Less than an hour after they all arrived at the house, Steve was asleep in the beach chair. Danny spent the next two hours, while playing host and enjoying the conversation, protecting his sleeping friend from boisterous former teammates, pranking SEALs and anything else that would disturb his sleep.

Sooner than usual, and possibly because at least two people were gonna have to stop after only one beer in order to get all vehicles and people back to where they belonged, the party broke up and everyone started heading back to the SUVs. Jake finished helping Danny clean up and then looked down to the beach where Steve still rested, completely unaware that it was time to go.

"Hey," Danny said, putting a hand up to stop Jake before he could go out and wake the other man. "Does he actually need to go back to the base tonight?"

The SEAL frowned and hesitated a moment before answering. "Well, no. Not really."

"Kay, well, let's just let him rest? He can stay here tonight. When and where does he need to be tomorrow and I'll make sure he's there. And when he wakes up later, if he really wants to go back to the base tonight, I'll drive him down."

Jake looked from the beach to Danny a few times, as if trying to decide what to do. Or, maybe, how angry Steve would be with him if he left him here.

"Yeah. Okay. He should probably be back by noon."

"Noon got it." There was a drunken honk from one of the vehicles. "Go on. Steve'll be fine."

Jake grinned. "I know. Maybe you can knock some sense into him."

Danny kinda doubted it. He followed the other man outside and waved the crew off then headed back in. He'd love another beer, or something stronger, but made himself a cup of coffee instead. Probably not the best choice this late, but if Steve did want to go back to base, he wasn't calling a cab for him, dammit.

He leaned against the counter and took a couple of sips. He could almost see McGarrett standing across from him, stirring butter into his goddamn coffee teasing him about Grace's texting. Remembered how grateful he'd felt, after all that was over, that his partner had talked him down from the ledge. He'd never told him that. Danny took a deep breath and headed back outside.

Sipping his coffee, he moved through the backyard to sit in his chair next to Steve. He set the mug on the table between them and looked over at is ex-partner still sleeping in the old wooden chair. That could not be comfortable. Despite that, when he'd checked on him before seeing everyone out, he'd been amazed at how young and peaceful Steve had looked. Now, his brow was creased and Danny thought he saw a slight twitch of his head.

"Sorry... Gracie... "

Danny's expression began to mirror Steve's. The other man grunted and the little twitches became quick jerks of his head. A nightmare. Considering he was calling out his daughter's name in his sleep – which, okay, weird – Danny figured it probably wasn't some classified SEAL thing that was gonna get him killed if he got too close. He got down on his knees in front of his friend, put his hand on Steve's knee and gave a little squeeze.

"Hey, Steve. Babe, wake up."

"Sorry..." But he was still asleep.

"Steve!"

"Uhh!" Steve jolted awake, looked around with wild eyes until they landed on Danny. He furrowed his brow, licked his bottom lip. "Dan-Danny?" He asked like he expected the answer to be 'no'.

"Yeah, babe. It's me."

Steve slumped back in the chair. "Fuck." Danny patted his knee a couple times and moved back to his own chair.

"You wanna talk about it?"

"Not really." He blinked, sat back up and looked around the area. "Where is everyone?" The crease in his brow deepened. "How long have I been out?"

"Well Sleeping Beauty, you've been out almost three hours. Everyone's gone home.

"Shit." Steve looked around once more and then moved to get up.

"Whoa whoa whoa. Where you goin', huh?" Danny stood up with him and held his arm.

"I've gotta get back to the base."

Danny's free hand waved in the air. "No, actually, I happen to know for a fact, you don't need to be anywhere until tomorrow. So, you wanna try again, huh?"

Steve sighed, and looked at the ground. "I'm tired, Danny."

Danny gave another comforting squeeze before letting him go. "Well, luckily there are only two of us, and three bedrooms and a couch in this house. Which you should know because you've lived in it a lot longer than I have." Looking back up at Danny, Steve seemed to search his face, as if looking for some kind of answer. "We missed you, you know."

Another moment of silence, of Steve watching him. Then a nod. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."

"M'kay," Danny replied, nodding in return. "So, you gonna tell me about that dream, or nightmare, or whatever, or what?" Steve's expression turned dark and he looked back down at the ground.

"I said drop it, Danny."

"Now, see, maybe I normally would – grudgingly, mind you – but you say my daughter's name in your sleep Steve, and I feel like I have a right to know why. I also happen to know you can't pull that 'classified' shit on me this time."

Steve winced at the revelation that he's called out the girl's name in the middle of that nightmare. "Sorry, man."

"Hey, I'm not mad, babe." Danny put his hand on the small table, by his cooling coffee, like he wanted to reach out and touch his friend. "I just want to help. And talking about it might help."

The SEAL looked up again and nodded, although he didn't look convinced. "Can I at least have a beer?"

Danny chuckled. "Yeah, of course, buddy. Let's go inside, huh?"

They made their way into the house and Danny motioned to the living-room-turned-campsite for Steve to settle into the couch while he got a couple beers out of the fridge. He cracked them open and followed Steve into the other room and sat next to him on the couch, turning so he could see him. He handed over a bottle and took a sip of his own as he waited for Steve to start. Just as Danny thought he was going to have to prod him some more, Steve spoke.

"You... you remember Freddie's funeral?" He wouldn't look at Danny; stared into the sweating bottle like it held all the answers to the universe. But he was talking, so Danny let it slide.

"Yeah, babe. I remember."

"At the funeral, I knelt down in front of his daughter. Had to tell her how much her father meant to me, how much he loved her, what a great man he was. And, I mean, she was so young and she'd never even met him. It was really hard."

