Hey everyone! As always, thanks to those who followed, favorited and/or reviewed. This chapter took some time, but considering I've written it today you can consider yourselves lucky. This is some sort of compensation for the long wait; the next months are going to be crazy and I don't know if I'll be able to update any of my stories again until then.

This chapter takes place many years in the future, so it's completely AU. I don't know where all the emotions came from, but I actually cried while I was writting it. This chapter contains a character death, although none from the main five. On the other hand, it contains some of the bromance the show is completely missing these days.

Disclaimer: I do not own Hawaii Five-0. All rights belong to their respective owners.

BROTHERS

After dealing with another difficult case for months, that evening they had wrapped up the last one; they had their suspect surrounded since the morning and they had been knowing all day that was the day it all was going to end, but they had had to wait until it was darker. Hours after getting everything done, the whole team found itself relaxing at the Hilton as a normal group of old friends who didn't risk their lives every day, every time to put dangerous criminals behind bars.

Once they all had their drinks served, they took the glasses and proposed a toast; the tiredness and the lack of sleep was visible in their faces, but the satisfaction of another job well done too.

"To Five-0!" exclaimed Steve, raising his glass to the middle.

"To Five-0!" answered the other four members, raising their glasses too.

They all took a sip from their glasses and looked at each other with smiling faces. Many years had passed since the taskforce was born, and they were much older than the first day. They had gone through many things, some of them good (like Samantha getting married or Grace getting engaged) and some others bad (like Leilani leaving Chin without saying goodbye, or like Adam's or Aunt Deb's deaths), but despite everything their friendship had remained intact, growing stronger each day. They were more than friends, more than co-workers. They were family.

Steve left the glass on the table and sighed; he rubbed his hands through his hair and then put one in front of his mouth to hide a yawn.

"Whoa! Easy, tiger" Danny mocked at him. When Steve stared at him with an unfriendly look, he rolled his eyes and waved his hand "Don't bluff, we've all seen you"

"He's right, boss" said Kono with an amused face. "There was a moment when I actually feared you were going to eat us all"

They all laughed after she said that. All but Steve. However, for a few seconds, he couldn't hide a half-smile. Chin smiled at sympathetically and put a hand on his shoulder supportively while looking at his friends.

"Don't be so harsh on him, guys. With the case and Mary and Joan, I bet he hasn't had slept much recently"

"Yes, of course" nodded Lou. For a moment, Steve thought the big man was on his side too, and he greeted him with a sincere and warm smile than neither Danny nor Kono deserved. But it only lasted a moment. "But all I'm saying is, if you are hungry, McGarret, you are in a place where you can eat all the food you want instead of us"

"And you, my friend, are such a comedian" he said rolling his eyes. He felt annoyed when he saw the smiles on Danny's and Kono's faces (he saw one on Chin's too, but he thought it was different than the others'), and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, okay, laugh. But remember I'm still your boss"

"Whatever" answered Danny waving his hands in the air "You can't run as fast as before, Steven."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"I'm just saying, babe"

Steve had already opened his mouth and was ready to reply when he was interrupted by Chin.

"So how is Joanie doing?"

Steve's face changed completely when his niece was mentioned. All the annoyance and the anger on his face were replaced by love and affection.

"Oh, Chin, you should have seen her. She's so intelligent and caring! Mary wasn't too happy to say goodbye to her so soon, but I know she understands there comes a time when the young leave the nest"

"I remember when you appeared with Baby Joanie at HQ one morning and we ended up taking turns to take care of her" said Chin "Children grow up too fast these days"

"Children always grow up too fast. I remember I nearly had a heart attack the first time I saw Grace talking to a boy, and now she's getting married with some guy she just met!" Danny sighed and took his glass once again, leaving it half empty.

"Don't be so harsh on poor Keahi!" said Kono "They met almost six years ago, and you know he loves her to the bones"

"And because of that not only I'm not stopping the wedding, I'm the one giving my daughter away at the altar"

"I remember the day Samantha got married. One of the happiest days of my life" said Lou with his gaze lost somewhere over the horizon. He suddenly shook his head and looked at Danny, the emotions of that moment still visible on the gleam of his eyes. "But everything turned out okay, so you can totally relax, man. Everything will be fine" he assured him.

"Yeah, well… I just hope her marriage won't be like her parents'" he shrugged his shoulders and looked down but he raised his head again when he heard someone snorting. He looked around until he found out the person who had made that noise. "You have something to say?"

"Why are you still so negative?" asked Steve annoyed but curious. He wasn't an eternal optimist, of course, but Danny had always been Mr. Negativity himself!

