A/N: Howdy! Very jealous of all you people with television who get to watch the episodes as they come out. I can't wait to meet the new team members! What do you think of them so far?

A/N: You can find the SPAWAR building in Pearl City on Google Maps, by the way. In case you're bored and want something fun to do.

…

Steve cleared the building methodically, room by room. As Danny sang distractingly off-key in the parking lot, Steve moved stealthily forward along the third floor. Four rooms left. Now three. Now two.

The door to the last room was open.

It was empty.

Steve turned in a complete circle, looking for a possible second door, another exit from the small, cramped space, but saw nothing. The four walls contained only a single door and, opposite it, a single window with a rotting, wooden window ledge. Popping his earpiece out- Danny's singing was particularly horrendous- he listened for any sound of another person. The noise of the wharf, the clanging and whistling and banging, could be heard from all the various docks and warehouses on the other side of the glassless window, but the building itself was quiet.

Steve popped the earpiece back in. "It's empty," he spoke into his mic.

Danny stopped singing. "How empty?"

"There's no one here. But…" looking around the room, Steve began to catalogue the equipment set up on the boxes and crates, "someone was here. We've got a portable battery, some listening equipment, infrared goggles, recording devices…"

"Surveillance gear." Danny jogged back across the parking lot. "Anything else?"

"Candy wrappers, takeout containers, trash, some beer bottles…" Steve picked up a notebook from the floor and flipped through the entries. "Here's the trucks and license plates Jimmy told you about."

Danny was on the stairs inside the building now. "Anything interesting?" he panted as he took them two at a time.

"Not at first glance. We'll give it to Charlie." Steve frowned as he heard Danny's breathing slow to a labored wheeze. "You can slow down, D; there's no rush."

For a moment, the only sound was Danny's raspy inhaling and exhaling over the mic. Then he heard a slight puff and his partner finally spoke. "Freakin' cough."

Steve looked up as Danny entered the room and saw him slip the inhaler back into his pocket. "Do we need to leave?"

"Leave? Why? We just got here."

Steve looked pointedly at the bulge in Danny's pocket. "You need a hospital?"

"Right this very minute? No. Yesterday afternoon- yes. Today, right after lunch, yes. But I'll live until then. It can wait." Doctor's orders or no, Danny was loathe to leave the newly-discovered crime scene without looking around first. What difference would another hour make?

Steve pressed his mouth together doubtfully but decided not to press the point. "You see anyone leave the building on your way over?"

"Not a soul," Danny shook his head. He took in the room with a quick glance. "Trashy place. What's with the smell?"

"Probably this," Steve nudged a plastic bottle of yellow liquid with his booted toe.

Danny wrinkled his nose. "One of the many reasons I am happy to be a detective and not the tech who will have to go through all this crap," he said. Scooping up the binoculars, he moved to the window. "Any idea which building they were surveilling?"

"Nope." Steve flipped to the front of the log book. "But they just started watching it a few days ago. The first entry is dated Tuesday."

"Maybe there's another log book from earlier," Danny suggested as he studied the buildings across the street.

Steve rummaged through the pile of debris on the crates. "Don't see another one."

"Huh." Danny fiddled with the focus knob on the binoculars. "Steve? What's 'spuhwar'?"

"What?"

"Spawr. Spawar. Spavahr?"

"What the heck are you looking at?"

Danny passed him the binoculars and pointed. "Second building to the right. No sign at the gate, but there's a little placard on that truck that just pulled up."

Steve put them up to his eyes and squinted. "That's SPAWAR, Danny."

"Which is…?"

"It's a Space and Naval Warfare facility," Steve replied tightly.

Danny only latched onto one part of what he said. "Hang on, space warfare? Space warfare?" He turned incredulously back and forth between the window and his partner. "What does that even mean? Star Wars and storm troopers?"

Steve smoothed his features and gave his partner a blank stare. "It's classified, Danny."

"Seriously?" the shorter man huffed. He puffed out his cheeks in frustration, put his hands on his hips and shook his head in annoyance. "You can not use that as a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card every time something comes up." Danny had given Steve a pass yesterday, mostly out of necessity considering the governor's phone call and mention of SecNav, but those details didn't make Danny any happier about it. "I think I deserve an explanation this time."

"And I can't give you one."

"Why not?"

"Because," Steve ground out, "it's worth more than just my job."

"Is this related to the Thing yesterday?" Danny guessed. "The Thing you can't talk about where you disappeared for hours? That Thing?"

"Yeah. Maybe. Possibly. I need to make some phone calls," he replied shortly, his phone already in his hand as he scrolled through his contacts for the number Colonel Thule had given him.

"Let me guess- the classified kind of phone calls." Danny sighed. "You don't have to tell me- I'm going. You have fun with that. I'll meet you at the car."

…

20 minutes later:

"So that's it? We're just leaving?"

"Yeah. Why?" Steve put the car in reverse, turned in a neat semicircle, and pulled away from the wharf.

