Chapter Text
Danny Williams pushed open the door of the beachfront home and stood aside to let his eight-year-old daughter enter the house before him. She walked slowly in to the living room and looked around. The darkened room was filled with pokey 70’s furniture and a cloud of dust was swirling sluggishly in a ray of sunlight coming through a chink in the heavy, satin curtains.
“It’s dusty.”
Danny put down his and Grace’s suitcases and their overnight bags and stood up straight glancing around as well.
“Yeah, it is. I thought the rental company was going to have it cleaned but it looks like they didn’t bother.”
Grace began moving about the room checking out the long-neglected furniture, picking up and examining a few pieces of bric a brac and tipping her head to read the titles on the spines of the books in the bookcase.
“How long has it been empty?”
“About a year and a half according to the rental company,” Danny replied leaving the living room to check out the kitchen. It too was covered in a layer of dust but otherwise was neat and well kept. The appliances looked old but seemed to be in good working order.
“That’s sad,” Grace offered as she trailed in behind her father. “The house looks kinda lonely.”
Danny couldn’t help but smile down at his soft-hearted daughter.
“Well it won’t be lonely anymore now that we’re living here.”
The slight, brown haired girl nodded and moved over to the grubby sliding glass doors that led out onto the lanai and the beach beyond.
“Can we go out there, Danno?” she asked, her voice rising in interest.
Danny blew out a tired breath. He wasn’t thrilled about living this close to the ocean but the rent on the property was such a steal he couldn’t pass it up.
“Let’s get our stuff put away first then we can go out, ok?”
Grace made a face but nodded her head.
“Okay, but I want to build a sandcastle before bedtime.”
Danny nodded seriously.
“Yes ma’am,” he gestured towards the stairs off the front room. “Now come on, let’s get unpacked and see if the showers work in this house. Then we can go shopping for some stuff for a picnic and eat it on the beach.”
“OK,” Grace replied happily before darting into the living room to grab her bags.
Danny couldn’t help but smile. Since her mother – Danny’s ex-wife Rachel – and step-father had been killed in a car accident in New Jersey four months ago, Grace had become withdrawn and dejected. Desperate for a change of scene for both of them, Danny had sent out feelers to police departments around the nation to see if anyone was looking for an experienced detective. He’d been shocked when he’d received a call just over a month ago from a Captain Fryer in Honolulu who said he wanted to hire Danny for a special task force the Governor of Hawaii was creating to handle the most high priority crimes. Danny was particularly surprised at the call since he’d never applied for anything in Hawaii. Captain Fryer explained that a friend of Danny’s who was a cop on the LAPD had heard Danny was looking and recommended him to Fryer.
The New Jersey native’s first inclination was to turn down the offer – flattering though it was – as he had no desire to live on a volcanic island in the middle of the Pacific. But after initially saying no, he’d called back the next day to say yes. Grace had been thrilled at the prospect of living in Hawaii, and Danny...well he couldn’t really say what had changed his mind since he hated the ocean and the beach. Maybe it was the hopeful look on Grace’s face for the first time in months. Maybe it was the feeling that Hawaii might offer a new start for both of them. In any case, here they were moving into a dust-covered beach house that had stood empty for over a year and living on an island that could get washed away in a tsunami at any moment. Danny shook his head in disgust at himself as he went back into the living room to pick up the heavy suitcases.
**********
“What do you think?” Danny asked as he stood at the bottom of the steps leading up to the Sacred Heart Academy, Grace’s new school. The little girl stood beside him holding his hand tightly and staring nervously around at the children who were looking at her with mixtures of curiosity and mild hostility.
“It’s ok I guess.”
Danny looked down at his daughter. The little girl had always been so outgoing and fearless but now she was tentative and worried about every little thing. The therapist in Newark had assured Danny that she would overcome her fears, but the detective was starting to wonder if that was true.
“It’s supposed to be a really good school,” Danny coaxed, giving her hand a little shake. “They have lots of different sports you can play and they take cool field drips – sometimes even to the other islands.”
