ery06 – I didn't really have an actress/model in my head when creating Harper, but now that I have thought about it I would have to say that she is a combination of The Mentalist's Amanda Righetti (Grace Van Pelt) and Castle's Stana Katic (Kate Beckett)…she is a beautiful redhead like Van Pelt but is a respected cop like Beckett. I do know that when I write for Mickey James I am totally envisioning Tom Selleck from Blue Bloods!

Obviously, I am a Steve McGarrett fan. I mean, I created a character to give him a past and he's the reason I wrote this fic! So, if I made him seem insensitive and like a "tool", he will be redeemed in these next few chapters. But I also love Harper and I have a soft spot in my heart for daddies and their little girls. The character of Mickey James was difficult because he had to play the "bad guy" in the divorce scenario to make Steve come out looking like the hero. But don't be too mad at Harper's daddy…he did what he did out of love and thought he was doing what was best for his child. I'm not sure I was able to convey that through the conversation in this chapter, but the pain is still fresh and Harper is still pissed. We will be seeing Mickey James again and I think I will actually be able to redeem him, too! Anyway, I just wanted to set him up in a more positive light before you read about how he completely destroyed our beloved Harper and Steve's happiness! LOL.

Chapter Twelve – Daddy's Little Girl

"They say that from the instant he lays eyes on her, a father adores his daughter. Whoever she grows up to be, she is always to him that little girl in pigtails. She makes him feel like Christmas. In exchange, he makes a secret promise not to see the awkwardness of her teenage years, the mistakes she makes or the secrets she keeps." -Anonymous

"How the hell did you do that?"

Oh, she was pissed. Steve had never seen her this angry, even in the midst of their worst arguments. Harper was eerily calm as she posed the question to her father, but he could tell that the anger and resentment and betrayal were bubbling just below the surface. And when she let it blow, it was going to be UGLY.

Not wavering from his daughter's icy glare, Mickey James stated, "Rear Admiral Winters owed me a favor."

"That must have been one hell of a favor," Harper drawled, crossing her arms over her chest and digging in for a fight.

"His son…"

"Never mind, I don't want to know," she interrupted, "I don't collect favors to cash in…apparently that is your department."

"Harper…"

"You threatened his military career to get him to leave me?" she asked quickly, gesturing toward Steve but never once taking her eyes off of her father's image on the screen.

"That is the simple version…"

"Well, then I can't wait to hear the complicated version."

For some reason, Steve felt the need to jump in at this point. But he quickly found out that this was not actually his fight.

"Jimmy, I…"

"Get out."

"What?" The leader of Five-0 asked, blinking quickly in surprise at her sudden command.

"I need the room," Harper explained, still not turning to look at him, "I can't deal with both of you right now, so just get out."

"This is my office…" Steve reminded her quietly, wincing as he realized that he had probably just managed to piss her off even more.

"Get out!" she shouted, finally spinning around to glare at him and then warned in an icy voice, "But don't go too far."

Glad to have the bulk of her anger focused at her father, Steve backed quietly out of the office and pretended to busy himself out in the bullpen. But, he remained within earshot and never took his eyes off of her…they were in unchartered territory here and he had no idea what was coming next. For any of them.

"Honey," Mickey began once Steve had exited the room, "I think you need to sit down now and try to relax…"

"Oh, bite me!"

"Bite me?" her father repeated in surprise, "I feel the need to remind you that I am still your father and we are not in the middle of a cop bar…"

"Well, forgive my bluntness," Harper shot back sarcastically, believing that the last thing she needed at that moment was a lecture on her language, "It's a device I use to cope."

"Harper…"

"I can't believe you!" she raged suddenly, the sarcasm turning to anger very quickly, "You destroyed my marriage? What happened? Did you just wake up one morning and decide that being Chicago's top cop wasn't enough for you anymore and you felt like playing God?"

"Your marriage to Steve was falling apart…"

"That didn't give you the right to obliterate it!" Harper interrupted angrily, wanting answers but not wanting to listen to anything he had to say. But she couldn't keep herself from asking, "How could you do that to me?"

"You were becoming a stranger to me!" Mickey replied, just as angry as his daughter was, "You were living in a city where you didn't know anyone, didn't have anyone to turn to…"

"I had Steve!"

"You were shutting him out," he reminded his daughter, "And he wasn't emotionally equipped to handle what was happening to you. He proved that over and over again."

"We would have gotten through it!"

"You needed your family," Mickey told her, convinced that he had done the right thing for her.

"I needed to be treated like an adult!" Harper shouted back at him. She sank back against Steve's desk to steady herself because she felt like her whole world had just been pulled out from underneath her. This couldn't be happening.

