Archive of Our Own

Steve wasn’t planning on asking Danny to -- to marry him, of all the things in the world. It wasn’t like the idea hadn’t ever entered his head at least in the abstract; if nothing else, the fact that they now could wasn’t really something he could remain unaware of. But how he’d gotten from there to -- fuck, from there to proposing, was something else, something less instinctive than impulsive. Instinctive is good; Steve has spent and still spends a lot of time training to the point where his actions are instinctive. Impulsive is bad, and now that Steve’s head’s cleared, he doesn’t blame Danny for ordering him out swimming so that Danny could have some space to think it over. It occurs to Steve that the first words likely to come out of Danny’s mouth when he gets back are some version of “Did you mean it?”

That isn’t what they are, though. What Steve hears instead is “Okay, stop attempting the stoic visage, seriously, wipe that expression right off your face, you are a human being and not a robot... For fuck’s sake. Yes, I, Daniel Williams, will marry you, Steven J. McGarrett, although God knows why I don’t know better. My brains and my sanity have been sunburned to charcoal, and I would remind you that you will henceforth be responsible for the medical consequences that result from that... McGarrett. Did you just take a tidal wave to the head, or is there some other reason why you’re still standing there looking like mentally deficient livestock?”

Steve’s not immediately sure of how to process all that.

Danny rolls his eyes. “Jesus Christ, I don’t know why I bother sometimes.” He strides on over, pulls Steve’s head down, and kisses him like fate of Jon Bon Jovi depends on it. “Okay, congratulations, now I’ve got salt water all over my clothes. Go shower, you smell like a dead fish.”

Steve showers, as instructed. When he gets out, Danny looks up from yesterday’s sports section with a raised eyebrow. “Now I’m really concerned. You took five whole minutes in there. Is the world about to end?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, that’s a relief... And again with the standing there staring at me. Don’t, okay, just don’t, we are getting married and at the very least we can cuddle with impunity.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“There’s the smile I was looking for. Come on over here, you big lug.” Steve complies, and Danny goes into what Steve thinks of as his high-intensity snuggling mode. “I have,” he says, “the world’s most dangerous fiancé. Who, by the way, after he’s taken his second multi-hour swim of the day and I’ve said yes, is still tense.  Seriously, what gives?”

“Nothing. Why do you always assume I’m tense?”

“Oh, do not even try that with me, especially not now. I know that you are tense because I have met you and we are well acquainted at this point. Cough it up, babe.”

“Look, don’t get mad -- ”

“What have you done now, Steve?”

“I was just thinking, what if Grace...”

“Seriously?” Danny pulls Steve flush up against him for another kiss. “Grace thinks you’re the coolest thing since the evolution of dolphins. Worst-case scenario, she registers some prepubescent discontent at a new situation, and a year later she thanks us for going through with it anyway. That’s possible, but I don’t think it’s likely.”

“Okay.”

“Just let her be the first one to hear about this, okay? I mean, I’ll have to talk to Rachel ahead of time, because we do not make Grace play messenger. But I think Grace should know before anyone else.”

“I think she should too.”

That doesn’t mean Steve’s reassured, though. Because whatever Danny says, regardless of the fact that it’s his life and hiss decision, if Grace for whatever reason isn’t ready to let Steve be that kind of family, then going forward with this is will involve problems that Danny might decide it’s better to avoid. And if he does, Steve will never try to persuade him otherwise.

Wednesday, when Danny will have Grace in the evening, is a tense day at work. Chin and Kono keep giving Steve strange looks, and he knows that tomorrow might be even harder. If things don’t go the way he hopes, it won’t just be a matter of strange looks. And there’s no chance it will stay a secret. It’s always better to spill everything right away than to play a doomed game of chicken against Chin Ho Kelly’s knowing looks and unspoken offers to listen.

He wants to go crazy waiting for the phone to ring that evening. When it does, he picks up while the first tone is still sounding. “McGarrett, Five-0.”

“McGarrett, get your ass over here, there’s a plate of homemade pasta with your name on it.”

Thank God for Danny’s voice. It’s like an ops manual that Steve’s learned by heart, and what he’s just heard is Situation Resolved. He jumps in the truck and adheres to the laws of the road less closely than is ideal as he drives to Danny’s apartment. He’s barely touched his knuckles to the door when it flies open and Grace shrieks “Uncle Steve!” It’s  thanks to his training alone that the force of her hug leaves him upright.

“Hey, Grace,” he says, once she’s given him a little breathing room. “How are you doing?”

“Really good!”

“Yeah, me too.” She’s actually jumping up and down, and the only reason Steve doesn’t join her is that he’s a hundred pounds heavier and wearing boots. “Am I allowed to tell you I love you, now that I’m marrying your dad?” He’s been rolling the words over in his mind since Sunday: Love you, Grace.

“I love you too, Uncle Steve.” She hugs him again and leads him to the table.

Over a plate of something that deserves more attention than Steve’s giving it, he’s informed that yes, actually, there will be some kind of ceremony, and he’s expected to wear a civilian clothes. He would actually prefer full dress: the uniform means something. It means a lot, actually; that’s why they have non-working uniforms to begin with. You wear them when it’s important because it shows respect, and definitely not because they’re comfortable.

But regs are clear: no additional articles with uniform, and Grace wants to choose a lei for Steve to wear. That means the uniform is out. Steve nods at everything Grace says, hoping at one point that he hasn’t just consented to a week-long Celine Dion theme wedding.

Grace insists on Steve’s staying to tuck her in, at a bedtime that Danny barely manages to enforce despite its being school night. “Thanks for that,” Danny says quietly, once her door’s closed behind them. “I don’t know how much longer she’ll want to be tucked in.”

“It’s not a hardship, Danny.”

“No, but that’s not all I was thanking you for, babe. I know you’re not a weddings guy.”

“There are worse kinds of mandatory fun.”

“You’re still not a weddings guy. Neither am I.” Danny gives him a quick kiss. “I’m a wants-to-make-out-with-you-on-the-couch guy, but I know for a fact that Grace is wide awake. So go rest up, we’ve got to tell Chin and Kono first thing tomorrow.”

***

Of course, “first thing tomorrow” gets delayed by some heroin traffickers who have made an art of hiding in plain sight and have plans of their own. The team gets called to the docks before rush hour, and the whole thing’s a SNAFU. It’s noon before they’ve chased down the suspects and located the actual narcotics they were transferring, and then Chin has to talk down an irate governor’s aide who’s covered in as much coconut powder as the rest of them. Kono ices a split lip and Steve tries to fob off the press on a DEA agent. That’s not easy to balance with listening to Danny’s ritual Miranda spiel: “Would trying it in Mandarin work? You speak Mandarin, right? Or maybe you could learn it in Spanish? I realize you don’t know Spanish, but given that you’re incapable of human communication, that would probably be a bonus. Repeat after me, Steven: Tiene el derecho a permanecer callado...”

