H50 fic: Two-Way Street (1/1)
Title: Two-Way Street
Disclaimer: I do not own H50.
A/N: This fic is for sockie1000. Set sometime in mid S3 with spoilers for eps up until this point. Beta given by postfallen
Summary: Capable cops die every day. They die in busts gone wrong, they get killed for revenge. They even get blown up in houses...
-o-
“You can’t be serious.”
“Of course I’m serious.”
“Not even you could be serious,” Steve returned, with more than a hint of incredulity.
Danny’s eyebrows went up. “Does it look like I’m kidding?”
“No, but you do have a questionable sense of humor,” Steve said with a nonplussed shrug.
Danny’s face contorted. “So you think insulting me will help you get your way?”
“I keep thinking common sense might prevail,” Steve tried.
Danny snorted. “That’s rich,” he said. “You, talking about common sense. You, who doesn’t know how to say hello without a semi-automatic and low-grade explosive.”
“Well, I like to make an entrance,” Steve said.
“Exactly,” Danny said, jabbing his finger at Steve. “You like to make an entrance, which is exactly why I’m serious.”
Steve sat back, face blank for a moment. “This could be dangerous, you know.”
At that, Danny almost laughed. Because Steve was lecturing him about danger. Steve, who didn’t know how to make an arrest without tackling and gunfire. Steve, who seemed to think that no case was complete unless near-death was involved. Steve.
In fact, Danny did laugh. “All the more reason,” he said. “You should be thanking me for letting you do this.”
Because Steve liked brash and stupid and dangerous.
Still, Steve sat back in the car, crossing his arms over his chest. “I think you just don’t want to get out of the car,” he said smugly.
“What?” Danny asked. “That insinuation is outlandish.”
“Is it?” Steve countered. “You complain a lot about the weather, but I think you like it.”
“Like it?” Danny asked. “It’s like a permanent invitation for skin cancer and premature aging.”
“So the fact that it’s pouring--”
“Is totally irrelevant,” Danny insisted.
Steve looked skeptical. “Uh huh.”
“What is relevant,” Danny said, emphatically now, “is that this is your witness. In your case. That you refused to hand over to the FBI even though they had jurisdiction and instead decide to drag me, your stupidly willing and long suffering partner, all across the island to tell someone that about a case that we were never involved in in the first place.”
Steve’s face was taut, but he didn’t back down. “He’s an old friend,” he said. “We served together once. I know how much he risked in this case.”
“Which is more of a personal errand than official 5-0 business,” Danny pointed out.
Steve sighed. “Except that he’s set to go off in witness protection once this thing clears up. His testimony can change the criminal map in Hawaii.”
“Right, via a federal investigation. From the FBI,” Danny said with due melodramatic flair. “Again, not really my jurisdiction, and yet here I am, all across the island in the rain,nothing do with.”
“The mob boss he’s set to testify against is dead,” Steve said, as if Danny needed a reminder. “He deserves to know.”
“Hey,” Danny said, hands out. “I don’t mind telling him. By all means, he should have every right to know that his life may suddenly be in increased peril because the network that spawned the son of a bitch he’s testifying against may be imploding and taking him with it. But in this weather? He deserves to know from the FBI detail assigned to the case. Or maybe his handlers. Not the best officers on the island.”
Steve watched him. “So this is about the weather.”
Danny scowled. “Just get out there,” he muttered. “I’ll cover your six from the car and will still be totally dry in time to pick Grace up tonight.”
Steve grunted, opening his door. “If you had just said that you were afraid of the rain--”
“I’m not afraid of the rain!” Danny exclaimed.
“Right, right,” Steve said. He paused outside, grinning down at Danny even as the rain pelted him. “You just choose to avoid it.”
Danny balked, but there was no need, because Steve was already walking up the lane toward the house. They were pretty far inland, in a quiet residential neighborhood. Nothing seemed suspicious, even if the case was ominous. Mob bosses were like that, though. They made complicated messes that took years to clean up. When you cut off the head, five more sprung up, each more vindictive than the last. No one was safe, so the fact that the FBI hadn’t gotten protection out this far already...
Was strange.
Like rain in Hawaii.
Danny’s stomach churned.
He craned his head, looking down the street. No occupied cars. None with tinted windows. He eyed the houses across the street, next door. No signs of movement.
Steve had strong armed his way into this case for personal reasons, but he hadn’t taken it over. They’d agreed to inform, not to protect. There should have been a detail in order. Hell, any protection detail worth its merit would have seen Steve by now and moved to intercept.
Concerned, Danny leaned over, snagging the half-assed file Steve had put together. He flipped it open, leafing through it, looking for the protection details provided by the FBI. There it was: 24/7 protection. One unmarked car until the trial was over. An armed agent in the safehouse at all times.
He looked up.
No unmarked car. No movement in the house or down the street. Steve had disappeared behind the overgrown hedges at the front door and it was raining in Hawaii.
And Danny remembered what it was like when he’d seen Mekka’s scorched body. He remembered seeing the light fade in Grace’s eyes. He knew that feeling of failure, like it was his fault, like everything was wrong--
Hand on his gun, he opened the door, stepping out into the rain with Steve’s name on his lips--
Just as the house in front of him exploded.
-o-
Danny like to think of himself as a practical person. He had common sense, after all, which wasn’t the case for the majority of the people on 5-0. He was the one who seemed to recognize stupidity and danger and had the presence of mind to not run willingly into certain peril without at least thinking about said peril in advance.
At least, most of the time.
Under normal circumstances, Danny was the only one who even seemed to grasp the notion of just how easy it was to die as a cop. More than that, he was the only one who actually seemed to care about survival most of the time.
Most of the time.
But then, most of the time, he hadn’t just seen a house explode.
A house with his partner inside.
Well, maybe not inside. Danny had no way of knowing for sure just where Steve was when the thing when off, but given the force of the blast, the amount of debris strewn across the yard, and the now-smoking house, it was pretty clear that any location outside of the car was too close.
Which meant Steve could be...
Danny blinked, his stomach turning painfully as his heart thudded and his ears rang. Steve wasn’t. Steve ran into danger all the time. Hell, the man wasn’t happy unless he was being shot at or otherwise engaged in extreme physical combat. He was basically a superhero, stupid, moronic, and damn near invincible.
