ratherastory (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ratherastory) wrote2011-08-14 08:54 pm
ratherastory) wrote2011-08-14 08:54 pm
The Seal (2/3)
Part I
Danny doesn't sleep well that night. It probably has a lot to do with knowing that his apartment isn't safe from being broken into by lunatics with nice eyes and questionable taste in cologne. He spends a good amount of time tossing and turning, wakes up half an hour before his alarm is set to go off, tangled in his sheets with the worst hard-on he's had in months. He kicks the sheets to the floor, declares sleep a lost cause, staggers to the bathroom and switches on the shower. It doesn't take long, and since he's by himself no one ever needs to know that he's picturing the mysterious Steve in his mind as he jerks himself roughly to completion, one hand braced against the murky tiles of the shower wall.
It only helps a little bit, in the short run. He finds himself still thinking about Steve as he stops to buy coffee and malasadas on his way to work, which does nothing for his concentration. It's not like this guy is going to help him solve this case, no matter what he tells himself. When he's still about fifteen minutes away from the office, though, his phone rings, playing the intro music to Lilo & Stitch.
"Hey, Meka," he brings the phone to his ear. "Aren't you at the office yet?"
There's a put-upon sigh. "You still have that stupid ring tone for me, don't you?"
"Hey, it makes you unique in my book. Besides, Gracie picked it. You wouldn't want to hurt her feelings, would you?"
"Sometimes I think you made that up just to mess with me. Listen, Danny, I got some stuff to do on my own today. I think I might be on to something here. It's a side project nothing to do with the case, but something's popped up and since we don't have anything hot going right now, I figured I'd look into it. I'm already on my way to do a quick check, but I'll be at the office by noon."
"What? Hey, hey, no, that's not how that works. You shouldn't be out there by yourself. Tell me where you are, and I'll come join you."
"No can do, brah," Meka laughs. "I mean, I'll tell you where I am if you want, but I.A. wants to talk to you again about the mysterious disappearing-reappearing evidence. So you can't come and play bodyguard."
Danny just barely resists the urge to beat his head against the steering wheel. "Oh my God. I am never going to hear the end of that."
"No, you're really not. Besides, you gotta admit it's weird."
No, Danny thinks glumly, it's not weird at all once you know who was really behind it. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, that probably counts as normal in Steve's books. Steve, whose name keeps dancing around in his mind, the knowledge burning there, bright and incandescent. It takes every ounce of his self-control during his interview with I.A., three hours of nothing but the same question asked seventeen different ways, but he perseveres. No, he doesn't know how anyone could have come into the building undetected (not a lie, he still doesn't really know how Steve managed it); no, he doesn't know who took the papers (also not a lie, it's not like he actually knows the guy beyond a dubious first name and a bad costume) nor what they wanted them for (okay, that one's a lie, but two out of three isn't bad). In the end he leaves with a handshake and the feeling that since the evidence is all present and accounted for, this is all just going to get filed under "fodder for department gossip" for the next ten years. He can live with that.
Meka isn't back by the time he goes to lunch, but since for once there's no new heist Danny takes advantage of an unexpectedly free afternoon to revisit one of the earlier crime scenes, photos in hand. He goes back to the jewellery shop to find Chin Ho Kelly still on security detail there. Kelly gives him a cool, appraising look, but doesn't say much until he approaches, his new blown-up photographs in a brown envelope held in one hand.
"Help you, detective?"
"I certainly hope so," Danny pulls out the photos and spreads them on the counter. "Just doing a little digging. None of this is formal, so you don't have to answer my questions, but you know that already."
"Yes, I do," Kelly says with enough equanimity that Danny's impressed. Most ex-cops are more than a little touchy about it.
"So it's a little early for me to be able to tell who was at all of my crime scenes, because I don't have crowd photographs of the first one, but I do have a few faces that cropped up at both. I was hoping you'd be able to help me narrow down my list a bit."
Kelly shrugs. "Sure. I want these bastards caught as much as you do. Okay, her?" he points to a young woman holding a clutch purse to her chest. "Probably not a person of interest. Name is Kimmy something. She's a regular, comes in with Daddy's credit cards and spends way too much on jewellery she'll wear once or twice. Doesn't mean you can rule her out, but I wouldn't put her at the top of your list."
"Okay, makes sense," Danny nods, ticks off her name on his mental list.
"These two," Kelly points to two of the three men Danny singled out, although the resolution is a bit blurry due to the enhancements, "I don't know. Can't say I ever saw them before, or maybe they just didn't catch my attention. Their body language screams 'rubbernecking,' anyway."
He's good, Danny will give him that. "Go on. What about the last guy?" Danny looks down at the man in the photograph, a good-looking guy with slightly pockmarked skin and sandy brown hair, probably in his early to mid-forties, standing at the back of the crowd of onlookers. That gets a nod.
"I saw him a couple of days ago, just before the burglary. Came in, looked at engagement rings. I didn't think too much of it at the time, but I remember thinking that, whoever he was shopping for, it probably wasn't going to last because he didn't seem all that interested in the rings themselves, just kept looking around like he was taking in the place. He was good, though, if this is your guy, because I never figured him to be casing the place. But it's too much of a coincidence that he'd turn up before and after, and at two different crime scenes."
"All right," Danny slides the pictures back into the envelope. "You've been a big help, thanks." He reaches out, shakes Kelly's hand, notes the expression of surprise. "What, you thought I would treat you like a leper just on general principle?"
That gets him a genuine smile. "You'd be surprised."
Danny sighs. "No, I really wouldn't. I've spent just enough time at HPD to know exactly what it feels like to have no one want to work with you."
"Meka's a good cop. I can't think of another man I'd want more as a partner. He believes I'm innocent."
"Then the odds are good you are innocent. I'd trust his instincts any day."
Kelly glances at the front window of the shop, apparently coming to some sort of internal decision, because he nods a little to himself, then leans forward. "You know, you're not the first person to ask me about those people."
"No?"
Kelly looks at once amused and a little sheepish. "You lose any of your crime scene photos lately, brah?"
Danny's getting used to his face making contact with his palm by now. "Don't tell me. It was a guy wearing green spandex."
"He says it's not spandex. Anyway, he saved my life once, so I owe him. I didn't see the harm in telling him what I knew. But I figure I should give you a heads-up that you're not the only person on this case."
"The guy's nuts."
"Maybe not as nuts as you think. Usually he keeps a pretty low profile, doesn't like to draw too much attention to himself. He must think you're pretty special, if you've seen him that close up."
"Lucky me."
That gets him a shrug. "I'm just saying, he can be a good ally if you play your cards right."
"Okay, you are about to destroy any credibility you have," Danny tells him good-naturedly, "so I'm going to leave that there. Here's my card. Anything else turns up, you'll give me a call?"
"Sure thing," Kelly tucks the card carefully into his wallet. "Does that include The Seal?"
"Yeah, why not. If he comes back, let me know so I know to wear extra Kevlar to deal with whatever fallout is going to come from that. God knows one I.A. investigation into this was enough to last me a lifetime. Anyway, thanks for your help. I'd put in a good word for you, but my word means only slightly more than squat, so I probably wouldn't be doing you any favours anyway."
"Yeah, don't sweat it. It's been a long time, I've got something else going on now."
"Well, for what it's worth, thanks again. I owe you a coffee, or something."
"Anytime."
~*~
"Danno, wake up!"
Danny comes out of a dream that he's not entirely sure isn't partially a nightmare, in which The Seal has yet again broken into his apartment and is straddling his thighs while explaining something improbable involving giant cans of tuna being built into a tower and leading up into the volcano as a shortcut across the ocean. He blinks in the semi-darkness, then groans when he realizes that he fell asleep at his desk and that the only light is the thin stream coming in through the window from the street lamp outside.
"I swear to God, if you say anything involving tuna, I will shoot you first, then myself."
"Get up, Danno," Steve's voice makes Danny sit up, suddenly wide-awake. "You need to come right now."
"Why? What's happening?"
"It's your partner. There's been a shooting. Come on, you have to come now or they're not going to let you near any of it."
Danny's already moving, grabbing his jacket and making a futile attempt to straighten his tie. "How do you even get into the building without getting noticed, anyway?"
"Secret entrance. Come on," Steve's grip on his arm is like a vise, propelling him forward to his car. "Get in."
"It's my car."
Steve is already behind the wheel, though, slipping keys into the ignition and revving the engine. Danny doesn't even want to know how he got the keys ―probably out of his pocket while he was sleeping, which is plenty humiliating.
"So are you going to tell me what's going on? What about the shooting?"
"I don't know yet. I heard part of it on the police scanner, heard the name Hanamoa, put two and two together. I figured it might be part of our case, so I decided to get you so we could check it out."
"Okay, no," Danny starts, raising both hands to demonstrate his point. "See, this is not our case, this is my case. The only 'we' here is me and my partner, and you, my friend, are not my partner."
"But you admit I'm your friend?" The grin is back in full force, and not for the first time Danny finds himself wondering what this guy looks like under the mask and the green.
"What? No! Just... shut up and drive, already."
Not altogether surprisingly, Steve drives like a maniac. Takes turns at angles so acute Danny's amazed that he hasn't flipped the car by the time they pull up in front of one of those abandoned warehouses that are ubiquitous in the organized crime world. There are three marked police cars and an ambulance on scene already, lights flashing, yellow tape surrounding a small door to the side, uniformed cops milling about, and Danny spots at least one enterprising reporter lurking, tape recorder at the ready. When he ducks under the yellow tape, he's surprised to find his Lieutenant hurrying toward him.
"Williams! You can't be here," he barks.
"What? What the hell are you talking about?"
The look he gets is filled with sympathy, and Danny feels his blood run cold. "I'm so sorry, Danny, I didn't want you to find out like this."
Danny tries unsuccessfully to push past him. "What? Find out what like this? Where's Meka? Oh, God..." he presses both hands to his mouth as the EMTs wheel a gurney slowly toward the ambulance, the figure on it hidden by a black body bag. "Oh, God. Tell me that's not him."
"I'm so sorry. But you can't be here, Danny, let us take care of this."
"Screw that! He's my partner, I can't just stand here!"
The Lieutenant shakes his head. "I know how you feel, but this is procedure, you know that. I have to take you off the whole case."
