Chapter 19 "Breakdowns & Breakthroughs"
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A/N: (14 September 2016) Thank you for the reviews, the favorites, the follows! I really love reading them, knowing if you are happy, or starting to really worry about the events portrayed. I apologize for not responding to them, but writing time is limited, and the updates are my thanks. I do not mean to seem rude by not responding to reviews in private PMs.
I noticed a growing concern that the story had the potential to go on too long, and was becoming dark and depressing to some, so I decided to hurry it up. It won't affect the story except to shorten it and speed up Danny's rescue, which still won't happen right away. There was some flexibility always built in, in case readers generally wanted a faster rescue rather than a slower one. The integrity remains, I hope. Don't worry about Angel. This is not a deathfic, and that includes Danny's kitten.
I'm glad you expressed your concerns, because this story had the potential go too dark in some ways. I don't want readers to be uncomfortable. That was never meant to go into "disturbing" territory. I apologize to any readers who felt it went there.
CBS owns Hawaii Five-0.
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Chapter 19 "Breakdowns & Breakthroughs"
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After Lou had been cuffed to the chair in the interrogation room, called the blue room because of the weird bluish lights Steve had insisted be used in it, which turned the world the wrong colors and washed out brightness to replace it with dullness, Chin left Kono to finish the booking process. Lou was not happy, and loudly let the world know, but Chin and Kono said nothing to him, and did not even look at him. Chin locked the door after Kono stepped out of the blue room. "What a night," he sighed. "I have to go take Steve to Tripler." This would probably be after he and Steve went to question Renee Grover, Lou's wife, about her alibi, and Lou's.
Steve had been talking with Abby. She had been pulling up images from lots of cameras, but there was simply too much for two people to do. "Do you mind if I call in Jerry tomorrow? You know he'd love to help." Abby hesitated. "Have you called Danny's parents and Eric?"
Steve covered his eyes with his left hand. "I forgot even to call the governor."
"And we need to set up a tip line, for calls about Danny," reminded Kono. "The HPD dispatch is not going to want to field a bunch of calls on their emergency number."
"Add it to the list," said Steve, and his stomach growled loudly enough for his friends to hear. He ignored it. "And get those rescue guys assembled again, the ones who … just call Dr. Cornett and find out which ones, the ones who went out on the rescue / medevac flight yesterday on the homeless guy who got pushed out of a chopper. We're going up, uh, God I'm tired. We're going up to search the area where he was found, soon as we can fit it in."
"Which of us? I've got a lot of footage to still go over," said Kono.
Steve accepted an actual real life candy bar from Abby, tore the wrapper before remembering what the doc had said about no snacks. He wanted to scream. "I'm sorry, I forgot! I'm not allowed until after the … I'm having some tests done at Tripler, Chin is taking me. I'm sorry, Abby, but thanks." He gave the candy bar back to her, and saw that it was a Snickers, a personal favorite of Danny and Grace. He felt a force begin to build up within him, and he resolutely forbade his lip to quiver.
Abby shrugged and gave the candy bar to Chin, who said, ceremonially, "Waste not, want not," before doing unto it what Steve wanted so badly to do unto it, it wasn't even in the same zip code as "funny." After Chin had finished the Snickers bar, he commented to Steve, "Danny has good taste in candy bars. You look like you could eat your cast."
Steve's face crumpled and he slid down the wall behind him until the floor brought his descent to an end. He sat, knees drawn up, his left hand covering his face. He was blubbering, and there was nothing he could do to hide it despite the fact that, until this moment, no one present had ever seen him this wrecked and embarrassed.
The effect his breakdown, complete with distressing sound effects, had on his team was immediate and heartwarming. Chin was at his side a quarter second before everyone else was there too, all hunkered down, murmuring comforts, becoming a 4-person hug-sharing huddle. A tissue found its way into Steve's hand, and he mopped up the flood and blew his nose, only to need another tissue because Act Two followed, which was even blubberier, which had Kono and Abby on the verge of their own breakdowns. But when Steve blurted, in a voice he barely even recognized as coming from his vocal cords, because it was thin, half an octave too high, and hitchy, "We think Danny is being s-s-s-starved," the exclamations and protests of Kono and Abby turned into copious tears, and the need for more Kleenex spread like a flash flood through the members of Five-0, with the exception of Chin, who managed to keep the flood to small rivulets of tears.
Steve's phone of course picked that time to ring, and it was Grace. Calling him after midnight. He cleared his throat and did a fairly convincing impersonation of someone not crying. "Gracie? What's wrong?"
"Uncle Steve?" which had come out with lots of extra U's and S's. As soon as Steve realized Grace was crying, he stopped like a switch had been flipped, and with the phone on speaker, everyone else more or less managed to do the same.
"Honey? What's wrong? Where are you?"
"I'm h-h-h-hiding in m-my w-w-w-walk-in c-c-c-c-closet!"
"Hiding? Why, sweetheart? Are you in danger? I'm on my way!" Steve was doing a very good job of standing in for Danny, and that included literally standing, making sure he had everything with him that he needed to storm a small country to go rescue Danny's children. "Where's Charlie?"
The sounds of Grace sobbing her heart out had brought out the protector in all of Five-0. But finally Grace could talk again. "I know who-who-who did it. I know who took Danno. It was Mom and Step-Stan. They talked like he's d-d-d-d-dead! I saw ph-ph-photos on Stan's ph-ph-ph-phone."
