I do not own Hawaii Five-0 or any characters. No copyright infringement intended.

Notes: poor beta of mine. Every chapter is "the last one" ... except it's not! Bad ... baaaaaad muses.

H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O*

"If you want to listen, don't talk.

If you want to talk, listen first." ― Norbert Harms

Chapter Twenty-two: No Kau a Kau ~ For Eternity

"Put them on her," Devon hissed though his teeth. His face was suffused by a red tinge and he was breathless in his rage. "Do it! Now!"

Kono and Makoa had been in an intense discussion about the facts behind Devon's prison sentence. She had been angry and overly forceful with the man because for every assertion she'd thrown his way, Makoa had a rival or morally-based rebuff. He was difficult and steadfast in his ways which tried Kono's patience and was exasperating her to no end. Both of their tempers had been on the rise which made Devon's unorthodox arrival even more unwelcome. Out of the corner of her eye, Kono now watched as Devon tucked her pistol firmly into the back of his jeans and brandished another and equally impressive gun in his father's face.

She inhaled sharply as Devon shifted the gun from her chest to his father's head. What he wanted Makoa to do was to use Kono's own handcuffs to bind her hands behind her back while she remained seated in one of the kitchen chairs. Rather than doing as he'd been told, Makoa stood stock-still, seething in anger as he looked from his son to Kono unable to budge an inch. Wincing at the sound of a hammer being steadily readied for firing, Kono bit her lip pensively as she slammed her cuffs on the table in front of her with a solid thump of sound and willingly put her wrists behind her back.

"Here, do it!" Her voice was louder than she wanted it to be; higher and thinner. Kono wasn't sure if Devon Hayashi remembered her from their youth, but he certainly had pegged her for a cop without her even rising from her chair in the first place.

"Makoa, it's alright. Just do it," Kono restated as calmly as she could, though she too, was beginning to shake internally. It wasn't alright; not even close to being slightly okay. Being cuffed by another stranger - another man - no matter the differences in the cirumstances was something she wasn't entirely sure she could adequately cope with. But with a gun being held to a civilian's head, she had no choice and so she fought the bile she tasted in the back of her throat.

Kono briefly closed her eyes as she wrung her hands behind her back. Steve was just outside and this standoff would be short-lived regardless of its outcome. And then there was Danny ... he was outside, too. She could only hope that he hadn't been injured by whatever Devon had done once he'd ascended the top of the staircase. However, she didn't dare ask as his gaze settled unwaveringly on her face.

"Listen to him and do it," she urged Makoa softly as she struggled to breathe calmly through her nose and out through her mouth. Over and over she counted to three as she inhaled, then exhaled and started over again as a calm repetitive action. Though it took some doing on her part, she distinctly ignored the way her heart was beating so wildly in her chest while her fingers clenched into white-knuckled fists. The simple act of placing her wrists behind her back while sitting at the rough hewn kitchen table was too soon. Too close to being precisely what Topher Reid had managed to do scarcely over a month earlier.

"Come on old man, time's wasting." Devon pressed the muzzle of his gun to Makoa's temple, daring Kono to move or his father to disobey his orders. "We have a lot to discuss. But this time, it's going to be on my terms."

Makoa leaned forward to pull the metal cuffs closer to him from across the table. They felt foreign and heavy in his hands, and his entire being resented what he was being forced to do to Kono. His eyes sparkled with a complexity of fury and apology as he awkwardly opened one side and walked behind her to fasten it first to her right wrist as instructed. With self-disgust, Makoa grimaced as each link clicked sharply into place to trap her hands. When he finished the task, he stood tall and almost protectively next to Kono until Devon smirked and shook his head.

"No way. You sit here," Devon pointed the gun directly at Kono's chest as he backed up to give his father room to negotiate the space between them. "At the head of the table like you've always done."

"Watch yourself, boy," Makoa hissed, his anger intensifying at his son's incredulous demands. By the sheer look etched across his face, Kono didn't have to guess his thoughts or what his anger would lead to. His unspoken point to her had to do with their earlier heated discussion. In no uncertain terms, his son was now proving precisely the very essence of what he'd countered her claims with only a few minutes earlier. Kono's issue though was the common thread which bound the two men so very closely: their dual tempers.

"Makoa," Kono murmured softly, pleading with her eyes as Devon suspiciously swung his gun from his father's head to where she sat trapped at the kitchen table. "Please."

"You're Kono Kalakaua," Devon said abruptly with a hint of annoyance. His face changed with a subtlety that briefly brightened his expression even though he didn't seem especially pleased to recognize her. Then it was gone as he glowered with a deeper understanding. "You work with that haole cop."

