Chapter Text
~~~
”So, can you tell me when your relationship with Commander McGarrett began, Detective Williams?”
“Like… when I met him?”
“No, the romantic aspect of your relationship. I am well versed in your history, thanks to your state mandated therapist’s notes.”
“…okay. Well, then. I guess it was the week of Hurricane Fiona?”
“Hurricane Fiona?”
“Yes, Steven, Hurricane Fiona.”
“That’s not-“
“I believe that the lady asked me, not you.”
“Fine. Be my guest!”
~~~
The beginning
~~~
There was a soft, gentle rain dripping down onto the large leaves of the palmgrass planted below the window at the head of the bed. There was a nice, hollow sound of the rain hitting the window too, and it sounded like they were gearing up for the hurricane to hit the windward side and, if the weather reports were true, it would last all weekend. He didn’t really mind, they weren’t worried about flooding just yet. All the preparations had been taken care of days ago, just in case of evacuation. That meant, unless the worst happened, they’d be staying in, watching TV, and making warm and filling foods. Any slight lateness for starting his day could be blamed on the storm. He hadn’t even opened his eyes, taking in the sounds of the early morning.
The easy beat of the ceiling fan he insisted on last night above him (he was regretting it this morning, the cool from the rain settling in around him, forcing him to dig his toes into the sheets, chasing away the chill. Where was the island heat when he needed it?) The uneasy gurgle of the refrigerator from deeper into the house (he knew a big appliance purchase was in his future, but he hoped the thing would last until the end of May because his parents were visiting soon and it would be a huge mess.) The sweet, steady tick of the clock that hung in the living room (tick, tick, tick, went the day, and he hoped it was still early enough he could enjoy the stillness of the morning for a few ticks longer.) The rickety squawk of the lanai door opening and the swell of sound from the ocean and rainstorm from outside (not to mention the lower pitched whine of someone trying to close it slower that made Danny grin and dig his face into the pillow next to his.)
He listened to people walking through the house – two pairs of footsteps heading up the stairs (one of them two at a time) and the other into the bedroom – and the easy click of the bedroom door signaling it being shut behind them. Danny’s grin grew as the bed dipped from the foot, and he could feel Steve crawling up his legs, only to stuff his cold nose just below Danny’s jaw.
He jumped at the cold, rolling a bit and wrapping his arms around the man, pleased to find him shirtless, if not still damp from being outside.
Steve took a deep breath, and then resettled, head lifted, and assumedly looking at Danny. Danny couldn’t be sure; he still had his eyes closed. But the man was wet, cold, and smelled like salt water.
“Good morning,” Steve said.
Danny grinned in response.
Steve pushed forward and stole a kiss. Danny rolled over a bit more, deepening the kiss, sheet and blanket caught up between them.
“You’re wet,” Danny said between lazy kisses.
“No,” Steve argued, and then he rolled his hips against Danny’s good thigh, showing him that a nice pressure growing, going in for another kiss. “I’m hard.”
Danny couldn’t help it, he lost it. A snort into Steve’s cheek, he had to turn away from him laughing. He clung to Steve’s shoulder and back and he laughed.
“Oh gee,” Steve said, placing simple kisses down Danny’s neck, a hand making lazy circles on the hair on his chest. Danny could feel the grin on his mouth against his neck with every peck. “You sure know how to make a man feel good.”
Danny turned back to him, his eyes finally opened, and Steve pulled back from his neck to Danny’s eyes. Danny took the moment to stretch, arching his back, careful of his bad leg, pushing himself up into Steve’s chest, and wiggling his hips, trying to wake his body up. Steve let out a little hum at the action, and Danny grinned as Steve ran his hand down the side of his torso to his hip and contently rested his forehead and nose against Danny’s. Even with a sheet, he was starting to feel the ocean and rain that Steve brought back in from outside on his board shorts and dripping from his hair. The ceiling fan was sending goosebumps down Danny’s legs.
“You’re changing the sheets,” Danny told him, kissing him softly.
“Sir, yes sir,” Steve said with another grin, leaning down with another soft kiss. “You know, since I’ll be changing the sheets anyway, what do you say we dirty them up a bit?”
Danny snorted again at the ridiculous line, and this time Steve laughed with him. “Was this your plan all along?”
“I am a strategist,” Steve shrugged, pulling a smug face.
“Oh a strategist, huh?” Danny asked, his hand teasing under the waist of Steve’s board shorts. They smiled and Steve nodded and Danny hummed and then scrambled to get the sheets out of the way and Danny was wide awake with Steve’s mouth on his and damp boxers (wet from Steve’s trunks) almost off when-
“Dad!” Came a screech from somewhere upstairs. Both men paused mid kiss, both wondering if it would pass. “Danno! He’s taking a shower during my time again!”
They pulled back and Danny’s head hit the pillow with a huff. “Figure it out!” He yelled back. There was a loud squeal of a huff and what had to be the stamping of a foot. Steve was silently laughing somewhere in the pillow next to him. “You’re not helping!”
“Yelling through the door and up the stairs is helping?” Steve countered. “Where do you think she gets it?” Danny lightly pinched his ass cheek in response, but Steve was already nosing at his neck again, hips rolling in a decidedly strategic way. Danny grinned at the word choice his mind came up with.
“How do you have this much energy?” Danny marveled, pushing the wet shorts down Steve’s thighs. “You went swimming, I presume, in a hurricane – I might add – and now you want to have sex, and I know exactly what you did yesterday, which was lots of running chasing bad guys and then you came home and hauled sandbags, and then staying up all night with-“
“Wow,” Steve interrupted.
“What?”
“I basically signed up to listen to you complain for the rest of my life, didn’t I?”
Danny felt himself grin, warm at the thought that Steve was thinking long term, and content that Danny wasn’t going anywhere. “I’m not complaining about having sex.”
“You were just-“
There was a scream from upstairs this time, followed shortly by a loud crash. They shared wide, worried eyes for half a second before they were both reaching for their clothes. Steve had barely made it back into his board shorts before Danny was already out the door, forgetting his shirt, and pushing through the dull pain in his knee.
They were met at the bottom of the stairs by a wet Nahele wrapped up in a towel coming down the last few steps, indignation clear on his face. “I was taking a shower!”
Grace was a few steps behind him, “You told me to figure it out!”
Nahele turned around to face her. “He meant wait your turn!”
“I’m first in the shower because of my hair!” She countered, “It takes longer!”
“That was before the second bathroom!” He argued again. “If you want the first shower, you got to get there first!”
Danny relaxed where he stood, willing his still tender knee to unwind. It was just the same old bathroom fight again. Steve, however, still seemed high strung.
“Hey hey hey!” Steve tried to settle them. “Stop it! Stop.” Both teenagers settled down and turned to look at him. “What was that crash! Why did you scream?”
“She came into the bathroom and flushed the toilet,” Nahele said. “You know that makes the water icy! I jumped and all her shampoo bottles fell!”
“Danno told me to figure it out!” She paused. “And it’s like four bottles!”
“Try seven, I counted.”
Danny ran a hand over his face before looking over at Steve; he looked frustrated that this was the topic for a fight, yet again, but Danny could only grin. Puberty fueled teenage sibling fights were something he never thought he’d have outside of his two story and stuffed to the brim with siblings childhood, and it was something he never thought Grace would have.
It was not that long ago that he was a walking dictionary picture definition of miserable, and while things had gotten better in the years since he’d moved to Hawaii (don’t tell Steve,) misery had never really lifted off his shoulders, following him around like a personal little rain cloud. Well, at least until…
He glanced up at the clock on the wall in the living room, still steadily ticking away, and then through the kitchen to the outside where it was still very much raining, and he took a deep breath.
~~~
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I have to stop you. Why are you starting there?”
“Because that’s when it started.”
“That’s not when it started.”
“Then when exactly did it start, Steven?”
“Well.”
~~~
When it actually started, Daniel
~~~
“So Danno says Catherine dumped you,” Grace said as soon as Steve turned the truck engine over. He stalled for a moment, the radio coming to life, playing some soft rock station that was a favorite of Danny’s.
“What?”
Grace only gave him a look.
