THIS CHAPTER IS M-RATED. Again, M-rating people, and not for the faint of heart. My heart was pounding when I wrote it, still is actually, and I had to forcefully convince myself to read it again and again for editing. It was rough.

The fic will be M-rated from here on out. I'll update the rating when I post the next chapter, but I wanted to let you guys know so that if you haven't subscribed, you'll still be able to find it.

I cannot thank you all enough for the reviews. I'm so glad that so many people are enjoying this story. Well, not that anyone is literally enjoying the dark, depressing, horrible, gruesome topics and situations, but I think we all understand my meaning.

SPOILERS for 5.04 and 5.07 from here on out. I'll stop saying it. Disclaimer in Chapter 2.

I would say this chapter is short and sweet (maybe replacing sweet with intense or an adjective more macabre) but I think it's just short because there's so much intensity packed into this thing that no one would survive otherwise. On with the show, and I hope I don't give anyone a panic attack.

Let's all keep cheering on inner-Danny!

"To correct a natural indifference I was placed half-way between misery and the sun. Misery kept me from believing that all was well under the sun, and the sun taught me that history wasn't everything."

Albert Camus

CHAPTER 5

"What the hell is this!?" Danny screamed as he walked through the doors to headquarters and three heads turned guiltily towards him like deer caught in the headlights. Deer with their hooves stuck in the cookie jar, too. Very, very guilty deer.

Grace had woken up a few times over the course of the day and the doctors were elated by her progress. Rachel had convinced Danny that he should go home and change, shower, that he'd feel better. She wasn't naïve enough to ask him to get some rest, and he was thankful for that. If Rachel was staying with Grace, Danny felt secure enough to leave her for a little while, although it still pained him and he was still worried for his little girl. He called Amber on the drive home to give her an update, but the conversation felt awkward. Amber didn't really know what to do while Rachel was around, but Danny couldn't concern himself with that complication at the moment. While he was home, Rachel texted him and said that they were taking Grace for some tests and might be a few hours, so he should take his time. She was going down to the cafeteria and would call him if anything came up.

Which led to Danny's current predicament. With an extra hour or so he decided that he needed to stop by HQ and get an update on Steve, or the continued lack of him. Danny wasn't stupid. He knew the procedure, and he knew his own state of mind well enough to know that he was nowhere near capable of taking part in this case as much as it pained him to admit it.

What he never expected in a million years was to see a mugshot of Amber up on the screen when he walked through the doors. What the hell was going on?

The three deer around the smart table were still caught in the headlight that was the furious confusion of the diminutive detective. Danny walked right up to them without saying a word, and all three began to fumble to give some sort of explanation.

"Stop," Danny commanded when he realized that this wasn't starting off well or likely to be very helpful. Rachel was right, the shower and brief respite from the hospital did refresh him significantly. Enough so that he could handle this without falling apart or going berserk.

"Chin. What the hell is going on?" the detective asked, calmly but forcefully, which was far more terrifying than any other tone of voice he could have used. A calm Danny was scary and unpredictable and the other three members of Five-0 were wishing for a rant. It was definitely well-deserved given the circumstances.

"Um…uh. Look, Danny." At any other time Danny would have found the loss of Chin's perpetual zen-like state worthy of marking on a calendar. At the moment though, it frustrated him to Hell and back. "We, uh, we realized that we don't actually know Amber that well, and that she was the only other person besides Steve who knew that Steve would be picking Grace up from school. We had to start somewhere. And frankly, she was dodgy as hell about why she called Steve in the first place. It was the only lead that we had, and even you have to admit, we have to consider it. We have to consider everything, Danny. We've got so little to go on."

"And what, you couldn't consider maybe asking her directly? How about asking me? Did you consider that!?" Danny was working himself into a rant, which had an odd comforting effect on his three teammates. "You have to go behind my back like this!? I mean, I realize that I'm not handling things as well as I could be at the moment, but I've got a lot of shit to deal with right now, so I think that's justifiable. My daughter is in the fucking hospital. My partner is missing, for the second time in a fucking week!" Danny realized that he was shouting again but couldn't seem to stop himself, and didn't want to anyway.

"You guys don't trust my judgment!? You think I would introduce someone dangerous to Grace, that I would let her near my daughter if I had the slightest suspicion of her intentions? Are you fucking kidding me!?" Danny seemed to run out of steam and practically deflated like a balloon. He would have dropped all the way to the floor, but the table stopped him halfway there and he grabbed it like a life raft at sea.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. A big hand. He looked up and met Lou's eyes.

"Danny, we knew what we were doing. And we knew that it'd upset you, but we had to do it – for Steve." Lou was looking at him with such sympathy, his very soul apologizing and hurting for Danny.

"Thing is, brah," Chin chimed in, "we found something."

