffany standing on the stairs.
"Eric! Reuben, stop it!"
They bumped into an end table and sent a vase to the floor. Eric elbowed Reuben in the gut and yanked himself free of the chokehold, but Reuben had a fistful of his shirt and pulled him back in close.
Eric flinched. He wasn't a fighter. He briefly considered shifting and tipping the scales, but suddenly there was a solid body between him and Reuben. Hands shoved him to the couch where he all but fell onto the cushions.
"What the hell guys? Are we in high school?"
He looked up at his uncle, rubbing his sure to be red and bruised neck. Reuben had been cowed into the opposite corner of the room. The fight was still in his eyes and it made Eric all the more thankful Danny was between them. He'd be embarrassed if this was a schoolyard throwdown, but this was in the living room at his grandparents' house.
"What's going on?!" Danny questioned, throwing his hands toward each of them.
"He started it!" Reuben said.
Eric's jaw dropped. "Real mature, man."
"Hey, what's all this racket?" Eddie hollered as he thumped down the stairs.
Clara held onto Tiffany's arms as the younger woman sobbed. Steve and Kono just stood awkwardly at the edge of the room. Then his mom appeared.
"Eric!" Stella raced through everyone and sat on the couch next to him, cupping his face and checking him over.
Now he was embarrassed.
"I'm fine, Mom, I'm fine." He batted her hands away. He steeled himself and pointed at Reuben. "He needs to leave."
"What? Why?" Eddie asked.
"He's been trying to get me to leave all evening," Reuben said.
Eric stood up. "All he does is talk trash about Uncle D and I'm so tired of hearing it!"
"That's what cousins do, Eric, we talk trash about each other," Reuben said.
Eric narrowed his eyes. The older man seemed off kilter. He probably hadn't expected Eric to hang his dirty laundry out for the others to see.
"This isn't a 'James sucks on the basketball court' or 'Ariel has more dents than bumper' kind of trash talk," Eric said. "You just can't quit dragging him through the mud, and I'm tired of it!"
Danny put his hand on his chest, gently but firmly pushing him back to a sitting position on the couch next to Stella.
"Eric, I appreciate you jumping to my defense, but I can handle myself," Danny said calmly.
Eric braced his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. All of that and he gets told he shouldn't have.
"And you, what do you have to say for yourself, huh? Eric's fifteen years younger than you," Danny said. "If you've got a problem with me, you hash it out with me. Got it?"
"Well, now that you mention it, I would like to know what you're doing to protect this family," Reuben said.
Eric looked up to see him gesturing at them all. There was a cold spark of dread and hope in his stomach. Reuben was about to open his mouth –
"Because so far, all you've done is put us all in danger. But that's all you do, isn't it?"
– and insert his foot.
Clara gasped and Stella's grip on his arm tightened.
"Reuben–" Eddied started.
But Reuben cut him off. "You lose one partner here, your wife leaves and takes your kid because your job is too dangerous, then another partner dies, Grace gets kidnapped by a guy you arrested, and now this."
There was a stunned silence in the room. Eric held his breath.
"I don't understand why you call Steve the trouble magnet, because it's obviously you," Reuben said. "You're the bad seed, and how you got on a team with the likes of those two guys, I don't know."
The silence was so tense that it was almost strangling him. He couldn't take his eyes off the scene unfolding before him. How long was time frozen like that? Could have been a few seconds, or it could have been a few hours. However long it was, the trance was broken when Steve moved.
Holding him by the scruff of the neck, Steve forcibly half-pushed, half-dragged Reuben out the front door.
"God. I knew that kid had some issues, but this…" Eddie murmured.
Danny deflated and headed for the front door. "Better make sure Reuben actually gets home and Steve doesn't leave him in a ditch somewhere."
"Because if he doesn't, I will," Kono said under her breath, but just loud enough for Eric to hear.
Eddie clapped his hands. "Okay, girls, back up to bed. I'll make sure the boys get sorted out."
Clara led Tiffany upstairs and Eric took his mom. He was a little hesitant to leave the Five-0 team alone downstairs with Reuben after that. They wouldn't seriously hurt him, though. At least, he didn't think they would.