"You can't do that," Danny's still staring at the gurney, disappearing into the rear of the ambulance. None of it feels real. "Where's the coroner?"
"Been and gone. Go home. Take a couple of days at least, take it easy, and we'll send someone by so you can catch them up on your investigation."
"God," Danny scrubs at his face with one hand, stubble scraping against his palm. "What about Amy? Has anyone told his wife?"
"Not yet, it's too soon. I'll be sending someone over soon, though."
"No," he shakes his head. "Let me do that. I want it to come from a friend. If I can't be of any use here, at least let me do that."
The Lieutenant claps him on the shoulder. "All right. We'll keep you apprised, as much as we can, anyway. You let me know if there's anything we can do for Amy."
"Right."
He turns away, walks dazedly back to his car only to find the keys in the ignition, and no sign at all of his costumed chauffeur. Somehow, at this precise moment he can't bring himself to care about the man's whereabouts. The guy seems to be able to come and go at will anyway, so Danny refuses to worry about him. Right now, he has to go tell the people who, apart from Gracie, are the closest thing he has on this god-forsaken island to family, that they're never going to see their husband and father again.
~*~
Delivering next-of-kin notifications is the very worst part of being a cop, second to nothing. It's the hardest lesson to learn as a rookie cop, and it never seems to get any easier. In fact, Danny is privately of the opinion that the day this part of his job gets easy is the day he turns in his badge and gun, because unnatural death by definition should never be easy. Amy Hanamoa sobs in his arms, curled up on the ratty beige sofa in their living room. Danny's lost count of how many times he's sat on this sofa with Meka before, sharing a beer, watching his little boy Billy playing with Legos on the floor. Billy's a couple of years younger than Gracie, and now his dad is never going to teach him to surf, or how to swing a baseball bat or throw a football. Billy's dad isn't going to be there when the training wheels come off his brand new bicycle, to watch with pride as he pedals away all on his own for the first time, and the thought makes Danny want to punch someone in the face repeatedly until this all somehow gets fixed.
"How did he die?" Amy asks finally, scrubbing at her face with a tissue. Billy is asleep in bed at this hour, and she hasn't made a move to wake him yet.
"I don't know exactly. There was a shooting, but I wasn't there," he says grimly, thinking back to his last conversation with Meka. He can't help but wonder if things might not have gone down differently if Meka had agreed to wait until he was done with I.A., if they'd gone to look up this mysterious lead together, whatever it was about. "They're not telling me much, because we were partners. But I promise, I'll keep an eye out, and whatever I find out, I'll let you know, okay?"
"I don't understand," she says softly, staring at her hands, folded in her lap now, fingers shredding the damp tissue. "I don't understand why anyone would want to kill him. He was such a good man."
"It just means the guys who aren't so good have it out for people like him. Look, I can't make this better, but I promise, we're going to find whoever did this. I can at least give you that."
"What am I going to tell Billy?"
Danny sighs, scrubs at his face. He can almost hear Rachel's voice, screaming at him during one of their worst arguments before the divorce. 'And what am I supposed to tell Grace, Daniel? Tell me that! Tell me what I am supposed to tell our child the day you won't come home from work!'
"I don't know," he admits. "Tell him the truth, I guess. That his father died, but that he did it so that everyone else would be safe."
Amy makes a derisive sound at the back of her throat. "Is that what you really think? Is that why he died today?"
"It's close enough to the truth. I don't know exactly why he died, but that's why he was a cop. It was his reason for living: you and Billy and making sure Hawaii was safe for you and everyone else living here." Danny squeezes her shoulders.
She wipes away the last of her tears. "You should go, Danny. I have... I have calls I need to make now."
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that she can't stand the sight of him now. Danny can understand that. It's not like he hasn't had a few thoughts along the lines of why-Meka-and-not-him himself on his way over. Not that he wants to trade places, leave Gracie without a father, but survivor's guilt is a nasty, insidious snake. He squeezes her shoulder one last time.
"I am a phone call away, Amy. You just say the word."
~*~
By the time he gets home he's too wired to sleep, too exhausted to move. He drops onto the sofa that's the only piece of furniture he owns apart from a rickety table and a beat-up dresser, can't even bring himself to pull it out in order to make up the bed. He must have had a good reason for putting it back the way it is, but he can't remember doing it right now. He sits, staring a little blankly at the TV even though it's not switched on, seeing his reflection staring back at him from the shadows, barely registers the sound of the kitchen window sliding open and shut again.
"I'm sorry about your partner," Steve says softly from the doorway. "I didn't realize he was the one who'd been shot, or I wouldn't have let you find out like that."
Danny nods mechanically. "It's fine. If it weren't for you I probably still wouldn't know, and some stranger would be telling Amy her husband is dead right now."
"Still, I would have done it differently, if I'd known."
Danny finds himself wishing he was the type of man to drown his troubles in alcohol. He hasn't bothered to turn around to look at The Seal. "Why are you here, Steve? I'm not exactly in the right frame of mind to play into your elaborate hero fantasies. Not tonight."
"I didn't come for that."
"No? Then what did you come for?" This time he does turn, only to find that the guy is standing off in the shadows in one corner of his living room.
"I came because you shouldn't be alone. Not at a time like this. I know Meka was pretty much your only friend here, and I know what it's like to lose someone like that."
"Okay, well, your sympathy is duly noted," Danny knows he's being churlish, but the last thing he wants is this confusing, irritating man in his living room at three o'clock in the morning exuding sympathy when Danny still can't figure out if he should shoot him or maybe kiss him, and none of those thoughts are especially comforting right now. "But seeing as how we don't know each other, I don't really see the logic behind your reasoning."
"That's where you're wrong. We do know each other. I just figured it was time we knew each other better, that's all."
"Says the guy wearing a mask."
"Do you see a mask, Danno?" Steve asks, and Danny has to bite back a small gasp of surprise as he steps forward out of the shadows.
Probably the most surprising thing about Steve is how perfectly ordinary he looks. Okay, not exactly ordinary. The guy is handsome, clean-cut and very tall, but apart from being drop-dead gorgeous, he could be just any other guy off the street, wearing cargo pants over a pair of what look like military-issue boots and a navy blue polo t-shirt. There's no sign of the slightly manic, endearing smile he usually reserves for Danny, not now. Now he's staring at Danny like he wants to bore a hole right through his skull using only his eyes (and for all Danny knows, that might be his superpower), and all Danny can think of is how bright those eyes are, rimmed with thick lashes. He wonders if it makes him officially a girl if all he wants to do is stare right back into Steve's eyes for the rest of his life.
"Holy crap," he manages after a minute.
"Not what you were expecting?" There's a small smirk accompanying the statement, but this time Steve doesn't quite meet his eyes, as though he's uncomfortable under Danny's scrutiny.
"I don't know what I was expecting. Not this, though. Cargo pants? What happened to the spandex?"
"For the last time, it's not spandex," Steve snaps. "It's a special fibre blend I came up with, okay? More resistant than Kevlar."
"You should patent it and sell it to the police forces. You'd make a mint and save the lives of countless officers in the line of duty," Danny says almost automatically, still staring at the face that's been hidden behind a mask all this time.
"I tried that, but they think it's too expensive to be worth it," Steve has moved forward so that he's standing a bare few inches in front of Danny, so close that if he wanted, Danny could just raise a hand and touch him.
"Why are you here?" Danny repeats, like it might all suddenly make sense, if only he hears it again.
"I told you why."
"I mean, like this," Danny makes a vague up-and-down motion with one hand. "I thought the whole point of the costume was so no one would know who you were."
"Maybe I want you to know who I am, Danno."
"Seriously, don't call me that."
"I don't think you should stay here tonight," Steve leans over, pulls Danny to his feet before he so much as has time to register what's going on, let alone protest the treatment. He smells of the ocean, of brine and salty air, faintly of coconut, and Danny realizes belatedly that he's almost but not quite wrapped up in his arms, shielded from the world. Stranger still, he kind of wants to stay there. "Come with me."
He finds he doesn't really want to resist, not anymore, even though this is probably a spectacularly shitty judgment call on his part. "Where we going?"
"Back to my place."
"Your secret hideout? You got a Batcave?"
"I do, but I think that would be overkill. You need a bed, not a high-tech laboratory," Steve steers him skillfully out through his own front door, and Danny can't even tell if he locks the door behind them. "Maybe some other time I'll show it to you. Come on, get in."
"Why are you driving my car again?"
"It's a nice car, and I didn't drive here."
"That's not what I was asking."
Steve just ignores him, and the scenery rushes by in a blur. For a while there's silence, until the gentle rumble of the Camaro's engine lulls Danny to sleep, eyes drifting shut in spite of his attempts to stay awake. He barely rouses when Steve shakes him by the shoulder and pulls him out of the car and up a short flight of steps into what on first inspection looks like a perfectly normal house. Of course, it probably has a dozen hidden booby traps and twice as many secret doors and tunnels, Danny thinks a little muzzily, but, whatever. It can wait.
"You know, no one in their right mind would be doing what I'm doing right now," he grumbles. "I must be losing it. All that pineapple finally getting to me."
"What's wrong with pineapple?"
"I rest my case," he says with finality as the backs of his knees connect with what feels like a mattress. He doesn't remember going into a bedroom, but here he is. "I'm going to bed in a complete stranger's house and it hasn't occurred to me yet that I should be, I dunno, running away or shooting you, or both."
"I'm not a stranger," Steve repeats firmly. "And I'm not going to try anything, even if your bullets could do anything against me. You're exhausted and I'm not in the habit of taking advantage." He grins wickedly. "I like things fully consensual. Makes it more fun that way."
"Oh my God," Danny groans, unsure whether to be appalled or really turned on. Steve nudges him fully onto the bed and tucks a pillow under his head, and all thoughts of what else they might be doing vanish from his mind.
"We'll talk in the morning," Steve promises. "Go to sleep. It's perfectly safe here, I promise."
And weirdly enough, Danny believes him.
