Sam & Cokie: Unfortunately, this chapter is the last one we have ready for posting and will be the last update until we can wrap our heads around the recent developments in the show. We assure you we are both still committed to finishing this story. But at the moment neither of us is in the right set of mind to edit the chapters to get them ready to be posted.
After the announcement that Catherine was leaving, we need to reevaluate how we can/will write in the future and we will keep you informed on our profiles. Hopefully our next chapter will be ready for posting by Monday, April 14 but we will keep you updated if that date changes.
We both greatly appreciate your support so far and hope you will understand and respect our time-out.
Cokie: While I have felt for a few weeks that the show was headed in this direction, I firmly hoped I was wrong. Now that it is a realization, I need to wrap my head around it before I can continue writing in my "universe". I told Sam today that Catherine was in the very first story I wrote. She wasn't included in every story, but her presence was always in the background and it will be difficult to write for Steve, knowing that she isn't there. I hope that good will come from this change in the show and that I can once again be proud of "my" show, but right now I feel a lot of sadness and uncertainty. While I know this is a TV show and only fiction, it is my relaxation and enjoyment. I already miss Catherine and Steve's relationship.
Sam: I really need time to think about how to write for Five-0 again. All my stories revolve around Cath and Steve in some way. She was always there for him, and she was an integral part of the show, and for sure to my stories. I just don't see how I can write a story set in the current time without Catherine in it.
What makes me really sad is the fact that I have stories in the can that most likely now will never see the light of day. But I will decide on that at the end of the season. They had been planned for the hiatus anyway.
Some of you might not understand our problem, but Steve and Cath were a huge motivation to write for Five-0, with them gone, that motivation is gone.
I love to write, and I know Cokie does too, but it takes a lot of time and energy to do so. A lot more than most non-writing-readers will ever know. To spend that time on writing, well, it needs to be something we truly enjoy and completely stand behind. And right now that is just not possible.
But we are working on something to get back in the swing of things.
Stairway to heaven - Chapter 5
Steve's first conscious thought was that he was cold. Which confused him since it felt like he was wrapped tightly in a cocoon. He tried to take stock of where he was, but drew a blank, although one of the few things Steve did know was that this wasn't his bed. His body ached from head to toe, with emphasis on his head. Knowing he could learn more by opening his eyes, Steve gave that option considerable thought before deciding against it. That would hurt way more than he was ready to accept, so he hoped to remain still and maybe figure it out on his own.
Unfortunately his body had other ideas and he shivered. The movement caused the pain to crescendo and in the distance, Steve thought he heard someone groan.
"Steve? Hey, are you awake?"
Maybe that groan wasn't so far away. There was movement on his left and he heard Catherine's voice whispering to him.
"Hmm?" He felt her hand touch his forehead and then she pushed the covers back to his chest. He then felt movement on his other side.
"Danny, he's burning up."
"Hey, Buddy, you with us?" Danny's voice asked.
It took Steve a few moments to realize Danny was speaking to him. "Uh… yeah. Where?"
He felt their hands on him, poking, checking, but he just couldn't muster up enough concern to even question why or care that they were invading his personal space.
"I can feel heat in his side and there's some seepage in the bandage," Catherine said quietly.
"It's almost daylight," Danny said. "Chopper should be able to take off soon after."
Chopper? He knew it was time to open his eyes.
Steve slowly blinked and saw dark shadows dancing above his head. When he stared at them, they finally coalesced into some sort of pine needles and he deduced they were under a tree. The why was still a mystery.
"Hey, Sailor, you are awake," Catherine said. "Everything's fine," she assured him, her fingers gently touching his cheek.
He turned his head slightly in her direction, pleased to discover that it didn't roll right off his shoulders.
Roll. He distinctly remembered rolling. "Mountain," he said and tried raising his head. OK, maybe that wasn't the smartest move, he decided and quickly eased it back down.
"Easy, Steve," Danny said, now kneeling beside him on the right. "No sudden moves."
"Yeah, got it," he said, willing the sudden nausea to leave.
"Do you know who we are?" Danny asked.
"Danny, I'm not brain damaged. Of course I know who you are," Steve shot back, his remark eliciting a grin from his partner.
"Had to ask," Danny said. "Seeing as how you called me 'Cale' most of the night."
Steve opened his eyes wide and stared at his friend. "Did not… did I?"
"You did," Danny confirmed. "And Kami. Friends of yours?"