She had school in the morning, and Danny, Rachel, and Stan were extremely occupied at the hospital this weekend, with Danny’s first procedure and then Charlie’s. It was decided very early on that Grace would be staying with a friend for the weekend. Unfortunately, Lucy came down with some kind of bug at school and the whole Williams-Edwards clan was clamoring around trying to find a solution before Danny went into the OR.
Which was a particularly rough ordeal at the moment, as Grace wasn’t paying attention to anything Rachel said.
“Laura,” Danny said.
“Called her, her mother said no, not after the boxing debacle,” Rachel sighed.
“Boxing debacle?” Danny asked, eyebrow raised towards Grace.
She rolled her eyes. “It was just a little punch, and I had boxing gloves on, and Laura shouldn’t have moved from behind the punching bag!”
Steve grinned.
“Jane whatshername, from Cheer camp?” Stan asked.
“Ew, no,” Grace said with a face. “She makes you comb her hair.”
“Weird,” Danny agreed.
“What about-“ Rachel started.
“I could just stay home alone,” Grace offered, interrupting her mother, and looking hopeful at Danny.
“No,” Four adults said at the same time. Steve had smirked a little when Danny gave him a sweet little look.
“I could stay home from school tomorrow?”
“No,” Rachel and Danny said again.
“Not on the first week of school,” Rachel continued.
“But Danno!” Grace said, acting as if Rachel wasn’t even in the room.
“No buts!” He countered. Steve glanced up briefly at Rachel’s hurt face. For what she was putting Danny through, he felt like she deserved a bit of punishment, but he never thought it would come from the sweetest girl Steve had ever met.
Grace let out a sad sigh, then she and her father shared a quiet moment of silent conversation before, “What about Uncle Steve?”
“We can’t ask him…“ Rachel trailed.
“Of course you can!” Steve said, cutting her off. “She’s stayed in the spare room before, and it’s not like we don’t get along at all.” Sarcasm ran deep in his voice as the two of them shared a smile. “This way she can actually visit her father and brother this weekend.” He winked at her, knowing it had been worrying her all week. She and Danny had had many a conversation on the phone about it in the car on the way to and from crime scenes all week. Grace smirked back at him, and then turned hopeful back to her father. Danny shrugged at Rachel.
That was that.
But right now, Don Henley was singing and Grace was staring at him expectantly in the passenger seat while the car beeped at him insistently to put on his seatbelt.
“Uncle Steve?”
“Yeah?”
“So did she really dump you?”
Steve pulled a face and reached for his seatbelt to shut off the god awful beeping.
“That sucks.”
“Tell me about it.”
“You need a Mope Weekend.”
“A Mope Weekend?” Steve asked. He could hear the capital letters in her voice.
She nodded. “Danno has one every now and then. Usually on the Anniversary.”
“Anniversary?”
She nodded again, “Of the divorce.”
Ahh. Steve bit his lip. “What happens on these Mope Weekends?”
“Well,” She started, picking at her skirt. “I haven’t been there for all of them, but the ones I have been there for we ordered pizza and sat around in pajamas and watched movies and let yourself be sad for a while.”
“Well, you have school in the morning, and it’s already late,” He told her. “Plus, you’ve eaten, and we’re going to stay at your dad’s tonight.”
“Okay,” She shrugged. “Well, tomorrow I’ll come to the Palace after school and try to get as much homework done as I can, and we’ll come back here and check on Danno and Charlie and then we’ll go to your house and swim and eat pizza and watch dad’s favorite movies for A Mope Weekend.”
Steve pretended to think it over for a bit before reaching for the gear shift. “I like this plan.” He felt a small little thrill as Grace smiled widely. “One condition,” He said seriously, foot still on the break. She stared back at him, just as seriously, waiting for what she had to do. “We get pineapple on our pizza because Danno won’t be there to complain about it.”
Her smile came back tenfold. “Deal!”
He sat back happy, turning around to back out of his parking space, Steve sighed in contentment. It had been over two weeks since Catherine had left and he knew he had been walking around stone faced; his friends – especially Danny – had tried to knock him out of it. A trip to the gun rage with Kono, an afternoon of spear fishing with Chin, a Five-0 Family dinner with everyone to cook his catch (beers on Lou); if they weren’t on a case, they were all running around trying to keep him occupied. Nahele was begging for driving lessons (even though he had no problems with grand theft auto the spring before, everyone teased him) and Steve, of course, gave in. Danny had dragged him to the movies (happily, actually,) went surfing with him (surprisingly,) and had convinced him to call his sister (who decided during that phone call she’d be coming for a visit sometime in the next few months.)
They were trying to keep his mind off of everything, and he was thankful, but all he really wanted to do was wallow. Maybe this idea of Grace’s was just what he needed.
“Mum and Stan don’t like pineapple on their pizzas, either,” She said with a little grin. “I only ever get it when I’m with you.”
Steve shook his head, righting the car and putting it in drive. “Mainlanders.”
“I know, right?”
~~~
That following Monday evening
~~~
Looking around his home, Steve felt empty. Well, maybe not empty so much as surrounded by too much emptiness. The weekend with Grace had gone a long way to knock him back on his feet after Catherine’s departure, but now the couch was way too big and the sheets Grace had slept on had been washed and all he could hear was the constant crash of waves outside.
This was going to drive him up a wall, having nothing here.
He went out to the garage, looking for something to occupy himself with, having already eaten dinner and caught up on sports center. His father’s car was actually making some headway, what with Nahele stopping by every few days or so and working. There were days Steve would come home and the kid would be outside, covered in grease already, performing touch ups and reinstalling parts.
Today would be no such luck. He had school in the morning. Steve couldn’t just go get him from his foster home for a few hours and make him work on the car with him. Things didn’t work like that.
He couldn’t go get Grace either, as she had already spent four whole days with him (Saturday spent learning some basics about engine upkeep, covered in dust and grime and smiles, and pointedly changing the subject every time Steve brought up Rachel.)
Grabbing a wrench and ignoring a lingering feeling that he was being watched by his father, Steve went to work, trying not to think about how life could be different.
He was alone.
He had to get that through his own head somehow.
~~~
“Babe…”
“…anyway.”
~~~
Back to that Friday
~~~
Steve had already warned the rest of Five-0 that he was on Grace Duty all weekend, so if they had a case come in, they’d be a man down for most of it. (He’d, in a heartbeat, be their back up if they needed it, but the three of them were happy to pick up slack for a few days.) Friday morning though, after breakfast with Grace at her favorite diner, talking about anything and everything from Apane to her first week of school to a special project that would take all semester to goarding Steve into thinking about letting a bunch of her friends come spend the night out on the beach in his backyard at some point… Steve walked into headquarters feeling more refreshed than he had in weeks. Grace had never been a burden to him, and she certainly wasn’t one now.
There was a very, very small part of Steve that wondered if Lucy was even sick and that this was Grace’s attempt to cheer him up.
Whatever, he’d take it, even if it was.
“Hey, he’s smiling!” Lou said as he started towards his office. Kono turned around from the table and Steve knew when she wasn’t on a case, she was working to find Gabriel. They had all made it a priority. They had all had made Wo Fat a priority for him for so long, Steve was more than ready to catch the bastard for Chin and Kono.
“Hey Boss,” Kono greeted, her eyes a bit darker than they had been just a few months earlier, but smiling warmly all the same. “How’d Danny do?”
He smiled, “Grace called him this morning, everything went well, complaining about his back already like the old man that he is.” Kono and Lou both chuckled. “Charlie is being prepped tonight and will go into surgery tomorrow. I want to swing by at lunch, bring him food.”
Lou let out a deep breath. “What that man goes through makes me grateful that the most Logan’s ever dealt with is chronic sinus infections.”
Steve nodded, thinking about a little three year old he’d only met a handful of times. Floppy blond hair like Danny and dimples like Grace. Steve wished he could do more.
“You’re taking care of Grace though,” Kono said. Steve looked up suddenly. He must have spoken out loud, or maybe Danny was right and he had a face and his team just knew him. “You are doing a lot brah.”
Not wanting to get into it, he crossed his arms and changed the subject. “Where’s Chin?”
Lou and Kono shared a saccharine look before turning back to him.
“What?”
“Jerry has something.”
~~~
“Do you see now? This is why this is when it began.”
“You went so far back!”
“Well you skipped some things.”