~*~
It's been a very, very long time since Danny has woken up somewhere he wasn't expecting to be. More than ten years, certainly. There's sunlight streaming into the room through half-drawn blinds and the bed is far more comfortable than he remembers his pull-out bed being. A digital clock on the unfamiliar nightstand tells him that it's just past seven o'clock in the morning. Gradually the events of the night before start to come back, leaving a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach which only eases slightly when he sits up and catches sight of Steve, standing in front of the dresser with his back to him. His hair is damp, and he's wearing nothing but a pair of cargo pants, is obviously rummaging for a shirt. In spite of how crappy Danny feels overall, he can't help but admire the well-sculpted muscles of the man's arms and shoulders, the neatly-defined ink of the tattoo at the small of his back and on his arms, feels his dick twitch a little with an interest he can't really deny at this point. As though he can sense he's being watched, Steve turns, pulling a t-shirt over his head, and smiles softly at him.
"I thought you'd sleep longer than that. You were pretty wiped last night."
Danny struggles to a sitting position, wonders just when he managed to shed most of his clothes apart from his boxers. "Yeah, well, strange bed, you know how it goes. This may well qualify as the most surreal morning of my life. Normally if I'm waking up in someone else's bed ―and that isn't exactly par for the course for me either― it's for entirely different reasons.
At that, and this really is his life now, holy hell, Steve ducks his head a little and damn if he doesn't look at Danny coyly right through his lashes, like he's suddenly shy or something. "Yeah, well, I think that might be rushing things a little, don't you?" Danny can't manage much more than a sputter at that, so Steve presses on, still not looking right at him. "Anyway, uh, would you like breakfast? There's coffee."
"That sounds like the best news I've had all week, actually." Danny crawls out of the bed, looking for his clothes, which have somehow ended up neatly folded on a wicker chair in the corner of the room. Looking up, he catches Steve staring at him, the tip of his tongue caught between his teeth. "What? I got bed hair or something? It just does that, I'll have you know."
"No, I mean, yes, you do, but it's not that. Where'd you get the scar?"
Danny glances down, surprised. He's so used to the nasty-looking thing that he barely gives it any thought these days. "That? Got shot by some punk trying to rob a convenience store back in Jersey. Nearly four years ago, come to think of it."
Danny pulls on his undershirt, threads his arms through the sleeves of the work shirt he was wearing yesterday. He'll shower and change when he gets home, he figures. He's on leave from work anyway, it's not like he has anywhere to rush to.
"That doesn't look like a bullet wound." Steve is suddenly standing right up in his personal space, hand hovering a couple of inches away, as though he wants to reach right through the fabric to wipe away the scar.
"No," Danny explains patiently. "That would be the surgical scar from when they cracked open my chest to prevent me from dying. I don't recommend it, it hurts like a bitch for months afterward."
Steve is still staring at him. "You almost died in the line of duty."
Danny shrugs uncomfortably. "Yeah, well, it's part of the job."
"Not for me, it isn't. God, Danny. How do you do it? Knowing you could die just from any stray bullet?"
"All cops do it, you know. Me? I look into my little girl's eyes, and I know that I'm keeping the world safe for her."
"As easy as that?"
Danny nods. "Easy as that."
There's a long silence, the tension so thick Danny almost wishes he had a knife so that he could test out whether you actually can cut tension with a knife. For a moment he thinks Steve is going to do something impulsive and really insane, but instead he pulls away a little, lets Danny finish getting dressed, and leads him down into a pristine kitchen, where he can smell coffee already brewing. He sits down at the small breakfast counter and lets Steve hand him a cup along with cream and sugar, though he gets the impression from the way things are set up that Steve isn't exactly used to having visitors over. He glances through the adjoining door, sees a small office that looks familiar, although it feels like something is missing from the picture.
"I've seen this place before."
Steve stiffens. "I don't think so."
Danny narrows his eyes, stares at the room. "No, I definitely have, but it was different..." he trails off as he realizes that what's missing from the room are bloodstains and numbered police evidence markers. "I remember. The McGarrett murder. This was Meka's case, before I got here. He was obsessed with it. What the hell are you doing in this house? It's a little on the sick side, don't you think? A little morbid?"
Steve's expression is shuttered. "Not really. This is my house. I inherited it from my father when he died."
"Your father's ―oh. Oh," Danny's brain finally catches up and he realizes what a colossal blunder he's just made. "Jesus, you're Jack McGarrett's son. I'm so sorry, I have a big mouth. I never would... I'm sorry about your father, Steve. Meka told me he was one of the good guys, the best cop he'd ever worked with."
Steve shrugs it off. "Meka's a good man."
"So you knew Meka too?"
"In a manner of speaking. We spoke once, when the case was still active. My father's killer has been in the wind for years, though. No sign of him anywhere, until recently."
Danny's stomach twists unpleasantly. "Let me guess. It was the guy in the photographs from my crime scenes."
Steve nods. "Victor Hesse. He fled the island after he murdered my father, but he works for The Shark ―his right-hand man. If he's back, it's because The Shark is planning something big."
"So you being in that alley, that wasn't a coincidence."
Steve shakes his head. "Meka was a good cop, one of the best. I kept tabs on the case, even when all the leads dried up, then started keeping tabs on you when you became his partner, to make sure no one was trying to interfere with him."
"You checked up on me?" Danny asks incredulously, and Steve nods. "I hate to break it to you, babe, but that's really creepy and invasive."
Steve just shrugs. "I had to know if you were working for The Shark. I'm ninety-nine per cent sure you're not."
"Well, that's reassuring," Danny remarks drily.
"I think the cases are related," Steve says as though Danny hasn't said a word, "I contacted Meka after I recognized Hesse from the photographs. I just didn't think he'd follow up on the lead so fast, or what would happen," his gaze flicks away from Danny, as though he's expecting Danny to maybe lunge to his feet and punch him. In his defense, Danny does come close.
"So what you're saying is, this Hesse is the one who killed my partner? Under orders from The Shark?"
"The same way he killed my parents, yes."
"Parents? As in plural?" Danny's starting to get a headache.
"My father was investigating my mother's death. I always thought it was a car accident, but after he died I found a toolbox full of his notes. He never told anyone in the department about it, worried that there was a leak. The Shark has eyes and ears everywhere."
"This Shark got a name at least? I'm finding it hard to muster much fear or respect or whatever for a giant fish."
Steve nods, goes into the office, takes out a manila envelope and brings it back to the kitchen. He pulls a couple of grainy photographs of an Asian man dressed in a really unfortunate-looking white suit and pushes them towards Danny. "I've never seen him in person, but I believe this is the man I've been up against these past few years. His name is Wo Fat."
Danny stares at the picture, then whistles quietly. "You sure know how to pick 'em, my friend. You sure you don't want to try the Sith Emperor instead? Might be easier to take down."
"Don't be ridiculous, Danno, there's no such thing. That's a fictional character."
Danny drains his cup of coffee and Steve doesn't wait to be asked before refilling it. "So you're telling me that the guy who is reportedly the head of the Yakuza here in Hawaii is also ―and I cannot stress how insane this sounds― a super-villain who happens to be your arch-nemesis."
"I don't see why that sounds so insane."
"Normal people don't have arch-nemeses, Steven."
The corner of Steve's mouth twitches into something almost resembling a smile. "I thought you already decided I wasn't normal."
Danny throws up his hands in surrender. "That's not what I meant! How come no one else knows about this epic battle of good and evil you've got going on, then?"
Steve actually rolls his eyes. "Well, it wouldn't be much of a secret if everyone knew about it, would it? I mean, he wants his identity kept a secret as much as I do. Otherwise his whole operation would be blown and he'd never get to put his master plan into action."
"Master plan?"
"Well, world domination, of course."
Danny groans. "I was really afraid you'd say that."
~*~
Danny has never been involved in a fully-fledged conspiracy before, and it's surprisingly stressful, he finds. There's a whole world out there that he never suspected even existed, full of people with extra abilities and secret identities and a whole universe of power politics being played behind the scenes that, if he's honest with himself, he never ever wanted to know about. For a few days, at least, he finds himself avoiding all contact with Steve, who, now that they're on familiar terms, has at least stopped dropping in like a bird of ill omen and now uses the telephone like a regular human. He doesn't bother answering any of the calls, though, unwilling to deal with whatever he's going to find on the other end of the line, and refuses to dwell to long on how much he kind of misses the lunatic already, on how comfortable it felt, spending that one morning together.
Time passes in a mass of days blending into each other. Meka's funeral goes by in a blur of trumpet music and ceremonial gunfire, and he watches as Amy quietly accepts the carefully-folded flag that up until a few minutes ago was draped over Meka's coffin. Billy is standing next to her, one hand clutching a fold of her skirt so hard Danny thinks the fabric might rip. Billy's too young to really understand what's happening, but Danny is pretty sure he's understood that his father is never coming back. After the funeral he goes home and for the first time in his life, gets properly drunk as a direct result of his work, crawls under the blanket on his bed and promptly passes out. When he awakens, he finds a pitcher of water and an extra-large bottle of Tylenol next to his bed that he doesn't remember putting there the night before.
At the office, he suddenly finds he's become persona non grata. Conversations stop when he approaches, groups disperse rather than talk to him. His desk is entirely deserted, whereas before at least sometimes people would stop by sometimes to chat with Meka. Danny hadn't realized before just how much he relied on Meka to be the social lubricant between him and the other officers. Now, though, his desk has become a ghost town, populated by tumbleweeds and his aging case files. The jewellery store robberies have been taken away and reassigned, and everyone is carefully not giving him any sort of useful updates on the investigation into Meka's murder.
So Danny does whatever any other cop in his position would do: he cheats. He doesn't have much by way of allies within the department, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have other resources. The one cop who still talks to him is Kono, which comes as something of a surprise even to him. She sidles up to his desk one day, holding a small stack of photocopies.
"Thought you might like to see these," she says casually, dropping the stack on his desk.
He picks up the papers. "This is Meka's autopsy report," he says, eyebrows making a break for his hairline. "Dare I ask?"
"I made friends with Max. He doesn't like people, but he can appreciate someone who'll tune his piano without insisting on small talk."
"Please tell me that's not a euphemism."
Kono snorts and punches his arm, hard. "Ew, what do you take me for? No, his actual piano, you sexist jerk. Don't make me go to the Lieutenant and force him to sign you up for sensitivity training."
Danny holds up both hands in a clear gesture of surrender. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry! That didn't come out right at all, okay? It's just... you know what? There is no good way for me to finish that sentence. I didn't mean to imply anything about you or your, uh, methods of obtaining information. Which, thank you, by the way."
"You're welcome."
He starts flipping through the pages. "So, can I ask why you're speaking to the leper? This sort of thing is contagious, you know."
