Chapter 6 "The Box & The Note"

A/N: (1 August 2016) Your reviews are so deeply appreciated! I love knowing what you are responding to, thinking about, trying to unravel this mystery right along with Danny and everyone else! I have had a little trouble recently and have not had the opportunity to reply to reviews, but I think about them, and want to reply. I will when I can, I promise!

Steve and Five-0 will be back in the next chapter!

Disclaimer: CBS persists in owning Hawaii Five-0.

Chapter 6 "The Box & The Note"

While the kitten slept, cradled on his arm, Danny stroking it, he also felt he needed to take stock of the box, and what was in it. First he looked it over carefully, the walls, the floor, the ceiling as best he could see it. He knew it was a shipping container, small by usual standards. He knew he had a latrine hole with a liftable, hinged grate-type cover to keep the cat from falling in, or at least to keep large bugs and maybe vermin from getting in from outside. It was in the corner farthest from the impossible-to-open door wall of the container.

But upon inspection, there was a three-inch pipe fitted into the ceiling, diagonal from the latrine hole, and it was the air hole. It too was fitted with a pipe, going up, and a mesh cover bolted on. He could tell the air was fresher, with a salty tang that meant the sea or that the outside vent was facing the wind, which would help air get into the pipe. The air inside the box was a little stuffy, but not too bad. Danny could imagine it might get worse. There was not much of a draft, but it was enough to keep air coming in. It did not admit any light, but it might be night, for all he knew. He would watch it for light. It also did not admit sounds from outside, which meant it was baffled. If it did not admit sound, it was not going to let sound out either. Yelling for help would not carry far enough to have much chance at all to be heard.

Not a good realization. He had to be someplace remote enough to make discovery unlikely. That did not mean it could not happen, he reasoned, but it was not comforting. For all he knew, he might not even still be on Oahu. There were lots of smaller islands in the chain, some with very low populations. He had no idea where he was.

For the first time, he wondered if the box was buried, and he was underground. Panic was instantaneous, and he began to breathe much too fast while his chest tightened and the breaths had to be small. His heart was hammering in his chest. The kitten woke up and began to purr at him, rubbing against his arm, his face, any part of him that she could reach, and now and then meowed to get his attention. Danny had a feeling she was trying to calm him down. He hugged the kitten, and focused on that soothing purr, the need for touch, the need to not panic. "I got it, I have to control this. Look at you, huh? Such a little thing, and just as helpless as me, and you are cool as a cucumber. Right, little girl?" He hugged the kitten, and held her over his heart, which reacted to the comforting purr, the tiny vibrations in the tiny body. "Thanks for the help, little one." He was getting it under control. The kitten was staring into his eyes, and suddenly pushed her cold pink nose against his chin and cheek, and the purring continued even as she nipped his chin very carefully with her tiny fangs.

Danny felt it and hugged the little thing closer, petting her, feeling her arch her back to get more of his touch. "I think you just told me you like me. I like you too. Thanks. I feel better. We can get through this together, right?" He held the kitten up to his face, and imitated what she had done: he rubbed his cheek against her, and his breathing and heart rate were better. Improving. Then he settled the kitten back into the crook of his arm and got back to exploring.

He found a mylar oval glued to the wall, apparently to serve as a mirror. It was shaped like a balloon, and even though he could not pry up the edges, he figured it was probably cut from a holiday or birthday balloon.

In it, he could see well enough that he really was bald. He fetched the packet the cat food had been in, and carefully tore it so it was opened on three sides, and used the silver lining of it as a kind of mirror, checking to see if he could see any nicks or cuts on his head. He had felt a few, but none were serious at all.

He barely recognized himself without his hair. He felt smaller, less himself. Would anyone even know him?

Who was he kidding? It was hair. It would grow back. Sure, it would take months and months, probably half a year to get it back the way he liked it, but it would grow back. Heck, in a week he'd have stubble, which would feel weird, but it would be okay. No matter what, he was still Danny Williams.

