Phoenix (2/6)
Words: 1442
Pairing: Steve McGarrett/Danny Williams, Chin Ho Kelly/Malia Waincroft
Summary: Alyssa has to work overtime because of Steve and Danny.
⚠ Set between 2.05 and 2.10 ⚠
Viking warrior mums squad.
The thing was that although Alyssa loved having Detective Williams and Lieutenant Commander McGarrett as her patients - and being surrender by their bickering - she saw them too much for her enjoyment.
She knew their medical records by heart, and that was because she had personally penned half of them. Sometimes they returned to her care before they had even completed their last medical treatments.
She had to pinch her nose too many times to not punch them straight in their nose and add more work. Her hot-headedness didn't improve her irritation but she was trying not to punch any more people during her shift, reminding herself that she was sent to Honolulu from Boston because she did hit her superior.
Yes, he had been a misogynistic bastard that constantly discriminated against every female employee but she was the one that got punished for that incident. He became the traumatological ward's head surgeon in one of the finest Boston hospitals while she was shipped away to Hawaii.
She didn't even like the hot weather or the sea!
She shook her head, hating her brain for reminding her of such dreadful times. She had paperwork to do and, if she was quick enough, she could slip out of the building without someone blocking her escape and asking her to do overtime.
Yeah, she could that.
Or not.
The moment her fingers started typing again, with such confidence that her fingertips ached, her door swung open and Doctor Malia Waincroft waltzed in with a hurry.
«You have to go down to ER».
Alyssa searched Malia's face, trying to find any crack she could use to her advantage.
She knew who Malia's boyfriend was and if she was there in person it meant that someone on the Five-0 team was injured just not work-related; most possibly Williams or McGarrett seeing that they were her patients. The woman was not asking her to do overtime but to attend to the injured man as a favor - she truly praised not both; because she had learned that if the two men were badly injured simultaneously, it meant that a dangerous psychopath was freely running around Oahu.
«The first time I will meet Williams and McGarrett outside of the hospital walls, I swear, I will punch them until they had learned how to properly take care of themselves», she spitted, too much tired to contain herself. «I am starting to feel guilty at how much they are paying me!»
Malia's face relaxed at Alyssa's words and a smile popped out, now she resembled the first friend Alyssa made on the island.
«You haven't to tell me that, I live not knowing if a want to punch or kiss Chin most of the time».
«Even if your brain decides that it's time to punch Chin, you would go for the kiss: you love him too damn much», Alyssa said to her friend before standing up and making her way toward the door. «So, who is today?»
Malia was right behind her, strolling along toward the elevator.
«Danny and Steve».
Alyssa frowned, her gut twisting with concern. «Both? What did the hell happen? There was no major incident on the news!»
«Well, they weren't working and they should have known better - being in their thirties and all», Malia sighed, ashamed of Chin's bosses' behavior. The two women stopped in front of the elevator.
Alyssa turned to her, wanting an actual explanation.
«They started a fistfight during Grace's - Danny's daughter - softball match».
The two women were silent for a long moment before the elevator dinged, Alyssa entered while Malia stayed where she was.
«If you hear someone calling HPD from the ER», Alyssa said holding the doors, «it will be for me, probably to be arrested for assaulting a police officer and a Navy official».
Malia laughed.
«Don't worry I will have your bail paid in less than an hour».
The first thing Alyssa heard, after arriving in ER, was Williams ranting.
She chuckled, categorizing these as "irritate ranting". She tried to not think that she saw the two men so much that she had started indexing the bickering, so, she concentrated on the male nurse that was moving towards her.
Ralph gave her two medical records and asked her to release the couple the fastest she could: he didn't want to see two grown-ass men fucking each other on an ER bed. She laughed and thanked him.
Williams and McGarrett were sitting together on a bed near the end of the area, their hips and shoulders pressed together; the smallest had a black eye while the tallest had a busted lip and an awful bruising on his jaw. Both had split knuckles and their clothes were ruined.