He assured his mom that he was fine a few more times before eventually retreating to the bedroom where his bed was. 'Bed' was a bit of a loose term. He had a pile of blankets and pillows in the corner against the wall since Steve and Danny had claimed the two single beds first.
When he flopped on them, though, they felt like a welcoming hug.
He stared at the ceiling for a while in a state of near sleep. He'd close his eyes and imagine punching Reuben again until he opened his eyes. The minutes ticked by and he lost count in a sea of restlessness.
At some point Danny came into the room and sat on one of the beds with his files and laptop.
"Uncle D?" Eric asked, not quite sure if he had really walked in the room. Surfing the world between awake and asleep blurred the lines of dreaming a bit.
"What're you still doing up?"
Eric rolled over to look at him better.
"Can't sleep."
"That's a first," Danny said, skimming through his files by the light of the lamp.
"Hey, um, I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what?"
"For getting into a fight with Reuben. I threw the first punch."
"I figured you did."
"Huh?" he asked intelligently.
Danny set a sheaf of papers down and checked his laptop screen. "Because Reuben's a coward with a hell of a loud bark and almost no bite."
"He's got some bite," Eric said, remembering the chokehold and fury in his eyes vividly.
"Did you really punch him because of something he said about me?" Danny asked and looked at him directly.
Eric picked at the frayed hem of one of the blankets. "He said a lot of crap. All day long for the last two days. But, he finally just…crossed a line, you know? Said you were a bad dad and that you were just like my dad and that I shouldn't trust you, because one day you'd step out on me, too. And I just saw red."
"And gave him a nice black eye that he'll be nursing for a while," Danny said, hand fluttering around.
Eric looked at his reddened knuckles. "I don't know how Steve punches people all the time. That hurt."
Danny chuckled. He sighed and waved his hands at Eric. "I'm not a perfect father."
"But at least you try. Not like my dad," he said. "I haven't seen him in years."
"Hey."
Eric glanced up.
"You're going to grow up fine, okay? Dad or no dad. And I'm not going to step out on you if I can help it, understand?"
Eric grinned. "Yeah."
"So that means if you get in trouble, I'll come clear out here just to kick your butt back on the right track, got it?"
"You going to ground me and take away my video games, too?"
"Go to sleep, wise guy."
Eric rolled over and pulled a blanket over his head. He was snoring not even a minute later.
NCIS Offices...
McGee tapped at his keyboard tiredly. He'd need to get another Caf-Pow here soon. It had already been a long week and having Officer Kalakaua, Kono, call him again after once already today was making it longer.
Everyone had finished off their reports and gone home already. He was alone in the NCIS building at the shipyard except for the nightguards and janitors. They were familiar with his presence late into the evening and beyond that into the early morning. No one bothered him.
While one computer ran everything Lorenzo Hudson had earned and purchased, the other one in front of him displayed the emails he was trying to trace.
He sat back, rubbing his eyes. Whoever Hudson had been contacted by had a measure of intelligence. Every time he thought he had come up on a real name and account, it turned out to be a false identity or shell company and proceeded to lead him on another merry chase around the virtual world.
Why was he even doing this? This wasn't even his case. And he had this sinking feeling Gibbs either knew or at least suspected he was doing something on the side that wasn't NCIS related.
But, Five-0 could be insistent. And he was a knight whether he liked it or not. When Kono called and asked, he couldn't say no. Well, he could have. Probably should have. If he had said no, there was a great possibility of something along the lines of 'vigilante cops arrested for storming a legal firm in downtown Manhattan' on tomorrow's news.
And then he was hooked.
A trusted employee from a shipping company being paid off to deliver intel to someone else in the shadows so they could kill a cop and his family and frame the owner of said shipping company for a currently unknown motivation? It made him want to sit down at his typewriter, not his computer.
He rubbed his hands down his face, stood up, and stretched. A trip to the bathroom and then to the Caf-Pow dispenser was in order.
It wasn't until three in the morning that he found something.
Two hours outside Newark...
Shamrock set her glass down harder than was necessary.
"Ma'am?" Joey asked.
She glanced at her employee who had recently been discharged from the hospital and had insisted on coming back to work. Though he had a bum leg and one arm in a sling, he could take the wings off a fly at a hundred yards with his still functional arm. She wasn't adverse to having him by her side again.
