I do not own Hawaii Five-0 or any characters. No copyright infringement intended.
Notes: wow! thank you for the great reviews! Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone! I'm very happy you like this story so far. :-)
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Chapter Two
"I'm so sorry, Monkey. Really, I am." As his own feelings of distress rose, Danny made a face when Grace stared at him with a look that combined both an incredulous surprise and a strange vein of doubt. He had purchased tickets to a now sold out concert which was suddenly and without preamble being postponed due to the main act's unfortunate announcement of a severe illness.
"She's sick?" Grace jutted her chin out in his direction, folding her arms and beginning what looked like the mother of all petulant huffs beginning. "How can she be sick? She's a star, Danno! Stars don't get sick! We've had these tickets for months! We're on line to go in. How can they just cancel it like this?"
She had spent days deciding what to wear and then hours getting ready. Seconds before leaving, she had inconceivably pelted back to her bedroom to change into something entirely different. Grace was excited; more than excited that her father had planned ahead and scored tickets to a coveted sold-out concert. Grace was envied by her friends. By default, that sweet act had also made Danno a star in her eyes. He was thrilled by her ongoing delight. But now as they stood in line to enter the venue with what seemed like thousands of other pre and early teen girls, concert organizers were unbelievably calling the big event off.
"I know … I know, Monkey, and I totally understand." Nevertheless, Danny was helpless to fix this particular issue. "There's nothing anyone can do about it." The entire crowd was in a turmoil and being asked to leave in an orderly fashion pending release of some future to be announced dates.
Disappointment clouded her eyes as he shrugged and parroted back the information being shared up and down the long queue. "No one can help being sick, Grace. Not even a famous singer and I'm sure she doesn't want to have laryngitis bad enough to disappoint all of her fans. Once the new concert dates are figured out, we'll come back."
Grace's face morphed from incredulous to utter blackness as the general announcement was confirmed and then reconfirmed through the throng. She understood, but was still annoyed nonetheless. As a girl her age burst into tears, Grace's own temper got the better of her.
"Now what?" Grace tried not to sound so plaintive, but other girls were now actually crying as their disappointment flared like a virus. Danny's face paled as he was jostled accidentally by a mother with a sobbing child in each hand. His eyes widened as he offered Grace a nervous smile and that almost made her more angry. She was upset and extremely disappointed, however there was no way she was going to cry and act like a baby.
With a pout that bespoke her stormy mood, Grace crossed her arms over her chest before smartly turning on her heel. "This … totally stinks … Danno! It's not fair!"
"I know, I know. But it can't be helped." Danny puffed his cheeks full with air before blowing it out as a fluttery sound. His daughter was blatantly upset and beautifully dressed; she had been looking forward to this special concert since the day he'd so happily pushed the tickets under her nose. He caught up to her, begging for her hand as children and parents milled about on their way back out to the main parking lots.
"How about dinner? A movie?" He made the offers while his mind raced to find suitable options for the tragedy. "We could do both? You look much too beautiful tonight to just go home. What sounds like fun to you, Grace?"
"I don't know. Nothing," she mumbled while she miserably swung his hand during their walk back to where they had parked. Her heart had been pinned on going to her first ever concert. Nothing was going to be good or right even though she knew her Danno was trying hard to already make up for the temporary loss. She was moody, upset and simply couldn't help feeling the way she did.
"I promise we'll come back once they announce the new dates," Danny repeated as they got into his car. "Let's go out for a special dinner. Alright, Monkey? We can go anywhere you'd like." He tweaked her nose gently, coaxing a reluctant smile out of her and proud that she hadn't dissolved into a flood of tears as he watched other parents walking by with screeching, disappointed little girls.
Danny winced as an ill-timed wail came in through his driver's side window to deafen his left ear as a lone, frantic father touted a distraught daughter towards a distant vehicle. The father was juggling a cell phone and Danny could imagine the desperate call to the child's mother. He peeled his right eye open to shoot Grace a pleading look should she suddenly decide to join that dark side.
"Please. Just. Don't." His finger came up in warning, but instead Grace was beginning to giggle and shaking her head. He flinched again as another shrill chalkboard-like sob echoed across the parking lot. He tentatively grinned and her giggle became a laugh as he made a show of covering his ears with both hands.
"Danno! I don't like it. But no, I won't do that!" Grace laughed openly at his dramatic and overly thankful eye-roll aimed towards the heavens.
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Sometime during the initial advent of nightfall, Steve discovered what would eventually become his greatest issue.
Thirst.
His last meal had been a meagre lunch, so sure he was hungry but he could live with that inconvenience. However, only able to see the unopened water bottle on the workman's shelf behind him was becoming a very major problem. His agitation and desperate measures to free himself had expended his energy and left him a sweaty mess. And though the night air was relatively cool, if he wasn't found on Saturday and before high noon, the aluminum shed was going to become unbearable.
His cell phone had also rung a few times and then chimed to indicate that a message had been left once or twice. But there was no way for him to reach his device and something in his mental clock warned him that the battery was soon to die.
"Maybe the calls were important," Steve muttered upwards. A pensive expression crossed his face as a few possibilities crossed his mind. "Danny might need something. He might call … maybe he did call. Or, he'll want to stop by."