"His name is Detective Danny Williams," Kono replied evenly. "We both work for Five-0 ... the Governor's task force." She didn't need to confirm her name or reputation now that he remembered her, but she knew that Devon had done something to Danny outside on the deck; she just didn't know what exactly. She'd heard Steve's warning shout and then a series of loud thumps as if someone had fallen. But she hadn't been able to intervene because seconds later, Devon was in the house, barricading the one and only door, and taking a firm control of the situation.

"I don't care what his name is," Devon sneered angrily. "What are you doing here? Why have you been investigating me? Did he ask you to?" The 'he' was aimed at his father, yet Kono Kalakaua was his nemesis in a way. She had essentially taken his place with his father and garnered his attention in ways that he never could. He resented that past where Makoa had taught her about shaping boards to improve her skills, and he absolutely resented her now as she stood facing him from across the kitchen table in his father's home.

"What do you want?" Makoa's tone and disgusted sneer matched that of his son's. "You should leave before you make matters worse for yourself, boy. Whatever it is you want, you're not going to find it here."

"Shut up, old man" Devon growled out. "I'm done taking orders from you; I was done a long time ago." His hands were shaking from his own pent-up feelings of rage which had finally boiled over and Kono had to force herself to relax where she was. She watched with trepidation as the gun swung between them with a practiced ease. While his fingers might hold a the tremble of a very real anger, Devon's moves were fairly consistent and he wasn't about to make a mistake.

"So typical ... what do I want? he says, as if he's not to blame. Not at fault!" Devon leered at his father, his eyes full of a dark intense emotion. He edged closer, daring his father to look directly into his face. "Why didn't you tell me about her? Why?"

To match the thought process in his head, Makoa's eyes went completely blank for a full minute. His mouth gaped and then slammed closed, while his heavily calloused finger tips flailed uselessly on the marred wooden table top. "I don't know ... who ... who you mean."

"Convenient," Devon snarled. His cheeks reddened even more, the flush of a righteous anger making his eyes bulge in disbelief. "How can you not know? Did you forget her already, old man?"

"Iris?" Kono muttered under her breath. Her eyes flew from one to the other. Her mind was sharper than Makoa's and she couldn't quite believe that Devon hadn't known about his mother. She was faster than Makoa in realizing what Devon meant, but then again, she didn't exactly have a gun aimed at her temple per se. She licked her lips before taking another steadying breath, ready to supply the requested information until Makoa's brain decided to cooperate more finely. She saw the change cross his face a millisecond before he spoke.

"I called the prison." Makoa blurted the words with a combined sense of defensiveness and confusion. "I called ... damn you! I called when it first happened and she was on life support!" He ground the words out, his voice rising in the small room. Makoa's eyes hardened, a coldness leaking back into them and Kono literally flinched as the tension ramped higher between the two men. In a vain attempt to get his attention, she cleared her throat but he was already moving in his chair. Rage spurred him upwards, the back of his knees knocking loudly into the flimsy wooden chair he'd been sitting in until the threat of the gun's muzzle against the back of his head had him floundering to retake his seat.

"Sit down! Don't you move!" Devon roared back, his anger on a par with his father's. Spittle flew from his lips as he fisted his revolver, his tirade bringing him just inches from his father's face, the gun never moving from where it literally touched the side of the older man's head. "There was no call ... nothing! I just found out here ... now ... here, when I went to the shoppe! You sold her store ... you sold it ... she's gone and I never, never knew!"

"No, no. " Makoa replied, a deep intonation making his voice raspy as he finally saw his son's desperation as if for the first time. He finally saw the depths of the sadness and turmoil so heavily laden across his features. Devon wasn't lying - he truly hadn't known and he was emotionally destroyed to have learned it the way he did. Still, Makoa shook his head to deny what Devon claimed because it seemed so incredibly impossible.

"I called the prison myself. You were in some sort of lockdown; they had you in solitary and refused to do more than bring you my messages."

"I don't believe you, old man," Devon hissed around his breath which was broken and nearly wheezing as it bubbled up inside his chest. Though he recalled being in solitary confinement, he didn't know if he should believe his father. He'd returned to Hawaii originally to try to make amends with both of his parents. To explain things and to hope that they would understand what had really happened to him. But that had changed the moment he'd learned his mother had been killed from injuries sustained in a terrible car accident.