“Yeah and now you’re saying things started way back when.”
“…didn’t they though? Not just the case, that's when things started to feel different.”
“Then by all means, babe.“
“Thank you.”
~~~
Jerry was always right. Steve had to keep telling himself that, because honestly some of the things Jerry came up with were so out of left field it made his head spin. More than once he found himself turning to his right and looking down, hoping to share a look of support with Danny.
“You’re saying that the string of wild dog attacks on the North Shore are actually… what? Distractions for some kind of criminal element you have yet to identify?”
“Yeah,” Jerry said with conviction. The others all looked to Steve to take the lead.
Jerry was always right.
“Okay, show us what you’ve got,” Steve said. “This will be your first official case on the payroll, Jerry. Let’s make it good.”
Jerry lit up, ready to go, and seeing his friend happy was a nice feeling too. He was always happy for that feeling, that feeling to b-
”To be needed.”
Steve felt his face fall at the memory of Catherine, but Jerry was already throwing his research up on the monitors, and Steve turned all his attention away from his front porch to Jerry.
“Over the last several months, there have been seventeen dog attacks and threats on civilians, ten of which left people injured, which is a bit of a high number anyway, but what made me notice was that most of the people that got bit had be treated for early signs of rabies.”
“Rabies,” Lou said. “Okay, Family trip to the North Shore next week canceled.”
Everyone smiled.
“I would,” Jerry said.
“You know we don’t do animal control, right Jer?” Kono asked.
“Wait for it,” Chin said.
Jerry took a deep breath, and Steve smirked at his obvious desire to impress.
“The first couple of attacks line up a couple days after a dog fighting ring was broken up by HPD near Pupukea. Reports from that day state that thirty seven dogs were taken in, but the owners had opened a few of the cages to let some of the dogs out to distract HPD. Not all the dogs were found, so I wouldn’t look at those first few attacks, plus, the one vic had to get stitches from the first attack didn’t suffer from rabies.”
“Where were we for all this?” Steve asked, swiping though photos of the dog ring raid. “Five-0 usually gives back up on compound raids like this for HPD.”
Jerry looked at him. “I believe Detective Williams was in Colombia.”
“Ah,” Steve said, biting his lip, yet another topic he really didn’t want to think about. “Well, the pack could have contacted rabies in the wild since.”
“True,” Jerry said. “But, of the thirty seven dogs that were taken in, about half of them were put down and deemed too dangerous, unfortunately. The other half have been, or are currently being rehabilitated.”
“Well that’s good,” Kono said.
“Yeah man, we’re lucky Danny isn’t here,” Steve said. “He loves dogs.”
“Well, starting with the forth attack, which is where I think the pattern changes,” He pulled up a couple of screens. “Six of the dogs that had been rehabilitated and given a clean bill of health found new homes within a few weeks. Two of them were dogs involved in attacks on civilians later.”
Lou shrugged. “Dogs get out. Dogs get out all the time.”
“Also true, but I think those first few attacks don’t matter because they were just inspiration for the new bad guys,” Jerry said, pulling up a new screen of information. Missing person reports. Dread filled Steve’s stomach. There had to be half a dozen of them, all female, young, Asian, with long, brown hair, not a one of them over thirty. “The days they’ve gone missing all coincide with a dog attack; all last known whereabouts were at random and populated places on the North Shore.”
Chin ran a hand over his mouth and Steve watched as he eyed Kono. One of those girls on that screen could have been Kono’s double a few years ago.
“Unfortunately, I haven’t figured out a pattern much beyond that yet.”
“So,” Steve started. “What do we know about these girls? Six missing in as so many months, looking so much alike, missing in the same area? Even if you’re off on the dogs, that’s worth paying attention to.”
Jerry and Chin both nodded their agreement.
“That’s why I told him it was time to present this to us,” Chin said.
“You thinking serial killer, Boss?”
Steve shrugged.
“I was thinking human trafficking,” Said Jerry with wide eyes. “But I don’t know what’s worse.”
“Well, either way, it can’t hurt to take a look at some missing persons cases while we don’t have anything else up on the board,” Lou said.
“And Gabriel has been in the wind for weeks now,” Kono said, a rough edge to her statement. Chin shuffled on his feet, obviously just as troubled.
“We’ll find him,” Steve sighed. “We’ll keep a constant eye out for him and his business, unless this takes off, he’s still our most wanted. In the meantime, let’s get to work. This was quite a stretch to make the connection. Good work, Jerry.”
Jerry smiled, proud and happy, and Steve looked to his right, ‘told you so’ face at the ready. Danny had argued that if they gave a mouse a cookie he’d want a glass of milk, but Jerry hadn’t been wrong yet. He was met with empty space and it threw him for a minute.
Then his phone rang.
~~~
Nahele met him at the end of the street with a wide smile. Steve had worked hard, making friends and promising favors to several different social workers to get his kid in an actual foster home instead of a group home. He had never told Steve exactly what had happened at the group home he was at, but whatever it was it drove the boy to the streets so that was the last place Steve wanted him.
Luckily, there was a foster home willing to take him only a few blocks from Steve’s home. Nahele had been a regular on Steve’s beach and in Steve’s garage and in Steve’s kitchen all summer. Steve’s ‘maybe once every two weeks’ grocery shopping had been upped to ‘every week’ and even then Steve was finding himself making runs more and more often. He didn’t mind.
After Catherine had left…
Well.
The guys at Five-0 weren’t the only ones trying to keep him occupied.
“You sure you can spare a few hours for me, Commander?” He asked, still standing outside Steve’s truck.
“For you?” Steve asked. “I could spare a whole lot more.”
Nahele smiled wide again.
“Just know I am on call today, okay?”
“That’s cool.”
“Your foster father know you’re going with me?” Steve had met the old man twice, once the day after Nahele moved in, and the second time when he picked Nahele up for fireworks on the 4th. Both times he seemed strict and meticulous and once Steve told him he was Five-0, didn’t mind his involvement with the boy. Nahele had told Steve that the man had a list of rules a mile long, his wife had a list that was at least two miles long, and Nahele even had to turn in his cell phone at night.
Of all the rules that was the one Nahele complained about the most, so Steve figured it was a pretty good home. Especially if Nahele’s smile was anything to go by.
He nodded, buckling up. “He wanted to go, but they got a new kid last night. An infant born two days ago. Little guy cried all night.”
“Mmm,” Steve hummed. “Just what you need right before you start at a new school, huh? A screaming baby keeping you up?”
Nahele smiled. “It’s okay. At least he has a roof, ya’ know?”
Steve sobered at that. This kid had already been through too much.
Today was orientation at Nahele’s new school, and it just happened to be Steve’s alma mater, Kukui High School. Steve was actually kind of excited about showing him around. Paranoia almost made him ask Nahele if asking Steve to go with him was someone else’s idea. Someone blond and five-foot-five and currently blowing up his cell phone with food requests because hospital food was “excruciating, Steven. Excruciating.”
Nahele bounced a little bit in the passenger seat as they pulled up and parked.
“Are you excited?”
“Is it lame to say yes?”
“No.”
“Then yes,” He said. “I always liked school. Even if I’m a year behind now.”
“Hey,” Steve said. “I saw your last semester transcript. You’re a smart kid.”
He rolled his eyes. “I was the foster kid who was homeless. I was pitied.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t want anyone to know that about me here.” He looked out the windshield towards the school with determination Steve really hadn’t seen on the boy before. “I want a fresh start.”
Steve gripped Nahele’s shoulder, “Then that’s what you’re going to get.”
Nahele smiled again and Steve was growing quite fond of that smile.
He turned back to the school and Steve watched as something else mixed in with the excitement on the boy’s face.
“Are you nervous?” Steve asked.
Nahele glanced at him quickly before turning back down to his hands.
Steve gripped the boy’s shoulder, “You can do this.”
Nahele took a deep, steadying breath, and nodded.
