Many many thanks to all of you who've taken the time to leave a review! It means a great deal to a writer to get feedback. Mahalo!

Again, heartfelt thanks to JoaniexJony for being my beta and for all the sound advice you continue to give!

Hope you enjoy this chapter and if you have moment, please review. I always like to hear your thoughts. Thank you for reading!

Chapter Three

He wasn't sure what woke him up, the aching pain in his head or the soft rustling at his side. It was a little disconcerting because he didn't remember going to sleep. He didn't remember tucking Grace into bed or reading her a bedtime story. He knew he needed to get up to check on her, but was filled with an overwhelming sense of lethargy and even opening his eyes seemed like too daunting a task to attempt. But fatherly duty was instinctual and he opened them anyway. The light made the pain worse and he couldn't hold back a groan as he lowered his eyelids to half mast and tried to make the room come into focus. Danny certainly didn't remember doing anything to deserve the hangover sized headache.

"Danny? Daniel?"

His confusion mounted at the sound of his ex-wife's concerned voice. He felt her hand slide against his palm, her slender fingers curling around his in a comforting squeeze.

"Rachel?" he moaned softly, turning his head towards her voice. He squinted up at her, his blue eyes slits. Something uncomfortable was covering his nose and mouth. He tried to reach up and pull it away.

"Leave that alone, Daniel," Rachel caught his hand, carefully easing it back down to his side. "Do you remember what happened?"

Danny forced his eyes open, taking in his surroundings. A monitor beeped steadily to his left, a wavy line marched across the screen. I.V. bags hung from stands on both sides of his bed, the tubing snaking along the mattress and disappearing under gauze taped to the back of both hands. Something bulky and plastic was clipped to his right index finger. He looked at Rachel in bewilderment. "Why am I in the hospital?" His voice was muffled by what he now guessed to be an oxygen mask.

"You don't remember?" Rachel asked cautiously.

"Rachel, what happened?" Danny felt his heart begin to race in agitation. What had happened to him? Had he been injured on the job? Had he been in an accident? Had Grace been with him? His fingers clamped down around Rachel's. "Did you pick up Grace? Is she okay?" He tried to sit up only to be stopped by a shooting pain through his head. He fell back against the pillows, gasping for breath. The heart monitor bleated an alarm.

"Danno?"

Danny turned his head towards his daughter's scared voice. The panic receded and he reached his hand towards her. "Monkey," he rasped in relief. He slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her towards him. "Are you okay?"

She nodded. She carefully wrapped her arms around his shoulders, resting her cheek on his chest. He traced reassuring circles on her back with one hand.

He closed his eyes against the pounding in his head. He lay that way for several minutes, content with his daughter wrapped safe and sound in his arms. Then, despite the pain, he opened his eyes, pushed the oxygen mask off his face and stared at his ex wife with determination. "Rachel, just tell me what happened."

"We're not exactly sure," she answered, glancing up as the hospital door opened and Dr. Noah Beckham entered, followed closely by Chin Ho Kelly.

Grace pulled herself up, stepping away from the bed and leaning against her mother as Noah approached Danny's bed.

"Good morning, Detective Williams," Noah said cheerily. "Nice to see you back with us. I'm Dr. Beckham. We met briefly last night though you may not remember. I've been treating you since they brought you in."

The doctor held his hand out and Danny reached over and took it. Instead of a long white coat, this doctor wore cargo pants, pockets bulging with various medical paraphernalia, and a navy blue t-shirt.

Danny let his hand drop to his side. "I've been trying to find out exactly why I was brought in," he said. He winced as the pounding in his head intensified. He closed his eyes, lifting his hand to massage his aching brow.

"This kind of short term memory loss is not unusual," Noah reassured him, pulling a penlight out of one of his pants pockets. Efficiently he peeled back each of Danny's eyelids, flashing the light back and forth across the pupils.

