A/N: Hello again! This will be a new group of stories, some inspired by Season 3 and others by any random thing that crosses my path.

This one has some spoilers for Episode 3X03, so tread carefully.

Alone in Deep Waters

This was officially a crappy day for detective Danny Williams. Sure, catching that huge Tuna fish was a little bit awesome, but, as it happened with most good things in Danny's life lately, it all went to hell in a hand basket in the blink of an eye.

From their boat being taken at gunpoint, to a shark wanting to turn them into freshly cut sashimi, to Danny being forced to share Billy's story, to the whole dead body in a boat fiasco, the day just kept better and better.

Chin's suggestion was one of the few bright spots of the day, so with Max's unguent in hand, he accepted Cath's offer for a ride back to HQ.

He didn't get a chance to try the unguent though, because he had to keep moving from the lab, to the interrogation room, to booking, because of course that the crazy shit storm that was his day would end up with the murderous wife being shot by her sister in law.

Half an hour after both Scates and Jenny Burges had been booked, and Danny was stuck filling 1001 reports. The fact that the headache he'd had tried to ignore ever since they stepped on dry land didn't want to be ignored anymore, and that the letters on the screen decided to go out of focus every few minutes was not making his work any easier at this point.

He rubbed his eyes tiredly for the 100th time, trying to avoid the red and itchy skin on his forehead. He sighed tiredly, looking at his screen again, and almost got a heart attack at the sound of a voice right next to his chair. "Hey Danno… What are you still doing here?"

"What?" Danny whirled around in his chair, his balance a little off, but his partner's hand on the arm of the chair prevented any unpleasant accidents.

"Why are you still here? We can close the paperwork on Monday, there's no reason for you to still be here…" Steve asked, looking at his friend and noticing dark shadows under his eyes and the redness of the skin on Danny's forehead and nose.

Danny was too distracted by the hot poker stabbing him between the eyes to understand what Steve was saying. "What?" He asked again, while pinching the bridge of his nose.

Steve frowned, crouching next to his dazed partner. "Hey, Danno… You okay?"

Danny blinked a couple of times, trying to get Steve's face into focus. "What?" He asked again. Hell, he was tired, and things weren't exactly making sense right now.

Steve huffed in annoyance and got to his feet, pulling Danny along with him. He carefully steered him towards the leather couch nearby and sat him down. Moving quickly to the kitchen, Steve returned with a bottle of water and a granola bar. "Alright Danny… Have you had any water since you came back to the office?" Steve asked slowly, trying to get Danny's attention.

Danny thought a minute about Steve's question. "Hmm… I think I had a cup of coffee…" Danny said, slumping on the couch and raising a hand to press his fingers against different parts of his forehead in a half hearted attempt to massage the headache away.

Steve raised his eyebrows. "A cup of coffee? Are you crazy? After almost 4 straight hours under the sun, you come back here and have a cup of coffee? You could have gotten a bad case of heat exhaustion, or even heat stroke! What were you thinking?"

Danny lowered his hand to glare at his partner. "There's A/C here at HQ, I wasn't hot anymore…"

Steve shook his head, opening the bottle of water. "Even if you were not hot, I bet you were dehydrated! You probably wouldn't feel as bad as you look right now if you had taken some water or Gatorade when you got here!" Steve grumbled, shoving the bottle at Danny.

Danny took the bottle from Steve's hand with an annoyed huff and raised it to his mouth intending to drink the whole thing in one long gulp, but before he could swallow the first drink, Steve took the bottle back. "What the hell do you want now, huh? I was going to drink your precious water!"

Steve shook his head in annoyance. "Small sips Danno! Unless you want me to spoon feed it to you? Trust me; neither of us would like you to break your streak right now…" He said, passing the bottle back to Danny.

Danny took the bottle back and started drinking the water again, this time in small sips, as his annoying partner had instructed. "I wouldn't worry so much if I were you…" Danny said, stopping to press the cold bottle against his red forehead. "My streak is long gone anyway…" He finished, with a sad sigh.

Steve looked up, surprised. "Really? When did that happen? And why didn't I know about it?" He said, with a smirk.

