AN: We're finally at Christmas! The show always has such great Christmas scenes and that definitely inspired some of the moments here.

Also Happy Thanksgiving to any Canadian friends!

'Like the sun sends a golden stream
Into our front room,
I could be the same old light for you.
Like the morning is always new, I'll give it back to you.'

"For All You Give" ~ The Paper Kites ft. Lucy Rose

~OL~

It's not the most inspiring backdrop for this sort of thing—

"Gracie, butter and sugar go in before dry ingredients. So you can beat them first and get the batter all fluffy. Remember? Like I did earlier?"

She shrugs, not convinced. "I don't see what difference it makes. It all goes down the same in the end, right?"

"Well…"

"We should be able to chuck in every ingredient. At the same time."

Danny sits with Charlie at the island, playing his Switch and the video game they let him open as an early present. In between helping him beat the first level, Danny grins at Steve and his daughter where they argue over sugar cookie batter by candlelight.

Both covered in flour.

This makes round two of baking today alone, since the last batch didn't survive long enough to go in the oven. He's half convinced Grace is doing this just to mess with Steve's newfound pickiness over baking.

"Like this, Dad?"

The little voice catches Danny's attention again. He watches Charlie's avatar leap a mountain. "Yeah, sweetheart, you're a natural. Hit that cloud right there if you can."

Charlie thanks him, tongue sticking to one side of his mouth, and the avatar dashes in mid air. Outside, darkness blankets the last hour of the day. It's way past Charlie's bed time as is, but Danny can tell he's wired for Christmas tomorrow.

"Why can't I just stir it all together now?" Grace waves her spatula. It spatters the counter and her sweater with yet more dough.

Steve points to the recipe. "Because it will dry out."

"It doesn't say it will dry out."

"No, but…"

—But in the middle of this chaotic domestic moment, suddenly the first floor floods with light.

Everyone freezes. Even Charlie looks up from the screen, jaw dropping.

So does Danny's:

All the lights he put up two weeks ago, every string of Christmas bulbs and icicle lights hung from the ceiling and delicate tawny halos on the window, pop on in blinding candor. It…honestly didn't occur to Danny how many he tacked around the living room until they all turn on at the same time.

It does kind of resemble Santa's Village.

Grace laughs. Her megawatt grin competes with the view. "Danno…"

Danny glances at Steve, his eyes flecked with silver from the reflection. "The electricians? You had 'em come fix our wiring after all?"

"Don't look at me." Steve raises his hands. "They postponed us until the new year, remember? I didn't even try to touch this job."

The quartet sits in awe, watching white and red lights alternate on the tree. Like a real life candy cane. They twinkle in time with stars out the window. Danny takes it back—this is better than Santa's Village.

"It's a Christmas miracle," says Charlie, in a direct, rather well accented parrot of Tiny Tim's voice from the movie they just finished.

And really, who is Danny to argue with that?

~OL~

Only one door still has light shining underneath, the shimmery yellow kind that speaks of a bedside lamp—one that's finally not solar powered. Danny turns the knob and pokes his head inside.

"Hey monkey."

Grace pulls the book down and gestures to her pajama clad self. "Are you going to tuck me in like I'm five?"

"Do you expect anything less from me?"

Grace snickers but does not—let the record show—object when Danny pulls back the covers so she can crawl under. The guest room feels less like a recovery space, like when Ming was here, and more along the lines of the childhood bedroom Danny remembers from Grace's back in New Jersey. Clothes over the desk, books on the table, and brightly coloured shoes in the closet. Paper snow angels hang on a string above her bed.

"There." He pats the edges to make sure they're nice and tucked. "Snug as a bug in a rug."

He hasn't said it since Grace was eight, yet her face still smooths with affection. She unclasps one of her hands to take his where it rests on the quilt.

"Danno?"

He matches her serious but fond tone. "Yeah?"

"I'm glad you're okay."

I'm not the one who was potentially dying, but…

Her eyes pierce through the fog on his face. "Both of you."