Danny stiffened at the examination, biting back a groan so as not to scare Grace. His hands twitched at his sides until the doctor finally seemed satisfied and put the offending penlight away.

Noah snagged a nearby rolling stool with his foot and took a seat next to the bed. "Your brain got knocked around a little bit. How is still a bit of a question," the doctor glanced over at Chin. "On top of that, you were exposed to high levels of carbon monoxide. You spent most of the night inside a hyperbaric oxygen chamber."

Danny stared at his doctor in utter confusion. Nothing was making any sense.

"What's the last thing you do remember, brah?" Chin stepped up to the end of bed.

Danny let his head sink back against the pillow. He closed his eyes and tried to pull up everything that had happened in recent memory. He opened them again. "I was helping Grace with her math homework."

"What day was that?" Chin asked intently.

"Saturday morning," Danny responded, studying Chin's face in return. Chin had a great poker face, but Danny knew him well enough to know his teammate was troubled, worried about something bigger than when Danny's memory gave out. "Why? What day is it today?" He glanced around, something that had been gnawing at the back of his mind for several minutes leapt to the fore. "Where's Steve?" he asked sharply.

"It's Monday morning," Chin answered quietly. "And we don't know where Steve is. He disappeared sometime yesterday. At about the same time I believe you were attacked."

Before the words were even out of Chin's mouth Danny had thrown back the covers, pulling himself to a sitting position and swinging his legs around the side of the bed. IV lines and monitor wires tangled, ensnaring him even as the pain in his head spiked. The world began to go black around the edges and he swayed. He would have pitched forward off the bed had Noah not leapt up and grabbed his shoulders, gently guiding him back against the pillows.

"All right, we'll have none of that, Detective," Noah said sternly as he lifted Danny's legs back onto the bed and covered them with the blankets. He looked over at Chin. "I understand you have questions, but I need to examine my patient, and I need to run some tests. When I'm done, and if he's up to it, you can talk to him. Until then, I'm going to need to ask everyone to leave." Noah peered critically at the monitors, assessing his patient's condition.

"No," Danny protested weakly, the fog only slightly receding. "I need to know what happened to Steve." He forced his eyes open, only to clamp them shut again with a tight groan as the room spun wildly around him. The pain in his head increased. His stomach roiled. He felt the oxygen mask clamped to his face. Cool air swirled under his nose and around his mouth.

"Daddy!" Grace cried out in fear.

Danny moved his head towards his daughter's voice. Keeping his eyes tightly shut, he flopped an arm towards her and tried to reassure her. "I'm okay, babe. I'm okay."

"Just take slow deep breaths, Detective," Noah said. He adjusted the straps of the oxygen mask around Danny's head, securing it in place. He snagged one of Danny's hands, pressing his fingers to the pulse point on his wrist.

Rachel bent down, wrapping her arms around her daughter's shoulders. "Your father's going to be fine, sweetheart. The doctor's taking good care of him. It's time I got you home, so we're going to leave for a while, and we'll come back to visit Danny later. Okay?"

"It's okay Grace," Noah nodded, smiling at the girl across the bed. He winked at her. "Your dad just moved a little too fast, and his body didn't like it. We're just going to have to help him take it a little slower. By the time you come back, I bet he'll be feeling a whole lot better."

Grace nodded, her eyes still wide. She leaned over the bed and carefully kissed her father on the cheek. "I love you Danno," she whispered.

"I love you too, Monkey," Danny said, his breath fogging the oxygen mask. He cracked his eyes open slightly, found her hand and squeezed it tightly. "I'll see you later, okay?"

"We'll be back," Rachel leaned down and smiled at her ex husband. "So you be good and do what the doctor tells you, all right?"

"Thanks Rachel," Danny said, watching as she led his daughter from the room.

He glanced over at Chin, holding up one hand to stop his teammate from leaving. "Chin, wait." He looked at Noah. "I won't try to get up, but I need to know what happened to Steve. And I need to know what happened to me."

