FIC: Have a Little Faith (5/8)
Oct. 2nd, 2011 04:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stellarmeadowTitle: Have a Little Faith
Fandoms: Hawaii Five-0 and Profiler
Author: stellarmeadow
Pairing: Steve/Danny, Sam/John
Rating: R for language
Summary: How do you handle a threat against your partner when you're juggling work and a new relationship?
Notes: See Part 1 for extensive notes
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4
The drive back to HQ was as silent as the drive home had been a handful of hours before, but the silence was less strained, which Steve counted as a win, considering the situation. They walked in to find Kono and Chin on the opposite side of the computer table from Sam and John, talking with a man with brown hair and an angular face, who Steve assumed was George, conferenced in on the video screen.
Judging by the uncomfortable pause in the conversation, Steve guessed he'd been the topic of conversation. "Any luck?" he asked, managing an only slightly-forced sounding lightness.
"George," Sam said, waving a hand at the man on the video screen, "has been searching, but--well, I'll let him explain it."
"There are usually inconsistencies in the structure of a database when changes have been made," George said. "Someone who doesn't entirely know what they're doing may manage to get into a system and change the data, but it's very difficult to actually override most systems and make it look as if the change was made earlier, so a quick look at an altered database often shows any changes just by sorting by date."
Steve nodded. "So you found something?"
"Not yet," George said. "We've looked at every change in the enrollment database during the time frame where the date of the change seemed off, but they've all been legitimate corrections and changes, nothing that seems to track back to the killer."
"So we have nothing?" Steve prompted, keeping his eyes on George and not looking anywhere near Danny.
"We're going through the enrollment lists now with backup lists, if they were available, to see if maybe one of the backups still has an old name, but…it takes a while. Computers can only do so much in this kind of search when the whole idea was to fool the computer in the first place, so it takes longer when we have to check everything the computer flags."
"How long could that take?" Steve asked.
George's eyes flickered off to the side--looking at Sam and John, Steve assumed, though the video screen made it appear as if he was looking at Chin and Kono. "If we have to go through all of it? A day. Maybe a little more. But we could come across something at any time. There's no way to know for sure."
"Then we stick with our plan," Steve said, looking around the room and daring anyone to challenge him. He'd done what they asked and waited, now it was their turn.
"Okay," Sam said finally, and Steve decided to ignore the glance she gave Danny before she said it. He could be magnanimous when he was about to get his way. "George, keep digging," Sam added, looking back at the screen. "Call us the second you find anything, and if we don't hear from you, we'll check back when we're done."
"Will do," George said. "Good luck."
Chin ended the video conference, the Hawaii state seal flashing for a moment before it was replaced by a detailed layout of the pool Danny had chosen for the op. They went over and over site lines and coverage, and where they had agents and cameras, and who was handling what, until Steve was ready to shove them all out the door so they could get this over with. He hated inaction when there was something he could do.
However, he couldn't help but be a little impressed at the thorough coverage they'd managed to put in place overnight. If the killer tried to enter the building, he'd be busted, and if he decided the pool itself was close enough and he didn't have to actually kill Steve in the water, the cameras and satellite imaging in use were likely to pick up any suspicious movement for miles.
He knew the one weakness was if the guy decided to shoot from inside a building instead of a rooftop. He would be harder for any of the imaging to spot, but it couldn't be helped, and Steve sure as hell wasn't about to point it out, especially since the chances of that causing a problem were minimal, given the location of the pool, and he would be covered and wearing a vest going in and out of the building.
"So what do you think he'll do?" Danny asked Sam when they'd finished going over the plan.
"I think he'll try to get inside," she said. "He's still inside his comfort zone as far as his timeline goes, and even though I'm sure he's figured out by now we're protecting you, he'll be confident he'll have another chance if he can't get in."
"You don't think having all the extra attention on Steve will scare him off?" Kono asked. "Make him find a new target?"
Sam shook her head. "He'll see it as a challenge. This guy gets off on taking out decorated SEALs. He's not going to back down at the sight of some FBI protection."