Two fistfighters at their best.
«Good evening gentlemen», she interrupted Williams ranting about what his ex-wife was going to pull when she heard about all this and the two looked at her, the blood flooding a little out of their faces. Maybe she was displaying her irritation for being urged into overtime, maybe not. «How're the other men?»
The slap of her newly wear plastic gloves on her wrists awaked the two officers.
«Women, doc», Williams answered with a splash of pink on his cheekbones. «And they are completely fine, just some scratches. They kicked our sorry asses mercilessly, though».
Alyssa took McGarrett's chin in her hands and pointed it toward the blond to better see the yellow and black bruise. He hissed at her touch but the jaw bone didn't feel damaged.
«They had to be strong if they made you come all the way to the hospital». She said remembering that one of the men was a policeman and the other was an ex-Navy SEAL.
«They all had mean hooks and two of them were MMA athletes...». McGarrett started while she studied his busted lip.
«Aaand Malia kidnapped us here». Williams concluded.
Alyssa wanted to laugh because she knew how Malia was but her brain had just decided to conjure up old memories again: the way Williams had finished McGarrett's phrase made her reminiscence the few months before two of her best friends got together.
They had been perfect for each other since day one, everyone could have seen it but them.
They studied together, they went around together and they always, always completed each other sentences. It took them almost twelve months but in the end, they started dating. Their wedding occurred two months after she landed in Honolulu and she wasn't able to fly back home for it.
She blamed herself and her temper and swear to never punch another human being.
Her now married friends, though, never blamed her. They had even decided to spend their honeymoon in Oahu so they could see her, she cried like a baby when she had seen them at the hospital reception.
«Are you okay?» Asked the male brunette in front of her, bringing her back in the present.
Alyssa stopped her brain from digging up other memories and imposed herself to breathe steadily. She had to clear her throat and shut her eyes to not cry.
«Isn't that my line, Commander?» She asked back, a smirk plastered on her face.
Williams waved a hand.
«Let it go», the blond told her. «He has a superhero complex. Even when is bleeding out he won't say anything and try to distract you by asking how are you».
His partner whined. «Danno!»
«Shush», ordered Williams and Alyssa laughed. Perhaps punching a superior wasn't the smartest thing she had ever done, and perhaps she now lived in a city that was thousands of miles away from her friends and her family but strangely enough, she didn't feel all that lonely anymore.
«So», she exclaimed, her mind back to work, «Detective, would you enlight me on the incident?»
«Oh no, no, no. Call me Danny». He offered her. «We see each other too much these days to not drop down to first names: I'm Danny and he's Steve».
Alyssa felt herself smiling her heart suddenly a little lighter. «If so, you can call me Alyssa. Back on track, why did you declare war on a Viking warrior mums squad?»
Steve had his mouth open to answer but his blond partner was quicker.
«If I have to be truthful», Danny began, «it all started with this tall, brainless, Neanderthal that decided he knew softball's foul better than the referee...»
Part (1/2/3/4/5/6)
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Phoenix (6/6)
Words: 3582
Pairing: Steve McGarrett/Danny Williams, Chin go Kelly/Malia Waincroft, Kono Kalakaua/Adam Noshimuri
Summary: Malia's Funeral. Chin and Alyssa philosophically drink. Danny and Steve bickering.
⚠ Set during and after 3.02 ⚠
Funerals, whiskey, and tears.
Alyssa hated death.
She loathed it with all her heart, not because of death per se or the gigantic hole someone left in your life without knowing it, she hated death because of the consequences that it had on the living.
The loneliness, the sorrow, the tears, the cold, the heartache, the mental and emotional breakdown; Alyssa abhorred seeing the people she cared for in that kind of pain because she felt and saw it too many times. Any professional would have said it was kinda unhealthy, at that point.
