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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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Thing is, Chin's guy? Isn't a guy.
Danny may present himself as angry and bitter and walled off, and maybe he hates this pile of sand and live volcanoes masquerading as land mass, but that doesn't mean he can't be impressed. And he is. He's impressed. Chin Ho Kelly's cousin skates over the water like she owns it, pure confidence and skill. She's taking charge of the least trustworthy element known to mankind, and making it look easy. Graceful. And when she socks a guy in the jaw for jumping her wave, and comes jogging up with wet hair swinging and pure delight clearing her face, he has to say he's pretty damn disappointed his timer didn't choose a later moment to go off.
Say, now, for instance. Her grip is firm and friendly, and she's got a willowy beauty that'll make any guy turn his head, but it only barely disguises the strength he's just seen in action.
Even McGarrett's impressed. It takes him about thirty seconds from getting on the beach to offering her the gig, and the girl -- Kono -- leaps at the chance with the kind of hungry ambition Danny remembers from his own Academy days. She's not discouraged by the danger, she doesn't back down from the challenge -- yeah. She'll be just fine. Young an impetuous, but she seems like she's got a good head on her shoulders, which is more than Danny can say for the rest of them, himself included.
Or maybe himself most, because even once they've got a plan hammered out and arranged for equipment and the sun is starting to sink, he doesn't leave right for home. Doesn't kick McGarrett out of his car and into a cab, doesn't make loud noises saying he needs to get back.
Well, he doesn't. There's nothing for him in that apartment tonight aside from leftover Chinese food and Stanley Cup reruns on Youtube. It's an empty apartment, the kind of place a rat might go to die, and despite everything, despite all the kicks and shoves and the pitfalls the world has pushed him into --
He's not dead yet. And there's a line of numbers on his wrist that the world wants him to believe means he might still have a chance at life.
he might not believe in it, and he might hate Steve McGarrett with the fire of a thousand angry suns, but it's still there. A perhaps. Which is more than the dead certainty of what he already knows he's got, and that might be the saddest fucking thing he's ever thought, but that doesn't make it any less true.
Or maybe it's out of just plain fucking human decency that he says "Need a ride somewhere?" when Chin's headed off to wherever he stays between work hours and McGarrett's looking at loose ends without having a specific task to accomplish.
Or maybe he's crazy. He has to admit, that? Is a distinct possibility.
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The kid, and she was a kid, field fresh, even more than the wet-necked tadpoles right out of Coronado that they all got saddled with from time to time, was passable at least. Definitely good for bait. Definitely looked like she could handle herself, whether that was up on a wave, or down with the riff-raff in the surf. He could trust her to at least attempt to take care of herself after seeing that right cross. Though even the best civilian right cross meant nothing against a dozen guns or trained guys.
But it would have to do. These were the resources he had. Here. In Hawaii. The three of them.
He'd done more with less, he reminded himself looking at the beach through dark glasses, and thinking even without them there was something too bright about the place. Too closed. The closer he stood to the ocean. The way his eyes drift back to the furthest point on the horizon where the water became a blurring line with the sky, evaporated ribbon, too far away to see, and made everything here too loud, too close, and too everything else.
Nothing like a boat. A boat. Any kind of boat. Land, sea sky. Nothing military about any of this setup. Or the people milling, and playing in the sun. Nothing demilitarized about the lay of the land, sun and sand and sky as far as the eye. The thoughts crawling up his spine slow, and steady, martial and marching, up his spine, like a line of ants. He used to joke about coming back here. With. With people it was too soon to even glance toward, when he'd never be able to do that again. Glance, or joke.
Do anything more than keep rolling on. Eye on the prize, and on nothing else, or it'll slip out of his hands again, and Hesse was already too good at that. He put it all back every time it crept toward him. Eyes on the prize, and if they think he's hardass, he has reason to be. There are children's lives on the line all over this rock, and more over the world. And if they think it's personal and gone to his head, maybe they're right, too, but they don't say it and he doesn't have to point out it doesn't matter.
They hash out the meet with this Sang min. Secure an interview. Setup a plan around it. And the hours keep rolling.
