Lost at the Edge of the Sun, 1/5
Feb. 9th, 2011 04:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gilascaveTitle: Lost at the Edge of the Sun, 1/5
Author: james
Rating: PG13
Pairing: Steve/Danny
Word Count: 24,000 total posted in five parts
Notes: thanks to dine and kaytee4ever for the betaing.
Summary: Living in Hawai'i is expensive, especially when you're still paying a mortgage on a house back in Jersey. When things get to be too much, Danny has to make a hard decision. The hardest part is keeping the rest of the team from finding out that he's homeless.
Lost at the Edge of the Sun
Danny never claimed to be very good with so-called higher math or any of the sciences that went with them. Once numbers got theoretical, he was pretty much a goner. But arithmetic was never really a problem -- and as soon as he had someone counting on him to provide everything in the world for her, he got to be a fair hand at budgets as well.
Not that he was all that good at not spending money, but as soon as Rachel had said "I'm pregnant" all the money went to the baby and Danny learned how to get along without things like new shoes or a steak dinner at Mario's. And that was the worst part of all this, really. He'd never been one for flashy indulgences. He didn't waste his money or gamble it away. He was responsible, mature, and careful. Stuff like this shouldn't be happening to him.
So he did the math up one more time and simply couldn't understand how it had gotten to this. He could, of course, trace the expenses and income quite specifically, right down to the penny. The numbers came out the same every single time and there was nothing very mysterious about how it added up. But karmically speaking, Danny didn't see how this was possible.
The trouble, he knew, was the house. He'd been 'lucky' enough to win it in the divorce, then had been completely unable to sell it when he'd moved to Hawai'i. He'd tried to rent it out and got nowhere, so now his nineteen year old nephew was living it in rent-free just to keep it from being vandalized. But it meant Danny still had a mortgage and yearly taxes to pay and was responsible for major repairs. One damaged roof from a snowstorm and one dead furnace later, and he was looking at a pile of bills stacked on his dresser that exceeded the amount of money on his paychecks.
Paychecks, plural. Danny did the math one more time, but it wasn't coming out any differently. He'd blown through the bulk of his savings getting out here the year before, which left him no cushion to do much of anything.
His list of options was noticeably small. Danny sighed, looked at the paperwork and thought about maybe trying to add things up one more time, but knew it was no use. He shoved everything to one side, knowing that on Monday he'd pay what he could and the rest of it.... Well, he had a short list of options which he told himself was better than no list at all.
~~~
Coffee was easy.
Danny stood by the coffee maker at headquarters, waiting patiently for the thing to stop dripping. He heard someone come into the room and glanced over, giving Kono a smile as she caught his look.
"Morning, Danny."
Danny just shook his head and gestured with his empty coffee mug. "Unbelievable, you know that?"
Kono paused, frowning at him in confusion. Danny nodded towards her head, because her hair was wet -- which he knew perfectly was from being out on the waves that morning before coming in. That meant she'd gotten out of bed at a godawful time of day in order to hit the beach and still be on time for work.
"Could you possibly sleep in just once, for my sake?" he asked her and she grinned, dimpling at him with a look that made him fear for his daughter when she got older. Or fear for himself, rather, and any boy who tried to so much as talk to her. He had a brief urge to ask Kono's father how he'd managed to raise a daughter without killing anybody, but he was half-afraid to find out it wasn't actually possible.
"Gotta catch a wave, brah," Kono said casually, shrugging at him as she reached past him for an empty mug.
"You're insane," he told her, then caught sight of Steve, just coming in the door. "Christ, not you, too?"
Steve paused, raising an eyebrow and even glancing partway behind himself, as if wondering who Danny might possibly be talking to other than himself. He was dressed like any other day, casual shirt and cargo pants hiding what Danny now knew were swim shorts underneath. But his hair was wet as well, and Danny honestly didn't understand how he could tell from across the room that this was ocean-wet and not fresh-from-the-shower wet.
It was probably the wide-eyed grin underneath.
"I should probably not be surprised you don't need sleep like normal people," Danny began, then gave Kono another look. "Actually, I'm pretty sure you're not normal, either. Chin told me about your last high-speed car chase. I might have to ask the Governor about assigning us a few more responsible adults to help balance you two out."
Steve wandered into the room, a smirk appearing on his face as he'd clearly figured out what Danny was talking about. Danny didn't bother to ask if they'd gone to the same beach -- he'd learned not to ask questions when he knew he wouldn't understand the answers. He knew the names of the area beaches, but somehow that never seemed to help when either Steve or Kono started explaining where they'd been surfing and what they'd done while they were there.
He half-suspected them of making up words just to mess with him.
Finally, though, the coffee pot had finished its brew cycle and Danny grabbed the pot, pouring himself a mug. Despite the fact he knew it was no different from a hundred other times he'd done exactly the same thing, he felt somehow as though there was a huge neon sign over his head, blinking for all the world to see. He watched the coffee fill his mug and tried not to somehow communicate what he was doing.
He'd used the last of his coffee at home a few days before and ever since then he'd been mooching off work. Not mooching, he tried to tell himself. He always drank a few mugs of coffee on the state's dime, but it didn't feel the same when it was the only coffee he could afford. The last few days he'd been growing ever more paranoid, carefully counting the number of cups he drank and making sure he didn't have more than he usually did. He'd calculated an average of four mugs on a work day and he'd told himself, no more than that.
Right now he focused on the sugar and creamer, stirring with maybe a little more concentration than it usually needed, listening with half an ear as Steve and Kono exchanged some sort of surfer pleasantries, talking about their mornings in jargon that might not have originated from English. Danny couldn't tell if either of them had had a good time of it or not, but as they talked he took his first sip of coffee of the day and tried to relax as nobody seemed to be about to call him on it.
Danny leaned back against the counter, watching for just a moment as Steve described... something from his morning spent surfing. He was holding his hands out in what otherwise would have been a classic caught-a-fish-this-big gesture, only Danny was fairly sure that wasn't what Steve was describing. Whatever it was, it was making Steve's face light up, hell, practically his entire body was vibrating with the sheer amazement of it.
Kono was watching him avidly, nodding and agreeing and Danny felt a sharp pang of resentment at the ever so familiar feeling of being left out. Or maybe, he told himself, he should man up and call it what it was: jealousy. Something had made Steve so ridiculously happy and Danny couldn't even understand the words he was using to describe it.
There was no graceful way out of the room, with the pair of them standing between him and the door, so Danny took another drink of his coffee and stared at the glass wall beyond them. It was better than staring at Steve, at least, because what he really wanted to do was watch his partner's face and listen to the tone of his voice as he talked, bouncing and excited as a little kid.
There was a pause, then suddenly he realized Steve was looking at him. The joy had vanished from his face, replaced with a frown. For a moment Danny tensed, somehow certain that Steve was about to ask him about the coffee. He tried to remind himself there was no huge neon sign on his forehead flashing the words 'I'm broke.'
At least he hoped to God there wasn't. He wanted to rub his forehead to be sure, but knew if he did, he'd give himself away.
"We boring you, Danno?" Steve asked, and he sounded more amused than insulted.
"How could you be boring me when I have no fucking clue what you're talking about? Surfing, being kidnapped by Martians, the latest episode of Housewives of Atlanta?"
