Hi again! I'd just like to thank everybody for their continued enthusiasm with this fic. This chapter isn't quite as intense as the last one, but I've been gardening a lot. ...That will make sense once you read it. ^^;

I'll be out of town for the weekend, but I should be able to write, just not post. We'll see.

As always, I'd love to hear what you think.

Enjoy!

Knyle B.

**Does anyone know why the document manager keeps mushing everything into one paragraph? It's done it to me twice now... I hate formatting. T-T

Disclaimer: I do not own H50. If I did, every episode would have a cargument. :)

There's really nothing like being a botany major on a chain of tropical islands. My trip to the Molokai rainforest was amazing, and my whole class was having a blast as we spent our two weeks of field-time hiking, studying, sampling, and discovering.

Most things were done from a home base in civilization, but there were a few camping studies planned. Partway through the first week, we came in from a two-night stay in the nature reserve and cleaned up in the hotel. Professor Lekeo was going to meet with us after lunch to go over notes and show us information on the places we'd go the next day.

I was just getting out of the shower when Hunter, the guy I was sharing a room with, burst in. "Luke, get dressed. You gotta see this."

He dashed out again as soon as he'd said it. Wondering what he was so jazzed about, I pulled on some shorts and a t-shirt and followed him out onto the second-story walkway in front of our room. Hunter was already on the ground, jogging out towards the parking lot. Taking the stairs two at a time, I slip-stumbled onto the pavement after him, managing to stay on my feet by pure luck. I wasn't the most coordinated guy around.

When I finally came around the corner to the parking lot, I knew exactly what had got him excited. The cabins that our hotel also ran were across the street. There were several police vehicles parked in front of them, along with a trailer holding one of those bobcats with a crane digger on the front.

That would have been exciting in itself, I guess, but there was something even bigger to get Hunter's attention. A normal looking car was parked in the middle of the black-and-whites. Two guys stood in front of it, one tall and dark-haired, the other shorter and blond.

It was Commander Steve McGarrett and Detective Danny Williams, the lead team of Five-0.

Being a longtime resident of Honolulu, I recognized them easily. I'd seen them careening through the city after suspects often enough that I instinctively wanted to duck and cover at the sight of them.

My classmates recognized the pair as well. A huddle of kids was clustered in the corner of the parking lot closest to the road, busy watching and taking photos of the infamous lawmen. I smiled and shook my head at their fangirling.

"Luke! Over here!"

Turning, I saw Hunter grinning at me from a cluster of hibiscus bushes.

Here comes trouble. Shoving my hands in my pockets, I went over to him cautiously, expecting that he was about to do something foolish.

"Come on," he grinned, still excited. "Let's get closer."

Before I could say anything, he'd turned and disappeared into the hotel's lush garden. Sighing, I took one last glance around to make sure we weren't seen and went in after him, wishing I wasn't such a pushover.

"Hunt, stop! This is a bad idea!" I called, but he just laughed and sped up. Knowing I had no hope of persuading him to call it quits, I moved a little quicker. He broke into a run. I unhappily copied, working hard to keep my ungainly six-seven frame upright and muttering, "Jerk."

Hunter was more of a jock than a scientist, but his parents wanted him to get a real career. He came to Molokai for the sake of the trip more than our class together. Whereas I was completely taken with my field of study and on fire to hike through the jungle after rare flowers, he spent most of his time flirting with the girls on the trip and playing with the jungle vines.

As different as we were, we got along well enough. That's why we were rooming together. We actually spent a lot of time together due to mutual friends, so I knew how inclined he was to get into trouble—and then drag me into it.

We came out on the edge of the hotel's property and crossed the road, hidden from our classmates and the police by a bend in the road. Hunter led the charge up the embankment on the other side, snaking his way back to where the cabins were through the woods at the top. I scrambled to keep up, dodging the plants that he walked straight through and feeling sorry for the poor, trampled foliage. As far as the outdoors was concerned, Hunter was the typical American traveler: a bull in a very underappreciated china shop. I would have yelled at him, but we were so close to the cabins that the sound of a police radio drifted to my ears. Rather than risk getting caught, I held my tongue and got closer to him.

Drawing alongside as he was about to step onto the lawn of one of the units, I grabbed his arm and jerked him back behind a large bush, hissing, "That's far enough! You're gonna get us caught. You want to be arrested?"

He just smiled crookedly: the careless expression that made most girls agree to anything. I knew he was trying to win me over, and it was a little too close to working. Sometimes I really hated being friends with a guy that could make me feel guilty for using common sense. Resolving to stay strong, I frowned at him.

"If the police are here, that means they are investigating. Whatever it is, we are not allowed to interfere with their work. We are staying here."