"You weren't acting like an adult," her father informed her, using the same tone he used to use when she had broken curfew as a teenager, "You ran off and got married after knowing each other for six months. And then you gave up your life, your family, your friends, your job to follow him to San Diego."

"Getting married and moving in with my husband was not acting like an adult?" she drawled, frowning at his screwed up logic.

"Your entire relationship with that man was wrong…"

"What was so wrong about it?" Harper asked angrily, knowing she wasn't going to get an answer that would satisfy her. They had had this conversation before and he had never been able to articulate what he found so wrong with Steve. "I loved him! And he loved me! How was that wrong?"

"He was supposed to protect you…"

"He did!"

"And so did I."

"Oh no," she warned, moving away from the desk and coming to stand directly in front of the screen again as she hissed, "don't you dare compare the two things. He was honest with me. You manipulated me at every turn. How could you do that?"

"He was hired to do a job," Mickey reminded her flatly, dredging up the old argument, "And instead he took advantage of the situation…"

"Steve never took advantage of me!" she shouted, "I made the first move!" When the surprise registered in her father's eyes, she twisted the verbal dagger in deeper by saying insensitively, "Yes, daddy, your precious little girl was hot for her Navy babysitter. He tried to resist me, but you raised me to go after what I wanted. And what I wanted was Steve McGarrett! He was perfect for me and you ruined it!"

"He was hurting you!" The Superintendent replied, refusing to believe anything that his daughter was saying, "I could hear it in your voice…he was making it worse, not better. You were lost and he couldn't help you. I could. Your brothers could. You needed to be home…in Chicago."

She was silent for a few moments before she asked quietly, "Did you get me back on the force?"

"No."

"Don't lie to me anymore," Harper warned, not knowing what the real truth was anymore.

"I had nothing to do with it," Mickey assured her, "Your work on the Crazy Joe case stood on its own. I have never interfered in your career."

"So, just my marriage then?" she shot back sarcastically. Shaking her head in disbelief at this turn of events, she muttered, "I can't believe my life. One minute it's going okay, I mean... as okay as my life can get, then the gong knocks me completely off my feet. And now I find out that the most important man in my universe was responsible both times."

Mickey James stared through his computer screen at his little girl and for the first time in his life he didn't know what to do. So he tried to explain, "I've tried to be fair, Harper, in raising you...in raising all of you. I made choices that had to be made. And sometimes those choices were not black and white, so I don't know anymore which was right and which was wrong. All I do know is that they were made with love."

"Love?" Harper asked rhetorically with a short, humorless little laugh. Shaking her head, her voice was emotionless as she said, "This wasn't about love. This was about control. You couldn't control me anymore and that was eating at you." She finally lifted her head to face him and when she spoke again there was a definite emotion in her voice…anger. "That's what you always hated about Steve, wasn't it? He didn't take your shit. He stood up to you. And when I chose him, you lost your mind. Because you always had to win."

Harper began backing away from the screen, disgust and disappointment mixing with the anger in her eyes. She had never looked at her father that way before and it was killing him.

"You had to beat him, didn't you? So how did it feel, dad?" she asked pointedly, but it was clear that she wasn't interested in the answer. She already had one. "How did it feel to win? Was it everything you had hoped it would be? Did it make you feel powerful? All those nights that I spent at your house trying to figure out what I had done to make him stop loving me, trying to figure out what I could have done to make him stay…how did that feel?"

"Harper, it broke my heart," Mickey told her, not believing what he was hearing, "I am your father…"

"Oh, cut the crap!" she spat out at him, "You forgot how to be anything but a cop a long time ago. After Mom died…you stopped, you know? It was like you couldn't stand the sight of me. Because I had her face, her hair, her eyes looking up at you." The unshed tears glistened on her eyelashes, but Harper refused to let them fall as she reminded him, "But big girls don't cry, right? That's what you always said. And I bought into that…hook, line, and sinker. You ran our house like you ran a police station and if the boys and I didn't report in for duty every morning…"

"That's what you think?" her father interrupted angrily, wishing he could fly through the computer screen and stand in front of her. Forcefully he continued, "My God, Harper, you are my child! Everything that I have done, I have done for you." Mickey took a deep breath and visibly calmed himself down as he tried to explain, "When your mother told me that she was pregnant with a fifth child, I could see in her eyes that she was hoping for a little girl. After four boys, she was desperate for a daughter. Not that she would ever admit it, but I could see her dreaming of pretty little dresses and tea parties and shopping trips and secrets shared between mothers and daughters. And then you came along and you were tiny and perfect and my Sophia was so happy to finally have her little girl. But then, from the moment the nurse put you in my arms…you belonged to me. She told me years later that she had watched it happen, watched me fall so completely in love with you."

