There are few things he loves more than the afternoons and evenings that he gets Grace. Picking her up from school, taking her for a snack or a walk or a swim -- or all three, depending on how effectively she marshals those big brown eyes and the dreaded Look of Doom, that says she's not mad, Danno, she's just Disappointed, and, seriously, shouldn't that be his thing? Except she looks so much like Rachel that it hurts, remembering the days when Rachel used to wheedle and coax and smile at him under a faint facade of sincerity.
Back in the old days. When life was good the first time around, and he'd never wanted anything to change.
But for a few hours, he can live it again; this time in sunshine and ninety-two degree weather, surrounded by palm trees instead of buildings, and he has to admit, you know, with Grace, the place is almost bearable. The sun lights up her smile -- or her smile lights up the sun, he's not totally clear on which is which but it could be both, right? -- and she sits, legs swinging, at a picnic table, doing her homework and graciously allowing him to help, even though he can barely remember the basics of long division. Mostly he points out how good her penmanship is, how organized she is, how responsible.
"I never did my homework right after school," he tells her, slouched on the other end of the bench, fingers clasped loosely together, elbows on his thighs and back curved, just brushing the table top. She looks over at him, calm curiosity in her face, but he just can't get over it, can't, won't, ever. He'll be slammed in the face every day of his life with the amount of trust that's in her eyes every time she so much as glances his way. Thoughtless, instinctual. Like her Danno will never let her down.
And, God, he's trying. He is.
He has to win. If not, he --
-- just won't think about that, yet.
"It's true," he says. "And half the time I was playing sports, too, so it'd finally roll around to being dinner time, and I'd still have a dozen problems to do and a bunch of words to spell and a ridiculous amount of pages to read, like at least a hundred. At least."
"Danno," she reproaches, in that tone he loves so much, little voice drawing out the syllables, full of disbelief and the slightest adult resignation with her father, who, Christ, feels like he's gotten poured full of sunshine.
"It's true!" he says, and grins when she keeps watching him, level. "Okay, maybe it was more like ten. But it was definitely way too much reading to do, I mean, my brain was fried. But you, look at you, you're a genius. Harvard, here we come."
She smiles, and he feels like the sun's rising all over again, besotted and helpless in it, as he reaches out, reluctant, to tug on the end of her hair.
He misses the pigtails. She looks so irrevocably grown-up.
Dropping that hand, he slides it into his pocket, searching out his phone and looking at the screen as he presses it on, frowning faintly at the text on the screen before glancing at Grace, hitting the message, and lifting the phone to his ear. "Twenty minute warning, okay, Monkey? Then we gotta get you back for dinner."
"Okay," she says, peaceably, and he smiles, but it's distracted, eyes sliding away from her to squint in the low-lying sun that's poured over this park.
Hey, partner. I guess you're still busy. I'm headed back into the field with Joe, for that thing we talked about earlier, and I'm going to need you to hold the fort down for a while again. If anything comes up, you know how to reach me.
He half expects a mahalo, but there's nothing. No Danno, no timeframe, aside from -- he checks the phone -- an hour or so ago.
Which means Steve could be long gone by now.
He's still looking at his phone, gone black and silent, thoughts floating somewhere outside his grasp, when he feels the needle-point of attention on him, of eyes, and he looks up to see Gracie watching him, a tiny concerned line drawing across her forehead. "Is everything okay?"
Innocent. And there it is. That trust.
He wonders how much longer Grace will believe him when he tells her his job isn't dangerous, if she's getting so perceptive already. "Yeah, baby," he says, and reaches to pat her leg, thinking he hits believable. "Now hurry up and finish your homework, okay? You can surprise Mommy with it all done already. Hey, hey." She giggles as he leans over, pushing his phone into his pocket and stealing her paper. "I don't think this is right, I think you have definitely spelled this wrong."
"That's a math problem, Danno."
"Oh, well." He shrugs, gives the homework back. "Then you're probably alright. I was worried for a second there."
