Chapter 15

While Steve was crying and at the same time trying to pull himself together, Dr. Anderson put a pack of handkerchiefs and a bottle of water in front of him.

When Steve was done, the psychologist "forced" him to drink the whole bottle – sip by sip. After that and another fifteen minutes of relaxation exercises the SEAL felt a better and agreed to continue the session.

"Did detective Williams blame you for any of this?"
"No! He'd never do that!"
"Then why do you feel so guilty for this?"
"Because he had nothing to do with this. It was my family who brought this upon him. I brought that upon him."
"Why do you think that?"
"Because it is the truth. It was my mother who started this. I should have investigated, find out what that woman was up to. I could have prevented all this if I had done my work. Instead, I drowned in self-pity, letting things slide and even tried to get a cypher decrypted I didn't even have an interest in. If I had been with Danny, I could have prevented this from happening - saved him from the fear, the pain...the nightmares."
When Steve had told Dr. Andrews what had happened, he had sounded sad, full of regrets and had been stammering almost choking on his words. Now everything came out in one flow, spoken with anger, frustration and hate – against himself and his actions or better his "non-actions".
"Can you predict the future?"
"What kind of question is that?" Steve asked annoyed.
"Because you just said you could have prevented all this. Question is, how could you have seen this coming? Does every criminal go after your friends?"
"Daiju Mei wasn't "every criminal". She was Wo Fat's wife. A guy who had tortured me – twice – to get answers about what had happened to his family. I had to kill him to save me. If I had looked into her history, I would have found out what she had been up to. Then we had all be on high alert. But I didn't. And Danny? He…he had to pay for it. He almost died. And I will never ever forgive me for that."
"Don't you think you ask too much from yourself?"
"No. I am the team leader and it is my damn job to protect the members. And I failed – miserably."
"What does your team think about that? Do they think like Danny or like you?"
"Like Danny." It was barely understandable in sound and in pronunciation.
"And what does that tell you?"
"That they don't see the whole picture. They only see that Danny got caught off guard, but they don't see that he would have been on if I had investigated properly."
"So, they are just facile and only see what they want to or are they just acting nice because they are afraid to tell you the truth?"
"They tell me when I become obsessed with something or get on the wrong track, believe me and they are great investigators."
"And do you listen to them when they tell you that?"
"…sometimes", came the reluctant answer.
"You've told me you trust them."
"With my life."
"And you trust Danny."
"Unconditionally."
"Yet you take the blame although the people you trust the most are telling you it is not your fault."
"Yes."
"Can you explain that to me?"
"As I said before, I am responsible for my team, for their actions and for their safety. If one of them gets hurt, I failed."
"If it had been you – getting kidnapped and tortured - would you have blamed your team?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because they are not responsible for me."
"And Danny? He is your partner. Isn't he supposed to have your back?"
"Yes, and he does – always."
"Okay. Again: If it had been you. Would you have blamed Danny?"
"It had happened and no, I don't blame him for that."
"You got kidnapped and tortured while you were already working 5-0. Do I understand that right?"
"Yes."
"Tell me about it."
"There is nothing much to tell: I had been on my way to work. They forced my car off the road, they grabbed me after shooting and drugging me. And before you ask: There was nothing Danny or my team or anyone else could have done. It had happened totally out of the blue. We hadn't even known the guy was on the island."
"And that had been the husband of…Daiju Mei?"
"Yes."
"What did he want?"
"Information."
"About?"
"My mother and an incident that had happened earlier – regarding his parents."
"Your mother? Were they connected?"
"Yes, but it is classified."
"But she had been involved in all of this – had even started the whole "revenge-story"?"
"Yes," Steve got nervous and fidgeted on his chair. He didn't want to talk about his mother and the direction this conversation was going wasn't to his liking.
"Ever thought of blaming her instead of yourself?" Dr. Andrews knew he was on thin ice, going through at least two major traumatic experiences of his patient on the first day, but he wanted him to "lose control", wanted him to get angry and let his frustration out on the doctor himself. He could take it. The SEAL wasn't his first patient with a major guilt issue. But he was surprised nonetheless when Steve suddenly exploded, banging his fist on the table and yelling "Of course I blame her! I do it every day, because she could have prevented all of this! And a lot of other bad things that had happened in my life as well. But that didn't give me the right to interfere with her job! To get her killed! She was my mother! My mother!" He sat down again and said in a low voice "Why hadn't she come home? Why?"