“Todo lo que diga podrá ser usado en su contra -- ”

“Why do I even bother? You do this just to spite me. And your pronunciation is abominable, in case you were wondering.”

Danny’s winding up to his grand finale when the aide takes her leave and Kono’s lip stops bleeding. “You finished yet?” Steve ask. “Can we focus on the fact that we got the job done?”

“We got it done the hard way, Steve, the messy way. Literally, I might add.”

Kono shakes her head. “Honestly, when are you two getting married?”

She’s asked that question before, of course, but Steve makes brief eye contact with Danny, who’s paused in his rant. Chin and Kono exchange a look. “Oh, my God,” says Kono, “When are you...”

“When did you get engaged?” Chin asks.

“I vote that we discuss this over lunch,” says Danny.

“How about Kamekona’s?” Chin suggests. “I’ll drive, cous’ can grill you on the details.”

“I’ll drive,” says Steve.

Danny sighs. “Steve, you barely keep your eyes on the road when you’ve got one other person in the car. They will be pressure-hosing the stain off the Ala Moana highway for months if you try to drive while Kono is questioning you.”

"He’s right, boss,” Kono agrees.

“Whatever, Kono, you’re a traitor,” Steve says, but he tosses the keys to Chin anyway, because he’s in a good mood and outnumbered in a way that’s not advisable to resolve by force.

At the beach, Kono jumps out of the car before it’s drawn to a complete stop -- Danny groans, although they were going less than twenty m.p.h. and Kono did a perfect dismount -- and gets herself to Kamekona’s stand in a way that suggests it’s a race. “We had a bet,” Chin says, as if in explanation.

“A bet?” Danny repeats. “What kind of bet are you talking about?”

Before he can answer, Kamekona’s voice booms from inside his truck: “Eh, Chin Ho Kelly an’ the lovebirds! Get yo’ ass over here!”

“Kamekona. Howzit?” Steve says.

“Maika‘i, brah. Hear you two goin tie the knot.”

“That’s right, we are,” Danny confirms.

“Who ask who?”

“I asked,” says Steve. Danny glares at him a little, so he adds, “It was a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing thing.”

“You didn’t do nothin romantic?”

“Are you out of your mind?” Danny asks. “This is Steve McGarrett we’re talking about.”

“Yeah, but he got a sensitive side, you know dat. Get real sentimental sometime. Thought he mighta plan somethin out.”

“Believe me, he planned nothing out.”

“He’s right, I didn’t.”

“Steve, you disappoint me, bruddah! Somethin like dis, you got to put in some thought into, do it right. You can’t just ask out of the blue, like you gotta admit you hardly try. A man got to have some skills.”

“I’ve got plenty of skills.”

“Yeah, but he got to have finesse.  Proposal is once in a lifetime, you got to make it an event.  Maybe you oughtta ask for a do-over.”

Danny raises his hand. “Excuse me, as the person who’s actually involved here, I veto any kind of do-over. Not only am I not an overpriced-alcohol and allergy-triggering bouquets kind of guy, but there’s at least a seventy percent chance that Steve’s idea of a romantic gesture would wipe Oahu clean off the map, and there are people on this island that I care about.”

“You coulda ask him, though. Still could, on one knee the way you supposed to.”

“What, and tear my ACL again? Because that was so much fun the last time. And before you ask, no, I am not going to take the amazing deal on what is ostensibly a diamond that your third cousin once removed is fortuitously selling.”

“Eh, no cousin of mine sell anything but the genuine article.”

“And I repeat, no.”

Kamekona heaves a sigh. “Shoot, man. Means I lost the bet. Gonna have to give you the ohana special discount on catering. Was goin charge the wedding rate if I won.”

“You do weddings,” Danny says, not quite making it a question.

“Course I do. Maybe haoles ain’t heard about it, but everyone else here know Kamekona’s seafood fusion ‘aha’aina male extravaganza. Famous all across the islands.”

Steve avoids eye contact with his teammates, although he thinks Danny must be trying to stare assertively at Kamekona as he says, “The ohana rate better be a good one, because I absolutely refuse to spend more on the whole wedding than my parents spent on the rehearsal dinner for my first one -- voluntarily, mind you, they’re only human and are bound to suffer an extremely occasional lapse in judgment.”

“Ohana rate’s a good deal! One economical per-head price get you a whole buffet: Wedding shrimp supreme and six of my greatest hits, plus green salad, mac salad, rice, an’ pineapple. All capped off with my special dessert.” He leans in for a theatrical pause, and the shrimp truck wobbles precariously.

Danny, with the rest of them, backs up like Roadrunner. “What’s your special dessert, pineapple upside-down wedding cake?"

“Betta den cake!” Kamekona leans in further, and there must be some impressive custom engineering that’s keeping the truck upright. "Wedding shave ice.” He straightens up again, and the truck wobbles back.

Steve will admit that he maybe lets out a small sigh of relief.

Danny looks like he’s searching for something to say, then throws up his hands. “Fine, whatever, it beats dealing with a caterer. Or Steve roasting up a boar he killed with his bare hands. Just, can you throw in some of the tofu kebab things in case my sisters can make it? Shrimp is not kosher and Tina’s Jewish, she converted, and I don’t want her to be the only one eating some half-assed -- ”

“Don’t worry, I neva goin let your sister go hungry.”

“-- and they and Dad are all health nuts, so maybe, just maybe, try and have the salad be more salad than dressing? Because I can tell you right now that they will freak out if they get handed a plate of batter-fried whatever drenched in coconut lard.”

Steve feels a powerful hunch as to why Danny, whose diet is healthy overall, makes a point of indulging his grease and sugar cravings when there’s someone around who will be appalled.

“I can do dat,” Kamekona says. “Meanwhile, you want today’s special? A brand-new -- ”

“Just the usual all around, I’m begging you,” says Danny.

Kamekona shrugs. “Your loss, den.”

Steve considers it an acceptable one, although he  almost does a double take when Kamekona hands him the bill. “What, so to offset the ohana discount, you’re tacking on a fifty-percent service charge for the next year or something?”

“Next eighteen months. Man got to make a living, we don’t all get a government paycheck.”

“Well, Chin can pay the service charges, this was his idea,” Steve says.

Chin snorts into his mac and cheese. “Worth it, brah. Let’s just hope Max doesn’t start charging commissions for autopsy photos. Even you couldn’t get the governor to approve that one.”

“Max was in on this bet?” Danny asks.

Kono nods. “He volunteered to do the photos even if he won. We didn’t have the heart to turn him down.”

“You didn’t have the heart,” says Steve, “to turn down photography at a hypothetical wedding that wasn’t yours?”

Chin shrugs. “It’s Max, would you? Besides, as I learned the hard way, the alternative is having him regale the other guests with bat guano stories from his latest spelunking adventure.”

