Fic: A Hui Hou Kakou
Jun. 5th, 2011 07:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thelibraniniquity posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
tli_productionsTitle: A Hui Hou Kakou
Fandom: Hawaii Five-0 (2010) / Doctor Who
Summary: When Steve McGarrett was six years old, a man who lived in a blue phone box gave him a fez and told him he was going to save his life one day.
Characters: Steve, the 11th Doctor; Danny, Amy/Rory; references to and cameos by others.
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~10,500
Betas:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wihluta and explodedpen
Spoilers: Nothing major for either series, but through the 2010 Who Christmas Special and Five-0 1.17 to be on the safe side.
Warnings: A few swear words and references to violence.
Author's Notes: An offhand comment bywihluta about Steve travelling with the Doctor sparked an idea, which then grew a plot, which then became... this. This is all her fault. HER FAULT, I SAY. And because she is an enabling thing, this now comes with added artwork :D
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
Pakistan, 2007
Steve is running through the back streets of what can only laughably be called a city, breathing in dust and acrid fumes from the nearby power plant. His path is littered with obstacles; upended carts and trash cans, homeless people and even dead bodies, both human and animal.
His target is constantly about thirty seconds ahead of him; where Steve has superior musculature and speed, his opponent has the home ground advantage, and uses it ruthlessly.
Steve turns a corner into open street, hurdling a pile of burning rubble. He hits the ground hard, rolls and is up again in seconds – but he's alone. He jogs to a standstill and executes a three-sixty, looking for his target.
Nothing.
Except...
Standing in a nearby doorway is a white male, non-regulation brown hair, early twenties at a guess, wearing... tweed and a bow-tie, all of which is suspiciously clean and unwrinkled for his current surroundings.
Steve's jaw drops a little of its own accord. It was impossible, but there he was, just standing there with a bewildered look on his face and -
In the shadows behind the impossible man Steve sees movement. He runs forward and grabs the man by the arm, who looks startled, first at the hand gripping him, then at Steve himself.
“Who are -”
“There's no time,” Steve grits out. He unholsters his side-arm and aims it inside the doorway. “We have to go, now.”
“But -”
“Now, Doctor!” Steve shouts. There's another burst of movement behind the Doctor, and Steve shoots a man in the head. “Run!”
The Doctor stares at him a moment longer, eyes narrowed, like he's trying to interrogate Steve with that single glance. Maybe he is; Steve has other concerns right now.
He tugs the Doctor by his arm. “I said, run!”
This time he co-operates, letting Steve drag him away from the building and somewhere with workable cover. Steve listens as they run, but there's no sign they're being followed. When he judges they've gone far enough, he pushes the Doctor up against a wall and takes his turn at a long, hard look.
“What are you doing here?” Steve asks.
The Doctor stares at him.
Okay. Steve can deal with that. Interrogation 101: Ask the right questions. He searches his memory, annoyed that despite everything, he still can't remember all the details.
“Where's the TARDIS?”
The Doctor's eyes widen imperceptibly, and Steve knows he's got the bastard, even if he's acting strangely – stranger than normal, anyway.
“I'm terribly sorry,” the Doctor finally says, drawing himself up to his full height. He's shorter than Steve now, which is a bit unsettling, because it's always been the other way around. It doesn't stop him peering intently at Steve, getting right into his face like the answers to all of his questions are on the tip of Steve's nose. “Have we met before?”
“Yeah,” Steve says before he can stop himself. Then he realises. “Just not yet,” he adds.
There's a couple of seconds' pause before the Doctor's face splits into a wide grin. “Cool!”
He's no longer treating Steve as potentially hostile, so Steve lets go of him and steps back. Before he can say anything, though, the Doctor continues. “So you've met me before, but I haven't met you. That's quite exciting; I haven't acted out a fixed temporal paradox – or even a malleable one – in at least two hundred years. Hello indeed, Mister...”
Steve smirks. “McGarrett,” he says, offering a hand. “Steve McGarrett.”
“Steve McGarrett,” the Doctor repeats. “McGarrett – Steve McGarrett. Like James Bond but clearly more American. I met the agent who inspired those books, you know. Terribly dull conversationalist, but the things he could do with a paperclip and some string, I -”
“That's all well and good,” Steve interrupts, “but now really isn't the time.”
“Pun not intended,” the Doctor replies. He looks amused.
“TARDIS,” Steve says.
“Yes, yes – you've asked about that already. No, I don't know where she is.”
Steve frowns – that sounds familiar – then reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out the thumb-sized silver compass. He holds it up for the Doctor to see. “Will this help?”
Again the Doctor's eyes widen and he reaches out for it, rolling it around his fingers and peering at the minute magnet and levers inside it. He reaches into his pocket and takes out what looks like a screwdriver, and points the green end at the compass' face, now positioned so Steve can see it as well. The screwdriver lights up and emits a series of beeps – and the compass' needle starts to spin, faster and fast until it comes to an abrupt stop, pointing two degrees shy of north-north-east.
“We follow that?” Steve asks.
“We follow that,” the Doctor grins.
“Okay.” Steve leans out towards the street, but as far as he's been able to tell they weren't followed here. “How far?”
“Far?”
“Yes, far. As in distance. How far between here -” Steve points at the dusty ground between him and the Doctor, “- and the TARDIS?”
“It's a compass, not a sat-nav,” the Doctor retorts. “Could be anywhere along that line.”
Steve fights the urge to punch something. Like the Doctor. “Right. We'd better get going, since this could be a very long walk.”
“Oh, come on.” The Doctor pushes himself away from the wall and straightens his jacket. “How bad could it be?”
As it turns out? Pretty bad. Steve and the Doctor don't make it more than thirty yards before the man that Steve had shot in the head reappears, bullet hole still bleeding, and demands the Doctor be handed over in exchange for Steve's continued existence, producing a sizeable gun from nowhere to help reinforce his demand.
The Doctor immediately identifies the zombie as a Slitheen-hired bounty hunter from the Inoxial Sector, and there's a twitch at the corner of his mouth like he's seriously on the verge of trying to negotiate with the thing, but Steve remembers the shit that went down in London last Christmas, and calmly wrestles the gun out of the alien bounty hunter's hands and shoots him with it.
This time he stays down.
They make it to the TARDIS without encountering any other obstacles, alien or otherwise, and it's just like Steve remembers. It's nestled between the local mosque and a single storey office block about four miles away from where they started, and not the least bit inconspicuous.
The Doctor opens the door, then pauses on the threshold to look back at Steve, who's still got the bounty hunter's gun slung over one shoulder, and the bounty hunter over the other.
“There's an interplanetary morgue a few star systems over from where he would have first been hired,” the Doctor says. “I can drop him off there, no questions asked. They'll track down employers, next of kin, if you're worried about that sort of thing.”
“Not really,” Steve says. He lets the body drop to the ground and watches as the Doctor grabs it by the shoulders and pulls it just inside the TARDIS' door. He hands over the gun without being prompted, squelching the part of him that would like to use it on a few other people. “So what now?”
“Now...” The Doctor stares at him again. “Now we go our separate ways, never to meet again unless the predetermined paradox we're currently experiencing decides otherwise.” He cocks his head. “Or you could tag along for a while. Always room for one more.”
Philosopher to lonely tourist in the space of two seconds. Of course it's tempting, but Steve shakes his head. “I've got something else to do first.”
“Something more important than the chance to explore all of time and space?” The Doctor's eyes crinkle with repressed amusement.
Steve nods. “I'm here on a mission. Can't let up 'til it's completed.”
“Looking for someone or something?”
“Someone.” Steve's not sure why he's telling the Doctor all of this, but he's been head-hunted by UNIT enough times that he knows the Doctor can find out anything if he really wants to. “Victor Hesse.”
“Hesse. Hesse, Hesse...” The Doctor suddenly fixes Steve with a dark look. “I'd be careful if I were you. See you around, Steve McGarrett.” He steps inside the TARDIS and closes the door. A few seconds later it starts to make a rhythmic, pulsing noise and slowly fades out of existence.
Steve stares at the empty space where the TARDIS used to be for a few seconds, long enough for him to pull himself together and get back on task. He's halfway back to where he last saw his target – a small arms dealer who'd recently crossed paths with Hesse and was likely to give up contact details with minimal pressure – when he realises he never even thought to ask for the compass back.
o o o o o
Hawaii, 1982
Steve's bored. Mary's got chicken pox, which means Mommy's looking after her all the time and won't let Steve go any further than their shoreline because there's no one to go with him. Daddy's working, but Daddy's always working, even though it's summer vacation and all his friends are off doing fun stuff with their dads. Steve's stuck here on the beach behind his house, throwing stones into the sea and counting down the minutes 'til dinner.
“Nice day to be doing nothing,” someone says behind him. Steve turns around. There's a man standing on the sand behind him, but Steve doesn't know who he is.
Steve stares up at him anyway. He's tall and thin and wearing the kind of clothes that Principal Kao wears.
“Mommy says I'm not s'posed to talk to strangers,” he says.
“Smart lady, your mum,” the man says. He doesn't sound like anyone Steve's ever met before, either. “I'm not really a stranger, though. I mean, I am a bit strange, but I'm not a stranger.”
Steve frowns. “Prove it.”
The man kneels down so he can look Steve right in the eye. “Hello, Steve McGarrett. I'm the Doctor.”
“Doctor who?” Steve asks, because all doctors have names, that's how it's supposed to work.
The man chuckles. “Just 'the Doctor',” he says.
Steve frowns again. “How do you know who I am?”
The Doctor leans in really close and grins at Steve. “You told me. Anyway!” he says, pulling back and climbing to his feet again, “I've got something for you. Call it an early birthday present.”
Now Steve knows something's going on. “I just had my birthday.”
“Late birthday present, then,” the Doctor says. “Come on.”
“No.” Steve stays sitting on the sand, but he keeps his chin up and stares at the Doctor. “Daddy says I'm not to go anywhere with strange people, and he's a cop!”
The Doctor laughs. “Just like I remember. All right then; wait here, and I'll be right back. How does that sound?”
Steve stares at the Doctor some more. He likes the idea of a present but Mommy and Daddy's warnings are more important. He doesn't say anything, but the Doctor grins again anyway.
“Two minutes,” he says, holding up two fingers, and then walks away. He walks like a tourist with his trouser legs folded up, and Steve pulls a face before going back to throwing stones into the sea.
He got one to skip a whole seven times when the Doctor comes back and sits on the beach beside Steve. He's got a box in his hands.
“That for me?” Steve asks.
The Doctor laughs. “Happy unbirthday, Steve McGarrett.” He holds out the box.
Steve narrows his eyes, but he doesn't take the box.
The Doctor nods and opens the box himself. He holds it up to his face and peeks inside and then turns it so Steve can see inside.
Steve squints. It looks like there's a red hat in the box, but it doesn't look like any hat he's ever seen before. He glares at the Doctor again, then decides there are more dangerous things than red hats in boxes, so he reaches forward to take it out.
It's definitely red, and he thinks it's a hat, but it looks more like a toilet roll holder.
“Cool, isn't it?” the Doctor says.
Steve frowns. “What is it?”
The Doctor grins. “It's a fez! Fezzes are cool.”
“It looks dumb.” Steve turns the fez around in his hands. “Why are you giving it to me? I don't know you.”
“Steve McGarrett,” the Doctor says, “one day, you're going to save my life. I just wanted to say thank you.”
“With this?”
The Doctor grins again. “Kids these days. Never impressed with anything.”
He looks sad, like Nana did when Steve didn't like the socks she knitted him last Christmas. “No,” Steve says, “it's cool.”
“You're just saying that.” But the Doctor's grinning again, so Steve knows it's okay. He takes the box from the Doctor, puts the fez carefully inside and puts the lid back on.
“Thank you for the fez,” he recites.
“You're welcome.”
They sit there quietly for a few minutes, Steve holding the box, and then Steve thinks about what the Doctor just said, and asks: “How am I going to save your life?”
The Doctor smiles. “Can't tell you the details.”
That sucks. “Why not?”
“The universe might implode.”
“You're lying!”
“Am not! I really can't tell you. But I got lost one day, somewhere far away, and you found me and helped me find the TARDIS.”
“What's a TARDIS?”
“It's a bit like a spaceship. Travels through space and time.” The Doctor grins at him again. “Want to take a look?”
“It's here?” Steve looks around, but he can't see anything that looks like a spaceship. Except for the blue box at the other end of the beach – and why is there a blue box on the beach?
“It's there.” The Doctor points at the blue box.