Presently, though, she had forgotten he was in her study with her.
"Do you remember when Detective Williams first stepped into our lives?" she asked.
Joey winced as he shifted on the chair and nodded. "Ballsy move coming right to your house without a warrant."
Her lips twitched. "I don't think he knew much about me back then."
"And you didn't know much about him," Joey said. His raised brow asked a question he didn't voice.
"I don't know why he's still alive," she said dismissively. "Bit of softness on my part, probably. But he's pushing his limits now."
"Maybe if you give him enough rope, he'll accidentally hang himself," Joey said. "What did he do now?"
"Cached my employee away in the heart of the Newark Police Department. He knows I have too much on my plate to risk talking to Hudson in there," she said.
"What could Hudson even know about you that it's worth paying him close to a million dollars?"
She pushed her whiskey tumbler away from her air gapped laptop and ledgers. Tea would be a better beverage for the rest of the night. She couldn't afford to drown her sorrows too deeply. Not to mention it was early morning. Close to three.
"An employee like Hudson only knows so much. New locations for the business. Places I frequent. What whiskey I give friends," she said.
"Pretty much everything that's popped up. The attack in Japan, the café, the poisoned bottles," Joey summarized.
"Yes. But there was a mistake," she said. She sat forward with her forearms resting on the edge of the table. "That particular whiskey is bottled specifically for me."
"I thought the bottles were counterfeit," Joey said.
"The whiskey inside was cheap. Unmistakably cheap. The label on the bottle I acquired from young Mr. Russo, however, was painstakingly forged. And forgers have signatures," she said.
Joey grinned. "You must've come up with something since I was in the hospital."
"I'll let Williams run down his leads with Hudson. The underworld works faster, anyhow," she said.
The doors to her study creaked open. Achutebe stepped in, followed by a man dressed in black. The man strode confidently across the room to her desk, leaving a little trail of rain drops in his wake.
"A victim of the weather, I see," she greeted coolly.
The man pushed his hood off his head and ran his hand through his damp dark hair. "Aye. Kinda a bloody downpour out here."
Shamrock relaxed back into her seat with one leg crossed over the other. The thick Scottish accent was a signal to her that he was clean and free to talk.
"Hudson is in lockup," she said.
He shrugged. "He didn't know anything. He's just a pawn in this game you've got yourself wrapped up in."
"Even pawns know things, Noah. Williams must believe there's a vital connection, or he wouldn't have engaged a tech expert's services twice in one day," she said.
He reached into his jacket pocket. "I've got something better than a disgruntled employee."
He handed her a note across the desk.
Her face remained impassive as she read, but slowly descended into a frown. "Are you sure?"
"Wouldn't have brought it to you if I wasn't."
They sat in silence for a few moments, with just the pitter patter of the passing shower tapping at the window. Shamrock finally leaned away from the desk. The silver ring on her finger glinted in the light of the lamp as she twisted it around and around.
"I'd like to offer my services," Noah said.
Shamrock shook her head. "You've done quite enough for me. I would advise steering clear for a while."
"If that's what you want," he said. He pushed himself out of the seat.
She stood up as well. "I'm sure we'll be in touch again."
"Oh, I don't doubt it. You've got a whole ledger full of sins."
"Slán leat," she said.
He turned and walked towards the doors where Achutebe stood statuesquely.
"And Noah?"
He looked at her over his shoulder.
"I like you better as a redhead."
He smirked and tipped two fingers at her.
As soon as he was gone, she edged around her desk and headed for the doors, shadowed closely by Joey.
"Ma'am?" he asked.
She pulled her hair out of her ponytail and let her braids cascade down her shoulders. Grimacing, she tugged her sling off.
"I know who the other monster in the dark is."
Williams Household...
Kono rolled over on the couch. She had only meant to close her eyes briefly before returning to looking at the security footage Chin had sent over. At some point she must have slumped over and someone had thrown a blanket on her.
Brzzzt. Brzzzt.
That's what had woken her up.
She flung her arm above her head, hunting around the end table for her phone. Not finding it, she felt along the floor below the couch. She grabbed it on the last buzz.
