"So you're Detective Williams," she says, rising from the chair to reveal she's roughly a couple inches taller than Danny. "Judy McGarrett." She holds her hand out.

Danny takes that hand and the second their palms meet, knows his gut instinct is right on-target. He just doesn't know how. Not that he's psychic or anything, he just…goddammit.

Plasters a smile on his face, meets her eyes. "Pleased to meet you, Mrs. McGarrett," he says, shaking firmly while at the same noting every minute detail about her.

Large hazel eyes, Steve-shaped mouth. Definitely where his partner gets those two features from. Narrow, perfectly-shaped nose. Smallish ears. Hints of gray at her temples…yet another thing Steve inherited from her, obviously. Strong, sure jawline, confident chin. Pretty much like Steve's. Slightly built like Mary Ann, and Danny suddenly realizes Steve's sister's got their mother's nose as he looks beyond to see her standing there appearing more than just a little shell-shocked.

So either she's not buying whatever excuse her mom has given them for bowing out of their lives so unceremoniously, or she's simply not as happy to see the woman as her brother is.

"Please, just call me Judy," snaps him back to looking at the woman in question.

Danny smiles and nods, then looks at his partner. "Need a little help with the food, babe?"

There's the tiniest of pauses that Danny's pretty certain only he's noticed, but then Steve says, "Sure, I'll start the grill, can you get the shrimp and bucket out?" He waves a hand toward the house. "You know where everything is."

Danny nods as Mary Ann moves to stand in front of him. "What, no hug for the sis?"

He gives a genuine grin, always happy to see 'the sis' indeed. His arms go around her, but she feels stiff in them and he whispers into her ear, "What's wrong?"

She shakes her head minutely, and Danny pulls back just enough to see her face, concerned when he notes the sorrow in her eyes. "Not now," she whispers and he nods in acknowledgement.

Great. So Steve's happy as a clam, Judy is sitting back down in the chair and picking up the glass of tea she's obviously been nursing like all is right with the world, and Mary Ann looks like she's either going to have a nervous breakdown or see if she can't rival her brother's penchant for blowing shit up. Not to mention the fact that Danny isn't sure how he's going to get through fondling a couple pounds of shrimp, let alone trying to eat them, the way his stomach's doing flip-flops.

"Okay," he murmurs to Mary as he pulls away from her. "I'd better head in and start on those shrimp or Steve might take to trying to shoot their shells of them himself," he says a little louder for everyone's benefit.

"You don't shell them yet, Danny, and I am not that trigger happy," Steve protests as Danny heads for the patio with his partner in tow.

"Don't you even, McGarrett," Danny jabs back at him. "I've seen your itchy trigger finger in action one too many times to believe it for a second. You're just trying to impress your mother with how dangerous you aren't."

This earns him Aneurism Face, which Danny will take as a minor victory, disappearing into the house to avoid whatever comeback Steve might have planned.

It all seems so normal.

When it's anything but.

He's barely gotten the shrimp out of the refrigerator and fetched the shrimp bucket from a lower cabinet over in the corner of the kitchen when Steve suddenly appears next to him like the goddamn ninja that he is.

"Okay, what's going on?"

Danny puts the bucket down on the counter next to the tub of shrimp. He turns to Steve and looks him right in the eye. "What do you mean?"

Flip-flop. Flippity-flop.

"Danny, you were barely civil to my mother and you and Mary were whispering to each other. What the hell's going on?"

Churn, churn, churn goes Danny's stomach.

"I shook your mother's hand and showed my very good Jersey-bred manners, thank you very much, your sister was saying hello and I am in here getting ready to help you prepare for a barbecue, so why do you think something's going on?"

Steve crowds up into his breathing space, backing him into the counter as he glares right into his eyes. "I know you. Something's wrong."

"You're right!" Danny explodes, shoving past his partner. "I'm about to lose my daughter again!" And no, this wasn't what had been making Danny act the way he was but fuck, that didn't mean it wasn't gnawing at him like flesh-eating bacteria. "Jesus Christ, Steve, I'm sorry, but you fly off to Japan with Joe, you come back here with a dead woman who's no longer dead, and this may be one of the last times I get to be here in your house at all, so excuse the fuck out of me for not bringing off happy like I'm Mickey Motherfucking Mouse in Disneyland, all right? Fuck!"