"You watch Real Housewives of Atlanta?" Kono asked, sounding excited in a guilty sort of way.
Danny just looked at her, and after a moment she shrugged.
"I've never been to the mainland. Do people really act like that?"
"I wouldn't know," Danny said. "Since I've never seen the show. But it does give me the chance to ask if we're going to be getting any work done today or if we're going to spend the morning chatting about big rahanees. Or whatever that thing was you said you did."
Steve's perplexed look was, Danny had to admit, one of the perks of messing with him. He'd never call it adorable, because that implied a level of mush that Danny simply didn't aspire to. But it was definitely a perk.
With a tilt of his head that made him look a bit like a labrador retriever, Steve asked, "What's a...what did you say? Rahanee?"
Danny had to resist the urge to reach over and scratch Steve behind the ears. "Are we going to go interview some witnesses and see if we can find anybody willing to admit they saw something that might possibly be of some use to us in building a case against Carl Wong?"
They'd been working the case off and on, in-between everything else they'd been doing. It was one of those cases that never seemed to get anywhere, but they had to keep slogging forward in hopes that eventually they'd catch a break. The week had been slow, in terms of having no international terrorists, no high-profile murders, and basically no chances for Steve to fly a burning jet into the side of a building in an effort to prevent an outbreak of the plague. So they'd been focusing on older cases, ones where they couldn't even figure out who to dangle from a roof for a confession.
It worried Danny a lot that he was beginning to look forward to getting a new case. Especially when Steve pouted ever so slightly at the thought of doing boring -- that was, typical -- police work all day. Danny patted him consolingly on the arm. "If you don't get a chance to shoot somebody by the end of the day, I'll let you drive my car really fast down the highway and we can pretend we're chasing bad guys."
There was a muffled laugh from Kono, but Steve broke into a grin and Danny rolled his eyes. He was exactly like a little kid being told they were going for ice cream, and Danny mentally shook his head. And if he smiled back just a little, well that was just because of the coffee hitting his bloodstream and had nothing to do with the way Steve was beaming at him.
In case anybody asked.
~~~
A few days later he found a recipe online for baking rice in the oven. It was simple enough and he had the right pan already, one advantage over buying a steamer like he'd thought he might have to do. The big bag of rice he'd bought reminded him of those days right out of high school when he'd moved out of his parents' house and was making it on his own, just like a real adult.
And just like every other eighteen year old first-time apartment-dweller, he'd lived on ramen noodles and rice for a good long while. This time around he forewent the ramen noodles, if only because nothing said 'I have no money' like a cupboard full of ramen. But a bag of rice was cheap and innocuous, and frugal trips to the local farmer's market helped round the larder out to something reasonably decent if not exactly his usual fare.
There was one cupboard he didn't touch. It was packed with all of Grace's favorite foods, her cereal and macaroni and cheese and those weird puffed orange marshmallow things. The day before he'd picked her up for his weekend he'd got the milk and juice and eggs for making waffles, and a quick look around the kitchen had shown nothing unusual. Nothing that Grace seemed to notice, for which Danny was grateful. He'd been able to distract her with as much free entertainment as he could -- state parks and the swimming pool at his apartment complex had kept her busy and happy.
The Monday after dropping her off at school Danny was in a foul mood. He went to work and headed straight for the coffee machine, hoping it would help with his headache, at least, if not his temper. He took it directly to his office and sat down at his desk, glowering at the computer as if daring it to have any work-related e-mail waiting for him.
He was halfway to opening up a web browser and catching up on the fate of the New Jersey Devils. It was theoretically possible that they stood a chance of making the playoffs, although Danny had to admit it was unlikely, since last week they were still at the bottom of the conference. He had a feeling that finding out they'd lost to the Islanders wouldn't help his mood, so he tapped his fingers on the desk and stared at the blank computer screen, trying to think of something that might make the day into something bearable.
There was a knock on his door and he looked up to find Steve standing there holding up a paper bag.
"If that's a hand that somebody found in their trash can, I don't want to talk to you."
Steve barely blinked at him, then he just shook his head. "Malasadas."
Danny pointed to the chair. "In that case, come in, sit down, take a load off, give me that bag." He grabbed it as soon as Steve got within reach and dug out a donut. It only took two bites to finish it completely off and he'd grabbed a second one before looking up at Steve again. "Did you want one?" he asked around a mouthful of fried heaven. A week of eating rice and fresh vegetables and drinking nothing but water and stolen coffee made the malasadas taste outstanding.
"No, thanks." Steve looked vaguely unsettled, staring as Danny finished off a second donut in three bites then went back for another. He sat quietly until Danny was eating his fourth donut in smaller, more regular-sized bites. "Better?" Steve asked.
"Better than...? Um. Oh. Yeah." Danny swallowed a bite of donut and tried not to look sheepish. "Sorry."
Steve just shrugged. "You're always grumpy after a weekend with Grace. Kono texted me this morning and said it was worse than usual. We consider it self-defense," he added with a slight grin as he leaned back in the chair and propped one foot on the edge of Danny's desk.
"I'm not--" Danny began, but, yeah, he couldn't put much effort into denying it. At least there was no need to explain himself, he knew. Steve had heard his rants often enough, so he understood that for Danny, Mondays after having his daughter were the worst thing possible thing he ever had to face. Worse than watching his partner dangle people off buildings, worse than wondering if the burning van barreling towards them was going to blow them up, worse than the Governor showing up and asking about their budget reports.
It would be two weeks before he could see Grace again, no matter how much the daily phone calls helped him through it. It wasn't the same, it would never be the same, and Danny was grateful that Steve and the others understood that.
He was grateful for the donuts, particularly. Five donuts and a cup of hot, strong coffee and he was almost feeling like himself again. The day was still going to suck, because it was exactly thirteen days until he could see his little girl again. But Steve was still grinning at him, sprawled out in his chair and looking completely relaxed.
"You can tell Kono it's safe," Danny said, contemplating a sixth donut and debating the benefits of leaving the rest for lunch.
Kono suddenly poked her head around the edge of the doorway. "Chin said to remind you that you have to be at the courthouse today at one for the Landsbury case." Then she disappeared quickly as she'd popped in. Danny stared at the doorway for a long moment then back down at his bag of malasadas.
"These aren't going to be enough."
"Tell you what," Steve said. "If you make it through without pissing off the judge, I'll buy you a beer after work."
Danny raised an eyebrow at him. "It's Judge Honami and she hates all of us. What are you going to buy me after I'm fined for contempt of court?"
"You buy me a beer."
Danny just raised an eyebrow, trying not to show his amusement at Steve's grin. Dear God, but he had it bad. Too badly, because there were a thousand things he couldn't be doing right now and falling over his tongue for his partner was near the top of the list. Letting said partner figure out how Danny felt was even closer to the top, so he tried to force his expression into an appropriate scowl. "Why do I have the feeling I'm going to be buying all the beer?"
"Because the last time you had to appear in Judy Honami's court, you nearly got jailed for six months."
"Is it my fault she's a short-sighted, tree-hugging hippie who thinks that guys who shoot their elderly parents are 'misunderstood' and need therapy instead of being hung by their balls--" Danny stopped and glared harder at Steve.