He sighed and looked sad. Telling myself that I had not kicked his puppy, I crossed my arms and told myself not to give in. Hunter looked away, staring wistfully at the glimpse of squad car and milling policemen that we could see between the cabins. He stood on his tiptoes, trying to get a better view.

"Oh, all right," I grumbled, letting my hands drop to my sides in defeat. I couldn't take it when he started acting like an adorable four year old. "We can get closer. But only in the forest, Hunter, and they'd better not see us snooping."

Grinning broadly, he was off like a shot into the underbrush. Following him quietly as he circled the cabins, I saw him startle and hide behind a huge Koa trunk. Taking his cue, I ducked behind another tree—just in time. Two police officers walked out from between the cabins up ahead, talking to one another as they poked through the lawns and gardens of the cabins.

"The dogs couldn't find anything?"

"No. Kohler said they were here for hours yesterday trying to pick up a scent."

"McGarrett's sure this is the right place?" The speaker looked around at the hotel's setup skeptically. "Doesn't seem much like a serial killer's burial ground to me."

His partner shrugged and nodded. "Me, either, but it's Five-0. They're right about this stuff more than they're wrong. Duke said they found one of the body stashes already."

They kept going, turning out of sight. Their conversation became unintelligible, so I looked over at Hunter. He was peering around his hiding spot, eyes shining.

Uh-oh. They said serial killer.

The thought of being on a career murderer's turf was too exciting for my buddy to ignore. He was almost bouncing up and down as I left my tree and came over. I groaned inwardly. Hunter and his stupid obsession with police dramas. Given half a chance, he'd probably go tearing into the cabin area like a kid in a candy store.

"This is not one of your TV shows," I whispered chidingly as I stopped beside him. "We are not going to get involved."

He turned to me, pleading, "Aw, c'mon, Luke. Live a little. You heard what he said. This might be the dump site for a serial killer!"

Unsure how he could find that to be an attractive trait, I shook my head and stood my ground. "We're college students, Hunt, not detectives. We need to get out of here and let the cops do their job."

Frowning like I'd just told him he couldn't ride his bike without a helmet, he shook his head mutinously and suddenly stepped out onto the grass. "Fine. You go. I'm gonna watch Five-0 find some dead bodies."

With that, he turned and jogged around the corner of the nearest cabin, not looking back.

"No, wait, come back!" I hissed after him, eliciting only a smirk and a wave as he turned around the side of the building. "Hunt! Hunter!"

He was gone. Cursing under my breath with words that I'd only ever heard spoken on the mornings after too-wild parties, I hurried onto the lawn after him. If he got himself into a jam, I would feel at least partially responsible. My bleeding heart was a regular pain in the ass.

Running quickly to the side of the cabin, I hugged the wall and peeked around the corner. To my dismay, Hunter was crouching behind an air conditioning unit, staring at Commander McGarrett and Detective Williams. They were standing in front of the porch of the cabin that the AC belonged to, conferring with some uniformed policemen.

Silently, I willed Hunter to just stay where he was and be satisfied, but he wasn't that kind of guy. After craning his neck for a few seconds, he decided to creep along the edge of the porch. That left him hidden from Five-0 and the guys they were talking to, but only by the raised platform itself on one side. He was visible to myself and the rest of the world on the other.

My sneaking friend must have made too much noise. Looking up sharply, McGarrett sprang around the decking and hauled him up by the shirt collar in about two seconds flat. Hunter threw his hands up and started stammering excuses as the SEAL's partner and the other cops rounded the porch to see who their coworker had caught. None of them looked happy.

Well, Great. Another Hunter-created disaster. Sinking against the wall of the cabin, I put my head in my hands and wondered why I had ever become friends with such a nitwit. He was sure to get in trouble no matter where we went. Even on a class trip that he knew I had been waiting for all year, he still couldn't restrain himself.

I ran out of inner curses and sighed resignedly. If Hunter wasn't arrested, the professor would have to send him home, and I'd feel horrible for the rest of the month for not protecting the idiot from himself. There was no way I was gonna live with the odd sense of survivor's guilt that was already setting in on me.

Lifting my head up, I listened to the policemen berate my friend for a few seconds more, but it quickly became too much. Turning, I left the safety of the shadows and jogged over to McGarrett, who had handcuffed Hunter and was guiding him towards the road.

"Wait, wait, please don't arrest him!" I called.

Williams had turned as soon as he caught a glimpse of me rounding the corner, his hand dropping to rest readily on the gun at his hip. Hearing me, his partner and the other policemen turned as well, halting.

"Who the hell are you?"

"I'm, ah, Luke Clarke. I'm here on a class trip," I stammered as I stopped a few feet away, holding my hands up non-threateningly. With one of them, I pointed at Hunter. "Him, too."

The blond cop did not look pleased by my elucidation. "What are you two doing on a crime scene, then?"

