Hey All! Thanks for the awesome reviews! You guys are great! Even though I've become predictable. Steve H/C is pretty much my forte by now.

But I like it, so boo to anybody who's bored of watching me maim our favorite SEAL. I don't much care… and it's just too much fun!

IMPORTANT: I love how many of you guys commented on how completely unrealistic it was that Steve was at a crime scene by himself! It makes me laugh how concerned you all are about it. Anyway, you needn't worry kiddies. There's a reason that Steve's on the boat by himself. Misunderstandings are a bitch for Danny and the team… so I assure you it was on purpose, but I'm still sorry if it irked you guys for the first chappy. All I can say is relax amigo. All will reveal itself.

Enjoy!

Luna.

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, plotlines, and snappy catchphrases belong to CBS studios. No profit is being made in the publication of this story.

Deputy Keikima of the Honolulu Police Department was very proud to call himself a cop. Sure, he was just shy of his twentieth birthday and- by all standards- as Rookie as it came, but police work was a family job and Sami Keikima was nothing if not honored to bear a badge.

Of course, when Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett, leader of Oahu's own Five-0 task force, gave him a cold, menacing glare, Keikima was less proud about wearing a badge and more embarrassed about how close he was to wetting himself. Needless to say, the young Deputy was dreading having to explain to his superiors why they were short one speedboat and why said speedboat had been commandeered by Commander McGarrett of all people. The man hadn't even given him a reason for taking the vehicle, and Keikima couldn't think of any possible reason for the Commander to be out there. As far as he knew, there wasn't anything out there.

More than twenty minutes had passed and Keikima decided he really couldn't put off the phone call to the station any longer. Sighing, he turned from his post in front of the dock and toward the expansive sea, all the while fishing his cell phone out of a holster near his gun.

He was a millimeter away from pressing send when the sea in front of him lurched and lapped at the docks as water was displaced. Why the water was moving so violently became apparent a moment later when Keikima looked out toward the horizon; there, on the edge of his vision, a cloud of black smoke entangled with dancing flames rose up to kiss the late morning clouds.

Sami Keikima was not a policeman for nothing; he was well versed in the powers of inference, and he had no problem discerning the explosion came from the same place Commander McGarrett drove out toward only minutes earlier.

Keikima gave the black cloud one last look before turning on his heel and running like hell toward his squad car, dialing his phone all the while. Only this time he wasn't calling his superiors.

He yanked open the car door, slid inside and wasted no time peeling out of the parking lot; he knew he couldn't stay, since he was only a deputy and McGarrett had the only HPD boat available in that harbor. He was going where he was needed, and he was calling who need be called.

His hand tapped madly against the steering wheel as the phone pressed against his ear rang endlessly. Finally, after decades of waiting, he heard a welcome voice on the other end.

"This is Kalakaua."

"Kono!" Keikima cried in relief.

"Sami K! How's it, cuz?"

"Listen, Kono, isn't Commander McGarrett your boss?" He wasted no preamble with his cousin; if he was right, there wasn't much time.

"Yeah…"

"I thought so. Get your ass off that airplane and get to Harbor at Diamond Head ASAP. We have a problem…"

Danny missed New Jersey every day (though admittedly a little less as time wore on). He missed good pizza and real buildings and people who appreciated what work attire was supposed to look like.

But one thing he surely didn't miss was the crooked, cumbersome political hierarchy that gripped the Jersey Police Department. Not only was it a breeding ground for corruption and whatnot, it made paperwork a bitch.

Compared to that, paperwork in Hawaii- even if the island did seem to attract more criminals and generally nasty people than most other places combined- was a walk through the park. Danny was sure he did it much more efficiently than Steve had, and he'd been working half as long. Sure, he didn't have his partner's compulsively neat military script, but he got the job done, and he had more time free to actually be productive.

Sighing slightly, he leaned back into Steve's gargantuan chair and relaxed for a moment, letting the comfortable (though he wouldn't admit it ever) Hawaiian sun envelope him. He closed his eyes.

His phone rang. And the moment was over.

"Williams," he answered, stifling a yawn behind his hand, feeling lethargic.

"Danny!"

"Kono?" Danny sat up in the chair at the distressed note in her voice, frowning. "What's wrong? I though you and Chin were on an airplane."

"We just emergency landed at the air force base. Listen, you need to meet us at Diamond Head."

"Diamond… What? What's going on, Kono?"

"I just got a call from my Cousin on the force. He says a boat exploded a few miles off of the coast-"

"Steve…" Danny breathed. With a burst of adrenaline he leapt from the chair and ran out of the office, letting Steve's glass door slam behind him as he sprinted through the corridors and outside to his car, all the while talking to Kono.

"You and Chin get there and secure a boat. Find a chopper and prepare a rescue team to stand by. I'll call the governor. Try and make contact with McGarrett and, if you can't, call anyone else on that crime scene unit until you get an answer!"

There was a pause on the other side of the phone. "What crime scene unit?" Kono asked, confusion lacing her melodic voice.

