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[haole_cop]

 "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.

 

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[thebesteverseen]

The ride is quiet, headed back toward town. The reverse of heading into this area. The encampment covered in places, slowly petering away to less and less as the highway takes them. The only sound the car, that is accelerating like Danny means to drive all his still pent-up frustration into the car and the road. While Steve's starting to grow oddly amused, diagonally amused at the fact it doesn't seemed diminished in the slightest.

The car continues to glide along too fast for the speed limit, and Danny Williams continues to hold on to the steering wheel like he might be imagining it's Steve's neck. And even when he's not really looking, Steve's looking every few seconds. Maybe every ten or twenty, because he's already seen all of this road, okay. It's all greens, and the ocean is gorgeous and blue, going out forever.

Not making him feel any the more released by its nearness.

If anything looking toward it emphasizes his landlockedness.

Sends him back looking the opposite direction of his window. Toward Danny. And the tight hold of himself. Well. The half tight hold. His right hand is up and tight, from shoulder to fingers, while his second one is still down, jostling on the armrest and Danny's lap. And, okay, maybe he was never going to thank Danny for shooting Doran. Not anymore than he was ever going to apologize to Victor for shooting Anton.

But, okay, he can admit he does know that while he might be used to ducking bullets, blades and bombs, running insurgencies, and almost dying on a daily basis, a normal cop isn't. A normal cop actually gets that scared, life might be ending rush still, for a single bullet lodging in their skin. Or in Danny's case. Nearly lodging. Sending him into a tail spin about his daughter, and his life.

So maybe Steve can't thank him. But maybe he can actually give a damn. A little. Get along to get along.

Open his mouth, while staring out the front window, and make himself ask. "How's the arm?"

[haole_cop]

Nope.

No. Too little, too late, and Danny still hates his guts, so: "Let's just not talk."

Flat and final. It's better that way, for everyone involved, because he's pretty sure if Steve opens his mouth again, he's going to want to hit it. Silence will clearly be the key element to this being a workable partnership. It doesn't matter how much he dislikes silence, even ones he's carrying on, started, mean to see through to a bitter, stubborn end. It's gotta be better than whatever's about to come out of this jackass' mouth.

Like he gives a damn about Danny's arm. Either of them, considering he's the reason the right one still feels a little like his shoulder might pop if Danny so much as shakes it out wrong. How's the arm. Miserable, thanks, what the hell else would it be?

[thebesteverseen]

There's a part of him that wants to ask, Seriously?

Because that is just ludicrous. They aren't going to get anything done.

It's like a kid making up rules because of having their feelings hurt. But somehow, where Steve expects to find sheer annoyance, there isn't. There's a tilting bland amusement. Dead panned and ironic, while he's turning a look toward Danny, who isn't even looking over at him for those words. The man is, actually, staring straight forward like maybe if he didn't look he wouldn't have to acknowledge Steve was sitting there either.

Steve can totally play that game. "You mean, right now? Or ever again?" Just so he can be sure.

And so he can drag out how immature that statement is, without even needing any air of annoyance to it.

[haole_cop]

It's hard to tell without looking over, but he's pretty sure he's being made fun of. Again. By the guy who got him shot, and then decided that the way to resolve a problem was by threatening to break his arm, so maybe Danny can be forgiven if basically the last thing he ever wants to do again is talk to Steve McGarrett.

"Just, both, okay?"

[thebesteverseen]

It's almost close to Just don't. But not close enough, or personal enough, Steve's going to now.

"You know, I think." Start fast, and still in the same tone, smug amusement gliding in with it. Because, really.
It's amusing. A little hilarious. Honestly. That the guy is still holding on. "-I think I might know why your wife left you."

[haole_cop]

"Really?"

Thick with disbelief and the sarcastic edge of dark humor, a dare of enlighten me, because he's pretty damn sure Steve doesn't. He wasn't there when Rachel's numbers ticked down, and when they did nothing but fight, until one day he came home to an empty house and a terse note explaining where she was.

