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It was too soon -- much too soon, if you asked Danny, which no one had, thank you very much -- for Steve to be going home from the hospital.
That would explain the heated discussion the nurses had skirted past in the hallway that morning.
“Look. I’m no doctor --”
“No, in fact, Detective Williams, you are not --”
“But I can see the heart monitor and I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to be sketching up and down like a damn seismograph in an active earthquake.”
“We’ve explained, due to the repeated electrical shocks, it may take some time for Commander McGarrett’s heartbeat to stabilize,”
“What about his head? Hunh? You just patched it back together but . . . what if his brain is swelling, or something?” Danny gestured.
“We’ve done both an MRI and a follow-up CT scan. The wound was superficial, and there’s no reason to believe that he suffered additional blunt force trauma. We’re confident that there’s no head injury.”
Chin had placed a calming hand on Danny’s bicep. His face, however, reflected Danny’s concern. “Doctor Casas, Steve is . . . well, he’s still seeing things. That aren’t there.”
The doctor pinched the bridge of his nose, tucked Steve’s thick file under his arm, and leaned against the wall. “Yes. Again, as we’ve explained, he was injected with a veritable cocktail of drugs, including ketamine and benzos. It could be days . . .weeks, even . . . before the lingering effects of the drugs are completely eliminated.”
Kono chewed on her lip as the doctor continued.
“But you also need to keep in mind, the commander was not only subjected to physical torture, but psychological torture as well. That is just going to take time . . . and, as we’ve highly recommended, seeing one of the Naval mental health specialists at Pearl. Now, if you’re concerned that the commander is a danger to himself, or others --”
“Yeah, locking him up in a sterile room on the psych ward would be the icing on the cake,” Danny said.
The doctor saw past the bluster and read the anguish in Danny’s eyes.
“Listen,” he said, his tone softening. “Get him home. In comfortable, familiar surroundings. He’s not sleeping, he’s barely eating . . . we’ve done what we can for him, medically. Being here is --- arguably no longer in his best interests, even if we all agree that under normal circumstances, at least another twenty-four hours of observation would be warranted.”
And so it was that Danny found himself driving in the mid-afternoon sunlight, with Steve twitching and squinting in the passenger seat.
It felt completely wrong, and Danny took back having ever begrudged Steve hijacking his keys, his car, his life.
“You could grab a couple things, come back to my place, if you prefer,” Danny said quietly. “You know, if you need . . . more time.”
Steve’s hand moved restlessly, aimlessly over his knee. “More time to remember that my father is actually dead, you mean.”
“More time to let the crap that WoFat put in your system flush out, before you go back to your home where your dad was murdered, I mean. Come on, you’ve been through hell and back. Give yourself a break. Some space.”
“I need --” Steve broke off, rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.
The gesture was familiar to Danny, he’d seen it a million times. He wasn’t prepared for Steve to flinch violently under his own hand and bite off a harsh curse.
“Whoa, babe, what’s the matter?”
Steve just shook his head. “I want to go home, Danny.”
“Okay.”
They drove in silence for several miles.
“But thank you,” Steve said, as if long moments hadn’t passed. “For the offer, the suggestion.”
Danny decided to ignore, for now, the unsettling realization that Steve had just lost time, long, countable minutes of time.
“You’re welcome.”
When they pulled into the driveway, Danny hazarded a glance at Steve. He had been afraid that he would see the same lost, devastated expression that would be forever etched into his memory, watching his best friend lose his father all over again. Instead, he saw the clenched jaw of a battle-hardened warrior, all fierceness and determination.
Honestly, he wasn’t sure which was more heart-breaking.
Danny pulled on the reins of his own considerable resolve: taking care of Steve was going to require a fair amount of fierceness and determination of his own. He was out of the car and around to the passenger side before Steve’s shaking hands had managed to unfasten the seatbelt.
“Lemme,” Danny murmured, gently pushing Steve’s hands out of the way, trying to avoid grazing the angry bruises circling his wrists.
Steve chuffed in frustration but stilled, and a few awkward push-pulls later, was out of the car and moving toward the front door under his own steam. Danny resisted the urge to reach for him, tuck himself under Steve’s shoulder, and instead fumbled for the house key.
“Let’s get you comfortable --” Danny started. Steve silently pushed past him and headed for the study, mumbling. “Steve, come on, you need to lie --”
“Where’d he get the family movies, hunh?” Steve demanded. “I’m thinking, when he sent his people in here to steal the toolbox. I don’t know where dad kept them, though.”
Steve stood in the middle of the study, looking lost. He glanced around, his gaze flitting from bookcases to boxes. Danny held his breath until --
Steve stopped, staring at the wall that had been covered with his father’s blood.
Danny reached him as his knees buckled.
“Danny?”
“Yeah, babe,” Danny murmured, half helping, half dragging Steve to the sofa.
“Mary. Mary, she’s -- what if WoFat gets to her --”
“Steven.” Danny carefully deposited Steve on the sofa, wincing in sympathy as he hissed in pain. “WoFat is dead. Remember?”
Steve blinked, confusion and relief flickering over his face.
