I do NOT own anything, but the plot.
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As always, thank you and I hope you continue to enjoy what's to come!
Nalo a loaʻa
-loosely translate to "lost and found"-
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
"Remember a time when you said you wouldn't eat these without a bypass?"
"Shut up and give me a malasada before I get a nurse in here to sedate you."
"That's just mean," Danny pouted playfully. "I kept all manner of medical personnel away from you with any size needles that weren't necessary."
"And I'd appreciate the fact more with a malasada in both hands."
Tossing the bag at him, Danny allowed Steve to take one of the pastries, and he took his seat. It had been two full days since Steve's admittance, and while he was in pain and exhausted, his appetite was coming back with a vengeance. When he had muttered before sleep what he wanted for breakfast, Danny had shot a text to Chin who had brought a bag fresh from the team's favourite bakery. What surprised Danny the most was Steve wanted something he usually refrained from indulging.
"Whoa, slow down, you animal!" Danny scolded watching Steve devour the food. "Can we actually discuss something else?"
"Sure..." Steve said around a mouthful of Malasada.
Rubbing his hand together, Danny took a deep breath and prepared himself for this.
"Want to tell me what idiotic, bone-headed, dim-witted thought crossed your mind when you decided to charge at a gun wielding lunatic after he had fired said gun?" he asked, barely drawing breath before he continued into his rant. "I have been trying to rack my brain for an answer while you've been happy and high, but I can't work it out."
"I was waiting for this," Steve replied with an eye roll, placing what was left his Malasadas on the table and reaching for a tissue. "Technically didn't take into account the gun part, just saw Franklin and wanted him away from the house."
"Oh, so you were waiting for this?" Danny asked, surprise hitting him hard. "You know what I said about your hero complex? I don't take that back... you need to feed that thing nearly as much as you have to feed yourself."
Steve just grinned at Danny, unmoved by his rant.
"Speaking of feeding yourself, what sort of knucklehead are you that you don't eat or sleep or look after yourself like a fully grown man?" Danny asked, exasperatedly is. "But wait, you aren't a fully grown man, are you? You're a navy SEAL who can do life on empty because good ole Joe taught you how."
"Danny, I-"
Steve stopped himself. How did he tell Danny the reason he didn't eat or sleep or function was because everyone he had in the world was slipping away and he wasn't strong enough to cope?
Clamping his mouth shut, Steve turned his head away from his best friend. Shame flared - not because he was weak but because he had seen the pain his earlier confessions had forced on Danny and he didn't want to see it again.
"Hey Steve... what is it?"
"It's stupid," Steve replied with a head shake.
"Na uh, you don't get to retract into some shell like whatever you have to say isn't important."
"It's not important…"
"You not eating and sleeping isn't important? Because it looks pretty damn important to me!"
"Stop shouting," Steve groaned as his headache stepped up a notch. "You're always shouting at me."
"I shout because I care, you Neanderthal!" Danny retorted, scolding himself for not lowering his tone, but unable to stop himself. "And because you're worse than my four-year-old son! At least, Charlie knows you need three good meals a day to grow big and strong. You, however, just thought it would be okay to forego this."
"What do you want me to say, Danny? I was stupid, I was idiotic. You're right when you say I can't look after myself? Would any of that help?" Steve asked, gulping convulsively. "But the bottom line is simple … Everyone left, Danny," Steve started his eyes dropping. "I came back and everyone left."
"So that warrants you to starve yourself to death or hope that sleep deprivation would claim you first?" Danny asked, his tone raising. "Which were you hoping for first? Your stomach to eat itself from the inside out or your brain to just give out?"
Steve shrugged, feeling like a child being scolded by his parent. He hadn't hoped for either, he just couldn't eat or sleep.
"Babe, you can't have thought this would last forever?"
Again, he shrugged.
"Steve…"
"Y'know, I had a lot of time to think over the last few months and I knew that when I finally came home, I was going to make right all of the wrongs I've done." He glanced Danny's way, trying to remain calm. "I knew I couldn't just jump back in how I did before, but I thought a good sit down with the team would sort things out, a call to Mary would bring her peace, and a call to Cath would bring her home … but the opposite happened."
"Babe, about Mary and Cath…"
"It's fine, Danny. They had a right to react how they did. I've just got to come to terms with that and pray that eventually they'll want closure and allow me to have the same."
