Talking with Stanley Edwards the Third was always a…pleasure.
After all, the whole shot-him-in-the-shoulder thing was behind them.
And the whole, "I'm picking up and moving five thousand miles away from where the Williamses have lived their whole life (all except Rachel, but still)" was, you know, water under the proverbial bridge.
And it's not like Danny was in any way shape or form pissed off that Stan's latest what-the-fuckery was moving off the goddamn planet—
"So how do you like the Moon, Danny?" with a clap on his shoulder and a squeeze and Danny really just wished he could punch the bastar—
"Danno!"
"Monkey!" Diffused, as always, by a now-eleven-year-old Grace. Danny closed his eyes and sighed happily, then inhaled the sweet smell of her shampoo and felt himself relax like he never did any other time. "Hi, baby," he smiled as she gave him an extra tight squeeze.
"Sorry, but we're not here on a social visit," Steve just had to go and say.
"No, because if this was a social visit, you would not be here!" Danny said, jabbing a finger in his partner's direction.
Trust Steve to put on I-Am-Not-Either-Pouting Face. Danny sighed.
"I figured as much," Stan said genially. God, why did he have to be so fucking nice, anyway? "Rachel, would you mind?"
"Of course not, Stanley, I believe our son is due for some play time anyway, don't you, sweetie?" she asked Grace with a smile.
Oh, God, Danny was going to puke. That was it. He knew it. And he couldn't even run outside to get away from the Pukey Happy Family on the Moon.
"Yeah, I was going to show him how to build a tower," she nodded, the ever-present braids flopping against her shoulder blades.
Danny sighed as the ladies exited the room. Stan ushered them into the smallish living room area and looked around. Christ, even up here the bastard had to do everything fifty thousand (dollars) times better than anyone else.
"I have no idea who that man was. It was the foreman of my construction crew who found him," Stan began. Steve nodded. Danny plopped down on a ridiculously plush couch.
"How much do you know about your foreman?" Steve asked.
"About as much as you know about any construction crew, I suppose. You guys did the background check on the entire twenty-one person crew before they were even allowed to take off from Cape Canaveral."
"Yes, Jacob Stern," Danny said with a nod. "Not a one of them had a thing wrong or they wouldn't have passed our check."
"That's right," Steve agreed. "But we also know not everything shows up in a background check."
Stan shook his head. "I probably know way less than you do. Jake tells me he didn't recognize the guy."
"And Lieutenant Kelly questioned half the rest of the crew while Officer Kalakaua questioned the other half. They all said the same thing," Steve replied.
"One thing that's curious," Danny said, moving forward so he was perched on the edge of the (ridiculously plush) sofa. He waited until Stan's eyes were on him before continuing. "Why'd he call you first, leaving you to call us?"
Stan made a face like he hadn't even thought of it. "Good point. I don't know. He just said he'd found this guy bouncing around outside the Lunar North Entrance."
"When Chin and Kono arrived on-scene they found him tethered to the railing outside that entrance via a severed O2 line," Steve clarified.
Stan shrugged. "I haven't been over there yet. When Officer Kalakaua called me about it she said the whole place was a crime scene so I wouldn't have been able to get in anyway."
"True enough," Danny said, then looked at Stan thoughtfully. "You've got another crew coming up a month from now to expand this place, right?"
"Yes. Totally different company than the one building my offices."
"Why's that?" Steve asked.
"Well," Stan said with another shrug, "this crew is great for more functional business-like structures, but I want my original house crew back. Nobody knows this place better than Virg and his men."
"It's the same crew coming back," Danny repeated, a tiny frown in place.
Stan nodded. "Yeah, although Virg said five of the men refused to return here, they just don't like working in the lighter gravity, so he's working at replacing them. But Virg's gung-ho to do it."
"I remember the initial background check on those men," Steve said thoughtfully.
"Of course you do," Danny mumbled.
Stan grinned.
"Virgil Gabbana, right? Owner of Lunar Modules?"
Stan nodded. "I'm impressed."
"Don't be," Danny said, smirking at his partner. "I was, too, until I finally found out from a visiting SEAL buddy of his three years ago that he's got a photographic memory."
Steve scrunched up his features and made a nasty face at Danny.
"Pfft, he's my daughter's step-father, he won't tell anyone."
Stan chuckled. "No, I won't. I promise."
Steve threw Danny yet another round of stink-eyes and then turned back to Stan. But Danny spoke again before his partner could, rising to his feet as he did so. "Are you aware of any potential connection between our victim and the Lunar Modules crew?"
Frowning, Stan rubbed his chin for a second. "I honestly don't know. I mean, from what Jake said the guy's face wasn't, uh…you know."
"No, it isn't," Danny acquiesced. "Could you call Grace out here? We need to go."
Steve looked up at his partner in surprise, took in his body language and his face immediately cleared as he rose to his feet.
"Sure, be right back," Stan replied, then got up and walked out of the room.
"What've you got?" Steve whispered, standing closer than he really needed to but hey, that was Steve.
"Think about it," Danny began, looking up and taking a step back because…Steve. Sheesh, "Personal space, much?"
"I don't want him to overhear," Steve hissed, narrowing his eyes.
Danny rolled his own in response. "Think about it," he started again. "You personally search each and every ship that lands in the one and only approved landing zone."
"Right," Steve nodded.
"And we've got radar up the wazoo combined with what they're doing back in Houston, plus we can also monitor the dark side of this hunk of rock thanks to the six hours you made me spend in a suit where I got Moondust in places you don't even want to know about from while you forced me into putting up those four relay towers," and of course Steve had to make a face of some sort on that one "so in essence there's no way anyone can get here without us knowing about it."
"And?"
"And that means that either our mystery vic was damn good at Hide-n-Seek as a kid or someone's found a way to get onto lunar soil and evade our equipment."
