Post 3.01 - The McGarrett Family Home

[gonna_owe_me]

It doesn't come as any kind of surprise to her that she hasn't been able to stop thinking about Steve.

Neither does the fact that those thoughts come with a hefty side-helping of guilt. She should have known those trees were too close to the window. She should have been faster, more alert. Maybe they could have caught him, if she'd been doing the damn job Steve told her to do, if she'd done it the way he thought she could.

No surprise there: like she told him, she's not a bodyguard. She's a long way from basic, or doing anything that isn't in a gym or in front of a computer, and he doesn't blame her, but in some ways that just makes it worse.

So she puts in her request for leave right away, requests the weekend, and it's granted without too many hoops to jump through, but she's got to give up her Friday night and part of Saturday morning, which is fine, too. All she needs is to change, find a pair of shorts and a breezy, teal-colored top that hangs loose off her shoulders. Slides a pair of sandals on, brushes out her hair, washes her face, puts on a little makeup. She skips the gym, but throws running shoes, shorts, and a sports bra into the little bag she packs, along with a swimsuit, before slinging it over a shoulder and hitting the pavement.

The sun is high and hot, and she stops at a food truck, first, grabs two cardboard boxes, steaming with a scent that makes her stomach rumble and curl in on itself, before hailing a cab and sliding into the too-warm, hot polyester scented backseat, and giving the address.

It's been a while since she's been here. Cab rolling off in a faint crunch of gravel, leaving her with the tote over her arm, the food in her hand, looking up at the house with eyes squinting in the sun.

Doris left last night. Right? That gives Steve last evening, all night, and this morning to do his thing, be alone, brood if he wants to, deal with the admittedly ridiculous hand he's been given, and she'd have respected that, even if she didn't have to work, which is why she didn't call or text, just let him be, but it's daylight now, and it's gorgeous out, and there's only so much alone time Steve can really take. No matter what he might think.

Leading her up the path to the door, to knock, adjusting the slippery straps of her shirt, brushing hair out of her eyes as she waits. Rearranging her expression just like she does her makeup, or her clothes, so that when the door opens, she's got nothing there but a smile and the usual pleased light at seeing him.

Comments

[thebesteverseen]

He'd opened his bottle and started drinking while she was. Drinking and talking, the creases in his cheeks from his smile staying even as he tipped his head and kept drinking. Eyes merry over it when he pulled it away, pausing for some air and the way she shifted, like a car, easy between gears, jumping from girl to snappy bravado in seconds.

It's always been one of the things they can both do a lot with each other.
Slip and slide through the completely different faces and facets that are all theirs.

Enough that it keeps the smile at his mouth, watching her push off the truck and walk around the front corner. Shaking his head, as he drank more of the water, turning to the open doors still smiling. Pulling the zipper down from the duffle still there and tossing the medium green towel across the center console to her seat, just as she was getting to the door.

Smooth, smug smile, like somehow it wasn't giving in at all. For either of them.

He, usually, gave her what she wanted. Eventually.

Steve grabbed a second bottle of water, working on downing the very last of the first. Head still throbbing, body still thrumming, even as his heart rate was working itself down. He capped the empty one and tossed it into a trash can not too many feet off. Opening the he second bottle, as he levered up into the drivers seat, dragging out his phone first to see if anyone had called while he was running.

[gonna_owe_me]

"Thank you."

Some huge favor, this green towel, tossed at her like she's a petulant child, and she gestures at herself, skin damp and gleaming, bare midriff and arms. "Not all of us brought shirts instead, you know."

But she does take a second to pat herself down, rub the towel over her belly and back and shoulders, and stowing it in the foot-well as she climbs in. Her heart is still racing, but it's slowly climbing down from the frenetic pace she'd pushed it to, and right now she feels nothing but good. Worked over, going to be sore in all the best ways, with a pleasant hum of endorphins simmering through her blood. It's a real mood-lifter, a run, especially one that hard, especially one with Steve, mocking her and giving in anyway, because he's not the only one who knows how to use that pretty face.