"Fine," Noah glanced at his watch. "You have five minutes while I arrange for those tests, but there are rules. You leave that on," the doctor pointed to the oxygen mask. "I don't like the way your SATs dropped earlier. As soon as the nurse comes in here, Mr. Kelly leaves. Got it?"

Danny nodded carefully. His head was still pounding, the room spinning as if he'd had way too much scotch. But he needed to know what Chin knew.

After Noah left, Chin sat down next to Danny's bed. "Like I said, we don't know exactly what happened, brah. Rachel drove back to your place to get Grace's geography book. She found you unconscious on your kitchen floor. You had a head wound and gas was leaking from your oven."

"Rachel found me?" Danny interrupted, arching an eyebrow in surprise.

"She saved your life, brah," Chin nodded. "She pulled you out of that apartment."

"You said I was attacked," Danny prodded, still chewing over the knowledge that he owed his ex-wife his life. "What made you think of that other than the fact that I don't use my stove?"

Chin grinned slightly. "There was blood spatter on your doorframe, and none on your kitchen counter. I think someone hit you outside, and then dragged you inside and turned on the gas."

"And Steve?" Danny asked, his eyes worried.

Chin sighed. "We haven't been able to locate him. He's not answering his cell. His boat's gone. About the same time someone attacked you, two kids out kayaking in Kawela Bay saw a plume of smoke on the horizon."

"Kawela Bay," Danny muttered, his mouth setting in a grim line. He rubbed at his aching forehead, his fingers working at the bandage that covered his head. Something lingered just out of reach. Something important. And then he remembered. His heart sank in his chest. "Steve told me Friday before we left work that he was going out there on Sunday. He invited me along, but I had Grace."

"You've just confirmed our suspicions," Chin nodded in resignation. "I know it's one of Steve's favorite spots, so we've been exploring the possibility that his boat went down out there since last night. Kono is back at HQ working out the ocean currents to see if she can locate the wreckage."

"If Steve went into the water, he could have been swept out to sea," Danny said, his heart sinking.

"Kono's working on that too. Lt. Rollins has offered the help of the Enterprise in the search, and the Coast Guard sent search helicopters out this morning. We're doing everything we can to find him, Danny." Chin tried to reassure him.

"If he's been in the water since yesterday afternoon, what are the chances he's still alive?" Danny asked, fear roiling in his stomach.

"I don't know," Chin answered, his dark eyes grave. "But it's Steve. If anyone can survive this, it's him."

The door opened and curly haired nurse carrying an instrument tray entered the room. "Detective Williams," she said cheerily. "My name's Rayna. I'm your nurse today until the shift change at three. I need to do a vitals check and then Dr. Beckham's ordered some blood draws and an MRI."

Chin lightly touched Danny's ankle as Rayna began attending to her patient. "That's my cue, brah. I'll check back later."

Danny glanced up as Rayna snagged his arm, wrapping a blood pressure cuff around his bicep. "Call me as soon as you know anything."

"You got it, brah." Chin said, nodding at the HPD officer stationed outside as he pulled the door closed behind him.

Danny watched his teammate leave and stared at the door in frustration. His head pounded; his stomach churned; his arms and legs felt like dead weights he was too weak to lift. He felt helpless and he hated it. His body was betraying him when Steve needed him the most. He felt a sharp pinch in his arm and watched as his blood spurted into the small collection vial, swirling all the way to the top. Rayna smiled down at him as she removed the tube and replaced it with a second one. Determination coursed through him. This weakness wouldn't last forever. He would get better. And when he did, he was going to find the son of a bitch who'd done this to him, to Steve, and he was going to make him pay.