Damn near.
Danny startled, picking up his phone. He pulled up the first relevant number -- Chin -- and dialed, fumbling with the door. “Hey,” he said, not waiting for the other man to say anything. “We need back up. Now. Send black and whites, paramedics, everyone, just get here--”
“You okay, brah?” Chin asked, clearly concerned.
Danny had to step over debris, trying not to look at the boards that were singed and broken in half, the shattered the glass, the splintered front door, lying in two broken pieces down the front walkway.
The front door.
“Just hurry!” Danny all but yelled now, killing the call and shoving the phone in his pocket. He trades it for his gun out of instinct, because if someone set off a bomb here, then it really wasn’t to be considered friendly territory.
Of course, that assumed anyone was still alive...
Danny didn’t think it. Wouldn’t think it. He had to keep it together, keep it cool. There were procedures and protocols, things designed to keep people safe, to make sure people came through this kind of crap.
Danny was sweating by the time he got to where the front door should have been. The gaping hole was jagged, blown through to the ceiling and bringing down the overhang. The top floor of the bungalow was listing a little, and there was smoke curling out from the blown out windows even as somewhere there was a fire starting to crackle.
There was no sign of Steve. There wasn’t even a damn doorbell left. Danny was no demolitions expert, but it didn’t take some kind of genius to see that the blast had probably originated here, at the door. Which explained why the front door had been thrown so far and why the roof looked ready to cave in on this spot.
If someone had been standing at the door when it blew, there was a good chance there’d be nothing but DNA scraps left.
Danny’s stomach went cold, his breathing picking up a notch. Steve might have been inside. Steve might have decided to scope out the perimeter. This didn’t mean...
It couldn’t mean...
“Steve?” Danny called, his voice almost breaking. He swallowed and tried again. “Steve!”
There was no answer. Well, except for the sudden spark and a muffled explosion from inside. Fire seemed to be picking up now, originating someplace to the left, the orange-red flames dancing up the curtains of the nonexistent window.
Danny was running out of time. If the witness was inside, he had a responsibility to check. Besides, Steve could be inside.
In general, Danny did not like running into burning buildings.
But considering the alternatives, Danny didn’t really see it as an option. If Steve was in there, Danny was going to get him out.
Alive.
End of story.
With that, Danny stopped thinking -- critically, anyway. If he was going to act like some insane idiot, he had to forego all higher reason skills and just act. This would be foreign to Danny, but his time with Steve had trained him a bit to the contrary. So when he pushed his way over the smouldering remains of the front door, he thought of Steve and didn’t hesitate.
Inside, the smoke was thick, which really wasn’t a surprise. But the heat was pressing, and Danny was keenly aware that there were multiple fires still burning, some more pressing than others. It was only a matter of time before the place went up like a tinderbox--
Only a matter of time for Danny to get Steve and get the hell out.
He started in the main room, squinting through the smog, looking for any sign of life. The furniture was charred and tipped, but nothing moved. He almost tripped over the remains of a coffee table, and braced himself on the cracked hull of a big screen TV, but there was no one there.
“Steve?” he called, trying to project his voice. The effort resounded in the haze, and when he sucked in to try again, he coughed instead. It was a hard, hacking cough that bent him over and when he straightened, this time he pressed his forearm over his face in a vain attempt to block the worst of the smoke.
If Steve was still in here, it wasn’t likely he would be able to hear Danny anyway.
Danny pressed forward, inching forward, mindful of the scattered flames, one of which was dancing up a wall and skittering across the ceiling. Something shifted above him, and Danny winced, glancing up at the bowing ceiling with trepidation.
It held, though.
For now.
Gritting his teeth, Danny pressed on, moving through the living area and into what appeared to be the kitchen. The table was shattered, the appliances blackened with the refrigerator door knocked loose and skewed while flames licked along the wall ominously.
No one.
In fact, nothing. The furnishings in the main room had been sparse, but there was almost nothing in the kitchen at all. Besides the demolished furniture, there was nothing else. Not a drop of food in the damn fridge.
Frowning, Danny moved back toward the living room. There were no books, no magazines, no open cans of beer or half drunk bottles of water. The explosion had been powerful, but it hadn’t obliterated everything. There was debris, but no indication of recent activity.
No one had been here at all.
It was a setup.
How, Danny wasn’t sure. Why, he was even less sure. This had been personal to Steve. An old friend, he’d said. He’d damn near started an interdepartmental furor when he’d refused to cede control to the FBI. And now the FBI had one upped them by moving the witness without telling them.
And quite possibly saving the witness’ life, it seemed.
While also quite possibly destroying theirs...
None of that made sense, though. Hell, nothing about this made sense. But Danny sure as hell wasn’t going to lose another partner to something so totally and completely stupid...
Determined, Danny moved forward, stepping over the debris and skirting his way to the hallway. Here, the smoke was thicker, a large beam hanging precariously. Danny ducked it, moving farther in. His lungs were tight, eyes watering and he swallowed painfully, doing his best not to breathe in too deep for fear of--
Coughing. It ripped through him again, nearly doubling him over. He refused to stop, though, keeping low as he ducked his way through. He was almost blind, feeling in front of him, using his feet to sort through the wood and the metal for something softer, something human, something--
Fresh fire sparked, catching across the ceiling. The building groaned, the walls shimmying. The smoke was clogging his nose and throat now, and his head ached as he pushed forward, looking--
Steve. Steve was here. Steve had to be--
Flame suddenly danced in front of him, and the heat singed his clothes. Danny stumbled, falling back and catching himself against a wall. It gave a little bit, and Danny fell further. He scrambled, trying to find his footing, trying to find--
Steve.
He turned. Blinked.
Steve.
Right there. Standing, staring at him, eyes wide, questioning. His mouth was covered with something that looked suspiciously like a shirt, face smudged, cheek bruised, but otherwise okay.
Danny blinked again.
And the world tilted, his airway constricting even as his mind got hazy.
Steve. Standing. Okay. Alive.
That was what mattered.
That was all that mattered as the world went dark and Danny dropped to the ground.
-o-
Something was wrong.
Danny had been saying it all along, but when Steven approached the front door, he realized that his partner had been right. There was something...off.