“He could have sent --”
“We took care of it, remember, from the hospital.” It wasn’t something Danny would forget, that was certain, Steve caught in some combination of nightmare and hallucination, pulling at his IV, yelling for them to find Mary, to protect her. Chin’s and Kono’s eyes had widened in horror, at even the slightest possibility that WoFat might have sent someone after Mary while they were distracted with Steve, and dashed from the room, leaving Danny to try to help the nurses calm six feet of raging SEAL.
“She’s my sister, she’s not his . . . he can’t have her . . .”
Danny looked down at Steve, listing sideways on the sofa, and came to a decision.
“I’m calling Mary.”
**
“Okay, but I didn’t faint ,” Steve protested, smiling as he held the phone to his ear.
Danny watched, relieved. Steve’s color was miles better, and shuffling him out to the chairs overlooking the water had the effect he’d hoped -- still battered beyond description, he at least looked oriented to time and place. His eyes were closed, his face tilted toward the sun, as he smiled again at something Mary was saying. “And Danny gave you my credit card information? Good. Yeah, just text with your arrival time. Someone will pick you up. ‘Kay. Bye, Mare.”
**
“Danny!”
Danny chuckled as Mary dodged and weaved impatiently through the disembarking passengers and made a beeline for him. He opened his arms to her and she rushed at him, happily accepting his hug and tucking her head against his shoulder.
Damn, but the McGarrett children were the most touch-starved people he’d ever met.
After a long moment, he put his hands on her shoulders and held her at arm’s length. “Lemme see . . . you look unfairly lovely for someone who just hopped a red-eye to the islands. You okay, honey? Doing okay?”
“Are you asking if I’m clean and sober?”
“Mary, I --”
“It’s okay, Danny. I know Steve’s told you about . . . about how much trouble I’ve caused him.”
“About how much he worries about you,” Danny corrected. “He just wants you to be okay, Mary.”
“I’m good, Danny, I promise. I’ve been taking some classes, even -- don’t tell Steve, I want it to be a surprise, when I finish. I’ve never finished anything in my life, I don’t want to jinx it. How’s Steve? Chin and Kono scared me to death, calling, and then there was a black and white outside my door and -- but then they tried to act like it was no big deal, but then you called and --”
“Mary, slow down,” Danny said. He took a deep breath. “Let’s get lunch on the way home, okay? You have to get your luggage?”
Mary shook her head impatiently. “I just threw a few things in my backpack, I still have stuff here. I couldn’t -- I couldn’t think straight, to pack -- what aren’t you telling me? Why aren’t we going straight home?”
Danny wrapped her in another hug and kissed the top of her head.
“I’ll explain. Let’s go.”
**
“How’d he get our movies?” Mary asked, her chin trembling as she stared at Danny over the top of Kamekona’s picnic table. She’d sat in stunned silence for the last fifteen minutes, trying to absorb Danny’s carefully edited account of Steve’s ordeal.
“We don’t know,” Danny said. “We don’t know if he managed to steal them, or . . . maybe your dad had uploaded them, you know, sent them off to one of those places that takes old home video and makes a digital format and . . . he hacked it somehow. Chin and Kono are working on it. Look, let us worry about all of that; you just . . . focus on Steve. I think -- I think he just really needs you right now.”
“Yeah, right, like there’s anything I can do for the guy who has it all together.”
“He doesn’t. He doesn’t, Mary, not now. He’s as far from having it together as I’ve seen him, and that’s why I wanted to talk to you before we get home . . . you need to understand . . . “
“Danny?” Mary’s voice was small.
“Steve is -- he’s hurt, Mary, worse than we wanted to tell you over the phone, we didn’t want -- you need to be prepared, is all I’m saying. He’s going to be okay, it’s just -- he’s pretty beat up. Okay?”
“You said they let him come home, though, from the hospital, so . . .”
“Yeah, so he can relax, recover in comfort and privacy. And he will, Mary, he’s going to be fine, eventually. But right now, he’s in a world of hurt, not just physically. WoFat pumped him full of some pretty strong drugs, and it messed with his head. He --” he broke off, struggling with how much to say. He wanted Mary prepared, not overwhelmed. “When we got to him, he was really confused. Hallucinations. There’s still . . . it will take a while, the doc thinks, for it all to be completely out of his system.”
“So like . . . like a really, really bad trip. The kind that scares you into checking yourself into rehab,” Mary said quietly.
Danny reached for her hand across the table and smiled at her. “Something like that, I imagine. See? I told you he needed you.”
Mary stood up abruptly. “You left him alone?”
“Chin and Kono are with him. He was demanding to see everything they collected as evidence, all the reports, now that forensics is done with it. We have time; finish your shrimp.”
Mary shook her head. “Danny, take me home. Please.”
**
Chin and Kono were on the front porch. They greeted Mary with gentle hugs and kisses.
“He’s out back,” Chin said softly, squeezing Mary’s shoulder. “He’ll be very happy to see you Mary. Did Danny . . .”
“I understand,” Mary said. She squared her shoulders and went inside. Danny heard the gentle thump of her backpack landing by the front door, and then her short, determined strides faded toward the back of the house.
Danny leaned, exhausted, on the porch railing. “What did forensics turn up?”
