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"Now it's my crime scene."
Those could have been, should have been, the last words he heard from McGarrett, and in a kinder world, they might have been, but the world hates Danny Williams, and he's not exactly feeling all that generous towards it, himself, so he's honestly not even a little surprised when the authoritative rap on his door comes attached to a too-tall, too-broad, too-aggressive Navy SEAL with revenge on the mind and Daddy issues from here back to the boardwalks of Wildwood.
He hates him.
Because of this joker, he's home in the middle of the day, instead of at work, work, he might point out, where he's attempting to catch the guy who did this to McGarrett, Sr., which is normally what the child of a murder victim wants, right? They want the cops to do their damn job and haul the dirtbag in for justice.
They don't storm in and take over like it's their goddamn platoon out in fucking Afghanistan.
Except McGarrett, okay, he doesn't seem to have gotten the memo. There's a reason officers don't get involved if the deceased was a family member, and this is exactly why: it makes people angry, irrational.
(He hopes to hell this is McGarrett being irrational.)
It's too close, too personal -- and it's also not his case anymore, so he's got no idea why McGarrett, shirt sticking to his skin from the soaking rain that just hit, because it rains every goddamn day here, what a fucking miracle, Hallelujah, is standing on his doorstep, because it isn't that.
(And it's not that either, he refuses, it's not happening, and there's no possible way this whackjob noticed. It could be he doesn't even have a timer, or got his blown off while single-handedly stopping an insurrection with a couple of grenades and a can-do attidtude.)
So he just stands and waits, with one hand still on the doorknob, ready to slam it shut just as soon as possible.
Those could have been, should have been, the last words he heard from McGarrett, and in a kinder world, they might have been, but the world hates Danny Williams, and he's not exactly feeling all that generous towards it, himself, so he's honestly not even a little surprised when the authoritative rap on his door comes attached to a too-tall, too-broad, too-aggressive Navy SEAL with revenge on the mind and Daddy issues from here back to the boardwalks of Wildwood.
He hates him.
Because of this joker, he's home in the middle of the day, instead of at work, work, he might point out, where he's attempting to catch the guy who did this to McGarrett, Sr., which is normally what the child of a murder victim wants, right? They want the cops to do their damn job and haul the dirtbag in for justice.
They don't storm in and take over like it's their goddamn platoon out in fucking Afghanistan.
Except McGarrett, okay, he doesn't seem to have gotten the memo. There's a reason officers don't get involved if the deceased was a family member, and this is exactly why: it makes people angry, irrational.
(He hopes to hell this is McGarrett being irrational.)
It's too close, too personal -- and it's also not his case anymore, so he's got no idea why McGarrett, shirt sticking to his skin from the soaking rain that just hit, because it rains every goddamn day here, what a fucking miracle, Hallelujah, is standing on his doorstep, because it isn't that.
(And it's not that either, he refuses, it's not happening, and there's no possible way this whackjob noticed. It could be he doesn't even have a timer, or got his blown off while single-handedly stopping an insurrection with a couple of grenades and a can-do attidtude.)
So he just stands and waits, with one hand still on the doorknob, ready to slam it shut just as soon as possible.
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Sliding into the car, he slams the door with a creak and a bang, reaches for his seatbelt after starting the ignition and letting the engine growl. "Or are you saying your original request was facetious?"
It's always a toss-up. By all rights, criticizing McGarrett to his face ought to land Danny face-first in the dirt, with his other arm getting torn out of its socket, but the guy actually doesn't seem to mind, just rolls with it without giving the things Danny's saying much credence, which would be infuriating if Danny really meant them.
Well, he does. Kind of. It's all true, but there's no bite behind the bluster, just faint conversational interest, because maybe McGarrett's not all bad. Sure, he'd rolled in and taken over, stolen Danny's crime scene right out from under him and then requisitioned him like a piece of equipment and then gotten him shot, but at least he's talking, sort of. At least Danny's not some vapid blip in the world, like a strange hole in reality that just needs to be ignored. At least he's not starting fights, or telling Danny off for hating Hawaii and everything in it. He's obnoxious, but he's not the worst person Danny's ever been forced to work with or be around.
Not that it matters.
"So, which way are we headed?"
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Because he might be incapable of silence or patience, but Danny Williams was not a stupid man.
Nor an unobservant one. If anything, he commented on every single piece of flotsam that floated past his vision.
