You're A Very Good Father

"You're a very good father." Steve remembered those words as if they were yesterday. It was over six months and over half a year since Steve had returned to Hawaii to bury his dead father and met Detective Danny Williams.

The words echoed in Steve's head again. "You're a very good father." What had he meant? Steve had only met Danny hours before when he said the words. How would he know what kind of father Danny was? Perhaps it was the way how Danny talked about Grace.

Or perhaps...

Steve wondered if his father had talked about him that way when he was eight years old. Most likely not. John McGarrett was a man of steel. He never showed what he was thinking. He had hardly ever shown any emotion, even to his children. Steve sighed, thinking. What kind of man was Steve now? When he was a teen, he had vowed to not be a man like his father. As time passed, the differences between them became more and more subtle. Steve didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Or even if it was just indifferent.

"Have I mentioned how wonderful you are with children?" Steve snickered at the memory. As far as he could tell, his father hadn't been smooth with children either. Not even with his own. Steve wondered if he wasn't very good with children because he didn't have his own, or if it was his lack of love from his father. Perhaps it was both.

The earliest memory of his father was when they visited Pearl Harbor Memorial. Steve remembered sitting on his father's shoulders, amazed at the sunset before him. He remembered his father's expression as they neared the memorial: sad, burdened. Mary, Steve's little sister, Mary, was held in their mother's arms. He remembered her expression too. It was the same as his father's. Only later did he know about the sadness about going there. His father then started to speak, telling the story about his father, the first Steve McGarrett. Steve was around three years old.

As a child, Steve sometimes wondered if his father named him after his grandfather because he wanted Steve to be the father who he had never known. "You weren't held as a baby, were you?" Steve never recalled his father holding him as a baby. Only his mother's warm arms held the truth that he had been held. The only holding, as far as Steve was concerned, was when he sat on his father's shoulders at the yearly visit to Pear Harbor Memorial, which stopped when he was five. Steve never knew his father's mother. She had died before when he was born. Steve had always wanted to ask her if that seeming unemotional man had feelings once. Not once did he tell Steve that he loved him. Until the day he died. "I love you, son. I didn't say it enough."

True to that.

"Danno loves you." Danny had told Grace so many times, Steve sometimes wondered if it was a second nature to Grace. At first, it had hurt him to hear it over and over again, but now...it was something familiar.

What had he meant when he told Danny that he was a very good father? A good father is...a father who tells you that he loves you. A father that protects you, and doesn't push you away. A father should be someone that you know loves you, even though he doesn't say it.

Steve said it again. Danny, always the complainer, was bitching about Rachel taking Grace again for another weekend. As the rant went on, Steve found his mind slipping away. Grace is a very lucky girl.

Danny stopped ranting when he realized that his sole audience wasn't paying attention. "Yes?" he sighed.

"You're a very good father." Steve said.

"Why do you always say that when I'm talking about Grace? Is it some kind of Army code that I, a native New Jersey cop, won't get? What is the matter with you?"

Steve paused for a moment. "First of all it's the Navy. Second of all, it is kind of a code."

"What kind of code, Rambo?" Danny was starting to rant again. "Oh, I'm sorry, Super SEAL. Is it a code that goes tick-tick-tick until you want to explode? What kind of code is it?"

"It's a code about fatherhood, Danny." Before Danny could open his mouth, Steve continued. "It's about being a father. Believe me, you are a very good father."

Something in Steve's eyes told Danny that Steve was serious. "So...what does the code entitle?" he asked frowning.

Steve paused for a moment. "A good father is a father who lets his children know that he loves them, and even when he doesn't they just know. A good father doesn't push away his kids when they need him the most." Steve fell silent. "You do all that to Grace, Danny. But not mine." Steve silently added.

"Are you talking about your old man?" Danny inquired. When Steve nodded, Danny shook his head. "I don't understand. When you talk about him, he seems to be...I don't know, Bill Gates."

"I hated him for a long time," said Steve, ignoring Danny's comment. "I hated him because he sent us away to the mainland after Mom died."

"Well, all teenage boys have angst against their fathers."

"The vendetta went well beyond adolescence, my friend. It went on until the day he died." Steve paused, and then laughed at himself. "I told myself that I was never going to be like my father. Now look where I am. I'm exactly like him. Exactly." Steve looked at Danny. "You know, that was the first and only time that he told me he loved me."

Danny licked his lips. He wasn't certain what to say. Normally, he would go on a rant, but his partner here was in a shape that Danny had never seen before. The Super SEAL looked defeated.

"All fathers are never the same." Danny advised to his partner. "I am absolutely certain that he did love you, Steven, there's no doubt in my mind. He just didn't know how to show it."

Steve managed to crack a grin. "Thanks."

"Oh, yeah." Danny had forgotten to add something.

"Hmm?"

"I'm certain he would be very pleased that you're a reckless son of a bitch like he was."

Steve laughed.

Then he thought of his father, the man who he had once admired in his childhood, and someone who, again, he admired.

He didn't know what to say.