Death was Alyssa's solo, steady, companion in her life and she despised it.
At the first funeral she attended, she was six and no one had to explain to her what had happened or what was happening. She knew that her Nonno Alberto wasn't sleeping in the casket and she felt like she would have never been able to talk to him ever again, but she was okay with that in a strange way.
She was sad, obviously, but after her mother and sister talked to her, she accepted that it was a fact that no one could change.
What had broken her into a pathetic whine was the devastation that she could see on her parents and sister's faces; she didn't want them to feel that way, she wanted them to smile, to laugh, to enjoy the food it was passed around, but she was six and she couldn't do anything to help.
That broke her spirit and her little heart.
In the mare eight years after, Alyssa attended other four family funerals. The last one, when she was fourteen, was her mother's.
For the first time, she didn't just saw the agony in her grannies' faces or her dad's or her sister's; Alyssa felt it, felt the voidness in her chest, the crack in her soul, the ultimate clusterfuck of emotion that her brain was, one moment she was crying for her loss and the next she was hysterically laughing.
Everyone was telling her to be strong. To be courageous. To be there for her dad, but she just wanted to disappear, to stop feeling, to lose herself into the void.
Everything was too much and she didn't know how to copy. The sun was too bright, the sorrow of the people gathered too fake, the emotions too troublesome and Alyssa just turned it all off.
It took hours, a panic attack at the thought of never being able to feel again, and a hurtful headshot with her cousin's forehead to evade the nothingness and being able to feel again. Years later she would have learned that she had her first emotional overload that day.
But death wasn't done with her.
Her mother's cousin, her mother's aunt, her two grannies, her father's aunt, all died before her twenty-second birthday.
Death wasn't a stranger to Alyssa but she now could handle the aftermath.
At least, that was what she thought before Danny's call.
It had been a long work night. She had just finished examining a young boy that was brought into ER at an hour where you can't tell if it is too late or too soon when her phone ringed. Danny's voice cracked when he told her about Malia's death.
Alyssa was so out of it that she breakdown in the middle of ER. The nurses had to take her phone and tell Danny to come, take her home. Her blond friends didn't leave her alone that night: he brought her to his home and tackle her on the couch, under soft sheets. Told her to wake him if there was anything she needed.
Alyssa the world became blurred after that.
Danny was always present. Showing up on her doorstep every time he could, bringing her something to eat or drink; they passed the hours sitting on her couch silently drinking their sorrow away. She knew Steve was away for a few days – this time the idiot told them – and when one afternoon Danny showed up with his brunette partner, she just buried herself in the hug that Steve was offering.
It was only a couple of hours later and a call away that Alyssa learned that Doris McGarrett was alive and being watched by Catherine, Steve's ex. That afternoon she learned that Danny had to thought for Grace once again, too.
It took Chin a couple of weeks to organize Malia's surfer funeral ceremony and he asked for her help. He knew how strongly tied Alyssa and Malia had become during the past year and it would be offensive to not include her in it.
They met at a twenty-four hours diner and set together almost all nights; they needed someone to talk to, to mourn and cry with. Someone that could understand the hole Malia left behind at a hundred per cent.
Sometimes Steve showed up, no words, just a cup of coffee and his presence - the worst nights his strong arm could have been found over Alyssa's shoulders. Other times Danny followed him and there were a lot of words included, but they were soft and warm. She found herself smiling softly at the couple more and more times alongside Chin.
And then the day came.
The sky was impeccably blue, no trace of clouds, and the sun could break a stone. Alyssa, wearing her most elegant black suit, was standing on the beach barefoot; in the water, a few meters away, Chin was releasing Malia's ashes. Her eyes were burning because of the tears but she stood rigid, head high, paying her silent respect to one of the best women she ever met in her life.
At her right, Danny was squeezing her forearm to remind her that she was not alone in that. Alyssa breathed shakingly and throw a rapid glance in his direction.