He doesn't really have to answer that, because Danny answered it himself asking. Like some teenaged point that Steve shouldn't ask questions he doesn't want answered. Which should bug him but it really doesn't when he's glancing out the window. As far as odd quirks and annoying habits went, he could have gotten saddled with so much worse in the way of the cops he had. Danny, especially, given he'd gone and made the man his partner based solely on his having landed the sentence of his father's case.
It's not like it matters he doesn't answer either, because Danny is content to carrying right on to something new. Another question. The direction of where he's going, and those beers, supposedly. Back to the place he's spent so little time at, aside from so much earlier today. When he can point toward the direction of the road, and say, "That way," like there's some other direction that isn't that way. Like all roads don't lead to Rome. Even here.
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Not a large one, and not an obvious one, but maybe, like Danny, he's going to at least ride this out past this initial meeting, so he can see what else there is to him. See if the world is totally off its collective rocker, or if maybe fate's got some kind of point that's been anything but clear throughout this entire miserable day.
It's possible. It might even be the only reason Danny can think of for the way Steve lets the insults and criticisms roll off his back, only to tip his head down the road and give a short, vague direction. "Oh, that way, good to know. I almost went the other way, so I'm glad we cleared this up."
He's digging his phone out of his pocket and glancing at it before dropping it in the console, but there aren't any calls from Grace. It's after school now, so she's probably home -- or at one of the numerous lessons Step-Stan's got her attending. Tennis, and who knows what. Piano? French? What kind of lessons does a millionaire think are useful for a happy, complete life, aside from one on how to figure out Wall Street?
Whatever. At least he got to talk to her, at least he'll have her this weekend, come hell or high water, no matter what Steve McGarrett says about his apartment. Maybe it's not Step-Stan's McMansion, maybe it's not an old beach home, maybe it's not a fancy townhouse or loft, but it's what he's got, and it's not so bad. Not when she's there, anyway.
But the weekend feels like an eternity away, even though it's only a couple of days, and McGarrett and this case are the here and now, so he makes the turn, slides the Mustang into light traffic, squinting against the setting sun. "Lucky for us about Kono Kalakaua, huh?"
What? It's conversation. It's even normal, friendly conversation, by societal standards, because there are red zeroes on his wrist reminding him to try and behave, and he doesn't do it well, but he can try.
Sometimes. When he feels like it.
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The way where anything he says is going to be served up with three to five follow up sentences and a full helping of whatever Danny's opinion on the subject of whatever the hell it is, even when there's nothing to have an opinion about. Like getting on the road already. Headed back to his childhood house, like his childhood was an actual place, not a zone left decades ago that could never be touched again. It's easier to picture it as necessary crime scene than that. Or just a place. Like any other.
But there Danny goes. Rolling out words, making Steve shift a look back to him, again, head rolling against the head rest.
Except that Danny isn't looking at him by that time even. He's looking at his phone in a way Steve could never miss. Because his men, at least the larger portion of them, all have something they look at like that. Even if it looks like a regular object to everyone else. That touchstone to the thing that keeps them going, or that they left behind. A picture. A letter. A piece of jewelry. A toy. He's seen the gamut of it. So, no, it's not like he could miss it.
The way Danny looks at his phone, for something he doesn't find, that makes his shoulders raise and fall slightly.
The way it could only be his daughter, and Steve had, somehow, forgotten mostly about her for the hours between then and now.
It's not even all that surprising, when he's focusing. Details that are inconsequential, sliding out and back in, while he's wondering if he's in the way of something. If this is when Danny usually calls her. Once he's off the clock and leaving for home in the evening. If it's not just weekends in that hovel. But something daily. If people did that. Families did. Danny did. When it's on his tongue to open his mouth and ask something, or say he can still call, whoever, like he's not seeing that look on the man's face, the way he never talked about the faces on his men, out in the back nine incapable of a call.
But Danny's dropping it in the console, and sliding into traffic, with words that have nothing to do with that.
When he's still looking over there, but not looking, but has a reason to, at being addressed. "We'll see tomorrow."
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Not only is it a crap job -- UC is the worst, he hates it, and this is bound to be dangerous -- but it's a crap job working with both him and Chin Ho Kelly. No matter how lauded John McGarrett was, no matter what a hometown hero his son might be, there's not a damn person in HPD who would do either Danny or Chin a favor. No one there would bother to pour a glass of water on them, if they were on fire. "She seems like she's got a good head on her shoulders."
Smart, and quick, and good on her feet -- those are all things that will make tomorrow's operation go as smooth as possible. Even if that's a relative term.
The light changes; he depresses the accelerator, sends the Mustang growling across the intersection. "We on this road for a while, or what?"