Steve pulls another face. “Doesn't look like a spaceship.”
The Doctor grins at him, completely happy. “It's bigger on the inside. Come on, I'll show you.” He stands up, brushing sand off his trousers and waits until Steve stands up as well, still holding the box with the fez inside it. Together they walk along the beach until they get to the blue box. This close, Steve can read the sign over the door that says it's a police phone box, but it doesn't look like anything he's ever seen before. Maybe that's what all spaceships look like.
“I'm not going inside,” he says.
“Not going to make you,” the Doctor says. He opens the phone box's door with a key and pushes it open, enough that Steve can see inside without having to go inside.
The Doctor was right – it's massive inside the TARDIS. Steve can see controls and levers and things like the engine parts in Daddy's garage. He turns around to look at the outside of the TARDIS, then inside again – yeah, way bigger than it looks.
“That's cool,” he says, and he means it.
“Just don't forget, okay?” the Doctor asks. He kneels down so he and Steve can look at each other.
“I won't,” Steve promises. He smiles, and the Doctor smiles back.
“See you around, Steve McGarrett.”
“A hui hou kakou,” Steve recites, but it's weird, because that's what he means to say but it sounds like, “Until we meet again,” which is English and totally not what he wanted to say.
The Doctor just grins at him, and steps inside the TARDIS and closes the door. A few seconds later it starts making a whirring noise, like Daddy's car but louder, and then it's gone and it's just Steve on the beach holding the box with a fez inside and the Doctor was right, the TARDIS is a sort of spaceship.
o o o o o
Hawaii, 2011
Steve's in the attic in his dad's house, sorting through some of Mary's old things to ship out to her new place in L.A., when he hears the security system downstairs activate, then deactivate. That narrows down his visitor list to just one.
“Up here, Danny!” he calls out. He re-tapes the box in front of him and moves onto the next. It's mostly trinkets and old school projects; nothing that Mary would want unless she's got some weird kick for misshapen clay ornaments and painfully bad artwork that he doesn't know about. He flips through some of the paintings, some of them signed by him and some by Mary and wonders why Mom would have kept them – until he flashes on Danny's face every time Grace gives him a new drawing, the way his face lights up. For the first time, looking at his six-year-old self's attempt at a pineapple, Steve thinks he gets it.
“Hey, man, I tried calling you like six times this morning. We've got that thing over at the D.A.'s office, remember?”
Steve twists around just in time to watch Danny try to pull himself up through the attic hatch. It's kind of hilarious watching him flail like that, and Steve has zero inclination to give the man a hand.
“It's that time already?” he asks, and checks his watch. He looks back over at Danny. “When were we supposed to be meeting the D.A.?”
“This afternoon.” Danny tries to smooth his hair back with one hand and fix his tie with the other. “Seriously, though, what are you doing up here?”
“Mary wanted me to go through her things. Said there were some books she left behind that she wanted,” Steve explains. He doesn't get the nostalgia thing, but he's trying to get Mary, and Mary wants the books she'd read as a kid, so he's up here before work, trying to find what she's after.
“Oh. Well, that's cool, I guess.” Danny looks around him at the stacks of cardboard boxes, all unlabelled. “You, uh, need any help?”
Steve considers this. “Don't you have some place better to be?” he asks, half to get a rise, half out of general curiosity.
“Nah,” Danny interrupts, “I mean, there's paperwork still to be done, yeah, but nothing life-threateningly urgent, for once.”
Steve frowns. “So you're here now because...”
“To make sure you were actually going to suit up and talk to the nice publicly elected official without, I don't know, grenades being involved, or you being permanently stuck on Aneurysm Face, or -”
“I don't have aneurysm face,” Steve interrupts. “And I used a grenade against a suspect one time, and -”
“You say that like it's an actual excusable thing. I know that you don't ever pay attention to anything I say, and thus I am doomed to forever repeat myself, but apparently moving to the land of never-ending sunshine and pineapples has made me masochistic, so I am going to tell you once more, just once more – grenades are not an acceptable solution to anything involving members of the public. Public that you freely swore to serve and protect, in case you had forgotten that piffling section of your vows.”
“Piffling – that's a new one. What, Rachel's great-grandma teach that to you?”
Danny sighs. “Of course you choose to focus on that. Why do I even bother?”
“Masochist,” Steve smirks. “Said so yourself. You wanna help, Danno? Start with the boxes behind you.”
“Sure, okay.” Danny sounds long-suffering and put-upon, but Steve knows he wouldn't be here if he didn't want to be, so he has no qualms about bossing him around, god-awful tie and all.
“These ones?” Danny gestures at the pile directly in front of him.
Steve shrugs. “Just make sure you don't go through the same ones twice – none of them are labelled,” he adds, when Danny pulls a particularly constipated face.
“Sure.” Danny pulls a random box closer to him, adjusts position to favour his bad knee, then cuts through the tape to open the box. “What exactly am I supposed to be looking for?”
“I'm not sure,” Steve says, attention back to the school projects in his box. “All Mary said was the books she read as a kid were up here somewhere. Dad obviously meant to ship them out to her, but never got around to it.”
“Oh, I'm sure that was the case.” And if anyone but Danny had said that, Steve would have punched them in the face for saying it, but it's Danny and he has a bit more context than most, and even Steve's improving in that department, so he lets it go with a grunt. There definitely aren't any books mixed in with the paintings and other art projects, so Steve starts to put everything back in. When he gets to the point of re-taping the box, he does it slightly differently, so he can easily find it again if he wants to.
The next box he digs through yields a handful of Sweet Valley High books, which are dog-eared and look like the kind of reading material Steve could read aloud from to torture gang bangers. They definitely belonged to Mary at some point, however, so Steve puts them in the knapsack he'd brought up with him and goes through the rest of the contents of the box. There are some cassette tapes, again in Mary's handwriting; compilations she'd put together herself judging by the track listings. The tapes are pretty much obsolete, but Steve puts them in the knapsack as well. Mary might get a kick out of her teenage musical preferences.
He's about to re-tape that box and move onto yet another when he hears Danny whoop behind him.
Turning around, he sees Danny examining a red fez, turning it this way and that.
“I take back everything I may have ever or not said about your family, McGarrett,” Danny grins. He holds up the fez so Steve has a clearer view of it. “This is awesome!”
Steve snorts. “That's all it takes for you to further revise your opinion of me? You really are a cheap date.” He stares at the fez, something in his memory clicking. “Where did you find that?”
Danny stares at him like he's being dense, or he's grown horns and a third eye or something. “I'm going to let that one go and say it was in this box, right here.” He motions to the box beside him. “Why?”
Steve reaches out for the fez. Frowning, and with obvious reluctance, Danny hands it to him, wincing when he accidentally leans too hard on his bum knee. Steve just sits there for a minute, examining the fez for himself. It's the same one, he realises.
“Hey, hey!” Steve blinks, and realises Danny's managed to get right into his space, snapping his finger under Steve's nose. “What's the deal with that thing?”
“What – what makes you think there's a deal?”
Danny pulls a face. “Your reaction. You, reacting the way you did. Something's going on.”
“It's not what you think,” Steve says absently. He runs his thumb along the base of the fez, the memories clearer and clearer in his mind. That day on the beach as a kid, and then Pakistan only a few years ago. He hasn't thought about Pakistan in months.
“So tell me.” Danny's curious now. “I mean – unless it's classified. I get that, I mean -”
“It's not classified,” Steve says. “But it is complicated.”
Danny grins. “Everything is with you, babe. So do I get the story or not?”
Steve looks at him for a moment, assessing both the state of his own memories and Danny's probable ability to suspend disbelief. He figures what the hell. The worst Danny could do is accuse him of having an over-active imagination as a child. Assuming Danny had ever thought he'd had an imagination as a child.
Steve coughed, bringing himself back to the attic, and the fez in his hands. “I was given this,” he begins carefully, “when I was a kid. About a month after my sixth birthday.”
“Okay...” Danny's tone was encouraging.
“It was a late birthday present from a time traveller who told me I was going to save his life one day.” Steve pauses and he can literally see Danny's brain deciding which comeback to use first, which he forestalls by adding: “The thing is, I did.”
“You...” Danny stares at him. “I – you – time traveller,” he says finally, limply.
Steve nods.
“And which time traveller might this be?” Danny's tone suggests that he thinks Steve is either crazy or bullshitting him, and he's only looking for proof as to which is true.
“The Doctor,” Steve says.
“The Doctor?” Danny repeats. He frowns. “As in the not-English dude running around in a blue phone box constantly saving the world from alien invasions – that Doctor?”
“Yeah. You know him?”
“Do I know him, he says. Do I know him. Do I look like I know the time-travelling maniac who has been the bane of my ex-wife's professional life since time immemorial?”
“He's not a maniac,” Steve says. “Just a bit mad. Why was he the bane of Rachel's professional life?”
“She interned at Torchwood One after she graduated from LSE,” Danny explains. “Got out long before the major crap went down, for which I will personally be forever grateful -”
“But she had enough doctrine shoved down her throat to buy the Doctor as a reckless maniac,” Steve says.
Danny shrugs. “So what's your story with him?”
Steve shrugs back. “You admit he's saved the world and you still call him a maniac?” he asks, unable to help himself.
“They are not mutually exclusive concepts,” Danny shoots back. “Case in point, you.”
Steve lifts his chin slightly at that and –
“And that's what I'm talking about right there!” Danny jabs a finger at Steve's forehead. “Aneurysm face.”
Steve sighs. He really doesn't have an aneurysm face, or any other kind of face. “The Doctor gave me the fez when I was a kid,” he recaps, trying to bring Danny back on track, “and told me I was going to save his life one day.”
“And that... actually happened.” Danny sounds sceptical, not that Steve can really blame him.
“Yeah, but when I brought the fez home and told Mom about it, she took it off me, said it was dangerous talking to strange men -”
“- especially the kind who know things about you and give you presents,” Danny says. “I've been mentally preparing that PSA since before Gracie was born.”
“Yeah,” Steve says. “I just didn't realise she kept it. The fez, I mean. If she thought it was that dangerous...”
Danny smiles. “Parents do that sometimes. It's a nice fez, maybe she just couldn't bring herself to put it in the trash – bit like everything else up here.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“So how'd you save the guy's life?” Danny prompts, and Steve realises he's back to pushing for the rest of the story.
“Oh-seven,” he says slowly, working out which details he can safely give Danny and which he can't. “I was in Pakistan looking for someone connected to Victor Hesse, and I found the Doctor instead. He was lost, separated from the TARDIS. I helped him find it and took out an alien bounty hunter on the way.”
“Took out an...” Danny laughs. “Only you, man.”
Steve grins. “Should have seen the size of his gun.”
“You get to shoot it?”
“Had to fight him for it first.”
Danny laughs again. “Now that I can believe. Hey, come on,” he continues, hitting Steve lightly on the arm. “We really should get a move on before the D.A. comes looking for us.”
“Yeah, okay.” Steve reaches for the knapsack, then looks at the fez again. He's got a sudden urge to take it downstairs, maybe leave it out on display somewhere, just have it somewhere he can see it. There are some good memories attached to it, and Steve realises he likes the idea of having a physical reminder of good times instead of all bad. He slings the knapsack over a shoulder and puts the fez on, twisting it a couple of times until it sits firmly around his scalp.
Danny, typically, doesn't hold back. “Oh, you have got to let me take a picture of – you have no idea how ridiculous you look right now, I -”
“Hey, this is cool, all right?” Steve shoots back. “It was a present; I'm not going to ruin it between here and downstairs by shoving it into a bag.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Danny's got his phone out, and is aiming it at Steve as he laughs. He snaps a couple of pictures then, apparently satisfied, leads the way to the attic hatch.
When they make it down to the living room, Steve takes the fez off and sits it on the desk in Dad's office while he puts the knapsack somewhere he won't forget it and looks for a clean shirt for the meeting with the D.A..
“No threats, huh?” Danny watches him in amusement. “No intimations of violence against my person should I ever disseminate the photographs of -”
“Do you read a thesaurus every night before you go to bed?” Steve finds a plain grey dress shirt and pulls it on.
“It's the only thing that pre-empts the reoccurring nightmare that my partner is a crazy SEAL with control issues and no awareness of his own -” Danny clicks his fingers. “No, wait, that's real life. What was the question, again?”
“You gonna give me the keys, Danno, or do I have to fight you for them?”
“That depends. Am I gonna end up like the alien bounty hunter in Pakistan?”
“That depends,” Steve throws back.
Danny pre-empts him by tossing him the keys to the Camaro.