Danny strokes her knuckles and senses that his hand cradles a fortune. Greater than any vault. He pities people who are monetarily rich but can't hold this type of wealth, a prosperity of love, in either their arms or hearts.

"So am I," he whispers.

Her eyes just watch him for a minute, tracking his face like Steve's do sometimes. It's a wisdom she's always had, even as a little girl with an old soul.

"You know…" Danny taps her nose. "There's one Christmas tradition we haven't done yet."

Grace's brow furrows. "Aren't I too old for Christmas Eve presents?"

"Uh-uh. We always open one gift on Christmas Eve. That's the rule."

"Oh good, because I've been dying to give you this." Grace reaches into a drawer in the bedside table and hands him a perfectly square box. A cube about the height of his hand.

Danny immediately tries to pass it back. "Grace, you've only got a part time job and with classes—"

She shoots him a glare that's all Rachel. "I saved, Danno. Shipping costed more than the actual gift. Plus…grandpa helped a bit."

"Dad?" Danny turns it around in his hands, wrapped in snowman paper. "What did he do this time?"

"Just open it." Grace bounces a little.

Once the paper is off, Danny opens the plain cardboard box to see bubble wrap and…

"Foam? Pops sent me a box of foam?"

Grace jostles his hand at the antics. "You're the worst, Danno."

Even this doesn't dampen her excitement and Danny finds his heart ticking up in speed. He half wonders if this gift is going to eat him.

But it doesn't, and once Danny wrangles with the foam and pulls out the object, he sees that it's a mug. A familiar white mug with navy and red symbols etched onto the side. Its design is vintage but newly laser cut.

Danny gasps. "Dad's fire department mug. I…"

I smashed it when I thought I'd be separated from Steve.

He doesn't say it out loud, but by Grace's pinched eyes, he thinks maybe she can read between the lines anyway.

"How did you manage this?"

"Steve told me yours broke, that it was your favourite." Grace studies him, and Danny's grateful she doesn't ask the questions lingering behind her eyes. The knot in his throat is big enough as is. "I called Grandpa and he said he'd track down another one for you. When he couldn't, he had it made from scratch, just the way it was when you were a kid."

Danny sets the mug on the table so he can wrap both arms around Grace, kissing her long hair. "Thank you, monkey. I thought this was gone for good."

"You're welcome, Danno. Love you."

He says the oft-repeated words. He's said them thousands of times and hopes he gets to a thousand times more: "And Danno loves you."

When they draw back, Danny removes a tiny gift from his pocket. He hands it to her without fanfare, and its only adornment is an equally tiny purple bow. It's barely bigger than a ring box.

"Danno?" She turns it around, just like he did with hers. "Did you get me jewellery?"

"Oh, I think you'll like it more than jewellery."

With one last squinted look at her father, Grace flips open the lid. Her eyes bug and Danny laughs again at her splutters.

"Keys? You got me a car?!"

"Don't tell Charlie or he'll be jealous."

"Danno." Grace's eyes dart from him to the keys and back again. Then she holds them up to the light. "These are your car keys."

"Steve and I realized we really only need one car for the two of us, since his hardly gets driven. It's my used hand-me-down, hope you don't mind. But you really need a car if you're going to visit us more often."

"Are you kidding?" Grace huffs and stutters at the same time. "It could be a clunker with three wheels and I'd still be freaking out! Thank you!"

"You're welcome. We had the registration changed to your name last week. I hope it beats getting up an hour early to wait for the bus."

Grace makes a face. "You have no idea. This is the best Christmas present I've ever gotten."

"Even better than that Barbie dream house I bought when you were six?"

"Better."

Danny leans closer. "Better than the dog I brought home just for you?"

"Better. And that dog was from a case when his owner died."

"To-may-to, to-mah-to." Danny tickles under her arm. "Are you finally admitting that I give better gifts than Grandma?"

Grace is already far gone but she still manages to shrill out a vehement—"Never!"

