Well holy shit, that took so much longer than I ever thought possible.

I started working full time again and oooh boy, full time really meant literally all of my waking hours. I've been really exhausted and overwhelmed, and haven't been able to get myself in the mood to write, even when I found a few minutes to. BUT things have slowed down a bit and I'm trying to be better about forcing myself to write, at least for a few minutes a day.

I also feel like I really lost the spirit of this story, a bit. I had had an original plan for where I wanted to take it, but after not writing for a couple of months straight, I couldn't remember what that plan was anymore, and figured I'd better wrap it up before three years had passed. With all that said and done, I'm not happy with how this one turned out, but wanted to get it done and posted so I could move onto the next one!

Hopefully y'all will like this more than me, but I appreciate any and all feedback! Also, while I make no promises on when the next chapter will be up, I do hope it'll be within a couple of weeks!

And with that, here we go again!

4/29 Note: Updated chapter, because I realized the ending was trash. Note kids: Do not write while half asleep.

"All my life I've been living in the fast lane,

Can't slow down

I'm a rollin' freight train.

One more time

Gotta start all over.

Can't slow down

I'm a lone red rover."

"Fuck."

Steve's curse rang loudly through the McGarrett household, its tone equal parts angry and despondent. It was loud enough, full of enough emotion that Danny looked up from his place in the kitchen, knife paused above the fruit he'd been cutting.

They were having a team barbeque at Steve's house, a long overdue bonding session that they'd finally found a night for. Danny had come over to Steve's early, arguing that Steve needed extra help preparing everything, but also wanting some extra quality time with the man that he called brother.

They'd been getting everything pulled together when Steve's doorbell had rung. Danny had heard the quiet mumblings of conversation, though it seemed lighthearted and pleasant, nothing at all to match the tone of Steve's voice now.

When tense silence continued to radiate from the front hallway, Danny set down his knife, wiped his hands off, and moved to the front room. He immediately grew more concerned as he took in Steve's posture, which was as stiff and tight as Danny had ever seen. He was clenching a letter in his hand, though the lack of expression on the SEAL's face was at odds with the stress in the rest of his body.

McGarrett hadn't reacted when Danny had entered the room, so Danny took another step forward and then spoke in what he hoped was a soothing tone. "Steve? Is everything okay?"

At Danny's voice, Steve seemed to reign in whatever emotions he was feeling, turning to face Danny like everything was perfectly normal. But when he spoke, the forced calm couldn't completely cover the tightness underneath. "Everything is fine, sorry. I didn't mean to startle you."

"I'm just going to go ahead and say bullshit now, Steven. You cursing loudly is sort of the opposite of fine."

Steve didn't give up any ground. "It's nothing. Let's go finish the food before everyone gets here." He carefully folded the letter back into thirds and then shoved the paper in his back pocket as he started to move around the Jersey detective and back into the kitchen.

But Danny wasn't about to give up without a fight. "It's clearly not nothing. You're going to tell me eventually, so you might as well just save us both the trouble and tell me now."

Steve's knuckles whitened around the handle of the knife that he had picked up from where Danny had set it. "I really don't want to talk about this right now, okay? It's not a big deal, and I would really just like to be able to focus on making dinner and have a relaxing evening."

"How are we going to have a relaxing evening when you're suddenly wound tighter than a drum?"

"Danny—"

"I'm serious, Steve. Everyone is going to come over and know that there's something wrong, so if you want to just process it now and talk it out—"

"I said to drop it," Steve cut in, tone as sharp as the knife in his hand. "I'm not talking about this right now, so just stop. Either go help me or go wait outside, but I'm not doing this now."

Danny held his hands up in silent surrender, moving quietly to take on a new task in the kitchen, worry quickly overtaking his annoyance. He'd been concerned at the beginning, but Steve's stubborn insistence that nothing was amiss was enough to push that aside and let irritation blossom in its place. But now…Steve never spoke to him like that, not even in their worst arguments. Steve would yell, would swear, would be visibly annoyed with Danny, sure. But the coldness, the simmering anger that had been in his partner's voice right now was on a whole other level of their normal emotional playing field, and it had every part of Danny afire with the notion that something was seriously wrong with his best friend.

They stayed silent, each finishing their task in the kitchen, until the rest of the team arrived. It was a silence that ate away at Danny, heavy with the unspoken tension. He kept opening his mouth to say something, but then would close it again as the memory of Steve's sharp tone came creeping back in.

Even after the cousins and Lou arrived, Danny didn't feel like it got any better. Steve was a great actor and was able to fool the others into thinking nothing was wrong, meaning that every time Danny hovered over Steve or gave his partner a look, Danny was the one that ended up getting the side glances from the rest of the team, clearly wondering what was wrong with him. But even if he'd fooled everyone else, Danny could see the strain that lay draped around his best friend's shoulders all night.