Steve grins, and swipes the fez before striding out of the house.
They make it to Five-0 with a bare minimum of attempted wit from Danny, and as a reward for good behaviour Steve pulls up outside a coffee shop and gets him a creamy, sugary caffeine abomination and a couple of pastries.
“I like this,” Danny says, spraying crumbs onto the sidewalk outside HQ. “I like this a lot. And you know why?”
Steve shakes his head and doesn't say anything. He continues not saying anything all the way up to Five-0, where they're met by Chin, who takes one amused look at Danny, who by now has demolished the first pastry and is now making blissful noises into the coffee cup, then nods at Steve.
“You've got a visitor,” he says by way of greeting.
“Oh yeah, who?”
“Your cousin.” Chin sounds sceptical and Steve can't blame him. He has two cousins. One is a tax accountant living in Idaho and the other is a full-time mom in southern Massachusetts, and neither of them make Steve's top five list of people even remotely likely to come out to Oahu to visit him. Danny seems to agree with this unspoken assessment, if his sudden lack of coffee worship is anything to go by. “She's waiting in the interview room,” Chin adds, when Steve starts looking around.
The interview room is adjacent to the interrogation room, the only difference being the amount of windows and semi-natural light. Steve approaches slowly. There's a young woman standing beside one of the couches. Redhead, maybe early twenties, wearing the same sort of clothes that Mary favours, and Steve's never seen her before in his life.
She looks up when Steve closes the door behind him. “Hi,” she says brightly. “You must be Steve McGarrett.”
Her accent's tricky to place, but there's a slight Scottish twang that's impossible to miss. “And you're not my cousin,” Steve says. He drops a hand to his gun. “You've got ten seconds to tell me who you are and what you're doing here before I either arrest or shoot you.”
The woman's eyes widen and she actually takes a step backward. “I can explain!” she starts. “My name is Amy Pond, and he got to you too, didn't he?”
“Who got to me?” Steve asks, deliberately pitching his voice low and quiet. On his periphery he can see Chin and Danny and now Kono watching with obvious interest. Amy's not a physical threat, and he's pretty sure she's not packing, but that doesn't mean he's going to take any chances.
Amy points at the fez that Steve is still holding. “Told you it was cool, did he?” She snorts. “Typical Doctor.”
“The Doctor?” Steve asks before he can stop himself.
“Yeah,” Amy nods. She holds up a hand. “Yea high, looks like a hungover student but dresses like your granddad, unhealthy obsession with fish fingers and fezzes?”
Steve smiles slightly. “I know who you mean.” And it explains how she knew his name and where to find him. He moves his hand away from his weapon, and notes how Amy visibly relaxes. “What are you doing here?”
“He sent me to fetch you.” Amy pulls a face. “Said to tell you it was an emergency and I wasn't to come back without you.”
“What kind of emergency?” Steve demands. “And no offence, but I've never met you before and -” And why didn't the Doctor come here himself if it was so important? is the rest of his question but he keeps it to himself.
“About that. He's talking to seashells.”
Steve doesn't think he heard that right. “Seashells?”
“Seashells,” Amy confirms. She sounds as sceptical as Steve feels. “Apparently you can learn all sorts of interesting things from seashells.”
“Of course.” Steve uses the fez to motion at the door behind him. “Lead on.”
At that Amy smiles and waits just outside the interview room while Steve finally makes it to his office and puts the fez on the desk. When he comes back out, Chin, Danny and Kono are staring at him. Steve notes that their backs are all to Amy.
“She really your cousin?” Kono asks.
“If this is a kidnap in progress, wrinkle your nose,” Chin says.
“She's hot,” Danny says. “Also, I checked, we have to meet with the D.A. in forty minutes.”
Steve says to Kono: “You're not the only extended family around here.” To Chin: “I appreciate your concern, but this is not a kidnapping.” And to Danny: “Forty minutes?”
Danny nods. “The Governor's going to be there, too.”
Steve calls over to Amy. “I can be back in forty minutes or less, right?”
Amy looks at Steve like he's dense. That seems to be happening a lot today. “Of course,” she replies. “So you're coming with me?”
Steve shrugs. “Can't hurt to check it out.” He pushes through the human wall his team have formed and places a hand on Amy's back to start escorting her out of the building.
“Check what out?” Danny calls after them.
Steve waves his free hand over his head. “Can't tell you, Danno. It's classified!” He grins all the way down to where he left the Camaro not five minutes ago and gestures Amy to the passenger side – the other passenger side.
“American cars are weird,” Amy says, but slides in anyway.
When Steve's buckled himself in, he looks over at her. “So where's the Doctor?”
“Your place,” she replies. “Nice beach you've got, by the way.”
Steve grins again, and starts the car. Mindful of the forty minute countdown, Steve makes it back to the house in ten. He leads Amy around the side straight to the beach, and sure enough there's a familiar figure hunched over a deckchair and holding something up to his ear, for all appearances listening intently.
The Doctor looks up as they get closer, and grins. “Hello, Steve McGarrett. It's been a while.”
“You can just call me Steve, you know.” Steve takes in the Doctor's appearance. He looks exactly like he had in Pakistan four years ago, except the bow tie's purple where it had been yellow before. “Learn anything interesting from the shells?”
“You may mock me now,” the Doctor admonishes, waving a finger at him, “but in twelve million years when these little critters become sentient, nobody will be laughing then.”
Steve's pretty sure he's not going to be around in twelve million years, so he says nothing. Beside him Amy's rolled her eyes a couple of times. Steve looks around – and sure enough, there's the TARDIS, tucked safely away in the trees. It could almost be a feature, if garden centres marketed time machines alongside hot tubs and decking wood.
“Are you going to tell me what's so important you had to send your lovely friend here to kidnap me from work?” Steve asks, when it becomes clear the Doctor's paying too much attention to the seashells again.
“Hm? Oh, yes, I suppose I should.” The Doctor sets the shells down onto the deckchair with an air of reverence. “Pond, where's your husband?”
“I left him with you,” Amy retorts dryly. “Don't tell me you've let him wander off again.”
“You're married?” Steve asks Amy; she nods. “Huh. Half an hour,” he adds, turning back to the Doctor.
“Rory?” Amy calls out suddenly. “Rory!” She's got a big voice on her, and Steve makes a mental note not to do anything that would make her yell at him like that.
Steve hears a clatter from inside the TARDIS just before the door opens and a head pokes out. Young, about the same age as Amy and wearing a long-sleeved jumper. In Hawaii. It has to be Rory, and Steve pities him already.
“All right, all right, I was just...” Rory trails off when he notices Steve. “Um, hey.”
Steve just nods. “Hey,” he says back.
“You're Steve McGarrett,” Rory says. Steve nods again, and Rory grins. “Heard a lot about you,” he says, coming out of the TARDIS proper and over to where Steve and Amy are standing. He holds a hand out. “He's been talking about you all week.”
'He' is presumably the Doctor, and Steve decides not to mention he'd been going on about the Doctor only that morning. “Nice to meet you,” he says after realising there isn't anything else he can say.
“Likewise. I'm Rory, by the way.”
“Right, well, now we've all acquainted ourselves with each other, we should get going. Can't have you miss your big meeting, can we, Commander?” The Doctor's staring at Steve again, all knowing glances and barely concealed amusement.
It's been four years since Steve last saw the Doctor, but he wonders just how long it's been since the Doctor last saw him.
“Commander?” Amy echoes.
“Lieutenant Commander,” Steve confirms. “US Navy. SEALs,” he adds, because months of exposure to Danny's wilful blindness to the different branches of the military has ingrained that defence into him.
“Really?” Amy grins again, and eyes Steve with a whole new look in her eye.
“Knock it off, Pond,” the Doctor says absently, “you're not his type.”
“I'm just looking,” Amy protests.
Rory gives her a sidelong look, and she relents. She grabs Rory by the shoulders and kisses him quickly. “Just looking,” she repeats. “Come on.” She takes him by the hand and they go inside the TARDIS, leaving Steve and the Doctor on the beach.
“After you, Steve McGarrett.” The Doctor flourishes towards the time machine's open door.
Steve hesitates. He's never been inside before, and he's still aware of the meeting with the D.A., but then he rationalises time machine and figures he could be back thirty seconds after he left, no matter how long this... thing takes. As a precaution, he takes off his watch and drops it onto the deckchair along with the seashells. That way it'll tell him the right time when he gets back.
“Bigger on the inside?” he asks.
The Doctor's smile is radiant. “You have no idea.”
Steve gets an idea, quickly enough. His memories of meeting the Doctor as a kid are still a little hazy around the edges, but the TARDIS' control room definitely looks familiar, if a little differently proportioned now he's an adult. Everything is bright and vibrant and alive, and it looks nothing at all like Steve expected a spaceship to.
Amy and Rory have taken up position either side of the central column that Steve can only assume houses the navigational controls, or whatever flies this thing. The Doctor slips around to the far side, between the two of them, and after only another brief hesitation, Steve stands just off centre, where he can see the Doctor as well as Amy and Rory without having to shift position.
Behind him the doors bang shut, and in front of him the Doctor starts stabbing buttons and pulling levers. The same noise that Steve heard on the beach as a kid and in the back streets of a Pakistani city as a SEAL starts up again, and it's much louder from inside. At the same time everything around them starts to shake, and Steve realises they're actually moving now, or whatever relative movement passes for in the TARDIS.
“So, er, where are we going?” Rory's the first to address the time-travelling elephant in the room, and he has to shout to be heard.
“Small colony world on the edge of the Akenzo Nexus,” the Doctor replies, like that's supposed to mean anything to the others. “Locals call the world Bob's Town.”
Steve tries not to snort. Or react at all. “And what's in Bob's Town that's so important we have to be there today?” he asks.
“Aha!” The Doctor whirls around, impervious to the slips and shakes of the TARDIS, and points a finger at Steve. “The four hundred and twenty-seventh annual paint ball tournament.”
Steve doesn't think he heard that one right, and across from him Amy is apparently thinking the same thing. “Paint ball?” they ask at the same time.
The Doctor grins. “They give out fantastic prizes – that's why it's been going for four hundred and twenty-seven years!”
“Paint ball,” Steve repeats, just as the light and sound show the TARDIS is putting on starts to wind down. “That's why you kidnapped me? To play paint ball?”
“Technically it wasn't kidnapping,” Amy points out. “You came of your own free will.”
Not the point. “Paint ball,” Steve says again, pretty much because he can. He glares at the Doctor. “You do realise having me here is like subbing Peyton Manning or Devin Hester for a friendly game of pick-up.”
The Doctor grins again, and Steve wonders if maybe that was the point, or maybe this is just another way of the Doctor saying thank you for Pakistan – maybe he thinks this is fun for Steve. He sighs, and follows the others out of the TARDIS.
For a planet on the edge of a nexus, Bob's Town looks a lot like Wales in springtime. Steve knows this only because he once spent a week in a tent in a jungle with a Royal Navy lieutenant filled with photograph after photograph of grey skies and featureless countryside, and no amount of time, distance or alcohol has ever been able to wipe those images from his mind. The thing that does separate Bob's Town from Wales are the occasional alien wandering around, and the fact that the sky is pink with flecks of blue and purple.
Some of the crowd are obviously the local equivalent of security and law enforcement, and as much as Steve wants to marvel at the fact he's on an alien planet he can't completely switch his own training off, or forget the fact that he's essentially unarmed. As long as something like the Slitheens' bounty hunter doesn't happen again, he thinks there's a chance he can get through this.
Amy and Rory's nonchalance at the details of Bob's Town is the clearest indicator yet that they've been travelling with the Doctor for some time, and it's Amy who slips over to him, gesturing at her husband to walk on Steve's other side, and for all that Steve knows they'd be the worst security detail ever, he appreciates what they're trying to do. Break in the rookie without it seeming like they're breaking in the rookie.
The Doctor leads them over to what can only be the sign up centre for the paint ball tournament. The navy-skinned quadruped in charge starts explaining the rules and regulations in an English accent, and Steve's reaction has to be obvious, because Amy leans up and cups a hand over his ear.
“The TARDIS translates everything,” she whispers. Steve blinks at her, then realises she's right; all the buzzing in the crowds behind them is understandable, if a bit mixed up from the sheer number of voices. More than that, the memory of him trying to speak Hawaiian to the Doctor as a kid and failing now makes perfect sense.
“Teams of two,” the alien says, eyeing the four of them. “You'll need to split up now.”
Amy and Rory step forward without hesitation, and she takes a form and starts to fill it out on his back.