Danny knows her weak spots, including the bullseye under her chin and he wields this knowledge with gusto. She retaliates with that one ticklish pocket behind Danny's ear. They end up in a heap, wiping their eyes, red with humour and such a fit of laughter that Steve ducks in to check on them.

And even if Danny were a beggar, he'd still have more than the rest of the world. It's under one roof, right here, in a heart that hasn't been this happy since he was a child.

Danny closes his eyes, his daughter's giggles tapering out against him, and hugs it all close to his chest.

~OL~

It's two in the morning when Danny feels long fingers ripple across his ribcage. They land slow, a trilling twitch passed from thumb to pinky. The last two fingers beat a triplet rhythm, the barest hint of nerves.

Once they're all in place, the hand goes still.

Danny lays there, breathing, and blinks up at moonlight through the blinds.

The fingers are followed by a dip of weight in the mattress behind him. It tips Danny back slightly on his hip before Steve settles, also on his side. He curls up loosely. A deep sigh reverberates from tired lungs.

Steve has slept upstairs in his own bed since the kids came to stay, to better hear if they need him—and this is, shockingly, the first time he's failed at staying there the whole night. It's been strange for Danny, getting the bed to himself this past week and waking to cold sheets. In some ways it's nice, not to have Mojave McGarrett and his desert body heat on the other side.

In other ways…Danny is also shocked at how reliant on it he's become.

Danny waits to see if any warmth will trickle down his neck, if Steve needs greater comfort than just his bleary presence, but Steve is quiet. No tears. The angle of his breaths pushes Danny's back until both diaphragms synchronize. Their knees slot together.

After a minute, Danny shifts to find Steve's hand. He doesn't grab or interlace their fingers, just rests his palm on top of Steve's knuckles with a sweep of his thumb. Steve's pulse is like a piccolo, high and fluted.

They don't speak.

Instead, Danny lifts Steve's hand and kisses the back of it. It's a speech unto its own, and Steve's breath hitches against Danny's spine.

The fingers ripple again but don't stop. They slip out of Danny's grip to wrap around his stomach and pull him back, tighter to Steve's chest. Danny goes boneless and lets Steve do what he wants.

A set of lips hum an answering kiss into Danny's hair. He feels it against his scalp and between his shoulder blades. It's a tactile song—an actual song too.

Danny closes his eyes with a smile to the sound of Steve humming an old Christmas carol. He doesn't do it for very long, the melody fading right as Danny does. But just like that they're okay, full of drowsy love and hope and too many cookies.

They're going to be alright. Whatever happens in the future, no one can snatch this away from them.

The last note drifts off in time with Danny…

'Sleep in heavenly peace.'

~OL~

Some part of Danny, however small and long since disappointed, still expects to wake up on Christmas morning to a dampened batting of snow. That muffled effect and soft, freezing white manna outside his window.

At the very least, he's shocked not to be jolted into awareness by a child jumping on the bed. That's how most Christmases started in Hawaii. In fact, when Danny opens his eyes, it's past dawn. Not by much, but enough to be a break of the normal routine.

For the very first time, Danny wakes up on a Christmas morning and likes what he sees better than snow—it's just the flower bed outside their window. Sun dances across tall lupus blossoms and buttery daffodils. The very edge of Steve's longboard leans against the side of the house and their window.

Nothing all that special.

But Danny's warm, and home, and satiated with something too recondite for joy and too stirring for one dimensional peace. He has those too, but this surpasses it into the realm of the why he's human in the first place.

Danny wakes up and for the very first time knows he's whole.

The only thing eating at his mellow mood this morning is the fact that the bed is empty behind him.

Danny cranes over his shoulder to check anyway. The blankets are turned back, rumpled. A child's slipper lays near the door.

Yawning, Danny gets up and wanders down the hall. His sweatpant cuffs tuck under his heels, muting each step like the snow he used to cherish so much. The house is quiet—his second surprise of the day.

When he emerges into the living room, it's to see Steve on the couch with one arm thrown across the back of it, gazing out the windows at violet swaths of ocean. Each wave curves like blown glass, malleable and polychromatic with rainbow hues. Sunrise gilds the tips of Steve's hair in honey shades.