Which means eventually they all have to go, civilians do that, fall down once it gets dark. And he'll keep working on. Well. Something. He's still got markers to call in on details. Results that might have come in since the last time he was checking for them. And. There's this place. The rooms and the offices and everything covered in plastic. That needs to be moved. He could ask for people for that, too. During tomorrow, while they were all out. For all he knows that may already be part of the package, since he asked for a quick and dirty setup.
It's checks down a list he's in the middle of when he's looking up and having to focus on Williams talking.
Looking at the room, and it's really an idiotic suggestion even in his head, staying here, working on this, so he nods. Almost too fast, clipped and sure though, like he'd known it was coming or hadn't had any reasons to consider a different answer. "Yeah, thanks. I could use a lift back to where I'm staying." It'd be faster than a cab, and then he doesn't even focus on much. Picking up one of the laptops and the rest of what came with it, while nodding toward another table. "Grab that box."
More equipment he can check for their sake before dawn, too. Make sure everything goes off without a hitch. Get Sang Min. Get Hesse. Maybe then he'd consider something beyond the next twelve hours. For the first time in days. Weeks. The last five years.
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He doesn't have to, of course.
McGarrett, that is. Doesn't have to listen to the imperative the world has suddenly shoved on them by setting their timers off at the same second, right as they pulled guns on each other -- not everyone does. Danny can speak from experience. Not every person in this nutty world believes the timers, or follows their lead, and some of them even end up happy. It's happened.
Maybe not a lot, but then, Danny's pretty uncertain about fate and it's success rate, too.
But then McGarrett surprises him by accepting, and Danny picks up the box feeling a little out at sea. He'd been pretty sure his offer would get summarily rejected, but here they are, and here he is with his arms full of cardboard, willingly taking this guy wherever he's going for the night, and what the hell is wrong with him? McGarrett is an asshole and a lunatic, and Danny will be very very lucky if those characteristics are only in that order and none other.
And yet, here he is. Box. Partner. And this reflex to try that he's sure will only end in the loss of tooth enamel as he grinds his teeth in his sleep tonight, but -- "How about a beer? You look like you could use a beer."
Well, he does. McGarrett. There's not a guy Danny knows who couldn't use a beer after a day like today, and McGarrett isn't any different. It's not warming up to him. It's not giving him a chance. It's justt doing the basic, decent human thing, and making sure the man has a beer tonight, before he goes to bed and dreams of venegance and blood and the total breakdown of the Geneva Convention.
It's only right. Only the right thing to do. It doesn't have a damn thing to do with the red zeros Danny's studiously not looking at, as he hoists the box into his arms and tips his head towards the door. "C'mon, you can order the Governor around from the car, right? Let's go."
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Which is ... not something Steve thought about either.
Beer, or Danny trying to stick around in any capacity past the first offer.
It's a queer little stab of a pair of thoughts. Whether he even wants the man under his feet after hours, too, when it had taken everything but forklift to get him out of his rat trap match box, slashing itself into the thought that the offer itself is not something he expects either. Danny Williams. Who isn't someone his coworkers or superior supposedly like even. Who punched him, even if he stayed. Offering. Time. A beer.
Sure. The lunch was a badgered event, Steve hadn't asked for, but had no choice but to tag along to. Belatedly grateful when it was gone. The food. Inhaled like he hadn't really eaten in days. Which was true enough. But not a reason he saw to slow down either. Not seeing to that before other things.
Back in the house he could check the rest of the house over, too. See if he'd missed anything else Hesse and his cohort left behind as an accidental calling card, before Steve'd stumbled on the Champ box and Danny in his garage.
"I don't have time for to go out. I have other things I need to do tonight still." It's not near to apologetic. It's nothing like his several, over the top, sarcastic and serious, sorry's in the car. The bullet he couldn't grudgingly get a cop having a problem with the way a SEAL wouldn't.
But he had other things to do. No matter what way he looked at it this wasn't leave. It wasn't a strange moonlighting world between missions that was more toy and trivial than real. He didn't have the time to just forget for a few hours and let it all go. But there's almost an edge of considered, or confused, something to it. The straight forward expression and answer. To the way he looks at Danny.
