Author's Note: I don't own them. I'm only doing this because Alamo Girl told me to. (Well, that and the muse wouldn't stop nagging.) Thoughts to share? Click that little review button below.
Rachel lives in a God-awful monstrosity of a house. Danny hates everything about it, from the gated entrance (pretentious much?) to the windswept ocean views that soak in through what seem to be millions of windows that adorn the outside. (Really? Does anyone need that much sun? The threat of skin cancer should be reserved for the out of doors - a person shouldn't have to apply SPF 75 to walk around inside their own home!)
Mostly, though, he has to admit that he hates the fact that Rachel and Grace live there with step-Stan.
But Stan is in Boston on business at the moment. And in his absence – and thanks to a spontaneous Hawaiian vacation by Danny's brother Matt – Rachel and Grace have been a larger presence in his life these last few days. He even shared a few easy laughs and shared looks with Rachel over dinner at the Hilton last night – not the intimate kind they used to share before everything went wrong, but the kind of friendly, companionable exchanges that would hopefully keep Grace out of therapy later on. Perhaps it's an indication of a thaw between them, one that could well continue and may eventually give way to spring.
(He's changed Rachel's ringtone on his phone recently too. That gesture alone is either indicative of a warming of the waters between them or else apocalypse is imminent. McGarrett probably thinks it's the latter – but then, McGarrett usually doesn't recognize warmth unless it's emanating from the barrel of his handgun after he's just shot someone. He's not really a touchy-feely kind of guy.)
Touchy-feely or not, though, Danny probably should call McGarrett and update him on everything that's just happened with Matt. It's the least he can do for a guy who flat out lied to a pair of federal agents in order to buy Danny the time he needed – or thought he'd needed – to get his brother to do the right thing.
Turns out Danny and Steve were both wrong on that one.
But he can't call McGarrett yet because McGarrett asks questions – annoying, pressing, pointed questions. And Danny can't deal with that right now because he doesn't have any answers to go with them.
Instead, because Stan is gone to Boston – and more so because Matt now too is gone, gone in a different, more dubious way – he pulls up to Rachel's house at an hour that's much later than is polite and parks the Camaro. A few lights are on downstairs, which means there's a chance that Rachel's still awake, but the window to Grace's room is dark (as it should be at this hour) so he gets out of the car as quietly as possible, careful not to slam the door behind him.
He meant to keep driving. He did. He meant to drive that Chevrolet right up to the edge of the island and was even half-tempted to see how far into the ocean he could make it when he ran out of land. But somehow the car knew better than he did because here he is in front of Stan's McMansion.
Once he's in motion, approaching the front steps, Danny realizes that he really doesn't want to be anywhere else.
He raps softly on the glass in the front door, again careful not to raise any sort of commotion that would wake Grace, who has school in the morning. He couldn't raise a commotion if he tried, though – all of the commotion and bluster he's known for drained out of him the minute the door of that airplane closed and his brother was whisked away to God knows where. The sensation of losing his sense of self with the closing of that door left him lightheaded and for a moment he'd doubled over, sick with the sense of defeat and broken in half, both by what had occurred between them and what might have occurred had Danny not conceded.
Rachel is understandably concerned when she opens the door. Her white silk robe is daringly short and a little provocative. Ordinarily, Danny would have a quip or witticism on the subject, but he's fresh out of those at the moment.
Tonight, he can't even look her in the eye.
"Danny?" She must see how awful he looks because she's not even calling him "Daniel" to formalize their relationship. Her brown eyes are wide with concern. "What's happened?"
The air rushes out of him in one big whoosh and he fights the need to double over again. How is he going to speak the words? How is he going to tell her that Matt – his little brother Matt, the life of the party and the Williams family success story – is a crook who's just fled the country to avoid indictment?
How is he going to tell her that he held a gun on his little brother to force him to stay – and thought for a split second about pulling the trigger?