This was one of those situations where he would go mad if he did not think positively. Steve, Chin, and Kono would tease him endlessly about his hair, and he could only grimace when he thought of how Grace would react. She loved his hair, even though she would never admit it to him. He had overheard her saying once to that cute nurse at Tripler that her dad was "cool" because of his hair, but mostly because he was Danno.

He liked that his daughter thought he was cool, even if she would never tell him that.

He decided to call the mylar balloon "the window". It reflected light, and made the small container seem just a tiny bit bigger. He would have to use mind games like that to get through being stuck in the small space. He was tense, and panic was not far away, but he was not going to let it best him. Yes, he was claustrophobic. But in this situation, he had to put that aside and make a deal with his phobia. If he was to get through this, he had to accept the dimensions of the box, expand them to something acceptable in his mind, and cope. So the box became in his imagination a big house, with lots of windows and a two-car garage, a yard big enough for Grace and Charlie to play in, and he went for broke and borrowed Steve's back yard with its added beach access, and lapping waves, trees, bushes, flowers, even patio furniture, and a cat tree just inside the house, because no way was he risking the kitten running off and drowning in the ocean.

Danny stopped, and stared down at the kitten. He decided to allow the cat tree, because he was responsible for this baby cat, and cats needed something to play on, safely. "You are the first cat I ever liked," he said, and petted the kitten. She meowed happily.

"Will I keep you?" Danny translated, in something close to a baby-talk voice, unaware that he was. He thought about it and smiled. "Let's see how this goes, okay? You might not like me in a few more days. Besides, I usually don't like cats. Maybe I can make an exception for you, though. I do not have to like all cats to like you."

The furry thing rolled onto its back on his arm, and rubbed the top of its head near the crook of his elbow while simultaneously curling and uncurling her front paws in the air. Danny grinned. His heart rate was back to normal, and his breathing as well. "You are a very cute cat. I do not know what this paws thing means, but I like it and think it is very very cute."

He returned to inspecting the container when the kitten snuggled deeper against him and seemed to be on the verge of sleeping again.

He scowled at the word painted on the wall, and turned it into a picture window looking out onto a big front yard, with trees and landscaping. Oddly, the pile of stuff was a weirdly placed pantry. He counted the 5-gallon water bottles with spigots. There were 8. He turned all but one of them so the spigots faced the wall, so girlkitten would not drain out all the water by tapping her paw against the spigots.

For the one he left spigot-out, he placed the two jars of peanut butter so they protected it from paws. It was the cheap kind of peanut butter that was full of stuff so it did not have to be refrigerated after opening. He hated it, but had lived off it before, when he first moved to Hawaii and had to keep his expenses to a minumim.

Did that mean anything? It had to be a coincidence. Nobody knew, anyway, not even Rachel or Grace. If someone was going to lock someone in a shipping container box and feed them, they would need to find stuff that did not need refrigeration. Peanut butter was a likely choice. So was the box of cheese-flavored crackers. He had also lived on canned tuna and macaroni and cheese, but that required cooking. He could just imagine girlcat going crazy if she smelled tuna.

Danny had a passing thought that he would have to name the cat. He had to think of the right name.

He found a thin fleece blanket in a blue pineapple print among the things, so he took it over to the corner where the chain as bolted down, and folded it into a bed for the cat, then let her explore it and claim it. She curled into a ball and fell asleep smack in the middle of a pineapple.

Danny returned to his inventory. He carefully went through everything he found, and made a list:

8 5-gallon bottles of water (40 gallons, less one cat water bowl amount)

10 single-servings of pineapple juice (1/3 cup each) (What is with the pineapples?)

