Choices

*O*O*O*

Son of a BITCH! Danni thinks it, says it, yells it. Would tattoo it on his damn forehead if it would help. It won’t. McGarrett is like a dog with a bone. He sees, he wants, he does and Danni is dragged along for the ride whether she wants it or not. 

“Well excuse me for thinking that miranda rights aren’t optional!” She wants to hit him. She actually wants to throw him off the building but she’s trying this whole “temperance” zen crap Meka’s been pushing on her. It’s not working since Rambo has the perp by the ankles, dangling thirty stories over the side of a damn building. She isn’t getting paid enough to deal with this crap. “And what the hell are you doing now!”

She’s going to have a heart attack. Or get booked for murder. McGarret throws a questioning look her way. Like she’s the one that’s behaving like a lunatic. “Are you out of your mind! This is not Guantanamo!” The jackass is monologuing the perp like she hasn’t said a damn word. “You can’t hang a guy off a roof!” 

Apparently he can so hang a guy off a roof and hold him there. The ruskie, screams like a little girl. Danni can’t blame him. She wants to scream like a little girl herself. Maybe throw herself to the ground and do like a five year old not getting her way. But because she’s a mature, sane grown-up, she gapes. 

Danni can’t. She really can’t. She’s already gotten into it with her ex this morning about him shanghaiing her weekend with promises of pony rides and water skiing. The ass! Dealt with the governor gushing about McGarrett and his new task force and ignoring, since the first, Danni’s requests to return to HPD. 

At this moment, right here and now, Danni is done. She is beyond done. She’s dealt with enough of McGarrett’s commando tactics but this, this takes the cake. When Kelly comes over with the intel on the perp and McGarrett finally pulls the suspect up, she just walks. She needs air and distance and a whole lot of happy pills to deal with the crazy. 

Kelly doesn’t try to speak to her or stop her. He’s a smart guy, at that and it’s not like they’re friends. Barely colleagues at this point. He’s already made his feelings about haloes in general and her specifically pretty clear. Since the first, really. They work well together. If she’s honest, they make a good team when the insanity is on a down-low. He’s certainly better than the HPD as a whole. But work and cases are about the extent of their interactions and Danni is fine with that. She’s great with it. 

McGarrett shouts out to her, “Seriously, Danno?” Danni’s dander springs up at the nickname. Oh she knew she was going to regret letting McGarrett know about that one. And if he’s about to  call her sensitive again she’s going to punch his lights out. Maybe shoot him while she’s at it. 

“Do not speak to me right now!” She slams the door to the stairwell shut. Climbs down the stairs, takes the elevator at first opportunity since her knee is really hating on her right now. She just needs a moment. Just one. Is that really too much to ask? 

Apparently it is because the next minute, in the lobby, McGarrett jogs up to her. He at least is smart enough to keep his trap shut. Neither the perp or Kelly are with him. She guesses Kelly is going to book their suspect, probably with the help of some unis. She bites back a wince. Danni may not know what is going on with Kelly and the HPD but it isn’t anything good. 

As soon as they get outside, the jackass steals her keys and takes the driver’s seat. Danni takes a deep, deep, very deep breath. Counts to a hundred. Then to five hundred before she gets in. They don’t talk. Danni because she’s like a clogged volcano and one wrong word will set her off. McGarrett because, well, Danni doesn’t know why. 

McGarrett doesn’t do guilt or repentance. He doesn’t do any normal, human emotions or interactions or reactions. He’s all hooray running through his veins and tunnel vision and Danni has a horrible, choking feeling that she might end up collateral damage if she’s not careful. 

Then McGarrett glances at her, makes a face and says the one things that will lit her up faster than a match in creosote. “Let it go,” He says, sounding all reasonable, “Just let it go.”

“Please, do not speak to me right now.” She pleads, holding on to her temper with both hands. Her anger like a churning, corked bottle ready to burst. 

Danni is trying, she really is, but everyone always said she should have been red. She has the Irish temper if not the hair to prove it. Back in Jersey, anyone that had known her for five minutes knew better then to poke her when she was in one of her moods. McGarret, sadly, has the survival instincts of a lemur. 

