Title: Invasion of the Gingerbread People

Genre: Family/Humor

Rating: K+

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the demented plot. Hawaii Five-0 was created Leonard Freeman, developed by Peter M. Lenkov, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci and produced by Kurtzman Orci Paper Productions, 101st Street Productions, CBS Productions, etc.

Summary: Grace makes some special cookies for her Five-0 'Ohana".

Author Notes:

1) This story takes place in Season 2 in between "Pahele" and "Alaheo Pau'ole".

2) This story is dedicated to two people: 1) Angelofjoy who, after I mentioned that I felt like I was being invaded by the 60+ gingerbread people I had made, said that Steve needed an army of gingerbread men. 2) Pat who showed me that such cookie cutters really do exist.

Merry Christmas, everyone or, as they say in Hawaii, Mele Kalikimaka!

"Monkey, I'm really sorry that I have to miss part of our weekend together," her father said over the phone. "But Uncle Steve promises that we'll be back late tomorrow night."

"I promise to have Danno home by Sunday breakfast, Grace," she heard her father's partner faintly call out.

"Can we go for pancakes?" she asked.

"With blueberries," Danny said.

"And strawberries?" she asked.

"Absolutely," he said.

"And pineapple?" she asked.

"If you wish," he sighed.

"Yay!" she cheered. "Be safe."

"I will," he assured her, "and remember Danno loves you."

"Love you, too," she said and disconnected the call.

As much as Grace Williams loved spending time with her father, this was one occasion where missing a few days might actually work in her favor. Now if she could just convince her mother to help her.

Rachel Edwards was flipping through a magazine when her daughter returned to the lanai. She had been bracing herself for Grace's disappointment after her ex-husband called to say that Five-0's current assignment on Maui was going to take longer than anticipated. To her surprise, Grace had an expression of hopeful determination on her face.

"Mommy, can we make them today?" Grace asked with her best puppy dog eyes.

The project Grace had in mind would take two days and, if Rachel were honest, was rather intimidating. Her former mother-in-law was better at this sort of thing. However, she knew how much the tradition meant to Grace especially once she saw the unique cookie cutters at the mall.

Rachel took a deep breath. "Sure. Do you have the recipe?"

Grace nodded eagerly. "I'll print it off from my laptop, and I think we'll have to make four batches."

"Four?" Rachel asked startled.

Once again Grace nodded. "I want to be sure everyone gets some."

"Okay," Rachel said a little dazed. "We better make sure we have enough ingredients."

The next afternoon, Stan Edwards returned home from an overnight business trip. When he opened the door, the aroma of ginger, cloves and cinnamon assaulted his nose evoking childhood Christmas memories from long ago.

"I'm home," he called out.

"In the kitchen," Rachel replied.

He dropped off his briefcase in his office then followed the spicy sweet scent to his destination. When he finally got there, he couldn't believe it. Gingerbread cookies covered every available surface of the kitchen. His wife and stepdaughter were at the table icing the last few cookies. Powdered sugar dusted their aprons and faces.

"Welcome home," Rachel smiled.

"It's good to be home," Stan said giving her a kiss. "I see you both have been busy."

"Oh, yes," Rachel said.

"Do you think you have enough cookies?" he asked.

"I think so," Grace said seriously as she surveyed her surroundings then started pointing to the various areas in the kitchen. "Those ones are for my class, and those ones are for Daddy and his teammates, and this one is for you."

She handed him a gingerbread man decorated with a suit of blue icing and a swirl of black icing for hair.

Touched by her thoughtfulness, he knelt down and gave her a hug. "Thank you so much."

"You're welcome," Grace said hugging him back inadvertently leaving a fine film of sugar on his expensive suit.

Danny waited for Grace in his silver Camaro which was parked in front of his ex-wife's house. He was half tempted to punch his daughter's birthday into the security control panel to see if the gate blocking the driveway would open or if Rachel finally listened to him and changed the code, but he was too tired to care. The governor had the team working security in Maui at an economics conference for Pacific Rim countries. Unlike the General Pak incident, things went smoothly, and the last dignitary flew home late the night before.

As exhausted as he was, there was no way he'd miss even just a few hours with his precious Grace. At that moment, the gate slowly opened, and the reason for his living on this pineapple-infested rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean came walking down the driveway. Simply seeing Grace made the fatigue melt away. Danny got out of the car and carefully gave her a hug while trying not to squish all the gift bags she was carrying.

"Hey, Monkey, what's all this?" Danny asked then caught a whiff of something he hadn't smelt since leaving New Jersey. "Is that?"