Danny's head snapped up at that.

"What?"

He gazed again at the mugshot that had started this riot. "What is this?"

"Danny," Kono started gently as she walked over and put a hand on his arm. "How much do you know about Amber's past?"

"Well, she just told me about her ex-husband and her divorce. She said she had more to tell me, but that it could wait, that I needed," he paused and swallowed thickly, "that I needed to focus on Grace. God, we didn't even know if she would…" His sentence drifted off as he remembered those horrible first hours. It was still horrible, but now he knew that his daughter would live, that he would still get to hold her in his arms every day and watch her grow up into the beautiful woman he knew she'd be. The fact that he almost lost all of that… And he still didn't know how much he would regain.

"Well," Kono looked around as if asking for permission to continue, unknowingly saving Danny from his dark thoughts, "she was definitely right that there's more to it."

"But Danny, we don't need to go into this right now. We don't think any of it is connected with Steve," Lou interjected, the father in him knowing that Danny didn't need this extra bombshell right now. But the friend in him knew that now the detective wouldn't let it rest, no matter how damaging it would be to his state of mind.

"Lou, there's a mugshot of my girlfriend up on the screen. You had better fucking explain, and you had better do it right now." Danny's words were filled with an uncharacteristic venom, although it wasn't directed at any of them. It was disconcerting nonetheless.

"Danny-" Chin started.

"Don't! Don't even try, Chin Ho Kelly. Just tell me what the hell is going on here," he interrupted.

The three teammates looked at each other again, each wondering if it was really their right to tell Danny this personal information. Especially since it seemed that Amber was willing to tell him herself. The timing was couldn't have been more awful.

"Danny," Chin had finally recovered his zen, thank goodness, "Amber was accused of trying to kill her husband, but it was determined to be self-defense. She and her husband, John Marsden," he paused briefly and an image of the stereotypical brown-haired white male flew up on the screen, "were married for 2 years before the divorce was granted. Amber told the courts that he had started abusing her regularly about a year into the marriage. She also accused him of -" he paused again and looked at Danny, doubtful that he should continue but knew that there was no turning back, "of raping her several times. But without any evidence, just her testimony, there was nothing they could do."

White noise. That was all he heard. He looked at the man on the screen and was filled with such rage, but he was helpless to do anything about it. His muscles wouldn't move. He couldn't even grimace. In fact, he felt suddenly weak. He felt like he was falling, that he would hit the floor at any moment.

Just as he reached the point of no return he felt something hit the back of his knees, and collapsed into the chair that was pushed behind him. Not a moment too soon. A few moments too late if he were honest. His head was pushed down between his knees.

"Danny?"

"Brah?"

…Danno?

Who was that? He couldn't sworn that he heard Steve's voice just now.

"Steve?" he asked hopefully out of the blue. A water bottle was pushed into his hands as he surfaced from between his knees, although he still felt like he was drowning.

"No more leads. We're still waiting on the results of the blood they found at the scene," Kono answered, assuming that Danny wanted to move on to the next crisis. "Nothing useful from any of the camera footage either, and we've gone over it –"

"No, not how – I just thought – did you guys hear anything just now?" Danny's thoughts were disjointed and in complete disarray. He knew he wasn't mistaken, that had definitely been Steve. After all, he was the only one that called him Danno, well, besides… "No one called me 'Danno' just now?" It hurt to say it out loud. He didn't yet know if he would ever hear Grace call him that again. He was overcome by the urge to race to the hospital just to see her and hold her.

The cousins and Lou looked at each other, suddenly becoming very concerned for their friend.

"Danny, are you alright, brah?" Chin asked as he took the water bottle from Danny's shaking hands, opened it, and handed it back. When Danny stared at it like it was an alien artifact he gently directed it closer to his mouth and tipped it up until Danny's instincts kicked in.

Kono was rubbing soothing circles on his back as he took a sip of water. "I'm fine, well, not fine obviously, but – I just – I could have sworn I heard Steve's voice just now." He looked at each of them in turn, knowing that he sounded crazy, but also knowing that none of them would judge him for it.

There was silence in the large room as everyone was lost in his or her own thoughts for a moment. Surprisingly, it was Danny who gathered himself enough to speak up again. "We've really got nothing? No idea what this is all about?" He looked into each of this friend's eyes, desperate for some hope. He was running dishearteningly low on that resource at the moment and would do anything to be able to soak up some hope or confidence from the team. But there was nothing. No one knew how to comfort Danny, especially not after the bombshell they had just dropped on him. Lou and Chin suspected that he hadn't even started processing the information on Amber yet and that he wouldn't for some time. Kono just felt completely overwhelmed and so sorry for everything that was being heaped on Danny right now.