Danny furrowed his brow. "The one Steve went out to meet on the yacht. You know… the one with the crime…"

"There was a crime? Danny, all my cousin told me was that there was an explosion from some place off the coast and that Steve was likely inside. He didn't mention a crime!"

Danny paused, thinking hard. Of course there was a crime. Of course there was a CSU. When did a single man ever go out to a crime scene alone?

"HPD called me this morning to say that some guy stumbled upon a DB on some yacht and called it in. Said it wasn't their jurisdiction and Navy called it low priority. But they did say there was a CSU there waiting for us. Waiting for Steve. Why would we ever send a guy out on a boat completely alone with a crime scene?"

"I don't know… Something's going on, Danny. You say there's a crime that, according to my cousin, HPD has no record of. But you got a call from HPD about your crime. And there was supposed to be a CSU on the boat with Steve, but that can't be possible because no one knows about the crime. And now Steve's alone on an exploded boat with apparently no CSU and very little crime left."

"Shit," Danny swore to himself. "I didn't tell Steve that a CSU would be waiting for him. I didn't think I needed to! Why wouldn't he call when he got to an empty boat? What the hell is his problem?" He was close to seething.

"Not the time, Danny."

He cooled slightly, agreeing with her and hating every second of it.

"Right, sorry. I don't know what the hell is going on, Kono, but I swear to your ridiculous Hawaiian gods that I'm going to find out. Steve first, though. I'll be at Diamond Head in ten minutes. We'll save Steve's sorry ass from whoever decided to blow that boat to holy hell, and then we'll strangle the bastards who are targeting cops."

"Targeting cops?" She asked, and Danny could almost hear the frown in her voice.

"Think about it. I get a call from HPD about a crime that HPD doesn't know about? Someone is setting us up. Someone with enough leverage to make us think a CSU was waiting for Steve and HPD to be ignorant of the plot."

"Are you thinking…?"

"Wo Fat? Maybe. Or just another vengeful nutcase targeting the people who put him away. I don't know."

He heard Kono sigh. He knew how she felt.

"Okay. See you soon, Danny." Her voice trailed off listlessly. There was nothing left to say- not right now- so he snapped the phone shut and wasted no time, hopping in his car and peeling out of HQ with rubber squealing on the hot asphalt behind him.

Gasoline.

That was the first thing Steve noticed. The faint but odorous smell of gasoline, leaking into the room from… somewhere.

After that came the pain.

It permeated throughout his whole body, leaving no part of him free of its terrible, raw clutches.

Still, pain or no pain, he was a Navy SEAL and was practically born with the ability to move forward. To persevere. And right now, he knew the last thing he wanted to do was lie in the ground when the smell of gasoline so obviously assaulted his nose.

He cracked his eyes open. Above him, the remnants of a once- luxurious and beautiful ceiling crumbled away as the pressure from above relentlessly pressed against it. He was lying at the bottom of the stairs of the front room of the yacht in what presumably was the same place he fell after hitting his head.

Steve winced as that idea brought with it the reminder of the little elf currently taking a sledgehammer to his skull. He raised his hand to his temple to inspect the damage, and his fingers came away bloody.

Cataloging that particular injury, he put both hands on the floor and attempted to push himself into a sitting position.

It didn't last long. Immediately, his chest protested in pain, terrible agony ripping into his side as his abdomen curled. He gasped and put a hand to his chest, feeling a rib or two move beneath his searching fingers.

Great. Fucking fantastic. Danny's going to be so smug…

Admittedly, not the most appropriately timed thought. Still, it gave Steve something to think about for just a moment. A moment to stop thinking about the great ache in his chest or the throbbing in his head or where the day had gone wrong. Routine my ass, Williams. There's nothing routine about this.

The moment didn't last long. His ears began to ring and the ceiling above him began to creak and moan as the weight on top threatened collapse. Not wasting another second lying beneath such an unstable contraption, Steve once again made to sit up, this time ignoring his aching body's protests. Fire spread down his side and his head throbbed worse than ever, but he managed to sit up and then haul him up using the railing- still mostly intact- of the stairs.

Leaning against the stairwell and panting heavily, Steve surveyed the room. It was a complete disaster; it looked as though someone had… well… blown it up. Debris covered the stairwell he was about to climb, trapping him in that little room at the front of the exploded vessel. The one lonely window of the room was intact, but it sat very high and offered Steve absolutely no help apart from a small stream of sunlight into the dark and dusty room. All things considered, he'd had better mornings.

I bet Niko is blown to shit… Steve mused, but as he did a thought struck him- one that he had witnessed passing along inside his mind before the explosion, but had not expressed. Why would Danny send him out to a crime scene totally alone? Steve hadn't been a cop for long, and was quite used to being on his own, but he was well aware that typical police procedure included never being alone at the scene of a crime.

And yet Danny had sent him on his merry way, and then the goddamn boat blew to pieces.