She shrugs. "I don't care. You were good to my cousin, and anyone who does good by my family deserves something from me in return."
"Your cousin?"
"Chin Ho Kelly."
"I didn't realize the connection. Next time remind me to check more carefully. So, you think your cousin's innocent?"
"Absolutely. And one day, I'm going to prove it."
Danny can respect that. "You ever need help with that, Kono, you just let me know. At the very least, he deserves a fair shake and not just the bum's rush that he got here."
She smiles, then, bright and sunny. "I knew there was a reason I liked you! Meka had good instincts," she says, sobering a bit. "He kept insisting you were one of the best cops we had, that the other detectives were stupid to shut you out. I bet you anything you're going to prove him right, sooner rather than later. Hope you find what you're looking for in there, Danny."
"I hope so too."
~*~
The case dries up. It doesn’t help that Danny’s not allowed to pursue it officially, of course, but it becomes obvious after a while that the detectives assigned to the case aren’t getting anywhere. Whether it’s because they’re dragging their feet or being deliberately stonewalled is anyone’s guess, but either way it makes Danny furious. Anywhere else, he thinks, and a cop’s death would have the entire department crawling over it in order to get the cop-killer off the streets, preferably with the stuffing kicked out of him. Here? It’s like some sort of silent order has been passed along without Danny’s knowledge to ignore this travesty. Meka gave twelve years of his life to the force, and apparently all he’s getting in return is a nice funeral and a bunch of cops spitting on his sacrifice.
Danny Williams, however, is not a detective for nothing. If no one else is going to get justice for his partner, then he’s damned well going to get it himself. It’s easy enough to start digging on his own now that he has a few names to go along with the investigation. There’s a new transfer in from the FBI, a pretty girl who’s a bit on the nerdy side by the name of Jenna Kaye. Given her haole status she and Danny commiserated early on and since then she’s proven more than a little willing to bend the occasional rule to help him. It turns out also that the name Wo Fat isn’t unknown to her –the FBI has him on a couple of watch lists as it happens– and she’s happy to slip him information under the table in exchange for part of the care packages his mother still sends from New Jersey on a semi-regular basis. Danny can’t blame her: there are few people who can resist his mother’s baking, even after a couple of days of express travel.
With her help and the occasional nudge from Kono, after a couple of weeks he’s reasonably certain that he can come up with some good intel on the whereabouts of Victor Hesse, who right now is at the top of his suspect list. Or, technically, he supposes Hesse is more of a ‘person of interest’ since there’s no evidence yet that he was the one who actually pulled the trigger. Ballistics are a match between Meka’s death and that of Jack McGarrett, though, and that by itself is too big to be a coincidence. Danny keeps a copy of that report in his apartment along with back-ups of everything else. He’s not by nature a paranoid man, but when the original ballistics report goes missing, it’s just one more coincidence in a long line of coincidences that appear to be building a giant brick wall between him and the truth.
The best lead he gets takes him to a safehouse down by the docks where he sets up an unofficial surveillance of sorts during his time off. Kono helps as best she can, but she’s still a rookie and her time isn’t really her own. Not to mention that he’s not really willing to jeopardize her career any more than he already is. She’s just starting out, it would be unfair to saddle her with even more trouble than her cousin’s reputation has already brought her. It’s frustrating in the extreme, but it’s better than nothing, he reasons. He does manage to build a decent portfolio of pictures during his stakeouts, carefully annotated with dates and times. It doesn’t come as a complete surprise, therefore, when he gets called into his Lieutenant’s office. The Lieutenant gestures him to a chair, tight-lipped with disapproval, which Danny refuses, standing with both hands gripping the back of the chair instead.
"I don’t suppose I have to tell you why you’re here?"
Danny arranges his face into the blandest expression he can muster. "I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir."
The Lieutenant sighs. "Okay, Williams, go ahead and play dumb. Here’s how this is going to works. Effective immediately, you are on paid sick leave. You will come into the office only for previously scheduled appointments with the psychologist, for necessary meetings with HR, or if I call you in. You will cease your communications with Jenna Kaye and with Officer Kalakaua except on a strictly social basis and you will not, under any circumstances, discuss the investigation into Detective Hanamoa’s death with them or with any other member of HPD. You will also, effective immediately, cease and desist your visits to the district that appears to have become your favourite haunt of late. I will not have this department be liable for a case of police harassment because you don’t know how to let something go!" he yells the last few words, jabbing a finger at Danny for emphasis. "Do I make myself clear?"
"Crystal. I guess I’m never going to get used to how things work here. Back in Jersey, a cop dies? No one goes home until the killer’s found." He doesn’t bother to keep the accusation out of his tone.
"Damn it, Williams," the Lieutenant blows out a breath. "You are one of my best detectives. Don’t screw up your career over this. We all want Meka’s killer brought to justice. Why don’t you trust the rest of us to do our jobs, all right? Go home. Have a beer. Watch the game. See your kid. Take advantage of the down time. And for heaven’s sake, don’t make me have to fire you."
~*~
Danny’s seeing red by the time he gets out of HPD, filled with impotent rage. He’s got a stack of evidence that’s never going to see the light of day, every path a dead end as far as the eye can see. He drops the box of files from his car on the floor of his apartment, slams the door shut with a vicious kick, because there’s nowhere else to vent his frustration.
"Take it easy, Danno," an amused voice comes from the gloom of his apartment. "You’ll lose your safety deposit on this dump if you keep on that way."
Danny jumps about six feet, slumps against the door, heart hammering at his ribcage. "Jesus, Steve, warn a guy!"
"Well, I would have called, but you never answer your phone when I do. You want to tell me what that’s about?" Steve, Danny notes, is back in costume, complete with mask and cape.
Danny wipes a hand over his face, waiting for his heartbeat to return to normal. "Yeah… this isn’t a good time."
Steve is yet another complication Danny doesn't need in his life. It's not that he doesn't like the guy ―that's precisely the problem. The last thing he needs is a six-foot hazel-eyed distraction from his self-imposed mission of finding Meka's killer and bringing him to justice. It's bad enough Steve has invaded all of his thoughts, both waking and dreaming, without Danny having to actually speak to him directly. So, yeah, maybe Danny's been avoiding the whole situation in the vain hope that all his presumably unrequited feelings will go away on their own.
"You're avoiding me." Steve steps forward until they’re mere inches from each other. He does a really good job of looming, Danny thinks, swallowing hard and trying resolutely not to imagine what it would be like if Steve just pinned him against the wall and had his way with him, right then and there. "And when would be a good time, Danny?"
"I don’t know. How about when I haven’t just been put on paid leave for trying to do the right thing?"
Steve’s face scrunches up into an expression that Danny thinks is meant to be commiserating. "Damn. I’m sorry."
Danny extricates himself from being in such dangerously close proximity to Steve, makes a show of picking up his mail from where it’s lying on the floor by the mail slot. "Yeah, well, me too. Hey, at least now I’ll have the chance to catch up on all this riveting junk mail that people insist on sending me," he says bitterly, tossing flyer after flyer onto the small table by the door until he comes to a manila envelope with his name printed on it. "The hell?"
"No postage," Steve points out, and Danny’s heart skips a beat for no reason he can determine, except that his instincts are all screaming danger! at him.
The envelope is unsealed, and contains a single eight-and-a-half-by-eleven glossy colour photograph. Danny pulls it out completely from the envelope, stares at it, isn’t sure that he’s not going to throw up right then and there. Steve catches him by the shoulders when his knees threaten to give way.
"Whoa, easy now. Hey Danny, come on, talk to me," he shakes him a little. "What is it?"
Wordlessly Danny just flips the photograph around, shows it to him. It’s a picture of Grace, all smiles, wearing her pink backpack, trotting up the stairs to her school, surrounded by her friends. Her expression is bright and happy, trusting, her uniform crisp and neatly-pressed, socks pulled up to her knees. The picture was obviously taken from a distance with a telescopic lens, the threat as clear as if it had been written in blood on the paper: stay away, or else.
"Bastards," Steve says feelingly, but Danny's already got his phone open, dialling.
"I need to speak to Gracie," he says when Rachel answers, not even bothering with so much as a hello. To her credit, Rachel doesn't call him on it ―this isn't the first time he'll have called like this, and it's the one thing she never resented― and he listens to the soft click of her shoes against the floor as she brings the cordless phone to Grace's room.
Grace's voice is sleepy, making him realize just how late it is, but already he can feel the tension draining from his muscles, just knowing she's alive and breathing. "Danno?"
"Hey Monkey," he forces himself not to let his panic creep into his voice. "I'm sorry I woke you up. I just wanted to see how you were."
There's a pause. "Did some kids get hurt?"
"What?"
"You always call when bad things happen to kids. Are they okay?"
A lump forms in his throat. Damn, but his baby girl is perceptive. "No, sweetheart, nothing happened to any kids. I was just worried for a while, but everything's fine, I promise."
"Okay, I'm glad. You're always sad when that happens, and I don't want you to be sad."
Danny swallows hard. "You go back to sleep, baby. Give your mom the phone?"
"Okay. Good night, Danno!"
"Good night, Monkey," he says, but Rachel's already on the line. "I don't want to freak you out, but I think for the next few days it should be you or me picking her up from school. No one else, okay? No drivers."
"Daniel, what's happening?" Rachel asks quietly, obviously trying not to alarm Grace.
"Nothing official. Just... keep her close for a few days, okay? Trust me."
"All right. You'll tell me if there's anything." It's not a request.
"Of course. Thank you, Rach."
"You don't have to thank me."
"I’m going to kill them," Danny says softly as he hangs up, feeling his blood start to flow again for the first time since he opened the envelope. His stomach churns unpleasantly "Those bastards threatened my little girl, Steve. I’m going rip them apart, limb by limb. I swear, they so much as come within shouting distance of her..."
Steve steps toward him, puts his hands on his arms. "Hey, it's okay. We'll get them long before that ever happens, okay? You hear me? We'll keep her safe, you and me."
He still thinks he might be sick, but Steve’s got both hands on his biceps, gripping him hard, and the feeling of those fingers digging into his arms keeps him grounded, keeps him from flying apart right then and there. Steve pulls him closer, strong arms circling his shoulders, and he’s not really sure whether Steve leans down or he reaches up, but the next thing he knows their lips have met and he’s kissing Steve as though his life depends on it.
