His back was cold.
Back in Hoboken, that wouldn't have been a big deal. New Jersey got cold. He got cold in New Jersey. But the last place Danny remembered being was a warehouse in Hawaii, and it didn't often get cold in Hawaii. That his back should be cold now worried him almost as much as his inability to open his eyes or mouth.
"Detective Williams? Detective, can you hear me?" Someone was speaking to him. The voice made his head throb. His eyelids were still leaden. His back was freezing. Why the hell was he so cold in Hawaii? And why was his head starting to ache so much? "I need you to open your eyes, Detective. Open your eyes."
His eyes still didn't want to open, but his tongue seemed to free up some more as he recognized the rhythmic beeping in the background. "What time is it?"
"So you are awake!" Whoever was speaking sounded way too happy. "Open your eyes and we'll talk some more."
Danny groaned and forced his eyelids to part, only to squeeze them shut as brightness assaulted his eyes. "Those lights necessary?"
"Marla, could you put the lights on their lowest setting? Thanks. Now try and open your eyes, Detective." He cautiously peeled his eyelids apart to see that the room was much darker. His head ached, and he was still freezing, but he could at least see a heavyset man in a lab coat staring down at him now. "Do you know where you are?"
"Yeah, some hospital. What time is it, and why is it so cold?"
"You're in the ER at Honolulu General, and it's shortly before noon. My name is Dr. Hirowa. Can you tell me your full name and the day?"
"My name is Detective Daniel Williams of Five-0 and it's Wednesday the eighteenth of June in the year 2014. Can you please warm it up some in here?"
Dr. Hirowa reached out to feel his forehead and nodded approvingly. "You've cooled down enough. We'll switch off the cooling pad. Marla, could you go-?"
"Yes, Doctor, right away." A woman in pink scrubs slipped through the door as Hirowa pulled on a cord next to Danny's hip.
"Cooling pad?" Danny raised his eyebrows. "Why did I need a cooling pad?"
"You were shut inside a poorly-ventilated warehouse for nearly an hour, and you overheated. How does your head feel?"
"Like a poor golfer teed off my right temple. Is that because of the heat?" Danny winced briefly as he struggled to make sense of what the doctor was saying. He had been locked in a warehouse…he remembered something about a warehouse, going inside, but…
"No, that would be because of the concussion. For all I know, someone could have taken a golf club to your temple. Something sure happened." Hirowa suddenly shone a penlight into Danny's eyes and grimaced as the detective moaned in pain. "You'll have to take it easy for a few days, I'm afraid. They banged you up pretty good."
"Whoa whoa whoa, back it up. I can't just take it easy for a few days, doc! I'm in the middle of a case," he complained as he tried to blink away the spots in front of his eyes.
"I think you mean we're in the middle of a case." The worst of the spots cleared up just in time for Catherine to step into his field of vision. He fleetingly wished for his concussion to sweep him back into unconsciousness when he registered her tight jaw and narrowed eyes. "Don't look so surprised, Williams. You told HPD to call me, remember?"
"What? When did-"
"I'll leave you two for now, but we need to get a CAT scan to make sure there isn't anything too serious."
"Actually, Doc, I…" Hirowa merely smiled and left Danny to deal with Catherine and her ever tightening jaw. "So, I guess Nurse Marla sent you in?"
"She was actually looking for Hu, but she was on the phone and I wanted to ask you what the hell you were doing at that warehouse by yourself."
Right, he'd gone to the warehouse where Chin Ho had been shot. 'Why' was a good question to ask, but his joggled mind wasn't quite sure. Danny closed his eyes and pressed the button to raise his bed as he tried to organize his thoughts. "Well, I got a call from an officer telling me that I needed to get down there and look at some new evidence that had come up, though I guess it probably wasn't really an HPD officer because when I got there-"
"Yeah, according to your call logs you checked your voicemail on your way to the warehouse," Catherine growled, "and you knew I was off work. What's the matter with you?!"
Hey Danny, it's Catherine. I'm officially on leave, so I guess I'll just come to the office and meet you there. BEEP. Danny, it's Catherine again. I'm at the office and you aren't, and it's been almost an hour…just call me when you get this.
He hadn't wanted to call her. He hadn't been ready to tell her about their number one suspect. He still wasn't ready to tell her. She'd freak out when she found out about Steve… "Dammit!" he cursed loudly. His head throbbed at the noise and Catherine's sudden movement.