In the end, he doesn't really get a chance to think about the message much until he's dropped Gracie at the house, that wide, graceful mansion that he'd viewed with such bitterness, where he and Rachel --
Well, bygones. It's too late for peace between them now, that's for sure, if she insists on pulling this shit, and he waits by the car until Grace has stopped turning around to wave and disappears down the drive, before taking the phone out and listening again, the smile he'd left her with fading from his face at the first sound of Steve's voice.
That thing they talked about. Shelburne. And Joe's ability to take Steve there, to him, to find this mystery that's been obsessing Steve for a year, the man behind all the murders, connected to Steve's life like some kind of destructive spider. Breaking everything within reach, shattering a family, a life.
Making Steve into the man he is now. Like that sixteen year old kid never even existed.
No. He did. Does. Danny sees it, sometimes. More often, the longer Steve's been home. That edge, the sharpness of him from the first few weeks starting to blunt, to bleed into island life. Enjoying the good things. Surfing, swimming. Sun, sand, water. Days like the barbeque. Nights like...the one after.
He presses call back, without expecting anything to happen, and it doesn't, but his stomach still sinks like it's attached to an anchor when that voicemail message pops up. The one he'd gotten to know so well over six weeks. The only thing he had of Steve.
That this newest message might fit that description is zero comfort.
"Hey," he says, when it beeps. "I, uh, guess you're probably on the plane. So I wanted to, I don't know." He levers off the car, takes a few steps. Free hand lifting, moving. Pushing at words. Pushing at these feelings, choking. Heavy, in the center of his chest. "Wish you luck. Try not to get shot, okay, nobody likes that, most people actively avoid it. And, uh --"
Pausing, he glances across the street, at the house, knowing Grace is in there now, telling Rachel about her day, about her time with him, and for a second, it all seems impossible. "I told Rachel I'm gonna fight it. I don't care what happens, she can't take Grace away from me, and I'm not leaving this rock just to go dry up in a desert. So, just. Try to come back in one piece, huh? If you're gone too long, I'm just going to take your office. Dennings likes me better, anyway." Licking at his bottom lip, glancing down. Hand in his pocket, and this weight, here it is, back again, and he hates it, but he can hold it, maybe, a little while longer. For Steve. And he doesn't think Steve will, doesn't know whether Steve will be going to ground again, but he says it, anyway. One more throwback. Maybe this message will make it to him, too. To be added with the others.
"Call me."
#
He gets it. Of course he does. Why Steve had to go, even if he's more than a little wary of Joe. He likes the guy fine, but Joe, he always looks like he's hiding something behind that perpetual smile, those blue eyes that look like the kind of water so clear and still you've got no idea it's terrifyingly deep until you see your own shadow miniaturized on the bottom.
But Steve had to go. Shelburne kept him away from Hawaii for weeks, and that was before he had a guarantee of finding him, before he had someone who knew, exactly, precisely, where Shelburne is, and Danny can't fault him for it, refuses to look at the days and weeks, maybe months, that might be spooling out in front of him.
Instead, he goes to visit Max.
The guy looks wiped out, and it makes something twinge in Danny' s chest to see him like that, lying in a hospital bed, pale and too exhausted from pain and medication to do much more than wave a loose hand. "Hey, buddy," he says, grinning, as he pulls up a chair and settles into it, leaning forward, voice easy, like this is any normal conversation, like Max is doing his job in his lab and is about to say something Danny won't understand.
Instead, he just nods. "Thank you for your consideration, Detective. Truthfully, I did not expect many visitors."
Yeah. He bets not. He wishes, for a second, that he could get Lori on a video call, or something -- she always got Max better than any of the rest of them -- but it's still the middle of the day in DC, and she's working. "You think I could just leave you here to fade away, without benefiting from the sunshine of my personality?"
Max considers him, gravely, with a faint edge of his usual curiosity. "I appreciate your concern, but there is no reason to believe I might not convalesce fully in a satisfactory amount of time."
Danny shakes his head, lifts a hand to pat an arm. "I want you to know I mean this, from the bottom of my heart," he says, seriously. "I am truly relieved that you're okay. I hate working with new people."
The tiny smile he gets is all the reward he needs.
He gets chased out sooner rather than later, though, by a nurse pointing out that Max needs his sleep, and the sun is starting to go down as he slides back into the Camaro, feeling oddly out of place in the driver's seat. Pausing for a second, to look out over the parking lot without seeing it, glance up at the sky like a plane or a chopper might magically appear out of the wide blue, before shaking his head and turning the key.
