"When there are no more moments to cherish,
no more experiences to live through and savor,
when all you have left are memories ...
that's when you'll know the true meaning of regret."
-Anonymous -
The days following Danny's death find Steve functioning on auto-pilot. If functioning really is the correct term to describe what he does.
He mechanically moves in the direction gentle hands steer him in, sits down when it is expected of him, numbly answers when asked a question. The food placed in front of him gets eaten, or at least he thinks it does, and he goes to bed at night and gets out again in the morning. What he does in the time lying between those two moments cannot, however, be described as sleeping. He lies still on his back, not moving, eyes staring unblinking at the ceiling. From time to time he simply shuts off, a subconscious act of his body in order to preserve itself.
But he does not sleep.
His mind slips from conscious thought straight into nightmares, skips from questions turning over in his mind while lying awake, to dark and deeply troubling answers which appear when he finally closes his eyes.
The one thing which sits at the forefront of his mind, the one emotion which sometimes even manages to bump his grief from its #1 spot, is regret. Regret that he didn't have more time. Regret that it had taken him so long to even dare confess his feeling towards Danny. Regret that he hadn't moved things along faster so they could've become more, much more than just partners, friends. Even more than the lovers they'd been in the end.
But the biggest regret he has is that he had dared to love at all.
Had dared allow Danny into his heart, had dared to be happy and thereby kill him, because he had tempted Fate itself by forgetting what happened with everything good in his life. Had ignored the fact that, in Steve's life, happiness just wasn't allowed to survive. In Steve's life, only bad things happened to both him and those who surrounded him, those who loved him. There was his mother's death, his first experience with the devastation of having a loved one ripped from his life. He had grieved for years. Then there had been the deaths of several of his SEAL team mates, men he entrusted with his life, men whom he had loved more than he had loved himself. Finally there'd been the horror of his father's death, the one death which had appeared to lead him towards happiness again. Had led him to Danny. And ultimately, Danny's death.
And those last two were completely his fault. He knows it, with a deep certainty that has settled creaking and permanent in his bones. Knows that he could have saved his father, if only he had come up with a solution. Knows that Danny died because he had stormed from the office, furious, raging mad because of something Steve had said. No, in Steve's life, happy things like friends, family, love could never survive. Because of Steve; because of who he was.
In Steve's life, only death took up permanent residence, and every good thing would only last a short moment before it crashed, and burned, and went up in smoke.
Like Danny did.
The day of the funeral arrives, and Steve finds himself desperately wishing he could stop the world, could've stopped the sun from rising that morning; halt the inevitable moment when they will place Danny in the ground and cover him, never to see him again.
They have all gathered at the McGarrett house, the place where Danny and Steve spent the last months living and loving, infusing the old creaking foundations of the place with their laughter. It's the place from where they will depart, bringing Danny with them; and the place they will return to later, without their friend, leaving him behind, alone, in a place where there will be no-one to murmur words of comfort in his ear while he waits for the end of Eternity to arrive.
Steve wants no part of it.
He manages to slip away, unnoticed, and hides himself in the upstairs bathroom, hides in a dark corner and lets his grief wash over him. He is slumped over, shaking and trembling, softly whispering his dead partner's name over and over while tears course down his face.
"Danny, oh God, Danno ..."
Of course his absence is noticed, of course they come looking for him; and eventually there's a fist pounding on the bathroom door. It's Chin's voice, infused with worry, worry for the harm they're all afraid he might inflict on himself.
"Steve, come on Steve! Open the door. Steve!"
Slowly he rises, gets up from the cold floor which has left his butt numb, and scrubs his face angrily with both fists, the gesture reminiscent of that of a small child. He's about to turn and open the door, unlock it before Chin rips it from its hinges, when a soft whisper washes over him like a soft breeze, causing his skin to break out in goose bumps at the familiar voice he so desperately longs to hear again.
"Steve..."
His head whips up, and for one shocked, unbelievable moment he sees him, sees him standing there; sees Danny! There's an etheral quality to him, as if he's hovering between two worlds, as if he doesn't really belong. There's a deep sadness in his face, that beautiful and gorgeous face, and he reaches out a hand as if he's about to touch Steve, who feels frozen in place.
"Danny?"