After that they made their way in, and Nahele picked up a class schedule, (“Three advanced classes, look at you!” “It’s not that big of a deal.” “It’s still impressive.”) and checked the bus routes, (“Now if you ever miss the bus, you call me. We’re close enough; I can get you to school.” “Alright.”) and Nahele posed for an ID lanyard, (“Smile!” “Yeah, smile!” “Shut up Commander!” “Aww, he likes you,” Steve leaned down and told the student volunteer who promptly blushed and looked at Nahele in a new light. “Commander!”) and Steve may or may not have spent some money on some school supplies emblazoned with the school logo while Nahele had gone to the bathroom, (“I don’t need an agenda!” “If you’re taking three advanced classes, you do.” “I have pencils!” “Yeah, but these are refillable ones!” “I definitely didn’t need a t-shirt!” “Who says no to a free t-shirt?”)
Steve helped him find his classrooms, (“I think I had English in here.”) and his locker, (Nahele didn’t know how to work the lock, and Steve patiently taught him how) showed him around, (and teased him a bit more about the girl at the lanyard table) and found comfort that not all that much about this place had changed, really, except the new sciences wing, which Steve found himself extremely jealous of.
Then his phone buzzed again and it was Danny demanding lunch because they were threatening him with “meatloaf surprise” and “Steven please. Do not subject me to this. I checked with Kono, you don’t have a case, bring me something greasy.”
“Hey Nahele,” He called out. Nahele turned, inspecting something in one of the trophy cases. “You want to go with me to see Danny?”
He shrugged. “Sure. Is this you?” He pointed into the trophy case.
“Oh no,” Steve groaned, walking up. Sure enough, there he was, baby faced and in his red uniform. “Yep, that’s me.” Then he pointed to another photo, a few frames down. “That one’s Chin.”
Nahele paused for a bit, biting his lip. Steve didn’t pressure him. “You wouldn’t be upset if I didn’t play football, would you?”
“What?” Steve asked. “Nah. Do you want to play football?”
“Not really. I like playing catch, and I like watching it. Maybe you can take me to a game or two?”
Steve leaned in with a smirk. “Maybe you can take that girl from the lanyard table to a game or two.”
Nahele rolled his eyes and then dramatically turned away, “Oh my god! Let’s go!”
Steve laughed as he followed him. They past a woman and her daughter as they left, and she gave Steve a warm smile and a nod of solidarity, like she thought he was a parent. He had been getting those looks from other parents all day, and tried not to put too much into them.
Nahele wasn’t his son, no matter how nice it was to think about.
~~~
“You were too hard on yourself.”
“Yeah, well.”
~~~
“I asked for greasy.”
“Oh,” Steve started, pulling up a chair next to Danny’s hospital bed and resting his arms next to Danny’s legs. “You mean you’re thankful you don’t have to eat meatloaf surprise? Yeah, I thought you would be.”
“I wanted beef with bacon and cheese and a sesame seed bun. I would not have said no to fries, either.”
“I know that Grace worries about what you eat, so as the responsible adult in her life this weekend, I am making sure that her worries aren’t quadrupled when she learns her father ate a bacon cheeseburger right after a major surgery.”
“‘Responsible adult.’” Danny scoffed. “This is a shrimp salad from Kamekona’s!” He said, putting the food on his little bed tray.
“Yeah.”
“Steven.”
“What? I got the fried shrimp instead of the grilled; I thought you’d be thankful.”
“Cheeseburger,” He responded, drawing out the word while Steve rolled his eyes.
“Kamekona gave him a discount because you’re in the hospital,” Nahele ratted him out.
Danny’s face lit up, and Steve groaned.
“Traitor,” Steve grinned up at him.
“I see how it is,” Danny said, arms already waving. “Cheapskate.”
“Hey, salad is good for you.”
“Not after I do this!” Danny said, pulling open the container, and pouring some kind of thick, creamy dressing all over it with glee.
“Now excuse me, where did that dressing come from! He was supposed to get the olive oil stuff!”
“The olive oil stuff is ridiculous and should not be marketed as a salad dressing.”
“It’s a vinaigrette.”
“No, a vinaigrette requires it to actually be edible.”
“It is edible.”
“Maybe to cows and weird subspecies of humans called SEALs, but not to humans from New Jersey.”
“Oh, goodness, then explain your daughter because she loves the stuff.”
“Because you,” He pointed, at him with his fork, “and this island,” He waved the fork around in a circle, “have brainwashed her.”
Nahele smiled, standing at the end of the bed, eyes going back and forth between them, looking ten types of pleased. “I knew you liked the thousand island stuff so I made sure it was in there when Steve wasn’t looking.”
Danny lit up again, as Steve looked hurt.
“Oh!” Danny said happily, laughing a bit. “I like him.” Steve shook his head and grinned up at Nahele again. “I like you, you’re sticking around.” Then back to Steve. “We’re keeping him. We’re keeping you.”
“Not if he doesn’t play along,” Steve teased. Nahele smiled.
“Oh no,” Danny said. “He keeps the playing field even. We need him.”
“Yeah yeah.”
“So,” Danny started, first bite in his mouth. “How was orientation?”
“I knew it!” Steve said.
“What?” They both asked innocently.
“Neither of us said we were at orientation. That was you distracting me!” Steve accused him. Nahele pulled a face, glancing quickly at Danny. “I can’t believe it! You ganged up on me!”
“I was actually really glad you were there!” Nahele said, earnestly. “I would have had to go alone, otherwise.” He turned to Danny. “He bought me a t-shirt.”
“You know I was happy to go,” Steve told him as Danny made an approving face towards the kid and his t-shirt. Then he turned to Danny. “You can call off the babysitter brigade, though, okay?”
“Steve…”
“I mean it, Danny!”
“We’re all just worried, okay?”
“That’s… that’s fine! But I’m okay, okay?”
Then Nahele’s phone rang, dissipating the growing awkwardness of the room.
“It’s my foster-mother, I’ll just,” He pointed to the door and stepped outside.
Danny sat down his fork, licked his lips, and took a deep breath.
“Sorry, Danny,” Steve said. “I am very thankful for everything. I just. I need to wallow too.”
Danny smiled. “I am good at wallowing. I can wallow. I can commiserate. I am a pro at commiseration.”
“'Commiseration?'”
“Yeah.”
“I’m doing a Mope Weekend with your daughter.” Steve narrowed his eyes towards Danny. “Whom I’m assuming is another babysitter.”
Danny held up his hands. “Lucy really did get sick. It was fate! But a Mope Weekend, huh? You know they were Matty's creation.”
“Yeah. She told me all about it last night. She says you do it every year.”
“I didn’t do it last year.”
“No?”
Danny shook his head, his face falling, and began picking at his salad with his fork again. “I didn’t need to. I had other things on my plate.”
All the things that had filled the last year with struggle and pain went unmentioned between them, but they both knew as the weight of it all filled the room. Steve reached out and gripped Danny’s wrist. Danny shook it, sliding his hand down, and took Steve’s hand in his. They squeezed their palms together in silent support.
This was new between them, it started sometime when the nuclear bomb exploded behind them and the helicopter jostled and made concerning beeping noises. Danny closed his eyes and laughed through his tears and didn’t realize he was grasping Steve’s hand until Steve needed it back to land. Holding hands in tense moments had become a thing between them ever since, those few weeks Catherine was around aside. (And really, that should have been Steve’s first clue.)
“I really do like Nahele,” Danny confessed.
“Yeah, me too,” Steve said, grinning towards the door.
“You thought anymore about fostering him?” Danny dropped his voice.
Steve looked back to him and shrugged. “We got him placed in a home. He seems happier. I was only going to do that if they couldn’t find him a home.”
Danny was quiet for a moment. “I think maybe you should still get certified. In case something happens.”
“You think?”
Danny nodded. “I think it would devastate you if something happened to him and you could have done something about it.”
Steve chewed on his lip, and lowered his gaze. He realized they were still holding hands, but didn’t move to take his hand away.
Danny stabbed at the salad again. “I am tired of watching you lose people you care about.”
Steve decided not to linger too long on the swarm of emotions that made him feel. Images of faces and last words shared and guilt and grief and fear and loneliness mixed up together with fondness and protectiveness and awe he was pretty sure was for Danny all swimming around somewhere just above his stomach and just below his throat. It was just too much so instead he focused on Danny taking a bite of his salad, getting a bit of dressing caught on the side of his mouth.
He chuckled, trying to ignore how dropping Danny’s hand to reach for a napkin only made the swarm ache. “You know, if the nurse finds out I brought you contraband, I won’t be allowed back in here.” He offered the napkin to Danny, motioning to his mouth.