He's also pretty pissed that Steve assumed she left him, and not the other way around.

Maybe because he's right, and Danny doesn't think guys like Steve should get to be right all the time.

[thebesteverseen]

"Yeah." Steve says it warm, and certain. Like a kid who knows a fact on an exam.

Without studying. Without taking the class. Just knows it. Without needing any other hints.

Like Danny Williams and his holding on to things so much broader than needed. "You're very sensitive."

[haole_cop]

He looks over for the first time since they got in the car, opens his mouth to argue -- he's pretty sure that's inaccurate, mostly because he has very clear memories of Rachel calling him an insensitive ass multiple times in her posh London accent -- and laughs, instead. "I'm sensitive, huh?"

It's lacking any kind of humor, but it is a laugh, pissed off and disbelieving. Sensitive. Steve thinks he's sensitive, and that's why he thinks Rachel left, and it is, actually hilarious.

A wave of his hand at the wheel, then towards himself, and a hard grin over at Steve. "You think I'm sensitive?" But he doesn't wait for an answer, just blows past the few words being offered, and that grin is gone now, because the anger is welling up again, hard and fast. "When did you come to the conclusion that I was sensitive, huh? Was it when a bullet was tearing through my flesh, is that when I seemed sensitive to you?"

Yeah. He's still mad about it. And he has every reason to be mad about it, because they should never have been taking on a known gun-runner on their own, they should never have been caught out by that girl and suddenly thrown into a gunfight.

Look. He gets it. He does. Navy SEALs don't exist in the world of regular cops. They're off on black ops, secret missions, where people are snuffed out like candle flames and the killers melt away back into the shadows, add another redacted report to their file, move on to the next one. He gets it. He knows. "I am really happy, that you are not afraid of anything. Okay?"

That's great for him. It is. Truly. But it means fuck all on days like today, because this is not Steve's normal territory, okay, it's his. He's the one who knows what to do here. "I'm glad you have that G.I. Joe, thousand-yard stare from chasing shoebombers around the world, okay? But in civilized society, we have rules, all right?"

He's getting warmed up, now, getting into a roll, frustration bubbling out in a hard boil "It is the unspoken glue that separates us from jackals and hyenas."

[thebesteverseen]

Yeah. Yeah, Steve's pretty sure from the second Danny grabs the word, like a hot potato tossed from Steve's side of the car, and starts repeating it, all manner of losing his lets not talk for a sparking, snappy, hard pressed vibrancy of needing to repeat that word several times. It's totally the right word. And yeah, no. Steve totally didn't think it when Danny was getting shot, or flying through a window, or even when Danny gave him the all clear to go.

But pretty much every seconds after that. Yeah, he's going with sensitive. More so with every word thrown out.

When Steve's tossing out words that just agree, here and there, because he's nowhere near thinking he's not right at all.

Proving Steve's second point in this whole conversation that that whole lets not talk thing was never happening. Blowing it straight out of the water, even, because Danny just hits a damn roll and keeps going. Making Steve's eyebrows quirk up and his mouth press light, even though there's this vague almost tug in his cheek he's seriously not giving in to. Because this like a dog on bone, refusing to give up or give in, to do anything but snarl louder and deeper each time.

It's giving him a great view of the inside of Danny's head though as the man just begins to spew everything, and while Steve would argue that G.I.Joe is for Army brats, and he's in The Navy, say it with him, Na-vy, the rest isn't entirely wrong, even if it's kind of amusing the way Danny's going off on it. Like it's not the hardest skill set to train into a man anywhere, and instead is something Danny finds half hilarious, totally rejectable, totally lacking in any worth, and is point on about being right.

Thousand yard death stare, shoe bombers and all. But then he's still going on. Just going on. Ranting. His left hand coming up to emote from the door, even with the injury and the less use. Like it's forgotten in his ranting. Steve letting his expression remain dry and bland, even when he hasn't looked away in over a minute now. While Danny is ranting about the rules of society and the pecking order of the animal kingdom, like somehow its related, and he didn't just haul off and punch someone, too.