Finally, he couldn't stand it anymore. Things had wound down to a point where Lou had begged off to go home to his family, and the original four members of the team were sitting around the lanai, drinking and reminiscing. Steve was doing on obnoxiously amazing job of keeping up his charade around Chin and Kono, but Danny could see the rigidness of Steve's spine, unbending in its forced slouch.

It was annoying Danny so much, this ignoring the issue, this inability to further interrogate and discuss, that finally he stood up and abruptly excused himself to go to the bathroom. He ignored the glances he got at his sudden departure, and made his way inside. He had intended to just use the moment alone to take a few deep, cleansing breaths to force himself to relax, but as he walked into the family room, he saw a slightly crumpled envelope sitting on the table next to the door.

He knew that it had to be whatever had been delivered earlier, knew whatever clues he could glean from the address on the front might be the answer to the question that had been plaguing him all night. He also knew that looking at it would be a huge breach of trust, and that he definitely shouldn't touch it.

After a moment's hesitation, even knowing that it wasn't his to interfere with, Danny leaned forward and flipped over the envelope. At the moment that he saw what was printed on the front, Danny's heart clenched, Steve's behavior coming a little more into focus.

The letter was postmarked from the United States Navy, and not from an address on the nearest base. Everything about it, from the crisply typed font to the perfectly placed flagged stamp, read official business, not just any sort of standard communication.

While now more than ever Danny wanted to be able to read the letter that he knew was still tucked in Steve's back pocket, he also had a sudden horrible sinking feeling. Danny had his guesses as to the content of the letter, vague suspicions that he didn't want to put name to, but whatever the specifics of the correspondence were, it had sunk Steve into an emotional state that Danny hadn't seen for years.

He was about to turn around and head back outside, when he heard the weight of footsteps behind him, though he didn't have to turn around to know who it was. He said a quick word of thanks that he didn't have the envelope in his hand when he turned around to face Steve.

Steve, who's cover had apparently dropped the moment he walked in the door, and who's face was hard and inscrutable. "Are we going to talk about whatever is happening finally?" Danny asked after a moment's hesitation.

"I told you, I don't—"

"I know you don't want to, but frankly, I don't fucking care. You're all chatty and happy around Chin and Kono, but I can still see how upset you are and I'm not letting you walk around with that inside of you anymore. I thought we'd moved past the secrets and the silences in our friendship by now."

For just a moment, a breath, Steve's face shifted and Danny saw a fleeting glimpse of intense pain in his partner's eyes. And then it was if it had never happened, and his face was blank once more. "You don't get it, Danny," Steve finally responded, his voice strained and low. "If I start talking to you about this now, there's a strong possibility that I'm going to lose my shit, and I can't…Chin and Kono are here."

And Danny knew whatever it was, whatever the information Steve had received was, it had Steve admitting to an emotional weakness he rarely ever did. And that simultaneously scared him and made him want to agree to whatever Steve wanted in the moment, so he nodded. "When they leave, you're telling me the truth, okay?"

Steve seemed like he wanted to refuse at first, wanted to fight Danny's directive, but instead finally nodded in return, his face losing the hard set that it'd had just moments before. "Fine."

"Okay, well then let's go back at there, hmm?" Without waiting for Steve to respond, Danny walked back outside, where he forced himself to be as normal as he could be for the next hour. He was able to relax more than he had before, knowing that he was going to get the truth, going to be able to help his best friend like he so desperately wanted and the other man needed. But for once, the time with Chin and Kono couldn't pass fast enough, and he almost said a small prayer of thanks when they finally walked out the front door.

As soon as the door swung closed, a silence settled over the two of them, and Danny wasn't sure how to proceed for a moment. Steve solved that for the both of them, though, as he took the now crumpled letter from his back pocket and handed it to Danny silently, moving slowly to the carefully worn leather sofa. Danny unfolded the letter slowly, keeping one eye on his partner as he slowly sat down.

Finally he couldn't stall any longer, seemingly as paradoxical as that was to his earlier rush, and he looked down at the words before him. He mostly skimmed the beginning but stopped at the words medical discharge. At that, his eyes shot up to meet McGarrett, who had clearly been watching him as he read. "The Navy is discharging you? Why? Can they even do that as a reserve?"

"It's different than being discharged from active service, but it comes down to the same thing," Steve replied dully, "and what that comes down to is that the Navy doesn't want me anymore."

"Steve, that's not—"

"It is, Danny. I'm not fit for service anymore in their eyes, even in the reserves."