The windows -- they were dark. More than that, they were coated with dust. There was no sign of movement on the stoop, and the hinges on the door were rusty, the handle crooked and easily broken.
No way was that par for the course for a safehouse. Espeically an FBI safehouse.
Something was very, very wrong.
Instead of knocking, Steve drew his gun. He eyed the door cautiously and decided that a little restraint might be in order. Easing his way back, he started around to the back, sweeping the grounds first for any sign of tampering or movement.
He made it around the back, securing the yard, when the damn thing blew.
The force of the blast knocked him to the ground, his head slamming against the grass. His vision blacked out, and his ears rang while his awareness tunneled precariously. For a while, he could only lay there, blinking blindly up at the sky as rain fell on his face, forcing gasping breaths in and out of his mouth while he struggled to regain some sense of control.
He had to breathe. He had to think. He had to get up.
That was easier said than done, but the force of his determination was enough to blink his eyes a few more times until the darkness turned to light and the light turned to shape and Steve was awake.
Awake and aware.
He sat up, his head throbbing. He pressed his palm to his forehead, wincing as he pushed the nausea back down. Squinting, he looked around, wiping the rain out of his eyes. He saw his gun not far away and reached over to grab it. When he turned back toward the house--
What was left of the house. The structure was still intact -- mostly -- but the walls were bowed and the roof was caving in certain spots. The windows were gone and smoke was furling into the sky, even as fire started to burn in earnest.
So much for his simple favor to an old friend. The man had never been here, though. Whoever he’d talked to at the FBI had given him bad intel -- either on purpose or his source was bad. Either way, this meant that the entire investigation was compromised; his friend was at risk. Hell, he could be dead. Steven didn’t know.
He just knew that he needed to take a page from Danny’s book and call for backup.
His fingers were trembling just slightly as he pulled his phone from his pocket. It was still intact, thankfully, and he meticulously pulled up Chin’s number, watching the smoking house with a general sense of unease.
“Steve?” Chin’s voice came.
“Yeah, hey,” he said. “We need backup--”
“Yeah, I know,” Chin said, cutting him off. “Danny already called me. Sounded pretty worried, too. I thought maybe you were hurt.”
Steve stopped, frowning. “What?”
“He put in a call for backup,” Chin explained. “Kono and I are on our way, but emergency response will probably beat us there. But you’re okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Steve said, distracted now as he jogged around back to the front of the house. “Looks like a bum lead -- and a setup. The FBI has a mole and they left an explosive at the abandoned safehouse.”
“And Danny?” Chin asked. “He sounded pretty worried...”
Danny had been in the car. He’d been perfectly safe.
Steve scaled over the debris, darting around the hedge to see the Camaro.
Empty.
Steve’s stomach churned. “He didn’t say anything else?”
“Just to hurry,” Chin said.
Steve looked back at the house, which was burning now, flames consuming the roof. It would be stupid to go inside; stupid and reckless...
Danny wasn’t stupid or reckless.
Except....
Steve clenched his jaw. “Well,” he said, ignoring the way his heart fluttered in his chest. “Hurry faster.”
Before Chin could say anything more, Steve hung up, pocketing his phone and running inside.
-o-
Steve was used to perilous situations. In fact, he’d spent the better part of his adult life, preparing, planning, and implementing procedures under such conditions. Life as a SEAL demanded nothing less than him. Danny thought he lacked certain natural fear reflexes, but the fact was, Steve was simply too well trained to worry about most things. He knew how to read situations and conditions, and he knew what he could handle.
Most of the time.
The fact was, this house was going up -- and it was going up fast. Whatever had been used for the explosive had had a highly flammable element, which had clearly used the old wood siding and taken off from there. By the time emergency services arrived, there would probably be no hope of containing the flames -- the house would be lost.
Therefore, going in such a structure was actually pretty stupid.
But leaving his partner in there would be even stupider.
Because Danny had gone in after him. There was no concrete evidence of that, certainly. But Steve had good deductive reasoning skills. Danny wasn’t in the car; Danny had seen the house go up in flames. For all of Danny’s talk about common sense, his partner didn’t always make logical decisions when there was someone he cared about in peril. He’d walked into a hostage situation for Grace. He’d stood by Chin when there was a bomb strapped to him. He’d never let Steve down--
And now he was inside a burning house.
Danny was going to be pissed.
Of course, as long as Danny was alive, Steve was okay with that.
And that was what mattered.
More than odds, more than training, more than common sense.
So Steve ran inside.
Getting in was easy -- a few careful jumps -- but once he was in, he quickly realized that the rest would not be so simple. Hastily, he removed his outer shirt, tying it around his face and ducking low to the ground as he squinted through the smoky haze.
The room was empty, mostly destroyed. The flames had engulfed one of the walls, and small fires were starting to build through the rest of the space. Heat burned from the ceiling, and the smoke was thick enough to almost gag him, even through his makeshift mask.
It was hard to see, but there was just one thing he had to look for. Danny’s blonde hair, his white shirt. Even in the gloom, he could train his eyes for that much.
Living room -- clear.
He moved to the kitchen -- clear.
His throat was tight, and he fought the urge to cough -- he didn’t have time for that. He moved instead to the hallway, flinching despite his best intentions at the waves of heat rolling toward him. If Danny was this way--
Then Steve had to move faster.
The debris was heavier here, more pronounced. Steve had to work around it carefully, trying to hold each breath longer, to see more clearly--
And then there he was.
Standing, right there in front of him. White dress shirt, neat dress pants, blonde hair disheveled.
Steve let out his breath with relief, hand clasping Danny’s shoulder.
When his partner turned, Steve saw that his face was smudge, thick with soot, blue eyes wide--
Too wide. Danny blinked, clearly shocked.
Steve stared at him, head cocked and confused.
And then Danny collapsed.
It happened so suddenly that Steve barely had time to prepare. As it was, he fumbled forward, reaching out to brace his partner as they both went down. Steve landed hard on his bottom, Danny dead weight sprawled on top of him. Steve’s lungs burned, his eyes watering as he looked down, as he looked for any sign of life.
But Danny was still.
And the house was burning.
It was time to go.
