Where the Heart Is
Danny Williams was not in Kansas anymore. Danny Williams had never even been in Kansas in the first place, but he wasn't about to go messing with an established cliché. At one point he'd been in New Jersey, but that had changed and he had just been coming to accept that Hawaii was going to be his place of residence when that fucking Tsunami had decided to up and turn his world upside down – almost literally, actually (and Danny Williams fucking hated the misuse of the word 'literally' so the fact that it applied to this situation was, in fact, fact and not hyperbole).
Danny Williams was not in Hawaii anymore and he was kind of wishing he was in Hawaii which was bizarre because he had spent much of his time in Hawaii wishing he wasn't in Hawaii and thinking about this shift in desires was making his brain hurt more than the knock he'd taken to his head at some point between the Tsunami warning and the waking up in…
Where the hell was he?
Danny shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts even as they raced through his mind because he needed to have a clear, level head right now because he was sitting in the middle of a yellow brick road. Not gold, not red brick painted yellow, but an honest to god yellow brick road.
As if this moment couldn't get any more cliché.
Well, at least there were no munchkins. But if he ran into a scarecrow pointing him in all directions, he was out of there. Or as 'out of there' as he could be without knowing where 'there was'. And the first person to tell him to ask the wizard for a way home was gonna get punched in the face, he decided as he stood up. He brushed off his pants and straightened his tie (which he was glad to find was still around his neck because he wasn't sure how many more changes he could take) and picked a direction – the direction in which the road did not abruptly end by spiraling in on itself.
He just thanked God there were no houses with feet sticking out from under them. Or witches in bubbles offering him ruby slippers. There was only so much bizarreness a guy could take in one day.
He didn't meet a Scarecrow or a Lion or a Tin Man. He didn't meet anyone until he had been walking so long he thought he wasn't going to meet anyone and maybe home was at the other end of the road after all and the nightmare would finally be over. It was when he had settled into this complacency that he met someone. Not just someone, no, he met Victor Hesse. The man was standing in the middle of the road, staring down at a pocket watch. And he had white bunny ears on his head – the kind with a headband they made for cheap and easy Halloween costumes.
Danny stopped and stared.
"You're late," Victor Hesse said without looking up.
Danny wanted to ask what exactly he was late for, but he didn't really get a chance. Victor tucked his watch away in his pocket, grabbed Danny by the tie, and pulled him through a hedge row that grew beside the road.
"OFF WITH HIS HEAD!" someone screamed. And the voice was familiar and Danny stared ahead of him, trying to find a face he knew. He saw Rachel standing there with her mouth duct-taped shut and a scared look in her eye, and next to her was Step Stan and between them…between them was Gracie.
"Grace," Danny whispered, staring at his daughter who wasn't really his daughter he knew because this was all a dream it had to be it couldn't be anything else.
"Off with his head!" Gracie said again, stomping her foot.
Anton Hesse joined Victor behind Danny and the two men started to drag Danny off but he pulled away, kicking Victor in the knee and using the confusion to wrench his arms from their respective grips, and he rushed forward and wrapped his arms tight around Gracie.
She stood, still and stiff, and Danny felt his heart breaking. "Gracie," he whispered, "Danno loves you."
Grace relaxed and wrapped her arms around Danny and it was all Danny could do not to breath a sigh of relief. "Let him go," Gracie called. And then she was gone and Danny was standing on the yellow brick road again and looming ahead of him was a city made up of tall green towers.
"Well, at least that sort of makes sense," he muttered, then he started forward, trying to decide if he should be dreading what he would find in the Emerald City or not.
"You wanna help me, bro?" Kono asked. She was just inside the city, as if she'd been waiting for Danny (and Danny was pretty sure she had been).
"What do you need help with?" Danny asked. He wasn't sure he wanted to know, but he didn't think he had much choice.
"Gotta spring my Coz," Kono said. "They put him away for something he didn't do."
"How do we spring him?"
Kono grinned, then she knelt down and pushed a manhole cover aside. "We take the sewer," she said, then she jumped in the hole and disappeared into the darkness.
With a sigh, Danny followed.