“This wouldn’t have been a problem if you had just brought me my cheeseburger.”
“Yeah but then it would have been ketchup.”
“How many times do I have to tell you ‘don’t put ketchup on a hamburger!’”
~~~
“So, Commander, you’d say that you’re relationship with Nahele started before your romantic relationship with Detective Williams.”
“Please, call me Danny.”
A grin.
“Uh… yeah. He had stolen my car the February before. You have his file, right? It’s all in there.”
“You took in a kid that stole your car?”
A laugh.
“Yeah. I guess I did.”
“So you… helped him?”
“Yeah, he does that.”
“You like that about me.”
“I do, actually.”
A smile.
“Please, elaborate, Detective.”
“Uh… Danny, please, we’re going to be seeing a whole lot of each other... and uh-“
~~~
A while ago
~~~
The thing about Steve McGarrett is he really doesn’t do things by halves. He either plays guitar, or he doesn’t. He joins the Navy; he becomes a SEAL. He leaves Hawaii; he doesn’t come back (except for a few dockings that were out of his hands) for over two decades. Mary tells him to leave her alone one day when she’s nineteen; he doesn’t talk to her again until she’s twenty nine and she reaches out. “We’re not dating, Steve,” becomes “we will never date.” “How long do you want me to stay,” becomes dropping way too much money on a flashy rock.
So really, Danny should have seen this coming.
Danny encouraged it, even. Thought it would be good for him. Thought it would be good to have the schedule that came with having a kid. The constant of having someone there and in his life and depending on him every day; it’s what Steve needed.
A fifteen year old Nahele was wonderful. He settled into Steve’s life like he was always supposed to have been there. He ate Steve’s food, and watched his TV, and liked to surf and swim, he was smart, quick witted, and looked at Steve like he was honored Steve would even glance at him.
Which was why Steve was good for him, too. He was in a dangerous situation, always on the cusp of being left behind and forgotten. Nahele didn’t have anyone. Steve knew what that was like, to be fifteen and have a father that let you down and a mother that died and having a million feelings and not wanting to feel a single one of them.
He and Steve got along, there was that whole car issue thing that Danny would never, ever, ever, let drop, but they shared that. New, good memories would surround a piece of junk that did nothing but cause his friend way too much grief and guilt every time it broke down. It was good. Nahele was a solidifying presence in Steve’s life, a source of goodness and light, and Danny wanted nothing more for his friend than his friend’s happiness and he wanted nothing more for Nahele than for him to be somewhere safe, somewhere he was loved.
So of course Danny encouraged the crap out of it. It really was a win-win situation.
The one month old infant was not Danny’s doing.
~~~
“Nahele’s social worker has a note that the Whittaker family was Nahele’s last foster family. What did you think of them?”
“They are actually becoming pretty good friends of ours.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, they are good people; they were just… ready for the next stage in their life, like we were. Well, I was. I guess I was finally catching up with Danny. But they are still around, they come to dinner with the extended family a lot, and they watch the kids if we need some extra hands for a few hours. Real helpful with Daisy – our nanny – during her midterms and finals. They’re good people.”
“What do you mean, ‘next stage of their life?’”
“Well, they were getting older. I guess they started realizing that after Rita had her fall. Steve and I were there to help, thank goodness.”
~~~
About two weeks after Nahele’s orientation and Charlie’s transplant
~~~
Danny had never met the Whitakers. They were Nahele’s foster parents, and all he knew about them was “they have so many rules” and “Mr. Whitaker likes to take care of his lawn.” Steve had met them more than once, and both he and Nahele seemed to like the elderly couple, so Danny was worried the moment Nahele called him.
“Nahele?” He answered the phone. “What’s wrong?” Grace looked up from her dinner with worry.
“Steve’s flight hasn’t landed yet; can you come to my house?” He asked quietly, sounding frazzled and worried.
“Of course, are you safe?” Danny was already grabbing his wallet and his keys, his mind going to the worst case scenario. Grace was up from the table, sensing the change and grabbing her bag and then slipping herself into shoes, looking hopeful. He frowned, holding up a finger to signal her to wait. She made a face; he raised his eyebrows. If there was danger, he didn’t want Grace anywhere near that.
“Nahele?”
“Yes, sorry,” He said quickly. Danny motioned to Grace that she could go, and they were out the door. “It’s Mrs. Whitaker, she fell, and they don’t want to call an ambulance because of the cost, and they don’t want to leave us here alone while they go to the emergency room.”
“Oh,” Danny sighed a bit of relief. “Okay. Well, I’m on my way, you keep calling Steve, okay? He’ll want to know.”
“Okay, Danny,” Nahele had said. Then his voice went soft. “Thank you.”
“Don’t even mention it, kid,” Danny told him, sliding into the car. “You’re pretty much Steve’s kid.” He grinned over at Grace, who was buckling herself in. “That means there’s not much I wouldn’t do for you.”
He winked at Grace and she grinned back at him. Then she kind of rolled her eyes and shook her head and made a face that had ‘Kono Kalakaua’ written all over it. Danny didn’t know what to make of that.
Mr. Whittaker reminded Danny of his Uncle Bill. Spry, bright eyes, thin, white hair, and wrinkles around his eyes that told Danny he smiled often.
He wasn’t smiling right now, though, all his attention on his wife, who was sitting very still on the couch in their front room, with tight lips and a vague aura of ‘I am very much in pain.’ There were two girls, a few years younger than Grace, standing nearby, very obviously worried too.
“He’s Steve’s partner,” Nahele introduced them. They shook hands. “And this is his daughter, Grace.”
Grace waved a hello, he smiled kindly in return.
“You really should have called an ambulance,” Danny told him as they finished shaking hands.
“Oh it’s not that bad,” Mrs. Whittaker said from the couch. “It just hurts a lot.”
Mr. Whittaker glared in the direction of his wife. Danny understood that look intimately. He wore it often around Steve.
“Do you really not mind staying here?” He asked Danny.
“Of course not!” Danny answered honestly.
“I got ahold of Steve, he’ll be here soon too,” Nahele tried to placate him. “Straight from the airport.”
Mr. Whittaker let out a big sigh, thanked Danny for coming on such short notice, and then Danny helped them out to the car and sent them off just as Steve pulled up, looking drained and jet lagged.
“What happened?”
Danny gave him a look and then the two of them spent the evening making sure the Whittaker’s three foster kids and Grace were all fed and had done their homework and brushed their teeth and didn’t watch too much television (“it’s a rule Mr. Steve!”) and Grace settled herself down on the couch and was reading a book for school.
The fourth foster-kid, Jack, was the easiest of the bunch by far.
There was a chart on the fridge, saying when he should eat and sleep and wake up. It was down to a science. (“Mrs. Whittaker says that she’s helped enough babies get started that she knows what to do easy, Mr. Danny.”) The rest of the kids were eating mac and cheese that Danny made and the sandwiches that Steve threw together when Danny went upstairs to retrieve Jack.
Jack was only a few weeks old, tiny, and really didn’t want to wake up just yet. He fought it, comfortable in Danny’s arms and his soft blanket.
Danny’s mind immediately went to Charlie. The image of his son, screaming and covered in goop in the hospital room… only to be in the hospital again three years later under such unfair circumstances. Danny missed years of his son’s life. Missed his little nose (it was his, after all) and learning how to use his hands and missed his first steps and first words… So many firsts.
Looking down at little Jack, Danny smiled. This little guy was adorable and sleepy and Danny briefly wondered how he ended up in the system, as cute as he was. He leaned down, smelling him. He used to love that smell with Grace. Baby powder and clean soap and new baby smell. He missed it with Charlie.
Jack kicked at the attention, turning a bit into Danny’s chest, and yawning. Danny smiled wide again. How incredibly simple this little life was, simple, complicated, and amazing. He was hit with a very potent wave of protectiveness for the little boy, not quite sure where it came from.
Danny held him closer to him, readjusting him, and started heading towards the door, only to stop once he realized they had an audience. Steve was standing in the doorway, a soft, fond look on his face.
“What?” Danny asked.
It took a moment, a long moment, before something flittered across Steve’s face that Danny couldn’t quite identify. Steve shook his head and the face was gone.