The Doctor turns to Steve with a raised eyebrow and another amused expression. “This is going to be fun,” he says.
Steve forces himself to relax a little, and smirks back. “Just how badly do you want to win?” he asks.
The Doctor laughs. “The prizes are fantastic,” he says, and motions to the quadruped. “Alistair here says first prize this year is a guided tour of the Southern Lights on New Earth's second moon.”
“That does sound impressive,” Steve admits.
“I'm more interested in the prize for second place,” the Doctor says innocently, already filling out his own form – with Steve's name included, he notes – before handing it back to Alistair. “A chest of supposed relics from the Twelfth Bichronial Dynasty.”
Steve considers this. “Second place.”
“If you wouldn't mind.”
Steve grins. Now he thinks he knows why the Doctor brought him here today. “I think that can be arranged,” he replies.
“Excellent.” The Doctor claps his hands. “Let's go get suited up.”
Alistair points them towards a tent filled with – Steve is relieved to note – recognisable paint ball guns and protective body gear.
“You don't seem the type to play war games,” Steve says, putting on something that looks like a kevlar vest but weighs half as much.
“Been doing your homework?” The Doctor's interested now, paying far too much attention to his own armour to not be.
Steve shrugs. “I hear things. And certain organisations have tried to recruit me enough times that I've been told a few things as well.”
“Ah, yes. UNIT can be quite persistent when they see something they want. Well,” the Doctor adds, preening a little in the protective gear. “Shall we?”
“I think we shall,” Steve says. He picks up a paint ball gun and quickly familiarises himself with the set up and weight distribution. The similarities to human weapons remind him of the bounty hunter's gun, and Steve wonders just how many similarities there are in weaponry from different species, then he decides he can think about that another time.
Seven hours later, and the game is in full swing. Steve and the Doctor (who is a surprisingly good shot, when not trying to verbally trace the ancestry of every non-human on the playing field) have taken out twelve of the other forty-nine teams taking part in the tournament. By his reckoning, and accounting for troop movements and likely instances of friendly fire, there are just three teams left standing. Himself and the Doctor; Amy and Rory; and identical twins from somewhere Steve's not even sure he heard correctly, let alone can pronounce.
The playing field is actually a warehouse, but on palatial scale, with at least seven distinct levels each with a unique terrain. And then there are the trap doors, random teleportation points and even sections with anti-gravity.
This is quite possibly Steve's new favourite place ever, anywhere.
He finds the Doctor on the second level, a psychedelic desert with randomly interchanging anti-gravity points. He's hunkered down behind a yellow monolith that vaguely resembles a giant cockroach, quietly reloading his gun.
Steve scopes the area – it's just the two of them, for now – and drops down beside him. “Quick question.”
“Shoot.” The Doctor grins, impressed with his own wit.
Steve motions at the protective gear and paint ball cartridges. “Why this? I mean, the TARDIS can go anywhere, any time, right? Why not just go back to whenever the Twelfth Dynasty was going strong and have a look at the stuff fresh?”
The Doctor nods, like he's been expecting Steve to ask this very question all day. “It's been pointed out to me,” he whispers confidentially, “that giving you the fez was not enough of a thank you.”
Steve's first impulse is to laugh. “That's what this is about?”
“Well...” The Doctor pulls a face to rival the ones Danny likes to accuse Steve of having. “That, and this is sort of fun, isn't it?”
Steve has to give him that one, and grins. “The twins are two levels up, three sectors over, circling Rory like sharks.”
“Amy?”
“Either sunning herself on the top level, or she's got one of the twins in her sights.” Steve can't remember where he last saw her – the trap doors make it tricky to accurately track movement, and it's more difficult than it looks to exit the top level.
“All right, then.” The Doctor peeks around his side of the statue. “We'd better go rescue Pond's other half.”
“It would be nice to give them that guided tour,” Steve agrees. He checks his gun for ammunition. “Shall we?”
The Doctor grins again. “I think we shall.”
They make it up to Rory's level on their second attempt, following a literal trip through a gravity-adjusted section that leaves Steve on his ass a couple of times until he gets the hang of effectively weighing twice as much as Kamekona. It's just something else to add to the long list of things he'll carry to his grave.
They find Amy en route who, just as Steve and the Doctor arrive, takes out one of the twins with a nice single-handed shot that Steve hasn't seen an amateur pull off since that one time in Tanzania. Rory's continuing to evade the other twin with the kind of determination that Steve approves whole-heartedly of.
“On three,” Amy whispers, as they fan out to attack from all sides.
“One...” She slips up behind an upturned table.
“Two...” Steve pulls himself up and over a low-rise.
“Th -” The Doctor swans out from behind his boulder and shoots the second twin in the back; he or she lets out something that sounds like a hiss but is definitely a curse, and saunters off to the level's exit point and disappears in a flash of light.
“You can come out now, honey,” Amy calls out.
A few seconds later Rory's head pokes out from behind what Steve hopes is hedgerow. “All clear?” he asks.
“We're the last four standing.” Amy skips over to him and kisses him on the cheek. “Nice diversionary tactics,” she says; Rory grins.
“So...” The Doctor looks at each of them in turn. “Only one team can win this.”
Amy's face lights up, and aims her gun at the Doctor. Beside her, and a lot more reluctantly, Rory aims at Steve.
“Shoot me in the back and I will shoot you in the face,” Steve says, because even though this is a game, he still has standards.
Rory squeaks, but nods, and aims his gun directly at Steve's chest. Amy's still deciding where she's going to make her hit, and after some obvious – and gleeful – deliberation, she mirrors Rory and aims for the Doctor's hearts.
They fire in tandem and, just like that, the game is over.
Amy and Rory are oddly adorable arguing about when they're going to take the tour of the Southern Lights, and Steve brushes past them to deposit his gun and protective gear with Alistair's people before heading over to the Doctor. He's just taken receipt of his and Steve's prize, the chest of supposed relics – and Steve has to give the tournament organisers their due, the chest looks like a proper old-fashioned pirate treasure chest. The Doctor looks like it's his birthday and Christmas all at the same time.
“Was it worth it?” Steve asks, dropping down next to the Doctor and pulling the chest a bit closer to him.
“Oh, I think so.” The Doctor's inspecting a scroll, some kind of metallic parchment covered in an ornate script that means precisely zero to Steve, though given a few weeks and some note paper he thinks he could crack the code.
Steve takes a look inside the chest. There are a few more of those scrolls, and generally the kinds of things he'd expect from a ruling system with 'dynasty' in the title. Right at the bottom he finds a small wooden box with carved detailing along the corners. There's no obvious opening mechanism, but it only takes a little tug for Steve to pull the lid off.
Inside the box is a metal ornament attached to a silk cord. The detailing on the ornament is unmistakable – it's a medal, and judging by the state of the cord, it's very, very old. Steve runs an index finger around the edge of the medal and wonders who it had been awarded to, and what they'd done to have been considered worthy of receiving it.
He realises the Doctor is watching him with a soft smile. “Keep it,” he says, and Steve nods, closing the box carefully again. “The history of it will be on one of these parchments,” the Doctor adds, indicating the scrolls still inside the box. “I can find the right one if you'd like.”
“Yeah,” Steve says. “Yeah, that'd be good.”
The Doctor nods, and starts sorting through all of the scrolls inside the chest. There are eight in total, and he begins reading them intently, obviously familiar with the alien language.
Steve places the box very carefully by his foot and has another look through the chest. There's a velvety pouch tucked in a corner that had been hidden by the scrolls up until now, and Steve gives into curiosity again and tips the contents of the pouch into his hand.
Content, singular. The only item in the pouch is a small thumb-sized compass made of a silvery metal that gleams dully in Bob's Town's sunlight. Steve turns it this way and that in his hand, and realises that no matter which way he points it, the needle doesn't move.
“Hey,” he says, getting the Doctor's attention. “This looks like the one I gave you in Pakistan.”
The Doctor reaches out carefully and examines the compass carefully. “It doesn't just look like it,” he says.
“So what?” Steve frowns. “It's the same one?”
The Doctor smiles. “Steve McGarrett. I think we've just completed our paradox.”
Steve wants to ask exactly what he means by that, but he thinks he knows the answer already – and judging by his smile, so does the Doctor.
“Oy, you two!” The Doctor waves his arms at Amy and Rory, still bickering over the tournament's grand prize. “Get this thing back to the TARDIS and I'll drop you off for a second honeymoon.”
“Got yourself a deal!” Amy bounds over, Rory close behind, and between them they carry the chest over to where the TARDIS is. Steve climbs to his feet and slips the box with the medal into his pocket and follows them.
The Doctor flies them back to Steve's beach in Oahu, and while Steve's putting his watch back on, Amy sidles up to him and gives him a hug, followed by Rory, who settles for a handshake and: “We should do this again sometime.”
“Next time you're in Hawaii – legitimately,” Steve adds, “I'll show you around.”
They both smile at that – and so they should. Who doesn't love Hawaii?
The Doctor hands Steve one of the silver scrolls. “It can be translated into English,” he tells Steve, who's looking forward to the challenge already.
“A hui hou kakou,” Steve says, and this time he isn't surprised when the TARDIS translates him into English again.
The Doctor just grins. He, Amy and Rory go back inside the TARDIS, and Steve watches as it starts to whir and then disappears.
It's only then that he remembers to check what time it is. He promptly swears. He's got less than ten minutes to get to the State Capitol building for the meeting with the Governor and D.A. He goes through the house this time, leaving the medal box and scroll underneath an empty folder on his dad's desk, before jumping into the Camaro.
He makes it to the meeting with approximately ten seconds to spare. Danny spots him first, and does a double take.
“Anything you want to tell us about your lunch date, Steven?”
Steve frowns, then looks down at himself. The shirt that had been clean on less than an hour ago, island time, is wrinkled and covered in paint spatter from Rory's kill shot. There are a couple of rips in his trousers, and now that he thinks about it there are still stitches down the right side of his face where one of the paint ball teams had resorted to dirty tactics to try and eliminate Steve.
“No,” he replies. Then, before Danny can have enough time to ask anything else, he says: “Governor, Mister Okonedo, shall we get this meeting under way?”
They both nod; the Governor gives Steve one last disapproving look-over, and Okonedo leads everyone towards his office. Steve mentally prepares himself for an hour of being talked at about legal procedure, and a trip back to Five-0 being interrogated by Danny.
Maybe he'll even show Danny the medal and scroll later.
o o o o o
Maryland, 1998
“McGarrett, parcel for you.”
Steve puts aside his book, Principles of Physical Biochemistry and looks up. Taylor tosses a small brown envelope into his lap.
“Thanks, man.”
“No worries.” Taylor grins. “You coming down to the quad? Chicks' drill's about to start.”
“No, brah, I'm good.”
Taylor shrugs. “Your loss,” he throws over his shoulder as he leaves.
Steve studies the envelope in his hands. It's addressed to him, which adds to the mystery of how Taylor was able to collect it, but the handwriting isn't familiar, not that there's really anyone who'd write to him anyhow. No sender address on the back.
He opens the envelope and palms the contents. Content, singular. The only item the envelope contains is a silvery thumb-sized compass – except it's broken. Has to be a practical joke, but it's not Taylor's game and again, there's not really anyone who'd get a kick out of sending him a broken compass.
Steve examines the envelope again, and inside finds a small scrap of paper. The handwriting matches that on the envelope, and it's small enough he has to squint to read it.
A hui hou kakou, Steve McGarrett.
Steve rereads the sentence a few times. He thinks there should be some hidden meaning to it, but all he can think of is being on the beach when he was a kid and being given a fez by a man who...
A man who had said Steve was going to save his life one day. And he had a TARDIS, which was some sort of time machine as well as being a spaceship.
Steve holds up the compass between his thumb and forefinger and studies the broken mechanism inside it. Then he puts it and the scrap of paper back inside the envelope and folds the flap back over. He reaches down the side of his bunk for the small tin box he keeps his personal effects in, and slips the envelope inside it.
He can't see what use a broken compass would be, but who knows – maybe it'll come in handy one day.
Manip bywihluta
Fandom: Hawaii Five-0 (2010) / Doctor Who
Summary: When Steve McGarrett was six years old, a man who lived in a blue phone box gave him a fez and told him he was going to save his life one day.
Characters: Steve, the 11th Doctor; Danny, Amy/Rory; references to and cameos by others.
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~10,500
Betas:
wihluta and explodedpenSpoilers: Nothing major for either series, but through the 2010 Who Christmas Special and Five-0 1.17 to be on the safe side.
Warnings: A few swear words and references to violence.
