Way 13
Comfort her when she's down emotionally. Put your arms around her & hold her.
Daniel Williams was having a really shitty day.
Shitty week.
Month.
Truth be told, the last year hadn't been all that great, period.
Oh, sure, he liked his team, this thing called Five-0. He liked the work, although on its craziest days it did have him longing for run-of-the-mill Jersey crimes because really, how many bad guys can one friggin' island have, anyway?
But the day…the week…the month…had been filled with shit.
He wouldn't let himself run back through the whole list of shit because he was already feeling bad enough. No sense in kicking his own ass when he was already down enough for several lifetimes. And enjoying the pity party for what it was.
Right now, what it was precisely, was three beers down and working on a fourth in the anonymity of a crap-ass bar that was filled with people who could probably all be arrested for one thing or another. But Danny's badge wasn't on his belt, and his gun wasn't on his hip. Right here, right now, he was just a down-and-out haole without a decent place to live, without his daughter since Rachel had decided her parents needed to meet Stan and whisked the family off to England. Without his ohana because they all had some beach surf party thing that Danny wouldn't be caught dead at for all the sand that would end up in nondescript and very private places.
Oh, yes. It was the night for Danny Williams to allow himself to feel sorry for himself, and he was enjoying the feeling very, very much.
Until some big biker dude got the wrong idea about how to spend his shitty evening, and thought picking on the short blond guy miserably drowning his sorrows was his night's entertainment.
Which was how the big biker dude found out not to underestimate Jersey detectives. But unfortunately, it was also how Danny Williams found out that the big biker dude was apparently BFFs with every other dude in the joint.
Funny, Danny hadn't realized the absolute absence of females in the place until the moment he saw at least thirty male torsos headed his way.
That was when the oddest thing happened, almost as if he was watching one of Grace's kiddie movies, or maybe an early Jackie Chan flick. A body near the back of the crowd flew up into the air, flipped once, and came down with a loud grunt.
Then another one launched in much the same manner.
And another.
The next one went sailing horizontally and knocked down a dozen other guys. Something unseen seemed to be cutting a swath through the sea of half-drunk adrenaline-charged bar patrons. It wasn't until the something got closer, reared up from a crouch on the floor and sent six guys flying back like they were errant bowling pins, that it all made complete sense to Danny.
Steve.
Honest-to-God, the freaking ninja himself.
Danny couldn't help but laugh out loud. Then suddenly, he and Steve were back-to-back and if this wasn't right out of a Bruce Lee movie, Danny didn't know what was. His nice buzz was gone, replaced with an instinctive need to self-preserve. And to prove to his partner – whyever it was he was there to begin with – that he could hold his own, height-challenged and all.
By the time they left, HPD was swarming the place, they'd given their statements, and they'd apologized to the bartender, who'd wrapped things up for himself (and his bar, permanently) by responding with a big, beefy fist that connected hard with Danny's jaw.
The ice pack the EMT had supplied was firmly planted against his jaw as he scowled the miles away sitting in the passenger seat of Steve's pickup while Steve pointed it in the direction of Casa McGarrett.
He didn't bitch, but only because his jaw ached like a mother.
"Okay," Steve said as he pulled into his driveway and cut the engine. "My turn to rant."
When Danny tried to open his mouth to protest, pain forced him to keep it closed.
"So was this pity party of yours," Steve said, twisting in his seat so he could look at his partner full-on, "something you were just going to finish up with a night in the hospital or, worse yet, with me having to make a cross-pond call to Jolly Ol' so I could tell Grace her father got drunk and got himself killed?"
Danny glared at him, jaw still refusing to cooperate without an accompanying burst of pain he was sure would even have sent Steve to the ground.
"Oh," Steve said, holding his hands up in mock self-defense, "I'm so sorry. You get to question my tactics all the time. My reasons for doing things that you deem stupid and irresponsible and the worst ideas and decisions you've ever encountered, but when you do something as monumentally fucked up as walk into a goddamn gay biker bar spoiling for a fight without even being armed? I'm supposed to just let it lie. Right?"
The Danny-glare turned into a Danny-stare. Or, more precisely, the Danny WTF-Stare.
"Gay biker bar?" he ground out between his teeth, even that small amount of movement making him wince.
"Yeah, Danny. Gay biker bar. The first guy who started shit with you was probably fucking hitting on you."
With that, Steve was out of the truck and heading up to his front door. He unlocked it, went in and disabled the alarm, leaving the front door wide open.
Leaving it for Danny to choose whether to come in, or just climb into his Camaro – which had mysteriously appeared in Steve's driveway when Danny knew for a fact he'd driven it to the bar four hours earlier.
Danny, who just sat there in the passenger seat of Steve's pickup getting paler by the second. Jesus Christ, it could have been so much worse than some bruising to his torso and his arms. Than the aggravation to his muscles. Than the split knuckle he was sporting courtesy of connecting his fist with a guy's teeth. Than his aching jaw.
He could've been raped. He could've been killed. Or both.
His Grandma Williams's words echoed back at him across the years, from when he was just a boy of ten and had come home from school sporting a big, black eye courtesy of the playground bully and his friends.
"You may think you have it bad, Danny, but just remember: it could always be worse."
That pity party he'd been having for himself had been a self-indulgent, teenage fantasy-fueled crock of shit. How often during his formative years had he just wanted to curl up into a ball and let them kick the shit out of him until they broke something important enough that it could never be fixed?
