Title: Up in the Air
Author: JoJo
Fandom: Hawaii Five-O (2010)
Rating: G
Relationships: Steve/Danny
Characters: Kono Kalakaua, Chin Ho Kelly, Danny Williams, Lori Weston, Steve McGarrett, Joe White, Wade Gutchens
Wordcount: 1,233
Challenge: Flight

A/n: post episode 2.10 Ki’ilua (Deceiver)

Summary:  Eight hours in a plane to think about how nothing was solved.


In a slough of turbulence somewhere over the north Pacific, Kono jerked awake.

It was cool in the aircraft, and her jaw hurt from the vibrations.  She licked her dry lips, tried to find a more comfortable sitting position.  Everything rattled.  The seats, the cargo, the floor. 

Hand straying, sluggish, to check her frayed safety belt, Kono shifted again, shut her eyes, hoping to drop back to sleep.  Around her there were ominous creakings, and then the plane shuddered.  Kono saw Chin’s over-concentrated gaze shift from what he was reading, to the ceiling, and then back to the page.  She closed her eyes, weary, only to pop them open a moment later.  Chin was looking at her, his face livid with fatigue, lit by one of the only overhead lamps working.

Can you believe this? his expression said.

After a year, Kono easily could.

Next to her, Lori was out of it.  Her light brown hair was in a straggly tail, her clothes disheveled, her posture one of private misery.  Kono sighed.  She could have told her she was on a hiding to nothing making doe eyes at McGarrett.  In fact, perhaps she did tell her, she couldn’t remember.

Wade, Joe, and the crazy remnants of SEAL Team 9 were further along. All fast asleep and looking weirdly comfortable, as if they were entirely unaware and uncaring of the harsh shifts and unease of the aircraft. 

On the floor, McGarrett was strapped to an approximation of a gurney, itself bolted to the floor.  He was not as knocked out as he should have been, Kono thought.  Neither properly conscious nor fully sedated, always on the edges of escape.  Danny was out of his seat, slumped on the floor next to him, scarcely more alert.  One hand was looped under the strap round Steve’s hips, the other clamped round his forearm. 

Just as well Lori was out of it, Kono thought, because that sight wouldn’t make her feel any better.

She moved again to get Chin’s attention.

“How long?” she mouthed at him and he flicked at his magazine, agitated, looked at his watch, held up five fingers. 

Oh God, really?  They’d only been up in this tin-can for three hours?

Chin made a sympathetic face.  He glanced along at the gurney, rattling hard enough to break loose from its moorings, glanced back to Kono, worried. She shrugged, shook her head.

It was unacceptable and frustrating, but there was little more they could do.  McGarrett had been in Wo Fat’s hands, so he was, at the very least, badly beat up and dehydrated. They’d always known they wouldn’t be able to hang around to find any proper medical attention for him.  Or a comfortable commercial flight that wouldn’t rattle his cracked ribs quite so bad.  This rumbling hulk of a transport plane had been their only option, and truly they should be grateful they’d made it back to the airfield at all. 

Steve would have been the first to remind them of that.  If he’d been able.

Once Tangerine was down safe he’d been upright but unstable.  He’d let Kono hug him outside Frank’s timber house, hanging on longer than she thought he wanted or they had time for. 

Lori had stood nibbling her thumb nail, eyes never off Steve’s bloodied face while Danny mumbled about Jenna, unable to hide the trauma of seeing her dead in a bunker – or of having expected to find Steve equally dead.  McGarrett, for his part, had a wounded, closed-off look, deeper and more dangerous than betrayal. 

Even though she actually wouldn’t, not in front of them, Kono didn’t know who to cry for most.

They’d persuaded Steve on to a chair in Frank’s timber house, and then he’d unexpectedly passed out on them.  Kono hadn’t noticed at first, too giddy with relief to see them all back alive.  It was Danny, of course, who realized the Boss was crashing.

“Whoah,” he’d yelped in warning.  “Whoah, whoah, hey.”

But McGarrett, even under Danny’s anchoring hand, had been heading for the floor along with his blood pressure.  And he’d been barely responsive since. 

Wade and Joe between them had treated the burns and what other injuries they could see. Danny played Mary Magdalene, washed the blood off his face, tended bare feet cut to ribbons.  They’d wrapped the damaged ribcage, run some fluids and morphine through.  All in about twenty minutes while the rest of them gathered up the kit.

The trip by truck back to the airfield at Paju hadn’t been easy, although at least Steve, horizontal, hadn’t kept hitting his head on the damn roof like the rest of them had.  And then, once he was strapped into the supply aircraft gurney, and the engines were running, they’d left him to Danny’s care.

Lori, foiled again, looked as if her dog had been run over.

Give it up, Kono had silently pleaded with her.  Just give it up now before it cuts any deeper.

They’d all hunkered down, needing to get some rest.

Some rest, Kono thought.  And some flight.  She didn’t remember the outbound journey being so rough. 

The aircraft, as it had since take-off, groaned and bounced again, as if it was about to fall apart and drop out of the sky. Lori pulled at her belt, snuffled, somehow stayed asleep.  She had accepted the knockout juice that Joe White casually handed around to the SEAL boys.  Danny, Kono, and Chin – more cops than special ops – had refused.

“Sleep?” Kono mouthed at her cousin now, but he just shook his head.  He’d be awake until they were safe on O’ahu.  Until he was in his own bed and knew everyone else was in theirs.  God, he was going to make a great doctor’s wife.  She nodded at the magazine in his lap, made herself smile at him.  “Wedding Style?” she suggested with an eyebrow quirk and he must have understood because he made himself smile back.

Then he frowned again as the aircraft shook. The gurney bounced on the metal floor and Steve’s head came up, eyes flying open.  Kono heard Chin yell at Danny, probably telling him to strap the hell up as it wasn’t safe.

Danny gestured a slow-motion, grumpy, negative.

He’d clearly decided he was Steve’s safety belt, and Kono doubted they get him to shift until final approach. If then. 

She closed her eyes, weary of the dim interior.  Weary of all the mess.

Surfing these unholy pockets of air was beginning to make her dizzy.

And there were just too many difficult things to think about, and a whole lot more hours to think about them in. 

Where Wo Fat might have gone to ground, for a start.

What Steve’s next move would be – that any of them could possibly let him make.

Why on earth the governor wouldn’t just dismantle Five-O immediately if he found about this unsanctioned mission. 

Oh, God, and Lori.  Super smart Lori, stupid in love and heading for heartbreak.

Kono shifted towards her.

The aircraft rattled and swayed as they plowed through the weather.  Chin flicked at his magazine, yawned.  Steve’s head rolled one way in a battle with waking dreams, and then the other, cheek making contact with Danny’s hand. 

Next to her, Lori made a little murmuring sound, moved closer into Kono’s side.

So many things up in the air.