~*~
Part III
Danny doesn't sleep well that night. It probably has a lot to do with knowing that his apartment isn't safe from being broken into by lunatics with nice eyes and questionable taste in cologne. He spends a good amount of time tossing and turning, wakes up half an hour before his alarm is set to go off, tangled in his sheets with the worst hard-on he's had in months. He kicks the sheets to the floor, declares sleep a lost cause, staggers to the bathroom and switches on the shower. It doesn't take long, and since he's by himself no one ever needs to know that he's picturing the mysterious Steve in his mind as he jerks himself roughly to completion, one hand braced against the murky tiles of the shower wall.
It only helps a little bit, in the short run. He finds himself still thinking about Steve as he stops to buy coffee and malasadas on his way to work, which does nothing for his concentration. It's not like this guy is going to help him solve this case, no matter what he tells himself. When he's still about fifteen minutes away from the office, though, his phone rings, playing the intro music to Lilo & Stitch.
"Hey, Meka," he brings the phone to his ear. "Aren't you at the office yet?"
There's a put-upon sigh. "You still have that stupid ring tone for me, don't you?"
"Hey, it makes you unique in my book. Besides, Gracie picked it. You wouldn't want to hurt her feelings, would you?"
"Sometimes I think you made that up just to mess with me. Listen, Danny, I got some stuff to do on my own today. I think I might be on to something here. It's a side project nothing to do with the case, but something's popped up and since we don't have anything hot going right now, I figured I'd look into it. I'm already on my way to do a quick check, but I'll be at the office by noon."
"What? Hey, hey, no, that's not how that works. You shouldn't be out there by yourself. Tell me where you are, and I'll come join you."
"No can do, brah," Meka laughs. "I mean, I'll tell you where I am if you want, but I.A. wants to talk to you again about the mysterious disappearing-reappearing evidence. So you can't come and play bodyguard."
Danny just barely resists the urge to beat his head against the steering wheel. "Oh my God. I am never going to hear the end of that."
"No, you're really not. Besides, you gotta admit it's weird."
No, Danny thinks glumly, it's not weird at all once you know who was really behind it. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, that probably counts as normal in Steve's books. Steve, whose name keeps dancing around in his mind, the knowledge burning there, bright and incandescent. It takes every ounce of his self-control during his interview with I.A., three hours of nothing but the same question asked seventeen different ways, but he perseveres. No, he doesn't know how anyone could have come into the building undetected (not a lie, he still doesn't really know how Steve managed it); no, he doesn't know who took the papers (also not a lie, it's not like he actually knows the guy beyond a dubious first name and a bad costume) nor what they wanted them for (okay, that one's a lie, but two out of three isn't bad). In the end he leaves with a handshake and the feeling that since the evidence is all present and accounted for, this is all just going to get filed under "fodder for department gossip" for the next ten years. He can live with that.
Meka isn't back by the time he goes to lunch, but since for once there's no new heist Danny takes advantage of an unexpectedly free afternoon to revisit one of the earlier crime scenes, photos in hand. He goes back to the jewellery shop to find Chin Ho Kelly still on security detail there. Kelly gives him a cool, appraising look, but doesn't say much until he approaches, his new blown-up photographs in a brown envelope held in one hand.
"Help you, detective?"
"I certainly hope so," Danny pulls out the photos and spreads them on the counter. "Just doing a little digging. None of this is formal, so you don't have to answer my questions, but you know that already."
"Yes, I do," Kelly says with enough equanimity that Danny's impressed. Most ex-cops are more than a little touchy about it.
"So it's a little early for me to be able to tell who was at all of my crime scenes, because I don't have crowd photographs of the first one, but I do have a few faces that cropped up at both. I was hoping you'd be able to help me narrow down my list a bit."
Kelly shrugs. "Sure. I want these bastards caught as much as you do. Okay, her?" he points to a young woman holding a clutch purse to her chest. "Probably not a person of interest. Name is Kimmy something. She's a regular, comes in with Daddy's credit cards and spends way too much on jewellery she'll wear once or twice. Doesn't mean you can rule her out, but I wouldn't put her at the top of your list."
"Okay, makes sense," Danny nods, ticks off her name on his mental list.
"These two," Kelly points to two of the three men Danny singled out, although the resolution is a bit blurry due to the enhancements, "I don't know. Can't say I ever saw them before, or maybe they just didn't catch my attention. Their body language screams 'rubbernecking,' anyway."
He's good, Danny will give him that. "Go on. What about the last guy?" Danny looks down at the man in the photograph, a good-looking guy with slightly pockmarked skin and sandy brown hair, probably in his early to mid-forties, standing at the back of the crowd of onlookers. That gets a nod.
"I saw him a couple of days ago, just before the burglary. Came in, looked at engagement rings. I didn't think too much of it at the time, but I remember thinking that, whoever he was shopping for, it probably wasn't going to last because he didn't seem all that interested in the rings themselves, just kept looking around like he was taking in the place. He was good, though, if this is your guy, because I never figured him to be casing the place. But it's too much of a coincidence that he'd turn up before and after, and at two different crime scenes."
"All right," Danny slides the pictures back into the envelope. "You've been a big help, thanks." He reaches out, shakes Kelly's hand, notes the expression of surprise. "What, you thought I would treat you like a leper just on general principle?"
That gets him a genuine smile. "You'd be surprised."
Danny sighs. "No, I really wouldn't. I've spent just enough time at HPD to know exactly what it feels like to have no one want to work with you."
"Meka's a good cop. I can't think of another man I'd want more as a partner. He believes I'm innocent."
"Then the odds are good you are innocent. I'd trust his instincts any day."
Kelly glances at the front window of the shop, apparently coming to some sort of internal decision, because he nods a little to himself, then leans forward. "You know, you're not the first person to ask me about those people."
"No?"
Kelly looks at once amused and a little sheepish. "You lose any of your crime scene photos lately, brah?"
Danny's getting used to his face making contact with his palm by now. "Don't tell me. It was a guy wearing green spandex."
"He says it's not spandex. Anyway, he saved my life once, so I owe him. I didn't see the harm in telling him what I knew. But I figure I should give you a heads-up that you're not the only person on this case."
"The guy's nuts."
"Maybe not as nuts as you think. Usually he keeps a pretty low profile, doesn't like to draw too much attention to himself. He must think you're pretty special, if you've seen him that close up."
"Lucky me."
That gets him a shrug. "I'm just saying, he can be a good ally if you play your cards right."
"Okay, you are about to destroy any credibility you have," Danny tells him good-naturedly, "so I'm going to leave that there. Here's my card. Anything else turns up, you'll give me a call?"
"Sure thing," Kelly tucks the card carefully into his wallet. "Does that include The Seal?"
"Yeah, why not. If he comes back, let me know so I know to wear extra Kevlar to deal with whatever fallout is going to come from that. God knows one I.A. investigation into this was enough to last me a lifetime. Anyway, thanks for your help. I'd put in a good word for you, but my word means only slightly more than squat, so I probably wouldn't be doing you any favours anyway."
"Yeah, don't sweat it. It's been a long time, I've got something else going on now."
"Well, for what it's worth, thanks again. I owe you a coffee, or something."
"Anytime."
~*~
"Danno, wake up!"
Danny comes out of a dream that he's not entirely sure isn't partially a nightmare, in which The Seal has yet again broken into his apartment and is straddling his thighs while explaining something improbable involving giant cans of tuna being built into a tower and leading up into the volcano as a shortcut across the ocean. He blinks in the semi-darkness, then groans when he realizes that he fell asleep at his desk and that the only light is the thin stream coming in through the window from the street lamp outside.
"I swear to God, if you say anything involving tuna, I will shoot you first, then myself."
"Get up, Danno," Steve's voice makes Danny sit up, suddenly wide-awake. "You need to come right now."
"Why? What's happening?"
"It's your partner. There's been a shooting. Come on, you have to come now or they're not going to let you near any of it."
Danny's already moving, grabbing his jacket and making a futile attempt to straighten his tie. "How do you even get into the building without getting noticed, anyway?"
"Secret entrance. Come on," Steve's grip on his arm is like a vise, propelling him forward to his car. "Get in."
"It's my car."
Steve is already behind the wheel, though, slipping keys into the ignition and revving the engine. Danny doesn't even want to know how he got the keys ―probably out of his pocket while he was sleeping, which is plenty humiliating.
"So are you going to tell me what's going on? What about the shooting?"
"I don't know yet. I heard part of it on the police scanner, heard the name Hanamoa, put two and two together. I figured it might be part of our case, so I decided to get you so we could check it out."
"Okay, no," Danny starts, raising both hands to demonstrate his point. "See, this is not our case, this is my case. The only 'we' here is me and my partner, and you, my friend, are not my partner."
"But you admit I'm your friend?" The grin is back in full force, and not for the first time Danny finds himself wondering what this guy looks like under the mask and the green.
"What? No! Just... shut up and drive, already."
Not altogether surprisingly, Steve drives like a maniac. Takes turns at angles so acute Danny's amazed that he hasn't flipped the car by the time they pull up in front of one of those abandoned warehouses that are ubiquitous in the organized crime world. There are three marked police cars and an ambulance on scene already, lights flashing, yellow tape surrounding a small door to the side, uniformed cops milling about, and Danny spots at least one enterprising reporter lurking, tape recorder at the ready. When he ducks under the yellow tape, he's surprised to find his Lieutenant hurrying toward him.
"Williams! You can't be here," he barks.
"What? What the hell are you talking about?"
The look he gets is filled with sympathy, and Danny feels his blood run cold. "I'm so sorry, Danny, I didn't want you to find out like this."
Danny tries unsuccessfully to push past him. "What? Find out what like this? Where's Meka? Oh, God..." he presses both hands to his mouth as the EMTs wheel a gurney slowly toward the ambulance, the figure on it hidden by a black body bag. "Oh, God. Tell me that's not him."
"I'm so sorry. But you can't be here, Danny, let us take care of this."
"Screw that! He's my partner, I can't just stand here!"
The Lieutenant shakes his head. "I know how you feel, but this is procedure, you know that. I have to take you off the whole case."
"You can't do that," Danny's still staring at the gurney, disappearing into the rear of the ambulance. None of it feels real. "Where's the coroner?"
