Disclaimer: The recognizable characters found below, belong to CBS and its holding companies. This work of fiction was created for no money, nor was it expected. Just having a little fun.
Chin hurried down the stairs of the 'Iolani Palace. Danny was supposed to be picking him up so that they could go try to get some more solid information on the remaining Wickard brother. He was already steeling himself for the full-blown tornado of words that would swirl out of the New Jersey native's mouth at being called in on his day off. As he exited through the main doors, a horn sounded from the circular drive to the left of the entrance. He saw Danny's hand extend from the driver's window of a classy white vintage Mustang.
The heavy grey storm clouds in the west that had been threatening to break all morning were rolling closer and closer to the island. He knew that soon they would have what meteorologists had taken to calling the storm of the decade descending down upon them. They had already called in the tsunami relief teams and the Coast Guard, prepping them to deal with the tourists and native islanders alike.
"Hey, brah . . ." Chin started sliding into the unfamiliar car. He was going to make a comment on their new, yet old form of transportation. But as he looked over at the mainlander, he snapped his jaw closed. Danny was not only wearing a bright blue aloha shirt covered from collar to hem in a white hibiscus pattern, the not-so-subtle flowers growing in size the further down the shirt they went, but he was also sporting a pair of white shorts.
Short, white shorts.
They stopped mid-thigh allowing the golden hairs on Danny's muscular legs to catch the pre-storm sunlight streaming in the side window. He allowed his eyes to travel down the length of legs until they landed on the pair of white slip-on sneakers that ensconced his feet. The brilliant red stripe that encircled the soles of the shoes, stood out like the ruby red side of a mango.
A throat clearing sound filled the car and Chin had to rip his eyes back up to look at his friend.
"Steve suggested that we stop and see the CEO of Wickard, Ash, Coffman, &King. He said that whatever Eastman Wickard was up to before his premature demise should still be squirreled somewhere in their files. He also wants us to see if there are any issues with the current employees." Danny said solicitously, quirking an eyebrow at the Hawaiian as he put the car into gear.
Chin stared at the man behind the wheel. Danny must have cut his hair sometime over the past couple of days, Chin thought, wrinkling his forehead. It seemed strange to him that he hadn't noticed before now, though. The bright blonde streaks that were usually slicked back were gone, leaving the soft darker blonde, nearly curly hair clipped close to his scalp. It wasn't a bad look, Chin decided, just unexpected.
He had seen Danny without a tie, several times before, but Danny without a tie and in an aloha shirt and shorts had definitely never cropped up before, not even in all the team's undercover work. Throw in the new grooming measures and the blonde looked like a whole new man. Chin found himself silently wishing that he could have seen the reaction on Steve's face when he first saw Danny this morning.
"Kono was sent ahead to interview the workers of the businesses that share the block with Wickard, Ash, Coffman, &King. Steve said both he and Kono would meet up with us after and then we would all head down to Waikiki to meet up with Kamekona, if we don't find what we're looking for." Danny passed on the updates that Steve had given him in an amenable tone.
The Wickard case was becoming a thorn in the side of 5-0. Eastman and Weston Wickard apparently were the largest suppliers of opium in the Pacific. Chin couldn't help feeling, even now, that this case was cursed. Ever since the team had been sucked into the whirlwind of the Wickard's illicit drug running, curious occurrences were twisting faster and faster around them.
It came to a head yesterday when Eastman Wickard met his fate at the hands of one Danny Williams, crack shot. He was outrunning the team down an alley behind the Guild Candy factory when Danny took aim and shot through a rope holding back what had to be enough boards and bricks to build an entire house. The materials, which were to repair the factory's sign, rained off the roof, burying Eastman in the rubble. By the time they all had skidded to a halt next to the mess, all that was visible was beneath the cloud of red dust and two-by-four's were Eastman's shoes.
Chin grasp the door handle as Danny whipped the vintage car through traffic. He closed his eyes and counted to ten, but when he opened them he was still in the car with a strangely polite and island-acclimated Danny as they sped west down Melemele Avenue. The clouds had taken on an ominous color as they roiled ever closer. Yep, he thought, staring out at the blur of colorful scenery whipping by the window, cursed.
Danny and Chin came out of the Wickard building to find a man in a not-quite-navy sports coat leaning against the trunk of their car while sipping coffee from a paper cup. Chin steeled himself for the off-chance that there would be an altercation of some sort. It was too tall to be the living Wickard brother and besides this man had nearly black hair. Weston's hair was more of the ginger variety. Nonetheless, Chin allowed his step to falter lightly, to give him time to circle around the Mustang if need be. He watched perplexedly as Danny, unfazed, just walked on ahead and shook the man's hand before filling him on their discoveries from inside. Chin could practically feel his mind melting at the realization that the man in front of him was Steve.