Grace looked up at him, her big brown eyes crinkled with worry.
“Will I be in the same grade that I was in Newark?”
Danny shrugged slightly.
“I don’t see why not. You got good grades there. I’m sure they’ll put you into the third grade here too.”
Grace chewed her lip worriedly as she returned to glancing around at the other students who were streaming into the school ready to start their day.
“I’ve already missed a month of school here. What if I can’t catch up? What if everyone thinks I’m dumb? What if...”
“Monkey,” Danny interrupted gently as he knelt down beside his daughter and placed his hands on her shoulders. “Everything’s going to be ok, I promise. You’re not dumb and no one is going to think you are. Soon you’re going to make friends and you’ll fit right in.”
Grace pressed her lips together and blinked back tears.
“I’m scared, Danno,” she whispered in a quivering voice. “I don’t know anyone.”
Danny gripped her shoulders a bit more firmly and leaned forward until their foreheads were touching and they could look directly into each other’s eyes.
“Can I tell you a secret?”
Grace nodded gently against his head.
“I’m a bit scared too. “
Danny fought down a smile when he saw her eyes widen.
“You? You’re never scared.”
Danny pulled his head away slightly and gave his daughter a small, embarrassed smile.
“Oh yes I am. I have to go to a new job with people I don’t know in a place I don’t know. I’m scared people won’t like me either. Grown-ups get scared of exactly the same thing.”
Grace tipped her head thoughtfully.
“Maybe we should just go home then. You can home school me or something.”
Danny chuckled as he moved slightly away from her and shook his head.
“No can do, Monkey. I have to earn a living to keep us here and you need friends your own age. Besides, if I home schooled you you would fail science spectacularly and then you’d never become a marine biologist.”
“I think I want to be a ballet dancer now.”
Danny nodded at that. The child changed her mind regularly. Last week she was going to be a cowboy.
“Anyway,” Danny continued. “We’re both always going to be in situations that scare us in life. We have to learn to handle them and not run away.”
Grace looked doubtful as she dropped her eyes to the ground. Danny’s heart broke for his baby and he pulled her into a hug.
“It will be ok, Monkey, I promise. The first few days are always the worst, but it will get easier and you’ll make friends and you’ll forget that you were ever scared.”
**********
Danny pushed open the heavy glass door the guard in the lobby had assured him was the entrance to the new Five-0 headquarters, and entered what could only be described as a scene of controlled chaos. Boxes, furniture and electronic equipment was piled everywhere. A variety of people scurried around while two guys on a ladder carefully removed a ceiling panel and pulled a fist full of wires from the ceiling and began examining them intently.
In the middle of the storm, seemingly untroubled by the uproar, stood one of the handsomest men Danny had seen in a long time. The Asian man had high cheekbones, a well-muscled body and enviable hair. He was probably only a couple of inches taller than Danny but he quietly dominated the room. The man was sliding his hands across the glass of a large table that appeared to be some kind of computer.
Danny approached the man, who he estimated to be a few years older than himself, and cleared his throat pointedly.
The Asian man looked up and raised his eyebrows questioningly.
“Can I help you?”
“Yeah, I’m Danny Williams. I’m supposed to meet Captain Fryer here this morning.”
The Asian man’s face lit up as he smiled broadly. He took two steps over to Danny and stuck his hand out for the blonde detective to shake.
“Oh yeah, you’re the haole cop from New Jersey. Fryer mentioned you’d be starting today. I’m Chin Ho Kelly.”
Danny shook the older man’s hand and nodded. He had no idea what haole meant but it didn’t sound rude coming from Kelly.
“Hi, nice to meet you. Are you a cop too?”
Something like pain flashed over Kelly’s face and he turned back to his table-top computer and used his thumb to gesture over his shoulder to an office on the other side of the room.
“Captain Fryer is back there if you want to report into him.”