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It would be easy, and he's pretty damn sure that's exactly what McGarrett thinks will happen, and Danny's pretty much set to do exactly that, but then there's that glance. And it's --
What. Hesitant. Questioning? Like Steve, somewhere behind all the regulations and standoffish jackassery, actually doesn't know what the right answer is. Like maybe he's not quite sure, which is a new one for Danny today, because thus far he would have bet his life on the sure statement that Steve McGarrett never questions himself, or the world around him, ever. That everything falls into place and marches just where it should, where problems can be solved by the decisive use of force and the correct bend of willpower. Never in a million years would he have thought he'd see the flicker he's actually pretty damn sure he just saw cross McGarrett's face, but.
He did. And it makes him reconsider the refusal, catch it, look at it from another angle, like he's studying evidence, and the really fucked thing is, it's not actually a refusal. Not really. What it really is, is an excuse.
if Danny didn't know better, he'd swear Steve was just looking for a reason to say yes.
Okay. He can work with that, and before he thinks too hard about why he'll work at it at all -- the easy way is so much easier, and it would mean way less McGarrett, which, despite what his wrist is saying, can only be a good thing -- he's rolling his eyes and injecting challenge into his tone, brash words that he tosses out like a glove he's swatting right at McGarrett's stupid face.
"I realize you've been on the far side of the world eating ready-made-meals out of tinfoil or hunting your own food, so allow me to let you in on a little-known secret: beer? Comes in bottles these days. In some places, you can even exchange money for these bottles, and the nice man behind the counter will let you take them home to drink there. I realize it sounds a little far-fetched, but I've heard of it happening from time to time."
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Home.
He's not going home. It doesn't matter if it's the last place that ever had that name attached to it. It's not his home. It's a house. It's never even been a place for him to come back to. Until this morning. When it suddenly became both the second to last Hesse-related crime scene and the one that had his father's blood splattered across it.
The sharp knife of it, the one Danny seems to have an alarmingly easy ability to shove back into his gut, makes his words harder and more corrosive. "Will you shut up, and start taking that--" There's a hard jerk of his head toward the box in Danny's hands. "--to the car, if I say yes?"
Like somehow if he moves the words, or Danny, or himself, out of this room, toward the car, he can outrun or out twart the ghost already running those lines in his ears, shoving in with all the force of bamboo under his nails, or a burning knife melting flesh. The ice and fire meeting in a ball in the center of his chest, that gets gummy and spreads like quick cement.
Whispering, breath hard and hoarse, I'm sorry I lied and
I love you, Son. I didn't say it enough.
Like he shouldn't just let it. Like he isn't headed back there now. By choice. Design. Imperative.
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"I will, at the very least, take this --" he hefts the box like a conversational prop "-- to the car, yes."
It's probably beyond idiotic, trying to even attempt to get McGarrett to relax. Optimistic to the point of lunacy, really, and he's honestly not sure why he's bothering to try. It's like pulling teeth, and it's almost definitely pointless, because he's never believed in the numbers and he's pretty damn sure someone goofed on them now, and yet, here he is. Dragging Steve into reluctant, nearly antagonistic agreement, willfully seeking out more time with someone who can't stand Danny nearly as much as Danny dislikes him.
But maybe it's not about the numbers.
Maybe it's more about the look on Steve's face right now. This strange, shuttered expression that makes him look like he's about ten seconds and a high-stress situation from just snapping. Maybe it's not about the numbers so much as it is the fact that Danny might have a crappy hole in the wall apartment to go home to, but Steve's got nowhere and nobody on this island anymore. It would be like going home to Jersey, and finding his family gone or dead and his house destroyed.
And that? He can't not offer. Can't keep from pushing it, blunt and bluster, into Steve's hands: forced company and a few minutes before he has to be alone with the ghost of his murdered father and the impersonal, static familiarity of a hotel room. John McGarrett is dead. The least Danny can do for his son is have a beer with the guy, right? It's not locking Hesse away, not yet, and it's not shutting down an international ring of human traffickers, either, but it's the best he's got right now.