"Hello?" She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. "McGee? Yeah, yeah, I'm awake."
She swung her legs over the edge of the couch and squinted at the clock on the wall. It was barely after three in the morning. She had been asleep for nearly an hour.
"Okay, hold on. Let me get to my laptop," she said. She cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder once she sat down at the dining room table and opened her laptop. "Have you been up working on this all night?"
She typed in her password and went to her email. The dining room was dark. Steve and Danny must have headed to bed. Though, she couldn't see Steve's tennis shoes sitting by the front door, so he might have gone for a wake-up run. It wouldn't surprise her.
"Brah, I owe you a beer," she said. She chuckled. "No, I don't welch like McGarrett does."
She selected the email waiting in her inbox. The files popped up on her screen. All the little black letters looked like ants marching across too brightly glowing white pages. Furiously rubbing her eyes again, she blinked a few times and tried to read through them.
Half-way through the second page, the phone nearly slipped from her hand.
"Are you sure?" she asked.
She pushed out of her chair so fast it almost toppled over. Not caring if she woke up the whole neighborhood, she thundered up the stairs, only partially listening to McGee explain the shell companies and payments to Hudson and the hired thugs and how they all connected.
She busted in the room the boys were sharing. The lamp glowed warmly on the nightstand between the two small beds. Eric was face down on a pile of blankets in the corner of the room, snoring. Danny was sprawled on the bed, surrounded by papers and his laptop, one leg hanging off the edge and pillow over his face.
She kicked his foot. "Danny."
Danny sprung upright, shoulders tightly strung and his right arm pulled back for a punch. He groaned and scrubbed his hands over his face once he realized it was her.
"What the hell, Kono?" he asked.
"McGee, tell Danny," she said and handed the phone to him.
Danny still looked bleary but took the phone off her. "McGee, I hope it's good."
Kono winced as the color drained from Danny's face drop by drop. His knuckles turned white on her phone.
"Thanks, McGee," he said faintly and handed it back to her.
She held it up to her ear again. "McGee? I owe you more than a beer. You ever want to come out to Hawaii again, let me know. I'll give you the native tour. Yeah, brah. Thanks. Talk to you later. Go get some sleep, you lolo."
She slid the phone into her pocket and crouched in front of Danny. He was frozen to the spot. Looked blank. She could see his pulse thrumming in the vein in his neck.
"Danny." She touched his knee gently.
The simple contact seemed to pull him from what she knew was a flood of dark memories. He set his trembling hand on top of hers.
A nervous grin flickered across his face. "Kinda wish I would have let Shamrock handle this one now."
Steve stepped through the bedroom door, dripping sweat and breathing hard from his run. "What's going on?"
Danny stood up and started shuffling his papers back into a pile. "Kono, stay here and keep an eye on my family, okay?"
"You know I will, brah."
"Steve, you and I are going to take a road trip."
West Virginia...
The guard was as stone faced as ever as he pointed to the open seat. A few other prisoners sat in the chairs to either side, chatting lowly to their spouses, kids, and lawyers. The cold gray walls and smudged glass panels reduced the visitation room to a drab and dull place with any warmth sucked right out of it.
Her curiosity at who was here to see her dissolved. The face waiting for her on the other side of the panel was a dark blot in her already gray world.
The uncomfortable chair creaked as she sat. She lifted the phone off the hook and held it to her ear.
"You're a long way from Hawaii," she said.
The Detective stared her down. She could see his jaw working, see the nervous twitch of his fingers, see the wariness in his eyes. Perhaps seeing him wasn't such a bad thing. It assured her that she still had the power to strike fear into people.
"Marilyn," he said.
"You look well," she said.
Sourly, she noted that he looked particularly unharmed physically. Even after dropping a building on him, he was still up and around while she was forever imprisoned.
"Not for lack of someone trying to kill me and my family," he said.
Marilyn glanced behind him at the Commander glowering against the wall with his arms snugly crossed. He had survived a building being dropped on him, as well. They were cockroaches. Just wouldn't die.
"Fascinating," she said flatly. She locked eyes with the Detective. "You've put a lot of people away. Burned a lot of empires that took decades to build."