Danny's expression was contracted and his jaw was rigid, tightly closed; his eyes were dark and shiny, a little tear had escaped his left eye but he wouldn't wipe it away: one hand closed around her arm and the other was tightly buried into Steve's suit.
Steve, on the other side of the blonde, had an arm around his boyfriend's waist and was whispering things, trying to console the other man. For all the things that had happened in the last few days, Alyssa was really happy that at least these two were finally together.
Kono was at her left and had taken residence against Alyssa's shoulder, hold protectively by her arm; the woman hadn't yet won against the demons that were telling her that Malia's death was her fault and for that, she hadn't been able to be at his cousin's side in the water. Alyssa had promised Chin to keep an eye on her.
Behind them, a little distant, there were Adam and Cathrine.
Alyssa had yet to meet Kono's man but she knew was told that between him and Chin there wasn't a good relationship; that alone explained why, even though Adam wanted to be there for Kono, he was standing respectfully away. Everyone was pretending he wasn't there – no one wanted to witness a fistfight at a funeral – but now and then Kono would look back and waved a hand to tell him she was alright. Alyssa looked at him only a handful of times, their meeting every time and she nodded, just once, to tell him that his girlfriend was alright.
Cathrine was an entirely different story: she wanted to help Steve but stood back a little from them because she didn't know Malia personally and didn't want to intrude.
In the water, the surfers started shouting and splashing the water.
Malia was gone.
The wake had been good. A lot of people passed by for condolences and even more arrived armed with alcohol.
Alyssa, Kono, Danny, and Steve helped Chin in every way they can – from taking the food from a newly arrived woman to greetings people when Chin hid for a moment – but when their common friend would bench them because "I'm suffering not an invalid", Danny had an entire argument against that, they would find themselves in a corner of the room mourning and sharing stories about Malia.
Alyssa brought the glass to her lips and sipped the brown beverage. She wasn't a whiskey woman – rum, rum was her go-to for the sourest nights – but it was the strongest alcoholic drink that had been left around.
Not even two hours in and Five-0, minus Chin, was called away for a case. Alyssa found herself alone, with not a lot of booze left around: the Kelly-Kalakaua clan turned out to be composed of pro-drinker.
Snatching away a glass, and the last but already opened bottle of whiskey, she went outside and sat on the porch's steps. It was only two weeks and she already missed Malia as she would have missed a limb.
There was a huge void in her life, in her work, in her daily activity by now. It was said that you understood what you had after you had lost it; Alyssa always thought she had understood what she had in Malia – a coworker, a friend, a sister – and yet she felt like she had just lost a piece of who she was.
She felt desperation, rage, sadness, and numbness; she felt it all at once or nothing at all.
God! She felt precisely the same as at her mother's funeral. This time, though, she had booze to drown herself in.
Her phone vibrated again but she ignored Steve's text: the brunette wanted an update on her and Chin, every five minutes. Yeah, she was starting to understand why Danny was always in yelling mode.
She sipped again at the whiskey – no but seriously, why no one had brought rum? – and looked nowhere and everywhere.
«Are you okay?» Chin's voice asked her. Alyssa looked over and watched the man stumbled towards her and slumped (fell) next to her (almost on her). When had he become so drunk?
«Shouldn't be me to ask you that?» She retorted, settling him the best she could.
«Meh. I am good for now: the Okolehao helped». He raised his still full glass. «But you are not drunk, not speaking, and starting at nothing».
Alyssa smirked and sipped from her glass.
«What are you? A policeman?»
Chin's elbow found a new home in her left side. Hard. Ouch.
«I'm not so gone that I can't see you burying your emotion under your scary amount of sarcasm», he warned. «I had worked with Steve and Danny for over two years now, I am trained. And Malia complained about it. A lot. And loud enough».
Alyssa snorted. Gosh, that woman!
They settled in comfortable silence for a few minutes.