He looks up to find Steve looking dazed, Mary Ann running in from the lanai and Judy standing just off the patio in the sand looking into the kitchen with great concern.

Steve blinks. "Danny, I—"

"No," Danny seethes because he…he can't right now, he just can't. He points his finger at Steve from a good two feet away, feeling his face grow hot, feeling tears prick at the backs of his eyes, feeling his heart breaking and breaking and his stomach flipping and roiling and fear clenching his heart and his whole world crumbling around him and he just can't. "I'm sorry," is all he can manage to get out of his mouth. He turns on heel and makes for the front door as fast as his legs can carry him.

His shirt sleeve is grabbed by a hand, but it's not the big hand of his partner like he was expecting. He stops and whirls to find it's Mary Ann. And damn if the tears he knows are welling up in his own eyes aren't reflected in hers. "Don't leave," she says…begs…pleads. "Please don't leave me here alone with them."

The request brings him up short.

With them?

"They're your family," he says, disbelief outlining his words. "I shouldn't be here. This reunion isn't for me, Mary."

She swipes at her eyes with one hand even as Danny sees Steve appear in the doorway between the living room and study behind her. "You're part of our family," Mary says quietly. "Steve's and mine. I mean, for God's sake, you're surf buddies."

As much as Danny would, right at this moment, give anything for that to be true for the rest of his days, he simply can't allow himself to have that much optimism. Last time he let himself think so positively about something it blew up in his face courtesy the truth coming out about Rachel's baby.

"I know," he finally says, then takes a deep breath and holds his hands out. She takes them and he squeezes them tightly. He can't explain his blowup, not really. And it's not that he doesn't want his partner full of joy, for God's sake. But he hasn't been dealing with his own emotions, and maybe that's just clouding his judgment about Judy McGarrett, about whatever Mary's motivations are in asking him not to leave. He needs to just deal with his own shit, not cast the pall of his fucked-up life over the house that for the first time in years is seeing a real family reunion like no other.

"I don't want you to go," Mary whispers. "Please. Just stay for dinner?" She turns to look over her shoulder at her brother, their mother a vague shape further beyond, then looks back at Danny. "If not for Steve, then for me."

Damn McGarretts and their goddamn puppy dog eyes, brother and sister alike, Danny thinks. He squeezes her hands again and gives her a small smile. "All right. I'll stay for you, you pain-in-the-ass."

Mary grins, a real one, the first one Danny's seen out of her since he arrived. She hugs him tightly and his eyes meet his partner's over her shoulder.

Steve looks like he's afraid Danny's so brittle he'll break apart in two seconds flat if he steps the wrong way. Shit. Now Danny's gone and made a scene in front of Steve's mother the very first time he's met her, and Steve doesn't know what to do and Mary's looking between them like she knows something they don't and suddenly Danny's regretting agreeing to stay.

But he doesn't go back on his word, so he pulls himself up to his full height and heads straight for Steve, rubbing the back of his neck and then swiping a finger along the side of his nose. "Sorry, man. Didn't mean to unload on you."

Steve exhales like he's just suddenly remembered how to breathe, puts one arm around Danny's shoulder and the other around Mary Ann's and turns to head back toward the kitchen. "I'm glad you're staying."

Danny opens his mouth to try for some good old-fashioned snark about well, someone needs to clean up after Steve attempts to cook, but is cut off by Judy asking uncertainly, "Everything okay?"

"It's all right, Mom," Steve says. "There's just a lot of shit going down."

Judy nods slightly and Danny creepily feels her eyes burning holes into him as the three of them walk into the kitchen, still stuck together like the Three Musketeers or something.

And Danny's starting to be convinced by the looks Mary shoots his way as they get started rinsing the shrimp and Steve goes to grab the steaks from the fridge, that his feeling about something being off isn't just his own clouded judgment. That it isn't just his cynical nature nor his desire to steal Steve's happiness out from under him just because Danny can't seem to catch a break on his own.

Mary wants to tell him something, to the point where the little spitfire was actually begging him not to go.

And when he glances to his left, he sees Judy seated at the kitchen table staring right at him.

Churn, churn, churn.

He's never going to be able to keep the steak or the shrimp down.

Flip-flop.

He just wishes he knew why.