"He's an adrenaline junkie. He saw you guys and came over here before I could stop him," I rushed out contritely. Pausing to send a quick glare in Hunter's direction, I added, "Aside from exhibiting general idiocy, we haven't done anything. I swear."

That got Williams to relax his grip on his gun, at least. Having spotted the group of our classmates across the road, he nodded his head in their direction and asked me, "You guys from over there?" I nodded. "All right. If they can vouch for you being there in the last five minutes, I may consider not arresting you for interfering with an ongoing criminal investigation. You see cops trying to do their job, you go the other way, got it?"

Hunter nodded enthusiastically, spouting reassurances, but I was only half listening. Something behind McGarrett had caught my attention.

The six cabins were arranged in a half circle facing the road. Before the new highway was built down the middle of the hotel property, there had only been a driveway coming from the hotel parking lot to the outbuildings. The road had led to a lot of trees being cleared away so there were sight lines to the hotel from the cabins, but otherwise the layout was the same. The driveway was still there, though bisected by the new thoroughfare. It had ended in a circle drive in front of the cabins. In the middle was a raised median.

It was the garden on top of the center circle that had caught my attention. Furrowing my brow at the sight of the plants there, I suddenly blurted, "Could what you're looking for be made out of metal?"

"What?" Cutting off midsentence, Williams abandoned his lecture in favor of staring at me like I was demented.

Officially blushing, I ducked my head a little. "The hydrangeas on the center mound are blue."

Everybody turned, looking, and then the detective faced me again with a frown. "Yes, I can see that. What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

"Um." Suddenly aware that everyone was staring at me like I'd lost it—including Hunter—I shoved my hands in my pockets nervously. "Hydrangeas change colors depending on what's in the soil," I explained, shying away from the twin looks of 'not-happy-with-your-shit' I was getting from Williams and McGarrett. "When there's a low pH level and aluminum present, they're blue. When there's not, they're pink like all the ones in the pots in front of the cabins."

When they turned to look at that, I got distracted again and stared at the ground-growing plants on the median, musing, "Here in Hawaii the soil naturally causes them to be blue, actually, but this hotel is really big on its gardens and keeps them pink, which has got to be a pain for the gardeners."

Looking confused as well as ticked at that, McGarrett finally spoke up. "So? They must have just given up over here, then."

I shook my head. "There's a bag of phosphorous-heavy fertilizer sitting right next to them—which is what you use to make the soil more acidic so they'll change colors. I can see from here that the ground's been freshly tilled with it. The groundskeepers are still trying to make them pink, but the chemicals are being overpowered by something else."

The faintest glimmer of credulity was starting to show on the cops' faces.

Encouraged, I went on, "Sometimes decomposing organic matter will do it, but since your dogs aren't able to smell anything, it could be a lot of aluminum." I stopped and frowned in distaste at the next thought that occurred to me. "Does your guy bury people in aluminum coffins?"

Not replying, Detective Williams turned to share a look with his partner. "What was the roof of that bunker made of?"

"Aluminum," McGarrett remembered.

As he said it, he was already turning and hauling Hunter over to the nearest squad car. Guiding my friend less-than-gently to sit down on the bumper, the commander let him go and jogged across the driveway, waving at some police officers that were congregated in front of the trailer with the bobcat.

"Hey, bring that over here! I want these hydrangeas dug up!"

While I was watching him, Williams came over and took me by the arm, pulling me along to join Hunter. As we walked, he demanded irritably, "Just how much spying did you do before you came out here and played 'innocent bystander,' huh?"

I smiled weakly, hoping he wasn't really as angry as he always seemed to sound. "Two cops walked by talking about a serial killer while I was trying to convince Hunter to go back to the hotel. We had to wait for them to go away again. It was hard not to hear."

Williams rolled his eyes as he sat me down next to my roommate. "I really should arrest you."

Hunter and I both froze, but thankfully there wasn't any conviction in his voice. The cops he and his partner had been talking to came over, and he pointed at us. "Watch the nerd child and his pet goof, please. I have my own miscreant to look after."

Refocusing on Hunter and I with a glare that was routinely used to discourage the state's most fearless ex-Navy crime fighter, he warned, "I see either of you move from this spot and I will shoot you, you hear?"

We both nodded mutely. Satisfied, he turned and went to McGarrett, who was standing on the median, and told him, "Calm down, Rambo. Let 'em work."

"I am calm," McGarrett muttered back defensively.

I laughed. The SEAL practically radiated tension and impatience. His arms crossed tightly over his chest while he watched the bobcat trundle over so it could start digging. He looked like he was on the verge of running down the hill and getting in the driver's seat himself to speed up the process.

Realizing that there was some serious damage about to be done on my advice, I stopped chuckling. Hopefully the hotel wouldn't kick me out for having one of its gardens trashed. I turned to the closest uniform in apprehension.

"The police will pay for fixing all that, right?"