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H50 H50 H50
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The three seconds of actual silence felt like an hour as Steve, Chin, Kono, and Abby processed what the distressed girl had just said. Then everyone jumped into action at once, which included Chin calling in search warrants, Duke being called, and HPD put on stand-by. Kono grabbed everyone's tactical vests and handed them out, began checking her weapon, while helping Steve into his tactical vest and making sure his sling was re-fastened over it. Abby made sure everyone had extra ammo clips for their weapons, and all were standing by the door, awaiting the official charge down the stairs and out to their vehicles.
No one doubted Grace for a millisecond. Steve soothed Grace as he spoke to her. "Honey, I need you to calm down and tell me everything, as clearly as you can. Were you seen? Do they know you overheard them?"
Grace was her father's daughter. She managed to turn off the tears, although they could hear them in her voice. "I was going to go down for a snack, but their door was open a bit, so I had to sneak real quiet. I had almost passed their room, and they were talking about Daddy." She went on to explain that she had stopped when she heard them giggle and her mom say, "Danny looks so stupid without his hair! God, Stan, these pictures are so precious!" Stan had agreed, and said it had been really fun to take Samson's precious hair, that he'd only wish he'd lived long enough to realize what he did. "And they both laughed!" Grace told them that she had snuck back to her room and called Steve right away.
Steve praised her for her quick thinking. "Honey, we are getting you and your brother out of there tonight, and arresting them both. Danny is not dead, you know that. We both feel it."
"Yeah," she agreed, her voice still very wobbly. "He looked asleep in the pictures. Uncle Steve, what if he is dead? Please come quick."
"Listen, Grace. He is not dead. We will be about twenty minutes. I want you to go to Charlie's room, make sure to tell him he needs to be very quiet, and go downstairs to the laundry room and hide behind the washer and dryer. Be very quiet. As soon as we arrive, I will call you on your phone, so make sure it set on vibrate, not ring. When I call you, go shut off the alarm system."
"Okay, Uncle Steve. I feel so worried!"
"We're on our way, Grace. Call me when you have Charlie and are in the laundry room, okay?"
Chin held up his thumb. They had their search warrant. Duke would bring it.
Kono whispered, "I thought they had alibis. Did I mess up?"
"We all saw that airport footage. We'll run facial rec and that may bust this wide open. Stan doesn't have the most unusual face out there," commented Chin.
"We have to get that phone from Stan before he tries to delete those photos," said Steve, and his face was the polar opposite of Blubbering Man from a few minutes ago. He was Commander Steve McGarrett, retired Navy SEAL, in full command of himself and his unit.
Twenty minutes later they were pulling up outside the Edwards residence, with two squad cars backing them up at the house, and a third blocking their cul-de-sac street, so nobody could slip by them if they made it to a vehicle and by some miracle made it past the assembled team. They also had a CSI van and team with them, which would go over the Edwards' house with an electron microscope, if necessary, to find any evidence that would lead them to Danny's whereabouts. No one had used sirens, and the running blue lights had been shut off two blocks shy of the house.
Grace had called fifteen minutes earlier, and was safe with Charlie. She had also told them that now the master bedroom door was closed. Steve called to let her know they were there. "Grace, can you come open the front door for us? As soon as you see us, Officer Pua Kai will take Charlie to safety, you remember him, right? He's with us, and Duke."
"Okay! I'm so glad you are here!" A minute later, she opened the door, and Five-0 entered. Steve hugged Grace quickly, gave Charlie a pat and a shush, and Pua Kai picked up Charlie and rushed him to the squad car, where he stayed with him. Charlie had a special fondness for Officer Kai, so it was the perfect pairing.
Steve whispered to Grace to knock on the bedroom door to wake up her parents. "Tell them Charlie is sick. Then you run for the front door, and join Charlie with Officer Kai. We are not risking your safety at all, so please stay behind us."
"Will they be mad at me?" asked Grace in a whisper.
Steve nodded.
Grace smiled.
Grace did everything asked of her, almost perfectly. As soon as Stan opened the bedroom door, he saw Grace behind the full Five-0 task force and Duke, guns drawn, and began gaping like a fish out of water. "Grace?" he stammered. She smiled and said, "Surprise, bastard!" before darting toward the stairs, and Abby made sure she reached the safety of Officer Kai before she returned to the task force while Steve grinned at Grace's jab at Step-Stan.
Stan, in nothing but black silk pajama briefs, had his hands in the air because 5 guns were now pointed at him. They heard Rachel being sick in the bathroom, so Steve held up the search warrant and pushed past Stan and headed straight for the night stand where the phone was clearly visible, and Chin and Kono had the pleasure of locking the handcuffs on the man they gazed at stonily. Chin read Stan his Miranda rights, and Steve moved toward the bathroom, Stan's phone already in an evidence bag. Through it, he switched it to display photos and saw three of Danny, just like Grace had described. He clenched his jaw and transferred the bag to Abby, who briefly looked, scowled, and transferred it to Duke, before she joined Steve at the bathroom.
When Rachel appeared a minute later, she was shocked. "What are you doing here?" she asked Steve. She wore silk pajamas, very feminine, and soon after had been read her rights and cuffed. "What happened? How did you find out?"
"Rachel!" hissed Stan. "Shut up!"
"But they know, Stan! You messed up again!" she hissed back, and started to cry. "I don't want to go to jail! I'm not even properly dressed!"
Steve snorted. "Mrs. Edwards, that is the least of your worries right now."