"Guys," Danny pleaded. His voice continued to fade until he sounded like a lost little boy, far from home and with no hope that he would ever see his parents again. "There's got to be something. We can't just leave him out there. He just – he literally just did this. We just got him back." Danny stared straight ahead in horror, realizing just how awful this must be for Steve. But there was no more room for horror in Danny's soul at the moment. At least he thought so in that moment.

When Danny's phone started ringing the depressing conversation was abruptly cut off before it had even started, which no one was sorry for. Danny hopped out of the chair and grabbed his phone like it was a live grenade, assuming it would be Rachel calling from the hospital. The team looked on with apprehension and sympathy. Always sympathy, he was never going to escape it.

Danny's face morphed into one of confusion as the word 'RESTRICTED' flashed on the screen, but picked it up regardless. "Detective Williams," he stated, trying not to sound as utterly confused as he actually was.

"Ah, Detective. It's so good to finally meet you," said a heavily accented, but completely unfamiliar voice.

"Hello, who is this?" Danny looked in confusion at his friends now standing around the table and received questioning looks in return. The overwhelming sympathy was still obvious just under the surface.

"You may not realize who I am yet, Detective, but I know a lot about you," the disembodied voice was starting to sound very sinister. Danny had no idea what this could be about, and in response to the frantic gesturing by Kono he finally put the phone on speaker and set it on the smart table.

"What is this about? Who are you?" Danny demanded, feeling stronger by the minute as his confusion morphed into anger.

"I am Juan Carlos Santos, Detective Williams." The voice waited a beat while the members of Five-0 all looked at each other blankly. "Ah, so you truly do not know who I am? You have not been doing your homework, Detective."

Danny was distracted for a moment by the cousins who had started typing frantically into the computer. A face popped up on the screen, over the top of Amber's mugshot and the photo of her ex-husband, but no one recognized it. "What the hell is this about?" Danny practically growled into the phone, just as a picture of Marco Reyes popped up on the screen next to Santos, the cousins having discovered some connection. The blonde detective felt like someone had poured a bucket of ice water over his head as he stood frozen to the spot. Or maybe it was boiling water. He couldn't tell up from down anymore and he certainly couldn't feel anything at the moment let alone tell the difference between hot and cold. The white noise that he had just banished was starting to return.

"Detective, Marco Reyes was my best friend. We were like brothers. And I am here to make sure that no one will question my leadership of the cartel ever again. When you killed him, Marco didn't suffer. For that I am grateful, but your friend will. I want you to feel the pain of losing someone you love, as I have."

There was a break in the threatening monologue and what could have been a scuffle in the background.

"But I did, Santos! I did! Reyes killed my brother Matty. Please, you don't have to do this! I've suffered, believe me I've suffered. I'm suffering right now! My daughter is in the hospital with a brain injury. She may not ever be the same. She might not ever recover completely. Please, just let Steve go," Danny pleaded, his voice becoming gloomier and quieter by the moment as it transformed into undisguised begging. "Just let him go and we'll let you leave the island and we won't come after you. Please, I'm begging you, just let him go." Danny looked across the table at the cousins, wide-eyed and fearful. They met his gaze briefly and then returned their attention to the smart table, frantically trying to get a successful trace. Lou unconsciously began scooting closer to the smaller detective but didn't have any clue what he was planning to do.

"No, no, Detective. That will not be good enough for me. I want to see you suffer. I want to watch you fall apart! I want to watch as your life is ruined as mine was."

Danny just stood by the smart table, or more likely the table was supporting him at this point for the second time in just as many minutes. Somewhere in the depths of his well-trained mind he knew that he had to keep Santos on the line so that the cousins could trace the call. They were still working frantically, but it seemed like Danny was watching them work underwater. Everything seemed muffled and far away. He couldn't think of a single thing to say to the man who held his partner.

"Detective? Ah, you are scared now. You know that this is real, yes?" Santos paused a beat and still with no answer from Danny continued. "You see, at first I wanted your daughter. What better way to hurt a man than through his daughter?"

Danny came alive again at this. No one threatened his Gracie! "You stay away from her you scumbag! I will not let you harm one hair on her head, you hear me!?" he shouted, suddenly coming back to himself, out of the water, into the realm of feelings once more.

Santos' disembodied voice chuckled for all to hear. "Oh, but I already have, Detective. And while I lament that she could not join the Capitán, you say she has a brain injury, yes? Well good, it is what I could hope for."

"You slimy, son of a bitch! When I-" Danny started on another heated rant but Santos cut him off.

"Well, once I knew that the Capitán would be our guest instead, I found some very interesting information from a recent, how shall I say, altercation with a man called Wo Fat."

