Danny Williams didn't even bother to look at his clock anymore. He kept his shirt sleeves down mostly, not wanting people to know he was over thirty and still hadn't met his soul mate.
The clock was supposed to count down to the moment you met your life partner, but the trouble was it fluctuated depending on if that person was nearby or not. The science was something to do with the magnetic pull of souls apparently, but Danny had never understood that. Never wanted to.
Because whereas all of his family and friends had short times or theirs fluctuated regularly, yet always counting down, Danny's had never moved. Not once. The day he turned eighteen it was supposed to start reducing – everyone's always sat at 100:00:00, ten thousand hours, until their eighteenth birthday, and then it would jump to their figure and start rolling – and when Danny woke up that morning to check his time it said 298:17:00.
He had done the math quickly, excited that it was so low. So he was to meet his soul mate in twelve days, ten hours, 17 minutes? That was unbelievable. But as Danny continued to stare, the seconds didn't drop away, the minutes never changed… and even sixteen years later the clock had never budged by a second; not once.
Some doctors had said it might be because his soul mate was too far away. Others said the person may have died, to remain as someone Danny would never get to meet – it had been known to happen. Either way, the time was never getting shorter, and the blonde often took to bandaging his arm up to disguise his pain.
He watched as his friends met their partners and became whole, even witnessed it once when Chad Lee sat down next to Clary Watson in the lunch room and their clocks simultaneously hit zero after having fluctuated for nearly a year. Everyone around him gained their happiness, hit their zero mark, and proudly displayed their then-faded numbers for all to see. And Danny hid his away, motionless and depressing as they were.
He eventually married Rachel, who still had years on her clock and said she was tired of waiting for her supposed match. They bucked the trend, ignored their families' pleas to wait until their true other half showed up, said they were doing things their way and rebelled. They shouldn't have.
Rachel's clock continued to count down, and as it got lower it caused arguments between them. What if she really was to meet her soul mate? Would she leave Danny, whom she'd made a commitment to, for this other person? She promised she would never do such a thing, they had a daughter after all.
Then one day she came home with a grey clock that said 00:00:00 and a stack of divorce papers for Danny to sign.
Two years later and Danny was being forced to chase his family to Hawaii, the ass-end of nowhere as far as he was concerned, and at thirty-four with no hope of ever finding his soul mate, he dragged himself along.
The locals and his new colleagues at the HPD laughed at him for wearing his long-sleeved shirts and ties. He said it was his style, but he would never tell them the real reason he covered his arms. The fact that his clock was broken was a stigma, and he kept the bandage on under his sleeves, refusing to look at it even when he had to uncover it to shower.
That was why he didn't notice, upon landing in Hawaii for the first time, that the seconds had begun ticking away.
The days passed as Danny settled into his new routine; work, home, the occasional drink out with colleagues, but he only looked forward to the times he got to have Grace. He had long ago tried to convince himself that he didn't need a soul mate if he had his daughter, and that was probably why it had hurt so much when Rachel had been awarded custody of Grace during the divorce.
Danny was determined to make the best of the time he was given with his little girl, however, and so he took her to all the attractions he could find in their area of Hawaii. It was their second Saturday on the island and he'd already taken her to the zoo that morning, but Grace had insisted on going to see the huge military ship that was in Pearl Harbour.
Danny hadn't been the biggest fan of it all as they went on the guided tour, he didn't care much for these things, but his daughter looked happy and that was all he could ever ask for. As they exited down the ramp onto the dock, he ruffled the little girl's hair.
"Where do you wanna go now, Monkey?"
She pointed at a building off to one side of the dock. "We've got to go to the gift shop, Danno! That's the best part!"
She took off at a flying pace and Danny groaned and traipsed after her.
"Yeah, of course the best bit is where you get to spend my money…" he grumbled.
Danny scratched absently at an itch on his arm. The bandage had been irritating him all day, and it was beginning to piss him off. Maybe it was the new soap he was using? This island didn't seem to carry the brands he'd always used back on the mainland.
They walked around the small store, with Grace picking out a keyring and a notebook with the battleship emblazoned on the front, which she wanted for when she was due to start at her new school on Monday.
Danny noticed the native Hawaiian security guard watching them from across the store, and wondered if the guy honestly believed they were going to steal something. If he knew Danny were a cop, he'd probably think again. But hey, he was pretty cute and the blonde could forgive his suspicions for those gorgeous almond eyes and high cheekbones.
When his gaze met the guard's, the man smiled at him tentatively, and Danny returned it awkwardly with brief nod. It was unusual to garner attention from people these days, unless they were the type of person to ignore their own soul mate clock as Rachel had.
Of course, there were people out there who were more than willing to ignore their life partner at home to have a little fun outside of their relationship, but there was no way Danny would ever let himself be with a person whose timer was greyed-out at zero. He knew what it was like to be abandoned, and that wasn't even by his one true love; to have your mate cheat on you must be the ultimate pain.
He paid for Grace's items and handed her the bag, nudging her towards the exit.
"Come on kiddo, let's go get some ice cream or something, huh?"