“Nothing that surprised Steve, unfortunately,” Chin said. “I’d hoped maybe he wouldn’t remember all the gory details. Heavy restraints -- Steve broke the chair, not the restraints. Blood, mostly Steve’s. Traces of nerve gas. Bags of IV fluids -- lots of them, dozens. Two sets of prints, and only two -- WoFat’s, and a match for the woman’s body we recovered. Still looking for an ID on her.”
“We may never find it,” Kono said. “No idea what nationality, even. We set up the database search but . . .”
“Any leads on how WoFat got his hands on the McGarrett family videos?”
“No, unfortunately, since that’s the thing that seems to be bothering Steve the most,” Chin said. “But even if we never get answers . . . I’m glad the son of a bitch is good and dead this time. I’d rather Steve and Mary have to live with unanswered questions than live with that threat hanging over them.”
“She going to be okay with all of this?” Kono asked.
“You know . . . yeah. Yeah, I think she will be,” Danny said. “I don’t think Mary Ann McGarrett gets enough credit. Don’t forget -- she’s made up of the same stuff as her brother.”
**
Steve paced at the edge of the water, lost in thought, his brain firing - and misfiring -- trying to process everything Chin and Kono had reported. He jumped, startled, when he realized that someone was calling his name.
“Steve?”
He turned. Mary was standing a few feet away.
A rush of emotions flooded through him, leaving him momentarily speechless. He held a hand out toward her instead, and she flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around him until he let out a muffled grunt of pain.
“I’m sorry!” She pulled back. “Danny warned me -- I’m sorry, I didn’t mean --”
“No, ‘s’okay,” he insisted, reaching for her and pulling her against him again. She placed her arms around his waist -- carefully this time -- and he wrapped his hand around the back of her head, pressing her gently into his chest. “Glad you’re here,” he murmured, kissing the top of her head.
Then their words were coming out in a rush, half talking over each other.
“Danny called me,” she said, half accusatory. “If he hadn’t --”
“I wanted him to,” he offered. “I -- I would have. I’m not . . . things are still a little jumbled. I would have called. I was so glad Danny called. It’s okay, you coming? I didn’t -- your job, is --”
“It’s fine, of course, of course I came,” Mary said. “I only went back to LA because you said --”
“It wasn’t safe for you Mary, you have to understand that, right? That’s the only reason --”
“I know,” Mary said. “Danny said -- he said WoFat is dead.”
Steve nodded, held her closer. “I killed him, Mary,” he whispered. “He didn’t give me a choice, he said --” He broke off. No, he wasn’t going to burden Mary with what WoFat had said.
“Brother.”
No. He was the brother, not WoFat. He was Mary’s brother. No one else.
“Steve?”
He startled again. Mary was looking up at him, confused.
“I -- “ Had he lost time? Again?
“You look like shit,” Mary pointed out. “Your hands are shaking.”
He pulled away from her, stuffed his hands in the pockets of the loose boardies he’d managed to pull on after his shower. He’d struggled into a long-sleeve t-shirt as well, wanting to spare everyone around him the sight of burned flesh, of vivid purple bruises. Of the swelling hematomas from the IVs which had appeared, one after the other, as his struggles had infiltrated vein after vein, until that -- that person had struggled to find fresh insertion points, and--
“Hey,” Mary was saying, her tiny hand wrapped cool around his bruised jaw. She peered into his eyes. He knew his pupils were still blown, that’s why the sun was too bright, much too bright, and -- “Oh, Steve.” She was looking at him, her eyes filled with tears. “Steve, I think -- I think maybe you’re in withdrawal. What the hell did he give you?”
“Danny -- no, Chin. Chin had the forensics. The doctors said, but -- I don’t -- ketamine? There were, there was a lot --”
“Okay, come on, get inside.”
He balked. He liked being outside. Free. In the fresh air, where there wasn’t any gas, where there weren’t any vents.
Mary was saying something. “. . . shade. You’re -- let’s at least get on the lanai, okay? In the shade. You’ve got to have a splitting headache.”
He did. How did she know? He studied her. She looked sad and . . . guilty.
“I’m sorry, Mare,” he said. He’d left her alone, he’d found a family in the Navy. She’d had Aunt Deb, who was wonderful, but not enough to fill the void left by their mother, their father, by him -- the void she’d tried to fill with drugs and booze and -- “I should have . . . I should have come to visit you more, I should have --”
“Hey, no, you know what? Coffee. Iced coffee, with lots of cream, how does that sound?” She was looking up at him, worried, he could tell. She was trying to -- sober him up?
“I’m not drunk,” he protested, indignant.
She laughed, then. “No, but you’re . . . like, really unpleasantly stoned. Come on. Shade. Something cold.”
He let her slip her small hand into his and lead him back toward the house. Images flickered in his mind, distorted, from the videos. Mary, her skin brown and her hair bleached by the sun. They’d spent hours on this beach.
“Do you remember the time I got stung by that massive jellyfish?” she asked. “You carried me so far, all the way back into the house.”
“You were trying so hard not to cry,” he said. That hadn’t been on the video. That was a memory , his and Mary’s. He felt relief wash over him.
“We weren’t supposed to cry,” Mary said. She stopped, turned to him, eyes flashing. “It was stupid. We were little kids, what would it have hurt if we had cried?”