“Yes, thank you for bringing that up while I’m trying to eat lunch,” Danny says. “But -- although I wish you’d made your point a little less specifically -- you do have one, and if you think wedding caterers are bad, I would rather hear Max’s heroic doings recounted at length than even stand next to a photographer. So tell Max that we are thrilled to accept his generous offer, the next time you somehow happen to run into him. ”

Kono looks up from her phone, not the least bit guiltily.

“Although I cannot stress enough that no one should tell my family that Max, specifically, cuts up corpses for a living. Actually, no one should tell anyone that, because knowing it at all is just disturbing.”

“I’ll try and distract him if the subject comes up,” Chin promises.

***

The weekend after the proposal is the monthly one devoted to the Reserves. It’s the first time in more than a decade that Steve’s been less than completely focused on the tasks at hand. He does okay -- handles his weapons well, meets or exceeds physical benchmarks, drills like it’s second nature -- but at every three-minute rest, he’s checking his phone for messages, and his face is probably giving him away. He spares a quick thought for the fact that three years ago, he would have had to be perfectly discreet. Or, really, that there wouldn’t have been any cause to be indiscreet in the first place.

Of course, three years ago, he hadn’t even met Danny.

He’s a little disappointed when the first text of the weekend is a work note from Chin: Got a lead on the Anderson case, will keep you posted. Steve texts back a quick Mahalo and reminds himself that Danny does not make a habit of spamming him when he’s on base. Still, it’s a little disconcerting when the next message is from Max:  Congratulations, Commander McGarrett! In re. photography, analog film offers several aesthetic and technical advantages over digital, but was indeed displaced in the mass market because it possesses disadvantages relative to digital photography as well. Which would you prefer?

Steve doesn’t try to answer that one before the breather is up, and he doesn’t see a need to reply to Danny’s first message, which he gets during the next one: thnik kono was right re. Widows albii. But he could cheer right in the middle of the mess hall later on, when he checks his phone to find Fa,mily says congrats& cant wait to meet yo P.S. Daddy says sorry about his goofy thumbs. I love you, Uncle Steve! -Grace. It’s no difficulty to postpone digging into an A-ration sandwich long enough to reply That’s great. I love you too, Grace, and your dad, goofy thumbs and all.

He gets a clap on the shoulder from Tony Hebert, who’s been at Pearl’s ops department since osteoarthritis forced him out of the SEALs last year. “What are you grinning at, Smooth Dog?” he drawls, as thickly as if he’d never left Louisiana.

“A man’s not allowed to smile sometimes?”

“He’s allowed to. Doesn’t mean he does, especially not you.”

“Hey, I’m a weekend warrior now. I’ve got time to learn about emotions,” Steve says, and that gets a laugh.

The truth is that he misses active duty enough that he’s tempted to go back to it sometimes. There’s nothing else like living moment to moment just on the goal and the discipline that goes with it, nothing like the pride of getting it done. Sure, he’d age out of the field if he survived, and he’s not cut out for an admiral or an instructor. But he’s good for a minimum of three more years with the SEALs, and probably for five. Eight would be pushing it but not implausible.

What snaps him back to the life he has now are his commitments in it. The Reserves are not about pretending that your other responsibilities don’t exist. At his next breather he gets a reminder of them from Danny:  Cleared out Thrus. Schedule to start w/legal stuff& called yr. Atty. for you so you owd me malasadas< max has photo. Questions pls. Make him stfu.

Steve has mercy and does get back to Max then with a quick Flip a coin. As he’s lacing his boots, he remembers that it’s Max and takes thirty seconds to follow it up with Flip the oldest quarter that’s currently in your wallet. Heads analog, tails digital. The lace-up job is ugly, but it holds until duty ends. He gets home to find a message from Kono: Told you I was right about Anderson’s widow. Strippers @ bachelor party, y/n?

He texts her back with You were; NO! and is not reassured when she replies Piñata with divorce lawyers, then? That might be fun for Danny, who probably suggested it in the first place, but Governor Denning’s not a believer in full immunity and means.

***

Lawyers aren’t at the top of the priority list the minute Steve gets back to work. He’s too busy getting updated on weekend developments: details from the Anderson case; chatter among some gun-runners; the DA prosecuting Davis wants to prep them this afternoon. Nobody, least of all Danny, wants to have two lawyer-related conversations in the same day, so the subject doesn’t come up until they’ve spent Tuesday morning getting frustrated and rained on as one effort after the next to chase down Mrs. Anderson’s alibi witnesses comes up empty. By mid-day, even Chin Ho’s aura of patience is starting to wear thin, and Danny’s arsenal of hair products has failed against the onslaught of nature.

“I hate this day,” Danny mutters as he gets into the car. He does a rearview mirror hair check and quickly gives up on a manual taming effort. “I think I actually hate this day more than I hate lawyers.”

“How much do you hate lawyers?”

Danny groans. “Steve, I am divorced. I hate lawyers more than poisonous jellyfish bites -- ”

“Jellyfish stings.”

“Poisonous jellyfish whatever and pineapple on pizza combined. And that’s not even considering that I’ll have to deal with Rachel and her lawyers too.”

“Rachel’s lawyers?”

“Yeah, anything that affects me -- ”

“Affects Grace, got it.”

“Exactly. And, um, just a heads up here, to get things established in advance -- they’ll probably ask if we want to change our wills, so if you haven’t looked over yours in a while, you might want to do that.”

“No, I updated it after I settled down here. You know, with...” The lack of a euphemism for My parents’ life insurance seems like an oversight. His dad’s already collateral damage.

“With all the considerations that new circumstances entailed.”

“Right.”

“That’s good. Very diligent of you.” Danny clears his throat. “So I updated mine after the divorce and I reviewed it over the weekend. I’m gonna keep, um, I’m not going to change any of the terms.”

“Grace gets everything?”

“Yeah. Of course, the lawyers will probably make us draw up new ones that say exactly the same thing, because that’s what lawyers do for fun.”

“Well, everyone needs a hobby, right?”

“Not if it’s like that. And you would think that a police union lawyer would be used to dealing with clients who have, you know, encountered the prospect of death pretty frequently and wouldn’t still spend sixteen hours tiptoeing around the subject like they’re talking to extremely sheltered china shop owners.”

“My lawyer’s ex-Navy. He’s not bad about it.”

“Makes sense. Please just tell me that your will doesn’t say, ‘I leave my mortal remains to science to discover new and awesome forms of human combustion.’”

“No, but if anything ever happens to me, I want Kono to take care of my truck.”

“Ensuring that the legacy of terror for Oahu’s streets continues unabated.”

“Exactly.” Steve gives a quick smile, but he has a feeling that they’re Talking About This, capital letters. “So. My dad already set something aside for Chin. And, um, Mary stands to get my military pension, you know, we have our differences, but I’m not going to leave my sister out in the cold.”

“Of course not. I wouldn’t either if I had enough dough to make splitting it up worthwhile.”