Like he's making any sense at all now and not just throwing words because he can't keep throwing punches and drive.

Steve can feel the rise of his eyebrows, when he can't help interjecting, again. "Jackals and hyenas?"

[haole_cop]

He's not stopping, just to clarify, if Steve can't keep up, just steamrolls on, getting into the rhythm of it, letting loose, venting into the air of the cab. "Yeah, Animal Planet, whatever. My point is, Rule Number One --"

Lifting a finger, even as he's looking back out the windscreen, and his own window, volume rising exponentially. "-- if you get someone shot, you apologize."

Words Steve has not said. An attitude Steve has not copped, just blew up at him for, oh, right, shooting the guy who was about to shoot Steve, and that pisses Danny off all over again, launches him into fresh momentum. "You don't wait for a special occasion! Like, birthdays, freakin' President's Day --"

[thebesteverseen]

"Whatever," Steve mouths the word, more like a echoed response to Danny's use of the word and own flippant tossing away of his own point, but its almost soundless and he's not sure how he got rolled into this. But the more he rants, seriously, the less truly pissed Danny actually looks. It's all there. Broad strokes and fast words and wide expressions. But nothing like the shivering rage while he'd been holding him down.

And then, when he magically gets around to Steve's point, before Steve could, like he needs to tell Steve at all, it's almost way too easy to interject, "I'm sorry," straight into the maelstrom. Like shouting or shitting into a storm. Knowing it'll hear you and knowing it'll not stop even then. Because it's its own force of nature, and he's right. Because Danny Williams is still going after the two words come out.

So he keeps going. Two can play that game. "I'm sorry." And because it's almost damn amusing now is a childish fashion. "Sorry." And beleaguering. Because he was totally going to say this. "Hey, man, I'm sorry." Before Danny decided they were not talking at all. Which this is apparently totally what not talking looks like in Danny's world. "Okay? I'm said I'm sorry. I'm sincerely sorry."

Which seems to finally be catching up with Danny, whose voice is fading out, while Steve keeps rolling straight in, well aware if he doesn't Danny will just go right back in. So he's making the best of it. His point. That he was damn well about be apologizing before Danny decided he shouldn't be talking. When he asked about Danny's arm, before he was getting ranted at like it'd never crossed his mind it mattered to Danny even if it didn't matter to him in the same way.

"That's what I was trying to tell you." And he was. "Last year." When he opened his mouth. "When this conversation first started."

[haole_cop]

Steve manages to push his way in while Danny's caught trying to think of a third example -- Memorial Day comes to mind -- and the asshole actually does it.

Apologizes.

Multiple times, even, saying he's sorry without a hint of pride in it, which makes Danny glance over and study him, suspicious, but Steve's expression is bland. There's no hint of sarcasm in it anywhere, though Danny gives him a hard look, waiting for it, searching for it. The mockery. The reminder of who's in charge here, and who's out of line. The reprimand.

But none of it's there, and Danny looks away again, unsettled and angry about it, as annoyed that Steve apologized and took the wind out of his sails as he was about not getting the apology to begin with. He can't keep going with it now, feels at a loss, doesn't want to accept it, wants to go back to butting heads and hating each other. Doesn't want a world where Steve McGarrett is sincerely sorry for getting him shot any more than he wanted one where Steve McGarrett never admitted he might have done something stupid.

"Your, uh, your apology is noted," he says, finally, stiff, back down to normal volumes, taking cover behind formal words, because that face, over there.

That's not the one from the garage. Or from arguing behind Doran's shack. It's something like the one where he tried to find out the meaning of Danno, but not quite, and it's sinking spidery legs into Danny's skin, skittering up the back of his neck and making him uncomfortably aware that maybe McGarrett isn't just a robot, after all. Maybe he's got a sense of humor, because that was a joke, those last words, even if the first ones weren't. The second half at Danny's expense, but not the first.