The blighted feeling this case had wrought upon him had diminished a little with the information they had learned inside, but it was growing again, rapidly, as he caught a good look at his boss. The fact that Steve was dressed more like Danny than Danny currently was was moderately off-putting to say the least. But it wasn't until he rounded the side of the Mustang to find out that Steve was dressed in slacks that matched his jacket and that a glossy black tie hung from the collar of a crisp, white dress shirt that he had to swallow down a touch of rising panic. Chin looked down to try and regain some of his composure, but all that brought him was an eyeful of his boss' enormous feet. They were currently encased in black wingtips, so highly polished that Chin could nearly make out his own reflection in them.
Chin opened one of the file folders that he had been carrying as if he was searching for some random fact that would break the case, but in reality it was to allow his racing mind time to process what his eyes were seeing. His boss was his boss, but he wasn't. It was if he was experiencing déjà vu for a time that he had never lived through before. He could feel his breakfast starting to spin around his stomach. He felt his muscles start to weaken. It was as if he was a rag doll or a scarecrow or something like that and all his stuffing's was coming loose.
"So, Chin. Danno, sorry to call you in this morning. Have either of you heard from Kono yet?" Steve asked Danny, gesturing broadly with his coffee. "I was thinking that we could journey on together from here. United front and all. Show Weston Wickard how the squeaky wheel gets the grease. And maybe this time we'll let a Wickard live. Show him that 5-0 has a heart. "
"Not yet, Steve. But then I only dropped him off before I picked up Chin." Danny replied.
Chin was glad that the question had been posed to Danny and not himself, because he couldn't stop staring at the former naval officer's outfit right then. Steve wasn't prone to talk or dress all that formally, even when he was representing the team at court. Ah, Chin thought wildly, I bet he just got done testifying at one of their many cases being prepped for court. But wait, no. They didn't have anything scheduled to be before a judge for another week and a half. He looked up at the two men in front of him and soon found that he could tear his gaze away from Steve's peculiar dress sense, if only to take in the outlandish, yet amazing coif atop his head.
It seemed that whatever hair Danny had lost this week, Steve had grown. In spades. Sure it was still short and tidy in the back, but now Steve was sporting some short but classy sideburns and an amazing length of hair rose up above his brow. It waved high out above his forehead before most of it swooped back to mingle with the rest of hair at the crown. What little bit that didn't swoop, flopped lightly to the side. It looked fairly pompadour-ish, if he had to label it. But not quite. It was like nothing Chin had ever seen before.
" . . . and there were several workers all in blue. They were running all over the place so fast. I tell you Steve, it's like they'd grown wings and were flying –"
"Sorry, hold that thought, Danno. Chin? You okay, hoaaloha?"Chin could hear the concern peppering every word as he watched Steve's lips form them. "Chin? Do you need to go back to headquarters? I can get Kono to drive you if the big pooluka ever gets here. It's pilikia no.
"Wha- . . .ah, no, Steve. I mean. I'm good. Really." Chin stumbled over his words as the weighted and worried glances of both his boss and his teammate seemed to bore right into him. "I was just thinking about . . . about how Weston Wickard was notably absent from the office today."
"Steve, here comes Kono." Danny inadvertently saved Chin from having to explain as he nodded towards the street.
"You sure, Chin?" Steve asked looking away from the man in front of him to glance down the road to where Danny had indicated.
"Yeah, Steve, I'm good." He glanced down the street, too, but couldn't pick Kono out of the bustling sidewalk.
The pedestrians crowded the cement walkway between the street and the storefronts. Mothers hurried along their petulant children. Teens, free from the bonds of school for the summer, leaned against cars and street signs alike. Men in suits and carrying briefcases attempted to make it to their destinations with as little drag as possible. Several workers from Wickard's scurried about in their blue jumpsuits, working their way through the crowds, on their way to work, no doubt.
Chin raised himself to his full height, but couldn't catch sight of his cousin anywhere.
"Kono, did you learn anything new about how the neighborhood saw Wickard and Co.? Has anyone seen Weston Wickard?" Chin was startled to hear Steve addressing someone off to his left. But when he turned and expected to see sparkling smile of his cousin, he felt the air rush out of his body. That was no petite Hawaiian woman with a notoriously vicious roundhouse kick standing next to their dapper boss. No, the closest woman was over seventy yards away, give or take a couple of yards, Chin thought with a muddied brain.
"No one saw a thing, bruddah. Seems like da whole block went blind overnight. They all be lolo, I say." Chin watched the bulky Hawaiian man on the other side of Danny tug down his suit jacket. The buttons were straining to cover the girth of the broad man. Chin watched him with what had to be the widest eyes ever as 'Kono' puffed out his chest, causing his head to tip back on his sturdy neck. "Sorry, Steve. The only one to say anything was ol' man Baum that runs the café on the corner. Said they gave him the best poppy seed muffins to sell."
