by
as
As they headed out
the doors of the hospital, McGarrett surreptitiously watched Williams. The last couple of days had been a strain on
his nerves. Yet, he knew that their
effect on his second in command had been even greater. The two men separated as they approached
their cars. Williams had not said a word
since he had thanked McGarrett for not giving up on him. He hadn’t said those
words specifically but Steve had known that was what he meant.
“See ya in the morning, Steve.”
“Yeah, Danno,
sure.”
McGarrett watched as
Williams turned his car towards his apartment before he pulled the Mercury out
of the parking lot. As he headed back to
the Palace, he thought back over the last few days and what those events had
forced him to realize – no, acknowledge.
Walking into Five-O’s offices he looked around at its dark emptiness –
stark, scary proof of what the future might have held had he not pushed harder
on this investigation than he had pushed for any other case in a while. He
paused at the doorway of Williams’ cubicle. So much would have changed if he
had not been able to bluff his way through the confrontation with Richie’s
brother. His dreams and plans for
Five-O, Danno’s future. All would have been destroyed.
McGarrett walked
into his office. Sitting at his desk he
attempted to finish the paperwork involved in finishing the case. He opened a drawer to pull out a file and
instead found a gun & leather case.
Picking them up, he put them down on top of his desk and opened the
case, staring at its contents. Dan’s gun
and Five-O shield. He studied the gold
shield and the ID card. To him, the card
and badge represented so much of what he was as a person. He had known that Williams felt the
same. Perhaps that was why having the
items placed in his hands in front of the press had hurt as much as it
had. He rose and opened the lanai doors,
walking out into the evening air. No, it
would not have mattered where or when Dan had surrendered the items to
him. It was the simple fact that he had
that had hurt McGarrett.
Now suddenly
McGarrett didn’t want to let this incident in his life
end like this. These last few days had
forced him to face some facts he had previously refused to dwell on. Maybe it was time to let someone else in on
the conclusions he had drawn. He headed
back into the office and closed the doors.
Before he could change his mind, he picked up the gun & case and
headed out of the office.
As he turned on to
‘As I remember it, you owe him a lot
more than that,’ he had told Dan.
But as he slowly turned the doorknob to
leave the hospital room and find the officer’s wife, the thought of his own
debt to the Hawaiian filled his mind.
Danno wasn’t the only one who owed Chinook for
the life saving shot. McGarrett
owed him also and had never acknowledged that debt. Had barely acknowledged even to himself how
thankful he’d been when he heard about the
incident. He had never even told Danno
about it although he knew that conversation would have been a starting point to
revealing that he looked on his second in command as more than just another
detective. There would be no steak pay
back for Chinook and Danno. Standing in
the hospital corridor with Danno, Steve knew he would have done anything to
ease some of his grief and again wished that he had an easier time telling the
people whom he considered to be close friends how he
felt about them.
Slowing to turn into
a parking spot by Dan’s apartment, Steve briefly closed his eyes, wishing that
he would never be in the place that Danno was in at the moment, wishing he had
the ability to tell his second in command how he felt.
Chinook and Dan had
been friends when both were uniformed rookies.
Williams moving up to Five-O had not ended the friendship. There had been a subtle alteration though as
McGarrett had gotten to really know his second in command. The friendship that had slowly formed between
the two men was different from the one that Dan shared with Chinook. Steve
tried to ignore subtle twinges of emotion whenever he heard Dan talking about
Chinook and the things they did together.
He wasn’t sure what the twinge was but knew
that it could not be envy. He had never
allowed himself to become close to a co-worker before and he wasn’t
about to do so with his second in command.
It was unprofessional and no good would ever come from becoming friends
with his second in command, however….
From the onset,
McGarrett had felt rather territorial towards Williams. He viewed Williams as his protégé, a chance
to train him to be not just a good, but a great detective. Slowly his admiration for Dan’s police skills
became admiration for Williams the person as well. Partly because they gravitated to spending
time together after the normal workday and partly because of their shared
dedication to the job, the two men had logged a great deal of office hours
together. Almost without realizing what
was happening, Dan Williams had become Steve McGarrett’s friend.
The second time he
had hurried to the hospital that awful night he had been more than just a
little upset with his detective. He
needed answers and quickly before the press jumped all over the story of a
Five-O detective shooting an unarmed teenager.
Finding Williams in the hallway, Steve had been sorely tempted to simultaneously read him the riot act and offer
sympathy. Instantly able to tell that
the detective was guilt ridden and regretful, Steve had chosen to not act like
the steam rolling boss like he normally did, instead he quietly got Dan to
retell the events just prior to the shooting.
The doctor relaying the news of the probable partial paralysis had
nearly done Williams in. McGarrett had
immediately gone in the direction of falling back on duty, the job and had been
surprised when Dan had pulled out his gun and offered it to him. Dan’s reasons for the action had been purely
self-pitying in McGarrett’s mind and he had categorically refused to accept the
gun.
‘I know my man,’ he had told Dan.
In that instant, it
flashed in McGarrett’s mind as to how well he indeed knew Dan. McGarrett knew Williams better than most anyone else – perhaps even
better than Chinook had. He
understood Dan, knew his psyche and what made him tick. One look at Dan’s face following his arrival
was all McGarrett needed to know that he would fight as hard as it took, even
go beyond the normal boundaries if necessary to clear Williams of any possible
wrong doing in the shooting.
******
Dan Williams sat in
a chair on his lanai, listening to the ocean and replaying the awful events of
the last few days in his mind. One
constant stood out amidst the myriad of events - the strong presence and
enduring support of his boss, Steve McGarrett.
