H-5-0
Chin had left Danny sitting in his car after another useless waste of their time following another useless bogus tip. The HPD hotline had been ringing off the hook since the newspapers had increased their coverage as July rapidly approached, and he remembered what Danny had said about the elusive 'Island Slasher' that had been terrorising the islands for years.
By sensationalising what this knife-wielding maniac had already done was only going to encourage him even more.
With the heaviness in his stomach those words had left him with, Chin revved his bike and started his way back to Iolani Palace. He couldn't help the overwhelming feeling of dread just wondering if and when they'd find the first of the Island Slasher's latest victims... because it was already July, and time had run out.
Watching Chin leave, Danny reached between the seats and pulled out the birthday card Rachel had sent him through the post. It was a generic card, with a palm tree on the front, and a cartoon monkey saying 'Happy Birthday, Daddy' swinging from it. Try as he might, he just couldn't bring himself to smile, even with his little girl's card in his hand.
Inside, Rachel had written a short, curt message of a simple birthday greeting, and had left a space for Grace to sign her name. He traced his finger over the childish scrawl, followed the careful way she'd looped the G to the R, and sighed shakily. There was one 'kiss', right next to the E.
And that was it. No other message, no usual hand drawn birthday picture, no 'I love you, Danno'... Nothing.
He briefly thought about his life only a year ago, when he'd actually thought he was happy, and wondered how in the last twelve months things could have changed so drastically. His brother, Matt, had walked out of his life. Kono had been suspended. Five-O had been shut down. Steve had been framed for the murder of both Governor Pat Jameson and Laura Hills, and Danny had to choose between staying behind to fight for his partner's innocence and leaving with Rachel and Grace for New Jersey. He chose to stay thinking that Rachel would maybe wait for him, understand that Steve, his friends, needed him, and he just couldn't abandon them to their fate without doing something to help them. But she didn't, and he missed his only chance to become a family again.
Add on top of all that nearly dying by Sarin poisoning, and losing yet another apartment... finding out that he wasn't going to be a father again... "Sorry, Daniel, The baby's not yours, it's Stan's. I got the dates mixed up. I'm further along than I thought, and Stan and I are going to try and make it work for the baby's sake."
Helping Rachel when she went into labour with baby Charlie was the hardest thing he'd ever done. Being there, when the baby that he'd wanted so much to be his came into the world, tore a gaping hole in his soul, and only served to bring home everything that Danny had lost all over again.
He held the card in his fingers, trying to stop them shaking. Danny couldn't blame his daughter for not wanting to see him, even on his birthday. Not after...
Swiping at his eyes, he viciously bit his lips together and forced himself to breathe through his nose slowly as the argument he and Rachel had had filled his head in every painful detail...
"Rachel, please," Danny said holding his hands up. "Calm down."
"Don't you tell me to calm down, Daniel" she screamed at him. Two nurses and a whole family visiting a patient turned around and stared at them. Danny quickly offered an apology and quietly ushered his estranged wife into the nearest empty room. He'd come to the hospital by to check on Stan, and again to apologise for shooting him, when he was accosted in the corridor by the elevators, and the look on Rachel's face nearly had him running for the hills.
"Because of you, my husband is in the hospital with a gunshot wound, and our daughter is scared to death of stepping foot outside her home!"
Oh God, his baby... Danny's hand flew to his mouth at the thought of Grace traumatised after her ordeal at the hands of Peterson, and a wave of guilt crushed his heart.
"Maybe if I came by-"
"No!" Rachel snapped harshly, her eyes cold and dark. "Shut up!" She scrubbed a hand through her hair and ground her teeth. "You know what the worst part of all this is, Daniel?"
"Rachel, I'm sorry, but-"
"But what? What on Earth can you say to make any of this right?" she yelled back at him. "Do you know what the worst part is? Having our daughter kidnapped and left for dead in a storage locker? Having our lives threatened, mine and Charlie's? Or you shooting my husband?"
Danny couldn't speak. He knew the answer was all of them and more. But he'd had no other choice. Couldn't she see that? He looked at his ex-wife, and could see her visibly shaking apart, and instinctively reached to hold her like he had once done before a lifetime ago, stopping himself just in time.
"All of them, of course, but the worst part is that this will never be over with you, will it?"
"That's not fair," Danny shook his head, his chest seizing when he realised in which direction this was going.
"When will it be fair? When one of us is dead?" Rachel cried, tears spilling now. She sighed shakily. "Grace's picture was in the newspaper. Our names were dragged through the press like we're something we should be discussed after dinner!" And again, Danny cursed reporters for the sleazy, insensitive shits they were. But what could he do? He was a high profile law enforcement officer, a member of the Governor's Elite Task Force. He couldn't stop the news. Rachel paused a moment before asking, "Do you want to know what Grace saw on the internet last night?"
Frowning, Danny stood silently, because Rachel was going to tell him whether he wanted to know or not.
