A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews and alerts for this story! You guys are awesome so the least I could do was post this second chapter! This is just a short scene between Steve and Danny set after the episode and once they're back on Oahu. I hope you enjoy it!
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Steve McGarrett felt the anger rising in his chest again as he stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror after emerging from the shower, a towel now wrapped around his waist.
He had had a quick shower after returning from a run that, considering the state of his still healing body, had been closer to a jog or a fast walk rather than a run. His doctor had strongly advised him against undertaking such a task but after being cooped up in the hospital for three days and then a further two days at home with nothing to do he decided to hell with the doctor; he needed to get back into a routine and give himself something to do and despite the pain it caused his ribs it felt good to be 'running' again. He would have preferred to go for his usual swim, but a certain 'house-guest' turned mother-hen had taken it upon himself to hide all of his swimwear and board-shorts and as tempted as Steve had been to just go out in his cargos, or less, he had decided against it; as much as he hated to admit it, he knew that his partner and doctor were right and that his shoulders weren't in any condition to be going for a ten mile swim. Maybe next week.
Most of his face was still covered in bruises, though they were starting to fade in some places now. The left side of his face was the worst and was still purple in colour and was the darkest surrounding the line of stitches still present along his cheek bone, though it was an improvement on the dark purple and almost black it had been during his stay at the hospital. The purple started to fade into yellowy-green until it reached the light purple bruising around his jaw. The right side of his face wasn't so bad but still displayed a large amount of light purple colouring which faded into yellow until it met with the bruising around both sides of his jaw.
His chest was the same story and Steve could easily see where his three cracked ribs were located on his left, highlighted by the deep purple bruising that had yet to start fading and which still contained small amounts of black colouring. The rest of his chest and abdomen was mottled shades of light purple, red, green and yellow, some places worse off than others. There were also several pink, shiny burn marks scattered across his torso that had yet to fade which were remnants of the cattle prod Wo Fat had used.
Steve gripped the edge of the sink hard as his anger towards Wo Fat swelled. His fingers started to turn white due to the death grip they had on the sink as he tried to contain his rage at the man. The man who had somehow slipped through their fingers again when all Steve wanted was revenge, justice. Justice for the countless crimes he'd committed and revenge for all the deaths he was the cause of; his mother, his father, Laura Hills, Governor Jameson, Makoto and now Jenna. It didn't matter that two of the afore mentioned had betrayed him, Steve still wanted blood for the deaths Wo Fat had brought about, some more personal than others.
The sound of a car pulling up out the front of the house alerted him to the fact that Danny had arrived home and Steve quickly threw on a pair of cargos and a tee, wincing as he pulled the shirt over his head and it pulled at his injured ribs which had been throbbing since his jog. He heard the door close as he reached the top of the stairs and Danny's voice called out, "Honey, I'm home!"
Steve refrained from rolling his eyes at his partner's greeting as he made his way more slowly down the stairs than usual and he started to see why the doctor had been so adamant that he avoid strenuous exercise, or any exercise at all, for at least two weeks.
"Hey," he greeted as he made it to the bottom of the stairs where Danny had just deposited his gun and badge on the small table opposite the sofa currently serving as his bed.
Danny looked up as his partner took the last step down and he noticed that he was carrying himself a little stiffer than usual. Narrowing his eyes at him suspiciously, he asked, "What'd you do?"
"Nothing," Steve dismissed his suspicion, "I took the first step too fast and jolted my ribs."
Danny didn't seem too convinced but he let the subject drop.
"So how..." Steve started before Danny cut him off.
"If you finish that sentence with 'was work' I will sedate you; the doctor gave me extra pills so don't think I won't use them," he warned. "The Governor gave you three weeks off to recover and you're not going to do that by trying to solve all of our cases for us; we'll be able to manage without our fearless leader for a couple of weeks."