"Hey, what's-" Danny held up a hand to silence her as he attempted to reign in his emotions.
Steven McGarrett had knocked him unconscious and left him for dead in that godforsaken warehouse, right after their cozy little reunion. He remembered it now, remembered crying with him for several minutes and extracting himself from the SEAL's embrace. Steve had seemed so broken. And then they'd agreed to meet in private later on to discuss things, and then Danny had woken up in the hospital with a concussion and heat stroke. "Damn him," he whispered murderously.
"Damn who?" asked Catherine. Crap, she was still there. This concussion was messing with Danny more than he liked. If Steve had any inkling of moderation, Danny wouldn't have a concussion at all. And he certainly wouldn't have been locked in the warehouse for who knows how long. "Is this about the guy who got away?"
"How do you…you know what, never mind. Yes, it's about the guy who gave me this concussion."
"Do you know who it is? Danny, if you had called me I would have been able to back you up and we'd have both men in custody."
"I do not need a lecture right now. Look, I'm sorry I didn't call you back, alright? I was basically already there when I got your messages and I had so much stuff on my mind that I wasn't thinking straight."
"That much is very obvious." A diminutive officer stepped into the room, her lips pursed in a smirk and her eyes like lasers. Catherine straightened at the sound of her voice, and Danny noticed her jaw tighten even further. "And because of your bumbling, a third person has died in that warehouse over the course of twenty-four hours. I hope you're proud of yourself."
"Detective Williams, meet Detective Hu." Catherine's voice was perfectly level, but Danny recognized the tone as the Naval equivalent of imminent explosion. Steve had used that tone a lot. Apparently the two women had already had a chance to speak before Danny woke up. "She got the call to go to the warehouse and has been with you since then."
"I'll need to file an official report, you see," the detective said smugly. "Why don't you just walk me through everything that happened so I can get to comparing your statement to the scene?"
"A report on what? If anything, I should be interviewing you." Danny smiled. "Any of your findings will end up with me one way or another."
Hu stopped smirking. "I'm the one who's working Homicide here, Williams. You killed a man today."
"So maybe IA should be interviewing me, but I really doubt they will. I'll just have to fill out a couple extra sheets of paper during my report and that'll be that. Homicide doesn't have jurisdiction over Five-0, especially not with this case." He leaned back against his pillows and raised an eyebrow at her. "So, what have you got?"
The expression of dual outrage and confusion that crossed Hu's face told him that she hadn't been around during Five-0's previous incarnation. Her voice rose a few pitches when she spoke, confirming his theory. "There was a double murder in that warehouse yesterday! We should be on that case! I should be on that case!"
"There was only one murder, actually," Catherine put in. Her voice was still scarily calm, and Danny was afraid to find out exactly what had gone down between the two women during his mini-coma. "Captain Kelly is still alive, like we discussed earlier."
Hu snorted. "For now, maybe, but he's not going to live much longer in his condition."
"Hey." Danny no longer needed to ask why Catherine had such a beef with Hu; in fact, he was starting to share that beef. "If you're done praying for the death of my friend, I'd like to ask you again what you got from the scene. Five-0 gets jurisdiction over HPD when it comes to major cases like this. A murder and the attempted murder of an officer puts it firmly in our square. The governor assigned me to this case. Catherine is helping out until I finish building my team."
Hu narrowed her eyes. "I'm going to the commissioner about this. A double murder investigation shouldn't rest on the shoulders of two haoles picked by some idiot assistant of the governor, especially when they aren't even real cops and one of our officers is dying."
"The governor himself put us on this case!" Danny said loudly as heat began to creep up into his neck. He hadn't been this furious at a fellow officer since Kaleo had gotten his former partner killed. "And for your information, I am a detective. I've been a detective at HPD, even!"
"And now you're nothing but a washed up bum from New Jersey who can't even kill a guy without getting a concussion," she hissed. She turned to leave, but Catherine finally spared a glance in her direction that stopped her in her tracks. Danny was surprised it didn't burn holes in her face, too.
"You've forgotten to give Detective Williams back his phone. That's not evidence, let alone evidence that you need concern yourself with."
Hu sneered and pulled the phone from her pocket, tossing it toward the Navy Lieutenant. "I'll be back to get a full report as soon as I talk with the commissioner, so don't get too comfortable."
