"I spoke with the surgeon," Malia said, joining the team in the family waiting room. "Everything went as planned. The bullet grazed the scapula, and there were just the few fragments to be cleaned out. He'll be on IV antibiotics to prevent infection, but there's no reason to expect less than a full recovery." She pointed a finger at Steve. "Desk duty only until he's completely healed."

"Yes, ma'am," Steve said meekly.

#*#*#*#*#

"What were you thinking?" Joe asked, glaring at the man in front of him. "I asked for protection for her in Tokyo; at the university. Your men failed. No one asked you to step in again. Their deaths are not on my hands."

"You need to bring her back to Tokyo," the man insisted. "The Kkangpae can protect her here. WoFat will not rest until he's exacted his revenge."

"Be that as it may," Joe said, "it is no longer your concern. Unless you want to bring WoFat's wrath down on your head as well, I would walk away."

"Or perhaps we should consider a different arrangement altogether," the man said. "I'm sure WoFat would be interested. There is a bounty, you know. We could decide that cash in hand is better than promises of future cooperation."

"And I'm sure that the United States Navy and the CIA would be interested in every aspect of your operation," Joe said quickly. "The entire program is disavowed. There is no one left who can offer you protection; offer you a deal. Don't escalate this."

The man scoffed. "Who's protecting her? The brother? His team of cops?"

"I'm telling you right now; walk away from this." Joe stood to his full, imposing height. "You lay a hand on her, and the military, the CIA, and WoFat will be the least of your concerns. 'The brother' will make them look like cub scouts."

#*#*#*#*#

They waited until Danny was settled in his room, and whispered their quiet goodbyes to him. He was groggy, and in pain, and blaming Steve.

"Are you sure you're okay to stay?" Steve asked Rebecca. "You get more nursing than you bargained for with my team."

Rebecca smiled and ducked her head slightly. "There's, um, not so much as a goldfish at my apartment, and I have several changes of scrubs in my locker. I'm fine with staying."

Steve grinned at her. "Lovely. You'll probably get to meet Rachel and Gracie. Good luck." With a jaunty grin, he was off.

"Oh crap," Rebecca muttered to herself, her hands on her hips, looking down at Danny. "I may not have thought this through."

#*#*#*#*#

They gathered around the smart table when they got back to the palace.

"So, why are the Kkangpae on the island, and why was the Yakuza so hell-bent on us not having those bodies?" Chin asked. They put what scanty information they had on the plasma.

"Max is going to go over the bodies with a fine-tooth comb," Charlie said, "and my team will go over every thread and breadcrumb in their pockets. Riley will be logging the evidence in the database and we'll cross reference it with every other Kkangpae case on record."

Riley had drifted closer to the plasma screens, and was studying the few shots they'd managed to get of the tattoos.

"What are you thinking, Riley?" Steve asked, coming to stand next to her.

Danny marveled at the uncanny similarities in their stance, the angle of their heads as they looked at the screens. He wondered, not for the first time, how they didn't know immediately that Riley was Steve's sister.

"What were the Yakuza shooting at, exactly? I mean, the bodies, but . . . the ink? Is it possible they were trying to obliterate the tattoos?" Riley wondered.

"So, three Kkangpae members make it to the island, wind up dead, on the docks. Five-O gets called and we get there before the Yakuza can collect the bodies. The ink. We were secondary targets," Chin picked up her train of thought.

"They were more interested in destroying the ink than getting rid of us?" Kono said. "Their chance to off Five-O and they're going after evidence instead. Wow."

"Well, they were outnumbered and out-gunned," Steve reasoned. "They had to know that once bullets started flying, they didn't stand a chance. So if their original objective had been to retrieve the bodies, the only thing left was to try to destroy the evidence."

"It was a suicide mission," Chin said.

"If you're right," Charlie said, "then what on earth is so special about those tattoos?"

#*#*#*#*#

Danny was aware of being watched as he drifted awake, sluggish, the strong narcotics still coursing through his system. His eyes blinked open slowly.

"Hi, Danno," a quiet voice said, close to his ear.

He turned his head. "Hey, Monkey," he rasped, his throat dry.

"Here, you can give your dad some of this ice," Rebecca said, handing Gracie a cup of ice and a spoon.