Jaw tight, Steve got to his feet, hoisting Danny over his shoulders. The fire pressing at his back, the smoke burning his eyes, he started to run.
And he didn’t look back.
-o-
In Danny’s mind, he could still see the slack expression on Grace’s face when she died, bound to a chair next to Danny. He could see her vacant eyes, the blood on her shirt, the bullet wound that had killed her.
Had murdered her.
He could still feel her warm skin beneath his fingers, how he’d been so close and still too late.
Too late.
He could still see Mekka’s charred body, the look of devastation on his wife’s face. Danny had no friends in Hawaii, but he’d had Mekka.
He’d had.
He could still see Steve, too. Bickering, arguing, being stupid and brave and--
The exploding house.
The burning house.
There had been no body...
Because he’d been alive.
Danny startled, jolting upright.
To see Steve.
Soot, blood, surprise: alive.
And then a cough wrenched through Danny’s body, racking him with such force that he nearly curled over, hacking desperately against the cloying grime in his throat and lungs and--
Everything went hazy for a moment, and then Steve was there again, steadying him, holding him up, asking, “What the hell were you doing?”
Danny cleared his throat one more time, tentatively swallowing as he tried to sit up. Everything was a little fuzzy, but with Steve’s hand on his shoulder, he seemed to be stable enough. “You were blown up,” he said, the words croaked as his throat protested.
Steve furrowed his brow. “Do I look like I was blown up?”
Danny squinted, nodding toward his bloody cheek. “A little.”
Steve reached up, touching his cheek and looking at it as if he’d forgotten. “So you thought you needed to get charred to compensate?”
It was Danny’s turn to furrow his brow. “I was trying to rescue you,” he said, rasping a little easier now, but everything still hurt like he was an asthmatic smoker. There was a reason he never started, a reason he told Grace he’d ground her for three years if she ever so much as looked twice at a cigarette.
Steve smirked. “Good job.”
Danny scowled, his cheeks flushing. “You walked up to a house that exploded,” he said, heaving a bit now. “What was I supposed to do?”
“Well, um, isn’t it proper police procedure to secure the scene first?” Steve asked.
“There is no proper procedure when your partner is at risk,” Danny shot back, almost choking at the words as his throat constricted further.
“So you are admitting that you acted foolishly,” Steve said.
“No, I’m admitting that I was trying to save your ass,” Danny said, growling the words now, garbled as they were over the gunk in his airway.
“I think I’m pretty capable of that myself,” Steve replied.
“Doesn’t matter,” Danny snapped. “Capable cops die every day. They die in busts gone wrong, they get killed for revenge, they get blown up in houses, and I’m sick and tired of sitting by idly and letting it happen, so if you think--”
Danny didn’t know what Steve thought. Hell, he wasn’t sure what he thought because his throat seized up and his lungs rebelled, a fresh series of coughs ripping through him, even stronger than before. He hacked, as if to pull up a lung, his entire body aching with the effort as he struggled in vain to fight through his congested throat and nose. His fingers tingled, his eyes watered and everything was burning and Danny was too late--
But Steve’s grip was steady, his presence unwavering. “It didn’t happen,” he said, voice low in Danny’s ear. “It didn’t happen.”
It took all the strength Danny had, rallying it from every ounce of self control he had, to pulled back his coughs and turn his head back toward Steve. “It could have,” he croaked.
Steve’s gaze was unyielding. “It didn’t.”
Danny’s vision blurred. “This time,” he said. “You can’t promise me it never will.”
Steve sighed. But nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “But I can try.”
Danny had tried to save Grace. He’d tried to be there for Mekka. None of it had counted in the end.
His face contorted. “And if that’s not enough?”
Steve shrugged. “Well, doesn’t that go both ways?”
Danny scrunched his nose, surprised. “What? You’re the idiot who runs into danger all the time.”
“Really?” Steve asked. “So you running into a burning house...”
“Was for you!” Danny huffed, indignant.
“Oh, and that’s supposed to make it okay?” Steve asked. “What if I hadn’t followed you in there? What if I’d waited? You’d be dead from the smoke by now.”
Danny felt tense, his entire body strung taut. The emotions were conflicting now, the fear and the panic and the need and everything. “Excuse me for not wanting you to die!”
“Trust me, I know how you feel,” Steve said. “Being protective is a two-way street, buddy.”
Danny tried to swallowed, tried to breathe. His nose was clogged; his throat hurt. Tears burned in his eyes. “I can’t do it again.”
He couldn’t be the last man standing. He couldn’t look at Steve’s mom and sister and tell them their son was dead, when it was his job to protect him. He’d carried Grace’s casket; he’d mourned with Mekka’s family. He couldn’t do it again.
He couldn’t.
Steve squeezed his arm. “I didn’t know Grace or Mekka--”
Danny flinched at their names.
Steve didn’t stop. “--but I know you would have died for them gladly. And I’m sure neither of them would have wished you to be in their place.”
“They’re still dead,” Danny said, the words barely audible, especially as the sirens started to wail in the distance. “I don’t have a great track record where partners are concerned.”
“Yeah,” Steve said, shrugging just a little. “Well, I have no record, which is probably why I spend more time being stubborn and stupid and charging in blindly.”
“Exactly!” Danny said. Then he frowned. “Though it doesn’t feel as good as I thought it would to hear you admit it...”
Steve grinned. “That’s because you’re exactly the same way.”
Danny drew his face into a glower. “I am not.”
Steve raised his eyebrows.
“Mostly,” Danny amended, duly chagrined. “But for the record, I am only reckless when imminent peril is involved. It just so happens with you, that’s all the time.”
“Sure, Danno,” Steve said, patting his arm this time as he settled back as the help finally arrived. “But hey, on the bright side -- it finally stopped raining.”
Danny blinked, looking up. Steve was right. The sky had cleared and the sun was shining.
And then the paramedics were there and Danny was on his back. Someone flashed a light in his eyes and started to unbutton his shirt. A mask was pressed over his face and something pricked his arms. Danny tried to move, tried to cry out, but his throat tensed and he flailed, coughing and searching until Steve’s hand locked with his.
Danny opened his eyes again. The sun was almost blinding now, but he could still see Steve next to him.
Maybe it wouldn’t always be that way.