She's buckling herself in as he opens the door and climbs in, leans back against the seat with a breath out.

"I can't believe you ran that after eating your entire plate of loco moco," she says, watching him, hand going to her stomach. "Your stomach must be steel-plated."

[thebesteverseen]

He flicked the screen, attention only momentarily diverted to the fingers pressing into the skin of her stomach, when he's flipping screens. No missed calls. Which means there isn't a reason he stares at the green icon with the little white phone for an unnecessary longer second. No calls is good. Right. Obviously.

It means everyone is where they are supposed to be, and that nothing has gone wrong, or even more wrong than it was. So. Right. It's good. Everything is good. Which is why he's shoving it into his pocket, stretching his shoulders like something oddly mishappen hadn't squeezed itself between his shoulder blades for a moment there.

When it's easier, to flick it away, brush it off. It's nothing. Right. Toss his head back in the game.

"It's not my fault you didn't come prepared," Steve shot back, capping his water and tossing it into one of the cup holders between them, while focusing more wholly back on her. "You had a whole bag, and the running thing-" With a gesture of his hand, out the window, like the mountain is something silly and simple like the beach.

Smile slipping back out, goading and bright. "-was your idea to begin with."

[gonna_owe_me]

Steve's looking at his phone, and it takes long enough that she almost asks something wrong? Not that there seems to be, exactly. He's not calling anybody back, not shushing her to take a message, and there's no frown crawling across his forehead or creasing around his mouth.

Still, it's almost enough to set of the first of a series of alarms always primed and ready to go, until he looks up, flicks on a smile like he hit a switch, and it could be like nothing happened at all.

Weird, though.

Well, maybe not. He might be expecting a call from Chin, about Malia, especially if he's planning to go in and see them later today, or thinking that shit's going to hit the fan even further this weekend, just to see how far he can be pushed.

She's pretty glad there doesn't seem to be anything, really.

"And it was a great idea," she reminds him, shaking a triumphant sunbeam of a smile across her lips. "And my tote is hardly a 'whole bag,' it's just got some odds and ends. Why bother bringing my own when I can borrow yours?"

[thebesteverseen]

"Taking something without asking," Steve says, like that's what she meant. Smile listing more into something like a smirk, when he's bracing an arm on the console ad shaking his head. Like he's well versed in things of his going missing. Whether it's for a few minutes, or hours, or a whole morning. "Is still considered stealing, on dry land, too."

But that doesn't keep him from pushing things all together.

"But, yeah," He gives the earlier, with a tip of his head. "It was a good idea."

Irrepressible, like it's somehow uncanny. The barbed bent to those words, like somehow this is a surprise. When he knows it absolutely isn't. Cath, having good ideas. Cath, knowing a few dozen different ways to get him out of his head. Which is, hypocritically, heaped right up there, bright and amused in his hazel eyes.

[gonna_owe_me]

Her eyebrows climb, and she leans forward against the seat belt to grab the towel, now a little damp and wrinkled. "Oh, did you want this back?"

Bundling it up, she tosses it into his lap, lips pressed into a frown of mock concentration, before sparkling eyes turn back on him. "There you go. Now it's just borrowing."

He's leaning on the console, and she wishes she hadn't buckled herself in, considers undoing the clasp just so she can lean forward, put a hand on his face and draw him in for a kiss to keep this heat building, but they're still out in public and old habits die hard, even if there's no reason to keep personal affections behind closed doors anymore.

So her eyes slide to the steering wheel and back, instead, and she tips her head, reminding. "I would, however, like to steal a shower, so..."

[thebesteverseen]

He actually laughs when the towel goes flying, before it's even fully landed in his lap. Arm reaching out to grab the better part of it, when the rest still ends up there. Across his lap, smacking his stomach and loitering over the center console. "It's a start."

Cocky, and without the slightest skid backward for her matching words antics.

Balling it between his hands and tossing it over the shoulder of the driver's seat, not losing the broken wide open amusement in the slightest. Not actually caring where it lands, though he's pretty sure it'll end up somewhere on the ground behind him, piled at least partly on the open bag down there.

