And that was how Danny, now fourteen days out from having been shanked between the ribs – thankfully only three inches deep – found himself, Steve and the entire Edwards family on the Lunar X6 Moon Shuttle headed for a Lunar Shuttle landing facility on the western edge of the small island of Kaho'olawe, part of the State of Hawaii.
It was how, even as everyone else was pretty excited to be returning home, Danny was so damn worked up he was fairly bursting from several of what he was certain were aneurisms combined with heart attacks, not to mention a few small strokes thrown in for good measure. Oh. And apoplexy. He was definitely apoplectic.
"Danny, don't worry about it," Steve had said to him twice before leaving the Moon and three times since. "They were just nightmares."
Oh, sure. Just nightmares, says the man who didn't see a two-years younger Grace and Rachel. Who didn't feel like every bone in his body had been broken only to find out later he was paralyzed. Who hadn't been hanging upside-down in an overturned Camaro, or having to listen to Grace sob.
"You heard Malia, it's just inner stuff trying to work its way out," was Steve's – who was seated next to him in the front row of the shuttle's passenger compartment – next attempt at calming his partner.
But how could Danny be sure? Never in his life had he had dreams, or even nightmares, that were so vivid and real he felt them for days after like he did with this series. Speaking of series, he'd never had any dreams that were sequential in nature like these had been, either.
Finally, as Hawaii started becoming more than just an imagined dot in the midst of an awful lot of blue ocean, Steve looked sidelong at Danny for a minute or so, then said, "Look, we won't drive the Camaro at all, okay? We'll use my truck while we're here."
Danny turned in his seat to find Rachel holding a sleeping Stanley, Jr., Stan reading a book of some sort and Grace lost in games on her iPad. Then he turned back to whisper to Steve, "What if they decide not to return to the Moon? Grace was so happy to be going back to Hawaii, and I think Rachel was, too, even though she tried hiding it."
Steve leaned his head closer, yeah, Mr. No Personal Space. "Danny," he whispered, "are you saying you want us to abandon Moon Five-0 because of them deciding to return to Earth – if that's what they decide?"
Well, shit. Had Danny there. After all, they were doing something new and exciting. They were the de facto law enforcement agency on that stupid hunk of rock, moondust nothwithstanding. Their names would forever be linked with the very beginnings of Moon colonization, and even though Danny well and truly missed Hawaii – as much as it pained him to admit it - he'd started thinking of another idea altogether as he, his partner and the Edwards' had been boarding the shuttle.
"What if we do, like, half a year in Hawaii, half a year on the Moon? You know, train some of the best and brightest from HPD and switch off so we still have Moon Five-0 but also still have Hawaii Five-0?"
Steve's face. It lit up. Like the freaking Christmas tree in Rockefeller Square. Danny fought the urge to facepalm because no self-respecting BAMF SEAL should ever look that much like a stupidly happy adolescent Labrador Retriever.
"I bet Chin, Malia and Kono would like that. Especially Kono. I think she really misses surfing."
"Yeah. I bet she does. I feel like shit, you know, being the cause for it all."
"See?" Steve said with a smile and a pat to Danny's forearm. "Just like Malia interpreted your dreams. Don't feel guilty, brah. It was our choice to follow you."
Danny cocked his head at Steve, who was watching the viewscreen mounted on the wall at the front of the compartment as Hawaii became larger and larger. "Why did you follow me?"
Steve didn't reply or so much as twitch. At least, not immediately. Danny began to wonder if this was just going to be one of those things Steve tried to tell him was classified or something. Which Danny would give him ever-loving shit for because unless the U.S. Navy was running some sort of weird secret experiment that the entirety of Five-0, Max and Kamekona and Malia included, were unwitting participants in—
"Holy shit," Danny breathed, eyes widening.
Steve turned to look at him. "We're almost home, Danno."
"Answer my question."
Steve simply stared at him.