He shook his head. He’d cried, at the hospital, when no one else was in the room, and it hadn’t helped.
“It makes your head hurt, and you get all snotty,” he pointed out.
Mary brushed at her eyes and laughed. “True.”
**
Danny watched Mary let the kitchen door close behind her. She took one more peek to be sure Steve was comfortably ensconced in one of the old wicker chairs, before she sagged against the door. Pressing her hands over her face, a sob wrenched from her throat.
He gathered her in his arms for the second time that day.
“Oh, babe,” Danny sighed. “I’m sorry. I should have waited.”
“He’s not Steve,” she cried. “He’s . . . confused, and -- he stares off into space and doesn’t know you’re there and -- then he’s saying something that doesn’t make sense, like, like there’s this conversation in his head. I thought -- I thought you were just being overprotective, you and Steve, you both do that, all the time -- it’s actually very annoying, but -- oh, God, Danny. He’s still drugged. He’s in withdrawal. Do you know, do you even know how much must have been forced into him, for him to -- oh, iced coffee. He’s got a headache, his pupils are still huge, but he won’t come inside. Coffee, and at least his sunglasses, it will help. The caffeine --”
“Ah. We, ah, need to be careful with caffeine,” Danny said.
“No, it helps, like it helps when you have a hangover, Danny, I know because -- well, I know,” Mary said earnestly.
“Mary,” Danny hesitated. “His heartbeat is a little . . . unstable. So, the doc said to avoid caffeine for a few days.”
“Why is his heartbeat unstable?”
“Did he say coffee sounded good, though? Because that would be great, I’m having trouble getting him to eat or drink, so we can make decaf, it --”
“Danny. What’s wrong with his heart?”
“Nothing, honey, his heart is okay, it’s . . .” Shit. He had hoped to spare her this, he knew Steve had too, with the careful way that he’d pulled on a shirt that morning, tugging at it to make sure it extended well below the waist of his board shorts. “There was . . . Steve was subjected to some electrical shocks.”
Mary blinked at him. She took a deep, shuddering breath and set her jaw.
“Well. Okay, then. Decaf.”
**
Steve tried to control the twitching, restless, aimless movements that his body seemed determined to make. His hands barely shook as he accepted the sunglasses that Mary held out to him. She watched expectantly as he put them on.
“Helps,” he said. “Thanks, Mare.” It did help, too; it dialed at least all of the visual stimuli back a notch.
She held out a tall glass of iced coffee, complete with a pink straw to match the one in her own glass. Danny smiled over her shoulder at him; the straws were something Steve had started to keep on hand for Gracie.
He took a cautious sip. Bittersweet, creamy, but not cloying.
“This is fantastic,” he said, looking up at Mary, somewhat surprised.
She beamed back at him. “I’ve worked a couple barista jobs in LA, no big deal.”
He looked past her, to Danny. He hadn’t seen Mary in so long, how would he know if . . .
But Danny was nodding encouragingly, wrapping a hand on Mary’s shoulder.
“It’s good we sent for her to come here, to Hawaii, to help you recuperate, yeah?” he said, while he caught Steve’s eye, nodded again. Real. Danny was telling him this was real , Mary was here.
Mary was crouching in front of him.
“What else can we do?”
He blinked, glad that his suspiciously damp eyes were hidden behind the sunglasses. He hated this, hated his emotions being so raw, so close to the surface.
“Just . . . glad you’re here, Mary. ‘S’enough.”
**
The afternoon passed slowly. Steve alternated between snapping at Mary and Danny and feeling uneasy when they were out of his sightline. By nightfall, Mary looked a little worn around the edges, and Danny -- Steve could see lines of exhaustion on his face, dark circles forming under his eyes.
“I’m going to head up to bed,” he said, pushing himself painfully up from the chair. He knew that it would be the only way to convince Danny and Mary to rest. And while he doubted that he would sleep -- and wasn’t at all sure that he wanted to risk the inevitable nightmares -- he needed some space. “You guys are exhausted. I’m gonna take the good stuff, it’ll knock me out like a light.”
“You sure?” Danny asked.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll yell if I need anything.” He pulled Mary to him gently, kissing the top of her head. “Thanks for being here. You . . . it really helped, having you here.”
“You sound surprised,” Mary said.
“If I am, it’s only because I haven’t been giving you enough credit. Or admitting how much I’ve missed you,” Steve said. “Night, squirt. Danny, thanks brother, for everything. Get some rest, both of you.”
**
They watched Steve move painfully up the stairs.
“Your room should be all set for you,” Danny said. “Kono said she was going to check it, make sure, when she and Chin came over while I picked you up.”
Mary studied him for a moment.
“You look like shit.”
“Thank you, that is an astute observation.”
“And you -- what, you live here now?”
“I live -- no, I am just staying here until Steve gets back on his feet a little. He gets hurt, I stick around for a day or two, same goes if I get hurt.”
“He stays at your place.”
“Well, no, he brings me here. I don’t generally get to drive my car when I am perfectly healthy, much less when I’m injured, so I’m at the mercy of his whims.”
“Except,” Mary said, pointing a finger at Danny, “you said, and I quote, ‘let’s get lunch on the way home’.”
Danny blinked at her.