"I can't fault that logic. But what's that got to do with Stan and his construction crews?"
Danny's reply was cut off by one Grace Williams hitting him full-force with a hug that might've felled a man less used to Grace Hugs. Steve grinned when she extracted herself from her father's arms and found his, blushing when she said, "I'm so glad you're here, Uncle Steve."
"Me, too. I still get to see you," he said, squeezing her briefly in return.
"Well, yeah, but I'm mostly glad you're here for my Danno," she whispered, though it wasn't like Danny couldn't hear…he just pretended not to, moving across the room to thank Stan for his time, get a glimpse at the toddler Stanley the Fourth (poor kid, he thought) and say his good-byes to Rachel.
"You're glad I'm here for him?" Steve asked, truly seeming surprised. "Well, good. Someone's got to watch his back, after all."
Danny gave him the hairy eyeball from across the way. So of course, Steve had to up the ante.
"I'm glad I'm here for him, too. Can you imagine him clunking around a crappy Moon apartment alone?"
Grace giggled.
Danny glared and declared it was time to leave via airlock now. And if Steve didn't "get a move on" he'd find out whether Super SEALs could breathe Moon No-Air real quick.
"You are such an ass," Danny groused as they waited in Stan's small airlock chamber for the transport's door to signal they could board, but couldn't keep from smiling because gawd his daughter. "And if you put on the Carpent—"
One step ahead of him as he started the mid-sized transport vehicle with six big balloon wheels, Steve had already turned on the mp3 player and all Danny could do was pray for strength because—
Why do birds suddenly appear
Every time you are near?
Just like me, they long to be
Close to you.
"Okay, finish what you were telling me back there," Steve said nonchalantly as the airlock tube detached and he put the transport in Drive.
"I hate you, Steven. Just so we're clear. So so much."
"No, you don't. And neither does Grace. So spill."
Danny tuned out Karen Friggin' Carpenter's voice and sighed dramatically. "Somehow our vic gets here completely undetected and the first thing he does is tether himself to the railing at Stanley's new offices? There wasn't anything there but structure, not even any equipment's been moved in yet."
"No, you're right, it makes no sense."
"Ah, that's where you're wrong, my friend."
Danny twisted in the black puffy-materialed seat to look at his partner. Steve glanced at him once…twice… "What?"
"It makes perfect sense if it has something to do with Stan being the one and only private individual thus far having been granted permission by half the countries in the Moon League to not only purchase, but re-sell lunar land, don't you think?"
"Wait," Steve said, brow furrowing. "You think this was some half-assed attempt at sabotage or something?"
Danny leaned back in the seat, forefinger of his right hand tapping against the inside handle of the transport door. "No, if this was a professional saboteur, or anyone intent on actually doing harm, I think they would've gone directly to Stan and Rachel's home. There wasn't anything they could do with the skeletal office."
"Other than hang a dead body from it," Steve replied. Then his eyes widened. He turned and looked at Danny.
Danny, who looked right back at him and tapped his left index finger against his own temple. "I'll make a detective out of you yet, McGarrett."
"Tsk," Steve replied as the transport bounced along what Steve insisted was a road, and which Danny insisted was no more a road than those damn red dirt things that hugged the edges of cliffs back on Oahu.
Oahu.
Danny looked out the passenger side window. Gray-white. Craters. Rocks. Moondust. Black space all around, as far as the eye could see. The sun bright enough to be blinding if not for the super-tinted windows of the transport and the solid black wall right behind the two front seats that left the back open for criminals or materials, whichever it was needed for.
Even the damn transport was friggin' white.
Danny sighed.
"You okay?" Steve asked.
"Sure. I'm always okay. I was okay when I packed up and moved to Hawaii, I'm okay now. Why wouldn't I be okay?" Danny waved his hand around at all the windows. "I mean, it's so lovely here and all."
"You're not getting the Moon Blues already, are you?"
"Already? Four months we've been here and no, I do not get Moon Blues."
"Yes, Danny. Four months we've been here. We."
Danny swallowed hard, looked over at Steve, who oh, God, was sporting I-Did-It-For-You-Danno Face and…well, what the hell was Danny supposed to do with that, huh? "How do you handle there being no water?"
Steve gave him a lopsided grin. "I wasn't anywhere near water for five years, Danny, not even on my leaves."
"Kinda defeats the purpose of joining the Navy, doesn't it?"
Steve chuckled. "Yeah, kinda. Besides, we're going to get an Olympic-sized pool in six months, Denning's working on the President to get the addition approved."
"That's not the ocean. You can't surf in an Olympic-sized pool."
Steve was quiet for a moment as Karen Carpenter finished her wailing…er…singing.
That is why all the girls in town
Follow you all around
Just like me, they long to be
Close to you.
"What, no comeback?" Danny asked, to shut the song out of his mind if nothing else.
"I can do without waves for a while if it means we're all still together," Steve said quietly just as the last strains of the song wafted out of the speakers. Then he reached out and turned the mp3 player off. "Ohana doesn't only apply in Hawaii, you know."
"Did I ever thank you?" Danny asked, feeling his throat close up a little.
Okay, a lot.
Steve shrugged and gave him that half-smile of his.
Danny cleared his throat. "Thank you."
The half-smile turned into a Thousand-Watt Grin as Steve backed the transport up to one of the five Five-0 building's airlock entrances.
"Goof," Danny growled, turning toward a smallish door in the black wall between them and the back of the transport. Just as he got the door unlatched and started to open it, an alarm blared at them from the front console.
The last thing Danny remembered hearing was "No! Danny, don't!"
Well, not quite the last thing.
So they sprinkled moondust in your hair of gold
And starlight in your eyes of blue…
His last thought?
Now why the hell did he turn that back on…?