Before he digs the keys out of his pocket, turning the truck on, which turns the music and the low air back on. Before he's taking it more carefully out of the parking lot than he'd usually have to. Saturday's. Families. Things he was both glad of, because people were coming out to places like this, because it was an important thing to share and attempt, but that did not keep them from, also, ending up in his way.

Needing to navigate around a group od people who look like they've brought days of camp backpacks for a simple hike.

But eventually, it puts him back on the road, heading them toward the house, considering the time. That he hadn't been a few minutes ago. Showers and a phone call, and when exactly would Chin like for them stopping by. It's a call he still needs to make, and there's still that last text he never got around to sending to Danny. But mostly he just rubs the edge of his thumb on the wheel, not getting toward either.

[gonna_owe_me]

It's a little personal triumph, making Steve laugh, creasing lines around his eyes and shining him up like she'd taken a polishing cloth to him, or clicked a sun lamp on in his face. Still damp from the run, just like she is, enough that the air blowing from the fans almost feels too cold against rapidly evaporating sweat, so she hangs her arm out the window and pretends like it's one of those solar panels, soaking up sun and energy.

Low music drifting with the wind, and she tugs the wet elastic out of her hair, shakes it out with one hand, fingers carding through strands to separate them and lift them so the breeze can work it's way under them, against the back of her neck, and dry it out. Too much hair, maybe, but it's easier to pin up this way, and fun when she gets a chance to let it down, so maybe she can deal with it for a little while longer, at least.

Her eyes slide to Steve, the thumb tapping on the wheel, eyes focused on the road ahead. "Any important calls?"

He might have said, if there were, but Steve's not exactly the type to volunteer information, just like he doesn't pry for it, either. It's why so much of seeing each other is catching up, glossing over moments that won't suffer for not being brought up and covering months in a few casual sentences.

In this case, she doubts there's anything -- bad news would have had them tearing out of this lot like hellhounds were yapping at their heels, not inspired this aloha-easy drive.

[thebesteverseen]

"No, nothing new," but it's a marvel he doesn't say yet.

He's nowhere near the idea of relaxing down even slightly. With Malia still in hospital and the way every thought of Doris still clobbers him from right out of the black, only narrowing under the feeling of getting slammed in the chest with a steel two-by-four every minute he watched her sleep. Nothing new. Nothing important.

No specific calls he was waiting on, because none of them needed to call or said they would. Or they would have.

"Just keeping an eye out, in case Chin needs anything," He's tossing the whole concept back and forth in his head they way he might toss a ball between his hands, if he were that kind of person. If he were focused out the windshield. Solid and serious. "Or Duke."

Who might. There was no telling. Once you basically firebombed the central hub, there was an all hands on deck feeling.

It might not be the military, but Five-0 would come help if they were called upon. Even if it was just Steve who answered that one.

[gonna_owe_me]

"I'm sure Duke appreciates it. It's been a rough time for HPD."

And everyone else. For Chin and Malia, and Steve, too. Everyone's alive, and that's the important thing, maybe, because as long as you're alive, you can keep fighting, working, making things better, but that doesn't negate the explosion the other day, or the murder of the Police Chief, or the fact that Chin's wife is in the hospital. "No news is good news, though, huh?"

Watching Steve's new life is a little like finding her land legs again; she's not part of it, is just observing except when he calls in a favor and asks her to get involved, so she can't really say much aside from what she's noted, which is piecemeal at best.

It's fine. If Steve wants her opinion, he'll ask for it, and if all she can do is remark on what happened from an outside perspective, well, she's not here often enough to do otherwise. And really, if she had to draw lines, her priority is him, which means she pays attention to everything else, because everything else is Steve's priority. He can take care of himself, as long as he's not dead, so he doesn't exactly spare many thoughts for his own situation.

Mainly. And if there's something on his mind today, she can hardly blame him, though he seems a little easier, more relaxed now, like she feels, with the slower flood of warmth seeping through muscles and tense joints. A run does wonders, really.