“On the way home, to your home. Yours and Steve’s,” he said, slowly.
“And Steve said, ‘get some rest’,” Mary continued. “He didn’t say, ‘Danny, go home to rest’, or even ‘Danny, feel free to crash here’. He assumed you were staying.”
“Like I said, when one of us is hurt --”
“But I’m here to take care of him.”
Danny rubbed a hand over his face. “If we’re having a conversation, I need to sit down.” He gestured to the sofa, and Mary plunked down, pulling her feet up underneath her to face him.
“Mary.”
“Danny.”
“Look, you’re doing a wonderful job, and clearly, Steve is very happy that you’re here. I am as well. No one is implying that you can’t care for Steve. But . . . you’ve not been around much --”
“He sent me away!” Mary protested.
“To keep you safe, after you were kidnapped and locked in the trunk of a car, which, may I just say, took years off both our lives,” Danny continued. “Please let me continue.”
Mary mimed zipping her mouth closed, a gesture that reminded Danny so much of Steve, it made his heart ache.
“This is not the first run-in Steve has had with WoFat,” he reminded her gently. “And when we found Steve this time, he was having trouble remembering what was real and what wasn’t. Right?”
Mary nodded.
“If Steve comes up swinging tonight, it wouldn’t be the first time. And this time . . . Steve wouldn’t want me to leave, Mary. He wouldn’t want to risk scaring you. Hurting you.”
“Did he say . . . ?”
“He didn’t have to,” Danny said gently. “I have sisters. I’d expect Steve to stay, if the situation were reversed.”
Mary smirked at him. “But you’d be here. At our house. Which you call home .”
“It’s the first place on this god-forsaken pineapple farm that ever did feel like home,” Danny said. “Steve . . . Chin and Kono . . . they made it feel like it could be home, someday, when I missed Jersey so bad I couldn’t stand it.”
“I don’t know how he stays here, after . . . “ Mary said, her words trailing off. “I can see why it helps him, having you around. And Gracie. Otherwise, this place would be like a tomb. A -- a museum.”
Danny reached out and covered her hand with his. “You okay? Being here?”
“Yeah, I mean . . . it was all cleaned up. You know. Before I came back. I feel -- it’s a little morbid, when I think about dad being murdered here, but, Steve is here, you know? It feels . . . safe. And I’m glad you’re here, Danny. I’m glad this feels like home to you, too.” She broke off with a jaw-splitting yawn.
“Okay, off to bed with you, young lady,” Danny said. “You need anything, yell, okay?”
Mary rolled her eyes. “Look, Jersey, I did spend my formative years here. I think I can find the bathroom without a tour guide.”
**
The images flickered around the edges. Dad. Mom. An impossibly tiny Mary, babbling and toddling around as she pushed her little shovel into the sand. There was a boy beside her. Himself? But his hair had been perpetually sun-lightened as a child . . . this boy had dark hair, almost black. He was helping Mary fill her bucket with sand, patting her head affectionately. He turned, and looked at Steve . . . and smiled . . .
“Isn’t our sister just the sweetest?”
Steve woke with a gasp, sitting up with a violent motion that pulled at his burned, abused torso. He was glad for the pain, it pulled him from the nightmare and grounded him in reality. The reality being, of course, that his dad was dead. Not like he’d been in his hallucinations.
The soft murmur of Danny and Mary’s voices had relaxed him enough to drift off to sleep, but he knew there would be no more sleep for him tonight. He was surprised, and grateful, for the -- he fumbled for his phone -- maybe two or three hours. He made his way painfully to the bathroom, hunched over his ribs protectively. The soap and water still stung his wrists, the broken skin over his knuckles. His mind kept drifting back to the nightmare, having helpfully insinuated WoFat into the sacred memories of his childhood. He straightened. He had to see for himself.
As he made his way down the stairs, he heard the door to the guest room open, and by the time he reached the bottom, Danny was standing casually in front of the door to Mary’s room. He marveled at Danny’s intuition: his one reservation of Mary coming was that he’d scare her to death, half out of his head, asking to see their dad.
“‘S’okay, Danny, stand down,” Steve said, his voice gravelly with fatigue. “Not hallucinating.”
“Whatcha need? Meds?” Danny whispered. “Ride to the hospital?”
Steve chuckled. “I’m okay. Just . . . don’t want to sleep. I need . . .” He shook his head, not bothering to try to explain as he made his way to his dad’s study.
Danny padded soundlessly into the kitchen as Steve sank into the chair behind the desk. A glass of water was placed gently on the surface in front of him and Danny’s hand was gentle and warm on his shoulder.
“You need anything -- anything -- I’m a door away. Yeah?”
Steve nodded, not trusting his voice. Everything was still too raw, too close to the surface. He heard Danny’s door close softly.
**
He wasn’t sure how long he’d sat there. He’d lost more time, only realizing it when Mary approached him cautiously, calling his name softly.
She was afraid of him.
His heart broke a little further as he tried to school his features into something resembling normalcy.
“Are you okay? Sorry, stupid question,” Mary scoffed. But he must have managed to look at least mostly sane -- she wasn’t running the other way. She propped a hip on the edge of their father’s desk.
“I’m okay, you can go back to sleep,” he said.
