Chapter 1

Pualani

Steve McGarrett had always liked night flights. He'd always felt he thought more clearly in the sky, as though the altitude served as a high point for better mental reception. Somehow he thought more clearly at night—he knew radio waves had greater range at night without interference from solar radiation. If a man-made machine was more sensitive without interference from the sun, he thought, so too was man. He'd stepped outside of Five-0 headquarters into the fragrant O'ahu night and was regarding the night sky in silent perspective when his ruminations were broken by a flustered looking Danny Williams in reluctant pursuit. Perhaps flustered wasn't the right word to describe Danno—he always looked flustered, although Steve knew he wasn't. Highly strung perhaps, victim of a short fuse, but "flustered" suggested too much of a situational attitude. With Danno it was a state of being.

Steve regarded his partner. "No tie?"

Danny dropped the duffel he was carrying and jammed his hands into his pants pockets. "Just following orders, Commander." he said with a defeated look.

"Since when do you follow orders?" Steve feigned disbelief.

"I-since when do I follow orders? When do I follow orders? I'll have you know…"

"I'd follow whatever orders I got if it meant spending a paid week on Kaua'i." Kono shouted from the street. "Come on, there's choke airport traffic tonight."

"Come again?"

"You'll learn it this week Danno." Steve said picking up both duffels. "She means there's a lot of traffic on the freeway tonight."

"You can't just say 'a lot'?"

Steve smiled. He knew Danno wasn't meaning to be argumentative; it was just the way he asked questions about things—his Jersey way. Make fun of it, make observations about it, and compare it to things more familiar, bullshit a little— in the end, whenever Danny pushed his buttons about something like Pidgin English, Steve knew he was really interested.

With the amount of ribbing he got from Danno about every little thing he did, he hoped it was because Danno was interested in him, too.

"Anything we can bring back from Kaua'i, Kono?" Steve asked as they slipped out of the car at Hawaiian Airlines Ticketing.

"Nothing there I can't get here."

"How about a Bubba Burger?"

"Aww shoots Boss why you have to mention that?"

Steve knew he had her. "Just had a feeling. Call me if you can't find the itinerary I e-mailed you. We'll be back at 10 on Friday night."

"Got it. Make it a double. With onion rings." She shot a glance at Danny. "Aloha." She smiled. "And good luck."

"What's she mean 'good luck'?" Danny inquired as they walked into the heavily air conditioned cement block terminal.

"I think she means 'good luck with you' Danno." Steve grinned. "I'm not sure how well this idea is going to work."

"I'm still not sure what this idea is, McGarrett. Organized crime on O'ahu doesn't just take a week's vacation, so I don't see how spending a week on Kaua'i is going to help us catch the bad guys any better."

"Danny it's no different than being a good beat cop in Jersey City. You talk to the people in the neighborhood—you know who you can trust and who you can't. You know who makes trouble, who means trouble, and whose middle name is trouble. To protect and serve, you first have to know. You've kept this place at arms length since you've been here, and I'm seeing if a change of scenery won't change your attitude."

Hawai'i wasn't the only thing Danno kept at arm's length, Steve thought. He'd never been averse to the idea of finding a man attractive, and the Navy SEALS afforded plenty of opportunity for that although it hadn't been the most opportune time or place to act on it. Sure there were plenty of court marshal worthy SEAL-on-SEAL shenanigans he'd witnessed perhaps even been a passive participant in over the years, but it was just boys being boys, he though. Natural. Men just do this kind of thing when they're stuck in squads like this.

It was different with Danno. Steve had been fond of Danno long before he began to think about what he looked like stepping out of a hot shower. Until he'd met Danno, Steve was convinced life was lived in a vacuum. You met people had varying degrees of connections with them some sexual, some affectionate, some familiar, but nobody had ever consumed his thoughts like Danno did. In the service, it had been too easy to focus on the task at hand rather than think about headier things like what he was doing with his life, but he'd been home in Hawai'i long enough now to be surrounded by normal people living normal domestic lives, and it appealed to him more than he'd ever imagined.

"Don't tell me you were trying to sneak through here without giving me a hug, Steven!"

Steve had been busy keying his confirmation code into the purple kiosk to retrieve his boarding pass when he whipped around at the sound of a familiar voice.

"Auntie K!" he exclaimed, embracing the petite middle-aged local woman in a Hawaiian Airlines uniform with a plumeria tucked into her salt and pepper waist-length hair. "How long's it been?"

"Too long." She smiled. "I'm so glad to see you again. Going to Kaua'i tonight?"

"Yes." He paused.

"Auntie K, this is my partner, Detective Danny Williams. Danny, Kalama Hoapili. She and my Mom were coworkers forever."

"Twenty-seven years." Auntie K's smile saddened visibly. "Aloha Danny." She said, with another warm embrace. Danny seemed surprised at the hug for a moment, but then melted into it. Steve warmed, seeing his partner embrace a longtime friend of his mother. He'll eventually see this is how we say hello in these islands. Steve thought to himself.