Chin continued to stare at the 'obviously-not-Kono' Kono and was shocked when the big man turned and gave him a toothy grin and bumped his shoulder with his fist.
"Hey, brah, lookin' a little ma'i."
Chin just nodded slightly to appease the man and watched as he pushed the loose waves of hair back off his forehead. The Hawaiian's hair and his round face reminded Chin of the big lazy cat that used to shed all over his Aunty Malina's sofa.
"Well, we can guess why everyone is blind to the Wickard way if they all eat at that café." Steve answered with a grim look stealing over his solid features; he ignored the exchange between his men.
"Guess we're off to see the Wizard of Waikiki, huh, Steve?" Danny asked, just as seriously, his eyes glinting with a bit of excitement. Chin thought that it looked a bit like hero worship for their boss, which would be just one more thing that once would have been out of the realm of possibilities. He wasn't so sure anymore.
"Right, Danno. Kono, you can ride with me and get on the horn to dispatch. Get HPD over to that café to round up those muffins. Danno and Chin? We'll meet you two at the Emerald Pier. Kamekona has to know someone that will help us find Wickard."
"Chin, are you really okay? Steve won't mind if I drop you off at the Palace."
Chin could hear the sympathy in Danny's voice as he felt his body slide across the slick seat of the sports car yet again. The seat belt was original, so there was no shoulder strap to keep him upright. It felt as though he was on a carnival ride that wouldn't quit. They passed the sign for the Emerald Pier and Danny slowed to turn toward the parking area behind Kamekona's Shave Ice stand.
He couldn't make his mind and his heart come to terms with what was once his 'ohana. Sure, both dapper Steve and surfer Danny had treated him kindly, but Chin knew deep down that they weren't real members of the task force. And he couldn't even begin to think about Kono. What the hell was he going to tell his Aunty?
"I'm fine, um, Danny. Must have had a bad egg for breakfast or something. I'll be okay." Even my own voice sounds wrong, Chin thought, swallowing down dread. Fat raindrops started to pelt down on the windshield. It looks like the meteorologist were right, if the black storm clouds circling overhead were any indication to the severity of the impending storm.
"We'll be done here soon, once Kamekona gives us the information. Then we can put this case to bed and you can follow it." Danny said, glancing over at Chin with a soft smile.
Chin gave this Danny as crooked smile in return, or maybe it was a grimace, he couldn't be sure. He then used the natural momentum of the turning car and the slick seats to look into the side mirror on the passenger side of the car.
Holy Fuck!
That was his last thought as the car started to spin wildly over the curb. They were heading straight towards the puppet theater that was set up next to the stand. He braced his arms and legs for impact. He heard the splintering of wood and saw the green velvet curtain cover the windshield before he closed his eyes tightly. And then . . . nothing.
"Officer Kelly?"
"Chin Ho Kelly?"
"Chin, can you hear me?"
The voices seemed to come at him from all directions, but he was powerless to answer them. He couldn't even move his arms or his legs to try and free himself from whatever it was that was pinning him.
"Because that's how it's always been." Chin heard a deep voice tinged with exasperation mutter loudly. Yet, it sounded as if whoever was talking was on stage at the Shell, amplified and hollow.
"But it doesn't make any sense, if you really think about it." A slightly higher, more staccato voice replied.
"Really, what doesn't make sense? I don't see why you're having issues with this, I really don't."
Chin could hear the two men from somewhere nearby. His body felt weighted, as though his muscles had been anchored with a million little fishing sinkers. Odd, he thought blurrily while lightly tensing his extremities, nothing suggested any kind of trauma or pain, for that matter, but he still couldn't move. The only pain his body admitted to was a light throbbing behind his eyes and that was it, every other inch from his toes to his torso felt normal. Not exactly movable, but normal in that there was a distinct lack of discomfort.
"Oh, come on, really? Okay, let me lay it out for you, in small words so you're explosion-addled brain can comprehend. The Army wears green or tan, as do the Marines. This, I assume, and I believe I am correct in my assumption, aids them to blend into their surroundings." Chin could hear the put-upon edge to the rapid-fire utterance coming from somewhere near his feet. He finally had a tentative hold on his equilibrium, enough so he could grasp that he was lying down and from the feel of it, he was in a bed.
"Okay." The first man sighed as if it was always being forced to agree with whatever the other said.
"Thank you. Now, the Air Force uniform is blue, which matches the sky. Again, fitting the previous theory. A theory that is quickly going from hypothesis to fact, don't you agree? Blue sky, blue uniform. "
Chin heard a baritone 'hmm' before it was swallowed up by a feminine chuckle that came from somewhere next to his right ear.