The apartment doesn't look any different. Why would it? Nothing's happened here, and even though the whole world outside feels like it's shifted a sharp thirty degrees, this place, the little shoebox he calls home, hasn't. It's still, and quiet, and he's there for all of five minutes, long enough to change into a t-shirt and consider ordering something for dinner, before he starts wishing he weren't.
It's not Steve's house. It's not big and roomy and situated by the beach, away from humanity and all the noise and smell and clatter of them, seriously, his upstairs neighbor sounds like he's pulping wood up there, and that's all fine, normally, but it doesn't have Steve, either, and that's a thought he's been avoiding all night, until now. Until it chases him down, sits him sternly on the couch, and tells him to pay some attention.
But he can't, okay, there's too much. HPD still a wreck. Max gunned down. Steve, shot and being stupid about it, Kevlar or no Kevlar. And above it all, sinking poisonous tentacles into the world, Rachel and Vegas and the possibility of losing Grace.
And now this. Steve gone. Not at the house, waiting for Danny to come by with some beer, a whole lot of complaints. Not here to talk to, bitch at, sit with, unwind with. It's not even the new, the physical stuff he's craving right now, it's just -- Steve. Everything. Everything about him. His best friend, who he could really use having around tonight, who he suspects could probably use the same. And it would be easier, maybe, to face the prospect of fighting Rachel, if he were able to have a little peace tonight. To fall asleep next to a warm heavy body. To hear that particular, sleepy tone saying shut up, Danno against the back of his neck, brushing shivers there, prickling tiny hairs and nerves into life.
It's not sex, okay, it's Steve.
His windows are dark now, and he leans back on the couch, an elbow on the back, hand resting at his mouth, eyes following the headlights of cars as they go by. Wondering if Steve got his message yet.
It might be weeks again. He doesn't want to lead Five-0, doesn't want to be the point person, okay? He can, and he will, because Steve wants him to and, more importantly, it's his damn job and someone's got to stick around and clean up the messes here. Especially with HPD in tatters.
It just is like a tunnel. All of these things, curling in on him, and Steve gone, meaning he's got to do the best he can and hold down the fort, which, true, at least gives him a purpose that isn't getting angry at Rachel. And Steve -- will listen to his message. Will get it. Maybe even keep it.
He's got no comparison for the way something tiny lights just beneath his breastbone at the thought of those messages, but it's like the strike of a match, the quiet illumination of a nightlight. Even with the memory of Steve's stricken face, like he thought Danny might, what? Dislike the fact that Steve kept his voicemails, instead of feel like he'd just gotten everything he'd ever wanted for Christmas that had never been under the tree?
It's not even a thought, to pull out his phone again, hit the number, wait for the message. Like Steve is really here. Like Danny can talk to him. And he can.
Just on a timeslip.
"Hey, so I checked in with Max, and let me tell you, the guy is surprisingly durable. I think they're making the lab techs out of sterner stuff these days, which is great for us, you know, because I'm really not sure I want to go through another round of getting the tech to like us, you know?" He pauses, shifts forward on the couch, elbow on his knee, hand running over his mouth before dropping. "I have not yet harangued any government offices today, which I think you'll be happy about. Thank you for keeping me in the loop this time so I don't feel the need to beat information out of government officials. I am, however, unbelievably bored right now, I think I've seen all the movies I own about a thousand times, and there's nothing good on TV. Anyway, just, uh...
"Check in if you can, I guess. And, seriously, let's keep it under six weeks this time, huh? And, hey. Steve. Be careful, will you, you know I hate it when you don't have any backup, so just watch your back, please. And don't do anything stupid." He takes a breath, considers, shakes it out with a shrug. "I'll check in with you later. See you."
It doesn't help much, maybe, but it eases a little of the worst parts of the pressure, and he's put the phone on the table, is pushing himself up to go get a beer, when it rings, and he turns, surprised, heart lifting --
Not Steve. First push of disappointment aside, he leans for the phone, picks it up. "Chin. What's up?"
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