In the beginning, they'd loved each other. Maybe not immediately, but Danny and Rachel certainly had loved each other. At the start, when they were still in the beautiful state of New Jersey and not the pineapple-invested hellhole of Hawaii. When Rachel had just arrived from London and decided that, hey, I'm so frustrated, I'm going to rear-end this cop. The cop was nice and offered her driving lessons (she did have a nice tooshie, after all). And when the lessons turned into dates and the dates into even more, Rachel and Danny had loved each other.
Although they had had their disagreements, they had loved each other. Even though Danny was out risking his life most of the day and Rachel worried about him every second of it, they still loved each other. And they had loved each other even more when their stunning new daughter came around. Their love for each other became stronger as they raised Gracie, watching her grow and learn with each passing day. Soon enough she was walking and talking, and calling her father by name. "I wuv you Danno!"
And then, as Grace continued growing, both physically and mentally, Danny and Rachel's love did the opposite. It depleted and deflated, got kicked around, and came out bloody and mangled. They divorced, and as if to kick Danny when he was down, the wife remarried and brought her new family to Hawaii.
Detective Danny Williams shakes his head and sighs as he drives up to his ex-wife's house in Kahala. It seems like forever since they had been a family, living happily in Jersey. In a way, he longs to go back to those times, but Rachel is different now, and it certainly isn't for the better.
"Don't mock me, Daniel," he mutters, with a fake British accent to boot, as he slinks out of his silver car and towards the gate. He was doing exactly the opposite of what Rachel had said a few weeks earlier. The HPD cop pinches the bridge of his nose in agitation. He knows what is to come, but presses the button on the bell anyway.
"Daniel, you're late."
"Oh, I'm sorry dear, I'll be sure to pick my daughter up before I go on a crazy car chase next time, just so she can experience it."
"…Danny, if you're off doing that kind of thing, Grace shouldn't be arou—"
Detective Williams runs a hand through his blond hair as he sighs once more. "Listen, we've discussed this before. I'm a cop, I'm perfectly—"
"Just, whatever, Daniel. I don't care. She's getting her stuff together now, and she'll be out in a few minutes. Goodbye."
"Hey, no, wait a second," Danny replies frantically. "I need to ask you something."
He's silent for a few moments, trying to get his thoughts together. His hand meets his hair again, and just as Rachel is about fed up with it, he spouts out his question. "C-can I have Gracie for an extra day or two this week? I was going to take her to another football game on Monday night, and I was thinking she could stay over until Tuesday. Please, Rachel?"
She doesn't even hesitate. "No. Absolutely not."
Danny's brows furrow as he huffs back at the speaker. "No? Why not? You know, Rachel, I let you have her on my days several times. When you HAD to go see Stan's parents—"
"That was a family emergency, Daniel."
"—and when you absolutely NEEDED to take her to the carnival, when I was more than willing to take her myself. When you would have DIED if you hadn't taken her to see StepStan's tennis match in Honolulu. Need I go on, sweetheart?" His voice is hard, cold, and as sharp as a sword. When matters involved his daughter, there's no playing around. "You know, she's my daughter too."
The other side of the line goes silent for several minutes until Rachel finally manages to squeak a few words out in the form of an impish reply. "The answer remains the same."
The detective throws his hands up and lets his jaw hang loose. "I can't believe you. Just... You are completely-"
The man pauses as the gates swing open, letting his smiling daughter through. Danny swallows the frustrated ex-husband side of himself with a heartless goodbye to the speaker and grins at Grace, his sweet fatherly side emerging from where it had been buried since last weekend.
"Hey hey Monkey!" he says as he squats down to embrace her. "Listen, Danno is so sorry he's late, but he was out catching bad guys again. Gotta keep this island safe, right?"
"That's okay," the young girl smiles. "StepStan was teaching me how to play Wii Boxing before he left for his trip!"
Danny frowns and gulps, saliva crashing down on the heart he's sure just cracked. "You know, that's not as exciting as the real thing, or better yet, real-life football."
His daughter's face lights up a bit more. "Oh I know that too! That's what you can teach me, daddy!"
Danno looks at Grace for a few seconds, somewhat surprised at her reply. He then beams at her and hands over a huge hug once more. "That'll be our project for this weekend then. How 'bout that?"
Gracie nods with a grin that reaches from one ear to the other. Her father stands back up and grabs the backpack that sits on her shoulders.
"Whoa!" he exclaims as he lifts it up. "What do you have in here, rocks and dumbbells? Schools around here must have a different curriculum than back in Jersey."
