A/N: This story began as a musing on the issues Danny may have dealt with after first joining HPD, and that scene in the first episode where he clocks Steve in the face. Love that scene. Anyways, it sort of transformed from a little snapshot of that scene going wrong into an entire AU rewrite of the first episode. And unlike my other stories where the outlines are done (but nothing has been written/fleshed out), this one is finished all the way to the very last chapter/scene.

Steve held his face in momentary shock as he heard the short mainlander's snide retort.

"You're right, I don't like you very much."

"Son of a—" But instead of letting the punch cool down his temper, instead it snapped something inside him. Before what he knew he was doing, he reached out and grabbed the back of the man's shirt, slamming him up against the front hood of the police cruiser.

"Hey...!"

"You know what? That's it. I'm done with an ignorant haole who doesn't know shit about this island—"

"Excuse me? Am I hearing this right? You were the one who forced me to come with you—"

"-and you have no right to be in charge of my father's case—my FATHER'S CASE—"

"You are not even a cop, how do you even know—"

Their shouting escalated over each other, as the other cops and passer-byers stared.

Steve shoved harder, pinning the shorter man down. "You're just some worthless reject from the mainland, who's never gonna get it, will you? That was our only lead, now gone! This is my investigation, and you're out now, alright?" He released him after one final shove, stepping back.

"Hey, you. Just get him off my crime scene, and get him out of my face before I break his." Steve gestured to the other two cops, one stepping forward and placing a cautious hand on Danny's arm with a frown. Furious, he shrugged off the hand and stalked away to his car, driving off with a squeal of tires.

Steve breathed heavily through his nostrils. One of the two cops hesitated, then asked "Sir, are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." he said dismissively.

"One of us would be happy to lend you a cruiser so you can go wherever you need to go for the investigation. Detective McGarrett was a good man..."

"Thank you, I appreciate it." Steve nodded, sighing. He was finally cooling down now that the Jersey cop had left. Steve knew he should've apologized...he had dragged the poor man into all this, and even after all that the man had saved his life and killed the suspect they might've captured successfully had he just called for backup. His father's death weighed heavily on him. It was hard to make good decisions when he felt like every minute that ticked by was another minute wasted.

Well. He would apologize. Just after he found Hesse and put him to justice.

He didn't notice the looks of sympathy the two officers shared, or the irritation in their eyes at a certain cop who had just left the scene.

Xxxxxxxxxxx

Danny sighed. He wanted Meka back. The man wasn't a close friend, or at least wasn't yet (he was trying to stay hopeful), but he had gotten along with the man reasonably well so far. He was pretty sure Meka didn't hate him anyways. Goddamn his stupid freaking mouth.

An abrupt shove to his shoulder suddenly made him refocus. The cop who had so rudely pushed him into the locker looked down on him for a brief moment then snorted in disgust as he continued on through the narrow space. What the hell? Danny was so surprised he didn't even think up a retort at the stupid schmuck. What was this, high school? What had he done to that guy to deserve such a look? He didn't even recognize the man.

Gingerly changing out of his button down, he slid a fresh one on, a light cotton one which was much nicer in the humid air and—key fact—was free of his blood. He left the tie off, stuffing it in a pocket. Stepping out of the changing room and back over to his desk, he let out a small groan at the amount of paperwork that had piled up. He knew as a new cop to the precinct, and as a "haole" as the rest of the natives in the office called him, he'd have to deal with stupid shit. Grunt work, the cases no one wanted. The only reason he'd been assigned to the case involving the death of John McGarrett was that Chief Mahaka knew he could provide a fresh, unbiased look on things, and to see how he did solo while his partner, Meka, was out in LA attending a court hearing for an old case he'd help solve. The fact that it had been handed to him over some of the more senior detectives had not gone over well.

"Glad to see all that crap about ohana actually means something..." he muttered to himself, shuffling through the files. He was good at what he did. The best. But this was going to take a lot of time, and something about McGarrett's case was still niggling in the back of his brain. Why he still cared was beyond him. That pompous brickhead was a menace, and there was no love lost in shedding him from his life.

He could understand the man's concern...well, perhaps that was what was bothering him. Steve McGarrett was intelligent and driven, but also too involved. He wouldn't see things if he couldn't think clearly. And right now, Danny knew, the man was not thinking clearly. He sighed. There was nothing left to do but finish the paperwork as fast as he could, and then fit in as much time as he could around his schedule looking more closely at the murder of John McGarrett. The man was a cop. He owed him that much to do his best in finding his killer.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Three days later, Danny was beside himself with rage. Samples he had submitted suddenly had become worthless. His request for blood work to be done? Pushed to backlog due to a sudden influx of "higher priority" cases. What cases? No one on the force was doing anything particularly time sensitive that he knew of.

He had thought the first six months were bad, but the treatment he'd been getting around the office was rapidly deteriorating...he'd called for backup on a check-in for a case, and he'd spent ten minutes repeating himself over the radio and fending off snide remarks and questions over whether or not he'd been at the right location, or gotten the name of the street correct. In that time the suspect had managed to spot him and escaped out the back door of the complex, rendering the attempt to bring him in worthless. His car? Egged. With several dozen cartons of eggs by the look of it. Which is why his car was squeaky clean and fresh from three trips through the car wash when he pulled up in the arrivals dock at the Honolulu airport. But the worst thing that had happened to date was being cornered in the locker room by four fellow officers after a long shift...well, they all had bruises to show for that little chat. He'd given as good as he got.