Grace's surfboard is right where Danny left it before bed, propped beside the tree. He can't wait to see her reaction.

The professional telescope he bought for Steve sits by the right-hand set of windows. Judging by the caps and dials carefully fitted around it—and discarded ribbon—Steve's already had a chance to try it out. The thought brings a gooey smile to Danny's face.

He rounds the couch and sees Charlie too, conked out against Steve's side. Nose mushed against Steve's rib cage. One foot is bare, one ensconced by a turtle slipper; his new favourite animal since Danny showed him pictures of their nest last month.

"You started in on presents without me," says Danny, sotto voce to avoid waking Charlie. Not that he needs to, his son a deep sleeper like Rachel. He points to the slipper on Charlie's foot and torn paper under the tree. "He liked 'em, huh?"

Steve smiles back. "I heard him trying to tiptoe into our room and thought it mean to make him wait. We got up for breakfast, plus a few presents."

Now that Danny's looking for it, he spies a few chocolate bars opened as well. Presumably Steve's idea of 'breakfast' on Christmas morning. They're gunning for a sugar coma at this rate.

Steve himself nurses a tall mug of what smells like half coffee, half hot chocolate in his other hand. It rests on his knee.

"Grace not up yet?"

"Nah." Steve takes a sip. "She didn't wake even at Charlie's prattling."

"Neither did I, apparently."

"Thank you for the telescope." A pucker around Steve's brow irons out. "I got to see our stars."

"Oh yeah?"

"They're distant, a little blurry. But beautiful, Danno. Is this what you bought at the mall that day?"

Danny plops down on the nearest cushion. "Yep. Had the telescope delivered before we got home."

If Danny sits close enough, creating a Charlie sandwich, he's within reach of Steve. Right on cue, the minute Danny settles, Steve's hand shifts from the back of the couch to Danny's head. It thumbs at his hair a little, then just rests on his opposite shoulder.

"I found out how our lights came on last night." Steve passes over a red envelope.

Danny doesn't need to read it to know what's inside. He does anyway, grinning even before his eyes hit the page:

'Next time, just call me first. Season's Greetings.'

"Point taken," says Danny. "Thank you, Hetty. I don't know how she managed to get the wiring taken care of without us noticing and I don't want to."

Steve raises his mug in a toast. "'God bless us, everyone.'"

There's a joke in there somewhere about convoluted literary quotes and caricatures, but it is only then that Danny cottons on to the key point.

"How did you hear Charlie before he even got to the door?" Danny tilts so he's both closer and at a better eye level with Steve.

"Hmm?" That's Steve's 'playing dumb' face. Danny knows this better perhaps even than aneurysm face. "What do you mean?"

Danny waits until Charlie's done shifting and snuffling in his sleep before he continues. "Don't 'hmm' me. You weren't asleep, were you?"

Steve's pretend ignorance drops along with his smile. "I just…around four I couldn't fall back to sleep. Was thinking."

"Uh-oh."

Steve flicks Danny's ear. "I couldn't stop reliving the day you got shot. With Mei and how you almost didn't make it."

Both of them hold their breath for a moment. Their eyes flick in unison to Charlie. He still doesn't know what happened, thinking a bad guy simply got in a lucky cut to his father's shoulder, and Danny plans to keep it that way as long as he can.

He is reminded, rather violently, that it hasn't even been a year since all that happened. He nearly died eight months ago.

"Babe." Danny's brittle tone makes Steve's hand tighten around his shoulder. "It's Christmas morning. I know we're big on sharing things now, but we don't…you don't have to talk about this today."

The dark cloud of that kidnapping is not something Danny wants staining one of the best Christmases he's ever had. At all. Avoiding this topic is the least they can do.

But Steve shakes his head. "It was those images at first. Then I got thinking about that hour I spent in the chapel."

"Chapel?" Danny sifts through memories but can't place when Steve spent extended time in a church. "At the hospital?"