“Right.” Steve clears his throat and takes a quick glimpse at Danny. “The other benefits, you know, the civilian policy -- ”

“I know what ‘benefits’ are, Steve.”

“ -- and the estate, like the assets, the actual financial part plus the house -- ”

“I know what ‘estate’ and ‘assets’ mean, too.”

“ -- everything else, Danny, that’s for you and Grace.”

Danny looks at him for a long minute. “Okay,” he says, and starts folding his hands around each other. “I’m guessing that you’d be offended if I asked if you were joking.”

Steve doesn’t answer, but Danny’s pretty good at reading him. “So. You’re not joking.”

His jaw’s tight. “No.”

“All right, all right! ...Okay. I see. And, ah, this will, it was drawn up -- ‘after you settled down back here,’ that means what, precisely, in terms of time?”

“I signed it in December. The sixteenth, I think.”

Danny takes a deep breath and, Steve would bet, counts to ten. “December sixteenth of which year,  Steven?”

“2010.”

“2010,” Danny repeats.

“That’s right.”

“2010 as in, the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal was still being obstructed. The 2010 in which, for three quarters of the year, we were unaware of each other’s very existence.”

“Yeah. That 2010.”

“And it never occurred to you that maybe, just maybe, you should ask me about something like this?”

“It never occurred to me.”

Danny just sputters.

Okay, so they’re going to do this. “Asking you about it did not occur to me, because it was an executive decision. At that point all those assets were solely mine, and you didn’t have a say what I chose to do with them.”

“And you were feeling, what, charitable?”

“No. You were providing for Grace -- ”

“Right, despite Stan’s efforts to buy her affection and the fact that two U.S. states were trying there hardest bankrupt me. That was every bit as coincidental as how, despite the Navy’s notoriously shit salaries, despite those and an extremely minor global economic catastrophe, you were doing fine, Steve, you were earning dividends from investing almost every cent they ever paid you, your financial obligations were effectively nil.”

At least Danny’s not mad enough to point out how long it took Steve to start wondering how, exactly, a schoolteacher married to a cop had paid off the house. Steve hates himself for being grateful that that trail, anyway, has gone cold.

But even if Danny’s staying away from that, he’s just getting into things: “I mean, you incurred virtually no expenses during your entire active duty career. Which, yes, I am aware that the lodging and rations provided to you sucked at the best of times, and that it was and is a tremendous act of service on your part, which I respect and am grateful for, but the fact remains, you were in a certain position, in terms of your resources. So  you were thinking, what, that because being Steve McGarrett automatically gives you responsibility for everything, you wanted to take -- ”

“No, Danny,” Steve cuts him off, close to shouting. “I was not trying to take care of you or of Grace, because I could see you had that handled.”

“Well, I’m glad my efforts met with your approval, because -- ”

“But I also knew, Danny, I knew the first week I met you, that if you were offered a choice between having an additional form of security in place for your daughter or not having it there, no matter how mad you got on your own behalf, that because of Grace, it would never even occur to you that any choice existed. I acted on that information, and I have no regrets about that action. So if you’re waiting for an apology, know that it’s never going to happen.”

Danny gapes at him for a while, then downgrades to staring. Finally he manages to say, “You had known me for less than three months.”

“Like I said, it was longer than I needed to figure that much out.” Steve leaves it at that as he pulls the Camaro into its spot by ’Iolani palace. He stays in the car, giving Danny some space to think.

Danny takes a full minute of silence and darting his tongue out over his lips before he says, “Okay. So. I’m not sure what to say about, or even what to call, that particular gesture, because the English language has no word that means ‘a combination of thoughtfulness, insanity, and arrogance.’ Although now that I think of it, ‘Steve McGarrett’ would work pretty well. I’ll have to suggest it Webster’s. But in the mean time, and for the record -- we are going to disagree about money sometimes, because all couples do, and despite anything Rachel says, I have learned something about fighting fair since I was married to her.”

“Okay.”

“That’s all you have to say about this? Okay?”

“For now.”

“‘For now...’ All right. ‘For now’ is fine. I mean, at least most of your weapons purchases are on the state’s dime.” Danny unbuckles his seatbelt and gets out of the car, Steve following. “Although I expect you to hold a firm line with Grace about not buying licensed Hello Kitty wedding decorations, no matter how hard she sells the sad-puppy-dog expression.”

“I’ll do my best.”

***

Mary, of course, has made no promises about Grace’s puppy dog eyes.

Steve feels like Chin and Kono have barely gotten the news before Danny is on his case to call Mary, who’s not the easiest civilian to get in touch with. This time, she at least returns his call within a couple of days, and before Steve can veto the plan, she’s arranging a last-minute weekend trip to see all of them.

Mary and Grace hit it off disturbingly well. Mary somehow evaporates Grace’s shyness almost instantly, and in no time at all, she’s out teaching Grace surfing moves that would make Danny panic if he understood what was going on. They’re perfectly safe, so Steve decides, for Danny’s own sake, not to fill him in. Of course, then Mary has to go and mix Grace a virgin daiquiri at dinner. Danny would probably mind that more if he had more experience with Mary.

He doesn’t, though, so Steve just empties the fruit mix when Mary’s not looking, before a hastily arranged get-together with Lucy. Mary has her revenge when a storm forces everyone inside for the afternoon. She picked up some craft supplies earlier, she announces, and there’s lots they can do.

“This is really not a good idea,” Steve whispers as they watch the proceedings.

“It’s origami, Steve. There are a lot of worse ideas for a rainy day.”

“Trust me, something will happen. Mary’s a bad influence.”

“Right, because Grace doesn’t already have a worse influence in her life, in the form of a certain special forces Raider.”

“SEAL, Danny. Raiders are Marines.”

“Although Rachel’s been running a close second ever since she actually went out and bought our daughter a copy of something How To Plan a Ridiculously Complicated Wedding for Less Money Than a Tank of Gas.  By which they mean a tank of gas for my car, because most royal weddings probably cost less than filling up your petroleum-guzzling land yacht.”

“My truck gets decent mileage.”

“Compared to what, the Exxon Valdez? You would actually save the taxpayers of Hawaii money if you traded that thing in for a tank, which I am not suggesting that you do.”

Steve’s intrigued by the non-suggestion, but before he can say as much, Mary calls out, “Hey, big brother, quit arguing and come help us with the wedding decorations.”

“Decorations? It’s at Pilikoi Park down the street.”

Mary ignores the point completely. “Yeah, I actually wondered why you’re not just having it at the house -- ”

“Because that way the park will be liable instead of us if Kamekona’s shrimp truck shorts out the generator and kills half the people in Honolulu,” Danny says.

“It wouldn’t really, would it?” asks Lucy.

“No, of course not. You know my daughter’s told you how I like to exaggerate sometimes?”

“He really, really does,” Steve says, as Lucy nods.

“This is one of those times. You have nothing to worry about, the generators have safety controls.”