Chin knew that Alyssa was dangerously similar to Steve when it came to coping mechanisms: where his boss coped from trauma with an insane dose of recklessness, the woman used a foolish amount of sarcasm.
Just like Danny... A lot like Danny.
Chin looked at the dark-haired woman and couldn't stop himself from thinking that she was what Steve and Danny's child would have been like. Grace had saved herself from becoming that thank to Rachel.
«I thought I become good at managing it», Alyssa's voice brought Chin back to the present.
«Managing what?»
«Death, mourning... The void». She answered with a tight tone before dipping the whiskey, trying to force down the knot that was forming in her throat.
«Death is death, Lyss, there is no way around».
She snorted before drinking again. «Didn't I know that».
Chin cringed at her level of sarcasm. Malia, during a rare night spent on the couch with Netflix and ice cream, had confessed to him that she was preoccupied with her new co-worker's coping mechanism. Steve and Danny hadn't yet become her patients at that point.
The two women weren't even friends but, because Malia was the only one that Alyssa respect enough to not insult, their boss had asked Malia to talk to the younger woman. She had made a nurse cry that day, after blowing up for a stupid reason; Alyssa had probably been at her breaking point because she opened up to Malia the instant she asked her what was wrong. The unhealthy amount of sarcasm used during the explanation – it had been her mother's death anniversary – had left Malia on edge for the rest of the day.
«I'm sorry», Chin mumble apologetically.
Alyssa winced.
«God, Chin. No!» She exclaimed, passing a hand on her face. «Don't ever apologize for something like that. Your sorrow isn't less real than mine cause I had a lot of people taken from me! That is a very, very wrong idea to have!»
«And yet, you're undermining your own only because you attended more funerals than me!» He threw back at her. «Losing a loved one is never easy! Even after fifty damn funerals».
Alyssa shakingly breathed in and filled her now empty glass. She needed a lot more alcohol in her to be able to survive that discussion.
«Death touched me when I was a baby, Chin», she gulped down a good amount of the brown beverage, burning her throat. «I grew up with death breathing down my neck. Wherever I look there was death in a way or another. That scars you for life; the only way out of that ache is accepting.
Accepting that death is real. Death is everywhere, at any given moment, and we can't do shit about it. Life's meaning is death and that's it».
Chin watched her eyes puffing and reddening with unleashed tears, he drunk.
«I understand what you mean but I think you are wrong on two things».
«Enlight me, please», Alyssa's tone was sarcastic but her face was grim: she honestly grew up thinking that she hadn't any more rights to feel the loss of a loved one because she had lost too many.
Chin's heart strung at the revelation. He wanted to kill every idiot that made her feel that way and then protect her a lot more: she was a beautiful person, with a gigantic heart; she didn't deserve all the suffering she had been through.
«First», he choked out, «I think that we can do something about death. Yeah, we can't save anyone and death is the destination of everyone's life... But we can help to make their life a little bit longer and a little bit safer. I become a cop cause of that and you wouldn't be such a good doctor if you didn't think the same. At least, subconsciously».
«Second», his voice lower, careful and full of affection, «I think that death can help us understand life better. Can let us appreciate what we have a lot more, never giving someone for granted. I thought that I had the rest of my life to spend with Malia and I feel that I hadn't told her enough how much I love her».
Alyssa shook her head vigorously.
«Malia knew how much you loved her, Chin. She never questioned your seriousness or your resolve. She comprehended how much you were giving her and she worshipped it.
«Never, ever guilt yourself with her death. Please, please, believe me when I tell you that Malia loved you with every inch of herself, despite knowing that one day you could have died in action or that your work could have followed you home. She knew what she was going up to and she never regretted any of that. That was the kind of love she was willing to give you and the kind of love she knew you were giving her every single second of your life».
Chin sipped from his glass and closed his eyes, trying to contain his tears but losing miserably when one ran down his sharp cheekbone. He didn't even try to wipe it away, too tired.