The numbers have got nothing to do with it.
And they're not why, when he strides by Steve, he sticks out an elbow to knock his arm in passing. "Look on the bright side: if you piss off the cashier, maybe you can get another free t-shirt on the way."
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That might or might not be here tomorrow night, the same as it wasn't this morning. Only time, and Hesse can tell. The meet if the meet works. But those are all thoughts he can have not in this place, too. Which makes it easy to head out of the door, to go back down the hallways and toward the ample staircases and historical, austere, opulence that is the main foyer before they get out.
He's not expecting the elbow and it's a marvel he doesn't suddenly sideswipe him, with the laptop, of even the arm Danny smacks suddenly, from the surprise. He doesn't. It just makes his core tightened and the muscles in his shoulder, when he's telling himself to let go. It's normal. Not a hair trigger on a bomb. Nor a reason to slam someone into a wall. It's just an elbow, and the man is going on talking already. Like it's what? Normal? Like he just can?
It's that strange combination all flooding through his head, momentarily shoving the rest aside, that makes him furrow his brow and say right back, "I didn't piss off the big man."
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"Well, that's one person."
Actually, come to think of it, all facetiousness aside, the guy at the shave ice stand actually might be the only person Steve hasn't pissed off today. "I can tell you're really great at making friends. You're just a real people person."
It could come off as insulting, or aggravated, but it's mostly just mild sarcasm, more conversational than outright argumentative, as he heads down the hall, box in hands. He can play nice, for a little while. The world might have dumped a carton of lemons on his head today, but, fine. Whatever. He can roll with it.
If they're partners -- and they are, at least for today, at least for tomorrow -- he can act like it. Can nudge the guy towards some small relaxation, can try to get to know him, at least better than what's on the page in John McGarrett's file. Even without the numbers, he's only doing what a decent partner would. Giving him a distraction for a little while, before he has to be alone with his thoughts. Showing some sort of interest in him as a person.
There's nothing unusual about any of this, okay? He's just trying to be a decent human being, for some reason, because he apparently hasn't learned his lesson about what happens when he actually makes the attempt.
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If that was the goal, his first meeting with Jameson, or any call to her afterward, would have gone differently. He was respectful, even when he get dolling out a list. He might have cared about anything but what he could get from the Danny's current desk sergeant. He might have done something more than roll straight over Danny in his garage. But he wouldn't have. Even if he redid this day, he'd do it all the same way.
It was effective and efficient. He'd gotten a good deal done on a late start, that he's never intended to be starting.
Besides, it wasn't like Danny could even talk. "You think you're the one to give anyone lessons on that?"
Steve had a catalog of the face people had made while either talking about Danny, warning him about him, or not really actually even coming to his aid. It wasn't like Danny had earned himself any pointers in his favor during the last year here. And yet. Even on the backend of Steve's retort. The man was carrying that box of surveillance equipment, and offering him a ride, and had just side-armed him into a beer. A. Singular. Basically like he had no choice to it.
Besides it wasn't like Steve wanted to have a clear out and out discussion of where all his friends ended up either.
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Maybe not here, maybe not closer than five thousand miles away, but they exist. He supports the box with one arm against his chest, waves the newly freed hand in a vague circle before pointing at Steve. "I may rub you sensitive islanders the wrong way, but least I don't make people think I'm about to waterboard them if they don't give me the information I want. I'm just saying, you give off a very Full Metal Jacket vibe, it's alarming."
But despite all of that -- and it's all true, all that and worse -- Steve is falling into step next to him. Steve's opening his mouth and replying, with words. Steve isn't just shutting this down into two sides of a wall, Steve is sort of playing along, which only a few hours ago, Danny would have sworn was impossible.
So maybe there's a little something behind the soldier boy and the mission, after all.
Not that he's holding out much hope. He hip-checks open the glass door to their ramshackle office, and pushes it out further with his shoulder, hands busy with the box.
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If its, also, slathered with Steve's disbelief about him having any friends, it's not in Danny imagination either.