Danny nodded. He worried that he’d somehow offended the older man but didn’t know how. He swallowed heavily. Great way to start his new job.
“Thanks.”
**********
“You have a hell of an arrest record, Williams,” the burly, slightly balding, 50-something Captain Fryer growled as he paged through Danny’s NPD record on his computer.
“Thank you, sir,” Danny replied quietly.
“One of the youngest detectives in Newark PD history,” Fryer continued, his voice tinged with no small amount of respect.
Danny nodded and glanced away. He was proud of his service and his record but he wasn’t about to sit there crowing over it.
Fryer turned away from the computer monitor and swiveled in his chair to face Danny.
“Do you have arrangements set up for your daughter? I’ll do my best to be flexible with your time, but you know this job isn’t 9 to 5.”
Danny nodded as he shifted in his seat.
“Yes, sir. The school she goes to has an after school program and the lady you recommended to watch her if I can’t get home, Mrs. Kala…” Danny struggled to pronounce the Hawaiian name.
“Kalakaua,” Fryer prompted.
“Right. Mrs. Kalakaua seems very nice. She’ll pick Grace up when I can’t and keep her either at her house or mine until I can get home. Thank you for the recommendation by the way.”
Fyer nodded once as he rested his elbows on the desk top.
“She’s a fine woman. She’s also the mother of Kono, one of the officers I’ve got working here at Five-0. You’ll meet her in a little while.”
“I’ve already met Chin Ho Kelly. Will I be reporting to him or directly to you?”
Fryer folded his lips together tightly and looked down at the desk for a moment. An emotion Danny couldn’t identify flashed across his face. The captain looked up at the Jersey native again.
“You’ll report directly to me as my second in command.”
Danny’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Oh, I just assumed that Detective Kelly….”
Fryer shook his head as he pushed out from behind his desk and stood to begin pacing his office.
“Kelly is not currently a serving member of HPD. He’s been deputized to work for Five-0, but because of his status as more of a civilian member of the team, you will be second-in-command and he and Kono will report to you in my absence.”
Danny blew out a sigh and rubbed the back of his neck. He had a feeling an outsider from the mainland being given such a plum position right off the bat was not going to go over well with the other HPD members who probably wanted the job for themselves. He only hoped that Kelly would be ok with it
“Yes sir,” he responded doubtfully.
“Kelly is a good man,” Fryer stated firmly, as if Danny was questioning his choice. “He’s an experienced cop but he…he had some issues with HPD a couple of years ago and had to resign. When the Governor gave me Five-0 I asked for Chin to join me. We’re old friends and I trust him completely.”
Danny looked up at Fryer and nodded hoping he looked like he had no concerns.
“That’s all I need to know, Cap. I’m sure Kelly will be a valuable addition to the team. What’s Kalakaua’s story?”
“She’s fresh out of the academy.”
Danny’s mouth dropped open in shock. A rookie in a job like this? What kind of organization was Five-0 anyway?
“I know it’s unusual,” Fryer rushed to add. “Normally I would want someone more street-wise and experienced, but Kono is smart as hell. She graduated at the top of her class in the academy and she has valuable computer skills. I see her being a great undercover operative.”
Danny nodded slowly. There wasn’t much he could say. He wasn’t in charge.
“OK. It’s your team. You know these people and I don’t so if you’re confident in them I’m sure I will be too.”
Fryer cocked his head towards the office door.
“Let’s go meet them officially.”
As the two men left Fryer’s office and entered the open room again, Danny noticed a beautiful young Hawaiian woman standing next to Chin.
“Chin Ho Kelly and Kono Kalakaua, this is Danny, Detective Sergeant Danny Williams,”
**********
Hawaii was weird. That was the only way to describe it. People considered board shorts and flip flops (“slippahs, brah”) to be acceptable work wear, they all spoke some bizarre language called pidgin and they put pineapple on…Danny had to swallow hard to force back the bile rising in his throat…on pizza. It was enough to make a man lose his mind.
