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[Not-so-merry prankster] Steve: Innocence is overrated based on what you haven't done
They let her go with less than a slap on the wrist. More of a slap in the face. Community service. Fine, whatever. It's an insult, in a way. It's also exactly what she needs. A slap in the face. Wake up, Freelander. This isn't a dream. It's not going away. A slap in the face. For being a brat and acting out. A slap in the face. Look at your life, look at your choices. Where's a girl's sassy gay friend when she needs him.
Not being sassy, never gay, and sleeping with the boss. That's where her not sassy, not gay best friend is.
Kate sighs, adjusts the ugly ass bag on her shoulder and tucks her hands in her pockets. It's a long walk from IPD to the little house on the beach, not prairie, even if there's a cheerful dog waiting to greet her. The walk will do her good. Maybe her cheek will stop stinging by then. Maybe her heart will.
She doesn't mind Will selling her out. She's kind of glad he did. It's a way to get straight, make good, and keep her pokerface at the same time. It's not that she cares. It's not that it matters to her. She just got caught and now she's got to pay the price and pray that it's enough. Yeah, she's in kind of a Melissa mood and she'd pretty much kill for her iPod.
The tracks in her head have switched from Melissa to Dessa by the time she gets to the hut on the beach. Her little canine pal is there, barking and wagging his tail. She smiles and crouches to pet him, in case they take away visiting privileges. Damn dog is one the only good things about this island. "Hey, pal. At least someone's glad to see me."
*Title and lj-cut lyric from Dessa's Dutch. Internal reference, Melissa Etheridge's Chrome Plated Heart.
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"Anything else they're making you do aside from return everything?" he asks, even though he's almost positive Danny would've come home with the information a few hours from now.
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Not glancing away, Kate nods, small frown creasing her brow. "The gave me community service. Making sure things get back where they belong. Seeing if anyone wants to press charges." She's changed. It's the people who matter to her. "Doing that personally was my idea."
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"What, seeing if anyone wants to press charges?" he says, a wry smile causing the edges of his mouth to twitch slightly.
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She lifts out the toolbox lid and offers it out to him. There's a twist in her gut like she hasn't felt since Henry gave her the one Steno tusk. Not a wrong feeling, but not a right one either. "If you want, I'll screw it back on for you."
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He takes the lid from her, holding it lightly in one hand as he lets that arm fall to his side, shaking his head slowly with something of an amused look. "I don't think that'll be necessary," he says, quietly observing the expressions that filter over her face.
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"I guess that's it, then, unless you want to know why I did it or have specific community service you want me to do for you."
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"If I ask, will you tell me?"
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Sue her, she's perverse, but she'd rather tell him. Some of it.
It's a conscious effort, but Kate doesn't cross her arms under her breasts or tuck them in her pockets when she asks, "If I tell you, does the answer become public property?" She's not sure it changes anything expect how she tells it, but she does want to know.
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"You mean, am I going to run my mouth to everyone? That's not going to happen," Steve says, his gaze steering back to her face.
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Yeah, it's not answering the question that's uncomfortable. It's the answers. And the fact they're pretty personal.
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"To be honest, the one you'd have more trouble convincing not to broadcast this is my partner," he points out, resting his forearm on one knee. "It doesn't make a difference either way to me. You could lie your ass off straight to my face and I probably wouldn't be able to tell. Am I getting close?" he asks, peering at her.
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She flips the same smile back up at the hotass, just for a second, completely unguarded and sweet, before it shutters down into a smirk. Softer, but a smirk. "The dog's. But I wouldn't mind knowing yours and your partner's too." She'll answer his other question in a minute. These are the important things. To her.
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"Zulu. From the phonetic alphabet," he explains briefly, before turning the box lid over to reveal the CHAMP sticker pasted on its front, its edges worn and scratched.
"What, you couldn't tell that from this?" He puts the lid down and offers a hand. "Steve McGarrett." He doesn't offer his military designation any more these days. And something tells him she wouldn't care one way or the other. "Danny Williams is my partner, but you'll probably hear him before you see him, if you haven't met him already. Frankly, I'm surprised you hadn't heard anything about me prior to coming. He tends to over-exaggerate my past handling of certain cases."
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There's something wry and soft in her eyes when she looks up again. "You asked before about me lying. The answer's yeah. I'm good at it. But it's less lying than magician's sleight of hand. Grifting and conning are about making you see what you want to see instead of what's there." Like she could be showing him sincerity while stealing his wallet out of his ass pocket. She's not, but she could be.
"Why did I take that?" She flips her hand at the toolbox lid. "Because you'd notice it, but I didn't need it. No chance of my being Valjean." Yeah, she knew all the classic con and thieves tales. "Why take something at all? Because..." This is harder and she's not really sure she knows. Kate shrugs. "Because I was there. Zulu needed water, so did I, and I wanted you to know I'd been there. Good and bad. I'd already done it 8 times and 10's a complete number. I kind of liked you guys too, because Zulu seemed happy. Kind of third grade, I guess. Pulling pigtails."
Thing is, what he really wants to know is why she did it at all, and that's a lot more complicated. Maybe she'll wait to see what he says first.
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"Why take items that don't count as anything of value to you?" he asks, peering over at her, a deep frown settling in on his face. "You had to have known that some of them had sentimental value to their owners, otherwise you wouldn't have bothered leaving much more than the note. You saw the box under the bed, and you knew that it meant something because of where it was hidden." More accurately, he'd placed the box under the bed as a reminder that it'd always be there, that his father's investigation was still ongoing in one way or another, even if there was another version of himself still pursuing the endgame.