But for today, that was enough.
Disclaimer: I do not own H50.
A/N: This fic is for sockie1000. Set sometime in mid S3 with spoilers for eps up until this point. Beta given by postfallen
Summary: Capable cops die every day. They die in busts gone wrong, they get killed for revenge. They even get blown up in houses...
-o-
“You can’t be serious.”
“Of course I’m serious.”
“Not even you could be serious,” Steve returned, with more than a hint of incredulity.
Danny’s eyebrows went up. “Does it look like I’m kidding?”
“No, but you do have a questionable sense of humor,” Steve said with a nonplussed shrug.
Danny’s face contorted. “So you think insulting me will help you get your way?”
“I keep thinking common sense might prevail,” Steve tried.
Danny snorted. “That’s rich,” he said. “You, talking about common sense. You, who doesn’t know how to say hello without a semi-automatic and low-grade explosive.”
“Well, I like to make an entrance,” Steve said.
“Exactly,” Danny said, jabbing his finger at Steve. “You like to make an entrance, which is exactly why I’m serious.”
Steve sat back, face blank for a moment. “This could be dangerous, you know.”
At that, Danny almost laughed. Because Steve was lecturing him about danger. Steve, who didn’t know how to make an arrest without tackling and gunfire. Steve, who seemed to think that no case was complete unless near-death was involved. Steve.
In fact, Danny did laugh. “All the more reason,” he said. “You should be thanking me for letting you do this.”
Because Steve liked brash and stupid and dangerous.
Still, Steve sat back in the car, crossing his arms over his chest. “I think you just don’t want to get out of the car,” he said smugly.
“What?” Danny asked. “That insinuation is outlandish.”
“Is it?” Steve countered. “You complain a lot about the weather, but I think you like it.”
“Like it?” Danny asked. “It’s like a permanent invitation for skin cancer and premature aging.”
“So the fact that it’s pouring--”
“Is totally irrelevant,” Danny insisted.
Steve looked skeptical. “Uh huh.”
“What is relevant,” Danny said, emphatically now, “is that this is your witness. In your case. That you refused to hand over to the FBI even though they had jurisdiction and instead decide to drag me, your stupidly willing and long suffering partner, all across the island to tell someone that about a case that we were never involved in in the first place.”
Steve’s face was taut, but he didn’t back down. “He’s an old friend,” he said. “We served together once. I know how much he risked in this case.”
“Which is more of a personal errand than official 5-0 business,” Danny pointed out.
Steve sighed. “Except that he’s set to go off in witness protection once this thing clears up. His testimony can change the criminal map in Hawaii.”
“Right, via a federal investigation. From the FBI,” Danny said with due melodramatic flair. “Again, not really my jurisdiction, and yet here I am, all across the island in the rain,nothing do with.”
“The mob boss he’s set to testify against is dead,” Steve said, as if Danny needed a reminder. “He deserves to know.”
“Hey,” Danny said, hands out. “I don’t mind telling him. By all means, he should have every right to know that his life may suddenly be in increased peril because the network that spawned the son of a bitch he’s testifying against may be imploding and taking him with it. But in this weather? He deserves to know from the FBI detail assigned to the case. Or maybe his handlers. Not the best officers on the island.”
Steve watched him. “So this is about the weather.”
Danny scowled. “Just get out there,” he muttered. “I’ll cover your six from the car and will still be totally dry in time to pick Grace up tonight.”
Steve grunted, opening his door. “If you had just said that you were afraid of the rain--”
“I’m not afraid of the rain!” Danny exclaimed.
“Right, right,” Steve said. He paused outside, grinning down at Danny even as the rain pelted him. “You just choose to avoid it.”
Danny balked, but there was no need, because Steve was already walking up the lane toward the house. They were pretty far inland, in a quiet residential neighborhood. Nothing seemed suspicious, even if the case was ominous. Mob bosses were like that, though. They made complicated messes that took years to clean up. When you cut off the head, five more sprung up, each more vindictive than the last. No one was safe, so the fact that the FBI hadn’t gotten protection out this far already...
Was strange.
Like rain in Hawaii.
Danny’s stomach churned.
He craned his head, looking down the street. No occupied cars. None with tinted windows. He eyed the houses across the street, next door. No signs of movement.
Steve had strong armed his way into this case for personal reasons, but he hadn’t taken it over. They’d agreed to inform, not to protect. There should have been a detail in order. Hell, any protection detail worth its merit would have seen Steve by now and moved to intercept.
Concerned, Danny leaned over, snagging the half-assed file Steve had put together. He flipped it open, leafing through it, looking for the protection details provided by the FBI. There it was: 24/7 protection. One unmarked car until the trial was over. An armed agent in the safehouse at all times.
He looked up.
No unmarked car. No movement in the house or down the street. Steve had disappeared behind the overgrown hedges at the front door and it was raining in Hawaii.
And Danny remembered what it was like when he’d seen Mekka’s scorched body. He remembered seeing the light fade in Grace’s eyes. He knew that feeling of failure, like it was his fault, like everything was wrong--
Hand on his gun, he opened the door, stepping out into the rain with Steve’s name on his lips--
Just as the house in front of him exploded.
-o-
Danny like to think of himself as a practical person. He had common sense, after all, which wasn’t the case for the majority of the people on 5-0. He was the one who seemed to recognize stupidity and danger and had the presence of mind to not run willingly into certain peril without at least thinking about said peril in advance.
At least, most of the time.
Under normal circumstances, Danny was the only one who even seemed to grasp the notion of just how easy it was to die as a cop. More than that, he was the only one who actually seemed to care about survival most of the time.
Most of the time.
But then, most of the time, he hadn’t just seen a house explode.
A house with his partner inside.
Well, maybe not inside. Danny had no way of knowing for sure just where Steve was when the thing when off, but given the force of the blast, the amount of debris strewn across the yard, and the now-smoking house, it was pretty clear that any location outside of the car was too close.
Which meant Steve could be...
Danny blinked, his stomach turning painfully as his heart thudded and his ears rang. Steve wasn’t. Steve ran into danger all the time. Hell, the man wasn’t happy unless he was being shot at or otherwise engaged in extreme physical combat. He was basically a superhero, stupid, moronic, and damn near invincible.