"Been and gone. Go home. Take a couple of days at least, take it easy, and we'll send someone by so you can catch them up on your investigation."
"God," Danny scrubs at his face with one hand, stubble scraping against his palm. "What about Amy? Has anyone told his wife?"
"Not yet, it's too soon. I'll be sending someone over soon, though."
"No," he shakes his head. "Let me do that. I want it to come from a friend. If I can't be of any use here, at least let me do that."
The Lieutenant claps him on the shoulder. "All right. We'll keep you apprised, as much as we can, anyway. You let me know if there's anything we can do for Amy."
"Right."
He turns away, walks dazedly back to his car only to find the keys in the ignition, and no sign at all of his costumed chauffeur. Somehow, at this precise moment he can't bring himself to care about the man's whereabouts. The guy seems to be able to come and go at will anyway, so Danny refuses to worry about him. Right now, he has to go tell the people who, apart from Gracie, are the closest thing he has on this god-forsaken island to family, that they're never going to see their husband and father again.
~*~
Delivering next-of-kin notifications is the very worst part of being a cop, second to nothing. It's the hardest lesson to learn as a rookie cop, and it never seems to get any easier. In fact, Danny is privately of the opinion that the day this part of his job gets easy is the day he turns in his badge and gun, because unnatural death by definition should never be easy. Amy Hanamoa sobs in his arms, curled up on the ratty beige sofa in their living room. Danny's lost count of how many times he's sat on this sofa with Meka before, sharing a beer, watching his little boy Billy playing with Legos on the floor. Billy's a couple of years younger than Gracie, and now his dad is never going to teach him to surf, or how to swing a baseball bat or throw a football. Billy's dad isn't going to be there when the training wheels come off his brand new bicycle, to watch with pride as he pedals away all on his own for the first time, and the thought makes Danny want to punch someone in the face repeatedly until this all somehow gets fixed.
"How did he die?" Amy asks finally, scrubbing at her face with a tissue. Billy is asleep in bed at this hour, and she hasn't made a move to wake him yet.
"I don't know exactly. There was a shooting, but I wasn't there," he says grimly, thinking back to his last conversation with Meka. He can't help but wonder if things might not have gone down differently if Meka had agreed to wait until he was done with I.A., if they'd gone to look up this mysterious lead together, whatever it was about. "They're not telling me much, because we were partners. But I promise, I'll keep an eye out, and whatever I find out, I'll let you know, okay?"
"I don't understand," she says softly, staring at her hands, folded in her lap now, fingers shredding the damp tissue. "I don't understand why anyone would want to kill him. He was such a good man."
"It just means the guys who aren't so good have it out for people like him. Look, I can't make this better, but I promise, we're going to find whoever did this. I can at least give you that."
"What am I going to tell Billy?"
Danny sighs, scrubs at his face. He can almost hear Rachel's voice, screaming at him during one of their worst arguments before the divorce. 'And what am I supposed to tell Grace, Daniel? Tell me that! Tell me what I am supposed to tell our child the day you won't come home from work!'
"I don't know," he admits. "Tell him the truth, I guess. That his father died, but that he did it so that everyone else would be safe."
Amy makes a derisive sound at the back of her throat. "Is that what you really think? Is that why he died today?"
"It's close enough to the truth. I don't know exactly why he died, but that's why he was a cop. It was his reason for living: you and Billy and making sure Hawaii was safe for you and everyone else living here." Danny squeezes her shoulders.
She wipes away the last of her tears. "You should go, Danny. I have... I have calls I need to make now."
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that she can't stand the sight of him now. Danny can understand that. It's not like he hasn't had a few thoughts along the lines of why-Meka-and-not-him himself on his way over. Not that he wants to trade places, leave Gracie without a father, but survivor's guilt is a nasty, insidious snake. He squeezes her shoulder one last time.
"I am a phone call away, Amy. You just say the word."
~*~
By the time he gets home he's too wired to sleep, too exhausted to move. He drops onto the sofa that's the only piece of furniture he owns apart from a rickety table and a beat-up dresser, can't even bring himself to pull it out in order to make up the bed. He must have had a good reason for putting it back the way it is, but he can't remember doing it right now. He sits, staring a little blankly at the TV even though it's not switched on, seeing his reflection staring back at him from the shadows, barely registers the sound of the kitchen window sliding open and shut again.
"I'm sorry about your partner," Steve says softly from the doorway. "I didn't realize he was the one who'd been shot, or I wouldn't have let you find out like that."
Danny nods mechanically. "It's fine. If it weren't for you I probably still wouldn't know, and some stranger would be telling Amy her husband is dead right now."
"Still, I would have done it differently, if I'd known."
Danny finds himself wishing he was the type of man to drown his troubles in alcohol. He hasn't bothered to turn around to look at The Seal. "Why are you here, Steve? I'm not exactly in the right frame of mind to play into your elaborate hero fantasies. Not tonight."
"I didn't come for that."
"No? Then what did you come for?" This time he does turn, only to find that the guy is standing off in the shadows in one corner of his living room.
"I came because you shouldn't be alone. Not at a time like this. I know Meka was pretty much your only friend here, and I know what it's like to lose someone like that."
"Okay, well, your sympathy is duly noted," Danny knows he's being churlish, but the last thing he wants is this confusing, irritating man in his living room at three o'clock in the morning exuding sympathy when Danny still can't figure out if he should shoot him or maybe kiss him, and none of those thoughts are especially comforting right now. "But seeing as how we don't know each other, I don't really see the logic behind your reasoning."
"That's where you're wrong. We do know each other. I just figured it was time we knew each other better, that's all."
"Says the guy wearing a mask."
"Do you see a mask, Danno?" Steve asks, and Danny has to bite back a small gasp of surprise as he steps forward out of the shadows.
Probably the most surprising thing about Steve is how perfectly ordinary he looks. Okay, not exactly ordinary. The guy is handsome, clean-cut and very tall, but apart from being drop-dead gorgeous, he could be just any other guy off the street, wearing cargo pants over a pair of what look like military-issue boots and a navy blue polo t-shirt. There's no sign of the slightly manic, endearing smile he usually reserves for Danny, not now. Now he's staring at Danny like he wants to bore a hole right through his skull using only his eyes (and for all Danny knows, that might be his superpower), and all Danny can think of is how bright those eyes are, rimmed with thick lashes. He wonders if it makes him officially a girl if all he wants to do is stare right back into Steve's eyes for the rest of his life.
"Holy crap," he manages after a minute.
"Not what you were expecting?" There's a small smirk accompanying the statement, but this time Steve doesn't quite meet his eyes, as though he's uncomfortable under Danny's scrutiny.
"I don't know what I was expecting. Not this, though. Cargo pants? What happened to the spandex?"
"For the last time, it's not spandex," Steve snaps. "It's a special fibre blend I came up with, okay? More resistant than Kevlar."
"You should patent it and sell it to the police forces. You'd make a mint and save the lives of countless officers in the line of duty," Danny says almost automatically, still staring at the face that's been hidden behind a mask all this time.
"I tried that, but they think it's too expensive to be worth it," Steve has moved forward so that he's standing a bare few inches in front of Danny, so close that if he wanted, Danny could just raise a hand and touch him.
"Why are you here?" Danny repeats, like it might all suddenly make sense, if only he hears it again.
"I told you why."
"I mean, like this," Danny makes a vague up-and-down motion with one hand. "I thought the whole point of the costume was so no one would know who you were."
"Maybe I want you to know who I am, Danno."
"Seriously, don't call me that."
"I don't think you should stay here tonight," Steve leans over, pulls Danny to his feet before he so much as has time to register what's going on, let alone protest the treatment. He smells of the ocean, of brine and salty air, faintly of coconut, and Danny realizes belatedly that he's almost but not quite wrapped up in his arms, shielded from the world. Stranger still, he kind of wants to stay there. "Come with me."
He finds he doesn't really want to resist, not anymore, even though this is probably a spectacularly shitty judgment call on his part. "Where we going?"
"Back to my place."
"Your secret hideout? You got a Batcave?"
"I do, but I think that would be overkill. You need a bed, not a high-tech laboratory," Steve steers him skillfully out through his own front door, and Danny can't even tell if he locks the door behind them. "Maybe some other time I'll show it to you. Come on, get in."
"Why are you driving my car again?"
"It's a nice car, and I didn't drive here."
"That's not what I was asking."
Steve just ignores him, and the scenery rushes by in a blur. For a while there's silence, until the gentle rumble of the Camaro's engine lulls Danny to sleep, eyes drifting shut in spite of his attempts to stay awake. He barely rouses when Steve shakes him by the shoulder and pulls him out of the car and up a short flight of steps into what on first inspection looks like a perfectly normal house. Of course, it probably has a dozen hidden booby traps and twice as many secret doors and tunnels, Danny thinks a little muzzily, but, whatever. It can wait.
"You know, no one in their right mind would be doing what I'm doing right now," he grumbles. "I must be losing it. All that pineapple finally getting to me."
"What's wrong with pineapple?"
"I rest my case," he says with finality as the backs of his knees connect with what feels like a mattress. He doesn't remember going into a bedroom, but here he is. "I'm going to bed in a complete stranger's house and it hasn't occurred to me yet that I should be, I dunno, running away or shooting you, or both."
"I'm not a stranger," Steve repeats firmly. "And I'm not going to try anything, even if your bullets could do anything against me. You're exhausted and I'm not in the habit of taking advantage." He grins wickedly. "I like things fully consensual. Makes it more fun that way."
"Oh my God," Danny groans, unsure whether to be appalled or really turned on. Steve nudges him fully onto the bed and tucks a pillow under his head, and all thoughts of what else they might be doing vanish from his mind.
"We'll talk in the morning," Steve promises. "Go to sleep. It's perfectly safe here, I promise."
And weirdly enough, Danny believes him.
~*~
It's been a very, very long time since Danny has woken up somewhere he wasn't expecting to be. More than ten years, certainly. There's sunlight streaming into the room through half-drawn blinds and the bed is far more comfortable than he remembers his pull-out bed being. A digital clock on the unfamiliar nightstand tells him that it's just past seven o'clock in the morning. Gradually the events of the night before start to come back, leaving a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach which only eases slightly when he sits up and catches sight of Steve, standing in front of the dresser with his back to him. His hair is damp, and he's wearing nothing but a pair of cargo pants, is obviously rummaging for a shirt. In spite of how crappy Danny feels overall, he can't help but admire the well-sculpted muscles of the man's arms and shoulders, the neatly-defined ink of the tattoo at the small of his back and on his arms, feels his dick twitch a little with an interest he can't really deny at this point. As though he can sense he's being watched, Steve turns, pulling a t-shirt over his head, and smiles softly at him.