H50H50H50H50H50H50H50H50H50

Kono's hands flew over the control table in the main conference room at 5-0 headquarters. An hour earlier she'd sent a search grid to Catherine. She'd spent most of the day running programs to determine the path of the ocean's currents, factoring in variables from the storm. The Enterprise was coordinating the search with the Coast Guard and its infirmary was ready to act as a trauma center if Steve was found closer to the cruiser than shore. Kono wouldn't let herself use the word if, if Steve was found. They had to find him. They just had to.

Tears sprang to Kono's eyes. HQ was quiet. Too quiet. No Steve. No Danny. No arguing. No blustering. She missed it. She missed them. They were her big brothers who could tear each other to shreds but god help anyone else who attempted it. They loved each other like brothers and fought like them too. A tissue was suddenly pressed into her hand. She looked up in surprise. Serious blue eyes stared back at her. She recognized the girl, but couldn't place her name. Kono thought she'd joined the staff several months ago, and despite the drab janitorial outfit, the girl's slender figure had still managed to turn a few heads.

"There's been no word then?" The pretty blonde asked.

Kono shook her head. "No. The Coast Guard just started the grid search for Steve. But the good news is we may have found Steve's boat. Chin is out supervising the recovery of the wreckage. We're hoping it will tell us something about what happened."

"And Detective Williams?" the girl asked worriedly, slightly blushing.

"He's doing okay," Kono smiled. "Thanks for asking, I'm sure he'd appreciate your concern."

"That's good," the girl nodded, letting out a sigh of relief. She ran shaky fingers through her pale hair. "That's good."

"I'm sorry, I feel like I should know your name," Kono apologized with a friendly smile.

"Hayley," she replied shyly, "Hayley Peterson."

"Hayley," Kono groaned good-naturedly. "Of course, I totally knew that."

"I'll say a prayer for Lt. Commander McGarrett," the girl murmured.

"Thanks, that means a lot," Kono reached out and took the girl's hand, squeezing it slightly. "We're going to find him. I just know it."

"I hope so," Hayley nodded, her blue eyes troubled. She pulled her hand away from Kono's and returned to her supply cart, pushing it down the hall.

With a sigh Kono turned her attention back to the control trouble. She was running threat assessments, looking for anyone who might have had an ax to grind with both Steve and Danny. She'd pulled herself and Chin out of the equation since they'd not been targeted. The program had been spitting out possible suspects for the past two hours and she was already developing a migraine. There were too many. But the only way around was through, so one by one she began pulling up each case file. Somewhere in there was the person or persons who'd done this to Steve and Danny, and she was going to find them. She owed her big brothers that much.

H5OH5OH5OH5OH5OH5OH5OH5O

Chin Ho Kelly leaned against the rail of the coastguard cutter and tried desperately to hold on to hope. What was left of Steve's boat had been found not far from where Kono had predicted it would be, about forty feet below the surface of the water, hung up on a sand bar. Large sections of the boat were still intact, and it hadn't taken long to make a positive I.D. What they hadn't found was any sign of Steve's body. Coast Guard helicopters buzzed overhead, systematically searching the surrounding waters, but so far they'd found nothing.

He glanced at his watch. If Steve had survived the explosion, then he had most likely been in the water for nearly twenty hours, and would already be hypothermic. Dehydration wouldn't be far behind. And that was if he managed to keep his head above water. Chin tightened his grip around the hand rail. He looked away from the vast horizon, focusing his eyes instead on where Steve's boat had gone down. The Coast Guard was being tactful, but Chin could see the grim reality in their eyes. They held out little hope for rescue. And though they weren't officially calling the mission one of recovery, they didn't expect to find Steve McGarrett alive, if they found him at all.

A diver broke the surface, pulling off his mouthpiece. "We've got bomb fragments down here," he yelled at Chin. He held up a clear plastic bag filled with something black and twisted. With strong strokes, he cut through the water, handing the bag to another Coast Guard officer.

"Gather everything you can," Chin ordered. "We need to get it back to the lab."

The diver nodded, disappearing back under the surface.

Chin closed his eyes, turned his face to the sky, and prayed to the Ancestors for a miracle.

