Author's Note: Yes. This is still the primary story in my head (for obvious reasons that I will not admit to). I guess I was lazy, because I just made up some cases instead of going back through and fudging some from the actual series to work with the timeline of this AU-ish fic. But I figure we only see a fraction of our heroes adventures, right?
Six months ago (give or take)...
"Someone named Nell called you, like a hundred times," McGarrett said, using his 'I'm actually very curious and slightly amused but I'm not going to let it show' face. "And when she couldn't get ahold of you, she called Five-O. She sounded very worried..."
Danny frowned. He felt bad that he'd caused Nell Jones anxiety. Their odd, long distance acquaintanceship had obviously been progressing to a full-fledged friendship. But he hadn't realized how close they'd become, since it hadn't occurred to him that he could be so close to a person who was physically so far away. But they were that close, weren't they? He thought about how he would've reacted if he'd called or texted her and she hadn't gotten back to him for over a full three days. He probably would've ended up flying to Los Angeles to track her down, since her team was notoriously unreachable, unless you had certain security clearances, which he didn't. The first time he'd gotten in contact with them it had taken three hours of bureaucratic run-around, and even then, they'd wanted to hear from someone like him, with information on a flagged person of interest.
"So, who exactly is Nell Jones?" McGarrett asked when an answer didn't seem to be forthcoming. Danny shifted in the uncomfortable hospital gown and bedding. He hadn't exactly told Steve about her, because there was nothing really to tell... right? And he knew the lecture he'd receive.
"You? In a long distance relationship?"
'It's not a 'relationship.' We're just sort of friends.'
Loaded silence.
"Okay, so even if you're 'just friends' with this woman -something I'm not sure is within your capabilities-"
'Hey. I'm friends with Kono.'
"You're 'coworkers' with Kono, ohana. There's a difference. But you're just trying to distract me from the extremely unbelievable revelation that you can sustain a long-distance relationship of any sort."
'Why? What's so shocking about that? Just because you have a psychiatrist's field day of social dysfunctions, and I spend a stupid amount of time with you, doesn't mean I've caught your emotional retardation. I still know how to interact with others, even when they're over a thousand miles away.'
Steve snorts.
"You, my friend, are not capable of maintaining a long distance relationship of any variety simply for the fact that you are a touchy-feely guy."
'Touchy-feely?! What the hell is that supposed to mean?'
"You need to be in constant physical proximity, if not direct contact, with the people around you. You can't remain sane -not that you are, anyway- without the continual physical reminder that the people you care about are nearby, safe."
'Maybe Nell's not that important to me.'
"You don't love by halves, Danno."
Since Danny knew precisely how it would unfold, he'd decided he could just skip it altogether, and never told his best friend about the quirky, brilliant, incredibly cute young woman he'd been -yes, he'd been sort of dating for the past couple of years. But here, Steve had stumbled upon likely the only secret Danny had ever kept from the man, and was staring at him expectantly with his stupidly round and blue eyes.
"Um... Nell Jones works for those NCIS agents, the Office of Special Projects in Los Angeles," Danny tried to literally answer his friend's question. This, of course, failed.
"Yeah. She told me all that," he said, leaning forward in the chair he'd pulled up to Danny's bedside. Bar yanking the IV out of his arm and jumping out the window, there was no way he was going to avoid the 'friendly' interrogation Steve appeared bent on performing. He couldn't run for it, not with the stitches holding his side closed where they'd had to cut him open to retrieve the bullet. Because damn the SEAL and his long legs, he'd catch him up rather quickly even when the detective was in peak condition.
"But who is she to you, Danno?" Steve asked.
Danny sighed. There was no use in fighting it, in getting into a long, drawn out argument in a futile attempt to deflect his partner's interest. The man could be worse than a terrier with his teeth sunk into a rat, worrying it into submission or death.