Grace laughs at Danny's exaggerated motions, watching him stumble towards the back of his car and use both hands to carry the bag. Once he finally gets there, he drops it into the trunk and wipes the invisible sweat from his forehead. "Phew! Alright Monkey, jump in. You're riding in here tonight." As his daughter moves forward to actually do so, Danny takes her hand and closes the trunk, bringing her to the back seat of the car. "Just kidding, you wouldn't want to do that. Or would you? No, you definitely wouldn't."
With one last glare at the front door of his ex-wife's house, the detective gets into the driver's seat of his car. A minute or two later, he's driving away, his daughter in the seat behind him explaining her activities at school that day in great detail.
The two drive around Hawaii for nearly ten minutes, deep in conversation, only to be interrupted by an evil ringtone coming from Danny's mobile phone. The detective ignores the call, pressing the "no" button with quick reflexes. Not even a minute later is the same song reaching their ears, and the ex-husband rejects the call again. The next thirty seconds brings a similar event, and Danny finally grabs the phone and forces it to his ear with great speed.
"Yes, dear? What can I help you with this time?"
"Shh! Danny, Danny, I need help. Someone is in the house!"
"Are you - Why are you calling me? Why don't you get the fabulous StepStan to help you?"
"He's gone, Daniel!" Rachel snaps in a hushed tone. "Please, help me! It kills me to ask you as much as you hate hearing this but Danny, they have guns! I wouldn't be asking you if I didn't fear for my life!"
Danny is silent for a few seconds, and then he becomes serious, Detective Williams magically appearing on the scene. "Okay, okay. Where are you and how many people are there?"
"I-I'm in my closet, a-and there's at least two or three of them. I went upstairs after you left to take a shower and I forgot something downstairs, so I started walking down again and saw two of them in the kitchen going through the drawers and cabinets."
"Okay, we're coming back. Rachel, keep calm and keep quiet. We'll be there soon."
The blond man exits the call with his ex and turns to his daughter, who is getting ready to ask a question.
"Danno, what's going on?"
"Monkey, your mom needs a little bit of help. I'm going back to help her right now," he explains as he turns the car around. Gracie nods, and her father dials another number on his phone.
"'Sup Danno?" comes a voice on the other side of the call. "Calling so that your daughter and I can whoop your butt in Monopoly again?"
"I wish, Steve," Detective Williams says with a fake smile. "Listen, Steve, my ex is in a bit of trouble. She says there are armed men in her house, rifling through their stuff. I'm on my way back there now, and I should be there in about eight minutes, but I have Grace with me. Do you think you could call Kono to come watch her for a few minutes, and Chin Ho for back-up?"
"Daddy!"
"Sure Danny. We'll all be there as soon as we can."
"Okay, thanks."
"Go book 'em, Danno," Steve says on the other side of the line, his smile almost audible. Williams closes the call and steps on the gas pedal, speeding towards the ex in distress.
A dozen minutes pass by, and Danny is strapping on the bulletproof vest that sits next to Grace's backpack in his trunk. He then begins slinking towards the closed iron gate, puts in the passcode (his daughter's birthday, as it always had been), and continues on down the stone path. After being told that Kono was on her way (in a police car with the sirens screaming, too), he told his daughter to get down and prayed that she would stay safe. But now he's here, and as he nears an ajar window, the detective hears slamming and banging inside. For a moment, the man finds himself hoping Rachel is still hiding in her closet, but shakes the thought from his mind as he looks into the square above him, tightening his grip around the gun in his hands.
The cop sees two men, dressed in all black, jumping around the living room anxiously, going through every drawer and looking under every piece of furniture. Danny ducks down again and moves to another window closer to the door. He peeks in, but doesn't see another robber. He thinks about his next move attentively before finally taking a deep breath and returning to his first spot.
"Okay, Danny," the detective says somewhat weakly, "three… two… one."
Once the countdown is over, it's a not-so-happy new year for the men inside. Within seconds, they each have a round of bullets fired at them before they know what hit them. The shorter of the two gets hit right in the chest, while the taller robber is clipped in the neck. Either way, both of the men fall down, and Danny rushes through the front door and up the stairs.
"This house is so freaking big, and now it's coming back to haunt them," the cop mutters as he navigates around the upper level, looking for the master bedroom where Rachel is hiding and hoping that the other robber won't find him soon. After maneuvering through the maze for several minutes, Daniel finally finds the bedroom and not the armed man waiting to destroy him.
"Oh Danny, you're okay!" his ex-wife sighs in relief. "I thought those shots had been at you."
