A/N: Thanks for the reviews, I really enjoy reading them. Also, a big thank you to rewob17 for the beta on this story.

Chapter Two

Danny met Chin the next morning, and they drove up to the Aihualama trailhead.

"You ready for this, brah? It's not an easy hike up to the ridge?" Chin unloaded packs from his vehicle as he spoke.

"I'm ready, Chin. Let's go." Danny shouldered the pack Chin handed to him, and both men set off up the trail.

The view from the ridge was as good as Chin and Steve, had promised. Danny was impressed. He took out his cell phone, as predicted, there was no signal, but he took a couple of pictures before putting it away again.

Chin handed Danny the Sat. phone. "Here, brah. You better call your work wife so he doesn't worry and come charging after us."

"You are a very funny man, Chin Ho Kelly." Danny smiled as he dialed his partner's number.

"Hey, Super SEAL, we're at the ridge, and it's as great a view as you said it would be." Danny smiled at some comment Chin couldn't hear. "Will you relax? We are just going a little further up the ridge to camp. Not rocket science, babe." He listened some more. "Yes, we'll be careful. See you tomorrow."

Chin smiled as he placed the phone back in his pack. "That man is very overprotective, brah."

"I know. My getting shot last week, and then him having to leave me, really got to him." Danny turned and followed Chin as he started up a less used trail leading from the edge of the ridge. "He didn't know that Madeline was an ER nurse, and worried about my wound getting infected because he wasn't able to tend to it."

"He really cares about you, Danny. I'm really happy that he's found a friendship with you that's keeping him here in Hawaii. I thought, for sure he'd leave again after we got Victor Hesse."

"Me too, Chin." Danny stopped behind Chin as the man contemplated which fork in the trail to take. "But I think it's Grace we need to thank. I overheard her telling Steve that he had to always make sure I came home to her, and Steve said he would. Right then, I knew he'd stay here. He'd never break a promise to my beautiful daughter."

The two men continued in silence until they reached a clearing. "This is where we'll camp for the night. So, let's get the tent set up, then this afternoon I'll teach you how to find your way. Maybe even throw in some tracking, if you're a good student."

Both men laughed, before going about setting up their camp.

It was late afternoon before Chin said he was satisfied that Danny could find his way out of the forest if he needed to. They'd spent a busy and exhausting afternoon hiking the area around their camp. After the first few tries, Danny had managed to find his way back to the camp each time.

"So, coach, do I get to learn how to track now?" Danny joked.

"Let's have a snack and some water first. Then you can impress me be following one of the trails we made this afternoon."

They relaxed while they ate the trail mix that Chin had brought with them, each drinking a bottle of water.

To Danny, learning how to follow a trail was harder than he'd thought it would be. But by early evening their hard work seemed to be paying off.

"Let's call it a night, have some food then turn in." Chin started pulling food from his pack, ready to make supper. "Tomorrow morning, before we leave, I'll take off. You come find me."

"Ho! Like a test?" Danny found that having Chin teach him how to find his way, and track, was such a relaxing experience, compared to how learning with his partner would have been. He didn't mind Chin testing his new-found skills, in fact, he thought he'd rather enjoy it.

"Not so much a test, as a final lesson before we go home."

"Okay, you're on."

Both men were just settling down to sleep when Chin's Sat. phone rang.

"Don't answer that, babe. It'll be Steve making sure I didn't get lost out here."

"Funny, Danny. But if I don't answer it, he'll be coming out looking for you." Chin laughed.

"Yeah, we'd better answer it then, we don't need a ninja SEAL swooping in here on a commandeered helicopter." Danny also laughed as he held out his hand so he could answer the phone.

"We're fine, Steven. You don't have to call to check up on us." He didn't even give his partner time to say anything, because he just knew it was Steve, and why he was calling. When had the two of them got so in sync with each other?

"Ho, just calling to say goodnight, huh?" The blonde listened some more. "Don't bite your head off? Well I wouldn't have to if you weren't such a worry wort."

Chin waved at Danny as he listened to him talk to his partner. "Tell him we'll be home by lunch and he can meet us at my house."

"Enough, babe," Danny finally shut up the ranting SEAL, when had Steve picked up his tendency to rant? "Chin says to meet us at his place for lunch, okay?"

"Alright, see you then, and stop worrying, we're fine. Nothing is going to happen. Goodnight." Danny handed the phone back to Chin. "That man is too overprotective. He claims he has a feeling that we should go home tonight as something bad will happen tomorrow."

"We can't go back tonight, anyway." Chin put the phone back into his pack. "It's dark out, and the Aihualama trail is not safe to walk in the dark."

"Yeah, well we aren't going back tonight anyway. I want to pass my test first." Danny smiled as he lay down.

"Final lesson, Danny, not a test." Chin also lay down. "But we should be careful tomorrow anyway, Steve has good intuition.

"Okay, we'll be careful, but as I told him before, he's the trouble magnet, not me."

TBC

A/N: Can you believe it's the end of chapter two and I haven't whumped Danny yet? Huh! It's coming, soon.