Danny wanted to reach out and comfort him, pull him into one of those great hugs that with anyone else would be weird and embarrassing but with Steve, his friend, his brother, just made sense. He wanted to, but he didn't. He felt like if he even breathed, Steve would realize what he was doing and stop talking.

"In my... in my nightmare... it's your funeral and I have to tell Grace."

"Steve—"

"And she's older and she knew you, loved you, you were her Danno. She's screaming at me. She hates me. She blames me. And I tell her I'm so sorry, but it doesn't matter. And everything she's screaming at me, I've already screamed at myself. And if Freddie's death, his funeral, was hard, yours kills me." He lets out a long, shuddering breath, like that took everything out of him. Maybe it did. "So yeah, that was my dream. Same one I've been having for a year or more now."

Danny brought the previously forgotten bottle to his lips, took a long drink to wet his suddenly dry mouth. Steve finally turned to look at him and Danny saw nothing but fear and shame and hatred on his face. He felt his heart pounding in his throat, and a knife in his gut.

"That's why you left, isn't it?"

"I killed Freddie. I left his daughter without even the memory of her father. I won't do that to you and Grace."

"You won't. You didn't kill Freddie, Steve." The taller man was on his feet in an instant, pacing the living room as much as he could without tripping over camping gear and misplaced furniture.

"I killed him, Danny! He wanted out of the SEALs. I made him stay. And then I left him behind. I abandoned him."

Danny got to his feet as well, got up into McGarrett's face, which was an impressive feat on its own. But he would do anything to try and get through to his friend, to try and get him to get rid of all this misplaced guilt.

"You're kind of a jerk, you know that, McGarrett? For a guy you claimed to love and respect, you don't think very highly of him. You don't think he could make his own choices? That with faced with the, I'm guessing, pretty big and life-altering choice of becoming a fucking Navy SEAL or not, he was so weak he'd stay just because you told him to? If he was that weak, he'd have washed out whether he wanted to or not." Danny narrowed his eyes, wasn't sure he was actually getting through to him or not. "I guess now I know what you really think of me, then."

"What? No, Danny, I—"

"What then? Freddie wanted to be a SEAL. You helped him be the best he could be. You hand-picked him for that mission because you knew he could do the job and I bet you didn't order him to do it. You asked him and he made the choice to go with you. Yeah, the mission got fucked, but he knew that was a possibility and he chose to continue the mission to his death. If you had done anything different at the time, he probably still would have died and it would have been for nothing. He died a hero and you sure as hell didn't leave him behind, did you? I know you'd been working on that deal since you got stateside and even when they fucked with that, you made it right. You may be a fucking Ninja SEAL, but you're one person, Steve. You can't save the world."

"I don't want to save the world." Steve looked right at him and the rest of the sentence was left unfinished.

"Yeah, well, I could leave Grace without a father just by going to the store to buy a carton of milk, you know." The battered man next to him tightened his fist around his beer bottle. Like maybe his next step would be to dispose of every goddamn milk carton in existence just to stop that from happening. "Hell, she could leave me without a daughter just by hanging out at the mall with her friends. That kind of fear is just part of being a parent. It's part of being human, babe. And maybe until that deadly milk run happens, we'd just like our brother and our uncle in our lives."

"I just need you alive and happy."

"Yeah? Maybe we need that from you, too. I told you once that I saw everything ending. But never you. Since when did you start doing the leaving, Steve? We never left you. Not once."

"I know." He picked at the label. "But you should have."

"Never gonna happen, babe."

Danny sank back down to the couch, watched his friend and hoped he hadn't fucked everything up more than it already was. He wasn't expecting to change anything right now, Steve would still be leaving again tomorrow, but maybe he had the chance of actually seeing him again, without the SEAL being ordered to do so. He let the next few minutes pass in silence.

"You wanna maybe swing by Rachel's tomorrow and see Grace on the way to the base?"

Steve swung around to face him, frowning. "I don't think that's a good idea, Danny."

"You don't wanna see her? 'Cause if you say that, I'll know you're lying. Don't lie to me, Steven. And besides, she'll want to see you, too."

"Yeah, I want to see her. But, is that smart? I'm not staying Danny."

"Of course it's smart. We've been over this before: I'm a very smart guy. And I have a very smart daughter."

"Yeah you do."

"Good, it's decided then. I know she really wants to thank you."

Steve frowned as he sat back down, looking a bit more relaxed. "For what?"

"Um, for letting us stay here, for one thing?"

The SEAL shrugged. "You and Grace are my family. Mary, too, but I've never been as close to anyone as I've been with you. I love you guys. And this house? It's never really known love and happiness. My Grandfather died literally a week after they moved into this place. And then there is the farce that was my childhood. My grandfather had a dream for this house, Danny. It was supposed to be full of love, exude happiness, echo with laughter. Instead, it's lies and blood and silence punctuated by gunshots." A deep breath and a drink from the bottle, finishing off the beer. "You and Grace? You're perfect. You guys have only been here for, what, six months? And even though she's not here all the time, I can feel how different it is."

Steve looked over at Danny, to find the Detective's jaw practically hanging open and he barely managed to hide a smile. He hadn't forced that out of him. Steve had done that all on his own. If Danny knew going back to the Navy would make him open up like this, maybe he would have reactivated Steve himself, years ago.

They spent another half hour and another beer in companionable silence until they finally made their way upstairs. Suddenly, Danny wasn't quite sure of the etiquette when inviting someone to stay in their own house, but Steve went straight to his childhood bedroom instead of the master. Danny followed him in, to make sure everything was ready.

"We still love you, you know. We'll be here when you're ready come home."

"I'm not coming back. I thought you knew that."

"You'll be back. And we'll be here when you are." Danny stepped back into the hall to head to his own room, until Steve's voice stopped him.

"Danny?"

"Yeah, babe?"

"I love you, too.