Thanks to my new friend & writing partner Sammy for suggesting a reason why they'd all be where they are in this one.
Thanks to all my McRollers and readers for the support & great reviews.
Hugs, Mari
/
Dream a Little Dream
Five-0 HQ
"It's a family sleep-over. Like Christmas Eve at Grandma and Pop-Pop's!" Grace looked at her dad with excitement in her eyes.
"Uh, Yeah, Monkey. That's exactly what it's like. How about you go to the supply room with your Aunty Kono and Uncle Chin? She's going to grab some blankets and he's gonna get us some food and water for later." Danny looked pleadingly at Kono and Chin who both nodded almost imperceptibly in return.
"Yeah, Grace, c'mon, I bet your dad has some chocolate bars stashed in there, too. Maybe we'll have them for dessert." Kono led the girl out of the room with a hand on her shoulder as they made their way to gather supplies. "Sounds like those sleep-overs at your grandparents were fun, huh?"
Danny mouthed "thanks" to Kono as he heard Grace chatter on about his siblings and their families all staying at his parent's house for Christmas Eve when Grace was little. Even Rachel got into the spirit of the event, and they'd all crash at his folks' place. After his mom made most of the family attend midnight mass, they'd have another round of dessert at 2 a.m. when the kids had dropped off to sleep. Danny had always volunteered to stay behind for bedtime duty and to this day his sisters had no idea he'd have their older kids awake and playing while they were at church. Good times, good memories, but Danny sighed and focused back at the task at hand.
"Okay, what's the rest of the plan?" He turned and addressed Steve who was pushing furniture into a circle in the bullpen.
"I pulled the sofas out of the offices and we have two cots so we're good." Steve turned to Catherine "Cath, call Max, get an update." Steve ordered.
"Copy that." Catherine had her phone out and walked a few feet away. Danny followed her and when she hung up pulled her aside.
"You've done this …" Danny made a sweeping motion around the room. At Catherine's questioning look he went on "… this whole isolation thing. The two of you have done this before." He looked at her for confirmation.
She nodded. "Danny, it's fine. We're okay. The preliminary tests are 100% negative according to Max. We just can't leave until morning, because of CDC policy." She gave him a comforting smile, knowing how worried he'd been about Grace. When Steve walked over to join her and Danny she continued, "The substance is colored water and Karo syrup according to Max. The jackass left epithelials on the container. We'll get him."
"Thank God." Danny breathed out a shaky breath and ran a hand over his face. "I just … what if it wasn't … what if it was something else and Grace was exposed and I couldn't protect …"
"Danny!" Steve's voice and the grounding hand on his shoulder stopped Danny. "It's fine, Man. Gracie is fine, and she thinks it's an adventure. You can't make yourself crazy with what ifs."
Danny felt a shudder run through him at the thought that the bottle of liquid delivered to HQ could have been so much worse. Grace had been there because they were all going out to have a little belated welcome home pizza dinner with Kono. Grace had missed her 'Aunty' and had asked him to arrange it, so he'd run to pick Grace up after work and brought her back to HQ.
When the rest of the team had come in from the field to find the odd package, Steve had immediately donned gloves and called HazMat to get it to Max for testing. The card attached had been blank and Danny's gut clenched when he thought it might be something dangerous. Grace had been exposed because they'd walked in just as Chin noticed the bottle.
Max had instructed everyone to remain in the suite of offices until the morning, pending testing of the liquid, and Grace had been caught up in the 'quarantine' with the rest of the team.
The Five-0 suite was air tight when on lock-down, a safety feature insisted upon by the governor, and Danny was seeing the reasoning behind it now. They could remain at work if any type of outbreak was in the city, but the air tight rooms with the special filtration system in effect could also feel a little like a prison.
Danny and Steve had reassured Grace everything was fine but because of a 'prank', they would all have to stay at HQ overnight. When Catherine cheerfully suggested it would be like camping indoors, Grace actually got excited at the idea. Danny was grateful and determined his Monkey wouldn't be upset or worried and since Max gave them the 'colored water' news, they could all breathe a sigh of relief.
Kono returned with Grace as Danny looked up and smiled "Did you let Kono and Chin steal all my chocolate?" He grinned at his daughter and gave Kono and Chin a thumbs up, indicting the lab results.
"Nope. But we have enough for everybody!" Grace held up a bag of M&Ms and one of miniature candy bars.
"Busted, Danny." Catherine smiled at him, glad to see the tension was gone from his eyes. "Come on, Grace, show me what you and Uncle Chin found for dinner.
/
Later that night
"The end!" Grace announced as movie credits rolled across the visualization screen above the smart table.