"It's like playing an arcade game. I put a quarter in and everything lights up and spins around," Steve said, sitting back and watching Danny like he was the morning's entertainment.
"You're buying the beer," Danny told him, sternly.
"Then don't get fined for contempt."
Danny just groaned and put his head in his hands. "It's Honami. I'm doomed."
"We'll visit you in jail," Steve offered, not sounding a bit concerned.
"Bring malasadas," Danny told him, not bothering to lift his face from his hands. He tried not to think about just how seriously he couldn't afford a court fine and he asked himself if it was possible for him to hold onto his temper in Honami's courtroom.
He was doomed. He'd be eating rice and ramen for the rest of his life.
~~~
Chin and Kono joined them for beers after work. The bar was not their usual post-case 5-0 hangout, as that tended to be Steve's lanai and a six pack or three. But Salido's was their usual beer-away-from-home locale and it was nice enough and frequented by enough white faces that Danny didn't feel completely like the stranger in a strange land. Normally he actively enjoyed it, playing pool with Chin (never Kono, never again) or shooting the shit with other off-duty cops who dropped by.
Things had changed a lot since they'd put Kaleo away. At the station Danny had been assigned to nobody but Meka had had much use for the new haole cop. Danny hadn't really cared, as socializing hadn't been at the top of his priority list. But once he'd become part of 5-0, the regular cops had all been a mix of resentment and gratitude -- both sentiments because 5-0 could get away with shit that regular cops never could. But they got results, if usually along with a lot of property damage, so in the end there was, at a minimum, grudging respect.
When they'd nailed Kaleo, most of the detectives Danny had worked with had broken all semblance of friendly ties. Danny knew it was mostly from the embarrassment that they'd had a leak right in the department and not a single one of them other than Meka had suspected. However, every other cop in the HPD seemed to think they were heroes and celebrities, or at the very least, worth buying a beer and hoping for stories where bad guys got what was coming to them.
Danny was taking full advantage of that tonight, much as he hated himself for it. Kono had been good for her round -- as rookie she always got to pay first, a rule which made her complain every single time but one which they couldn't, in all fairness, circumvent without undoing centuries of tradition. Or so they were willing to pontificate about until she gave in and bought the first round. Second round went to whomever was down a round from the previous time, and from there it went in some kind of mutating order until somebody accidently missed their turn because he was in the john or they simply called it a night and headed out.
The team as a whole didn't tend to be hard-nosed sticklers about who paid and who didn't on any given night as each of them tended to pick up their share, a fact for which Danny was grateful. It meant that after Chin bought the second round and Steve was hiding by the pool table to avoid buying the third, Danny was able to accept Andrada's offer and let him supply them with beer for their third round.
Despite his gratitude, Danny could feel his heart racing as he took a drink of his beer. The neon sign was back on his forehead, he knew it, flashing just this side of invisibility. He watched Kono laughing at something Andrada said, watched how Chin's eyes narrowed momentarily at the other officer. Danny wondered if any of them could tell, or if any of them would even care if he simply said he couldn't cover it tonight. He had five dollars in his wallet, not enough to buy one bottle. It was left over from the cash he'd allowed himself for Grace's visit and it was all the cash he had until payday.
Not that his next paycheck wasn't already dogeared for half a dozen other things, things which didn't include beer and pizza and coffee. But Danny didn't want to think about it right then, he just wanted to enjoy his beer that other people were buying for him and let the alcohol dull him just enough that all his problems could go the fuck away for a few hours.
Five dollars wasn't going to accomplish that, but between Kono and Chin and Andrada, he was closer to it than he'd been for awhile. Now if Steve would come back in time to take his round, Danny might even get all the way to beer number six before anybody looked his way again.
A glance showed him that Steve was still hiding from his turn at the pool table, holding onto a cue stick and watching some local island boy lining up his shot. Danny didn't recognize the guy, had no clue if Steve knew him or if he'd simply accepted an offer of a game. Steve didn't appear to be chatting much; instead he was watching the pool table with a serious expression that made Danny wonder if he'd placed a bet on the game. Steve didn't often play pool for real, any betting with Danny or Chin tended to involve paperwork and cleaning the break room for a week.
Steve had also stopped playing pool with Kono, a fact which made her complain even more than having to pay for their beer. Nobody who knew her would play against her, and Danny had suggested more than once that she ply her trade in tourist bars and hustle them for cash and buy all of them beer and sports cars with her winnings.
Danny watched as Steve's opponent stood up from the table as his ball sank into a corner pocket. He was thin and wiry, an unruly head of jet black hair that made the parent in Danny want to offer up a comb. He was grinning at Steve, a taunting but friendly grin that told Danny he was winning. Steve returned the grin with a half-smirk of his own, but his face was still serious as he sized up the possible shots on the table. Danny found himself wondering even more who the guy was and why Steve was playing with him.
He jumped when someone poked him in the arm and he looked over to find Chin leaning over. There was a definite look of amusement in Chin's eyes as he said, "That's Jacob Harrison. His cousin's Matt Wong."
"Matt Wong, our person of interest for those break-ins?" Danny looked over again and realized that Steve's intent demeanor screamed 'working' and not 'I take my pool playing very seriously.'
"Jacob approached Steve a few minutes ago; hopefully because he wants an excuse to drop a few details in our lap without his cousin finding out."
Danny looked back to Chin, seeing how Kono was now sipping at her drink as she kept half an ear on Chin and half an eye on Steve. "And why would he want to rat out his cousin to us?" Danny wanted to know, because as much as he enjoyed his job being made easier, he'd learned never to trust a guy who was happy to turn in a relative.
But Chin still looked amused. "Word is that Jacob and Matt are both interested in the same girl."
Danny sat back in his chair, staring at Chin in disbelief. "You have got to be kidding me."
Chin shook his head, taking a long swig of his beer. "Steve and I have been here a few nights running, hoping to run into him." His expression grew serious for just a moment as he looked directly at Danny. "Steve would have called you, but you had Grace."
Danny just shrugged, though inwardly he was relieved -- a surprisingly great deal of relief, for having only heard a few seconds ago that Steve and Chin had been working the case without his knowledge. It was on the tip of his tongue to go over and give Steve a piece of his mind about not telling your partner everything he needed to know, but at least Steve had actually taken back-up and not simply come here alone.
So instead he scowled. "So here I am, thinking I'm being given commiseration for being in court all afternoon listening to how we're practically worse than criminals ourselves, when really we're here working?"
Chin just shrugged one shoulder, not bothering to hide his smile. "We feel your pain, brah," he said.
"We're glad it wasn't us," Kono put in. "For that, we owe you beer."
"You definitely owe me beer," Danny agreed quickly, nodding at the waitress who had just come around. Kono looked outraged, mouth open to tell him exactly what she thought of his tactics, but, really, she'd walked right into that one and Chin was apparently willing to back him up and he gestured helplessly at Kono that she'd done it to herself that time.
"Fine. But I'm going to get you back for this, Danny Williams." Kono glared at him and Danny actually shivered, just a little. But she asked the waitress to bring them another round, and she handed over two folded bills to cover it.
Danny forced himself to smile, widely and smug, as he leaned back in his chair, saluting her with his nearly empty bottle. "Look at it this way, Kono. We're working, which means you can expense it."