She nodded and carefully extended a spoonful of ice to Danny, her chocolate eyes wide and serious.

"Thanks, baby," Danny said. "It's good to see you. You okay? Everything okay? Where's your mom?"

"She went to argue with the doctor," Gracie said solemnly.

Danny sighed and Rebecca tried to smother a grin. Before Danny could ask any more questions, the door opened and Rachel stalked back in, chin up defiantly.

"Daniel, I do not understand why you persist in listing Steven as your emergency contact and medical proxy," she said, ignoring Rebecca completely. "One would think that the mother of your child should be notified first."

"One would be wrong," Danny said calmly. "We've been over this, Rachel. If I'm sick or injured, odds are good that it's on the job. Steve is likely on the scene, not to mention he's a hot shot SEAL medic. He's going to be the one who knows what happened, who can get to me the fastest, and who has the information to make a good decision."

"And then call me hours after the fact?" Rachel retorted hotly.

"If I'm coherent, he waits for my go-ahead to call you. He calls when I'm ready for him to call," Danny said. "And I'm ready for him to call when we have all of the information that can be conveyed to you in such a way as to not alarm our beautiful daughter, who may I remind you, is sitting. Right. Here." Danny kept his tone calm, but his eyes pinned Rachel with a glare, over Gracie's head.

"Fine. Gracie, darling, we will stay for a few more minutes, and then we'll need to get you home so you can tend to your homework," Rachel said. She turned and addressed Rebecca. "I'm sure you have other patients to attend to. And could you please bring me a coffee?"

Rebecca decided to take the insulting suggestion as a graceful exit from the room, but as she stood to leave, Danny spoke up.

"Actually, nurses don't fetch coffee. Besides, Rebecca is off duty. She's here as a friend," he said.

"I was Riley's nurse recently when she was injured, and had the honor of becoming friends with Danny's team," Rebecca said. "I was just coming off a shift and offered to stay so that they could get back to work."

Rachel narrowed her eyes at Rebecca but didn't pursue the matter further. Danny turned his attention back to Gracie.

"Hey, Monkey, how are things at school this week?" he asked, tugging on one of her pigtails.

"Great!" she enthused. "We have a field trip tomorrow to an aquarium. There's a petting tank, and I'll get to touch a stingray. A baby one."

"That's fantastic, baby," Danny said. "Draw me a picture of it when you get home, okay?"

"Okay, Danno," Grace nodded. "When will you get to come home? Can I still come over this weekend?"

"I'm not sure, honey," Danny said. "We will see what the doctor says, and your mom and I will work it out, okay?"

"I can help," Gracie said. "If you can't do dishes and cook and stuff, I can help you."

"Well, that is good to know," Danny said, smiling. "Maybe they will let me go home, if they know I have a helper."

Gracie beamed at him and kissed him, gently, on the cheek.

"Come, Gracie, we need to let Danno rest now," Rachel said. Her tone was softer as she held out her hand to Grace. "Danny, I do hope you can get some rest. Shall I bring Gracie around tomorrow on the way home from school?"

Danny looked up at her, a bit surprised. "I would love that, Rachel, yes, of course."

"Well," she said, glancing down at Gracie, "I do try to be reasonable. I - I'm glad that you're okay, relatively speaking."

"Thanks," Danny said. He winced as he reached for the cup of ice, and Rachel handed it to him a bit awkwardly.

"Good night, Daniel," Rachel said, and Gracie blew him kisses as they walked out of the room.

"Thank you," Rebecca said quietly, as the door closed behind them. "You didn't need to . . . I would have gone to get her some coffee, really, it wouldn't have been a problem."

"Yeah, okay, if she had asked politely, maybe," Danny said. "Because you're a genuinely kind person, and you do know your way around the hospital. But that's not what happened there. She treated you like wait staff. I would have done the same for any nurse. I should have introduced you to her immediately. I apologize."

"Danny, there's no need . . . you're groggy, in pain, focused on your little girl . . . really. You don't owe me anything," Rebecca argued.

"I introduced you as a friend," Danny said.

"I like to think we're friends," Rebecca replied, smiling at him.

"I would like to think that we might be more than friends," Danny said. "But thank you for making things very easy with my ex-wife and my daughter. I have not yet told Rachel that I am seeing someone."

"We're seeing each other?" Rebecca asked.

