Chapter Thirty Two – Welcome Back, Jack

"You don't raise heroes, you raise sons. And if you treat them like sons, they'll turn out to be heroes, even if it's just in your own eyes."

~Walter M. Schirra, Sr

Honolulu Medical Center, the next morning…

"Stop fussing over me."

Jack McGarrett half-smiled and half-scowled up at his daughter as she tucked the blankets around him and fluffed up his pillows again for the fifth time since she and Steve had entered his hospital room. "I'm fine."

"So you keep telling me," Mary Ann shot back, finally sitting down in the chair to the left of her father's bedside and exchanging a knowing look with her brother. Steve, seated on the opposite side of the elder McGarrett's bed, merely shook his head and chuckled at the sight of the child fussing over the parent.

"And yet you sound as if you don't believe me."

"Well the huge bandages covering both of your legs, the IV drip, and the monitors attached to your heart are quite convincing," Steve pointed out, glancing around at the medical equipment that filled the room and reminded everyone that the situation was still quite serious.

"Ah, doctors," Jack muttered, lying back against his pillows and closing his eyes, "They get their kicks out of padding the bill."

Steve smirked at his father and moved over to inspect the heart monitor that the former Honolulu detective was hooked up to as he quipped, "So, if I press this little button right here…"

Without flinching or opening his eyes, Jack replied dryly, "Don't you have a team to debrief? Or some paperwork to catch up on?"

"Nope," Steve answered with a smirk, "Five-0 has earned some quality time off…courtesy of your old friend, the governor."

"Remind me to thank her for that…"

"Actually," Steve interrupted, "Michael Sugimoto is singing like a songbird and the boys from Chicago are helping Danny, Chin, and Kono string him up." Grinning up at his sister, who had arrived from the mainland only hours ago, he continued, "I didn't think that Mickey James could dislike someone as much as he dislikes me, but Kai Akino's henchman has proved me wrong in glorious fashion. The Superintendent simply had to put on his dress blues, comb his moustache, and glare at that chicken shit gangbanger before he was confessing to everything."

"Everything?" Jack asked, lifting his head as his interest peaked, "So did they find out why Wo Fat kept Harper and I hostage?"

Mary Ann pursed her lips and suddenly took an interest in the tiled floor beneath her high heeled feet, leaving Steve to explain grimly, "He wasn't going to keep you alive for long. The plan was to send me on a wild goose chase all over the globe with the clues being…" He paused for a moment to swallow the disgust that had risen up in his throat before finishing, "…parts of your bodies left at every checkpoint. He just needed to get Harper to Hawaii, so that's why he held you captive for over a year."

"And that's why he killed her partner?" Jack deduced with a frown, "As part of an elaborate plan to lure her into his trap?"

"Detective Samuel Norval was simply a pawn in Wo Fat's deadly game," Mary Ann informed him quietly. "Just like mom."

"And how is Jimmy taking that?"

"Not well," Steve told them sharply, crossing his arms over his chest and narrowing his eyes. "Keeping her out of the interview room has not been easy."

"But luckily it is her brothers' problem right now," Mary Ann chuckled, "and it is quite a hilarious family dynamic. They're even more protective than Steve and that girl carries a gun! She could probably kick all of their asses, but they continue to treat her like she's 6 years old. It's amazing and oddly familiar…"

"How is her brother that got shot?"

"Being released right now," Mary Ann stated, standing up and moving toward the door, "And I get the honor of bringing him back to Headquarters."

"Let's hope the pain killers have improved his attitude a little bit…" The Commander quipped, as Mary Ann dropped a kiss on her father's lips.

"I'll be back soon, daddy," she whispered, "It's good to have you back. And, I have to say, you look freakin' fantastic for a man who has been dead for over a year."

Steve shook his head at his sister as he left the hospital room and then quickly settled his long, muscular frame into the chair that Mary Ann had just exited. Jack looked over at him and regarded his son with thoughtful eyes before saying, "She's a remarkable woman."

"Mary?" Steve agreed, taking a moment to relax, "She grew up all right…"

"Yes, she did," Jack warned, shaking his head but silently grateful for this light moment with his son, "but I was actually talking about the other woman in the equation. You know, that redheaded vixen that managed to escape from a madman and then saved my life."

"I helped…"

"Steven, don't change the subject," Jack scolded, only partially in a mocking tone, "We were talking about how remarkable Harper Elizabeth James is."

"Yes, we were," Steve agreed, his features softening at the mention of his ex-wife, "I've never met anyone like her."