One thing Danny knows how to be no matter what is a cop. He's always been that way and right now, even though he just let a fugitive escape justice, he lets that part of his persona take over. Just as he's done more times than he would like to remember during the course of his career, he delivers bad news to a soon-to-be-bereaved family member, his body automatically assuming the non-confrontational stance that most cops adopt when they find themselves standing on a well-lit front porch in the late-night hours.
His voice measured and slow: "He's gone."
Not enough, Danno. Be specific. He tries again: "Matty's gone."
Only after the words land does he dare to lift his eyes to meet hers, all the while wondering how she'll react. She loves Matt, always has. Ever since the first time Danny brought her home, she and Matt have had an easy, sibling-like relationship and even after the divorce, Rachel and Matt never fell out. It wasn't just because of Grace either; though Danny will never be able to prove it, he suspects that Rachel has always been grateful to Matt for helping Danny through the divorce. Somehow, she seems to know about the late night beer runs and the long hours that Matt sat up with him while their marriage turned to dust.
Will Matt now fall from the pedestal that Rachel, like Danny, had placed him on? Surely he must.
She doesn't say anything at first. She seems to be soaking it in and he finds that he can't look at her while full comprehension sets in. He doesn't want to see the depth of the loss register on her pretty features.
Frankly, he still doesn't quite know what he's doing on her doorstep, anymore than he knows what she'll do or say when she's processed the information he's just given her. He doesn't even have a clue of what he'd like for her to do, how he'd like the situation to play out, and he glances up again long enough to see that her face is a mirror of his own uncertainty.
Frustrated and fighting the pent up sorrow that's swelling over him, he bites his lip nervously. The next words to escape his lips come as a complete surprise: "I lost him."
His eyes drop for a split second as he fights back another wave of shame and despair that threatens to whelm him and when he looks to Rachel for a reaction, she's already reaching forward to pull him into her embrace. His own arms wrap around her with comfortable familiarity and his eyes close as he takes in the scent of lily of the valley – her favorite perfume and the only scent she's ever worn for as long as he's known her. For the briefest of moments, he feels as though the entire world isn't crashing down around him – just part of it.
"I lost him."
His own words echo strangely in his ears, not just because he's found it impossible to fathom that he's actually spoken them, but because it brings back an eerie memory of the story he and Matt told Rachel and Steve at dinner the other night. It was the damn zoo story – the same one that Matt always told if he had the appropriate audience – and yet somehow the telling of it was different that time, prophetic somehow.
Sure it started out the same: there were the Williams family, happily enjoying an afternoon at the zoo until Matty got out of line and Daniel - young, upright, law-abiding Daniel – took matters into his own hands and arrested his own brother with a pair of plastic handcuffs.
"He was causing a disturbance," Danny chimed in on cue, trying to explain his side of the story to Steve and Rachel, both of whom were already chuckling at the sibling banter.
"You handcuffed me to the monkey cages!" That was Matty's part and always got a big laugh.
"Hey, I was doing my job," Danny put his hands in the air as if that was that, all the while waiting for Matt to deliver the punch line.
"Dude, you were nine! What are you talking about?"
There it was and the laughter at the table was uproarious. Grace, who was up way past her bedtime and had consumed more than her fair share of surf and turf, somehow managed to sleep through it.
But when the laughter had ebbed a bit, Matt added a coda to the story that hadn't been there before. Quietly, but in a tone that remained light and teasing, he said, "My parents would say, you know 'Where's, uh, where's your brother?' And Danny would say, 'I guess we lost him.'"
More chuckles followed at that point, but there was also a strange feeling in the pit of Danny's stomach that had never been there before. Moments later when he spotted the FBI agents, he assumed that they were the cause of his internal disturbance (either that or he too was a victim of too much surf and turf) and dismissed it from his mind.
But now the words hang doubly heavy in the air and the only thing anchoring him in place is Rachel, who sways gently back and forth with him the way she soothes Grace when the little monkey is upset about something.