It's just that there's aren't a lot of hotels, this direction. There are a million in Honolulu, but they all seem to be situated along the larger public beaches, or near the expensive surf clubs and boatyards: the Hilton, and all the rest, stacking their glossy multi-storied windows into the air.
This way is a lot more residential. It's possible McGarrett's renting, but he only got here, what. This morning? Yesterday? Is housing something the Governor can swing, too, or is he just fast?
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"As long as she can keep it on her shoulders tomorrow." There's no derision in the statement. He's seen men who were trained for years, ready for the hardest, grueling, mentally wearing, work, choke that first day when it was suddenly more real that the training house. There was, also, the chance Kelly might be touchy with one of his own as risk in the field. They'd be close enough by to handle that if it happened. If anything happened. He would be.
The need to catch Hesse, before he could slip out again, far outweighed the risk, and the bait was more than willing.
If Danny over there can't seem to hold still, Steve is nearly the full opposite. Watching those fingers drum at the edge of his vision whether he's looking at Danny, out the front, or out the side. Stillness, silence and patience was just not a skillset the man seemed to have. Which just made Steve even more aware of the finite place he found himself sitting in, hand keeping the laptop in place while the car moved. More still than his partner. More still than anything, shining in the sun, at ease, out there outside his window.
There's a furrow in his brow when Danny asks. As if the destination isn't as obvious as Danny's inability to sit still.
"Not long. We're headed back to the house." His dad's. Singular. Casting out that look of confused curiosity Danny's got going over there, with his question. Like Steve had time for anything else. Like he could just chose to take off a night like this was some kind of tourist destination for him, or like he even knew how to stand around long enough to try and let it be. With all of it's hazy edged memories from way back and jobs that still needed doing.
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"You got something else to pick up there?"
Because...
No. The other option is too insane, even for McGarrett. Isn't it? No one would willingly stay in the house their parent was murdered in -- at least, not with that parent's blood still splashed on the walls, not when the house itself is still an active crime scene. Even if it's Steve's crime scene. Danny supposes that might make it allowed, but...
No way. No way. No one should have to do that.
It must just be a stop. Right? A stop on the way to a hotel, and Danny can buy the guy a beer and they can have a short, prosaic talk, and he can pat himself on the back and say he tried, even if it was only a little, and isn't it a shame it didn't work out?
That's how this is going to go. That house of ghosts is going to stay closed down and empty tonight.
Isn't it?
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"No. Long as I can get the sat connection working, I've got everything I need."
The last part which goes with firming a large hand across the back of the laptop and the spool of wound cord.
It's not true. Not entirely. There were a lot of things he still needs, but they are all plates in the air. Spinning. Waiting. For links, for calls, for the meet, for Sang Min, for Hesse, for any number of small things to come back to home with some new detail he hadn't yet examined every side of. Pieces sent away early. Some new detail Chen Chi or Duran's girlfriend might told anyone who was currently working with either of them.
As for the rest. It'd be faster with a landline, to get into checking on everything for the rest of the night, but given his father's hate of computers that wasn't a thing he'd find waiting for him there. A sat connection would be easy to piggy back off of. Access from the base or the governor, whichever one was faster. Probably back channel it, on private military global lines first, until either of those two decided which way was up which would take much longer.
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It's probably unsafe, staring across the cab at Steve instead of watching the road, but he's so flabbergasted, so disturbed, he can't help himself. "You're staying there?"
Distaste is freezing at the base of his spine, running icy fingers up along his back, but it's swamped in the next breath by an unexpected wave of pity that he hopes to God doesn't show on his face, because McGarrett is probably the kind of guy who takes being pitied as a mortal offense, the kind of insult that requires a duel to the death so he can retain his honor.
But it's there all the same, racing uninvited and unchecked through him like warm white water, because no one should have to stay in the house their father was murdered in, with blood still on the walls and yellow crime tape still closing it off to the public. No one. And especially not someone as clearly out of touch with his emotions as McGarrett, where it'll just become another stone in the massive pile of crazy he seems to be spending his time collecting, like he's going for the record in the "most fucked up life" contest. "Are you insane?"
It comes hard on the heels of the sympathy, blunt dog claws scratching the hollowed-out floor of Danny's stomach: unease. That maybe Steve really is. Insane. Or that the murder of his father actually did drive him over the edge, and it's not just Danny's hyperbole, because he's so damn calm about it, sitting over there, discussing getting a satellite connection from the house his father was murdered in, like that's the only questionable aspect of it. The only quality or possible lack of amenity that matters to him. "Couldn't you get, I don't know, a hotel room, or something? It's Hawaii. Hotels are everywhere. I'm pretty sure we just passed three in the last thirty seconds."