He's being made fun of, but he's not being mocked, and he doesn't exactly know how to find his balance. Reaches for the safety of words, spins a fragile protecting net out of them. "Acceptance is pending."

[thebesteverseen]

Steve's almost to smiling, or rolling his eyes. He's not even sure which one, or that it really matters, it's both basically all at once, in the wash, so he turns his gaze away form Danny and toward the front windshield. Because, hell. That's better than a flat out rejection, right? Danny, looking over at him suspiciously leery of the fact his mouth can form those words or like he's digging for Steve to not mean them. And, yah, fine, he'd laugh if a SEAL threw this fit. But Danny isn't. A SEAL.

Maybe a single bullet matters to him. Because he hasn't walked straight into six and kept going.

So he nods. Steve nods. To no one more than the front windshield, while Danny sounds confused and defensively winded. Lets that ride, with a last comment, while his head is bobbing, like there's any chance he'll ever be bringing this conversation up, and that several apologies has some review board to go before first. "You let me know now."

Whenever that is. That Danny gets over feeling sensitive and upended. Which Steve totally isn't feeling a little proud of.

It goes well with the hairline ache in his jaw. Like scraping a point back up off the ground no matter what.

[haole_cop]

"Yeah, I'll let you know."

Quick, and a little surly, and still suspicious that he's being made the butt of some joke he just can't see yet, that Steve is laughing at him behind that perfectly blasé expression of his, when Steve's not even looking at him anymore, like the topic has been closed to his satisfaction.

Danny's pretty sure he just got hustled, somewhere in those few words, but he's not totally sure how, and he did, actually get the apology he'd been looking for, so he just shuts up and goes back to what he should've been using before: silence.

Even if this one has a very different feel to it. More confused, less frigid.

[thebesteverseen]

Good. So if that's done. Maybe Steve can get back to what he wanted before that punch, right? Maybe?

It's easier to just keep bulldozing in. It's worked better in the last minute than anything in the hour beforehand.

Just stop making it entirely direct, and keep it somewhere near conversational, but pushy. Because it's maybe a little easy, when Danny's a touch off kilter and tossing out words that sound like they're coming out because he should be, even if he's not certain entirely what they should be. Besides, it's damn near perfect timing. Which is great. "Make the next left up here."

[haole_cop]

"Why."

Still flat and annoyed as hell, even if he can't actually go off on it, because Steve is being reasonable, and as much as that grates on Danny, he has to admit he asked for it, and got it.

Which is a start.

It's not an auspicious start, granted, and he still hasn't forgiven Steve for all the myriad other sins of the day, and he's pretty damn sure they're going to get into it at least once more before the day is out, but he can keep this wavering, fragile truce for now.

He doesn't have to like it, but he can keep it.

[thebesteverseen]

Steve doesn't really pay that much attention to the annoyance this time.

But he isn't ignoring it, this time. It's just there. This worried snap of sound that still sounds like a shell of the earlier ranting tone, that actually was annoyed, and ages away from the scathing rage that was You're right. I don't like you. This one is more along the lines of I don't know what is going on, but once I figure out what you're doing wrong, you're going to pay for it. A growl, all fuss and fire, with no meat behind it.

"I think I know someone who can help us." Steve said it even and easy, like it was all part of this. The case, and the day, and the whatever the last twenty minutes were or still are. Because that's still bigger than this tiny pause, with it's biting confusion over there. The case. And Hesse. And his Dad. And the containers smuggling people out of Asia. That might have held both a little girl, and an international terrorist.

One left, and then they'll be headed right back into his morning. Back to the Arizona, and the place where Jameson made him the offer he denied and then had to reverse tracks on. Like the one that happened in the garage and just now in the car. This day feels covered in doubling back on where he was to where he had been before, things he should have picked up or used earlier, but didn't know how they'd fit into the picture, or be needed, until hours after he'd already left them.