The next instant the hand does touch his face, and there's a sudden feeling of complete and utter love which suffuses him, wraps around him like his mother's arms used to do; like Danny's arms used to do ... It's not real. He knows it can't be real, no matter how hard he wishes it to be. It's not real, and he clenches his eyes shut in pain at this cruel trick of Fate.
"You're not real!" he breathes out harshly, as if the words are a confirmation of how this vision can only be some crazed result of his heart's desire, and he utters them as if they're a spell with which he can counter this mad illusion. "You're not real ..." he repeats, and as the truth and agony of those words seep through into his consciousness, a sudden rage overpowers him. Rage at the unfairness of it all; rage at the world which seems so lonely without Danny in it; rage at himself for being the cause of all this pain.
The next instant he slams his fist into the tiles of the bathroom wall, and the sensation of his hand and fingers breaking brings back some form of clarity. He watches the blood drip from his hand as he hears the bathroom door being kicked in, and the next moment he is enveloped by two strong arms, the arms of his friend, steadying and holding him close, and he lets himself sink into them.
"Jesus, brah ... what are you doing to yourself?"
Chin gently takes his broken hand, then grabs a towel from the rack, opens the cold water tap and holds the towel under the water.
"Steve, you have to stop punishing yourself."
The towel is gently wrapped around his hand as Steve hunches over, trying to avoid the intent eyes of his friend; trying to avoid the concern and irritation he is sure he will see in them. He leans against the cracked tiles and shudders.
"You know this is not your fault, right? That Danny ... Danny's death was an accident."
Steve freezes at the words. Not his fault? Everything is his fault! This, this horror was all his fault! He starts vehemently shaking his head, neck popping with the ferocity of the gesture.
"No no no! It is. It is my fault! I should've called him, I should've made sure he'd gotten home safe because he was upset, I ..." He lets himself slide down to the floor, covering his head with his arms, trying to hide himself, ashamed of himself. The moisture from the towel drips down and into his shirt, but he doesn't notice.
"We fought, Chin. We fought, and I never got the chance ... I never got to tell him ..." He hiccups, his breath caught in his throat, and he is only barely aware of the fact that Chin slides down the wall to sit next to him, leaning up against him as if he's aware of the fact that Steve feels so cold and is trying to transfer some of his own body heat into him. He takes another shuddering breath, trying to focus on Chin's next words.
"People fight, Steve, people fight all the time." Chin pulls him off the wall and against his chest, and Steve can hear his heart beat, can hear the steady rythm with the ear pressed against Chin's chest and feel it through his skin. When Chin continues, his voice is a gentle rumbling against his ear.
"And he knew, OK brah? Danny knew you loved him. Even if you fought, he knew you loved him."
For one heart stopping moment, the words feel like the absolute truth. As if somehow Danny is standing right there professing his love to him.
But Steve knows it's not real.
They manage to push back the funeral one hour, an hour in which Steve is taken to hospital and his hand is x-rayed, then fitted with a cast. The drugs they give him - and they're good, strong drugs, the prescription initiated by the doctor after he hears both the cause and the reason for the broken hand - cause him to zone out again, and the next moment he finds himself standing at the edge of a grave.
Danny's grave.
He distantly hears people speaking - and there seem to be a lot of them - and vaguely notices Danny's parents standing near him. He thinks people hug him, thinks Danny's mother wraps her arms around him and, despite her own apparent grief, whisper words of consolation to him, but he's not sure.
All he's sure about is that they put his friend, his partner, his mate in the cold ground and are about to cover him with tons of dirt. And that won't do, because Danny needs air and he won't be able to breathe in that hole, in that box, and he needs to get him out of there!
He takes people by surprise as he rushes forward and jumps into the hole in the ground, yelling "Danny, I'm coming!" as he desperately tries ripping the lid off the coffin. Two, then three and four more bodies jump in with him, but instead of helping him they're pulling him out and he's screaming, howling with rage as they try to prevent him from releasing Danny out of his prison.
"No, no! Let me go! I need to help him, he needs to get out!"
As they wrestle him up and out, subdue him onto the ground while he screams and yells and cries, the grief and anguish finally locking his breath within his chest, he only vaguely registers the prick of a needle. Within moments his mind becomes even foggier than it already was, his limbs turning to lead, and he feels wrecked about not being able to help Danny get out of that cold, dark hole.
"I'm sorry! Danno, I'm so, so sorry!" he sobs.
And then there's darkness.