Lucy looks to be considering whether to trust Danny, then nods. She hands Steve a shape that she’s folded. “They’re paper cranes.”

“It’s really good.”

“Do you know origami?”

“I learned a little, once.” It was in second-grade art class, and he’d forgotten about it until one of the more frustrating hurry-up-and-wait situations of his military career, sitting in a muggy forest in a country he’s never officially been to. Gigantic heart-shaped leaves seemed like the only thing in sight, and Steve resorted to using them to do as much origami as he could remember, just to fend off insanity. The leaves didn’t work too well as folding paper, but by the time the team could finally move, most of the guys had the hang of it. Not all -- Bullfrog couldn’t have cared less -- but Freddy was better at it than Steve.

“It’s been a long time since I did any, though,” Steve says.  He sits down next to Lucy. “Can you show me again?”

He lets her walk him through the steps, and pretty soon they’re evenly matched: Steve’s got the advantage of adult fine motor control, but he’s also stuck with what Mary describes as thick, gross man-fingers. He’s still unclear about how Mary is planning to decorate a park with origami shapes, but that probably isn’t the point. No actual coming up of missed points occurs until Mary broaches the subject of wedding rings. Steve shrugs and tells her he was going to get some ink, which makes her jaw drop. “Steve, are you serious? You can’t not have a ring. It’s like, I don’t know, not wearing dog tags.”

“No, Mary, it is not like wearing dog tags.” She glares at him. “Okay, leaving aside everything else that’s wrong with that statement -- ”

“Leaving it aside, that’s not the issue. The commitment is.”

There’s probably something Steve’s supposed to say here.

“The point is, you get a ring, you wear it, and it says, ‘Hey, everybody, I’m married.’”

“I could just tell whoever asked.”

“Oh, my God, Steve!” Mary groans. “Look, you’re getting a ring, okay? You both are.”

“It’s true. We are,” Danny confirms.

“We are?”

“Yeah, it’s mandatory. Calm down, your masculinity is unthreatened, just the first plain band we -- ”

“My friend Robert’s a jewelry designer,” Mary says.

“Robert Akolo?” Steve asks.

“Yeah, you remember him?”

“I remember the crush you had on him in seventh grade.”

“Well, he’s got a store down in Kalihi now. He’s got good deals, and he can do really nice, personal rings for you guys.”

“Tell me that you don’t have a copy of his price list with hearts and ‘RA + MMG 4 eva’ all over it.”

“Please, I’m not that nostalgic. I’ve bought stuff from him, though.”

Steve doubts that what she’s bought is jewelry, especially since the smell of Akolo Designs alone would constitute probable cause for a search. He only refrains from executing one because ordinary drug busts are the purview of HPD, a few of whose officers must get very sweet deals on the high-end stuff. He and Danny stay away from all that, and in the evening, glassy-eyed jewelry suppliers behind them, they settle into the living room and watch Office Space.  Mary shares Danny’s opinion that Steve’s not having seen it is a deficiency that has to be remedied. He sits back on the couch and tries to immerse himself in the world of the late ’90s, when Y2K was maybe a thing and so were Brad Pitt and what’s-her-name. “What did I tell you? Pieces of flair,” Danny crows at a crucial moment.

“All right, there are superficial similarities,” Steve admits.

Matthew Broderick tries to deal with the hopeless cases around him for awhile, a printer gets smashed, and eventually Danny stretches and stands up. “Okay, we’ve hit all my favorite parts. I’m going to do my weights now, I overslept this morning. You guys go ahead and finish watching.”

They do, sort of, the quiet parts of the movie punctuated by the muffled clanking of weights that’s audible from the basement. Not long into Danny’s routine, Mary declares that he’s right, they have already seen the best parts, and skips to the last scene. “There. Happy endings all around. You want a beer on the lanai?”

“Sure.”

“Great. I’ll be with you in a sec.”

Steve gets the beers, and Mary, true to her word, joins him on the lanai a minute later and presses something gift-wrapped into his hands. “Here, this is for you. C’mon, open it.”

Steve pulls away the wrapping to find a paperback tome: The Complete Guide for LGBT Blended Families: Revised and Expanded. It’s a bland title, but the cover looks like an effort to compensate for it. Steve can’t think of a single stereotype of political correctness that it doesn’t hit.

“Lamest cover ever, right? Don’t get put off by it, though. My friend Amber swears by it.”

Steve would really like to know how a friend of Mary’s got qualified to evaluate these things, but he settles for asking, “Did they really need to put the white guy in a ‘Buy Organic’ t-shirt?”

“My favorite is the granny whose dog has a hearing aid.”

Steve looks closer. “Oh, God, you weren’t kidding.”

“It’s a pretty good book, though. And I figured this whole being-a-stepdad thing is terra incognita or whatever.” Mary takes a hard look at him. “I bet you’re not even thinking about it like that, are you? You’re just thinking of yourself as, I don’t know, the guy who Grace’s dad is marrying.”

“I don’t -- I mean -- ”

“That makes you her stepdad, Steve. Kind of a terrifying thought, right?”

He forces as much of a smile as he can. “Yeah. Kind of.” He wishes he could hear the clanking of the weights and Danny’s cursing as he tries to navigate Steve’s completely self-explanatory system for organizing them. On the lanai, the ocean drowns that out.

It doesn’t drown out Mary, though. “Grace is right around the age I was when Mom and Dad completely lost interest in us, so -- ”

That throws Steve into another gear completely. Their mother, maybe, but he doesn’t want to think about Doris right now, and he doesn’t think Mary can stand to. But Dad... “Dad didn’t lose interest, Mary. Maybe he didn’t know what to do with teenagers -- ”

“And he never bothered trying to figure it out, did he? Answering the phone when we called on Christmas was going the extra mile as far as he was concerned, because God forbid he remember our birthdays -- ”

“And I’ve sure you’ve got an itemized list of everything like that, and you go over it whenever something goes wrong that you don’t want to be your fault.”

Mary stands up, suddenly the six-year-old girl again who wanted to show she wouldn’t take any more crap from her brother, no matter how much bigger he was. She punches a fist into her hand, gearing up for a fight. Steve’s primed to have his hackles up, but he shuts down the big brother’s instinct that’s apparently still inside him somewhere.  The boy who developed it is gone, and the man he’s become could break Mary without even trying.

Mary must know it too, because she backs off. “Okay, I don’t want to fight about it. But ask yourself, Steve: If Dad were still here, would he be coming to your wedding?”

“You know he thought being around him would put us in danger.”

“I’m sorry, did I miss the part where he minded you joining the SEALs?”

“I was an adult by then, Mary. You should give it a try.”

“That line doesn’t have much mileage left, you know -- ”

“Well, maybe if you -- ”

“Just try asking yourself if you honestly think he’d send a card.”

