His mind is clear.

For the first time in memory, his mind is clear.

No one has come to drug him. Beat him. Shock him.

Torture him.

The room is black. He still hurts. Badly.

That's okay.

If his mind works, he can deal with the pain.

Footsteps echo toward him. He stands as quietly as he can.

This is his chance.

Danny sat in Grace's hospital room, staring at the lone bubble that had formed at the top of his coffee and contemplating his life.

Not that there was a whole lot to contemplate these days.

He was not a man of many regrets. He didn't regret not going to his senior prom. He didn't regret epically losing with his fantasy league three years ago. He didn't regret having a daughter.

Three things caused that feeling in Danny Williams, and three things alone.

Divorcing Rachel. Letting Steve go to North Korea. Leaving Grace behind.

The first had not been his fault, but he couldn't help but blame himself for his wife leaving him for StepStan. The second was more of a gray area, because even though Danny knew that he didn't possess the ability to stop Steve from leaving he still felt that he should have at least tried.

There was no getting around the fact that the third action was entirely his fault.

Before Steve had usurped Danny into his task force, the only thing he liked about Hawaii was his daughter. But with what would become Five-0, Danny found friends. He found a place where his haole looks and methods weren't the constant subjects of ridicule. He found ohana.

Steve's abduction was hard on all of them, but it was different for Danny. Steven McGarrett had been the first adult on the entire island to treat Danny like he was more than just a waste of space. They had transformed from squabbling partners to brothers somewhere along the way, and without him Danny had a gaping hole in his side.

Even if he had had another kid on the way, Danny doubted that Steve could be replaced as easily as his last partner.

He couldn't escape the memories of his closest friend while on the island. The shrimp truck, the beach, even the driver's seat of his own car seemed to hold the very essence of the SuperSEAL, and nothing Danny did helped him escape from them.

When his sister called him about an opening in his old department in New Jersey, Danny had only thought for two minutes before applying. Selfishly, horribly, he hadn't given a moment's thoughts to his daughter's feelings about the suddenly long-distance relationship.

Instead of crying or pleading, Grace had taken the news with the poise of someone thrice her age. There were no tears in her eyes as she offered to go along to help him "settle in".

Until he saw Grace's face in the aftermath of the shooting, he didn't realize that any damage had been done.

Grace was sleeping now, passed out from a combination of pain killers and an adrenaline crash. The ER doctor wanted to watch the young girl overnight for signs of shock, but so far everything seemed to be fine save her broken arm. On the outside.

Danny's heart had broken when he saw Grace's defiant expression. She had been knocked forward by Sang Min's flailing body, but had turned to watch the remnants of the man's head slide down the door of her school. Her face was cold, her eyes burned fiercely. No twelve-year-old should be capable of that look, but his daughter was.

It was his fault. If he hadn't left her, if he hadn't abandoned her in this pineapple-infested hellhole, she wouldn't know what loathing was. What hatred was.

He knew that she probably harbored the same feelings for him, under the surface, and how could he blame her? He chose to move halfway around the world, back to New Jersey where he could eat proper pizza and didn't have to listen to the ocean if he took two steps outside and could pretend that his little girl was doing just fine without him and didn't have to be reminded of Steven Freaking McGarrett every time he saw a large truck or cargo pants. Danny's hand trembled so much that his coffee's lone bubble burst into cool droplets.

His life had lost all meaning.

He chose to abandon Grace, and she had lost her innocence because of it.

And for that, he would never forgive himself.

"Hey, brah." Kono poked her head into the room with an exhausted smile. "How's she doing?"

"Fine. I think she'll be discharged in the morning, and then we can work on trying to pretend this didn't happen." Danny swilled his coffee around, waiting for Kono to come in or leave. She did neither.

"That's great. Look, we need to talk."

"Later. I'm not leaving Grace. I promised her I wouldn't leave her alone." To Danny's annoyance, an officer with a boyish face stepped around Kono and took up a position right next to the door. "A cousin?"

"Yeah. Matty's going to keep an eye on Grace, but this really can't wait." Danny recognized Kono's tone and grudgingly stood up, tossing his cup into a nearby can and fixing a stern glare on the young cop.

"She's scared right now, so don't try to approach her. Just come and get me if she wakes up."

"Yes sir." Danny held his gaze for a few seconds longer than was polite before going into the hallway with Kono.

Whatever she wanted to talk about, it was serious. She looked as grave as she had at the school, if not more so. She led him to an office-like room two doors down from Grace's room, where Danny was unsurprised to find Chin waiting. The older man was standing at a window with his hands folded, but he seemed to read Danny's mind. "One of Malia's friends offered her office for a while. I knew you wouldn't want to be far from Grace."

"Thanks, man. I appreciate that."

Chin didn't respond for a while, and the air seemed to thicken around Danny. He looked to Kono, but she refused to look anywhere but the floor directly in front of her.

"I'm glad you appreciate it." When Chin finally turned, his face seemed like stone. His eyes were dark as the ocean at night. No light shone in them. "But I don't appreciate being lied to."

A/N: Welcome to the week of actually figuring out what the hey's going on with these plots! These won't be very action-filled sequences, but they will give us a bit more insight into what happened to our beloved Five-0. And yes, I do mean all of them...

Mahalo for the support! It means the world to me, all of it!