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Danny has a problem with nearly everything he's done since the man walked in on him in the garage, with the only caveat being whether he's muttering it in something that's hilarious not under his breath, saying it with his fist, or this kind of reaction. Where he's clutching the wheel with one hand and seems to have forgotten he's driving at all, looking at Steve like he just announced he was going to bounce to the moon.
"Watch the road, will you? Or do I need to drive the car now, too?" Is sharp and annoyed, with a thrust of his closest hand toward the front window. Because he hasn't looked back yet, and Steve would like to make to that house without a few broken bones to add to his stack of annoyance for the day.
Steve was shaking his head, at being questioned in the several tones that came across with those words and just in general. It wasn't a thing someone would have done, and kept doing, where he came from. You didn't bitch up the chain. You might have asked. Hazarded to ask. Respectfully. With your boots and hat in hand, knowing it was just as likely you'd never get any answer except to go where you were sent, to whatever you'd been sent to. It's all there in the flash of annoyance.
(But so is the thing that sinks cold fingers, digging them up into his guts, in from the back. The part he's not look to or for or at. Not this morning, and not now.)
"I can't get a better look at the crime scene if I'm somewhere else." He had no need for pristine walls and sheets. As anonymous in Hawaii as they were in every other country. Filled with milling tourists that would be even more useless and empty-headed than Danny was being right now. "Figure out if Hesse, or the guy with him, left any clues behind that I missed this morning."
He's not even giving the once over of the file a head-tip. The cops were the cops. They probably did an okay job. Danny included. But they didn't know Hesse. They definitely didn't know the Hesse brothers the way Steve did. Hadn't studied every location, every body, and dead end until he could recite them off the top of his head from the second he opened his eyes every time. The way Victor probably left every trace of himself on the house and no clue toward the next steps of his plan. But if Steve was lucky maybe his flunky hadn't been that good.
Had gotten sloppy in the rush between Anton being captured and Hesse choosing to checkmate with his dad.
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He does look back at the road, but it's just a glance, before he's turning that befuddled, disturbed glance back on Steve.
"There is something deeply wrong with everything you just said."
He's not even sure he would be able to go into detail about everything wrong with the words that just came out of Steve's mouth, or the distanced, disconnected expression on his face or the complete lack of emotion regarding the murder of his father, but Danny can say this for the guy: he can compartmentalize like a pro.
Which, Danny guesses, actually is part of his job.
He's taking a deep breath as he turns back to the road, one hand loose on the top of the wheel, the other arm on the door, wrist loose and every now and again catching him with the persistent red check of glowing numbers. Which keep calmly staying put, even as every attempt from him gets another dealbreaker from Steve: it's not resetting, not realizing its mistake, even as he keeps cautiously prodding the idea and getting only dead ends and definitely, definitely nots.
It's still there. Convinced that somehow, the psychopath in his passenger seat is his...soulmate? Is that even the right word? Some people think it means they've met the love of their lives, but Danny's not sure, that seems too simple, because Rachel, he loved Rachel, numbers or not. So maybe it's not about love. Or whatever, because he's pretty damn sure that's not happening, even if the numbers say it's inevitable.
He can't stand Steve and Steve can't stand him. It's a non-starter.
He was an idiot to think it could be anything else.
There's a liquor store up ahead in a small strip mall; he flicks the blinker on and pulls into the turning lane, shaking his head, and he almost asks what kind of beer goes best with the destruction of your childhood home? but manages to choke it down. "Anything else you need, while we're stopping?"
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That he's going to do that job. Whether they are getting along or not. Whether that was his house once upon a time or not.
That a lot of dead people, and a lot more who are still alive, are riding on his ability to make sure he doesn't give a damn.
He can give a damn when the case is over. He can give a damn when he's dead. Until then he has a job to do.
One he has to focus on, while he's ignoring Danny, because he knows. Alright. He knows how close all of this is, and should be. He knows how easy it would be, to look over his shoulder, and go sliding on the first rough patch of ice. Not the house. The house is. It's just a house. The last place from the last day of another life. Where three people once lived who didn't exist any more. The house actually isn't the thing. It's the rest of it.
He knows how easy it would be to go sliding, if he looks at the rest of it. Or if he lets the house, or the last week, get a foot hold anywhere inside of it. Inside of him. If he lets it get personal. What it cost just to bag Anton. What Victor took when he killed Anton. The words on his phone. The tool box. The mini cassette recorded.