"Then let's go give him a target," Steve said.
He didn't miss Sam giving Danny another look, but he kept his mouth shut again as Danny stood up and clapped Steve on the shoulder. "Come on, Rambo, you ride with me."
Steve's relief to be in the car was short-lived as it took forever to slowly move their different vehicles out in perfect coordination. It was also tempered by the fact that he was relegated to the passenger seat, tapping his fingers on the armrest in frustration. "Why can't I drive?" he asked for the fourth time.
"Because I know you," Danny said for the fourth time.
"That's not an answer."
Danny narrowed his eyes at Steve. "Because you would want to take off and pull out in front of the lead car and lose all the protection we so carefully set up for you, and we agreed that if we did this, you would do everything we say, and I say your ass stays in the passenger seat until we're at the pool. Is that an answer?"
"Fine," Steve said. He'd like to think anyone on his team, let alone Danny, would know that he wouldn't do anything to jeopardize an operation, but then he might have given them cause to wonder recently, if it involved something personal, so he'd let it go. "You and Sam have become fast friends," he said.
"What?"
"Those looks between the two of you, that silent communication. What's up with that?"
Danny laughed. "You're not seriously jealous?"
"No, I'm not," Steve said, feeling the tips of his ears burn, ducking his head a little to hide the fact that they were most certainly pink. "Why would I be jealous?"
"Well, a normal person wouldn't be, but you're kind of…abnormal," Danny said. "So let me put your insane mind at rest, Steven. Even if I had the slightest bit of interest in her--which I do not--John Grant would shoot me in the face if I so much as looked at her that way. So you have nothing to worry about."
"I wasn't worried."
He laughed again. "Right."
"I wasn't!" Steve slumped down in the seat a little. "But you didn't answer my question. What's with the looks?"
Danny breathed in slowly, paying far more attention to his driving than following a large SUV on a route he had memorized required. "She understands," he said after a moment, "what it's like to send someone you care about out to the wolves as bait."
"We've all gone out as bait at some point," Steve said.
"Not like this," Danny said quietly, his hands holding the wheel a little tighter than necessary. "This isn't just another criminal out to break the law." His voice had that husky tone that Steve associated with Matt's betrayal, or Rachel's custody threats, and Steve had to swallow against the tightness in his own throat. "This guy wants you dead," Danny said. "You. Personally. He's come all the way here just to end you. It's not the same thing."
"Fair enough," Steve said, putting his hand on Danny's thigh and finishing the ride in silence.
***
By the time they were inside the natatorium, Steve was ready to jump in the pool clothes and all. He would've happily submitted to a swim with half the FBI watching, but when Sam and John didn't follow them through the last door, he couldn't stop the huge grin from splitting his face.
"Okay, Gypsy Rose Lee," Danny said, giving Steve's shoulder a little shove. "Get to the locker rooms before you start stripping. We may be alone, but there are security cameras in here and no one but me needs to see you naked."
Steve turned to face Danny, walking backward toward the locker rooms. "Cameras?"
"Yes. Video only, no audio--they were already in place and we were running short on time, so we used what they had. Honestly, did you pay attention to the hours we spent planning and going over this?"
"Yeah, I just…" Steve grinned and pointed at the pool. "I'm focused on swimming."
Danny shook his head. "Go. Get dressed. Or undressed, as the case may be."
Steve turned and ducked into the locker rooms, his shirt off before he'd gotten two steps into the room, dropping it with his bag by the nearest bench. He had to sit down to take off his shoes, which was when he noticed Danny was undressing as well. "You're swimming?" Steve asked, one shoe dropping to the floor from where he'd held it mid-air.
"I'm preparing," Danny said, "in case I need to go in the water. That doesn't mean I will."
"Oh."
Danny's mouth softened into a smile. "Behave yourself, and I might actually get in the water."
"Oh!" Steve finished undressing and slipped into his trunks. "Meet you out there?"