H5OH5OH5OH5OH5OH5OH5OH5O

Steve drifted in a dark void. He dreamed, his memories stabbing at him like daggers. Explosions and gunfire. Screams and death. Bodies lying strewn on the battlefield like broken dolls: ripped apart, riddled with bullets, gaping wounds oozing blood and bones, revealing muscle and sinew. Their lifeless eyes stared at him in accusation: those he'd killed and those he hadn't been able to save. Grief, anger and fear coiled around his limbs like ropes; they twisted and pulled, bit and pinched, scratched and clawed, merciless and unrelenting; his body was a torment from which there was no escape. All he knew was dark and cold and pain.

"Shhhh…." A soothing voice whispered in his ear.

The bonds began to loosen. Other memories, happier memories, began to edge out the horror and violence. A tender hand caressed his brow. He felt warm breath and soft lips against his cheek.

"Remember," the voice whispered. It was a melodious contralto that Steve would have recognized anywhere.

"Mom?" he moaned, his heart breaking. He opened his eyes to a world of fog and shadows. "Mom, where are you?"

"Remember." Her voice danced on the wind and he followed.

The anger and the fear and grief began to subside and then suddenly he was falling, tumbling down an abyss of sheer light and warmth. He landed on a cushion of soft pillows. He opened his eyes.

His mother gazed down at him with gentle brown eyes and brushed the hair from his forehead with slender fingers.

He remembered. He'd been eight years old and home with the flu.

"Are you warm enough?" she asked, tucking the blanket snugly around his shoulders. She rested the back of her hand against his cheek.

He shivered beneath the blanket but nodded anyway.

"Always my little stoic, aren't you?" she smiled fondly, running her fingers through his hair. "Hold on, I have just the thing." She returned several minutes later with a hot water bottle, tucking it in at his feet. "Is that better?"

Steve nodded sleepily. The shivers were finally receding and drowsiness pulled at him. But when his mother stood up to go, leaning down to gently kiss the top of his head, he reached out from under the covers and snagged her arm.

"Don't go yet," he protested. "Tell me a story."

She sat back down on the edge of the bed. "A story?" she smiled. "Which one should I tell?"

"Tell the story of how I was born," Steve burrowed back under the covers and peered at his mother through half closed eyes.

"Ah, that one," his mother nodded approvingly, "One of my favorites."

Gently stroking his hair as she talked, his mother began. "Well, the story really begins the day Etana appeared. I was twelve weeks pregnant with you and your dad and I had just gotten home from the doctor's. And there he was, this huge black husky sprawled across our front porch. Maybe I should have been a little frightened, but when he looked up at me, his eyes were so gentle, so intelligent, I knew instantly I would never have anything to fear from him. Your dad always claimed he was more wolf than dog, and we never did find out for sure what breed he was, but it was clear from the moment we first set eyes on him that he'd decided we were his home."

She chuckled as she continued to gently card her fingers through Steve's hair. "Your dad tried to run him off, but I swear that dog just stared at him, implacable, immovable as stone. Your daddy had no idea what to do. He'd finally come up against something as stubborn as he was. I named him Etana, which means strong in Hawaiian." She leaned down and gently kissed her son's forehead. "Every day you grew bigger and bigger inside of me. Etana was never that far from me, from us. If I was in the kitchen, he'd curl up just inside the doorway. When I was sitting in the living room, he'd curl up at my feet. And he took to sleeping on the floor at the foot of the bed every night. And every once in a while, he'd walk up to me and rest his muzzle against my swollen belly, as if he was saying hello to you. He liked to play fetch with the neighborhood kids, and I imagined one day, you'd be out in the front yard playing with him too."

Steve's eyes fluttered as sleep strongly beckoned, but he fought it. They were coming up to his favorite part of the story. "Tell me about the day of the storm."