He knows. Has careful markers placed out. Where he can't sit, stand, look too long. Not yet. Not until this is done. Only then. It may annoy the crap out of him, or both of them, but he gets that Danny can't get that. That a greater portion of the world can't. That there's a reason why there are less than three thousand people who can do the job he does out of over three hundred million in their country. Because they are different. Elite. Able.
Steve looks up at the question, and there's that odd sloshing incongruity to it all. Danny, who's back to thinking he's insane, is still stopping, still getting beer. That he somehow thinks he's going to manage to keep having with Steve. Even though every time Steve says anything real the man goes five sheets of indignant and ignorant. But he's still asking. Still doing it. Still stopped, and it just jangles oddly in Steve's head. Making less sense than anything in the last few minutes.
But there's still that question. That Steve really hasn't a clue about it. He doesn't know what's there. Or what he could possible need between now and the morning. All of the options that sprout up are things he could get delivered, or catch a cab for, and it's not like plate meals can't be bought at a place on nearly every nonsuburian street. It's not even like he needs the beer. He just doesn't hate the thought of it either.
Which leaves him shaking his head, and just saying, "No, I'm good."
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Steve's answer comes as they pull into the lot and park, leaving Danny to peer at him for a long second from under beetled brows, before shrugging and unbuckling his seat belt. "I guess that's one way to phrase it."
Which leads to him pushing the door open with a creak and pushing himself out right after it, without waiting for Steve, who may or may not decide to come in. Danny doesn't care either way, would maybe even prefer it if Brute Squad would just stay in the car and give him a second alone with his still-swirling thoughts, the thick scent of baking pavement and hot metal, and the zeros on his wrist that won't go away. He's got the insane urge to try and shake them off, even flicks his hand a couple of times like he's shaking water off it, but it's no Etch-a-Sketch: they stay put, more permanent than ink, glowing a gentle red that should in no way put him in mind of the fiery abyss of a doomed soul.
But does.
That's what love is, right? And he's not even convinced the numbers mean love, love, right, because he loved Rachel, loved her with everything he had, sprinted right off that cliff to be in her arms, to be the one to make her smile, gasp, sigh, laugh, and he doesn't feel a damn thing about McGarrett except pity that's tangled up in fury, and the same consistent cloud of self-loathing that's been storming around him since Rachel told him she was leaving. There's nothing to build on, here, and no ground he wants to try and break, no foundation he wants to build. Okay. Sure. He feels bad about the guy's father. He wants to catch Hesse, even if he doesn't have the same burning drive that's got Steve hellbent for leather. He liked the way Steve treated Chin Ho Kelly.
But none of that does a future or a family make. He's pretty sure, gun to his head right this second, he doesn't want Grace anywhere near Steve, and his guns, and his thousand-yard stare, and his total lack of social intelligence, aside from how to best manipulate people into giving him what he wants.
And that's really the kicker, right? Without Grace, there's no chance. Not for anyone.
It's not like they need anyone else. He doesn't. She doesn't. They have each other. That's enough. If it has to be. And he's pretty sure it has to be.
And yet he's still pushing the glass door open, hearing a bell jingle above his head, and striding to find the refrigerated section for the cold six-packs, because apparently, he can make all the goddamn decisions he wants, but he'll still find himself out there, on the line, holding out that offer and just waiting for it to get smacked into a mud puddle and trampled on.
Because he's an idiot.
(But at least Longboards are on sale.)
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But he hadn't. Considered it. Not past the point where Danny asked if he'd wanted anything, and he pointed out he didn't. Or the one where if Danny Williams could shoot a lead witness without supervisions, he could definitely buy a pack of beer without it. The same way Steve would manage to stomach whatever it was the man bought, because he'd had worse than any civi-store could turn out. Trash-pail made gut rot to burn the tar off roads when you needed it to do that, too.
The same way Steve would find his way through that half an hour of Danny was injecting himself into off the clock time.
Time Steve could have spent focusing on another piece of the equation. Even if he did have all night, and he was certain to run into walls about how much of that could be done. The resources that could be reached from here. The time needed to wait between what had been sent out and when it was coming back in. The way nothing around here seemed to want to go quickly.
It's a thought that happens as a group of people in beach gear caught his eye in the side mirror. Strolling by, laughing.
So very little here happened quickly. It was a place that knew how to have a good time, and let go of everything else.
Which was everything he needed to be no part of as long as this was all hanging over his head. Waiting.