"No need to worry about that," he muttered as she stormed out of the room. "Boy, she's a piece of work."
"She has her eyes on Kono's job." Catherine collapsed onto the edge of Danny's bed, all traces of imminent explosion gone from her frame. She was still angry, but she also seemed sad, maybe a little scared. Danny wasn't sure what to think of that. "I heard her talking before I came in here. Apparently Kono's not very popular among her fellow officers, and Hu thinks she'll be easy pickings if Chin dies."
"So, what, she wants to be second in command to whoever takes Chin's place?" Danny asked, incredulity seeping into his voice. He couldn't imagine trying to take advantage of someone who'd been through the kind of hell Kono was living in, and he couldn't imagine why Hu was so bitter.
Catherine shook her head. "No, she just wants Kono gone. Thinks she's bad for HPD's image."
Danny glared at the door, feeling as if it had done him harm by letting him inside. "Well, I'm certainly not waiting for her to come back and tell me how bad I am for their image. I don't think even speaking to her captain's gonna put her off trying to scoop this case. I've seen people like this before; she thinks this is her big break into the cop hierarchy, and nothing is going to stop her from trying to crack it."
"Yeah, she seems pretty…enthusiastic," Catherine said. "Speaking of the case, are you ever going to read me in?"
He swallowed but met her stern gaze evenly. "As soon as we're somewhere safe."
She looked at him a moment longer before smiling wanly and standing. "I'll get Dr. Hirowa, then."
Two hours, one CAT scan, and many complaints later, Danny sat in the passenger seat of Catherine's car and rubbed his sore temple as his daughter chastised him. "…all day and night, and you didn't even call me once, Danno! And now it's going to be even longer before you come back?"
"Monkey, I'm sorry, but I'm very busy with this case right now."
"I don't care about Sang Min, Danno, I just want you to take me home." Grace sounded near tears at this point, and was apparently so loud that Catherine could hear her. She gave Danny a sympathetic glance as the light they were currently stopped at turned green. "Please, just tell them you don't want to help anymore and come get me."
He sighed, and the exhalation made his head twinge. "It's not just about Sang Min anymore. I have to do this, but I promise that I'll take another vacation as soon as this case is over and we'll spend the whole thing together, and we'll do whatever you want. I promise, Monkey."
Grace didn't respond for a moment save a loud sniffle. "Okay. I love you, Danno."
"I love you-" Grace cut off the call before he could finish his statement, and he looked at his phone sadly. "More."
"She'll be alright," Catherine said.
"How do you know? I've practically abandoned her, and she's already scared and hurt, and I'm her father, or at least I'm supposed to be."
"Exactly," she responded. "You're her father. She's your daughter. She's got your strength."
He snorted and leaned his head back, trying to tame the dizziness that had plagued him since Catherine started driving. He hoped she was wrong about Grace having his strength, because Danny Williams wasn't particularly strong. Not anymore.
"So where are we going, anyhow?" Catherine asked after several seconds of silence.
"Well, I probably shouldn't be driving my car in this condition, but I do need to grab my go bag." Danny reached into his pants' pocket, only to find them empty. "Hey, did Hu run off with my car keys too? Or did we leave them at the hospital?"
"Oh." Catherine slowed the car down at yet another red light. "Danny, your car wasn't on the scene when HPD arrived. They did, however, find the GPS chip next to the door."
Danny groaned. Steve hadn't changed a bit, always had to drive Danny's car when given even the slightest opportunity. Damn him. "I guess that's how you knew someone else was there."
"Yep. So, should we just head back to headquarters?"
"No." Danny shook his head. "It isn't safe there. Do you still have a house?"
Catherine put the car in gear and sped up once more when the light turned green. "You have a lot of explaining to do when we get there."
"I know." Closing his eyes and leaning his head back, Danny attempted to organize the thoughts that were still trickling back into his conscious.
We need to call for help. Our friends-
No!
No what?
You can't tell anyone about me. Danno, please. Please don't.
Danny had been too optimistic about the return of Steve's memory. He couldn't understand that Danny was Five-0 and wouldn't arrest him, couldn't understand that their friends would do nothing but help him. The SEAL had gone into an all-out panic, swearing to run away if Danny revealed his identity. He had no doubt that if Steve found out that he'd told anyone the whole truth about the warehouse confrontation that he'd disappear again or something equally drastic.