Rubbing his head, Steve pushed back into the pillows around him, bringing his good leg up to get as comfortable as he could with the wires and tubes connected to him. He was getting restless, but with his kidney improving slowly, he had no say in the matter, and with his leg in the brace, he was limited in his ability until he had crutches.
"Cath and I … we were reconnecting before this all happened, and I really felt like this was our real shot, and I just wanted to come home and tell her that and make use of the ring I bought." Looking at his best friend, Steve gulped against the lump in his throat. "I was going to do it, Danny. I was going to be romantic and propose and even though I was nervous to come home I just thought that she would ... I don't know."
"Be there?"
Danny question was softly pressed, and he hated the small, unsure head nod Steve gave back on response.
"I thought out of everyone she'd understand the most, but she hated me so much, Danny. God, the things she said and now ..." Running a hand over the back of his head, Steve tried to dampen his heart ache. "I've lost her for good."
"Hey, you don't know that," Danny tried to be gentle with this, having known heartbreak.
"He's not you," Steve echoed Cath's words to Danny. "That's what she said to me. He's not you. And I have kept myself awake at night wondering who he is, what he looks like, if he's treating her right. Fuck, if he loves her almost half as much as I do." Steve slowly let his gaze fall to where his hands rested on his lap. "Guess it doesn't matter, hey?" Steve asked, forcing a smile on his face before looking at the detective. "I think it's time I got rid of the ring, Danno. It can't live in my nightstand forever."
"Steve," Danny started, rubbing his hands together with thought. "I don't believe her. There is no way on this earth that woman would pass up a chance to have you back."
"Well, she did," Steve replied, closing his eyes as he shifted on the bed. "Never thought I'd see the day Catherine Rollins would hate me, not after all we've been through, but it's happened. Guess if I push my luck enough with everyone it was bound to happen."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, don't make that sound like a task, you putz. I've been here for six years, granted not as long as Cath, but it took not even three weeks to get me back, Steve. You had an advantage with me, she's not around for you to see and talk to."
"I don't even know where she is, Danny." Steve sighed, a hand going to nurse his side. "After the way the calls ended with her and Mary, I just couldn't bring myself to call them again."
"So, you didn't?"
"So, I didn't," Steve confirmed, and swallowed convulsively. "Felt like being here was inflicting enough pain at that point that bombarding with phone calls was something I could refrain from doing."
Danny felt the pit in his stomach open up once more. He was a guilty party in this, they all were. Had Steve just been open and honest with them then most of this could've been avoided. However, Danny remembered the way he treated Steve, how pushed out and on the side-lines Steve was and he realised the former SEAL said nothing because he knew the type of pain him being alive was causing. Steve never should've felt guilt-ridden for surviving that day back in April. He'd done everything to come back from catastrophic injuries, to reunite his family and the only member who could stomach to meet his eyes was Lou. For that, Danny wouldn't be so easy on himself.
"You've gone quiet," Steve observed, and his lips twisted in thought before realisation dawned. "I'm sorry, Danny."
While he needed to talk about the shit in his head, he also couldn't deal with the look his admittance brought out on Danny. He couldn't cope with any of it. This was why he never talked about his feelings. He couldn't deal with how people reacted.
"Sorry?" Danny asked, his voice heightened with shock. "Why are you sorry now?"
"I need to get over what happened the last couple of weeks," Steve admitted, sombrely. "It's not helping anyone."
"Don't you dare stop talking," Danny started, worry lacing his features. "It's taken me six long and tedious years to get you to talk about feelings, I'm not letting you retract the right, now."
"It's just easier not to talk about feelings."
The McGarrett upbringing had really done a number on Steve over the years, but his chosen career didn't leave much room for anything but to suffer in silence. Steve saw the damage of that, having seen so many break under that teaching. Hardwired by his father and Joe, Steve only knew to rely on himself because when you were in the middle of hell, no one was going to hold your hand.
"Well, nothing good came from easy, so don't shut up, 'Kay?"
Danny had read Steve's file and what was left in the wake of that explosion was more than just grief. It was littered with broken bones and Steve's broken psyche. With just professional help, Steve had suffered the longest and Danny wasn't about to let Steve suffer another moment alone.
"I let you down, Babe," Danny responded, his normal frown growing more defined. "How are you not mad at me?"