It's not long though, minutes at most, before Williams was returning. Thrusting words and a six pack at him from the still driver's side that suddenly wasn't still anymore. A world of movement and sound shattering the silence Steve hadn't even noticed had swelled into the space of Danny missing from the car until suddenly it was the thing in the car missing. Something he let pass him by when he's pulling at the plastic bag the six pack is in, and coming face to face with that bright yellow label.
"Huh."
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By the grace of God -- or something less mystical, maybe -- it doesn't actually come out argumentative, even if it's still kneejerk defensive. Like, okay, maybe they've got different tastes in beer -- which, how would that be surprising, that would literally be the last thing to surprise him, today, along with probably picking up the only kind of beer McGarrett doesn't like, because that is how Danny's luck works -- but how the hell is he supposed to know? It's not information that got volunteered. The guy didn't give him any preferences. Danny's just doing his best, all right, and he doesn't actually mind Longboard. Lacking Yuengling, this is the only decent lager on the island, and, sue him, he figured most people like lager, it's about as inoffensive as beer gets.
So maybe there's some tension threading itself through his shoulders, getting ready for a fight, when he's turning the key and the engine is growling to life and he's looking over at the plastic bag, up at McGarrett's face. "You don't like that kind?"
Set and ready for the answer to be no, because of course it is, because it's not like he can get a damn thing right today, or ever, as Rachel, the Chief, the world keeps reminding him.
Whatever. He's not going back in for more.
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That cheerful yellow cardboard, with it's very shining Hawaii look. Waves, and boards, and flowers, and trees.
Looking at it, and looking through it, even as he's blinking back from the wash of memories older than he'd ever considered in a long time, when he's realizing Danny asked a question. Or how. A question than didn't have to do with the innocuous things filling up his head and his mouth, with more than the single, "No," when he's shaking his head. It's just more along the line of --
"I remember these, from back-" There's a kick of his head and shoulders like he meant to look over his shoulder without ever getting to that movement entirely. Being able to look away from the box. Back when he was younger. Too young to be at a party or two he got drug to, because he was the star quarter back breaking every record, even if he was sixteen. From when his mom and dad had them in the house, before it was all scotch bottles and whiskey. "-when I was a kid."
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Lost. In thoughts. Or memories? Staring at the yellow box like it's a snake that jumped out and bit him, or is coiled there, thinking about it and hissing menacingly. Not a six pack of beer that couldn't hurt them if it tried, unless someone else was swinging it at his head. It's not even enough to get them both drunk.
But it's Hawaiian, and he guesses it probably is something Steve would recognize, even if he hasn't been here for years. That's not why he picked it up, but now he's wondering if he should've considered that factor, that maybe it would be familiar, and not in the good way. Though Steve doesn't seem to be caught in bad memories. Or good ones. He's just...caught. Stuck, for a second, like a record needle running into a piece of gum on the plate.
Huh. That's new.
"Yeah?"
He has to look back at the road as he's merging, checking over his shoulder at the blind spot, but he glances over again once they're on the way. "It's pretty much the only decent beer on this hunk of volcanic rock."
He can't help it. Goes for grating and annoying even when there's something strange tentatively flipping itself in his head, in his throat, in his stomach, that says maybe he should tred a little more gently in this particular waste of quicksand and mat-covered pits, but he can't. Pushes and prods instead of draws back. He always has. He inserts himself where he's not wanted or needed, rolls straight into whatever place wants him least. Like here. Now. Tossing out his opinion like it's a thing that has even the slightest relevance on whatever's going through this guy's head right now.
Whatever. He probably doesn't want sympathy, anyway, no matter how gruff it might be.
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Closing the bag doesn't actually change what it is, but it causes a distraction. A distortion of white plastic, it's not impossible to see some of the most distinct shape and colors through, to at least create a barrier of some small kind. Letting him blink and lean back in seat, glance out the and back toward Danny, all while he's still nodding. Just let some of those words escape because they are filling up the space in there.
"My Dad would've agreed with you." There's something distant to that. Not really fond. Even while intimate.
"Said it was lucky the local was any good." Especially here. Which he hadn't understood much then. But he did now.
But tossed together with his odd thoughts, has Steve, looking back over at Danny a little speculatively, since this is the oddest small two foot space of strangely not burning common ground, asking a question before he even gets to thinking better of whether he should or shouldn't. "You ever been on the tour?"
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He can handle McGarrett being all Super SEAL and closed off, inaccessible. He doesn't like it, but he can handle it.
But this? This is like those few other blips throughout the day, pushing aside the steel outer layer surrounding him, and making Danny realize there's a person underneath, a guy his own age who lost his father, who hasn't been home in far too long. All of which hits a personal button that he really, so much, would rather keep unpressed, because Steve can't be a real person. If Steve is a real person, then those zeroes on his wrist -- their wrists -- might be a real thing, and Danny's pretty sure he can't handle that.