"Mm-hmm," Grace nodded. "But you can't have yours yet."

"Aw, why not?" he asked as he popped the trunk open. "You know they're my favorite."

"I know," she said as she put the gift bags in the car. "But I want you to open yours when the others open theirs. And I'd like you to do something else, too."

"Anything," he promised.

He's up to something, Steve thought as he stared at his partner through the windows of their offices the next morning. He wasn't sure what was driving him crazier: the ton of paperwork that needed to be finished or the mischievous grin on Danny's face. Once in a while when he'd walk down the hall, a faint spicy wisp tickled his nose. He was pondering the pieces of the puzzle when Max Bergman, Charlie Fong, Kamekona and Joe White came into headquarters.

"What are you guys doing here?" Steve asked from his office doorway.

"Danny asked us to stop by," Joe said as the man in question joined them.

"Great! You're here," Danny said. "Let me get the others."

He left the men in the main area and knocked on the office doors of his remaining teammates. While everyone gathered by the smart table, he returned to his office to retrieve a mysterious box.

Placing the box on the floor, Danny said, "Thank you all for coming. In the spirit of the season, I would like to say Mele Kalikimaka."

"Wow, that must have been hard," Steve said crossing his arms. His partner's resistance to all things Hawaiian was legendary.

"You have no idea, but I promised Grace and it's worth it because," Danny said as he bent down to open the box then added in his best Oprah Winfrey voice, "you get a bag, and you get a bag, and you get a bag!"

He continued until all the gift bags were distributed saving his for last. "It's an old family tradition. Grace made them special for each person."

In addition to the unique cookies everyone received, each bag contained a yellow edible badge. Steve, Danny, Chin, Kono and Lori got ones labeled "Five-O" while the medical examiner, the crime lab technician, the team's primary informant and Steve's mentor got ones labeled "Secret Weapon".

Chin opened his bag to find a football-shaped cookie with "Kings" written in white icing and a gingerbread man decorated like a football player complete with helmet. It even wore his high school colors of red and white and number "12" just like the jersey he had on when he first met Grace. There was also a gingerbread woman with a white lab coat and a stethoscope. "Malia's going to love this. Mahalo."

"Now this is New Jersey tradition I can get used to," Kono said as she bit into a surfboard-shaped cookie with yellow and blue icing. She was going to save the cute gingerbread hula dancer with green grass skirt and lei for later.

"These are awesome," Charlie said going through his collection of cookies shaped like a test tube, beaker and Erlenmeyer flask all iced with colorful contents. "I'm totally going to have to hide these from the other guys in the lab."

"I think this is the best gingerbread cookie I've ever had," Lori said finishing the red car that was part of her bag. She figured Danny must have told Grace about Max's movie theme night as there was a gingerbread person decorated with a black off-the-shoulder shirt and plants, red shoes and blond hair that vaguely resembled Sandy from at the end of Grease.

"It's my grandma's recipe," Danny said. "Grace is the fourth generation to make them."

"Do you think she'd be willing to share the recipe?" Max asked as he munched on a gingerbread man that was iced like a skeleton. "I have some Star Trek cookie cutters I've been dying to try."

"Maybe I should add gingerbread people to the menu at the shave ice stand and the shrimp truck," Kamekona said as he admired a gingerbread man with a blue shirt that had a white smiley face on it. Danny's li'ili'i kaikamahine even included a gingerbread man decorated like a sumo wrestler and a large shrimp-shaped cookie.

"Please thank Grace for me," Joe said as he picked out one of the gingerbread men decorated with navy blue suits and tiny colorful dots on one side of the chest representing miniature military ribbons.

"Oh man, these are great," Steve said holding up one of the ninja gingerbread men covered with green icing.

"I thought they were appropriate," Danny said as he finished eating 'Blinky', a red ghost-shaped cookie from his 'Pac-Man' themed collection. "Your bag reminds me of that song."

"What song?"

"You know," Danny said with a twinkle in his eye then sang, "Everybody was kung fu fighting."

"Hunh!" everyone else grunted then laughed.

"Very funny," Steve grumbled as he bit the head off the ninja cookie. "I gotta say you've got a pretty terrific daughter."

"I'm the luckiest dad in the world," Danny smiled proudly.

The End

Author's notes: These cookie cutters really do exist. To see what some of the more exotic cookies look like, search "pac-man cookie cutters", "ninja cookie cutters", "science cookie cutters" and "Gingerdead Men". Also "li'ili'i kaikamahine" means "little daughter" in Hawaiian.