"Steven J. McGarrett, you tell me right here and right now why the hell you and the rest of Five-0 followed me to the Moon when I followed Grace. You tell me right now!" he screamed as loud as he could while still keeping it a whisper.
"Why wouldn't I follow you, Danny? You're my best friend, and my partner. That'd be like splitting up Ren and Stimpy."
Danny was taken aback. "Ren and Stimpy."
Steve smiled. "Mmhm. What, you think it isn't supposed to happen this way?"
Face draining of all color, Danny felt ice water running through his veins. His jaw hung slack as he stared at his partner. His "what did you say?" came out more like a squeak than anything.
It isn't supposed to happen this way! Danno, it isn't supposed to happen this way!
Steve just kept on smiling at him. Then he grasped Danny's left hand between his two, raised it to his lips and kissed it.
Danny stopped breathing.
She reached out and grabbed his unfeeling hand in both of her own. She kissed the back of it.
Steve's next words were overlaid with the ones he'd heard from Grace's nine-year old mouth in his dream.
"You can do it, Danno. I know you can."
You can do it, Danno. I know you can.
Suddenly the Lunar x6 Moon Shuttle seemed to be spiraling wildly out of control. Or was it Danny who was spiraling? He cried out and reached for Steve. He felt his hands grab Steve's arm, but then it was almost as if Steve just turned into a puff of smoke and disappeared right out from under Danny's grip.
"Steve!" he yelled, wondering why, how…how could the shuttle be crashing? Where had Steve gone? "Grace!" he hollered at the top of his lungs. "Rachel!"
There was no sound of human voices, only the sound of a loud, very high-pitched whine. He heard the explosion happen, but didn't stay alive long enough to see it.
He awoke covered in sweat. Every hair on his head was damp. It was rolling down his neck as he sat up in a twin bed he didn't recognize. His white V-neck tee shirt was soaked. His pale blue boxers, equally so. Danny ran a hand through his disgustingly wet hair and took a look around the room.
He wasn't on Five-0's Moonbase.
He wasn't in that crappy apartment he'd had until he'd had to vacate for it to be torn down. Nor in the Hilton. Nor that tiny windowless place he'd called home until black mold had reared its ugly head.
He wasn't in Chin and Malia's spare bedroom where he'd stayed for three weeks during his merry-go-round-the-island trying to find permanent accommodations.
A poster of some late eighties heavy metal group was hanging on the back of the room's door.
It was a bedroom.
Danny took a deep breath. Okay.
A six-shelf bookshelf. Several books. Some tropies with little golden footballs on top of them. A little dusty, but fairly well-kept.
It was dark out, that much he could tell through the room's lone window. A window which was open all the way and letting in a gentle breeze that billowed see-through white curtains around and around in a gentle dance.
Danny blinked and got to his feet. A four-drawer dresser with some framed photos on top of it. Danny moved closer and peered at them in the near-total darkness but couldn't make out who was in them.
Then the door to the room was thrown open. Artificial light from a hallway poured in, temporarily blinding him, sending black spots dancing through his vision. "Hey!" Danny protested, throwing an arm up over his eyes.
"Danny? What the hell happened in here, you look like you took a shower in your underwear."
Pulling his arm from his eyes a tad too soon, Danny gulped and just stared. "Steve?"
Steve made a face. "Who were you expecting? Gabby?"
"Gabby?" Danny repeated. Then he looked around again. "What the hell?"
Steve took one tentative step into the room. He was wearing blue plaid lightweight pajama pants and nothing on top. His feet were bare. His hair was sleep-rumpled. "Danny, you screamed my name out, then Grace's and Rachel's. Did you have another nightmare?"
Nope. Danny definitely wasn't breathing. He stumbled backwards and fell onto the bed.
"Jesus Christ, Danny, are you stroking out on me or something?" Steve's normally calm voice was bordering on scared shitless.
Steve crouched next to the bed and tried to pull Danny upright so he was at least sitting. So he could take his pulse, check his eyes, get him to breathing properly.
"Danno, come on, man. Not like this."