His mother nodded, a wistful smile playing across her face. "I was eight months pregnant with you. Your dad had been called in and it was just me and Etana in the house. No one was expecting the storm. It seemed like it came out of no where. Suddenly the wind was howling and rain was pouring down. The power went out, and then the phones. I was trying to reach the candles when a tree branch crashed through the kitchen window, startling me. I lost my footing and fell off the stool. I was stunned for a moment. I tried to stand up, and then I was doubled over by the most painful cramp. And another and another. I was terrified. I didn't know if you were okay, or if you had been injured by my fall. I cried out, but no one heard me. The pain was so bad I couldn't stand, could barely even crawl. I didn't know what to do."

"What happened next?" Steve whispered, his eyes huge with expectation. He'd heard the story, many times, but he never tired of his mother telling it.

His mother's hand stilled on his head, as caught up in the telling as her son. "The next thing I knew, Etana was licking my face, nuzzling my neck with his nose, as if to say everything was going to be okay, and then he ran outside, into the storm. I found out later that he ran all the way to the neighbor's house. He barked and hurled himself at their front door until they finally opened it. They knew him, of course, everyone in the neighborhood did by that time, and they knew something had to be wrong. They followed him back to the house, and they found me. They took me to the hospital, called your dad, and twelve hours later you were born, and you were perfect. The doctors said if we hadn't gotten to the hospital when we did…" Tears moistened her eyes and she leaned down, wrapping her son in her arms. He squirmed, and gently she released him.

"What happened to Etana?" Steve asked, his eyes again beginning to slip closed.

She returned to gently stroking Steve's hair with her hand. "We never saw him again. When we got home from the hospital, he was gone, as if he'd never been. He saved both our lives that day, and in my heart of hearts, I know that's why he came to us. He was our protector, in our time of need."

Steve dozed off, his mother's soft voice wrapping around him, soothing and comforting. He drifted in and out of memories. Teaching Mary how to surf. His father swinging his mother around in his arms in the kitchen. Dad barbecuing on the back porch as the sun set over the water.

"Steve," his mom said, "It's time for you to wake up."

"Not ready," Steve mumbled, "'M tired."

"I know you are," she said, though this time there was iron in her voice. "But you have to wake up anyway."

Obediently Steve opened his eyes, and as he stared woozily around him, thought he must still be dreaming. The sun was high overhead. Wisps of clouds were all that remained of yesterday's storm. He was gliding through the water, cushioned by the glistening silky bodies of two dolphins. He didn't know where he was, or how long the dolphins had been carrying him that way.

The dolphins came to a stop and Steve felt the chill of the water as their warm bodies broke away from him. There was no land in sight and he found himself wondering if the two creatures had thought him a toy, to be played with as a dog would a ball.

One of the dolphins emitted a series of high pitched clicks and whistles. Steve turned to look at him and his breath caught in his throat, for not ten feet away an empty rowboat rocked gently in the water. Somehow it must have come free of its mooring and drifted out to sea.

Steve stared at the two dolphins in shock. Was it possible? Had these two animals brought him here with a purpose and in so doing, given him a chance at survival?

Steve shook his head. Regardless of how he got here, he needed to get in that boat. With a groan, he lifted his aching arms and pulled off the life preserver, hanging onto the rope with one hand as he slowly swam to the side of the rowboat. Biting his lip, he pitched the life preserver into the boat and gripped the sides with both hands, but his arms were like lead and he didn't have the strength to pull himself up and over. He knocked his forehead against the side of the boat in frustration.

The two dolphins dove under the water. Side by side they swam until they were directly under Steve's feet. They rose to the surface, giving Steve the boost he needed to clamber over the side of the boat. He collapsed to the flooring and flopped onto his back. Panting, he stared up at the blue sky. He knew he needed to get dry, to strip off his wet clothes. But he couldn't move. As the warm sun seeped into his chilled body, exhaustion claimed him and he fell into a deep sleep.

tbc…