His Last Thoughts

Early 1976

John McGarrett stared longingly at his lovely wife. The brunette beauty had a hint of a smile on her lips, and she kissed him tenderly. Instinctively, his hands groped around her swollen stomach. It held a new life. A baby. His son. Suddenly, John felt a movement within. John smiled. His baby was moving.

"What is it?" his wife asked lovingly, stroking his face.

"I feel him," said John. He moved his wife's hand to her stomach. "He's strong."

Spring, 1976

John McGarrett held the small bundle in his arms. He held the bundle close, glancing to look again at the small face. His son didn't wake, sleeping peacefully. His small hands were curled around his father's. John wondered briefly what his father would have thought of him moments after he was born. Suddenly, his son's eyes opened. John stared back at the eyes that were blue, blue as the Hawaiian ocean. His father had those very same eyes.

"What should we name him?" John's wife asked. She glanced lovingly at the bundle her husband held.

"His name is Steven." John replied, not once looking at his wife. His gaze was on the baby, who was asleep again. "After my father, Steve McGarrett."

1981

"Steve!"

The five-year old looked curiously at his father. "Yes, Dad?"

"Come here, boy."

Steve obliged and walked over to his father. John still was amazed of the resemblance between his son and his own father. The boy had dark brown hair, the same shade as his father's had been at that age. John could clearly see that the boy not only inherited his father's eyes, but personality as well.

"What do you want to be when you grow up, Steve?" John asked.

Steve didn't pause. "I want to be a cop, Dad, like you."

John McGarrett suppressed a sigh as Steve stared longingly at his uniform. Since he was a child, Steve didn't understand what a being a cop meant. There was always danger every day you were on call. John was determined that his children would never experience that.

"Be anything but that."

"Why?" Steve asked. His blue eyes widened in surprise.

John was about to answer his son when the answer froze in his throat. Steve didn't have to know. Not yet.

"Another time, son." John patted Steve's hair affectionately. "Go play with your sister."

Steve eagerly nodded and went outside to find his sister.

John sighed. He wondered when his son would realize that Hawaii was not the safest place on earth.

1986

"Where are we, Dad?" Steve asked, pausing to look down onto the terrain bellow. The wind blew gently on his face.

John unstapled his pack and took a long drink from his water bottle. He could see that his son was watching him intently, waiting for him to speak. Steve had grown in the past five years. His childish face was more like a young man's and the shade of his hair was darker. He had grown taller as well.

"We are at a hiking ridge, Steve." John watched with amusement as his son's eyes gleamed with interest. "Look at this scenery." John withdrew his gaze from his son and gazed at the land below them. "Isn't it beautiful?"

Steve nodded in agreement. "It's better than going to a baseball game."

John's eyes crinkled at the comment. "I thought you didn't like baseball."

"I do." Steve smiled. "It's just something my friend said."

Father and son stood in silence, witnessing the beauty.

"We can come every year if you would like, son." John said as they walked the trail.

"Really?" Steve's eyes gleamed in excitement.

"Of course." John stopped. They were nearly toward the summit. "One of these days you'll beat me to the summit."

Now it Steve's eyes crinkled. "I don't think that happen. Not while you're alive, Dad."

John wondered when his son would realize that he wasn't invincible. Or that Hawaii was as dangerous as the mainland. "This place will never change, even when I'm gone, Steve."

Father and son both walked toward the summit.

1988

"Dad?"

"What is it, Steve?" John looked up at his son. Steve's eyes were unusually troubled.

"Kids at school keep calling me a haole." Steve grimaced at the word, as if he were tasting something disgusting. "I know I'm white, but inside I feel Hawaiian. Hawaii is my home." Steve took a breath. "I never want to leave Hawaii, because to me Hawaii is the safest place on earth." Steve swallowed as John listened closely. "Am I really a haole?" Steve finally asked.

John could fairly see the passion in his son's eyes. He truly felt Hawaiian. But what made a person a haole? The color of their skin?

"You're not a haole, Steve." John answered. "You're Five-0."

"Five-0?" Steve's eyebrows raised at the uncommon word.

"Yes, you're Five-0." John repeated.

His son nodded, pretended he understood.

1992

"No, Mom! No!"

John McGarrett raised his head from the empty bed. Before, when they were children, his wife would comfort Mary and Steve from their frightful dreams. Now his wife was dead, and John was the only one they had.

As he neared Steve's room, John's heart swelled with sorrow. Since his wife died, Steve had had horrible nightmares and Mary never stopped crying. Which was worse? Was it worse than feeling responsible for your wife's death?

His teenage son was soaked his own perspiration as he wrestled in bed. John neared to touch Steve, but when he did, Steve flinched. He watched again as Steve began to scream from the nightmare that only he could see. His fingers scrapped the sheets.

"Steve!" John yelled, shaking Steve awake. He wouldn't waken. "Steve!"

Steve's eyes snapped open. His breathing slowly eased as he recognized his father's form. John was pained to see anguish in his son's vague gaze.

Without a word, John held Steve close. He put his arms tenderly around his son as Steve uncontrollably sobbed.

"I'm sorry." John whispered in Steve's ear even though he knew that Steve wouldn't hear him. "I'm sorry."

Steve was silent the next day. John watched as he silently moved, lifting one foot in front of another.

"I just realized something." Steve's voice was raspy and hollow. He didn't look at John when spoke.

"What did you realize?" John asked.

John gazed at his son's swollen eyes. "Hawaii isn't safe, is it? I don't want to be a cop anymore."

September 20, 2010

Eighteen years is a long time. John hadn't seen his son at all in that timeframe. He knew that Steve was now in the Navy, as he and his father had been. Still, as the gun was pointed at his temple, John could only remember the lanky and wavy-haired boy his son had been. Not as a man.

"Dad?" Steve's voice vibrated from the phone. He sounded different, John realized. Steve McGarrett had grown. He was now a man, better man than him, John hoped.

As the conversation went along on the other end, John felt proud of his son. Eventually, Steve would find out about the truth about his mother's death, and his father's as well.

Yes, John McGarrett was going to die.

As he listened to his son's desperate pleas and Victor Hesse's rage, John whispered those words again.

"I love you, son."

How he wished he had said those words when he was alive.