"Um…" Danny watched the building recede in the rearview mirror. "What about all the evidence back there? There are procedures, a certain protocol that must be followed, evidence that needs to be bagged and tagged… If we leave, that could derail our ability to use the evidence in court later." Danny knew his partner wasn't much for rules and procedures, but he thought this was a bit unusual even for the ex-SEAL.

"I don't think that evidence is going to make it to court," Steve countered.

"And why not, exactly?" Danny stopped and twisted in his seat as a string of dark SUVs turned into the wharf behind them. "Oh. Is that why? Are they Men in Black or something?"

Steve shrugged.

"Right. It's classified." The Jersey detective sat back with a disgruntled snort. "Why do I even bother asking?"

…

"Well, I've found your unicorn." A short rap on Steve's door preceded this statement and the Five-0 commander looked up to see his technical consultant gesturing excitedly toward the large screen in the bullpen.

"Really?" Doubtful, Steve nevertheless set aside his half-finished report to follow the larger man to the computer. Danny had run out to grab lunch for them (with Steve's firm promise that he would go with Danny to the doctor as soon as they were done eating), leaving just Jerry and Steve behind in the office. "What do you have?"

"Okay, so you know HPD set up a tip line, right?"

Steve nodded. "Sure, but half the island thinks this whole unicorn thing is a joke, so most of the 'tips' are just prank calls." The reaction was to be expected after the news outlets had run the tagline, Have you seen this unicorn? with their 6-o-clock news.

"Most does not equal all," Jerry said sagely. "I wrote a program to analyze the tips coming in, added the numbers they were coming from, and cross reference location data and time of each call. Calls made from out of state numbers or places where a unicorn sighting would be less likely, like North Shore, were disregarded."

"Okay…" Steve watched as dots appeared on the screen denoting the tips that had been called in so far.

"Then I looked at time data: the horse probably won't move 23 miles in one hour, so I looked for clusters of calls from similar locations at similar times."

"And you narrowed it down to…?"

"Here." Jerry hovered the mouse over the southeastern tip of the island, a seasonally-dry area that was currently still green and lush with the winter rains. "Our pony has been moving south east over the past several days and should be somewhere in this valley near the botanical gardens."

"You're sure? This is a big island, Jerry."

"I'm sure. Well, 96% sure. Because the program is 96% sure."

Steve was impressed. "Great work, Jer," he clapped the man on the shoulder as Jerry beamed at the praise. "Tell Danny when he gets back. Have him call me."

"You don't want to wait for him?"

"I don't want somebody else to get to the horse first," Steve replied and he hurried out the door.

…

Over an hour later…

Danny was waiting when the phone rang. He'd been waiting patiently at first for Steve to return his call, then impatiently as the minutes dragged on. He'd consumed his sandwich, downed the soda, chips, and cookie, and then had eaten Steve's bag of chips and cookie as well. (He won't mind, Danny told himself. He'd just say they were unhealthy and let me have them anyway.) He didn't touch Steve's arugula-and-something sandwich. The man could keep that for himself.

The area where his partner had gone was notorious for poor service; being located on the wrong side of Koko Head crater meant it was far away from the cell towers that serviced downtown Honolulu and was a sparsely-populated, cactus-infested grassland. Danny knew it would be pointless to head down there without knowing where, exactly, Steve was, so he stayed at the office, refreshing his inbox, playing on his tablet, and sorting old paperwork, while he waited for the phone to ring.

But when it did ring, it wasn't Steve.

"Hey Duke," Danny greeted, propping the phone against his ear.

"Danny, I thought you'd want to hear it from me, first."

"Hear what?"

"Your partner just popped up on the traffic cams on Kapiolani. He and that unicorn just blew through 3 red lights in a row."

"He what?!" Danny palmed his forehead with one hand as he felt a distinctly McGarrett-sized headache coming on. "What the heck is he doing?"

"I don't know, but there's more: he's being followed. The last 911 caller reported 'a crazy man on a white horse and a car full of gun-shooting hooligans right behind him.'"

Danny groaned. "That sounds like him- in trouble and thinking outside the box. Any idea where he's going?"

"Looks like he's headed straight for the Palace. I've sent you a snapshot of the last red light, but you should be able to pull the live data in your office."

"At least no one can doubt the existence of the unicorn now," Danny mused as he gestured for Jerry to move so he could use the smart table. "Where is he now?"

"I don't know. We lost him at Kuilei. I'll let you know when we have him again."

"Okay. Thanks, Duke." Hanging up, Danny turned to Jerry. "We need to find Steve."

…

But even with the help of traffic cams and satellite imagery, finding Steve was easier said than done. After retracing Steve's steps down Kapiolani to Kuilei, Danny was at a loss when he failed to appear on any other lights or cameras in the vicinity. As far as he and Jerry could tell, both SEAL and horse- and car of 'hooligans'- had disappeared. After nearly twenty minutes of searching (by which time Steve should have made it to HPD or the Five-0 building), Danny gave up and turned away from the table with a sigh.

"Jerry- did you drive here today?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"I'm thinking maybe we should go find SuperSEAL ourselves. Want to take a spin around the block with me?" Steve had taken Danny's car and presumably ditched it where he found the horse, leaving the detective without a ride.