[thebesteverseen]

He doesn't say it's been rough time for everyone. He only, barely, lets the thought eek by some far, remote, dark corner of his brain. Moonlighting for half of half a second before it's gone. Because it could always be worse. Tomorrow it could be worse. They lost one man, but his team is relatively in one piece. All of them are alive, is not all awake, or out of the red zone yet.

They lost an important man, a lot of HPD cops, and Wo Fat is at large, but none of them are beaten. They could have lost more.

"Could be worse," which he says with the curve to his mouth still there, even if his voice comes out more the kind of grim determination he couldn't shake if he tried right now. Just keep going forward. "It still beats the odds that they didn't lose anyone else in that explosion."

So many wounded, severely, but that's as much triumph as tragedy in the fact they didn't actually lose another man. That Five-0 got in and got people out fast enough before the bomb went out. It's the kind of odds Steve would mark are nearly imposible, but he's not knocking it either. He'd rather have all of them in one piece, the way the structure isn't and the building isn't, but they'll all get back to.

Duke would see to that, Steve had no doubt about that, whether he took on Fryer's job or not.

[gonna_owe_me]

"That's for sure."

It's like Steve to say it could be worse, because she's never known him to think this is as bad as it gets.

Maybe that's what happens when a childhood tragedy winds up a springboard into a career where going to hell means things are proceeding pretty much as expected.

Newly-released hairs tugs across her face, and she pushes it back, tucking it behind her ears without minding that it just slips straight out again. It feels good to have it loose in the breeze, even if it's in the way. It's been worse, and it's not like she's in a combat zone where she needs all lines of sight clear and uninterrupted.

"So I can cross Koko Head off the list. Maybe I will spend some time checking the island out. There's got to be a first time for everything, right?"

Her smile across the cab at him is amused, bright. "Any other favorites I should know about? Maybe I can wheedle invites to those, too."

[thebesteverseen]

She gets a glance, off from the road, when her words are nothing but agreeing at the first. There nothing but smoothness there, and for a moment it wrinkles. Like he might have expected something else. Except not from her. She'd get it, and did, the same way everyone else who wore the uniform did. Even if he saw it more an extreme and long term way than most people seemed to take it.

Nothing but smooth agreement, tugged up into teasing and pushing for more opinions and invitations. Smile bright and clear on her face, where the warm glow from the run hasn't faded entirely yet. Her hair being tugged this way and that by the wind coming in from her window.

Beautiful and just a little wild, ready to meet any challenge after some water and few minutes to catch her breath.

"You could give Nuuanu Pali a chance," Steve said, choosing off the top of his head. Reckless and amusing. "So, long as you don't fall off the cliff."

[gonna_owe_me]

Her smile tugs a little further on one corner than the other. "I think I can manage."

To tell the truth, she wouldn't mind another visit out, another path to run, another test of balance and control. Chasing Steve up and down the mountain, that reckless run to the parking lot, the speed and bounce and arbitrary glee in running like a kid, all abandon and stretching out her stride to its furthest. A coltish gallop along with gravity.

But more than that, she's looking forward to getting back, to stripping out of sweaty shorts and sports bra, ditching her running shoes and socks (thinking fondly of bare feet on the grass of Steve's backyard, the slope down to the sandy beach). Looking forward to a shower, looking forward to the look in his eyes when she wraps her arms around his neck and lets him spill her onto the couch or carry her upstairs like she's barely anything. Her pulse is up and it can only add to the ease of the day, prove a good distraction and a good time, something familiar to lose themselves both in.

That, and he's awfully cute after a run, even all sweaty and dusty, with that little-boy smile and the way it makes him shine.

[thebesteverseen]

"Maybe tomorrow," Steve shot back, eyebrows raising and falling. "I don't have anything on it yet."

He could do the drive today, and keep pushing himself. He wouldn't mind, probably would love it, honestly. But she'd already stipulated a shower, and he'd already been clear about needing to get out to the hospital today. The latter of which crossed out the hours available to get out and back and hike up to the windy cliffs. Fun, but not enough to let down his people. Nothing ever was. Chin might not be expecting him, but that didn't matter.