“Nothing,” He very obviously lied. Then he held up a little bottle. “Is he ready?”
~~~
That next spring
~~~
“What made you want to adopt Jack in the first place?”
“Well,” Steve said, crossing his legs, adjusting his wine glass on the coaster, at Clara and Eddie’s 40th anniversary party. “I usually say ‘he needed a place to live and then I fell in love with him,’ and that is true, but…”
“But what?”
“The first time I saw him he was rubbing his face into Danny’s chest and Danny just had this smile on his face…”
The two women, both looking so much like Danny, one blonde, the other brunette, shared a look of fondness as Steve got lost in the memory.
Steve shrugged, “He looked up at me, Danny, I mean, he looked up at me and it was like. I knew. Whatever way it was supposed to be, Jack was supposed to be in my life.”
“Just Jack?”
Steve smiled, and tried fruitlessly to hide his blush. “Yeah, well.”
~~~
“I didn’t know that.”
“Your sisters made me realize that’s what happened.”
A sweet smile.
A joining of hands.
“I’m sorry, you said that you got off a plane? Where were you?”
“Oh, uh…”
~~~
Where Steve was
~~~
This had to be one of the hardest weekends of Steve’s life. Top ten, at least, beating out that one time in the Hungarian winter mission when they were literally eating snow to survive while they waited for rescue.
Mary had called him a few days before; Aunt Deb had taken a turn for the worse. Earlier this summer, they were told as long as she didn’t have any more spells and took it easy, she was looking at a couple years’ worth of a comfortable life. But she had a nasty spell, spent a few days in the hospital, and she only had a few months left.
His little sister was a bit of a wreck. He really didn’t blame her; he wasn’t much better.
Deb had decided to sell her home in California since Leonard had passed last Spring, and Mary couldn’t handle it all and called Steve, and so here Steve was, packing up a living woman’s house like she was already gone.
“Be sure to take whatever you want,” Deb had told them with a gentle smile in the hospital. “Sell what you can, then donate the rest.” Which set Mary off again, and Steve went after her.
They ended up very, very drunk that first night, drinking up Aunt Deb’s liquor cabinet full of brandy and reminiscing about their younger years.
“I’m sorry I didn’t stay closer with you,” Steve confessed to her on the couch.
“It’s a two-way street, bro,” She laid her head on his shoulder. “It’s just going to be us, soon.”
“You’ve got Joan,” Steve said sadly.
“Yeah,” Mary said with a grin. “Thank God for my Joanie. You don’t got anyone.”
Steve bit his lip, his mind immediately on Nahele’s and Grace’s wide smiles. They weren’t his kids. Not really. Besides, Danny’s efforts to keep him occupied the last few weeks have been proof enough he wouldn’t be alone-alone.
“Oh my god, I’m sorry!” Mary said, turning to him, her hand over her mouth. “I forgot about what just happened with Catherine!”
“That’s okay,” He brushed it off. “I’m just… I got Danno.”
Mary snorted.
“Shut up.”
Mary snorted again.
“Mom’s still alive?” Steve said, a bit unsurely, wanting to change the subject.
“Sure,” Mary sighed, after another sip of her brandy. “The mom that faked her death when I was ten, showed up after twenty years, and then left again to go off and play spy after half a phone call. She’s great.”
Steve laughed at that, and then Mary laughed, and then they found a box of Christmas decorations, and then they cried.
Steve blamed the brandy.
After the hospital, and the announcement that Deb wanted to pack the house, he ended up staying most of the week, to help with the house, to help Deb and Mary decide what was next, to spend some much needed time with Joan. She had gotten so much bigger and honestly video text messages and facebook posts only did so much. Steve was missing out on his niece’s life. There were some not so subtle hints that it was probably safe to come back to Hawaii if Mary ever thought about it from Steve, and some not so subtle hints that that sounded like a nice plan from Deb.
He could only imagine how he’d feel if it was his own kid.
Oh, how often his mind went to Danny. Danny would send texts and he’d call every day, and he’d sit back from a box full of photographs (packed up, to be sent to Hawaii) and he’d be wanting Danny there, if only to distract him for a few minutes.
“Have you gone through Daddy’s things yet?” Mary had asked him, folding clothes for donation in the dining room.
“Nah,” He answered. “Mom stayed in that room when she was around, but… other than that, that room has stayed closed. The bathroom gave me the fits a few weeks back too.”
Deb perked up from her chair with Joan and a book, where she was supposed to be taking it easy. “You haven’t gone through your father’s things? Oh honey, it’s been years.”
Steve shrugged. “I couldn’t at first. And then I had to, with his desk. I couldn’t see it every day. But that was…” He trailed off. “Danny helped me with that. I just haven’t gone in his room. There hasn’t been a reason to.”
“Maybe we’ll do that when I come visit?” Mary asked.
Steve met her eyes and nodded. “I’d like that.”
Deb had announced that she was going to take another cruise, after her last one had rejuvenated her, with what was left in her savings (“after funeral costs, of course” to which both siblings huffed and sighed and refused to talk about) and, because she wasn’t allowed to fly, they searched and searched until they found one that made port in Honolulu.
“This will be my last trip,” She said, as Steve talked to the people at the cruise line about how she’d be getting off and staying off. “I want it to be good.”
“Ooh,” Mary said, looking at the website. “There’s a formal dinner party.”
“Oh goodness, what will I wear?”
So Mary and Deb went out shopping for a fancy new dress while Steve watched Joan and called Danny.
“How you doing, babe?” Danny’s voice was soft and sweet. It would be mid-morning for him, so he was probably sitting in his office. The image of him ran through Steve’s head, leaning back in his chair, wearing a serious face. It took a moment to get it right in his head; Danny hadn’t worn a tie to work in years, and yet Steve’s mental image of the man still had him wearing one.
“This is hard,” Steve admitted, from the kitchen, eyes on Joan through the doorway.
“Yeah,” Danny commiserated. Steve smiled at that. “How’s Mary doing?”
“This is hard on her too.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m just glad Joan is a bit too little to really understand,” He said, eyes on her, sitting in front of the TV watching something she called ‘Uncle Steve’s Universe.’ Mary had assured him that the main character was named Steve and Joan had clung to it from the get go.
“So what’s the plan?”
“Well, Mary’s staying here in the house until we get it on the market, and then Deb is going to take a long cruise, and she’s rented a condo on Oahu. Mary’s going back to New York after that but she said she’s going to come a little bit before Thanksgiving and try to stay until… Depending on how Deb’s cruise goes.”
“She’s coming to Hawaii for the…”
“Yeah,” Steve cut him off. He knew it was coming, but he still didn’t want to hear it. “She says she wants to be near my dad and grandparents. I kind of don’t blame her. That was always in my Will in the Navy. To be buried on Oahu.”
“Please don’t talk about that,” Danny sighed. Steve smirked. Good to know Danny still cared.
“So, distract me. How’s work?”
He heard Danny sigh, and then a ruffle around that told Steve he was adjusting in his chair. “Jerry’s dog attack thing might have some merit.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, another dog attack this morning, North Shore, but the dog was from a different shelter.”
“Let’s see if anyone goes up missing.”
“Yeah, let’s hope not,” Danny said. “Otherwise, it’s been really, oddly, quiet. Like, I’m tempted to call up HPD and have them give us a B&E or something.”
“Oh, desperate, then.”
“It’s probably because you aren’t on the island, trouble has just stopped without you there to witness it and disrupt my day.”
“Hey, we do serious cases, it’s not my fault that I catch them before anyone else!”
“Yeah, yeah whatever.” Then, with a hint of worry. Kono’s looking a bit rough, with nothing to do.”
‘And no leads on Gabriel,’ Went unspoken.
“Well, I’ll be home on Friday,” Steve said. “Maybe I can talk her into taking me surfing this weekend.”
“You can’t keep up with her, babe.”
“Okay, no. But. She’d go easy on me if there was someone there who was new to the waves.”
Danny was silent for a bit. “Don’t make me volunteer my daughter, Steven.”
“I was talking about you and maybe Nahele, but okay.”
“Yeah, yeah,” He said. “She needs a break. I’ll suffer Camp Surf Like Kono for a smile from her, I swear.”