"Yeah, I…" Steve sets his mug on the coffee table. Hand freed, he reaches under the couch for a square, foil ensconced gift. An orange bow puffs at the top. Corners in tact and everything. The care Steve put into wrapping this alone almost brings tears to Danny's eyes. "I remembered a request I made, how something huge inside of me snapped. Asking…well, asking for more time with you. Though I didn't understand that part at the time."

It's not yet six thirty in the morning and Danny's sleepy with the weight of his son and partner against him and he hasn't had caffeine—he thinks he's justified in feeling a little lost. Not to mention confused about how this relates to Christmas morning.

It must. It clearly does for Steve.

Steve, whose eyelashes catch light from the tree. Steve, whose hand rests like a pledge around Danny. Steve—who never asks for things. Whatever he prayed that day must be pretty important.

"That same day, I started this little project."

Steve hands Danny the present, and now his eyes shine to match its wrapping.

Danny turns the gift around in his hands at first while Steve just watches. They don't talk for a minute. It occurs to Danny, far too belatedly than it should, that his life is rather unhurried now. This is the most unhurried he's felt in his life. No clock obsessing or racing around necessary.

If he wants to relish the quiet pocket of Christmas morning with his family and Steve's eyes on him, then he can. At absolutely no cost.

This thought propels Danny to open the gift. He tears it open with careful finger nails, shakes tape off his knuckles. Steve's hand twitches on his shoulder. His eyes are bright and excited.

Danny stares at the book in his lap once he reaches its tan leather cover. Nothing fancy, not even any engraving or writing on the front. "A…a photo album?"

"Just open it," says Steve, and Danny can tell it takes a lot of work for him to stay hushed.

So Danny does. What he sees siphons his breath to the point that he can't quite get it back—

Photos are laid out in chronological order, with baby and grade school photos of both Danny and Steve. Danny recognizes some from the ones hanging in his parents' home.

"When I stopped over in Jersey," Steve murmurs, reading his mind. "Your folks gave me copies."

The album is thicker than Danny's fist, the middle portion filled with photos taken over the course of their careers and time with Five-O. Then…then…

"I know it's old school, but everyone needs a physical album. Good memories to look back on."

Danny can't reply, struck dumb by the last third of the album and all the pictures that have been taken in the past six months alone:

Him upside down on the couch, he and Sam Hanna in the kitchen, Steve skateboarding up the driveway with his shades crooked on his nose, both men conked out in their chairs (Grace must have taken this one), Hau's egg, Sara and Charlie on Danny's knees, Steve covered in flour while kneading dough, Grace and the neighbourhood kids…

The grainy NASA composite of their stars.

What sends Danny over the edge are twenty pages at the back. Completely empty.

"We've got time," Danny whispers, understanding what it means now. His nose reddens along with the tips of his ears.

"We've got all the time in the world, Danno."

And they do. Because this, this right here, it is their world.

Each page in the album is double sided and can hold up to fifteen photos. Danny does some quick mental math and is gobsmacked to realize there have to be almost three hundred photos in here already.

"I got what I asked for."

Steve says it into the twilight beauty of a cloudless day of California sunshine, with kitschy Christmas lights winking off the album's cover and their moist eyes. So decisive it's got more power than a bomb.

Glossy peace slathers across their souls, mod podged together.

"I can honestly say I haven't been given something this nice in my life." Danny runs a hand over the picture of he and Steve in their chairs. "We…we've got time. And that's better than anything."

Danny thinks back to the dark day in Hawaii when they weren't sure he'd make it out of the hospital.

"I am happy," Steve said then, sitting at Danny's bedside. Eyes in turmoil. Hand warm and slick with Danny's own blood.

Present day Steve says, "This is actually a three-part gift, by the way."

"Babe." Danny looks up at him. "You've done plenty already. Thank you for this—it's not lame at all."

"The last part of your gift wasn't totally my doing. I just…gave the whole thing a push."

Danny touches Steve's arm, eyes puzzled. He glances around the tree but sees only games and things for the kids. "Where is it?"