Steve frowned as he made his way into the kitchen area. "Denning's just pissed at me for not telling him where I was going and now he's making me wait to come back to work as a way to get back at me."
"You know, some people would see their boss giving them extra time off as a good thing," Danny pointed out. "And you showing up at headquarters a day after being released from hospital didn't help the matter."
"How was I supposed to know he would be there to talk to you guys about the stunt you pulled? He usually does that kind of thing at his office."
"You weren't supposed to know he was there, how could you have? You shouldn't have been there at all is the point I'm making, Steven," Danny corrected as he took a beer out of the fridge and automatically passed one to Steve. "Wait," he realised, "should you be drinking that?"
Steve just glared at him in a way that challenged him to try and stop him and he let the matter slide; knowing super-SEAL he probably hadn't been taking any of the pain meds prescribed by the doctor anyway.
The rain that had been threatening to fall all day was now coming down in full force, so both men opted to stay inside and took a seat each at the table opposite the study, seeing as how the sofa was currently being used as a bed.
Danny glanced at his partner as he took a sip of beer and he couldn't stop the sick feeling that he always got when he saw the still vivid evidence of what had happened in Korea; the bruises an ever present reminder of something they'd all rather forget about.
Danny cleared his throat before he broke the silence that had fallen between them. "There's something that I've been meaning to give back to you, the medics found it on you when we brought you in to the hospital, they gave it back with the rest of your personal effects."
Steve watched as Danny pulled something out of his pocket and placed it on the table near him. He felt his pulse speed up as the silver chain pooled on the table with the cross pendant on top. He reached for it and picked it up as Danny spoke again.
"I recognised it when the medics gave it to me; it was Jenna's, wasn't it?"
Steve stared at the necklace in his hand for a moment. "I thought I must have dropped it somewhere on the way to the chopper," he said quietly. He stared at it for a moment longer before clenching it tightly in his fist as the anger from earlier resurfaced; anger at Jenna for lying to him but most of all anger at Wo Fat for using her like that before killing her in cold blood.
Danny knew that there had to be some strong emotions going through Steve's head right now and he also understood, had had experience with it himself, that it was better off to get them out than to let them build up gradually on the inside. He also knew that that was going to be almost impossible when it came to Steve McGarrett.
"You know, Steve, I don't know exactly what happened but I do know you and I know how you think; what happened to Jenna was in no way your fault," he stated.
Steve stood suddenly and moved around in the small space by the table, not being able to sit still for a moment longer. He rubbed his hand that wasn't clutching the necklace over his mouth and the dull throb of the bruises under his hand was the reminder he didn't need right now and only added to his anger. "You don't understand," Steve frowned as he paced. "... in no way your fault..." That might have been easy for Danny to say but he wasn't the one who had been chained to a Goddamn ceiling when Wo Fat had pulled the trigger, the one who had been completely powerless to prevent him from killing someone who they had considered a friend.
"Well maybe it would help if you spoke about what happened?" Danny managed to keep from raising his voice at his partner's avoidance but the frustration in his statement was clear.
"What do you want to hear, Danny?" Steve finally snapped and he yelled at Danny. "That the son of a bitch tortured me? That he killed her in cold blood and there wasn't a Goddamn thing I could do about it?" Steve turned away and kicked the closest chair so that it skidded across the floor before hitting the ground with a thud. He knew he was taking his anger out on the wrong person; that Danny was just trying to help but the fact that Wo Fat had slipped away again had been grating at him since his return home. He wanted nothing more than to kill the man that had cost him so much and it frustrated him that there was nothing he could do at the moment to bring the bastard down. "I'm sorry," he apologised in a softer voice as he shook his head and turned back to look at his partner.
Danny didn't say anything as he watched Steve sit down on the remaining chair that wasn't lying on its side, understanding the kind of anger his partner must be feeling towards Wo Fat, for not only what had happened in North Korea but for everything in the past too. Hell, Danny could happily tear the man apart with his bare hands for what he had done to his partner, his best friend, and he didn't even know the half of it.