Kono blinked in surprise. "Can I?" she asked Chin.
"I think you'd have to be very creative in describing the expense," was all Chin said, diplomatically as he could, but Danny had a feeling -- given the way Kono was smiling rather evilly -- that she wasn't going to have any trouble with that.
"I hope if you ever decide to take over, you'll remember me as a friend," Danny told her. Then as she started to scowl at him, he added, "A friend who tricks you into buying him beer, true. But I said nice things about your aim the other day."
"That was a nice shot," Chin agreed.
Kono frowned thoughtfully and for a moment she just sat there, clearly thinking things over. Finally she picked up her beer, took a swig of it, then nodded. "I'll keep it in mind."
~~~
When the bills come due again, Danny was no closer to solving his problem than he had been before. He'd stopped spending wherever he could, but that had been more because there was no leftover cash. Now he was staring at a small pile of bills on the kitchen table and a few more on the screen where he'd logged into his bank account and clicked on the summary of all the autopays.
He'd double- and triple-checked and there was nothing he could put off; everything that was on a payment plan was already done so and he'd made phone calls and argued the minimum payments down as far as they could go. He'd considered -- and thoroughly rejected -- the option of calling his parents. They were both getting ready to retire and his sister was living at home because she'd been out of work for a year. Between that and half a dozen grandchildren, Danny didn't reasonably see how they could help him enough to make a difference.
He wouldn't say no to a care package of his mom's brownies, but that wouldn't help him pay off his medical bills. Or the house repairs or the dozens of other things that had somehow crept up on him when he apparently hadn't been looking. Even his credit card was maxed out, not giving him that cushion to delay some things until later.
He tried not to think about all the purchases he'd put on his card, things for Grace when he was trying to compete with a man who owned freaking hotels in Hawai'i and could afford to buy his step-daughter a horse while Danny could barely eke out enough for a stable of horse dolls and a doll ranch house to go with them.
He was going to have to stop that now, he knew, and telling himself it wouldn't matter to Grace didn't exactly help. It was hard, when every day he waited to hear her call Stan 'dad' and he became that guy she saw sometimes and used to live with when she was younger. If it meant buying her dolls and clothes and too much candy and a weekend with the dolphins -- or buying her souvenirs while Steve bought the weekend -- then he didn't think he'd be able to stop wanting to spend too much on his little girl.
Clearly he would have to, however, and the idea that he might have to win his daughter's affection by spending the weekend sitting in his rat-trap apartment and walking to the park to play on the swings didn't exactly fill him with pride. But even if maybe he'd spent some of his money in stupid ways, most of it hadn't been. Most of it had been necessary, like hospital bills left over from two years ago for what should have been a one-day procedure to remove his gallbladder but which had led to an infection and an extra week's worth of renting a room in the hospital and paying the doctor to say 'still not healed, yet.'
And while his Uncle Chris had been the one to fix Danny's roof, the man had four kids to feed and not a lot of work coming his way. Danny couldn't exactly regret paying what he owed Chris. Now, of course, he wished he'd asked if he could have paid in installments or something, but the money was gone and Danny had to look at what he could control.
He'd already cut down his grocery bill as far as it could go. He'd made sure he turned in every single reimbursement form to get repaid for the gas for his car, noting every single quarter mile that his car was used for work-related purposes. He'd never had cable, and canceling the landline and keeping his just cell didn't really get him that far ahead. And he simply didn't own anything that was worth enough to sell. Sure, he could sell pints of blood to pay for sandwiches, but that wasn't going to get his rent paid.
Danny was starting to see his list of options shrink and he didn't want to look at where they were going.
He might have tried to get a second job, but every cop in Hawai'i either had or needed a second job and those were excruciatingly hard to come by unless you knew someone who knew someone. Danny knew if he asked, Kamekona would find him something, even if it was just hawking t-shirts at his shave ice stand. But then Kono would know, and then Chin and Steve would know, and that was a direction Danny just couldn't make himself go in. Danny knew why, of course, but that was a whole other issue that he wasn't ready to face. He might have done it had it only been Kono, if he could sworn her to secrecy. But there was no way it would stay a secret for long and he knew he couldn't have that conversation with Steve.
Which ruled out borrowing money from any of his teammates as well. Loan sharks were flat out on principle. Danny had seen enough to know he'd rather live in his car than take any money from a loan shark. As a cop he knew he'd sooner or later be offered deals to get out of paying interest and those weren't the sort of deals Danny was ever going to make. That was a long path towards trouble that was a lot more dangerous than facing up to his friends that he badly needed money.
Danny leaned back, flipping a pen through his fingers and stared at the far wall. It was dingy, needed to be cleaned. All of the walls and baseboards did, showing that off-white fade where years had gone by without anyone taking a simple rag and water and scrubbing things clean. When he'd moved in Danny hadn't cared, more concerned with living someplace he could see his daughter more than once a year. He'd been content with a roof and a front door with a lock and windows that weren't shattered.
The neighbors had quickly proven themselves loud and annoying, drunk at nights and screaming domestics that could probably be heard on the mainland. But Danny hadn't ever considered moving because he was on the right side of the city to pick Grace up without a two-hour commute through traffic. He was as close as he could afford to get to her school, so he was available if necessary to pick her up or drop her off and thereby extend his time with her for those few extra minutes.
It had been worth it -- still was, and anything that meant he'd get to spend time with his daughter was worth doing. It was why Danny didn't consider moving back to Jersey, even though he had a house there and his mortgage payment was nearly two-thirds what his rent was for an apartment that was, by any stretch of the imagination, a piece of shit.
He knew if he moved back home, back into that house that was too big for one man alone, seeing rooms that were filled with memories that would stab him in the heart every single moment of the day, he'd have the money he needed. His bills would get paid and he wouldn't have to lie awake at night trying to think of more creative ways to turn four thousand dollars each month into five.
But moving back -- moving away from Grace -- wasn't an option. Not unless he kidnapped his daughter and they went into hiding, and it wasn't like Danny hadn't toyed with the notion when he'd first been told Rachel was moving to Hawai'i and taking their daughter with her.
So he was staying, which meant rent and a mortgage and a stack of bills waiting for a check and an income that simply didn't have enough numbers on it.
Danny sat at the kitchen table, pen in his hand, twirling it and rolling it against his fingers. He stared at the dingy wall as the sun sank into the ocean and the night crept in and buried everything in shadows. When morning came he was still sitting at the table, options still running ragged through his skull and he knew he wasn't any closer to finding any solution to his problems save one.
Nothing else made sense, nothing else was really possible and for every reason Danny could think of why it was something he could never do, he found two and three more reasons why he couldn't do anything else.
Finally he stood up and went to take a shower, and when he got dressed he tied his tie in a knot and made sure his shoes were shined, and he slipped his badge into his pocket like it was just another day in paradise. At the office, he poured himself a cup of stolen coffee, which he knew wasn't really but he couldn't think of it any other way. When he drank it, it tasted bitter and it burned his tongue, but Danny barely paid it any attention. When Steve poked his head in and said they had a lead, all Danny did was stand up and say, "Then let's go."
That evening, he got into his car and drove north.