“Nah, don’t want to. What are you working on?”
“I -- nothing, really. I think I was going to try to figure out how he got our family videos, but . . . I don’t know.”
Mary shrugged. “It’s okay, to not know. Maybe you just wanted to sit in dad’s chair. That’s okay, too.”
“Yeah?” He did manage a smile, then, a real one. Mary’s sudden, joyful smile back was his reward.
“Dad wasn’t the one who shot the videos, though,” Mary said. “Mom was, remember?”
Steve blinked at Mary. Images of his dad, of Mary, of himself flickered again . . . projected onto the cold, sterile wall . . . “Damn it, you’re right. Mom was almost always the one taking pictures, shooting the film.” His stomach churched. Of course. As an ex-CIA agent, she didn’t want her face on record.
“You think . . . she always planned to go back? Back to the CIA? That’s why all the --” Mary had followed his line of thought with the same intuition that had managed to get her close enough to the truth to get kidnapped.
“She never stopped thinking like a spook,” Steve said quietly. “Sixteen years out of the game, she still pulled off faking her death . . . even dad hadn’t quite figured it out . . .”
“Dad was smart,” Mary said. “Maybe he did figure it out . . . maybe -- Steve! Steve, what if dad was getting too close, maybe -- what if dad did it, too -- what if dad faked -- Steve, maybe, maybe both of them are alive, maybe dad was just waiting until it was safe, until he could --”
“Mare, no, Mare,” Steve murmured. He reached for her, pulling her into his lap, mindless of his bruises and burns. His big hand wrapped around the back of her head, smoothing her unruly hair and tucking her face into his neck. “No, honey . . . Mary, I’m so sorry . . . no.”
She sobbed quietly. “I want dad to be alive.”
“I do too,” he murmured. Hot tears stung his eyes. Their dad had been alive, so alive, in his hallucinations.
“Are you sure? I mean, we had a funeral for mom, and everything, and -- what if --”
He hated this, hated it so much it made his gut churn. He wondered if Danny had felt the same way on that stinking, damp concrete floor, when he’d asked for his dad, and Danny had been the one to have to -- gently, so, so gently -- bring him back to reality.
**
Danny had dozed back off after listening a while to be sure that Steve was settled in the study. He roused at the sound of Mary’s muffled sobs, and made his way quietly down the hallway.
“What if dad is still alive? I mean, it’s possible, right?” she choked out.
Steve’s voice was impossibly gentle. “Mary, it’s not, honey. I’m sorry. I . . . I identified dad’s body myself.”
“You -- you saw his body? Was it -- was it bad?”
“Yeah.” Steve’s voice broke on the word.
Danny turned the corner and leaned in the open doorway. He felt like an intruder on such an intimate moment, but decided that was better than being an eavesdropper. Steve’s eyes met his over Mary’s shoulder.
Steve cleared his throat. “Yeah, it was pretty bad, Mary. And it -- it was dad, okay? There’s no doubt in my mind.”
“I’m sorry I bailed out and didn’t come,” Mary said. “I’m -- I was so selfish. You had to do that all by yourself.”
“It’s okay, Mary. You did what you thought was best for you at the time. And . . . I wasn’t alone. Danny was with me.”
Danny swallowed around the lump in his throat. He hadn’t even entertained the possibility of letting Steve meet with the medical examiner by himself . . . and he realized now, it had nothing to do with the case, or chain of evidence, and everything to do with Steve himself. Even then.
And even more now, if he was being honest with himself.
Mary was sobbing quietly while Steve rubbed gentle circles on her back. Then there was a growling sound that Danny could hear all the way across the room.
“I guess I’m hungry,” Mary said, with a hiccup. She lifted her head and wiped her eyes.
Danny took a step into the room. “I could make pancakes.”
Mary turned to look at him.
“Danny’s pancakes are pretty great,” Steve said, ruffling her hair.
She turned to look at Steve.
“Really,” she drawled.
Steve blinked at her, uncomprehending, until she laughed and kissed his cheek.
“Pancakes sound wonderful,” she said, sliding carefully back onto her feet.
Danny didn’t miss Steve’s wince, or the way he was swallowing hard and blinking back tears. He reached out a hand to Mary. “Okay, then, you start the coffee while I start the pancakes.”
Steve nodded at him, grateful, acknowledging the opportunity to pull himself together.
“I’ll join you when I smell syrup,” he promised.
**
Mary literally licked the last of the maple syrup from her plate.
“Unbelievable,” Danny muttered, but he smiled fondly all the same.
Steve shoved the last huge bite into his mouth, and half-grinned at Danny.
“What, the both of you, raised by wolves,” Danny said.
Steve leaned back in his chair, basking in the combined warmth of his sister and Danny, distracted, and forgetting for a moment -- until all of the bruises and burns reminded him sharply of his battered state. He failed to bite back a sharp grunt of pain as his muscles cramped, and his heart chose that moment to skip and flutter again.
Danny looked at him, eyes narrowed. “What? What is it?”
“Muscles kinda . . . seized up,” Steve gritted out. His hands were white knuckled on the edge of his chair. His face was ashen, his shoulders trembling visibly.