"Uh, no. Rule one: Steve does not go near water alone."
"We live on an island, Danny," Steve said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "That's going to be kind of difficult."
"Shut up." Danny finished changing and stood while Steve tried hard not to hop up and down like a kid. "Okay, now we can go," Danny said at last, leading Steve back out to the water.
They put their guns and the radio the FBI had given them close by the side of the pool, the occasional crackle followed by someone checking in sounding louder in the giant room than it had in the locker room. Steve flashed Danny a smile and dove in at the deep end, swimming the length before popping back up at the other end to breathe.
He turned to see Danny still standing at the other end near their guns and the radio, watching with a look on his face that Steve couldn't quite place. "What?" Steve asked, wincing when the word echoed off the walls a little.
"What what?" Danny replied.
Steve shoved off the wall, speeding through the water to reach the other end, pulling himself up, his fingers inches from Danny's feet. "That look," Steve said. "What was that look?"
"I don't know what look you mean."
He did, Steve could tell, but he could also tell he wasn't getting an answer, and he didn't want to waste precious time fighting a losing battle. "You coming in?"
"I'm fine here."
"You really don't know how to swim, do you?"
With a sigh, Danny nudged the radio with a toe. "Stay here and watch this," he said. Before Steve could even nod, Danny was diving over Steve's head into the water, cutting a clean path through the first third of the pool before surfacing. He kept up a fast forward crawl all the way to the far end, doing a perfect flip and coming back up into a forward crawl again until he reached Steve once more. "See?" Danny said, barely out of breath, clinging to the side of the pool with one hand to avoid having to tread water. "I can swim."
"Wow," Steve said, surprise warring for his attention with the way drops of water clung to Danny's eyelashes. "That was...uh...I'm impressed."
"Thank you," Danny said. "Now that we've settled that, are you going to swim? I mean, that is why we came here."
Steve smiled. "Right. Are you going to stay in the water?"
"I'll sit on the side," Danny said, hauling himself out to sit on the edge of the pool, feet dangling in the water. "Someone's got to keep watch."
"There are cameras."
"Cameras can't shoot a gun." Danny nudged Steve in the stomach with one foot. "Go. Swim."
After pinching Danny's toe, Steve submerged again, swimming laps until long after he'd lost count, Danny's feet in the pool the only thing reminding him of the world outside the water each time he made it to that end. He'd needed the mind-emptying combination of exercise and the inherent sensory deprivation of being underwater even more than he'd realized, and by the time he finally stopped, one hand on the edge of the pool next to Danny's knee, he felt better than he had since he'd walked into HQ and seen Sam and John for the first time.
"Feel better?" Danny asked softly, that look on his face again.
"Much."
"Good."
Steve slid his hand up Danny's foot to his ankle. "Come in the water with me."
"Someone's got to--"
"--keep watch, I know. But you can do it from the water." He saw Danny hesitate. "We can go over on the steps, take the guns and radio with us."
Danny pulled his foot out of Steve's grasp and pushed himself up to his feet as he nodded. "As long as one of us is in reach of these," he said, holding up both their guns and the radio as he walked around the pool to the steps at the other end.
Steve swam down to join him, sitting on the lowest step so he was in the water up to his chest. Danny took a seat beside him, the water reaching his shoulders. "Happy now?" Danny asked.
"Yeah," Steve replied softly, looking away from Danny's collarbone and focusing on the water stretched out in front of them. "When my mom died," Steve said slowly, "I practically lived in the ocean behind the house. The first week I was out so long one day Mary called the Coast Guard because she thought I'd drowned."
"What about when you left?"
"Our cousins had a house on the beach in L.A., so I just traded one side of the Pacific for another." Steve leaned back on the step behind him, enjoying the feel of the water all around his body. "It's like when I'm in the water, there's nothing else. It's just me, no outside noise, nothing but how hard I can push myself."
Danny leaned back, his arm pressed against Steve's. "Should I leave you two alone?" he joked.