Maybe there was another way. But if so, Danny couldn't see it from where he was.
~~~
on to part two
Author: james
Rating: PG13
Pairing: Steve/Danny
Word Count: 24,000 total posted in five parts
Notes: thanks to dine and kaytee4ever for the betaing.
Summary: Living in Hawai'i is expensive, especially when you're still paying a mortgage on a house back in Jersey. When things get to be too much, Danny has to make a hard decision. The hardest part is keeping the rest of the team from finding out that he's homeless.
Lost at the Edge of the Sun
Danny never claimed to be very good with so-called higher math or any of the sciences that went with them. Once numbers got theoretical, he was pretty much a goner. But arithmetic was never really a problem -- and as soon as he had someone counting on him to provide everything in the world for her, he got to be a fair hand at budgets as well.
Not that he was all that good at not spending money, but as soon as Rachel had said "I'm pregnant" all the money went to the baby and Danny learned how to get along without things like new shoes or a steak dinner at Mario's. And that was the worst part of all this, really. He'd never been one for flashy indulgences. He didn't waste his money or gamble it away. He was responsible, mature, and careful. Stuff like this shouldn't be happening to him.
So he did the math up one more time and simply couldn't understand how it had gotten to this. He could, of course, trace the expenses and income quite specifically, right down to the penny. The numbers came out the same every single time and there was nothing very mysterious about how it added up. But karmically speaking, Danny didn't see how this was possible.
The trouble, he knew, was the house. He'd been 'lucky' enough to win it in the divorce, then had been completely unable to sell it when he'd moved to Hawai'i. He'd tried to rent it out and got nowhere, so now his nineteen year old nephew was living it in rent-free just to keep it from being vandalized. But it meant Danny still had a mortgage and yearly taxes to pay and was responsible for major repairs. One damaged roof from a snowstorm and one dead furnace later, and he was looking at a pile of bills stacked on his dresser that exceeded the amount of money on his paychecks.
Paychecks, plural. Danny did the math one more time, but it wasn't coming out any differently. He'd blown through the bulk of his savings getting out here the year before, which left him no cushion to do much of anything.
His list of options was noticeably small. Danny sighed, looked at the paperwork and thought about maybe trying to add things up one more time, but knew it was no use. He shoved everything to one side, knowing that on Monday he'd pay what he could and the rest of it.... Well, he had a short list of options which he told himself was better than no list at all.
~~~
Coffee was easy.
Danny stood by the coffee maker at headquarters, waiting patiently for the thing to stop dripping. He heard someone come into the room and glanced over, giving Kono a smile as she caught his look.
"Morning, Danny."
Danny just shook his head and gestured with his empty coffee mug. "Unbelievable, you know that?"
Kono paused, frowning at him in confusion. Danny nodded towards her head, because her hair was wet -- which he knew perfectly was from being out on the waves that morning before coming in. That meant she'd gotten out of bed at a godawful time of day in order to hit the beach and still be on time for work.
"Could you possibly sleep in just once, for my sake?" he asked her and she grinned, dimpling at him with a look that made him fear for his daughter when she got older. Or fear for himself, rather, and any boy who tried to so much as talk to her. He had a brief urge to ask Kono's father how he'd managed to raise a daughter without killing anybody, but he was half-afraid to find out it wasn't actually possible.
"Gotta catch a wave, brah," Kono said casually, shrugging at him as she reached past him for an empty mug.
"You're insane," he told her, then caught sight of Steve, just coming in the door. "Christ, not you, too?"
Steve paused, raising an eyebrow and even glancing partway behind himself, as if wondering who Danny might possibly be talking to other than himself. He was dressed like any other day, casual shirt and cargo pants hiding what Danny now knew were swim shorts underneath. But his hair was wet as well, and Danny honestly didn't understand how he could tell from across the room that this was ocean-wet and not fresh-from-the-shower wet.
It was probably the wide-eyed grin underneath.
"I should probably not be surprised you don't need sleep like normal people," Danny began, then gave Kono another look. "Actually, I'm pretty sure you're not normal, either. Chin told me about your last high-speed car chase. I might have to ask the Governor about assigning us a few more responsible adults to help balance you two out."
Steve wandered into the room, a smirk appearing on his face as he'd clearly figured out what Danny was talking about. Danny didn't bother to ask if they'd gone to the same beach -- he'd learned not to ask questions when he knew he wouldn't understand the answers. He knew the names of the area beaches, but somehow that never seemed to help when either Steve or Kono started explaining where they'd been surfing and what they'd done while they were there.
He half-suspected them of making up words just to mess with him.
Finally, though, the coffee pot had finished its brew cycle and Danny grabbed the pot, pouring himself a mug. Despite the fact he knew it was no different from a hundred other times he'd done exactly the same thing, he felt somehow as though there was a huge neon sign over his head, blinking for all the world to see. He watched the coffee fill his mug and tried not to somehow communicate what he was doing.
He'd used the last of his coffee at home a few days before and ever since then he'd been mooching off work. Not mooching, he tried to tell himself. He always drank a few mugs of coffee on the state's dime, but it didn't feel the same when it was the only coffee he could afford. The last few days he'd been growing ever more paranoid, carefully counting the number of cups he drank and making sure he didn't have more than he usually did. He'd calculated an average of four mugs on a work day and he'd told himself, no more than that.
Right now he focused on the sugar and creamer, stirring with maybe a little more concentration than it usually needed, listening with half an ear as Steve and Kono exchanged some sort of surfer pleasantries, talking about their mornings in jargon that might not have originated from English. Danny couldn't tell if either of them had had a good time of it or not, but as they talked he took his first sip of coffee of the day and tried to relax as nobody seemed to be about to call him on it.
Danny leaned back against the counter, watching for just a moment as Steve described... something from his morning spent surfing. He was holding his hands out in what otherwise would have been a classic caught-a-fish-this-big gesture, only Danny was fairly sure that wasn't what Steve was describing. Whatever it was, it was making Steve's face light up, hell, practically his entire body was vibrating with the sheer amazement of it.
Kono was watching him avidly, nodding and agreeing and Danny felt a sharp pang of resentment at the ever so familiar feeling of being left out. Or maybe, he told himself, he should man up and call it what it was: jealousy. Something had made Steve so ridiculously happy and Danny couldn't even understand the words he was using to describe it.
There was no graceful way out of the room, with the pair of them standing between him and the door, so Danny took another drink of his coffee and stared at the glass wall beyond them. It was better than staring at Steve, at least, because what he really wanted to do was watch his partner's face and listen to the tone of his voice as he talked, bouncing and excited as a little kid.
There was a pause, then suddenly he realized Steve was looking at him. The joy had vanished from his face, replaced with a frown. For a moment Danny tensed, somehow certain that Steve was about to ask him about the coffee. He tried to remind himself there was no huge neon sign on his forehead flashing the words 'I'm broke.'
At least he hoped to God there wasn't. He wanted to rub his forehead to be sure, but knew if he did, he'd give himself away.
"We boring you, Danno?" Steve asked, and he sounded more amused than insulted.
"How could you be boring me when I have no fucking clue what you're talking about? Surfing, being kidnapped by Martians, the latest episode of Housewives of Atlanta?"