Steve gulped convulsively, truly thinking about what Danny was asking. The bottom line of it was that Steve would've walked through hellfire for one good day in a sea of bad. He had no time for resentment.
"I just wanted my family back," Steve admitted low and slow, unable to stop his eyes from watering. "I'd have done anything to have that back."
Danny reached out, his hand falling onto Steve's wrist. He watched as Steve's gaze flickered from him to the door and his body became rigid and his chest didn't move with a new inhale for a good few seconds.
"Steve?" Danny asked watching the way his best friend's face began to scrunch up.
Pain and desperation meddled as one, forcing Steve to bite against his pain in order to get out of bed.
"Cath," he breathed, his heart seemingly stuttering in his chest. "Catherine!"
"What? Steve?"
"Cath!" Steve bellowed and growled at his mutinous body for making it harder. "Danny, help me up, man, please!"
"Whoa, will you stop, you animal?"
"No, Danny, Cath she was here ... she was right there!" Steve said, reaching back up for the leads attached to his heart monitor. "I need to find her."
Steve may have refrained from calling her, but with Cath in the same building, Steve wouldn't let her leave without him being able to apologise. The movement had caused pain to flare, but Steve grunted against it and carried on with his purpose of freeing himself.
"Steve, I'll go," Danny argued, waiting to feel Steve relax a little. "You're still hooked up to the machines and tubes for a good reason! And your damn leg's in a brace. Stop!"
"What's our boy doing now?" Lou asked upon entering the room and finding Danny wrestling Steve back down. "The great escape took longer to happen than I thought, I won't lie."
"Lou! Cath's here!" Steve growled, trying to fight Danny away. "Danny, let me go!"
"Lou, sit on him or something. I'm going to find Catherine."
"Danny..." Steve grunted, regrettably bucking against Danny, pain flaring in his side.
"No, you're still laid up for a reason, so stop being a child and let Danno handle this, okay?" Danny asked, hoping his softened expression would make Steve relax a little. "I'll go find your girl for you and I'll make sure she doesn't leave without seeing you at the very least." Danny was beginning to feel his patience thin. "It's this or I'll let that lovely nurse sedate you."
"Fine," Steve huffed letting all of his muscles relax. "Fine, Danno, but you better not let her leave!"
"You seem to have forgotten you're the bad cop in our routine," Danny pointed out, cocking a brow. "Everyone loves me."
"Not everyone," Steve countered.
Lou laughed. "You're not scoring brownie points with him, Man."
"Fine!" Steve all but roared before his stomach seized.
"Calm the hell down, Steve, I'm going!" Danny shouted back. "Lou, you good here?"
"More than able to handle a hostile offender," Lou confirmed.
Danny nodded in approval. "Good, don't be afraid to shoot him … he survives bullets."
"Danny!"
"Already gone, Babe!"
And Danny was.
He sprinted for the door, going in the direction he saw Cath go and he was amazed she hadn't made it far. She was rounding the nurses' station, her motions frantic, and Danny took it as a positive that she hadn't done a Steve manoeuvre and just vanished.
"Catherine!" he called, making her stop on the other side of the desk. "Please, Catherine … you can't leave."
She may have stopped, but the look on Catherine's face as she turned was not one that filled him with optimism. Her face was drawn with bags under her eyes. She looked just as miserable as Steve did.
"Shit, Cath," Danny managed, seeing the brunette before him. "I honestly thought he was seeing things."
"Hey, Danny," Cath said, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.
"What are you even doing here?" he asked, softly. "I didn't even know you were on the island still."
"I shouldn't have even come, Danny," she stated, turning on the spot. "But Grace called …"
God bless that child, Danny mentally praised, but also reminded him to scold her for intervening with a matter like this. The effects of this on Steve could be totally catastrophic.
Danny watched the brunette, and he couldn't help but smile. Her being here had to mean she still cared, and if she still cared there was a chance, he could help Steve mend this bridge.
"She said he was really hurt, and I couldn't stay away. I had to see for myself, especially after last time," she began to ramble.
"Hey, hey, it's fine," he said, moving towards her.
But he stopped in his tracks, his eyes going wide.
For a second or two, Danny's brain failed to allow him to form words. Instead, his eyes remained where they were and when he finally came crashing down to earth, he couldn't stop himself from seeing the absolute tsunami heading their way.
"He's not you," Danny murmured, an echo of Steve's words, eyes stuck on her bulging belly. "It's a boy?!"