Chin and the team he was with were making good time. It was easy following the path of human destruction through the jungle. When they broke into a small area where there was no undergrowth, Chin held up a fisted hand, and every team member stopped right where they were. He walked across to a bright splash of pink and blue fabric hanging from a broken-off tree branch.

"What the hell?" Allen said, albeit quietly.

"This is Kono's," Chin said, taking the bikini top in-hand and then stuffing it into his back pocket. "It means she's definitely on their trail." Chin half-smirked at Allen's look of disbelief, then eyed the bed of mostly-broken uluhe at the base of a tree to his left. Finally, his eyes moved to the space directly between the uluhe and the tree where Kono had left her bikini top. "This way," he said with a nod.

"Man knows what he's talking about," Commander Allen said, waving the team forward. "Let's go, eyes and ears open."

Chin led the way back into the jungle, easily following where it appeared several people had already gone. He could only hope that by the time he and this team caught up with his team, they'd all still be okay.

"We got a little lost in the rain, but the ancients led us to you in the end." The man's voice was hoarse, shoulders slumping as he seemed to struggle to hold the rifle he had leveled at Steve.

Steve angled the side of his body where Junior was nestled into the crook of his arm, away from the three armed people. This effectively made Danny's right shoulder a shield between the guns and the baby. Danny leaned just that much closer, so that his entire right arm was flush with Steve's body. He got exactly what Steve was trying to do, and would do anything to protect the child.

Danny's eyes darted to Kono, who was sharing a look with Steve. He knew those two were cooking something up; he just hoped they gave him enough warning that he'd be a help rather than a hindrance when the time came.

"Give us the child," the man said. His hair was long, at least to below his neck, and his face was lined. Danny guessed he was maybe in his fifties. His eyes were pale blue and he looked…well, manic.

Ignoring the pain in his side and still not sure what Steve and Kono might be planning to do, Danny squared his shoulders – keeping the baby firmly ensconced behind his right – and shook his head. "No fucking way. You dropped him over a waterfall, asshole. That means you don't get him back."

"He's my son," the man spat, trigger finger moving slightly over the trigger of his automatic rifle. "He is mine to do with as I please."

"Not to murder," Steve said, voice cold and quiet. Danny knew that didn't bode well for the fuckers holding the guns on them. "My partner saved his life. That means he's more entitled to the baby than you are."

Danny struggled to maintain a placid face. He had no idea why Steve was saying these things.

"You're wrong. That child was born to be sacrificed to the ancient gods, to make us well."

Using his right elbow to nudge gently into Steve's ribcage, Danny silently crowed in his mind, We were right! The people from the camp were sick.

"What's making you ill doesn't have anything to do with ancient spirits," Steve countered. "You've been drinking water out of the stream here, right?"

The woman of the group nervously glanced at her leader.

"What difference does that make?" the leader asked, glaring at Steve.

"You can't drink any freshwater in Hawaii, or let it come into contact with any open wounds," Steve explained. "All our freshwater contains a bacteria called Leptospirosis. If you've been here more than a couple days, many of your people could be showing symptoms of the infection already."

"If you don't get to a hospital now," Danny chimed in, "you'll all die."

The woman's eyes widened. Kono saw her chance and took it, darting forward and wrestling the gun away from the weak woman's hands. She went down to her knees with a cry as the leader turned and pointed his weapon at Kono, who now held the woman's gun on him. A stand-off.

"If you don't bring the boy to me right now," the leader growled, "this woman dies."

The downpour suddenly stopped, leaving the forest eerily quiet around them, with only the sounds of dripping water and a slightly fuller creek trickling merrily in the distance.

"And if you don't drop your weapon," came a low and quiet voice from beyond the armed men, "then you die."

The leader tried to whirl around, but found himself pelted by rubber bullets from at least six weapons, if not more. The second man dropped his rifle to the jungle floor and held his hands up high, shaking and pale, and Kono trained her weapon at the head of the woman still kneeling before her.

"Cuff them," Chin said to the man behind him dressed in green camos, and suddenly there were at least ten similarly-dressed men and women swarming the scene while Chin and the Team Leader approached Danny and Steve. Kono, as soon as the woman was cuffed, handed the rifle over to a team member and joined her cousin.

"Nice one," Chin said to her, pulling Kono's bikini top out of his back pocket and tossing it to his cousin. She caught it one-handed with a wink and a grin.

"Unbelievable," the military man breathed as he held a hand out toward Steve. "Commander David R. Allen, United States Navy," he said as Steve took his hand and shook firmly. "Lieutenant Commander McGarrett. Nice to meet the man himself."