I guess we lost him.
Oh, God. How is he going to call home and have a conversation with his parents now? How is he going to call up and say those exact words, the words from when he was nine and he knew right where his brother was and could go back and save him? How can he say the words and know that they're true this time, that Matty's lost for real? Danny can't do that. He wouldn't even know where to begin – and worse yet, he's pretty sure that, after threatening his brother with his service weapon, he's among the last people that Matt wants to see right now – or ever. So any possibility of him promising his parents that he'll find Matt has just gone out the window too. There's nothing he can do this time.
I guess we lost him.
The little brother that always used to look up to him, the little brother who always trusted him to come back and rescue him, is gone. That little brother ran away from Danny tonight and he won't be coming back.
Matt's made himself into an orphan.
There's no protocol for this type of situation in the Five-O handbook. (Actually, thanks to Captain Steve "I Like to Make Up the Rules as I Go Along" McGarrett's leadership, Danny doesn't recall that there is a Five-O handbook.) So Danny "By the Book Whenever Possible" Williams will have to take a page from McGarrett and wing it. He'll have to somehow find a way to tell his parents and his sisters and Grace…
Monkey. Crap!
A lightning flash of realization strikes Danny's brain and he realizes that telling Rachel that Matt is gone is one thing, but telling Grace that her favorite uncle has fled the country is another.
He tenses at the thought and Rachel makes a noise in the back of her throat that seems to indicate that she knows what he's thinking. "Danny, don't worry about that now. Grace will be all right."
She's right, he realizes, continuing to cling tightly to her. Ever since the move to Hawaii, Matt has become a bit like Santa Claus in Grace's young life – he appears approximately once a year bearing a ton of gifts, makes her life shiny and exciting for a time, then vanishes. Explaining to her that he's had to leave but that he loves her very much will suffice for now – especially while she's still sporting that sparkly princess crown Matt brought her.
The real question is, can Danny keep from breaking down when he tells her? Can he hide his own pain from his daughter in order to spare her the same?
He pulls gently free of Rachel's embrace, her tenderness a balm to his fragile psyche, and tells her, "Um, thanks for this." He looks down again, a little embarrassed now to have come to her (of all people) in his time of need. "I, uh… I needed to tell someone who knew him like I did."
Rachel nods. Her dark eyes are still concerned but she seems to believe that he's not in danger of driving his car into the ocean anymore.
"I'll come get the monkey for school in the morning," he tells her. "I'll probably have to… I mean she's going to ask…"
Rachel cuts him off gently. "We'll explain it to her together."
He meets her eyes. "Yeah. Okay. Thank you."
"Are you all right to drive?" she wants to know, the space between them increasing now that the moment of shared consolation has passed.
He gives a small smile. "Yeah, I'm good."
"Maybe you should call Steve," she suggests. Something in her tone tells him that she wants to say more but is afraid that saying the wrong thing now will ruin the moment they're sharing. Perhaps it's something about brothers who miss their siblings looking to one another for support; whatever it is, though, she leaves it unspoken.
He brushes an absent hand across his stubbly chin and feels another smile appear out of nowhere. It isn't a big one, but it's more than he had ten minutes ago, proving that he's not completely broken.
"I… uh… Yeah, maybe." He turns to go, gets one step away from her, then comes back to the door to add, "Thank you, Rachel."
"You're welcome, Danny," she nods and gives him a gentle smile of her own. She closes the door gently as he heads to the Camaro and climbs inside.
She's right, of course. (Thaw or not, he'll never admit that to her, though.) He should call McGarrett and he will call McGarrett – first thing in the morning, after he's had a fitful night of staring at the ceiling in pensive concentration. (After all, he and Steve seem to communicate best when they're arguing and Danny always argues better when he's tired.)