Danny knew that without Steve in his corner he would most likely be
sitting in an HPD lockup at the moment. But the most stubborn and tenacious man he
knew had, once again, proven that anything was possible when he was around and
that included the rebuilding of the flagging morale and self confidence of
Five-O’s second in command if necessary.
To be sure, he had
not made it an easy thing for Steve to do – especially not with the public
resignation. He knew he had hurt Steve
when he had resigned in front of those reporters, but had honestly felt like he
had no other choice.
Practically stubborn
to a fault, McGarrett would take Five-O right on down with Dan rather than let
Dan go down by himself. He would
willingly follow his friend down the road of condemnation if Dan did not do
something. Equally loyal to Five-O and
especially to Steve and, on some days, maybe even more stubborn, Williams could
not let him do that. So when the
reporters cornered the Five-O detectives immediately after Chinook’s funeral
and Steve had refused to give any hint to the idea that he might believe Dan
had done something wrong, Williams couldn’t take it any longer.
He winced as he
remembered Steve’s reaction to his statement about pleading guilty to any
charges that might be brought against him. Steve had been several feet away from him but
had bodily rushed into him, nearly tackling him to the ground in an effort to
get him away from the prying ears, notepads and microphones of the press. It was Steve’s
steadying arm around him that had kept Dan from falling when he felt Steve
tackle him and drag him away. He had
warned the press to stay away, condemning them for cornering Williams at the
funeral of his best friend. Williams had
realized then that there would be no boundaries that McGarrett wouldn’t cross in this case.
He would go to the wall and beyond if necessary to clear Dan in the same
way that Dan suddenly knew that he could not take Steve down with him. This was his blame to shoulder by
himself. He’d
handed Steve his gun and badge, apologizing because he saw the infinite hurt in
those blue eyes.
Yet his ‘resigning’,
which had never seemed to be official because the boss categorically refused to
accept it, had not had any effect on the way McGarrett pursued the
investigation. No, that wasn’t entirely true.
If anything, it had the opposite effect – spurring McGarrett to push
even harder to prove that Williams had been correct.
In the shopping
center parking lot, he had tried again to encourage Steve to leave the case
alone and to just let Dan take the fall for the
shooting. The look that had crossed
McGarrett’s face had told Dan that Steve was simply refusing to give up. Dan had been surprised that Steve had admitted
to the heat that Williams knew he was under.
He wished that stubborn loyalty was not as
prevalent as it was in his stubborn Irish boss.
Now, sitting in his apartment with the entire mess behind them, Dan was
grateful for that loyalty, for the McGarrett tenacity that refused to accept
what appeared so obvious to others. It had, again, saved his hide.
**********
Walking up to
Williams’ apartment door, a brief twinge of doubt flashed in Steve. He shouldn’t have
just driven over here. The badge and gun
could have stayed at the Palace until morning.
Williams needed some time alone to think, to come to terms with
everything that had happened on his own.
There was so much paperwork back at the office that he could be working
on at the moment.
Finally deciding
that he could quickly give the gun and badge back to Dan, visit for a few
minutes and then head back to the office, Steve knocked on the door. He could hear the rustle of movement inside
the apartment, the turning of the lock and the door handle. There was no
turning back now. The door opened.
“Hello Danno.”
“Hi Steve.”
Funny Dan didn’t seem that surprised to see him. The door was opened
a little wider – an invitation to come in.
He took a couple of steps inside and withdrew his hand from its grip on
the badge in his pocket. That could
wait, till morning if necessary. Privately, Steve acknowledged that he had
come here for really only one reason.
The last several days had rocked his core and forced him to realize what
the man in front of him had become.
Steve knew he had broken his own long-standing rule about not becoming
friends with his men. Funny how that didn’t bother him as much as it probably should. Although, he wasn’t
ready to publicly acknowledge what Dan had come to mean to him yet at least not
with words.
“Thought you could
probably use some company – the way the last couple of days have been.”
Dan shook his head,
amazed as always by McGarrett’s near clairvoyance. But this time he had
the sneaking suspicion that there was something else there besides Steve
thinking he would want company. Dan felt
that Steve needed the company as well but was unable to admit to it, probably
even to himself.
“I’ve been sitting
out there. Want to join me?” Dan waved his hand in the general direction
of the lanai.
“Sure,
Danno.”
As the two men
headed towards the lanai, Steve clapped Dan on the back, briefly allowing his
hand to rest on Williams’ shoulder. Both
were gratified with the conclusion of the nightmarish events. Both paused in
their thinking to acknowledge their gratitude to a slain police officer. McGarrett silently thanked Dan’s old friend
for saving his life. For
unknowingly opening the door inside McGarrett to allow Dan to become his
friend. He also silently vowed to
always be there to support Dan and knew instantly that there wasn’t
a price that would ever be too high when it came to keeping Dan in his life.
Dan quietly said
goodbye to his old friend, knowing it was only possible because of the stalwart
and steady support of his newer friend.
The unbelievable boss of Five-O was a man that Dan knew he would do
anything for, much the way Chinook had for him.
Earlier in the week,
he had lost someone he had once considered his best friend. Dan knew that the friendship he had shared
with the Hawaiian officer was nothing in comparison to what he felt for
Steve. Fealty did not even begin to
describe it. ‘You better not give up on me.’ Steve’s demand in the
shopping center parking lot. No,
he would never give up on McGarrett in the same way he knew that Steve would
never give up on him.