At those words, Danny's heart didn't just drop into his stomach. It didn't bother to take the stairs or even the elevator. It just plummeted all the way down to what felt like the center of the Earth, and then all the way out the other side. He couldn't move. He didn't dare breathe. He didn't even notice the lack of movement in the room. Chin and Kono were both frozen over the smart table, staring at each other in muted horror. Lou looked like he wanted to shout something, but didn't want to let Santos know he was there, that there were frantically trying to trace his call. Instead, the former SWAT captain stood like a fish out of water, his mouth gaping until he remembered to close it every few seconds before it opened again.

No one moved. No one spoke.

This couldn't be happening.

"Detective?" the sick voice finally roused the horrified team. It would have been more humane to leave them frozen. Chin and Kono resumed their work on the table, albeit more slowly and very distracted. "I see that you like my plan, yes?" Danny swallowed what felt like a grenade lodged in his throat and began to breathe in heavy gasps, intuition letting him know what was coming. "I have a police report, a medical report, and the statement of the Capitán. It is a very interesting read. Perhaps he needs a reminder. A very…realistic reminder." At this, Lou suddenly came back to life and ran to his office in record time. Danny couldn't be bothered to wonder why, not with the bombshell of horror that had just been dropped into their laps. And just when he thought he couldn't take anymore…

"What…why? Why are you doing this?" Was that small, broken voice really his? He didn't even realize that he had spoken.

"I have already said Detective, you must suffer. You must suffer more than any man has for the crimes you have committed. You come into my country. You kill my friend, my brother. My family is dead because of you. I control the cartel now, and I will not let this happen again. Not to anyone I love, or who love me. This will teach you, yes? You say that you have learned, but you have not. I do not think you have suffered as I have. This will make you suffer."

The almost imperceptible click of a dropped call echoed louder than a sonic boom through the Five-0 headquarters.

...

An undetermined amount of time later…

...

Knock knock.

Who's there?

Moo.

Moo who?

Hey, are you a cow or an owl? You can't be both.

…

Here's another one. Why didn't Cinderella make the baseball team?

Gee, Danno, I dunno, why not?

Cuz she kept running away from the ball!

…

How about this one.

Two cannibals were eating a clown. One cannibal turned to the other and said, "Hey, does this taste funny to you?"

…

Oh, you'll love this one!

Two fish were sitting in a tank. One fish turned to the other and said, "I'll drive. You man the guns!"

Hahaha, get it!? It's not a fish tank, but a tank tank, right!

Steve?

Hey, hey babe, c'mon. Wake up. Steven? You there?

Ugh, of course you would wake up to the tank joke. You Army guys are all the same.

'Navy, Danny' Steve groaned. His head was hanging on his chest and when he tried to open his eyes he felt the gummy accumulation that comes from the aftermath of tears or extended sleep, in this case both. Steve squeezed his eyes shut tighter at the memory of earlier, refusing to face the world for a few more seconds. He couldn't believe that he'd lost it like that. He felt his cheeks burning with shame and tears pricked his eyes again at the thought of how weak he'd been. How weak he was.

Hey! Cut that shit out right now, Steven! Cut it the fuck out and never think that again! You hear me!? How could you?

Steve turned his head away as if Danny were really there with him and he was avoiding eye contact. He wanted to bury his face in his hands and hide from the world, but was brutally reminded of the impossibility of that action when his wrists were reacquainted with the restraints. He squeezed his eyes shut even tighter and fisted his hands, wishing that he could hit something out of anger for his weakness.

Steve. Oh, babe.

Danny-in-his-head sounded sad. Incredibly, undeniably sad.

Steven. It's not weakness, I swear. I would never lie to you. You're the strongest person I know. Look at everything you've done in your life! Look at everything you've already made it through.

"That's just it, Danno. I don't know if I can do this again," Steve replied aloud with a small, broken voice, forgetting for a moment that his best friend wasn't really there with him.

Fuck that, Steven. You've got something important to make it back to. More important than you've ever had before. More important than even last week, alright? There's a little girl who's going to need to see your shining face every day to help her get better. And I happen to know this other guy that's going to need your strength, too. He's not gonna need you to be strong for him, that's a bit much to ask given the circumstances, but he's gonna need to you to make it through this so that he can make it through this. Alright? You get me, Steven?

Steve swore that he could see Danny's hand making dramatic circles in the air and that he heard his partner sigh after he'd finished his little pep talk.

You've got a job to do here. And you've gotta do it better than you've ever done it before. And I'm not going anywhere, babe. Alright? I'll be right here, the whole time. Don't forget that, okay? Please, please don't ever forget that.

Danny's voice sounded so sincere. And so… desperate. Needy. Like it was as necessary as breathing for Steve to know that he couldn't afford to give up. Like it would be the end of everything if he did.

...

TBC

Well… at least they have each other?