"A simple thief would have taken items worth more than just the memories," Steve finishes, propping his foot up a step higher, his forearm rising as it continues to rest on his knee. "This wasn't just about what you could do. This was about what? What you didn't do? What are you trying to prove, Kate?"
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It takes her a minute of petting Zulu, a full minute, which is a lifetime (and certain death) for a con like Kate. When she answers, it's quieter.
"A thief takes things they want or things they can sell. It's always about you have, I want." She chews at the corner of her lip and then blows out a breath. "On the island, no one needs anything tangible they can't get. But it's still about you have, I want. The things I took... It's not some big theoretical proof or anything, even though I guess it could look that way. I took from you what the island took from me. My past, my history, my home, my family. But I didn't want any of you to lose those things. So I gave them to someone else." Always to someone who had their own memories and dreams who would know to value them, even if they didn't know what they meant. "I knew you'd get them back and if you didn't, I'd steal them back and give them to you."
When she says it like that, it sounds...kind of weird. Hopeful almost. And like she was trying to control something uncontrollable.
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"People value their memories, and they want to be able to preserve them in whatever way they can, however small or insignificant they might appear from the outside. If holding on to something tangible helps with that, it's their right to have it. The island took all of those things from the rest of us too, Kate - some more drastically than others," he admits. He knows some people have family here, others have friends from home, and yet others have no one at all they can identify from their world, their past before the island took them without warning. And yet these items keep appearing, things from their worlds that either serve as fond or painful reminders. Steve's toolbox was more of the latter at first, but he keeps it for a different reason now.
"I know you probably feel helpless, but you're not alone in that feeling. Look around. We're all trying to build a life here, and some of us have a harder time of it, but you're stronger when you rely on others. You don't have to struggle through it alone."
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She stops, tongue running the underside of her teeth, the sharp edges keeping back tears that are none of his business. "I want the life where my boss and my best friend aren't living together. Where they've known me for years instead of months. Where I'm making up for my past and doing good and people respect that instead of giving me some blank slate pardon I don't deserve."
Probably the most telling thing about all of it is that her hand never once tenses on the puppy. She's gentle with him, because none of this is his fault. Like Ralphie, he just had the stupid bad judgment to like her and now she has to repay that with kindness. "I don't feel helpless. I just...don't want to be the hot Indian chick with the great taste in trashy chic who's great with guns and demolitions. I want to be me. All of me."
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"And what's to stop you from any of that?" he asks, his question directed to the last part of what she's saying. "What's to stop you from being you here, where you've got nothing holding you back from that? You can be you, or not, more or less, whatever you want. None of the normal rules apply, none of what defined you back there is going to matter here, because you've been given that blank slate. We all have. We can either choose to let the past represent us or we can move on, move forward. And from what I've seen, it'd be a shame if you allowed yourself to define your future based on what you think you deserve. You want to make up for your past, Kate? Then do good, starting right now. Looks to me like no one's holding you back from that but yourself."
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"Maybe the island won't define me by that, but I have to. If I forget, even for one minute, the people I hurt, I don't deserve the second chance I already got, or the new start I get here." She shrugs, shoulders shifting and weight shifting back. Opening her body posture is deliberate. It's an invitation to see her as she is. "I'm sorry, for whatever that's worth. Hurting you or any of the others was never part of it. And doing good starting now, well...that's pretty much why I'm here."
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"I'm not saying you have to forget," he adds, a quiet promise. "It's never good to forget. It keeps you from slipping into complacency. But you have that second chance, whether you think you deserve it or not. Start in on the good you think you owe whoever - yourself, others, all of it - but there are ways to channel your energies here. Ways to feel like you're doing something, so you can feel a part of this place." His expression softens slightly at her apology. "I know that was never your intention, and, well - if you wanted to make a fresh start for yourself, this is as good a chance as any for you to do that."
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"I can't promise I'm done spitting in the wind, laughing at death, yanking the tiger's tail, whatever your favorite metaphor is." There's a new set to her shoulders. Or actually an old one. Jaunty and self-confident. Strong and aggressively sensual. "That's part of me and not part I want to lose. I'm never giving up on going home. But I'm ready to take back the other part, too. The part that joined the revolution." Private joke, her and Hank, but it makes her smile to say it now.
"You offering to show me the way?"
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"You don't have to change everything. No one's asking for a personality makeover," he adds, his expression still one of faint amusement as he studies the blatant shift in her posture, her carriage. She's got a confidence that you don't learn - you're either born with it or you spend your entire life trying to have it. "And home is on a lot of minds here." Her question takes him slightly aback, but when it comes down to it, there's really only one answer he winds up having.
"I guess I am," he declares, steadily meeting her gaze.
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That's all sleight of hand though, see this, not that, while she works out how she feels about this. She'd been kidding, more or less. Needling. But it reminds her of another conversation, one that changed her life. Another time when it was up to her.
Trash gets picked up at four. Funny how the stupidest things start to symbolize an entire life.
"Okay. One condition, no exceptions. Magnus comes first. She will always come first." Which is weird, since it was about Will, but this is different. This about where her loyalty flows and it will always go first to her.
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There's something in her that reminds him of Mary, maybe that equal parts of confidence and occasional vulnerability, and so maybe that means he feels somewhat inclined to look out for her now, if only to keep the inhabitants of this island as safe as he had back home. There's no Five-O here, only him and Danny now, but that doesn't mean the work they do should end.
"Oh, you mean - " She can only mean one Magnus, and Steve's gaze sparks with recognition as he nods thoughtfully. "Far be it from me to encroach on any of that."
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