Damn near.
Danny startled, picking up his phone. He pulled up the first relevant number -- Chin -- and dialed, fumbling with the door. “Hey,” he said, not waiting for the other man to say anything. “We need back up. Now. Send black and whites, paramedics, everyone, just get here--”
“You okay, brah?” Chin asked, clearly concerned.
Danny had to step over debris, trying not to look at the boards that were singed and broken in half, the shattered the glass, the splintered front door, lying in two broken pieces down the front walkway.
The front door.
“Just hurry!” Danny all but yelled now, killing the call and shoving the phone in his pocket. He trades it for his gun out of instinct, because if someone set off a bomb here, then it really wasn’t to be considered friendly territory.
Of course, that assumed anyone was still alive...
Danny didn’t think it. Wouldn’t think it. He had to keep it together, keep it cool. There were procedures and protocols, things designed to keep people safe, to make sure people came through this kind of crap.
Danny was sweating by the time he got to where the front door should have been. The gaping hole was jagged, blown through to the ceiling and bringing down the overhang. The top floor of the bungalow was listing a little, and there was smoke curling out from the blown out windows even as somewhere there was a fire starting to crackle.
There was no sign of Steve. There wasn’t even a damn doorbell left. Danny was no demolitions expert, but it didn’t take some kind of genius to see that the blast had probably originated here, at the door. Which explained why the front door had been thrown so far and why the roof looked ready to cave in on this spot.
If someone had been standing at the door when it blew, there was a good chance there’d be nothing but DNA scraps left.
Danny’s stomach went cold, his breathing picking up a notch. Steve might have been inside. Steve might have decided to scope out the perimeter. This didn’t mean...
It couldn’t mean...
“Steve?” Danny called, his voice almost breaking. He swallowed and tried again. “Steve!”
There was no answer. Well, except for the sudden spark and a muffled explosion from inside. Fire seemed to be picking up now, originating someplace to the left, the orange-red flames dancing up the curtains of the nonexistent window.
Danny was running out of time. If the witness was inside, he had a responsibility to check. Besides, Steve could be inside.
In general, Danny did not like running into burning buildings.
But considering the alternatives, Danny didn’t really see it as an option. If Steve was in there, Danny was going to get him out.
Alive.
End of story.
With that, Danny stopped thinking -- critically, anyway. If he was going to act like some insane idiot, he had to forego all higher reason skills and just act. This would be foreign to Danny, but his time with Steve had trained him a bit to the contrary. So when he pushed his way over the smouldering remains of the front door, he thought of Steve and didn’t hesitate.
Inside, the smoke was thick, which really wasn’t a surprise. But the heat was pressing, and Danny was keenly aware that there were multiple fires still burning, some more pressing than others. It was only a matter of time before the place went up like a tinderbox--
Only a matter of time for Danny to get Steve and get the hell out.
He started in the main room, squinting through the smog, looking for any sign of life. The furniture was charred and tipped, but nothing moved. He almost tripped over the remains of a coffee table, and braced himself on the cracked hull of a big screen TV, but there was no one there.
“Steve?” he called, trying to project his voice. The effort resounded in the haze, and when he sucked in to try again, he coughed instead. It was a hard, hacking cough that bent him over and when he straightened, this time he pressed his forearm over his face in a vain attempt to block the worst of the smoke.
If Steve was still in here, it wasn’t likely he would be able to hear Danny anyway.
Danny pressed forward, inching forward, mindful of the scattered flames, one of which was dancing up a wall and skittering across the ceiling. Something shifted above him, and Danny winced, glancing up at the bowing ceiling with trepidation.
It held, though.
For now.
Gritting his teeth, Danny pressed on, moving through the living area and into what appeared to be the kitchen. The table was shattered, the appliances blackened with the refrigerator door knocked loose and skewed while flames licked along the wall ominously.
No one.
In fact, nothing. The furnishings in the main room had been sparse, but there was almost nothing in the kitchen at all. Besides the demolished furniture, there was nothing else. Not a drop of food in the damn fridge.
Frowning, Danny moved back toward the living room. There were no books, no magazines, no open cans of beer or half drunk bottles of water. The explosion had been powerful, but it hadn’t obliterated everything. There was debris, but no indication of recent activity.
No one had been here at all.
It was a setup.
How, Danny wasn’t sure. Why, he was even less sure. This had been personal to Steve. An old friend, he’d said. He’d damn near started an interdepartmental furor when he’d refused to cede control to the FBI. And now the FBI had one upped them by moving the witness without telling them.
And quite possibly saving the witness’ life, it seemed.
While also quite possibly destroying theirs...
None of that made sense, though. Hell, nothing about this made sense. But Danny sure as hell wasn’t going to lose another partner to something so totally and completely stupid...
Determined, Danny moved forward, stepping over the debris and skirting his way to the hallway. Here, the smoke was thicker, a large beam hanging precariously. Danny ducked it, moving farther in. His lungs were tight, eyes watering and he swallowed painfully, doing his best not to breathe in too deep for fear of--
Coughing. It ripped through him again, nearly doubling him over. He refused to stop, though, keeping low as he ducked his way through. He was almost blind, feeling in front of him, using his feet to sort through the wood and the metal for something softer, something human, something--
Fresh fire sparked, catching across the ceiling. The building groaned, the walls shimmying. The smoke was clogging his nose and throat now, and his head ached as he pushed forward, looking--
Steve. Steve was here. Steve had to be--
Flame suddenly danced in front of him, and the heat singed his clothes. Danny stumbled, falling back and catching himself against a wall. It gave a little bit, and Danny fell further. He scrambled, trying to find his footing, trying to find--
Steve.
He turned. Blinked.
Steve.
Right there. Standing, staring at him, eyes wide, questioning. His mouth was covered with something that looked suspiciously like a shirt, face smudged, cheek bruised, but otherwise okay.
Danny blinked again.
And the world tilted, his airway constricting even as his mind got hazy.
Steve. Standing. Okay. Alive.
That was what mattered.
That was all that mattered as the world went dark and Danny dropped to the ground.
-o-
Something was wrong.
Danny had been saying it all along, but when Steven approached the front door, he realized that his partner had been right. There was something...off.