The Detective tapped his finger on the table. "But most of them don't have the kind of pull you do. Most of them can't afford to pay Lorenzo Hudson a million dollars to help frame another criminal for the deaths of a cop and his family."
She pursed her lips. If only he had drunk the whiskey. "You think you're worth that effort? Cliff?"
The flash of anxiety over his face told her what she needed to know.
"Even if I did it, there's not much to do to me," she said. "I'm already in prison serving out a dozen life sentences. All I can do is sit, and think. Think about the Cliff that put me in here. The Cliff and his little daughter."
The Detective let out a shaking breath and then slammed his fist against the glass. "Listen to me, Marilyn, it was me. If you touch my family, especially my daughter–"
"You'll do what?" she questioned. "Put me in isolation like you did Jeffrey? Drain my accounts? Smear my good name?"
The Detective scowled.
"You can't do anything to me that you haven't already done," she said. She leaned forward and lowered her voice. "I'm not scared of you."
The Detective dropped his fist from the glass and ran his fingers through his hair, moving the mouthpiece of the phone away from his face. The Commander stepped forward, shooting her a deadly glare as he did.
"But you'll always be scared of me," she said and sat back.
There was nothing he could do about it. She could keep pulling strings as she continued to extend her reach from prison. More guards, more prisoners, soon they would be under her thumb. It was only a matter of time.
One day she would pull the right string and someone would get lucky. Someone would kill the Detective, his team, his family. Anyone who got in the way. If that didn't happen, she could destroy him in other ways. Sometimes a mere word could end a man's world. Whispering that he was a Cliff to the right ears would bring a whole new form of suffering upon him and the team.
"You know, you're right," the Detective said quietly.
Her brows knitted together in slight surprise.
"I am afraid of you, and I'm afraid of what you might do to my kid." The Detective started to stand up. "But, I won't always be scared of you."
The Detective hung the phone on the receiver and backed away from the table. She was reminded of a scared dog backing away into a corner. The Commander gave her a final withering look and followed the Detective out of her line of sight.
A flash of red drew her attention back to her immediate surroundings.
Marilyn clenched her teeth as the other woman sat down and grabbed the phone. She had never met her in person, and though she didn't look like much, she carried a certain air that Marilyn could sense through the glass.
Shamrock leaned in closed. "But I do know who you're scared of."
Steve stood outside the prison with Danny for a long couple of minutes. His partner was silent, yet at the same time his shoulders had slumped from their tense state. The lines of panic had melted away from around his eyes and forehead, and now he looked not quite at peace, but calmer.
"You good, Danno?" he asked, figuring he'd given his partner enough quiet time.
Danny stuffed his hands in his pockets. He took slow, meandering steps back towards the rental car. Evening was falling and the August night felt cooler here in West Virginia at the women's correctional facility. Steve preferred the open skies more than the towering skyscrapers of Newark and New York.
"We should go get Rally's," Danny said.
"Rally's?"
"It's a fast food experience you need to have, babe."
Steve glanced at the shadowy fortress looming in the dusk behind them, the monsters all hidden within its walls. There was nothing more to do there.
"Fine." Steve dug the keys out of his pocket. "You realize that if I ate at every place you think I need to experience, I'd need a triple bypass surgery."
They discussed the finer points of food as they left the prison behind and let the monsters in the dark hash it out themselves.
Next time on "Dragons", some kind of wind down from this arc.
Okay, so, I've got something to tell you guys. I am going to be stepping away from "Dragons". Not as a permanent thing, but instead of posting every week, I'm going to be posting every other week. I just have been struggling so hard to keep up with this fic and haven't been able to really work on other things I want to because of it.
Don't freak out, please! I still love working on this fic, I just need to take my foot off the gas somewhat. I've got ideas and things going on behind the scenes that I want to bring to you guys in future chapters, but I want to do it right. Some of the more recent chapters I've been posting I haven't been that proud of, but I didn't have time to edit or rewrite them, so up they went. I want to be proud of what I'm giving you guys, and I just need more time to get the chapters to that point.
TL;DR: I'm not going to be posting every week, and chapters may not be posted strictly on Tuesdays. They might be posted on Wednesdays as well. No chapter next week.
Thank you all for continuing to read, review, and show your support of this fic!
