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CHAPTER 8- Hoʻomanaʻo*

The next day, Chin came to visit.

It was all carefully orchestrated. Steve, Danny and Danny's consultant psychiatrist all agreed that beginning to re-introduce Danny to the people who loved him would be a good thing, that he should be able to handle it now if it was done slowly and steadily. If both parties involved knew exactly what to expect there would less chance of any counter-productive melodramatic scenes.

Chin- stoic, solid and reliable with an aura that exuded calm- was the perfect choice for the first re-introduction.

Before the event, Steve showed Danny photos and talked to him about the man who had quite probably been his closest friend after Steve. He told him Chin was quiet and serious with a wickedly dry sense of humor. And he could be trusted with… anything. Voicing those facts- because that was what they were- served to remind Steve of his own behavior over the last two years. Chin had tried to reach out to him so many times. Steve had always turned away.

Chin played his role to perfection. He came armed with a reason to be there that wasn't Danny to take the pressure off from the outset; paperwork for Steve. The files he brought with him related to the container ship they thought Danny might have been smuggled away from Oahu on. The team were already going through them with a fine tooth-comb as part of the on-going investigation into Danny's kidnapping, and Steve's efforts were likely to be superfluous. That didn't matter. That wasn't the point of the exercise.

Chin walked in, sat down in the third chair the hospital had provided for the occasion and introduced himself to Danny, quietly and without fuss. He then turned and spoke to Steve. He laid the paperwork out in neat piles on the little table and the two men discussed it detail, giving Danny ample opportunity to get used to Chin- his look, his mannerisms, the way he spoke. There was no intense 'do you remember me?' moment.

Danny, tense, nervous and self-conscious at first, gradually relaxed to the extent that he actually fell asleep, head lolling to the side against the back of his armchair.

Steve spotted it first then gestured to Chin, pointing at Danny.

Chin turned instantly, finally able to take in Danny's lean, scarred face, to look at him properly without making him feel like he was being scrutinized. A long moment later he turned back to Steve, gave him an appraising look too.

Steve knew he was pale. He'd lost weight. His symptoms were now being managed pretty successfully thanks to the medication, but he still looked and felt unwell.

But, for whatever reason, Chin seemed to approve of what he saw. He said nothing, but put a hand on Steve's shoulder and squeezed.

Steve let out a shaky breath, beyond touched because words weren't needed. They both understood the horror of what had happened to Danny. They shared the confused feelings of loss and relief at having him back in this altered way, as well as fears about the uphill journey he still had to face as he re-learned… virtually everything. How to talk, how to walk, how to take care of himself. How to live with what had happened to him.

"Thank you for coming in and thank you for making it so easy on him," Steve whispered.

"You're welcome," replied Chin with a respectful nod. "By the way, Kono wants to come next. I promised under pain of death that I'd put in a word."

They smiled at each other for a moment, then Steve's smile fell away as he remembered how things really were between them now. But everything was changing because Danny was back. He had to try to make amends somehow, try to right that monumental wrong, if it was even possible. He drew a deep breath. "Listen, Chin. I'm sorry. I know I've been pushing you all away since Danny went. I've had some… problems. I need you to know I'm working on it. I'm gonna have to take some time off work to… to sort myself out. I need to for Danny anyway, so I figure I might as well kill two birds with one stone." He smiled again, fleeting and nervous, and his expressions were echoed by Chin.

Chin asked no questions. He already knew. Steve had been hiding nothing from them- he had been deluding himself. Steve looked down at his hands. "I'm so sorry, I really am. I owe a whole lot of apologies in fact. I've been… difficult. But you guys… and Joe, you've... I'm just…" He trailed off. There was too much to say and nothing would be enough.

Chin shook his head. "Steve, I think you'll find the people you surrounded yourself with are more forgiving and understanding than you realize. You didn't choose us as friends for nothing. If you need anything, anything at all, you only have to ask." He smiled softly, looked at him meaningfully. "It's good to have you both back."

….

Answers come to you when you least expect them.

Two more days had gone by. Danny was sitting, arms around his knees, listening in silence to Steve who was working slowly through the information Chin had brought in. Danny had just finished his latest physio session. The gentle, repetitive exercises had exhausted him and his eyelids were drooping, but he had stubbornly refused to go back to his bed. That little glimpse of attitude had made Steve smile to himself.

Steve, slumped back in the second chair, his own head a little fuzzy, his eyes a little glazed, was reading sections of the paperwork out loud. Part of him was hoping to find a new angle that the team had missed, for all that seemed unlikely. The rest of him was trying to bore Danny towards much-needed sleep. They could both use a nap.

The team were sticking with the theory that Danny had been smuggled off Oahu fast. If he'd been held for a while before his removal to Colombia, there would surely have been whispers. No, there had to have been minimal people involved and it had to have happened quickly. Unless he'd been sent by a very roundabout route, that container ship still seemed to be the likely answer. Joe had sent Chin names and photos of the five deceased Colombian men so the team could try to establish if any of them had set foot on Oahu in person, or had traceable links with that ship. The results were negative so far. The involvement of a third party seemed the most likely explanation.