“So we’re going to do that whole thing again, why do we have to -” He starts with a whine and Danni snarls out, “Zip it for a second.” She bites her lip against the barrage of words that want to vomit all over the place. Considers throwing herself out the car for her sanity’s sake and not wanting to turn the camaro into a crime scene. Then remembers this is her camaro, her car that she’s apparently no longer allowed to drive and that does it. No-holds-barred. The damn has burst and she is going to give McGarrett a piece of her mind. “I am going to speak know. It is my turn.” 

She doesn’t yell. Not at first. But there will be yelling, screaming and possibly blood and guts and damn the clean-up costs. “Sergei Ivanovich, he is a suspect, that means we treat him as a source of information and then we book him, okay! Torturing and killing is not part of the job description.”

“I wasn’t gonna kill him -”

“Why are you talking!” She yells, wants her gun in hand very badly. It’s a bad idea so it stays holstered. 

“I’m just trying to explain -” She wants to pull her hair out. Followed by McGarrett’s. 

“Why are your lips moving!” She throws him a look until, with a grace of a petulant five year old, he does a little go-ahead gesture. 

“Go ahead.” Breathe, just breathe. 

“I know the governor gave you a free pass,” And what was she thinking? Was she as insane as Mr.-Guns-and-Ammo sitting next to her? Was insanity contagious on this island? Was there something in the water? Did excess pineapple ingestion cause some lack-of-common-sense-derangement? “but full immunity and means does not entitle you to hang a guy off a roof!”

“You know, you really are overreacting,” McGarret says and it’s the annoyance and I-am-so-misunderstood tone in his voice that just does it for her. 

“No, McGarrett,” And she’s yelling, really yelling. As angry, furious as she’s ever been. Even Richard never managed to set her off this quickly. “I am not overreacting! This is not some reaction to a minor little thing!” She balls her hands into fist, holds them to her sides by sheer force of will. “I am terrified out of my freaking mind that one of these days, your gun-ho, get them at whatever the cost attitude is going to end up leaving my baby girl without her mommy!”

McGarrett goes still and quiet and dammit, she didn’t want to say that aloud. Ever. Specially to McGarrett, who hadn’t cared when he ripped her our of her steady, if tremulous job with HPD. Didn’t ask, consult, hint and/or suggest that Danni join his crazy, danger seeking, I-risk-therefor-I-am, insanity inducing task force. Didn’t consider what being on this loony-merry-go-‘round what Danni stands to loose if her ex ever gets a hint of Danni’s new association with adrenaline junkie “r” us. He doesn’t get it and that hits Danni hard each time he does something that puts a spotlight on that. 

“It won’t happen, Danni.” McGarret says, quietly, stricken she’d say if it were anyone else. “Danni, I won’t let it happen.”

He sounds sincere, is the thing. Looks it too in that stupid, goofy way of his. It defuses her anger, snuffs it out until Danni is left so very, very tired. 

“Danni -”

“Don’t, okay. Just don’t.” She mutters, weary. And surprise, surprise, the navy actually instilled something other than chaos and mayhem into him. McGarrett shuts it. Keeps his eyes on the road and doesn’t say anything else. The silence is awkward and tense. Danni stares out the window. They don’t talk about anymore. About it or anything else not related to the case. McGarrett’s on his best behavior throughout. Danni isn’t holding her breath that it’ll going to last. 

Case close, family reunited, world catastrophe averted, they head back to HQ. Danni locks herself in her in-the-works office and works on her paperwork. Which in reality is hers and McGarrett’s. Once done, they have Kalakaua’s ceremony, Danni does her part then Danni grabs her things and makes to get the hell out of there. Tonight she’s on her own. Gracie’s with Richard and his trollop of a trophy wife. Danni is planning on spending as much time in her crappy bath, soaking her knee and arm and maybe ordering Chinese. She’s not touching the pizza on this pineapple obsessed island. 

The doors to the elevators ping and open. She steps inside and of course that’s when McGarrett stops her at the elevators. With little regard for limb and safety, he sticks his hand between the closing doors. Hands on either side to keep them open and thus prevent anyone else from having access. Great, now she’s going to be filing complaints from HPD for this tomorrow. Great, awesome. “What?” She snaps. Her knee is hurting, her arm is hurting. Her pain meds wore off hours ago and she is so done with today. Behind McGarrett, Kelly and Kalakaua make themselves scarce.