Steve gave the guy a funny look. Well, to his credit, Danny figured he was probably giving Allen a funny look, too.

"McGarrett. You're a legend in some circles."

Danny managed to roll his eyes in the endorphin rush that came from not having to run for his life anymore, and looked up at Steve who definitely had a weird look on his face now. "Well, uh…thanks, I think," Steve said ever-so-eloquently.

"Want me to handle getting the baby back out of here?" Allen asked, nodding toward where Steve still had Junior, now happily asleep and sucking his little lips into his mouth from time to time, in the crook of his arm partially behind Danny's body.

"No, we got him," Steve said – a little too quickly, Danny noticed – as he moved just enough away from Danny that the baby was in full view.

Commander Allen smirked.

"Just get Danny out to a medic," Steve finished, placing his hand palm-flat over Junior's chest and tummy.

"Like hell," Danny groused. "You think I'm leaving you alone in the jungle with a month-old kid, you're an even bigger legend in your own mind than this guy says you are."

Chin grinned, Kono rolled her eyes, Allen's eyebrows shot up.

"We'll escort the happy couple and their little charge," Chin quipped, prompting Kono to snort.

Allen shook his head. "You have a strange unit, Lieutenant Commander," he said, looking at each of the four adults who, in turn, were all looking at Junior.

"Yeah, but they're ohana," Steve replied.

"Looks like ohana plus one, huh?" Kono said, stroking the side of her index finger over the baby's temple. "Our first kid together, Boss?"

Steve snorted.

"No. No, we are not keeping a baby. What, you want him to grow up learning how to chuck grenades before he can walk?" Danny asked.

Allen just shook his head and headed back out the way they'd come.

"Let's take the trails back," Steve suggested. "It'll be easier going on Danny and Junior."

Danny would've made some smartass remark, but suddenly he felt pain piercing his side and jerked to the right in response.

"Holy shit, Danny, are you okay?" Kono asked.

"Steven, I'm giving…birth to…another tooth…" Danny ground out between clenched teeth.

"Here take him for a minute," Steve said, carefully handing Junior to Chin. "Danny needs some help."

"I don't wanna know," Chin said, backing away, his and Kono's attention now fully on the sleeping infant in his arms.

"Cut that hole any bigger than it is and I'll—"

"Yeah, yeah," Steve cut him off. "Shut up and hold still and I might even let you carry the baby part of the way back."

"So fucking – ow, fuck! – magnanimous of you."

Steve held up another fake shark's tooth, then pocketed it. "Come on," he said, holding his hands out toward Chin, who gave him the baby without a word. "Let's go home."

"Whose home?" Danny asked as Steve pressed the hand not occupied with Junior against his wound.

"Mine. Yours. Does it matter? We'll have to take you and the kid to the hospital first. After which, I imagine, you'll be chock-full of painkillers, unable to drive and probably unable to change this bandage with the cast you'll have on your arm, assuming they don't keep you there for a month pumped full of antibiotics, but either way you need to be taken care of."

Danny sighed deeply, shook his head and closed his eyes. "Just because the kid thought I was Mama doesn't make me the girl."

"Nope, it doesn't," Steve said, pulling his hand away from Danny's side and wiping the bit of blood that came with it off on his shorts. "You get to be called Mama because of all the bitching you do."

And so Chin and Kono led the way toward the stream, with Danny following and McGarrett with Baby bringing up the rear.

All in all, as much as Danny was hurting right now, he couldn't be happier. Because he and Steve had saved an infant's life, and in stumbling upon the infant in the first place, had helped lead the local cops and government officials to discovering people where they shouldn't be - violent, screwed-up cult people.

He was tired, he hurt and he was awfully happy to be around a baby again, even under these circumstances. Plus he had at least a week of his partner's grilled steaks and Mother Henning to look forward to once he was out of the hospital. After all, what provided more opportunities for bitching at Steve than that? If he had to endure being called Mama, dammit, he was going to play it up but good.

Even though he hadn't enjoyed the trip to a McGarrett Memory very much, Danny had to call the day a win.

Epilogue

Four Years Later…

"But Uncle Danny, why can't I go into the water? Gracie's going!"

Danny eyed the auburn-haired four-year old but couldn't keep the corners of his mouth from turning upwards. God, toddlers were a pip.

"Because Gracie is thirteen years old and she's training for the Olympics, Junior, you know that."

Danny looked up at the man and woman seated across the lanai table as Junior – whose legal name was now Daniel Steven Lawrence, courtesy of David and Cheryl Lawrence, who'd adopted him when he was but three months of age – scrunched his face into a scowl.