"Well, Five-0 hotshots, you may have full immunity and means here in Hawai'i, but the skies are federal territory, and I've got some paperwork for you two to fill out to travel with those guns." Auntie said, pushing them toward the ticket counter.

Steve half listened to Auntie K rattle on about which coworkers who knew his family were still around when his thoughts drifted to how long he had known her and all the other coworkers his mother had grown close with over the years. How many times he had visited Mom at work at the airport, and how the ohana at the airline was thick and tight. Mom had never had trouble putting Steve and his sister by themselves on a flight to Lihue or Kahului to visit family. "You're flying with family." She'd always say. "I trust these people with my life, but even more important, I trust them with you, my precious keikis." After she died, they remained as family, even sending care packages when he'd left for the service.

"Better go." Auntie K said, regarding the clock above the ticket counter. It's a light load tonight and they'll button up and get outta here pretty quick. "Here's a better boarding pass than those flimsy paper things you get out of the kiosk." she said with a wink.

"Mahalos, Auntie." Steve said, giving her another quick hug. "I'll give you a call when I'm back in town."

"I'd like to see you both again soon. Aloha Steve, Aloha, Danny."

"She's a doll." Danny beamed as they walked away.

"I love her." Steve grinned at Danny as he quickened his pace toward the security checkpoint. "She's probably as close to Mom as you'll ever meet."

Steve glanced back at the ticket counter before turning the corner toward the TSA checkpoint. Auntie K was standing on the baggage scale having watched them walk away. Even from a distance, Steve could detect a knowing smile on her face. She knew.

"This is not the seat I had before." Danny remarked as they tromped down the jet way to the 717.

"Did you think Auntie would let us ride in the back if there was a seat open in First Class?" McGarrett chuckled.

"She's some lady." Danny shook his head. "Like your Mom, you say?"

"So am I."

"You? I do not see there being much in the way of similarity between you, and that sweet lady who just upgraded us to First Class. You, my friend, are a world apart. I hardly think she goes around busting down doors and hanging perps off parking garage roofs." Danny opined as he sank into the purple leather recliner in the first row.

"You should see her handle an oversold flight." Steve deadpanned, looking out the window.

Steve looked steadily out the window, answering Danno's gripes in monosyllables as he watched the aircraft push away from the gate, leaving the rest of Hawaiian's 717 and 767 fleet bathed in the gold floodlights of the interisland terminal. Taxi was the usual nighttime swirl of blue lights, and within minutes the plane was soaring over Mamala Bay on a course West North West toward the Garden Isle of Kaua'i.

The moon shone full and bright as Danno dozed and Steve enjoyed a quick glass of POG on the short half hour flight to Lihue. Steve wished it was the right time of year to see whales, which come to the warmer waters of Hawai'i in the winter to calve, and return to the North Pacific to feed during the summer. He'd seen them before in groups of twos and threes, the telltale whitewash of breaking water as they breached giving them away, like tiny footprints in the vast ocean below. The moon illuminated the tops and sides of the big fluffy white clouds suspended over the Pacific, which lies below as a deep navy carpet sparkling in the moonlight gentle swelling across the channel between O'ahu and Kaua'i.

"Look Danny, it's beautiful. Like a painting." Steve reached a hand around Danny's bicep and squeezed, waking him from his light doze and pulling him toward the window to have a look. He felt Danny's hand on his shoulder.

"I can't see through you."

Steve leaned down as Danno leaned over further to share his view. He felt his pulse race as he realized Danno was leaning completely into him, close enough that he could feel his breath on the back of his neck and his left ear.

"I gotta admit," Danno said, resting his chin on the top of the hand steadied on Steve's shoulder, "That is pretty perfect. "Is that Kaua'i up there?"

Steve knew it was which meant the flight would soon be over. So much for spooning.

The plane landed with a bump, and skirted a long row of general aviation hangars on the way to the tiny terminal, bathed in floodlights like the one they had just left.

"Ahh, I recognize that smell." Steve remarked after they disembarked up the jet way, through the air conditioned holding room and out into the open air concourse of Lihue Airport.

"It smells like water damage." Danny remarked.

"Yeah, isn't it wonderful?"

"You've brought me to the sticks Steven," Danny began. "I didn't realize this place could get any more backwater, but it has. There are no lights! No city! Can you even get a pizza on this island? Remind me again, what we are doing here that we couldn't do at home?"

"You just called O'ahu home, Danny." Steve grinned and listened to Danny complain out through the tiny baggage claim and across the street to the rental car hut where a yawning rental agent handed them the keys to a blue Ford Mustang convertible. Steve knew what he was doing here, though he didn't dare reveal the real reason for the trip. His theory about night flights had proven correct—the short flight had brought clarity of mind as he came to the realization that he had come to Kaua'i with a specific mission. He had come to Kaua'i to make Danny Williams fall in love with him.