"Yeah, uh, long time ago."
"And when we are out of here, it is a story waiting to be told," Danny assured him.
"Do you remember what happened?" Cath asked.
Steve closed his eyes and collected his thoughts. "There's a body down here. I was coming down to see if he was alive but… there was someone under the steps. Took me out."
"I'm gonna guess he kicked you in the shoulder," Danny said. "You've got a heel print shaped bruise right there," he told him and gently touched his left shoulder.
"Help me up," Steve said, grasping Danny's arm.
"Oh, not just yet," his partner disagreed. "You just stay put. How's your head?"
"Hurts," Steve admitted. "Along with every other body part, but I need to move."
"Let's wait until help is here," Cath said. "We couldn't really check you out for broken bones."
Steve again took stock of his body. "Nothing feels broken," he decided. "Although my foot and my side both hurt worse than everything else. Well, except for my head."
Danny checked Steve's foot once again. "It's pretty swollen but we left it in your boot for the night. And you've got a nasty cut on your side that needs stitches."
Catherine added, "You're also running a fever, probably from onset of infection."
"I understand that, but I still need to get up," he argued. "Danny, help me." He grabbed hold of Danny's shoulder and pulled himself into a sitting position, biting his lip to keep from again groaning out loud.
Catherine quickly kneeled behind him so that he could lean against her body. "Steve, please just wait."
He tried to control his ragged breathing and finally said, "I'm good," lying through his teeth while the dizziness nearly took him out.
"Just sit there for a minute," Danny warned. "You're not getting up yet. A chopper will be here after daylight and Chin will be back with CSU to process the area and the body you found."
"We gotta move out from the tree cover for a chopper to get to us," Steve told them. "Besides, I can make it back up to the stairs."
Danny couldn't hold in the bark of laughter. "Do you remember the fall down?" he asked. "Wasn't once enough for you?"
"I'll be fine, just help me to my feet." He managed to get his left leg beneath him and got up on one knee, knowing he would need help to keep from face planting. "Come on," he ordered, his hand firmly fisted into Danny's shirt.
Catherine sighed and grabbed him beneath his arms. "OK, you big lug, let's get you up."
"Cath?" Danny asked.
"Danny, he's gonna do it with or without us, so let's at least get him upright. If he falls flat, maybe it will be a learning lesson."
"I sincerely doubt that," Danny grumbled, but the three of them managed to get Steve upright, although once he was standing, the tree was the only thing holding him in that position. His right arm was wrapped around the tree while his left held onto his side, willing the pain to ease. Steve's eyes were tightly closed and he was breathing swiftly through his mouth in an attempt to tamp down the nausea the movement had also brought.
She motioned for Danny to leave his friend alone to work through the pain. They bent down to gather up the items they had used last night, stowing them back into the backpacks.
Steve accepted the pain; then catalogued it and filed it in the back of his mind, intent on pushing through. He had gotten through much, much worse. Slowly he blinked again, staring in the distance and concentrating on not letting the dizziness overcome him. It took a couple of minutes before he took a deep breath and focused. "I'm good," he finally told them.
"Famous last words," Danny mumbled while rolling up the sleeping bags. "Crazy ass SEAL."
Catherine grabbed the backpacks and hoisted them onto both shoulders and moved to stand in front of Steve. "You," she said, poking him lightly in the chest, "do not move from this spot. Understood? We set up lines to bring down the packs last night and I'm dropping these off to be pulled back up. Once we get the gear over there, we'll decide how we're doing this."
"Cath, I can—"
"Sorry, Commander, you've been vetoed." In a quieter voice, she added, "Come on, Steve, please don't do anything stupid."
He knew she was right… and was acting in his best interests… so he sighed and agreed to stand down.
Still hugging a tree.
It didn't take but a few minutes for Danny and Catherine to have the site cleared and their supplies attached to a rope, ready to be hoisted up. Then they came back and stood in front of Steve. He had heard them talking between themselves and he knew he wasn't going to like what they were ready to propose… and he hadn't even heard the options yet!
"OK," Danny began. "Here's the deal. See that plateau up there? That's our goal."
Steve turned and looked just above their location where Danny was pointing. "Come on, Danno, we can go farther than that."
"Steve, you're injured," Cath reminded him. "And I can tell by the look on your face that you have a headache from Hades, most likely with a concussion. But because you are adamant about walking, we'll give it a try. Just realize there is no reason to push yourself. We can wait for help to arrive."