David and Cheryl both grinned at him. "You know, all he talks about is going into the water with Uncle Steve, and going into Five-0 with Uncles Steve and Danny," Cheryl said, taking a sip from the tall, cool glass of iced tea in front of her. "And something about Uncle Danny's coloring skills comes up at least once a week."

Danny grinned at them. A couple now in their forties, David and Cheryl had tried for years to conceive a child of their own, but had never been successful. So when Five-0 had brought little baby Junior into the hospital, and he'd been placed into foster care after a month recovering from his own bacterial infection, he'd been in the right place at the right time for the Lawrences to open their hearts and home to him.

And they'd named him after the two men who'd saved his life. The Lawrences wholeheartedly made Steve and Danny honorary uncles to the little guy, and the men saw him as often as they could. This weekend was a rare treat: Danny, Steve, Grace and the Lawrence family all hanging out on a quiet Saturday.

"Well, I don't know about a trip in to HQ, but I know Uncle Chin and Aunt Kono are dying to see you."

Little Danny-Steve, as he insisted upon being called after his four-year old brain had processed the story of his infancy as told by two very animated uncles, was pouting mightily as he watched Grace and Steve out in the placid waters behind Steve's house, racing out to some agreed-upon point.

That Danny's daughter was determined to make the Olympic swim team, made him proud. That she had declared just last week that she was also going to become a Navy SEAL, had made him hit Steve in the bicep. Repeatedly. No wonder his hand was killing him.

"I want to swim," Danny-Steve pouted, lower lip sticking straight out.

Danny ruffled his short-cropped hair, tilted his chin up, looked into the now-pale brown eyes and shook his head. "Tell you what: I think we need to wade into the water and show Steve and Grace how it's done. What do you think?"

Junior squealed like someone had pinched his bum, and Danny looked up to the Lawrences. "Only if it's okay with your dad and mom, though."

"Oh, please, Mommy, please, Daddy, let me go with Uncle Danny, please? We need to show them how it's done!"

Cheryl and David laughed. "All right, sport. Your mom and I will leave you guys to it. We'll be gone a few hours, Danny," David said, rising and reaching across the table to shake Danny's hand.

"We can't tell you how grateful we are that you'll watch him for us," Cheryl added as she moved around the table to give Danny a hug. "The military funeral we're attending is no place for this rambunctious little boy."

"No kidding," Danny grinned, returning the hug with fervor. "And no problem. You know we're pretty attached to this little man."

"And he's luckier for it," David said. "A hug for Daddy?" he asked, squatting so he was on Junior's level.

Junior grinned and hugged David, then Cheryl, then hurried to take Danny's hand and started dragging him toward the water.

Danny chuckled, waving at David and Cheryl as they went back into the house to make their way through to the front door.

"Okay, Junior, got your floaties?" Danny asked.

"Yep!" Junior replied, showing Danny that they were firmly around each of his upper arms.

"All right, then, here we go," Danny said, taking his shirt off and chucking it on one of the beach chairs. He took Junior's hand and slowly they started walking into the water.

When he looked up, it was to find that Grace and Steve had stopped quite a ways off-shore. They appeared to be standing on the sand bar that was, at times, barely a foot below the water. He waved out to them. They waved back and dove into the water headed directly for Danny and Junior.

Well. In spite of the fact that both Danny and Junior had gotten really sick from Leptospirosis four years ago, and in spite of the fact that Danny's right forearm now joined his knee in predicting when storms were on the way, and in spite of the fact that all but two people from the forest cult – Junior's mother and father included – had died from their bacterial infections, the people Danny loved had come through the whole ordeal okay.

Junior had a real family now that would always love him and never hurt him. He wanted to swim and play football like Uncle Steve, learn numbers like his accountant father, sew pretty dresses like his tailor mother, and learn to cook like his Uncle Danny.

Grace had a little 'cousin' she loved mommy-ing, and Danny and Steve, for their part, got to be the bickering uncles of a boy they both cared about a lot more than they'd ever admit to anyone…even themselves.

Th-th-th-that's all, folks!

Author's Note: Thank you everyone for sticking with me through this one! I appreciate the reviews very much! I will be taking a bit of a break from Five-0 fanfic as I turn my attention toward the writing of my next original novel, "Takers III" - if you'd like to have a look at the first two novels in the series, where you can also get a preview of them to see what you think before you buy, search either Amazon DOT com or Smashwords DOT com for "Takers Chris Davis" and they'll pop up. I shall be back to Danny and Steve as soon as Kel and Levi and Ray and Jess (my original characters in "Takers") get themselves out of their next pickle!