Then, as if God or Buddha or whoever hadn’t had enough fun jerking Danny’s life around, weird things started happening at home. Maybe Danny was losing his mind. At first they were easily ignored: the back door being closed when Danny was sure he’d left it open; his framed photo of the Brooklyn Bridge dropping off the wall one night and smashing.
Danny shrugged off most of these things. There was obviously some simple explanation for them – minor seismic activity or some such. But then the weirdness ramped up. Danny would come downstairs in the morning and find his food cupboards had been rearranged. Or the towels he swore he’d put in the right hand cabinet in the bathroom suddenly were in the left. Even his shoes, which he’d kick off in the living room on his way up to bed after a late night, would be found the next day lined up neatly by the front door.
At first Danny thought Grace had done these things but she swore up and down she didn’t and besides, the food cupboard was too high up for her to reach safely. Danny even asked Mrs. Kalakaua if perhaps she’d been doing some reorganizing but she just gave him a strange look and shook her head muttering something about lolo haoles.
It was all a bit disturbing and a lot annoying. If Danny had been alone on the island he probably would have taken it as a sign he should hightail it back to New Jersey. But he wasn’t alone, Grace was here with him and the change in her made all the weirdness bearable.
Danny didn’t quite know when Grace started to turn the corner emotionally. Maybe the move to Hawaii had been the smart choice after all because after a few weeks living on the island she went from a withdrawn, often emotional child to a little girl who smiled more often and even laughed out loud occasionally.
She still missed her mother of course, she always would, but she seemed better able to deal with the loss as time went by. Danny wasn’t sure how instrumental he had been in the change but he was grateful to see it anyway.
It was around this time that Grace started talking about someone named Steve and the Jersey native was glad his daughter had finally made a friend – even if the friend was a boy.
This Steve seemed to know a lot about Hawaii’s history and customs and his guidance was helping Grace fit in better with her classmates. Steve had apparently lost his mother at a young age too – Danny didn’t quite get how young since the boy couldn’t have been much older than Grace – and he had apparently become a good sounding board for Grace.
“Steve says we should go to the top of Diamond Head on the weekend. Danno. He says it’s the best place to see all of Honolulu.”
Danny who was at the stove stirring the tomato sauce turned to look at his daughter where she sat at the table working on her homework.
“Yeah sure. That sounds nice.”
“Steve says the zoo is also really awesome.”
Danny sighed as he turned back to attend to the tomato sauce. Steve often suggested places that cost money to enter. Maybe Steve’s father was doing well financially but after the divorce and the move, Grace’s father couldn’t boast the same thing.
“Well, we’ll put that on our list of things to do.”
The two remained quiet for a moment as Grace once more turned her attention to her text book as Danny put the pasta on to boil.
Grace looked up again after several seconds.
“What’s a SEAL, Danno?”
Her father drew his eyebrows together shooting her a confused look.
“You know what a seal is Grace, It’s an aquatic mammal.”
The little girl rolled her eyes and huffed out an exaggerated sigh of annoyance.
“Not that kind of seal. A SEAL. Like with all big letters.
Danny turned to look at his daughter in confusion.
“I’m no expert but the SEALs are a part of the US Navy. I think they have special skills and they are sent on small but really important missions all over the world.”
“Oh,” the child replied turning her attention back to her text book.
“Why are you asking about SEALs?”
“Steve says he was one but he doesn’t remember a whole lot about it.”
Danny felt his stomach clench.
“What? I thought Steve was a boy in your class?”
Grace shook her head as she continued to read through her text book.
“Uh uh.”
Danny licked his lips nervously and walked over to the table to sit in the chair across from his daughter. Why the hell was a grown man hanging out with his daughter, and why hadn’t he known this was going on?
“Grace.”
The child lifted her head at her father’s suddenly serious tone.
“Who is Steve? How do you know him?”
Grace’s cheeks flushed and she chewed her bottom lip anxiously.
“He…I…he’s my friend.”
“OK, but how do you know him?”