Except he also can't help it. The begrudging step towards actual conversation, like he's been taunting Steve was impossible all day, because Steve is volunteering information for only the second -- maybe third -- time so far, and it's out before Danny can stop himself: "Yeah, well, he was right."
About the beer. Maybe not about anything else, because he's pretty damn sure that isn't a conversation either of them wants to get into here and now, or even could. Maybe after a few of the beers currently in Steve's lap. But not before.
The thing is, an hour ago, Danny would have thought it was impossible to get to that topic at all, but now? He's not so sure.
For now, though, Steve's asking him a question, and the part of him that wants to stubbornly not answer out of sheer spite is a whole lot smaller than he thought it would be. "At the brewery? No. It's not exactly, uh, something that would be a whole lot of of fun just by myself, you know?"
And it's not like anyone was jumping at the chance to go with him. Which is fine. He doesn't need to go see the beer being made, he's happy just drinking it at home, or at the occasional bar with Meka.
Flicks on the blinker, turns off the main road, headed towards the one that runs parallel to the shore, the one John McGarrett's house is on, for the second time today. "But I took a couple other ones when I first got here." There's a pause, as he looks out the window, back of his neck and shoulders tight, before amending. "Grace wanted to go."
Which shouldn't be a surprise. It should be clear by now that it's not a thing he'd do for himself, by himself, that this place is one he's interested in seeing much of. It's just a place. It's not home. It's where he works and lives now, but it's not home. That's all he cares about. "We saw lots of pineapple fields. I'm pretty sure I reached my pineapple-field saturation point about an hour in on the first day."
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There's nothing quite sharp about the question. It's about as short and amused by disbelieving as the swimming one was earlier. Like it's a wall of bricks that Steve is making out of Danny's Things. The one that should say it's impossible this man is living on Hawaii. But keeps being true all the same. Danny Williams and paradise island were not a match made in heaven, but he was here, still.
For his kid. For Grace. Which reminded him, absently of those words Danny had said into the phone earlier.
The ones he didn't want to explain, that were during that time when he'd seemed one hundred percent a different person.
"I'd always wanted to see it." It's a stupid kind of thing looking back. He'd wanted it badly as a kid. Just one of those things, you couldn't do, because you were too young. When 'too young' used to seem to come from everywhere, and he'd set his sights on something he couldn't have, but could count down to when he could happen, could wrestle his dad into agreeing about letting him once he was old enough, even with a parent.
Back when he was someone completely else. Back when his Dad was someone completely else. When Mare, and his mom...
Maybe it makes the follow-up a little distant, through a look out the window on his side of the car.
"But I shipped out before there was ever a chance of that." Was shipped out. Sent away.
When his dad had suddenly done a one-eighty, broken every promise, broken maybe completely from it, from saying they'd all make it, together, somehow without her, and suddenly sent them both packing as far from him and each other as possible, decimating whatever had been The McGarrett Family entirely to rare, short phone calls. To barely remembering each other. To the way he kept replaying those words his father said on the phone in Korea, confused and curious, and how he wasn't even a surprise Mary didn't come this morning for the funeral.
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It's a joke. He can joke, sometimes. All the time. Plenty of times. He doesn't always hate everything -- even if, no, really, he truly can't stand pineapple most days. Too sweet, too prickly, too hard to cut, too expensive. "What's wrong with an apple? I ask you. Oranges. Fruit that's easy to eat. But no. They're everywhere, here. They're on tours. In salads -- regular salads, I must clarify, not even those terrible fruit salads you get on buffets that are all pineapple and green grapes and cantalope -- on fish, in salsa, it's insane. It's an epidemic."
And it makes him feel better to ramble about, because Steve's looking out the window, and Danny has to tackle the impulse as it lifts, strangle it back down his throat, but the first few words still slip out: "Well, maybe --"
Because it's actually a perfect opening. Would be. With those numbers on his wrist. The ones he can't see underneath Steve's watch. It would be all too easy to suggest they go. Together. Like a date, if he weren't on the wrong side of thirty-five and unsure about what a date even looks like anymore, or what one with someone like Steve McGarrett could possibly entail.
Or, not even a date. Just to do it. Hang out. Get to know each other. Except he's pretty sure this isn't the moment for either suggestion, and he's also pretty sure he wants to burn the first option to the ground and forget it exists, so he swallows it down in a hard knot and shakes his head, mouth turning down in a why not? sort of shrugged expression. "You could check it out, if you stick around."
