A/N: Again, a huge Thank You to everyone who read the last chapter and especially to those who left a review! I have to admit I was a bit nervous about the last chapter, so reading your positive feedback was very reassuring and encouraging. Thank you!

This chapter is, for a change, from Steve's POV. I hope you'll enjoy it!

Chapter 4

"Now the New Jersey Devils really have to play hard and they might have to open things up."

"Yeah, they gotta score and they might be vulnerable because of that."

Steve heard the commentators' voices but the words and sentences did not register in his brain. They were just sounds, filling the dead silence of the night. He didn't care about what was being said or about the outcome of the game.

He was just waiting to finally fall asleep, knowing that he wouldn't – not because of the noise, but in spite of it. Not too long ago, he had preferred the quiet. On a good night he still did; nothing but the sounds of the ocean lulling him to sleep. But good nights were few and far between these days. Most nights he just couldn't bear the silence and needed the TV to drown out everything else, distract him from the chaos in his mind. On some nights, even the TV wasn't enough.

Tonight was one of those nights.

When Steve had come home hours ago, it had already been dark outside but he hadn't bothered to switch on any lights. He had just set the six-pack of cheap beer down on the coffee table and let himself drop down heavily onto the couch. Then he had reached for the remote, but even before switching on the TV, he had opened a beer and taken a long swig from the bottle, hoping the alcohol would hit his system fast.

It was anywhere between midnight and dawn now, and he still hadn't moved, aside from a short trip to the bathroom. Hours had passed and he still just sat there, staring blankly at the TV without really seeing anything. He was barely aware that the Devils were in the third period, down by two goals – or that he was watching a rerun of the game that had actually ended a long, long time ago; the game that he had already watched earlier that night. But he couldn't even remember the final score.

Five empty beer bottles sat in a neat row, shoulder to shoulder, on the coffee table in front of him. The sixth still lay in his slack hand in his lap. He looked down at it and frowned when he noticed that his thumb had peeled off half the label. Then he lifted the bottle up to his mouth, downed the last warm, stale gulp and set the bottle down next to the others. With a sigh, he let himself slump back against the cushions, feeling far too sober for someone who's had nothing but half a gallon of beer for dinner. Come to think of it, he couldn't even remember the last time he'd really eaten anything. He kind of kept forgetting lately.

There were more important things on his mind these days.

His eyes slowly wandered from the row of beer bottles in front of him up to the sideboard next to the TV. Hidden behind the cone of harsh, blue-tinged light coming from the screen sat a half-empty bottle of scotch. He just stared at it for a while, his entire body feeling too heavy and too tired to just get up and grab it. Maybe if he stared at it long enough he'd just fall asleep.

But he didn't. Even though he could only barely keep his eyes open. Just a glass, maybe two, and falling asleep would be easier. Not thinking would be easier, too. About Shelburne and about why Joe kept lying to him. About what Danny had said to him and why he had been so angry . . . why he had sounded so scared.

So, eventually, Steve dragged himself up from the couch, shuffled slowly across the room and grabbed the bottle from the shelf before he made his way back.

Too tired to walk all the way to the kitchen to get a glass, he drank straight from the bottle. One, two, three long swigs, and he didn't even feel the burn at the back of his throat. He screwed the lid shut but didn't put the bottle next to the others on the coffee table. Instead, he held onto it, let his head drop back against the backrest and stared blankly up at the ceiling.

He didn't do this a lot – drinking alone in the dark. Maybe a beer or two occasionally, but not the hard stuff. Sometimes, when he woke up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat from some nightmare, he'd have a glass or two. It made falling back asleep easier.

The nightmares weren't the problem though. Not really. He rarely remembered any of them. And when he did, it was just loose images, sounds, but nothing tangible. The nightmares were just reminders – reminders of something far worse. Memories.

The memories were different. They were real. And they weren't just in his head. He couldn't just still see the images or hear the sounds. Jenna's empty, dead eyes, or the gunshot that had killed his father.

He could still feel them, too. On his skin and all the way deep, deep down inside his bones. The heavy pounding of his own heart inside his chest, Joe's hands on his shoulders, Hesse's hot breath against his ear, his mother's embrace, Wo Fat's fists.

No amount of alcohol could chase those memories away, or make them disappear. It just made living with them a little easier, falling asleep, getting away from it all for a few hours that would feel like mere seconds and were filled with more bad dreams – more memories.