"She knew," Steve stated after a few minutes of silence and several swigs of beer. "She knew he was going to kill her as soon as she saw the satellite phone. She used her last few moments to pass me a pin so I could unlock the cuffs. She gave me a chance to escape," he finished, not looking at Danny while he spoke.
Danny could see the guilt that Steve was trying to hide as he spoke. "I know what you're thinking, Steve and stop it; there was nothing you could have done to stop Wo Fat. You didn't owe her anything, Steve, she was the reason you were both in that situation in the first place; she made her choice."
"It wasn't long ago that she saved your life," Steve reminded him as he brought his gaze up to meet Danny's.
"Yeah, I remember," Danny nodded. He didn't need to be reminded about that fact, it was all he had been able to think about when they had come across her body in the bunker; that if it hadn't been for her he would be dead and Grace would have ended up growing up with the miserable excuse for a father that was Step-Stan. But she was also the reason his best friend had been lured to North Korea, beaten, tortured and God knew what else and in his mind that by far cancelled out any debt they may owe her.
"I can understand the position she was in," Danny continued, "God, if it was Grace, I would do anything to get her back but I would never, I could never..." he shook his head as his voice trailed off. "She should have come to us," he finished instead. "She should have told us what was going on so we could help her, instead she put her trust in Wo Fat and it got her killed."
Steve nodded, finding some small comfort in his friend's words. At the mention of Grace he was reminded of what Danny had risked by coming to North Korea to rescue him. "You shouldn't have come after me, Danny. It was North Korea for Christ's sake, I mean you have Grace, what were you thinking?"
Now it was Danny's turn to feel anger towards his partner, "What was I thinking? What was I thinking? I was thinking about how my partner would end up dead if I didn't do anything! I was trying not to think about what we might find when we got to Korea! You said it yourself before you left; 'I'd do the same for you, anybody else here'. Well what the hell made you think that we wouldn't feel the same about you, huh? You think we didn't know the risks involved? You think I wasn't thinking about how Grace would grow up without a father if something went wrong? Well then you'd be wrong; we all knew the risks involved and decided it was well worth those risks if we were able to bring you home."
It was the most they had spoken about what had happened; there had been some talk at the hospital when Steve had thanked them for rescuing him, because as much as he knew they shouldn't have risked coming after him he was beyond grateful that they had. He owed them his life and now he was struggling to find the words to thank them.
Steve took a deep breath as he looked to Danny again. "Thank you," the words were full of sincerity. "What you guys did, the lengths that you went to..." His voice trailed off for a second before he finished. "There's nothing that states you had to come after me but I'm sure as hell glad you guys did anyway."
Danny held his partner's gaze. "I'm your partner, Steve; and there's an unwritten law that states that when your partner lands himself up a creek without a paddle, or in your case without the whole damn boat, that it's your job to rescue his sorry ass only so he can listen to a rant about how worried he had everyone and how he almost caused mass panic-attacks."
Steve smiled at Danny's poor attempt at a rant; the relief too evident in his partner's voice to carry any heat, neither real nor put-on.
"It's my job to back you up, Steve," Danny continued, "no country border is ever gonna change that fact."
The two sat in silence for several minutes as they finished their beers, before Steve spoke up and broke the silence, "So what case are you guys working on at the moment?"
Danny's head snapped towards his partner, "What did I say not ten minutes ago? We. Are. Not. Talking. About. Work. Steven! I warned you! I'll go and get those pills if I have to! Why are you smiling, I am not kidding!"
Steve couldn't help but grin as he watched Danny's hands wave around in full flight as he ranted and he found comfort in the normality of the scene and he knew that despite everything that had happened, things would return to normal. Still watching his partner's wild hand gestures he knew that things already were returning to normal.
-End-
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A/N: I swear I'm telling the truth when I say –End- this time! What did you think? Thanks so much for reading!