"So why, I ask you. Why the hell does the Navy wear white? That is just about the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. If we were operating on the previous assumption, shouldn't the Navy uniforms be blue as well?"
"My uniform is blue and –"
"That's your dress uniform, jackhole, even I know that. But when you were on your subm-"
"Carrier. I was on an air-craft carrier." Chin could feel himself empathizing with the tired strain running through the apparent naval man's voice. He was growing weary of the conversation, too. He wanted to open his eyes, but whoever injected those little leaden balls into his body must have somehow managed to also glue his eyelids shut.
"Fine. Carrier, submarine, whatever. Not really relevant. I'm just saying that the fact that the United State Navy kinda dropped the ball when they put you lot in white. It's absurd."
"Maybe . . ." The melodious feminine voice started, lightened with what sounded to Chin like barely contained laughter. "Maybe it's so if the boat . . . or carrier . . . sorry, sinks, they can distinguish the surviving sailors in white from the blue waves.
"You are so not helping." grumbled the sailor. Chin felt his lucidity slipping away as laughter swirled around him.
"Hey. Guys. He's waking up." Chin heard a male voice say from somewhere above him. "Hey, Chin. Welcome back."
Chin fought the tiredness that threatened to suck him under again. He cracked his eyes open, only to clench them closed against the brightness of his surroundings. His thought that somehow he hadn't survived the crash and had gone through 'the door', the one rumored to have the blinding white lights and fat little babies flitting around on unbelievably small wings on the other side.
"Move over. He's my cousin, you ass."
"Nice, Kono, you kiss your mother with that mouth? Shove on over, sailor. Let a man in."
"No problem, Danno. I'll just look over your shoulder. ~ Ooof! ~ Watch those elbows."
Chin cracked an eye open to take in the three faces grinning down at him. He was home again. Steve had short hair, Danny was trussed up in a tie, and Kono, beautiful Kono, was just that . . . beautiful; as a girl should be.
"Wha . . . What-" Chin tried to speak, but the words seemed to wilt on the arid plane of his tongue. It wasn't until Kono dropped a few ice chips into his mouth that he was able to form the words. "What happened?"
Kono laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, before reaching up to brush the errant hair off his forehead.
"You were going down the front steps of the Palace to meet Danny at the car. The wind from the storm was really picking up." She started. "Danny saw you go down and came to rescue you."
"Mahalo." Chin whispered hoarsely. "Was . . .was I attacked? Shot?"
"Naw. There wasn't anyone near you at the time. I slammed the car into park and by the time I got there, you were out cold. I called an ambulance and rode with you here. Steve." Danny jerked a thumb over his shoulder at their short haired boss. "Steve's the one that figured out what happened."
"We work out of the Palace. We have nearly as many cameras as trained on it as Hannah Cyrus has on her. It was easy enough to just jog back through the footage and find out what went down." Chin could tell that Steve was trying to downplay his role in the whole thing, but when Danny scoffed loudly in front of him, he scowled at the back of his slicked-back blonde head.
"Okay, first of all. It was a camera that wasn't from the Palace that caught the incident . . . and it's . . . it's Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus, you goof. Not Hannah Cyrus. Jesus, you really don't stay up do you?"
"Let it go, Danny. It's not like I have any reason whatsoever to watch any of that." Steve replied in a slight huff. "Besides, I agreed with you that that Beiber kid is annoying, even if I do like that "Bring the Sexy Back" song."
Chin could see Danny gearing up for a long-winded explanation, so he tried to clear his throat a bit, so he could speak a bit stronger.
"Guys. Guys." He caught Kono's eye and nodded towards the other two.
"Knock it off, you can finish you bitch session at the mall later." Kono said smacking them both lightly in the chest. "What did you want to know, Chin?" She smiled down at her cousin.
"What happened?" He asked again, wearily.
"Oh." Three voices echoed one another guiltily.
"You know that the new Governor is making some changes right." Steve started hesitantly. "Well, it seems as though he has a passion for all things avian."
"Avian? Really, Steve. They're birds. Call 'em birds."
"Danno." Steve's voice held a touch of a threat. "I'll –"
"It was a birdhouse. You got hit in the head by a poorly secured birdhouse, which the Governor had had put up. It came down in the storm and got caught up in a whirlwind." Kono raised her voice slightly to drown out the other two. " Steve found video evidence on the footage from the – What? Why are you laughing? Are you laughing, Chin?"
Chin couldn't help the ridiculous amount of mirth that was spilling from every ounce of his body. Even though his head ached and he felt as if he had been asleep for forty years, he was happy to be here, in this very bed, surrounded by his 'ohana. It may not be home, but it was damn near close enough. He continued smiling as the other three joined in his laughter, which made him start back up at the thought that they had no idea of what they were laughing at.
And he doubted he would ever tell them.
FIN