Author's Notes: An offhand comment by
wihluta about Steve travelling with the Doctor sparked an idea, which then grew a plot, which then became... this. This is all her fault. HER FAULT, I SAY. And because she is an enabling thing, this now comes with added artwork :DPakistan, 2007
Steve is running through the back streets of what can only laughably be called a city, breathing in dust and acrid fumes from the nearby power plant. His path is littered with obstacles; upended carts and trash cans, homeless people and even dead bodies, both human and animal.
His target is constantly about thirty seconds ahead of him; where Steve has superior musculature and speed, his opponent has the home ground advantage, and uses it ruthlessly.
Steve turns a corner into open street, hurdling a pile of burning rubble. He hits the ground hard, rolls and is up again in seconds – but he's alone. He jogs to a standstill and executes a three-sixty, looking for his target.
Nothing.
Except...
Standing in a nearby doorway is a white male, non-regulation brown hair, early twenties at a guess, wearing... tweed and a bow-tie, all of which is suspiciously clean and unwrinkled for his current surroundings.
Steve's jaw drops a little of its own accord. It was impossible, but there he was, just standing there with a bewildered look on his face and -
In the shadows behind the impossible man Steve sees movement. He runs forward and grabs the man by the arm, who looks startled, first at the hand gripping him, then at Steve himself.
“Who are -”
“There's no time,” Steve grits out. He unholsters his side-arm and aims it inside the doorway. “We have to go, now.”
“But -”
“Now, Doctor!” Steve shouts. There's another burst of movement behind the Doctor, and Steve shoots a man in the head. “Run!”
The Doctor stares at him a moment longer, eyes narrowed, like he's trying to interrogate Steve with that single glance. Maybe he is; Steve has other concerns right now.
He tugs the Doctor by his arm. “I said, run!”
This time he co-operates, letting Steve drag him away from the building and somewhere with workable cover. Steve listens as they run, but there's no sign they're being followed. When he judges they've gone far enough, he pushes the Doctor up against a wall and takes his turn at a long, hard look.
“What are you doing here?” Steve asks.
The Doctor stares at him.
Okay. Steve can deal with that. Interrogation 101: Ask the right questions. He searches his memory, annoyed that despite everything, he still can't remember all the details.
“Where's the TARDIS?”
The Doctor's eyes widen imperceptibly, and Steve knows he's got the bastard, even if he's acting strangely – stranger than normal, anyway.
“I'm terribly sorry,” the Doctor finally says, drawing himself up to his full height. He's shorter than Steve now, which is a bit unsettling, because it's always been the other way around. It doesn't stop him peering intently at Steve, getting right into his face like the answers to all of his questions are on the tip of Steve's nose. “Have we met before?”
“Yeah,” Steve says before he can stop himself. Then he realises. “Just not yet,” he adds.
There's a couple of seconds' pause before the Doctor's face splits into a wide grin. “Cool!”
He's no longer treating Steve as potentially hostile, so Steve lets go of him and steps back. Before he can say anything, though, the Doctor continues. “So you've met me before, but I haven't met you. That's quite exciting; I haven't acted out a fixed temporal paradox – or even a malleable one – in at least two hundred years. Hello indeed, Mister...”
Steve smirks. “McGarrett,” he says, offering a hand. “Steve McGarrett.”
“Steve McGarrett,” the Doctor repeats. “McGarrett – Steve McGarrett. Like James Bond but clearly more American. I met the agent who inspired those books, you know. Terribly dull conversationalist, but the things he could do with a paperclip and some string, I -”
“That's all well and good,” Steve interrupts, “but now really isn't the time.”
“Pun not intended,” the Doctor replies. He looks amused.
“TARDIS,” Steve says.
“Yes, yes – you've asked about that already. No, I don't know where she is.”
Steve frowns – that sounds familiar – then reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out the thumb-sized silver compass. He holds it up for the Doctor to see. “Will this help?”
Again the Doctor's eyes widen and he reaches out for it, rolling it around his fingers and peering at the minute magnet and levers inside it. He reaches into his pocket and takes out what looks like a screwdriver, and points the green end at the compass' face, now positioned so Steve can see it as well. The screwdriver lights up and emits a series of beeps – and the compass' needle starts to spin, faster and fast until it comes to an abrupt stop, pointing two degrees shy of north-north-east.
“We follow that?” Steve asks.
“We follow that,” the Doctor grins.
“Okay.” Steve leans out towards the street, but as far as he's been able to tell they weren't followed here. “How far?”
“Far?”
“Yes, far. As in distance. How far between here -” Steve points at the dusty ground between him and the Doctor, “- and the TARDIS?”
“It's a compass, not a sat-nav,” the Doctor retorts. “Could be anywhere along that line.”
Steve fights the urge to punch something. Like the Doctor. “Right. We'd better get going, since this could be a very long walk.”
“Oh, come on.” The Doctor pushes himself away from the wall and straightens his jacket. “How bad could it be?”
As it turns out? Pretty bad. Steve and the Doctor don't make it more than thirty yards before the man that Steve had shot in the head reappears, bullet hole still bleeding, and demands the Doctor be handed over in exchange for Steve's continued existence, producing a sizeable gun from nowhere to help reinforce his demand.
The Doctor immediately identifies the zombie as a Slitheen-hired bounty hunter from the Inoxial Sector, and there's a twitch at the corner of his mouth like he's seriously on the verge of trying to negotiate with the thing, but Steve remembers the shit that went down in London last Christmas, and calmly wrestles the gun out of the alien bounty hunter's hands and shoots him with it.
This time he stays down.
They make it to the TARDIS without encountering any other obstacles, alien or otherwise, and it's just like Steve remembers. It's nestled between the local mosque and a single storey office block about four miles away from where they started, and not the least bit inconspicuous.
The Doctor opens the door, then pauses on the threshold to look back at Steve, who's still got the bounty hunter's gun slung over one shoulder, and the bounty hunter over the other.
“There's an interplanetary morgue a few star systems over from where he would have first been hired,” the Doctor says. “I can drop him off there, no questions asked. They'll track down employers, next of kin, if you're worried about that sort of thing.”
“Not really,” Steve says. He lets the body drop to the ground and watches as the Doctor grabs it by the shoulders and pulls it just inside the TARDIS' door. He hands over the gun without being prompted, squelching the part of him that would like to use it on a few other people. “So what now?”
“Now...” The Doctor stares at him again. “Now we go our separate ways, never to meet again unless the predetermined paradox we're currently experiencing decides otherwise.” He cocks his head. “Or you could tag along for a while. Always room for one more.”
Philosopher to lonely tourist in the space of two seconds. Of course it's tempting, but Steve shakes his head. “I've got something else to do first.”
“Something more important than the chance to explore all of time and space?” The Doctor's eyes crinkle with repressed amusement.
Steve nods. “I'm here on a mission. Can't let up 'til it's completed.”
“Looking for someone or something?”
“Someone.” Steve's not sure why he's telling the Doctor all of this, but he's been head-hunted by UNIT enough times that he knows the Doctor can find out anything if he really wants to. “Victor Hesse.”
“Hesse. Hesse, Hesse...” The Doctor suddenly fixes Steve with a dark look. “I'd be careful if I were you. See you around, Steve McGarrett.” He steps inside the TARDIS and closes the door. A few seconds later it starts to make a rhythmic, pulsing noise and slowly fades out of existence.
Steve stares at the empty space where the TARDIS used to be for a few seconds, long enough for him to pull himself together and get back on task. He's halfway back to where he last saw his target – a small arms dealer who'd recently crossed paths with Hesse and was likely to give up contact details with minimal pressure – when he realises he never even thought to ask for the compass back.
Hawaii, 1982
Steve's bored. Mary's got chicken pox, which means Mommy's looking after her all the time and won't let Steve go any further than their shoreline because there's no one to go with him. Daddy's working, but Daddy's always working, even though it's summer vacation and all his friends are off doing fun stuff with their dads. Steve's stuck here on the beach behind his house, throwing stones into the sea and counting down the minutes 'til dinner.
“Nice day to be doing nothing,” someone says behind him. Steve turns around. There's a man standing on the sand behind him, but Steve doesn't know who he is.
Steve stares up at him anyway. He's tall and thin and wearing the kind of clothes that Principal Kao wears.
“Mommy says I'm not s'posed to talk to strangers,” he says.
“Smart lady, your mum,” the man says. He doesn't sound like anyone Steve's ever met before, either. “I'm not really a stranger, though. I mean, I am a bit strange, but I'm not a stranger.”
Steve frowns. “Prove it.”
The man kneels down so he can look Steve right in the eye. “Hello, Steve McGarrett. I'm the Doctor.”
“Doctor who?” Steve asks, because all doctors have names, that's how it's supposed to work.
The man chuckles. “Just 'the Doctor',” he says.
Steve frowns again. “How do you know who I am?”
The Doctor leans in really close and grins at Steve. “You told me. Anyway!” he says, pulling back and climbing to his feet again, “I've got something for you. Call it an early birthday present.”
Now Steve knows something's going on. “I just had my birthday.”
“Late birthday present, then,” the Doctor says. “Come on.”
“No.” Steve stays sitting on the sand, but he keeps his chin up and stares at the Doctor. “Daddy says I'm not to go anywhere with strange people, and he's a cop!”
The Doctor laughs. “Just like I remember. All right then; wait here, and I'll be right back. How does that sound?”
Steve stares at the Doctor some more. He likes the idea of a present but Mommy and Daddy's warnings are more important. He doesn't say anything, but the Doctor grins again anyway.
“Two minutes,” he says, holding up two fingers, and then walks away. He walks like a tourist with his trouser legs folded up, and Steve pulls a face before going back to throwing stones into the sea.
He got one to skip a whole seven times when the Doctor comes back and sits on the beach beside Steve. He's got a box in his hands.
“That for me?” Steve asks.
The Doctor laughs. “Happy unbirthday, Steve McGarrett.” He holds out the box.
Steve narrows his eyes, but he doesn't take the box.
The Doctor nods and opens the box himself. He holds it up to his face and peeks inside and then turns it so Steve can see inside.
Steve squints. It looks like there's a red hat in the box, but it doesn't look like any hat he's ever seen before. He glares at the Doctor again, then decides there are more dangerous things than red hats in boxes, so he reaches forward to take it out.
It's definitely red, and he thinks it's a hat, but it looks more like a toilet roll holder.
“Cool, isn't it?” the Doctor says.
Steve frowns. “What is it?”
The Doctor grins. “It's a fez! Fezzes are cool.”
“It looks dumb.” Steve turns the fez around in his hands. “Why are you giving it to me? I don't know you.”
“Steve McGarrett,” the Doctor says, “one day, you're going to save my life. I just wanted to say thank you.”
“With this?”
The Doctor grins again. “Kids these days. Never impressed with anything.”
He looks sad, like Nana did when Steve didn't like the socks she knitted him last Christmas. “No,” Steve says, “it's cool.”
“You're just saying that.” But the Doctor's grinning again, so Steve knows it's okay. He takes the box from the Doctor, puts the fez carefully inside and puts the lid back on.
“Thank you for the fez,” he recites.
“You're welcome.”
They sit there quietly for a few minutes, Steve holding the box, and then Steve thinks about what the Doctor just said, and asks: “How am I going to save your life?”
The Doctor smiles. “Can't tell you the details.”
That sucks. “Why not?”
“The universe might implode.”
“You're lying!”
“Am not! I really can't tell you. But I got lost one day, somewhere far away, and you found me and helped me find the TARDIS.”
“What's a TARDIS?”
“It's a bit like a spaceship. Travels through space and time.” The Doctor grins at him again. “Want to take a look?”
“It's here?” Steve looks around, but he can't see anything that looks like a spaceship. Except for the blue box at the other end of the beach – and why is there a blue box on the beach?
“It's there.” The Doctor points at the blue box.
Steve pulls another face. “Doesn't look like a spaceship.”
The Doctor grins at him, completely happy. “It's bigger on the inside. Come on, I'll show you.” He stands up, brushing sand off his trousers and waits until Steve stands up as well, still holding the box with the fez inside it. Together they walk along the beach until they get to the blue box. This close, Steve can read the sign over the door that says it's a police phone box, but it doesn't look like anything he's ever seen before. Maybe that's what all spaceships look like.
“I'm not going inside,” he says.
“Not going to make you,” the Doctor says. He opens the phone box's door with a key and pushes it open, enough that Steve can see inside without having to go inside.
The Doctor was right – it's massive inside the TARDIS. Steve can see controls and levers and things like the engine parts in Daddy's garage. He turns around to look at the outside of the TARDIS, then inside again – yeah, way bigger than it looks.