Steve keeps his fists balled up, eyes closed. He wants to run and throw himself into swimming, beat the crap out of the ocean or die trying. It’s all he can do to sit still and listen to it instead. It’s been twenty years since he could count on the sound of the ocean to soothe him, but there’s discipline in registering the waves.

When Steve’s chased down his control again, he fixes his eyes on the book again. “Thanks, Mare,” he half-whispers.

“You’re welcome, big brother... Hand squeeze?”

“In -- in a minute, okay? Just give me a minute, I...”

“Okay,” Mary says, her voice catching. “I’ll be inside when you’re...”

“Thanks, Mary,” he repeats, and she leaves the lanai to him as she steps into the light of the kitchen.

***

Steve devotes his attention to Mary’s book. You don’t do an op without knowing the manual, and it’s a good manual, the cover aside. And Steve already knows about improvising when reality inevitably doesn’t line up. Even the revised edition of The Complete Guide for LGBT Blended Families, for example, says nothing about glitter glue spills. The patch that Steve improvised for that one was partially effective, but an unacceptably high number of pink sparkles have continued to evade capture.

He’s better prepared to escort the Aloha Girls through the forest, even if they are on edge. It’s their first hike since the camping trip got FUBAR, and Madeline, the troop leader, only got all the parents to agree to this one because they’ll be accompanied by all of Five-0 plus Catherine. “But that’s a good start, right?” Steve says. He’s watching Danny check the charge on both his phones for the fourth time. “I mean, sure, they got shaken up, but you’ve got to face your fears.”

“Just remember that pre-teens and other normal humans do not do that in the same way as Navy SEALs. Even Catherine and her new guy, what’s-his-name -- ”

“Billy. He’s not such a bad guy. We get along better now that, you know -- ”

“I do know. The point is, even they could probably give you some useful advice.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Good, that’s progress. Toss me another water bottle, will you? I think I can fit one more in this pack.”

“Danny, you wouldn’t need that much water on six  day hikes.”

“Hey, always be prepared.”

“I thought you got kicked out of Boy Scouts.”

“For fighting, not failure to prepare.”

“Good to know.”

“Yeah, I bet you’re glad to learn. Because being prepared involves things like water, insect repellant, a charged-up phone, a first aid kit. I can even see the utility of a flare, if I’m feeling generous or paranoid. But it emphatically does not mean treating a hike with the Aloha Girls like an incommunicado thousand-mile trek through hostile territory in the jungles of Pakistan, which, yes, I am aware is a desert country, so don’t even start with me.” He zips the backpack closed. “Great. Into the woods again.”

“It’ll be fine, Danny.”

“Despite your best efforts, no doubt. Although, while I will regret to my dying day the fact that we ran into that maniac the last time, the one good thing that’s come out of that whole situation is that it gave those girls a bond to each other like you wouldn’t believe. They’re hitting that age when a lot of girls are just really, really awful to each other, and if nothing else, I am grateful that they are there for each other. It’s good for them, just being together, to remind them that that’s what people need to be.”

“Did you just find a silver lining in something?”

“Don’t even start with me. Come on, we’re gonna be late.”

They’re not late, if only because Steve is inured to Danny’s criticism of his driving. When they arrive at the trailhead, the girls tear themselves away from interrogating Catherine about her new boyfriend for long enough to greet them energetically. Even Lucy ventures away from Madeline’s side and, to Steve’s surprise, gives him and, hesitantly, Chin each a hug. “Lucy, howzit?” Chin says, in a tone of voice that suggests that running into her is the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

“I’m pretty good.” She looks between Chin and Steve. “I’m a little nervous,” she whispers.

“Can I tell you a secret, Lucy?” Chin says, crouching down to her level. “I’m a little nervous, too.”

“You are?”

He nods. “See, the last time I went hiking in the woods, there was a pretty scary situation that I needed to handle. And I had to look like a big, tough policeman in front of someone really brave while I was doing it.”

“You are a big, tough policeman.”

Chin smiles. “Well, if I managed to convince you, I’d say that settles it. And the two of us did a pretty good job out there, wouldn’t you say?”

Lucy nods.

“But sometimes, after you’ve been in a scary situation, things that remind you of it can make you feel scared again, even if there’s nothing to be afraid of. And I’m a little bit nervous because some harmless little thing might surprise me today, you know, a twig could snap and I’ll jump. I could wind up looking not very brave in front of you.”

“But you’re brave all the time.”

“Mahalo, Lucy.”

“A’ole pilikia, uncle.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m not still a little nervous. You can be brave and feel nervous at the same time, you know.”

“Okay.”

“The important thing to know is that this hike is going to be just fine. We’re going to get back here at the end of the day safe and sound.”

“And then you and Grace get to take Steve lei shopping next weekend,” Danny says. “I bet Chin could talk to you two all day about that, because he knows about a hundred really big, thick books’ worth of stuff about all the plants that grow here.”

“I’ve learned a little about them,” Chin concedes.  “What’s this about you and Grace are taking Steve shopping?”

“For the wedding. Grace is the flower girl of honor, because it’s her dad, and I’m the associate flower girl.” Then she gasps. “I’m sorry, uncle! I shouldn’t have talked about weddings. I mean, Grace told me... she said you got married and -- then you l-- ”

“And then my wife died,” Chin says. The one time Steve said lost Malia, Chin almost put his fist through the computer table. She didn’t fall behind the couch, Steve! “That’s right.”

“I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

“It’s okay, Lucy.” Chin squeezes her hand. “I think about Malia every day. So many things remind me of her. You know, things like making the coffee her way and then remembering she’s not going to drink it. That makes me a little sad, every morning.”

“I’m sorry.”

Chin smiles. “Thank you. But the point is, talking about weddings isn’t going to make me sad.” He takes out his phone and shows Lucy the screen, which is still the same photo of him and Malia beaming at their wedding. “When I look at this, I remember how happy we were that day, and sometimes that makes me feel a little better. And now that two of my best friends are getting married -- when I think about that, what it makes me feel is happy for them. It doesn’t make me stop missing my wife, but I’m just glad for my ohana. Really glad for them. Okay?”

Steve should see about requisitioning Five-0 a therapy child

Kono shows up, and Steve puts that thought on hold while he draws the team together for a review and weapons check. Within a few minutes, they’re off, Steve and Chin taking point, Cath and Madeline flanking, Danny and Kono bringing up the rear. It’s the exact opposite of a stealth op: the girls talk nonstop, spouting off every piece of information they’ve memorized about the local environment. The conversation jumps around from there, moving from native flowers to origami to geometry to the rash their geometry teacher has to which of YouTube’s exploding boil videos is the grossest.

Steve will have to tell them about the op where he learned firsthand that Tony Hebert, who put the rest of them to shame on every day of Hell Week, was complete pussy about basic field medicine.

