Title: Timeout
Fandom: Hawaii Five-O (2010)
Rating: G
Characters: Grace, Charlie
Length: 709 words
Content notes: mild spoilers for season 7 finale, based on the scene between Danny, Charlie, and Steve, at the beginning of that ep

Summary: Grace can really think of way better things to do


“What,” Grace said, resentful.  “What even is this?”

When minding your little brother, Rachel had said, never - but neverrrr - leave him amusing himself on his own out of sight for too long.  And if he’s quiet, for God’s sake go see what he’s up to.

Yeah, so thanks for that, Mom.  I mean sure, check he’s okay but, like, seriously, you think I’m actually going to play with him?  Crawl around on the carpet getting in a mess?

Right. When she had so many other, more interesting, things to do. 

Charlie looked up at her from his crosssed-leg pose on the carpet.  He knew what she was thinking, and frowned. 

“Can’t see it can’t help you,” he said.  It was actually a direct quote from her back catalog and she wondered, impatient, when Charlie had gotten so like Danno.

“You took my stuff,” she accused, not really mad but feeling as if she should be.

Her long-discarded Cali Girl Barbie was sitting, in sparkly shorts, inside a square ice-cream carton on its side.  Cali Guy, kinda naked, was in a neighboring one.  Between the cartons was a shiny blue wine-glass coaster.

Charlie shrugged, turned away from her, busy.  Just across the carpet under the overhang of his quilt, he carefully arranged three Hotwheels cars and a lurid take-a-part motorcycle toy into a neat line.  Next to them was a heaped pile of little green army men.

It was Grace’s turn to frown.  Mainly because, in spite of herself, her interest was piqued.

“No really, Charlie, what is this?”

He didn’t look up again.  “You know,” he said, stroking the coaster with one finger. 

“Huh.”  Grace came further into his room.

Parked cars, people in boxes, shiny floors, army men on stand-by. 

Yeah, she knew.

She pointed at him. “That Danno?”

In one fist Charlie was gripping a yellow-haired Lego mini figure, whose tiny size in comparison to the Cali Girl and Cali Guy was kind of hilarious.  Charlie looked at her and grinned.  He knew it was funny, too.  He picked up a few objects one by one, showed her, put them back.

“The magic table.  The lockbox.  The vending machine.”

Grace made an impressed face.  Her newly black-polished fingernail indicated a box with a clear plastic front.  In the far corner was one of Charlie’s special forces guys from his birthday Battlepack.  The box was closed.

“Timeout,” Charlie explained.

“Oh God.”  Grace had caught on, her glee sudden and warming.  “What did he do this time, and when did you go to Dad’s office?”

“The day Mom was at the D-I-V-O-R-C-E lawyer,” Charlie said, nonchalant.  “The day Uncle Steve jumped off the bridge.”

Ouch. 

“That why he’s in timeout?”

“He’s a bad boy,” Charlie said, full of admiration.

Grace wondered when his delight at the fact that Danny was a superhero and Uncle Steve was a nut job would turn to abject terror every time they were out of his sight. 

“Uncle Steve is going to play this with me when he comes,” Charlie went on, and Grace felt a sudden stab of panic, making herself count to five before she spoke.

“Well, Uncle Steve’s not feeling so good at the moment,” she said carefully.  “I don’t think he’ll be up to playing, not for a day or two.”

She didn’t know why this was so.  Just that Uncle Steve had been throwing up a lot, that it might be serious, and that Danno was pretending not to be beside himself with worry.  Which was not something Charlie needed to know one tiny thing about.

His face had dropped at the news.

“Let’s give them a reason to let Uncle Steve out the box,” Grace said quickly.

Charlie’s face lit up again, instant.  “Do they need the army men?”

“They will,” Grace said.  “Because you know they’re gonna catch a big case.”

“Cool,” Charlie said, rocking up on to his knees. He set the mini Danno down to stride across the coaster, towards the closed, plastic-fronted box where Uncle Steve was incarcerated.  Then he gave Grace a suspicious look.  “Are you playing this with me?”

Grace thought of all the other, way more interesting, things she had to do.  And how this was going to ruin her fingernails.

She sighed a little, but, “Long as I can be Auntie Kono,” she said, and sat down right next to him.