For the last few days, Devon had stewed in a personal heated debate about his original plans. He had tried to reconcile the purpose of his own life now that he was supposedly a free man. He had desperately tried to understand how he couldn't have known about his mother for so very long. The end result of his self-enforced few days of mental exile were not pretty. He'd failed to rationalize his very existence beyond the one fact which dictated that he'd nothing left to live for. He'd decided that making up with his father was a useless, tiresome task.

So instead, he bought a gun and made a haphazard emotional new plan of sorts to know why he'd been so badly betrayed this final time. He needed to know a least that before he permanently moved on.

"Iris ... my mother died ... and no one said a word. I wasn't here and I didn't know ... I didn't know about mom," Devon whispered. His eyes were dark, nearly black and so shiny that Kono was drawn into them. She swallowed hard as tears pricked and pained behind her lids and she blinked rapidly to force them away. She knew now that Devon had come back to Hawaii to try to make things right with his parents. She had enough knowledge of his arrest, the related charges and the resultant sentencing to understand that he'd been wronged. But losing his mother now superseded what he saw as a far lesser need. What Devon only saw now was that his father had let him down in the most terrible of ways.

"I'm sorry," Kono softly said. "I really am." Her sentiment was sincere and it had left her mouth before she could think to stop it. She glanced to Makoa and saw then that his face had also completely changed. He was staring at Devon and then slowly sought out Kono with a silent plea for help. He was confused because he knew what he'd done; he had truly contacted the prison officials in an effort to reach his son. But their polices were strict about those in solitary confinement and his calls had been summarily denied one by one. He remembered his anger and outrage, first aimed at the officials and in the end, targeting his son for having committed whatever crime he had while behind bars that would land him in another cage, within a cage. With no recourse at the time, he'd left a series of messages which he'd assumed had been delivered.

"Devon, I don't ... understand," Makoa carefully stated his own truth as the muzzle of his son's handgun wavered closely. "I did try to contact you about your mother. When they told me it wasn't allowed, I left messages for you. They promised me that you'd get them."

There was a lengthy period of silence as the two regarded each other. Devon was struggling to breathe and Makoa was still alternating between confusion and an adamant opinion of what the authorities had vowed to him. Rending her wrists uselessly behind her back, Kono didn't know what might happen next. Emotions continued to be astronomically high. She could see that Devon was unsure about what to do with his father's explanation.

"It's possible that the warden or whomever you spoke to ... lied. A guard or some other person in the office ... literally lied to you," Kono offered as quietly as possible. She spoke directly to Makoa and based her initial comments on the strong potential for some in the system to be corrupt. What she said next related specifically to what she'd found in his files and the belief that Devon had been setup to take the fall for someone higher up in the gang cartel.

"If Devon had enemies ... they could and would withhold his mail, phone messages ... anything and everything, Makoa." Her voice gained strength as her gaze went from the father to stare directly into Devon's face. "He never got your messages; not one of them. But you need to tell your father why you were in solitary, Devon."

She watched as Devon opened his mouth and then closed it just as quickly. For some reason, the younger Hayashi found it impossible to truly defend himself to the one man in the world whom he wished to obtain vindication from. Despite that, while the gun didn't move from his father's head, he was certainly digesting her words and wondering what to do about her claims. But before anyone could make another comment, her cell phone rang from where it sat on her waist. Silently, Kono cocked her hip so Devon could see her belt where her phone was brightly illuminated and vibrating along with its loud tone.

"They'll expect an answer," she said, biting back a grimace when Devon's face morphed into a hateful mask. He stalked to her side, yanking the cell phone off her body to glare at the caller ID on the screen.

"McGarrett," he growled out. "He's the other one that's here?"

"My boss," Kono answered lightly. "He wants to talk to you."

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The breeze came in through the partly opened window and ruffled just the left side of Danny's hair while the air conditioning vents fluttered the right. From his left, the heavy air was hot and it mixed with the cold to barely dry the sweat on his skin as more moisture trickled down his back. His body was in an odd state of flux as the sun beat down on the truck and his level of stress simply continued on its almost unbearable course.

"Come on. Answer." Danny's eyes were closed while he whispered that litany as his call to Kono's cell phone rang once, twice and then three times. With a worried grunt, he rocked his head back in frustration when it went to voicemail and he was forced to thumb the call off. While Steve covered the elevated front door to the house, Danny had been planted inside the idling pickup truck with the air conditioning on high and the dual fans aimed directly into his face. But he couldn't hear and he'd partly opened the driver's side window so he wouldn't feel quite as removed from the action as he really was.