"You realize this is misappropriation of state equipment, right?" Steve teased his niece. He was seated on Danny's relocated office sofa with Grace on his lap.
"Mis-what?" She turned to face Steve; her nose wrinkled at the word "is that like stealing? We're not stealing."
"No, we are borrowing, and it's okay this time because we're all stuck here at Camp Crazy-SEAL for the night, isn't that right, Chin?" Danny called from across the room as he looked to Chin who had downloaded the movie to entertain Grace. Danny had gone to grab drinks from Steve's office refrigerator. "Here," he handed one each to his partner and his giggling daughter. "Do not spill juice on that sofa!"
"Well it's the nicest thing we've ever viewed up there. That's for sure, Grace." Chin smiled at her.
"Alright, Grace, time to get some sleep. Then we can all get out of here in the morning." Danny told his dozing daughter, who was fighting to stay awake.
Steve slipped out from behind his niece, leaving her on the sofa, and Danny tucked a blanked over her. "Night, Monkey." His kissed her forehead. "Danno loves you."
"Love you, too. G'night. Good night everybody."
Echoes of "Good night, Grace." filled the bullpen as the adults quietly gathered on the other side of the room to discuss strategies for locating the suspect who'd left the bottle at HQ.
/
1:00 a.m.
When Grace was tucked in on Danny's office sofa, he and Chin set up cots. Catherine and Kono settled on the sofas pulled from the other offices.
Everyone knew better than to argue when Steve insisted he was 'good' on the floor. He'd acquiesced to a couple of blankets and fashioned a bed roll only after Grace insisted it wasn't fair and he couldn't sleep on the hard floor without one. Completely thrilled that his niece was worried about him, he agreed after exchanging a look with Cath that spoke of how many nights he'd spent in places where a cold office floor would have seemed like the Ritz.
Just as they'd all started to doze off, Steve bolted upright at the bloodcurdling "No! Danno!" from Grace.
Danny reached her first and Steve was there a second later. Grace was sitting up, but was clearly asleep as she flailed her arms at a threat that was only in her dream. "Help, me, Danno! Uncle Steve!" Her cheeks were flushed as Danny expertly gathered her up and spoke softly to her.
"Grace? Grace, Baby, you're dreaming. Wake up. Look, it's Danno and Uncle Steve, Monkey. You're okay."
Grace blinked, and seeing her dad and Steve, relaxed against her father's chest. She surveyed the other worried faces peering at her from a few feet away, before her eyes locked onto Steve. "Uncle Steve?"
"Hey, that was some, dream, Gracie. You okay?"
Catherine moved closer and tucked a lock of hair behind Grace's ear. "You're safe. Here." She reached back for one of the water bottles lying nearby "Take a sip."
"I'm sorry. I dreamed someone was hurting me. I … I … couldn't find Danno or Uncle Steve and a vampire had me." Grace took another sip of water. "I'm okay. I didn't scare you did I?" She looked sheepish.
"Us? Scared? Nah. It was just a dream; but see why you're not allowed to watch horror movies?"
"Yeah, but, Danno, I didn't." At her father's disbelieving look she continued "Well, I saw a TV show for like a few minutes the other night. Celebrity Ghost Stories. I guess I just …" She took a breath. "I'm okay. Really."
Steve and Catherine exchanged a look above her head.
"Hey, lots of people get creeped out by those shows." Catherine told her.
Grace looked skeptical. "But, not you, you're all … brave … and cool."
Catherine placed a kiss on Grace's head. "Thanks, Hon, but they did creep me once or twice when I was a kid."
Grace moved to face Steve and Catherine. "What scared you when you were a kid?"
"When I was really little," Catherine's nose crinkled at the memory. "Definitely the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz."
"You can defeat a whole army of those by yourself." Steve scoffed, teasing Cath to amuse Grace.
Catherine rolled her eyes at him. "I was five, and I slept with my mom for two nights after I saw it. Mom still tells that story. She was so worried about me being afraid of the witch, and there I was, having nightmares of the monkeys. I thought they were going to come and swoop me away." She scooted over on the floor to make more room for Steve, who'd been kneeling in front of Grace and Danny. "My dad was deployed at the time and I remember having mom help me write him a letter telling him that if he was assigned to Oz, he could kill the witch and get Dorothy home, that I knew he could save her, because he could do anything."
Grace nodded knowingly. She still felt that way about Danno. "What about when you were older?"
Catherine could see Grace's curiosity was piqued. "Well, by then I didn't scare that easily…"
"Big surprise there." Steve interjected, then captured the hand Catherine raised to gently smack him on the shoulder without even turning his head. Only then did he turn to look at her with a raised eyebrow, still holding her hand in his. "Too slow, Rollins."