“That's cool,” he says, and he means it.
“Just don't forget, okay?” the Doctor asks. He kneels down so he and Steve can look at each other.
“I won't,” Steve promises. He smiles, and the Doctor smiles back.
“See you around, Steve McGarrett.”
“A hui hou kakou,” Steve recites, but it's weird, because that's what he means to say but it sounds like, “Until we meet again,” which is English and totally not what he wanted to say.
The Doctor just grins at him, and steps inside the TARDIS and closes the door. A few seconds later it starts making a whirring noise, like Daddy's car but louder, and then it's gone and it's just Steve on the beach holding the box with a fez inside and the Doctor was right, the TARDIS is a sort of spaceship.
Hawaii, 2011
Steve's in the attic in his dad's house, sorting through some of Mary's old things to ship out to her new place in L.A., when he hears the security system downstairs activate, then deactivate. That narrows down his visitor list to just one.
“Up here, Danny!” he calls out. He re-tapes the box in front of him and moves onto the next. It's mostly trinkets and old school projects; nothing that Mary would want unless she's got some weird kick for misshapen clay ornaments and painfully bad artwork that he doesn't know about. He flips through some of the paintings, some of them signed by him and some by Mary and wonders why Mom would have kept them – until he flashes on Danny's face every time Grace gives him a new drawing, the way his face lights up. For the first time, looking at his six-year-old self's attempt at a pineapple, Steve thinks he gets it.
“Hey, man, I tried calling you like six times this morning. We've got that thing over at the D.A.'s office, remember?”
Steve twists around just in time to watch Danny try to pull himself up through the attic hatch. It's kind of hilarious watching him flail like that, and Steve has zero inclination to give the man a hand.
“It's that time already?” he asks, and checks his watch. He looks back over at Danny. “When were we supposed to be meeting the D.A.?”
“This afternoon.” Danny tries to smooth his hair back with one hand and fix his tie with the other. “Seriously, though, what are you doing up here?”
“Mary wanted me to go through her things. Said there were some books she left behind that she wanted,” Steve explains. He doesn't get the nostalgia thing, but he's trying to get Mary, and Mary wants the books she'd read as a kid, so he's up here before work, trying to find what she's after.
“Oh. Well, that's cool, I guess.” Danny looks around him at the stacks of cardboard boxes, all unlabelled. “You, uh, need any help?”
Steve considers this. “Don't you have some place better to be?” he asks, half to get a rise, half out of general curiosity.
“Nah,” Danny interrupts, “I mean, there's paperwork still to be done, yeah, but nothing life-threateningly urgent, for once.”
Steve frowns. “So you're here now because...”
“To make sure you were actually going to suit up and talk to the nice publicly elected official without, I don't know, grenades being involved, or you being permanently stuck on Aneurysm Face, or -”
“I don't have aneurysm face,” Steve interrupts. “And I used a grenade against a suspect one time, and -”
“You say that like it's an actual excusable thing. I know that you don't ever pay attention to anything I say, and thus I am doomed to forever repeat myself, but apparently moving to the land of never-ending sunshine and pineapples has made me masochistic, so I am going to tell you once more, just once more – grenades are not an acceptable solution to anything involving members of the public. Public that you freely swore to serve and protect, in case you had forgotten that piffling section of your vows.”
“Piffling – that's a new one. What, Rachel's great-grandma teach that to you?”
Danny sighs. “Of course you choose to focus on that. Why do I even bother?”
“Masochist,” Steve smirks. “Said so yourself. You wanna help, Danno? Start with the boxes behind you.”
“Sure, okay.” Danny sounds long-suffering and put-upon, but Steve knows he wouldn't be here if he didn't want to be, so he has no qualms about bossing him around, god-awful tie and all.
“These ones?” Danny gestures at the pile directly in front of him.
Steve shrugs. “Just make sure you don't go through the same ones twice – none of them are labelled,” he adds, when Danny pulls a particularly constipated face.
“Sure.” Danny pulls a random box closer to him, adjusts position to favour his bad knee, then cuts through the tape to open the box. “What exactly am I supposed to be looking for?”
“I'm not sure,” Steve says, attention back to the school projects in his box. “All Mary said was the books she read as a kid were up here somewhere. Dad obviously meant to ship them out to her, but never got around to it.”
“Oh, I'm sure that was the case.” And if anyone but Danny had said that, Steve would have punched them in the face for saying it, but it's Danny and he has a bit more context than most, and even Steve's improving in that department, so he lets it go with a grunt. There definitely aren't any books mixed in with the paintings and other art projects, so Steve starts to put everything back in. When he gets to the point of re-taping the box, he does it slightly differently, so he can easily find it again if he wants to.
The next box he digs through yields a handful of Sweet Valley High books, which are dog-eared and look like the kind of reading material Steve could read aloud from to torture gang bangers. They definitely belonged to Mary at some point, however, so Steve puts them in the knapsack he'd brought up with him and goes through the rest of the contents of the box. There are some cassette tapes, again in Mary's handwriting; compilations she'd put together herself judging by the track listings. The tapes are pretty much obsolete, but Steve puts them in the knapsack as well. Mary might get a kick out of her teenage musical preferences.
He's about to re-tape that box and move onto yet another when he hears Danny whoop behind him.
Turning around, he sees Danny examining a red fez, turning it this way and that.
“I take back everything I may have ever or not said about your family, McGarrett,” Danny grins. He holds up the fez so Steve has a clearer view of it. “This is awesome!”
Steve snorts. “That's all it takes for you to further revise your opinion of me? You really are a cheap date.” He stares at the fez, something in his memory clicking. “Where did you find that?”
Danny stares at him like he's being dense, or he's grown horns and a third eye or something. “I'm going to let that one go and say it was in this box, right here.” He motions to the box beside him. “Why?”
Steve reaches out for the fez. Frowning, and with obvious reluctance, Danny hands it to him, wincing when he accidentally leans too hard on his bum knee. Steve just sits there for a minute, examining the fez for himself. It's the same one, he realises.
“Hey, hey!” Steve blinks, and realises Danny's managed to get right into his space, snapping his finger under Steve's nose. “What's the deal with that thing?”
“What – what makes you think there's a deal?”
Danny pulls a face. “Your reaction. You, reacting the way you did. Something's going on.”
“It's not what you think,” Steve says absently. He runs his thumb along the base of the fez, the memories clearer and clearer in his mind. That day on the beach as a kid, and then Pakistan only a few years ago. He hasn't thought about Pakistan in months.
“So tell me.” Danny's curious now. “I mean – unless it's classified. I get that, I mean -”
“It's not classified,” Steve says. “But it is complicated.”
Danny grins. “Everything is with you, babe. So do I get the story or not?”
Steve looks at him for a moment, assessing both the state of his own memories and Danny's probable ability to suspend disbelief. He figures what the hell. The worst Danny could do is accuse him of having an over-active imagination as a child. Assuming Danny had ever thought he'd had an imagination as a child.
Steve coughed, bringing himself back to the attic, and the fez in his hands. “I was given this,” he begins carefully, “when I was a kid. About a month after my sixth birthday.”
“Okay...” Danny's tone was encouraging.
“It was a late birthday present from a time traveller who told me I was going to save his life one day.” Steve pauses and he can literally see Danny's brain deciding which comeback to use first, which he forestalls by adding: “The thing is, I did.”
“You...” Danny stares at him. “I – you – time traveller,” he says finally, limply.
Steve nods.
“And which time traveller might this be?” Danny's tone suggests that he thinks Steve is either crazy or bullshitting him, and he's only looking for proof as to which is true.
“The Doctor,” Steve says.
“The Doctor?” Danny repeats. He frowns. “As in the not-English dude running around in a blue phone box constantly saving the world from alien invasions – that Doctor?”
“Yeah. You know him?”
“Do I know him, he says. Do I know him. Do I look like I know the time-travelling maniac who has been the bane of my ex-wife's professional life since time immemorial?”
“He's not a maniac,” Steve says. “Just a bit mad. Why was he the bane of Rachel's professional life?”
“She interned at Torchwood One after she graduated from LSE,” Danny explains. “Got out long before the major crap went down, for which I will personally be forever grateful -”
“But she had enough doctrine shoved down her throat to buy the Doctor as a reckless maniac,” Steve says.
Danny shrugs. “So what's your story with him?”
Steve shrugs back. “You admit he's saved the world and you still call him a maniac?” he asks, unable to help himself.
“They are not mutually exclusive concepts,” Danny shoots back. “Case in point, you.”
Steve lifts his chin slightly at that and –
“And that's what I'm talking about right there!” Danny jabs a finger at Steve's forehead. “Aneurysm face.”
Steve sighs. He really doesn't have an aneurysm face, or any other kind of face. “The Doctor gave me the fez when I was a kid,” he recaps, trying to bring Danny back on track, “and told me I was going to save his life one day.”
“And that... actually happened.” Danny sounds sceptical, not that Steve can really blame him.
“Yeah, but when I brought the fez home and told Mom about it, she took it off me, said it was dangerous talking to strange men -”
“- especially the kind who know things about you and give you presents,” Danny says. “I've been mentally preparing that PSA since before Gracie was born.”
“Yeah,” Steve says. “I just didn't realise she kept it. The fez, I mean. If she thought it was that dangerous...”
Danny smiles. “Parents do that sometimes. It's a nice fez, maybe she just couldn't bring herself to put it in the trash – bit like everything else up here.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“So how'd you save the guy's life?” Danny prompts, and Steve realises he's back to pushing for the rest of the story.
“Oh-seven,” he says slowly, working out which details he can safely give Danny and which he can't. “I was in Pakistan looking for someone connected to Victor Hesse, and I found the Doctor instead. He was lost, separated from the TARDIS. I helped him find it and took out an alien bounty hunter on the way.”
“Took out an...” Danny laughs. “Only you, man.”
Steve grins. “Should have seen the size of his gun.”
“You get to shoot it?”
“Had to fight him for it first.”
Danny laughs again. “Now that I can believe. Hey, come on,” he continues, hitting Steve lightly on the arm. “We really should get a move on before the D.A. comes looking for us.”
“Yeah, okay.” Steve reaches for the knapsack, then looks at the fez again. He's got a sudden urge to take it downstairs, maybe leave it out on display somewhere, just have it somewhere he can see it. There are some good memories attached to it, and Steve realises he likes the idea of having a physical reminder of good times instead of all bad. He slings the knapsack over a shoulder and puts the fez on, twisting it a couple of times until it sits firmly around his scalp.
Danny, typically, doesn't hold back. “Oh, you have got to let me take a picture of – you have no idea how ridiculous you look right now, I -”
“Hey, this is cool, all right?” Steve shoots back. “It was a present; I'm not going to ruin it between here and downstairs by shoving it into a bag.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Danny's got his phone out, and is aiming it at Steve as he laughs. He snaps a couple of pictures then, apparently satisfied, leads the way to the attic hatch.
When they make it down to the living room, Steve takes the fez off and sits it on the desk in Dad's office while he puts the knapsack somewhere he won't forget it and looks for a clean shirt for the meeting with the D.A..
“No threats, huh?” Danny watches him in amusement. “No intimations of violence against my person should I ever disseminate the photographs of -”
“Do you read a thesaurus every night before you go to bed?” Steve finds a plain grey dress shirt and pulls it on.
“It's the only thing that pre-empts the reoccurring nightmare that my partner is a crazy SEAL with control issues and no awareness of his own -” Danny clicks his fingers. “No, wait, that's real life. What was the question, again?”
“You gonna give me the keys, Danno, or do I have to fight you for them?”
“That depends. Am I gonna end up like the alien bounty hunter in Pakistan?”
“That depends,” Steve throws back.
Danny pre-empts him by tossing him the keys to the Camaro.
Steve grins, and swipes the fez before striding out of the house.
They make it to Five-0 with a bare minimum of attempted wit from Danny, and as a reward for good behaviour Steve pulls up outside a coffee shop and gets him a creamy, sugary caffeine abomination and a couple of pastries.
“I like this,” Danny says, spraying crumbs onto the sidewalk outside HQ. “I like this a lot. And you know why?”
Steve shakes his head and doesn't say anything. He continues not saying anything all the way up to Five-0, where they're met by Chin, who takes one amused look at Danny, who by now has demolished the first pastry and is now making blissful noises into the coffee cup, then nods at Steve.
“You've got a visitor,” he says by way of greeting.
“Oh yeah, who?”