“I’ve got this,” Mary said, gesturing to the stacks of plates and remnants of flour and eggs. “Danny, go help Steve get a hot shower, make sure he takes his meds.”
“You’re not the boss of me,” Steve mumbled.
“Nor me,” Danny added, but his eyes were twinkling.
Mary put her hands on her hips. “There’s no way he can pull his shirt over his head, he can barely move. And I’m not stupid, I know he doesn’t want me to see -- but, okay fine -- Danny, you clean up and I’ll help Steve get into the shower --”
“No, I’ll do it myself --” Steve protested. No way was he going to let Mary see WoFat’s handiwork.
“No, she’s right --” Danny said, at the same time.
“Boys,” Mary muttered. She made a shooing motion at them as she turned and busied herself with the dishes.
**
It was slow going up the stairs. Steve was more hauling himself hand-over-hand up the railing than walking on his own power. Danny felt useless, a hand hovering at Steve’s back in case he slipped, but unsure of where it was safe to touch him without causing more pain. They finally made it to the landing and Steve stopped for a moment, breathing hard.
“Babe,” Danny murmured. “Did you miss a dose?”
“Yeah,” Steve managed. “It was . . . Mary needed --”
“I know. You did good, you know. Telling her . . . you did good.”
“Thanks, Danny. I . . . so did you, you know. When you -- when I forgot, and you had to -- thank you. I’m sorry, I guess I just got --”
“Hey, no apologizing,” Danny said. He took Steve’s elbow, carefully -- he thought he remembered the outside of it being okay, at least . . . the inside, of course, was a horrific bloom of broken blood vessels and bruises.
Steve let himself be steered into the bedroom, and he shuffled toward the bathroom, hands gripping around the bottom of his t-shirt. He winced, a small sound of pain coming from the back of his throat, as he moved to pull the shirt up and over.
“Okay, Mary just said --”
“I’ve got it --”
“Let me, idiot --”
Danny gently untangled Steve’s battered knuckles from the fabric. He gripped the hem of the t-shirt and lifted, carefully, keeping both the fabric and his knuckles well clear of Steve’s body.
“Lean just a little -- you giraffe -- there, thank you.” With a bit of careful effort, the shirt was clear.
Danny had seen him, of course, in the basement. Had seen the bruises, already forming, could still smell the burned flesh . . . but somehow, this was worse. This, Steve bloodied, bruised, burned . . . nothing filtered or obscured by grime and sweat . . . the injuries standing out in even starker contrast on his clean skin, the bruises even darker, now.
“Danny.” Steve’s voice was just a whisper, and Danny startled. He hadn’t meant to stare, to --
“Danny, I’m okay.”
Anger boiled and bubbled over.
“The hell you are,” Danny said, his voice cracking. “This is not okay, Steven. I want to kill WoFat all over again, with my bare hands, slowly. And that -- that woman, too.”
“I’ll be okay,” Steve amended. He rested his hand on Danny’s shoulder.
Danny looked up at him -- why was Steve offering him comfort? It was ridiculous.
“I’ll be okay, Danny,” Steve repeated earnestly, and Danny realized that all of his emotions, his anger, his worry, were displayed there for Steve to see. As usual.
“We’ll see to it,” he said, a little embarrassed. Steve pulled his hand away and seemed suddenly uncertain of what to do with it.
“I’ll just -- uh, I can handle it from here,” Steve said. He shuffled into the bathroom. “Would you mind -- my meds are on the nightstand, there?”
“Yeah, got it,” Danny said, glad for something to do. “And I’ll grab you some clean clothes.”
Steve’s head appeared at the edge of the bathroom door. “Long sleeves, I don’t want --”
“Yep, got it,” Danny said. His hands were already moving over Steve’s clothes, selecting the softest and most worn.
**
The shower helped. The heat and pressure eased the ache of his muscles, and made the sting on the burns worth it. He leaned against the far wall, let the water cascade down his aching back, and allowed a few more silent tears to fall. He’d narrowly escaped falling apart completely. He couldn’t afford that. WoFat might be dead, but his operation still needed rooting out. Destroyed. Mary -- Mary still needed help, obviously. And the paperwork -- the paperwork on this was going to be a bitch --
“Babe?”
Danny’s voice, from the bedroom, sounded a little concerned. The water was cooling a bit. He’d lost time again.
“Yeah,” he said, loud enough so Danny could hear him. “Finishing up.” He rinsed the rest of the soap off quickly and stepped out, wrapping a towel around his waist. Fresh clothes were set out neatly on the edge of his bed, a glass of water and an assortment of pills close by on the nightstand.
“I . . . you should probably try to get some more rest,” Danny said, backing toward the door. “I think -- probably everything you need? Okay?” He sounded uncertain.
“Thanks, Danny.” Steve, a life-long inhabitant of locker rooms and barracks, stepped toward the clothes, dropping his towel.
He looked up. Danny was gone, the bedroom door closing behind him. Steve felt an inexplicable wave of loneliness as he pulled on the clothes and swallowed the handful of pills. Danny had turned down the bed, and as exhausted and battered as he was, it should have looked inviting.
It just looked empty. If he sat outside, maybe . . . maybe Danny or Mary would come sit with him.