The windows -- they were dark. More than that, they were coated with dust. There was no sign of movement on the stoop, and the hinges on the door were rusty, the handle crooked and easily broken.
No way was that par for the course for a safehouse. Espeically an FBI safehouse.
Something was very, very wrong.
Instead of knocking, Steve drew his gun. He eyed the door cautiously and decided that a little restraint might be in order. Easing his way back, he started around to the back, sweeping the grounds first for any sign of tampering or movement.
He made it around the back, securing the yard, when the damn thing blew.
The force of the blast knocked him to the ground, his head slamming against the grass. His vision blacked out, and his ears rang while his awareness tunneled precariously. For a while, he could only lay there, blinking blindly up at the sky as rain fell on his face, forcing gasping breaths in and out of his mouth while he struggled to regain some sense of control.
He had to breathe. He had to think. He had to get up.
That was easier said than done, but the force of his determination was enough to blink his eyes a few more times until the darkness turned to light and the light turned to shape and Steve was awake.
Awake and aware.
He sat up, his head throbbing. He pressed his palm to his forehead, wincing as he pushed the nausea back down. Squinting, he looked around, wiping the rain out of his eyes. He saw his gun not far away and reached over to grab it. When he turned back toward the house--
What was left of the house. The structure was still intact -- mostly -- but the walls were bowed and the roof was caving in certain spots. The windows were gone and smoke was furling into the sky, even as fire started to burn in earnest.
So much for his simple favor to an old friend. The man had never been here, though. Whoever he’d talked to at the FBI had given him bad intel -- either on purpose or his source was bad. Either way, this meant that the entire investigation was compromised; his friend was at risk. Hell, he could be dead. Steven didn’t know.
He just knew that he needed to take a page from Danny’s book and call for backup.
His fingers were trembling just slightly as he pulled his phone from his pocket. It was still intact, thankfully, and he meticulously pulled up Chin’s number, watching the smoking house with a general sense of unease.
“Steve?” Chin’s voice came.
“Yeah, hey,” he said. “We need backup--”
“Yeah, I know,” Chin said, cutting him off. “Danny already called me. Sounded pretty worried, too. I thought maybe you were hurt.”
Steve stopped, frowning. “What?”
“He put in a call for backup,” Chin explained. “Kono and I are on our way, but emergency response will probably beat us there. But you’re okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Steve said, distracted now as he jogged around back to the front of the house. “Looks like a bum lead -- and a setup. The FBI has a mole and they left an explosive at the abandoned safehouse.”
“And Danny?” Chin asked. “He sounded pretty worried...”
Danny had been in the car. He’d been perfectly safe.
Steve scaled over the debris, darting around the hedge to see the Camaro.
Empty.
Steve’s stomach churned. “He didn’t say anything else?”
“Just to hurry,” Chin said.
Steve looked back at the house, which was burning now, flames consuming the roof. It would be stupid to go inside; stupid and reckless...
Danny wasn’t stupid or reckless.
Except....
Steve clenched his jaw. “Well,” he said, ignoring the way his heart fluttered in his chest. “Hurry faster.”
Before Chin could say anything more, Steve hung up, pocketing his phone and running inside.
-o-
Steve was used to perilous situations. In fact, he’d spent the better part of his adult life, preparing, planning, and implementing procedures under such conditions. Life as a SEAL demanded nothing less than him. Danny thought he lacked certain natural fear reflexes, but the fact was, Steve was simply too well trained to worry about most things. He knew how to read situations and conditions, and he knew what he could handle.
Most of the time.
The fact was, this house was going up -- and it was going up fast. Whatever had been used for the explosive had had a highly flammable element, which had clearly used the old wood siding and taken off from there. By the time emergency services arrived, there would probably be no hope of containing the flames -- the house would be lost.
Therefore, going in such a structure was actually pretty stupid.
But leaving his partner in there would be even stupider.
Because Danny had gone in after him. There was no concrete evidence of that, certainly. But Steve had good deductive reasoning skills. Danny wasn’t in the car; Danny had seen the house go up in flames. For all of Danny’s talk about common sense, his partner didn’t always make logical decisions when there was someone he cared about in peril. He’d walked into a hostage situation for Grace. He’d stood by Chin when there was a bomb strapped to him. He’d never let Steve down--
And now he was inside a burning house.
Danny was going to be pissed.
Of course, as long as Danny was alive, Steve was okay with that.
And that was what mattered.
More than odds, more than training, more than common sense.
So Steve ran inside.
Getting in was easy -- a few careful jumps -- but once he was in, he quickly realized that the rest would not be so simple. Hastily, he removed his outer shirt, tying it around his face and ducking low to the ground as he squinted through the smoky haze.
The room was empty, mostly destroyed. The flames had engulfed one of the walls, and small fires were starting to build through the rest of the space. Heat burned from the ceiling, and the smoke was thick enough to almost gag him, even through his makeshift mask.
It was hard to see, but there was just one thing he had to look for. Danny’s blonde hair, his white shirt. Even in the gloom, he could train his eyes for that much.
Living room -- clear.
He moved to the kitchen -- clear.
His throat was tight, and he fought the urge to cough -- he didn’t have time for that. He moved instead to the hallway, flinching despite his best intentions at the waves of heat rolling toward him. If Danny was this way--
Then Steve had to move faster.
The debris was heavier here, more pronounced. Steve had to work around it carefully, trying to hold each breath longer, to see more clearly--
And then there he was.
Standing, right there in front of him. White dress shirt, neat dress pants, blonde hair disheveled.
Steve let out his breath with relief, hand clasping Danny’s shoulder.
When his partner turned, Steve saw that his face was smudge, thick with soot, blue eyes wide--
Too wide. Danny blinked, clearly shocked.
Steve stared at him, head cocked and confused.
And then Danny collapsed.
It happened so suddenly that Steve barely had time to prepare. As it was, he fumbled forward, reaching out to brace his partner as they both went down. Steve landed hard on his bottom, Danny dead weight sprawled on top of him. Steve’s lungs burned, his eyes watering as he looked down, as he looked for any sign of life.
But Danny was still.
And the house was burning.
It was time to go.