[haole_cop]

He doesn't have to add that last word, and Danny wishes he hadn't, because I think I know someone who can help would allow him to keep being pissed at being used as essentially a chauffeur, not part of the plan, not a partner, the way Steve said they were.

But the guy goes ahead and says us, and that makes Danny part of it.

More than that. It makes them them, two people in a loop, and his lips tighten, annoyed that he can't be annoyed by it, while he flicks on the blinker, makes the left. "Who?"

It might still be short, but maybe it's a little less aggressive, this time. Testing the waters, maybe, to see if Steve's newfound ability to share information will continue, or if he'll be cut out again, if this is all going to be dispensed on a need-to-know basis, or if they actually have a shot at managing something like normal communication.

[thebesteverseen]

"Someone who used to work with my Dad."

It's not like his has the whole low down on Chin. Not like he knows how he ended up at the Arizona this morning.
But it's been two decades. People change, what they want from life and what they want to be doing with their lives changes.

Steve's changed more in one day than he ever thought it could when was that young. One car bomb, and the knock of one hand on the door, and a colliding row of dominoes changed near everything he was ever certain about except The Navy. He can't even quantify an emotion for the blank wonder of if this one will. The gun shot. Still ringing, thin and tinny in his ear, over the phone. His father's blood on the house. He's not sixteen anymore. He didn't want this, but he isn't.

It's a though process that sends him staring out the window, seeing nothing, even while he's watching the Arizona Memorial buildings get closer as they turn toward it, and its parking lot, and the area that will be covered even more with tourists and a handful of veterans, given that it isn't early morning. Trying to shake the thought of three different McGarrett dying on this island under anything but natural circumstances. Like it was some monster stalking them all.

[haole_cop]

So, no.

Making Danny's mouth twist at that non-answer, head shaking, even as he accelerates out of the turn. "Sorry, buddy, that's not good enough."

If this is going to work -- this being this partnership, however long or short it might be, not the numbers on his wrist that he's sure must be some kind of blip or malfunction -- he needs to know what's happening, both on the ground and in Steve's head. That's how partnerships work. "If we're gonna be partners, then you need to start telling me your plans, okay? I am not on your team, I'm not just gonna take orders without knowing why."

The explanation gets waved towards the steering wheel with one hand, the other taking care of following the road. He's not a soldier. He's a cop, and Steve said partners, so he can grit his teeth and get through it, but if that's going to happen, then this balance of power is going to shift, and it's gonna shift right now.

"You and me, we're in this together now, and you need to start trusting me so I can do my damn job. We have got to be on the same page, or there's no point to this."

[thebesteverseen]

Steve is not sure which thing really makes him glance to the left more. The use of the word buddy, when it's probably the least insulting choice Danny's picked so far, or the fact that Danny continues to take five hundred words, with four examples of why, to ask what could easily be asked in one sentence. But he didn't miss the part where Danny, seemingly, is not done with this partnership entirely, and he can call that a win.

Someone got their face in the dirt, someone else got hit, and they might make it through this without someone dying.

But he's being, if way too wordy, reasonable, Steve supposes. He always liked to get on the ground with as much information as possible. It might have only been a few questions on Doran but he already had the file. Danny had nothing on Chin, and admittedly less on understanding this island than most haole's had at six months. But it wasn't the worst request. It was probably actually the first really worthy one.

It wasn't even annoying or insulting or overreaching by anyway, and if Chin Ho Kelly got anything anywhere in his Dad's file it was probably only as a footnote. One of dozens of rookies his dad had trained through the years. His Dad, the good cop, with a soft, but firm touch where it came to training and welcoming people in. The kind of cop people never even remembered was haole-skinned because he did his job so well. Not that his family had seen anything of that man in decades.