"Sure."

As they headed downstairs and outside into the late afternoon sunshine, Danny belatedly realized that he wasn't going to make it to the doctor today. The thought didn't really surprise him and he realized that he hadn't actually expected to make it, which was just sad. And he was only slightly angry with his perpetually-absent partner and failed chauffeur for being the cause of his second- or was it third?- missed appointment. But then those musings were quickly shoved aside as he climbed into the passenger seat and turned his attention to the far more important task at hand: finding his partner.

…

Steve, it seemed, did not want to be found. He was not on Kapiolani nor Kuilei nor any of the surrounding streets, and Danny didn't hear any of the gunfire that he expected to hear after Duke's report about 'gun-toting hooligans.' For all that he and Jerry could tell, Steve and the horse had simply disappeared.

Disappointed and worried, the pair returned to the office.

"What. the. heck?" Danny stopped just inside the double glass doors.

"Hey, Danny." His partner, out of breath and drenched in dirt and sweat, stood in the office with a large bucket of water from the janitor's closet… and a horse. "Meet Lilith," Steve said, placing the bucket under the horse's nose.

"You brought it here? What were you thinking?"

"First, it's a she, not an it," Steve thrust a finger at Danny, "and second," he held up two fingers, "she was in danger. I was in danger. Do you want us to go back outside where the crazy guys with the guns are?"

"What crazy guys with guns? Jerry and I were just out there- there are no crazy people, no guns, no shooting- ergo, no danger!"

"They didn't just disappear, Danny. They'll be waiting for us. We can't just go back out there."

"You- no. The horse- yes. Horses are animals, Steven. Animals belong outside. You are human. Humans belong inside."

"The horse stays." Glaring, Steve folded his arms and straightened into his tallest, most intimidating stance. "The horse stays and that's final."

"Hello, gentlemen," a new voice broke in. "Am I interrupting something?"

…

"Governor." Steve started at the sudden appearance of the head of Hawaii in his office.

"Great, just great," Danny muttered under his breath.

Steve shushed him with a short kick to his leg. "Hello, sir. I can explain…"

"About running the red lights, or the horse in your office?" Denning held up a hand to forestall any comment. "I didn't realize I was paying Five-0 to stable horses," and he gently patted the animal's neck and rubbed her nose. "I assume there is a very good explanation for this?"

"Yes, sir," Steve began with a warning look at Danny. "And we were just about to call animal control."

"But you don't have time to take any of my calls?"

"Your calls?" Steve was at a loss now. "Sir, I don't have any missed calls from you," and to confirm, he took out his phone and pulled up the call log.

"Really? Because I've called you five times in the past hour."

It was Jerry who noticed what the others missed. "Um, guys? We don't have any service." He held up his own device as an example. "No bars."

Years of experience and a sudden, unsettled feeling in his stomach caused Danny to reach for the nearest desk phone. He set it down almost immediately with a troubled frown. "Landlines are down, too."

Steve tensed and in a fraction of a second subtly shifted into navy mode. "Danny, take the governor and get to safety," he said, looping an arm around Denning and forcibly guiding him toward the door. "Once you're out, call this number," and he pushed a sticky note into Danny's hand. "Tell them that you're my partner and it's an emergency."

Nonplussed, Danny followed his partner toward the hallway. "What's going on?"

Steve had already drawn his gun and scanned the area outside the glass doors as he not-so-gently shoved the governor into the hall. "Danny, any minute now, some very bad guys are going to raid this building and come looking for the horse."

"What kind of bad guys? Shouldn't we be using vests?"

With his weapon, Steve gestured at the far end of the hall where a faint stream of smoke slithered under one of the doors. "They're using fire as a distraction. You go out in tac gear, you'll draw their attention. The alarm will go off any second now and everyone else will think it's a fire drill- just go along with it and you should be fine."

"Should being the operative word," Danny muttered, but he stuffed the sticky note in his pocket and obediently holstered his gun. "Who are these guys and what do they want?"

"Classified," Steve replied tersely. He donned a tac vest and began loading his weapons.

"Can you tell me anything?"

"Yeah. Don't talk to the firemen."

"Why not?"

"They'll probably shoot you," Steve said frankly. He stiffened and Danny jumped slightly as the fire alarms finally blared. A soft hiss indicated the doors and vents had now sealed to protect the office from any fumes through the air ducts. Propping open the main door, Steve scanned the hallway in both directions. "Clear. Go Danny. Go now."

"What about you?"

"I'm staying with the horse."

"What?" Danny stopped in the middle of the hall, danger be damned. "It's a freaking horse, Steven! There's nothing special about it. Come on!"

But to his surprise, Steve shook his head and withdrew behind the double glass doors, locking them behind him. "Go," he mouthed to Danny as he began to stuff a towel around the edges of the door to block the impending smoke. "Go now."

So Danny went.

A/N: Wrapping up- only a few chapters left! Although at my one-per-week rate, it's still going to be a while before the epilogue is posted. Thanks for sticking with it! Yall are awesome! I'm not super happy with this chapter, though. I think the last bit feels rushed, but maybe that's just me?