The officer I'd addressed looked mildly annoyed. "The state foots the bill for pretty much all the property that Five-0 manages to destroy," he informed me. With a derisive huff, he looked over the wreckage on the median. "Compared to what McGarrett got up to on Monday, this will be pocket change, kid."

Appeased, I thanked him and turned to Hunter. The guy had the nerve to sit there and stare at me like I was from another planet.

"What?" I snapped.

Having taken about as much of his backwards logic that I could stomach, I really hoped that he had a good reason for the appalled look on his face. He shook his head disbelievingly.

"Dude. Flowers? You meet the guys from Five-0 and you decide to talk about flowers?"

"I was talking about finding what they were looking for, Hunter," I shot back. "So what if it involved flowers? We're botany majors. Anyways, you were the one who decided that watching a serial killer's stash of dead bodies get dug up was worth being arrested for, remember? I'm so sorry that I came here and embarrassed you instead of going back to the room without your stupid ass."

"Er." He had the grace too look sheepish, fidgeting a little with his bound hands. "I guess this is kinda my fault. I should have listened to you." I

had about two short seconds to enjoy that rare admittance before the repentance on his face was replaced by annoyance.

"How come you didn't get handcuffed?"

"Because I'm the smart one," I retorted.

My mood salvaged by his brief apology, I smirked at him, turning to watch the crew digging up on the hill. Hunter turned as well, and we sat in silence for a few more minutes while the police worked their way down through the dirt.

The hydrangeas were no more. I winced sympathetically at the sight of them in the mangled mess of a dirt pile that the garden had become. My inner plant lover was feeling guilty. My mother, a florist, probably would have cried a little.

As soon as an ear-splitting screech of metal on metal hit the air, though, I knew it was worth it. Hunter and I both leapt to our feet as McGarrett and a couple of officers ran to the edge of the hole, peering in. The rest of the police erupted into chatter.

"It's another bunker."

"Get that crane moving again!"

"Joe, you and your men gear up and get ready to look in there."

Amid the shouting, Detective Williams turned around and frowned to see us on our feet. Jumping guiltily, we sat back down on the bumper immediately. The two cops who were supposed to be keeping an eye on us turned back from watching the melee on the hill with equally abashed expressions. The blond man hadn't spared them from his disapproving stare.

After a minute, there was a big enough hole cleared. The bobcat was pulled back. Somebody let out a yell, having spotted the entrance. It only took a moment and a crowbar to get the trapdoor out of the way. Uniformed bodies disappeared into the earth once it was opened.

Soon there was an even bigger flurry of activity to handle the graveyard that was apparently hidden beneath the earth.

Unable to see any of what was going on inside the hole or bunker, Hunter and I just had to surmise what was going on from the conversations and radio calls and other activities of the lawmen all around. Once it was apparent that my hunch had been correct, I sat in shock.

Holy shit. I just helped find a serial killer's meat locker.

When he climbed out of the ground, McGarrett looked over at us before he went to talk to his partner. He smiled at me and gave me a thumb's up sign. I gaped.

Beside me, Hunter bumped his shoulder into mine and whispered, "Man, you are the coolest nerd child I've ever made friends with."

Laughing at the backhanded compliment, I shoved him back. My eyes were soon drawn back to the cops on the hill, though. I watched them thoughtfully, realizing that the brief half hour I'd spent around Five-0 had led to one of the most rewarding moments of my life.

Whoever the serial killer was, I'd helped to take away his prizes and get his poor victims' remains back to their families. The police, McGarrett, Williams, and their team got to improve people's lives like that every day. Would I ever make such an impact as a botanist?

I mulled that over for a while, brooding.

Nudging Hunter a few minutes later, I inquired haltingly, "Have you ever…thought about switching majors? …To forensic science?"

Whirling to face me, he grinned and nodded eagerly. "Dude. Let's do it."

So we did.

The next time I saw McGarrett and Williams up close, I was a year into my classes for a forensic science degree. Somehow, the haole half of Five-0 had got wrangled into helping at a lecture on the Due Process of Law and Proper Criminal Procedure.

I don't think I stopped laughing until I fell asleep that night. I'd lived on Oahu the whole time they were racing in car chases, getting into shootouts, blowing stuff up, and generally ignoring law and order. Watching the two of them try to cover a topic like that… It was priceless.

In the end, it just dissolved into a question-and-answer session where the students tried to figure out what stories about Five-0 were true and which ones were too insane for reality. McGarrett was goaded into some live demonstrations to prove that he was capable of his more famous stunts, much to his partner's chagrin. And then there was the arguing… Honestly, I laughed so hard, I thought I'd died.

Forensic science wasn't my first major, but as long as those two were there when I graduated and went to work for the state, it was going to land me with one hell of a job.

And there you have it. I must go to pack now...