"Chin Ho Kelly." Steve pushed out the name, to push away that last thought. "He was trained by my Dad, but he's off the force now." That much he knew was true. Given the uniform. Unless it was a secondary job. But it was an odd choice if it was one. "He's local, and he's unattached, which means he might have his ear to the ground still, and know where we can find intel on the smugglers."

The less official the better. The less chance that somehow Hesse might catch wind of Steve coming for him.

[haole_cop]

"Kelly?"

He was going to say something else, something along the lines of was that so hard? and he probably still will, but he's caught offguard for a second by a faint push of familiarity. "I know that name."

He's heard it once or twice. Even a haole who can't catch a break is a few circles above a dirty cop, and Chin Ho Kelly is HPD's favorite worst-case scenario, a cautionary tale to cops who step out of line or feel tempted to start fleecing a little of the take in cash or drug busts. Meka mentioned it one night, but didn't offer any details or opinions, and Danny didn't ask.

Personally, he doesn't know if the guy was rotten or not. He'd rather believe the best of the cops he works with, even if they're assholes to him, but then again, he didn't want to believe it of Peterson, either, and look where that landed them.

Which leaves him with the question of whether he tells Steve that his dad's protege left the force because there was dirt all over his name and career, even if it was never proven.

Then again, maybe someone like that is exactly what they need. "So where's he now?"

[thebesteverseen]

Steve's surprised and not surprised all at once. It's a small island, chain of islands, and a small police force compared to the juggernaut arms of the military he's used to working with. But all the same, it doesn't hurts to have people in the know. Makes him wonder, a brief, short, sharp second about all those retracings he's been doing. If he's in for a third with Danny, or can finally snap the hell out of that and get to moving forward finally.

But Danny doesn't say any more about that. Doesn't add that he knows the man, himself. Just that name. Which really wouldn't surprise Steve. The Kelly's were all over the force even when he was a kid. Chin's dad, and one of his cousins, maybe, or maybe he was a brother, and Steve's sure there was more, but it was ages ago. Even remembering the face when his name had been called out was remembering through sludge, to a time and place Steve didn't spend much time looking at.

"He was working security at the Arizona this morning." Where Steve'd been waiting for Jameson. When he'd turned her down for everything. Every ounce of the bullshit and desperation that he could smell on each of word. Except he'd gone back on that, too. For his dad, and Hesse. Which wasn't what Danny asked. Facts. Black and white. With no middle ground seeping in everywhere, mucking it up.

[haole_cop]

He thinks is over, checking to see if there's anything else he needs to know right this second, and gives a short nod. "Okay."

A glance over his shoulder, and there's just the faintest crinkling around the corners of his eyes, that's probably just from driving towards the sun-struck waterfront and the glittering monuments there. "See? Was that easy, or what?"

He'll reserve judgment on the whole Chin Ho Kelly decision until they actually meet the guy. Danny knows all too well what it's like to be shoved systematically out of a group that's supposed to have your back, no matter what, and if the guy turns out to have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, he's got Danny's sympathy, for sure.

Still, working security. Which sounds bad, until he figures he should try to make a good impression, because if this thing goes south, he's pretty positive he'll be the next unfortunate cop to be drummed unceremoniously out of HPD, deserved or not.

[thebesteverseen]

There's a warily, dubious, almost ironically blank question of an expression that slides Danny's direction at that.

All barely catching in the tucked edges of Steve's mouth, and the slant of how his eyes shift over to Danny even when his face doesn't turn that way. Like he's not quite sure he believed Danny said that. That anyone on the planet said things like that, at least not like that, when they weren't speaking to children and talking about tying their shoelaces.

Steve might be regrouping his opinions on Williams, but at this second, emotional instability might be in the list, too. Not that pretty much every person he'd ever worked with in the field didn't fall into that box. But the fact Williams is almost smiling now, is a lifting flip. But, hell, it's better than getting into another fight on the grounds of the Arizona, which even Steve would point out was too much, too far, and too in the wrong place.

Really all Danny gets is that look, and Steve looking back out the windshield, pointing toward the lot, "Park over there."