Summary: The last time Steve saw her, he made her a promise. But promises, like all living things, can sometimes be broken beyond repair. Songfic - set to Pink's 'Who Knew?'
Warnings: Major character death and mature content throughout.

A/N: I've had several comments asking if there's any way a certain person's apparent death could have been a mistake. Sadly, the answer to that was 'no' but I found myself wondering 'what if?' and decided that I would write an alternative ending if anyone was interested. In order for it to work, I've had to go back and re-jig the original version so please bear with me while I do so.
This is un-beta'd so any and all mistakes are my own.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything to do with the show Hawaii Five-0 except for seasons 1-4 on DVD.

You took my hand, you showed me how. You promised me you'd be around. That's right…
I took your words and I believe in everything you said to me.
If someone said three years from now you'd be long gone, I'd stand up and punch them out 'cause they're all wrong. I know better 'cause you said forever and ever. Who knew?

Remember when we were such fool and so convinced, and just too cool/ I wish I could touch you again, I wish I could still call you, friend. I'd give anything.
When someone said count your blessing before they're long gone, I guess I just didn't know how. I was all wrong. They knew better. Still, you said forever and ever. Who knew?

I keep you locked in my head until we meet again. Until we meet again. And I won't forget you, my friend. What happened?

If someone said three years from now you'd be long gone, I'd stand up and punch them out 'cause they're all wrong and that last kiss I'll cherish until we meet again.
And time makes it harder. I wish I could remember but I keep your memory. You visit me in my sleep.

My darling, who knew?

Pink, 2006.

Prologue.

As the daughter of a cop, Mary had always been aware of the fact that every phone call, every knock on the door, had the potential to turn the world upside down. Mary was eleven years old when she experienced it for the first time. Her father had always said he felt sorry for the cop who had found himself standing on their doorstep after her mother had been killed in a car accident. Her brother, Steve, later said that he'd never understood what their father had meant until the day came when he'd had to do it himself. It was always going to be the job that no-one wanted to do, to have to be the one to break the news to whoever was unlucky enough to come to the door.
Looking back, it always seemed that her mother's death was the catalyst, the reason why her relationship with her father deteriorated to the point where it was beyond repair even before he shipped her off to the mainland to live with Aunt Deb. She had hated him for it.

Her brother joined the navy and missed every birthday, every holiday. His phone calls became more and more infrequent and then stopped all together. She cried herself to sleep the first time he forgot her birthday.
The next day she overheard her aunt telling a cousin he'd had been deployed overseas. Steve had been the one to tell her. Ten years of radio silence and her big brother was calling to tell her that their father was dead.
She didn't make it back in time for the funeral. She flew into Honolulu a few months later and had it not been for the little incident with the smoke detector on the plane, she would have walked straight past her brother as he stood waiting for her next to the conveyor belts in arrivals. The man that walked into the interrogation room was solid, all hard lines and sharp angles; He looked nothing like her Steve, the older brother who gave her piggyback rides on the beach at the back of their house and held her hand when they crossed the street.

She buried her grief under layers of falsified indifference for years, allowing the anger she felt towards her father to consume her from the minute she walked through the departure gate and onto the plane. Eighteen years later, she finally understands why her dad made the decision to allow what was left of their family to be ripped apart.
It's like deja-vu when Steve shrugs her bag off of his shoulder and pulls her into his arms. She hadn't realised, when she had grudgingly hugged her father goodbye all those years ago, that it would be the last time she ever saw him. She doesn't want to make the same mistake with her brother. Standing there, in front of the departure gate as they announce the final call for her flight, Steve makes her a promise. But promises, like all living things, can sometimes be broken beyond repair.

The early morning sun wrapped itself around the mountains overlooking Pasadena on the day Mary's world was turned up side down.
It peeked hesitantly around the gap in the curtain as she peeled back the cover and pushed herself out of bed, rushing past her to flood the room when the curtains were suddenly flung aside. It had always rained in the movies she watched as a teenage; Tragedy meant grey skies and unrelenting rain, not sunshine and cloudless blue skies. It felt so wrong that something so horrible could happen on such a beautiful day, like someone 'up there' was playing a cruel joke at her expense. She had felt the telltale fluttering of nerves against her ribcage when her cellphone range, the vibrations sending it jumping and skipping across the granite countertop in the kitchen of her rented apartment. The polished stone had glittered almost ominously in the narrow strip of sunlight that poured in through the tiny window over the sink.
She'd hesitated at the 'unknown number' ID that had flashed teasingly on the illuminated screen, apprehensively bringing her index finger up to hover over the distinctive green band twinkling provocatively across the bottom of the bottom of the screen.

'Mary?'

The voice was tinny, distorted by static and the low rumbling of the wind in the background.

'Mary, it's Danny. It's Danno.'