"Luckily not, though you probably would have enjoyed that," he replies angrily, but then composes himself. "Two of them are down, for now, and I've got reinforcements on the way. I made sure one of them would be watching Grace. Now, you need to stay here until I come back to tell you otherwise, understand?"
"I was married to a cop at one time, remember?"
Danny cracks a small smile. "Right, right, we've been through this once before."
His ex-wife nods and shrinks into the closet once more, leaving Danny to tiptoe out of the room and down the hall. He stalks down the stairs again and checks on the men to make sure they're still out. Once the cop is satisfied, he moves into the kitchen and afterwards, peers into the dining room. Detective Williams swallows as he strains to see through the darkness of the room, but manages to make out a table, several chairs, a piano, and a mysterious figure behind it. Danno takes a step into the room with his index finger on the trigger of his gun.
Before he can take a shot, the looming shadow takes one at him, and the detective barely manages to dodge it. The robber isn't done yet however, and makes a punch directed at Danny, who ducks and grabs the man's wrist to disarm him. He drops the shotgun and gives his reply in the form of a punch to Danno's stomach. For a moment, the air is knocked out of him and he stumbles backward. The cop quickly regains his balance and shoots his adversary in the chest several times.
As the man falls to the ground, Danny works on catching his breath. His head hurts, his stomach aches, and hey, what's that sharp new pain in his left arm? Ow, that really hurts, so much so that he has to drop his gun and slap a hand onto the wound. Danno swirls around just in time to see the tall man with blood oozing from his neck holding a gun at him, and just in time to see said man pulling the trigger.
There's a sharp crack and now he's falling backwards, hitting the wall with an obnoxious thud and a cry of pain. The next second the same sounds are heard across the room, and the robber is the one falling to the ground. Danny groans and opens an eye to see Rachel standing over the enemy's body with a baseball bat, breathing heavily.
"I guess you were married to a cop, huh?" he smiles as his ex drops the bat and rushes towards him. As if on cue, Commander McGarrett and Chin Ho Kelly are running through the sliding glass door at their side, equipped with guns, bulletproof vests, and angry expressions on their faces. When they see Detective Williams on the floor with blood leaking from his arm and a hole in his vest, Steve wordlessly commands Chin to check the house while he tends to Danny. As he's walking over to his partner, he radios in for an ambulance.
"Daniel, I'm so sorry," Rachel is saying frantically. "I really didn't want you to get hurt, I'm so, so sorry. Danny, are you going to be okay?"
Steve rips the vest off of Williams and applies pressure to the wound in his arm. "He'll be fine; an ambulance is on the way."
Rachel nods and licks her lips nervously, but stays by Danny's side until the ambulance finally gets there.
Half an hour later, Danny is sitting on the end of the red ambulance, getting the bullet removed from his arm. The second shell didn't pierce his vest and only knocked the wind out of him, but possibly bruised a few of his ribs. Either way, it was definitely going to hurt in the morning.
Uniformed cops and marked police cars are everywhere, and yellow tape is marking off the area. With a search of the house, another robber was found, and Chin booked him (even though that was really Danny's thing). After a while, Rachel walks out of the gate and is tackled by her daughter. The two talk for a few minutes before going to check on the third member of their used-to-be family.
"How's the arm?" Rachel asks with a frown. "I'm terribly sorry."
"It's fine," Danny manages to smile. "Besides, you abided to the first rule: if you get someone shot, you apologize."
His ex-wife snickers and their daughter looks up at her. "Danno will be okay; he just caught the bad guys! He always does, you know."
After a short pause, Rachel laughs again. "Yes, yes he does." She then sends Grace over to Kono after giving her another kiss.
"Listen, Daniel," she begins. "I really can't thank you enough. I mean—"
"Hey, no, wait a second," Danny retorts. "Let's get one thing straight: I did this for my daughter, not for you. I just don't want a couple of thugs messing up my Monkey's house."
Rachel's brows furrow in frustration, and right before she starts to chew him out, she stops herself. "Right, right. Thanks anyway."
"…I'm glad you didn't get hurt either, Rachel."
His ex looks back up, completely surprised. "Um, right, thanks. Thanks again." She turns around to walk back to her daughter, but stops halfway. "Hey, Danny."
"Huh—yeah?"
"I'll talk to Stanley about letting you have Gracie until Tuesday," Rachel smiles, and then turns around and prances off, leaving Detective Williams beaming.
In the beginning, they'd loved each other. In the middle, they'd learned to hate each other. At the end of the hectic evening, Danny and Rachel went to bed thinking about what used to be.