"Are you doing this again, guys?" asked Kono rolling her eyes. Despite the years and the wrinkles, those two still behaved like children.

"Why am I so negative?" repeated Danny, without listening to Kono. "Okay, I'll tell you why I'm so negative. I have a wife and a beautiful baby girl back in Jersey until I get divorced and loose everything. I move to Hawaii to be closer to my daughter. And then I met you, and get shot the very first day working together" he stopped and looked at Steve as if saying 'do I need to continue?'. Then, he went on. "The first friend I had on HPD when I arrived gets killed, and then another friend from Jersey gets killed too. And my brother." He sighed. Despite the years between then and now, Matty's death still hurt. "Then, many years later, I decide to follow your advice and go to get a new haircut, and one year later I'm completely bald!"

Lou, Chin and Kono laughed after the last comment, but Steve put a serious face and tried to ignore them to get some sense into Danny's thick skull.

"I get why you think like that. And I tell you again, as I once told you: don't be like that. I get it, man. Shit happens. But then what? If you focus too much on the negative side, you miss all the positive things of life" He took one second to give his friend time to assimilate what he had just said, and then he added, "Besides, you can't blame me for your hair. You had been loosing it gradually throughout the years. It happened, Danno. Let's face it"

Danny opened his mouth to reply when he was interrupted by his phone. Fortunately he managed to take it from the pocket of his pants before his backside went numb with the buzzing. However, his face froze when he saw the name on the screen.

"Hey, is everything okay?" he knew something must have been wrong if one of his sisters was calling him at that time, when it was almost 1 AM in New Jersey.

Everyone saw the changes on Danny's face, and how he turned white as a ghost before they saw his friend getting up and leaving to somewhere more intimate to have that conversation. Although the remaining four friends didn't say anything, their faces mirrored their concern for his friend. And the wait, of more than fifteen minutes, made everything worse.

Steve had already gotten up from the chair, his glass already emptied minutes before, and looked at Danny, still talking on the phone under a palm tree. When he saw his friend ending the call, he joined him under the tree, noticing the team's eyes on his back. When he met Danny's eyes, he saw they were wet.

"What happened?" he asked, placing a supportive hand on the shorter man's shoulder. He knew something was wrong; Danny was emotional, but he hadn't seen him like that many times.

"It was my sister. She... uh… She said… " He shook his head and gulped, trying to dissolve the first blocking his throat. "My mother is dead."

Later in the evening, everyone had returned home whereas Steve stayed in the airport with Danny and Grace until their flight took off; they didn't talk much, but he knew his friend and his not-so-little daughter would appreciate it. He was supposed to have a meeting with the Governor, but he had postponed it for an hour not to leave Danny and Grace alone at the airport; Grace's fiancé was on a business trip in Europe and although she had already called him, he would go directly to New Jersey, leaving her on her own with her dad.

He entered the Governor's office with a serious face, not able to get his partner and friend from his mind. Not only did he feel bad about Clara's passing, he also felt bad for his friend too. He had met Clara Williams many years ago, when she visited his son and grand-daughter on the island for the first time. He didn't know what it was to have a normal mother, Doris was never like that, but he knew Danny did. She had been, unlike his own mother, a caring and loving one, always keeping an eye on everyone and making sure they knew how much she loved them. Danny had always been very attached to his parents but especially to his mother. He remembered when he had said to him, when they were under the collapsed building so many years ago, waiting to be rescued, that when his parents were late at home when he was a child, he always thought they had had an accident and he prayed to God that his mother had not been killed because he couldn't live without her. And now she was dead. He knew all the pain he felt after his Aunt Deb's passing would be nothing compared to what Danny would be feeling at that moment.

Almost another hour after entering the Governor's office, he was going out of it when a sudden thought came across his mind. He drove his car to his home to change his clothes before going back to the airport. On his way there, he called Lou to inform him of his plans so that the team knew they couldn't count on him the following days.

When Danny and Grace arrived in Newark, Eric was already there waiting for them. He hugged both of them and offered to take Danny's bag before accepting his refusal, and they both headed to the car who took them to the house where the six Williams lived many years ago. Now, with his parents and Matt dead, only his two sisters and him were alive; fortunately for them, they were not alone thanks to Grace, Eric and their families.

The next hours until the funeral were a complete rush of activity; it didn't help that the house had gotten too small for so many people, something which made itself more evident once Grace's fiancé and the remaining members of the family arrived at the house. With clumsy and trembling fingers, Danny fought with his tie inside one of the bathrooms before getting help from his daughter.