But neither could Danny just pretend that Steve had nothing to do with the case. Kono already knew that he was one of Chin Ho's shooters. It was only a matter of time before someone else within HPD figured it out, too, and then there would be an all-out manhunt for him. And if anyone found out that he'd been hiding Steve's return, he'd be laid up right next to Chin.
"Dammit, Steve," he muttered as the car slowed to a halt once more.
"You need help getting inside?"
"No, I think I'm good." Danny finally opened his eyes, squinting against the harsh sunlight, and fumbled to open the door. When he nearly slid out sideways, Catherine grabbed his arm and held him in the car. The whole scene seemed to tilt before him, and his stomach gurgled dangerously. "Okay, maybe a little help."
"I can't believe I let you talk your doctor into releasing you." Catherine let him go long enough to run around her car and help him stand. "You're a mess, Williams. I should be helping you back to the hospital."
"And then you'd have to help fend off Hu, and neither of us want to deal with that unless I'm quite mistaken." He winced again as the ground tried to tilt even further, but somehow Catherine remained upright in spite of the strange gravitational pull he was sure was being executed. "Besides, if we go back to the hospital I'm not going to be able to explain what happened today. Would you really rather be left in the dark? Because I can arrange for that without the trip back to the hospital."
Catherine just grunted and began walking towards the house, helping him limp along behind. By the time they made it into her living room, Danny's head was throbbing and his eyes were watering, but the Earth's axis seemed to have realigned itself. He stumbled over to her couch and sank onto it, moaning as his back hit the cushions. "This is a really comfortable couch. I don't think I'm ever gonna leave."
"If you don't start talking, you'll find yourself sitting on my front lawn." Catherine sat on the other end of the couch and stared at him expectantly. "Speak, unless you think I need to sweep for bugs or something."
Danny chuckled. "No, I think that'll be saved for the office. Because the office is bugged. And we're being recorded."
"What?!"
"Yeah. That trip to the warehouse was just full of information," he said lightly.
"Who else was there?" Catherine asked loudly, jolting him from his thoughts. "And why do you believe them?"
"I'm not sure who he was," he lied easily. She raised an eyebrow. "He was definitely working for Wo Fat when he showed up there, but I'm not sure what his endgame is. I mean, he helped me out a lot. Told me that Wo Fat had eyes and ears on HQ, told me he wouldn't hurt Grace even if Wo Fat gave him a direct order to."
"And you've chosen to trust the word of someone you admit was working for Wo Fat…?"
Danny took a deep breath and exhaled. "He also shot and killed his partner, Catherine, just to make sure I didn't bite the bullet instead. He's just tangled up in a mess he doesn't want to be in, and he's willing to play a dangerous game to get out of it." Not to mention he's my best friend and partner.
"Wait, you mean you didn't-"
"Kill that guy? Nope." Danny held up his hand to the side of his head like a gun. "He had his gun right here. Right on my temple. My savior also had his gun trained on me, but out of nowhere he turned his gun on his partner and bang. Right through the forehead."
She stared at him with large, confused eyes. "How'd you get the concussion? Why were you locked in that warehouse for so long? If he's on our side, why did he do that to you?"
"We'd arranged for him to rough me up a little and take off, so he could play it off to Wo Fat that he got overpowered and he could continue spying for us. I guess he got a little overenthusiastic."
"You should have called in backup and had him take you straight to Wo Fat!" Catherine shouted. Danny winced again as she leaped to her feet and began to pace, waving her arms like a madwoman. "We could have taken care of that monster once and for all, you idiot!"
"Whoa, easy!" he said loudly. "There's a reason he's spying instead of just leading us straight to Wo Fat."
"It had better be a good one!" Catherine turned to him expectantly, and as he rolled his eyes at her furious expression a glint from across the street caught his eye.
"What the…duck!"
"Huh?" Danny threw himself off the couch and into Catherine, tackling her into the floor and jostling his aching head as the window above them shattered.
A car door slammed and tires screeched before Danny shifted off of Catherine, moaning when the room spun. "Oh, geez, my head…"
"You okay?" she asked quietly.
He didn't answer as his eyes fell on the hole that had just appeared in the wall of her living room.
A/N: Aloha! Thanks so much for all the watches and faves over the past week, my friends! I greatly appreciate it.
Mahalo to Forest Rose for beta reading and to all of ya'll for your continued support! I'll see you next week!