"Lost opportunities cause erosion of confidence,
and the downward spiral begins."

- Charles Stanley -

Steve knows he's losing it. Losing his grasp on life, his hold on sanity. And his team mates are losing their former rock-solid confidence in his abilities as their leader. He's letting them down, taking more and more chances that leave them in danger, as he careens into situations without first evaluating them.

The worst thing is: he's also lost his ability to care about any of it.

One incident nearly gets Kono killed.

They agreed on pairing off, Steve and Kono taking the rear entrance to an abondened warehouse where a suspected arms deal is going down. Just as Kono manages to jimmy the lock and slither through the now open door, a movement off to Steve's right draws his attention. Without thinking twice he runs in the direction of a disappearing figure, tracking him up a rusty fire escape onto the roof. It takes a short but vicious fight to bring the suspect down, and he's dragging him back down the stairs - unheeding of the fact the man's head connects with every step on the way down - when several volleys of gunfire sound from within the warehouse.

After a short moment of silence, someone starts screaming.

Rushing inside he finds Chin next to a badly bleeding and unconscious Kono, hoarsely yelling for an ambulance while trying to stem the blood which flows in an ever widening pool underneath her body. Steve just stands there, numb, watching as a frantic Chin tries to keep his cousin from dying on the spot. When, minutes later, Kono is loaded into an ambulance and Chin hops in with her, Steve doesn't go along. Instead he gets into his truck and drives back to HQ.

Hours later he's still staring at the empty computer screen on his desk when Chin, covered in what can only be Kono's blood, comes rushing into his office and yanks him out of his chair by the straps of the body armor he's still wearing.

"You son of a bitch! She counted on you to back her up! What is wrong with you, McGarrett?!"

He doesn't know how to respond. Doesn't even know whether or not Kono is alright, and initially he feels a rush of conflicting emotions wash over him. He's trying to sort through them, trying to come up with the appropriate response, when he realizes that he actually doesn't care; doesn't care about Chin's anger or Kono's injuries. And he doesn't care about being called out by Chin. He just feels ... tired.

"Take it up with the Governor, Chin. I'm just doing my job."

He watches detachedly as Chin just stares at him, then feels himself being pushed back into his chair. Chin bares his teeth in an almost feral gesture, but even that doesn't really phase him. He knows his team mates have lost their faith in him, and he knows that's all on him. But he simply can't find it within himself to care about any of it.

"I will do just that, McGarrett. I am going to take it up with the Governor." Chin backs away, shaking his head in disgust. "Because whatever you think you're doing, brah, it's definitely not your job!"

For a moment he feels something akin to sadness wash over him, feels the sharp pain as yet another tie - this one binding him to his 'ohana, his family - is severed. It adds to the grief which has already filled him to the point of overflowing.

But in the end, even that doesn't matter anymore.

The next months become steadily worse. Even though he manages to prevent another incident like Kono's shooting from occuring, he still rushes headlong into danger. It's as if he subconsciously tries to place himself into the most dangerous situations, as if he's looking for a way out; an escape from his hell on earth.

So he's not surprised when one day he is summoned by the Governor.

He catches a glimpse of Chin and Kono on the way over, and he instinctively knows the pair has been talking about him, has been discussing the way he has changed. He doesn't blame them; he knows he's no longer the same man who once bound them all together, who instilled them with confidence and strength.

Just before entering the Governor's office, he checks himself in the full-length mirror on the wall next to a visitor's bathroom. His shirt is rumpled and stained, and he frowns, realizing he no longer keeps a stack of clean shirts at HQ; no longer invests what little energy he has in maintaining his former crisp appearance. His cheeck bones sharply overhang his now hollow face, and there's several days worth of scruff on his jaws. He absentmidedly hikes up his pants, the new hole he recently put in his belt already failing to do its job. Just like he's failing to do his job.

He looks like shit. He feels like shit.

Most days acts like it, too.

Sighing, he turns and walks towards the door behind which he knows awaits the end of what little is left of his career at Five-Oh, and knocks.

"Come in."

The frowning face which greets him as he walks in causes a quick shudder to run over his now thin frame, as if the imminent and definite ending of yet another part of his life has suddenly awoken the emotions he has been suppressing for so long now. As if he wants to stop this downwards slide, wants to jam his foot on the break and prevent the ultimate crash from happening.

But he really doesn't ...

A voice drags him back, and he listens as the Governor reads out a long list of incidents from a document he holds in his hands; stands at attention with a blank face as he hears nail after nail being hammered down into the coffin of his career.

"Damnit, Steve! Don't you even care?!"

The sudden personal tone of the Governor's voice causes him to raise his eyes, frown at what seems to be a concerned look on the face of the man on the other side of the desk. He carefully turns the question over in his mind. Does he care? Does it matter that, after years of constructing and then honing that incredibly efficient tool which is Five-Oh, after spending all that energy into cementing bonds of trust and confidence, after creating their 'ohana, he is willing to let it all slip away? Does he care?

"No, Governor. I don't care. Not anymore."

He hears the shocked intake of breath, sees the quick flash of what seems like pain ripple across the Governor's face, watches as the man clamps down on it and schools his countenance into an emotionless surface, knowing that he steels himself for what inevitably comes next.

"Then you leave me no other option, Luitenant-Commander. I hereby relieve you of your function of Head of Five-Oh, effect of immediately. Please leave your gun and badge."

He nods, unclips his weapon from its holster and places it on the desk, puts his badge next to it, and then steps back from the desk. The Governor's next words sound pained, almost wistful, filled with regret at what he has been forced to do.

"This could have, should have gone differently, Steve."

He gives him a long look, staring into the other man's eyes before he shakes his head.

"No Sam. It couldn't."

He turns and leaves.

What follows isn't clear to him.

He spends each day in a haze, spending less and less time on putting sustenance in his body, less and less time on his personal upkeep.

And more time on drinking.

There's hardly any food left in the house, which now has empty bottles strewn over every surface, left on almost every bit of furniture. His feet crunch the glass from the bottles he has thrown against the wall during the few bouts of rage that course through him, but he doesn't even heed those anymore; doesn't seem to notice the streaks of blood on the carpet his cut feet have left.

One day, when he's driven out of the house on yet another booze run, he catches a familiar figure across the street.

Gracie !

For one heart beat, one breathless moment his steps falter, causing the bottles in the brown paper bag he's carrying to clank together. He watches from beneath his lashes as Grace - who has stopped, a shocked look on her face, her mouth turned down and eyes glistening with what seem to be unshed tears - answers a question by one of the girls accompanying her. A momentary lull in traffic allows him to catch her answer, drifting from across the street.

"Yeah, that's my un... that's Steve McGarrett."

The quick correction with which she veers away from cataloguing him as somebody close - as family - causes a quick stab of pain. But then, pain isn't a stranger to him anymore, being one of the few emotions he has left. Pain is something he has become so intimately familair with, he almost considers it to have become his partner, his friend as it were.

He shuffles towards his car, his painful feet forcing him into the gait of a much older man, then gets in and drives off. He catches Grace in his rearview mirror shaking her head, as if she's clearing it, then watching him as he drives off.

Drives away from yet another piece of his past.