"Thanks, monkey" he mumbled. He wasn't even capable of speaking properly, but he knew he was doing okay when he managed to maintain the composure and control the tears.

In another occasion, she would have said she was not a monkey anymore but a grown-up woman (although she secretly loved that her dad still called her that), but that was another time. Grace said nothing and wrapped her arms around her father instead, placing her head on the space between his neck and shoulder, seeking and offering comfort. Her father did appreciate that, as he hugged her too and placed his chin on her head. They remained like that until they were interrupted by a knock on the door and met Keahi's sad and guilty eyes. Grace looked at him with eyes full of love, whereas his soon-to-be father-in-law showed no expression apart from complete sadness. Father and daughter separated and looked at the native Hawaiian with confusion.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, Mr. Williams" he said empathetically. "But everyone's ready downstairs. They're waiting for you".

The ceremony was beautiful and emotional; apart from the family, other people (family friends and former co-workers) attended Clara's funeral, most of which Danny didn't know. He spent, like his sisters, all the time trying to maintain a neutral face while he heard the condolences even before the ceremony was started. During all the time, however, Grace remained at his side, grabbing his hand, saying him without words he was not alone.

He had been trying all day to remain on one piece, but once the priest started talking, he couldn't control himself. He had been always attached to his mom; he had had a special connection with her. His mother had been, before his sisters, Rachel and Grace, the woman of his life, and she had remained in that special spot of his heart ever since. Now, with his mother gone, although she would always be remembered, he felt that that part of his heart could never be filled again. He saw his sisters crying too next to him, and Eric wrapping his arms around his mother as Grace was doing at that same moment with him. He couldn't help but smile; it was not his genuine smile, but a shadow of his usual one. Despite their unsuccessful marriages, all the Williams children had done well at raising their own. Now, with both their father and mother gone, they had no parents left to keep admiring the youngests' greatest goals in life.

When the ceremony ended and everyone was leaving, Danny got up from his seat and stood in front of the coffin. That was the last moment he could ever have in his mother's company; after that, she would no longer be in his life. Because of that, he wanted it to make it count. Because of that, he refused his daughter's company and encouraged her to go with her fiancé and leave him alone. Once he walked out, there would no longer be a Clara Williams. He just needed to get used to the idea.

Some time later, minutes or perhaps hours, he was finally ready to say goodbye to her. He turned and was returning to his car, the only one remaining there, when he noticed a white figure next to a tree, looking at him.

Because of the delay of his flight, he had arrived at Newark some hours late. He had barely had time to change his clothes to his old Navy Full Dress and putting the other ones inside his bag before taking a cab to the cemetery; given that he knew there wouldn't probably be only one in Newark, it was a matter of luck that he arrived to the one he was looking for. Of course, he didn't know that at first, as he arrived when there were almost no cars parked there. When he got out of the cab and paid the driver, and found himself alone in the middle of the road, he thought for a moment that maybe that wasn't the correct cemetery until he saw a car that he knew far too well, and some feet from there, a lonely figure standing in front of something he couldn't see.

He had known his partner for so many years to know him even from the back. Short and bald, Danny's figure was recognizable from a distance. He got near his partner's car and waited next to a tree near it like a statue, quiet and still, like he was taught by old Joe White when he was a young cadet, until the bald man turned and headed his way. He remained with a serious face when he saw the sparkle of recognition in his eyes, and waited there until his friend stopped in front of him. They spent the next minute looking at each other's eyes silently, examining the other's expression.

Finally, Danny broke the silence.

"I wasn't expecting you here"

"I'm surprised, D. You know me too well" Steve answered without a smile, all seriousness.

"Did you really spent twelve hours on a plane wearing one of your Super-SEAL suits and came here on your own just to spy on me from behind a tree?"

Steve took some time before answering. He could have said he had actually spent sixteen hours on said plane. He could also have said he wasn't wearing the suit inside the plane because he had changed his clothes after landing. And he could have also said he wasn't spying on him, just giving him some time alone with his mother and waiting for whenever he was ready. Normally, he would have done so. However, that day he just shrugged his shoulders and nodded.

"I guess so"

"Thanks, brother"

Sometimes, acts were better than words. That moment was one of those. The former SEAL wrapped his arms around his friend's still muscular body and held him close. Danny didn't fight, but wrapped his arms around him too. Steve half-smiled, full of sadness.

Despite everything that happened throughout the years, they were still partners. Despite everything that happened throughout the years, they were still brothers.

Thanks for reading! And please, don't forget to review! I probably wont post another chapter until June (or July? *weeps*), but that doesn't mean I won't read your thoughts on this story!