"I can walk, Cath," Steve said, and immediately flashed back to his last trip up this mountain.
Automatically his hand moved to his left shoulder when he remembered the old, phantom pain from that trip.
"Is your shoulder hurting?" Danny asked.
"Huh?" He quickly dropped his hand. "Yeah, a little, but it's OK. Just a bruise." He pushed away from the tree. "Let's go."
"Hold on there!" Danny said. "At least lean on me. And we're gonna take it slow, you got it?"
"Yeah, yeah, come on."
"Chin to Danny."
Catherine had the walkie talkie clipped to her jeans and grabbed it, answering, "Go ahead, Chin."
"How are things?"
"Not too bad," she told him. "Steve wants to walk back up, so what's new?"
"Is that wise?"
"Well, probably not."
"Tell him I can hear 'im," Steve complained, having stopped walking after three painful steps.
"Steve said he can hear you."
"Good. Kono and I are about five minutes away and the chopper just took off from Sand Island. It should be there in a few, so why doesn't he just wait for it?"
"Good question," she replied, "but we do need to move away from the tree line to have room for the chopper to maneuver."
"Got it. Be there soon."
Steve had injured the top of his foot, but he realized that his ankle was stable and had managed to walk without a lot of pain on the relatively flat ground where they had spent the night. Unfortunately, the first step walking upwards caught him off guard. Pain traveled from his toes all the way through his hip and all points in between. His head ached with the same intensity and he concentrated on simply not being sick. Which took a lot of effort. Cold sweat trickled down his temple and also between his shoulder blades while he tried to simply focus on moving.
"Steve, let's stop," Cath asked from her position on his left, walking slightly behind them. "Please."
"A little bit more," he said through gritted teeth. Danny was calculating the steps and watching for unsafe spots, but when he and Steve both stepped onto a small sized boulder that appeared stable, it shifted, twisting Steve's already injured foot.
"Ahh!" Steve cried out from the piercing pain shooting up his leg. As he lost his balance, he realized they were going to hit the ground hard, and he knew there was nothing that would prevent it. Danny tried to catch them both, but Steve's weight pulled him down and the unstable boulder did the rest.
Steve tried to overcompensate and not crush Danny. Catherine tried to hang on to him, but she also knew they were going down, regardless of their best efforts.
In the combined drop, Steve landed hard on his left side, opening the wound in his side opening on impact. He lay half on Danny and Catherine, but his left side took the brunt force when they crashed to the ground. All three of them slid a little way down the slope before managing to stop themselves.
"Steve!" Catherine scooted up to his side while Danny slid out from beneath him. They both now had scrape marks of their own to add to Steve's.
"Hey, can you hear me?" she tried again. "Steve, come on."
He was lying on his left side and his eyes were squeezed shut while he tried to get a breath. Pain was everywhere and the dizziness he had locked away earlier in the morning had come back with a vengeance and threatened to take him out with it. He opened his mouth to answer Cath but quickly realized talking wasn't going to happen. He suddenly was wide eyed with panic when bile quickly erupted up his esophagus; a sound somewhere between a gag and a groan came out. He finally threw up the meager contents of his stomach from the day before and then lay there, spent from the effort. In the background he could hear Catherine's soothing voice but the words were disjointed. Suddenly he understood what she was saying when he felt himself being rolled onto his back. The movement also caused his new-found pain begin to drive him insane. His left shoulder and arm were both on fire and he could no longer keep in a cry of pain.
Catherine continued speaking to him but he now picked up panic in her voice. "It's OK, just lie still, Steve." She held his arm close to his side and he heard her talking to Danny, her voice stuttering and quiet. "Get more gauze and just cover it to keep it clean. That chopper's gotta be here soon."
"What-?" Steve tried to ask what was wrong but couldn't get his tongue to work properly to form the words through the haze of pain.
"It's OK, Steve. Just relax. Danny, are you all right?" she asked, watching Danny layer gauze.
"Yeah, I'm good," he replied. "You?"
"Bumps and bruises." She handed the radio to Danny. "Why don't you see if Chin and Kono are here yet. Maybe get the chopper's ETA." They both looked up upon hearing the whap of blades. "Never mind," she whispered. "Thank goodness."
"Chin, what's your location?" Danny asked. "Chopper's here."