He made his way back down the stairs. The living room was -- he blinked in confusion. The double size mattress from the guest room was on the floor in front of the sofa. What appeared to be every pillow in the house --except the ones from his own bed -- were piled against the sofa, some spilling onto the floor. The coffee table had been placed to the side, neatly arrayed with water bottles, his prescriptions, and bowls of pretzels and fruit.
“Mary, what . . .”
Mary stood, her hands clasped in front of her.
“I just . . . remember, when we were kids, if we both got the flu, Mom would -- so she didn’t have to run back and forth between us, she would -- like, a blanket fort, I just thought . . . I’m sorry, you probably think it’s stupid --”
“It’s perfect,” he said quickly.
“Danny’s staying, he’s just taking a shower and . . . I just wanted to do something. I want to help you feel better. I know a bunch of stupid pillows can’t --”
“They can. It does. Thank you.” He was blinking back tears again, damn it, the stupid drugs. But Mary was smiling, so maybe it didn’t matter. He made his way over to the mattress and sank down, leaning back against the pillow-lined sofa. Mary tucked a soft, worn quilt over him.
He groaned in relief. “This is fantastic,” he sighed. “Although I may have trouble standing back up.”
“Danny can help you up,” Mary said. She looked down at him expectantly. What was it with Mary and her looks? Maybe Danny was right. Maybe the McGarretts did have faces. Fine. He favored Mary with his annoyed older brother look that he’d perfected in the dozen or so short years they’d had together.
She rolled her eyes and handed him the remote. “Danny and I get veto power if you pick something supremely stupid. Otherwise, we’re humoring you.”
“Oh, you and Danny decided all this,” Steve said. “How kind of you to humor me.”
Mary flipped him the bird as she headed back to fetch something from the kitchen.
**
The day passed with all of them napping and snacking, arguing over the merits of romantic comedy as opposed to action and adventure movies. Danny was supremely alarmed to discover that Mary loved nature documentaries as much as Steve.
“She’s so cute when she snores,” Danny whispered.
Mary was snuggled between the two of them . . . and Danny paused a moment to wonder when that had happened. He’d started out in the chair, he was pretty sure.
Steve grinned at him over the top of Mary’s head, resting on Danny’s shoulder, where he’d eased her over, off Steve’s bandaged arm.
“You know,” Danny murmured, “I think she has this . . . notion.”
“Notion?” Steve mouthed.
Danny rolled his eyes. Excuse the hell out of him for having a nuanced vocabulary. “This idea . About us.”
Something that felt suspiciously like hope bloomed, sudden and undeniable, in his chest.
“Oh?” Steve whispered. He blinked owlishly at Danny.
“Yeah, like . . . us .” Danny paused significantly. Did he have to spell it out for him?
“Oh. Oh . Oh, she said . . . really . When I said you made good pancakes.” Steve nodded.
“She kept nagging at me about how I called your place home . I mean, where would she get that idea, hunh?”
“Yeah,” Steve said, but before he studiously turned his face back to the TV, Danny caught of glimpse of something in his eyes. Something that looked a little like . . .
“Steven?”
Steve turned back to him, reluctantly. He was trying to school his features and failing, miserably. Danny, a veritable scholar in Steve-faces, tilted his head at the new one. It looked like . . . Disappointed Face.
“Unless . . . when you think about it,” Danny said slowly, shifting carefully so that he could face Steve without disrupting Mary, “she has the genetic background . . . law enforcement, intelligence . . . plus female intuition . . . could be, maybe she’s on to something?”
Steve’s eyes widened. “She did think to take pictures of the contents of Dad’s toolbox.”
“She’s very intelligent. Very intuitive,” Danny agreed.
“Maybe . . . maybe we’re the ones who . . . “ Steve paused, glanced down. When he looked back up at Danny, his eyes were cautious. Guarded. “Maybe we overlooked something.”
Danny’s heart was racing, as if he had also been dosed with stimulants and shocked with a cattle prod. “Maybe, ah, maybe one of us didn’t so much overlook it, as . . . as assumed it would never be reciprocated.” Now it was his turn to drop his eyes, terrified that if he had read this wrong . . .
Steve’s hand was under his chin, turning his face back up.
“Mary is a fucking genius,” Steve breathed out. “And I’m an idiot.” His thumb was tracing over Danny’s bottom lip, now, and seriously, Danny was concerned, because Mary was the only one fit to drive Danny to the ER if he had a stroke, and she was asleep on his shoulder.
“Yeah?” Danny managed.
“Yeah,” Steve said. He tried to lean forward, and hissed in pain. Danny attempted to move forward, and nearly squashed a soundly sleeping Mary.
Steve smiled, one of the rare, full smiles that Danny knew he was capable of but had so seldom witnessed. As he felt a smile spreading across his own face, Steve reached for his hand and lifted it, pressing a gentle kiss into his palm.
“Hell, yeah,” Danny murmured.
**
Between them, Mary continued the fake snore that she’d perfected at sixteen, and began a mental checklist of how they would turn the guestroom into a room for Grace. She could tell that Grace had been sleeping in her room but . . . well. Since she had no intention of moving back to LA, other arrangements would have to be made.
She tucked her face into Danny’s shoulder so that he couldn’t see her smile, and drifted off to sleep for real . . .