"You watch Real Housewives of Atlanta?" Kono asked, sounding excited in a guilty sort of way.
Danny just looked at her, and after a moment she shrugged.
"I've never been to the mainland. Do people really act like that?"
"I wouldn't know," Danny said. "Since I've never seen the show. But it does give me the chance to ask if we're going to be getting any work done today or if we're going to spend the morning chatting about big rahanees. Or whatever that thing was you said you did."
Steve's perplexed look was, Danny had to admit, one of the perks of messing with him. He'd never call it adorable, because that implied a level of mush that Danny simply didn't aspire to. But it was definitely a perk.
With a tilt of his head that made him look a bit like a labrador retriever, Steve asked, "What's a...what did you say? Rahanee?"
Danny had to resist the urge to reach over and scratch Steve behind the ears. "Are we going to go interview some witnesses and see if we can find anybody willing to admit they saw something that might possibly be of some use to us in building a case against Carl Wong?"
They'd been working the case off and on, in-between everything else they'd been doing. It was one of those cases that never seemed to get anywhere, but they had to keep slogging forward in hopes that eventually they'd catch a break. The week had been slow, in terms of having no international terrorists, no high-profile murders, and basically no chances for Steve to fly a burning jet into the side of a building in an effort to prevent an outbreak of the plague. So they'd been focusing on older cases, ones where they couldn't even figure out who to dangle from a roof for a confession.
It worried Danny a lot that he was beginning to look forward to getting a new case. Especially when Steve pouted ever so slightly at the thought of doing boring -- that was, typical -- police work all day. Danny patted him consolingly on the arm. "If you don't get a chance to shoot somebody by the end of the day, I'll let you drive my car really fast down the highway and we can pretend we're chasing bad guys."
There was a muffled laugh from Kono, but Steve broke into a grin and Danny rolled his eyes. He was exactly like a little kid being told they were going for ice cream, and Danny mentally shook his head. And if he smiled back just a little, well that was just because of the coffee hitting his bloodstream and had nothing to do with the way Steve was beaming at him.
In case anybody asked.
~~~
A few days later he found a recipe online for baking rice in the oven. It was simple enough and he had the right pan already, one advantage over buying a steamer like he'd thought he might have to do. The big bag of rice he'd bought reminded him of those days right out of high school when he'd moved out of his parents' house and was making it on his own, just like a real adult.
And just like every other eighteen year old first-time apartment-dweller, he'd lived on ramen noodles and rice for a good long while. This time around he forewent the ramen noodles, if only because nothing said 'I have no money' like a cupboard full of ramen. But a bag of rice was cheap and innocuous, and frugal trips to the local farmer's market helped round the larder out to something reasonably decent if not exactly his usual fare.
There was one cupboard he didn't touch. It was packed with all of Grace's favorite foods, her cereal and macaroni and cheese and those weird puffed orange marshmallow things. The day before he'd picked her up for his weekend he'd got the milk and juice and eggs for making waffles, and a quick look around the kitchen had shown nothing unusual. Nothing that Grace seemed to notice, for which Danny was grateful. He'd been able to distract her with as much free entertainment as he could -- state parks and the swimming pool at his apartment complex had kept her busy and happy.
The Monday after dropping her off at school Danny was in a foul mood. He went to work and headed straight for the coffee machine, hoping it would help with his headache, at least, if not his temper. He took it directly to his office and sat down at his desk, glowering at the computer as if daring it to have any work-related e-mail waiting for him.
He was halfway to opening up a web browser and catching up on the fate of the New Jersey Devils. It was theoretically possible that they stood a chance of making the playoffs, although Danny had to admit it was unlikely, since last week they were still at the bottom of the conference. He had a feeling that finding out they'd lost to the Islanders wouldn't help his mood, so he tapped his fingers on the desk and stared at the blank computer screen, trying to think of something that might make the day into something bearable.
There was a knock on his door and he looked up to find Steve standing there holding up a paper bag.
"If that's a hand that somebody found in their trash can, I don't want to talk to you."
Steve barely blinked at him, then he just shook his head. "Malasadas."
Danny pointed to the chair. "In that case, come in, sit down, take a load off, give me that bag." He grabbed it as soon as Steve got within reach and dug out a donut. It only took two bites to finish it completely off and he'd grabbed a second one before looking up at Steve again. "Did you want one?" he asked around a mouthful of fried heaven. A week of eating rice and fresh vegetables and drinking nothing but water and stolen coffee made the malasadas taste outstanding.
"No, thanks." Steve looked vaguely unsettled, staring as Danny finished off a second donut in three bites then went back for another. He sat quietly until Danny was eating his fourth donut in smaller, more regular-sized bites. "Better?" Steve asked.
"Better than...? Um. Oh. Yeah." Danny swallowed a bite of donut and tried not to look sheepish. "Sorry."
Steve just shrugged. "You're always grumpy after a weekend with Grace. Kono texted me this morning and said it was worse than usual. We consider it self-defense," he added with a slight grin as he leaned back in the chair and propped one foot on the edge of Danny's desk.
"I'm not--" Danny began, but, yeah, he couldn't put much effort into denying it. At least there was no need to explain himself, he knew. Steve had heard his rants often enough, so he understood that for Danny, Mondays after having his daughter were the worst thing possible thing he ever had to face. Worse than watching his partner dangle people off buildings, worse than wondering if the burning van barreling towards them was going to blow them up, worse than the Governor showing up and asking about their budget reports.
It would be two weeks before he could see Grace again, no matter how much the daily phone calls helped him through it. It wasn't the same, it would never be the same, and Danny was grateful that Steve and the others understood that.
He was grateful for the donuts, particularly. Five donuts and a cup of hot, strong coffee and he was almost feeling like himself again. The day was still going to suck, because it was exactly thirteen days until he could see his little girl again. But Steve was still grinning at him, sprawled out in his chair and looking completely relaxed.
"You can tell Kono it's safe," Danny said, contemplating a sixth donut and debating the benefits of leaving the rest for lunch.
Kono suddenly poked her head around the edge of the doorway. "Chin said to remind you that you have to be at the courthouse today at one for the Landsbury case." Then she disappeared quickly as she'd popped in. Danny stared at the doorway for a long moment then back down at his bag of malasadas.
"These aren't going to be enough."
"Tell you what," Steve said. "If you make it through without pissing off the judge, I'll buy you a beer after work."
Danny raised an eyebrow at him. "It's Judge Honami and she hates all of us. What are you going to buy me after I'm fined for contempt of court?"
"You buy me a beer."
Danny just raised an eyebrow, trying not to show his amusement at Steve's grin. Dear God, but he had it bad. Too badly, because there were a thousand things he couldn't be doing right now and falling over his tongue for his partner was near the top of the list. Letting said partner figure out how Danny felt was even closer to the top, so he tried to force his expression into an appropriate scowl. "Why do I have the feeling I'm going to be buying all the beer?"
"Because the last time you had to appear in Judy Honami's court, you nearly got jailed for six months."
"Is it my fault she's a short-sighted, tree-hugging hippie who thinks that guys who shoot their elderly parents are 'misunderstood' and need therapy instead of being hung by their balls--" Danny stopped and glared harder at Steve.
