Lost in the Woods
by Lirulin

Disclaimer: Nothing in here belongs to me, it's all property of CBS. And I'm making no money with this because seriously, who would ever pay me for this?

This is my very first Hawaii Five-0 story, and I honestly have no idea how I did. I wrote it for the "Take your fandom home with you day" on leupagus' livejournal which basically said to take your favourite characters and bring them to your hometown. I simply couldn't resist it. So credit for the idea goes there. It is not to be taken seriously, but I certainly had a lot of fun writing it!

The story is dedicated to my mum who laughed very hard when I told her of the idea.

"What kind of crazy-ass name is Hahn anyway? I looked it up, yes, I did my homework Mr. I'm-prepared-for-everything-from-torn-shoelaces-to-nuclear-wars, I did! And it means cock! What kind of crazy people… No, no Steven, don't go there! And wipe that stupid grin off your face! Seriously! The bird, you idiot! Two wings, doesn't fly, crows, ring any bells?... What? What? Stop… stop laughing at me! Oh, I see! You knew! Of course, forgive me my ignorance! Of course you know German as well! Do they teach that in SEAL school? The world's languages in 48 days and 67 easy lessons?"

Danny has had enough. He doesn't want to see any more trees, he doesn't want to fear that Steve will drive them into the little stream next to the road – if this bumpy strip of tar can even be called a road – whenever another car comes their way and they have to swerve onto the grass because there. is. no. space! And he certainly doesn't want to spend any more time in this rental with Steve! But as the alternative is being literally in the woods, he'll have to grin and bear it. Although even he has to say that he's doing neither.

"Where are we anyway? It doesn't look like there's any airport around here. There is nothing around here! And… did you see that? Was that really there? Was she just riding along on a horse? Did I miss the time hole we fell through?"

Steve huffs quietly and throws Danny a glance that seems to say 'I have no idea what he's talking about, but it's funny and maybe I'll humor him', and it makes Danny reconsider his willingness to take his chances with the forest.

"Come on, Danno, it's not so bad. This should be right up your alley, you're always bitching about the palm trees back home. Now you have trees with 'real leaves' and you're still not happy. You are very sensitive, aren't you?"

Danny tells himself firmly that shooting the driver in the face will solve nothing and only end with the car, and by default him, wrapped around one of the trees with the 'real leaves'.

"What is the matter with you? Why are you so obsessed with my sensitivity? Not that I'm saying I have any! Are you compensating for something? Were you not allowed to play with dolls when you were little or something?"

Steve just grins at him with his head tilted to the side and this puppy-dog expression that never fails to set Danny's teeth on edge. But at long last the trees are thinning now, and finally, finally they are out of the woods – he's hoping metaphorically too – and approaching a small village.

"Ok, at least we've returned to civilization again! Or what passes for civilization around here. Seriously, I thought this wood would never end! I was just waiting for the big bad wolf and the seven dwarves asking us to tea! What did I ever do to deserve this? I'm a good cop, I'm a law-abiding citizen, so why, why do I get send to the end of the world with a mad weapons-fanatic for company? Do not think I didn't notice you eyeing the rocket launchers earlier!"

"Because, Danno, we are the Governor's finest and she wanted us to be here when her niece returned from Rome and to personally escort her to Rammstein."

Danny snorts at that. Sure, it was the reason they'd been given, but he knows better. And honestly, this is the farthest he's ever been sent on a flimsy excuse.

"Governor's finest my ass! She just wanted to get rid of you for a couple of days, to have some peace and quiet. You realize you blew up three – count my fingers here, Steven! – THREE separate warehouses last week? And now, now because of you – yes you, you big wannabe Rambo – now I'm here somewhere in the backwoods of Germany in a village called… What? D-i-c-h-t-e-l-b-a-c-h… How are you even supposed to pronounce that? What's with all the 'c's and the 'h's? And no idea how to get to the airport with the other crazy name! But you, you didn't want to use GPS of course! No, nothing so simple for Mr. I-have-the-sense-of-direction-of-an-Arctic-Tern-and-only-look-at-a-map-once-to-know-where-I'm-going! Hold on, what am I even saying? The GPS probably wouldn't have worked here anyway! I'm sure not even satellite technology can cope with the remoteness! How is this my life?"