Grace shrugged as she fiddled with her pencil, her eyes averted from her father’s.
“He’s just kind of…around.”
“Around school?”
The child shook her head.
“Around home?” Danny pressed, his voice rising in pitch and his chest suddenly tightening in fear.
Grace nodded.
Danny fisted his hands on his lap. He was going to beat the shit out of this Steve guy the moment he laid eyes on him.
“Does he come into the back yard or into the house?” Danny demanded angrily.
Grace looked up at her father, her little face bright with sincerity.
“He’s not a bad man, Danno. He doesn’t hurt me and he doesn’t do bad things. He just talks to me…”
“Grace!” Danny snapped with more force than he intended. “No grown up is going to be friends with a small child. Grown up people should have grown up friends. Why is he hanging around with a little girl like you?”
“Cause he’s stuck here!” Grace replied angrily her voice wobbly and her bottom lip quivering as her eyes filled with tears.
Danny took a moment to compose himself, he didn’t want to upset his daughter more than necessary. She’d already been upset too much in the last months.
“Baby, what do you mean ‘he’s stuck’?”
She shrugged her shoulders again and sniffled.
“I don’t know exactly. He says he’s stuck in the house and the yard. He can’t leave and he doesn’t know why.”
Danny sat back in his chair and observed his daughter for a moment. She’d never had an imaginary friend before. Was that what this Steve was?
“So…when do you see Steve?”
“Usually when I’m outside playing on the beach. After we moved here I was outside and I was sad thinking about mommy and Steve appeared and started talking to me about his mommy.”
“What do you mean he appeared?”
“I don’t know. He just kind of showed up in front of me.”
“What, like in a puff of smoke?” Danny asked in a gently kidding voice trying to diffuse the situation.
“No, Danno!” Grace harrumphed as if her father was a fool for making the suggestion. “He just sort of…appeared.”
Danny shifted in his chair uncomfortably. He was entering potentially dangerous territory if this Steve was a figment of his daughter’s imagination. He didn’t want to dismiss what the child was saying or make her feel bad if this fictional character was part of her coping mechanism.
“Is Steve scary at all? Doesn’t it scare you when he appears?”
Grace once again shook her head firmly.
“The first time he surprised me, but he’s really nice and he doesn’t try to scare me or be mean.”
“What does he look like?”
“He’s really tall and he’s got big arms with tattoos. He’s got short brown hair and he’s very handsome.”
Danny raised his eyebrows in surprise at the kind of detail his daughter’s imagination had provided for Steve – he sounded like the kind of guy Danny would go for. Just his luck that a person he would be attracted to didn’t actually exist at all.
“Huh,” Danny mused as he began to rise from the chair. “OK, but if Steve ever scares you or asks you to do something bad I want you to tell me right away, ok?”
Grace made a dismissive sound with her teeth.
“Danno, he’s really nice. He’s just lonely that’s all. He says that this is his house but he doesn’t think he’s supposed to be here. That’s why he keeps moving that stuff…”
Danny’s head jerked up in surprise and he sat down again with a thump. He stared open-mouthed at his daughter.
“…he says you’re putting stuff in the wrong place and you’re being inefficient. He says he has to fix it for you.”
Danny blinked at Grace several times. This Steve person didn’t sound much like an imaginary friend. He sounded like a poltergeist. Danny shivered slightly then gave himself a mental shake. There was no such thing as ghosts. He was starting to see where Grace got her vivid imagination. It was obvious he’d been wrong and it was Grace moving the items in the house…he just couldn’t figure out how.
The detective stood up and turned back to the stove where his tomato sauce was now bubbling too rapidly. He turned the heat down and picked up the wooden spoon again.
“Steve sounds like a bit of a control freak. You tell him to leave stuff alone. I’ll put things wherever I like, ok?”
Grace nodded and picked up her text book again.
“OK, but Steve says you should organize the cupboards better and take shorter showers.”
Danny smirked and shook his head hopelessly.
“Definitely a control freak.”