Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapter Thirteen:
Outside Steve's room, Kono and Mary speak to the doctor together, tag-teaming questions about physical and mental help. Everyone's noticed Steve's dependency on Danny. Even Steve has expressed a desire to be by himself even though he panics whenever Danny leaves his side.
None of the doctors who have checked on Steve quite understand why it's Danny he's got to touch, to feel. Mary was the first person he saw when he woke up from surgery. Kamekona spent so much time sitting with him during the first two weeks of his hospital stay, and Chin was the one to actually rescue him from Wo Fat.
Dr. Nancy Irmish, the third psychologist to evaluate Steve, and the only one he didn't scare away, thinks Danny means normal even if Danny isn't filling his normal position in Steve's life.
Irmish hands resource after resource to Mary, stressing the importance of getting Steve to talk to someone.
"It's 3:00," Kono says quietly. "Damn." Danny's being discharged in fifteen minutes. Grace gets out of school in five minutes, and Steve's hysterical, crying and clinging to Danny as Danny fills out his paperwork. Irmish mentioned something about sedation, but Mary's watched Danny have to calm Steve just to let the nurses inject his regular medications into his IV. There's no way Steve can handle the betrayal of being knocked out.
Mary excuses herself when Kono begins discussing therapy and medication with Irmish. She has the feeling that they're distracting her. And, when she enters the room in time to see one of the nurses inject a sedative into Steve's IV port, she knows she was right. It doesn't work right away, so Danny stops moving—he had been folding his clothes sloppily into the bag Max had brought a couple of days ago. Soon enough, though, Steve's breathing evens out, and Danny squirms away from him.
"Honestly," Danny says, "is there any reason you're keeping him here? Any medical reason?"
When no one answers him, or even looks at him for that matter, Mary feels anger flare. "You want to keep him here for what reason? More money? I want him processed to go home today."
"And you won't have to sedate him again," Danny adds. "I told you to let me talk to him, but you didn't want to wait."
Irmish and Kono come in. Irmish shoots the nurse a dirty look. "I think it can be arranged that you're discharged at the same time," she says. "You will have to wait for the sedative to wear off first. That should give you a few hours to have him evaluated."
"Thank you," Danny and Mary say at the same time.
"Also, he should have counseling set up before he leaves."
"Will do," Danny assures Irmish.
"I'll send his doctor up in a while to see you. I'll stop by to discuss Steve's treatment again before you leave."
"Sounds good," Mary says, ushering Irmish from the room, the nurse having already sneaked out while Irmish was talking. "Thank you."
Kono disappears out the door too, phone pressed to her ear, a soft "Sorry" left in her wake.
"Well," Danny sighs. "Please call Grace and tell her we'll be getting out about 6:00 tonight."
"Yeah." Mary smiles, aware it's shaky and not altogether real. "Just…make sure he stays okay. Please, Danny?"
"Always," he says, already climbing back into the bed again so Steve can tangle their limbs, even asleep as he is. "I'll always be here for him."
Mary rubs at her eyes, blinking away tears as she goes to the bathroom for some privacy to call Grace and Rachel about the change of plans. "We'll all always be here," she promises.
ooOoo
Chin briefs Kono quickly while she archives the recording of Buchanan.
"I leave for ten minutes," she jokes, but Chin's face makes her quiet.
"I asked them to kill him," he confides softly. "If he hadn't been unconscious and if Steve hadn't needed immediate medical attention…" he trails off, but she hears what he doesn't say, knows she feels the same. He clears his throat abruptly, the sound startling her.
"They're going to discharge them both today," she says.
"I know." He smiles, a little too brightly, something patient in his eyes, "you told me already."
"I just," she says, frustrated when the words won't come. "It's—Steve's been through so much. I don't understand how Danny's the one he needs."
What she means, she thinks, is that she wants Steve to need all of them, not just Danny.
"Well, Danny is the one who told us how to act around Steve a week ago. He's still showing us now. Remember, take your cues from Steve."
"Have you seen them?" she laughs, but there is no humor in her, and she winces at the sound. "Danny can't be more than an inch away from him before Steve starts freaking out, and Steve isn't fully mobile yet. Probably won't be for another two or three months."
"That's when they're being observed or Steve's in pain or tired. Usually, they sit on opposite sides of the bed and talk about what's happened to both of them—they refuse to talk to anyone else because they don't want to burden us."
Kono frowns at Chin. Every time she's been at the hospital, he hasn't been there. And when she's at Five-Oh HQ, he's here. How does he know what Steve and Danny do when no one's looking? Unless, "You've got Kale spying on them?"
"No," Chin says quickly, so actually he is. "I have him give me reports."
"It's your way of coping."
"Much like yours is having a hand in Steve's treatment procedures."
"Hey! Mary asked me to be there." She swipes a few files from one monitor to another, duplicating them until they have six identical jump drives.
"Ready?" he asks, but he doesn't wait for her to nod before pulling out a phone that isn't his HPD issued one and pressing a speed dial. "Kretscky, we're ready."
He throws the phone against the wall so it shatters.
"It's almost over?" she asks.
"No, we've still got a long way to go."
They stand in silence for a long moment. Chin skaes himself first, sighing and sweeping the former phone into a pile he can scoop into the trashcan Kono passes him.
"Let's get this done," she says, noticing how tired, how old Chin looks. "Then we can go take Danny and Steve home."
"Two people will die," Chin says, voice subdued and hard to catch, but he follows her to the data table where they collect the jump drives, sticking them into preaddressed padded envelopes. "And I condoned it, demanded for it to happen."
"I only wish we could get Wo Fat to stand trial for his crimes before he's put to death." Kono doesn't really think this—actually, she believes Steve should have killed the sonofabitch instead of bringing him back to Hawaii.
Chin smiles knowingly at her, but he doesn't say anything.
"Soon as they can drink," Kono says, "I'm buying."
"I'll hold you to it," Chin says.
"Somebody should."
"We'll get through this." Her cousin hugs her and she starts crying. "It will be okay."
ooOoo
Wo Fat shuffles into the room quietly. Against the wall, looking as if he's on a stroll in a park instead of a dark interrogation room, Frederich Buchanan, one of his most able cleaners, leans.
Wo Fat pretends not to see him as he's led to a chair bolted to the floor. The shackles already binding his wrists and ankles are not removed as another set is attached.
"Do you understand why you've been brought here?" a tall, heavy-set man with a stiff shock of gray hair looms over him,
Wo Fat stares impassively at him. He has no interest in the CIA, especially not an agent who once let him escape custody.
"You're not going to stand trial for the charges leveled against you," the man says. "You are not leaving this room alive."
"We shall see," Wo Fat says, a small smile curling his lip, "jug-eum-ui cheonsa."
Buchanan straightens sharply before falling forward, convulsing.
While the agents in the room focus on the seizing man, Wo Fat slips a thin strip of metal from the chair, using it to silently pick the locks of his restraints. The gray-haired man turns back to him in time for Wo Fat to slam his hand into his throat. Gasping and wheezing, the man falls back.
Still, he manages to pull a .40 Glock from a holster under his jacket. He works the trigger, and Wo Fat feels the bullets impact.
He's not wearing a vest, and they tear through him, shredding flesh and spraying blood. He chokes on the pain, stumbling back until he hits the wall, sinking down slowly as his breath rattles through his damaged chest. He tries to feel something other than the fear making his fingers cold and numb, but it's the fear that wins.
Wo Fat's last thought is, I could have been so much more.