The sewer wasn't as gross as he expected, but it wasn't pleasant, either. And following Kono through the stagnant green liquid was hard, but he managed to keep up. Time seemed nonexistent in the dark, but Danny was pretty sure a good while had passed before Kono stopped.
"Hold up," she said. "Listen."
Danny listened, but all he heard was the water still sloshing from his and Kono's trek through it. He didn't say anything, though. He just waited.
"I'll go first," Kono whispered, then she started going up and Danny realized there was a ladder set into the wall before him. He followed Kono and soon found himself ina gray hallway lined with prison cells. In the cell directly in front of him, Chin Ho Kelly was seated on a bench. He looked broken, like there was no hope left.
Kono stood before the cell, gripping the bars tight. "C'mon, Coz, I told you I'd come," she said.
"Get out of here," Chin said. "Before the Tin Men come."
"Not without you," Kono replied. She turned to Danny. "Unlock the door," she snapped.
"I don't have a key," Danny said, though he began digging in his pockets anyway – weirder things had happened (like Victor Hesse with bunny ears), but he didn't expect to turn up any keys.
"All the Tin Men have keys," Kono said.
"Do I look like a Tin Man?" Danny asked.
Kono looked pointedly at Danny's tie. "Yes," she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
And Danny found a key. He slowly slid it from his pocket, staring at it as he stepped up to the cell. The key fit perfectly in the lock and the door swung open. Kono slipped into the cell, grabbed Chin's hand, and pulled him behind her as she ran down the corridor. Danny followed, sprinting so he wouldn't get lost in the maze of halls that made up the prison.
When they emerged into the glittering daylight, Kono led them down an alley, then stopped. First she pulled Chin into a tight hug, then she turned to Danny and looked him up and down. "I knew at least one Tin Man had to have a heart," she said, then she took Chin's hand and they disappeared.
Danny thought about following them, but he knew he couldn't. He found his way back to the yellow brick road and continued his way down it.
The road came to an abrupt end on the edge of a pine forest, near a seriously out of place lamp post. Sitting beside the lamp post was a lion. Danny was somehow not surprised.
"Hello, Danno," the lion said in Steve McGarrett's voice. Danny was still not surprised and he waited patiently for the Steve-lion to continue. "Have you learned?" the Steve-lion asked.
Danny stared at him. "Learned what?" he asked.
"If you have to ask, you have not learned," Steve-lion replied, turning away slowly.
"Wait," Danny called, holding up his hand. The Steve-lion paused and looked back at Danny, waiting. Danny looked over his shoulder, back at the yellow brick road that led to the Emerald City and off to Wonderland and further, even, until it spiraled in on itself as it came to an end. And Danny thought of Grace and Chin and Kono and Catherine and he felt responsible for where they were right now in this strange land. And he thought fuck Steve, Steve gets to be a damn Jesus Lion, but he didn't think it for very long because the Steve-lion being a lion wasn't the point.
He turned his head back around, looking the Steve-lion in the eye. "Everything I love, everything I care most about, is in Hawaii." It sounded cheesy as fuck, but the Steve-lion looked oddly pleased and he stepped aside, letting Danny walk past him and the lamp post into the dense forest of pine trees.
Danny half expected to tumble out of a wardrobe, instead he woke up in a hospital bed with Chin, Kono, and Steve seated around him, dozing in their chairs. "Hey," he tried to say, but his voice came out hoarse and quiet and he assumed no one heard him but just as he was starting to clear his throat Chin sat up straight and laid a hand lightly on Danny's arm.
"He's awake," Chin said, and Kono and Steve were up and leaning over him.
"You okay?" Kono asked.
Danny shrugged and cleared his throat. "I feel…," he trailed off.
"Like you got hit by a giant wave?" Kono asked.
Danny let a hoarse laugh slip through his lips as he shook his head. "No," he said. "It's not that. It's just…I had the strangest dream."
"Lemme guess," Chin said with a laugh.
But Danny didn't let him finish. "Yeah," he broke in. "You were there, and Kono, you were, too. And Gracie was there, and Victor Hesse was a rabbit and Steve was a Lion."
There was silence and Danny was pretty sure they all thought he was nuts. Then Steve said "I hope I ate him," and somehow Danny knew that meant everything was back to normal.