"Someone had sent our daughter a link to a video," she said quietly. "It was sent via a friend's email, so she innocently opened it. It was a recorded image, probably done with a mobile phone, of you shooting her step-father."
"Oh Jesus," Danny gasped, his hands gripping his hair. Oh God... he couldn't think. His baby girl had seen him shoot her Step-Stan? All the colour drained from his face and he felt dizzy and sick. Rachel stared at him.
"I'm suing for full custody, Daniel. I'm going to make sure my daughter is safe, and as soon as it is feasibly possible, we'll be leaving Oahu."
His eyes widened at that, the clipped words delivered so coldly, and he staggered a fraction. She was taking Grace away from him. He began to shake his head, his mouth forming words of protest, but nothing came out.
"Grace doesn't want to see you right now, Daniel," she said a little softer, almost sympathetic but not quite, "She's... afraid of you."
"Please, Rachel, don't... You can't do this," Danny pleaded, eyes beseeching, but he knew he'd already lost. And if Grace was afraid of him...
He curled his hands into fists and stood up straight. He wasn't going to give up fighting for his daughter, but... he would back away if it was what Grace wanted.
"Rachel..."
But she turned her back on him and opened the door, wiping her eyes with shaking fingers. Without looking back, she said clearly, "Do not come by the house, Daniel, and don't visit Stan again. I don't want to see you. My lawyer will be in contact."
And then she was gone, and Danny had lost his daughter, his sole reason for existing on this pineapple infested rock... his sole reason for existing anywhere.
Since then, Danny had tried to keep his head above the depression that was drowning him, but day after day, he sank a little further. His mood at work had affected the team dynamic, and he regretted that deeply because the camaraderie that was once there, so free and easy between them, had been fractured, and even after talking with Steve, he still had moments, when he was sat all alone in his crappy apartment staring at the walls as if they were closing in on him, suffocating him, when his eyes would drift to the framed picture of Grace, sitting on his small bedside table right next to his gun. And he knew it wasn't empty... knew it'd only take one bullet... a split second and then...
But his eyes would move to Grace again, and he'd see her smiling face, and he'd know that he could never hurt her like that. He'd hurt her enough already.
Living with what he'd done was his penance.
He sometimes wondered if he should have told Steve the truth that night, about everything, instead of keeping silent about the facts that Rachel had started proceedings to sue for full custody, that Grace was afraid of him, that he was falling apart, screaming inside, that he really needed someone to hold onto, keep him grounded in this life, because he felt like he was losing himself...
But he'd glossed over only what Steve needed to know and built a wall around himself, created a veneer just thick enough to fool everyone into thinking that he was okay, and kept the broken pieces of his soul firmly locked away inside.
In his life, Danny had always dealt with his own problems, and although he knew Steve, (and Kono and Chin,) meant well and knew they would support him in any way they could, he was already skating that fine line between control and insanity, and he just couldn't deal with the sympathy. Just, no...
He closed the card and carefully put it back in the envelope, tucking it back down the side of his seat out of sight. He was thirty eight today. It wasn't old, but what had he got to show for his thirty eight years? A failed marriage, a daughter who was afraid of him, and a future that was so bleak that he didn't know how he was going to make it to thirty nine. He looked up and saw himself in the rear-view, red rimmed, tired eyes staring back.
"Happy birthday," he murmured to himself, and started the car.
By the time he hit South King Street, he'd managed to compose himself enough to muster up a smile for his favourite surf shop sign holder.
H-5-0
Hacking into Grace Williams' email account had been as easy as pushing an eight inch blade into the soft flesh of a young woman's belly. The resultant fallout had been glorious, and with a new batch of photographs showing a level of despair that just made The Game even more thrilling, the truck had slowly pulled away even before Detective Williams reached his Camaro in the hospital car park.
That day at Queens Medical, a few days after the Detective had gunned down his ex-wife's husband in cold blood, had been a surprising bonus, and the Island Slasher smiled widely, calmly pulled into the flow of traffic on the highway, and headed towards Ala Moana beach, where the first chosen victim was just about to start work.
It was time.
H-5-0
"Yo, boss, Danny's back," Kono whispered loudly as she opened his door. A grin immediately formed on Steve's face and he jumped up, grabbed the small matchbook, and skidded into Danny's office where he and Kono had placed the cake on Danny's desk as soon as Chin had returned.
When Danny finally walked in, the facade that everything was right with his life firmly back in place, his stride faltered when he saw his partner, Chin and Kono standing side by side in front of his office door. Immediately, his eyes narrowed suspiciously and focussed on Steve.
"What have you done?" he asked. Steve sputtered, his face an outraged picture of surprise and annoyance.
"What? Why? Why do you always assume I've done something, Danny?"
"Why? Because you, my insane friend, are crazy." Danny tried to peer into his office, but was blocked by a wall of Kelly-Kalakaua cousins. "Have you blown up my desk? Because you store your must-have Thirty-One Flavours of munitions just about anywhere you can stash them, Steven," he said prodding a finger against Steve's chest.