The tangled-up dialogue is still going strong as they approach the midpoint of their hike. Steve absents himself from listening for long enough to go ahead and do a sweep of the rest area. The perimeter’s clean, and none of the people inside it are holding anything higher caliber than a Swiss army knife. One of them, though, an older man, looks vaguely familiar to Steve. A close approach confirms the intel: he’s Chaplain Young, who Steve knew at Annapolis out of displaced-Hawaiian solidarity.

Cpln. Young turns out to remember him, and they get to talking. It’s mostly catching up with each other, reminiscing a little about the old days and saying how good it is to be back home. Time slips away, and the girls start itching to get back to trail before he and Steve finish catching up. They exchange information, and Steve gives him and Danny a quick introduction.

“Nice guy,” Danny says as they start back. “Please tell me you never asked him, I don’t know, how to rig dynamite so God could have the best view of the explosion.”

“Tengo el derecho a permanecer callado, Danny. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Whatever. Your pronunciation still sucks.”

“Hey, Aloha Girls! Who wants to hear what happened when my SEAL buddy Crawfish spent a whole week insisting that the thing on his neck was just a huge mosquito bite?”

Danny’s objections are drowned out by a high-pitched chorus of “I do!” and then by oohing and aahing as Steve recounts the tale of pus and woe.

***

Danny has warned Steve repeatedly that meeting his family in person will not be the same as talking to them on Skype. Steve made Danny put him through drills on who’s who, and the Skype conversations at least gave him a sense of who they all are. Still, Danny’s right: it’s different being face-to-face, in the flesh. Even picking them up one at a time at the airport kind of throws Steve.

They’re all very glad to meet him, they tell him and anyone else in the vicinity in undiluted Jersey accents and with their hands. They’re amazed at how beautiful Hawaii is, couldn’t believe their eyes when they landed, although it ought to be gorgeous, after the long flights and everything that was wrong with them (the health and gastronomic crimes of airplane meals; the fact that it’s impossible to stretch, you’re halfway paralyzed by the time you land; the way they persist in saying “mild turbulence” when everyone knows it means the whole plane will get tossed around like the weighted die in a bookie’s tumbler). Danny agrees with them, of course: “And those airplane seats could double as torture devices, which, no, Steve, that is not an endorsement of using them to enhance interrogation, so don’t even think about it.”

The travel ordeals don’t seem to have damaged the Williamses permanently, at least. Mr. and Mrs. Williams aren’t over their jet lag before they they’re having lunch with the widow of Danny’s HPD partner, who they apparently know, and Mrs. Williams is persuading Grace into an all-girls shopping trip for a flower girl dress once her Aunt Mary is here to join them. In the mean time, they ask for a tour of Steve’s house, which really doesn’t seem like the kind of a place you can tour. He obliges him as best he can, though, showing them Grace’s new room -- “Don’t worry, Grandpa, I say thanks to Danno and Uncle Steve a lot” -- and the Navy portrait of Steven Robert McGarrett, taken just weeks before he went down with the Arizona.

“You’re damn proud of him, aren’t you, son?” Joseph Williams says.

“Yes, sir. I am proud of him.”

“It’s Joe.  You look like him, too. Doesn’t he, Carol?”

Mrs. Williams nods.

“Especially those eyelashes,” says Melissa.

“I know, right? They’re the whole reason I’m marrying him.”

Tina gives him a friendly punch in the arm. “Ha, I knew it! Why else would you marry another terrible cook? Oh, Grace, I’m sorry -- ”

“It’s okay, Mum’s food is really bad,” Grace agrees, sounding no more upset than if Tina’d mentioned Danny was marrying another brunette. “Danno’s trying to teach Uncle Steve.”

“He’s got a state-of-the-art kitchen that’s completely wasted on him, let me show you. Seriously, it’s huge, it is perfect, and he still consumes MREs  by choice. The only meal he can assemble in this kitchen is a protein shake.”

“Come on, I grill a mean steak.”

“You do okay with combustible materials and a piece of animal flesh, but even you have more sense than to do it in the kitchen. Seriously, I’ve barely taught him spaghetti.”

“Uncle Steve does spaghetti okay now,” says Grace.

“Okay, monkey, I’ll be fair, he’s learned spaghetti, but he still thinks spaghetti sauce comes out of a jar.”

“Speaking of misplaced notions,” says Mrs. Williams, “I bet my sister Barbara sent that banana holder, didn’t she?”

“Gee, how’d you guess, Ma?”

“Here, put some bananas in it, that’s right, stand by it so I can get a picture to send her. You too, Grace.” Mrs. Williams snaps a couple of pictures, passes around the bananas to anyone who’s hungry, and then picks the holder up and examines it. “The design looks nice, but you can’t really grip -- ” The thing crashes to the ground. “Whoops! Such a shame.” Mrs. Williams gives the two resulting pieces a nudge with her foot, and her kids and granddaughter follow suit and kick them around until there’s no possibility repair. Then there’s talk about Mrs. Williams’ famous lasagna, a spirited comparison of the original versus the vegetarian, kosher version. Chin Ho’s insisting on learning how to make it, seriously, he and Kono will host the pre-wedding dinner and do all the sides and the clean-up no matter how many times Danny tells them none of that is necessary.

Steve will admit to being a little overwhelmed.

He gets the occasional down time to recover his equilibrium. Catherine and Billy have roped Crawfish into an evening at a bar that serves a mostly Navy crowd. They drink cheap beer and swap tall tales, and Steve can almost pretend that he’s at sea again, trading rumors in the mess hall. Cath surprises him with a gigantic card from a bunch of people who couldn’t exactly get to Hawaii. She’s printed their good wishes inside it, and yeah, it’s hard not to get sentimental when he reads them. It’s also hard not to notice that some names are conspicuously absent, the names of people who have given their honor and their bodies to the same country Steve has. They’re all people he’d die for without hesitation and who would do the same for him, and the fact that they won’t sign on here stings a little.

The fact that some can’t aches like a missing limb.

There’s a gift-wrapped box too, on behalf of everyone who signed the card. “Okay, please tell me Crawfish had nothing to with this,” Steve groans.

“All right, I had nothing to do with it,” Tony says. “I guarantee that you can open this box in front of your mother-in-law.”

“Knowing you, I’ll be embarrassed to open it in front of myself.”

The package turns out to be a gift box that, yes, Steve keeps well hidden from Mrs. Williams. If either of them dies of embarrassment, Steve will never get to taste the famous lasagna that she’s promised to make for the pre-wedding dinner. He might also miss seeing Mr. Williams make good on his promise to wear the firefighter tie Grace gave the Christmas she was six.