"They do shave ice here, Danno," she corrected him sternly.
"Of course, silly me," he chuckled, "They don't do anything the normal way on this pineapple-infested island."
They headed out of the door, and at that moment the security guard looked down at his own arm and then reached out toward Danny, opening his mouth.
"Uhane hoa," the man smiled brightly at him, hand aiming for Danny's wrist.
"Huh?" the Jersey man frowned at him, pausing in the doorway, "Sorry, I don't speak-"
Danny was all prepared to deny stealing anything if the guard had assumed as such, but as the Hawaiian man's fingers slid over the bare skin of his wrist he felt a shock like electricity race up his arm and hit his chest full force.
He gasped for air and looked down between them to see if the man had some sort of weapon, but it was only his hand on Danny's arm. And then Danny saw the man's bared clock, the seconds ticking downward.
2. 1. 0.
He stared at the numbers at they hit all zeros and immediately faded from black to dark grey as they were meant to. But only when you met your life partner.
"I…" He looked up at the guard, his brown eyes sparkling and waiting for a response from Danny, and the blonde tugged his arm from the man's grip to pull his shirt sleeve up.
The other man frowned when Danny uncovered the bandage, but even as the cop practically ripped the fabric away he could feel the unexplained itching in his skin had already gone.
Danny exposed his clock to the world for the first time in years, and where the black numbers 298:17:00 had always been, there was something wholly different.
Faded to grey against his pale skin, unfamiliar and yet so wonderfully perfect, were the digits 00:00:00.
"I don't-" he gulped hard, throat suddenly dry, "I don't understand…"
The other man laughed, and it was rich like chocolate and ten times as heavenly.
"Uhane hoa," he repeated, "It means 'soul mate' in Hawaiian."
Danny just stared at him dumbstruck. Suddenly everything made sense, why his life had been redirected to this place, away from his home and family, why his clock had never worked, never ticked for a second… His soul mate had been too far away.
He was meant to be with Rachel, but only for the short term, because she and Grace were what would bring him here. He was meant to come here all along, to Hawaii.
"It's… it's you?"
"Danno?" Danny's attention was torn away by his little girl tugging on his jeans leg, looking up at him with wide eyes. "What's going on?"
She sounded worried, and Danny immediately soothed her by stroking her hair and bringing her into his side.
"It's okay Gracie," he said in a shaky voice, even as his eyes went back up to the man in front of him, "Danno's just met someone… very important…"
The Hawaiian man smiled, and it was like sunshine. God, was this what it always felt like when you met your one true partner? Like everything about them shone like diamonds and hummed like electricity?
"Chin," he said quietly, as if he might scare Danny away, and tapped at his name badge, "Chin Ho Kelly."
Danny cleared his throat. "Uh, Danny. Williams."
They gazed at each other in silence for a few moments more, and then Grace was looking up at Chin.
"You wanna come for shave ice, Mister Kelly?"
Danny blinked. His daughter had obviously sensed this wasn't an introduction that should end any time soon.
"Uh, I'd love to," Chin chuckled, eyed flicking back up to Danny. "I have a break coming up, if… If it's okay with your daddy, of course?"
Danny nodded before he even knew what he was doing. "Yeah, yeah of course," he breathed out.
"Alright, just… just wait here," Chin squeezed Danny's arm again and then dashed back into the store. Four minutes later and he was by Danny's side as the three of them walked along the dock.
"I know a great place for shave ice," he said nervously, "I can get you a discount too."
Danny simply nodded. He couldn't stop looking down at his arm, those numbers that he'd hated for years now the only thing that seemed to matter. It felt wonderful to have the fresh air breeze over the skin and have his zeros there for the world to see, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows now.
Chin reached out to trace his fingers up Danny's arm, over the faded timer.
"I know how you feel," he whispered, "My whole life the clock was stuck in place, never moving. I thought I would never be whole… but just over twelve days ago it just starts counting down. No rhyme or reason, it just starts moving. I couldn't believe it."
Danny creased his brow. Twelve days, ten hours, seventeen minutes, that was where his clock had always sat. Same as Chin, apparently. And twelve days ago had been the day his plane had hit the runway in Hawaii.
He'd thought at that moment his life was ending, that he was losing everything, but what he hadn't known was that it was just beginning. He had found his soul mate, his one true life partner… His uhane hoa. And now he had all the time in the world to get to know this man.
Just being near Chin brought Danny a sense of peace he never believed he would feel - the kind that everyone said you felt when you met 'the one'. Colours seemed brighter, the world appeared new again, and life had even greater meaning that before. It was intense, magical, and Danny finally felt whole after all this time.
A smile spread across his face, and he slipped the hand that wasn't holding Grace's into Chin's as they approached the shave ice vendor.
"You okay?" Chin asked, seeming to sense the whirl of emotion going on inside the detective. Danny could feel a similar vibration coming from the Hawaiian man, and he knew he had found someone who would truly understand him now.
They were built for one another.
"Yeah," Danny grinned at him, "I just can't believe I've found you…"