"I have," Jack said, softly. "And I married her, too." Taking a deep breath, Jack continued. "I loved your mother..."

"Dad..." Steve stopped him, not wanting to go twenty rounds with him so soon after getting him back to the land of the living.

But Jack had to say it. And Steve had to hear him.

"I loved your mother more than anything in this world," he repeated, daring his son to look away from him or interrupt him again. "From the moment I met her, I knew that I had met my match. I had never been so sure about something in my entire life. She was funny and smart and beautiful...and she didn't put up with any of my crap." Jack chuckled at his memory and then said, "She challenged me, like no one had ever challenged me before. Sound familiar?"

"Don't start." Steve warned, knowing where the conversation was headed, "Harper and I are divorced. She lives in Chicago and I live in Hawaii. And once this thing with Sugimoto is wrapped up, her father and her brothers are taking her back to the Windy City. So don't start looking for any 'happily ever afters' where there aren't any."

The elder McGarrett nodded his head in agreement and said, "Good."

Caught off guard by his father's reply, Steve looked at him in surprise. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means," Jack explained, sitting up and readjusting the pillows that his daughter had already straightened for him, "that getting the two of you out of each other's orbit as soon as humanly possible is a good plan." Looking back up at his son, he said, "You're not ready for that kind of commitment. You weren't the first time around and nothing has really changed. And you're sure as hell not ready for a woman like Harper. You never were."

Steve sat up straighter in his chair, his tone even more indignant than before as he sputtered out, "I'm not ready for a wom...what?"

Jack chuckled and said, "It's okay, Steven. It's not your fault. It's mine." In a more serious tone, he continued, "When your mother died, I lost myself in revenge. And you lost yourself...in work. That's how you deal and it works for you." The former detective looked down at his blankets to avoid seeing the look of shock and surprise that had registered on his son's face. "So, I was shocked when you called and told me that you were getting married. But it didn't last because it wasn't based on love. It was based on lust. And a marriage like that..."

"You don't know anything about my marriage!" Steve interrupted him, the anger rushing to the surface and shooting out of his mouth. "You don't know anything about anything. Jimmy..."

"Harper has been hurt too much in the past to ever let herself fall for someone like you again." Jack said smugly, biting his lip to keep from grinning at how worked up his son was getting at his words. The kid was so transparent. "She lost her mother and her brother and her partner and you walked out on her when she needed you most..."

"You have no one idea what you are talking about," Steve hissed.

"Don't I?" His father challenged him. "You did send her divorce papers from half way across the country…"

"Okay," Steve interrupted, trying very hard not to shout at his newly back from the dead father, "Okay, so maybe I was a lousy husband. But she was a lousy wife…"

"Really?"

"Yes!" Steve finally shouted and then suddenly added, "No!" Getting up from the chair and starting to pace around the room, he began to talk out loud to himself, "I was, on my worst days, a lousy husband. Hell, on my best day I screwed up only a handful of times without trying. And I was always sure I was doing something that she wanted to kick my ass for. But she never did. Instead she gave me that smirk of hers and raised her eyebrow and just laughed at me…at all the things about me that should have driven her crazy. She just laughed."

Stopping to look out the window of his father's hospital room, Steve's voice changed as he added, "But then one day, she stopped laughing. At me, at the world, at anything. And I didn't know how to make her laugh again." Turning back to look at his father, he said softly, "I let her down. And I didn't know how to fix it. So when the opportunity presented itself, I took the coward's way out and I left."

"Are you still in love with her?"

"It's not that simple…"

"Yes, it is." Jack interrupted quietly, "Trust someone who has been there…when it's gone, you realize that love was the only thing that ever mattered. And all of the rest was just crap." Looking up at his son and thinking of his wife, he added, "Don't be one of those people who can't figure out what he has until it's gone."

"She lives in Chicago, dad," Steve said, looking up as the head nurse came into the room with supplies to change Jack's bandages, "and she's not stupid enough to leave twice. Not even for me." Nodding to the nurse, he added quickly, "I'm going to go see how things are playing out down at headquarters. I'll be back later."

As Steve got out of his father's hospital room as fast as he could, Jack shook his head and enjoyed a little chuckle. That couldn't have gone better if he had planned it.

As the nurse came over to the bed to check on Jack's bandages, she looked at Jack and said with a grin, "Kids, huh? What are you going to do?"

Jack shook his head in agreement and said, "Damned if I know. I may have just saved the best thing that has ever happened to him. Or ruined it. At this point, it's anybody's guess."