“Your cousin.” Chin sounds sceptical and Steve can't blame him. He has two cousins. One is a tax accountant living in Idaho and the other is a full-time mom in southern Massachusetts, and neither of them make Steve's top five list of people even remotely likely to come out to Oahu to visit him. Danny seems to agree with this unspoken assessment, if his sudden lack of coffee worship is anything to go by. “She's waiting in the interview room,” Chin adds, when Steve starts looking around.
The interview room is adjacent to the interrogation room, the only difference being the amount of windows and semi-natural light. Steve approaches slowly. There's a young woman standing beside one of the couches. Redhead, maybe early twenties, wearing the same sort of clothes that Mary favours, and Steve's never seen her before in his life.
She looks up when Steve closes the door behind him. “Hi,” she says brightly. “You must be Steve McGarrett.”
Her accent's tricky to place, but there's a slight Scottish twang that's impossible to miss. “And you're not my cousin,” Steve says. He drops a hand to his gun. “You've got ten seconds to tell me who you are and what you're doing here before I either arrest or shoot you.”
The woman's eyes widen and she actually takes a step backward. “I can explain!” she starts. “My name is Amy Pond, and he got to you too, didn't he?”
“Who got to me?” Steve asks, deliberately pitching his voice low and quiet. On his periphery he can see Chin and Danny and now Kono watching with obvious interest. Amy's not a physical threat, and he's pretty sure she's not packing, but that doesn't mean he's going to take any chances.
Amy points at the fez that Steve is still holding. “Told you it was cool, did he?” She snorts. “Typical Doctor.”
“The Doctor?” Steve asks before he can stop himself.
“Yeah,” Amy nods. She holds up a hand. “Yea high, looks like a hungover student but dresses like your granddad, unhealthy obsession with fish fingers and fezzes?”
Steve smiles slightly. “I know who you mean.” And it explains how she knew his name and where to find him. He moves his hand away from his weapon, and notes how Amy visibly relaxes. “What are you doing here?”
“He sent me to fetch you.” Amy pulls a face. “Said to tell you it was an emergency and I wasn't to come back without you.”
“What kind of emergency?” Steve demands. “And no offence, but I've never met you before and -” And why didn't the Doctor come here himself if it was so important? is the rest of his question but he keeps it to himself.
“About that. He's talking to seashells.”
Steve doesn't think he heard that right. “Seashells?”
“Seashells,” Amy confirms. She sounds as sceptical as Steve feels. “Apparently you can learn all sorts of interesting things from seashells.”
“Of course.” Steve uses the fez to motion at the door behind him. “Lead on.”
At that Amy smiles and waits just outside the interview room while Steve finally makes it to his office and puts the fez on the desk. When he comes back out, Chin, Danny and Kono are staring at him. Steve notes that their backs are all to Amy.
“She really your cousin?” Kono asks.
“If this is a kidnap in progress, wrinkle your nose,” Chin says.
“She's hot,” Danny says. “Also, I checked, we have to meet with the D.A. in forty minutes.”
Steve says to Kono: “You're not the only extended family around here.” To Chin: “I appreciate your concern, but this is not a kidnapping.” And to Danny: “Forty minutes?”
Danny nods. “The Governor's going to be there, too.”
Steve calls over to Amy. “I can be back in forty minutes or less, right?”
Amy looks at Steve like he's dense. That seems to be happening a lot today. “Of course,” she replies. “So you're coming with me?”
Steve shrugs. “Can't hurt to check it out.” He pushes through the human wall his team have formed and places a hand on Amy's back to start escorting her out of the building.
“Check what out?” Danny calls after them.
Steve waves his free hand over his head. “Can't tell you, Danno. It's classified!” He grins all the way down to where he left the Camaro not five minutes ago and gestures Amy to the passenger side – the other passenger side.
“American cars are weird,” Amy says, but slides in anyway.
When Steve's buckled himself in, he looks over at her. “So where's the Doctor?”
“Your place,” she replies. “Nice beach you've got, by the way.”
Steve grins again, and starts the car. Mindful of the forty minute countdown, Steve makes it back to the house in ten. He leads Amy around the side straight to the beach, and sure enough there's a familiar figure hunched over a deckchair and holding something up to his ear, for all appearances listening intently.
The Doctor looks up as they get closer, and grins. “Hello, Steve McGarrett. It's been a while.”
“You can just call me Steve, you know.” Steve takes in the Doctor's appearance. He looks exactly like he had in Pakistan four years ago, except the bow tie's purple where it had been yellow before. “Learn anything interesting from the shells?”
“You may mock me now,” the Doctor admonishes, waving a finger at him, “but in twelve million years when these little critters become sentient, nobody will be laughing then.”
Steve's pretty sure he's not going to be around in twelve million years, so he says nothing. Beside him Amy's rolled her eyes a couple of times. Steve looks around – and sure enough, there's the TARDIS, tucked safely away in the trees. It could almost be a feature, if garden centres marketed time machines alongside hot tubs and decking wood.
“Are you going to tell me what's so important you had to send your lovely friend here to kidnap me from work?” Steve asks, when it becomes clear the Doctor's paying too much attention to the seashells again.
“Hm? Oh, yes, I suppose I should.” The Doctor sets the shells down onto the deckchair with an air of reverence. “Pond, where's your husband?”
“I left him with you,” Amy retorts dryly. “Don't tell me you've let him wander off again.”
“You're married?” Steve asks Amy; she nods. “Huh. Half an hour,” he adds, turning back to the Doctor.
“Rory?” Amy calls out suddenly. “Rory!” She's got a big voice on her, and Steve makes a mental note not to do anything that would make her yell at him like that.
Steve hears a clatter from inside the TARDIS just before the door opens and a head pokes out. Young, about the same age as Amy and wearing a long-sleeved jumper. In Hawaii. It has to be Rory, and Steve pities him already.
“All right, all right, I was just...” Rory trails off when he notices Steve. “Um, hey.”
Steve just nods. “Hey,” he says back.
“You're Steve McGarrett,” Rory says. Steve nods again, and Rory grins. “Heard a lot about you,” he says, coming out of the TARDIS proper and over to where Steve and Amy are standing. He holds a hand out. “He's been talking about you all week.”
'He' is presumably the Doctor, and Steve decides not to mention he'd been going on about the Doctor only that morning. “Nice to meet you,” he says after realising there isn't anything else he can say.
“Likewise. I'm Rory, by the way.”
“Right, well, now we've all acquainted ourselves with each other, we should get going. Can't have you miss your big meeting, can we, Commander?” The Doctor's staring at Steve again, all knowing glances and barely concealed amusement.
It's been four years since Steve last saw the Doctor, but he wonders just how long it's been since the Doctor last saw him.
“Commander?” Amy echoes.
“Lieutenant Commander,” Steve confirms. “US Navy. SEALs,” he adds, because months of exposure to Danny's wilful blindness to the different branches of the military has ingrained that defence into him.
“Really?” Amy grins again, and eyes Steve with a whole new look in her eye.
“Knock it off, Pond,” the Doctor says absently, “you're not his type.”
“I'm just looking,” Amy protests.
Rory gives her a sidelong look, and she relents. She grabs Rory by the shoulders and kisses him quickly. “Just looking,” she repeats. “Come on.” She takes him by the hand and they go inside the TARDIS, leaving Steve and the Doctor on the beach.
“After you, Steve McGarrett.” The Doctor flourishes towards the time machine's open door.
Steve hesitates. He's never been inside before, and he's still aware of the meeting with the D.A., but then he rationalises time machine and figures he could be back thirty seconds after he left, no matter how long this... thing takes. As a precaution, he takes off his watch and drops it onto the deckchair along with the seashells. That way it'll tell him the right time when he gets back.
“Bigger on the inside?” he asks.
The Doctor's smile is radiant. “You have no idea.”
Steve gets an idea, quickly enough. His memories of meeting the Doctor as a kid are still a little hazy around the edges, but the TARDIS' control room definitely looks familiar, if a little differently proportioned now he's an adult. Everything is bright and vibrant and alive, and it looks nothing at all like Steve expected a spaceship to.
Amy and Rory have taken up position either side of the central column that Steve can only assume houses the navigational controls, or whatever flies this thing. The Doctor slips around to the far side, between the two of them, and after only another brief hesitation, Steve stands just off centre, where he can see the Doctor as well as Amy and Rory without having to shift position.
Behind him the doors bang shut, and in front of him the Doctor starts stabbing buttons and pulling levers. The same noise that Steve heard on the beach as a kid and in the back streets of a Pakistani city as a SEAL starts up again, and it's much louder from inside. At the same time everything around them starts to shake, and Steve realises they're actually moving now, or whatever relative movement passes for in the TARDIS.
“So, er, where are we going?” Rory's the first to address the time-travelling elephant in the room, and he has to shout to be heard.
“Small colony world on the edge of the Akenzo Nexus,” the Doctor replies, like that's supposed to mean anything to the others. “Locals call the world Bob's Town.”
Steve tries not to snort. Or react at all. “And what's in Bob's Town that's so important we have to be there today?” he asks.
“Aha!” The Doctor whirls around, impervious to the slips and shakes of the TARDIS, and points a finger at Steve. “The four hundred and twenty-seventh annual paint ball tournament.”
Steve doesn't think he heard that one right, and across from him Amy is apparently thinking the same thing. “Paint ball?” they ask at the same time.
The Doctor grins. “They give out fantastic prizes – that's why it's been going for four hundred and twenty-seven years!”
“Paint ball,” Steve repeats, just as the light and sound show the TARDIS is putting on starts to wind down. “That's why you kidnapped me? To play paint ball?”
“Technically it wasn't kidnapping,” Amy points out. “You came of your own free will.”
Not the point. “Paint ball,” Steve says again, pretty much because he can. He glares at the Doctor. “You do realise having me here is like subbing Peyton Manning or Devin Hester for a friendly game of pick-up.”
The Doctor grins again, and Steve wonders if maybe that was the point, or maybe this is just another way of the Doctor saying thank you for Pakistan – maybe he thinks this is fun for Steve. He sighs, and follows the others out of the TARDIS.
For a planet on the edge of a nexus, Bob's Town looks a lot like Wales in springtime. Steve knows this only because he once spent a week in a tent in a jungle with a Royal Navy lieutenant filled with photograph after photograph of grey skies and featureless countryside, and no amount of time, distance or alcohol has ever been able to wipe those images from his mind. The thing that does separate Bob's Town from Wales are the occasional alien wandering around, and the fact that the sky is pink with flecks of blue and purple.
Some of the crowd are obviously the local equivalent of security and law enforcement, and as much as Steve wants to marvel at the fact he's on an alien planet he can't completely switch his own training off, or forget the fact that he's essentially unarmed. As long as something like the Slitheens' bounty hunter doesn't happen again, he thinks there's a chance he can get through this.
Amy and Rory's nonchalance at the details of Bob's Town is the clearest indicator yet that they've been travelling with the Doctor for some time, and it's Amy who slips over to him, gesturing at her husband to walk on Steve's other side, and for all that Steve knows they'd be the worst security detail ever, he appreciates what they're trying to do. Break in the rookie without it seeming like they're breaking in the rookie.
The Doctor leads them over to what can only be the sign up centre for the paint ball tournament. The navy-skinned quadruped in charge starts explaining the rules and regulations in an English accent, and Steve's reaction has to be obvious, because Amy leans up and cups a hand over his ear.
“The TARDIS translates everything,” she whispers. Steve blinks at her, then realises she's right; all the buzzing in the crowds behind them is understandable, if a bit mixed up from the sheer number of voices. More than that, the memory of him trying to speak Hawaiian to the Doctor as a kid and failing now makes perfect sense.
“Teams of two,” the alien says, eyeing the four of them. “You'll need to split up now.”
Amy and Rory step forward without hesitation, and she takes a form and starts to fill it out on his back.
The Doctor turns to Steve with a raised eyebrow and another amused expression. “This is going to be fun,” he says.
Steve forces himself to relax a little, and smirks back. “Just how badly do you want to win?” he asks.
The Doctor laughs. “The prizes are fantastic,” he says, and motions to the quadruped. “Alistair here says first prize this year is a guided tour of the Southern Lights on New Earth's second moon.”
“That does sound impressive,” Steve admits.
“I'm more interested in the prize for second place,” the Doctor says innocently, already filling out his own form – with Steve's name included, he notes – before handing it back to Alistair. “A chest of supposed relics from the Twelfth Bichronial Dynasty.”
Steve considers this. “Second place.”
“If you wouldn't mind.”
Steve grins. Now he thinks he knows why the Doctor brought him here today. “I think that can be arranged,” he replies.