"I'm not entirely sure, okay," Danny threw up his hands in exasperation, a gesture so violent that he felt it in the severed and sutured muscles in his side, causing him to grimace and groan. Steve's eyebrows shot up but he didn't say anything. "We... we had dinner a couple years ago when I helped her people out with the small pox case. It was... it wasn't a date. Not really. But, I have got to tell you that it was the strangest dinner I've ever had. Not necessarily in a bad way, just a unique one."
"What? Did she feed you some weird movie star vegan thing?"
"What?" Sometimes Steve and him could be so in sync. And others... "No. I was talking about our interaction, our conversation, idiot. You know, sharing a meal with a person isn't just about the food. It's about the socialization. The human-to-human interaction. I know that's a difficult concept for you, what with-"
"Danny." Steve's tone clearly stated he was not going to let the detective lead him off topic.
"We've stayed in contact ever since, emails, texts, video-chats... She's unlike anyone I've ever met before." Danny said quietly.
"You should go for it."
"Pardon?"
"Life is too fricken short, Danno. All of the shit you've seen, you should know better than anyone. And you, texting, videochatting? You care about this girl. And she obviously cares about you. So I say go for it. You got nothing to lose."
"But go for what, Steve? She lives on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. It's not like we can date."
"Most people would say you couldn't develop a friendship with that kind of distance, either."
"Most people?" Danny scoffed. "You mean people like you."
Steve frowned, his brow furrowing in confusion. "What are you talking about?"
Oh, right, that had been the non-existent conversation in his head. Danny sighed, closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.
He was exhausted.
"Anybody home, Nell-Bell?"
Oh, shit. How long had she been daydreaming? How many times had Detective Deeks said her name, trying to get her attention?
"Hmm?" She said distractedly. Their current case was of no great urgency, a lieutenant in a naval base's bursar's caught embezzling funds. Something generally handed over to the purview of JAG to investigate, rather than NCIS' special operations. But in a post-9/11 world, everything had to be examined with the assumption of terrorism. It wasn't terrorism, of course. But they'd scoured said lieutenant's life nonetheless, surveilling his family, friends, acquaintances, digging through his digital records.
She'd been the one tasked with scouring through the man's PC, reading emails and perusing personal documents, looking through its video and audio files, its photos. Thousands of photos, primarily of his children, watching two daughters grow up, the older one with brown hair and big, expressive eyes, reminding her immensely of the girl she'd had a shockingly comfortable conversation with the previous night...
That was odd. There was no answer to her skype call. She was certain they'd made a... a date. (Given her conflicting feelings for the man, Nell avoided using that specific term, although 'appointment' sounded far too formal, clinical even.) And Danny Williams was always punctual, which was why she'd freaked out quite severely last week when he'd never responded to her text. It was just a trivial question, nothing she'd been greatly anticipating. But the way they communicated through texts was basically just long, drawn out conversations, such as they'd have over the course of dinner, coffee or a beer, only taking hours or all day for the other person's reply, because, well, their lives were busy, hectic much of the time. But there was always a response before the day was out.
But not last week.
Because Danny had been hospitalized due to a somewhat serious gunshot wound, had been in surgery for several hours and then was pretty much out of it for the next couple of days. It hadn't been a coma per se, but Nell had seen her fellow agents through several serious injuries, and the human body tended to sleep it off, conserving energy for the massive undertaking of healing. So it wasn't any wonder that he hadn't responded to her. But with her overactive mind, she had of course begun to fear he was dead. And no one would know to inform her, being just a pen pal, really. Ultimately, after an entirely sleepless night, she'd had no choice but to call the detective's taskforce, simply because she could not function with such a high level of anxiety. Steve McGarrett had given her a brief report, obviously hesitant to divulge too much about his best friend to someone he'd never met (or even heard of, Nell sadly surmised). The SEAL had sounded a little worried, but not enough to make Nell believe he was glossing over the severity of Danny's injuries.
Half a day later, Danny finally responded to her text, replying to the trivial question she had asked and didn't even remember, rather than discussing the fact that he'd nearly died. He must have known that she knew. Nell doubted that Steve McGarrett wouldn't tell his partner that she had called, if only for the potential fodder for teasing. Not to mention that the commander hadn't known who she was at all, so he must be curious given everything Danny told her about the man's nature.
