Chapter 3
3 days later.
She hadn't thought about it at all. She hadn't given a thought to the fact that it was the same building. She was just supposed to do an interview, bar fight last night, nothing dramatic. But as she walked through the hallways, in her HPD uniform and with the list of questions already in the back of her mind, the moment grew into a gigantic emotional drama.
She heard her name, very quietly, questioningly, the voice broken, barely a whisper.
Kono spun around and saw him sitting in his wheelchair in an alcove. 'Waiting area for X-ray/CT' was written on a sign, so superfluous she found it that she even noticed and read it. What does it matter WHY he was sitting here and saw her in the hallway? But what did matter was why he spoke to her, why he didn't just let her walk by and do her job? Her new job, the job she had originally planned, but now, after almost two years at Five-0, was so dull and dull that it hurt her. Just like everything hurt since day X.
She knew she could just move on. He wouldn't stop her, wouldn't be able to stop her, but she couldn't. She stood frozen in the hallway, looked into his eyes and the memory of the accident as she had experienced it burst over her with brutal force.
# H50 #
The sensory impressions overwhelm her when she arrives at the scene of the accident and she feels so disoriented in the tumult of patrol cars, ambulances and fire engines. Blue lights everywhere, voices, shouts, people. A few steps, always looking around, but only half aware of everything. The coroner's bus. Fear in the chest, panic, calls for Steve and Danny that no one hears. Someone bangs on the doors of an ambulance, shouts "Go, go, go!" and the vehicle starts moving loudly with sirens and flashing lights. The second one next to it is still standing, excited voices are coming out muffled.
A few more steps and she sees the Camaro, more than thirty meters from the road. What's left of it is just a wreck after multiple rollovers. The roof was almost completely flattened, columns and doors were cut and bent away by the fire brigade's rescue shears. And before that... Kono's heart stops for a moment... a white sheet over a body. And Max sits next to it on a stone, his face buried in his hands. Her head turns again to where two ambulances were just standing and she still doesn't understand anything about what she sees when the doors of the remaining ambulance burst open and the shouts immediately become loud and understandable. Two paramedics are busy holding down a screaming, crying and completely out of his mind Danny Williams and keeping him from leaving the car. Blood runs down his face from a head wound, soaking his clothes. He screams heartbreakingly and it's only on the third or fourth time that she UNDERSTANDS what he's shouting, that it's his daughter's name and her eyes go back to the white sheet and only then does she realize how small and delicate the figure underneath must be and everything inside it contracts and solidifies into ice.
"We need help here!" gasps one of the paramedics and without having consciously decided to do so, Kono starts moving and walks towards the ambulance. Her lower lip is trembling uncontrollably, but her eyes are fixed on Danny, who is still raging and trying to somehow fight to his daughter despite his own injuries that should be causing terrible pain. The emergency doctor is there with a syringe and tells his people to keep him calm, but they can't do it.
"Danny," she says his name. He needs her now, she has to be strong, just for a few minutes, then she can allow her own grief. She speaks to him again and again, comes towards him and even though he screams and thrashes around, she comes close to him and as soon as she can reach him, she wraps her arms around him as tightly as she can, folds them behind his back and She won't let him go, she swears to herself. She repeats his name in an endless loop, talks to him soothingly, presses him against her and endures every punch and kick she receives. He slowly becomes calmer, the screaming turns into sobbing and whimpering and the emergency doctor puts the injection in his upper arm at an opportune moment. Kono holds him until he sinks onto the cot, ignores the ambulance crew's thanks and gets out. Suddenly she feels horribly lost and weak and she would have just fallen over, but her cousin appears out of nowhere and takes her in his arms without a word.
# H50 #
He looked at her like a kicked dog and she felt an incredible anger flare up within her. He looked pitiful. How dare he! He didn't deserve any pity, he had destroyed everything, because of him Grace was dead and Danny... wasn't Danny anymore. She and Chin were now at the HPD, no longer enjoyed their jobs, were painfully distant from their colleagues and treated like strangers.
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she stared at him with rage, wanting to lunge at him and hit him. She wanted to beat him up, to finally give all her anger an outlet, she wanted him most at that moment...
"McGarrett," an orderly called out at that moment and seconds later pushed him through the door marked "CT" without knowing that he had just saved his patient. Maybe Steve even owed him his life.
##### H50 #####
4 weeks later.
He sat right next to his cousin in the audience area of the courtroom and looked out at the completely unreal scene.
Steve sat in the dock, his eyes on his clenched hands, watching the prosecutor read out the indictment in all its gruesome detail.
Danny, or what was left of him, sat opposite him and, in his role as co-plaintiff, stared at him with his dark eyes and didn't even seem to have to blink as he examined him deathly.
Every now and then Steve briefly raised his eyes, but then had to lower them again a blink of an eye later because he obviously couldn't stand the way Danny was staring at him. None of his anger had evaporated; time had not allowed a wound to even begin to heal, contrary to popular wisdom, or so it seemed.
Beside him, Kono snorted quietly as Steve explained in a broken voice that he was foregoing a lawyer and would accept whatever punishment the court would impose after the trial was over.
The negotiation began.
"He is a broken man. …How is he supposed to continue living like this? ... Do you think he'll do something to himself when this is all over?" Kono asked in a whisper after a while, her voice choked with tears.
"Which of the two do you mean?" Chin replied just as quietly and automatically squeezed her hand.
Kono looked over at him, eyes red and hopeless. "Does that make any difference to answering the question?"
Chin looked between Danny and Steve and finally shook his head sadly.
No, it didn't.
END