The thought was nice, yet not likely based upon his friend's standing plans with his daughter. Steve made a sad face, one hand idly tapping his chest as he continued to gaze upwards while continuing his soliloquy. "The concert's long over by now, though. He and Grace are probably in bed … sleeping. "
While musing, his hands were soon leisurely folded over his chest, fingers inter-laced as he tried to doze. However, he was now far from being truly comfortable with his back seizing and his right leg beginning to cramp from its forced position. His right ankle was throbbing from its immovable position and he grimaced as the burn began to trace into his instep, the top of his foot and upwards into his calf muscle.
"I wonder how the concert was," he sighed to himself, trying to offer anything as a lame distraction when the fiery ache refused to lessen. Over the hours, Steve had tried multiple times to free his ankle from the undercarriage. He'd even begun to dig up the hard-packed dirt from under the rear wheels of the creeper, but a few screwdrivers and a socket wrench weren't close to doing the trick. The soil was as hard as concrete and his attempts had literally scratched the surface to no avail. His fingers were bruised and one was also now bleeding where he'd torn a knuckle in an attempt to unscrew the actual wheels to the low-riding creeper. But he not only lacked the right equipment, the screws to the wheels were under the frame and he couldn't see them, let alone physically reach them. Making that concept worse, his own weight was firmly clamping the wheels unrelentingly into the ground.
Out of luck and now out of viable options to save himself, Steve could only pray that someone would miss him before Monday morning dawned.
Peering backwards over the top of his head, Steve looked blandly at the faint outline of the water bottle. Night had well fallen and the only light inside the shed came from the LED rechargeable work lamp which had begun to dim at an alarming pace.
He could see enough of the water bottle to at least know it was still there. The reminder was a cruel tease and he cursed softly under his breath. He dismally looked around the shed from his low vantage point, continually seeing nothing of value to be of help. He was about to mentally question the work lamp's remaining power supply when it simply flickered and then dimmed to nothing, plunging the shed into total darkness.
"Well," Steve chuffed in disgust at the perfection of the batteries' ability to fail as if by mere thought. It was a shame his leg, the creeper or even the Marquis couldn't see fit to do the same and obey him on his behalf.
"That was my answer," he smirked into the night. "Thank you … thank you so much."
With nothing to do except pine away the hours, Steve tried to doze. His eyes would close until a painful burr would seize the ball of his foot. Or worse yet, his calf would begin its resentful ping just before a severe cramp would bunch his muscles into a merciless ball of iron. There was no doubt the pain was bad and he'd wind up his half seated position grappling for the area senselessly.
Steve elbowed himself upright just before the next violent leg cramp shot upwards from his ankle and into the core of his calf muscle.
"Ahhh! Man!" He groaned loudly as he dug his fingers into his thigh and down to his knee, stopped by the metal of his car. His toes had no recourse in the boot when his tendons tried to force them to curl painfully inwards at the same time. A cold sweat broke out across Steve's forehead and tears came to his eyes as the knot refused to loosen despite his best efforts at willing his entire leg to relax. It was a useless and agonizing pain that left him nauseous and panting by the time it abated.
"I can't stay here," he moaned to himself. He couldn't lay idly there and just wait. The relative coolness of the night was something he needed to use because ... if things continued ... there would be no better time. His best tool continued to be the bar used for the jack and he felt around for where he had left it on the ground by his side. He couldn't see in the darkness, but he knew where he lay by rote. Using the bar as a lever, he pushed and pried against the Marquis as if his brute force would free either the creeper or himself. Desperate and angry by the failure, he felt along the black frame and briefly experimented to confirm his next strikes. Then, he devoted his efforts to whacking the creeper's ball-bearing wheels and its black metal frame.
The sound of metal on metal clanged loudly in the small space. With his eyes closed in grim concentration, he hammered the same spots repetitively. The din he created echoed in his head and he felt the reverberation in his hands, wrists and forearms as he struck what he could reach, again and again. Face-reddened and sweating profusely, he alternated his attacks against unyielding metal and ... lost.
Steve's breath finally dissolved into harsh discordant gasps as sweat streaked his face and dampened his trembling hands. He only stopped when he could barely grip the bar. It slipped through his fingers to finally fall to the ground.
"I can't," he whispered, hanging his head so that this chin touched his chest and he gulped in a huge lungful of air. His scored hands lay limply in his lap except for their final reactive tremble leftover from the hard vibrations. Steve groaned in frustration and disbelief as the once comfortable creeper kept him trapped in the same unforgiving place. A glance towards his illuminated watch informed him that it was just after two o'clock in the morning and he was sure that he was going to go crazy despite years of ingrained professional training.
But that training, by its own virtue, had a distinct point. He had been taught how to maintain a very serious means to achieve any number of equally important ends. This situation was a ludicrous freak accident and a completely ridiculous misadventure. He was curiously stranded in his own backyard with help a mere few inches away. Even if the jack might have been defective, he only had his own carelessness to blame.
Sitting hunched over, he was exhausted - more thirsty than before - and completely done.
~ to be continued ~