"I thought you'd sleep longer than that. You were pretty wiped last night."
Danny struggles to a sitting position, wonders just when he managed to shed most of his clothes apart from his boxers. "Yeah, well, strange bed, you know how it goes. This may well qualify as the most surreal morning of my life. Normally if I'm waking up in someone else's bed ―and that isn't exactly par for the course for me either― it's for entirely different reasons.
At that, and this really is his life now, holy hell, Steve ducks his head a little and damn if he doesn't look at Danny coyly right through his lashes, like he's suddenly shy or something. "Yeah, well, I think that might be rushing things a little, don't you?" Danny can't manage much more than a sputter at that, so Steve presses on, still not looking right at him. "Anyway, uh, would you like breakfast? There's coffee."
"That sounds like the best news I've had all week, actually." Danny crawls out of the bed, looking for his clothes, which have somehow ended up neatly folded on a wicker chair in the corner of the room. Looking up, he catches Steve staring at him, the tip of his tongue caught between his teeth. "What? I got bed hair or something? It just does that, I'll have you know."
"No, I mean, yes, you do, but it's not that. Where'd you get the scar?"
Danny glances down, surprised. He's so used to the nasty-looking thing that he barely gives it any thought these days. "That? Got shot by some punk trying to rob a convenience store back in Jersey. Nearly four years ago, come to think of it."
Danny pulls on his undershirt, threads his arms through the sleeves of the work shirt he was wearing yesterday. He'll shower and change when he gets home, he figures. He's on leave from work anyway, it's not like he has anywhere to rush to.
"That doesn't look like a bullet wound." Steve is suddenly standing right up in his personal space, hand hovering a couple of inches away, as though he wants to reach right through the fabric to wipe away the scar.
"No," Danny explains patiently. "That would be the surgical scar from when they cracked open my chest to prevent me from dying. I don't recommend it, it hurts like a bitch for months afterward."
Steve is still staring at him. "You almost died in the line of duty."
Danny shrugs uncomfortably. "Yeah, well, it's part of the job."
"Not for me, it isn't. God, Danny. How do you do it? Knowing you could die just from any stray bullet?"
"All cops do it, you know. Me? I look into my little girl's eyes, and I know that I'm keeping the world safe for her."
"As easy as that?"
Danny nods. "Easy as that."
There's a long silence, the tension so thick Danny almost wishes he had a knife so that he could test out whether you actually can cut tension with a knife. For a moment he thinks Steve is going to do something impulsive and really insane, but instead he pulls away a little, lets Danny finish getting dressed, and leads him down into a pristine kitchen, where he can smell coffee already brewing. He sits down at the small breakfast counter and lets Steve hand him a cup along with cream and sugar, though he gets the impression from the way things are set up that Steve isn't exactly used to having visitors over. He glances through the adjoining door, sees a small office that looks familiar, although it feels like something is missing from the picture.
"I've seen this place before."
Steve stiffens. "I don't think so."
Danny narrows his eyes, stares at the room. "No, I definitely have, but it was different..." he trails off as he realizes that what's missing from the room are bloodstains and numbered police evidence markers. "I remember. The McGarrett murder. This was Meka's case, before I got here. He was obsessed with it. What the hell are you doing in this house? It's a little on the sick side, don't you think? A little morbid?"
Steve's expression is shuttered. "Not really. This is my house. I inherited it from my father when he died."
"Your father's ―oh. Oh," Danny's brain finally catches up and he realizes what a colossal blunder he's just made. "Jesus, you're Jack McGarrett's son. I'm so sorry, I have a big mouth. I never would... I'm sorry about your father, Steve. Meka told me he was one of the good guys, the best cop he'd ever worked with."
Steve shrugs it off. "Meka's a good man."
"So you knew Meka too?"
"In a manner of speaking. We spoke once, when the case was still active. My father's killer has been in the wind for years, though. No sign of him anywhere, until recently."
Danny's stomach twists unpleasantly. "Let me guess. It was the guy in the photographs from my crime scenes."
Steve nods. "Victor Hesse. He fled the island after he murdered my father, but he works for The Shark ―his right-hand man. If he's back, it's because The Shark is planning something big."
"So you being in that alley, that wasn't a coincidence."
Steve shakes his head. "Meka was a good cop, one of the best. I kept tabs on the case, even when all the leads dried up, then started keeping tabs on you when you became his partner, to make sure no one was trying to interfere with him."
"You checked up on me?" Danny asks incredulously, and Steve nods. "I hate to break it to you, babe, but that's really creepy and invasive."
Steve just shrugs. "I had to know if you were working for The Shark. I'm ninety-nine per cent sure you're not."
"Well, that's reassuring," Danny remarks drily.
"I think the cases are related," Steve says as though Danny hasn't said a word, "I contacted Meka after I recognized Hesse from the photographs. I just didn't think he'd follow up on the lead so fast, or what would happen," his gaze flicks away from Danny, as though he's expecting Danny to maybe lunge to his feet and punch him. In his defense, Danny does come close.
"So what you're saying is, this Hesse is the one who killed my partner? Under orders from The Shark?"
"The same way he killed my parents, yes."
"Parents? As in plural?" Danny's starting to get a headache.
"My father was investigating my mother's death. I always thought it was a car accident, but after he died I found a toolbox full of his notes. He never told anyone in the department about it, worried that there was a leak. The Shark has eyes and ears everywhere."
"This Shark got a name at least? I'm finding it hard to muster much fear or respect or whatever for a giant fish."
Steve nods, goes into the office, takes out a manila envelope and brings it back to the kitchen. He pulls a couple of grainy photographs of an Asian man dressed in a really unfortunate-looking white suit and pushes them towards Danny. "I've never seen him in person, but I believe this is the man I've been up against these past few years. His name is Wo Fat."
Danny stares at the picture, then whistles quietly. "You sure know how to pick 'em, my friend. You sure you don't want to try the Sith Emperor instead? Might be easier to take down."
"Don't be ridiculous, Danno, there's no such thing. That's a fictional character."
Danny drains his cup of coffee and Steve doesn't wait to be asked before refilling it. "So you're telling me that the guy who is reportedly the head of the Yakuza here in Hawaii is also ―and I cannot stress how insane this sounds― a super-villain who happens to be your arch-nemesis."
"I don't see why that sounds so insane."
"Normal people don't have arch-nemeses, Steven."
The corner of Steve's mouth twitches into something almost resembling a smile. "I thought you already decided I wasn't normal."
Danny throws up his hands in surrender. "That's not what I meant! How come no one else knows about this epic battle of good and evil you've got going on, then?"
Steve actually rolls his eyes. "Well, it wouldn't be much of a secret if everyone knew about it, would it? I mean, he wants his identity kept a secret as much as I do. Otherwise his whole operation would be blown and he'd never get to put his master plan into action."
"Master plan?"
"Well, world domination, of course."
Danny groans. "I was really afraid you'd say that."
~*~
Danny has never been involved in a fully-fledged conspiracy before, and it's surprisingly stressful, he finds. There's a whole world out there that he never suspected even existed, full of people with extra abilities and secret identities and a whole universe of power politics being played behind the scenes that, if he's honest with himself, he never ever wanted to know about. For a few days, at least, he finds himself avoiding all contact with Steve, who, now that they're on familiar terms, has at least stopped dropping in like a bird of ill omen and now uses the telephone like a regular human. He doesn't bother answering any of the calls, though, unwilling to deal with whatever he's going to find on the other end of the line, and refuses to dwell to long on how much he kind of misses the lunatic already, on how comfortable it felt, spending that one morning together.
Time passes in a mass of days blending into each other. Meka's funeral goes by in a blur of trumpet music and ceremonial gunfire, and he watches as Amy quietly accepts the carefully-folded flag that up until a few minutes ago was draped over Meka's coffin. Billy is standing next to her, one hand clutching a fold of her skirt so hard Danny thinks the fabric might rip. Billy's too young to really understand what's happening, but Danny is pretty sure he's understood that his father is never coming back. After the funeral he goes home and for the first time in his life, gets properly drunk as a direct result of his work, crawls under the blanket on his bed and promptly passes out. When he awakens, he finds a pitcher of water and an extra-large bottle of Tylenol next to his bed that he doesn't remember putting there the night before.
At the office, he suddenly finds he's become persona non grata. Conversations stop when he approaches, groups disperse rather than talk to him. His desk is entirely deserted, whereas before at least sometimes people would stop by sometimes to chat with Meka. Danny hadn't realized before just how much he relied on Meka to be the social lubricant between him and the other officers. Now, though, his desk has become a ghost town, populated by tumbleweeds and his aging case files. The jewellery store robberies have been taken away and reassigned, and everyone is carefully not giving him any sort of useful updates on the investigation into Meka's murder.
So Danny does whatever any other cop in his position would do: he cheats. He doesn't have much by way of allies within the department, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have other resources. The one cop who still talks to him is Kono, which comes as something of a surprise even to him. She sidles up to his desk one day, holding a small stack of photocopies.
"Thought you might like to see these," she says casually, dropping the stack on his desk.
He picks up the papers. "This is Meka's autopsy report," he says, eyebrows making a break for his hairline. "Dare I ask?"
"I made friends with Max. He doesn't like people, but he can appreciate someone who'll tune his piano without insisting on small talk."
"Please tell me that's not a euphemism."
Kono snorts and punches his arm, hard. "Ew, what do you take me for? No, his actual piano, you sexist jerk. Don't make me go to the Lieutenant and force him to sign you up for sensitivity training."
Danny holds up both hands in a clear gesture of surrender. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry! That didn't come out right at all, okay? It's just... you know what? There is no good way for me to finish that sentence. I didn't mean to imply anything about you or your, uh, methods of obtaining information. Which, thank you, by the way."
"You're welcome."
He starts flipping through the pages. "So, can I ask why you're speaking to the leper? This sort of thing is contagious, you know."