"No, I have not, and no, I don't!"
"Case and point, SuperSEAL, the mini rocket launcher in the trunk of my car?"
Stuck for an answer, Steve just glared at Danny. Okay, he did have a point. He suddenly smiled hugely, catching Danny off guard.
"What?"
"Happy birthday!" all three of them chorused and stepped aside. Danny stood rooted to the spot and stared at the pineapple on his desk, with the candle steadily dribbling wax.
"Is that a... pineapple?"
"Sure is, buddy," Steve nodded. "Come on, make a wish and blow out your candle!"
Suddenly wishing he was anywhere but there, Danny remembered the card in his car and bit his lip. Steve saw the slight shift in his partner's mood and glanced over at Kono and Chin, wondering if this had been a good idea after all.
"Hey, you okay?" Steve asked softly, blinking when Danny quickly darted forward to the cake.
"I wish this wasn't a pineapple," he nodded and blew.
"Well, your wish came true, because..." Steve handed Danny a knife and urged him to slice into it. "It's a chocolate pineapple!"
A slight smile played on Danny's lips and Steve chalked that up to a small personal victory. He helped dole out the portions of cake to Kono and Chin, and took one for himself, handing Danny a plate and a fork, too.
"Oh God, that's heavenly," Kono sighed around a huge mouthful. "I'm gonna have to hit the gym an extra two sessions to work this off, but who cares?!"
"Yeah, Mrs Ling makes an awesome chocolate cake, huh?" Steve smiled licking the butter cream off his fork. Chin rolled his eyes heavenward and hummed appreciatively.
"You not gonna try it?"
Danny looked up from where he was staring at the moist chocolate sponge, and blinked. "Huh?" He saw his friends watching him and smiled self consciously, quickly pushing a loaded fork into his mouth. "Sorry."
But it tasted sour on his tongue and he had to force himself to swallow. Danny nodded and pretended it was the best thing he'd ever eaten, relieved when everyone seemed to accept that and carry on enjoying themselves.
Afterwards, Danny excused himself to the bathroom, needing to wash his sticky hands, and casually walked out of the Five-O offices, deliberately making his steps calm and steady. As soon as he locked the men's room door behind him, he rushed to the nearest stall and leaned over the toilet just in time.
The cake hadn't even settled, making him feel nauseous, and the more he ate, the worse it got. But Danny was glad that he'd been able to hide it from the others until...
He retched again, his body folding in on itself. With a dull thud he didn't even feel, Danny fell on one knee and moaned, his throat burning painfully, the pathetic rasp sounding hollow and pitiful in the small room. Tears threatened, but Danny blinked them rapidly away. He just had to get through the day, and then he could lose it later, probably inside a bottle of scotch.
Eventually, he flushed the toilet, pushed himself up with a grimace and moved over to the sink. Danny rinsed his mouth and looked up to stare at the mirror, forcing himself to smile so hard that his face ached, and until his mask slipped back into place. Carefully blowing out a breath, he straightened his shirt, ran his fingers through his hair, ignored the grungy feeling after kneeling on the unsanitary floor of the men's room, and unlocked the door. Passing the coffee vending machine, he grabbed a cup to wash away the lingering sweetness in his mouth before striding back into the office as if nothing had just happened.
"Ugh, we have Kona here and you're drinking that swill?" Kono grimaced when she saw the Styrofoam cup in his hand. Danny just grinned at her.
The afternoon went quickly, with Steve and Danny studying the sites where all the Island Slasher case bodies had been found. On the large map now taped to Danny's office wall, thirty six little coloured pins marked absolutely no pattern at all. Out of the eight islands, only three had been actually been frequented by the killer; Maui, Oahu and the Island of Hawaii itself, and each one had a haphazard scattering of body dump sites. The victims disappeared from the same island that their bodies were found on, so at least it was safe to assume that the Island Slasher didn't 'island-hop' during his month long killing spree.
Just as four-forty five approached, Kono came rushing into Danny's office with an elated smile on her face.
"You just discover the meaning of life involves a surf board?" Danny quipped with a grin.
"'Course it does, brah," she smirked right back, and then added, "I found her."
Steve stood up. "Alison Du Pont?"
"Yeah. She found out Five-O was running the investigation in the newspapers, and got in touch!"
"Well, score one for the wretched journalists," Danny snarked. Seems at least they were actually good for something.
Rolling his eyes, Steve ignored Danny and headed to his office, Kono following close behind.
"She says she'll be at the Prince Kuhio Statue on Kuhio beach at five o'clock today, but she's only waiting there for ten minutes," Kono stated. "She's scared, boss."
"I bet," Danny nodded in the doorway. He'd already got his weapon, his car keys hooked on his index finger, and was waiting leaning up against the doorjamb. Steve snatched the keys with a grin and headed out.
"Just once," Danny muttered after him. "Just once, can I actually drive my own car? Huh? Huh?"
Kono snickered softly while she watched them leave.
H-5-0