Steve has an arsenal of smiles. There's the smirk, characteristic of his younger years and when he's about to 'prank' Danny. The childlike one lights up whenever someone compliments him. He's got a certain half-grin for being amused but trying to hide it.

The smile that lights up Steve's face now is one of Danny's favourites. It doesn't quite show teeth, but it reaches up so far that his eyes crinkle and his ears lift. Tanned skin creases.

The excitement amps up to what Danny would dare call elation.

"Right here." Steve points down at Charlie.

The boy in question drools on Steve's shirt now, dead to the world.

Danny's eyes don't blink, thoughts blank. Then they bug, when it hits him that Steve isn't playing. Not that he'd ever joke about such a thing.

"What…what does Charlie have to do with…?"

Steve somehow manages to draw them both closer, tucked under his pushy octopus arms. Danny lets him because shock reigns over his body. "In working out the details with Rachel for Charlie to visit…she let slip the secret that her spot in Seattle was always supposed to be a temporary move."

"What, like…"

Steve waves a hand. "Let me finish for once in your life."

"No. What do you mean temporary? As in she's going back to Hawaii?"

"If you listen for two seconds, I'll tell you." But Steve's teeth are showing now and he's so happy that Danny could weep. This is how he should have looked in the hospital room. "The company she's with gave her options around the country of where to settle permanently, now that her training in Seattle is finished."

A runaway drumbeat thrums through Danny's body. He can taste it, hammering away at the back of his throat and up the rush in his ears. His fingertips buzz.

Steve leans closer. "One of her three options is an area outside San Francisco, Danny. She's been waffling on it this whole time."

The drumbeat stops.

Danny can barely push words out. "You…"

"We had a very long talk about it—we're talking two and a half hours over the phone and a headache the size of the Pacific—and in the end she agreed to give the firm here in California a shot. It's nearly a six-hour drive from here to there, but—"

Danny cuts Steve off with a harsh kiss to the side of his head, then a whole heaping of them for Charlie. He does cry after all, silent, hot tears leaked from scrunched eyes.

Somehow, despite the kisses raining down on his hair and cheeks, Charlie still doesn't fully wake, not even when Danny lifts him onto his lap. The little boy's fingers bunch in his father's collar and then he's out again. Steve takes this sneaky opportunity to shift closer, so Danny is melded to his side instead.

Danny wraps both arms tight around his son to cherish the sparrow-like pulse against his chest. Steve's on the top of his shoulder complements it.

The jangle of all three beats layers into something pure, something Danny's been looking for all his life.

Steve knocks their foreheads together. Their hot breaths, Danny's almost-sobs and Steve's steady breathing, mingle between them. "But she agreed to give it a shot," he finishes. "Whether it works or not, she's at least committed to being closer, for Charlie and Grace's sake."

"This time she's the one moving." Danny can't quite fathom this.

The thought that his ex-wife will experience what that feels like, moving across the country for your child, sacrificing, is akin to someone handing Danny a billion dollars all at once. His brain refuses wrap around it.

His face is a mess and his nose aches, but these inaugural tears feel like healing. Some arcane hurt inside Danny's chest, a septic line of infected sorrow long since crusted over, is purged in one blow.

Life is a lot like a bungee cord.

But this time he's looking forward to where it takes him.

The gratitude inside Danny is a living thing, blooming and yelling and throwing things around in there. He gets his partner and his kids within easy reach, for the rest of his days.

'Thank you' feels incredibly pathetic.

"I love you," he says, hoping these feverish words capture a taste of it all.

Steve's forehead is back, pressed to the side of Danny's temple. It too is hot and healing. "I love you too. Merry Christmas, Danny."

AN: It feels unbelievably good to finally see the payoff of seeds I wrote over a year ago now. The idea that Rachel and Charlie would actually end up in California and Steve's been taking all these photos throughout the series for an eventual photo album was conceived waaaayyyyy back in July of 2020.

((Also I know stars that need a NASA composite wouldn't be visible with even the best telescopes from Earth sshhh I'm taking creative license. :P))