"We are," Danny nodded. "Unless my showing up to walk you to your apartment and cook for you really was stalking, in which case, I know people who could look into that for you."

"I won't press charges," Rebecca said. "Your kid, Grace . . . she really is adorable."

"She looks like her mother."

"She has your winning personality. And kindness," Rebecca said. "I understand if . . . look, I get that your life is complicated, and I sort of dropped into things. I don't want you to feel obligated. You have been a great friend, Danny, all of you have. It's far more than I imagined, and if that's all this is - it's enough. I wasn't expecting it; I certainly don't expect more."

Danny was too tired and too loopy to filter his words - not that filtering was one of his strong points under any circumstances. "I fell for you, in the hospital," he said bluntly. "You impressed me, over the radio, the way you manhandled Steve and Riley through the woods . . . that was amazing. But I fell for you in the hospital, the way you treated Riley - your gentleness with her, your compassion. None of us understood better what she'd been through, and you stuck with her, you didn't walk away. And when you finally fell asleep, and you woke up, and I looked at you and . . . it was wow. All of that, and then you sat up, and opened those gorgeous eyes of yours, and I still can't decide if they're blue or green or what, and your hair was . . . " Danny paused and made a vague gesture with his hands, and Rebecca had to laugh.

"And you gave me a hair elastic from this mysterious stash you seem to keep in your pockets, because my hair had its own zip code going on," she finished. "I confess, I had a fleeting thought, when you pulled out that elastic, that maybe -"

"What?" Danny asked, his eyes crinkling at her.

Rebecca blushed and made a dismissive gesture. "You'd braided Riley's hair, and for a split second, I . . ."

"Rebecca," Danny said, a slow, soft smile curving his lips and crinkling his eyes, "I would very much like to think that a day will come when I have the liberty to run my hands through your hair."

"Oh," Rebecca said softly. "Wow."

"In the meantime, you know you can always count on me for a spare elasticy thing."

#*#*#*#*#

"You sure you're okay with this?" Steve asked quietly, as they stepped off the elevator in the basement.

"I am," Riley said confidently.

"I'm going to grab a light and the best camera from the lab," Charlie said. "I'll catch up to you."

Steve and Riley continued into Max's autopsy room.

"Greetings, Commander, Ms. McGarrett," Max said formally. "I am glad to see the excitement for the day is over. How is Detective Williams?"

"He's going to be riding a desk for a while, but he'll be okay," Steve said. "What have you got?"

"Cause of death is unknown," Max said placidly. "These gunshots, as we know, were postmortem."

"What do you mean, unknown?" Charlie asked, frowning, as he joined them.

"I mean, Dr. Fong, that I do not yet know what caused these three gentlemen to succumb to an untimely death," Max said. "I am running a toxicology screen as we speak."

"Poison?" Riley asked.

"It would seem that in the absence of an obvious fatal wound, that could be a possibility," Max said, "although I haven't hit upon any specific evidence to indicate poisoning."

"We wanted to let Riley get a better look at the ink," Steve said. "Is that okay?"

"That would be fine," Max said. "I'll just be in my office if you need me."

Steve carefully pulled back the sheet from just the arm of the first victim, watching Riley for any evidence of discomfort. She was completely focused on the ink as she reached out her hand, stopping herself before she touched the skin.

"I should be wearing gloves," she said, "right?"

"Yep," Charlie replied, fishing a pair out of his pocket for her. Steve felt a blip of annoyance.

Riley gently rotated the man's arm, examining the ink. "Is that a UV lamp?" she asked Charlie.

"Yeah, it is," he said. "You want it on?"

"Hmm, could you direct it just over - there, perfect, thanks," Riley murmured. She was completely focused as she bent over the table. "Holy shit," she said quietly.

"What is it?" Steve demanded.

"This is Kkangpae ink," she said, "but underneath it, there's an original, smaller tattoo. I recognize it."

"Yeah?" Steve asked, curious. "From where?"

"The monastery," Riley said.

"The - that doesn't make sense," Steve said.

Charlie looked at them in confusion, but wisely stayed silent.

"Riley, that doesn't make sense," Steve repeated. "Right? This guy was a monk, before he was Kkangpae?"

"It isn't unheard of," Riley sighed. "It's just very, very unfortunate."

#*#*#*#*#