The skeletal crew of the ship had been less than helpful. They had each sworn blind that Danny hadn't been in the ship's accommodation, that they had seen no sign of him at all. Assuming that was true, that left the containers. There had been literally hundreds on board, holding goods belonging to literally hundreds of people. Identifying the one person responsible would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. It could easily be that someone had simply broken into a container they had no legitimate access to for the purpose. There might be no trail left back to them at all. But they had to try.

Lou, Kono and Chin were in the process of chasing up every single name connected in any way with that freaking ship in person, ruffling feathers as they went.

It all seemed so strange to Danny, all of these people caring so much about what had happened to him. He wished he could help them, wished he could access those dark recesses in his mind.

Steve, voice monotone, was reading out a list of names; the people and companies that had containers booked to transport goods on the ship.

"….D. Akanu, F. Alana, Aloha Vans, American Automobiles, K Bailey, Blue Horizon Software, J Buchanan…" Steve trailed off. "J Buchanan. Why does that sound so familiar?" He put down the list, moved to another pile of papers. "Jimmy Buchanan, Buchanan Import-Export, Waikiki. I know that name. Have we dealt with him before?" He frowned, knowing Chin's checks would have shown up any previous dealings. He rubbed the back of his hand across his bleary eyes, then began to flick through the index of cross-referenced enquiries, biting his lip in concentration. Nothing.

Then Steve snorted, shook his head slowly. "Okay, I am an idiot. It's been too long since school, Danno. Of course he sounds familiar. James Buchanan, 15th President of the United States of America. I'm so off the ball it's not even funny." The words rolled off his tongue before he'd even thought about them, before he'd even realized what he'd said. Fifteenth. He froze, looked over at Danny.

Danny was looking at him with wide eyes and a face frozen in shock.

Steve shook his head. "No, Danny, that's not it…. that can't be it. Can it? That's… ridiculous. Isn't it?" He laughed a short, sharp, nervous laugh.

Danny didn't even twitch. He started to breathe harder.

"Surely not, buddy." Steve breathed, uncertain now. "That's not what you were trying to make yourself remember… is it?"

Danny wasn't sure, not at all, but when he heard that name his heart started to pound, his palms started to sweat. He began to count out of habit, but when he hit 15 for the first time he stopped dead. He didn't remember what it meant, but all of a sudden he could vividly recall trying to make himself remember that number. Saying it over and over and over again, trying to make it stick in his mind while he was inside a black, black box and the trunk of a car and that stinking prison cell packed full of nightmares. He remembered the terrifying sensation of his mind just not working and everything slipping away. He remembered slicing his hand, over and over and over again, on that sharp edge of metal on the cell door so he couldn't forget, so desperate to hold onto that fact, his one last act of defiance.

He looked at Steve helplessly, because he didn't remember, not really… but it felt so right. It had to be.

Steve walked over to him, crouched in front of him and took hold of his hand in an effort to make communication as easy for Danny as he possibly could. "Buddy, was it James Buchanan who took you and put you on that ship? Do you think that was what you were trying to make yourself remember?"

Danny hesitated for so long Steve actually shook his partner's hand, desperate for an answer.

One squeeze. One squeeze.

Steve stared long and hard at Danny's shocked face, then he simply couldn't help himself. He dropped Danny's hand, grabbed him by the nape of the neck and pulled him into a hard embrace. "I swear, Danno," his whispered into his partner's ear, voice shaking with emotion, "only you could come up with something that fucking oblique. I would never, never, have guessed that. You did good. You held on to that… shit, you did well, buddy! A cop to the last, right?"

Steve paused for a second and the atmosphere changed. "We'll get him now. He's gonna pay for this."

Danny was panting, shaken to the very core at having accessed something almost approaching a memory from before. He wasn't really listening but he heard Steve's tone change, felt the muscles bunch in his arms. Steve had always been quiet and calm with him. Maybe emotional but never angry. This was something new and dangerous. It stirred something deep within him. It scared him. But he realized he wasn't scared of Steve, he was scared for him. Strange, disjointed images came to him; Steve throwing himself off a balcony, Steve taking off his vest and walking towards a man with a gun. Steve taking stupid risks no one in their right mind would take.

He grabbed at the front of Steve's shirt and held on tight, fear now joined by annoyance, because how could Steve play with his own life like that when he meant everything to Danny? He couldn't lose Steve, he couldn't let Steve do something stupid... and what the hell was Steve even thinking doing that kind of thing?! What kind of civilized human being would even behave like that?!

Danny shook his head, hard, and then the word came out without him even knowing it was going to.

"A-animal."

TBC

*Hoʻomanaʻo- to remember

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