The man could probably use a meal and a shower himself, and if Steve was lucky, he'd convince him to take even thirty.

Which he'd complain about, but he wasn't going to stand for anything less than that. Some space, some breathing, someone to stand by on stand by in case anything happened in each of those seconds that would matter to Chin, in case he needed to be called. It was important. It was how the team was a family, and they looked out for each other.

Today was no different. What happened this week didn't change it. Which was important point to make, too.

The drive curved back through the highway, heading them closer and closer to where they started.

[gonna_owe_me]

"Sounds like fun. I like this whole being able to stretch my legs on land part of being on land."

And this part, too, where they swing back through the highway, sliding through traffic, big blue truck eating up the miles between the mountain and the beach house. The air smells like flowers and jungle plants and salt and steaming hot blacktop and metal, the sky has that burnished brassiness of a day that's too hot for it's own good, and it'll be good to get inside, out of the sun. She's no wilting flower, but even she prefers to avoid sunburn when she can.

Steve's challenge doesn't go unmet, though, and she lifts her own eyebrows back at him, daring, resting her elbow on the window and propping index, middle finger, and thumb against her cheek and jaw.

"Maybe I'll just steal you for the weekend, if you don't have to go in. Aside from the hospital, of course."

She'd like that. It's what they do; take a few days here and there, live out of time and away from missions for a few hours or a night. Nothing she'd want for too long -- they both get antsy when they're too inactive -- but it's sure as hell a great break.

[thebesteverseen]

That's good, right? That she does still like it. It's definitely something.

Something attached to a line of thought he isn't following down yet. In a few minutes, or a few hours. When he has to.

Especially because she's raising her delicate eyebrows right back, and staking her claim on the time. With obvious proviso's, that makes him nod. Because it's, really, not actually impossible. He'd consider it good time on shitty events in any other space and time. He really would have. She'd have been a saving grace.

"Aside from those two--" Duke, and Malia. "--it's probably set to be quiet. Chin's going to be at Malia's side. Kono's already back to being po'okela--" there's a wave of a hand, lifting from the wheel, with something like begrudged pride for this, even when he knows she won't know the word, or that he shifts his voice, making sure the inflection is always correct in the pronunciation. "-- in the water, showing them who's boss."

And, yeah. Because no list is complete without. "And Danny's got Grace this weekend, at some aquarium. First time he's seen her since Rachel delivered him with a custody modification. In the middle of the week, and all of that."

The world falling down around HPD and Five-0's ears, and Rachel just had scarily good timing, even she hadn't meant to match up at the same time as every one of Delano and Wo Fat's moves.

[gonna_owe_me]

She makes a face at him for using Hawaiian, but the gist is coming across loud and clear: Kono's on the water, Chin's in the hospital. The team is scattered this weekend, and maybe that's no bad thing, especially when he goes on to tell her the last piece of news. Less tragic than the others, maybe, but it's another blow, and she's starting to wonder if maybe everyone in Five-0 is ever going to be able to to so much as walk around a corner without being suspicious of it again.

That gets her eyebrows arching again, in a totally different way, surprise and concern, if the latter just slightly vague. She doesn't know Danny that well, but she's heard about his daughter, remembers something about an ex-wife, and it doesn't matter how little she knows the man, that has to hit hard, this week of all weeks. Or ever. "Wow. She really has spectactularly bad timing."

It seems like nobody on Steve's team escaped unscathed this week, even if not everyone was attacked, or had a previously-thought-to-be-dead relative turn up, and her mouth thins, sympathetic. "I'm sure he and his daughter are hoping for a quiet weekend, too."

[thebesteverseen]

"Yeah, probably." It's not careful, or near it. His mouth is closer to a pressing line, watching out the window.

It takes him a long second, trying to pull too many lines. Grace and Danny, Rachel and Stan. Vegas, and just how far away that is. How much sometime in his chest is already tightening again. About his lungs like it might smother them. How that doesn't even change his thoughts about Grace. About the whole hypocritical situation, he's least suited to be impartial to.