But when the Camaro's headlights sweep across the parking lot of his apartment complex and he pulls into his space, he sees that calling Steve right now would be pointless – because McGarrett's black Chevy pickup is already parked out front and Steve himself is sitting in front of his apartment door. There's a six-pack of beer at his feet, though – a promising sign.
Slowly, Danny exits the car, pausing in his stroll to the door long enough to turn back and click the lock button on his key fob, while he wryly observes "Reason 492 That Living and Working in Hawaii Sucks:" He often feels as though he's merely playing a police officer character in a Chevrolet commercial.
(Apparently his sense of humor and a bit of that Williams bluster is returning; he wasn't as far gone as he'd feared.)
"You know, they have bars on this island where you can drink beer with actual people," he tells Steve, unlocking the door to allow them both to move inside.
"Yeah, but tonight something told me I should drink with you instead," Steve replies.
"So I'm not actual people?" Danny quips, tossing his keys on the table and gesturing to Steve to take a seat in one of the few chairs that dots the tiny space while he flicks on the lights.
"Not usually," Steve shakes his head, pulling out the first beer and twisting off the top in true manly McGarrett fashion.
Danny yanks off his tie and tosses it in the vicinity of his closet before sitting down and taking the open beer Steve's thrusting at him.
"Look, I really don't think that you're in a position to judge who is and is not actual people," Danny frowns, feeling the warmth of a good argument spread slowly over him with the first sip of beer. He doesn't know what he's going to tell his family about Matt but this he knows how to do. Verbal volleys and being a cop – two Danny Williams specialties.
"How do you figure?" Steve wants to know.
"Seriously, Captain America? Are you seriously going to ask me that question?"
"Captain America?"
"What? You do the whole saving people thing, you think you're a superhero who can leap tall buildings in a single bound…"
"That's Superman, not Captain America."
"Whatever. You know, maybe Superman's more fitting – especially considering that I think you're from another planet."
The argument wanes suddenly then and Danny's chest feels tight as the lightness fades and he feels the weight of McGarrett's un-asked question begin to press on him.
They both take a swig of beer and stare at Danny's sparsely-decorated walls. Finally, he gathers enough strength and enough breath to tell Steve: "Matt's gone."
Steve doesn't say anything right away, but when he does, Danny can tell he's given it a lot of thought. "You did the right thing."
Danny stops the protest before it leaves his lips, ceasing himself before he fires back that Steve has no idea what happened with Matt because he wasn't there – and therefore he's in no position to judge right from wrong. He stops himself because he lets the words sink in far enough to realize that McGarrett doesn't feel the need to know what happened exactly; he trusts Danny implicitly.
The beer goes down a little less easily when Danny takes a moment to wonder why Matty couldn't trust him the same way that the man across the table from him does. Danny and Steve have less history than Danny and Matt, yet McGarrett's loyalty is unwavering. Danny even suspects that Steve would have shown up tonight with the beers even if he hadn't already told him the story about Matt helping him through the divorce. McGarrett isn't touchy-feely, but he knows what's called for in situations when it counts.
And tonight it really counts.
There's a line in an old John Wayne western that Danny loves – El Dorado – when James Caan's character is getting teased by Wayne and Robert Mitchum about a girl. Chuckling, Caan shakes his head and says, "A host of friends. I have a host of friends."
First Rachel, now McGarrett, and if he called them up, he'd have Kono and Chin here too. (Kamekona was going too far, though. A man had to have limits.) So even though his family was fractured, first by the move to Hawaii that brought him closer to Grace but further from home and now he's been broken apart by Matt's departure, Danny's surprised to realize that he doesn't feel as alone as he could given the circumstances.
I guess we lost him.
But what have you found, Danno? Maybe that's a better question for tonight.
He shakes his head, then mimics Caan: "A host of friends. I have a host of friends."
"Huh?" Steve's face is quizzical.
"Nothing," Danny replies.
They drink in companionable silence.
FIN