"Didn't want to take you down, McGarrett, just stop you from interrupting …" She smiled sweetly and turned back to Grace "Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, I saw Candyman and it scared me to death. I went with two friends. We were supposed to be seeing another movie and we snuck into the theater to see a real horror film … and, well, we were literally terrified to walk home from the movies. My friend Teri called her older brother to come drive us home."
"Did you get in trouble?" Grace asked.
"Teri woke up screaming, so her brother told her folks why, and we all got punished. No movies for the rest of the summer." Catherine shook her head at the memory. "Actually, we learned our lesson; we scared ourselves enough that we had no desire to see another scary movie for the rest of the year."
What about you guys?" Grace looked between Chin and Kono as she left Danny's embrace and lay back down on the sofa.
"I was afraid of evil Ninjas when I was little." Chin smiled. "I saw that in some movie and I'd have dreams of masked intruders coming for me and my siblings. As the oldest, I always felt I had to protect them."
"Yeah, and you conquered that by becoming a cop like Uncle." Kono smiled.
"And Kono was afraid of clowns…" That earned Chin a playful punch on the shoulder. "Because your brother let me watch Clownhouse when I was at your parent's for the weekend!"
"For which he was duly punished by both our mothers." Chin smiled.
"Well, still not loving the clowns. But I used to have bad dreams after my accident that I'd never surf again. Some people said my knee was messed up so bad, I wouldn't be able to, not even for fun."
"The doctors never said that." Chin reminded her softly. "Those people were jealous, Cuz, they wanted to psyche you out."
'I guess it was in the back of my mind, because I'd dream about it sometimes and wake up shaking."
"You showed them. You're the best surfer ever." Grace smiled at her. "If you could teach Danno, you're better than anyone."
"Here, here!" Steve toasted with a water bottle which earned him a round of laughter and a mouthed "Bite me." from Danny.
"Alright, enough with the bad dream stories, let's try to sleep, Monkey." Danny said.
/
-And they did-
/
Next morning
After Max gave them clearance to leave, Chin and Kono said their goodbyes with a promise to Grace to meet up for the postponed pizza party that evening. Danny went to gather Grace's things in his office, leaving her in the bullpen to help Steve and Catherine gather the blankets.
Picking up on the conversation from the previous night without missing a beat, Grace stopped with a half folded blanket in her arms. "Hey, Uncle Steve, were you afraid of anything? Like, ever?" Grace grinned.
Steve leaned against the smart table while Grace moved closer. "Everyone gets afraid, Gracie. You just learn to work through your fear and have a plan." Catherine smiled. She loved how honest Steve was with Grace, without scaring her.
"But, if you're talking about when I was a kid, I wasn't scared of monsters and stuff; I was more scared of something happening to my dad while he was working. Whenever I'd hear a police incident on the local news and he was on shift; that would scare me. I'd run to the TV and watch, looking for him and his partner on the news, hoping he was okay. I guess I started to have bad dreams at some point."
Catherine watched his eyes as he spoke to Grace. They grew darker when he got contemplative, a piece of information she doubted even Steve himself realized. "Dori ... my mother must have told him what I was doing, because one night, my dad came home and told me that he always did his very best to be careful and get back from work safely because of me and Mary." Steve squatted down to Grace's level, to meet her eyes.
"I think I was about seven, because Mary was a toddler. Dad took me for a walk along the beach." Steve had a far-away look in his eyes. "The beach right behind my house, actually. He explained that while he couldn't promise he'd never get hurt, he could promise to do his best to try not to. He also told me that since he had me and Mary and my mother, he was extra careful, because when you have people who worry about you, it doesn't mean they think you're careless, it just shows they love you and need you. They worry because they love you and you promise to be careful because you love them back. That made me feel a lot better, and I guess the bad dreams stopped."
Catherine watched as Grace moved closer and placed her small hand over Steve's powerful one. When she heard him clear his throat, she didn't move, not wanting to break the moment.
"I haven't thought about that night in a long, long, time, Gracie." Steve took her hand in both of his and seemed to speculate at how it nearly disappeared in his grasp.
"Does remembering it make you too sad?"
"No, Sweetheart, just the opposite. It was a nice talk with my dad, so thanks for helping me remember it." He leaned over and kissed her cheek.
"You're welcome." She looked him in the eyes. "Uncle Steve?"
"Yeah, Gracie?"
She glanced over to include Catherine before her eyes returned to Steve. "We worry about you. So promise you'll always be extra careful, okay?"
Steve spoke to Grace, but his eyes lifted and held Catherine's "Promise."
/
End.
Thanks for reading.