There are so many reasons he's not impartial right now. At least three, to five, different people's lives worth of reasons he's the last person who should be asked for an opinion on the whole situation, and at least one solid reason he'll probably be the person who hears the most about it. When, or if, Danny has to let it out. When, and if, Danny will have to be off the clock for court.

When, and if, Danny has to turn in his letter of resignation. Just like Lori. Gone somewhere too far, like Lori and Jenna.

"There's no telling if Grace knows yet, but Rachel's vying for full custody to move her to Vegas, where Stan's new job contract is. Which Danny decided to contest," The last of which is complicated. Thick, almost stacked with too many thoughts that muddle and blur the emotions that might want to come out in it.

[gonna_owe_me]

"Vegas?"

That hardly seems like a great place to raise a kid, but what does she know? The possibility of moving is hardly a specter to her, especially these days, when being on the move, having no real set address, is the norm.

Still. She's not sure Steve or Danny would appreciate that Vegas isn't too far, as the globe goes. She's been on the other side often enough to have a skewed idea of distance, but then, she's not exactly a poster family girl, has no roots and doesn't really mind being far away for months at a time. "That's pretty rough."

And maybe not just on Danny. This is not a weekend Steve needs to be thinking about fractured families, or parents being taken away or left behind. And this is making him tense up. Throws a shadow across his face, and under the tone of his voice. "How's it look?"

Custody arrangements, what little she knows about them, seem to be pretty nasty things, and they've got to be worse when moving is involved.

[thebesteverseen]

"It hasn't started--" Is clear enough really, when it only was delivered and contested three-four days ago. When those whole three days have been filled with the worst of the worst being thrown at Five-0, HPD, Hawala and Hawaii than they've seen put together all at once before.

Steve's never been through one of these, but he knows enough to know waffling and kindness won't help Danny. He can't tell his face is getting more focused on some point between the couple on the bike weaves in between him and a small red hatchback. Because there are worse problems than losing a war.

Like heading into one both unprepared to fight and unwilling to consider the option of it.

"But he doesn't want to drag Rachel through the mud, which is not a problem her lawyers have ever had."

Nor has Rachel ever had the problem of calling on them, and sending Danny over the hill, about losing in more of his time with her. Because the money is there, and the fear of the danger of his job getting in the way, before. When the problem of Danny being too good, into the marrow of his bones, not willing to shut it off and tunnel focus and do whatever it takes to win Grace, might be just as bad for him.

[gonna_owe_me]

It's starting to work on him; there's a spot ahead in the middle distance somewhere that he's focusing on, and he's driving with a little more deliberation, and she gets it. This loyalty Steve's got for the people on his team, his people, who he'd go to bat for again and again, whenever's necessary, whatever's needed. And Five-0, the people on it, they're hand-picked. Tighter than tight. Backing each other up on everything, aside from being there at the other door at work.

And Danny's Steve's partner. The first one picked up for Five-0, and the fact that it was more than half by accident doesn't make a difference. The two of them bicker and argue like an old married couple, but Danny's always got Steve in his sights and Steve's always got Danny in his, and half the time at that fundraiser it looked like whatever words they were using to prod at each other weren't even the ones that were the real conversation.

It made her laugh, at the time. It was good to see Steve like that, if faintly surprising.

So the idea of anyone going after Danny, even an ex-wife, is bound to hit hard, to rub the wrong way against that loyalty and the thick streak of determination that turns the impossible into 'probable, if you know what you're doing.'

Steve's team got thrown to the sharks this week, didn't it.

"Then I'm sure he's grateful to have her this weekend. Maybe it'll be a push in the right direction."

Or maybe not. She doesn't know, but she knows Steve would be miserable if some outside force he couldn't attack managed to take one of his people away. No criminal to hunt down, no revenge to exact or mission to rescue -- courts are insidious and tough to work around.

It really is a mess, everywhere, here.

[thebesteverseen]

"If there is one." It shoves out of his mouth with more force than necessary, like the crack of a gun, even low. Like his body is begrudging letting it out of his mouth. Because he is loyal, and he never wants Danny to lose, and not, especially to lose Grace, because he never will. But he'd lose everything else, he walks around saying vehemently that he hates.