“Excellent.” The Doctor claps his hands. “Let's go get suited up.”
Alistair points them towards a tent filled with – Steve is relieved to note – recognisable paint ball guns and protective body gear.
“You don't seem the type to play war games,” Steve says, putting on something that looks like a kevlar vest but weighs half as much.
“Been doing your homework?” The Doctor's interested now, paying far too much attention to his own armour to not be.
Steve shrugs. “I hear things. And certain organisations have tried to recruit me enough times that I've been told a few things as well.”
“Ah, yes. UNIT can be quite persistent when they see something they want. Well,” the Doctor adds, preening a little in the protective gear. “Shall we?”
“I think we shall,” Steve says. He picks up a paint ball gun and quickly familiarises himself with the set up and weight distribution. The similarities to human weapons remind him of the bounty hunter's gun, and Steve wonders just how many similarities there are in weaponry from different species, then he decides he can think about that another time.
Seven hours later, and the game is in full swing. Steve and the Doctor (who is a surprisingly good shot, when not trying to verbally trace the ancestry of every non-human on the playing field) have taken out twelve of the other forty-nine teams taking part in the tournament. By his reckoning, and accounting for troop movements and likely instances of friendly fire, there are just three teams left standing. Himself and the Doctor; Amy and Rory; and identical twins from somewhere Steve's not even sure he heard correctly, let alone can pronounce.
The playing field is actually a warehouse, but on palatial scale, with at least seven distinct levels each with a unique terrain. And then there are the trap doors, random teleportation points and even sections with anti-gravity.
This is quite possibly Steve's new favourite place ever, anywhere.
He finds the Doctor on the second level, a psychedelic desert with randomly interchanging anti-gravity points. He's hunkered down behind a yellow monolith that vaguely resembles a giant cockroach, quietly reloading his gun.
Steve scopes the area – it's just the two of them, for now – and drops down beside him. “Quick question.”
“Shoot.” The Doctor grins, impressed with his own wit.
Steve motions at the protective gear and paint ball cartridges. “Why this? I mean, the TARDIS can go anywhere, any time, right? Why not just go back to whenever the Twelfth Dynasty was going strong and have a look at the stuff fresh?”
The Doctor nods, like he's been expecting Steve to ask this very question all day. “It's been pointed out to me,” he whispers confidentially, “that giving you the fez was not enough of a thank you.”
Steve's first impulse is to laugh. “That's what this is about?”
“Well...” The Doctor pulls a face to rival the ones Danny likes to accuse Steve of having. “That, and this is sort of fun, isn't it?”
Steve has to give him that one, and grins. “The twins are two levels up, three sectors over, circling Rory like sharks.”
“Amy?”
“Either sunning herself on the top level, or she's got one of the twins in her sights.” Steve can't remember where he last saw her – the trap doors make it tricky to accurately track movement, and it's more difficult than it looks to exit the top level.
“All right, then.” The Doctor peeks around his side of the statue. “We'd better go rescue Pond's other half.”
“It would be nice to give them that guided tour,” Steve agrees. He checks his gun for ammunition. “Shall we?”
The Doctor grins again. “I think we shall.”
They make it up to Rory's level on their second attempt, following a literal trip through a gravity-adjusted section that leaves Steve on his ass a couple of times until he gets the hang of effectively weighing twice as much as Kamekona. It's just something else to add to the long list of things he'll carry to his grave.
They find Amy en route who, just as Steve and the Doctor arrive, takes out one of the twins with a nice single-handed shot that Steve hasn't seen an amateur pull off since that one time in Tanzania. Rory's continuing to evade the other twin with the kind of determination that Steve approves whole-heartedly of.
“On three,” Amy whispers, as they fan out to attack from all sides.
“One...” She slips up behind an upturned table.
“Two...” Steve pulls himself up and over a low-rise.
“Th -” The Doctor swans out from behind his boulder and shoots the second twin in the back; he or she lets out something that sounds like a hiss but is definitely a curse, and saunters off to the level's exit point and disappears in a flash of light.
“You can come out now, honey,” Amy calls out.
A few seconds later Rory's head pokes out from behind what Steve hopes is hedgerow. “All clear?” he asks.
“We're the last four standing.” Amy skips over to him and kisses him on the cheek. “Nice diversionary tactics,” she says; Rory grins.
“So...” The Doctor looks at each of them in turn. “Only one team can win this.”
Amy's face lights up, and aims her gun at the Doctor. Beside her, and a lot more reluctantly, Rory aims at Steve.
“Shoot me in the back and I will shoot you in the face,” Steve says, because even though this is a game, he still has standards.
Rory squeaks, but nods, and aims his gun directly at Steve's chest. Amy's still deciding where she's going to make her hit, and after some obvious – and gleeful – deliberation, she mirrors Rory and aims for the Doctor's hearts.
They fire in tandem and, just like that, the game is over.
Amy and Rory are oddly adorable arguing about when they're going to take the tour of the Southern Lights, and Steve brushes past them to deposit his gun and protective gear with Alistair's people before heading over to the Doctor. He's just taken receipt of his and Steve's prize, the chest of supposed relics – and Steve has to give the tournament organisers their due, the chest looks like a proper old-fashioned pirate treasure chest. The Doctor looks like it's his birthday and Christmas all at the same time.
“Was it worth it?” Steve asks, dropping down next to the Doctor and pulling the chest a bit closer to him.
“Oh, I think so.” The Doctor's inspecting a scroll, some kind of metallic parchment covered in an ornate script that means precisely zero to Steve, though given a few weeks and some note paper he thinks he could crack the code.
Steve takes a look inside the chest. There are a few more of those scrolls, and generally the kinds of things he'd expect from a ruling system with 'dynasty' in the title. Right at the bottom he finds a small wooden box with carved detailing along the corners. There's no obvious opening mechanism, but it only takes a little tug for Steve to pull the lid off.
Inside the box is a metal ornament attached to a silk cord. The detailing on the ornament is unmistakable – it's a medal, and judging by the state of the cord, it's very, very old. Steve runs an index finger around the edge of the medal and wonders who it had been awarded to, and what they'd done to have been considered worthy of receiving it.
He realises the Doctor is watching him with a soft smile. “Keep it,” he says, and Steve nods, closing the box carefully again. “The history of it will be on one of these parchments,” the Doctor adds, indicating the scrolls still inside the box. “I can find the right one if you'd like.”
“Yeah,” Steve says. “Yeah, that'd be good.”
The Doctor nods, and starts sorting through all of the scrolls inside the chest. There are eight in total, and he begins reading them intently, obviously familiar with the alien language.
Steve places the box very carefully by his foot and has another look through the chest. There's a velvety pouch tucked in a corner that had been hidden by the scrolls up until now, and Steve gives into curiosity again and tips the contents of the pouch into his hand.
Content, singular. The only item in the pouch is a small thumb-sized compass made of a silvery metal that gleams dully in Bob's Town's sunlight. Steve turns it this way and that in his hand, and realises that no matter which way he points it, the needle doesn't move.
“Hey,” he says, getting the Doctor's attention. “This looks like the one I gave you in Pakistan.”
The Doctor reaches out carefully and examines the compass carefully. “It doesn't just look like it,” he says.
“So what?” Steve frowns. “It's the same one?”
The Doctor smiles. “Steve McGarrett. I think we've just completed our paradox.”
Steve wants to ask exactly what he means by that, but he thinks he knows the answer already – and judging by his smile, so does the Doctor.
“Oy, you two!” The Doctor waves his arms at Amy and Rory, still bickering over the tournament's grand prize. “Get this thing back to the TARDIS and I'll drop you off for a second honeymoon.”
“Got yourself a deal!” Amy bounds over, Rory close behind, and between them they carry the chest over to where the TARDIS is. Steve climbs to his feet and slips the box with the medal into his pocket and follows them.
The Doctor flies them back to Steve's beach in Oahu, and while Steve's putting his watch back on, Amy sidles up to him and gives him a hug, followed by Rory, who settles for a handshake and: “We should do this again sometime.”
“Next time you're in Hawaii – legitimately,” Steve adds, “I'll show you around.”
They both smile at that – and so they should. Who doesn't love Hawaii?
The Doctor hands Steve one of the silver scrolls. “It can be translated into English,” he tells Steve, who's looking forward to the challenge already.
“A hui hou kakou,” Steve says, and this time he isn't surprised when the TARDIS translates him into English again.
The Doctor just grins. He, Amy and Rory go back inside the TARDIS, and Steve watches as it starts to whir and then disappears.
It's only then that he remembers to check what time it is. He promptly swears. He's got less than ten minutes to get to the State Capitol building for the meeting with the Governor and D.A. He goes through the house this time, leaving the medal box and scroll underneath an empty folder on his dad's desk, before jumping into the Camaro.
He makes it to the meeting with approximately ten seconds to spare. Danny spots him first, and does a double take.
“Anything you want to tell us about your lunch date, Steven?”
Steve frowns, then looks down at himself. The shirt that had been clean on less than an hour ago, island time, is wrinkled and covered in paint spatter from Rory's kill shot. There are a couple of rips in his trousers, and now that he thinks about it there are still stitches down the right side of his face where one of the paint ball teams had resorted to dirty tactics to try and eliminate Steve.
“No,” he replies. Then, before Danny can have enough time to ask anything else, he says: “Governor, Mister Okonedo, shall we get this meeting under way?”
They both nod; the Governor gives Steve one last disapproving look-over, and Okonedo leads everyone towards his office. Steve mentally prepares himself for an hour of being talked at about legal procedure, and a trip back to Five-0 being interrogated by Danny.
Maybe he'll even show Danny the medal and scroll later.
Maryland, 1998
“McGarrett, parcel for you.”
Steve puts aside his book, Principles of Physical Biochemistry and looks up. Taylor tosses a small brown envelope into his lap.
“Thanks, man.”
“No worries.” Taylor grins. “You coming down to the quad? Chicks' drill's about to start.”
“No, brah, I'm good.”
Taylor shrugs. “Your loss,” he throws over his shoulder as he leaves.
Steve studies the envelope in his hands. It's addressed to him, which adds to the mystery of how Taylor was able to collect it, but the handwriting isn't familiar, not that there's really anyone who'd write to him anyhow. No sender address on the back.
He opens the envelope and palms the contents. Content, singular. The only item the envelope contains is a silvery thumb-sized compass – except it's broken. Has to be a practical joke, but it's not Taylor's game and again, there's not really anyone who'd get a kick out of sending him a broken compass.
Steve examines the envelope again, and inside finds a small scrap of paper. The handwriting matches that on the envelope, and it's small enough he has to squint to read it.
A hui hou kakou, Steve McGarrett.
Steve rereads the sentence a few times. He thinks there should be some hidden meaning to it, but all he can think of is being on the beach when he was a kid and being given a fez by a man who...
A man who had said Steve was going to save his life one day. And he had a TARDIS, which was some sort of time machine as well as being a spaceship.
Steve holds up the compass between his thumb and forefinger and studies the broken mechanism inside it. Then he puts it and the scrap of paper back inside the envelope and folds the flap back over. He reaches down the side of his bunk for the small tin box he keeps his personal effects in, and slips the envelope inside it.
He can't see what use a broken compass would be, but who knows – maybe it'll come in handy one day.
Manip by
wihluta
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Date: 2011-06-05 07:01 pm (UTC)\o/ \o/
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Date: 2011-06-06 10:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-06 10:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-05 07:30 pm (UTC)Loved, loved, loved the idea of Steve and the Doctor as partners in a paintball tournament - Steve's best vacation ever. :) Also, surprisingly sweet, and yes, Amy, you should definitely get a good look! LOL!
Thanks for a very fun read.
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Date: 2011-06-06 10:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-05 09:53 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2011-06-06 04:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-06 05:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-06 09:14 pm (UTC)Brilliant adventure. I had a blast! And it was fun finally reading what gave you so much grief in chat. ;o)
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Date: 2011-06-06 09:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-07 04:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-07 08:36 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2011-06-11 10:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-11 03:24 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2011-06-13 05:27 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2011-06-15 08:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-18 02:22 am (UTC)I love the timey-wimey twistyness to this, I love the action, I love that of course Steve would find this place to be his favorite place ever, I love the reaction Amy gets from Chin and Kono, I love EVERYTHING about this. LOVE. IT.
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Date: 2011-06-18 05:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-19 12:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-19 02:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-06 05:39 pm (UTC)(And Steve with a fez makes me giggle :o))
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Date: 2013-01-06 06:11 pm (UTC)