The lasagna’s just as good as advertised, it turns out, and the tie is even worse. It’s a real effort not to burst out laughing in front of Grace at dinner or afterwards, when  Danny’s sisters surprise him and Steve with a photo album they’ve put together. (“Looking on a computer just isn’t the same,” Melissa says, to general agreement.) In the album are pictures from Danny’s infancy to Grace’s and beyond, including one of her presenting her grandpa with that tie. The Williamses have what seem like endless stories to go with the photos, most of them happy ones. A few aren’t, and there are sudden, tense silences whenever Matthew’s name comes up. It hits Steve during one of them how much Danny’s family probably wanted him at their side through all that, that that absence was what sent Danny running back into Rachel’s arms. Take a cop’s salary, subtract alimony and a move to Hawaii, consider last-minute fares, and New Jersey was barely more reachable than Matt had made himself.

Danny’s never talked about what that did to any of them, but it shouldn’t have taken Steve until now to figure it out.

Well, Danny and Grace are going to start seeing Danny’s family more often. Forget being in the same financial sphere as Stan Edwards, Steve’s not even in the same galaxy, but at least that much is within his -- their -- means. If Danny’s going to be proud about it, if it winds up being one of the times they argue about money -- well, so be it. The arguments might as well be over something worthwhile.

He doesn’t think Danny is going to be that proud.

***

The ocean’s in one of Steve’s favorite of its moods when the first hints of the wedding day dawn. It’s not stormy, but the water has some spirit in it, challenging Steve every stroke of the way. The sand is warm and resistant, making for a good run back despite a near miss with some sea urchins. Mary is out smoking on their little stretch of beach, and she flicks the cigarette butt into the waves as Steve approaches.

“Mary, how hard is it to throw that out the way you’re supposed to?”

She blows a last puff of smoke in his face, and, okay, that wasn’t a cigarette. Of course. “Good morning to you too, big brother. I was starting to think you were a runaway groom.”

“I think I’m still dreaming. You’re out of bed before noon.”

“Whatever. Come on, let’s get ready. Danny texted me, he wants you to spend longer than three minutes in the shower.”

“He texted you?”

Mary holds up her phone, and sure enough: Dont let steve get away w/3-min shower. They dont work> the navy lies.

“Seven minutes if you promise not to lock me in.”

“Ten.”

“Ten?  ...Okay, fine.”

“Deal,” says Mary, shaking his hand. “And I bought those wedding clothes for you, so no accidentally spilling coffee on them because you want to wear your uniform.”

Steve wasn’t planning on it, although he wishes she’d picked the clothes that were designed with more thought to practicality. As it is, the ankle holster only stays covered because the pants are light enough for the Sig-226 outside the waistband to drag them down a little. But he gets it to work, and when he emerges showered, groomed, and dressed, Mary gives him a satisfied look and says, “See? You can look good of uniform without looking mainland.” The joint’s clearly hit her; the words are slow and elongated.

“Thanks.”

“No problem... Do you have the rings?”

He pats his breast pocket. “In here.”

“That’s great. I like them. Anything you get from Robert is good.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Steve says. It’s evidently true enough of pakalolo, and this is not the time to consider what purchases Mary’s being more discreet about. “I’m heading to the park now. Come on over when you’re ready.”

Mary nods. She’s still in her nightshirt, so with any luck, getting dressed will give her time to come down enough to be socially acceptable. Without any luck, Steve will start married life by getting called in to smooth over her latest misadventure.

It’s been a long time since Steve’s counted on luck, or believed in it.

But Grace, who’s in a shiny indigo cupcake of a dress, does believe in it, at least enough to keep Steve and Danny out of each other’s sight before the ceremony. Apparently it’s a thing. She’s got her dad sequestered on the opposite side of the sheltered picnic area with his family blocking him from view. Either it’s not bad luck for them to hear each other, or else Grace can recognize a lost cause. He doesn’t get a chance to ask her before Lucy conscripts him into sorting out the leis. The guest list is small enough that the girls begged to have a lei for everyone, and Steve couldn’t find a reason or a way not to yield.

Grace reappears to help hand the leis out once guests start arriving, although both girls get shy when the Governor, who’s not the kind of boss employees can just invite, drops in unannounced. Steve hands him the first lei that doesn’t seem to be one of the fancy ones reserved for Grace’s aunts. That category’s been expanded to encompass Mary, who Steve’s not convinced will actually show up.

She does, though, more or less on time and walking in a straight line. Grace and Lucy are still innocent enough to believe that tears of happiness are the reason her eyes are red. Maybe that’s not unreasonable of them. Danny’s whole family has turned on the waterworks, after all, and Chin hasn’t suppressed a few tears that, whatever he tells Lucy, can’t have much to do with today.

Chin congratulates Steve with everyone else, though, and works up a smile when Kono bets Steve ten bucks that Danny will assume the Ho’omaikai’i -- No Keia La A Mau Loa she’s just spray-painted on the Camaro’s rear window means something obscene. Steve takes her up, and they settle the terms while the guests take their sweet time finding seats. Steve will never let Danny knock naval efficiency again if this is the alternative.

Finally, though, all two dozen witnesses get to where they’re supposed to be, and Steve takes his place next to Danny in front of them.  Grace is beaming as she brings them leis to give each other. Danny must be the only person who’s ever worn that festive-looking a lei with a tie (“yes, at my own goddamned wedding, because it’s basic courtesy, that’s a thing”). Steve bends as she hands her dad an equally colorful one to put across his shoulders.

"Thanks for being so considerate, you overgrown jackass,” Danny mutters as he gives Steve his kiss on the cheek.

“You’re welcome,” Steve whispers back, and everybody has a good laugh as Cpln. Young launches into Do you, Daniel...

And it’s all okay, Danny’s done this before, and Steve’s taken oaths. He knows the procedure. He repeats what he’s supposed to repeat, pledges what he said he would, keeps his hand still for Danny to slip on a ring that has five stars engraved inside the band, which Steve can feel against his skin. And, no, it’s not like an ID tag. You’re done with those when your enlistment is up; you replace them if your medical info changes or your religion does. Not with this.

Steve’s okay, though; he knows how to adapt, he’s fine. He is, anyway, until Danny’s ring is pressed into his palm and Cpln. Young is cuing him: With this ring... Steve gets that far and then he falters.

Engraved inside that ring is an anchor. Steve picked it for a reason. And that reason hits him, suddenly, with the fact that an out-of-place Jersey boy is a hell of a lot more complicated than the Constitution of the United States, that he’s promising Danny something the Navy never asked him to give.

His hand shakes.

Danny closes his over it. “Babe,” he says quietly, “you can do this.”

Steve looks at him and nods. He can do this.

Danny leans in closer. “God help me, McGarrett,” he whispers, “I’ll love you even if you do use this thing as a connector in an explosive device.”

And that’s all Steve needs to dispel the sense of panic. It cracks into a thousand pieces that get carried off in the breeze, because this is Danny. There’s nothing more or less to any part of this than fact.

He takes the ring between his fingers. “I, Steven John McGarrett...”

“Pledge to you -- ”

“Pledge to you, Daniel Arthur Williams,” Steve says, and Cpln. Young is smiling, Danny is grinning and actually holding one hand still for a few seconds of his life, and this is the easiest thing in the world.