He's got no idea if that's the plan or not. They have an office space. Steve called him his partner. Said on the phone he was transferring to the Reserves, and would run the task force for the Governor, whatever that means, but Danny has no idea if that means just for this case, or as a career move.
And if it's just for this case, then that means those zeroes mean absolutely nothing. He can't do that. Not to Grace and not to himself. "I hear it's a good tour."
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From the world he can't look at over his shoulder. Even when Danny is thrusting it right into his lap.
Something he can look at for a second while pushing it all back. The memories this place wants to dredge up, blood seeping under the cracks of doors, because it is all familiar. And it should be. And he needs to not let it be, and let it be, let it do whatever it has to do that isn't getting in the way of the case. Which for the moment is making the comment and then slamming the door on it. Refusing to go in there. Because it's just an island, and a house, and a pack of beer bottles, too.
They never belonged to his dad. Or his mom. Or to anyone else. They probably weren't even made outside of this last year. It's just his head, and he's been trained on how to handle that. How to put himself aside and just do the job. Not matter what the job entails, or sacrifices he needs to make, personal or professional, to make sure that is never in jeopardy. Snatches of chants and bits of oath slipping in the oily black corners of his head, when he means to nod but doesn't this time.
Just leans back in his chair. "Yeah. Maybe. When this is all over." Words that are too simple for an ongoing five year case.
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With another shot glance at Steve, before he turns back to the road, since that's what he should be paying attention to, not getting all bleeding-heart sympathetic for a man who's probably killed more people than Danny's even arrested, but he can't help it. It's messed up, is what it is; it's sad. That Steve can get catapulted into his own head just from looking at a six pack of beer, without even having any yet, and that there's nothing in his head but the job.
Danny gets it. He does. He's been obsessed before, drowned in it before. Every part of him that isn't Grace gets caught up in the chase, certain that if he just worked a little longer, stayed awake, didn't think about anything else, he'd catch the bad guy. He'd win.
But he does have Grace, and she's his savior, because she pulls him back out of it again, reminds him there's today to live for, too, and tomorrow, and things in the world that aren't the job, or his resume, or his record.
Steve doesn't have that. Steve, as far as Danny can tell, doesn't have anyone, and that's as much a reason why he determines all over again to stick around for a beer before heading home for the night.
It's not much, and it won't be long. Besides, the house is right up ahead.
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That he doesn't make lists. Doesn't have them. Halfhearted things he might have been drug to by Freddie, before that was never going to happen again. Being badgered into it by that smile, heavy southern drawl that never lost a chance to laugh, and hard slapping on his back. Might see one day with Cath, if. But even those aren't that important. They are if, when, maybes. And even she teases him about whether he had to be forced into leave this time, too, when she sees him.
Because it usually takes the threat of a court martial, being benched, if he doesn't take a break before he's going to take one.
And he's not in the habit of chasing down dreams he once had on this rock. In the long line of them, he made the only one he had here that really mattered, in the long run, come true. Went further than he ever thought he'd go even. Became a SEAL. Became the kind of SEAL other people looked up to, for a pile of ribbons and a lot of black lines. Because he was good at the job. The one out there. Far from places like this. With all the passing cars, and people walking by with flowers in their hair.
It's not even all that hard to admit that if Victor hadn't come here, hadn't chosen his Dad as blackmail and then retribution, he'd still have come home for the funeral if his Dad had died some other way, of some natural cause, but he would have been in and out in the few hours it took to bury him. The way he told Jameson he was planning to. It was only Victor being here, and the strange things he couldn't quite put his fingers on -- that phone call, the tool box -- that was keeping him grounded against the urge to get back to the field already.
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Among other things, but he's not here to talk about being a cop or being a SEAL and how it is or isn't anything like being a cop, except part of him wants to, wants to press it a little further, wants to push it, because Steve's back behind that wall again, and it is frustrating beyond belief.
Steve's almost likeable when he puts a toe past the stone-jawed SEAL facade. It turns out there's a human being in there, somewhere, and Danny has to say he was wrong a few minutes ago: he definitely prefers that one to this. He wants to work with a real person, not a robot; even a perfect one. "And eventually you realize you only take a little time when you've gotten shot and the boss makes you."
Or you die doing the job before you get a chance to retire. It's all laughs, all the time, in this business.
There's a shrug, and a motion with one hand. "Or, for you, I guess that would be...when you lose a limb. Or two. I'm pretty sure you could still carry out whatever insane mission you're on only lacking one limb, I mean, how important are arms, really?"
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