It was better than nothing.

…

Steve opened his eyes, not aware that he had closed them at all, and blinked against the harsh brightness of the morning sun flooding the room. He must have fallen asleep eventually, but for how long, he couldn't tell. It had to be early still, judging by the warm, golden hue of the light shining through the windows. But the dull throbbing in his head told him that he must have slept at least a few hours, which was good. It wasn't enough to make him feel well rested, but he hadn't felt like that for a while now.

The scotch bottle sill lay in his outstretched hand on the couch next to him. He set it on the table and pulled himself to his feet. His neck was stiff and sore from sleeping sitting up and his spine popped softly as he stood up straight and stretched. The left ear still didn't feel right.

The TV was still on. Basketball. Steve reached down for the remote and felt every single one of the tense, cramping muscles in his shoulders. Hoping that a hot shower would help ease them up a little, he switched off the TV and headed upstairs for the bathroom.

…

An hour later, he was in his car and on his way to the Palace. It was a little after eight and the streets were slammed with rush-hour traffic. Steve tapped his fingers against the steering wheel impatiently. He was itching to get to the office and make up for the time he had lost last night, when he had been too tired to do what he did most nights. Tracking Shelburne and Joe, not sure if he really wanted to find either one. He kept telling himself that he could handle the truth. It couldn't be much worse than the lies and the secrets. And he was handling those just fine.

Right?

The screeching of tires and a cacophony of blaring car horns made Steve jump. Blinking, he noticed the red brake lights of the car in front of him just in time to hit his own brakes hard. The Silverado jerked to a halt, barley avoiding a collision. Looking around, Steve realized that the car in front of him had run a stop sign – and so had he. Because he hadn't been paying attention to the snail-paced traffic. He'd been following the other cars blindly, had let the tardy flow just pull him along, too caught up in his thoughts to really care. Muttering a curse, he balled his hand to a fist and hit the steering wheel hard, angry with himself and his lack of focus. He drove the exact same route to the Palace every morning, knew where all the stop signs were. This shouldn't have happened.

…

He walked into HQ what felt like hours later. It had only been twelve minutes though, at least according to his watch. Surprised, Steve noticed that Chin was already in. He stood over the smart table at the far end of the main room, light fingers dancing over the screen, his gaze fixed on the display in determined concentration. He only seemed to notice Steve coming in when he was already half way across the room.

"Hey," Chin said, looking up from whatever he was working on.

Steve greeted him with a nod and a well-practiced relaxed and easy smile. "I thought I told you guys not to come in this morning."

"About that," Chin said, smiling sheepishly. "Today is the twelfth, so I was actually hoping to switch the morning for the afternoon." He paused, clearly waiting for Steve to catch up on what he was talking about. But Steve came up blank, the date didn't mean anything to him.

"It's Malia's and my three months anniversary," Chin supplied eventually, smiling softly. There was no judgment in his eyes or in the tone of his voice, just amusement. Yet, Steve felt a sharp sting of guilt hitting him somewhere inside his chest for forgetting the significance of the date. He had been the best man at their wedding, if anyone should remember, it was him.

"I'm– I'm sorry, man, I completely forgot–"

"It's fine," Chin cut in. "With the case and everything . . . I probably would have forgotten myself if Malia hadn't been dropping subtle hints all week."

The lie didn't help much to put his bad conscience to a rest, but did help Steve to force an appreciative smile. "So what do you got planned for tonight?"

"Nothing big. Just a home-cooked dinner." Chin smiled again.

He looked so happy it hurt.

"Malia is a lucky woman."

"Nah, I'm the lucky one," Chin said, casting his eyes down, still smiling.

"So," Steve said and awkwardly cleared his throat before he could spend too much time thinking about what it must feel like to be Chin, to have what he has. "What are you working on?" he asked, jerking his chin toward the smart table between them.

"It's a copy of the drive you fished out the harbor yesterday."

"We're off the case," Steve stated flatly.

"I know." Chin looked up at him again, a slight frown creasing his eyebrows that made Steve wonder if the tone of his voice had been too harsh. "But I guess Charlie didn't get the memo. The file was in my mailbox this morning. And, to be perfectly honest, 1.3 gigabytes of encrypted data sounded a lot more intriguing than doing paperwork. Don't worry, I already emailed Fong that we're off the case and forwarded the file to the feds."