"Danny. Thanks for picking me up, man." Meka opened the car door and popped in, smiling gently at the frazzled looking detective. He slung a duffel into the back of the camero.

"Yeah, well, your wife was busy picking up Billy from school, so I figured I could lend a hand. I know how it is."

"Well mahalo. How's Grace by the way?"

"Grace? Grace is good...going to be heading out of the country for a bit soon...her mom's taking her and step-stan off to the UK to visit family there."

"Ah, she'll have a blast. The wife loves Europe, especially. Went to Paris on our honeymoon..." Meka began to say with a sappy smile on his face. He saw the glum expression on his partner's face, however, and changed the subject.

"Anything exciting happen while I was away?"

Danny grimaced. "You don't want to know."

Meka stared. "...was it something you did?" he asked hesitantly. Sure enough, The Jersey cop let out what had clearly been on his mind for a while.

"What did I do? What didn't I do? Apparently, being a good cop and following procedures means nothing against the opinions of a local boy. He's not even a goddamn cop! Or he wasn't, but now he's got this special task force and I can't tell if the department worships him more because he's got immunity to do the things they wish they could do or because he's John McGarrett's son—"

"Woah, slow down brother. John McGarrett's son?" Meka looked confused. "He's a Navy SEAL..."

"Well now apparently the governor's made a special task force, and he's leading it. It wouldn't bother me normally, except he took the case away from me and dragged me around the island forcing me to help him. Then he got me SHOT, and then he kicked me off the case. All in the same freaking day. Unbelievable. And the best part is the whole department thinks I'm some sort of asshole who doesn't care when cops get murdered, and—"

"Hey. Stop for a minute so I can get my head wrapped around all of this." Meka interrupted him with sigh, holding a hand up defensively as Danny paused, glowering at him.

"Let me ask you some questions to clarify. So first off...are you okay? You said you got shot." He asked calmly, hoping his own demeanor would have a soothing effect on Danny's heightened state of irritation.

Danny huffed, carding a hand through his hair. "Yeah. Yeah I'm fine, it was a deep graze to the arm, nothing serious. A bit of soreness from the dumbass grabbing that same arm and twisting it behind my back then shoving me into the side of the car..."

"What? In front of other cops?" Meka asked incredulously.

"Well..." Danny blushed. "I may have been yelling at him, before the arm thing...then I punched him after that, which he deserved! Then he shoved me. I left after he kicked me off the case."

"Jesus, man..." Meka sighed. "You really shot yourself in the foot with that one. No wonder you're getting so much crap..."

"It just pisses me off..." Danny muttered, sounding somewhat apologetic. "If it were you or me, a case that close? If it was your parents, or someone I knew, we wouldn't be let anywhere near the case. You get too close, you get too short sighted, and you don't do it right. McGarrett was a mess, and even with immunity he's all over the place. What if one of his mistakes gets someone killed?"

"I know, partner. But this case...it's a close one for all of us." Meka tried to explain.

"Except me."

And now Meka nodded slowly in agreement. "Except you. Which is why you were assigned to John McGarrett's murder case in the first place."

"Yeah, and I found the lead on Doran. We could've brought him in too, except stupid Super SEAL decided he'd rather go in alone than wait for backup. Doran could've killed me with that shot, could've killed his girlfriend who I was trying to restrain. He had a gun to a woman's head then was reaching to shoot McGarrett and would've except I was there to put him down. The man is in way over his head."

Meka winced. "Christ. That bad huh?"

Danny glowered at the road in front of him. "I know he kicked me off the case, officially. But...for the love of God, someone has to do the right thing and bring his father to justice."

"But now you're being cock-blocked by every cop in the station." Meka said, more as a statement than a question.

"Yeah. You know how it was when I first got in. But now...it was getting a little better, but it's gotten worse since you've been gone." he admitted softly, hands tightening on the steering wheel.

Meka shook his head. "Danny...I'm sorry, man. You don't deserve that shit." Not for the first time, the Hawaiian wondered at the blatant rejection and level of hazing Danny had gone through.

"I don't mind missing the social stuff. You know I can't really afford to do much of it, not with helping support Grace, but... the high school locker room behavior..."

"I'm going to the chief, soon as we get back." Meka said roughly, anger growing as he imagined exactly what sort of behavior had been going on.

"No."

Meka looked at Danny in surprise. "No? You can't just roll over on this, brother. That's harassment."

"Okay, so let's say you go to the chief. The chief disciplines the two or three guys who did the worst damage, but what then? More guys getting bitter, but doing things smarter. Or worse, I get asked to transfer. I can't move again, Meka, I can't even go over to another island without having to give up visitation rights to see my daughter. And I can't lose Grace. I can't. She's all I got." Danny's voice got more distraught as he went on.

Meka didn't know what to do. Sure, Danny was loud. Acerbic and stubborn as a mule. But he was also a good cop. A good father. Meka knew that the fiery personality made for an equally passionate friend, once he trusted someone enough to let them in. Moving had been hard on the mainlander, even harder considering it had been done while trying to get over a difficult divorce. It was probably why the man was fighting so hard against everything here; the food, the culture, even the weather. It was all so foreign, with none of the things he probably found comforting under normal circumstances.

"Alright. But if things get any worse, we're going to the chief. Together." He insisted.

"Okay. Thanks...partner." Danny looked over at the Hawaiian with a small smile. "...I am still working on the case...in my spare time, anyways. Got an idea on a lead I want to follow...would you be interested in coming with?"

"Someone's gotta keep you out of trouble, newbie." Meka said teasingly, and Danny chuckled.

"Let's get you home, then I'll bring you up to speed..."