"When I was swimming this time," Steve said, turning back to look at Danny, "there was one extra thing."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, your feet, every time I reached that end."
Danny blinked. "You were the one who wanted me to stay in the water," he said, as if he thought it was an accusation.
"No, I mean, it's not that it was bad." Steve looked for the right words. "I mean I noticed. In the ocean, in a pool, no matter how many people there are, they usually just disappear when I start swimming like that. But you were still there."
"Oh." Danny's smile drew Steve in until their lips were touching, a lingering kiss, but nothing more. "Cameras," Danny muttered against Steve's mouth.
"Right. Cameras." He pulled back before he couldn't stop himself from embarrassing them both by going too far for video--or at least any video suitable for minors and FBI agents.
Danny bumped his shoulder against Steve's. "You should get some more swimming in before we go."
"Yeah, maybe a--"
Kono's voice, louder and more urgent than the check ins that had become background noise, cut through the radio. "Possible suspect," she said, "north corner, trying the door."
Steve and Danny were both out of the water before she'd finished, guns in hand, trained on the two doors that led in from the north corner of the building. They both whirled around when the western door opened, but it was just John and Sam, guns out. "Thought you could use extra eyes in here," John said, surveying the room.
"Thanks," Steve said.
"Suspect on the move," Kono said through the radio. "Chin, he's headed your way. Blue jeans, blue windbreaker, hood up."
"Copy that," Chin said.
They waited, seconds feeling like hours, until Chin's voice came over the radio. "Kono's with me. The suspect managed to shake her and didn't come this way. Kowalski, Brown, Jackson - anything?"
A chorus of "no's" came through, and Steve closed his eyes, lowering his gun. So close to being done with this, and now they were back at square one.
"It's okay," Sam said, and he felt her hand on his shoulder before he opened his eyes to look at her. "We had cameras on the doors--at the very least we probably know what he looks like now."
Steve nodded, straightening his spine. "Let's get out of here and find out who this guy is, then," he said, heading for the locker room. It was only when Danny bumped into him along the way that he felt the tension in his muscles start to ease.
***
Chapter 6
Fandoms: Hawaii Five-0 and Profiler
Author: stellarmeadow
Pairing: Steve/Danny, Sam/John
Rating: R for language
Summary: How do you handle a threat against your partner when you're juggling work and a new relationship?
Notes: See Part 1 for extensive notes
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4
The drive back to HQ was as silent as the drive home had been a handful of hours before, but the silence was less strained, which Steve counted as a win, considering the situation. They walked in to find Kono and Chin on the opposite side of the computer table from Sam and John, talking with a man with brown hair and an angular face, who Steve assumed was George, conferenced in on the video screen.
Judging by the uncomfortable pause in the conversation, Steve guessed he'd been the topic of conversation. "Any luck?" he asked, managing an only slightly-forced sounding lightness.
"George," Sam said, waving a hand at the man on the video screen, "has been searching, but--well, I'll let him explain it."
"There are usually inconsistencies in the structure of a database when changes have been made," George said. "Someone who doesn't entirely know what they're doing may manage to get into a system and change the data, but it's very difficult to actually override most systems and make it look as if the change was made earlier, so a quick look at an altered database often shows any changes just by sorting by date."
Steve nodded. "So you found something?"
"Not yet," George said. "We've looked at every change in the enrollment database during the time frame where the date of the change seemed off, but they've all been legitimate corrections and changes, nothing that seems to track back to the killer."
"So we have nothing?" Steve prompted, keeping his eyes on George and not looking anywhere near Danny.
"We're going through the enrollment lists now with backup lists, if they were available, to see if maybe one of the backups still has an old name, but…it takes a while. Computers can only do so much in this kind of search when the whole idea was to fool the computer in the first place, so it takes longer when we have to check everything the computer flags."
"How long could that take?" Steve asked.
George's eyes flickered off to the side--looking at Sam and John, Steve assumed, though the video screen made it appear as if he was looking at Chin and Kono. "If we have to go through all of it? A day. Maybe a little more. But we could come across something at any time. There's no way to know for sure."