«I wasn't the only one she loved, Lyss», he remarked. «She thought of you as the little sister she never had. She cared about you as much as you cared for her. Yeah, maybe you didn't know her for long, but you have the same rights as me to be upset. To be angry. To be sad.
«She was your friend and you can be broken because of her death. No matter how many people you lose or how many funerals you attended».
Alyssa felt her eyes stung like bitches and didn't fight the tears or the emotional breakdown. She sobbed loudly, hiding her face with her free hand, letting herself honestly mourning her best friend for the first time since she had been told she had died.
Suddenly, a weight was left from her shoulders, and Chin was there to keep her together. She didn't know what he had done to deserve such good friends but she was thankful for them all.
Chin embraced her for what felt like forever, encouraging her to let go of everything, before the sobs subsided and she stopped crying. They stayed like that – her head on his shoulder and his arm around her shoulders – a little more afterwards, just to know that they were not alone.
The only sound was the neverending buzz of her phone.
«Are you going to respond to Steve's text?» Chin asked after the umpteenth notification.
«Nope, he should learn a little bit of patience». Alyssa responded truthfully. «And I am enjoying my mental picture of Danny bitching at him at every new text».
Chin snorted.
«I think you forget who you are talking about in that bottle of whiskey you stole».
Alyssa scuffed and admitted to herself that she was starting to feel a little tipsy; it was a good feeling. For the first time in days, she felt the void inside her subsided a little bit.
«He has a job to do and he should stay focus on it», she smirked. «We have alcohol to keep us at bay and each other, obviously, because misery loves company».
The dark-haired man laughed at that.
«You would have been right if you were talking about anyone else, but you talking about Steve McGarrett here. He will terrify someone for life just to being able to return here immediately and smother us with worries. If you think that Danny will not partner up with him on this, I will say you drunk too much».
The woman rolled her eyes and was ready to retort that yes, Steve and Danny were practically insane and unstoppable when worried for their ohana but this was different because they knew where they were; when the rumble of an engine tore the quiet air in half and suddenly a silver Camaro was stopping in front of Chin's house with a dangerous screech.
The car went silent a moment after and the first thing the two cuddling friends heard was Danny's scared-pitched ranting. Immediately, they couldn't understand the single words – obstructed by the car door – but then Steve swiftly got out of the vehicle and Danny followed him.
«I was screaming for my life you Neandertal animal!» He was wailing, waving his hands everywhere after closing the car door. «You went up to the red zone of the speedo and never come down! You are officially insane and I should have dragged you to a psychiatrist some time like yesterday!»
«I was preoccupied!» Steve ranted back, now at Danny's side with an I-can't–understand–why-are-you-shouting-at-me face. «She isn't answering her phone! Everything could have happened!».
Danny made a large and circular gesture with his hand and ended up indicating Chin and Alyssa.
«They are drunk, you shmuck! They are at a wake, they are grieving the loss of a very special woman in their life, they are crying, and they are drinking an unhealthy amount of alcohol! Just look at them, they are fine!»
Steve let his gaze follow Danny's hands and he finally noticed that the sources of his concerns, cuddling on the front step of Chin's house. Their glasses were half empty, the whiskey in the bottle was dangerously close to the bottom, and their cheeks were stained with dried tears.
No dangerous whatsoever.
He felt his face flush and shyly waved a hand in their direction.
Alyssa laughed out loud at that because, yeah, Chin was right and she had forgotten who Steve was: a closet mother hen. Hell, if she didn't love him for that.
Chin joined in her laugh and she caught the shitty smut grin that Danny was giving his boyfriend.
Alyssa felt alive and at home. She felt secure like she could be herself even in the worst moment of all with her Ohana around.
She hadn't to hide her sadness and sorrow anymore because now she had insane, lovely people that would help through all of it.
Part (1/2/3/4/5/6)
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