Nell had been too stressed over the past few days, had been forced to face some feelings she hadn't known she possessed. Okay, maybe that was a lie. How could she not have known that she'd been falling in love with Danny Williams? What with how she looked forward to their videochats, to seeing his lively eyes and beautiful smile. How her mood was instantly lifted when her phone notified her she'd received a text from him. How she thought of him first when something happened in her life that she wanted to share with someone. How she had to fight with herself not to refer to his life, his stories, his personality or anecdotes when in the midst of daily conversations with her friends or family. Or not to interject in a mission briefing that the Five-O taskforce dealt with something similar, offering what their solution had been. He'd become a feature in her life. And there'd been absolutely no way she was going to feign having no knowledge of the fact that she'd almost lost him.
Part of her didn't want to have the conversation face to face or even over the phone, which would allow him to hear or see her emotional turmoil. But then what? They'd just continue on like they had been? The fact that she'd admitted to herself her feelings no longer permitted that option. It would drive her insane to not let him know. She'd rather live with his rejection, then she could come to terms with the fact that he wasn't interested in her in that way and maybe then they could go on being long distance friends.
And so maybe that was why he wasn't answering her call tonight. He'd seen how upset she'd been by his near-death experience, the serious emotions driving such a reaction, and hadn't known how to ease her down gently, how to deal with feelings he didn't return. Before she could wallow any further, prepare to cry her heart out and move on with her life, the videochat window popped open and Danny's smiling face appeared. His expression sobered somewhat, but his eyes were still alight. Obviously he was in a good mood.
Uh, hey, Nell. I'm sorry I almost forgot. Grace wanted to spend the night with her old man, look after him while he convalesces, and Rachel agreed, so we're having a movie night.
"Oh," Nell said, smiling back. She should've been disappointed that they weren't going to be able to talk, but she knew how much Danny loved his daughter, lamented the little time he got to spend with the pre-teen girl, so she was genuinely happy that she was being ditched for Grace. "Well, that's okay then. We can do this another-"
Danny's attention was obviously pulled off screen.
Hey, monkey, are you burning the popcorn?
Grace's response was primarily incoherent, coming from another room.
C'mere, babe. Danny called to his daughter, then he was getting up and there was a shuffle of pixely motion. Say 'hi' to Nell while I save the popcorn.
And then Nell found herself face to face with Grace Williams, a girl she'd heard so much about but had never talked to before, had never expected to, what with the extremely protective nature of her father.
Hi, the twelve year old said shyly.
"Hi," Nell said, smiling. The girl obviously took after her mother with dark hair and dark eyes. Yet there was something very much Danny in the way she studied the person introduced to her over the internet. "I'm Nell."
I'm Grace.
"I can tell," Nell said. "You definitely live up to the name."
Thanks. The girl's initial timidity seemed to wan, her wary, scrutinizing Williams Look softening. Apparently, Nell had met with some form of approval, at least for a conversation to develop. I wish I was more graceful. I take gymnastics and cheerleading, but I'm always messing up, tripping over my own feet.
"That's only because you're still growing," Nell said. "I think I was my present height at your age." Nell lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Has your father admitted yet that you're going to be taller than him?"
Grace seemed to mirror Nell's body language, instinctively leaning in closer to the computer screen as gossiping girls would put their heads together in person.
I'm only a five inches shorter than him. He stands on his tiptoes when he hugs me.
They burst into giggles, sending Nell into nostalgia for the days when she and her sister were about Grace's age.
And what are you ladies chatting about? Danny had reentered the room, and Grace scooted over as he tossed a handful of popcorn into his mouth and then leaned down into the laptop's camera frame, chewing and grinning, looking from the web image of Nell to his daughter and back again. It better not be about boys. My baby girl is about twenty years too young for that.
