The Secret Life of Danny Williams
Author: dreamwind83
Beta:
Pairing: Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams, past Danny "Danno" Williams/Rachel Williams, Rachel Edwards/Stan Edwards
Rating: R
Spoilers: Season 1
Warnings: AU
Disclaimer: I do not own any version of the Hawaii Five-O (2010) series. I make no profit from this work of fiction.

Summary: Everyone knows who Danny Williams is. He's McGarrett's partner, a Detective of Five-0, a Jersey boy and a haole. That's all he is. Right? Wrong. What no one knows is that he is also a famous writer.

Prologue

Danny Williams hadn't always wanted to be a cop. Sure there was the childhood fantasy of being of cop, chasing down bad guys and saving the day. But the dream had faded away with adolescence, placed on a back burner in his mind along with zoo keeper, professional baseball player and football star. He had dreamed about being each of those at one time or another, had even tried for a while to become a baseball and football star. He had been good at baseball, fast and nimble enough to chase down the ball and with good enough accuracy to send the ball anywhere on the field. Football he had been great at. He was small enough to squeeze between larger players, strong enough to bowl them over and fast enough to outrun them. His grip had been sure and it was a rare thing that he wasn't able to catch a pass. For almost three years he had thought he would be a professional football player. He had earned a football scholarship to several colleges and if it hadn't been for one bad play in the final game of the season, the game that made them state champs, he would have achieved that dream. Instead he had gone to college and gotten a degree in criminal justice.

It hadn't been his most recent dream of the future but once he started in at the police academy, he had felt as if he had finally reached the place he was supposed to be. He breezed through the academy and his first beat. He had seen things that inspired him and that horrified him. It was the later that brought about one greater change to his future. It had been his first case as a Detective and he had been sure he had seen the worst that humanity had to offer, but as he had quickly realized what he had seen so far was merely the tip of the iceberg. For weeks after he had been unable to sleep, woken by nightmares and fears out of the deep dark corners of his mind. Eventually his partner at the time had pulled him aside and talked to him. Trying to get Danny to find a way that was comfortable to him, to talk about what he saw so that he could lay those fears aside. Danny hadn't liked the thought of talking to a stranger and he didn't want to lay this burden on his father or younger brother's shoulders. So for a while he did nothing, lost as to what course to take until one day he came to the office and saw a leather journal sitting on his desk. Glancing at his partner, who was calmly drinking his morning cup of coffee, Danny had asked about the journal only to be told that if he couldn't trust someone else with his problems then he should just write them down and get them out of his head.

He had eventually taken that advice and started to write down what he had seen and heard that day, what plagued his dreams and the fears that came from it. Still he was nervous about someone finding the journal. So, thinking himself rather devious, he had bought a second journal and started to write everything down in the format of a series of short stories based in a fantasy world. After a time he had felt almost possessed by the characters and the world he had created, feeling compelled to write longer and longer stories for them.

And then one day his world had changed again. His sister Katie had found one of his story journals. He had come back to his apartment to find her sitting in his favorite recliner, a half eaten sandwich on the table beside her, and reading through the journal. He had panicked and tried to grab the book from her hands only to have her pull it back and away from him. Eventually he had found out that she had stumbled upon the journals by accident one day when she had come by to drop off some leftovers from their mother. Since then she had been digging through his things to read more.

Danny had been surprised by how much she had loved his stories. He had never thought them to be all that good, but his sister who was on her first job as an editor, had told him how incorrect he was. That the series he had created was by far one of the best fantasy series she had seen in years. After nearly a month of coming home to find her in his apartment reading the journals and arguing with him about how good they were, she finally convinced him to let her bring them to her office to see if they could be published. Danny had only given in because he was sure they never would.

Oh how wrong he was.

Katie had come back to his home with a bottle of wine and a case filled with her white chocolate crème brulee, and told him that her boss had loved the stories and that they would be published. Danny had balked at that, trying to back out only to have his sister tell him everything had already been taken care of. She had set it up so that everything would be published under a pseudonym. No one would ever know that W.J. Daniels was really Detective Danny Williams of Hoboken New Jersey. And so the first collection of short stories in Danny's New Jersey Paranormal Crimes Division series was published. Like his sister, a lot of people read the books, giving them good reviews and writing to the publisher asking for more, for longer books. And so each year his sister would bring one of the older journals in to her office to be published and he would be flooded with fan letters and gifts.

Danny was always surprised by the number of letters he received and by the words written inside. But it wasn't until he met his Rachel that the series really went big time. The introduction of a love interest for the main characters partner, Will, seemed to spark something in his fans. Many of them loved the new added dimension to the series while others bemoaned the loss of the unresolved sexual tension between the older detective and his young partner. The number of fans who had thought that Danny was leading to the two cops falling into bed together surprised him and for almost a week after he found himself blushing every time he looked at his partner, the man who had inspired the main character. His sister had laughed at his naiveté and had introduced him to the world of fanfiction, which had caused many more embarrassing blushes and inappropriate erections. Eventually Danny's partner had figured out the truth. Apparently he had been a fan of the series and had noticed some similarities between the books and the cases they worked. His partner, Alberto had been amused by the whole thing and had shrugged off any weirdness caused by the revelation that fans were "shipping" the two of them.

Danny had never been more grateful to have Alberto for a partner.

Danny's relationship with Rachel had continued to grow after the car accident that had brought them together and Danny had never been happier. His life felt like a whirlwind of pleasure, long nights of writing, fantasizing, and the stress of the job. But it hadn't mattered. He felt like nothing could pull him out of the clouds, because for the first time since that disastrous tackle that tore his ACL and ruined any chance at playing pro football, Danny was truly happy. He had a job he loved, a hobby that was earning him extra income, and a gorgeous woman who loved him.

His life had never been better.