"Remoteness?"

Oh, and how he hates that tone in Steve's voice – and really, it's Steve who has both a tone and a face because Danny certainly does not have a tone and people – yes, by people he means Steve, always, who else? – who think holding suspects over pits of lava is a good idea don't get to judge anyway, and… where was he? Right, tone. The tone that says Danny is the best source of entertainment Steve has had all day, seeing as there are no tall buildings to leap from in this small part of the world. He hates it. He hates it so much.

"Yes, Steven, remoteness! It's the absolute right word to describe the exact space we are inhabiting right at this moment. Remoteness! Exhibit A: cows! Right next to the road! In the village! On a meadow, with a stable over there! Exhibit B: that enormous tractor coming RIGHT AT US! Will you drive to the side? I don't want to die in some shitty little village I can't even pronounce! What even is this? Did that kid really sit on the fender? Where are we? No, seriously, I've had enough of this! See, there's a nice lady over there, and… stop the car, Steven! I'm going to ask her the way because, you see, I do not have any macho-SEAL-army issues that say I can't ask for help! And I will not – I repeat, I will NOT – continue driving through some woods with you!"

"Navy, Danno, Navy! And we're not in the woods anymore."

But for all that Steve is making hamster-aneurysm face for the 15th time in the last hour, he still halts the car and heaves a put upon sigh. As if he has any right to sigh! If anyone has sighing rights around here it's Danny because he had to miss his weekend with Grace to escort another little girl from an airport to an army base!

"Danny, you don't even know if she speaks English! It's always a bit difficult in these rural parts and…"

Danny however is not listening, he's already getting out of the car to cross the road. He just wants to finish the job and get back home. And how sad is it that Hawaii has become home for him?

"Well, Mr. My-second-career-is-in-linguistics, why don't you come with me and translate?"

And Steve actually follows him for once without arguing further as he approaches the woman who has stopped and is eyeing them curiously – and Danny is working very hard on his ability to be thankful for small favors. She is a kindly looking elderly lady, carrying a basket with what seems to be shoes and a white apron it, and Danny really, really hopes that he'll be lucky for once or that Steve truly is fluent in German.

"Excuse me, ma'am… Do you speak English?"

Danny can see that she is surprised, he would be too if he were her and two strange guys addressed him like that, and really, Steve with his crossed arms and his frown and his penetrating stare looks a bit frightening. Would it hurt him to relax for once? Danny is sure the lady doesn't have an AK-47 hidden under her apron, ready to attack them at the drop of a hat. Her gaze travels from him to Steve and back a few times before she recovers from the surprise and nods slightly.

"Yes a bit, can I help you?"

Danny does not admit to doing an inner tap-dance of relief, he does not! Her accent is very strong, but that's fine, it's all great, she understands them!

"Yes, please! We have to go to Hahn Airport, and we seem to have lost the way. Could you tell us how to get there?"

She thinks for a moment, then smiles and points along the road they are on.

"Yes, yes, but… you are far from Hahn. Where came you from? You go this street to de next town, and there you go left and then when you come… oh, I know not the word! You go left again and then there is a… a bigger street. Excuse me, I cannot explain very good."

She looks truly apologetic, and Danny feels a bit bad about accosting the poor woman like that, forcing her to speak a language she's clearly not all that comfortable with, but he's quite desperate here. And sadly he's not sure the directions are going to help them all that much, which is not her fault of course, but there were so many streets in it and so many lefts, and he's not sure if a 'bigger street' means a real freeway or just something with two actual lanes.

"No, that's fine, thank you very much. But is there, like a store around here where we could buy a map of the area? Because, you see, we have to be at the airport by four, and my partner there – say hello to the lady, Steve – my partner regularly pretends to be GI Jungle Joe and thinks maps are for the uninitiated and didn't listen to me when I said one look at the coordinates was not adequate preparation. So now we are here in your charming village and not where we are supposed to be."

Danny realizes he's waving his arms around wildly which probably takes the lady aback a little because she is looking at him in utter confusion. He might also have been talking too fast he thinks, so that she most likely didn't get a word of what he's been saying. At this point, Steve of course has to prove that he truly is superior in everything, uncurling his arms and putting on his most charming face.