McGarrett visibly braces himself. His aneurism face on full display. “I’m sorry.” Danni waits, then blinks when the words permeates through the fog of annoyance. Then pinches her arm because, yeah, of all the things she would expect from Mr.-humanity-is-for-losers this wouldn’t even hit the top hundred. 

“I’m not -” Danni watches in fascination as something close to an emotion crosses his face. An emotion that has nothing to do with his dad, or his dad’s death or the hunt for his dad’s killers. He runs a hand over his short, regulation cropped hair. “I may have, not that I’m saying I did, but I may have not have handled things the best way. Before.”

Danni crosses her arms, bits back a wince when it pulls at her still tender arm. “Before? And what, pray tell, is this before you are speaking of? You dangling our suspect from a roof before? You getting me shot before?”

“Oh, come one, you’re still going on about -”

She steamrolls right over him. “You hijacking me into this crazy, suicidal task force of yours before?”

“I did not hijack -”

“So which before, McGarrett, before what, exactly, are you attempting, and I use the word very loosely since you are doing the bare minimum of its definition, to apologize for.” McGarrett furrows his brow like he actually has to think about it. For fuck’s sake! She punches the number for the lobby. As the doors make to close, Mr.-fearless-in-the-face-of-possible-dismemberment sticks his hand in to stop them, again. 

“Okay, okay. Everything, okay. I’m sorry. For everything.” He glances back at the two distinct shadows of their eavesdropping teammates. Danni rolls her eyes. She’s surrounded by five-year-olds. “I don’t take your life for granted, Danni.” He’s looking at her now, all sincerely eyes and hangdog expression. She has no problem seeing how he can talk someone into the kind of stupid he does on a regular basis. Danni knows better and she feels herself wavering. Even if it’s just a little. 

“And I’m sorry I didn’t ask. I should have. But at the time,” He shrugs, rolls his shoulders to ease some of the tension. “So,” He flickers his hand towards her then to their HQ. 

“So?” She waves her hands around in clear mockery of McGarrett’s emotional constipation. She knows what he’s asking, really asking but Danni’s been through hell for the last two weeks and a little shit herself. She’s not about to make this easy for him. Not with the sharp tang of fear still a putrid acid in her stomach. 

McGarrett straightens. Comes to his military parade rest he tends to default to when faced with something uncomfortable like actual feelings. “So,” He says, takes a deep, bracing breath, “Detective Williams, would you join our specialized task force?” He gives her a hopeful, goofy look. The kind her family’s old lab used to when he wanted some of her ma’s to-die-for meatballs. 

Danni rolls her eyes hard enough that she thinks they might fall out of their sockets. Seriously. McGarrett is going to be death of her. This team is going to be the death of her. And of course since Danni is a pathetic, marshmallow centered pushover herself, she says, “Oh for, yes, you goof, it’s not like I can go back anyway.” She waves off the newest flutters of emotion from McGarrett. 

Kalakaua and Kelly come out from their not at all subtle eavesdropping spot right around the corner. Both with their versions of smug and I-told-you-so’s plastered all over their faces. Kalakaua even has the gal to say, “So, did you guys kiss and make up?”

But she’s grinning and Danni doesn’t have it in herself to be an ass when they both look that pleased with themselves. Especially since Danni isn’t sure where she stood with them and now might have a clearer picture. 

“Can we go out for beers, now?” Kelly adds. More reserved than his cousin but no less satisfied. “I have it on good authority McGarrett promised to buy the first round.”

Danni thinks on it. This is really her new reality. This her new team as insane as they are and she has choices to make. She can make it hell for herself and everyone else, or she can accept it. She’s not sure she likes it, or any of them but they are looking at her now, waiting. Kalakaua and Kelly and McGarrett. Letting her take the lead on this one. If she wants, she can go home and tomorrow they’ll still be all professional and work as a team and that’s that. Or she can have a little of what she did back home. 

“Well when you put it that way.” She says and ignores the bright grins and looks shared between them. 

Danni steps back as McGarrett, Kalakaua and Kelly step into the elevator with her. Chattering about non-sensical Hawaiian stuff Danni could care less of. What she does care about is the grin McGarrett throws her way. Open and with a crinkle at the corner of his eyes that made him seem boyish and ten years younger. Kelly’s friendly side glances that don’t have his usual reserve. Kalakaua’s bright, carefree laughter. And in the midst of that, Danni finds something deep inside herself unwinding for the first time since leaving everything from this pineapple infested hell hole.