Danny felt himself take a giant gulp of air. He blinked as the air saturated his lungs. Looked into Steve's wide, scared eyes. Felt Steve's left hand on his right bicep; the fingers of Steve's right hand against the carotid on the left side of his neck. Reached up and grasped Steve's forearms tight…so tight.
Images came flooding back to him. Pictures of lives it felt like he'd lived as sure as he was sitting here now. Sitting here in…his eyes darted around. Steve's childhood bedroom.
In Steve's house.
In Honolulu.
In Hawaii.
On Earth.
Finally his breaths started coming and going in puffs of air, better than nothing going in and nothing coming out. Steve's eyes never once left his. Danny didn't know what to say. Didn't know how to say it.
Our first murder on the Moon," Kono mourned.
Danny felt tears fill his eyes. He saw Steve's eyes grow even more concerned.
Why do birds suddenly appear
"You're not getting the Moon Blues already, are you?"
He'd been…they! They'd been on the Moon! They had, to follow Grace!
Every time you are near?
"Welcome back. You had me worried there for a minute."
Steve's hands moved along both of Danny's arms until they rested under the palms of Danny's smaller ones. Danny looked down, one lone tear escaping his right eye against his will.
Just like me, they long to be
"I'm sorry, Detective Williams. I'm so sorry."
"We were on the Moon. And we were here in the Camaro. You died," Danny choked out, looking back up at Steve. "I died."
"What?" Steve whispered, lines deeply furrowing his forehead, eyes never leaving his partner's.
Close to you.
"Danno, you're scaring me here, man, what's going on?"
"I shouldn't be here." Danny looked at Steve's face, every inch of it, couldn't tell what he wanted to know from it. "What year is it?"
"Year?" Steve repeated. Danny nodded. "It's…it's 2012, Danno."
So they sprinkled moondust in your hair of gold
"You were in a bad car accident, Danno."
"What…" Danny swallowed hard, pulled his hands away from Steve's, wiped the tear track from his face. "What case are we working on?"
Steve leaned back just a fraction. "The one where that construction company Stan hired to build his new offices at the site of the old All-Star Paintball games started having guys show up dead in the channel just off the plot of land Stan's building on. Remember? We interviewed Stan yesterday, and the owner of Tropical Modules is flying here from Ft. Lauderdale on the red-eye as we speak. Virgil Gabbana?"
And starlight in your eyes of blue…
"Yes, but I want the truth, partner."
Danny closed his eyes. "How do I know this is real?" he asked, voice broken and so quiet Steve barely heard him.
"Danny?" Yeah. Steve sounded scared.
"What am I doing in your old bedroom?"
Steve took a deep breath. "You just crashed here for the night because you were too wiped out to drive back to the little apartment you rented out in Halawa."
Danny nodded once. He looked all around the room as Steve rose to his feet.
"Danny, you've been having nightmares for over two weeks. You just told the team about them a couple days ago, when Malia was visiting HQ and said she could tell you hadn't been sleeping well for a while."
Steve looked at him for a few seconds. "She explained what your dreams meant. Don't you remember?"
Sure, that had happened. But it had happened on the fucking Moon – not in the Iolani Palace headquarters in fucking Honolulu! None of this was right, dammit!
Scrubbing a hand down his face, Danny got to his feet a little unsteadily. He keened forward. Steve moved quickly and caught him, eyes boring into Danny's own. "We gotta do something about this, Danny. I need to know you have my back."
That is why all the girls in town
Danny pulled away from him. "As soon as I figure out which life I'm supposed to be living, I'll do something about it."
Follow you all around
He didn't let Steve's eyes loose once. Steve, who looked like he might be thinking Danny was losing every single marble he was born with right there in front of him.
Just like me, they long to be
"But no matter which life it is, Steven, I always have your back."
Close to you.
He could tell Steve didn't understand, even though he gave a strange, small smile in response. But that was okay. Because Danny? He didn't fucking understand either.