"Then we stick with our plan," Steve said, looking around the room and daring anyone to challenge him. He'd done what they asked and waited, now it was their turn.
"Okay," Sam said finally, and Steve decided to ignore the glance she gave Danny before she said it. He could be magnanimous when he was about to get his way. "George, keep digging," Sam added, looking back at the screen. "Call us the second you find anything, and if we don't hear from you, we'll check back when we're done."
"Will do," George said. "Good luck."
Chin ended the video conference, the Hawaii state seal flashing for a moment before it was replaced by a detailed layout of the pool Danny had chosen for the op. They went over and over site lines and coverage, and where they had agents and cameras, and who was handling what, until Steve was ready to shove them all out the door so they could get this over with. He hated inaction when there was something he could do.
However, he couldn't help but be a little impressed at the thorough coverage they'd managed to put in place overnight. If the killer tried to enter the building, he'd be busted, and if he decided the pool itself was close enough and he didn't have to actually kill Steve in the water, the cameras and satellite imaging in use were likely to pick up any suspicious movement for miles.
He knew the one weakness was if the guy decided to shoot from inside a building instead of a rooftop. He would be harder for any of the imaging to spot, but it couldn't be helped, and Steve sure as hell wasn't about to point it out, especially since the chances of that causing a problem were minimal, given the location of the pool, and he would be covered and wearing a vest going in and out of the building.
"So what do you think he'll do?" Danny asked Sam when they'd finished going over the plan.
"I think he'll try to get inside," she said. "He's still inside his comfort zone as far as his timeline goes, and even though I'm sure he's figured out by now we're protecting you, he'll be confident he'll have another chance if he can't get in."
"You don't think having all the extra attention on Steve will scare him off?" Kono asked. "Make him find a new target?"
Sam shook her head. "He'll see it as a challenge. This guy gets off on taking out decorated SEALs. He's not going to back down at the sight of some FBI protection."
"Then let's go give him a target," Steve said.
He didn't miss Sam giving Danny another look, but he kept his mouth shut again as Danny stood up and clapped Steve on the shoulder. "Come on, Rambo, you ride with me."
Steve's relief to be in the car was short-lived as it took forever to slowly move their different vehicles out in perfect coordination. It was also tempered by the fact that he was relegated to the passenger seat, tapping his fingers on the armrest in frustration. "Why can't I drive?" he asked for the fourth time.
"Because I know you," Danny said for the fourth time.
"That's not an answer."
Danny narrowed his eyes at Steve. "Because you would want to take off and pull out in front of the lead car and lose all the protection we so carefully set up for you, and we agreed that if we did this, you would do everything we say, and I say your ass stays in the passenger seat until we're at the pool. Is that an answer?"
"Fine," Steve said. He'd like to think anyone on his team, let alone Danny, would know that he wouldn't do anything to jeopardize an operation, but then he might have given them cause to wonder recently, if it involved something personal, so he'd let it go. "You and Sam have become fast friends," he said.
"What?"
"Those looks between the two of you, that silent communication. What's up with that?"
Danny laughed. "You're not seriously jealous?"
"No, I'm not," Steve said, feeling the tips of his ears burn, ducking his head a little to hide the fact that they were most certainly pink. "Why would I be jealous?"
"Well, a normal person wouldn't be, but you're kind of…abnormal," Danny said. "So let me put your insane mind at rest, Steven. Even if I had the slightest bit of interest in her--which I do not--John Grant would shoot me in the face if I so much as looked at her that way. So you have nothing to worry about."
"I wasn't worried."
He laughed again. "Right."
"I wasn't!" Steve slumped down in the seat a little. "But you didn't answer my question. What's with the looks?"
Danny breathed in slowly, paying far more attention to his driving than following a large SUV on a route he had memorized required. "She understands," he said after a moment, "what it's like to send someone you care about out to the wolves as bait."
"We've all gone out as bait at some point," Steve said.