Even as he thought it, Steve knew the words weren't true. He trusted Danny with his life. This was a mistake… a misunderstanding… a setup.

Steve frowned at the wreckage in front of him and tried to make sense of the thoughts in his head. Of course, that was proving impossible with the goddamn ringing in his ears...

Ringing? His head was full of it.

Oh, wait. Actual ringing.

Still frowning, Steve reached a hand into the pocket of his cargo pants. Amazingly, even with all the wreckage around him and the damage done to his body, his cell phone remained mostly intact.

Thank god for small favors, he thought to himself, smiling a little when the ringing he'd heard proved to be Kono trying very hard to contact him- if the number of missed calls was any indication.

"Kono," he answered, coughing a little and wincing internally at the raspy sound of his voice.

"Steve!" She cried, "Oh thank god! Are you okay? What happened?" She was talking very quickly and breathlessly, and Steve could hear commotion in the background. Someone who sounded suspiciously like Danny was shouting very loudly, though the words were indiscernible.

"I've… been better," he replied, finding it hard to follow her rapid fire questions.

"What happened?" She asked again, this time with more urgency.

"Well… the boat exploded."

"No shit, Sherlock." Danny's voice replaced Kono's, sounding decidedly more agitated. "You are useless."

"Have some sympathy, Danno," Steve replied, unable to help the smile that graced his lips, "I'm hurt."

"You're talking. I'll take that as a good sign… Now, where are you on the boat and what's the situation?"

Steve took a moment to look around, but the situation had changed little since he'd been on the phone. "I'm-" he scrunched his face, thinking- "portside, I think. More toward the bow, in the cabin."

There was a slight rustling on the other side of the phone, and Steve heard Chin's calm voice explaining boat lingo to Danny. He smirked.

"Have you sustained a head injury?" Danny asked, finally directing attention back to the conversation. Steve grimaced.

"Yes," he replied, "but there are no signs of brain damage-"

"Thank god for that, we wouldn't want you to be wrong in the head."

"That's funny, Danno. Anyway, I feel a few cracked ribs, too, but nothing too serious."

"Nothing too…? What planet are you from, you Neanderthal? Head trauma and broken ribs-"

"Cracked."

"Whatever. This is serious-"

But Steve did not hear the rest of Danny's sentence about properly describing a situation because his ears and mind were elsewhere, following the quiet but familiar sound of rushing water. From his place but the stairwell, he had a good vantage point to see the rest of the small room, and he had no trouble spotting the clear liquid snake into the room underneath the piles of debris. It was coming, and coming fast. The boat began to rock slightly and Steve almost lost his balance as the vessel shifted downward. The ceiling began to creak more and more. Steve wasn't a Navy man for nothing; he knew what a sinking boat looked like.

"Danny," Steve said, effectively ending his partner's rant, "where are you?"

"On the dock trying to procure a boat and come save your sorry ass," Danny replied, his voice sounding frustrated.

"You might want to hurry up," Steve said, watching the water inch closer to him and listening to the creaking of the sinking vessel. He looked up at the high window; it was still streaming sunlight, but Steve knew it wouldn't for long.

"What…?"

But Steve didn't have an answer for him. Just as Danny spoke, the boat gave a great lurch downward and Steve lost grip of his phone, watching helplessly as it sailed away from him and into the rising water. The floor was becoming alarmingly more vertical every second, and the creaking grew louder.

Steve had no more time to waste. He was lucky enough to know exactly how to deal with water- related emergencies, but unfortunately, that also made him all the more aware of just how fucked up the situation was about to become. He needed to get out, and fast.

He searched the floor frantically until he spotted something that would do; a twisted and ugly piece of exploded metal about the size of his forearm that had morphed into a point of sorts at one end. Taking a deep breath and ignoring the protest from his chest, he pushed off the wall he was leaning on and moved toward the object in question, only stopping for a moment to let the black dots in his vision clear.

With the metal object in hand, Steve moved back over to the other wall of the small room, carefully stepping around debris and ignoring the water lapping at his ankles. He just managed to grab a hold of the railing once more when the boat lurched violently and shifted and moved until the floor was almost vertical.

Thanking the high heavens, or eleven years as a Naval Officer, that he moved fast enough, Steve gripped the railing and let his belly lay on the floor so that he was almost upright by the vertical position of the boat.

And now, he waited. He waited until the pressure inside the boat and the pressure outside the boat were close enough that breaking the glass window high above him would not result in an relentless cascade of water. He waited until the last possible second, when he could float upward toward the window and his escape.

The water inched toward him so that it barely tickled his dangling feet. The ache in his ribs grew with each passing second as he clung to the railing of the stairwell. Debris shook loose from above and rained down, covering him with dust and shards of metal that cut into his cheek.

And still he waited.

TBC

A/N: See? I told you guys everything would be okay. Y'all are silly; I give you one chapter and all hell breaks loose. But I had a plan. I always have a plan. And now we have Wo Fat involved and Steve on a sinking ship and all sorts of nasty stuff. Party on.