She shrugs. "I don't care. You were good to my cousin, and anyone who does good by my family deserves something from me in return."
"Your cousin?"
"Chin Ho Kelly."
"I didn't realize the connection. Next time remind me to check more carefully. So, you think your cousin's innocent?"
"Absolutely. And one day, I'm going to prove it."
Danny can respect that. "You ever need help with that, Kono, you just let me know. At the very least, he deserves a fair shake and not just the bum's rush that he got here."
She smiles, then, bright and sunny. "I knew there was a reason I liked you! Meka had good instincts," she says, sobering a bit. "He kept insisting you were one of the best cops we had, that the other detectives were stupid to shut you out. I bet you anything you're going to prove him right, sooner rather than later. Hope you find what you're looking for in there, Danny."
"I hope so too."
~*~
The case dries up. It doesn’t help that Danny’s not allowed to pursue it officially, of course, but it becomes obvious after a while that the detectives assigned to the case aren’t getting anywhere. Whether it’s because they’re dragging their feet or being deliberately stonewalled is anyone’s guess, but either way it makes Danny furious. Anywhere else, he thinks, and a cop’s death would have the entire department crawling over it in order to get the cop-killer off the streets, preferably with the stuffing kicked out of him. Here? It’s like some sort of silent order has been passed along without Danny’s knowledge to ignore this travesty. Meka gave twelve years of his life to the force, and apparently all he’s getting in return is a nice funeral and a bunch of cops spitting on his sacrifice.
Danny Williams, however, is not a detective for nothing. If no one else is going to get justice for his partner, then he’s damned well going to get it himself. It’s easy enough to start digging on his own now that he has a few names to go along with the investigation. There’s a new transfer in from the FBI, a pretty girl who’s a bit on the nerdy side by the name of Jenna Kaye. Given her haole status she and Danny commiserated early on and since then she’s proven more than a little willing to bend the occasional rule to help him. It turns out also that the name Wo Fat isn’t unknown to her –the FBI has him on a couple of watch lists as it happens– and she’s happy to slip him information under the table in exchange for part of the care packages his mother still sends from New Jersey on a semi-regular basis. Danny can’t blame her: there are few people who can resist his mother’s baking, even after a couple of days of express travel.
With her help and the occasional nudge from Kono, after a couple of weeks he’s reasonably certain that he can come up with some good intel on the whereabouts of Victor Hesse, who right now is at the top of his suspect list. Or, technically, he supposes Hesse is more of a ‘person of interest’ since there’s no evidence yet that he was the one who actually pulled the trigger. Ballistics are a match between Meka’s death and that of Jack McGarrett, though, and that by itself is too big to be a coincidence. Danny keeps a copy of that report in his apartment along with back-ups of everything else. He’s not by nature a paranoid man, but when the original ballistics report goes missing, it’s just one more coincidence in a long line of coincidences that appear to be building a giant brick wall between him and the truth.
The best lead he gets takes him to a safehouse down by the docks where he sets up an unofficial surveillance of sorts during his time off. Kono helps as best she can, but she’s still a rookie and her time isn’t really her own. Not to mention that he’s not really willing to jeopardize her career any more than he already is. She’s just starting out, it would be unfair to saddle her with even more trouble than her cousin’s reputation has already brought her. It’s frustrating in the extreme, but it’s better than nothing, he reasons. He does manage to build a decent portfolio of pictures during his stakeouts, carefully annotated with dates and times. It doesn’t come as a complete surprise, therefore, when he gets called into his Lieutenant’s office. The Lieutenant gestures him to a chair, tight-lipped with disapproval, which Danny refuses, standing with both hands gripping the back of the chair instead.
"I don’t suppose I have to tell you why you’re here?"
Danny arranges his face into the blandest expression he can muster. "I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir."
The Lieutenant sighs. "Okay, Williams, go ahead and play dumb. Here’s how this is going to works. Effective immediately, you are on paid sick leave. You will come into the office only for previously scheduled appointments with the psychologist, for necessary meetings with HR, or if I call you in. You will cease your communications with Jenna Kaye and with Officer Kalakaua except on a strictly social basis and you will not, under any circumstances, discuss the investigation into Detective Hanamoa’s death with them or with any other member of HPD. You will also, effective immediately, cease and desist your visits to the district that appears to have become your favourite haunt of late. I will not have this department be liable for a case of police harassment because you don’t know how to let something go!" he yells the last few words, jabbing a finger at Danny for emphasis. "Do I make myself clear?"
"Crystal. I guess I’m never going to get used to how things work here. Back in Jersey, a cop dies? No one goes home until the killer’s found." He doesn’t bother to keep the accusation out of his tone.
"Damn it, Williams," the Lieutenant blows out a breath. "You are one of my best detectives. Don’t screw up your career over this. We all want Meka’s killer brought to justice. Why don’t you trust the rest of us to do our jobs, all right? Go home. Have a beer. Watch the game. See your kid. Take advantage of the down time. And for heaven’s sake, don’t make me have to fire you."
~*~
Danny’s seeing red by the time he gets out of HPD, filled with impotent rage. He’s got a stack of evidence that’s never going to see the light of day, every path a dead end as far as the eye can see. He drops the box of files from his car on the floor of his apartment, slams the door shut with a vicious kick, because there’s nowhere else to vent his frustration.
"Take it easy, Danno," an amused voice comes from the gloom of his apartment. "You’ll lose your safety deposit on this dump if you keep on that way."
Danny jumps about six feet, slumps against the door, heart hammering at his ribcage. "Jesus, Steve, warn a guy!"
"Well, I would have called, but you never answer your phone when I do. You want to tell me what that’s about?" Steve, Danny notes, is back in costume, complete with mask and cape.
Danny wipes a hand over his face, waiting for his heartbeat to return to normal. "Yeah… this isn’t a good time."
Steve is yet another complication Danny doesn't need in his life. It's not that he doesn't like the guy ―that's precisely the problem. The last thing he needs is a six-foot hazel-eyed distraction from his self-imposed mission of finding Meka's killer and bringing him to justice. It's bad enough Steve has invaded all of his thoughts, both waking and dreaming, without Danny having to actually speak to him directly. So, yeah, maybe Danny's been avoiding the whole situation in the vain hope that all his presumably unrequited feelings will go away on their own.
"You're avoiding me." Steve steps forward until they’re mere inches from each other. He does a really good job of looming, Danny thinks, swallowing hard and trying resolutely not to imagine what it would be like if Steve just pinned him against the wall and had his way with him, right then and there. "And when would be a good time, Danny?"
"I don’t know. How about when I haven’t just been put on paid leave for trying to do the right thing?"
Steve’s face scrunches up into an expression that Danny thinks is meant to be commiserating. "Damn. I’m sorry."
Danny extricates himself from being in such dangerously close proximity to Steve, makes a show of picking up his mail from where it’s lying on the floor by the mail slot. "Yeah, well, me too. Hey, at least now I’ll have the chance to catch up on all this riveting junk mail that people insist on sending me," he says bitterly, tossing flyer after flyer onto the small table by the door until he comes to a manila envelope with his name printed on it. "The hell?"
"No postage," Steve points out, and Danny’s heart skips a beat for no reason he can determine, except that his instincts are all screaming danger! at him.
The envelope is unsealed, and contains a single eight-and-a-half-by-eleven glossy colour photograph. Danny pulls it out completely from the envelope, stares at it, isn’t sure that he’s not going to throw up right then and there. Steve catches him by the shoulders when his knees threaten to give way.
"Whoa, easy now. Hey Danny, come on, talk to me," he shakes him a little. "What is it?"
Wordlessly Danny just flips the photograph around, shows it to him. It’s a picture of Grace, all smiles, wearing her pink backpack, trotting up the stairs to her school, surrounded by her friends. Her expression is bright and happy, trusting, her uniform crisp and neatly-pressed, socks pulled up to her knees. The picture was obviously taken from a distance with a telescopic lens, the threat as clear as if it had been written in blood on the paper: stay away, or else.
"Bastards," Steve says feelingly, but Danny's already got his phone open, dialling.
"I need to speak to Gracie," he says when Rachel answers, not even bothering with so much as a hello. To her credit, Rachel doesn't call him on it ―this isn't the first time he'll have called like this, and it's the one thing she never resented― and he listens to the soft click of her shoes against the floor as she brings the cordless phone to Grace's room.
Grace's voice is sleepy, making him realize just how late it is, but already he can feel the tension draining from his muscles, just knowing she's alive and breathing. "Danno?"
"Hey Monkey," he forces himself not to let his panic creep into his voice. "I'm sorry I woke you up. I just wanted to see how you were."
There's a pause. "Did some kids get hurt?"
"What?"
"You always call when bad things happen to kids. Are they okay?"
A lump forms in his throat. Damn, but his baby girl is perceptive. "No, sweetheart, nothing happened to any kids. I was just worried for a while, but everything's fine, I promise."
"Okay, I'm glad. You're always sad when that happens, and I don't want you to be sad."
Danny swallows hard. "You go back to sleep, baby. Give your mom the phone?"
"Okay. Good night, Danno!"
"Good night, Monkey," he says, but Rachel's already on the line. "I don't want to freak you out, but I think for the next few days it should be you or me picking her up from school. No one else, okay? No drivers."
"Daniel, what's happening?" Rachel asks quietly, obviously trying not to alarm Grace.
"Nothing official. Just... keep her close for a few days, okay? Trust me."
"All right. You'll tell me if there's anything." It's not a request.
"Of course. Thank you, Rach."
"You don't have to thank me."
"I’m going to kill them," Danny says softly as he hangs up, feeling his blood start to flow again for the first time since he opened the envelope. His stomach churns unpleasantly "Those bastards threatened my little girl, Steve. I’m going rip them apart, limb by limb. I swear, they so much as come within shouting distance of her..."
Steve steps toward him, puts his hands on his arms. "Hey, it's okay. We'll get them long before that ever happens, okay? You hear me? We'll keep her safe, you and me."
He still thinks he might be sick, but Steve’s got both hands on his biceps, gripping him hard, and the feeling of those fingers digging into his arms keeps him grounded, keeps him from flying apart right then and there. Steve pulls him closer, strong arms circling his shoulders, and he’s not really sure whether Steve leans down or he reaches up, but the next thing he knows their lips have met and he’s kissing Steve as though his life depends on it.
~*~
Part III