“Grace can come too, you know,” Steve said, something in his chest doing flips at the thought of Danny wiping out just to hear Kono laughing.
“She probably will,” Danny told him. “She and her mom had another round on the phone this morning.”
“Oh goodness,” Steve said, pulling a chair out from the dining table and sitting with a plop. “Tell me everything.”
~~~
“I’m so sorry, Commander. When did she pass?”
“Just after Thanksgiving. It was really hard that year, with Mary.”
“Condolences.”
“Thank you.”
“Alright, we got off topic. Let’s go back to the beginning with you again, Commander.”
A deep, steadying breath. A hand squeezing another.
“Right.”
~~~
The beginning, again
~~~
“I don’t remember eighth grade having this much homework,” Chin said, staring at the pile of books Grace had plopped down at the back table Friday afternoon, the one reserved for packing ammo and cleaning guns, making herself at home.
“I do,” Kono commiserated. “Eighth grade was a hard year for me. It was when I was getting attention and offers for surfing and hanging out with the older surfers. My parents had a hell of a time getting me into a classroom and off of the waves. Homework always seemed to be getting in the way.”
Grace smiled.
“Don’t go giving her any ideas,” Steve said, covering Grace’s ears.
Grace rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t work when Danno does it, it doesn’t work when you do it.”
“Still.”
Grace shrugged. “I think it’s the private school thing.”
“The what?”
“All the homework. Lucy’s a public school kid and she doesn’t have this much homework, ever. I mean, when am I going to need to know the length arc of the sector of a circle or whatever.”
“Mortar rounds,” Steve said, picking up a worksheet with a serious face. “Anticipation of trajectory of enemy ordinance. Estimating the size of an enemy LZ zone so you can also do the math and estimate how much ordinance you’d need to decimate the place without ever making you or your men enter into a combat situation.”
Everyone stared at him. Grace especially, her eyebrows high and face overwhelmed. He pulled a face. “What? That is what I went to school for.”
“You understand this stuff?”
Steve shrugged. “Sure.”
“That is good to know. Prepare yourself.”
“For what?”
“You’re going to end up tutoring me in this before the year is up.”
~~~
A laugh.
“What?”
“She was right. Thank god you understand math.”
~~~
Before the year was up
~~~
“Okay, now we have to go backwards,” Steve said, leaning over Grace’s shoulder. Her math book and math homework and half a dozen pieces of scratch paper and a couple of note cards with formulas written on them and a couple other books Steve and Danny had bought hoping they’d help her were strewn all around the dining room table.
“Ugh!” Grace groaned, sitting back in the chair and throwing her head back. “Why?”
“Because sometimes you’ll know the circumference but not the area,” Steve explained patiently.
“But if you don’t know the area, then how can you know the circumference in the first place?”
Danny sat back, leaning against the doorway, watching. Math had always been a struggle for him growing up, too. Here it was, almost midnight, and Grace was still at it. So was Steve, for that matter. He was just as dedicated in helping Grace get through this as Danny was. He was having flashbacks to sitting at the kitchen counter with his dad sitting over his shoulder trying to learn the stuff too to help Danny through it late into the night. Everyday Danny woke up and found himself, once again, that he was thankful that Steve was in his life. He knew cars, he knew science, he watched Danny’s back when they were in the field, and he understood math well enough to explain it to his teenage daughter.
“They still at it?” Nahele asked with a whisper from behind him, rubbing at his eyes, making Danny jump a bit. “Sorry,” Nahele obviously didn’t mean to scare him.
“You’re like a cat when you wear socks,” Danny joked. “We need to get you a bell.”
Nahele rolled his eyes. “I guess I just learned how to be quiet, stay out of everyone’s way.”
Danny bit his lip, unsure how much he was allowed to parent. He was Steve’s foster son, not his. Nahele turned back toward the garland covered stairs, twinkling with lights and lined up with their stockings.
Oh, screw it.
“Hey,” Danny called out to him with a bit of whisper, trying not to disturb Steve and Grace. He moved into the living room with him. “You’re not in anyone’s way here, okay?”
Nahele’s jaw tightened.
“Your presence is very much wanted here, you got it?”
He looked down at his feet and sniffed. “Thanks Danny.” His voice lower, and quieter than it had already been, Danny reached out, squeezed his arm and gave a grin, unsure if they were at the hugging point yet. Then again, what had all the classes taught him? Foster kids needed encouragement and support?
So Danny pulled him to him, the kid more than a couple inches taller than him already – he was almost even with Steve – and hugged him. Nahele went rigid for a couple seconds, long enough for Danny to second guess his decision to give of himself, before the kid slumped and fisted his hands into the sides of Danny’s t-shirt, like he was unsure if he was allowed to take.
Danny decided to hug him more often after that.
~~~
“I mean, that’s the right thing to do, right?”
“I believe so, yes.”
“Good.”
“He has gotten so much better than he was there at the beginning.”
“Oh, loads better.”
“We will get to Nahele later, preferably when he’s present. But, we got off topic again.”
A pointed look.
“Sorry. Right.”
~~~
Back to the beginning again
~~~
“One of your dad’s favorite movies is Die Hard?” Steve asked, looking at the stack of DVDs that Grace had packed for their weekend. He had always liked the one with Samuel L. Jackson better, anyway. “Isn’t that really, super cliché?”
Grace shrugged, hands busy braiding her wet hair into an intricate thing down the side of her neck. “He also likes those Jason Bourne movies, but last time I found it on cable and turned it on, he went on a big long thing about how he can’t watch those movies anymore because every time he does, he sees you.”
Steve smirked at that, shifting through the pile. “Air Force One?”
Grace shrugged again. “He likes most movies about the president, I’ve noticed. Or Harrison Ford. That one just has both so it’s a two-for-one.”
“You know we don’t have to watch these,” Steve told her. “We can watch whatever you want.”
“Nah,” Grace said. “It’s not a real Mope Weekend without fake explosions.”
“Alright,” Steve said with a bit of a chuckle, grabbing one of the discs and standing up, his decision made. “In that case we are going full on cliché this weekend. Complete with Bruce Willis in over his head.”
Grace smiled widely again, tying off her braid, and sitting down on the couch with an over dramatic flop. “We’ll get together, have a few laughs,” She said with a horrible attempt at the accent.
Steve laughed at that one. He knelt down at the DVD player, turning to look at her. “You’ve seen this movie enough you can quote it?”
“Every year, like clockwork. I only got to see it all the way through without eyes or ears being covered up last year. Or.” She made a face. “The year before. We didn’t do it last year.”
Steve took a deep breath. “When-“ He started. He didn’t want to ask. He could always look it up or ask Danny. Then, waiting for the machine to whirl up and open for him, curiosity got the better of him. “When is the anniversary of the divorce?”
“It’s early in November.”
Around the time Wo Fat had kidnapped him, then. A chill went up Steve’s spine at the memory, the sticky wet of the warm water, the fuzzy ringing in his ears every time he’d try to think too much about that day – a side effect of the drug, the doctors said. Comparing Danny’s personal twenty four hour security detail at the hospital for the week afterward to a guard dog and Danny not rising to the bait, just raising his chin, looking him deep in the eye, and saying, “You’re damn right I am.”
Steve had been extremely close to death several times – as had Danny – it was the nature of their job after all. The last few years had seen several close calls, and, for every single time Steve jumped into the line of fire, Danny had yelled at him.
Steve grinned at that. At Danny yelling at him, arms waving, calling him an idiot.
Well, not all of the close calls. Since Afghanistan, he’d gotten quiet. A soft, gentle, exasperation once Steve had found safety after a particular round with death. Steve didn’t know what had changed. It wasn’t like he wasn’t the only one with close calls. That fear and panic and literal string Steve sat on after that phone call saying Danny had been stabbed before he had gotten to the hospital. He left a crime scene, left a criminal, with barely a word, and just left, Danny too important. Or the five days straight Steve didn’t sleep or shower or change clothes to get Danny home from Columbia. (Maybe he did know what had changed, starting way back when a building fell on them, he just didn’t want to think about it too much.)
They really had a crappy year, didn’t they?
Steve sighed in relief when the DVD tray finally opened, knocking him out of his out mind and train of thought.
Then again, he did want to wallow, right?