"Mein Partner wollte wissen, ob es hier ein Geschäft gibt, wo wir eine Landkarte kaufen können."

A smile lights her face as she turns towards Steve.

"Sie sprechen Deutsch."

And then she lets loose a barrage of words that Danny has no hope of even distinguishing from one another, pointing up the road again, and then up another. Steve nods from time to time, but looks a bit bewildered at the same time which strangely enough makes Danny feel a tiny bit better. His super-SEAL of a partner might speak the native languages of about a dozen countries, but he obviously still has some problems to understand all of what's being said to him. A few minutes later she stops and Steve shakes his head slowly before looking at Danny again.

"So, she speaks a mean dialect, but I got that there's no shop in the village. That there's apparently nothing in the village apart from a pub. And that we probably won't get a map in the next town either because they mostly have supermarkets and nothing else. But she says we still have time enough and later she'll get her car and drive with us to the highway, and she's invited us to the village festival in the community hall. There's some kind of traditional dish they eat, I didn't really understand it, it sounded like shale ass, and she says we have to try it. And I think she asked whether I have a tribal or a real tattoo. I didn't get that either."

For once Danny is speechless. What is this place? What kind of people eat something called shale ass? But then… They've already seen a fox, three deer and what he's sure was a boar in the time they spent in the woods, so perhaps he shouldn't be surprised. And she does seem nice enough, not giving off any 'I'm gonna poison the foreigners with strange meals' vibes, and he's really hungry because Steve refused to stop for something while they were still in populated areas, and wasn't it then hilarious when he offered to hunt for berries in the woods! Not! So before he knows what is happening he is back in their rental, with the lady in the back, guiding them up another road to the community hall. Clearly both he and Steve have lost more than their sanity when they can be bowled over by kind, elderly women like that!

As it turns out, shale ass is actually 'Schales', a word that is so obviously dialectic that no one knows what it means – and he's asked their guide who is as native as they can get -, and is something made of potatoes and onions and bacon – and ok, bacon is always a plus – which is apparently baked for close to three hours. And who would've thought that potatoes and apple sauce would taste that good together? And he can honestly say that he's never felt as exotic as during the last hour – not even when he first came to Hawaii, and everyone called him a haole and looked at him strangely because of his ties and his Jersey accent – where he's been introduced to a host of people who all seem to be related to each other and don't speak a word of English, but still want to get a look at 'the Americans'.

And it is simply hilarious to see Steve sitting among a bunch of elderly people, drinking coffee out of a tiny porcelain cup and being educated – as he whispered to Danny during a lull in the conversation – on the finer points of raspberry vinegar production and on the latest village gossip. In this instant, Danny is extremely grateful for his non-existent language skills. As their guide lady is the only one who understands Danny, at least somewhat when he's talking slowly enough, she is keeping him company, is listening attentively to the stories he has to tell about Grace and looking at the pictures of her he always keeps in his wallet while telling him of her own children in return. Surprisingly enough, he's having a really good time.

Then finally, finally they are back on the road, their new friend – and yes, she is Danny's friend after she told him she doesn't like swimming and the beach – having escorted them to the 'bigger street', as she called it, where there are actual signs saying 'Hahn' with a little plane symbol. Steve is grinning at him goofily while Danny holds on to the paper plate piled high with cake that someone pressed into his hands when they left.

"That was interesting, wasn't it? Aren't you glad now that even if I might have gotten us lost – which I did not – we still had a great time and learned something new? I never knew you could make it your purpose in life to know everything about other people's lives! Some of the ladies I talked to would make excellent intelligence officers. Come on, tell me you liked it, Danno."

Danny will do no such thing. He will not give Steve the satisfaction because it will only encourage him to pull a similar stunt the next time. And he will never admit – least of all to Steve who will just give him that fond smile that always makes him all warm and tingly inside – that he is now quite happy that they lost their way in the woods.

The End

So, the kind elderly lady here actually is my mum who would definitely behave in the exact same manner if something like this happened. She's brought home more than one person she 'found' on the streets somewhere and who had lost their way.

I hope you liked it, please tell me what you think!