Dr. Andrews forced Steve to do some relaxation exercises before he was allowed to go. It had the desired effect and calmed the head of Five-0 down significantly – took take the anger away for the time being.
But it returned on the way back to his room. He slammed the door shut, punched and kicked the closet a few times and after realizing that didn't help either, he went into the bathroom, slammed that door shut as well and screamed. He couldn't get rid of his anger and mental pain though. That's why he started to hit the wall. Both his fist slammed into it - again and again, until the skin on his knuckles split open and the blood ran over his hand and fingers. He added a few more punches until both hands and wrists hurt so much that he could just think of that. There was blood on the wall and even a few drops on the floor. Steve was breathing heavily while going to the sink. He tried to wash away the blood on his hands, but every time he thought he was done fresh blood came out of the wounds. Suddenly, feeling the energy draining, he went to the corner of the room and slid down the wall. He let his head drop, crossed his arms in front of his torso, pulled his knees up to his chest and closed his eyes. He looked as lost and lonely as he had done in his "white cell" Wo Fat had held him in the last time.
He almost fell asleep when he heard someone call his name.
"Steve? You in here?"
'Damn. Danny. He can't see me like this,' Steve thought and tried to get up, but the little shock about his friends' appearance had made him forget about his hands. He put them on the floor to support himself while standing up and hissed in pain when he put weight on it.
"Steve? You in the bathroom?" A knock on the door followed the question.
"Yeah, yeah. I am here. Just give me a minute," Steve answered kind of hectically, afraid that Danny might come in. He took one of the towels and wetted it, carefully blotting his hands, trying to get rid of the blood. It worked better than before, but it still looked red and raw and some swelling had set in as well. There was no way he could hide that from anyone – let alone Danny. He tried to put his hands in his pants pockets, but just getting them in there hurt like hell.
'How am I supposed to get them out again?' he thought to himself.
"Hey, you good?" – Danny again.
"Yeah."
Steve opened the door and put his hands on his back – like he had a backache, so Danny couldn't see his hands right away. Of course, Steve knew that it was just a matter of time before that would happen.
"What the hell happened?" Danny asked wide eyed.
"What?" Steve was confused by his friends' reaction, but then he followed Danny's look. During his last-ditch attempt to get his hand cleaned up, Steve had totally forgotten that they had touched his shirt while sitting on the floor earlier. The shirt was smeared with blood on its lower part.
'Damn. How could I have missed this. I just stood in front of the mirror,' he thought
"Steve! You are just staling! I find out anyway!"
"I hit something," Steve admitted.
"What did you hit?"
"The closet," Steve pointed to it.
"Show me!" Danny demanded.
"What?" The question was dumb and made the situation even more awkward than it already was.
"Do you think I am stupid, Steven?" The question was asked tartly.
"No, I don't. You are one of the smartest men I know," Steve answered honestly.
"Good. And I know you are not stupid either. And that means you know exactly what I meant." Danny stared at his friend.
Steve blushed and put his hands in the air, palms pointing to himself.
Danny's eyed widened again.
"God Steve. What have you done? No way this is coming from hitting a closet. We need to get that looked at."
"No!" came the fast answer.
"No? You can bet that someone is going to have a look at that! You can't hide that! Especially with your earlier injury. And you can't let that get infected!" The voice Danny had spoken the words in had made it clear that this was not debatable and what he said goes. Then he continued a little softer "and then you can tell me what had happened and why you did that."
The doctor ordered x-rays for both hands – just to be sure, but thankfully, nothing was broken, just badly sprained and bruised and the wounds on both hands would heal in a few days. Steve needed to come down to the care workers office every morning to get them checked over and rebandaged.

"I was angry," Steve said to Danny after they were alone again.
"About what?"
"A…lot of things, but mostly about me…and my mother."
"Why?"
"Because of all the things she did…and the ones she didn't and for letting me still loving her."
"I understand about your mother. But that is no reason in being angry at yourself. She is your mother, Steve. You can't change that. And hurting yourself is the last thing you should take into consideration." Danny's tone was soft and he hoped reassuring and piercing, but he was angry at Doris too – for what she had done to her children, but especially to Steve. Even after she had resurfaced, she had told him nothing but lies, had secrets and had brought nothing but trouble. And even after her death Steve had to deal with the repercussions. He had always asked himself how a parent could "approve" of getting one of their children tortured without moving a muscle of changing that. To Steve it had happened twice – because of her actions. Sure, she had helped to get Steve out of Afghanistan, but that was just a small action in comparison to what else she had done. Now he was even eating himself up because he felt guilty for her death.
'Whatever I would have done in the past, I would never have put any of my children through that. I would confess to everything to safe them.' Danny thought angrily.

"I didn't want to." Steve voice brought Danny back to reality. "I…I just needed to vent – to hit something. The closet didn't work. When…when I realized what I had done…" he held up his hands.
"If you need "to vent" again, please call me next time – anytime. Yell at me, call me names, say whatever you want to, but don't do something like that again."
"I am sorry Danny." Steve said crestfallen.
"I don't want you to apologize. I want you to do it differently next time."
"I'll try. But I am still sorry – for being so much trouble for you."