"Is this because of the liver? Or the radiation poisoning?" His voice cracked slightly on the last word, still not coming to terms with the idea of his partner very blood being toxic to him. "How did they find out?"

"Not through me," Steve murmured quietly. "At least, not at first. Somehow they heard a rumor or a whisper about my trips to the hospital, or maybe someone at Tripler said something they shouldn't have to the wrong person. And then they asked me to come in for an interview, where I argued the fact that I was perfectly healthy. I didn't outright lie, didn't completely deny anything, and I made myself clear that anything that may or may not be in my medical history didn't impede me from effectively being a reserve officer, or even active duty if that ever happened. My CO all but assured me that I'd be fine, so you can imagine my surprise when this came today."

Danny finally moved from the doorway and made his way to the coffee table, sitting on it and placing his hand on Steve's knee. "I'm so sorry, Steven." He knew there wasn't anything he could say to make this hurt go away, not when the Navy had been the most constant thing his partner had ever known in his entire life. It'd been an institution, a group of people that had his back when no one else did and to have that same thing be ripped away from him…Danny knew that this must be hitting his partner as hard as the lose of his parents. "You have a family now, though, you know that. You know that you've got something else in your life now, right?"

Steve snorted, but didn't move his knee out from under Danny's hand, didn' t push away the comfort, and so the blonde counted it as a victory nonetheless. "I'm not dumb, Danny, I know that. But that's not really my point, you know?"

"I know." Danny tilted his head forward, wishing he could find a better way of vocalizing his feelings. "I know it's beyond shitty. All I'm saying is that it's not like it happened before Five-0, okay? You're not alone and you've got something else in your life now."

The SEAL squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and took a deep breath, clearly trying to ward off the emotional breakdown he had foreseen earlier. "It's not just that, Danny," he said, a dark tone coloring his words. "I always thought I'd get to go out on my terms, you know? Everything I am comes from that, and you take that away and what am I?"

"Hey," Danny replied sharply, forcing his best friend to look at him. "I thought we had gotten past this idea that being a Navy man is all you are. Without the Navy, what are you? Gee, how about our fearless leader? A cop? My pain-in-the-ass partner and best friend? My children's favorite uncle? Need I go on? You are part of something here, you're not just out there on your own any more, moving through life one mission at a time."

"It's more than that—"

"No," Danny replied, unconsciously taking on the same tone he took with Grace or Charlie when he was in his firm-but-caring father role. "Yes, you're starting over in a sense, but you're also not. You've done your Reserve training, sure, but it's an obligation, a holdover now. I know, I know, you enjoy it," he cut in, already reading the look on his partner's face, "but it's not your everyday life. Your day-to-day existence is with Five-0, with me, fighting bad guys. So, really, your life stays exactly the same, no matter what this letter says."

It was silent for a moment, and then Steve finally responded in a whisper that was hoarse with emotion he was clearly trying to repress. "It's bad enough I took a civilian job and left my men behind, but now I couldn't even go back to help them if they needed me. I'm less than them—than the Navy—now."

"That's not true," Danny retorted sharply. "You gave so much for your country—too much, if you ask me. And now you've sacrificed the institution that you love so much to give to this island, and having some idiot in Washington— one who doesn't even know what the hell he's talking about—make this decision doesn't take away from that. It doesn't negate what you did or what you are still doing. You're still Super SEAL, got it? This piece of paper, it doesn't change anything. And I can absolutely fucking guarantee that this letter here won't change the fact that you'll come up with all your harebrained schemes that seem awful and somehow work out, and all around act like you're still in the Navy on any given day, okay?"

Danny could see that Steve wanted to argue, so he stopped it as much as he could by swiftly changing tactics. "Do you trust me?"

That gets Steve's attention like Danny knew it would. "Of course I do. You should know that."

"I do, but I'm reminding you this fact. And since you trust me, can you trust me to tell you that you're not less than or anything else that your brain is going to try to convince you of? You're not less than anything to me, babe. Or anyone else that matters, and you have to realize that to us, you're more than just what the Navy values you at—you're a lot more than just a body to solve a war with to us, got it? The Navy was not—is not—your only identity, and it's not a measure of your worth to the people of this island, or the people who love you. And I'll keep saying that until it gets through your thick skull."

The blonde could see that his partner still wanted to push back, and Danny knew that that this hurt, this ache, this feeling of betrayal was going to take a lot more than one more conversation to move on from. But at the same time, there was a heartbreakingly hopeful look in the SEAL's eyes that showed just how much he wanted to believe what Danny said.

So Danny doesn't say anything else, let's his words sink in, and takes Steve's hand, squeezing tightly—letting his brother know that even if he has to start over in this post-Navy life, Danny will be there every step of the way.

Charlotte