It wasn't, Danno. Apparently the twelve-year old had already mastered the teenage eye roll. Nell fought the smile this time, for Danny's sake as he looked at his daughter with exasperated affection.
"Well, I'll leave you two to it," Nell said. "I enjoyed talking with you Grace."
You, too, Nell, she said. Maybe we can videochat again sometime.
"I'd like that." Now Nell was still grinning broadly as she ended the call. She had met Grace (more or less) and even seemed to meet with the girl's approval.
Nell knew how important his daughter was to Danny Williams, that the girl was the center of his world. And so at first, she'd felt all warm and bubbly inside that she and Grace had shared a little joke and a laugh. But then something began to niggle at the back of her mind.
Why had Danny introduced them? He was so very overprotective. And she knew that, like her, he hadn't exactly been telling friends and family about their strange little long distance... whatever it was. Friendship, Nell had always liked to think, but then neither of them would be keeping it so secret, like they were a little bit sensitive about receiving criticism for it.
"Where you been all morning?"
Nell blinked again, blushed furiously. Normally, she was a multi-tasking queen. But a certain blonde detective had her mind in a whirl, and was currently distracting her from another blonde detective looking to her for answers.
"Just... Thinking about a conversation I had with a friend last night," she said.
"Must have been some conversation," Deeks said, apparently as uninterested in the case as Nell herself felt.
Nell shrugged. "Nothing important. So... I've combed through about 77.4% of Whittaker's hard drive, and-"
"It can't be that unimportant if it had you so distracted, Nellie. Because I know you're a multi-tasking machine and the consummate professional."
Nell gave him a look to see if he was being sarcastic. Their office was notoriously unprofessional, after all.
"The only data I found pertinent to the embezzlement case is a couple of email statements from a bank account in the Cayman's. I'm already..." She tried to change the subject again, but the detective's eyes seemed to glaze over.
"What's your friend's name? Is she in some kind of trouble? The kind of trouble a chivalrous LAPD detective might be able to help her out from? Is she hot?"
That was Deeks way of covering his actual, legitimate concern, acting piggish to hide the fact that he was worried about his team mate. But it was a little odd that he suddenly seemed so interested in Nell's personal life. She loved them all dearly, but none of the rest of the team seemed to care all that much about who she was, or her life outside of work. Although, that being said, Deeks was undeniably the one who was the closest to her... Besides Eric, of course (But that hadn't been entirely by her choice).
Nell sighed, resigning herself to discussing an issue she'd hoped to keep private. Or maybe it was only because she had never permitted herself to share her... crush? on the Jersey-Hawaiian detective, that she'd decided that she wouldn't be able to talk about her current conundrum with any of her friends.
"That's so wrong, Shaggy," she said, putting her tablet down and looking up into the blue eyes fixed on her face with open curiosity. She still called him Shaggy sometimes, mostly during these 'we're sort of friends' moments, in memory of when they were briefly partners. Don't get her wrong, Nell was ecstatic that they'd recovered Kensi, safe and sound. But she really missed being out in the field, to the point where she was almost ready to ask Hetty what she'd done wrong, to be condemned to ops again.
"Why is it wrong that I should want to help out the lady friend of one of my lady friends?" He grinned his ridiculous lewd grin, which on almost anyone else would be skeevy as hell.
"Well, because technically there were two people I talked to last night," Nell said. "One was a twelve year old girl."
"Oh-kay, that is a little bit creepy. But is her mom hot?"
Nell rolled her eyes in mock disgust, but inwardly battled some laughter, saying, "I don't know. Probably. But the other person I talked to was her father. He is kind of hot, though. I don't think he swings that way, but if you'd like to give it a try next time he's in town, I'll let him know you're interested."
Nell debated whether she should reveal to the detective the identity of her secret friend, but remembering how the two men with similar personalities had clashed upon first meeting a couple years ago, she opted not to give any names.
"Ha-Ha, Nell-Bell," Deeks said. "But seriously, what's going on with this girl and her dad, that's got you so preoccupied?"