"We're here and are in touch with the pilot. Stand by."
Catherine knelt at Steve's head and wiped the sweat from his face, realizing that his temperature was still high. She knew he needed medical attention very quickly. "Steve?"
"Huh?" He opened his eyes and stared blankly at her, confusion written in his features. "Wha' happened?"
"Your collarbone was broken. When we fell, a sliver of it broke through the skin."
Steve blinked sweat from his eyes. "Huh? Not again."
"Again? This has happened before?"
Steve looked at the sky. "Chopper's coming?"
"Yeah, don't worry, they'll get you to the hospital soon."
He sighed and closed his eyes. "My dad's gonna kill me…"
She watched as his eyes rolled back and his head dropped to the side.
- - - H50 - - -
John McGarrett had called dispatch and was told his request would be handled by the Coast Guard who would send a helicopter. Since three twelve-year-olds were missing he was confident that the SAR would already be on the way. The Coast Guard didn't fool around, and for sure not when kids were involved.
He had just reached the stairs when he heard back from dispatch and was informed that SAR did a sweep but they hadn't seen anything from above. They would be on standby and waiting for the kids to be found. Dispatch had informed the Army Base and they had sent a helo with a group to the top to start the search from that end.
John looked up the ladder to the stairs and shook his head at what the boys had obviously pulled.
"John!"
McGarrett turned when he heard his friend's voice. "Ben, thanks for coming," he greeted Ben Keoki. "Troy, thank you for helping."
Troy Ookala was off duty, but when he had heard John's boy was missing he came to help out.
"Of course, John. Are you sure that the boys are up there?" Troy asked and pointed up the stairs.
"Yeah. Duke called and said they have Dorian, the boy who Marty told me about, in custody. He has already confessed to pushing Steve off the stairs, but he swears it was an accident," John explained while he checked his backpack before heading up the stairs.
"Accident or not, if Steve fell down the mountain we need to find him. He might be seriously injured," Ben added.
"Yes, you're right. Let's go," John said and motioned for them to follow him.
"How is Doris taking this?" Ben asked as he climbed after his friend.
"I haven't told her yet," John called back. He had no idea really what to tell his wife. As long as he didn't have any information he wouldn't tell her. "I'll call her when we know more."
"She won't be happy at being kept in the dark."
"Yeah, well, she'll just have to deal with it. What am I supposed to tell her?" John asked. "I don't even know if Steve is…"
"He will be fine, John." Ben assured his friend.
"I hope so," John said under his breath.
- - - H50 - - -
"Argh!" Steve couldn't help but cry out when he stumbled and fell down. His ankle had given way and he hadn't been able to stay on his feet. On the way down he knew he would hit the dirt hard with his shoulder, but there was nothing he could do to prevent it. He had to hold on to the rope with his good right hand, so he couldn't even brace himself when he impacted the ground.
The pain that shot through his shoulder and arm took his breath away. Tears were streaming down his cheeks instantly, and he couldn't keep in the sobs. He had heard a snapping sound when his shoulder hit the ground and he knew from the sharp, incredible pain that if it hadn't been broken before something was definitely fractured now.
The pain was so bad that he could barely breathe. Steve tried to turn onto his back, off of his injured side, but even the slightest movement was nauseating. His vision tunneled and before he realized it he blacked out.
When he came to he lay on his back and he could make out his two friends hovering over him. Steve could see that they were in a panic, but he couldn't hear them. What he could hear was the blood rushing in his veins; he could hear his heartbeat that was way too fast; and he could hear his harsh breathing. And he could feel something wet and warm on his chest, and the piecing pain near his shoulder.
Steve looked wide eyed at his two friends who looked like ghosts. He wondered why they were both white as sheets; and Cale looked like he would pass out any second.
"Steve?" He suddenly heard Kami's shaky voice.
"Hmmm."
"Steve?"
"I wanna go home," Steve whispered and didn't care that he was still crying. His shoulder hurt so badly; he was sure he would go crazy from the pain.
He felt sick again and knew he had to turn if he threw up. Steve took another look at his friends and could see that they looked really scared. "What?" He finally asked.
Cale didn't say anything but pointed at his shoulder and Steve finally looked down at the spot that hurt so much. What he saw made him go as white as his friends were. There was a piece of white bone sticking through his torn tee shirt between his shoulder and neck. "Oh," was all he said before he passed out again.
- - - H50 - - -