"It's like playing an arcade game. I put a quarter in and everything lights up and spins around," Steve said, sitting back and watching Danny like he was the morning's entertainment.
"You're buying the beer," Danny told him, sternly.
"Then don't get fined for contempt."
Danny just groaned and put his head in his hands. "It's Honami. I'm doomed."
"We'll visit you in jail," Steve offered, not sounding a bit concerned.
"Bring malasadas," Danny told him, not bothering to lift his face from his hands. He tried not to think about just how seriously he couldn't afford a court fine and he asked himself if it was possible for him to hold onto his temper in Honami's courtroom.
He was doomed. He'd be eating rice and ramen for the rest of his life.
~~~
Chin and Kono joined them for beers after work. The bar was not their usual post-case 5-0 hangout, as that tended to be Steve's lanai and a six pack or three. But Salido's was their usual beer-away-from-home locale and it was nice enough and frequented by enough white faces that Danny didn't feel completely like the stranger in a strange land. Normally he actively enjoyed it, playing pool with Chin (never Kono, never again) or shooting the shit with other off-duty cops who dropped by.
Things had changed a lot since they'd put Kaleo away. At the station Danny had been assigned to nobody but Meka had had much use for the new haole cop. Danny hadn't really cared, as socializing hadn't been at the top of his priority list. But once he'd become part of 5-0, the regular cops had all been a mix of resentment and gratitude -- both sentiments because 5-0 could get away with shit that regular cops never could. But they got results, if usually along with a lot of property damage, so in the end there was, at a minimum, grudging respect.
When they'd nailed Kaleo, most of the detectives Danny had worked with had broken all semblance of friendly ties. Danny knew it was mostly from the embarrassment that they'd had a leak right in the department and not a single one of them other than Meka had suspected. However, every other cop in the HPD seemed to think they were heroes and celebrities, or at the very least, worth buying a beer and hoping for stories where bad guys got what was coming to them.
Danny was taking full advantage of that tonight, much as he hated himself for it. Kono had been good for her round -- as rookie she always got to pay first, a rule which made her complain every single time but one which they couldn't, in all fairness, circumvent without undoing centuries of tradition. Or so they were willing to pontificate about until she gave in and bought the first round. Second round went to whomever was down a round from the previous time, and from there it went in some kind of mutating order until somebody accidently missed their turn because he was in the john or they simply called it a night and headed out.
The team as a whole didn't tend to be hard-nosed sticklers about who paid and who didn't on any given night as each of them tended to pick up their share, a fact for which Danny was grateful. It meant that after Chin bought the second round and Steve was hiding by the pool table to avoid buying the third, Danny was able to accept Andrada's offer and let him supply them with beer for their third round.
Despite his gratitude, Danny could feel his heart racing as he took a drink of his beer. The neon sign was back on his forehead, he knew it, flashing just this side of invisibility. He watched Kono laughing at something Andrada said, watched how Chin's eyes narrowed momentarily at the other officer. Danny wondered if any of them could tell, or if any of them would even care if he simply said he couldn't cover it tonight. He had five dollars in his wallet, not enough to buy one bottle. It was left over from the cash he'd allowed himself for Grace's visit and it was all the cash he had until payday.
Not that his next paycheck wasn't already dogeared for half a dozen other things, things which didn't include beer and pizza and coffee. But Danny didn't want to think about it right then, he just wanted to enjoy his beer that other people were buying for him and let the alcohol dull him just enough that all his problems could go the fuck away for a few hours.
Five dollars wasn't going to accomplish that, but between Kono and Chin and Andrada, he was closer to it than he'd been for awhile. Now if Steve would come back in time to take his round, Danny might even get all the way to beer number six before anybody looked his way again.
A glance showed him that Steve was still hiding from his turn at the pool table, holding onto a cue stick and watching some local island boy lining up his shot. Danny didn't recognize the guy, had no clue if Steve knew him or if he'd simply accepted an offer of a game. Steve didn't appear to be chatting much; instead he was watching the pool table with a serious expression that made Danny wonder if he'd placed a bet on the game. Steve didn't often play pool for real, any betting with Danny or Chin tended to involve paperwork and cleaning the break room for a week.
Steve had also stopped playing pool with Kono, a fact which made her complain even more than having to pay for their beer. Nobody who knew her would play against her, and Danny had suggested more than once that she ply her trade in tourist bars and hustle them for cash and buy all of them beer and sports cars with her winnings.
Danny watched as Steve's opponent stood up from the table as his ball sank into a corner pocket. He was thin and wiry, an unruly head of jet black hair that made the parent in Danny want to offer up a comb. He was grinning at Steve, a taunting but friendly grin that told Danny he was winning. Steve returned the grin with a half-smirk of his own, but his face was still serious as he sized up the possible shots on the table. Danny found himself wondering even more who the guy was and why Steve was playing with him.
He jumped when someone poked him in the arm and he looked over to find Chin leaning over. There was a definite look of amusement in Chin's eyes as he said, "That's Jacob Harrison. His cousin's Matt Wong."
"Matt Wong, our person of interest for those break-ins?" Danny looked over again and realized that Steve's intent demeanor screamed 'working' and not 'I take my pool playing very seriously.'
"Jacob approached Steve a few minutes ago; hopefully because he wants an excuse to drop a few details in our lap without his cousin finding out."
Danny looked back to Chin, seeing how Kono was now sipping at her drink as she kept half an ear on Chin and half an eye on Steve. "And why would he want to rat out his cousin to us?" Danny wanted to know, because as much as he enjoyed his job being made easier, he'd learned never to trust a guy who was happy to turn in a relative.
But Chin still looked amused. "Word is that Jacob and Matt are both interested in the same girl."
Danny sat back in his chair, staring at Chin in disbelief. "You have got to be kidding me."
Chin shook his head, taking a long swig of his beer. "Steve and I have been here a few nights running, hoping to run into him." His expression grew serious for just a moment as he looked directly at Danny. "Steve would have called you, but you had Grace."
Danny just shrugged, though inwardly he was relieved -- a surprisingly great deal of relief, for having only heard a few seconds ago that Steve and Chin had been working the case without his knowledge. It was on the tip of his tongue to go over and give Steve a piece of his mind about not telling your partner everything he needed to know, but at least Steve had actually taken back-up and not simply come here alone.
So instead he scowled. "So here I am, thinking I'm being given commiseration for being in court all afternoon listening to how we're practically worse than criminals ourselves, when really we're here working?"
Chin just shrugged one shoulder, not bothering to hide his smile. "We feel your pain, brah," he said.
"We're glad it wasn't us," Kono put in. "For that, we owe you beer."
"You definitely owe me beer," Danny agreed quickly, nodding at the waitress who had just come around. Kono looked outraged, mouth open to tell him exactly what she thought of his tactics, but, really, she'd walked right into that one and Chin was apparently willing to back him up and he gestured helplessly at Kono that she'd done it to herself that time.
"Fine. But I'm going to get you back for this, Danny Williams." Kono glared at him and Danny actually shivered, just a little. But she asked the waitress to bring them another round, and she handed over two folded bills to cover it.
Danny forced himself to smile, widely and smug, as he leaned back in his chair, saluting her with his nearly empty bottle. "Look at it this way, Kono. We're working, which means you can expense it."