Not that Steve has any room to talk. He's not expecting anyone to call and check up on him about everything with his Dad here. He's already heard all he'll probably hear from his CO during the call that had him transferring to the Reserves for this whole cracker box setup. Which they've all worked the craziest angles before for the job.. That's why the unspoken, but completely understood by everyone, expectation is he'll do what he has to, in any government bed he has to do it in, to get Hesse and then he'll be back.
The only person who would have called to see, wouldn't be. Couldn't. Now. He should call Kelly. That should be on him.
But even that turns up the sour, bright taste of copper under his tongue and knots in his gut. Because he won't be soon either.
"Can't say it hasn't worked," Steve pops off, outpacing his head and keeping up with Danny as they cross the parking lot. "Unless you think I'm missing something."
Which he wasn't. He'd gotten a handful of people. A plan. Sure, okay, one dead body that was still a sore spot. One clock to the jaw that, even when he tested his jaw shifting, really wasn't. It wasn't even an itch compared to what he was used to roll out with at times. Everything about how he presented himself, and how he acted about what he expected of everyone at every level, got the job done.
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He lifts one hand just enough to give it an indifferent wave.
"Close enough."
He doesn't really care. Army, Navy, Marines...it's all military nonsense to him. He doesn't have the first idea what the difference between a Captain or Commander is, wouldn't give a damn about it even if he did. Kind of like how he doesn't really give a damn for Steve holding the door for him, or say thanks, even in passing. What? It's the least the guy can do.
Which brings them out into brilliant sunshine that makes the earlier rainshower seem like an impossibility, while Danny screws up his face and squints against the light. It's everywhere here, reflecting off water and shiny windows and glossy cars, and Danny's pretty sure he lost his sunglasses in the movie. It's accosting, this sunshine, aggressive. It attacks in a way he'd previously thought impossible, because the sun rises and sets at a decent time in Jersey, and is occasionally blocked by things like clouds, which Hawaii has clearly never heard of, which makes it sort of a pleasant anomaly when there is a clear, sunny day.
He's pretty sure this sun is out to get him. It'll be a miracle if he manages to keep from developing melanoma.
Fortunately, Steve opens his mouth again, and just gives to him, an open invitation. It's practically engraved, with his name on it. "Do I think you're missing something? Do I have to only pick one? As far as I can tell, you're missing all kinds of things, including, but not limited to, a sense of self-preservation, a sense of humor, the ability to disengage from whatever personal mission you're currently obsessing over, a car of your own, perspective, and the basic understanding that people and not the same thing as equipment."
At the car, he leans the box between his hip and the car side so he can open the trunk. "But you know, I'm just spitballing, here."
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Stories you told. Like it wasn't made of mountains of actual broken bodies and sacrifices you couldn't ever take back, and wouldn't. Not even if you were given the chance. A million chances. People for whom the words honor and duty and loyalty and sacrifice actually meant something.
Who took pride in exactly where they were, what they did, were called.
No wonder he didn't fit into this place. Hawaii cared a good deal about those things, too.
But far be it for Danny to actually stop there. He gets into the sun, with a frown at the sky, that absolutely perfect sunny blue sky that Hawaii is famed for and chased after for, and starts a ranting diatribe on Steve's point like it actually was a question. Like anyone anywhere would or could actually question that he'd come in and done an effective job with less than adiquate resources and time.
Stopping, apparently, is something he doesn't do. Because he's still there, still going on while they cross the parking lot and Danny is slinging suggestions at him like Steve should care about half of those things. Like they would serve him on any level in getting down what he had to get done, as quickly as possible, without letting anything -- even himself, and his now all too personal body count involvement, the logical volatile reactive responses to such losses -- trip him up.
He has to. Has to do the job, and not be the job or in the way of the job if he doesn't want to be booted.
Not take it any more personally than the words that are bouncing off of him while he rounds on the passenger side, with that annoyance mixing toward mild amusement and pointedly sarcastic disbelief, tossing out as he's pulling on the door, "That's really specific for just starting, isn't it?"
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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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