He'd gotten through it all by developing the bravado that he wore like a coat of Teflon and titanium armor plating to this day. He'd never let himself get down and out after that time in seventh grade when he'd lost four teeth in the alley behind the junior high school.
It was amazing what modern dentistry was capable of. It was sometimes hard for his new Hawaiian dentist to believe those four teeth were fake ones screwed into his jaw.
But having to leave everything and everyone he'd ever loved and known at home – in spite of the hellish childhood he'd endured as the kid who'd stopped growing in sixth grade and hadn't ever been at the top end of the height charts to begin with. Falling out of love, falling in love, continuing to love, falling back in love, thinking life was going to start over, watching your life seem to end right before your eyes, watching someone you'd started caring about way too much get fucked over every which way a guy could be, agonizing over near-deaths and betrayals and loss and hatred.
It had gotten to be too much for him, and after more than two decades of this shit, he'd done what? Walked into a gay biker bar on the outskirts of Honolulu and nearly gotten himself killed.
Danny stumbled out of the truck, melting ice pack still plastered firmly to his jaw. He slammed the door shut with much more force than was absolutely required, and then leaned back against it, finally letting his hand drop, the ice pack thunking wetly to the driveway.
He didn't care that a tear was escaping. He'd lost his marbles tonight, saved by the one guy he knew who was just insane enough to take on three dozen huge guys with axes to grind against straight men, haoles, cops, non-bikers and probably Navy men too, just for good measure.
He should thank Steve. Profusely. Endlessly. Maybe by finally shutting up and not giving Steve such ever-loving shit all the time. If he could. He didn't know if he could. He was so used to being the way he was.
But Steve at least deserved his thanks.
Then there were hands on his biceps, and his instinct was to flail and protect. Dodge and evade. But the hands held tightly and Danny came down off his knee-jerk reaction just enough to see they were Steve's hands, not those of some biker dude in a bar.
Danny sagged.
Steve reeled him in.
Apparently, Steve didn't want an apology. Apparently, he just wanted a hug.
That worked for Danny. Although maybe tomorrow, his jaw would be able to work well enough to apologize properly.
In the meantime, he started rebuilding his psyche. Danny Williams wasn't the 'little guy' who was consistently at the wrong end of bullies' fists anymore. Who'd become a cop just so he could legitimately carry a weapon and threaten to shoot everyone in the face if they dared try that shit with him ever again.
Now he was a good goddamn detective, on the most elite task force in the state. He was father to a brilliant and beautiful child. He was partner to the best the Navy had in Steve McGarrett. He was the backup, he was Danno. He'd long ago overcome what he had been, and become more than he ever could have dreamed. He'd just never stopped fighting his life long enough to realize it. To realize that he belonged to Hawaii now. To Grace, certainly, always. That he'd become closer-than-blood family to Chin Ho and Kono, like brothers and sisters that meant more than the ones you were born with, somehow.
And if the way his partner kept his arm around Danny's shoulders all the way into the house was any indication, somehow he'd also become Steve's as well. Steve's what, exactly, remained to be seen.
Danny just hoped eventually he'd live down the fact that it took a bunch of gay biker dudes in a seedy bar to realize it. But if he knew his partner – and he did – Steve would probably never mention it again.
Wow. Danny had so much.
He smiled as Steve guided him to one of the guest rooms. Smiled, even though it made his jaw scream at him like it was on fire and wanted to fall off all at the same time. When he sat heavily on the edge of the bed, and Steve sat next to him, hand rising to plaster a fresh ice pack to the bruised bone, Danny stayed still and just let it be.
The small, quiet noise that escaped his throat was meant to be thank you and I'm sorry and Christ, I'm tired of fighting my way through every second of every day.
Steve seemed to understand, knocking shoulders with his partner. Danny allowed his eyes to close. Tomorrow, things would be different. He would see to it.
But tonight, right here in this moment, he liked them just the way they were.
Way 14
Be interested in what she feels is important in life.
It had started out as a way to wear down Danny's defenses.
It had ended up with him falling in love with a little brown-haired, brown-eyed girl.
It had started out as a way to learn more about Danny, to pull out the little things he'd never reveal on the job at his partner's side or flanking him in a firefight.
It had ended up with him seeing a side to his partner that Danny was, increasingly, letting him see even when Grace wasn't around.
It had started out as a way to erase his own loneliness and to escape the emptiness of the house where his father had lost his life and where Steve nearly had more than once.
It had ended up with him looking forward to Danny having custody of Grace because it meant Steve got custody of both of them.
It had started out as a way to get Danny to fall in love with Hawaii through the eyes of his daughter, by making sure he showed Grace every beautiful, perfect, wonderful thing there was about their paradise home.
It had ended up with Steve falling in love with Hawaii all over again himself, and looking upon his partner as something much, much closer to a best friend and confidante than he'd had since he was twelve.
It had started out as a way to help Danny through a rough patch where he had nowhere to live, and nowhere safe to take his daughter when it was his turn to have her.
It had ended up with Steve never wanting him to leave, although eventually, he had, as was his right.
It had started out with Danny being a means to an end: to catch the man who'd murdered his father.
It had ended up the strongest, surest, most important and lasting relationship in Steve McGarrett's life.
None of it had started out to be what it ended up being.
But he didn't know quite what that was yet; because their story was still being written.