"Not like this," Danny said quietly, his hands holding the wheel a little tighter than necessary. "This isn't just another criminal out to break the law." His voice had that husky tone that Steve associated with Matt's betrayal, or Rachel's custody threats, and Steve had to swallow against the tightness in his own throat. "This guy wants you dead," Danny said. "You. Personally. He's come all the way here just to end you. It's not the same thing."
"Fair enough," Steve said, putting his hand on Danny's thigh and finishing the ride in silence.
***
By the time they were inside the natatorium, Steve was ready to jump in the pool clothes and all. He would've happily submitted to a swim with half the FBI watching, but when Sam and John didn't follow them through the last door, he couldn't stop the huge grin from splitting his face.
"Okay, Gypsy Rose Lee," Danny said, giving Steve's shoulder a little shove. "Get to the locker rooms before you start stripping. We may be alone, but there are security cameras in here and no one but me needs to see you naked."
Steve turned to face Danny, walking backward toward the locker rooms. "Cameras?"
"Yes. Video only, no audio--they were already in place and we were running short on time, so we used what they had. Honestly, did you pay attention to the hours we spent planning and going over this?"
"Yeah, I just…" Steve grinned and pointed at the pool. "I'm focused on swimming."
Danny shook his head. "Go. Get dressed. Or undressed, as the case may be."
Steve turned and ducked into the locker rooms, his shirt off before he'd gotten two steps into the room, dropping it with his bag by the nearest bench. He had to sit down to take off his shoes, which was when he noticed Danny was undressing as well. "You're swimming?" Steve asked, one shoe dropping to the floor from where he'd held it mid-air.
"I'm preparing," Danny said, "in case I need to go in the water. That doesn't mean I will."
"Oh."
Danny's mouth softened into a smile. "Behave yourself, and I might actually get in the water."
"Oh!" Steve finished undressing and slipped into his trunks. "Meet you out there?"
"Uh, no. Rule one: Steve does not go near water alone."
"We live on an island, Danny," Steve said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "That's going to be kind of difficult."
"Shut up." Danny finished changing and stood while Steve tried hard not to hop up and down like a kid. "Okay, now we can go," Danny said at last, leading Steve back out to the water.
They put their guns and the radio the FBI had given them close by the side of the pool, the occasional crackle followed by someone checking in sounding louder in the giant room than it had in the locker room. Steve flashed Danny a smile and dove in at the deep end, swimming the length before popping back up at the other end to breathe.
He turned to see Danny still standing at the other end near their guns and the radio, watching with a look on his face that Steve couldn't quite place. "What?" Steve asked, wincing when the word echoed off the walls a little.
"What what?" Danny replied.
Steve shoved off the wall, speeding through the water to reach the other end, pulling himself up, his fingers inches from Danny's feet. "That look," Steve said. "What was that look?"
"I don't know what look you mean."
He did, Steve could tell, but he could also tell he wasn't getting an answer, and he didn't want to waste precious time fighting a losing battle. "You coming in?"
"I'm fine here."
"You really don't know how to swim, do you?"
With a sigh, Danny nudged the radio with a toe. "Stay here and watch this," he said. Before Steve could even nod, Danny was diving over Steve's head into the water, cutting a clean path through the first third of the pool before surfacing. He kept up a fast forward crawl all the way to the far end, doing a perfect flip and coming back up into a forward crawl again until he reached Steve once more. "See?" Danny said, barely out of breath, clinging to the side of the pool with one hand to avoid having to tread water. "I can swim."
"Wow," Steve said, surprise warring for his attention with the way drops of water clung to Danny's eyelashes. "That was...uh...I'm impressed."
"Thank you," Danny said. "Now that we've settled that, are you going to swim? I mean, that is why we came here."
Steve smiled. "Right. Are you going to stay in the water?"
"I'll sit on the side," Danny said, hauling himself out to sit on the edge of the pool, feet dangling in the water. "Someone's got to keep watch."
"There are cameras."