"Good." Steve tilted his head to the side and let his eyes wander over what was displayed on the screen. "You making any headway with the decryption?"

Chin shook his head and sighed. "Not really. The FBI cyber tech guys are probably way ahead me."

Steve just nodded. "Hey, why don't you just take the whole day off?" he suggested after a moment.

"Thanks, but Malia's working until five anyway, so . . ." Chin left the sentence hanging and shrugged.

"Alright. I'll be in my office." Steve jerked a thumb in the direction. "Let me know if you make any progress."

"You got it."

…

Steve squeezed his eyes shut and then blinked a couple of times before he took a glance at his watch. Only a little over an hour had passed since he had arrived at HQ, but it felt like he had been at this for at least half a day. The aspirin he had taken that morning had done little for the persistent throbbing ache in his head. That, combined with the way his left ear had started to hum distractingly, made concentrating on anything just that much harder.

He was getting nowhere today, hitting dead end after dead end. All he still knew – thought he knew, anyway – was that both, Shelburne and Joe had to be somewhere in Japan.

A whole country to search with nothing else to go on. The location indicated on his father's map was a hint in the right direction, maybe, but nothing more. Shelburne had long been moved from there. Joe would have made sure of that.

Joe. Him being involved in all this made everything just that much more difficult. Not just because Steve felt betrayed by the man – the man he had trusted like a father for all those years. No, Steve tried not to think about that part too much. Thinking about it, the way it hurt . . . it was too distracting.

What was more important was that with Joe involved, Steve couldn't rely on his training for this. The man he was looking for had been the one to train him, knew exactly where he'd come looking first, what resources he'd use, which contacts he would trust.

The whole effort seemed so devastatingly futile sometimes that it made Steve just wanted to give up, let the lies and the secrets be lies and secrets, and simply just be at peace with it all.

But what he wanted and what he needed were two entirely different things. He needed to dig deeper, uncovered every last one of the ugly truths the people in his life seemed so desperate to keep hidden. He needed answers, the truth, find the missing pieces of the puzzle, of his life, of himself. He couldn't just move on from this, leave the past behind, be happy like Chin. Not without knowing first who Steve McGarrett really was.

But in order to do that, he needed to focus, concentrate, find the piece of information that might point him in the right direction. Something. He closed the laptop in front of him and opened the top drawer of his desk, looking for the small bottle of aspirin that should still be in there somewhere.

The noise from his phone vibrating on the hard wooden surface of his desk made Steve jump. He slammed the drawer shut and shot a glance at the display. The caller ID read 'Sergeant Duke Lukela'. Steve slid an index finger across the display to answer the call and then hit the speaker button.

"Hey Duke, what's up?"

"Aloha Steve. I'm calling about the kid you picked up at the harbor yesterday . . . His name is Travis Dyer, right?"

"Yeah, Duke, but listen, Five-0 is off the case. The feds are handling the investigation now."

"Oh, I hadn't heard. So Dyer's in DEA's custody now? The transfer is not in the files."

Steve frowned. "Is he?"

"I'm asking you, Steve. His father was just down at the station to report him missing. I'm just trying to find out where Dyer is."

"He's–" Steve felt his mouth go dry as the realization hit him like a truck. "I think he's still here, Duke," he said slowly, feeling every heavy beat of his now racing heart pound against his breastbone as he desperately tried to think, to remember what had happened yesterday.

He and Danny had questioned Dyer, then Denning's meltdown in his office, followed by Danny's. Everything after that was a blur. He had barely been able to focus on the briefing with the feds, couldn't even remember the lead agent's name. He had told them about Dyer, must have told them about him. And then he had headed straight home – aside from a short stop at the gas station to pick up the six-pack of beer. The rest of the team– They had all left early, because he had told them to go. He had wanted to take care of everything. Lock the doors, switch off the lights. But then . . . Danny. He just hadn't been able to think straight after that. And so he had just . . . forgotten about Travis Dyer.

How could he just forget?

"Steve?"

"I gotta go, Duke. I'll call you back."

"Steve, what–"

Steve cut him off by hitting the red 'end call' button on the display of his phone, grabbed it from the desk and hurried towards the door of his office.

"Hey, everything okay?" Chin called as Steve brushed by him, heading for the stairs. "Hey Steve?!" he called again when he didn't get an answer. "Steve!"

- to be continued -