"Oh, nothing bad." Nell was feeling guilty now, and more than a little ashamed for inadvertently making a big, dramatic deal out of nothing. "They're fine. Everything's fine. It's just..."
Deeks cocked his head, his eyebrows raised in an eager expression of encouragement.
"Just...?" He prodded when she didn't complete her thought.
Okay. Fine. It was time to share. Just share it and maybe feel better, less confused and distracted.
"I'd never met his daughter before I talked to her last night."
Deeks gave her a confused look. Right. He had no idea what Danny Williams was like where his little girl was concerned.
"She's the most important thing in the world to him. And he's very protective of her, careful about introducing...um.."
"His lady friends?" Deeks said, realization dawning upon the detective.
"Yeah," Nell said. "I mean 'no'. I mean... We're not anything more than... I don't know..."
"I can see why you've been distracted," he said. "You're over-thinking things. We -men- aren't that complicated. If you want to know how he feels, just ask."
Nell blanched. She couldn't do that. Could she? God, she just should.
"What is it, Nellie?" Deeks asked.
"Even if he did feel the same way I do..." Nell very, very briefly allowed herself to entertain such a wonderful notion. "It wouldn't work."
"Why not?" Deeks seemed genuinely interested, a little empathetic even. But she could see why, what with his own unnecessarily complicated relationship with his partner, Kensi Blye.
"It would be a rather long distance relationship," Nell said. "And those never work out."
"But you've managed to...um... develop... um..." He rubbed the back of his neck. Even Deeks, who was by far more expressive than the others, had issues with talking seriously about things like "feelings for this guy?"
An unexpected lump in her own throat caused Nell only to nod, blushing more fiercely than ever. She was so embarrassed by her naive schoolgirl crush. It was silly of her. Loving a boy from afar like the nerdy girl staring at the quarterback across the lunchroom. Without even the nerve to pass him a note... Only they had been passing notes, back and forth... for years. And if she were a teenage girl asked to name her BFF, she would undeniably say it was Danny. She'd lost touch with her old college friends, even her siblings were currently like distant cousins to her. And the people she saw every day didn't understand her, didn't seem to want to... Except she had to admit that this little tête-à-tête was extremely sweet of Deeks (even if might only be away to avoid work the detective found tedious).
"Are you afraid he might not feel the same?" Deeks asked in a small voice, an oddity for the in-your-face jovial man. Nell knew it was because he'd gone through precisely the same thing, unrequited love, tip-toeing around emotions, afraid to jeopardize the relationship that existed just for the chance at a romantic one.
"Yes," Nell said. "And he's the best friend I've had in ages..." Deeks raised his eyebrows in mock hurt. "No, offense, of course… You're the best partner I've ever had."
"Damn straight," he said with a smile. "Wait, what about Eric?"
Nell shrugged. During that brief time when she and Deeks were partnered, she'd explained a little bit about her strange, somewhat involuntary friendship with the resident nerd. And no, it wasn't that he was a nerd that bothered her. Hell, she was one, too. It was more the jealously and possessiveness that he had no right to.
"If you ever tell him I said so, I will destroy you, and you know I can," Nell said with a teasing grin, despite the fact that it was more than a little true... at least cyberly speaking. "But you, Marty Deeks, are my favorite."
"Aw, thanks, Nell-Bell. I like you, too." Deeks gave her a wink, before sobering as much as she'd ever seen him outside of a life-or-death situation. "And I think you should go for it. Believe me, it's worth the risk if even there's a chance they might return your feelings... Besides, how could any guy not love you?"
A lifetime of self-esteem issues shoved down into a dark hole and covered up with false bravado and confidence boiled up, making her blush what she knew must be an intense shade of pink.
"Thanks, Deeks." She picked up the tablet, and hastily delved back into the case.
A/N: Not sure why, but Deeks seemed the best choice to be a friend to Nell here. Eric is too focused on his stupid crush on her, and the others don't really seem to care about her as a person, especially in the past season, so… I guess he was the only choice.
