A/N: So, this little fic came about during my attempts to understand the labyrinth of emotional crippledom that is Steve McGarrett. What would happen if he lost someone important? How would he cope? Let's find out!

As to the disclaim-y stuff, the characters don't belong to me, but oh…if they did…. … … … … … … Okay, I'm back. They belong to the CBS people, so…don't sue me.


Steve McGarrett arrived in his office at his usual early hour, glad not to have had a late call out the night before. It had been a rough one, made no less so by the fact that the one person he would normally turn to during the rough times had taken up the new and unsettling hobby of call screening. Steve couldn't remember the last time he'd had to try twice to get Danny on the line, let alone the eight times he had tried last night. And the six more he'd tried early this morning.

After mashing the buttons on the office coffee machine with just enough restraint to avoid breaking it entirely and waiting impatiently for something he could put in his mug, Steve threw himself down into his office chair, glad no one was as yet around to see his tantrum-like outburst. He glared at his cell, willing Danny to return his calls with some reasonable explanation as to his silence. Preferably one that involved either bullets or a coma.

Steve tried not to think of the empty couch in his childhood home, tried not to wonder why Danny hadn't come home last night. The man was an adult, and what he did was his business, but that was no reason to disappear without notice.

At first he'd thought Danny was out on a date with the museum assistant he'd been seeing so much of recently. But Danny would have told him about that, would have let him know that he'd be out for the night, would have teased him not to worry. Steve tried to hate the way Danny treated him like they were the old married couple their friends constantly compared them to. Steve tried to hate it the same way he tried not to worry about Danny's absence: unsuccessfully.

Steve tried once again to turn the worry into something else without acknowledging it. This wasn't like Danny. It was inconsiderate, to be sure, but that wasn't what had Steve so…mad, he decided, settling for simplest terms. Mad didn't really cover it, but Steve had never been too skilled at pinning down exact feelings. He didn't want to characterize the ball in his gut as hurt, even if Danny was his best friend. More to the point, Steve was Danny's boss. Danny took his calls because it was his job, if for no other reason, and at the moment, Danny's silence was bordering insubordination. Steve grinned despite himself as he imagined the diatribe Danny would have ready if he were to be written up on such charges.

Steve shook his head as he logged on to his office computer, trying to reassure himself that Danny knew better than to purposefully ignore his calls. Something must have happened, something that Danny would prioritize above his professional responsibilities. The face of the only thing in the world Danny put above his work popped into Steve's head, and suddenly his anger (anger, he tried to convince himself, not hurt or disappointment or bitterness) turned right back into worry.

What if something had happened to Grace? It wasn't out of the question, especially with Stan in the picture again. Steve tried not to remember the gun-laden carjacking Rachel and Grace had been subjected to on Stan's behalf not so long ago. No, he decided, shaking his head, if it was something like that, something that Danny would need his skills as a cop to solve, he would have been the one calling Steve.

What if Grace were hurt or sick? Danny would have gone immediately to the hospital to see her, leaving everything behind. That explanation almost made sense, if it weren't for the fact that Danny would have been notified of this on the same phone Steve had been trying to reach. It would have been in his hand, and he would have taken it with him for updates on the way.

Steve's fingers fell a bit too heavily on his keyboard, and the rat-tat-tat brought him back to reality. He had been, it seemed as he stared at his computer monitor, on auto-pilot. His email account sat open and ready to be perused in a window on his computer, apparently having been logged into only a moment before. He wasn't sure whether he found that impressive or disturbing, but shrugged it off as he focused on the screen.

Scanning the contents of his inbox, some few interoffice emails to which he had been tagged onto the recipient list as a "department head" within the law enforcement community, Steve's eyes caught on the second message down, just below the governor's daily address, a largely useless email full of bureaucratic updates automatically sent at five each morning. The message was marked , Danny's professional email account, and had the mark of an urgent dispatch. The subject line read simply '5-0'.

Steve spent longer than he would admit to anyone aloud staring at his inbox, trying to determine the email's significance, wondering what it could mean, before it occurred to him that the best way to find out would be to actually open it.

Steve picked up his almost forgotten coffee mug as he clicked open the email, trying to pretend he hadn't let it go cold thinking about Danny. He nearly felt his heart stop as he read the message, then read it again, convinced he must have something wrong. This must be the stroke Danny was always warning him about, messing with his eyes. He must be imagining things up to keep the anger burning in his heart. There was no possible way what he was reading could be real.

Commander Steve McGarrett:

My time in Hawaii, as a member of your task force, has been difficult. This place is so different from what I'm used to, things work so differently here, that it's felt like a different country. It hasn't helped that the only people I've spent any time around were the kind of people who wouldn't know real law enforcement if it read them their Miranda rights. Or to have the kind of guy who takes liberties with human rights as a boss.

And as my boss, I thought you were the one to whom I should submit my letter of resignation.

I spent a long time trying to make it work, but I can't do this anymore. The truth is I don't belong here, I never belonged here. I'm going back home, back to my family and my real life.

Don't take it personally.

-Detective Williams

Steve read the email again and again, trying to pin down what, exactly was wrong with it, besides the obvious. The words were wrong, obviously, but the tone was right. It sounded like Danny, it held the problems he'd been dealing with for months. But something was missing, something important. It was too antiseptic, too clean, too neat. It was the kind of professional that Danny wanted people to believe that he was, the kind of professional that wore a tie to the beach, but it lacked the personality that Danny brought to every moment of the lives of those around him. It was wrong.

Steve continued to read it as he heard Chin and Kono enter the building and part ways to walk into their individual offices. He continued to read it as he heard the click of Lori's heels pass his office. He continued to read it as he heard his office door open.

"Hey, Boss, settle a bet," Chin began, only to stop dead. "Steve? Brah, you okay? You in there? Steve, is…is everything…." He trailed off, unsure how to continue or if Steve was even hearing him in whatever world he had gone off to.

Finishing the letter for what must have been the five or six hundredth time, Steve looked up at the look of concern on Chin's face. He had come only half way into the room, but now he took a step forward, allowing the door to close behind him. "Get everybody together. We have a case."

Chin nodded slowly, the concern still marked clearly in his eyes. "Okay, yeah, sure." He shook his head, trying to pass the strange moment by. "But first, settle something for me and Kono. Danny hasn't come in yet." Chin tried not to notice the twitch in Steve's jaw when he mentioned the detective's name. They must have had another fight, he decided. "Now, I think must be sick or something, but Kono says he's working by somebody else's alarm. He's still surfing the couch at your place, right? So what's the deal?"

Steve stood, keeping his anger in check as he refused to even glance down at his computer. He kept his voice low and slow, but he couldn't quite keep it free of the tone he tried only to use in times of war. "Get everybody together, now. Something's happened to Danny."

Chin was out the door before Steve could so much as breathe.


Is Danny really in trouble? Is Steve imagining danger to avoid his problems? Tune in and find out!

More to come, hopefully soon. Feedback is always appreciated, but never compulsory.