If Harper hadn't known better she would have sworn she saw her father wipe away an unseen tear, but she knew that Mickey James didn't cry…not in front of his children. Or his police officers.

"When she died," he continued in an emotional voice, "a thousand people said a thousand stupid things to me and I just wanted one of them to give me a reason not to die, too. And then somebody did. You. You crawled into my lap one night and cried yourself to sleep. And I knew in that moment that I couldn't ever let you down. That I could never let anyone hurt you ever again. And I most certainly couldn't ever lose you."

Harper's unshed tears had a mind of their own and they slid down her cheeks at his words. But it didn't change what he did, she told herself. And out loud she replied steadily, "But that doesn't give you the right to play God with my life." Looking out into the bullpen where Steve was deep in conversation with Danny, she asked quietly, "How did you get him to agree?"

"It wasn't as hard…"

"Don't," she warned angrily, turning back to face her father, "Don't you put this on him. I will deal with Steve and the choices he made, but this is about you." The look of hurt in Mickey's eyes surprised her, so she explained, "He loved me! He loved me, daddy! And you made me doubt that!"

"I didn't…"

"I know you," she told him, "I know how you can talk people into doing things your way and they come out of it thinking it was their idea. You made him think it was hopeless, didn't you? That he would only bring me more misery. Hell, you probably made it sound like leaving me was the noble thing to do!"

"He would bring you more misery!" Mickey stated. Despite everything that had been said, he was steadfast in that belief so he told her, "The life of a S.E.A.L.'s wife…who wants to live like that?"

"I did!" she reminded him forcefully, "I chose it! I chose him!"

"Tell me that you were happy, Harper," her father shot back just as forcefully, "Tell me. The secret missions, the last minute deployments…that is no way to nurture a marriage, to raise a family." He shook his head at the memory of that time and continued, "You were in crisis, baby, and you couldn't even see it. Sometimes my job as a father isn't to give you the whole picture, because the truth is, I can't see it myself. My job is to try and help. And every now and then, fit a piece of the puzzle."

"This wasn't a piece of the puzzle!" Harper tried to get him to understand, but he just wouldn't budge, "This was my life, my marriage. Maybe it wasn't perfect, but it was mine! I did everything exactly the way I was supposed to. I was going to make my marriage to Steve work because I knew he was the one. We did everything right. And it didn't matter. Because you decided that it wasn't right and you broke it. Your interference caused us to take something that was once so perfect, so right, and so once in a lifetime…and we blew it. We hurt each other to the very core and we destroyed a relationship that was so important to both of us. And in the process, we almost destroyed each other. Don't you see that? Don't you see what you did?"

His voice was emotional as he choked out, "Harper…"

"I was happy, daddy," she interrupted him, the sadness in her voice was in complete contrast to her words, "We were happy. The way you and mom were once happy. I finally had what you had…someone to laugh with, someone to hold my hand, someone who would kiss me in the kitchen for absolutely no reason at all." Harper brushed at the tears on her cheeks and silently cursed them as a sign of weakness as she continued, "And maybe things weren't going so well for awhile there, but he still tried to kiss me in the kitchen. Right up until the end. And he still took my hand in the middle of the night because that was the only time I wouldn't pull away from him. He still loved me."

"I still love you, too," he told her quietly, his heart breaking at the raw pain he saw on his daughter's face and the ache he could hear in her voice. Sighing heavily, Mickey looked through the screen at his little girl and admitted, "When your mother died, I spent so much time thinking, 'God, I hope I'm not like my father'. And then I worried, 'What if my kids are thinking the same about me?' It was easier for me, Harper, to raise you the way that I did. Because I could never let you kids see that I was falling apart inside. To keep you on the right track...to get you through those years...I couldn't let you see that it was happening to me. And maybe I should have, I don't know. I just know that I wanted you to be happy." Shaking his head, he told her, "Look at me, Harper," When she obediently raised her head and met his gaze, he told her honestly, "I know I did something terrible and horrible to you, and if I could take it back, I would. But please know that I am truly, very, deeply sorry. I'm not going to make any more excuses, I'm just sorry. And I know that you are angry with me and that you will stay angry with me for a long time. But, baby, we're family, real family. And that means, no matter how long it takes, when you finally do decide to stop being angry with me, I'll still be here."

Harper drew in a shaky breath as she reached out to touch the power button on the screen. And before she turned it off, she murmured, "Good-bye, daddy."