Jaw tight, Steve got to his feet, hoisting Danny over his shoulders. The fire pressing at his back, the smoke burning his eyes, he started to run.
And he didn’t look back.
-o-
In Danny’s mind, he could still see the slack expression on Grace’s face when she died, bound to a chair next to Danny. He could see her vacant eyes, the blood on her shirt, the bullet wound that had killed her.
Had murdered her.
He could still feel her warm skin beneath his fingers, how he’d been so close and still too late.
Too late.
He could still see Mekka’s charred body, the look of devastation on his wife’s face. Danny had no friends in Hawaii, but he’d had Mekka.
He’d had.
He could still see Steve, too. Bickering, arguing, being stupid and brave and--
The exploding house.
The burning house.
There had been no body...
Because he’d been alive.
Danny startled, jolting upright.
To see Steve.
Soot, blood, surprise: alive.
And then a cough wrenched through Danny’s body, racking him with such force that he nearly curled over, hacking desperately against the cloying grime in his throat and lungs and--
Everything went hazy for a moment, and then Steve was there again, steadying him, holding him up, asking, “What the hell were you doing?”
Danny cleared his throat one more time, tentatively swallowing as he tried to sit up. Everything was a little fuzzy, but with Steve’s hand on his shoulder, he seemed to be stable enough. “You were blown up,” he said, the words croaked as his throat protested.
Steve furrowed his brow. “Do I look like I was blown up?”
Danny squinted, nodding toward his bloody cheek. “A little.”
Steve reached up, touching his cheek and looking at it as if he’d forgotten. “So you thought you needed to get charred to compensate?”
It was Danny’s turn to furrow his brow. “I was trying to rescue you,” he said, rasping a little easier now, but everything still hurt like he was an asthmatic smoker. There was a reason he never started, a reason he told Grace he’d ground her for three years if she ever so much as looked twice at a cigarette.
Steve smirked. “Good job.”
Danny scowled, his cheeks flushing. “You walked up to a house that exploded,” he said, heaving a bit now. “What was I supposed to do?”
“Well, um, isn’t it proper police procedure to secure the scene first?” Steve asked.
“There is no proper procedure when your partner is at risk,” Danny shot back, almost choking at the words as his throat constricted further.
“So you are admitting that you acted foolishly,” Steve said.
“No, I’m admitting that I was trying to save your ass,” Danny said, growling the words now, garbled as they were over the gunk in his airway.
“I think I’m pretty capable of that myself,” Steve replied.
“Doesn’t matter,” Danny snapped. “Capable cops die every day. They die in busts gone wrong, they get killed for revenge, they get blown up in houses, and I’m sick and tired of sitting by idly and letting it happen, so if you think--”
Danny didn’t know what Steve thought. Hell, he wasn’t sure what he thought because his throat seized up and his lungs rebelled, a fresh series of coughs ripping through him, even stronger than before. He hacked, as if to pull up a lung, his entire body aching with the effort as he struggled in vain to fight through his congested throat and nose. His fingers tingled, his eyes watered and everything was burning and Danny was too late--
But Steve’s grip was steady, his presence unwavering. “It didn’t happen,” he said, voice low in Danny’s ear. “It didn’t happen.”
It took all the strength Danny had, rallying it from every ounce of self control he had, to pulled back his coughs and turn his head back toward Steve. “It could have,” he croaked.
Steve’s gaze was unyielding. “It didn’t.”
Danny’s vision blurred. “This time,” he said. “You can’t promise me it never will.”
Steve sighed. But nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “But I can try.”
Danny had tried to save Grace. He’d tried to be there for Mekka. None of it had counted in the end.
His face contorted. “And if that’s not enough?”
Steve shrugged. “Well, doesn’t that go both ways?”
Danny scrunched his nose, surprised. “What? You’re the idiot who runs into danger all the time.”
“Really?” Steve asked. “So you running into a burning house...”
“Was for you!” Danny huffed, indignant.
“Oh, and that’s supposed to make it okay?” Steve asked. “What if I hadn’t followed you in there? What if I’d waited? You’d be dead from the smoke by now.”
Danny felt tense, his entire body strung taut. The emotions were conflicting now, the fear and the panic and the need and everything. “Excuse me for not wanting you to die!”
“Trust me, I know how you feel,” Steve said. “Being protective is a two-way street, buddy.”
Danny tried to swallowed, tried to breathe. His nose was clogged; his throat hurt. Tears burned in his eyes. “I can’t do it again.”
He couldn’t be the last man standing. He couldn’t look at Steve’s mom and sister and tell them their son was dead, when it was his job to protect him. He’d carried Grace’s casket; he’d mourned with Mekka’s family. He couldn’t do it again.
He couldn’t.
Steve squeezed his arm. “I didn’t know Grace or Mekka--”
Danny flinched at their names.
Steve didn’t stop. “--but I know you would have died for them gladly. And I’m sure neither of them would have wished you to be in their place.”
“They’re still dead,” Danny said, the words barely audible, especially as the sirens started to wail in the distance. “I don’t have a great track record where partners are concerned.”
“Yeah,” Steve said, shrugging just a little. “Well, I have no record, which is probably why I spend more time being stubborn and stupid and charging in blindly.”
“Exactly!” Danny said. Then he frowned. “Though it doesn’t feel as good as I thought it would to hear you admit it...”
Steve grinned. “That’s because you’re exactly the same way.”
Danny drew his face into a glower. “I am not.”
Steve raised his eyebrows.
“Mostly,” Danny amended, duly chagrined. “But for the record, I am only reckless when imminent peril is involved. It just so happens with you, that’s all the time.”
“Sure, Danno,” Steve said, patting his arm this time as he settled back as the help finally arrived. “But hey, on the bright side -- it finally stopped raining.”
Danny blinked, looking up. Steve was right. The sky had cleared and the sun was shining.
And then the paramedics were there and Danny was on his back. Someone flashed a light in his eyes and started to unbutton his shirt. A mask was pressed over his face and something pricked his arms. Danny tried to move, tried to cry out, but his throat tensed and he flailed, coughing and searching until Steve’s hand locked with his.
Danny opened his eyes again. The sun was almost blinding now, but he could still see Steve next to him.
Maybe it wouldn’t always be that way.
But for today, that was enough.