Ten Forward Social Lounge

Anywhere that played host to an assortment of professionals, especially those that worked in law enforcement, could never be empty, especially somewhere like the Palace. It, at times, felt as if you couldn't turn around without bumping into an officer or law clerk bustling down the halls at a steady clip or hanging around in groups of twos or threes gossiping. There was always some sort of movement happening, conversations spilling from open doorways or spiking as people came and went. Hell, even if not a single person opened their mouths while they went from Point A to Point B the place would be filled with the quiet shush-shush of fabric, the squeak of leather against marble, or the tac-tac-tac of high heels.

To Danny, though, without Chin Ho's quiet competence taking up space, engaging in his daily communion with the tech table, the Palace felt empty. It also felt a little eerie to walk into the office and not be greeted by a cheery 'Good morning' or some gentle teasing about Danny's malasada habit of which he knows the Hawaiian shared the guilty pleasure of. But empty and eerie was far more preferable than dead and gone; they’d been lucky to retrieve Chin from Hawala alive. So damn lucky.

But speaking of empty and eerie, the late O’ahu sun was casting lazy shadows across the floor indicating that it was long passed time for good little detectives to call it for the day and head home. Good thing that all that was left, now, was the paperwork of which Danny had accepted the lion’s share because he knew how scatterbrained a person got when a family member was laid up. Naturally, he shooed Kono out the door early every day and edited her backlog with a deft eye and, sometimes, creative notations without a second thought. Steve usually foisted half of his on him anyway so it wasn’t that much more work and he was glad to do it even if he ended up being the last to leave.

With the last /t/ crossed and /i/ dotted, Danny slid the packet of completed paperwork into a folder and walked it across to Steve’s office where he left it open in the middle of the desk. He hesitated only a moment before searching one of the drawers for a post-it to write his partner a stern note telling him to sign off on them and send them to be processed instead of leaving them to languish on the sideboard or in a drawer, ‘No really, Steven, sign them!’

Task finished, Danny turned to make his way out, to head home, only to step into what his brain processed as the Twilight Zone.

Between one breath and the next he somehow went from slightly chilled interior office air to something that looked like it came out of architect’s futuristic wet dream, all muted colors, bright lighting, and geometric shapes.

“What the hell?”