Kono blinked in surprise. "Can I?" she asked Chin.
"I think you'd have to be very creative in describing the expense," was all Chin said, diplomatically as he could, but Danny had a feeling -- given the way Kono was smiling rather evilly -- that she wasn't going to have any trouble with that.
"I hope if you ever decide to take over, you'll remember me as a friend," Danny told her. Then as she started to scowl at him, he added, "A friend who tricks you into buying him beer, true. But I said nice things about your aim the other day."
"That was a nice shot," Chin agreed.
Kono frowned thoughtfully and for a moment she just sat there, clearly thinking things over. Finally she picked up her beer, took a swig of it, then nodded. "I'll keep it in mind."
~~~
When the bills come due again, Danny was no closer to solving his problem than he had been before. He'd stopped spending wherever he could, but that had been more because there was no leftover cash. Now he was staring at a small pile of bills on the kitchen table and a few more on the screen where he'd logged into his bank account and clicked on the summary of all the autopays.
He'd double- and triple-checked and there was nothing he could put off; everything that was on a payment plan was already done so and he'd made phone calls and argued the minimum payments down as far as they could go. He'd considered -- and thoroughly rejected -- the option of calling his parents. They were both getting ready to retire and his sister was living at home because she'd been out of work for a year. Between that and half a dozen grandchildren, Danny didn't reasonably see how they could help him enough to make a difference.
He wouldn't say no to a care package of his mom's brownies, but that wouldn't help him pay off his medical bills. Or the house repairs or the dozens of other things that had somehow crept up on him when he apparently hadn't been looking. Even his credit card was maxed out, not giving him that cushion to delay some things until later.
He tried not to think about all the purchases he'd put on his card, things for Grace when he was trying to compete with a man who owned freaking hotels in Hawai'i and could afford to buy his step-daughter a horse while Danny could barely eke out enough for a stable of horse dolls and a doll ranch house to go with them.
He was going to have to stop that now, he knew, and telling himself it wouldn't matter to Grace didn't exactly help. It was hard, when every day he waited to hear her call Stan 'dad' and he became that guy she saw sometimes and used to live with when she was younger. If it meant buying her dolls and clothes and too much candy and a weekend with the dolphins -- or buying her souvenirs while Steve bought the weekend -- then he didn't think he'd be able to stop wanting to spend too much on his little girl.
Clearly he would have to, however, and the idea that he might have to win his daughter's affection by spending the weekend sitting in his rat-trap apartment and walking to the park to play on the swings didn't exactly fill him with pride. But even if maybe he'd spent some of his money in stupid ways, most of it hadn't been. Most of it had been necessary, like hospital bills left over from two years ago for what should have been a one-day procedure to remove his gallbladder but which had led to an infection and an extra week's worth of renting a room in the hospital and paying the doctor to say 'still not healed, yet.'
And while his Uncle Chris had been the one to fix Danny's roof, the man had four kids to feed and not a lot of work coming his way. Danny couldn't exactly regret paying what he owed Chris. Now, of course, he wished he'd asked if he could have paid in installments or something, but the money was gone and Danny had to look at what he could control.
He'd already cut down his grocery bill as far as it could go. He'd made sure he turned in every single reimbursement form to get repaid for the gas for his car, noting every single quarter mile that his car was used for work-related purposes. He'd never had cable, and canceling the landline and keeping his just cell didn't really get him that far ahead. And he simply didn't own anything that was worth enough to sell. Sure, he could sell pints of blood to pay for sandwiches, but that wasn't going to get his rent paid.
Danny was starting to see his list of options shrink and he didn't want to look at where they were going.
He might have tried to get a second job, but every cop in Hawai'i either had or needed a second job and those were excruciatingly hard to come by unless you knew someone who knew someone. Danny knew if he asked, Kamekona would find him something, even if it was just hawking t-shirts at his shave ice stand. But then Kono would know, and then Chin and Steve would know, and that was a direction Danny just couldn't make himself go in. Danny knew why, of course, but that was a whole other issue that he wasn't ready to face. He might have done it had it only been Kono, if he could sworn her to secrecy. But there was no way it would stay a secret for long and he knew he couldn't have that conversation with Steve.
Which ruled out borrowing money from any of his teammates as well. Loan sharks were flat out on principle. Danny had seen enough to know he'd rather live in his car than take any money from a loan shark. As a cop he knew he'd sooner or later be offered deals to get out of paying interest and those weren't the sort of deals Danny was ever going to make. That was a long path towards trouble that was a lot more dangerous than facing up to his friends that he badly needed money.
Danny leaned back, flipping a pen through his fingers and stared at the far wall. It was dingy, needed to be cleaned. All of the walls and baseboards did, showing that off-white fade where years had gone by without anyone taking a simple rag and water and scrubbing things clean. When he'd moved in Danny hadn't cared, more concerned with living someplace he could see his daughter more than once a year. He'd been content with a roof and a front door with a lock and windows that weren't shattered.
The neighbors had quickly proven themselves loud and annoying, drunk at nights and screaming domestics that could probably be heard on the mainland. But Danny hadn't ever considered moving because he was on the right side of the city to pick Grace up without a two-hour commute through traffic. He was as close as he could afford to get to her school, so he was available if necessary to pick her up or drop her off and thereby extend his time with her for those few extra minutes.
It had been worth it -- still was, and anything that meant he'd get to spend time with his daughter was worth doing. It was why Danny didn't consider moving back to Jersey, even though he had a house there and his mortgage payment was nearly two-thirds what his rent was for an apartment that was, by any stretch of the imagination, a piece of shit.
He knew if he moved back home, back into that house that was too big for one man alone, seeing rooms that were filled with memories that would stab him in the heart every single moment of the day, he'd have the money he needed. His bills would get paid and he wouldn't have to lie awake at night trying to think of more creative ways to turn four thousand dollars each month into five.
But moving back -- moving away from Grace -- wasn't an option. Not unless he kidnapped his daughter and they went into hiding, and it wasn't like Danny hadn't toyed with the notion when he'd first been told Rachel was moving to Hawai'i and taking their daughter with her.
So he was staying, which meant rent and a mortgage and a stack of bills waiting for a check and an income that simply didn't have enough numbers on it.
Danny sat at the kitchen table, pen in his hand, twirling it and rolling it against his fingers. He stared at the dingy wall as the sun sank into the ocean and the night crept in and buried everything in shadows. When morning came he was still sitting at the table, options still running ragged through his skull and he knew he wasn't any closer to finding any solution to his problems save one.
Nothing else made sense, nothing else was really possible and for every reason Danny could think of why it was something he could never do, he found two and three more reasons why he couldn't do anything else.
Finally he stood up and went to take a shower, and when he got dressed he tied his tie in a knot and made sure his shoes were shined, and he slipped his badge into his pocket like it was just another day in paradise. At the office, he poured himself a cup of stolen coffee, which he knew wasn't really but he couldn't think of it any other way. When he drank it, it tasted bitter and it burned his tongue, but Danny barely paid it any attention. When Steve poked his head in and said they had a lead, all Danny did was stand up and say, "Then let's go."
That evening, he got into his car and drove north.
Maybe there was another way. But if so, Danny couldn't see it from where he was.
~~~
on to part two