His gun was comfortably placed across his lap and his spare clip sat nearby on the passenger seat, easily within reach should he need it. From Steve's spare gear, they now each had an earbud to communicate and heavily oppressive bulletproof vests. The cold air had helped revive some of his good senses, but Danny was in no shape to do anything more now that he was somewhat off his feet.

"Voicemail?" Steve stated the obvious for what he could or couldn't hear through their comm links.

"Yeah," Danny replied. Hitting redial, he opened the line again to try for a second time. He groaned to himself on the first ring. "This is a helluva way to spend a Tuesday afternoon," he snarked under his breath.

"Danny, ..." Steve's voice echoed in his ear with an odd confused note, but Danny missed it entirely. There was another pause before Steve tried again, the baffled tone clearly evident. "Hey? Danno? What did you just say? How are you holding up there, buddy?"

"What?" Danny murmured. He glared at the windshield, his own confusion about his partner's odd line of questioning slightly irking him. Steve was supposed to be using the Camaro as cover, yet Danny could envision him at the foot of the wooden staircase. And if he wasn't loitering at its foot, he'd be halfway up the damnable thing.

"What? I'm fine," Danny frowned, his response interrupted as he heard a distant squeak as if to validate his very thoughts. Old wood against old wood as a weight shifted to make it whine in protest and his frown deepened. "Where are you though, Steve?"

There was no reply and Danny grunted knowingly under his breath. The smeared streaks of blood had begun to dry on his chin, but the roughened cuts inside his mouth were still trickling a tannic coppery tang. He was tired and distracted by the incessant ringing of Kono's phone and the bad taste which plastered across his tongue. Instead of reprimanding or pushing his partner even in jest, Danny swallowed, grimacing in distaste and using the back of his hand to wipe his lips. Both his chest and head ached with a fierceness only rivaled by the pain in his jaw. He could literally feel the localized throbbing sensation of heat as the bruise expanded across his jawline; a direct counterpoint to the cold air being blasted into his face.

"Hold on ... wait." Danny sat up slightly straighter as a fourth ring trilled into a sudden change and Kono's voice filled the cabin of the truck.

"Steve. It's good to hear from you." Her tone was cautious, but her voice loud inside the tight space and Danny winced as he quickly used the controls on the steering column to lower the volume.

"No, it's me," Danny replied. His relief at hearing her finally answer had him sinking even deeper into the cushioned driver's seat. From where he was, he couldn't see a thing but he could manage the conversation and begin to understand the requirements of the pending negotiation while Steve stayed on point. With the call on speaker, he knew that Steve could easily hear each and every word, too. "What can we do out here to help? Is everyone okay so far in there - what does Devon want?"

"Danny. Danny! It's good to hear you!" Kono's equally relieved sigh was unmistakable and he smiled to himself until he heard the strain, too. "We're holding our own. But ... I have something to ask you." There was no denying her tension, but she was gaining speed as she tried to control the conversation which Devon strongly objected.

In the background, Danny could hear Devon's deeper baritone and the anger as he suspiciously tried to over-rule her speech. Yet, Kono's voice held a certain tenacity which made him perk up despite how much his worry increased while she argued with her captor. She was literally fighting with Devon and fishing for something from him at the same; hoping that Danny would provide another layer of desperately needed information.

"Devon, please just let me prove something to you!" In one breath she was pleading with Hayashi's son and in another, she was rapid-firing a critical question Danny's way. "Danny, we're talking about a bit of misunderstanding. From Devon's files, do you remember the reason he was placed in solitary a few months ago? Tell me why ... tell us why he was in solitary."

"Solitary?" Danny gave a half-hearted shrug though no one could see him. Her point was an easy one; in fact, Devon's stint in solitary and how he'd not raised a single finger to his father the very first time Danny had met him, were of the same ilk. The inquisitive sound from Steve which reached him through the dual comm link nearly made Danny grin.

Neither Steve nor Kono were precisely convinced of his theories. And it would be harder to convince them now because of Danny's current condition and the obvious nature of the hostage situation. But Danny was still at least partially certain that he'd been right all along about the tip of this particular iceberg: Devon Hayashi might not be entirely perfect, nor wholly good. However, he wasn't a murderer. He had big anger management issues, but he wasn't inherently evil.

The fact which Danny believed was that Devon Hayaashi had been setup to take the felonious fall for someone else.

"Yeah," he stated clearly. "The warden stuck him in solitary for his own protection after he saved the life of a guard during a riot in the cafeteria. The man had been shot and Devon not only did CPR to keep him going, he kept other inmates away until help arrived. Our boy is technically a hero, but he wasn't exactly a popular guy with everyone else after that."

~ to be continued ~