Danny didn't bother to remove the bottle to glare at Steve. "Believe it or not, Steven, I don't feel the compulsion to share every little detail of my existence with you, especially those related to my stomach deciding to rebel on its master…" He lowered both the bottle and his eyes, finding the label on the bottle a most interesting sight. "I… I broke my streak the night after Rick took Grace…" He finished in a low voice.

Steve sighed sadly, moving to sit next to his partner. "Alright, Danno, sorry I asked… Drink your water, and then I'll drive you home, ok?"

Danny raised the bottle to his mouth again, taking small sips as Steve had instructed. Apparently his partner had been right, because his head had started to feel clearer, even if the headache was still there. "You can go home, babe… There's not much more paperwork left to do anyway, and I might as well get it over with now…" He said with a shrug. The truth was that the last thing he wanted to do right now was going back to his small apartment and spend the rest of the weekend alone, doing nothing, that's not how this weekend was supposed to go.

Steve raised his arm and placed it over Danny's shoulders. "Come on, Danno… What if we go to my place, have some beers, and throw some steaks to the fire… I know that our trip didn't go as planned, but we can still hang out on dry land, right?"

Danny finished the water and just let the bottle drop to the floor. He pressed the heel of his hand against his eye socket, trying to will his headache away. The truth was that not only their trip hadn't gone as planned, but the whole weekend. Grace was supposed to be with him this weekend, and they were supposed to go to the zoo, and some new water park that she was dying to visit, but a sleepover at a friend's house had Grace calling him to beg off the weekend, and Danny couldn't deny her that.

The reason why the badly planned sailing trip happened at all was that Danny just happened to be within the Super SEAL earshot, so he had made it his personal mission to keep Danny from wallowing too much in his own misery. That's how they had found themselves in that floating death trap, and how he'd ended rehashing the reasons why he hated the sea so damn much.

Something Steve had said suddenly clicked in Danny's brain, so he turned to look at his friend. "Beers… You've been bugging me to drink water and now you're inviting me over for some beers?"

Steve shrugged. "Well, you can have a couple more bottles of water, and then you can have a beer… What do you say?"

Danny leaned forward, burying his face in his hands. "I'm tired Steve… I'm tired of this place, I'm tired of trouble following me everywhere, I'm tired of having to fight for every little minute with my baby girl, I'm tired of the sea and the pineapples, I'm tired of being alone all the time… I'm tired of losing the people I love because of my mistakes… I'm tired, Steve…" He suddenly seemed to realize what he had said, and more importantly to whom he had said it and turned to apologize to his partner. "Shit! Steve… I'm sorry… My problems are nothing compared to… I'm sorry, babe…" Danny said, shaking his head and lifting bloodshot eyes to his friend's face.

Steve squeezed Danny's shoulder, lifting his other hand to stop his friend's apology. "You're not alone, Danny…" He said, completely disregarding the apology as unnecessary.

Danny gave a tired chuckle. "I didn't see anyone at the marina waiting to see if a shark had eaten me or not…"

Steve shook Danny's shoulder in annoyance. "Don't be stupid, Danno… You know that there are plenty of people that would care if you became fish bait. I know I would care, and I promise to be there waiting to give you a hug the next time you almost get eaten by a shark…" That got a soft chuckle out of the blond man sitting next to Steve. "Come on… You've had a crappy day, you had your worst fears coming back to haunt you and you still managed to mostly keep it together… You deserve a break! Come over to my place, we can hang out for a few hours, you can crash there and tomorrow we can call the team, even take your massive Tuni fish to Kamekona and see what he can do with it… What do you say?"

Danny thought about it for a minute. He could really use his family right now, but other than Gracie, Steve and the rest of the Ohana sounded like the best next thing. "Alright, lead the way, Super SEAL…" Danny said with a smile, moving to stand up from his place on the couch.

Steve stood as well, but instead of moving to the door, he placed his arm around Danny's shoulder, propelling him forward. "We're going together, Danno…"

Danny moved towards the door with a smile on his face. Yeah… If there was one certain thing in his life, and it was that Steve would never leave him alone. Sometimes he was not entirely sure if that was a good thing though…

The End

A/N: Well, thank you for reading, I hope you liked this story and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!

See you around!