He pushed the DVD back in, stood, and shook himself. He wanted to wallow. And throw a pity party. And focus on all the horrible things. It worked for Danny, right? He wanted to wallow…
…about Catherine. Not Danny. He hadn’t really thought much about…
He sighed in relief again, when the doorbell rang and Grace jumped up, an old, baggy, t-shirt emblazoned with NJPD on the front tied in a knot at the small of her back singing about pizza. Steve grinned; ducking into the office where he’d sat out some cash for the pizza on the desk, and wondered briefly if Danny had given the shirt to her, or if she had commandeered it.
The pizza girl was maybe in her twenties, long brown hair, deep brown eyes, and a sweet, smart smile and Steve was finally forced to think about Catherine again. On that porch, only a few weeks ago, telling him that she loved him, her eyes wet, saying how hard it was, and leaving anyway. He just didn’t understand, no matter how many times he tried to wrap his head around it.
“I need to feel needed,” She had said. Had he not done that?
‘I guess you didn’t do enough,’ His brain supplied. That’s what it was, right? He wasn’t enough?
Grace elbowed him, gesturing to the money, and he jumped into action, handing it over with a grin.
“You’re dad’s a cutie,” The pizza girl said. “You look a lot alike.”
“Oh,” Steve started, “She’s no-“
“Thank you!” Grace said instead, wide blazing smile. “Everyone says I look like my mom, though.”
She shrugged. “Well, I have a feeling you’ll be tall like your dad,” She said, motioning to Steve.
Steve and Grace shared a moment, staring at each other in mirrored disbelief, before they both broke out into all out laughter.
“Sure,” Steve said, still laughing, being sure to leave behind a nice tip. She was already looking wide eyed, like she had said something wrong. It wasn’t her fault Grace had let the misunderstanding slide.
“Oh yeah,” Grace said, laughing just as hard, grabbing the pizza box. “Tall like my dad. You’re right.” She turned around towards the kitchen, laughter ringing through the house.
“Night!” Steve said cheerfully to a confused delivery girl, as he closed the door. He momentarily felt bad. Grace’s resurgence of laughter from the other room made it disappear just as quick. “Why’d you do that Grace?”
She turned as he entered the kitchen, pineapple pizza already in her mouth. “Why would a forty year old man have a teenage girl alone in his house?”
Steve paused for a moment, thinking about the implications. “Oh.” Then. “I’m not forty.”
“Yeah yeah, whatever,” She shrugged. “Besides, you’d say ‘she’s my partner’s daughter’ and people would still think ‘step-daughter’ so it doesn’t matter.”
Warmth ran through Steve’s veins at that, but he wasn’t going to think about it. He had fresh pineapple pizza and a classic movie and a little girl with a wide smile helping him laugh. The last thing he needed to think about was Danny.
This was good. Just what he needed. No wonder Danny made them a bit of a tradition.
Mope Weekends were wonderful.
~~~
“That’s where that joke’s from?”
A small laugh.
“We see that pizza girl every time we order pizza, Steven!”
The laughing continues.
“Joke?”
~~~
Mope Weekend, Day Two
~~~
Danny had been moved to share a room with Charlie. Stan and Rachel were sitting tersely on opposite sides of Charlie’s bed and Stan was being overly, suspiciously nice towards Danny. Danny was tense at having all three parents in the room at once and Charlie was complaining that he was tired and felt sick and they were trying to distract him and Grace was sitting criss cross at the foot of Danny’s bed talking about the handful of waves she and Steve had caught on Steve’s beach the night before and Steve leaned back against the wall taking it all in.
“Will you teach me how to surf?” Charlie had asked. “Once I get better?”
Steve looked up, happy that Charlie was starting to be comfortable enough with his presence that he was asking him for things. He smiled.
“If it’s alright with your-“ He paused, eyes flitting to Danny, then to Stan, then to Rachel, then back to Danny. “Folks,” He settled on.
Rachel adjusted in her chair, Stan lowered his gaze, and Danny’s shoulders tightened.
“And Aunt Kono,” Danny said, raising his eyebrows to Steve. Steve mirrored them back.
“Uncle Steve’s beach is super cool,” Grace told him. “The water gets deep pretty fast, but the water is really calm if it’s not raining, and maybe when you’re a bit bigger, he’ll take us snorkeling in the coral at the mouth of the bay.”
“Yeah?” Charlie asked, eyes turning to Steve.
Steve nodded. “You’re a bit too little yet, but maybe in a few years.”
‘If he gets there,’ His brain supplied. Then he kicked himself for even thinking it.
“Yeah but until then,” Grace started again, “He’s got a cool beach and a house with a big backyard, and one of those outdoor showers you like to play in. Uncle Steve is super cool.”
“Did you hear that Danno?” Steve asked. “’Super cool.’”
“Yeah, I heard it,” He said with a grin and eyes for nothing but his daughter. The little warmth from the night before flooded through Steve with a vigor. Danny happy and smiling at his children was really a glorious sight to see. Steve was maybe a little more over Catherine than he thought. He scratched at his face, trying to get rid of the thought.
“Plus, he’s really tall,” Grace said, with a smirk towards Steve. Steve couldn’t help the snort that came out of him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Danny asked, face fallen.
“Nothing, Danno,” Steve said. “Nothing at all.”
“Definitely nothing to do with DNA,” Grace said, seriously towards Danny, then turned another smirk towards Steve.
Steve lost it, falling forward to his knees in laughter and he came back up wiping at his face. Grace wore a wide, playful smile. Danny looked so confused that Steve only laughed again.
“What is this?”
“You told me to make sure he was happy this weekend, I’d say laughing is a pretty good indicator.”
Steve took a much needed breath, the laughter shaking loose something he didn’t know he was holding on to, a weight somewhere around his jaw and shoulders and upper back just fell off and the warmth spread. As much as he claimed he didn’t want a babysitter, and as much as he was supposed to be Grace’s babysitter this weekend, she was certainly a much welcomed and much needed, steadying figure in his life.
“Yeah, I get that, and I’m very proud of you, but what does it mean?”
“Oh, you know Danno,” Grace said, a playful smirk focused on Steve. “Father, daughter bonding.”
“Oh my god!” Steve exclaimed before he started laughing again.
He ended up having to leave the room after that.
~~~
“So the tension between Mr. and Mrs. Edwards was already there?”
“I’m pretty sure it was there the moment Stan learned Charlie wasn’t his.”
“Well, my first one on one session with Mr. Edwards is tomorrow, so we’ll find out. Anyway, if you could see it, do you think the children could too? Or was it just not talked about.”
“I’m sure they picked up on it. Grace, of course, you know what’s happening with Grace and Rachel.”
“Yes, Mrs. Edward’s session was this morning. I’m very interested in talking to Grace.”
“Why didn’t you want to talk to Danny and me separate, like Stan and Rachel?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Edwards are going through a divorce, are they not? You two are currently in a domestic partnership. Can I ask why that and not a marriage?”
A shrug.
“At the time it was just easier with the kids, and marriage wasn’t…”
“…wasn’t on the table... at the time.”
A narrowing of eyes.
A smug grin.
“…and I still don’t know how you got together.”
“Because we keep going off on tangents, Steven.”
“I’m not the only one, Daniel. I mean, I could be talking about you and your movie choices.”
“They aren’t clichéd, by the way!”
“Oh, yeah they are…”
~~~
About halfway through the movie
~~~
“Oh my god,” Steve said, taking another sip of his water.
“What?”
“It’s Danno.”
“What?”
“That’s why he likes this movie so much. It’s pretty much Danny. They are the same guy.”
“Uncle Steve, let’s not dwell on why my father’s favorite movie to watch on the anniversary of breaking up with my mother is about an east coast cop who likes to hear himself talk going through a divorce. Let’s focus on the gun fights and the explosions like we’re supposed to.”
“Yes ma’am.”
~~~
A laugh. “Grace sounds delightful.”
“She is,” Said at the same time.
“Well, our hour is up, so you’ll have to continue this next time. Uh, also, Commander, I can answer your question, this can’t go towards your state mandated hours, you’ll still be required to do your annual assessment.”
“Awesome.”
“Well, I guess… I will see you when you drop off Grace and Nahele tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” “Yes.”
“Alright, good first session, guys.”