1 half-litre empty water bottle with a pull-up spout

1 package of baby wipes (50 count)

1 roll cheap, scratchy toilet paper

1 package of 50 flat wooden tongue depressors (to use as spoons, he guessed)

2 16-ounce jars of cheap peanut butter

1 box of cheese-flavored crackers

1 boxes of raisins

1 Christmas decorated cupcake in a ziploc baggie

1 pineapple-print microfleece blanket, very thin, 50x60 inches according to label

1 30-count pkg of 5-inch paper plates (for the kitten's food) (1 already used)

30 soft pouches of single-meal kitten food (one already used)

1 plastic kitty water bowl

1 kitten-sized pressed paper catbox

1 50 lb bag of clay kitty litter, the clumping kind

1 ultra-cheap plastic scoop for kitty box

30 6-inch white glowsticks, giving roughly 12 hours of light per stick (1 in use)

1 school notebook of wide-lined paper, 50 sheets, with plastic instead of wire spiral

1 mechanical pencil, cheap

1 string of Christmas lights at the top of the COFFIN (cross out) picture window wall, apparently glued in place, bulbs small and multi-colored, currently not lit (but he seemed to recall colored lights the first time he woke up … these?)

A note, printed on ordinary cheap copy paper.

The note had been tucked into the notebook, and fell out when he picked it up.

Danny stared at it. It was folded, and had his name typed on it. It looked as if it had been printed on a computer printer.

Danny knew he was not going to like what it said, so he walked over to what he had begun referring to The Bedroom (nearest the bolt for his ankle chain), sat down next to the kitten's bed and cautiously unfolded the note.

It read: "UR coffin. Haha U SUFFER. Not much food. No more coming. Haha STARVE. No way out. Hid U. No 1 looking cuz they think U R dead. Why cat? Wrong place wrong time. U can share coffin. (McG dead cuz he was there when you were taken. So drugged, easy to kill. Never liked him.) Have hated U so long, planned this for months. My Christmas gift is knowing U will suffer and die. Maybe in 5 years I will dig you up and gloat. Or maybe not. Already kept some hair for a trophy."

Danny stared at it a long time, re-reading it over and over. Hope drained out of him, and pain came and filled up his heart. Was Steve really dead? Was he believed dead? His clothes had been taken, his hair. If used right, that might be enough to … if it was found washed up on a beach, or ….

Was this box his coffin?

Steve. He couldn't be dead. He had survived and even received a liver transplant, and he was back at work, he was doing well. Had he been killed when Danny was taken? Danny had already figured he had been drugged. If he had, likely Steve had. Drugged, Steve could not have been able to fight back.

Steve could be dead. It could be true. He felt utterly lost. His best friend, dead because of him. "God, Steve, I'm so sorry." He felt numb. He grieved.

And it was possible that he was presumed dead, and that no one was looking for him.

Danny looked at the water, the food, the other things. If this was all he had left, he would die a horrible death, and no one would even know. And if Steve and him were both dead, Five-0 would struggle to survive, though he knew Chin, Kono, and Abbey would do their best. The only question was if the governor would keep them funded.

His colleagues. He missed them. They would be suffering. He could not comfort them. He could not comfort his children.

He let out a sob when he thought of Grace and Charlie. His kids. He knew they loved him. And he knew they knew he loved them. He would not see them grow up. Not see Grace graduate from high school, or become a marine biologist, or her new idea now of becoming a pediatric nurse. Would Charlie become a fireman, or a policeman, or even a cowboy? Would they both be happy? Birthdays. Christmas. Would they like the BB8? He had imagined their faces, but he would not see them now. He loved them so much. His heart felt like it was breaking. He would never see them again. He loved them. Had he been a good father, a good enough role model for them?

How would his nephew Eric take the news? Eric had really turned his life around. Would he hang onto all the good people he had? What about his parents, his sisters? Everyone, hurting. He could console no one.

Would they cope with his death? With Steve's? His kids, his Five-0 ohana, his extended ohana of Max, Jerry, Kamekona, Duke, Pua, Nehele, hell, even Rachel.

Two deaths. That was a lot for anyone to cope with. Would they be able to stay loving and hopeful?

He folded the note and stuffed it ridiculously carefully in one coverall pocket, then shifted the kitten so he could curl up on the folded blanket, with it nestled in the curve of his body. He felt numb, depressed, lost and despondent.

Afraid.

He was afraid the note was true.