Because the last time he tried to have an honest opinion, to warn Danny about what this was doing he was yelled at. And the yelling, sure, he doesn't give a damn. Danny yells about everything. It's his default setting. But that didn't make it any less true. This situation had several doors on each end and none of the outcomes were stellar. Either way someone lost, with and without counting that every single way Grace lost.

Which would kill Danny, even more than the rest of the situation was already hanging him out to dry. Even angry, even with that stupid ring tone striking its beats for a second in his blood and his bones, remembering it, he knew. Danny would even hate himself for taking Grace from Rachel. Because Danny was that good, and he might talk a big game, but he'd hate hurting Rachel, or Grace.

Maybe even more than he hated that this was being done to him already. That anyone dared take his daughter from him, again.

It was a situation with absolutely no end game that won out for everyone. It was like watching the cars in front of you, aimed for each other and a terrible crash, with the feeling like you were powerless to get in the middle of it and make it stop before that moment happened.

[gonna_owe_me]

There's not a lot she can say to that. It sure doesn't sound like there's a good way out of this mess, but people move on all the time, and she didn't think Danny seemed like he liked Hawaii all that much, anyway. "I guess Vegas could always use good cops."

It's a clumsy sort of attempt at finding a silver lining, because it's true and she's sure he'd do fine there, with Five-0 behind him and his daughter there, but she's not exactly looking forward to Steve losing his partner to something as arbitrary as the family court system.

And Steve is down about it. There's no mistaking that; it punches out of him like he'd rather be taking it out on a heavy bag, just like the news about Chin and his wife and cousin, added to the confusion of Doris, and she feels a little lost, unsure how to help, aside from sympathizing. "But like you said, it only just got started. Maybe it'll work out."

And maybe it won't, but the words are a gentle reminder that there's no use worrying about something that hasn't happened yet, when it's not Steve's problem to worry about. Not that Steve would ever see it that way, and she loves that about him, but it's worrying, too. He'd take a bullet for any of these people, but he can't help Malia in the hospital and he can't fix Danny's custody problems any more than he can go back in time and convince his mother to stay, or to stop lying.

It's how he is, how he'll always be, and she can't wish he'd be otherwise, but she can at least try to be someone outside it all, on the other side of his life, not mixed up in it and with her only bias working in his favor.

[thebesteverseen]

Those first few words sear like a bullet. Or maybe bullets. Even if knows rationally, it's not far off of what he said to Danny. There are worse places than Vegas, to raise a kid. It's not stellar, but it wasn't other countries. Or war zones. Or places where children were never safe. But tilted this way, he hates the thought, even when it's not wrong either. Because no matter where Danny ended up, he'd be stellar.

The same cop he'd been before Grace was born, and through the whole time he'd known Steve. Plucked out of anything but anonymity, which is what happens when you box yourself off from everyone in the Force and the island by hating them, and slammed into Steve's way by the sheer, stupid, luck of the draw with who got the McGarrett case and who didn't. That Steve had liked his background.

Liked his choice of living in that squalid little all-window place he first found him, if it was for his kid. Before he even knew a good eighty percent of who Danny was and what he did was for Grace. He'd still be that guy, amazing father and the best cop that Steven had personally ever known, during all the time, not just the best of times. He'd still be that guy, if he wasn't with Five-0.

Or Steve.

It shouldn't feel like Five-0, too, might be dissolving in his hands, a handful of beach sand grabbed up in a fist, falling through his fingers, with no way to keep it all together, all in one piece. Unbroken, and untainted, and untampered with and uninjured. There was nothing about this job, being called in for the worst of the worst, ending up on those people's radars, that could make it that way.

Steve couldn't break it away, tossing it into driving but not a response. The draining feelings, that he was right, that she was right, that everything that happened this week was still his responsibility to have been there, and stopped, at least even caught onto before it had all come spinning down around their heads. Before the shock of his life, had wiped that nearly off the map, even.

Except he can't. All he can do is push the truck a little harder and watch the short distance to home evaporate before him.