"Cameras can't shoot a gun." Danny nudged Steve in the stomach with one foot. "Go. Swim."
After pinching Danny's toe, Steve submerged again, swimming laps until long after he'd lost count, Danny's feet in the pool the only thing reminding him of the world outside the water each time he made it to that end. He'd needed the mind-emptying combination of exercise and the inherent sensory deprivation of being underwater even more than he'd realized, and by the time he finally stopped, one hand on the edge of the pool next to Danny's knee, he felt better than he had since he'd walked into HQ and seen Sam and John for the first time.
"Feel better?" Danny asked softly, that look on his face again.
"Much."
"Good."
Steve slid his hand up Danny's foot to his ankle. "Come in the water with me."
"Someone's got to--"
"--keep watch, I know. But you can do it from the water." He saw Danny hesitate. "We can go over on the steps, take the guns and radio with us."
Danny pulled his foot out of Steve's grasp and pushed himself up to his feet as he nodded. "As long as one of us is in reach of these," he said, holding up both their guns and the radio as he walked around the pool to the steps at the other end.
Steve swam down to join him, sitting on the lowest step so he was in the water up to his chest. Danny took a seat beside him, the water reaching his shoulders. "Happy now?" Danny asked.
"Yeah," Steve replied softly, looking away from Danny's collarbone and focusing on the water stretched out in front of them. "When my mom died," Steve said slowly, "I practically lived in the ocean behind the house. The first week I was out so long one day Mary called the Coast Guard because she thought I'd drowned."
"What about when you left?"
"Our cousins had a house on the beach in L.A., so I just traded one side of the Pacific for another." Steve leaned back on the step behind him, enjoying the feel of the water all around his body. "It's like when I'm in the water, there's nothing else. It's just me, no outside noise, nothing but how hard I can push myself."
Danny leaned back, his arm pressed against Steve's. "Should I leave you two alone?" he joked.
"When I was swimming this time," Steve said, turning back to look at Danny, "there was one extra thing."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, your feet, every time I reached that end."
Danny blinked. "You were the one who wanted me to stay in the water," he said, as if he thought it was an accusation.
"No, I mean, it's not that it was bad." Steve looked for the right words. "I mean I noticed. In the ocean, in a pool, no matter how many people there are, they usually just disappear when I start swimming like that. But you were still there."
"Oh." Danny's smile drew Steve in until their lips were touching, a lingering kiss, but nothing more. "Cameras," Danny muttered against Steve's mouth.
"Right. Cameras." He pulled back before he couldn't stop himself from embarrassing them both by going too far for video--or at least any video suitable for minors and FBI agents.
Danny bumped his shoulder against Steve's. "You should get some more swimming in before we go."
"Yeah, maybe a--"
Kono's voice, louder and more urgent than the check ins that had become background noise, cut through the radio. "Possible suspect," she said, "north corner, trying the door."
Steve and Danny were both out of the water before she'd finished, guns in hand, trained on the two doors that led in from the north corner of the building. They both whirled around when the western door opened, but it was just John and Sam, guns out. "Thought you could use extra eyes in here," John said, surveying the room.
"Thanks," Steve said.
"Suspect on the move," Kono said through the radio. "Chin, he's headed your way. Blue jeans, blue windbreaker, hood up."
"Copy that," Chin said.
They waited, seconds feeling like hours, until Chin's voice came over the radio. "Kono's with me. The suspect managed to shake her and didn't come this way. Kowalski, Brown, Jackson - anything?"
A chorus of "no's" came through, and Steve closed his eyes, lowering his gun. So close to being done with this, and now they were back at square one.
"It's okay," Sam said, and he felt her hand on his shoulder before he opened his eyes to look at her. "We had cameras on the doors--at the very least we probably know what he looks like now."
Steve nodded, straightening his spine. "Let's get out of here and find out who this guy is, then," he said, heading for the locker room. It was only when Danny bumped into him along the way that he felt the tension in his muscles start to ease.
***
Chapter 6
